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

by Debbie Manber Kupfer

  Chapter 22

  She’d been a good student; an eager learner. Predictably, after she had awoken, Cleona forbid Quentin from seeing Jessamyn again, but of course they flaunted this rule. He’d made her a promise, after all.

  But Quentin’s time on the island was running out. He’d procured a scrying bowl from an ancient magician on the mainland. In it, he observed the progress of Alistair and his wolves. They were getting closer.

  He watched with horror as they tortured poor old Gromer the Green in Snowdonia. The poor fellow stood his own for a while, but capitulated when they threatened to set fire to his home. The cave, of course, would not have burnt, but there were many flammable items inside.

  Gromer finally gave in and told the wolves that he thought that Quentin had gone to Ireland. So Quentin realized that he would have to leave. The optimal way to do it, he thought, would be to fly away by night. He decided it would be best not to say goodbye to Jessamyn. He’d grown very fond of the girl and didn’t want to upset her.

  He gathered his meager possessions and placed them in a small backpack. Once he changed into bird form, they would change with him and then revert back when he transformed back into a man. He looked around at the meadows of pretty purple flowers. He would miss this island, and most of all he would miss Jessamyn. He chose an eagle form to begin his flight. It was a strong form that would carry him far across the ocean. He aimed to cross the Atlantic. Not all at once, of course. He obviously could not fly the whole distance, but he could rest in gull form on ships along the way.

  As an eagle, he flew up high into the sky above the tiny island that had been his home for almost a year now. It was hard to leave.

  Inside their home, Jessamyn was helping her mother make a huge cauldron of sleeping potion, but they were missing some nightweed and Cleona sent her daughter out to gather it. Nightweed needed to be picked at the exact moment when the first star appeared in the heavens. Jessamyn was standing by the clump of weed, gazing up at the sky, when she saw the shadow of the eagle flying high. Jessamyn had recently perfected her hawk form and she gazed at the eagle in awe. How wonderful to fly so high! Without thinking, she condensed her body so that she could join the bird. She flew up and then almost fell back down when she recognized its aura. It was Quentin.

  “Where are you going?” she said. Quentin had taught her to communicate telepathically while they were birds.

  Quentin seemed confused to see Jessamyn.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be inside? It’s getting late.”

  Quentin seemed nervous. Jessamyn flew around him in circles. Normally this would have prompted him to play along, but not today.

  “Jessa, maybe we should land. I need to talk to you.”

  They flew down to the beach and landed in a spot close to where Quentin had first met Jessamyn, almost a year before.

  “Do you remember your castle?” asked Quentin.

  “What?”

  “When I first met you here, you had built a castle. It was magnificent.”

  “Did you really think so?”

  “Of course, and I wondered who the princess was who had built such a castle.”

  “But it was just illusion.”

  “For sure, but in your illusions lie great power, Jessamyn. Remember that.”

  “You talk like you’re going somewhere, but you’re not, you can’t. You’re my best friend, Quentin. Best friends don’t leave.”

  “Sometimes they have to, Jessamyn.”

  “Then I will come with you.”

  “No, you cannot, your mother will never forgive you.”

  “I don’t care. I never wanted to stay on this island. She can find herself another healer.”

  “Jessamyn, where are you? I need that nightweed or the potion will spoil.” Cleona’s voice echoed through the island.

  “She can call all she likes; I’m not going back, Quentin. I don’t want stay on this island if you’re leaving.”

  “But it will be dangerous, Jessa. You’re so young.”

  “I’m old enough,” said Jessamyn, “and if you leave without me, Quentin, I will follow you. Isn’t it better that you take me with you now, so that you can help me?”

  Quentin looked at Jessamyn. He realized that she was serious and understood that if he left her here, she would indeed follow him. Maybe it was better to take her; at least that way he could try to keep her safe. The wolves were coming to this island. He could sense them drawing nearer. He shivered. He had seen what they could do to a child.

  “Okay,” he said to Jessamyn, “but you have to listen to me and do what I say.”

  “Maybe,” answered Jessamyn, with a smirk.

  Quentin sighed, and together they took to the sky.

  Chapter 23

  Cynthia had spent a wonderful evening out with David. She hadn’t seen him like this for years. He’d bounded down the stairs to meet her, his cheeks flushed with excitement. Cynthia asked why he was so happy, but he shrugged and said it was nothing. She guessed it was something to do with his exchange in the park, maybe some business success. She wondered if he planned to give her a present of jewelry, something that would have fit in that empty box. She began to feel foolish thinking about all the money she had wasted, having him followed. He clearly wasn’t having an affair.

  He suggested they go out for dinner, something he usually reserved for special occasions. He normally considered restaurant meals an extravagance and was fond of pointing out how some of Cynthia’s Ladies Guild friends frittered away enormous amounts of gelt this way. No wonder, he would say, that so many of these so-called society ladies were just a few steps away from bankruptcy. Yet, tonight he took her to just the kind of restaurant he usually scorned, and encouraged her to order anything she liked. He even bought a bottle of wine, something she could only remember him doing once, on their very first date.

