"Tanya Huff - Keeper's Chronicles 3 - The Long Hot Summoning" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

Making her way back through the rugrats, Diana noticed without surprise that
the last six rows-the rows reserved for the high school students on the route-were
nearly empty. On this, the last day of the high school year, only two freshmen had
been unable to find alternative transportation. “My brother was going to give me a
ride/‘ said the first as she passed. ”But he had to go to work really early.“
“Yeah. I was going to ride my bike, but I had, like, an asthma attack,” the
other explained, holding up his inhaler for corroboration.
Diana ignored them both. First, because a senior acknowledging freshmen
would open up all sorts of possibilities she had no desire to deal with. Second, as the
youngest, and therefore most powerful Keeper, as one of the Lineage who maintained
the mystical balance of the world, as someone who had helped dose a hole to Hell and
faced down demons, she didn’t need to justify her reasons for taking the bus.
Settling into her regular seat, she thanked any gods who might be listening
that this would be the last day she’d ever be at the mercy of public education.
Frowning, Diana crossed the main hall toward the stairs, trying to get a fix on
the faint wrongness she could feel. It wasn’t a full-out accident site; no holes had
been opened into the lower ends of the possibilities allowing evil to lap up against
closed doors leading to empty classrooms, but something was out of place and, as
long as she was in the building, finding it and fixing it was in the job description.
Actually, it pretty much was the job description.
As far as Diana was concerned, all high schools needed Keepers. Nothing
poked holes in the fabric of reality faster than a few thousand hormonally challenged
teenagers all crammed into one ugly cinder-block building. Unattended, that was
exactly the sort of situation likely to create the kind of person who developed an
operating system that crashed every time someone attempted to download an Amanda
Tapping screen saver.
The sudden appearance of a guidance counselor actually emerging from his
office and heading straight for her nearly sent Diana running toward the nearest
washroom. She didn’t want her last day ruined by yet another pointless confrontation.
Fortunately, she realized he felt the same way before her feet started moving. Fuck it.
What’s the point? flashed into the thought balloon over his head and he slid past
without meeting her gaze.
The thought balloons had appeared back in grade nine when, after half an hour
of platitudes, she’d wondered just what exactly he was thinking. An unexpected
puberty-propelled power surge had anchored the balloons so firmly she’d never been
able to get rid of them and she’d spent the last four years finding out rather more than
she wanted to about the fantasy lives of middle-aged men.
Pamela Anderson.
And hockey.
Occasionally, Pamela Anderson playing hockey.
Some of the visuals were admittedly interesting.
The wrongness led her up the stairs, through the first cafeteria and into the
second-weirdly, the hangout of both the jocks and the music geeks- empty now
except for a group of girls who’d laid claim to the far corner by the northwest
windows. A flash of aubergine light pulled her toward them. The senior girls’
basketball team, Diana realized as she drew closer. Probably hanging around in order
to remain the senior girls’ basketball team. Over two thirds of them were graduating,
so once they stepped out the door, they’d be a team no longer.
“... so I said to him, I’m not putting that in my mouth.” Tall, blonde, ponytail-
Diana didn’t know her name. “First of all, I don’t know where it’s been and secondly,