Story Fifteen: The Jagged Pill

11 February 1998, 2:48 AM
Seraphim Chantry
Detroit, Michigan

 

            Sebastian reclined in the plush black leather chair, his legs outstretched, arms folded over his chest.  His dark eyes gazed lazily out the glass double doors that led from the study out towards the back lawn.  For the city of Detroit it was a considerable property; though little more or less impressive than the other houses neighboring it.  The mage's eyes roamed over nearly an acre of green grass, which was carefully, if not cautiously, landscaped. It was just enough to fit in with the neighborhood, but not so much as to show any particular love or interest in such an endeavor.  The last thing Sebastian and his cabal wanted was Detroit’s Arboreal Society holding photo shoots on their lawn. 

            Sebastian’s gaze was the kind of absent contemplation that was taking in everything as much as it was taking in nothing. He was more thinking than observing.  As it was, Sebastian couldn’t so much as see through the darkness of night, as he could just sense it, letting his magickal senses interpret a kind of stimuli that normal people—Sleepers—could never understand.  Sebastian shifted his weight, setting his elbows on the arms of the chair, and clasping his hands just under his chin.  He had a lot to think about.  The Tradition Council had refused to even listen to his latest proposals.  Even after the Seraphim had taken out the House of Helekar for them, they still refused to allow Sebastian into their political arena.  Their ways were too old, too entrenched; they weren’t willing to let a young, loud, rough, abrasive firestarter just waltz into their circles and toss their ways out the window, wrong as they may have been.  It was enough to make Sebastian wonder.  Maybe it wasn’t stubbornness.  Maybe it wasn’t jealousy.  Maybe he was wrong.  Maybe in their aged wisdom, they and their Traditions knew something he didn’t.

            Then again, it seemed so obvious to Sebastian.  In each of the Nine Traditions he saw a fading glimmer of possibility, nine lights which were dimming into obscurity as each moment crawled by. Each day the Technocratic Union's vision of the world tightened its grip on reality, enslaving the Sleepers and constraining the rest of the world’s magick.  Few Sebastian had met could understood that.  Sure, some like the Virtual Adepts had recognized the game and had been able to adapt, but they’d been just as successful as Sebastian at pointing that out to the others: not at all.  Unlike him, they had just given up.  If the other Traditions wanted to stagnate and fade away, let them, the Adepts figured.

            Sebastian couldn’t do that.

            The young mage almost seemed destined to fail, though.  At times he felt like the Greek, Cassandra: a prophet doomed to go unheard, though able see the events of the future present flow backward, as if watching the midnight tide crashing against the shores of reality.  Seeing the future had been one of the first tricks that Sebastian had learned as a mage.  Learning to gaze into the time yet to come and draw together the threads of probability had been even harder. Yet what marked the difference between himself and any other Ecstatic drifter–or any other mage with Time magick–was a certain ability to deconstruct what he saw and analyze the realities behind it.  It wasn’t something he had been taught to do.  Sebastian’s education, formally speaking, was pathetic.  Orphaned at age ten, he had never bothered to return to school, instead venturing out on his own.  It was more instinctive.  Over the years, Sebastian had done his best to educate himself, to better himself, but the analytical and deductive prowess he had was something that could not be trained: it was inherent to who Sebastian was, a part of what made him unique. 

            Nonetheless, like Cassandra, Sebastian seemed doomed to fail.  The only question was would Sebastian’s ability to mold the very reality around him make a difference?  Could he take all the times he had died in the car crash with his parents, died on the streets of New Orleans, the times he’d fed the Gangrels there instead of running with them, those where the Technocracy or Traditions has run him down without his seeing them coming, when he’d bled his last breath in the chaos of Mexico City, and deny not only the possible pasts but a certain future?  He was no cat; he had blown through well more than nine lives.  He had made it out of New Orleans, killing a Brujah Primogen, and living to tell the tale.  He had moved up the East Coast, waging his reckless impetuosity against all the dangers that had been strewn in his path: weresharks, elder Kindred, Technocratic clones, and Sabbat-warped monsters.  He had beaten them all back, beaten all the odds, defied all the nay-sayers.  No more so than in Detroit, where he had helped fashion a truce between the Magi, Kindred, and Garou, a feat almost unheard of among the supernatural.  He had survived the paradox-free riots of Mexico City and the Umbral assault on the House of Helekar.

            Yet still they wouldn’t listen.  He was no longer the Hollow One goth-attitude, Gangrel snarl, Ecstatic devil-may-care man he had once been: a pot-smoking, leather jacket wearing, motorcycle driving miscreant who had been along for no more than the adrenaline rush.  Along with his best friend, Chip Zelinsky, the living Avatar of King Arthur, Sebastian Duvalier was a Pendragon: a modern knight in a World of Darkness, a place where chivalry and honor were dead, but loyalty and heroism wasn’t.  To his pragmatic way of thinking, results were what mattered, nothing else.  From the simple friendship he had formed with Chip, the two had forged their own craft, one that could now boast over ten members spread across the country.  With the fall of the House of Helekar, the Council had to admit that Sebastian and Chip were pieces on the board, but they were still pieces denied autonomy: pieces that were yet moved and placed at the whim of the Council of Nine.  And while other crafts, most notably, the Hollow Ones, had little or no interest in the Council’s actions–or at least pretended not to–the Pendragons did.

            Chip was the linchpin of the Pendragons in terms of a body at war, as well as their moral center: a beacon of light for which others to gather around.  Sebastian was the mastermind behind the scenes, the one who made things happen: the planner, the schemer, the strategist.  Through thick and thin, it had been Chip’s heart that had pulled others towards them, and Sebastian’s machinations that had kept them there: utilizing a modern philosophy, unique enough to stand out for some, but brash enough to be brushed aside by others as too loud, too violent, and too unconventional.

            What disappointed Sebastian the most, was that of all people, the Council should have realized the repeating pattern of their existence.  One of the earliest things Sebastian had been taught by the Ecstatics who had found him as a young, naïve Awakened child, was the Metaphysic Trinity.  All existence was governed by three forces: Dynamism, Stasis, and Entropy, each of which was necessary, though all of which worked against each other.  The idea was to create a balance; if any of the three aspects of the trinity gained too much power, then the world was endangered.  Dynamism was the force of change, when something old gave birth to something new.  Stasis was the time during which those new forces plateaued, not changing: holding a static pattern.  Entropy was the necessary part of the cycle where what had become stagnant broke down and was destroyed.  Then from the ashes, Dynamism occurred again, and the cycle began anew.  The Traditions, as perhaps foreshadowed by their name, had for too long been locked in Stasis.

            Too late, Sebastian realized that his voice had been too eager, too brazen, too different.  If and when change came, it would come slowly—unless such change was forced upon them.  Sebastian still hoped that that wouldn’t be the case.   Because nothing less than the obliteration of most of the Traditions and their archmages would cause that.  Yet that was one possibility.  The Technocracy may have been a slow and prodding machine, but they were a powerful one, one which had shown an unerring ability to strike as fast as a viper when the time was ripe–just as they had at the Convention of the White Tower, when they had first started their campaign of control under the guise of helping the Sleepers.

            Unfortunately, Sebastian was like many people, mage or not, and focused too much on his failures, not his successes.  Too quickly he dismissed the peace of his city and the opportunity and example that it had become, wondering each day what the Council wanted with his cousin Katrina, the one who had first called him to the North, the one that was supposed to be dead, but was now skipping from Tradition safehouse to Tradition safehouse; he wondered what or who had put his then-girlfriend into a coma and taken his child.  He dwelt on his first run-in with his students’ ex-boss, M Bison, and the beating the villain had given a much less experienced Chip and Sebastian.  Sebastian remembered the translucent smiles and amused glares the Horizon mages gave him before—and the veiled suspicion they had regarded them with after—they had taken down the House of Helekar.  Sebastian couldn’t see that the Pendragons’ growth continued slowly, that more and more in the upper echelons of the Traditions were paying attention.  Just not the ones that were speaking to him.  He couldn’t see that they weren’t afraid of him being wrong, but of him being right.

Thus like too many people, Sebastian sat gazing outward, his heart heavy, depression creeping into his veins: caressing his limbs, turning his stomach.  It was a melancholy which ran its course through Sebastian periodically.  Unlike some, he didn’t drink to combat it; he didn’t see a psychologist.  He didn’t see the need for Prozac or any other artificial remedy.  The only thing he needed was time.  Sebastian knew he could be moody, sometimes dangerously so, but that was who he was.  Everything he felt was a part of him; if that included hurt, sorrow, or depression, it was still him.  Just because he did not like it did not make it not so.  Enough time, enough recognizing that his pains were no different, no worse, than that of others would be enough to ameliorate it eventually.  While his concerns may have dealt with something more grandiose than the issues of most humans, he knew that at a base level they were no different; it was the thinking that mages were better or different that cursed many of his kind.  Sebastian was affected by a lack of respect, by not being noticed by his superiors, the exhaustion of starting one’s own enterprise, love, death, greed, loss, and regret.  In that sense, the fact that he could make a roulette wheel stop where he wanted it, that he could see another’s future thousands of miles away, talk to spirits not of his world, and cause a person to have a very sudden and permanent brain hemorrhage across the city if it suited his purposes, did not make him immune to the most common of humanity’s curses and gifts, but only made him more keenly aware of them.

But as with most of his mental prowess, any perspicacity Sebastian had was largely instinctual and it was only as of late that he had been able to vocalize any of it.  He had always been graceful in social situations, gliding in and out of engagements with a silver tongue and quick wit: reading a little of this and little of that, always enough to engage in conversation and flow through it.  But it was only recently that he had become a leader.  Ever the spirit of dynamism, Sebastian had undergone many changes in the past years.  He had been a young thrillseeker, a more responsible if impulsive rebel leader, and a refined businessman more conscious of wealth and status; and only now was he learning to mold each of those distinct phases of his life, instead of trying to be one thing or the other.  He still had the money, but he no longer fixated on it; it was now only a means to an end.  It was a way to pay for food and utilities, a way to house and clothe himself and his friends without any of them having to work. They all had more important things to do than be locked into cubicles forty hours a week.  He was still a rebel, one who rode on the edge, but he was an older rebel, a wiser rebel.  Spending much of his adolescence with Kindred, he liked to make the analogy that even Anarchs and Sabbat had elders.  (Given, he had always fought with the Camarilla, a sect opposed to the other two, but it was a demonstrative enough example.)  He knew a little bit about everything, and knew how to do a little of anything.  He could discuss medical discourse with Chip, academia with Dylan (a Pendragon who was a college professor), or how to mix drinks with Rayne (another Pendragon who was a bartender).  Sebastian was a master of hand-to-hand combat, a quick study of the Akashic Brother, George, whom had found residence and friendship with Sebastian and his students; he was accomplished with guns, cars, and motorcycles: repairing, using, and destroying.

