Thaumatology 03 - Legacy

by Teasdale, Niall

‘Well,’ Lily said, ‘say what you came to say.’

  ‘I won’t lie,’ Faran said. ‘You being free of my influence means that you won’t end up like most half-demon children, which is to my benefit.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ceri said, ‘we figured that out ourselves.’

  He nodded slowly. ‘I realise that this may be hard to believe, but I genuinely care for you, Lilith.’

  ‘Don’t call me that,’ Lily snapped. Ceri looked at her. ‘That’s what it says on my birth certificate,’ the half-demon growled.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Faran said. ‘It wasn’t my idea. I wasn’t there when you were born.’

  Sally’s cheeks coloured. ‘It… seemed like a good name at the time.’

  ‘I prefer Lily,’ Lily stated flatly.

  ‘Lily,’ Faran said emphatically, ‘do you remember when you were a child and I would teach you about demons?’ Lily nodded. ‘I was trying to prepare you. I was hoping I could make you ready for your demon side when it emerged. I failed. Miserably. I’m sorry. I just couldn’t give you up and leave.’

  ‘It’s my fault too,’ Sally said. ‘I was too quick to judge. I didn’t believe you were so tied to your father that he was affecting your behaviour. I should have had him banished sooner, but…’

  ‘It’s kind of tough giving up that kind of relationship,’ Ceri said. Lily looked at her and she held her pet’s eyes. ‘I know I’d have to try hard to give Lily up.’

  Lily opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again. Her fists gripped her daggers fiercely. She looked down at them. ‘You know, Ceri,’ she said softly, ‘you’re right. I guess I was starting to climb out of the pit when I got these made. Then Carter threw me a rope, and then I met you, but I had these made so that if I had to I could cut my way free.’ She looked up at her father. ‘And then you tell us how to free my mind from you permanently, so I guess I do owe you that at least.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Faran said; it sounded very genuine.

  ‘So… where do we go from here?’ Lily asked.

  Faran’s lips curled into a slight smile. ‘If you’ll allow me, I’d like to continue your education. You can learn to use your powers better, and I think your Mistress would also be interested in learning more about demons.’ Ceri nodded, perhaps a little too eagerly. ‘I would be very grateful if I could stay on Earth a while longer. There’s a good reason why demons are always trying to get here from our home.’

  ‘I think,’ Lily began hesitantly, ‘that I’d like that, but if we get word of anyone dying from an incubus…’

  Faran bowed his head in acknowledgement. ‘I can accept that,’ he said.

  ‘Right,’ Ceri said, her lips twitching, ‘I’ve got Lily’s parents together in one place. I want to hear embarrassing baby stories.’

  ‘Aw Ceri!’ Lily whined.

  May 24th

  It was as they were leaving that Faran stopped, looked at Ceri for a few seconds, and then stepped closer, leaning in to place his mouth against her ear. ‘I am Helfaran Gef Natharoll,’ he whispered, ‘and it has been a great pleasure to meet a sorceress of such power.’ He kissed her softly on the cheek and then stepped back, giving her a bow before walking over to give his daughter a hug.

  When he had gone, escorting Sally to the station for her train, Lily looked at Ceri with a frown. ‘What did he say to you?’ she asked.

  ‘He told me his name,’ Ceri said, looking a little shocked. ‘His full name. He also told me he knew I was a sorceress.’

  ‘How?!’

  ‘I have no idea, but I think we can trust him with the information.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Lily said, sounding a little surprised that she was saying it. ‘I think we can.’

  Richmond, May 30th

  ‘Hello?’ The voice filtered through a small speaker mounted beside the door and was almost unrecognisable as Alec’s.

  ‘Happy birthday,’ Ceri replied. ‘It’s Ceri and Lily. Get your fuzzy arse out here.’

  ‘Uh, I’m kind of waiting for Cheryl to get here, kid.’ It was hard to tell over the bad connection, but he sounded a little embarrassed.

  ‘I know you are. Put a robe on or something and come to the door.’ There was a pause and then a click as the line went dead.

  ‘Yeah,’ Lily said in agreement to the unspoken statement, ‘he wasn’t dressed.’

  Ceri giggled, and was still giggling when the door opened. To be fair to Alec, the thick mat of hair on his chest was wet, as was his head hair; they had got him out of the shower. His left hand clutched a thick towel around his hips. ‘Okay, what do you two pests want?’

