Dagger Magic

Chapter Thirty-Three

RAEBURN faded into the shadows beside the main instrument panel, the Walther pointed in the direction of the ladder while his free hand began tripping switches. In that same instant, Nagpo dropped down off the ladder to the floor of the control room, Phurba in his hand.

Even as Raeburn's finger tightened on the trigger, the Phurba was lifting to point directly at him, tracing a darting symbol in the air. The fusillade that Raeburn loosed went wide, as if deflected by an invisible wall, the ricochets clattering about the confines of the control room and sending Raeburn himself cringing for cover. As the echoes died away, Nagpo turned his dark gaze around the room, the Phurba still held between himself and his adversary, and noted the body of Kurkar lying face-down in a congealing pool of blood. The barely checked anger contorting his face as he turned back to Raeburn made him look almost like the German corpses sprawled about the room.

"This was ill done, Gyatso," he rasped. "Whatever satisfaction it may have given you, I do not think you will find it worth the price."

As he took a step forward, Raeburn again lifted the Walther and pulled the trigger at point-blank range, only to have it click on an empty magazine.

"You fool!" Nagpo said witheringly. "What did you think to accomplish by betraying us?"

"You would have betrayed me!" Raeburn blurted, retreating as far as he could against a bulkhead. "Do you think I ever believed Dorje would let me walk away from this?"

Nagpo's gaze glinted. "It seems that Rlnpoche may have underestimated you after all," he said. "It is true that he always intended to dispense with you, once you had served your purpose. But you are wrong to regard it as a betrayal. On the contrary, justice will be served. Whatever your excuses, your failure in Scotland could not be allowed to go unpunished. Now, kindly drop your weapon."

Instead, Raeburn hurled the empty gun at Nagpo's face. The Walther bounced aside harmlessly, deflected by the magic of the dagger, but its flight bought Raeburn the split-second of distraction he was hoping for. Thrusting his hand into the front of his coat, he pulled out the wand of ashwood and snarled a word of cold command as he levelled it at Nagpo.

The monk flinched, but only slightly, the Phurba already moving to counter the attack. As a burning shock numbed Raeburn's right hand, the wand itself ignited in a burst of green flame.

With an involuntary cry, he cast it from him. The wand vaporized in midair, its ashes sifting to the floor in a scattering of grey powder. Now within reach, Nagpo touched the tip of the Phurba to Raeburn's breast. Pain radiated outward from the point of contact in a wave of cold that strangled his breath in his throat and paralyzed all voluntary movement. The next thing Raeburn knew, he was flat on his back on the floor, helpless to move or speak, as Nagpo came to stand over him, now gazing down impassively.

"Did you really suppose you could succeed in your betrayal?" he said coldly. "Rinpoche had intended that your death should be quick and painless, for the sake of the boyhood you shared. Now I think he will prefer it slow and lingering, and that he will wish the pleasure of feasting on your agonies."

Aboard the Lady Gregory, the distant crack of what sounded like a single gunshot penetrated through the low thrum of the submarine's idling diesels. As the echoes of the report faded out across the water, the diesels abruptly stuttered and died, leaving behind an almost uncanny silence.

"Good Lord, what was that?" Peregrine murmured, as McLeod muttered, "Gunshot," and Adam swung his binoculars back to the conning tower. The one undead-crewman on deck had collapsed over the box he had just brought down from the conning tower, and an orange-clad figure was disappearing down the hatch.

"A possible mutiny below decks, I do believe," Adam murmured, as more shots reverberated from within the bowels of the submarine. "Listen."

"I make that thirteen shots," McLeod whispered, as the firing ceased. "Somebody's played their trump card."

Aoife was also raking the superstructure of the sub with her binoculars. "I don't see any other signs of movement," she reported. "Maybe our friends have - "

Before she could complete her speculation, the Lady Gregory's engines roared to life.

"That's it!" came Magnus' joyful yell from the open engine compartment, as Eamonn burst forth and scrambled back toward the pilothouse. "Let's get this tub moving!"

