The Loch (47 page)

It was a bizarre sensation.

Only then did I realize I was in the monster's mouth!

The creature must've have taken me as I dropped into the crevice, snatching me sideways to avoid my lights.

A wave of fear shot through my body like electricity. I struggled to move then quickly stopped as I felt the creature compensate by clenching its mammoth jaws tighter upon my already breached dive suit.

If it wanted to, the Guivre could crush me in seconds.

I whispered into my headpiece, "True? True!"

No response.

Carefully, I retracted my arms from the aluminum sleeves and ran my hands along the inside of my suit. Just below my right quadriceps I felt water trickling in… originating from the razor-sharp tip of a dense, daggerlike tooth! Another fang had punctured one of the joint capsules above my shoulder, this one drawing blood, and two more had pierced my left leg and were pressing against my flesh.

Looking back over my shoulder, I could see the roof of the creature's mouth. A single row of curved, barbed teeth ran down the center of the throat, attached to the eel's mandibular bone. These were Nature's "hooks," preventing the eel's prey from escaping.

A shiver ran down my spine as I checked my depth gauge—812 feet. Since the Loch's depth near Aldourie Castle was only 725 feet, we had to be moving through the crevice. Before I could deal with this unfathomable predicament, another smacked me square in the face.

When the monster had bitten me, I had instantly blacked out, due to the sudden change in pressure when the creature's teeth pierced my suit. The Guivre's teeth were now sealing the holes. If and when it opened its mouth, its fangs would retract, and the sudden increase in pressure would crush me faster than I could drown!

My body went rigid. I began hyperventilating.

Stay calm, Zachary, you're not dead yet! Breathe.

Opening my eyes, I looked out the helmet's clear bubble, realizing my lights were no longer working. Feeling inside the left glove, I verified that the master toggle switch had been turned off, probably a reflex action just before I had passed out.

I contemplated switching them on, but feared startling the monster. I couldn't do that, not this deep.

Looking below my chin, I focused on my instruments.

The heading was zero-six-zero. We were moving east by northeast… only now our depth was rising.

725 feet… 680 feet… 630—

Where were we? In Loch Ness, or the underwater passage, heading for the North Sea?

I had to know.

Reaching my right hand back into its sleeve, I felt for the pincers, still gripping the handheld light. Holding my breath, I gently squeezed the device like the trigger of a gun, activating the smaller beacon.

"Oh God …"

The hair on the back of my neck tingled, my mind drowning in new waves of panic.

My beam was illuminating the inside of the monster's mouth—a hideous orifice filled with rows of barbed, stiletto-sharp teeth. The upper and lower fangs were easily eight inches, the smaller incisors flatter and as broad as my hand.

That I had survived this monster's initial attack seemed beyond any miracle. The question now—where was it taking me?

Turning my forearm slightly, I adjusted the light's beam so it shone out the side of the creature's open mouth.

The circle of light pierced the blackness, revealing steep rock walls.

I was right! We had traveled beyond Loch Ness's eastern wall and were now moving through an underground passage that would lead us into the North Sea.

I knew we'd never get there, the tunnel blocked somewhere up ahead.

My muscles trembled, my life, once more it seemed, dwindling down to its final precious moments.

The depth gauge continued to rise… 570… 545… 520…

And suddenly we leveled out and my ears popped, and I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting to die.

Waiting…

Waiting…

I reopened my eyes, and was flung from the monster's mouth through the air and into the dizzying darkness.

A sudden painful jolt drove the wind from my lungs as I landed backpack first against what had to be solid rock.

I flopped within my cracked suit, unable to draw a breath, as my mind screamed at me to ignite my lights.

Wheezing for air, I managed to flick the toggle switch in my left glove, powering on all three lights.

The forward beam caught the advancing monster flush in its horrid yellow eyes, sending it ducking back into the underground river whence we came.

My mind fought to recall the gruesome image as my spasming chest struggled to catch air.

