Prologue

SOMEWHAT unusually for mid-December, Paisley-town lay under a dusting of winter-white. The citified blend of building heat and traffic fumes that kept the snow from lying in the streets of Glasgow, ten miles away, did not prevent a thin layer of powder from settling on the crow-stepped gables of a tall Victorian house that stood in stately seclusion behind a high stone wall at the southern edge of the town. The bells of a nearby church were striking eleven o'clock when a steel-grey Lancia sporting the logo of one of Scotland's leading press agencies nosed into the upper end of the street, creeping along to halt outside the front gate of the house.

The dark-haired woman who emerged from the driver's door in a swirl of silver fox conveyed an immediate impression of expensive cologne and couturier fashions, but the artfully made-up eyes behind the designer sunglasses she removed and tossed onto the dash were hard, the red-painted lips set in an expression of taut annoyance as she stalked up to the gate in a brittle tattoo of high-heeled leather boots.

The gate swung back with a discordant screech, and she scowled as she continued up the steps to the white-painted door, impatiently tugging off black leather gloves. The ring on the hand she raised to the ornate brass door-knocker flashed blood-red in the grey daylight - a carved carnelian caught in a modernist setting of heavy gold. Adorning the oval stone was the incised design of a lynx's tufted head, its mouth agape in a feral snarl.

The dark-eyed Spanish houseboy who answered the door backed off immediately at the sight of the ring, glancing aside with a deferential murmur. Emerging from behind a newspaper, a somewhat older man in olive-drab military sweater and khakis unfolded himself from a wing chair just inside the entry hall, a lazy grin splitting his well-tanned face as he laid the paper aside.

"Morning, Miz Fitzgerald," he said, tugging the bottom of his sweater over his trousers - and the bulge of an automatic pistol in his waistband - as his gaze swept from well-coifed head to leather-booted toe. "My, my, the newspaper business must be good."

Angela Fitzgerald, one of Scotland's more highly paid gossip columnists, flung a sharp glance over her shoulder at the otherwise empty street and pushed past the houseboy.

"Save your American sarcasm, Barclay," she muttered. "You know I don't like coming here. And have that gate oiled. Where is he?"

"Upstairs in the library. Jorge will show you. My, but we are testy today, aren't we?" he added under his breath, continuing to smile as she jammed her gloves into a coat pocket and headed up the stairs, shedding her furs to reveal a smart ensemble of emerald-green. The cowed Jorge scurried after her to take the coat, only barely overtaking her to knock at a gothic-arched door at the top of the stair.

"What is it?" a voice from within demanded.

"Senora Fitzgerald to see youjefe," the houseboy ventured.

"Come in, Angela," the voice replied.

The room beyond displayed the flamboyant neo-gothic style made popular by such arbiters of Victorian taste as Pugin and Burges. Above the fireplace, Minton tiles in shades of red and gold depicted a colorful scene from Chaucer's "Nun's Priest's Tale," and the handsome mahogany bookcase gracing the south wall bore the design signature of Philip Webb.

The dominant presence in the room, however, belonged to the fair-haired man seated behind the desk in the wide bay window, his willowy frame clad in a dark wool suit of impeccable cut.

"How good of you to come," he said, rising gracefully from the leather-upholstered depths of his chair. His smile was slow and lazy, dangerous. "Welcome to my humble abode."

Angela ignored both the irony and the veiled menace in his greeting as she flounced into the room, the houseboy withdrawing with alacrity to close the door behind him.

"This had better be important," she said. "By your own account, it isn't safe for any of us to be seen together, here or anywhere else."

Francis Raeburn elevated a blond eyebrow in mild irritation as he waved her to one of the three lyre-backed chairs opposite the desk and resumed his own seat.

"We aren't exactly going to be seen together," he answered, settling back to steeple his fingers before him. "And the house is of sufficient architectural interest that, as a reporter, you can certainly claim a legitimate reason for being here. Besides that, there are sufficient safeguards in place that I think you need not worry about being discovered in my company."

"You mean Barclay, with his ridiculous pistol?" she retorted.

