Death of an Adept

When Ximena had reluctantly downed some tea and toast, and Harry had bundled her off to the Range Rover, Philippa watched until the car disappeared up the drive before taking a mug of coffee into the library, flogging her weary brain for some new inspiration in the search for her missing son. She was momentarily startled to find Julian there ahead of her, her wheelchair parked close by the fireside, thin shoulders huddled under a paisley shawl. Julian looked up as Philippa entered, offering her a ragged smile.

"Good morning, Pippa. I hope you won't mind, but I borrowed Humphrey during the night to run an errand for me."

"Oh?"

"I couldn't get to sleep after I finished my watch last night, so I decided to meditate for a while. I had a sudden flash of inspiration around three A.M. - something that might be useful for strengthening the link between ourselves and Adam. I wasn't exactly sure where it had gotten to, after all these years, but thankfully it was right there in my jewel case that Humphrey brought back."

She opened her hand to display a finely engraved Victorian locket on a silver chain - the gift Philippa herself had given to Julian and Michael Brodie at Adam's christening, when the couple had pledged themselves to be his godparents. The oval locket contained a miniature photo of Adam as a baby, to which Julian had later added a curl from his first haircut.

Momentarily overwhelmed with fear for him, Philippa reached out to take it, fighting back tears as she opened the locket to gaze at the well-remembered image of her infant son, and the dark snippet of fine baby hair sealed behind fragile glass on the opposite side. When she closed it, she made herself draw a sobering breath and focus again, forcing a faint smile as she sank down on the edge of a chair beside Julian.

"He was a beautiful baby, wasn't he, Julian?" she breathed.

"Beautiful," Julian agreed. "And he grew into a beautiful man."

Philippa nodded. "He did. I wonder… Julian, I'm getting an idea."

"Yes?"

"We've always held that hair and blood are the two best physical links to a subject," she continued softly, as if reciting a well-rehearsed lesson. "Now we have the hair, but the blood… Actually, we do have the blood,'' she murmured, looking at Julian in sudden enlightenment. "In fact, we have something even better than blood."

"We do?"

"We do, indeed." Philippa handed the locket back to Julian, her smile broadening. "We have the genetic blood-link that Adam and I share. For nine months of both our lives, he and I were as one. And if we were to link that connection to his hair, and his skean dubh, and the Horus necklace - "

After briefly absenting herself to rouse Victoria and Christopher - and to give Humphrey instructions about diverting Julia to breakfast, if she should come downstairs before they were finished - Philippa outlined what she proposed. Christopher, in particular, had reservations.

"I'll give you that the genetic link idea may be sound," he said, to the distant ringing of church bells as he rubbed both hands across early morning stubble. "But the blood aspect of it strikes me as perilously close to the methods the opposition uses. It also leaves you more open to psychic rebound, if you do manage to make some kind of contact. You can always drop things out of the equation, if you start to get caught up in whatever's holding him; but if your body is part of the equation, extricating yourself might not be that easy."

"No one's expecting anything to be easy," she replied. "I am expecting that the locket will be the primary focus, though, because it's his hair that's the most direct link. I plan to use the locket as a pendulum for map scrying. Even if we can't pin down the exact location, we might at least be able to get a directional fix on him."

"Then let me put some additional protection on you before we start," Christopher insisted. "The last thing we need at this point is for you to get trapped and drawn into whatever devilry Raeburn has going."

Philippa did not protest as he blessed holy water and made a circuit of the library, refreshing the wards always resident in the room and, indeed, around the house, then coming to sprinkle each of the women in turn. When Philippa sat down at the table where Victoria was opening out a general map of Scotland, she had Adam's skean dubh in hand again and had donned the Horus necklace.

As Julian rolled into place at her right and Victoria sat on her left, Philippa took the locket back from Julian and looped the doubled end of its chain around the hilt of the skean dubh, just below the sapphire in the pommel, then held the weapon by the sheath and propped her elbow so that the locket dangled just above the Perthshire coordinates of Strathmourne. Julian and Victoria laid hands on her shoulders as Christopher sat down opposite, joining hands with him to close the circle as all of them prepared to begin the Work.