The Adept Book 2 The Lodge Of The Lynx (56 page)

Adam nodded agreement, though he did not expect conventional firepower to be their main concern.

“I’d guess that what we’re after is in this tower,” he said, pointing it out. “The house itself is Victorian—which means that most of the rest of this was done for show, not real defense.” He ran his finger along a line of mock machicolations. “But the tower is clearly older than the rest. I’d guess the walls are probably close to twenty feet thick.”

“Difficult, but not impossible,” Duart agreed. “Are you worried about damage to the tower?”

“No, just getting to whoever’s holed up there. I’d rather not knock the whole thing down around their ears until I’ve had a chance to see what’s really going on, but I’m not choosy, if it comes to protecting our own people.”

“Understood.” The major scanned the maps again, obviously solidifying his plans, then glanced appraisingly at Adam and McLeod.

“There’s one more thing you should know,” he said. “It didn’t show up on the photos, and nobody else saw it, including me, but one of my chaps swears he saw a civilian-type helicopter on this apron out front. Neddy’s a little fey—but I believe him.”

“So do I,” Adam said, not batting an eye. “We’ll keep that in mind.”

“Right,” Duart replied. “Let me talk to my men, and then we’ll decide if the weather’s going to make us do this the hard way.”

By two, Duart’s men were set, but by half past it was clear that the choppers would not be going airborne again today. Nonplussed, Duart shifted his focus to the fleet of civilian vehicles, from which one of his sergeants had already selected three Land Rovers and a jeep as backup transport. While the SAS shifted their gear into the vehicles, Kinsey directed one of his men to outfit Adam, McLeod, and Peregrine with winter camouflage gear. In their white coveralls, over-boots, and parkas, the three blended in immediately with the rest of the team, and thus attired, withdrew briefly to an upstairs bedroom with Christopher. There the priest gave them communion and his blessing before accompanying them back downstairs to see them off It was shortly after three, on the last day of December, as the little convoy set off through worsening snow toward the distant heights of the Cairngorms.

The light was failing rapidly by the time the column turned between the fieldstone markers, snow falling steadily now. Peering eagerly forward through the windscreen as they labored along the rough roadbed, Adam and McLeod close to either side, Peregrine scarcely knew whether he felt frightened or elated at the prospect of the impending struggle. Either way, he was glad that Adam had seen fit to let him be a part of it.

They got all the way to the perimeter fence without apparent opposition. As the jeep ground to a halt at the iron gate and Duart and his sergeant got out to deal with it, Peregrine became aware at once of a harsh, subliminal crackling to the air that hadn’t been there on their previous visit. Abruptly he sat forward, his hazel eyes narrowed to perceptive slits behind his spectacles.

“Adam, is that—”

“Yes, it is,” Adam said. “He knows. But keep warning me if you see anything. I can’t always second-guess.”

Duart’s sergeant was already at work on the fence. Within a matter of seconds, he had disarmed it, cut the rusty padlock securing the gate, and swung back the barrier of corrugated iron to let the convoy pass.

“You realize, don’t you,” McLeod muttered, as Duart and the sergeant came back to the jeep, “that this is about as good as ringing the front doorbell?”

“Can’t be helped,” Adam murmured. “From here on out, there’s no looking back.”

The vehicles rolled on through the gate and began slowly climbing the sticky, snow-clogged roadway, showing no headlights. They met with no physical resistance as they skirted the stream, but Adam was aware of a brooding, watchful tension in the air as thunder rumbled low on the horizon. The defenders of this place, he knew, were only biding their time.

Proceeding with due caution, they halted just short of the rise where the three had made their earlier reconnaissance. Duart bailed out to signal the others, and behind them, the other vehicles shut down their engines and men began to pile out. Adam and McLeod disembarked more cautiously, Peregrine following. McLeod had an H-K MP5 submachine gun around his neck, like the SAS men carried, and a Browning Hi-Power in a shoulder holster over his parka. Adam appeared to be unarmed, but Peregrine knew he wasn’t. Peregrine himself didn’t even have his sketchbox, though there were pencils and a pad in an inside pocket of his parka, and he wore his ring under his glove, as he knew the others did.

