Sentries of Camelot (Ruby Morgan Book 2)

by LJ Rivers

  Mordred.

  The same anger that had encapsulated my thoughts when I suffocated Lionel filled me again.

  Jen moaned and lifted her forepaws, trying to get to all fours. In the prison complex on the other side of the door, I heard footsteps. Boots on metal.

  I slid over to Jen, placing my hand on her head. The difference between my fire and healing was black and white. I had to focus hard to switch this time, as my anger still burned inside. After a couple of seconds, the familiar light shone from my palm, and I pushed as much healing power into the wound as I could muster.

  I had to let go sooner than I wanted, though it seemed to have worked well enough. At least Jen was on her feet and, by the look in her eyes, she was ready to fight.

  “Come here!” Mordred thundered again, and for a second I thought he meant Jen and me.

  I quickly understood what he was up to, however, when one guard after another came flying through the opening. Mordred was using his stolen magic to float—or throw—them at us. One of the guards hit the side of what used to be a reinforced steel door frame, wrapping around it like a folding chair. His spine snapped with a crack as if it was a dry branch on a tree.

  Mordred had succeeded in creating a frontal force, as the other four guards landed on the floor more or less unharmed. The first gun was already pointing at me, and soon we were surrounded.

  There was no time to send fireballs at all of them. One or more of them would be able to hit Jen or me for sure.

  I threw my hands outward, conjuring a massive force field. Not to encapsulate Jen and me, but to push the guards away. It worked. As the near-invisible dome hit them simultaneously, it threw them back in a semicircle. The force field kept expanding. I made it expand. Breathing heavily, I pushed harder and harder, sliding the guards across the floor towards the walls. I let out a scream as I gave the dome a final push. All four of them were squeezed up against the wall, exploding like flies under a swatter. The force field and the walls were splattered with blood, guts, and bone fragments, like a grotesque modern art installation.

  “Go to hell, you bastards!” I yelled.

  “I’m sure they will,” a voice said behind me.

  I turned just in time to see Jen leap at Mordred, who didn’t even flinch. He raised his left arm and knocked the big flying wolf straight back to where she had jumped from, sending her crashing to the floor. She skidded into the wall and slammed into it with a loud thump.

  Mordred held his arms out. The walls started shaking like an earthquake hit the farm, and clouds of dust erupted as pieces of metal came flying out of the concrete. I threw a force field around myself, the rebar darts bouncing off it with tiny popping sounds.

  The drugged-up policeman lowered his arms. “Time to end this charade, Ruby. You can’t hide in that field forever, you know. At some point, your magic runs out, and then it’s over. Why not save us both some time?”

  “I’ll kill you long before that.” I clenched my jaw, not at all sure of myself.

  “You won’t, I’m afraid.” His voice was calm, but the thunder was there, underneath the surface. “I’ve waited for this moment for a long time, Ruby Morgan. Or should I say Ruby Rivers?”

  What the—?

  He laughed. “I can tell by your expression that I’m right. Not that I had any doubt, of course. But where are my manners, good heavens? Brigham Jones at your service. Police superintendent, formerly known as Three. At least to your father.”

  “You—you knew my dad?”

  “Briefly, yes. We were recruits at the Academy, for a few months.”

  I had no idea what he was on about. I did, however, have a strong idea about how long my force field would last. It tugged at me from the inside as my energy reached critically low levels. I had to hold on. Maybe Jen was ok. If I could hold on a couple of minutes more, she could get her bearings straight and sneak up on Mordred.

  “You don’t know! That’s astonishing. What a terrible father, to keep such a thing from his own daughter.”

  “What are you talking about? What academy?”

  “Only the first and best Harvester Academy ever. Dennis, or Seven as his recruit name was, showed such high promise. Came in from nowhere and made top of the class in no time. He was particularly apt at spotting Mags. Back then we had no scanners, you know. He made them on pure instinct. It was—pardon the pun—magic.”

