Thaumatology 04 - Dragon's Blood

by Teasdale, Niall

  ‘You know what I mean.’ Ceri watched as her boss went into the bathroom to get some toiletries she had left there, and then watched as she walked back and dumped the bottles into the bag she had brought up from her room. Cheryl straightened up and looked at her. ‘What?’

  ‘You look fantastic in that dress,’ Ceri said.

  Cheryl blushed. ‘Thank you.’ Ceri could see her nipples stiffen through the thin fabric.

  ‘You’re not wearing anything under it, are you?’

  The older woman self-consciously smoothed the fabric over her hips. ‘We… shouldn’t,’ she said.

  Ceri looked down at the floor. They should not, no, but… ‘I don’t want to be alone tonight. I’ve had nightmares all week.’

  Cheryl looked at the door for a long moment and then reached up to undo the clasp at the back of her neck. The dress slipped off her slim body, pooling around her feet. ‘There’s nothing wrong with us sharing the bed at least.’

  Ceri let out the breath she was holding. ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  British Rail Train, approaching King’s Cross station

  Ceri sat opposite Ed as the train slowed on approach to King’s Cross. Cheryl was staying on in Cambridge to have meetings with Alfred Barnes; Carter would be joining them on Sunday. Ed, however, had amended his travel plans to make the London leg of the journey with Ceri. It would take about an hour to get to London, considerably longer to proceed on from there to Aberystwyth.

  They had spent almost the entire trip discussing the conference and the lectures they had attended. Trains were easier for Ceri to cope with than cars, but having someone to talk to who could keep her mind occupied the entire time was a godsend. She had barely noticed the passing of the countryside beyond the windows, and blinked bemusedly as the train started braking and she saw that they were already in the city.

  Ed stood and, balancing himself against the table and his seat, started getting Ceri’s case down from the overhead luggage rack. ‘Very gentlemanly,’ Ceri commented. The case was hardly a big one and she could easily have managed it herself.

  He bent over to put the case down on the seat beside her, which brought his head closer to hers. ‘Mei Long will be sending you a package over the next day or two,’ he said quietly. ‘I suggest keeping it in one of the rooms in your cellar. It needs to be secure.’ He straightened up before she could respond and took his own case down.

  They made their way down the carriage as the train pulled into the station, passing one of the MI5 agents sat near the door. The other one was at the other end of the carriage, keeping an eye on that door. The woman left her seat behind them and followed them out to the carriage door.

  ‘They’ve really had, what, six agents keeping an eye on you all week?’ Ed asked.

  ‘Apparently,’ Ceri replied. The agent did not comment.

  ‘And I pay taxes for this?’

  ‘I know I think it’s worth every penny,’ Ceri replied.

  The train came to a halt and there was a clunk as the locks unlatched on the door. Ed pushed it open and helped Ceri down onto the platform, and they headed off together toward the main concourse. They had just got through the gates at the end when all the air was suddenly evacuated from Ceri’s lungs.

  ‘Lily!’ Ceri squeaked. ‘Air. I need… breathe.’

  Lily let her go, giggling. ‘I’m so glad you’re back.’ She looked at the laughing figure of Ed standing nearby. ‘And don’t think you’re getting away without a hug, Mister Professor.’ The laughter was suddenly cut off as Ed was crushed against Lily’s substantial chest as well. He did not seem to mind too much.

  ‘We need to get him over to Euston for his connection,’ Ceri said. ‘Preferably without excessive structural damage.’

  ‘You spoil all my fun,’ Lily commented, not very seriously. She released Ed, however, grinning at him.

  ‘Indeed,’ Ed said. ‘She spoils all my fun too.’

  Euston station was only one stop down the Northern line and they soon had Ed at his platform and ready to leave. It took neither a psychic, nor a succubus, to tell that Lily wanted Ceri alone and Ed sent them off with a wave as soon as he was there. Half an hour later they were in the front hall of High Towers with a happy Twill buzzing around their heads.

  ‘Lily’s told me all the news,’ Twill said when she had slowed down enough to be understood, ‘so you can get right on with what she’s so keen to get on with.’

  Lily giggled. ‘Do you want a shower?’ she asked Ceri.

  Ceri looked around her home and then back at Lily. ‘I want a shower with you,’ she said.