Most importantly, Sebastian had found a rhythm to his existence.  The more he had come to communicate with his elusive avatar, the more he had begun to work his intuition in line with the ebb and flow of the Tellurian.  Pendragons, by method, were highly visual magi, who tended to visualize their rotes and focus themselves through that visualization and discipline, utilizing only the smallest and least conspicuous of foci in the act.  Sebastian was no different.

Having grown up as a quick study of Entropy, seeing and understanding lines of probability, Sebastian tended to see all of reality as one large pattern.  Given, it was a pattern that moved and changed and flowed, as if a kind of cosmic ocean, made up of threads rather than wet molecules, but he could detect layers of existence that were unimaginable to the common human.  Where others saw static and solid objects, Sebastian saw only malleability.  Each brick wall, each safe door was little more than a thin veneer of putty, unshaped perfection awaiting the virtuosity of a master sculptor: the ocean of reality that to Sebastian meant no more than that we were all brains in a vat, even if the vats were our own bodies.

Sebastian too often suffered from the same glazed look that accompanied many Ecstatics, a sundry of whom operated with their magickal senses always on, mired in a confluence of realities.  Sebastian had such a look on his face.  The Pendragon did not see a set of glass doors, a sprawling body of green grass, its individual blades shivering beneath the cold wind, or thetrees lining the boundary of the property; he saw a shimmering, transparent wave, beyond which were millions of living fibers, each of which moved under the gentle touch of an even more ephemeral presence, softly kissing the living tissues underneath it: a larger, if intangible body, bracketed as such by giant pillars of knotted growth, each stretching heavenward arbitrarily, arms outstretched, clinging to each other as they clung to the sod below them.  To Sebastian, even up and down, living and unliving were but abstractions, subjective terms which he recognized as markers of definition and alignment. Yet nearly an archmage, these things were but relative points of measurement, by which he anchored his views to those of others.

He continued to gaze outward, lost in thought: pondering the mistakes he had made and would undoubtedly make again.   At the source of his internal conflict, mired under layers of stubborn pride was a desperate prayer to be wrong.  He didn’t want to be the new Cassandra.

 

 

 

11 May 1971, 3:49 PM
Presidential Retreat
Port-au-Prince, Haiti

 

            Baby Doc laughed from his plush sofa, reclining on extraneous heaps of pillows, each lined with Asian silks, smooth and pleasing to the touch.  The marble floor was partially covered by bright colored Oriental rugs, all authentically hand-woven, imported directly from the East.  Baby Doc—born Jean-Claude Duvalier—waved his hand again at his servant, gesturing idly, flipping the backside of his hand upward.

            “Go away,” Jean-Claude said, speaking a clean French, one unlike the rough colonial dialect that many of the natives spoke.

            Cautiously, the manservant eased out of the room, as if afraid of further displeasing his master.  Baby Doc looked back at his mistress.  She had a pathetic, pleading look on her face.  This only amused him.  He smiled, reigning in his laughter.  There had always been something about her–something more than her pretty face.  Perhaps it was the name.  Marie was a common enough name, though.  It was hard to say.  Baby Doc’s soft, pampered hand gently sculpted her face, taking in the curves of her cheek and chin, gliding around the curvatures that defined her beauty.  Perhaps it was her mixed racial heritage.  The woman was part native Indian, part Negro.  Yet she had a French name.  Such an odd woman.  Marie.  Marie Lecavalier.

            She started to say something, but Jean-Claude’s fingers moved over her lips as he made a soft remonstrance: “Shhhh.”  His eyes danced behind his pale skin.  “Shhh.  It will be okay.”

            Baby Doc reached back to the end table just beyond the sofa behind him, straining to reach a plate of fruit.  He picked it up and set it in his lap, placing a small wedge of sliced orange between his forefinger and thumb: swirling it on the plate, tracing invisible lines between the other pieces of fruit.

            “Patience,” Baby Doc said softly, not averting his gaze from the plate, as he could feel the young woman try to speak again.  The next President of Haiti cocked his head back, resting it on one of the plethora of pillows layering the sofa, absently gazing at the orange slice: looking at it, but not really looking at it.  A small smile escaped his lips and he devoured it.

            His jaw still chomping, he lowered his gaze to Marie.  She still looked frightened.  Annoyed, Jean-Claude dropped his hand, letting it fall to his side.

            Marie stood up, more than frustrated at her annoyed partner.  She turned her back on him, pacing.  “You are a married man,” she said, in a cruder French than Jean-Claude’s.   “You are the president’s son.”

            “Of course,” Jean-Claude said.  “That should be obvious.”  His laughing eyes followed her pacing.  “What has you so worried?” 

            Marie continued, as if uninterrupted.  “As such, you have pretenses you must maintain.  Of course, powerful men have mistresses.  Such is the way of the world.  But to start fathering babies to such whores is a different story, isn’t it?”

            Jean-Claude’s jaw froze in mid-bite, about to have consumed another orange slice.  His eyes went wide, unprepared for any such surprises.  “Fathering?” he asked, his eyebrows raising.  He sat up suddenly, swinging his feet past Marie and leaning forward, even as she edged back, startled by his quick movement.

            Jean-Claude’s relaxed decadence transformed with frightening violence.  Standing, his arms snapped outward like the stinging fangs of a viper, taking hold of her shoulders, his eyes narrowing to angry slits.  “What did you say?” he asked, shaking her.

            Marie looked downward, ashamed.

            Baby Doc forced her to look into his eyes, taking her chin forcefully with one hand, even while shaking her again with the other.  “What did you say?” he asked lounder.

Still she dared not answer.

“What did you say?” he screamed, inches from her face.

            Marie’s eyes welled up with tears.  She struggled to look away, but he would not let her.  He could see the veins in her forehead pop out as her jaw clenched tightly, pulling in her cheeks ever so slightly; her thin body quivered.  “You have made me pregnant,” she whispered, as if expelling her last breath.

            Baby Doc shoved her face away from him, twisting her head around.  He stood up on the couch, his hands flapping expressively, looking upward.  He held up his forefinger, as if about to say something, but then waved his hand dismissively and began to pace, kicking pillows out of his way, his bare feet plodding against the soft surface of the sofa.

            Marie began crying softly, trying to muffle her sobs, so as not to offend her master: her back rising and falling as her body shook.

            “This is not good,” Baby Doc said.  “This is disastrous,” he said even louder.

            “I did not want it either,” Marie said.

            “Did I say I didn’t?” Baby Doc yelled, bending at the waist, leaning in towards her.

            “No,” Marie replied.

            “Well I don’t,” he answered, straightening up.  “I don’t want to be a legitimate father, let alone father to a bastard.”

            “But he won’t be that,” Marie sobbed.  “He will have a father.”

            Baby Doc’s head shot a dangerous look downward, his eyes widening, “No,” he said, his hand stabbing down at her.  “No.”  The hand punctuated his sentence with another movement directed at her.  He shook his head.  “No.  He will have no father.”

            “You could raise him as your own.  Give him to your wife.”

            “Do not ever mention her again to me,” Jean-Claude said

            “You will ignore your own son?”

            “I have no son,” Baby Doc said thoughtfully, almost absently.  He folded his arms over his chest and hopped off the couch, landing next to Marie, but with his back to her, and walked away.  “Sadly, I cannot control the actions of a whore.”  He let one hand roam expressively through the air, as if its motion contributed to his thoughts.  “Nor can I be surprised when her promiscuity inevitably gets her impregnated by one of the many men that regularly violates her.”

            “But I haven’t been with anyone else. You know that,” Marie snapped, rising to her feet.

            Baby Doc cut off the continuation of her sentence, whirling, holding up his hand, shaking his head.  “I will not be unkind,” he said, shrugging.  “I will not kill or imprison you for your carelessness.  But you must leave.”

            “But – “

            “That is it.”

            “Leave?” she said, crestfallen.

            “Yes," Jean-Claude said.  "Leave.”

            “But, your son,” Marie pleaded, grasping at his clothes.

            Baby Doc pushed her away roughly.  Marie fell to the couch, tears falling freely.  “I have no son,” he said again.  He paused, thinking.  “I will make sure you have been set up safely elsewhere by morning.”

            “Elsewhere?” she sobbed.  “Where will I go?  What will I do?”

            “That does not concern me,” Jean-Claude said, shrugging again, andturning his back on her.  “I will of course give you some money.  But you cannot ask me for any more.”  He paused for a moment to think.  "By this time tomorrow, you’ll be in America.”

            “America?” Marie said, incredulous.

            “Yes.  New Orleans.  I believe there are plenty of Haitians there to keep you company .”

            “But, but–“ Marie stammered.

            “I’ll go make the arrangements,” Baby Doc said, not even turning back to the newly pregnant Marie, walking towards the door, ignoring the violently sobbing woman.  Although by no means did he hide it intentionally, she could not have seen the self-gratified grin on his face.

 

 

 

11 February 1998, 3:01 AM
Seraphim Chantry
Detroit, Michigan

 

            Sebastian ran a hand through his long, black hair, exhaling deeply.  He shook his head.  For some reason, lost in thought, he believed that he had uncovered some unconscious pain.  Without warning, his eyes had begun to well up, as if he had been about to cry, possessed also by a sudden tightening of his stomach muscles.  Sebastian stretched his eyes, widening them, then squinting, before returning them to their normal width again.  He rubbed his temples.  What odd emotion had suddenly grasped him?  Where had such immediate and desperate sorrow come from?  Could it be his avatar again, playing games with him?

            Sebastian’s avatar was one of the rare primordial essences.  Many Tradition mages had dynamic essences, avatars which pushed them to change themselves and the things around them.  Others, most archetypically Technocrats, had pattern essences, those avatars which desired stability and order.  Many of both kinds had questing essences, those which simply thirsted for experience after experience, but one in which how one got there was more important than actually getting there, as was finishing the first experience before moving on to the next.  The least common essence of avatar was the primordial: the oldest, representing the beginning and the end, with abrupt and direct manners, powerful as they were dangerous.  In many ways, that described Sebastian’s avatar to a T.

