Death of an Adept

Chapter Thirty-Two

THE passage of the second night brought no change in the status of the Hunt. While the rest of the house caught what sleep they could, Victoria kept the last watch of the long early morning hours, Christopher by her side. Sunday dawnedveold and blustery, with a hint of snow on the air.

First light found Philippa and Ximena making their way Wearily downstairs, where Harry Nimmo was already tucking into a plateful of scrambled eggs and bacon, ready to drive Ximena to the airport to collect her mother. McLeod, Peregrine, and Donald Cochrane were just finishing breakfast with Harry, and headed off to police headquarters while Philippa tried to coax Ximena to eat at least a little.

When Ximena had reluctantly downed some tea and toast, and Harry had bundled her off to the Range Rover, Philippa watched until the car disappeared up the drive before taking a mug of coffee into the library, flogging her weary brain for some new inspiration in the search for her missing son. She was momentarily startled to find Julian there ahead of her, her wheelchair parked close by the fireside, thin shoulders huddled under a paisley shawl. Julian looked up as Philippa entered, offering her a ragged smile.

"Good morning, Pippa. I hope you won't mind, but I borrowed Humphrey during the night to run an errand for me."

"Oh?"

"I couldn't get to sleep after I finished my watch last night, so I decided to meditate for a while. I had a sudden flash of inspiration around three A.M. - something that might be useful for strengthening the link between ourselves and Adam. I wasn't exactly sure where it had gotten to, after all these years, but thankfully it was right there in my jewel case that Humphrey brought back."

She opened her hand to display a finely engraved Victorian locket on a silver chain - the gift Philippa herself had given to Julian and Michael Brodie at Adam's christening, when the couple had pledged themselves to be his godparents. The oval locket contained a miniature photo of Adam as a baby, to which Julian had later added a curl from his first haircut.

Momentarily overwhelmed with fear for him, Philippa reached out to take it, fighting back tears as she opened the locket to gaze at the well-remembered image of her infant son, and the dark snippet of fine baby hair sealed behind fragile glass on the opposite side. When she closed it, she made herself draw a sobering breath and focus again, forcing a faint smile as she sank down on the edge of a chair beside Julian.

"He was a beautiful baby, wasn't he, Julian?" she breathed.

"Beautiful," Julian agreed. "And he grew into a beautiful man."

Philippa nodded. "He did. I wonder… Julian, I'm getting an idea."

"Yes?"

"We've always held that hair and blood are the two best physical links to a subject," she continued softly, as if reciting a well-rehearsed lesson. "Now we have the hair, but the blood… Actually, we do have the blood,'' she murmured, looking at Julian in sudden enlightenment. "In fact, we have something even better than blood."

"We do?"

"We do, indeed." Philippa handed the locket back to Julian, her smile broadening. "We have the genetic blood-link that Adam and I share. For nine months of both our lives, he and I were as one. And if we were to link that connection to his hair, and his skean dubh, and the Horus necklace - "

After briefly absenting herself to rouse Victoria and Christopher - and to give Humphrey instructions about diverting Julia to breakfast, if she should come downstairs before they were finished - Philippa outlined what she proposed. Christopher, in particular, had reservations.

"I'll give you that the genetic link idea may be sound," he said, to the distant ringing of church bells as he rubbed both hands across early morning stubble. "But the blood aspect of it strikes me as perilously close to the methods the opposition uses. It also leaves you more open to psychic rebound, if you do manage to make some kind of contact. You can always drop things out of the equation, if you start to get caught up in whatever's holding him; but if your body is part of the equation, extricating yourself might not be that easy."

"No one's expecting anything to be easy," she replied. "I am expecting that the locket will be the primary focus, though, because it's his hair that's the most direct link. I plan to use the locket as a pendulum for map scrying. Even if we can't pin down the exact location, we might at least be able to get a directional fix on him."

"Then let me put some additional protection on you before we start," Christopher insisted. "The last thing we need at this point is for you to get trapped and drawn into whatever devilry Raeburn has going."