"You are well aware that Mr. Barclay has other talents at his disposal. The pistol is the least of our defenses, though it and he would serve their purpose, if required. But as long as you are under this roof, I promise that you are in no danger of discovery."

"I certainly hope not," she muttered. "I don't want to end up like Kavanagh, with a headline for an obituary: 'Suspected terrorist found dead in prison: Police report no leads.' "

Raeburn began idly rearranging some of the items on the desktop before him. Fluid and precise, his movements called attention to the handsome carnelian lynx ring that he, too, was wearing.

"Kavanagh was a competent operative, but he had a somewhat inflated notion of his own abilities," he said coolly. "He was warned that a Hunting Lodge might try to interfere. When they showed up, he should have known better than to try and cross swords with them single-handed."

"So he made an error in judgement. Was that any reason to leave him where Dorje's operatives would have no trouble finding him?"

"And what would you have had me do?" Raeburn asked. "Stage a jailbreak on his behalf? You know as well as I do, that would have left a trail so conspicuous that even those witless clods who pass for ordinary policemen might have been able to track us down. No, I had the welfare of the rest of us to consider - a fact for which I should think you would be grateful!"

The Kavanagh to whom they were referring had been arrested the previous spring during an attempt to salvage a Nazi treasure trove from a submarine left hidden in a sea cave on the northwest coast of Ireland. While the trove had included a sizeable cache of diamonds, their immense worth had been negligible compared to the accompanying chest of manuscripts on Tibetan black magic.

Recovery of the items had been commissioned by a man called Dorje, shadowy superior of an obscure Buddhist monastery tucked deep in the Swiss Alps, whose inner cadre of initiates recognized him as the current incarnation of an infamous black Adept known to Tibetan legend as the Man with Green Gloves. Born Siegfried Hasselkuss, the product of Nazi selective breeding, Dorje's esoteric resources seemed to support that claim; and recovery of the knowledge contained in the manuscripts, called Terma or "treasure texts,'' would have redoubled his already formidable powers.

Raeburn himself was no novice in such matters; but neither was he a match for Dorje. Drafted by Dorje to undertake the salvage operation - and in expiation for a previous venture gone wrong - Raeburn had reluctantly agreed to accept a share in the diamonds as payment for his services, fully intending to appropriate the Terma texts for himself if a suitable opportunity arose.

But the recovery operation had been thwarted by agents of a secret enforcement organization known as the Hunting Lodge, themselves practitioners of esoteric disciplines no less potent than those of Raeburn or Dorje. Raeburn had narrowly escaped with a share of the diamonds, but only at the expense of betraying his Tibetan handlers, abandoning the manuscripts, and leaving the luckless Kavanagh to be arrested by conventional law enforcement authorities on charges of terrorism.

Nor had Kavanagh languished long in jail before being found dead in his cell, of causes yet to be explained by medical science but which Raeburn had no doubt could be laid at the feet of the vengeful Dorje. Lacking the occult resources to combat his former employer on equal terms, at least for the present, Raeburn had temporarily dispersed his own followers and gone into hiding, leaving his associates to find what safety they could while he himself went searching for the means to shift the balance of power in his favor.

Angela's expression was stormy as she contemplated a well-manicured thumbnail.

"No doubt I am meant to be reassured by the knowledge that you threw Kavanagh to the wolves," she said coldly. "All that tells me is that you wouldn't hesitate to dispense with me or Barclay or anyone else in this organization, if it suited your purposes at the moment."

"Then take comfort from the assurance that I value your talents far too much to dispense with them for any trifling reason," Raeburn said drily. "Why else do you think I forbade you to employ your occult abilities until further notice, if not to ensure that you didn't betray yourself to our enemies?"

"Don't you mean your enemies?" she said archly.

"I doubt very much that Dorje would make that distinction," Raeburn said, "and neither should you, if you want to survive."

"If survival is all you care about," said Angela, "perhaps you should think about resigning as Lynx-Master. A change of leadership might do this organization a world of good."

"Are you proposing to replace me? Don't even think about it," Raeburn warned with a chilly smile. "Not unless you really believe you're up to taking on Barclay and Richter as well as me. And even if, by some miracle, you did succeed in bringing me down," he continued, "do you suppose for one moment that would pacify Dorje?"

