Death of an Adept

Chapter Thirty-Seven

CLOSE by the base of the altar, Adam roused sluggishly to an awareness that several people were calling him by name. Something warm was being wrapped around him, and he could feel deft fingers tugging at the cord imprisoning his wrist as someone else lifted his feet to rest on something soft.

"Oh, Adam, Adam, don't do this to me!" said a voice he recognized as Ximena's, as pressure constricted around the bicep of his free arm. "Please say something!"

As the knots at his wrist gave way, his left hand dropped limply to the ground, but the impact was enough to rouse him further. Forcing his heavy eyelids to open, he found himself squinting against the glare of a powerful torch. As it was turned quickly aside, the sight of Ximena, Peregrine, and McLeod nearly caused him to lose consciousness again, out of sheer relief.

Then he remembered what he had to tell them, and forced himself back from the abyss. Nearby, an SAS medic had started working on lolo.

"Is this blood on his chest?" McLeod growled, as Ximena pressed the bell of a stethoscope against Adam's inner elbow.

"I'm not bleeding," he managed to whisper, his free hand groping vaguely for a handful of snow. "Blood's mine, but they painted it on me. Marks of Taranis - got to scrub 'em off…"

"That's the least of your worries right now," Ximena muttered between tears and fury, as she pulled the stethoscope from her ears and dashed the snow from his hand. "Oh, Adam, what have they done to you?"

"Kept me pumped full of sedatives," he mumbled dazedly.

"All very slick. Took a lot of blood, too - more'n two units."

"Well, that's why your pressure is shit!" she retorted, already pulling items from her medical bag. "We've got to get you to a hospital, the sooner the better."

At any other time Adam would have agreed. But with his physical welfare now in his wife's capable hands, his overriding worry at the moment was that Soulis had somehow broken free. Even if he never returned to claim what he had marked as his own, Soulis would be poised to prey upon an unsuspecting world, freshly energized by the fire of Taranis. Until ht could be brought back under control, nothing else mattered. And Adam must be clear-headed to direct the operation, no matter what it cost him.

"Can't go anywhere yet," he said, fighting back a wave of nausea. "Got work to do here. You've got to stabilize me. I need a plasma extender in me, if you've got it, and something to lift my blood pressure, stat."

"Will you please let me decide what you need?" Ximena said as she stripped the packaging off a large bore needle and plugged it into the IV line on a bag of Ringer's lactate. "You're in no condition to do anything that smacks of exertion."

"Just do what I'm telling you!" Adam rasped, as she pumped up the blood pressure cuff again, searching for a vein. "I need my head clear! Do whatever it takes. And don't worry if I seem to slip away for a bit."

"You haven't even got any decent veins, your pressure's so low," she muttered. "Do you have any idea what you're asking?"

"Ximena, he knows," McLeod whispered. "Please - help him do what he needs to do."

Her expression was mutinous, but as she rolled her eyes, she ran her fingertips along the side of Adam's neck.

"All right," she said, tearing open an alcohol swab, "but I'm doing this under protest. If you die, I'll never forgive you. Peregrine, give me some light here on his neck. Adam, I'm going to have to go for the jugular, so bear with me."

"I've married a vampire," he whispered weakly, his faint smile twitching as the needle slid home.

While Peregrine set about scrubbing the blood from his chest with more alcohol wipes, and McLeod righted the heavy candie-holder to improvise an IV stand, Ximena began plugging various medications into Adam's IV. As he sought a level of trance to assist his body's recovery, he could feel himself already beginning to rally. Vaguely aware of hands shifting him to wrap more blankets around his body, he embraced a brightness reaching out to him from the heart of the Inner Planes, bringing with it the promise of restoration and remedy. Extending himself in turn to meet and welcome it, Adam suddenly found himself once again in the luminous presence of Andrew Kerr.

Relief flooded through him, for here at last was the link by which Soulis might be defeated - and McLeod was at hand this time, to be Kerr's voice. Spreading astral hands in a gesture of momentary suspension, but remaining deep in trance, Adam opened his eyes to seek out McLeod, who now was kneeling at his left side.

"Noel - I have contact with someone who can help us, but he needs a vessel. I can vouch for him without question. Will you let him in?"

McLeod traded quick glances with Peregrine.

"I think he's been knocking at the door ever since we arrived," he told Adam with a faint smile. "Aye, he has my permission to enter."

"Then take my hand," Adam whispered, closing his eyes again as McLeod complied.

