6. Sebastian
Sebastian
B y the time Pavel arrived at the work session, Sebastian’s fellow young artists had been singing through their music for twenty minutes.
He and Trent had been practicing their piece: the tense, malicious duet between Rigoletto and Sparafucile in Verdi’s Rigoletto.
Sebastian adored performing the scene. He was cast as Sparafucile, the villainous assassin, and it allowed him to be an absolute menace.
It was the kind of role that made him feel most at home.
The maestro didn’t make eye contact with him when he entered the room. Instead, he stood quietly, allowing them to finish, and then prodded them to start ‘Siete voi?’ the big ensemble in Rossini’s La Cenerentola .
The gargoyle wasn’t doing well. That much was obvious.
Pavel was paler than he was a few minutes ago, and he kept glancing at the clock in the rehearsal studio like he was late for an appointment.
When time was up, the maestro hurried out of the room.
Sebastian considered going after him, trying to talk to him, but ultimately decided it was a bad idea.
Mates…
Sebastian rolled his eyes at the wisp that whispered in his ear as he made his way outside into the bright sun of the vast plaza.
Yes, little chaos spirit, he’d already figured out Justin and Pavel were his mates. The connections were already forming between the three of them, the bonds starting to stretch out after only a few minutes together.
His mother would hate this. But he had bigger fish to fry.
He’d revealed his identity to Justin and Oscar.
He’d avoided exposing himself for almost two years now.
Not that he feared the Grosvenor Coven. Trent and Oscar were good men, and he didn’t believe they’d be a part of anything evil or destructive.
Despite that, relations between vampire covens and witch’s circles had always been tense.
The two groups were often at odds, and because of that, certain protocols were in place.
Once he found out, their grumpy, redheaded coven master would want to speak with Sebastian, to suss him out.
Hopefully, the vampire wouldn’t be too angry he hadn’t introduced himself before.
He'd been dragging his feet for one major reason. Sebastian’s mother had been hounding him about Freddie Grosvenor for months now. Justin and Oscar’s coven was the only organized group of vampires with any real power in a one-hundred-mile radius of Manhattan. And Sebastian’s mother needed friends.
Sebastian hated being his mother’s errand boy.
He had trouble feeling anything but ambivalence for the Bayonne Circle.
He’d grown up there, and he loved many of the members like they were his family, but his connection to it was another avenue for his mother to exercise control.
Another tie dragging him back into the power struggles of witches.
Still, with his sister back in the picture, the Circle needed allies, and this was an opportunity for Sebastian to facilitate.
He’d spent almost two years pretending he was an orphan with no past, but now his family needed his help.
Hopefully, Freddie would be interested enough in the kind of magical support the Circle could provide to not dismiss it out of hand.
Sebastian stepped onto the crowded subway car, easily slipping in between a diminutive elderly white man and a tall Asian woman in a stylish black coat. If he was going to the covenhouse, he’d need to make sure he was fully prepared, so he had to stop by his apartment in Washington Heights.
He’d taken the apartment up on 175th Street so he could have his own space, miles north of the opera house. So he could have a life separate from his work and from the Bayonne Circle, one all his own.
Sebastian took the steps two at a time, springing out of the subway station onto the sunny streets of Washington Heights.
He loved midtown, but his neighborhood was more residential and more alive , friendlier than the cold rush of the businessmen and the confused wandering of the tourists.
The chaos spirits liked it here, too, preferring the joyous jumble of the Heights over the ambitious and discordant version further south.
He bounded up the stairs to his fourth-floor walkup, the wood creaking under his footfalls. He had real affection for his old prewar apartment building, with its brick facade and its ornate oak bannisters. He was an adult here, away from his mother and his sister, living his own life in the city.
As he unlocked his front door, he took a deep breath. Time to get ready. He couldn’t put it off. He had to present himself to the Grosvenor Coven.
Sebastian had walked past the covenhouse before—it was only a few blocks from Manhattan Lyric—but he’d never been there at night.
It was more imposing in the evening, the glass and steel marrying in a strange, ominous monument.
Of course, the typical human walking by might assume it was an office building, emptied of workers for the day. Sebastian knew better.
