"Lisa Tuttle - Sangre" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tuttle Lisa)

her mind she noted that fact and it registered that perhaps she was sick, with a fever.
Her own body began to seem as remote to her as everything else around her.
There was someone on the balcony. Now he blocked the light, now he moved
and it illuminated him. There was the tightness of terror in her throat, but her mind
clicked observations into her consciousness as unemotionally as a typewriter.
He wore a cloak, and some sort of slouch-brimmed hat. Polished boots gleamed
in the moonlight, and was that a sword hung at his side? Don Juan? noted a coolly
amused voice within her. Come to seduce this Andalusian cutie?
Oh, really?
He made no move to enter the room and she gained some measure of courage
from that, enough to raise herself on her elbows and stare at him. If he noticed her
movement he made no sign. She sat up then and swung her legs over the side of the
bed. The room receded and advanced dizzyingly before it settled into its detached
and unreal, but at least stable, form.
He was waiting for her on the balcony. She opened her mouth to speak, to end
the joke, to let him know she was awake and that, perhaps, he had come to the
wrong window. But to speak seemed a desecration, a monumental undertaking of
which she was not capable. He opened his arms to her, that cloaked figure, his face
masked by shadow, and waited for her to step into them. She saw herself as if from
a distance, a somnambulant figure in a long white gown, long hair flowing, face pale
and innocent from sleep, and she watched this figure move into the waiting arms.
She looked up, he moved his head and the moonlight spilled fully across his
features. She realized then that it was not Don Juan at all, but another legend entirely:
the pasty face, the oddly peaked eyebrows, the parted red lips over which pointed
teeth gleamed… Her head fell back against his arm, her eyes closed and her
sacrificial neck gleamed white and pure.
"Glenda?"
A rush of nausea hit her, she opened her eyes, stumbled, and caught herself at the
railing.
"Glen, are you all right?"
Glenda turned her head and saw Debbie — no one else, only Debbie, solid and
comforting in pink nylon.
"I was hot," she said, and had to clear her throat and say it again. She was hot,
and very thirsty. "Is there anything to drink?"
"Part of that litre of Coke from the train. Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yes, yes… only thirsty." She gulped the Coke desperately but it burned her
throat. She choked and felt sick. "G'night." She crawled back into bed and would
say nothing more to Debbie, who finally sighed and went back to sleep herself.


"I hate to leave you alone," Debbie said, hovering uncertainly at the door. "How
do you feel?"
Glenda lay in bed. "Really, it's nothing. I just don't feel up to anything today.. But
I'm not so sick that I can't make it down three flights to get the manager or his wife if
I need something. You go out sightseeing with that nice Canadian and don't worry
about me. I'll get some sleep. Best thing."
"You're sure? You wouldn't rather move to a bigger hotel? So we'd have our own
bathroom?"
"Of course not. I like it here."
"Well… Shall I bring you anything?"