The Word Guardians: and the Battle for the Peacekeepers

by Lawrence Yarham

  “Its more than a journal,” replied her mom. “I think these are sketches of places where he’s been. Maybe where he’d hidden things.”

  “Like what,” asked Yas. “Like a map to the peacekeepers?” she asked, possibly leaping to a conclusion. It felt right somehow.

  “I wondered that too. I’ve never been able to decipher the clues. I’ve no idea if these places still exist. Maybe you might find out more? You were always more into books than I ever was.”

  She looked out of the front window for a second. “Come,” she said. She indicated that they should move back to the kitchen. “Can you help me with dinner?”

  Yas nodded.

  “You need to keep this safe,” said her mom as she moved out of the room.

  “Yes,” said Yas, following her mom into the kitchen. She put it in her bag.

  “Be careful who you share it with,” added her mom. “Your grandpa was very clear that two people needed to know about it, but only those he knew he could trust. He made me promise that I had to pass the same warning onto you.”

  “I told him that too?” asked Yas, puzzled.

  “No,” said her mom, shaking her head. “That came from him.”

  “So why two people?” asked Yas, as her mom grabbed vegetables from the fridge.

  “I don’t know,” replied her mom. She stopped what she was doing and sighed. “Its another question to answer.”

  “Whatever these peacekeepers are,” her mom continued. “I don’t want it to cost us any more as a family. I can’t lose you.”

  She didn’t need to say anything more. Yas heard the desperation in the plea.

  “Will you help us?” asked Yas, in a quiet voice.

  “I’ll do what I can,” she replied, casting her eyes upstairs. Yas took that to mean that she was still concerned about what her father might think.

  “Can’t we tell him?” asked Yas, wanting the secrets in the family to end.

  Her mom started to prepare dinner.

  “He’ll get there,” she replied carefully, thinking about the conversation with him earlier. “One step at a time. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Yas had more questions, but footsteps from upstairs indicated that her father was coming back down. It was time to forget the conversation they had shared. That was difficult for Yas. She felt that she and her mom had connected on a deeper level than they had for some time and she didn’t want that conversation to be the last of it.

  Instinctively, she gave her mom a quick hug. “Thank you.” She had so much to tell Sam tomorrow.

  Chapter 9

  Twisted Tales

  The next morning, Peter headed to Detective James Wheeler’s house. A colleague and a good friend, they had been through a lot together in the past five years. Peter honestly didn’t know what the score was in terms of who’d covered who how many times. He was a rough diamond and Peter knew he’d had debt issues in the past, because of his gambling habit.

  He ran up the steps of the terrace house and rang the bell. He looked up and down the street. Smells still stayed with him more than he would have expected. Dampness of the ground was in the background, but streaked with overtones of other animals, dogs and birds mostly. He could also smell the shore, even though the coast was some distance away.

  Bringing himself back, he turned his attention to the door. He could hear footsteps and see someone moving towards the door through the privacy glass. A woman opened the door and glanced through the gap. She looked tired and nervous.

  “Peter?” she said, surprised.

  “I’m sorry to bother you Madeline,” he replied. “Is James in?”

  “No. How are you? I heard about the kidnapping. Are you alright?”

  “I’m alright, thanks. It was a misunderstanding. Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  “No,” she said bluntly. “Look, I’m sorry, it’s a difficult time.” She started to close the door.

  “I think he’s in trouble,” said Peter quickly. Madeline paused and looked at him. The hard shell she had been displaying up until that moment softened.

  “I can help him,” he added. “If you tell me what’s been going on.”

  She looked up and down the street and then opened the door wider. “You’d better come in then,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  He stepped inside the door and they headed into the front room. She gestured to Peter to sit and she did the same. Peter said nothing but surveyed the room. It was an old habit and helped give him more background information. Several items looked to have been left where they had last been used. At the back of the room a plate lay broken on the dining room table, along with some books from a broken bookshelf behind.

  “You were on the news?” she commented.

  “As I said, it was a misunderstanding. A miscommunication. I got back yesterday.”

  “Oh,” she said, a little distant in her thoughts. She watched Peter continue to scan the room.

  “To tell you the truth, I’ve not seen him in a week,” she started, leaning forwards for her latest coffee. Peter could see that she was trying to keep her emotions in check. He could smell them too. Suppressed anger, covering grief and something else. Yes, something was missing that should have been here, his wolf mind said to him. Then he realised, it was a who. “Where’s Eddie?”

  Madeline let out a sob, breaking down in tears. She tried to catch herself. “I’m sorry.”

  Peter moved next to where she was sitting and touched her gently on the arm.

  “What’s happened? You know I can help.”

  “Eddie disappeared nine days ago,” she said, between sobs. “Never came home after school. Then James tells me last weekend that he knows who took him.” She paused, to try to recover.

  “Okay,” soothed Peter. “You argued?”

  She nodded, tears flowing down her face.

  “Did you report it?” he asked.

  Madeline shook her head. “He said he was going to fix it,” she cried, talking between sobs.

  “Why was he taken? Was he being used as leverage over James?” asked Peter, thinking about Wheeler’s gambling history.