  “Liar!” I spat the word at him. “Dad would never be one of you! Monsters and murderers, that’s what you are, the lot of you. No way my dad—”

  “When I kill you, Ruby Morgan Rivers, the last trace of that wanker is gone. Now, let that force field go, and throw those pathetic firecrackers at me, bitch!”

  Darkness.

  Not the kind I experienced in the van on the way up here.

  This was inside me. It was black, rock-hard darkness. Pure anger.

  I released it.

  The answer to my worries about throwing fire from inside a force field was answered. Mordred’s eyes widened, his face twisting in terror and surprise as the fireball blasted into his gut. He doubled over, clutching his belly. The thundering growl he had suppressed when talking surfaced again.

  I had no power left to keep the force field up, and he seemed to understand that. He lifted his trembling arm and flicked his hand. A three-foot-long piece of metal flew from the floor to my stomach. I stumbled but kept my footing. The blow was weak, revealing his fading powers.

  “Your father was a coward, Ruby. Don’t be one, too. Come here and fight me for real!”

  “Fine by me.” I moved slowly towards him.

  He straightened his back, exposing his stomach and the large, burnt hole in his bulletproof vest.

  “Oldest trick in the book,” he sneered.

  He held his arms out, like a satanic version of Jesus on the cross. Behind him, a rumbling began, and seconds later the wall came crashing down.

  I threw myself to the floor as the iron spears flew over me and rammed into the far wall with tremendous force. So much for fading powers.

  My breath came in short spurts, like at the end of a brutal interval run. Dots flashed before my eyes. Was there any fire left in me? If not, I was dead.

  ‘You have immense powers, my dear Ruby. Immense.’

  Hoping beyond hope that Gabriel’s words rang true, I rolled over on my back and pointed at Mordred.

  The room spun before my eyes as I let all my hatred and anger—all my darkness—flow out from the tip of my right index finger. A single blue flame erupted like a lightning bolt. It rushed at Mordred and hit his face, dead centre.

  He had no time to react, and as the blue flame turned into a red and orange inferno around him, he still stood with his arms spread out.

  The now burning cross, which once had killed a beautiful, innocent Japanese girl, screamed. The guttural sound vibrated through the hall as the fire spread with it. I walked towards him, standing right in front of him.

  I watched as the last ounce of life left his eyes, and his skin melted off his cranium. My heart played a drum solo in my heaving chest, and the heat was hellishly intense, but I didn’t care. I wanted to see this. Needed to.

  “Ruby!”

  Way off in the distance, a voice called my name. Gabriel? Dad?

  “Ruby, we have to get out of here! The whole place is burning!”

  Jen!

  I flinched out of my trance and turned to look for her. The room was full of smoke and flames. Jen sat in a corner, naked and human.

  “Are you all right?” I shouted over the roar of the fire.

  “Not really, but I will be. Had to shift to call for you!”

  She closed her eyes, and I could see how much it cost her to shift back to her wolf shape. Still, the human Jen would have no chance of getting out of here.

  The Mordred cross fell to the floor in a heap of ashen bones.

  “Go!” I yelled.

  Jen was already going, though not with her usual speed and grace. She had a terribl
e limp. Even so, she managed to run towards the far end of the burning hall, to the double doors and the corridor. I waited until she was out of sight, figuring she’d make it to the exit and across the field.

  I turned and stepped over Mordred’s remains. If there had been any guards left, they would have fired at me when I crouched through the opening, but nothing happened. One thought ran through my head.

  Free them.

  From the small remaining part of the gangway, I couldn’t see the cages. I lowered myself as far as I could over the edge, and let myself drop to the floor ten feet below, softening the landing with a force field under my feet.

  The chaos from my previous fireball escapades was even more devastating than I remembered. The fire had burned all flammable materials, leaving a soot-filled, concrete shell of a building. Tiny flames licked up one of the walls along with the minuscule remains of an electric wire.

