The Sacrifice of Setting Loose (1): As we have seen,
the greater the sacrifice, the greater the energies loosed.
This is an age of War, when the earth has drunk the
sacrificial blood of millions. The world lies primed,
for a transformative spark.
Testimony, IV:8
The scream that came from my throat was instantly stifled, emerging as a strangled death-rattle. Before Damian could turn I was already gone, attacking my attacker.
My muscles responded automatically to the hand on my shoulder, but as instantly lost all strength at the hasty whisper, “Russell!”
“Holmes? Holmes! What the hell are you—Quick, away from the window.”
I pushed him away, to the corner and beyond, then eased my head back: A shadow pressed against the window, looking for the sound; after a minute, it retreated. I turned and punched Holmes on the chest.
“Damn it, Holmes, what are you doing here? You were on your way to Norway, for God’s sake.”
“You did not receive my message?”
“No—how would I receive a message? I haven’t heard a word from you since you left London.”
“Interesting. I’d have thought Mycroft …”
“Holmes.”
“I rethought my plans.”
“Obviously.”
“ ‘Many things having full reference to one consent, may work contrariously; as many arrows, loosed several ways, fly to one mark.’ ”
“Holmes!”
“Shakespeare, on bees. Henry the Fifth,” he added.
“Damn it, Holmes!”
“I decided you were right.”
“You decided—? Good heavens. Well, sweet bloody hell, I wish you’d let me know earlier, I nearly jumped through the window when you grabbed me.”
“That would have been unfortunate.”
I hit him again, for good measure, and felt somewhat better. Felt considerably better, in fact, with him at my side. I threw my arms around him and hugged him, hard, then stood back and explored his face with my hands.
“You haven’t shaved in days,” I exclaimed, “and why are you so damp? You’re freezing.”
“I have spent most of the past three days at sea,” he answered, which explained both the difficulty of shaving and the permeating moisture.
“We need to get you out of the cold.”
“That is of secondary importance.”
“They’re brewing tea, they won’t be going anywhere for a time. Let me just check—” I tip-toed back to the window, and glimpsed Damian unconcernedly pouring water into the tea-pot. I retrieved Holmes and led him towards the hotel’s out-buildings.
These were securely locked, but the padlock on the biggest one would not have challenged a child. The interior stank of fish and contained a lot of nets, poles, gum boots, and paddles, but in a window-less corner room I found a store of elderly bed-clothes and paraphernalia for the guests, from water carafes to expensive fly-fishing rods. A wicker picnic basket contained a filled paraffin burner, a packet of tea leaves, and even a tin of slightly crumbled biscuits. When I lit the burner, a remarkably bearded husband came into view, tugging a blanket around his shoulders.
I was startled, then began to laugh. “You were the bearded Englishman!”
“I did not know you found facial hair so amusing,” he grumbled.
“Not on its own—but when I was asking after Damian and Brothers in Thurso, I described him as a ‘bearded Englishman.’ I didn’t think to add, ‘of thirty.’ So when a man said he’d seen such a person and I told him the Englishman was my step-son, the poor fellow was taken aback, that my husband should be so …”
“Truly ancient.”
“I thought his astonishment odd, at the time, but I never considered … Holmes, what are you doing here?”
“When did you last hear from Mycroft?” he asked.
“Not directly since I left, but I had two telegrams in Thurso at midday today. They were from Mycroft’s men, passing on the information that the blood found in the Kirkwall cathedral had been analysed and found to have been kept liquefied by chemicals, and that ashes had been found in the Ring of Brodgar, but then—”
“Those pieces of news were what turned me from my path.”
“I see. So perhaps you didn’t hear that Mycroft’s flat had been raided?”
“Lestrade?” Holmes’ incredulity matched my own, when I had heard.
“So it would appear.” I told him what little I knew, but he could find no sense in Lestrade’s imprudent assault on Mycroft’s home, either.
“That does explain why I haven’t heard further from my brother, and why he did not pass on to you my change in plans.”
“Well into the North Sea, I fear, when one of the officers brought me a cable from Mycroft with the information about the blood in the cathedral.”
“Oh, Holmes, you didn’t make them turn back to Hull?”
“I attempted to, but failed. I did, however, convince them that an aquatic transfer exercise would be in order, as soon as he could raise a boat headed the opposite direction. I left the packet of photographs for Mycroft’s men in Norway, and succeeded in transferring onto a boat bound for Newcastle without more than a mild wetting.”
“I’m astonished you don’t have pneumonia. But if your wire reached his place after the raid, Lestrade may know we’re here.”
“The Chief Inspector won’t be able to organise anything tonight, I don’t think.”
“Probably not. So, ashes and sodium citrate changed your mind?”
He fixed me with a look. “The dates and the impossibility of co incidence changed my mind. Eight events, eight sites.”
I recited the deaths: “Beltane at Long Meg; the May full moon at Maeshowe; Fiona Cartwright during the June full moon at Cerne Abbas; the July full moon at Kirkwall—”
“That last was a cock, according to the envelope in Brothers’ safe, although he did not himself sprinkle the blood in the cathedral—he was in London.”
“I wonder if Kirkwall has an employment agency—or he could have made arrangements when he was here in May, to kill the sheep at Maeshowe.”
Holmes picked up the list where I had left off. “Then came Albert Seaforth in Yorkshire, during the Perseids. Two days later, on the night of the lunar eclipse, an hotel employee in Stenness dutifully scattered the ashes of some unknown person—”
“Which was, in fact, a horse, if those envelopes are to be believed.”
