Thaumatology 12: Vengeance

by Niall Teasdale

  The half-succubus, Carpenter, had stopped Brent completing the bridge, but she had been directed to do it and equipped to generate the backlash by the Demon Lord, Molech. Molech had devised a way of using Brent to destroy the dragons, and the tales Huanglong had heard through various channels suggested that Brent and Carpenter had destroyed Molech. Should he not be congratulating them? Should he not be turning his attention to helping the surviving members of his species, no matter how wretched they had now become, to keep something of their culture alive?

  We are the purest of dragons, my son. The image crashed through his mind, filling his consciousness. His father was before him, around him, within him; in their natural state, dragons were indescribable in terms of mundane geometry. Our line stretches back, uninterrupted, to the earliest dates of known history. We have always stood for the greater good of the dragon race. We must see to it that the dragons survive.

  So that was the answer. The dragons were gone, but the ones who lived could continue onward in some form…

  It is the purity of the dragons which is all important, my son. Without that purity, without our purity to lead them, the race will fall. You must be the instrument of our rise to power. You are the weapon created to see that the dragons are victorious. You are the Dragons’ Teeth and you will see to it that the enemies of our people are destroyed.

  It had been drummed into him for centuries. He had finally arrived on Earth to scout the way with that mantra playing constantly in his head. He was the weapon his father had forged, just as his grandfather had taught his father, on up to the son of Gorefguhadget, the boy who had watched his father sacrifice himself to save his wife and children following the failure of the second great attempt to save the dragons. No one had ever discovered how the demons managed to create the weapons they used to defeat Gorefguhadget. There had been rumours of treachery, and Lenadenora, Gorefguhadget’s wife, and the daughter she had borne had vanished from recorded history soon after returning to their home dimension.

  Brent had come from that line, somehow. They had searched her mind when they took her for the final stage of the conquest of Earth. They had found the fragments of memory, the trails of ancestry. Of course they had known she was of Gorefguhadget’s line, but until then they had not known which branch of the tree she had come from. Had she come from a traitorous line even then? Why had they chosen to work against their own kind anyway?

  We just want to survive, he heard his own voice saying. He was back in the power station, facing Lily Carpenter. Is that too much to ask?

  Grow up. If that was what you wanted you could have asked nicely. The half-demon’s eyes seemed to burn red as she spoke. Her hair was a halo of flame about her head. That’s the problem, isn’t it? You’re bullies and frauds. You’re tiny, insignificant, unfit to survive let alone rule this world… That had not been what she had said. He was sure she had said something different. But still the words hit home. You’ll die and be forgotten. Brenin and Brenhines’ lines will rise and you will fade away, and you will have failed!

  Huanglong jerked backwards, his meditation broken. His heart pounded as he reached for the ring sitting on the carpet before him. It was the only way he could seek revenge. He would be giving up the last of himself, but he would destroy Carpenter and Brent. Even if he no longer knew whether that was right or wrong, it was all he had. Putting the ring between his lips, he slid his finger into it, settled it in place and…

  Pain tore through his chest. He bit back on a scream, not wishing to be found so soon. The second stab of agony tore a strangled shriek from his throat, but there was nothing else. Huanglong was dying, and pain did not matter to a corpse.

  Mayfair, London, April 30th.

  An evening at Demi-monde had seemed a little crazy. But Ceri had been feeling off for days and the idea of relaxing in Lily’s company also seemed likely to take her mind off that, perhaps even to shift the sense of dread that had been creeping over her. There was also the matter of their new Ayasha and Lilith outfits. They were, apparently, ready and Ceri could not wait to see how Lily looked in hers.

  So they had got dressed up, which was to say that Lily was wearing a pair of heels and a coat, and Ceri was in thigh-high boots and a leather and fishnet teddy with a leather coat over the top. Now they were walking out of Green Park tube station onto Piccadilly. Across the road was Green Park itself. The Serpents, a werewolf pack, claimed the north-west corner of it, but steered clear of the end they were near.

