"Tanya Huff - Keeper's Chronicles 1 - Summon the Keeper" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

there didn't seem to be much point in a sign if there weren't.
 "Never any lightning around when it's needed…"
On cue, the lightning provided every fleck of peeling paint with its own
shadow. At the accompanying double crack of thunder, Claire dropped her suitcase
and clutched at the fence. She let go a moment later when it occurred to her that
holding an iron rod, even a rusty one, wasn't exactly smart under the circumstances.
White-and-yellow spots dancing across her vision, the faint fizz of an
electrical discharge bouncing about between her ears, she stumbled toward the front
door. During the brief time she'd been able to read the sign, she'd seen the words "uest
House" and, right now, that was good enough for her.
The nine stairs were uneven and slippery, threatening to toss her, suitcase, cat
carrier, backpack, and all, down into the black depths of the area in front of the house.
When she slid into the railing and it bowed dangerously, she refused to consider it an
omen. From the unsheltered porch, she could see neither knocker nor bell but,
considering the night and the weather, that meant very little. There could have been a
plaque warning travelers to abandon hope all ye who enter here, and she wouldn't
have seen it-or paid any attention to it if it meant getting out of the storm. A light
shone dimly through the transom. Holding her suitcase against the bricks with her
knee, she tried the door.
It was unlocked.
Another time, she might have appreciated the drama of the moment more and
pushed the heavy door open slowly, the sound of shrieking hinges accompanied by
ominous music. As it was, she shoved it again, threw herself and her baggage inside,
and kicked it closed.
At first, the silence came as a welcome relief from the storm, but after a
moment of it settling around her, thick and cloying, Claire found she needed to fill it.
She felt as though she were being covered in the cheap syrup left on the tables at
family restaurants.
"Hello? Is anybody here?"
Although her voice had never been described as either timid or tentative, it
made less than no impact on the silence. Lacking anywhere more constructive to go,
the words bounced painfully around inside her head, birthing a sudden, throbbing
headache.
Carefully setting the cat carrier down beyond the small lake she'd created on
the scuffed hardwood floor, she turned to face the counter that divided the entry into a
lobby and what looked like a small office-although the light was so bad, she couldn't
be sure. On the counter, a brass bell waited in solitary, tarnished splendor.
Feeling somewhat like Alice in Wonderland, Claire pushed her streaming hair
back off her face and smacked the plunger down into the bell.
The old man appeared behind the counter so suddenly that she recoiled a step,
half expecting an accompanying puff of smoke-which would have been less
disturbing than the more mundane explanation of him watching her from a dark
corner of the office.
"What," he demanded, "do you want?"
"What do I want?"
"I asked you first."
Which was true enough. "I'd like a room for the night."
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "That all?"
"What else is there?"
"Breakfast."