deluisa: переводы

→“Hot dish? What’s a hot dish?”
“You know,” I said, moving my index fingers in the shape of a square. “A casserole. A hot dish.”
“Nobody says hot dish.”

→“Since you, being immortal, have no need of doctors?”
“Precisely.” He’d already kicked off his shoes, and he began rolling up his shirtsleeves.
“Are you joining me?” I wondered aloud.

→Resigned to my fate, I shook out my shoulders, blew out a breath to calm my nerves, and put on my
best suit of vampire moxie. “Keep an eye on the main group, and let me know if they get too close for
us to get to the car. We can’t take on an entire mob, not alone.”
Mallory nodded.

→“What did he just say?”
“Oh, no he didn’t,” Mallory whispered. “Go kick his ass.”
Easy for her to say, since I wasn’t supposed to let her do anything. But it was too late to back down
now; she’d set the wheels in motion.

→The guy with the pointy hair glared at us, lip curled. “You got a problem, bitch?”
The harshness of the word cut right through the fear. I gave him an Ethan Sullivan–worthy eyebrow
arching.

→“Mallory Delancey Carmichael,” I muttered, swallowing down a sudden bolt of fear. I might have
been a vampire, but the rioters had inches and pounds on me, too. And a lot more hatred.

→So she said. But her track record wasn’t the greatest. We’d managed to create an alliance with
shifters, but it was fragile. I didn’t want to be the one to knock it off-kilter.
I looked longingly back at the car.
“I’m not unsympathetic,” I said, “but I have responsibilities, and right now you’re the main one.”

→“Mallory, I’ve got to get you out of here before something happens.”
She gave me a flat look. “Before I go postal?”
“Frankly, yes.”
“Caroline Evelyn Merit. I am not going to go postal.”

→I considered that an insult to the Cubs.
The more heavyset kid must have said something the rioters didn’t like, as they both reached out
and shoved the guys’ shoulders, sending them stumbling back a few steps.
“Merit, we need to help them.”
I’d have liked to help them, but first and foremost I had to help her. I could feel the magic
beginning to simmer around her, bubbles of it beginning to reach the surface. Soon enough, that magic
would reach a full boil, and I might not be able to stop the transition.

→“Merit,” she said. “Look.”
I followed the direction of her gaze to the other side of the street, where two young guys had been
stopped by rioters who’d split off from the main group.
The kids carried the awkward bearing of adolescence. One was hauntingly thin; the other was more
heavyset. They wore ill-fitting clothes that didn’t look warm enough for the cold night, but that was
hardly the primary concern.

→The rioters, who had six or seven inches and a lot of muscle over them, stood over the guys
menacingly. The taller of the bullies had a pincushionesque haircut and a chain with a giant dollarsign pendant in gleaming gold. His friend, who was four inches shorter, wore a satin jacket with a
dragon embroidered on the back and a Cubs cap.

→“Shut it,” she said. “You love acting like a vampire hard-ass.”
Without warning, she let out an earsplitting whistle. “Hey, assholes! Why don’t you pick on
someone your own size?”
All four gazes turned to us.

→“So, funny story,” Mallory said, her back flat against the wall of the building, her arm tight around
mine. “Once upon a time, I tried to have dinner with my best friend, and the apocalypse happened.”
“No kidding,” I murmured in agreement, wincing as sounds of violence punctured the night around
us.

→Unfortunately, that only riled up my inner predator, which was more than willing to take its chances
with humans. Bitchy, whiny humans.

→Sirens sounded around us as the rioters destroyed store windows and set off alarms. As we
reached the end of the block—only a few dozen more feet to go—we ducked around the corner, hearts
pounding as the rioters drew closer.

→I worked not to wince at every tinkle of breaking glass and volley of anti-vampire cursing lobbed
behind us, and kept my eyes on the prize. But that didn’t stop my heart from racing. There were more
humans here than I could handle alone, especially without a weapon other than the blue-haired girl
next to me, who was utterly off-limits.

→I looked at Mallory, who nodded and plastered a smile on her face. “You said we were party girls
out for a night on the town. So let’s, like, totally get out of here. For reals.”
“Are there valley girls in Chicago?”
“Tonight,” she said, “there are.”

→We started toward the car, avoiding Division, darting from the restaurant into the alley across thestreet, then running through darkness to the other end, where we peered out to survey the source of the
noise.

→“Clean Chicago!” they yelled in unison. “No more fangs! Clean Chicago! No more fangs!”
They repeated the words like a mantra of hatred, yelled at people on the street, waved bats and
hockey sticks in the air and against one another, and smashed car windows and streetlights as they
moved.

→There were dozens of humans, maybe forty or fifty altogether, and they moved up the middle of
Division in a cluster. In a mob. They ranged in age from young enough to be carded to their midforties, and they were obviously passionate about their cause, which they shouted loudly and often.