The Dreamwalker's Path

4/ Jaeger & Jaeger, New York City

“So you heard about the body?”

Cavan swiveled his office chair so that he could see the doorway of his office where his niece stood.

Office hours must have ended while he’d been absorbed in paperwork, Cavan realized, because Hannah had already traded in her expensive, steel grey dress suit and button up blouse for a pair of dark jeans and a light blue, loose fitting sweater. She’d let her hair down, and her auburn waves fell with the tell-tale kinks of the bun she’d been wearing all day.

There had been a time when Hannah never put her hair up, when the natural curls and kinks stacked about her long, narrow face in a way that made her look wild and inhuman. Now, however, dressed in neither the crisp lines of her business wear, nor in the uncultivated fashions she’d donned briefly in her youth, the woman had become a picture of soft lines, relaxed, appearing almost as lethargic as she did serene.

When she was dressed like this, it was hard to imagine that this was the same young woman who had firmly informed him that he would be starting a law firm with her back in 1820 when no woman who wanted to be seen as in her right mind would dare venture far from home and motherhood. It was hard to imagine that this was the same woman who had viciously executed various vampires, were- creatures, and magicians who had threatened to expose the supernatural community during an age when it would have caused a holocaustic revolution. When Hannah Jaeger was dressed like this, all Cavan could see was the soft faced little girl that he’d watched grow up, and the tender mother that she had been to Dahlia Temperance, and now to her two daughters whom she’d brought into the world not eighteen months ago.

But it would be a mistake to believe that just because Hannah Jaeger had changed her clothes, she’d changed who and what she was. Cavan braced himself as Hannah leaned against the doorway and watched him with a predator’s gaze.

“I’m looking over the case now,” he held up the file. “Luckily I know a guy who knows a guy; he was able to get us a copy.”

Hannah pushed away from the wall and entered the room; she gave off no psychic scent that betrayed her emotions, nor did the pale shadow of her aura reveal her thoughts. She merely stopped in front of Cavan’s desk and held her hand out for the file. He gave it to her without hesitation.

“What are your thoughts on it?” She opened the file and flipped through it with seeming disinterest.

Cavan wasn’t sure how much she was actually reading, but he took for granted that she knew the basics of the case. “I honestly wouldn’t be able to tell you without having seen the body myself,” he admitted, lacing his fingers and using his thumbs to prop up his chin as he placed his elbows on his desk. “It’s certainly not a vampire, and I can’t imagine that any sort of were-beast would leave a body fully intact. Could be voodoo, of course, if you want to blame that sort of thing, but again, I’d have to check out the house to see if there was any psychic or magical residue left behind, and frankly, I think that would be a moot point this late in the game. I can’t imagine that any residual information would be intact after everyone that’s been blundering through the house.”

Hannah made a noncommittal sound and studied the photograph of the scene. “I can’t imagine that it wouldn’t be a murder, though,” she noted. “Unless, of course, human beings often spontaneously collapse upon themselves.”

Cavan made a face. “No, not as a general rule; at least not that I remember.”

“Well, you are very old, and it’s been a very long time since you were human. Perhaps you have forgotten.” The woman’s tone was such a deadpan that it took a moment for Cavan to realize that she wasn’t joking.

Sometimes he forgot that, having never been human, Hannah lacked considerable social grace and common knowledge.

The thought made him smile a little. “Not really, sweetheart. If humans were endanger of spontaneous implosion, I think that we’d have witnessed a fair few more cases than this single event in our time.”

Hannah shrugged. “So we can only assume, then, that it was a very creative murder. Voodoo might be a possibility, of course, as you said.” She closed the file and held it out to Cavan for him to take. “I will let you look into that.”

“It’s not exactly our jurisdiction, Hannah,” he opened up the bottom drawer of his desk and dropped the file in. “Unless there’s someone to defend in a court of law, we can’t really swan around and throw our weight places.”

