Brandy stirred. "Zack? What's wrong?"
I leaped onto the bed. "I know, Brandy! I know what Nessie is! She's not a plesiosaur, she's not a dinosaur, she's not a sturgeon or a myth or even an ancestor of modern-day whales, but she is a precursor!"
"A precursor?" Brandy sat up in bed. "A precursor of what?"
"The Anguilla eel!"
"An Anguilla? Nah… how can that be? She's so big."
"It's Nature's way. The ancestors are always larger. Then evolution takes over, it adapts, it makes adjustments, based on environment and competition, and the availability of prey. Anguillas and these… these Guivres, for lack of a better name — they're both born in the Sargasso Sea."
"How dae ye know that?"
"Because Nessie's not the last Guivre, and she's not a mutant, her kind's not extinct! Her species still inhabits the Sargasso. The Navy tracked them on sonar, called them bloops, but no one knew what they were. It was the bloops, I mean the Guivres, that attacked the giant squid. Like Anguilla, they spawn in the Sargasso Sea, then the young drift on ocean currents back to Britain and the rest of Europe. Being smaller, Anguilla could follow the Ness River into the Loch every spring. The larger females leave in autumn when they're old enough to spawn, but their big cousins, these Guivres, they were always too large to access the Loch through the river, instead they followed the Ness Aquifer — an undiscovered, underground river that flows from Loch Ness into the North Sea. But the passage collapsed seventy years ago when the A82 was dynamited—"
"Trappin' Nessie?"
"Yes!" I paced the room, my mind on fire. "She must be a female. Female Anguilla grow really big, much bigger than the males, so the same probably holds true for Guivres. They leave Loch Ness when they're ready to spawn, returning to the Sargasso Sea. But Nessie's trapped, it's screwed up her biological clock. She can't spawn in freshwater, her DNA won't allow that, so instead, she just kept growing, getting larger and larger. She's a mutant, Brandy, and now she's become dangerous, her brain filled with lesions caused by an oil leak."
"Oil? I dinnae understand?"
"There's oil leaking somewhere into Loch Ness. My guess is it's seeping into the aquifer, which is why no one's discovered it. The eel that attacked me had lesions on its brain. It's not lethal, but it affects the animal's disposition. The oil's also preventing salmon and other fish from entering the Loch. It's affected the food chain, altering Nessie's diet!"
"Sweet Mary. Zack, how long will she live? How much bigger will she get?"
"I don't know. Anguilla die after they spawn, it's sort of a biological termination device. Who knows with these Guivres?"
"Geez, Zachary, ye really did it! Ye solved the mystery, everyone said ye would. But calm down, ye're makin' me crazy. Come an' sit by me."
I took several deep breaths, then crawled into bed with her, cuddling under the sheets.
"What are ye gonnae do then? Call a press conference?"
"I don't know. I'm not sure what good it would do at this point.
Science is one thing, but we've got a berserk animal on the loose. And it's… complicated."
"What do ye mean?"
"Angus lied. Nessie never killed Johnny C. Angus knew about the creature and used it as an alibi."
"Then he did murder Cialino?"
"Yes, and it was premeditated. If I don't produce this evidence, Angus walks away, Scot-free, as they say."
"But if ye tell the truth, yer father'll be found guilty."
"And most likely hanged."
She pulled me closer. "We're both exhausted. Get some sleep before ye decide anythin', a tired mind cannae think straight."
"I'm too pumped up to sleep."
She rolled over, her eyes seducing me as she climbed on top of me, pulling me into her warmth.
Our lovemaking soothed my brain fever, at least for the moment. When we were through, Brandy curled her back and buttocks against my chest and fell asleep. I put my arm around her and closed my eyes, comforted by her warmth and the arriving dawn.
Soaring through a watery graveyard. A flash of light. I am in a cavern. Alone. Enveloped by darkness. Not alone! Death whispers at me, growling in my brain. Stop! Stop! Stop!
I shot up in bed, bathed in sweat.
Brandy stood over me, trying to shake me awake.
"Zack! Zachary, look at me! Look at me, Zack, it was just another nightmare."
I turned and looked at her, consumed by fear, unable to find my voice.
"What was it then? What did ye dream?"
"I was in the monster's lair. It was dark and cold… cold like death. It seeped into my bones. It surrounded me, whispering into my brain. I couldn't see them, but something was out there, creeping in on me, and my flesh and my mind crawled in their presence. They encircled me… no escape—"
"Gees, yer whole body's tremblin'." She pulled me next to her and held me. "It was just a bad dream, Zack. It was just a nightmare." She was wrong, of course, for I knew what it was.
As True would say, it was my destiny.
Chapter 31
It was in mid-March and I was working on the banks of Loch Ness. I'm the area manager for an insurance company, and I cover a large part of the Highlands. Anyway, I was finishing some paperwork when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw this black hump come out of the water. I thought, "heavens" and looked at it again, and sure enough, it went back into the water and came back out again, and then back down. I thought, "I've seen it… after all these years, I've actually seen it!"
It's just typical of these things that I didn't have a camera with me and no one else to corroborate. But on the hump, I would say it was black, sort of a dark black color, and it had water coursing off of it, and it was just big… I think that's the best way to put it. It certainly wasn't a seal, it certainly wasn't a fish. All I can say is that, looking at the Loch, that somewhere in there is the Loch Ness monster. And as far as I'm concerned, I've seen it."
— GARY CAMPBELL, INVERNESS RESIDENT, 14 MARCH 1996
Having barely slept, I found myself racing the Harley-Davidson south on General Wade's Military Road, climbing the hills toward Upper Foyers with the rising sun.
I had called Max earlier, requesting a private meeting with Theresa Cialino at Inverness Castle. He told me the prosecution had decided not to call her as a witness, believing her testimony might dissuade the jury from seeking the death penalty, in the likely event they found Angus guilty. Max told me I could reach her at her summer estate in Upper Foyers, but asked that I return to Inverness in time for the barristers' closing remarks.
I turned onto the B852, a single-track road with sharp twists and turns, following the highway to Upper Foyers.
The Cialino's summer home was an estate that had once belonged to John Charles Cuninghame, the seventeenth and last Laird of Craigends, a powerful family dating back to the fourteenth century. The residence had horse stables and acreage for grazing, along with a spectacular view of Loch Ness and Foyers Falls.
I parked the Harley, then knocked on the huge double doors. Expecting a servant, I was a bit surprised when Theresa Cialino answered her own door. "Hello, Zachary. Do you want to come inside?"
"Not really."
"You don't like me, do you? I can understand why. I don't blame your father for what happened, I blame my husband. Money changes a person. It changed John. He became a control freak."
"Lady, I really don't—"
"When he drank, he became a bully. I know you can't relate to these things, but—"
"I can relate. More than you know. It still doesn't make things right."