That I had survived this monster's initial attack seemed beyond any miracle. The question now — where was it taking me?
Turning my forearm slightly, I adjusted the light's beam so it shone out the side of the creature's open mouth.
The circle of light pierced the blackness, revealing steep rock walls.
I was right! We had traveled beyond Loch Ness's eastern wall and were now moving through an underground passage that would lead us into the North Sea.
I knew we'd never get there, the tunnel blocked somewhere up ahead.
My muscles trembled, my life, once more it seemed, dwindling down to its final precious moments.
The depth gauge continued to rise… 570… 545… 520…
And suddenly we leveled out and my ears popped, and I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting to die.
Waiting…
Waiting…
I reopened my eyes, and was flung from the monster's mouth through the air and into the dizzying darkness.
A sudden painful jolt drove the wind from my lungs as I landed backpack first against what had to be solid rock.
I flopped within my cracked suit, unable to draw a breath, as my mind screamed at me to ignite my lights.
Wheezing for air, I managed to flick the toggle switch in my left glove, powering on all three lights.
The forward beam caught the advancing monster flush in its horrid yellow eyes, sending it ducking back into the underground river whence we came.
My mind fought to recall the gruesome image as my spasming chest struggled to catch air.
The monster's head was colossal, its face a combination of a giant eel and a vampire bat. Snub-nose nostrils were upturned and pronounced, revealing a mouth filled with an assortment of elongated teeth that would put a Tyrannosaurus rex to shame. Most were fixed within the jawline, but several of the larger fangs jutted outside the mouth at bizarre angles like an angler fish, and I wondered if the creature could even close its jowls without impaling itself. A thick, horsehair mane began along the top of the skull, which was covered in pus-secreting lesions, and the eyes were a jaundiced version of those that had gazed at me a lifetime ago in the Sargasso Sea.
I stared down the forward shaft of light that ended at the pool of dark, stagnant water, knowing the monster was waiting just below its gurgling surface.
Everything ached, each breath a painful reminder of my crash- landing. Where was I? No longer underwater, that was for sure. Yet my gauges still reported I was 512 feet below the surface.
I tried to shift within the enormous weight of the dive suit, but only managed to achieve an awkward sitting position. Maintaining the forward beam on the river's surface, I moved my right arm, aiming the pincer-held light at my new surroundings.
I was in a vast underground cavern, no doubt carved into the Great Glen's geology during the last ice age. Above my head, stalactites dripped moisture from an arched ceiling that spanned forty feet above the dark pool of water. The long-dormant aquifer was sixty feet wide, and ran west to east through the tunnel-like chamber of rock, dead-ending at a collapsed wall of rubble to my far left. Across the waterway was a larger jagged shoreline that seemed to run parallel to the river along the length of the passage for as far as my light's beam could penetrate.
I was on the northern shore that seemed more a small outcropping of rock. Rotating the pincers of my right mitten, I aimed my handheld light upon my perch.
"Oh God …"
I was lying in piles of rubble composed of decomposed flesh and bone! Some were the skeletal remains of animals, but others were clearly human.
The dragon's lair. The vision from my night terrors!
Waves of panic threatened to drown me in a sea of insanity.
This isn't happening! Six months ago I was in sunny South Florida, working at a university! Six hours ago I was making love to Brandy MacDonald in my hotel room!
"No… no… no!" It startled me to hear my own muffled voice. "I'm not really here… I'm asleep. Wake up Zachary! Wake the fuck up!"
But I was here, surrounded by my worst imagined horrors, and now I needed the left side of my brain to take over before the right side sent me cartwheeling over the mental brink.
"Stop! Stay calm! Listen to me, Wallace, you're alive. You're alive inside a cavern, inside an aquifer. You're out of the water, lying on an outcropping of rock. There's air all around you, which means the pressure's fine. Use your lights, use your wits, and find a flicking way out of here!"
The pep talk returned reason to my thoughts.
"Okay, Zack, we'll take this one step at a time. Step one, you have to get out of this Newt Suit, it's the only way you can move. Step two, you've got to get to that dam. Step three, you're going to set the explosives in the rubble and—"
My lights flickered and dimmed.
My heart pounded.
And then I heard them… whispers in the darkness, advancing on me from the shadows.
Step four, you're going to panic…
Gray daylight bled through smudged ancient glass, casting gothic shadows through the halls of the deserted manor.
True and his father pushed through decades of cobwebs and dust until they reached the study, surprised to find the door ajar.
True signaled to his father, then he yanked open the oak door and burst into the chamber, shocked to find his sister, standing by an immense stone and mortar fireplace.
"Brandy?"
"Whit's she daein' here?" Alban demanded.
Before True could respond, a voice from within the fireplace yelled, "it's bloody stuck!"
Angus ducked under the mantel and stepped out of the shadows, his face and hands covered in soot. "Well well, looks like a dysfunctional family reunion."
"Ye've no business bringin' Brandy here, Wallace," Alban said. "Ye took an oath!"
"Ah, fuck the Black Knights an' fuck yersel', Crabbit. My son's life's worth mair than any oath." He turned to True. "Glad ye're here, big fella. Be a sport an' lend us yer girth, the passageway's stuck."
True glanced at his father, then joined Angus inside the fireplace. The two of them pushed against the back wall until the masonry swiveled on its ancient pivot, revealing a dark hole resembling a vertical mine shaft.
The pit descended straight into the earth, as did a length of heavy rope looped around a pulley, secured to a steel beam high above their heads.
Angus tugged on one end of the rope, drawing up a small wooden platform from the shadows below. "True, are thae charges? I might be needin' them tae clear rubble blockin' the access tunnel."
"I only have two, but they should dae the job. Anyway, I'm comin' wi' ye."
"Me too," Brandy said, squeezing in between them.
"She's no goin' anywhere," Alban growled. "She's no a Black Knight—"
"Nor am I a MacDonald," she spat back, "at least no' anymore! Yer blood may run through my veins but ye treat that monster better than ye do yer own daughter."
"I'm yer faither, an' ye'll listen—"
"Father? Ye haven't been a father tae me since… since my mother passed away, so don't try pullin' rank on me now!"
Alban started to say something, then stopped, staring at the anger on Brandy's face, seeing her as if for the first time.
"My God, lookin' at ye… it's like I'm lookin' at her. Ye've aged intae a bonnie woman, have ye no'. Ye've got yer mum's eyes an' cheekbones, but my temper, God help ye."
"God help us all," mumbled True.
"Ye're right, Brandy. I'm certainly no' deservin' of callin' mysel' yer parent." Alban wiped back tears. "I'm sorry for whit I've done tae ye. I dinnae expect ye'll ever forgive me, but I'll never forgive mysel' if I let ye go in harm's way now."
Brandy's anger subsided, her throat constricting. "Why are ye sayin' this now, ye auld coot?"