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

by Williams, Sidney

  She wheeled and headed for the door.

  “That might not last for as long as you think,” Freya called behind her. “Forever. Don’t get too comfortable as a jailer, detective. Don’t get too happy with yourself. Or your world.” She let her voice take on almost a lilt of song. “’Cause it may not last.”

  O’Donnell walked on to the door and let it slam behind her.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” O’Donnell asked once she’d entered the observation room.

  “Other operatives must be out there,” Bullfinch said. “We may not be dealing with just finding out what’s just happened. She’s talking like there’s more to come.”

  “Any insights? Can we get ahead of this one with your knowledge of mythology?”

  “Croag Patrick isn’t the only spot where the snakes or dragons were battled…”

  “Or whatever the hell that was in the bay?” Rees asked, stepping over to form a small circle with them.

  “Right,” Bullfinch said. “Whatever it was. The legends hold that there was another location where serpents were banished. If we want to marshal our forces that’s probably the one to gamble on. Mr. Rees, I’m sure you know where Skellig Michael is.”

  “As far South as you can get in this country.”

  “There are a few legends that hold that St. Patrick worked there as well in the driving out of serpents or dragons,” Bullfinch said. “Since we’ve seen there may be some kind of truth to it, maybe things were driven into the water in both places and locked down for a better word.”

  O’Donnell drew in a breath. “There are more like that thing?”

  “We’ve seen that there’s at least a bit of lore to that effect,” Bullfinch said. “Not as many sources claim Skellig Michael as Croag Patrick, but clearly we’re seeing precedent for the folklore, so I don’t know that we need to split hairs if we want to go all in on that spot. Legend holds Patrick needed the assistance of St. Michael the Archangel for what he faced in the South.”

  “Oh, that St. Michael,” O’Donnell said.

  Bullfinch nodded.

  “O.C.L.T. have any choirs of angels on speed dial?”

  “Sorry. We haven’t really managed to tap into that line of communication,” Bullfinch said.

  Thirty-Seven

  Kaity scrolled through the pictures on the phone, photo after photo of symbols in odd places.

  They’d given her a blanket and hot coffee and put her in a waiting room upon reaching headquarters. She sipped her bitter brew and studied the old markings. Some were familiar from her student days, and the locations were apparent, even though the images were cropped tight. It brought back memories again of the grand game in the day.

  She closed her eyes and felt a bit of elation. The information they’d assembled to beat as the heart of their little thought experiment all those years ago had proven true. Just as she’d begun to suspect even then. Keon had suspected it as well. As had some of the others.

  Keon’s anxiety had led to the concealment of the characters so that no one group member possessed them all. Except him. Though some had felt it absurd, there was just that outside notion that it might be true.

  And it was. She’d felt heart palpitations as the waterspout had swirled. Even some in the old group would have said it was just a weather incident that coincided with the attempted ritual. She knew better. She’d see the thing dancing in the haze and darkness.

  And she held all of the pieces now, even the last one only Keon had known and kept to himself as the check on the process.

  Freya had put on a good show when the Aisteach team had come to her apartment, making the abduction attempt look real, choosing to protect her when they’d stepped in.

  No need to tie her to Professor Burke’s unfortunate death or hinder her viability in carrying on. She’d be safe and available now to keep going, to keep the work alive, to pursue the second possibility. That had been an instinctive decision on Freya’s part, but it had proved to be wise.

  Kaity felt a bit of satisfaction in that. She’d drifted into the gatherings that had formed around their secret symbols, first as an observer, just seeing what had taken off. Then more gradually she had become a believer in the invention she’d helped launch. She’d been part of the small group that had welcomed Freya the first time she’d wandered in, looking lost and frightened and seeking something. She hadn’t appeared to be someone who’d become a key lieutenant, but her inner strength had emerged as she’d embraced the vision of the Ning and then found the confidence that came with the power, and she’d set out to perfect her physical prowess for service to the group.

  Freya had brought the mission a long way. There had been little opportunity to warn any of the others since they’d taken her into protective custody, but now, with the threat perceived to be reduced, perhaps she could step outside that shepherding arm.

  “Can I get a bit o’ fresh air?” she asked, leaning into a hallway and catching the eye of a uniformed officer.

  “Should be fine,” he said. “Would you like me to go with you?”

  “I’ll be OK,” she said. “I won’t go far.”

  He ushered her along the hall to a doorway and pushed it open, letting her step into a brisk, calmer evening.

  “Thank you,” she said, waiting until she was several paces from the building before she slipped out Freya’s phone and began to flip through recent calls.

  When she found the one that looked right, she hit the number and waited until she got a cautious: “Yes.”

  “The coppers here have suspicions about a backup plan, but things can still happen. We just need to work fast.”

  “Understood. We’re ready.”

  “We won’t be able to establish the kind of configuration we had at The Reek, but the other approach should be effective. What do you need?”

  “Transportation for me and a few others.”

  “Arrangements will be made.”

  “See you soon. The African?”

  “Bring him. He may still be helpful.”

  She rang off then dialed another number. “Get ready to travel,” she said. “I’m about to send you a photo from Freya’s phone. It’ll have to do.”

