Thaumatology 04 - Dragon's Blood Page 4

  One of the things she loved about turning wolf was being able to run. Michael would take her running through Battersea Park at least one night a week, chasing rabbits or just for the sake of it. Other wolves would join them, and then peel off on their own fun-runs; it was exciting and enjoyable. Running with Alec was different, but they had the huge expanse of the Salisbury Plain to lope over; Ceri was thoroughly enjoying herself as they ran past Larkhill, carried on north, and eventually ran into a thicket of trees and scrub bushes.

  Panting, her tongue hanging out, Ceri came to a stop leaning against a tree and Alec pulled up beside her, rumbling the wolf equivalent of laughter. Good run. You fine wolf.

  Ceri had learned not to giggle in wolf form; it came out really wrong. She gave her own rumble of laughter instead and tried to regain control of her breathing. Perhaps it was that lack of breath control that stopped her recognising the scent earlier. As it was, Alec had moved close enough that his breath was gently ruffling the fur on her cheek before she smelled his arousal. She knew he found her attractive. He had made that plain on several occasions, and in wolf form his instincts were more in control than his head. That was the big difference between Ceri and a real werewolf; she took the physical form, but her mind stayed fully human. Coming out with him had been stupid; seeing her like this was only going to make his attraction worse…

  His big hand gripped her left hip and his muzzle touched hers. She realised he was trembling, struggling to stop himself from giving in to a desire he had had for almost a year. If she told him to stop, she suspected he would, but… The scent of her own arousal was apparent to her now, and it had to be filling his nose too. The silver ankle chain she wore had the effect of increasing her libido and, if she were honest, the thought of being taken by Alec had strayed through her mind more than once. She gave a soft whine. She could stop this any time; just say “no” and he would let her go…

  Slowly, tentatively, she turned her back on him and leaned against the tree. His hands gripped her hips and she tilted them back. Werewolves were not big on foreplay.

  ~~~

  ‘I hope you kept some for me,’ Lily said softly as Ceri slipped into the tent, dumping her shirt and shorts in a corner. Of course, she would have felt it. ‘How was he?’

  Ceri dropped down beside her with a sigh. ‘Big,’ she said, ‘and kind of urgent.’

  ‘It’s okay you know. I don’t mind. It might even have got that out of his system. Ever since you burned Remus the main desire I’ve felt from him has been getting between your legs. When Cheryl’s not around anyway.’

  Ceri managed a half-hearted giggle. She was feeling guilty and Lily knew it. However, she had known Lily would be fine with it; Lily understood lust better than anyone Ceri knew. It was Cheryl she was feeling guilty about. Still, it was her last night with Lily before her and Alec had to head off until Sunday. ‘Get the gag and some restraints out,’ she said. ‘I deserve some mistreatment.’

  Lily beamed at her and reached for a bag.

  ~~~

  It was mid-afternoon and Ceri found herself alone in the small camp with Cheryl. The morning had been a rush of planning meetings with the survey crew before sending them off to map Woodhenge’s magic field. With them gone, by unspoken arrangement, the two thaumatologists had quietly retired to their tents to say a proper farewell to their partners. So it was around three o’clock before they got a chance to talk.

  ‘So there’s a dragon skull under the circle?’ Cheryl said.

  ‘Uh-huh. Big one. It must have been there since… well, before the circle was built.’

  Cheryl walked, a little stiffly, to a pile of documents she had brought with her and leafed through them. ‘Well, the first phase of development here was a ditch and bank enclosure they dated to thirty-one hundred BC.’

  ‘That’s about the time of the Neolithic Flare, right?’ Archaeologists believed that there had been a flare of thaumic activity, the origin unknown, around 3000 BC which had continued through well into the Bronze Age. They had named it the Neolithic Flare because that date was around the middle of the Neolithic period in Britain.

  ‘Yes, though I admit my palaeo-thaumatology isn’t that great. A group could have discovered a slight increase in thaumic level here and built the circle to mark it, I guess.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you know any palaeo-thaumatologists?’ Ceri lent her behind on the table to rest her legs, winced, and stood up again.

