destroyed. Quite deliberately. There are things he discovered, truths he was never meant to know, that someone didn’t want him to ever be able to think about again. But there’s more to it than that. Whole sections of his mind have been placed off-limits; he doesn’t even know they’re there. More shields, more protections . . . high walls with barbed wire on the top . . . What are you trying to hide from me, William? Or what has someone been hiding from you all these years? What’s hiding inside your head?”
William’s face suddenly exploded with emotion, contorting with rage and hatred and a vicious malevolence. He didn’t look like William anymore. It was as though someone else were using his face for a mask, looking out through his eyes and hating everyone it saw. It glared threateningly at Ammonia, who stared calmly back at him.
“Well, well, what have I woken up? Who are you?”
“Get out! You don’t belong here! You have no business being here! Get out or I’ll kill you! I’ll kill all of you!”
But for all the evil in that face, and the venom in the voice, William didn’t move a muscle in his chair.
“That . . . doesn’t sound like William,” said Ioreth.
“It isn’t,” said Ammonia, still apparently entirely calm. “There’s someone else living inside this man’s head, inside his mind, his thoughts. Not a complete person or personality, as such; more like a residue . . . left behind by whatever assaulted his mind all those years ago. Something implanted, left to grow . . . A seed! Yes, a psychic seed! Hidden so deep within him he didn’t even know it was there. The seed has been infiltrating his mind slowly but surely, like a parasite. Eating him up a little at a time, replacing him with itself.”
“It’s the Heart,” I said. My stomach was churning painfully, and my hands were clenched into fists. “It’s the Heart, isn’t it? I always knew it had done something awful to him.”
“Yes,” said Ammonia, nodding slowly. “William didn’t run away from the Hall and his family; he was driven out. Sent into exile, commanded to hide himself where no one else would look, so his family would never discover what had been done to him. It made William its last-chance bolt-hole, hiding the smallest part of itself deep within this man’s mind. So that if anything should ever happen to the Heart, it could grow back again. From the safety of William’s mind.”
“Like a witch, hiding her heart somewhere safe?” I said.
“Same principle, yes,” said Ammonia. “William would have returned to the Hall at some point. He’d been programmed to do everything necessary to bring about the rebirth of the Heart. Eventually it would have burst out of him like some evil moth from its human cocoon, and your family would never have seen it coming.” She looked thoughtfully at William, spitting and snarling at her from his chair. “The Heart . . . must have had some kind of premonition. Extradimensional entities often don’t perceive time in our limited, linear fashion. Either that or it was warned by the traitor in your family. Still sure you don’t want me to look into that?”
“Stick to William,” I said. “Look, the Heart is dead. I saw it die. I killed it!”
“Not all of it,” said Ammonia. “You destroyed its physical form . . . destroyed its power over you and your family. I’m impressed. Really. But given enough time, the seed inside this man’s mind would have grown into a new Heart. Probably not in William’s lifetime, or yours. It would have gone on hopping from mind to mind and digging in deep, concealing itself like an invisible parasite, growing stronger with every generation. Reaching out with its increasing mental skills, influencing your family’s thoughts, affecting their decisions, pushing them in the right direction . . . and they’d never even know it was happening. Until the Heart was finally ready to manifest in the material world again, and retake control of the Drood family.”
“Why didn’t Ethel detect this?” I said. My mouth was dry, and my voice wasn’t as steady as I would have liked.
“Good question,” said Ammonia. “Presumably the Heart knows how to hide itself from its own kind. Probably it intended to attack your Ethel from ambush, destroy her and take her place. A very clever plan. Might well have worked, if you hadn’t called me in. But then, you never met a mind like me.”
William stood up suddenly, and then kept rising up until he was levitating in midair, above his chair. He hung there unsupported, completely at ease, glaring down at Ammonia with a terrible cold malice. His face didn’t look human anymore, as though what was on the other side were pushing through. Strange energies formed out of nowhere, swirling in the air in thick black blotches, spitting and crackling as they discharged on the material plane. Bits of the dark world called through to keep their master company. I started to armour up, and then stopped as I looked at Ammonia. She was staring up at the levitating man, entirely unperturbed. She seemed to know what she was doing, and this was her show, so . . . I decided to wait and see what she could do. I gestured to Ioreth not to armour up, and he nodded reluctantly.
