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

by Debbie Manber Kupfer

  “Soon,” he had said, staring at her with his piercing blue eyes. “Soon we will meet again. And this time I will win.”

  In her dream, Miri couldn’t focus on his form that seemed to be constantly shifting from man to wolf, to tiger, to . . .boy; the boy Ryan somehow seemed to be the most fearsome, yet she didn’t understand why. He was just a kid in her dream, maybe the same age as she was now—an easy match for her magic. Why was that so scary and why was she dreading going to the room where Jenna was in labor? She should care about Jenna, and she did, but part of her screamed that Jenna was irrelevant, that her baby’s birth was what was important here and she desperately wanted to prevent it.

  Danny looked at her. “Are you okay, Miri?” he asked.

  “No, I don’t think so Danny. I’m scared, very scared.”

  In the infirmary, Jenna was sitting up in bed and smiling at Andrew who had just walked in. Mandy got up and let him take her place at Jenna’s side.

  “Why don’t you go and get some breakfast, Mandy?” said Andrew pleasantly. “You’ll need your energy for tonight.”

  “Okay.” Mandy nodded, she wanted to find Josh anyway.

  Andrew turned to Jenna.

  “Are you excited?” he asked.

  “A little, and scared,” replied Jenna.

  “It is normal to be frightened, but Ryan will be born tonight. That’s what we’ve been waiting for, right?”

  “Yes,” said Jenna, remembering her dream. In her dream, she was in a long tunnel. At the end of the tunnel was a face, the beautiful face of her son, but no matter how much she walked down that tunnel, she never reached the end, never met him.

  Now she tried to talk to him. But as always when she was awake, he was silent. He’d shifted his position downwards in the last few days and Jenna constantly needed to go to the bathroom as he pressed on her bladder.

  The contractions still came, but they were less painful since Mrs. Bumsqueak gave her the calming potion. Still, she was prepared for pain. She knew she couldn’t go to a hospital, not this close to the full moon, so there’d be no epidurals.

  The full moon, tonight. Andrew kept saying that this was when the baby would be born, but how? How could she fight the urge to change? Surely Ryan must come into the world beforehand . . . or maybe he could hold out until the morning? She didn’t understand how it would be possible for him to be born while she was in her lupine form.

  Mrs. Bumsqueak came over and took her temperature. It was going up slowly, as was normal among werewolves on the day preceding the full moon. But a fever during labor was troubling, and Mrs. Bumsqueak frowned at the thermometer.

  She nodded gravely at Jenna and Andrew and walked back to her desk. On the table was a huge dusty tome. She turned the pages methodically, looking for the potion she wanted. There had to be something in here to help.

  There—how about this?

  “Wolfbane,” she read. “Some claim that the wolfbane potion can successfully prevent the metamorphosis of werewolves during a full moon. It is, however, to be used sparingly. Lycopanthy is an incurable disease and repeated use of the wolfbane potion will weaken the werewolf and considerably shorten his life.” So, it wasn’t a long-term fix, thought the healer, but maybe this one time . . .

  “Not that,” came a voice over her shoulder. The healer jumped at Andrew’s intrusion.

  “Why not?”

  “Just believe me, Beatrice. Jenna has to transform tonight.”

  “But Jenna and the baby. How will they survive?”

  “The baby will survive,” said Andrew. “I will bring you some other potion for Jenna.”

  Andrew walked purposefully through the hallways of P.A.W.S. He stopped outside a door and knocked.

  “Come in,” came a voice from inside.

  “Ah, Andrew,” said Quentin, “how is the girl doing? I hear she is in labor.”

  “She needs a potion, Quentin, a special potion that I know you know how to make . . . unless, of course, you still have some from . . . Alistair.”

  Quentin looked at Andrew, comprehension dawning in his eyes.

  “No, no more,” said Quentin quickly, “I used the last few drops just two days ago.”

  “So, you will die?” said Andrew.

  “Eventually,” said Quentin, “but I made my peace with that when I came back to Jessamyn. My life has been long enough, maybe too long, and I no longer seek to extend it.”