  ‘We brought you a sort of joint present,’ Lily said. They stepped aside and watched as Alec’s jaw dropped. Half way up the drive which led up to the house was a slightly timid looking, grey-furred she-wolf.

  ‘The spell has enough juice to keep her in that shape until morning,’ Ceri said. Lily had been part of the “present” by lending Ceri some of the power for the spell; it had taken quite a lot. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve taught her much wolf, so you won’t be able to talk, but I gave her a few lessons on behaviour. I’d suggest a good run through the park before you get down to banging each other senseless, but it’s up to you.’ Ceri grinned. ‘She wanted to surprise you.’

  ‘She, uh, certainly did that,’ Alec replied.

  ‘Good surprise, I hope?’ Lily said.

  In answer, Alec let go of his towel, tossing it back into the house. ‘If you ladies will excuse me, I have a very attractive young she-wolf to entertain.’ He shifted as he started toward Cheryl, letting the door swing closed behind him. There was the sniffing and the rubbing of muzzles, and then Alec jerked his head toward Richmond Park which lay across the road from his house, and they ran off onto the rolling grass. As Ceri and Lily got to the end of the drive, they could just see the two wolves loping away from them into the night.

  ‘I have to admit,’ Lily said, ‘that does look like fun.’

  ‘It is,’ Ceri replied. ‘Just running like that with Michael is one of my favourite things about being a wolf.’ They started back toward East Sheen station and the train back home.

  ‘Do you think, maybe,’ Lily said, ‘you could take me…’

  Ceri stepped closer to Lily and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Lily slipped her arm around Ceri’s waist in return. ‘I’ll clear it with Alexandra,’ Ceri said. ‘If it’s okay we’ll do it next Tuesday. I’m sure Michael won’t mind an extra night with his mate and a new expansion to his harem.’

  ‘Do I get “tried out” by a dozen single males like you did?’

  ‘That takes ages! You want to have some time to just be wolfy, don’t you?’

  ‘Yeah…’ Lily replied. ‘Maybe just half a dozen then?’

  Ceri shook her head. ‘Total nympho,’ she muttered, smirking as she said it.

  ‘What?’ Lily said. ‘My father’s an incubus, I can’t help it.’

  The sound of laughter drifted out across the park, eventually reaching the ears of the two werewolves running across the grass. They looked at each other, barked in laughter, and then kept on running.

  ###

  Black Moonlight

  Kennington, London, May 15th, 2011

  ‘Would you two like to go to a concert on Tuesday night?’ The question came out of the blue and both Ceri and Lily looked at Michael with slight surprise. ‘I know it’s kind of short notice,’ he added. ‘If you can’t…’

  ‘Who’s on?’ Lily asked. She was lying on Michael’s right side and she propped herself up on one elbow to look over his chest.

  ‘Black Moonlight,’ he said. ‘They’re doing…’

  ‘An special gig at the Metal Shed,’ Lily interrupted, ‘which half the rock fans in London would sell their soul to get tickets to, and I happen to know it’s been sold out for two months. How did you get one ticket never mind three?’

  ‘Uh, well, I.. uh…’

  Ceri, on his other side, propped herself up too. ‘I haven’t seen you stammer this
much around us in ages. Out with it.’

  ‘I kind of know one of the band,’ he explained.

  Lily pursed her lips. ‘The base guitarist is Welsh, if my memory serves… Kai?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ Michael said a little reluctantly. ‘He, um, he’s my half-brother.’

  The two girls looked at each other. ‘We’ll go,’ they chorused.

  Hammersmith, May 17th

  Black Moonlight were the most popular of a sub-genre of heavy rock bands known as Moon Metal. Ceri knew next to nothing about them and was surprised to discover that Lily, who rarely seemed to listen to music, did. Moon Metal bands were characterised by having a werewolf lead singer, though most of them, Black Moonlight included, were all wolf. It was, apparently, the lyrics which made Black Moonlight popular. Their songs spoke to a werewolf’s soul, or so Lily said.

