Disciples of the Serpent: A Novel of the O.C.L.T.

by Williams, Sidney

  He paused just a moment, thinking.

  “Since we don’t quite know what we’re up against, we do have an artifact that might be handy.”

  He tapped his Bluetooth again. “Bring up the sword,” he said.

  Bullfinch lifted an eyebrow.

  “You may have noticed we have some unusual objects and other items around here.”

  “I saw the dog and that blue—” O’Donnell started.

  “Not all odd finds come our way, obviously, but quite a few do,” Rees said. “Some men found this weapon in a spot in County Sligo after a flood. We’ve been studying its markings and properties, and it’s been in the vault a while for safekeeping.”

  “Age?” Bullfinch asked.

  “Probably Bronze Age, older.”

  A worker in a white jumpsuit brought in a long item wrapped in a cloth.

  “It features some kind of symbols on the blade, not quite like Ogham or the secret markings, but it seems to have some unusual properties and seems to store or channel energy,” Rees explained. He folded back the cloth and gave the sword a bit of a shake. It seemed to produce a slight hum.

  “Who knows, could be something we might need.”

  O’Donnell and Bullfinch moved in to look over the markings which lined the blade from top to bottom.”

  “We cleaned some rust away after a good bit of debate,” Rees said.

  “Can’t hurt to have it on hand,” Bullfinch agreed.

  Rees tested its weight a bit. “We’ve jokingly said it might be the Celtic deity Lugh’s sword of lightning.”

  “He was called Lugh Lámhfhada, Lugh of the Long Arm,” Bullfinch said. “Recent study associates him with comets and their appearance, and some say the lines between Lugh and Patrick as mythic heroes blur a bit. Perhaps he was a man who found an alien sword.”

  Bullfinch had been focused again on the map until the sword mention, studying the surrounding terrain. He turned his focus back to that now. Bring it along. “Looks like there’s a field close enough by to set down.”

  “All right, let’s move,” Rees said.

  Thirty

  When the shovel blade struck something a few inches down, Keon sighed with relief. After a few layers of dirt had been piled beside the hole, he’d begun to worry his memory had grown fuzzy, and at least the short man seemed to be armed.

  Now, here it was, the old stone. He knelt and brushed dirt back and wedged fingers under the piece, working it side to side until he’d pulled it free. He turned it over in his hands then, feeling the cold and the damp as he searched for the marking. It was on the side that had faced down, so he had to scrape back a layer of dirt caked to it and then run a fingernail along the etched canals to clear more flakes away.

  But then he was looking at it, and the angled lines and upticks were familiar again, and it was as if he’d been here yesterday, looking at the piece one last time before sinking it in the hole.

  For a moment, he was the self he’d been all those years ago. With great clarity, he recalled how he’d wondered then what would become of it, when it would be found and what would be happening at the time. Suddenly, in a flash, he was here and he knew, and the time between seemed like mere seconds.

  For one heartbeat, he felt a bit of elation. The experiment had generated more fervor than he could have ever imagined. It had worked. It had done what they’d thought it might, grown into a new tendril of belief.

  Now he had to ask the same thing he’d read about one of the Americans who’d worked on the Manhattan Project. When the first bomb dropped he’d felt a sense of elation because it worked. In the next instant, he thought: “My God, what have we wrought.”

  What had they wrought?

  Perhaps he’d crush the stone here and now. Better to never find out. Better to never know if they’d re-constructed an elaborate secret alphabet that bore real power or if they’d played a fun game with old legends. He’d decided long ago never to let the computer with his algorithm on a network. Back in the day, that hadn’t been quite as hard as it would be now.

  That isolation didn’t mean someone couldn’t re-create what he’d done, but until now, as far as he was aware, no one in the disparate circles had attempted it. It wasn’t quite in the wheel house of many of those the whispers had attracted. Unfortunately, more sophisticated converts had arrived. The only good thing was that building and running an algorithm took time. Finding a rock was perhaps easier.

