Wizard Undercover ra-4, page 16
part #4 of Rogue agent Series
She put the earrings aside, ready for polishing, and turned to see Bibbie brandishing a dress at her. “It’s this one, Mel, isn’t it?”
This one was the blue-and-gold dinner gown that a lifetime ago she’d worn to Lional’s coronation banquet. It was the only flattering gown she’d dared let herself possess, then, and she hadn’t worn it since. Nearly threw it away, after-after everything changed-only it had cost a small fortune and since New Ottosland taxes paid for it, she couldn’t bring herself to commit such waste.
“Yes, that’s right, only please don’t wave it about like a damp tea towel!”
“Sorry,” said Bibbie, rolling her eyes. She shook out the folds of heavy silk, then laid the elaborately bead-and-crystal sewn dress over a plushly padded chair. “It’s rather gorgeous, this. What a shame Monk’s not here to see you in it.”
Yes, wasn’t it? The dress really was very becoming… but instead of a chance to bask in Monk’s admiration, she was facing an evening of being boggled at by Hartwig. Bibbie was right. This janitoring business was turning out to be no fun at all.
“There,” Bibbie said, and gave the expensive dress one last smoothing pat. “And now I’ll go and stink up the place with oil of roses.”
But instead of retreating to the guest suite’s private bathroom, she wandered to the nearest window and peered down into the palace gardens far below.
“I wonder where Gerald’s got to? He’s been gone for ages. Don’t you think he should be back by now?”
Yes, she did. “Perhaps he got lost,” she said, trying to ignore a treacherous sizzle of nerves. “Grande Splotze is a bit of a sprawl, you know.”
“Lost? Gerald?” Bibbie drummed her fingers on the windowsill. “You don’t think he could’ve run into trouble, do you?”
Precisely because she did think it, because when it came to trouble Gerald was more attractive than honey to flies, she made a scornful tutting sound.
“No, of course I don’t, Bibbie. After all, he’s a rogue wizard. Wherever he is, I’m sure he’s fine.”
Dizzy with nausea, Gerald bent double over the nearest bit of refuse-clogged gutter and heaved up another burning mouthful of bile. It seemed that not even his newly enhanced potentia could protect him from the persistently lingering savagery of blood magic.
Head pounding, guts aching, he pressed his fists to his knees and slowly straightened. Where the devil was he? A long way from Abel Bestwick’s wrecked half-house, that much he knew for sure. Otherwise…
Am I lost? Hell, don’t let me be lost. I’ll never hear the end of it if I am.
Splashed on the cracked cobblestones at his feet, more of Abel Bestwick’s blood. The splotchy crimson trail had enticed him out of his fellow janitor’s living room and into the alley behind the run-down lodging. Bludgeoned by the stench of blood magic he’d blindly followed the dried smears as they led him streets and streets away from the Canal and the centre of Grande Splotze, out to the ragged edge of the city’s slummy district. The dwellings here were even more depressing and dilapidated than those in Voblinz Lane. If not for the occasional suspicious twitching of a curtain as he passed, he’d have thought them deserted.
“Dammit, Bestwick,” he said, rubbing his belly. “Where are you?”
Balled in his pocket was one of the agent’s dirty socks. Monk said you couldn’t improve on a good, smelly sock when it came to a seeking. But even with that, and with the strongest locator hex he knew, Abel Bestwick remained stubbornly elusive. Sir Alec had warned him that field agents dosed themselves regularly with an obscurata incant but he’d not lost any sleep over that. He was Gerald Dunwoody, rogue wizard. Abel Bestwick had no hope of hiding from him! But it turned out his rogue status hadn’t made any difference. Bestwick was gone, vanished like mist in sunlight.
Bloody hell. If I don’t find him, Sir Alec really will go more than spare.
Throat tight with frustration, Gerald dropped to one knee in the filthy lane and touched his fingertips to Bestwick’s dried blood. Then he held out his hand and waited for the answering tingle from the next splash, somewhere ahead.
Nothing.
“What?” he muttered, and tried again. Come on, come on, come on. But though he strained his senses to the point of fresh nausea, still he felt nothing. The trail had gone cold.
