Thaumatology 101 Read online

  The doctor took a sip of coffee and composed herself. ‘I have some bad news,’ she said. ‘There was a fire at the lab last night. Some equipment was damaged, but C… one of our backers has already agreed to fund the replacements.’ Ceri and Lily exchanged a glance; the backer had to be Carter. ‘The real problem is that the fire started in the storage unit where the experimental data was. It’s gone! It’s stupid of me, but I hadn’t backed it up yet, and now it’s gone! All that work, you getting… hurt… and now it’s…’ Her voice, which had moved from something close to her normal speech patterns to rambling, broke down entirely as she started to sob. ‘I’m sorry,’ she stammered out.

  Ceri and Lily exchanged another glance. There was the tiniest flicker of red in the half-demon’s eyes. ‘Just happy,’ Ceri said under her breath.

  Lily slid from her stool and moved across to the big, wing-back chair where Tennant was sitting. Her long, delicate fingers covered the doctor’s hands. ‘It’s all right, Cheryl,’ Lily said. ‘You don’t have to be sorry. You’ve had a nasty shock. It’s okay.’ The soothing words were accompanied by a soft succubus aura, barely a tickle, but enough to make the older woman relax slowly into her seat, a smile starting to play across her lips as the tears dried.

  Ceri frowned. Normally she would have felt the aura as a tingle in her wrists. Whenever Lily had done this trick before it had felt as though someone was lightly running a feather over her tattoos; not unpleasant, actually. She still had her bandages on and was not really surprised to not feel anything there, but there was an odd feeling at the back of her skull, like the skin was tightening. She had never felt anything like it before, but she ignored it; she had other things to worry about.

  ‘Was anyone hurt, Doctor? Do you know why the fire started?’ Ceri kept her voice light. The aura Lily was using was a very weak one and pulling Tennant back to reality too sharply would break it. Then they would just have a sobbing woman on their hands again.

  ‘No, no one,’ Tennant replied, sounding a little dreamy. ‘We were kind of lucky, actually. It was an electrical fire. There was this fireman and he was telling me…’ She trailed off softly, her smile broadening. ‘He was really nice. Big broad shoulders, and he looked so strong, and I think he kind of fancied me because I could see this huge bulge…’

  ‘Little too happy, Lil,’ Ceri muttered. ‘You were saying we were lucky, Doctor?’ she added more loudly.

  ‘Oh, um, yes, well…’ The prim doctor was looking a little flustered now and there was a flush on her cheeks. Lily had definitely overdone the aura. ‘Yes, Shane was in the lab late last night. If he’d been there when the fire started…’

  Lily looked around at Ceri, her eyes still glowing red from the pupils. Ceri was thinking the same thing; Shane had gone to the lab, and then the data to prove the existence of the particle they were looking for had gone. ‘What was Shane doing there?’ Ceri asked.

  ‘Oh, he would work weekends sometimes.’ Tennant actually giggled. ‘Between you and me, he wasn’t that good. If he hadn’t put in extra hours I’d have sacked him when you came along, Ceri. It’s okay if I call you Ceri isn’t it?’ She looked at Lily suddenly. ‘How did you know my name was Cheryl? It’s all right that you know. You can call me Cheryl if you want. You have lovely eyes…’

  ‘Carter mentioned it,’ Lily said.

  ‘Oh! You know Carter? He’s gorgeous. Such a gentleman when he should be, and then…’

  ‘I work at the Jade Dragon,’ Lily told her.

  ‘I’ve never been there. Is it nice? I went to the Green Rooms to meet him when he was thinking of making the endowment. We had drinks in one of the private rooms and then he asked if I’d like to stay after the Dean left.’ She let out a soft, contented sigh. She did not actually say anything, but it was still way too much information. Lily looked back at Ceri and smirked.

  ‘I think,’ Ceri said, ‘you should take a nap, Doctor.’

  ‘Call me Cheryl, dear,’ Tennant responded, her eyelids fluttering toward closed. ‘Please, no need for…’ She yawned and sank back into the leather chair. ‘Sorry, where was I?’

  ‘Just close your eyes and rest,’ Ceri said. ‘Relax.’

  ‘I have been up,’ another yawn, ‘half the night. A nap would be…’ Her head fell to one side and she was out.

  Lily climbed to her feet. ‘I didn’t do that,’ she said, waving at Tennant’s sleeping form.

