Thaumatology 09 - Dragonfall

by Teasdale, Niall

  Then there was the coppice of trees ahead of them and they tumbled into the light brush yipping and barking. Some of the sounds actually meant something, but most were just sounds of happy play. Ceri knew what was coming, and she was sure Lily did too. When Michael pounced her a second later, she was not surprised. Alec and Carter grabbed a snickering Cheryl with obvious intentions. Ceri found her muzzle between Lily’s legs. Becoming a werewolf physically did not make one a werewolf mentally, but it was easy to fall into their more intimate view of pack relationships, especially when the relationship was quite intimate to begin with. Ceri felt Michael enter her, gave a soft growl of lust, and began to lap hungrily.

  September 4th

  The light breeze felt cool against her skin, but Ceri ignored it, looking down over the edge of the cliff to check where she was. There was no car wreck on the beach below, but it was definitely the same shoreline. This was where her parents had died.

  ‘I still don’t know why I left him for your father.’ The voice came from behind her and Ceri turned to see her mother standing there. Usually when she had dreams like this both her parents were there, but this time only Marion was with her. She was an attractive woman and Ceri had to admit she had got more of her looks from her father. They shared the same bright, blue eyes, however, and while Marion had a bigger bust she had the same sort of lithe figure as her daughter.

  ‘You really hurt him, Mum,’ Ceri said. ‘It sounded like you just lost it. I mean, he didn’t seem to blame you, but what you did just about destroyed him.’

  Marion nodded. ‘I know. It almost destroyed me too, but I… I was so in love with your father… and Carter… I…’ She trailed off, unable to continue. There were tears in her eyes which seemed to evaporate from her face as sparkles of light. She looked up, her expression suddenly fearful. ‘The thing we most feared is coming to pass, Ceri. They’re already here and they’ll use you to…’ Whatever she was going to say was lost as she turned her head to look around at something Ceri could not see, and then she was gone, vanished on the wind like a puff of smoke.

  ~~~

  Ceri opened her eyes and looked up at the blue sky overhead. Her mind was trying to recall a dream she had just had, but it seemed to be refusing to coalesce into anything solid. She shook her head, trying to clear it. It was another nice, bright, late summer day. She had no idea what the time was, but it was light, and pretty warm, and her muzzle was itching. She reached up and gave it a scratch before moving her clawed hand down to her throat so she could shift back to human.

  Sitting up, she found herself on a lounger beside the pool with Lily stretched out in the sun on another one nearby. Between them, Michael was curled up very tightly on a couple of cushions, which looked fairly uncomfortable, but he seemed to be happily asleep. Further over, on the grass, Alec was looking a little grey as the result of the dew which had formed on his fur and was now starting to evaporate along with the dew on the grass. Both he and Michael were still in wolf-form. Ceri vaguely remembered Carter and Cheryl stumbling inside since they were the only ones who did not have fur or internal heating. Ceri had woken up cold and damp in a field before, she could not blame them, though she suspected that Carter had ulterior motives.

  ‘You’re awake then,’ Lily said, her voice a soft murmur. Ceri thought there was a hint of amusement in it.

  ‘Uh-huh. So are you.’

  ‘I had a small bet with myself that we’d be up before the men. They looked a little tired when they finally flaked out.’

  Ceri giggled. ‘Even Carter looked a bit worn out and he wasn’t as busy.’

  ‘Still didn’t touch you? Even furry?’

  ‘We talked about it. He won’t. He’s got good reasons.’

  Lily sat up, swinging her legs off the lounger away from Michael. ‘We need milk. How about we get dressed and walk into the village.’

  ‘Who uses milk?’

  ‘Carter and Cheryl. On Cornflakes.’

  ‘Seriously? Okay, we’ll go get milk.’

  ~~~

  Chilcomb was a tiny little village which mostly consisted of big houses owned by people with a lot of money. Carter’s little mansion was on the eastern extreme of the village while the southern edge was marked by a Norman church which actually held services once a fortnight. There was also a post office which doubled as a grocery store, though Ceri suspected it mostly survived on the subsidy the Royal Mail paid it.

