Day of the Serpent (Ouroboros Book 3) Read online

Lisa turned on the television and checked for more news of the monster or other strange phenomena. There was nothing, so she found a show about American teenagers with perfect looks enduring very complicated personal lives. The show was new to her. It looked promising. She provisionally added it to her list of favorite things.

  “And this is the world those idiots want to destroy!” she said, snuggling up to Pavel. “It's all so amazing!”

  “Destroy,” Pavel breathed.

  Chapter 9: Blood and Iron

  Clay and Kelly returned to the Talisman in the cruiser's small dinghy to find Katie Fox waiting for them. Already aware of what had happened, Clay helped her into the smaller boat then took her ashore without speaking. Only when they landed did he engage in some inane conversation for the sake of appearances. When he returned to the Talisman, he asked Kelly if she knew why Cleo had taken control of the journalist.

  “You don't know already?” Kelly asked, as she worked on a meal in the vessel's tiny galley.

  “You know I don't,” he replied impatiently. His link to Cleo, while strong, was largely one way. She monitored him, issued orders, saw through his eyes. With Kelly, it was very different. Clay knew the girl was Cleo's confidante, their psychic link much stronger and more intimate. He had tried to stifle his jealousy and frustration at being 'out of the loop' but it was not easy.

  “I think the plan is just to throw dad and his pals off the trail,” she explained. “That's the impression I get. Simple, right? But there could be more to it. Cleo's become harder to read due to her … well, her condition. And when she's sleeping, I get practically nothing from her, when shared dreams used to be a regular thing. And she's asleep most of the time now.”

  “She's also become more unpredictable,” he complained. “None of this was part of the original plan.”

  “The people who made that plan are mostly dead,” Kelly pointed out, stirring a saucepan of organic rice. “We survived Wychmere through luck, and Cleo wasn't there. You left her in London, didn't you?”

  Because she was deemed too unpredictable to take part, thought Clay. But that was a fact he had never spoken aloud, and he hoped Cleo was unaware of it.

  “Anyway,” Kelly continued, “if Katie can throw dad off the trail, it must be a good thing, right?”

  Clay was dubious. There was still so much he did not understand about Ouroboros and the way Kelly and her father fitted into the scheme of things. The connection between father and daughter was unique, so far as he knew. For one to be part of the cult's 'hive mind' while the other was not might simply be a fluke. But Clay suspected that it was far more than that.

  He tried, not for the first time, to probe Kelly about her relationship with Brad.

  “There was nothing special about my childhood,” she interrupted. “My dad spent a lot of time away working, and then mom found a guy who was around all the time and they split up.”

  “But there was no hint of any paranormal connection until you joined us?” Clay persisted.

  Kelly took plates from a cupboard, slammed the latter shut in irritation.

  “I had this real boring, very normal childhood in the Midwest,” she sighed. “Nothing happened in Wisconsin, believe me. Every day, nothing happened.”

  But she did not meet Clay's eye.

  There is something, he thought. Perhaps something she has suppressed.

  “Knowing the nature of the link might be important,” he said in a gentler tone. “It might endanger the whole project. Is it worth taking the risk?”

  Kelly stood for a moment staring into the steaming pan. Then she took it off the stove and began spooning out the rice.

  “There was one thing,” she said. “Just one thing that happened that was out of the ordinary. But I don't see how it could make a big difference.”

  “Tell me,” said Clay. “I have been known to guess rightly in the past.”

  Kelly laughed.

  “Yeah, okay Mister 'I Revived Ouroboros That Time,’ I guess it can't hurt to tell.”

  ***

  “That's definitely their boat,” said Denny, squinting through the viewfinder of a lightweight video camera. “My sources told me they were moored at some village a few miles up the loch. Invercraig, it's called.”

  The three companions were standing at the large window of Brad's hotel room, which looked out over the small harbor of Fort Augustus.