  The Metal Shed was a fairly small venue noted for featuring new and rising stars in the heavy rock world, but also for staging one-off gigs like the one they were going to. Big stars would hold small gigs with little pre-publicity. The fans got something more intimate than usual, and many of the bands at least liked to think of themselves as being close to their fan-base. As Ceri queued beside her two friends, she could tell that this gig was slightly different; for one thing, the proportion of werewolves in the audience was significantly higher than average.

  If there were normally tables on the main floor, they had been pulled out so that the audience could stand in front of the small stage. There was a balcony running around the room, along either side of the stage and across the back. Ceri looked up as they filed into the room along with the horde of humans and werewolves dressed in more leather than a cow herd. Familiar faces could be seen up on the balcony, which must have been the VIP area; Catherine, Alpha of the Royal pack was up there with Stefan, her Guard Captain. Ceri smirked and followed Michael and Lily through the crowd toward the stage.

  ‘There’s no support band,’ Michael commented, ‘we won’t have to wait too long.’ Ceri had never seen her mate quite so comfortable among so many people. She was not sure, but she suspected it was the number of wolves in the audience. He nodded toward the balcony on the other side of the stage from where Catherine was sitting. ‘That’s Dolf,’ he said, ‘the Alpha of the Dog Boys.’ Ceri grinned; he certainly looked the part. Close cropped hair, lots of muscles, a nose which had been broken more than once and had a deep scar across it running out under his left eye.

  ‘That’s a really attractive face he’s got,’ Ceri said.

  ‘Well,’ Michael said, ‘you know the Dog Boys.’

  ‘Not really. And I don’t want to know them better, to be honest.’

  Anything else she might have said was drowned out by a roar of cheers from the crowd; the four members of Black Moonlight were walking out onto the stage. The singer walked up to his microphone while the others set themselves up at their instruments. He called out, ‘How’s it hangin’, Hammersmith?’ and was rewarded with another bellow and a few howls from the crowd. Ceri guessed he was a typical frontman for a band; handsome in a slightly rough way, his washboard stomach on full display since he was shirtless. His leather jeans appeared to have been heat-shrunk onto his legs, though in a fit of possessive pride Ceri decided that Michael filled his leathers out better.

  She was not sufficiently well versed in instruments to figure out which of the two guitarists was Kai. The more flamboyant was a bleach-blond decked out in a lot of leather straps, though none of them could be described as a collar, and yet more leather jeans. The quieter one had black hair, looked pretty good in jeans and a black, silk shirt, and seemed somehow familiar. Ceri’s money was on him being the bassist.

  At the back, the drummer was an archetypical example of his kind. He was in wolf-man form, and wearing enormous army boots and a dark plaid kilt. At the sound of howls from the crowd, he raised his muzzle and howled back. Ceri found herself grinning.

