Essence of Magic (Ruby Morgan Book 1)

by LJ Rivers

  The box was filled with pictures of what I assumed was Jen’s family, their features undeniably similar. A man, a woman, and four other children in addition to Jen were immortalized in the pictures. One of them had the entire family gathered on a mountainside somewhere. I didn’t recognize the place, but it was probably the Alps or someplace similar.

  “I had no idea she has four siblings,” I said.

  “I know, right?” Charlie said, giving me a tired smile.

  A necklace called out to me underneath the pile of pictures, and I brought the chain up between two fingers. A silver half-moon pendant embedded with three small sapphires dangled in front of my eyes. It was stunning.

  “Ruby.” Charlie nudged me in the side as she brought one of the pictures to my attention. “Is this what I think it is?”

  Thick, white fur was the first thing to catch my attention of the wolf in the picture. It was taken in the same spot as the family portrait. Then I noticed the blue eyes. Even in wolf form, I would have recognized them anywhere. I sucked in a breath, recalling all the times I had seen those eyes lately.

  My mind raced back to everything that had happened from the first day I arrived on campus. Jen always seemed to have a sixth sense about things, like she knew when to keep her distance, and when not to. She had literally sniffed her way to find the syringe outside Raven Court. Did she already know then that it contained human blood? The image of her parting the rose bush with her hands without getting scratched moved to the forefront of my memories. How had I not seen it before?

  “It is,” I replied. “Jen is a Shifter!”

  Chapter Twenty

  The flat seemed empty with only the two of us sitting at the kitchen table. With Duncan and Jen missing, it was just Charlie and me left.

  “Should we inform the police?” Charlie asked, almost inaudibly.

  “It didn’t exactly turn out great the last time we neglected to tell them about a missing girl, did it?”

  “Guess not.” Charlie sighed deeply. “Those coppers, though. I have absolutely no desire to speak to Paddock again. He creeps me out.”

  He creeped me out too. A lot. Still, I had learned from my previous mistake, and I had no intention of being thrown in the nick, as Paddock so kindly put it. I brought my phone up and found PC Paddock’s number. I wished I had Fernsby’s number instead, but this was the number we had been provided with. I dialled, switched to the speaker, and put the phone at the centre of the table.

  He answered on the fifth ring. “Paddock.”

  “Hi, this is Ruby Morgan, at White Willow University. You remember me?”

  “I do. What are you up to this time?”

  I blew into my hair and braced myself for what I had to say. “I’m just—I’m calling to tell you that our flatmate, Jeannine Lune, has gone missing. She didn’t come home last night, and we haven’t seen her since.”

  Paddock went very quiet at the other end before he spoke again. “And how many hours since you saw her last, Miss Morgan?”

  I gestured at Charlie, opening my hands as a question. She shrugged and showed me ten fingers, then four.

  “About fourteen hours,” I told Paddock.

  “Well, then, I wouldn’t worry too much, Miss Morgan. She’s probably sleeping off a party at a friend’s, or maybe a boyfriend’s.”

  “She’s not—” I began.

  “Listen, I’ll put a flag in our system about it, and check if we have someone to send over, ok? Let me know if she shows up in the meantime. If not, you contact me again, and we’ll open an investigation.”

  “What?” I blurted. “She could be dead somewhere.” Taking a deep breath, I held back the curse words I wanted to shout at him, then continued in a more gentle tone. “I mean, why were you so hard on us the last time if you don’t even want to look for her now?”

  “Miss Morgan,” he said, his voice like steel. “You are still to report something like this. If you haven’t already, I would advise you to report it to the security guards on campus for the time being. I’ll expect to hear back from you.”

  “All right. Thanks, I guess.”

  “Goodbye, Miss Morgan.”

  “Bye,” I mumbled.

  Charlie pushed back her chair and leapt to her feet. “Great.” She started pacing the room. “Just what we needed.”

  What were we going to do now? The guards on campus were nice and all, but they hadn’t exactly done a bang-up job finding the other missing girls, and Ilyana was already confirmed dead. Who else could we turn to?

