Death of an Adept

Chapter Thirty-Four

BACK at Strathmourne, the grey afternoon had merged in-distinguishably into a greyer dusk by five o'clock, and full darkness by six. Earlier, Duart had brought his men into the kitchen by shifts, for a hot meal, and Philippa had insisted that members of the Hunting Lodge sleep by turns, in hopes of conserving precious energies for a last-minute breakthrough regarding Adam's whereabouts; but as seven o'clock came and went, and the standby crew fretted, an even deeper depression had begun to settle on the occupants of the house.

They had by no means given up their search, but they had yet to find a focus. In the library, Philippa had resumed attempting to scry in the crystal ball with Adam's skean dubh and Julian's locket, assisted by Julian and both Houstons. Harry had taken up a post to watch them, straddling a straight-backed chair and with chin resting on his folded forearms laid across the back, his distracted gaze ranging idly over the map of Scotland spread on the table beneath Philippa's crystal. McLeod was stretched out on the couch, arms folded on his chest, eyes closed behind his aviator spectacles. The general was pacing back and forth before the library window.

Ximena had retreated to a place in the window seat with Julia, gazing out dejectedly at the lights in the waiting helicopter, idly watching Donald Cochrane talk to two of the SAS men sheltering in the lee of the craft for a smoke. Having argued persuasively earlier in the day that Adam might well need emergency medical attention if they found him alive, she had gained grudging permission to go along on the rescue mission if it ever got off the ground - and had packed her medical bag with essentials that the SAS medics might not have to hand, since it was far more likely that she would have to deal with reversing the effects of heavy sedation than with battlefield-type injuries. She had also dressed in rugged outdoor wear of heavy trousers and boots and multiple layers of sweaters, similar to the way McLeod, Peregrine, and Harry were attired; but it appeared less and less likely that she or any of them would be given the chance to utilize any of their preparations.

"Peregrine," Harry said softly, lifting his head to glance over to where the artist was hunched over a sketch pad. "What ever happened to those drawings you did, that night you called me out to touch the Hand of Glory?"

Peregrine had been doodling in light trance, hoping he might pick up some impression too faint for conscious perception, that might somehow transmit itself through his drawing hand. As he surfaced at the sound of his name, looking blank, McLeod also roused, and Philippa gave a little gasp, turning to stare at Harry.

"The Hand of Glory," she murmured. "Dear God, how could we have been so blind?"

"The Hand of Glory?" Peregrine asked, still muzzy.

"That's an angle we haven't even considered," Philippa went on, as McLeod slowly sat up, comprehension lighting his blue eyes as he came fully awake. "They've got Adam hidden… and they'll be expecting us to focus all our energy on finding him - which is exactly what we've been doing."

"Pippa, what are you saying?" Julian asked, leaning across to touch her friend's hand.

"We have a very potent link to Raeburn himself," Philippa continued, hardly hearing her. "We know he participated in the preparation of the Hand of Glory. So if we find Raeburn, we find Adam - because whatever Raeburn has planned for Adam, he wouldn't miss it for the world! Back in a minute!"

"But - where is she going?" Peregrine asked, still at sea as Philippa dashed out the library door.

"To fetch the Hand, I should think," Julian replied, motioning for Christopher and Victoria to clear the crystal and skean dubh off the map, as the rest of them surged closer.

"Wait a minute," Ximena protested. "Are you telling us that she's had the Hand locked away all this time?"

"Well, of course," Julian replied. "One doesn't leave that sort of thing just lying around. Don't worry; I'm sure she had it in the safe."

"But - Julian, this is crazy," Peregrine said with a shake of his head. "What makes you think Raeburn won't be cloaked the same way Adam is?"

"He probably was, in the beginning," McLeod retorted, "but I doubt he is now. He'll be saving his energies for tonight. Besides that, he's too damned arrogant to expect we'd be looking for him instead of Adam - and he may have forgotten about the Hand; we did.

"Now, how to set this up?" he wondered aloud, pushing his spectacles onto his forehead and rubbing at his temples as he considered, scanning around the room. "Maps first, of course - and we've got those. Victoria, stand by with that stack of larger-scale ones; we'll want to scale up, once we've got a general fix on the master map. And we'll need a focus for separating Raeburn's trace from the others who helped prepare the Hand. Peregrine, fetch the sketch you did of Raeburn that night."

Peregrine was already shuffling through a stack of sketches, and flung the one of Raeburn onto the table.

"We'll also need to insert a dowsing factor into this working," McLeod went on, still thinking out loud. "A pendulum is out, because the Hand itself is too big - and I don't know about using just a piece of it - "

"Ximena," Philippa said, coming back into the room with the biscuit tin under one arm, "get me one of those fat crystal tumblers from the liquor cabinet, and let's clear everything off the big map."

"Already done," Christopher said, pulling out a chair for Philippa. The teamwork of the Hunting Lodge on the scent was astonishing, and Harry was dumbfounded at the speed at which things had suddenly taken off.

"I gather it was something I said," he murmured, as Philippa plonked the biscuit tin down on the table and took her seat, motioning all of them to gather closer. "What on earth are you going to do with that?"

McLeod shook his head and yanked out two more chairs.

"No time for explanations now, Harry. Sit down," he ordered, hauling the counsellor to the chair beside him as he sat next to Philippa and the others gathered around.

As Ximena set the requested tumbler on the table beside Philippa, Julia also drifted closer, lolo McFarlane's dream journal tucked under one arm and a look of astonishment on her face. The general, too, came to stand behind Julian.