Hannah canted her head to the side. “Maybe not, but the firm has a heavy case load at the moment, and I don’t like the way this one reads. I’d rather this never reach the courts, if you don’t mind.”

Cavan raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t uncommon for Hannah to decide that a potential case wasn’t worth the firm’s time, and once that decision was made, it was up to Cavan’s side of the company to work its magic to make sure that the case never made it to a court of law. Of course, usually, they had some sort of idea of the cause or culprit.

“I’ll put Nik on it,” he offered.

Hannah paused in the doorway. She looked over her shoulder at Cavan, her expression unreadable as ever. Carefully, she said, “No. I’d prefer it if you handled this one.”

5/Tampa, Florida

Celeste Caglione’s house was not the sort of house that one would think suitable for a witch, if one were unfamiliar with witches. It was not a large manor, nor was it very old. It was not quaint and it did not have new-age artifacts hanging over the doors or in the windows. At the very best, the house could be accused of being a little plain: a one story concrete complex, painted yellow which had faded over time to a sort of chalky cream, and a freshly re-shingled roof, which was a sort of terra cotta. It boasted a solid, dark wood door divided into twelve rectangular panels. It did not have a peep hole, as most exterior doors do, but rather one of the panels could be lifted away from the door to peer outward, and over this was a slightly rusted cage.

Today, the only thing that might hint to an outsider that the Caglione family were anything but perfectly ordinary was a large, colorful wreath made of paper streamers and fake leaves, and small, silk tulips.

Grandma Caglione did not like the fakeness of the wreath, but her hands were weak now, and with her children all busy raising their children, who were all busy with school this time of year, there was no one to help her manipulate twigs and other bits and bobs into a real wreath. So this year, the decorations for May day were bright streamers, and fake fruits which Grandma Caglione was having a hard enough time putting up all by herself.

That was until Lia had walked in and very foolishly offered to help.

Now Grandma Caglione sat at the end of the small dining room table, her delicate hands folded over one another as she studied a spread of tarot cards, looking up only occasionally to tell Lia when her hard work in decorating wasn’t entirely up to snuff.

“Cheese and rice, Gram, do we have to have so many banners running all over the place? The house looks more like it’s being decorated to celebrate a circus than for May Day.”

Lia looked over at her grandmother with a raised eyebrow, one hand on her hip, the other holding up a handful of paper streamers that refused to stay up over the door in the bundle she’d tied them in.

Grandma Caglione looked up from her cards and scowled, the deep lines that creased her once beautiful face deepening to show severe disapproval. “Little girl,” she said, bracing herself on willowy arms and leaning over her card spread, “We are getting ready to celebrate one of the eight Sabbats, my favorite of the eight Sabbats, if you recall. All I ask for is a pretty house full of all my pretty children and grandchildren. Surely you can manage to help your old grandmother without complaining about my poor decorations.”

The old woman leaned back in her chair as her eldest daughter, a middle aged woman with sleek brown hair just beginning to gray, slipped into the room bearing a tray of apple turnovers. “Uh oh, someone’s stirring up trouble.”

“I’m not, mom—and I’m not complaining, grandma, I’m just saying that there’s quite a few streamers and quite a few more of them are falling down.” She shook the handful she held and then yelped when another bundle sloshed off of the wall and fell over her head. She offered a sheepish look to her mother who was laughed softly at her as Lia untangled herself from the mess she’d made.

Grandma Caglione tsked and waved her hand dismissively. “Sweet heart, I love ya, but you’re simply useless to my cause. Put the streamers down before you hurt yourself and let you brother-in-law stick ’em up when he comes back in side with the boys.”

She pulled out the chair that sat next to hers. “Come sit down with your old grandmother and your mother, if you can bear us.”

Relieved that she’d been fired from the decoration committee, Lia dropped the mess of streamers on the end of the table and plopped down in a chair next to her grandmother. After careful consideration of her options, she took one of the small turnovers from the tray, set it on a napkin in front of her and began to pick it apart.

