Loch Nessa

by Clare Kauter

  His scales went from being an impressive glowing blue to a dull kind of grey. He didn’t need to project his thoughts for me to know that he was worried.

  What is it? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer, but I thought I’d better ask anyway. When I felt my toes start to grow warm, I asked again – more urgently this time. What is it, Nessie? Did Alora go to see your brother?

  He nodded again. I mentioned that my brother had anger management issues and she insisted that she could help him.

  Hecate scoffed. She should never have taken that psychology elective. She’s forever diagnosing people and ‘helping’ them. It’d be more helpful if she just stayed away.

  If we don’t find out where she’s gone, Hecate, she might just stay away forever, I snapped. Yes, I admit, I was still angry with Hecate for tricking me into joining the coven and even more so that she’d tricked me into drinking a vial of Dora.

  Daisy, Henry and Nessie shifted uncomfortably and I began to feel the heat spreading up my feet towards my ankles. The Dora was wearing off.

  We need to get back to the surface, I thought.

  What’s wrong? Henry asked.

  The potion’s wearing off, I said. Nessie, quick. Your brother, the one with the anger issues – where does he live?

  He lives in another loch.

  Is it far?

  Nessie shook his head. I’ll show you.

  He sent us all a mental image of the loch – if you could call it that. It didn’t seem particularly grand as bodies of water go. It was located in the middle of a field, and if it went too many days without rain I imagined it would probably just dry up, although that wasn’t so much of a problem in this part of the world. It just looked like a scaled-up puddle. (Particularly scaled up seeing as it had a dragon living in it, am I right?) Included in the mental impression he’d given us were directions to the loch.

  Thanks, Nessie, I said, anxious to get out of the water. I glanced up. It was a long way to the surface, and I could feel heat spreading up my limbs with every passing second. Once the warmth reached my lungs, I’d need to breathe. If we raced, we might be at the top of the loch before that happened, but it was getting less and less likely the longer we stayed down here.

  If you go and visit him, be careful, said Nessie. I hope he didn’t hurt Alora…

  Do you think he could have?

  Nessie didn’t respond, but that was an answer in itself.

  OK, Henry, I thought. I hope this whale body of yours is as turbo-charged as your gorilla form.

  Henry didn’t actually think any words, but his mind sent out an uncertain sort of shrug. He obviously hadn’t spent much time in his whale form, or if he had, he hadn’t been carrying three corpses on his back and racing against the clock.

  I waved goodbye to Nessie, alarmed at the sensations moving through my half-dead, half-alive arm. I hoped that the experience of the Dora leaving my system wouldn’t be as unpleasant as the feeling of it entering. I was spared worrying about this for too much longer, because Henry was now manoeuvring his massive body to point up towards the surface. He wasn’t facing directly upwards, but staying on his back was still enough of a struggle.

  When Henry swished his powerful tail, I was impressed by how fast we were projected forwards. His whale might not have been as buff as his gorilla, but it still had some sweet muscles. (Was it weird to be so impressed by a shifter’s muscles when they were in animal form? Would I ever stop asking myself that question?)

  Henry swam as hard as he could and he was going exceptionally fast for something so big, but I wasn’t sure that it was fast enough. What if we didn’t reach the surface in time? How long would it take for me to drown? I tried to look on the positive side. At least if I died here I could stop going on stupid quests to get the qualification needed to use magic I’d mastered as a teen.

  The heat had reached my legs now. My upper leg felt especially hot. With a sinking stomach (metaphorically; my actual stomach was as still as the dead), I realised that unlike in the rest of my thawing-out limbs, it wasn’t the sensation of life returning to my cells that I could feel in my thigh. It was the Doomstone. We were outside of the dragon’s magical suppression radius now and the stone’s protective capabilities had kicked in. I panicked. What was I meant to do? On one hand, I probably wasn’t going to die if Henry couldn’t get me to the surface in time. The Doomstone would protect me. On the other hand, it would probably protect Hecate and Daisy as well, and as soon as we got back to shore they’d arrest me and haul me off to the dungeons where I’d live out the rest of my days in disgrace, going slowly crazy as I was starved of magic.