  Lily practically bounced all the way up the stairs.

  Soho

  It was a busy Friday and Ceri was enormously happy when her first break came around. She hopped up onto one of the bar stools, despite the fact that there was no way to get down again without flashing someone; her feet needed the rest.

  ‘Glad to be back?’ Alec said from behind the bar. There was enough sarcasm in his tone to let her know he was kidding.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ she replied. ‘After a week shuffling around between lectures, dashing around in a micro-dress is just what I need.’

  He chuckled, though it was more of a rumble. ‘Dane managed to identify your werewolf,’ he said. ‘The name’s not important, but he was one of the Guards from the Fenlanders.’

  ‘I figured he was a Fenlander.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Alec said. ‘Their Alpha was pretty quick to denounce the attack. He said it was nothing to do with the pack and Dane thinks he’s telling the truth.’

  Ceri frowned. ‘So, why?’

  ‘Rumour says the kid was flashing a load of cash about a day or so before you blew his heart out his back.’ The implication was left hanging.

  ‘He was paid to kill me.’

  ‘Or hurt at the very least. According to his pack mates he was a good fighter, vicious, but arrogant. Your rep with the wolf packs has gone up another notch. They’re saying you’re Luperca’s favourite and she frowns upon any wolf who goes after you.’ He smirked slightly. ‘I’m not saying a damn thing about it because it’ll stop any other greedy cur from trying anything, but personally I think the Goddess looks after those who can throw bolts of magic about.’

  Ceri grinned, but she was not entirely happy. ‘I did get lucky. He had all the advantages. I freaked and did what I usually do, blew off power. I’d have preferred to have taken him alive.’

  ‘It would have been easier to get information out of him,’ Alec admitted, ‘but I’ve told you before, werewolves understand force. Force is clear, a defined threat. If you’d taken him alive and handed him to the cops it would have been taken as a sign of weakness. If you could have captured him and got him somewhere private to get the information…’

  ‘I won’t do that,’ Ceri snapped, a little more harshly than she intended.

  Alec frowned at her. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I was just trying to make the point…’

  She smiled bleakly at him. ‘I know, Alec. I didn’t mean to bite your head off. I… just couldn’t.’

  He returned her smile with one just as bleak. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Some people who’ve had that done to them… It makes them hate.’ Her eyes widened. ‘No one told me anything,’ he explained. ‘You were in that camp for too long, alone. I don’t know exactly what they did, but I knew they weren’t being the greatest of hosts. Burned me up having to sit back and wait.’

  ‘Lily said you would have come in after me when they walked me around the camp if you hadn’t had a wolf on each limb,’ Ceri said.

  ‘She lied,’ Alec replied, ‘there were two on my back as well.’

  Ceri smiled at him, properly this time. ‘Thanks, Alec.’

  Lily appeared at her side, letting her tray hit the counter with a little more force than usual. ‘What a night! Three ‘Banes, three red wines, one white, and two Dragon’s Bloods, please.’

  ‘The vamps on table ten?’ Ceri asked.

  Lily nodded. ‘The
Bloods, one of the reds and the white.’

  ‘Much as my feet will hate me, I’ll take them. Tess is due her break.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Lily said. ‘Careful of the youngest of those vamps. He’s hungry.’

  ‘What about the older one?’ Both were young enough they still had all their flesh at least.

  ‘He’s also hungry, but the other kind.’

  ‘Other kind?’ Vampires did not get hungry for a nice, juicy steak, except when first turned. Even then, they were incapable of actually digesting it.

  ‘My kind of hungry,’ Lily said, flashing Ceri a grin.

  Ceri slid off the stool and straightened her skirt. ‘It’s not like their auras work on me.’ She picked up her tray with the drinks Alec had put on it. ‘I’ll tell Tess she can relax for five.’ Pulling herself up straight, she strutted off into the throng.

  July 9th

  ‘Hello,’ Ceri said. ‘What’s a handsome young werewolf like you doing in a place like this?’

  Michael blushed profusely, but she could feel the hunger in his body as she kissed him. ‘I thought I’d come welcome you back,’ he said.

  Alec gave a short, barking laugh. ‘You’re not fooling anyone, kid. You can have her in a couple of hours.’ That just made Michael redder. ‘How’s your Alpha?’

