by K. E. Mills
The look Melissande gave her could’ve shriveled rock. “ No. Monk, you were here last night. I don’t suppose anything of a shadboltish nature happened after Reg and I went home?”
He swallowed. Bugger. “Mel, honestly, it’s not as bad as-”
“Reg,” said Melissande, her all-too-knowing gaze not leaving his face, “about these shadbolts. Exactly how tricky are they to remove?”
“If you don’t have the incant designed to unravel ’em?” said Reg. “Hmm. Ever dropped a watermelon off a very tall tower?”
Melissande shuddered. “No, actually. And now I’m pretty sure I never will. Tell me, can they be removed without a specifically designed unlocking hex?”
“Depends,” said Reg, her eyes gleaming.
“On what, pray tell? As if I didn’t know.”
“On whether you’ve got someone a bit thaumaturgically special hanging about with nothing better to do.”
“I see,” said Melissande. Her toes were tapping again. “And when you say special, you mean you’d have to be a Monk Markham.”
Reg shrugged one wing. “Or a Gerald. You know. Someone like that.”
“Yes,” said Melissande. “I rather thought that’s what you meant. So. Monk. Here’s my last question-did you by any chance put a shadbolt on Bibbie last night?”
Damn. “Look, Mel-”
“Melissande, don’t,” said Bibbie. “The shadbolt was my idea, not Monk’s.”
Melissande looked like she wanted to say every last appalling word she’d ever heard in her life. “Emmerabiblia Markham!”
Reg sniggered. “How’s your blood pressure doing now, ducky? Hmm?”
Seizing Bibbie’s shoulders, Melissande shook her with outraged despair. “Bibbie- Bibbie — what were you thinking?” She flung out an accusing, pointing finger. “Surely you realized you could’ve ended up like him?”
Bibbie pulled free. “Well, yes, I knew it was risky, but Monk needed my help.”
“Oh, I see,” said Melissande, rounding on him. “In other words it was her idea but you went along with it! Monk, how could you?”
She was furious with him. Melissande Cadwallader, the love of his life, the woman who’d proven love at first sight did exist. He was having some trouble catching his breath.
Please, Mel. Don’t be mad.
Turning back to Bibs, Melissande grabbed her hands. If anyone ever doubted she’d come to love Bibbie like a sister… “Are you all right, Bibbie? Have you seen a physician? You really did look awful this morning. Have you-”
“I’m fine, Mel,” Bibbie insisted. “I promise.”
Mel let go. “I don’t believe you,” she said flatly. “You’d say anything to keep Monk out of trouble.” Turning again, she stabbed him with her most accusing glare. “And clearly you’d do anything to prove a thaumaturgical point.”
“That’s not fair!” said Bibbie. “I told you, the shadbolt was my idea. And it had nothing to do with one of Monk’s experiments.”
“Then what was it about?”
Bibbie looked at him. “Tell her, Monk.”
“Bibs-”
“Monk, you tell her or I will.”
He swallowed a mouthful of his own bad words. So this was how Gerald felt, eh? Backed into a corner, badgered into revealing his secrets…
“Fine,” he sighed, and told her.
“Blimey,” said Reg, when he was finished. For once the bird actually sounded impressed. “Not bad, Mr. Clever Clogs. Not bad at all.”
“ What? ” said Melissande, as close to a shriek as he’d ever heard. “Don’t tell me you approve of this madness?”
Another decisive tail-rattle. “Don’t be a noddycock. Of course I do. Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“Yes, well, there’s desperate and then there’s demented,” Melissande retorted. “And in this case I think we all know which is which!”
Monk knew better than to try to soothe her with platitudes. “You’re right. What Bibbie did was crazy and what Gerald and I did was dangerous. But it worked. Thanks to Bibbie I broke the other shadbolt this afternoon. We got some important information.”
“Really?” said Bibbie, delighted. “Monk, you plonker, why didn’t you say?”
“You were never meant to know about any of it, Bibs,” he said. “Officially you still don’t. Officially what happened here last night never happened.”
She pouted. “Oh, but-”
“Quit while you’re ahead, ducky,” said Reg. “Basking in the glow of being an unsung heroine’s not so bad. I should know. I’ve been doing it for centuries.”