“Dammit!” he said, shoving to his feet. “Bloody, bloody, bloody-”
The sound of a front door opening behind him made him turn. A skinny woman wrapped in an old, faded apron stood on the front step of her shambling, paint-peeling cottage, scrawny arms folded, thin face pinched with suspicion.
“You there,” she said, accusing in rough Splotzin. “What’s that you’re up to? This idn’t no place for strangers. Be off.”
Praise the pigs. A sign of life. Wiping his hands down the front of his tweed coat, Gerald hastily rearranged his face into its gormless butterfly prince expression.
“Oh! Good day, madam! I’m sorry to bother you!” he said, switching languages, and crossed the lane towards her. “Only I’m looking for a friend of mine, and-”
The woman stepped back inside her cottage and slammed the door in his face.
“And I guess that means you can’t help me,” he finished. “Damn.”
Uncertain, frustrated, he stared along the lane, willing Bestwick to magically appear. He didn’t, the miserable bugger.
Just you wait, Bestwick. When I finally catch up with you, we’re going to have words.
He blew out a harsh breath and looked at the sky, where the sun was slipping swiftly towards the unseen horizon. Damn. If he didn’t get back to the palace soon the girls would likely send out a search party. But he couldn’t go back empty handed. How was he meant to explain that to Sir Alec?
The grimoire magic that had healed his bruises, healed his ruined eye, seethed with quiet power under his skin. Waited for him to call on it, like a dragon tamed to his fist. Heart thudding, he pulled Bestwick’s manky old sock from his pocket, closed his fingers around it, and let his eyelids drift shut.
Come on, Abel. We’ve got work to do. Come out, come out, wherever you are…
The grimoire magic lashed through him, dropping him to his knees. He scarcely felt the pain of skin and bone striking cobbles. Astonished, appalled, he wrestled it into submission. Channelled it into one last effort to find Sir Alec’s missing man.
Fireworks exploded behind his eyes-and then, like Abel Bestwick, the world disappeared.
“All right,” said Bibbie, pacing the guest bedchamber’s plush carpet. “That’s it. I’m going to look for him.”
Freshly bathed, smelling of roses and wrapped in a quilted silk dressing gown, Melissande leapt to bar her way. “No, Bibbie. You can’t.”
“Melissande, I have to!” Eyes bright with tears, Bibbie fought back a sob. “I can’t just sit here, not knowing what’s happened! He could be bleeding in a gutter, or lying in a hospital, or-”
“Or on his way back right now without so much as a scratch,” she said, and put a restraining hand on Bibbie’s arm. “Bibs, if you kick up a fuss you could put him at risk. Is that what you want?”
“Don’t be a gudgeon!” said Bibbie, wrenching free. “What I want is-”
They both startled at the loud knocking on the guest suite’s front door.
“Gerald, for pity’s sake, where have you been?” Bibbie demanded, as he pushed past her into the antechamber. “Mel and I are-”
“Shut the door, shut the door,” said Gerald, glaring. “D’you want some passing housemaid to hear us?”
As Bibbie pushed the door closed, biting her lip, Melissande shook her head at him. “Gerald, I’m glad you’re all right, but really, you can’t be in here. What if-”
“I need your small green dressing case, Mel,” he said, riding roughshod. His Algernon hair was all over the place, and there was dirt on his sleeves and hands and the knees of his tweed trousers. “Where is it?”
She stared. “My small green-Gerald Dunwoody, what is going on?”
“Dammit, Melissande!” he said, turning on her. “Just give me the bloody case!”
“It’s in the bedchamber,” Bibbie said, eyeing him warily. “I’ll fetch it.”
“Hurry,” said Gerald.
Melissande folded her arms. “Whatever’s happened, Gerald, snapping and snarling at us isn’t going to help.”
A fraught moment, and then his shoulders slumped. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“So, what have you hidden in my dressing case? I hope it’s not that scaled-down First Grade staff Monk arranged for you. I haven’t forgotten what it did to your ties.”
He started to pace. “No. I was going to bring it but I changed my mind. Bibbie! Come on, I have to-”
“All right, all right,” said Bibbie, hurrying back. “Honestly, Gerald, you’re starting to sound like-”
Ignoring her, he snatched the dressing case from her grasp, undid its clasps and upended its contents onto the floor. A small, unfamiliar crystal ball rolled out of the embarrassing tumble of sensible camisoles.
