Prologue: Good Lighting

AN: I just can't help myself. But this story has been in the works for a LONG time.

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The Los Angeles sun, even in late October, possessed a certain relentless quality, a golden glare that bounced off the chrome of a thousand luxury cars and the oversized, mirrored sunglasses of a million hopefuls, each one convinced they were just one audition, one chance encounter, away from stardom.

My clinic – or rather, "Image Consultancy," as the discreet, tastefully engraved brass plaque by the entrance read – was nestled in a surprisingly quiet corner of Beverly Hills: a sleek, modern building of white stucco and smoked glass that whispered exclusivity rather than shouted it from the rooftops. It was an oasis of calm precision in a city built on frantic dreams and fleeting fame. Inside, it was all cool, imported Italian marble that felt like silk beneath your shoes, minimalist art that cost more than most people's houses, and the faint, almost subliminal scent of expensive, calming botanicals – a bespoke blend of lavender, chamomile, and something proprietary and a little more exotic, something that hinted at forgotten gardens and ancient pharmacopoeias, all designed to soothe frayed nerves and open checkbooks. It was the perfect environment, meticulously crafted, for coaxing reluctant flesh back towards a semblance of its former, marketable glory.

My name is Jack Casimir, and I sell time.

Or rather, I sell the convincing, intoxicating illusion of it: to the rich, the famous, the powerful, and often, the deeply desperate. They come to me, usually through hushed, word-of-mouth referrals, seeking to erase the lines life, and their often-excessive lifestyles, have etched onto their bodies and faces. They come to recapture a glimmer of the youth that the "high society" of Hollywood, and their own high-definition mirrors, so cruelly demand.

They call it image consulting, a harmless, trendy euphemism.

I call it applied Livsformning – the subtle, intricate art of flesh-shaping and vital restoration, a branch of necromancy so refined it bordered on biological alchemy.

Necromancy, by any proper name, would naturally send my clients screaming for the nearest priest or – far more likely – their lawyers. Thus, my clients certainly didn't know the true terms for what I did. They couldn't know. The world they inhabited had no room for magic, no space for the impossible made flesh. They just knew I got results no surgeon's scalpel, no dermatologist's laser, no vial of expensive, scientifically-dubious cream could ever hope to achieve.

I didn't just tighten skin; I revitalized it from within, coaxing dormant energies back to life.

"Mr. Sterling is ready for his final touches, Jack," Nadya's voice whispered beside me, soft as a sigh, or the rustle of silk in an empty room. She shimmered into view, a translucent figure in her usual old-fashioned frock, its spectral fabric immune to the whims of earthly fashion. Her presence was a familiar comfort, a quiet counterpoint to the sterile perfection of my main treatment room, with its gleaming chrome and carefully disguised ritual implements.

Nadya, my companion for longer than either of us cared to count, my confidante, and, in her own patient way, my tutor in the ways of Animas, the necromantic school of spirit magic. It was a study I pursued in the quiet hours when the City of Angels finally, fitfully, slept – a discipline that felt increasingly relevant in a town so full of ghosts, both literal and metaphorical.

"Right," I said, making a final adjustment to what appeared to be a high-end spa device – all sleek surfaces and LED indicators that would pass any mundane inspection. Beneath that facade, however, lay carefully etched sigils and conduits for channeling necromantic energies. The machine hummed with power that had nothing to do with its electrical cord.

"Let's put the stardust back in Mr. Sterling's eyes, shall we? And maybe take a decade or two off his body's odometer."

Mr. Sterling was a matinee idol whose star had begun to fade, his once-legendary rugged good looks succumbing to the inescapable gravity of too many late nights, too many bad scripts, and too few genuinely good decisions.

Less than an hour after he came in, under the subtle influence of my arts, he looked ten years younger, easily. His jawline was sharper, the tell-tale puffiness under his eyes artfully diminished, his skin glowing with a vitality that was ninety percent Livsformning and ten percent pure, unadulterated, camera-ready hope.

He paid handsomely – as they all did – for the precious, fleeting privilege of defying nature, however temporarily. Seeing that relief in his eyes, the renewed spring in his step, was almost worth the inherent risks of my profession.

