[Oxrun Station] The Bloodwind Read Online Free PDF

breath when she saw it  was empty. No pink slip. No memo. That had to be a  good sign.
    She grinned self-consciously at herself as she  un wrapped   her muffler, hurried to the near stairwell and   began the climb. Her boots cracked loudly on the metal- tipped stone, the slot-windows at the landing laddering   the floor. The woolen cap was swept off and jammed   into a pocket. Gloves next, and her topcoat unbuttoned. She shivered in spite of the warmth; she held the brass railing though there was plenty of light. She could hear muffled voices, a distant laugh, something falling. And   when she reached the second floor she stopped and listened harder.
    She thought she heard her name. She looked back down, frowning, wondering,  decided  it was nerves.
    Coffee, she prescribed, and rushed along the corridor   that wound round the auditorium's wall, heavy pine  doors inserted there and chain-locked. Around the out side were the lecture halls, offices, and in the back a handful of studios that hadn't been relegated to the  uppermost story.
    She didn't like the silence. It was too expectant. It   seemed to be waiting.
    She wished she had brought Homer; if nothing else  he would make her seem properly foolish.
    Her own   office was at the  lefthand  front corner,  frosted glass on the door and her name typed off-center   on a three-by-five card taped to the dark frame. She   unlocked it, walked in, and before taking off her coat   plugged in a coffee pot she kept filled and ready. Then   she stripped off her coat and hung it on a wall peg.   Thought for a second before slumping into a worn  swivel chair behind her glass-topped desk.   The wall   opposite was shelved to the ceiling, books and papers   and sketch pads in profusion; the wall behind was cov ered with photographs of sculptures she'd taken around   the country, a few tiny oils from her own students and Greg's, sketches of projects she intended to begin when ever she had the time, and a blank space in the center  where Lauren's picture had been tacked until she'd taken it down last summer.
    She sighed wearily, blinked slowly, with a push of  her left hand shoved open the window that overlooked the slope. The cold tightened her arm as it drifted over   the radiator, vanquished the must that had invaded the  room.
    She stared at the trees, at the snow, at the distant road. A long time she'd been looking at that view; and  a corner of her mouth twitched in a half-smile. Thirteen  years, if you count the two  sabbaticals,  and the half- year she saw nothing but the funeral of her child.
    Married at twenty-two, divorced at twenty-seven, be reaved at thirty-one.  A hell of a progression.
    "Knock, knock."
    'Who's there?" she said without turning to the door, refusing to acknowledge the startled jump of her pulse.
    "It's not a joke, Pat. I'm just too lazy to lift my precious hand."
    Greg was tall without slouching, his hair an unkempt   thicket of premature grey that somehow managed to add   youth to a face smooth and slightly flushed. Underneath   an open, paint-soiled smock he wore a blue-splattered   shirt, grey trousers and wide brown belt, and cordovan   shoes that should have been discarded the first time a   brush had dripped across their laces. He was smiling   anxiously, and she waved him in, pointed to the coffee   he poured for them both.
    "This is rotten," he said,  grimacing  his first sip.  "You ready?" He took the bandy-legged wooden chair  she kept by the door.
    "Nope."   She tasted the coffee, spat and put it down.
    "Good. We should do well, don't you think?"
    She swiveled round to face him, delighting in the imp   that seldom strayed from his eyes. "I had an accident last night."
    He frowned. "You didn't say anything when —"
    "I didn't know." She told him about the dent, though   she still didn't tell him about how she had been followed.   No longer convinced of it herself now, she decided she   didn't need