Gerald snatched it up then turned. “Sorry, Mel, but I couldn’t risk carrying it with me. There’s always a chance of someone searching my things.”
“It’s all right,” she said, completely unnerved by the look in Gerald’s hexed eyes. “It’s a direct link to Sir Alec, I suppose?”
“Yes,” he said curtly, putting the ball on the antechamber’s occasional table. “Now, if I thought there was any point trying to keep you two out of this I would, but since there’s not, just stay still and quiet. What Sir Alec doesn’t know won’t hurt him or us.”
A shared look with Bibbie, then Melissande nodded. “Fine.”
“We’ll be church mice, Gerald,” Bibbie added, coming to stand with her. “Cross our hearts.”
“You’d better,” said Gerald, then activated the crystal ball. It fogged, then swirled a muddy, unpromising brown. He cursed. “Bloody Splotzeish etheretics. Come on, come on…”
Melissande chewed her thumb. “What’s the matter?”
“The vibration won’t settle.”
“Can’t you fix it?” said Bibbie.
“No,” Gerald snapped. “Not even I’m strong enough to realign the etheretics of half a bloody continent. And what part of be quiet didn’t you two understand?”
Oh, dear.
A few more moments and the etheretics settled enough, barely, for the crystal ball to establish a tenuous connection with Sir Alec.
“Mister Dunwoody. Report.”
“Sir Alec,” said Gerald, his voice tight and oddly formal. “Bestwick’s not in his lodging, and he didn’t leave anything helpful behind. But I’m afraid that whoever attacked him did. When they left 45b, they were tracking him. With blood magic.”
Bibbie stiffened, swallowing a gasp.
In the small crystal ball, Sir Alec’s face blurred and wavered.
“Blood magic? Mister Dunwoody, are you sure?”
“I threw up four times following the blood trail Bestwick left behind him,” said Gerald. “And I’ve still got a splitting headache. So, yes. I’m pretty sure.”
“ I take it you’ve no idea of Bestwick’s current location?”
“No, sir. The trail went cold a mile or so from Voblinz Lane. Either he managed to stop the bleeding or he found transport out of the area.”
“Or his attackers caught up with him. Or — ”
“Yes,” Gerald said heavily. “Or he died, and his body’s either not been discovered or it’s lying unclaimed in the Grande Splotze morgue. But if he is still alive, sir, then he could be anywhere by now. I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault,” said Sir Alec. “By the time I — ”
The rest of his reply was lost in a sparkly etheretic snowstorm. When it cleared a few moments later, Sir Alec’s voice was uncharacteristically alarmed.
“- hear me, Mister Dunwoody?”
“Yes, sir, you’re back,” said Gerald. “But I don’t know for how long.”
“ When do you leave on the wedding tour?”
“The day after tomorrow. I’ll keep looking for Bestwick between now and then.”
“Without raising suspicions?” said Sir Alec, skeptical. “Algernon Rowbotham has no good reason to be poking about the Grande Splotze morgue.”
“I have to do something. I can’t just-”
“Yes, you can, Mister Dunwoody. Right now we’re playing a waiting game. Overplay your hand and this will end in tears.”
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Gerald came to terms with harsh reality. “Yes, sir. Sir, blood magic hexery isn’t what you’d call common-or legal. Have you got someone who can start nosing out any wizards capable of supplying it?”
In the crystal ball, Sir Alec’s face broke apart, then reformed. “I’ll task Mister Dalby. It’s not like he has anything better to do.”
His weary scorn was hurtful to hear.
“Ask Monk,” Gerald suggested. “He’s a dab hand at solving thaumaturgical puzzles.”
“I’ll see,” said Sir Alec, unenthusiastic. “At the moment Mister Markham is — ”
Another burst of etheretic static. It took longer to clear this time.
“Sir, this connection’s about to clap out for good,” Gerald said quickly, then tugged a small square of bloodstained carpet from his inside coat pocket. “I’ve got a sample of the hex. I’ll send it to Uncle Frederick tomorrow.”
“Good,” said Sir Alec. “And in the meantime, keep me informed of-”
“Uncle Frederick?” said Bibbie, once they’d given up hoping the connection to Sir Alec would re-establish. “That’s a secret Department address, I suppose?”