  ‘All right,’ the lead yelled, ‘let’s warm things up a bit. This is a number we call… Tooth and Claw.’ The crowd roared again as the opening power-chords of the song blasted out and Ceri felt like her ears were about to revolt and demand she leave.

  ~~~

  As the final encore wrapped and the band took their final leave, Ceri had to admit that they were really good. They had played a lot of very heavy, loud and raucous rock, but there had been some ballads which had been really moving.

  The one which really touched her, however, had been a duet between the lead singer, Jarel, and a guest singer, Tegan. According to Michael, she was a folk singer from the Snowdonia pack and had co-written the song with Kai. The song had been a ballad to “the Goddess” and how she had returned to lead the werewolves back to the old ways. Dolf had not looked impressed and the humans around the room had heard a nice song, but the majority of the wolves had stood in absolute silence as the two voices sang out through the hall.

  ‘C’mon,’ Michael said as the audience began to leave. Going against the flow, he led the way toward the back of the stage.

  ‘We get to go backstage?’ Lily squeaked. Her face was all child-like glee; it never failed to amaze Ceri how Lily could be the sexiest woman on the planet one minute, and a giggling kid the next.

  ‘We haven’t seen each other in a couple of years,’ Michael said. ‘Kai was pretty insistent about meeting up after.’

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ Lily said. ‘We want gossip.’

  Michael’s facepalm spoke volumes, but he continued back through the corridors behind the stage to where they could hear the sound of a party starting up. There was music from the band, but this had the slightly artificial quality of produced and recorded material being played on a sound system. There was also a fair amount of laughing and a hum of conversation.

  They found everyone in a large room which was still not quite large enough for the throng of people occupying it. Looking around, Ceri had the distinct impression that she was the only human there. The drummer was lounging on a couch at the back of the room and the three women he had with him had already joined him in fur. Catherine was visible chatting with Jarel; Stefan looked a little bored as he stood nearby.

  ‘Hey, Brother!’ The voice had a Welsh accent significantly heavier than Michael’s. Ceri turned to see the bass player; he had been the one, as she suspected. ‘Long time no see, boyo,’ Kai went on, ‘and who’s this pair of lovely bitches ye’ve brought with you?’ He paused slightly, looking a little confused, as he got closer. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. This place smells like a homeless ronin’s armpit, I couldn’t tell y’weren’t werewolves.’

  Ceri grinned. ‘Two nights a week I am.’

  Michael smiled sheepishly and rubbed at the back of his neck. ‘Well, um, Kai, this is Ceri, my mate, and Lily, she’s, uh…’

  ‘Your mate-in-law?’ Lily suggested.

  Kai looked between them. ‘I think I need an explanation,’ he said. ‘Because this sounds complicated. C’mon, we’ll get some drinks and have a chat.’ He turned and led them to a back corner which was less occupied than the rest of the room and had a table full of bottles nearby. With glasses in hand, the four of them moved into a huddle. ‘Right then, so a human mate?’ There was something odd about the way he said it.

  ‘It’s a little different from my mother,’ Michael said.

  Ceri blinked at him. ‘You never said your mother was human,’ she said. ‘Not that you talk about your parents much at all.’

  Kai looked at Michael, his face dark. Michael nodded. ‘Dad had two sons by my mother,’ Kai said. ‘When she died, he honoured her memory like any other Alpha.’ Ceri gritted her teeth to stop her jaw dropping; Michael had not mentioned he was the son of an Alpha either. If Ceri remembered right, that also made him the son of a black-fur. Alexandra’s reasons for considering him a potential successor were getting more obvious by the minute. ‘But he fell in love with a human girl and Michael was the result. Thing is… a human giving birth to a werewolf isn’t easy. Modern medicine can
help, but…’

  ‘Mum died giving birth to me,’ Michael said. ‘Dad tried to forgive me, but I don’t think he ever quite managed it. Kai used to support me when Dad was being an arse.’

  ‘But the one thing I never thought Michael’d do is take a human mate,’ Kai said.

  ‘Like you said, it’s complicated,’ Ceri said.

  ‘Ceri’s a member of the Battersea pack,’ Michael said. ‘She can turn into a she-wolf when she wants. Alexandra and Anita made her a member of the Guard.’

  Kai grinned quizzically and waved a finger at the three of them. ‘Hang on… A girl who’s part of a wolf pack… You’re Ceridwyn Brent.’ He looked at Michael as if he had never seen him before. ‘You’re Ceridwyn Brent’s boyfriend?’

  Michael actually shuffled his feet. ‘Uh, yeah.’

  ‘By the Goddess…’ He raised his voice and called out, ‘Tegan! Tegan, get ye’re gorgeous arse over here!’

  The pretty, blonde folk singer emerged through a group of women who were huddled around the other guitarist and walked over with a confident stride. ‘I thought you wanted to chat with your brother for a bit,’ she said.

  ‘I did, I am, but you’ll want to meet these people.’ Kai had what could only be described as a wolfish grin on his face. ‘Tegan, this is my brother Michael, his friend Lily who, if my memory serves is a half-succubus?’ Lily smiled and nodded in acknowledgement. ‘And this is his mate, Ceridwyn Brent.’

  Tegan’s eyes widened and for a second Ceri was worried she was going to go down on her knees. ‘You set the Goddess free,’ she said finally. ‘You killed Remus… Our song, the one I sang tonight with Jarel, Goddess’ Gift, it’s dedicated to you.’

  Ceri felt her cheeks heating up. ‘I did have some help, you know. Lily, Alec, and the North Hills pack were there at Stonehenge. Michael was leading the Battersea team who defended Catherine from two of Remus’ wolves.’

  ‘Hold up,’ Kai said, ‘my brother Michael fought a Remus wolf?’

  Smirking, Ceri reached over and pulled Michael’s T-shirt up to show the three scars on the left side of his rib cage. ‘Oh yeah, he fought one. He’s got the scars to prove it.’