  Trying to preserve energy, I walked slowly past what had been my cage only hours ago. Minutes? Time was a floating concept. Everything had happened so fast, it was all a blur. The fatigue didn’t exactly help either.

  I found Oliver’s cage, and sure enough, the keyring was still in the lock. I grabbed it and ran towards the stairs. Only one half of them remained, but I managed to climb them. At the top, I had to jump to reach the gangway towards the cages.

  With all my focus on fighting off Mordred and his gang, making sure Jen was safe, and then finding the keys, I hadn’t noticed the noise. A monotonous humming consisting of screams and moans filled the air and my ears. I had a premonition that my worst fears were about to be confirmed.

  In the first eight cages, the prisoners lay slumped and lifeless, each with multiple gunshot wounds. In the ninth, an old man gripped the bars as I approached him.

  “Please, help me! Help us, please!”

  “I—I’ll get you out. It’s all right now.” But how could I say those words when the guards must have strolled through here, from cage to cage, emptying their guns at the defenceless Magicals. Tears flowed as I searched for the right key. When I opened the cage, the old man with long silver hair threw his arms around me.

  “Thank you! Thank you! They shot at us. Stabbed and hit us. I—I think they tried to get rid of—” His words drowned in his sobbing.

  I wanted so badly to comfort him, but the screams and moans from the other cages called for me.

  “They kept only the Pures and high-blooded,” the man said, pulling away from me. “We need to save them. Let me help.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. How he didn’t flee the scene was beyond me. He ran to the stairway and started to bend a piece of a metal bar back and forth. After a few repetitions, it gave in and broke off. No magic there, just knowledge.

  I moved to the next cage, only to find another dead person, a boy not more than fifteen. The old man started hitting the lock of another cage with the metal bar. Five clanking hits and the lock broke. He swung the door open to let a woman out.

  “Stay close,” I said to her. “We’ll find a way out. All the guards are dead, so you’re safe now, ma’am.” I could be wrong, of course, but it seemed highly unlikely that any sentries were hiding somewhere now.

  It took us between ten and fifteen minutes to free all the survivors of the massacre. Behind the last cage, where a man lay in a pool of blood, a door led to a back room. From there, the distance to another door was short. Behind it, the freezing morning air hit me, and I drew it in as deeply as I could.

  We were at the back of the large barn, slash prison nightmare, atop a metal staircase.

  “Stay here,” I said to the motley crew of about twenty survivors and injured behind me. “It’s too cold.”

  “We have to get away,” cried a young woman. The left side of her face was crimson and slashed half-open, making her words come out in a slur. “They’ll kill us all.”

  “They’re gone,” I said. “All of them. I’ll get help. Stay inside, ok?”

  It must have taken all their willpower to go back inside when freedom lurked just outside the door.

  “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes,” I said. “Does anyone have any magic powers? I mean powers you can use right now?”

  “They humanised all of us,” the old man said. “Go. I’ll stand guard by the door.”

  I ran out, my feet almost buckling from fatigue, but there was no way I would leave these Magicals alone for a second more than necessary. Turning the corner, I crossed the field to where I had left Oliver and Nick. Fifty yards. Forty. The black dots started dancing before my eyes again. Twenty.

  A large figure appeared in a haze in front of me. Jen, in her soot-and-ashen covered white fur, stood guard in front of a bonfire with Oliver and Nick by her side.

  Ten yards.

  I fell flat on the ground at Jen’s feet, registering somewhere way back in my mind that one of them was soaked in blood.

  “Inside,” I said, my voice dry and low. I tried clearing my throat.

  “Ruby!” Nick ran towards me. “You’re alive. Thank God. Are there any —?”

  “They’re inside, and they need our help,” I said. “And protection.”

  Twenty

  The small fires surrounding me crackled while I scooted closer to the flames. I shivered, my teeth chattering as I wrapped my arms around my knees. The stench of blood and gunpowder clogged my airways, sending me into a fit of coughs before a sharp pain careened up my spine. I gritted my teeth, unable to shed another tear.

