"Janrae Frank - Dark Brothers of the Light 01 - Blood Rites" - читать интересную книгу автора (Frank Janrae)

She'll rend and tear your skin to hell,
Or worseтАУyour soul in mortgiefan!
Sad met this mistress in the dark.
Draw not close and don't be crude.
For an erring child out on a lark.
Shall meet their end as foul Anksha's food.
тАУLycan traditional teaching song


CHAPTER ONE. CONDEMNED MAN
The house stood in the tradesmyn's quarter, a large stone box, three
stories high with a basement. Lord Hoon, demon-vampire of many
names and guises, regarded the pattern of the blue rough-hewn stone
shot through with grey, the stark white painted frames of the windows
and the heavy white doors, considering whether to knock. Anksha the
Beast stood beside him. Hoon's divinator and his officers had told him
the exiled necromantic Prince Mephistis of Waejontor had acquired a
handful of followers from the lower classes as well as his seven
sa'necari soon after moving into this house.
Sa'necari, necromancers, were the only serious rivals within the
ranks of darkness that the vampires like Lord Hoon had. They had
stolen all of the powers and abilities of the undead that they could take
or control, assuming them through their rites, mastering and
perfecting them in addition to their native arcane talents. This had
been gained at a price, for they also had the needs and cravings of the
undead, the unnatural appetites for blood. After generations of
sa'necari being created in the rites, their very genes had altered until
more and more of their descendants began to be born sa'necari with
those appetites and powers manifesting in puberty. their rites of blood,
rape, and death had become merely the means for increasing their
powers through the shattering of souls.
Hoon moved with a polished elegance and spoke with an oldfashioned
precision as crisp as if it had come from the pages of a
book. His shoulders were broad and his hips narrow. The glow from
the street lamps glinted on his black hair, grazed the points of his ears
and gilded his olive skin with golden highlights. A dangerous
sensuality lay in the depths of his large eyes, exposed itself on the
chiseled planes of his cheekbones with their hollows, and settled on
his full lips. A sword hung from his hip in a black and silver scabbard.
"What do you think, Anksha? Can we do this ourselves? Teach him a
lesson?"
Her eyes narrowed in a sleepy feline expression, broken by a faint
showing of her fangs. "He's taken the bit in his teeth and thinks he's
free."
Hoon laughed softly. "Next time he should wear a check rein,
perhaps?"
"Let's knock on the door."
Hoon smiled and did so.
A servant answered. "Lord Darmungaard!"
Hoon inclined his head at his alias. "I must see Prince Mephistis