by K. E. Mills
“We could ask you the same question,” said Melissande. “In fact, I think I will.”
“I asked first.”
She looked at him over the top of her glasses. “ That is a particularly childish answer, Gerald.”
“Melissande, please. This is important. Just-tell me what’s going on, all right?”
He was immediately treated to a tangled three-way tale of sprites and cheating pastry cooks and public unmaskings and exploding gooseberry sponges and a mystery thief with a penchant for nicking biscuits and sundry office equipment. When the riotous tale was told, and the girls finally stopped shouting over the top of each other, contradicting and complaining, he looked at Monk and shook his head.
“An interdimensional portal opener?” he said. “Bloody hell, Markham. Only you.”
Monk tried to look penitent and failed, abjectly. “What can I say? It was an accident.”
It was an accident. They’re going to be his last words, I just know it. “ I take it you haven’t told anyone… official?”
“Not yet,” said Monk, shaking his head. “To be honest I don’t know if I will. Once I calmed down and thought about it, I wondered if an interdimensional portal opener might not be a bit dangerous to have around.”
Melissande rolled her eyes. “ Now it occurs to him. After he’s let the interdimensional sprite loose on the world.”
“Hey,” said Monk. “It got your agency out of financial hot water, didn’t it?”
“But Monk,” said Bibbie, “if you keep the IPO under wraps that means you won’t get another article in The Golden Staff.”
“He’ll survive,” said Gerald. “And I’ll forget I even heard about it… if you promise to forget it exists, Monk.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Monk sighed. “I know the drill. Stop being such an old mother hen, mate.”
Reg nipped him on the ear. “Oy. That’s enough disparaging of mature female birds, thank you. And anyway, what you did was daft and you know it.”
“Ow,” said Monk. “Fine. Sorry. The point is, Gerald, there’s no need to fuss. I learned my lesson. No more interdimensional portal opening for me.”
“Okay,” he said, relieved. Monk might be a raving nutter, but once he gave his word that was that. “Good.”
“And now,” said Melissande, “it’s your turn, Gerald. Why are you skulking at Wycliffe’s?”
Damn. “If I tell you on my honour, cross my heart and hope to get haemorrhoids that I’m not on the trail of a rascally biscuit thief, will you believe me and let it go? Please?”
Melissande looked at Reg, then Bibbie. “Sorry,” she said, stubborn to the last. “For all you know our biscuit thief could be-could be-”
“Diversifying,” said Bibbie brightly. “They’ve gone so long without being caught they’ve been emboldened, and now they’re-they’re-”
“Upping the ante,” said Reg.
He sighed. “No, girls. Trust me. They’re really not.”
“You don’t know that,” said Melissande, with another belligerent lift of her chin. “How can you know that?”
“Because it’s my job,” he said, striving for patience. “Secret government agent now, remember?”
“That just makes you badly paid,” said Bibbie. “Not infallible.”
“So, Gerald, what are you doing at Wycliffe’s?” said Melissande. “It’s the dullest place imaginable. And it’s well on the road to insolvency, if I’m any judge. And as a former prime minister of a practically bankrupt kingdom you’d best believe I am. These scooters and velocipedes and what-have-yous they’re trying to flog are rubbish.”
He shook his head. “Sorry. I can’t tell you.”
Reg rattled her tail feathers ominously. “Sauce for the goose, sunshine. If you don’t give us chapter and verse about what you’re up to, well, this Markham boy’s still got his interdimensional portal opener around here somewhere. Fancy a little jaunt to the twelfth dimension, do you? With an extra helping of sprites?”
Gerald stared at them, feeling his frustration churn. “Look, girls, I know you think I’m being a spoilsport but I’m only trying to protect you. In fact…” He took a deep breath. “For your own safety, I think you should tell Permelia Wycliffe you can’t solve the case and get out of there while you still can. Because if you keep on poking around in that place you might accidentally poke the person I’m after… and that could be dangerous.”
“Turn tail and run, you mean?” said Bibbie. “Absolutely not! We’re witches, not shrinking violets.”