  I looked around. About twenty-odd people were huddled about a few scattered fires in what had been an open spaced living area, the kitchen still standing at one end. Most of the Mags sat or were curled up on the floor. I wanted to help them, but I was beat. I needed to refuel somehow. Weaving between the wounded, was Jen. She limped around the room on all fours, nudging people with her snout, continuing to sniff the openings in the walls, still alert and ready for any potential danger. The white of her fur was drenched in scarlet, and she kept her weight off one of her front paws. It was a stroke of luck that she had shown up when she did.

  Beams from the morning sun penetrated the windows and charred openings in the wall, breaking into the puffs of ash that was heavy in the air, creating an eerie glow in the room. Gusts of chilling wind tore through the house. The remnants of the farmhouse provided shelter, but in my fiery frenzy, I had caused some sort of electrical meltdown, and there were no lights or heat apart from the sun outside, and some still burning planks.

  A hand folded over my shoulder as Nick came to sit beside me.

  “Still have that phone?” I asked.

  The phone was already in his hand as he sat next to me. “Here.”

  I nodded at him and punched in the number I had memorised.

  “Paddock,” the man on the other end answered.

  “It’s Ruby.”

  “Son of a gun, Ruby. Where the heck are you?”

  I sighed. Sounded like he had been looking for me. “Hertfordshire, I think. A farm called Warriner Fields. It’s a MagX kind of farm.” Or it used to be, I thought. “They caged me, but I’m all right now. There’s a lot of dead people here, though, including a bunch of officers I assume came from your district. Can you please help?”

  “Start at the beginning,” he said grimly.

  I told him the cliff-notes version, excluding the more horrible details.

  For a long time, all I could hear was Paddock’s deep breathing before he eventually found his words again.

  “Listen, we’ve been looking for you since yesterday morning. Your friend, Charlie, rang me. I won’t waste time with all the details, but let’s just say she’s discovered a lot. And so has Travers and the task force at Scotland Yard. You just sit tight. I’ll make some calls, and it might take a little while, but I’ll be there. Can you manage until then?”

  “We’ll have to, I suppose. Thanks, Paddock.”

  “Don’t mention it. See you soon.” He hung up.

  I lifted my head to find Nick re
garding me with his clear blue eyes. “I never knew you had it in you.”

  “What?”

  “Your magic. I mean, you’re a powerhouse, if I ever saw one. It’s a little unnerving to watch in a sort of awe-inspiring scary kind of way.”

  I snorted and took in the sight of him. His red hoodie was in shreds. The crest with the once crossed hammers was barely recognisable where a shallow gash tore across his chest, and his arms were threaded with crimson wounds. Yet, his lips curved up.

  “You want me to heal that for you?” I asked.

  “Nah, I’ll be ok. Besides, the scars will make me look badass, and I think you should save your energy for those who really need it.”

  For a human, Nick had stood his ground, fighting as ferociously as the rest of us. It was more than a little impressive.

  “So,” I said. “How exactly did you escape to find me?”

  “An illusionist never reveals his tricks.” He winked. “Sleight of hand. Let’s just say that I’ve practised slipping out of ropes before. Not that hard once you know what to do. Besides, I don’t think those officers that bound me were especially familiar with tying people up.”

  I blinked, trying to process what he had said. “Wait, back up. Illusionist?”

  He grunted. “Well, yeah. My gramps used to pull pennies from my ear and extract random things out from his sleeves. So, ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be able to perform magic, which, since I’m not a natural-born Mag—” He glanced at me. “I had to find other ways. When my gramps died, he left me a book on illusions with all sorts of neat tricks in it. I suppose it’s the closest thing to actual magic I’ll get, save from licking MagX.”

  I scowled at him, and he waved his hands defensively.

  “Which I am never going to do again! I promise. This was a serious wake-up call. I can’t believe this is what it takes to get MagX into the hands of users. It hadn’t occurred to me.”