Thaumatology 101

by Teasdale, Niall

  Ceri blinked, her gaze falling on the inside of her left wrist, where the intricate markings had rested under her skin for over two decades. They had been her protectors all the time she had grown up. She continued reading with a growing sense of apprehension.

  Your tattoos do, indeed, provide protection, but not the kind you think. The enchantment is a control and containment web. When you were little more than a toddler you were generating power. You were endangering yourself, and everything around you. We designed the enchantment to seal that power up inside you and use it to protect you. David, though I love him dearly, went too far, I now think. He locked away your talent for magic entirely, hiding it away behind these layers of enchantment. He fears what you might do, but more, I think, he fears what others might do when you are discovered.

  We spoke to the Lady in Llyn Tegid soon after you were born, you see, and she told us what you were, even though we did not realise it at the time. She said, “Name her for Ceridwen, for she may surpass even the sorcerers of old.” We laughed with her at the time and didn’t realise what she’d said. We thought you’d be a great magician, we forgot that when we made the enchantments, and I remember it now. Magic is in your blood, Ceri, in a way it never was in mine, or David’s.

  Again, I’m sorry. Please don’t think badly of us. All my love to you, daughter. Marion.

  Folding the letter carefully and slipping it back into its envelope, Ceri drained her whiskey and stood up. The letter was shoved into her back pocket and she walked out of the office and into the bar. The sound of the Jade Dragon on a Saturday night hit her. Technically, she thought, it was Sunday morning now, but the revellers were far too busy getting on with having a good time to worry over the exact day. She was fairly sure there were words being said among the noise, but none of them made any sense. She would go to the bar, settle down to wait because she knew she would never be allowed home on her own. In truth, she did not really think she could get there alone. She felt numb.

  Wandering around to the bar, she placed her glass on the counter intending that Alec should scoop it away, and lifted herself up onto one of the stools. She heard a soft glugging noise and turned to see Alec pouring more of the softly brown liquor into her glass. ‘You’re still looking shocked,’ he said, smiling.

  Ceri smiled back. ‘It’s been a night for shocks.’ Raising the glass she added, ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Carter said you were to be looked after,’ Alec replied, ‘which is good. I get to look all considerate while all I’m really doing is enjoying the view.’

  Despite herself, Ceri smirked. ‘At least you’re enjoying it,’ she replied.

  ‘And I get to enjoy it some more on Monday,’ the bartender said.

  ‘Monday?’ Ceri asked ‘What’s happening Monday?’

  ‘I’ll be taking you to your course,’ Alec replied. Before she could say anything he carried on, ‘Lily was sure you’d go, despite the potential danger. Carter said that was entirely unacceptable. Lily said you could be very stubborn and the certificate was important. Carter said… Well, you get the picture. I’ll drive over to your house tomorrow evening, pick you and Lily up, and keep an eye out while you’re there.’

  ‘Pick Lily and me up?’ Ceri said, because Alec’s status as bodyguard had obviously been decided already.

  Alec chuckled. ‘You think she’s letting you out of the house without her?’

  ‘The Hell I am,’ Lily commented as she put her tray on the counter. ‘Two red wines and a Vee-Bomb, Alec,’ she added and grinned at Ceri. ‘The vamp on table three thinks he’s scored.’ Ceri glanced over at the table where a vampire who did not, yet, need to hide behind an illusion was entertaining two young women. ‘Those two are in here at least once a week with a different vampire every time.’

  ‘Chew Toys,’ Alec said, sounding disgusted. He placed the drinks Lily had asked for on the tray.

  ‘Don’t think so,’ Lily said, and she was off to deliver the alcohol.

  ‘What’s a chew toy?’ Ceri asked. ‘Aside from something you give a dog to play with.’

  ‘Huh,’ Alec said, grinning, ‘not a dog, a vamp. Chew Toy is street slang for someone who bounces between vampires getting bitten for the fun of it. Vamp bites get you high, yeah? They’re addictive. Not like sex with a succubus, really, physically addictive. They’re like junkies, always looking for the next hit.’

  Ceri looked across at the women. They did not look like junkies. If anything, they looked like they were in control. She blinked and looked at them through different eyes. ‘They’re… some sort of fae,’ she said. ‘Their auras have the same sort of pattern as Twill’s and they’re giving of T-Plus fields.’

