Crimson Shore (Agent Pendergast, #15)(44)
Gavin stared at the mud embankment and the sea of grass beyond, which seemed to rise into the faintest of hills. He had a sudden bad feeling.
“If you don’t mind, Sergeant, please stay with the boat and wait for me.”
Gavin glanced at his watch. “It’s going to be dark in an hour. After that it’ll be hard to navigate.”
“I shall be back well before then.” He grabbed the equipment bag and climbed out of the boat. In a moment he had disappeared into the grass.
Gavin shifted on the hard metal seat. The bad feeling began to deepen. Of course, he could just take off and strand Pendergast there. But if he did that, the shit would really hit the fan. You just didn’t mess with a guy like Pendergast.
A. X. L. Pendergast knifed his way through the salt grass, bending it aside with one arm while slinging the equipment bag over the other shoulder. Every minute seemed to grow colder and grayer than the last, with that penetrating, barbaric cold so prevalent near the sea.
Pendergast paused several times to check his GPS. After about ten minutes, he arrived at the place where he had found the object the night before—and what, apparently, were the remains of an old settlement.
Of course, his goal was not—as he had told Sergeant Gavin—to search for the Gray Reaper, whatever that creature might or might not be.
Unrolling the map, he first oriented himself, then walked ahead until he was on top of the starting waypoint. He then assembled the metal detector, affixing the shaft onto the box, attaching the search coil, and fitting the earphones to his ears. He adjusted several dials, calibrating the device. And then, taking a careful bearing with his GPS, he began walking forward slowly, sweeping the soggy ground with the coil, back and forth, keeping his eye on the LED screen. He went about fifty feet, moved to a new line two feet parallel, then returned to the starting point, and turned again.
In about five minutes he got a squawk. Laying the machine aside, he knelt and, with a trowel, began to dig with the utmost care. The ground was spongy and soft, with no rocks or gravel, but veined with a tangle of grass roots that had to be cut by the edge of the trowel.
About a foot down, he stopped and took a small probe from his pocket, gently pushing it into the ground. Something prevented its descent. He probed around to determine an outline, withdrew the probe, dug some more with the trowel—and uncovered a peculiar disk-like object, a large coin or medallion, rudely cast in pot metal. On it was die-stamped a symbol: one he recognized immediately as belonging to the Tybane Inscriptions. According to Constance—who had emailed him a detailed report in midafternoon, along with photos, just before starting back for Exmouth—this represented the demon Forras.
He marked it on the map. With the previous discovery, he now had two outer points of the quincunx.
Carefully measuring his steps, he walked to where he estimated the third point would be, employed the metal detector, and uncovered a third pot-metal coin. This was followed by a fourth, each containing the symbols of another demon. None of them, oddly, represented Morax.
These four outer points, by their positions, betrayed the location of the central point in the quincunx: the so-called “altar” mentioned in the Sutter documents that Constance had examined. He moved to that point and knelt, pushing aside and tearing out the grass. This was where Sutter had apparently recovered the Tybane Stone itself, but there was no evidence left of that excavation, which had taken place a hundred and fifty years before.
Again Pendergast employed the metal detector; again it squawked. He cleared out an area about two feet square around the site and began to dig. Twenty minutes had passed since he’d left Gavin with the boat, which allowed him plenty of time. He worked slowly, until he had deepened the hole to about eighteen inches. With the detector, he narrowed the location of the still-buried metal object, and, with exquisite care, employed the probe.
It was perhaps another twelve inches down. Now he abandoned the trowel and began digging with his bare hands, until his fingers closed around something hard. He carefully cleared away the roots and dirt until the object was exposed, cleaned it as best he could, photographed it in situ, and then pried it from the soil.
It was a most peculiar object. The central part was made of the same pot metal—a mixture, he guessed, of lead and tin. It was in a strange, wild shape—the quasi-abstract image of a gaping, devouring mouth, full of crooked teeth, in the act of swallowing what appeared to be a coil of intestines. As Pendergast examined it, he realized it had been formed by pouring molten pot metal into water, where it had frozen into a hideous shape—accidentally, but in an uncannily demonic form. This twisted, bubbled mass of metal had been framed in a setting of silver, with the remains of something tied to it—horsehair, it seemed, and a fragment of rotten bone, preserved only by virtue of the anaerobic characteristics of the soil. And stamped into the silver was the symbol of Morax, the ape-headed demon with dog’s teeth and a devil’s tail.
He removed a shallow Tupperware container from the equipment bag and placed the object inside, nestling it inside Bubble Wrap he had brought for just such a purpose. Then he slipped it back into the bag along with the map and the rest of the equipment, straightened up, checked his watch, wiped his hands, and proceeded back to the boat.
He found Sergeant Gavin looking fretful and impatient.
“Find anything?” the man asked.
Pendergast took his place in the bow of the boat. “Indeed I did.”