As Bibbie made scornful scoffing noises, Melissande sighed. “Just tell me this much, Monk. After all the unpleasantness with your Uncle Ralph, tell me this latest escapade hasn’t caused you more grief.”
He recalled Mr. Plummer’s expression after being discreetly taken to one side and told in a tone that brooked neither contradiction nor negotiation: “So anyway, here it is. I can break this bastard’s shadbolt, sir, and I’ll do it for you here and now-on one condition. No awkward questions afterwards. Just nod and smile and send me back to R amp;D.”
And because Mr. Plummer wanted results more than he needed explanations he’d accepted the outrageous condition and never once made mention of the second shadbolt’s disappearance.
“No grief,” he told Melissande… and prayed devoutly he was right. Because for all he knew, Mr. Plummer’s gratitude came complete with an expiration date.
She nodded, trying to hide her relief. “Good. All right-so counting last night and this afternoon, how many shadbolts have you broken altogether?”
He exhaled sharply. “Two.”
She wasn’t the only one who found the prospect alarming.
“But two is better than none, Mel,” he added.
“True,” she conceded, after a moment. “And I suppose this shadbolt will be easier to break because Gerald made it. Since you know his thaumic signature as well as your own, it’ll just be a case of reading it, like reading his handwriting. And-I don’t know- over-writing it?”
“Um…” He ran one hand down his face, dreading what he had to say next. “Not exactly. If our Gerald and his Gerald were the same wizard, I could do that. I’ve broken heaps of Gerald’s hexes now and some of them were utterly diabolical.”
Reg, listening intently, pointed her beak at him like a shooter aiming his rifle. “Eh? What d’you mean if they were the same wizard? The last time I looked you were busy bleating over my strenuous objections that they are the same wizard. Now which is it, Mr. I’m-the-instant-expert-so-don’t-argue-with-me Markham? Make up your bloody mind!”
“Okay,” he said, after some frantic thinking. “This is all theoretical… but it seems to me that that Monk’s world and our world were running on parallel rails, like-like trains going in a straight line side by side. Same speed, same direction. Same lives, pretty much. Only then something different happened in his world and now our worlds are running on two different tracks.”
Bibbie was nodding. “Sounds right,” she murmured. “As a theory it’s metaphysically sound.” She pulled a face. “Well. As sound as anything as crazy as this can be. So-what happened? What caused his world to veer off while ours kept going straight ahead?”
“Monk?” Melissande prompted, when he didn’t answer. “Monk, what aren’t you telling us?”
Sickened again, he folded his arms tight to his chest. He could feel his heartbeat, thudding right through his sleeves. “All I can be sure of,” he said, unable to meet her eyes, “is that it’s got something to do with the other Gerald. It’s something he did. Something… not good.”
“Pishwash,” Reg snapped, feathers ruffling. “I’ll never believe it and you can’t make me.”
“Look, Reg, I don’t want to believe it either,” he snapped back. “But I felt the other Gerald’s thaumic signature in that shadbolt and I’m telling you it’s changed. It’s wrong.”
“Wrong how?” said Bibbie. “You�
��re going to have to be specific if you want us to believe you. This is Gerald we’re talking about, remember?”
“I can’t be specific, Bibs!” he said, not trying to hide his hurt exasperation. “It’s a feeling, isn’t it? It’s touch, it’s taste-I can’t put it into words. It’s like asking me to describe what Melissande’s singing sounds like. The word is off-key but that hardly encapsulates the entire hideous experience.”
Melissande stared, then slapped his arm. “Do you mind?”
“Now, now, ducky,” said Reg. “Enough of that. You can’t go around hitting people for telling the truth.”
He was not, under any circumstances, going to rub his arm. “I know you don’t want to hear this,” he told them. “Trust me, I don’t want to be saying it. But I felt something rotten in the other Gerald’s thaumic signature. I just think we need to be prepared, that’s all.”
“Prepared for what?” said Bibbie. Her voice wasn’t steady. “That the other Gerald- his Gerald-is bad?”
Monk slid his arm around her shoulders and held her close. Oh, lord. “Who knows? But Reg said it, didn’t she? Our Gerald would never put a shadbolt on me.”
