Читать книгу The Demon Road Trilogy: The Complete Collection: Demon Road; Desolation; American Monsters - Derek Landy - Страница 22

AMBER DARTED BEHIND A tree, as much to hide her nakedness as her black horns. Behind cover, she cursed silently, and immediately started looking around for an escape route. There was no way she could get away without being seen. Her only hope was that the person, whoever it was, would be freaked out enough to run away, but not freaked out enough to report the sighting.

She saw the face again in her mind. Shaggy hair – light brown. A boy. No, a young man. Maybe eighteen or nineteen.

“Hello?”

Amber stiffened.

“Hello? Miss?”

She shut her eyes and didn’t reply. Silence, she decided, was her best option at this point.

“I know you’re there,” the boy said. He had an accent. English? Scottish? “I saw you run behind the tree. You know I saw you. I don’t get why you’re pretending you’re not there.”

No. Irish. That was it.

“This is getting a little bit silly,” he continued. “This is like when my little cousins play hide-and-seek and they close their eyes because they think that makes them invisible. You … You’re not closing your eyes, are you?”

Amber hesitated, then opened her eyes, and cursed silently again.

“I didn’t mean to peek,” he said. “My name’s Glen. Glen Morrison. I was just passing, and … Well, no, that’s not strictly true. Sorry, I don’t want to start off on a lie, you know? The truth is, I’ve been sleeping here for the past few nights. In these woods. I’m temporarily between abodes, and my financial situation is not what one might call robust. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, though. I’m not lazy. I didn’t come over to your country to scam the system or anything like that. I do have prospects. Well, I had prospects. It’s a very long story, and I wouldn’t want to trouble you with—”

“Glen,” Amber said.

There was a pause, and then, “You’re talking!”

“I am,” said Amber. “Glen, I’m naked.”

She could practically hear him nod. “I noticed. I mean, oh God, I mean I couldn’t help but notice that you were … that you had no … that you were, uh … oh man, what’s the word?”

“Naked,” Amber prompted.

“Yes, thank you. Naked. You are naked, yes.”

“And since I’m naked, Glen, I find having a conversation with a complete stranger a little weird. You know?”

“Oh, I do,” Glen said, with an assurance that made it sound like it was a situation he found himself in regularly.

“I’m not sure that you do, Glen.”

“Probably not,” he admitted. “But, if it makes you feel any better, you don’t have anything to feel embarrassed about.”

“You’re not helping, Glen.”

“Sorry. I like your horns, though. Is that rude? Can I say that?”

“Glen … would you please go away?”

“Oh,” he said. “Oh. But … Yeah. I mean … right. Sure. Of course. You’re naked. You want to be alone. I come along, you feel self-conscious. Obviously. That’s natural. That’s perfectly natural. I’m intruding upon your special me time.”

“And when you go away,” Amber said, “could you please not tell anyone about this? About me?”

“Sure,” he said, sounding disappointed. “Okay. Well, I suppose I’ll just … head off, then.”

“Thank you,” Amber called.

She waited to hear his retreating footsteps, then waited a bit longer.

“Glen,” she said, “are you still there?”

“Yeah,” he answered. “Listen, I don’t want you to think any less of me, all right? But … but I may need to check your clothes and steal any money you might have.”

Amber’s eyes snapped wide. “What?”

“I just don’t want this to make things weird between us,” he said, and then came the sound of rustling fabric as her shorts were lifted off the ground.

“Do not rob me,” she called.

“I’m really sorry.”

“Do not frikkin’ rob me, you little creep!”

“I feel really bad about this.”

She pictured him rifling through her pockets, his grubby little hand closing around the roll of cash she’d put in there. She concentrated on growing those scales again, and felt her skin begin to tighten. Then she heard a sharp intake of breath. Glen had found the money.

The scales didn’t cover her entire body but they did enough to protect her modesty. Anger boiling, she lunged out from behind the tree, but her horns got tangled in the branches and her feet flew from under her, and she crashed heavily to the ground. She felt some of the scales retract. Glen stared down at her, open-mouthed.

