Argentum (P.A.W.S. Book 2)

by Debbie Manber Kupfer

  Jessamyn nodded and the man walked into the living room and sat down on the sofa.

  “Would you like a drink, Mr. . . .”

  “Wolfe . . . but you can call me Alistair and yes, a cup of coffee might be good, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  Jessamyn backed off into the kitchen. Alistair, she remembered that name from long ago. He was why Quentin had left Europe. What was he doing here? She needed to warn Quentin. She made the coffee and brought Alistair a cup and then excused herself. She went into the bathroom and locked the door. She then transformed herself into her eagle form and sent a desperate telepathic message out to Quentin. She waited for his reply.

  “Keep him there,” he said. “I’m coming.”

  She unlocked the bathroom door and joined Alistair in the living room. Alistair appeared perfectly relaxed as he sipped his cup of coffee.

  “Nice little place you have here,” said Alistair, looking around, “cozy. When is your baby due?”

  “In a month or so.”

  “Interesting. And will you be giving him a ‘magical’ upbringing?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Oh come, don’t be coy with me. I know all your secrets Jessamyn. Maybe more than even Quentin knows.”

  Jessamyn stared at Alistair open-mouthed, a finger of cold dread reaching the pit of her stomach. She willed Quentin to arrive soon.

  “Don’t worry Jessamyn, I won’t tell Quentin . . .”

  “Tell me what?” demanded Quentin marching into the room. “What are you doing here, Alistair?”

  “Come now, Quentin, that’s not the way to greet an old friend.”

  “You promised that you would stay away.”

  “Well, sometimes it is necessary to break one’s promises. Don’t you think? You know, Jessamyn, I have a little magic of my own. If I wish, I can make a person disappear. Can you do that, with your illusions? Come, let us go outside and I’ll give you a demonstration.”

  Cold sweat was dripping down Jessamyn’s back now. She wished she could get her scepter, but had left it on her bedstand. Maybe if she excused herself for a moment. She backed out of the room and grabbed the silver wand, feeling the magic course through her body. When she came back into the living room, Quentin and Alistair had moved outside. She opened the front door and joined them.

  “Oh, there you are, Jessamyn. Ready for our little demonstration?”

  Alistair took a step towards Jessamyn. She stepped back, but he was faster. He grabbed her shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes.

  “You will watch this, Jessamyn, and you will not interfere. Not if you want your baby to live.”

  He guided Jessamyn and Quentin across the street and into the park.

  Do something, Quentin, she begged him mentally, but for once he was silent. She hoped it was because he was preparing his magic, preparing his defense against Alistair. In his right hand he held his silver wand, which he’d withdrawn from his inside pocket. Jessamyn knew he had strong magic. He should be able to defend himself against Alistair.

  “Now watch this Jessamyn, watch and remember,” said Alistair.

  Quentin pointed his wand at Alistair and a spark of silver came from its tip. The silver arced in the air towards Alistair, but just as it reached his chest it reversed course and hit Quentin full force. Instantly he morphed into a hawk and flew up in the air. Alistair watched him, laughing.

  “Enjoying the show Jessamyn?” said Alistair. “Well, keep watching, it’s not over yet!”

  Alistair raised his hand and mumbled a spell, and Jessamyn watched in horror as the shape of the hawk came crashing to the ground.

  “No!” she screamed. Then Jessamyn raised her scepter and pointed it at Alistair.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” he said. Pain filled Jessamyn’s body and the world went black.

  When Jessamyn regained consciousness, Alistair was gone. She was lying on the grass in Central Park. Her belly throbbed and her first thought was that she hoped the baby was all right. And then she saw him, or least what was left of him—a mass of splatted feathers and blood on the grass a little way away. She walked over to the spot, sank down to the ground, and wept. No, this was not possible. Quentin could not be gone.

  The next day, she went to see the principal at P.A.W.S. She needed to get away from New York; could he help her? He would see what he could do. Within a week, she was on an Amtrak train going west. A position had opened up at the P.A.W.S. Institute of the Midwest. At eight months pregnant, she arrived in St. Louis and one month later Danny was born, delivered by Mrs. Bumsqueak.

