Thaumatology 03 - Legacy Read online

  ‘Thank you, Anita,’ Catherine replied. They had obviously met before. Ceri knew the two pack leaders had regular meetings, though this was the first she had been witness to. Catherine started off through the park, Stefan on her right, Anita on her left, and the four wolves fanning out on the flanks. Ceri took up position opposite Michael and behind Stefan.

  They had gone perhaps twenty yards when Catherine said, ‘I didn’t know you had a second black-fur in the pack, Anita. And wearing a collar?’

  Anita gave a deep, throaty chuckle. ‘She’s new to the guard team, but I think she’ll work out well. All the males are jealous of Michael for calling dibs on her.’

  Catherine glanced back at Ceri and blinked. ‘She’s Michael’s… Ceri?’ Ceri gave an affirmative little yip. ‘But you’re a black-fur…’ Black fur was an indication of the purest-blooded, most powerful werewolves. Greys were more common, with a little human in their DNA. When the human heritage got stronger, you got brown-furs.

  ‘I was there when Alexandra explained what it meant to her,’ Anita said. ‘She offered to make sure she was grey in future and Alexandra told her that she was black for a reason so she should just live with it. I think she showed she’s worthy.’

  Catherine seemed to consider that for a second before nodding. ‘Yeah, I guess she did.’

  ‘Still major kudos for Michael though,’ Anita said, ‘a black-fur mated to a grey. Not that the soppy git thinks that way.’ She glanced over her shoulder at Michael, who was trying his hardest to look professional.

  ‘Well Ceri’s quite a catch,’ Catherine said. ‘I tried to get her in bed.’

  ‘I certainly wouldn’t kick her out,’ Stefan remarked. It was Ceri’s turn to try to look professional while feeling utterly mortified. Well, and just a little guilty because she felt good about being wanted.

  Alexandra was waiting on the island in the boating lake. Various wolves in human and wolf form were scattered around the clearing in the light and heat from an oil drum fire which occupied the centre. The pack’s Alpha already had a kettle heating on a small gas stove and she smiled warmly at Catherine and Stefan as they walked in. Her grey eyes also held Ceri’s for a second, twinkling in the firelight. Ceri got the impression the old woman had deliberately not mentioned making her one of the guard unit just to see how she dealt with it.

  The Alpha of the Battersea pack was over a hundred, but looked no older than sixty, and a well-preserved sixty at that. Her hair was the kind of grey they used in commercials; a glorious, shining silver. She still had a good figure though perhaps a little more sagging in places than it had when she was younger. Black-furs tended to live a long life, a fact most people did not know.

  ‘Come on in, Catherine dear,’ Alexandra said. ‘And you four, sit around the fire. Dry your fur out before you catch something.’ Ceri and the other three guards had swum the lake while Anita had rowed Catherine and Stefan across. They sat nearby, Michael settling right against Ceri, while the two Royals settled on the ground to wait for the tea Alexandra was going to make for them as soon as the kettle boiled.

  ‘You’re keeping well, Alexandra?’ Catherine asked.

  ‘The warmer weather has been good,’ Alexandra replied. ‘These old bones don’t like the cold so much. I haven’t spent so much time in fur in ages.’

  ‘I know the feeling,’ Catherine replied, ‘but I think it’s been good for the Royals. We’ve had more people in the park, and they’ve spent more time in fur. It’s been good for bonding. We’re a much more solid pack for it.’

  When Ceri had first encountered the Royals, they had been what could best be described as a yuppie werewolf pack. Their name came from their territory, which included Regents Park, rather than any royal connection, but they acted like nobility, even if few of them had been much good as wolves. Their Alpha male then had been a brown-fur named Joshua who had fallen easily under Remus’ sway and had died in an attack by another pack, the Serpents. That had left Catherine, who had not thought she could be an Alpha on her own, because she was a female. Ceri had introduced her to Alexandra, and Catherine had proceeded to prove herself wrong.

  ‘No trouble from the Serpents?’ Alexandra asked.

  Stefan let out a snorting laugh. Catherine grinned at him. ‘Uh, no,’ she said. ‘The last time they attacked us they lost five members and we took some minor injuries, and Ceri there wasted two of Remus’ wolves and Stefan and a couple of the boys took out a third. The Serpents cower in their fur whenever they see a Royal.’

