Thaumatology 101 (28 page)

‘She is fit,’ Looper told the detectives, ‘but she is
not
to be stressed. Aside from anything else, doing so could cause another rise in her thaumic output and cook the pair of you.’

Radcliff looked as though he was ready to turn around and leave, but Middleshaw just smiled and nodded. ‘It’s just a couple of questions, Doctor,’ she said. ‘We’ve no suspicion that she did anything wrong.’ Looper nodded and left them alone.

‘No half-succubus keeping you company?’ Radcliff asked. He did look a little happier, though that was overlaid with his nervousness about being in a room with a girl giving off magical energy. Whatever he had done in Newcastle, it had made him more cheerful.

‘She’s up to something at home,’ Ceri said. ‘She wouldn’t tell me what. Frankly, I’m worried, but mostly in a good way.’ She smiled. ‘Any sign of Barnes?’

Middleshaw shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

‘Frankly, we thought you’d had some sort of hallucination at first,’ Radcliff said. ‘The team watching him reported that he was still in Cambridge. When they went in to talk to him it turned out to be some sort of golem he’d made to let him sneak out.’

‘A Simulacrum,’ Middleshaw said. ‘Not a perfect duplicate and pretty easy to spot close up, but he was counting on no one getting that close to it.’

‘We’ve had several diviners trying to find him,’ Radcliff put in, ‘but according to them he’s not on the planet. One of them said he was not in this universe. You didn’t actually see what happened to him?’

Ceri shook her head. ‘The circle was still up, and opaque. He got hit with the same sort of thaumic surge as I did. It’s possible he was totally destroyed.’

‘Well,’ Radcliff said, ‘he never got to wipe the data recorded by the lab cameras, which I’m sure he intended to do. They whited out when the surge went off, but they do confirm your story up to that point.’

‘What about the policemen who were guarding the building?’ Ceri asked. She recalled Barnes asking whether they had been “dealt with” and was not hopeful.

Radcliff’s face darkened. ‘Two dead,’ he said, ‘one on life support. The other three were injured, but not too badly.’

‘Damn,’ Ceri said. ‘I’m sorry…’

‘It’s not your fault,’ Radcliff said, a little sharply. ‘You didn’t ask some… demon-tainted bastard to try to kill you.’ There was a hint of something personal in the vehemence the detective put into the statement. Again Ceri felt that Radcliff had a good reason for distrusting the supernatural.

On the other hand, he seemed to be rather more trusting of
her
now. ‘Thanks, Inspector,’ she said. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, you seem a bit more… happy with things today.’

‘Oh yeah,’ Radcliff said, half-grinning, ‘I’m just ecstatic to be in a room with a woman who’s leaking magic all over the place.’

‘A thaum or so,’ Ceri said. ‘It’s barely enough to make your hair stand on end. Perfectly safe.’

Radcliff narrowed his eyes a little, and then his grin got broader to show he was kidding. ‘Yeah, okay,’ he said. ‘I believe you. And you asked about the guys who were hurt guarding the building, and you took care of Kate a couple of days ago. You’re considerate, which I don’t expect from magicians, and I guess I
won’t
get far in this job treating all you magic-types as bad guys.’

‘We’ll get him educated yet,’ Middleshaw said, smirking. Then her face straightened. ‘We had some enquiries regarding you and Doctor Tennant from the Ministry,’ she said. ‘I’d expect a visit for some guy with a starched neck and no sense of humour sometime soon.’

Ceri grimaced. Great, the Ministry of Supernatural Affairs was sticking its nose in. ‘I may need to be in isolation for far longer than I thought,’ she said.

Kennington, October 19
^th

‘I thought your surname was Brent, not Munster.’ Ceri smiled at the driver; she was getting kind of used to that kind of reaction, especially from ambulance men.

‘It’s mostly illusion,’ she said. ‘Mum always wanted to live in a haunted house.’

‘Well, sure looks the part,’ the driver said. ‘You got any actual ghosts?’

Ceri opened the door of the car and stepped out. ‘Don’t think so,’ she said, ‘but you never can tell.’

‘Huh, right. Well, hope your recovery goes well.’

‘Thanks,’ Ceri said and pushed the door closed.

There was a little shimmer of light along the fence line as she pushed the garden gate open. It was as though the house had missed her. Walking down the path, it seemed that no one else had. There was no sign of Lily or Twill, so she kept on going to the door, pushing it open and stepping through. Again the house responded; the entrance sigils flared as she stepped over them to the inner doors. Grinning, she pushed open the inner doors.

