The Spy Who Haunted Me

CHAPTER FOUR Not Nessie

So there we were: the six greatest secret agents in the world, masters of the spying arts, standing around in the mud and the long grass and the freezing cold wind, wondering what the hell to do next. We were trained to operate in dark city streets, in shadows and alleyways, where honest So men and women knew better than to go. We plied our trade in smoke-filled rooms and concealed cellars, in abandoned offices and computer rooms at midnight. We were not equipped to deal with lochs. Without clues to follow, suspects to interrogate, or things to steal, we were all frankly at something of a loss. At least I had some experience of the great outdoors; the others gave every indication that they were experiencing the countryside for the very first time and not enjoying it at all. Hell, sunlight was probably a new experience for some of them.

I looked unhurriedly about me. Gray looming hills rose up on either side of Loch Ness, tall and ragged, spotted here and there with clumps of spindly trees and splashes of thick tufty grass. The sky was just as gray, the sun mostly hidden behind dark lowering clouds drifting in from the opposite end of the loch. The waters were a dark blue, still and serene, untroubled by any wildlife. It was a pleasant enough view, in a dour, foreboding sort of way. It had the look of countryside that had been here long before man came along to trouble it, and it would still be here long after we were all gone. Loch Ness was more than old; it was ancient. And what mysteries it had it held close to its chest.

Walker surprised me by taking a deep lungful of the freezing cold air, and then smiling broadly. “Now, that’s more like it. Good fresh country air. Bracing! Makes you feel good to be alive.”

“You’re as weird as everyone says you are,” snarled Peter King, hugging himself against the cold and looking thoroughly miserable and put-upon. “It’s cold, it’s damp . . . and I appear to be standing in some sheep droppings.”

“Don’t rub it off,” the Blue Fairy said wisely. “That’s supposed to bring good luck.”

“It won’t be lucky for the bloody sheep if I get my hands on it,” Peter said darkly, scraping the bottom of his shoe against the spiky grass with grim determination. “These are expensive shoes. Hand-tooled by craftsmen to look good in expensive boardrooms, not assaulted by the unregulated filth of the countryside!”

“I didn’t think it could get this cold outside the Arctic Circle,” said Honey Lake, shuddering inside her long white fur coat. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see a polar bear come swimming down those waters. Probably with a penguin tap-dancing on its back.”

“I like it here,” Katt decided. The cold didn’t seem to be bothering her at all, despite her flimsy dress. She moved in beside me and slipped a slender, knowing arm through mine. She snuggled in close and beamed happily up at me. “It’s very . . . scenic. Dramatic, even. I’d swear that wind’s wuthering. Still, no place for a delicate flower of the city like me.”

“You’re about as delicate as a steamhammer,” said the Blue Fairy. “I’ve seen the state of some of your victims after you’ve finished with them.”

Katt pulled a face at him, and then smiled adoringly up at me from where she was apparently welded to my side. “You and I belong together, Eddie. We appreciate the true qualities of a place like this. We’re both . . . free spirits, independent and unrestrained! We belong in the wild, far from the chains and restrictions of civilised behaviour . . .”

I had to smile at her. “Before this goes any further, Katt, I feel I should point out that I am a Drood. We’re trained to recognise a honey trap and to know real bullshit when we hear it. So save the honeyed words and the ego massage for the civilians.”

Katt laughed easily, not offended in the least. “Can’t blame a girl for trying, darling. And you’d be surprised how many supposedly intelligent men will fall for the most blatant flattery, even in these so-called sophisticated days. Especially if I take a deep breath and push my bosoms out.”

I looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. “How many, Katt? How many men have you seduced, betrayed, and murdered, down the years?”

She shrugged prettily. “I don’t keep count, Eddie. It’s just a job. Some men more than others . . . Some were quite sweet.”

“And you killed them all? Even the ones you were fond of?”

“Especially the ones I was fond of, darling. I’ve never allowed anyone to have a hold over me.”

“And you never loved any of them?”

“What a thing to ask, sweetie! I loved them all! In my own way.” She looked out over the loch, her beautiful Asian features untouched by any emotion I could recognise. “I really don’t know what I’m doing here. I mean, monster hunting is so not me. I have always been strictly espionage and problem disposal, with the occasional side order of treachery and blackmail. Stick to what you’re best at; that’s what I always say. The honey trap has always been part of the grand old tradition of spycraft. I am glamorous and decorative, not practical. I do not get my hands dirty, in the literal sense. It’s in my contract.”

“And I suppose you feel the need for a big strong man to look after you,” I said. “To protect you from the nasty monster.”

“Exactly!” Katt snuggled in close again and looked up at me from under heavily mascaraed eyelids. “I don’t do mysteries, I don’t fight monsters, and I very definitely don’t do roughing it. I mean, come on; what am I supposed to do if we should find a monster here? Chuck it under the chin and beguile it with my famous charms?”

“If anyone could, you could,” I said generously.

Katt sighed. “I don’t know why Alexander ever thought to choose me for his precious contest.”

“I think the idea is, we’re supposed to learn to work as a group, calling on our various talents as required,” I said. “All of us working together, for the greater good.”

“Until we have to betray each other,” said Katt.

I smiled at her. “I’m sure you’ll have no problem with that. Now, if I could have my arm back, please? I have no intention of getting close to you, in any sense of the word. I would quite like to die in bed, but preferably of old age. So do us both a favour and go vamp somebody else.”

She smiled sunnily, let go of my arm, and stepped away. “Your loss, darling.”

She strode off, still somehow sure-footed and graceful even on the muddy bank of the loch. She was heading for Walker, and I mentally wished him the best of luck. I moved over to stand beside Honey, who was staring suspiciously out over the dark unmoving waters of the loch as though she suspected them of planning something. She was standing straight and tall, her hands planted on her hips, looking very much like a general contemplating the field before a battle.

“We have to get organised,” she said, acknowledging my presence without looking around. “We’re on a deadline, and the clock is ticking. Alexander didn’t look as bad as I’d been led to expect, but we have no way of knowing how accurate that vision was. He could go at any time and take all his secrets with him, the selfish bastard. He has a duty to hand over his hoarded information to those best suited to make good use of it. Not make it the prize in a stupid game.”

“I don’t think Alexander King has ever been very strong on duty,” I said.

She glanced at me and smiled briefly. “We’d better work together on this, Eddie. We’re the only real professionals in this group.”

“There’s Walker,” I said.

“Too much of an unknown quantity. Never trust anyone from the Nightside.”

“And the Blue Fairy might just surprise us.”

“Never trust an elf.”

I had to smile. “Come on, Honey. You’re CIA. You don’t trust anyone.”

She looked at me severely. “You have to trust someone, or you’ll never get anything done. The day of the independent operative is over, Eddie. The world’s grown too big, too complicated, for the lone wolf following hunches and instincts. Only big organisations have the resources to deal with today’s problems.”

“My family would agree with you,” I said. “But I’ve always had problems with my family.”

“So I’ve heard,” said Honey. “Why do you do it, Eddie? Why do the Droods feel they have the right to run roughshod over the whole world?”

“Because we’ve been doing it for hundreds of years,” I said. “And we’re very good at it.”

“Not always,” said Honey.

“Well,” I said. “No one wants to be insufferable.”

She laughed. It was a free, easy sound, utterly at odds with her determined stance and coolly professional face.

“You give your whole life to this, don’t you?” she said. “All you Droods. You play the game till it kills you, or till you drop in your tracks. Why would you do that?”

“Someone has to,” I said.

“No, really. Why?”

“Really?” I considered the question. “Duty. Responsibility. Or maybe just because for all its treacheries and dangers, it’s still the best game in the world. The only one worthy of our talents. Why do you do it?”

