Reign of Evil

CHAPTER 16

Adam Neville’s passion had always been fishing. The major contributing factor for him quitting his job in London ten years ago had been the lack of acceptable trout fishing nearby, not to mention the sheer mass of shuddering humanity. He’d moved to the country, bought a home on the Kennet River, and proceeded to spend his days telecommuting to the brokerage and his mornings and evenings communing with the fish. It was in these moments as he slung a nymph into a ripple of water that he felt the most content.

Of course his mates would be on him for using flies, since the season ended October 1, but being a coarse fisherman wasn’t in his veins and he couldn’t stand trying to catch anything other than trout or her cousins, salmon and char. Carp and perch and dace and sanders were dumb enough to eat empty hooks. With flies it was a game of strategy, in which sometimes the fish won and sometimes he won. With bait and other techniques it was hardly a challenge. If he’d wanted to fish merely to catch fish he would have learned how to net the fish and spared the cost of a decent rod.

He glanced back at the warmth of his house, his wife, Sarah, staring blithely at him through the patio door, glass of chardonnay in one hand, cigarette in the other. She’d detested the move from the city. He smiled weakly as he shivered from the cold. He couldn’t be sure if it was the weather or her stare. She sent him a steely grin, then turned away from the window to the fire. He sighed, realizing it was only a matter of time before she left him.

But of course he’d always have the fish.

He cast a small unweighted nymph in the clear water and let it drift over the ripple. A swirl of silver, then it hit. His rod bent double as his heart soared. The feeling never changed. Not from the first fish up to this most recent one. It was always a luxurious and rewarding feeling.

He reeled the fish in, letting it play long enough that it could have gotten off if it had shaken its head and body the right way, then pulled it onto the bank. It was a brown, probably eighteen inches. He put his left hand gently on the body.

The fish stared at him, its mouth opening and closing in exhausted gasps.

Adam slid the barbless hook free, then released the brown back into the water. He watched as it disappeared. He stayed squatting, watching the poetry of the river for a time before he stood.

Maybe just once more.

He moved fifty feet down the river, leaving the shadow of his own home. He noticed fog coming from the west, hugging the water. He cast toward it, as if it were a geological feature rather than a weather phenomenon. He let his nymph drift a moment, then recast. By the time his fly hit the water, the fog had moved to obscure its position. Then the fog covered him and the river, moving on.

He sighed, reeling in the nymph and hooking it to the place just above the reel on his pole designed to hold it. Although his fishing was done, he didn’t want to go home. So instead he stood in the cold, shivering slightly, listening to the land and trying not to remember the words of his wife just an hour ago.

“You’re bound and determined to drive me bloody insane. How can you pass the opportunity up? It’s double your salary!”

“But it’s in Hong Kong,” he’d said. “There aren’t any trout in Hong Kong.”

“Trout. Trout. Your fucking trout. I think if you could find a trout with tits and a slit, you’d get rid of me in a second.”

The words had so shocked him that he’d stood there speechless until she’d laughed at him. The laughter broke the spell, sending him outside.

“That’s right. Go and find your trout mermaid.”

Then the silence of the Kennet River.

It was true. He’d done well for his Chinese trading firm. Because of him, they’d been able to buy two buildings in the heart of the London Financial District, allowing for local representation that gave them leverage when trading on the Heng Seng, Nikkei, and Shanghai Composite Stock Exchanges. He’d even married one of the senior partners’ daughters. And now they wanted him to be a vice president, would provide him a car and driver, and would even set him up in an old estate overlooking Kowloon Bay that had once belonged to a sheik and before him an opium king. It was truly what dreams were made of and she had a right to be angry.

But was it his fault if all he wanted to do was fish?

He heard the sound of hounds in the distance, followed by a horn.

Foxhunting? The Marlborough Hunt Club didn’t have anything scheduled this close to Christmas. Plus, the hounds didn’t sound like any he knew. He listened to them bay again and couldn’t place the breed.

The sound of the horn came again, but closer.

He peered into the fog, trying to make out whether it was coming from across the river or on his side. Water and fog always played tricks with sound.

He suddenly felt something brush past him. Then another thing. This one knocked him off balance, forcing him to stumble to his right, where he knew the river was. He fought to keep his balance and would have regained it had he not been pushed one last time.

He hit the water sideways. He lost his grip on his rod but was unable to reach for it. He’d lost his breath, the cold of the water paralyzing him. He tried to suck in air, but his head went beneath the frigid water. He scrambled for footing but couldn’t find it against the mossy bottom.

Then he heard her calling from the nearby bank. “If you won’t go to Hong Kong, then I’ll go without you.”

His arms began to move finally as they freed themselves from the sudden shock of the water.

The sound of hounds came much closer. The horn sounded like it was right on top of him.

Sarah screamed and began shouting, “No!” over and over again until it was cut off by what sounded like dogs fighting over a stick.

He finally managed to get his feet under him. By the time he reached the bank, the fog was dissipating. Such a strange weather phenomenon, especially the way it had thrown sound. It was as if the hunt had been right here. He pulled himself up and climbed to his feet, shivering uncontrollably. He ran toward the warm glow of his house. Once he got warm and had a few glasses of scotch, he’d go find his wife and have a word with her. Then when he was finished with that he’d go online and order a new fly rod. He had a spare, but now that he’d lost his best rod he had the chance to order one he’d had his eye on. It was a thousand dollars, but it was a piece of art.

Shivering uncontrollably, he’d almost made it to the steps of his patio when he heard a growl from behind him. He turned, almost falling because his frozen feet refused to cooperate.

It was a hound, but like no hound he’d ever seen. As tall as a Great Dane, it was part human, part beast. It had what looked shockingly like human arms for its front legs and a gray hairless body. But what captured him was the gaze from the dark eyes in the almost simian face. It was recognition. He knew those eyes. And then it leaped, grabbing him by the leg and dragging him east toward Silbury Hill. He tried to scream, but he was dead within the first hundred meters, his head having banged against the ground over and over until it split open. That he could still see did very little to calm him. That is, until he felt himself jerked and pulled and hammered until he was no longer being dragged but was running beside the other hound, a beast he had once called his wife.