As Magnus, too, emerged, his tight smile matched those on the faces of his fellow Huntsmen, boding no quarter for their adversaries as the Lady Gregory began to move out. Delving into a stern locker, Magnus produced a pair of Ingram submachine guns and tossed one to McLeod. Adam handed his binoculars to Peregrine and withdrew Tseten' s mala from his pocket, quietly wrapping it many times around his left wrist. At last they were to be allowed to engage the enemy.

The distance between the two vessels began to close. Magnus quietly joined Eamonn in the pilothouse, to give himself a higher vantage point. Off beyond the submarine, the seaplane still rode the swells like a delicate sea bird, its rubber raft drawn up under the wing. Peregrine's view of it was partially blocked by the hulk of the conning tower, but it appeared that a man inside was helping the man in the boat lift one of the crates up into the plane's cargo hatch.

"They've got that first crate aboard the plane," he announced.

Instead of answering, Adam turned to Aoife. "Do you know if Eamonn has such a thing as a loud-hailer on board?''

"I'll get it," she said.

When she put it in his hands, a few seconds later, Adam raised it to his mouth. They had closed their range to fifty yards, and Eamonn held the Lady G at that distance.

"Ahoy there, U-636!" he called, his deep voice reverberating across the water. "Anyone who can hear me, come out and show yourselves. You stand accountable for breaches of the peace on this and other levels. As acting head of this enforcement team, I require you to divest yourselves of any and all weapons, and to surrender yourselves into our custody. Otherwise, we will board you and take you by force."

Silence answered, broken only by the idle of the Lady G's engines and the lapping of the waves. Then all at once, the shaven head and orange-clad shoulders of a man with Oriental features emerged above the edge of the conning tower, silken robes fluttering about him like tongues of fire in the moonlight.

Adam was already drawing his skean dubh from an inside pocket, handing off the loud-hailer to Aoife so he could unsheathe the little blade, quietly pocketing the sheath as a new voice made itself heard across the gap between the two vessels, accented and precise.

"Whoever you may be, do not think to intimidate me with threats of force," the man said, though strain showed in both face, and tone. "I have power at my command that the likes of you can scarcely comprehend."

No simple pointing of the Phurba would suffice to still the Lady Gregory this time. The light of the moon caught the dull sheen of the metal blade as its owner began to roll the hilt between his hands, the gutteral words of a deep-toned chant rolling from his lips like the rattle of dead men's bones. The sound woke dissonant echoes off the surrounding waters, joining the chant like a supporting cacophony of demon voices, till the air itself grated on the eardrums like scrabbling fingernails dragged across a slate.

"Get back!" Adam warned, lifting his skean dubh to the sky in appeal to the Light as McLeod, Peregrine, and Aoife faded back from him, hands clapped to their ears - for sound was building like a rising wave, voice and echoes racing up and down the scale in screeching counterpoint. The Lady Gregory's engines sputtered and failed again.

Undaunted, Adam repeated his entreaty. The blue stone set in the skean dubh's pommel seemed to draw the moonlight like a magnet, wreathing his hand in a shimmering aureole of moonbeams as he executed a sign before him in the air with his blade. As he completed the gesture, Peregrine heard - or thought he heard - an elusive chime, like the faraway peal of temple bells. But that delicate, ethereal sound was swallowed almost instantly in an earsplitting crack of thunder.

A shrieking gust of wind swept the deck of the Lady Gregory. Circling back, it clothed itself in a sudden manifestation of shadowy form. Even as McLeod uttered a hoarse warning cry, the wind swooped down on Adam with a scream like a banshee' s shriek, sweeping him into a savage embrace.

Pain slashed and stabbed at him. Instinctively Adam struck back with his skean dubh, but his stroke sliced only air. The shadow-thing enveloped him, absorbing his efforts to throw it off, heaving its bulk against him to hurl him to the deck. Its weight settled on his chest, cutting off his breath.

Half-suffocated, he continued to flail. The weight on his chest pressed harder, driving him closer to the brink of unconsciousness. Though he redoubled his struggles, he began to sink into a well of darkness.

He could feel the power focused through the other members of the Hunting Party trying to win through to him, was dimly aware of McLeod and Peregrine and Aoife huddling together with linked hands, Magnus pouring energy toward him from the pilothouse, but all their efforts were in vain. Spawned from dimensions outside their experience, his attacker seemed impervious to their assault.

