Finding Insight

by Katherine Kim

  “Shit,” the boy said quietly, like he was trying not to further disrupt the usual quiet of the hour. Still, after a moment he rose to his feet and went to rummage through his few belongings until he came up with a bottle of water and a toothbrush. After taking care of himself, then pouring some water on the patch of sick in the bushes, he finally turned to look around the clearing. When his eyes found Sebastian, sitting calmly near where the foot of the sleeping bag had been and watching everything, the boy froze and Seb recognized the instincts of a prey animal.

  Whoever this boy was, his story was unlikely to be a pleasant one, it seemed.

  Sebastian tipped his head in curiosity, but otherwise stayed still until his new— well, friend seemed a bit strong for the situation, didn’t it?— Sebastian’s new acquaintance started to relax slightly.

  “Sorry, buddy. You surprised me,” the boy said. He kept his voice low again, and when he started to move again, he did it slowly and Sebastian noted the exhaustion in the motions. He watched as the boy stowed his belongings back in the trail pack then carefully stowed them inside the cave entrance and spread his sleeping bag back out on the ground. He was cautious of Sebastian, creeping only as close as he absolutely needed to in order to complete his tasks, but still careful not to frighten away the supposedly wild animal that was gracing him with its presence.

  “You’re probably too comfortable around humans than is good for you, buddy, but I have to admit I appreciate the company right now.” The boy sat on his sleeping bag, propping his arms on his knees and staring into the night. Very faint sounds of traffic on route 17 drifted over them and something with wings whispered through the air to find a new perch. Sebastian smelled fog starting to creep through the area, though he could tell it would only be very slight and would probably pass unnoticed by most folk.

  “Thanks for waking me up. I think that was you, anyway. Animals are supposed to be really good at sensing distress, and I guess that’s true, huh?” He lapsed back into silence and Sebastian huffed a loud breath. If this kid took comfort in the thought that a wild animal found and helped him, well…

  Sebastian certainly wasn’t going to reveal any secrets. He simply settled for tucking his tail neatly around his paws and watching the boy. He looked even younger with his eyes open, rumpled from sleep and disoriented from the nightmare and being sick. But there was a darkness in his gaze— not something evil or sly, but like an afterimage of some horror had been left behind something.

  “It gets bad sometimes. When it’s a dream like that, it’s really bad. Didn’t last too long this time though, thanks to you. I owe you one, Red,” the boy said. Then he huffed out a humorless laugh. “On the other hand now I don’t know what happens, just how it starts. Guess I’ll just find out the old-fashioned way like everyone else.”

  They sat like that for a bit longer, before the boy took a deep breath and let it out in a heavy sigh. He reached out and picked up the cheap cell phone that sat to the side of his makeshift bed and thumbed the screen awake.

  “Ten after four. Ugh. I’m not gonna get any more sleep tonight. May as well try to find a cup of coffee in town.” He turned back to his pack and rummaged through it again, pulling out clean clothes. “Maybe I can pick up some work today, even. That’d be good, I’m running low on coffee cash anyway. What do you think, Red? Think that guy at the diner’d let me wash dishes for a few bucks and a meal? He did over the weekend, but it was pretty busy in there when I went in. Probably not quite so busy at four thirty on a weekday, but you never know. If I can, I’ll try to bring you back a treat or something. For helping me out this morning and keeping me company. Least I can do for a friend, right?”

  He talked while changing his clothes and when he pulled the t-shirt over his head he looked at Sebastian and grinned. It changed his whole face. Until then, Sebastian would have guessed the kid for some sort of addict, living out here to escape detection while he enjoyed his drug of choice. There were stress lines on his face that didn’t belong on someone so young, and his eyes looked like they’d seen things that grown men shuddered at. But when he smiled?

  The joy made him look genuinely young, finally. Honestly young, with the slightly dented innocence of the end of childhood, though that lasted only as long as the grin did. And, Sebastian noted, he was clean and tidy, carefully smoothing his clothes over his body before grabbing a jacket and his shoes, which he tied carefully. This kid was a mystery that Sebastian wanted to solve.