“Oh, hell, Eddie, it’s just a job. A way up the ladder, towards getting on and moving up. I’m going to be somebody, doing things that matter. Making the decisions that matter.” She glanced at me. “You Droods don’t care about politics. The rest of us don’t have that luxury.” She looked out over the loch again, making it clear with her body language that the subject was closed. “So, how do you find one monster in a lake this size?”

“Good question,” I said.

Out of the corner of my eye, I was watching Katt try out her charms on Walker. (It’s a poor secret agent who can’t think about two things at the same time.) Katt kept trying to slip her arm through Walker’s, and he kept dodging her without quite seeming to be aware that he was doing it. Finally he turned and looked at her, and she actually fell back a pace. Even at a distance, I could feel the chill in his gaze, colder than the Scottish air could ever be. He said something, and Katt reacted as though she’d been struck in the face. She gave Walker a quick professional smile, turned her back on him, and stalked away with her nose in the air. Walker went back to studying the loch, his face calm and thoughtful and entirely untroubled. I decided I’d better keep a watchful eye on Walker. Anyone who could stare down Lethal Harmony of Kathmandu and send her running for cover was clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Katt stalked right past the Blue Fairy without even glancing in his direction, presumably because she knew all her charms and skills would be wasted on the famously homosexual half elf. She had nothing that would interest him, except perhaps fashion tips. Honey was saying something useful but boring about the necessity for taking direct action, but I was still watching the Blue Fairy. All of us looked out of place in this wild and savage setting, but he looked more than usually lost. He had his hands thrust deep into his belt, and his chin was buried in his wilting ruff as he glowered at the muddy ground before him. He looked tired, and alone, and out of his depth. My first reaction was Good. Serves him right.

But . . . I’d known Blue a long time, on and off. I liked him, trusted him, gave him a chance to be a hero in the Hungry Gods War. He turned his back on that, and on me, just for a chance to ingratiate himself with his arrogant elf kindred. I should have known . . . and I should have known better. The Blue Fairy’s whole history was one of broken words, cold-blooded betrayal, and falling short. He liked to say he was somebody, back in the day, but truth be told he wasn’t, though he could have been . . . if he hadn’t thrown it all away, indulging his many weaknesses. And he was half-elf. Never trust an elf. Everyone knows that. I really shouldn’t take it personally that he let me down in front of my whole family after I vouched for him. That he made me look bad.

That was what the Blue Fairy did.

He stole a torc from the Droods and got away with it. You had to admire him for that. No one else had ever managed it. Give the man credit for thinking big. And I of all people understood the demands of family; the need almost despite yourself to belong, to be accepted . . . and all the stupid self-destructive things that could drive a man to. So I left Honey talking authoritatively to herself and strolled over to join the Blue Fairy. I didn’t hurry. I wanted to give him time to move away, if he wanted. But he just looked around as he sensed me approaching, raised one hand briefly to the golden torc at his throat, and then turned almost defiantly to face me. His head came up, his mouth firmed, and he stood his ground. He’d come a long way from the broken, defeated man I’d found more dead than alive in a pokey little flat in Wimbledon. If nothing else, it seemed his time at the Fae Court had put some backbone into him.

I stopped a respectful distance away and nodded briskly. “Cold day,” I said. “Don’t suppose you’ve got a flask of something bracing about you?”

He smiled briefly, as though he wasn’t used to it anymore. His eyes were watchful. “Sorry,” he said. “I had to give all that up when I took my place at the Fae Court. They insisted. Elves take a very firm stand on personal weaknesses. Not just frowned on; not allowed. When you’re an elf, even your failings have to be on a grand scale. Anything less is beneath us. I do miss my old sins, my old indulgences . . . much in the way I miss my childhood, when I could make all the mistakes I wanted, secure in the knowledge it didn’t really matter. But that was such a long time ago. I was a different person then. I’ve finally grown up, Eddie, and I don’t think I like it at all.” He met my gaze steadily. “Are you really prepared to kill me, to get your precious torc back?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Probably.”

He nodded. “You’d make a good elf.”

“Now you’re just being nasty.”

We shared a smile. Perhaps it’s only old friends and old enemies who can be really honest with each other. We stood side by side for a while, looking out over the loch. The gray skies were now definitely overcast, and the waters seemed darker. The wind was blowing steadily, the bitter cold sinking into my bones. I stamped my feet into the mud and spiky grass to keep the circulation going. If Blue felt the cold, he hid it well. He smiled suddenly and drew my attention to farther down the bank, where Katt was snuggling up to Peter King. It was like watching a cat stalk a mouse. But to my surprise, Peter didn’t seem in the least intimidated by her practiced glamour or by the way she was expertly pressing her body against his. He politely disengaged his arm from hers, stepped back, and said something no doubt calm and civilised and very firm. Katt stared at him as though she couldn’t believe it, and then dismissed him utterly with a turned back, kicking at the grass as she stomped away. I don’t think she was used to being turned down by so many men in one day.

“Didn’t see that coming,” said the Blue Fairy. “Thought for sure she’d eat young Peter alive.”

“A chip off the old block, I suppose,” I said. “Alexander King was quite the lady-killer in his day. Sometimes literally. Oh, look; I think Peter’s found some more sheep droppings.”

“How lucky can one man get?” Blue said solemnly. “Have you noticed, Walker seems quite at home in this primitive and entirely uncivilised place. Not what you’d expect from a man who spends his whole life walking the mean streets of the Nightside, where the sun never shines . . . It’s as though nothing here can touch him.”

“Nothing here would dare,” I said. “Everyone’s heard of Walker. Hello; now Honey’s going over to talk to him. I think perhaps we should wander over and do a little shameless eavesdropping. We can’t afford to be left out of anything. Not in this group.”

“Hear all, see all, and keep our thoughts to ourselves,” said the Blue Fairy.

“You see?” I said. “You’d make a good Drood.”

“Now who’s being nasty?”

We laughed briefly, and then he looked at me with an expression on his face I couldn’t read.

“It’s all right that you never liked me,” he said finally. “Not many do.”

“I liked you well enough,” I said. “I just never approved.”

“I liked you,” he said. “Admired you, even. For having the nerve to tell your family to go to hell, and make it stick. For having the courage to live your own life, and go your own way, and to hell with what anyone expected of you. When you brought me into your family, I really did mean to make you proud of me. But . . . you should never trust an elf, Eddie. And a desperate, lonely, stupid half elf least of all.”

“Let’s go see what Honey and Walker are up to,” I said. Why is it always the ones who aren’t really your friends who insist on baring their souls to you?

We joined Honey and Walker just as she stuck her face right into his and demanded he use his legendary Voice to summon the monster to the surface of the loch. Walker, not one bit intimidated, stood his ground and gave her back stare for stare. Peter and Katt hurried over, not wanting to be left out of anything.

“Voice?” said Peter just a bit breathlessly. “What Voice?”

“They say many things about Walker, in the Nightside,” I said. “Most important, they say he has a Voice no one can resist, that can compel anyone to say or do anything. A Voice so powerful even the high-and-mighty gods and monsters of the Nightside must bow their arrogant heads and answer to it. There are even those who say Walker once made a corpse sit up on its mortuary slab and answer his questions.”

“It was just the once,” said Walker. “I wish everyone would stop making such a big fuss about it.”

“Oh,” said Peter. “That Voice.”

“Would it work outside the Nightside?” said the Blue Fairy.

