Thaumatology 09 - Dragonfall

by Teasdale, Niall

  ‘Do you really believe I would work for Molech?’

  The voice came from behind her and she turned to find Lily standing there. It was like she was standing in a spotlight, and she seemed to be able to see Ceri. That was dreams for you. ‘Lil… I don’t want to believe it, but…’

  ‘But you’ve got all that evidence, and you’re a scientist. You think with your head, not your heart. The evidence says I’m working for Molech, or I’m being coerced.’

  Ceri’s eyes dipped away. Lily was right, of course. What she knew was leading her to believe that Lily had gone bad somehow. She did not want to believe it, but what she had been told…

  ‘So, what evidence do you actually have?’ Lily asked.

  Ceri looked up at her. ‘You’re on the run.’

  ‘I’m accused of almost killing Michael.’

  ‘There’s that. You were seen leaving the place he was found…’

  ‘But no one saw me attacking him, you haven’t talked to the witnesses, and you know how easy it would be make someone look like me.’

  ‘Then why are you hiding from me? Why not come to me? Talk to me? I can’t find you anywhere. You’re hidden behind some very powerful magic.’

  Lily smiled. Her fangs showed. ‘Ah, now that’s the interesting bit, isn’t it? I love you, Ceri. I love Michael too, I’d never hurt him. So why am I hiding from you?’

  ‘Because…’ She stopped as Lily’s head rose, looking up as though startled. The light died and the half-succubus vanished. ‘Lily? Lily!’

  Lights suddenly appeared around Ceri. She could see. Not just herself, but the surrounding room and the half-dozen Devos demons advancing on her. She turned and saw Lily again, standing at the back with a black-hilted dagger in her hand. Ceri let out a scream…

  And woke up in the summoning room, breathing hard, with cold sweat running down between her breasts. She blinked and sat up. The circle she had raised had fallen while she slept and once again her head was full of fog and distant voices. The voices sounded louder now, she felt she could almost understand what they were saying. It sounded like some sort of chant, but the words were nonsense; nonsense with meaning which hung on the edge of her comprehension.

  Shaking her head, she climbed to her feet and headed out into the corridor. On a whim, she stopped at the dungeon and looked in. It was dark, quiet, not occupied by Lily and six demons. Laughing at her own paranoia, she turned back into the corridor and headed for the stairs.

  So, why was Lily hiding from her? There had been an implication in the dream that the half-succubus was actually hiding specifically from Ceri. That, whatever had happened, it was Ceri herself who was the problem.

  Ridiculous.

  But why would she hide from her Mistress otherwise? The Greycoats, yes, but Ceri?

  She has fallen under the influence of Molech.

  That made sense, of course, but what if Lily had not fallen under Molech’s influence? What if Ceri had…?

  Ridiculous! She’s the succubus. She’s the one who almost killed me when her father’s influence affected her. She’s the one who tried to become my mistress. Now she’s denying me! She’s resisting me! She should be here, right now, so that I can determine her guilt and punish her…

  Ceri stopped herself. What the Hell was she thinking?! If anyone needed to handle Lily’s case it was the Greycoats. Ceri was too close to…

  Exactly. She’s my demon, my responsibility, mine to deal with as I wish.

  ‘It doesn’t work like that,’ she said aloud. ‘She’s not my property.’

  Of course she is. She gave herself to me.

  Confused, Ceri headed for the kitchen. She needed coffee. When had she last eaten? She needed to eat, keep her strength up. There was something important she had to do and it would be coming soon. She knew because the voices were getting louder.

  October 31st

  At some point it had become Ceri’s birthday. Since she tended not to celebrate that anniversary until the evening, she had not really thought about it, and it had been well after midnight when she had noticed anyway.

  She sat in the kitchen, drinking coffee and trying to work out what she should be doing. All she could really think about now were the voices, they got louder and clearer with every hour that passed and she was starting to think she recognised the sounds.

  At first she thought it was one of the demonic languages, perhaps Ctholnaraeic, the most ancient of their tongues. She had never heard it spoken, but she had seen it written down in the original characters and a phonetic notation. She thought she understood the basic sound of it, even if she could not really understand it.

