Argonec: переводы

→<div class="fmtx1">I looked. He was right. One was huge and dark-furred; the other smaller and lighter brown. They were sitting in the shadows, perfectly still, where a casual glance would simply pass over them. Their wary stares were intense. “Will and Marci,” I said. “They’re cool.”</div>

→<div class="fmtx1">Felicia managed to stagger to her feet, open the front door, and limp haltingly to the white limousine idling on the snowy street outside the house. Murphy went to the window to watch Felicia get into the limo and depart.</div>

→<div class="fmtx1">“Oh, my,” Sir Stuart said, his voice muted with respect. “I can see why you’d come to her for assistance.”</div>

→<div class="fmtx1">“Yeah,” I said, deadpan. “The little blond woman has two of them.”</div>

→<div class="fmtx1">“Damn skippy,” I agreed. “Better go get Morty while she’s still in a good mood.”</div>

→<div class="fmtx1">The snow clinging to my body and clothes was gone. I was standing, dry and wrapped in my leather duster, beside the snowbank.</div>

→<div class="fmtx1">I focused on the words, putting my will behind them, in the same way I would have to attract the attention of a ghost or spirit. I opened my eyes.</div>

→<div class="fmtx1">“N-n-no, H-Harry,” I told myself firmly, squeezing my eyes shut. “Th-that’s an illusion. Your mind created it to match what it knows. But you didn’t hit the snowbank. You can’t. And you can’t be covered in snow. And therefore you can’t be wet and cold.”</div>

→<div class="fmtx"><b class="calibre8">M</b>urphy inherited her house from her grandmother, and it was at least a century old. Grandma Murphy had been a notorious rose gardener. Murphy didn’t have a green thumb herself. She hired a service to take care of her grandmother’s legacy. The flower garden in front would have fit a house four times as large, but it was a withered, dreary little place when covered in heavy snow. Bare, thorny branches, trimmed the previous fall, stood up from the blanket of white in skeletal silence.</div>

→<p class="fmtx1">“Consider the possibility,” Sir Stuart said. “There is something unusual about this one.”</p>

→<p class="fmtx1">“Incorrect,” Sir Stuart interrupted. “Summon him. That shouldn’t be difficult—if he is just one more deluded shade.”</p>

→<p class="fmtx1">“It doesn’t matter,” Mort said. “There’s no real way to know.”</p>

→<p class="fmtx1">Sir Stuart snorted through his nose. “A fair point.”</p>

→<p class="fmtx1">“Hell’s bells, Morty,” I said. “Next you’ll be telling me that I didn’t even meet his shade. That I deluded myself into deluding myself into deluding him into deluding me that I made the whole thing up.”</p>

→<p class="fmtx1">“Or maybe Jack Murphy’s shade is simply more deluded than most, and has a talent for nurturing the delusions of other new shades.”</p>

→<p class="fmtx1">Mort didn’t meet Sir Stuart’s eyes. He grunted, a sound that wasn’t exactly agreement.</p>

→<p class="fmtx1">“Head detective of the Black Cats a generation ago,” Stuart continued. “Killed himself at his desk. Sometimes new shades show up claiming they’ve had a run-in with him, and that he brought them back from the hereafter. And you know that he is no deluded fool.”</p>

→<p class="fmtx1">Both Mortimer and I glared at Sir Stuart and then settled slowly back from the confrontation.</p>

→<p class="fmtx1">Mort bristled, his jaw muscles clenching. “Oh yeah? Bring it, Too-Tall. I’ll kick your bodiless ass.”</p>

→<p class="fmtx1">I felt my temper flare. “If I didn’t go right through you, I would totally pop you in the nose right now.”</p>