The monster's head was colossal, its face a combination of a giant eel and a vampire bat. Snub-nose nostrils were upturned and pronounced, revealing a mouth filled with an assortment of elongated teeth that would put a Tyrannosaurus rex to shame. Most were fixed within the jawline, but several of the larger fangs jutted outside the mouth at bizarre angles like an angler fish, and I wondered if the creature could even close its jowls without impaling itself. A thick, horsehair mane began along the top of the skull, which was covered in pus-secreting lesions, and the eyes were a jaundiced version of those that had gazed at me a lifetime ago in the Sargasso Sea.

I stared down the forward shaft of light that ended at the pool of dark, stagnant water, knowing the monster was waiting just below its gurgling surface.

Everything ached, each breath a painful reminder of my crash- landing. Where was I? No longer underwater, that was for sure. Yet my gauges still reported I was 512 feet below the surface.

I tried to shift within the enormous weight of the dive suit, but only managed to achieve an awkward sitting position. Maintaining the forward beam on the river's surface, I moved my right arm, aiming the pincer-held light at my new surroundings.

I was in a vast underground cavern, no doubt carved into the Great Glen's geology during the last ice age. Above my head, stalactites dripped moisture from an arched ceiling that spanned forty feet above the dark pool of water. The long-dormant aquifer was sixty feet wide, and ran west to east through the tunnel-like chamber of rock, dead-ending at a collapsed wall of rubble to my far left. Across the waterway was a larger jagged shoreline that seemed to run parallel to the river along the length of the passage for as far as my light's beam could penetrate.

I was on the northern shore that seemed more a small outcropping of rock. Rotating the pincers of my right mitten, I aimed my handheld light upon my perch.

"Oh God …"

I was lying in piles of rubble composed of decomposed flesh and bone! Some were the skeletal remains of animals, but others were clearly human.

The dragon's lair. The vision from my night terrors!

Waves of panic threatened to drown me in a sea of insanity.

This isn't happening! Six months ago I was in sunny South Florida, working at a university! Six hours ago I was making love to Brandy MacDonald in my hotel room!

"No… no… no!" It startled me to hear my own muffled voice. "I'm not really here… I'm asleep. Wake up Zachary! Wake the fuck up!"

But I
was
here, surrounded by my worst imagined horrors, and now I needed the left side of my brain to take over before the right side sent me cartwheeling over the mental brink.

"Stop! Stay calm! Listen to me, Wallace, you're alive. You're alive inside a cavern, inside an aquifer. You're out of the water, lying on an outcropping of rock. There's air all around you, which means the pressure's fine. Use your lights, use your wits, and find a flicking way out of here!"

The pep talk returned reason to my thoughts.

"Okay, Zack, we'll take this one step at a time. Step one, you have to get out of this Newt Suit, it's the only way you can move. Step two, you've got to get to that dam. Step three, you're going to set the explosives in the rubble and—"

My lights flickered and dimmed.

My heart pounded.

And then I heard them… whispers in the darkness, advancing on me from the shadows.

Step four, you're going to panic…

Aldourie Castle

Gray daylight bled through smudged ancient glass, casting gothic shadows through the halls of the deserted manor.

True and his father pushed through decades of cobwebs and dust until they reached the study, surprised to find the door ajar.

True signaled to his father, then he yanked open the oak door and burst into the chamber, shocked to find his sister, standing by an immense stone and mortar fireplace.

"Brandy?"

"Whit's she daein' here?" Alban demanded.

Before True could respond, a voice from within the fireplace yelled, "it's bloody stuck!"

Angus ducked under the mantel and stepped out of the shadows, his face and hands covered in soot. "Well well, looks like a dysfunctional family reunion."

"Ye've no business bringin' Brandy here, Wallace," Alban said. "Ye took an oath!"

"Ah, fuck the Black Knights an' fuck yersel', Crabbit. My son's life's worth mair than any oath." He turned to True. "Glad ye're here, big fella. Be a sport an' lend us yer girth, the passageway's stuck."

True glanced at his father, then joined Angus inside the fireplace. The two of them pushed against the back wall until the masonry swiveled on its ancient pivot, revealing a dark hole resembling a vertical mine shaft.

The pit descended straight into the earth, as did a length of heavy rope looped around a pulley, secured to a steel beam high above their heads.