  The shop was a little, stone built building with a house on the upper floor. There were a couple of racks of produce, mostly tins, and bread in plastic bags, but there was also a freezer for ice cream and an upright, glass-fronted fridge full of milk and soft drinks. Ceri pulled one of the two pint plastic bottles from the fridge and they headed to the back of the shop where there was the little sealed cubicle which was the post office, and a counter which supplied any number of sweets and a liberal selection of tobacco products.

  There was also a short, plump woman wearing a floral dress and an even more floral apron. She was not quite old enough to be someone’s grandmother, but she was working on it. Her face was working on it more than the rest of her; she had the look of a “kindly old lady” in the making, though she was probably only in her forties. According to the sign outside the shop, she was probably Mrs I. Herman. Ceri was guessing at Irene, but it was just a guess.

  ‘That’ll be sixty-two pence, dear,’ Mrs Herman said as they approached. ‘You must be the girls staying up at Mister Fleming’s place.’

  Ceri grinned as she put the bottle down to get the money from her bag. ‘No secrets in a place this size?’

  The shopkeeper laughed. ‘Not with Mister Fleming. He keeps his privacy by not hiding anything. Chilcomb’s got its secrets. Some very private people around here.’ She took the pound coin she was handed and punched buttons on the old, manual till. ‘Mister Fleming though, he’s a good one. My daughter cleans up at his place on a Thursday. You’ll see her up there this afternoon. She’ll be up to collect her pay.’ The till popped open and she carefully counted out change.

  ‘What’s her name?’ Lily asked.

  ‘Bella. I’m Irene.’ Ceri grinned at having her guess confirmed. Irene handed over the change. ‘You have a lovely day now.’

  ‘I’m sure we will,’ Ceri agreed. She picked up the bottle and they headed out of the shop. ‘I hope Bella isn’t easily shocked,’ Ceri said once they were outside.

  ‘She isn’t,’ Lily replied, smirking. ‘I remember Carter mentioning a local girl who liked to swim nude in his pool in the summer. Pretty sure she was called Bella.’

  ‘Huh. Well, she’ll have…’ Ceri stopped, frowning and looking around, as a slight tingle started down her spine.

  Lily looked at her, raising an eyebrow. ‘Something wrong?’

  There was no one to be seen around the road which wound through the village, but the feeling was still there… Then it was gone. ‘I don’t know. It felt kind of like a dragon, but not.’

  ‘Here?’

  Part of Ceri’s dream resurfaced in her head. Her mother had told her something. Something about a fear and… They are already here… But who? The question went unanswered. Nothing I can do about it anyway. There’s no one here. She shrugged and started walking again. ‘We should get this milk into a fridge before we end up with cheese.’

  Lily took one more look around and then hurried to catch up. There was nothing there, except maybe a feeling she could not put a finger on.

  ~~~

  Bella had to have got a lot of her genes from her father. At nineteen she was six-foot tall, slim, and athletic, though she had an ample bosom and delicate, feminine features. She was also a natural blonde where her mother resorted to blonde highlights. The “natural” part was obvious as she pulled herself out of the pool and lay down on the side of it to let the sun dry her skin. Her tan suggested this was not the first time she had been naked in the sun this summer.

  ‘You need some oil putting on?’ Lily asked. She was laid out on t
he lounger and had not opened her eyes; Ceri wondered whether she had some sort of nubile young flesh radar.

  ‘Me?’ Bella responded, sounding surprised. ‘No, ma’am. I’m just drying off.’

  ‘I’m Lily, not “ma’am.” I’m a waitress, not some high-society socialite.’ There was the sound of a chuckle from Carter.

  ‘A waitress? You work for Mister Fleming?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Actually, the only rich socialite here is Carter. Cheryl works at a university, Alec tends bar, Ceri works at the same university and at Carter’s club, and Michael…’

  ‘I live in a park,’ Michael supplied. ‘Technically I’m unemployed and homeless.’

  ‘He’s a werewolf,’ Alec said. ‘More of an Old School one than me.’

  It was Michael’s turn to chuckle. ‘Sure I am.’

  ‘Hey,’ Bella said, ‘you weren’t that scientist that was on the news last summer, talking about Stonehenge?’

  ‘That was Ceri,’ Cheryl replied. ‘I was there too, but she was there first and got to talk to the cameras.’

  ‘Did you see the news last night? Stonehenge was on it again.’

  ‘My dear Bella,’ Carter said, ‘we’ve been doing our best to avoid the news the last few days. Ceri, Lily, and Michael do some part time work for the police and the last thing we needed was to discover there was some murder in London under mysterious circumstances.’

  ‘No murders,’ Bella replied. ‘They were saying that the magic field up there is getting stronger.’

  Ceri looked up, and then sat up. ‘I need to use your phone, Carter.’

  The playboy sighed. ‘Well, we had a few days of quiet.’

