Dagger Magic

Handing his briefcase to Kavanagh, Raeburn stepped lightly down into the boat, then paused to give a fastidious twitch to the cuffs of close-fitting grey leather gloves as his pale eyes scanned his new employees. He was kitted out in grey, from his polo-necked sweater and leather bomber jacket to his grey cords and grey deck shoes - not half so impressive as his employee, in Plunkett's unspoken opinion. Kavanagh had the build of a prizefighter, and his clothes spoke loudly of financial success, from the flash designer-cut of his jacket and trousers to the heavy gold and carnelian signet ring he wore like a knuckle-duster on the third finger of his right hand. Plunkett noticed with mild interest that the device seemed to be the snarling head of some kind of big cat.

"Good evening, Captain," Raeburn said. The tone left no doubt in Plunkett's mind that Raeburn really was in charge. "If everything is ready, as Mr. Kavanagh requested, I suggest that we get under way."

Within five minutes, the Rose was moving slowly away from her berth, nosing out of the little harbor and heading northward along the Donegal coast. Their course took them due north and then east around the point of land known as Bloody Foreland, so-named for the way the setting sun sometimes lit its heights, though the sun had already set tonight. By the time they were passing close by the cliffs of Inishbofin, the full moon had risen like a copper penny from behind the dark line of the shore, gradually silvering the water as Inishbofin dropped away off to port.

Leaving Kavanagh to keep an eye on the movements of the crew, Raeburn repaired to the tight confines of the cabin, setting his briefcase on the scarred wooden table adjoining the tiny galley and then extinguishing the cabin lights. During the course of the next half hour, he watched from the cabin's starboard window as the coastline became increasingly rugged, massy headlands rising up from moon-drenched water.

At length Raeburn roused from his contemplation of the coast and returned to the table, plucking off his gloves and then opening his briefcase. By moonlight he removed a Walther PPK pistol from one of the cutouts in the foam lining of the case and tucked it into a special holster sewn into the lining of the leather bomber jacket, then pocketed several spare ammunition clips and a miniature two-way radio. He then removed a cylindrical black box as long as his hand and a handspan around, giving the cap a quick twist and upending the cylinder thus opened to shake out a small, tightly rolled scroll of parchment. After returning the cylinder to its place, he plucked out the scroll of parchment and closed the case, laying the scroll on the closed top as he pulled a chair closer to the table and sat.

The ring he slipped from the third finger of his right hand was a more elegantly crafted version of the one Kavanagh was wearing. The bloodred carnelian surmounting the heavy gold band bore the same device: the snarling head of a lynx. Setting it on the case before him, he pulled a small pocket torch from an inside pocket and took up the scroll, unrolling it to read four lines of Tibetan script.

He mouthed the words once to fix them in his memory, then began slowly whispering the words as a mantra, replacing his torch in his jacket pocket and letting the scroll roll back on itself, twisting it narrower. Turning his focus to the muladhara chakra at the base of his spine, he began summoning up the serpent power. He could feel it gathering, an almost sexual tension building upward, as he took up his ring between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand and thrust the scroll through the circle of the band.

The parchment vanished in a consuming flash of flame, and as he inhaled the smoke of it, pressing the ring to his forehead and closing his eyes, he could feel the kundalini serpent uncoiling within him, pushing open the successive chakras at sacrum and solar plexus, breastbone and throat, finally fountaining up his spine to roil behind his eyelids, opening the sixth or ajna chakra, the aptly called Third Eye. As a prickling sensation broke out between his eyebrows, just above the bridge of his nose, he shifted the circle of his ring to the same spot and opened his eyes again, turning his gaze toward the moon-drenched shadows of the shore.

The minutes ticked by as the Rose continued to press north and eastward, running parallel to the rugged cliffs of Horn Head. They had rounded the point when all at once Raeburn's augmented vision espied an unearthly shimmer of green light emanating from amongst the rocks, just to the right of a narrow crescent of beach.