Chapter 111 The Trance
SIBYL
The vision hits me like lightning. I'm standing at the edge of the battlefield. Non-combatant. Observer. Seer.
Then suddenly I'm everywhere. All times. All possibilities. All futures colliding in my mind.
I see:
Future One: Parliamentary hunters overwhelm the Rookeries. Everyone dies. Bodies piled. Hermetic Order collects corpses. Mass experimentation on the dead. London's supernatural community crushed permanently.
Future Two: Callum kills Cormac. Wolves rally. Drive back Parliamentary forces. Victory. But the cost: Callum dies from wounds. Valentina dies covering his retreat. Isla dies treating casualties. Everyone I love: dead. Victory is ashes.
Future Three: Hermetic Order spell activates. Everyone captured. Both sides. Wolves, vampires, fae, dragons. All become experimental subjects. Imprisoned. Studied. Bred. Used. Living death worse than actual death.
Future Four: They escape. Somehow. Retreat before the trap closes. Survive. But lose everything. Rookeries burned. Community scattered. Refugees. Decades rebuilding what was destroyed in hours.
Future Five: Something changes. Can't see what. Interference. Multiple variables colliding. Someone does something unexpected. The future shifts. Becomes uncertain. This is the dangerous one. The one that might save everyone or doom everyone. Can't see which.
The visions intensify. I'm experiencing all five futures simultaneously. Living them. Dying in them. Screaming through them.
Blood pours from my nose. My ears. My eyes. The visions are too much. Too intense. My human brain wasn't designed for this level of precognition.
I'm dying. The sight is killing me. Like it killed my mother. Like it kills all psychics eventually.
But I have to warn them. Have to make them understand.
I try to scream. Can't. My body is seizing. Muscles locked. Vision overriding physical function.
Future One intensifies: I see bodies burning. Hermetic Order harvesting organs. Professor Fell smiling. Mordaunt satisfied. Cormac dead too. Everyone dies. No survivors.
Future Two intensifies: Callum standing over Cormac's corpse. Victorious. Then Parliamentary sniper kills him. Headshot. Instant death. Valentina screams. Charges. Gets cut down. Isla tries to help. Incinerated by dragon fire.
Future Three intensifies: Prison cells. Hundreds of them. Every fighter from the battlefield. Imprisoned. Hermetic Order running experiments. Breeding programs. Hybrid creation. Using living bodies. Torture masked as science.
Future Four intensifies: Survivors fleeing London. Scattered across England. Scotland. Ireland. Never reuniting. Community destroyed. Everything Callum built: erased.
Future Five remains unclear: Something happens. Can't see. Blocked. Hidden. But it's different. Radically different. Neither victory nor defeat. Transformation. Everything changes. London's supernatural structure shifts. Power balances. New alliances. New enemies.
The seizure worsens. I'm on the ground now. Convulsing. Blood everywhere.
People notice. Someone screaming my name. Isla maybe. Can't tell. Vision overwhelming everything.
I have to warn them. Have to make them understand.
The trap. The Hermetic Order. The spell that Tom broke. That was decoy. Distraction. The real spell is different. Bigger. Already active. Building while everyone fights.
It's going to activate. Minutes maybe. Seconds.
And everyone will be trapped.
I force my mouth to work. Push sound through paralyzed throat. One word. Then another.
"Stop." Can barely hear myself. "Stop fighting."
Nobody hears. Battle too loud. Screaming. Gunfire. Explosions.
I try again. Louder. Voice shredding. "STOP FIGHTING!"
Still nothing. Can't compete with war.
The vision shows me: thirty seconds until spell activation. Hermetic Order mages on the periphery. All ten. Chanting. Building. Weaving.
They're not targeting individual fighters. They're targeting the battlefield itself. The space. The area. Everything inside a three-block radius.
When it activates, everyone inside gets frozen. Paralyzed. Captured.
"IT'S A TRAP!" I scream with everything I have. Voice raw. Throat bleeding.
A few people turn. Look at me. Don't understand.
Tom hears. He's close. Exhausted. Recognizes the warning.
"Hermetic spell!" he shouts. "Everyone evacuate NOW!"
Too late.
The spell activates.
Circle of light surrounds the battlefield. Golden. Beautiful. Deadly.
It rises from the ground. Spreads upward. Forming dome. Containment field. Prison made of magic.
Everyone inside freezes. Mid-motion. Mid-fight. Mid-scream.
Paralyzed. Complete. Total. Instant.
I'm outside the circle. Barely. Three feet from the boundary. The seizure threw me beyond the spell's radius.
I can see everyone. Frozen like statues. Wolves. Vampires. Fae warriors. Dragons. Cormac. Callum. Valentina. Tom. All of them.
Conscious. I can see their eyes moving. Aware. Trapped in their own bodies.
The Hermetic Order mages step forward. Satisfied. Successful.
Professor Fell appears at the circle's edge. Looking at his work with pride.
"Excellent," he says. "Two hundred combatants. All paralyzed. All preserved. All mine."
I try to stand. Can't. The seizure damaged me too severely. Legs won't work. Arms trembling.
But I can see. Can watch. Can witness.
Professor Fell walks into the circle. The spell doesn't affect him. He's attuned to it. Controller, not victim.
He approaches Callum. Examines him like specimen.
"Callum Brennan. Born wolf. Rejected mind control. Unique biology. You'll be very valuable." He moves to Valentina. "Dhampir. Rare. Beautiful. Perfect breeding stock."
He's talking about people like they're animals. Objects. Resources.
I try to scream again. Warn them. Do something.
Nothing. My voice is destroyed. Body broken. All I can do is watch.
More Hermetic mages enter the circle. Starting to categorize. Marking people with magical tags.
"Wolves to section A. Vampires to section B. Fae to section C. Dragons to section D."
They're sorting. Preparing for mass transport. Mass imprisonment.
No extermination. Worse than extermination.
Permanent captivity. Endless experimentation. Living death.
I watch. Helpless. Broken. Dying from the visions.
The five futures I saw. Three of them just became impossible. Only two remain:
Future Three: Mass capture. Everyone imprisoned. This is happening now.
Future Five: Something changes. Still can't see what. Still blocked. Still uncertain.
Which future wins depends on what happens next.
On whether someone intervenes. Someone unexpected. Someone who changes everything.
I don't know who. Can't see.
All I know: if nobody acts, everyone I love becomes Hermetic Order property.
Laboratory subjects. Experimental animals. Breeding stock.
Forever.
The seizure finally releases me. I collapse. Consciousness fading. Blood pooling. Body giving up.
My last thought: please. Someone. Anyone. Change this. Make it Future Five instead of Future Three.
Please.
Then darkness.