Death of an Adept

With a companionable nod, Julia picked up her mug and made for the stairs, the now-purring kitten cradled on her shoulder. Outside the house, hostile eyes took note when the light came on in the upstairs bedroom. From far at the back of the garden, the watcher carefully scanned the house and its environs through high-powered infrared binoculars, all but invisible in snow-camouflage coveralls and balaclava helmet. After a moment, he lifted a wrist-mounted comlink to his lips, still watching through the binoculars.

"At least one of the subjects has gone upstairs," he reported in an undertone. "The main light in the kitchen has gone out, and the bedroom light came on a minute or two later. What's left downstairs is probably a night-light. Otherwise the coast is clear."

The message was picked up by two more men sitting in a black panel van parked a hundred yards down from the gateway.

"Acknowledged," returned the driver. "Continue to observe and await further instructions."

He severed communications with a click, glancing at the clock in the dash before folding his arms on his chest and leaning his head against the headrest.

"We'll give them another half-hour," he said.

The man sitting next to him gave a huff of annoyance and shifted restively in his seat.

"This is stupid!" he declared. "It's like the bloody North Pole. What the hell are we hanging around for?"

"You know why," the driver said bluntly. "If we move in prematurely, while the targets are still awake, there may be some resistance. If we hold off until they're asleep, our success is virtually guaranteed."

"They're newly weds; they may not go to sleep for hours. As far as I can see, the longer we sit here, the more likely it is that somebody's going to spot us and give the alarm. This whole damned thing is more complicated anyway than it needs to be. Why the hell can't we simply break in and put the bag on these people, without going through this occult rigmarole?"

"Because the boss wants it done this way," the driver snapped. "He's already had one piece of work go wrong because the offering was blemished. I don't want to be the one on the carpet if things don't go right this time around."

"You whine like an old woman," the man in the passenger seat muttered. "Well, I don't propose to spend the rest of the night freezing my arse off out here on the side of the road. It's quiet as the grave out there. I say let's move now."

Flinging open the passenger door, he slid to the ground and started toward the back of the van.

"Wait, you bloody fool!" the driver snapped. But his companion had already flung open the back hatch and was pulling out something wrapped up in a burlap sack.

"Tell Otto I'm coming," he tossed over his shoulder, "and stand by to pick us up."

Once Julia had gone upstairs, Peregrine's thoughts reverted almost at once to the unwelcome subject of Francis Raeburn, his movements becoming more emphatic as he cleaned another brush against a paint-stained cloth. Only now that the visit to Nether Leckie was behind him did he realize how confident he had been that they surely must find some promising sign of Raeburn's whereabouts.

Dogged by a feeling of anticlimax, he went through the motions of putting his palette and brushes away while he tried to imagine what might be going on in the mind of their adversary. So lost in thought was he that he failed to notice that someone or something outside the kitchen door was scuffling at the cat-flap.

The odor of linseed oil and turpentine was strong in his nostrils as he gathered up his paint-rags and tossed them in the rubbish bin under the kitchen sink. Only belatedly did he become aware that there was another odor creeping into the kitchen under the covering ambience of pine - as if someone had set a match to a tub of rancid lard.

As he turned sharply away from the sink, this new and acrid reek seemed to hit him in the face like a physical blow. The stench made him gag and brought tears to his eyes.

Instinctively clapping a hand over his mouth and nose, he looked around for its source, recoiling as he spied something out of place on the floor just inside the kitchen door, its identity masked under a rising cloud of greasy black smoke. As he tried to see what it might be, all his senses suddenly blurred and he found himself folding helplessly to his knees.

Upstairs in the bedroom, Julia had just finished the last of her hot chocolate when she heard a subdued thump and clatter from the direction of the kitchen. The noise was loud enough to make her lift her head from the music score in front of her.

To her musically trained ear, there was something odd about the silence that followed. Shifting her music to the bed beside her, she slipped to her feet and made for the doorway, tightening the belt of her robe around her waist. In that same instant, Hero, who had been sleeping among the pillows, roused with a sudden hiss and start.