Date: October 9, 1951

  The wind outside Walter Franklin’s Jaguar Mark VII shrieked as the speedometer needle edged toward 120 mph.

  He was late.

  Not just late. Too late. Egregiously late. The kind of late that earned nights on the couch and a month of never hearing the end of it.

  Again.

  Dammit.

  Hurtling up the Bayshore Freeway, he slammed the brakes as a pair of delivery trucks, trundling along at maddeningly reasonable speeds, blocked his path.

  Damn it!

  He closed the distance, getting near enough to read the red Blazeon logo on the back of the left-lane truck, and leaned on his horn to signal he needed to pass. Instead, the truck in the right lane crept forward. Gritting his teeth, Walter shifted behind it.

  Just as the one on the left surged ahead.

  Gods damn it!

  These sons of bitches were doing this on purpose.

  They had to be.

  They were probably damned Mythics who couldn’t get an actual job, getting their kicks by screwing with honest, hard-working humans trying to go home to their families.

  Swallowing a scream of frustration, he leaned on his horn and swerved back into the left lane.

  It’s not fair!

  Evelyn knew how important his work was. When Lloyd Pembock, fresh-faced API board member and Cloud Nine’s golden boy, flew out to Missouri to offer him the Director role at the American Power Institute’s Super Magnetron Testing Center, it was her who convinced Walter to take the job.

  To pack up their lives. To leave everything behind. To join the throngs heading west to the megacorporation’s gleaming, fast-growing haven of San Francisco.

  And now this was how she repaid him? With a slow, torturous death by a thousand pointed remarks. He was the Father of Pneuma-Tachyon Wave Calibration Theory, for Nine’s sake!

  Other researchers wasted time making spells easier through glyphs and sigils. He was expanding their reach, applying microwave calibration to spellcasting; exploring the vast, untapped intersections of advanced science and magic.

  His work was literally changing the world, yet she insisted on clinging to sappy, new-age rituals like Tuesday family dinner nights. If she wanted him home on time, then why insist on living in the city? He’d never be late if they lived closer to the API campus. He said that. Repeatedly.

  This wasn’t his fault.

  This was her fault.

  Johnny’s face flashed in his mind. Disappointed. Quiet.

  Sure, Walt. And all those promises you broke over the years? How do they fit into this fantasy? Who’s to blame for them?

  The right-lane truck pulled ahead, creating just enough space. Walter slammed the pedal to the floor. The Jaguar’s new CN power crystals whirred as he shot for the opening. The thunderous blare of the truck’s horn nearly caused him to lose control, but he yanked the wheel left, squeezing through the narrow window and onto the clear highway.

  Eat dust, assholes!

  Heart pounding, he grinned as he kept the pedal floored and roared ahead, watching the trucks’ headlights shrink into the distance.

  Then his eyes flicked to the clock on the dashboard, and his grin vanished.

  It hadn’t always been like this. The job at API had thrust him into the rarefied air of magi-tech’s elite, launching him and Evelyn into a world both dazzling and alien. They’d attended galas, rubbed elbows with the country’s elite, real movers and shakers.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  The glamour. The prestige. It had been intoxicating.

  And all it cost, he thought, keeping his foot firmly pressed on the gas, was your family.

  Another damned truck slowed in front of him at the worst possible moment. His tires screeched as he slammed the brakes.

  With the new position came new demands. API wasn’t just a research institute. It was a business. And like any business under Cloud Nine, it demanded results. Deliverables. Performance.

  If Walter wanted to keep his team employed, he had to deliver. Long hours at the lab turned into longer nights. Over time, a wedge formed between him and Evelyn. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t meet her expectations and the board’s demands. The wedge became a wall.

  Desperate for balance, he’d hired Malcolm as an assistant. Walter gripped the wheel hard enough to make the leather creak as a shiver ran down his spine. Malcolm had been brilliant. Driven. Loyal. Walter had mentored him, come to rely on him. Long hours in the lab, bound by the interests of the Cloud Nine board and united by the dream of shaping the future, they grew close.

  One night, they took a break. Had dinner.

  Drank too much…

  And things just sort of happened.

  The first package arrived a few months into the affair.

  It contained photographs. Damning ones. Images that wouldn’t just destroy his marriage and end his career; they’d guarantee his arrest.

  What followed was a week of paranoid dread, waiting for the other shoe to drop. For someone to show up at his door, at the lab, and speak the words that would collapse his world. But the week passed.

  Then two.

  Then three.

