The Adept Book 2 The Lodge Of The Lynx (15 page)

“At the time the initial complaint was lodged, Sergeant Callum Kirkpatrick of Blairgowrie called me in to assist with the investigation.”

“Any ideas as to why he called you, rather than notifying a superior officer from Perth?”

“The case was presented as a possible ritual murder,” McLeod said shortly. “Sergeant Kirkpatrick was aware that I’d had experience dealing with similar cases on behalf of the Lothian and Borders Police.”

“So you and Sergeant Kirkpatrick were acquainted with one another prior to this incident?” The sleek young man seemed to be enjoying himself. “In fact,” he added, ostentatiously consulting the notes on his clipboard, “isn’t it true that you and he—in common with Randall Stewart—are members of the fraternal order of Freemasons?”

So that’s where this line of inquiry is heading!
thought Adam.

“I fail to see what possible bearing—”

“Please answer the question, Inspector. It’s a matter of public record, isn’t it? Are you and Sergeant Kirkpatrick and the victim all brother Freemasons?”

“Yes, we are,” McLeod agreed through gritted teeth—and waited for the inescapable
coup de grace,
which was not long in coming.

“I find this very interesting, Inspector,” said the young man, twirling his pen. “One Masonic policeman goes outside his jurisdiction to call in another Masonic policeman, in order to investigate the violent death of yet a third member of the Masonic fraternity. Would you care to comment on this curious coincidence?”

McLeod drew himself up, his blue eyes blazing, though the control was steely-cold.

“If you want evidence of some kind of cover-up conspiracy, you’re going to have to look elsewhere. First of all, neither Sergeant Kirkpatrick nor I were certain that a man had in fact been killed until we went out to the site of the reported incident—and only then did we discover the victim’s identity. Since then, both Sergeant Kirkpatrick and I have done—and will continue to do—everything we can, consistent with our sworn duty as officers of the law, to apprehend the parties responsible. If I thought it would do any good, I would invite the members of the press to exercise a similar degree of professionalism.”

With this parting shot, he strode forward so forcefully that his questioner was obliged to leap back out of his way. The cameras followed him down to his waiting car as the eager reporter briefly recapped what had just been said and signed off.

As the scene cut back to the newsroom and an item on further demonstrations against the Poll Tax, Adam punched the “off” button on the TV remote and sank back in his chair, tight-lipped, staring sightlessly at the blank screen for a long moment while he struggled to master the seething frustration that once again gnawed at the edges of his control.

It was bad enough that a good man had died horribly, at the hands of evil men; it was even worse that the circumstances of his death should be the cause for casting doubt on the benevolent institution he had supported loyally all his adult life. It now occurred to Adam to wonder if the whole untidy spate of conspiracy theories was somehow being deliberately engineered as a smoke screen to mask the real purpose behind the killing though he was forced to admit that this notion, like all the others, had no solid basis in fact. Not for the first time, he wished that Randall could have found some means to communicate with the Hunting Lodge before his enemies silenced him.

But Randall had not, and no amount of wishful thinking could change that. Yet the longer innuendo was allowed to breed unchecked, the greater the risk that the truth would become obscured beyond retrieval, even if justice prevailed in the end. The physical body that had housed the noble mind and spirit of Randall Stewart was now an empty shell; but spirit itself was an enduring reality, accessible on its own ground according to the Laws of the Inner Planes. Perhaps—just
perhaps—there
was something Adam could do to shift the odds back just a little on the side of ultimate justice.

He reached for the in-house telephone and rang Humphrey in the kitchen.

‘’I’m sorry to tell you this at such short notice,” he said, “but I’m afraid I shan’t be taking dinner tonight. I’d be obliged if you’d kindle a fire in the library. I have work to do tonight, and I must ask you to make sure that I am not
disturbed
—by anyone.”

Chapter Eleven

A HOT SHOWER
and a fresh change of clothes went a long way toward restoring the energies Adam knew he was going to need for the night’s work to come. He took his time dressing, schooling himself to serenity and a centered determination as he pulled on a favorite dressing gown of quilted blue velvet over grey flannel slacks and a crisply laundered white shirt. Crested slippers made his footsteps silent as he glided purposefully down the main stair to the library.

In his master’s absence, Humphrey had kindled a healthy log fire on the hearth and switched on the matched pair of brass lamps flanking the mantelpiece to create a fireside island Of warmth and light. Another lamp glowed on the drinks cabinet in the corner of the room, providing further unobtrusive background illumination. With a grateful thought for Humphrey, who served him so well, Adam closed the door quietly behind him and turned the key in the lock.

Not that the gesture was necessary on Humphrey’s account, of course. Given the instructions Adam had issued, the intrepid butler would never dream of intruding without direct summons. Physical intrusion was the least of Adam’s concerns, though that must always be a factor.