It dwarfed him and had him considering tamping down his naturally mischievous nature. He wouldn’t, of course, but he considered it. For a moment.
As he reached the front door, a vampire in a leather jacket materialized from the shadows. He was of average build, sporting brown hair and a septum piercing. His face didn’t betray a trace of emotion.
“Want do y’ want like?” The man’s voice was gruff, although Sebastian sensed the roughness was a bit put on. He couldn’t quite place the accent. Somewhere in the UK, certainly, but Sebastian wasn’t sure where.
“I’m here to see your coven master.”
The vampire’s eyes hardened, and he moved himself between Sebastian and the building’s front door. “What does a human want with the master?”
“I know Oscar and Trent. And Justin.” Sebastian’s mood was moving from intimidated to annoyed. It was par for the course, but vampire security was always handled by the biggest assholes in the coven.
Fangs peeked out from behind the vampire’s upper lip. “So you say.”
Sebastian was about to protest when he saw the man’s eyes go glassy. It was the look of someone speaking mind-to-mind. After a moment, the man blinked and then continued.
“Lillian will be down to deal with ya.”
He hated people sometimes. No explanation of who Lillian was, or whether they’d checked in with Oscar and Trent. Just a vampire trying to unnerve him.
He couldn’t stop himself. He gave his luck amulet a tiny burst of personal energy, hoping it might net him a mote of petty revenge.
The chaos spirits didn’t disappoint. Without warning, the vampire’s denim jeans dropped to the ground, revealing a pair of navy plaid boxers and two very spindly legs contrasting with his bulky torso.
Also, who the hell wore boxers? He had to be straight.
Sebastian giggled to himself as the vamp yelped, scrambling to pull his pants back up.
The man eyed him suspiciously, although Sebastian was far enough away to have plausible deniability.
Sebastian raised his eyebrows, striking a pose of confused innocence, but said nothing.
After a few moments of awkward, silent standoff, the door opened, and a woman stood inside. She was Black, and her long hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She had a gaze that pinned you to the nearest wall, and when she gestured for Sebastian to come inside, he followed her implied command.
The vampire woman didn’t speak. Sebastian followed her with cautious trepidation. As they stepped into the elevator and the doors closed behind them, he turned to her.
“Are you Lillian?”
She nodded curtly but did not speak. Okay. He tried again.
“Are we, uh, going to see the coven master?”
Lillian did not even deign to nod in response this time, instead standing there and staring at the elevator door as they ascended.
Sebastian hated vampires sometimes. They were always so fucking self-serious.
The doors opened on a large space spanning the whole length of the floor.
It was filled with antique furniture and furnishings.
Honestly, the effect was odd. It was giving warehouse more than anything else, the ottomans and tapestries and side tables contrasting strangely with the glass, steel, and concrete of the modern building around them.
It was also far more like an unusually decorated college dorm common area than the medieval-esque throne room he’d expected.
At the far end, a muscular redhead sat in an upholstered armchair with a tall back. Sebastian recognized him as Frederick Grosvenor. Next to him sat Anthony Bianchi. Sebastian didn’t know Anthony, other than the fact he was Oscar and Trent’s voice teacher.
Seeing him here, it was obvious Anthony must be Frederick’s mate. Voice teachers tended to be both fundamentally compassionate and essentially meddlesome, two qualities that usually were also found in the coven master’s mate.
There were seven or eight other vampires scattered about, a couple playing a video game on a large television, others reading or chatting. A few of them had goblets of blood in their hands, which they treated as casually as if they were cans of soda.
Oscar and Trent were nowhere to be found, but Justin was lounging on a chaise, typing away on his phone. Maybe texting a friend? Sebastian hoped he wasn’t on a hookup app. He wasn’t sure how vampires recognized their mates, so he didn’t know if Justin understood what they were to each other.
As Lillian led him forward, all the sound in the room died down to a murmur. Justin looked up from his phone, his eyes going wide with confusion as he noticed Sebastian.
Sebastian felt the eyes of the vampires on him, but he pushed down any anxiety or nervousness as he approached the coven master and his mate.
Sebastian had nothing to fear. Frederick had a reputation for fairness, and he knew several other members of the coven.
In a pinch, Oscar or Trent would vouch for him.