Thaumatology 12: Vengeance

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘Uh… But… Why me?’

  ‘You have also been chosen.’

  There was a thud from Ceri’s right and she looked around, expecting to see Daniel. He was not there. Then she saw Lily nodding downward and followed her gaze. Daniel was on the floor at Ceri’s feet, moaning something about not being worthy.

  ‘Great,’ Ceri said, ‘just fucking great.’

  Westminster.

  ‘You’re making a habit out of making my life complicated again, Doctor Brent,’ Chief Inspector Barry told her.

  ‘It wasn’t my idea!’ Ceri protested. ‘Stupid damn angels have it in their head to come to me to get messages across.’

  Barry grunted and John said, ‘We dropped him off at the Acre Lane Shelter. He muttered something about doing God’s work and seemed happy enough.’ That got another grunt. ‘What was that stuff you were quoting?’ John asked Ceri. ‘The one that got us in to his office.’

  ‘The Nephilim thing? Well, it was a guess, I can’t be sure, but… No father, not aging, high-level practitioner, and something of a religious bent… I figured he probably was one.’

  It was Barry whose eyebrow was raised. ‘A Nephilim? Here? I thought the whole point of the Flood was to wipe them out.’

  Ceri shrugged. ‘They’re the children of humans and angels,’ she added for Kate and John’s benefit. ‘Immortal, just about impossible to kill…’

  ‘So Ceri killed one,’ Lily said, beaming in pride.

  ‘They can drown. Hence the Flood legend. But I don’t think Ziel is going to be a problem. I really don’t think he’s capable of creating the cube, and I don’t think Jehoel would have turned up on his doorstep if he was responsible anyway. He’s just going to be a nuisance.’

  ‘So we ignore him?’ Barry asked. ‘Aside from him being a political problem, which we can hand off to the Home Office anyway.’

  ‘I think so.’ Ceri glanced at Lily.

  ‘He was difficult to read,’ the half-succubus said, ‘but the predominant felling I got from him was greed. I think he’s safe enough.’

  Battersea, April 10th.

  ‘Ceri?’ John said as a black-furred wolf-girl stepped out of the bushes, followed by a grey male. ‘And Michael, I’m assuming.’ Now he looked closely, the female had a collar on, which meant she was almost certainly Ceri.

  The black-fur gave a quick nod and waved for him and Kate to follow, adding a bark when they did not do so immediately. They were heading across from the Chelsea Bridge gate toward the boating pond.

  ‘Lily said Alexandra needed to see us urgently,’ Kate tried. They got a yip of a reply. ‘I really need to learn some werewolf,’ Kate added, frowning.

  ‘She could just change back.’

  ‘It was Alexandra who wanted to see us, and it is Ceri’s pack time.’

  John gave a grunt and silence fell as they crossed the park, got aboard a boat, and were rowed across to the island by Michael.

  Things did not improve, however, when they got there. Alexandra was sitting beside her oil drum fire in close and very hushed conversation with the naked Amazon who was Anita, her Captain. The Alpha spotted the two detectives crossing the grass, looked slightly annoyed, and called out, ‘I’m sorry, Detectives. I know I called you, but I really need to deal with this. Go through to the other clearing. The Guards are drilling. You might find it instructive should you ever need to fight a wolf.’

  John frowned, but being respectful to one of the most politically powerful women in the country, even if she did live in a park, was part of his job. He looked around for Ceri, but only Michael was standing behind them. The wolf-man pointed off to the right and the two cops headed that way, through the belt of trees which screened the clearing on that side. He could hear barks and grunts even before he was through to the other side; apparently it was combat practice.

  The second clearing on the island was open to the park on the far side, but there was more space. Perhaps a dozen wolves, mixed sex, mostly grey but with a couple of browns, were busy throwing each other around the grass. A dozen wolves, and one tall, pale-skinned woman in a cropped T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms.

  John took a step forward. Michael’s hand landed on his shoulder and Ceri, now human-shaped and wearing one of her over-sized shirts, stepped in front of him.

  ‘Just watch,’ Ceri said. She waited a beat to be sure he would do as she asked and then stepped aside so he could. His wife was there… His delicate wife was there, blocking swings of huge, hairy, clawed hands with her forearms, grappling things with huge teeth… And she looked like she was holding her own.

