VETAminka: переводы

→"It left Sarajevo, we don't know where for. McKinley says there's something going on in Kalif that sounds suspicious, but I don't think anyone would be stupid enough to look there. We're collating the reports right now. I'd bet it's following the route with no problems." His tone, as usual when he spoke to Japh, was utterly respectful and curiously unafraid.

→"Stay, then. Hear everything." His eyebrows drew together as he examined Vann. "Well?"

→With that, I turned on my heel and would have stalked away, but Japh caught my arm. I knew better than to struggle-he was far stronger than me. It would do no good.

→I weighed hanging around to hear what Vann would say, and decided I probably didn't want to know. I'd find out eventually, and if there was something Japhrimel didn't want me to be told Vann wouldn't say it anyway. I might as well get something to eat for my trouble. "Fine." I couldn't resist a bad-tempered little goose. "I suppose if there was something you didn't want me to know he would wait to mention it to you later anyway, right?"

→"News." Vann's tone held uneasy respect, as if I was a poisonous animal he wanted to avoid offending. I looked longingly at the little café tucked into the boarding house's first floor. I was hungry.

→I was fairly sure Lucifer would have killed me if he could. Just one more time I'd tangled with the Prince of Hell and come away with my miserable life. I was beginning to feel lucky.

→When I followed Japhrimel in through the containment field, shuddering as it tickled and nipped at my skin, we found square brown Vann waiting for us in the cool, shaded lobby. The Hellesvront agent's face looked better; he was healing much faster than a human but not as quickly as with a heal-charm. The bruises Lucas had given him were going down and the bandage had come off his right eye, revealing a wicked slash down his forehead through his eyebrow. He was lucky he hadn't lost that eye, and I felt a little guilty. After all, I'd hired Lucas-but he'd been squeezing Vann for information on my whereabouts so he could show up just in time to save my life.

→My memories of Hegemony Afrike are all of heat, dust, danger, and heart-thumping adrenaline. Not to mention pain. If I got in a transport when we were finished here without getting into a fight, it would be the first damn time I ever lifted off from Hegemony Afrike soil without bleeding.

→There were spots of green, of course. Water pumped up from the brown ribbon of the Nile and local areas of climate control made for gardens, plenty of date palms, an oasis tucked in every courtyard. The technology of watermakers was in its infancy, but here it was being used to its fullest extent which wasn't very far, but it was nice. There would at least be enough water to bathe with, a far cry from the recent thirty-year drought that had gripped the entire northern half of Hegemony Afrike. They were still hashing out the environmental consequences of the technology, but life was beginning to spread away from the river and into the desert. There was even talk of making the desert green again, but the environmental scientists were up in arms about that.

→The boarding house was a large sloping mudbrick building, stasis and containment fields glimmering over every window and door. The heat was almost as tremendous as the blowing sand. I spent a few moments on the sidewalk outside the building, basking in sunlight. Japhrimel, a blot on the tawny day with his long black coat, waited silently.

→Copper-tasting demon adrenaline jolted me. The chill of Death flushed itself out of fingers and toes. Other Necromances use sex or sparring to shake the cold of Death and flush the bitter taste of it away. I used to go slicboarding, using speed and antigrav danger to bring myself back to the land of the breathing. This time, I was brought back by the sense of being watched

→As I paced away, the statues didn't move. I wondered if I should offer to Sekhmet, discarded the notion. It was dangerous to attract Her attention-I had all the destruction I could handle in my life right now. I bowed one last time to Isis and Horus, made my way to the granite doors. They opened inward for me, Power sparking and spiraling through their cores, and when I stepped out into the entry hall Japhrimel still stood in the same spot, his hands clasned behind his back. examining the walls.

→"Anubis et'her ka," I repeated. "Thank you."

→I bowed again, the cut on my palm closing, black blood sealing away the hurt. "I wish I had more for You," I said quietly to the statue, knowing He would hear and understand. "My thanks, my Lord."

→Including my relationship with Japhrimel. I love him, but how am I going to convince him to leave Eve alone? And how the hell am I going to get him to stop simply using his strength to force me to do anything he wants me to? He's apologized, but the precedent's been set.

→I looked up again, at the god of Death's face. He deserved an offering, though I had precious little to give Him right at the moment. Everything I owned had gone up in flames, one way or another.

→I couldn't. But maybe Japhrimel could-he had, after all, pushed Lucifer back. Away from me.

→My sword sang, sliding back into the sheath. Fudoshin, Jado had named it, and it had served me well. Very well, considering it had bit the Devil's flesh without shattering. There was some Power locked in the steel's heart my sensei hadn't told me about.

→But I saw nobody. My heartbeat finally returned to something like normal, and I let out a soft sigh. I was in a temple, under the gaze of my god and with Japhrimel right outside the door. What could harm me here?

→No. The knowledge I was being watched.