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

warehouse, now half-open; and before it, on a weed-grown forecourt, a tight
knot of men were struggling this way and that. One tore himself loose and
staggered free, and 1 saw that the remaining three - all huge - were after
him. One swung at him, he ducked back, stumbling among the weeds and litter,
and with a twinge of horror I saw metal gleam in the fist as it swung, and in
the others as they feinted at him. They had knives, long ones; and that slash,
if it had connected, would have opened his throat from ear to ear. They were
out to kill.
I stood horrified, hesitant, unable to link up what I was seeing with
reality, with the need to act. I had a mad urge to run away, to shout for the
police-, it was their business, after all, not my fight. If I hadn't baulked
at that stop light, perhaps, I might have done just that, and probably
suffered for it. But something inside me - that spirit of rebellion I'd raised
- knew better; it wasn't seeking help I was after, it was an excuse to run
away, to avoid getting involved, to pass by on the other side. And this was a
life at stake, far more important than a stupid trick like running a light -
far more important even than any question of courage or cowardice. I had to
help ... but how?
I took a hesitant step forward. Maybe just running at them, shouting,
would scare them enough; but what if it didn't? I hadn't hit anybody since I
had left school, and there were three of them. Then in the faint gleam my eyes
lit on a pile of metal tubes lying at the roadside, beside a builder's sign,
remnants of dismantled scaffolding. They were slippery with filth and rain,
but with a heave that made my shoulders crack I got one about seven feet long
loose, heaved it over my head and ran down the slippery cobbles.
None of them saw me at first; the victim slipped and fell, and they were on
him. I meant to shout, but at first only a ridiculous strangulated hey! came
out; in the middle it cracked and became a banshee howl. Then they noticed me,
all right. And to my horror they didn't run, but rounded on me all three. I
was past turning back now; I swung the tube at the first one, and missed by a
mile. He leapt at me, and in a fit of panic 1 just clipped his outstretched
arm on the backswing. He fell with a howl, and I saw a knife fly up glittering
into the air. Another feinted at me, jumped back as I swung the tube, then
flung himself forward as it passed. But it was slippery enough to slide
through my hands; the end poked him in the belly and stretched him on his back
on the cobbles. Hardly believing what I was doing, I swung on the third -and
my feet skidded from under me on the wet smooth stones, and I sat down with an
agonizing jar. He loomed up, a hulking shadow against the halo of light; I
glimpsed white teeth in a contorted snarl, the knife lifting and slashing
down.
Then something flashed over me, feet crashed on the cobbles, and the shadow
drew back. It was the man they'd been attacking, a hunched, taut figure with a
shock of red-brown hair, bounding and bouncing forward, dodging the clumsy
slashes the bigger man aimed at him with an ease that looked effortless.
Suddenly his own arms lashed out; there was a gleam of metal and a terrible
tearing sound. They whirled into the light for a moment, and I saw long
slashes in the tall man's rough coat, and blood spurting from them. I
struggled up, then flinched back in fright as the darkness seemed to burst out
at me; I flung out a punch, and felt a stab of agony in my upper arm. I yelled
with the sudden pain, and louder with the anger that hissed up like a rocket