Philippa did not protest as he blessed holy water and made a circuit of the library, refreshing the wards always resident in the room and, indeed, around the house, then coming to sprinkle each of the women in turn. When Philippa sat down at the table where Victoria was opening out a general map of Scotland, she had Adam's skean dubh in hand again and had donned the Horus necklace.

As Julian rolled into place at her right and Victoria sat on her left, Philippa took the locket back from Julian and looped the doubled end of its chain around the hilt of the skean dubh, just below the sapphire in the pommel, then held the weapon by the sheath and propped her elbow so that the locket dangled just above the Perthshire coordinates of Strathmourne. Julian and Victoria laid hands on her shoulders as Christopher sat down opposite, joining hands with him to close the circle as all of them prepared to begin the Work.

Philippa drew a deep breath and slowly let it out, settling into trance. She could feel the others' support as she gathered herself for the attempt and began casting back for memories of her pregnancy with Adam. Calling to mind the strong, secret rhythm of his heartbeat in her womb, her remembrance of the first time she had become aware of him as a distinct presence, she visualized their two lifelines entwined within the vessel of her own body. Then she began a conscious willing to reweave each and every tie that bound her to her son, fashioning the strands into a shining net that she finally cast outward, flinging it as far as she could.

She sensed a faint resistance as she started to reel it in, but she focused the pull through the links of her body and blood, through the necklace that had been Adam's in a distant land and time, through the skean dubh that was working tool in his present life - and down the silvery strand to the locket holding his likeness and a curl of his hair. She could feel her hand starting to tremble under the strain of channelling so much intent, could see it trembling as she let her gaze drift toward it - but then the pendulum itself began to vibrate, of its own accord. And then it began to circle slowly clockwise - and then counterclockwise - and then clockwise again.

"What…?" came Victoria's soft whisper, cut off at a nudge from Christopher.

Philippa did not move, holding her focus against increasing strain, but the locket continued to circle, refusing to take direction. At length she gave a long sigh and closed her eyes, letting the locket and skean dubh sink to the map and then slip from her fingers as she bowed her head in her hands.

"What happened?" Christopher asked gently. "Philippa, are you all right?"

She sighed again and lifted her head, weariness and discouragement writ stark across her face.

"He's out there," she murmured, "but I couldn't get past whatever's shielding him. They must be holding him somewhere that's incredibly well protected - quite probably Rae-burn's own bolthole."

"And given how well we can hide psychic activity," Christopher said archly, "we have to assume that Raeburn probably has similar expertise in that regard. Clearly, he does, or we should have been able to break through by now."

"I agree. But having said that," Philippa went on, "it occurs to me to wonder whether Raeburn would risk compromising such a secure retreat by using that location to carry out whatever he has planned for Adam. In other words, would he risk fouling his own nest? Also, given the way Callanish was used, and Raeburn's known predilection for working with ancient god-forms, I can't imagine that he'd pass up the chance to enhance his working by tapping into the power of some other ancient site.

"This gives us a two-pronged possibility of attack: By compiling a list of all the likely sites in the country, we may be able to narrow down some possibilities for his physical destination tomorrow night. And if they do move Adam to one of those sites, probably in the next twelve hours or so, they'll have to bring him out from under the heavy protection of wherever he is now. They can't maintain the same kind of cloaking on a moving subject that they can while he's stationary, in a long-established safe-house."

"That assumes that they will move him," Victoria pointed out. "What if they don't?"

Philippa shook her head. "I don't want to think about it; I can't think about it."

"I think you ought to get some rest," Christopher said quietly. "You're too worn out to - "

"I'm worried about his rest - which may be eternal, if we don't find him!" she retorted, rounding on the clergyman with all a mother's fierce determination. "And what if it isn't merely physical death that Raeburn is threatening? I can't give this up, even if it costs me my life!"

"And wasting your life isn't going to help him!" Julian said sharply, at the same time slipping an arm around her friend's trembling shoulders. "Get some rest, Pippa - please. We have to believe it's Imbolc Eve that Raeburn is aiming for - which means we've still got close to thirty-six hours to come up with something. If you think Raeburn is apt to use another ancient site, I'll put Julia on compiling a list right away.

