Thaumatology 07 - Eagle's Shadow

by Teasdale, Niall

  ‘Feigned compassion?’ Levy said. For some reason, Ceri did not buy the puzzled look on his face.

  ‘From what I understand,’ Ceri said, ‘it was not Satan who tempted Eve. Gadriel did it, and then went on to teach men the arts of war and women the arts of beauty. He… demonstrated that he still likes tempting women.’

  ‘You met a Fallen who said he had tempted Eve,’ Angelica said, ‘and yet you still don’t believe God created Man?’

  Ceri smiled. ‘I’ve also talked to a dragon who was teaching humans thousands of years before the biblical Adam and Eve would have existed. I, personally, can’t deny the possibility that the universe was created by some deity. It’s not my field of expertise. I know a couple of competing theories which suggest there was no need for a Creator. I‘ve been told there are old, Christian faiths which suggest that the Creator and the Christian god are not the same deity… Did you want a science and theology debate at a function like this?’ Ceri smiled, hoping that would end it.

  ‘Surely most cultures have some Creation myth,’ Angelica responded. ‘If it’s so widespread, why not believe there is truth in one?’

  ‘But then, why the Christian one?’ Lily asked. ‘My father told me the one the demons have. All the dimensions were created when Lord Hol fought a great battle with a vast beast, the Gredolin. As he slashed it, it’s blood flew out in droplets, and each drop became a universe. When the Gredolin was dead, its carcase cast into the Void, Hol chose the best of the universes to be his home and made the demons from the ground up teeth of the beast. Their version says that a demon lord made all the worlds. It’s more complete, so perhaps it’s more correct.’

  There it was! The flicker of disgust that Levy could not quite manage to keep off his face. Ceri had been expecting something to show up and was almost impressed it had taken so long. ‘Perhaps you’re right, Doctor Brent,’ Levy said, ‘a diplomatic function is not the best place to discuss matters of faith.’ Ceri smiled at him and nodded. ‘Good luck with your project.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Ceri said, amazed that she was managing to keep a straight face.

  The couple walked away and Ceri watched, her brow creasing slightly. Angelica moved with an amazing amount of grace for a human. What she said was, ‘That was fun? I liked that myth. I wonder if there’s a dragon one.’

  ‘Ask one of your dragons,’ Lily suggested.

  ‘I will.’ She turned, looking around for Cheryl and Carter. ‘Do you think it would be enormously impolite to leave early? I’ve had about enough…’ She trailed off.

  ‘Something up?’

  Ceri frowned. Something was up. Something was wrong, something which she could not quite put her finger on, but knew it was trouble. ‘I’m not sure. Do you see anything?’ Her gaze swept the room. Levy and his wife had moved off to stand with another couple, though she seemed to be looking at the room rather than paying attention to the conversation. The President was talking to the Prime Minister, and there was Carter and Cheryl chatting to the First Lady. The central floor area was largely empty aside from one man who was moving across the clear area in the middle.

  ‘I don’t see anything particularly odd,’ Lily said.

  The lone man… Something about him. The way he moved; a determined stride, but not quite a natural one. He was moving toward Wilson and Haldane, the PM. He seemed… wrong. Ceri moved, Lily following her, closing rapidly on the strange man. The more Ceri looked, the more it seemed like there was something unnatural about him. He was reaching into his jacket…

  Ceri felt the alarm from Lily and moved. The dress was an impediment to most of her combat moves, so she went with a shoulder barge. They both went down, him sprawling onto the floor as cries of alarm went up from the guests, but he was still grabbing for something in his jacket and Ceri pushed forward, landing on his chest. He was stronger than he looked and managed to push upward, rolling them over, but Ceri was more skilled. She pulled him, continuing the roll, and a second later she was on top with her knee pulled up onto his chest and the thing he had been reaching for in her hand. She looked at it. It was a gun.

  A second later there were six Secret Service agents surrounding her with automatic pistols pointed at her head.