Almost.

"You're a miracle worker, Casimir!" he enthused, admiring his reflection in the full-length mirror, striking a pose that had graced a thousand movie posters in his heyday. "The studio will be thrilled. My agent will weep tears of joy!"

"It's just good lighting, Mr. Sterling," I demurred, offering my standard, bland reassurance. "And excellent skincare."

He knew it was more than that, of course.

They all did.

They sensed something in my clinic, some indefinable quality they couldn't quite name. But the polite fiction that this was all just very advanced, very exclusive cosmetic treatment was part of the service. Part of the shared illusion they willingly inhabited. At the end of the day, my clients didn't want to know the truth, because that truth would shatter the comfortable world they'd built around themselves.

After Sterling departed, radiating a renewed confidence that would probably last at least until his next bad review, Nadya and I shared a quiet moment in the now-empty treatment room. She was attempting to organize a stack of physical client files with her spectral hands, a task that involved more focused willpower and muttered curses than actual physical contact.

The folders barely shifted, resisting her efforts.

"He'll come back in six months, looking for another miracle," she observed, her voice tinged with a familiar, weary amusement. "Perhaps sooner, if his next film bombs."

"They always do," I said, stripping off my gloves. "It's the nature of the beast, Nadya. Time always wins, eventually. It's the one house advantage you can never beat. I just negotiate better terms for their surrender, a… stay of execution, if you will."

And I was right.

Well, mostly.

My own terms with time were… complicated, a labyrinthine contract written in invisible ink. The [Life Ward] I was fused with, a constant, silent thrum of power deep within me, had rendered that particular negotiation moot decades ago... Or so I hoped. Decapitation might still, theoretically, do me in; but almost anything else? Minor inconveniences, at best. The Ward was both a comfort and a curse, a shield against oblivion that also marked me as something other.

Something unnatural.

I remembered that, later that afternoon, I had an appointment with Eleanor "Ellie" Weatherby. Ellie was a legend, a true icon from Hollywood's Golden Age, a woman whose career had spanned black-and-white films to modern streaming content, now well into her late eighties but, thanks to twenty years of my dedicated -- and increasingly challenging -- ministrations, still possessing the kind of luminous beauty and indomitable spirit that could silence a room and command a spotlight.

She was one of my best clients, not just for the considerable fees she paid without a blink, but for the genuine, if fragile, friendship that had developed between us over the long years. She knew me simply as Jack, the discreet consultant who understood the unique, often crushing pressures of her world – a world that worshiped youth and discarded age with brutal efficiency.

I slid into the worn leather seat of my car – a vintage Bentley Continental that I'd lovingly maintained over the decades. It was an anachronism in an age of Teslas and hybrid SUVs, but I preferred it that way. The throaty purr of its engine, the weight of real metal and craftsmanship, the tactile connection between driver and machine – these things grounded me in a way the sterile efficiency of modern vehicles never could.

Plus, crucially, older cars were harder to track. No GPS. No computer diagnostics that could be remotely accessed. No electronic trail that might lead curious government agencies to wonder why an "image consultant" drove through certain neighborhoods at odd hours.

As the Bentley glided out of my private garage and into the Beverly Hills afternoon, my thoughts drifted, as they often did, to the strange dualities of my existence. To the mundane world, magic didn't exist. It was fantasy, fiction, the realm of movies and comic books. Science had explained away the mysteries. The rational world had triumphed.

Except it hadn't.

Magic was real. It existed in the shadows, practiced by a scattered few who had the talent, the knowledge, and the sheer bloody-minded determination to master arts the modern world refused to acknowledge. We were ghosts in the machine, invisible practitioners of impossible crafts, always one mistake away from exposure, institutionalization, or worse.

Governments, of course, knew. They had to. How could they not? I'd heard whispers over the years, rumors that filtered through the underground community of practitioners. Black budget programs. Secret facilities. Artifacts locked away in warehouses that officially didn't exist. Organizations like the Bureau of Paranormal Affairs – though even that name was speculation, cobbled together from fragments of overheard conversations and carefully leaked misinformation.

The hypocrisy was almost breathtaking.

