"Simon Hawke - Wizards 08 - Wizard of Lovecraft Cafe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawke Simon)

tobacco humidors and pipe stands; strangely shaped polyhedral dice and curious, little ceramic pots filled
with herbs and powders. . . . The whole resembled a cross between an antiquarian bookshop and an
occult notions shop. Books spilled out of the shelves onto the carpeted floor, where they were piled in
precarious stacks in the corners and underneath the coffee and end tables and just about anywhere else
there was any room.

Kira had never been to the home of Dr. Sebastian Makepeace before, though Billy obviously had. The
eccentric New York University professor was one of the few who shared their secret and knew all about
the runestones. Makepeace was not in, so they carried Wyrdrune to the sofa, an old Queen Anne that
had been battered into submission and covered with tobacco burns and beverage stains. He was still
unconscious and breathing raggedly. Billy started carefully removing his shirt.

"Oh, my God," said Kira as she saw how badly he was burned. "Is he going to be all right?"

"I don't know," Billy replied. "Modred took that blast full force. It should have gone right through him.,
His runestone must have saved him."

"The runestone!" Kira said, staring at Wyrdrune's blackened chest with sudden realization. "It's gone!"

"You noticed that," said Billy tensely.

"You don't think it was . . ."

"Destroyed?" said Billy. He shook his head. "I don't know. Your guess is as good as mine. But I suppose
it's possible."

"Then that would mean Modred is gone, as well," Kira said in a hushed voice.

"It would mean much more than that," said Billy with a hard edge to his voice.

Kira swallowed hard as the full import of his words sank in. If the runestone had been destroyed, it
would mean more than just Modred's death, but the deaths of all the animating spirits that inhabited the
enchanted gem. She stared at her own runestone, the sapphire magically bonded to the flesh of her right
palm, then raised her gaze to the emerald embedded in Wyrdrune's forehead. The third runestone, the
one that had been Modred's, had been embedded in his chest. Now it was gone. Through Wyrdrune,
Modred had lived on, sharing consciousness with him, and the spell of the Living Triangle had survived
intact. But now, she thought. . . What would happen now?

Billy took a deep breath, gathering his energies, and held his hands over Wyrdrune's injured chest.
"Merlin could have done this," he murmured to himself. "And Gorlois could have done it. That should
mean that I can do it, too. Except I've never tried."

"You can do it, Billy," Kira reassured him. "You know you can. You have to."

Billy closed his eyes and moistened his lips as he held his hands out, palms down, over Wyrdrune's
burn-ravaged chest. As he inhaled deeply and concentrated, blue thaumaturgic energy crackled around
his outstretched fingertips like electrical discharges. Kira bit her lower lip as she watched silently, barely
able to breathe. It appeared as if she had already lost Modred. She could not bear to lose Wyrdrune, as
well.