"Bischoff, David - Night World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bischoff David)

"We must find the fallen spacecraft before the Enemies. We must destroy it, and its inhabitants. I will channel all my powers into this task and I have special duties for you. Do you feel yourself capable?"

Bowing slightly, the vampire nodded. "Yes, Satan."

"Excellent. There is a certain man. He has been my particular bane for some time. We have received a brief transmission from the photosensors of a werewolf terminated this evening. We know where he is and where he is headed. You will journey immediately to Haven 911. If the man gets that far, you shall waylay him."

"Who is this man. Master?"

"He goes by the name of Geoffrey Turner."

"Ah." The vampire nodded. "Turner."





THREE

ALONE, be stood in a bog.

Nightmists had stealthily surrounded him, a legion of wraiths dancing slowly around the melancholy cypresses surrounding the quagmire. Above, the two crescent moons were aligned as though some watcher in the skies stared down malevolently. Not a yard from him, a fetid pool began to bubble. Fascinated, he stared down as a clawed hand broke the surface, then snaked forward and grasped his ankle.

He tried to scream but could not. Distant laughter mocked him.

Suddenly the muck boiled furiously and another matted paw reached up to snag the solid ground upon which he stood. A head emerged, unmistakable: a werewolf. Slowly the creature rose from the pool, dragging itself onto firm land. Its wet fur stank of ooze. Its faceplate was shorn off, revealing mechanical and electronic parts drenched with gore.

The werewolf released his leg, stood, stared at Oliver with eyes that were not bestial, but quite human. "We wait for you in Hell," it rasped, blood dripping from its canines. "We wait for your soul."

The beast suddenly raked out at him with its claws.

Oliver woke, sweating. Twisted bedclothes lay about him. He was in his bed, then. A nightmare. Only a nightmare.

He sighed. Rising, he made for the window, opened it and drew fresh, cold, pine-scented air into his lungs. A breeze gently fingered Oliver's gray woolen sleeping gown and pinched the bare flesh beneath with its chill. Gazing out above the battlements of the castle, over the silent pines and oaks of the forest to the frosted peaks of the Mountains of Stillness, he pondered the nightmares his land held.

He wondered if the strange man who had saved him was right. All his brief life he had been trained to believe that in God lay the sole hope of salvation from the forces of Evil; that by believing in Him, trusting solely in His mercy, one's soul might rise to Heaven after its test in the crucible of this existence.

And now this fat man had come, bringing with him a peculiar secular salvation from the clutches of the werewolf. Turner had sown the seeds of doubt in Oliver's fertile imagination.

The young man's thoughts turned to the implications of Turner's words. Oliver had known only one philosophy in his life. He could not contend with all of the possibilities suddenly presented with the advent of Geoffrey Turner.

Driving such thoughts from his head, the lad bowed and muttered a short prayer of supplication. He would seek counsel with Reverend Marshall later that day, he decided. When he raised his head, dawn had paled the sky and brought a blush to the horizon. Soon the sun would peek up over the rim of the world, chase the Nightrealm away for another day.

As he watched, the light flowed slowly about the massive castle walls, casting friendly shadows across the cobbled roads of the small town behind it. Lights flickered on in thatch-roofed cottages as the farmers made ready to continue their harvest of the wheat fields outside the walls.

It was a heartening sight. Much relieved, Oliver returned to bed and slept peacefully.

As heir apparent to his father's titles and duties, Oliver's principal occupation during his youth had been the acquisition of the education necessary to shoulder such responsibilities. Of late, he had even assumed some of the Viscount's burden; he was working.

At a reasonable hour of the morning, after a sleep untroubled by further nightmares, Oliver rose, breakfasted, and set about his tasks.