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

eyes, and even the darkness failed to hide the awfulness of it all. Quentin's face was only inches from his
own, a grotesque countenance that showered him with bloodied curses, feeble fingers clutching at him,
broken filthy nails scraping his flesh. Mark heard the words clearly although it must have been impossible
for the other to speak. ' You fool! Idle and yet I shall live again. It is you who will moulder in this grave,
Mark!'

Somehow Mark Sabat managed to extricate himself from those death clutches, vomiting as he did so and
trying not to breathe in the foul stench of putrefaction and death. Dimly he was aware that he still held the
revolver and this time there was a deliberation in the way he brought the barrel to bear on his brother's
forehead, almost a regret in the way he applied pressure to the hair trigger like a grieving jockey about to
despatch his favourite but wounded mount. The report was deafening in the confined space, the stab of
flame lighting up the scene vividly and implanting it indelibly on Sabat's brain.

In that terrible lingering second he saw the other man's skull split like a cracked egg, grey yolk showering
up the earthy walls and stringing back in tentacles which adhered to his clothing. One last curse from that
cavity of a mouth before it was swamped by a tidal wave of crimson fluid.

Sabat pulled the trigger again but the hammer fell on an empty shell. He scrambled up, felt his feet
squelching on the soft body beneath him, somehow secured a grip on the top of the grave and pulled
himself up amid an avalanche of soil and stones. Then he lay there on the ground, gulping in great lungfuls
of freezing air and trying not to look at the three puppet-like corpses who sat closely by as though
watching him, their expressions seeming to have changed to one of pleading; a mute request to be
returned to their graves.

And Sabat knew that he would have to re-bury them.

Dawn was turning the eastern sky a pale grey by the time he had finished. Every muscle and nerve in his
lean body raged its protest as he finally flung down the broken spade which he had found behind the hut
and stared at the three fresh mounds of earth. The man and woman now occupied a single grave, the
child a smaller one, and in the deep one lay Quentin. Six feet of earth and rock covered the most evil man
the world had ever known. Yet Sabat was uneasy, now glancing about him. It seemed colder than ever in
spite of his exertions. Almost as though night was coming back to cast its mantle over this bloodied
clearing and hide the shame of a once noble family.

He turned away, tried to hurry, then pulled up, cringing, not daring to look back. A voice, a whisper on
the early morning breeze, yet so familiar.

'Idle and yet I shall live again, ft is you who will moulder in this grave, Mark'

Sabat's lips moved in a hoarse answering croak.

'No! You're dead. I killed you.'
A laugh answered him, a shrill peal that might have been the wind freshening and rusliing through the
leaves, howling down from the mountain passes above. But there was no wind.

тАвRunning, his limbs now responding to the desperation that whipped him. Stumbling. Falling and picking
himself up, clothing torn, grazed hands beginning to bleed. On down that narrow track, daylight coming
quickly now. And behind him the laughter becoming fainter and fainter.

The hotel lobby was deserted as he entered, pulling himself up the narrow flight of stairs, exhaustion