The Loch

Chapter 34

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.

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?"

"Yer mum… she aye calmed me tae reason. I'm a stubborn auld fool, aye have been, but maybe I can change. If ye let me, maybe I can even right a few wrongs afore they bury me, aye?"

Angus nodded. "Well said, brother Knight."

Brandy moved to her father, but Alban, not sure how to react, cut her off with a half hug, half pat on the head. "Okay, listen now, the two o' ye are stayin' here, only I'll be accompanyin' Angus below."

True started to object, but his father's scowl ended the discussion.

Entering the fireplace, Alban reached into the shaft. Securing the two ends of the rope, he stepped carefully out onto the platform. "Been a while since I've done this. Come on then, brother Wallace, yer laddie needs oor help."

"Wait, Angus, take these." True handed him the two G-SHOKs, quickly showing him how to set the fuses.

Angus pocketed the explosives, checked his flashlights, then eased himself into the shaft next to Alban, grabbing the right side of the rope.

The two Black Knights of the Templar released the cable, allowing the counterweight balancing the lift to lower them slowly into the darkness.

They were everywhere, circling in the stagnant waters of the aquifer, crawling behind me along the rocks, creeping out from the shadows. Anguilla eels… dozens, perhaps hundreds of them. Saliva gurgled in the back of their throats, the high-pitched sounds received in my headpiece as whispers.

I yelled as loud as I could, hoping to scare them off, but the helmet muted my sounds, and the lesions in their brains made them immune. I needed to do something and fast.

My lights flickered again and then sparks sizzled behind me. The eels were chewing at the connecting wires of my backpack!

With a grunt, I lashed my mechanical arms at them, the limited range of motion rendering the gestures useless.

Should have listened to Brandy… should've listened to True. But noooo, you had to be a tough guy, had to face your fears like brave fucking Sir William. Idiot! Did the thought ever occur to you that maybe the dreams were a warning not to come down here?

My eyes caught movement. Quickly, I adjusted the angle of my dimming forward beam.

In the fading light I could see the milky gray surface of the river and a pair of yellow eyes as they slid back into the water like those of a stalking crocodile.

The Guivre was biding its time, waiting for my lights to fail.

Okay, Wallace, think! The eels probably chewed through the umbilical cord, so it's just a matter of minutes before the entire backpack fails.

The thought of being cast into total darkness with these predators was even more frightening to me than dying. I still had the explosives, but the weight of the Newt Suit made it impossible to toss the mini-bombs.

I realized I had to climb out of my protective armor.

Releasing the smaller hand-held light, I felt along my aluminum skin's waistline with both sets of pincers and removed the utility belt holding the charges. After a great struggle I managed to release the backpack's harness.

The heavy propeller assembly fell away from my shoulders and crashed behind me, the noise sending several of the Anguilla wriggling across the rocks.

Now I was down to one dull light.

With trembling hands, I forced open the snaps on the latches securing the two sections of the Newt Suit together.

Retracting my arms from the metal sleeves, I pushed up on the inside of my headgear. With a hiss, the upper torso of the dive suit gave way, separating from the lower half.

Sucking in a few breaths, I stood in the suit, shoulder-pressing the weight of the ADS's upper torso off my shoulders, then carefully laying it on the ground next to me in case I chose a hasty retreat.

Inhaling a dank breath of air, I climbed out of the lower half of the ADS, then snatched up my handheld light, scanning the perimeter.

The eels gurgled at me from the shadows, their bright eyes luminescent in my beam.

I was terrified and totally exposed. The air in the chamber was stale and acrid, making it almost impossible to breathe without coughing.

The light flickered and dimmed to half its remaining candlepower.

My blood seemed to chill within my veins.

The eels slithered toward me from the shadows.

I started choking uncontrollably, the chamber spinning in my head. Shining my handheld light on the broken backpack, I tore away a canister of air, holding it up to my face to breathe.

The Anguilla eels close to the water's edge scrambled for cover as the Guivre emerged from the river, its gruesome collection of teeth dripping lengths of saliva.

A thick coat of slime coated its head, mane, and serpent's neck, and in the dimming circle of light I saw the colors of the spectrum briefly shimmer.

Colors?

I inhaled deeply, confirming the heavy scent.

It was oil! And it was everywhere, dripping down from the ceiling, coating the river.

I searched the ground for the utility belt… where the hell was it? There, beneath the upper portion of the Newt Suit!

My light blinked off, and I desperately banged it, momentarily resuscitating the beam.

The monster's head rose higher, the creature using its forward pectoral fins to glide its snakelike torso from out of the stagnant waters, while the eels slithered out from the crags of rocks behind me!

I kicked bones and rock at one hissing eel as I tore a G-SHOK cylinder and cap from the belt. Snapping them together, I tossed the armed explosive at the stagnant pool of water, then ducked.

