125893.fb2 Prophet Of Doom - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 52

Prophet Of Doom - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 52

"Not half as concerned as I am," Remo said. He poured himself a glass of ice water from a nearby frosted metal pitcher and downed the liquid in one gulp.

"You have recovered from your fainting spell," Smith said.

Remo shook his head. A minor coughing spasm racked his thin frame. "You have an unerring ability at stating the obvious, you know that, Smitty?" he said. "Besides, it feels like whatever knocked me out could come back any time."

Remo made a face. "It was strange. The last thing I remember in Wyoming was talking to you on the phone. I don't know what was in that yellow smoke, but it knocked me for a loop. I woke up on the plane. Guess Buffy must have told you where to find me, huh?"

"The girl from the motel," Smith said, nodding. "What does she know of our operation?"

"Nothing," Remo answered. "She probably saved my life. Besides, she's a Fed."

Smith grew interested. "The missing FBI agent?"

"She didn't look very missing to me," Remo said.

Smith considered telling Remo that the girl had returned to Ranch Ragnarok to try to free the Cole girl,

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but decided against it. He didn't want CURE'S enforcement arm risking another trip west until they were certain of what they were dealing with.

"She must remain the FBI's problem for the time being," he said instead. "Right now we must put all our efforts into identifying the drug you inhaled. You described a sulphur smell?"

"The place stunk of rotten eggs, if that's what you mean."

Smith nodded. "Typical of sulphur. It is quite pungent. Perhaps there's something to learn from the Forrester girl."

Smith led Remo out of the examining room and down the corridor to a windowless room at the end of the security wing.

On the room's only bed a young girl, not quite in her teens, lay motionless beneath a thin cotton sheet.

"She was discovered by some campers in a forest near Ranch Ragnarok," Smith explained as they entered the room.

"One of the missing girls?" Remo asked.

Smith nodded. "The fourth," he said. "And the last to disappear before Senator Cole's daughter. They must have released her when they went to collect the next girl."

Remo watched the young child in the bed breathing rhythmically, oblivious to all external stimuli. Remo himself had a daughter, and even though he rarely saw her, he knew how he would react if he found out she had been treated like Allison Forrester. He vowed to make Mark Kaspar and Esther Clear-Seer pay dearly for what they had done to the innocent young girls of Thermopolis.

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A strong smell of sulphur exuded from her unconscious body. Smith pulled a pearl gray handkerchief from an inner coat pocket. He placed the bunched cloth over mouth and nose in a vain attempt to block out the offensive odor.

"Since her arrival, I have had a battery of tests run," Smith said, gazing down at the prone figure. "CAT scans. An MRI. All results point to near dormant synaptic activity. It is as though her brain has been completely wiped clean."

"The smoke?" Remo asked softly. He had slid a folding chair close to the bed and sat down beside it, his forearms resting on the retractable metal restraining bar. He breathed in long sips through his mouth so the stink wouldn't affect his olfactory receptors.

Smith nodded. "All children are born with some level of cognition. Even in utero a fetus is conscious of its surroundings—but all of our tests have shown that this girl has. regressed beyond that limited level of awareness. Her responses to external stimuli are back beyond prenatal. We even had to close her eyes for her. She didn't seem to know how to do it without help."

Allison Forrester was a pretty young girl, and while Remo watched her sleep on that strange bed so far away from her home, he thought she looked like some long-forgotten princess from a fairy tale, waiting for a knight in shining armor to revive her with a kiss.

Remo gently pushed a lock of auburn hair from her forehead. The girl stirred, as if awakening from a long slumber. She smiled as she stretched her arms beneath the sheets.

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Smith took a step forward, lowering his handkerchief in surprise. "What's happening?" he asked.

Remo looked baffled. "I'm not sure," he said.

He put his arm above the girl once more. She stretched again, rotating her shoulders as if she was about to awaken.

This time Remo detected a faint movement from over his own bare forearm. He peered closer and saw something that looked like steam rising from his skin. A ghostly phosphorescence. And it was yellow.

All at once the eyelids of the Forrester girl snapped open. Her mouth opened, making rubbery shapes in a desperate attempt to speak. But no sound came out.

The yellow exhalation from Remo's arm gathered and coalesced, hovering like an early-morning fog over the girl's bed. With deep, gasping breaths the girl began to breathe in the yellow mist, like a smoker craving airborne nicotine.

She fell back to the bed, her vacant eyes suddenly content.

Smith was about to say something when the girl spoke.

"Sin-an-juuu..." The voice was that of a long dead soul crying out from beyond the grave. Smith shuddered at the eerie sound. "Sinanju," she wailed. "East has met West. Your destiny will be fulfilled."

Somewhere in the back of Remo's mind, the malevolent presence resurfaced. It had been there all along, flitting at the edges of his thoughts. But as the girl spoke, he could feel the other consciousness grow in strength.

As he stared through the yellow haze, an image

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suddenly appeared in Remo's mind—the same one he had seen in the motel room in Wyoming.

It was as if he were seeing something projected on the wall of the small hospital room. He saw a limitless black expanse at the center of which two figures stood. He did not know how, but he knew that one of the figures was purely malevolent. The other figure stood immobile in his mind, paralyzed perhaps by fear. As the bizarre tableau played on in silence, Remo saw the figure of evil move toward the second, docile creature, the villain's hands raised as if to do battle.

Remo tried to focus closely, attempting to see the combatants more clearly, but the vision started to disintegrate.

All at once the blackness drained from his sight, and he was again in the Folcroft room. The Forrester girl lay before him, eyes open, breathing softly.

He felt a hand on his shoulder.

"What is it, Remo?" Smith asked in a hushed voice.

Remo closed his dark eyes once, squeezing hard. Perspiration oozed from every pore. He leaned on the hospital bed. "I don't know," he admitted. His breathing became labored and he panted, trying to catch his breath. His throat felt raw and swollen.

"Is this like the last fainting spell?" Smith asked.

"Fainting spell?" Remo turned on Smith as if the director were out of his mind. The room was dimming. He realized that the yellow sulphur smoke had somehow expanded. It was as if he were looking at everything through a veneer of yellow gauze. The rotten-egg stench filled the room, clogging his nostrils. He had forgotten to breathe through his mouth.

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