CHAPTER 1

"Yes, yes fine...just….let me go!"

Jenkins violently shrugged a rough hand from his tweed jacket as he was unceremoniously shoved into a jail cell of some kind. The cellars of the estate in Glasgow were cold, dank, and completely appropriate for the situation he'd gotten himself into. While he prided himself as a Caretaker rooted firmly in the Library, he had ventured out to find the young Librarians gone missing: Mr. Jake Stone and Miss Cassandra Cillian, respectively. When Mr. Stone had failed to return from a simple fact-finding mission in Scotland, Miss Cillian had jumped at the chance for some adventure. Then she hadn't returned in a day's time, and Jenkins felt compelled to follow, sure that he would sort the situation in a matter of hours. The breadcrumbs they'd left led him to Glasgow. A poorly-timed punch had set him off-balance and into the hands of a small army of henchmen, and now he found himself in a dungeon cell. He huffed and sat on a small cot in the corner, determined to think himself a way out of the situation.

"Je...Mr. Jenkins?...is that you?"

A small voice cried out softly, and he swung toward it.

"Miss Cillian?"

"Yes….I….I can't see where you are?"

Jenkins frowned as he saw the redhead curled in on herself in the opposite corner of the room. She was facing the wall, shoes gone. He rushed the few feet over to her and crouched down.

"Are you hurt, Miss Cillian? What's happened here?"

"I don't really know. I couldn't find Jake at the museum he'd originally said he would go to, but I found a ripped blueprint of this castle and came to find him. When I snuck in through the kitchens...I think someone hit me from behind. I passed out. I'm sorry."

"You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for. What did you find out about this place? How do you feel now?" He turned her slowly to face him and was horrified to see her eyes completely unfocused. She seemed to be searching for something to look at.

"Well, my head feels like they never took the tumor out. It hurts ALOT…..and I can't see you. My eyes are all blurry. Just black and grey blobs everywhere. You're sitting right beside me, aren't you?" Her voice got smaller, and he could feel her get more and more afraid. He put a hand on each elbow and brought them both standing, murmuring his help.

"There is a cot over here, Miss Cillian, about 10 feet in front of us. Let me walk you over to it, and we'll set you right. I'm sure the blow to your head has just hurt you temporarily. You'll be fine soon." He wished he was as confident as his tone of voice indicated.

"Thank you, Mr. Jenkins. I'm sure you're right."

They made their way across the cell and he gently sat her on the cot, looking around for any water source. He pulled his pocket handkerchief, ready to soak it to place to her head. Finally he located a bottle of water, unopened, next to where Cassandra had been sitting on the floor. What in God's name was a bottle of clean water doing in a dungeon? He put the question aside long enough to douse the cloth and press it to the lump forming under the young woman's hair.

"Let's start with your feeling a little better, and then we'll find a way back to the Library. You'll need a bit more medical attention once we're home."

"Ok, well...ok. So we need to figure out what this place is. I know we are approximately 0.73 kilometers from the border of Glasgow. The museum in Glasgow where I went to find Jake had a large archive of castle plans dating back to Norse histories. I found one blueprint on the floor near a table and chairs that were knocked over. I figured Jake got in another fistfight, so I walked here to see if I could find him. I'm sorry, Jenkins, but I think I might be sick."

She leaned to the side of the cot, and Jenkins quickly responded, sliding a nearby bucket under her. He laid one hand on her back and slid the other under her hair, holding it gingerly as she retched. Growing concern pooled in his stomach as he thought through the signs of concussion. His handkerchief lay limply on the cot, forgotten. There was a corner of his brain that felt this was all quite intimate; the poor girl probably didn't want an ancient knight helping her be sick, but duty called. She was a fallen comrade, and he had to help. After she stopped throwing up, she sat up and gave a whimpering laugh:

"Not my idea of a great Thursday...sorry, Jenkins."

"You seem to be doing a lot of apologizing when you needn't, Cassandra. Please, tell me how you're feeling now."

"My head and eyes are all fuzzy. Maybe I could lie down?"

"Not a good idea for now. If you have a severe concussion, sleeping would be a bad way to help it. Does it hurt too much to talk more? Can you tell me anything else?"

