"This is beginning to get interesting," Harry said, as McLeod shone his torch down into the opening. "Should we give Davies a shout?"
"Not before we've had a chance to reconnoiter," McLeod said, testing the first rung of the ladder. "I shouldn't want to frighten our good inspector. Bring that lantern, and let's see what's lurking in the cellar."
The cellar proved to be a cramped, rectangular chamber perhaps six feet by ten, with a trestle table under the angle of the ladder and wooden tea chests stacked untidily at one end. The other end was screened behind upright stacks of old timber and worm-eaten planking, the floor in between littered with half-open boxes and burst packing cases, like the flotsam washed up from a wrecked cargo ship. Looking around him by the flickering glow of the kerosene lamp, Harry gave a disparaging grunt.
"I'm not sure what you're looking for," he muttered, "but this looks like mostly storage to me."
"Maybe more than that," McLeod replied. "Have a look down at that end, and I'll look over here. But don't touch anything unless I tell you it's all right."
"Roger that."
After hanging the lantern on a central hook, Harry turned his cautious attention to the indicated boards and packing cases. McLeod had not said as much to Harry, but the atmosphere in the cellar was tainted with subliminal resonances of a kind that bespoke unwholesome occult activity. Pivoting around in a circle, he tried to home in on the source of the disturbance, but to no avail. He sighed inwardly as he abandoned his efforts and resigned himself to the prospect of a more laborious search.
Near at hand was a stout wooden table lying across trestles, its work surface scarred by what seemed to be saw-cuts, and stained with a hodgepodge of tinctures. Sagging shelves at one side of the table supported a bewildering jumble of crocks, bottles, and jars, all of them so covered in dust that their labels were indecipherable, even when McLeod shone the full light of his torch upon them.
Keeping casual note of Harry's whereabouts, McLeod sidled past an overturned stool to gain closer access to the shelves. Selecting a jar at random, he took it down and blew away enough dust to read the handwritten label.
"Conium maculatum," he murmured under his breath. His knowledge of herbalism was limited, but he knew enough about toxicology to recognize the Latin name for hemlock.
Not unexpectedly, in a Druid's workbench, the jar next to it was half-filled with waxy white berries that looked to McLeod like mistletoe. The label confirmed his identification: Viscum album.
Further search brought to light a wide assortment of vegetable and mineral compounds. Some of the mixtures were clearly medicinal; others were more suspect. McLeod was just considering taking away a few samples for analysis when a sudden gasp from Harry made him look sharply around.
The counsellor was standing frozen over by the far wall, his back to McLeod, gripping a length of loose planking with both hands, as if arrested in the act of lifting it.
Instantly McLeod darted toward him. Simultaneously, Harry snatched his hands away and jerked backwards, colliding hard with McLeod.
"Jesus, what's the matter, Harry?" McLeod demanded, as Harry caught his balance. "I told you not to touch anything!"
Nodding, Harry took a gulp of air and pointed to the timber-lined wall in front of them.
"I didn't think you meant scrap wood," he said huskily. "There's another room beyond this one, behind that timber facade. I didn't exactly… see it - not with my eyes - but I know it's there. The entrance is behind these boards."
McLeod made haste to clear the boards away, Harry craning his neck to see what lay beyond, for McLeod made him stand well back. The labor exposed an irregular opening in the wall, more like the entrance to a cave than a doorway, with a crudely painted succession of runic symbols surmounting the arch. Playing his torch across them, and motioning Harry closer with the lantern, McLeod recognized several Druidic symbols of warding - and a few of them looked familiar.
Tight-lipped, he whipped out his notebook and flipped to the pages carrying the transcriptions he had made at the Callanish stone circle. Many of the symbols were identical, with even their combinations in common. If this was not proof that the owner of the house had been an active participant in the events at Callanish, it was certainly suggestive - and there was no doubting the malignancy of the present wards.
Fortunately, the initial power invested in these runes had largely dissipated, though their hostile influence was still palpable at close range. Handing his torch to Harry, McLeod groped in his pocket for a pencil, then copied down the newly discovered inscriptions on a separate page before returning notebook and pencil to his pocket. Then he took back his torch and shone its beam through the opening - a brighter light than that of Harry's lantern.
But he would not allow Harry to follow him inside. Touching his Adept ring to his lips, McLeod commended himself to the protection of the Light, concluding that prayer with a gesture of personal warding before moving forward.
The chamber he entered gave the appearance of having been quarried out of solid rock, its sloping walls roughly finished and surmounted by a low vaulted roof. The shape and size of the chamber suggested the interior of a burial mound. His probing torch-beam revealed no other entrance or exit, but it soon caught the design painted on the cavern's stone floor - a red-brown circle quartered by two intersecting lines. He preferred not to think of what had gone into the paint, though lie sensed that the blood was animal, not human.
At the center of the circle, where the two lines crossed, a stunted pillar of dark stone bore traces of more blood along its length. Eight lesser stones made a Faerie ring around the circle's perimeter. Squinting against the reflected glare of the torch, McLeod saw that the dark-stained tops of all the standing stones had been hollowed out, like offertory bowls.
There was no mistaking the ritualistic character of the layout. Equally apparent to McLeod's deeper senses was the chaotic nature of the forces that this place was intended to honor and invoke.
"Don't come in," he called to his companion. "Go and fetch me one of those big bags of salt, and then go upstairs and see what Davies is doing. Try not to let him come down here. I have to do something."
To his relief, Harry gave no argument, receding footsteps telling of his obedience. McLeod moved forward, but soon encountered a field of resistance that set his nerves jangling with sudden inimical dissonance.
Gritting his teeth, he thrust forward the stiffened blade of his hand in a determined push until he felt the field collapse, falling in tatters behind him as he, too, passed into the circle. Here his cautious torch-beam discovered evidence of animal sacrifice in the form of scattered small bones still bearing shreds of fur and feathers - perhaps the source of the blood that had stained the stones. The standing stone at the center of the ring bore a string of runic symbols executed in the same gory medium.
As far as McLeod was concerned, no clearer evidence was needed to forge a connection between the owner of this house and the arch-Druid whose likeness Peregrine had captured at Callanish. But this in turn led to further questions. The atmosphere within the chamber was saturated with unclean resonances, bespeaking years of secretive use. What could have prompted Evans to emerge so suddenly from obscurity two years ago, only to retire again until the present, Callanish incident?
He had the feeling that the answer was hovering elusively just out of reach. Just now, however, he had neither the privacy nor the time to spare for introspection. There were no clues to indicate when or if Evans intended to return here. But Mc-Leod's own duty clearly dictated that this underground sanctuary must be rendered untenable to those shadowy forces it was meant to serve. He had scuffed out the painted circle and was kicking over the outer stones when Harry called to him from the entrance to the place.