Thaumatology 04 - Dragon's Blood Page 3

  Lily, however, pouted and said, ‘Yes, Mistress.’ Trudy’s eyes bulged; clearly she was an easy wind-up.

  ‘That’s quite enough of that, young lady,’ Cheryl said to the half-succubus. ‘I need my staff rested and ready for work in the morning, not waking up every hour after dreaming about you.’

  Alec, leaned slightly closer to Cheryl and gave a little, throaty growl. ‘I love it when you go all teacher on people.’

  ‘Not helping,’ Cheryl sing-songed, her cheeks colouring.

  ‘Did you bring the ruler and the gymslip?’ Alec added.

  ‘You’re all terrible!’ Cheryl exclaimed and Alec grinned broadly and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Tanya was, by now, squirming. Ceri noticed that Shelly was staying quiet and trying to look innocent. It was always the quiet ones.

  Ceri rose to her feet. ‘I’m going to go check on the readouts now the sun is down,’ she said, and turned to head off to Cheryl’s tent. By the time she was pushing in through the flap, Lily was with her. ‘I’d be back in a minute,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘I know, but we’re going to be apart for two whole nights at the end of the week.’ Standing beside the laptop, Lily curled her arms around Ceri’s waist and snuggled against her back; not getting in the way just making her presence known.

  Ceri tapped the display into life and examined the readouts. The collector’s temperature had dropped by five degrees with the loss of solar heating, but there was no sign of any instability in the output. ‘So far so good,’ she said.

  ‘Good,’ Lily said, kissing the nape of Ceri’s neck. A shiver ran straight down Ceri’s spine to settle in her groin.

  ‘Friday and Saturday night are going to be damn hard,’ Ceri said softly.

  ‘For me too,’ Lily replied.

  Ceri chuckled softly. ‘You aren’t addicted…’

  ‘Yes I am,’ Lily interrupted her. ‘Succubi are commonly addicted to sex. I’ve avoided it, more or less, even before I met you… And then I just let it happen because it was you.’

  ‘Oh.’ Unsure what to say, Ceri eventually said, ‘Well, you can always go find someone to have a fling…’

  ‘No I can’t’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you’re going to order me not to.’

  ‘I’m what?!’ Ceri turned in Lily’s arms, leaning back slightly so she could look at her friend without crossing her eyes. ‘Why in widder’s name would I do that?’

  ‘Because I want you to, of course. I don’t want my stupid instincts getting the better of me and having some stupid one night stand because I’m horny.’ The sincerity in Lily’s black eyes was almost a surprise.

  ‘Okay then,’ Ceri said, ‘I order you, as your Mistress, not to indulge yourself.’ Lily smiled almost childishly. ‘Unless,’ Ceri added, and Lily’s expression became surprised, ‘Michael comes over. You can indulge yourself with him.’ Michael was, technically, Ceri’s mate, but since he had to share her with Lily, she was of the opinion that she had to share him with Lily in turn. ‘Just if he visits, mind, you’re not allowed to go looking for him.’

  Lily grinned and leaned forward, her soft lips grazing Ceri’s. ‘Thank you, Mistress,’ she breathed. The kiss deepened, Lily’s tongue sliding out to tease at Ceri’s. Another shiver ran down Ceri’s spine and joined its friend where they became a tingle.

  Breaking the kiss, Ceri mumbled, ‘We should go back to the others.’

  ‘Mmhmm,’ Lily replied, but her lips closed in again. She always tasted so good. The tingle grew into a gentle throb.

  ‘Maybe… a quickie,’ Ceri groaned.

  June 7th

  ‘I love your ankle chain.’ Ceri looked around from setting up the third thaumometer column to find Shelly standing behind her. ‘Lily has one too, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Ceri replied. ‘They were a present from our other housemate.’

  ‘They’re fae silver?’

  ‘Well, she’s a fairy,’ Ceri said, grinning.

  Shelly’s eyes widened. ‘You live with a fairy and a half-demon?’

  This time Ceri laughed. ‘And two nights a week I turn myself into a wolf-girl and spend the night with my werewolf mate. Just a normal girl, I am.’

  Shelly giggled and looked around the circle. ‘I’ve never been into this place before. They don’t allow tourists among the stones.’