Lily was standing in the middle of the hall, dressed in a kinky parody of a nurse’s uniform, with a huge grin on her face. Twill floated down from above the door. ‘She insisted,’ the fairy said. ‘She said the doctor instructed you to rest and that she was going to “nurse” you.’ Ceri looked at the tiny woman. ‘Welcome back, Ceridwyn. Do try to cut down on the hospital visits, I miss you.’ The fairy darted forward and gave Ceri a quick kiss on the cheek before zipping away again.

‘C’mon,’ Lily said. ‘You’re going to bed to… rest.’

‘Rest,’ Ceri said, ‘yeah, I’m sure I’ll get plenty of… rest.’

Lily shrugged slightly. ‘Well, I missed you too.’

~~~

Twill buzzed into Ceri’s bedroom looking mildly annoyed. ‘There’s a man here,’ she said curtly. ‘He’s a normal, but he’s wearing enough charms to stock a shop.’ She buzzed up to hover two inches in front of Ceri’s nose. ‘One of them is a fae repellent,’ she added, ‘and he’s got some stiff looking man in a uniform with him.’

Ceri sighed and wafted the fairy away. ‘That’ll be the “Man from the Ministry.”’ She disentangled her limbs from Lily’s and slipped out of bed.

Lily made a grumbling noise. ‘You’re supposed to be resting.’

‘Your idea of resting,’ Ceri said, ‘seems to involve a lot of exercise.’ She located one of her shirts in the cupboard, a thin silky one in pale blue. She pulled it on and started doing up the buttons. ‘Get dressed, Lily,’ she said with a tone of mild authority. ‘Something… suitable, but not subtle.’ She started for the door.

Lily giggled. ‘Yes, Mistress,’ she said to Ceri’s retreating back.

There were, indeed, two men standing in the hall when Ceri marched down the stairs. One was a short man with a narrow face and watery eyes dressed in a badly fitting, blue suit. He could have been anything from twenty-five to fifty. Beside him was a man with greying hair dressed in an Army uniform and holding his cap. Someone seemed to have inserted a steel rod up his spine.

She stopped half-way down the steps and let the sight of her dressed in nothing but a satin shirt sink in before she spoke. ‘Good… afternoon, probably, gentlemen,’ she said.

‘Ceridwyn Brent?’ the ratty-looking man asked. Then he sneezed, loudly. ‘I beg your pardon, I’m allergic to magic.’ Well, that explained all the charms and the fae repellent. Why a man like that would join the Ministry was beyond her. ‘I am Alfred Whistler,’ he said, ‘with the Ministry for Supernatural Affairs.’

‘Yes,’ Ceri said, ‘I gathered you were from the government.’ She walked down the last couple of steps.

The soldier stepped forward, offering his hand. ‘General Andrew Morton,’ he said, ‘Army Special Projects.’

Ceri took the hand and shook it. It did not look like Whistler was going to offer his. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said. ‘Please come up to the study. We can talk there.’ Letting go of Morton’s hand, she led the way back up the stairs.

Pulling out two chairs from the side of the room, Ceri arranged herself on the chaise longe and smiled as they sat down looking uncomfortable. ‘What can I do for you gentlemen?’ she asked.

‘Prior to his disappearance,’ Whistler intoned, his voice half-funeral drone, half-nasal whine, ‘Doctor Barnes was engaged in creating a device which the Special Projects Division…’

‘He told you he could create a thaumic bomb,’ Ceri said, interrupting him. ‘A weapon which could replace nuclear weapons without the danger of another Shattering.’ The two men looked at each other. ‘I assume you asked Cheryl to build the thing and she told you to get stuffed?’

‘Doctor Tennant was… uncooperative,’ Whistler said.

‘We have the basic concepts,’ Morton said, ‘and the research on dark containment circles Barnes produced. Our people can crack the problem in time, but it would be easier with your help.’

‘A man named Carl Bellamy produced that research,’ Ceri said. ‘Barnes stole it off him. And you can’t build one of these devices. Ever. Not even to test the theory.’

Morton smiled indulgently. ‘I appreciate your pacifist sentiments, Miss Brent, but Doctor Barnes assured us…’

‘Barnes,’ Ceri said, ‘was consumed by his own greed for power. He belonged to some demon lord, body, spirit, and soul. He
lied,
General.’

‘Didn’t you ever look into his eyes?’ Lily was standing behind them. Both men jumped slightly and turned. Whistler’s jaw dropped. Morton swallowed visibly. Lily had picked her shortest, tightest sweater-dress. ‘They were dead,’ she continued. ‘The dead eyes of a man consumed by darkness.’ The half-succubus circled around Whistler’s chair, then the lounger, to stand behind Ceri.

‘What would Doctor Barnes have to gain from lying to us?’ Morton asked.

‘Not him,’ Ceri replied, ‘his master. The field strength produced by this system within a dark circle rapidly increases to the point where it can’t be calculated. Effectively, for an instant after the circle is dropped, an infinite thaumic field exists in our normal space. We currently don’t have the mathematics to describe what that would do, but from what I read it would almost certainly warp reality so much that a permanent T-Null decay trap would be created.’

‘I’m afraid I’m not conversant with the more esoteric thaumatology theorems,’ Whistler said.

Ceri smiled slightly. ‘Huge amounts of thaumic energy would pour out through a hole in space-time,’ she said. ‘It would make the Trinity bomb site look like a mountain spring.’ She looked at them. ‘If you ever started one of these up, you could
never
let the circle collapse. It reaches its potential after a minute or less. It
never
degrades. Create one and apply the power and you’ve handed the world to the demons.’

Morton looked uncomfortable. ‘Doctor Barnes presented us with models of the bomb indicating that that kind of thing would not happen,’ he said, unwilling to just give up on his ultimate weapon.

‘And you believed him?’ Lily said, a perfect eyebrow raised.

‘Give the data and equations to Cheryl and I,’ Ceri said, ‘and I’m quite sure we can find the manipulations and errors which make it look safer than it is. You’ll pardon me, but we have actual experimental data on a working version with a standard containment circle. Barnes never got anything working, did he?’

‘No,’ Whistler said. ‘No, he did not. Despite several million in grants he failed to live up to his reputation.’

‘If the Chinese Empire builds one of these things…’ Morton said.

‘Cheryl and I are adding information about the runaway effect to our paper,’ Ceri said. ‘The dragons would never allow anything like this to be built.’ She looked squarely at the general. ‘I’m sorry, but you don’t get to justify this through fear of what others might do. The only other people who wouldn’t be terrified at the prospect of another Shattering are the Chinese and the Australians. We both know the Aussies are no threat and the Chinese have more sense. Neither of them would want this kind of thing opening in their territory. That leaves the British government. Please don’t tell me I live in a country which wants to end the world.’

Whistler straightened his back. ‘No, Miss Brent,’ he said, ‘you don’t. I’ll recommend to the Minister that all work on this project be scrapped.’ He paused. ‘I was told to ask… You have no idea where Matthew Barnes actually is do you?’

‘No,’ Ceri replied. ‘None at all.’

‘Where ever he is,’ Lily said, ‘I hope it’s somewhere hotter than Hell.’