  Then the thought had occurred that it might be some ancient Earth language. Maybe ancient Egyptian or Aramaic, or something really odd like Assyrian or Babylonian. No one knew exactly how they were pronounced, as far as she knew, but there were definitely sounds like Egyptian in the sounds she was hearing. Something old, very old. Older than anything, just as Ctholnaraeic was the oldest of the demon languages.

  Huanglong, the ancient patron dragon of the Chinese Empires, gave writing to the Chinese… And they call you Ethilion Kephesit, which sounds a bit Arabic or Egyptian…

  Somewhere around three in the morning she realised she was listening to dragons. Dragons were chanting in her mind and she was now quite sure that what they were chanting was not good. She sat in the darkness, listening to the voices, unable to block them out or even move, but she was not scared. Alexandra had told her there was no point to being scared. What was going to happen had to happen, and the only thing left was to discover what that was.

  ~~~

  The light was starting to go when Ceri wandered into her room, the room she normally shared with Lily and now seemed so empty without her. Someone had laid out an outfit on the bed. Ceri frowned, looking around and seeing no one, but she still had the feeling that there was someone there. She realised that she did not care; she had things to do.

  Stripping off her clothes, she reached for the things laid out for her. The material was odd, black and shimmering, almost like it was made of a film of oil. The skirt clung to her hips and thighs and then fanned out. There was a corset that shrank around her waist as she put it in place and did not cover her breasts, but then there was a long-sleeved top with a tall, wide collar which made the outfit more or less decent, even if there was still a fair amount of flesh on display. Dressed, she caught sight of herself in the mirror. She looked like the evil queen out of a fairy tale. Appropriate.

  She headed out of the room and down the stairs. She could feel eyes on her as she crossed the middle landing; she ignored them, they were beneath her. She carried on down and across the hall, opening the front doors and leaving them for her unseen watchers to close behind her. The gate opened in front of her as she walked down the garden; another of her watchers, it seemed.

  Down the street she could hear children laughing as they went house to house for candy. Ceri began walking threw the growing gloom toward Vauxhall. She was still not entirely sure what she was supposed to do, but she knew she would find out when she got to her destination.

  No one paid her much attention as she walked past the tube station and past the cricket ground. She looked like someone going to a Halloween party. Normally, at this time, she would have been greeting the guests arriving for her birthday party. She might have even picked an outfit like this one to wear if she had known such a thing existed. She thought she looked beautiful in it, regal, every inch the evil queen. Which is what I am? The thought did not disturb her. Anyway, she was not evil, she was going to be a fantastic queen. She would rule with a firm, but fair hand. Wait… rule? Now that she thought of it, yes, wasn’t it obvious? She was the greatest magician on the planet aside from the dragons, and she was probably more powerful than most of them. Her heritage stretched back tens of thousands of years and she was the descendent of royalty older than any human nation. Who else should rule?

  ~~~

  She saw the fi
rst of them as she passed the flower market walking down Nine Elms Lane. It was high up, probably above the power station, its wings spread as it soared and wheeled in the air. A second appeared a minute later, this one serpentine, and then there were more than a dozen of them and they were starting downward. Looking north across the river she could see another group descending toward the city centre. A few seconds later she heard an explosion.

  It’s beginning. Whatever it was, it had started. The dragons were fighting. After the previous year’s demonic activity on Samhain, the government had moved heavily armed units into the city, but it would not be enough. The dragons had sorcery on top of tooth, claw, fire, and fear.

  It was not long before she heard screaming and a couple of armoured cars roared past on the road. They were heading toward the power station. To their deaths. The thought did not disturb her, she had more pressing things to consider than the deaths of a few insignificant mortals. She laughed and got an odd look from another of the mortals running past away from Battersea. She briefly considered doing something about his impertinence, but it was not worth her time and certainly not worth the expenditure of energy.

  The Royal Mail building was on fire. She watched as smoke poured from the northern side of it, smiled at the men in the armoured car out front, and turned down Cringle Street toward the station. She had gone maybe twenty yards before she heard screams behind her. Securing the area was important; they would want no one disturbing things once the ritual started.

