Thaumatology 03 - Legacy

by Teasdale, Niall

  ‘Please,’ Lily replied settling down beside Ceri. A second or so later a grey-furred wolf-man was settling at Ceri’s other side and nuzzling at her neck.

  Ceri giggled. ‘Did Michael say why we were coming?’ she asked Alexandra.

  ‘Just that you were.’

  ‘I need some help. I want to turn the tables on the people who were watching the pack last month.’

  Alexandra poured boiling water into the teapot. ‘I’m interested, tell me more.’

  ‘There’s a gentleman’s club on Berkeley Square…’ Ceri began.

  ‘The Archmage Club?’ Alexandra asked. She began pouring tea into mugs.

  ‘You know, that gets really annoying at times.’

  ‘Yes, I’m aware it does.’ Alexandra smiled and handed a mug each to Ceri and Lily.

  ‘The Archmage Club, yes,’ Ceri went on. Putting her mug down, she opened her satchel and pulled out four, cheap digital cameras. ‘Basically, I want people keeping an eye on the place around the clock for the next few days, taking pictures of anyone who goes in or comes out.’

  The old wolf looked around. ‘Anita?’ she said.

  A grey, wolf-woman stepped out of the trees nearby, transforming into the pack’s amazon Guard Captain as she crossed the grass to join them. ‘We can rotate people through the park area,’ she said. ‘Two hour shifts should keep things fresh and they’ll likely have trouble spotting any one wolf. You’ll have to tell us how to switch the flash off on those cameras. And what do you think of asking Catherine if she can lend a hand? A few yuppies having a picnic would go unnoticed.’

  Ceri grinned at her Alpha and her Captain. ‘This is why I have friends,’ she said. ‘I figured you might have good ideas.’

  Alexandra smiled back. ‘Precisely, dear. Always use the available talent.’

  Lily nodded at Anita. ‘Anita’s clearly very talented,’ she said, and Ceri was pretty sure that it was not her tactical skill her pet was referring to. The half-succubus held up her mug and pointed at the lettering. ‘Alexandra,’ she asked, ‘are you trying to tell me something?’

  Another thing Alexandra could manage really well was looking innocent and totally devious at the same time.

  Kennington

  ‘Wow! Cheryl looks amazing in that dress,’ Ceri said. She had finally got around to reading that week’s copy of The Wednesday Witch and her first call had been the gossip column. The photograph was black-and-white, but it looked as though Carter had stopped and posed outside the club. Ceri had no doubt he had suggested how Cheryl should stand to best effect, and wondered whether either of them had seen the result yet. The lights from the camera flashes had turned the dress more or less transparent, but had also obscured much of the detail thanks to the sparkles.

  Lily shifted off her lounger and stepped across the roof to where Ceri was sitting. ‘It’s official then,’ Lily said.

  ‘Huh?’

  Lily pointed. ‘Look at the possessive look on his face.’

  ‘Maybe he really is slowing down in his old age.’

  ‘Petra Charles may need someone new to freak her dad out with.’

  Ceri raised an eyebrow. ‘You really think he’d turn exclusive?’

  Lily looked at Ceri, and Ceri looked back at her. ‘Nah,’ they chorused. Lily walked to the edge of the roof, looking down at the street.

  ‘Someone’ll see you,’ Ceri said.

  ‘There’s no one to see me,’ Lily replied. It was true; since there had been no further deaths in the last couple of days, the press pack had dispersed. ‘I kind of miss them, actually.’

  ‘Well I don’t.’ Her eyes caught something on the page and she gasped. ‘Hey, listen to this. “It seems that thaumatology has become sexy. Doctor Tennant’s young protégé, Ceridwyn Brent, twenty-four, has shared a house with the exotic head waitress of the Jade Dragon, Lily Carpenter, twenty-five, for some years, but they seem almost inseparable in recent weeks. Reports from the Dragon, where Ms Brent now has a part time job, suggest that the brilliant scientist and practitioner is more than just friends with the sexy half-succubus.” Why do they always have to list ages after the names?’

  ‘Beats me.’

  ‘And since when have I been gossip-worthy?’

  ‘My guess? Since you wouldn’t let them interview me.’

  Ceri scowled and flicked to an article on acne charms. ‘At least they haven’t connected me with Michael. I’m not sure how he’d take being in a gossip column.’

