She sniffed. “Good point.”
Flicking a switch, he passed the wire-wrapped rod down his front. Nothing happened. “See?” he said, grinning again. So ridiculously pleased with himself. Take away his inventions and Monk would go into a decline, she was sure. Just like a baby deprived of its rattle. “No reaction. That means no sprite activity for the last ten hours at least.”
Bibbie clapped her hands like a child at a party. “Ooooh, test me, test me!”
Her brother obliged. The needle flickered a couple of times, and the gauge emitted a squeak.
“Ha!” he said. “Contact… but only minimally. You’ve been in the vicinity of a sprite recently but you haven’t had a significant encounter.”
“All right then,” said Melissande, bracing herself. “Test me.”
As Monk ran the sprite detector over her the gauge screeched like a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs. Reg let out a shriek and erupted into the humid air, shedding feathers and curses in equal measure.
“Bullseye!” Monk said, practically chortling with satisfaction. “That’s excellent. It’s always nice to see a theory proven out. You, Melissande, are
covered
in etheretic spores.”
She took a step back. “
Etheretic spores
? What do you mean
etheretic spores?
What are
etheretic spores?
”
“Oh, you know,” he said vaguely, checking the readings on the gauge. “Randomly excreted thaumaturgical particles.”
Still squawking, Reg landed on a branch of the Botchaki Silk Tree and started a complicated little foot-wiping dance on its pale yellow bark. Horrified, Melissande stared at her outstretched hands.
“Monk, I don’t like this!” she said, mortified to hear a quaver in her voice. “I don’t like this at—”
“Oh, don’t worry,” he said blithely, glancing up from his equipment. “I’m pretty sure the spores are harmless.”
“
Pretty sure
? Monk, you raving lunatic, you irresponsible bird brain, you—”
“Oy!” said Reg. “Mind who you’re calling a bird brain, madam!”
Monk looked up, surprised. “You’re fine, Mel. Really.”
“Says
you
,” she retorted. “Forgive me if I’d like a second opinion. After all, you’re the one who thought sprites were
mythical
!”
His face split in another wide grin. “And now we know they’re not! Isn’t it great? I had no idea that humming three bars of descending cyclonic harmonics in B-flat minor while holding the portal key would get me into other dimensions! If I had I would’ve gone looking for the one with the voluptuous can-can girls!”
If she’d had a parasol handy she would have poked him in the buttocks with it. “Monk Markham, I swear, either you start taking this seriously or—”
“I am taking this seriously!” he protested. “This is a major thaumaturgical breakthrough, Mel, and they don’t come along every day. It’s
fantastic
!”
“
Fantastic
?” Breathless with outrage, she came perilously close to snatching up the carpetbag and throwing it at him. “It’s not fantastic, you—you
turnip
, it’s
disgusting
! I’m covered in interdimensional
sprite shit!
Where’s the nearest tap? Has anybody got a clean hanky? How much of the stuff is on me, I can’t see a bloody thing!”
Monk stared at her, bemused. “Of course you can’t. We’re dealing with a basic visual incompatibility between dimensional vibrations, remember?”
“No, not really!” she shouted. “I’m a bit too busy being covered in interdimensional
sprite shit!
Where’s the wretched thing now, Monk? Is it in my hair?” She began frantically patting her head. “Oh, Saint Snodgress preserve me, don’t let there be a sprite in my
hair
!”
He ran the sprite detector over her again. This time the volume was appreciably lower, more beeping than screeching. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s not in your hair, Mel,” he said, trying to appease. “It’s not anywhere. You’re one hundred percent sprite-free, I promise.”
“And yet still covered in sprite shit, yes?” she demanded.
“Um… well… yes. Sorry about that. But the rate of decay is accelerating,” he added encouragingly. “That’s good, isn’t it?”
She goggled at him. “
Decay
? You mean I’m covered in
decomposing
sprite shit?
How is that good, Monk?
”
“It’s all right, Mel,” said Bibbie, trying to be helpful. “We’ll get you cleaned up somehow.”
