"Friedman,.C.S.-.Coldfire.2.-.When.True.Night.Falls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friedman C. S)

gathered the boy up, buried his face in his hair (and the smell was
familiar, even that was right) and cried, let all the pain pour out in a
tsunami of raw emotion, an endless tide of grief and love and
loss...

And she had saved him. Lise. She had come, and she had seen,
and she had understood at once. And acted. Somehow she'd
killed the unnatural thing, or driven it off, and she'd dragged Case
to MedOps. Barely in time. Later, when he had regained the
wherewithal to communicate, he asked her what she had seen.
And she answered, steadily, It was devouring you. From the inside
out. That's what all these creatures do, one way or another. They
feed on us.

In the distance now he could hear the low rumble of a tram
approaching, its solar collectors vibrating as it bumped over the
uneven turf. Ian. It had to be him. The trams had proven to be
dangerously unreliable - two had exploded while being started up,
and three more simply would not work - but Ian was one of the few
who seemed capable of making them run, and they gave him no
surprises. Likewise the man's weapons functioned perfectly, while
others jammed and backfired, and as for his lab equipment... the
botanist lived a charmed life, without question. But at what price?

In his mind's eye Case could see the grisly stockpile that Lise had
discovered one night, after following Ian from camp. Small
mammals, a few birds, a single lizard... all beheaded or
dismembered or both, and hidden beneath a thornbush at edge of
the forest. When Case had confronted Ian about them the botanist
had made no attempt to dissemble or even defend himself, but
had said simply, There's power in the blood. Power in sacrifice.
Don't you see? That's how this planet works. Sacrifice is power,
Leo.

Sacrifice is power.

The tram was coming into sight now, and it was possible to make
out the form of a man behind its controls. Lamplight glinted on red
hair, wind-tossed: Ian Casca's trademark. In the back of the tram
was something bundled in a blanket, that might or might not be
alive. Case felt a chill course through him as he gauged the size of
the trapped animal, and he thought, Might be human. Might be. He
couldn't see Lise's expression, but it was a good bet she was
thinking the same thing.

The blood is the life, the Old Testament proclaimed. Lise had
shown him that passage in Casca's own Bible, underscored by two
red lines on a dog-eared page. He wondered if Ian had made
those marks before or after this horror began.