Wa-boosh!

A flash of white light, and then a wave of searing heat scorched my face as I was slammed backward against the rock face.

For a long moment I remained curled in a ball, my throbbing head ringing like a bell.

Get up, dipshit! Open your eyes!

I shook the cobwebs from my brain and sat up, choking on the thick air. Anguilla eels were darting this way and that, and through my blurred vision, I could see a few of their dark hides blazing in flames.

The pool of water was on fire, as was the ceiling, and the fissure above the collapsed section of tunnel on my far left belched blue flames.

The Guivre was gone, but I could see its telltale air bubbles and current as it glided underwater, moving toward the opposite shore.

The blaze began to extinguish, all but that one precious blue flame that burned along the ceiling above the dam of rubble. Somewhere high above the fractured geology was a broken pipeline, and it was leaking crude down into the aquifer, poisoning the lifeblood of the Great Glen and her largest inhabitant.

So much oil had poured into the aquifer that it was now seeping out of the passage and into Loch Ness. It had to be flushed out.

I knew what I had to do.

Tying the belt of explosives around my waist, I began climbing over piles of rocks, making my way quickly toward the eastern end of the chamber. There were animal bones everywhere, some of them fossilized, others still covered by clumps of meat and fur. I stumbled upon a rotting pile of rags and flesh, wedged between two large rocks, and I gagged at its stench.

"Oh, Jesus—"

The victim's face was ashen gray and purple, the remains of the body — twisted and broken. Massive teeth marks riddled the corpse, resembling black tarry holes the size of my fist. Both arms were gone, chewed down to the bone, and the legs had been taken just above the knees. The lower vertebrae of the spinal column protruded hideously out the back of the ebony-colored Italian silk shirt and matching Armani sports jacket, the corpse's cream-colored tie still knotted.

The stitched red monogram was clearly visible along the left hand sleeve: J. S. C.

John Cialino.

The remains of Johnny C.'s flesh was not bloated like a drowning victim; he had clearly died as a result of his attack.

The revelation that Angus had been telling the truth seemed to both sicken and invigorate me. I was the guilty party, not he. If there was a way out of this hellhole, then I had to find it, if only to prove my father's innocence.

I inhaled deeply, coughed, then dragged Cialino's corpse out from between the rocks.

The stench was overwhelming.

I hurried over the outcropping to the dam, my body trembling with adrenaline and fear. With Cialino's ghastly corpse tucked under my left arm, I reached out with my right, felt for a secure handhold, then stepped carefully out along the pile of boulders and debris that were blocking the underground river.

The going was treacherous, the rock slick with oil. Step by careful step, I made my way across the obstruction, praying the dying flames above my head would burn just a little bit longer. Hugging a boulder, I inched my right leg around some debris, searching for a foothold, when I slipped, my right hand grabbing blindly overhead, finding a cold, flat piece of metal.

I held on, then pulled myself to a more secure position. I had grabbed onto an iron bar, rusted and ancient, part of what looked like an immense gate buried beneath the rubble.

What was it doing here?

The cavern darkened. Looking over my shoulder, I caught sight of the last pockets of fire, simmering into smoke along the water.

Only the blue flame above my head illuminated the chamber.

Come on, Wallace, finish the job before you end up like Johnny C.

Reaching the dam's halfway point, I quickly set the remaining eleven explosives with three-minute fuses, then dropped each of the ticking cylinders into crevices of rubble and rock.

In my haste, I realized that I should have kept at least a few.

Too late… keep moving!

Continuing on, I half-slid, half-climbed over the remaining boulders with Johnny C.'s remains until I found myself looking down upon the opposite shoreline.

"Oh, hell …"

By the ceiling's flickering flame I could see two immense shadows. Conger eels, the saltwater relative of the Anguilla. The insane beasts, each well over two hundred pounds, hissed at me like cobras.

Another thirty seconds, maybe less. Get off the dam!

"Yah! Get outta here!" I grabbed a few stones and threw them at the predatory fish, chasing them back several feet.

Go!

Tossing Cialino's remains as far onto the shoreline as I could, I jumped down from the rubble, desperate to distance myself from the dam.

Too late.

My brain seemed to spin in my skull as multiple explosions detonated behind me like dominoes, igniting the darkness in brilliant orange flames. Shrapnel struck my back and head, and a concussion wave blasted me off my feet and into the black river.

The booms deadened underwater. For a moment I remained in this near-freezing environment, allowing the pain to subside, then remembering the Guivre, I kicked to the surface, gasping for air in the smoke-filled, flaming cavern, desperate to climb ashore.

As I tried to drag myself out of the water, all hell broke loose.

Rolling thunder roared through the chamber as seventy years and two hundred tons of debris collapsed upon itself in an avalanche of rock and water and flame. The aquifer's long-stagnant waters became a slowly moving river, and then the remains of the dam flushed free, and an ungodly current grabbed me, dragging me backwards into the raging abyss.