  They were, however, just walking down the road to turn right onto Half Moon Street so they stayed on that side of the road and began walking. Maybe it was the way they were walking, maybe the outfits looked a little out of place, but they seemed to be getting more than a little attention. Ceri ignored the glances coming in her direction; she was getting into character as they approached the club, though enthusiasm over how she hoped Lily would react to her new dress was threatening to overcome her superior, dominatrix demeanour.

  ‘You’re not going to tell me what the design is?’ Lily asked.

  ‘You’ll love it,’ Ceri replied.

  ‘That is not answering the question.’

  ‘We’ll be there soon, you’ll see it.’

  ‘What if I don’t like it?’

  ‘You’ll like it,’ Ceri told her.

  ‘But what if I…’ Lily came to a sudden stop, her brow furrowing.

  ‘What is it?’ Ceri asked, immediately on edge.

  ‘I don’t know. There’s magic… Something magical… I can’t isolate…’ She turned toward the park and Ceri followed her gaze, blinking on her Sight. Something seemed disturbed in the magic around the street, but Piccadilly was old, there might have been a minor ley line…

  Lily let out a gasp, staggering backward. Ceri blinked, unsure of what was happening. The back of Lily’s coat was bulging outward as though…

  ‘Gadewch i mi weld yr anweledig,’ Ceri muttered as she focussed her will. Seeing the unseen… And the figure standing in front of Lily, its right arm pushed into her stomach, appeared. It was six-foot tall, gaunt to the point of skeletal, and translucent from the invisibility effect it was employing. Ceri had never seen anything quite like it before. There was a long sword in its right hand, the pommel flickering with stored magical energy. But it was in its left hand so the right…

  ‘Lily!’ Ceri shrieked as Lily grabbed the figure’s wrist. It struggled and then pulled back, and the shortsword it had run through Lily’s stomach appeared attached to a metal cuff. The thing had no right hand. Lily fell backwards, falling against the wall of the building and sliding down it.

  The sword was swinging at Ceri’s head and she had no time to worry about Lily. Or she had to push that aside or she would be of no use… Twisting aside, she threw her arm up, her will hardening her skin to iron as the blade struck. She staggered backward from the blow and reacted to it immediately with another spell. The sword swung again, but this time when it hit her arm it shattered.

  The figure whirled away, casting down the sword hilt. Ceri put herself between it and Lily before she spoke. ‘Huanglong… What the Hell have you done?’

  ‘The only thing I could do.’ The voice was rasping, harsh, but it still held a little of the timbre it had once had. ‘Had I stayed a dragon, even the little that was left of me, you would have sensed me coming.’

  She could see energy building in his hand. People around them were looking about for the source of the voice and it suddenly appeared among them: a tall, semi-skeletal figure, withered and clearly undead. The screaming started and Ceri knew she had to get Huanglong away from the crowds. She reached out, a jet of air bursting from her hand and striking him in the chest, forcing him back into the street. Cars swerved and there was the blaring of horns. Huanglong turned and marched across the street, the energy still building in his hand.

  He would use fire, she was sure of it. She collapsed the air jet and summoned up a defensive spell instead before walking after him. More car horns blared b
ut she ignored them. Across the street and in the park, people yelled and ran. Ceri cursed under her breath, but there was nothing she could do to keep this private; Huanglong had decided to attack them in as public a place as possible.

  As he reached the pavement he turned, throwing a bolt of orange light at Ceri. She did not try to dodge it, fearing it might hit someone else, and it flashed into flame right in her face. For an instant she was blind and as her vision cleared she saw flame licking up from her coat. She shucked it off her shoulders and let it fall into the road. She heard Huanglong’s scream of frustration, and she ignored that as she was ignoring everything else.

  She could have asked why he was doing this, but she knew that. Or she thought she did anyway. In truth she did not care. He had stabbed Lily. He had run her through with a sword. A sword! Ceri continued advancing, energy growing in her hand.

