Richard wrote a diary entry in his head.
_Dear Diary,_ he began. _On Friday I had a job, a fiancee, a home, and a life that made sense. (Well, as much as any life makes sense.) Then I found an injured girl bleeding on the pavement, and I tried to be a Good Samaritan. Now I've got no fiancee, no home, no job, and I'm walking around a couple of hundred feet under the streets of London with the projected life expectancy1 of a suicidal fruit fly._ "This way," said the marquis, gesturing elegantly, his filthy2 lace cuff3 flowing.
"Don't all these tunnels look the same?" asked Richard, tabling his diary entry for the moment. "How can you tell which is which?"
"You can't," said the marquis, sadly. "We're hopelessly lost. We'll never be seen again. In a couple of days we'll be killing4 each other for food."
"Really?" He hated himself for rising to the bait, even as he said it.
"No." The marquis's expression said that torturing this poor fool was too easy to even be amusing. Richard found that he cared less and less what these people thought of him, however. Except, perhaps, for Door.
He went back to writing his mental diary. _There are hundreds of people in this other London. Thousands maybe. People who come from here, or people who have fallen through the cracks. I'm wandering around with a girl called Door, her bodyguard5, and her psychotic grand vizier. We slept last night in a small tunnel that Door said was once a section of Regency sewer6. The bodyguard was awake when I went to sleep, and awake when they woke me up. I don't think she ever sleeps. We had some fruitcake for breakfast; the marquis had a large lump of it in his pocket. Why would anyone have a large lump of fruitcake in his pocket? My shoes dried out mostly while I slept._
_I want to go home._ Then he mentally underlined the last sentence three times, rewrote it in huge letters in red ink, and circled it before putting a number of exclamation7 marks next to it in his mental margin8.
At least the tunnel they were now walking down was dry. It was a high-tech9 tunnel: all silvery pipes and white walls. The marquis and Door walked together, in front. Richard tended to stay a couple of paces behind them. Hunter moved about: sometimes she was behind them, sometimes to one side of them or to the other, often a little way in front, merging10 with the shadows. She made no sound when she moved, which Richard found rather disconcerting.
There was a crack of light ahead of them. "There we go," said the marquis. "Bank Station. Good place to start looking."
"You're out of your mind," said Richard. He did not mean it to be heard, but the most _sotto_ of _voces_ carried and echoed in the darkness.
"Indeed?" said the marquis. The ground began to rumble11: an Underground train was somewhere close at hand.
"Richard, just leave it," said Door.
But it was coming out of his mouth: "Well," he said. "You're both being silly. There are no such things as angels."
The marquis nodded, said, "Ah. Yes. I understand you now. There are no such things as angels. Just as there is no London Below, no rat-speakers, no shepherds in Shepherd's Bush."
"There are _no_ shepherds in Shepherd's Bush. I've been there. It's just houses and stores and roads and the BBC. That's all," pointed12 out Richard, flatly.
"There are shepherds," said Hunter, from the darkness just next to Richard's ear. "Pray you never meet them." She sounded perfectly13 serious.
"Well," said Richard, "I still don't believe that there are flocks of angels wandering about down here."
"There aren't," said the marquis. "Just one." They had reached the end of the tunnel. There was a locked door in front of them. The marquis stood back. "My lady?" he said, to Door. She rested a hand on it, for a moment. The door opened, silently.
"Maybe," Richard said, persisting, "we're thinking of different things. The angels I have in mind are all wings, haloes, trumpets14, peace-on-earth-goodwill-unto-men."
"That's right," said Door. "You got it. Angels." They went through the door. Richard shut his eyes, involuntarily, at the sudden flood of light: it stabbed into his head like a migraine. As his eyes became used to the light, Richard found, to his surprise, that he knew where he was: they were in the long pedestrian tunnel that links Monument and Bank Tube stations. There were commuters wandering through the tunnels, none of whom gave the four of them even a first look. The perky wail15 of a saxophone echoed along the tunnel: Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "I'll Never Fall In Love Again," being played more or less competently. They walked toward Bank Station.
