Dagger Magic

"I wish I knew," Peregrine sighed. "I'm just hoping I'll recognize it, if and when I find it."

Though he did not say as much to Eamonn, he was beginning to feel like a fifth wheel. His artistic abilities seemed of little use or relevance in their present circumstances, especially when compared with what some of his more senior companions were doing. Magnus, he had learned on their drive to Malin Head, had clairvoyant talents - the ability to visualize distant occurrences. At the moment, the retired RUC officer was below deck with Aoife, hoping to gain an extrasensory impression of who their adversaries might be and, even more importantly, what exactly they might be doing.

Which couldn't be anything good, Peregrine thought moodily. Even without Magnus's longer-range brand of perceptual acuity, he was himself queasily aware of shadowy forces on the rise. Even brushing the edges of that thickening miasma of evil was like being forced to wade at the edges of a polluted lake. What Adam must be experiencing, he could only guess.

Jagged rocks loomed ahead, too close for Eamonn's taste, and the young skipper expertly put the wheel over to navigate the Lady G safely past them. As they nosed around the next headland, Peregrine found himself starting to wonder if perhaps they ought to go ashore and proceed on land. That consideration evaporated an instant later, as his questing gaze was drawn toward a triangle of lights suspended between the moonlit water and the surrounding crescent of shadowy cliffs.

The source of the lights was a large fishing boat bristling with booms, slightly larger than the Lady Gregory. She was anchored several hundred yards out from a narrow strip of beach, her hull rising and falling on the shallow swell of the incoming tide. Down on the foredeck, McLeod gave a wolfish growl of discovery and subjected the newfound vessel to a close sweep with his binoculars.

"Rose of Tralee" he read out. "Do you suppose she's really just fishing?"

"Not for fish," came Adam's terse reply.

He and McLeod retreated aft, keeping an eye on their quarry, as the Lady G nosed toward the other vessel, gradually slowing. Two sets of feet came thudding up the steps from the lower deck. Magnus arrived first, with Aoife right on his heels.

"What've you got?" the Irish Second asked.

"You tell me," McLeod muttered, handing him the binoculars. "Name's the Rose of Tralee. Do you think she's doing some moonlight fishing, or is this our bird?"

Magnus swept the glasses along the length of the other vessel, riding at anchor between them and the shore. As Aoife joined him by the railing, Peregrine came scrambling down from the pilothouse.

"I think there's somebody on board," he whispered. "I saw movement against the cabin lights."

The cabin lights suddenly winked off, even as he said it, and Magnus lowered his binoculars.

"This is your call, Magnus," Adam said quietly. "How do you want to play this?"

"By the book, I think, until we know what we're up against." He handed the binoculars to Aoife and glanced pointedly at McLeod. "Unless anybody else has a better suggestion?"

The Scottish detective shook his head. "Go for it."

Nodding, Magnus made a trumpet of his two hands.

"Ahoy!" he called in a loud voice. "Rose of Tralee, this is the Lady Gregory. Is anyone aboard?"

His hail boomed out across the intervening water. Before he could shout a second time, the cabin door opened and a broad-shouldered figure emerged into the moonlight.

"This is the skipper of the Rose," a rough voice called back. "What do you want?"

The Irish accent went with the locale, but the tone was suspiciously hostile, and the silhouette proclaimed "city," not the rugged attire one would expect on a fishing boat.

"We were just passing by when we saw your lights," Magnus shouted. "Are you in any difficulty?"

"Nothing we can't handle for ourselves," came the curt reply.

"Do you believe that?" Magnus whispered to Adam.

"No."

"Neither do I. Peregrine, go tell Eamonn to take us in closer. We'll see what happens if we refuse to take the hint."

As the young artist darted off toward the pilothouse, Magnus cupped his hands again.

"If it's engine trouble you're having, we've a mechanic on board," he shouted. "Why don't you let us come over and see if we can give you a hand?''

The Lady Gregory's engines changed pitch, and she began to nose closer.

"Why don't you go to hell?" snarled the self-proclaimed skipper of the Rose. And punctuated the retort with a sudden burst of gunfire.

Everyone aboard the Lady Gregory hit the deck as a stream of bullets swept across her bow, pinging off her steel hull and scattering shattered perspex from a forward cabin window.

"Jayzus, what's he got? A bloody Uzi?" Magnus gasped, from a prone position on the deck.

"Something bigger than that," McLeod replied, already drawing the Browning Hi-Power from his belt and snapping back the slide to chamber a round.