“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 g
reat 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.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Hide and Seek
In the forests of the night, there are many worse things than tygers.
The teleport bracelets dropped us right into the heart of dense forest, with night falling fast. Trees stood tal
l and slender all around us, draped with patchy greenery and hanging vines. The ground beneath my feet was hard and dry; rough brown dirt, cracked and broken. The vegetation grew thicker off to one side, leading down to a slow-moving river with tree trunks rising right out of the muddy waters. The air was blisteringly hot and humid, harsh and heavy in my lungs after the bitter chill of Loch Ness. Sweat sprang out all over me. Off in the distance, beyond the tree line, the sun was going down in shades of orange and crimson. In less than an hour it would be dark, and this far from civilisation it would be very dark indeed. From all around came the sounds of bird and beast and the persistent buzz of insects.
“Wonderful,” the Blue Fairy said bitterly. “An environment even more unpleasant than the last one, though I would have sworn on a stack of grimoires such a thing was impossible. Bloody place is like a blast furnace . . . I can actually feel myself tanning. Are those mosquitoes?”
“Probably,” I said.
“Shit.” The Blue Fairy looked up at the darkening sky. “Why me, Lord; why me? Was I really so bad in my last incarnation? What did I do; stamp on puppies?”
“You’d find something to complain about in Paradise,” I said, amused.
He sniffed loudly. “They wouldn’t let me into that place on a bet.” He looked accusingly around him. “Well, joy; another location I am not equipped to deal with. I am not an outdoors person; if I’d wanted to rough it, I’d have paid someone else to do it for me. Does anyone have any idea where the hell we are now?”
“While you’ve been whining, I’ve been talking to Langley,” said Honey. “They tasked a spy satellite to zero in on my implant, and apparently we’re somewhere in the wilds of Arkansas, not far from the border with Texas. Miles and miles from anywhere civilised, and so far off the beaten track you can’t even see the track from here.”