Death of an Adept

Chapter Twenty-Four

ADAM was reading in the library when the house phone rang. Ximena had gone up to bed, as had Philippa. Setting a finger in his book to mark his place, he went over to the desk to answer the summons.

"Sir, I'm putting Mr. Lovat through!" Humphrey informed him without preamble. "Hold the line."

The uncharacteristically preemptory tone put Adam instantly on alert, even as Peregrine came on the line, sounding breathless and distraught.

"Trouble, Adam!" he gasped. "We've just had an attempted break-in, down here at the gate lodge."

"Good Lord!" Adam exclaimed. "Are you and Julia all right?"

"More or less," came the reply, "but this wasn't any ordinary burglary. There's something awful in the kitchen, and I'm not sure I've - Jesus, the lights just went out!"

"Peregrine, are you all right? Humphrey, get in here!" Adam bellowed, when Peregrine did not immediately respond. "Peregrine, answer me!"

" - got to get out of the house, but I know they're out there…" Peregrine's answer came through a crackle of static. "… kind of drugged smoke."

"What's that?" Adam demanded.

"House phone's dead," Peregrine's voice went on, through crackles of more static. "Cell phone keeps breaking up - "

"Peregrine?" Adam shouted, as the interference continued, gesturing urgently as Humphrey appeared in the library doorway. "Peregrine, hang on! We'll be there as fast as we can! Humphrey, bring the Rover around. Peregrine, don't even try to leave the house. If you can hear me, just stay put and keep your heads down!"

A scant five minutes later, Adam and the faithful Humphrey were barrelling down the drive in the Range Rover, Humphrey at the wheel and Adam beside him with a pair of loaded shotguns braced purposefully across his knees. Neither man spoke as they approached the final bend in the road, but Adam slipped his Adept ring onto his hand.

The dark bulk of the gate lodge hove into view ahead, no lights showing upstairs or down. Humphrey pulled up short by the front door in a shower of gravel and a blaze of headlamps as a dark-colored panel van with its lights out accelerated away from the gates in the direction of the motorway and quickly disappeared from sight. Flinging his door wide, Adam shoved one of the shotguns into Humphrey's hands and snatched up a powerful torch before vaulting out of the cab with his own weapon at the ready, praying that the Lovats were not in the departing vehicle.

"Peregrine?" he shouted, pounding up the steps two at a time to hammer on the door. "Peregrine, it's Adam! Humphrey and I are here with shotguns. Philippa's calling the police."

Deathly silence suddenly gave way to the thud of hurrying footbeats on the stair within, followed by a scraping noise and the sharp click of a snib-lock being drawn. When the door swung partly open, Peregrine's drawn face appeared at the gap, squinting in the light of Humphrey's torch.

"Oh, thank God!" he exclaimed. "Quick, come inside."

He threw the door wide to allow them to enter and closed it swiftly behind them.

"Julia's upstairs," he informed them, as he replaced the chair he had wedged under the doorknob and Adam anxiously swept his torch around the room. "The air's clearer up there."

A foul carrion stench permeated the ground floor, along with a faintly dizzying narcotic residue and a more disturbing ripple of soul-chilling menace. Adam was hardly surprised to see that Peregrine looked decidedly queasy.

"We'd better deal with whatever's in the kitchen," he said, shining his torch in that direction. "You want to show me? Humphrey, stay here and guard the door - and see if you can get some windows open."

Mutely the young artist led the way into the kitchen, where the noisome bundle still lay on the floor by the kitchen door. The accompanying emanation of evil, as they approached, was nearly as palpable as the physical smell.

Laying his shotgun aside and tucking his torch under one arm, Adam used his handkerchief to mask his nose and mouth with one hand while he gingerly lifted a corner of the tea towel with the other. One glance was enough to make him drop the towel and sketch a sign of warding in the air above it.

"There's nothing I can do about this here and now," he told Peregrine. "We'll have to bring it up to the main house to deal with it properly. You go fetch Julia, but stay in the sitting room with Humphrey. I'll get this thing shielded for transport."

As Peregrine disappeared up the stairs, Adam cast his torch-beam around the kitchen until he spotted a square metal biscuit tin with a tight-fitting lid. Emptying its contents into the sink, he set it on the floor beside his bundled-up quarry and used a pair of wooden spoons to lift the offending item into the box. It was still smoldering inside the tea towel. As he set the lid in place and pressed it closed, Peregrine came down the stairs with Julia, the latter cradling their black and white kitten protectively in the front of her robe.

"Let's get out of here," Adam said, tucking the biscuit tin under one arm and grabbing up his shotgun.

