Interlude: Sylvester LaMarche

There was a ring, the tinkle of a bell that sifted through the room. Sylvester looked up from behind the counter and almost immediately sighed, hand running through his hair. He closed the book which he'd been reading and reached into a drawer to his right, pulling out a ward of herbs held together by a ward of hair.

"Phasmatos," he started and he felt the connection, power flooding into and feeling him up. At the edge of hearing he could hear a voice whispering words he couldn't quite understand, a spell he was sure though, he knew the rules well enough to know that his source of power was trying to gather influence.

He looked at the supposed, three boys a year older than him: Abelard Leroux III, Jamie Morris and Kaleb Westphall. The boys were speaking to each other, loud and boisterous though their words didn't have anything of substance to them. Looking at them, Sylvester already knew they were going to cause trouble, but then he had gotten used to it long ago when she'd died.

"If you're going to cause trouble let me remind you that this is my domain," he said.

The boys stopped, looking at him before they broke out in a loud guffaw. They continued speaking, jibing each other before they disappeared behind a row filled with herbs. Sylvester ran his mind through the inventory, a majority of the herbs there were nothing of worth just trinkets the greater populace believed had power.

He watched the trio, as they roved past the herbs, grabbing a cluster and sniffing it before putting it back. They continued to move, all the while moving closer to Sylvester's desk. As they neared Abelard grabbed small bag and filled it with ground sage. The three neared the desk.

"This and three bags of weed," said Abelard.

Sylvester nodded, muttering a smell to open his weed stock and pulling out three bags. "All together that's fifty," he said.

Abelard nodded and pulled out the cash, notes along with a few coins. He handed over the money, their hands touching and Abelard's mouth moving in that same motion, "Somn—"

Sylvester moved faster, in the moment Abelard had started his spell Sylvester had started working an internal magic, cutting a string of connection to spells arrayed around the room all of which ended with a low growl that stopped Abelard's spell in its tracks.

"I'd like to introduce you to my father," said Sylvester, his voice calm but cold and eyes taking in the trio. Abelard swallowed, a fear in his eyes he tried to hide though Sylvester could still see. He shot a quick look at the wolf at his side, short and thin, its muscles taut and looking as though it was prepared to pounce.

"We can—" Abelard stopped, his voice breaking. He cleared his throat. "He can handle one wolf."

"But in the doing, you'd be handling me too," Sylvester returned.

"And we're supposed to be scared of that?" Jamie piped up. "An independent with no power base? Whose blood is washed down by his impurity."

Sylvester snorted at that. "I pegged the covens as many things, I'll admit, looking from the outside in, but stupid was not one of them. What's the one rule of magic?" he asked them. They didn't answer. "There's power in rarity and even though I haven't activated the werewolf gene my blood is that of a wolf. I'm more powerful than the average witch."

"This doesn't hold water to the power that we have through the Ancestor," said Abelard. "Give us the pot and we don't cause trouble, and we don't kill him."

"You wouldn't in the first place," said Sylvester. He took a breath, running it all in his mind. He didn't like this play but it was something to be said because it afforded him a semblance of power when he was already on the backfoot. "What they say about me is true, you know," he said. "That I'm a seer."

"Seers don't really exist," said Kaleb.

"You're new," Sylvester told him. "Which means you haven't heard my story. I'll tell you since they haven't had the presence of mind to do so. As you no doubt have already gather my dad's a werewolf and my mother's a witch, Nandi LaMarche you might have heard of my grandmother."

"The Expressionist," Kaleb muttered.

"The Expressionist," Sylvester agreed with a slight nod. "They killed her, my mother. They said it was only a matter of time before she went the path of my grandmother. I was seven then and when they tried to take me I killed them. Your grandfather was one of them if I remember right, Jamie."

Said boy swallowed, his teeth clenching enough that lines drew themselves on his jaw.

"The truth being told I know now what I knew then, that it was a power play, that they wanted my knowledge for themselves which is the reason they made their play, even going so far as locking father's coven in their wolf forms. But I've survived all this, even survived Marcel and his try, even the remnants of the Guerrera pack. What makes you think I won't survive you?"

Abelard smirked at the question. "Because unlike them we know your tricks," he said and then there was motion. Jamie reached in his pocket just as the other three through themselves to the ground.

The wolf leapt into the air, pouncing for with its teeth barred and levelled in the direction of the closest form, Jamie. Before it could land however there was a clink of glass shattering against the ground before a plume of white smoke spread out across the room. The wolf landed within but there wasn't the screams Sylvester was suspecting, instead the wolf howled in pain.

Cloaking spell, Sylvester thought. Similar in application to the Gemini version. Area effect which means it's most likely a pre-prepared Boundary spell. Disruption using pre-established connections.

He grabbed the notes he'd been given, flooding them with power and using the most recent connection to trace it back to Abelard. "Somnus," he said, pushing the effect through the note's thread. "Ossox," he said again, this time picturing the shattering of arms and legs. The unfortunate side of this was that the connection had been that strong in the first place and the note burst into flames.

A counter moved, flying through the air with all its wares. "Vatos," Sylvester shouted, hand pointed in the direction of the counter. There was a crash, the entire thing breaking apart with glass shattering and rubbles still continuing towards him.

