Finding nothing in the shop portion of the building, the group looked to an open door leading to a flight of stairs going downward. Filcher's scent led down there and as Alexander walked down first, he looked back and forth. He had seen the storeroom in Quebec Castle, kept as clean as possible, while this cellar was an absolute mess.
Upon a pedestal beneath a window where sunlight flowed in was the Holy Grail. Alexander's golden eyes stared at the Holy Grail while the others made their way down. Feeling a hand on his back, he looked up to see Hippolyta smiling at him.
"You found it, Alexander!" she said.
"And no ghostly guardian to face." Alan commented.
"Like the one John would play when we played out a quest for it." Gemma uttered with a smile.
With eyes half-closed, Ian muttered: "I'd say that loving cup is probably the only thing in this cellar not covered in dust."
"And probably the only thing not broken besides the pedestal it is on! Look" Agatha pointed to a few of the objects in the cellar and all saw what she meant. Broken chairs, broken brooms, broken shelves, it was all a bunch of junk collection dust. Alexander could not understand it. What was the point of all this?
"I have heard the saying that one man's junk is another man's treasure, but this…" Alan picked up a broken shoe upon an equally broken table. "This is still just junk." Throwing the shoe aside, Alan made his way to the Holy Grail and picked it up.
Nothing happened. Of all the stories Alexander had heard in the past week of such marvellous things, he had imagined something incredible to happen. This was anticlimactic.
The sudden sound of footsteps above caused all to look up the stairs as a monster came running down into the cellar. The appearance of this thing, this beast from the underworld, caused Alan to hand the Holy Grail to Agatha before he stood in front of the three children alongside Gemma. Alexander stayed where he was, ears lowered and eyes narrowed as he looked at the owner of the canine scent that he had smelled.
Alexander had never before seen English mastiff nor bloodhound thus he could not identify this hound from Acheron as a cross between the two. It was a male with a red coat, standing at a height of twenty-nine inches at the shoulder, an inch shorter than Cnut, but nine inches taller than Alexander and it was the height that Alexander reacted to first and foremost. In order to make himself look bigger he arched his back and afterwards hissed at this canine before it could ever get a bark out.
What followed after was Filcher and a massive, one-eyed individual clad in the garb of a clergyman, yet looking more like a cyclops of old. The man was bald, wearing an eyepatch over his right eye and had teeth that looked more like they belonged in the mouth of a shark than they did a human being. This was Reverend Skinner, Filcher's uncle.
"Well, well, what have we here?" Reverend Skinner inquired, his voice sounding like one would imagine a baboon's voice would sound if a baboon could speak the tongues of humanity. "Captain Smith's filthy mixed blood nephews, daughter and the daughter of his inhuman South African gardener and he truly does have another of these devil cats… Oh, and one of his students is here too."
No one looked very happy with what Reverend Skinner had said, except for Filcher who was smiling at how his maternal uncle insulted all those who had come to get the Holy Grail back. Being called "filthy mixed blood" was something that Alan, Ian, Agatha and Hippolyta were absolutely insulted, as was Gemma for her father, and by extension herself, being called "inhuman." At being referred to as a "devil cat", Alexander immediately hissed at the Reverend, who did not flinch, but only smiled as the canine growled threateningly at Alexander.
"I told you, Uncle!" Filcher uttered pointing at the caracal. "That one's mate got the back of my leg, it did!"
"She!" Gemma exclaimed. "The one that pursued you is female and her name is Roxana!"
"A heathen name!" Reverend Skinner exclaimed in rage. "And who be this then?" He pointed a finger at Alexander, who once again hissed at him.
"He is Alexander, named after the deified King of Macedon, Shah of Persia, Pharaoh of Egypt and Lord of Asia, one of the Nine Worthies!" Alan answered, taking a step forward to look this Cyclops of the Cloth in the eye.
"Nine Worthies! Bah!" scoffed the Reverend. "I have heard enough from you, mixed blood! Ahab, attack!"
Ahab? The dog was Ahab? So, at last Alexander knew what Ahab was. At last, he knew what an ogre looked like. If he was an ogre then perhaps, they were no bite, for Ahab did not obey Reverend Skinner and instead just stood there growling.
Seeing Ahab just stand there growling did not give Alan or the others cause to doubt the canine. They had heard the stories of this guard-dog, the biggest and meanest of his litter than Filcher had abused until he had become a sufficiently savage hound worthy of use by Sherlock Holmes villain Jack Stapleton. They had heard of the stories of Ahab having attacked people who had broken into the store with fatal results.
Ahab's lack of action caused Alan, Gemma, Agatha and Hippolyta to believe that the dog only answered to Filcher. Ian, on the other hand, had a low opinion of canines that were not Cnut, Emma or one of their offspring and so, just that Ahab to be stupid. The answer could not have been farther from the truth for both. Ahab would answer to his master's uncle as well and was actually quite intelligent, but he was single-minded and right now his intense focus was on Alexander alone.
Alexander saw how Ahab stared at him with lips pulled back and teeth bared. Instinctively, Alexander crouched down, his ears still flattened against his skull and hissed once more, keeping his mouth open after the hiss so the canine could see his fangs as well.
"Ahab…" Filcher uttered, clapping his hands together to try and get the red hound's attention. "Look to Alan, the older boy with the red hair!" Ahab did not change his attention. He merely kept his eyes on the medium-sized, reddish-tan cat with tufted black ears. Giving an exasperated groan, Filcher then exclaimed "Stupid dog!" and did the impossibly stupid action of kicking Ahab.
The moment Filcher's foot made contact with Ahab's stomach, the canine let out a yelp of pain and quickly turned around and leapt at his master. Swift-footed Filcher turned himself, running up the cellar stairs with Ahab following after him, barking more aggressively than any dog should have sounded. The sudden sound of the shop's door slamming shut and the sound of Ahab's barking coming from within, caused a blanket of alarm to fall upon all in the cellar.
Ahab was still in the store and he was in a wrathful mood.
Reverend Skinner looked down at Hippolyta, dear little Hippolyta who had only six twelvemonths on her back, and immediately a smile spread across his cyclopean countenance. Picking up the little girl, the Reverend quickly ran up stairs with a wicked gleam in his eye and the rest were left horrified. This bipedal ogre was going to throw Hippolyta to his quadrupedal counterpart.