~~~

‘Lily,’ Ceri asked once the two government men were gone, ‘what have you done in the cellar?’

Lily beamed at her, bouncing on her toes. Ceri experienced an odd feeling of dread combined with anticipation. ‘Wait there,’ Lily said, and bounded off up the stairs.

Ceri waited impatiently for the half-succubus to return, wondering what on Earth Lily had wanted the room for anyway. Her mother had rarely used it, and a few years of neglect on top of that had made it a less than savoury place. The floor had always been uneven, which had never bothered Marion who preferred a more natural feel.

When Lily did come down the stairs, she was naked again and carrying a silver chain from which were suspended a pair of gleaming new keys. She handed them to Ceri with a serious look on her face.

‘What are these for?’ Ceri asked.

‘Come with me and I’ll show you,’ Lily said and started off toward the cellar door.

Both summoning rooms had large, iron doors with a silver-iron layer anodised onto the inside. Lily opened the nearest one to the stairs and indicated that Ceri should precede her. The door opened onto a flight of stone steps which went down to the floor level, but Ceri knew before she got there what Lily had done.

The room had been kitted out as a dungeon. There was a large cage at one end, a smaller, kinkier-looking one beside the stairs, a set of shelves with an array of sex toys, paddles, and whips. A Saint Andrew’s Cross had been mounted over the summoning circle. Ceri turned slowly, looking around the room with an expression of complete bemusement.

‘You turned the place into a dungeon?’ she said.

‘Uh-huh,’ Lily replied. ‘It’s okay, isn’t it?’

‘It must have cost a fortune!’

‘Not really.’ Lily was sounding a little worried; afraid that Ceri disapproved. ‘I called in some favours. I used to be in the sex industry y’know? Some people owe me big time for a few things I haven’t told the police about.’