Sentries of Camelot (Ruby Morgan Book 2)

by LJ Rivers

  For the life of me, I could not remember the last time I had sewn anything. Maybe way back in primary school. It simply had never interested me. Still, I had to admit, the sewing kit was kind of neat. There was a foldable pair of scissors, a cylinder with four different coloured threads and a strangely shaped, thin metal thing—I had no idea what it was. There was also an assortment of buttons and a small, tube-shaped plastic container with a tiny lid. It was no bigger than the cap of a marker pen. I flipped open the lid and found what I was looking for.

  Needles and pins.

  When I emptied the small container, carefully so as to not have any of the needles drop off the desk, a second thought emerged. The box itself could be useful.

  I chose one of the sewing needles, and put all the others back in the kit box, keeping the tiny tube.

  When I was eight or nine years old, Dad had once used a safety pin to get a tiny splinter out of my toe. He used a match to sterilise the tip before he went into surgery, as he called it. Mum scolded him when we came home, saying he should know that it wasn’t a safe way to sterilise a needle. Dad said he didn’t insert the pin very far, and that the splinter wasn’t deep in my veins or anything. Besides, he argued, the flame was way better than not sterilising at all, to which Mum had sort of agreed.

  I held the sewing needle over the candle’s flame, hoping it would be hot enough for what I needed to do. If I had more control over my firepower, I guess I could have conjured a much hotter flame myself, but chances were I would set my room ablaze if I tried.

  In my bathroom, I rinsed the little plastic tube with hot water and soap, finishing it off with a Q-tip I had dipped in nail polish remover. I used another Q-tip, also dipped in the same solvent, to wipe the soot off the tip of the needle. Then I pinched the tip of my little finger and pricked the reddened fingertip with the needle. A small drop of blood floated up over my skin.

  I held my fingertip over the small plastic container and pushed a few drops of blood into it. Finally, I pressed the lid back on and went back to the kitchen. There, I wrapped the makeshift blood vial tightly in cling film, and a thick layer of aluminium foil just to be sure.

  A quick glance out the window told me I’d better put on my raincoat, which was perfect. The large pockets would both conceal and protect the package. I slipped into my room again to get it and dropped the container into one of the pockets. When I was out in the hallway, ready to go, I knocked on Charlie’s door again.

  “I’m off, Charlie. You wanna eat alone, it’s all yours.”

  No reply.

  Fine!

  I left.

  On my way to class, I checked my phone. Not a word from Brendan. What was up with him? This simply wouldn’t do. First Charlie and now Brendan. And neither of them would even discuss it? Well, two could play at that game. Or three, or whatever. I was pissed.

  The lecture was probably way more interesting than I managed to grasp. My thoughts were not at all focused on Wharton and his meandering on about “Getting your message across”. The irony was not lost on me.

  I fought away the angry thoughts of Brendan and Charlie and focused on what Paddock had told me yesterday. “Too close to the truth,” he had said. Basically, he claimed his old partner had been killed because he was about to bust the corrupt coppers. Could it really be true?

  On the screen up front, Wharton showed a picture of a guy riding his mountain bike down a steep trail. I had no idea what he was on about. Why had I picked a seat in the middle of the row? I wasn’t one to sneak out during lectures, but now I wanted to.

  Wharton eventually finished with a slide that was full of text. I tried to read it, something about remembering and using the simple rules he had gone through in today’s lecture. And here I was, thinking the message was that one should keep things short and to the point.

  When I had read maybe halfway through the slide, the words started fading away. In the middle of the screen, three of the words remained. Ok, that was actually a little clever. The words had been part of a sentence about ‘—that the principle of less is more should be your guideline—’

  Now, only ‘less is more’ remained on the screen.

  “You see, all those other words said the exact same as these three. So, why bother with more than three?”

  He looked like he expected a standing ovation, but save for a few claps, most of us were just eager to get on with our day. Including me. I had tried to make some notes on my laptop but realised I would need more than the random lines I had jotted down. Luckily, Wharton’s presentation was available for download in Canvas, so I figured I’d be all right.