  ‘Good,’ Michael replied. ‘You know her, she’ll outlive all of us.’ He looked around at Ceri. ‘I’m partially here because she wants to see you tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Later this morning,’ Lily corrected, slipping in on Michael’s other side. She kissed him on the cheek, not the mouth; it was a matter of form. She did, however, grope Michael’s leather-clad behind.

  ‘That too,’ Michael said.

  ‘Table thirteen, love,’ Lily said quietly.

  Ceri gave her a grin and started off across the floor. Lily always knew when someone wanted something, which made her an exceptional waitress and helped everyone else. Thankfully things were easing off a little. The humans were thinning out and even the supernaturals, who were naturally a bit more nocturnal, were starting to move on. Table thirteen was something of an exception; they were human, all three of them, but Ceri could almost smell the necromancy, and necromancers liked the night too.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ she asked as she arrived at the table.

  The oldest of the three, a man, looked up at her. His face was expressionless, dark. ‘Three red wines,’ he said, his tone dismissive. There were many ways to use necromancy which did not blacken your soul beyond the point of inhumanity, but this man had not taken them.

  ‘Of course,’ Ceri said, turning and heading back the way she had come. ‘Three red wines, Alec,’ she said as soon as she was back at the bar. ‘Some necromancers creep me out more than old vampires,’ she added in a lower voice.

  ‘That one’s not nice,’ Lily said. ‘He’s been eyeing that vampire couple on sixteen.’

  Carter’s head turned at her words. ‘Keep an eye on him for me, please.’ The way he said it suggested he knew the man and Ceri turned her Sight on. Generally she avoided it in the Dragon because the magic tended to be a bit thick. Even from across the room she could see dark tendrils around his Chakral Median, though they looked different from the jet black she associated with a demonic pact.

  ‘What would he want with the vampires?’ Michael said under his breath.

  ‘Some necromancers can control sentient undead,’ Ceri replied. ‘He’s got some form of pact so I wouldn’t put it past him.’ She picked up her tray and walked back to the table where the pacted necro was having a whispered and fairly acrimonious conversation with the woman at the table. They fell silent, the woman looking rather red faced, as Ceri put their drinks out and collected the empty glasses, but they were off again as soon as she was out of earshot.

  The look of concern on Lily’s face made Ceri turn just before she got back to the bar. There was a spell building through the man’s Chakral Median, but she waited for it to fully develop and be launched before she acted. Stretching out her free hand, she focussed her will and said a single word, ‘Aros!’ There was a flicker of visible light in the air between the necromancer and the female vampire as the spell died.

  Carter was moving before the necromancer could realise his spell had been blocked. The club’s owner was at their table just as realisation dawned and the pacted magician rose to his feet, anger written all over his face. Carter did not speak loudly, but it was just loud enough that Ceri could hear. ‘That kind of behaviour is not tolerated in this club. You’ll leave. Now.’

  The woman was already standing and taking her coat from the back of her chair. She was just as angry, but it was not directed at Ceri or Carter. The second man rose more slowly, resignedly, as though he were used to being thrown out of bars. The first opened his mouth to say something, but the woman beat him to it. ‘Leave it, Simon. You’ve done enough damage. Again.’

  As the three walked past Ceri, Simon glared at her. ‘I’ll be seeing you again, girl.’ Then his face darkened further and Ceri realised that she was flanked by Michael and Alec. She could feel Lily behind her, her defensive aura on a hair trigger.

  ‘Not here you won’t,’ Carter said. ‘Don’t come back.’

  The woman’s shoulders sagged. As they walked out Ceri heard her say, ‘The only place we’ll be able to take him soon is the Dubh Linn.’

  Carter patted Ceri on the shoulder. ‘Well done. I’ll make up the lost tip money. Alec, Sasha, two drinks on the house for our vampire friends.’

  Ceri kept watching the door for a second. ‘Don’t worry about the cash, boss,’ she said. ‘I don’t think he’d have left anything anyway.’

  Carter favoured her with his best smile. ‘Then consider it hazard pay,’ he said, ‘because you’re getting something whether you like it or not.’

