"David Wilson - Vampire Book 2 - To Speak With Lifeless Tongues" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson David Niall)

TO SPEAK WITH LIFELESS TONGUES
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that He or His servant might come to them. Each
believed in her heart that it would be her time.
Behind the heavy oak doors of the Mother
SuperiorтАЩs chambers the silence was broken by
heavy, rasping breaths that wheezed and scratched
their way free of one darkened corner of the room.
The small table that sat before her window, commanding
a view of the valley below, was set for a
meal that had gone untouched. Flies buzzed lazily
about the rotting remains of that meal and the
sickly-sweet stench of rotted meat permeated the air.
As the last of the light leaked from the room a
chair creaked. Old bones crackled as limbs too long
in one position were set in motion. A wracking
cough, brittle and harsh, broke the silence followed
by the grating sound of a flint being struck. The
wick of a tallow candle came to life, wavering softly
in the slight breeze from the window, and a thin,
frightened face came into focus.
Mother Agnes sat with both hands cupped about
the base of the candle, unmindful of the hot wax
dribbling slowly down the sides toward her withered
hands. She stared straight through the window
into the black void beyond, waiting. As did the
sisters who no longer took her counsel, she considered
that He might come, and the thought chilled
her to the center of her brittle, arthritic bones.
There was no warmth in her anticipation. Death
comes to all who wait in His own good time. Agnes
felt that her time must be near. There was no other
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DAVID NIALL WILSON
way to explain away the madness, and her God
wasnтАЩt answering her prayers.
So many days had passed since HeтАЩd first come
to them, so many dark and endless nights. Such
beauty. Never, in all the years of her service to her
savior had she felt drawn so completely to a man.
She should have known thenтАФshould have felt
that it was wrong. Nothing had mattered when he
turned his eyes upon her. Nothing but pleasing
himтАФnot even her faith. He had taken that faith
and twisted it, returning it only after it was worn
away and useless.
Beyond the window a wolf howled, and a shiver
shot through her weakened frame, nearly dropping
her from her seat to the cold stone of the floor.
What light there had been the night had swallowed