"Clive_Barker_Tortured_Souls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barker Clive - Coldheart Canyon)

"No, too theatrical. Shootings are clean and fast. And they don't smell."
"That bothers you?" said Bogoto.
Montefalco shuddered. "I loathe the smell of burning bodies," he said.

II
While the Generals debated the relative merits of this kind of execution or that, Lucidique was sleeping--or attempting to sleep--in the house which her father had built many years ago for her mother. Her slumbers were uneasy. So many memories. So many regrets.
Often in earlier, simpler times, when sleep eluded her, she would go out walking. Now, of course, she could not go by day. The transformation of her body that had been wrought by Agonistes had resulted in a physique which was strong, supple and powerful, but which terrified many who laid eyes on her. When she did go out--even in the blackest night--she did her best to keep to the quiet back-alleys of Primordium where she would not be seen.

Tonight, having given up on sleep, she went wandering in these alleys, and became aware that she was being followed.
After a little distance she sensed the rhythm of the step, and realized that she knew who her pursuer was. It was Zarles Kreiger, the assassin turned Scythe-Meister.
She stopped, and turned.
The Scythe-Meister was standing a little distance from her. His flesh had the same sickly luminescence that hers did; a bacterial brightness that was part of Agonistes' handiwork. The rawer the wounds (and there were parts of both their transformed bodies that were designed to never heal) the brighter the luminescence with which they burned.
"I thought you'd left the city," she said to him.
"I did. For a while. I went out into the desert. Meditated on my changed state."
"And did you learn anything from your meditations?"
Kreiger shook his head.
"So you came back?"
"So I came back."

III
A few days after the three Generals had exchanged their fears about the presence of unsacred powers in Primordium, Montefalco brought them together again for a midnight journey.
"Where are we going?"
"There's a man called Doctor TALISAC who has been conducting experiments on my behalf for several years now."
"What kind of experiments?" Urbano wanted to know.
"I hoped he would perfect me a soldier. Make a fighting machine that was not susceptible to fear."
"Has he succeeded?"
"No. Not so far. Nor do I have great hope for him now. He's addicted to many of his own medications, and...well, you'll see for yourself. But there was one failure of his which might be useful to us now."
"A useful failure?" Bogoto said, somewhat amused by the paradox.
"We need a creature that will drive the unholy elements out of Primordium. I believe he has such a creature."
"Ah..." said Urbano.
"So will you see this creature with me?"
"Where is he?"
"I have him hidden away in what used to be the Hospice of the Sacred Heart, on Dreyfus Hill."
"I thought the place was empty."
"That's the impression I intended to give the world. If anybody ventures in there I have them killed and thrown in the canal."
"Is that what happened to the nuns?"
Montefalco smiled. "Nothing so humane, I'm afraid," he said. "Soldiers can be brutish if left to their own devices."
The subject was left there, and the three headed up towards Dreyfus Hill.

IV
Zarles Kreiger stretched out naked on Lucidique's bed. She looked at him admiringly: at the plethora of scars; at the intricate way the machinations of his flesh had been bound to Agonistes' own creations. Silver bonded with bone and nerve; gold and bronze the same.
She climbed on top of him. Arcs of electricity leapt between them: nipple to nipple, eye to eye.
What a time this was!, she thought. Here she was mating with the man who had taken her father's life. In a sense there was something even more taboo about their intimacy. They were both the offspring of the same father. Both Agonistes' children.
"I wonder if he'd approve?" Lucidique said.
"You mean Agonistes?"
"Yes."
Kreiger didn't speak. It was Lucidique who realized what her lover's reference to Agonistes implied.
"You saw him in the desert?"
"Yes."
"And he sent you back here?"