  In the years that followed she almost forgot about Quentin . . . almost, but not quite. But she never forgot Alistair, who she knew was still out there somewhere biding his time. Jessamyn prepared herself for his return. She promised herself that one day she would get her revenge for Quentin’s death.

  Chapter 37

  Jessamyn settled down into her new life at P.A.W.S. in St. Louis. At first, she just took care of Danny and tried to concentrate her love on her son. She was often grateful that he was a son. She remembered the threat of the Teg, and though she’d brought Stella’s book with her to Missouri, she hoped she would never encounter her again.

  At night her heart ached for Quentin; she replayed over and over those fatal minutes, but always came to the conclusion that there was nothing she could have done. It was clear that when Alistair wanted something he got what he wanted . . . always.

  This was confirmed by the arrival at the Institute of Gerard Schwarz. P.A.W.S. had historically, in Europe, been home to peaceful werewolves who wished to lend their tracking skills to help the organization. Until Gerard’s arrival, however, the Midwest Institute had never hosted a werewolf. Over the years that would change, and this would mainly be due to the legacy of Gerard Schwarz.

  Jessamyn was there the day Gerard told his tale. His story was harrowing. He had lived alone in New York City. He was contemplating retirement now that his daughter Sarah was established on her own. She seemed happy in her new job at Schwimmer’s Publishing House, and even had a boyfriend. Every Sunday she came to visit him. Sometimes they played Scrabble or checkers, or sometimes just watched TV, especially if there was an old musical on. He and his daughter loved old musicals. Sometimes, for a special occasion, they would take a trip to Broadway and watch a show; pretty much anything would work. They both adored the magic of the theatre.

  It was late one Saturday night. Gerard had just made himself a cup of hot cocoa and was considering going to bed when there was a knock on his apartment door. He shouldn’t have answered it. Visitors could only gain access to the building via the intercom outside the front door. But maybe it was a neighbor, he thought, asking to borrow a cup of sugar or something. In all the years he’d lived in that apartment that had never happened before. He barely knew the neighbors. They just nodded at each other in the elevator. But still, there was always a first time.

  So he answered the door.

  “Excuse me, sir. May I trouble you for a few moments?”

  The man was tall and wore a long raincoat and carried an umbrella and a briefcase. It was raining outside and the umbrella was making a small puddle on the floor. Gerard had never seen the man before.

  “I’d like to talk to you about your daughter, Sarah.”

  “You’d better come in,” said Gerard, wondering what this was about. He took the man’s soaking umbrella and placed it in a stand in the corner.

  “Do sit down, sir. Would you like a cup of cocoa?”

  “That would be very nice.”

  Gerard went into the kitchen and poured his visitor a cup and brought it back to the living room.

  “Thank you,” he said, warming his hands.

  “So how do you know Sarah, Mr. . . .”

  “Wolfe . . . Alistair Wolfe.”

  “Mr. Wolfe. She is okay, right? There hasn’t been an accident or anything?”

  “Oh yes, she’s fine . . . at least for now.”
/>   Alistair’s tone had changed. Now there was menace behind his words. Gerard shivered.

  “Your wife passed away I believe, Mr. Schwarz?”

  “Yes, on the day my Sarah was born.”

  “How much do you know about Sara’s family?”

  “Virtually nothing. She was rescued from the camps and brought to London as a baby. She had a picture of her grandmother, Miriam. That was all. Sarah has it now.”

  “Did Sara ever tell you how she was rescued?”

  “She didn’t know. She was only a baby.”

  “What if I told you that her rescuers did it by magic, that they were sorcerers and shapeshifters?”

  “I would tell you that you were making up stories. That’s nonsense made up to entertain children. No, she was rescued by the resistance.”

  “One little baby? Why? What was so important about her?”

  “Every life is important,” said Gerard, staring directly into Alistair’s cold blue eyes.

