Thaumatology 02 - Demon's Moon

by Teasdale, Niall

  ‘You’ve got talons that could rip me open in a heartbeat,’ Ceri replied, ‘I’d be kind of stupid if I wasn’t.’

  ‘This is the woman who can disrupt our great work?’ the middle-aged man asked. ‘She’s… nothing but a girl.’

  ‘Prophecies,’ Remus said, ‘have a way of ignoring age, sex, race… This is the only woman in the world who can stop us. She has been working with the black-fur and his pack of fools, she has consulted with the soothsayer. She killed two of my brothers to save the worthless Alpha of that worthless pack in Londinium. And here she stands.’

  ‘Well,’ the man said, ‘what are you waiting for?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Remus raised a hugely muscled arm, swinging it back. ‘Time to die, Fair One,’ he said.

  Ceri’s heart thumped in her chest. She closed her eyes and lifted her chin, exposing her throat, and waited.

  And waited.

  ‘No,’ Remus said. Ceri opened her eyes gingerly to see him lowering his arm.

  ‘What do you mean, “no”?’ the human snapped.

  ‘Something is not right,’ Remus replied. ‘Why has she come here? She must know that I wanted her dead. She has clearly seen some version of the prophecy so she knows that she is the only one able to stop me. So why come here?’

  ‘Does it matter? I’ve read it too, she can stop us. End her!’

  A rumbling laugh echoed in Ceri’s mind. ‘Oh, but the document is incomplete, damaged. The part explaining what the Fair One must do to is missing. Tell me, Magnus, do you know what her part in this is?’

  ‘I… No,’ Magnus said. ‘No, I don’t Lord.’

  ‘Precisely. Perhaps it is this sacrifice which results in our downfall and I will not give her the pleasure.’ He reached out and gripped Ceri’s chin, lifting it so that he could look into her eyes. ‘No, the safest course of action is to make sure that she can do nothing.’ He stared at Ceri, his eyes glittering with humour. ‘Pass word to the other humans. She is to be kept alive. They will look for her in daylight. She is to be exercised through the camp during the day to be sure she’s seen. Have something brought to bind her.’

  Ceri looked back at him. He was looking for some indication of emotion and she was not confident enough of her ability to fake something suitable, so she went for blank, expressionless.

  ‘Good,’ Remus said, ‘you’re going to be a difficult one. I’m glad. I’ll enjoy breaking you, child. Breaking, but not killing. When my god is made manifest, you’ll offer yourself willingly as his first meal.’ He let go of her chin and turned away from her. ‘What do you think about that, Fair One?’

  ‘I can’t stop you trying,’ Ceri said, trying to keep her voice steady.

