Death of an Adept

Chapter Thirty-Three

EARLY morning of Imbolc Eve found McLeod and Harry sheltering in the lee of Strathmourne's entry porch, McLeod with a cellular phone in one gloved hand, Harry scanning the grey skies to the south through compact Pentax binoculars. The rest of the house still slept, in varying stages of exhaustion, though pairs of Huntsmen continued to keep watch by turns in the parlor, hoping to renew the all too brief contact of the night before. Rousted from his first real sleep in the last twenty-four hours by the general's telephone call, McLeod felt like someone had poured sand in both his eyes.

"Bloody hell," Harry muttered under his breath, as a mottled grey shape with military markings materialized out of light snowfall, slightly preceded by the chuff of rotor blades. "I hope this isn't an omen."

"You hope what isn't an omen?" McLeod retorted, as Harry lowered his binoculars and the chopper ghosted to a gentle landing on the front lawn in a flurry of snow.

"I was expecting a Wessex," Harry replied. "That's a goddamn Lynx."

McLeod's stomach did a queasy turn, but he forced himself to move past the unfortunate name to more immediate considerations.

"I don't care if it's called a goddamned bloody Raeburn. Can you fly it? Will it do the job?"

"Hell, yes," Harry drawled, stuffing the binoculars into a pocket of his flying jacket. "Not as big a payload as a Wessex, but a damned sight faster. I'll go see who they've sent for the team. Stand by."

Harry set out across the snowy lawn as the pilot cut power, hunched against the wind of the slowing blades as the side door slid back to disgorge a lanky figure clothed in the distinctive black combat smock, paratroop boots, and body armor favored by the SAS. CJose on his heeJs came a taJl, grey-haired man neither of them had expected to see here in person, with the shoulder slides of a brigadier on the epaulets of his olive-drab pullover. As McLeod saw who it was, he headed down the steps to meet the new arrival, who nodded grimly to Harry as they passed, then jogged on toward McLeod, keeping his head down and one hand on his tan beret.

"Good morning, Gordon. Thanks for coming," McLeod said.

"Morning, Noel," said General Sir Gordon Scott-Brown, as he and McLeod exchanged handshakes. "Sorry about the Lynx, but that's what they sent up from Hereford this morning. What's the update on Adam?"

Shaking his head, McLeod set a hand under the general's elbow and urged him back toward the house. Behind him, Harry and the SAS officer had disappeared back into the helicopter.

"Not good, I'm afraid. I hope to God I haven't brought you out on a wild goose chase. Come on into the house and we'll bring you up to speed. Adam's man has laid on breakfast for the troops, so Harry's going to bring them in in shifts. We can brief them once you know the lay of the land."

"Fair enough. Incidentally, Ian Duart is your mission commander. You'll remember him from the Cairngorm operation. And a couple of the lads in the hostage rescue team were along on that one as well."

"Then they aren't likely to be flapped by what may crop up this time," McLeod said, opening the front door and standing aside to let the general enter first. "If we get a chance to turn them loose on the opposition, that is. How many are we talking about?"

"Duart, two pilots, and a four-man hostage rescue team. I know that doesn't sound like many, but if it can be done, they'll do it; if it can't, it wouldn't matter if I'd brought three times that number."

By mid-morning, with Duart added to the briefing, assorted members of the Hunting Lodge once again assembled in the library at Strathmourne. McLeod, Harry, and the two newcomers had been joined by Philippa, Julian, Victoria, and a taut and anxious Ximena. Closer by the fire, Peregrine was doodling in the margins of the list he and Julia had compiled of ancient sites in the southern half of Scotland. Julia herself was ensconced in the library bay window with lolo's dream journal, still brooding over the text and the cryptic lettering. Christopher alone was absent, patrolling on the astral from the nearby parlor.

"I understand the limitations, Lady Sinclair," Duart was saying to Philippa, "but telling me you think he's in the southern half of the country isn't much help." He indicated the map spread on the twin card tables in the center of the room. "Until and unless your people can pick up something more specific, I don't see how we're going to be able to do anything. I've got a crack unit on standby out there, and we can be anywhere between here and the border in close to thirty minutes - but if tonight is as critical as you think, we've got to have some lead time. He's got to have the lead time."

Philippa drew a deep breath, schooling herself to forbearance, and let it out slowly. "I'm aware of that, Major," she said softly, not looking at him. "You'll just have to bear with us. Believe me, we're doing all we can."

When Adam next struggled out of the abyss, his body seemed no more responsive than it had been, but he thought his thinking might be slightly less muddled than at any time since his capture. Bright light shone against his closed eyelids, but before he risked opening his eyes, he tried to take stock of his condition.