Still poised with Kerr on the threshold of the Inner Planes, Adam saw the other Huntsman's face transformed with relief as his image likewise came to clasp Adam's hand. As the other's likeness faded, becoming no longer discernible on the astral, Adam sensed the transfer of essence and place and opened his eyes again, though he remained in trance. The presence that looked back at him through his Second's blue eyes was recognizably that of Andrew Kerr.

"Be welcome here," Adam whispered.

Nodding, Kerr released Adam's hand and scanned swiftly around them.

"Where is Soulis?" he demanded urgently.

His voice was lighter and clearer than McLeod's own gravelly bass. The sound of it made Ximena start and stare, but Peregrine only smiled faintly and shifted closer to watch and listen in wonder. With no time for explanations, Adam gave his full attention to his historical counterpart.

"Soulis has gone, at least for the moment," he told Kerr. "His spirit was conjured here by a black Adept called Raeburn, but he broke the bounds meant to contain him and took flight into the night. Redcap is also free."

Kerr, wearing McLeod's aspect, looked visibly shaken by this disclosure.

"This bodes ill, indeed, if those two are at liberty," he muttered. "The future of many is in jeopardy."

The blue gaze clouded, focused in some other time and place, and McLeod's breathing deepened.

"Aye," Kerr continued in the same troubled voice, "the tapestry begins to reweave itself even as we speak, as that which was destined not to be now once again becomes possible."

"Forgive me, but I'm afraid I don't understand," Adam said.

Kerr turned back to him, the blue gaze holding him fast, willing him to comprehend.

"Soulis was no common evildoer," he explained grimly. "So monstrous were his crimes that it was decreed his existence should be cut short - not just once, in what is now your own past, but for all time to come: by denying him all future incarnations. In releasing Soulis from limbo, this man Raeburn has restored the potential to incarnate. The consequences of that act now threaten to change the whole fabric of creation, from this time forward."

Adam's mind reeled at the prospect. "Is it possible to put things right?" he asked.

"It is," Kerr responded sternly, "but it will not be enough simply to send Soulis back to the Other Side. The doors to his own future must also be closed against him."

"Do you know how to do this?" Adam asked. "For I do not."

"I do," Kerr replied. "For as far back as my memory reaches, through many lifetimes, it has been given to me to see and know the shape of things to come. That is why I was chosen to be Soulis' executioner. You know his past and I know his future. If a means can be found to lure him back to this place, then together it may be possible for us to force him back across the threshold of existence, and consign him once again to the Outer Dark."

"You need look no further for a lure to entice him," Adam said grimly. "I myself am already the lure."

Swiftly, and in as few words as possible, he related how Soulis had intervened at the very instant before Raeburn would have slain him in unholy sacrifice.

"His touch was - unspeakable," he whispered, shuddering. "He left lolo's body to drink of the power of Taranis, but he expected to take me in lolo's place. I doubt he's gone far. In order to experience the full pleasure of existence, he still requires a physical body - one, moreover, which is accustomed to the stresses of walking between the worlds, moving on the Inner Planes. When he sounded me, he found such a host - and marked me as his own. It's only a matter of time before he returns to claim me - especially if I offer myself, without defenses."

"Then, your stake in this is personal, as well as for the common good," Kerr said gravely, "for if Soulis takes you a second time, he will destroy you utterly."

"With your help, he will not destroy me," Adam replied, "but you must guide me."

"I will do that, right gladly," Kerr agreed. "But be warned: Even discarnate, Soulis is a powerful adversary. And having drunk from the well of Taranis, he will be all the more powerful now. Have you friends you can summon to aid in your defense?''

"Many and trusty," Adam said with a fleeting smile.

"Then call them to us," Kerr said. "You and I cannot do this thing alone. I must remain here, anchored in this body, to perform the necessary workings when the time comes. Your other friends must be your bulwark while I keep watch between the worlds."

McLeod's grizzled head bowed, a soft breath whispering from his lips. Only then, released from Kerr's regard, did Adam find the will to glance back at Ximena. She was reading his blood pressure again, and glanced at him sharply as she felt his gaze upon her.

"Are you done yet?" she murmured, pulling her stethoscope from her ears.

Gently he shook his head, smiling faintly as he took her hand in his and kissed it.

"Afraid not," he said softly. "Just beginning. Keep me safe while I'm away."

"Adam!"

But he only shook his head and released her hand, commending himself to the grace and protection of the Light as he bade Peregrine help him sit up slightly, reclining his head against the curve of the other's arm. As he willed himself onto the astral, unseen wings encompassed him, sweeping him up in a dizzying shimmer of flight that brought him through a sea of opal clouds to a lofty plateau canopied by stars. It was Peregrine who had carried him, and who stood ready at his side as, a moment later, they were joined on the astral by McLeod's spirit, oddly translucent for being partially constrained by the tenant now resident in his body.