  ‘Well and good,’ Alexandra said. ‘The important thing is to make sure everyone keeps up their reputation, preferably without doing anything violent. If they do try anything, then stomp them down.’

  ‘Otherwise we just act our name,’ Catherine said, nodding.

  ‘I knew you were a fast learner, dear,’ Alexandra replied. The kettle began to boil and she scooped it off the stove, turning off the gas. She poured water into the waiting teapot. Ceri wondered who would get the “Werewolves do It in the Woods” mug.

  ‘Is there anything we can do to help your people?’ Catherine asked.

  ‘You know you already do,’ the old woman said. ‘Don’t think I haven’t had word back that your people have been a little more generous with the hand-outs than normal. We’re most grateful.’

  ‘I hope you’re not offended,’ Catherine said. ‘We’re… showing solidarity.’

  Alexandra laughed. ‘Dear girl, we take all the wolves no one else wants. The homeless and the dispossessed. What little money we need, we get by whatever means we have to. That includes charity. We’re proud, but not quite the same way as you.’

  ‘We… I owe you a lot,’ Catherine said. ‘You know where to come if you need anything.’

  Alexandra smiled and poured the tea. Catherine got the “Werewolves do It in the Woods” mug. Ceri smirked.

  March 25th

  The small band of guards dispersed after watching Catherine and Stefan safely onto the bridge. It was almost three o’clock and Michael loped away from the park’s entrance in the direction of the tree were Ceri’s clothes were hidden. She thought, perhaps, that he meant to take his mate again before she became human and left him for another week. Instead, he settled against the tree and just held her, cuddling and nuzzling at her. The waning moon had a tendency to make werewolves lethargic and it was getting late.

  As it grew closer to four, Ceri made to move and he let her stand with a show of reluctance. Ceri grumbled softly, her muzzle touching his. You come me territory two nights hence?

  He looked at her, tilting his head. Come Man?

  She shook her head. Come Wolf. Play demon. Fun!

  He nodded and she leant forward and gave him a playful nip on the neck. He growled softly, half laughing. You Man. Else play now.

  Ceri gave a barking laugh and brought a clawed hand to her collar. A second later she was a cold human girl and Michael was handing her her satchel of clothes. She dressed quickly, but paused to brush her cheek against his before leaving. They never said goodbye with words, just a simple gesture. Then she was off, walking into the night.

  Kennington

  On any normal day, Ceri got up before Lily. It was a basic fact of life that, despite the half-demon needing less sleep than the human, Lily would lie in bed for as long as she could get away with. There was that and the fact that Ceri’s nightmares and her avoidance of them, was starting to make her more used to less sleep than she had been.

  It worked; it gave Ceri some time to settle into work mode before Lily got up. It helped when Ceri had some actual work to do, and this morning she was engaged in planning out the modulation routines for the power generation experiment. Coding for microprocessors which employed enchantment to increase the processing speed was not really magic, but it did help if you knew the thaumatological basis behind the architecture. Micro-channel enchantment processors used tiny, carefully fabricated, rune clusters to channel thaumic energy within the processor. The result was that the pr
ocessing units existed in a super-position of quantum states and were able to literally do more than one thing at a time. Someone had described it as “quantum computing,” but what it came down to was “it’s really fast.” Ceri was actually pretty good at coding for the devices, and always had been. Once she began to bury herself in a programming project she could usually blot out her surroundings and concentrate.

  That would generally become far more important as the point came when Lily noticed that she was alone in bed. At that point she would get up and decide on a course of action for the morning. Option one was a shower; she always had one before dressing for work, but she might have one on getting up, depending usually on what had happened the night before. If Ceri was not absorbed enough in her work she would hear the shower running, and then forty minutes or so would be lost as she joined Lily under the water stream.