            Avatars had many ways of manifesting themselves.  Some mages believed that they were merely the inner part of all people: a conscience or id or what not.  Others believed that they were separate entities, living in a state of symbiosis with their host bodies, or that they were each shards of some cosmic godhood.  Whatever the explanation was, the avatars of awakened mages could often communicate and teach the mage, somehow able to pass down the wisdom of those that came before them.  The avatar often seemed to have been linked to, was a part of, or somehow remembered past lives, of which in rare instances, was one of great significance.  An excellent example was Sebastian’s best friend Chip, who was the modern embodiment of the legendary King Arthur; this was something other mages could feel tangibly, a charisma and power that exuded from his or her very pores–and something of which even the sleepers were forced to unconsciously recognize and respect.  Many discoveries and clues had led the two of them to believe that Sebastian’s avatar was somehow tied up in similar lore, but they had not discovered whom, if anyone related, he was.  And Sebastian’s avatar had been less than forthcoming about any of his past.

            Sebastian’s avatar was like many primordial essences who appeared to their partners as animal totems or in the images of mythological gods and heroes.  For better or worse, Sebastian’s spiritual visage was less than inspiring.  The few times it had appeared to Sebastian, it had appeared as Loki, the Norse God of mischief.  That had always seemed appropriate for Sebastian’s earlier life: one equally fraught with petty misdeeds.  He found if amusing then, though had since become much more wary about it.  Sebastan especially feared that his avatar might eventually evolve into one of the more insidious aspects of the god, such as the one which represented evil.

            That miscreant spirit was what made Sebastian suspect that his avatar might have been behind his sudden mood.  Loki, as he had resigned to calling him, was known for toying with Sebastian’s subconscious.  He would be mysteriously silent for extended periods of time, punctuated by seemingly random bursts of activity, where he would mingle with Sebastian’s mind, infusing him with sudden memories, emotions, and thoughts, only few of which he could ever grasp onto at once.  On a few occasions, Sebastian had been able to catch his avatar playing these tricks and had confronted him in the internal landscape that most mages called a Seeking.  A Seeking was that moment of time that lasted an interminable duration, in which a mage was forced to confront his inner self, to discover truths, potentials, stories, and perhaps even more.  Successful Seekings could lead mages to a greater awareness of their magick or glimpse vital insights into their past.  Failures could lead to temporary–or in extreme cases, permanent–mental trauma or severe paradox backlashes.

            Sebastian swung his torso forward and pushed up off of the chair, standing.  He pricked his ears, listening for any noise.  He heard nothing.  As far as he knew, all of the others were asleep.  The books sitting on the shelves lining the walls surrounding him suddenly seemed to make him dizzy.  He put his arms out, as if trying to catch his balance, almost as if stopping traffic–only in this case the traffic was in his mind.  He must have stood up too fast, too suddenly.  The room was spinning, faster and faster, leaving his senses far behind.

            His closed his eyes, dipping his head, his hands still outstretched.  His magickal senses snapped outward, reorienting himself, assuring him of what was real, anchoring him to the static reality where bookcases didn’t suddenly swirl around one.  Sebastian took a deep breath, his chest unexpectedly heavy, almost as if he had forgotten to breathe for a moment.  His chin-length hair dripped in front of him, where it would have blocked his view had his eyes been open—had he needed his eyes to see.

   His arms still outstretched, tensed, muscles gripping tightly, if only symbolically at the reality around him, with dark skin hidden under layers of clothing, Sebastian exhaled slowly, still attempting to reorient himself, still forcing the breath out of his lungs and back in.  It was almost as if the mage's body was telling him he didn’t need to breathe anymore and it was only by focusing on it could he do so.  Regardless, as was Sebastian’s custom, he used that problem to his advantage: using the steady, forced rhythm of his breathing to anchor his perception.  As he did so, his eyes opened instinctively.

It was almost as if he could feel time slow.  His eyes seemed to creep open, lifted under too-heavy gravity, his reactions curbed, yet cognizance instant.  Underneath his gaze, he could see a fine white mist blow past his loose, dark, strands of hair.  Had it gotten that cold inside or was he seeing something altogether different?  His head lifted slowly, still as if time had indeed slowed.  Sebastian breathed out.   Again he saw his breath.

           Sebastian looked out through the doors, drawn to the dark lawn, as if the glass were a sudden gravitic force under whose sway he was powerless against.  Slow steps took him into a too-close orbit, leaning on the cool windowpanes.   Sebastian let the cold glass sear his forehead, while chilling his forearms through his thin turtleneck.  His body was tense, shaking slightly, wracked with a sudden and unknown nervousness, a feeling totally alien to his normal grace under pressure.

            Despite the mindless suction that his sudden state placed him suspect to, panicked to the point of complete immobility, a phobia of sorts, constraining him to his current position, yet one that compelled him to see, to look, to move, to push past the seemingly solid door: pausing only to regroup, to ready for the cold, he thought one thing over and over in his mind, repeating the phrase as if it could be the one thing that would anchor him through any temporary psychosis.

What was his avatar trying to show him?

 

 

 

12 May 1971, 11:21 AM
Presidential Residence
Port-au-Prince, Haiti

 

            “What have you done?” Francois Duvalier growled at his son.

            “I got rid of a problem.”

            Francois looked across his desk at his decadent son.  Francois was outfitted in his usual, austere, military outfit.  In contrast, Jean-Claude wore some bright-colored silken affair, which Francois certainly did not approve of.  As with nearly everything regarding his son, it was too soft, too material for the rough dictator’s taste.  He had spent a lifetime securing a place of power and his son was more interested in rum, silk, and native women.  Such a waste.

            “You got rid of a problem?”

            “Yes,” Jean-Claude said, shrugging.

            Francois stood up slowly, leaning on the desk with both hands, his shoulders hunched up.  The late morning sun shone through the windows, hitting his back, casting a menacing shadow over Jean-Claude.  The only reason Jean-Claude was known as Baby Doc was because the natives called his father Papa Doc.  Francois, or Papa Doc, was a widely regarded houngan, a powerful priest of Voodoo.  And while most of those stories were wrought in myth, superstition, and propaganda, few knew how true the rumors were.  Papa Doc was a fantastically powerful mage.  He was allied with no faction, however.  He simply used his magick for his own gain—and to cultivate powerful allies.

            “You got rid of a problem?” Francois seemed fixated on this point.

            “Yes–“ Jean-Claude began.

            “You got rid of a problem!” Each time Francois, or Poppa Doc, said it, the phrase became less of a question and more of a statement.

            “What was I to do?” Jean-Claude asked, holding his arms out.

            “Since you have been capable of precious little in your short life, perhaps you should have consulted me first.”

            “What was there to say or do?  She was a mistress.  She got pregnant.  I got rid of her.”

            “Did it not occur to you once what blood runs through your veins, even though you choose to ignore it?  Did it not occur to you that any child you produce would be of that blood?”

            “It would be the son of a whore, father–“

            Francois stomped around his desk and approached Jean-Claude threateningly.  Jean-Claude instinctively took a step backward.

            “That child will be a Duvalier!” Francois roared.  “A Duvalier!  While you may care little for the blood of your ancestors, as you care for little but yourself and the momentary pleasures that you can eke out of your wasted existence, that does not change the fact that there is a rich history in that blood.”

            “Yes, yes, something about our French blood,” Jean-Claude said off-handedly, shrugging.

            Francois’s arm cocked back and roared forward so fast Jean-Claude never saw it: taking the back-handed strike right across his cheek.  Jean-Claude recoiled, instinctively clutching his face, shocked.

            “It is a blood which goes back at least to the 1300s, Jean-Claude.  One which has more significance than you can possibly imagine.  One which transcends the mortal lineage we are a part of, one which hides hidden secrets you could not even begin to imagine.  One which only recently has found a home for future reparations, with our Serpentine friends, to whom the past is dark, but whose Light may save our hidden family yet.”  Francois’ eyes were almost bulging out of his skull; his face was red, his veins tearing out of his forehead and neck.  “And you would waste this all on what?  Your family honor?”

            “How would it look–“

            “And now you’re concerned with honor?  You a spendthrift dog!” Francois spun, turning on his son again.  “We still await a female heir to inherit the fortune.”  He began to pace,

            “Don’t we have enough?” Jean-Claude asked.

            “Never,” Papa Doc spat, spinning back around, his eyes boring into his son.  He paused, allowing himself to catch his breath.  Jean-Claude said nothing either, waiting with trepidation, wondering which rant would follow next.

            Francois’ eyes narrowed dangerously.  He spoke slowly and very softly, either choosing the words carefully or simply speaking them deliberately.  “I have long given up hope on you.  Yet I have always known that your child would be the one.  I knew my grandson or daughter would be the one.  For generations we have passed down our family story, each time telling only that member of the lower generation who was worthy: not necessarily the oldest or the favorite, but the one most suited to the responsibility and legacy.  I knew that would never be you.  But your son.  I always felt it would be your son.  Your eldest daughter would get the family fortunes.  But the son.  He would be the one.  He would be the one to strike the stones, to lament the tomes which tell the tale of the piles of bones, the ashes of our ancestors, calling forth the Lazerines from their underworld slumber, to wreck their unholy vengeance on all who betrayed what friendships and kinships they had.”

            Jean-Claude was utterly baffled.  Indeed, Francois could hardly have expected him to follow any of the conversation.  Rather, it was more Francois speaking his frustrations aloud.   As evil of a man as he may have been, a harsh dictator known to the world as a butcher of his own people, he was still a man with dreams and hopes and frustrations: lonely under the burden of centuries of struggle, to which he had personally done all he could.  He had opened the door for them, he had made the contacts necessary to lay the pretext for their new alliances of which they would need to survive a return.  They were ironic allies, the most unlikely of ones, actually.  But then again, they weren’t really their enemies.  They were their anti-enemies.

            “Get out,” Francois said softly.

            “What?” Jean-Claude said.

            “Get out!” Francois roared.

            Though confused, Jean-Claude was happy to be away from the baleful glare and bitter disappointment of his father.  He walked out of the office shaking his head, already looking for his next drink, trying to decide on whom to displace all of his father’s anger onto.

