Thaumatology 101 (5 page)

‘Ha!’ Lily exclaimed, pointing at Ceri. ‘See? Prude.’

Ceri pouted. ‘You’re only not blushing cos you can’t,’ she said.

‘No, it’s because I’m utterly shameless.’

‘That too.’ Ceri put her hands to her flaming cheeks and felt the edges of the bandages rough against them. Lowering her arms, she looked at them. She really wanted to take the stupid wrappings off and see what was underneath, but…

‘Next week,’ Lily said as if reading her mind; which she was, in a way. ‘You know how those poultices work better than I do. Always let them work for as long as they say to.’

‘I know,’ Ceri sighed, ‘but it’s annoying. How am I supposed to wash? A shower’s right out and I can’t even bath properly.’

‘Actually,’ Twill said, ‘Lily thought of that.’

‘Oh yeah,’ Lily said and bolted out through the kitchen door, giggling.

Somehow Ceri was not sure she liked the sound of that. ‘Where’s she gone?’ There was the sound of her feet running up the stairs. Lily never “thumped” when she ran, but she was still quite audible.

‘It’s really quite inventive of her,’ Twill replied, obviously not willing to spoil the surprise. ‘She’s really quite a bright girl; it’s a shame she never finished school.’

Lily reappeared in the doorway holding two long, black, latex gloves. Ceri blinked. ‘One of the girls at the Dragon knows this guy that does custom fetish-wear,’ Lily said, grinning. ‘So, when I saw the bandages, I thought “can’t have them getting wet” and I got him to make you these.’ She handed them over and Ceri sat there, looking at them as though they might bite. ‘Roll them up, put a little baby powder on your hands, pull them on, and then roll the sleeves up. I made sure they’d be quite tight, so they should be pretty waterproof.’

A slow grin spread over Ceri’s face. ‘That’s really awesome,’ she said. ‘Thank you. It’s really thoughtful.’

‘Told you,’ Twill said. ‘She’s a real smart one is our Lil.’

