Dagger Magic

"Ordinarily I would," Adam said, "but in this case, I think Peregrine ought to stay with Aoife and you come with me. You aren't armed, Peregrine," he added, at the artist's crestfallen look. "The backup you and Aoife can give us doesn't depend on brawn or firepower."

"Take one of these, then," Aoife said, handing Adam a pocket-sized walkie-talkie. "I'll put Peregrine in charge of the link aboard the Lady G. And be careful, all of you."

Nodding his thanks, Adam tucked the walkie-talkie into an outer pocket of his waxed jacket, then climbed lightly down into the dinghy beside McLeod. His skean dubh was safely zipped into an inner pocket. Magnus handed down a pair of electric torches, then came aboard and settled in the stern. The little outboard came to life with a healthy whirr, and as Aoife and Peregrine cast off the bow and stern lines, Magnus goosed the throttle and swung the bow around to begin heading toward the shore. McLeod put the binoculars to his eyes and scanned the cliffs ahead, then glanced aside at Adam.

"You don't suppose that Lynx chap back on the boat will come to, and try to cause trouble, do you?"

"I doubt it," Adam replied. "He may come to, but he's going to have one hell of a headache - hardly conducive to any serious concentration. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I just took a bit of a precaution, that's all," McLeod said, returning to his scanning. "I tossed his Lynx ring into the drink; figured a little salt water would go a long way toward cleaning the nasties off it."

"He did; I saw him," Magnus confirmed, satisfaction in his tone.

Adam allowed himself an amused chuckle. "It's fortunate for you that our Lynx was unconscious," he said. "You both do realize, of course, that it was a valuable ring, and he's apt to scream 'Theft!' when he sees it's gone."

"Ring? What ring?" Magnus retorted. "When I arrested what I took to be a terrorist gun-runner, he wasn't wearing any ring."

McLeod did not turn, but his grim chuckle floated just above the sound of the little outboard.

They fell silent after that, though, for the air had begun to tingle with uncanny fluctuations of energy. As the dinghy neared the shore, heading for the now-visible second dinghy, Adam could feel that energy crawling over his skin like an assault of marching ants. He scanned the cliffs ahead and to the right, where an area of darkness just below the cliff-top drew his gaze like a magnet.

"Look there, Noel," he recommended, pointing. "Is that an opening?"

McLeod turned the glasses in that direction and gave a grunt.

"It's an opening, all right," he agreed, handing the binoculars back. "And I'd bet my next paycheck Raeburn's already inside."

"You won't get any takers here," Adam said, confirming with the glasses. "Magnus, let's get this thing ashore."

A rev of the outboard and an incoming wave swept them through the last of the shore-break. A moment later, they grounded on the sand mere yards from the other inflatable. At close range, they now could see a motionless form sitting hunched inside it.

"Bloody hell," McLeod muttered, drawing his pistol. "Is he dead?"

Leaving Magnus to secure their own boat, McLeod scrambled ashore with weapon at the ready, Adam following with a torch. The man in the boat was alive but unconscious, even comatose.

"Another of the legitimate crew of the Rose of Tralee, I would guess," Adam said, checking the man's pulse and peering under eyelids.

"There doesn't seem to be a mark on him," McLeod said. "Why is he not responding?"

"It appears to be some form of magical entrancement I've never encountered before," Adam replied as Magnus came to join them. "He's practically reeking of it - but I won't know how to counter it until I meet up with the person who cast the spell in the first place."

Magnus glanced nervously over his shoulder at the cliffs beyond.

"Well, he ought to be safe enough here, until we get things sorted out. Shall we?"

Back on board the Lady Gregory, standing shoulder to shoulder with Aoife at the side rail, Peregrine could see nothing of the shore party, though he could just make out the two dinghies. He lifted the spare binoculars to his eyes, but the moonlight itself confounded him, leaping fluorescently from rock to rock in some places, elsewhere leaving deep clefts of impenetrable shadow. As he fiddled with the sights, trying to get a clearer view, he became aware of the distant mechanical drone of a propeller-driven aircraft.

It seemed curiously out of place - a fugitive from some distant world of daylight and sanity. He looked up as he realized that the sound was coming closer - and glimpsed its swollen belly as it passed across the face of the moon. The shape did not register until it banked into the wind and he saw the pontoons fitted to its high wings.

"Aoife?" he breathed. "What the devil is a seaplane doing out here at this hour? You don't suppose it's going to land?"

Chapter Thirty-One