"Who are we looking for again, then?" he asked, more or less innocently. "The Angel Gabriel? Raphael? Michael?"
They were passing a Tube map. The marquis tapped Angel Station with one long dark finger: Islington.
Richard had passed through Angel Station hundreds of times. It was in trendy Islington, a district filled with antique shops and places to eat. He knew very little about angels, but he was almost certain that Islington's tube stop was named after a pub, or a landmark16. He changed the subject. "You know, when I tried to get on a Tube train a couple of days ago, it wouldn't let me."
"You just have to let them know who's boss, that's all," said Hunter, softly, from behind him.
Door chewed her lower lip. "This train we're looking for will let us on," she said. "If we can find it." Her words were almost drowned out by music coming from somewhere nearby. They went down a handful of steps and turned a corner.
The saxophone player had his coat in front of him, on the floor of the tunnel. On the coat were a few coins, which looked as if the man had placed them there himself to persuade passersby17 that everyone was doing it. Nobody was fooled.
The saxophone player was extremely tall; he had shoulder-length dark hair and a long, forked dark beard, which framed deep-set eyes and a serious nose. He wore a ragged18 T-shirt and oil-stained blue jeans. As the travelers reached him, he stopped playing, shook the spit from the saxophone mouthpiece, replaced it, and sounded the first notes the old Julie London song, "Cry Me A River."
_Now, you say you're sorry . . . _
Richard realized, with surprise, that the man could see them--and also that he was doing his best to pretend that he couldn't. The marquis stopped in front of him. The wail of the saxophone trailed off in a nervous squeak19. The marquis flashed a cold grin. "It's Lear, isn't it?" he asked.
The man nodded, warily20. His fingers stroked the keys of his saxophone. "We're looking for Earl's Court," continued the marquis. "Would you happen to have such a thing as a train schedule about your person?"
Richard was beginning to catch on. He assumed that the Earl's Court he referred to wasn't the familiar Tube station he had waited in innumerable times, reading a paper, or just daydreaming21. The man named Lear moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. " 'S not impossible. What'd be in it for me, if I did?"
The marquis thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his coat. Then he smiled, like a cat who had just been entrusted22 with the keys to a home for wayward but plump canaries. "They say," he said, idly, as if he were simply passing the time, "that Merlin's master Blaise once wrote a reel so beguiling23 that it would charm the coins from the pockets of anyone who heard it."
Lear's eyes narrowed. "That'd be worth more than just a train schedule," he said. "If you actually had it."
The marquis did a perfectly good impression of someone realizing, _my, it would, wouldn't it?_ "Well, then," he said, magnanimously, "I suppose you would have to owe me, wouldn't you?"
Lear nodded, reluctantly. He fumbled24 in his back pocket, pulled out a much-folded scrap25 of paper, and held it up. The marquis reached for it. Lear moved his hand away. "Let me hear the reel first, you old trickster," he said. "And it had better work."
The marquis raised an eyebrow26. He darted27 a hand into, one of the inside pockets of his coat; when he pulled it out again it was holding a pennywhistle and a small crystal ball. He looked at the crystal ball, made the kind of "hmmm" noise that means, "ah, so that's where that went," and he put it away again. Then he flexed28 his fingers, put the pennywhistle to his lips, and began to play an odd, rollicking tune29 that leapt and twisted and sang. It made Richard feel as if he were thirteen years old again, listening to the Top Twenty on his best friend's transistor30 radio at school during lunch hour, back when pop music had mattered as it only can in your early teenage years: the marquis's reel was everything he had ever wanted to hear in a song . . .
A handful of coins chinked onto Lear's coat, thrown by passers-by, who walked on with a smile on their faces and a spring in their step. The marquis lowered his pennywhistle. "I owe you, then, you old rascal," said Lear, nodding.
"Yes. You do." The marquis took the paper--the train schedule--from Lear, and scanned it, and nodded. "But a word to the wise. Don't overuse it. A little goes a very long way."
