"Michael Scott Rohan - Chase the Morning" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rohan Michael Scott)

have been really imposing then, with their tall windows and carved door
lintels towering at the head of broad steps, all faced in fine-chiselled
sandstone. Now the steps were dished with wear, the lintels cracked and
chipped and bird-fouled, the windows mostly boarded and eyeless; torn posters
and spray-paint slogans spattered the blackened stone. Only two or three of
the street-lamps were working, but there was no sign of life to need them. I
pulled in by a crumbling kerb, and almost before I could lift the handbrake
Jyp bounced out. Something clattered against the door-frame. 'C'mon!'
I blinked. Somehow I hadn't noticed that particular something before.
'Jyp ~ hadn't you better be careful? That, uh, sword you're wearing - do you
want to leave it in the car?'
He chuckled. 'Round here? Like hell I do. Bundlers, Resurrection Men -
never know what you might run into. But don't worry! Nobody'll notice it, like
as not. Folk only see what they want to see, most times; if it doesn't fit in,
they just ignore it.' His teeth flashed in the gloom. 'How many strange
things've you seen out of the corner of your eye? C'mon!'
I hastily locked the car and scuttled after him. He wasn't easy to keep
up with, and I didn't want to get left behind in this mirk. I wondered what a
Bundler was, but I hadn't the breath to ask; and it occurred to me, as the car
faded from sight, that I wasn't really that crazy to know.
Jyp didn't head for any of the steps, but instead turned into a narrow and
uninviting gap around the middle of the terrace, a lane that led us past what
might once have been stables and carriage-houses, but were now half-crumbled
hulks. At the end the old mews bent sharply to the right, and as we turned it
felt as if a warmer, darker air flowed about us. There were lights ahead,
though, and as we drew closer I saw they were old-fashioned street-lamps
mounted on wall brackets, illuminating the frontages of a row of small shops.
The light was warm and yellow, and as we passed by the first of them I heard
hissing and looked up; it was a genuine gas lamp. I wondered how many of those
were still in use. On the wall beneath it a Victorian nameplate, much cracked
and defaced, read Danborough Way, I spoke it to myself as I read it, and the
sound made me stop and think for a moment.
The shops themselves seemed just as peculiar; they all looked old, and
one or two even had bottle-glass window-panes, though mended here and there
with clear glass or painted slats of wood. Many of the windows above them were
lit; odd scents hung in the still air, a murmur of soft voices, and
occasionally the thud and stutter of rock music, never loud. One shop, at the
far corner, had a modern illuminated newsagent's sign, cracked in one corner,
and another, further along, had what looked like the original Victorian sign
to proclaim it was a 'Provision Merchants to Family and Gentry', and a heap of
faded cans in its window. Another, better kept, seemed to be a second-hand
shop, piled high with furniture. But the others were harder to guess; they had
no signs, or hand-lettered cards that read 'His Grace the Sovereign Joseph!'
or 'The Mighty Gunzwah's Emporium', interspersed with advertisements for
ginseng, hair restorer, Tarot readings, Goon Yum tea and vitality tonics for
men. One immense luminous orange effort read 'Have You Got The Runs???', as if
trying to persuade me I was missing something.
Fortunately it was towards another door that Jyp turned, the shop next to
the furniture store, and the best kept by any standards; its woodwork was well
varnished, its brasswork gleaming, its windows an orderly riot of everything