He was still laid out flat on his back, but something warm and vaguely comforting draped his naked body from the chin down, something of a more domestic nature than the silvery mylar blanket that had covered him earlier. Under the concealment of whatever it was, he tried flexing a wrist, then an ankle - and felt restraints at both - but the slight escalation of physical restraint hardly mattered, since he clearly was still in no condition to make any physical bid for freedom.

Temporarily setting that option aside, Adam turned his attention to visual input. A furtive peek from under closed eyelids revealed that the IV line still snaked from above his head to some point beneath what he now could see was a patchwork quilt, but he seemed to have been divested of any remaining medical paraphernalia save an oxygen cannula held in place at his nostrils by an elastic band. The variety of electronic beeps that previously had punctuated his twilight sleep had been silenced; nor could he readily spot any electronic leads emerging from under his quilt. Furthermore, though his throat was parched and scratchy, the endotracheal tube had been removed.

Marginally reassured, he turned his attention beyond his immediate vicinity, hoping to maintain the fiction that he was not yet conscious. The air outside his covering was colder than he remembered. The change in temperature, coupled with a warring variety of new smells, suggested that he might have been moved from his bare holding cell to another location.

This realization caused his pulse to quicken slightly, for no matter how competent his captors might be at cloaking his psychic signature from would-be rescuers, such cloaking was difficult to maintain while on the move - which meant there was a chance that the Hunting Lodge might have been able to get a bearing on him, at least for a while. Unfortunately, the move - and the reason he was being allowed to regain consciousness - also meant that Imbolc Eve probably was fast approaching.

Even as his still fuddled mind shrank from that near-certainty, a door off to his right swung open with a stiff creak. Hard-soled footsteps approached his bedside, bringing with them a residual whiff of expensive perfume. As the footsteps halted, a female voice said acidly, "I know you're awake by now, so you might as well stop pretending."

Adam had heard that voice before. He opened his eyes. The light above him was momentarily dazzling, but after a blink or two, he managed to bring the woman's face into hazy focus.

Her appearance was hauntingly familiar - dark hair smartly coifed above clear olive skin and features that might have been attractive, had they not been hardened by a predatory coldness of expression. Despite the artful application of makeup, dark circles stained the hollows of her eyes, suggesting that his captors might have shared some of the stress they had inflicted upon him.

But it was the blood-red color of her pullover that helped him make the sinking connection as to who she was. Two years before, when she had given him a lift to the hospital following a car crash near the Forth Road Bridge, she had called herself "the Christmas Samaritan." He had never learned her true name, but later events made it abundantly clear that the "accident" and its aftermath, including her convenient and timely assistance, had all been orchestrated by Raeburn.

He was too debilitated to mask the shock of recognition. She saw it, and gave him a feline smile.

"Why, Dr. Sinclair, how flattering. I see you still remember me. I don't believe I introduced myself properly before. My name is Angela. Unfortunately for you, I am not the kind of angel apt to offer you any hope whatsoever."

Still smiling, she turned away to open a large leather satchel on an adjacent bed. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the light, Adam could see they were alone in what appeared to be the bedroom of a holiday cottage. Thin curtains had been drawn across the windows, but he had the impression that it was dark outside - which meant that the Eve of Imbolc must be already upon them.

Rummaging sounds recalled his attention to Angela and the satchel, as she unpacked an assortment of items that included a cutthroat razor, a shaving mug, and a shaving brush with an ivory handle. The sight of the razor reminded Adam absurdly that he had neither bathed nor shaved for at least three days.

Still thinking somewhat sluggishly, he watched her take the mug and brush to the sink, humming tunelessly as she turned on the hot water tap. Just audible above the sound of running water, the hollow clink of ivory against china held him in dumb fascination as she began lathering up the brush.

"You really could do with a shower," she remarked over her shoulder, smiling coldly at him in the mirror as he started at the sound of her voice, "but I doubt you could manage to stand up to take one. That means it's going to be up to me to make you presentable."

Desperate to clear his head, Adam decided to test his voice. "For what?"

Angela paused to cock her head at him in the mirror.

"Why, didn't Francis tell you?" She turned off the water and slung a towel over her shoulder before sauntering back to the other bed to pick up the razor. "You have a starring role in tonight's little drama. I'm afraid we do have a very demanding Patron, but I'm sure you'll be a great success. Unfortunately for you, the production is for one night only."

He closed his eyes and turned his head away, grateful that he could manage even that, his dry throat trying to swallow down his dread. The clatter of her implements being set on the bedside table recalled him from his drifting even as she took hold of his covering and whipped it from his body. Caught off guard, he was unable to keep from flinching at the abrupt exposure.

"You are a fine figure of a man, aren't you?" she murmured as she eyed him up and down. "It really is a pity you haven't had time to father a child on that pretty sloe-eyed bride of yours - or have you, you sly devil? Is that the reason for the rather rushed incipient nuptials?''