  My teeth began to chatter even as my body grew warmer – the heat in my arms slid up my wrists, over my elbows, into my shoulders. It was growing dangerously close to my heart and lungs. I wished I had a way to tell Henry to hurry. A few more seconds and it was game over. The warmth would infiltrate my organs and I’d come alive, and the Doomstone would do what it had to do to get me to safety.

  Even though I hadn’t said anything – couldn’t say anything – Henry seemed to have read my mind. I checked briefly to see if Nessie was somehow allowing us to still communicate telepathically, but it didn’t appear so. Maybe Henry had just felt us growing warmer against his back and decided he’d better hurry things up a bit. He tipped up further and we all scrambled to cling to him. I hooked an elbow over a pectoral as he pumped his tail back and forth, heading straight for the surface.

  The water around us looked brown rather than black now and I knew we were close to the top, but then things seemed to get darker. Oh no – my vision was going again. Why had they even bothered outlawing Dora? No one would take this stuff willingly, and if they did then they deserved what happened to them. My body began to shiver slightly, then it began to shake and shudder and jerk around violently. I clasped my hands together and hugged Henry’s fin as close to me as I could, praying that I wouldn’t slip off. If I didn’t get to the surface some time in the next, say, five seconds…

  Then my skin caught fire, my brain exploded and all rational thought ceased.

  My symptoms stopped as abruptly as they’d started, and looking around I realised three things: I was alive again, I was still underwater and I desperately needed air. Henry was going at top speed but my lungs were screaming and the Doomstone was burning and I just wasn’t sure we were going to make it in time –

  And then Henry broke the surface, launching straight up into a majestic breach that all the tourists watching from the bank would claim as a sighting of the Loch Ness Monster and rave about in pubs for years to come.

  CHAPTER 17

  WHEN WE NEARED THE BANK, Henry dumped us all into the water and transformed from a whale into a wolf to make his way to shore. He padded up the bank, stopping to shake his fur dry.

  “Sorry about the Zombie Juice,” Daisy whispered, quietly enough that Henry couldn’t hear. “I honestly didn’t think it would be that bad.”

  I shook my head. It never ceased to amaze me how naive light dwellers could be – even hundreds-of-years-old fae like Daisy. Of course the potion would hurt. It killed us. Turned us into walking corpses.

  “Next time maybe we should just use oxygen tanks,” I said.

  Hecate shook her head. “Not an option. If the dragon had seen us coming in dive gear, he would have thought we were non-magicals and hidden from us. We had to use magical means.”

  “And we couldn’t use a spell because –”

  “Because of the dragon’s dampener, I know,” I said. “I still think there had to be a better way than Dora.”

  “Dora?” said Henry, whipping his head towards us. “Is that what you just said?”

  “You couldn’t have kept your voice down?” Hecate hissed at me. I shrugged. So maybe I hadn’t been speaking as quietly as I could have. Whatever. It wasn’t like I was going to go to jail for this, and after what Hecate had put me through lately there was definitely a part of me that wanted to see her punished. Yea
h, I’d feel bad if Daisy went to prison, but only a little.

  “Tell me the three of you did not just risk your lives by drinking Dora to get into that lake?”

  Henry stalked over to us, glaring and growling, fangs slightly bared.

  “I didn’t know what it was before I drank it,” I said. “Not my fault.”

  He rounded on the others. “You fed her Dora without even warning her?”

  “We didn’t want to make her anxious,” said Hecate. “It’s not that bad, really. People exaggerate when they describe how painful it is.”

  How on earth could she keep a straight face while saying that? She’d clearly had plenty of experience with lying to be able to drop a story like that without even a hint of remorse.

  “It was the single most painful experience of my life,” I said. “And I’ve been whipped by a grabber. And had Satan cast a ‘disciplinary’ spell on me. And been mauled by a vampire.”

