Demon Bound: The Camelot Archive - Book One

by R Taylor, Nicole

  The stonework of the outer wall was intricate considering it was merely simple blocks. Each cut was so precise, there was no need for mortar to hold it all together. There were even some strange angles that made the façade look like a puzzle—Medieval zero waste—and I doubted I’d be able to slip a piece of paper between the cracks.

  Before us, they had set the earthen floor out in a large grid with a string wrapped around each peg, dividing the space with a dozen two-metre square sections. That’s as far as work had progressed here. No one had dug here yet and it seemed like I had the honour of breaking ground.

  At least it was quiet and I’d be alone. The last thing I wanted was to break some priceless artefact and have an audience to witness it. My constant run of unfortunate incidents was bad enough.

  “We think it was an inn or a tavern,” Aiden replied, answering my earlier question.

  He knelt inside a square and motioned for me to join him. Not worrying about dirtying my clean trousers, I knelt beside him.

  “What do I do?”

  He placed his palms on the sectioned-off earth. “Let me show you.”

  I pressed my hands next to his, the grit digging into my skin. “Now what?”

  “Use your Light to sense what’s underneath the ground.” I felt the dirt ripple as he sent a pulse outwards. “Just a little.”

  “Like a radar detector,” I mused.

  “It takes some practice, but you can learn to tell apart different materials—stone, copper, clay, iron, gold—and their estimated shapes.” He nodded towards the ground. “Have a go.”

  I took a deep breath, forgetting how silly I must look, and closed my eyes. My palms warmed, then I sent a gentle wave of Light into the ground. As my power flowed through me, I could feel its journey as it filtered through the layers of dirt. Almost immediately, it seemed to bump against something, then kept going.

  I opened my eyes. “I think there’s something here.”

  “Let’s dig then.” Aiden smiled and handed me a trowel. “You want to go slow to avoid damaging any artefact that may be buried. Scrape away the surface soil, then chip down in small scoops.”

  I grasped the trowel and began to scrape off the hardened surface layer. Once I’d cleared it, I began to edge deeper. My heart beat faster as I wondered what I might unearth.

  Then the edge of my trowel hit something solid.

  “I’ve found something.” Excitement filled my heart and I dug around the object, revealing the smooth surface of a glazed pot. “What is it?”

  “It’s a cup,” Aiden replied simply as I uncovered more of the object. “Wow, would you look at that?”

  I took a little brush from him and dusted over the exposed ceramic, revealing the design painted and pressed into the fired clay. Three yellow crowns inside a blue shield—the Pendragon coat of arms. It was a simple cup, but it was from the time of Arthur and the cataclysm. Someone had held this almost a thousand years ago, maybe even on the night the rift opened.

  Aiden chuckled and sat back on his heels. “Now do you get it?”

  I looked up at him and nodded. “I’m sorry I called you a bunch of nerds.”

  His chuckle turned into a full belly laugh. “Welcome to the fold, honorary nerd.”

  * * *

  After a few days working on the dig, things were getting better.

  I was careful not to go to Aiden with every little question to avoid the jealous women who had crushes on him. Instead, I asked the other archeologists how to do things and shared what I found—I’d since added some silver coins to my cup. I showed interest in their work and said nothing personal and soon, I’d become just another face in the Camelot dig.

  Two other Naturals joined me the day after I’d begun work inside the inn. Carly from the Los Angeles Sanctum and Heath from the Edinburgh outpost. They were cordial enough towards me, but not openly hostile, so we worked in amicable silence for most of the day.

  What surprised me the most was how I was treated outside of the security detail. There was less hostility in the air, and I could breathe for the first time since I was a teenager.

  Unearthing the hall was slow going. Now I’d learned the intricacies of the job, I understood why so little of Camelot was uncovered. Too heavy a hand and something of great importance and value could be accidentally destroyed.

  “Hey!” A woman leaned though the doorway and waved to the others. “They’ve found something up at the castle. Everyone’s going to check it out.”

