"Lumley, Brian - E-Branch 3 - Avengers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

By then Vavara, Malinari's 'partner,' if only for the time being, had dealt with the second steward. But the third was recovering from her hypnotic spell. Blinking his eyes and shaking his head, he peered slack-jawed at his shipmates where they had slumped to the deck in blood that fountained from severed arteries in their necks; also at the spastically twitching, crumpled figure of the purser, his eyes flopping on his bloodied cheeks, while his cries turned to a vacant moaning as his cruelly depleted, crippled brain closed down his survival systems one by one.

But already muffled enquiries were sounding from beyond the reinforced door to the bridge. Someone in there must have heard the purser's strangled, inarticulate babbling, and Malinari saw at least two outlines in motion behind the frosted glass of the door's upper panel. With no time to waste on the third steward, he grabbed him and swung him out through a hatch and up against the deck rail. Stiffening his hand and arm to a ramrod, the vampire slammed bone fingers into his victim's chest, rupturing his heart. Then, after yanking his hand free, a push was sufficient to topple the steward backwards over the rail, sending him plummeting to the promenade deck twenty feet below.

Down there, a half-dozen or so early risers were leaning on the rail, taking in the view. As Malinari snarled his hatred of the seething sunlight and snatched himself back into the shade, he saw their startled, horrified faces glancing up at him. Hah! As yet they hadn't the slightest notion of what real horror was. But they'd know soon enough. Oh, yes, they would know! And, gritting his awesome teeth against the agony of his seared forearms and face, Malinari returned to Vavara--

--In time to see her trying the handle of the door to the bridge. As Malinari had learned from the purser, however, this was a security door with a voice-activated lock; Vavara's hiss of frustration wasn't a voice or


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code that it would recognize. But she wasn't much known for her patience, either, and before he could caution her against it she'd balled a fist and struck furiously at the pane of frosted glass.

Fortified against ordinary shocks or blows, still the pane caved in, shattering as if struck by an axe. Vavara's hand continued on unhindered, caught at the throat of a blurred figure on the far side, and drew him headlong through the razor-sharp, dagger-rimmed frame. Deeply cut about his face and arms, shouting his pain and shock, he was sent skidding along the deck in his own blood, only coming to a halt at Malinari's feet.

Malinari dragged him upright - scanned his bloodied, wide-eyed face, his tattered, spattered ship's uniform - and said, 'Not Captain Geoff Anderson, no. Merely his underling. But you are going to take us to him, aren't you?' And he propelled him back towards Vavara at the door.

Vavara's guise was down now; furious, she showed herself in all her horror. Her forked devil's tongue wriggled behind teeth that looked like twin rows of knives; her eyes flared red; her clawed hands brooked no resistance as she sank fingers like rusty fish-hooks deep into the First Mate's cheek, lifting him up onto his toes. And:

'Open this door,' she hissed, 'lest I'm tempted to toss you through it. For I refuse to climb in the way you came out!'

'It's voice-activated,' Malinari told her. 'Let him speak.'

'Speak, then,' said Vavara. 'Speak now, or lose what's left of your face!'

'D-d-door!' the man gasped, and a buzz sounded from within, followed by a series of clicks. When the clicks stopped, Vavara turned the handle, thrust her shoulder at the door, and when it sprang open hurled the Mate ahead of her onto the bridge.

Captain Anderson was there; he was using a telephone at the traditional, mainly ceremonial wheel. Taking one look at Vavara and Malinari where they stood framed in the doorway, he dropped the phone and made a clumsy run for the radio room in a sound-proofed, glass-walled wing of the bridge. Calmly following him, Malinari caught up with him just as he uttered the command that opened the door. And taking Anderson by the scruff of the neck, he thrust him ahead into the radio room.

An operator sat at the console with earphones on his head. With staring eyes he glanced around, saw the Captain hurtling towards him, and was slammed back into the console. Winded, he toppled from his chair as Anderson rebounded from him, and in the next moment Malinari stood over both men.

Grabbing the radio operator by the hair, Malinari drew him to his


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feet and almost casually inquired of him, 'Have you sent any messages? About a becalmed caique, perhaps, and a rescue at sea?'

'N-n-no!' the radio man gasped. 'I . . . I was waiting on the Captain's orders.'

'Eh?'said Malinari, raising an eyebrow. 'What's that? This one's orders, do you mean?' Grabbing Anderson by the throat, he exerted the massive strength of a Lord of the Wamphyri and tore out the Captain's windpipe. Anderson died in a crimson welter of blood and mangled gristle, which Malinari draped over the bald, sweating head of the radio operator. And as that one shrank back and down, the Great Vampire effortlessly took up the Captain's body by the shoulder and hip, hoisted it overhead for a moment, then slammed it down onto the radio console with such force that the entire bank of dials and switches flew apart under the impact. Then, as a sputtering shower of electrical sparks ensued, and a whiff of acrid smoke drifted from the wreckage, Malinari said:

'Thus you have a new Captain. You may call me Captain Malinari. Or, better still, Lord Malinari!

'The . . . the radio!' the other sputtered hoarsely. 'You've destroyed it! And not just the radio but our navigation. Satellite navigation was routed through these controls!'

'Oh, I know!' Malinari nodded. 'So now we're not only dumb, but we're blind, too - that is, unless we go to manual. Can you by any chance pilot this vessel?'