Witches incorporated ra-2

by K. E. Mills

  Oh, ha ha, Sir Alec. Very funny. “Still,” he muttered. “Despite all the evidence, I can’t bring myself to believe Errol’s guilty.”

  “Mister Dunwoody, you have me perplexed,” said Sir Alec, and drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “There is no love lost between you and Errol Haythwaite. Why are you so determined to defend him in this matter?”

  “Because-well, because I don’t like him,” Gerald said at last, goaded. “It’s too easy to believe the worst of someone you loathe and despise. If it was Monk you were accusing I’d never stand for it, because he’s my friend. So what kind of man would I be if I didn’t apply the same kind of rigour to someone I don’t like, for the sole simple reason that I don’t like him?”

  “What kind of man indeed?” Sir Alec murmured, leaning back in his chair and staring across his desk with a contemplative, narrowed gaze. “That, Mister Dunwoody, is an interesting question.”

  “Where’s Errol now? Is he under arrest? Is he here?”

  Sir Alec glanced at the quietly ticking clock on the wall. “Not yet. But he will be, soon. We wanted to make sure he was cleared by a medical specialist before bringing him into the Department for questioning.”

  “Dalby’s bringing him?”

  Another disapproving pinch of lip. “ Senior Janitor Dalby, yes.”

  He pushed to his feet and shoved his hands in his pockets. “You need to let me talk to Errol. Alone.”

  “That’s out of the question,” said Sir Alec. “For one thing it’s been determined at the highest levels that you are never to be publicly identified with this Department. And for another, Mister Dunwoody, you are hardly a qualified interrogator. You are barely a janitor at all. I think you’re allowing tonight’s little achievements to overrule your-”

  You sanctimonious bastard. “If I’m not an interrogator,” he said, his heart thudding, “then what the hell was that business with Monk’s souped-up delerioso incant?”

  Sir Alec’s face hardened. “I don’t recall mentioning a delerioso incant.”

  Oh… bugger. Sorry, Monk. “Sir Alec, don’t dismiss me. I can-”

  But Sir Alec wasn’t so easily sidetracked. “Mister Dunwoody, am I to understand you have violated protocol and contacted-”

  “You made me think I had to torture someone!” he shouted. “And I did. At least, I started to. And then you refused to discuss it afterwards! What did you think I was going to do, Sir Alec? After what Lional did to me, what did you think? Did you think I was going to smile and shrug and laugh it off?”

  “What I thought or did not think is irrelevant,” Sir Alec snapped. “Mister Dunwoody, this is a serious breach. You have discussed confidential Department business with a non-Department individual.”

  “Oh, don’t give me that!” he snapped. “You’re the one who went to Monk and got him to soup up his incant in the first place! And don’t you go blaming him for this either. He didn’t come to me, I went to him-because what I did in that final test disturbed me and you refused to talk about it.”

  For quite some time, Sir Alec said nothing. Then he nodded at the hard wooden chair. “Sit down, Mister Dunwoody. And do make an effort to moderate your tone. I’m not in the habit of permitting subordinates to shout at me in my own office. Or anywhere else, for that matter.”

  Gerald thudded back into the chair. “I’m sorry. But-”

  “I think, Mister Dunwoody,” Sir Alec said, lowering his hand, “that your best course of action is to leave it at ‘I’m sorry’.” He steepled his fingers again, his pale grey eyes coldly intent. “Now. What makes you think you’re qualified to successfully interrogate Errol Haythwaite?”

  “I don’t want to interrogate him,” he said tiredly. “I just want to talk to him. I mean, you put me into Wycliffe’s in the first place because you know he doesn’t like me any more than I like him. I get under his skin. I throw him off-stride. So let me throw him off-stride. Let me use what I overheard tonight-” He looked at the early morning sky and shrugged. “Last night. If he thinks I believe him about not being in cahoots with Rottlezinder, maybe I can get him talking about this other thing with Jandria, and one of your real interrogators can maybe catch him in a lie. If he’s lying.”

  And I really don’t think he is.

  “I’m sure that sounds terribly exciting in theory, Mister Dunwoody, but there remains the matter of your anonymity,” said Sir Alec.