Lily did not blush, because her biology prevented it, but the look of almost childlike pride said just as much as a blush could have.

~~~

Twill had put scented candles around the bath. Ceri lay back in the gently steaming water amid the scent of lavender. The room light was off and the candles made flickering shadows on the ceiling, and Ceri lay there feeling slightly kinky with black, latex gloves up past her elbows. She giggled softly and settled herself in the water to relax. If only she wasn’t propping her arms up on the sides in case the gloves were not
entirely
waterproof. Oh well.

She closed her eyes.

The smell of lavender was strong in her nostrils, carried on a wind which swept from the fields behind her out over the cliff-edge. There was a road running along the cliff; more of a track, really, the tarmac old and no wider than a single car. The fence on this side was broken, mown down, and she turned with a gathering sense of dread to look down.

Beneath her on the rocky beach a car was burning. She knew the car, had ridden in it many times, but not for six years. The wind felt suddenly colder. She was standing on a cliff-top, naked aside from a pair of rubber gloves, looking down at the wreck of her parents’ car.

She had never seen it in reality, but she had dreamed of it, every night for over a year. Every night from the night she had heard about the accident until Lily had come to live at High Towers.

‘She has been a great friend, dear.’
Ceri did not turn at the sound of the voice, dreading what she might see. The voice came from just behind her left shoulder and it belonged to her mother.
‘We were so happy when she came and you stopped letting this get to you.’

‘You died, Mum,’
Ceri said.
‘How could I not let that get to me?’

‘She does have a point,’
her father said from over her other shoulder.
‘She always was quite insightful.’

‘Why now?’
Ceri’s voice was trembling.
‘Why am I dreaming of you again now? And why like this? I never had you talk to me before. Something’s changed… the accident at the lab.’

‘You’re right,’
her mother said,
‘insightful. Now, can you figure out
what
has changed, dear?’

Below them the fire reached the car’s petrol tank and it exploded.

Ceri sat up sharply in the bath. Water hissed as it put out several of the candles. The water was starting to get cold, but she sat there feeling dizzy and a little sick. A second later Twill flew in at high speed and buzzed around her head.

‘Are you all right, Ceri? I heard the water splash. What happened?’

Ceri batted the fairy away. ‘I’m okay. I must’ve nodded off. Stupid. I’m going to go to bed, okay?’

‘Of course,’ Twill said, wafting a towel off the rail as Ceri stood and climbed slowly out of the bath. ‘You need your rest.’

September 4
^th

Lily yawned loudly as she walked into the kitchen hunting coffee. Ceri, sat at the table with her own coffee and the latest issue of
Thaumatology Monthly,
glanced up and grinned. ‘Hard night?’ she asked.

‘Huh, yeah.’ Lily took a pull on her drink and let out a sigh. ‘A couple of weres got over-excited. Carter had me amp my aura up to max so they could deal with them and after that the place was… tiring.’ She grinned. ‘Twill said you fell asleep in the bath.’

‘Yeah,’ Ceri said. ‘Yeah, I did.’

‘Don’t want to do that. My mother’s grandmother’s aunt fell asleep in the bath once and she woke up a mermaid.’

‘There’s no such thing as mermaids,’ Ceri told her.

‘Are you calling my mother’s grandmother’s aunt a liar?’ Lily replied, trying hard not to smirk.

Ceri grinned. ‘I’m suggesting that perhaps the story might have got embroidered a bit in the telling,’ she said.

‘Really? I always thought it was a load of bull.’ The smirk turned into a full-on smile. ‘Mind you,’ she added, ‘that was back around the Shattering and there was a load of weird shit going on then.’

Ceri shrugged slightly. It
was
true that there had been a massive surge in magical energy back then. At the end of World War Two, in an attempt to go down fighting, Hitler had activated four bombs in Berlin, Dresden, Munich and Hamburg. The exact nature of the weapons was unknown, or had never been released to the public if it was, but theorists suggested they were some sort of nuclear device, triggered by enchantment to create the implosion. A huge, metaphysical crack in the world had divided Germany in two, and out of the crack on the eastern side had poured demons. Then the Americans had tested a nuclear bomb in New Mexico. The energy release, while having no magical component, was enough to punch another hole in the weakened reality around it. America began to drown in monsters out of nightmare and legend. Desperate to end the war so they could concentrate on matters at home, the USA had nuked Hiroshima. It had been like hitting glass with a hammer; a huge crack in reality opened along the Ring of Fire, circling the Pacific.

Five years later, the world calmed down and the events after the war became known as the Shattering, a period of chaos when magic really had ruled the world. Not the controlled, tamed magic studied and categorised by thaumatologists, but wild magic. The world really had been full of “weird shit.”

‘There’s still no such thing as mermaids,’ Ceri said. ‘Sirens exist. They’re a fae species, distantly related to Banshees, but no mermaids.’

Lily sipped her coffee. ‘Well, she could sing quite well, from what I heard.’ She glanced at the wall clock. ‘Oh, shit! Carter’s coming ‘round in about twenty minutes.’

Ceri blinked. ‘Carter Fleming? Your boss Carter?’

‘Uh-huh. He read about the accident and he wanted to come over and see how you were?’ Lily said, as if this was the most normal thing in the world.

‘What on Earth is Carter Fleming doing caring about me?’

‘Carter’s a nice guy, Ceri,’ Lily said and then looked a little sheepish, ‘and I was a bit jittery last night and he noticed and asked about you. I gotta go put some clothes on.’ She bolted for the door leaving Ceri sitting in the kitchen.

