by K. E. Mills
He nearly jumped out of his socks when Melissande took hold of his arm. “Monk, what is he talking about?”
“Mel…” It was hard, it was so hard, but he made himself look at her. Princess Melissande of New Ottosland, short and stocky and bossy and brave. Ethics like armor. A sense of justice like a sword. The woman he loved, but wasn’t sure he could marry.
Me and Gerald, eh? What a bloody pair.
“Monk,” said Melissande, insistent, and tightened her grasp. “Do you know how he got here or don’t you?”
He looked across at the man on the couch. Of course I know. Because he’s me, and I’m him, and there’s precious bloody little we won’t try once. Their eyes met, and he felt the most peculiar jolt: recognition and fear and a terrible sorrow.
He sighed. “You brought it with you?”
“I had to,” said the other Monk. “I have to go back.”
“Then show them,” he said, and sighed again, because it was too late for all of them now.
The Monk from next door reached into his pocket and took out a small, rough, insignificant-looking stone.
“Hey!” said Bibbie. “That’s your portable portal. The—the Mark B prototype. The one you accidentally turned into an interdimensional—oh.”
“Blimey bloody Charlie,” said Reg, disgusted, breaking the stunned silence. “Oy. Mr. Twin. Did you jigger that thing to do what I think it’s done? And if you did, sunshine, then how many more of you idiots are running loose, d’you think?”
Reprehensibly, unforgivably, Monk felt a pang of pure jealousy shoot through him.
Bugger. He really did it. Does that mean I could do it too?
And then he yelled in pain as Reg leaned sideways on Melissande’s shoulder and yanked hard on a beakful of his hair. “Forget it, you raving lunatic!” she shrieked, slightly muffled. “Are you out of your brandy-pickled mind?”
“I’m sorry,” said Melissande, icy as winter, letting go of his hand completely and stepping aside. Reg squawked a protest as she was nearly pulled off her shoulder-perch. “Just let me see if I’ve understood this correctly. This other Monk Markham—to all intents and purposes you, Monk—took what he—you—freely admitted was a dangerously unpredictable accidental invention, namely the interdimensional portal opener—and—and twiddled it until he—you—could get it to open a portal into—into—what, exactly?”
“A parallel world,” said Monk, in perfect unison with himself from next door.
The look in Melissande’s eyes was lethal. “I see. Well, now. Ah—Reg?”
“Yes, ducky?”
“Do you know what I think?”
Reg’s eyes were gleaming too. “I think I can hazard a guess.”
“I think that if ever there was a time a man deserved a good poking in his unmentionables then—”
“Hey!” he said, backing up. “Don’t look at me, Melissande. I didn’t do it. He did. Poke him.”
Melissande wasn’t beautiful when she was angry. She was angry when she was angry. Practically breathing fire. “You heard what he said, Monk! You’ve been bloody thinking it! It was only ever a matter of time!”
The man on the sofa—Monk from next door—gasped a little, then started laughing. “Oh, Saint Snodgrass,” he wheezed. “I have missed this so much.” And then, quite dreadfully, he started weeping.
“Stop it,” said Bibbie, close to tears again herself. “All of you, just stop it. We’re in real trouble here and all you can do is squabble. Shame on you. We’re going to help him and that’s all there is to it.”
“But Bibbie—”
“Fine,” she shouted. “Then I will. Don’t you see, Monk? I have to. This man is my brother!”
Silenced, he stared at her. “No, he’s not,” he said at last. “I am.”
“You both are, you blithering idiot. And I can no more turn him away than I could abandon you.”
“Bibbie’s right,” said Melissande, temper under control now, brisk and royal as only she could be. “We’ve got no choice. We have to help.”
“But we don’t even know what he’s doing here!”
And we don’t want to know, Mel. We really, really don’t. Trust me.
“Then why don’t we ask?” she said. “Nicely. Without shouting.”
The Monk from next door let the portable portal drop to his side, coughing weakly, then shook his head. “You can ask, Mel, but I can’t answer. Not with this bloody shadbolt in place. I’ll tell you everything, I promise, but only after Monk gets the wretched thing off me.”