Her grandmother made a sound of slight annoyance, “Mind that you don’t get crumbs and syrup on my cards, little girl.” She reached out and repositioned them farther away from Lia’s food.

Lia eyeballed the cards a little skeptically. Coming to terms with the fact that she possessed the ability to float in and out of dreams was a hard enough fact for her to grasp when she’d spent years believing that she was just your average Jane, and she wasn’t ready to confront the notion that her grandmother’s tarot cards might actually do something akin to telling the future. After all, Grandma Caglione was psychic even without her cards. For all Lia knew, her grandmother just liked looking at the pretty pictures on them.

“That’s a mean look,” her grandmother noted. “What did my cards ever do to you?”

Lia shrugged. “I was just looking.”

“Looking like you were going to incinerate them with your eyeballs, maybe.” Her grandmother ran her fingers through her grey curls and then gathered her cards up in one fluid motion. “You want me to lay some down for you?”

Lia began to shake her head, but her protest was drown out by the loud and enthusiastic entrance of a gaggle of boys and girls, followed shortly after by Camille and her husband.

The group of pint-sized people shuffled through the dining room, a chores of “Hi Gramma, hi Aunty Gina and cousin Lia!” filtering behind them as they shuffled through the kitchen to disappear into the back room in a mad rush to get to the gaming system that one of the older children had brought to the house.

Camille, however, stopped at the table, pulling out a chair and heaving a mighty sigh as she eased down into it. “Good grief, but don’t they have energy? I’m sure that I was never that feisty when I was that small. It’s a good thing that Aunt Belle and Uncle Dave are so young, I can’t imagine how they’d keep up with four boys otherwise.”

Gina laughed, “Sweet heart, you’re that feisty now.” She reached across the table and patted her daughter’s hand.

In the meanwhile, Grandma Caglione was pointing vaguely at her grandson-in-law and muttering “Jason, be a doll and go rehang those banners that Lia murdered.”

Lia sank down in her chair as Jason snickered at her expense and moved to the other side of the table.

Before long, Camille and her mother had settled into a quiet conversation peppered with the occasional remark from Jason, and Lia found herself confronted by a fan of cards presented to her by her grandmother.

“Go on, little girl, you may as well pick one.”

Feeling a little silly, but not having a reason to say no, Lia picked a card and flipped it over. “I got ten sticks,” she said lamely, turning her card around to show her grandmother.

“What does ten sticks mean?”

Her grandmother rolled her eyes and took the card. “Those are wands,” she corrected. “That I would see the day when one of my own grandchildren didn’t know the difference between a stick and a wand.” She shook her head.

“Right, so what’s that mean? Aside from the fact that I’m inept as I ever was.”

Her grandmother cast her a disapproving look; Celeste did not approve of self-depreciation, even in the attempt to be humorous. “There’s nothing that can’t be learned with time and the patience to practice,” she said as she laid the card down on the table. “Ten of Wands signifies the burden of responsibility, generally great and honorable.” A pause. “Your sister said that you’ve come into your powers.”

Lia cast dismal glance at her sister who was paying their side of the table no mind. “My sister can’t keep a secret,” she muttered darkly.

Grandma Caglione gave her granddaughter a brief smile. “You’re a little older than a witch would normally be, so perhaps we can skip the conversation that addressed great power and the responsibility that goes with it, but Ophelia,” she pursed her lips for a moment before continuing, “a lot of people are going to want you to do a lot of things with your fancy new power.

“You’re going to come across a lot of wonderful opportunities and a lot of things that you’d probably rather not be bothered with but feel you have to take on because people are telling you that you’re the only one who can do it. You’re going to have to learn how to tell the difference between what you want to do, what you have to do, and what the world is telling you that you should do, and you must remember that even though you have a supernatural talent, you’re still only one person, and you can’t do everything.” She nodded solemnly. “You promise me that to me, hear?”