Carter Fleming owned the Jade Dragon and about a dozen other clubs around London and the rest of England. The Dragon had been his first, however, and that was the one he personally managed. He was, according to the gossip columns, loaded. He dated film stars, porn stars, and pop singers, generally not for extended periods, sometimes more than one at a time. He was known to practice wizardry, and rumour had it that his first million and his good looks had come from a demonic pact. If you just went by what you read in the papers, he was a dangerous, misogynist bastard.

Except that Lily thought he was great. She had met him while working as an escort. Twenty years old, her life had been a sordid mess until Carter had offered her a job at the Dragon on the condition that she quit the prostitution and the illegal porn movies she had been using to pay the rent. He had supported and encouraged her and, aside from that first night, he had never once asked her to go to bed with him. If Ceri were honest, she did not understand the man; his public image seemed so out of place with what Lily said about him that it was hard to imagine how both could be true.

Glancing at the clock, Ceri considered her own ensemble. No, perhaps greeting a man with enough money to buy her university in a large shirt was not a great idea. She stood and headed for her room, giggling. Well, if he was actually like his public image it
would
be a good idea, but she had a feeling it would disappoint Lily. She would get properly dressed.

Opening up the big wardrobe in her bedroom, Ceri considered her options. Despite the consideration, she already knew one thing she was wearing, she just needed to work out the rest. She had discovered one-piece teddies when she was fifteen and had fallen in love with them. They made her feel sexy and there was really not that much which made Ceri feel sexy. If she wanted to lift her spirits, or she was going out somewhere special, or because she felt like it, she would pick one out and wear it. Meeting London’s best known playboy club owner for the first time seemed like an excellent time to feel sexy.

Pulling out something in black and gold, she undressed and climbed into the clinging costume piece. It was not
too
sexy, but it was a bit flirty; backless, but no mesh or translucent panels. She checked herself in her mirror and nodded before pulling out one of her nicer pairs of jeans, black with an embroidered detail in red at the hips, and sitting on the bed to pull them on. She decided on trainers rather than heels; she was supposed to be convalescing.

Another look in the mirror and she nodded, and then lost her nerve and put a lightweight shirt over the top. As she headed out onto the top floor landing and saw Lily emerging from her room in a gorgeous summer dress which she, of course, looked gorgeous in, Ceri forced herself to
not
do the shirt buttons up.

Lily stopped and looked at her friend appraisingly. Then she nodded and Ceri let out the breath she had not realised she was holding. ‘You look lovely,’ Lily said, smiling, ‘sexy, but not slutty.’ Her face became quite serious suddenly. ‘Would you mind doing the formal thing when he arrives?’

Ceri frowned as she started down the stairs; if he was on time he would arrive in a couple of minutes. ‘The thing Dad used to do when welcoming another wizard into the house for the first time?’ she asked.

‘That’s it,’ Lily said, sounding a little pleading. ‘He said, “If she feels that it would be inappropriate, since she’s not a wizard, or it would make her uncomfortable, I quite understand, but if she could see it in her heart to welcome me properly into the home of such illustrious magicians, I would be most grateful.” So will you?’

Ceri blinked. ‘Wow, how could I decline? Um…’ She went over the little ritual in her head. She had seen her father do it a number of times, but had never actually done it herself. Yes, she thought she could do it without making a fool of herself or insulting her guest. ‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘I can do that for him. Well, for you really.’

Twill zipped past them, heading down from the attic where she lived. ‘There’s a wizard on the grounds,’ she said in passing.

‘That’s him!’ Lily squeaked and hurried down the stairs. Exactly how she did this in heels was a matter physicists would likely have given their eye teeth to study, but she beat Ceri to the front door by several seconds, going through the inner doors to the outer ones. Ceri could hear people speaking but not quite what was being said.

‘She might have said we were having a guest,’ Twill said. ‘He’s got a huge car and he looks like he tries hard to be handsome. Be careful of him, he smells of demons.’ Then she swished upward toward her attic.

Ceri opened the two inner doors wide and stood on the inside of them. Lily was standing in the single open outer door, blocking the view of whoever was on the other side. The half-succubus looked around grinning in an almost child-like manner, and Ceri took a deep breath and said, ‘Open the doors, Lily, and then come stand behind me.’

Opening the second door wide, Lily tried hard to school her expression into one of seriousness. As she walked back into the house past Ceri, the man waiting on the portico was revealed. Ceri could almost believe the stories about pacts with demons; Carter Fleming did not look like a man in his fifties. He had a narrowish face and a narrow, slightly Roman nose, high cheekbones, and shallow cheeks. His hair was a perfectly coifed ash blond and the suit he was wearing looked like it had been very carefully tailored. His hand rested on a black cane, though he did not seem like he needed help walking. He was smiling at Ceri, waiting for her to begin.

‘Who comes seeking passage over this threshold?’ Ceri said, trying to sound confident.

‘Carter James Fleming,’ he replied. He had a soft voice, pleasant, but there was an underlying confidence to it. ‘I seek entry to this home, bringing nothing but myself.’ It was not quite true, there was a box on the ground by his feet, but it was the thought that counted.