  He looked around for a spot to put down the rock he held. He could pry loose another heavy stone from somewhere in the ruins and smash it. He could obliterate the last piece. Put an end to this. End it all.

  He took a step toward a sloping central wall. Perhaps he could just bang it against that. For all its age, it appeared sturdy enough.

  The sound of footfalls made him pause. He turned his head just enough to give him peripheral vision over his right shoulder. The figure that stood back, almost at a diagonal, was a blur. Tall, draped in a coat, head shrouded. He didn’t see a weapon, and as his heart fluttered he prepared to run.

  He didn’t take a step.

  Something coiled around his abdomen. Something that constricted and held him fast. Something not cold but moist. He felt the moisture through his shirt. Then he turned his head a little more and confirmed what he’d feared, what his brain had suddenly screamed at him.

  The tentacle encircling him stretched from the figure he’d thought to be just a man.

  Thirty-One

  “Here’s an empty hole,” O’Donnell said.

  “I think I found something,” she added in a raised voice when she realized she hadn’t been heard over the wind that swirled through the complex.

  The blue, yellow and white Garda chopper, piloted by Jimmy Ahlstrom, a small and overly jovial man with a slight tick tic, had landed five minutes earlier. “I promise to wait on ya,” he’d said. “For a while.”

  She’d given him a glare and they’d hiked from the nearby field and fanned out as they’d spotted the silhouette of the stone remains on the horizon. O’Donnell had had her weapon ready, keeping Kaity at her side to protect her, but as they moved through the various arches and around the ruined walls, the place proved pretty quickly to be deserted.

  She cursed under her breath. Minutes short of the goal.

  “Dirt’s fresh. Been here and gone,” she said, spinning as she spoke to look around and make sure “here and gone” was accurate.

  “Maybe Keon got the stone and ran before the others got here,” Kaity said.

  “Let’s hope for that, but, dammit, back to square one either way. We don’t know where he went.”

  Rees had eyes out among traditional Garda forces, but they couldn’t see and be everywhere. Bullfinch approached from off to the right, a hand on his hat to keep it from being lifted by the breeze. His coat sounded like a ship’s sail as the wind assaulted.

  “Any ideas?” she asked. “Because it’s lookin’ like we got nothin’.”

  He was about to speak when Rees came in from the direction he’d been searching, sidearm pressed at his side, finger on that bloody earpiece as usual.

  “What’s that? It’s windy out here,” he said in a raised voice.

  He dropped his free hand to his side a second later.

  “Couple of cars were just spotted near Cork Airport. Cluster of folks including a woman and a tall man. Black male in the mix.”

  “So we have efficient officers out there, but you’re not the only one with air power? And they’re literally in the wind.”

  “We’re requesting flight plans so we can figure it out, but they’re putting distance behind them. Air traffic control is saying they headed west.”

  “Leaving the country?”

  Bullfinch mulled the directions for a moment.

  “I have an idea where they might be headed,” he said. “If we want to risk a goose chase.”

  “There’s a storm coming,” Rees said. “We’re going to be grounded soon. Then we’re just sit
ting.”

  “Based on the hints of Rottman themes and the way they’re drawn to sacred places along with the interest in serpents, if they have the last piece they think they need, The Reek can’t be ruled out and that’s on your western shore.”

  “The Reek? Three hundred kilometers from here at least,” O’Donnell said.

  “But it fits. Croagh Patrick is the most sacred site in Ireland.”

  O’Donnell gave a hard nod. “I know, I know professor. You’re thinking it’s where St. Patrick is supposed to have faced off with Crom Cruach. It’s where these people will bring Crom back. You think that’s real?”

  “I’ve seen enough in the world to believe that anything’s possible. Have we heard anything from there Mr. Rees?”

  “I’ve asked people to be on alert. No reports yet.”

  “So they want to use these little squiggles and slashes to wake everything up like you’ve been dreading?” O’Donnell asked.

  “Possibly.”

