Chapter 1: The Missing Merlin
Rain slicked the Chicago pavement, turning the alley behind The Velvet Hour into a tunnel of fractured neon and oily shadows. The bass from the club was a distant heartbeat, drowned out here by the syncopated drip of water from a rusted fire escape and the low, guttural growl coming from Liam MacDougal’s throat.
“It went left!” Bethany Xander hissed, her pink-tipped hair plastered to her skull by the downpour. She moved with a predator’s grace in her charcoal-gray suit, the fabric somehow repelling the wet. In her hands, a steampunk rifle hummed, brass fittings glowing with a soft, internal light. It wasn’t a gun that fired bullets. It fired concentrations of resonant frequency, designed to unravel things that didn’t belong.
Liam, beside her, held a pair of pruning shears that glinted with an unnatural sharpness. “Aye, and it’s faster than it looks,” he muttered, his Scottish brogue thick with adrenaline.
The thing they chased was a stain of movement against the brick, all shifting cartilage and too many joints. It smelled of ozone and rotting meat. An off-world crawler, drawn by the city’s magical turmoil like a shark to blood.
Bethany rounded a dumpster, rifle shouldered. She had a clear shot. The creature was hunched, scraping long claws against the wall as if trying to tear a hole in reality itself.
“Got you,” she whispered, her finger tightening on the trigger.
And then it hit her.
A wave of pure, undiluted hunger crashed through her system, hot and liquid. It wasn’t for food. It was a visceral, clawing need that centered low in her belly, making her knees weak. Her concentration shattered. The rifle’s hum dipped. Across from her, Liam gasped, his knuckles white on the shears. His eyes, wide and dark, locked onto her. She saw the same shocking, inappropriate want mirrored in his face.
“Bethany… what in hell’s name…” he breathed, his voice ragged.
The creature shrieked, sensing the shift. It launched itself at them.
Fighting through the fog of sudden, agonizing arousal, Bethany jerked the rifle up and fired. The blast went wide, smacking into the brick beside the creature and spraying molten slag. It swiped at her. She dodged, but a claw caught her sleeve, ripping the impeccable wool.
“Fuck!” she spat, and the curse was half anger, half something else. The smell of him—wet earth, sweat, and Liam—was overwhelming. She could feel every thread of her soaked clothing against her skin, a maddening friction.
Limb by impossible limb, she and Liam managed to corner it. It was a clumsy, brutal dance, every movement feeling slowed and thick with a tension that had nothing to do with the fight. Finally, Bethany saw an opening. She jammed the muzzle of the rifle against the thing’s pulsating core and fired.
A sound like shattering crystal. The creature dissolved into a shower of iridescent ash that was immediately washed away by the rain.
Silence, except for their panting.
Bethany turned, and Liam was there. The look between them wasn’t one of relief. It was a fuse being lit. The magical compulsion, a leftover psychic scent from the creature or something else, didn’t break; it crested.
“I need you,” Liam growled, and it wasn’t a question.
“I know,” she gasped back.
It was against a wet brick wall, under a flickering streetlamp. Desperate and furious. He fumbled with her trousers, she with his belt. There was no finesse. He lifted her, her back scraping against rough stone, and she wrapped her legs around his hips. When he pushed into her, she cried out, the sound swallowed by the city’s groan. It was raw, all drive and release, a frantic answer to the unnatural itch that had been planted in them. He fucked her hard and fast, his beard rough against her neck, his own shouts muffled against her skin. It was over in minutes, a violent, shuddering culmination that left them both slumped against the wall, breathing in ragged gulps of the damp air.
The haze cleared, leaving behind a profound and awkward clarity. Bethany slid down, wincing, pulling her clothes together. Liam leaned his forehead against the brick, avoiding her eyes.
A slow clap echoed from the mouth of the alley.
“Bra-vo! Told you the rifle modification would work, Fati. A little messy on the dismount, but the finale was… explosive.”
Jan O’Connor stepped into the dim light, her fiery red hair a burst of color in the gloom. She wore patched jeans and a vintage band t-shirt soaked through. Her Golden Retriever puppy, Godfrey, sat patiently at her feet, entirely unimpressed. Beside her, Fatima Abaza stood with her arms crossed, looking pained.
“Jan, for the last time, this is not a theatre performance,” Fatima said, her voice taut. She nodded to Bethany and Liam. “Are you both intact?”
