soldelena: переводы

→“You said Joe shot the guard. What happened then?”

→“Nothing,” Maitland said, and then corrected himself. “Okay, I hit her. Just to shut her up. And then Joe shot that guard, and somebody triggered the security alarms. These bars came down at the door. We couldn’t get out. Why the hell would they want to keep us inside the bank, with the customers? Ain’t the whole point to get us outside? Don’t you people know nothing about security?”

→He gulped more coffee, eyes darting nervously from Richard to the night visible in the barred window of the room. He hadn’t once looked at the cops standing behind him. Richard figured he was blocking it out, the knowledge that one of them might not be entirely human.

→Maitland screamed. Oliver reached over and switched off the speaker. “I don’t believe we need to observe the rest,” he said. “Justice is swift.”

→Richard watched anyway, sickness twisting at his stomach. It has to be done. He was a liar, he would have killed everyone in that bank, including Monica.

→“I don’t know, pretty. Blond. Had a mouth on her, I’ll tell ya that.” He shook his head slowly. “She kept telling me we were in the wrong place, wrong time, wrong damn town. Pissed me off. But she was right.”

→“There was this girl,” he said. “Pretty little thing, cashing a check at the teller window. Joe took the guard, Lavelle covered the couple of people in the lobby, I grabbed the girl.”

→Maitland sipped at the coffee, then gulped convulsively, not seeming to care that it was hot enough to raise blisters. His eyes had that terrible distance to them, something Richard was way too familiar with.

→“Because tongue kissing Monica would probably give you some dire germs.”

→"We did," she said, and sipped again. Fresh, warm, red blood. Life itself, salty and thick in her mouth. She had long learned how to feast neatly on it. "I agreed not to interfere with your ... searches. But I never agreed to forego the opportunity to retrieve it myself, if the chance presented. As it did."

→"I am grateful to you for the opportunity to speak," Oliver said as he settled himself in the chair. Vallery appeared in the doorway with a tray and two silver cups; she gave him a slight nod, and he delivered them refreshment. Oliver drank without taking his eyes from her. She sipped. "I thought we had an agreement, Amelie. Regarding the book."

→Oliver deliberately made noise as he approached her study, a gesture of politeness she appreciated. Amelie turned from the window and sat down in the velvet-covered chair beside it, arranging her skirts with effortless grace and folding her hands in her lap. Oliver looked less harassed than he had; he'd taken time to bathe, change, compose himself. He'd tied his gray curling hair back in the old style, a subtle sign to her that he was willing to accommodate her preferences, and he was perfectly correct in his manners as he bowed to her and waited for her to gesture him to take a seat.

→"Yes," she agreed softly, and smiled. "But not by me, Oliver. Not by me. And if you should consider taking your petty revenge on the children, please remember that they are in my house, under my sign of Protection. Don't make this cause for complaint."

→Interesting, all of them, and that was a rarity in Amelie's long, long eternity. She had been kind to them, out of not better reason than that. She could afford to be kind, so long as it risked her nothing in return.

→And the youngest, oh, the youngest girl, with her diamond-sharp mind. Fierce and small and courageous, although she would not know the depths of it for years yet.

→Like the surprise of the children living in her house on Lot Street. The angelic blond boy, with his passion and bitterness, woven into the fabric of the house and trapped there. Or the strange girl, with her odd makeup and odder clothing. Or the other boy, the strong one, quick and intelligent and wishing not to seem so.

→He nodded stiffly, eyes sparking anger. He put his cup back on Vallery's tray. It rang empty. "What do you know of the boy?"

→"I don't," she said. "But we shall see what develops. After all, this town is a sanctuary."

→"Show him in," she said. It was not the safest course, but she found herself growing tired of the safe road. There were so rarely any surprises, or strangers to meet.

→Did he. How interesting. She'd thought he'd slink off into the dark and lick his wounds for a year or two, until he was ready to play games with her again. He'd come very near to succeeding this time, thanks to her own carelessness. She could ill afford another occurrence.