  And Walter began to hope.

  Maybe whoever sent the photos had reconsidered. Maybe they got bored. Maybe it wasn’t worth the trouble. Maybe, just maybe, he’d imagined the whole thing.

  In that lull, he ended things with Malcolm, focused on doing right by Evelyn and Jonathan, and even promised to be home more often. He surprised them with a trip to Hawaii. They laughed, played.

  It was like old times. Like they were a family again.

  Until, just over two months after the blackmail began, he returned to his office and found another envelope waiting on his desk.

  That night, he spoke with Mr. Jones for the first time.

  The message was simple: hand over his findings, along with any other confidential API materials, via a designated route.

  In return, he could keep his life.

  He made his first drop that evening.

  From that day on, his life became a cycle of sporadic demands followed by long, unsettling silences, always waiting for the next contact. Tonight’s delay came from yet another such errand, this one all the way in Oakland. The circuitous return route, as dictated by the instructions, only added to his tardiness.

  He finally reached his exit at Ninth Street and wove north along El Camino Real, climbing the hills toward Washington. From there, he turned west onto Jackson, the sprawl of the Western Addition shifting around him as he neared home.

  The familiar silhouette of their Edwardian house came into view. Nestled across from Alta Plaza Park, its warmly lit windows usually felt inviting.

  Tonight, they glared at him with disapproving judgment.

  He slowed the Jag as he approached.

  “What in all the hells?”

  A Mercedes-Benz blocked his spot on the driveway.

  Fuming, he circled the block and found a space near the park. Why was someone in his spot on his driveway?

  Glaring at the offending vehicle, he paused. He’d seen that car before. It was Frank Janoff’s.

  Why is—

  Walter smacked his palm to his forehead.

  That’s right.

  Tonight wasn’t Family Dinner Night. They’d changed plans. Evelyn was at the theater with the Janoffs. Esmerelda was watching Johnny.

  A lopsided smile tugged at Walter’s lips. He was off the hook!

  Practically skipping up the stairs, he basked in the house’s warm, welcoming glow. He stepped inside, missing the scattered mail at his feet until a large envelope crunched beneath his shoe.

  “Hi, honey,” he called, bending to pick it up.

  “Walter?” Evelyn responded from the next room. “Is that you?”

  Footsteps hurried toward him.

  “How was the show? Are Frank and Rose still—”

  “Where have you been?” she cut in, her voice sharp.

  Walter’s temper flared, but with the Janoffs hovering behind her like buzzards, he forced himself to stay calm.

  “I just got home. What’s—”

  “Nobody’s here!” she snapped again. “The house was dark when we arrived.”

  Walter frowned. “What?” he said, more sharply now. “Dark? Where’s Esmerelda?”

  Evelyn shook her head. “That’s what I’m saying. I don’t know. There’s no one here.”

  A thought tugged at the back of his mind, but the panic in her voice shoved it aside.

  “How long have you been home?” he asked.

  “A few minutes ahead of you.”

  Walter smiled and glanced at Frank Janoff, who returned the look.

  They could say the Great Revelation had closed the gap between the sexes all they wanted, but the dramatic tendencies of the fairer sex still reared their heads now and again.

  “So how are you sure no one’s home, dear? The lights were on upstairs. They’re probably up there. You know how Johnny likes to play before bedtime.” He kissed the top of her head. “Why don’t you check while I pour us some drinks? I want to hear all about the show.”

  Evelyn hesitated, her cheeks coloring, before she nodded.

  “Yes, all right,” she said, turning toward the stairs.

  Walter chuckled as he moved to the wet bar, setting the mail on the counter.

  “Who wants a brandy?” he asked, eyes drifting to the large envelope he’d stepped on earlier.

  It had no postage and no return address. Just the words To the parents of Johnny Franklin scrawled in blocky letters.

  That’s odd, he thought, and flipped it open.

  Inside was a note, a scrap of fabric that looked like it came from Johnny’s school tie…

  And a lock of dark brown hair.

  He frowned, and his gaze dropped to the note.

  The same blocky handwriting read:

  We have your son. If you want him back, you will do everything you are told. We’ll be in touch.

  Walter blinked.

  The words were simple.

  But they made no sense.

  Have your son?

  The bottom dropped out of his stomach. It was suddenly hard to breathe. His mouth opened, but no sound came.

  What?

  But Johnny was upstairs…

  Then footsteps thudded overhead.

  And Evelyn screamed.

  The Mythic Chronicles.

  —Sean