"All right, I'll say this only once," Philippa announced turning the glass upside down over their present location and then prying at the lid of the biscuit tin. "The sketch is our focus, and the Hand of Glory is our link to Raeburn. He helped prepare it, so his psychic signature is all over it.

"The way this works will be something like a Ouija board, except that the glass will be our planchette and we'll use the map instead of a board with letters of the alphabet. To add the Hand to the equation - and I haven't time for anyone's squeamishness right now - we'll set it on the glass and then make our link through that instead of the glass itself."

Despite her admonition, a collective gasp whispered among the group as she pulled the lid off the biscuit tin, to a whiff of decomposing flesh and sulphur.

"With any luck," she went on, "the glass will move on the map and zero in on Raeburn's location - which will also be Adam's location."

The silence was almost palpable as she turned back the towelling and, without hesitation, plucked the Hand out to set it with the palm on the base of the glass, the dead fingers extending all around. Though mostly mummified, it was covered with blue-green mold, and the smell was appalling.

"All right, there isn't space enough for all of us to do this," she said, holding the Hand in place with the fingertips of both hands, "so I want the following to touch it the way I'm doing: Julian, Peregrine, Noel, and Harry. Yes, you, Harry. Impressions through touch are your special gift, and I think it's definitely needed here."

Julian had complied immediately, Peregrine hardly a heartbeat after, but Harry had stiffened at the mention of his name, his face draining of color. McLeod glanced sideways at him, afraid that the counsellor was going to hold back - but Harry only drew a deep breath and let it out - and set his fingertips lightly beside McLeod's, drawing another breath more slowly as his eyes took on the faraway focus of trance.

"Good man, Harry," McLeod whispered under his breath.

Watching, Philippa nodded and glanced up at Sir Gordon and the Houstons.

"Gordon, I'll ask you to help Victoria and Christopher keep us on the maps," she said quietly. "The rest of you, please add your prayers to our intent." She returned her gaze to the five pairs of hands now touching fingertips to the Hand atop the tumbler, four of them with Adept rings glimmering like sapphire stars.

"Now, let's focus on the sketch of Raeburn and get started," she said. "We're looking to tune in on Raeburn's psychic residuals and use those to divine his location. Fix his image in your minds, concentrate… and now reach out to find him…."

Nothing happened for several long minutes as the five began to concentrate, only the soft sounds of breathing intruding on the silence. But then the glass jerked sluggishly beneath its burden of hands, both alive and dead. Ximena stifled a gasp as, after a few false starts, it began inching slowly south and westward, on a straight-line heading between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

As soon as it had crossed the Firth of Forth, Victoria began flinging aside the larger-scale maps of everything northward, Christopher roughly following the progress of the glass on the section diagrams that showed each map's position on the master grid.

"You're about on Map 65," Christopher announced, as the glass crept to a halt. "Sort of midway between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Do you want to change scales? This area is awfully built up - not at all promising for the kind of site we projected."

Though she nodded faintly, Philippa did not look up, only shifting one hand to lift the glass against the Hand of Glory, holding it steady against the touch of the other four sets of fingertips as Victoria swept the large map away, Sir Gordon retaining the sketch of Raeburn so that Christopher could slip one of the larger-scale maps into its place. As he guided the glass to the spot approximately corresponding to the location indicated on the first map, and Philippa lowered the glass, it did not move for several seconds; but then it began inching very slowly southward again, gradually taking a more easterly heading.

"Something has changed," Sir Gordon murmured, after watching the glass take several minutes to creep across a six-inch span of map. "The scale is larger, but it's moving slower. I don't think you're zeroing in on a location anymore; I think your target is actually in motion - and moving fast." He grabbed a pen and paper from Julia and did some rapid calculations with inches and scales, then bent to lay a hand on Harry's shoulder.

"Harry, it's Gordon. Pull back and see if they can keep this up without you," he said.

Nodding, Harry drew a deep breath and withdrew his hands, but the glass kept inching inexorably onward.

"Harry, these are the rough figures I've used to try to figure out his speed," Sir Gordon murmured, thrusting the piece of paper in front of the counsellor. "Can this be right?"

Harry eyed the figures, glanced at the map, then gave a slow nod.

"Better'n a hundred miles per hour, if those are the right numbers," he said, "and I think they are." He drew a steadying breath. "Noel, he's flying. Light plane or maybe a helicopter. And if we want to catch up with him, we'd better move!"

"Go scramble the flight crew," Philippa whispered, not looking up. "Take Ximena with you. I'll send Noel and Peregrine in a minute. We'll hold this end. I think we've got a lock on him now. Noel, pull out slowly, and Victoria, take his place."

"Switching to Map 72 before you do that," Christopher interrupted, unfolding another map with a rustle as Harry grabbed Ximena's hand and the two of them dashed from the room. "You're about to go off the edge of 65."

Again work was suspended while maps were shifted, after which McLeod and Victoria made their switch. The glass now was moving through the region of Biggar.

"All right, Noel, go get Humphrey to come and help Gordon with map shuffling and the like," Philippa murmured, still mostly focused on the glass and the hand, "and then take Peregrine and go."

As thudding footbeats told of his compliance, Christopher smoothly changed places with Peregrine, so that when McLeod reappeared with Humphrey, the artist had already pulled on his coat and was stuffing reference books into his art satchel.

"Godspeed, Noel," Philippa whispered, as Julia began a whispered explanation to Humphrey of what was going on. "We'll ring you on one of the cell phones as soon as we've got a destination fixed. Now go! And pray God you get there in time!"