  “Well, I doubt you’ll still be here when I get back,” the boy went on while he rolled his sleeping bag up tightly and started to hide everything in the Wight Cave. Sebastian shivered slightly at the memory of what had once been in that hole in the earth, thankful that this boy with the haunted eyes hadn’t been here six months ago. Whatever troubles he’d seen would likely have been made a thousand times worse by the soul chilling effects of the wights.

  “But I’ll be back later. I’ll try to find something fox-safe to bring you. You be careful out there, okay? It’s a scary world.” The boy stilled for a moment before shouldering a smaller bag and standing to run his fingers through his short, spiky blonde hair. He smiled at Sebastian again and nodded.

  “See you later, Red. Hope so, anyway. It’s good to have a friend.” The boy stepped away, careful not to get too close to his new friend and made his way through the brush towards the hiking trail. Sebastian followed after a moment, listening to the boy’s progress down the Flume Trail until he was sure of where he was going, then looped back to head home.

  Well, to Sarah’s house anyway, where he slept with enough frequency now that she’d given him a key to let himself in after his patrols. He slunk into her yard, letting the comforting tingle of her wards tickle across his fur until he reached her back doorstep where he stood, and stretched his once again human arms over his head and cracked his neck.

  There was a light on in the kitchen and he saw a steaming mug on the kitchen table, so he didn’t even fish the key out of his pocket before reaching for the doorknob.

  “Hey honey, I’m home,” he called softly, the peace and quiet of the hour still lodged in his chest.

  “What— Sebastian?” Sarah poked her head around the corner of the hallway, blinking at him. “What are you doing here so early, I thought you had a patrol tonight?”

  Sebastian laughed and stepped over to kiss his girlfriend.

  “It’s after four in the morning, Sarah. I’m just back. What are you studying now that got you so wrapped up?” he asked.

  “Doc and I are going over various magic-induced injuries. We’re actually starting to talk about poisons, too, and I was reading over this old herbal that she lent me. It’s fascinating stuff, considering it was written by a normal human. They seem to have stumbled onto a lot of genuine information somehow.” Sarah nudged the book on the table. “But if it’s that late I should probably go to bed, huh?”

  “Probably,” Sebastian locked the back door and flipped the lights off. “I saw that boy again tonight. He was having a nightmare and I woke him up. It was…” Something about the whole encounter tugged at him. “He puked right after he woke up, and then cleaned himself up like he was used to it. Then he sat there and chatted with the weird fox that was hanging out at his hidden campsite like I was his only friend in the world.”

  “He talked to you?” Sarah flipped the covers up on the bed and sank onto it. Seb nodded slowly and followed suit, dropping his clothes in the hamper as he passed it.

  “Yeah. Like you do sometimes, to animals. I think he’s lonely. And scared of something.” Sebastian frowned and shook his head.

  “Well, all you can do, really, is keep an eye on him. You’re a good friend to have, whichever form you’re in.” Sarah snuggled into his side and rested her head on his shoulder, and Sebastian smiled and wrapped his arms around her. Warm and safe and snuggled in bed with a woman who loved him, he thought about how this moment was a blessing and he was grateful for it.

  And he wondered if
the strange boy from the woods had found his coffee after all.

  3

  “So the pool is done, and the clubhouse is almost finished. The bathroom upgrades are slated to start next week and the roof is scheduled for next month. The plumbing is still being investigated, but the guy said it looks okay so far. It’s not really all that old, turns out, Obaachan had it updated late nineties I guess. I was worried it was way older than that.” Kai leaned back from his desk and stretched his arms over his head to arch back. Sebastian could hear the popping of his brother’s spine from across the room where he was scribbling a couple of notes on a work order.

  “Hopefully Kelsey will have stopped throwing her ponies in the toilet once the new ones are in. I’ve replaced two toilets so far. That kid’s mom is starting to look a little frayed.” Sebastian grinned across the room and thought what a relief it was to see Kai looking so good.

