‘It’s on the house, Lil,’ Sean replied. ‘You’re going t’ need it.’
Soho, October 24th
The throb of the music hurt her chest and she already had a mild headache from the dozen other places she had been before this one. She had not noticed a name outside, just a number of signs promising “Girls, Girls, Girls!” and “Hot Pussy on Show!” It seemed down-market, even for an incubus, but she had got a good feeling, or maybe a bad one, as she walked past.
There was an upper floor to the place. It had a stage with dancers; tired looking women doing the best to persuade horny ingrates to hand over cash. Lily felt for them; she had been up there at one time, though her natural talents made it far easier for her to draw out big tips. The house, she knew, was probably taking most of the cash. She had looked quickly around the room, seeing no one who drew her attention, but getting three propositions before she slipped back out and headed down to the rooms in the cellar.
Here the girls looked more tired, and were going table to table offering lap dances. Lily had been there too. It was a sweet deal for a succubus; she could even feed a little from the men she danced for, once she got them excited enough. She doubted her father was dancing however, or entertaining dancers. No, he would be looking for something else. She felt the pull from a corner booth and headed that way.
It had too occupants, a man and a woman. He was tall, good looking, a solid jawline and a slightly Roman nose, bright blue eyes and hair which looked jet-black in the dim light. He had the look of someone who worked out regularly; a strong, muscled body which showed well under the tight T-shirt and jeans. Lily ignored him and stared straight at the cute blonde he was sitting with.
‘I need to talk to you,’ Lily said.
The blonde smiled sweetly back at her. ‘Sure you won’t join us. I’m sure Mark wouldn’t mind a threesome.’ Mark’s eyes widened and he gave Lily a quick once-over, nodding enthusiastically.
‘It’s important,’ Lily replied.
The blonde sighed. ‘Sorry, Mark. I’ll have to catch you another time.’ She edged out of the booth and followed Lily out of the club leaving her potential victim sitting there like a kicked puppy.
By the time they were on the street, the short blonde had become a fairly tall man with shoulder-length chestnut hair. His clothes had shifted from a micro-skirt and cropped top to scruffy black jeans and a T-shirt with “Best Lay in London” printed on it in big, white letters.
‘Kind of unsubtle, Dad,’ Lily said, nodding at his chest.
‘And arguable,’ Faran replied. ‘You’re at least as good.’
‘Huh. I didn’t come looking for you for an ego boost.’
‘I gathered that. What’s up?’
He waited for the reply. They walked for fifty yards or so before she said anything, finally deciding that blunt was probably the best strategy. ‘Are the demons planning to invade this Samhain?’
‘If they were, do you think they’d tell me?’
‘There are rumours flying about. The Sidhe are vacating the area. Alexandra is having visions of a war between the dragons and the demons. I think you weren’t entirely honest about the rivalry there and I think you’d have heard something if there was something to hear.’
The incubus grunted. ‘Clearly working with those Greycoat detectives has made you far too good at connecting the dots. If there are plans for an invasion by demons, I’ve heard nothing. There is an expectation that Samhain will be bad this year, but no plans to use that beyond the usual playing.’
Lily considered that for a second. ‘Last year was bad and a demon lord Ceri thinks is Molech came to town and sealed off part of the city. The part High Towers is in. It was like he was protecting us.’ Faran did not reply and, after the silence had gone on a little too long, Lily said, ‘Dad?’
‘I need to make some arrangements. I’ll call you.’ He quickened his stride, pulling away from her.
‘Dad?’ she called after him. ‘What’s going on?’
Faran looked over his shoulder at her, but kept walking. ‘More than you know. Get some rest.’
Kennington
Home did not feel like home and Lily could not understand why initially. It was when she walked into the kitchen and there was no coffee in the pot that she began to realise what was missing; everyone.
