Gabrielle Evans [Lawful Disorder 01] Lipstick and Handguns [Siren Classic] (pdf)
Poole Gabriella Akademia Mroku 01 WybraĹcy losu [ofic popr] 1
Smith Lisa Jane Pamietniki Wampirow 02 Walka
Jane Lindskold Firekeeper Saga 1 Through Wolf's Eyes
JANE ELLEN HARRISON ANCIENT ART AND RITUAL
Czas milosci i czekolady Gabrielle Zevin
Jane Porter Wyprawa do Brazylii
Gabriele Amorth Wyznania Egzorcysty
Austin, Lena [Deadly Sins] Pr
James P. Hogan Martian Knightlife
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
stretching and seeking the light it anticipated would now be filtering through
the closed eye-
lids, and finding instead only utter darkness, turning back in confusion, and
by such confusion fermenting, like milk souring, the thoughts in the space of
the dreamer.
Then, too, an explanation could lie in the fact that the body on the bed was
made of DNA linked and multiplied within these walls, his life strands
crocheted, perhaps, upon the very mattress on which he lay. Were there
memories awakening in the nucleus of his cells? Memories that were now wafting
up in trickles to his mind the way gas bled from a valve that had been jarred
loose?
Shouldn't his first night in this castle, his first unconscious dive within
the walls to which he was prodigal son, have some profound effect and import?
Or was the explanation, simply, that he was the world's biggest fool?
He had been dreaming about the castle. Only, in the dream, the castle was vast
and maze-
like, and he was lost in it, wandering from room to room, trying to find the
library. But the corridors were like the ones at Tulane: blankly alike, empty,
and confusing. It was after a seem-
ingly endless hunt that he found himself in the chapel.
Except that it wasn't the chapel. The pews and altar were gone. Everything was
gone except for the stained-glass window far up ahead, shining in the
darkness. The space he had entered felt like an attic, like an enormous top
floor that stretched the length of the castle. Beneath his feet were wooden
planks, and he could feel the vast-
Page 153
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
ness of the black space surrounding him by virtue of the hollow echoing moan
of the wind as it moved in and through the rotting beams of the roof.
Conscious that the floor might be just as
rotten, he inched toward the window, though he wanted nothing other than to
turn around and leave. But something (Wolfgang) made him con-
tinue. And then, quite abruptly, he was there, looking up at the hundreds of
dazzling pieces in the window's pattern, gems glittering in the moonlight.
He had no more than reached the spot when there came a noise; an earsplitting,
screeching noise. He clamped his hands over his ears, screamed once at the
excruciating pain of it, then screamed again when he saw the source; the
screeching was that of glass and metal bending.
The dragon in the window was turning its head.
The beast looked down at him from its place in the window, its red glass eyes
sparkling with dis-
dain. Then, to a further cacophony of noise-pain, it turned its body and
pulled loose from the window, one massive clawed foot landing on the wooden
floor with an earthquakelike shudder, then the other. The window screamed
again as it pulled its wings free from their surrounding blue glass sky.
The dragon towered over Gabriel unsteadily as it changed. The glass smoke
became real puffs, the flames real sparks, as its nostrils solidified. Its
body expanded into three dimen-
sions, filling out and back and around like an illusion of invisibility being
slowly withdrawn.
Its scales still reflected like glass shards, but now they overlaid and
defined real meat. When it had stretched and filled to its content, it settled
its newly massive frame down onto its light-throwing haunches, like a lizard
squatting on a rock.
To Gabriel's surprise, the dragon spoke.
"Your soul smells, Gabriel Knight."
The voice was deep and dank and decayed. It echoed in his brain, conjuring up
the image of a deep stone pit where the living are thrown to die amid the
jutting bones of corpses. Gabriel could see the beast's gigantic nostrils
breathing him in, weighing him by the subtleties of odor, the way a jackal
might judge a deer. If the curl of its teeth-
laden lips were any indication, it found his aroma particularly unpleasant.
"You wish to be Schattenjager?" The question was incredulous, insulting.
"I do," he replied. He considered fear, but decided against it. He had the
measure of his opponent as well, and he wasn't going to let some
overgrown satanic iguana intimidate him.
"You seek purification. How much sin do you have to burn?"
The dragon drew back its head and expelled a jet of fire, drawing a line, left
to right, between itself and the human before it. Gabriel looked at the line [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
