Thaumatology 09 - Dragonfall Read online

  ‘I think I’m going to plot out the basic things I need to cover and then blind them with presentation.’

  ‘You’re going to do that “blackboard in the air” thing?’ The voice sounded closer and a second later Cheryl bounced down the stairs carrying a pair of heels and dressed in a short, black sheath dress in a fabric which had a hint of translucency to it.

  ‘Yeah,’ Ceri said as Cheryl bent over to put her shoes down while simultaneously hooking in her second earring.

  Lily licked her lips. ‘I’m getting a day pass this time. Ted’s giving a paper on what he’s discovered about my genetics, and his mystery subject.’

  Cheryl was still bent over doing up the ankle straps on her pumps. ‘Mystery Subject Ceri, yes. He still doesn’t know?’

  ‘No,’ Ceri said. ‘It’ll be interesting to hear what his latest findings are. With all that’s been happening I haven’t talked to him in a while.’ Her lips quirked into a smile. ‘If you don’t stand up soon Lily’s going to jump you and we’ll be late for work.’

  Cheryl slid the tiny strap into place, straightened up, and then shimmied her dress back into place. Then she turned and grinned at Lily. Lily pouted back. Cheryl gave her behind a playful swat and said, ‘Didn’t you get enough of this earlier?’

  The half-succubus slid smoothly to her feet and stepped over to stand right beside Cheryl. At that range her slightly elevated body temperature could be felt through Cheryl’s thin dress. ‘Never,’ Lily breathed and Cheryl’s breath caught in her throat. ‘But I’ll be nice and let Carter have you for the rest of the evening.’

  For a second Ceri thought Cheryl was going suggest they played hooky again. Lily would not have gone for it; she was actually very professional, even if she was technically just a waitress. But it looked, briefly, as though Cheryl might actually crack. That was the thing about sex with a succubus, it was addictive. It was an incredible high and you just wanted more and more…

  Ceri broke the spell by standing up. ‘Come on, we’d better get going.’ She turned and headed for the door, but something on the mantelpiece caught her eye and she stopped, reaching out and picking up a Welsh dragon craved from quartz. The base bore the legend “For Genius.” ‘This is nice,’ Ceri said.

  ‘A present from Ed,’ Cheryl said sounding a little flustered. ‘After I found the data on the thaumino I got that in the post. There was a little note saying that he thought I had done truly amazing work and he wanted me to know he thought so.’

  Ceri turned the crystal dragon in her hand, watching the light refract through it. ‘It’s beautiful.’ She placed it back on the mantelpiece.

  ‘It is, isn’t it? And, you know, considering that he’s a dragon I thought it was kind of a nice thought.’

  ‘It is,’ Ceri agreed, heading for the door.

  Soho

  Carter Fleming had a smile on his face. As usual he was dressed in an expensive, perfectly fitted suit which showed off his physique. His ash-blonde hair was perfectly coifed. He was a handsome man wearing his half-century very well, and he exuded confidence. His premiere nightclub, and the one closest to his heart, was full again after recent problems which had seen most of London shut down for more than a week, so business was good. The smile, however, was primarily because he had five attractive women around him and that always made him happy.

  Aside from Cheryl on a bar stool beside him, and Ceri and Lily, there was Sasha and Tess, the other two waitresses. Each of the Dragon’s waitresses was dressed in a garment which could only loosely described as a dress; high-collared, sleeveless, with an open panel over the chest and a skirt which consisted of two short panels to front and back, barely long enough to be decent. Each had a different colour and pattern making each girl unique, and while Lily was the best waitress, each girl had customers who favoured them whenever they visited. The Dragon was noted for its attractive, professional, and exceptionally good staff. It was the place to be seen and on a night like this, not long after the full moon, when the werewolves were still a little too depressed for partying, the club had a plentiful supply of people who liked being seen; famous people, who left big tips.

  That was even more true currently because the city’s vampires were keeping their heads down. There were a few of them in, but not the usual numbers. An Ancient vampire had come to the city only a couple of weeks earlier and caused what had almost been a full scale war. The older vamps had sided with the normals and the other supernaturals against him, but there was still a degree of bad feeling against the undead. The fallout among the normals was still working its way out too, but that was primarily an issue with the government, police, and army, not the general citizens.