She found a note in the attic, pinned to one of the rafters. Something has come up and I have to leave for a while. Keep Ceri safe. Your greatest challenge is to come soon, Lily. Hers will come later. All my love, Twill. Lily read it three times and then took it down to the kitchen where she put on a pot of coffee and read it again.
Why had Twill written the note to her instead of to both of them? How had she known Ceri was away? And where on God’s green Earth had the fairy gone?! It made no sense. Then again, very little seemed to be making sense lately.
Carter’s tirade at Ceri kept buzzing around Lily’s head. Ceri had changed. She had been changing for a couple of years now. It was to be expected after suddenly discovering her power. She had had to change to keep Lily’s demon in check. She had suddenly discovered that people found her attractive. Perhaps they should have gone slower. Was it my fault? I almost pushed her to be more my Mistress…
Lily shivered. Something felt wrong here. Something about the house felt… disturbed. She felt as though she was being watched. She looked around, trying to see something which might be causing her anxiety.
‘No,’ Lily said aloud, though she was not sure who she was saying it to. She turned off the coffee machine and started for the front door. High Towers was not her home right now. She needed to be somewhere else, anywhere else. The shadows here scared her.
Canning Town, October 26th
The building was just off Victoria Dock Road, a disused office building-come-warehouse which looked as though it had been used as a squat until the holes in the roof had got too big even for that. Faran pushed his way in through a door which had once been closed with a huge padlock and led the way in, winding through several litter strewn corridors until they reached a small back office on the main floor which still seemed to have intact walls and a door.
‘In there,’ he told Lily. ‘You’ll get answers. You might not like them, but you’ll get them.’
‘What’s going on, Dad?’ Lily asked, frowning.
He pointed at the door. ‘In there. Just remember that I…’ He stopped and then shook his head. ‘Never mind. Go in there and talk to him.’
‘Who?’
‘You’ll see.’ He pushed open the door and stepped aside. It was clear he would say no more so she stepped through and he pulled the door closed behind her.
There was a broken desk in the room, and two chairs which looked as though they had seen better days. A man was sitting in one of them. He looked to be about twenty, going on fifty. His eyes looked as though they belonged to someone much older and, as she looked closer, his features were far more weathered than his young face should have been. He was wearing a suit, but it had seen much better days, and he was wearing a coat which could have belonged to any homeless person you might meet on the streets around here.
As Lily approached he pointed at the other chair. ‘Good afternoon, Lilith. Please, take a seat.’
She remained standing. ‘It’s Lily. I don’t use Lilith anymore.’
‘Oh but Lilith suits you so much better. Please, sit.’ She moved around and sat down, fighting the urge to cross her legs and her arms. The man made her feel defensive. He nodded. ‘My name,’ he said, ‘is Molech, though I am currently occupying the body of one Alfred Truscott. He was a drug user. Oblivion. His soul degraded to nothing three years ago. These lost souls make such useful hosts and this is the only way I can come to this world, except for certain nights.’
‘Molech? You’re a demon lord. You’re after Ceri.’
The demon laughed; a mirthless sound coming from Truscott’s throat. ‘After her? I met her one night in Kennington Park. I saw her potential then, even thou
gh she had no idea of it. I knew her purpose, the reason she was born. I sent you to her. I sent your father to you. I protected you both from my brethren last year.’
‘No one sent me to her, I…’
‘Happened to go to Kennington looking for somewhere to live barely ten minutes after she put a card in the window of a local shop advertising for a lodger.’ He watched her jaw work as she tried to digest that. ‘When the Order of Merlin were trying to undermine her, I ensured that they would summon your father. I knew she could break his influence over you. I needed someone able to stay here and watch over her. Of course, he was most willing since he could help you, but his job here was to try to help Ceridwyn. Sadly he has failed.’