  The chanting was so clear in her mind now that her lips were moving to it. She could have repeated it in her sleep. She had been repeating it in her sleep. She had been hearing it every night since she had returned from Aberystwyth. She knew what it was, what it meant.

  A dragon, black scaled and serpentine, curled out of the sky onto the road beside her, and she felt none of the awe Wächter had exuded. Instantly he transformed into a tall, oriental man in a long, black, form-fitting coat. ‘Good evening, Ethilion Kephesit,’ Huanglong said. ‘All is ready for you to begin.’

  ‘I’m ready,’ Ceri replied. She could feel power swelling through her as so many dragons congregated in one place around her. She did not feel the awe from the dragons because she was just as powerful. They were preparing her further, readying her for what was to come.

  ‘I know you are. We’ve been making you ready for decades.’

  Ceri frowned. Some part of her wanted to know. ‘Why me?’

  ‘Your heritage, girl. The child of Brenin and Brenhines was meant to bring about our dominion over this world, but they never had a child and then Brenin destroyed himself. Your birth gave us the chance to begin again.’

  Ceri looked upward. The sky was almost entirely dark now and she could see the comet, Draco Cauda, an arc of brilliance above the horizon. She could almost hear it calling to her, but it was drowned out by the chanting. What was he saying? She shook her head and walked on toward the towering shape of Battersea Power Station where the thaumic generator was still humming.

  There were other dragons in human form waiting by one of the side entrances. They ushered Ceri and Huanglong into the generator room and then turned, transforming and taking wing. ‘They will ensure that we are not disturbed until you have established the bridge. Quickly now, this world’s magic field is growing with the darkness. We must begin, before the demons attempt to stop us.’

  ‘The demons, yes.’ All this time she had had it wrong. It was not the demons who were trying to enter the world, they were simply determined to defeat the dragons. Molech was trying to stop the dragons. That cannot be allowed to happen.

  Ignoring the bodies of various technicians which had been gathered up and piled into a corner, Ceri marched toward the generator. Her Sight showed her the magic field twisting about the transducer columns, stronger now that the world around it was at a higher thaumic potential. She would need to be in the centre of it. ‘Leave me,’ she said, her voice soft, her mind full of chanting dragons. ‘I can manage this on my own. Lily will be coming for me.’

  ‘Your pet?’ Huanglong scoffed. ‘We have ensured that she is kept out of the way until you want her. She cannot…’

  ‘Lily is the only person on this planet who can stop me,’ Ceri said. She raised her arms to the central column and gathered her power. ‘She always has been, always will be.’ Light blazed in her hands and she began to chant, the same chant which had been echoing in her mind for days. A streamer of light lifted skyward from the tower before her as the stored energy in the centre post’s enchantment began to discharge and build the bridge.

  Behind Ceri, Huanglong nodded in satisfaction and turned, heading toward the security room at the rear of the station. The column of light brightened and broadened as the bridge began to establish itself. Above them, in the sky, dragons began passing through from their own world and sweeping down on the unprepared city below.

  And a single tear ran from the corner of Ceri’s right eye and down her cheek.

  Part Seven: Lilith

  Highbury, October 23rd, 2012

  ‘You need to find her.’ Carter’s voice was cold now. ‘You’ve found people being screened by angels. Find Cheryl.’

  ‘I’ve tried!’ Ceri snapped. ‘I’ve just burned enough power to level a city. I used every trick I know to find her.’ Lily felt her anger rising through their bond.

  Carter was suddenly on his feet. ‘Well maybe you need to try harder! Maybe you need to get some emotions of your own, Ceridwyn. Maybe you need to sort out where your head is at?’

  ‘Carter…’ Alec started.

  ‘What the Hell are you talking about, Carter?’ Ceri flared, cutting him off.

  ‘If we could just…’ Lily began. Her heart was thumping; this was all going wrong.

  ‘You’ve been getting worse for weeks, maybe months,’ Carter growled. ‘You’re treating Lily like a slave. You call her “pet” all the time and now you’ve got a collar locked around her throat. You’re becoming callous. Do you even care whether we find Cheryl?’