“I don’t think it works at all,” I said, making a sudden connection. There was nothing in Walker’s face or bearing to give the truth away, but suddenly I just knew . . . and a great many things made sense. “You don’t have your Voice anymore, do you, Walker? Because if you did, you would have used it on Alexander King to make him give up his secrets. You never jumped through hoops for anyone before this. No, your Voice was bestowed on you by the Authorities, when they first put you in charge of policing the Nightside. How else could one mortal man be expected to keep the peace in a place like that? But the Authorities are dead and gone now, and so is their gift. Right, Walker?”

He looked at me coolly, saying nothing, but sometimes silence is its own answer. I felt like jumping in the air and doing high fives with myself. I knew now what Alexander King had offered Walker to tempt him into this contest: a new Voice. Honey made a short, exasperated sound and moved abruptly away from Walker to stare out over the loch again.

“What do we know about this place?” she said loudly. “I mean, I know the story, the legend of Nessie; everyone does. But that’s about it.”

“I can tell you that Aleister Crowley once lived here,” said Walker unexpectedly. “He had a great house, right on the side of the loch, to which he summoned his pathetic followers to teach them the ways of magic. And in that dark and feverish place, he and his circle danced and took drugs and had all kinds of sex, driving themselves to exhaustion and beyond, all in the service of one great unholy ritual.”

“Crowley,” said Katt. “I sort of know the name, but . . .”

“Kids today,” said the Blue Fairy, shaking his head.

“The Great Beast,” Walker said patiently. “Called by some, not least himself, the Wickedest Man in the World. Back in the thirties, his name was a curse on the lips of the world, hated and feared and reviled, and he loved it. People would cross themselves when they saw him in the street. Perhaps he started to believe his own press; I don’t know. But he came here, and in that house, in that place, he and his followers tried to invoke and summon a great and primal power. But when he caught a glimpse of precisely what it was he was trying to bring through into our reality, he was so horrified he broke off the working and ran away screaming, along with his shattered followers. He ran all the way back to England, and many said he was never the same after that. The house is still here. It’s said to be haunted by bad dreams.”

“Was he really?” said Katt after a pause. “The wickedest man in the world, I mean?”

Walker smiled. “No.”

“You’d know,” I said generously.

“Well, that was all very interesting, I suppose,” said Honey. “But when I asked if anyone knew anything, I meant anything relevant.”

“Legends about the monster of Loch Ness go all the way back to the sixth century,” I said briskly. “Saint Columba was supposed to have come face-to-face with it while crossing the loch in a boat. He spoke gently to the creature, and it turned away and did him no harm. There were various stories after that, all for local consumption, but the first modern sighting was in 1933, which was when the world first learned about Nessie.”

“Why then?” said Peter. “I mean, why 1933 precisely? What happened then?”

“They built a road alongside the loch,” I said. “Up to that point, Loch Ness was way off the beaten track. But once the road was opened up to regular traffic, linking two major cities, people started seeing things. There have been all kinds of sightings since the thirties, some photos and even a few short films, but never anything definite or definitive. Never any proof. Nessie is apparently a very shy beastie and never pops her head above the surface for long.

“As for the loch itself, it is twenty-four miles long, averaging a mile or so in width, and reaches a depth of some seven hundred feet. If you’d care to consider the waters for a moment . . . Yes, they are pretty dark, aren’t they? That’s peat, stirred up from the bottom. Any disturbance in the water churns up even more peat, and soon enough you can’t see a damned thing.”

“Teacher’s pet,” said the Blue Fairy.

“How is it you know so much about our first mystery?” Katt said suspiciously.

“He’s a Drood,” said Walker. “They know everything.”

“Pretty much,” I said cheerfully.

“Anything else?” said Honey.

I shrugged. “Not unless you want to argue over the merits of the various photographs and films. The exact nature of Nessie’s identity is a much discussed and disputed matter. Some driven souls spend their whole lives here, perched on the edge of the loch, hoping for a sighting. No one knows anything for sure. Not even the Droods.”

“That is why we’re here, after all,” said the Blue Fairy.

“Oh, come on,” said Katt. “We’re supposed to solve a fifteen-hundred-year-old mystery, just like that, after everyone else has failed?”

“Why not?” said Walker, smiling briefly. “We are, after all, professionals.”

“Bloody freezing cold professionals,” said Peter, hugging himself and kicking miserably at the muddy ground. “Where are we, exactly? And don’t anyone just say Scotland or there will be slaps for everyone.”

“A long way from anywhere civilised,” said the Blue Fairy.

Peter smirked. “Like I said, Scotland.”

“If any locals should happen to wander by, I think I’d better do the talking,” said Walker.

“Hold everything,” I said. “Where are the locals? I haven’t seen anyone on or around the loch since we got here. There should be someone knocking about . . . And where are the tourists? There should be boats going up and down the loch on a regular basis, as well as the more hardy souls out for an improving walk to see the scenery. Hell, there isn’t even any wildlife about that I can spot. No birds on the water or in the air . . . It’s like we’re the only living things here.”

“Perhaps the Independent Agent has kindly provided for us to have a little privacy while we work,” said Walker. “Which would seem to indicate he still has connections with the outside world, for all his isolation.” And then he stopped and looked thoughtfully at the darkening clouds filling the sky overhead. “Can anyone tell me what time it is? My watch says midmorning, but I don’t think I trust it. It feels much later than that.”

“I have a computer implant in my head,” said Honey, not at all self-consciously. “And according to Langley’s computers, it’s exactly 15:17. We’re missing some time. More than could be allowed for by different time zones.”

“So the bracelets’ transportation isn’t instantaneous,” said Walker.

“Or they’re preprogrammed to deliver us to a particular point in space and time,” I said.

“Oh, hell,” said the Blue Fairy. “I feel jet-lagged now.”

“A problem for another time,” I said firmly. “What are we going to do about Nessie? Shout, Hey, monster, we’re very important people on a tight deadline, so would you please get your scaly arse up here and talk to us?”

“Please do that,” said the Blue Fairy. “I’d really like to see you do that.”

“Don’t be so negative,” said Honey. “We’re professionals. We can do this!”

Katt sniffed. “You would say that. You’re American. You can do anything.”

Honey smiled brightly at her. “Exactly!” She looked decisively out over the still and placid waters of the loch. Her hands were back on her hips again. “We could always lob in a few hand grenades and see if anything comes up to complain about the noise.”

We all winced, just a little. “Philistine!” hissed the Blue Fairy. “There’s been creatures here for hundreds of years, and you want to risk killing what might be the last one?”

“Typical CIA,” said Peter. “All brute force and ignorance.”

“Hey,” said Honey, entirely unaffected. “Don’t knock it if it works.”

“I still have contacts with the army and the navy,” said Walker. “A few words in the right ears, and I could have all manner of manpower and resources rushed up here . . . but that would take time, which we don’t have. And I rather think it’s part of Alexander King’s game that we’re supposed to do this on our own.”

“I have absolutely no problems with a little creative cheating,” said Peter. “Especially if it means we can get out of this cold one moment sooner.”

“Quite right, darling,” said Katt. “This is so not my professional venue. I flourish best in city streets.”

“Yes,” said Honey. “You do have the look of someone who should be walking the streets.”

“Girls, girls,” murmured Walker just a bit tiredly, while the Blue Fairy sniggered openly.

Peter kicked miserably at the ground again. “I just know I’m going to catch something. God, I’d kill for a Starbucks.”

I felt sorry for Peter. He was so clearly out of his element and out of his depth. Probably got his place in the contest only because his grandfather saw one last chance to make Peter over into the kind of grandson the Independent Agent should have had.

“I could go fishing for the monster,” the Blue Fairy said abruptly. “You have heard of my ability to go fishing in other dimensions? One of the few useful talents I inherited from dear absent Daddy and his rampant elven genes. I’ve never gone after anything this big before, but . . .”