Gerald shoved his hands in his pockets. “That’s not quite accurate. You’re a witch, Bibbie, but as for your colleagues… well, Melissande’s a born organiser and Reg is a bird. Trust me, that’s not enough this time. We’re not talking hexed cakes. We’re talking big trouble. And I don’t want you three anywhere near it.”
Now they were all glaring at him. “You-you-insufferable prig!” spluttered Melissande. “Is that what they taught you on your Department training course? How to be an insufferable prig?”
“Steady on, Mel,” Monk murmured. “He’s only-”
She snatched her hand free of his. “Don’t you dare defend him to me, Monk Markham! Patting me on the head and telling me to sit in the corner like a good little girl? After Lional?”
Monk pulled a face, hands raised. “Sorry, mate. You’re on your own.”
Wonderful. He couldn’t be handling this worse if he’d planned it. “Look, that’s not what I meant. I know you’re brave, Melissande. You’re ridiculously brave. You and Reg are the bravest women I’ve ever met. And Bibbie, you’d be just as brave if you had to be, I’m sure.”
Reg’s eyes were glinting dangerously. “That’s right, sunshine. Keep on digging. Graves are generally six feet deep.”
He stared at them, despairing. “Why won’t you trust me when I say you shouldn’t be there? I’m the one with the inside information. I’m the one working for the secret government Department that knows things. If anybody’s being priggish here it’s you, dismissing my expertise out of hand.”
The girls looked at each other. Then Bibbie shrugged. “I hate to admit it but he’s got a point.”
“Fine,” said Melissande, and folded her arms. “All right, Gerald. You tell us why it’s too dangerous for Witches Inc. to continue investigating at Wycliffe’s… and we’ll consider leaving.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Gerald stared at her, silenced. Why me? “Melissande, aren’t you listening? I’m not allowed to tell you why.”
She sniffed. “Then we’ll just have to make sure we’re on different lunchbreaks, won’t we?”
“Don’t look at me, mate,” said Monk, reprehensibly grinning. “I want to know what’s going on as badly as they do.”
“Oh, thank you very much,” he said bitterly. “You’re a big help, you are.”
“Hey,” said Monk. “Whatever you tell us won’t go beyond these four walls.”
“I know that,” he said, close to shouting. “This isn’t about me not trusting you, it’s about the fact I’m working on something huge. If somehow I manage to mess things up by telling you about it, the consequences could be catastrophic.” He felt like tearing his hair out. “Damn, this is a bloody disaster. With the girls involved suddenly everything’s getting complicated — and you know what that means.”
“The girls are sitting right here, Gerald, in case you’ve suddenly gone blind in your other eye,” said Melissande. “And they don’t appreciate being treated like three pieces of furniture.”
“I don’t care! I wish you were three pieces of furniture!” he retorted. “Because then I could put you under lock and key and not have to worry about you getting in the way!”
She leapt to her feet. “ Gerald Dunwoody — I am not a foot stool! Who the hell do you think you are, to stand there telling me what I can and can’t-”
“Oh, put a sock in it, ducky,” said Reg, with a sigh. “You won’t get anywhere browbeating him. And all your shouting is givin
g me a headache.”
Surprised, Gerald blinked at her. “Thanks, Reg. It’s nice to know I’m forgiven.”
Reg looked down her beak at him. “Did I say you were forgiven? Trust me, you’re not.”
Of course he wasn’t. It couldn’t possibly be that easy. He frowned at the threadbare carpet, marshalling his thoughts. Trying to work out how much he could tell them… what was safe… what wasn’t… and came to a depressing conclusion. He either told them everything or nothing at all. And if he decided to tell them nothing, if he turned around and walked out of Monk’s house right now, Melissande and Bibbie and Reg might end up paying the ultimate price. Because they wouldn’t give up investigating at Wycliffe’s. They wouldn’t back down. They didn’t know how.
Of course I could always just tip this into Sir Alec’s lap. Leave him to deal with it. Sure, I could do that… and lose their friendship forever.