  “Maybe . . .” said Alistair. “I wonder, is yours?”

  A chill ran down Gerard’s back.

  “You see, I need some help. I’m offering you a job, Gerard. Some security for your golden years.”

  “I have everything I want right here. I’m not interested in your offer.”

  “I think you’d better listen to me, Gerard. If you don’t, I will take Sarah instead. It is your choice. You or Sarah?”

  “What do you want with me?”

  “First of all, I need to you to pack a small bag and come with me and understand that you are not coming back.”

  “Can I at least call Sarah? Tell her I’m going away? She will be so worried.”

  “Let her worry. If you care about your daughter, you will leave now, with me, and never talk to her again.” Alistair drew close to Gerard and put a hand on his shoulder and stared straight into his frightened eyes. “You need to understand something. If you break your promise, I will kill Sarah and I will kill you.”

  Gerard left that night with Alistair and would never see his daughter again. Even if he thought Alistair insane, he also understood from the beginning that he was extremely dangerous and that his threats were not to be taken lightly.

  At the time, Alistair kept several apartments dotted around the boroughs of New York. Gerard was installed in one on Staten Island. The place was filled with books that Alistair had gathered over the years. Many were dusty and decrepit and some were written in strange languages. Alistair put Gerard to work combing through these books, which he claimed were books of magic.

  He was to search for the word argentum and for pictures, pictures of silver charms and artifacts. Gerard studied these books as best he could, and slowly started creating order from the chaos. He still didn’t believe in magic, but he humored Alistair. He understood that it would be foolish not to.

  Sometimes Alistair would send messengers—teenage boys, usually. Some of these were timid and fearful, others were arrogant and brash, but all had a wild look in their eyes and all belonged to Alistair. Gerard never saw any girls or women and was thankful for this. Maybe Alistair’s interest in Sarah was fake; maybe she was safe after all.

  Then one day, Alistair instructed Gerard to pack up the boxes of books. They were moving, he said, moving to St. Louis. Gerard painstakingly packed the library, lingering over some of the older tomes that, for want of anything better, had become his friends.

  In St. Louis, he set up his library in a large bedroom of the huge, abandoned house that Alistair had somehow acquired. Gerard never questioned the move from New York. In fact, he welcomed it. It had been torture living in the city, and knowing that somewhere out there was his Sarah and that he could never see her.

  Now in the Midwest, Gerard no longer lived alone. Alistair filled this house with the young boys that Gerard would later learn were his pack. Also, there was a woman, Nora, who seemed to be Alistair’s girlfriend.

  Nora pretty much ignored Gerard and he looked down on her. What kind of woman would choose a man like Alistair?

  Gerard continued his studies, but at the same time quietly observed Alistair and the other residents of the house. One morning, a new boy was brought into the kitchen where Gerard was eating breakfast. The boy seemed to be hurt and was bleeding from several spots. Nora was instructed to bandage his wounds and Gerard watched. It appeared as if the boy was covered in bite marks. Nora swabbed the wounds with alcohol, making the boy cry out in pain, and covered him in Band-Aids, but she never met his eyes.

  Gerard thought the whole situation strange. He sought out the boy later that evening, when he heard him sobbing quietly in his bedroom. The boy looked up at him with sad gray eyes and then turned away, too scared to talk to Gerard.

  Nora found Gerard in the hallway.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just checking up on him. He had a nasty attack. It seemed like he would want someone to talk to.”

  “He’ll be fine. They’re all fine. For most of them, their lives are better here with Alistair than where they came from.”

  “What attacked him? Wild dogs? Maybe he should be checked? There could be rabies.”

  “No, definitely not rabies,” replied Nora with a chuckle. “You really haven’t worked it out yet, have you, Gerard? I would have thought with all your studies you would be wiser by now.”

  Gerard walked back to his room and got ready for bed, but he couldn’t sleep. Strange thoughts kept running through his brain. He got up and put on a dressing gown. He walked to his library. Maybe if he read for a while, he would get tired and could go to sleep.