  One of the women looked across at Ceri and smiled. The fae’s glamour shifted for a second and Ceri found herself looking at a narrow-faced, gaunt women with viscous-looking fangs. Then the vision was gone and the woman went back to cooing over her next meal. Ceri shuddered and took a drink.

  ‘I’ve heard of a few Sluagh Sidhe who prey on the undead,’ Alec said quietly. ‘Never seen them though.’

  ‘That you know of,’ Ceri commented. She looked up at him. ‘Stick to looking at me. Believe me, I’m better eye candy.’

  Alec grinned, well, leered. ‘I won’t disagree.’

  Ceri frowned slightly. She thought she knew him well enough. ‘Alec?’ She tried for a delicate way of asking and could come up with nothing. She went for direct. ‘I was in here one night just before the accident. You commented on my tattoos.’ He nodded, waiting for the question; at least he remembered the night. ‘You were pretty uninterested in me then, and now you’re flirting with me and you can’t keep your eyes off my boobs. What changed?’

  The barman opened his mouth for a snappy comeback, and then closed it again, looking thoughtful. Finally he said, ‘I was going to make some glib comment about how I was looking at your boobs that night too, but damned if you’re not right.’

  Lily returned, putting down her tray and leaning back against the counter so that she could casually watch the room. ‘What’s up with Alec?’ she asked. ‘You give him a thought? He’s not used to them y’know? He could strain something.’

  ‘He’s trying to work out why he wants in my knickers?’ Ceri replied and was rewarded by a slight colouring in the man’s cheeks.

  ‘You’re not wearing knickers,’ Lily replied. Alec could not see her smirk. Ceri could see his blush deepen.

  ‘Less to take off,’ Ceri said.

  ‘It’s like,’ Alec said, probably hoping they would stop teasing him, ‘I couldn’t see you properly and now I can. That’s what it’s like.’ She raised an eyebrow and he obviously felt she wanted a better explanation. ‘You were there, and you were the same shape and looks and all, but it’s like you were…’ He trailed off, trying to find the right words. ‘Ordinary,’ he finally said.

  Ceri nodded. Lily frowned and said, ‘I’ve never thought you were ordinary.’

  ‘Werewolves,’ Carter said causing Ceri to jump, ‘for all their supernatural ability to shape-shift, are essentially human. Heightened senses, some additional strength and dexterity, but human. Vampires, demons, mages with the Sight, they would have seen you as you are.’ He smiled at Lily’s look of confusion. ‘Think of it like a fairy glamour. Ceri has been wandering around for years trying to stay unnoticed, even if unconsciously.’

  Ceri thought of the letter; it was not unconscious, it was one of the defence mechanisms the enchantment had created. ‘I had exactly two boyfriends through school and university,’ she said. ‘They were both magicians.’ There had been some fumbling sex with the one at the Metropolitan and that had been bad enough that they had broken up soon after. ‘I’ve had more attention in the last few weeks than the rest of my life put together.’ Her own parents had turned her into a wallflower for twenty-four years, robbed her of her power, and then died before they could undo what they had done. She stabbed a finger at Lily. ‘You were the first sex I’ve had that I actually enjoyed! It’
s enough to make a girl bat for the other team.’

  ‘Oh,’ Carter said, a smirk forming, ‘once you’ve had Lily no one else matches up.’ Both girls looked at him, the playboy millionaire. He held his hands up, palms toward them. ‘Really. All my conquests since have been a vain attempt to find someone, anyone, even half as good.’

  ‘You hold him down,’ Lily said, ‘I’ll tickle him.’

  Ceri giggled and Carter looked, for all the world, like he was worried they would do it.

  Kennington, October 10th

  Two police cruisers and an unmarked black sedan pulled up outside the gates of High Towers far too early in the morning as far as anyone inside was concerned. Twill was, however up and about, just disconcerted to have guests arriving when everyone else was in bed. So it was that Ceri was hustled out of bed, half asleep, and barely remembered to throw on a shirt before she was dragged downstairs to deal with this terrible inconvenience.

  Radcliff and Middleshaw, the Greycoat detectives who had visited before were standing in the main hallway. Beside them was Cheryl, and beside her was a small suitcase. Ceri half-stumbled down the wide stairs from the first landing, rubbing her eyes. ‘Morning,’ she said wearily. ‘What are you doing here with them, Cheryl?’