With Humphrey warily covering their departure, they piled into the Range Rover, Adam stashing the biscuit tin in the back before he took the wheel. Philippa was waiting at the front door when they arrived at the house, bundled in a warm woollen robe.

"The police are on their way," she informed Adam as he alighted from the car. In a lower tone, she added, "Is there anything in particular we need to confer about before they arrive?"

"You could say that," Adam replied, handing her the shotguns.

Peregrine helped Julia from the car, with Humphrey taking charge of the frightened kitten, and Adam herded everyone toward the front door, himself lingering to retrieve the biscuit tin from the back of the car.

"The intruders planted a Hand of Glory in the kitchen," he said to his mother, carrying the tin somewhat gingerly. "Don't worry - I've got it safe in here for the time being. But you and I are going to have some work to do before the night is out."

As he pulled the door shut behind them and bolted it, Philippa setting the shotguns in a corner of the entry hall, they were joined by Ximena, who cast a questioning eye on the now sobbing Julia.

"Is everyone all right?" she inquired anxiously.

"Yes, but Julia's pretty shaken up," Adam said, ushering them both farther inside. "I've suggested a sedative or a tranquillizer, but she isn't keen on the idea - though sleep would be the best medicine, right about now. Could you look after her while Peregrine and I deal with the police?"

"Consider it done," Ximena said. "I assume she and Peregrine will be staying the night?''

"Absolutely. You can put them in the blue room."

Once Ximena had shepherded Julia upstairs, Humphrey retiring to the kitchen with the kitten, Peregrine slumped back against the newel post in the grip of a sudden faintness. Strong hands eased him to a sitting position on the bottommost step.

"Steady on," said Adam's voice in his ear. "Your wife's not the only one to have had a shock tonight."

Peregrine took off his spectacles and knuckled his eyes. "I'm sorry about this," he murmured. "I can't seem to think straight. My head's pounding like a drum."

"The police won't be here for a little while yet," Philippa said. "Why don't I go and get you a couple of extra-strength paracetamol?"

Peregrine nodded numbly, burying his face in one hand while Philippa disappeared upstairs and Adam retreated to stash the biscuit tin in the house safe. It occurred to Adam that McLeod ought to be notified about the gate lodge incident directly, rather than learning about it from a police report, but the inspector and his wife were away overnight for a christening. After considering, Adam rang the number for McLeod's home answering machine and left a terse but informative message. When he returned to the hall, Peregrine was draining a tumbler of water while Philippa massaged the back of his neck.

"Peregrine's just been telling me about what happened," Philippa informed her son. "Just offhand, I'd say that he and Julia had a very narrow escape."

"Just offhand, I'd say you're probably right. Peregrine, how are you feeling?"

Peregrine made a game attempt at a nonchalant smile, but it came out more of a grimace.

"Do you want the truth or a polite fiction?"

"The truth," Philippa said, "is that you've taken quite a hammering - probably worse than you realize. It's a good thing Julia was upstairs when the Hand was introduced into the house. If the fumes hadn't taken that bit longer to reach her, heaven only knows what might be happening to the pair of you just now."

Peregrine had gone several shades paler as she spoke, and turned frightened eyes on Adam.

"Adam, is that true?" he whispered.

Adam nodded soberly. "I'm afraid so. Under the circumstances, I think we'd better agree not to say anything about the Hand to the police, when they get here. I don't want them taking it away as evidence before I've had a chance to examine it."

"Indeed not," Philippa agreed. "When it comes to determining who was behind this attack, that particular piece of evidence is likely to be far more useful to us than it would be to the police."

"I understand, of course," Peregrine murmured. "But what do we tell them?"

"Just that you were working in the kitchen when a hand reached up through the cat-flap and tried to unlock the door. It withdrew when you walloped it with a hockey stick."

The police arrived shortly thereafter. After giving suitably edited statements concerning the attempted break-in, Adam and Peregrine accompanied the investigative team back to the gate lodge to view the crime scene. Philippa waited until they were safely gone, then returned to the safe and removed the tin, carrying it into the library to set on Adam's desk.

Gingerly she eased the lid off. The rank smell from within made her wrinkle her nose in disgust. After sketching a warding sign above the towel-wrapped contents, she picked the wrapping apart with the aid of a couple of pencils and peered inside. A sullen glow and a rising whiff of noxious smoke verified that the candle was extinguished, but the fingertips were still smoldering - and likely to continue doing so unless she took active measures to quench them.

