CHAPTER 1 - IMPENDING DOOM
Dominik Halcyon snapped out of the meditation with a gasp. Sweat dripped off her forehead and she was breathing heavily. Her legs felt stiff as she stumbled out of the recliner and rushed for a phone. Her fingers shook as she dialed her friend over at the Seattle Police Department.
"Hail." She said in her strong baritone voice.
"Viktoria. It's Dominik Halcyon. We have a big problem." She said urgently.
"Dom? Where have you been? Too busy being a girl now? I could've used your help last month. I had a seriously bad case here that ended a few decades of subterfuge." Lieutenant Viktoria Hail Klaus said with a sharp but playful tone.
"Is that Alexander? You finally nail who he was working for?" She said with a raised eyebrow. She was the only person Hail had trusted with the knowledge that her lead mage was a plant by a rival. Dom had been around long enough to know Hail in the early days of Seattle's Special Investigations and she had been a useful ally.
"Yep. Psychopathic shapeshifter feeding on Mythics and anyone else she could get her hands on. Get this though, she had a taste for her own daughters. Apparently she would leave a kid to be raised by someone else and when their powers came up, she'd eat them to get stronger. Her most recent daughter showed up on my radar and everything blew up over a few weeks. She and Alex are both dead and I've got two very talented permanents in my department now. Turns out the shapeshifter's daughter was dating a budding mage with an eidetic memory." Viktoria explained, "Rough time of it though, some foresight would've gone a long way."
"Sounds like you had it handled. Anyway! Big stuff! I need to talk immediately. I've got a big tip off for you to keep an eye out for over the next few weeks." Dom said, leaning against the wall.
Hail huffed, "One thing after another. I think I may already know you're going to tip me off about. Do you have time to get a bite of dinner?"
"Dinner? Oh hell, it is evening. I was out longer than I thought. Where?" Dom asker and Hail told of him of a little sandwich shop to meet her at.
She hung up the phone and hurried to get dressed.
*******
Dominik walked into the shop, a quaint cafe named Mythic Morsels. She stifled a chuckle at the name. It was pretty brazen of place for two of the Mythic community to meet for dinner. It had a few tables on the sidewalk outside and a half dozen inside. The floors were clean hardwood and it was decorated enough to feel warm but not be gaudy. The kitchen was open in the back of the cafe and two women worked there.
She looked around and saw Hail sitting in the far corner. She was a blonde Nordic beauty with piercing blue eyes and a muscular boxer's body. As Dom stepped over there, Hail looked up and frowned, "Dominik?"
"Oh come now. Must you ask?" Dom said, sitting down across from her with a smile.
"What have you done to yourself now?" Hail groaned.
Dom looked down at herself, "What? I think I'm cute, damn it."
She was a bit shorter than Hail with fair skin and sharp eyes. Her hair was dark with a bright pink stripe in it. Her body was shapely and she had a pretty curvy ass. Hail eyed her up and down, "What are you, anyway?"
"I'm GoGo Tomago. I got torn up by a Chronotog in a movie theater and when I came to, this was what I had become." Dom shrugged, brushing a finger across her black bangs.
Hail laughed, "Have you ever figured this thing out?"
"I have some theories. I'm pretty certain I am destabilized on a psychic and magical level. Whenever my mind suffers the psychological trauma of death, my body goes haywire and reconstructs itself. I'm still unwilling to put a bullet in my head to test it." Dom shrugged.
"Even though you've died a half dozen times since Chernobyl?" Hail chuckled.
"Yea."
The two women running the shop came over to them with a plate of sandwiches. One of them was a taller woman with tanned skin and long black hair. She had a slight feral look to her with her sharp eyes and angular face. Her body was athletic and lean, like that of a panther or some other wild predator.
The other woman was ever her opposite. Irish, short, and pale skinned. She had bright eyes and huge, fluffy red curls. Her body was curvy and she wore glasses.
They sat down and Dominik stared at them, "Something I can help you two with?"
"Sorry, Dominik, let me explain. These are my newest regulars. They've proven themselves canny and capable so I've brought them in as permanents on the force. She is Caroline, shapeshifter. The other is Katelyn, my new lead mage. They're both new to the Mythic, but they've learned fast." Hail explained.
"Oh! Well that would explain why we're eating here. You two work for SI and run a cafe?" Dom asked, taking one of the sandwiches.
Katelyn blushed and Caroline laughed, "Gotta have something to do in our day to day. So who are you?"
"Dominik Halcyon, Chronomancer." Dom nodded to them.
"Really? You're a mage too? I haven't tried any time magic yet. The books Alexander gave me haven't explained any into that." Kate said with a sudden eager tone.