  The thaumatologist opened her mouth to answer, but it was Radcliff who spoke first. ‘Doctor Tennant is under our protection,’ he said, ‘but it seems that your Mr Fleming suggested to my boss that she would be safe here and that it would cost less in police resources if we brought her when we came to interview you.’

  ‘A wise man,’ Twill commented. ‘Since Ceri renewed the enchantments nothing short of a major demon is getting in here with ill intent. I’ll make coffee.’

  ‘In the lounge, Twill,’ Ceri said as a bolt of bluish light sped off toward the kitchen. She looked at her guests, blinking sleepily. ‘Long night,’ she said. ‘Come upstairs and we can talk.’

  She pulled a couple of rarely-used chairs from the sides of the room so that everyone could sit down, and curled up in her usual place, leaving them to decide who sat on the less comfortable ones. The detectives, it turned out, were well-mannered enough to let Cheryl take the leather wing-back. Ceri said nothing. She was hoping Twill would arrive with the coffee before she had to answer any questions. Hope died on the vine.

  ‘Could you tell us what happened last night?’ Radcliff said.

  ‘Um,’ Ceri began, ‘I’d asked Lily to see if Carter, Mr Fleming, could spare me some time tomorrow, well, today now. I wanted to talk to him about… something personal. She called about midnight and said he was going to Winchester and could I go to the Dragon right then.’

  Middleshaw was taking notes. ‘That’s the Jade Dragon?’ she asked. ‘His club?’

  Ceri nodded. ‘So, I went. It’s faster if you cut through the park. I got the feeling someone was watching me, and then a woman dressed all in black came at me with a pair of knives. She was a vampire…’

  ‘You know this because?’ Radcliff interrupted.

  ‘Her aura,’ Ceri replied. ‘I don’t have a vampire handy to demonstrate…’

  ‘I know what a vampire aura feels like,’ he replied. His eyes were hard yet, somehow, pained, and Ceri wondered again what had happened to make him distrust magic but join the Greycoats.

  At that moment the footstool slid across the floor to stop between the chairs and a tray of coffee with sugar and milk standing by floated in to rest on it. Ceri leaned forward to take one of the mugs. ‘Twill, you’re a life-saver.’

  ‘My talent is wasted on coffee production,’ the fairy said, ‘but it is nice to be appreciated.’ She spiralled down and landed on Ceri’s shoulder.

  ‘Anyway,’ Ceri said after a gulp of coffee, ‘the vamp attacked, I deflected the knives and threw fire at her. I must have hurt her more badly than I thought, because she ran off. And then things are a bit of a blur until I got to the Dragon and they fed me whiskey until my nerves calmed down.’

  ‘Your home would have been closer,’ Radcliff suggested, an edge of suspicion in his voice.

  ‘Yeah,’ Ceri said. ‘I honestly didn’t think that until Lily was telling me off for not coming back here.’

  ‘Quite right too,’ Twill grumbled.

  ‘I guess I panicked. I just thought of running to where I had been going.’ Ceri suspected that she had run to Lily, to her pet demon, but she was not sure she wanted to admit that to herself never mind saying it to Radcliff.

  ‘I presume you can’t give a description of this vampire?’ Middleshaw asked.

  ‘She was wearing a ski-mask or something,’ Ceri said, shaking her head. ‘Trim, lithe, fair-sized chest. Not too old. Her aura wasn’t particularly strong. She’d had martial arts training.’

  ‘And you “deflected” her knives?’ Radcliff said.

  Ceri nodded. ‘With my arm.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Cheryl said, ‘a reflexive reinforcement of the skin by magic.’

  Middleshaw nodded. ‘I’ve seen it done. Colleague of mine took a blow from a katana once. Just pushed it aside and broke the guy’s nose. It’s an impressive trick.’

  Ceri gave a weak grin. ‘I was kind of too busy staying alive to be amazed at my awesome skill,’ she said, ‘and then there was the throwing up and the running.’

  ‘And you’re still unwilling to say who you think might be behind this?’ Radcliff said.

  ‘I wasn’t aware you had a theory,’ Cheryl commented, her interest peeked.

  Ceri sighed. ‘A necromancer,’ she said, ‘almost certainly a wizard too. Very skilled, with a reason to want to see Cheryl’s project fail.’

  Cheryl blinked at her. ‘Put like that…’

  ‘Matthew Barnes,’ Radcliff said.

