The Dreamwalker's Path

01/ New York; J & J

The vampire rummaged through the top left drawer of his desk, not sure if he was looking for a pencil or a watermelon flavored Jolly Rancher.

He needed the pencil to make a note on the large calendar that spread across his desk, but it had been several very long minutes since his last piece of candy, and he was craving something watermelon.

Somehow, the candies he kept pulling out, however, were bright green, or purple, or the wrong sort of candy all together. Strange...he was certain he’d just bought a new bag of the candy the other day. Surely he hadn’t eaten all of the watermelon kind already...

But the watermelon was always the first to go, it seemed, and from the looks of things, it was time to re-stock. Unless of course someone had been in his drawer and—

“Cavan!”

The vampire flinched at the sound of his name being shouted down the normally grave-quiet hallway outside his office.

Casting a hurried glance at the door, he grabbed the first hard candy that his fingers could catch and slammed the drawer shut. One hand fumbled with the key of the drawer while the other brought the candy up to his mouth. Teeth and fingers worked their way around the plastic, and he popped the candy into his mouth just as a very slender young man with a gaunt face barreled through the doorway.

“What did you do to me?” the young man snarled as he stalked across the room. He slammed his hands down on the bare desk. One of those slender hands was clenched around a pack of cheap cigarettes, and the paper carton crumpled under the pressure of his grip as he repeated, “What did you do?”

Cavan sat back in his chair and made a face. His Jolly Rancher was lemon flavored. “I’m sorry, Sebastian; I can’t help you right now, I’m currently suffering my own tragedy.”

He worked the Jolly Rancher from one side of his mouth to the other, trying to get it off of his tongue.

The young man’s face flushed angrily, his yellow- green eyes narrowed. “Are you kidding me? I’m having a legitimate crisis and you’re going to dink around because you don’t like the flavor of your Jolly Rancher?”

“You want to talk crisis, kid? This thing is lemon flavored. Do you know the last time that Hersey produced lemon flavored Jolly Ranchers? God damn, how old is this?” The vampire pulled another awkward expression, this one as disgruntled as it was disgusted.

The question, Cavan thought sourly, was whether or not he should chew the candy to get rid of it, or spit it out. Either scenario seemed like a waste of a Jolly Rancher, though, and Cavan just didn’t know if he could live with that. Besides, it tasted okay, and it wasn’t like these things expired.

Probably.

“Cavan, I’ve got a real problem. Can you please focus on something other than your damn Jolly Rancher?”

“I can’t possibly imagine you having a serious problem, kiddo. You’re only, what? Five weeks old?”

Sebastian’s mouth twisted into a sneer. Grinding his teeth, he pushed the crumpled cigarette pack across the desk. “Do you see that?”

Cavan picked up the cigarette pack and gave it a sniff. “Yes I do. Unlike you, I’m only half-blind. Also unlike you, I’ve got taste. These things are nasty. Do you want some of mine?”

“I don’t want any! I don’t smoke!” The words came out a low hiss. “So please explain why my shiny new body, as you so quaintly called it five weeks ago, is addicted to cigarettes.”

Cavan cracked a wide grin. “Well, darling, when you stuff a spirit in a body, the spirit has to deal with all of the issues that body has. The body was addicted to cigarettes, apparently. Therefore, until your spirit starts to soak into the body and it changes into you...” he trailed off, gesturing meaningfully at Sebastian.

Sebastian laughed and the sound was a little hysterical. “So, I’m addicted to cigarettes. Could you have picked me a shittier body?”

“Well I did have a crack whore lined up, but your mother put her foot down,” Cavan muttered sourly. “If it helps, it looks like you’re coming along nicely. Your eyes are more green than brown now, and your hair is growing in black.”

“Bully for me. I’m thrilled, really. In the meantime,” he snatched the pack of cigarettes from Cavan and removed a cigarette that was a little less squished than its comrades. Then he fumbled with a yellow lighter and took a pull from the cigarette. “What am I supposed to do about this? I’ve been doing this for weeks without realizing it.”

Cavan snickered. “Well unless you want to stay addicted, the last thing you want to do is what you’re doing.”

Sebastian’s face contorted. “Great. I haven’t had this body for two months yet, and I’m trashing it before I’ve fully moved in. That’s excellent.”

He put the cigarette out in the ash tray on Cavan’s desk.

Cavan continued to snicker.

There was a light tap on the door and Cavan leaned sideways to look passed Sebastian at the woman in the doorway. He smiled, his focus sharpening as he took in the sight of her. “Daliah Temperance.”

The woman stepped lightly into the room, looking between Cavan and Sebastian. “How are my two favorite men?” She asked easily as she came to stand next to Sebastian. She linked her arm with his.

Before he’d died nearly two months ago, the gesture would have felt out of place, but since Sebastian’s temporary departure from the living late last winter, Daliah Temperance had been oddly open with her affections toward her only child. Part of him still felt awkward, part of him wondered how long her favoritism would last, but part of him enjoyed the attention, and so when she linked her arm with his, he took his free hand and placed it over hers. And he felt a deep sense of satisfaction when he felt his uncle’s annoyance roll off of the older male vampire in waves.

“We’re getting along,” Sebastian noted. “Cavan was just explaining why I’ve been sucking down nicotine for the last five weeks.”

