"My ribs and hip are still sore, otherwise not bad considering."

"Any mair o' thee awfy night terrors?"

"None so far."

"Good, I'm glad for that, son. As ye can read, I'm a free man, an' I've you tae thank." He extended his hand, but I refused to shake it. "Whit's wrong?"

"Lying here in bed, I've been doing a lot of thinking."

"Tyin' up a few loose ends, eh?"

"You might say that. Calum Forrest, for instance. Guess you were pretty upset when your best-friend's wife drowned last December. I searched through old issues of the Inverness Courier on my laptop, but there weren't any details."

Angus shrugged. ""Twis a terrible thing."

"Interesting that there were so many similar so-called drownings last winter. You'd think Sheriff Holmstrom might have done a better job investigating them, but then how could he, being a Black Knight and all. Guess I can thank him for misplacing all my samples, huh?"

"An interestin' theory."

"I'm still a bit confused about the Black Knights' mission, but it's obvious, despite your blood oath, that you wanted the monster dead, and I don't think it had anything to do with Calum's wife. When we were in the cavern, you claimed the Guivre had tasted human blood again. By again, who were you referring to?"

Angus made eye contact, his expression quite serious. "Yer grandfaither."

I sat up in bed. "Your father, Logan? Then he didn't drown?"

"No. He wis a Black Knight, jist like his faither an' aulder brother, an' jist like me, and he died in that hellhole on September 25, 1934. My uncle Liam wis wi' him, an' so wis I. I wis jist a wee laddie, six years auld, yet I can remember whit happened as if it were yesterday."

"What were you doing down here?"

"Lowerin' the iron gate, as we did the start o' each autumn. The gate wis set in place by Sir Adam an' the first Order o' the Black Knights, who were intent on usin' the demons tae guard the Bruce's heart, their sacred keepsake. I imagine these Guivres were a lot like their smaller Anguilla cousins, aye leavin' Loch Ness for the open sea when it got cold. Tae keep the big ones roond an' scare off the English, the Knights wid lower the gate at the end o' the summer, then raise it again each spring."

"And you continued the mission until the tunnel collapsed?"

"Aye. Happened in the winter o"34, caused by the dynamitin' o' the A82, just as ye suspected… only my faither an' uncle didnae ken it at the time. Whilst I waited in the mooth o' the cave, they went on tae raise the gate, an act they'd done dozens o' times wi'oot incident, their bright lights aye keepin' the creatures at a safe distance. Only this time, a young an' feisty female wis waitin'."

"Nessie."