Free The Exiled by William Meikle Page A

the Swan cult and the secret society—a lineage that supposedly stretched down to recent history. Alan found the resulting argument to be deeply flawed; the research was sketchy at best, and full of Von Daniken-esque leaps of logic, using one badly thought-out conclusion to shore up the next. By the end of part one, Ferguson had accumulated a whole mountain of supposed facts that would fall apart if you so much as looked at any one bit of it too closely. He’d also roped in the usual suspects—the Priory of Sion, the Templars, the St. Clairs and Rosslyn Chapel all got more than a passing mention—as did, of course, the Scottish Rite Masons. There was a lot about them, all of which seemed to work the author up into a frenzy of speculation concerning rampant use of child pornography and pedophilia in the upper reaches of the Scottish class system. It seemed that the Swan had been forgotten, but Ferguson was just getting started.
    Alan nearly missed it—he was only a couple of paragraphs away from giving up when he came across a small section between parts one and two that made him stop and read it twice to be sure it actually said what he thought it said.
    * * *
    “My time spent in the old library near Crieff yielded one more item of note. It was buried deep under sheaves of musty legal documents, as if someone had intentionally put it where it could not be stumbled across easily. At first I took it for a hoax, for it detailed a rather ridiculous ritual, concocted by someone with a clear sense of the absurd. But the intended result was something I could not overlook so easily. I transcribed the ritual in my notebook, and set about procuring the necessaries.
    “Two weeks later I was ready; I assembled the accoutrements and—feeling ridiculous the whole time—worked my way through the ritual. I was not too surprised when it came to naught. I stood there, feeling rather silly, for all of an hour before returning to bed, cursing myself for a fool.
    “And as I stepped up onto the bed, it happened. I was no longer in my tidy little room. Instead I stood upon a rocky cliff top, buffeted by wind and sea spray, looking over a verdant landscape stretching up to high stone turrets above me. Something came up the cliff, something black and huge and immediately terrifying. I screamed—and blinked—and was back in my bedroom.
    “I do not expect you to believe a word of this. I have only the evidence of my own eyes and the feeling of solidity I had while there. And know this—I have been back, several times, and returned to tell the tale.
    “I know what the Black Swan is, and why the secret has to remain hidden.”

 
     
     
    11
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Grainger looked at the book Alan handed him, read the cover, and laughed.
    “Brian Ferguson? He’s your breakthrough?”
    “You know of him?” Alan said, sitting down in the chair at the bedside.
    Grainger laughed again, so hard that it brought a fresh flare of pain in his shoulder that forced him into silence.
    “Every cop in the city center knows Mad Brian,” Grainger said. “You’ve probably walked passed him yourself many times. He stands outside M&S in Princes Street with a sandwich board—every day it’s a different message, but basically they always say the same thing. ‘The Masons are all bad bastards out to get you and your kids.’”
    He saw Alan’s face fall, his hopes fading.
    “Shite—that auld geezer that shouts at people? That’s him?”
    Grainger looked at the book again.
    “I think it must be. Nobody else has a hard on for the Masons like the one Brian has.”
    “Bugger,” Alan said. “But if he’s that daft, how can he know about the place with the cliffs and the turrets? And he knows about the swan wings…and…”
    “Coincidence?” Grainger said softly.
    “I don’t think I believe in that any more,” Alan replied. “And there’s too much of the same detail. He’s been there—I’m sure of it.”
    “Well, I’m still stuck