“Wow,” he whispered.

She snarled, showing him her fangs, and his eyes went wide. He dropped the money and spun, but Amber was right behind him, faster than he could ever hope to be. She grabbed the collar of his jacket and he shrieked as he was launched backwards.

“Do you know what I’ve just done?” she growled as she stalked after him. “I’ve just broken some poor woman’s bones in the gas station. I threw her around like she was nothing and then I went for a goddamn swim. You think I’d hesitate for even one moment before I ripped your throat out for robbing me?”

Glen scrambled back on all fours. “Please, I didn’t mean anything!”

“You meant to steal from me.”

“I’m starving!”

She leaped, landing on top of him in a crouch, her right hand closing round his neck and pinning him to the ground. “Not my problem.”

He looked up at her, tears in his eyes, and those tears just made her angrier. She wanted nothing more than to grow talons, to feel them slice into the soft meat, to sink her teeth in, to feel that warm blood flow down her …

She blinked. Wait, what?

She loosened her grip. The impulse to tear his throat open was rapidly receding.

“Are you going to kill me?” he whispered.

“No,” she said dully, and stood. “No, I’m … I’m not going to kill you. I wanted to. I was going to. But …”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” he said. “Something’s going to kill me sooner or later. Most likely sooner, to be honest. If I had a choice, I’d prefer it to be you.”

Amber took a few steps back, then turned, walked to her clothes. She let her scales retract fully as she pulled them on, ignoring the uncomfortable feeling of dry fabric on wet skin. Still frowning to herself, she sat on a log to wipe the soles of her feet before putting on her socks and sneakers.

“Your clothes don’t fit you, y’know,” Glen said.

He was tall and skinny, scruffy but not bad-looking. He bent to pick up her roll of money and she bared her teeth. He walked over slowly and held out his hand.

Amber finished tying her laces and stood, taking her money without a word and stuffing it back into her pocket.

“You should probably invest in a wallet,” he said.

“Shut up, Glen,” said Amber.

He nodded. “Yeah. That’s fair.”

She turned away from him, hiked her shorts up to her waist, and started walking back towards the gas station.

He caught up to her. “Can I ask a question, though? What are you?”

“What do I look like?”

“Honestly? A demon.”

“Then there you have it.”

He nodded. “You’d think that’d shock me, right? Meeting a demon? A few weeks ago, it would have, but my life has taken a pretty weird turn lately, so I’ve adopted a policy of complete and utter credulity in all things. It saves everyone a lot of time. These days I don’t ask for proof or reasons or anything. I just accept. That doesn’t mean I’m not curious, of course. I’m very curious. I mean, look at you. A real live demon, just walking around. Do you live down here?”

“Down where?”

“Here. In the woods.”

She frowned. “Are you stupid? Why would I live in the woods?”

“Well, I just thought, y’know …”

“Stop following me.”

“Okay. Right. But can I ask another question? Why do you have money? How do you buy stuff?”

She stopped walking and turned to him. “How do you think I buy stuff? I walk into a store and say I want something and I pay for it.”

He frowned. “You walk into a shop like that?”

She remembered her appearance. “Oh,” she said. “No. This is new. I’m still getting used to it. I keep forgetting I have horns.”

“They are magnificent,” he breathed, staring at them.

“Eyes down here, Glen.”

“Yes, sorry.” He blushed. “You’re … Sorry. You’re just the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. Like, prettier than most actresses and models, even.”

Amber grunted, and started walking again. “This isn’t the real me.”

“No, it is,” Glen said, matching her pace. “Like, you’re beautiful in a way that I’ve never seen before. Everything about you, your face, your horns, your amazing teeth, your skin that’s my favourite shade of red, your legs, your body, your—”

“You can stop anytime now.”

“I’m not scared,” he said. “You might think I’m scared of you because you’re a demon and most people would be scared of demons, and that’s why you put up this wall, to reject others before they reject you, but I’m really not scared. You’re not scary. You’re beautiful, not ugly. And I’ve seen some ugly things. I mean, I really have. Back in Ireland, I was attacked by this, by this creature, you know? It passed something on to me, the Deathmark. Wanna see it?”

