Book 3 - The Spy Who Haunted Me (16 page)

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 . . .”