“Perhaps the killer simply carried her away,” Kate muttered.
“I don’t think so. Werewolves don’t do that sort of thing.” He took a stubby grease pencil from the stovetop and began to write symbols on the steel kettle. The runes glowed faint green and the sound of water boiling rose almost immediately. “If it had killed her, she would have been there, dead.”
“Do you believe that lycanthropy is transmissible?”
“No, I do not. Everything I’ve heard about werewolfism says it’s something a person is born with. There’s never been credible evidence of one werewolf creating another. There’s never been an epidemic of any sort. I wouldn’t fear that Imogen has been transformed in any way.”
“Oh, where is she, Mr. Archer?” Her eyes followed his movements even as they betrayed exhaustion.
“I don’t know, Miss Anstruther, but we shall find out. I pledge that to you.”
“Thank you.” Her voice was growing ragged with fatigue.
“What troubles me most is that there appears to be another werewolf. The creatures are rare enough, but to have two in one location is damnably unusual. As is the fact that Hibbert wasn’t consumed. It’s a bit odd.”
“A bit odd?”
“Werewolves are animals, Miss Anstruther. They kill for the same reasons animals kill. For protection and for food. And the man was merely killed and mutilated but not eaten, or not much of him anyway. Biscuit?”
“You make it appetizing, but no, thank you.” Kate grimaced.
Simon crunched into a small cookie as steam began to hiss from the kettle. “Do you shoot? I can arrange for you to have a pistol loaded with silver.”
“I do. So you hold to the legends about silver?”
“To an extent,” he said cautiously as if she would dispute it and expose the fact that his lycanthrope knowledge was hardly encyclopedic. He poured boiling water into a small porcelain teapot with a simple flower painted on it. “Certainly anything will harm them, but they are ungodly tough. Silver seems to make the wounds more grievous and gives us a chance at taking them down.”
“And is magic a substantial weapon against them? Your style of magic seems particularly effective.”
Simon hesitated, pouring cream into her cup to buy time. He recalled all the warnings that his mother had impressed on him about maintaining secrecy, as well as Nick’s constant demands to stay in the shadows. Still, he looked at the troubled expression, which shifted beneath the assured pretense on Kate’s face. She had already seen so much it seemed ludicrous to pretend any further. He was eager to take Kate into his confidence, so he said with offhand casualness, “Yes, magic is very effective.”
She seemed to visibly relax as he poured tea into their cups. “You’ve a very dainty teapot for a man.”
“It was my mother’s.” Simon adjusted the teapot slightly and tapped it lovingly with a finger.
“Was she a magician too?”
“No, she was better than that. She was a saint with no interest in magic, only in magicians.”
“Well, in my family, I had some exposure to mysticism, but I must admit I’ve never experienced magic used with such everyday facility.”
“Parlor tricks. A criminal waste of skill, given what the greatest of us are reportedly capable of. Like using a cannonball to send a love note.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, what school of magic do you practice?”
He sipped tea. “I am a magician of the type often called a scribe.”
Kate’s tired eyes widened. “I’ve read about scribes, but even the most trusted magical tomes hold them to be as rare as rocs and likely extinct in our time.”
“Well, I’m not quite ready for a museum display, but there are very few of us. In fact, I might be the last. Much of the knowledge related to the discipline is lost.”
“But not gone entirely.”
“No. I’ve a rather large library dedicated to the art, and Nick has a useful store of knowledge. He’s been something of a mentor for a number of years, helping me to perfect my use of runes to cast spells.”
“Your friend is a scribe as well?”
“Nick?” Simon laughed. “No. He’s something of a jack of all magical trades. There’s no classical way to describe him. There is little in the way of practical magic that he can’t muster in some fashion.”
Kate set her cup down with an exhausted stare. “Believe me when I say I would love nothing more than to discuss this topic at length, but I hope you won’t think me rude if I go to bed. The day is catching up with me. The tea was delicious. Thank you for it and the company. And for everything you’ve done.”