  Part Two: Intelligence

  Westminster, London, January 31st, 2012

  The cell was neither large, nor comfortable, and it had heavy, silver-iron screening to prevent magic getting in or out. The bed was an iron frame with a soggy mattress; not very comfortable, but then Ceri had not really felt much like sleeping. The American security agents had been remarkably reluctant to hand her over to the British authorities and it had taken Malcolm Charles and the Prime Minister talking to President Wilson to get her released into the custody of the Diplomatic Protection Group, who had then taken her to New Scotland Yard. Now she was locked up there, underground, in a cell. To make matters worse, she was not entirely sure what had happened to Lily.

  Exactly what time it was was also a guess. She had been in the cell for several hours, but with no way to measure the time and nothing to distract her, it probably felt a lot longer than it was.

  The heavy clank of the lock being turned came almost as a relief. The door opened and a uniformed policeman with sergeant’s insignia on his shoulders stepped into the cell. ‘We’re taking you up to interrogation,’ he said. He was middle-aged, likely a career policeman, and experienced, but probably not that used to dealing with supernaturals. Stepping into the cell would have been a bad idea if Ceri had actually been a criminal.

  Ceri got to her feet without a word and the cop backed out of the room to allow her out. There were two men in tactical gear outside, each with a submachine gun at rest in his arms. Now that was not a good sign. The sergeant led the way to a lift with the armed officers flanking Ceri as she went. Up five floors and she was taken down an empty corridor to a room with a heavy, screened door and a mirror taking up one entire wall. The armed officers took up position in the corners opposite the mirror and the sergeant indicated that Ceri should sit down. The last time she had been in a room like this, she had been the one doing the interrogation.

  They kept her waiting for another ten minutes. At least this room had a clock. The tactic was transparent and irritating, and Ceri was already irritated. That was probably what they wanted though, so she pushed down on her annoyance and waited.

  She recognised one of the men who walked in, a slim, greying man with an arrogant air and a Roman nose. Harold Nugent, a Chief Inspector with Special Branch who did not really like Ceri. That was a great start. The other man was younger, smarter, and a lot better looking, but the expression on his narrow face suggested a man who thought he was in on a career-making case.

  The younger cop pressed the record button on the tape machine, waited for it to start up, and then said, ‘Interview with Ceridwyn Brent beginning at ten-oh-six. DI Martin Lowell and DCI Harold Nugent attending.’

  ‘You’ve been cautioned, Miss Brent?’ Nugent asked.

  ‘Doctor,’ Ceri said.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘It’s Doctor Brent. Yes, I’ve been cautioned.’

  ‘You’ve been arrested on suspicion of attempting to assassinate the US President,’ Nugent went on. Ceri said nothing. ‘Nothing to say?’

  ‘I was waiting for you to ask me a question. What evidence do you have to suggest I did what you’re accusing me of?’

  Lowell opened a file and looked at the contents, though she guessed he knew it by heart. ‘You were seen to approach the President, bump into a man, tussle with him, and produce a gun.’

  ‘Where did I get the gun?’

  ‘An eye witness states that it “came out of nowhere,”’ Lowell said.

  ‘So where did I get the gun?’ Ceri repeated.

  ‘You brought it in…’

  ‘Through a metal detector, while wearing this dress,’ Ceri interrupted.

  ‘You used magic…’ Lowell tried, but Ceri stopped him again.

  ‘Transl
ocation? Which people have been trying to achieve for decades without success?’ Ceri was quite sure she could have summoned a gun by translocation, if she had actually owned one, but the only people who knew she could were Lily and Athro. Anyone these two asked would tell them it was impossible.

  ‘Why don’t you tell us your story, Doctor?’ Nugent said. He could tell his subordinate was digging a hole for himself and needed to stop it.

  ‘I saw the man I “bumped into” crossing the floor,’ Ceri said. ‘There was something unnatural about the way he was moving and he was heading for the PM and the President. As I got closer he was reaching into his jacket. I took him down, tussled with him, and took what he was reaching for from his jacket. That’s where the gun came from. Who was he?’

  ‘So you’re saying this man was attempting the assassination and you stopped him?’ Nugent asked.

  ‘If you need it spelling out for you,’ Ceri replied, ‘and you didn’t answer my question.’

  ‘I’m not required to answer your questions,’ Nugent stated flatly.