Helpless, I was swept away, tumbling underwater in the darkness, my arms thrashing, groping blindly for anything to grab hold of… when something grabbed me, impaling the left side of my body, and I dangled from its teeth like a kitten taken by the nape of its neck.

The Guivre!

I spun around against the blackness and lashed out at the beast, my right hand slipping between the iron bars of the ancient gate.

The current had pinned me against the grillwork, one of its bent spikes lancing my left hip and thigh. Though my right arm was free of the water, my left knee and arm were pinched between two iron slats. Try as I might, I could not gain enough leverage with my free hand to raise my head above the swiftly moving current.

Metal screeched underwater — I could feel the gate bending with the torrent, but still I could not release myself from its embrace. Hold on, Zachary.

My chest was on fire now, my inflamed lungs demanding relief. Experience urged me to remain calm while my right foot and knee fought against the current, searching for a foothold to gain leverage… something… anything to lift myself higher.

But the river was timeless, and my muscles were lead.

I was drowning.

Again!

The mere thought was so humiliating… so exasperating — yet it filled me with a strange sense of relief, for I knew the monster could smell me and was closing in, and drowning was a far better way to die… better than Sir William Wallace, who had been drawn and quartered, better than Johnny C.

And so I opened my mouth and inhaled the acidic, bitter waters of Loch Ness, letting it take me.

My body convulsed as my mind shattered, my thoughts poisoned with dark, desperate images from my first drowning, intertwined with subliminal flashes of my second death in the Sargasso Sea.

My life was a Greek tragedy, and I laughed at the Grim Reaper as he circled me, for what was I to be scared of.

And then the pain and cold were shunted, and the visions washed away, replaced by my lifeless body, lying on a rocky shelf.

The image from my dreams.

Hold on, Zachary. Hold on… Zachary. Zachary. Zachary…

"Zachary!"

I opened my eyes. Belched up water. Gagged. Then heaved a breath of life.

I was staring into my father's face.

"Are ye a' right, son?"

I tried to speak but instead ejected a bellyful of icy water tainted with oil. Rolling over, I gagged and wretched some more.

"That's it, son, let it a' come oot o' ye. Ye're gonnae be fine. Christ knows ye've got mair lives than a cat. Still, if I were ye, I'd take up somethin' safer. Like skydiving. Or maybe alligator wrestlin'."

I sat up, my left side bleeding and sore from where the iron gate's spike had caught me. Above our heads, flames rolled along the ceiling like wisps of orange fog, casting the cavern in a surreal hellish glow.

I coughed and spit until I could speak. "How? How'd you find me? How'd you get out of jail?"

"All guid questions, but first… where's the monster?"

I shook my head and pointed. "The passage opened. It was in the water. Probably in the North Sea by now."

"No' this one." He aimed the powerful beam of his flashlight at the swiftly flowing river. "Where are ye, demon? Come oot an' show me yer yellow eyes. I want tae see them once mair afore I blast ye back tae hell."

"Dad, what are you doing?"

He smiled. "Dad? Ye never call me that."

"You never liked it."

"Now I do. I see ye found Johnny's remains."

"You were right. I'm sorry… I should have believed you."

"Save it." He turned and yelled, "Alban MacDonald, where are ye, auld man?"

"Back here!"

I looked behind my father, surprised to find the Crabbit, preoccupied with digging through piles of rubble along the southern wall.

"Alban, my son's hurt. Take him back through the access tunnel, I've business tae tend tae."

"So dae I. Take him yersel'."

"Damn ye, Crabbit… come on, laddie." Angus helped me to my feet, then pointed to a small hole set among debris along the far wall. "Crawl through that tunnel, it'll lead back tae a chasm an' a manual lift. Be quick aboot it, the air here's no' fit tae breathe."

"I'm not going without you."

The dark river belched, the ten-ton Guivre circling somewhere below, readying its next attack.

"Ha! I see ye, de'il, I kent ye couldnae leave!"

"It's an animal, dad, let it be. It's brain's been poisoned, can't you smell the oil? It's everywhere, seeping in from some busted pipeline above our heads."

"Aye. It's originatin' frae one o' Johnny's auld wells."

"You knew?"

""Course. Bastard's been pollutin' the Great Glen for years. Been payin' off officials in Glasgow in order tae keep things quiet."

"And that's why you hit him?"

"Nah. I hit him "cause he struck Theresa, an' that's no' acceptable, no' tae me. Didnae ken the dragon wis close by at the time, though I shouldae suspected it, wi' a' the dynamitin' they were daen' that day. Anyway, Johnny got his, now this freak o' nature'll get hers."

"Why?"

"Call it revenge. Now go, afore it surfaces."

