"Christopher Pike - The Last Vampire 01 - The Last Vampire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pike Christopher)

Pat nods. "Hi, Lara." Her manner is not the least defensive. She trusts in Ray's love, and in her own.

That is going to change. I think of Riley's computer, which I have left in his office. It will not be terribly
long before the police come to look around, and maybe take the computer away. But I have not taken
the machine because I would have no way of explain-ing to Ray what I was doing with it, much less be
able to convince him to open its data files. "Hello, Pat," I say. "Nice to meet you." "Same here," she says.
"That's a beautiful dress." "Thank you." I would have preferred to have met Ray without Pat around.
Then it would have been easier for him to start a relationship with me without her between us. Yet I am
confident I can gather Ray's interest. What man could resist what I have to offer? My eyes go back to
him. "What are we studying in this class?" I ask.

"European history," he says, "The class just gives a broad overview. Right now we're talking about the
French Revolution. Know anything about it?"

"I knew Marie Antoinette personally," I lie. I knewof Antoinette, but I was never close to the French
nobility, for they were boring. But I was there, in the crowd, the day Marie Antoinette was beheaded. I
actually sighed when the blade sliced across her neck. The guillotine was one of the few methods of
execu-tion that disturbed me. I have been hanged a couple of times and crucified on four separate
occasions, but I got over it. But had I lost my head, I know that would have been the end. I was there at
the start of the French Revolution, but I was in America before it ended.

"Did she really say, 'Let them eat cake'?" Ray asks, going along with what he thought was a joke.

"I believe it was her aunt who said that." The teacher, Mr. Castor, enters the room, a sad-looking
example of a modern educator if ever there was one. He only smiles at the pretty girls as he strides to the
front of the room. He is attractive in an aftershave-commercial sort of way. I nod to him. "What's he
like?"

Ray shrugs. "Not bad."

"But not good?"

Ray sizes me up. "I think he'll like you."

"Understood."

The class starts. Mr. Castro introduces me to the restof the students and asks me to stand and talk
about myself. I remain seated and say ten words. Mr. Castor appears put out but lets it go. The lesson
begins.

Ah, history, what an illusion humanity has of the past. And yet scholars argue the reality of their texts until
they are blue in the face, even though something as recent as the Second World War is remembered in a
manner that has no feeling for the times,for feeling, not events, is to me the essence of history. The
majority of people recollect World War II as a great adventure against impossible odds, while it was
noth-ing but an unceasing parade of suffering. How quickly mortals forget. But I forget nothing. Even I, a
blood-thirsty harlot if ever there was one, have never wit-nessed a glorious war.

Mr. Castro has no feeling for the past. He doesn't even have his facts straight. He lectures for thirty
minutes, and I grow increasingly bored. The bright sun has me a bit sleepy. He catches me peeking out
the window.