Wizard Squared (43 page)

He’d often wondered just how much Mr. Dunwoody and his friends knew about the former Queen of Lalapinda. He had to believe—very little. For if they’d known what he knew they would hardly be so relaxed in her company. If he weren’t convinced she’d been hexed into comparative harmlessness he’d not be relaxed either.

Miss Cadwallader, as she so quaintly insisted she now be called, stood stiffly behind the wingback chair on which the bird perched. “I appreciate that in your profession, Sir Alec, a certain amount of circumspection is required. But really, given our current dilemma, I hardly think it’s appropriate.”

“In other words, ducky, get on with it,” said the bird. “In case you haven’t noticed, the sun’s about to rise.”

And that was true. With nowhere to sit he dropped to one knee beside the low table, and the box. “This device,” he said, tapping its lead-lined container, “is the only one of its kind. At least, as far as I know. I’ve never come across another and it’s my devout hope I never will.” He swept his gaze around their faces, slowly, and let them see what that meant. “Until this moment I was the only one who knew of its existence. The wizard who created it is long dead and while he lived he kept it a secret. In revealing it to you four now I imperil not only my own career and quite possibly my life, but yours as well.”

“Without asking?” said Miss Markham, frowning. “Thanks for nothing, Sir Alec.”

He nodded. “You’re welcome.”

“So this long dead wizard you nicked it from,” said the bird. “Killed him, did you?”

“Is that relevant?”

Her disconcertingly human eyes gleamed. “No. But it’s interesting.”

“It’s ancient history,” he said flatly, and looked again at Ralph’s inconveniently brilliant nephew. “Mr. Markham. There is a short time after Ãortontdeath during which echoes of the deceased’s experiences remain
imprinted on his or her etheretic aura. This device will allow you to read them.”

“Bloody hell!” said the bird. “No wonder you kept that thing under wraps. In the wrong hands it could do a bit of mischief.”

He gave her a thin smile. “Precisely.”

Monk Markham and his sister were staring at the object with oddly-alike expressions: shock mixed with a cautious and regrettable admiring excitement. The term “cut from the same cloth” might have been coined just for them.

Ralph, Ralph. Does your brother know about his children?

Miss Cadwallader folded her arms. “You want to read our visitor, don’t you?”

“Not… exactly,” he said. “I want Mr. Markham to read him.”

“Me? Why me?” said Ralph’s nephew, startled.

He shrugged. “Because much of the information gained through this device is, for want of a better word, intuitive. And given that you and he are the same man in many respects, it seems likely you’ve a better chance of connecting with his memories. Especially since he’s been dead for some time.”

“Fine,” said Miss Cadwallader. “Say our Monk connects. What do you intend to do with the information?”

“Whatever I must in order to avert disaster,” he replied, with another thin smile. “That is, after all, my job.”

Melissande Cadwallader was a perspicacious young woman, with a spirit forged in fires the heat of which thankfully few would ever know. She stared
at him in silence, her green gaze measured and cold. One by one the others, even the bird, turned to look at her.

“Mel?” said Ralph’s nephew, a young man in love. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Sir Alec… nobody official knows you’re here, do they?”

Ah.
Very neatly, very deliberately, he clasped his hands on his bent knee. “No.”

“Do they know Gerald’s missing?”

“No.”

“Do they know about the other Monk?”

“No.”

“In other words, whatever you’re planning to do isn’t sanctioned.”

He nodded. “Correct.”

“And are you going to tell them? Your political masters?”

Political masters. Oh, how he disliked that term. “In my opinion this situation is too complicated for a politician to grasp. If we’re going to act we must act quickly, decisively, with a minumum of interference.”

“So, in
other
other words,” she said,Ãrdswit still so cool and watchful, “you want to go on keeping your secrets.” She nodded at the lead-lined box and its contents. “Like that thing.”

“Yes. That is, if you’ve no objection, Miss Cadwallader.”

Her lips tightened. “Have you heard of the saying, Who watches the watchers?”

