‘True,’ Lily replied.
After a few more second Ceri said, ‘So why are you still d-doing it?’
‘You didn’t actually tell me to stop.’
‘No, n-no I d-didn’t.’
Soho
‘You seem different tonight, kid,’ Alec said as Ceri waited for a tray of drinks to be filled. ‘Your scent is a little different, maybe.’
‘Really? I don’t think there’s anything… No, Lily hasn’t bought new shower gel or anything.’
Alec placed the last of the drinks down. ‘I’ll think about it,’ he said.
Ceri gave him a grin and turned, moving off through the tables with a playful swing to her hips. Her grin grew brighter as she head Alec behind her. ‘Damn! She’s getting the hang of that.’ It did seem to be getting easier the more she worked at the Dragon. At first she had been unsure of herself, not sure she could manage the sexy strut the other girls seemed to perform with native ease. Lily, of course, had inborn talent; a grace and sensuality which came from her father. The other two waitresses were not half-demons, in fact they were normal humans, but they still moved like they had been born to it, and Ceri had just never had that kind of body awareness. Until now anyway.
She delivered her drinks and started back, only to find Carter, Lily, and Alec watching her. Lily’s expression had a hint of pride to it, but all three were quite intent and by the time Ceri arrived back at the bar she was wearing a quizzical, slightly embarrassed grin. ‘What?’ she asked.
‘You’re moving differently,’ Lily said.
‘More like Lily,’ Alec added.
‘It’s really quite fascinating,’ Carter said.
‘Well, I’ve been doing this a while,’ Ceri said, ‘and the combat lessons with Ray and the pack…’
‘And I figured out what the scent is,’ Alec said.
‘Okay, what?’
‘You smell more… you,’ the werewolf replied, a little lamely. ‘Like you’re more distinct. You didn’t last night.’
Ceri frowned. ‘Maybe I need a stronger soap.’
Carter laughed. ‘I’m sure it’s just practice and… hormones or something.’
Ceri looked at her boss, but decided that whatever he was lying about could wait, particularly because his eyes were widening and the number of times she had seen Carter Fleming genuinely surprised could be counted on the stump of a hand. Turning, she realised why.
Mei Long and Jenny Li were walking into the club flanked by a pair of Chinese gentlemen who appeared to have been carved out of stone and then animated. The sight of Jenny in a cocktail dress would have been enough to make Ceri’s eyes pop out; the girl Ceri had gone to school with, who had gone almost as unnoticed as Ceri herself had, looked pretty stunning. The ambassador, however, looked like she had just stepped off a catwalk. Her dress was a deep blue colour and sculpted to her slim body to stop just above her knees. Obviously Imperial Ambassadors could not be seen in micro-dresses. As for the two men, Ceri wondered whether they had been poured into the suits, or whether the suits were painted on.
‘Ordinarily I’d put them on one of Lily’s tables,’ Carter’s voice said in her ear, ‘but I suspect they’re here for you.’
Nodding, Ceri walked forward, switching on her for-the-customers smile as she made her way to the lectern. ‘Good evening and welcome to the Jade Dragon,’ she said brightly. ‘I’m Ceri, which you both know, and I’ll be your waitress for tonight.’
Jenny giggled. ‘We’re incognito. Well, Mei is, I don’t really need to be.’
Mei smiled. ‘I wanted a night out without the usual pomp and officialdom, and bodyguards.’ She glanced back at Yin and Yang behind her who remained entirely impassive. ‘However, we can’t have everything. At least they agreed to sit at the bar.’ The bodyguards looked at Ceri, she got the distinct impression that they were golems, or something. They certainly had all the animation of a pair of gargoyles.
‘Okay,’ Ceri said. ‘Table twelve is free. That’s a booth so you won’t be too visible, and right at the back of the room so anyone heading that way will be fully visible to your… guards.’ She smiled. ‘And besides, the wards on the Dragon are among the best there are.’
Mei chuckled. ‘That sounds fine, and it is such an appropriate name.’ Ceri grinned and turned to lead them through to the booth. The two Sumo wrestlers peeled off to stand like statues near the bar. ‘Do you happen to know how Mister Fleming chose the name?’ Mei asked.