"Meanwhile, you'd do us all a favor if you try to sleep for a few of those hours, so that you'll be ready to face the last ones. That's when Raeburn is most apt to slip up, most apt to get sloppy. But if you don't rest, you'll be no good to Adam."

Philippa said nothing for several long seconds, face turned away from Julian's entreaties; but then the proud shoulders unbent and she gave a long sigh as she looked up.

"You're right," she whispered. "All of you are right. I'll go upstairs and lie down for a few hours. Do have Julia start that site research, but carry on with the sweeps we've been making for the past two days. You might want to switch to pendulum dowsing, now that we've got the locket. And call Noel. Have him get back here with Peregrine. If we did make a contact, we wouldn't be able to make a timely response, physically scattered as we are right now."

"We'll do all of that," Christopher reassured her. "But you will get some sleep in the meantime?''

"I promise I'll try," she replied.

Philippa was as good as her word, and came back downstairs for tea when Ximena and Harry finally returned at mid-afternoon. McLeod and Peregrine had arrived a short time before, and took Harry off to the parlor to bring him up to date on police efforts.

"We've installed Mom at Harry's town house," Ximena told them, shaking her head as she gratefully accepted a mug of tea from Victoria. "His housekeeper will look after her. She took the news well enough, under the circumstances, but I thought her jet lag would never kick in. That's why we're so late."

"The poor thing," Julian murmured. "Hopefully, she'll sleep through the night."

Ximena managed a resigned shrug. "I expect she will. She wasn't happy that I wouldn't bring her back here to the house, though. She'd thought she'd be staying here, after all. But I tried to explain how that really wouldn't be a good idea, without telling her why it really wouldn't be a good idea. I've given her to understand that the house is being used as a staging area for the police search - which I suppose it is, in a way. Anyway, she'll never know the difference. She does know that cops over here don't operate like the ones back home."

"Some of them do," Philippa said with a faint smile. The look she exchanged with McLeod made it quite clear she was not referring to conventional police agencies.

"Oh," Ximena said. "Well, anyway, she'd never understand about all of this." She gestured toward the items temporarily set aside on the map on the table. "I wish I understood." She sighed. "I'm almost afraid to ask whether you made any progress while we were gone." She gnawed at her lower lip, fighting back tears. "Philippa, tell me he's still alive…."

"I can tell you that, my darling," Philippa whispered. "I only wish I could tell you more."

"Can he hear us?" a voice asked, just edging at Adam's consciousness.

"Maybe a little," another voice replied. "Give me five minutes, to be sure he's stable." "Very well. I'll be back."

The exchange came to Adam through a faint easing of the oblivion forced upon him. A hand turned his face slightly to one side and a bright light shone momentarily in first one eye and then the other. As the light withdrew, random tiny sounds began to anchor him to hazy awareness.

That awareness was hardly reassuring. He had managed to surface this far before. Following his second descent into oblivion, his drugged and unresisting body had been stripped naked and hooked up to a panoply of medical devices designed to monitor his vital signs and ensure that he never achieved more than a twilight level of consciousness. His occasional drifting forays back across the threshold of the abyss were accompanied by the soft, measured beep of an ECG somewhere behind his head, heard as if muffled through layers of cotton wool.

More rarely, when he managed to surface enough to open his eyes, he could see an IV bag hung close by the left side of the bed, its near end disappearing under strips of adhesive taped across the top of his wrist. Close pressure around a forefinger told of a pulse oximeter clamped there to monitor blood oxygen.

The IV itself was unalarming - a drip of dextrose and saline to sustain him. More insidious was the syringe pump attached to the IV, delivering a continuous infusion of the drugs keeping him sedated and helpless.

