He shivered and slid his hands up his arms as if against a sudden chill.
"It looked up and saw me. The glance it shot my way was like a laser beam. It hit the fishbowl - shattered it like broken crystal - and the next thing I knew, I was falling, plunging straight for the ground. I could see the ground rushing up to meet me, when someone suddenly grabbed me by the arm and called my name loud enough to wake me up."
He broke off with a wan attempt at a grin. ' 'It was Julia. Apparently I gave a yelp in my sleep, and she was trying to get my attention to ask me what was wrong. I'm damned glad she did. I've had flying dreams before - and dreams about falling - but this was the first time I've ever really thought I was going to die."
Another shiver accompanied this last disclosure, and Peregrine bowed his head over his close-clasped arms. If it had been anyone else, Adam might have encouraged him to make light of the whole experience. Where Peregrine was concerned, however, the occurrence of such a vivid dream had the makings of a worrisome development.
"This statue," Adam said thoughtfully, mentally reviewing everything the artist had just told him. "Can you describe what it looked like in any detail?"
"I can do better than that," Peregrine said. "As soon as I was wide enough awake to recover my wits, I sat down and made a sketch. Here, I'll show you."
Hefting his sketchbox up onto the table in front of him, he opened it up and pulled out one of his sketch pads, not opening it until he had set the sketchbox back between his feet. McLeod returned at that moment with three plastic cups of black coffee.
"Peregrine's done a sketch from a rather unpleasant dream he had last night," Adam murmured, taking one of the cups from McLeod as the inspector sat down across from him.
Peregrine flipped his pad open to the appropriate page and set it in front of Adam, then took a second cup of coffee off McLeod's hands.
"Anything familiar about him?" he asked.
Shaking his head, Adam cast his eyes over the figure of a princely male form seated cross-legged on a low throne. It reminded him at once of the votive images to be found amongst the shrines and holy places of India - except that the figure's face was blank. It wore the flowing robes of a bodhisattva, the head crowned with a peaked hat reminiscent of a bishop's mitre. But one hand cupped a drinking bowl made from a human skullcap; the other grasped an implement that Adam recognized as a stylized thunderbolt symbol, shaped something like a small, openwork dumbbell with pointed ends. The hands themselves were sheathed in gauntlet-like gloves which, like the robes and the mitre, had been given a watercolor wash of emerald green.
"Interesting," Adam murmured, angling the pad 180 degrees so McLeod could look at it. "Was this figure literally faceless?"
Peregrine frowned. "I don't think so - no. But I didn't have time to make anything of the features, and I couldn't tell you now what I saw."
"What made you color in the vestments?"
Peregrine's frown yielded to an expression of perplexity. "I don't know. It just seemed - important."
As McLeod wordlessly closed the sketchbook, casting a questioning glance at Adam as he pushed it back in front of Peregrine, Adam clasped his hands before him, the fingers of his left hand cupped over the sapphire on his right.
"Whatever else may be said of this 'dream' of yours," he said slowly, "I think we may safely agree that it was no ordinary nightmare. We'll show the sketch to Lama Jigme, along with our evidence, but I expect he'll confirm that there is some connection. The clothing on the figure is similar to what you sketched before, except for the mitre and the gloves. The human skullcap makes me very uneasy. That's a thunderbolt symbol in the figure's other hand. In Sanskrit, it's called a vajra - I think the Tibetan term is dorje - and they're usually made of bronze. Both are suggestive of a cultural link, if nothing else, between whoever this individual may be and the kind of weapon used to kill Mick Scanlan."
Peregrine gave a shudder and cupped his hands around his coffee. "I was afraid you were going to say something like that," he murmured. "I don't mind telling you, Adam, all this Oriental esoterica makes me more than a little queasy. I mean, I've just started to become reasonably comfortable with Western European magic, and now it looks like I've dragged us into something that none of us knows that much about.''
"That's why we're consulting experts," Adam replied with a wan smile. "And I wouldn't say you 'dragged' anyone into anything. It's true that the involvement of the Hunting Lodge stems from your finding of that body at Mull of Kintyre. However, all of us serve as the catalyst for cosmic justice, on occasion; every assignment has to start somewhere. Having become Initiate, it was only a matter of time before you were judged sufficiently advanced to be dragooned directly by our mutual superiors on the Inner Planes."
Peregrine looked at him a little incredulously.
"Is that meant to be reassuring?"
"Actually, it was," Adam replied, with a glance at McLeod. "Why don't you put your head down and have a bit of a nap until we get to Brodick? I assure you, you'll feel the better for it."
Without even attempting to argue, Peregrine took off his glasses and laid them on the table, slumping forward then to rest his forehead on his crossed forearms. He could feel all his tension and anxiety draining away as Adam's hand came to rest on the back of his neck, as if someone had pulled a plug; and the next thing he knew, that hand was gently kneading his neck and bringing him back to awareness. He could not remember any passage of time or any words spoken.
"Feeling better?" Adam murmured. "It's time to go back to the car. Don't stand up too quickly."
Peregrine found he did feel better as they made their way back down to the car deck, his anxiety largely replaced by eager anticipation. The ferry docked at Brodick a few minutes before eight o'clock. The weather had improved somewhat, but a fine mist still hung on the air, making rain gear desirable. They were off the boat within five minutes, heading south along the coast road, and another five minutes brought them to the harbor at Lamlash, a natural anchorage overlooking the Firth of Clyde, with the Holy Island looming out of the mist a mile beyond. Leaving the BMW in the car park, they made their way along the quay till they located a man in bright orange oilskins, helping hand equipment down to a second man in a large fiberglass dinghy equipped with an outboard motor.
"Morning," the boatman said, eyeing the three of them. "One of you called Sinclair?"
"I'm Sinclair," Adam replied. "I hope we haven't delayed you."
"Not so far," the man replied. "Got any equipment?"
"Just the sketchbox," Adam said, gesturing toward Peregrine.
"Come on aboard, then."
Already on board was a robust-looking bearded man with a Dodgers baseball cap crammed firmly down on his crown of curly black hair. Over the shoulder of his well-worn waxed jacket was a state-of-the-art Japanese camera. The pockets of the olive-drab gadget vest beneath the jacket bulged with auxiliary lenses and filters. A silvery equipment case lay on the deck at his Wellie-shod feet, along with a battered rucksack and a larger-than-average camera tote, out of which protruded the legs of a portable tripod. Next to the tote bag was a large flat box plastered over with notices that read fragile, handle with care, and this end up. He nodded a tentative greeting to Adam and his companions as the boatman helped them climb down into the dinghy.
"Good morning," Adam responded, taking in the photo equipment. "I hope this mist burns off, or you won't get much in the way of photos."
The man gave a cheerful shrug and pulled off his baseball cap long enough to shake water off it.