"Christopher Pike - The Last Vampire 02 - Black Blood" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pike Christopher)

The Last Vampire 02



Christopher Pike




1

I walk the dark and dangerous streets of L.A. gang-land. A seemingly helpless young woman with silky
blond hair and magnetic blue eyes. Moving down filth-strewn alleys and streets where power is
mea-sured in drops of blood spilled by bullets sprayed from adolescent males who haven't learned to
drive yet. I am near the housing projects, those archaic hotels of hostility where the checkout fee is
always higher than the price of admission. Because of my supernormal senses, I know I am surrounded
by people who would slit my throat as soon as ask the time of day or night. But I am not helpless or
afraid, especially in the dark at night, for I am not human. I, Alisa Perne of the twentieth century, Sita of
the ancient past. I am five thousand years old, one of the last of two vampires.

But are there only two of us left? I ask myself.

Something is terribly wrong in gangland L.A., and it makes me wonder. In the last month theLos
Angeles Times has reported a string of brutal murders that leads me to believe Ray and I are not the only
ones with the special blood that makes us impervious to aging and most other human ailments. The
victims of these murders have been ripped open, decapitated, and, in some cases, the articles say,
drained of blood. It is this last fact that has brought me to Los Angeles. I myself like blood, but I am not
eager to find more vampires. I know what our kind can do, and I know how fast we can multiply once
the secret of procrea-tion is known. Any vampire I may find this evening will not live to see the light of
dawn, or perhaps I should say the setting of the moon. I am not crazy about the sun, although I can bear
it if I must.

A full moon rides high above me as I step onto Exposition Avenue and head north, not far from where
the last murder occurred-a sixteen-year-old girl found yesterday in the bushes with both her arms torn
off. It is late, after midnight, and even though it is mid-December, the temperature is in the midsixties.
Winter in Los Angeles is like a moon made of green cheese, a joke. I wear black leather pants, a
short-sleeved black top that shows my sleek midsection. My black boots barely sound as I prowl the
uneven sidewalks. I wear my hair pinned up beneath a black cap. I love the color black as much as the
color red. I know I look gorgeous. Cool stainless steel touches my right calf where I have hidden a
six-inch blade, but otherwise I am unarmed. There are many police cars out this fine winter night. One
passes me on the left as I lower my head and try to look like I belong. Because I fear being stopped and
searched, I do not carry a gun. But it is only for the lives of the police that I fear, and not for my own. A
whole S.W.A.T. team couldn't stop me. Certainly, I decide, a young vampire will be no match for me.
And he or she must be young to be killing so recklessly.

But who is this youngster? And who made him or her?

Disturbing questions.

Three young males wait for me a hundred yards down the street. I cross to the other side, but they move