Lammas Night Read Online Free PDF

stage magic. Skill in sleight of hand, for example, was not without its usefulness for an undercover agent. It was also amusing at government receptions.
    This reputation had not hurt Graham when the time came to form the section he now headed or when William asked the occasional too-perceptive question. The prince had shown a passing interest in Graham’s “magical” skills and was fascinated by the way Graham’s section seemed to be approaching their part of the war effort, but Graham was not convinced that William believed any of it was real. The lack left a gap in an otherwise intimate friendship that had built up over the years. But if Graham’s own legal status vis-à-vis the occult was shaky because of archaic laws still on the books, then William’s could only be described as precarious, were he ever to become involved. Far better for him never to know, though his royal line certainly had been no strangers to the Old Ways in centuries past—far past, as Graham sometimes had to remind himself.
    He opened his eyes with a start and realized that Denton had eased the Bentley into its customary parking space and turned off the motor. The drizzle had turned to a heavier shower, pinging loudly on the roof and the wetly glistening pavement. The weather lent an eerieness and sense of isolation to the very air, increasing the feeling of imminent disaster that had been building since Graham woke.
    Then a ship hooted somewhere in the harbor below, and the mood was broken. A guard coughed noisily in the shadows not far away as someone came out of the building, and somewhere in the greyness a door slammed. Graham yawned and tried to ease the tension out of his body as he began buckling on his sidearm—a reflex concession to the awareness that this was wartime and he would have to keep up some pretense of military bearing inside Naval Headquarters. A weary-looking Denton turned in the front seat to glance back at him as he struggled into his mac.
    â€œShall I wait here or come along, sir?” Denton asked.
    â€œWhy don’t you catch a few winks, Denny? No sense both of us getting wet. As soon as I find but about his ship, we’ll have to go down to the harbor, anyway.”
    â€œRight, sir.”
    Within minutes, Graham was making his way down to the level of the Dynamo Room, pausing several times to flash his identity card at the Royal Marines on duty. As he threaded his way through the honeycomb of smaller tunnels and galleries, nearing the nerve center of the operation, he gradually became aware of the increasing level of noise: telephones jangling, voices, the occasional harsh rasp of a priority buzzer.
    The sounds washed over him in an almost physical sensation, grating on already taut nerves as he entered the gallery doorway and excused his way past two WRNS ratings consulting over a handful of signal flimsies. The room was full of navy and khaki uniforms, chaotic sound, the dim spark of lights—red and green and amber—on the status boards that loomed around the perimeter. The acrid bite of cigarette and cigar smoke and the ozone sharpness of too much electrical equipment in the crowded space added to the Dante-esque impression of purgatory.
    With a deep breath, he hauled himself up by the psychic bootstraps and headed toward the huge plotting table in the center of the room, where junior officers and ratings of the Women’s Royal Naval Service and the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force—WRNS and WAAF—pushed battle and ship markers around the map like so many solemn croupiers. Banks of telephones and wireless positions lined the room, aides shuttling the incoming information to the plotters. Graham had been in this room at least a dozen times in the past week and still marveled that they could make any sense of it.
    He scanned the plotting table briefly, but it soon became apparent that he would gain little of the specific information he needed from such an