"You could consider giving him back his diamonds, by way of a peace offering," she ventured.

Raeburn dismissed this suggestion with a snort of bitter laughter.

"If I had ten times the value of that chest to give him, Dorje would still consider me in his debt for letting his precious Terma fall into the hands of the Hunting Lodge," he replied. "Besides that, I earned those diamonds. As it is, I remain Dorje's principal target. Remove me, and you merely add insult to injury by cheating him out of the chance to wreak his revenge on me. And the only ultimate beneficiaries are Adam Sinclair and his Hunting Lodge."

The mention of Adam Sinclair brought a grimace of malevolent dislike to Angela's carefully tinted face. In the social circles in which she moved professionally, Sir Adam Sinclair was regarded as one of Scotland's most eligible bachelors. Angela herself had been dazzled by his dark good looks, even as she connived at his death a few years before. Titled and accomplished, with a comfortable independent income and a gracious country house just north of Edinburgh, not only was Sinclair a patron of the arts and a much respected amateur antiquarian, but his professional reputation as a psychiatric physician was matched by few others in Great Britain.

What the world at large never suspected was that he was also a powerful agent of the Law - not as that Law was represented by conventional police authority (though he did work regularly as a police consultant), but in its transcendent expression as the ruling principle of Divine Order, enforced by groups of dedicated individuals formed into Hunting Lodges on the Inner Planes. Scotland's Hunting Lodge regarded him as their Chief, Master of the Hunt. As adversaries of the Hunting Lodge, ironically, Raeburn and his reluctant guest knew far more about Sinclair's secret vocation than did the innocent and unsuspecting public he and his so diligently served.

"Sinclair!" Angela hissed under her breath. "Damn him and all the rest of his ilk. What I wouldn't give for a chance to wipe the smug smiles from their sanctimonious faces!"

"That opportunity may be closer than you think," Raeburn said blandly. "I believe I've finally found a way to repair our broken fortunes."

Before Angela could demand a fuller explanation, a knock at the door heralded the arrival of Barclay, who ushered in a blue-suited man of similarly compact build, with a dense blond crewcut and square, steel-framed glasses. As Barclay closed the door behind them and continued into the room, the newcomer drew himself up with a snap reminiscent of a military salute.

"Guten Morgen, Herr Raeburn," he said, reverting then to accented but otherwise flawless English. "I trust I am in good time for this meeting?"

"Punctual as always," Raeburn agreed pleasantly. "I believe you remember Angela?"

Klaus Richter accorded her a cool nod of his head. Like the other three present, he was wearing a lynx ring. Angela eyed him up and down with no trace of commendation, not stirring from her chair.

"Mr. Richter," she said stiffly.

"I believe we'll have some refreshment before we proceed to the reason for this meeting," Raeburn said with a faint smile, waving Richter and Barclay to two remaining chairs. "But I can assure you that what I have to say will be well worth the risk all of you took to come here."

A tug at the antique bell pull next to the desk recalled Jorge, this time carrying a china tea service on a heavy silver tray. Setting it on a corner of Raeburn's desk, the little valet stayed long enough to distribute a round of tea before retiring from the room with timorous alacrity. Raeburn sipped at the delicate Queen Anne blend with the thoughtful appreciation of the connoisseur. Then, abruptly, he bent his pale, steely gaze upon the expectant faces of his subordinates.

"I think I need not tell you that these past five months have seen a sad decline in our affairs," he began dispassionately, setting aside his cup and saucer. "Suffice it to say that being sought by two enemies at once has left us in an unprecedented state of disarray. With Dorje on the one hand and Sinclair on the other, we've been forced to abandon a whole range of promising enterprises and divert all our energies to the necessary but not exactly exalted pursuit of retaining our lives and our liberty. That situation is about to be changed, however - and the instrument of change is in my possession."

With this dramatic announcement, he opened the desk drawer and withdrew a long, narrow bundle wrapped in undyed silk, which he placed before him on the blotter. As his three associates leaned forward with varying degrees of expectation, he plucked aside the wrappings to expose an ancient-looking dagger.