  She vanished as soon as she appeared, and I glanced at Carly and Heath. They began to chatter excitedly, then stepped out of their squares.

  I hesitated. My settings were still on isolation mode and I wondered if I should go, too.

  As if she’d read my thoughts, Carly paused at the door and turned back. “Madeleine,” she said with a good-humoured sigh, “are you coming or not?”

  I grinned and dropped my trowel. “For sure.”

  Excited to be included—even in a small way—I followed them through the lower city. Soon I was turning into a large thoroughfare that led up to the inner castle of Camelot. It was a new section I hadn’t been to before—a more posh part by the looks of it. I tried to remember some things Aiden had taught us in history class back at the Academy. How the poorer people lived on the outer edges, then the higher ranked and their sacks of gold, followed by the nobility, and then the kings and queens. It was a theme that still presented itself in modern cities all around the world.

  I followed the other Naturals up a flight of stairs and almost crashed into a crowd of fifty or so people at the top. Cursing, I edged around them, standing on my tiptoes to see what they were looking at.

  “Can you believe it?” someone said. “Hidden right beneath our feet this whole time!”

  “I know, right?” a woman replied. “Can you imagine what else is hidden here?”

  Finally, I found a gap between the excited archaeologists. There was a huge hole in the middle of another square that sat against the immense outer wall of Camelot’s inner castle.

  Aiden and his team had partially dug out a freestanding building that appeared to have sunk into the earth hundreds of years ago. It sat well below the original paving as if someone had hidden it—by what or who, it was impossible to tell. The walls were plastered and painted, though the colours had faded and the stone underneath showed through.

  From what I could make out, the design was Druidic. Runes were woven in reliefs depicting a woman in a flowing gown with stars in her hair. Was it the Lady of the Lake? It was difficult to tell with so much of the structure still buried.

  “I heard Aiden say it looked like it was intentionally buried.”

  My ears pricked up. I turned so I could listen to the archeologists’ gossip.

  “There’s power in the ground here, can’t you feel it?”

  “It’s a chamber,” the woman in front of me said. “This part of the city was fortified, which means it was important. We’re inside the walls of the inner castle, you know.”

  “What do you think it is?” the man asked. “A treasury?”

  “Maybe. It seems untouched by the Dark. Can you believe it?”

  Nausea rippled through my body and I leaned against the stone wall. Why did I feel so sick? My Light should… It was then that I realised it was my mutation reacting to something.

  I glanced around, but no one was looking at me. They were all excited about the strange building buried underneath the city. But the longer I looked at it, the more I knew it should probably be left alone.

  Who knew what secrets the Naturals had buried under here, let alone what the Dark had twisted into the shadows? It was one thing to dig up a cup and some ancient coins, but quite another when it came to secret buildings.

  Spotting Aiden by the wall, I tried to move forwards but the excited nerd brigade pushed me back.

  I scowled and craned my neck so I could see deeper inside the hole. Maybe it was a good thing I couldn’t get close.

&
nbsp; The Dark had been after me from the beginning, but the creatures who’d taken me were from Camelot. What if they were looking for something they’d left behind?

  Suddenly, I had a sick feeling that the Balan demon had planned to turn me into a double agent and retrieve it for him. I wasn’t sure which was the most moronic thing I was keeping a secret about—Elijah or my lingering mutation.

  Oh man, this was getting worse by the minute.

  Edging away from the excitement, I dragged myself thought the lower city and back to my square. I’d just have to hope I was smart enough to keep one step ahead of the Dark.

  11

  Music ebbed through the Camelot base camp, the modern sounds of rock and pop jarring against the backdrop of the ruined castle.

  Apparently, the discovery of a secret chamber warranted a party. I wasn’t about to complain about the free beer, but times like these always reminded me of my outsider status amongst my own people.

  I sat on an empty crate just outside the glow of the bonfire, nursing a bottle of beer brought up from the human village below. A group of Naturals from the security team had challenged each other to do backflips over the flames, and I watched them with a heavy heart. Maybe I’d be with them right now if I hadn’t been infected.