“We certainly will,” said Reg from her safely distant tree branch. “The Department’s bound to have a decontamination chamber they can spare for a week or two. In the meantime, Mad Miss Markham and I can mind the agency. She’ll even remember to collect the mail without being reminded, won’t you, ducky?”
“Absolutely,” Bibbie agreed. “I promise.”
Breathing heavily, Melissande glared at the pair of them. “Strange as it may seem, I don’t consider that particularly comforting. In fact I won’t be comfortable until we track down this inconvenient creature and send it back where it belongs!” She rounded on Monk. “So if it’s not stuck on me, where is it?”
“Still at the agency,” said Bibbie. “It must be.”
Raising her eyebrows, Melissande flicked a glance at Monk’s unhelpful sister. “Must it? How do we know it’s not rampaging around town even as we speak?”
“Because there’s nothing registering on the Department’s monitors,” said Monk. “Believe me, I’ve checked. Besides, if the sprite was loose in town we’d have heard about it by now. Exploding tamper-proof ink would be the least of our worries.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” she demanded. “Let’s get back to the office so you can catch the little bugger and send it packing!”
He winced. “Sorry. I’d love to, only I can’t. I’ve got a secret briefing with Uncle Ralph. But after I invented the portable sprite detector I invented a sprite trap to catch it in. See?”
She stared as he opened the carpetbag again and pulled out what looked like a birdcage for a stunted canary. “It’s not very big.”
He shrugged. “Neither’s the sprite.”
“How do you know, Monk? The sprite’s invisible!”
“I know,” he insisted. “I’m a thaumaturgist, remember?” When she didn’t say anything, he adopted a wounded expression. “What? Don’t you trust me?”
She gave him an incendiary look.
And to think he nagged Gerald for turning Tavistock into a lion… “
Of course I do, Monk. When it comes to inventing new ways of getting into trouble I trust you implicitly.”
Reg sniggered. “You tell him, ducky.”
“And speaking of invisible,” she added, “since we can’t see this wretched sprite, how exactly are we supposed to catch it?”
“Easy,” said Monk, so effortlessly confident. So completely unmoved by her righteous indignation. He was the most
infuriating
man… “There’s an etheretic normaliser built into the trap. You activate it with this switch here, see?” He pointed. “If the sprite’s within range the multi-phase thaumaturgic agitation will render it visible.”
“For how long?”
“Long enough, I promise.”
“And how do you define “within range”?”
“A few feet.”
“Is that all?” she said, dismayed. “Monk—”
“I know, I know,” he said, carelessly apologetic. Infuriating? He was
impossible
. “Sorry, Mel. What can I say? It was a rush job.”
As solutions went it was far from perfect, but with time and circumstances against them it would have to do. “Fine. And what happens once we’ve caught our uninvited guest?”
“You can leave me a message at the Department and I’ll drop by the agency and pick it up,” said Monk. “Better yet, come to dinner tonight and bring it with you.”
She stared at him. He was serious. He was actually, deadly, serious.
If I wasn’t in lo—quite fond of him, I really would punch him in the nose. “
Monk—”
“Oh, save your breath, ducky,” said Reg, and flapped down from the tree branch to take up her favoured shoulder-perch. “Let’s just take care of this, shall we? I don’t know about you but I want a bath!”
“
One
bath?” Melissande stared down at her invisible-sprite-shit-covered self. “I won’t be getting out of the tub for a
week
! I don’t care how many times I have to tramp up and down those stairs with kettlefuls of hot water!”
“Does that mean you’ll do it?” her infuriating, impossible young man asked hopefully.
Yes, indeed. She
so
wanted to punch him. “Do I have a choice?”
Beaming, Monk kissed her swiftly and chastely on the cheek. “Terrific!” He shoved the sprite detector and sprite trap into the carpetbag then thrust the bag at her. “Knew I could count on you, Mel.”
“And me,” said Bibbie, offended.
“Yes, yes, you too,” he added hastily.
“Oh? And what am I, then?” demanded Reg. “A bowl of chopped chicken liver?”
