"Whitley Strieber - Cat Magic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Strieber Whitley)

The witch ritual was the most important thing right now, though. He loved the craft, its spirit and its aims.
And the danger and drama of true initiation, the walk in the world of me dead: that was the greatest
possible human adventure, and he was excited to be a part of it.

The ancient ritual now persisted in the West only at the Covenstead. Animists such as American Indians
had stopped practicing it. Among the Apache, to become a shaman it had once been necessary to throw
oneself off a cliff. Those who lived passed the initiation. Those who died, died.

George listened to the humming of the apparatus It sounded fine. тАЬWhat kind of readings, Clark?тАЭ

тАЬLooks like we're okay. No unusual power drains, no sign of damage.тАЭ

George returned to the main lab. He put his hand on dark's shoulder. тАЬThat was a brave thing to do,
staying in here.тАЭ

тАЬA calculated risk. I thought perhaps they wouldn't have the technical skill to hook a bomb into this
system even if they wanted to.тАЭ

Dark powered down the field. The lights flickered again, and the cage made a faint crackling noise. A
sharp stench of ozone rilled the air. George pressed the floor switch that turned on the ventilators. He
realized that he was shaking. He was surprised that there hadn't been any damage to the equipment.

Suddenly he was weeping. Most men would have looked away, embarrassed. True to the custom of the
witches, though, dark threw his arms around George and comforted him.

тАЬYou know,тАЭ he said softly, тАЬno matter how hard this is, we've got to keep going. I don't want to be
maudlin, but frankly, an awful lot of people will be helped by our work. We have a mission, and that can't
be forgotten.тАЭ

Bonnie came in and put her hand on his shoulder. тАЬGeorge, we're with you, I'm with you.тАЭ

He wished she had been the one hugging him. But when dark let him go, she judged the moment ended
and also walked into the animal room.

This was followed by silence: it was not pleasant to know they were under siege. As it penetrated, this
hard truth deepened their upset even more. тАЬWhat I don't get is, Pierce takes the exact frog we were
working on,тАЭ George said. тАЬHow did he known which one?тАЭ
тАЬThe isolate terrarium,тАЭ Clark replied. тАЬIt's separate from the rest.тАЭ

тАЬI guess. I hope we've seen the last of him.тАЭ

Clark stopped working. For a moment he appeared reluctant to speak. Then he seemed to gather some
internal force to himself. тАЬFrankly, George, this Brother Pierce is a lot more powerful around here even
than you realize. Oh, I admit he's been having his attendance problems lately, at least if you believe the
paper. But the man has more charisma in his big toe than your average fire-breathing demagogue does in
his whole corpus delicti. You oughta see this campus on a Sunday morning when Brother Pierce is
working some big issue. Empty. And people are not sleeping it off, they are down at the Tabernacle for
the Sunday Student Worship. Even the drug scene at Bixter's is getting noticeably smaller. We're
becoming a Bible college.тАЭ