Laughing at his tight-jawed silence, she seated herself on the bed beside him and removed his oxygen, then set to work shaving him, taking perverse pleasure in each keen stroke of the blade against his helpless throat.

"I could do it now," she whispered, her lips close beside his ear, the corner of the blade poised against the jugular.

"But you won't," he managed to reply with some conviction. "You dare not cheat your Patron. Not if you hope to survive."

She drew back, her eyes going colder, if that were possible, and the smile faded. She finished shaving him without further comment, her gaze unreadable, then proceeded to wet a fresh towel and rub him down with brisk and impersonal efficiency, loosing his restraints only long enough to turn him when necessary, sparing no part of him. The water in the sink was icy cold by the time she finished, and he found himself shivering despite his determination not to give her that satisfaction, though the cold rubdown did seem to clear his head a little - or perhaps it was the drugs continuing to wear off.

She had just tossed her towel in the sink when the door opened again to admit Mallory, carrying a tray piled with assorted items of an obvious medical nature, pre-packaged in plastic. Adam turned his face away, determined not to give the other physician the satisfaction of a reaction.

"He isn't giving you any trouble, is he?" Mallory asked, chuckling as Angela twitched the quilt back to her victim's waist and turned her back.

"Other than talking too much, no."

"I see."

Still smiling as he set his tray on the other bed, Mallory reached across to thumb shut the clamp on Adam's IV line, then popped open the packaging on a 100 cc syringe and plugged it into a sterile needle.

"You did ask to have him conscious while you prepared him," he said, fumbling at the cannula in Adam's wrist. "That suits me as well. Francis may not think it matters, but I don't like using blood that's tainted with too many drugs - and he's had quite a cocktail. This still won't be clean - but it's better than it will be after I've taken him down again. Will this be enough for you?"

"It ought to be. What about Francis?"

"I'll take care of his order next," Mallory replied.

Adam tried not to react as the young doctor withdrew the syringe, now filled with his blood, and handed it across the bed to Angela. It was harder to ignore the rustle of plastic packaging as Mallory unreeled the line from a plastic blood-collection bag and plugged it into the port from which he had drawn the first measure of blood - a far more serious bloodletting, unfortunately quite in keeping with what Adam imagined of the impending night's work.

"So, how're you doing, Dr. Sinclair?" Mallory asked, turning Adam's face toward him to shine a pocket torch in his eyes. "Hmmm, still pretty dopey, eh?"

He grinned as Adam turned his face away again, turning off the flash and slipping it into the breast pocket of his stylish suit.

"I'll be back to check him in about ten minutes," he said to Angela, before leaving the room.

Angela, meanwhile, had produced another towel, a sable artist's brush, and a small glass bowl from the leather satchel, setting the bowl on the sink while she removed the needle from the syringe and expelled the contents into the bowl. She was smiling a cold, hard smile as she came around to Adam's right again, the brush in one hand and the bowl of his blood in the other. She paused to pull the quilt lower on his loins before sitting again on the bed beside him.

"I am going to enjoy this," she said. The blood-red carnelian in her Lynx ring matched the blood she stirred with the brush. "I wonder whether you'll be able to guess what symbols I paint on your chest, to make you a fitting offering…."

He turned his head away from her in denial, only to find his face mere inches from the slowly expanding bag of his blood, fed from the scarlet line snaking to the cannula in his wrist. Dismayed, he realized that watching either procedure was likely to unnerve him; but he dared not close his eyes, lest her suggestion conjure the very symbols he knew could weaken what few defenses he might yet possess.

Any semblance of choice quickly became academic, for the clink of the brush being stirred in the bowl was followed by the faint, cold tracery of the sable brush against his skin. He stiffened, determined to resist; but unbridled by the drugs in his system, his imagination began to supply ghastly form to the patterns she began tracing out across each breast, down the midline of his chest and past his navel, up the sides of his throat, the brush strokes making his skin crawl with instinctive revulsion. Though a part of him vaguely recognized that his reaction was precisely what she intended, he could not suppress a growing mental image of hideous carrion insects crawling up and down the length of his body, seeking places to nest and feed.

Nausea rose up in his throat, and a profound shudder of revulsion racked him from head to foot, damped by the restraints at wrists and ankles. His empty stomach threatened to rebel, and he had to swallow hard to keep from retching. Angela laughed to see his shrinking abhorrence.

"I guess it must be true," she observed, "that the righteous can't abide the mark of the Beast any more than the Beast can abide the trappings of holiness. So much the worse for you - and so much the better for our purposes."

