Luana Read Online Free PDF Page A

coal-black panther, each a giant of its kind.
    One swipe of a great claw. A man’s throat disappeared. Huge jaws came together, a skull powdered like plaster. And all of it feverish death dreams, impossible. The dying dreams of wish-fulfillment. No cats grew that big.
    In the middle raged a third shape, taller than any of the witch-men, clad in shards of leopard skin. It had hair and eyes as black as the panther’s coat, skin the shade of the lion’s. And its shape . . . its shape . . .
    There seemed to be a knife in each hand, and whenever they moved and caught the sun, a witch-man died. The impossible sight blurred further and he slid slowly down the tree, breaking loose tiny scraps of bark, crumpling at its roots.
    A witch-man was standing over him. His war club rose a thousand meters into the air, paused for eons outlined by blue sky. Abruptly the point of a spear rushed towards Barrett, protruding from the man’s solar plexus. His head went back, mouth gaped wide. He fell so close that his blood dampened the hunter’s sleeve. It was warm and comforting and stained the jungle khaki a deep, dark crimson.
    Barrett rolled away from the corpse and was startled that he could still do so. He blinked and stared dimly upwards. By rights he ought to be dead, but the mischievous simian eyes that stared directly down into his belonged to no angel. Barrett would have smiled, except that the muscles in that part of his face were already paralyzed by the poison. The chimp seemed to be yelling at him and it was waving a knife taken from a fallen witch-man.
    Maybe he was dead after all. If God truly had made man in his own image, what more logical than heaven should belong to the ape?
    He shivered. Cold and darkness rolled over him and sounds came from great distances through thick cushions. The last thing he saw was a chrome king cobra that danced and twisted comically before his eyes. A giant spinning and flashing in a vale of mountains unknown.
    Blackness.
    Silence and quiet and peace.
    In Death We Trust.
    He sneezed.
    Now, that was wrong. He grinned internally. Is there pneumonia after death? He tried to raise his head and felt he was succeeding. Then why wasn’t he bumping against his coffin? Another jerk and this time he was positive his head had gone up. He could tell from the cessation of pressure at its back. That was also wrong, very wrong.
    Perhaps if he tried he could open his eyes.
    Interesting. The inside of his coffin was equipped with fluorescent lighting. It also possessed a spirit. The spirit had a white coat, black face, thick glasses, and spoke with a definite Oxford accent.
    “Hello, Barrett,” the spirit said. “I’m Dr. Mkristo. Paul Mkristo.” The spirit’s face split in a wide grin that was most unspiritlike. “Welcome back to the world of the living. And gesundheit.”
    Barrett sat up sharply. He was in a hospital bed, in a hospital room, and also most probably in a hospital. Since the concept of hospitals in heaven was even more illogical than his being not dead, he concluded he was alive. Moving the sheets aside he started to swing his legs to the right. Then he hesitated and looked questioningly at Mkristo. The doctor was checking one of those clipboards that doctors always seem to be checking.
    “Hey,” Barrett muttered. His mouth felt like an old wig.
    “Hey yourself,” Mkristo replied.
    “Well, I mean, aren’t you going to tell me to take it easy?”
    “No, you’re fine,” the doctor informed him. He looked up. “You can leave anytime you want. No, wait, that’s not quite true.” He put down the clipboard and moved to sit on the side of the bed. A pack of cigarettes came out of a coat pocket.
    “Smoke?”
    “No thanks,” said Barrett. “Bad for your health.”
    “That’s funny, coming from a man with so little regard for his own.” Mkristo lit up, puffed contentedly.
    Barrett hesitated, spoke uncertainly. “You said I was all right. Then why can’t I leave? Where the devil