Dagger Magic

The monk flinched, but only slightly, the Phurba already moving to counter the attack. As a burning shock numbed Raeburn's right hand, the wand itself ignited in a burst of green flame.

With an involuntary cry, he cast it from him. The wand vaporized in midair, its ashes sifting to the floor in a scattering of grey powder. Now within reach, Nagpo touched the tip of the Phurba to Raeburn's breast. Pain radiated outward from the point of contact in a wave of cold that strangled his breath in his throat and paralyzed all voluntary movement. The next thing Raeburn knew, he was flat on his back on the floor, helpless to move or speak, as Nagpo came to stand over him, now gazing down impassively.

"Did you really suppose you could succeed in your betrayal?" he said coldly. "Rinpoche had intended that your death should be quick and painless, for the sake of the boyhood you shared. Now I think he will prefer it slow and lingering, and that he will wish the pleasure of feasting on your agonies."

Aboard the Lady Gregory, the distant crack of what sounded like a single gunshot penetrated through the low thrum of the submarine's idling diesels. As the echoes of the report faded out across the water, the diesels abruptly stuttered and died, leaving behind an almost uncanny silence.

"Good Lord, what was that?" Peregrine murmured, as McLeod muttered, "Gunshot," and Adam swung his binoculars back to the conning tower. The one undead-crewman on deck had collapsed over the box he had just brought down from the conning tower, and an orange-clad figure was disappearing down the hatch.

"A possible mutiny below decks, I do believe," Adam murmured, as more shots reverberated from within the bowels of the submarine. "Listen."

"I make that thirteen shots," McLeod whispered, as the firing ceased. "Somebody's played their trump card."

Aoife was also raking the superstructure of the sub with her binoculars. "I don't see any other signs of movement," she reported. "Maybe our friends have - "

Before she could complete her speculation, the Lady Gregory's engines roared to life.

"That's it!" came Magnus' joyful yell from the open engine compartment, as Eamonn burst forth and scrambled back toward the pilothouse. "Let's get this tub moving!"

As Magnus, too, emerged, his tight smile matched those on the faces of his fellow Huntsmen, boding no quarter for their adversaries as the Lady Gregory began to move out. Delving into a stern locker, Magnus produced a pair of Ingram submachine guns and tossed one to McLeod. Adam handed his binoculars to Peregrine and withdrew Tseten' s mala from his pocket, quietly wrapping it many times around his left wrist. At last they were to be allowed to engage the enemy.

The distance between the two vessels began to close. Magnus quietly joined Eamonn in the pilothouse, to give himself a higher vantage point. Off beyond the submarine, the seaplane still rode the swells like a delicate sea bird, its rubber raft drawn up under the wing. Peregrine's view of it was partially blocked by the hulk of the conning tower, but it appeared that a man inside was helping the man in the boat lift one of the crates up into the plane's cargo hatch.

"They've got that first crate aboard the plane," he announced.

Instead of answering, Adam turned to Aoife. "Do you know if Eamonn has such a thing as a loud-hailer on board?''

"I'll get it," she said.

When she put it in his hands, a few seconds later, Adam raised it to his mouth. They had closed their range to fifty yards, and Eamonn held the Lady G at that distance.

"Ahoy there, U-636!" he called, his deep voice reverberating across the water. "Anyone who can hear me, come out and show yourselves. You stand accountable for breaches of the peace on this and other levels. As acting head of this enforcement team, I require you to divest yourselves of any and all weapons, and to surrender yourselves into our custody. Otherwise, we will board you and take you by force."

Silence answered, broken only by the idle of the Lady G's engines and the lapping of the waves. Then all at once, the shaven head and orange-clad shoulders of a man with Oriental features emerged above the edge of the conning tower, silken robes fluttering about him like tongues of fire in the moonlight.

Adam was already drawing his skean dubh from an inside pocket, handing off the loud-hailer to Aoife so he could unsheathe the little blade, quietly pocketing the sheath as a new voice made itself heard across the gap between the two vessels, accented and precise.

"Whoever you may be, do not think to intimidate me with threats of force," the man said, though strain showed in both face, and tone. "I have power at my command that the likes of you can scarcely comprehend."