Book 3: The Wandering Knight

Chapter Two

I felt as if I had been thrown around in a box for about twelve hours and I couldn’t walk or see properly.

“Sorry, I thought you were used to magic. I guess not, we’ll have to work with that too.” Caspar stated, taking off the purple trench coat he was wearing, revealing a blue silk embroidered vest and a white blouse which was not buttoned to the top, but only so that it showed a bit of his chest. The vest was not a short one; it went down to mid-thigh like a bath robe, and his trousers were cut off at the knee by high red fabric boots. “You’re starring, honey. Tell me, what do you find so intriguing about me?” he smiled with all his teeth and walked over to a small table, and since my vision was coming back to normal, I could finally make out where we were.

It was an apartment, and we were in the study part of it. It was filled to the ceiling with packed bookshelves and on the arm chair next to the fire place was a black cat with a small speck on his chin which was inclined to stare at me as if I was going to do something inexplicable.

“He likes you; he usually isn’t this quite around strangers.” Caspar stated his back turned to me as his nose was stuck in a small beat up book.

“Then why is he looking at me as if he’ll beat me up any second?” I asked.

“He’s debating whether or not to approach you and let you pet him. His name is Jenkins by the way.” He moved to the kitchen area, “What do you want, tea, coffee, water, wine? We’ll be here a while so you might as well not decline.” he poked his head around the doorway to see look at me.

“Uh coffee please.” By now, Jenkins pranced to my legs and rubbed himself against them and proceeded to jump up and lie on my lap. I started to stroke him gently.

“Here you are.” Caspar handed me a green mug and went back to the small beat up book.

“So… what exactly are you going to—”

“When did your hair start turning white?” he turned to face me, leaning against the table.

“I uh, I think it was always white, at least ever since I could remember.” I stated.

“You couldn’t have been born with it, boy, your mother has black hair and your father had brown hair.” He rubbed his eyes, picking the book up again and took a piece of chalk from the black board he had. “So help me God, this doesn’t draw any attention around the neighborhood.”  He muttered and bent down to the hard wood floor, raising his hand and wiggling his fingers, the lighting in the room went dim and he drew a sign with the chalk on the floor. “Molemtus everanus elevatum ireasuh” he spoke this incantation three times before standing up. There was a puff of smoke and the symbol burst into red flames.

A figure rose from the flames and as his boot clad feet touched the ground, the flames and smoke dissipated.

“Ah, Kellan, I did not disturb you I hope.” Caspar spoke with politeness as he clasped his hands together.

“Caspar the warlock, father of Gerard the Reaper, what do you want with me?” my eyes went wide as the ghost looked around, his hair was white and his eyes grey.

“Oh for pity’s sake, it’s ROSE! Gerard the ROSE he wasn’t a Reaper!” exasperated, Caspar rubbed the bridge of his nose and then cleared his throat. “I want you to meet your son, Eric.” He pointed to me and the man named Kellan turned and faced me. I saw it now; he bore a mark on his forehead, it was an eye with three triangles and a tear dripping down from the bottom lashes. His face was blank; his expression unchanging as he observed me. “You bestowed upon him the same cursed sickness your forefather had. At first I thought he had the same sickness which you had; the sickness of the blood, but now I see he does not. It is a foreign sickness; if you tell me what your forefather’s name was I could cure him.” Caspar spoke with sternness and my throat suddenly went dry.