  “Are you sure about that?” asked Andrew. “What if you found another werewolf? Another who was not scared to take the path to immortality?”

  “And even if I wished this, where would I find such a wolf? Surely all those who followed Alistair’s path were killed with their master?”

  “Not all,” said Andrew, and withdrew a small knife from his pocket. With a quick motion, he gashed his forearm and blood started trickling forth.

  “Quickly,” he said, “take it and make the potion. I need a little to give to Jenna, the rest you may have if you wish, it is up to you.”

  Quentin found a vial and filled it with the red liquid. Then, using his wand, he healed Andrew’s wound.

  “For Jenna,” he said.

  Miri steeled herself as she walked into the infirmary. Mrs. Bumsqueak nodded at her as she crossed the room and went over to Jenna’s bed.

  “How are you feeling, Jenna?”

  “Okay, I think. How is he, Miri? Can you feel him?”

  Reluctantly Miri took down her mental shield and foraged into the mind of Ryan. She felt Jenna’s warmth circling him in a cocoon. Inside the cocoon, Ryan was bouncing against the walls, anxious to come out, but he was waiting.

  “Tonight,” he whispered to Miri.

  “Why not sooner? Why force Jenna to change?”

  “Ha, sister, you make me laugh. Who cares about my mother? She is weak. I have no need for her. I will be powerful. And my power will be magnified fifty-fold if I am born in the light of the full moon.”

  “You can’t survive by yourself as a baby, surely you know that?”

  “Who says I’m by myself,” he laughed.

  Miri shuddered and retreated from Ryan’s mind.

  Jenna looked at her with expectant eyes.

  “How is he?” she asked.

  “Anxious to meet you,” Miri lied.

  Chapter 45

  All through the day, the residents of P.A.W.S. visited Jenna in the infirmary. Mandy, Miri, and Andrew were there the most, but Josh, Jessamyn, and even Hugo Hogsworth came by to see how she was doing. Hugo brought her a bowl of his best tomato soup.

  “Works as well as any potion,” he declared.

  Jenna thanked him and drank the fragrant, rich, orange broth. It did feel good, and she hoped Ryan was enjoying it as much as she was. The contractions kept coming at slow intervals. They were painful of course, but then they would pass. At one point Mrs. Bumsqueak suggested she spend some time in the shower. The warm water helped to ease the pain.

  Jenna thought about the first Ryan, her brother. She still missed him and the rest of her family terribly, but despite the pain, she was excited, anxious to meet her baby, and not sure that if she could have turned back the clock so that none of this had happened, whether she would really want that.

  Quentin stared at the vial in his hand. When the last few drops of Alistair’s blood were spent, he’d sworn he would never make this potion again, and yet here he was. He told himself that it was for Jenna, that he needed to try and save the girl’s life. Andrew seemed so sure that it would work.

  So it wasn’t over; Andrew was continuing on Alistair’s legacy. Quentin wanted to believe that he had done it merely to help Jenna and her child. That the attack on the man in the playground the previous full moon had been a one-time occurrence and that, in any case, the man had deserved his fate as he’d been attacking the girl in the playground. This, at least, was the story that Andrew had told him, but Quentin wasn’t sure he believed it.

  Andrew always seemed mild-mannered and earnest, but was
n’t it always the quiet ones, he thought, the ones that no one ever suspects? Of course, Quentin had known Alistair’s plan. It had always been the same plan, after all. Different girls, but always the same plan.

  The idea was born when Alistair was still living with Roman in Transylvania. Roman was the werewolf that originally turned Alistair and taught him the way of the wolf.

  Roman had a wife, Ramora. Ramora had hair as black as the darkest night and eyes to match. Quentin only saw her once, but visions of Ramora had tormented his sleep for months after.

  Alistair was smitten, his first crush and a very dangerous one. Ramora would tease him and Roman would look on, amused, but after Alistair made his first kill, Ramora, attracted by the power that now dwelt in Alistair’s heart, took him into her bed.

