"Banks, L A - Vampire Huntress 3 - 2004 - Hunted" - читать интересную книгу автора (Banks L. A)

THE HUNTED
Vampire Huntress 3
By
L. A. Banks

First Edition: June 2004



Prologue



On the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Present day

The American embassy official turned away from the grisly sight, bent over, dry
heaved twice, then lost his lunch. Two American CIA investigators posing as
embassy military police mopped their brows in the dense humidity, the smell of
old, rotting flesh and new vomit making their skin go pale. The stench was so
thick that it practically blurred the vision of those assembled. The befouled
air could almost be seen rising on translucent waves of heat. The villagers kept
their distance, and even the Brazilian police were slow to move too close to the
carnage.
Four bodies lay in a mangled heap. Three men, one womanЧtheir throats and limbs
missing, their abdominal cavities gutted, with huge hunks of torn fleshЧwere
scattered across the ground. Within the heat-liquefied slurry, there was a mass
of flies buzzing, larva writhing, and beetles skittering for cover in the
three-day-old flesh. Disturbed buzzards waited their turn to feast again from
their patient posts in the trees. Twenty local farmers that had found the dead
shook their heads and made the sign of the cross over their chests, while
murmuring, "Cuidado, por favor! DiabloЧExu." The crowd was growing behind the
police barricade.
"This wasn't the damn Devil," a CIA operative muttered. "Although I can see the
locals' point. These folks definitely died a helluva awful death."
The embassy official only nodded, still trying to regain his composure.
Investigators stared at the khaki safari clothing torn away at the chest down to
the abdomen on each body, making the fabric dark, muddy brown, and stiff.
Removed entrails torn from the gaping abdominal cavities had been snatched away
so brutally that bits of splintered ribs littered the ground next to each
victim. Dead hands paralyzed with rigor mortis still clasped hunting knives,
while cameras and other equipment scattered the area. Mouths were still frozen
open in silent screams, gums and tongues picked away by wretched scavenger
beaks. Only one skull still had eyes left in it, which were open and glassy and
stared at the sepia-stained earth.
"The buzzards missed one," the other CIA man said and then glanced away toward
the trees. His pale face had gone ashen even under the blaring sun, and his
blond hair was matted and stained dark by sweat not generated from the heat but
pure fear. He tried to summon calm as he straightened his red-and-blue rep tie,
and loosened his white button-down Oxford shirt at the collar, opening the top
button, then wiped his hands on the pockets of his navy blue suit. "Rebels sure