"No?" Melissande smiled. "Then perhaps I took them from her cold, lifeless hand after a brutal, cowardly thief a.s.saulted her on the dark streets of South Ott."
"I don"t believe you," whispered Permelia, her voice ragged. "Eudora"s not dead. She can"t be dead."
"Oh please, Permelia," she said, and gave her scorn free rein. "Do you honestly expect us to believe you care two hoots what happens to Eudora Telford? If you cared you never would"ve sent her out to do your dirty work, would you? You used that poor silly woman, Permelia, and now she"s paid a heavy price."
Oblivious to the wizards staring at her with shock and dawning disgust, ignoring Ambrose"s rising ire, Permelia took one unbalanced step forward. "No. No. I won"t believe you," she said, a thread of hysteria sounding in her voice. "Eudora"s not dead. This is a trick. You"re trying to trick me."
"If there"s any tricking going on here, Permelia, you"re the one doing it!" shouted Ambrose. "And now look what"s happened! You"ve ruined everything!"
"I"ve ruined everything? I have?" shrieked Permelia, rounding on him. "How can you even suggest such a thing?"
"Easily!" he snapped. "If you"d done a better job of running the office you wouldn"t have hired a petty thief and you"d not have had to invite this-this interfering Cadwallader gel into our midst! And if you"d minded your own business and let me worry about the company we"d be back on the road to solvency by now!"
"The company is my business!" said Permelia, hands clenched into unladylike fists. The stern, haughty president of the Baking and Pastry Guild was nowhere to be seen. "I"m its last hope of survival, Ambrose!"
He laughed. "You?"
"Yes, me!" Permelia panted. "Am I the one who"s run Wycliffe"s practically into receivership? Am I the one who"s virtually bankrupted Father"s legacy by insisting on all those ridiculous scooters and velocipedes and cut-rate cars that can"t drive three miles without falling apart? Was that me? Were those my ideas, Ambrose?"
"No, they were mine!" he retorted, spittled with fury. "And they were good ideas, Permelia, ideas that would have tided us over, but you"d never get behind them, you"d never let me spend the kind of money I needed to spend to make them work properly! Always bossing me, always throwing your weight around, just because you"re two years older than me!"
"Ambrose, I am a hundred years older than you," snarled Permelia. "At least if we were counting time by common sense. Those stupid inferior vehicles were never going to work properly! Nor should they have. We do not truck with such inferior modes of transportation, you fool. This is the Wycliffe Airship Company! We sail through the skies, we don"t grub along on the ground."
"Yes! Yes! I know!" Ambrose retorted. "You"re not the only one who loves airships, Permelia! The cars and the velocipedes were to be a stopgap. Just a stopgap. I was doing everything in my power to save the company-and what were you doing? Getting in my way and-and-bleating about your stupid Golden Whisk and how to bake the perfect pumpkin scone!"
Permelia Wycliffe clutched at her ruthlessly styled hair, dislodging several jet-tipped hairpins. To Melissande it was clear that she and her brother were suddenly oblivious to their surroundings, oblivious to herself and Bibbie, and Gerald, to all the gaping, incredulous wizards. Were tumbled instead into some poisonous sibling nightmare where the rest of the world had simply... ceased to exist.
The ragged circle of wizards was broken apart now. They were too stunned to do anything but watch their employer and his sister with dropped jaws and wide eyes. Bibbie and Reg were watching too, the pair of them reprehensibly entertained, and Gerald-Gerald- Melissande saw that he"d ever-so-un.o.btrusively eased himself out of the way, to stand just far enough back so he might be nondescriptly overlooked.
Lurching forward, Permelia slapped her brother"s face. "I was not bleating, Ambrose, I was taking care of Father"s legacy."
"And so was I!" Ambrose shouted, clutching at his red-blotched cheek. "A d.a.m.ned sight better than you ever have, my gel!"
"How, you fat buffoon?" Permelia taunted with shrivelling contempt. "By digging through Father"s old papers and finding the very worst possible wizard he"d ever refused to hire and then hiring him yourself? By paying him to wreck the portal system? Because n.o.body in the Government would notice? And you have the nerve to say you possess superior judgement, Ambrose? You don"t possess the judgement of a flea!"
"Oh? Oh?" choked Ambrose Wycliffe. "And I suppose your decision to pa.s.s company secrets to a foreign power demonstrates your superior reasoning skills?"
Permelia shoved him hard in the chest. "I had to, Ambrose! You gave me no choice! It was only a matter of time before someone died in one of those portal accidents, you blithering dunderhead! I had to save the company from your imbecilic solution. It was my duty to Father!"