Still facing the door, he delved deep into the right-hand pocket of his dressing gown and drew out his
skean dubh.
The little knife resembled a Highland dirk in miniature, the black leather sheath mounted with silver interlace at throat and tip, the black grip carved with an intricate basket-weave design and studded with tiny silver tacks at the intersections. From the tip of the sheath to the clear blue gemstone set into the pommel, nearly the size of a pigeon’s egg, the
skean dubh
measured a mere seven inches; infinitely useful for carrying concealed in pocket or sleeve or tucked in the top of kilt hose—which, indeed, was how Adam sometimes wore it. To the uninitiated, it might seem little more than a pretty piece of Highland affectation—or perhaps an expensive toy—but in Adam’s hands, this particular
skean dubh
represented a weapon of no inconsiderable potency.

And a tool of manifold purposes. Wrapping his hands around hilt and sheath, and breathing an almost voiceless invocation, Adam drew the two apart and raised the weapon to touch his lips lightly to the flat of the blade, at the same time re-pocketing the sheath. Subtle power tingled along his right hand and arm as he directed the tip of the blade to trace a invisible pentagram in the air before the door, sweeping down from the center of the lintel, back up to the left-hand side, across and down, back to the center top, finally directing his focus to the center point, sealing his intent on the sigil thus inscribed.

Once the pattern was completed, he kissed the blade again, brought it to his left breast in salute as he bowed his head briefly in homage to the Source of whatever power he commanded, then moved to the fireplace to seal it in the same way—for a chimney represented just as vulnerable a physical access to a room as any door or window.

Last to be sealed was the big bay window in the west wall. Humphrey had earlier drawn the drapes so that they formed a rich brocaded backdrop to the handsome mahogany work desk and chair. When Adam had made his final salute, he sheathed the
skean dubh
and put it back into his pocket as he turned left to scan up a handsome Gothic bookcase.

Perched high on one of the shelves was an elegant, fist-sized paperweight of Caithness glass, from a limited edition entitled, “Saltare.” Its clear depths held a diaphanous spiral swirl of white and gold, like some exotic bell-flower frozen in ice, already soothing and drawing him as he reached for it. His hands caressed the cool, silken weight of it as he took it down and carried it back to the fireside end of the room.

His favorite armchair was drawn up in its accustomed place to the left of the fireplace. After shifting it slightly closer to the fire’s warmth, he set the paperweight on a small rosewood table and moved that into position in front of the chair before switching off the lamps flanking the fireplace and sitting down.

He took his time getting comfortable, adjusting his position so that, sitting erect but relaxed, he could see the moving flames reflected through the sphere’s convex curves, like a scryer’s crystal ball. Focusing his attention on the heart of the globe, he lifted his palms in a gesture of supplication and drew a deep centering breath, slowly releasing it on the scarce-breathed syllables of a centuries-old hymn to the Most High.

Praise be to Thee,

Author of Lights.

Daystar of heaven,

Be Thou my guide and guard.

The prayer of petition was simultaneously an offering of self to the service of the Divine, renewal of an unreserved dedication he had made countless times before in the course of many lives. At the culmination of his prayer, he brought his hands together, palm to palm, touching his fingertips to his lips in reverent acknowledgment of the Presence Which he served. Then, drawing another deep breath, he set his hands lightly on his thighs and bent all his attention to the fire-lit globe, which now became a focal point for entry into trance.

“As Above, so Below,”
he whispered.
“As Without, so Within .
. .”

The globe magnified the fiery glow from the hearth. The starry spindrift pattern took heat and color from the flames. As Adam continued to gaze deep into the heart of the glass, the spiral image trembled before him in his mind’s eye and made mere physical vision superfluous.

He drew another slow, centering breath and let his eyes close.

Into the depths of his being came a sudden tinkling chime, like the distant shattering of glass; and all at once he was drawn out of himself and into the clear nighttime of the Inner Planes, looking down from above on a morning-glory nebula of stars.

Only here the stars were not fixed but in motion, caught up in the shimmering revolutions of a cosmic dance. Adam let himself be drawn into the midst of that dance on a luminous skein of silver-the silver cord of his own lifeline, glistening like spider silk as it stretched away from him into the shining whirl of suns and planets. Like a castaway mariner feeling his way along an anchor-rope, he followed the slender silver line down, downward, deeper into trance, into the heart of the astral spiral.

The transition to the Inner Places was a quick, icy shock that left him more than usually disoriented before his senses stabilized. But when he had regained his equilibrium, he found himself standing at the head of a shining path, gazing up at two immense doors supported between towering pillars of fire and cloud, light and dark. His astral form seemed to wear a robe of flowing white, the feet left bare in reverence to the holiness of the ground on which he stood. He drew a deep breath as he turned his gaze upward, for the sight never failed to make his heart almost miss a beat. He had ventured many a journey here in the past, but the awe that touched him was ever fresh and new.

