On instinct, Epiphany swung the car around in a sharp left turn down an alley just barely wide enough to accommodate it. Her headlights illuminated a man with a crowbar whose efforts to gain entrance to a shop through the back were almost certainly not due to a misplaced set of keys. Startled by the sudden blinding light, he fled. Epiphany smiled and allowed him to run. She had a feeling he wouldn't be returning to a life of crime that evening.
Of course, it was more than just a feeling--it was a certainty, a bone-deep knowledge of the hidden order behind events that rang true to Epiphany even if she couldn't articulate it. She didn't have a conscious awareness of any of it; she couldn't see a vision of that would-be criminal using the close call as a sign to rethink his life, or running away from her headlong into the arms of a police officer who would recognize his face from a mug sheet. She just had a sense that he wasn't going to be a problem anymore. Epiphany pulled her car to a stop at the mouth of the alley, just moments before a bike messenger came hurtling past at twenty miles an hour.
It probably didn't make her the easiest superhero to team up with. Even Doctor Magick didn't operate on the same level of cosmic intuition that flowed around and through Epiphany's link to the spirit planes. Epiphany could only imagine how she must sound to someone like WildRose or Harrier when she told them that she just went where the universe willed her to be. (Okay, so she didn't exactly have to imagine in Harrier's case. Even Epiphany had to admit that as explanations went for being in a sub-basement of the Kremlin in the middle of a military coup, "The universe led me here" was probably not a great one. But it wasn't like she forced him to swear so loudly that he alerted the entire platoon.)
Epiphany pulled her car out, merging seamlessly with traffic without even glancing at the other cars, and took a route that brought her out into the suburbs on the south side of King's Bayou. She didn't recognize the neighborhood, but the size of the houses told her that she was probably entering the rarefied strata of King Bayou's wealthy and powerful. She drove out past the six-figure homes into the seven-figure homes, her surroundings growing more empty as the city's elite demanded more and more space to themselves. Then the public roads ran out altogether, to be replaced by gated private streets. That was where she pulled over.
Epiphany got out of the car and began walking, uncertain of her destination but feeling an irresistible tug from the southwest. She wandered aimlessly until she found a spot where a tree grew close to the stone wall that bordered the grounds of an estate, and swung herself up easily into its branches. Climbing along, she dropped down onto an immaculately-groomed lawn that led up to a large mansion. The lights were on, but Epiphany had a feeling that nobody was looking out in her direction right now. She sauntered across the grounds with casual ease.
As sometimes happened, she felt a momentary twinge of confusion as the everyday instincts she'd grown up with as Ursula Shipton collided with the mystic intuitions of Epiphany. She knew that even if the owner wasn't home, a house this big must have a full staff of groundskeepers, cooks, butlers, maids, and all the other people who made a place like this run smoothly. It should have a security system--motion detectors, cameras, silent alarms, everything that kept the owner's possessions out of the hands of thieves and burglars. Ursula was sure that she was going to be caught at any moment.
But Epiphany knew, on a level beyond human knowledge, that she had nothing at all to fear. The higher powers of existence whispered to her subconscious mind to keep walking, and Ursula had long ago learned to trust that instinctive voice far more than her mundane experiences. Letting her actions flow with the currents of the universe's will had saved her life more times than Epiphany could count, and she'd long ago stopped trying to resist the voice of the cosmos in the back of her mind. She headed to a door on the veranda, and wasn't surprised at all to find it open.
She headed through what looked to be a sitting room, and rounded a corner to find a young woman wearing a maid's costume slumped at the base of a staircase. Epiphany rolled her over and gave her a shake, but she could already tell that the maid wasn't waking up any time soon. Intuitively, she knew that the slumber was magically induced. "What is it with bored rich people and dabbling in the dark arts?" she muttered to herself, knowing that there were some questions that even mystic sagacity couldn't answer. She left the maid propped up against a wall and stepped lightly up the stairs, easily avoiding every loose board and squeaking step.
She went up to the landing on the second floor and glanced down the long hallway. The mansion had more bedrooms than some apartment buildings she'd lived in, but Epiphany made her way quickly down to the fourth door on the left and eased it open, revealing a dimly-lit study that practically radiated eldritch power to her subconscious perceptions. There was a woman sitting at the desk, her back to the doorway, engrossed in a thick leather tome with vellum pages. Epiphany recognized her immediately, and not just on a magical level. "Dilettante," she said, a sigh of weary resignation escaping her lips.
The woman known as the Dilettante turned, her lips quirking in a crooked grin as she took in the sight of Epiphany in the doorway. She hadn't changed much since the last time Epiphany had crossed paths--she had a tiny streak of gray in her slicked-back dark hair, probably the legacy of her narrow escape from the Bone Merchants of Agadir, and she wore a pendant that glowed with an unearthly blue light and that clashed horribly with her trademark red suit. "Why, my dear Epiphany," she said, her dark eyes glittering in the candlelight, "how perfectly lovely to see you again. You'll have to excuse the state of the house, I'm afraid it isn't mine. I found out that the owner was off in Mongolia bartering for some relics of Sagaan Khan, and I decided to pop in and see if he had anything interesting."
Another sigh of involuntary frustration escaped Epiphany's lips. "And if he returns early? Or has any mystic traps set to protect the fortune in magical artifacts accumulated here? Honestly, the items in this room could be more dangerous than a nuke in the wrong hands." Epiphany was aware that her words were probably falling on deaf ears, but she couldn't help herself. Dilettante wasn't a bad person, just a scholar consumed with the pursuit of knowledge to the point of obsession. If she'd chosen any other field but black magic, it would probably be an admirable trait, or at least one that only risked her own life. Epiphany always felt like someday she might listen to reason.
But not today. "Oh, I have a few little baubles I picked up in Marrakesh to help with that," she said, her smile widening. "The Needle of Rosamund helped to keep the staff occupied, and of course this little beauty--" She scooped up the pendant and held it loosely, the blue glow spilling out from between her fingers. "Well, it's worked wonders to ferret out any nasty little surprises that might be waiting for me. I understand how you feel now, always being one step ahead of events. It's quite intoxicating, really. Like the universe will simply catch you if you fall."
Epiphany rolled her eyes in exasperation. "It's nowhere near as simple as that," she said, her voice betraying her frustration. "You think that I shape the forces of the universe to my will, but they really shape me. You can't simply play with that kind of energy to steal whatever you want, not without risking unimaginable consequences."
