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

the Château Bronnitsy. But the hotel was only the headquarters; there were also two 'factories', one
in Dorset and the other in Norfolk, direct-linked to each other and to the HQ by telephone,
radiotelephone and computer. Such links, though top-security screened, were open to sophisticated
abuse, of course; a clever hacker might get in one day. Hopefully before that happened the branch
would have developed its telepaths to such an extent that all of this technological junk would be
unnecessary. Radio waves travel at a mere 186,000 miles per second, but human thought is
instantaneous and carries a far more vivid and finished picture.


Such were Alec Kyle's own thoughts as he sat at his desk and formulated Security Standing
Orders for the six Special Branch officers whose sole task in life was the personal security of an
infant boy just one month old, a child called Harry Keogh. Harry Jnr - the future head of INTESP.


'Harry,' said Kyle out loud, to no one in particular, 'you can have the job right now, if you still
want it.'


No, came the answer at once, startlingly clear in Kyle's mind. Not now, maybe not ever!


Kyle's mouth fell open and he started upright in his swivel chair. He knew what this was, had
known something very much similar at a time some eight months ago.


It was telepathy, yes, but it was more than telepathy. It was the 'infant' he'd just been thinking
about, the child whose mind housed all that was left of the greatest ESP talent in the world: Harry
Keogh.


'Christ!' Kyle whispered. And now he knew what it had been about, 'it' being the dream or
nightmare he'd had last night - when he'd been covered with leeches as big as kittens, whose
mouths had fastened on him to drain his blood, while he had leaped and gibbered in a glade of
stirless trees, until he'd been too weak to fight any longer. Then he'd fallen on the earth amidst the
pine needles, and the leeches had clung to him, and he'd known that he was becoming a leech!


And that, mercifully, had scared him wide awake. As for the dream's meaning: Kyle had long
since given up trying to read meanings into such precognitive glimpses. That was the trouble with
them: they were usually cryptic, rarely self-elucidating. But certainly he'd known that the dream was
one of those dreams, and now he guessed that this had something to do with it, too.


'Harry?' he breathed the query into the suddenly frigid atmosphere of the room. His breath
actually plumed in the air; in the space of mere seconds the temperature had taken a plunge. Just
like last time.


Something was forming in the middle of the room, in front of Kyle's desk. The smoke of his
cigarette trembled there and the air seemed to waver. He got up, crossed quickly to the window