"Smith, Guy N - Sabat 04 - The Druid Connection" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Guy N)

FOR ONCE in his life Mark Sabat was overcome with indecisiveness. And fear! This was the way they would come; not demons in the night but in the guise of a mortal caller, a ploy to deceive him yet again.

He lay there in the bath, suddenly realising how the water had cooled, how the atmospheric temperature itself had dropped. He could hear the beating of his own heart, the pounding of his pulses in the silence. He closed his eyes briefly, suddenly realised that his headache had subsided. The breathing exercise again, ten in, ten out, an athlete bringing mind and body under control, an SAS commando preparing for action.

Still silence. Perhaps it was a casual caller thinking that the Reverend Owen still lived here, and would go away. Then the bell rang again; louder, more shrill, more persistent!

Sabat got up out of the bath with the speed and ease of a surfacing sealion, suddenly lithe and strong again, scarcely slopping a drop of water as he stepped out on to the mat and in the same supple movement reached for a towel off the rail and began to dry himself. Ten seconds later he was padding back to the bedroom, dressing with speed, checking that the -38 still rested in the pocket holster in his corduroy jacket. Only when he was fully clad did he pause, reflecting for a moment as he allowed his gaze to rest on the black crocodile-skin briefcase at the foot of the bed. Inside it lay the weapons to repel an attack such as might be expected from the forces of darkness. But there was no time to set them up, to use them now.

The bell rang again; the caller was becoming impatient. Well, Sabat wouldn't keep him waiting much longer!

He slid the Х38 out of its holster, held it easily in his hand, well aware of his own speed and accuracy when it came to marksmanship. He would be in his element in a gunfight but it would not be anything as simple as that. He did not know what he was up against, what enemy they had sent in Quentin's wake.

Moving as silently as a wraith, Sabat descended the stairs with scarcely a creaking board. The hallway was in darkness but by the glow of that same single streetlamp which had lit his bedroom he saw a figure silhouetted against the opaque glass panel of the front door. A man, his features indistinguishable, short and stocky, a hand going up to the bellpush yet again.

Ringing frantically now, determined that his call should be answered. Sabat flattened himself against the wall, began to move towards the door, the barrel of his revolver trained unwaveringly on that silhouette outside. Now he was only a yard from the other, a mere pane of glass separating them, the caller outside totally unaware of his presence. Yet he knew that Sabat was in the house otherwise he would have gone away before now.

Sabat made up his mind and moved with the speed of a swooping sparrowhawk, his free hand darting out, turning the yale catch and pulling the door inwards in one perfectly co-ordinated movement. Face to face, two men with their features bathed in shadow, the stranger recoiling with surprise, then letting out a faint grunt of alarm when the dim light glinted on the unmistakable barrel of a revolver.

'Just don't make a move,' Sabat's voice was low and menacing, 'otherwise you'll never live to make another!'

'Sabat!' a voice that was vaguely familiar to the ex-SAS man but which counted for nothing because the dark powers could imitate any sound or form they chose with ease. 'Take it easy, Sabat.'

'Don't risk it,' Sabat breathed, 'I'm not in the mood for mercy tonight. Anyway, who the hell are you?'

'It's me ... Kent,' the other was taken aback yet he showed no fear. 'Jesus Christ Almighty, do you always greet your visitors by shoving a Х38 in their faces?'

'Usually,' Sabat drawled and laughed faintly, but still he was not going to be lulled into apathy. His left hand found the lightswitch and flooded the hall and steps with brilliant white light. And as he saw his caller for the first time Sabat knew that it was indeed the man who called himself Kent, or at least it was his form and features.

'Come inside,' Sabat stepped back, held the door wide and Kent entered. Then Sabat moved, his hand dipping into his pocket and coming out again, holding something out towards the other. 'Just hold this a minute, Kent.'

Kent took the object, held it in the palm of his hand and regarded it with bewilderment. 'Hey, what's going on, Sabat? You gone religious or are you some kind of a screwball?'

'Neither,' Sabat laughed, retrieved the object which he had passed over, a small silver crucifix no more than an inch and a half long. 'Just checking that you really are Kent and not something using his form to get me. Because if you were you'd've been burned to hell by this.'

'I don't follow.'

'No, I don't expect you do but let me tell you this, Kent. There are some very dastardly goings-on in this village at present, beyond mortal ken, and I've just had my first encounter with one of the evil entities involved. Anyway, I'm satisfied it is you and I'm more than grateful to see you. You'd better come through to the lounge and we'll see if the Reverend Owen by any chance kept a drop of something in his sideboard and then we'll both find out what the other is up to.'

Sabat found a half-bottle of Claymore, poured a generous measure into two tumblers, searched in vain for a bottle of peppermint cordial, and finding none, decided to take his whisky neat. He passed the other glass to Kent, let his gaze run over the man whom he had not seen for the past five years, indeed, not since that time they had been colleagues in an SAS nocturnal exercise. He'd noted Kent's by-line on columns of one of the most sensational daily papers though. The journalist was doing all right for himself and was at the top of his profession.

There was a kind of agelessness about Kent stemming from the short-cropped fair hair that rendered any flecks of grey invisible and a reddish-bronze complexion that buried any lines that might otherwise have shown. If you got to know him well enough he would tell you that he was born on the twenty-eighth of July, nineteen-thirty-eight. That could have been a lie, told just for the hell of it. A square jaw that bespoke determination, a stockiness that was unlikely to turn to fat. At five feet eight inches he seemed short but he was not a man to be underestimated. Sabat recalled that night they had gone in on a couple of terrorists who had been holding a family hostage for five days. Sabat had got one of the gunmen, Kent the other. Both criminals had appeared in the dock on crutches!

Kent had a hidden sex appeal which wasn't apparent until a woman came to know him well. But that didn't often happen because the journalist was a loner; a good friend if he took a liking to you, a bastard if he didn't. Nobody, not even his closest associates in Fleet Street, used his first name even if they knew it. He was just 'Kent'.

'No doubt you're looking for the scoop of the decade,' Sabat regarded his visitor whimsically, 'and your paper doesn't give a shit if you get sued for libel.'

'That's rather overstating it,' the other replied. 'I don't deny I'm on the trail of a story but when I knew the church had pulled you in on it I knew it had to be something a bit out of the ordinary, not just a charred body because a curate got hit by a stray thunderbolt and a vicar went bananas and started setting fire to the churchyard. Look, Sabat, suppose we put our cards on the table; we know each other well enough. What the fuck's going on here?'