Читать книгу The Orchid Nursery - Louise Katz - Страница 19

The eye of the cat is amber, a black stripe down its centre. I lash out with the blade, sinking it deep into the socket. Hot blood pulses out over my hand, my arm, and spatters my face. The creature screams in pain and flees, his brothers and sisters in his wake. I sit a while longer, wishing I had been able to sever the cat’s artery for then at least I would have had meat. I lick the blood from my hand and arm, then clean the blade in the earth and slip it back into my pocket. I make myself slowly and methodically force down more of the hard little pulses I have collected.

An hour of so later, tired to death, chilled and heartsore, I see in the near distance the beginning of the forest, a dark fringe seemingly cut out of the whitish-grey sky behind it. And there, at the pale of Civilisation is a solitary house, squat and low and blank faced. It is pale in colour and it shimmers mirage-like in the failing light. It isn’t until I come quite close that I am able to make out its details. It too is made of granite. Each stone is a stolen grave marker split lengthwise and laid horizontally, one atop the other, a travesty of Man’s pride. I feel sick to gaze upon it. And then, then I hear the sound that I can only think is surely the last thing I will ever hear – a guttural growling, hoarse and menacing, issuing from the direction in which I gaze all moveless with terror – and then the door opens and light spills out and in a rush of air the thing, massive and bulky yet moving with all the speed of a shot from the Martinette’s rifle, is all but upon me. A voice rings out, ‘Get back, Black!’

But the shadow-beast does not halt. It keeps coming straight at me and I am knocked from my feet to the ground, landing heavily, my shoulder crashing into stone. The voice cries again and it seems to come from within the hot pain that sears through me. ‘Stop! Black!’ it screams. And yes, the creature does desist, but the rumbling growl persists though I cannot tell whence it comes, for now it seems to be all around me.

And now a dark figure emerges from the rectangle of light, and above its head another light, and all around it smoke, blue smoke coiling. I can discern no features but can sense, with every nerve, its malevolence.