  Depression sat heavy on my shoulders and I turned around, watching the comings and goings from another direction.

  Man, I hated parties…but being ostracised was the least of my worries.

  I knew I should say something to Aiden about the strange building, but I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. He’d want to know where my suspicions were coming from and I’d be forced to confess. Then everyone here with an axe to grind against the Dark—which was everyone after the losses from the Dark Night—would have an excuse to lock me up for good.

  Maybe I’d be able to get some help, but the Regula wouldn’t let me fight again—I’d broken the rules one too many times. If I was ousted, then I’d be leaving Elijah high and dry. If there was a chance to save him, then I should take it. I’d go down in flames either way, but at least he’d be free.

  I sighed and sipped my beer. Too bad Naturals couldn’t get drunk beyond tipsy.

  “Hey, there you are.”

  I bristled as Maisy sat next to me, shoving me half off the crate.

  “Hey, yourself.”

  “I’ll bet you ten quid that someone lands arse first in the fire within the next half-hour.”

  I snorted and took another mouthful of beer.

  Sensing my uneasiness, she knocked her shoulder against mine. “How’s the dig?”

  “Okay, I guess,” I replied with a shrug. “It’s slow going.”

  “Well, you’re not missing much. Things have gone silent since…you know.”

  “You can say it, Maisy. I won’t dissolve into tears.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “You’re the toughest person I know, Madeleine. Of course not!”

  I smiled. “It’s good to hear. About the patrols, not the tears.”

  “I know, right? How’s everything else? Any more echoes?”

  I shook my head. “No. Whatever Ramona gave me to ease them seems to have worked.”

  “Oh good. That dream the other night sounded…”

  I shivered. “Yeah, I know.”

  Maisy looked up at the sky and sighed. “Sometimes I wish I’d taken up another specialty.”

  “Huh?” I handed her my beer and she sipped absently. “You don’t want to be a warrior?”

  “How are we supposed to know what we want to do with our lives at seven?”

  I frowned and began to wonder the same thing. “Well…”

  “A duplicitous demon like her gets special treatment and all we get is patrol night after night.”

  I hesitated as the conversation behind us broke through our own. It wasn’t like I didn’t know people talked about me, but this was different. I had the overwhelming awareness they wanted me to hear. Kids could be cruel, but adults had the means to know better.

  “Give her a break, Rhys,” another man said. “She was captured—”

  “Exactly,” he interrupted. “Who knows what they did to her. For all we know, she staged it.”

  “C’mon,” a woman scoffed, “I saw her when she came back. She was definitely not a willing participant.”

  “You’re so blind, Felicity,” Rhys declared. “Demons lie. It’s their nature.”

  I tensed, his words hit home. He was right. I was lying about everything, including the demon mutation that lingered inside me.

  Maisy tugged on my sleeve. “Don’t. He’s not worth losing your position over. Let it go.” She offered me my beer back as a distraction but I shook my head.

  “She almost killed all those innocent kids at the Academy,” Rhys went on. “She almost cost us Arondight! You know it’s only a matter of time before she kills us all.”

  “Stop talking like that,” the woman named Felicity hissed.

  “Once a demon, always a demon.”

  “She wouldn’t be here if she was compromised,” the man said.

  “Zero tolerance.” Rhys’s volume increased and I knew he was making sure I heard every single word he said. I was well-versed in the art of a bully, after all. “We should send her back where she came from.”

  “Rhys, cut it out,” Felicity said. “You don’t mean that.”

  “Maybe he’s right,” the man muttered. “We won the war, but the Dark will do anything to stay alive.”

  “I say we throw her back,” Rhys declared. The chatter of the party began to quiet as everyone turned to hear what was going on.

  I lowered my gaze, my cheeks burned and my hands shook.

  The sound of crunching boot steps echoed behind me, each one moving closer to where Maisy and I sat.