            Francois watched his son stride out of the room.  His anger quickly melted into bitter sorrow.  No matter the quality of the man, no matter what his life meant, what he was worth, what he did, every man wanted to see his son continue his life’s work, or failing that, make something of himself.  Francois’ son would never do either.  His heart felt heavy, almost oppressive.  He put a hand to his chest unconsciously, slowly.  His head dipped.  At least something else made sense.

            It must have been his daughter-in-law.  She was frigid.  It was the only explanation.  His son had failed to produce an heir after years of marriage.  It was the only explanation.  That is, as long as it was he who sired the progeny of the mistress and not some other man.  But if his son had sent the woman away, then there was no way to know.  Not yet.  There were ways to find out such things, however.

            Francois reached over to the intercom on his desk and buzzed his secretary.  “Have Horatio report to my office,” he said tersely.  His tone of voice indicated it should be done immediately.

            “Yes, sir,” was the crackly response.

            Francois nodded to himself, satisfied that that was taken care of.  “What a dilemma, eh Papa Legba?” the houngan chuckled to himself, invoking the name of the highest Voodoo Loa, or spirit.  “We must be ready.”

            Francois moved off to the side of the room and reached behind one of the bookshelves.  He tugged at something, and from approximately the waist up, the bookshelves peeled outward, revealing a set of shelves.  Odd jars and vials of roots, minerals, and liquids sat in an orderly fashion, all waiting for Poppa Doc.  He pulled out a small, empty vial.  Carrying it in both hands; contemplatively, he turned, taking his time, and moved towards his desk.  Reaching some kind of internal conclusion, he set it down in the middle of the large wood desktop and turned back to the shelves.  He quickly grabbed a thick pouch.   Returning just as quickly to the desk, he plunged his hand into the pouch, pulling out a handful of thick white powder.  He began to carefully deposit it intricately onto the desk, creating a carefully designed pattern.  The powder was called farine, a special flour produced by Voodoo houngans for use in rituals.  With it, he was drawing a vévé of the Loa La Grande Erzulie.  In general, Erzulie was the Loa which represented the ideal figure of womanhood; this particular aspect of that Loa was that of an elderly, grief-stricken woman.  If any spirit could find his lost blood, it would be her.  A vévé, as it was called, was an intricate design or pattern which represented a specific Loa; a houngan drew the symbol to call upon a certain Loa: to ask certain favors or simply to ask thanks.  In this case, Poppa Doc needed a favor.

            Francois bent down and pulled out a knife from a sheath in his boot, where it had been hidden under his pant leg.  He looked at it for a moment, as if contemplating, even though he knew what must be done.  Behind him, he could hear the door open.  It would be Horatio.  He did not turn away from the knife.  The man would know better than to interrupt Francois.

            Papa Doc began to speak his old French slowly, softly.  “La Grande Erzulie.  I must find the lost progeny of my blood, my grandchild.  For this I beg your aid.”  Francois began to make an incision across his forearm, pulling the blade slowly.  As a trail of blood began to follow the deliberate descent of the blade, he moved his arm directly over the small vial.  “Take this smallest bit of my lifeforce, so that you might find he who is kin to me and mine.  His–“ he caught himself "–or hers, will be more like mine than any others, more than would be otherwise possible.”

            Francois set down the blade and pulled his arm up at a stiff angle, so that the blood trickled down his arm.  He turned quickly and took another vial with the other hand.  He closed his eyes for a moment and the top of the vial spun off on its own, flying to the floor; he ignored it, turning back to the desk and the other vial, directly in the middle of the farine vévé.

            Papa Doc's face was stoic, lost in the art of his magick, taking no pleasure in this ritual.  It was something he should not have had to do.  Then again, working hard to make up for his son was nothing new.  “I pour into my own blood, the ichor of the jellyfish, whose natural phosphorescence lights the sea.  And now I ask that you make it glow once more.  But only when near the blood that resembles most mine, when near that which it mixes with.  That way I may find my lost progeny: the one you know is promised to me–to us–to the family, to the name, to the cause, to the restoration: to the vengeance.”  With each word Francois built up a seething anger and bitterness, something far beyond any displeasure he had shown to his son, further than anything that could be justified by his life alone.

            That done, he slowly dropped to the floor, recovered the top of the vial, screwed it back on, and returned it to the shelf.  He took a bandage from one of the top shelves and rapidly wrapped it around his forearm.  He then took another top, which he placed on the newly consecrated vial.  He dipped his finger into a small, open vial of some type of ointment, spreading it around the seal of that jar, sealing it with more than adhesive: applying a final incantation to the work.  Only then did he turn to his visitor.

            Horatio was a tall white man.  He was dressed in a green suit, which other than the missing tie and open top buttons of his white shirt, was the traditional garb of a professional businessman.  His skin had a greenish tinge, almost as if he was ill, but Francois knew better.  As usual, the man had a charming air, with a crooked, almost dangerous smile.  His eyes gleamed at Francois.  The dictator knew that it was too early to deal with his real allies.  Horatio, their servant, would have to do.

            “That sounded interesting,” Horatio said, cocking his head.

            “Sit down,” Francois said.  “We have much to discuss.”

 

 

 

 

11 February 1998, 3:09 AM
Seraphim Chantry
Detroit, Michigan

 

            Sebastian pushed through the marshmellowy red and golden strands that had been the French doors, pushing through the too soft glass: melting into the outdoors.  His senses were on full alert: searching through spacial, temporal, and spiritual planes, scrying for magick, looking for other minds, all while focusing through his vaunted Entropy powers, looking for any sign of disorder on any of those levels.  Sebastian sensed nothing out of the ordinary.  Sure, there were the flowing blades of grass below him, the arboreal fence on the perimeter of the lawn, and the fluid atmosphere, kissing him slightly, coolly, gently.  But there was nothing odd: no cause for alarm.

            You find nothing because you look in the wrong place, a deep voice rumbled from behind him.

            Sebastian spun, his body tensing, preparing for the battle he had become accustomed to.  Again there was nothing; he was sensing on two-thirds of the levels of perception known to exist; there were few creatures that he knew of that would not register at some level on at least half of those possibilities–meaning that eluding all of his senses was nearly impossible.

            Still you are a fool.

            Turning again, whipping around, senses firing wildly, arms poised in defensive marital forms, Sebastian found nothing.

            Always, I have to explain to you in painstaking detail.  Always.

            “Who’s dere,” Sebastian rasped, still turning fluidly on his heel, searching around him.  “Is dat you Loki?”

            Getting warmer, the voice said.

            “Where are you?”

            Still you do not accept me.

            “What are you talkin' 'bout?” Sebastian asked, turning again, vainly trying to spy his avatar.  Yet he could not discern where it was lurking.

            Who am I?

            Sebastian closed his eyes.  His instincts, though usually eerily accurate, had overreacted.  In looking for something wrong, in searching for danger, he had overlooked the most obvious answer.  The only danger was himself.  The only voice was himself.  As Loki had reminded him enough times, the avatar was perhaps different in some ways, but not in the one that mattered most.  For all intents and purposes, when the avatar had joined with Sebastian, whenever that had been, it changed; it had become as much a part of him as he had of it.  The voice came from within.

            Very good.

            Show yourself, Sebastian thought.  It’s always easier that way.

            Very well.

            Sebastian opened his eyes.  Before him was a different Loki than he had become accustomed to.  Swirling dark green robes covered his body, obfuscating anything underneath; a thick cowl fell over his face.  Only a sharp chin jutted out from the shadows.  And then, Sebastian could see a widening grin creep across his avatar’s face, the corners curling upward above his protruding chin, reminding him of Caroll's chesire cat.  Two hands appeared out of the folds of the robes and reached for the cowl, pulling it back and dropping the cowl behind his head. Loki’s pale face was clear for the first time: trailed by long strands of blond hair pulled behind him, the ponytail fluttering in the ethereal wind.  Sebastian unconsciously ran a hand through his own long, dark hair.

            Loki said nothing.  He just continued to smile.

            Sebastian looked around one more time, as if expecting something more.  There was nothing else.  Just he and Loki.   “What is it you want?” the mage asked.

            “There is much to discuss,” Loki said.

            “Like what?”

            Loki walked forward, moving uncomfortably close to Sebastian; enough so that the mage could feel the avatar’s breath rake against his face.  “Like you will be leaving for a trip soon on which you will return to a changed world and where you will see the one link to your true past but won’t recognize it for anything other than what you think it is, which it will also be, but that in the long run will be wholly irrelevant.”

            “What you talkin' 'bout?” Sebastian said, in his characteristically gravelly voice.

            “Nothing,” Loki said, backing away and waving his hand dismissively.  “That is the future.  I come to speak of the past.  Of things that I have seen from before you knew of me.”

            “How’s dat?  You mean from past lives?” Sebastian rasped.

            “No.  From yours.  Before you were Awake.”

            “When I was a child?”

            “And even before.”

            “Ah don’ understand,” Sebastian said, shaking his head.

            “Of course not.”

            Sebastian glowered at Loki.

            “Yes.  Well, you must understand me to understand that.  I have always been a seer of sorts.  It was not until I fused with you that I became able to see forwards and backwards through time.  However, I have always been attuned to Correspondence.  Even when we were not one awakened entity, I could see things happening around and near us.  Even before you could see anything.”

            “Before Ah could see . .  .” Sebastian’s voice trailed off.  “But dat would mean . . . “  He looked up suddenly, realizing what it was that Loki was getting at.

            “Yes,” Loki said slowly.

            “Before Ah was born?  You mean when Ah was in mah mother’s womb?”

            “Very good.”

            “How?” Sebastian asked.

            “Well, I am a god,” Loki said, shrugging.

            Sebastian’s eyebrows lowered.

            “Are you so threatening to everyone?” Loki asked.

            Sebastian rolled his eyes, looking elsewhere.

            “I’m serious,” Loki said.  “Do you have any idea how frightening your demeanor can be from moment to moment?  Or how violent such changes in your mood and visage are?”

            “What’s your point?” Sebastian growled.

            “Think about it,” Loki said quickly, waving his hand as he did so, as if signaling that he was moving on.  “Anyway.  There are things you must know before you leave for your quest.”

            “Like what?  Sebastian said.

            “Well, it all starts back in Haiti.  About nine months before you were born.”