Angus tugged on one end of the rope, drawing up a small wooden platform from the shadows below. "True, are thae charges? I might be needin' them tae clear rubble blockin' the access tunnel."

"I only have two, but they should dae the job. Anyway, I'm comin' wi' ye."

"Me too," Brandy said, squeezing in between them.

"She's no goin' anywhere," Alban growled. "She's no a Black Knight—"

"Nor am I a MacDonald," she spat back, "at least no' anymore! Yer blood may run through my veins but ye treat that monster better than ye do yer own daughter."

"I'm yer faither, an' ye'll listen—"

"Father? Ye haven't been a father tae me since… since my mother passed away, so don't try pullin' rank on me now!"

Alban started to say something, then stopped, staring at the anger on Brandy's face, seeing her as if for the first time.

"My God, lookin' at ye… it's like I'm lookin' at her. Ye've aged intae a bonnie woman, have ye no'. Ye've got yer mum's eyes an' cheekbones, but my temper, God help ye."

"God help us all," mumbled True.

"Ye're right, Brandy. I'm certainly no' deservin' of callin' mysel' yer parent." Alban wiped back tears. "I'm sorry for whit I've done tae ye. I dinnae expect ye'll ever forgive me, but I'll never forgive mysel' if I let ye go in harm's way now."

Brandy's anger subsided, her throat constricting. "Why are ye sayin' this now, ye auld coot?"

"Yer mum… she aye calmed me tae reason. I'm a stubborn auld fool, aye have been, but maybe I can change. If ye let me, maybe I can even right a few wrongs afore they bury me, aye?"

Angus nodded. "Well said, brother Knight."

Brandy moved to her father, but Alban, not sure how to react, cut her off with a half hug, half pat on the head. "Okay, listen now, the two o' ye are stayin' here, only I'll be accompanyin' Angus below."

True started to object, but his father's scowl ended the discussion.

Entering the fireplace, Alban reached into the shaft. Securing the two ends of the rope, he stepped carefully out onto the platform. "Been a while since I've done this. Come on then, brother Wallace, yer laddie needs oor help."

"Wait, Angus, take these." True handed him the two G-SHOKs, quickly showing him how to set the fuses.

Angus pocketed the explosives, checked his flashlights, then eased himself into the shaft next to Alban, grabbing the right side of the rope.

The two Black Knights of the Templar released the cable, allowing the counterweight balancing the lift to lower them slowly into the darkness.

Inside the Guivre Lair

They were everywhere, circling in the stagnant waters of the aquifer, crawling behind me along the rocks, creeping out from the shadows. Anguilla eels… dozens, perhaps hundreds of them. Saliva gurgled in the back of their throats, the high-pitched sounds received in my headpiece as whispers.

I yelled as loud as I could, hoping to scare them off, but the helmet muted my sounds, and the lesions in their brains made them immune. I needed to do something and fast.

My lights flickered again and then sparks sizzled behind me. The eels were chewing at the connecting wires of my backpack!

With a grunt, I lashed my mechanical arms at them, the limited range of motion rendering the gestures useless.

Should have listened to Brandy… should've listened to True. But noooo, you had to be a tough guy, had to face your fears like brave fucking Sir William. Idiot! Did the thought ever occur to you that maybe the dreams were a warning
not
to come down here?

My eyes caught movement. Quickly, I adjusted the angle of my dimming forward beam.

In the fading light I could see the milky gray surface of the river and a pair of yellow eyes as they slid back into the water like those of a stalking crocodile.

The Guivre was biding its time, waiting for my lights to fail.

Okay, Wallace, think! The eels probably chewed through the umbilical cord, so it's just a matter of minutes before the entire backpack fails.

The thought of being cast into total darkness with these predators was even more frightening to me than dying. I still had the explosives, but the weight of the Newt Suit made it impossible to toss the mini-bombs.

I realized I had to climb out of my protective armor.

Releasing the smaller hand-held light, I felt along my aluminum skin's waistline with both sets of pincers and removed the utility belt holding the charges. After a great struggle I managed to release the backpack's harness.