by K. E. Mills
Rubbing at his arm, he sighed. “Sorry.”
“I should bloody think so,” said Reg. “Because we’ve just got through establishing that muggins over there is you, haven’t we? Which means his Gerald is my Gerald and I can’t see my Gerald doing something like that. Can you?”
They’d retreated to the parlor’s furthest corner again, the better to have a quiet conniption. The Monk from next door had lapsed into a doze, worn out by the effort of getting here and having his etheretic aura rummaged through like a bargain bin at a market stall and whatever else he’d been enduring up till now, that made him look like—that.
“Are you all right?” Melissande asked quietly. “Because you look like you’ve got the most fearful headache.”
“I have,” he admitted. “But never mind. Let’s concentrate on the shadbolt for now.”
“The shadbolt my Gerald—or any Gerald—couldn’t possibly inflict on anyone,” said Reg, feathers ominously bristling. “Are we all perfectly clear?”
“Look, Reg,” Bibbie said after a moment. “I don’t want to believe it either. But Monk’s not going to make a mistake about something like this. He knows Gerald’s thaumic signature better than any of us. If he says the shadbolt is Gerald’s handiwork, then like it or not we have to accept that.”
Good old Bibbie. Tentatively, he stroked a fingertip down Reg’s wing. “You think I’m happy about this, Reg? Just thinking about it makes me sick.”
She rattled her tail feathers, distressed. “I don’t understand,” she muttered. “It’s just not like him. Not even that government stooge Sir Alec could convince my Gerald to do something like that—especially to you.” She took a deep, rallying breath. “So if this is true—and I’m not saying it is—then something must’ve gone terribly wrong.”
Oh, it had. Because the Gerald who’d prisoned the other Monk in his shadbolt—that Gerald stank of filthy magics. If that Gerald walked into the parlor right now, chances were he wouldn’t recognize him. Not on the inside. Not where it counted. And even though nothing in the world next door had anything to do with him he was suddenly scalded by a terrible, angry grief.
What did you do, Gerald? What the bloody hell did you do?
“Rats,” said Melissande, her chin coming up. “I’ve just had a thought. What if we’re looking at this round the wrong way?”
With an effort Monk shook himself free of grief and made himself pay attention to the girls.
“How d’you mean?” said Bibbie.
“Well…” Mel snuck a look at the other Monk. “Aren’t we making a few assumptions here? And don’t we all know what happens when one assumes?”
“Yes,” said Reg. “One makes an ass out of you and anyone who doesn’t happen to be me. My assumptions always turn out to be right.”
“Yes, Reg, of course they do,” said Mel, with admirable restraint. “Blimey. But see, the thing is, because that’s Monk—sort of—passed out on the sofa, we’re all assuming he’s telling the truth. But what if Reg’s stupid joke is true? What if this Monk really is like an evil twin and he’s come here with some dastardly plan to destroy us? Don’t ask me why. Or—or maybe he’s an escaped convict. You did say shadbolts were used on criminals.”
“Madam could be right,” said Reg, unflatteringly surprised. “This other Monk Markham could be a rotter. It would certainly explain why his Gerald had to restrain him.”
“Monk?” said Bibbie, anxious. He couldn’t remember seeing her anxious before. He hated it. “What do you think?”
“You’re right,” he said cautiously. “It’s a theory.” But not one he was terribly willing to embrace.
And why’s that? Because I can’t see myself as an escaped criminal on the run? Because I can’t be the villain, I can only be the hero?
No. It wasn’t that. According to Uncle Ralph he was already a perishing villain. It was the oppressive, metallic after-taste of the other Gerald’s thaumic signature that revealed the horrible truth. And he’d tell the girls that. He would. As soon as he was sure he could get the words out without heaving up his supper…
“The problem is,” said Bibbie, grimmer and older than he’d ever seen her, “we could keep dreaming up theories until the cows come home—which would get us exactly nowhere. So we don’t have a choice. We have to get that shadbolt off him. It’s the only way to find out for sure what’s going on.”
Reg rattled her tail feathers. “True, ducky. But taking off a shadbolt’s not like wriggling out of a corset, now is it?”
Monk gave her a look. “You’re asking me?”
“Trust me, sunshine, the last man in the world I’d ask about corsets—on or off—is you,” Reg said coldly. “Now shadbolts, on the other hand…”
The trouble with any kind of conversation involving Reg was that it was far too easy to get distracted by the insults. She seemed to shed them effortlessly, like lice. How Gerald lived with it he would never understand.
Bibbie cleared her throat, not looking at the bird or Melissande. “Ah—Monk? Perhaps we should—”
“I know,” he muttered. “Bloody hell.”
“Bloody hell?” echoed Melissande, instantly suspicious. “What d’you mean bloody hell? What’s going on? Why is it that every time someone mentions shadbolts the pair of you turn green and nearly jump through the roof?” Arms folded, toes tapping, she treated them to her best prime ministerly glare. And then she blinked. “Wait a minute. Emmerabiblia Markham, does this have anything to do with why you were looking as sick as a goose when you finally turned up at the office this morning?”
Bibbie tried to smile. “Ah—would you believe the breakfast milk was off?”
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&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?
