"Mary Rosenblum - Color Vision" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenblum Mary)

“Zoroan’s umbra?” Cris is staring at me, and I never noticed before
that his eyes are green, and they glow like the owl’s eyes glowed. “I can
sense him,” he says. “He’s close. You mean you can see it?”

“I don’t know. What’s an umbra? I can see when he talks. Like you talk
gold and Jeremy talks yellow. Maybe we ought to get out of here?”

Too late. A river of silver, razor-dust fog snakes across the yard,
cir-cling the swing set and disappearing under the fort where I can’t see it.
The owl drops like a stone. With a glittery flash, the silver strikes, wrapping
the owl just like Mr. Beasley would. It lets out a single, high-pitched hoot,
then pops like a bubble pops and just. . . disappears. Then . . . too fast to
really see . . . the razor-fog is in the doorway, like a huge silver Mr. Beasley.
Just like Mr. Beasley going after a mouse, it goes after Cris.

And I step in front of it.

It slaps into me like a hose turned on real hard. And it hurts. Like it is
made out of razor blades, and I can’t help it, I yell, and I’m trying to grab on
to it, but it’s like water, too, and my hands just kind of go through it. And it
feels like it’s burning my skin off and I close my eyes and I can’t stand it any
longer and . . .

... it stops. And Cris is standing in front of me with that gold dagger
and a few wisps of mist are sort of trickling out of the fort.

“Yahoo, Cris, way to go!” Jeremy claps Cris on the back, and he
stag-gers and it’s like the dagger is real heavy for him, like it weighs a ton.

“What happened?” I look at myself. I’m okay. No burns, not even like
a sunburn. “That hurt.”

“He’s really strong.” Cris sits down on the floor all of a sudden.
“Maybe from all the First Born power he’s taken. I... I don’t think I can stand
up to him.”

And his words are kind of tinged with that dog-poop color again. I
fig-ure that is not good. He looks at me. “Melanie, it really helps that you can
see it ... his umbra. Tell me where it is. If I can cut through it, it doesn’t have
any power anymore.”

“You’re a First Born, maybe you destroyed him when you stabbed it
with that dagger, huh?” Jeremy sits down beside Cris. “I couldn’t see
any-thing, but isn’t that what the prophecy said?”

“I have to stab his body with a true-shape weapon, not just stab his
umbra.” Cris’s head droops. “He won’t let me get that close, and I don’t
think I’m strong enough to fight through.” He looks at me. “That was re-ally
brave, Melanie. Trying to stop his umbra. It can kill you. You’re lucky,” he
says. “As well as brave.”