  ‘Oxford has a fairly large group,’ Cheryl replied. ‘Peter Mallow is probably our best bet for dragons. Technically not his area, but I know he’s been collaborating with the Chinese and someone in Aberystwyth on a study of ancient dragons. Some of them might be able to explain how part of a dead dragon’s skeleton is generating magic. Maybe.’ She put down her papers and walked toward one of the chairs, settling down with a sigh.

  ‘You’re, um, a bit stiff,’ Ceri commented.

  ‘No, I’m a bit sore,’ Cheryl replied wryly, ‘and you’re looking a bit tender.’

  ‘I, uh, felt like I needed punishing last night and Lily obliged.’ Ceri’s lips quirked. ‘Quite enthusiastically, actually.’

  ‘Interesting. Alec came back from his run last night… unusually horny.’

  ‘Oh,’ Ceri said flatly.

  Cheryl smirked. ‘It’s all right, he told me what happened. I don’t mind, you know. It would be horribly hypocritical of me to be annoyed. I sleep with Alec and Carter, occasionally at the same time, Carter sleeps with other women and that doesn’t bother me. Why should Alec getting some tail bother me?’

  ‘Well…’ She was right, of course, it was just that guilt and logic were never great bedfellows.

  ‘It’s you and you’re bothered about sleeping with a friend’s boyfriend?’ Cheryl suggested.

  ‘Yeah, that.’

  ‘Considering the rather odd relationships we both have, dear, I think I’d rather prefer he slept with a friend than a complete stranger.’ Cheryl looked a little surprised at her own comment, but equally fairly sure she was right. ‘Besides, I think you were more of an appetiser.’ Grinning, she looked up at Ceri. ‘How was he?’

  Ceri blushed. ‘Well, you know werewolves…’

  ‘Actually, I’ve only had the one.’

  ‘Ah, well, they heard of foreplay and thought it was a great idea for humans. I don’t know what he’s like in skin, but I know Michael’s learned to be a bit more… thoughtful in man-form. He’s still all animal passion when we’re furry and Alec was the same.’

  ‘You didn’t enjoy it?’ Cheryl sounded a little disappointed.

  ‘Oh of course I did! It’s just different. It’s a good job I’ve got the enhanced senses and the anklet, gets me worked up before they even start. I don’t know if it’s different for she-wolves, real ones, but I get the feeling they just get on all fours and let the males get on with it a lot.’ She frowned thoughtfully. ‘Maybe that’s why the orgies are popular. I know they function as a group bonding exercise as well. The North Hills barely ever stay at High Towers without us all ending up shagging in the lounge. The Battersea pack doesn’t do it so much, not in huge numbers anyway, but there’s more casual sex than you’d get among a group of humans.’

  Cheryl smiled. ‘I envy you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Being able to transform like that, join in and research their behaviour from the inside. That night you changed me for Alec’s birthday? It was enormous fun. We didn’t just have sex all night. He took me running, like you suggested, and he taught me a little werewolf, and I got a little glimpse of what his life is like. It’s… Looking at the world through different eyes is always informative.’

  Ceri looked at her for a second. ‘Come with me,’ she said and turned to walk out of the tent. A few seconds later, preceded by some groans, Cheryl joined her. ‘Okay,’ Ceri said, suppressing a smirk at Cheryl’s discomfort, ‘just hold still and keep your eyes on the stones.’ She reached out and put her hand on Cheryl’s brow, concentrating on
the energy flows within Cheryl’s body. Ceri sensed things through the Ajna node on her Chakral Median. The tiny concentration of energy existed at the back of the head, roughly level with the forehead and was one of the three points which formed the spirit. Its effects manifested both as physical sensation and, when she wanted it to, visual information, but the sense was metaphysical and all Ceri had to do was sensitise Cheryl’s Chakral Ajna and…

  Cheryl gasped as the world Ceri saw suddenly opened up before her. Energy flowed up from the centre of the circle, spread out as it rose, and then flowed back to the stones where it seemed to almost boil around them. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘This is what you see all the time?’

  ‘When I want t,o anyway,’ Ceri said softly. She lifted her hand away from Cheryl’s head, it’s work done, but Cheryl caught it, squeezing gently.

  ‘Thank you. Can I keep it for a while?’

  Grinning, Ceri said, ‘I can keep it going for a while, yes.’

