The Adept Book 2 The Lodge Of The Lynx (58 page)

BOOK: The Adept Book 2 The Lodge Of The Lynx

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“Strike, Lord Taranis!” he shouted shrilly. “Strike, Thunderer! Receive your servant and the offering of the deaths of your enemies!”

Thunder rolled overhead and burst with a loud crack. It was the torc that drew the lightning now. Flinging up his hands in a warding gesture, Adam snatched the astral power at his command and shaped it round himself like a bell-jar, mirrored on the outside. With a ruinous crash and an explosion of blinding light, the roof disintegrated as a bolt of blue lightning clove straight and true as a lance to the torc about the Head-Master’s neck.

Too quick to register save in after-image, Adam saw the rigid body engulfed in a blistering sheet of flame, the expression on the wizened face that of ecstasy and anguish both, as Taranis claimed his own. Adam was backing urgently into the landing even as he shielded his eyes from the flash. The gaslights exploded in a secondary roar and the entire floor of the chamber gave way.

The force of the concussion hurled Adam back into the stairwell, where he flailed to catch his balance as another, even brighter flash rent the air, opening a yawning rift in the dimensional fabric of the sky above the tower. Even as he flinched back, celestial fire came scouring down out of the rift to purge the room with flame, sweeping away everything in its path. Within the fire, Adam thought he caught a glimpse of their astral allies of before, afoot now, laying about them with fiery swords, sweeping corruption before them where their blades passed, lifting them in a blaze of celestial glory as unlike the lightning of Taranis as the blaze of the sun is unlike the moon. The wake of their departure sucked the pages of the manuscript upward in a mad spiral of flaming leaves, like the fireworks arching over the heavens in other places as the new year turned.

Then, in one last burst of brilliance, the rift in the sky slammed shut with a resounding boom.

* * *

Out behind the castle, in the bleak silence after suspension of gunfire, McLeod and his SAS men watched impotently as the lights of a fleeing helicopter receded into the night. Kinsey, standing next to McLeod, jerked out the spent clip from his H-K MP5 and slammed another into the receiver.

“Damn!” he muttered under his breath.

“Ditto that,” McLeod replied, gazing after the disappearing lights.

One of the sergeants was already on his walkie-talkie, calling back to base to get their own helicopters in the air, but it would not be in time to stop those now escaping. They were turning to head back inside when the roiling clouds overhead suddenly parted and a colossal crack of lightning arched arrow—straight to the tower roof. The concussion hurled them to the ground, frantically shielding their heads with upraised arms as debris began to rain down.

And at the base of the tower, as a heavy silence descended, Peregrine picked himself up and peered fearfully at the entrance to the stairwell. Behind him, Duart and his men were stirring, one of them in urgent voice communication with others of their number elsewhere in the area.

“Christ, what was that?” Duart muttered, his voice edged with a touch of awe. “Lovat, don’t go up there! This place could come down around our ears at any second!”

But Peregrine was already scrambling past the threshold, charging up the stairwell, slipping and stumbling on debris that choked it increasingly as he climbed. He had gotten to the mid-landing, where minutes before he and Adam had waited for Duart and his man to clear a library and a bedchamber. Now the full shaft of the tower gaped open where the library had been, down as far as he could see and open to the sky far above. Sick with fear, Peregrine turned to gaze up at what remained of the stairwell—and cried out with relief as a tall, upright figure in soot-smudged winter camo emerged from the clearing dust and smoke.

“Adam!”

Still a little unsteady on his feet, Adam stumbled the few remaining steps to the landing and sank down on the last, one hand braced on Peregrine’s shoulder.

“I’m all right,” he said. “So is everything up above.”

“But, what happened? There was this most colossal boom!”

Adam smiled thinly. “The Master of the tower called upon his dark lord to receive him—and he did. Not, I expect, in the manner he had hoped. One does not bargain with elementals. And once the fragile balance was disrupted, those appointed at a higher level to redress such imbalances swept in and did a general housecleaning.”

“The ones we saw before?” Peregrine breathed.

“Another unit of the same force,” Adam said with a chuckle. “Meanwhile, take a look up.”

Overhead, as Peregrine also turned his sight heavenward, he could see what he had hoped to see before—the astral canopy contracting over the castle to close over the hole. Already, the bright skeins of light plaited by Christopher and by the Hunters back at Strathmourne were filling in the gap, weaving a new fabric of light over the hole, making it even stronger than before. Supporting their Work was the subtler glow of those others, all around the world, adding their strength to the canopy of light as the year turned—the good will of men and women everywhere, whether or not they were aware of the good work they did, seeking the Light in their myriad ways.

“At least I think the fireworks are over,” Adam said, getting to his feet and giving Peregrine a hand up. “Meanwhile, we’d better go back down. I’m still a doctor, and I may be needed.”

Downstairs, Duart was assembling his men outside the front door, medics among them tending the injured. Between gunshot wounds and lacerations there were few of them unscathed, but none were dead. The SAS major stood as Adam came out, snapping to attention to render brisk military salute with his H-K MP5, then coming forward to exchange with him a Masonic handshake, one Master Mason to another. McLeod was not far behind Adam and Peregrine, and raised his weapon in more casual salute as they turned to greet him.

“Raeburn?” Adam said quietly.

McLeod shook his head. “He got clean away. We’ll get him next time, though.”

In the distance, the chutter of helicopters was gradually coming into range, the bright searchlight beams of two Wessex helicopters quartering the darkness. Adam moved quickly among the wounded men, confirming that the first aid measures already rendered were adequate, then headed toward where the first of the helicopters was settling on the snowy lawn. The Grand Master was first out, and stared owl-eyed at Adam before his gaze danced back to the scene of obvious devastation.

“Mission accomplished, Grand Master,” Adam said, offering the other a Masonic handshake. “The Brethren performed their part beautifully.”

“But, what—”

Adam smiled. “Later, sir. I still have to sort out some of it myself. But the Brotherhood can rest easy now and carry on its Work. The canopy is restored.”

“But, this is all . . .”

“I know,” Adam said wearily. But as he spotted the pilot climbing down from the Wessex, he excused himself and headed in that direction.

“Lieutenant, I need a personal favor,” he said, drawing the man back toward the aircraft’s open door. “Can you patch me through to a land line on your radio?”

“Well, sure, but—”

“Then, let’s get on it,” Adam murmured, urging the man back into the helicopter, smiling wearily. After calls to Strathmourne and Edinburgh Castle, there was a very intriguing lady doctor back in Edinburgh who needed to be wished a Happy New Year.

The Adept Returns in

Book Three: The Templar Treasure