These pillars of order and rationality, these guardians of the mundane world, hoarded the secrets for themselves. Behind closed doors and security clearances, they had it all: grimoires that could reshape reality, artifacts of terrifying potential, practitioners bound to their service through coercion. They weaponized what they publicly denied existed.

And yet practitioners like myself, or my former Master, who sought knowledge or aimed to use our gifts for something other than state-sanctioned black ops, were branded as threats. Delusional at best, dangerous at worst. To be contained, controlled, or eliminated.

It was a game as old as power itself: one set of rules for the rulers, another for the ruled. And I, Jack Casimir, walked a precarious line somewhere in between, an accepted purveyor of forbidden miracles to the elite – though they'd never call them that – but always one misstep away from becoming a target myself.

The Bentley climbed the winding roads towards Bel Air, each curve revealing increasingly opulent estates, fortresses of wealth shielded by high walls, dense hedges, and layers of security both obvious and subtle.

Ellie's mansion, when it finally came into view, was one of the grandest.

It wasn't just a house; it was a statement, a monument to a lifetime spent in the intoxicating glare of public adoration. A palace of white marble, the vibrant pinks and purples of its tile roof a vivid splash against the azure sky. Its terraced gardens, immaculate and fragrant, overlooked a panoramic sweep of the city: a glittering tapestry stretching to the distant Pacific.

For over half a century, Los Angeles had worshiped Ellie Weatherby, then nearly forgotten her during one of her self-imposed exiles, then rediscovered and re-canonized her in a wave of nostalgic reverence. The mansion reflected that journey: a blend of old Hollywood grandeur and modern luxury, though the grandeur always won.

I pulled up to the imposing wrought-iron gates, their intricate design a work of art in itself. A discreet camera regarded me from its mount. I pressed the call button on the intercom panel.

"Jack Casimir here for Mrs. Weatherby," I announced, my voice calm and professional.

A moment of silence, then a crisp, disembodied voice replied, "One moment, please, Mr. Casimir."

The gates, with a barely audible hum of well-oiled machinery, swung silently inward.

I guided the Bentley up the long, palm-lined driveway. As I parked in the circular forecourt, before a fountain that depicted frolicking nymphs in what looked suspiciously like real gold leaf, the massive front doors opened.

Standing there was a figure of understated elegance. He was tall, impeccably dressed in a simple black suit that looked like it cost more than some people's cars. His silver hair was immaculately styled, his posture perfect, his expression a masterwork of professional neutrality. Everything about him spoke of old-world service, the kind of discretion and competence that couldn't be bought, only cultivated over decades.

He was new. Ellie must have recently hired him.

"Mr. Casimir," he said, his voice cultured and precise. "Mrs. Weatherby is expecting you in the conservatory. If you would please follow me."

He didn't offer to take my coat, nor did he make small talk.

What a charming fellow.

Ellie went through staff with some regularity, not because she was difficult to work for, but because she paid well enough that people saved up their earnings and moved on to their own dreams. Actors taking butler roles while waiting for their break. Musicians working service jobs while recording their albums. This was Los Angeles, after all — everyone was in transition, everyone was becoming someone else.

Rather appropriate, given my line of work.

The butler — I still didn't catch his name and hadn't bothered to ask — moved with the fluid grace of old-world service. Tall, silver-haired, his posture perfect, his expression a masterwork of professional neutrality. There was, perhaps, something almost too perfect about his deportment, too precise in his movements. The kind of precision that came from years of training, or… possibly military service? His suit was immaculate, black and crisp, and his shoes were polished to a mirror shine.

As he escorted me through Ellie's mansion, I found myself studying him with the same analytical attention I brought to potential clients. The way he held his shoulders suggested either dance training or martial arts. His hands were manicured but showed old calluses — someone who'd worked with them extensively in the past. And his eyes, though carefully neutral, were constantly moving, tracking sight lines and exits with the awareness of someone trained in security.

Definitely former military, I decided. Or possibly private security, now transitioning into more genteel work. Another Los Angeles story: reinvention, transformation, becoming someone new.