  Thirty-Eight

  O’Donnell splashed water on her face then watched the cascade stream from her cheeks in the little mirror over the basin in the small toilet area near the conference room.

  With this moment to reflect, she remembered the dream she’d had the night before Rees had turned up at her door. It had almost been a prophecy.

  Her gaze found her eyes in the reflection, and she stared, studying, looking for signs of madness or some indication that she might wake up…

  “We’re combing through Rottman stories for banishments,” Crease said as Bullfinch sat looking into his features on his tablet. “Whatever research or knowledge he stumbled on, seems to have had some accuracy. That may be closer to unearth than an archaeological dig.”

  “I’ll take a pulp solution over no solution,” Bullfinch said. “A lot of the stories have come back to me, but I haven’t read them all and some are fuzzy.”

  He sat in a van with O’Donnell and Rees again, heading toward a Garda helipad, massaging his temple with his free hand, wishing he had his younger brain again.

  “Have you ever heard of a story called ‘The Provocation from Below?’” Crease asked.

  “No.”

  “Rebecca York seemed to remember mention of it, but it’s possibly the most obscure. It wasn’t collected in any of the early hardbound resurrections of Rottman’s work, and it’s rarely been seen.”

  “Even on the web?”

  “Alluded to but not really distributed. She’s in Chicago, so she’s going to head to the special collections at the Chicago Public Library. We understand the original pulp magazine that featured the story is there. This was Rottman so it was pretty obscure.”

  “Worth a try,” Bullfinch said. “Worth a try.”

  “At this point, anything i
s.”

  Meanwhile, Rees had the Coast Guard on the line again, delivering an alert that ships might be needed in the area around Skellig Michael and that having the Brits on alert might not be a bad idea. They had subs with nukes. He added tumultuous seas just like those in Clew Bay might be expected.

  “I’m going to send you something else we ran across,” Crease said.

  An email alert popped up then faded on Bullfinch’s screen. He opened his in-box to find the bold subject line: “Chaos Infinitum.”

  Opening revealed a long, narrow column of text in the email body.

  “In final days as my despair climbed to new heights, I came to cherish the notion of a grand and infinite chaos…”

  “What is this?”

  “Rebecca said it’s an obscure Rottman prose poem. It basically champions the idea that chaos is needed to shatter the world’s complacency. It’s like a philosophical outline. We thought it might be at the heart of what you’re dealing with. To quote that sage The Joker: ‘Some men just want to watch the world burn.’”

  “Alfred said that,” Bullfinch said. “Some people say I look a little like the previous Alfred so I keep up with these things.”

  “Gandalf came to my mind, first time I saw you,” O’Donnell said from the seat beside him. “Gandalf with a haircut and a natty suit.”

  “So we’re looking at a grand plan for chaos,” Bullfinch said. “Someone seizing on the same ideas in this poem.”

  “You let your snake demons loose on an island nation,” Crease said, “there’s a pretty good chance that’s what you’ll achieve.”

  “Does the lost Rottman story offer a closing ritual?”

  “That may be asking a bit much.”

  A sedan pulled to a stop at the curb where Kaity waited with two young women at her side.

  “I get The Brothers Groom in person?”

  “It’s supposed to be a secret,” Edward Groom said. “But we’re here and looking forward to a new economic canvass.”

  His brother beside him wore shades in spite of the dark interior along with an expensive black Burberry with hood up and toggles buttoned.

  Kaity gave him a nod then gestured for the young women to slide in first before she followed.

  “Can you deliver?” a voice croaked.

  Kaity stared back at him.

  “As we told you, we’re relying on variables we didn’t have at The Reek, but we should be able to make something work in the South. The cosmic moment is close enough that ripples should be flowing through the ether, so to speak.”

  She nodded toward a pair of young women who looked to be in their early twenties. “Alison and Nelda here will fill you in on the technical points. They’ve been working carefully for us for a while on a couple of fronts, not just as monitors. We can go over what we need to make things work.”

  “I’ve sketched out a rough schematic of the second configuration,” Alison said, slipping a paper with a rough pencil drawing from her coat pocket. “Now if we could transfer just a bit of equipment that we have access to.”

  Thirty-Nine

  “Amazing view,” O’Donnell said.

  Her voice carried just a hint of rancor as she stood near a low stone wall looking across a misty expanse of water at Small Skellig, a kilometer and a half away.

  They were a while past dawn. She’d grabbed fitful sleep only in snippets during travel time, but she’d managed enough of a doze to dream of writhing serpents that produced a grim aftereffect in waking.

  Usually the island was occupied by birds from what she understood. Through the haze, she saw more than feathered friends. A black-garbed tactical squad, drawn from a Garda regional support unit stood facing the water, weapons held at-ease but ready. They were usually scrambled to deal with hostage situations or riots. This was a little different for them.

  She and Bullfinch had followed a narrow trail once a chopper had deposited them on Great Skellig. Somehow they’d drawn Jimmy Ahlstrom again. He’d showered and rested while they were interrogating, so he’d asked for the assignment, chipper and un-rattled by what they’d seen at the bay.