"No, young miss, I am not a mage. I am a Chronomancer. There is a difference. That boy Alex really never taught you anything." Dom sighed with a shake of her head, "Kids these days just aren't getting the right education."
"What do you mean? You don't look any older than me." Kate pointed out.
"That is an accident of my last major academic pursuit. You've heard of Chernobyl, yes? In 1986, there was no nuclear accident. That was all a cover up. It was an experimental magic being performed by myself and a dozen of my colleagues. I am the foremost master of Space-Time magic. We were trying to create a different dimension. The spells went wrong and the entire area was struck by a rift cascade that destabilized reality. I was the only one to make it out of ground zero. Ever since then, I have also been destabilized and when I die, I don't stay that way. I was actually born in Moscow in the mid eighteen hundreds."
"And that's why you're GoGo Tomago." Kate snickered, "Good choice."
Dom sighed, "I don't get to choose. I think the instability absorbs nearby psychic imagery to conform to my body. Hence, take a blow from a Chronotog in a theater and you get a movie character."
"So what's so special about being a Chronomancer?" Caroline asked.
"It's a rank. A title. You really call yourself a mage and you don't know anything about the society of the Wise?" Dom groaned.
"Not now Dom. You can educate her after you explain what's so important that you called me in a panic." Hail interrupted them.
"Right. The entire west coast will be destroyed in ten or so days. Not sure how or where or when. There is a substantial chance that everything will be dead and burned." Dom said, leaning on the table.
"Uhhhh." Caroline sat upright with wide eyes.
Hail sighed, "Don't panic. Details Dom. What can you tell me?"
"The destruction is caused by a demon. One of the Old. A demonic cult will summon him after sacrificing some source of great power. I can't refine it any more than that until we're closer to the event. But knowing how these things are done, there will be disappearances. Lots of sacrifices will have to be made, lots of blood spilled to get the attention of one of the Old. Then it'll take an immense power source, a Mancer or better, to break them loose." Dom explained as the two girls stared at him and Hail listened.
"Alright. I thought as much. We've had a young girl go missing and there's been a lot of talk about homeless disappearing. Good to know what we're looking for. Let me make a call." Hail got up and pulled a phone from her pocket.
"So... Uhh... Are we all gonna die?" Katelyn asked fearfully.
"No way of knowing." Dom shook her head.
"But you said you saw it. Doesn't that mean it's going to happen?" Katelyn asked with an urgent tone.
"Alright. Divination one oh one. No future is set in place. Anyone divining the future will tell you that anything more than two or three seconds out is impossible to guarantee. Humans and free will screw that all up entirely. But good time magic can look into the future and see probability. You can look at the threads of the future and see what is most likely to happen. It's damn rare that anything more than a day or two in the future is even clear enough to see, so when I see something like this destruction, I don't fuck around. It's got enough chance of happening and it will cause enough metaphysical shockwaves that it could become a self fulfilling prophecy if not headed off."
Caroline stared at her in confusion.
Dom just sighed, "Roulette. Bet on which number versus odds and evens, colors, or something like that. The chances are what matter. This event has a high enough chance and it's got enough impact that it screams at my divining magic. Look, being able to see the future isn't even an art or a science, it's a lot of best guessing and vague feelings. But I've done it a long time."
Caroline looked at Katelyn pleadingly. She still didn't understand it well. Katelyn just shrugged and looked back at Dom, "So what were you saying before. About the Society of the Wise?"
"Right. There are certain titles that define our talents and powers. There are four levels." Dom raised a finger and drew it through the air. A glowing line followed it and she wrote 'Adept'. "Adepts are those new to our world. Teenagers just coming into their power or those that don't have enough power to really take up any serious skill. Adepts sometimes get really good at one or two spells, but they don't get any real power. They probably make up half of the Wise."
"Okay. But I can do more than that." Katelyn pointed out.
"Then you would probably fall under the next category." She wrote a line and then wrote 'Mage'. "Mages are those that know basic rune magic. They have an understanding of their power and they are capable of doing quite a few things. This is the other half of our society. Very few every get beyond this level."
"What's higher than that?" Katelyn asked eagerly.
"Wizards." And she wrote it above mage before continuing, "These are few and far in between. Powerful Wise that can do almost anything you can imagine. The sign of a wizard is that you have moved beyond rune magic. You've started to take up raw magic."
"What's that?" Katelyn cocked her head, "I thought all spells required runes."
"To most, that is true. But a powerful enough mind can start crafting spells without it. It's much harder because runes make up the scaffolding for magic and they hold it in shape. A runic fireball will stay just that. A raw fireball can grow and spread and absorb other fire. It's a whole different challenge." Dom said, raising his hand an orb of fire appeared and glowed in between her fingers.