The problem was that it made sense. She had distrusted her father, and it had been Ceri and her mother who had persuaded her to give him a chance. He had been playing the same game with Ceri since he had begun teaching Lily to be better at being a succubus. It made him seem somehow less threatening. He made a show of trying to seduce Ceri, she made a show of letting him try and rejecting him. It made them all feel secure in a warped way. And he had kept dropping hints…
‘I’d imagine you are feeling manipulated,’ Molech said. ‘Perhaps betrayed. Believe me when I say that my efforts have been as nothing compared to what the dragons have been doing to Ceridwyn.’
‘There’s a war,’ Lily said, trying to regain some control of the situation, ‘between the dragons and the demons.’
‘There was a war, thousands of years ago. The realm the dragons come from, their universe, has a fantastically high level of magic. It created them. They are a highly improbable event brought about by the random play of magic in a chaotic universe. However, that extreme level of magic is driving their universe apart. It happens in all universes, it is happening here. But what will take hundreds of trillions of years here, and billions of years in my world, has happened in millions of years there. They realised they could not survive there and sought another world to live in. They attacked us and were driven back, now they are coming here.’
‘What does that have to do with Ceri?’ Lily was beginning to have a horrible suspicion that she knew, but she wanted to hear it.
‘They need someone from this world to create the bridge. The original plan was for two dragons to bear a child here.’
Lily nodded and swallowed hard. ‘Brenin and Brenhines, but they couldn’t.’
‘Didn’t,’ Molech replied. ‘They came to like humanity. He stayed behind when the magic field collapsed, sacrificing himself to stop the plan from ever working. But they had created half-human children and when the dragons returned after the Shattering, as you call it, they saw their chance. They arranged for a child to be born of both bloodlines. Ceridwyn owes her very existence to their plot to take this world. They provided her with the ideas which led her to construct the generator in Battersea. When night falls on Samhain this year, they will make her open the bridge. She will be their anchor here much as you anchor your father. She will be installed as their puppet queen. Ethilion Kephesit in their language. She will rule as tyrant over all the world, governed by the dragons and, if nothing changes, you will be her pet. For all eternity.’
‘I… I have to warn her. She can…’
‘It will do no good.’ At least the smile he gave her was weak. ‘Even now, as she believes she searches for your stolen friend, they are inside her mind, programming her to do as they require. The dragons have taken steps to neutralise you. The police are looking for you in connection with an attack on her mate.’
‘Michael!’ She was half way out of her chair before his voice stopped her.
‘He lives. Sleeps. You can save them both.’
Lily looked at him. Her heart was going like a trip hammer and she tasted bile in her mouth. ‘How?’
‘You must allow her to initiate their plan. I can give you… items. They were made during our war against the dragons and they can protect you from their sorcery and fire. If you are in the right place, at the right time, you can shatter their bridge, throw them back and stop them for good. Their influence over Ceridwyn will be destroyed. The spell upon Michael will be broken and he will awaken. But there is a cost…’
‘I’ll pay it,’ Lily snapped.
‘Without even knowing what it is?’
I can guess. ‘Yes. I don’t want to know.’
Molech gave her another bleak smile. ‘She has enslaved you. Her actions have grown ever more callous. It is partially their influence, but influence brings out only a side of the personality which already exists. She has done all this and still you would give anything to save her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Think on it. We can do nothing until Samhain. If you still feel she is worth the price, return here then as the sun sets.’
Feeling dismissed, Lily got to her feet and started for the door. ‘I will be back.’
He gave a grunt; perhaps a form of acknowledgement. ‘One more thing. They have servants, slaves. Lost souls like Alfred, but imbued with part of the spirit of a dragon. The fire within them eventually destroys them, but until then they are powerful. They took your friend the doctor. They may well try to destroy you. The police are also looking for you.’
Lily nodded, reaching for the door. ‘I’ll be careful.’ And with that she opened the door and walked out.
Islington
The hotel was small and cheap, and you could hire rooms in it by the hour. Lily knew it from when she had worked the streets and knew that they never asked questions about what their guests were up to and never worried over proof of identity. “Lulu Chilton” had checked in for three nights, paying in advance, and the money was all they cared about.