Bethany felt a hot flush that had nothing to do with sex creep up her neck. “O’Connor,” she spat, straightening her ruined jacket. “What the fuck was that?”
“A residual desire-echo, probably from the crawler’s psychic sheath,” Jan said, waving a hand airily as she approached. She pulled a small, smooth river stone from her pocket and pressed it to the wall where the creature died; it sparked faintly green. “Yep. Nasty little things leave a horny ghost. My bad, I was trying to flush it toward you and my focus slipped. The vibe just… splashed.”
“Your focus slipped?” Liam asked, finally finding his voice. He sounded more astonished than angry.
“It happens to the best of us, big guy,” Jan said with an irrepressible grin. Then she sobered, her emerald eyes turning serious. “But that’s not why I’m tracking you down. We need to talk. I just got back from New York.”
Bethany’s agent instincts locked into place, shoving the embarrassment aside. “What’s in New York?”
“Two things. First, A little something about Fati's older brother.” Jan looked at Fatima. “Amir. Looking very sharp in a charcoal suit. Had a cute little initiate named Becky on his arm.”
Fatima went very still. “We had a falling out.”
“He’s Agent Bors of the Golden Wands,” Jan said softly. “I saw his pin. He’s one of you, Bethany.”
Bethany absorbed this, her mind racing through the implications for Fatima, for the delicate balance between their Orders. She gave a curt nod. “Noted. What’s the second thing?”
Jan took a deep breath. “He had an interesting rumor. I confirmed it with my own sources. The word in the underground bars, the ones where the waitstaff have too many eyes, is that the Merlin is missing. Gone. Vanished. And the Golden Wands are fracturing without their north star.”
The alley seemed to grow colder. The rain felt sharper. This wasn’t gossip; this was an earthquake.
Bethany’s face, usually so expertly composed, showed a crack of pure shock. She stared at Jan, then at Fatima, then back at Jan. Her professional mask slammed back down, but it was strained. “Liam,” she said, her voice dangerously calm. “Give us a minute. Please.”
Liam, reading the room, nodded. He cast one last, complex look at Bethany, then whistled for Godfrey. “C’mon, pup. Let’s find a drier patch.” Man and dog moved down the alley, leaving the three women in a tense triangle.
The moment he was out of earshot, Bethany closed the distance to Jan. “How solid is your intelligence?”
“Solid enough that I came to you in the rain instead of texting,” Jan said, all mischief gone from her face. “My source was a Whisper Barman in Queens. They don’t lie. The cost is too high. The Merlin hasn’t been seen or heard in a month. No directives, no coded echoes, nothing. It’s a silent panic in the upper ranks.”
Bethany swore under her breath, looking at the ground. When she looked up, her gaze was flint. “It’s true. The Conclave is denying it publicly, but the senior agents are being recalled. There’s… factionalism. Arguments over succession. Bedivere’s faction is gaining voice, saying this proves the need for more aggressive, unified action.”
“Bedivere,” Fatima repeated, the name tasting like poison. “The one who experimented on our friends. The one who tried to seduce my brother to his cause.”
“The same,” Bethany said. “If he seizes control…”
“He’ll turn your Order into a hammer and every other magical society, especially mine, into a nail,” Jan finished. She crossed her arms. “The Green Moon has sources the Wands don’t. We feel shifts in desire, in collective impulse. We’ve been sensing a… a cold vacuum where the Merlin’s steadying influence should be. And we’ve heard other whispers. That his disappearance wasn’t voluntary.”
“You think he was taken,” Bethany stated.
“I do. And I think your Order is too busy circling its own wagons to look outwards. Mine is smaller, more agile. We can look.”
Bethany studied Jan—the woman who had once lied to her by omission, creating the rift that sent her to the Wands in the first place. The woman who was chaos incarnate, but whose loyalty was as fierce as her hair was red.
“This is a violation of about twelve inter-Order protocols,” Bethany said quietly.
“The protocols are for when the world makes sense,” Jan replied. “The Merlin vanishing? That means the world has stopped making sense.”
A long silence stretched, filled only by the relentless drip of water. Fatima watched them both, a silent guardian.
Finally, Bethany gave a single, sharp nod. “Okay. We work together. But my chain of command can’t know. Officially, I’m gathering intelligence on Green Moon activities as a potential stabilization threat.”
Jan’s grin returned, wolfish this time. “Officially, I’m trying to seduce a cute Wand agent for insider information.”