And the four of them walked away, down the long corridor, surrounded by posters advertising31 films and underwear, and the occasional official-looking notices warning musicians playing for coins to move away from the station, listening to the sob32 of the saxophone, and to the sound of money landing on a coat.
The marquis led them to a Central Line platform. Richard walked over to the edge of the platform and looked down. He wondered, as he always did, which one the live rail was; and decided33, as he always did, that it was the one farthest from the platform, with the large whitish porcelain34 insulators35, between it and the ground; and then he found himself smiling, involuntarily, at a tiny dark gray mouse who was bravely prowling the tracks, three feet below him, in a mousy, quest for abandoned sandwiches and dropped potato chips.
A voice came over the loudspeaker, that formal, disembodied male voice that warned "Mind the Gap." It was intended to keep unwary passengers from stepping into the space between the train and the platform. Richard, like most Londoners, barely heard it anymore--it was like aural36 wallpaper. But suddenly, Hunter's hand was on his arm. "Mind the Gap," she said urgently, to Richard. "Stand back over there. By the wall."
"What?" said Richard.
"I _said,"_ said Hunter, "mind the--"
And then it erupted over the side of the platform. It was diaphanous37, dreamlike, a ghost-thing, the color of black smoke, and it welled up like silk under water, and, moving astonishingly fast while still seeming to drift almost in slow motion, it wrapped itself tightly around Richard's ankle. It stung, even through the fabric38 of his Levi's. The thing pulled him toward the edge of the platform, and he staggered.
He realized, as if from a distance, that Hunter had pulled out her staff and was smacking39 the tentacle40 of smoke with it, hard, repeatedly.
There was a faraway screaming noise, thin and mindless, like an idiot child deprived of its toy. The smoke-tentacle let go of Richard's ankle and slid back over the edge of the platform, and it was gone. Hunter took Richard by the scruff of the neck and pulled him toward the back wall, where Richard slumped41 against it. He was trembling, and the world seemed suddenly utterly42 unreal. The color had been sucked from his jeans wherever the thing had touched him, making them look as if they'd been ineptly43 bleached44. He pulled up the trouser leg: tiny purple welts were coming up on the skin of his ankle and calf45. "What . . . " he tried to say, but nothing came out. He swallowed, and tried again. "What was that?"
Hunter looked down at him impassively. Her face could have been carved from brown wood. "I don't think it has a name," she said. "They live in the gaps. I did warn you."
"I've . . . never seen one before."
"You weren't part of the Underside before," said Hunter. "Just wait by the wall. It's safer."
The marquis was checking the time on a large gold pocket-watch. He returned it to his waistcoat pocket, consulted the paper Lear had given him, and nodded, satisfied. "We're in luck," he pronounced. "The Earl's Court train should be coming through here in about half an hour."
"Earl's Court Station isn't on the Central Line," pointed out Richard.
The marquis stared at Richard, openly amused. "What a refreshing46 mind you have, young man," he said. "There really is nothing quite like total ignorance, is there?"
The warm wind began to blow. An Underground train pulled up at the station. People got off and other people got on, going about the business of their lives, and Richard watched them with envy. "Mind the Gap," intoned the recorded voice. "Stand clear of the doors. Mind the Gap." Door took one look at Richard. Then, apparently47 worried about what she was seeing, she walked over to him, and she took his hand. He was very pale, and his breath was coming shallow and fast. "Mind the Gap," boomed the recorded voice again. "I'm fine," lied Richard bravely, to no one in particular.
The central courtyard of Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar's hospital was a dank and cheerless place. Ragged grass grew up through the abandoned desks, rubber tires, and bits of office furniture. The overall impression given by the area was that a decade before (perhaps out of boredom48, perhaps out of frustration49, perhaps even as a statement, or as performance art) a number of people had thrown the contents of their offices out of their windows, high above, and had left them there on the ground to rot.
