Black Lightning [antikvár]

PART ONE Blind, deaf, numb, she floated in a cloudy cocoon, suspended between death and life. Out of nothingness a measured drumming began. Picasso-patterns wove themselves agairíst the dark in luminous spirals, flashing spears. Light seeped through sealed lids. Splinters of sound pierced the clogged cotton-wool of her brain in which no thought stirred. Only the awareness that light was pain, sound was pain. Somewhere a dog barked, ripping open the cocoon. A hammer thudded against the walls of her skull, cracking the bones, pulping the sodden flesh. A spark of mind glimmered. She knew she was alive. The thudding was a pulse driving a reluctant heart, rousing a drugged body. Thud, thud, thud. Excruciating in its regularity and precision, it drove the blood through blocked channels, beat on dülled nerves, drummed in deaf ears, pricked weightless hands, while mind rejected the life inexorably thrust back upon her. Nausea tore her apart, but only a sour saliva filled her mouth. She moaned. An icy cloth on her forehead and cheeks. Lavender water on her hair. A rush of air. A vibration of footsteps. Voices-a slate-pencil screech. A cool hand on her wrist. Fingers turning back her eyelid. Her flesh shrivelled at the touch. The insensate hulk 1