  As she crossed onto the grass he turned and closed the distance. She dropped into a ready stance, thinking he would swing at her. She had no idea how powerful he was, but the sword strike had felt solid enough. He swung and she tried to avoid him, the blow catching her thigh. The shock hit her like a sledgehammer and she staggered back, barely keeping her feet. She heard his rasping laugh. If he came at her again… She threw her spell at him, a ball of incandescent energy that struck his chest, burning into the dry skin beneath his shirt.

  She heard his hiss, but he seemed unconcerned by the damage. Whatever he had become, it was unnaturally durable, and she was on her last legs, almost literally. She stumbled backward, her hand reaching down for her thigh. Light flickered around her palm and the bruise healed, though her leg was not working right yet.

  Then Huanglong was on her. It seemed like his anger had overcome his tactics, but she was beginning to believe he was just not a fighter. He was aiming to grapple her, probably to carry her to the floor, but she pushed him off, sliding out from under his arms and snapping a knee into his stomach in passing. That seemed to do nothing more than hurt her knee. She needed magic to kill him.

  He went for another grapple, and again she managed to dodge his assault. She backed up, trying to put space between them, and began summoning power. He came after her and she dodged as she backed up. He swung at her and she stepped back again, out of reach. He punched at her face and she saw magic burning around his hand as it swung past her nose. He swung again, aiming low, and she failed to get the block in fast enough. The impact was almost nothing, but pain lanced through her body as his spell took hold. She screamed and threw her spell into Huanglong’s face.

  He lurched backward as the energy ate into him, but he was still standing. Ceri could not believe it as he swung blindly at her. His eyes were gone entirely, but he was still standing, still trying to get at her. She moved back, summoning more power.

  ‘Where are you?’ Huanglong rasped. The words were indistinct; most of his face had been corroded into dust by the blast. ‘You killed… everything… I’ve…’

  Ceri hit him with another blast, and he fell, crumpling to his knees and then collapsing onto the grass. His arm stretched out toward her, and then stopped. He was gone.

  ‘Lily,’ Ceri whispered, turning to run back across the road. And stopped.

  On the pavement across Piccadilly, the blazing shape of Jehoel was standing over the fallen half-succubus. His wings were spread and the light from him was almost blinding. As Ceri watched, the sword was drawn from Lily’s body and her back arched as if in pain.

  Ceri dashed forward, through the stopped cars, reaching the other side as Jehoel turned.

  ‘A debt repaid, sorceress,’ the angel said, his voice an echo in Ceri’s mind. Then he dropped the sword to the pavement, beat his wings once, and vanished into the sky.

  Part Eight: The New Age

  Kennington, London, May 2nd, 2013.

  High Towers was on the TV. Lily was sitting on the couch in front of it wrapped in a blanket, watching the news with a kind of sick fascination. She was healed, but still a little sore, and she tired quickly, so she was under orders to rest. Given the kind of person she was, that was not an easy thing for her.

  Ceri stood at one of the windows looking out at the horde of reporters and cameramen who had been besieging the house since Ceri and Lily had got home. There were police out there as well; uniformed Greycoats officers stood at both gates and patrolled the fence. None of them could see in; the illusion which made the house look like something off a Gothic horror set also made the windows seem to be in different places than they were. Ceri watched the throng, her brow wrinkled.

  ‘They aren’t going to leave any time soon,’ Lily commented. ‘They can’t get in. There’s not much point in watching them.’

  ‘There’s not much point in watching them rehash the same news, but you are.’

  ‘I keep thinking there might be something new.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well, there was that statement from the Ministry a couple of hours ago.’

  Ceri gave a grunt. Malcolm Charles, Minister for Arcane Affairs, had appeared to give a prepared report which said that the Ministry for Arcane Affairs had no current position on what was being called ‘The Sorcery Incident.’ ‘Sorcerers,’ he had said, ‘are legendary and almost certainly not some special kind of magic wielder. There are perfectly normal, arcane explanations for what was seen in Green Park.’

  ‘Isn’t normal kind of the opposite of arcane?’ Lily had asked.