There was broken glass there, as well, broken glass in abundance. There were also several mattresses50, some of which looked like they had at some point been set on fire. Grass grew up through the springs. An entire ecology had evolved around the ornamental51 fountain in the center of the well, which had for a long time been neither particularly ornamental nor a fountain. A cracked and leaking water pipe nearby had, with the aid of some rainwater, transformed it into a breeding ground for a number of little frogs who plopped about cheerfully, rejoicing in their freedom from any non-airborne natural predators52. Crows and blackbirds and even occasional seagulls, however, regarded the place as a cat-free delicatessen, specializing in frogs.
Slugs sprawled53 indolently under the springs of the burnt mattresses; snails54 left slime trails across the broken glass; large black beetles55 scuttled56 industriously57 over smashed gray plastic telephones and mysteriously mutilated Barbie dolls.
Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar had come up for a change of air. They were walking slowly around the perimeter58 of the central yard, broken glass crunching59 beneath their feet; they looked like shadows in their frayed60 black suits. Mr. Croup was in a cold fury. He was walking twice as fast as Mr. Vandemar, circling him, and almost dancing in his anger. At times, as if unable to contain the rage inside, Mr. Croup would fling himself at the hospital wall, physically61 attack it with his fists and feet, as if it were a poor substitute for a real person. Mr. Vandemar, on the other hand, simply walked. It was too consistent, too steady and inexorable a walk to be described as a stroll: Death walked like Mr. Vandemar. Mr. Vandemar watched Mr. Croup, impassively, as Mr. Croup kicked a sheet of glass that had been leaning against a wall. It shattered with a satisfying crash.
"I, Mister Vandemar," said Mr. Croup, surveying the wreckage62, "I, for one, have had almost as much as I'm willing to take. Almost. Pussyfooting, trifling63, lollygagging, shilly-shallying . . . whey-faced toad--I could pop out his eyes with my thumbs . . . "
Mr. Vandemar shook his head. "Not yet," he said. "He's our boss. For this job. After we've been paid, maybe we could have some fun on our own time." Mr. Croup spat64 on the ground. "He's a worthless, conniving65 dunderhead . . . We should butcher the bitch. Annul66, cancel, inhume, and amortize67 her."
A telephone began to ring, loudly. Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar looked around, puzzled. Eventually Mr. Vandemar found the telephone, halfway68 down a pile of rubble69 on top of a scree of water-stained medical records. Broken wires trailed from the back of it. He picked it up and passed it to Mr. Croup. "For you," he said. Mr. Vandemar did not like telephones.
"Mister Croup here," said Croup. Then, obsequiously70, "Oh. It's you, sir . . . " A pause. "At present, as you requested, she is walking around, free as a daisy. I'm afraid your bodyguard idea went down like a dead baboon71 . . . Varney? Yes, he's quite dead." Another pause.
"Sir, I am commencing to have certain conceptual problems with the role of myself and my partner in these shenanigans." There was a third pause, and Mr. Croup went paler than pale. "Unprofessional?" he asked, mildly. "Us?" He curled his hand into a fist, which he slammed, hard, into the side of a brick wall. There was no change, however, in his tone of voice as he said, "Sir. Might I with due respect remind you that Mister Vandemar and myself burned down the City of Troy? We brought the Black Plague to Flanders. We have assassinated72 a dozen kings, five popes, half a hundred heroes and two accredited73 gods. Our last commission before this was the torturing to death of an entire monastery74 in sixteenth-century Tuscany. We are _utterly_ professional."
Mr. Vandemar, who had been amusing himself by catching75 little frogs and seeing how many he could stuff into his mouth at a time, said, with his mouth full, "I liked doing that . . . "
"My point?" asked Mr. Croup, and he flicked76 some imaginary dust from his threadbare black suit, ignoring the real dust as he did so. "My point is that we are assassins. We are cutthroats. We kill." He listened to something, then said, "Well, what about the Upworlder? Why can't we kill him?" Mr. Croup twitched77, spat once more, and kicked the wall, as he stood there holding the rust-stained, half-broken telephone.
