“You think so?”
Renquist spread his hands. “As I said before, I’m only guessing, but I have this feeling …”
Morbius snorted, wordless exasperation. The exalienist seemed unduly threatened by Renquist’s presence at Castle Fenrior. He had no doubt acted as Fenrior’s Dr. Stangelove for some time and was now afraid that his privileged and highly recompensed position was in jeopardy. “I cannot see, Herr Renquist, how the Urshu can be conscious, let alone sentient at this early stage of the process.”
Gallowglass surprised Renquist by taking his side.
“Th’ chick is conscious when i’ pecks its way oot th’ egg, isn’t i’?”
“One can hardly equate the waking of an Urshu with the hatching of a common fowl.”
Morbius was beginning to irritate Renquist. “I don’t see why not. The principle is very similar.”
Morbius decided to ignore Renquist and direct his next remark to Fenrior alone. “My lord, perhaps we should consider removing some of the outer casing ourselves?”
Fenrior turned to Renquist, and Renquist shook his head. “I think that’s a very bad idea.”
Morbius’s sneer came with a heavy layer of accent. “From the man who opened the door of the burial chamber without a clue as to what might happen?”
“That’s exactly why I would urge caution. I’ve had my fingers burned once, which makes me circumspect about sticking my hand into the fire a second time.”
Morbius’s tone was close to snippy. “It’s easy to be knowledgeable after the fact.”
Renquist’s irritation boiled up into anger. “Listen, little man. When I’m asked for my opinion, I give it, strictly for what it’s worth. I’m not here to debate each point with an individual who once believed in a cure for vampirism.”
Fenrior intervened. “Gentlemen, gentlemen, no rancor, please. We are all working in the dark here, and all suggestions are welcome, and must be entertained, both the mundane and the outlandish.”
If Fenrior wanted outlandish, Renquist was quite prepared to give it to him. “Are Columbine Dashwood and her companions still being monitored?”
Gallowglass answered. “Aye, tha’ they are.”
“And are they still on their way here?”
“Aye.”
“Would it be possible to intercept them and bring them here as fast as possible?”
“Aye.”
“Then I suggest we do exactly that. If I’m wrong, no harm will be done, but if I’m right, it could have a profound effect on the Merlin’s waking.”
Gallowglass looked at Fenrior. “Master Renquist ha’ a point there, m’ lord.”
Another piece of the cocoon’s outer shell came loose and crashed to the floor.
Columbine was shaking like a human. Julia gripped the steering wheel of the Range Rover with tense hands. “I think it might be best if we pulled over.”
Marieko had recovered sufficiently to speak. “Just keep driving. I think Columbine’s only hope is to get to the Merlin as soon as possible.”
“What did you see in there?”
“It’s impossible to describe. A vast sucking blackness, lights drifting but illuminating nothing, and casting no shadows. This terrible, crushing need to escape, and a feeling like falling. I swear the Urshu is pulling her to him.”
Destry was leaning back, doubled over the front passenger seat. “Are you sure you’re not projecting?”
“I’m sure.”
Julia took her eyes off the road and glanced back. “How do we know, by going on to Fenrior, we’re not just rushing into a trap?”
“We don’t.”
“Could you go back in there, and maybe look for something a little more concrete?”
Marieko’s jaw was set. “I’m not going in there again. I’ve already seen enough. She’s become an integral part of the Merlin’s waking. I can’t explain how or why, but she feels she either has to go there or perish. I think it’s this link with the Merlin causing her progressively deteriorating behavior. I think he’s using her as a source of energy.”
Destry wasn’t quite ready to buy the last part. “Columbine’s always been a pill.”
“But never as bad as recently.”
Julia glanced quickly at Destry. “Do you think we should still go straight to Fenrior?”
Destry slid back down into her seat and nodded. “If that’s what Marieko says, it’s good enough for me.”
“What about the horse? What about Dormandu?”
Destry cursed, but Julia was ahead of her. “The meeting place with the horse box is on the way. We proceed according to plan. If it’s already there, we take it and one of us drives Dormandu to Fenrior.”