He ducked behind his desk, listening to the shattering as he reached into the drawers behind the desk pulling out various herbs and setting them alight. A spell was muttered and a wind spread through the entire room, quickly expanding the wafting scent of herbs throughout the entire shop.

"Boundary spell!" Sylvester shouted. "Same way I make sure your Ancestors don't have influence here. You won't be able to get out without my say so and in three seconds I'm going to burn this entire place down if you don't show yourselves."

Sylvester came to a stand, swallowing as he saw the effect the mist had had on his father. He was on the ground writhing, small yelps escaping as it tried to move out from the spells effect.

Don't focus on that, he told himself. They're no doubt looking for weakness.

He took a breath and focused, picturing a large square in his mind before he said, "Incendia." All at once fires raged around the four corners, quickly spreading so that they climbed all over the walls. In seconds the room became oppressive in its heat until one of the appeared.

Kaleb and he hand was moving, throwing out what looked like salt. He said a spell in quick order and the air moved the salt so that it landed in a roomy circle around. Another instance passed and then Jamie and Abelard appeared, the latter had his eyes closed, limbs standing at odd angles while the former held him close, eyes closed and mouth moving in silent words.

Sylvester's hand closed tighter around his power source, accepting its power. He felt out the threads around him, moving through the connection he shared with his father—fortified by magic—and worked to push him into the dimension he'd set up. The wolf disappeared and Sylvester could only hope the spell's effect didn't stretch even to that dimension, but unless they'd known the specifics of the spell he'd used that was unlikely.

Sylvester stepped over his desk and walked closer to the trio, standing firm even with the evermore oppressive heat that was starting to get to him. But he'd worked this place, prepared for the eventuality when they might come and really start something.

"I'm tired of this shit," said Sylvester, his words enough that both Jamie and Kaleb looked in his direction. "I'm tired of the rest of you thinking you can keep pushing and not getting a reaction. Well, this is it. I'm going to make my move and you're all going to suffer for it. I'm going to bring this town to its knees."

He waved a hand and the fire parted, leaving the doorway open.

"Leave," he said, emotion behind the words. He focused more into the spell than he had but with a flick of the hand the power of the spell smacked against the circle of salt, shattering it. At Kaleb's surprised expression he said, "You have no idea what they've got you embroiled into. Now go," at that the doors open, a cool air wafting in.

Kaleb was the first one out of the door, Jamie following behind dragging the broken form of his friend. The moment they were out Sylvester let himself breath for the first time, feeling some of the anxiety run out of his system; he said a quick spell and the fires disappeared as though they'd not been even there, the heat along with it.

He took another breath, calming himself down as he noticed for the first time that he was breathing harder, that his heart was beating faster.

"That was perhaps the most stupid thing I've ever done."

There was a snort and Sylvester turned and she was standing there. The woman wasn't exactly his grandmother, but pack dynamics as they were she effectively that for him. She stood on the doorway separating the shop from the house and she held in her hands a shotgun.

"You weren't really going to use that, were you?" Sylvester asked.

"No," said Grandma Dumas. "I'm not stupid. Rock salt." Another breath Sylvester had been holding in was let out. "I'm not about to just leave you, boy. I've been at this too long to do that."

He smiled a little, that relief present. "Destroyed some of my stock because of them," he said.

"Let's not kid ourselves that was because of you," she said. "A brouhaha over pot? I taught you better than that."

Sylvester sighed. "You did," he said, running a hand through his hair. "It's just that I'm frustrated."

"Full moon coming up," the woman returned. "Between your bloodlines at least one of them must be affecting you." She sighed taking steps forward until she was sitting on a chair. "They'll be coming back to cause trouble."

Sylvester nodded. "I'll need to gather power. Go out into the world to do that," he said. He let out a sigh, feeling truly tired for the first time since all of this had started.

He remembered it all even if it was foggy, that he'd lived another life before this and in that life he'd watched a show he would admit he'd been a little too invested in. But now he was here, he'd died and been reborn with full knowledge of the future and because of that knowledge his family had almost entirely been stripped from him.

"It was only a matter of time before this happened," he said. "That they pushed with enough vigour that I had to push back. They'll use this to try and take me or lock me in that place."

"Where are you going to go?" asked Grandma Dumas.

"Mystic Falls," he said. "It really won't take a lot of time, just a shaving a few people's heads, maybe getting back some blood, and then I'll work to break the curse on our family."

"We'd better get you prepared, then," the woman said. "Tell your father about this when he's in his human form. But in the mean time I need you at the bayou. There we'll be surrounded my family and they won't try and attack you."

Sylvester nodded. It was only a matter of time before parents got involved and he didn't think he could handle those.

888

AN: There was a story in Spacebattles whose summary was that of multiple characters with future knowledge of the story line being sucked into that particular story's universe. I didn't end up reading the story, but I ended up liking the idea enough I integrated it into this story as well as in a quasi sense in my Harry Potter story.

There's more than one 'clairvoyant' in the world and as for the reason right now I've chalked it up to Nature's machinations—let's not think about it too much. Which means that the 'clairvoyants' will be in the major covens that have been shown so far.

To Syed, this was the proposition and to reviewers and readers, I hope this chapter and story will continue to be enjoyed.

—Stalker