His left arm was crushed against his chest, trying una-vailingly to ward off the weight as his right arm sought a point of attack. The pressure of the prayer beads pressing into his wrist, against his sternum, recalled the beads' former owner. As physical consciousness dimmed, Adam momentarily cast himself free of his body in a desperate appeal to the Light. That appeal, resonating through the astral planes, was answered by another voice that seemed to call him back to Holy Island. Homing there in spirit, he became aware that the summoning presence was Tseten's.

Remember, you must separate the servant of evil from his demonic protectors, came Tseten's instruction.

Simultaneously came the words of exorcism that would make that separation, ancient words in an ancient language that spilled from Adam's lips as he was catapulted precipitously back into his body.

The pronouncement lent him a sudden surge of fresh strength. His attacker gave back, hissing in fury and alarm. Yanking his blade-hand free, Adam repeated his exhortation, slashing not at what pressed his body to the very brink of oblivion but at the submarine, and the man who directed the attack.

With a rending screech, what lay upon his chest withdrew in a writhing medusa-knot of serpents, coiling and recoiling, then rocketing skyward in a dissipating whirl. A third time Adam repeated his exhortation, now rising onto his elbows to stab his skean dubh toward the distant Tibetan monk in a gesture to answer that of the Phurba in his attacker's hand.

In that moment, a torn veil of cloud passed over the moon. The light dimmed on the surrounding water. As all eyes aboard the Lady G cast anxiously skyward, more clouds came boiling up over the horizon.

They converged on the two vessels from all sides, gathering density as they came. Colliding, they formed a churning vortex directly overhead. From the top of the submarine's conning tower, a bolt of blue lightning leapt skyward. Speared from below, the clouds split open, emptying a thunderous shower of hail down on the vessels below.

Ice-pellets the size of golf balls battered their way across the Lady Gregory's foredeck with a sound like machine-gun fire. The onslaught drove the Hunting Party back under cover as the projectiles hammered down from all sides. The hailstones grew larger, cracking off the roof like a rain of horseshoes. The waves rose in answer, leaping about in a welter of flying spume.

More lightning flashed, scything through the hail like serpents' tongues. One searing strike carried away the Lady G's radio antennae, sending blue fire crackling along the metal railings like corposants, the St. Elmo's fire of legend. Another stroke sheered off the after-rail, leaving a smoking hole in the metal bulkhead. Crowded next to Adam under the overhang of the cabin roof, Aoife shrieked at him through the din, wordlessly entreating him for respite.

Nothing in Adam's living experience had prepared him for this. But as his thoughts turned once again to Tseten, there came to him another unspoken directive. In that instant of communion, he saw himself once again suspended in inner space, encircled by the dance of the universe. With a Word, he plucked a star from the midst of that swirling pavane and set it aloft on the point of his skean dubh.

Stepping out into the storm, he lifted the blade over his head. A lotus blossom of supernal light opened outward from its point, unfolding above him like an umbrella. Hail bounced harmlessly aside, rolling off the deck into the sea. Still unfolding, the umbrella continued to expand, bringing the rest of the ship under its protection.

The storm of ice became a storm of fire. Hailstones ignited as they fell, smacking into the waves with bellows of rising steam. The sea began to seethe. From out of the depths came a serpentine stream of twisting flames, resolving as they surfaced into a phalanx of demonic forms. Hard-pressed, Adam began to waver.

"Huntsmen, to me!" he called to his companions. And braced himself to withstand the onrushing attack.

Eyes burning, mouths slavering, the demons bore down on the ship in a flying wedge. Cutting, thrusting, and parrying, Adam fended them off with sweeps of his blade as McLeod and Peregrine, Aoife and Magnus, came to stand with their backs to his, also drawing Eamonn into their protection.

But though they might lend defense, it must be Adam who essayed the attack. Bolstered by their fresh energy, by the full force of their combined wills, he took a renewed grip on his skean dubh and channelled into it all the power that was now at his command. Wielding that power like a scourge, he left his body behind and hurled himself in spirit across the intervening gulf of astral space, to strike where he sensed his adversary to be.

