Dagger Magic

No simple pointing of the Phurba would suffice to still the Lady Gregory this time. The light of the moon caught the dull sheen of the metal blade as its owner began to roll the hilt between his hands, the gutteral words of a deep-toned chant rolling from his lips like the rattle of dead men's bones. The sound woke dissonant echoes off the surrounding waters, joining the chant like a supporting cacophony of demon voices, till the air itself grated on the eardrums like scrabbling fingernails dragged across a slate.

"Get back!" Adam warned, lifting his skean dubh to the sky in appeal to the Light as McLeod, Peregrine, and Aoife faded back from him, hands clapped to their ears - for sound was building like a rising wave, voice and echoes racing up and down the scale in screeching counterpoint. The Lady Gregory's engines sputtered and failed again.

Undaunted, Adam repeated his entreaty. The blue stone set in the skean dubh's pommel seemed to draw the moonlight like a magnet, wreathing his hand in a shimmering aureole of moonbeams as he executed a sign before him in the air with his blade. As he completed the gesture, Peregrine heard - or thought he heard - an elusive chime, like the faraway peal of temple bells. But that delicate, ethereal sound was swallowed almost instantly in an earsplitting crack of thunder.

A shrieking gust of wind swept the deck of the Lady Gregory. Circling back, it clothed itself in a sudden manifestation of shadowy form. Even as McLeod uttered a hoarse warning cry, the wind swooped down on Adam with a scream like a banshee' s shriek, sweeping him into a savage embrace.

Pain slashed and stabbed at him. Instinctively Adam struck back with his skean dubh, but his stroke sliced only air. The shadow-thing enveloped him, absorbing his efforts to throw it off, heaving its bulk against him to hurl him to the deck. Its weight settled on his chest, cutting off his breath.

Half-suffocated, he continued to flail. The weight on his chest pressed harder, driving him closer to the brink of unconsciousness. Though he redoubled his struggles, he began to sink into a well of darkness.

He could feel the power focused through the other members of the Hunting Party trying to win through to him, was dimly aware of McLeod and Peregrine and Aoife huddling together with linked hands, Magnus pouring energy toward him from the pilothouse, but all their efforts were in vain. Spawned from dimensions outside their experience, his attacker seemed impervious to their assault.

His left arm was crushed against his chest, trying una-vailingly to ward off the weight as his right arm sought a point of attack. The pressure of the prayer beads pressing into his wrist, against his sternum, recalled the beads' former owner. As physical consciousness dimmed, Adam momentarily cast himself free of his body in a desperate appeal to the Light. That appeal, resonating through the astral planes, was answered by another voice that seemed to call him back to Holy Island. Homing there in spirit, he became aware that the summoning presence was Tseten's.

Remember, you must separate the servant of evil from his demonic protectors, came Tseten's instruction.

Simultaneously came the words of exorcism that would make that separation, ancient words in an ancient language that spilled from Adam's lips as he was catapulted precipitously back into his body.

The pronouncement lent him a sudden surge of fresh strength. His attacker gave back, hissing in fury and alarm. Yanking his blade-hand free, Adam repeated his exhortation, slashing not at what pressed his body to the very brink of oblivion but at the submarine, and the man who directed the attack.

With a rending screech, what lay upon his chest withdrew in a writhing medusa-knot of serpents, coiling and recoiling, then rocketing skyward in a dissipating whirl. A third time Adam repeated his exhortation, now rising onto his elbows to stab his skean dubh toward the distant Tibetan monk in a gesture to answer that of the Phurba in his attacker's hand.

In that moment, a torn veil of cloud passed over the moon. The light dimmed on the surrounding water. As all eyes aboard the Lady G cast anxiously skyward, more clouds came boiling up over the horizon.

They converged on the two vessels from all sides, gathering density as they came. Colliding, they formed a churning vortex directly overhead. From the top of the submarine's conning tower, a bolt of blue lightning leapt skyward. Speared from below, the clouds split open, emptying a thunderous shower of hail down on the vessels below.