  I slung the bag over my shoulder and headed for the door. The library was in the adjacent building, and I found myself a quiet corner. I opened my laptop and launched my web browser. After a few minutes, I had found a few articles using search terms related to what Paddock had told me.

  “Miss Morgan?”

  I looked up. “Professor Kaine,” I whispered.

  “I have rearranged my schedule. My lunch appointment was cancelled, so I thought I might do some other tasks. When I saw you, I thought I’d ask if we should meet earlier? If you’re not busy, of course.”

  He glanced at my screen. “Three dead in a police shooting, Twickenham.” He nodded. “Yes, I remember that. Nasty business.”

  “I—I’m doing research for a story in the Whisper,” I said, not sure how much I wanted to share with him.

  “The Whisper, yes. I remember when it came only weekly, two or three pages stapled in the upper left corner.”

  “It’s come a bit further now,” I said. “I’ve been working there for a few weeks. It’s fast-paced and a new way of getting the news out quicker.”

  “Very impressive. I must admit I still prefer the smell and ink of the old newspapers myself. Not that I don’t like computers, mind you, but the Sunday Times really does go better with tea and biscuits.”

  I smiled. “I won’t argue with that.”

  “You wanted to ask me something?”

  We were alone in this section, but I lowered my voice anyway. “Yes, but not here.”

  “Let’s go to my office,” he said.

  “Could we perhaps go to your lab instead, Professor?”

  “Certainly.” He raised his dark eyebrows. “Now you’ve intrigued me.”

  I had visited Mum at work a few times over the years and was used to intricate lab equipment. Not that there was a lab at the clinic, but at least they had lots of glasses, vials, test tubes and Petri dishes to accompany a few machines with monitors and bleeps.

  The room Kaine showed me into, however, was on another level entirely. It was truly the mad professor version of a lab. I half expected to be greeted by a short, hump-backed creature with an eye-patch and a Russian accent. The only thing missing was the yellow and green vapour clouds rising from a suspicious-looking liquid boiling over a Bunsen burner. Somehow, I bet Kaine could produce it if I asked him.

  “So, Miss Morgan, what was it you wanted to ask me?”

  “It’s more of a ‘show you’ thing, really,” I said and retrieved the foil and plastic-wrapped package from my coat pocket.

  My phone was in the same pocket, but I resisted the temptation to check for word from Brendan.

  “I’m not sure if it’s something you can do, but I’d like you to have a look at this,” I continued, and unwrapped the small plastic container. “Can you tell me about the contents?”

  His glasses hung on a chain around his neck, and the old professor put them on, leaning forward to examine the tube. He put his finger under the lid, sent me a quick look over his glasses and, when I nodded, he flicked the lid open.

  “At first glance, it looks like blood. Fresh enough that it hasn’t started to coagulate yet.”

  “It’s blood, yes. That’s about all I know.”

  “Then we’ll have to pretend I know more,” Kaine said with a small laugh. “Is it ok if I run some tests?”

  “I was sort of hopi
ng you would,” I said.

  Kaine used a small glass pipette to extract a drop of the dark purple blood, which he then dripped into a glass tube. He closed the plastic tube, carefully wrapped the package again and handed it to me. I slipped it back in my pocket and followed him to a white appliance next to a large glass cupboard.

  “This is a centrifuge,” he said, tapping the box. “The newest of its kind, capable of separating blood far quicker than the industry standard versions.”

  Not sure what reaction he wanted from me, I tried to look moderately impressed.

  “Let’s see what the boys at JC Pharmaceuticals have made, shall we?” Kaine gave the container a quick shake.

  At first, I didn’t understand, but then he pointed at the logo on the side of the machine.

  “I’ve worked closely with the men and women in their R&D division up in Stevenage, and contributed to the development of this prototype.”

  If I hadn’t been so focused on the blood itself, I might have understood what an achievement that had to be.

  “Oh, listen to me, tooting my own horn like an idiot.”