“You’re showing off now,” said Ammonia. She hadn’t budged an inch. “Come down from there, and get back into that chair. Don’t make me come up there and get you.”
Their eyes locked. Nothing obvious happened, but the air seemed colder than ever. There was a growing tension in the Old Library. It felt like . . . there were a lot more than four people present. It felt like the four of us were standing on a great dark plain, while two massive forces clashed together, battling savagely without restraint or mercy. And then, very slowly, inch by inch, William dropped back down into his chair. The dark energies slowly dissipated, while long trails of static ran up and down the bookshelves. William was so stiff, so motionless now, he barely seemed alive. His face was flushed red with rage, his eyes glaring malignantly. His mouth was stretched wide in an almost animal snarl as the thing inside him fought for every inch of psychic ground.
“Don’t be too impressed,” said Ammonia. “All of that was sound and fury, preprogrammed defence routines. Just mental attack dogs. Bad dogs!”
Oily black smoke burst out of William’s mouth and nostrils, forming into thick clouds and streamers in the air before us. It twisted and shuddered like some horrible black ectoplasm, taking on the shape of a vast demonic face hanging in the air between William and Ammonia. It had horns and teeth, and it wept thick black tears that fell to steam and hiss on the bare floorboards. Ammonia laughed right into the demonic face, and inhaled sharply. The face abruptly lost all shape and structure as Ammonia breathed it in, every last bit of it. When it was all gone, she smacked her lips briefly.
“Tasty . . .” said Ammonia Vom Acht.
“I can’t help feeling I should be contributing something,” I said.
“You are,” said Ammonia. “If I look like I’m losing, kill me.”
And then we all retreated a step, even Ammonia, as a brilliant light flared up before us, incandescent, blinding. And when the light fell back to a bearable level, a huge diamond shape had formed around William and his chair, encasing the Librarian completely. He was only a vague image now, inside a huge multifaceted diamond. The Heart had taken on its true form again. Nowhere near as big as it had once been, when it dominated the Sanctity in Drood Hall. When we all worshipped and adored it, because most of us didn’t know any better. The diamond blazed with a fierce cold light that chilled my flesh and shuddered in my soul. My new torc tingled sharply at my throat, warning me. I moved forward, very cautiously, and rapped one shining facet with a knuckle. It felt very real, and very cold.
“It’s the Heart!” I said to Ammonia. “It’s back!”
“No, it isn’t!” Ammonia said immediately. “This is just a memory, a projection, given shape and form by the sheer power locked within the seed. This is good, Drood! We’re forcing it to use up that power, to fight us and defend itself. Manifesting in the material world like this, to defend its host from me, takes a hell of a lot of energy. It’ll eat itself up . . . if we can last long enough.”
“Should I armour up?” I said. “Try to smash the diamond so we can free William?”
“Don’t be a fool, Drood! At this stage, an attack on the physical diamond would be an attack on the host. The seed’s still a part of your Librarian. The psychic feedback would almost certainly kill him!”
“Then give me another option!” I said. “But don’t take too long. We can’t risk letting the Heart seize control of the family again. William would rather die than let that happen. Anything for the family.”
“You Droods are always so keen to die for your precious causes,” said Ammonia. “Why don’t you try finding one to live for?”
The light from the diamond was pulsing fiercely now, like a heartbeat, filling the Old Library with its unnatural glare. It seemed to be growing stronger. Ioreth and I were both shielding our eyes with our arms. Ammonia narrowed her eyes, but didn’t look away. She stood still, glaring into the light, bristling with her own fierce energy.
“This is a psychic attack,” she said. “Not material. I can hear the seed. It’s trying to talk to me, now that it