Because Sir Alec really would put Witches Inc. under lock and key-most likely metaphorically but possibly in a literal sense. Either way they’d be shoved to one side. Treated like gels. Even though Reg hadn’t been a gel for centuries, and Melissande… well, Melissande had never been a gel. But Sir Alec would make no allowances for that, despite knowing the kind of women they were. Knowing they’d already proven beyond doubt they could be trusted.
And then there was Bibbie. She wasn’t like Melissande and Reg. Hell, she might well be a genius, like Monk, but she was practically a slip of a girl. Not part of the New Ottosland mess, she’d never had to face the things that slithered beneath the world’s stones, and feasted.
And I don’t want her to face them. At least not while she’s still so young. So innocent. Bibbie’s why I’m doing this. Aren’t I supposed to keep her-and everyone like her-safe?
But Reg would say that wasn’t his decision. Reg would say it was Bibbie’s choice, her right to risk herself if she wanted to. Hell, Monk would say the same thing and he was her brother. And what did that mean? That he was indifferent? Or that he cared so much for Bibbie that he was prepared to treat her exactly as he treated himself, and let her take the risks he took without a second thought?
Gerald sighed and looked at his friends. He could protect them or he could lose them… but he couldn’t do both. Rightly or wrongly they weren’t going to let him. And rightly or wrongly he wasn’t prepared to give them up.
Oh lord. Sir Alec is going to kill me…
“ Well,” he said slowly, “it all started with the portal accidents.”
As Melissande sank back onto the sofa, Monk pulled a face. “They weren’t accidents.”
Sometimes I don’t know why I bother. “How do you know that? Have you been listening at the wrong keyholes again?”
“No,” said Monk, suspiciously self-righteous. “I worked it out, that’s all. Well, me and Macklewhite and Barkett worked it out. We were just tossing ideas around. Speculating, after the second incident, that maybe someone was messing with the portal matrixes. We even set up a couple of experiments to see if we could do it. You know. In our spare time.”
Fascinated, Gerald stared at him. “In your spare time,” he murmured. I wonder if Sir Alec has any idea… “ And?”
“Oh, we managed it,” Monk said cheerfully. “Wasn’t easy, mind you. They’ve built about forty levels of security and redundancy and failsafes into the portal system, Gerald. Not only would you have to be bloody good, you’d have to bloody lucky to actually splotz one.”
“Well, someone was both,” he said. “More’s the pity.”
“But-but that’s just wicked,” said Bibbie, eyes wide. “I mean, people have been hurt. Badly hurt. Why would someone do an awful thing like that?”
“Ha,” said Reg, still perched on the back of the sofa. “That’s easy. First question any good investigator asks is Who benefits?”
“Or,” said Gerald, his brain newly stuffed with all that training, “ Who loses? ”
“You mean who’s been hurt by the growing popularity of portal travel?” said Melissande.
“Smart girl I’ve got here,” said Monk, and kissed her hand. Melissande blushed: seemingly Monk wasn’t the only one smitten.
Gerald nodded. “Yes. In the three years since it was introduced, portal travel’s become commonplace and very popular. It’s had a major impact on the way people get around.”
“Fewer cars and carriages,” said Bibbie. “Reduced rail services. And-”
“Hardly any airships,” said Reg. “There was a time I couldn’t fly a mile without bumping into one. Mind you, they did come in useful when I felt like resting my wings. Except of course then I could never find one going my way. Typical. I remember once-”
“Reg,” said Gerald, and pulled an apologetic face. “If we could just stick to the topic…?”
She sniffed. “Yes. Well. What I was about to say is I’m guessing that once the public realised they wouldn’t go up in a puff of smoke if they used a portal, the bottom fell out of the airship business. Am I right? Of course I’m right. And while fashions change, people don’t. I remember when steerable hot-air balloons first came in-all the carriage and wagon-makers went into a decline. There were riots, you know.” Another sniff. “Bit before your time, of course.”
“Just a bit, yes,” he said, grinning. “But the point’s sound. Three years ago Wycliffe’s was Ottosland’s premier airship company, having put the other two out of business. People who know about these things fully expected them to make it to world number one within a couple of years. And then came the major breakthrough in portal thaumaturgics, our government patented the incants and sold them internationally… and overnight, everything changed.”