I considered the Blue Fairy thoughtfully. He didn’t look like much, even with his new health and his somewhat damp Elizabethan finery, but I had seen him pull all kind of amazing things out of a dimensional pool he could conjure up. He caught me looking at him and smiled superciliously.

“I can handle anything I can sink my hook into these days. I learnt a lot during my time at the Fae Court under Queen Mab.”

“I thought the elves killed half-breeds on sight,” said Katt just a bit spitefully. “Breeding outside the species being their greatest taboo, after all.”

“Not when you come bearing gifts,” said the Blue Fairy, one hand rising very briefly to the golden torc around his throat.

Everyone looked at me. I looked right back at them until they got the message and changed the subject.

“Could you really fish the monster out of the loch?” Walker said to the Blue Fairy.

“Maybe,” said Blue. “But it would take time, and—”

Something stirred in the stunted shrubs nearby. We all spun around. Katt produced an impressively big gun from out of nowhere and fired a single shot in the direction of the noise. The shrubs all but exploded, and blood and fur flew on the air. The sound of the gun was shockingly loud in the quiet, echoing back from the surrounding hills. We all waited, on guard, but nothing else moved in the tattered shrubs at the side of the loch. Honey looked at Katt with new respect.

“Can I ask, where precisely did you produce that unnaturally large gun from?”

Katt smiled. “Please; allow a girl her little secrets.”

“I once knew a girl who had teeth in her—” said the Blue Fairy, and then shut up when I looked at him.

Walker was already poking through the ruins of the smouldering shrubs with the tip of his umbrella. He bent over to inspect something and then sighed, straightened up, and looked back at Katt.

“Congratulations, my dear. You have just exploded an otter.”

She shrugged and smiled prettily about her. “Sorry, darlings. Instinct.”

“Otters are a protected species, aren’t they?” said Peter.

“Not from me,” said Katt. Her gun had disappeared again. I had to wonder what else she might have hidden about her person. I wouldn’t have thought there was room for anything under a dress that tight; not even underwear.

The Blue Fairy produced a fishing rod and reel out of nowhere.

It looked battered and mended and much used, but he handled it with professional ease. “What do we think the monster is, anyway?” he said without looking up.

“It’s supposed to be some kind of dinosaur, isn’t it?” said Honey. “The last of its kind, preserved in a lake cut off from the rest of the natural world. The few photos I’ve seen all show a long neck and what might be the humps of an extended body.”

“I always hoped it would turn out to be a dragon,” said the Blue Fairy just a bit wistfully. “Not those nasty things the elf lords ride; I mean the real thing, from ages past, when there was still wild magic in the world . . .”

“You soppy old romantic, you,” I said.

“Maybe it’s an alien!” said Katt. “Descended from the crew of some crashed alien starship, long ago.”

“Could be some kind of elemental,” said Walker. “Which would explain why it never seems to look the same twice.”

Peter sniffed loudly. “More likely it’s just another tourist trap, making the most of an old legend to separate the gullible from their money.”

“If this contest wasn’t so important, I think I’d be just as happy for Nessie to stay a mystery,” I said. “After all, what would the rest of the world do, if presented with actual proof of Nessie’s existence and nature? Trap it, or shoot it? Drag it out of the loch to be shown off at some aquatic zoo? It would certainly never know a moment’s peace again. No, I think it’s safer and better off as a legend.”

Walker stood at the very edge of the bank, staring down into the dark still waters. “What if there is no monster?” he said thoughtfully. “No Nessie. What if that’s the answer to the mystery; that there’s nothing down there, really, and never was? How are we supposed to prove a negative? I mean, short of draining the whole loch . . .”

“Damn,” said Katt. “You’re actually considering it, aren’t you?”

“Philistine,” said the Blue Fairy, deftly slipping a barbed hook onto the end of his fishing line.

Walker looked back at us, smiling. “I doubt even the CIA could pull that one off, with all its resources. And certainly not without seriously upsetting the locals . . .”

“What we need,” Honey said firmly, “is a submersible.”

Her face became preoccupied; no doubt she was communing with her superiors at Langley via her computer implant. No way that was Earth technology. I was beginning to get a very good idea of which particular nonexistent department Honey worked for. A few moments passed, and then a great rent appeared in the sky above us, an actual tear in reality itself. Out of which dropped a large and very yellow and extremely futuristic-looking submersible. It was the size of an articulated lorry, and it fell almost lazily through the air, heading for the water right next to where we were standing.

“Everybody back!” yelled Walker.

He was already retreating at speed, and the rest of us were right on his heels. The submersible hit the surface of the loch hard, and a great explosion of water jumped up into the air, raining down just where we’d been standing. Some of the icy waters still reached us, and Katt squeaked miserably as it splashed across her bare shoulders. Served her right for being so slow off the mark. Walker remained cool and calm under his opened umbrella. The rest of us glared at Honey, who pretended to be very interested in her newly acquired submersible, which had now steadied itself and was bobbing happily at the side of the loch. It was big and blocky, with wide fins, a blunt nose, and all kinds of bristling scientific protrusions. There was even a (hopefully reinforced) extra-wide window at the front, backed up by great glaring headlights. Which it was going to need, down in the depths, where just the submersible’s passage would stir up enough peat to fill the water.

“Trust the CIA to show off,” said Peter.

“The CIA does big,” I said. “Droods prefer subtle.”

Honey sniffed loudly. She didn’t look exactly inspired with what she’d been sent. “Wonderful!” she said acidly. “Someone who only thinks they have a sense of humour has sent me a yellow submarine. Probably programmed the ship’s computers to sound like Ringo. Heads will roll when I get back, and other things too. I asked for a proper research vessel, not this . . . toy.”

“I’d mention Thunderbird 4,” said Walker. “But it would only date me.”

“I think it’s very pretty,” said Katt.

“How are we all supposed to squeeze into something that size?” said the Blue Fairy.

“You aren’t,” Honey said shortly. “I’ve used that model before, and it’s strictly a single seater. And no, you don’t get to draw straws over who goes. It’s my submersible, so I get to drive.”

“Typical CIA,” said Katt. “Never big on sharing.”

“We’re supposed to let you go down there on your own?” said Walker.

“Unless one of you has gills and can hang on to the outside,” said Honey.

“You might be able to locate Nessie with your wonderful new toy,” I said. “But how are you going to get proof? I don’t care what your new rubber duckie comes equipped with; you’re not going to get a clear image underwater. It’s been tried, and without a clear background to give you scale, any sonar image you get is worthless.”

“Why do I just know you’re about to suggest something clever?” said Honey.

“Because I’m a Drood,” I said. “We always know best. It’s in our job description. Look, this isn’t exactly rocket science. First you find the creature, then you bring it up to the surface, and finally we photograph it right next to your submersible. That gives us size and scale and a clear image, right?”

“The submersible’s cameras are only designed to operate underwater,” said Honey.

We all looked at each other.

“I’ve got a really good camera built into my phone,” said Peter.

“Oh, this is all just so amateur night, darlings,” said Katt.

“It’ll do,” Honey said shortly. “I’m not begging and pleading with Langley for more equipment. This whole mission is drowning in paperwork and requisitions as it is, and you just know they’ll find some way to stick me with the overruns. I’ll locate Nessie and goose her up to the surface, and, Peter, you had better get some really good photos.”

“This is a state-of-the-art phone, with still shots and film,” Peter protested. “I designed it myself.”