Hands crossed reverently on his breast, Adam approached the threshold and pronounced the Word of an Adeptus Major. At this utterance, the great doors parted smoothly to admit him. Beyond the portal stretched the chambered vastness of the Hall of Akashic Records, the imperishable chronicles of all creation, past, present, and to come. Its vaults were as infinite as the mind of the Absolute, and only some of them accessible to those still bound to mortal flesh. But if permitted, Adam now proposed to find and enter that vault containing the life-records of the soul he had known as Randall Stewart.

Randall Stewart.
The name itself became a pole star and Adam the compass needle, drawn unerringly along the curving reaches of a softly glowing labyrinth. Its corridors stretched before him with a pearly luminescence, each branching different yet the same. A profound silence reigned over all—still, but not static—yet as he skimmed along the winding courses, Adam was aware of a growing dynamism investing the very air he breathed, drawing him ever onward.

An arched doorway loomed ahead. From the magnetic draw on his senses, Adam had no doubt that he was approaching the place he sought. In spite of this certainty—or perhaps because of it-he advanced with measured circumspection, as one preparing to enter into a sanctuary; for such it was—a chamber of immortal record, where all the many lifetimes of the soul of Randall Stewart were recorded, bound together like chapters in a book.

Because Adam envisioned the Record in these terms, it was in the form of a book that Randall’s chronicle of lives appeared to Adam’s inner sight as he passed over the threshold. The thick volume rested upon a raised lectern of white marble, its binding rich with gem and enamel work, as befitted the wealth of its contents.

As Adam reverently approached the lectern, the still, pregnant atmosphere within the chamber was quickened by a sudden, whirling gust of moving air. It lifted the cover of the Book like a movement of unseen hands. Simultaneously, the room was filled with a sense of presence—recognizably Randall’s, but resonant with overtones and undertones that Adam had not encountered before in the living man.

Adam stood his ground, mentally framing all the questions he had come to ask. As if in response, the leaves of the Book began to turn, riffling swiftly past lifetimes of centuries gone by before falling open to the account of Randall Stewart’s last days. The reading came not in words, but in a string of powerful impressions.

Confusion
. . .
weakness
. . .
a rising tide of fear. Dark sleep
. . .
white snow
. . .
Awareness
. . .
breathless terror
. . .
a blinding blow
. . .
the agonizing slash of a flashing blade
. . .
and the crimson outpouring of the life’s blood.
But Adam had guessed all of that.

Suddenly, from out of the dark moil of sensation and emotion, a new image surfaced, hazy but discernible. Though the image lacked focus, it seemed to be that of a heavy, ancient-looking necklet fashioned in black metal.

A torc? Yes, the solidity of the shape suggested as much. Adam judged it to be perhaps a hand-span wide, overlaid with paler interlaced tracery that he could not quite make out. Its very nature suggested Celtic or Pictish origins.

What required no conjecture was the incontrovertible recognition, by both Adam and the essence that was Randall, that the torc was an object of power. The woven shapes twined across the malevolent blackness seemed to shift and change, as though they bound a dark, elemental life of their own. Blood—Randall Stewart’s blood—had activated the torc’s latent powers. Now enlivened, it was ready—waiting—to be used.

The soul Adam had known as Randall could not put a name to the owner of the torc, or to any of his murderers. Nor had he any idea why he had been chosen as a sacrificial victim. The Record remained silent on these points, for Randall simply had not known.

Another approach, then. Shifting the focus of his inquiry, Adam requested the identity of the individual who had invited Randall to Stirling of whom Miranda had guessed a prior acquaintance with her father.

But though letters began to form on the page in front of Adam, the page suddenly was obscured by a wave of shadow, before the writing became at all legible. Like a flood of spilled ink, it blotted out the lettering so completely that Adam could make nothing of it.

Its source, he realized, was not in the Chamber of Records itself—for that was inviolate— but imposed upon Randall’s own memory. The shadow effect was further proof of interference from a black adept with no little power at his disposal. Clearly, someone had no intention of letting the name be known.

Which suggested, along with the evidence Peregrine had gathered at the murder site, that if the black adept and Randall’s mysterious summoner were not one and the same person, both were closely affiliated with the Lodge of the Lynx. The connection was too close to be mere coincidence.

So. If the culprit or culprits were managing to cover their tracks on the astral, perhaps more mundane investigations might yield the key that would help run the Lodge of the Lynx to earth. If Jane McLeod had managed to convey Adam’s message to her husband, that Miranda thought her father’s caller might have been a fellow antiquarian or bookseller, then the police were even now compiling a list of relevant names from the telephone directory. Randall’s diary was another potential source of valuable information—if it could be found.

Meanwhile, there was also the newly discovered involvement of the mysterious torc-perhaps the object the gamekeeper had seen and described as possibly a bowl. On reflection, Adam became convinced that the nature of the torc’s powers was bound up in the designs that he had been unable to visualize clearly enough to read. He wished he had known of the torc’s existence while they were still at the murder site, so he could have tried to direct Peregrine’s focus for a closer look. Even now, it might be done; but so long as the young artist remained on the fringes of the Hunt, there were limits to how far Adam dared ask him to extend the application of his gifts.