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He put the handset to his ear, said: 'Roberts?'
Clarke heard a tinny voice from the telephone, but couldn't make out what it
said. But he saw
Roberts give a massive start and heard his whooshing intake of breath.
'Jesus!' Roberts exploded into life. He slammed the phone down, came rearing
unsteadily to his feet. 'That was Layard,' he panted. 'He's found the bastard
again -
and guess where he is!'
Clarke didn't have to guess, for his talent had taken over. It was telling him
to get the hell out of this house; it was even propelling him towards the
door. But only for a moment, for his talent
'knew' that there was danger out there on the landing, and now it was heading
Darcy towards the window!
Clarke knew what was happening. He fought it, grabbed up his crossbow, forced
himself to follow Roberts's bulk to the door of the flat.
Out on the first floor landing, Yulian had already sensed the hated espers in
the room. He knew who they were, and how dangerous they were. An old upright
piano stood on broken castors with its back to the handrail at the top of the
stairs. It must weigh almost a fifth of a ton, but that was hardly an obstacle
to the vampire. He grasped it, gave a grunt, and dragged it bodily into place
in front of the door. Its castors snapped off and went skittering, their
broken housings ripping up the carpet as Yulian finally got the piano
positioned to his satisfaction.
No sooner was he finished than Roberts was on the other side of the door,
trying to push it open. 'Shit!' Roberts snarled. 'It can only be him, and he's
trapped us in here! Darcy, the door opens outwards - give me a hand...'
They thrust their shoulders at the door together, and at last heard the
piano's broken claws squealing on the scored floorboards. A gap appeared, and
Roberts thrust out an arm into darkness, got a grip on the top of the piano
and started to haul himself up and over it. He dragged his crossbow after him,
with Clarke pushing from behind.
'Where the hell are those idiots from downstairs?' Roberts panted.
'Hurry, for Christ's sake!' Clarke urged him on. 'He'll be up the stairs by
now...' But he wasn't.
The landing light came on.
Sprawled on top of the piano, Roberts's eyes stood out like shiny pebbles in
his face as he
gazed directly into the awful visage of Yulian Bodescu. The vampire wrenched
Roberts's crossbow from fingers made immobile through shock. He turned the
weapon and fired its bolt directly into the gap of the door behind the piano.
Then he gurgled something from a throat clotted with blood, and began to
methodically batter at Roberts's head. The wire string of the crossbow hummed
with the speed and force of his blows.
Roberts had screamed once - one high, shrill scream - before he fell silent
under Yulian's onslaught. Blow after blow the vampire rained on him, until his
head was a raw red pulp that dripped brains onto the piano's keyboard. And
only then did he stop.
Inside the room, Clarke had heard the thrumm of the bolt where it missed him
by a hair's breadth. And looking out through the gap in the door, half-blinded
by the light, he had seen what this nightmare Thing had done to Roberts. Numb
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with horror, nevertheless he tried to line up his own weapon for a shot, but
in the next moment Yulian had thrust Roberts's corpse back inside the room on
top of Clarke, and rammed the piano back up against the door. And that was
when
Clarke broke: he couldn't fight that Thing out there and his talent! The
latter wouldn't let him.
Instead he dropped the crossbow, stumbled back inside the flat and sought a
window looking down on the street outside.
There was no longer any coherency left in him; all he wanted to do was get
away. As far and as swiftly as possible.
In the garret flatlet, Brenda Keogh had been asleep for only twenty minutes. A
scream - like the welling cry of a tortured animal - had snatched her awake,
brought her tumbling out of bed. At first she thought it was Harry, but then
she heard scuffling sounds from downstairs and a noise like the slamming of a
door. What on earth was going on down there?
She went a little unsteadily to her door, opened it and leaned out to listen
for any recurrence of the sounds. But all was silent now, and the tiny landing
stood in darkness - a darkness which suddenly flowed forward to send her
crashing back into the room! And now Yulian was within an ace of his revenge, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]