“Yes, well, there’s desperate and then there’s demented,” Melissande retorted. “And in this case I think we all know which is which!”
Monk knew better than to try to soothe her with platitudes. “You’re right. What Bibbie did was crazy and what Gerald and I did was dangerous. But it worked. Thanks to Bibbie I broke the other shadbolt this afternoon. We got some important information.”
“Really?” said Bibbie, delighted. “Monk, you plonker, why didn’t you say?”
“You were never meant to know about any of it, Bibs,” he said. “Officially you still don’t. Officially what happened here last night never happened.”
She pouted. “Oh, but-”
“Quit while you’re ahead, ducky,” said Reg. “Basking in the glow of being an unsung heroine’s not so bad. I should know. I’ve been doing it for centuries.”
As Bibbie made scornful scoffing noises, Melissande sighed. “Just tell me this much, Monk. After all the unpleasantness with your Uncle Ralph, tell me this latest escapade hasn’t caused you more grief.”
He recalled Mr. Plummer’s expression after being discreetly taken to one side and told in a tone that brooked neither contradiction nor negotiation: “So anyway, here it is. I can break this bastard’s shadbolt, sir, and I’ll do it for you here and now-on one condition. No awkward questions afterwards. Just nod and smile and send me back to R amp;D.”
And because Mr. Plummer wanted results more than he needed explanations he’d accepted the outrageous condition and never once made mention of the second shadbolt’s disappearance.
“No grief,” he told Melissande… and prayed devoutly he was right. Because for all he knew, Mr. Plummer’s gratitude came complete with an expiration date.
She nodded, trying to hide her relief. “Good. All right-so counting last night and this afternoon, how many shadbolts have you broken altogether?”
He exhaled sharply. “Two.”
She wasn’t the only one who found the prospect alarming.
“But two is better than none, Mel,” he added.
“True,” she conceded, after a moment. “And I suppose this shadbolt will be easier to break because Gerald made it. Since you know his thaumic signature as well as your own, it’ll just be a case of reading it, like reading his handwriting. And-I don’t know- over-writing it?”
“Um…” He ran one hand down his face, dreading what he had to say next. “Not exactly. If our Gerald and his Gerald were the same wizard, I could do that. I’ve broken heaps of Gerald’s hexes now and some of them were utterly diabolical.”
Reg, listening intently, pointed her beak at him like a shooter aiming his rifle. “Eh? What d’you mean if they were the same wizard? The last time I looked you were busy bleating over my strenuous objections that they are the same wizard. Now which is it, Mr. I’m-the-instant-expert-so-don’t-argue-with-me Markham? Make up your bloody mind!”
“Okay,” he said, after some frantic thinking. “This is all theoretical… but it seems to me that that Monk’s world and our world were running on parallel rails, like-like trains going in a straight line side by side. Same speed, same direction. Same lives, pretty much. Only then something different happened in his world and now our worlds are running on two different tracks.”
Bibbie was nodding. “Sounds right,” she murmured. “As a theory it’s metaphysically sound.” She pulled a face. “Well. As sound as anything as crazy as this can be. So-what happened? What caused his world to veer off while ours kept going straight ahead?”
“Monk?” Melissande prompted, when he didn’t answer. “Monk, what aren’t you telling us?”
Sickened again, he folded his arms tight to his chest. He could feel his heartbeat, thudding right through his sleeves. “All I can be sure of,” he said, unable to meet her eyes, “is that it’s got something to do with the other Gerald. It’s something he did. Something… not good.”
“Pishwash,” Reg snapped, feathers ruffling. “I’ll never believe it and you can’t make me.”
“Look, Reg, I don’t want to believe it either,” he snapped back. “But I felt the other Gerald’s thaumic signature in that shadbolt and I’m telling you it’s changed. It’s wrong.”
“Wrong how?” said Bibbie. “You’re going to have to be specific if you want us to believe you. This is Gerald we’re talking about, remember?”
“I can’t be specific, Bibs!” he said, not trying to hide his hurt exasperation. “It’s a feeling, isn’t it? It’s touch, it’s taste-I can’t put it into words. It’s like asking me to describe what Melissande’s singing sounds like. The word is off-key but that hardly encapsulates the entire hideous experience.”
Melissande stared, then slapped his arm. “Do you mind?”
“Now, now, ducky,” said Reg. “Enough of that. You can’t go around hitting people for telling the truth.”
He was not, under any circumstances, going to rub his arm. “I know you don’t want to hear this,” he told them. “Trust me, I don’t want to be saying it. But I felt something rotten in the other Gerald’s thaumic signature. I just think we need to be prepared, that’s all.”
“Prepared for what?” said Bibbie. Her voice wasn’t steady. “That the other Gerald- his Gerald-is bad?”
Monk slid his arm around her shoulders and held her close. Oh, lord. “Who knows? But Reg said it, didn’t she? Our Gerald would never put a shadbolt on me.”
“Maybe he wouldn’t,” said Melissande, glaring. “But believe me when I tell you I’m getting awfully tempted.”
Coughing, the other Monk stirred on the sofa then tried to sit up. “Melissande? Bibbie?”
He returned to his inconvenient twin’s side. “It’s all right. We’re still here.”
The man wearing his face, who’d stopped living his life and started living a nightmare, looked up at him with haunted eyes. “We’re running out of time, Monk. Right now he’s distracted-there’s a plan-but he won’t stay distracted forever. If I’m not where I’m supposed to be when I’m supposed to be there-” His thin face twisted-even saying that much must have woken the shadbolt. “I can’t-I can’t-”
Sickened, Monk dropped to one knee beside him. That’s how I look when I’m writhing in pain. “You mean Gerald, don’t you? He’s… gone rogue.”
Gasping, the Monk from next door nodded. “I’m sorry.”
So am I. “What’s his plan?”
The other Monk was running with sweat now, his dreadful eyes turning glassy. “I can’t. I can’t.” He shuddered, groaning. “Get it off me,” he whispered. “ Please. ”
“All right,” he said to the man on the sofa. “I’ll try my best but-you know it’s not going to be easy, right? And you know it’s going to hurt like hell?”
On a gasp, the Monk from next door nodded. “Been living in hell for months now, Debbie. You do what you have to.”
Debbie. Short for Debinger. One of his middle names and Aylesbury’s favorite childhood taunt. Nobody knew that, not even Bibs. He’d never told anyone. His childish shame had been too great. So if he’d had any doubts left… if he’d thought that maybe, just maybe, none of this was really real…
Oh, bloody hell, Gerald. What a stinking mess.
Pushing up to both knees, he cradled the other Monk’s sweat-slicked face between his hands. “You ready, mate?”
“Don’t be stupid,” the other Monk said, trying to smile. “But since when has not being ready ever stopped us?”
“Right,” he muttered. “Right. So here goes nothing. Hold on.”
Mel, Bibbie and Reg had come to stand behind him. He could feel them, warm as flames at his back. Not a word spoken. There was nothing to say. But their silent strength strengthened him. Gave him heart. Gave him hope.
His second plunging into this other Monk’s damaged aura was no better than the first. Especially since he didn’t let himself dwell on the blue and the gold but made a beeline for the black parts, the twisted parts, the parts distorted by the crippling shadbolt. A shadbolt that wasn’t like any other he’d ever seen. Not that he could see this one. Not yet. Sense it, yes. It was setting off all his thaumaturgic alarm bells. But still it remained hidden from his etheretic eye.
Bloody hell, Gerald. I thought I was the inventor.
