Thaumatology 101 (27 page)

Ceri turned her tablet around to show Cheryl a graph. It grew rapidly, vanishing off the top of the scale at the end. ‘That’s if you use a standard circle,’ Ceri said. ‘If you remove the radiant energy leakage you get this. As far as I can tell, the field never stops growing.’

‘But how would you stop the radiant…’ Cheryl face showed her sudden comprehension, and a degree of horror. ‘Dark circles,’ she said. ‘Barnes stole the dark circle work from Bellamy. If he could get our resonance system to work on a dark circle…’

‘He’d have a doomsday device,’ Ceri said. ‘An explosion of thaumic energy with a near infinite field potential.’ She looked at the screen. ‘I don’t even know where to start calculating what it would do.’

‘I don’t think you
can
start,’ Cheryl replied. ‘Infinite Field Theory is being studied by a couple of thaumatologists in the US, but it’s not really considered a serious subject. Half of it is conjecture and imagination.’

‘Well this,’ Ceri said, waving a hand at the screen, ‘isn’t conjecture or fiction. You have to call the Journal and tell them we need to add a warning to the article.’

Nodding, Cheryl reached for the phone. ‘We’ll go in tomorrow and disable the accelerators,’ she said. ‘I don’t want anything happening accidentally.’

Ceri nodded. She was busy accessing the university’s archive of theoretical papers for anything she could find on Infinite Field Theory.

Holloway, October 16
^th

Half a dozen uniformed policemen were still on guard at the High-energy Thaumatology Building. It made Ceri feel safer knowing they were there, decked out in enchanted body armour and carrying sleep batons. She nodded to the two at the main entrance as she walked in with Cheryl. It was Saturday morning and the place was quiet, almost unnaturally quiet. Ceri found herself looking around nervously.

‘How are we going to do this?’ she asked Cheryl as they walked into the lab.

‘Remove the primary accelerator coils,’ Cheryl replied, walking into the cage, ‘and disconnect the resonator units from the coil. We’ll remove them from site, and…’

Ceri turned as the thaumatologist’s voice cut off suddenly. ‘Boss?’ There was no answer. ‘Cheryl? You okay?’

Someone stepped out of the cage and Ceri gasped. ‘She’s fine,’ Matthew Barnes said, ‘sleeping soundly. You, unfortunately, will be harder to enspell, so…’