  ‘And I’m not required to answer yours without a lawyer present. I’m doing so, thus far, to be reasonable. If you aren’t going to be…’

  ‘He is a consular official. The Americans have him in custody.’ Lowell did not seem particularly pleased with Nugent’s admission. Ceri was surprised Nugent seemed more on her side.

  ‘So it’s rather more likely that he could have got in there with a gun than that I could?’ Ceri said.

  ‘The only fingerprints on the gun were yours,’ Lowell said.

  ‘It was in some sort of shoulder holster,’ Ceri said. ‘Are you saying he wasn’t wearing one?’

  Lowell frowned and flipped through his file. ‘Nothing’s mentioned.’

  ‘I felt it,’ Ceri stated. ‘It was there.’ If they were right about the fingerprints that was odd. This official had been carrying a gun, but had not touched it?

  ‘We’ll look into it,’ Nugent said. Pushing his chair back he got to his feet. ‘You’ll be taken back down to your cell. When we have all the information from the American side of the investigation we’ll call for you again.’

  Ceri nodded and watched them leave. Lowell looked far too keen to pin this on her for her liking and he was probably right about one thing; someone had used magic to pull this off. That was just going to make matters worse.

  February 1st

  ‘The custody officer says he had to check on you a couple of hours ago,’ Lowell said. ‘You were screaming?’ Nugent was not in the interview room yet; Lowell was fishing.

  ‘I get nightmares,’ Ceri said. She had a cornucopia of nightmare material to work with now. This one had been Brother Falk applying an array of torture implements he had never actually had access to when he had tortured her.

  ‘Your conscience eating at you?’

  ‘Stop digging, Detective, or we’ll need to throw you a rope.’

  ‘If I’d tried to kill…’

  ‘Don’t know when to quit, do you? You remember the Witch Hunter case before Christmas?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lowell said, nodding.

  ‘I was kidnapped by him. He had his rules before he burned you alive. You had to confess and he used the time honoured method of gaining an accurate confession. So he used a car battery first, isolation, a cigarette… When I was finally rescued he was busy trying to pull my arms out of their sockets. So, yes, I have nightmares. If you ever get to be chained to a wall while someone uses your nipples for ashtrays, you’ll have nightmares too.’

  Lowell had gone pale, but he was saved by the interview room door opening. Nugent walked in, followed by a bulky looking man with cropped black hair and a blue suit. There was a small American flag on his lapel. Lowell did not appear to know who he was since he raised an eyebrow at Nugent.

  ‘DCI Nugent entering the interrogation room,’ Nugent said, ‘with FBI agent Fred Talbot. Time is ten twenty-nine. Agent Talbot will be observing.’ Talbot took his observation role seriously, not saying a word as he walked over to a corner of the room, propping himself against the mirror.

  Nugent sat down. ‘The man the Americans have in custody was not wearing a shoulder holster when he was interrogated.’

  ‘Okay,’ Ceri said.

  ‘That’s all you have to say?’ Lowell asked.

  ‘I say he did, you say he didn’t. What would you like me to say?’

  ‘Some other story about where you got the gun from,’ Lowell said. ‘This one’s a bust.’ Ceri stared at him; he broke first.

  ‘I say I did not try to kill President Wilson,’ Ceri said. ‘I actually liked the man. You say I did. So charge me, or let me go.’

  Then she felt it; magic was being worked in the room. Her Sight caught the tail end of the spell as it licked around her head and then floated back toward the FBI agent in the corner. An information spell, divination, probably lie detection. Ceri smiled and pushed her chair back. Rising to her feet she said, ‘And we’re done here. I’d like to go home and have a shower now.’

  ‘What?’ Lowell said.

  ‘Miss Brent, please sit…’ Nugent began.

  ‘Doctor Brent,’ Ceri said, ‘and the moron in the corner just violated interrogation protocol. That detector in the ceiling will have recorded the magic use.’ She looked at Talbot. ‘Do you want to tell them what the lie detection spell said?’ Nugent sagged. ‘I’m a Special Advisor with the Met,’ Ceri went on, ‘so I’ve been trained in the use of magic during interrogations. You need a warrant to use divination during an interrogation, and you need to inform the suspect when using truth verification.’

  ‘Lowell,’ Nugent said, ‘process Doctor Brent’s release. I want to talk to Agent Talbot.’

