arrgentum: переводы

→Jannalynn took in the cheerful gathering, saw all the twoeys having a good time, and I guess she had her own black moment when she wondered why Sam hadn’t invited her when there were so many other two natured guests. I was glad I wasn’t in her line of sight. I stepped back into the kitchen . . . because frankly, I was scared to death of Jannalynn. I’d seen her in action, and it was no fluke that the packleader of Shreveport had named her his enforcer.

→I saw a small figure emerge from the shadows at the corner of the house. It was a woman wearing a vest with a bra under it, and a tiny skirt, and gladiator sandals. The evening was cooling off rapidly, and I figured the newcomer would be covered in goose pimples soon. Her short dark brown hair was slicked back smoothly.

→After a few moments of recovery–and feeling definitely on the noble side–I drifted into the backyard to see if Sam needed anything. The gas grill had been turned off, so he’d cooked everything there was to cook. The outside lights were on, but there was a sharp contrast of light and shadow in Bernie’s backyard. Someone had brought out a CD player and turned the volume up. I wondered why Jim Collins hadn’t appeared to protest.

→He pulled me close. We hugged each other hard, and I stepped back. “You go have a good time,” I said, blinking furiously, and then he was gone.

→“Quinn, you’re a great man, and you’re so attractive, and I am so fond of you,” I said. I looked him right in the eyes because I wanted him to see how much I meant every word. “But . . . and some days I think, unfortunately for me . . . I love Eric. He comes with a thousand years of baggage . . . but he’s it for me now.” I took another deep breath. “With regret, I’m going to turn you down, but I am your true friend, and I always will be.”

→I took a deep breath before I spoke, aware that this was a huge honor he’d paid me.

→I looked past his shoulder out the bay window to see Tijgerin, who was happily devouring her third hamburger. I didn’t know much about her, but I did know there were very few weretigers left in the world. If Quinn and Tijgerin mated, they could have a tiger baby. And from the way she’d looked at Quinn, I thought I could assume she was unencumbered by a boyfriend at present. She and Quinn had been smacked in the face with their mutual attraction, and I admired him all the more for sticking to his declared program in making this offer.

→I’m not a saint. I thought of how wonderful it would be to be with a man who could go shopping with me in the daytime, a man I could have a baby with, a man who knew how to treat a woman well. But even if I decided I wanted to leave Eric, Eric would always be sure, through his vampire contacts, that Quinn paid and paid and paid.

→He’d do it, too. I suddenly saw a whole different life opening up before me, and my imagination painted it rosy, for a moment. I tried to picture living with Quinn, who was warm and generous and a magnificent lover. He really would do everything he could to pry me away from Eric if he thought I had the slightest misgivings about my relationship with the vampire, no matter what the consequences were for him.

→“They’ve got you every which way,” I said. We looked at each other directly.

→“So I can’t afford to offend a lot of deaders,” Quinn said, looking away as if he were sure this admission would make him look weak. “They’re silent partners in the rest home my mother stays in, too.” Quinn had already paid off one family debt he owed the vampires.

→Jannalynn was dressed to kill. I’d imagined her being here in a moment of craziness, and here she was.

→“No.” I wasn’t surprised, though. The two catering and event companies employed both humans and shifters, but I was sure they’d required lots of capital to start up, and they’d begun their operations in a very luxe way. That’s kind of a vampire signature.

→“Hey,” he said, and leaned against the counter. I pulled a bag from the cardboard box and shook it out. Then I pulled the crammed bag from the kitchen garbage can and cinched it shut.

→Deidra and Craig had already made a round of handshaking, thanking the people who’d come to save their lives and their wedding. Then the newlyweds changed and slipped away on their honeymoon, which was the most sensible thing in the world for them to do. Quinn and Tijgerin walked them out to Craig’s car, and when they came back inside, Quinn tracked me down in the kitchen, where I was mining Bernie’s pantry for some more garbage bags.

→Her eyes were as dark a purple as Quinn’s, though perhaps a browner tone, and her face was a lovely high cheekboned circle. Her hair was a shiny milk chocolate brown, darker than the deep tan tone of her skin. She smiled at me, all gleaming white teeth and health. I figured she was younger than me, maybe twenty three.

→“This is Tijgerin,” Quinn said. He pronounced it very carefully. It sounded like “Tie” plus a choking noise, and then “ine” as in “tangerine.” I practiced it in my head a couple of times (and I looked up the spelling later). “That’s ‘Tigress’ in Dutch. She’s of Sumatran and Dutch descent. She calls herself Tij.” Pronounced “Tie.”

→“There you go,” I said, smiling brightly.

→Though we were short on folding chairs, everyone made do. They sat on the grass or stood and circulated. When Togo and Trish returned with soft drinks and hamburger patties and buns, the grill was ready to go and Sam took charge. I began putting out the bags of chips. Everything was going very well for an impromptu celebration. I went to pump beers.

→Few humans remained to party with the twoeys. Most of the regular people had seemed to get a whiff of the otherness of the guests, and they’d drifted away pretty quickly.