adder: переводы

→<p class="fmtx"><b class="calibre8">W</b>hich only goes to prove that you’re never too old, too jaded, too wise—or too <i class="calibre7">dead</i>—to be hoodwinked by one of the fae.</p>

→<p class="fmhT"><b class="calibre6">Chapter Twenty-three</b></p>

→<p class="fmtx1">The illusionary versions of Molly were very slightly transparent and grainy, like I remembered movies being when I was a kid. The motorcycle had never moved from where it was parked—an illusion had flown through the air, and a short-term veil was now hiding the bike.</p>

→Sir Stuart idly pointed the gun at me and pulled the trigger. The hammer fell with a flash of sparks as flint struck steel . . . and nothing happened.

→“You were <i>bluffing</i>?” I asked.

→When it came, it came fast. Not fast like the rush of a mountain lion upon a deer, and not even fast like a runaway automobile. They were fast like bullets. One second, the lemurs were at the street, and the next they were in the air before the porch, seemingly without crossing the space between. I didn’t have time to do more than yelp and go into a full-body twitch of pure, startled reaction.

→“Aye, lad. Aye. What the hell were you trying to do? Get yourself killed?”

→I swallowed, and Sir Stuart turned back to the front.

→“Stay close to me,” the marine said. “And shut it.”

→The spirits who had come along behind us flowed around and over us and—though I twitched when I saw it—beneath us. Within seconds, they were spread into a defensive line in the shape of a half dome between the house and the gathered wraiths and lemurs. Then those silent forms stood steady, whether their feet were planted on the ground or in thin air or somewhere just <i>below</i> the ground, and faced the small horde with their weapons in hand.

→The tension continued to build, and the seething, agonized gasps of the wraiths grew louder.

→I frowned at him and then out at the small sea of wraiths. I stared and stared, bringing the focus of concentration I’d learned over endless hours of practice in my studies—and suddenly saw them. Dark, slithering shapes, moving up and down the ranks of wraiths at the back of their lines. They looked vaguely like folk covered in dark, enveloping cloaks and robes, but they glided through the air with a silent, effortless grace that made me think of sharks who had scented blood in the water and were closing in to feed.

→“You nearly got yourself destroyed,” he replied. “Another second and that creature would have blasted you to bits.”

→I glowered at him and said, “You’re welcome. Glad I could help.”

→“<i>You</i>!” the ghost hissed. Its hands formed into arching clawlike shapes, and it hissed in rage—and in fear.

→“Ah,” he said. He glanced back over his shoulder at me, his eyes narrowed. “I thought your folk had clear sight.”

→I just stared out at them for a moment, struggling to understand what I was looking at. Out on the road were scores, maybe even a couple hundred wraiths like the one Sir Stuart had dispatched earlier. They were flabby, somehow hollow and squishy-looking, like a balloon that hadn’t been filled with enough gas—sad, frightening humanoid figures, their eyes and mouths gaping too large, too dark, and too empty to seem real. But instead of advancing toward us, they simply stood there in even ranks, leaning forward slightly, their arms held vaguely upward as if yearning toward the house, though their hands seemed limp and devoid of strength, their fingers trailing into shapeless shreds. The horrible sound of hundreds of nearly-silent moans of pain emanated from the block of wraiths, along with a slowly building edge of tension.

→In the air behind the ghost floated . . . a skull. A skull with cold blue flames flickering in its empty eye sockets.

→There was a flash of blue light, and what felt like a wrecking ball made from foam-rubber mattresses smashed into my chest. It threw me back completely through the car again (Hell’s bells, <i>ow</i>!) and I landed on my back with stars in front of my eyes, unable to remember how to inhale.

→But Sir Stuart was faster.