‘Actually, I don’t,’ Ceri said. ‘I know it was called the Midnight Dancer before he refurbished it. You can probably ask him yourself. I’m sure he’ll stop by to talk.’
‘I don’t want a fuss made,’ Mei said.
Ceri glanced back and grinned. ‘Two attractive women on their own at a table? People would think it odd if he didn’t pay you some attention.’ She stopped and indicated their booth, smiling as they slipped into the seats. ‘What can I get you?’
‘I’ve developed a taste for Scottish whiskies,’ Mei said. ‘If that rather nice werewolf barman could recommend one? Something with a lot of flavour.’
‘White wine, please,’ Jenny said.
Ceri nodded. ‘I’ll be right back.’ Turning on her heel she started off toward the bar and, on a whim, turned on her Sight. The two bodyguards were transformed from… something. She could tell that much. It would require a spell to know what and she felt that would have been rude. Stopping at the counter she looked across it at Alec. ‘A white wine and the most flavoursome whiskey you can recommend.’
‘Do the two doorstops want anything?’ Alec asked.
Ceri looked at the doorstops in question. ‘I kind of doubt it,’ she said. ‘Not on duty.’ One of them bowed his head to her; it was the first reaction she had seen out of either of them.
‘Fair enough. This should satisfy the lady’s thirst.’
Grinning, Ceri picked up her tray and slid across the floor toward Jenny and Mei. She noticed the ambassador’s eyes were following her as she got closer. ‘You have considerable grace, Ceri,’ Mei said as she put the drinks down.
‘And a very small dress,’ Jenny added. ‘You used to wear long skirts all the time at school. You didn’t even turn the waistbands up to make them shorter.’
‘You can talk, sat there in a dress that’d fit a twelve year-old. And the grace is practice.’ Ceri nodded at the whiskey glass, ‘Alec thinks you’ll like that.’
‘I’m sure I will,’ Mei replied, ‘but I believe you may be wrong about the practice. That looks inborn to me.’ Something was tugging at the back of Ceri’s mind, like an itch at the back of her scalp. ‘Would you come sit with us for a short while if you get the time?’
‘I’ll have a break soon,’ Ceri replied. ‘I don’t think Carter will mind. Enjoy your drinks.’
‘That woman is taking quite an interest in you,’ Lily said when Ceri returned to the bar.
‘Looks like it,’ Ceri replied. ‘It’s mutual. There’s something about her. I can feel… I don’t know what. I’m not sure what she is, and she seems to know more about me than she’s letting on.’
‘Have you tried your Sight on her?’
‘That’d be kind of rude. She is an ambassador.’
‘I bet that hasn’t stopped her.’
‘I’m not an ambassador,’ Ceri replied, grinning. ‘There’s decorum to think of.’
‘Decorum,’ Lily said. ‘Right. Succubi aren’t really big on decorum. Decorative. That I can do.’
Ceri giggled and was about to say something when Carter said, ‘Ceri, do you want to take your break?’
‘Sure,’ she replied. ‘Mei asked if I could chat for a minute, if that’s okay?’
‘I think we can indulge the Ambassador.’
Ceri gave her boss a grin and headed off toward table twelve. Mei and Jenny looked up as she slipped into the seat beside Jenny. ‘Well, you’ve got me for five minutes,’ Ceri said, smiling.
‘Jenny was just telling me that she went to a couple of
your birthday parties,’ Mei said.
‘She used to live down the street,’ Ceri said. ‘Back then I used to go out for sweets on Halloween, then we’d go home for my birthday party. Then she moved away and we kind of lost touch. We went to the same high school, but we didn’t do many classes together, and then we met again when I was doing my Public Practitioner’s Certificate last year.’
‘So, you came into your powers very late?’
Ceri nodded. ‘I was normal until last summer. There was an accident with the containment circle at the lab and suddenly I could work magic.’
‘It was in the news and everything,’ Jenny supplied.
‘You’re a practitioner, Mei?’ Ceri asked.
‘I can work magic,’ the ambassador replied. ‘I don’t do much of it. When one makes their living through diplomacy it’s wise not to have a reputation for extensive magic use.’
‘People would think you’re using it on them in meetings?’ Ceri guessed.
Mei nodded. ‘Despite the fact that most diplomats and their staff wear charms against mind-affecting magic.’