Furious, resentful, he took a step closer to the sofa. “And how the hell am I supposed to remove an invisible shadbolt, genius?”
“Trust me,” said the Monk from next door. The misery in his eyes was awful. “It won’t be invisible to you.”
In other words he was going to have to go looking for it. He was going to have to paddle around in this man’s etheretic aura—in his own etheretic aura, as good as—searching for a shadbolt not even Bibbie could find.
Bloody hell, Gerald. Where are you when I need you?
“Monk,” said Melissande. “Do we really have a choice?”
For the first time since meeting her, he wished she’d shut up. “No.”
“Is there anything we can do to—”
“You can back off,” he said curtly. “Stand well away. And don’t any of you breathe so much as one word.”
“Right,” said Bibbie. “The floor is yours, Professor Markham.”
As she joined Melissande and Reg in moving to the furthest corner of the parlor, he dropped cross-legged to the carpet beside the sofa. Took a deep, deep breath and made himself look into the face of the Monk from next door.
What else was different, apart from the scar? They had the same lanky dark hair, in need of a cut. The same thinly-bridged nose that his mother liked to call aristocratic. The same quizzically-arched eyebrows. The same lopsided mouth. Their prominent cheekbones were identical. They shared a pointed chin. They had the same crooked eye-tooth, thanks to Aylesbury’s bad temper.
But our eyes… good God, our eyes…
The eyes he was looking into had looked into hell.
“I knew you’d help me,” his unwanted twin whispered. “Knew it was worth it. You’re the only one I can trust.”
He knew the answer but he asked the question anyway. “Is this going to hurt?”
His other self smiled. “It doesn’t matter, Monk. You have to.”
For one bad moment he thought his courage was going to fail, that he was going to let himself down, let the girls down. Let down this man who looked—almost—like him.
One last glance behind him, at Bibbie. At Melissande. At Reg. All three girls were gravely silent, urging him on. He loved them so much. How could he not do this?
Hesitant, feeling far shakier than he’d ever admit, he took the Monk from next door’s hand in his own. Waited to feel some strong shock of recognition. Waited to see if this would make him wake up. No such luck. The fingers in his—my fingers—were long and thin and cool. Strong fingers. Clever fingers. Fingers used to playing with thaumaturgical fire.
He closed his eyes and stared into the ether, into the aura he’d never once seen from the outside. Searched for the shadbolt hiding within it like a lethally-honed knife sleeping silent in its sheath.
Oh, he thought, wondering. Oh. Is that what I look like?
Monk Markham’s aura was royal blue shot through with gold. At least, the parts of it that weren’t distorted and twisted were royal blue and threads of gold. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the ruined bits, not yet, so instead he concentrated on the remnants of beauty still untouched.
Unlike Gerald, he’d known from childhood he was special. Born with metaphysical talents few others would ever know. But even though he’d been tested so many times and in so many different ways that he’d long since lost count, had stopped keeping track even, not once had he ever been shown himself like this.
Because they didn’t th
ink it mattered? Or because they were afraid it might matter too much?
Growing up with Aylesbury, he’d promised himself he would never let magic go to his head. Thaumaturgical power was not the measure of a man. No matter what he invented, it could never be more important than being a decent human being. But since he’d never actually come right out and said that, perhaps it wasn’t surprising his family—and the Department of Thaumaturgy—would err on the side of caution.
And I do have a habit of ignoring the rules.
But that was different. That wasn’t about being better. It was only ever about the work.
The man on the sofa, the Monk from next door, stirred a little—and he remembered what it was he was meant to be doing.
An invisible shadbolt? Bloody hell. Who has the power to make a shadbolt invisible? It’s a major feat of thaumaturgics to put a normal one together.
To find the answer he had to look deeper into this Monk’s damaged aura. He had to forget about the beauty and confront the pain instead.
Do I really want to do this? No, I bloody well don’t.
