Dead Men's s Boots — читать онлайн бесплатно полностью

Like Juliet said, if one werewolf could organise itself as a colony creature, then probably they all could if they got the inspiration.

I had one thing going for me, and one thing only. As the loup-garou in front of me assembled itself by inches and ounces, the sense of it grew stronger in my second sight, or rather my second hearing: the tune of the loupgarou strengthened and strengthened, became more vivid and inescapable from moment to moment. I let the plangent notes fill me; and then I let them ooze out of me through my lungs and my throat and my fingertips and the fragile piece of moulded metal in my hands.

The coagulating mass in front of me roared in anger. It was much bigger already, and its disconcertingly liquid substance spilled down from the desk onto the floor, allowing the remaining cats a much bigger surface area to adhere to and be absorbed into. A stumpy appendage reached out towards me, developed blisters on its outer surface: the blisters grew into recognisable fingers which opened and closed spasmodically.

Rapier claws grew out from the fingertips.

I was fighting panic now: I wanted to hurry, but the logic of the tune was pulling me in the opposite direction, making me slow down, hold the notes as long as I could and let them glide out into the room on a descending scale. The tower of matter quivered, ripples chasing each other across its surface. Each ripple was like the pass of a magician’s hand, leaving behind first fur, then bare, disqÓthequiuietingly pink flesh, then fur again.

The limbs were forced out from the main mass like meat from a mincing machine, and as soon as the legs were able to stand they began to lurch towards me. The face rose and was extruded from the top of the tower like an obscene bubble, the flesh below it crimping and narrowing, creating a head and neck by default. It was all of a piece, the eyes the same colour and texture as the flesh of the face, but they were starting to clear as I watched. The face leered, and my feeling of panic grew.

But the tune was right, and I was wrong. Slow and steady, note upon skirling note, it laid itself on the nascent thing in front of me like chains. It was working: the only question was whether it was working fast enough to keep me from being eaten alive. The loup-garou slowed, its back bent as though under a heavy weight, but it didn’t stop. It took another step forward, the clutch of scimitars at the end of its arm flexing and clashing in front of my face.