“A portion of a horse, I should say, considering that the employee believed it to be the ashes of a human being. And the following night, the August full moon, Yolanda Adler.”
“Dorset, Orkney, Cumbria, Orkney, York, Orkney, Sussex, and back to Orkney for the end. But whose blood was used to mark the Testimony he gave Yolanda?” I wondered. “Millicent Dunworthy received hers on the fourteenth of May and it had the numeral two. Did we miss one earlier?”
“Not necessarily. He may have simply pricked his own finger, to start the process. Certainly he used his own for number seven, to adhere the horse’s ashes to the page.”
“How would one find a crematorium willing to dispose of a horse?” I wondered.
“A haunch already in a coffin would be unremarkable. In any case, the pattern was clear, so I caught a boat north along the coast of Britain instead of the coast of Europe. Several boats, working their way against a hurricane. The last one cost me a prince’s ransom.”
“I know. The fellow’s friends are planning his funeral.”
“He was hale and more or less dry when I rowed away in his dinghy. He dropped anchor near Stromness, said he would stay there until the wind dies.”
I gave him an equally laconic description of my own hair-raising journey, and poured us both tea, filtering it through a sterling tea-strainer.
“What, no milk?” Holmes asked.
“Pretend you’re Chinese,” I said. The little cook stove was taking the edge off the bitter cold of the room; Holmes had energy for a joke, and was no longer the colour of chalk.
I cradled my hands around the steaming cup. “How much detail was in the wire you sent Mycroft?”
“Knowing that police eyes were on him, very little. However, I said I was joining you, and if either of his men were less cautious in their information—”
“Then we’ll find Orkney’s finest waiting for us. Holmes, you don’t imagine anything has happened to Mycroft? Another heart attack, brought on by outrage?”
“I think it more likely we’ll find him arrested for assaulting a police officer,” he replied. “Mycroft takes the authority of his position seriously.”
I suddenly thought of something. “Good heavens. I wonder if the local forces have arrested poor Captain Javitz?”
“Your pilot? Would you anticipate he might tell the police all?”
“He’s as gallant as they come, and in any event, he doesn’t know my plans. Speaking of which, Holmes, what are our plans? I had intended to wait until Brothers came out and pull a gun on him. Would you prefer to storm the house?”
He shook his head. “The chances of breaking in without noise are slim, and I fear the child would have a knife at her throat before we reached the stairs.”
“So we wait until they come out?”
“We wait until the child is clear of danger.”
I took a breath. “Holmes, have you—”
“Yes,” he said. “I know. The question of Damian. Russell, I may be a fool, but I’m not blind. Despite the improbability of my son’s ignorance, I do not believe he is fully au fait with what Brothers intends. However, I was wrong about his mother from the moment I laid eyes on her, and I could be wrong about him.”
“I agree, that he does not know,” I said, to his surprise. “In fact, he may still not know of Yolanda’s death.” I explained my reasoning: the largely amiable relationship between the two men; Brothers’ odd disinclination to keep to one place.
“So why the devil does Damian remain with Brothers, if he is neither prisoner nor true believer?” Holmes fretted.
“Wouldn’t he stay with Brothers if he thought it was what his wife wanted? If Brothers has convinced him that they’re to meet Yolanda in this strange place, because she’s utterly determined to carry out a ritual?”
“My son is not blind, either.”
“No, but his wife was notoriously unpredictable. Remember that letter she wrote, telling Damian that she was in the country with friends? What if there was a second letter, that Brothers gave him when he got to the walled house, explaining that she was going off on one of her dotty adventures, and pleading with him to join her?”
Holmes shook his head unhappily. “I see no alternative to letting the play work itself out until the final act, and determine the villains then. All I ask is that you refrain from using your gun on my son unless you are absolutely certain.” He drained his tea and dropped the blanket, turning off the small stove. The light died with it.
I turned on the small torch and followed Holmes out of the storage room, bringing with me two of the dark grey woollen blankets. Outside of the shed, it was nearly as dark as it had been inside, but at least the stiff breeze had subsided a bit. It was the first time in what seemed like weeks that I had not felt battered by wind; it was a pleasure to stand in the lee of the building while our eyes adjusted to the darkness, listening to the whisper of loch-waves licking the shore.
Slowly, stars appeared overhead; the faintest trace of light still marked the western sky. Holmes, who possessed the night-vision of a cat, moved in the direction of the Stones, while I followed more slowly, going by memory of the terrain rather than sight. An instant before I stumbled against the rise of the ditch-works, Holmes murmured, “Watch your step.”
I grumbled and picked my way, and when we had negotiated the ditch itself, I said softly, “I suggest we wait on the far side of the ditch-work. That will be beyond the reach of any lights they may bring.”
“And also beyond reach of providing assistance. No, let us make use of this altar-stone. Even if they have a torch, it should be simple enough to keep away from its beam.”
“You want to sit under that massive slab of rock?” I said, my voice climbing.
“It’s been there forever, Russell, it’s not about to flatten us.”
“Holmes, a bunch of amateur archaeologists hoiked it up barely twenty years ago,” I protested.
“You don’t say? Well, it hasn’t fallen yet,” he noted serenely, and ducked underneath.
It would be an irony if I had survived numerous opportunities to plummet from the sky only to be squashed by a boulder. All in all, I thought as I inserted myself beneath the precarious dolmen, I’d rather be harvesting honey in Sussex, where the greatest risk was being stung to death.
I draped us in the blankets, which would not only keep our muscles from freezing stiff but might help us blend into the shadows underneath the rocks. Hunched together, shoulder to shoulder, we waited for Ragnarok, the end of the world.