Alban hurried over. "I need help, I've no' found it yet!"

"Probably buried among the rubble," Angus spat back. "I need a' oor eyes tae find it."

"Take the lad, I'm no' movin'."

Alban grabbed my arm, dragging me back toward the southern wall as he mumbled incoherently. "It wis here, laddie, set within a crevice by this wall. Help me find it!"

"Find what? What're we looking for?"

"A casket… a silver casket, aboot the size o' a grapefruit. It wis set here, within this wall."

"What's so special about this casket?"

"It's no' the casket, lad, it's whit's inside… oor past an' future, a symbol that many have died for, a treasure that shall one day herald Scotland's freedom."

I was weak and in pain, and still quite frightened, yet the old fart was speaking to me in riddles. "A symbol? What symbol? What's down here that's so damn precious your secret society had to protect it with a monster?"

"It's the heart, laddie. The heart o' oor king, Robert the Bruce. It's the Braveheart!"

"The Braveheart?" I shook my head, then stopped, the pain causing me to suspect a concussion. "The Black Douglas tossed the Bruce's heart into battle long ago."

"Folklore," Angus called out. "The Black Douglas died in battle, but oor ain kinsman, Sir Adam, secreted the Braveheart back tae the Highlands. The Templar brought it doon here, so that any English who sought Scotland's Holiest o' Grails wid have tae face Satan's ain demons tae claim it."

MacDonald handed me his spare flashlight. "Search quickly, afore the Guivre returns tae feed upon yer faither!"

"She'll no' feed again, no' on my clan," Angus bellowed, moving to the edge of the river. Reaching into his pocket, he removed a shard of glass he'd found in Aldourie Castle. Steadying the light in his left hand, he sliced open his wrist, allowing the blood to drip into the water.

"I ken ye can smell that, dragon. Why no' come up for a wee taste, eh?"

Angus removed the two G-SHOK charges and fuses from his pocket, readying them in his free hand. "Come on up, Nessie. Come up an' taste this."

The bad air and dense smoke were getting to me, keeping me in fits of coughs. The fires had died out, the chamber dark, save for our lights, and I knew I had to leave soon.

Something burst forth from the river, jump-starting my pulse.

Angus wheeled around, shining his flashlight a hundred paces to the west. "Whit wis that?"

I left the wall, staggering back toward the river and the large object now floating slowly down stream. "It's okay," I called out, "it's just the life-support barrel from—

"— Angus!"

The river erupted behind my father, the wave washing him backwards as the monster's jaws snapped upon the air where he'd stood not a second earlier.

Through whiffs of smoke I saw Angus crawl toward his fallen light as the Guivre's entire eel-like form shot out of the water, its forward pectoral fins propelling its slime-covered girth along the rocky shoreline after my father.

From his back, Angus tossed his explosives just as the creature lashed out at him like a striking python. The twin concussion blasts missed the monster but reignited the ceiling, causing the creature to shirk away.

But only for the moment.

Angus tried to run, but the Guivre cut him off, encircling him with its enormous fifty-two-foot serpent's body. Yellow eyes, blinded from my own detonations, reflected orange flames as the demented creature inhaled the air, searching for her quarry.

Seconds counted and I had nothing, not a weapon, not a—

Whomp!

The heavy steel canister carrying the ADS generator smashed against the iron gate, drawing the monster's attention—

And mine.

Stuffing the flashlight into my back pocket, I dived into the bone- chilling water, allowing the current to sweep me toward the remains of the hanging iron gate and barrel. Kicking hard, I grabbed for the barrier, using its rusted metal bars as a ladder to pull myself out of the river.

I never saw the creature's head as it launched through the smoke and darkness, but I felt its impact as it glanced off the gate and bashed against rock.

The blow seemed to stun the beast, but it also knocked the barrel free, which was swept behind me into the darkness, followed by two-thousand-feet of umbilical cord.

Reaching down from my wobbly perch, I grabbed the line and began pulling it from the water like a madman, trying to locate its severed end before the barrel dragged the rest of the cord away.

My hands registered the decreased weight of the line, and I knew I was close.

"Son, look oot!"

I glanced up as the monster sprang blindly at me again — greeting its dagger-filled mouth with the sizzling end of the live wire, accompanied by several thousand volts of electricity.

Blue veins of current riddled the serpent's head, igniting its slimy oil-covered face. Injured and enraged, it reeled back and shook its head like a wet dog, unleashing gobs of putrid mucus.

The ancient gate groaned and I felt it give way beneath me. As it broke free from its rusted frame, I leaped to the rocky shoreline, the sparking end of the cord still clenched in my right hand.

"Zack!"

The umbilical suddenly went taut, its weight dragging me back toward the river.

I released the cord and looked up as the monster's tail swatted me through the thick air and into oblivion.