  “The monastic settlement is a UNESCO World Heritage Site now, so let’s be careful.”

  “I know they used it in Star Wars, too,” O’Donnell said. “Don’t want to mess up Luke’s refuge. I heard he wound up dangling from one of these cliffs or something.”

  “I believe that was apocryphal,” Rees said. “Whatever keeps it from getting blown up.”

  “That’s entirely up to the snake handlers,” O’Donnell said. “I believe they’re ‘it’ in this little game of whack-a-mole. Isn’t that what the Americans call it, Professor?”

  Bullfinch had been scanning the horizon, eyes in a squint as much for focus as to shut out the wind sweeping in from the water.

  “It is,” Bullfinch said. “Another metaphor comes to mind. Want to deal with a snake, you cut off its head. That may be the challenge, once we complete the task at hand.”

  O’Donnell tilted her head toward the water below them. Waves and ripples tossed about, but it was calm compared to what they’d seen at the bay.

  “What’s down there? Another?”

  “Maybe nothing. Maybe another. Maybe the queen of the thing we saw at County Mayo. Maybe they’re somewhere else we don’t know about. Maybe they’re regrouping and they’ll try after we’re gone. Or maybe there’s something compelling them to act faster like an alignment of the stars we don’t know about.”

  “Saving the world’s a tough business. You’re kind of confirming what I’ve always felt. It’s all random.”

  “We’re making an educated guess,” Bullfinch said. “Against high strangeness. It’s always a bit daunting.”

  Keon had thought himself too tense to sleep, but in the stuffy air of the van where they’d locked him away, he’d felt his eyes grow heavy and the center of his brain had dulled. That had spread outward until his head had slumped down onto soft canvass bags stacked next to him.

  When he dreamed, he heard the call, the distant rumbling something that had come to his sleep in the old days. That something wanted and waited, and in the dream he seeped into its thinking and felt the longing mixed with malevolent desire.

  He’d thought back in the old days when the dream came that it arrived because he’d spent so much time pouring over the old lore and the faded printouts of almost-lost pulp stories and fanzine articles and theories, but he had worried also. What if the dream represented more than imagination? What if it was a clarion call? A summoning?

  The apprehension from long ago returned and permeated a detached portion of his brain in the dream, the nagging worry of a truth almost too horrible intertwining with the sense of hunger for awakening and…fury…in the mind of the something.

  It didn’t crave destruction, but it longed to be set free, and in that freedom brewed a frenzy he could sense would mean collateral carnage. Yet its desire almost cancelled the apprehension he felt. The want, the calling to be aided in release was powerful and mesmerizing.

  His mind’s eye peered through shadow and mist, upward through a covering of water and waves. He sensed massive size around him in the cold dark, could feel appendages and power along with hope and…rage. Rage at some lost enemy and at newer enemies who’d shut a dimensional doorway…

  Ka-thunk!

  When the sound stirred him, drew him out of the odd and extraordinary consciousness, Keon wasn’t sure how long he’d been out of things or how far the van had traveled. He shook his head a bit and took a moment in remembering where he was. Just a heartbeat later, the dread exploded near his sternum. What had he felt? What had been wrought while he slept?

  Light splashed in from outside as the van door swung open and chill quickened Keon’s awakening. He blinked, then focused, first on the familiar. Kaity stood at the van doors. He didn’t recognize the men beside her, stoic operatives looking like U.S. Secret Service men.

  “What the hell’s going on?”

 
He didn’t like the look in her eyes. They betrayed something. He could read a fervor that hinted some deep conviction. He could imagine what that meant.

  “It was incredible,” she said.

  “My God, Kaity. What have you done?”

  “It’s real, Keon. All of it. There was a frantic nightmare in the bay. They stopped it…”

  And Keon’s heart beat again at that announcement.

  “…but it was wondrous. It had to be Crom Cruach. So powerful. Everthin’ we ever talked about was true. They broke the chain that channeled earth energy and sealed the crypt again there, but we’re gonna try while the stars are still right. We’re gonna try the Song of the Air.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re in County Kerry. If waking the thing at The Reek almost worked, we can try again for what’s said to be off the Iveragh. We don’t know which was parent and which was child, but if the one at Clew Bay was the infant, we could be looking at something incredible. I heard news the other day talking about comets in the old days. That was them, them comin’ down.”

  “Something wants to be set free,” he said in a low whisper. “I sensed it in the dream.”

  He shouldn’t have said that. He saw the wonder spread across her features. She almost babbled in her excitement.

  “You felt the dream? Then something’s close. Others’ll feel it too. They’ll be coming here to join those we’ve rallied. Madam Quiñones said she had visions of that.”

  “Kaity, listen to yourself. Do you know what this means? It’s not a joke, not a game. Proving the theory is…”

  “A breakthrough. A revelation.”

  “It’s destruction.”

  “It’s fire so that something new can be created. Something our little minds can’t even comprehend.”

  “Or maybe it’s just chaos, Kaity. The old orders hid things for a reason.”

  “And someone even back then tried to preserve them, wrote things on walls so they wouldn’t be lost. Some knew the knowledge would be needed again. They looked forward to new millennium.”