Clothing himself in the celestial blue that both of them wore, Adam called out in spirit to the other members of the Hunting Lodge, soberly enjoining them to come and be present at this mustering of the Light. First to join them was Philippa, her face radiant with joy, who folded him in a swift caress before taking her place beside Peregrine, at his left hand. The others followed in swift sequence - Christopher, Victoria, Julian, together with a company of others who, from time to time, had shown themselves to be at one in spirit with Adam and his Huntsmen.

John Graham was there as well, black-robed and powerful, bearing the sword that had barred and then guarded the way to his sanctum at Oakwood, backed by half a dozen of his own Huntsmen. Present, too, were members of the Masonic fraternity who had assisted Adam in times past - Sir Gordon, Ian Duart - and Alan Lockhart among that bright company, boldly lifting a sword that was echoed by like blades in the hands of all the others, as befitted warriors preparing to do battle in the service of the Light.

Lifting his arms to include all those present in the sweep of his embrace, Adam set the challenge before them with the winged speed of thought. Then, bidding them fall back to positions of concealment, he moved to the forefront to take his stand, casting aside all defenses to present himself in the white- robed guise of the sacrifice he nearly had been - and night yet be, if they could not stop Soulis.

A breath of sulphurous wind from the west was the first harbinger of Soulis' impending return. Trembling in body and spirit, acutely aware of the immortal danger in which he willingly placed himself, Adam offered himself for Soulis' enticement, faithfully reproducing his utter vulnerability before that other assault, when Soulis had probed so deeply into his soul. Far on the distant horizon to the west appeared a looming mass of dense black cloud, charged with venomous flickers of lightning.

Closer to the storm, a menacing rumble of thunder reverberated on the physical plane as well as the astral. The rumble was loud enough to penetrate the roar of the Lynx's powerful rotors as it streaked westward in hot pursuit of a fleeing smaller helicopter. Eyes intent on the quarry, Harry Nimmo noted the approaching storm beyond, but could see nothing else amiss.

"What the hell was that?" he muttered through set teeth.

Sitting next to him in the co-pilot's seat, hurriedly scanning their instrument displays, Kinsey shook his head.

"Nothing mechanical," he reported. "Must be the weather up ahead. Everything reads normal."

"I'm not sure that's weather," Harry muttered under his breath, as he bore down harder on the throttle.

Out in front, dipping in and out of the searchlight spear of the pursuing Lynx, the fleeing target skimmed dangerously close to the trees below, jinking left, then right, then left again as its pilot tried to shake off pursuit. Undaunted, Harry kept the Lynx close-handled and steadily narrowed the gap between himself and his airborne adversary.

"Another minute, and we've got 'em," he said aside to Kinsey. "I'd really like to shoot 'em down, but I suppose that would create a lot of bad press for Noel."

"Not to mention what the general would say."

"Guess we'd better force 'em down, then."

Even as he spoke, another boom of thunder spoke, heavy enough to rattle the Lynx's armored bulkheads. Biting off an oath, Harry made a rapid-fire adjustment to their trim and, in that instant of diversion, heard Kinsey utter an explosive profanity. As he glanced up in alarm, it was to see a black wall of cloud rising up before both aircraft.

The cloud bank was heading their way with the speed of a tidal wave. Banking sharply, the chopper in front made a vain attempt to outflank it, only to be overtaken and engulfed. An instant later, the cloud was illuminated from within by a stark blaze of lightning. Harry caught a fleeting afterimage of the other craft suspended in a corona of flame just before its fuel tank caught fire and exploded.

The thundercloud rolled on, raining burning debris from its underside, the Lynx squarely in its path.

"Jesus, Harry! Get us the hell out of here!" Kinsey shouted.

Harry was already taking measures. As the storm cloud levelled out over the treetops, he punched the throttle into overdrive and sent the chopper clawing for altitude. The engines stuttered, and for one awful moment he thought they were going to be overwhelmed.

Then the rotors caught an updraft and lifted them clear with only yards to spare as the uncanny cloud mass surged past beneath them.

Back at the ruined chapel, well aware of Soulis' approach on two levels, Adam briefly opened his eyes for a last scan on the physical before battle was joined. He was aware of Peregrine supporting him, of McLeod at his left side, of Donald Cochrane now crouching down by his feet, head bowed over the Masonic ring he always wore. Behind Donald, Ian Duart and two of his troopers were hunkered down with heads bowed over their MP5's - further reinforcements for the Masonic support Adam had already noted on the astral. At his left, Ximena had turned to assist the SAS medic in lolo's treatment, and was stretching to hang another IV between the two she had already started for Adam.

