“Yes?” I said, after the pause had gone on a little too long for my liking.
“There’re . . . other things in his head, too,” Ethel said reluctantly. “Shadows . . . things I can’t even identify. I’ve no idea what they are.”
“Terrific,” said Harry.
“I do wish people wouldn’t talk about me as though I weren’t here!” said William, sitting suddenly upright. “All right, some of the time I’m not. I know that. But it’s the principle of the thing! I shouldn’t be here. . . . Put me back in the Old Library. I can focus there. I can cope. I can contribute to the family. Nothing else matters.”
“I really thought you’d feel better once I got you home,” I said.
“Oh, it is better here,” said William. “Don’t think I’m not grateful, Eddie. I am, I am. . . . But the Heart broke me, you see, and even though I ran away from the Heart and the Hall and the family . . . I couldn’t run away from what it did to me. I’m still broken. . . . And all the Droods’ horses and all the Droods’ men couldn’t put me back together again.”
I looked around the table, glowering at everyone. “This has gone on long enough! William is family, and he needs our help. And now that the Matriarch’s no longer here to block it, I say it’s time to hire a professional telepath and see what he can do to put William’s mind right.”
“I do understand, Eddie,” the Armourer said gently. “I remember how William was before he left. He was my friend, and I miss him. But I have to say . . . what if the Matriarch had a good reason for saying no?”
“Like what?” I said.
“I don’t know!” said the Armourer. “Don’t look at me in that tone of voice, Eddie! I did discuss the matter with Mother on several occasions, but she always refused to explain her reasons. She didn’t have to, after all. She was the Matriarch.”
“I also raised the matter with her,” said the Sarjeant. “I was . . . concerned about my uncle. She also refused to explain her thinking to me. She said, very forcefully, that allowing a telepath access to William’s mind was completely unacceptable. She was . . . very curt about it. I assumed it was a security issue; that William must have something in his head, family secrets, that no outsider could be allowed to know.”
“Doesn’t seem likely, does it?” I said. “What could William know that the rest of us don’t?”
“That’s rather the point, isn’t it?” said the Sarjeant. “But for once, you and I are in agreement, Edwin. This has gone on far too long. William is family and must be helped. Nothing else matters.”
“Who do we have in mind for the job?” said Harry. “The family’s psychics—”
“Aren’t up to the job,” I said firmly. “What’s inside William’s head would eat them alive. We need someone with real power, someone who can punch their weight.”
“The London Knights are always boasting about their first-class telepath, Vivienne de Tourney,” said the Sarjeant. “Apparently they use her to maintain communications among the Knights when they ride out to war in other worlds and dimensions, where our science doesn’t always work. She can maintain telepathic contact among hundreds of Knights simultaneously, so they can talk to her, and one another, and never once get muddled. A first-class brain. I could talk to her. . . .”
“You’ve been drinking with their seneschal again, haven’t you?” the Armourer said accusingly.
“I do like to get out now and again, yes,” the Sarjeant said, matching the Armourer glare for glare. “A little private club for those who serve. I do have a life outside the family.”
“I thought that was forbidden, on security grounds?” I said, amused despite myself.
“It is forbidden,” said the Sarjeant. “For everyone except me. I don’t have to worry about breaking security. I am security. And I can drink their seneschal under the table any day of the week.”
“Bloody London Knights,” growled the Armourer. “Do we really want to go cap in hand to those snotty, stuck-up little prigs? Always so high and mighty—last defenders of Camelot, my arse! They give themselves such airs and graces. . . . We’re the real defenders of Humanity! Because they’re always off fighting somewhere else!”
“What about the Carnacki Institute?” said Harry. “They have any number of telepaths working for them.”
“The Ghost Finders?” said the Sarjeant. “I don’t think so. They’d want payment in more than money. They’d want information, secrets, sources. . . . And I’ve never really trusted them. I don’t think anything we gave them would necessarily stay with them. They’ve always been too close to the Establishment for my liking, for all their protestations.”
“If we have to hire someone,” I said carefully, “I say we hire the best. And that means Ammonia Vom Acht.”
Everyone reacted, and none of them favourably. The Armourer pulled a sour face, and the Sarjeant shook his head firmly. Harry and Roger looked at each other, and neither of them looked pleased by the prospect. William was back to staring off into space again. I looked at Molly, and she made a point of being very interested in the remaining contents of her bag of popcorn.
“All right,” I said. “Agreed, she’s a poisonous, vicious and really quite appalling woman, and those are her good points. But you know you’re going to get your money’s worth with her.”
“I should hope so,” said the Sarjeant. “Given how much she charges.”
“How do you know how much she charges?” I said.
“I have made my own overtures,” said the Sarjeant. “Once it became clear that we were going to have to do something about William.”
“I’m still here!” said William.
“Only just,” said the Sarjeant. “But can we really risk allowing that woman into Drood Hall? She could rip the secrets out of everyone’s head in ten seconds flat.”
“I wasn’t thinking of letting her into the Hall, as such,” I said. “I thought perhaps something more like neutral territory—namely, the Old Library. Teleport her straight there, through the Merlin Glass. She’d be cut off from the rest of the Hall and the rest of the family. I’m sure Uncle Jack could whip up something I could wear to keep Ammonia out of my head.”
“What?” said the Armourer. “Oh. Yes. Of course, no problem. I’ll take it under advisement. I think I may go and hide somewhere the day she arrives.”
“Lot of people feel that way about Ammonia Vom Acht,” I said.
“I still want to know who or what is living in the Old Library, along with the Librarian,” the Sarjeant said determinedly. “I am referring to whatever it was that scared the crap out of the Immortal posing as Rafe. You were there, Eddie, when whatever it was stopped Rafe from killing the Librarian. What did you see?”
“I keep telling you,” I said, “I didn’t see anything. All I could feel was this . . . presence. Big and powerful and dangerous, but not like anything I’ve ever encountered before. William . . . William! Do you have anything you want to contribute?”
“Something’s there,” said William, nodding wisely. “Something very old, I think. Watching me, or watching over me. It’s so hard to be sure. . . . It steals my socks, you know.”
“We can’t have someone or something unknown running loose in the Old Library!” said the Sarjeant.
“We’ve already run the exorcism engine three times!” said the Armourer. “None of my equipment was able to detect anything!”
“Why not let the Vom Acht woman have a crack at it?” I said. “If she really is the top-ranking telepath she’s always claimed, she should be able to pin it down. Or at least tell us what it is we’re dealing with.”
“She might not survive such a close encounter,” said the Armourer. “You saw the state of the Immortal after we dragged him out of the Old Library.”
“Get her to work on William first,” the Sarjeant said wisely. “Then have her scan the Old Library. And she might die, you say? Excellent. A plan with no drawbacks.”
“You’ve got cold, Cedric,” said the Armourer.
“I was born cold,” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms.
“Some days you can’t breathe in here for testosterone,” said Molly.