"James Herbert - Soul Catcher" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert James)

David turned, focused on the camp gear piled across chair and floor where he and his
father had arranged the things last night: sleeping bag, pack, clothing, boots. . . .

There was the knife.

The knife stimulated a feeling of excitement. That was a genuine Russell belt knife made
in Canada. It had been a birthday gift from his father just two weeks ago.

A bass hum of wilderness radiated into his imagination from the knife in its deer-brown
scabbard. It was a man's tool, a man's weapon. It stood for blood and darkness and
independence.

His father's words had put magic in the knife:

"That's no toy, Dave. Learn how to use it safely. Treat it with respect."

His father's voice had carried subdued tensions. The adult eyes had looked at him with
calculated intensity and there had been a waiting silence after each phrase.

Fingernails made a brief scratching signal on his bedroom door, breaking his reverie. The
door opened. Mrs. Parma slid into the room. She wore a long blue and black sari with
faint red lines in it. She moved with silent effacement, an effect as attention-demanding
as a gong.

David's gaze followed her. She always made him feel uneasy.

Mrs. Parma glided across to the window that framed the maple, closed the window firmly.

David peered over the edge of the blankets at her as she turned from the window and nodded
her awareness of him.

"Good morning, young sir."

The clipped British accent never sounded right to him coming from a mouth with purple
lips. And her eyes bothered him. They were too big, as though stretched by the way her
glossy hair was pulled back into a bun. Her name wasn't really Parma. It began with
Parma, but it was much longer and ended with a strange clicking sound that David could not
make.

He pulled the blankets below his chin, said: "Did my father leave yet?"

"Before dawn, young sir. It is a long way to the capital of your nation."
David frowned and waited for her to leave. Strange woman. His parents had brought her
back from New Delhi, where his father had been political adviser to the embassy.

In those years, David had stayed with Granny in San Francisco. He had been surrounded by
old people with snowy hair, diffident servants, and low, cool voices. It had been a
drifting time with diffused stimulations. "Your grandmother is napping. One would not
want to disturb her, would one?" It had worn on him the way dripping water wears a rock.
His memory of the period retained most strongly the whirlwind visits of his parents. They