  ~~~

  ‘I spoke to Helen Brazenold at the visitor centre,’ Ceri said as they sat around the dinner table with full glasses of wine. ‘The thaumic field inside the circle has gone up by about a quarter of a thaum, which isn’t much, but it’s still rising and it seems to be accelerating.’

  ‘Odd,’ Carter said. ‘As far as I know it’s been essentially stable since the Shattering.’

  Cheryl nodded. ‘Since Ceri found the skull under there they’ve been monitoring the level at fifteen minute intervals round the clock. Fascinating data in a way, though not exactly exciting. The level fluctuates over a month by a hundredth of a thaum, highest at the full moon. It goes up by about a tenth of a thaum at the summer and winter solstices. Oh, and it went up almost a thaum last Samhain, but just about everywhere had a moderately large rise in activity then.’

  ‘That sounds like a quarter thaum is actually quite a lot then,’ Michael commented. ‘Compared to how it usually behaves.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ceri agreed, ‘I guess it is. I just don’t get why it’s happening. And that skull belonged to my ancestor.’

  ‘So we’re going home via Stonehenge tomorrow?’ Lily asked.

  ‘It’s not a huge diversion,’ Carter said, ‘and it’s a nice place to visit in the summer.’

  ‘And,’ Lily said, ‘we can swing it so we get into the circle itself instead of milling about with the tourists.’

  Ceri giggled. ‘That sounded terribly snobby, love. Are you sure all this high living isn’t going to your head?’

  The half-succubus preened a bit and took a sip of her wine while holding her little finger out from the stem of the glass. ‘One has to know one’s place, and ours is clearly in the lap of luxury.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to make do with Michael’s lap, or mine.’

  Lily shrugged. ‘Works for me.’

  Stonehenge, September 5th

  Cheryl opened a cover on the small box resting beside one of the upright stones and examined the display inside. ‘Eight point five three,’ she said. ‘That’s over a half a thaum up from what you said it was yesterday.’

  ‘Smells stronger,’ Alec commented.

  Ceri was standing at the edge of the inner circle looking in. ‘There’s a lot of random ripples. The field’s distorted like… heat haze. That’s the best way I can describe it. Lil?’

  ‘I can feel it,’ the half-succubus replied from the middle of the circle. ‘It’s like I’ve got ants crawling over me.’ She frowned. ‘Actually, it kind of feels like it’s pulling…’ She looked upward. ‘…or reaching for something.’

  Ceri followed Lily’s gaze. There seemed to be a trail of thaumitons stretching upward from the centre of the circle, right over where the skull was buried. She frowned. She knew she was not seeing anything real, but to her it looked as though there was an image buried within the ripples of energy. It was like looking at one of those annoying “magic pictures” that were supposed to resolve into something, but no matter how hard you stared… ‘What the hell would Brenin want with a comet?’ she said.

  Part Five: Power Politics

  Battersea, London, September 19th, 2012

  The engineers working on the power plant had been busy little beavers. Part of the roof over the B station had been removed so that the old equipment could be taken out via heavy-lifting blimps, and they were already resurfacing the area once occupied by the A station for the generator and bringing in new equipment to bolt to the floor.

