"John Twelve Hawks - 4th Realm 01 - The Traveler" - читать интересную книгу автора (Twelve Hawks John)

Sikh mother's thick black hair. Her eyes were such a pale blue that from a certain angle
they looked translucent. She hated it when well-meaning women approached her mother
and complimented Maya's appearance. In a few years, she'd be old enough to disguise
herself and look as ordinary as possible.

They left the zoo and strolled through Regent's Park. It was late April and young
men were kicking footballs across the muddy lawn while parents pushed bundled-up
babies, in perambulators. The whole city seemed to be out enjoying the sunshine after three
days of rain. Maya and her father took the Piccadilly line to the Arsenal station; it was
getting dark when they reached the street-level exit. There was an Indian restaurant in
Finsbury Park and Thorn had made reservations for an early supper. Maya heard noises—
blaring air horns and shouting in the distance—and wondered if there was some kind of
political demonstration. Then Father led her through the turnstile and out into a war.

Standing on the sidewalk, she saw a mob of people marching up Highbury Hill
Road. There weren't any protest signs and banners, and Maya realized that she was
watching the end of a football match. The Arsenal Stadium was straight down the road and
a team with blue and white colors—that was Chelsea—had just played there. The Chelsea
supporters were coming out of the visitors' gate on the west end of the stadium and heading
down a narrow street lined with row houses. Normally it was a quick walk to the station
entrance, but now the North London street had turned into a gauntlet. The police were
protecting Chelsea from Arsenal football thugs who were trying to attack them and start
fights.

Policemen on the edges. Blue and white in the center. Red throwing bottles and
trying to break through the line. Citizens caught in front of the crowd scrambled between
parked cars and knocked over rubbish bins. Flowering hawthorns grew at the edge of the
curb and their pink blossoms trembled whenever someone was shoved against a tree. Petals
fluttered through the air and fell upon the surging mass.

The main crowd was approaching the Tube station, about one hundred meters
away. Thorn could have gone to the left and headed up Gillespie Road, but he remained on
the sidewalk and studied the people surrounding them. He smiled slightly, confident of his
own power and amused by the pointless violence of the drones. Along with the sword, he
was carrying at least one knife and a handgun obtained from contacts in America. If he
wished, he could kill a great many of these people, but this was a public confrontation and
the police were in the area. Maya glanced up at her father. We should run away, she
thought. These people are completely mad. But Thorn glared at his daughter as if he had
just sensed her fear and Maya stayed silent.

Everyone was shouting. The voices merged into one angry roar. Maya heard a high-
pitched whistle. The wail of a police siren. A beer bottle sailed through the air and
exploded into fragments a few feet away from where they were standing. Suddenly, a
flying wedge of red shirts and scarves plowed through the police lines, and she saw men
kicking and throwing punches. Blood streamed down a policeman's face, but he raised his
truncheon and fought back.

She squeezed Father's hand. "They're coming toward us," she said. "We need to get
out of the way."