  Ceri shrugged. ‘Yeah, you kind of did. You made her very happy and a bit suggestible, and I suggested she went to sleep. She probably didn’t get much sleep last night so…’ She giggled softly to avoid waking the doctor and waved for Lily to follow her out of the room. ‘It was like she was on Sodium Pentothal,’ she said. ‘I hope she doesn’t remember too much of that or she’ll be as embarrassed as hell.’

  Closing the lounge door behind her, Lily let out a far from innocent chuckle. ‘She’s kind of sexy for an older woman. I could get her over her embarrassment.’

  ‘Lily…’ Ceri whined. ‘It’s bad enough knowing she bumped hips with Carter without thinking about her doing it with you!’

  Lily flicked her glossy, chestnut hair and started down the stairs to the kitchen. ‘I’m a half-succubus,’ she said. ‘I like sex, so sue me.’

  ~~~

  It was almost sunset when Cheryl appeared in the kitchen doorway looking a little sheepish. ‘I, uh, nodded off,’ she said.

  Lily rose from the chair she was perched on. ‘Sit down,’ she said, smiling.

  Cheryl’s cheeks coloured. ‘Uh, thank you… Lily?’

  ‘That’s right, Cheryl,’ Lily replied, moving to her favourite position, leaning against the counter. She folded her arms and crossed her legs at the ankle, and stood there watching as Cheryl took her seat.

  ‘There’s something you should know,’ Ceri said.

  Cheryl pulled her gaze away from Lily. ‘Uh… there is?’

  ‘I logged into the university’s network yesterday,’ Ceri said, trying hard not to grin at her superior’s discomfort. ‘I saw all that data on the system and I thought I might look through it, y’know, while I was resting.’ There was a muffled snort from Lily and Ceri glared at her, receiving only a mischievous smirk in reply. ‘So I downloaded it.’

  Cheryl’s jaw dropped. ‘You have the data?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘All of the data.’

  Ceri nodded. ‘Carter gifted me this tablet.’ She indicated the inactive computer on the table. ‘There was a networked disc thing that went with it. Loads and loads of space on it, so I dumped the data onto that. It’s in the study. I was looking at it earlier. The micro-channel plate detector data looked very… Are you okay?’

  Cheryl looked like she was about to start crying again. Her lower lip was quivering and her eyes were wet. ‘You’ve saved me, dear girl,’ she said. ‘Even with Carter’s money it would have taken months to get everything set up and recalibrated. Barnes would have cracked it by then, I’m sure of it.’ She took in a deep breath, let it out, and sat up straighter. ‘Very well, if you’re going to insist on working when you should be recuperating, you keep the data here and start on the analysis. I’ll begin reconstructing the lab with Shane.’

  Looking infinitely better than she had when she walked in that afternoon, Cheryl climbed to her feet. ‘I’ll head back to my flat and celebrate the salvation of my career, I think,’ she said.

  Lily pushed off from the counter. ‘It’s getting dark,’ she said. ‘I’ll walk you home.’ Ceri looked at her, quirking an eyebrow. Lily’s lips twitched.

  ‘That’s all right, dear,’ Cheryl said. ‘I can manage to…’

  ‘I insist,’ Lily interrupted. ‘You’ve had a lot of shocks today, even if some of them were good, and I know you academic types. You’ll be drifting along planning when you should be paying attention to your surroundings.’

  ‘Well, if you insist,’ Cheryl said, and there was a slightly breathy quality to her voice. Ceri felt the same slight pressure at t
he back of her skull she had noticed earlier. The Doctor turned and wandered out through the kitchen door. ‘Goodnight, Ceri,’ she called over her shoulder.

  Lily moved to follow, grinning at Ceri as she went. ‘Don’t wait up for me,’ she said.

  Ceri blinked at her retreating back. ‘Have fun,’ she murmured, picking up her tablet and flicking the power button.

  September 8th

  ‘You know,’ Lily said, ‘I’m not sure what the point is of sitting in the sun when you’re constantly trying to avoid it.’

  ‘I can’t see the screen properly if there’s glare on it,’ Ceri replied. Sat on a lounger with her back to the sun and the tablet in her lap, she could work just fine, and not get scolded by Twill for being indoors on such a beautiful day. Frankly, she felt a little weird sitting on the roof in her two-piece, covered in sun oil, with bandages around her forearms, but it was better that than an irritated fairy.

  ‘How’s the analysis coming?’ Lily said. She was, as usual, stretched out in the buff, enjoying the heat.

