Alexander quickly ran up the stairs with Alan following after. The caracal knew that if he were to attack Reverend Skinner as he ran up the stairs, he risked injuring Hippolyta. He had to wait, he had to be patient, he had to make his move at the opportune moment.
Reaching the top of the stairs before the Cyclopean Clergyman, Alexander saw Ahab standing on his hind legs with his front paws against the window of the shop's door. He was still barking. If Filcher was on the other side of the door, Alexander could not see. All he saw was that hound who might as well have been a one-headed Cerberus, but on the other hand if Palaephatus was to be believed, Cerberus had merely been a dog who originated from a place that meant "Three-headed." Alexander had heard such a discussion between Captain Smith and Ms. Burnett and seeing Ahab, the caracal wondered if his canine foe came from that same place.
The moment Reverend Skinner reached the top of the stairs, he hurled Hippolyta to the shop's floor, landing before Alexander. The little girl let out a loud "Ouch!" as she landed on her bottom and the red hound from Acheron turned to look at what had been thrown to him.
Coming down on all fours, Ahab first looked to Alexander, his feline foe, then looked to Hippolyta. The little girl was closer and as the quadrupedal ogre crept forward, he suddenly found the caracal standing before him.
Leaping over Hippolyta's legs, Alexander stared at his adversary with narrowed eyes. His ears flattened threateningly rather than in fright, the caracal then growled, the growl eventually turning into a hiss. He was ready and he would fight to either first blood or to the death, which ever it led to. As Ahab growled in response to Alexander's hiss, the room suddenly grew very quiet as Alan reached the top of the stairs and found the two combatants waiting for each other to make the first move.
It was Ahab who acted first, lunging forward in an attempt to bite Alexander. The caracal replied with a swift scratch to the nose causing the dog to back away to better plan his next move. Alexander stayed where he was, staring at his adversary while growling and preparing for Ahab's next attack.
Reverend Skinner watched this with a grimace on his monstrous countenance. He had been hoping he would have been able to escape when he had thrown Captain Smith's daughter to Ahab. He had not been expecting this new caracal to leap to her aid. Nevertheless, once he was able to, he would escape. Ahab would kill this Alexander and no doubt kill the others of Captain Smith's household. No one could defeat Ahab!
Ahab lunged once more and Alexander responded this time not with a swift scratch in defense, but by leaping over the ogre completely. Due to the angle that Ahab had been pointing, the dog found himself crashing head first into the shop's counter while Alexander landed on top of a nearby shelf. The caracal looked down from his vantage point at the quadrupedal ogre, thinking to himself that this dog was no Cnut.
Grabbing an empty medicine bottle, Reverend Skinner prepared to hurl it at Alexander, only to get a swift kick to the shin from Hippolyta, followed by a punch to the face from Alan. It was at this point that Gemma, Agatha and Ian all arrived to see what was going on, the sudden breaking of one of the cellar stairs having caused them to become cautious as they moved upwards.
Seeing his cousins hit the Reverend, Ian muttered: "We're sure to get excommunicated for this."
"I have never heard of an excommunication happening in my life time." Gemma commented, picking up a nearby stool and then hitting Reverend Skinner over the head, rendering the man unconscious. She had been wanting to do that ever since the Reverend had first insulted her and her father a decade ago.
That left only Ahab.
The canine turned to look up at Alexander, staring down from the shelf he had leapt upon. Growling, Ahab leapt at the shelf. Not the smartest of actions, but in his singlemindedness, Ahab was beyond reason. Alexander leapt from the shelf to the counter the moment Ahab came into contract with the shelf, a wise action, for the shelf came crashing down afterwards right on top of Ahab.
Upon the counter, Alexander looked to Alan with wide eyes and his ears fully erect. Alan could only smile and stroke the caracal's back, saying: "Very smart. Avoid his attacks, knowing he would bring about his own defeat."
The sound of canine claws scratching against the floorboards, followed by Ahab growling caused Alexander to look down from the counter. Ahab was pinned down, there was no mistake, but for how long was the question.