He started to spout off some detailed technobabble, only to shut up and sulk as it became clear none of us was listening. Honey stalked down to the edge of the bank, and we all trailed after her, feeling just a bit left out. None of us were used to being left behind while someone else went off to do all the interesting fun stuff. Honey jumped lightly onto the side of the bright yellow submersible, grabbing one of the more sturdy protrusions to steady herself. The submersible hardly bobbed at all under her added weight. She hit the access panel with her fist, and a hatch swung slowly outward. She wriggled in past it and disappeared inside. This was followed by a certain amount of swearing as she couldn’t find the light switch and then the sound of powerful engines coming on line, and the whole submersible seemed to shake itself like a hunting dog coming awake, ready for action. The access hatch opened itself a little wider, and then we all ducked and fell back as a package the size of a kitchen sink shot out over our heads and crash-landed on the bank behind us.

We all turned to look, and then watched with interest as the package jumped up and down on the spot, turning itself rapidly over and around in midair, shaking and shuddering as it unfolded in several different directions at once. It kept growing and growing in size, throwing out offshoots of itself, and finally sank several barbed steel legs into the ground to hold it securely in place. By the time it had finished showing off, the package had formed itself into a large, flashy, and more than state-of-the-art remote communications centre, complete with radio, sonar, live television feeds, and a few things even I didn’t recognise. Walker immediately strode over and commandeered the nearest keyboard, looked it over briskly, and then punched in a series of instructions that had the whole thing up and running in a few moments.

I wandered around the console, checking the data streams on the monitors, familiarising myself with the various comm systems, very careful not to touch anything. I was damned if I was leaving any fingerprints or DNA traces on the console’s suspiciously gleaming surfaces for the CIA to study once the mission was over. After a while I moved in beside Walker and casually indicated a few more things he could do to bring the console up to full power. Just to show I wasn’t being left out of things. The others crowded in beside us, peering over our shoulders.

“We have radio and video contact with the pilot,” said Walker, “direct feed from seven underwater cameras on those monitors there, and an ongoing display of whatever the submersible’s long-range sensors are picking up. Almost as good as being there.”

“Can you hear me, Honey?” I said, leaning forward over the mike.

“Of course I can hear you! I can hear all of you.” Strapped into a pilot’s chair and surrounded very closely on all sides by what looked like enough instrumentation to take the submersible into near Earth orbit, Honey glared out at us from a small screen.

“Looks a bit snug,” I said.

“Snug? I’ve known spacier coffins. There isn’t room in here to swing a flea. I’ve already severely bruised precious parts of my anatomy just getting into the driving seat, and you don’t even want to know what I have to do to work the air-conditioning. Still, all systems are go; we are ready to proceed.”

“We still haven’t decided how you’re going to lure the famously shy Nessie out of hiding,” said Walker. “You don’t appear to have anything on board that will do the trick. Or at least, nothing that hasn’t been tried before.”

“Maybe I should try to attract the creature,” said Katt, half seriously. “I do have an outstanding track record for attracting anyone and anything with a pulse . . .”

“Yeah,” said the Blue Fairy. “That’ll do it. Stand on the edge of the loch and show it your tits, Katt.”

“Crude little man,” Katt said frostily.

“Actually, you’ve just given me an idea,” said Blue. “Attraction: that’s the key. We have to make Nessie want to come up to the surface. And there are some things, some sounds, that will attract anything, luring them on against their will, pulling them on like a hook in the jaw. And I have just the thing in mind: something I’ve fished for before.”

We all looked at him, standing tall and proud and only a bit bedraggled in his Elizabethan finery, his battered old fishing rod and reel at the ready. And perhaps I was the only one who saw just how much he needed to be taken seriously.

“What did you have in mind?” I said.

“A mating call,” said the Blue Fairy, smiling back at all of us, pleased at being the centre of attention. “I once brought up from the dimensional depths, entirely by accident I have to admit, a kind of . . . siren. A temptress, a seducer, whose call no mortal will could hope to withstand. Fortunately, this particular siren’s call was only ever intended to work on those of a heterosexual persuasion, so I remained relatively unaffected and was able to throw the damned thing back.”

“Can you find it again?” said Walker.

“Well, obviously,” said Blue, “or I wouldn’t have said anything. I’ll find it, hook it, and reel it in, and then we can use its call to bring Nessie right to us.”

“Hold everything,” said Walker. “Are you seriously proposing we call up another monster and drop it into the loch? Isn’t the situation here complicated enough as it is? Not to mention the problem we would be leaving behind for the future. What if the siren developed a taste for the locals? They could end up swarming here like so many lemmings.”

“I never suggested leaving the siren here,” the Blue Fairy said in a calm, patient, and infuriatingly understanding voice. “In fact, I think it would be downright dangerous to keep the thing around one moment longer than we absolutely have to. What I have in mind is much simpler, bordering on elegant. I bring the siren here, we record its call on this marvellous communications system . . . and I throw it back again. We then broadcast the recording of the call into the loch’s waters. Foolproof. Unless Nessie turns out to be gay as well, of course . . .”

“Let us very definitely not go there,” I said quickly. “The recording sounds fine to me. Everyone? Right; do your thing, Blue. Catch us a siren.”

Of course, then he had to make a whole big thing out of finding just the right spot along the bank of the loch. He walked us up and down through the mud and spiky grass, his face set in a rigid mask of concentration, which he had to spoil by occasionally glancing at us to see how we were taking it. He finally settled on one particular spot that looked exactly the same as all the others and gestured grandly with his left hand. A glowing golden pool some six feet in diameter appeared before him, flat and featureless, not so much covering the ground as replacing it. The pool was a gateway to everywhere else, to all the dimensions that ever were or may be, and was painful to look at directly for more than a moment.

Blue’s time with the elves had clearly helped him; I could remember when he needed to spill his own blood in sacrifice to summon the golden pool to him. And the pool looked a lot bigger than I remembered. A hole punched right through the walls of reality by sheer willpower. Only the Blue Fairy was skilled enough and crazy enough to call it up, just so he could go fishing in it . . .

He worked his rod and reel expertly, and hook and line disappeared into the golden pool without in any way disturbing the glowing surface. Blue stood quietly, apparently calm and relaxed, and we all stood and watched him. There’s always something fascinating about watching someone do the one thing they’re really good at. The sound of the line whining off the spinning reel was almost hypnotic as the line dove down and down into depths we really had no business fooling with. But that’s an elf for you. And then the line snapped taut, jerking this way and that across the glowing pool, and the Blue Fairy’s breath hissed between his clenched teeth as he worked the reel, putting a steady pressure on the line. Slowly, steadily, he began to haul his catch in.

I realised I was holding my breath. Blue didn’t always get what he was after the first time, and he had been known to haul some really nasty things up out of the depths. The line remained taut, rising very slowly, the reel clicking quietly. Whatever Blue had hooked, it didn’t seem to be fighting him.

I glanced quickly around. We were all standing far too close to the pool, and none of us had taken any precautions. I had my torc to protect me, but God alone knew what the others were relying on to save them from the siren’s call. I started to say something, and then the golden pool exploded as the siren burst through into our reality.

It rose up and up, towering over us, too big to be contained by the pool through which it had found a foothold into our reality. It was huge and glorious, completely unearthly, unfolding and uncoiling in every direction at once. It was vast and wonderful, too beautiful to be born, dark yellow flesh with rainbows exploding inside it. It sang, and I was lost. A glorious, wonderful, unbearable sound. I fell to my knees before it, and so did we all. Who knows what songs the sirens sang? Who knows what songs were sung for noble Odysseus? We knew, and I will hear that song in my nightmares forever.

Because I was nothing in the face of that song. Nothing that mattered.

