"Brian Lumley - Necroscope 7 - The Last Aerie" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

gurgling sump. But as if in defiance of the stinging rain,
Then for a time he hadn't. Now he worked for E-Branch
the night, and all other distractions, the phantom
and ... sometimes he wished he were a kid again. For
hologram continued to display itself wherever the glances
then it was all in the imagination.
of Trask and Anna Marie English happened to fall. It was
lan Goodly, the Night Duty Officer, was waiting for
there in the tiny unmanned foyer, playing on the neutral
them in the corridor. Very tall, skeletally thin and
grey doors of the elevator as if projected there from their
gangly, he was a prognosticator or 'hunchman'. Grey
eyeballs; and when the doors hissed open to admit them,
and mainly gaunt-featured, Goodly's expression was
they took it with them into the cage to be carried up to the
usually grave; he rarely smiled; only his eyes - large,
top floor offices of E-Branch HQ.
brown, warm and totally disarming - belied what must
The rest of the building was a well-known hotel; bright
otherwise constitute a rather unfortunate first
lights at the front, and a uniformed doorman from the
impression, that of a cadaverous mortician. 'Anna,' he
Corps of Commissionaires sheltering from the rain under
offered the girl a polite nod. 'Ben?'
his striped plastic canopy, or more likely inside taking a
Trask returned the unspecified query. 'Do you see it,
coffee with the night clerk now that all the guests were
too?'
abed. But up here on the top floor . . .
'We all do,' Goodly answered, his voice high-pitched
This was a different world. And a weird one.
and a little shrill, but not unusually so. And before
E-Branch: Ben Trask felt much the same about it now
Trask could say anything else: T guessed you'd be in.
as he had fourteen years ago when he was first recruited,
I've told them to wait for you in the Ops room.'
and as every Branch esper before and since. Alec Kyle,
'How many of them?'
an old friend and ex-Head of Branch was dead and gone
Goodly shrugged. 'Everyone within a thirty mile radius.'
now, (was he? And his body, too? Was that what this was
Trask nodded. Thanks, lan. I'll go and speak to them.
all about?) but he had come closest to it when he'd used
And you'd better go back to keeping watch.'
to say, 'E-Branch? A bloody funny outfit, Ben! Science
Again Goodly's shrug. 'Very well, but apart from this
and sorcery — telemetry and telepathy - computerized
it's going to be a quiet night. This thing is happening,
probability patterns and precogni-tion - gadgets and
and soon it will be finished. And then we'll see what