  ‘I’m more of a public figure, and hot lesbian frolics sell more papers.’

  ‘I don’t know, “young thaumatologist in cross-species relationship”?’

  Lily considered for a second, wandering back to stretch out on her lounger. ‘How about, “hot thaumatologist in steamy threesomes with werewolf and half-succubus”?’

  Ceri let out a whimper. ‘Don’t even joke about them getting that one!’

  Lily giggled and then fell silent, basking in the sun. ‘Do you really think this plan of yours will work?’ she asked after a few minutes.

  ‘Honestly? I don’t know, but I don’t see what other choice I have. I can’t join them, so I need something to keep them off me, and you, and our friends.’

  ‘I have a feeling that we’ll end up having to do something more drastic,’ Lily replied.

  ‘Maybe.’ Ceri was fairly sure that she was right, but hoping she wasn’t. ‘Let’s hope they see sense.’

  ‘Um, yeah… pacted wizards.’ Ceri did not have an answer to that; pacting with demons did not imply common sense. ‘Merlin would turn in his grave if he knew,’ Lily added. ‘Well, he would if he had one.’

  ‘He probably does,’ Ceri said, ‘though it depends on the legend. Some of the tales say he was entombed in rock, others in a tree. If it’s the latter then it probably broke down and freed him years ago. I doubt he would have survived long after.’

  ‘He was supposed to be a half-demon.’ Lily said.

  Ceri shrugged. ‘It’s all legend. Are you showing any signs of immortality?’

  ‘Don’t know. I haven’t died yet, so I guess I could be.’ Ceri giggled in reply. ‘Thanks to you,’ Lily added, ‘I’ll probably live longer than most of my kind.’

  ‘As a sla…’

  ‘What’s that around your ankle?’

  Ceri blinked and looked down at her legs. The silver chain was there; nothing else that she could see. ‘My ankle chain?’ She looked around at Lily.