  ‘He’s probably a bit stressed,’ Ceri had suggested. Charles had looked stressed, and a little less confident than he usually did. Ceri had the worrying feeling that the Ministry was being frozen out on a matter they should have been taking the lead on. Again.

  Ophelia walked into the lounge and Ceri turned to look at her. The Sidhe had been spending a lot of time in the Demon Realm and it was rare to see her in the house. Now she was there, and she was frowning.

  ‘Is that the BBC?’ Ophelia asked, waving a hand at the TV.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Lily replied. ‘I like their presenters.’

  ‘Well there should be something coming up…’

  The picture cut back to the studio where a fairly young, slightly nervous-looking man was flicking his eyes over a sheet of paper he had obviously just been handed. ‘We’re going over now to our Otherworld correspondent for a report from the Fae Consulate,’ he stated before the picture cut again.

  A tall, inhumanely handsome man with shoulder-length, inky-black hair was standing behind a lectern in a fairly small press briefing room. The consulate was little more than a house owned by the Seelie Ambassador. It was somewhere in Mayfair, Ceri thought, so it was an expensive house, but it was still just a house.

  ‘Ambassador Irwan Alberich gave the following statement ten minutes ago,’ the presenter stated in voiceover.

  And the man spoke, his voice rich and a little dark, as one would expect of a powerful Sidhe. ‘I have received the following statement from the Summer Court. I will read it as it has been presented to me. I will not be taking questions.’

  ‘He’s House Alberich?’ Ceri asked.

  Ophelia nodded. ‘Distant cousin of Oberon. He’s competent, but not very imaginative.’

  ‘King Oberon and Queen Titania,’ Irwan said, reading from what looked like an actual scroll, ‘wish it to be known that the human woman, Ceridwyn Brent, is well known and well regarded by the Summer Court, her power, knowledge, and self-sacrifice brought victory in the face of sure defeat when dark forces sought to usurp the Twin Thrones. She is considered a friend of the Fae.’ He paused for a second and then added, ‘That is all,’ before turning and walking out through the door behind him.

  The room erupted into uproar as people shouted questions and the picture cut back to the studio, but Lily was already muting the sound.

  ‘Well…’ Lily said, ‘that’s good, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Ceri replied, looking at Ophelia for confirmation.

  The Sidhe’s pretty face did not suit a grimace. ‘Th
ey basically just said that if something happens to Ceri, they’ll consider it as an act of aggression against the Fae. Not only that, but they’re saying that the Fae should act to protect Ceri.’

  ‘They have to know what that would mean,’ Ceri said warily.

  ‘Oh yeah, they do. You made an impression. You saved their royal behinds. You basically went to war for them, and they’re willing to do the same for you.’

  ‘Oh,’ Lily said. ‘Well… crap.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ceri agreed. ‘That’s going to go down so well. The Foreign Office is going to be running around like scalded cats.’

  ‘Hiffy has your rooms prepared for an extended stay if necessary,’ Ophelia stated. ‘She’s working on the guest rooms in case you want to bring anyone else over. If we need to, we can evacuate and leave them to stew.’

  ‘That,’ Ceri said, ‘is the absolute last resort.’

  ‘Maybe, but you need to consider it.’

  Biting her lips, Ceri walked past Ophelia, across the landing, and into the study. That was where Gwyn and Mei were, the latter speaking quietly into a mobile phone when Ceri walked in.

  ‘Gwyn, I need you to get a message to Ed,’ Ceri said.

  ‘Edward has had a visit from some policemen this morning,’ Gwyn replied, her voice level. ‘They told him they were making enquiries into his background and that he should not leave town.’

  Ceri’s fists clenched. ‘Policemen?’

  ‘That’s what they claimed to be. He was not so sure.’

  ‘Right… If it comes to it, he’s to come here. Directly. No pretence about needing a train. Hiffy and Ruffa have prepared rooms at the castle. Who’s Mei talking to?’

  ‘The Foreign Office. They called her. Apparently they are in something of a state of anxiety regarding a statement made by the Fae Ambassador.’