"Holly Lisle - World Gates 03 - Gods Old and Dark" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lisle Holly)

ERIC Cat Creek’s sheriff and the leader of the Cat Creek Sentinels, had the
MACAVERY,

watch. He’d been sitting half in and half out of the official watch gate in the Daisies and
Dahlias Florist, now run by round, sweet Betty Kay Nye, taking a restful day shift. The
green fire of the gate surrounded him, the energy of the universe flowed through him, and
he could feel the smooth workings of the region. His watch area had no major traffic at the
moment—Lauren Dane and her son, Jake, had been in and out of her home gate a couple
of times. Eric currently showed both of them at Lauren’s parents’ old cabin in Oria,
Earth’s closest downworld. He didn’t know why she was there, but Lauren, as the
Sentinels’ gateweaver, had a lot of things to keep track of. Lauren Dane’s relationship
with the Sentinels had been uncomfortable for a while after her dead husband’s parents
kidnapped him; Lauren returned from the ordeal of getting him back gaunt and strange-
eyed and with her hair whacked off and not a word to say to anybody except Pete. She
didn’t even seem to have much to say to Pete after the first few days.

Lauren was not a happy lady—she kept her child within arm’s reach always, and vanished
without warning for hours at a time. She didn’t trust anyone anymore, Eric had finally
realized. And he guessed she had a reason.

He’d finally realized, as well, that he couldn’t demand a minute-by-minute accounting
from her and still expect her to accomplish anything, though, so in the last few months
he’d backed off a bit from his close watch.

That day, aside from Lauren, Eric had tracked a couple of little natural gates that had
blinked in and out of existence in the uninhabited parts of the area. This once-rare event
was becoming a more frequent occurrence, and Eric would have been happier had he
known why that was so. And he’d caught Pete Stark, his deputy, friend, and fellow
Sentinel, using a gate to get something from Pete’s refrigerator at home while he was on
duty at the station. As long as Pete hadn’t been snagging some of that British beer he
liked, Eric was inclined not to notice the little misuse of magic.

He could hear Betty Kay downstairs taking an FTD order. She’d turned out to be a perfect
replacement for Nancine Tubbs, the Sentinel who had previously owned the Daisies and
Dahlias, but who had died in the line of duty. Betty Kay was cheerful and friendly, and
people in the town liked her, even if she was a Yankee. She dated the local boys, she knew

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to eat grits with butter and salt and pepper—not, for God’s sake, milk and sugar—and she
worked hard. She talked too much, and every time he saw her she had her nose in one Jude
Devereaux novel or another, and Terry Mayhew’s frequent pursuit aside, Eric guessed she
was still a virgin, but there were worse things you could say about a person.

He heard her hang up the phone and come to the stairs. She yelled, “You want any lunch?
Or a…rest room break…or anything?”

“I’m good,” he said.