RP:The Return of James Tyler
Caribou Coffee
109 SW Maynard Rd.
Cary, NC
13:30 EST
He was thinner than her memory: his hair grown out and nearly colorless, his long overcoat was a fuzzy grey tweed that somehow looked more like a bathrobe.
He hadn’t noticed Dawn yet. Instead, he intently stirred his coffee and stared into its depths as if the secrets of the universe might be unveiled were he just able to open a path all the way to the bottom of the cup.
Yet, despite his changes, and his distraction, it could be no one other than her father, James Tyler.
Dawn stared for a long minute, trying to reconcile this thin, distracted, worn-out man with her memory and while she was not able to completely overcome her dissonance, she did walk over to the table. It took another minute, perhaps longer before she got a response from him and even then he didn’t look up.
“Dawn,” he said quietly, the word divorced of recognition or meaning. Without warning, he was suddenly present, his eyes warm with familiar energy. “Dawn!”
Coffee forgotten, he leapt out of the chair and bear hugged his daughter. “If, you’re not Dawn, I’m in so much trouble. You’re Dawn, right? Dawnie?
"Well sit. Sit. I’ve so much to tell you but I don’t have a lot of time”
As they sat, he was present and, at the moment, the father Dawn remembered. “Um . .,” he began. “So . . to catch up . . um . . how are you doing? Well? You went to college, right? Duke? You were supposed to get a scholarship”
“I did,” she replied.
“So, you graduated and you’re a doctor now, right?”
“Umm . . . some things got in the way."
Something flashed across James’ face, a recognition of some kind, before collapsing into a crestfallen visage. “Oh, I’m familiar. Things get in the way. Things always get in the way, but you’ve become a . . . um, practiced in the occult arts?”
It was then that Dawn noticed her father’s coffee cup, specifically that while he had stopped stirring it, the stirrer stick kept rotating around the cup a hypnotic swirl in the coffee.
Dawn looked at the coffee and then looked at her father. “Did you know . . . .When I was little?”
“No, I . . . it doesn’t follow family lines exactly and frankly, when I left I didn’t know I was a mage. They said I was mage but I hadn’t done any magic. And then your mom kicked me out. It was . . . bad. I travelled for a bit.”
“Wait, she kicked you out?”
“Well, yes. Um . . . I never really got a chance to tell you what happened and I don’t know what she told you.”
“You know that Mother didn’t tell me much of anything and then I left.”
“It may well be that I’ve already said too much and it isn’t going to help anything anyway and we do have things to talk about. Have you met anyone from the France lately, or maybe the Mediterranean? Anyone who’s become important to you?”
“No.”
“I did some tea leaves about a month ago,” James said, his voice and eyes losing focus as he fell into the memory. “I was in the Temple of Aglibol in Palmyra. Many malign influences are headed your way, or maybe are already in your path. They come from different directions with different goals but each seeks harm to you. A tanned man with blue eyes and dark, receding hair is the first, but not the last. He once walked these corridors as I have, but long ago.”
Dawn didn’t know much about Palmyra other than the recent news that it was a Syrian city destroyed in the recent fighting there.
“I fear the Nyxians are back, or the brotherhood, or both. Do you know who they are?”
“Yes, we’ve had dealings.”
“This is bad. What happened?”
Dawn launched into slightly disjointed recounting of recent history, including the Cult of Nyx’s attacks at the storage unit and Hunter offices. Her father listened intently, but silently, until Dawn said, “Well, I guess that’s that or at least as much as I can remember.”
“A Nephandi and Vampire attacks?” he said incredulously. “Well, that explains part of my vision but not all of it. What was it ... ? I am looking for a place,” he began, sounding almost like he was reciting a riddle, which maybe he was. “It may not exist or it may not exist here or yet. It may be that . . . I don’t know. Sometimes the visions are clear, but not concise, not precise. There’s a cemetery: vast tombs somewhere near here. Somewhere, near. . . here . . . west . . . north . . . soon” His voice trailed off and his eyes became unfocused again.
“Dad?”
“Dawn? Dawn! Oh hi.”
“You said something about a cemetery near here”
“Yes, it’s soon. It’s near chronologically, as well as geographically and I had a name, but it’s gone now. But we have to find it, or they’ll find us. Because that’s what the Nyxians want. That’s where they are. . . . and . . . we should . . . we should . . .”
James' fading was becoming existential as well as mental. His appearance, even his clothing, was becoming even grayer and almost transparent.
Dawn took her father's hand and willed him back into reality. It seemed to work, if only momentarily. “We need to take you somewhere where you won’t be doing that in public. Can you come back to the chantry?"
“No, I’ve been places and I’m going to go places. They’re pulling very hard and I need to go. Before things get worse. Not because I want to, but because they need to. It’s the only way to keep things from getting worse, for you. I’ll be back soon, but I should probably go from the restroom. But, but,” he trailed off in unspoken emotion “I’ll see you soon."
James hugged his daughter, it was like hugging a cloud, some part of him had already faded away. He gave her one last warm smile before entering the bathroom. Dawn waited a while, but the left. She didn’t need to check the room to know it was empty.
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