"_Scare her?_ We're cutthroats, not scarecrows." A pause. He took a deep breath. "Yes, I understand, but I don't like it." The person at the other end of the phone had hung up. Mr. Croup looked down at the telephone. Then he hefted it in one hand and proceeded methodically to smash it into shards78 of plastic and metal by banging it against the wall.
Mr. Vandemar walked over. He had found a large black slug with a bright orange underbelly, and he was chewing it, like a fat cigar. The slug was trying to crawl away down Mr. Vandemar's chin. "Who was that?" asked Mr. Vandemar.
"Who the hell do you think it was?"
Mr. Vandemar chewed, thoughtfully, then sucked the slug into his mouth. "A scarecrow man?" he ventured.
"Our employer."
"That was going to be my next guess."
"Scarecrows," spat Mr. Croup, disgusted. He was moving from a red rage to an oily gray sulk.
Mr. Vandemar swallowed the contents of his mouth and wiped his lips on his sleeve. "Best way to scare crows," said Mr. Vandemar, "you just creep up behind them and put your hand round their little crow necks and squeeze until they don't move anymore. That scares the stuffing out of them."
And then he was silent; and from far above they heard the sound of crows flying, cawing angrily.
"Crows. Family _Corvidae._ Collective noun," intoned Mr. Croup, relishing80 the sound of the word, "a murder."
Richard waited against the wall, next to Door. She said very little; she chewed her fingernails, ran her hands through her reddish hair until it was sticking up in all directions, then tried to push it back down again. She was certainly unlike anyone he had ever known. When she noticed him looking at her, she shrugged81 and shimmied down further into her layers of clothes, deeper into her leather jacket. Her face looked out at the world from inside the jacket. The expression on her face made Richard think of a beautiful homeless child he had seen, the previous winter, behind Covent Garden: he had not been certain whether it was a girl or a boy. Its mother was begging, pleading with the passers-by for coins to feed the child and the infant that she carried in her arms. But the child stared out at the world and said nothing, although it must have been cold and hungry. It just stared.
Hunter stood by Door, looking back and forth82 down the platform. The marquis had told them where to wait, and then he had slipped away. From somewhere, Richard heard a baby begin to cry. The marquis slipped out of an exit-only door and walked toward them. He was chewing on a piece of candy.
"Having fun?" asked Richard. A train was coming toward them, its approach heralded83 by a gust79 of warm wind.
"Just taking care of business," said the marquis. He consulted the piece of paper and his watch. He pointed to a place on the platform. "This should be the Earl's Court train. Stand behind me here, you three." Then, as the Underground train--a rather boring-looking, normal train, Richard was disappointed to observe--rumbled and rattled84 its way into the station, the marquis leaned across Richard and said to Door, "My lady? There is something that perhaps I should have mentioned earlier."
She turned her odd-colored eyes on him. "Yes?"
"Well," he said, "the earl might not be _entirely_ pleased to see me."
The train slowed down and stopped. The car that had pulled up in front of Richard was quite empty: its lights were turned off, it was bleak85 and empty and dark. From time to time Richard had noticed cars like this one, locked and shadowy, on Tube trains, and he had wondered what purpose they served. The other doors on the train hissed86 open, and passengers got on and got off. The doors of the darkened car remained closed. The marquis drummed on the door with his fist, an intricate rhythmic87 rap. Nothing happened. Richard was just wondering if the train would now pull out without them on it, when the door of the dark car was pushed open from the inside. It opened about six inches, and an elderly, bespectacled face peered out at them.
"Who knocks?" he said.
Through the opening, Richard could see flames burning, and people, and smoke inside the car. Through the glass in the doors, however, he still saw a dark and empty carriage. "The Lady Door," announced the marquis, smoothly88, "and her companions."
The door slid open all the way, and they were inside Earl's Court.
