Thaumatology 09 - Dragonfall

by Teasdale, Niall

‘She’s not dead. Someone’s hidden her. Why hide her if they’ve killed her? They didn’t hide Mayhew. They’ve got her somewhere, for some reason. Something to do with the generator project…’ Her voice had trailed off into a musing tone and Carter’s eyes narrowed at her.

  ‘You need to find her.’ The playboy’s voice was cold now. ‘You’ve found people being screened by angels. Find Cheryl.’

  ‘I’ve tried!’ Ceri snapped. ‘I’ve just burned enough power to level a city. I used every trick I know to find her.’

  Carter was suddenly on his feet. ‘Well maybe you need to try harder! Maybe you need to get some emotions of your own, Ceridwyn. Maybe you need to sort out where your head is at?’

  ‘Carter…’ Alec started.

  ‘What the Hell are you talking about, Carter?’ Ceri flared, cutting him off.

  ‘If we could just…’ Lily began.

  ‘You’ve been getting worse for weeks, maybe months,’ Carter growled. ‘You’re treating Lily like a slave. You call her “pet” all the time and now you’ve got a collar locked around her throat. You’re becoming callous. Do you even care whether we find Cheryl?’

  ‘Carter…’ Lily whispered.

  Ceri’s jaw clenched. Her face reddened. Lily was sure she could see a flicker of blue light in her eyes as Carter involuntarily edged backward. Her pupils seemed to contract, the blue growing. ‘Right,’ Ceri snarled and Lily felt a sudden rush of power before the sorceress vanished.

  Aberystwyth, Wales

  The thaumatology department at Aberystwyth University was based out of a three storey, stone built building hidden away behind the railway station. Ceri had never been there, never seen it, except on a map, and teleporting there had been amazingly stupid. As she walked down the drive and around the building to the entrance portico, she wondered what the hell she had been thinking. That was the thing, she had not been thinking, she had been angry. That seemed to be happening a lot lately.

  And Carter had been right about Lily. After her birthday, Lily had suggested they might wish to make the Mistress and pet relationship more permanent and Ceri had declined. Now she was doing it. It was crazy! She was really starting to treat Lily as a slave for God’s sake. She wants it. Why not indulge her? Ceri bit down hard on the traitorous thoughts. No! When she got back to London she would take off that stupid collar and apologise.

  There was no receptionist in the wide foyer with the huge staircase at the back. There were a number of students, however, and she walked up to one small group. ‘I’m looking for Professor Perry.’ She realised afterward that her tone sounded rather imperative.

  One of the boys, looking a little bewildered, pointed toward one of the wings. ‘He has an office downstairs. That way.’

  Nodding her thanks, Ceri started off through the double doors, finding a flight of stairs toward the end of the corridor beyond them. She trotted down into a wide atrium with doors leading in either direction and one leading to the outside. One of the inner doors had a plastic plaque on it, “Professor E. Perry. Thaumatology.” She walked up to the door and knocked.

  ‘Come in Ceridwyn.’ The voice from the other side of the door sounded distinctly unsurprised.

  Twisting the handle, Ceri pushed open the door and walked in. The room was quite large, and more utilitarian than she had expected. There was a large table covered in books, lose papers, and folders, several large blackboards on wheels, and a desk with a computer on it, and Ed Perry sitting behind it. Ceri picked up a chair, carrying it over to the desk and sitting down on it. ‘Cheryl is missing. I need to find her.’

  ‘I… How do you expect me to…?’ He looked shocked, which was expected.

  ‘Brenhines taught Alexandra and Carter some methods of searching which let them find me when the Witch Hunter grabbed me. I’ve tried looking for Cheryl, but I’m getting nothing. It’s not like she’s warded or shielded, it’s like she’s not there. If she were dead I could find her corpse, but this is… It’s like she’s not there. I think she’s been taken out of this dimension. I need to search the demons’ world for her.’

  ‘You think demons took her?’

  ‘I think she’s your friend and it’s time you lot got off the damn fence and helped us mortals deal with them!’ Her fists clenched as she tried to control her temper. ‘Sorry. Things have got a little… emotional.’

