The blip passed Invermoriston, erasing any doubts.
I continued along the perimeter until I was within forty yards of the water's edge. Deciding I was close enough, I knelt in the mud and waited.
The sheep continued mounting and gnawing at one another in fear.
And then they froze.
I never saw the monster as it approached the shoreline, I only saw a dark mass, its upper torso as large as a school bus, as it emerged like a shadow, and then its wide, serpentlike head became bathed in the red pool of light, and its immense jaws snapped, lightning-quick, upon two of the sheep. One disappeared into the night, the other flipped up into the air, then landed awkwardly on its back, its hind legs fractured, yet still kicking. While the injured animal flopped on the ground, its surviving companion wrenched and twisted its head, finally freeing itself of the leash's collar.
The sheep darted away.
The heavens ignited in a blaze of white and navy, revealing the silhouette of a towering head and neck which lashed sideways across the patch of red light with impossible, heart-stopping quickness.
The open jowls snatched the fleeing sheep, the monster flinging its head back, engulfing the farm animal in one whole, sickening motion.
It was brutal and frightening and startling to behold, yet I looked on, paralyzed, my eyes as wide as saucers as the heavens darkened again and the monster morphed once more into the shadows.
Before the creature could advance, the shoreline suddenly reappeared, bathed in its brilliant white light, driving the devil back into its watery domain.
Shaking, I forced myself to take deep breaths. The creature I had just witnessed was as cold and cruel as the Loch itself, as violent as nature could be. It was pure animal, pure evolution, existing solely on instinct. It was magnificent in its primal beauty, and frightening in the ruthlessness of its attack.
I needed to see more. I needed to know more.
Regaining my feet, I grabbed my laptop and hurried around to the front of the gate, quietly letting myself in the grazing area.
Calum stood over the remaining sheep, then shot the injured beast with a revolver. Dragging the dead animal to the water, he pushed the bleeding carcass over the edge. He reentered the grazing area, then saw me as he approached the back of the farmhouse, stopping dead in his tracks. "Ye saw?"
"Everything." Lightning flashed overhead. "Let's talk inside."
He thought for a long moment, then I followed him up the stoop of his back porch and into the farmhouse.
Michael Newman pointed at the screen, too excited to remain seasick. "We lost it after it passed Invermoriston, then it reappeared. See? It's staying deep, hanging out in the middle of the Loch, just south of Invermoriston."
David peered over the engineer's shoulder, high on adrenaline. "Invermoriston? That's like what? Ten miles south? How do we get it to swim up here?"
"Give it time. Maybe it'll smell the bait?"
"And maybe we'll lose it again. The bait's just sitting in the water. If it wanted it, it would have taken it long ago. This thing's not stupid."
David looked out the starboard window. Though the wind had died down, it was still drizzling, thinning out what had been a capacity crowd of more than three thousand. "Brandy, move us closer to the buoy, I have an idea."
I sat at Calum's kitchen table, my pulse beating in rhythm to a grandfather clock ticking somewhere in the darkened living room.
The water bailiff set out two cups of coffee, then added a shot of whisky to each. "Aye takes me a nip or three afore my nerves calm doon. My wife, God rest her soul, often had tae dae it for me."
"How long have you been feeding it?"
"Since afore ye were born, an' long afore that, but only in winters. Come summer, there's plenty o' fish."
"But not this summer?"
He glanced at my injured foot. "I think ye a'ready ken that answer, dae ye no'?"
"This sheep croft, how long has it been in your family?"
"Since the time o' yer kin, Sir Adam Wallace."
"Sir Adam Wallace? Never heard of him."
"Then it's best ye ask yer faither."
"I'm asking you. Was Adam Wallace a Templar Black Knight?"
"He wis the first."
"So the mission of the Black Knights was to feed these creatures?"
"It's a part o' it, an' we call them Guivres. The one they call Nessie's the last."
"Why's she the last?"
"Cannae say."
"Then let me say. From the size of her, there's no way Nature ever intended her or her kind to be permanent inhabitants of a fresh water loch, even one as big as Loch Ness. That means the Black Knights must have cut off her passage to the North Sea… am I right?"
Calum said nothing, but the twinkle in his eye encouraged me to continue.
"Now why would the Black Knights want these monsters stuck in Loch Ness?" I thought a moment. "You were using them! You wanted to keep people away. That's it, isn't it?"
"Sort o'."
"Fine. Forget about the Knights' mission for now I'm more concerned with why this creature's feeding on humans."
"As am I."
"The Anguilla eel that attacked me had lesions in its brain, caused by hydrocarbon poisoning."
"Whit's that?"
"It comes from oil. There's oil leaking somewhere, and it's getting into the Loch. You're the water bailiff, have you—"
"I havenae found any oil."
"Okay. But what if it's coming through the passage that connects the Loch with the North Sea?"
The old man considered this scenario. "Aye, that's possible."
"Then there really is a passage! Tell me where it is."
He shook his head. "I cannae dae that. Besides, the passage collapsed years ago, back when they built the A82. It trapped a few o' the Guivres in Loch Ness, preventin' the rest o' their kind frae enterin'. Nessie's the last o' them. The alpha beast, as Doc Hornsby wid say."
And now she's gone crazy."
"Aye."
"Those underwater lights… when did you install them?"
"No' that long ago."
"Winter? Spring?"
He avoided eye contact. "Maybe winter."
"What happened this winter that you felt a need to install the lights?"
"Ye said it yersel', Nessie went crazy!" He pushed away from the table, obviously agitated. "Whit are ye gonnae dae now that ye ken? Will ye kill her like yer faither wants? Is that why ye're here?"
"My father wants the monster killed?"
"Dinnae play games, I want tae ken whit ye'll dae tae her."
It was Alban MacDonald's words, and I offered the same reply. "I'll free her if I can. Is that what you want?"
I thought that would please him, but instead he turned away, his fists balled, his weathered face turning red.
"Wait a sec… you want her dead, too, don't you?"
"It's past her time an' she's dangerous, but I cannae dae it."
"Because of your oath as a Black Knight?"
"Aye."
Suddenly remembering the laptop, I yanked open the lid, checking for the blip. "Oh shit."
The monster was heading north, closing fast on Urquhart Bay.
Chapter 29
I was along the south shore of Loch Ness, fishing for brown trout, looking almost directly into Urquhart Bay, when I saw something break the surface, then disappear. I kept watching, keeping an eye out, fishing gently, when a great elephantlike shape rose from the water. It was a large black object… a whalelike object. It submerged, then reappeared a matter of seconds later, and I noticed it had rotated, turning before surfacing.
I called to my friend, Willie Frazer, who himself had a sighting a year earlier, almost to the day. He saw it, too, and we realized it was moving toward us, moving against the current. It was two hundred meters away, and people on the other side of the Loch were watching it, too. It remained along the surface for fifty minutes, the longest sighting on record.