"Lumley, Brian - Necroscope - The Lost Years Volume 2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

She fell silent, and for a while the Great Majority could feel her anguish like grief...
Then Keenan Gormley asked her What's your point, Mary?
My point? She repeated him. 'But isn 't that obvious? If my son is on the brink of madness, wouldn't telling him the truth push him over? Would he accept the truth, or deny it? Would he accept his self-deception and try to put it right -- or escape into the unreality of madness? Quite simply, how much can his mind take? It was heavily overburdened before, but now...?
Which is why we can't tell him, because we don't know all the answers. But even though you don't seem able to understand that, this B.J. knows it only too well. And she keeps him on a tight leash. She wants him sane, for her own purposes, and for herself! I hate it, hate to admit it, but she may well be his salvation. This...she-thing anchors him and while she keeps him safe, she keeps him sane. For that reason we've got to let it be, for now at least...
All of them let her words sink in, until Sergeant clarified the situation with: You mean, we do nothing? From his tone of voice, the idea disgusted him.
But then another dead voice came to the fore. Well, maybe not exacly nothin'. And the dreaming Harry knew this one, too. It was R L Stevenson Jamieson, indebted to the Necroscope as a result of some work they'd done together down in London. R.L. Stevenson's brother had been the lycanthrope (just a very sick person, not a werewolf) that Harry and his team had dealt with at the time he'd first met Bonnie Jean Mirlu. In the main, R.L owed his acceptance by the Great Majority -- the respect they gave both him and his name -- to Harry, and he wasn't about to forget it
How do you mean, R.L ? Sir Keenan wanted to know. Is there some way we can help Harry, without jeopardizing his sanity?
Well I sure can! came the answer at once. See, I has obi. That's obeah to you. It's in my blood, come down to me from Poppy. But here in this place I has no great use for it, excep' to keep my brother Arthur
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Conan in check. Not thatA.C.'s much trouble, not any more. Now, I .
wants you to understand, my obi's the gentle kind like Poppy's before me: ,
white magic, you 'd call it. See, Poppy wouldn 't a harmed a soul. He was j
fust happy with his charms and love potions, over in Haiti where I was ,
brung up. He never once messed with poisons or dead folks...er, I \
means the zombies, beggin' your pardon. My Poppy was more into
protection, yeah! And in that line, well, he did have somethin' more than
the simple stuff. !
Heck, he coulda used it to make himself a big man. Why, in Haiti | whole governments has stood or fallen on stuff such as my Poppy's obi! , Yeah, for he had the power to look into a enemy's mind and so know his , every move. And me, I has it too, only not so strong now that I is dead. \ See when a man don't use his obi he loses it. It grows strong with | practice, and shrinks without it. And down here among the dead folks, I well I haven't had much use for it. Not too many enemies, down here...j
But I knows the Necroscope; we worked together to put some stuff right -1 mean with my brother Arthur Conan. And I knows that if t Harry coulda found a different way...(R.L. sighed, and the dead j sensed his incorporeal shrug.) But there you go: A. C. couldn 't give a damn for anyone else's life, so in the end his own was forfeit.
Anyway, I know Harry's aura. So in a way I guess I'm somethin' like his Ma. It's not just that /hear him when he talks to us, but I also knows how he feels. I can feel for him, and I can feel out his enemies, too! Oh, I'm not oneforgettin' into their heads like A. C. could, but I knows when tkey's around and how many they is and where they's comin 'from. Stuff like that. I couldn't -1 wouldn't -- tell him who they is, but I could at least let him know that they's there. So...what you think?
And Harry's Ma said, Good! Yes! It's a start. Down inside, Harry knows he's in trouble, and R.L's obeah can emphasize the truth of it without being specific. After that it will be up to Harry to work it out for himself, step by step, stage by stage.
But Sir Keenan Gormley wanted to know: And is that all? We can't do anything else?
Oh, we could probably do a lot, Mary answered. But slowly, and very carefully. For if it comes to it, well eventually we may have to do an awful lot -1 mean our very utmost.
And each and every one of the teeming dead, they knew what she meant...
But in a while, frustrated beyond measure, Sergeant -- who was once a man of action -- said, And meanwhile we're even forbidden to advise him? I mean, there's no other way to help him, except by leaving him alone?
Only if he asks for our advice, she answered, and only if he asks for our help. For that will be the first sure sign that he's coming to terms with it and is ready to fight back. I remember when I was a girl, my
mother used to tell me: "No one can help the man who won't help himself.' I've lived by that maxim, and so has Harry -- and hell go on doing it. There you have it. We daren't show him the light but must wait till he sees it for himself.
And when he does...he's going to be one mad Necroscope! (Sergeant's incorporeal nod of agreement) Not crazy, just mad as hell! So maybe you're right and it's for the best.
Oh, hell be a lot madder than hell, (Sir Keenan's short, grim forecast.) Hotter, too. And I fancy that will be his main problem, for that's when hell need to be at his coolest. Then, when Harry Keogh is cool...well, Just watch. You'll see hell itself freeze right over...!
All talking done, their meeting concluded, they could go their own ways now, and withdraw to the only places they knew: their graves in the lonely earth, where they lay in their dust and decay and the endless night of death. But in that interminable darkness, a lonely candle flickering; one source of light and warmth, one heart still beating.
One Necroscope, tossing in his tumbled bed...
The telephone was ringing.
The voices of the dead receded, took on the form of 'genuine' dreaming, metamorphosed into the periodic clamour of the phone.
Harry knew he should try to hang on to his dream, but was afraid to and so let it slide into limbo. Then the voices were gone and any significance to events in the Necroscope's waking world gone with them. He woke up.
Br-rrring! Br-rrringgg!'- nerve-janglingly. With which, the last ring echoed into silence. But the answering machine had clicked on, and a red light glowed to indicate a message.
What? Who? Harry scrambled to reach for the monitor, and almost tumbled out of bed. His mind was fuzzy, he'd only been asleep for an hour or so, and he'd only gone to sleep to kill some time until B J. called. If she called.
And now? This could be her! He grabbed the monitor -- too late. The answering machine clicked off.
He sat up, breathed heavily, ran his fingers through his hair. Time? Just before ten. He'd been dreaming, and he'd wanted to remember his dreams...hadn't he? And then the phone.
He played back the message:
'Harry, mah wee man. Call me back, will ye?' BJ.'s husky voice coming out of his answering machine had a weird effect on him:
On the one hand he shuddered as a mournful howling came echoing out of nowhere (in fact from the deepest vaults of his mind), while a wolfs head in silhouette angled itself sharply against a full and shining moon, its throat throbbing with its song. And on the other he
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