  And Kai really did look good sitting there with the late afternoon sun slanting in through the window behind him and across his ink black hair and permanently tanned arms. It was wonderful to see him smiling like he meant it again. It had been a couple of months since everything with Eric had gone down and Kai’s physical wounds were finally healed— completely and without the lingering effects that Kai had suffered from the wight battle. Granted, Kai still had a bit of a limp, but between that or losing his leg in a bear trap, everyone agreed it was not too great a price, and Kai always pointed out that he now had an awesome story about how the pre-teen and entirely human Cassie had saved him.

  The emotional wounds, however, still shone through Kai’s eyes when he sat alone too long. Sebastian could understand that all too well, since he knew that he got the same look himself when he thought about it. How else could they react? Their own brother had tried to kill them— well, tried to arrange their murders— and for what? Greed, mostly. Eric had wanted to control the Village at San Calafia apartment complex, and he’d thought the best way to do that was to get rid of the people who he felt stood in his way: his brothers.

  The other reason Eric hated them was jealousy. Not of the money he thought that they made from owning and managing the Village, though that was a small factor. No, he was jealous of them for the same reason that they poured so much energy and time and back into the Village. Unlike Eric, Sebastian and Kai were spirits, though Sebastian was nowhere near as powerful as Kai. And even though they treated him no differently than they treated each other, Eric had felt lesser and hoped to destroy the community of spirits that lived and found sanctuary in the Village. He tried to have his own brothers— men he’d grown up with, shared movie nights and s’mores and school dramas with— murdered for financial gain because he thought he deserved their property more than they did, that that came damn close to breaking both Sebastian and Kai.

  Family was so complicated. If he sat down and drew out his family tree, both Eric and Kai would technically be his half-brothers, and step-brothers to each other. Eric had come from their human father’s first marriage to a greedy shrew of a woman who had systematically poisoned Eric against his new family members. It was from Sebastian and Kai’s mother that Seb had gotten his own magic. And Kai was… Well Kai’s father was difficult for Sebastian to wrap his mind around, and he’d met the man several times.

  Meeting a mythological archetype is always going to be a strange experience, even when he’s wearing jeans and a cowboy hat.

  “So, the new garbage disposal is coming in tomorrow for the Andersons’ unit. Jennifer said that she doesn’t mind the delay, but it annoys the hell out of me that we didn’t note when we installed the last one we had on hand,” Kai said, slumping back into his desk chair from his stretch.

  “Yeah. Sorry about that. We’ve been pretty distracted around here this year.” Sebastian nodded. “I’ll do better at keeping track.”

  “I’m not mad, believe me. I am fully aware of how busy we’ve been.” Kai leaned his elbows on the desk and met Sebastian’s gaze. “You go by that kid’s camp again?” he asked.

  “Yeah. A couple of times. I try to go every couple of days now. I told you about his nightmare last week, right? I checked up on him that night and he seemed okay. Tired as hell, but he’d gotten a bag of leftovers from that diner I guess. Shared some with me. Seems like he’s doing odd jobs to keep himself fed. I don’t like it,” Sebastian said. He sighed and frowned at the memory of the boy, shaken and pale, staring into the dark like it was more comforting than the possibility of returning to the nightmare he’d escaped.

  “Yeah. Me neither,” Kai agreed. “Unfortunately there’s not a lot we can do if we don’t know what his deal is. And it’s not like he’s going to give his life story to a fox and a coyote in the middle of the night. You don’t think he’s going to be a problem, do you?”

  “I don’t think you have to worry, mister demi-god. He’s just a troubled human kid. Neither of us has caught even a whiff of magic around him. Compared to everything else we’ve been through lately, I’m sure even I can handle anything he can throw our way.” Sebastian ran his fingers through his messy hair— sandy blonde instead of Kai’s black, just to further highlight the differences between them. Definitely time to get a haircut.