“Of
course
not!” said Monk. “I can count on
all
of you.” He fished out his fob watch and flicked it open. “Only I’m going to have to count on you from afar, because—”
“Not so fast!” said Melissande. “You have to show us how this sprite trap works.”
“I wrote down some instructions,” he said. “They’re in the bag. Honestly, Mel, you’ll be fine.”
“You hope,” she retorted. “I mean, what if your precious sprite does have a mind of its own and doesn’t want to be caught? What if it fights back? What if—”
“It won’t. I doubt it’s aware of what’s going on. To be honest, Mel, I don’t even think it’s intelligent.”
“Well, that makes two of you,” she snapped. And to think that an hour ago she’d thought the darkest clouds in her sky were shaped like sagging buttocks. “Honestly, Monk. Why does
your
problem have to become
my
problem?”
He winced. “I am sorry. Truly.”
And he was, she didn’t doubt it. The trouble was, being sorry this time wouldn’t stop him next time. When metaphysical madness struck again, and it would, he’d not be strong enough to resist it. Asking Monk to turn his back on a new discovery was as futile as expecting Reg to be ladylike.
The only question is am I strong enough to endure the consequences? Because any moth fluttering around Monk Markham’s flame is going to get its wings singed, sooner or later.
The thought must have shown on her face, because Monk took an alarmed step towards her. “Melissande? I mean it. You’re not in any danger. I wouldn’t put you in harm’s way. Not
any
of you.”
She let out a gusty sigh. “Not on purpose, no.”
“Not
ever
,” he insisted. “Look—if you don’t want to do this—”
“No, no, I’ll do it,” she said. She glanced at Bibbie and Reg. “
We’ll
do it. But you owe us a tin of tamper-proof ink.”
“A
big
tin,” added Bibbie.
Reg snorted. “
Three
big tins.”
“Three big tins of tamper-proof ink,” said Monk, a relieved smile lighting his face. “Absolutely. I’ll make it myself.”
“All right then, girls,” said Melissande, watching Monk beat a hasty retreat. “Let’s go catch ourselves an invisible sight-seeing interdimensional sprite, shall we?”
As they hurried back to the agency, still on foot unfortunately, given the parlous state of their finances, she could only hope the stares they attracted were the usual ones on account of the tweed trousers, and had nothing to do with the invisible sprite shit becoming inconveniently visible.
Clustered with Bibbie and Reg in the dingy corridor outside their office—Saint Snodgrass be praised the other two offices on their floor were empty—she stared at the agency’s locked door. “So… how do we know the sprite’s still in there?”
Bibbie shrugged. “There’s only one way to find out.” She grabbed her brother’s carpetbag and took out the portable sprite detector. “Stand back,” she added, turning it on. “This could get interesting.”
Melissande flattened herself against the corridor’s far wall and watched Bibbie pass the sprite detector’s copper wire-wrapped rod over their recently painted door.
“Does that answer your question?” Bibbie shouted above the detector’s hysterical shrieking.
Melissande nodded, hands clapped over her ears. “Yes! Yes! Now turn it off before we have everyone in the building up here asking inconvenient questions and calling the landladies!”
Bibbie turned off the detector then unhexed the agency door’s lock. Not that it needed hexing
and
a key. It barely needed the key, since there wasn’t anything in there worth stealing. But they were a witching locum agency. It was a matter of professional pride.
“Right,” said Bibbie, as the hum from the unhexing faded. “Got your key, Mel? I left mine at the boarding house.”
Of course she did. When it came to “scatty,” Bibbie was a dictionary listing all by herself. She fished out her key, unlocked the door—then hesitated. “Wait. We need a plan first.”
“We’ve got a plan,” said Reg. “Find the sprite, catch the sprite, make that Markham boy eat the sprite for dinner, without mustard. That’s the plan.”
Melissande frowned. “That’s not a very specific plan, Reg. For starters I think that before we go charging in there we’d better make sure we know how to work Monk’s sprite trap.”