  “I’ve got an idea,” I said, grabbing my phone again and sliding down to one of my most recent calls. It rang twice before he picked up. “Hey B,” I said.

  “Milady,” Brendan replied, and my body relaxed at the sound of his voice.

  “We need your help,” I continued. “Jen is missing. Could you meet us by the white willow?”

  Brendan didn’t miss a beat. “I’ll be down in a jiffy.”

  “You think he can help?” Charlie asked as we walked out of Craydon to meet him.

  “Maybe. Worth a shot at least.”

  Brendan was already waiting for us beneath the shade of the willow, leaning on the trunk. God, he looked great. My heart was somersaulting at the sight of him. This isn’t a romantic encounter, though, Ruby, I told myself, steadying my breathing.

  “Howya, ladies,” Brendan said.

  “Thank you for meeting us.” I gave him a quick hug, inhaling his spicy scent for a moment before stepping back. “We might have a lead.”

  I explained everything that had happened since Jen left the house the previous day, including our lead on Greg Barrows, the janitor, but excluding the part about the wolf in the pictures. He didn’t need to know what Jen was in order to help us look for her.

  “Sounds to me like the janitor is our best clue. Let’s go to the student information office. They’ll know where he’s accommodated. All the staff have their own accommodation on campus, so he shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

  That was a good idea, but something was off with Brendan today. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. He did most of the talking as we walked to the information office, rambling on about everything and nothing, including some tournament he was attending in a few months. Charlie gave me a confused look, clearly picking up on that same weird vibe I was. Brendan was always confident, but I had never seen him go on as he did now.

  “Here we are. You ladies can wait outside while I get what we need from Mrs Pryce. She knows me,” he said and disappeared inside.

  “What’s up with him today?” Charlie asked.

  I folded one hand over my arm. “No idea. He’s not usually like this.”

  We didn’t get a chance to talk more as Brendan dashed out of the door again. “Got it,” he said. “Greg lives here. A seven-minute walk, give or take.”

  Our walk continued in the same fashion as before. Neither Charlie nor I could get more than a couple of words in during the one-sided conversation.

  “Is that it?” Charlie interrupted, pointing down a steep stairwell, which led to a steel door on the sub-zero level. A sign on the wall read Staff Accommodation.

  Brendan bounced down the steps. “Yup,” he called. “Has his name on the door.”

  We followed down the stone steps while Brendan knocked. No answer.

  “Guess no one is home,” he said.

  “Perfect.” Charlie pulled a pin out of my hair, releasing a collection of locks to fall around my face. “We can take a look around, then.”

  “We can?” I said.

  “Sure,” Charlie replied and straightened the bobby pin. She put the tip of it into the lock and bent it downward, proceeding to curl one of the ends into a makeshift handle. With a broad smile, she held the finished product up in front of her face. “You learn a lot of tricks when your dad tends to lock your door—with you inside.” She shrugged.

  I wanted to wrap her in my arms and tell her everything was all right but didn’t want to disturb her. />
  Charlie slid the newly made lock pick into the lock and started jiggling it gently up and down, then side to side. I gasped as the door clicked open.

  “Coming?” Charlie asked.

  I exchanged a look with Brendan, who stood back.

  “I think I’ll keep watch. You girls go ahead. Breaking and entering isn’t really my style, though for this particular reason, I’m inclined to think that the ends justifies the means. But you’ll excuse me if I don’t wish to become your partner in real crime.”

  He gave me a peck on the cheek. “Keep your phone close, and I’ll ring you if you need to get out fast.”

  “Thanks,” I said, then followed Charlie inside.

  Being so far below ground, the only natural light inside came from four narrow windows close to the ceiling, leaving the room in a gloomy state. We stepped into what looked like a more or less normal living room with a sparse amount of furniture, then walked through to the kitchen. The rank smell of mould and old dishes hit me like a wall.

  “Gross,” Charlie uttered, covering her mouth with her hand until we entered the next room.