           

 

11 February 1998, 3:51 AM
Seraphim Chantry
Detroit, Michigan

 

            Chip moved next to Bail, looking out through the large bay windows that gazed onto the dark expanse of their property, trying to follow the younger mage’s stare.  Bail was in his pajamas, barefoot, lost in some kind of search: whether internal or external, Chip was trying to discern.  The young Pendragon’s head shook slightly, as if waking from a dream, then twisted towards Chip; reflexively, Bail jumped backwards, surprised by Chip’s mammoth size.  Sudden as Chip’s arrival seemed to him, he was caught off guard.

            “Relax,” Chip said.

            “God, easy for you to say,” Bail said.  “You scared the hell out of me.”

            “What are you staring at?” Chip asked.

            “Sebastian,” Bail said, turning back towards the lawn.

            “Is everything okay?” Chip’s deep voice rumbled.

            “That remains to be determined.”

            “How did you get up here?”  Chip scratched his head.  “I mean, what drew you up here?”

            “I was just going the bathroom, when I sensed movement outside.  Then when I saw it was Sebastian, I just wanted to see what was going on.”  Bail looked up.  “What about you?”

            “I–uh.  Well, I just felt something.  Something powerful.  I just wanted to make sure everything was safe and secure.”

            “He’s on some kind of vision quest,” Bail said, still staring out the window.  “His mind is no longer seeing our reality.  I think he’s talking to his avatar.”

            “Can you use your Spirit senses to discern what’s happening?” Chip asked.

            “Well,” Bail began, “yes.  But I think he’s on some kind of a Seeking.  It seemed personal.”

            Chip nodded, then turned back to the window.  “I wonder what he’s seeing?”

 

 

 

 

23 November 1971, 5:23 PM
Michaels Household
New Orleans, Louisiana

 

            It was a small house that they approached.  Weather worn green shingles hung tight to the outside of the building, framed by black shutters, one of which, off to the left, was falling off of its hinges.  The neighborhood was a poor one; it was plain to see that not a lot of money was made or spent by the people who lived there.  The grass was green, from the rain, if not care.  The driveway off to the left of the path they walked up was only gravel.  A small, red, rusted Chevy Nova sat in front of a small, detached garage.  The two men melted through the outer walls, slipping into the edifice.

            “Do you recognize it still?” Loki asked.

            “Ah could never forget,” Sebastian whispered, uncharacteristically caught up in the moment.

            “Do you know the story?”

            “Course not.   Until a short time ago, Ahbelieved he was mah father.”

            “He was in all ways but the one that counts,” Loki said, looking over at Sebastian.

            A female voice rang out from somewhere inside.  “Kurt.  Kurt”

            “A voice you probably never thought you’d hear again,” Loki whispered into Sebastian’s ear, leaning on his shoulders, sliding just behind him.

            Sebastian said nothing.

            A beautiful, dark-skinned woman entered their view.  She looked around, her gaze passing right through them, finding focus on a slightly overweight white man who came into their view from around a corner to their right.

            “She found and married a man within the first year.  She took his name.  That made you two hard to find.”

            Sebastian looked over his shoulder intently at Loki.  His avatar expected him to reply.  But what did he have to say?  What did it want to hear?  Why choose this scene of all his early years?  Of course.  This was about the secrets of his past.  “Ah 'member now,” Sebastian said.  “It was only a few weeks befo' deir car crash dat she revealed what my true name was.  I never associated da two tings together before now.”

            “Odd isn’t it?” Loki said, an eyebrow raised.

            The couple, after a short disagreement, both left for the kitchen.  Sebastian and Loki followed.

            “But why would she tell me, when dat would only seem ta increase da danger of us bein’ found?” Sebastian asked.

            “Why indeed?” Loki asked, watching Sebastian’s mother and stepfather.

            “She knew,” Sebastian said, his gaze also on his mother.  He stepped towards her.  He lifted his hand to run through her hair, but it simply passed through it, incorporeal as they were to his parents.  “She musta known.”

            “But she didn’t tell you about your father?”

            “No,” Sebastian said, looking back at Loki, yet staying close to his mother.  “She only told me dat my grandfather had left some legacy dat I would claim when I was eighteen, but ta do so I needed ta take his name.”

            “Almost true,” Loki said.

            “Well it was my grandfather’s name.”

            “But the clause only applies to the females of descent.”

            “What?” Sebastian asked.

            “Never mind,” his avatar said, waving his robed arm at him.  “That’s another story.”

            Sebastian turned back to his mother.  He watched her prepare dinner for her husband.  It was a seemingly trivial exercise, one which she had performed every day.  But it was something Sebastian had never paid any attention to.  Now he would give everything to stay and watch.  Now he wished he had seen it every night he had lived there.

            Loki crept behind Sebastian again.  “With the right preparation and focus, you could see this whenever you want.  You have the power.”

            “Just a few more moments,” Sebastian breathed.

            “There is much more to see,” Loki said.  “And much of it is not as pleasant.”

            Sebastian said nothing.

            Loki put a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder and pulled him back.  “Come.”

            Sebastian allowed himself to be pulled back, but kept his dark eyes on his mother, a look of profound sadness on his face, a visage which was nearly alien to Sebastian.  Angry, frustrated, annoyed, guilty, contemplative, those were emotions common to the mage, but not sadness.  Rarely sadness.  But at that moment, being forced from his mother, he felt a deep sorrow which ate at him and seemed to rip his innards apart.  Finally he spun and turned his back as his stepfather came back into view.  It was the past, after all.  There was nothing he could do about it.

            There was nothing he could do about it.

            He walked away.

 

 

 

 

07 June 1975, 10:49 PM
The Banks of the Mississippi
New Orleans, Louisiana

 

         The Man In Black dabbed at his forehead again with a handkerchief before one more time replacing his hat.  The humid heat was oppressive, even with the sun long down.  It was still in the upper eighties, with over ninety-five percent humidity.  While he understood he was expected to be disciplined and tomaintain his composure, it was difficult.  Every few minutes, after making sure that no one was about, he adjusted his temp-gauge controller, located on the underside of his watch, in order to cool himself down.  He hoped his contact would arrive soon and what he had to say was worth the trouble he had gone through to meet him.

            His superiors did not like this kind of mingling with the enemy.  However, they would usually hear out the proposals such as the Serpent had to make.  If it could benefit them, they would accept it.  If not, they would destroy the messenger.  It was all a matter of protocol, really.  Standard Operating Procedure.

            “I am here,” a voice suddenly hissed from behind.

            The Technocrat spun on his heel, taser raised.

            Where moments ago there was no one, the MIB saw a thin black man, dressed in all black, long dredlocks pulled behind him neatly.  He could see that his face looked haggard, partially masked in the shadows as it was.

            “Where did you come from?” he asked.

            “That is not important,” the Serpent of the Light said softly, stepping forward ever so slightly, looking back and forth, over his shoulders, wary.  “I must be quick.”

            “What is it exactly that you want from us?” the MIB said, still fingering the energy weapon, which in his hands was much more than just a taser.

            The Serpent eyed it as well, but dismissed its danger to him, mage though the man was.  The threat it posed was nothing compared to the very fact of his appearance there.  In that city.

            The MIB looked around cautiously, the Kindred’s paranoia contagious.  There was no one else.

            “I know that your people hunt those like us.  But I believe that we have a common goal.”

            The MIB raised a lone eyebrow under the brim of his hat.

            “There is a woman here.  In this city.  She was a mistress of Jean-Claude Duvalier.”

            “The Haitian dictator?”

            “Yes,” the Serpent nodded, looking around again.  “As you probably know, his father, who has since died, was a great practitioner of Voodoo magick–“

            “You don’t seriously believe in that kind of–“

            “Don’t play games with me,” the dark Kindred snapped.  “Time is short.  You may not approve of them, just as you don’t us or the lupines, but neither can you deny that all of us exist.”

            Not if he could help it, the Technocrat thought, but didn’t say.

            “This woman–the mistress—beared the grandchild of Papa Doc, of Francois Duvalier, whose lineage is old and powerful.  Though his son, Jean-Claude, did not live up to that heritage, Francois, before he died, believed that this child–his grandchild—would be the key to his family’s future.  Now Jean-Claude, never interested in children and careless as always, has refused to get a new wife that might bear him children.  Thus this bastard child will be the only one to carry on the Duvalier name.”

            “What does this have to do with us?” the MIB asked.

            The Serpent continued to look around warily.  “That child cannot grow up on its own.  It will become too powerful.  His mother knows this,” the Serpent lied.  “We believe she remarried and took her husband’s name.”

            “I still don’t see why you need us.”

            “We have tried for years to find her, and for years have failed.  The Kindred Prince of this city has an age-old grudge against our kind.  Any of our operatives that have been discovered operating within New Orleans have been killed instantly.”

            “And what do you want from us?” the Technocrat pressed, getting impatient.

            The Kindred noticed the mage’s annoyance.  He stepped forward, relishing the uncomfortable look that creeped into the stoic Man-In-Black’s face as he did so.  “Trust me, I would not be wasting either of our time with pointless information.  We need you–“

            Suddenly lights swung upon the two.

            The MIB spun, taser drawn, poised.

            There was nothing.  The Man In Black heard the movements of a car and realized that the lights had just been the result of a car nearing and turning, the change in direction casting its headlights over them.  He turned back to the Kindred, only to find him gone.  He turned on his heel, weapon ready, rotating 360 degrees, but saw nothing.  He pulled sunglasses from out of his breast coat pocket and clicked a button on the side of them as he put them on.  Instantly, he began to see in the infrared spectrum.  He continued to turn.  Nothing.

            He pulled the glasses off.  Then, out of nowhere, melting from the darkness, the Kindred appeared before him.  The Technocrat instinctively jumped back, raising his weapon.

            “Calm down,” the Serpent said.  “It is only I.”

            “Where the hell did you come from?”

            “Do not concern yourself with that,” the Serpent said.  “Incidentally, I wouldn’t recommend using infrared glasses to find a Kindred.”  He smiled, baring pointed incisors, both of which seemed to catch the moon’s rays.  “Our bodies don’t give off much heat.”

            The MIB, cool as he was, shuddered.

            “What I was saying,” the Serpent continued.  “Is that we need help finding the woman, killing her and her husband, and retrieving the child.”

            “Why should we help you?” the MIB asked.