It was an ugly thing, forged out of iron, its blade pitted with age and corrosion. The stubby hilt surmounting the blade was overlaid with grotesque zoomorphic traceries reminiscent of the interlocking figures occasionally to be found on Pictish standing stones. Obviously an object of great antiquity, the dagger had about it a subtle aura of crude violence. Its decorative designs, dark and sinuous, drew the eye like a magnet, exerting a fearful fascination.

Richter licked his lips, his pale face alight with hungry admiration. "It is herrlich - magnificent," he breathed. "Where did you get it?"

"It was a legacy," Raeburn said. "From the Head-Master."

The significance of the name was not lost on his three listeners, though only Barclay had been present with Raeburn at the bequeathal. The individual so-named had once been a powerful member of Hitler's inner circle, before private ambition or perhaps mental instability had impelled him to decamp to Britain. By means known only to himself, the Head-Master had survived the war, secured his freedom, and subsequently contrived to establish a base for himself in the mountains of central Scotland.

There he had remained until two years ago, quietly working his dark intentions, until the Hunting Lodge led by Adam Sinclair had taken his scent and run him to ground. He had perished amid the ruins of his Highland fortress, but his malign influence was still making itself felt, and would continue to do so for a long time yet to come.

Angela was among those who retained a clear recollection of the Head-Master himself, though she had not been present at his demise.

"He would have valued such an important artifact," she said. "How did you convince him to part with it?"

Raeburn showed his teeth. "Arguments from me were superfluous, with the Hunting Lodge threatening to knock down the walls around our ears. Suffice it to say that neither of us saw any virtue in allowing it to fall into the hands of Adam Sinclair."

"Why haven't you told me about this before now?"

"There was little of substance to tell," Raeburn said. "Only now, at the end of two years' study, do I find myself in a position to expound reliably on the secrets of its origin and its esoteric associations."

He steepled his long fingers before him with the air of a university professor about to deliver a lecture.

"To digress briefly," he went on, "and primarily for Mr. Richter's benefit. Those of you who had the distinction of serving under the Head-Master will remember that among his most prized possessions was an ancient relic which he referred to as the Soulis tore. As the name implies, the tore had come to be associated with one William Lord Soulis, an infamous Scottish mage of the fourteenth century - though the tore itself was already ancient by the time it passed into his possession. It was a product of Pictish workmanship, embodying its makers' rapport with the powers of the elements."

"Why don't you cut to the chase, Francis?" Angela said sharply. "We all know that the tore was destroyed, partly thanks to Sinclair. What does it have to do with the dagger?"

"Your impatience begins to wear thin, my dear," Raeburn replied. "To continue, I have been able to establish, to my satisfaction, that this dagger belongs to the same period as the tore, and may even be the product of the same craftsman.

"The connection between the two is to be found in various common features of the workmanship and design. Like the tore, the dagger is fashioned of meteoric iron, and shows evidence of having been made by a similar process of smelting and forging. Certain ogham inscriptions on the blade are likewise closely akin to those on the tore, containing idiosyncratic elements I have not encountered anywhere else."

"Which means what?" Richter ventured.

A faint smile stirred Raeburn's lips, though his eyes remained cold. "The Head-Master used the Soulis tore as the focus for invoking Taranis, hailed by the ancient Picts as the lord of air and darkness and, especially, storm. In exchange for promises of service and sacrifice, he received the power to call down lightning from the realm of eternal tempest - which authority he delegated to me, though only as it related to the tore."

"Which was destroyed," Angela reminded him.

"I have already conceded that point, Angela dear," Raeburn said evenly. "Fortunately, I now have every reason to hope that, properly manipulated, this dagger will provide a similar focus for re-establishing contact with the Thunderer. If I am correct in my expectations, we may soon find ourselves in a position to reclaim the power of the storm and direct it toward Dorje, or Sinclair, or anyone else who thinks he has a right to meddle in our affairs."

The silence that briefly fell upon his listeners was pregnant with speculation.

"You say 'properly manipulated,' " Richter mused, after a thoughtful silence. "Perhaps you would care to instruct us regarding what, specifically, will be required of us."

Raeburn inclined his head in graceful acquiescence.