“Maybe he wouldn’t,” said Melissande, glaring. “But believe me when I tell you I’m getting awfully tempted.”
Coughing, the other Monk stirred on the sofa then tried to sit up. “Melissande? Bibbie?”
He returned to his inconvenient twin’s side. “It’s all right. We’re still here.”
The man wearing his face, who’d stopped living his life and started living a nightmare, looked up at him with haunted eyes. “We’re running out of time, Monk. Right now he’s distracted-there’s a plan-but he won’t stay distracted forever. If I’m not where I’m supposed to be when I’m supposed to be there-” His thin face twisted-even saying that much must have woken the shadbolt. “I can’t-I can’t-”
Sickened, Monk dropped to one knee beside him. That’s how I look when I’m writhing in pain. “You mean Gerald, don’t you? He’s… gone rogue.”
Gasping, the Monk from next door nodded. “I’m sorry.”
So am I. “What’s his plan?”
The other Monk was running with sweat now, his dreadful eyes turning glassy. “I can’t. I can’t.” He shuddered, groaning. “Get it off me,” he whispered. “ Please. ”
“All right,” he said to the man on the sofa. “I’ll try my best but-you know it’s not going to be easy, right? And you know it’s going to hurt like hell?”
On a gasp, the Monk from next door nodded. “Been living in hell for months now, Debbie. You do what you have to.”
Debbie. Short for Debinger. One of his middle names and Aylesbury’s favorite childhood taunt. Nobody knew that, not even Bibs. He’d never told anyone. His childish shame had been too great. So if he’d had any doubts left… if he’d thought that maybe, just maybe, none of this was really real…
Oh, bloody hell, Gerald. What a stinking mess.
Pushing up to both knees, he cradled the other Monk’s sweat-slicked face between his hands. “You ready, mate?”
“Don’t be stupid,” the other Monk said, trying to smile. “But since when has not being ready ever stopped us?”
“Right,” he muttered. “Right. So here goes nothing. Hold on.”
Mel, Bibbie and Reg had come to stand behind him. He could feel them, warm as flames at his back. Not a word spoken. There was nothing to say. But their silent strength strengthened him. Gave him heart. Gave him hope.
His second plunging into this other Monk’s damaged aura was no better than the first. Especially since he didn’t let himself dwell on the blue and the gold but made a beeline for the black parts, the twisted parts, the parts distorted by the crippling shadbolt. A shadbolt that wasn’t like any other he’d ever seen. Not that he could see this one. Not yet. Sense it, yes. It was setting off all his thaumaturgic alarm bells. But still it remained hidden from his etheretic eye.
Bloody hell, Gerald. I thought I was the inventor.
Circling warily, keeping his potentia tightly leashed, he eased himself in for a closer look. Straight away he felt the other Monk flinch. Heard him groan. But he couldn’t let that stop him. He had to keep pushing, no matter the cost. And there was going to be a cost. A bloody steep one.
The other Monk’s sharp discomfort increased. He could feel it now, in his own flesh, a weird kind of echo. Because they were the same man, sort of? More or less? Or because he’d sunk himself so deeply into the man’s etheretic aura that he was starting to lose track of where it ended and his own began?
Either way he’d have to be careful. This was dangerous magic-even for him.
Gritting his teeth he gathered his own potentia closer. Imagined it thin and sharp like a needle, poised to pierce the invisible shadbolt’s poisonous heart. Where was it, anyhow? He could feel it. He could taste it. It was here. Why couldn’t he see it?
Come on, you filthy thing. Come out, come out, wherever you are.
Images were starting to form in his mind. Shards of glass. Sharpened knives. Bits and pieces of barbed wire. Twisted and tangled and embedded in flesh. And the hand that had forged them-the wizard who’d dreamed them, had turned his dreams into a lethal reality Gerald. Oh, Gerald. What happened to you?
Achingly familiar, abhorrently strange, Gerald’s despicably altered thaumic signature tainted every thread of the shadbolt. No doubt about it now. No way to hide. This was Gerald’s doing. The other Gerald. This Monk’s Gerald. He felt a trembling clutch of fear.
I don’t know if I can break this monstrosity. I don’t know the man who made it.
