Time melted. Turned liquid. Became molten glass. Trapped in a burning prism, he struggled and shuddered and fought. The hex’s filthy thaumaturgical field was an ocean of pitiless acid. Burning, it stripped him to bare, bloody bones, scoured him clean of all conceit and any faith in his powers. He swam its currents with desperation, always two shallow gasps from drowning.
Bugger this, Gerald. I wish you were here.
No. No. He couldn’t afford to think about Gerald. Or Bibbie. Or Melissande. Let himself get distracted and he really would drown.
The blood magic incant whipped around him like rope in a tornado. Every attempt to snatch it to stillness failed. He was tired, so bloody tired, but he didn’t dare give up. He was a Markham, and Markhams always won.
Except when we lose.
He could feel the panic rising, feel the bitter cold of defeat.
I can’t do this. I’m not Gerald. I’m no rogue.
From so far away that it felt like a dream, he heard a soft and familiar voice.
“- age, Mister Markham. Courage. One foot in front of the other. It’s not acceptable for you to fall over now.”
Irritated, he twitched the words away like a horse wrinkling its skin to discourage a fly.
Bloody Sir Alec Oldman. Sir Manky. Sir Secret Government Stooge. All his fault, this was.
I could be having a bath.
Battered by the relentless thaumaturgical stresses, Monk strained his potentia way past what he knew was safe. He could feel the sweat pouring, hear the air rasping in his throat. How long now had he been fighting? He had no idea. The hex was half blood magic, half thaumaturgical barbed wire.
I can’t believe Gerald tamed it. What the hell has he become?
A question that had to wait for an answer he wasn’t sure he could stomach.
The cruel incant whipped by him yet again, for the hundredth time, the thousandth. Because he had to, because he was a Markham and he couldn’t give up, he couldn’t lose, for the hundredth time, the thousandth, he reached for it with his potentia.
And shouted aloud as this time his potentia held it fast. He clutched the blood magic hex tight, almost sobbing with relief, eager to rip its strands apart before it escaped him.
What is this thing? Who made it? Have I ever met this brilliant, murdering bastard of a wizard?
Greedy as a little boy tearing the wrapping paper from his birthday gifts, he began to peel away the hex’s violently defensive outer layer. And it hurt, bugger, it hurt. He was running naked through a briar patch, a ragged dance of blood and pain.
It doesn’t matter. It’s not important. Winning matters. Nothing else.
And he was winning. Against the odds, he was winning.
There were three distinct thaumic fingerprints tangled up in the hex. That much was clear. He was almost sure one of them was Gerald’s. Not positive, though, because it was distorted by the underlying blood magic. The second fingerprint belonged to missing Abel Bestwick. That came from the dried blood. A wizard’s potentia screamed in his blood. And thanks to Sir Alec, he’d been made familiar with Bestwick’s thaumaturgical signature. As for the third thaumic fingerprint, he couldn’t quite-it was slippery-what the devil And then he realised. Markham, you dimwit. It wasn’t a thaumic fingerprint at all, it was a powerful deflection incant. Flawless, in fact. Shining and polished, like a mirror reflecting an abyss. Move along now, move along. There’s nothing to see here.
Groaning, Monk wrapped his bruised and briar-pricked potentia around the incant and wrenched it loose. It dissolved almost at once in the blood magic’s thaumaturgical field… and at last he was staring into the beating heart of evil.
And could see nothing else. Every element, every syllable, every thread of the incant was warded. Bound and smothered and defended by deflections he’d need a year, at least, to unravel. Churning beneath the pain, the kind of fear he wasn’t used to feeling.
Oh, lord. If Sir Alec shoved the wizard who made this in front of me, right now, I wouldn’t know. I couldn’t recognise him.
So how the hell was that winning?
He felt sick.
“Right then, Sir Alec, that’s more than enough,” said another distant voice. “He’s been playing silly buggers with that filthy hex of yours for nearly three hours. Look at his face! He’s the colour of week-old milk.” A sharp poke in his arm. A small pain, but rousing. “Come along, Mister Clever Clogs. Time to stop showing off.”
Step by feeble step, exhausted, Monk backed out of the thaumaturgical briar patch. Took a moment to catch his breath, then wearily disentangled his potentia from the blood magic he had failed to decipher.
When at last he’d gathered enough strength to blink his vision clear, he saw Reg standing on the table in front of him, feathers militantly ruffled, dark eyes alight with a combative gleam. Sir Alec was still leaning-no, actually, he was slouching now, not like him at all-against the kitchen sink and regarding Reg with a definitely jaundiced air. Then his tired gaze shifted, and in his pale grey eyes, a fading hope.
“Well, Mister Markham?”
He scrubbed his fingers through his hair, then dragged his palms down his face, feeling unclean. Badly used. With his elbow, he shoved the bloodstained carpet further away. A damned shame he couldn’t burn it.
“Well, sir, it’s a blood magic hex and the target was-is- Abel Bestwick.”
“And?”
Not at all fooled by Sir Alec’s measured tone and seeming indifference, he tried to stifle a wince. The tatty piece of carpet lay on the table like a crime.
“And that’s it,” he said, fighting the desire to hide behind his hands. “That’s all I can tell you. Bestwick’s in there, and Gerald. I can identify their potentias. But the wizard who created that piece of muck is a ghost.” He met Sir Alec’s grey gaze defiantly. “I’m sorry.”
Silence, as Sir Alec stared. It was impossible to say what he was thinking, or feeling. His tired face was utterly blank.
“Right then!” Reg said briskly, and rattled her tail. “So that was very interesting, and now it’s over, and now you, Sir Alec, can be on your merry way because our Mister Markham is no longer At Home to visitors.”
“Indeed,” Sir Alec said, straightening. “I wasn’t aware, Reg, that you-”
“No, of course you’re not bloody aware,” Reg snapped. “Of anything, as far as I can see. People like you never are. People like you, sunshine, are so busy swanning about tossing orders like half-cooked rice at a third-rate wedding that you can’t even see that-”
Sir Alec silenced her with a look. “Mister Markham.”
Monk shoved his chair back and made himself stand. “Sir.”
“You put in a fine effort,” Sir Alec said, with every appearance of sincerity. “You shouldn’t reproach yourself. Bringing you that hex to break was more a last ditch hope than anything.”
What? “Now you bloody tell me!”
A wintry smile. “Indeed.”
With a shiver of revulsion, Monk stared at the bloodstained carpet. “You should stick that filthy thing somewhere safe and wait for Gerald to get home. He’ll be able to sort it out. Aside from the bastard who created it, I reckon he’s the only one who can.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” said Sir Alec, after a moment. “And if that notion doesn’t scare you spitless, Mister Markham, then I am gravely mistaken in you.”
Their eyes met in a rare, complete sympathy.
“Now hold on a minute-” Reg began, feathers bristling.
“Don’t, Reg,” he said. “Please. I’ll explain later.”
As Reg subsided, muttering darkly under her breath, Sir Alec removed the warding hexes he’d placed around the kitchen. No longer trusting his legs to hold him upright, Monk dropped back into his chair.
“So, sir. What now?”
“What d’you think?” Sir Alec said, shrugging. “We wait and cross our fingers, Mister Markham. Something will happen, eventually. It generally does. That is the nature of the janitoring beast. And in the meantime…” His brows pinched in a small frown. “While, for obvious reasons, I cannot officially be aware of your nocturnal perambulations