“Permelia Wycliffe said they’d endured some crushing disappointments,” said Melissande, frowning. “I suppose this is what she was talking about. The collapse of their domestic and foreign markets.”
“So what you’re saying is, Gerald, someone at Wycliffe’s is trying to scare people away from using the portal system?” Monk chewed his lip. “By unravelling the matrixes? That’s a bit bloody drastic, don’t you think?”
Very drastic. But-“Desperate people do desperate things, Monk.”
“Well, yeah, obviously, but why now? Like you said, public portals have been around for three years.”
“Maybe whoever’s doing this thought portals would be a passing fad,” said Bibbie. “Maybe they thought there would be accidents and then people would go back to using airships. Maybe they kept hoping they wouldn’t have to do something so awful as wrecking portals and hurting people. And they kept putting it off, and putting it off, and hoping things would go back to the way they were. And they didn’t.”
She really was a very sweet girl. Mad as a hatter, just like her brother, but sweet. Gerald smiled at her. “I suppose that’s as good an explanation as any.”
“Wait a minute,” said Melissande, sitting up. “Orville Wycliffe, the company’s founder, died a year ago.”
Gerald nodded. “And his son Ambrose took over the firm. We know.”
“ Huh,” said Melissande, scowling. “ Ambrose. I tell you, Gerald, he’s bloody lucky I’m not Bibbie or I’d have fried him where he stood today. “ Gels interfere with the thaumaturgical ether.” I’ll give him ether, the insulting old frog.”
He had to smile. “Yes, well, Ambrose is a bit old-fashioned.”
“Old-fashioned and incompetent,” she said. “Ever since he got control of the company he’s tried to diversify it, with spectacularly unimpressive results. From what I can tell its scooters and velocipedes and jalopies are hopeless. They practically fall apart if you sneeze on them. If Ambrose thought he was going to save the business that way he was sadly mistaken.”
“Then it’s obvious, isn’t it?” said Monk. “Ambrose Wycliffe’s your villain. He’s trying to get his company back in the air by sabotaging the portal network.”
Gerald shook his head. “I wish it was that straightforward, but it’s not. We looked at Wycliffe’s financials and, yes, they
are shaky, but business incompetence isn’t proof of a crime. We also looked at Ambrose himself, very hard, but he’s squeaky clean. There’s not a shred of evidence connecting him to the portal accidents. If there was then trust me, we’d have found it.”
Melissande cleared her throat. “What about Permelia?”
“ Permelia?” Gerald stared. “No. It’s not her, either. And yes, we did look into the possibility,” he added as she opened her mouth to argue. “The Department is perfectly aware that women can be criminals too. But she’s as squeaky clean as her fiscally inept brother.”
“So really,” said Monk, “all you’ve got against Wycliffe’s is a suspicious-looking coincidence. As far as you and Sir Alec know the portals are being sabotaged by some anti-thaumaturgic nutter out to save the world from the dangers of meddling with etheretic particles. And that’s even if it is sabotage. I mean, me and Macklewhite and Barkett could’ve been wrong.”
“No, you’re not wrong,” Gerald sighed. “There were some trace thaumic signatures left after the last incident that can’t be explained away by the existing portal matrixes or as a by-product of the random thaumic fluctuations caused by normal portal operations. It looks like some very powerful hexes were used to pull the portals apart.”
“In that case,” said Bibbie, “can’t Monk also be right about who’s responsible? Everyone knows what those anti-thaumaturgical people are like. Quite dotty, the lot of them. Or jealous because they can’t hex themselves out of a wet paper bag.”
“I wish he was right,” he said. “Because then this would be over. But we know for a fact that nobody in the anti-thaumic movement is behind the portal sabotage.”
“Ah,” said Monk. “You’ve got agents on the inside?”
He pulled a face. “All I can tell you is there’s only a handful of wizards worldwide capable of using the kind of thaumaturgy we’re dealing with… and shady enough to try.”