The mansion itself was a monument to Ellie's career, and walking through it was like touring a museum dedicated to Hollywood history. The foyer was vast, floored in Carrara marble that had been imported from Italy in the 1950s when Ellie was at her peak earning power. A crystal chandelier dominated the space — actual crystal, of course, not the cheap glass knockoffs — throwing prismatic light across walls hung with framed movie posters. Ellie in her twenties. Her thirties. Her forties. Ellie in period costumes and modern dress. Ellie with co-stars who were now dead, retired, or forgotten. A visual timeline of fame, frozen in glossy paper and carefully preserved behind UV-protective glass.

We passed through the gallery hallway, where oil paintings hung in gilded frames. Some were of Ellie — commissioned portraits by artists I vaguely recognized from auction house catalogs. Others were landscapes, abstracts, pieces she'd collected over the decades.

One in particular caught my eye: a dark, moody thing that depicted a figure standing at a crossroads, painted in a style that suggested the Italian Renaissance but with an unsettling modern edge. There was something about the brushwork, the way the figure's face was turned away, that made me think of choices and consequences.

Fitting, perhaps, in its way.

"Mr. Casimir, madam," the butler announced, his voice carrying clearly into the sun-drenched space beyond.

The conservatory was vast indeed: a veritable jungle of exotic blooms, their heavy perfume mingling with the scent of damp earth and old money. Sunlight streamed through the arched glass ceiling, illuminating a scene of carefully cultivated opulence.

And there, amidst it all, looking like a rare, fragile orchid herself, was Ellie. She was a small, bird-like woman, wrapped in a silk kaftan the color of a twilight sky, its fabric shimmering with subtle, shifting hues. Her famous green eyes, still startlingly bright despite the passage of eighty-eight years, were alight with a familiar mixture of hope and deep-seated anxiety. She was a living legend, a relic of a bygone era, desperately clinging to the present.

And, thanks to my efforts, she still looked like she was, at most, in her early 60s.

"Jack, darling," she trilled, her voice still carrying the melodic cadence that had charmed generations of moviegoers. She offered a cheek that felt like soft, aged paper beneath my lips. Incredibly delicate.

"You're a sight for sore eyes. This old bird is feeling decidedly… plucked, and ready for the taxidermist."

Ellie's treatment took the better part of two hours.

It always did, at this stage. Twenty years of Livsformning had given her an extended youth that would have made Faust himself weep with envy, but even the most elegant necromancy had its limits. Her body was eighty-eight years old, after all, and trying to maintain the appearance of someone in her early sixties required increasingly delicate work — the kind of precision that made even brain surgery look like whittling. I had to coax life energy through tissues that wanted, quite naturally and insistently, to surrender to entropy. It was like trying to make a delicate Stradivarius violin sing when half the strings were fraying, the wood was warped, and the bow had seen better decades.

But I was rather good at the whole necromancy business — and so I managed. I always did.

This particular treatment room wasn't my clinic; it was hers. Ellie, in her later years, had grown averse to traveling, even the short hop to Beverly Hills. So, at her insistence — and rather considerable expense — I had recreated a satellite of my sanctuary here in her own mansion.

The room was a near-duplicate of my own, a little cathedral of careful blasphemy. Soft lighting — LED strips concealed behind crown molding, color temperature precisely calibrated to be warm enough to be flattering, and yet cool enough to see clearly. The treatment bed itself was an elaborate deception, imported and installed under the guise of "custom European spa technology." To any mundane observer, it indeed appeared to be nothing more than an extremely high-end spa table, the kind you'd find in establishments that charged four figures for a facial. Memory foam padding upholstered in buttery Italian leather. Embedded heating elements. A cunningly designed adjustable frame that could position a client at any angle. The works.

However, what those mundane observers wouldn't see — couldn't see, unless they knew exactly what to look for — were the sigils carved into the aluminum frame beneath all of that luxury. Runes of channeling and focus, drawn from three separate different necromantic traditions and combined in ways that would have likely made even my old Master, Kaspar Volkhart, nod in grudging approval. As for the leather itself, it was treated with oils infused with ground bone and specific herbs — nothing that would show up on any chemical screenings, but enough to make the entire surface a better conductor for the energies I worked with.