  “When were you mauled by a vampire?” Daisy asked. Whoops. I’d forgotten I wasn’t meant to mention that in front of her or Hecate – I didn’t want to accidentally jog their memories.

  “Oh, uh, a while ago,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t ask me any more probing questions.

  “Have you been checked out by a doctor since?” she asked. “You could have caught all sorts of things from that.”

  I knew it! Great, now I’d never sleep again. I definitely had vampire-borne malaria.

  Henry didn’t seem to notice that Daisy and I were talking. “Is that what you gave Alora to get her into the lake? Dora?”

  Daisy and Hecate glanced at each other. Henry sat back on his haunches, plonking down in a decidedly annoyed manner.

  “You gave Alora Dora,” I said with a giggle, enjoying how the words sounded together. The others ignored me.

  “Right,” he said. “So what we should be doing is dragging the loch for her body.”

  “It didn’t kill us,” said Hecate. “And I’m old. What makes you think it would have killed Alora?”

  “Is Alora a particularly gifted witch?” Henry asked. “Magical blood?”

  Hecate crossed her arms. “Why does that matter?”

  “Because you three are powerful. You can handle more than most people would be able to. If Alora’s just an average witch, her body might not have dealt with Eudora’s Curse so well.” He shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. I know your coven has special permission from The Department to perform necromancy, but I doubt they’d be so keen on this.”

  “Are you threatening to turn me in, Henry?” Hecate asked, her eyes flashing.

  “No, I’m not,” said Henry. “I’m just telling you that taking the Dora was stupid and we need to consider the possibility that it killed Alora. Maybe it wasn’t the shock of the potion – perhaps she didn’t make it out of the water in time and she drowned. It’s a possibility, that’s all I’m saying.”

  I was with Henry. That seemed like a definite possibility to me.

  “If I’d known you were going to do something stupid to get down there, I would have just gone alone,” he continued.

  “Oh, Henry, you’re such a worry wart,” said Hecate. “Daisy is the most skilled potion brewmaster in Australia, if not in the world. There was no risk.”

  “Other than, say, the potion wearing off while you were underwater and you all drowning,” he said. “Or one of you going into shock from the pain the potion caused. Or being caught in possession of such a dangerous substance. Do you know how long you’d get in prison for that?”

  “We’d only end up in prison if someone turned us in,” said Hecate, cocking an eyebrow at Henry. Now it sounded like she was the one making threats.

  “I can’t believe that Dora was your best idea for how to get down there,” Henry said, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “It’s a good idea, Henry. You’re far less likely to be attacked because you’re already dead. The creatures down there can’t sense your magic like they’d usually be able to. If the dragon had turned out to be unfriendly, he wouldn’t want to eat someone who was already dead,” Hecate said. “Believe it or not, we were actually trying to protect Alora.”

  “By killing her?”

  “Only temporarily,” said Hecate. “She was a good witch. She didn’t die from the Zombie Juice. Something else has happened to her.”

  Henry didn’t look totally convinced by her words, but he let it go. “Fine. If she is still alive, then she must have headed to that other loch.”

  Hecate nodded. “Exactly. We should pick up our things from the castle and head there immediately.”

  Pick up our things? We didn’t have to spend another night at the castle? I was filled with glee.

  “I have a tent,” she continued. “We can camp out tonight.”

  The happiness I’d felt just a moment before dissipated instantly.

  “We should try to seek out Alora again,” I suggested. “She could be close by, and if so I might be able to find her.” And then maybe we wouldn’t have to camp out in this creepy forest overnight.

  Henry nodded. “Good idea. Scrying?”

  I shook my head. “I’d rather just set up a circle,” I said. “I can cast out a net and see if I can detect her energy. The last couple of times we tried to scry her, it didn’t exactly go well.”

  Henry nodded. “Fair point. We should set up a circle.” He looked around. “Here should be fine.”

  I grimaced as I looked at the muddy rocks we were standing on. I didn’t particularly want to sit on the swampy bank of the lake, but it wasn’t like we could go back to the castle and scry there. Besides, I was already soaked through with the dirty loch water. What difference would a little mud make?

