"Katherine Kurtz - St. Patrick's Gargoyle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kurtz Katherine)

Katherine Kurtz


St. Patrick's
Gargoyle



S&C by Ginevra




ISBN: 0-441-00905-0
An Ace Book February 2001
Cover art by Jon Sullivan.
Cover design by David Rheinhardt.


This E-BOOK is NOT for sale!!!
 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and
incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are
used fictitiously, and any rresemblance to actual persons, living
or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely
coincidental.
For Mobi, Tiger, and Kat, who are very fond of gargoyles
Chapter 1

In the bitter cold of a late December night, the gargoyle's
sharp gaze scanned restlessly over the deserted streets of Dublin.
Not far below, the clock in the tower of St. Patrick's Cathedral
began to strike midnight. The sound of the bell reverberated on a
breeze brittle with the promise of snow, skittering among the
city's chimneys and across frostkissed slate roofs. Very soon, the
rhythm was picked up by other clocks elsewhere in the sleeping
city.
Revelling in the music that sang freedom, the gargoyle
stretched batlike wings and gave a snort of satisfaction. From his
lofty vantage point behind the tower's stepped Irish battlements,
invisible from street level, he had guarded this part of the city
for centuries. Only once each month, when the moon was dark,
did he customarily descend from his windswept eyrie to prowl
among the shadows.
The clock in the bell tower finished striking midnight, and the
gargoyle flexed his wings again, breathed a deep gargoyle
breath, and exhaled. As he did so, dense shadow sighed from the
stonecarved jaws - darkling manifestation of a gargoyle's true
essence - and he plummeted toward the pavement below, only
slowing with an abrupt whoosh of suddenly extended wings as
he touched down gently instead of splatting on the pavement. In