The machines scattered around the room, all shipped here in crates marked 'medical prototypes,' completed the illusion. They looked like standard medical equipment — or at least, like the kind of expensive, pseudo-medical equipment you'd find in a high-end cosmetic clinic. Sleek white cases with touchscreens, blinking LEDs, the occasional beep or hum to sell the technological authenticity. Ellie had paid a small fortune to have them installed, believing them to be the latest in non-invasive German engineering.

But beneath those sterile cases, hidden behind carefully arranged circuit boards that went nowhere and did nothing, were the real tools of my trade. Crystal matrices for energy focusing. Silver wire wound into precise geometric patterns. Reservoirs of distilled water infused with mana under specific lunar phases. And in the heart of each device, carved into brass plates that no technician would ever see unless they completely disassembled the units: more sigils, more runes, more carefully crafted channels for directing the volatile fundamental forces of life and death.

I'd been refining these tools for decades now. Each generation got just a bit better, more sophisticated, and harder to detect. The first versions I’d assembled had been crude things — obvious to anyone with even a flicker of supernatural sensitivity. Now, however? I daresay that even another practitioner would need to spend serious time examining them to realize what they truly were.

And Ellie, bless her, had no idea. None of my clients did.

She lay on the treatment bed now, draped in a silk robe the color of seafoam, her eyes closed as I made the final adjustments to the resonator — the largest and most elaborate of my disguised instruments. To her, it probably felt like gentle warmth, maybe a slight tingling sensation, perhaps a subtle vibration. Relaxing. Therapeutic. The kind of sensation you'd expect from some cutting-edge skincare technology.

To my senses, however, it was a carefully controlled river of energy flowing from my own reserves, through the resonator's focusing matrices, and into her aging flesh. I could see it as a golden-green luminescence, spreading through her skin like ink through water, finding the cells that were flagging, the tissues that were starting to fail, the microscopic surrenders that accumulated into visible aging.

The energy wasn't healing her — well, not exactly. Healing implied repairing acute damage, and most of aging wasn't damage in that conventional sense. It was just... entropy. The slow, unstoppable, inevitable unwinding of complex systems into simpler ones. What I did was more like rewinding a clock, reminding cells what they used to be, coaxing them back toward a younger pattern.

This was the essence of the Livsformning — life-shaping — school of necromancy: commanding living tissue with one’s will; imposing order on chaos; youth on age; vitality on decline.

It was also exhausting as Hell.

By the time I stepped back from the treatment bed, I could feel the drain in my bones. Oh, it was not dangerous to me in the least — the Life Ward ensured I'd recover quickly — but the strain was noticeable. It felt like I'd run a marathon or spent the night awake. The Ward pulsed warm and steady in my bones, drawing upon the universe itself to replenish the Power I'd spent, but there was always a gap between expenditure and recovery.

Still, seeing Ellie's face made it all worthwhile.

She sat up slowly, moving with the cautious care of someone who'd learned not to trust her body completely. But, as she caught her reflection in the full-length mirror across from the bed — another carefully positioned piece of the theater, its frame carved with the subtlest Illusion runes to ensure the best possible impression — her expression transformed.

The fine lines that had been gathering around her famous green eyes had softened into near-invisibility. The slight sag beneath her chin, the jowls she'd been obsessing over for the past six months, had disappeared entirely. Her skin had regained that luminous quality that could never be faked with makeup or lighting, that impossible smoothness that had made her a star in Hollywood's Golden Age and kept her relevant through seven decades of changing beauty standards.

She looked, undeniably, like herself — but herself from thirty years ago.

"Jack," she breathed, touching her face with fingers that trembled slightly. Long, elegant fingers that had held Oscar statuettes and signed autographs and worn costumes worth more than houses. "You've done it again! I was so worried this time. I thought—"

"You thought time was finally catching up," I said gently, helping her to her feet. Her bones felt fragile as bird wings beneath my hands, despite all my hard work.

"It's not. Not yet."

"Ha! Maybe not ever, if you have anything to say about it!" She squeezed my arm with surprising strength — another good sign, the treatment had taken well. "You're a miracle worker, darling. An absolute miracle worker!"

