Rats. She really wanted to know what Permelia and Ambrose were arguing about. “Sorry, Miss Petterly,” she murmured, leaping back to her proper place.
“Indeed,” said Miss Petterly, taking her seat. “I should think so. Never let me have to tell you again. Now, Miss Carstairs. Regarding these altered purchase orders…”
There was so much traffic snarled on the approach to the Central Ott General Post Office that Gerald had to abandon the souped-up scooter with a don’t-steal-me hex on it, and walk the last half a mile. Reg rode on his shoulder, scolding without bothering, it seemed, to take any breaths at all.
“-practically turned my feathers inside out, you raving nutter! If this is what being a rogue wizard has done for you, Gerald, all I can say is it’s a great pity you ever learned the truth of your condition! You are officially worse than that Markham boy and I never thought the day would come when I’d say that with a straight face! Well? Well? Aren’t you even going to apologise?”
“Not right now,” he said, scarcely paying her attention. The Central Ott streets were clogged with gawkers and police, so much shouting and whistle-blowing and shoving and pushing and clanging alarm bells. He was being poked by elbows, prodded by parasols: if one more person trod on his feet he was going to break down and cry. “Reg… we’re there. Can you please fly around a bit? See what you can see? Chances are they won’t let me get much closer than this.”
“ Well!” she spluttered. “If you aren’t the most impossible, the most outrageous, the most-”
“Thanks, Reg,” he said, and heaved her off his shoulder with one enormous shrug.
Swearing a blue streak she took to the air. Good thing there was so much noise and mayhem or somebody would have heard her, and that might have been awkward.
He put his head down and tried to forge his way through the wall of gathered onlookers, to get to the front of the crowd so he would at least have some hope of seeing what was going on.
No luck. The human wall refused to budge. Thwarted, Gerald let out a hard breath.
This is important. This is government business. I’m a government agent. If people won’t get out of my way I’ll just have to… nudge them. A bit. Not hard. Just enough.
He hadn’t switched his etheretic shield back on. Another breach of protocol, but by now who was counting? With a pang of guilt he whispered a hex beneath his breath, and heated a thin layer of air around him. Agitated the ether, making its thaumicles dance.
Without even knowing why, the crowd parted for him then closed up behind. Like a fish in water he swam to the edge of the street… and got his first look at the Central Ott Portal.
It was intact. At least, from the outside it looked intact. For a moment he was so giddy with relief he thought he might fall over. If there weren’t so many people in the crowd around him, practically propping him up, he probably would have.
Blotting sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, he stared past the imposing line of policemen who’d been posted to keep the milling spectators at a safe distance. A row of ambulances was lined up at the portal entrance, but the drivers were just lounging about, chatting. No frantic scramble to haul out the injured or-or the dead. He caught sight of a couple of Government-looking types, with bright purple badges fixed to their coat lapels. Officials from the Department of Transport, they were. Deep in solemn conversation but not looking panicked. Looking cheerful, if anything. So did that mean there really weren’t any casualties this time?
Oh please, oh please…
Off to one side of the portal entrance a huddle of regular townsfolk were in animated discussion with more men from the Department of Transport. Portal passengers, then? Witnesses to whatever had happened? He caught sight of Reg, bless her, perched on top of a street sign announcing the portal’s entrance, almost on top of them, flagrantly eavesdropping for all she was worth.
All around him the crowd was muttering and agitating and speculating. “ Heard it was just a breakdown, not like the other times… I don’t know, they tell us all these thaumaturgics are safe, Harry, but I don’t think I’m going to trust them any more… new airships, did you see that advertisement? Yes, they might be slower but they’re safer, you can’t deny they’re safer… are we quite certain no-one got hurt this time?… ”
He nearly turned to see who’d said that. It was disgusting, the speaker had sounded positively disappointed. But his attention was caught by more movement at the portal entrance. Someone was coming out.
Lord, it was Dalby, the senior janitor with the inexplicable fondness for stewed tea. Gerald held his breath and stared at the cobbled street in front of him, willing the rumpled, bruised-looking agent not to see him, not to feel so much of a skerrick of his presence. He didn’t dare switch his shield back on in case Dalby felt the etheretic disturbance and came to investigate what had caused it.
He risked a glance up, just in time to see Dalby nod to one of the Department of Transport officials, get into a small, nondescript car parked a little way past the ambulances and drive off.
Gerald, lungs aching, let out an enormously relieved rush of air.
The Department of Transport officials said something to the idling ambulance drivers. They nodded and touched their caps, then returned to their emergency vehicles. One by one they drove away too. A few moments later an empty bus pulled up in the space left by the ambulances, and the people who’d been eagerly talking to the Department of Transport officials loaded onto it.
Reg bounced up and down on top of the street sign, flipping her wing towards the grand Central Ott Post Office building with its imposing colonnaded entrance and carved sandstone cherubim and gargoyles, half a block down from the portal station.
Gerald stared. What? How was he supposed to get to the Post Office with all these policemen and Department of Transport officials clogging the street?
Reg bounced harder then flew from the street sign down to the Post Office, where she perched on a gargoyle making more impatient come on, hurry up gestures with her wing. Which was all well and good for her, but she was a bird, wasn’t she? Who paid any attention to her?
He looked up and down the crowded street. No sign of any other agents. Well, not agents he could recognise, anyway. No regular wizards he could recognise either. Just lots of ordinary people, starting to drift away now that it seemed the excitement was over.
He took a deep breath and drifted with them.
When he was finally opposite the Post Office he stopped drifting-quite a few people swore and cursed-and looked across the street to where Reg on her gargoyle was bouncing up and down so violently she was in danger, surely, of giving herself a concussion.
One of the crowd-control policemen stepped forward, his expression stern. “Thank you, sir, move it along if you please. We need to clear this area now so folk can get back to minding their own business.”
Gerald looked up into the policeman’s uncompromising face. The brass buttons on his dark green uniform shone brightly in the sunshine. “Yes, Constable. Of course, Constable. Sorry to be a nuisance, Constable.”
The policeman nodded, then turned to chivvy someone else. Gerald shuffled along as slowly as he could, thinking furiously. He wasn’t going to get across the street unnoticed, not with so many policemen still about. What he needed was a diversion…
I am not supposed to do this. If Sir Alec finds out he’ll have my guts for garters. The problem is I don’t have much choice.
He agitated the ether again, a little harder this time. Hard enough to tingle. Sent the ripple running back the way he’d come so the crowd leapt and exclaimed and fussed. And then, as the startled policemen rushed to investigate, he nipped across the closed-off street to the Post Office and dived for shelter in its inky-deep shadows.