“Not really.”

He held out his right hand, proudly showing her his palm. Just below the surface of his skin, a tendril of darkness circled like a fish in a bowl. “Isn’t it freaky? Ever since it happened, I’ve been meeting the oddest people. I met this guy in Dublin, this real weird guy, knows all about monsters and stuff. He said this thing will kill me in forty days if I don’t pass it on to its intended target. That was, like, thirty-two days ago.”

“You’re going to die in eight days?” said Amber, frowning.

He nodded, and seemed oddly unbothered about it. “Unless I pass this mark on to a woman called Abigail. Apparently, she’s a bad person. Like, really bad. Killed a lot of people, that kind of bad. I’ll be doing the world a favour by passing this on to her. That’s what I was told. She’s supposed to be in a bar here in America that I haven’t been able to find – The Dark Stair. You know it?”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, me neither. I looked it up online and nothing. I don’t even know what state it’s in. Maybe I’ll find it, maybe I won’t, but I’m here now, y’know? If I die, I want to die here. I want to see bigger things before I go, better things than the creature that attacked me. I want to see proper monsters. American monsters. I didn’t think I’d see anything as beautiful as you, though.”

“Right,” said Amber. “Well, I better get going.”

“Where are you off to?”

“Oh, uh, Springton. It’s in Wisconsin. We have to find someone.”

“We? Who’s we? You and your boyfriend?”

“No, no. He’s a … he’s a guide, I guess.”

“A guide to what?”

“Um …”

Glen’s eyes widened. “Are you on the Demon Road?”

She hesitated. “No.”

“You are!”

“We’re not.”

Glen was practically dancing in excitement. “I’m on the Demon Road, too! The guy, the weird guy, he said I should get on the Demon Road while I still had the chance, to see all the horrors the world had to offer. We’re on the same road! What are the chances? Do you have a car?”

“No,” Amber said automatically. Then, “I mean, I don’t, personally. My friend does.”

“Yeah? Do you think he’d let me tag along, like?”

“I … I don’t mean to offend you or anything, but probably not. He doesn’t know you and you did try to steal my money.”

“I gave it back, though.”

“Only after I caught you.”

“That’s true. But don’t you think this is meant to be? I mean, what are the chances, really, of us meeting like this? Two people like us, cursed by darkness, meeting on the Demon Road?”

“According to my guide, they’re actually pretty good.”

“Oh. Really? Oh. Well, could you still ask him if there’s room for one more?”

“Glen, you tried to rob me.”

“Which turned out to be a mistake.”

“And we’re on a very dangerous journey, to be honest. We’ve got people coming after us and we’re probably headed straight into even more danger, so I think it’d work out better for you if we just say goodbye here and now.”

“But I don’t have any other friends.”

“You and me aren’t friends, Glen.”

He looked dismayed. “So I have no friends?”

“I have to get going.”

She started walking again.

“I could help,” he called after her. “And I wouldn’t be a burden. I’d carry things, and I’d sit in the back and I wouldn’t say anything, unless you needed me to say something, in which case I obviously would. Does your radio work? I could sing if it doesn’t. I know a lot of songs. I don’t have the best voice in the world and I might not remember every single one of the lyrics, or sing them in the right order, but I can carry a tune and I’ll just make up the bits I forget. My dad used to do that all the time. It was like a gift he had, you know? Only he wasn’t very good at it. I’m much better.”

His voice eventually started to fade, and Amber left him behind. As she neared the edge of the woods, she focused on shifting back. What had Imelda called it? Reverting, that was it. She concentrated on her breathing, on calming down, on becoming her again, and, just when she thought it wasn’t going to happen, an explosion of pain rocked her, made her stumble.

She put her shoulder to a tree and stayed there, blinking, her brown hair falling across her brow. She looked at her hand and noted the normal skin. She looked down and noted that her clothes fitted her once again. So that was normal, too, then.

Great.