Adam's medical bag lay on a chair beside the library door, where he had set it upon returning home earlier in the day. Thumbing it open, Philippa sought out an alcohol swab and a disposable needle in a sealed plastic sheath and brought them back to the desk. After consideration, she slipped the sterile needle into a vein in the back of her left hand and let blood drip from its nub onto each of the glowing fingertips in turn. The blood sizzled as it hit the smoldering flesh, and the reek of burnt blood briefly overlaid the ranker stench of the Hand itself; but she had the satisfaction of seeing all five grisly brands gutter and go dark.

She was wiping the blood off the back of her hand with the alcohol swab, still focused on what she had been obliged to do, when a knock at the door jolted her concentration. Before she could make any attempt to conceal what lay before her, the door swung open to admit Ximena, a look of consternation on her face.

"Philippa, have you got a moment?" she asked, coming into the room. "Julia agreed to let me give her a sedative, but while we were waiting for it to take effect, she told me that the people who tried to break into the gate lodge tonight pushed a severed human hand through the cat… flap…"

Her voice trailed off as her gaze fell upon the object in the tin. "Oh my God, Julia wasn't just imagining things," she said weakly. "That's it, isn't it?"

Philippa nodded matter-of-factly. "It's an occult charm of the type known as a Hand of Glory," she explained. "Any encyclopaedia of witchcraft will tell you that such items are traditionally made from the hand of a gibbeted criminal. After the blood is squeezed out, the hand itself must be embalmed for two weeks in a solution of saltpetre, pepper, and salt, then dried in the sun. The candle is compounded of the victim's fat, wax, and several other unsavory ingredients which I won't go into."

Ximena's wide-eyed gaze fell upon Philippa's own hand, where she was pressing a bloody alcohol wipe to the back. "What - what're you doing?" she asked in a slightly constricted voice.

"I was putting the candle out," Philippa said blandly. "As illogical as it might sound, this kind of flame can only be quenched by blood or by skimmed milk. Since we only use low-fat and whole milk in this household, I was obliged to resort to the other option."

Aware that Ximena was staring at her in shrinking amazement, Philippa briefly inspected the back of her hand, then gave the puncture site a final wipe with the alcohol swab and tossed it into a wastebasket.

"I assure you, I'm not some kind of ghoul, my dear," she said, smiling gently. "My son must have told you that there are individuals out there who have a serious interest in black magic, and who practice it with genuinely malignant intent. It follows that in order to stop these people, we need to be familiar with their tools and how they operate."

Ximena recovered herself with a slight shake. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply any disrespect. Adam has told me some things about his work as a special investigator, but he's stopped short of going into detail about the cases themselves. You'll have to excuse me if I'm finding my first direct exposure a little unnerving."

"Actually," Philippa said drily, "you're bearing up remarkably well."

With an incredulous snort, Ximena glanced briefly at the Hand, then looked away again with a grimace of revulsion. "I hate to think of the state I'd be in if I weren 't bearing up well," she murmured. "You said a minute ago that this thing was a charm. What's it supposed to do?"

"The lore of such things tells us that in pre-industrial times, such charms were highly esteemed by robbers and housebreakers" Philippa replied, "as a means by which one could immobilize an entire household before breaking in and entering. The candle fumes are said to induce a drugged stupor in anyone who has the misfortune to inhale them. Hence the attempt to plant one in the Lovats' house tonight."

Ximena's dark eyes narrowed. "And you say this thing actually works?"

"Oh, indeed," Philippa said grimly. "It works all too well, when prepared by someone with genuine occult abilities. In fact," she added thoughtfully, "given the trouble involved in making a charm of this type - after all, gibbeted criminals are not exactly easy to find these days - I think that on this occasion we may safely infer that we're dealing with an occultist of singular dedication - and power."

"You make it sound as if you've been dealing with this kind of thing all your life," Ximena said with some astonishment.

Philippa permitted herself a mirthless smile. "That's because I have. You get experienced at dealing with crimes like these - but you never get used to them."

Ximena stole another glance at the hand in the tin and suppressed an eloquent shudder. "Assuming that everything you've said is true," she murmured, "that doesn't explain why anyone would want to attack the Lovats with something like this."

"Ah," Philippa said. "In case you haven't guessed it already, Peregrine - is an extremely gifted psychic. Like Adam, he often places his talents at the service of the Law. That kind of work can make enemies in dark places. I expect there are lots of folk out there who think they have a score to settle."

Ximena took a moment to assimilate this. "What have you told the police?"

"About the Hand? Nothing. And we don't intend to tell them anything. They'd only want to take it away with them as evidence - and frankly, that could be tantamount to handing a child a loaded gun. They don't have either the knowledge or the resources to deal with a thing like this. No, everyone is better off if we keep it here until Adam has time to examine it properly, and possibly determine where it came from."