“Don’t even joke about that,” Bethany said, but a faint, weary smirk touched her lips. It was the price of working with the Red Tornado. “We share everything, O’Connor. No improvisation you don’t clear. No rogue spells.”
“Scout’s honor,” Jan said, holding up two fingers. “Now, you got any place drier to talk? I’m soaked, and I think your boyfriend is trying to teach Godfrey to heel.”
Bethany looked down the alley where Liam was patiently instructing the puppy. She let out a long breath, the weight of the clandestine pact settling onto her shoulders. “My place. It’s warded. Let’s go.”
They moved out of the alley, a trio of unlikely allies, the fate of their hidden world now resting on their secret, fragile collaboration. The city’s lights blurred around them, hiding monsters far worse than the one they’d just killed.
The city’s lights blurred around them, hiding monsters far worse than the one they’d just killed.
Thirty minutes later and twenty miles northwest, in a quiet suburban split-level, Mike Williamson was buried deep inside his wife, the world narrowed to the slick, tight heat of her and the muffled sound of her cries against his shoulder. The baby monitor, silent on the nightstand, showed a sleeping Rick. Rain sheeted against the bedroom window.
“God, Case, right there,” he grunted, driving into her, his hands gripping her hips hard enough to leave marks.
Casey Kapowski’s nails scored his back. “Don’t stop, fuck, Mike, don’t you dare stop—” Her words dissolved into a choked gasp as he hit the spot that made her see stars.
They were tangled in damp sheets, both naked, the room smelling of sex and the lavender detergent Casey liked. It was a rare, stolen hour of peace after putting the baby down, and they were making the most of it, all frantic hands and hungry mouths, a familiar, blissful collision.
Which is why the sudden crunch of splintering wood from the living room was so profoundly, offensively rude.
Mike froze, still sheathed inside her. Casey’s eyes, heavy-lidded with pleasure, snapped wide open.
“Was that—?”
“The front door,” Mike finished, his voice dropping to a whisper.
Three figures in identical charcoal gray suits stepped into the bedroom doorway, their postures rigid, their faces obscured by the tinted lenses of their sunglasses. Rain dripped from their coats onto the beige carpet. The lead agent, a woman with a severe blond bun, took in the scene—the naked, coupled pair, the discarded clothes, the rumpled bed—with a distaste that was palpable.
“Michael Williamson. Casey Kapowski. You will come with us,” she stated, her voice devoid of inflection.
Mike and Casey didn’t scream. They didn’t scramble for covers. They just stared. A long, awkward beat stretched out where the only sound was the rain and Mike’s still-labored breathing.
“You’re kidding,” Casey finally said, her tone flat. She made no move to dislodge Mike. “We’re kinda in the middle of something.”
The agent’s lip curled. “Your civilian insouciance is noted. It is a trait of interest to our research division. You will be detained for study.”
“Study?” Mike asked, his brow furrowed. He slowly, carefully, pulled out of Casey and sat up, pulling the sheet vaguely over his lap. Casey sat up beside him, not bothering to cover herself, her arms crossed over her breasts. “What, like… blood tests? Because I just had a physical.”
“Your persistent, low-grade resistance to ontological shock and your apparent ability to integrate anomalous events into your mundane worldview is a potential tactical asset,” the lead agent droned, as if reading from a manual. “It will be synthesized and replicated.”
“You interrupted us to tell us we’re… annoying?” Casey clarified, her sarcasm now edged with real anger.
“Your ability to annoy adversaries, yes. Come. Now.”
The two other agents stepped forward. That’s when a blur of orange, black, and white launched from the top of the dresser with a sound that was less a meow and more a cougar’s spit-hiss.
Polluck’s claws found the nearest agent’s face. The man screamed, a raw, shocking sound, as the battle-scarred tomcat became a frenzy of teeth and fury, shredding the sunglasses and the skin beneath. The agent stumbled back, batting wildly.
“Holy shit, Polluck!” Mike yelled, finally moving, throwing himself in front of Casey.
The lead agent raised a hand. A device on her wrist, a mess of brass gears and glowing wires, began to whir. The air crackled. Polluck, fur on end, leaped from his first victim towards her.
A vine, thick as a wrist and covered in wicked thorns, erupted from the hallway floorboards, snaking around the lead agent’s raised arm. It yanked her off balance, and the energy from her wrist-device shot into the ceiling, plaster raining down.