Nodding, Gerald shoved his ghastly souvenir back inside his patchily stained tweed coat. “Yes. I don’t want a portal record of anything going directly to Nettleworth.”
“No,” said Bibbie. Then she shivered. “Blood magic. Gerald, whoever’s behind this… they really mean trouble, don’t they?”
He gave her a look. “Did you think the threat would turn out to be a prank?”
“I hoped it might. Because now it means other people really could get hurt.”
“People like you and Melissande,” he said, frowning. “Hell. I wish you hadn’t come.”
As Bibbie took a breath, ready to argue, Melissande put a warning hand on her arm. “But we did, Gerald, so that’s that. Look-” She cleared her throat. “Are you all right? I don’t mean to fuss, but you’ve gone rather green about the gills.”
Gerald dragged a hand over his disordered hair. “I’m fine. Tracking Bestwick took it out of me, that’s all. That blood magic, it’s filthy. Five minutes to catch my breath and I’ll be right as rain.”
Frowning at him, she wasn’t so sure of that, but this wasn’t the time to argue. “Yes, well, I’m afraid five minutes is all you’ve got. So you’d best hurry back to your own room. It’s almost time to go downstairs, and you can’t escort Bibbie to the Servant’s Ball looking like a goat-herder.”
With a tired smile, Gerald clicked his heels. “Yes, Your Highness. Your wish is my command.”
“I don’t like this, Mel,” said Bibbie, as the door closed behind him. “He’s not telling us everything. I can feel it.”
“Probably he isn’t,” she agreed, “but whatever you do, Bibbie, you mustn’t nag. Right now Gerald’s not our friend, he’s Sir Alec’s secret agent, and he can’t afford to be distracted.”
Distressed, Bibbie was shaking her head. “But-”
“No, Bibbie. No buts,” she said, in her best royal highness voice. “Now come along. It’s time to get dressed.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The house on Chatterly Crescent felt horribly empty without Bibbie, Melissande and Gerald for company. To Monk, it didn’t matter that Melissande didn’t actually live there. The point was, she’d long since fallen into the pleasant habit of dropping by three or four times a week, so it felt like she lived there, and now there was a great big Melissande-shaped hole beneath the old mansion’s roof.
“Blimey,” said Reg, perched on the back of a kitchen chair. “It’s a bit bloody quiet around here, isn’t it?”
Half-heartedly smiling, he looked up from the range, where he was trying not to fry eggs and bacon into lumps of greasy charcoal.
“You’re reading my mind, Reg.”
The bird rattled her tail feathers, then balanced on one foot so she could scratch the side of her head. “And there was me thinking I could do without all the domestic drama.” She sniffed. “Fancy being wrong at my time of life. It’s enough to bring on a case of the dropsicals.”
“I didn’t think birds could contract the dropsicals.”
“Ha! Rumours of my aviosity have been greatly exaggerated.” A moment’s brooding silence, then Reg shuffled a bit. “That manky Sir Alec of yours. He’ll tell us if Splotze goes pear-shaped, will he?”
Wonderful. Trust Reg to stick her beak right into his imagination’s sore spot. Moodily, Monk poked at his crisping bacon. “Of course.”
“Because I wouldn’t put it past that bugger to keep his trap shut. His kind swallow secrets the way toddlers guzzle gumdrops.”
“You’re wrong, Reg,” he insisted, then prodded his frying eggs so hard he breached their wobbling yellow yolks. Damn. “But he won’t have to. Splotze won’t go pear-shaped. Not with Gerald on the job. And the girls.”
“’Course not,” said Reg, being valiant. “I don’t doubt it for a moment.”
Except she did, and so did he. Feeling cross and put upon, he fetched a plate and tipped his messy bacon and eggs onto it. Then he fetched Reg’s minced beef from the larder ice box and placed both suppers on the comfortably scarred kitchen table, which was supposed to have three more places set at it-and didn’t.
“Brandy?” said Reg hopefully, hopping down from the chair.
Monk thought about it, tempted, then shook his head. “Not with bacon and eggs. Or raw mince, for that matter. Besides…” He slid into his own chair and picked up his knife and fork. “Between you and me and the wine cellar, I think we’ve all of us been imbibing a bit too freely of late.”