  “I’m just being extra nervous, I’m sure. I mean, after seeing the havoc Eric managed to wreak, and he’s entirely human too… “ Kai ran his fingers through his own shaggy hair to sweep it off his forehead. It was a gesture they’d both picked up from Sebastian’s father and seeing Kai do it made him smile a little.

  “Eric had help. That warlock he recruited was gunning for us, too, because we took out his pet wights. And then the hunters that were after Marcus and Cassie…” Sebastian frowned at the thought. “Do you suppose that any more hunters will head out this way? Those two were arrested for that nightclub shooting and Marcus’ wife’s murder, and the stalking charges on top of the stuff with you. I know that hunters aren’t generally all that organized, but those two have to have friends that’ll notice what happened, don’t you think? Or family maybe, since the job does seem to be handed down that way.”

  Kai sighed and stood up, shoving his chair under the heavy desk and dropping the blinds over the window.

  “I don’t know. Marcus and I have wondered about that, too, but there’s no real way to answer that question. I guess if they come for us, we’ll sort it out then.” Kai flipped his laptop shut.

  “Well, one lone human boy that seems unaware of us isn’t going to pose much of a problem for me. I can take care of him even with my weenie amount of magic if he ever poses a threat of any sort. Which I honestly don’t even see happening. He seems like a good kid. Troubled, but good.” Sebastian shrugged.

  “You’re more than capable of handling any problem that comes our way. It’s not how much magic you have that matters, it’s how you live. After all, you always hand me my ass when I deserve it. Man, I think I’m still cowering from the lecture you gave me when I went on that bender in February!” Kai popped his eyes wide open and gave an exaggerated shudder to prove it. “Mom herself couldn’t have done a better job! That was master level guilt wielding, man.”

  “What are brothers for?” Sebastian’s grin wasn’t quite as cheerful as it would have been last year, but there was nothing they could do about Eric now and they both knew it. The reason Kai had gotten so drunk in the first place was due to Eric’s careful manipulation. That bastard had deliberately driven Kai to the brink in an effort to destroy his sanity. And it had come far too close to working.

  “Besides, you’re pretty badass. Usually the magic isn’t very easily expressed after two generations of human blood, and you’ve always shifted between your forms so easily. I don’t want to hear you talking yourself down. Anyway, I think we’re about done here for today. You heading to the Apothecary?”

  “Yeah. Sarah and I were planning to grab a late dinner after she closes tonight. Maybe see if there’s a movie we want to see playing late.” Sebastian’s smile returned to full volume. “You want to come wi
th?”

  “Nah. I told Marcus and Cassie I’d go have dinner with them and hang out for a while. It’s tough for him, with the days getting longer and all.” Kai flipped the lights off as they left the leasing office.

  “Tough life of a vampire in the summer,” Seb said.

  “Tough life for his human daughter, too. A few of us offered to be daylight contacts for her. You know, in case of emergencies or really bad math homework or whatever. I think Marcus even called the school and put me and Jennifer on the Acceptable Adult list. She’s his attorney now anyway, so…” They strolled out of the building and into the sunshine together.

  “She can always call me, too. Or Sarah, I’m sure.” Sebastian raised a brow at his brother now. “You’re getting along with the two of them pretty well. Spending a lot of time over there with them. I’m glad, actually. He seems so lonely sometimes.”

  “Watching your wife get shot in front of you can do that to a guy. He’s cool, though. I like hanging out with him. And Cass is a great kid.”

  “She really is. And she’s High Priestess of the Cult of Kai, so I know your opinion is entirely unbiased.” Sebastian laughed and stumbled a few feet when Kai shoved him. When he turned back his brother was grinning at him. It felt great to be goofing around again after so many months of stress. To their right stretched a path that wound past another building of apartment units on one side and the common area they called the Village Green on the other, then past another two buildings until it ended at the parking lot in the back. That was where Sebastian was headed, to climb into his Prius and head out for his date while Kai peeled off to head to the Wells’ apartment.

  “Well, tell them I said hey. I know Sarah’d love to see them soon, too, we’ll plan a party or something,” Sebastian said, thumping Kai’s shoulder as they parted.