  A slow smile spread over John Radcliff’s face. Hell, she was giving as good as she got!

  ‘How long has she been doing this?’ he asked.

  Ceri was a little worried at how calm he sounded. ‘A couple of months, but she only comes when you’re on nights. She didn’t want you worrying. Which, of course, you were going to when you figured out she was going out.’

  ‘Yes, but… She’s pretty good.’

  ‘She’s as strong as most of them, and she’s far quicker, more precise. She’s got the natural vamp stuff going for her. Hell, I hit like, well, a girl when I’m this shape, but I’m a pretty mean scrapper as a wolf. She wanted to be able to defend herself, gain a bit of confidence, and stop you worrying about her when you’re not with her, of course. You’re taking this a lot more calmly than I thought you would.’

  John grinned. ‘Well, later I’ll probably have a fit. Right now I’m just glad this is her secret, not that she’s sneaking out for snacks. Does she know we’re here?’

  ‘Of course. She probably caught your scent when you got on the island. She asked me to get you here because you were starting to get suspicious.’

  ‘Huh.’ He glanced at Kate. ‘You know, maybe we should come down here and do the same thing once in a while. Improve our hand-to-hand.’

  Kate looked out at the field of fighting werewolves and swallowed. ‘Me in a field, wrestling a lot of sweating supernaturals…? Sounds like heaven.’

  Part Four: Werewolf’s Holiday

  Primrose Hill, London, April 11th, 2013.

  The body lay under a tree in the park, limbs spread wantonly. It was obvious that she had been engaged in some form of sexual activity before she died, fairly enthusiastic, even wild, activity at that. She was never going to tell about it, of course.

  ‘The head is about a hundred yards south of here,’ Catherine said, swallowing hard and then turning her back on the Sight. ‘Randolph and Gloria found her on a routine sweep around our territory this morning.’

  ‘You’re running regular patrols now?’ Ceri asked.

  ‘Regular is a little strong. On the other hand, we do catch people doing things they shouldn’t because they aren’t expecting a werewolf doing the rounds. Randy likes to get Gloria out here most mornings though. He takes being a Guard quite seriously, and the endorphins make her frisky.’ She grimaced. ‘Not this morning though.’

  ‘Well,’ John said as he turned from the body, ‘we’re glad your people discovered her so quickly. Any scents?’ Ceri gave a small smile; when John had first started out with the Greycoats he had been pretty anti-supernatural, and now he was asking about scents as if that were perfectly normal.

  ‘Randy said it was confusing. He thinks there was undead scent, but there was something weird about it. Gloria said… She said it made her horny, except that the scenery was kind of putting her off.’

  ‘Horny?’ Ceri asked, frowning.

  ‘She said it smelled like the most male thing she had ever been near. Essence of male sex or something. Like I said, weird.’

  Kate walked over from the corpse looking a little pink around the throat. ‘Uh, yeah. I think there’s still a bit of that hanging around. It’s like Old Spice on steroids.’

  ‘So…’ John was frowning thoughtfully, ‘we’re back to vampire. A vampire super-stud.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of a vampire using pheromones to trap people
,’ Ceri mused. ‘I’ll check the journals and talk to Professor Mallow.’

  ‘No Lily this morning?’ Catherine asked. ‘It’s probably a good thing if this place is making girls go funny.’

  Ceri grinned and started off toward the edge of the park. ‘Are you kidding? Getting Lily up this early requires a crowbar and heavy lifting gear.’

  Holloway.

  Peter Mallow was in good spirits. He was a lycanthrope, it was just after the new moon and that left him happier in his own skin than usual. He was, if anything, the polar opposite of the werewolves despite the fact that he turned into a wolf-man three nights of the month.

  He was, however, a little perplexed at Ceri’s question. ‘Vampires aren’t exactly a major aspect of cryptozoology,’ he told her, ‘but I’m moderately sure that none of them give off pheromones.’

  Ceri nodded, grimacing slightly. ‘That’s what I thought. I couldn’t find anything in the literature either, but I figured if there was something you might have heard of it.’

  The gangly professor shook his head. ‘There are other creatures prone to consuming blood, some of them cryptids. There’s a Central American creature called a chupacabra which has begun appearing in the southern Tribal Territories, for example.’