"The only other thing I thought of was that if there is more than one cell here, Jake might be in it?"

"A good thought indeed, Miss Cillian. You continue to apply pressure to your head with the handkerchief while I see what I can see."

Jenkins pulled himself to full height and walked purposefully to the barred door. He thought for a moment that a cell this old might have a lock for easy picking. Then he saw the brand-new dead bolt and reinforced hinges. Lock-picking would be fruitless, and the small black protuberance from the ceiling at the door would indicate that they were being observed. The mixture of old castle and new technology was baffling. Instead of belaboring the thought, he called out in his strongest voice "Jake Stone! Are you here? Please respond if you can!"

Nothing. Not even a pin drop.

He called out again, 5 or 6 times, and there was never a response. In a place as big as this, he could be anywhere, completely out of earshot, but there was no way he was within this level.

"Well, Miss Cillian, we seem to be here alone for now. I did notice a camera at the entrance to this cell. It's certain we're being watched. How are your eyes?"

"A little better, I think. You're a very tall but distinct blob now."

"Marked improvement."

Cassandra swayed a bit as she craned her neck to look up at him. He put his hand on her shoulder:

"Please, don't try to see anything now. Just stay seated and alert as you can. I'm going to continue to look around our current dwelling. Has anyone said anything to you? Any announcements made via loudspeaker?"

"No… I think I was dreaming at one point when I was unconscious. I saw a lab or something, with lots of people moving around. But no one said anything to me. What do you think, Jenkins?"

"I think a great many things, but for now, please continue to sip that water. Not too much though, we don't want you to be sick again."

"Noooooo, I agree. No more of that!"

As she screwed the cap back on the bottle, there was movement outside the cell. A number of men came to the door while one unlocked it. They were all silent. Jenkins began to shout,

"Who are you, where are we, and what are you doing with us?"

The men ignored him, two sets of hands restraining him against a wall as he fought to free himself. Two more men grabbed Cassandra by the arms and hauled her into the hallway. She screamed as Jenkins continued to yell and ask questions. Finally, she was gone, with nothing but a damp handkerchief and a bottle of water to mark her place on the cot.

"Excellent, excellent…. Miss Cillian, welcome!"

A polite and petite woman excitedly addressed Cassandra as she was dropped to the floor of a large room on the 3rd floor of the castle. She had whimpered and cried out, but counted every stair while she was dragged from Jenkins' side to this new location. Jake was nowhere to be seen, but she also kept a careful eye for signs of him along the route.

"Gentlemen, pick her up, pick her up! She is a most welcome participant in today's events. Please do not treat her so!"

"Lady, what are you talking about?" Cassandra squeaked.

"Miss Cillian, welcome to the new headquarters of the Fellowship. We are so lucky to have you here…. With your help, we can bring about a new age!"

"A new age of what exactly?"

"Oh all in good time. Gentlemen, please help her onto the table."

"Nope, not happening. No table, no events, no welcome, no nothing. Nada, you got me?" Cassandra channeled her best Jake Stone as she furiously refused to move. It still didn't take long for a few men to strap her to the lab table.

"Thank you, men. Now, Miss Cillian, bear with me as I prepare our first cocktail!"

"Thanks, but I don't drink."

"No, an injectable cocktail, my dear! This will be the first of a number of tinctures and compounds to introduce into your system. With any luck, we'll get to the bottom of your new magic in no time."

"My what? No! What the hell are you talking about?! I still don't know what this is!" Cassandra did her best to kick and fight off the restraints, but they held fast while the perky and mad scientist at her elbow filled a syringe with blue fluid.

"Here we go now, down the proverbial hatch!" The woman stabbed a syringe into Cassandra's neck, and she faded.

Jenkins paced and tried to think of any way out while worrying obsessively about Cassandra. She'd screamed the entire time they'd dragged her away; he didn't even know who "they" were. He pawed quickly through his pants and coat pockets, hoping for something left there that might help him to get out and get to her. Apparently he'd been particularly tidy that morning, and took nothing except the small rucksack now in the hands of the opposition. The entire cell in which he stood was bare except for a partially-consumed bottle of water, his own handkerchief on a cot, the bucket Cassandra had been ill in, and himself. He was truly on his own.