  He opened the rubber cap on the glass tube with my blood in it and poured a clear liquid into the tube. “A special gel that helps the separation process,” he explained, before placing the glass in one of the holes in the centrifuge. He closed the lid and tapped the touch screen on the front. “There, now it’ll whirr and do its job for a couple of minutes.”

  “I’ll just check my phone,” I said. “See if there’s anything new on the message boards.”

  I turned, retrieved my phone and let my fingerprint unlock the screen. Two messages in Canvas, one email, and exactly zero texts from Brendan. Cursing myself for checking, I shoved the phone back in my pocket, somehow present minded enough to choose the one without the blood.

  “Bad news?” Kaine asked.

  “Not really. More like no news from someone I’d expected to hear from.”

  The almost silent engine in the centrifuge stopped. “It really is a whole new world for chemists.” Kaine smiled. “Imagine how much it will mean to trauma victims and emergency units to save up to twenty-five or thirty minutes when they need test results. This will save lives, prin—primarily.”

  “Primarily?”

  “Eh … yes,” he said. “I think the primary deployment of these units should be in emergency treatment. Well, let’s see what we have here.”

  He lifted the glass and held it up to the light, showing four separate layers of liquid. One layer was clear at the top, the next milkier, followed by a thin red layer. Underneath the red was a tiny, almost invisible layer of blue liquid.

  “Interesting,” said Kaine. He inserted a white paper strip, and when he pulled it out, the layers were drawn on the paper—like a printed version of what was in the tube.

  “Also an invention of the JC Pharma geniuses. In fact, sometimes what they do up there is magic in itself.”

  He walked down to the biggest microscope I had ever seen and put the paper strip between two glass plates. Dropping his glasses down to his chest again, he leaned forward and looked into the eyepieces.

  “It’s magic blood, all right,” he said. “Not pure, but quite potent.”

  Tell me about it. For a second, I feared he might be able to see what powers it contained. That would really freak him out. Or me, for that matter.

  “How can you tell it’s magic?” I asked, trying to remember what I had read in a Wikipedia article a while back. Something about the ratio between the blood cells.

  “Pure magical blood has about one thousand blue blood cells to every white. This is quite rare, however, as most Magicals nowadays are descendants of mixed parents.”

  Like me, I wanted to say. I had never been closer to revealing my Fae heritage to any human, apart from Charlie, of course. It was a good feeling to believe I could trust Kaine.

  “This one, however, has about three hundred blue cells to every white. A half-blood, one could say. Although most Magicals’ blood has lower cell counts, this looks pretty standard for a half-blood.”

  I knew about the half-blood issue, at least, but I had to admit it stung a little to be described as ‘pretty standard’. Ironic, as all my life I had wanted to be normal, like the other kids at school. Moreover, I had kind of hoped for some real answers. The Harvesters who had kidnapped Jen said my blood was special. And though I already knew I wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, I had to check. Their intel was clearly wrong.

  But Kaine’s numbers still puzzled me. “Half? Wouldn’t that mean like, five hundred blue cells?”

  “The maths is a bit skewed,” said Kaine. “It’s more of a logarithmic scale than a linear one.”

  “Maths was never my forte, I’m afraid. But ok, if this is blood from a half-blood Mag, could—?”

  “Please, Miss Morgan. I have far too much respect for our guests here on Earth to use that term. Let’s give them the courtesy of calling them Magical beings, shall we?” He didn’t change his voice or expression, but his tone conveyed this meant something to him. Something important.

  “Our … guests?”

  “Why, indeed,” he said, smiling wryly. “I have always viewed Magicals as an enrichment to this godforsaken planet. Unfortunately, the majority of humans seem to disagree with me on the matter.”

  “At least, if that crazy Colburn is the benchmark,” I said, immediately regretting it.

  Kaine laughed. “Yes, he is quite the character. A brilliant scientist with an impeccable record of helping the needy and poor of the world. But yes, I don’t agree with his views on Magicals, neither the religious nor the political angle.”

