Reaching into her jacket pocket, she removed a garage door opener and activated it.
The second to the last garage door rolled open, revealing a silver 2004 Audi TT Roadster.
Angus, now dressed in a black Nike sweat suit and sunglasses, climbed down from the back of the ambulance. "Well done, team. Brandy, ye're wi' me. Theresa an' Francesca, ye ken whit tae dae."
The nurse reached up and kissed Angus passionately on the lips. "Don't worry about us, we'll be fine."
Angus swatted her playfully on the behind. "Indeed ye will, but another kiss like that, an' I'll really end up in the hospital."
True MacDonald's eyes grew wide as a thousand feet of umbilical cord quickly disappeared below the surface. "Zachary, can ye hear me? Zachary, come in!"
As the last of the slack was taken up, the floating aluminum barrel suddenly shot across the surface, moving at fifteen knots as it sped toward the eastern shore.
"Shyte!" True hurried into the wheelhouse and started the twin engines, racing the trawler yacht after the barrel.
The aluminum tank struck the embankment with a resounding, bong, spun around three times, then was forcibly yanked underwater.
"Gee-zus!" True cut the engines and waited for the barrel to reappear. When it didn't, he gunned the motor, heading south toward Aldourie Pier. "I warned him an' warned him, but did he bloody listen? "Course not!"
True reversed the engines and drifted in to the pier, tossing the bow-line to his father. "Tie that off, will ye, Pop?"
Alban complied. "Whit happened?"
"Ye ken whit happened. The monster took him."
"Then he's deid."
"He's no' deid!" True rummaged through a wooden crate, grabbing a flashlight and the two remaining underwater charges. Climbing over the starboard rail, he jumped down to the pier and double-timed it toward shore, his father in tow.
"Whit are ye gonnae dae now then, laddie?"
"Rescue Zack."
"Ye cannae! The lair's off-limits, ye ken that."
"I dinnae care aboot breakin' the blood oath," he said, hurrying up the grassy acreage to Aldourie Castle. "Zachary's my best friend."
"Son, listen tae me… if the creature took him, ye ken it's a'ready too late."
"He's wearin' a dive suit. He could still be alive."
"No' likely." Alban ran ahead of him, blocking him as he reached a castle drive overrun by weeds. "Finley, wait!"
True paused.
"I didnae stop ye when ye went after him in Invermoriston. But this is different. I cannae stand by an' allow ye tae violate yer blood oath."
"It's ower, Pop. Angus wis right. This creature's got tae be dealt wi', an' Zack cannae dae it alone. Now ye either help me or get oot o' my way, but ye willnae be stoppin' me. No' today."
True pushed past his father and walked around to the side of the baroque dwelling. Rust-stained concrete walls were overwhelmed by a growth of vines, concealing an open, first floor passage.
True pushed the foliage aside and climbed through.
Chapter 34
It may be doubted whether sudden and considerable deviations of structure are ever permanently propagated in a state of nature. Monstrosities sometimes occur which resemble normal structures in widely different animals. If monstrous forms of nature are capable of reproduction (which is not always the case), as they occur rarely and singly, their preservation would depend on unusually favorable circumstances. They would, also, during the first and succeeding generations cross with the ordinary form, and thus their abnormal character would almost inevitably be lost.
If we had believed the Loch Ness monster did not exist, we would have certainly said it loud and clear. Instead, the totality of the evidence, the eyewitnesses and the sonar led me to say, after thirty days on the Loch, that there is definitely something here that has to be resolved.
The cold water shocked me awake. I could feel it seeping into my Newt Suit, soaking through my clothing.
I opened my eyes.
I was horizontal, suspended on my left side, my mechanical arms pinned awkwardly behind me. My head throbbed, my mind still in a fog, yet it seemed as if I was moving… pushing left then right, left then right, traveling very fast through the darkness.
It was a bizarre sensation.
Only then did I realize I was in the monster's mouth!
The creature must've have taken me as I dropped into the crevice, snatching me sideways to avoid my lights.
A wave of fear shot through my body like electricity. I struggled to move then quickly stopped as I felt the creature compensate by clenching its mammoth jaws tighter upon my already breached dive suit.
If it wanted to, the Guivre could crush me in seconds.
I whispered into my headpiece, "True? True!"
No response.
Carefully, I retracted my arms from the aluminum sleeves and ran my hands along the inside of my suit. Just below my right quadriceps I felt water trickling in… originating from the razor-sharp tip of a dense, daggerlike tooth! Another fang had punctured one of the joint capsules above my shoulder, this one drawing blood, and two more had pierced my left leg and were pressing against my flesh.
Looking back over my shoulder, I could see the roof of the creature's mouth. A single row of curved, barbed teeth ran down the center of the throat, attached to the eel's mandibular bone. These were Nature's "hooks," preventing the eel's prey from escaping.
A shiver ran down my spine as I checked my depth gauge—812 feet. Since the Loch's depth near Aldourie Castle was only 725 feet, we had to be moving through the crevice. Before I could deal with this unfathomable predicament, another smacked me square in the face.
When the monster had bitten me, I had instantly blacked out, due to the sudden change in pressure when the creature's teeth pierced my suit. The Guivre's teeth were now sealing the holes. If and when it opened its mouth, its fangs would retract, and the sudden increase in pressure would crush me faster than I could drown!
My body went rigid. I began hyperventilating.
Stay calm, Zachary, you're not dead yet! Breathe.
Opening my eyes, I looked out the helmet's clear bubble, realizing my lights were no longer working. Feeling inside the left glove, I verified that the master toggle switch had been turned off, probably a reflex action just before I had passed out.
I contemplated switching them on, but feared startling the monster. I couldn't do that, not this deep.
Looking below my chin, I focused on my instruments.
The heading was zero-six-zero. We were moving east by northeast… only now our depth was rising.
725 feet… 680 feet… 630—
Where were we? In Loch Ness, or the underwater passage, heading for the North Sea?
I had to know.
Reaching my right hand back into its sleeve, I felt for the pincers, still gripping the handheld light. Holding my breath, I gently squeezed the device like the trigger of a gun, activating the smaller beacon.
"Oh God …"
The hair on the back of my neck tingled, my mind drowning in new waves of panic.
My beam was illuminating the inside of the monster's mouth — a hideous orifice filled with rows of barbed, stiletto-sharp teeth. The upper and lower fangs were easily eight inches, the smaller incisors flatter and as broad as my hand.