  ‘Understandable. I think we should cut the emotional element and apply some reason.’ He stood, scurrying around the desk to clean one of his blackboards. ‘Enhanced search of a remote dimension…’ He picked up a stick of chalk and tapped it pensively against his lip. ‘Ah yes.’ Reaching out, he began to write on the board.

  October 24th

  Ed walked into his office to find Ceri bent over his desk, asleep. The sound of a coffee mug being put down in front of her had her jerking upright. She saw him and smiled, briefly, before she saw the serious look on his face.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, nothing which really affects us. It was on the news. An earthquake in the United States. Nine point three on the Richter Scale just off the north west coast. There’s a subduction zone there. Seattle and Tacoma are basically flat. Luckily neither city have high populations now. A tidal wave hit the Pacific coast of China and Japan. Over a hundred feet high. The death toll is… well, they aren’t sure how many died, but it’s a lot.’

  Ceri thought of Katarina and Kangee, and the boy she had helped, Chayton. They were based well inland; hopefully they would be safe. ‘Damn,’ she murmured. ‘I think I have all the equations worked out. See what you think.’

  Ed nodded and put a paper bag in front of her. ‘Danish pastries,’ he said. ‘Eat something and get some coffee in you. You’ll be no use if you can’t think for a growling stomach.’

  ~~~

  The lab was on the top floor of the building, hidden away in one corner. The windows were blacked out and the lighting, such as it was, was subdued. The centre of the floor was marked out with a carefully drawn magic circle; a containment circle, but it wold serve their purpose.

  ‘We have the room for as long as we need it,’ Ed told Ceri as she began to prepare the circle; tracing over the marked lines with salt. ‘The Dean was a little iffy about it until I mentioned you did work for the Greycoats.’ Ceri smiled slightly and nodded. ‘Are you sure you’re up to this?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘It’s going to take a lot of energy.’

  ‘I know. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘You’ll be opening up your mind. Something could…’

  Ceri stopped working and looked up at him, and Ed stopped. ‘I need to find Cheryl, Ed. I’m going to do this. Now step back and let me work.’

  Ed nodded. He seemed more worried than she would have expected. He had trained her, he knew what she was capable of. Why was he so… nervous? She finished the circle and settled into the middle of it, cross-legged, settling her mind ready to work the complex magic she had worked out with Ed. The circle flashed into life around her, a column of magic which occupied only their reality. Its purpose was safety; if she used too much power, the circle would stop her irradiating the entire building before she died from internal injuries.

  She gave a last look to Ed, standing on the circle’s edge. He had an odd expression on his face. Something like resignation. Shrugging, she drew in her power, set the equations in place in her mind, and opened herself to another reality.

  Kennington, October 28th

  High Towers was entirely dark when Ceri walked up into the hall from the cellar. She had ported into the summoning room for safety’s sake, but the house was too quiet. She stopped and looked around; there was no sign of anyone.

  ‘Lily? Twill?’ The names echoed through the hall and got no answer. Not until she heard a movement from the kitchen and a large, dark shape emerged.

  ‘They’re not here.’ It was Alec’s voice, flat and unemotional. ‘I’m not sure what happened to Twill. She’s not showing her face, I kno
w that.’

  ‘And Lily?’ Ceri frowned. ‘Why are you here if they aren’t?’

  ‘I’m waiting for you to show up again. Where were you?’

  Ceri opened her mouth to speak and the words she had been about to say caught in her throat. ‘I… I was… I went somewhere… I was looking for a way to find Cheryl.’

  ‘Did you?’ Her statement put a little extra warmth in his voice, along with far more worry.

  ‘I thought she might have been taken to the demons’ realm. If she was, I couldn’t find her. I’m sorry.’

  He moved closer and she saw him nod. ‘Well, I have some more bad news for you. Lily’s not here because…’ He stopped, his voice catching, and Ceri’s heart began to hammer in her chest. ‘Michael was attacked. The Greycoats are sure it was a succubus. He’s in King’s Hospital, in a coma. They say the only thing that saved him was that he’s a werewolf and tougher than average.’

  ‘What?’ Ceri breathed. Her mind was refusing to take it in.

  ‘They have witnesses… They say… They’re saying they have witnesses who saw Lily leaving the corner of the park where he was found. Lily hasn’t been seen since. She’s on the run, Ceri.’

  Ceri looked at him, her eyes not seeing him. ‘No,’ she said, and then she collapsed.

  Denmark Hill, October 29th

  Ceri had never seen Michael look so vulnerable. Even when his father had been dying, he had had a strength to him. Now he looked pale, ill; he even looked smaller. He was on an oxygen feed and a saline drip, and Alexandra was sitting beside his bed. She looked smaller too, withered. Even though it was the day of the full moon, her hair just looked grey instead of its normal silver. She gave Ceri a bleak smile and said nothing.

  ‘You can’t wake him?’ Ceri asked quietly.

  ‘There is more at work here than a coma. Something keeps his spirit wandering. There’s nothing to wake.’

  ‘Demonic magic? Lily isn’t capable…’

  ‘Some form of magic. If the Greycoats are right and it was Lily, she had help.’

  Ceri frowned. ‘I can’t believe she would…’

