Death of an Adept

As Ximena set the requested tumbler on the table beside Philippa, Julia also drifted closer, lolo McFarlane's dream journal tucked under one arm and a look of astonishment on her face. The general, too, came to stand behind Julian.

"All right, I'll say this only once," Philippa announced turning the glass upside down over their present location and then prying at the lid of the biscuit tin. "The sketch is our focus, and the Hand of Glory is our link to Raeburn. He helped prepare it, so his psychic signature is all over it.

"The way this works will be something like a Ouija board, except that the glass will be our planchette and we'll use the map instead of a board with letters of the alphabet. To add the Hand to the equation - and I haven't time for anyone's squeamishness right now - we'll set it on the glass and then make our link through that instead of the glass itself."

Despite her admonition, a collective gasp whispered among the group as she pulled the lid off the biscuit tin, to a whiff of decomposing flesh and sulphur.

"With any luck," she went on, "the glass will move on the map and zero in on Raeburn's location - which will also be Adam's location."

The silence was almost palpable as she turned back the towelling and, without hesitation, plucked the Hand out to set it with the palm on the base of the glass, the dead fingers extending all around. Though mostly mummified, it was covered with blue-green mold, and the smell was appalling.

"All right, there isn't space enough for all of us to do this," she said, holding the Hand in place with the fingertips of both hands, "so I want the following to touch it the way I'm doing: Julian, Peregrine, Noel, and Harry. Yes, you, Harry. Impressions through touch are your special gift, and I think it's definitely needed here."

Julian had complied immediately, Peregrine hardly a heartbeat after, but Harry had stiffened at the mention of his name, his face draining of color. McLeod glanced sideways at him, afraid that the counsellor was going to hold back - but Harry only drew a deep breath and let it out - and set his fingertips lightly beside McLeod's, drawing another breath more slowly as his eyes took on the faraway focus of trance.

"Good man, Harry," McLeod whispered under his breath.

Watching, Philippa nodded and glanced up at Sir Gordon and the Houstons.

"Gordon, I'll ask you to help Victoria and Christopher keep us on the maps," she said quietly. "The rest of you, please add your prayers to our intent." She returned her gaze to the five pairs of hands now touching fingertips to the Hand atop the tumbler, four of them with Adept rings glimmering like sapphire stars.

"Now, let's focus on the sketch of Raeburn and get started," she said. "We're looking to tune in on Raeburn's psychic residuals and use those to divine his location. Fix his image in your minds, concentrate… and now reach out to find him…."

Nothing happened for several long minutes as the five began to concentrate, only the soft sounds of breathing intruding on the silence. But then the glass jerked sluggishly beneath its burden of hands, both alive and dead. Ximena stifled a gasp as, after a few false starts, it began inching slowly south and westward, on a straight-line heading between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

As soon as it had crossed the Firth of Forth, Victoria began flinging aside the larger-scale maps of everything northward, Christopher roughly following the progress of the glass on the section diagrams that showed each map's position on the master grid.

"You're about on Map 65," Christopher announced, as the glass crept to a halt. "Sort of midway between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Do you want to change scales? This area is awfully built up - not at all promising for the kind of site we projected."

Though she nodded faintly, Philippa did not look up, only shifting one hand to lift the glass against the Hand of Glory, holding it steady against the touch of the other four sets of fingertips as Victoria swept the large map away, Sir Gordon retaining the sketch of Raeburn so that Christopher could slip one of the larger-scale maps into its place. As he guided the glass to the spot approximately corresponding to the location indicated on the first map, and Philippa lowered the glass, it did not move for several seconds; but then it began inching very slowly southward again, gradually taking a more easterly heading.

"Something has changed," Sir Gordon murmured, after watching the glass take several minutes to creep across a six-inch span of map. "The scale is larger, but it's moving slower. I don't think you're zeroing in on a location anymore; I think your target is actually in motion - and moving fast." He grabbed a pen and paper from Julia and did some rapid calculations with inches and scales, then bent to lay a hand on Harry's shoulder.

"Harry, it's Gordon. Pull back and see if they can keep this up without you," he said.