  ‘No,’ Remus replied quietly. ‘No, you can’t.’

  ~~~

  ‘Tell me, Fair One, where are the fools who camp nearby hoping to stop me?’

  Ceri was cuffed to one of the thick tent poles, her hands behind her back, and she had been largely ignored for perhaps an hour. She was almost surprised when Remus spoke to her. ‘I haven’t a clue,’ she said.

  ‘Come now…’ Remus began and then stopped. ‘Ah but this black-fur is a clever one. He knows you came here and has moved his camp. If you escaped you would have no way to return to them.’

  ‘Most importantly,’ Ceri said, ‘you can’t get their location from me. I have no idea where they would go. You know you’ve met the black-fur before?’

  ‘I fought him the last time I came to this island,’ Remus replied. ‘He led the pack of nomads to their doom.’

  ‘And before that,’ Ceri said.

  ‘One of the pack I took in the Black Forest?’ Remus said. ‘I hadn’t connected it, but it explains his desire for revenge. We never killed their Alpha.’

  ‘That’s him. He’s been trying to kill you for decades, never realising he can’t.’

  The rough sound of laughter filled her head. ‘I was murdered long ago. It’s hard to kill a dead man.’

  ‘I’m not sure if you’ve looked into a mirror recently,’ Ceri said, ‘but you’re not exactly a man.’

  ‘No?’ There was an odd element of displeasure in his voice Ceri could not quite place. ‘Wait until dawn and tell me that.’

  ‘You’ll forgive me,’ Ceri said, ‘but I’ve had enigmatic up to the eyeballs.’ She heard the rumbling laughter again. Remus was a different creature out of sight of Magnus. Ceri had been expecting violent interrogation and had just been ignored. Now he seemed to be enjoying talking to her. ‘Why the humans?’ Ceri asked; since Magnus was not in the tent at the moment, there was a chance she might get a straight answer.

  ‘They are useful. My brothers need guarding during the day.’

  ‘Do they know what’s going to happen if you succeed?’ Ceri asked.

  ‘They believe that they can control my god when he comes,’ Remus replied. ‘Don’t think you’ll convince them they can’t. Magnus is quite a powerful wizard, steeped in demonic taint. I’m quite sure his master is pulling his strings.’

  ‘And it doesn’t bother you that some demon lord wants you to succeed? That doesn’t ring any alarm bells at all?’

  There was the laughter again; it was starting to irritate. ‘Bother me? No, why should it? My objective is to revenge myself upon the human fools who betrayed me, cast me out, murdered me.’ The voice in her head was growing louder, angrier. Ceri could see Remus’ fists clenching on the table he was standing at. ‘Why should I care if the world ends, or demons invade? Tell me that, little girl?’

  ‘The people who killed you have been dead for two thousand years,’ Ceri said. ‘You’re asking the entire human race to pay for something your brother and his followers did.’

  ‘Your point being?’ The anger was gone, just like that. Ceri had figured Remus was having his buttons pushed by Fenrir, but it looked a lot like he was basically unhinged even without the demon’s influence.

  ‘You don’t consider that a little… excessive?’ she tried.

  ‘No,’ Remus replied, ‘frankly I don’t think it’s excessive enough. Your race has ruled this planet for too long, driving the wolves to near extinction…’

  ‘So you’re going to end that rule by making sure they’re extinct?’ She got no immediate answer. ‘You know what’ll happen, don’t you? The humans will fight back. They have silver bullets and explosives now. They might not be able to take out Fenrir once he’s here, maybe, but they can sure as hell destroy every last werewolf. Then they’ll likely turn on the other were-creatures, the fae, the mages…’

  The table splintered as Remus’ fists came down on it. ‘So be it!’ he roared. The sound on her head was deafening and she cringed back against the post. For a second his red eyes fixed on her, and then he wheeled on his heel and stormed out of the tent.

  ‘Okay,’ Ceri said to the empty space, ‘I think I hit a button there.’ Just so long as he kept thinking he could not kill her she could keep pushing buttons until the world ended. Which might be Tuesday.

  December 20th

  ‘It’s almost dawn, Lord,’ Magnus said. Ceri’s eyes drifted open at the sound. The man was standing in the entrance of the tent while Remus was seated on the floor at the opposite side from Ceri. He had not woken her entering; apparently he could move relatively quietly despite looking like he had the stealth of a tank. ‘Your brothers are settling down for the day.’

  Nodding, the huge wolf-creature climbed to his feet. ‘I’ll do the same before the sunlight forces it,’ he said.

  Magnus was looking at Ceri. ‘Do you want me to remove her?’ he asked.

  ‘Leave her,’ Remus replied, which seemed to surprise and also irritate the wizard.

  ‘Have I your permission to interrogate her while you’re away, Lord?’

  ‘If she dies in your interrogation,’ Remus said, irritation apparent in his voice, ‘it will take you so long to die you won’t remember a time you were not in pain. Now leave.’ Magnus looked annoyed, but turned, closing the tent flap behind him.
‘He won’t bother you until dawn,’ the ghost-wolf said. ‘I don’t allow them to see me come or go.’

  Ceri frowned. ‘Then…’

  ‘Why am I letting you stay?’ he said. ‘You’re my enemy. I’ve no need of secrets with you. You know what I am, you understand what I’m going to do. We both know that, eventually, one of us is going to die. We even know when it will happen. You, Ceridwyn Brent, are the one person I can be honest with.’

  Ceri blinked, not sure how to respond, but she did not get to. Remus’ body shimmered and Ceri switched her Sight on. Energy was flowing from the hulking form, streaming out into the environment around him, and his body seemed to drain away with it, eroding like dust falling away from a sand worn statue. Soon she was left looking at the ghost beneath, the semi-transparent, misty shape of a tall, muscled man. He had the kind of body they put on statues in ancient Greece, even the curly hair, though he was definitely lacking the little strategically placed fig leaf. Ceri might have actually fancied him if he had not been dead, and a homicidal, megalomaniac psycho. His eyes sought out hers as he sank into the ground, hiding from the light of day.

