The Loch

by Steve Alten

  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.

  Chapter 35

  I opened my eyes, enveloped in blackness. Intense pain riddled my body. Blood oozed from my head and broken nose, dripping into my mouth. I spat out the warm liquid and struggled to sit up.

  From the blue flames that still licked at the oil-drenched ceiling, I saw that I was lying in rubble, close to the tunnel's exit. Through heavy smoke and my dizziness I could just make out a pair of lights by the river's edge, the beams oscillating, then disappearing behind an enormous shadow.

  It was the creature, its immense tail lashing to and fro, continuously blocking my view.

  And then I saw my father and Alban. The beast had them cornered, their backs to the river.

  I felt for the flashlight in my back pocket, then saw it lying in the rubble, its beam reflecting upon something shiny.

  The Braveheart?

  Reaching into the pile of rubble, I felt for the silver casket, extracting instead the hilt of a massive steel sword.

  I focused my light upon the length of its rust-streaked blade and read my destiny.

  * * *

  The blinded Guivre snapped its jaws and inhaled the air, strings of thick ooze glistening from its fangs.

  Angus pulled his older comrade to his feet. Whispered, "Alban, it cannae see, an' the smoke's ower thick for it tae pinpoint us. I'll distract it while ye find Zachary. Then the two of ye—"

  "A Priest-Knight disnae leave his companion. I'll distract it, you find yer son."

  The Guivre continued snapping at the dense air, its gargantuan body all the while slithering forward, driving them closer to the river.

  "Bloody Crabbit… we're baith gonnae die."

  "Willnae be the first time a MacDonald an' Wallace fell in combat."

  They backed to the very edge of the river, its rushing waters licking at their heels.

  I hurried through the darkness, my scent cloaked by the stench of the burning crude.

  Angus turned to his left and saw me coming. Standing, he waved defiantly at the creature, trying to distract it. "Go on then, Nessie, ye dinnae frighten me! Finish me off if ye dare!"

  The monster's jaws opened to strike, and so did I, plunging the ancient sword deep into the Guivre's soulless blind left eye, penetrating its diseased brain with my steel.

  The creature seized, its body writhing in tight coils, its colossal head whipping upward hard against the ceiling. The impact shattered its skull and unleashed an avalanche of stalactites, while the ceiling's blue flame ignited the monster's oil-soaked hide into a bright orange conflagration.

  The ceiling crumbled, the insane beast snapping blindly in every direction. Oil dripped into the Guivre's nostrils and the dragon snorted flames, while Angus and Alban and I huddled together behind a boulder.

  The enraged beast's tail whipped over our heads, and the three of us took off running, heading for the chamber's exit. I pushed my father and Alban ahead of me, then paused to look back as the Guivre shrieked its final death cry and collapsed, belly-up, upon the rocky shoreline. The lifeless left eye was gushing dark blood, the sword still positioned deep in the wound. For a moment I thought about retrieving it, but the monster's tail was still flailing from side to side in convulsions.

  And then I remembered Johnny's remains.

  Hurrying to the river, I searched the bank, then spotted it near the aquifer's opening. As I grabbed the mutilated body by its jacket collar, the monster's convulsing tail flew over my head and landed in the river. Caught within the current, the Guivre's carcass fed slowly into the raging aquifer, nearly dragging me out to sea with it.

  "Zachary!"

  "Yeah, coming."

  Hurrying back to the exit, I dropped on all fours and crawled through the tunnel, dragging John Cialino's remains behind me.

  For fifteen minutes, the three of us crept forward on hands and knees, coughing and grunting until we reached the exit and fresh air. Silent moments passed as we lay back and breathed, our faces covered in sweat and carbon soot, my own in blood.

  Angus finally reached over and slapped my knee, his piercing blue eyes now soft, glistening with tears of pride. "Dragonslayer, that's whit ye are. Never seen anythin' like it. Sir William an' Sir Adam, they'd baith be proud."

  "Was it Adam's sword then?"

  "Actually, it wis William's, at least accordin' tae my faither's translations o' Adam's diary. Maybe we should go back for it. Be worth its weight in gold."

  "It's gone. Washed out to sea with the monster." I turned to Alban. "I tried to save her—"

  He held up his hand, caught between coughs. "I'm indebted."

  "We'll call it even," I whispered. Then I remembered. "Alban, the Braveheart?"

  "Gone, too.
Perhaps it's best. These days, we'd only commercialize it, chargin' people tae gaze upon it frae behind layers o' glass. Let it die wi' Nessie."

  "Others may come searching."

  "No' likely. The Templar own Aldourie Castle. We'll seal the shaft off soon enough."

  Angus motioned to the lift. "Go on, the two o' ye, the weight's balanced for thirty stone. True can use yer help draggin' me an' Johnny's remains up after ye."

  I helped Alban to his feet. We stepped onto the platform and tugged on the rope, which raised us easily up the shaft to the distant pinpoint of daylight.

  My father watched us ascend, then crawled back into the tunnel.

  Chapter 36

  Raigmore Hospital, Inverness

  News of my father's daring escape had gone worldwide by the time the five of us emerged from Aldourie Castle into glorious daylight. Judge Hannam was furious, and many predicted Angus would be the first murderer to swing from a Scottish gallows since twenty-one-year-old Henry Burnett was hanged in Craiginches Prison on August 15, 1963, for shooting his lover's husband.

  The irony was lost on no one.

  * * *

  The "announcement" that Angus would be arriving via ambulance at Raigmore Hospita l within the hour to "prove his innocence" sent the press and sheriff's headquarters scurrying. By the time we turned onto the A9 highway, seven police cars and two helicopters had joined us. People were waving and honking their horns… the whole thing reminded me of O. J. Simpson's escapade in the white Ford Bronco.

  Theresa Cialino was at the hospital, surrounded by reporters, when her cousin, James, drove our ambulance through the hospital entrance. We were immediately surrounded by a dozen heavily armed police officers and hordes of media, everyone moving into position as the ambulance's back doors were swung open.

  I was the first one out, my head heavily bandaged, my nostrils filled with soot. Nurse Kasa helped my father down from the van, the police immediately shackling his wrists and ankles, as if he were going to escape from this throng.