  Grabbing the bag I’d dumped on the bank before we’d entered the lake, I plonked myself down on the stones in a kind of mini-tantrum. I was wet and cold and sore and tired, and I wasn’t going to pretend to be happy. A rock struck my tailbone, and I knew I’d be walking strangely for a week, but I tried not to let it show on my face. Being in pain would undercut my dramatic huff. Gesturing to the space around me, I said, “Come on, then.”

  Henry padded over, transforming into a gorilla as he sat to my left. I had no idea how he could move so swiftly while morphing from one animal into another, but I guess it was second nature to him. Probably first nature, actually.

  The others hobbled over and sat, Daisy to my right and Hecate directly across from me. I rifled through my bag and handed out crystals before placing a candle (grapefruit scented) in the centre of the circle and lighting it with a click. My own crystal was the largest of the bunch and hung on a silver chain which I slipped over my head. I took Daisy’s and Henry’s hands roughly and shut my eyes. When they connected their hands with Hecate’s, contained energy began to hum around the circle like an electrical circuit waiting to switch on a lightbulb. Although I had to admit, if this had been a circuit, the lightbulb would have been flickering. There seemed to be surprisingly little energy coming in from the witches – the vast majority of my backup was coming from Henry. Even my own energy seemed a little weak. The Dora had knocked us around.

  After taking a deep breath, I cast my energy out, feeling around for Alora. Almost as soon as I did so, I realised that my energy had been sapped a lot more by the potion than I’d previously thought. I’d barely started looking when I felt myself slip down, down… into the ether. Once upon a time this would have been cause for panic, however the ether and I were old buddies these days. I allowed myself to slide below the surface for just a moment.

  King. You’re back.

  Yes! I am, and I was just wondering if you could possibly tell me what exactly I’m the king of? And why I’m king and not queen? And –

  If you go to the place you’re going you will find the answers you seek.

  The place I’m going? You mean the other loch? The answers I seek are there?

  Yes.

  You mean I’m some sort of Scot
tish king? Is that why I can feel the weird energy in the forest and I know that Gladys is –

  Not those answers. (I could have sworn I heard the ether laugh quietly at me then.) The witch. The one you’re looking for.

  Oh. Right. Alora.

  That’s the real reason you came to us. Continue on your path and you shall find her.

  But about the other thing –

  I came to as my head smacked a rock. The ether had pushed me back into my own body with such force that I’d fallen backwards.

  “You passed out again?” Hecate asked, looking unimpressed.

  “No,” I snapped. “I just lost my balance.”

  “You lost your balance sitting down?”

  “What exactly is your problem, Hecate?”

  “Did you find anything?” Daisy asked, trying to smooth the situation over.

  “I –” I hesitated. I couldn’t exactly come out and tell them I’d been diving in the ether. They’d never believe it. Well, Daisy already knew, but I wasn’t sure about the other two. Henry probably wouldn’t be all that surprised at this point, but I didn’t want to tell him more than he could cope with. I’d already pushed him to the brink of a breakdown.

  People who went swimming in the ether either died or went crazy, and neither of those had happened to me. (Shush, you. I came out no more insane than when I went in.) There was no point in telling the others what had transpired. They didn’t need to know. I chose my next words carefully. “I couldn’t sense her, but I did feel a strong pull towards the other loch – the one Nessie told us about. We should head there immediately.”

  Hecate looked unimpressed. “That’s all you’ve got?”

  “Don’t get snippy with me,” I said. “You lost her.”

  CHAPTER 18

  WHILE THE OTHERS went back into the castle to collect their bags (which they’d foolishly left behind for Fach or Gladys or the redcaps to tamper with – steal their underwear or swap the water in their drink bottles with poison or something), I waited outside in the same spot where Henry and I had nearly been attacked by vampires the night before. The sun was high in the sky now, hiding somewhere behind the clouds, but it was afternoon and only early in spring here so it wouldn’t be too long before it set.