He fought down another shudder and looked away again, for he knew full well how open his weakened state had left him. Absurdly he flashed on the image of the patterns tattooed on Taliere's dead body - symbols to brand the dead Druid as the property of the deities he had served. And Angela was branding him with symbols no less potent for being merely painted, preparing him as an offering to unspeakable corruption and depravity.

He tried hard to put that thought from his mind, closing his eyes against the sight of what she was doing, lamely trying to turn his thoughts to an ancient plea for deliverance: O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me…. A fifth-century interpreter of the Psalms had recommended the phrases as an impregnable wall for all those struggling against the onslaught of demons, an impenetrable breastplate and the sturdiest of shields….

At some point Mallory returned to seal off the first bag of blood and switch to a second, giving Angela's work an appreciative nod before going out again. By the time the second bag was nearly full, Adam found himself drifting in and out of consciousness again, weaker every time he surfaced - whether from blood loss or the drugs or the effect of Angela's rune-binding, he could not tell. A recurrent if scant source of comfort, if only temporary, was the certainty that Mallory would not bleed him dry, no more than Angela had been prepared to cut his throat prematurely: they needed him for their ritual. And perhaps help still would come - though he held out little real hope.

Perhaps twenty minutes passed while Angela completed her design. As she worked, herself becoming caught up in the spell she wove, she began occasionally to pass a hand more intimately along his body, adding to his dismay. Each instance was like an electric shock, startling him back to full attention, unable to ignore the assaults - though at least they broke his concentration on the symbols and lessened their potency, little though she realized that.

When she had finally finished and set her implements aside, she trailed a teasing hand down his belly to rest on his manhood, catching his gaze with hers when his eyes popped open in startlement, smiling as she slowly bent her lips toward his - and drew back at the sound of the door opening again. Her laughter grated like broken glass as she straightened, the offending hand drawing the quilt back to his waist as she stood.

"You've come in the nick of time, Derek," she said, as Mallory entered and came to close off the second unit of blood. "I do believe I nearly had our very attractive captive convinced that I was going to ravish him on the spot."

"What, and deprive our Patron of his sport?" Mallory retorted, with a heavy-lidded leer. "But you mustn't tease, Angela dear. We wouldn't want to spoil the offering."

Still smirking, he took a blood pressure cuff from the bedside table and applied it to Adam's right arm, sobering as he took his reading and then felt for a pulse, first in Adam's wrist, then in neck and groin.

No longer smiling, Angela watched as Mallory removed the cuff and stuffed it into his pocket, then unplugged Adam's old IV and capped off the cannula in his wrist.

"Two units - that's a lot to lose, in his condition," Angela said, as Mallory picked up the two bags of blood. "Is he going to be all right for the ceremony?"

"Oh, he'll last," Mallory assured her. "I don't dare sedate him any further, but we'll give him a unit of dextran en route. That ought to improve his blood pressure a bit. Keep an eye on him. I'll be back in a minute."

When he had gone, Angela settled on the side of the bed again beside her victim, smiling again as she brushed her fingers lightly along one shaven cheek.

"Mmmm, soft as a baby's - " She broke off and laughed wickedly, showing her teeth. "Dear Adam Sinclair, I'm going to let you in on a little secret before Derek comes back to work his wicked ways on you again. I thought you might like to know what Francis has planned for you. I hope you'll appreciate the delicious irony." She gave another tinkling laugh before deigning to enlighten him further.

"In consideration of the number of times you've interfered with us in the past, we put a great deal of thought into deciding how best to incorporate your participation into our little performance tonight. You will die - I don't think you ever doubted that - but the actual moment of your death will be framed within the context of a Satanic Mass - with suitable adjustments, of course, since the ritual ordinarily calls for a young virgin of the female persuasion. It seemed a fitting end for a Christian Adept - to see all your holy symbols profaned, and to know that your Patron is powerless to save you.

"Of course there are - other details that needn't concern you yet," she went on, smiling again. "Let's just say that a prize like you should suffice to buy Francis exactly what he wants: Satan's own authority to command all lesser demons, including Taranis. I just thought you'd like to know," she concluded, as Mallory returned with one of Richter's mercenaries.

Already drifting perilously close to shock, Adam was also reeling with numb rejection of this revelation as Mallory and his assistant set about finishing his preparation. After releasing his restraints, the two men hauled him up into a sitting position so that Angela could pull a white robe over his head, the three of them then working his arms through the sleeves and tugging its folds into something approaching alignment.

"All right, he's ready," Mallory said. "Let's get him out of here."

Adam would have struggled if he were able, but even holding his head up was too much effort. Praying that intent would count on some level, he continued trying to visualize spiritual resistance, unable to prevent them dragging him to his feet, the two men shouldering his sagging weight between them. Angela gathered up the quilt and followed as they hustled him out the open door and along a dimly lit corridor, toward another open door and his impending fate.