  Inside the Jade Dragon, however, ill-feeling was forgotten. The people there were there to have a good time, perhaps even more so considering they might have all died a couple of weeks earlier. Ceri had noticed it; people were drinking a little more, partying a little harder. There was a hint of the kind of attitude people had had in war time. Enjoy yourself now, because there might not be another chance.

  ‘You know,’ she said after coming back from a drinks run, ‘I think people are starting to think the world might end this winter.’

  ‘That Mayan calendar business?’ Cheryl asked. ‘I thought there was plenty of evidence that the date was wrong, and the Mayans didn’t think of things ending then anyway?’

  ‘Popular culture,’ Carter grumbled. ‘People prefer a good story to facts. And we have had a couple of close calls recently. The severe winter and the werewolves two years ago. Then last Samhain was the worst since the Shattering. Monsters crushing churches tends to make people think. The mass arrival of a horde of angels during the Witch Hunter business, and now the vampires going off the reservation.’

  ‘Put like that, it is a little apocalyptic.’

  ‘I’d have thought we deserved a bit of quiet after all that,’ Tess said.

  ‘It would be kind of nice to go a month or two without the world threatening to end,’ Ceri agreed, ‘or someone deciding to execute witches, or…’

  ‘Ghosts seeking vengeance through the power of a Fury?’ Lily suggested.

  ‘I think we’re starting to run out of threats,’ Ceri said, grinning.

  Carter winced. ‘Don’t tempt Fate, dear girl. I don’t think I can stand the stress.’

  ‘Of course you can, Boss,’ Lily said, ‘you’ve got all that wonderful stress relief sitting beside you.’ Her eyes flicked to one of the tables. ‘Sasha, twenty-eight.’

  The blonde smiled and started toward her table. ‘Thanks, Lil.’ One of the reasons the Dragon’s waitresses were considered so good was that they always seemed to know they were needed before they were asked. That was thanks to Lily.

  ‘Indeed,’ Carter said, ‘but my stress relief is rather busy at the moment, between the upcoming conference and this power generation project. Not to mention that she keeps discovering fundamental particles governing the world’s magic field. Has anyone confirmed the thaumino data, since we’re on the subject?’ Carter was a wizard, and a moderately good one. His magic was practical, but he was an intelligent man and understood at least some of what Ceri and Cheryl did. He had helped finance the research.

  ‘We’re hoping that the delegates from MIT may have an announcement to make at the conference,’ Cheryl said. ‘The last I heard they were close, but it was going to be right up to the wire.’ She glanced at Ceri. ‘Barclay Macbay is coming over for the conference.’

  ‘Maybe he’ll have some news about their generator project,’ Ceri said, nodding.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Lily said, ‘can we borrow a car Monday, Boss? Ceri wants to go look at Stonehenge again.’

  ‘The Range Rover?’ Carter asked without a second’s thought. ‘Or would you prefer the Aston?’

  ‘The Range Rover,’ Lily replied. ‘I’ll be too tempted otherwise and we want Ceri in a fit state to work when we get there.’ Ceri grinned at her; she disliked travelling, and in cars especially, but she was
a lot better than she had been. ‘Besides,’ Lily added, ‘the backseat is much roomier in the Rover.’

  ‘I thought you were working,’ Carter said, a knowing grin forming.

  Lily gave a little shrug and smiled. ‘Well, you know what they say about all work and no play…’

  Salisbury Plain, June 25th

  A pretty, blue-eyed, honey blonde smiled warmly at Ceri and Lily as soon as they walked into the visitor centre. She was talking to a family who were there to see one of England’s most famous ancient monuments and they waited until she was finished before going closer. Helen Brazenold was the admin officer for English Heritage at the site and she was the person they had to talk to to gain access to the circle itself. Tourists were restricted from walking among the stones, but people doing research could get in, along with certain others for “ritual” purposes.

  ‘It’s nice to see you back,’ Helen said. ‘Doctor Tennant’s request for access went through with no trouble since you’re just looking. I can take you over now if you want to get started.’