  ‘That’s going a little far to win a race to find a particle, don’t you think?’ Cheryl said.

  ‘He’s reputedly arrogant enough,’ Middleshaw said, ‘but I’d agree. It seems a little too much, and too late, I’d have thought. I mean, you’ve found it, haven’t you?’

  ‘Unless,’ Radcliff said, ‘what you’ve found isn’t what he’s trying to beat you to.’

  ‘Ceri, why’d you get up? Oh! Sorry, didn’t know there was people here.’ Everyone turned and looked at the source of the voice. Radcliff’s eyes bulged. Lily sleepily pushed soft, chestnut hair out of her face and grinned sheepishly, not even reflexively covering her nudity. ‘Hey, Cheryl, what’re you doing here?’

  Suddenly, the two police officers discovered they needed to be somewhere else.

  ~~~

  Twill had decided that Cheryl’s shoulder was an excellent resting place for an evening in the lounge with the bottle of wine the thaumatologist had brought with her. There had been a moment of discomfort when the fairy had settled down without a word, just assuming it would be okay, but then Twill’s aura had done its magic and Cheryl had relaxed. Now, with half a glass of wine in her, having a fairy on her shoulder drinking wine from a thimble seemed perfectly natural.

  ‘I need to tell you all something,’ Ceri said, ‘and I need to know it won’t leave this room.’ She looked down at the still naked half-succubus curled up at her feet. ‘That means you don’t tell Carter either, Lil. If anyone’s going to tell him, it’s me. You can take that as an order if it makes you feel better.’

  ‘Okay,’ Lily replied, looking back. ‘If it’s an order…’

  Cheryl watched the exchange with interest, but did not comment. ‘Why are you telling me?’ she asked.

  ‘Because you know half of it and might figure it out yourself,’ Ceri replied. ‘I’d rather tell you, and have you know it’s to be kept quiet for now.’

  ‘Intriguing, but you have my word.’

  Twill shrugged. ‘Who am I going to tell?’ she said. ‘I only leave the property to hunt.’

  Cheryl glanced at the little figure on her shoulder. ‘Hunt?’

  ‘You don’t want to know,’ Ceri said quickly.

  ‘Just don’t go into her bit of the attic,’ Lily adde
d.

  ‘The enchantment my parents put on me,’ Ceri said, before they could get more distracted, ‘wasn’t a protection. It was a barrier enchantment designed to keep my power locked away, to hide it. It didn’t protect me, as such, it just allowed the power I had to protect me if something contacted me.’

  ‘I don’t understand?’ Lily said.

  ‘The ability you’re now exhibiting,’ Cheryl said, ‘is not new, it simply hasn’t been able to get out of your own body until the tattoos were destroyed.’ Ceri nodded.

  ‘Oh,’ Twill said, her tiny eyes wide.

  ‘I still don’t understand,’ Lily said. She looked a little annoyed that she was not in on the revelation. ‘Your parents were magicians, why would they want you to not be one?’

  ‘Because she’s not,’ Twill said. ‘Not a normal one anyway.’

  Lily’s frown deepened and Ceri tried to explain. ‘Normal magicians get their power from a biological chain reaction. Well, a metaphysical one, but it expresses itself in biological ways. They have to expend physical energy to create thaumic energy, their body acting as a transducer.’ Lily nodded; she got the general idea at least. ‘I don’t,’ Ceri continued. ‘I’m more like a fairy, or a demon. I’m able to…’

  ‘Catalyse T-Null boson decay at will,’ Cheryl broke in, her eyes sparkling. ‘It would explain everything about the way your magic works.’

  ‘She’s a sorceress,’ Twill said flatly. ‘To think I’d see the day they’d come back…’

  ‘That’s… crazy!’ Lily exclaimed. ‘Sorcerers are… legend. They didn’t really exist. That’s like… Merlin, or…’

  ‘Ceridwen,’ Ceri said. ‘I was named after an ancient sorceress because the Lady of Bala Lake told my parents that’s the name they should give me.’

  ‘Because she sensed the power in you, even as a baby,’ Twill said. ‘She’s an old one, that one. She probably remembers the sorcerers in the old days. She’d know.’

  Silence descended on the room. No one seemed to know what to say until Lily suddenly burst into giggles. Everyone looked at her. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it just shows how awesome I am. How many succubi can say they snagged themselves a sorceress for a mistress?’