“We watch each other, Miss Cadwallader.”

“Ha!” scoffed the bird. “Then why weren’t you watching my Gerald?”

“Are you suggesting I should’ve anticipated the manner of Mr. Dunwoody’s disappearance?”

“He didn’t disappear, sunshine, he was kidnapped!” said the bird. “Right from under your sleeping nose!”

“Reg,” said Miss Cadwallader, and nudged the chair with her knee. “Be fair.”

The bird subsided. Interesting.

“Miss Cadwallader,” he said, “is there a point you’re trying to make? If so, please make it. Every minute we delay makes Mr. Markham’s task more difficult.”

“My
point
, Sir Alec,” she retorted, “is that you should stop treating us like children and instead spell out exactly what you’ve got in mind.”

“You tell him, ducky,” the bird snapped, and chattered her beak. “Bloody government stooges. They’re all alike and they
never
change.”

Mr. Markham cleared his throat uncomfortably, hands shoved deep into his pockets. “Look. Sir Alec. I know when it comes to your dealings with us the road so far’s been a bit bumpy. I know that one way or another we haven’t always followed the rules. At least, not as they’re written. But that doesn’t make us the enemy. We might be unorthodox but I promise, you can trust us.”

Sighing, he shook his head. “Mr. Markham, if I didn’t know that already then instead of remaining here in your comfortable house you and your sister and your unorthodox friends would be under lock and key in an undisclosed location.”

“Oh,” said Ralph’s nephew, blinking. “Right.”

The bird cackled. “So now that you’ve put us all at ease, Sir Watch-Me-Throw-My-Weight-Around-Because-Intimidating-Civilians-Is-So-Much-Fun, why don’t you cut to the chase and lay your dog-eared cards on this nice antique table?”

He looked at the bird and the bird looked back. Bright eyes, dull feathers, and deeds long behind her that would make these children weep.

Does she weep, I wonder, in the dark of night, with her memories?

“My cards,” he said, and looked again at Ralph’s frustrating, well-intentioned, oblivious nephew, “are indeed dog-eared. And my plan, such as it is, might well be regarded by some as insane.”

“Yes, but will it get us Gerald back?” said the bird. “Because that’s the only thing any of us give a rat’s ass about, sunshine.”

“I don’t know,” he said, after a long, considering pause. “All I can tell you is that I believe it’s his only hope. Our only hope. And that if we don’t do something—even something insane—every instinct informs me we will most certainly live to regret it.”

Nearly half an hour later, with Sir Alec’s insane plan explained and them all shifted from the library up to Gerald’s bedroom, Melissande took Monk’s arm and drew him aside. “Look,” she said, her voice strategically low. “I realize I’m probably wasting my breath saying this but—you do understand there’s no way he can force you into using that infernal device?”

With an effort he dragged his gaze away from the sheet-covered body on Gerald’s bed. Tried to pretend
that Sir Alec and Bibbie and Reg weren’t standing a small stone’s throw away. “I know. But how else can we find out what’s happening in this world next door? Short of just barging through the portal, of course, and for once I’d prefer to look before I leap.”

Her eyes were anxious. “But after you’ve looked you’ll be leaping, won’t you? Monk…”

“What? So now you’re saying we
should
leave Gerald stranded there? Give him up for dead?”

“
No
,” she said, flushing dark pink. “But—but Monk, what happened to being objective?”

“It’s overrated.”

“And what if something goes wrong while you’re using that device? You heard Sir Alec. It’s sent men
mad
in the past.”

“Yeah, well, I’m mad already, aren’t I? So I should be safe.”

She shook his arm. “Monk, please. It’s not just the device, it’s the rest of it as well.”

Wanting to kiss her, he patted her hand. “I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t know that!”

True. “Maybe not, but here’s what I
do
know. If I don’t follow Sir Alec’s plan a lot of people could die. Sure, it’s going to be tricky, but—”

“Tricky’s one word for it,” she said grimly.

Sir Alec cleared his throat. “Mr. Markham. Time is a factor here.”

