K. Mills - Witches incorporated

He opened his eyes. “William, you need to listen to me. Deactivate the shadbolt and tell Sir Alec whatever he needs to know. Because I really, really don’t want to hurt you.”

William snickered, even as his fingers crept towards his mouth. “You won’t. You can’t.”

Gerald stared at his hands, pressed almost bloodless now between his knees. “Sir Alec,” he said, just loudly enough for the scrying crystal to pick up. “I don’t want to do this.”

“ He’s not an innocent casualty, Mister Dunwoody,” said Sir Alec, seemingly out of thin air. “ He’s a willing accomplice. The kind of man who creates innocent casualties. Your compassion should be reserved for them.”

“Even so…”

“ I told you once this was not a job for the faint-hearted. I told you there were times when you’d have to be a scalpel. This, Mister Dunwoody, is one of those times. ”

A scalpel. Pruning shears. A dustpan and brush. How many euphemisms were there for what he’d become?

“ Please, William,” he said, not caring that Sir Alec could hear his desperation. “Tell us what you did. All of it. And after that we can work things out.”

William’s eyes were the colour of dirty dishwater. Filled with unease now, his gaze jittered from side to side. His fingernails were so badly bitten they’d started to bleed. “Can’t. Can’t. No talking. That’s the deal.”

“ Mister Dunwoody.”

Gerald flinched. Sighed. “I’m sorry, William.” Looking with his mind’s etheretically-tuned eye, he reached for the first strand of the shadbolt… and snapped it.

William howled like a dog run over by a carriage.

Fighting a wave of nausea, he leaned forward. “William, please, I’m begging you. Save yourself. Talk.”

William sobbed, and shook his head.

He snapped another strand of the shadbolt. William toppled sideways off his chair to the floor, blubbering, all bravado burned away in white-hot flames of pain. Gerald stared down at him… and remembered the cave.

I can’t do this. I’m not Lional.

“ I can’t do this,” he said out loud, to Sir Alec. “If that means I’m in breach of contract then fine. Sue me. But I can’t-I won’t — do this.”

Without waiting for a reply he got off the uncomfortable wooden chair and walked to the small room’s other door, the door that would let him get out of this place. He turned the handle, pulled it open…

… and found himself outside the wrought-iron gates of the haunted house. The morning mist was heavy. Fading into the distance, the muffled clip-clop of hooves and the creak of wooden wheels as the cart that had deposited him here returned to the railway station.

And as he stared at the gates, numbed beyond any thought or feeling, they swung wide and soundless, inviting him to enter. Cold despite his overcoat, gloved hands thrust deep in its pockets, he walked unhindered up the gravel driveway to the mist-shrouded, ivy-covered house. Banged the gargoyle doorknocker. Nodded to the very proper butler who answered the door.

“I’m Gerald Dunwoody. I believe I’m expected.”

“Certainly sir,” said the butler. “Sir Alec is in the parlour. Please, follow me.”

And yes, Sir Alec was in the parlour, a buttercup yellow and fresh dairy-cream room. Seated in a blue-and-white striped wingback armchair and conservatively, nondescriptly dressed in a grey pinstripe suit, he was sipping tea from an elegant porcelain cup. He looked up as the butler announced his visitor.

“Ah. Mister Dunwoody,” he said, unnervingly expansive and genial. “So good of you to join me. Come in. Sit down. Would you care for some refreshment?”

Standing just inside the doorway, Gerald shook his head. “No, thank you,” he said, struggling not to sound as dazed as he felt. “Sir Alec, what was that? Lional… the hexed gates… that wizard, William? What just happened?”

Sir Alec considered him over the rim of the teacup. “What do you think happened?”

“I don’t know, I–I thought it was real, then I thought I was dreaming, and then-” He shook his head again. “I don’t know. I’m assuming it was… all part of the test?”

Sir Alec nodded. “Correct.”

“And I passed?”

Not even this warm, cosy room could thaw Sir Alec’s smile. “Well… let’s just say you didn’t fail.”

Oh. Well. That was good… wasn’t it?

“Do sit down, Mister Dunwoody,” added Sir Alec, much less genially. “I’m not fond of repeating myself.”

He dropped onto the parlour’s couch. “Sorry, sir. So, if I’ve passed, and I’m a janitor, then what happens now?”

“Now, Mister Dunwoody?” Sir Alec put down the cup. “Now I have a job for you.”

“A job?” he repeated. He still felt not quite real. “Already?”

“Certainly,” said Sir Alec. “The government’s not in the habit of paying agents to loll about. It’s time, Mister Dunwoody, for you to get your feet slightly damp.”

Anyway,” said Monk, bounding back through the dining room doorway, slightly out of breath and looking ever-so-slightly flustered, “it’s going to be a while before I can fix the place up. I mean, Great-uncle Throgmorton may have left me the house but unfortunately his bequest didn’t include the dosh for repairs and modernisation and so forth.”

“Huh,” said Emmerabiblia, as Monk slid into his seat at the table. “At least Great-uncle Throgmorton remembered you exist. You and Aylesbury. He didn’t leave me so much as a copper penny, the female-hating old miser. I hardly call that fair.”

Swallowing a groan, Melissande reached for her half-nibbled bread roll. She was fond of Monk’s sister, she really was, but for the last three weeks all Bibbie could talk about was the gross unfairness of Great-uncle Throgmorton’s will. And really, once you’d agreed fifty or sixty times about the unspeakable rottenness of mingy old men who were stuck in the middle of last century, what else was there to say? Apart from Oh for the love of Saint Snodgrass, do shut up! and that would only lead to unpleasantness… which wasn’t a good idea. They had enough on their plates without adding hurt feelings to the menu.

“I know, I know, it’s not fair,” said Monk, impatiently sympathetic. Then he turned. “The thing is, Mel, Great-uncle Throgmorton was a die-hard old fogie. Women as Decorative Objects, Seen but Seldom Heard, that kind of thing. Not to be trusted with money or property or anything remotely smelling of business.”

“Yes,” she replied, with heroic restraint. “Bibbie has mentioned that, in passing. Very outdated of him.”

“Still,” he added, “you’re welcome to come and live here with me, Bibbie. I already told you that. It’s a big house, we could rattle around in it together and never bump into each other from one week to the next.”

Bibbie pulled a face. “No, thank you very much. If you want someone to pick up your discarded socks and cook your meals and dust cobwebs off the ceilings then you can blasted well pay for the privilege, Monk. I have no intention of being your housekeeper.”

“What?” Monk adopted an air of wounded disbelief. “Bibs, how can you even suggest it? I’m not Aylesbury, I’d never treat you like that! I’m the nice brother, remember?”

Even though she was still cross, Bibbie smiled, a little. “Well. Nicer than Aylesbury, anyway,” she conceded. “But I’m still not moving in. You spend most of your time staggering about in a thaumaturgical haze. I’d have to start cooking and cleaning and picking up your socks out of self-preservation and I have much better things to do with myself.”

“That’s it, ducky,” said Reg, chortling on the back of the fourth dining chair. “You tell him.”