  ~~~

  The tent remained lit only by a couple of lanterns for over an hour before the flap was pulled aside and Magnus strode in. Ceri could see the light outside; the man had, indeed, waited for it to be full day before entering the tent. Grabbing a camping chair from the side, he placed it in front of Ceri and sat down. She looked up at him for a moment, waiting for him to speak. He probably thought he was being intimidating.

  ‘Tell me all you know, Miss Brent,’ Magnus finally said.

  Ceri laughed, which did not go down well. ‘Do you think you could be a bit more specific? I’m working on my thaumatology doctorate and we only have until Tuesday night.’

  ‘About the ritual, the North Hills pack, about how you plan to stop us?’ Magnus growled.

  ‘Oh, that,’ Ceri replied. ‘Well, I can tell you a few things. First, your suit is so out of date. I mean, seriously, have you been living in a box for a decade?’ She saw the slap coming, but there was really not much she could do about it. Her cheek stung. ‘Second,’ she said, ‘I’d say you hit like a girl, but I hit harder than that.’ Her other cheek stung. ‘Okay, you’re really crap at this interrogation thing. I’ll give you a hint, the person you’re interrogating needs to know more than you do when you start.’

  ‘Where are the North Hills pack?’ Magnus snapped.

  ‘I don’t know. I could tell you where they were, but they will have moved. They know I’m here and they know you’ll be doing this to me.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘That’s because you’re stupid,’ Ceri replied. ‘And before you hit me again, Remus believed me.’

  Magnus sucked his teeth. ‘There are twenty men outside, big, strong men who haven’t seen a woman in well over two weeks. They would be happy to take turns at you I’m sure.’

  Ceri looked at him. ‘I live with a half-succubus,’ she said. ‘I’ve been through two werewolf packs. A bunch of mercenaries? Sex is sex. I might even enjoy it.’

  Magnus looked at her. Then he got off his chair and headed for the entrance. ‘Someone will be in to take you for a walk later,’ he said.

  ‘That’ll be nice,’ Ceri called after him. He pulled the tent flap open. ‘If you want to send that Phelps guy in to “interrogate” me, I wouldn’t mind too much,’ she added. The flap closed on his retreating back.