"It is a basic axiom of esoteric practice that objects intended for ritual use must first be consecrated to that purpose and empowered. The dagger is no exception. If we wish to make it actively responsive, in the same degree and to the same purpose as the Soulis tore, it follows that we must determine what rituals were applied in the first instance, and repeat them in conjunction with the dagger, with whatever modifications can be deemed appropriate in the light of our present circumstances."

"Just where are you planning to get your information?" Angela inquired, much of her former waspishness dissipated in light of the facts Raeburn had just presented. "Our latter-day grasp of Pictish culture is sketchy at best - and I expect that the priests of Taranis would have guarded their mysteries as jealously as any modern occultist. Unless the inscriptions you mentioned a moment ago supply the necessary details."

Raeburn shook his head patiently. "The inscriptions have some bearing on the case, but they convey a series of cryptic clues rather than a set of explicit instructions. I've no doubt that a dedicated scholar might eventually unravel the conundrums, but we can't afford that kind of time. That's why I've taken the liberty of calling in a specialist whose resources in these matters far exceed my own."

Even Barclay looked somewhat askance at this announcement.

"What kind of specialist?" Richter asked, with an uneasy glance toward the windows. "You said nothing about outsiders."

"His name is Taliere," Raeburn replied, "and he isn't exactly an outsider. He was an associate of my father's."

This disclosure silenced Richter and elicited a grave nod from Barclay, for those in Raeburn's inner circle were well aware that their chief had been born the son of one David Tudor-Jones, a powerful Welsh Adept whose esoteric interests and activities had spanned a wide variety of subjects, many of them decidedly dark in focus. Only Angela seemed unsatisfied by Raeburn's explanation.

"An associate of your father's? That could mean anything," she muttered. "I'm a public figure, Francis. Before I agree to make this person privy to any secrets of mine, I'm going to need to know a bit more about him."

"As you wish."

Reaching into the left-hand drawer of his desk, Raeburn produced a black and white snapshot and flipped it across the desk in front of Angela. She captured it and turned it right-side up, tilting it to accommodate Richter as he also leaned closer to inspect it.

The man in the photograph was elderly and majestic of mien, with luxuriant white hair to his shoulders and a long white walrus moustache. He appeared to be wearing theatrical costume - a fantastic headdress featuring bird's wings, and a mantle of dark fur clasped over a long white robe. Dependent from a broad leather belt cinching the robe were a drawstring pouch and a small, sickle-bladed knife. His left hand grasped a gnarly staff surmounted by the skull and antlers of a stag.

"What is he, an actor?" Angela inquired somewhat incredulously.

"A Druid," Raeburn corrected. "And not just a modern pretender, either. Taliere is an ardent and discerning follower of the old ways. You may take it from me that his knowledge of his tradition reaches far into the distant past."

"That sounds almost like high praise," Angela said.

"I always like to give a man his due," Raeburn replied. "In this instance, I believe he is precisely the one to assist us in divining what we need to do."

"When do we meet him?"

"As soon as I can arrange a safe rendezvous - which, with the help of Mr. Richter, should be in a few days' time."

"I am prepared to assist," Richter said, "but also I have questions. Why should this Taliere be interested in helping us? What does he have to gain?"

"A measure of revenge, among other things," Raeburn replied. "Besides sharing some of the same aims, we also share at least one common enemy."

"Meaning Adam Sinclair," Angela declared, more a statement than a question. When Raeburn did not deny it, she added, "How are we going to prevent our peerless baronet from poking his long nose into this affair?"

"By moving quickly, before he has time to rally his forces," Raeburn said, wrapping up the dagger again. "Thanks to our own recent spate of inactivity, I doubt he suspects I'm in Scotland. I've also been careful to stay clear of the Edinburgh area.

With any luck at all, we'll be able to achieve our objective before he's any the wiser."

Angela made a face. "I wouldn't count on that." "Wouldn't you?" Raeburn's solicitude carried a hint of malice. "Then you'll be pleased to know that I've already taken the precaution of having Sinclair watched, along with those members of his organization we've been able to identify. If any of them should show signs of becoming a problem, we shall take steps to eliminate the offending party."