  Beaming, Cheryl started off toward the stones, her stiffness apparently forgotten as she saw the huge construct before her in a way she never had before.

  ~~~

  The mapping results were clear, and Shelly was apparently a good cook even without Alec to help.

  ‘So we’ve established that Stonehenge is feeding Woodhenge via a subterranean ley line,’ Cheryl said. ‘The mapping seems obvious given what Ceri found under the circle. The line from that to the centre of the henge is as perfect as we can get with this technology.’

  ‘A dragon skull.’ Shelly almost breathed the words. Well, it would be right up her alley.

  ‘Dragons disappeared a long time ago, right?’ Brian said.

  ‘Well, there are rumours of them turning up in all the higher magical periods,’ Trudy said. It was something of a surprise coming from her. ‘There was one skeleton found at a dig site in Anglesey about ten years ago, but the skull was badly crushed. However, even that had a very slight effect on the thaumic field level around it. They dated that to about thirty-two thousand years ago, just about the end of the Toba Flare period.’ She realised everyone was looking at her and grinned sheepishly. ‘I did a first year course in archaeology.’

  Ceri raised an eyebrow. ‘So, how did they date it?’

  ‘Oh, there’s a spell they use. It takes hours to delve back and find information about really old stuff, and usually they just get very basic information about it. Kind of psychometry.’

  Ceri nodded. ‘I guess I know what I’m doing tomorrow. I think finding out when the thing was put there could be important.’

  ‘What are we doing?’ Brian asked.

  ‘We’re going to reconfigure the collector,’ Cheryl said. ‘Having mapped out the flow of energy, and seen it for myself, I’ve got some ideas about putting the nodes together in a different configuration to improve the power production.’

  June 9th

  Ceri’s eyes flew open and she managed to stifle a scream by main force. The nightmare was still bright in her mind and she struggled out of damp bedding to the tent’s entrance, yanking the zip up and crawling out into the dim light of the early morning. The sun was not up yet, but there was enough light in the sky to see the stones; there were no demons or soldiers. Her hand went to her throat and came back clean; it had been nothing more than a nightmare. She curled up in the breeze, her head on her knees, confident that no one else was likely to discover her out in the open at this time in the morning.

  ‘Can’t sleep?’ Ceri looked up to see Cheryl standing over her in a pair of lacy boy-shorts and a flimsy camisole top. So much for not being discovered.

  ‘I could ask the same.’

  ‘I haven’t been alone in bed for almost a week,’ Cheryl said with a wry grin. ‘I’m a little surprised, but I’m missing the company. I heard a noise…’

  ‘I get nightmares when I sleep alone.’

  ‘You do look a bit sweaty. Come on, you can do me a favour and sleep in my tent. Maybe we’ll both get better sleep.’

  A little embarrassed to be nude in front of her boss, Ceri followed her back to the sleeping compartment in the big tent. They settled down under the blankets, facing away from each other. Ceri was certainly a little unsure about the arrangement, and she suspected Cheryl was, but she did feel more comfortable with a warm body beside her.

  ‘The nightmare?’ Cheryl asked, her voice quiet. ‘It was about what happened here last winter?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ceri replied. ‘This one was pretty bad.’ She felt Cheryl turning around to face her.

  ‘I know it was something to do with demons, but I never really heard the details.’

  Ceri turned onto her back with a sigh. Cheryl was looking at her. ‘Really, I’m not supposed to talk about it. The Ministry sent one of their people to see us and told us it was classified. The werewolves don’t want to talk about it anyway and every other human who was there is dead.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘The last one died in the spring. His friends killed him, tore his heart out of his chest.’

  ‘Some friends,’ Cheryl muttered. ‘If you can’t talk about it…’

  ‘Just don’t tell anyone,’ Ceri broke in. ‘Anyone. The only people who know some of this are Lily, Michael, and Twill.’ She looked at Cheryl, receiving a small, almost fearful, nod. ‘The events here last winter, and the trouble with the werewolves in London then, were caused by an ancient ghost. Remus, you know, the co-founder of Rome and all that? He’d been trying for centuries to get revenge for what he considered as his betrayal by his brother and humans in general. Somehow he became connected to a demon, Fenrir. The one from the Norse legends? The plan was to resurrect Fenrir, who would have control of all the werewolves and bring a year of intense winter.’