  Then there would be the point where Lily walked into the study, which was usually where Ceri worked. If Ceri was lucky, Lily would be naked. It seemed counterintuitive, but Lily had stopped wearing clothes around High Towers about a week after moving in. A naked Lily was a normal Lily. A naked Lily was not easy to ignore, but Ceri was used to it. If Lily had decided to pick out one of her costumes however…

  It was well after midday when Ceri lifted her head and looked around. Lily was sprawled on the chaise longe with a copy of the Wednesday Witch, dressed in one of her stripper outfits, a tiny pair of shorts and a halter top. It made sense; it was Friday and Friday was pole-practice day. When they had had lunch and let it settle for a while, they would go down to the dungeon where Ceri had had a dance pole put in. It was good exercise and they both enjoyed watching each other dancing.

  Standing up, Ceri stretched and then walked over to the lounger. She ran a hand through Lily’s lush hair, and was rewarded with a purr and a smile as her demon looked up at her. ‘Afternoon,’ Lily said.

  Ceri grinned. ‘Afternoon, love. Sorry, I was… concentrating.’

  ‘There’s no need to apologise,’ Lily replied. ‘I’m your pet, available at will for any purpose you wish, remember?’

  ‘No you’re not,’ Ceri replied giving Lily a tap on the nose. ‘You are my demon temptress, sent to lure me into a decadent life of deviant sexual pleasure. That’s what you are.’

  Lily giggled, reaching back over her shoulder to slide a hand up Ceri’s thigh, under her shirt to her hip. ‘How am I doing?’

  Ceri looked down at her, her face serious. ‘When I get up in the morning, I have to push myself not to wake you,’ she said quietly. ‘Just looking at you makes me wet. I want you every waking moment and I can’t sleep if you’re not in the bed with me. You make the nightmares go away. I know I’m addicted to the sex we have, but I think that’s a price worth paying. If I had to, I’d let you enslave me just so I could be with you, and the fact that, instead, you’re at my beck and call is just so far beyond perfect I sometimes think I must be dreaming and I’ll wake up one day.’

  Lily looked up at her, her jaw moving soundlessly for a second or two. Finally she said, ‘I’d say I was doing well then, except you do the same to me.’

  Ceri laughed. ‘Yeah, sure,’ she said dismissively, and started to turn away.

  Lily caught her arm, pulling her back. She swung her legs off the side of the chaise longe and stood, looking up into Ceri’s bright, blue eyes with her deep, black ones. ‘I’ve hated being half demon since I hit puberty, but with you I actually like myself. I like the fact your power makes my heart skip and my pussy drip, because my head is busy thinking you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever been with and I would crawl over broken glass to be with you again.’ She returned the tap on the nose Ceri had given her earlier and her face broke into a grin. ‘I just wish you would start realising how gorgeous and desirable you are.’

  ‘I may be beginning to get the picture,’ Ceri said quietly. ‘Have you eaten yet?’

  Lily stepped closer. Her breath hot on Ceri’s neck. ‘I was waiting for you to take a break,’ she purred.

  Soho

  Ceri moved smoothly between her tables, heading back toward the bar. Lily had suggested once that the attention she would get waitressing at the Jade Dragon would make her feel good, and now that she spent two nights a week doing it, she had to admit that her friend had been right. She had done it one night before Christmas as a favour and quite enjoyed it then. When one of Carter’s waitresses had left to get married, he had taken the opportunity to rationalise his staff a little by taking Ceri on for the two busiest nights, Friday and Saturday. Ceri had taken the opportunity to make a little extra money, and be with Lily an extra two nights a week, and to have an excuse not to go to bed on her own.

  Lily fell into step beside her, back from her own drinks delivery, and looped an arm around Ceri’s waist, fingers touching the bare skin of her hip. Ceri now had her own Dragon uniform dress, black, like Lily’s, but with tiny, white, almost lichen-like flowers dotted across it instead of the gold, red, and blue flowers on Lily’s. For the first twenty minutes of every Friday night, Ceri had the urge to hide while she got over wearing a garment which barely covered her body. Then the looks she got from customers, and Lily, started turning her on and she would just go with it. She figured, give it another month and she would not have to waste twenty minutes pulling her non-existent skirt down.

  Carter watched them walking toward him with a slight smirk on his face. ‘You two realise what the one thing I worried about when I took Ceri on was?’ he asked as they got close enough.

  ‘That Lily would go off her game or alienate customers pawing at me?’ Ceri asked in reply.