He hoped that his mother’s new-found affections would extend far enough that his statement would churn up some sort of disapproval in Daliah Temperance.

Apparently, it did not; she shrugged and put her head on Sebastian’s shoulder. “Well, when you’re a ghost, you don’t get a lot of choices about which bodies you can snatch— especially with some of the new restrictions that have been put into place. Just be thankful that I was there to stop him from putting you inside a crack whore. Even if it meant taking three extra weeks to find a body. Anyway, look on the bright side: I think you’re about the proper height now. And in another couple of months, you’ll have your own eyes again.”

“Well, they’ll be the proper color at least,” Sebastian corrected absently. In this body, he had near perfect vision, and none of his sight had a thing to do with auras or the astral plane. It had been so refreshing to open his eyes and see the world for what it really was. So much, in fact, that he could almost forgive his uncle for shoving him in a body that was addicted to cigarettes.

Daliah Temperance looked from her son to Cavan, brow furrowed.

Sebastian followed his mother’s gaze. “What?”

“Darling,” Daliah Temperance turned to him and smoothed out the lapels of his jacket. “You can’t pick and choose your genetics. It’s all or nothing.”

Sebastian felt as though he’d swallowed ice. “I’m sorry, what?”

He pulled away from his mother and gave Cavan a hard look. “What does that mean?”

Cavan made himself very busy with the single piece of paper that was on his desk.

“Cavan,” he didn’t bother to hide the bite in his voice.

Cavan looked up, looked at Daliah Temperance, and then at her son. “Your eyes will go back to the way they were, Sebastian,” Cavan explained slowly. “You’ll be blind again once you’ve completely settled into your body.”

“It’s unavoidable, darling,” Daliah Temperance added. “That’s just the way that these sorts of things work.”

Cavan offered a smile. “At least you don’t have to get any tattoos redone. Do you know how much it cost to replace some of the ones that I lost when I carked it?”

Somehow, Sebastian just didn’t feel very thankful.

Cavan swung his chair side to side as he watched Daliah Temperance and the younger male. “Look at it this way: you’ll probably get your Hour abilities back, too.”

Sebastian bit back a groan of disgust. “I told you, that’s an ability that I no longer have. The gift is only given when it’s needed. When I died, someone else will have been called to take the title.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t die, really. Well...Okay technically you did, but only for a couple of months. We brought you right back.”

“But Sanctuary needs twelve Hours; unless you called Time up and told it your plans, a new Hour would have to be put in place. Besides, it’s not my destiny to return to Sanctuary ever. That’s what the Historian said.”

Cavan sank deep into his chair and whined, “Well what good are you to me now? God, I wish I had put you in the crack whore” He pursed his lips, looking put upon by the world, and Sebastian fought the keen desire to punch that look off his uncle’s face.

“He’ll find some use for himself.” Daliah Temperance said lightly, patting Sebastian’s arm. “What’s important now is that he makes sure he gets settled into this body. Another few months and he should be completely synchronized. We’ll worry about what he can do to help J & J then.”

Cavan was still unhappy. “Well, what if we kill the person who has the powers now? Does that mean that you get them back?”

Sebastian laughed. “Cavan, the last person to kill an Hour was imprisoned in a clock tower for untold time.”

Cavan arched an eyebrow meaningfully.

“Lia didn’t kill me, Cavan.”

“Just stabbed you.”

“She didn’t mean to stab me.”

“Okay, well, I won’t mean to kill the other Hour! I’ll just trip and fall into their chest, knife first.”

“And do you have the dagger that you got from the Alchemist?” Sebastian asked archedly.

Cavan paused and then looked crestfallen. “No.” A heartbeat of silence. “Any other ideas on how to murder an Hour and get away with it?”

Sebastian shrugged. “I have no idea. I’m really not that interested. Call me selfish, but I’d rather find a way to stop myself from going blind again.”

“Well I am interested. It was the one useful thing that little brain of yours could do. Who normally gets the powers once they’re gone?”

Sebastian didn’t want to answer. In fact, he wanted very much to go home and hide under his bed forever, because all he could think about at the moment was the fact that one day, soon, he would no longer be able to see. Again.

But Sebastian knew that Cavan wouldn’t respond well to being ignored. “I have no idea,” he muttered, relieved in the honesty of the statement. “Generally speaking it’s not customary for an Hour to come back to life once he or shee has been brutally stabbed. This is rather new territory for everyone involved.”

Cavan snorted incredulously. “Useless.”

The comment was met with a sneer. “If you must know,” Sebastian snapped, “Time chooses her Hours herself. Either she bestows the ability or she alters the mind of the individual so that it’s psychically possible for them to become an acting Hour. It’s never happened while I’ve been an active Hour, and I never thought to ask.”

“Guh. You are useless.”

“Enough, Cavan.” Daliah Temperance made a sharp noise of reproach before saying, “I’m sure that all of us would be thankful for the return of Sebastian’s status as an Hour,” she cast her son a meaningful glare, anticipating a rebuttal and commanding his silence, “but it doesn’t sound like we can do anything about it one way or the other, so let’s agree to drop the subject.”

It was the closest that Dalia Temperance had ever come to standing up for her son. Sebastian was almost grateful.

“Besides,” he noted as an afterthought, “chances are, whoever has my powers isn’t even human. I’m the closest thing to human that an Hour has ever been, and I can’t imagine why Time would want to change that.”