  “Clew Bay is filled with little islands an’ pockets,” Rees said. “Lots of places for an entity to hide.”

  “I can’t say I believe that,” O’Donnell said. “But maybe it’ll get everyone involved in our murders into one place, and maybe we can stop a few more.”

  “Whatever they’re up to, it’s the Aisteach’s job to check it out,” Rees said. “Let’s get the bird in the air before the Jimmy gets itchy about the weather.”

  “If he’s nervous, maybe that’ll stop his goddamned jokes,” O’Donnell said.

  Thirty-Two

  Freya’s heart fluttered and her breath tightened. They were so close. So close to unleashing everything she’d read about, everything she’d heard whispered in her first encounter with a believer and the meetings that followed.

  She leaned against the small plane’s bulkhead, looking out her window at the country below as the engines droned. Soon it would be a different place, a re-shaped and re-imagined island.

  As she’d listened in that first musty and cramped little room on a side street about what followers of the serpent and Madam Quiñones hoped to bring about, she’d contemplated a new world, a new form of empowerment.

  A world born of chaos, reshaped, reimagined by the disciples once the Ning—many names were used, but that was the one she preferred—had been unleashed.

  The Brothers Groom had their plans, their ideas, things they wanted out of this, but she would have her place, her own opportunities to carve a new existence and a new corner of the world. A new place for girls like her from poor families with no resources or protections.

  “Would you like wine?”

  Edward asking. The other brother was buckled into a seat and sat slumped and silent.

  “No, thanks. I need to keep my wits sharp.”

  The people after them weren’t idiots. They didn’t understand what was about to happen, but they weren’t idiots. The old man had eluded Mike and skilled gunmen. The woman was clearly formidable. They were dedicated and as tenacious as she and the others. By nature, they’d want to interfere.

  She watched Mike lift a hand, declining a drink as well. She didn’t care for him, but at least he’d be handy if they met opposition at the heart of the ritual.

  Let them come.

  A black car met them at the airport. The brothers were a bit long on style. They rode quietly, the Grooms and Malphas still sipping wine as they cruised to a rendezvous at a café a couple of miles from the airport.

  They piled from the vehicle there, William helped into his chair, for a quick trip to the back of a lorry parked at the edge of the gravel parking lot. A couple of workmen with beards and heavy jackets waited.

  “Everything’s as you wanted,” one of them said when the brothers approached.

  The other worker, tall and less talkative, drew back a canvas flap that covered the back of the vehicle, and the brothers edged forward. Edward took a look inside, then nodded an assurance to William as Malphas approached.

  The old man stepped between them and peered into the truck’s shadowy depths. He stared in for just a second and seemed satisfied, then gestured for Freya to step forward.

  She joined him along with Jaager, and they looked in at neatly piled rows of fresh, smooth timber stakes, small poles really, nicely rounded, sharpened at their ends. She could smell the rich, fresh aroma of the wood.

  “Perfect,” the old man said.

  Jaager leaned forward and took one of the posts, sliding it toward them until the upper end emerged from shadow. One of the newly found symbols had been burned into a spot leaving shallow black indentations of about nine or ten millimeters. The lines and slashes looked precise and clean.

  Another bearded workman in a plaid wool vest stepped to their sides and leaned into the lorry, searching just for a second for an unmarked post. When he found it, he nodded to another who helped him slide it out and lean the top of it on the bumper.

  “Do you have the last marking?” he asked.

  Freya produced her phone and offered a photo she’d snapped of the last image after they’d brought the stone out of the ground and dusted it off.

  “Get the original,” the old man said. “We don’t want any mistakes.”

  Freya and Jaager headed back to the vehicle they’d arrived in. Mike had waited near it and popped the trunk now with an electronic key ring. Jaager, who’d followed, lifted the stone and the leather shammy they’d wrapped around it.

  Before he could slam it, the car began to rock or at least bounce a bit.

  Freya jerked her head toward the truck to send him on, then walked to the door and looked in at the African.