  The half-succubus lifted her own right leg and shook the chain attached to it. ‘So not a slave,’ she said.

  ~~~

  Ceri tapped at her tablet, searching the Internet. She was paying no attention to the TV, which was Lily’s vice of the moment. Ever since her father had started killing people, Lily had become mildly addicted to the evening news.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ Lily asked.

  Blinking, Ceri looked up to discover the weather forecast on the big screen. ‘Ah, um, a man named Markus Devall.’

  ‘Never heard of him. Who is he?’

  ‘Who was he,’ Ceri replied. ‘He died in a house fire in eighty-nine, and so far that’s about the most interesting thing I’ve found. He’s listed as a Cambridge student in the rolls for nineteen-forty-eight through fifty-two. He was an archaeology student.’

  ‘Archaeology? Not a practitioner then?’

  ‘No, I think he was. Carter said he joined the Order in fifty-nine, or maybe re-joined it, I’m not sure. There weren’t any courses in magic back then, not official ones anyway. Study was formalised in the sixties. Anything on the news?’

  Lily shook her head. ‘Nothing new. Dad’s keeping quiet for the moment.’

  Ceri clicked on a link. ‘Good. I think. Ah! This looks good.’

  Lily leaned over and looked at the tablet’s screen. It was showing the web site of a Cambridge local newspaper. ‘He went to France? Back then?’

  ‘That’s why it made it into the newspaper.’ During the Shattering, Europe had been swamped i
n “mythical” monsters. A lot of that had subsided in the fifties, but it had left much of the continent in chaos. Fae were still far more common there than in Britain. Back in the late fifties and sixties, France had still been trying to drag itself back to stability. To some extent, they still were, but then it was much worse. ‘He was studying the Sequani, one of the Celtic tribes… um, it says he found ancient writings and faced many hardships, blah blah… I haven’t managed to find a single paper written about his findings, though not everything from back then has been put into electronic form.’

  ‘Why the interest?’

  ‘Basically, Devall was the one who started these guys down the path of demonic pacts. He claimed to have discovered how Merlin got his power. I’m just trying to find out more about them.’

  ‘Know your enemy?’

  ‘Well, it worked with Remus.’

  Lily nodded thoughtfully. ‘Maybe you should try the library at the university.’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Ceri said, nodding, ‘but I’m not hopeful.’

  Holloway, May 6th

  The computerised library catalogue had nothing in it by anyone named Devall and Ceri was forced to resort to the card catalogue which had been exiled to a small room in the basement of the library. Hundreds of tiny little drawers lined the walls of the room and she had to blow dust off them before opening them.

  Lily stood near the door, leaning against the only wall which did not have cabinets against it. ‘Quiet down here,’ she commented as Ceri started leafing through index cards in one of the drawers.

  ‘Not many people come down here,’ Ceri replied.

  ‘Always wanted to have sex in a library.’

  Ceri felt her cheeks colouring and concentrated hard on the cards. Grimacing, she slammed the drawer closed and pulled out the one below it. ‘Yuck!’

  Lily wandered over to look down into the drawer. It featured cobwebs and a mummified spider. ‘Let me,’ Lily said, and reached out to part the cards with her long, red nails. That put her standing right behind Ceri, her left breast pressed against Ceri’s back. And the evil temptress knew damn well what she had said earlier was going through Ceri’s mind on repeat!

  ‘You’re evil you know,’ Ceri commented softly.

  ‘I’m being helpful,’ Lily replied in honeyed tones. Her other arm slipped around Ceri’s waist. ‘You concentrate on what you’re looking for.’

  Ceri growled and kept watching as the cards were flicked forward. ‘Stop!’ Lily stopped and lifted the little card out of the drawer. ‘Devall’s report on his trip into France.’

  ‘Yeah, “moved to archive room twelve” ten years ago. Where’s archive room twelve?’

  Lily’s hand was gently stroking under Ceri’s right breast and remembering the layout of the library archives suddenly became a matter of considerable effort. ‘Downstairs,’ she said finally. ‘Even quieter.’

  Lily giggled. ‘Good persuasion technique. C’mon then.’

  Archive room twelve was hidden away down a corridor behind an unassuming grey door with a small plaque on it indicating its designation. It was large, and filled with racks on which were lots of file boxes. Ceri slumped. ‘How am I supposed to find anything in here?!’

  Lily picked up a box file from a table near the door and opened it up. Then she handed it to Ceri. ‘Try that, it looks like a list of the filed documents.’

  It was not easy. Ceri started leafing through the unordered list while a horny half-succubus snuggled against her back. She found herself squirming after a couple of minutes and it came almost as a relief when she found what she was looking for. ‘B-box two-three-nine,’ she stammered and was relieved to feel Lily’s arms slip from around her waist. Well, mostly relieved.

  They started searching through the racks for the right box. Almost all the way to the back, with Ceri wondering whether it had actually been moved again, Lily said, ‘It’s here,’ and pulled a dusty, brown and cream cardboard box off the shelf, lowering it to the floor. She pulled the top off and then coughed as a cloud of dust lifted into the air. ‘I see what you mean about quiet down here,’ the half-succubus said. ‘I doubt anyone’s been in this room any time in the last decade.’

