Death of an Adept

"Your anger and resentment are fully justified," he said quietly. "We'll try to wind up the technical part of this investigation as soon as possible, so you and your people can come in and do what's necessary to cleanse the site."

This statement earned McLeod a look of mingled surprise and gratitude.

"We'd be very much obliged," MacFarlane said.

"I'm the one who's obliged," McLeod replied. He took one of his cards from his pocket and presented it. "If you come across anything you regard as unusual in the clean-up process, I'd appreciate your giving me a call. I need to know, if we're to find who did this."

MacFarlane took the card, fingering it thoughtfully. "I'll do that," he promised.

"Thank you," McLeod said, and then turned to Chisholm. "Now I'd like a look at where you said you think the vehicles parked."

Meanwhile, Peregrine had set about his own work, preparing to settle in while McLeod and Chisholm inspected the stones and then moved off to find lolo MacFarlane. Before he could even begin to draw, his initial task was to isolate the impressions of immediate relevance from the surging background sea of historical images. At such an ancient site, it would not be easy.

Moving outside the circle of stones, Peregrine withdrew along the western arm of the cross until he could find an angle that gave him an overall view of the central circle. Taking shelter in the lee of one of the stones, he pulled off his right glove and opened his sketch box long enough to remove a sketch pad and pencil, then gave the box into Harry's keeping while he turned his attention to the circle stretched before him.

A slowly drawn breath eased him into trance with a smoothness born of practice as he set himself to filter out all the other resonances, layer by layer, until he at last was left focused on a stratum of dark images from the immediate past. Under cover of blowing on his fingers to warm them, he set the stone of his Adept ring briefly to his lips, commending himself to the guidance and protection of the Light, then set pencil to paper and let the dark images channel through his drawing hand. Wholly absorbed in his work, Peregrine soon ceased to be aware of anything else.

He worked thus for perhaps half an hour, changing location several times, filling half a dozen pages of his sketchbook with impressions. Harry observed the process with interest at first, but Peregrine's concentration clearly did not invite comment or conversation. Growing fidgety after a while, Harry circulated around the site on his own, making his own observations, increasingly restless but always drawn back to the young artist's side to see what was taking shape beneath his flying pencil, especially when Peregrine changed locations.

Peregrine had moved into the center of the circle to sketch, now sitting on his sketch box, which he'd retrieved from Harry. He was deep in a study of the dark stain where the bull had lain when Harry again returned to his side. This time, as he peered over Peregrine's shoulder, he found the other man's pencil strokes blurring in front of him like the ghost-image of a spinning propeller-blade, almost drawing him into the sketch.

Removing his sunglasses, Harry knuckled at his eyes and turned away. As he did so, his gaze lighted upon a blackened curl of something that looked like a small black snake lying on the ground beside the central monolith, just inside the blood-traced circle.

Curious, he moved closer to crouch in the lee of the monolith, prodding whatever it was with one earpiece of the glasses and then lifting it for a closer look. It was not a snake. He was just considering whether the object might be a narrow strip of bull's hide when it slid down the earpiece and onto his hand. Its touch triggered a startling and overwhelming cascade of alien images that set him reeling back to sit hard in the snow.

Harry's strangled exclamation jolted Peregrine from his sketching trance. Looking up sharply, he saw the barrister crumpling dazedly against the central monolith, eyes unseeing and fists clenched hard against his chest. Jamming his pencil through the spiral binding at the top of the sketch pad, Peregrine thrust the pad under his arm and sprang to Harry's aid.

"Harry!" he whispered urgently, seizing the man's arm and at the same time trying to block him from view by anyone who might be watching. "Harry, what's the matter?"

Both the scrap of hide and Harry's sunglasses had fallen from his fingers as he sat, and he shook his head in dazed bewilderment as he regained awareness of his surroundings - and his wet posterior.

"Christ!" he murmured under his breath, bracing himself against Peregrine and scrambling back to a crouch, brushing vainly at the seat of his trousers.

"What happened?" Peregrine demanded, giving Harry's arm a shake when he did not immediately respond. "Harry, are you all right?"