  My jaw dropped. A table to my right was filled with blood vials, blood bags, panels—and several syringes. I lifted my gaze to the back wall, my heart racing like I was running a sprint.

  “What the—” Charlie stepped over to the wall and pulled down a picture, showing it to me. “Ilyana.” Her words were stifled.

  I went to her side and took her hand. There were about a dozen more pictures of Ilyana next to a bunch of pictures that I recognized from the one Paddock had shown us of Corinne. Charlie’s hand stiffened in my hold as we both looked at the twenty or so pictures of Jen. They had been taken all over campus, some blurrier than others—clearly shot with a zoom lens. Jen outside our house, behind the windows at Brady’s, and even one in the darkness of our regular pub, the Old Willow. Barrows must have stalked her like a paparazzo.

  “That bastard,” she breathed before ripping every last one of them down, stuffing them into her jeans pockets.

  A shiver crawled over my skin. “Charlie,” I whispered. “Look.”

  She followed my line of sight to the pile of pictures on a chair by my side.

  “Shit, Ru.” She grabbed the lot of them. “He knows about you.”

  The words stuck in my throat, and I couldn’t say anything. Greg the wannabe paparazzo had at least ten pictures of me too in that pile.

  “We gotta get out of here,” Charlie whispered.

  She tugged me with her through the flat and back outside where she shoved the pictures of me into the back of her jeans. Then she covered her bulging pockets by tying her jumper around her waist before we climbed the steps to meet up with Brendan.

  “Find anything?” he asked, taking me in his arms. “Hey, Ruby, you’re shaking like a leaf.”

  “He has a wall full of pictures—of Olivia and Corinne,” Charlie explained, keeping Jen and me out of the equation when I couldn’t muster the words. “He’s definitely our guy.”

  “Feck!” Brendan said.

  “He—he killed Ilyana,” I sobbed into Brendan’s chest. “What if he killed Corinne, too, and—”

  “Don’t.” Charlie cut me off. “Don’t say her name.”

  Brendan stroked my hair. “Ilyana was missing for a while, so maybe she wasn’t killed straight away. There could still be a window of time here.”

  It wasn’t extremely encouraging, but he did have a point. I straightened, wiping my eyes. “Then there’s no time to waste. We need to find her. Now!”

  Charlie tilted her head at me, a veil of sadness coating her eyes, but neither of us was giving up on Jen.

  “Time to call the police, don’t you think?” Brendan asked.

  “I did. They didn’t exactly jump into action. Said she hasn’t been gone long enough.”

  “But you’ve got more evidence now.”

  “Which we obtained by breaking and entering. Besides, I don’t trust them,” I admitted. “And the clock is ticking. What if they don’t get here in time?”

  And what if they realized the connection of Jen being a Mag? I couldn’t tell Brendan that, but I didn’t want to be the one to expose Jen as a shifter either.

  “Excuse me,” a male voice said. “Are you looking for someone.”

  We turned to face him, and Charlie was quick on her feet. “We’re researching for a paper I’m doing on the architectural structures of White Willow,” she said. “It’s for one of my ‘archaeology through history’ lectures.”

  A part of me admired Charlie’s ability to lie on the spot, but I wished she hadn't needed that skill to survive.

  The man smiled at us and I remembered him from when he broke up the fight between Charlie and the punk girl. His outfit looked as outdated yet refined as the last time I had seen him. He had to be somewhere in his sixties, and there was something in his eyes that made me feel calm.

  “I’m Professor Kaine, and it so happens that I know quite a lot about historical endeavours, architectural or otherwise. But if you need to dig deeper for other source material, I suppose I could lend you a hand and offer you access into the university archives at the library. You’ll need a password.” He winked at me.

  “Not rea—I, mean, that would be awesome,” Charlie said.

  “Very well, then, just you follow me.”

  We did as asked and trailed behind him to the White Willow Grand Library. He took us through the main hall to the back, where he slid his key card in the reader, which opened the door to another room. Charlie’s eyes widened, and I had to admit the room was impressive.