  “Evidently they decided to move closer to Cherry Island,” said Norton. “Which I must confess is a little ominous.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Brad. “It suggests their plans are further advanced than we'd hoped. They may even be ready to go tonight.”

  Denny lowered the camera to look at Brad.

  “Maybe you'd better get that magnetic gizmo out and teach me how to use it, then.”

  Norton gave a snort of laughter.

  “Not even the pretense that I could learn, then?” he asked.

  “I think, on balance, that you'd better remain here at base,” said Brad. “After all, these are violent people.”

  He was surprised to see Norton look disappointed.

  My God, thought Brad, was he looking forward to a scrap?

  “I agree,” put in Denny, “if only because we need someone who knows what we're up to. Someone to write the story. If we don't come back.”

  Norton looked suitably sober at that thought, gave a curt nod.

  “I only wish I had been more help,” he said, sitting down on the small sofa by the television. “There is something I'm missing, I'm sure. Something maddeningly obvious.”

  “To do with Clay's remarks in that interview?” asked Brad.

  “Yes,” confirmed Norton. “I can't help thinking that iron is the key. After all, it's a ferrous metal, isn't it?”

  Brad paused, wondering if the academic had something.

  “Could be,” he said. “If they're using electromagnetism in some way, then any ferrous metal would disrupt the field.”

  “But it must be a really big field,” objected Denny, raising the camera to her eyes again. “You'd need a huge lump of iron. And where exactly would you put it?”

  Brad was stumped, and admitted it.

  “Whoa,” said Denny, “I can see them. Well, Clay and your daughter, Brad. They're on the deck, the bit at the back. Anyway, looks like they're eating. All very relaxed.”

  She passed the camera to Brad and he studied the scene aboard the Talisman. Denny was right.

  “It is them,” he said. “They're taking it easy. Don't look like people planning to destroy civilization, anyhow.”

  “How exactly do people look when they're planning to do great evil?”

  Norton's question shocked Brad. It was the first time he had heard anyone call Kelly evil. He almost retorted that his daughter was misguided, but could not bring himself to say the words.

  I can't really believe that, he thought. Not after all I've seen. I just don't know what to make of her anymore.

  An awkward silence was broken when Denny's phone chimed. She checked the number and frowned.

  “No idea who that might be,” she said, “but better answer it.”

  After a few moments of conversation, Denny raised her eyebrows at Brad, then covered the phone to speak urgently.

  “It's Katie Fox, the Midland News reporter? She got my number through contacts back in London, apparently. Anyway, she wants to interview you.”

  Brad took the phone and asked, “How did you even know I was here?”

  “Your daughter told me,” said Fox. “She said you're involved in some kind of family feud over Ouroboros. I thought it might make for an interesting human angle on this whole monster thing, and–”

  “I'm not interested,” snapped Brad and gave Denny her phone back.

  “Just a minute, Katie,” said Denny, putting the other reporter on hold. “Brad, think about it,” she went on, “you could turn this against them somehow.”

  “How, exactly?” Brad demanded. “This woman just wants 'human intere
st,’ that usually means making people look like cranks, or at best, idiots.”

  “She's got a decent reputation,” insisted Denny. “I think she'll play fair. Why not tell the truth, or at least some of it? Your daughter was drawn into a doomsday cult. That might lead the authorities to pay some attention. I can give you some tips on how to hint at some of their serious crimes without stepping over the line.”

  “It seems like an excellent idea,” put in Norton, surprising Brad. “The power of the media, one must use it or be used by it.”

  “Okay,” Brad conceded. “I'll do a brief interview. And when my boss sees it, I'll be out of a job, in all likelihood. I just hope it's worth it.”

  “Tell her how worried you are about Kelly, and how much you love her,” suggested Denny. “Show the viewers the decent man you are. Draw a lot more media attention to Ouroboros, and make it harder for them to operate. It's worth a try, yes?”

  “I just hope she doesn't edit it to make me look like an asshole,” said Brad. “No offense, but sometimes you can't trust reporters.”