  Gerald shrugged. “We both know you can fix that, Sir Alec. This Department’s got access to any number of useful, despicable incants.” He snorted. “Probably we invent most of them ourselves.”

  Sir Alec was silent again, one forefinger tapping his lips. “You’d sanction that?” he said at last. No emotion in his voice, no hint of what he was thinking or feeling. “The use of despicable incants against Errol Haythwaite?”

  “Given that I’ve already rearranged his memories once tonight, I’d be a bit bloody hypocritical to complain now, wouldn’t I?” he retorted. “Besides… if it means we stop Jandria from starting another war?” Staring at his knees, he thought about New Ottosland. Remembered all those charred, twisted bodies in the streets. Imagined the same kind of bloodshed here… and in other cities… but with a death toll in the thousands. Imagined death raining down from the sky from military airships. Just another kind of dragon. Looking up, he nodded. “Yes. I can live with hexing Errol. Besides, nothing could hurt him worse than being falsely accused of treason and maybe found guilty of something he didn’t do.”

  Sighing, Sir Alec passed a hand across his face. “Mister Dunwoody,” he murmured. “What a trial you are proving to be.”

  “Um…” said Gerald. “So, would that be a yes?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Pale and dishevelled, his face motley with bruises, its cuts and scrapes covered with sticking plaster, Errol looked up as Gerald entered the small interrogation room. His mouth dropped open and his tired, bloodshot eyes stretched wide.

  “What the hell? What is this rubbish? Dunnywood?”

  Sighing, Gerald dropped into the other chair at the interrogation room’s table. “Hello, Errol.”

  This interrogation room was identical to the one from Monk’s delerioso incant. Four walls. Two doors. No windows. No sign of the scrying crystal that would be feeding images back to Sir Alec and whoever else was observing this… conversation.

  Errol was still staring at him in shock. “Is this some kind of unamusing joke? Or are you under arrest too? Now that I have no trouble believing. I don’t care what I said, you’re responsible for what happened to the new Mark VI prototype. To both prototypes. You’re a walking bloody disaster, Dunwoody. I knew you were trouble the first day I laid eyes on you. And at Wycliffe’s I was convinced. I could smell trouble on you, I could sense it. I could feel there was something very wrong about you.”

  Gerald looked at him. Here we go. “Actually, Errol, what you felt was this.”

  And he let his full rogue wizard potentia flare all around him like the raging nimbus of a newborn sun.

  Every last bit of colour drained from Errol’s face. He scrambled out of his chair and retreated until he hit the nearest wall.

  “That’s not possible,” he whispered, his voice hitching with shock. “That’s a trick. What the hell is going on here? You get out, Dunwoody. I won’t share a room with you. I want nothing to do with you!”

  “Sorry, Errol,” he said, and pulled his potentia back inside himself. “We’re stuck with each other for a little while yet.” He nodded at the chair. “Sit down. There are some things we need to discuss.”

  “Are you bloody deaf, you cretin?” Errol spat. “I’m not talking to you. I don’t know how but you’re responsible for all of this!”

  “No,” he said. “Not all of it. Maybe some of it, in a roundabout kind of way. Look… maybe this will be easier on both of us if I put things back the way they were.” And with a snap of his fingers, and the whisper of a few cruel words, he undid what he’d done to Errol’s memory
at Wycliffe’s.

  It took a moment for reality to reassert itself. And then, as Gerald watched, Errol… remembered.

  “I’m sorry about Rottlezinder,” he said, as Errol blindly groped for the chair. “I know you were friends. Used to be friends. And I’m sorry about what I did to you. But you didn’t really give me a choice, Errol.”

  Errol thudded into the chair and pressed his hands flat to his face. It was quite astonishing, to see the polished, sophisticated, exquisitely urbane Errol Haythwaite so completely dismayed. Once, he’d have been delighted to see his nemesis brought so low. But witnessing it now, all he could feel was a tired pity.

  Errol let his hands drop to the table, revealing a bone-white, ravaged face. “Who the hell are you, Dunwoody? What are you?”

  He grimaced. “Yes, well, it seems nobody’s managed to figure that out yet. But I can tell you what I’m not. I’m not your enemy, Errol. I’m trying to help you.”

