The Dreamwalker's Path

2/ New York City, New York

The sharp scent of another vampire male in his home put Cavan in a foul mood even before he crossed the threshold— and that was not taking into account the mild irritation that he already felt at having had the most useless conversation with Ophelia that he’d had to date.

It would be easier to deal with Sebastian’s presence if he knew that he could kick the kid out, but after the latest ordeal of Sebastian’s unpredictable now-you-see-me act, the younger male had reverted to a strangely juvenille state. Cavan wasn’t sure which part grated on him more: the fact that the kid being vulnerable actually tugged at some near- dead fondness he’d had for Sebastian as a kid, or the idea that the kid’s mother would most likely behead him if he kicked the kid out.

So, Cavan put on his best shit-stirring smile as he opened the door to the apartment, and said, “I can see why you died for her.”

“What I can’t see,” he continued, “is why you haven’t been down there to tell her that you’re alive. You know she practically cried when I mentioned your name just now.”

He braced one hand against the wall as he toed off his beat up Converse and kicked them into the corner by the door. His free arm was wrapped around a brown grocery bag filled with “the essentials” that Sebastian had sent him out for.

“Did you hear me?” he asked, coming down the front hall and entering the living room.

Sebastian was sitting near the window, eyes closed, a pair of ear buds shoved in place, and some audio book playing loudly enough that Cavan could hear it from across the room.

Tsking, Cavan crossed the room and dropped the bag of groceries unceremoniously into Sebastian’s lap. “Oi,” he reached down and yanked the ear buds out of Sebastian’s ears. “You’re the most boring vampire on the planet,” he proclaimed over the indignant sputtering of his nephew. “You’ve been sulking in this apartment for nearly a month, and did you hear what I said about your girlfriend?”

Sebastian struggled to a semi-upright position and began sifting through the bag. “The witch isn’t my girlfriend. Did you get peanut butter?”

“You keep saying that, and I’ll start getting ideas.” Cavan flopped into an armchair and picked up the guitar that was propped between the chair and the coffee table. Long nails plucked idly at the strings.

“Your insistence that you know why I died for her suggests you already have ideas, Cavan. Did you buy peanut butter, or not?”

“Any ideas that I have consist of trying to use her abilities to sort out this mess that we’re dealing with in the office, and no, I didn’t get your damn peanut butter. Is there any particular reason that you haven’t gone down there to tell her that you’re alive yet? Because the last time I checked, that’s part of the reason why we got you a new body in the first place, and I know we talked about you waiting to be more settled in, but—”

“Damn it, Cavan, peanut butter and celery: that’s all I asked for. No one is going to make you eat it.”

Cavan’s face contorted into an expression of disgust. “You shouldn’t eat it either. It’s unnatural.”

“Cookies, Cavan, cookies that you don’t even bake yourself, that come in plastic bags, and are so hard that you need to soak them in milk to eat them. Those are unnatural.”

“They don’t get stuck to the roof of your mouth, either, now do they?” Cavan might be the older of the two, but no one could top the snotty tone that colored his words. He watched with a very grim satisfaction as Sebastian clenched his jaw and ground his teeth.

The younger vampire’s slender hands slowly gripped the top of the paper bag. He stood, and walked with all the grace of a robot toward the kitchen. A few moments later, cabinets began to close with fierce, angry cracks.

Cavan eased into his beat up armchair and smiled, feeling as though he’d accomplished something important today.

When Sebastian ran out of groceries, which he did all too soon, in his opinion, he occupied himself by washing his hands. He couldn’t remember if Hannah or his mother had taught him the trick, but one of them once suggested that there was no better way to calm down than to occupy yourself with something mundane. Since hands always seemed to need washing, that was the mundane task they had often suggested.

So Sebastian ran his hands under the water, his gaze fixed on his pale fingers.