  Kennington

  Ceri awoke, as was often the case, pressed between Michael and Lily. In a shift from the more common pattern, Ceri had gone to sleep spooned against Lily’s back, which had left Michael to cuddle in, warm and fury, behind her. The reasons they tended to do it the other way around became readily apparent after a second; Lily’s gorgeous, lush, vibrant, chestnut hair was trying to crawl up Ceri’s nose and down her throat, and the intriguing indication of Michael’s sleeping thoughts which Ceri enjoyed using to wake her mate up was poking somewhat uncomfortably into her bottom. A little rearrangement and Michael’s protuberance was between her legs where it tickled instead of prodding, and made its owner start making little whimpering noises in his sleep, like a dreaming puppy. At most, Ceri estimated that the mewling and panting would wake Lily within a minute, so she was almost surprised when it took ninety seconds.

  Awake, satisfied, and showered, the three of them trooped down to the kitchen where there was coffee, and hot toast, and both strawberry and elderberry jams. Ceri pushed Michael into the chair she usually occupied and sat in his lap before taking a drink of life-giving, glorious, caffeinated nectar of the gods. ‘I am coffee deprived,’ she said. ‘I had one decent cup all week until I got back yesterday.’

  ‘Well eat something too, dear,’ Twill said as she supervised a trail of toast into the toast rack.

  Ceri looked gleeful and stared buttering toast. Her naked butt wriggling on Michael’s naked lap soon had her young mate whimpering again, but she ignored him, spreading strawberry jam thickly onto her buttered toast.

  Lily giggled. ‘If you keep that up he’ll be after buttered muffin.’

  ‘No smut at breakfast, Lily,’ Twill said, smirking.

  ‘But breakfast is the best time for smut,’ Lily responded plaintively. ‘You’re just out of bed, you’ve had plenty of sex so you’re feeling naughty, but you’re not setting up for more of it like you are in the evening. Evenings are for innuendo, mornings are for smut.’

  Twill opened her mouth, closed it again, and then floated down to the table looking a little shocked. ‘That was actually a remarkably well reasoned argument, Lily,’ she said. ‘I
find myself unable to deny you your smut.’

  Lily beamed. ‘All I ask is a little smut in the morning,’ she said.

  ‘All?’ Michael said. He had his hands around Ceri’s waist trying to hold her still, but she was doing her best to wriggle while eating toast and jam.

  ‘Okay,’ Lily admitted, ‘I lie. I also want world peace and enormous amounts of sex.’

  ‘What has got into you, Ceri?’ Michael groaned. ‘It’s like someone gave you happy juice.’

  ‘Well I seem to remember sucking…’ Ceri began.

  ‘That,’ Twill said emphatically, ‘is not smut.’

  ‘I know more about me,’ Ceri said, ‘and I’m back home. I’m happy, and wriggly, so sue me.’ She giggled again. ‘Though I will admit my cushion’s getting lumpy.’

  ‘And we want to be on the island before midday,’ Michael protested.

  ‘You could just tell me to get off, y’know?’

  Michael’s hands squeezed her waist, pressed her closer to his body. ‘I’d rather cut my hand off than push you away,’ he said quietly. Grinning, Ceri twisted to give him a kiss on the mouth. He grinned. ‘You taste of strawberries,’ he said.

  Battersea Park

  Ceri was a little surprised to see Jenny sitting off to one side of the clearing on the island. She was dressed in a two-piece swimsuit which made little sense until it occurred that they had not seen a boat along the shore of the island; Jenny had to have crossed the lake by swimming. Ceri and Lily waved to her as they walked up through the trees from the beach, but their business was with Alexandra, so Jenny would have to wait. Besides, Alexandra was already pouring the tea.

  ‘Good morning, ladies,’ Alexandra said.

  ‘I hope it’s okay I came,’ Lily said.

  ‘Well,’ Alexandra said with a smile, ‘I knew you would.’

  ‘Does anything ever surprise you?’ Ceri asked.

  ‘Oh, many things,’ Alexandra replied, handing out mugs of tea. ‘Life would be tremendously boring if I knew it all before it happened.’ She settled onto the grass with her own mug. ‘My mate, for example. I knew nothing about him until I met him. Imagine what it would have been like to know, for a fact, that there was this man I just had to meet and he would fall for me. Worse, imagine I’d know he would never come back from France. Enough about me,’ she looked at Ceri, ‘we’ll not mention what you’ve discovered, but I know.’