  ‘Chupa…?’

  ‘Chupacabra, it means “goat sucker.” Apparently it has a taste for goats, but there are claims that it will attack humans. Descriptions are sparse and I don’t think that’s your culprit. There are tales of cannibalistic or vampiric monsters from the Mythic Age, but those are generally too confused or contradictory to give a clear indication of what they were. Most historians believe they all refer to vampires or werewolves, but something else may have survived as they did.’

  ‘Well,’ Ceri said despondently, ‘I guess it’s a line of enquiry.’

  Kennington.

  Ceri did not notice Mei entering the study. The ex-Sleeping Dragon had a remarkable ability to walk into a room and go entirely unnoticed when she wished, even though she was an exquisitely beautiful woman who could command attention and respect with nothing more than a cough when she needed to.

  ‘The Headsman case continues to puzzle you?’

  Ceri almost fell off her seat at the quiet voice. ‘Jesus, Mei! Are we going to have to put a bell on you or something?’

  ‘My apologies, Ceridwyn. I did not mean to startle you.’

  ‘Yeah, well… Yes, the case is getting weirder if anything. Some of the Royals found the latest body. Same MO, but they got scents. Undead, they think, so we’re back to vampires, but there was also a lot of… masculinity hanging about the area. It was affecting Kate and that was hours after the murder.’

  ‘I am unaware of any undead which uses pheromones,’ Mei stated.

  ‘Gwyn said the same. I’ve found nothing in the academic literature so I’m checking my parents’ books.’

  Mei gave a nod and turned to leave. She stopped and turned back, and Ceri marvelled at the woman’s poise. Even as a relatively normal human, Mei had inhuman grace.

  ‘Of course, I know what the Chinese philosophers would say about such a creature.’

  Ceri frowned. ‘I’m willing to entertain anything at the moment.’

  ‘An imbalance between Yin and Yang.’

  ‘That’s that symbol, the circle divided into light and dark with the dots of one colour in the other?’

  ‘The taiji is a representation of inner balance. Yin and Yang are opposites, light and dark, earth and heaven, cold and heat… female and male. Where an individual has an excess of one or the other, the Taoists believed they would become ill. There may be some validity to the belief. Where the energy flows in, the medians become abnormal and it can result in various conditions. I believe that a large excess of Yang might explain your murderer.’

  ‘An excess of male energy?’

  ‘If one subscribes to the philosophy, yes.’

  ‘Well, like I said, anything’s worth a try at the moment. So, this thing has an excess of maleness, so it presumably wants Yin to make up for that?’

  ‘Traditionally the treatment for such an imbalance would be the consumption of food thought to be high in Yin while avoiding Yang foods.’

  ‘Which would explain his attacking women,’ Ceri noted, ‘but maybe we can take that further.’ She reached for the phone. ‘If I was looking for a lot of Yin, and keeping in mind I’m a scientist, not a philosopher, I’d go for women at peak ovulation, when their oestrogen levels are highest.’

  Mei’s lips curled a little. ‘Your ability to rationalise even the most esoteric of concepts is quite remarkable, Ceridwyn.’

  Ceri held the phone to her ear, listening to it ringing. ‘Yeah, well, I’ve had some good teachers… Kate? It’s Ceri. I don’t suppose the pathologists checked what stage the victims were in their menstrual cycle?’

  Soho, April 12th.

  Ceri’s eyes scanned her tables, watching for signs of anyone wanting something. She saw people wanting things, but no one wanting drinks, so she ignored them. There were vampires in tonight, just after the new moon, and very few werewolves. Actually, there was one wolf, a Royal out on the town with a few human friends and she had been dragged out.

  ‘It’s kind of quiet,’ Sasha commented.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Ceri replied. ‘How’s the bling doing?’

  Sasha glanced at her right wrist where a fairy-silver chain had been added to her outfit. ‘I think it’s working. I don’t know what it does, exactly…’

  ‘No, it’s invisible to you. It gives you just a little bit of glimmer. Your eyes are shining, your skin has a bit of a sparkle to it. I think, mostly, it demonstrates to the fae you’re making an effort.’

  ‘I should think of something to do to thank Ophelia.’