  Their pleasure was short-lived. Roman found them and threw Alistair out of his home, but not before Alistair had planted his seed in Ramora’s womb. So Ramora bore Alistair’s first child. In the years that followed, Alistair would often return and, unbeknownst to Roman, watch the progress of his son. In adolescence, the boy, Frederick, morphed into a wolf for the first time and Alistair was pleased to witness Frederick’s first kill. He planned to entice the boy away, to use Frederick to start his own pack, but all his attempts were thwarted and his son remained under the control of Roman.

  But the idea stuck. As Alistair’s wealth grew over the centuries, he sought an heir, a son who would carry on his work, increase his pack and his power. By consuming human flesh and blood, he stopped the clock, became almost immortal. He did not age, and developed his super-strength and mind control, but he knew he was still vulnerable, could still be killed. So Alistair created an insurance policy of sorts. He left his essence on this earth—in the charm that he wore before death and in the infant he forced into Jenna’s womb. In this way, he could still be immortal.

  Yet his plan couldn’t work without loyal servants still bound to him even after his destruction. He had counted on Quentin, and apparently on Andrew too. Quentin doubted that Andrew as yet had Alistair’s power, but if he’d feasted even once, he was on the road to immortality.

  Now that Quentin knew that the remains that were found in the Turtle Playground after the last full moon were Andrew’s doing, he felt that the right thing would be to tell Jessamyn, but somehow he held back.

  Andrew sat at Jenna’s bedside. Outwardly he was calm, gentle, supporting. Inside he was agitated, impatient, and in awe of the power that emanated from Ryan, the raw power of the wolf that was ready to break free.

  “Not yet,” he soothed him with his mind. Alistair had been clear in his instructions. His child needed to be born when the full moon was high in order for him to fulfill his greatest potential.

  “A few more hours and you can come out,” he told Ryan silently, as Jenna’s body was shaken by another violent contraction.

  He held Jenna’s hand and looked into her eyes. He’d become fond of the girl. He wondered if there was any way he could save her. Quentin was preparing the potion, but he’d lied to Quentin and Mrs. Bumsqueak; the potion was predominantly for Ryan, another part of Alistair’s instructions to him. He doubted it could save Jenna at this point, but still he would try. He wished that Ryan would care for his mother but, like his father, he thought of her only as a vessel. But at least his feelings were hidden from Jenna. He wished they were hidden from Miri too.

  Miri had spent little time here today. She seemed unable to be close to Jenna. Andrew believed that Ryan was taunting her. He understood that Miri would never harm a baby, so he was safe.

  Miri sat with Danny on a bench in Forest Park. She’d needed to come out here, to separate herself from Jenna and her baby.

  “I’m scared, Danny,” she said quietly.

  Danny put his arm around her and she leaned up against him, finding comfort in his warmth.

  “I should be helping Jenna, but I can’t bear to be close to him. In some ways he is worse than Alistair.”

  “He’s only a baby, Miri, not even that yet, who knows how he will grow up? Alistair may be his father, but Jenna is his mother. She’s good, Miri; unselfish, caring, giving—surely some of those characteristics will be born in Ryan.”

  “Maybe,” said Miri, unconvinced.

  The sun was finally beginning its descent from the heavens. In the distance, Miri heard a wolf howl; the pack was getting restless. They saw Josh walking across the grass on his way to join them. Mandy was staying at P.A.W.S. as long as she could tonight, so that she could stay close to Jenna, to help her if at all possible.

  “Do you have it?” asked Andrew.

  “Yes,” answered Quentin, passing over a small vial. “I hope it helps.”

  “I do too,” said Andrew, “and thank you. If you need more blood . . .”

  “No, that will not be necessary.”

  Quentin watched Andrew leave. He really hoped the potion would save the girl. He also knew what he should do. He should tell Jessamyn about Andrew, but he held back. He gazed into his scrying bowl, looking for an answer.

  “Are you sure?” persisted Mrs. Bumsqueak. “Surely the wolfbane . . .”

  “No, this is their best chance,” said Andrew, holding up the small vial of reddish liquid.

  “And you say you got it from Quentin? That Jessamyn approves?”