Pain exploded across the back of Ceri’s skull. She fell, rolling onto her back, and saw the brunette vampire, Eleanor, standing behind her. Then she saw nothing.

~~~

The pain behind her eyes kept her lying still for several seconds after she regained consciousness. She was resting on cold stone; the granite block of the containment circle, she guessed. The cool felt good against her temple and she decided that just listening was probably the best bet for a while.

‘The policemen have been dealt with?’ Barnes’ voice. The reply was in a language she did not understand, but the guttural quality and Barnes’ history suggested a demon. ‘Good,’ Barnes went on, ‘see that we are not disturbed. I want to savour this.’ There was the sound of heavy footfalls moving away, out of the room.

‘The backup will be complete in ten minutes.’ Another voice, female. Eleanor?

‘That long?’ Barnes sounded impatient.

‘There’s a lot of data. You want
all
of it, don’t you, Master?’ Yes, that would be Eleanor; just as enthralled as her sister had been.

‘How hard did you hit the witch?’ Barnes said. ‘I want her awake for this.’

Ceri prepared herself. When she moved, she would have little time to take Barnes out; possibly less to stop the vampire. Fire was probably out, perhaps electricity.

‘She’ll probably wake up before the backup’s finished.’

Ceri opened her eyes, locating Barnes immediately. Eleanor was standing right beside him, but there was no sign of Cheryl. Not to worry about that now. She pushed the worry from her head, summoned her power, and stretched out a hand toward Barnes. Lightning arced from her fingertips, travelled six or so inches, and then struck the edge of the circle, shattering into a spider web of charge.

When her ears stopped ringing, Ceri heard Barnes clapping, slowly. ‘That was very good, Miss Brent,’ Barnes said. ‘Remarkably good, in fact. I
knew
there was no way you could have gained magical power from that accident. As you can see, I’ve raised the circle. Congratulations again, you did a remarkable job of fixing the “errors” Walters put in.’

Ceri pulled herself into a sitting position. Her head was throbbing. Reaching to the back of her neck she winced and drew it away. There was blood on her fingers. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she asked. ‘And where’s Cheryl?’

‘Doctor Tennant is fine. In her cage, waiting for me to tell her what to do like a good slave.’ Barnes’ smile was malicious. ‘If it were you there, I’d make it permanent and enjoy myself, but she’s too old. I prefer something younger.’ His gaze shifted to Eleanor and he licked his lips.

‘What did you mean about my power?’ Ceri snapped. Gritting her teeth hurt and she had to force her jaw to unclench.

‘Nothing could have survived that blast,’ Barnes replied. ‘I assume you were contacted by a demon. Such an intense field could easily attract one. No one learns magic as fast as you have, girl. I
know!
I’m a genius and I couldn’t work that kind of spell so soon after developing my power.’

‘That’s because you’re impatient,’ Ceri said. ‘Impatient and stupid. I couldn’t work magic until recently, but I’ve been learning about it for two decades. You wanted
everything
and you wanted it
now.
It takes time to learn things, you perverted imbecile.’

Barnes’ face darkened. ‘You’re in no position to insult me, witch, I’ll…’

‘I’m in a perfect position to insult you, you widder-damned, black-souled son of a bitch. You’re going to kill me anyway, what’ve I got to lose.’ Ceri struggled to her feet. ‘Maybe once upon a time you were a genius, but that was years ago. Now you’re just a finger puppet for some demon lord. Do you like it having his hand up your arse?’

Barnes bolted toward her and it was only the superhuman speed of his vampire bodyguard which stopped him breaking the circle. ‘No, Master! The circle!’ It seemed to be taking most of Eleanor’s strength to hold him back, but he calmed down to a mostly sentient level after a few seconds.

‘Very clever, Miss Brent,’ he growled. ‘Get me to cross my own circle. Very clever.’

‘I don’t get it,’ Ceri said, annoyed that the vampire had stopped him, ‘what can you possibly gain from blowing the country apart?’

‘Don’t be stupid, girl,’ Barnes snapped, ‘the bomb isn’t that…’

‘Using a dark circle the thaumic field reaches a transfinite level pretty quickly,’ Ceri snapped. ‘Didn’t you do the… No, of course you didn’t do the math. I doubt you’re even
up
to doing it now. You just took the word of your master.’

‘I don’t have a master,’ Barnes said flatly.

‘Yes you do,’ Ceri said, smiling sweetly at you. ‘Y’know, that demon with his arm rammed up your…’

‘Enough!’ Barnes roared, holding himself back with main force. ‘Tennant, start up the system.’

From the cage, Cheryl’s voice sounded, flat and vaguely inhuman. ‘Initiating resonance inducers.’ Ceri went pale.

‘You see, Miss Brent,’ Barnes said, ‘I’m not going to kill you.
I
don’t kill people. I have other people do it for me.’

The first flickers of colour began to slide across the surface of the circle. Ceri ran at it, slamming her fists into the impenetrable shield. ‘Cheryl!’ she screamed. ‘Cheryl, stop it! Shut it down!’

‘She won’t respond,’ Barnes said. ‘The spell is quite powerful.’

Ceri could barely see out through the circle now. Her skin was prickling. She had to think of something, but the throbbing in her skull was not helping.

‘Initiating pulse generators.’ She heard Cheryl’s voice over the hum of machinery and saw the burst of particles as the four beams hit the circle. In a few seconds, she would be standing in several hundred thaums of magic field. Sorcerer or not, she doubted she could survive it. It would be like the breach, but infinitely worse. She blinked. The breach…

Barnes watched as bands of colour began to twist across the surface of the shining white cylinder. His smile was pure malice. ‘Goodbye, Miss Brent,’ he said. He was starting to turn away when he saw something; a spot of silver appeared in the white, moving quickly, inscribing what looked like a rune of some kind. He recognised it a second before it was completed; Blotherian, the rune of betrayal, assassination, and the opening of hidden ways. His eyes widened. Then he was hit in the face with a few hundred thaums of magical energy.

The circle collapsed and a wave of energy blew outward. Eleanor screamed as she was tossed across the room like a rag doll. Thaumic sensors cut the power to the equipment around the room before overloading and exploding. Ceri was left standing in the circle, surrounded by a nimbus of bluish light.

There was a roar and the demon rushed into the room. Big, hulking, with a draconic head; a Dakag demon, common bodyguard and thug material. There was a scream from the cage; Cheryl had regained her senses. The demon ignored her and charged toward Ceri, stopping as a bolt of energy as big as its head shot from her hand. For an instant it stood there, wreathed in blue light and arcs of electricity, then it seemed to collapse in on itself and vanish.

Cheryl rushed out of the cage and started to run toward Ceri, but a raised hand stopped her. ‘No!’ Ceri said through gritted teeth. ‘Too hot. Get a containment team. Hurry!’ The doctor’s common sense started to cut in again and she nodded, rushing out to find a phone.

Ceri fell to her knees, her eyes on the spot where Barnes had been standing. There was nothing there, not even a pile of ash. Matthew Barnes was gone.

Part Five: All Hallows’ Eve

Denmark Hill, October 17
^th
2010

‘To be honest,’ Doctor Looper said from inside a magical hazard suit, ‘I was not expecting to see you again so soon, Miss Brent.’

‘At least I’m conscious this time,’ Ceri replied, grinning a little.

‘Indeed. And you seem to be quite healthy aside from the rather high thaumic output level.’ He glanced down at the wooden box containing his thaumometer. ‘Thirty-eight thaums,’ he said. ‘Quite how you’re alive I’m not sure, but at least it’s dropping. I’ll leave you to the tender mercies of Miss Carpenter.’

‘Thanks, Doctor,’ Ceri said as he waddled to the door in the thick rubber suit with its silver-iron mesh lining.

Lily bounced in as soon as he was out. She had been scared silly with worry when Detective Middleshaw had informed her that Ceri and Cheryl were being taken to the hospital, but now that it seemed clear that Ceri was going to be all right, she was back to her perky self. Cheryl had already been released; there seemed to be no lasting effect from Barnes’ mind control spell. No physical or metaphysical effect anyway.

‘I did as you asked,’ the half-demon said. ‘Eleanor’s in the same state as Andrea was. She had a broken leg, cracked skull, and three broken ribs when she was brought in, but she’s a vampire. She was transferred to Greycoat Street this morning.’

Ceri nodded. ‘I’m down to thirty-eight thaums,’ she said. ‘Might be out of here tomorrow, maybe Tuesday.’

‘Well, Cheryl’s moved back to her place,’ Lily said, ‘so you can have a few days of rest and recuperation with just us around the house. Well, and Twill, but she tends to avoid us when we’re…’

‘Resting and recuperating,’ Ceri said with a smirk.

‘Yeah,’ Lily said brightly. ‘Oh, I wanted to ask. You have the two summoning rooms in the cellar, right?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Well… do you need both of them?’ The half-succubus had one of her more childish looks on, a pleading sort of expression.

‘I guess not,’ Ceri said. ‘I mean, I’m not sure I want to get into summoning anything, but I don’t really need two rooms to do it in. Mum hardly ever used hers. You can have it if you want.’ Lily beamed. ‘What do you want it
for?
’

‘Surprise,’ Lily said.

‘I’m sick,’ Ceri whined, ‘you can’t keep secrets from me.’

‘No you’re not, and yes I can.’

Ceri pouted.

