"Guy N. Smith - Sabat 4 - The Druid Connection" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Guy N)

mind free to suffer the tortures of fire. A brief moment of sheer panic and
after that he did not fight against the inevitable again. It was becoming
unbearably hot in here and no longer could he see outside. His eyes streamed
and smarted but he was unable to close them.

'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no
evil ... * He wondered if he spoke

aloud but it was impossible to tell because that chanting outside had risen to
a deafening crescendo. A shout, a word or a name that was recognisable: 'Edda
. . . Edda . . . Edda

Now he was clinging to a frail thread of life, fighting to stay conscious even
though he yearned for the peace of death. Screaming because his feet were
beginning to smoulder, smelling his own roasting flesh and being unable to
vomit.

Then leaping flames and indescribable agony, the smoky orange blackness
enveloping him as his cassock caught fire and inferno roared its wrath like an
enraged dragon.

And somewhere, far away, the Oke Priests were still chanting.

'Edda . . . Edda . . . Edda , . , '




CHAPTER TWO



BISHOP BOYCE wanted to vomit at the first opportunity. Vicar Mannering had
done so openly in St Monica's churchyard and the gathering of police officers
had not even seemed to notice. Yet, Boyce told himself, it might be all right
for a mere vicar to spew in public, his complexion a greenish hue, but it was
not becoming for a bishop, the head of the diocese. He gulped, tasted the
sharp acrid tang of bile in his throat, and determined not to look again at
that charred, virtually unrecognisable thing that lay in an area of scorched
grass between two tombstones. The one on the right, that once-impressive
monument to Sir Henry Grayne, looked as though somebody had attempted to
remove the lush growth of moss from the marble with a blowtorch. They had only
succeeded in rendering it to a blackened stump like a giant decayed tooth.

'You're sure this is . . . ' the Detective Inspector almost said, '"was" ...
the Reverend Owen?'

'It's the curate, all right/ Boyce turned away, took a deep breath and hoped
that he wouldn't throw up. 'I recognise the skull formation . . . also that
ring he's wearing.' The former was a lie; no, more of a guess. The latter was