Four months ago, when he’d first gotten his body, his vision had been crystal clear. Now, his sight faded in and out; his peripheral had diminished substantially. He could no longer determine light sources when his eyes were closed, and when his eyes were open...

He could still see his hands, but they were surrounded a soft, halo of color against a dark background. Another few weeks—possibly days, Hannah had said—and his real eyes would come back, blindness and all.

He jutted his jaw forward and leaned down to splash water on his face.

It’s your own fault, he reminded himself. You’re the one who had to get in the way.

Because if he hadn’t, if he’d let that silly girl die, he wouldn’t have died, wouldn’t have gained sight for a brief few months, and he’d have never known what he’d been missing.

He dried his hands and face with a paper towel, and threw his thoughts in the trash along with it. Then he rejoined his uncle in the living room, coming to sit on the couch across from Cavan.

The older vampire was nestled in his favorite chair and strumming absently on a very worn out acoustic guitar.

Sebastian remembered his surprise when he’d first set his eyes on the beat up thing that had put him to sleep so often as a child. Although it looked like it had seen better days, it still sounded like a warm summer night.

He ran his hands over his hair and then folded them in his lap.

“So what exactly is going on at the office that requires

you constantly poking around the witch?” he muttered.

Cavan stopped strumming. “Something has been killing supernatural beasties. We aren’t really sure what’s doing it, but given the police reports, we’re pretty certain that it’s been happening in their sleep.”

“Charming,” Sebastian replied. “So naturally you want Lia to use her abilities as a Dreamwalker.”

“To find the beastie and figure out what it’s up to,” Cavan nodded amiably.

“Not that I care,” Sebastian droned, leaning back and fixing his gaze on the ceiling, “but isn’t that somewhere outside of the firm’s jurisdiction?”

Cavan made a noncommittal noise. “Yes and no,” he admitted. “In the sense that whoever is behind it is probably supernatural and is putting the rest of the supernatural community at risk of discovery, yeah, it’s partly our issue. On the other hand, it’s not our issue legally until the accused, whoever that may be, hires us to defend him or her in the court of law. If the accused is ever brought in by human authorities, that is.”

“So this is just a routine CYA gig.”

“Provided that CYA stands for Cover Your Ass, yes.” Sebastian rolled his eyes; “I was trying not to be crass, thank you.”

Cavan waved the matter away. “Anyway, there’s already been some speculation that it’s a succubus or an incubus or whatever. The existence of vampires isn’t quite common knowledge these days, but enough of the right people know that certain eccentric magazines are beginning to publish things.”

“As they generally do,” Sebastian sighed. “I’d offer to talk to the girl for you, but I don’t think she should see me.”

“Apparently not,” Cavan chirruped, sounding like the cat that caught the canary. “See above, re: she doesn’t even know you’re alive.” Cavan set his guitar aside and leaned toward Sebastian, looking both pleased that Sebastian was finally talking about something that he wanted to talk about, and annoyed that they were having the talk to begin with. “I’m surprised. I shouldn’t be, because you’ve been a rule- following stick in the mud since you were four, and yet somehow I find myself surprised. I would have thought you’d snuck off to have super-secret midnight chats.”

“If I recall our conversation back in April, you said that you thought it was good I hadn’t spoken to her yet.”

“Well, yes, back in April. It’s June. The year rolls on and so should you, eventually. Did you think I was telling you never to speak to her again?”

Sebastian tsked softly. “Well, I can’t say that I thought you would condone it—not that this is any of your damn business, by the way. More importantly, I would rather not have any sort of conversation with her, let alone one that starts with ‘By the way, I’ve been alive for months’ and turns into the secret midnight sort.” He fixed Cavan with a droll look and then turned his attention to his iPod in search of something new to listen to.

Cavan continued to watch him.

At long length, Sebastian turned his attention back to Cavan. “What?”

“Nothing!” Cavan busied himself with his nails.

