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

his breathing, could see the gleam of his teeth. She fell.


Glenda woke, trembling violently.
"Did I wake you up? Honey, are you all right? You look pale as a ghost. We're
going for lunch, do you want—"
Glenda shook her head. "Uh, I'm not feeling too great." The words felt torn from
her raw throat. She was thirsty. "Did you get me something to drink?"
"Oh, I'm sorry! I forgot. What would you like? I'll run and get it for you. And
something to eat?"
Glenda shook her head again. "No. Just a drink." It was hard to concentrate,
harder still to focus.
Debbie came to the bed and reached towards Glenda who pulled away violently.
"Glen, I just want to see if you have a fever. Hmm… you are pretty hot. My God,
what'd you do to your neck?"
Glenda caressed the twin shallow wounds with her fingertips and shook her head.
"I think we should get you to a hospital."
"No. I'll be… I'll take some aspirin… I'll stay… I'll be all right…"
Debbie's face was blurring and clearing like something seen from underwater. She
fell.


The moon was down and the sky beginning to lighten when she opened her eyes.
She was sprawled on the cobblestones of a short narrow street, and got painfully to
her feet. She was ragingly thirsty. Her mouth felt gummy, her tongue too large. She
pushed her hair back, away from her face, with both hands and felt the trace of
something sticky. She returned her hand for a lingering exploration and remembered
the marks on the necks of certain townspeople, and remembered their eventual
deaths.
She travelled twisting streets until she came within sight of la Giralda. The rising
sun illumined it and she saw a single bat hanging like a curled leaf in the tower.
The people of Sevilla, in the form of two drunken men, had at one time attempted
to keep the devil (who was reputed to inhabit the Moorish tower in the form of a bat)
in his resting place and out of the streets of Sevilla by boarding up the door. But it
was pointed out to them that, even assuming wooden slats could keep the devil
prisoner, bats did not need to fly through doorways when the tower had so many
windows, and they abandoned their project half-finished.
She climbed over the uncompleted barricade, scratching her leg as she did so.
She watched the tiny beads of blood appear in a curving line and then looked away.
And now, up? To the bell-tower where hung bells which never rang? And then she
saw a door to one side, a wooden door free of spider webs, as if it were often used.
She went to it and pushed it open, revealing steps which led down into darkness.
She left the door open behind her, for the little light its being open provided, and
descended the steps. They were shallow steps, but there were a great many of them.
Her legs began to ache from the seemingly endless descent.
At the bottom was a huge chamber, she could not tell how large, poorly lit by
torches burning smokily in wall niches. She saw the coffin at once, and went to it. It
was open and inside, his slouch hat discarded but still clothed in cape and boots,
was the man she had run from in the night; the man her mother had loved, or served.
A bat flew at her head, silent and deadly. She ducked, but felt the edge of its