  Grinning, Ceri squatted down beside the box and began searching through the documents inside. Finally she pulled out a few stapled sheets of paper, looking disappointed.

  ‘That’s it?’ Lily said, voicing Ceri’s thoughts.

  ‘Looks like it.’ Ceri leafed through the five pages. They were printed on one side and two of the sheets had maps on. She reached into her satchel and took out her tablet. Laying the pages out one at a time, she used the tablet’s camera to grab images of each page.

  ‘We came all the way down here for, what, two and a half pages of text and a couple of maps?’

  Ceri put the paper back in the box, her tablet back in her satchel, and the lid back on the box. ‘Looks like it,’ she said again, standing up with the box in her hands. She turned and pushed it back into its space on the shelves.

  Lily was behind her, arms sliding around her waist. ‘I think we deserve greater reward for our efforts.’ The button on Ceri’s jeans popped open, as if by magic, and Lily’s hand slid into Ceri’s knickers. Ceri whimpered softly and closed her eyes.

  ‘You really are evil,’ Ceri said softly, but she did not sound like she meant it.

  Soho

  It was werewolf night at the Jade Dragon. The moon was waxing from new on Tuesday night and the city’s wolves were up-beat. Michael sat on one of the bar stools, chatting easily with Alec, and perhaps half the tables were surrounded by groups of people who could grow fur at will. Four of Ceri’s eight tables had Royals on them, including table twelve which had Catherine and Stefan sat at it.

  ‘One Wolfbane,’ Ceri said as she placed the beer cocktail in front of Stefan, ‘and one Death in the Afternoon.’ The second drink went down in front of Catherine.

  The Alpha smiled and slipped a small memory stick across the table. ‘And here’s the first part of your tip,’ she said.

  Ceri grinned and palmed the stick, bobbing a little curtsey. ‘Thank you, ma’am.’

  Catherine growled at the back of her throat. ‘Don’t do that,’ she said. ‘The waxing moon always makes me horny and you’re hot enough as it is.’

  Ceri gave a little giggle and nodded toward Stefan. ‘You don’t have to stay too long.’ The ex-marine’s cheeks coloured slightly and Catherine licked her lips. Ceri turned and headed back toward the bar, tucking the memory stick into the little pocket sewn into her bodice.

  ‘Passing notes in class?’ Carter asked as she walked up to him.

  ‘Something like that. Part of that thing I’m not telling you about.’ She put her tray down and turned to watch her tables and, incidentally, Lily making her way back from her own drinks delivery.

  ‘No offence,’ Lily said as she arrived, ‘but horny werewolves are a pain.’

  ‘Paws everywhere?’ Alec suggested and Lily nodded.

  ‘Sorry,’ Michael said, ‘but humans tend to be more precious about their personal space.’

  ‘Not your fault, hun, and later I’ll be quite happy to have your paws anywhere you like, but when I’m carrying drinks I could do without hands up my skirt.’

  ‘Ah,’ Ceri said, ‘but this is why you get the big money.’

  ‘Cos I can put up with Dog Boys on the booze?’

  ‘Oh yeah. The Royals are much nicer.’

  ‘Especially while their Alpha’s here,’ Michael said. ‘You might have a little more trouble when she’s gone and they’ve had more to drink.’

  Carter straightened up and moved a little closer. ‘Ceri, do you want to take a break now? I’m going to take a turn around the floor’

  Ceri nodded and started toward the staff room at the back. ‘I’ll be back shortly,’ she said as she left Michael and Lily.

  Her tablet was in her satchel and she pulled the memory stick from her tip pocket and plugged it in, starting up a viewing applicatio
n and setting it to run a slideshow of the pictures. The wolves had been busy and there were photographs of various well-dressed people coming and going from the Archmage Club’s front door. She was fairly sure she spotted one fairly famous wizard, but no one sprang out as interesting until near the end. Her finger stabbed out and paused the stream of pictures. A grin spread across Ceri’s face. Turning the tablet off and storing it and the memory stick back in her satchel, she headed back to the front of the house.

  ‘Useful?’ Lily asked; she had obviously seen Catherine hand over the stick.

  ‘I think so,’ Ceri replied. ‘I think I’ve got exactly what we need.’

  Kennington, May 7th

  ‘Well,’ Ceri said, ‘I think I’ve got this sorted out.’ She laid her tablet down and turned onto her front. ‘Would you do my back, love?’ The sun was not really that hot, but Ceri had the kind of skin that burned like a bitch.

  Lily climbed to her feet and walked over to coat Ceri’s back in oil. ‘So what did you learn?’ the half-succubus asked.

  ‘Not a whole heap,’ Ceri replied. She had been reading the paper Devall had written. ‘I get the feeling he was charismatic. He tells a good story anyway. He basically claims he found ancient writing in Ogham.’

  ‘Ogham?’

  ‘It’s a writing form used mostly for Old Irish. That’s why it’d be weird to find it in France. The paper is basically indicating that he found this stuff and suggests that it represents a migration of people from Wales following the Battle of Badon.’

  ‘Badon’s supposed to be the end of the last period of magic, right?’

  Ceri nodded. ‘Devall hints that he found something buried at the site of the monument he discovered. The writing suggested that it was the hiding place of the “Secrets of Merlin” according to his translation.’

  ‘Isn’t that a little convenient? I mean, shouldn’t someone else have discovered it?’ Lily started working up Ceri’s calves, rubbing the oil in thoroughly. Ceri felt like her muscles were melting.

  ‘Yeah, well, according to Devall, the writing had been misinterpreted for generations.’