            “First of all, I would think that the child would pose a serious danger to your plans for both this city and the world.  He will be a very dangerous random element in your city: a child of great potential who might awaken at any time.  He is yours to do with as you wish.  Kill him or train him for your own uses.”  The Serpent’s eyes gleamed.  “And we know full well that you mortals, proud as you may be, do not control this city.  Lebeau holds sway even over your people.  And you would do anything to spite him, I think.  Lebeau wants the child safe.  If you were to take him for your own, or to kill him, it would be a great victory indeed.”

            The MIB watched the Serpent very carefully as he spoke.  The Serpents in particular, and vampires in general, were known for their trickery.  He wasn’t sure that either was reason enough.  “I will have to ask my superiors,” he said.

            “By all means,” the Serpent said.  “But take this.”  The Serpent pulled something from underneath his garments.  It was a small vial.

            The MIB accepted it gingerly, as if it was a diseased item.  “What is it?”

            “A talisman.  It is a vial of Duvalier blood.  It will glow when near the child.”

            “Primitive,” the Technocrat muttered.

            “Call it what you will.  Use it as you will.  But it will aid you.”

            The MIB looked at the vial for a moment, then at the Serpent suspiciously.  “Jean-Claude doesn’t want his child back?” he asked.

            “To him, he has no son.  He is a fool.”

            “And you don’t want him back for yourselves?”

            The Serpent started to fade before the MIB’s eyes.  “It was important to Francois.  Not us.”  The blackness carried the Kindred away.

            The MIB rubbed his chin.  This was an odd predicament.  He would have to seek the advisement of his superiors.

 

 

 

 

Perpetual Twilight
The Ether
The Temporal Umbra

 

           “But why discard me, when Ahhad been so important ta dem?” Sebastian asked.

            “They had no intent of letting you go.”

            “A lie?”

            “Exactly,” Loki said.  “They just wanted someone else to do the legwork for them.  When the Technocrats found you, they would have intervened.”

            “But why even go ta dem?”

            “That part he wasn’t lying about.  The Ventrue Prince of the city, Lebeau, had declared a Blood Hunt on all Setites that entered the city.”

            “Why?”

            “That you may never know.”

            “But you do?”

            “Not yet.”

            “But why not choose other mages?  Wouldn’t dey be more likely ta help den da Technocracy?”

            “Evidently not.  For whatever reason, the Serpents chose a dangerous foe.  One that would come back to haunt them.”

            “Whatta mean?”

            “We will get to that in time." Loki shrugged.  "So to speak.  Patience.”

 

 

 

 

30 April 1994, 03:56 PM
The French Quarter
New Orleans, Louisiana

 

         Sebastian slid over the hood of the car, black jeans singing over the sleek metal, reckless almost to the point of carelessness.  A small rocket singed past him, just inches over his head.  He only smiled, black topknot swinging behind him: long, thick sideburns framing that cocky, free smile.  His pistol raised as his feet hit the ground on the opposite side of the car, and he fired.  They were normal bullets, unlike the projectiles fired by the Technocratic weapon.  Sebastian didn’t use technology to enhance his magick, but rather used his magick to enhance his technology.  His eyes narrowed as he visualized the results of the shot, his senses pulling all possibilities to one, narrowing the field of his vision until he found the path most true.

            The bullet fired out of his pistol, roaring towards the back of the Technomancer’s head.  However, Sebastian was not the only one versed in magick.  The Technomancer whipped around at the last moment.  He had some device in his hand and at the last moment activated it.  There was a brief glow in a circular radial around the Technomancer’s arm. Directly lined up with the path of the bullet, it stopped the movement of that deadly instrument, sucking all te kinetic motion out of its trajectory, leaving it hanging in midair; it dropped harmlessly only a moment later.

            The MIB quickly spun around and continued running down the street.

            “Nice try,” a feral voice called out from behind Sebastian.

            Sebastian frowned at the man behind him, but even as he turned, motion caught his eye above him.  The original spot from where the voice had come from was vacated.  Leaping above him and over the car was a leather-clad Gangrel: Raven was his name.

            “Subtle, Rave,” Sebastian rasped, shaking his head, as his feet continued to move, picking up speed.

            “Then you’ll love this,” another voice said.  The voice was Emerson’s, another Gangrel.  He sped by, moving almost faster than Sebastian could follow.  Indeed, if it was not for his minor awareness of Time magick, he probably wouldn’t have seen the Kindred at all.

            The MIB was panicking by now.  Two neonate Gangrels and an orphan mage, each on their own, would have proven little difficulty: supernatural deviants, things to be exterminated.  But combined, they made formidable foes.  As he ran, the technocrat loaded a different kind of ammunition into his gyrojet pistol.  This rocket was not a weapon, but a message beacon; it would send his final report to his superiors.  More of his kind would find it and understand what had happened.  He loaded it and spun, firing it at the Kindred roaring towards him, deliberately firing over his shoulder, sending it arcing above the rooftops.

            The Gangrel laughed.  It was a terrifying laugh, a throaty, snarl of a laugh, one which indicated a cruel amusement.  The technocrat whipped his other hand out and fired a taser: that shot connected.  The Gangrel’s speed played against him as he ran right into the fired wires, instantly frozen, fried with thousands of volts of electricity.  Emerson roared in pain, arms flailing: the force of the blast knocking him backwards.

            Even as the taser connected, though, the other Gangrel leapt over his comrade, though the empty street, and landed squarely on the MIB.  His feet dropped directly on the mage’s shoulder, forcing him to fall backward.

As the technocrat fell, he dropped the taser, but still held onto the gyrojet pistol.  His mind racing and desperate, focused on defending himself; he clicked the autoload button on the high-tech pistol, forcing the next missile into the chamber which had been cleared for the message rocket.  He raised the weapon.  He didn’t so much as have time to fire, as he almost did so accidentally.  His back smacked hard on the pavement and the jolt of the fall jerked his finger which had already partially depressed the trigger, waiting for the autoload to complete before firing.  The trigger snapped inward.

Raven, already falling on his foe, was less than a foot away when the rocket exploded out of the chamber and into his chest.  The blast knocked him backward, a hole ripped into his chest, blood arcing wildly through the air.

The blast likewise injured the techno-mage, but Kevlar lined clothing and life or death adrenaline kept him conscious.  He returned to his feet.  Unfortunately for him, the Orphan was waiting.  A fist pummeled the side of the MIB's head as the he stumbled to his feet, and the technocrat was knocked sideways.

Somehow, the MIB managed to stay on his feet, but only long enough to collide with the other Gangrel, Emerson, who had recovered from the taser blast.  Emerson simply shoved the techno-mage back toward Sebastian.  All the MIB could do was lift his head enough to see the next punch coming, delivered with painful authority by the dark-skinned young mage.

This time, when the technocrat recoiled, Emerson caught him, locking his arms in a vice-like grip, fueled by Kindred strength.  Despite all of his training, the MIB was terrified.  He accepted the fact of his certain demise, but that didn’t mean he liked it, nor could he help the biological reaction that this trio instilled in him.

Sebastian raised his pistol, leveling it at the other mage’s head.  Emerson, behind the technocrat, pulled his head to the side, so as not to be in line with the soon-to-be-departed’s.  “We’ve warned you,” the Orphan said.  “Don’t fuck with da Prince’s ghouls.”

Before Sebastian could pull the trigger, Raven was up again, at Sebastian’s side almost without moving.  He was just there.  Raven caught Sebastian’s arm, pulling it back.  “Don’t shoot him,” he snarled.  “He owes me.”

Sebastian looked down at his friend’s wounded chest.  The hole had already healed itself, but the blood strewn over his clothes indicated that he had lost a lot of blood from the wound, so it had probably taken plenty more to heal it.  Sebastian stepped back.  His eyes caught the technomancer’s though, gleaming under the three-quarters moon.  “Seems fair ta me,” his rusty voice replied.

The Gangrel descended on the MIB, ignoring his final pleas for help or mercy.  There would be neither.  Not from that pack.  It was a Kindred city.  Even the Technocracy had to be wary in New Orleans.  The Traditions knew it.  The Garou knew it.  The Technocracy should have known it.  Sebastian felt no remorse for the agent dumb enough not to.  He had killed both Lebeau and Modred’s ghouls.  Apparently Lebeau had asked his Gangrel Primogen to take care of the situation, however necessary, and Modred had in turn written them all a blank check in regards to finding the responsible parties.

Sebastian smiled.  Now it was time to cash that check.  After they disposed of the desiccated corpse, of course.

 

 

 

 

11 July 1982, 1:15 AM
Gretna, West Bank: Juneteenth
New Orleans, Louisiana

 

Sebastian ran a hand through his long hair.  He cocked his head at his avatar.  “I don’ understand.  Why dat?  Why show me dat?  What does dat have ta do wit magh past?”

For once, Loki did not smile.  His ponytail flowing behind him in the ethereal winds, he looked upon his self with a look of sorrow.  He did not answer at first.  His head turned back to the street and the passing traffic.   “You shall see.”

Sebastian followed his gaze.  Across the street was a bar.  A sign hung over the door that said, ‘Juneteenth.’  He nodded slowly.  “The day da Yankees invaded da South.  June 16^th or some day 'round den.”

“Yes,” Loki nodded, not turning.

“Blasphemy to da ole Southern whites.  Freedom for da blacks.  Da beginning o' da end a slavery.”

Two black men walked out the door, stumbling, moving towards their cars.

“Ah’m surprised da Klan never burned down dis place.  Blacks celebratin’ a Union victory.  In da South? I’s like askin’ for trouble ‘round here.”

“The owner was too smart,” Loki said.  “He filed with Tourist guides up North as a place of reconciliation, where the war was forgotten, and the Union as a whole was celebrated.”

“He made it too prominent a target,” Sebastian said.

“Yes,” Loki said.  “That of course, never stopped them from lynching the patrons of the place, though.”

“How could you possibly know all dis?” Sebastian asked.

“I don’t,” Loki said.  “You do.”

“What are you talkin’ ‘bout?” Sebastian asked.

“It’s in your memories.  You heard your mother talking about it.”

Sebastian’s head snapped back towards the bar.  He started moving towards it, seized with a sudden dread.  “No,” he whispered.  “No, Loki.”  His insides were frozen.  “Dis is it.  Dis is da one ting.  Dis is da one ting Ah can’t see.”  His head twisted back to the impassive avatar. 

Loki said nothing, just looking at Sebastian with a veiled expression, one which almost looked sad.

“Damn you,” Sebastian hissed.  “Why?”

“Watch,” was Loki’s only reply.