Time was always a factor. When were they going to run into a nice,
leisurely
crisis? He stared again at the shrouded shape on Gerald’s bed.
“Are you all right?”
Sir Alec had asked. And of course he’d said he was,
because admitting weakness to that man would be the gravest of tactical errors.

Except I’m not all right. I watched myself—felt myself—die. It was probably my fault. I was pretty rough dismantling that shadbolt. But I can live with that if I rescue Gerald. I think.

“Mr. Markham…”

He glanced at the bedroom doorway, where Gerald’s superior stood with Bibbie and Reg. “I know.”

“Then stop piss-assing about, sunshine,” said Reg, hunched on Bibbie’s shoulder.Ãbiefon “I’m losing so much beauty sleep waiting for you I’m going to have to put a bag over my head come morning.”

Oh, Reg. He managed a sort of grin. “Yeah? Well, if you’re looking, we keep them in the second-bottom kitchen drawer.”

Fingers tugged on his arm. “
Monk
…”

He knew his Melissande pretty well by now. She was fighting fear and embarrassing, unroyal tears. Ignoring Reg’s bubbling kettle impression, he brushed his knuckles against his young lady’s cheek.

“Don’t worry, Mel. I’m just going to rummage through what’s left of the poor bugger’s memories.”

“And after that?” she demanded, unmollified. “Monk, please, at least don’t let Sir Alec send you alone. You need us to come with you. There’s safety in numbers.”

Who cared if they had an audience? He kissed her chastely on the forehead and then, on impulse and far less chastely, on her severe, unhappy lips.

“No. It’s far too dangerous for you to go. Hell, it’s too dangerous for
me
to go—and I
really
wish I didn’t have to. If you came with me and something went
wrong—I can’t afford to lose my focus. I have to get to Gerald.”

“
Mr. Markham!
” Sir Alec snapped. “When I say time is a factor, do you imagine—”

“Sorry,” he said, turning. “I’m ready.”

“Come and stand with us, Mel,” said Bibbie kindly. “You’ll only be in the way if you hover.”

His little sister never ceased to amaze him. First that shadbolt business, and now this. She cared a great deal for Gerald, and for him. She was afraid for both of them. But she was also excited and fascinated by the realm of thaumaturgic possibilities opening up before them. He was starting to wonder if she wasn’t the maddest member of the Mad Markham clan. In a good way, of course.

“Bibs is right, Your Highness,” he murmured. “Go on. I’ll be all right.”

Frightened and resentful and nearly killing herself not to show it, Melissande left him alone at the bed.With a last glance at Sir Alec, who nodded once, his expression forbidding, he put her—he put all of them—out of his mind, dragged the bedroom chair closer and dropped himself onto it.

The body was so… still.

His hand unsteady, he tugged off the covering sheet and let it fall to the carpet. His breathing wasn’t steady either, and his heart was galloping like a speed-em-up hexed racehorse. It felt like any moment it was going to burst against his ribs.

Settle down, Markham. You’re a genius, remember? This’ll be a doddle. A walk in the park.

The dead Monk’s face had taken on a bluish-gray pallor, and most of the heat had leached out of his
flesh. He felt odd to the touch, like cool, uncooked bread dough. How could anyone ever mistake sleep for death? Even a man deeply stuporous, barely moving, didn’t look like this. Empty. Uninhabited. The spirit flown Ãe sughaway.

I’ll look like this one day. Sooner than I was planning if this plan of Sir Alec’s goes ass over ears.

The device—Sir Alec’s object—was already threaded onto the fingers and thumb of his left hand. A beautiful plaiting of copper, bronze and gold, it linked them together and turned his hand into a starfish. The incants that had forged the device hummed quietly against his skin. They weren’t out-and-out dark magic, not like the filthy hexes that had given birth to this Monk’s shadbolt. No, this magic came from the
potentia
of an amazing wizard who’d chosen to use his extraordinary power for personal gain. Sir Alec refused to say who he was, or what had happened to him.