  ‘No.’ It was rather a bald statement. ‘It’s Samhain in two nights time,’ Alexandra went on, apparently changing the subject. ‘Your birthday, Ceridwyn. I will be taking Michael to Battersea. It’s going to be a worse night than last year and he will need protection they cannot provide here. We all will.’

  ‘All…?’

  ‘Everything is in place. All the choices have been made. Everything which comes to pass must happen, Ceridwyn.’

  ‘You’re scaring me, Alexandra.’

  The old werewolf looked at her and gave another bleak smile. ‘Don’t be scared, Ceridwyn. No matter what happens, don’t be scared. There is really no point.’

  Westminster

  ‘The couple who found Michael saw “a very attractive woman with long, red-brown hair” leaving the scene,’ John said. He sounded tired, as though he had not slept well in a couple of days. ‘We showed them a picture of Lily and they identified her.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Ceri said. ‘Why? Why the Hell would she do something like this? And how? He hasn’t just been drained, something did something else to him that’s keeping him asleep.’ Her gaze swept between John and his partner Kate. There was not much sweeping to do; it was a small office.

  Kate was looking slightly sick. ‘After you… left, Lily said she was going to look up some of her contacts. We know she went to the Dubh Linn. We found someone who said she had was looking for a demon to talk to, to confirm whether they had taken Cheryl.’

  ‘The bartender at the Dubh Linn said that the last time he saw Lily,’ John went on, ‘she was looking distracted, scared. She said she thought someone was following her. We think they got to her.’

  ‘Like last time,’ Kate said, ‘when her father was here.’

  ‘We fixed that,’ Ceri said. ‘She can’t…’ And I can’t feel her. Something’s blocking the bond. Or it’s been broken. ‘I have to find her.’

  ‘We’ve had diviners looking for her,’ John replied. ‘She’s hidden. Warded, or whatever you do to hide from scrying.’

  ‘Your diviners aren’t me.’

  Kennington

  The light around Ceri was almost blinding. Her body shone like a beacon and around her, shapes swam in the light, serpentine and western dragons looping around her like lovers caressing her skin. Ceri sat cross-legged in the summoning room, her chin tilted upwards and her arms raised as if in supplication. She looked calm, serene, but inside she was burning with frustrated anger.

  The light collapsed and she let out a grunt of irritation. ‘Nothing!’ she shouted at the empty room. There had been nothing, no sign of Lily at all, and she could not understand why. She climbed to her feet and marched toward the door. She needed food.

  ‘I should be the perfect focus,’ she grumbled aloud. ‘She’s my demon. She’s bound to me. We’re connected. I know we’re still connected, I can feel it. I can feel the binding it’s just… It’s just going nowhere.’ She yanked the door open and stalked out into the corridor. ‘She’s still there, but I can’t feel her. I can feel the bond, but not her. It’s impossible. Unless…’

  Demons had been working magic for millennia longer than humans had. They must have worked out how to screen a bound demon from its master. Even with all the power she had poured into the spell they were keeping her hidden. It would have taken a powerful demon, a demon lord, an old demon lord. ‘Molech,’ she growled as she walked across the hall. It had to be Molech. He was powerful enough to hold half the city against the other demons, he was probably skilled enough to work a masking spell like this. ‘But why? Why’s he doing it? What did he do to Lily?’

  She came to a stop just inside the door to the kitchen, her appetite suddenly gone. What if Molech had not done anything to Lily? What if Lily was working for him of her own volition? ‘No.’ She could not believe that. Lily would never… Would she?

  October 30th

  Sleep had been difficult to come by and fitful when it had come. Ceri had memories of odd dreams where voices chanted meaningless words over and over. A ritual of some sort, she thought, but she had never managed to hold onto any of the words to determine what they were. When those dreams had slipped away, the nightmare had begun. She had found herself chained to the cross in the dungeon while Lily and half a dozen horned demons performed a ritual around her. She woke up screaming as Lily plunged a dagger into her heart.

  She stumbled into the bathroom, running the shower cold and standing under it until she was shivering. She was still cold, even after she had run the water at almost scalding heat for five minutes, but at least she felt more awake and less shocked.

  Just a dream. It was a dream and nothing more. It didn’t mean she was really…

  Going down to the kitchen, Ceri made coffee and went through two mugs as she sat at the kitchen table trying to work out a way to find Lily. She had tried throwing power at it, but she was a thaumatologist, a theoretician. What she needed to do was think.

  The trouble was that thinking seemed to be so hard. Her mind kept flashing over the nightmare. She saw the look in Lily’s eyes, the bright spark of red in her pupils, the glee as she had come toward Ceri with an ebony-handled dagger gripped in her hands. It was just a dream. But it had been Lily. Not the Lily she was used to, perhaps, but Lily. No hint of coercion. She had been Lily… No, Lilith. Her birth name was Lilith, like the Talmudic first wife of Adam. Her mother had liked the name, the sound of it, before she had really discovered the power Lily had. Lily had used it as a stage name when she had been acting in porn films, and she hated it. In the dream she had been every bit the embodiment of the demon she was named for. But it was only a dream.

  ‘Just a dream,’ she said to the empty kitchen. ‘It wasn’t her.’