  ‘Much better now,’ Ceri replied. Her fingers slid across the touchscreen, manipulating a 3D schematic model of the circle showing projected particle paths. Red curves showed the positive thaumitons, blue showed the negative ones.

  ‘So I had a good idea?’ Lily pressed.

  Ceri looked across at her lithe friend and grinned, though Lily could not see it through closed eyelids. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you had a good idea.’

  When Lily had arrived back at High Towers the previous morning wearing a distinctly satisfied expression, she had found a distinctly less satisfied Ceri glaring at her brand new tablet with murderous intent. The machine was powerful, had amazing graphics, and superb networking, but it had never been designed to do the kind of intensive mathematical processing she was asking of it.

  Lily had listened to half an hour of Ceri griping about performance, and then she had called Carter. An hour later an IT technician had arrived at the door, and an hour after that there was a new box sitting beside the network storage unit in the study. Slaved to the tablet, it did all the hard work for the tablet to display. And it was fast! Ceri had almost drooled.

  ‘I have them sometimes,’ Lily said. Ceri could almost feel the smug satisfaction. ‘Though it does help when I’ve had brain food.’

  ‘You mean brainy food, don’t you?’

  Lily’s head turned and she opened one eye. Her lips twitched. ‘If that were the case, you could make me an absolute genius.’

  Ceri looked down at her tablet again, hiding her glowing cheeks. ‘Or a pile of ash,’ she said.

  Lily let out a rather exaggerated sigh. ‘The risk could be worth it,’ she said.

  Fingers flicked across the tablet in silence as Ceri identified a cluster of origin points, zoomed in, and sent a request for that area to be run through the detailed analysis routines she had written.

  ‘Sorry,’ Lily said. ‘Not sure what’s up with me at the moment.’

  There was another second or two of silence and then Ceri said, ‘I don’t know either, but I feel kind of… weird too.’

  ‘Weird?’ There was a creak from the lounger; Lily had sat up, properly paying attention.

  Ceri shrugged. ‘Little things. Monday, when you used your aura on Doctor Tennant, I felt nothing from my tats, but it felt strange in my head. Like… like the skin on the back of my neck was tight. And, um… I keep thinking maybe it’s worth the risk too.’

  She had half expected Lily to laugh, or suggest they go straight to bed. She had a quick flash of fantasy of being taken there on the lounger. Lily just sat there, considering the statement. ‘That is kind of odd,’ she finally said. ‘I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve wanted you for five years, give or take. It’s just that…’

  ‘The fact that I suddenly feel like taking you up on the offer is kind of scary?’ Ceri suggested.

  ‘Yeah, but you realise it’s not the first odd thing? You had that whole thing about the air being let in when you got out of hospital.’ Lily’s head tilted slightly to one side. ‘Something about the lab accident changed you.’ She was looking at Ceri intently. ‘You’re… less cautious. Twill said you used to be more shy, right? Not so much letting the air in as letting you out of a box.’ The intent stare was beginning to get uncomfortable.

  The tablet chimed and Ceri looked down automatically. ‘Oh shit!’ she exclaimed.

  Lily bounced off the lounger, closing the distance between them. ‘What?!’ The odd tight feeling at the back of Ceri’s head, that she had not even noticed was there, vanished so quickly she thought she had imagined it.

  ‘That’s… that’s it,’ Ceri explained. ‘The only possible explanation for these emission patterns is T-Null particles decaying against the containment circle. It fits the theory perfectly.’ She looked up at Lily, her expression one of shocked excitement. ‘We’ve done it, Lil. We’ve found the proof.’

  ~~~

  For some reason, opening the door to Doctor Tennant in swimwear did not bother Ceri as much as the shirt had. Besides, this time her boss was grinning with the same kind of excitement that had had Ceri stalking around the house for the last hour while the processor box quadruple checked her calculations, in three times the detail.

  ‘You’re sure?’ Cheryl said without preamble. ‘You’re absolutely positive?’

  Ceri nodded, grinning. ‘You’ll need to verify the algorithms, check the data used, the usual, but…’

  ‘But I’m not going to find any errors,’ Cheryl interrupted as she walked past and into the hall.

  Ceri giggled. ‘Go up to the lounge,’ she said. ‘You can at least look at the results and go “yes, that all looks good” before we celebrate.’

