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

BJ. had taken Harry north for a long weekend's climbing, hunting, living off the land and generally roughing it in the Highlands. So she'd told him, anyway. But in fact they'd been going to see the sleeping dog-Lord in his lair. She had had all kinds of misgivings about it; she'd grown inordinately fond of Harry, too fond, perhaps. He'd aroused emotions in her other than the grand passions of her kind, and she had known that to let Radu see him, 'talk' to him, would mean simply giving him up to the dog-Lord. But in any case they hadn't made it.
On the unseasonably warm autumn morning scheduled for the climb, as BJ. and Harry headed for the starting point in Auld John's car -- then the Drakuls had launched their attack.
There had been two of them, red-robed 'priests' in a station wagon that they used as a juggernaut, trying to force BJ. off the road. She had 'switched Harry on,' told him that these were two of the enemies she'd warned him about. But as soon as she had gained a little distance, rounded a bend and so passed out of sight of their pursuers, Harry had asked to be dropped off. She had done it, and a minute or two later when the Drakuls failed to catch up she'd gone back for him.
Somehow he had caused them to crash; their station wagon had left the road over a wooded gorge and fallen to earth nose-first through trees which had scarcely broken its fall. One of the occupants, the driver -- a lieutenant by his looks, and by the way he later died -- had got himself skewered on his steering column; the other, a thrall, was uninjured. B J. had come on the scene barely in time to prevent the latter's attack on Harry. She had put a crossbow bolt through the thrall's heart, and Harry had set fire to the petrol leaking from their shattered car. Both of the Drakuls had burned, melting down in the furnace heat as BJ. and Harry backed off.
That had been a horrific thing, but it had served to confirm that the driver was a lieutenant
Through the envelope of blue-shimmering heat, his blazing figure had been plainly visible where he tried to lift himself off the steering column. Failing, he'd then looked out through the wall of fire with eyes like peeled grapes. A moment later, his torso had burst open and put out corpse-white tentacles or feelers to lash in the super-heated interior of the car. Twining together, the tentacles had blossomed outwards through the stripped-away roof and upward into the fiery slipstream, where they floated in the incendiary updraft like the arms of a crippled anemone.
Other tentacles had uncoiled like worms from the open car door. They pissed an orange fluid all around that smoked where it fell to earth. Then the lieutenant's vampire had submitted, and he had withdrawn his molten appendages, crumpled down into himself and begun to slop out of the door around the shoulders of his companion. As for that one: he had sat there lifelessly with BJ. 's bolt through him.
And it had been over...
They had driven to Dalwhinnie, and during the journey BJ. had cancelled the episode from Harry's mind. He'd seen things that just didn't fit the 'innocent' image he had of her, things out of her dark side that he wasn't ready for. And from then on -- from Harry's point of view, at least -- they had simply been on a climbing and hunting trip, which for reasons of her own BJ. had cried off. Nothing more complicated than that...
But of course Harry was thinking and acting under hypnosis, and Х for BJ. it wasn't that easy to throw off. Indeed she daren't forget a single detail, for it was life and death.
From Dalwhinnie, she had phoned Auld John in Inverdruie and told him to see to Radu. Unlike BJ., who was Radu's lieutenant, Auld John was merely in thrall to the dog-Lord. Though he had been a moon-child all his long life, he would never run with the pack under a full moon; it wasn't in him to be a werewolf. But he was a very capable climber, and he knew the way to the lair. Indeed, as a gamekeeper, in the protected preserve of the Badenoch valley, John had guarded the routes to Radu's lair for most of his life. And of course he would attend to the dog-Lord in BJ.'s absence. That is to say. he would see to Radu's feeding -- and to the feeding of his creature...
And doubtless Radu would probe John's all too eager mind, to see what had gone wrong.
The plan had worked; two days later Auld John had called BJ. at the wine-bar to tell her all was well. But as for 'Him in His high place,' well, he "wasnae verra pleased!' His time was fast approaching, and his resurgence could not be delayed. Come hell or high water, BJ.
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would present the Mysterious One to him when next duty called her to the Cairngorms lair. Which should have been this past weekend.
The three months' reprieve had flown, and despite that the weather had worsened dramatically -- and that she was less inclined than ever to part with her Vee man' -- there'd seemed no putting it off. But at least (B J. had told herself anxiously) this would only be Harry's initial audience; after that, there would still be six months left before Radu's actual resurgence.
Then, with less than two weeks to go before the scheduled visit, things had started to happen...
In fact a variety of things had been happening all along, ever since the failed attack of the Drakuls. For just a day or so after the release of the story of a 'fatal Spey Valley accident' in the newspapers, BJ. had been pleased to read how the Home Office had issued expulsion orders on 'several members of an obscure Tibetan religious order, believed to have been engaged in inter-sectarian warfare in the British Isles.' Not only were they being expelled but others of their order -- the 'Emissaries of Drakesh' -- had been refused entry...This had gone hand in hand with the story of a firefight, and the discovery of weapons and evidence of their use at the scene of what was previously and mistakenly considered a traffic accident
It all fitted, especially that reference to these Emissaries of Drakesh. But a religious order? Hah! An order of Drakuls, no less! And in no way engaged in sectarian or any other kind of warfare (not until they had met up with BJ. and Harry Keogh, anyway), but in spying and building up their numbers in advance of the dog-Lord's resurgence! Well at least Radu would now know where to look for them -- or for him, 'D.D.', the last of his line. In Tibet.
