"Smith, L J - Dark Visions 1 - The Strange Power e-txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Lisa J)

She was staring at the windshield of the station wagon. She hadn't seen before-but she could see now.
People around her were yelling, running. Kaitlyn hardly noticed them. Her entire world was filled with the car windshield.
The little girl had been thrown up against it-or maybe it had crunched back up against her. She was actually lying with her forehead touching the glass, as if she were looking out with open eyes.
With wide eyes. Wide, round, heavy-lashed eyes. Bambi eyes.
She had a small snub nose and a round chin. Wavy blond hair stuck to the glass.
The glass itself was shattered like a spiderweb, a spiderweb superimposed on the child's face.
"Oh, no-please, no ..." Kaitlyn whispered.
She found herself clutching, without knowing what she was clutching at. Somebody steadied her.
Sirens were wailing closer. A crowd was gathering around the station wagon, blocking Kaitlyn's view of the child.
She knew Curt Gunter. The little girl must be Lindy, his baby sister. Why hadn't Kait realized? Why hadn't her picture shown her? Why couldn't it have shown her cars crashing, with a date and a place, instead of that pathetic kid's face? How could it all be so useless, so completely freaking useless . .. ?
"Do you need to sit down?" the person holding her asked, and it was Joyce Piper, and she was shivering.
Kait was shivering, too. Her breath was coming very fast. She clutched harder at Joyce.
"Did you mean that, about me learning to control ... what I do?" Kait couldn't call it a talent.
Joyce looked from her to the accident scene with something like dawning realization. "I think so. I hope so,"
"You have to promise."
Joyce met her gaze full on, the way people in Thoroughfare never did. "I promise to try, Kait."
"Then I'll go. My dad will understand."
Joyce's aquamarine eyes were brilliant. "I'm so glad." She shivered violently. "Seventy degrees there, Kait," she added softly, almost absently. "Pack light."
That night, Kaitlyn had a strangely realistic dream. She was on a rocky peninsula, a spit of land surrounded by cold gray ocean. The clouds overhead were almost black and the wind blew spray into her face. She could actually feel the wet of it, the chill.
From just behind her, someone called her name. But when she turned, the dream ended.
Kait got off the plane feeling giddy and triumphant. She'd never been on a plane before, but it had been easy as anything. She'd chewed gum on takeoff and landing, done twists in the tiny bathroom every hour to keep limber, and brushed her hair and straightened her red dress as the plane cruised up to the gate. Perfection.
She was very happy. Somehow, once the decision to go was made, Kait's spirits had lifted and lifted. It no longer seemed a grim necessity to come to the Institute; it was the dream Joyce had described, the beginning of a new life. Her dad had been unbelievably sweet and understanding-he'd seen her off just as if she were going to college. Joyce was supposed to meet her here at San Francisco Airport.
But the airport was crowded and there was no sign of Joyce. People streamed by. Kaitlyn stuck close to the gate, head high, trying to look nonchalant. The
last thing she wanted was anyone to ask if she needed help.
"Excuse me."
Kaitlyn flicked a sideways glance at the unfamiliar voice. It wasn't help; it was something even more disturbing. One of those cult people who hang around airports and ask for money. He was wearing reddish robes-Tuscan red, Kait thought. If she were going to draw them.
"I'd like a moment of your time, please." The voice was civil, but persistent-authoritative. It sounded foreign.
Kait edged away-or started to. A hand caught her. She looked down at it in amazement, seeing lean fingers the color of caramel locked around her wrist.
Okay, jerk, you asked for it. Outraged, Kait turned the full power of her smoky blue, strangely ringed eyes on him.
He just looked back-and when Kait looked deeply into his eyes, she reeled.
His skin was that caramel color-but his eyes were slanting and very dark, with an epicanthic fold. The phrase "lynx-eyed" came to Kaitlyn's mind. His softly curling hair was a sort of pale shimmery brown, like silver birch. None of it went together.
But that wasn't what made her reel. It was a feeling of age from him. When she looked into his eyes, she had the sense of centuries passing. Millennia. His face was unlined,, but there were ice ages in his eyes.
Kait couldn't remember ever really screaming in her life, but she decided to scream now.
She didn't get a chance. The grip on her wrist tightened and before she could draw a breath, she was jerked off balance, moving. The man in the robes was pulling her backward into the jetway-the long corridor that led to a plane.
Except that there was no plane now and the corridor was empty. The double doors closed, cutting Kaitlyn off from the rest of the airport. She was still too shocked to scream.
"Don't move and you won't get hurt," the man in the robes said grimly. His lynx eyes were hard.
Kaitlyn didn't believe him. He was from some cult and he was obviously insane and he'd dragged her into this deserted place. She should have fought him before; she should have screamed when she had the chance. Now she was trapped.
Without letting go of her arm, the man fumbled inside his robes.
For a gun or a knife, Kaitlyn thought. Her heart was pounding violently. If he would just relax his grip on her arm for an instant-if she could get to the other side of those doors where there were people . . .
"Here," the man said. "All I want is for you to look at this."
He was holding not a weapon but a piece of paper. Glossy paper that had been folded. To Kaitlyn's dazed eyes it looked like a brochure.
I don't believe it, she thought. He is insane.
"Just look," the man said.
Kaitlyn couldn't help looking; he was holding the paper in her face. It seemed to be a full-color picture of a rose garden. A walled rose garden, with a fountain in the center, and something thrusting out of the fountain. Maybe an ice sculpture, Kaitlyn thought dizzily. It was tall, white, and semitransparent-like a faceted column. In one of its many facets was the tiny, perfect reflection of a rose.
Kaitlyn's heart was still pounding violently. This was all too weird. As frightening as if he were trying to hurt her.
"This crystal-" the man began, and then Kaitlyn saw her chance.
The iron grip on her arm loosened just the slightest bit as he spoke, and his eyes were on the picture. Kaitlyn kicked backward, glad that she was wearing pumps with her red dress, slamming a two-inch heel into his shin. The man yelped and let go.
Kaitlyn hit the double doors with both hands, bursting out into the airport, and then she just ran. She ran without looking behind her to see if the man was following. She dodged around chairs and phone booths, heading blindly into the crowd.
She didn't stop until someone called her name.
"Kaitlyn!"