  “Yes,” lied Andrew. He’d no idea if Quentin had told Jessamyn about the encounter, but he doubted it. Despite what Quentin had said, Andrew could tell he was drawn to the potion and did not truly wish to relinquish his immortality. Quentin was very much like a drug addict, Andrew observed. He could control his addiction when there was no blood available, but now that Andrew had offered him a new source, well . . .

  “But she will need to go outside when the moon rises. I don’t understand how her baby can be born if she changes. Maybe I can delay the birth? Another calming potion, perhaps?”

  “No, it’s almost time. I will take care of them. Mandy can come if she likes.”

  “I will come too,” said Mrs. Bumsqueak, firmly. “She’s my patient.”

  “As you wish,” said Andrew.

  In the corner of the room, Jenna let out a scream. The contractions were coming more frequently now. Mandy was sitting with her, her own temperature rising, as outside the sun was slowly setting. Josh was waiting for her with the pack, she knew, but she was determined not to leave Jenna’s side tonight. Andrew walked over, carrying a small vial of red liquid. He talked quietly to Jenna who was struggling to control her breathing.

  “Take this, Jenna, it will help.”

  Jenna looked at the vial of red potion. Revulsion filled her as she remembered their feast on the last full moon. She’d been determined never to do that again.

  “What is it?” she asked slowly, between gasps.

  “A special potion; it will help, I promise.”

  Tentatively, Jenna took the stopper out of the vial and sniffed. The potion definitely had the salty smell of blood and there was something familiar in it—a memory of someone or something. With shaking hands, she put it to her lips and sipped. The potion was warm and glided down her throat easily.

  “There you go, Ryan,” she thought, “this is what you want.” She knew instinctively that it was true. She took a deep breath and then the next contraction rocked her entire body. She held tightly to Mandy and Andrew and let out a primeval roar. Mrs. Bumsqueak ran over.

  Now, all three of the wolves could feel it. The full moon was rising. They needed to get outside. They needed to change.

  Chapter 46

  In the rec room, Lilith was sitting on her own, reading a magazine. She’d been lonely over the last few days since Zamir went back to Egypt for the summer. She wondered what she would do this summer. She’d thought about traveling, maybe. There was a coven in California she’d visited a couple of summers ago. Maybe she would go back there.

  As she rose to return to her room, the world changed.

  There was a boy, maybe thirteen or fourteen years old,
with blond hair and an intoxicating smile. Lilith was sure she’d never seen him before. He was with a girl with long chestnut-brown hair. She seemed vaguely familiar, but Lilith couldn’t work out from where.

  They were playing with something—a shiny silver ball that appeared to float in the air. They didn’t seem to notice Lilith even as she walked closer to get a better look at the ball. The silver appeared to be transparent and in its depths there was a tiny figure. The figure was green with microscopic wings on its back and Lilith could sense it was furious.

  The boy and girl were laughing. To them, this was just a game, but Lilith could sense that for the life force trapped inside the silver ball this was anything but fun. Instinctively, Lilith moved forward and reached for the ball, but her hands went straight through it and, as suddenly as it had come, the vision was gone, and Lilith once again was alone in the rec room.

  Josh waited, restlessly pacing back and forth. Where was Mandy? She knew she needed to come outside once the moon rose. He reached out to her with his mind.

  “Where are you?”

  “In the infirmary, but we’re coming up.”

  “I’ll meet you.”

  Quickly he ran towards the Jewel Box. Mandy and Andrew, still in human form, were just emerging from the cedar tree, supporting Jenna who was screaming in pain. Josh hoped there were no tourists left in Forest Park to overhear the screams.

  He noticed Danny and Miri off to one side, now both in their cat forms.

  “It’s okay,” said Danny, when he saw Josh. “I cast some wards around this area. No one without magic should hear any of this.”

  As the three werewolves emerged from P.A.W.S., the moon took over. Mandy and Andrew’s metamorphoses were swift. But Jenna was screaming and howling at once, the pain of the labor now combining with the pain of the transformation that Jenna was desperately trying to prevent. And yet the baby seemed to want Jenna to transform. He pushed excitedly within her, screaming to come out and greet the moon.