  Cheryl stopped not far into the lounge. Ceri slipped past her, hiding a grin and carried on to pick up her tablet from the round table in the middle of the room. ‘Don’t mind Lily,’ she said. ‘She usually doesn’t wear anything around the house unless we have guests she hasn’t slept with.’ She looked back at Cheryl, who was looking suitably embarrassed, and waved the tablet. ‘This is the data.’

  Lily was actually wearing something, a pair of high-heels. It just made her look sexier as she stood calmly by the fireplace, one leg slightly before the other, hands behind her back. Ceri could tell it took an act of will for Cheryl to make herself move and take the tablet. Succubi were addictive, a single day would not be enough to get over a night with even a half-succubus like Lily. Lily smiled. ‘It’s nice to see you again, Cheryl,’ she said.

  The self-confident doctor smiled back, a little timidly. ‘It’s nice to, uh, see you again too, Lily,’ she said, eyes fixed on the perfect body. Ceri took pity on her and steered her over to a chair. Once Cheryl was faced with the data analysis her scientific instincts kicked in and Lily was pushed out of her mind. Or at least to the back of it.

  Ceri sat in the opposite chair and waited. Lily remained quite still, knowing that if she moved Cheryl’s eyes would be drawn from the tablet. The Doctor’s fingers moved over the touchscreen, examining the numbers and diagrams Ceri had collected together. It seemed like hours before Cheryl lifted her head. ‘My God, we couldn’t have asked for more perfect results,’ she said. ‘You realise the area of the circle this cluster came from…’

  ‘Is the part which breached,’ Ceri said. ‘Yes, I noticed that. The computer is working over three smaller emission groups from other parts of the circle, and two areas which look like recombination sites. I’m pretty sure we’ll get good results from those too, but this group was so large it was easy to get good statistics.’

  ‘So,’ Lily said, ‘what you’re saying is that if Shane sabotaged the circle, he actually made it easier for you to find the results you were looking for?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Cheryl said. ‘You think Shane was responsible for the breach?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lily said flatly. She stepped forward, settling onto her perch on the footstool beside Ceri and leaning over on the chair’s arm.

>   ‘Lily’s sure,’ Ceri said, ‘but the evidence is circumstantial. There’s no way I could prove anything.’ She shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter. We write up a paper based on this analysis, send it out for peer review… Journal of Thaumatology, you think?’

  Cheryl nodded. ‘The university will want to put something in Thaumatology Monthly too,’ she said. ‘A preliminary announcement, of course, but it puts a marker down. They’ll want to interview both of us.’

  Ceri grimaced. ‘You’re the lead researcher…’

  Cheryl laughed. ‘Monthly likes to put some human interest behind their science pieces, dear. Even assuming we leave out living in a “haunted” house with a half-succubus and a fairy, you’re a bright, attractive young woman, and your parents were famous. You’ll make very good copy.’

  ‘We can get one of Carter’s PR people to help if you’re worried, Ceri,’ Lily said.

  ‘I’m not sure I want to have myself painted as some kind of playgirl postgrad super-scientist,’ Ceri replied.

  Lily giggled. ‘That’s more Carter’s public image. I’m sure they can have you looking like a nun if that’s what you really want.’ She turned slightly, resting her chin on her forearms on the chair and grinning up at Ceri. She was giving off that same “submissive little pet” vibe she had done in front of Carter. Ceri looked down at her; damn it if it was not starting to work.

  Ceri blinked. The tight feeling was there again in the back of her head. Lily’s eyes had a dull red glow in the pupils. She was probably not even consciously doing it. Ceri glanced at Cheryl to see the older woman relaxing back into her seat, the tablet forgotten in her lap. Ceri felt her nipples tighten along with the skin on her skull. ‘Stop that,’ she said.

  ‘Stop what?’ Lily asked innocently, and then blinked. ‘Sorry. Didn’t realise…’ She had dropped her eyes away from Ceri, but they stopped at chest height. ‘Ceri, um, are you cold?’

  Cheryl let out a whimper of loss as the light in Lily’s eyes went out. Ceri folded her arm across her breasts. ‘No,’ she said sharply, ‘I’m not cold. You were…’ She stopped, looking down at Lily. The half-succubus looked back at her, worry showing in her eyes. ‘I’ve never felt it before,’ Ceri whispered.