But if this sneaking Drakul in his far-distant monastery hideaway knew of Radu's imminent return, then what of the Ferenczys? For a long time, even decades, BJ. had suspected that she was being watched; just as she had watched out for, and on occasion even tried to seek out, others of her own and the dog-Lord's kind. Some years ago she had lost one of her girls, mysteriously vanished in London. Radu's opinion had been that it was the work of Ferenczys, who were seeking him out in anticipation of his rising. Since when BJ. had been doubly careful, but not watchful enough. Or perhaps familiarity had bred contempt, and time had worn down her vigilance.
It had been Harry Keogh who first brought to her attention the fact of a secret observer, the little man she had told the Inspector about For on Harry's first visit to BJ.'s Wine Bar, he had seen this strange figure lurking in a shop doorway across the street, apparently taking pictures. But it was only after Harry had described this watcher to BJ. that she realized she'd seen him, too...frequently over the years, in and around the city and the rundown district of her wine bar.
But only at night, or when it was cloudy and overcast
Then BJ. had remembered a hundred occasions when she'd sensed eyes on her in a crowd, or heard soft footsteps sounding behind her in quiet lanes, or glimpsed pin-pricks of gold in the shade of a vaguely familiar broad-brimmed hat And not only B J. but most of her girls, too...
So, was this watcher a Ferenczy spy such as Radu had warned her about? It seemed more than likely. A spy -- a 'sleeper,' sent to Scotland thirty or more years ago -- with no orders but to establish himself, seek out the dog-Lord's thralls and minders, and through them find Radu himself in his secret place.
Well, so far he had failed, B J. felt reasonably sure. Her base was so far removed from Radu, and her precautions when she paid him her quarterly visits so strict -- and the climb to his lair so arduous, with Auld John to watch the routes for strangers -- that Radu's safety seemed assured. But she herself, and the pack, her girls...they had been discovered long ago.
So, why had this Ferenczy scum waited? A hundred or more times he could have put a silver bullet through BJ.'s head -- yet hadn't The answer seemed simple: to take her out would be to alert Radu's other thralls, if any such existed, jeopardizing both the watcher and his Masters, wherever they were! Also, the Ferenczys could afford to wait, for while Radu was down he was no real threat And obviously this 'D.D.,' the last Drakul, felt the same: let the sleeping dog-Lord lie, and while he lay investigate his thralls, discover his lair and find out everything there was to be known about him and his.
Then, in the hour of his resurgence -- strike full force, before his strength had time to flow back into him!
It all made sense, or would do if the Drakuls hadn't preempted things. So what had caused them to jump the gun? And as for Harry...he had seemed edgy from his first glimpse of the red-robed 'priests.' What was it with him and them? Or was it simply coincidence, or BJ. reading too much into too little?
But that aside, in the quarter gone by since the Drakuls' failed attack, Ferenczy surveillance on the wine bar, on BJ.'s girls, and herself, had gone up one hundred per cent. It was no lie when she'd told Inspector lanson about the observer; since alerting her girls to his presence, the furtive little man had been spotted a dozen times. The only lie had been in regard to his 'great dog.' No such dog existed but a wolf, a great white she-wolf...
As for the Drakuls themselves:
BJ. had read in a third newspaper report how the police were looking for four more members of the sect, believed to be hiding out in the country. It made sense: originally the group had been six members strong. So, four of them were still here, and probably not
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too far away. Well, no way they could sneak up on B J. now, not in their red robes, anyway! And be sure that she and her girls would avoid Asiatics of any description; or, if need be, strike back at them a second time.
So then, all these reasons to let Auld John stand in for her again, put off her quarterly visit to Radu in his den, and so for a second time delay his meeting with Harry -- a meeting which would surely seal the latter's fate. All these reasons -- and not one of them good enough. The dog-Lord would doubtless tell her that since she knew the problems to be overcome, she must simply take greater precautions, that was all. Worse, he would probably wonder at her reticence, too.
Then, with only a week to go, the reprieve, when fate had delivered a pair of far more acceptable excuses: the fact that one of her girls, Margaret Macdowell, had been threatened -- a matter which B.J. must attend to herself -- and severe weather conditions, making any kind of Cairngorms venture more treacherous yet Despite that she'd had Harry in training (she would protest), he was by no means the expert climber; she certainly wouldn't want to lose him on some icy, vertiginous face on the route to the dog-Lord's lair! Better far if his first audience with Radu were delayed a further three-month, when the weather should be improved and the climb so much easier.
So her excuses were finally sufficient, and she'd called Auld John in Inverdruie and told him her decision. And because she took time to list all of her reasons, impressing them into John's memory, she could be sure that when Radu used his mentalism to dig them out again -- which he surely would -- he would know that Bonnie Jean Mirlu was his true and devoted servant
But in fact BJ. knew what she was -- treacherous! And she knew why she was; because she was Wamphyri!
Wamphyri, aye, and devious to a fault, as every Great Vampire before her. And yet devoted too, to Harry...
BJ.'s jumbled thoughts returned to the present.
She was driving across an old stone bridge. A quarter of a mile away along the river, silhouetted against a threatening sky, Harry's house stood like an old, watchful but bleary-eyed owl between two sleeping brothers.
Watchful but tired, yes...
It was only then that BJ. paused to consider how anxious and tired she was, and her actions since Harry's call. For the first time in a long time she hadn't bothered to take any precautions against being followed. But it had been a week since she'd last seen Harry, and he was feeling down and troubled in his mind. And what with all of BJ.'s other worries, not least the Inspector's visit, and the fact that she was still waiting for a call from Auld John La Inverdruie to confirm that all was well with Radu -- well, little wonder she wasn't quite with it! And
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anyway, what the hell? Who would be out following her on a night as cold and dark as this?
They would, that's who.