It was almost full dark now, a heavy inky twilight barely relieved by the growing glow of the moon beginning to rise beyond the mountains to the southeast. The snow had stopped, but Peregrine could see no stars. The SAS men broke into two forward patrols of four, with Duart and a third group of four to bring up their civilian partners. As the point patrols moved out, quickly invisible against the snow, Peregrine fell in to shadow Adam, slogging and stumbling along with him and McLeod as they headed on toward their objective. He could just see the dark silhouette of the castle as the moonlight grew brighter, a few lights showing at the windows—hardly looking worth all the trouble they were going to.

The group he and Adam were with had gotten within a few hundred yards of the last, relatively smooth approach to the castle’s outer wall and its Victorian gateway when Peregrine suddenly felt himself almost overwhelmed by a sick, queasy pang of naked fear that almost set him retching. Simultaneously, a chatter of automatic weapons fire erupted briefly from the gloom farther ahead and across the little valley cut by the stream, nearer the castle’s base, then was silent. As Duart and his men faded into cover, Adam drew Peregrine and McLeod back a few paces. The animal fear immediately receded. Peering ahead at the castle again, Peregrine suddenly tugged at Adam’s sleeve.

“Adam, do you see that?” he whispered urgently.

“See what?”

“It’s a—hard to describe it, actually.” He squinted, trying to make the focus sharper. “I think we’ve got one of those—holes in the astral umbrella that you’ve been mentioning. Right over the castle.”

“A
hole?”
Adam asked. “An actual
hole?”

“Well, yes. It’s more dense than a hole, though—like it’s covered or stuffed with black gauze, or—tulle—almost cobwebby.”

As Adam digested this new bit of information, Duart scuttled back to join them, crouching down in the snow.

“They’re pinned down, all ahead,” he informed Adam. “In addition to the firepower, there’s sort of a zone of darkness surrounding the place. When we tried to force our way through, it was like walking into a vat of glue. Can you do anything about it?”

“Aye, possibly,” Adam replied. “Tell your men to stand by.”

As Duart withdrew to comply, Adam pulled off his right glove and stuffed it into a pocket. When the hand emerged, it was holding his familiar
skean dubh,
the stone in its pommel glowing softly, mate to the one in his ring. Signaling Peregrine and McLeod to give him space, he pulled the sheath from the
skean dubh
and pocketed it, then touched the flat of the blade to his lips in salute before bending to trace a large pentagram in the snow, one point aimed at the castle beyond. When he had completed the symbol, he knelt down in the midst of it and bowed his head, the blade pressed flat to his forehead.

Author of Lights, give strength and guidance to those who seek to do Your will,
he prayed silently, centering his intent.
Ye ministers of grace, defend us, that the bulwarks of darkness may be breached and the Adversary be cast down before the Light of Lights.

A profound silence seemed to settle just in that one small space, though desultory gunfire continued to punctuate the night. Looking up, Adam opened his arms to Peregrine and McLeod in unspoken summons. Without hesitation, Peregrine came to kneel at Adam’s left while McLeod sank down to his right. As he bowed his head and closed his eyes in imitation of his mentor, he was spontaneously drawn out of himself to stand by Adam on the astral plane, along with McLeod.

Nor were they the only ones arrayed there. Present also, in the flowing sapphire robes of their calling, were other members of the Hunting Lodge: Philippa, Victoria, Lady Julian, and others whom Peregrine had encountered before only in the visions of his initiation—and Christopher, trailing the variegated skeins of fraternal harmony that were the offering of the Brethren he directed back at the staging site.

The whole shining company seemed to be gathered on the porch of a temple Peregrine had not seen before—all majestic greens and imperial shadows. Beyond
them,
Peregrine could sense the more general outpouring of other minds and hearts contributing to the offering of good will, a gentle glow of strength and harmony.

The temple’s lofty doors were glossy black, like polished coal, shot through with mobile glints of iridescent green, like floating dust of emeralds. Standing tall before them, Adam reached up with his ring hand to trace the sigil on the door as Peregrine had seen him do on the night of his initiation. When he spoke the ringing Password, the doors shifted without a sound to disclose heavy draperies of deepest green. The wind that breathed between them carried a faint vital tang of newly-turned soil.

Adam led the way into the chamber beyond—a lofty hall whose great supporting pillars were like the trunks of living trees. The presiding Presence within the great hall was ebony-dark, yet green light seemed to flow from it like water from an underground spring.

Adam knelt, the rest of them kneeling beside and behind him, heads bowed.

