"Zelazny, Roger - Amber 06 - Trumps Of Doom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

pace. I halted at the head of the stairway and nothing looked to be out of
order, but with my next inhalation a peculiar odor came to me. I couldn't place
it--sweat, must, damp dirt perhaps--certainly something organic.
I moved then to Julia's door and waited for several moments. The odor
seemed stronger there, but I heard no new sounds.
I rapped softly on the dark wood. For a moment it seemed that I heard
someone stirring within, but only for a moment. I knocked again.
"Julia?" I called out. "It's me Merle."
Nothing. I knocked louder.
Something fell with a crash. I tried the doorknob. Locked.
I twisted and jerked and tore the doorknob, the lock plate, and the entire
locking mechanism free. I moved immediately to my left then, past the hinged
edge of the door and the frame. I extended my left hand and applied gentle
pressure to the upper panel with my fingertips.
I moved the door a few inches inward and paused. No new sounds ensued, and
nothing but a slice of wall and floor came into view, with narrow glimpses of a
watercolor, the red sofa, the green rug. I eased the door open a little farther.
More of the same. And the odor was even stronger.
I took a half step to my right and applied a steady pressure.
Nothingnothingnothing...
I snatched my hand away when she came into view. Lying there. Across the
room. Bloody...
There was blood on tie floor, the rug, a bloody disarray near the corner
off to my left. Upset furniture, torn cushions...
I suppressed an impulse to rush forward.
I took one slow step and then another, all of my senses alert. I crossed
the threshold. There was nothing else/no one else in the room. Frakir tightened
about my wrist. I should have said something then, but my mind was elsewhere.
I approached and knelt at her side. I felt sick. From the doorway I had not
been able to see that half of her face and her right arm were missing. She was
not breathing and her carotid was silent. She had on a torn and bloodied
peach-colored robe; there was a blue pendant about her neck.
The blood that had spilled beyond the rug onto the hardwood floor was
smeared and tracked. They were not human footprints, however, but large,
elongated, three-toed things, well padded, clawed.
A draft of which I had been only half-consciously aware--coming from the
opened bedroom door at my back--was suddenly diminished, as the odor
intensified. There came another quick pulsing at my wrist. There was no sound,
though. It was absolutely silent, but I knew that it was there.
I spun up out of my kneeling position into a crouch, turning--
I saw a large mouthful of big teeth, bloody lips curled back around them.
They lined the muzzle belonging to several hundred pounds of doglike creature
covered with coarse, moldy-looking yellow fur. Its ears were like clumps of
fungi, its yellow-orange eyes wide and feral.
As I had no doubt whatever concerning its intentions I hurled the doorknob,
which I had been clutching half-consciously for the past minute. It glanced off
the bony ridge above its left eye without noticeable effect. Still soundless the
thing sprang at me.
Not even time for a word to Frakir...
People who work in slaughterhouses know that there is a spot on an animal's