"Guy N. Smith - Sabat 1 - The Graveyard Vultures" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Guy N)

PROLOGUE



SABAT HAD smelled evil in the air for the past hour; a cloying cold mustiness that was stronger than the
scent of the pine trees and belied the balmy late spring atmosphere. The silence, too, was noticeable. The
absence of birdsong and the soughing of the mountain breeze seemed to have lapsed into a calm where
not even a leaf rustled. As though the world held its breath and waited.

The tall man in the dark, travel-stained and crumpled suit shrugged off the uneasiness he felt with a
deliberate effort, paused on the long steep forest path to wipe the sweat from his high brow and aquiline
features. A dry tongue flicked the fringes of his jet black moustache and his narrow, deep-sunken eyes
stared ahead into the shadows of a gathering dusk. But nothing moved. A three inch scar down his left
cheek, a ten-year-old disfigurement, was whiter than his own sallow complexion.

Tall and lithe, it was difficult to determine the age of this forest traveller; he might have been as old as
fifty, on the other hand he could have been as young as thirty-five. Agile in every movement, yet those
narrowed eyes reflected a maturity, even a hint of fear. Because for Mark Sabat this was the end of a
long trail, one that had stretched across three continents where death had lurked in town and forest alike,
but always his quarry had eluded him. Until now. This time there could be no escape for Quentin Sabat,
his elder brother.

Mark Sabat had followed this same trail earlier that morning, memorised every detail from aloft as his
astral body glided and hovered in the shape of a kestrel, whilst his physical body slept inside the hastily
chalked five pointed star within the sparsely furnished hotel bedroom in the village far below. A hawk that
missed nothing, ignoring voles which would have been easy prey. Searching, mile after exhilarating mile
until the currents of mountain air brought it high above that clearing in the trees. And it saw the dilapidated
woodcutter's shack and knew that it had found the last hiding place of the most evil man creation had
ever known, an entity reborn time and again in human form, Satan's ambassador spawned in hell to
wreak his vengeance on Earth, truly the mythical anti-Christ.

The kestrel had soared silently down to that open space amid the trees, alighted on a slender fir bough,
and watched. At first the hut had appeared to be deserted; no sound or movement from within, not a
wisp of woodsmoke out of the rusted iron stove chimney protruding from the warped roof. Sabat blinked
in the sunlight, considered changing his form to that of a hornet and alighting on the cracked and dirty
pane of glass that served as a window. But there was no hurry; a few more minutes, possibly hours, were
nothing when compared with the years of relentless pursuit.

A larch-fly honed in on a pile of kindling by the door, landed briefly, then took off again as though this
was no place in which to linger. Somewhere doves were cooing contentedly but they were a long way
away, almost out of earshot. It seemed that the birds and beasts of the forest avoided this place.

The sun rose high but there was no warmth in its rays. Sabat ruffled his brown feathers, felt the chill and
knew it was unnatural in spite of the height above sea level. Tiny eyes that missed nothing picked out the
three rectangles of newly-turned earth on the fringe of the surrounding trees. Graves \ In them would
doubtless He the remains of the man and woman and their young daughter who had ventured from the
village up into these mountains before last winter and had not returned. The coming of the snows had
hindered the search parties and the passing of time was a convenient excuse to forget. For nowadays,
none went up into the mountains for it was a terrible place to be lost after dark. So the locals said, and
Mark Sabat knew that they spoke the truth.