The Hailmaster saw him coming and rose to meet him. There was a ringing explosion like shattering bells as blade met blade on the astral. The Hailmaster parried Adam's first thrust with contemptuous ease. He struck back, and Adam uttered a cry as his adversary's blade point passed breathlessly close to his heart.

Even the near-miss seemed to burn. Teeth clenched, wholly focused, Adam renewed his attack, seeking for an opening that would enable him to disarm his opponent.

Instead, he found himself drawn into a bind. He tried and failed to pull out of the deadlock. As the Dark rose up triumphantly, Adam caught a glimpse of eyes of molten ruby, and a wrathful, multilimbed presence intent on breaking him, devouring him. Though all his being quaked with the effort, Adam summoned the full of his remaining strength and gave his blade a final, desperate wrench, knowing he would get no second chance.

But miraculously, his opponent's weapon gave way, the physical blade spinning from his hand in a glittering arc to splash into the sea even as its astral counterpart exploded in a shower of burning shards. In that instant, the bonds retaining Nagpo's demonic protectors were severed, and the entities fled away in a sudden implosion of black light.

The backlash slammed Adam backwards across the void with a dizzying sense of free-fall, followed by ajarring shock as his spirit-self re-entered his body. Arm benumbed to the elbow, he folded to his knees as the deck of the Lady Gregory swam back into focus around him. He raised his head to find himself surrounded by the faces of his friends. Before anyone could speak, there was a sudden rush of wind across the bow and an ear-piercing shriek from across the water.

Adam struggled to his feet and lunged for the forward railing, arriving in time to see a dark moil of darker shapes converge on the conning tower of the submarine. With no weapon left to defend himself, and stripped of his demonic protectors, the Tibetan dagger priest was screaming as, with bare hands, he attempted to beat away the other demons he himself had called.

But to no avail. His scream edged briefly into a gurgle as he went down behind a screen of jostling wings and flailing tails. Within seconds, no trace of the Phurba priest remained.

Then, out of the deadly silence, the cloud of demons roiled and lifted, hovering aloft expectantly above the conning tower of U-636, a predatory congeries of eyes and teeth and thrashing limbs that did not bear too close a scrutiny.

"Now what?" McLeod muttered.

"We can't just let them disperse," Aoife whispered. "If they get away from us, they'll start hunting."

"I know," Adam said. "I need a few seconds to think…"

He cudgelled his tired brain for inspiration, and once again the teaching he had received on Holy Island came to his aid. He remembered the words of Lama Jigme, even before he had met Tseten: We use the term sGrol, to liberate, rather than sBad, to kill.

That remembrance served as the key to unlock his deeper knowledge of what finally must be done. Shifting his grip on the hilt of his skean dubh, he turned to Aoife and gave her a fleeting smile.

"I remember now," he told her. "Stand back, everyone, and pray this works."

As they moved back, several of them dropping to their knees in an attitude of formal prayer, Adam gathered his skean dubh to his breast and paused an instant to compose himself, head humbly bowed as he silently invoked the protection of the Light. Then, with nary a hesitation, he raised his blade to sketch the outline of a circular door in the air above him, willing it to open.

Drawn by his movement and the scent of his power, the cloud of demons lifted higher above the submarine and moved quickly toward him. Undaunted, he lifted both outstretched arms in a gesture of invitation. He fancied he could feel the heat of demon-breath curdling at the edges of his soul as the cloud began to descend, but he held steady the image of the open door as he raised his voice.

"Denizens of darkness, I offer you liberation, passage to the realm of Supreme Bliss. Cast off your burdens of delusion, hatred, and blood-lust, which cause you only suffering, and enter freely through the door."

The hovering shadows hesitated, jostling and vacillating, a murmur of discordant voices and anguished souls. Then all at once, in a sudden flurry of dark wings against the luminous backdrop of another sky, they began pouring through the doorway Adam had opened.

When the last one had passed through, the door simply dwindled like a closing iris, a final star-point flaring against the night sky before all was silent once more, with only a thin mist of grey smoke dissipating in the moonlight.