“I just mulched that bed!” a new voice complained.
Annie Schmidt stood in the hall, her hands covered in soil, her face a mask of furious concentration. From the potted fern by the stairs, more vines sprang, entangling the second agent. Aaron Sweeney stepped around her, looking exhausted. His ink-stained fingers moved in a quick, complex gesture in the air. The third agent, the one with the clawed face, suddenly froze, his weapon halfway drawn, his body rigid as if held by invisible ropes.
“A Fair Bargain restraint,” Aaron said, his voice thin with strain. “You are harming my clients. The terms are void. You will leave.”
The lead agent struggled against the thorny vine. “The Conclave has sanctioned—”
“Bedivere’s faction is not the Conclave,” Aaron snapped. “And even if it was, your writ doesn’t cover kidnapping civilians for psychic distillation. Now piss off.”
He made a tearing motion with his hands. The frozen agent gasped, as if released from a chokehold. The vine around the lead agent constricted once, threateningly, then released. The agents, one bleeding profusely, looked at each other, then back at the determined young man and the furious farmer girl. Without a word, they retreated, vanishing back into the rainy night from whence they came.
The tension bled from the room. Polluck sat licking a paw, calmly, as if he hadn’t just filleted a human face. Annie sighed, and the vines receded, shrinking back into harmless plants.
Mike let out a long, shaky breath. “Thanks, guys. Seriously.”
Casey finally grabbed her robe, shrugging into it. “Yeah, thank you. But… not that I’m not grateful, but where’s Jan? This feels like her kind of mess.”
Annie picked up her purse from the hall floor; a small calico kitten, Sophie, poked its head out, blinked at the scene, and went back to sleep. “She’s downtown. We all are. It’s… it’s a whole thing.”
Aaron leaned against the doorjamb, rubbing his eyes. The permanent ink stains on his fingers seemed darker against his pale skin. “You have no idea how busy every mage in the city is right now, Mike. Jan’s in the middle of it. We all are.”
He looked at the shattered front door, the plaster dust, the claw marks on the agent’s face now staining their carpet. “You should pack a bag for you and the baby. You’re not safe here tonight.”
Back in Bethany’s sleek, warded Lincoln Park apartment, the mood was no less tense, but it was a cold tension, bottled and analytical. Godfrey II snored on a designer rug.
Bethany poured four glasses of whisky, her hands steady. “The point is, without the Merlin, there’s no check on Bedivere. His philosophy is that to protect humanity, we must first control it. And to control it, we must understand every tool, including those belonging to other Orders. By any means.”
Jan took her glass, swirling the amber liquid. “So he’s grabbing people. Even people like Mike and Casey. Civilians who’ve been around magic but aren’t mages. To see what makes them tick.”
“To see if their… resilience can be copied,” Bethany confirmed. “And if he’s moving on them, he’s getting bold. Or desperate.”
Liam, quiet by the window, spoke up. “You said he experimented on your friends before, Fatima. What does he do?”
Fatima’s knuckles were white around her glass. “It is not gentle. He seeks the source of power. He strips away layers—mental, emotional, spiritual—to see what remains. What spark he can steal.” She looked at Jan. “He wanted the secret of the Green Moon’s desire magic. He thought it was a formula.”
“It’s not a formula, it’s a fucking conversation,” Jan said, her flippancy gone. “This is bad. This is spreading.”
Bethany’s phone buzzed on the marble countertop. She glanced at it, and her already severe expression tightened. “It’s an alert. Suburban incident. Involved a Fair Bargain intervention. Address is… Mike and Casey’s.”
Jan was on her feet in an instant, her pendant glowing hot against her chest. “What happened?”
“Contained. Agents repelled. No casualties.” Bethany read the tersely worded Wand internal report. “By Agents… Schmidt and Sweeney.”
“Annie and Aaron,” Fatima breathed. “They got to them first.”
Jan slumped back down, relief and fury warring on her face. “Good. That’s good. But it means Bedivere’s guys are hunting now. Tonight.” She looked at Bethany, her green eyes blazing. “We need to find the Merlin. Not just to save your Order. To stop a war. And to keep every weird, wonderful, non-magical person we know from being carved up on a lab table.”
Godfrey whimpered in his sleep, his paws twitching. Outside, the rain continued to fall, washing away the blood, the ash, and the footprints, doing nothing to cleanse the fear that was now seeping into the very bricks of the city.