  “ Help me?” said Errol, and wrestled for self-control. “Fine. Then you can answer some questions.”

  “Sure. If I can.”

  “What is this place?” Errol demanded, looking around the cold, unfriendly room. “What am I doing here? What are you doing here? That man- Dalby, is it? — he said there were one or two things about the lab accident that needed clearing up-and then he took me to see some doctor. Said it was a new DoT policy. Except-” He shook his head, dazed. “There wasn’t any lab accident. You-you faked that. So is this about Haf? About him sabotaging Ottosland’s portal network?” Errol leaned across the table, the closest to desperate that Gerald had ever seen him. “Because I had nothing to do with that! You were there at the boot factory, Dunwoody, God knows how or why. Didn’t you hear what I told Haf, didn’t you hear me-”

  “Yes, Errol, I heard,” he said quietly. “We know you weren’t working with Haf Rottlezinder.”

  Errol sat back. “Good. That’s good,” he said un-steadily. “Then I can go.”

  “Not quite yet,” he said. “There’s something else we need to discuss. But before we do… I have to tell you, Errol, I am curious about something.”

  “As if I had the slightest interest in you or your curiosity,” said Errol, sneering. His confidence was seeping back. In his eyes a familiar, icy glitter of dislike. “Get out of here, Dunwoody. I’ve nothing to say to you.”

  Oh, Errol. How can you be such a brilliant wizard and such a fool?

  “Come on, Errol,” he said, and rested his clasped hands on the table. “Indulge me, just this once. After all, I did save your life. Go on. What can it hurt?”

  Errol blew out a hard breath and waved his hand. “Fine. Ask what you like. But that doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”

  As invitations went, it was hardly gracious-but given that this was Errol Haythwaite, he’d take what he could get. “Okay. So here’s the thing that has me puzzled, Errol. After Rottlezinder first approached you, why didn’t you tell the Department of Thaumaturgy?”

  “Tell them what?” said Errol, scathing. “That an old friend contacted me out of the blue and asked if I’d like to work with him on a lucrative project?”

  He frowned. “That’s all he said? He didn’t tell you what the project was? Where the money was coming from?”

  “No.”

  “And you didn’t ask?”

  “I wasn’t interested.”

  “And why was that, Errol?” he asked quietly. “Because you knew there was a good chance that if Haf was involved the project would be… questionable?”

  Errol glared at the table. “This is ridiculous.”

  “All right,” he said. “I accept that Haf played his cards close to his chest. I accept that on the face of it there was no reason for you to alert the authorities. Not in the beginning. But Errol… after that first portal accident, and knowing the kind of man Rottlezinder was, you must’ve realised there was a connection. Or at least suspected — but still you kept quiet. And because you kept quiet, scores more people were hurt. For what? So you could protect your precious career? Are you really that shallow, Errol?”

  Errol’s pale, bruised face flushed a dull red. “Watch your mouth, Dunwoody. I don’t take that kind of cheek from tailor’s brats.”

  “Don’t say things like that, Errol,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m the only friend you’ve got in this place.”

  “Ha!” said Errol. “Then I really am in trouble, aren’t I?”

  Oh, lord. “Errol, don’t you get it? You’re in so much hot water right now it’s a wonder you can’t feel the steam.”

  Errol breathed hard, torn between contempt and uncertainty. Then he dropped his gaze and folded his arms. “Of course I knew something was wrong,” he muttered. “But he threatened me. When I turned him down. He threatened my family. He threatened my friends. He said if I knew what was good for me I’d pay no attention to the newspapers. He said if I didn’t want to spend the next six months attending funerals I’d mind my own business.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “ Yes, I believed him!” said Errol, violently. “God, you’d have believed him too if-”

  “If I’d shared a few youthful indiscretions with him?”

  Stark silence, as Errol stared. “You know about that?” he said at last, dully, emptied abruptly of fire and fight. He shrugged. “Well, then.”

  Sympathy flickered. Resenting it, Gerald frowned. “Errol, while it’s true you’ve been cleared of involvement in the portal sabotage, we have learned something else. Something very… disquieting. I wanted to know what you thought about it.”