Steeling himself, he inched his potentia deeper and closer to the dark, distorted patterns in the aura that suggested, like shadows on water, the presence of something dangerous beneath. He could see the patterns quite clearly. Thought it was odd that Bibbie couldn’t. She was one of the best witches of her generation.
He felt the other Monk flinch. Felt himself flinch with him. And then felt a teasing, taunting hint of something familiar. Or almost familiar. Something that should be familiar—and yet was somehow not right.
Gathering his potentia, he plunged his awareness into the heart of his unlikely twin’s aura, tearing it wider, baring it to his eyes. He saw the shadbolt in all its vicious, strangling glory, felt its thaumic signature… and heard himself cry out. Felt himself spiraling downwards, falling backwards, falling apart.
Because this was impossible. This had to be a mistake. He knew who’d made that shadbolt… and he knew he had to be wrong.
Gerald.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Seated at his dusted and neatly ordered desk, Sir Alec stared at the open folder in front of him. Rereading it was pointless. He knew that. He’d read the report four times and none of the words had changed. The truth hadn’t changed. His agent was dead. One moment’s inattention. One heartbeat of distraction. That was all it ever took. Just one. Not that the eyewitnesses put it that way, of course. The eyewitnesses, being ignorant, had seen what they were meant to see: a horrible shooting accident. One of those things that regrettably happened, sometimes, when a bunch of jolly chaps got together and went after grouse.
But he knew different. Saltman had gotten too close, too fast. He’d spooked his quarry and his quarry, instead of bolting, had turned to fight.
Damn you, Felix. What were you thinking? You should’ve known better. I thought you did.
Not an inexperienced janitor, Saltman. This had been his ninth assignment. Sloppiness like this was simply unacceptable. And now months of painstaking work had all been for nothing. Their quarry was on his guard now. Who knew how long it would take for him to relax his stirred defenses? This had been their chance, perhaps their only chance, of nipping Grantham Farnsworth’s activities in, as they said, the bud.
Beneath the anger he did feel grief. As hard as he tried he could never quite keep himself from forming a sympathetic attachment to the men he moved about the international stage like breathing chess pieces. Perhaps if he’d never been a janitor himself. Perhaps if he had no idea what it was like to risk life and sanity to keep the innocent masses safe. Perhaps then he’d be able to maintain a prudent distance. But he’d long since abandoned any hope of achieving it. His only hope was that no man whose life ultimately depended on him would ever know the depths of his feelings. Would know that he had feelings at all.
The second-to-bottom right hand drawer of his desk contained a heavy, official stamp and a stamp pad soaked in blood-red ink. Ralph said that was gaudy and ostentatious but he felt it was important not to pretend in black. Death wasn’t black, at least not until the funeral. Before then it was crimson.
Neatly, precisely, he stamped Felix Saltman’s file. A single word: Inactive. So circumspect. So polite.
The loss of an agent never failed to complicate his life, but at least it had been quite some time between drinks. And seeing, thanks to Saltman, that the pursuit of Farnsworth must for the next while be abandoned, his Department retained its precarious equilibrium.
Which was a slight and stinging consolation.
He slotted Saltman’s folder in the cabinet reserved for inactive files. That cabinet had been around for years, put to use long before he’d begun his tenure as head of the Department. He’d known perhaps a quarter of the men whose lives were interred within it, and of that quarter about one third had died on his watch.
He never allowed himself to wonder what the final tally would be.
His office wall-clock sounded softly, ticking towards nine. Slicing through time. He often worked late. Fewer distractions. A world deceptively at peace. The office’s heavy curtains were drawn and a small fire burned merrily, but the dancing flames failed to lift his mood.
Gerald should have returned from Grande Splotze by now. At the very least he should have made contact, if there were problems. If the man he was meeting had failed to show up.
He nearly succumbed to the lure of good malt whiskey. Felix Saltman was dead. Careless or not he deserved one small toast. But he left the bottle of aged Loriner unopened. Instinct was stirring and he’d long since learned to trust it.
