"Lumley, Brian - Vampire World 2 - The Last Aerie" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

THE OCCURRENCES OF THAT NIGHT SIXTEEN YEARS AGO HAD ALL COME RUSHING BACK IN A FLOOD OF VIVID MEMORIES, AND THE BEAT OF TRASK'S HEART HAD PICKED UP SPEEDTOMATCHTHESUDDENFLOWOF ADRENALINE.
'David?' he said, making it a question.
Chung answered with a grim nod, simply that, and whisked him into the elevator. But as the doors slid shut on them and they were alone, he uttered those words which Trask most dreaded to hear: 'He's back.'
Trask didn't want to believe it. 'He?' he husked, knowing full well who he must be, the only one he could be. 'Harry?'
Chung nodded, shrugged helplessly, seemed lost for words. 'Something of him,' he answered at last, 'who or whatever he is now. But yes, Ben, I'm talking about Harry. Something of Harry Keogh has come back to us .. .'

VAMPIRE WORLD II
THE LAST AERIE
BRIAN LUMLEY
Exploring New Realms in Science Fiction/Fantasy Adventure
Titles already published or in preparation:
Echoes of the Fourth Magic by R. A. Salvatore
When a U.S. submarine set out from Miami and was drawn off-course by the murderous magic of the Devil's Triangle, Officer Jeff DelGiudice survived the terrifying plunge through the realms. But his good fortune had a shocking consequence. He found himself stranded in a strange world awaiting its redeemer. Here four survivors ruled the corner of the once-great Earth with the ways of white magic ... until one of them tasted the ecstasy of evil. Thalasi, Warlock of Darkness, had amassed an army to let loose death and chaos, and only the hero promised in the guardians' legends can defeat such power. Now Jeff must face his destiny -in a dangerous, wondrous quest to lead humankind's children back to the realms of Light.
The Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula Le Guin
Wizard of Earthsea Х The Tombs of Atuan
The Farthest Shore
As long ago as forever and as far away as Selidor, there lived the dragonlord and Archmage, Sparrowhawk, the greatest of the great wizards -- he who, when still a youth, met with the evil shadow-beast; he who later brought back the Ring of Erreth-Akbe from the Tombs of Atuan; and he who, as an old man, rode the mighty dragon Kalessin back from the land of the dead. And then, the legends say, Sparrowhawk entered his boat, Look/or, turned his back on land, and without wind or sail or oar moved westward over sea and out of sight.
A ROC BOOK

ROC
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
First published 1993 13579 10 8642
Copyright й Brian Lumley, 1993 All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Of all the bars at all the conventions
in all the world, you had to walk into mine.
Here's looking at you, kid!
"**- Roc is a trademark of Penguin Books Ltd
Typeset by Datix International Limited, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives pic
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject
to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's
prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
PART ONE
E-Branch
I
Harry's Passing
To the members of E-Branch, bad dreams were an occupational hazard; it was generally accepted that nightmares went with the work. Ben Trask, current head of the Branch, had always had his share of bad dreams. Indeed, since the Yulian Bodescu affair twelve years ago, he'd had more than his share. And only half of them when he was asleep. The sleeping ones were of the harmless variety: they frightened but couldn't kill you. They were engendered of the waking sort, which were very different: sometimes they could kill and worse. Because they were real.
As for this one, it wasn't so much a bad as a weird dream. And weirder because Trask was wide awake, having driven his car through the wee small hours of a rainy night into the heart of London, and parked it opposite E-Branch HQ . .. without knowing why. And Trask was fussy about things like that; he generally liked to be responsible for his actions.
It was a Sunday in mid-February of 1990, one of those rare days when Trask could get away from his work and switch off, or rather switch on, to the normal world which existed outside the Branch. It should have been one of those days, anyway. But here he was, at E-Branch HQ in the middle of the sleeping city; and in the eye of his mind this weird dream which wouldn't go away, this daydream repeating over and over, like flick-
ering frames from an old monochrome movie projected onto a window, so that he could see right through it. A ghost film; if he blinked his eyes rapidly it would vanish, however momentarily, and return just as soon as he relaxed:
A corpse, smouldering, with its fire-bJackened arms flung wide; steaming head thrown back as in the final agony of death; tumbling end over end into a black void shot through with thin neon bars or ribbons of blue, green, and red light.
It was a tortured thing, yes, but dead now from all of its torments and no longer suffering; unknown and unknowable as the weird waking dream which it was. And yet there was something morbidly familiar about it; so that watching it, Trask's face was grey and his lips drawn back in a silent snarl from his strong, slightly yellow teeth. If only the corpse would stop tumbling for a moment and come into focus, give him a clearer shot of the blistered, silently screaming face ...
Trask got out of his car into a sudden squall of leaden raindrops, as if some Invisible One had dipped his hands in water and scooped it into Trask's face. And muttering a curse as he turned up the collar of his overcoat, he glanced at the building across the street, craning his neck to peer up at the high windows of E-Branch. Up there he expected to see a light - just one, burning in a window set centrally in the length of the entire upper storey which was the Branch - lighting the room which housed the Duty Officer through his lonely night vigil. Well, he saw the Duty Officer's light, right enough, and keeping it company, three or four more which he hadn't expected. But he saw more than the lights, for even the rain couldn't wash away the tortured, monotonously tumbling figure from the screen of his mind.