"Only that it was hidden somewhere beneath the abbey. But where ... and how ..." He shook his head sadly. "And so you still search?"
"Yes, we still search," Will said reassuringly. His mind raced as he tried to guess the Enemy's plan, which was clearly more subtle than he had anticipated. If the Silver Skull was simply a doomsday weapon, they would ensure it was triggered to wipe out the population, with no thought for the man who wore the Mask. But if the Enemy needed the Shield to protect themselves, it suggested they wished to move through the areas where the disease ran out of hand. Why would they want to do that?
"How close have you got to locating the Shield?" he asked.
Kintour bowed his head in shame. "I have the reference to the entrance, and the guide to the defences, but I cannot understand it." He pulled a piece of parchment from his pocket and handed it to Will with trembling hands. Will inspected it briefly before slipping it into his own pocket. "I know you requested an answer by this evening, and I am sorry ... I am sorry ..." He began to sob softly. "Please do not hurt me any more. Let me dream."
Will studied the wretched figure and wondered how long he had been a prisoner of the Enemy, without truly knowing where he was or what he did for them. "Why have they ... we ... not descended on the abbey and torn it apart to find the Shield?" Will enquired.
"Why ... part of it is protected? You cannot walk there?" Kintour replied, baffled.
"So mortal agents are needed to search," Will mused. "You will not have to remain here for much longer. Firstly, I must find where they have hidden the Silver Skull here, but then I will return you to your life. Do you understand?"
Kintour nodded slowly until his chin drooped onto his chest and he fell into a deep stupor. Will crept back to the door and slipped out as soon as he had confirmed the corridor was clear.
The house pulsed with a strange atmosphere that reminded Will of a churchyard after a funeral, a hint of regret, a resonant note of grief, yet somehow the joy of a new day like the sun breaking through the branches of the yews. Behind it all, though, was an underlying tone of threat, rumbling so deep it was felt not heard.
He paused outside the door through which the Enemy had ventured, but there was no sound within. He hesitated, thought better of it, and moved on to the next floor; he could always return to that room if the rest of his search turned up nothing.
There was a different atmosphere in the next corridor, as though he had walked from one season into another. The air was rich with the perfume of a summer garden: he smelled lavender, rose, honeysuckle. The first door was locked, as was the second.
In the third room, it took a second for his eyes to adjust to the deep dark until he realised thick velvet drapes hung over the window. Pulling them back, he allowed the moonlight to illuminate the chamber. His initial shock at seeing glassy eyes upon him turned gradually to anger when he saw the pile of human heads in one corner, rising almost halfway up the wall. He guessed there were at least fifty, the features and bone structure heavy with the weight of poverty. Some of the heads were so badly decomposed only traces of flesh remained on the bone; others looked so fresh they may well have been placed there that night. The Enemy's sport, he knew, plucked from the dark, overcrowded wynds where the lowest stratum of society was all but ignored by the city authorities.
There, in one stark image, was the entire reason for his life's work, and why Walsingham and Dee, for all their flaws, were right. Damping down his anger, he moved swiftly back into the corridor and continued to search the house floor by floor.
More doors were locked, more rooms empty, although many held a tantalising sensation that they had only just been vacated, a wisp of scent in the air or a fading echo.
Finally, in a room at the end of the corridor, he found lion Alanzo, asleep, his sword by his side, on a four-poster bed with the curtains partly drawn. In a chair next to the bed, head on his chest in slumber, was the Silver Skull. The two of them together in the same room, in that position, was an odd sight, and Will couldn't tell if they were under the spell of the Enemy. But he knew that an arm around the throat of the Silver Skull for just a few moments with the pressure at the right point, and he would be able to transport him out of the room unconscious without waking his guard. The question then would be how to escape the house with both the Skull and Kintour.
The room was furnished with more warmth than the other chambers in the Fairy House, but there was an underlying stench of decomposition that drew Will's attention to one single rotting head on the mantelpiece.
Even here, Will thought. A reminder to the occupants of their mortality.
Searching for any creaking board, he edged across the room to within a foot of the Skull without any change in their breathing. But as he reached out a crooked arm to slide it around the Skull's neck, the head on the mantelpiece tore open its mouth and began to shriek.
The bloodcurdling alarm rang through the still house.
Shocked awake, the Silver Skull leapt to his feet, knocking over his chair. Grabbing his sword, lion Alanzo rolled off the bed and thrust himself between Will and the Skull.
"Intruder!" he yelled, unnecessarily, almost drowned out by the head's deafening shriek.
Deep in the house, doors slammed.
Will saw it was futile to attempt to escape with the Skull. "I will return to finish this at a later date," he said, backing towards the door. "Until then, enjoy your stay in Edinburgh."
Activity rumbled throughout the house, punctuated by the loud barks of the sentry dog. The sensible option would have been to enter one of the empty rooms and clamber back into the chimney, but Will couldn't bring himself to leave Kintour. The archivist had already suffered greatly at the hands of the Enemy, and Will felt instinctively that he would become superfluous to their needs very soon.
Racing for the stairs, he drew his knife. He took the steps three at a time, crashing onto the landing below where a shadow on the wall had already warned him of an impending assailant. Dropping and rolling, he brought the knife up sharply vertical into the groin of the waiting figure. The inhuman cry of pain made Will's head ring.
Without looking back, he ran for the next flight of stairs. Four more of the Enemy pounded up the steps to meet him.
On the top step, he threw himself forwards, crashing hard into the first attacker, who was propelled into the ones behind. They careered down the stairs with Will rolling across the top of them to land on his feet on the next landing. As he fought his way through to the corridor where Kintour's room lay, he found the Hunter waiting just before the door. Eyeing Will contemptuously, he put his fingers to his mouth and whistled. From below, his dog answered with a hunting howl.
Everything Will saw in the Hunter's face-arrogance, a dismissive regard for a lesser species, cruelty-made him desire revenge for Miller's death with a fierce determination, but he knew it would mean his own death; behind him, the other combatants had picked themselves up from the tangle at the foot of the stairs and were already advancing.
Will ran. The Hunter's eyes narrowed as he casually prepared to repel the attack. Instead of meeting him head-on, at the last Will leapt to the left-hand wall, propelled himself off it to the right-hand wall, and launched himself past the wrong-footed Hunter. In passing, Will's knife tore open the Hunter's cheek. The cry of anger-tinged agony brought a surge of black pleasure in Will.
"Something to remember me by," Will said.
He kicked out at the Hunter as he moved by him, knocking him off balance, and then he was in the room and sliding the bolt across the door.
"Come, we must leave this place," Will said, shaking Kintour from his stupor. Bodies were briefly thrown at the door before the bolt began to slide back of its own accord.