  ‘How did you get involved?’ Ceri was vaguely surprised that Cheryl was not more sceptical; the story sounded pretty crazy to her, and she had lived it.

  ‘Oh, various things. Alec had been trying to kill Remus since his pack was wiped out by Remus’ demon-wolves in the last war. Then when I got involved with the Battersea pack I met Alexandra and she told me I had to get involved. Otherwise Alec would get himself and the North Hills pack killed, and Remus would succeed. Why me? I have no idea. Maybe because I’m the first sorcerer to emerge this time around. I think I can do some things normal mages can’t. I had to use huge amounts of power to kill Remus, power I could only get by gathering it from the henge field and I don’t think a normal mage could do that.’

  Cheryl was silent. So far Ceri had said nothing particularly bad and there was clearly more to come. Ceri swallowed and continued. ‘So, Alec went missing, I found out some stuff about Remus, and Lily and I went looking for Alec and the North Hills pack. I knew they’d been attacked and Alexandra told me they were tracking Remus. We found them. Sure enough, Remus was nearby, in some woods a little way from here with mercenaries and wizards guarding him during the day. Problem was, I had no idea how I was supposed to stop him. There was no way we could do it from the outside. They had us on numbers and strength. So… I gave myself up to Remus.’

  ‘You what?!’

  ‘Walked into his camp and gave myself up. My theory was that if I didn’t know how I was supposed to stop him, he wouldn’t and he’d keep me alive in case my death was what did it. It was a calculated risk.’

  ‘I suppose it paid off, you’re alive,’ Cheryl said, still sounding disbelieving.

  ‘Yeah, it worked. Crazy thing is that Remus was quite nice about it. He told me we were enemies and our fates were tied together. One of us was going to die on the Solstice so why should we be nasty about it. He said I was the only person he could be honest with. The wizards who were with him though, they were convinced I knew something which could stop him. The first day I was there, Magnus, the leader, had me tortured. Well… they cuffed me to a table and the mercenaries took turns at me.’

  Cheryl’s hand came to rest on Ceri’s shoulder. It was a tentative gesture, but the look of pain in the thaumatolog
ist’s eyes brought a tear to Ceri’s. ‘That’s what I have the nightmares about, usually,’ Ceri said. ‘Remus had me healed overnight, but… I guess I’m not as strong as some people think I am.’

  ‘No one’s that strong,’ Cheryl told her.

  Ceri gave a little shrug and Cheryl’s hand squeezed her shoulder. ‘Anyway, come the night of the Solstice, Remus had all the mercenaries killed. I told them to get out before nightfall, but they wouldn’t listen. We went up to the circle and Remus started his ritual by slashing the throat of the mercenary leader. In tonight’s nightmare, I got raped, and then I took his place on the stone in the circle.’

  ‘Perhaps being here is making it worse?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Ceri replied. She hoped that was all it was.

  ‘How did you kill Remus?’

  ‘Oh, the only thing that could kill him was sunlight. I blasted him, making him shed his wolf form and try to escape as a ghost. Then I forced his ghost form to materialise and summoned up sunlight. He just burned away. Lily and the wolves turned up to take out the wizards. Everything worked out. There was much rejoicing.’

  ‘You… summoned sunlight?’

  ‘It’s not as hard as it sounds. Covering the whole circle and making him solid, that was harder. We’re talking hundreds of thaums, and I couldn’t have done it without the circle to provide the power.’

  Cheryl smiled. ‘So the place he chose to power his ritual also proved his undoing. Have to love the poetic justice.’

  ‘I’m not sure justice had anything to do with it,’ Ceri replied. ‘What happened to Remus was wrong. What he was doing in reply was wrong. Me killing him was just a matter of survival and I’m paying for it.’

  ‘Turn over,’ Cheryl said, and when Ceri did she settled up against Ceri’s back, wrapping a slender arm around her. ‘Let’s get some sleep.’

  Ceri chuckled softly. ‘Easy for you to say. Half the student body would like to be where I am now.’

  Cheryl giggled, just as softly. ‘We both like guys… and Lily. Go to sleep.’

  Ceri closed her eyes and tried to settle her mind. Telling Cheryl right now that she was not totally convinced of her sexuality was probably not the best idea.