"But you haven"t saved it, have you?" Ambrose demanded. "Instead you"ve managed to get a man killed and implicate us in high treason to boot! They"ll throw us in prison for the rest of our lives, Permelia. We"ll never breathe free air again." Seizing his sister"s shoulders, he hauled her nose-to-nose with him. "Was it worth it, sister? How much did your foreign friends pay you, eh? How much money will you never have the chance to spend?"
"Fool," she spat at him. "I didn"t do it for money. I did it for the chance to take control of the company. The company that always should"ve been mine, that would"ve been mine, if Father hadn"t been so stupidly short-sighted about gels. You"re just like him, Ambrose. Narrow-minded and bigoted, puffed up with self-conceit. I had to stop you any way I could. And Manawa was only too happy to help me. She understands about women and power. We hatched the whole scheme between us. Let Wycliffe"s go out of business, just another casualty of the thaumaturgic revolution, and in return for a few stupid airship drawings she"d arrange to buy the company-through a third party, of course-and then you"d be thrown out on the sc.r.a.pheap where you belong and I would be installed as the new company director. I would see Wycliffe"s attain its true potential! A task for which you are eminently unsuited!"
Ambrose let go of her and fell back, his mouth opening and closing with outraged disbelief. "You"re-you"re raving, Permelia. You"re utterly deranged! You stupid-stupid gel! If somehow you escape arrest I"m going to have you committed to an asylum! You stole Wycliffe"s best airship designs and gave them to the wife of the-"
"Don"t say it!" shouted Melissande, as Gerald"s eyebrows shot up in alarm. "In fact, don"t either of you say another word! I think you"ve both said quite enough already!"
"I want her taken into custody!" cried Ambrose Wycliffe, spinning round. "She"s mad, I tell you, utterly mad! She should be locked away. I"ll have her locked away. Just don"t blame me, I had nothing to do with this! I had nothing to do with anything! I"m an innocent man. This is all Permelia, the stupid gel. Father was right-women aren"t to be trusted. I"m the victim here, I tell you!"
"Innocent, Ambrose? Innocent?" Permelia laughed wildly, a horrible, howling cackle. "The only thing you"re innocent of is having the smallest amount of entrepreneurial vision! You"re a moron, an idiot, and you always have been! Put me in an asylum? I"ll see you dead first!"
And then everything went horribly wrong.
With an infuriated roar, Ambrose whirled and grabbed Permelia around the throat and started choking, his already florid face suffused tomato-red. They overbalanced and fell sideways across the nearest laboratory bench. As Permelia coughed and gasped, and the watching wizards dithered like hens in a thunderstorm, Melissande turned to Bibbie.
"Come on, Bibs, don"t just stand there! You"re the genius witch, do something, quick!"
"Like what?" Bibbie retorted. "I don"t do martial thaumaturgy! And if I try I could blow them both up!"
Oh, how ridiculous. And Gerald wasn"t any help either-drat his ludicrous Third Grade cover story! She rounded on Robert Methven. "Then you do something, Mister Methven. You"re a First Grade wizard, aren"t you?"
"What? What?" said Robert Methven, appalled. "Me do something? But I can"t! My specialty"s aerodynamics!"
Melissande leapt to him and grabbed hold of his lab coat lapels. "Really? How"s this then? Thaumaturge those two apart or I"ll kick you into b.l.o.o.d.y orbit!"
But before Robert Methven obeyed her-or Gerald broke his cover-Ambrose let out a blood-chilling scream. Melissande spun round, one hand reaching for Bibbie, to see that Permelia had plunged one of her jet-tipped hairpins deep in her brother"s throat. Even as she stared, horrified, Ambrose"s face began to turn black, his plump cheeks swelling and splitting and dribbling green gore. She felt the air stall in her lungs. Felt her stomach heave, rebelling.
Lional... Lional... his beauty destroyed by the dragon"s green venom...
"Oh, Saint Snodgra.s.s," breathed Bibbie, on a sob. "She"s hexed him. That"s a killing hex. Oh, Mel."
Ambrose was dying, slowly and in shrieking pain. The corrupted flesh was peeling from his skull, revealing teeth and tongue and lidless eyes. The lab erupted into chaos, wizards running and shouting and throwing themselves under benches or onto the floor. Melissande grabbed Bibbie and dragged her out of Permelia"s reach, then yelped as she felt a hand close on her arm.
"Relax, it"s me," Gerald muttered. "You two stay here. I"ll grab Permelia and hex her docile while n.o.body"s looking."
"No, no, Gerald, hex her from here," she said. "She might-"
"Can"t," he said briefly. "Someone will notice. Besides, Melissande, look at her. It"s over. She"s done."