‘A lot of people still don’t trust magic,’ Ceri said. ‘Jenny can attest to that.’
Jenny nodded vigorously. ‘The looks Ceri was getting from some people at the centre just because she was doing the PPC course… Of course, then she turned up with half-a-dozen werewolves as bodyguards too.’
‘You needed bodyguards?’ Mei looked surprised. Of course, Ceri had been surprised at the time.
‘Academic infighting can get a little cutthroat,’ Ceri replied. ‘The man responsible quite literally vanished off the face of the Earth, so I guess it all worked out in the end.’
‘We’re a little more organised in China,’ Mei said. ‘Some would say bureaucratic, or even dictatorial.’
Ceri smiled slightly. ‘Bureaucratic perhaps. Even if what we hear about the dragons is true, I’d call it “assertive advice” rather than dictating action or policy.’
‘I like that,’ Mei said, grinning. ‘I must try to remember it. Have you ever considered a career in diplomacy?’
‘I prefer academia,’ Ceri said, ‘even with the vampire assassins and demon-werewolves.’
‘Well, that would certainly be good experience for surviving consulate balls. Jenny got through the last one by chewing her own hand off.’
Jenny grimaced. ‘I wasn’t even needed!’ she moaned. ‘Hours of tedium and having old men look down my cleavage.’
‘That sounds like my cue,’ Carter said. ‘Though I promise to not make too much of a show of doing so.’
Ceri giggled. ‘Boss, Jenny was voted “girl least likely to ever need a bra” in sixth form.’
‘My dear girl,’ Carter replied with considerable sincerity, ‘it’s not the volume, but the aesthetic quality that counts.’
‘I’ll leave you to Carter’s tender mercies,’ Ceri said, smirking. ‘I need to get back to work.’ She slipped out of the seat, allowing Carter to slide in in her place. Jenny, out partying with the Chinese Ambassador, looked awestruck at having Carter Fleming sit down beside her. The playboy club owner might consider Mei to be out of his league, but Jenny was probably a different story. ‘Another drink?’ Ceri suggested.
Jenny looked at her empty glass and then at Mei. ‘The same again then,’ the ambassador said.
‘Another of those whiskies if you would, Ceri,’ Carter said.
Ceri smiled and headed off to the bar. Lily was smiling when she got there and gave Alec the order. ‘Ten quid says Carter takes Jenny home tonight,’ the half-succubus said.
‘Huh, I’m not taking that bet.’
Alec chuckled as he poured whiskey. ‘Such wisdom in one so young.’
Kennington, June 19th
The Sleeper watches, the Teacher waits, the Queen broods upon her lost king.
~~~
Lily swung around the chromed pole in the dungeon with the kind of lithe grace which came of having a parent who considered sex as hunting. Ceri was not really paying attention. Their pole-dance sessions often ended in sex, and this one was largely for Michael’s benefit so that was very likely, but the main aim was exercise. For once, even the sight of Lily in a schoolgirl outfit twisting around a pole was not holding Ceri’s interest.
She had had a dream. She could remember almost nothing from it aside from something which sounded like a line from a bad fantasy novel, or maybe something by H.P. Lovecraft. Something about a Sleeper waking, or brooding, or teaching…
‘You know,’ Lily said, ‘if you’re going to sit there making frownie faces I might as well just give Michael a lap dance and you can brood in silence.’ Ceri blinked. Michael had gone slightly crimson. Lily was hanging upside down, gripping the pole with her shins. Any normal girl’s breasts would have fallen out of the top she was wearing, but this was Lily.
‘I’m not broo…’ Ceri began. ‘Brooding! That was it, “The Queen broods upon her lost king!”’
Lily looked at Michael. ‘She’s finally lost it. I always knew this was going to happen. You want that lap dance now?’
‘Hey, I have not lost it!’ Ceri wined. ‘I had a dream last night and I was trying to remember it, but all I’ve got is this one sentence.’
Michael pried his eyes off Lily. ‘Well, your dreams usually mean something…’
‘I wouldn’t say “usually,”’ Ceri said.
‘Sometimes,’ Lily said. ‘For instance, the one where the staff and all the patrons at the Dragon turned into giant iguanas? Not so meaningful. And the one where she was being forced at gunpoint to buy two thousand pairs of shoes?’