Something’s not right. There’s another shoe somewhere, wanting to drop.
He had plenty with which to occupy himself while he was waiting. His in-tray overflowed with notes and observations and reports. So he returned to his desk and stifled instinct with work. Sat on the corner of his desk, a small, innocuous sphere of crystal. More a marble than a ball. Its vibration was known to very few. He’d trusted Gerald with it, though. He’d trusted Gerald with many things.
I don’t care what Ralph says. He’ll not let me down.
He looked up as someone tapped on the closed office door. “Come.”
“Sir,” said Dalby, ghosting in. He had the softest tread of any agent in Nettleworth—or out of it, for that matter. “Sorry to disturb you.”
Frowning, Sir Alec returned his pen to its holder and sat back. “You’re still here?”
He could always trust Frank Dalby to answer the unasked question. “Got a bloke who knows a bloke,” he said, ever the laconic. “Chance of a tip. Worth losing some sleep on.”
In another lifetime he and Frank had both been janitors. They were of an age. Had shared experiences. If Frank resented answering to him now he’d never shown it. But it was doubtful. Frank Dalby was born to hide in the shadows. The glare of politics would kill him inside a week.
Comfortably at ease on the other side of the desk, Frank gave the tip of his nose a thoughtful rub. “Bloody fool, that Saltman.”
He felt his lips twitch. To say that Frank was unforgiving was like saying water was wet. “We all make mistakes.”
Frank snorted. “Felix bloody did, and all.” He let his disinterested gaze slide around the room. “You got anything brewing in Splotze?”
The other shoe dropped, a soft sounding of doom. “Why do you ask?”
“Nothing on the duty board about Splotze,” said Frank, his gaze upcast at the firelit ceiling. “And everyone’s accounted for.” His gaze dropped. “Everyone based here.”
It was an invitation to a confidence which he wasn’t inclined to share. With a flick of his fingers he indicated his work-covered desk. “If there’s a point, Dalby, you might consider reaching it.”
Indifferent to rebuff, Frank fished in his pocket and pulled out a folded note. “Back-channel squawk,” he said, handing it over. “Didn’t make much sense but I wrote it down just in case.”
He took the note. “I s
ee.” As far as he knew, his labyrinth of informants didn’t include a detour via Frank Dalby. “Back-channel how?”
“Remember Scrubby Yates?”
Scrubby Yates, in a roundabout way, had once nearly and spectacularly cost them their lives. Ah yes, indeed, the good old days. “Vaguely.”
“Turns out Scrubby still keeps half an ear to the ground,” said Frank, a sardonic glint in his eye. “One toe in the water. A couple of fingers in a few pies. Someone reached out to him. He wouldn’t say who. I pushed, but he said he’s grown attached to his head.”
“And what has that to do with Splotze?”
“How should I know?” said Frank. “All I know is Scrubby moaned about the accent. And then he clammed up. I said I’d send him some ale.”
The folded note was burning his fingers like a brand. “Fine. Half a case and not one bottle more. I’d rather not encourage him. Scrubby Yates’s time has both come and gone.”
Frank didn’t often grin, but he was grinning now. “Half a case it is.” And then his amusement died, as though an internal switch had flipped. “I’m here if you need me, Ace. Just say the word.”
Frank Dalby would never have made the mistake Felix Saltman made. “It’s doubtful,” he said. “But I’ll certainly bear it in mind. Thank you, Mr. Dalby.”
As soon as the office door clicked shut behind his former colleague, he unfolded the note and read it. One sentence. Eight words.
Didn’t he want to wear a yellow cravat?
Cryptic for some. Clear as glass for him.
Gerald Dunwoody had never arrived.
“Gerald?” said Reg, shocked. “Gerald put a shadbolt on him? My Gerald?”
Monk scowled at her. “No, Reg, his Gerald. I thought you were paying attention.”
Inconveniently close on Melissande’s shoulder, she whacked him with her wing. “I am paying attention. And mind how you speak to your elders, sunshine. You’re not too old for a thrashing and I’m not too old to give you one.”