From a long, long way distant he heard himself sob, once. A sound of despair and impending defeat. Then faintly he heard a voice.
“Don’t you dare give up, Monk Markham. We both know you can do this.”
Melissande, being bossy and regal the way only she could. Taking heart from her snippiness, taking heart from her, he steadied his ragged breathing and looked again at the cage in which the other Monk was trapped.
Something tickled his attention. Something familiar. Outlying semi-cants, like the shadbolt he’d broken on Mr. Plummer’s prisoner. Not the same thaumic signature but the same wicked design. Either it was a coincidence-or Gerald and their mysterious black market wizard had been reading the same books. Even though this was awful, he nearly laughed.
His Gerald had told him exactly how to break through this kind of lock. After doing it twice he was practically an expert. And once the correct sequence of semi-cants was triggered, the rest of the shadbolt should just… melt away. All he had to do was work out the correct order.
Except last time it was Gerald who’d identified the right sequence. Sure, he’d figured the proper timing to break them, but without the correct order If he can do it, I can. I have to. Come on, Debbie. Prove that pillock Aylesbury wrong.
The other Monk was weakening. The strain of this was proving too much for him. They were both running out of time now.
Come on, come on, come on.
With a surge of his potentia he pushed through the wardings and the barriers surrounding the shadbolt, roughly pulling them apart. The other Monk screamed, the most hideous sound. He felt the pain sear through his own body and screamed with him. He couldn’t help it-but he didn’t let it stop him, either.
Twelve semi-cants. Three groupings. Twenty-four different timings. And oh bugger-what was that? A buzzing, a burning, a warning shudder through the ether. No. He’d set something off. Some kind of thaumic booby-trap. Hell. Why hadn’t he sensed it?
Damn you, Dunwoody! When did you get so sneaky?
Now the race was really on. Desperately he threw his potentia at the tangle of incants. But even as they fell, their timings haphazardly staccato, he could feel the other Gerald’s thaumic booby-trap expanding, spreading like acid spilled from a filthy glass.
Come on, Markham, come on, come on. Are you a bloody genius or aren’t you?
Six hexes down. Seven. Eight. Nine.
The other Monk was howling. God, somebody shut him up. Ten. Eleven.
The twelfth semi-cant resisted. Because it wasn’t a simple semi-cant. No, of course it wasn’t. It was a triple-hexed double-looped terto-cant. You bastard. He and the other Monk were howling together now, blood and bones and flesh on fire. The booby-trap had nearly reached its critical tipping-point. No more minutes left, only seconds remaining.
No time for kindness. No time for finesse. He ripped apart the shadbolt’s final incant like a wolf falling on a lamb. And then, as he pulled himself free of the Monk from next door’s tattered aura, he managed to extinguish the booby-trap before it finished its job.
Take that, Gerald, you maniac. Whoever you are.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The other Monk’s cries of anguish were unspeakable. Hands pressed to her face, Melissande turned away. “I can’t bear this,” she muttered to Reg on her shoulder, feeling like the worst kind of coward. “I can’t.”
“Come on, ducky,” said Reg. Her claws were close to drawing blood, she was clutching so tight. “It can’t go on much longer.”
No, it couldn’t. Because if their Monk didn’t break the shadbolt in the next few seconds the other Monk would surely die-or else go totally mad.
Hurry up, Monk. Hurry up. Saint Snodgrass, help him.
Still hiding behind her hands, she could hear Bibbie’s harsh, choked breathing. Poor Bibbie. She shouldn’t have stayed. This was too cruel.
And then the two Monks let out a blood-curdling yell. She spun around so hard and so fast that Reg nearly lost her perch. Swearing and flapping, the bird managed to hang on. Bibbie leaped for the sofa, her ivory-pale cheeks drenched with tears.
“Monk! Monk! Are you all right? Monk! ”
Limp as an overcooked Yok Tok noodle, Monk slid all the way to the parlor carpet. His nose was bleeding, thick red splatters on his chin and his shirt. Eyes rolled up in his head he sprawled on the floor, looking entirely too close to dead for comfort. Only the rasping of air in his throat reassured them that he was actually alive.
“Monk, you idiot!” cried Bibbie, and hauled him into her lap. “Please, please, don’t just lie there. Say something!”