  ‘No, I know. They haven’t for a while, even when I was a kid.’

  ‘But you’ve been in here before, right? Inside the circle.’

  ‘Yes, last Winter Solstice, but I’m not allowed to talk about it. You can feel it though, can’t you? The power?’

  Shelley nodded. ‘Magic feels easier here, like it would flow better.’

  ‘It’s high enough here that even norms can cast if they know how. That’s why the Neo-pagans practice here at the Summer Solstice.’

  ‘I saw your piece on the evening news before we came out here,’ Shelly said. ‘We really can’t build things like this anymore?’

  ‘No.’ Ceri plugged in a final connector. ‘People have tried building replicas, but either the catalysis effect is positional, or there’s some sort of ritual or empowerment that’s required we simply don’t understand.’ She grimaced. ‘For all we know we have to sacrifice someone in the middle. I’m not sure we could go that far to generate power.’

  ‘What about the other sites?’ Ceri blinked at her. ‘Well, there’s nowhere with the kind of power output Stonehenge has, but there are a few other monuments with raised thaumic levels, right? Maybe you could… do this stuff to them.’

  ‘Uh, like?’ Ceri asked.

  ‘Well, locally there’s Woodhenge. It’s not exactly very hot, but it still has a slightly raised level. Um… Avebury! That’s north of here, you must have heard of that.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve heard of Avebury. You’re right, that does have an elevated level.’ Ceri looked thoughtfully at Shelly. ‘Do you know how to use a digital thaumometer?’

  ‘Uh, well, no, not really.’

  ‘Want to learn?’

  ~~~

  ‘She seemed rather keen,’ Cheryl commented as she stared over Ceri’s shoulder at the real-time display from the thaumometer rig Ceri had set up around the collector.

  ‘Shelly? Yeah, she did.’

  ‘What was it you sent her off to do?’

  Ceri tapped in a series of commands to filter the thaumic field display they were looking at. ‘She’s doing a survey of the field strength around one of the other local monuments, Woodhenge. It’s not too far away and she says it has an elevated field level. I think she was happy she could do something scientific to show off the awesome skills of ancient people.’

  Cheryl waved a hand vaguely at the screen. ‘Well, awesome is about right. I admit I don’t understand it. There’s obviously some mechanism which is catalysing T-Null decay… It’s almost like the polar field effect you discovered in were-creatures. A huge up-thrust of positive thaumitons rising from the centre of the circle.’

  ‘Yeah, but Stonehenge isn’t a living thing,’ Ceri replied. ‘There are no moving parts, there’s no electrical activity, there’s no obvious way that plume could be generated.’

  ‘Have you detected anything about the stone formation which would account for it?’

  Ceri shook her head. ‘I had time to take a look at the stones at the Solstice. The field flows around them, but there’s no real evidence that they are responsible for it.’ She frowned thoughtfully. ‘They may focus it, I’m not sure.’ Straightening from examining the display, she walked to the tent flap and, pulling it open, looked out at the huge stones. ‘The plume, is it the same diameter all the way up?’

  Cheryl’s fingers flicked over the keyboard. ‘No. The field lines appear to be spreading from the ground upward.’

  ‘Which means, if we take the analogy of the Chakral Median, that the actual power generation pole is buried under the circle,’ Ceri mused. ‘The primary flow is definitely contained mostly within the
circle. It bulges where the stones have fallen. I can’t wait to see the map the boys are creating. I bet you the external field strength is greater on the south west side.’

  Cheryl laughed. ‘Do you actually believe I’d bet against you on something like that?’

  ‘Not if you wanted to win.’ Ceri looked back and grinned.

  ~~~

  ‘This is excellent work,’ Cheryl said, ‘all of you.’ The little nod she gave to Shelly produced a beaming smile. ‘So, Ceri was right and the stones seem to act as a containment system rather than producing the energy.’

  ‘How do you work that out?’ Trudy asked, looking down at the map Cheryl had spread on the table with all the carefully marked field levels dotted over it.

  ‘You see the way the field is stronger to the south west of the circle?’ Cheryl asked.

  ‘Which is where there’s a big gap in the stones,’ Trudy said, realisation dawning.

  ‘Exactly.’