  ***

  Clay and Kelly sat on the small deck of the Talisman, eating under the summer sky while looking out over the loch.

  “I was twelve,” Kelly said. “That was when it happened. The only real something in the middle of all that nothingness. There was an accident. I was fooling around with this boy, who I really liked, which shows how stupid I was then. I mean, he was a jerk. We were playing some dumb game on his family's farm and I fell. I can remember this old harvester, all rusted up, and we were climbing over it pretending we were in some sci-fi movie, I think. And I fell off onto the blades. I can still see them coming up at me, all the rust. And one was broken, and it went into my side and cut an artery. There's not much of a scar, now, considering.”

  “That must have been terrifying,” said Clay, to fill a pause.

  After gazing out over the water for a few moments, Kelly continued.

  “Thing is, I lost a lot of blood. By the time they got me to the local hospital, which was over twenty miles away, I found out later that I needed transfusions. And it turned out I'm this rare blood group, and they didn't have enough of the red stuff. So I was gonna die. Except I didn't. Obviously.”

  Clay realized what was coming next.

  “Your father gave blood to save you?”

  Kelly nodded.

  “It was touch and go, but he insisted on giving more and more. They put out a call for donors, of course, but none arrived until later on when I was over the worst of it. But his blood was mixed with mine. Do you think that accounts for the link?”

  Clay shrugged.

  “One thing I do know is that, in ancient times they had no blood transfusions. Lots of blood rituals, certainly, but nothing like our modern techniques. So who knows how that mixing might affect your powers? Such as they are.”

  They sat in silence for a while, Clay finishing his meal while Kelly absentmindedly stirred a fork in what was left of hers.

  “I should have died,” she said. “That was my destiny.”

  “Why?” he asked. “It was just an accident. Kids take risks, and it was hardly your fault some piece of agricultural equipment was just left–”

  “No,” she interrupted, “I mean that dad was never at home, or it seemed like it anyways. That's your freak occurrence, your wild card – him actually being at home with his family. The odds were stacked against it.”

  “Perhaps it was ordained that it should be so,” Clay suggested. “As part of a wider plan.”

  Kelly looked at him for the first time since she had started her story.

  “That sounds like the bullshit the Lutheran minister came out with, when he visited me,” she sneered. “And all I could think of was, if I had died because dad was away working for some global corporation, would that have been God's plan, too?”

  For the first time, Clay understood the foundation of Kelly's attitude to her father.

  “That was when you really started to resent him?” he asked.

  “No,” she replied. “It was when I stopped giving a damn about him and the world he's part of. It was when I started to question everything, began wanting to know why there was all this misery, pain, injustice. It was when I stopped being his little girl. Ironic, huh?”

  She picked up their plates and went back down the hatchway, leaving Clay to contemplate the loch, its shores, and the bustling town. He peered at the front of the hotel where he knew Steiger and his team were staying, but could see no sign of anyone looking back.

  ***

  “Someone here would like to talk to you,” said Denny. She had phoned Brad with an urgent request to come to the hotel bar, where she had met someone 'we both remember.’

  Brad looked past her to a young couple who were sitting at the bar drinking sodas. One was very familiar, a sturdily-built man of about thirty with a mop of untidy dark hair. Seeing him brought Brad's dark, violent memories of Mista Venja castle flooding back.

  “Pavel!” he exclaimed, taking a few steps towards the couple. “My God, I thought you'd been killed. What happened to you? Did Lenka get away?”

  The treasure hunter looked at Brad in apparent confusion.

  “And how is–” he began and then stopped in confusion.

  Brad looked down at the woman beside Pavel. She, too, rang a bell, but it was an alarm bell. She was petite and pretty. Her clothes were fashionable, though she seemed to be wearing too few of them for the Scottish climate. Her eyes and hair were dark, but her skin was startlingly pale, as if she had spent years away from sunlight.