  He didn’t talk much during the meal, but kept filling her glass and letting her ramble on about her day. She, of course, left out the bit about her meeting with Aldous Wrigley. They finished their meal with dark chocolate mousse and cappuccino, and David barely glanced at the check, just happily handed over his credit card. At this point Cynthia briefly wondered if her husband had maybe been exchanged for an imposter, and if that was so, well, whoever had done the exchange was welcome to keep the real David!

  On the way home, Cynthia flipped on the radio to a cool jazz station. She closed her eyes and let the combination of the wine, the music, and the unusually good mood of her husband wash over her. She started to feel drowsy.

  In her dream, she was holding the small white box and opening it, but this time it wasn’t empty. This time there was a charm inside, something silver, an animal of some kind. She remembered a charm, recalled holding such a thing in her hand one time before.

  There had been a man. She could not recall his name, but she remembered his eyes. They were piercing blue, staring right down into the depth of her soul. She remembered his touch too, but how. David had been her first, her only . . .

  She handed this man silver and recalled long, cool fingers caressing the charm. Remembered his kiss . . .

  She awoke with a start. David had driven the SUV into their circular driveway in front of their fashionable home. As she looked at him, she felt guilty. No, it was just a dream. She’d drunk too much wine. She picked up her pocketbook and walked unsteadily toward the house and fumbled in her bag for her key. David beat her to it, reached in front of her, and opened the door.

  He wiped his shoes on the mat, hung up his fur jacket, and sank down onto the expensive leather sofa in the living room. Cynthia came and sat next to him. It seemed strange to sit like this. Cynthia tried to remember if they ever had; she assumed they must have, but that was so many years ago.

  “Tell you what,” she said, “why don’t I run a bath?”

  David looked at her, confused for a moment. “Oh, okay.”

  Cynthia bounded gleefully up the stairs.

  From his plac
e on the sofa, David listened to the sound of the water running. They used to do that, he remembered, long ago. He sighed and walked slowly up the stairs. He undressed and flung himself down on the bed, glancing momentarily at the wolf on the wall. He’d lie here a moment, he thought, while the water ran.

  By the time Cynthia walked back into the bedroom, he was snoring. She turned and went back to the bathroom, slipped out of her robe, and let herself down into warm, bubbly oblivion. She was only a little disappointed. She was pretty sure that her imagination could provide an encounter far more satisfying than David ever could. She soaked for a long time before she rejoined David in the bedroom.

  “David, David, David. How nice of you to invite me into your home!”

  David looked up at Alistair, confused. How could this be? The boy had assured him that Alistair was dead, destroyed by that niece of his. Yet here he was in the kitchen, holding a glass of wine and casually leaning on the marble countertop.

  “And I applaud you David, restoring what was yours, but now you need to take one more step. Put on the charm, David. I promise it will no longer burn you. It can give you power, David, power you have craved all your life. Power you were always meant to have. Together we can do anything!”

  David woke up and looked around the bedroom, confused. Cynthia was lying naked, pressed against him on the bed. He took in her sleeping form and suddenly felt an urge stronger than anything that had ever passed through his body. He pulled Cynthia close to him and covered her mouth with his, and within seconds he was inside her.

  Cynthia, not fully awake, responded as if in a dream, but the name she called as she reached impossible heights was not that of her husband.

  “Alistair!” she screamed.

  Chapter 24

  Sarah Sinclair sat in her living room, leafing through the picture album. She stopped at the picture of her grandmother, Miriam; how strange that the girl, Miri, had looked so much like her. She felt certain there was a connection there.

  She peered for a long time at one of the few pictures she had of Albert. Albert had enjoyed photography with a passion, and had taken most of the photos in this album and around the house. So there were few pictures of him. Her heart hurt when she thought of his horrible, pointless death.

  She kept thumbing back through the book; faces, so many faces. Here was one of her mother, so young and full of life, a child, probably the same age as her Josh. And by her side, the man who had raised Sarah, her father, Gerard Schwartz.

  He had told her so many stories about her mother, Sara, while she was growing up. They had been childhood best friends and he thought he had always loved her. There were tears in his eyes when he told how she had died giving birth to Sarah. So young, she’d only been seventeen at the time. He’d named Sarah in her honor and brought her back to their tiny flat in Westbourne Park Road.

  London, she hadn’t been back to London for so many years. She grew up in the city, loved its bustling streets. Its crowds. Its craziness. She’d loved New York too, when she first moved there with her dad. Something to do with his business, but that was the part of his life he never told her about.

  “Ah, Sarah, you don’t want to know about that boring stuff. You’d be asleep in seconds if I started talking about that. Did I tell you about the pelicans in St. James’ Park? They swallow ducks, you know? Your mother used to think they were so funny!”

  Sarah became a woman in New York. Graduated and got herself a job as a secretary in a publishing company. Had her first failed love affair. But each Sunday she’d go back to visit her father, until one Sunday he was gone. He simply vanished. No one knew where he went; not the neighbors, not his friends. No one. It was as if he no longer existed.

  Sarah went to the police with his description, but they weren’t interested in finding him. And after a while, she gave up. If he wanted to find her, she figured, he knew where she was.