I smiled, but said nothing. So-called miracles were just sufficiently advanced technique, and my current technique was wearing rather thin against the weight of her years. I could see it in the way her life energy responded to my shaping, growing just that much more resistant with each session, like trying to bend metal that was slowly hardening. While technically the youngest, Livsformning was nevertheless an impressive art: an equal to the other Three Orthodox Schools of Necromancy. The highest tiers of the school’s mysteries could indeed extend life indefinitely, but such a profound miracle was quite a bit beyond what I was capable of — or, at least, willing to attempt — with Ellie. The quick spell I just employed was incapable of significantly changing the fundamental structure of the body: it could make her look younger, but it couldn't make her organs or skeleton young again. 

Another five years — maybe ten if we really pushed it and got lucky — and not even I would be able to hold back the tide of time.

But she didn't need to hear that today. In fact, maybe she'd never need to hear it — after all, at eighty-eight, there were so many other things that could claim her first. A heart attack or aneurysm. A fall. Simple pneumonia. The cruel joke of my profession was that I could make my clients look immortal, but I couldn't make them actually immortal. That required delving into far more dangerous and esoteric mysteries, and it was a line of research I'd been wise enough not to explore too heavily.

Well. Mostly wise.

The Life Ward in my bones was evidence that the twenty-year-old Jack Casimir and wisdom had a… complicated relationship.

"Same time next month?" I asked, helping her slip into the plush slippers we kept for clients.

"Darling, I wouldn't miss it for the world!" She kissed my cheek, leaving a faint impression of lipstick — an expensive brand that probably cost more per ounce than gold. "Now get out of here. I'm sure you have other desperate Hollywood souls to save."

"Just one more today," I said, checking my watch. An affectation — I didn't really need to track time anymore, as the Ward gave me a literally supernatural sense of its passage — but it helped to maintain the image. Professional. Punctual.

Normal.

"Though 'desperate' might be overstating things. More like 'mildly concerned about an upcoming audition.'"

Ellie laughed, that famous crystalline sound that had charmed talk show hosts for decades. "Darling, in this town, an audition is life or death! You know that."

As it happens, I did know that. I'd been catering to that particular brand of neurosis for longer than I cared to admit.

The same butler escorted me to the front entrance. He opened the door with a practiced gesture, and the afternoon sun hit me like a physical force.

October in Los Angeles was still summer by any reasonable standard. The air was thick and hot, carrying that peculiar mixture of scents endemic to Southern California: jasmine from Ellie's meticulously maintained gardens, eucalyptus from the trees lining her driveway, car exhaust from the distant freeway, and underneath it all, that faint desert smell that reminded you this entire metropolis was built on land that never wanted to be this green, this lush, this populated.

The light was golden, slanting at that late-afternoon angle that cinematographers called "magic hour" — the time when everything looked like it was lit for a movie. The sky was that particular shade of blue that seemed almost artificial, punctuated by palm trees that swayed in a breeze I couldn't feel from where I stood.

My trusty Bentley waited in the circular drive, black paint gleaming like polished obsidian. It was, in fact, the same Bentley I'd owned for nearly fifty years now, albeit with parts replaced often enough that it was beginning to resemble the Ship of Theseus — was it even the same car anymore? I'd made extensive modifications over the years: wards carved into the chassis, sigils hidden in the leather upholstery, protective enchantments woven into the very structure of the vehicle. Although I did not consider myself a warding specialist, one tended to pick up at least a degree of competence over decades of practive.

I was rather proud of my car. It was as close to a mobile sanctuary as I could create.

"Thank you," I said to the butler, who nodded with that same perfect neutrality.

"Good day to you, Mr. Casimir."

The gates were already opening as I approached, electronic sensors triggering the mechanism. I was halfway down the driveway, palm trees creating a tunnel of shade, when I noticed something wrong.

The gates had stopped.

Not slowly, like they'd reached their full extension. But abruptly. Mid-swing.

And now they were closing again, the wrought-iron barriers swinging back into position with smooth, mechanical precision.

I slowed the Bentley, frowning. A malfunction? It was certainly possible — after all, even the best equipment failed eventually — but the timing of it felt wrong. Too coincidental.