  Supervising Engineer Horace Torpen was a rotund man with a moustache he could use for straining tea. ‘That’s the grid-tie inverter being brought in now,’ he rumbled, pointing at some sort of machine being lowered slowly onto the floor of the building. ‘It’s responsible for…’

  ‘Converting the DC power from the transducers into AC,’ Cheryl said, ‘and synchronising it with the national power grid.’ Ceri could tell that her boss was getting a little irritated with the man’s somewhat patronising tone. He was showing them around the facility with the look of a man who had been pressed into leading the school tour.

  Torpen grunted. ‘We’ll have all the control systems finished by the end of the month. Engineering should be finished with the… more traditional systems by the end of next week. According to our schedule, these transducer pylons of yours will be delivered and installed by the fifth of next month, and the central pylon will be in place by the tenth.’

  ‘And on the fifteenth,’ Ceri said, ‘I’ll be placing the last node and initiating the tunnel.’

  The engineer nodded. ‘This thing’s safe, is it?’

  ‘The prototype in Holland has been running for several months without trouble,’ Cheryl told him. ‘No instability in the tunnel, constant power output from both the generators at Groningen and Bremen.’

  Torpen did not look entirely convinced. ‘We’ll be ready when you are.’

  ‘If I were being honest,’ Ceri said once they were outside and away from the ears of engineers, ‘I’d be happier if we had been able to recheck the maths.’

  ‘You’ve got several weeks yet,’ Cheryl replied.

  ‘Okay, I’d be happier if you had rechecked the maths.’

  Cheryl chuckled. ‘I haven’t found anything wrong yet. I’m still working through it. I think I’ll have it wrapped before we go live. Don’t worry, I have faith in you.’

  ‘Thanks, Boss.’

  ‘Are you heading back home?’

  ‘No,’ Ceri said, looking down the road toward the park. ‘It’s a pack night and since I’m here already…’

  Cheryl nodded, turning toward Vauxhall. ‘Have a good time and give Michael one for me.’

  ‘Give him one what?’

  Cheryl laughed as she walked away. ‘You know damn well what.’

  ~~~

  Actually, only a few days after the new moon, Michael was not particularly excited about “you know what.” Ceri decided to owe him one until the weekend when his funk would have fully worn off. Instead they ran the boundary of the pack’s territory because running always cheered Michael up almost as much as it did Ceri.

  And that was working fine right up until the last part of the loop. Ceri was looking up at the huge smokestacks of the power station again when the scent hit her and she came to a grinding stop just after Michael. It smelled a bit like someone had barb
equed a pig somewhere nearby, except that she was good enough at discerning scents now that she was fairly sure it was not a pig.

  For a brief instant, Ceri had the horrifying thought that there was another witch hunter at work. The last time she had smelled burned flesh like that was on another boundary run when they had discovered one of the victims of a witch hunter who burned his victims alive. She had a brief flash of the charred corpse they had discovered in Clapham.

  Then Michael growled. Man things. Took woman. Same smell. He lifted his muzzle, sniffing, and then bolted off toward the river edge.

  It was low tide and there was a huge expanse of gravel beach on show between the station and the loading dock which had been used to bring in coal when the station had been running. The night was not exactly bright, but with werewolf eyes and sense of smell, they managed to spot the black shape lying against the wall after a few minutes of searching.

  It took longer to get down onto the beach, in fact, but they made it, and then they both shifted into human form because the stench was disgusting. Ceri had the advantage since Michael’s sense of smell was still better than human, but neither of them was happy.

  ‘You’re sure this is the same sort of scent as the things which took Jenny Mayhew?’ Ceri asked. The body looked like it had been underwater once already. Perhaps it had fallen in as the water level was dropping and had been beached before it could wash down river.

  ‘Pretty sure. There’s more burning in it, but it’s the same sort of scent. Ninety per cent sure?’