  “This is where we keep the more special collections of books that need to be handled with the utmost care. There is another room with older books, too, but that one is out of bounds, and hardly a place you need to visit for what you’re looking for,” Professor Kaine said.

  The circular room contained a row of six-storey, white wooden bookshelves covering the walls from one side to the other. In the middle of the room, however, was a more modern looking display, consisting of a large table with four stationary computers and adjacent chairs.

  Professor Kaine sat down on one of them and turned the computer on, glancing at Brendan.

  “Did I not see you by the lake with that pretty American girl the other night?” he asked. “What was her name again?”

  “Uhm, maybe,” Brendan replied.

  “Yes, I’m quite sure of it. The two of you are an item, I suppose?” Kaine tilted his chin. “Ah, Diane, that was it.”

  My shoulders slumped and a tinge of the old green monster I had become familiar with wriggled in my bones. What had he been doing by the lake? With Diane, of all people.

  Brendan scratched his jaw. “No, sir. Just a friend.”

  That was a relief. At the same time, what was he supposed to say with me standing right next to him? Was she just a friend? Or was Brendan not the guy I thought he was? I bit down on my tongue, mentally shaking myself. I couldn’t think about this right now. I had to focus on finding Jen.

  “Oh, well,” Professor Kaine replied, turning his attention to the computer. He typed his credentials, meticulously pressing one key at a time, then looked back to us. “There you are. There’s a map section, and a registry on all the buildings on campus. Feel free to print the articles you need. My account is void of the limitations your student accounts have on printing. I’ll give you some privacy and attend to some research of my own in the meantime.” His eyes shifted around the room. Nodding, he went over to the bookcases, and the three of us began searching the archives.

  “What exactly are we looking for?” Brendan pulled a finger along his collar.

  “Well,” Charlie said under her breath, “it stands to reason that the janitor would keep the girls somewhere on campus. All the girls disappeared from campus grounds, and Ilyana was found dead here. Then there are the disturbing things we found in Barrows’ flat. I don’t think he would risk transporting everything too far, so I’m guess
ing the girls never left the grounds.”

  I could almost kiss her. While I was a complete mess, Charlie managed to keep her wits about her and think clearly. It didn’t take her long to dig into the map archives until she found what we needed.

  “Here,” she pointed at the screen. “It’s a blueprint of every structure on the White Willow premises. See here?” Her finger slid across the map. “That’s a tunnel system. And here at the end is an old boiler room that’s been shut down.”

  I snapped a few pictures of the map, not wanting to wait to print it. “You’re a freaking genius! Have I told you that before?”

  “You have, but it doesn’t hurt to repeat it.” She smirked, then deleted her entire search history before shutting the computer off.

  Kaine turned to us. “Find what you needed?” he asked.

  “Yes, thank you, Professor,” I said.

  “Good. And Ruby—it is Ruby, right?”

  “Yes.” Had I given him my name? It appeared I had, though I couldn’t remember doing it.

  “Remember that people will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”

  “Uhm, ok,” I said.

  “Carl Jung?” Charlie asked.

  “Indeed, Miss?”

  “Medina Hargraves. I’m fine with Hargraves alone.”

  He nodded at her. “Hargraves it is, then.”

  “Ok,” I said again, having no idea what he meant. “I’ll try to remember that. And again, thank you for your help.”

  “Any time, Ruby.” He waved us off and returned his attention to the books.

  Finding our way back outside, we settled on a patch of grass to study the pictures of the blueprints more closely.

  “What do you think, Brendan?” I asked, to no reply. I shifted my head around, but there was no sight of Brendan anywhere. “What? Where did he go?”

  Charlie shrugged. “Dunno. He was right behind us.”

  That was annoying. Where the heck had he gone?

  “Ru,” Charlie said, shaking my arm. “You can think about boys later. Right now, I need your head in the game, and maybe even your fire power. It might be a good thing that B made himself scarce. He clearly doesn’t want to get any more mixed up with our criminal inclinations.”