  The other thing he had forgotten about interrogation was that the person you were interrogating really had to have something to lose.

  ~~~

  Phelps pushed through the entrance flap and, briefly, Ceri worried that Magnus had actually decided to take her up on her suggestion. ‘On your feet,’ Phelps said. ‘We’re going to take a nice walk.’

  Ceri struggled to her feet while Phelps walked behind her and un-cuffed her hands, leaving the handcuffs swinging from one of her wrists. Ceri put her hands behind her back ready to have the cuffs snapped back in place, but Phelps just pushed her toward the tent flap. ‘You’re not going to cuff me?’ she asked.

  ‘No, no point,’ Phelps replied. ‘I am going to tell you that if you make a run for it I’m authorised to shoot your legs out. You won’t die, but you’ll be in a lot of pain.’ Ceri nodded. She had no plans to escape anyway.

  Between the denuded tree limbs and the heavy cloud, even though it was getting close to eleven by Ceri’s estimate, there was not a lot of light outside the tent. Still, rather than the scattered groups of Remus demon-wolves she had seen the night before, the area was now decorated with thick, camouflaged tarpaulins and the mercenaries seemed a lot more relaxed. At a guess there were two or three wolves under each tarp, hiding from the dingy light. A second man joined Phelps and Ceri was directed to move.

  ‘That’s far enough,’ Phelps said as they reached the edge of the trees. ‘We’ll do a loop around the edge of the copse and then take you back.’

  ‘As you wish,’ Ceri said, shrugging and turning left.

  ‘My wishes have nothing to do with it, kid,’ the mercenary leader replied. ‘I get paid to do what Remus and Magnus want done. As long as the contract runs for anyway. Tomorrow at sunset we’re out of here.’

  ‘Wise,’ Ceri remarked. ‘I’d rather not be around for the ritual either.’

  ‘Don’t think you’re getting a choice,’ he replied. ‘Why’d you do it?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Walk into camp last night. How’d you know you wouldn’t be shot on sight?’

  Ceri shrugged again. ‘I counted on you being professionals. I figured you don’t kill unless you have to, or you’re told to. Remus was another matter.’

  ‘Calculated risk then,’ Phelps said. He sounded a little impressed. ‘Doesn’t explain why you came at all.’

  They had reached the first corner and Ceri turned left again, continuing to walk. ‘If anyone’s going to stop Remus, it’s me,’ she said. ‘Neither of us know how I’m supposed to do it. Remus is letting me live because maybe my death causes his failure, and maybe he’s right. Maybe I’ve already failed.’

  ‘Magnus thinks you know,’ Phelps told her.

  ‘Magnus is a delusional arsehole,’ Ceri replied.

  Phelps snorted. ‘He’s not someone to make an enemy of, kid. Bit of advice there. His people know how to get to people they don’t like.’

  Interesting; so Magnus was part of some larger organisation. ‘I think that horse has kind of bolted,’ Ceri said. ‘Somehow I doubt I’d want them for friends anyway. I’m not fond of people who make pacts with demons.’

  ‘I’m not in a position to make value judgements,’ the merc stated.

  ‘It’s all just business?’

  ‘Just business,’ he said, ‘yeah. They got the money, and it’s a lot of money, then I don’t care about their morals.’

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying,’ Ceri replied, ‘that sounds like a recipe for a short life.’

  ‘Says the girl who walked up to a demon and said, “hi, I think you want me dead.”’

  Ceri had to concede the point. ‘He’s not a demon,’ she said.

  ‘Sure looks like one,’ Phelps replied. ‘I’ve fought werewolves before. America, two years ago. Tough fighters, but they don’t take well to silver bullets on auto-fire. These things are something else.’

  ‘Oh, the wolves are demons,’ Ceri agreed. ‘Well, demonically possessed anyway. Remus is a ghost.’

  ‘Pretty solid for a ghost.’ It was the other man who spoke and Ceri glanced at him. He was young, probably younger than she was. His shaved head was hidden under a black baseball cap, but he looked more like a teenager playing soldier than a professional killer.

  ‘Ghosts can materialise if they get enough energy,’ she told him. ‘Remus has power by the truck load. At a guess he draws power from the wolves he converts, but I think he has other sources.’

  ‘Boss is right,’ the merc said, ‘you’re smart.’

/>   ‘I have a masters in thaumatology,’ Ceri replied. ‘Working on my doctorate.’

  ‘So how the Hell did you end up doing this?’ Phelps asked.

  ‘Sheer bad luck?’ Ceri suggested. Both men laughed. Ceri glanced at the Phelps’ helper again. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

  ‘You don’t want to know his name.’ Phelps said. Ceri frowned and kept walking. It was an odd turn of phrase. Not “need to know,” but “want to know.” She stopped talking and just walked, keeping her eyes on her surroundings.

  She was now sure that Magnus was a wizard, maybe even the one who had been in the attack on the pack. He had four others with him, and looking at them with the right eyes, she realised what bugged her about their leader. All but one of them was pacted, she could see the ugly stains along their Chakral Medians with her Sight. It had to be akin to the energy which got trapped in her own body when she used magic, but this was… hard to look at. It seemed to twist and writhe, distorting the flow of energy beneath it. Magnus’ median was almost entirely black.

  They were back where they had started and Phelps was directing her back to Remus’ tent before she knew it. Sighing, she made her way through the camp, ignoring the looks from the mercenaries she passed. Someone had replaced the broken table with a new one while they were walking. This one was better than the previous one, more solid looking, and Ceri was admiring the turned wooden legs when something was pushed into her back. There was a buzzing sound which she barely heard as her nervous system lit up like a Christmas tree.

  When her brain rebooted she was being grabbed, manhandled. Her vision was too blurred to determine what was happening but she felt something pressing against her chest and stomach, her arms stretched out. She pulled, but metal cut into her wrists. Blinking, she managed to make out the end of the table and the two sets of cuffs tethering her to the table legs. Someone was tying her ankles to the other two legs, stretching her across the table top, and her jeans were being wrenched off her hips.

  ‘Sorry kid,’ Phelps voice said close by her head, ‘nothing personal, y’know?’

  She struggled, but it was too late. She felt heavy hands on her buttocks, spreading them. Yeah, just business. Then there was just pain and screaming.