Lord of Earth,
Adam said,
as Master of the Hunt and servant of the light of Lights, I come seeking aid on behalf of the Widow’s Sons, followers in the footsteps of Solomon the Temple-Builder. Tonight we and they stand ready to do battle against the servants of Shadow, who would destroy the Temple which you yourself commissioned them to build in the name of Adonai—blessed be His Name.

But the Enemy shelters in earth, though the very stones cry out for justice,
Adam continued,
We pray you, breach their unholy sanctuary and rend the veil of darkness that obscures them, that the cleansing of the light of the Lord of Hosts may be focused upon them.

Adam bowed his head, hands upturned in supplication. As Peregrine waited, not daring to look up, the Being’s living presence surged outward to envelop Adam in a shimmering aura. The aura continued to widen, reaching out beyond the confines of the temple. Caught in this upsurge of power, Peregrine was swept away in a rushing sensation of soul-flight that ended in a dizzy qualm of vertigo.

When he opened his eyes, he was back in his own physical body, shivering and dazed in the chill embrace of a winter’s night. With his next intake of breath, he felt a sudden tremor through his knees that seemed to come from deep underground.

The tremor rose and swelled, sending rippling shock waves coursing along the ground. The attendant rumble of shifting rock built up to a crescendo. Even as Peregrine instinctively clapped his hands to his ears, a sonorous boom split the air, like a jet breaking the sound barrier, and the earth seemed momentarily to drop out from under him.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

PEREGRINE GROUNDED
with a jolt that was more psychic than physical. As he made a gasping effort to regain his equilibrium, the opaque canopy of darkness covering the castle was suddenly underlit with a shimmering green glow. Hair-fine filaments of emerald radiance broke the surface of the earth, uncurling like a carpet of new-blown seedlings. The tendrils thickened and branched, flowering upward like a whole spring unfolding in a moment. Charged with the strength of the earth itself, the blossoming vines overspread the darkness like ivy growing up a garden wall.

Everywhere the shining vine-growth spread, it put out rootlets, thrusting them deep into the fabric of the dark. As the net of verdant lights thickened and contracted, the murk began to crack like worn masonry, fragments of opaque blackness began to fall away like pieces of rotting eggshell.

Those who had fashioned such defenses fought to hold and repair them. Thrown off balance by a counterwave of hostile energy, Adam felt his own control slip and waver. The fog began to gather again, blotting out the night sky. Trembling with strain, Adam pointed his
skean dubh
at the castle and uttered a silent plea for support from the ranks of his Masonic brethren. He felt its support flowing into him, strong and comforting, but then, suddenly, a vast column of darkness fountained upward, superimposed on the castle tower, all but overwhelming what progress had been made.

Trembling with the effort, Adam launched himself upon the astral again, willing himself before his superior, who was Captain General of all the Hosts of Heaven. His wordless plea did not go unheeded. In dizzying rebound, he found himself reeling on his knees between McLeod and Peregrine, catching himself on his hands as vertigo made him momentarily lose his equilibrium. And Peregrine’s gasp drew his gaze heavenward, to look northward where McLeod also pointed—at the shifting curtain of Aurora Borealis parting to reveal a celestial host already at the charge.

Quicksilver swords raised round a noble banner, joyously singing as they came, the warriors thundered across the moonlit sky, armored in light, mounted on fiery battle chargers whose coats shone like molten gold and whose massive hooves struck sparks off the tips of the Cairngorms and made the earth tremble anew. As their column wheeled over the castle, the celestial knights began hacking great rips in the gauzy stuff that shrouded the tower and hid its inhabitants. Where their swords dealt cleansing fire, the shadows withered and shriveled. Adam could feel the shadow lifting, and tottered to his feet with his
skean dubh
directed at the castle once again, focusing all the power the Brethren had placed in his hands, hurling it through the focus of the
skean dubh’s
blade.

* * *

And inside the castle, in the high tower room, the Head-Master fell to his knees with a choked exclamation. The collapse of the castle’s psychic bulwark rocked the tower to its very foundations. As two of the closest acolytes rushed to his aid, he thrust them away from him with palsied hands, his black eyes snapping with fury.

“No time for that!” he snarled. “We must prepare new defenses. Victory will still be ours!”