Too deliberate.

I reached for my phone, intending to call back to the house, when I saw the first vehicle.

A black SUV, pulling across the entrance to block my exit. Government plates — I could see them even at a distance, that distinctive design that marked federal vehicles. These were not local cops, nor state police.

Feds.

My stomach dropped, that peculiar sinking sensation that had nothing to do with my Life Ward and everything to do with over a hundred years of learned survival instinct.

A second SUV appeared behind me, emerging from a side alley I hadn't even noticed, cutting off my retreat. Then a third, positioning itself to my right, pulling onto Ellie's property from — where? Had they been waiting on the grounds the whole time? How long had they been surveilling me? Who even let them in? 

The pattern was unmistakable: professional, coordinated, inescapable. A box formation, designed to trap without creating obvious threat. There were no sirens, no flashing lights, no dramatic displays. Just quiet, efficient containment.

The doors opened in unison — choreographed, rehearsed — and men emerged. Six of them. Dark suits. Sunglasses, despite the late afternoon light. Earpieces. The kind of uniform non-uniform that practically screamed federal agents to anyone with eyes to see.

And underneath the obvious threat, I sensed something else. A whisper of energy, faint but present.

Mana.

Shit.

I'd been so careful! I'd kept my profile low, my clients discrete, my work subtle enough to pass for ordinary cosmetic enhancement. I'd paid my taxes, maintained legitimate documentation, never drawn attention. I'd survived the McCarthy era, the occult panic of the '80s, and even the post-9/11 security crackdowns. I'd outlasted witch hunts, moral panics, and government purges alike.

And now, on a sunny October afternoon in Beverly Hills, my luck had apparently run out.

No matter. I had expected this day might come, and had planned for it accordingly. Although it would be painful, I could relocate my operations if I had to — after all, I had nothing but time.

I put the Bentley in park and stepped out slowly, hands visible, movements deliberate and non-threatening. Every instinct I'd cultivated over a century screamed at me to run, to fight, to do something other than surrender. But I was boxed in, outmanned, and these were professionals on an official operation. Running — or taking them down, for that matter — would just make things worse for me.

Probably.

"Jack Casimir?" The lead agent was tall, square-jawed, with the kind of military-precision haircut that suggested either active service or a personality that never quite left boot camp behind. His sunglasses hid his eyes, but his voice was flat, emotionless, the tone of someone reciting from a script. Or someone who'd given this speech before.

"That depends," I said, keeping my voice level, casual, like this happened all the time. "Who's asking?"

"Federal agents. We will need you to come with us."

"Am I under arrest?"

"Not yet."

The 'yet' hung in the air like a sword on a fraying thread.

"Ah. I will cooperate, of course. Firstly, I'll need to see some identification," I said, shifting my weight slightly, testing my positioning. The SUV behind me was close, maybe ten feet. The agents were spread out, maintaining spacing that prevented me from targeting multiple at once. Professional. "And… I'll need to contact my lawyer."

The lead agent's mouth twitched — not quite a smile, but close. The expression of someone who'd heard this line before and found it amusing in a dark, weary way.

"Your lawyer won't help you where you're going, Mr. Casimir."

And there it was. Confirmation. These guys weren't FBI investigating some mundane crime. Nor Homeland Security following up on a suspicious money transfer. Nor any agency with acronyms you'd see on the evening news or read about in newspapers.

No; these men were the ones who dealt with people like me.

The ones who operated behind the Veil, in the gray area between official reality and actual truth. The ones who cleaned up supernatural messes and made problematic practitioners disappear. I'd heard about them, of course — every competent mage has. There were rumors passed between practitioners in hushed conversations. Stories traded like warnings around metaphorical campfires. The Bureau. The Office. The Department. The name changed depending on who you talked to and when, but the function was always the same.

Maintain the Veil of Secrecy.

Contain the supernatural.

Eliminate threats.

And apparently, I'd just been classified as a threat.