  ‘Please,’ Ceri said and all three turned back toward the door.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Lily said. ‘Get the work out of the way so we can enjoy the rest of the day.’

  Helen pulled a pair of sunglasses from her jacket and slipped them on as they walked outside. ‘It’s a lovely day. I could do without having to wear this jacket.’

  ‘I won’t complain if you strip off,’ Lily replied smoothly. They walked into the shade of the pedestrian tunnel under the main road and the sudden cooling was quite startling. ‘Though not in here.’

  The administrator let out a soft chuckle. ‘I’m supposed to look business-like at all times. It says so in my terms and conditions.’

  Lily shrugged. ‘My business-like attire is a dress that barely covers my arse.’

  ‘Ah, but I saw you on TV at that ball at the Chinese embassy. That gown was incredible!’

  ‘She scrubs up nicely,’ Ceri agreed.

  Helen giggled. They walked out into the sunshine again and the heat felt like a blowtorch for a second. ‘Oh, I want to show you something before we go in,’ Helen added, heading down the worn path to where a few tourists were standing in front of various plaques giving information about the stones. Helen took them to one which looked far newer than the others, waving a hand toward it and grinning.

  The plaque showed a map of Stonehenge and the nearby Woodhenge with lines drawn around it showing different thaumic field strengths. The text explained that the magical field at both henges was higher than normal, that the two were linked by a ley line which empowered Woodhenge, and that “a team from London Metropolitan University lead by Doctor Cheryl Tennant had trialled an electrical power generation system there based upon the strong, natural magic field.”

  ‘If they get the audio tour,’ Helen said, ‘they can listen to that speech you did for the BBC. And we have video of it in the visitor centre.’

  A year earlier Ceri would have blushed. ‘The map was mostly done by our post-grads and a student witch we had there with us who turned out to have a bit of a talent for the work. Cheryl and I were mostly working on the generator.’ She looked toward the huge, broken circle of monoliths. ‘Shall we?’

  ‘I’ll escort you in,’ Helen said, ‘then leave you to it. I’m sure I’ll just be a hindrance.’

  ‘Hardly,’ Ceri replied as they set off toward the stones, ‘but you’ll be bored to tears.’

  ‘What are you planning to do?’

  ‘Take measurements. Lots of measurements. I think I can replicate the containment mechanism, but I need some precise measurements to work out the mathematics.’

  ‘I remember you saying that this kind of thing was a lost art.’