Without knocking, Raeburn burst into the room, his lean face smudged with dirt and the torc askew at this throat. His white robe was rent at one shoulder. Pale eyes still slightly glazed from what he had seen outside, he took in with a glance the vast bloodstain down the front of the Head-Master’s robe, the crumpled body of Wemyss lying in a widening pool of blood not far from where the manuscript lay on its mat of black ram skin.

Wemyss’ wrists were bound high behind him with a scarlet cord that also had bent his head back for the sacrificial blade that had opened both jugulars. The knife itself was lying nearer the manuscript—not the razor-sharp scalpel Wemyss had used on
his
victims but a black, ancient weapon, kin to the torc, Raeburn could taste the residual power of Wemyss’ dying—heady stuff—but it had not been enough to hold the tower’s defenses.

“The psychic quake has collapsed a section of the west wing,” he reported neutrally, forcing his gaze away from Wemyss. “The house is now open to forced entry on that side. I’ve posted my men and the servants there with Uzis from the arsenal, and instructed them to hold their positions at all cost, but if we’re physically attacked from that quarter in any strength, they won’t be able to last indefinitely.”

“Then you must assist them,” the Head-Master said coldly.

“Take four men from here to guard the base of the tower itself.” He gestured toward the four nearest the door. “Go back to your men and remain there. Establish a redoubt among the ruins and set a medallion in place there. If our enemies do succeed in breaking through, call down the lightning and destroy them.”

It represented a death sentence on friend and foe alike. Raeburn’s pale eyes flickered.

“Head-Master,” he said evenly, “you do realize, don’t you, that what you’re asking would be suicide?”

“Only if you fail to hold the west wing as ordered,” the Head-Master retorted. “Let that be an incentive to you and your men. Now go! I have business of my own to attend to.”

He gestured dismissal with a curt, slashing motion of the hand. Raeburn hesitated a moment, his mouth tight with unspoken arguments. Then abruptly he spun on his heel and departed the way he had come, his reinforcements silently following.

Muttering under his breath, the Head-Master ordered his acolytes back to their places. Having given Raeburn four, there were only eight left, but they were his elite; they would not fail him.

“Now,” he said, as he spread his gnarled hands to them. “We are far from beaten—as our opponents will shortly discover. Let us see how the Huntsmen respond when their prey becomes an invisible predator . . .”

* * *

With Peregrine’s “black hole” now cleared and at least a fragile patch applied to the canopy of light where the rift had been courtesy of Christopher’s ongoing efforts with his Masonic backup team back at the staging area—Adam’s SAS allies could now settle down to doing what
they
did best. The celestial raiding party had withdrawn behind the shimmering curtain of the Aurora Borealis, and the castle was plainly visible in the light of the full moon.

Moving with the brisk precision of the professionals they were, Duart and his men began to advance, Adam and McLeod cautiously easing after them with Peregrine. The west wing had taken considerable damage in the quake, and now presented a definite focus for a physical assault. The incline was less steep than they had feared, well-broken by boulders and outcroppings.

The exchange of gunfire continued on both sides of their forward position as Duart’s two flanking parties of troopers began working their way systematically across the flat, taking advantage of every shadow and every piece of cover. The air was acrid with the stink of cordite. When they reached the shelter of the wall, which was only about four feet high, short bursts of enemy gunfire continued to spray the copestones, sending stinging chips of rubble showering over the men crouched in the shadows below.

“This is getting us nowhere fast,” McLeod muttered, rearing up from cover to fire off a quick burst-three-and-three, in imitation of the troopers—in the direction of a gap in the west wing wall.

There was the thin whine of a ricochet, followed by a return burst of hostile fire. McLeod dropped back with a muttered imprecation and braced himself for the next opportunity to fire. This kind of almost continuous volleying lasted for nearly ten minutes, until suddenly the gunfire from the building ceased.

As the last sporadic echoes died away, an eerie stillness settled over the area. The sounds of continuing gunfire from elsewhere within the perimeter receded, suddenly distant and strangely muffled.

“Something’s happening,” McLeod muttered, turning his head to and fro as if to catch an errant sound. “Can you feel the change in the air?”

Adam nodded without speaking. As he cast around him psychically, he became all at once aware of a ghostly stir of movement behind a snowbank beyond the wall. He caught a fleeting impression of something fanged and bestial gathering itself to spring. Even as he called out a warning to the men to either side, there was a racing surge of motion and the creature overleapt the wall to land in their midst.