Though not actually in his tangible body at the moment, Sebastian could feel his heart racing as if he was; his adrenaline was pounding, pouring through his veins, rippling through his system.  Or so he thought. He wasn't in his body. He ran into the building.  Sure enough, at a back table, his mother and stepfather stood, laying money on the table, and getting ready to leave.

“No,” Sebastian said again.  “No!  Take a cab!” he screamed.  It did no good and he knew it.  But he couldn’t help it.  His eyes began to well up; the tears were not that of water, but they began to flow.  “Stop it, Loki,” he said.  “Get us outta here!”

The avatar was behind him, holding onto his shoulders, whispering in his ear.  “We would not be here if there weren’t answers to be gleaned.”

Marie and Kurt Michaels moved towards the door.  Kurt was the only white man inside.  He seemed to be friends with many of the other black patrons, however.  The two were slightly off balance as they left, laughing as they walked through the door.  Drunk.

“Stop dis,” Sebastian said, following them.  “I can’t see dis.”

“You must,” Loki hissed, still right behind him.

Sebastian watched, not for the first time, although for the first time in perhaps ten years, as his parents moved towards their car, drunk.  Their movements were shaky, stumbling over each other, pushing each other: playing, smiling, laughing, kissing.  Their mood was heedless of the fate of which they could no more this time avoid then any of the other times Sebastian had viewed this scene as a child.  Each time they got in the car.  And each time there would be the same result.  Sebastian knew the outcome and had no interest in watching it again. 

Sebastian instead closed his eyes, trying to focus himself.  He had to remember that he was ephemeral, whether in his own mind, in the umbra, or as some kind of astral projection, he was not corporeal: thus he should have no increased heart rate, his stomach should not be churning, and his muscles should not be so tense that he felt like they would snap.  None of that was real–it was all in his head.

Loki shook Sebastian’s head from behind.  “No,” he hissed.

Sebastian spun, slapping his avatar’s hands away.  “I don’ wanna see dis again.”

“Then perhaps you’ve never seen it right,” Loki said, stoic.

Sebastian’s eyes flared, exploding with a red glare, a spiritual simulacrum of his anger, possible only there.  “How dare you?”  Veins rippled out of his neck and forehead, eyes wide, his teeth gritted.  “How dare you say that?  What the fuck are you talking about?” He shoved Loki backwards, unable to keep the anger to himself.

            “They are leaving,” was the Avatar’s only response, his arms clasped behind his back.

            Sebastian spun.  The car had indeed taken off.  “No,” he breathed.  He started to run after it.  He knew he couldn’t outpace the vehicle on foot, but he also knew that this wasn’t real.  Thus neither were his capabilities.  He left his feet, leaping into the air and soaring after them.

            Even his flight was having trouble keeping up with them, though.  No matter how hard he willed it, he couldn’t catch up to them.  They didn’t seem in trouble.  They never did.  They weren’t swerving.  They didn’t seem that bad.  But Sebastian knew the end.  They would die.  They would run into a telephone pole on one of the curves that his stepfather would miss.

            Loki was right next to him.  He answered Sebastian’s unasked question.  “We can’t catch them because we aren’t meant to.  We are only here to watch.”

            Sebastian was beyond protest or belief.  Never one to put any faith in what others told him he coul or could not do or what he was meant to do, he pushed onward.  He focused every thought on the car.  He pushed every fiber of his being into a sense of forward motion.  Every piece of discipline he had learned from Do—the Akashic martial art—he focused at that moment.  For every thing that he had ever fought for and nearly died for, he pushed.

            His body slowly started to pull ahead of Loki’s.  The car came closer.  He did not pause to celebrate or even smile.  Rather, the opposite.  He frowned, knowing that time was of the essence.  As an Adept of Time, he knew that he didn’t have much of it; he knew when and where the collision would take place; his internal chronometer did not give him much time to act.  Hands falling to his side, as if trying to get better aerodynamics, almost as if skydiving, he plied his will; he moved forward, again gaining on the vehicle.

            He had no ability to search for Loki anymore.  He had no sense of the twisting road underneath him, the trees and telephone poles to the side of the road, the swamps further off, or even the sporadic cars or houses that flashed by them.  The very ether that guided their visitation melted.  There was nothing but he and the car.  And the distance between them.  Sebastian closed his eyes.  What was it that the Virtual Adepts said?  All space is one space.  All distances were one place; reality was just an illusion, a spatial orientation that allowed people to better comprehend the world.  There was no space between he and the car.  There was no space.

            There was no space.

            Sebastian floated directly over the car.  He zoomed next to it, looking forward only momentarily at the approaching curve.  His breath caught.  He shook his head.  There was no time for that.  His hair flapping in the ethereal wind, his clothes whipping against his body: it was all irrelevant.  He knew it; it was just his mind’s way of compensating for what it expected to see.  He had to ignore everything.  Everything except himself and the car.  Time was running out fast.

            Sebastian did not have time to wonder what his goals really were or if he could actually change history or whether this was real or just in his head.  It was simply something that he had to do.  Had to.  Everything inside him told him that.  Every impulse, every thought, every feeling.

            The steering wheel would not do any good.  The car was moving too fast.  Controlling that was a temporary fix.  One corner made might just mean another missed.  Sebastian looked up at the curve, only seconds away.

            He melted through the car.  The brake.  Looking past his stepfather’s legs, he realized that if he could concentrate enough of his form on being just solid enough to stop the car, then he might be able to save them.  He pushed all of his essence toward his hands, trying to focus his will on the corporality of his hands, making them solid.  The first thing he felt was a slight bristle against his arm hair, as air rushed up his sleeves through a hole in the floor of the car.  He didn’t hesitate.  He pushed as hard as he could against the brake pedal.

            It moved easily.  The pedal depressed, hugging the floor readily.  Sebastian suddenly saw his stepfather’s foot slide through his suddenly immaterial hands.  He didn’t understand.

            Unwittingly, he slid back out of the car, his hands reaching outward as the car slid away, grasping impotently at what had already gone beyond his reach: the car careening wildly from him.

But he had pushed the brake.

He had pushed the brake, but nothing had happened.  His stepfather had hit the break.  Nothing had happened.  It wasn’t the whiskey.  They were wrong all these years.  It hadn’t been the whiskey.

            Sebastian watched helplessly as the vehicle roared around the corner, its tires squealing, unable to catch on the curving pavement.  The car slipped off the road and smashed into a telephone pole.  Sebastian cringed.

            He was in shock.  He had been so close.  He had had his hands on the brakes.  He had touched them with his hands.  He had been physical.  He had felt it.  What had gone wrong?

            His mind was spinning in a cyclone of thought, unable to keep up with the fevered pitch of questions he was asking himself.  The car caught fire, suddenly bursting into flames.  Instinctively, he went over to help, his stomach churning, his face a contorted grimace of shock and pain.  Both his mother and stepfather were unconscious.  Tears flowed slowly through the ether.

            At least they hadn’t known the pain of the flames; at least that grace had been afforded to them.  Still, his pain blocked his reason.  It hadn’t been the whiskey.  Sebastian’s mind had long since ascertained the answers, but had refused to allow himself the opportunity to realize that.  Only the obvious consumed his thoughts, tempered by a very bare wound, suddenly exposed after years of pointed forgetfulness.  He continued to stare at the blaze, tears streaming down his face, reflecting in the glare of the blaze, shining: questions continuing to cycle through his brain

            Then, the pain vaporized, replaced by the sudden realization of that which he had already discerned.  In mid-stream, the tears froze.

            In the span of a second, Sebastian’s eyes dried up, flaring, the tears literally exploding, transmogrified into something which symbolized his new mood: residual aftershocks of energy, demonstrative of his sudden anger, spewed from his umbral eyes.  The brake line was cut.  The gas tank had ignited from within, not from being ruptured in the crash.  It was as if his mind had already discerned the answers but only now was he listening.  He could see the truth now and worse.

Both incidents were marked with static magick.

Slowly Sebastian stepped forward, as if moving closer woul let him analyze the intangible evidence better.  Seeing the spectrum of Prime, that of pure magick, tracing it through time, he followed an evident string.  A string which led back across the road.

            Sebastian turned and followed it, his arms akimbo, his hands twitching: every vein in his body about to erupt in a bloodstorm of anger, all but uncontrollable.  He stomped across the road, stalking through the darkness.

            There.  Sebastian’s eyes gleamed dangerously.

            On the other side of the road, there was someone.  Someone hiding in the shadows.  Sebastian continued his frenzied stroll across the street, each step gaining strength, each step gaining power from the dark anger that dwelled within him: a primordial star set to go supernova.

            His eyes were leaking dangerously into the umbra, his anger sure to either attract unwelcome spirits or to terrify any lesser ones.  A red glow permeated the orbs that had once symbolized his eyes: spiritual reflections of himself.  Less and less, Sebastian resembled a human, but something else, something completely transformed by rage.  He stepped off of the road, moving into the grass, shining through the darkness.

            Sebastian had to be careful.  He was a powerful enough mage that no matter where he was, when he was, or why he was, his anger threatened to actually move back through time and lash out at whatever or whomever he found: the consequences of which, even his avatar could not predict.

Unable to control himself any more, he leapt forward, screaming in rage, catching the culprit completely by surprise.  The man had not noticed Sebastian coming because they had not been in the same existence.  But suddenly, out of nowhere, a terrifyingly strong man, glowing with red embers of hate had leapt at him, roaring curses, spitting energy and death, focusing all of his Entropic powers on complete and absolute destruction of his being.

Wildly, Sebastian shook the man as he tried to kill him, knocking his hat off, tearing his sunglasses from his face.  He wanted nothing more than to stare into the man’s eyes and watch his life fade away.  He wanted to watch the man know that he was dying and know that he could do nothing about it.  That man had killed his mother and stepfather and left him an orphan at the age of ten.  He had taken his childhood from him: his home, his education, his love, his only family.  That man would pay.  He would pay.  The thought reverberated through Sebastian’s consciousness as if it were the only thought possible, as if it was the mantra of his very existence.

He would pay.  He would pay.  He would pay.

Pure Entropy cascaded out of Sebastian’s palms, leaking out of his eyes, bleeding out of his pores: the man’s internal organs must have been disintegrated, reduced to dust by then, only his own counter-magick could possibly have prevented his entire body from being little more than ashes.

Then, in the span of a solitary heartbeat, Sebastian’s life changed forever.