Irritation rising, Sebastian snapped, “Did you want me to tell her, Cavan? Did you want to hear that I ran off immediately afterward to let her know that I’m alive? That we fell in love and have been having a passionate, secret affair behind the family’s back? Did you want me to get involved with a human? Well?”

Cavan tsked, a sure sign that he thought that Sebastian was being a little overly dramatic. “No, I don’t think that would have been a good idea. She was fairly...Broken by your death. Humans find that sort of thing to be fairly traumatic, and all.”

And Cavan would know, Sebastian thought. Although Cavan had been a vampire for a little over two dozen centuries, he’d started out as a human, and Death had never been a stranger to him.

“Not that I think you shouldn’t see her at all,” Cavan added lightly. “It might be better to let her wander a little farther into our world before you do, though.”

Sebastian frowned in slight distaste. Talking to Cavan was confusing. First he wanted Sebastian to tell Lia, then he didn’t, then he did and now he didn’t again. Sebastian decided to simplify the entire matter with a dry, “I’d rather she not wander anywhere, truth be told.”

“I’d rather eat ice cream for every meal and not get a brain freeze. Unfortunately some shit happens regardless of what you’d rather.”

Sebastian’s face contorted, but Cavan was up and out of his chair before Sebastian could decide how best to respond.

“I have things to do,” the man announced, the thick lilt of his accent a little more prominent than it normally was.

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “You say things, and yet somehow I still hear ‘people.’”

Cavan waved his hand dismissively. “You’re young, and obviously perverted. The Nephilim offered to take me out for drinks again.” He flashed a smile. “Of course, dirty perv that he is, I may end up doing someone yet.”

Somehow, Sebastian seriously doubted that, quite under the impression that the being in question was irredeemably heterosexual, but it wasn’t any of his business to correct whatever running joke Cavan decided he had between himself and the Nephilim. “Yeah, well, don’t get into trouble, all right? Somehow it will be my fault if you do.”

Cavan saluted and turned to leave—then almost immediately turned back. “Oh, here, I forgot to give you this.” He produced a large jar of peanut butter from thin air and set it on the side table. “For your gross snack.”

Sebastian sighed because it was easier than being irritated, and picked up the jar of peanut butter. By the time he thought to say thank you, his uncle had left the house.

The silence of the house now that he was alone was a lot less comforting than it had been before Cavan had come barreling in with his ideas on how Sebastian should be running his life. Since he’d been given his new body, he did his best to think of Lia Caglione as little as possible. It was easier not to think of her than to try to piece together the questions that his actions had created for both himself and the rest of his family, but whenever she came up in conversation (and she came up a lot more often than Sebastian felt comfortable with due to Cavan’s ever more prominent obsession with the woman) or crossed his mind unbidden, those questions tumbled one by one into his lap and waited to be answered.

Why the hell had he died for her?

It wasn’t as though he loved her. Did he?

No. That was the one thing that he could answer without second guessing himself. He hadn’t done it for love. And he wasn’t a noble enough person to have done it because it was the right thing to do—if it was even that.

Sebastian rolled the jar of peanut butter between his hands and muttered under his breath. At least he’d made the right decision about not telling her yet, or possibly ever. At least no one was riding his ass about screwing that much up.

The irony was that he’d have liked to tell her, or at least see her again. To really see her, to put a picture with the voice and colors that he associated with her, might put his mind to rest. He didn’t want to go anywhere near her if he didn’t have to, but he couldn’t deny wanting to see her.

Sebastian blamed Cavan. If Cavan hadn’t talked about her so much these past months, he’d have been able to forget the silly, hard headed girl that had cost him his life.

Still muttering, Sebastian put the jar of peanut butter on the side table and looked toward the door. He could go, he thought. He could go and see her while he still had his sight.

And then what? Would that make everything magically better for you? You’d see her face and then what? Nothing would change. You’d still be going blind. She’d probably hate you for being alive.

He looked back at the door and slumped. No, he thought. No, it wouldn’t change anything. So why the hell bother?