  “ You wanted to-” Errol glared, his anger rekindling. “ You?” Unfolding his arms, he shoved to his feet. “ You aren’t fit to polish my shoes, Dunwoody. As far as I’m concerned this conversation is over. I’m leaving. And you can rest assured, you and-” His gaze swept the small room. “-whoever else is party to this charade, that Lord Attaby shall shortly be receiving a visit from my legal counsel. This has been nothing but a farrago of harassment, assault and intimidation. And if you think you can get away with it you are sorely mistaken. I shall take immense pleasure, Dunwoody, in seeing you broken in a very public Court of-”

  “Sit down, Errol,” Gerald said softly. “We’re not finished here.”

  “We most certainly are!” snapped Errol. “ You’re finished, Dunnywood, you’re-”

  “ I said sit down!”

  Errol gaped at him, stunned.

  “Please, Errol,” he said. “Sit. Don’t make me make you.”

  Errol sat jerkily, like a puppet with faulty strings.

  “The Jandrians are building a fleet of military airships using your designs,” he said flatly. “Would you care to explain how that’s come about?”

  “I’m sorry?” said Errol, after another long silence. His voice was faint. Uncertain. “I don’t-I don’t understand.”

  He leaned forward across the table. “I think you do, Errol. You’re not deaf, or stupid. The Jandrian government has broken the armistice. The Jandrians are dreaming of war again. And you’re helping them. I don’t understand. Why would you do that? Betray your country, most likely to its death?”

  “But I didn’t,” said Errol. “I would never — ” He shook his head, stunned. “The Jandrians? You think I’d crawl into bed with those filthy scum? My God, they’re barely one rung up the ladder from animals.”

  “Perhaps,” said Gerald, shrugging, and sat back. “But they’re wealthy, Errol. And you have expensive tastes. Perhaps you lied to Rottlezinder about not needing money. Perhaps your trust fund has run dry.”

  He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting from Errol, once the accusation of treason was made. Fury. Wild denials. Possibly even a physical or thaumaturgical attack. He was braced for all of that.

  What he wasn’t prepared for was… anguish.

  Errol leaned forward, his hands splayed flat and hard on the table. “No. No. You must believe me. On my wizard’s oath, I did not do this. I haven’t betrayed Ottosland t
o Jandria.” He swallowed convulsively, a terrible desperation in his eyes. “I swear it.”

  “Then how do you explain copies of your airship designs being found there?”

  A bead of sweat trickled down Errol’s blanched cheek. “I can’t. All my work is triple-warded and kept in my office at Wycliffe’s. I don’t let anybody touch it, not even Ambrose.”

  He shrugged, feigning indifference. “Then like I said, Errol. You’re in very hot water.”

  “Oh, God,” said Errol. It was almost a sob. “This can’t be happening.” On a gasp he pressed his hands flat to his face, then let them drop. “You have to help me, Gerald. Whatever you are, whatever freakish powers you possess, use them. Winnow my memories. Break my mind, if you have to. I don’t care. I am not a traitor. And I’m asking you… I’m begging you… help me to prove it.”

  Sighing, Gerald stood up. Looked to the ceiling, where he suspected the scrying crystals were concealed. “Sir Alec? If you know anything about Errol, you know what asking that cost him. He’s telling the truth. You need to look for your traitor somewhere else. And now, if you don’t mind, it’s been a long night. I’m going home.”

  And he walked out, closing the interrogation room door very gently behind him.

  But the idea of returning to his rented bedsit, which was hardly better than that horrible attic room in the Wizards’ Club, depressed him beyond bearing. Besides. After everything that had happened… he didn’t want to be alone.

  Monk answered his front door wearing the harassed, distracted expression that meant he’d just been talking to his sister.

  “ Gerald? Blimey, you look like death dragged backwards,” he said. “Come on in. Amuse yourself for a moment, I’m on the telephone with Bibbie.”

  As Monk muttered his way down the corridor, Gerald pushed the front door closed behind him and heaved a deep sigh. Lord, he was so tired. He was also, technically, in possession of stolen property, having ridden his pilfered, souped-up Wycliffe scooter straight here from Nettleworth. He’d have to take it back to the airship company sooner or later, but now all he could think about was sitting down before he fell down.