Dnia 22-03-2008 o 15:42:09 Jo'Asia <JoAsia@rassun.art.pl> napisa??:
> > Skoro znasz cykl to mo??esz oceniÄ? czy ta ok??adka > <http://esensja.pl/obrazki/okladkiks/50799_cena-krwi_300.jpg> pasuje > do tre??ci, i - co wazniejsze - nastroju ksiÄ???ki? Ja czyta??am tylko > wspomniane przez ciebie opowiadanie The Town Ain't Big Enough , i > jednak nie odnios??am wra??enia ??e z tego cyklu krew wylewa siÄ? litrami. > A po obejrzeniu tej ok??adki i owszem... > > Jo'Asia > Krew i pomniejszy demon:
A great spray of blood arced up the orange tiles of the station wall, feathering out from a thick red stream to a delicate pattern of crimson drops. On the floor below, his eyes and mouth open above the mangled ruin of his throat, lay a young man. No: the body of a young man. The dinner she'd so recently eaten rose to the back of Vicki's throat, but walls built during the investigations of other deaths slammed into place and she forced it down.
By the time the scream reached her throat, her throat had been torn away and the scream became a gurgle as her severed trachea filled with blood. The last thing she saw as her head fell back was the lines of red dribbling darkly down the sides of her new car.
Blood all over the back wall. The trail led into the alcove, but nothing led out.
And again she saw him, his face a clich??d mask of terror above the gaping red wound that was his throat. Gaping red woundâ?? no, more as though the whole front of his throat had been ripped away. Not ripped through, ripped away. That was what had been missing; the incongruity that had been nagging at her for over a week now. Where was the front of Ian Reddick's throat?
It was the smell. Like rotten eggs, only worse. Then there it was, big as life and twice as ugly and so close I could've reached out and touched it â?? if I was as senile as my daughter-in-law seems to think I am. The wings were spread out seven or eight feet. (...) that thing had eyes like I've never seen on any living creature and I hope to God never to see again. Yellow they were and cold, and I knew that if they looked back at me I wouldn't last much beyond the first glance. It was evil, gentlemen, real evil, not the diluted kind of evil humanity is prey to but the cold uncaring kind that comes from old Nick himself. (...)
At his feet, a body; a bearded man, late thirties, early forties, blood still draining from the ruined throat, thickening and congealing against the gravel. He had been dead before he hit the ground, for only the dead fall with that complete disregard of self that gives them the look of discarded marionettes.
The demon, when it came, was man-sized and vaguely man-shaped and all the more hideous for the slight resemblance. (...) The demon inclined its head and its features shifted with the movement as if it had no skull beneath the moist covering of skin. (...) The huge and lidless yellow eyes scanned the perimeters of its prison.
The demon speared the glove out of the air with a six inch talon, the loose folds of skin hanging between its arm and body snapping taut with the motion.
Wings spread, it drifted lower, a shadow against the stars, and settled on the balcony.
The creature stood, silhouetted against the night, holding the glass door between its claws. It almost filled the tiny solarium that linked the dining room to the balcony, (...) Woven like a red cord through the stench was the odor of fresh blood, telling Henry the demon had just fed and reminding him how long it had been since he had done the same.
A flap of wing almost held him then, but panic lent him strength and he kicked his way free, feeling tissue give beneath his heels. His shoulder took the blow meant for his throat. He dropped with it, grabbed above a misshapen foot, and pulled with all he had left. The back of the demon's head proved more resilient than Henry's television, but only just.
Dribbling viscous yellow fluid from a number of wounds, it snatched up the grimoire and limped out onto the balcony.
Much of its surface changed sluggishly back and forth from gray mottled black to black mottled gray and its right wing membrane had been torn.
It dropped off into the night, yellow fluid glistening where it had been standing.
The demon ripped the second half of the word from her throat, caught the falling body in its other hand, and pulled the wound up to the gaping circle of its mouth. Sucking noisily, it began to ingest the blood it needed to heal. It staggered and almost dropped its meal as a heavy weight slammed into it from the back and claws dragged lines of pain from shoulders to hip. Snarling, drooling red, it turned. Owen's lips were drawn back, his ears were flat against his skull, and his own snarl was more a howl as he threw himself forward again. He twisted in midair, spun around by a glancing blow, and landed heavily on three legs, blood staining his tan shoulder almost black. Maddened by the demon's proximity, he snarled again and struck at the dangling bit of wing, crushing it in his powerful jaws. Before the dog could bring his massive neck and shoulder muscles into play, the demon kicked out. One long talon drove through a rib and dragged six inches deep through the length of the mastiff's body, spilling a glistening pile of intestines into the dirt. With one last, feeble toss of his head, Owen managed to tear the already injured wing membrane further, then the light blazing in his eyes slowly dimmed and with a final hate-filled growl, he died. Even in death, his jaws kept their hold and the demon had to rip them apart before it could be free.
barefoot, had three toes, and very long toenails
-- -- Z powa??aniem Marek Szyjewski Ziemia = kula u nogi
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