"I think there's been a misunderstanding," I said, taking a careful step back toward my car. Not that I was afraid of a fight, but better safe than sorry. "I'm just an image consultant. I help people look their best. It’s all very boring, very expensive, but — I assure you — quite legal. I have done nothing that would interest federal—"

"Cut the crap, Casimir. We know what you are," another agent interrupted. This one was shorter, stockier, with dead eyes that had seen too much and stopped caring about what they saw. "We know what you do. And we know you're coming with us, one way or another."

My hand was on the Bentley's door handle now. Underneath the chrome, I could feel the wards I'd carved into the frame — protection, deflection, concealment. If I could get inside the car, I could most certainly escape unscathed. The reinforced Bentley would stop bullets — not that bullets were a threat to me at all — as well as whatever mystical bullshit these agents had access to. The car also had active Illusory camouflage and quite a few other useful enhancements. If I made it to a crowded street where they couldn't pursue without creating a scene, well… I don’t think tracking me down again would be particularly easy.

"Oh, but I'm afraid I’m going to have to insist on that lawyer," I said, reaching for the door.

The lead agent reached into his jacket.

For a moment, I hoped for a gun — a flashy, noisy weapon that attracted far too much attention while also posing no threat to me whatsoever.

But what emerged from his jacket wasn't even a gun. Instead, it looked like a standard police taser with a familiar black-and-yellow housing. The kind you'd see on cops’ belts across America. Non-lethal compliance tools that had become standard issue in the past few decades.

Such a thing shouldn’t even be able to slow me down.

I actually started to relax.

But then, I saw the sigils.

They were tiny, etched into the weapon's housing with what looked like silver inlay. Barely visible in the late afternoon light. Easy to miss if you weren't looking for them. But once I saw them, I couldn't unsee them: they looked to be binding runes from the Northern traditions, disruption glyphs from Hermetic practice, and — my blood went cold — a specific mark I recognized from my Master's personal notes. A symbol designed specifically to interfere with necromantic energies.

Fu-

The barbs hit me in the chest before I could finish the thought.

Electricity was one thing. My Life Ward could easily handle electricity — I'd tested it accidentally, over the decades. I’ve grabbed live wires, have been struck by lightning, and even got thrown into a high-voltage line once. I’d barely felt any of it. The Ward invariably routed the current around vital systems, dispersed it through my enhanced physiology, and treated it like just another form of energy to be captured and consumed.

But this wasn't just electricity.

This was power laced with intention, with purpose, with magic tuned specifically toward necromancers. I felt it slam into the Ward like a battering ram, not breaking through but overwhelming it, flooding my system with a chaos my enhanced body couldn't compensate for. The Ward tried to adapt, tried to process the energy, but it was like trying to drink from a fire hose — too much, too fast, too alien.

The electricity carried something else with it. Instructions. Compulsions. A whole cascade of binding magic riding the current, bypassing my conscious defenses because my consciousness wasn't fast enough to react. The runes on the taser weren't decorative — they were a delivery system, a way to inject foreign magic directly into a practitioner's system through the medium of electrical current.

Terrifying. Brilliant.

And extremely fucking effective.

My knees immediately buckled. The world tilted sideways, colors bleeding together like a painting left in the rain. I heard Nadya's voice, distant and alarmed —"Jack!"— but I couldn't respond. She'd manifested somewhere nearby, invisible to the agents but watching, helpless.

We'd been together for seventy-six years. Long enough that I could sense her presence without seeing her, feel her concern like a sympathetic vibration in my bones. She was shouting my name, probably trying to interfere with the agents, but ghosts had limited power in the physical world. She could move small objects, manifest visually, maybe create a distraction. But she could hardly stop six trained federal agents, and she certainly couldn't reverse whatever the hell that taser had done to my nervous system.

At least, not without the aid of a lot of ritual magic we simply didn’t have time for at the moment.

The ground rushed up to meet me. I registered the impact distantly — asphalt, still warm from the day's heat, rough against my cheek. Hands grabbed my arms, professional and impersonal. Zip ties secured my wrists behind my back. Someone was saying something about procedure and compliance, words that run together into meaningless noise.

The last thing I saw before darkness took me was the lead agent's face, still expressionless, still professional, as he bent down to check my pulse.

"He's stable," the agent said to someone I couldn't see. "Get him in the vehicle. Director wants him processed within the hour."

Then: nothing.