  Ceri was busy examining the markings Shelley had added to the map. Off to the east of Stonehenge where the enigmatic location known as Woodhenge lay, there was a noticeable spike in thaumic activity. ‘You’re absolutely sure about these figures, Shelly?’

  The young witch looked a little uncertain. ‘I did everything just like you showed me,’ she said. ‘I took positional measurements and thaumic readings at each point, and I double checked each of them, and I walked a five pace grid, just like you said.’

  Ceri nodded and pointed at a point on the measurements on the west-south-west side. ‘See here, the readings are consistently slightly higher?’

  ‘An error in the readings?’ Brian suggested.

  ‘A ley line?!’ Shelly squeaked excitedly.

  ‘A subterranean one, I suspect,’ Ceri said, nodding at Shelly. ‘However, since experimental error is possible, and I suspect there could be more evidence, I want the four of you to go over there tomorrow and take readings from that henge back toward this one.’ She looked at the readings and sucked on her teeth. ‘I’d say about a ten yard path should do it’

  Ant patted his girlfriend on the shoulder. ‘We’ll turn you into a scientist yet,’ he said, grinning.

  ‘She’s quite happy being a witch,’ Ceri said. ‘Mind you, I think most practitioners can benefit from a little knowledge of the theory behind it all.’ She grinned at Shelly. ‘I know I do.’

  ‘That is because you theorise your way through all your spells,’ Cheryl said.

  ‘Carter taught me some,’ Ceri said, pouting a little, ‘and I learned a few on the PPC course, and Alexandra taught me some healing magic. It’s not like I make it up as I go along.’ Cheryl looked at her. ‘All the time,’ Ceri added sheepishly.

  ‘All right,’ Cheryl said, smirking, ‘there’s an hour or so before dinner so do what you wish for a while. We’re getting really good results from this. Well done.’

  Ceri walked out of the tent and a few yards from the camp, looking out at the stones. Her Sight showed her the swell of the magic field, as it had done before the Solstice, and when she had been inside it, held by a demon-werewolf and waiting to discover whether she was to die or not.

  She felt Lily behind her before her demon’s arms encircled her waist. ‘You’re sad,’ Lily whispered, her mouth close to Ceri’s ear.

  ‘Not sad… exactly. I was thinking about Remus.’

  ‘Huh,’ Lily grunted in reply.

  ‘I know it’s crazy, but I feel sorry for him.’

  ‘It’s not that crazy. He wasn’t the one had you tortured. He even had you healed afterward.’

  ‘He actually respected me,’ Ceri said, ‘and the Order still doesn’t.’

  ‘No, they’re just scared you’ll out them as a scheming bunch of pacted nutters bent on taking over the country.’

  That got a giggle out of Ceri. ‘True. And it’s not like I respect them.’

  ‘Nor should you. Anyone dumb enough to form a pact with a demon doesn’t deserve respect.’

  ‘What about binding a half-succubus?’

  ‘That,’ Lily replied, ‘deserves respect. We’re harder to bind than a normal succubus, and succubi are among the stronger forms of basic demon.’ Ceri had to admit she was right. It had taken a huge amount of power to perform the binding ritual on Lily, half-demon or not. The wizards who had bound succubi in the seventies had to have been really determined.

  ‘Y’know,’ Lily went on, ‘there’s something a bit weird about the magic around here.’

  ‘There is?’

  ‘Yeah, it feels… different. C’mon, let’s go ask Alec something.’ She let go of Ceri’s waist and started back toward the tents with a slightly bewildered Ceri following behind her.

  Alec and Shelly were busy around a portable stove making burgers. Shelly was shaping minced beef into thick discs for Alec to cook. Lily ignored the mouth-watering smells and got straight down to business. ‘Alec, what does this place smell of?’

  The big man raised an eyebrow. ‘Right now? Cooking beef.’ He wiped at the corner of his mouth. ‘And I plan to be munching on some of it really soon, otherwise I may eat Shelly.’

  Shelly studiously shaped burgers and tried not to look too embarrassed. Lily did not help. ‘I’m sure she’d love every minute, but I meant when you aren’t cooking.’

  He paused, raising his head and sniffing. ‘Power,’ he said. ‘Demonic? No, not quite demonic. It’s… different. It’s a bit like…’ He lowered his head and looked at Ceri. ‘It’s a bit like the scent when you’re working magic.’

