The Ancient. Muriel Gray. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Muriel Gray
Издательство: HarperCollins
Серия:
Жанр произведения: Ужасы и Мистика
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9780007404438
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id="uce2e436d-7720-5fc0-9a85-b274ded57aaf"> Book cover image

      MURIEL GRAY

      The Ancient

      HarperVoyager an imprint of

      HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2015

      Copyright © Muriel Gray 2002, 2015

      Cover photograph © Stewart Sutton/Getty Images; Shutterstock.com (sky, sea, mist)

      Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

      Muriel Gray asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780008158262

      Ebook Edition © December 2015 ISBN: 9780007404438

      Version: 2015-10-29

      For

      Hamish, Hector, Rowan and

      Angus James Barbour, with love

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

       Chapter 1

       Chapter 2

       Chapter 3

       Chapter 4

       Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

      

       Chapter 8

      

       Chapter 9

      

       Chapter 10

      

       Chapter 11

      

       Chapter 12

      

       Chapter 13

      

       Chapter 14

      

       Chapter 15

      

       Chapter 16

      

       Chapter 17

      

       Chapter 18

      

       Chapter 19

      

       Chapter 20

      

       Acknowledgements

      

       About the Author

      

       Also By Muriel Gray

      

       About the Publisher

       1

      In other circumstances, Eugenio might have given the rat a name. Rats, and the bold rats of this sun-baked slum more than most, were hard to capture. He might have kept it under a crate and thrown it pieces of food, simply to be its master, to control it, to confine it, the way his own life was determined by pinched-faced adults.

      But this rat was to die. It was their sacrifice, and as such, it needed no name.

      The creature writhed and thrashed in the soiled canvas bag that Eugenio held out from his body. His two companions watched, eyes big in anticipation, waiting for their leader, their priest, to guide them.

      As the oldest at nine years of age, Eugenio felt the weight of that responsibility: he moulded his face into an expression of suitable solemnity as he kicked at a piece of hardboard in the rubbish.

      ‘Here.’

      The two smaller boys glanced at him, then went to work, pulling the wood from the malodorous pile, farmers lifting a diseased crop from a toxic field. This slowly-shifting glacier of garbage was their home, their playground, their store cupboard. The fetor had long since ceased to make any impact on their senses, nor did the uniformity of its colour and texture, a mosaic of