  Then one day she met Albert in Central Park. He had his camera with him. She would learn later that he always had his camera with him. He told her she was pretty and asked if he could take her picture. He was a tourist in New York, there for just two weeks. Sarah turned tour guide, and spent every hour she was free showing him around the city she loved. At the end of the two weeks, he asked her to marry him and move with him back to St. Louis, and she said yes.

  Chapter 25

  “What did you say?”

  “I don’t know . . . I don’t understand.” But she did understand; finally, at that moment, Cynthia remembered everything—the delicious infidelity that had taken place on these very sheets.

  Maybe she was still dreaming. That must be it. David had never felt like that before. Her subconscious was playing tricks on her. She’d wake up soon and everything would be back to normal. David would be snoring by her side, or else out of the house already on his way to the office. If she would just close her eyes . . .

  “Get out!” he screamed.

  She was scared now and clutched the satin sheets around her naked body.

  “David, I’m sorry,” she sobbed, “I didn’t . . . I never—”

  “Get out of here!” he bellowed, and pushed Cynthia out the door. Cynthia flopped to the ground and sobbed. If this was a dream, she would like to wake up now, please.

  Inside the bedroom, she could hear David pacing back and forth like a caged lion.

  “I understand, David, you want revenge. It’s human nature, everyone wants revenge.” Alistair’s voice echoed through his head. “I can help with that. The first step is easy, right at your fingertips. Put on the amulet, David. Surrender to me!”

  David stood and looked at the wolf painting on the wall. His addled mind wondered if the voice in his head might actually be coming from the wolf.

  “Go on, David, you can do it . . .”

  Outside the room, Cynthia sat huddled on the landing, trembling in her bed sheet. She knew she should move, but she seemed to have forgotten how.

  “Go on . . .”

  David climbed onto the bed and cautiously reached for the picture on the wall, fearing that somehow that wolf would escape from the boundaries of the canvas and devour him. He placed the picture face down on the bed and fumbled with the combination lock behind it, trying to remember the new code.

  Breathe, David, he chided himself, you can do this. On the third try, the number was correct and the lock clicked open.

  “Nearly there, David . . .”

  He searched through the safe contents until he found the small silk bag. He removed the pouch and took it from the safe, then he closed the door and placed the wolf painting back on the wall. It seemed that the lupine eyes watched him as he sat on the bed and opened the bag.

  The silver tabby cat appeared just as he remembered it—how it had looked the day he’d first stolen it from his father’s bedside drawer. It looked the same, but somehow it felt different. He couldn’t explain the sensation and suddenly he was extremely scared. He should put it away, back in the safe, never take it out again. He should apologize to Cynthia. He could hear her weeping softly outside the door. He could still reclaim his old comfortable life.

  But he knew he’d gone too far. There was no turning back now. Alistair’s voice echoed in his head. “Now, David, you can do it. Put on the charm.”

  David walked over to the mirror. He realized he was still naked and was embarrassed by his saggy old body. No wonder Cynthia fantasized about someone else. He grabbed his dressing gown from the chair. It was ridiculously fluffy and expensive, with a fur trim around the edges.

  The robe was open at the neck and revealed a red mark on his skin, from where this charm had once sat. He remembered the pain from the first time.

  “It’s alright, David, it won’t hurt this time. I promise you. Go on, David. This was always meant to be yours. Your destiny.” Alistair’s voice in David’s head almost sounded friendly now.

  David took a deep breath and fastened the charm around his neck. He waited, expecting to feel the burn. At first, noth
ing happened. He stood staring at his reflection in the mirror. I wonder how it works, he thought, how does one change one’s form? Cat, he thought.

  “Not exactly,” came the voice from within. David jumped back, scared now. Alistair’s voice did not appear to be coming from the painting like before, now it was coming from deep within himself. Desperately he tried to eject Alistair, force him out. Laughter rang through his head. “No, David, you can’t do that. I am you now!”

  Pain filled David’s body and he watched in the mirror with horror as the change began, but what kind of creature was he becoming? He tried to cry out; maybe Cynthia could get help. His body stretched, his bones reformed, and he grew taller. Wasn’t a cat supposed to be small and light? Fur began forming all over his body. It itched terribly, making him scratch, but he stopped himself quickly when he noticed his hands were now no longer hands, but huge paws with long, deadly looking claws.

  When would the transformation end? His fur had the bold stripes of a tiger now, but still he grew in height and the terrible pain continued as he desperately tried to control the transformation. He swore than if he ever managed to revert back to normal, he would remove the amulet and destroy it.

  He still heard Alistair’s voice in his head: “It’s alright, David. Embrace the change and the pain will go away. You will be strong. You will be invincible. Let me help you learn to control the power.”

  David glanced in the mirror at the monster he’d become; maybe if he got out of here. Out of this room, away from the wolf in the painting. He pushed open the bedroom door and tripped over a figure crouched on the ground, trembling.

  Cynthia screamed and tried to get away. David tried to reach out to her, begging her for help, but his voice only came out in growls, and as he touched her, he scratched her with his claws, leaving a gash in her arm that oozed blood.