  Strange, he hadn’t seen that book before. It had a dark blue cover and a single word on its front:

  “Argentum.”

  His fingers tingled as he touched the letters, but when he opened the book, the pages were blank. Yet it felt as if the book contained hidden words. Without knowing why, he picked up the book and placed it in his dressing gown pocket and walked back to his bedroom.

  That night, he dreamt of Sara for the first time in many years. She was standing on the pavement outside their building on Westbourne Park Road. She was playing with a small, brown tabby cat with yellow eyes. He ran towards them, but just as he reached her, the scene changed and he was in New York with Sarah and yet still there was the same cat. He walked up and touched its soft, warm fur.

  He turned to look at Sarah, but she was gone. The cat looked at him with eyes that seemed familiar, but he did not know from where.

  He woke suddenly. The book was still in his dressing gown pocket and it felt warm to the touch.

  He opened it up. Still, the pages were blank. He wondered what would happen if he wrote in the book. Kept it as a journal, maybe. He took out a pen and started to write, deciding to write the story of how he had arrived at this strange communal house in St. Louis. He wrote for hours, filling up the pages, and then put the book away in the back of a drawer.

  Then he went back to his library and sorted through the books. When he came back later, he went to the drawer and took out the book; maybe he would write a little more. But when he opened the pages he discovered that the words had all gone.

  No matter how much he wrote, it would always be the same; the words would always disappear if he closed the book. He wondered if it was some kind of conjuring trick, but he couldn’t work out how it was done and he was usually good at decoding that kind of thing.

  No, this along with other things he had seen in the library and the house were slowly making him realize that Alistair’s original statement that there was indeed magic out there, might amazingly hold some truth.

  Chapter 38

  Danny was growing well and was a happy and curious child. It was evident from an early age that he had powerful magic. One morning when he was but a year old, Jessamyn found him sitting on his playroom floor with a silver spoon in his hand, conducting rows of brightly colored blocks to form elaborate towers without him ever laying a hand on one. He concentrated hard on his magic and har
dly noticed his mother watching him.

  Up until that point, Jessamyn had not strayed far from P.A.W.S., wanting to keep a close eye on her son. But now, increasingly, she left Danny in the care of Mrs. Bumsqueak, who doted on him and disciplined him at the same time.

  Jessamyn taught illusions at the Institute during the day, but sometimes at night she would take to the sky in her hawk form and fly out over the city and into the countryside beyond.

  It was on such a night that she saw Alistair for the second time. She had put Danny to bed, singing him the Irish lullaby that had become a necessary part of their bedtime routine. She watched her beautiful sleeping boy for a while, sitting in a rocking chair at the side of his crib. Then, quietly, she exited the nursery and made her way outside by way of the cedar tree.

  Danny’s nursery adjoined Mrs. Bumsqueak’s bedroom on one side and hers on the other. If Danny were to cry out, Beatrice would be with him instantly. Jessamyn was restless that night, she needed to fly. A full moon was high in the sky, illuminating the ground as clearly as if it was day. Her hawk eyes picked out every detail.

  Most of St. Louis appeared to be asleep. A few lazy cars dotted the highways, but very little else. Jessamyn flew high above the city and then beyond the city limits. Just outside the city, she saw what appeared to be a pack of stray dogs. They were gathered around something on the ground. Jessamyn swooped down to get a closer look. Her hawk form was attracted to prey and she wondered what the pack had caught.

  But as she got closer, she reeled back in disgust and fear and almost lost her balance in flight, for on the ground, reeling in pain and crying desperately for help, was the figure of a man.

  Gerard hadn’t been able to sleep that night. He tossed and turned, but the light coming in from the full moon through the flimsy curtains illuminated his room almost as if it was day and it was giving Gerard a headache.

  He decided to go down to the kitchen. Maybe he could find some aspirin in one of the cabinets. He realized the house was uncommonly quiet that night. Normally, with so many teenagers living in the place, there was someone up and about at all hours, but tonight Gerard only found Nora in the kitchen eating a bowl of oatmeal.