Images fluttered back, more recent than they should have been: New Orleans, the French Quarter, running with a pack, his then-new family.  Motorcycles, drugs, blood, and guns.  Fighting Sabbat and Kine alike: adventure, hedonism, heroism, fights, and death.  Raven leaping over him, Emerson speeding past him.  Playing games with a Technocratic drone, taking out an enemy of the Prince and the Gangrel Primogen.  Punching him as he stood weakly; hitting him again as Emerson pushed him back.  Gun raised thoughtlessly, the vengeance one by proxy,Raven holding him back and moving in and drinking his final screams: his life gone, his blood stolen.  Dead.

That day they had killed the murderer of his parents.

 

 

 

 

11 February 1998, 4:32 AM
Seraphim Chantry
Detroit, Michigan

 

            As Chip and Bail watched, Sebastian’s body suddenly convulsed.  He fell to his knees, his body quavering.  Chip felt it first.

            “Oh shit,” he breathed.

            “What?” Bail asked, turning towards the elder mage.

            The two looked on as energy began to leech out of Sebastian’s body.  It was not visible in the normal spectrum of sight, but it was something they could both sense.  And at the rate that the energy was building, it was something that their enemies would be able to sense, too.  That would bring attention they didn’t want or need. Unless they stopped it. 

            “Let’s go,” Chip commanded.

            “Right,” Bail said, already moving.

            The two Pendragons turned and leapt down the stairs, accelerating to a full sprint as they made for the study doors that led out to the back door and toward their troubled friend.

 

 

 

 

7 February 1986, 8:02 AM
Presidential Residence
Port-au-Prince, Haiti

 

            Horatio stormed into Jean-Claude’s office.  Baby Doc looked up, praying for good news.  The ghoul’s face told him all the news he needed.  It was over.  Everything was over.

            The wan servant shook his head.  “The people are revolting.  They have the support of much of the military.  We are lost.”

            “No,” Jean-Claude snapped.  “There must be something we can do.  Isn’t there something your Setite masters can do?”

            “Serpents of the Light,” Horatio snapped back.

            “Whatever.”

            “What can they do, Monsieur Duvalier?  The people launched their assaults at daybreak.  My masters are all deep in sleep.”

            “And you?”

            “Me and those like me must safeguard our masters while they sleep.  That can be our only priority.”

            “What of me?” Jean-Claude asked, yelling, leaning over his desk, gesticulating wildly.  “You just forget about me?  I am president!”

            “You are president because they could control you.  They will influence the next leader the same.  Less directly, but with the same effects.”

            “That is not true,” Jean-Claude said, almost doubting it himself.

            “I have no time to debate, master,” Horatio said.

            “Why did we not see this coming?  How could it happen so fast?  Why did your people not prevent this?”

            “It was not just mortals,” Horatio said as he turned towards the door.  “It was the Technocracy.”

            “But–but–

            “There was a reason that your father instructed you never to work with them.  There was a reason we could be patient in regards to your lost child.  But no.  You had to have results.  You wanted to play with the real serpents.  They are the enemy of us all.  Even of pathetic humans like you.  They would make you all mindless drones.”

            “And what do you care, you half-human freak?”

            “It is too late for childishness, monsieur.  There is an American plane that will take you and your family to safety.  We have made sure that you have plenty of money in Swiss bank accounts.  That is all I can do.”

            “Then this is it?”

            “What more do you expect?” Horatio asked from the doorway.

            “Nothing from you,” Jean-Claude said, turning his back on his soon-to-be-former servant.

            “Such a waste,” Horatio spoke to Baby Doc’s back.  “Such plans, such destiny.  All dead.”  He walked away at a quick pace, still talking to himself.  “They never found the child, yet came here to raise the people against us.”  He shook his head.  “Dead.  Such a waste.”

 

 

           

 

11 February 1998, 4:33 AM
Seraphim Chantry
Detroit, Michigan

 

            Chip’s powerful arms locked around Sebastian’s, trying to keep him immobile, while at the same time, he closed his eyes and concentrated on siphoning off the magick that Sebastian was spewing forth.  As it was, Sebastian was like a magickal flare.  Bail had Sebastian’s head in his hands, trying to wake him, calling him to loudly though the Gauntlet that separated the normal world and whatever spirit-realms that Sebastian’s consciousness might have been privy to.

            “Sebastian, snap out of it!” Bail was yelling.

            “Come on,” Chip breathed, gritting his teeth.  While he was by far Sebastian’s superior in physical strength and agility, he was having trouble holding back all of his friend’s magickal power.  In that regard, Sebastian was the strongest of the Pendragons.  Bail looked up at the large Pendragon, worry obvious on his face.  Chip, his eyes still closed, could not see the young mage’s concern.  He had enough to worry about already.

            Suddenly, Sebastian’s eyes snapped open.  While his body was still tensed, taut, he stopped struggling.

            “Sebastian,” Bail said, holding his face, looking into his dark eyes.  “Are you okay?  What happened?”

            The mage’s body went limp.  Caught off guard, Chip barely caught him; only his lightning quick reflexes allowed him to hold Sebastian up.  Sebastian seemed disoriented, off-guard, surprised.  He shook his head, staring absently away at something, something far away.  Bail turned to see if there was anything there, but there wasn’t.  He just looked south across the lawn into empty space.

            “Are you okay?” Chip asked, setting Sebastian down on the grass carefully.

            Sebastian did not reply.

            “Sebastian,” Chip said.

            “Something must have went wrong,” Bail said to Chip.

            “Just da opposite,” Sebastian rasped.

            Both of the other mages looked downward in surprise.  They had figured their friend was still lost in his stupor.

            Sebastian leaned forward, pushing himself up off of the ground.  Bail tried to help him, as Chip stood back up straight.  Sebastian pushed Bail away—doing so gently, but pushing him away nonetheless.

            “What happened?” Chip asked again.

            Even as he stood, Sebastian was virtually unable to answer, at least not cogently.  His mind was too flooded with images; not just images of the visions he had seen traveling whenever wherever with his avatar, but the images of his past: each and every step of the way, re-examined and analyzed in a totally new context, one in which he had to ultimately believe was either one of elusive luck or dangerous manipulation.  While of all people, Sebastian was loathe to choose between black and white, one or the other, he had a hard time finding any other possible explanations.

            Not killed or found or tutored or warped, at least not so much as he could remember, never meeting his kind until Ecstatics and Toredor bumbled upon him, later Hollow Ones and Gangrel, a traveling tour of mages and Kindred, dotted with Garou and their ilk and always the Sleepers, sleepwalking just like them through thrill after thrill, already wondering in hindsight what interest elder Kindred should have in him and what roles he played in their plans and plots, or what actions he took on the silent behalf of other patrons: and then this.  He had to wonder yet again if his elusivity was borne of skill or intent: was he that good or was he that dumb?

            Together, it all seemed as if someone had slowly unraveled a knit sweater, only he was watching that tale rewound, watching the sweater come together, thread by thread.  In the confusions of youth, naiveté and more, he had fought the wrong fight too often, misconstrued and misunderstood, but perhaps no more than a brute tool.  He had fought Camarilla Kindred unwittingly for Sabbat when he first arrived in Detroit: old grudges against the Brujah, or something more insidious?  He had killed Garou and Tradition mages alike in the confusions surrounding the search for his only surviving blood relative, fought for the Technocracy in the chaos of Paradox’s once-unraveling.  Perhaps the most telling was the fact that the Fae of Arcadia had feared and hated him, despising some inner character in him: was it the taint of his true character?  Did they know things about him that he didn not?  Did he work for the Technocracy unwittingly, a pawn in their foul endeavors?  Was that perhaps also why the Council feared him or was cautious with him or ignored him?  Did they know?  Did their historians chronicle his past?  Perhaps only suspect?  Would Voodoo crafts know anything by knowing of Francois Duvalier?

Dammit, he cursed inwardly.  Dammit.

            Sebastian stumbled forward past Bail.  The younger Pendragon stepped aside, looking at Chip, who could only shrug.  Chip’s usual jovial face was dark.  He also moved past Bail and put a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder.  Using the soft touch of his Life magick and knowledge of human biology, he increased the level of glucose and dopamine in Sebastian’s brain, facilitating energy for the biochemical balance of his brain, as well as adding a neurotransmitter which facilitated thought and movement.  He figured a rise in the levels of both would help stabilize Sebastian.

            He was right.

            Sebastian turned, putting his hands on his friend’s hand, which still rested on his shoulder.  “Thank you,” he said.

            “No problem,” the large Pendragon said softly.  “Is there anything else we can do?”

            Sebastian looked down at the ground, shaking his head.  He patted his friend’s hand one more time, then moved back towards the house.

            “Is there–“ Bail was cut off by Chip in mid-sentence.  The large mage tugged on his arm, shaking his head.

            Sebastian did not reply to the half-sentence, but just walked into the house, grim, determined, and worst of all for his character: unsure.  Unsure of whom he was anymore or what he was doing.  How could he lead others when he wasn’t sure of that?  He had much to sort out inside himself before he could share any of this.

            Sebastian entered through the French double-doors, ignorant still of far too much.  He ran a hand through his hair.  Unsure and ignorant, two states he couldn’t abide, and he was mired in both.  His mind was aflame, ravaged by chaotic thought, lost in a swirl of questions and desires, and as usual, he was his own worst enemy: always striving for Ascension, for victory, looking to improve, to move forward, to grow, to learn, to become a better mage, and more importantly, a better human.  Now, he felt as if he had taken an irreparable leap backwards.

            Who was he?

            Chip and Bail watched him go.  Over the duration of their friendship, Chip had seen Sebastian in such a way before.  While Sebastian could be very generous and open , when it came to dealing with pain, Chip knew that he preferred to do it on his own, taking hold of his issues and battling his demons himself.  It was something he knew that Bail would have to learn.  While Chip was worried about his friend’s dark mood, he was confident that Sebastian would work things out.  He did not know what plagued him exactly, but he knew his friend would be okay.  Chip put his hand on Bail’s shoulder.

            “What’s going on?” Bail asked, looking up at the large Pendragon.

            “I don’t know,” Chip said.  “But there’s nothing we can do.”

            “But–“ Bail began.

            “Nothing,” Chip said.  “Whatever haunts Sebastian, he must come to terms with it on his own.”

            Reluctantly, Bail nodded, acquiescing.

            The two watched Sebastian disappear into the house without another word.