doing!”
Gerald rose out of his crouch, that still not-quite-amused smile curving his lips. Shoving his hands in his pockets he rocked a little on his heels.
“What does it look like I’m doing, Melissande? I’m making Lional sorry.”
To her credit, Melissande looked at her oldest brother without throwing up all over him. “And I’m sure he is sorry,” she said, her voice almost steady. “I’m sure he’s very sorry. But I think you’ve made your point, Gerald. I think it’s time to stop.”
“Stop?” said Gerald. “Oh no. I don’t think so. I’ve hardly begun.”
Melissande tilted her chin at him. “I’m afraid I’ll have to insist, Professor. I appreciate the sentiment behind your actions but we have our own judicial system here in New Ottosland. You have to let our laws deal with Lional, and what he’s done.”
Gerald shook his head. “There are no laws to cover the crimes Lional’s committed, Melissande. Not even the international wizarding community has a statute to fit him.”
“Then we’ll write one,” said Sir Alec, following Melissande’s lead. “I’ll see that an emergency sitting of the United Magical Nations is convened, so contingency charges can be drawn up to deal with these extraordinary events.”
Hanging back, Monk watched Gerald watch Sir Alec approach, an unsettling, detached curiosity lighting his altered face. “Really? And who are you? I don’t think we’ve met.”
Halting a pace away, Sir Alec nodded a wary greeting. “We haven’t, Mr. Dunwoody. My name is Sir Alec… and we have to talk.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Gerald’s unnerving smile didn’t waver. “Ah. I take it you’re from the Department of Thaumaturgy?”
Sir Alec nodded. “That’s right.”
“Which division?”
“Special Operations,” said Sir Alec, after the briefest hesitation.
“Never heard of it.”
“I’d be alarmed if you had, Mr. Dunwoody,” said Sir Alec. “Now, if I might suggest-”
“No, you might not,” said Gerald, with a bite in his voice that hadn’t been there before. “You and I, Sir Alec, have nothing to talk about. This isn’t Ottosland. You have no jurisdiction here.”
And now it was Rupert’s turn to join the fray. “Sir Alec has whatever jurisdiction I choose to grant him,” he said, joining Melissande. “Professor-”
Gerald turned. Eyebrows lifting, he ran his dreadfully altered gaze up and down Melissande’s other brother. On the ground beside him, amidst the beds of hollyhocks, pansies and snapdragons, Lional trickled blood and moaned.
“Why, Rupert. You look… different.”
“Not as different as you,” said Rupert, standing his ground despite all the changes in New Ottosland’s royal court wizard. Impressed, Monk wished he could tell him to shut up before he talked himself into trouble. “Gerald-is it true? What they’re saying? Did you-have you-”
“Stuffed a few new tricks down my shorts?” Gerald grinned. In that swift moment he almost looked like himself. “Yes, Rupert. It’s true.”
Rupert shook his head. “That was very brave of you. And very, very foolish. I wish you hadn’t.”
“And I wish I hadn’t had to,” said Gerald, shrugging. “But the thing is, Rupert, life can be a bugger that way. Now-what about you? What’s your explanation? Because right now, old chap, I’d have to say that despite the unfortunate plus-fours you’re looking positively kingly. As though you wouldn’t know the difference between a Dumb Cluck and a donkey.”
And the notion didn’t seem to amuse him at all. His etheretic aura was electric. Feeling it, Monk didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. Stand Gerald near a thaumatograph now and he’d melt it to slag.
Oh, Saint Snodgrass’s bunions. I’m good, but if it comes right down to it I don’t think I can take him. I don’t think I can take him even if Sir Alec lends a hand. I don’t even know if that’s Gerald any more.
The notion was so appalling he was hard put to keep his dismay a secret. He could feel fear and a terrible grief building in his throat.
God, Gerald. Please. Let’s stop this before it’s too late.
Rupert was dithering, uncertain how to answer this new and not-so-improved Professor Dunwoody. Even Melissande seemed shocked to uncertainty.
“I think,” said Sir Alec, with a sharp look at the royal siblings beside him, “that this might not be the best venue for our discussion. King Lional requires medical attention-and rigorous incarceration, given-”
“No, he doesn’t,” said Gerald. Despite his dangerous aura he sounded positively cheerful. “Lional’s perfectly harmless now. Couldn’t hurt a butterfly. Not any more.” He nudged Lional’s flaccid left arm with his foot. “Could you, Your Majesty? And you wouldn’t want to either, would you? You’ve been a very bad boy but you’ve learned your lesson, haven’t you?”
Bloodied eyes closed, his ribs hardly moving as he breathed, Lional didn’t respond.
But Reg did. Having abandoned her sergeant-majorish struttings and tail-rattlings, now she sat on the grass with her feathers fluffed out like a hen ready to roost.
“ Harmless?” she hooted, monumentally disbelieving. “That deranged tosser? That’ll be the day! You need a cool drink and a lie down, Gerald, all this excitement has gone to your-”
Gerald’s dreadful crimson eyes flared. “I said I’ve taken care of it.”
Monk felt the power behind the words sear the air and scorch his skin. He heard Melissande’s little gasp. Rupert’s, too. Saw Sir Alec fail to hide a flinch. On the grass, Reg opened her beak in shock, all her feathers abruptly flattened.
“Now, now,” she said, rallying. “I’m sure there’s no need to take that tone of voice.”
“Sorry,” said Gerald-but any sorrow was perfunctory. There radiated from him now the most obliterating sense of power, as though a candle had been transmogged into a blast furnace. “I just-I don’t like it when people doubt me. You know that, Reg. It hurts my feelings.”
“Oh, stop being so sensitive,” she snapped. “This isn’t about your feelings, sunshine, it’s about you having taken leave of your senses. And another thing-why are you talking like a third-rate mustache-twirling villain all of a sudden? It’s not like you, Gerald. None of this is.”
“No?” Gerald’s slow smile was chilling. “What if you’re wrong, Reg? What if this is the most like me I’ve ever been?”
Monk swallowed. Never in a million years would he have believed he’d ever have to treat carefully around Gerald Dunwoody. But this was like balancing polarity-opposed tetrathaumicles in an etheretic combustion chamber.
He took a cautious step forward. “That sounds… wonderful, mate. I’m pleased for you. Honest. But if you don’t mind me asking-when you say you’ve taken care of it- you’re talking about King Lional, right? You’ve-you’ve-” He tried not to look at the bloodied, stuporous, half-blind man at his friend’s feet. “You’ve rapped him over the knuckles, let’s say, and-”
“I mean I’ve sorted him out,” Gerald said, impatient. “For good. I’ve defanged him, Monk. No more magic. I took back the potentias he stole. Thanks to me Lional can’t hurt anyone ever again.”
He’d done what? “But-but-” He beat down the urge to stagger about clutching at his hair. “Gerald-”
“Oh, come on, Monk,” said Gerald. Smiling again, but not nicely. Not like the Gerald he used to know. The Gerald he’d bullied and cajoled into answering Melissande’s desperate job advertisement. “I thought you of all people would understand.”
He stared, his heart painfully pounding. Understand what, mate? That Reg and I are right and you’ve gone around the bend? “Am I being thick? Sorry. It’s only-well-this is all a bit much to take in, y’know?”
“It’s not that much,” said Gerald. Impatient again, with a nasty undertone of arrogance.
But Gerald’s not arrogant. That’s not who he is.