  ‘Did she say it was freely given?’ Ceri glanced at the blonde; Ophelia was a very modern Unseelie, but she was still Unseelie.

  ‘Yes. Twice. She said it again when she put it on my wrist.’

  ‘Huh. Okay. She put it on your wrist? Didn’t just hand it to you?’

  Sasha gave a nod. ‘Put it on.’

  ‘In that case… she’s not expecting anything, but it would be nice if you gave her something in return.’

  ‘Any suggestions? I mean, I’m not really used to fae. She’s gorgeous and smart… I’ve no idea what I could do that wouldn’t be crass…’

  ‘She’s great in bed.’

  Sasha’s eyes widened. ‘But I don’t… I mean at parties… But I don’t usually…’

  ‘She probably knows that, but I think she likes you, and it’d show you were pleased with her gift.’

  ‘Making an effort?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Something made Ceri turn her head and she spotted Kate walking in past the lectern. ‘Up to you, of course. I think I have a Detective Sergeant who wants to talk to me.’

  ‘I’ll go see to twenty-five.’

  Ceri gave a nod as the blonde girl walked away to be replaced by a redhead. ‘Detective,’ Ceri said, smiling. ‘Long day?’

  ‘Busy,’ Kate replied.

  Alec put a whiskey tumbler in front of her. ‘I’ll get you a wine for after that,’ he said. ‘You’re looking frazzled.’

  ‘Huh. You were right about the hormone levels, Ceri. They went back over the blood work. Not that there was much blood left to work with. All the victims had peak levels of estriol in their systems. They weren’t on the pill, and they weren’t using Prophylaxys charms either.’ She knocked back half her drink before closing her eyes as the liquid burned down her throat.

  Alec raised an eyebrow. ‘This the Headsman case? He’s going after women with high oestrogen levels? That’s… nuts.’

  ‘It’s not a significant enough sample to prove a pattern,’ Ceri replied, ‘but it fits a theory.’

  ‘It’s good enough for the Chief to think there’s merit to it,’ Kate told them. ‘He wants to know what we should look for.’

  ‘Not really sure. Mei was the one who suggested it. I just came
up with a reasonable means of testing the hypothesis.’

  Kate nodded. ‘John and I’ll come round to High Towers tomorrow. She gets weekends off, right?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Don’t make it too early.’

  ‘We won’t.’ Kate sank the rest of her whiskey and handed the glass across to Alec. ‘I’ll take that wine now.’ She looked like there were going to be a couple more before she left too.

  Kennington, April 13th.

  ‘We have visitors,’ Twill said, appearing out of nowhere beside Ceri. ‘Two normal men and a witch.’

  Ceri frowned and got up from her chair. ‘Two men? Kate and John are supposed to be coming… Barry?’

  ‘Open the door and find out,’ Twill suggested.

  Chief Inspector Barry was looking just as harassed as ever, but there was a hint of ‘finally we’re getting somewhere’ about his expression; a hint of relief showed around the eyes, Ceri decided.

  ‘Doctor Brent,’ he said as she opened the door. ‘When Kate said your friend might know something about this killer I decided to come down and hear it for myself.’

  Ceri stepped back. ‘Come in. Mei’s in the study. She likes the quiet.’

  John pushed the door closed behind him, leaned toward Ceri and said, ‘Tell him.’

  ‘You sure?’ Ceri asked quietly. ‘He looks stressed enough.’

  ‘Tell him,’ John repeated. ‘We both think he should know.’

  Barry had stopped at the foot of the stairs. ‘Tell him what?’ he growled.

  Ceri sighed and walked toward him. ‘Wait here. I’ll get Mei and we’ll go to my… official residence.’ She stalked past him, ignoring the frown on his grizzled features.

  ‘What are you talking about, girl?’

  Castle of Bones, Demon Realm.

  Barry watched Hiffy putting mugs of a steaming, slightly purple liquid down on the table in Ceri’s apartments. He was still frowning, but it seemed to be more from perplexity than annoyance.

  Ceri picked up her mug and sipped from the contents. ‘It’s not coffee, but it does keep you awake and it’s not bad.’ Kate picked up her mug, took a sip, and winced. ‘Once you get used to it,’ Ceri added.