  “I don’t know,” she sobbed. “I only know that Eddie’s gone. I told James everything had gone too far and he needed to sort it out before he showed his face again.”

  “Then what happened? He moved out?”

  She nodded again.

  “Do you know who he’s involved with?”

  “No,” she said, wiping her eyes and sniffing to recover herself a little. “It was one of his hair brained schemes, I’m sure. I thought about going to the police, but you know how it is. Word gets around and I don’t want to get him into any more trouble.”

  “I know,” agreed Peter, sadly. “Has he been gambling heavily again?”

  More tears started. She nodded.

  “So, he needed money?”

  Again, she nodded.

  “Who did he go to this time? Do you know?”

  “No,” she sniffed. “He wouldn’t say. Only that they would clear the debt from the last mess he got us into.”

  “That sounds all too good to be true,” Peter added sagely.

  She nodded. Tears started to flow again. “He told me he was done with this, after the last time. He promised me!” she cried between sobs. “Look what’s happened. James is gone and I don’t know where my boy is either!”

  “I know. I know. I’m sorry. There was always going to be one last time for James. You and I both know he was never going to stop.” He gave Madeline some time again. “Do you know what it was that they wanted him to do?”

  “He never said,” she said, looking at him. “But I think it had something to do with you?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He couldn’t look at the news reports about you in the days after you disappeared. He got angry. Changed channel whenever the news came on.”

  “Okay,” said Peter, starting to build a picture. He looked into her eyes. “I’ll do my
best to find them both. Is there anyone that can be with you at this time?”

  She nodded. “A friend.” More tears rolled down her cheek. She looked at Peter and confessed. “I don’t know if I want him back. I don’t think there’s anything left anymore. I just want my son.”

  “I understand.” Peter said as he stood up. “If you hear anything from either of them, you’ll call me, okay?”

  “I will,” she said, wiping her eyes.

  “Thank you.”

  Yas and Sam arrived at the library after school. They had talked about why McVale had wanted to meet there. They figured it had something to do with the peacekeepers, but exactly what McVale was thinking, they didn’t know.

  Yas had decided to observe the warning from her mom. The book was with her and inside the pocket of her ripped jacket. Rather than replace it, she quite liked the torn look. It felt like it gave her an extra edge. Telling others that she had been attacked by a lion drew incredulous looks. More than ever, the ‘popular’ girls at school didn’t know what to make of her. ‘You’re so weird!’, they remarked. Yas was quite happy with that, the funny part being that the story was the truth, and no-one would believe her!

  “Ahh, good,” said McVale, greeting them as they entered the foyer of the library. She was just exiting the coffee shop, drink in hand. “You’re both here.” They walked past the main desk, Sam saying hello to the person behind it.

  “Why did you want to meet us here?” asked Yas, as they walked over to the reading tables near the adult fiction section. “Wouldn’t the bookstore have been better? You know, more private?” McVale put her drink down and looked around her to make sure that she wasn’t overheard.

  “I agree, but we have more material to work with here,” she replied. Then more quietly she said, “and I have some ideas about the location of the peacekeepers.”

  “The peacekeepers?” asked Sam, incredulously. “How?”

  “I’m only guessing, but the Controllers seem intent on seeking out Custodians right now,” McVale explained. “There are other sources of information which might serve us just as well.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Yas, intrigued.

  “Tales, myths, legends,” continued McVale. “Writings of other visitors may give us the clues we need and we’re in the right place to find them.”

  “You think so?” Yas said. Then, looking at Sam, she asked “Didn’t you say that Ms. Vickers was researching symbolism and mythology recently? I wonder if some of those could help?”

  “Hmm,” replied McVale, thoughtfully. “She was looking into these, was she?”

  “Yes,” confirmed Sam, nonchalantly. Yas looked at him, puzzled. He didn’t seem to have any enthusiasm. In fact, he seemed quite guarded.

  “Then I fear we may be further behind them than I thought,” said McVale.

  “Can you remember any of the titles, Sam?” urged Yas.

  “I don’t know,” Sam shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t really get a good look.”

  “Oh, I expect you’ll remember if you see the name, though?” McVale dismissed.

  “Maybe,” said Sam, shrugging his shoulders once again.

  “So, why don’t we go and do some research?” suggested Yas, looking at him, puzzled. He was acting so strange.

  “I suppose,” he said, turning and heading towards the stairs and public use computers.

  McVale picked up her coffee and she and Yas followed.

  “So, how are you?” asked Yas, wondering about McVale’s recovery from being the owl.

  “Oh, I’m okay, dear,” she said. “It took a while for the desire to hunt to fade, but I think I’m me again.” She seemed better than Yas thought she would have been. If it had happened to her, she didn’t know how she would have felt.

  “I’m glad,” said Yas, wanting to stay and talk with McVale, yet seeing Sam bound ahead. His body language puzzled her. It felt as though he wasn’t happy about being here today.

  “Its quite refreshing to get a different view of yourself, really,” McVale added. “After all, we spend so much time being ourselves that we take a lot of it for granted, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, I suppose,” Yas agreed as they went up the stairs. “So, do you remember anything about being transformed? Do you know who did it?”