  The club owner raised an eyebrow. ‘Very perceptive,’ he said.

  ‘I told her I’d quit if it looked like it was happening,’ Ceri said, ‘but I’d trust her to know about the customers.’

  ‘Yes well,’ Carter said, his grin broadening, ‘she has the succubus thing going for her, and I have a few years’ experience running a club. I think they’re hoping things will get hotter between the two of you.’

  Lily’s smirk was particularly mischievous. Her hand drifted off Ceri’s hip and across her behind before slipping away entirely. She obviously knew Carter was right.

  ‘I sometimes wonder about the human race,’ Ceri commented.

  ‘In what way?’ Carter asked.

  ‘Whether, given the option, we’d all just bonk ourselves to death.’

  Carter looked wryly at her. ‘I’m hardly one to make comment.’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ Ceri said, ‘but neither am I. Have you decided on tonight’s conquest?’

  ‘Petra called earlier,’ he replied with a grin.

  ‘What’s her old man done this time?’ Alec asked from across the counter.

  ‘She didn’t say.’ Petra was the wild child daughter of Malcolm Charles, Minister for Supernatural Affairs. She turned up to the Dragon, and spent the night with Carter, whenever she was annoyed with her father over something. Then it would get into the gossip columns and annoy her father back.

  ‘I know this one,’ Lily said absently; she was watching the tables. ‘She was in the Wednesday Witch this week. Rumour says Daddy broke up her relationship with Desmond Wren, that upcoming junior minister in the Treasury?’

  Carter’s face darkened. ‘For once, I may have to agree with Malcolm,’ he said. ‘I’ll talk to her. Over breakfast, obviously.’

  Ceri was about to ask why Carter agreed with Petra’s dad when Lily touched her arm. ‘Table twelve, hun.’

  Grinning, Ceri picked up her tray and strutted off through the tables. Strutting was something she had had to learn, though she had had a good teacher. The four inch sling-back pumps helped get her hips moving, but it also took attitude and a degree of balance which she had had to practice for days before starting working at the club.

  Table twelve was a vampire couple. He was older than her, and had likely turned her, but was not yet old enough that it was showing. Ceri hated it when it showed because she tende
d to see through the illusion they used to hide their slow decline into a walking corpse with fangs. ‘Can I get you another drink?’ she asked.

  The woman smiled, showing her fangs in an unconcerned way. ‘How do you always know?’ she asked, and then went on without waiting for a reply. ‘Same again for me.’

  ‘And me,’ the man added smoothly, ‘though I could do with a proper drink soon.’ The last part was said to his partner, but at the same time he cast his aura toward Ceri. The intended result was a feeling of euphoria; vampires used it to make their victims feel happy before the initial bite went in.

  Ceri looked at him and bit back on the first thing she wanted to say. ‘I’ll get your drinks,’ she said, forcing a smile onto her face, and turned on her heel.

  ‘Two Dragon Bloods, Alec,’ she said as soon as she was back at the bar.

  ‘Did they try something?’ Carter asked quietly. Carter was a very perceptive man.

  ‘Him,’ Ceri replied. ‘Nothing I couldn’t handle. I think the alcohol’s starting to hit him.’

  Carter nodded. ‘Why don’t you suggest an alternative venue for them to finish their evening,’ he said.

  ‘I can deal with them, boss,’ she replied, ‘it’s okay.’

  ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘they’ve been in here before and he gets troublesome. Nothing too bad, but I’ve seen the type. He’s old enough to think humans are tasty little bottles of blood and not old enough to have the sense to avoid nightclubs.’ Along with the physical decline, vampires tended to lose their humanity with age.

  Alec put the two cocktails down on Ceri’s tray and she picked it up, nodding to Carter. She was preparing the spell as she walked toward them and she spoke as soon as she reached the table. ‘Enjoy your drinks. If you’re hungry though, it’s best to eat out.’ Both of them did a slow blink as she put their glasses down on the table.

  ‘Thanks,’ the woman said, looking a little confused. ‘I think we will.’

  Ceri gave them a warm smile and walked back to the bar, leaning against the counter to watch them. The drinks were quickly knocked back and they were at the till settling their bill before either of them seemed to have worked out what they were doing.