Footsteps neared the cell again, and an unconscious Cassandra was thrown to the floor. He barked an obscenity at them (not that they'd have known it; old Pagan curses were his favorite) as he cradled her head in his hands. She really was much smaller than he, but the fire of her hair made too much of a contrast to her unusually pale skin.

"Are you even going to tell me what happened to her?"

"Dr. Verity is much pleased." With that, the door slammed and locked again.

"Cassandra? Miss Cillian? Please, Cassandra, can you hear me?" By now, Jenkins was nearing panic, oscillating between her formal and familiar names to try and rouse her. She moaned, but did not waken.

"Cassandra, who is Dr. Verity? Can you tell me anything? What did they do to you?"

Cassandra turned her head slightly toward his right hand and Jenkins gasped. Her veins burned blue fire, nearly matching the color of her eyes, now closed. There was only one thing that could make her skin glow from underneath in that way, and that was magic. He continued to stare at her face and neck, and finally found the source of the problem: a rapidly deteriorating puncture mark at the side of her throat. He nearly leapt from the floor with her in his arms and brought her to the cot. Slowly easing her down onto it, he laid her on her side, puncture wound facing him. He slid off his jacket, bunching it up to pillow under her head. She still would not wake up, but he used the chance to inspect the wound more carefully, dabbing at it with his handkerchief, made new with a little more water from the bottle. He looked down to his right side to realize another bottle of water had been deposited with her unconscious form; it had rolled with them over to the cot. He shook his head as he pondered the thought that while these people were mistreating Cassandra, they wanted her to stay hydrated. Kindly villains? Health-conscious fiends? It didn't seem fathomable. Still, he'd continue to treat her with the water they provided. He had little choice.

A tiny grunt came from the sleeping form on the cot, and Jenkins whispered to her:

"Miss Cillian? Can you hear me? Just nod, try not to talk."

She nodded, and Jenkins would be hard-pressed to deny the leap in his chest when he saw it. He eased her face toward him, and she murmured:

"Mad scientist on aisle two, Jenkins."

"What!?"

"The people upstairs," she whispered. "They're led by a super-happy crazy lady. But she injected me. Don't know what it was."

"That's alright, Miss Cillian. I'm sure we'll work out what it was. Can you describe your symptoms now. Or should we wait for you to feel a bit better?"

"I don't know. My head hurts again, but I can see you now." She was squinting in the light to look at him.

"Good. That's good. I'll see about some more water. They keep leaving bottles of water everytime they come to throw one of us back into the cell. At least you'll be hydrated."

"Thats on purpose I think."

"What do you mean?"

Dr. Not-so-stable said something one of the times I was conscious up there. She said I had to stay hydrated so the experiments would work. I just don't know what experiments she means."

"Well, I'm concocting some ideas of my own on getting us out. Just you wait." Jenkins wished his lies actually sounded in truth, but knew they fell as flat as his perfectly-folded pocket squares.

"Jenkins, I'm sorry to be such a bother. But I'm scared."

"I know, Cassandra, I know."

"They're testing me for magic, aren't they."

"I believe that they are. Judging from the way your skin is glowing, they've found a way to bring the magic in your blood to the surface of your veins. I wish I knew how they were doing this."

"My heart feels funny."

"How so?"

"Like it's beating out of my chest. My vision is blurry, and I can't seem to take a full breath. Jenkins, what's happening?"

"Cassandra, you're having a panic attack. Please, listen to the sound of my voice. I want you to take in a breath for 3 beats, and then breathe out for 4 beats. Can you do that? Here, I'll count for you."

Slowly, Jenkins brought Cassandra down from her attack. At some point, he had taken her hands in his own as she lay on the cot. Her breath finally slowed, and he checked a glowing pulse point to be sure her heart was beating more normally. Her eyes started to slowly close.

"Please don't leave me alone, Jenkins. Please?"

"I'm not going anywhere, Cassandra."

And so the gallant knight took his first overnight watch, sitting at the bedside of his red-headed lady, holding her pale hand.