With the oddest sensation-like the soundless snapping of a taut elastic-the warding hexes around Rottlezinder’s hideout collapsed. Gasping, Errol rocked a little on his heels. A moment later the partially-boarded factory entrance shifted sideways, and an indistinct figure stepped onto the broken-bricked path to the door.
“Haythwaite,” it said, the accent heavily West Uphantican, guttural and grating.
“Haf,” said Errol curtly. “It’s safe to approach?”
“The hexes, they are down,” said Rottlezinder. He sounded bleakly amused. “If it is safe, that is up to you. You’re alone?”
Errol nodded. “Of course. I don’t want trouble.”
“Mmm-hmm,” said Rottlezinder. “Such a funny fellow. You think I have not heard that before?”
Mist clouded as Errol breathed out, hard. “Not from me, you haven’t. Can we go inside? I don’t care to discuss this in the street, like some beggar.”
“But you are a beggar, Errol,” said Rottlezinder, amused. “You asked to see me, remember?”
Gerald saw Errol’s lips pinch bloodless. Saw his hands clench into fists. No, no, no, Errol, don’t you bloody dare! How am I supposed to get to the bottom of this if you kill each other before I’ve got you dead to rights!
“Yes, I asked to see you,” said Errol, mastering himself. “But you approached me first. You got me involved. Please, Haf. We need to talk.”
Frowning, Rottlezinder looked past Errol to the street beyond. “No, you want to talk. There is a difference.”
“What are you looking for?” said Errol, turning. “I told you, Haf, I came alone.”
“You saw no-one else in the street?”
“Not a soul,” said Errol. “Why? Are you expecting more visitors?”
Rottlezinder’s face stilled, then he shook his head. “No. I’m not one for company, Errol. You know that.”
Gerald, watching, thought that was a lie. I’ll bet he’s waiting for Eudora Telford. But why? This is getting more complicated by the minute. Lord, how much do I hate complications?
“Yes,” said Errol. “And this won’t take long. Please, can we go inside?”
The suggestion of a careless shrug. “Sure,” said Rottlezinder. “In you come.”
Errol walked up the uneven brick path, treading carefully, his head tipped back a little as though braced for a blow. Rottlezinder didn’t shift aside when Errol reached him. Instead he made Errol squeeze past him. Errol stepped off the broken brick path and into a slimy puddle of something. The gluggy splash, and his exclamation of disgust, made Rottlezinder laugh again.
“Haf,” said Errol, his voice low. “There’s no need for this to be unpleasant.”
“No?” said Rottlezinder, then pulled aside the entrance’s boarding. “You first, old friend.”
As Errol shoved his way into the abandoned factory, Rottlezinder wandered a little way down the path and frowned out into the night. With the very edge of the street lamp’s murky light touching him, Gerald saw that he was of middling height, very broad and blocky. Built more like a brawler than a wizard, one might think. His face was bony, his pale hair clipped very close to his skull, and he was dressed in black from head to toe. Around his right wrist a gold bracelet set with rubies winked and leered.
Gerald felt a tremble on the edges of the ether. Felt Rottlezinder’s potentia gather itself, like a fist. The criminal wizard was going to reactivate his warding hexes, and once they were brought back to life there’d be no hope of getting into that factory, no hope of learning the truth about him and Errol, no chance of thwarting whatever wickedness they had planned next.
No, no, no… I can’t be locked out, I can’t. Come on, Dunnywood, you tosser. Think…
Time spiralled around him. Years ago… he was a small boy playing in the kitchen while his mother baked fresh scones. A knock on the door. Someone unexpected. Mother went to answer it-some kind of travelling salesman. He remembered standing behind her, his four-year-old head not quite level with her hips, clutching her green skirt, listening to her tell him, “No thank you, not today.” Remembered her closing the door, and the toe of the salesman’s shoe jamming it open. Remembered his voice, persistent and argumentative. She’d threatened him with her rolling pin and he’d run away, the nasty man.
Jamming his toe in the closing door…
Was it even possible? Was there an equivalent incant? If there was he’d never come across it. He’d have to improvise one, and quick.
Oh lord. Where’s Monk when I need him?
As Haf Rottlezinder rewove the strands of his guarding hexes, Gerald took a deep, desperate breath and insinuated the barest sliver of his potentia into the turbulence of the thaumic mix. Not even so much as a toe in the door… more like a toenail… or a tiny toenail clipping… If Rottlezinder felt it, if he noticed any shift in the etheretic balance, this would get very ugly, very fast. And his best weapon, his First Grade staff, was yards and yards behind him in a patch of weeds.
“Hey!” said Errol from the abandoned factory’s entrance. “What the hell are you playing at, Haf? Do you think I came all this way to stand around watching you show off?”
Distracted, displeased, Rottlezinder swung round. And as he swung round he snapped the fingers of his right hand. Dull ruby fire flashed, the bracelet round his wrist shivering, and the warding hexes slammed back into place.
“You should watch your mouth, Errol,” said Rottlezinder, not amused now but threatening. “A fight with me is not something you should be looking for.”
“All right,” said Errol. He sounded… cautious. And beneath the caution was something else. Fear. “I don’t want to fight, Haf. I came to talk. So let’s talk.”
The factory’s partially boarded-up door clattered shut behind them. Gerald let out his held breath, light- headed, and bent over, gasping, hands braced on his knees. Too close. That was too close. Rivulets of sweat trickled down his spine and face.
I read all those case files. I studied the last ten years of the Department’s doings. Even with the censored bits blacked out, and nobody wanting Sir Alec to think they thought they were writing adventure fiction, I could see what this life is. So why am I surprised I’m so scared I could vomit?
Looked like Reg was right after all. Living is believing, sunshine, she was fond of saying. Until you’ve lived it you don’t know what’s possible.
Carefully he straightened, willing the dry-mouthed heaves to subside. Then he reached out and tugged, so very gently, on the thin thread of his potentia that was caught up in Haf Rottlezinder’s warding hexes. Had he been right? Had his desperate gamble paid off? Or was he about to trigger the hexes and bring this entire investigation crashing down around his inexperienced ears?
He nearly fell over.
Oh, lord. Oh, Reg. It worked. How could it work? I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m making this up as I go along.
Incredibly, what he’d managed to achieve, it seemed, was the insertion of his potentia into the actual matrix of Rottlezinder’s warding hexes. It was still his, but somehow it was mimicking Rottlezinder’s thaumic signature. The most fortuitous fluke, surely: this could only have worked because he stuck his toe in the door at a precisely perfect split-second of the hexing process.
If I’d tried to do it on purpose I’d never have managed it. Gosh. When Monk hears about this he’s going to go spare.
But while it was exciting, he wasn’t sure what it meant. Could he now break Rottlezinder’s wardings? Or could he-maybe-possibly He walked through them as though the hexes weren’t there. As though he were Haf Rottlezinder himself.
Dazed, he spun about to look behind him. To the ordinary eye the wizard’s hexes were invisible, but he could sense them in the ether, thaumic barbed wire, slashing claws and tearing teeth.
That shouldn’t be possible. I shouldn’t have done that. Could anybody do that… or is it just me?
In the pit of his belly, a faint, sickening tremble. If that wasn’t something any First Grader could do… if what he’d just done was a trick reserved for rogue wizards…
What else can I do that we don’t know about yet? And how long will it take for my own side to start thinking I’m more wizard than they can handle?
Horrible thoughts… but he’d have to think them through later. Right now he had to get inside the factory and find out what Errol and Haf Rottlezinder were planning next.