Leaping from the counter, Alexander approached the door and pawed at it. He then turned to look at his human friends and meowed at them, followed by him giving the pinned Ahab a loud hiss.
"He's right!" Gemma exclaimed, making her way to the door. "We have to leave before Ahab gets free!"
While Alan, Agatha and Hippolyta all followed, Ian stayed behind the counter with his arms crossed as he stared smugly at the trapped Ahab. "Why rush? He must be injured!"
"Do you really want to risk that he isn't, Ian?" Agatha inquired.
The smug look upon Ian's countenance vanished and he quickly ran over, saying: "Okay, let's go!"
Exiting the shop, the group made their way home with the Holy Grail in hand. On the way, a discussion was made of leaving out the fact that Filcher, Reverend Skinner and Ahab had been waiting for them. The fact that Filcher knew they would come for the loving cup had been bad enough, even worse was the conclusion Ian had come to, believing that Reverend Skinner must have thought up the theft to cause lure members of the household to the shop so Ahab could be let loose upon them. Agatha, on the other hand, believed that Filcher had merely stolen the loving cup to spite Captain Smith and had gone crying to his reverend uncle to report Roxana having scratched him. When asked further about her belief of what it was, she said: "Both men would have known that someone would come to get the Holy Grail back, so they lay in wait. It must have been to first and foremost prove that the Captain had new caracals, all of Oshawa knows about Darius' expiry, but not everyone knows about Alexander and Roxana, the setting of Ahab on us had to be a secondary objective." When one was a student of Captain Smith, or just someone who lived at Quebec Castle, they quickly found the vocabulary expanded.
No one thought to dispute either beliefs, but Alan asked: "What do you think Filcher wanted the Grail for?"
That was something on Alexander's mind as well. As he walked alongside his human companions, the caracal wondered just why the Holy Grail had been stolen. That it was important, there was no doubt, but was the bust of Merneptah not also important? It was important to Captain Smith as the first artifact he brought back from Egypt, but was it an object of great importance like the Holy Grail? Had Alan quested for it as well? These were all questions that Alexander simply did not know the answers to.
"Could have been something he just grabbed as random, but I doubt it." Gemma answered. "Whatever the reason is, I am glad we have rescued the Holy Grail. The sooner we have it home, the better."
An excellent belief indeed. Alexander wanted to be home and see the Holy Grail returned to its rightful spot and yet, he wished the Grail did have the power to heal Nana Smith, to keep her from dying. He was new to Quebec Castle, was he to lose a member of his family so soon?
Alas, he knew not.
He knew not if he would ever seen Filcher again. He knew not if he would ever see Reverend Skinner again. He knew not if he would ever see Ahab again, if so, Alexander hoped that it was not indoors. A shelf was very nice an all, but, as a caracal, he could jump ten feet in the air and the ceiling of Filcher's shop had to have been eight feet from the floor! It most certainly had not been ideal. A ceiling eight feet from the floor? What had the architect been thinking? That did not allow a caracal to jump as high as they could.
As they arrived at Quebec Castle, the group found some of the students crowded around something under a tree fifteen feet from the country house. Ian and Agatha immediately ran to see what their classmates were so fascinated with while Alexander just stood there with his eyes wide and ears fully erect, staring at the sight before him. What was going on? What was all of the hullabaloo about? Approaching, Alexander found himself looking upon a dead raven. Immediately, Alexander thought back to the raven he had heard earlier that had arrived after the theft of the Holy Grail. Now that the Holy Grail to the estate had returned, had the raven suddenly dropped dead?
"What happened?" Gemma asked, wondering why a dead raven would cause such fascination.
One of the girls, Vivian Gish from Sussex, answered: "It just dropped dead a moment ago! It was all so sudden, it had been flying at us, tormenting us and now here it is deader than old Julius Caesar!"
Her answer confirmed what Alexander had wondered, but this only caused him to wonder, if the Grail's return had caused the Bird of Evil to drop dead, then why could it not heal Nana Smith?