The siren called, and we all shuffled forward on our knees, gazing adoringly up at the living fountain of flesh towering over us. Even the Blue Fairy had dropped his rod and reel, caught up in a song that went for the soul. I could barely see my surroundings, feel the tough grass scuffing beneath my knees. The siren wanted us, and not for anything good. Death would be the kindest thing that would happen to us, once the siren had clasped us to its unforgiving bosom. I knew that, and I didn’t care. I wanted to worship it forever, worship it with my body until I died of it.

Except . . . there was another voice in my head and in my heart, another face before my eyes. My Molly, my sweet Molly Metcalf, who had put her mark upon me long ago. As soon as I thought of her, I could feel the torc blazing coldly around my neck, trying to alert me to the threat . . . and those two things together gave me all the strength I needed to stop moving forward. I slowly turned my head to one side, looking away from the terrible, wonderful thing before me. It was all I’d ever wanted, right there waiting for me, and I fought it with every ounce of strength and will I had. I turned my head away, my whole body twitching and trembling with the effort, and saw another face, looking at me.

The Blue Fairy had stopped moving too and had turned his face away from the siren. Perhaps because of his nature, perhaps because he also wore the golden torc, perhaps because he was half-elf. Or maybe he was just stubborn, like me.

We looked at each other, and I slowly turned my gaze to the rod and reel lying abandoned before the Blue Fairy. He looked at it too, and with the last of his strength, he grabbed the reel and threw it into the golden pool, hook and line and all.

The line snapped taut again, dragging at the siren’s fleshy orchid head, distracting its attention. I forced myself up onto my feet, turned my back on the siren, and lurched over to the communications centre. I had to record the siren’s call before it was sucked back down again. I subvocalised my activating Words, and my armour flowed over me in an instant, sealing me in and protecting me from the world. The golden strange matter encased me from head to toe, and just like that the siren’s song was nothing more than noise. I hit the record button and turned quickly to see what was happening.

The siren was no longer held to this world, but it didn’t want to go. It had been defied, and it was angry. It had found an endless feeding ground, and it would not be denied. It towered high above us, flaring and pulsating; and even through the protecting filters of my golden mask, this extreme and awful creature was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. The Blue Fairy was on his feet but halfway transfixed again, and the others were very close to the siren now. So that left just me. Because that’s a Drood’s job: to be the last man standing, and stand between humanity and all the threats from outside.

I walked right up to the siren and hit its glistening side as hard as I could with a spiked armoured hand. My fist slammed right through the pulsing, sliding substance, and my armoured arm sank deep into the shifting body, right up to my shoulder. The siren screamed, a terrible agonised sound that blew away all its song’s effects in a moment. The others scrambled back away from the pool, away from what they’d been worshipping just a moment before. I jerked my arm out and drew back a fist to strike again. The siren plunged into the glowing golden pool, sounding for the dimensional depths where it belonged. Where prey knew its place.

I armoured down, the golden strange matter retreating into my torc. I wasn’t ready for the others to see me in my armour just yet. They’d look at me differently. I stood by the side of the loch, savouring the quiet. With the siren gone, I couldn’t for the life of me remember what had been so entrancing about its song, and that was probably for the best. The others were back on their feet, their eyes still a little lost and dimmed, but they were recovering fast. They were professionals, after all.

Katt glared at the Blue Fairy. “The next time you have a brilliant idea, feel free to keep it to yourself!”

“We have a recording of the call,” said Blue, giving her back glare for glare. “Or at least, as much of it as the console could handle.” He looked over the equipment, muttering to himself. “We’re missing most of the higher and lower frequencies, which is probably just as well, but what we have should do the job. More than enough to bring Nessie at the gallop, if only to see who’s calling. Honey, I’m patching the recording through to you now. Are you getting it?”

“Got it. There’s just under a minute of the call recorded, so I’ll put it out as a repeating loop. Yeah, that should do it.”

“A thought,” Peter said suddenly. “If what we’re broadcasting is a mating call . . . won’t everything in the loch with working glands come running? We could end up with every living thing in the loch trying to hump the submersible.”

“Thank you for that mental image,” said Katt. “Which I just know will haunt my nights for years to come.”

“I’ll put the call through some filters,” said Honey, “so only really large organisms should be affected.”

I leaned in close so I could see her face on the tiny screen. “Are you sure you can drive that thing?”

“Of course,” said Honey. “I’m CIA. I can drive anything.”

“Want to bet she crashes the gears on her first try?” Peter murmured to Walker.

“I heard that!” said Honey. “Okay . . . Going down, people. See you in a while.”

We all looked around just in time to see air bubbles frothing all around the yellow submersible as it drifted away from the bank, and then it sank slowly and with great dignity beneath the dark waters of Loch Ness. It was soon gone, not even a yellow glimmer in the water, with only the slowly widening ripples on the surface to mark its passing.

We all crowded around the communications console, watching the data coming in and listening intently as Honey kept up a running commentary on her dive. Walker and I studied the data streams carefully, but there was no sign of anything out of the ordinary. Everything in the submersible seemed to be functioning as required. Honey sent it nosing carefully through the night-dark waters, broadcasting its looped siren call, watching and waiting.

Time passed, and after the first half dozen false alarms, we all started to relax a bit. Two hours passed, then three. If anything, it got colder. A heavy wind blew the length of the loch, driving its chill through our clothes and into our bones. We all ended up huddling together like sheep, to share our warmth. The sky was completely overcast now, the light fading, and it occurred to me we’d better scare up something while there was still enough light to photograph by.

The submersible prowled up and down all twenty-four miles of the loch, and most of what lived in the waters gave it a wide berth. The submersible’s powerful lights hardly penetrated the underwater gloom at all, and while the sonar picked up shape after intriguing shape, Honey had to be almost on top of the object before she could identify it. So far, the most promising near misses had involved several hopefully shaped sunken tree trunks, half a dozen shoals of fish, and a couple of quite surprisingly large eels. And that . . . was it. Honey grew increasingly short and bad-tempered in response to our well-meaning suggestions, and she ploughed more and more desperately up and down the loch. I think the overcrowded confines of the submersible’s cabin were getting to her. Her sonar did pick up a great many large cave mouths sunk deep into the sides of the underwater banks, some of which led on into whole cave systems farther in than the sonar could follow.

“There could be miles and miles of caverns down there,” said the Blue Fairy. “Maybe even rising above sea level, with breathable air. Maybe that’s where the creature lives when it’s not in the loch itself. Maybe it only comes out to feed, or breed, and that’s why it’s so rarely seen . . .”

“The words straws and clutching at spring to mind,” said Katt. “Can’t we call this a day and go find a nice hotel somewhere? The monster will still be here tomorrow, if it’s here at all. I hate this place! Beastly cold and . . . grim! I’ve shivered so much I must have lost ten pounds through sheer exhaustion. Mind you, on me it looks good.”

“Heads up! I’ve got something!” Honey’s voice crashed out of the console viewscreen, jolting those of us who were understandably half-asleep on our feet.

“Oh, joy,” said Katt. “Another suggestively shaped tree trunk? A stray duck with delusions of grandeur, perhaps?”

“I have a new contact on the sonar,” said Honey. “It’s big, it’s moving, and it’s heading right for me. Still too far off for the headlights to reach it, but . . . It’s big. I mean seriously big. The computer estimates . . . four hundred feet long, from end to end. Estimated weight . . . No, wait a minute, that can’t be right . . .”

Walker and I pressed our shoulders together as we leaned in over the data streams crossing the console screens. Whatever was heading for Honey and her little yellow submersible, the computer was estimating its weight as eighty-seven tons. No. Not possible; not in any living organism I understood.

“How close is it?” said Peter.

“It just changed direction,” said Honey, her voice calm and professional. “It was coming at me head-on, but now . . . it seems to be circling the submersible, keeping its distance. Damn, these speed estimates can’t be right either. Nothing that big and that heavy could move so fast in these waters . . .”

