Not even Ralph’s nephew is stupid enough to try something like this. Is he? By God, if Monk Markham’s behind this I’ll On the corner of his desk his crystal marble buzzed. Swamped sickeningly with relief, he snatched it up and hexed open a channel.
“Dunwoody? Dunwoody, where the hell are-”
“Um, actually, no, this isn’t Gerald,” said a thin, nervous voice. “This is Monk, Sir Alec. Monk Markham. I need to see you urgently. At home. Can you come?”
“Markham?” he said, incredulous. “How the devil did you get this-” And then he ground his teeth together. “Never mind. I’m on my way.”
He was too angry to bid Frank a very late goodnight. Barely nodded at Chawtok, the agent on front desk duty. Swathed in coat and scarf and gloves and hat, he slammed out of the building and into his car and drove at reckless speed through the dark night streets, out to South-West Ott and Chatterly Crescent.
Monk Markham, the incorrigible reprobate, was waiting for him on his charming establishment’s front doorstep. “I’m sorry, Sir Alec. I didn’t know who else to call.”
There was blood on Markham’s face. Dried, but recent. His usually cheerful, slightly anarchic demeanor was absent. He was tense, his face pale, and there was something approaching dread in his wide eyes.
Raging temper receded, slightly “This had better be good, Mr. Markham.”
Ralph’s nephew swallowed. “Actually, sir, it’s pretty bad. Please-come in. You won’t believe me until you see it for yourself.”
So he followed Ralph’s nephew inside the old, comfortable house, through to the parlor where he found- surprise, surprise-not only the young troublemaker’s precocious sister Emmerabiblia but Melissande Cadwallader and the bird.
And another Monk Markham, dead and stiffening on a couch.
“I’m sorry?” he said, looking at them one by one. “Is this some kind of ridiculous joke?”
“Do we look like we’re laughing, sunshine?” said the bird. “Would you say this is my hysterically amused face?”
Ralph’s appalling nephew wiped his hands down his front. “It’s all right. I can explain,” he muttered. Then he sighed. “Um-well, actually, I can’t. Not really. But I can tell you what’s happened, Sir Alec. And then-I hope-you can tell us what to do about it.”
He listened to their story, growing colder by the minute. Some small, rational part of his mind was screaming, very rationally, This is not possible. There are laws of thaumaturgics. They can’t be bent like this. And then he remembered with whom he was dealing and he felt like screaming again, not rationally at all.
“So you see, sir,” said Ralph’s regrettable nephew, when his insane tale was finished, “I really think we need to get Gerald back here. You know, from wherever you sent him. Because if ever there was a case for your best janitor to work on, I think this is it.”
He was so angry he felt perfectly calm. “You constructed an interdimensional portal opener? By accident? And you failed to declare it?”
“He only used it the once,” said Ralph’s equally regrettable niece, firing up. “It’s been in his sock drawer ever since. And it was the other Monk-” she pointed without looking, “-that one, who got his opener to work between worlds. And he only did that because his Gerald’s gone insane and has to be stopped. So really it’s lucky our Monk made his, isn’t it, or he’d probably not understand how this other one works, would he? And then Gerald would have no way of getting through to the other world and stopping his mad self before he kills everyone. So-so you might remember that before you start being mean.”
“Really?” he said. “That’s your informed, experienced opinion is it, Miss Markham?”
As he’d intended, Miss Markham wilted.
“Sir Alec,” said Miss Cadwallader, her chin lifted, her green eyes grim. “I appreciate you’re upset but you need to focus on what’s relevant. This might be a mess but for once Monk didn’t make it. Not our Monk. He didn’t bring this poor man here and he’s not responsible for what’s gone wrong in the other world. But now that we know what’s happening there, I believe we are responsible for stopping it.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Are we?”
“Legally? No, of course not,” she retorted. “But morally? Ethically? Now that we know people are suffering and dying? Absolutely. So please, recall Gerald so we can sit down and work out how to fix this before it’s too late.”
She was an eminently reasonable, sensible and decent young woman. They were all of them, at heart, decent young people-well, except for the bird-and while they might frequently drive him to raving distraction they weren’t actively evil. Well, with the possible exception of the bird. But none of them seemed to have grasped the true import of these remarkable events. The shock of the other Monk Markham’s death, no doubt. Not that the reason mattered. What mattered was that if one man could breach the boundary between worlds then who was to say there wasn’t another coming close on his heels?
And if the next man turns out to be their Gerald Dunwoody… twisted by grimoire magic, his mind overturned by a lust for power…
“Given the circumstances,” he said, knowing it would be a long time before he slept easily again, “I would agree that our only viable course of action is to recall Mr. Dunwoody from his current mission and apprise him of these startling events. Unfortunately-” He cleared his throat. “Mr. Dunwoody has disappeared. And at this particular moment I have no idea where he is.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I t was the teasing and flirtatious scent of perfume that woke him. Perfume? In Grande Splotze? In his bachelor guesthouse room in Grande Splotze? Surprised-and just the slightest bit alarmed, because during his training there’d been any number of pointed lectures about inappropriate personal dalliances while on janitorial assignment — Gerald kept his eyes closed and waited for recent memory to return.
I was in the car with Sir Alec. There was a farmhouse, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. And a portal. I got into the portal. Sir Alec was operating it. I got into the portal. I had an overnight bag. Sir Alec gave it to me. Something to do with a yellow cravat. I got into the portal.
Hmm. There was a theme developing here. He got into the portal and then And then what happened? Did I reach Grande Splotze? Did I meet up with my contact? Perhaps my contact was a woman. Perhaps it’s her perfume I can smell. Perhaps things got a bit cozy. Were they supposed to get cozy? I don’t recall Sir Alec mentioning it. There was something about elk stew. But elk stew doesn’t sound terribly cozy. Actually it sounds bloody awful.
Slowly and carefully, still not opening his eyes, he groped around under the blankets. No. Perfume or no perfume, he was definitely alone in the bed. That was a relief. He couldn’t begin to imagine how he’d explain an inappropriate personal dalliance to Sir Alec. Not after all the other things he’d had to explain.
I got into the portal…
But did he get out again at the other end? Try as he might he could not summon the memory. Recollection ended with the secret Department portal in that remote, abandoned farmhouse and the dry, self-contained look on Sir Alec’s never-well, almost never-communicative face.
I got into the portal…
Well, obviously he must’ve got out of it again because he was lying in a bed now, wasn’t he? So the real question was, whose bed and where was it? And the only way he was going to find the answer to those questions was to stop delaying the inevitable and open his eyes.
“Hello, Gerald,” said Bibbie Markham, lounging nearby in a silk-covered chair. She was wearing something startling and not altogether proper in red. No. Scarlet. “I was wondering how much longer you were going to keep up the charade.”
“Bibbie?” he said blankly. “What are you doing here?” Dressed like that. In Grande Splotze. In my bachelor guesthouse room in Grande And then he looked past Monk’s unexpectedly alarming sister to the wallpaper behind her-muddy beige with mustard stripes-and realized Wait a minute. That’s my wallpaper. In my room in Monk’s house. In Ott. So-I’m at home? How did that happen? And why is Bibbie waving that cigarette holder? She doesn’t