From his inability to move, Adam vaguely supposed that one of the drugs being given him must be a deep muscle relaxant of some kind - perhaps even one of the curariform substances that paralyzed voluntary movement and, in higher doses, interfered with breathing - for at some point, Mallory had intubated him. Since Adam was not now hooked up to a ventilator, he supposed that it must have been done as a precautionary measure until Mallory got the dosage fine-tuned - which was only what one might expect of a competent anaesthetist---

"Stay with me, Sinclair." Mallory's voice stopped him drifting, reinforced by the sensory stimulus of a sharp pinch to his right earlobe. "Mr. Raeburn is going to pay you a visit in a few minutes. It wouldn't be polite to go to sleep on him."

A squeezing around his right bicep told of a blood pressure reading being taken. His gaze drifted dimly to Mallory's hands, applying the cool bell of a stethoscope to the pulse at the inner elbow, and then beyond, where he was distantly amused to see a padded restraint now buckled around his wrist. He found himself idly wondering whether they really thought he was in any state to break free.

"Yes, indeed, you're doing just fine," Mallory murmured, the hiss of released pressure punctuating his brisk smile as he laid his stethoscope back around his neck and unpeeled the Velcro securing the cuff. "We certainly wouldn't want you slipping away on us prematurely. You have a very important social engagement to keep - though it won't be that posh society wedding that has all the tabloids in a twitter.

"Wedding of the season: dashing Edinburgh psychiatrist to wed American trauma specialist," the taunting voice continued, still sounding faint and far away. "What a pity they'll all be disappointed.

"Still, I don't imagine that pretty fiancee of yours will waste much time grieving, even if she will be cheated of a title. I might pay court to her myself, after you're gone. I expect her main regret will be that your failure to consummate the marriage means she won't inherit any of your wealth."

The door had opened and closed on his final remark, and a brief whisper of moving air raised goose bumps along Adam's exposed arms as another presence took Mallory's place.

"Now, Derek, it isn't sporting to tease our guest." Rae-burn's face materialized above Adam's - lean and vulpine, and looking very smug. "A very pleasant good evening to you, Dr. Sinclair," he said silkily. "How are we doing today?"

Even if Adam had wanted to reply, the endotracheal tube would have prevented it. He closed his eyes, just able to turn his face minutely away.

"Now, Dr. Sinclair, that isn't very sociable," Raeburn purred. "I had hoped you would grow resigned to your situation. In case you've lost track, the Eve of Imbolc is hardly twenty-four hours away. Can you guess what that means?"

Behind his closed eyelids, Adam could guess at all manner of possibilities, none of them comforting, and knew that his captor's blatant reference to Imbolc was clearly intended to provoke a fear response - and did, especially bolstered by the drugs in his system. The beep of the ECG monitor made audible confirmation of the increase in Adam's heart rate.

Sickly dispirited at this betrayal by his body, Adam nonetheless found himself opening his eyes with a start as the sound abruptly stopped - and caught Mallory's smarmy expression at the reaction as he adjusted a knob on the monitor. Raeburn, meanwhile, did not scruple to go into more explicit detail regarding his plans, clearly relishing the opportunity to further discomfit his victim.

"Oh, I can imagine what's going through that very fine mind of yours. You've probably already concluded, and rightly, that you're to be a featured participant in a very special ritual tomorrow night. The celebration will be in honor of the lord Taranis. It promises to be the crowning achievement of my career as well as an occasion of particularly satisfying personal revenge.

"And when all is said and done, I shall have succeeded where the Head-Master failed - where you thwarted his ambitions. I shall have made a slave of Taranis himself, so that all the lightnings of the Realm of Storms will be mine to command."

Adam's chest rose and fell on an involuntary gasp, and he would have spoken if he could, for the megalomania displayed in Raeburn's boast was exceeded only by the immortal peril inherent in what he proposed - even more for Raeburn himself than for Adam. Nor did the Lynx-Master seem to recognize the danger. While the Lords Elemental might condescend to allow the illusion that mortal grasp could contain their favors, they were by no means subject to human authority. Even less were they inclined to tolerate human presumption. What could Raeburn be thinking?

But Raeburn apparently mistook his captive's gasp for purely personal fear, because he settled negligently on the side of Adam's bed to elaborate on his boast.