Ambrose sprawled on his back, a bloated, black-faced, green-smeared corpse. Silent now, his suffering mercifully ended. Permelia was weeping, terrible, tearing sobs, bent double and swaying, a heartbeat from collapse. Her iron-grey hair had fallen out of its bun, tumbling over her face in lank disarray.
But when Gerald reached her and put his arm around her shoulders she erupted with a piercing screech of rage. And the next thing Melissande knew he was on his knees, Permelia"s fingers tight in his hair, with his throat stretched taut and a jet-tipped hairpin sunk tip-deep in his flesh.
"Stay back!" said Permelia hoa.r.s.ely. "Stay back or he dies!" Her fingers tightened on the hairpin, and a trickle of blood seeped down Gerald"s skin. "One little push and it"s all over. And if I see a single sign of thaumaturgy I will push, I will-"
On a howl of rage and in a flurry of feathers Reg dived from the ceiling like a bird possessed, all reaching talons and sharp, gaping beak.
"Get your b.l.o.o.d.y hands off him, you harpy!"
Startled, Permelia Wycliffe cried out and let go of Gerald and the hairpin to fling her hands desperately over her head. Reg set to with a vengeance, long beak stabbing, wings flailing and beating Permelia Wycliffe to her knees. When the woman was down, p.r.o.ne on the lab floor and crying for mercy, Reg spun in midair, her eyes alight with the flame of battle.
"Well don"t just stand there gawping, you plonkers! Someone b.l.o.o.d.y sit on her before she tries to get up!"
Bibbie landed on Permelia so hard she nearly broke the woman"s back.
"Gerald!" said Melissande and rushed to his side, dropping to her knees and trying to see the wound in his throat. "Are you all right? Oh, you are an idiot! I told you to hex the b.l.o.o.d.y woman from a distance!"
Huffing and puffing, Reg landed on her shoulder. "But he didn"t listen, did he?" She shook her head and rattled her tail feathers. "I don"t know, sunshine. How many times do I have to tell you? Never underestimate a woman."
Sitting up, Gerald accepted the hanky Melissande thrust into his hand and pressed it to the tiny dribbling puncture wound in his neck. "Yeah," he said. "Especially a woman with feathers." He kissed her beak. "Thanks for that, Reg."
"You"re welcome," she sniffed. "Though perhaps after this you"ll listen to me in the future."
"Are you sure you"re all right?" Melissande said anxiously. "You"re not going to turn black and green like an overripe banana?"
He reached for Permelia"s discarded hairpin. "No. This one"s not hexed," he said, inspecting it closely. "She was bluffing. But whatever you do don"t touch the one buried in Ambrose"s throat. That was hexed all right..." He shuddered. "I"ve never come across anything like it. Whoever it is supplying her-he"s a devil."
Bibbie shifted a little, making flattened Permelia groan. Staring at gruesomely dead Ambrose, she shrugged. "That"ll teach him to call his sister a gel."
Gerald half-laughed. "I"ll be sure to remind Monk of that, next time I see him." But his amus.e.m.e.nt didn"t last long. "Are you all right, Bibbie? That was a dreadful thing, how Ambrose died."
"Oh. Yes," said Bibbie, turning a pretty pink. "Of course. I"m fine."
"Are you sure?" he said, sounding anxious. "It"s all right if you"re not, Bibbie, truly."
Melissande swallowed a sigh. Ask me if I"m all right, why don"t you? But he wouldn"t. Of if he did, it"d only be an afterthought. Hadn"t she already proven herself equal to any amount of ghastliness and bloodshed? She was Her Royal Highness Princess Melissande, and she didn"t do soppy.
And anyway, Gerald"s sweet on her. Anyone can see that.
"h.e.l.lo," said Reg, swivelling her head towards the lab door. "Who"s this come to spoil the party, then?"
They all looked to the doorway, where four newcomers were entering the lab complex.
"d.a.m.n," said Gerald, and sighed. "Reg, you"d better scarper. Quick. We don"t want any awkward questions."
Surprisingly, Reg didn"t argue. Instead she took one look at Gerald"s face then flapped her way out of the lab, through an open window at its far end.
Melissande stared at him. "Friends of yours?"
He grimaced. "Not... exactly. But they are from the Department."
Around the laboratory complex the R&D wizards of Wycliffe"s Airship Company were sheepishly getting back on their feet, or coming out of hiding from the labs, or generally pretending they hadn"t all run about like hens in a thunderstorm at the height of the crisis.