Commending them all to the protection of the Light, he let his eyelids close, again focused wholly on the astral as he braced himself for Soulis, bait for the trap, still offering no resistance. It was no easy thing to stand thus, as the wind of Soulis' approach was suddenly upon them.

But though a suffocating darkness accompanied the psychic gale that heralded Soulis' descent, sufficient Huntsmen rose up to just deflect it - a calculated defense to begin diminishing Soulis' power before he realized he was being drawn into a trap. The assault was still sufficient to buffet Adam to his very core; and the answering surge of Soulis' dark anger very nearly reached him before McLeod and then Philippa diverted it.

But he dared do nothing in his own defense, lest Soulis take alarm and draw back, or even escape. Adam must keep the lure of his soul dangling before Soulis, enticing him to squander his energies until it was too late to break away.

Meanwhile, Soulis rampaged, drunk with power and the promise of more. For a while, Adam felt like a bottle set adrift in the midst of a typhoon, uncertain which way was up, as the world around him was rent with catastrophic bursts of thunder and lightning and Soulis tried to get at him. The firmament beneath his feet seemed ready to burst asunder as the tempest raged around him with insensate fury.

But around him, directed by Kerr, Adam's Huntsmen and their allies prepared to close the net. With a word, McLeod/Kerr reached out a hand to take Philippa's, and she in turn reached out for Peregrine. The web of contact spread, and the firmament beneath them seemed to stabilize as, united by mind and hand, they planted themselves like so many oak trees and settled down to ride out the storm.

Gradually, though an eternity seemed to pass, the fury of the storm began to weaken. Still the Huntsmen held their net. But finally, even when Adam lifted his arms to Soulis in cautious enticement, still obviously helpless, the lightning-play died back to an exhausted flicker, the thunder subsiding to a sullen, intermittent growl.

The quarry now was run to ground. The storm-force of his malice was largely spent. Even so, Soulis was still a dangerous opponent, as insanely destructive as a rabid dog. Gratefully shedding his aspect as victim, Adam gathered back his defenses and once again clothed himself in the celestial hue of his office. As he took up his sword, he scanned the astral darkness at the edges of the Huntsmen's circle. The astral storm had yielded to the darkness of normal nighttime, but off to his right, a lingering blur of shadow crouched down in a hollow. By the sulphuric quality of its density, Adam knew it at once for the disembodied essence of Soulis.

Holding his sword at the ready, he slowly advanced on Soulis' position. Likewise arming themselves, the astral forms of his companions fanned out on either hand, as together they made to draw tight the web they had woven.

Soulis fathomed their intentions in an instant. Rising up in a vaguely humanoid pillar of fiery smoke, he made a furtive attempt to bolt, only to find the way blocked by Christopher's sword. Wheeling, he tried another route - this time blocked by Philippa and Peregrine. John Graham stood ready when he turned another way. By then the trap was unmistakable - and inescapable.

"We must return him now to the place where he first was summoned," Adam instructed those with him. "Be careful, though. He fears the swords, but he still has sufficient spite to do us harm."

With Adam and McLeod directing the endeavor, the circle of astral Huntsmen began chivvying their quarry back toward that physical counterpart of the astral door through which Soulis had made his entry into time and space. Soulis did not submit gracefully to being driven. Pulsing with rage, no longer able to hold any semblance of humanoid form, he lunged and surged in an attempt to wreak some injury, but his adversaries forced him steadily toward the astral reflection of the ruined chapel.

An echo of the chapel's physical appearance took shape on the Inner Planes. Retreating before Soulis to mark the way in, Adam became momentarily distracted by the sight of Ximena standing up beside his own inert body, adjusting one of the IVs hanging from the wrought-iron candlestick. Peregrine was seated cross-legged against the side of the altar with Adam's head cradled in his lap, and McLeod/Kerr knelt beside him. Adam was about to return his attention to the astral, when another figure dragged itself upright from behind the wreckage of the altar slab, black-robed and fair of hair.

Raeburn!

And the black Adept had a pistol in the hand he was raising, his face transfixed with malice as he took careful aim at the back of Ximena's averted head.

"No!"

Adam's cry of horror made itself heard on both levels. Still in possession of McLeod's body, Kerr started upward but then hesitated - for if he fell, there was none to do to Soulis what must be done. But Peregrine was already in motion as well, letting Adam's head drop to the ground with stunning force as he rolled to tackle Ximena about the knees without a second thought, throwing her to the ground even as Raeburn's shot exploded. It missed both of them - and Soulis' harsh exclamation precluded a second try.