收听单词发音 |
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expectancy
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| n.期望，预期，（根据概率统计求得）预期数额 | |
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filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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cuff
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| n.袖口；手铐；护腕；vt.用手铐铐；上袖口 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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bodyguard
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| n.护卫，保镖 | |
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sewer
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| n.排水沟，下水道 | |
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exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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high-tech
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merging
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| 合并（分类） | |
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rumble
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| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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trumpets
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| 喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 )； 小号； 喇叭形物； （尤指）绽开的水仙花 | |
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wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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landmark
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| n.陆标，划时代的事，地界标 | |
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passersby
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| n. 过路人(行人,经过者) | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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squeak
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| n.吱吱声，逃脱；v.（发出）吱吱叫，侥幸通过；（俚）告密 | |
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warily
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| adv.留心地 | |
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daydreaming
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| v.想入非非，空想( daydream的现在分词 ) | |
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entrusted
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| v.委托，托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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beguiling
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| adj.欺骗的，诱人的v.欺骗( beguile的现在分词 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等） | |
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fumbled
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| （笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下 | |
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scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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eyebrow
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| n.眉毛，眉 | |
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darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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flexed
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| adj.[医]曲折的，屈曲v.屈曲( flex的过去式和过去分词 )；弯曲；（为准备大干而）显示实力；摩拳擦掌 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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transistor
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| n.晶体管，晶体管收音机 | |
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advertising
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| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
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sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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porcelain
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| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
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insulators
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| 绝缘、隔热或隔音等的物质或装置( insulator的名词复数 ) | |
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aural
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| adj.听觉的，听力的 | |
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diaphanous
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| adj.(布)精致的，半透明的 | |
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fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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smacking
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| 活泼的，发出响声的，精力充沛的 | |
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40
tentacle
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| n.触角，触须，触手 | |
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41
slumped
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| 大幅度下降，暴跌( slump的过去式和过去分词 )； 沉重或突然地落下[倒下] | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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ineptly
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| adv. 不适当地，无能地 | |
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bleached
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| 漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的 | |
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calf
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| n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮 | |
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refreshing
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| adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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boredom
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| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
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frustration
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| n.挫折，失败，失效，落空 | |
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mattresses
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| 褥垫，床垫( mattress的名词复数 ) | |
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ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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predators
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| n.食肉动物( predator的名词复数 )；奴役他人者（尤指在财务或性关系方面） | |
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sprawled
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| v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的过去式和过去分词)；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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snails
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| n.蜗牛；迟钝的人；蜗牛( snail的名词复数 ) | |
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beetles
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| n.甲虫( beetle的名词复数 ) | |
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scuttled
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| v.使船沉没( scuttle的过去式和过去分词 )；快跑，急走 | |
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industriously
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perimeter
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| n.周边，周长，周界 | |
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crunching
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| v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的现在分词 )；嘎吱作响；（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄 | |
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frayed
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| adj.磨损的v.（使布、绳等）磨损，磨破( fray的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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wreckage
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| n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏 | |
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trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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conniving
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| v.密谋 ( connive的现在分词 )；搞阴谋；默许；纵容 | |
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annul
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| v.宣告…无效，取消，废止 | |
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amortize
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| v.分期偿还 | |
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halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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rubble
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| n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾 | |
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obsequiously
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baboon
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| n.狒狒 | |
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assassinated
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| v.暗杀( assassinate的过去式和过去分词 )；中伤；诋毁；破坏 | |
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accredited
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| adj.可接受的；可信任的；公认的；质量合格的v.相信( accredit的过去式和过去分词 )；委托；委任；把…归结于 | |
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monastery
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| n.修道院，僧院，寺院 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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twitched
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| vt.& vi.（使）抽动，（使）颤动（twitch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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shards
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| n.（玻璃、金属或其他硬物的）尖利的碎片( shard的名词复数 ) | |
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gust
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| n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发 | |
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relishing
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| v.欣赏( relish的现在分词 )；从…获得乐趣；渴望 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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82
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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83
heralded
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| v.预示( herald的过去式和过去分词 )；宣布（好或重要） | |
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84
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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85
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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86
hissed
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| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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87
rhythmic
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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