"Smith, Guy N - Sabat 01 - The Graveyard Vultures" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Guy N)

PROLOGUE



SABAT HAD smelled evil in the air for the past hour; a cloying cold mustiness that was stronger than the scent of the pine trees and belied the balmy late spring atmosphere. The silence, too, was noticeable. The absence of birdsong and the soughing of the mountain breeze seemed to have lapsed into a calm where not even a leaf rustled. As though the world held its breath and waited.

The tall man in the dark, travel-stained and crumpled suit shrugged off the uneasiness he felt with a deliberate effort, paused on the long steep forest path to wipe the sweat from his high brow and aquiline features. A dry tongue flicked the fringes of his jet black moustache and his narrow, deep-sunken eyes stared ahead into the shadows of a gathering dusk. But nothing moved. A three inch scar down his left cheek, a ten-year-old disfigurement, was whiter than his own sallow complexion.

Tall and lithe, it was difficult to determine the age of this forest traveller; he might have been as old as fifty, on the other hand he could have been as young as thirty-five. Agile in every movement, yet those narrowed eyes reflected a maturity, even a hint of fear. Because for Mark Sabat this was the end of a long trail, one that had stretched across three continents where death had lurked in town and forest alike, but always his quarry had eluded him. Until now. This time there could be no escape for Quentin Sabat, his elder brother.

Mark Sabat had followed this same trail earlier that morning, memorised every detail from aloft as his astral body glided and hovered in the shape of a kestrel, whilst his physical body slept inside the hastily chalked five pointed star within the sparsely furnished hotel bedroom in the village far below. A hawk that missed nothing, ignoring voles which would have been easy prey. Searching, mile after exhilarating mile until the currents of mountain air brought it high above that clearing in the trees. And it saw the dilapidated woodcutter's shack and knew that it had found the last hiding place of the most evil man creation had ever known, an entity reborn time and again in human form, Satan's ambassador spawned in hell to wreak his vengeance on Earth, truly the mythical anti-Christ.

The kestrel had soared silently down to that open space amid the trees, alighted on a slender fir bough, and watched. At first the hut had appeared to be deserted; no sound or movement from within, not a wisp of woodsmoke out of the rusted iron stove chimney protruding from the warped roof. Sabat blinked in the sunlight, considered changing his form to that of a hornet and alighting on the cracked and dirty pane of glass that served as a window. But there was no hurry; a few more minutes, possibly hours, were nothing when compared with the years of relentless pursuit.

A larch-fly honed in on a pile of kindling by the door, landed briefly, then took off again as though this was no place in which to linger. Somewhere doves were cooing contentedly but they were a long way away, almost out of earshot. It seemed that the birds and beasts of the forest avoided this place.

The sun rose high but there was no warmth in its rays. Sabat ruffled his brown feathers, felt the chill and knew it was unnatural in spite of the height above sea level. Tiny eyes that missed nothing picked out the three rectangles of newly-turned earth on the fringe of the surrounding trees. Graves \ In them would doubtless He the remains of the man and woman and their young daughter who had ventured from the village up into these mountains before last winter and had not returned. The coming of the snows had hindered the search parties and the passing of time was a convenient excuse to forget. For nowadays, none went up into the mountains for it was a terrible place to be lost after dark. So the locals said, and Mark Sabat knew that they spoke the truth.

A movement, so sudden that the bird almost obeyed its natural instincts and took to the wing in sudden fright. It stiffened like some taxidermist's exhibit, saw the ill-fitting door being scraped back; a human form emerging.

An old man, so old that it was almost impossible to believe that he still lived, threadbare garments barely hiding the wasted frame beneath. Hairless, the skin like ancient parchment, eyes receding into deep black sockets, nostril cavities that bubbled thick mucus in time with the wheezing lungs. A slit of a toothless mouth from which came grunts brought about by the sheer effort of each movement from this revolting Methuselah.

Mark Sabat in his hawk form experienced a fleeting pang of pity that his own brother, one conceived in the same womb as himself, should have rotted away to this! But he dispelled the feeling, replacing it immediately with one of hate. For Quentin Sabat was no more than ten years his senior, his physical state self-induced so that he might precipitate himself into his next life, the desire to spawn a new evil, and throw the hunter off his trail. A desperate measure, indeed, or was there a more insidious motive for this premature senility?

The old man picked up an axe with difficulty, swung it weakly at a block of wood and urinated down a skeletal leg with the effort. The log split, fell into two halves and he spat out a glob of pink-tinged spittle, rested on the shaft of his axe, cursing profanely in a mixture of German and French.

Then the kestrel was airborne, winging its way swiftly and silently over the treetops, a headlong flight that took it back to the slumbering human form within the pentagram stirring it into wakefulness, a naked form that stretched and yawned and knew that its search was over.

Now Mark Sabat was back, treading the track which he had committed to memory, knowing that this time he must come in his own form for his astral body was powerless to bring about the demise of the devil's henchman. He did not hurry, almost euphoric because the end was in sight, fearful because he might not be strong enough. Quentin would know he was coming but he would not flee this time. He, too, would relish the encounter now, the direct conflict of good and evil, opposing forces battling for greater ideals than their own personal hatred of each other, something that had gone on since life began.

Fleeting memories came to plague Mark Sabat like a drowning man experiencing flashbacks of his life. An upper-class upbringing, his future ensured by a legacy from wealthy parents, boyhood rebellion against this planned life and in a moment of weakness, a pleasurable teenage homosexual experience which had driven him into priesthood in the hope of cleansing his tortured mind. Then the discovery of his own powers, the realisation that night when he had exorcised the poltergeist, followed by the doubting of his own faith brought about by the hypocrisy of church leaders. Precipitated into yet another phase; army life that had found him in the SAS . . . and the sheer pleasure derived from killing an enemy \ Legitimate murder, not once but many times. A new Sabat, so ruthless and yet still in possession of those inexplicable powers; powers that had saved his life on many occasions until a dishonourable discharge had tumbled him back into civilian life. Embittered, all that mattered now was the destruction of Quentin, because no one such as he had any right to exist amid Mankind.

The clearing, swamped by shadow so that Mark Sabat could only just make out the silhouette of the hut and the towering pines. Cold and getting colder all the time. He checked his means of protection. The herbs, the garlic, the silver crucifix and the tiny prayer book which was almost a blasphemy in the pocket of one who delighted in killing. And the revolver, a .38 which he carried at all times, useless in a situation such as this but a comfort in hostile places where earthly bodies might threaten him. Since those SAS days a gun had become a part of his personality, a means of instant death combined with his unerring marksmanship.

Then he saw Quentin on the far side of the clearing, a human shape gradually emerging as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, crouched by the graves. Eyes that fixed him, seemed to glow brightly with their intensity of hate, a cornered wounded beast of the chase waiting to spring on the hunter.

'So you have come.' The voice was not old and cracked, but smooth and cultured, mockingly defiant. 'You are stubborn, Mark. So foolish, because we could each have gone our own separate ways and now it is too late.'

'No,' the newcomer stepped forward, gripped the tiny crucifix in the pocket of his jacket and wondered if it would be powerful enough. 'There is not room enough for the two of us in this world, Quentin ...'