  I’m not sure what came over me. A warm, kind and safe sensation flowed through my body, and without knowing it, I held my hands in front of me. Palms up. Two tiny balls of fire hovered an inch above my hands.

  My gaze found Kaine’s eyes, expecting to see shock or fear. The fireballs reflected in his pupils, making them appear bright orange and glowing. He tilted his head slightly, and one corner of his mouth drew up.

  What the hell was I doing? I closed my fists, forcing the fireballs back into wherever they came from—somewhere inside me, I guessed.

  “I—I’m so sorry, Professor,” I said, my voice choked. “I’m so very sorry!”

  I ran out of the lab, down the hall towards the stairway. I’m not sure how I managed to descend it without falling flat on my face, but soon I found myself sprinting in the pouring rain away from the Chem Building. My face was soaking wet from the rain, but also from the tears that flowed like rivers from my eyes.

  It had felt so right. It had felt so … safe.

  I didn’t stop until I crashed into our flat. My boots left muddy footprints in the hallway, and I almost slipped as I tore my door open. Being a half-blood Fae, flying was not one of my powers, but I came pretty damned close as I threw myself on the bed.

  It had felt so right. And safe.

  Wasn’t it?

  Six

  I stood by the steps to Craydon and texted Brendan. Again. When I still had no response a couple of minutes later, I turned on my heels and stomped off. It wasn’t like him not to respond. I had wanted to talk to Charlie about what went down this morning at breakfast, and about my visit with Kaine, but I couldn’t deal with her sulkiness right now. And now Brendan was giving me the silent treatment on top of it all? He had some explaining to do.

  Grow up, Ru!

  It was silly of me to get this upset, and he probably had some reasonable explanation. The events of the past few days weighed on me, and although we had not decided on what we were, I needed him. As a friend, if nothing else. I couldn’t tell him anything about Paddock or Kaine, but he wasn’t one to pry, which was one of the things I liked about him. One of many. Right now, though, I was riling myself up, all but slamming my fists to my chest in a roar of frustration. He’d better have a damn good reason for his behaviour or lack thereof.

  Rounding the corner, I quickened my ste
ps, striding against the headwind. A leaf blew in front of my eyes, and I shook it off like an annoyed cat coming in from the rain.

  Ealing House was a bit bigger than Craydon, though still smaller than Raven Court. Each flat had eight rooms, as opposed to our six, and the standard of the rooms was a lot better than ours. Thus, the rent was a lot higher, which was why I didn’t live in Ealing. Mum helped me with living costs, but combined, we could barely afford me living on campus at all. And yet she had agreed that I shouldn’t stay in the cheapest accommodation, Westerly Court, where twenty-four students shared separate loos and showers. It would have cost both of us a lot less, but it seemed Mum valued my privacy even more than I did.

  I walked straight across the small circular garden in front of Ealing, then rang the doorbell of number five.

  A girl opened. “Yes?”

  “Brendan home?” I asked, pushing past her before she could reply, then rushing down the hallway to room six, which oddly enough was the same number as mine. My fist found the door with great determination.

  “Just a moment,” Brendan shouted on the other side. There was a short click of a lock before the door swung open.

  “Ru—”

  “Save it. You want to tell me why you’ve decided to be an ass?” I crossed my arms, taking a stance befitting for a commander in the army. “Are you still pissed I had to cancel on you yesterday? I mean, I did tell you, and you seemed fine about it.”

  “I—”

  “Where do you come off acting like that? I needed you, and—”

  “Ruby!” Brendan interrupted, stepping aside to wave a hand into the room.

  My mouth clenched shut. He wasn’t alone. A girl was sitting on his bed, and a pink suitcase lay half open on the floor beside it. Did he have a girlfriend he had failed to tell me about? My anger flared up. I balled my hands, trying to stop the oncoming surge of energy boiling forth in my veins. I wanted to torch the place, burn that stupid pink suitcase, along with Brendan and everything else. Maybe not Brendan, but still.