  “What are you people doing?” he shouted through the glass.

  They’d kept him seated in the back of the sedan, hands bound behind him.

  “Shut up,” Mike said, tossing a cigarette and returning from the spot where he’d dropped back to observe the activities.

  “You’ll see,” Freya said, giving him a wry smile. “You’ll see how right you were all along.”

  She followed Jaager to the truck again where he turned the stone so that the symbol was there for the workman.

  “Don’t you need to make a stencil?” she asked.

  “Ideally,” the bearded workman said. “But I’ve got this.”

  He slipped a small, cordless power tool, shaped almost like a power screwdriver, from his vest pocket. Instead of a screwdriver head it featured a small, cylindrical stone head. As he thumbed the power button, LED lights lit up around the nose.

  Satisfied it was at full strength, he leaned into the post and, with the tool held almost like a pencil, he began to etch a new version of the marking from the stone.

  “You gonna climb the mountain with those?” Keon shouted from his spot.

  Mike stepped to the window and delivered a light backhand whack to the side of his face, designed to deliver a sting rather than a bruising blow, it appeared.

  “We won’t need to go that high,” the old man said. “The power’s in the earth, and we’re looking to the sea.”

  The brothers had cell phones out, speaking as they watched, bending against the wind but eyes wide with excitement. Freya couldn’t be sure who they were calling, but clearly they had people waiting to hear the outcome, people as anxious as they were. She had to admit they’d made the operation easier, especially this final component. It made the construction of the implements easy as well. Out-of-work craftsmen didn’t ask many questions.

  “The others can be put in place while he finishes,” Malphas said. “There are some old walls near the edge of the bay. I’ll show you the placement.”

  A few drops of cold rain stung Freya’s cheeks, but she ignored them. A storm wouldn’t matter now.

  Too much was about to happen to be worried by a little rain.

  Rain spattered the chopper’s cockpit windshield and streaked across the curved surface as the cabin tilted from side to side, buffeted by wind blasts that seemed to slam them from beneath.

&
nbsp; “ETA?” Rees asked.

  “Better part of an hour in this wind and we’ll be dippin’ into the reserves at that,” Ahlstrom said. “I might have to finish on a prayer unless your guest here has any conjurin’ tricks up his sleeve.”

  “I’m not a magician,” Bullfinch said. Silently, he wished Rebecca were with them. There were ways, of course, but without a proper talisman or object, it was beyond him. “How are the ground forces doing?”

  Rees spoke briefly into his cell and came back to his headset mic.

  “They just reminded me we’re talking about a mountain,” Rees said. “There’s a lot of territory. No sightings of giant serpents yet. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just the usual pilgrims trying to keep dry.”

  “Some of those pilgrims are not there to worship the usual deity,” Bullfinch said over the chopper’s whirr and the wind. “They’ve got to spot them.”

  “Do you have any idea how these people are going to perpetrate this act?” Rees asked. “That might give us some direction.”

  “The literature is vague,” Bullfinch said. “If they’re inspired by Rottman’s works they’re going to want to peel back whatever barrier is in place or that they think is in place to unleash what he called The Ancients in his fiction. It’ll involve some channel of energy.”

  “Energy.”

  “It’s all about energy. Isn’t everything? It’s just how it’s manipulated, what form they’re using or hoping to harness. They could be looking to carve symbols directly into rock faces, but they’re going to be looking to the sea in some way, I suspect.”

  “I’ll suggest the officers on the ground need to be on the lookout,” Rees said.

  The burly man used a post hole digger to open up a patch of ground after kicking back rocks and pebbles at the point Freya indicated on an incline. Then, gripping the tool’s twin handles with work-gloved hands, he began to shape a smooth, round, and cylindrical hole.

  He ignored the bite of the cold rain and the wind that whipped at his poncho, and Freya watched the hole take shape from a few meters away, giving him room. She pressed the back of her hand down on top of head to keep a rain hat in place.