‘That was just a nightmare?’ Ceri said, grimacing.
‘And then there was the one where she was forced to wrestle me naked in a huge vat of baked beans for your entertainment.’
‘I think we’ve established that my dreams are not always meaningful,’ Ceri said in a rush.
‘Baked beans?’ Michael said. He had a rather interested grin on his face.
‘That’s really not the point,’ Ceri said. ‘This dream seemed like it meant something and besides, where would we get a vat and enough beans to fill it?’
‘There’s a club on Frith Street that stages wrestling matches in mud,’ Lily suggested. ‘We could…’
‘I am not setting up a baked bean wrestling match!’ Ceri yelled.
Michael patted her thigh. ‘Okay, okay, if you don’t feel like it, I’m sure I can manage to hide my disappointment. What do you remember from the dream?’
‘The sleeper watches, the teacher waits, the Queen broods upon her lost king,’ Ceri recited. ‘Which doesn’t make a huge bundle of sense.’
‘Someone who’s sleeping can’t be watching,’ Michael said.
‘And the Queen’s husband is still alive,’ Lily added.
‘Like I said, it doesn’t make much sense,’ Ceri said. ‘Well, a teacher waiting is not exactly unreasonable, but waiting for what?’
‘Mind you,’ Michael mused, ‘it’s not a teacher, it’s the Teacher. It’s like it’s a name or a title.’
‘Like Doctor Who,’ Lily said brightly.
‘Sorry?’ Michael said, blinking. The fact that she was still hanging upside down with her skirt around her waist was not helping.
‘Doctor Who, it’s a TV series, science fiction. There’s this race of people called Time Lords and they have names like… Well, actually they kind of stopped doing it after a while, but originally they had names like The Doctor, The Master, The Meddling Monk. They were supposed to reflect their personalities.’
Ceri snapped her fingers. ‘Mei said that dragons use names like that. They’re dragons.’
‘Three dragons called Sleeper, Teacher, and Queen?’ Lily sounded unconvinced. ‘I thought dragons would have more… prosaic names.’
‘Well, the Chinese dragons have Chinese names,’ Ceri said, ‘and I assume the western dragons have names in whatever the local language is. It might sound more interesting that way.’
‘Y’know,’ Michael said, still sounding thoughtful, ‘you are missing a question.’
‘I am?’
‘Uh-huh. Alexandra has dreams that mean something, along with visions and stuff.’
‘Yes,’ Ceri said. ‘Luperca sends them.’
‘Exactly,’ Michael said, ‘so who’s sending yours?’
Westminster, June 20th
The summons had come about ten minutes before the black sedan, and Ceri was grumpy. It did not help that the building the Ministry for Supernatural Affairs was housed in looked like it had been designed by someone who normally worked on gas pipelines. It should have been more traditional, she felt, though it was presumably supposed to match the Home Office building to which it was adjacent.
Then, having been dragged out of bed at the ludicrous hour of ten am, and without the solace of sex with Lily, she was forced to wait for forty minutes in an uncomfortable chair watched over by a woman with horn-rimmed glasses and an expression like her breakfast consisted only of lemons. Generally Ceri considered herself fairly even tempered, but Malcolm Charles was wasting her time. When she watched two men in suits walk past her and into the minister’s office, her temper started to boil over.
‘If he couldn’t see me until after eleven, why was I dragged out of bed an hour ago?’ she asked.
Something on the woman’s desk buzzed. ‘You may go in now.’
Biting back on a response, because the woman was only doing her job, Ceri stood and walked to the generic office door and opened it without knocking. Malcolm was sat behind his desk, which was large, ornate, and oak, while one of the men who had walked in ahead of her was sat in a comfortable looking armchair in front of the desk. The other, who was more Ceri’s age, sat in an upright chair beside the desk. Ceri guessed he was the under-secretary. Malcolm gained points back by standing up as Ceri came in, and she gave the civil servant the benefit of the doubt because he was balancing a laptop on his legs; she was rapidly starting to hate the other guy.
‘Miss Brent,’ Malcolm said. ‘I’m sorry you were kept waiting. Please have a seat.’ He indicated the second of the three chairs.
Thaumatology 04 - Dragon's Blood Page 10