“What about the driver?”
“We kill or incapacitate him.”
“Simple as that?”
“Simple as that. I mean, we’ve hardly been covering our tracks in this trip. What’s another body, more or less?”
The outer shell of the Merlin’s cocoon was halfway broken away, exposing a translucent membrane, beneath which it was just possible to make out a man-shaped form. The viscous liquid had ceased to flow, and now only moisture coated the surface of the membrane. Fenrior stood close, and for the first time, Renquist saw the lord succumb to visible anxiety. His aura was suffused with worry, and he wasn’t bothering to hide it. “If any record existed of an Urshu waking, we might have a clue if it was all supposed to be like this.”
Morbius waxed pompous from a distance. “We all go blindly into the unknown. Such is the nature of exploration.”
Fenrior snarled. “Shut the fuck up, you dwarf.”
Renquist was equally at a loss, and didn’t mind admitting it. Both males were totally accustomed to being both well informed and in control, but the current circumstances were beyond even their extensive experience. Those observing the waking of Taliesin had now divided into two distinct factions. Fenrior and Renquist stood alone, while those who were not monitoring the
curious assortment of instruments, were grouped around Gallowglass. Morbius fumed because Renquist had usurped his access to the lord, but there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. If he dared speak, it only got worse. The shadows of the two groups constantly shifted and shimmered, as bright radiation alternately surged and faded through the underground chamber. At a fairly regular rate, the surface of the membrane would emit a ripple of static that would grow increasingly powerful, until it arced off, snapping in a jagged curve to the sphere at the top of the Tesla column. At the first of the these, Fenrior had remarked dryly, “So Tesla was correct, even if he claimed to know less than we did.”
When the cocoon had started to shed its outer shell, the ripples had appeared completely random, but then Gallowglass had the initiative to start timing them on his large pocket chronometer. At first the pulses of power had been twenty minutes apart, but then the intervals had progressively dropped to fifteen, ten, and finally five. The obvious correlation was that of being present at a birth. The birth, however, was taking place in what was rapidly becoming a sauna. The energy flow had produced a damp heat in the chamber. Renquist had removed his jacket, and Fenrior was down to his waistcoat and jeans.
“I can’t shake the feeling there’s something missing. The Urshu is throwing off this vast flow of radiation, but is taking nothing in. Can a change of state occur without some kind of energy intake?”
Renquist was too tired to be anything but blunt. “After her dreams and the link your lads tracked from Morton Downs to Ravenkeep, Columbine has to be the missing factor.”
“I’m sending out a Hummer to bring them in.”
“The Hummer isn’t much faster than their Range Rover.”
Fenrior smiled for the first time in a while. “No, but my lads know the way.”
“I though you’d sent them already.”
“I was going to send Duncanon, but then I thought this might cause you a problem.”
“It would. The lad doesn’t like me.”
“So I sent Shaggy Lachlan instead.” Fenrior hesitated. “There was one thing I thought I should check with you first, though, Renquist.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re saying the purpose of having Columbine here would be for the Merlin to take something from her?”
“That’s precisely what I’m saying.”
“Did you consider that although it might well be a benign and symbiotic exchange, it could also be completely one-sided and highly destructive to Miss Dashwood?”
Renquist’s nodded. “I considered that.”
“And it doesn’t create any ethical issue?”
Renquist’d shrouded his aura. “I think we have to take the calculated risk.”
“Even though the risk is actually incalculable?”
Renquist’s voice was soft and chill. “Let’s just get her here and see what happens.”
