"Brian Lumley - Necroscope 2 - Wamphyri!" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

'You take his shoulders, I'll take his thighs,' said Krakovitch. 'Once we've got him in here we
can close the door and slide the cabinet down the steps. Frankly, I don't fancy touching him. I'll
touch him as little as possible. This way has to be best.'


They gingerly lifted the corpse, strained to get it over the rim of the cabinet, lowered it inside.
Gulharov went to close the door and the projecting stake got in the way. He grasped the splintered
stock in both hands - and the mental warning hit Krakovitch like a fist in his heart!


'Don't touch that!' he yelled, but too late.
 As Gulharov wrenched the stake free, so the leech-thing - headless as it was - came alive. Its
hideous slug-like body began to lash in a frenzy, so that it almost ejected itself from the cabinet. At
the same time its leathery skin broke open in a dozen places, putting out protoplasmic tentacles that
writhed and vibrated in a sort of mindless agony. These pseudopods whipped out, struck the sides
of the cabinet and recoiled, settled on Dragosani's body. They passed through clothing and dead
flesh and burrowed into him. More of them sprouted from the main body; they formed barbs,
hooked themselves into Dragosani's flesh. One of the tentacles found his chest cavity; it thickened
rapidly to the diameter of a man's wrist; the rest dissolved their barbs, released their holds,
withdrew and followed the main branch into him. With a final sucking plop the entire organism
drew itself down into Dragosani's body. His trunk began to heave and throb where it lay in the
cabinet.


While all of this occurred, so Gulharov had danced away and clambered up onto the desk. He
was mouthing half-inarticulate obscenities, shrieking like a woman. And he was pointing at
something. Krakovitch, almost numb with shock and horror, saw the leech-creature's flat cobra
head vibrating on the floor, flipping and flopping like a stranded flatfish. He gave a cry of loathing,
began to panic, then gripped himself tight and drove the panic out. Finally he slammed the cabinet
door shut and shot the bolt.


He grabbed a metal drawer from the cabinet's scattered guts, yelled: 'Well, help me!'


Gulharov got down off the desk. He still had the stake, was hanging on to it like grim death.
Prodding the flopping head, and cursing all the time under his breath, finally he juggled the thing into
Krakovitch's drawer. Krakovitch slammed a section of shelving down on top of it, and Gulharov
brought a pair of heavy ledgers to put on top of that. Both cabinet and drawer shuddered and
shook for a few seconds more, then were still.


Like a pair of ghosts Krakovitch and Gulharov faced each other, both of them panting, white
as sheets and round-eyed. Then Krakovitch snarled, reached out and slapped the other's face.
'Bodyguard?' he shouted. 'Bloody bodyguard?' He slapped him again, hard. 'Bloody hell!'


'I... I'm sorry. I didn't know what to...' Gulharov was trembling like a leaf, looked like he was