  ‘You can smell magic?’ Shelly asked.

  ‘They can smell the ionisation effects from discharged spells, magic fields, stuff like that,’ Ceri explained. ‘Thaumitons are charged particles and they can affect gas molecules in the atmosphere.’

  ‘Humans can smell it too,’ Alec said. ‘We’ve got more sensitive noses so we can sense it at lower levels.’

  Shelly passed over another burger. ‘You know, now you mention it, if I work a lot of magic in my room the place smells of…’ She trailed off, trying to think of the right word.

  ‘Ozone, usually,’ Ceri said, ‘a bit like the seaside.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s it.’

  ‘Different types of magic smell a little different,’ Alec explained. There was a sizzle as he dropped the latest chunk of meat onto a pan.

  ‘For me,’ Lily said, ‘they feel different. Demons can actually detect magic around them, all I get is a feeling, but this place feels different.’

  Ceri frowned thoughtfully. ‘Thanks, Alec.’ She started off toward Cheryl’s tent.

  ‘Take a burger with you,’ he said. ‘There’s buns on the table in the tent.’

  Nodding distractedly, Ceri picked up a plate with food on and wandered off. Alec thought the circle smelled like her magic, and Lily obviously thought it felt similar. Had Stonehenge been erected by a sorcerer, or empowered by one? If it had, how could she prove it? This was going to be difficult. Especially without revealing what she was to everyone.

  June 8th

  The late night air was still warm, but now there was a crisp element to it; a hint of grass on the breeze coming from the north west. Ceri stood at the edge of the inner circle, her mind working through what she wanted to do.

  The idea was simple enough; adjust her sight so that she could see through the packed earth beneath her feet. She was sure that the source of the magic field was down there, buried under soil which had remained undisturbed for millennia. In practice, her knowledge of Earth magic was not that great so she was having to work from first principles. The magic field was strong here, she could use that like light…

  Concentrating, she focussed her Sight, willing it to new levels of resolution as she peered downward into the ground. At first there was nothing but earth, packed by centuries of footfalls. She kept looking, altering her depth of focus and sweeping the area. Then it appeared.

  She gasped at the sight. Perhaps twenty yards down, beneath the centre of the circle and right un
der the collector, was a skull. About five feet in length, it had a long snout and jaw, wide eye sockets, and it housed a set of six-inch teeth which could have bitten a horse in half. At first she thought it was a dinosaur skull, but as she focussed harder she realised that it was no fossil. This was bone, the muzzle pointed upward toward the sky.

  ‘It’s a bloody dragon skull,’ she murmured.

  ‘Under the circle?’ Ceri jerked around at the sound of Alec’s voice. He was standing a few feet away, watching her, and he was naked.

  Keeping her eyes firmly on his face, she said, ‘Yeah. Buried way down, but it’s there. You gave me a shock.’

  ‘Sorry. I was going out for a run and I saw you standing over here.’

  Ceri’s hand drifted to her throat and the silver-studded leather collar fixed around it. ‘I was planning to do the same. Once I’d finished.’

  ‘You finished? I wouldn’t say no to the company.’

  ‘Okay.’ She reached for the hem of the loose shirt she was wearing and then stopped. ‘Uh… you’ve never seen me in fur before, have you?’

  ‘No, but… Oh! Alexandra mentioned the black fur. It’s okay. I guess if I’d just seen it I might have been a little… upset, but she’s right, if anyone deserves it, you do.’ Before she could say anything in response, he shifted. There was a fraction of a second, perhaps even a trick of vision, where Alec’s human form and wolf form occupied the same space, and then there was just the huge, black-furred wolf-man. Werewolves came in three basic colours. Greys were the most common, though brown was seen in increasing numbers due to interbreeding with humans. Those of the purest blood were black.

  Ceri pulled her shirt off trying not to blush at being topless in front of Alec. It was just going to get worse; turning her back, she pushed denim shorts off her hips, dropped them to the ground, and reached up to touch her collar. Her skin tingled as the magic enveloped and reshaped her, and she turned back to look at Alec through eyes which could barely see colour, but could see much better in the dark.

  Alec rumbled at her. Good wolf.

  Thanks, she growled back. She twitched her head off toward the north, he nodded back, and then they were running.