  Ceri smiled. ‘Then it’s about time we found it again.’

  ~~~

  Ceri walked over to the last on the central ring of stones. She concentrated, aligning herself with Magical North and focussing her will to gather the information she needed. It was an almost miniscule exertion of power, a trivial task for her, but it felt rather good. She was using her magic for something very practical and, most important, non-violent. So much of what she did with her power involved violence that when she got the chance to do almost anything else with it she jumped at it.

  Her fingers tapped over the screen of her tablet, noting down the information her spells gathered. Exact dimensions, orientation, position. Everything went down in a spreadsheet to be used later to model the circle. Then she took out a digital thaumometer and checked the exact reading at all four corners of the stone, noting those figures down as well.

  Then she checked over her figures one more time and, satisfied with what she had, wandered across to where Lily was lying in the grass in a patch of sunlight. Grinning, she stood over the half-succubus as she put her tablet to sleep and packed it away.

  ‘You’re standing in my light,’ Lily said without opening her eyes.

  ‘You said that once the last time we were here.’

  ‘You were standing in my light then too.’

  ‘I’ve finished. We can go do… whatever.’

  ‘You know, I didn’t think of it last time, but we should have snuck in here after dark. Research purposes. What happens when a succubus has sex in a strong magic field, y’know?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Research purposes. You’re turning into a real scientist.’ Ceri looked around and sniffed. ‘Anyway, back then this place gave me the creeps and now it’d be like doing it with my parents watching.’

  ‘You can feel him?’ Lily opened her eyes and sat up.

  ‘Now, yeah. This whole place feels like dragon. It might be just Brenin’s skull buried under here, but it feels like dragon.’ She looked down, toward the centre of the circle where the skull of one of the dragons which had contributed to her ancestry, thirty or more thousand years earlier, was buried. Thirty thousand years and it was still a source of intense magic, the reason why Stonehenge had elevated thaumic levels. All those years and, now that she was used to sensing dragons, she could feel him down there, almost as if he was not really dead, just… ‘It’s like he’s dormant rather than a skeleton.’

  Lily got to her feet and they started toward the visitor centre to tell Helen they were leaving. ‘You know, they put his skull down there, presumably to keep the radiation level down…’

  ‘Uh-huh. That’s the working theory.’

  ‘So where’s the rest of the skeleton?’

  Ceri frowned, stopping just inside the circle. ‘Y’know, that’s a bloody good question.’

  Avebury

  If Stonehenge was probably the most famous ancient site in England, Avebury had to be a close second, and since it was not that far away, and it had a village which meant it had a tea shop, and Ceri had finished her survey pretty early in the afternoon, that was where they went.

  Basically, Avebury was a village sitting on the edge of a huge ring of stones. The circle was a little younger than Stonehenge, and less complex, but huge. While Stonehenge was around thirty yards across, the henge, the ditch surrounding the stones, at Avebury was over four hundred yards in diameter. The village was pretty too.

  And in a setting like this you had to drink tea. It was just the done thing. There were also scones, with strawberry jam and cream. They sat outside on chairs which were not terribly stable on the rough ground, and drank tea and ate scones.

  ‘I feel like a total tourist,’ Ceri said.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Nothing. Just saying. Where do you think the rest of the bones are? I mean, they have to be somewhere.’

  ‘I’m starting to wish I hadn’t said anything.’ Ceri had been going on about it since they had left Stonehenge. ‘Maybe Ed or Gwyn knows.’

  ‘Don’t think so. I don’t think they knew where his skull was until I found it.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Lily mused, ‘the rest of the skeleton doesn’t produce the same magical field, so it was buried somewhere and ignored. The skull was the dangerous bit, so that
was taken away from the rest of the body.’

  ‘But then they dragged it up there to bury it?’

  ‘Would you want something like that near where you lived? The legends say that dragons produce really strong magic fields. Verging on wild magic levels. And given what happens when you push yourself too hard, I can believe it.’

  ‘Possible, I guess.’ Ceri took a sip of tea and sighed. ‘I think it’s mostly that I didn’t think about it until you mentioned it. I’m supposed to be the genius.’

  ‘No one’s perfect, love.’

  ‘Except you.’

  Lily laughed, which resulted in the middle-aged couple at one of the other tables looking at them disapprovingly. ‘I’m not perfect. Far from it.’

  ‘Gorgeous, intelligent, elegant, fantastic in bed…’

  ‘But not perfect. I’m having distinctly imperfect thoughts about you and that pot of cream right now.’

  ‘There’s not much of it left.’

  ‘You’re right. We’ll stop off and buy some on the way home.’

  ‘Twill will murder you in your sleep if you get cream on the sheets. And you’re just doing this to get my mind off Brenin’s skeleton.’

  ‘Is it working?’

  Ceri drained her tea cup. ‘Yes. Come on, I think I saw a grocery store on the way in.’

  Kennington, June 22nd

  The hallway at High Towers was the biggest room in the house with a high ceiling and a large floor area. They used it for martial arts lessons on Saturday and as the main room whenever they had a party, and Ceri used it when she wanted to work on something big.

  Today it was full of Stonehenge. Not the real one, obviously, but a wireframe model built entirely from silver strands of light. Around the “stones” coloured bands followed the magic field lines which Ceri had taken from the plot they had made during the generator research the summer before, augmented with the measurements she had taken herself.

  In the middle of it all, at the point where the field lines converged, which was right over where the dragon skull was buried in the real thing, Ceri stood and observed her work. Lily was sprawled on the stairs, naked. Ceri was busy so it did not bother her. Lily was a terrible distraction. She had stopped wearing clothes around the house soon after moving in and Ceri was technically used to it, but ever since they had actually started sleeping together Lily could get Ceri away from anything she was doing if she wanted. Except when Ceri was really concentrating, at which point she got blind and deaf to everything except her work. Which was good, because she would never get anything done otherwise.