"Do you doubt my claims, Master of the Hunt?" he purred. "Perhaps I failed to mention my new ally. You shall meet him tomorrow night on what was once his home ground. His name is William Lord Soulis. You have heard of him, haven't you?"

Adam closed his eyes as his mind reeled into disbelieving dismay, spinning him perilously near the brink of unconsciousness again.

"Yes, indeed, I thought you might recognize the name," Raeburn went on, enjoying his captive's reaction. "Shall I tell you of our bargain? Seven centuries ago, in exchange for favors rendered, Soulis engaged the services of a spirit familiar called Robin Redcap, and induced him to share the knowledge of how to bind elementals. Soulis has pledged to share that knowledge with me, in exchange for release from limbo and freedom to walk the earth again in human form. Shall it be your form or young lolo McFarlane's? I wonder…"

The sheer audacity of Raeburn's intentions bespoke an ambition that had outpaced the limits of reason, and the stark reality of Adam's own peril at last overwhelmed the fragile act of will that had kept him from sinking back down into oblivion again.

He almost managed to surface again, some unknown time later, dragged sluggishly back to the very threshold by vague queasiness and a dull, pulsing drone that buzzed to his very bones and somehow reminded him of flight. The drugs binding him to his body prevented him from dreaming, but just before the darkness pressed in on him again, a part of him disjointedly imagined that he was being carried aloft in the belly of some great saurian bird….

And at Strathmourne, as the midnight hour came and went, McLeod and Julian watched as the locket fastened to the end of Adam's skean dubh stirred slightly in McLeod's hands.

"What's that?" Julian whispered as McLeod stiffened, bleary eyes fixed on the trembling locket.

"I don't know," he murmured. "I'm not getting any direction. It's just - vibrating."

"It isn't just you, trembling from fatigue?" Julian ventured.

"No, it's bloody well not me!" he snapped - then exhaled with a whoosh and shook his head, bending it to concentrate once more.

"Sorry, Lady J. I am tired, but I'm not doing this. Maybe they're moving him, as Philippa suggested. God, why can't we get through?" As he slammed his free hand flat against the table in frustration, Julian set a hand on his shoulder and held out the other.

"Let me take over on this, and go call the others," she said. "We'll see if we can boost the signal, as it were. I don't think this is critical yet. I can't see them making their move nearly a full twenty-four hours before optimum time."

Nodding, McLeod surrendered the skean dubh and locket to Julian as he pushed back his chair and stood. "Moving him in the dark. Aye, that would be in character," he muttered. "I'll get the others."

They were assembled within five minutes - Philippa and Peregrine, Christopher and Victoria, with Ximena, Harry, and Julia breathlessly looking on, lending their prayers to the venture. Though they cast their combined energies into the effort for the next several hours, and some of the participants reported a general southerly inclination, none of them could induce the pendulum to take up a more definite direction. When the effect finally ended, around two in the morning, no one had any doubt that they had made a near contact with Adam; but that was all it had been.

"I think my fear for Adam is changing into anger with Raeburn," Philippa said, when Christopher and Victoria had withdrawn to resume their previous monitoring and the others were sipping dispiritedly at mugs of hot chocolate. "As a psychiatrist, I've spent most of the afternoon and evening trying to get inside his head.

"Why is he doing this? It isn't only a lust for illicit power that drives him; vengeance has to be one of his motivations. And if Adam is going to be the object of that vengeance, Raeburn will want him well aware of what's going to happen to him and who's responsible. That dish is best served up sufficiently in advance that the victim has time to fully savor the anticipation and dread.

"That means that if they're keeping him heavily sedated - which they must be doing, or he'd have broken through by now with a call for help - they're going to have to bring him around at some point, at least enough to appreciate the helplessness of his situation, and with enough lead time to make him sweat. That could give us the window of opportunity we'll need to find him and get to him before it's too late."

"But he could be anywhere!" Ximena blurted. "Even if you can figure out where he is, how can we ever get to him in time?"

"Harry and I have been working on that aspect," Philippa said grimly. "If there's even an hour's lead time, we have a chance; he has a chance. All we need is that one, vital break. Pray God that we'll get it!"