“Nothing we know,” said Walker. He was frowning. “I think it’s time for you to head for the surface, Honey. Let it follow the mating call—”

“Too late!” Honey’s voice rose despite herself. “It’s here! Right here! It’s huge! It shot straight past the front window; I had it square in my headlights for a moment!”

“What is it?” said the Blue Fairy. “What does it look like?”

“Ugly bastard,” said Honey. She sounded shaken, but her voice was under control again. “It’s gone back to circling the submersible. Moving more slowly now. I think it’s curious. Oh! I just got a look at the face through the window. It came right up and looked at me. It’s . . . horrible. It’s a monster. Not Nessie. Not Nessie at all. All right, that’s it. I’m heading for the surface. I’m not staying down here with that . . . thing one moment longer.”

“Slowly,” I said. “Slowly and steadily and very carefully. Don’t do anything that might upset or panic the beast.”

“Or frighten it off,” Peter said quickly. “I can’t film the thing till you get it up here on the surface.”

“Teach your grandmother to suck dick,” said Honey. “Now shut up and stop distracting me. I know what I’m doing. Damn, that thing is big! It dwarfs the submersible.”

“Does your craft have any defence systems?” said Walker. “Guns, force shields, that kind of thing?”

“Not even a loudspeaker for me to shout harsh language through,” said Honey. “Apparently this happy little yellow toy was never meant for anything but short-range reconnaissance. Which is not what I asked for . . . I shall have some very harsh words with certain people once I get back to Langley. I’m still rising, very slowly. I’m not far from you. I should end up surfacing within a few yards . . . The beast is following . . . and sticking pretty close. Just the wash of its passage is enough to rock me from side to side.”

“Can you identify it yet?” said Katt. “I can’t make head nor tail of what your sensors are sending us. Is it a dinosaur, do you think? A brontosaurus or a plesiosaurus—something like that?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” said Honey. “Big and ugly: that’s all I can tell you. Just the glimpses I’ve seen in the headlights were enough to make my skin crawl. Whatever this is, it doesn’t belong in our world anymore.”

“Get to the surface,” I said. “We can’t do anything to help you while you’re still down there.”

“I know that,” said Honey. “Still rising. Still heading in your direction. Should be with you soon.”

I looked out over the loch, searching the dark waters with my eyes, but I couldn’t make out a damned thing. The overcast sky had turned the loch’s waters dark as night. The surface was disturbed by the gusting wind, but that was all.

“Shit! Shit!”

Honey’s voice sounded more angry than alarmed. I looked quickly back at the console. On the screen, her dark face looked shaken but determined.

“What is it, Honey?” said Walker, his voice steady and reassuring.

“My engines have shut down.” Honey’s voice was reasonably calm, but her distraction showed in the way her hands flew across the controls, hammering at the keyboard with unnecessary force, to no response. “Engines are off-line; sensors have shut down. It’s all I can do to keep this link open . . . Shit. There went life support. Not good, people. I’m dead in the water, power levels dropping, and . . . I’m sinking again.”

“Is the mating call still going out?” said the Blue Fairy.

“No. At least the hull is still secure . . . Oh!”

We all heard the heavy muffled thud as something hit the submersible from outside, shaking Honey violently back and forth in her chair. Only the restraining straps held her in place. Something hit the submersible again even harder. All kinds of alarms and flashing lights filled the cramped cabin. Honey was thrown back and forth in her chair like a rag doll.

“Hull . . . is still intact!” she managed finally. “But I don’t know how many more knocks this stupid piece of shit can take. It wasn’t designed for this . . . Oh, hell.”

“Now what?” said Peter.

“The mating call’s still going out! It shouldn’t be, but it is.”

“Shut it off!” I said. “Maybe then the monster will lose interest and go away.”

“I can’t!” Honey’s voice was rising sharply now. “I’m shut out of the computers. There’s no way this is coincidence. Someone sabotaged my submersible.”

We all looked at each other, and I knew we were all trying to remember which of us might have had enough time alone with the communications console to rewrite the submersible’s programming. Could have been any one of us. We were all, after all, professionals.

“The air’s stopped circulating,” said Honey. “And the lights are going out.”

Something hit the submersible again, driving it sideways. The alarms in the cabin sounded shrill and raucous now.

“You’re almost here, Honey,” said Walker. “Only a few hundred yards. Can’t you coax a little more out of your engines? Any last emergency power reserves . . . ?”

“Hull breach!” said Honey. “I’ve got water coming in . . . Half the electricals I’ve got left are shorting out . . . I’m sinking, people. There’s no way I can reach you. Oh, God . . . It’s getting cold in here. Cold. And dark. I never wanted to go out like this . . .”

I armoured up, and the others fell back from me, crying out in shock. It’s one thing to know about the inhuman power of the armoured Droods; quite another to see the transformation happen right in front of you. Not many do and live to tell of it. I left the communications console and sprinted for the side of the loch. My golden feet sank deep into the ground as my armoured legs drove me on at supernatural speed. I hit the edge of the bank running and dived headfirst into the dark waters.

I never felt the water or the cold as I swam strongly down into the depths of the loch. The armour protected me and fed me all the air I needed. I could walk on the moon in this armour, and legend has it some of our family have. I still couldn’t see far into the dark waters, for all the augmented vision my mask provided, but once I was underwater I could hear the looped mating call still broadcasting from the dying submersible. It had only a shadow of its former power, but I would know that terrible sound anywhere. I headed straight for it, my armoured arms and legs ploughing me through the waters at incredible speed. I was running blind, the sound growing steadily louder, until suddenly I was right on top of the submersible.

It loomed up before me, bright yellow in the gloom, and I grabbed a heavy-looking projection on its side, crunching the metal in my golden hand to make sure I wouldn’t lose my hold. I knocked twice on the side to let Honey know I was there, and then peered quickly about me. I couldn’t see the monster anywhere, but in these peat-filled waters the bloody thing could have been right on top of me, and I wouldn’t have known. Not a comfortable thought. And then something shot past me, moving impossibly quickly, and the shock of its passing wave slammed me against the side of the submersible with enough force to kill an ordinary man. I felt as much as heard the hull creak and crack beneath me, and I knew I didn’t have long to save Honey.

I pulled myself along the side of the submersible, from projection to projection, until I was around in front and peering in through the wide window. I think Honey would have jumped out of her chair at the sight of me if the straps hadn’t held her down. I gestured reassuringly at her while I thought fast. The only way to get her out would be to rip the submersible open, and then carry her to the surface. Except I didn’t know if she had any breathing equipment on board, the cold of the waters would probably kill her anyway, and I couldn’t be sure of protecting her if the monster attacked on the way up. No; for the moment, she was safer where she was.

So I gave Honey another reassuring wave, swam down beneath the slowly sinking submersible, found its centre, and put my golden shoulder against it. And then with slow, careful movements, I took the weight of the submersible upon my armour and swam back up to the surface, pushing the damned thing ahead of me all the way.

Sometimes my armour surprises even me.

All the way up, I could sense something huge and malevolent circling the submersible and me from a distance, but I never saw anything.

I felt the change when the submersible broke the surface of the loch, and I slipped out from underneath it. Its own natural buoyancy would hold it up for a while. I hauled myself up the side of the craft, water streaming from my armour. Honey had already cracked the escape hatch, and smoke was pouring out. I ripped the hatch off, threw it aside, and peered in. Honey had freed herself from her chair and was climbing towards me through the smoke and flashing lights. The alarms were very loud.