~~~

There was salt air on the breeze. Below her the wreck had stopped burning and the scene was almost serene. Ceri turned to see her parents standing there behind her.

‘I do forgive you,’
she said.

The slightly transparent figures frowned.
‘For what, dear?’
her mother asked.

‘The enchantments,’
Ceri replied,
‘they weren’t a good thing to do to me. They changed me, isolated me, stopped me from being who I should have been, but in the end I had twenty years to learn how to be a sorceress before I got that power. So, I forgive you.’

Her father hung his head.
‘I was afraid, Ceri,’
he said.
‘I convinced myself it was for your good, but I know it was fear. I was afraid of what you might become. I’m sorry.’

Ceri smiled.
‘I know, and I could still end up going bad, but I think I’ve had a good start at not ending up like Circe or Morgana. And I have two good role models to look to.’
Her parents smiled back, their shapes starting to fade.
‘There is one thing,’
Ceri said quickly.

‘What, dear?’
her mother said, her voice sounding more distant.

‘Are you really here or am I just dreaming?’

There was no answer, just the scent of salt air on the breeze and a feeling of happiness.

Ceri smiled in her sleep, stirring briefly and turning over before settling back into deeper slumber.

October 18
^th

With her energy output down to just over a thaum, Ceri was allowed visitors who were not half-demonic, which meant Radcliff and Middleshaw could come and talk to her. She was not exactly looking forward to it, but she knew she would be faced with it sooner or later, and in the hospital there was one big advantage.