An ancient nosferatu with clan tattoos covering his badly scarred face was leaning out of the passenger window of the black Hummer yelling furiously at Marieko, but his accent was so impenetrably thick, she was at a loss to know what he was saying. Then the Hummer, headlights blazing, got in front of her. It speeded up and she realized the driver was making it possible for her to go faster. He completely knew the road and could take it at a much higher speed. All Marieko had to do was follow in the after-images of his taillights. An element of danger was present, but Marieko’s nosferatu reactions made it possible to follow in a way that would have caused a human to spin out on a turn or plow fatally into the back of the lead vehicle. Although she still had no idea exactly what the old Highlander had been yelling, the gist
of the message seemed to be that someone in Fenrior wanted Columbine at the Castle as badly as Marieko wanted to get her there. She was, of course, leaving the horse box far behind. No way could the tall, swaying trailer-truck match the speeds of the Range Rover and the Hummer. The brief alliance of the four females was sundered into separate pairs with no means of communication between them.
Marieko, Destry, Julia, and Columbine had made it into Scotland fairly uneventfully after the bloodbath at the motel, except, of course, for Columbine mentally and physically deteriorating in the backseat. They had reached the appointed meeting place to discover the horse box carrying Dormandu was already there and waiting. The horse was decidedly put out after what he considered a swaying incarceration, but beyond that, all appeared to have gone to plan. The driver, of course, had to be incapacitated, which seemed less than strictly fair to Marieko. He was a superficially reasonable and trustworthy human who would have a great deal of trouble explaining to his employers how he had managed to mislay both horse and vehicle, and have absolutely no idea or memory of how such a thing could have happened.
Even before the rendezvous, they had decided, once they had Dormandu and the horse box, they would split their forces. Marieko knew it was against the classic tenets of strategy, but there seemed to be little choice. Bringing Dormandu had been an impulsive flourish on the part of Julia, which, so far, had proved a total hindrance, but what was done was done, and they had to live with it. Marieko, and the now sweating, shaking, and completely incoherent Columbine, would drive in the Range Rover at all speed to Fenrior and, once there, demand that she be taken immediately to the Taliesin cocoon, or whatever state of his metamorphosis the Merlin might currently occupy. Thus Marieko wasn’t too
concerned when, in chasing the fast-moving Hummer, she completely left the horse box behind.
The moment she had seen the Hummer coming toward her, she’d known it had to be from Fenrior Castle. Few enough of the U.S. military vehicles were on the roads of England. Tinted windows made it impossible to see inside, but her deep vision revealed four male nosferatu, and in all probability they’d been sent to intercept her. Marieko had decided not to slow the Ranger Rover as the truck approached. The encounter could only go two ways. Either these Highlanders had been sent to bring her to Fenrior as fast as possible or to prevent her from getting there. If it was the latter, slowing down would only make it easier for them, and if the intention was the former, speed was actually of the essence. The two vehicles passed close on the narrow two-lane road, each doing at least seventy. Marieko kept on going, but the Hummer immediately executed a wheel-spinning, three-point turn and came after her, placing itself neatly between the Rover and the horse box.
At first the Hummer followed her, fast, crowding her, forcing her to put the hammer down and press on the speed to prevent herself from being rear-ended. Now the speedometers of both vehicles were well into the eighties. Then, with one set of wheels on the grass verge beside the road, the Hummer had pulled abreast of her. Only advanced nosferatu driving stopped the two trucks from smashing into each other in the darkness. The confused and one-sided conversation had followed, but even though that communication failed, all had at last become clear. The Hummer was there to speed her progress, not stop her. They apparently shared a common objective.
Despite her undead skill behind the wheel, Marieko all but lost the road when she followed the racing Hummer over what turned out to the last ridge, and she had her first sight of the castle. The moon was a white-blue, blind wolf’s eye in the sky, and it reflected in the still waters of the loch, from which the castle itself reared
blackly on its own small island, as implacable and seeming permanent as the bedrock of its foundations. Her hands momentarily froze on the steering wheel as she felt herself transported back in time to when she’d been fresh from the Change, with a novice’s angry hunger and razor energy. The Japanese fortresses of the nosferatu lords were architecturally very different to Fenrior, but the atmosphere couldn’t have been more similar. Fenrior was shrouded in a cumulative psychic haze created by the presence of a large community of the undead. Such collective auras were now a rarity, largely a remembrance of the past, as the large communities of the undead vanished one by one.