Lia nodded; she’d forgotten how awkward it could be to talk to her grandma about the ways of the world. “I promise, Gram.”

Lia drew two more cards at her grandmother’s insistence, but before her grandmother could explain their meanings, Jason called across the table: “So Ophelia, what’s the deal with that body that they found by your place?”

Lia about jumped out of her skin at the sound of Jason’s voice. “What body?” she asked as her brain raced to make the transition between cards with sticks and bodies being found in her neighborhood.

As soon as she’d asked, however, the gears shifted into place and she waved his explanation away. “Oh, you mean by the ballet studio? Some woman died in her sleep or something in the middle of the night. Cami was walking with me when we saw the ambulance pull up on the way to get coffee. I guess she was there all day before someone went to go check on her.”

Camille shuddered. “Could you imagine dying and it taking hours for someone to notice? That’s the saddest way to go, I think. All alone with no one to notice that you’re gone.” She looked pointedly at her mother. “That’s why I wish that you and dad would get married, mom, I hate to think of you spending hours dead on the floor somewhere.”

Their mother sputtered indignantly. “Excuse me, Miss Nosey, but I think that I’m perfectly capable of deciding whether or not I should get married, thank you, and I am a long, long way off from dying. Goodness sake, I’m barely fifty.” She smoothed out her sleek brown hair, “Let’s not kill me before my time...”

Camille opened her mouth to press the matter, but Grandma Caglione shook her head. “Oh, Camille, leave your poor mother alone. It’s not as though your father’s even in the country more than three months out of the year. Let them have their casual romance without commentary from the peanut gallery.”

How creating and raising two now fully grown daughters and a son constituted a casual romance remained a mystery to Lia and her sister. Their mother and father had, to their knowledge, never been married, had never thought about marrying, and had no plans to get married—not to each other and not to anyone else. They had loved and raised their children as though they were a single unit, and rarely argued, except over which house was more convenient to go back to after family gatherings. They had absolutely no reason not to get married, and yet whenever the subject was brought up by either Camille or Lia, both their mother and father vehemently denied any desire to commit to one another.

Lia, for better or worse, decided it must be a witch thing, since Grandma Caglione and her grandfather hadn’t been married either.

“Anyway,” Lia continued, “I heard that she was dead on arrival, tucked in bed like she’d just gone to sleep. Another instructor at the studio said the woman’s ribcage had been crushed?” she looked around the table to see if anyone had heard anything to verify or contradict the information, but it appeared that she was the informant on the matter. “No evidence of a break in, or of anyone else being in the house with her, though...I heard she was about Camille’s age.”

“Who was this now?” Grandma Caglione folded her cards and tucked them into a silk bag which she then placed in her pocket.

“A woman that lived next to Lia’s dance studio, mom,” Gina put her hand on top of her mother’s.

“Yes, I gathered that, dear, I’m old, not deaf. Did this poor woman have a name?”

Lia looked at Camille who shrugged. “It was on a local news feed, give me a minute and I’ll pull it up on my phone.” Camille pulled her phone from her pocket and did some fancy finger sliding to navigate her way to the article.

“Looks like a Jasmine Barrows...She’d have been thirty next month.”

“Oh,” Grandma Caglione’s voice was full of a deep sadness, “That’s such a shame. I know her mother.”

Lia frowned, “Know her, gram?”

“Oh yes,” Celeste waved her hand lightly. “She’s a marvelous woman—very talented, one of the best witches I think I’ll ever know.”

“Oh,” this time it was Camille, and a sort of sullenness had fallen over the table.

Celeste eased back in her chair and ran one hand over the back of the other. “I think—if someone wouldn’t mind—I think I have her phone number in the booklet by the phone in the kitchen. I’d like to give her a call and see if there’s anything the family might need.”

“I’ll get it, mom.”

Lia watched as her own mother put a hand on Celeste’s shoulder and left to get the book in question. She sank in her chair and heaved a sigh. Well this is great, she thought. So much for family happy Sabbats.