  ~~~

  Equations filled the hall, hanging in the air as streaks of silver. Ceri’s gaze swept over them and she let out an exasperated grunt of
disgust before waving her arm and vanishing all of them. She was frustrated. She knew she was frustrated, but she could do nothing about the growing feeling of anger swelling through her. Nothing was right. She felt like an imbecile. Her power had got her nowhere, and now her magical theory was failing her.

  And it’s all Lily’s fault!

  She shook her head. It was not Lily’s fault. How could it be Lily’s fault? That was absurd. How could her failings be down to Lily?

  She hurt Michael. Did she defend me against Carter? She’s hiding from me.

  That was a ridiculous thing to think.

  But Carter did turn on me, didn’t he? And Lily had said nothing.

  Carter had been hurting, and Lily had tried to intervene, hadn’t she?

  She’s the one using demonic magic. She’s the one concealing herself. She’s the one who’s on the run, wanted by the police.

  ‘No!’

  Ceri bolted for the door to the cellar, almost falling on the stairs in her haste to get down. She felt as though her thoughts were not her own and she wanted to be somewhere safe. The summoning room, the circle.

  She grabbed salt from the corner of the room and hurriedly formed a circle in the outer ring cut into the granite slab in the middle of the floor. It took almost no effort to raise the column of magic around herself, the salt shining silver as it formed, and then she collapsed onto the stone. For the first time in what felt like days there was nothing in her head but her own thoughts. She took a shuddering breath, letting it out slowly, and then pushed more power into the magic around her to keep it going for longer. Then she relaxed onto the cool stone.

  The intention had been to think, isolated away from the rest of the world, but with her mind still and her body horizontal, her night of poor sleep overcame her and her eyes closed…

  ~~~

  She was lying in a dark space which reminded her of another dream she had had. It had been a dream; she was sure it had. There had been pain there and voices, but here there was nothing. No sound, no light. She could not even see her hands in front of her face, but she could feel a smooth floor under her feet.