"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 30 - Dimension Of Horror" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

The case swung open, and J saw, with eyes that had not yet adjusted back to the normal intensity
of light, that Richard Blade was gone.

He turned to Lord Leighton and commanded, "Start the sequence to bring him back."

"No, no. I can do nothing. KALI will bring him back. It's all in the programming," said Leighton.
J noticed that Leighton's mottled face was pale. "Sit down. Try to be comfortable. This goddess,
as you call her, is on our side. She can count out ten minutes far more precisely than either you or
me."

In a daze J pulled out the folding spectator seat, installed for his benefit on one wall, and sat
down. The digital clock, he noted, was counting down again.

J and Lord Leighton carried on a trivial, absent-minded conversation punctuated by long silences
during which J often pulled his pocketwatch from his waistcoat pocket and compared it with the
digital clock on the instrument panel, as if the upstart electronic timepiece might require
correction from an older, more reliable source.

As the flickering green numbers began counting the final thirty seconds, even this conversation
ceased. Both men turned an expectant gaze toward the open case.

Nine. Eight. Seven. Six.

The case closed.

Five. Four.

The humming had begun. Three. Two. One. Zero.

Again the searing golden light filled the room, fading almost instantly, but an odd bright blue-
white haze remained, unlike anything J had seen before. The haze, glowing and pulsating,
appeared to be seeping rapidly out from the seams where the cover joined the case, and there
were tiny glittering points of light in the haze, like dust motes in sunbeams. The haze could have
been steam except for its color, yet it did not move like steam. It moved purposefully,
independently of any current of air in the room.

J sprang to his feet, alarmed.

The case was opening.
The cloud of haze, with a speed J would not have believed possible, streamed out of the case and
off toward the exit with a curious high rushing sound, like an indrawn breath but much louder. As
it passed, J felt a curious tingling sensation, like static electricity on an exceptionally dry day.
Glancing at the back of his hand, he saw the hairs rise like a nest of charmed serpents and sway
as if they had lives of their own.

Half-turning toward Lord Leighton, J blurted, "What . . . . what was that?"

The little scientist did not answer. His attention was entirely on the case, which now stood fully
open. In it stood Richard Blade, but a Richard Blade inexplicably changed. Though he had been
gone only ten minutes his angular chin was shadowed with at least a day's growth of stubble.