The submersible was sinking again. Water was already spilling over the edge of the hatch. I grabbed Honey by the arm, ignoring her pained yelp, hauled her out the hatch, tucked her under my arm, and then jumped for the shore. We soared through the air, my feet hit the ground hard, and I moved us quickly away from the edge. Honey was already struggling to be free, coughing harshly from smoke inhalation. I let her go and looked back at the loch just in time to see the submersible disappear beneath the dark disturbed waters.

And then the monster came surging up out of the loch, and none of us had eyes for anything else.

It reared up out of the water, rising and rising impossibly far, huge and dark and glistening, a vast pulsating pillar of gray-green flesh. It was overwhelmingly large, and its shape made no sense at all. Something about it offended my eyes, my mind, as though this was something that had no business existing in my orderly, sane, and logical world. The monster was long and scaled, and there were things that might have been limbs protruding from its heaving sides, thrashing the disturbed waters into an angry foam. It had a head like a flowering tapeworm, wide and fleshy, with thrusting horns, a great circular mouth packed full of teeth, and inhuman unblinking eyes set on the end of long wavering stalks, like a snail. This was an old thing, an ancient thing, from before history; some terrible survivor from the days when nature and evolution were still experimenting with shapes.

It made a sound; a flat, rasping alien sound that held unnerving echoes of the siren’s song. The sound grated on my mind like fingernails down a blackboard as long-buried atavistic instincts told me to run and run and never stop. It was the roar of the beast, and there was no emotion in it that I could recognise or hope to understand. It was a monster in every sense of the word. An abomination from the distant past, with no place in our human world.

Not Nessie. Not Nessie at all.

The great head came slamming down like a hammer, and we all scattered. The head hit the communications console dead on and smashed it into a thousand pieces. Shrapnel flew murderously fast through the air. The head rose up again, soaring into the sky, roaring its terrible cry. More and more of its body was rising up out of the water in defiance of weight and mass and gravity. The Blue Fairy chanted something in Old Elvish, spitting the words out in his haste, and a faerie weapon appeared in his hands. I recognised it from books in the Drood library. It was Airgedlamh, the legendary silver arm of Nuada. It shone supernaturally bright, too potent for human eyes to look on directly. Blue pulled it on over his left arm like silver armour, and then he ran lightly forward to face the monster.

Walker pulled a very large gun out of thin air, took careful aim, cool and collected as always, and shot the monster repeatedly in the head, to no obvious effect. Peter had his camera phone out and was filming the monster’s every movement with single-minded intensity.

Honey had just got her breath and her poise back, and she aimed a shimmering crystal weapon at the monster. Strange energies crackled from the weapon and exploded all across the monster’s head, but still it took no hurt. It was just too ancient, too strong, too big; a survivor of centuries because there was nothing left in this world that could hurt it.

The Blue Fairy stood at the edge of the loch, shouting fiercely at the monster and brandishing Airgedlamh. It shone like the sun in the twilight air. The monster’s head seemed to hesitate for a moment, hanging impossibly far above the Blue Fairy, as though perhaps it recognised and remembered the ancient weapon of the Tuatha Dé Danann. And then the head came driving down, whistling through the air, a great unstoppable bludgeon of flesh. The Blue Fairy stood his ground, waited until the very last moment, and then jumped neatly to one side and punched the monster in the side of the head with his glowing silver hand. Chunks of gray-green flesh flew on the air as the whole great head snapped to one side. The monster roared deafeningly, and then the head came surging back with impossible, unstoppable speed, and Blue had to throw himself facedown on the ground to avoid it.

I ran forward, my armoured legs driving me on. The monster’s head was still only a few feet above the ground, and I jumped on top of it, grabbing one of the spiky horns to steady myself. The monster reared up immediately, rising and rising on its vast length of neck, carrying me up into the sky. One of the eyes swung around on its long stalk to look at me, and for a moment our gazes met. If there was any intelligence behind that unblinking gaze, it was nothing I could hope to recognise or understand. So I grabbed the stalk just beneath the eye with one golden hand and ripped it right off the monster’s head.

The fleshy stalk tore apart, spouting black blood, and the eye and its stalk wriggled fiercely in my hand until I threw them away. The great head lurched sickly under my feet as it roared again, deafeningly loud. I steadied myself, raised my armoured right hand and concentrated, and the strange matter extended itself into a long golden sword blade. I rammed it down into the monster’s head with all my strength behind it, sinking the blade all the way down until my knuckles slammed against the scaly hide. The head lurched down under the impact, almost throwing me off. I pulled the blade back out and watched the wound I’d made heal itself almost immediately. The head was just too big. I hadn’t even reached the skull, never mind the brain.

Assuming the monster had such things.

One of the other eyestalks drifted in temptingly close, and I cut it in half with my golden blade. The monster dove its head down towards the dark waters of the loch. I jumped off at the last moment, my armoured legs easily absorbing the impact of the landing. I stood on the edge of the loch and watched the monster disappear back into the concealing waters. The whole huge unnatural shape was gone in a moment, leaving only spreading ripples on the surface to mark its passing. I pulled the long golden blade back into my hand and armoured down. The monster was gone, and I doubted it would be back.

We hurt it, and it probably hadn’t been hurt in centuries.

Just as well it was gone. I didn’t want to go down in history as the man who killed the famous Loch Ness monster.

I turned my back on the loch. Honey was sifting through the scattered remains of her communications console. Walker was looking at the oversized gun in his hand as though he wasn’t accustomed to using such things, and for all I knew, he wasn’t. He made the gun disappear with a casual, elegant gesture and moved over to where Peter was looking intently at his camera phone. The Blue Fairy was looking at the silver arm of Nuada, covering his arm from shoulder to fingertips. He pulled a face and sent the ancient weapon back where it came from. He looked at me, and I smiled as kindly as I could.

“It takes more than just armour, Blue. Why call on Airgedlamh? Why didn’t you use your torc?”

“Because it scares me,” said the Blue Fairy. “I don’t think I can use it and still be me.”

He marched over to join Peter and Walker. “Tell me you got the bloody thing on film!” he said loudly. “Don’t you dare say you screwed up, Peter King, or I will throw you into the loch to drag the monster back up here again!”

“I got it! I got the whole fight on film!” said Peter, grinning from ear to ear. “Proof; proof positive!”

Honey and I joined the group, and we all studied the film on the phone’s tiny screen. It looked good. It would probably look a whole lot better blown up on a decent-sized screen, but like the man said: proof positive.

“Where’s Katt?” Walker said abruptly. We all looked around, but there was no sign of her.

We found her body eventually, under the main wreckage of the communications console. She’d avoided the main impact of the monster’s head, but her neck was broken. With all her marvellous vitality gone, she looked very small and delicate. Like a thrown-away flower, or a broken doll. Peter knelt down beside her and closed her staring eyes.

“Probably never even knew what hit her,” said Walker. “Poor little thing.”

“Wish now I’d taken the time to get to know her better,” said Peter. “I think she would have been . . . fun.”

“Oh, please!” said the Blue Fairy. “She would have killed you first chance she got.”

“Like I said, fun.” Peter rose to his feet and looked away.

“That’s the spying game for you,” said Honey. “Here today; gone tomorrow. I was going to blame her for sabotaging my submersible. No real proof; just a feeling. Now . . . I don’t suppose it matters. We have the proof of the monster’s existence; time to move on to the next part of the game.”

“Just like that?” said Peter.

“Yes,” I said. “That’s the spying game for you.”

In the end, we dropped Lethal Harmony of Kathmandu’s body into the loch. As good a resting place as any. Honey watched the ripples slowly settle on the dark surface.

“Scratch one submersible,” she said finally. “And several billion dollars, probably. I just know they’ll find a way to stick me with the bill.”