  For a moment, he had thought that she was Pavel's girlfriend Lenka, albeit much altered. Then it clicked. He had seen that face before, but it had not been smiling up at him as it was now. Her features had been contorted in bestial rage. She certainly was not Lenka.

  Holy crap, it's her, he thought. The Insane One.

  “Denny, get over here beside me,” he said urgently, retreating. “These are not friends.”

  “Oh!” pouted the pale girl in a strong East European accent. “I am hurt! I am the daughter of your good friend Marcus, so we are friends too, yes?”

  “You're Lisa Valentine?” said Denny, moving to stand next to Brad.

  “The very same!” replied Lisa. “And I am here to offer the olive branch of peace, and all that nice stuff.”

  “Did you offer it to him first?” asked Brad, pointing at Pavel. “You got your fangs into the poor bastard after you killed his girlfriend, right?”

  Lisa's smile faded, then returned.

  “I was not feeling very well then, I am much better now,” she insisted. “Besides, he is very happy in his own way.”

  She pressed herself to Pavel's side like a teenager with a new boyfriend. Brad felt nauseous.

  “Who are these people?” asked Norton, ambling into the bar behind Brad. “That poor chap looks drugged, and the girl's tricked out like some sort of Balkan tart.”

  “You, I do not like!” snarled Lisa. “Careful what you say or I will go away and leave you without my help!”

  “And what help is that?” Brad demanded. “The kind you gave Marcus, maybe?”

  At that, Lisa looked genuinely ashamed, looked down at the floor, and mumbled something inaudible.

  Maybe she is more human than not, thought Brad. Or she can fake a human reaction perfectly.

  “Please, give her a chance,” pleaded Denny. “We're not exactly spoiled for choice when it comes to allies.”

  “Okay, we've got nothing to lose by listening,” Brad sighed. “But not here.”

  The barman and a couple of early drinkers were pointedly not looking at the confrontation, but they could obviously hear every word.

  “We can go up to your room, maybe?” suggested Lisa.

  “You're joking, of course?” replied Brad. “No way I'm sharing a confined space with one of your kind. And whatever your proposal is, we all need to hear it, so don't buy a drink just yet, James.”

 
A few minutes later, the five were walking through a small park. This allowed them to keep far enough from evening strollers to have a private discussion while still being in a public place. Lisa, after some playful evasions, finally got to the point.

  “Your little girl is in this country illegally. Just like me!”

  “Shit!” exclaimed Brad as the realization struck him. “Why didn't I think of that? It's so goddamn obvious.”

  “What is?” asked Denny.

  “Kelly's an illegal alien,” explained Brad. “She must be. She was here studying archaeology at London U. on a student visa, right? But she hasn’t been to classes for over six months. They must have thrown her out of the course by now.”

  Understanding dawned in Denny's eyes. Norton looked from one to the other and chuckled.

  “I'd had thought it was obvious she was in the country illegally,” said the academic. “We're always having problems with that. Bloody students, always going AWOL.”

  “Then why didn't you mention it?” demanded Brad in exasperation.

  “I didn't think it mattered,” said Norton huffily. “Besides, it's obvious. I assumed you knew.”

  A reasonable assumption, thought Brad. I just wish the guy wasn't so damn snooty about it.

  “But don't you see, James?” said Denny. “This means we can disrupt their activities by reporting Kelly to the police.”

  “Not that simple,” replied Norton, shaking his head. “It has to go through the Home Office. They handle visas. It might take days for them to contact the local police. The fact that Scotland has slightly different laws on such matters is another complication.”

  “Oh, Jesus Christ,” groaned Brad. “British bureaucracy again! I can't get a gun, I can't call the cops. If only we'd known about the visa weeks ago! Now it's probably too late.”

  “But knowing Kelly has been reported might force them to show their hand before they're fully prepared,” said Denny in a soothing voice. “Why not give it a try? Do it, then tell her.”

  “This is all very exciting,” remarked Lisa sourly. “Just like a James Bond movie, only without the action. Or a car that is also a submarine.”