  “Not a great deal, I’m afraid. It was like a dream. I think I must have been unconscious when the magic was conjured. That werewolf saw to that,” McVale confirmed. “But I’m fine now and we have a lot of work to do.”

  “Yes, we do,” said Yas absent-mindedly. She remembered what Sam’s dad had said to her yesterday. She wanted to tell McVale that she knew who her kidnapper was but held back. She felt torn between her friendship to McVale and Sam. And ever since they got here, Sam was being weird for some reason.

  “Did you manage to speak to the Custodian in the private library?” McVale asked Yas. “Before you performed the magic to transform me? By the way, how did you do that?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Yas, shrugging her shoulders. “It was Sam mostly. Some magic he remembered from his mom.”

  “He’s talented, that young man of yours.”

  “Young man?” Yas spluttered in surprise, as they reached the top of the stairs. Sam was already out of sight and earshot. Yas was glad of that. “No, we’re just friends.”

  “Oh, okay dear,” said McVale, smiling.

  They walked along the hallway to the end where there were two rows of computers, empty. Sam was already sat at one of them and logged into the library’s browsing system. He was searching for titles on ancient mythology and symbolism.

  Yas stood behind him and leaned forwards, peering at the screen.

  “Do you recognise any of those titles?” she asked.

  “Its difficult to tell without seeing the books,” he said, noncommittedly. “Sorry.”

  Yas looked at him. He sounded blunt and distant. It surprised her. She tried to fill in the missing enthusiasm. She smiled at McVale.

  “Give me some titles that you think might be the ones. I’ll go and find them. Then we can see.”

  “That’s a good idea, Yas. Let’s divide and conquer,” McVale suggested eagerly.

  Sam read out three titles for Yas to go and find. Yas was confused. They didn’t sound relevant to what she expected. Despite the concern, she headed off to the stairs and up to the third floor. McVale started looking around the second floor for the other titles that Sam had given her.

  Meanwhile, Sam’s dad, Peter, was across the other side of town at the media offices of the ‘Penn’ business empire. Three squabbling brothers had fought in the courts over wealth and power bequeathed to them by their late father. The youngest was the mastermind and had taken the reins, against the odds. No one was sure how it had happened, but he was solely in charge of the lion’s share of the empire, the broadcasting and media arms. He had become a very powerful media mogul, and quickly too.

  Peter headed into the large foyer and for the moment ignored a gathering of people to his right. He made his way to the reception desk. As he walked forwards, there was a voice from one of the group.

  “There he is.” One or two peeled away from their huddle and the rest followed. Peter stopped and turned to face them, surprised. How did they know he would be here?

  “Detective Swift?” asked one of the female reporters in the group. “There were reports that you had gone missing. What happened to you?” She stuffed a microphone forward almost into his face.

  Peter remained calm. He’d experienced clamouring from the press before so had some set lines that he could use in these situations. He raised his hands to placate them, as others in the group reached forwards with microphones. Camera flashes lit up the area in front of him.

  “I’m afraid I can’t say anything. There’s an ongoing investigation and I ask that you be patient for that to come to its natural conclusion.”

  “But it wasn’t natural was it?” said a man from the group, thrusting his microphon
e closer to Peter. “What’s this talk of a magic land? A realm? Were you involved?”

  Peter was a little surprised and started to take a step backwards before staying his ground.

  The reporters continued to press for information. “Surely you’re not saying that these imaginary realms exist?”

  Peter knew that in situations like this, any weakness shown was immediately seized upon.

  “As I said, I have nothing to say at this time,” continued Peter, “while the investigation is continuing. I’m happy to give you information as and when it becomes available.”

  “So, what jurisdiction applies for these ‘magical lands’,” the first lady said, quoting the word with her fingers, laughing. “Is this a department of the government that does not exist? Like Area-51?” she added, laughing again.

  Peter held up his hands again, and as he did so, he noticed that along the hall to his left was a man leaning on the wall and smiling. It was the man he wanted to talk with.

  “All I can say is that there were some suspicious circumstances relating to the disappearance of a number of citizens which are still being investigated. I ask you not to jeopardize any ongoing enquiries.” Peter looked at Penn. Had Penn planted these people here? If so, then how did he know that he was coming? There were very few people that knew he was heading this way.

  “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have business to attend to,” and he made a move through the middle of the group and towards Penn.

  The reporters tried to walk with him and continued to ask questions. “How was your disappearance connected? Was that also ‘suspicious’? Why haven’t you told anyone where you were?”

  “Is it true there were werewolves?” said another, smirking. Peter looked directly at the reporter for a moment, taken by surprise. The reporter smiled in response as if he had recognised the flicker in Peter’s eyes. It seemed that he had hit home with something.

  Peter said nothing and continued to stride forwards. The group tried to stay with him, shouting fresh volleys of questions, but as Peter strode under the stairs to the right of the entrance foyer, he moved as close as he could to one wall, effectively cutting off the path for the group. The rest stopped, deciding not to pursue him along the hall. From behind him Peter heard one of the reporters comment, “What a nutter!”