A man screamed and toppled backwards, braced hands outflung as if grappling with an invisible monster—as, indeed, he was. A bloody set of gashes appeared on his chest, like the marks of feline talons. As the men around him fell back in confusion, looking for an enemy, there was another flurry of unseen movement and two more members of the party went down screaming.

“Look out!” shouted McLeod. “Here comes another!”

Adam was already on his feet. Gripping his
skean dubh
in his right hand, he flung up both hands before him in a gesture of warding as a heavy, invisible weight crashed down on him from the top of the wall. Hot animal breath fanned his cheeks as unseen fangs snarled and snapped at him a hair’s breadth short of his face. He wrestled it away with a thrust of his crossed forearms, and threw himself to one side as McLeod, cursing, pumped a triple round of bullets into the space where the creature’s chest should be.

There was an ear-splitting feline yowl as the entity turned on McLeod. Adam seized the brief moment’s respite to shift his full awareness to the astral. At once their attackers became visible in the likeness of enormous lynxes with burning eyes and tufted cheeks.

“Noel, to me!” he gasped. “Peregrine, use your soul-sight!”

Pressed half-stunned against the wall, Peregrine roused to the sound of his superior’s voice. Turning a deaf ear to the momentary panic around him, he struggled upright and narrowed his gaze, focusing beyond the visible as his mentor had taught him.

“I see them!” he cried as the nature of their attackers manifested itself. “What should I do?”

Instead of answering, Adam raised his
skean dubh
above his head and cried out a Word of command that rang deep as a tolling alarm bell. There was an answering flash of unearthly light. Briefly blinded, Peregrine knuckled his eyes and discovered that his perceptions had shifted totally to the astral. Casting a look in Adam’s direction, he caught his breath in astonishment, for his mentor’s aspect had completely changed.

Gone were the winter camouflage fatigues and the close-fitting watch cap Adam had been wearing in common with every other man in their party. In their place, he wore now the guise of a medieval knight, with a sapphire-blue surcoat belted over chain mail that shone in the darkness like quicksilver. The
skean dubh
had been transformed into a gleaming longsword with a hilt and quillons of gold. The gauntleted hand that gripped the sword bore a ring that flickered and flashed like the evening star.

Nor was Adam the only one to have changed. As McLeod moved in at Adam’s right, Peregrine saw that he, too, was armored in light. He glanced down at himself and saw that he was similarly arrayed, with a sheathed sword hanging at his side that called to his hand.

Before he could question the transformation, Adam raised his sword in a sweeping battle arc and hurled himself at the nearest of the lynxes. As the creatures turned to counter the attack, McLeod rushed in to close with two more of the beasts. In that split instant, Peregrine’s bewilderment gave way to sudden blazing knowledge. No longer in fear or doubt, he swept his own blade free of its sheath and charged one of the beasts that was savaging another of Duart’s men.

His first stroke creased the creature’s flank. Snarling, it wheeled and crouched, swiping at him with claws that dripped poison. His surcoat came away in tatters, but his mail turned aside the slashing talons. He struck again, this time at the head, and scored a slash across the beast’s gaping muzzle.

Instead of recoiling, it attacked, cannoning one shoulder into him with the fury of a charging boar. He struck the ground with a bruising force that jarred the breath from his lungs. Before he could struggle to his feet, the creature fell upon him with all its weight, pinning his blade against his chest as it sought to crush and smother him.

The blood roared in his ears. He croaked out a hoarse cry for help. The pressure on his chest increased until he was sure his ribs would crack. Hissing in anticipated triumph, the creature drew back one enormous forepaw to rake across his face, then abruptly arched and reared back, claws flailing the air as Adam’s sword point took it squarely between the shoulder blades.

Yowling and thrashing, it made a writhing attempt to dislodge the blade. Face set like iron, Adam held fast with both hands, driving the point deeper. Still struggling, the great lynx gave a piercing banshee screech and collapsed on its side. An instant later it wavered and vanished.

Peregrine drew an aching breath and shut his eyes briefly. When he opened them, Adam was bending over him against the filmy background of the Scottish night sky, the aspect of warrior knight gone away.

“Well done,” he whispered, giving Peregrine’s shoulder a pat. “You fought well.”