You! Lynx-Master! Soulis rumbled, as he surged up onto the altar in a darkly sparkling cloud like a tornado funnel. Give me the use of your body and I will reduce these enemies of ours to ashes!

Raeburn recoiled hard against the wall behind him, his pale eyes wild as he swung the muzzle of his pistol toward Soulis.

"No, stay back!" he shouted hoarsely. "I have no wish to join you in the Void. The worst these people can do is kill me. But you would destroy me utterly!"

The shadow that was Soulis stretched tall in its fury.

Then, die, you miserable serf! he howled. And learn that there are worse things than oblivion! Redcap, he is yours!

From out of the shadows at the chapel's edge, a misshapen goblin figure made a sudden leap. Swinging his pistol in that direction, Raeburn was still firing as Redcap seized him and bore him to the ground behind the altar. The gunfire ceased abruptly, with a crunch of shattering bone and a bubbling cry. As Redcap popped back into view with a triumphant cackle, demon eyes blazing, the taloned fingers of one hand were clutched red and dripping around the still palpitating lump of flesh that had been the Lynx-Master's heart.

He thrust it upward in gory salute to Soulis as his flaming gaze shifted to the other humans present in hungry calculation. But in that instant, Kerr heaved McLeod's body to its feet and flung up both hands in orison, crying out the opening words of a powerful incantation.

Redcap shrieked defiance, but a stabbing gesture from Kerr shrank the demon to a spitting, bristling ball of blackness that imploded with a thunderclap, sent back whence it had come. Never missing a beat, Kerr returned his focus to Soulis himself. As his chant piled note upon note and syllable upon syllable, Adam let himself be drawn back on the astral to stand at Kerr's side with his Huntsmen as an oval iris of fluctuating light opened before them out of nowhere, like a window on some distant futurity.

The oval had length and width, but no depth that Adam could see. As it turned toward the shadow that was Soulis, its surface scintillated like a mirror, with flashes of changing imagery. Looking more closely, Adam saw that the images were all changing guises of the same individual: a dark, arrogant man with cruel lips and heavy-lidded eyes. When the shadow-Soulis turned toward the window in sudden, aching yearning, Adam realized that he was seeing reflections of Soulis' future lives as well as past ones.

But all those lives bore the same stamp of depravity, and a greater Wisdom than Adam's had decreed that these were not to be, now or ever. As Adam embraced that certainty, Kerr's incantation underwent a shift, its cadence changing as his voice altered in pitch and intensity.

As the shimmering pane of light continued to revolve just beyond Soulis' yearning reach, there appeared above and behind it a jagged line of darkness that gradually widened, pulling itself apart like a self-inflicted wound. Its presence seemed to tear the fabric of the physical world in two; and beyond the gap lay a black and bottomless eternity.

With a rending shriek, Soulis attempted to dodge away.

"Keep him penned where he is!" Kerr shouted across to Adam.

Sword in hand, Adam leaped to hem Soulis in on the astral. His fellow Huntsmen did the same, hedging him about with their blades. While they held Soulis thus at bay, Kerr approached the mirror-like window in the air, where it hovered just below the mouth of the Void. With a single Word of command, he drove his clenched fist into the window's scintillating center.

The pane of light shattered like glass. Soulis' howl of despair was accompanied by a dissonant clangor of chimes. The gap yawned wider still, like a giant, sucking wound. As the shards of his broken future were engulfed by the darkness, Soulis himself was drawn inexorably after them into the Void.

Screaming, he attempted to cling to the threshold, but his shadowy essence could find no purchase there. Still clawing at empty air, he slipped backwards into the gaping rift. His eyes blazed and died as he fell, his own darkness merging with the greater darkness of the abyss. Then abruptly the rift snapped shut, leaving Adam and his companions alone in an astral chapel filled with echoes that gradually died away.

The silence that followed was like a benison. One by one, giving weary salute to Kerr and Adam, the astral company withdrew across intervening space to rejoin physical bodies, wherever they might lie. Retiring likewise from the field, Adam found himself once again on the high plateau among the clouds, where he was joined a moment later by Kerr.

"We have done good work this night," Kerr said. "Your Huntsmen are brave."

"Without your help, we could not have prevailed," Adam said.

A smile crossed Kerr's face, though his essence was already reverting to light.

"I see that the sword I once bore is in good hands, and flames as bright as ever. Go back to your friends in good hope for the future. And take my thanks and commendations with you. The Light has been well served this night."