Читать книгу Imajica - Clive Barker, Clive Barker - Страница 18

From the shadows of a doorway on 79th Street, Pie’oh’pah watched John Furie Zacharias emerge from the apartment building, pull the collar of his jacket up around his bare nape, and scan the street north and south, looking for a cab. It was many years since the assassin’s eyes had taken the pleasure they did now, seeing him. In the time between the world had changed in so many ways. But this man looked unchanged. He was a constant, freed from alteration by his own forgetfulness; always new to himself, and therefore ageless. Pie envied him. For Gentle time was a vapour, dissolving hurt and self-knowledge. For Pie it was a sack into which each day, each hour, dropped another stone, bending the spine until it creaked. Nor, until tonight, had he dared entertain any hope of release. But here, walking away down Park Avenue, was a man in whose power it lay to make whole all broken things; even Pie’s wounded spirit. Indeed, especially that. Whether it was chance or the covert workings of the Unbeheld that had brought them together this way, there was surely significance in their reunion.

Minutes before, terrified by the scale of what was unfolding. Pie had attempted to drive Gentle away, and having failed, had fled. Now such fear seemed stupid. What was there to be afraid of? Change? That would be welcome. Revelation? The same. Death? What did an assassin care for death? If it came, it came; it was no reason to turn from opportunity. He shuddered. It was cold here in the doorway; cold in the century too. Especially for a soul like his, that loved the melting season, when the rise of sap and sun made all things seem possible. Until now, he’d given up hope that such a burgeoning time would ever come again. He’d been obliged to commit too many crimes in this joyless world. He’d broken too many hearts. So had they both, most likely. But what if they were obliged to seek that elusive spring for the good of those they’d orphaned and anguished? What if it was their duty to hope? Then his denying of their near-reunion, his fleeing from it, was just another crime to be laid at his feet. Had these lonely years made him a coward? Never.

Clearing his tears, he left the doorstep, and pursued the disappearing figure, daring to believe as he went that there might yet be another spring, and a summer of reconciliation to follow.