  ‘But…’ Lowell said.

  ‘Do it!’ Nugent snapped.

  Lowell got to his feet. ‘Interview terminated at ten thirty-eight.’ He snapped the recorder off. ‘Come with me, Doctor Brent.’

  Kennington

  ‘Lily… air…’ There was no let-up in the half-succubus’ grip. ‘Seriously… dying…’ the last word came out as a squeak and Lily’s death-grip relaxed enough that Ceri could get oxygen. She did not, however, let go.

  ‘Next time, let them shoot the guy,’ Lily said.

  ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘Yes I do. He’s only a politician, there are loads more. There’s only one you and I don’t like sleeping without you.’

  ‘Sleeping wasn’t a bowl of cherries for me either, love. And the food!’ Ceri looked over Lily’s shoulder to where Twill was hovering. ‘It’s a good job I wasn’t hungry.’

  ‘I’ll make something light,’ Twill said. ‘And fresh coffee.’ Twisting in the air, the fairy’s form blurred into a sphere of blue-white light as she vanished off toward the kitchen.

  ‘You’re beautiful, Twill,’ Ceri called after her. ‘I’m going to take a quick shower and change out of this dress.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Lily said.

  ‘Lil, I’m a bit tired and…’

  ‘I just want to be there. I won’t even come in the cubicle.’

  Ceri smiled in a “yeah, sure” way, but did not stop Lily from following her. And Lily kept her word, though it was a little weird watching her stand outside the same way her father did so often, and with the same look of denied temptation on her face. She did not even ask any questions; she just stood there, leaning against the wall, and watched as Ceri washed two nights in a cell off herself. It was so endearing that Ceri put on one of her prettier teddies instead of a shirt; a little extra hint of sexy to reward her pet.

  ‘I don’t think they’ve stopped trying to pin this on me,’ Ceri said as she started on the bowl of thick stew Twill had warmed from the freezer. It was hardly light, but it was tasty and quick ‘I got out on a technicality.’

  ‘You did?’ Lily said.

  ‘Some FBI agent was there, supposedly observing. He cast a lie detection charm in the interview room.’

  ‘Ah,’ Lily said, grin
ning, ‘illegal search.’

  ‘You did pay attention on your training course,’ Twill said with just enough surprise to sell it.

  Lily scowled at her. ‘I so did.’

  ‘Does Michael know?’ Ceri asked.

  Lily nodded. ‘I went over to Battersea this morning. He’s coming here later to get an update. I think he was considering storming the place and breaking you out.’

  ‘I hope you persuaded him not to.’

  ‘Fuck no,’ Lily replied. ‘I told him if he went he should come get me first. Alexandra was persuading him not to.’

  ‘Crazy, the pair of you. Gorgeous, but insane. Do you want to save the rampant sex portion of the getting out celebration until Michael gets here?’

  ‘Never put off now what you can save for an hour or two,’ Lily said. ‘If you do it right now and like it, you can do it again, and again, and…’

  Ceri giggled and Twill’s wind-chime laugh echoed through the kitchen. ‘I get the picture, Lil.’

  ~~~

  ‘No, I wasn’t really thinking straight,’ Michael admitted. ‘I… may have considered several points of attack and the tactical use of Lily.’

  ‘I don’t want to be used tactically,’ Lily mumbled, her face buried in a pillow, ‘I want to be used sexually.’

  ‘We’ve been doing that for a couple of hours, love,’ Ceri replied.

  ‘I’m making up for lost time.’ Ceri, lying between them, started making patterns with a finger down Lily’s back and the mumbling turned into whimpering.

  Michael chuckled. ‘Anyway, Alexandra persuaded me you would probably hurt me if I got myself locked up trying to rescue you.’

  ‘Too right I would,’ Ceri told him. ‘We could use a new rug in front of the fire in the lounge.’

  ‘I’m just glad you’re out,’ Michael said.

  ‘I think that makes three of us,’ Ceri replied, getting a moan of agreement from Lily.

  ‘Apparently,’ Michael said. ‘You know if you keep stroking her back like that, you’re going to have to do something about it, right?’

  ‘Uh-huh. We will.’