As three of the four men from Gerald"s mysterious Department started rounding up the witnesses, the fourth picked his way through the mayhem to join them. He was oldish and tired-looking, encased in a rumpled blue suit. His deep-set hazel eyes were unimpressed.
The first thing he did was check on Ambrose Wycliffe.
"He"s dead," said Bibbie, helpfully. "In case you were wondering."
Ignoring her, the man stared at Gerald. Gerald nodded. "Dalby."
Dalby"s eyes narrowed. "Nettleworth. Now. There"s a car outside waiting."
Melissande stiffened. "Now hold on just a minute, Mister Dalby-or whoever you really are. I don"t think I like your tone. I don"t think you-"
"Don"t, Mel," said Gerald. "It"s all right. I"ll be in touch, as soon as I can." With a stifled groan he levered himself to his feet. "Thanks, for everything."
She watched him go, a tousled, lonely figure with a hanky pressed against the small wound in his neck. Then she turned on Mister Dalby from the Department.
"Look here, you," she said, "it"s possible you don"t know who I am, because I never talk about who I am, at least, not to say to people, "Do you know who I am?", but in this case I"m going to make an exception, because-"
"I know perfectly well who you are, Your Highness," said Mister Dalby from the Department. "Sir Alec"s warned me all about you." He flicked a glance at Bibbie, who"d clambered off Permelia and was straightening her skirt. "And you, Miss Markham."
"Oh," said Bibbie, and gave him her best smile. "Did he? That"s nice."
But Mister Dalby from the Department was impervious to Bibbie"s smile. He scowled. "Nice? No. Not really. Have a seat, ladies. This could take a while."
"Do you know," said Bibbie, watching him walk away, "I"m not entirely sure I like that man."
"Oh, I"m sure," said Melissande. "I"m positive I don"t like him." She heaved a sigh. "Are you really all right, Bibs? Gerald said it-that was a horrible thing to see."
Bibbie looked away for a moment; there was the tiniest tremble in her bottom lip. Then she took a deep breath and nodded. "Honestly, Mel, I"m fine," she said, lifting her chin defiantly. "n.o.body said this job would be a bed of roses."
True. But-"Even so, Bibs," she said gently. "If you"re not fine, that"s-that"s all right."
"Melissande, I am not a shrinking violet," Bibbie snapped. "So you can stop fussing, thank you. Honestly, you sound just like Monk."
Oh, lord. Monk. He"s going to be so upset. "Perhaps you should let me tell him about this, Bibs. You know-sort of soften the blow a bit before you regale him with all the gory details?"
Bibbie rolled her eyes. "All right. Fine. If you think that"ll help. But really, Mel, I"m not about to indulge in a fit of the vapours."
No, clearly she wasn"t. Clearly the redoubtable Antigone Markham"s great-niece was made of the same stern stuff.
"Anyway, how are you?" added Bibbie. "Speaking of incipient vapours..."
Melissande sighed, and looked down at Permelia"s unfortunate brother. "Well, I confess I"m a little rattled," she said. "But I"m better than Ambrose."
"Or Permelia," said Bibbie, and nudged the half-conscious woman with the toe of her shoe. "Blimey. You know, I knew it was a mistake to get mixed up with the Baking and Pastry Guild. Didn"t I tell you it was a mistake to get mixed up with the Baking and Pastry Guild?"
Melissande wrestled with the urge to punch her. "No, Emmerabiblia. On the contrary, you did everything in your power to make sure we got mixed up with the Baking and Pastry Guild."
Bibbie pulled a face. "Oh yes. So I did. Well, let this be a lesson to you, Miss Cadwallader. Never get mixed up with the Ottosland Baking and Pastry Guild."
Mister Dalby from the Department kept them waiting for nearly an hour while he and his... a.s.sociates... talked to the Wycliffe R&D wizards, and did various thaumaturgical things with recording evidence at the scene, and saw that Ambrose Wycliffe was decently taken away, and that Permelia Wycliffe was also taken away, less decently. Eventually, though, he rejoined them at the lab bench where they were sitting.
"Right. That"s it, then. You ladies can go."
Melissande exchanged a look with Bibbie then frowned at him. "I beg your pardon? We can what?"
"Go," said Dalby. "Depart. Leave. Be on your way."
"But-don"t you want to question us? I mean, we were here," said Bibbie. "We saw everything. We were part of it."
"Someone from the Department will be in contact, I"m sure," said Dalby.
"But-"
"Never mind, Bibbie," said Melissande, and patted her arm. "He"s not important enough to interview us." She gave Mister Dalby from the Department her best regally glittering stare. "And what about Gerald? Mister Dunwoody?"