  ‘Carter…’ Lily whispered, her stomach sinking. The sound of blood rushing in her ears was beginning to drown out the voices.

  Ceri’s jaw clenched. Her face reddened. Lily was sure she could see a flicker of blue light in her eyes as Carter involuntarily edged backward. Her pupils were shrinking, the blue spreading. ‘Right,’ Ceri snarled and Lily felt a sudden rush of power before the sorceress vanished. It seemed as though someone had suddenly left a vacuum where Lily’s heart had been and she gasped, her hand lifting to her chest.

  Carter was beyond noticing. ‘Where the Hell did she go?!’

  ‘Shut up, Carter,’ Lily said, and it was the pain in her voice which stopped him more than her words. ‘I can’t feel her. I don’t know where she’s gone. It’s like she stepped off the planet.’

  ‘I heard yelling.’ They all turned to the door where Kate had appeared. ‘Did you get anything? Where’s Ceri?’

  ‘She had to leave,’ Alec said, putting as much composure into his voice as he could manage. ‘She went looking for another way to find Cheryl.’

  Somehow Lily knew that was true. ‘And I’m going to follow some leads of my own,’ she said, heading for the door. ‘Ceri thought demons took Cheryl. I’m going to follow that angle.’

  Carter caught her arm. ‘Lily, are you sure you want to go alone? I could…’

  She turned, eyes flashing. ‘You did enough. I’m a grown woman, Carter. I don’t need you looking out for me.’ Pulling away, she walked quickly past Kate and out onto the street beyond.

  Mayfair

  ‘On your own tonight, Lily Girl?’ Sean placed a glass of red wine in front of her without her asking. ‘That mistress of yours letting you out on your own?’ Sean was fae-handsome, all dark hair and eyes, and with a hint of darkness about him which gave away his Unseelie heritage. Lily had known him longer than she had known Ceri, or even Carter. The man had given her a job behind the bar when she had first moved to London. She had been fi
fteen and too young to be a barmaid, but Sean was not the kind of man who cared about that kind of thing, and the police tended to keep their noses out of the Dubh Linn if they could help it.

  ‘We’re working different angles of the same case,’ Lily said, trying to believe it so that he would.

  ‘I see she’s got you collared.’

  Lily felt her hand straying to her throat and changed it into reaching for her glass. ‘She’s my Mistress. She has the right.’ She sipped her wine. ‘How’s things in London’s most disreputable hole?’

  The sidhe’s eyes shifted off to the right. Lily tried hard not to look, but she caught a shifting in the light in the corner of her eye. The Black Lady, the real owner of the Dubh Linn, was there somewhere, watching. Apparently she approved of Lily’s interest.

  ‘There’s some weird rumours floating around,’ Sean said. ‘A lot of the bigger fae are moving out of town, or going home.’

  ‘What kind of rumours?’

  ‘War, kid. There’s nothing too specific, but there’s war coming.’

  ‘Ceri thinks the demons are starting something. Alexandra suspects there’s some age-old war between the dragons and the demons. Ceri thinks it’s heating up, the dragons are staying out of it, and it’s up to us to stop it.’

  ‘What d’you think?’

  Lily opened her mouth and closed it again. ‘Ceri’s smart, she’s probably right.’

  ‘Ceri’s intelligent. Brilliant. That doesn’t make her smart. What do you think?’

  ‘I… think the dragons are more involved in this than they’re saying, but the demons are more likely causing trouble.’

  Sean nodded shrewdly. ‘I’ve not heard much about demons crossing over lately. It’s Samhain next week though, there’ll be more about then. Seems to me, if y’re wanting to know if the demons are up to something, you’re sitting in the wrong pub. Your father comes in here once in a while, but he’s no regular.’

  Lily nodded and sipped her wine. She would go looking for Faran once the glass was empty. For the first time in years, since she had first come here as a wide-eyed teenage renegade, the Dubh Linn felt more like home than High Towers did. ‘How much is the wine?’ she asked, reaching for her purse.