  “Demon spawn should go back into the rift,” Rhys continued. “All we need to do is pick her up and throw her into the chasm. It’s only a matter of time before she turns Dark and kills us all. Once we’re gone…” he clucked his tongue, “no one will be left to protect the world from being consumed. How does it feel, Madeleine? Huh? How does it feel knowing you will murder eight billion people?”

  I rose to my feet. By this point someone had turned off the music and the entire camp was silent. It didn’t mean much to me, we could’ve been on Mars for all I cared.

  Turning, I struggled to keep hold of my rage. It wasn’t my fault I’d been possessed and mutated as a teenager. I’d been a victim and ever since, my own people had shamed me for something out of my control, despite fighting tooth and nail to uphold Natural values and fight against the lingering Dark.

  Rhys smirked as our gazes met. I barely knew the guy from a lump of coal, but he seemed to think he knew all about me.

  “Throw her back!” he shouted to the others. “Throw her back!”

  I fisted my hands into the front of his T-shirt and shoved him up against the wall. “Say that again.”

  “Madeline,” Maisy hissed, tugging at my sleeve.

  “Yeah, Madeleine,” Rhys said with a sarcastic lit in his voice, “you don’t want to get thrown out of Camelot. This is your last chance, isn’t it?”

  “How can you sleep at night knowing how much of a worthless piece of shite you are?” I asked, gritting my teeth. “Does it make you feel better about your meaningless life to hate on others? You don’t know the first thing about me.”

  “Like I said…” He leaned closer, his lips curving in a malicious grin. “Once a demon, always a demon.”

  A spark of uncontrollable anger burst to life inside me and I raised my fist and hit Rhys square in the nose. The sound of cracking bone was loud enough that the other Naturals gasped in shock, but it barely registered in my brain.

  The mutation gurgled and spluttered its approval as blood began to pour from Rhys’ nose.

  “Say it again!” I shouted, but he didn’t reply. “Not such a big man now, are you?”

  He let out a strangled cry and lunged at me, slamm
ing his shoulder into my chest. I stumbled backwards, ducking as his fist flew at my face.

  “Beating up in a girl. You’re such a big man,” I taunted him, smashing my shoulder into his ribs.

  He hit the wall and caught my ankle with his boot. The blow sent me to my knees, then I was on my back rolling through the dirt as he landed on top of me.

  We were a mess of fists and rage…and no one stopped us.

  “Enough!” Like a spectre in the night, Thompson appeared out of nowhere and pulled me off Rhys. “What’s the meaning of this?”

  I scrambled to my feet and wiped the back of my hand across my mouth. “Just teaching a prejudiced arsehole a lesson.”

  Rhys was on his feet in an instant. “You broke my nose!” He lunged at me, despite our commanding officer standing between us.

  Thompson growled and shoved him backwards. “Stand down,” he barked.

  “You’re nothing but a pathetic bully,” I growled at my tormentor.

  “Greenbriar,” Thompson snapped. He clicked his fingers at another Natural. “Take Rhys to the supply tent and await my arrival.”

  Rhys shoved off the hand that reached for him. “Sir—”

  “That’s an order.” I’d never seen Thompson so mad as he turned to face me. “And you will come with me.”

  I hissed as he grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the bonfire, the entire base camp staring in stunned silence.

  Thompson’s grasp hissed against my skin, the mutation sparking like it had the night the demons had captured me on patrol. I had to get a grip.

  It wasn’t long before Thompson shoved me into a tent at the opposite side of the camp—far away from the supply tent where Rhys had been taken.

  I tensed as I felt Thompson’s Light slam closed around me. They weren’t the bars of the cage under Ben Nevis, but they may as well have been. All that was missing was the meat closet.

  “You better not be putting that trash in here with me,” I drawled, turning on my heel. The limits of the tent were my boundary and breaking through the barrier was near impossible.

  “You drew blood in an unprovoked attack.” Thompson shook his head, his disappointment clear. “What were you thinking?”