"Freda Warrington - A Taste of Blood Wine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Warrington Freda)

nothing would drag from her what she knew.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he roared.
He cursed her, but there was nothing he could do—unless he took
her below, gave back the blood he had stolen. But then she would
not be a lure to trap Karl… As a minor act of revenge, it was
effective.
Clutching her weightless form, he walked on until he saw the rows
of folded black shapes against the whiteness. He kept them all
together, so that he would never lose anyone. The perpetual swirl
and change of the Crystal Ring sometimes made them hard to find,
but the magnetic patterns always led him to them eventually.
They were like cocoons, or mummified things. Pitiful really, but he
remembered each one by name, remembered their individual
vampire beauty. Here were two he had known; Katerina and
Andreas, whom he had had to punish for showing deeper loyalty to
Karl than to their master…
He stared at Katerina's frost-pearled dark face. Her body seemed no
more than folds of black parchment, paper-delicate but frozen hard
as a fossil. Yet he trawled his fingernails all down the length of her
form, lost for a few moments in a well of memory. How she'd hurt
him. How they all did.
This was the paradox of the Crystal Ring; it gave vampires the
freedom of the world—perhaps even gave them their existence—
but any who lingered too long risked being overcome by cold and
exhaustion. Then, if they lost the strength to escape, they sank into a
kind of hibernation.


file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Freda%20Warrington%20-%20A%20Taste%20of%20Blood%20Wine.html (59 of 711)28-12-2006 21:38:58
A Taste


Immortals could be killed with difficulty, but Kristian believed that
death was God's to inflict; and God had chosen to let vampires live
forever. This was far preferable. This way, Kristian held both the
power of life and the power of oblivion over his brood.
Some had been in the Weisskalt for centuries, some only a few
years. They were all the ones who had not turned out as he had
hoped, or who had crossed him, or broken his heart. Some he might
wake one day, when he felt they had learned their lesson; others
must sleep forever.
Tenderly, he laid Ilona alongside them.

***
"Mind your step, Herr von Wultendorf," said George Neville. "The
stairs are rather steep."
"Please, call me by my first name," said Karl, following him down
into the darkness. Behind him came Dr Neville's assistant, Henry
Millward, and his daughter Madeleine, her heels clicking lightly on
the brick treads. "I so enjoyed your lecture last week."