The room had a bed, a small table with a desk chair, a small TV set mounted on a bracket near the bed, and a sink in the corner. There was a phone on the desk, but calling outside the hotel was extortionately expensive. Lily did not really mean to use it anyway. Her mobile phone was off too; one thing she had learned from Kate and John was that they could localise a phone’s position if it was used.
The evening news was full of the earthquake aftermath in America. The regions affected were not highly populated, but hundreds of people had been killed that they knew so far, and thousands had been injured. Lily knew people who lived on that side of the country, though they were more toward the middle, thousands of miles from the epicentre off the north west coast.
Then the story changed. ‘Concern this evening for Chinese Ambassador Mei Long,’ the presenter said and Lily looked up to see a still of the beautiful Chinese woman showing behind the presenter. ‘Ambassador Long has been missing for two days and Special Branch have been called in to search for her.’ The still cut to a video of various oriental-looking people walking off an airship bridge. ‘Chinese officials arrived in London this morning to assist in the search…’
Lily stopped listening as she watched the video. She recognised none of the officials, but there were several heavy-set men with dour expressions with them. She had only ever seen their type before guarding Mei, or one other dragon, Huanglong. She knew that dragons did not need to assume the same shape when they became human, one of them could be Huanglong, but whatever the case, she was pretty sure that a large number of Chinese dragons had arrived in London today.
‘Well, that can’t be good,’ she said to the empty room.
October 27th
Lily opened her eyes, unsure why she had. It was dark. Again. She had spent most of the last day sleeping, then watched whatever was on TV, and then slept again. She was still sure she was going to do whatever was needed to save Ceri, but there was nothing she could do now and the frustration was getting to her.
She could feel that something was wrong. Something was different. Something had changed and the room did not feel safe, not that it had felt very safe anyway. Her fingers moved to the chain around her neck over Ceri’s collar. Her father had given her the chain before taking her to see Molech. It was supposed to stop h
er being found by scrying. The collar… She could have had the collar cut off, but it reminded her of Ceri, her wonderful Mistress… Her hand moved away from her neck and slid under her pillow.
Something she could not see clamped a strong, but humanoid, hand over her mouth. It felt hot, far warmer than a normal human hand. Another hand gripped her throat. Lily pulled one of her daggers from beneath her pillow and slashed it at across where the arm of her attacker would be if he were solid. The hand over her mouth retracted as the blade hit flesh and bone. Blood flew in the air, splashing her face, but the hand on her throat got tighter and she felt the pinpricks of claws digging into her skin. She had seconds before she blacked out, less if the thing tore her throat out. Her pupils flared red and her defensive aura burned out into the room.
The thing’s grip slackened and then fell away. Lily pulled in a shuddering breath and pulled the sheets aside, swinging her legs out of bed and kicking something lying on the floor. Even now, with the thing lying on the floor concerned only with the pleasure it was feeling, she could not see it. She could feel it, however, and she edged her way along the body until she found a neck shape. Her dagger slashed; once, twice, on the third stoke she heard the blade scraping bone and stopped, stepping back.
Blood was pooling on the carpet. As she watched, the source of it faded into visibility. A man, naked and powerfully built. The claws on his fingers evaporated into normal nails and, after a second, she was left looking at a corpse with unnaturally dry, almost burnt skin. This had to be one of the servants Molech had warned her about. She felt almost insulted that they had sent only one. Except that they would probably send more quickly enough if this one failed.
Moving quickly, she began to pack up the few things she had brought with her.
Mayfair, October 28th
Lily slipped into the Dubh Linn, checking the room and then the shadows outside, before closing the door and walking up to the bar. Sean watched her until she was half way there and then turned to his optics. As she sat down he placed a glass of whiskey in front of her. She sank it in one go.
Thaumatology 09 - Dragonfall Page 17