Chapter 1: The Pact is Called Due

Chapter 1: The Pact is Called Due

The whiskey tasted like regret and cheap motel carpets, which was exactly how Adair Finch felt. Rain hammered against the reinforced glass of his third-story office window, each drop a tiny fist trying to beat its way into the quiet solitude he’d paid for in blood and bad decisions. Below, the city’s neon signs bled into the slick asphalt, a watercolor painting of loneliness.

His office was less a place of business and more a mausoleum for his past. Shelves overflowed with grimoires bound in human skin and texts written in languages that burned the tongue to speak. A half-eaten plate of something vaguely resembling noodles sat on a stack of cold case files, each one a testament to some poor soul who’d stumbled into the cracks of reality. This was his life: a purgatory of shadows and secrets, punctuated by the amber glow of a good bourbon.

He swirled the last of his drink, watching the liquid gold cling to the glass. For the first time in a month, there were no haunted houses to cleanse, no demonic possessions to exorcise, no cheating spouses to tail through the supernatural red-light district. Just the rain, the whiskey, and the weary silence. He almost allowed himself to enjoy it.

That was his first mistake.

It started not with a sound, but with a pressure change. The air in the room grew thick, heavy, like the moment before a lightning strike. The dust motes dancing in the single beam of his desk lamp froze mid-air. The rain outside seemed to hang suspended, a crystal curtain against the night. Finch’s hand instinctively went to the arcane symbol tattooed on his wrist, a complex knot of lines that now felt cold as ice.

In the center of the room, reality began to fray. Light bent inward, colors warped, and a sound like a trillion tiny glass bells chiming at once echoed not in the air, but directly inside his skull. Then, with a soft thump that was impossibly loud in the crushing silence, it was there.

It was an egg.

Roughly the size of a football, it rested on his worn Persian rug, which immediately began to smolder at the points of contact. Its shell wasn't smooth, but a swirling, opalescent surface of nebula clouds and captive starlight. It pulsed with a gentle, rhythmic light, and the warmth rolling off it was the warmth of a newborn sun.

Finch let out a long, slow breath, the curse dying on his lips. "Chronos, you old bastard," he whispered, the words tasting like ash. "The bill's finally come due."

Twenty years ago, a desperate, dying warlock had made a deal with a being that existed outside of time. In exchange for power—for a second chance—Adair Finch had bound himself to the Time Titan. He had become Chronos's failsafe, his agent of last resort. The price was one future favor, to be called in at a time and place of the Titan’s choosing.

Apparently, that time was now, and the place was his shitty office. This egg… this was the favor. It was Chronos’s progeny, an infant god, a chaotic variable in the cosmic equation. And Finch was its new babysitter.

Before he could even take a step toward the celestial incubator, the world snapped back to normal with the force of a thunderclap. The rain crashed against the glass again. The dust motes resumed their lazy dance. But the silence was replaced by a new sound: the splintering of his office door.

Two figures burst through the shattered frame. They were tall and gaunt, wrapped in cloaks that seemed woven from solidified night. Their faces were obscured by obsidian masks carved with alien constellations, but the pinpricks of cold, silver light that burned where their eyes should be were all Finch needed to see. They weren't human. Not anymore.

"The Anomaly is ours, Warlock," one of them hissed, its voice like grinding stone. It raised a hand, and a blade of pure, condensed starlight materialized in its grip.

Finch didn't waste time on witty banter. He kicked his chair back and swept his arm forward, a word of power rolling off his tongue. The air in front of him shimmered, and an invisible ward solidified just in time to catch the celestial blade. The impact sent a shockwave through the room, blowing papers everywhere and shattering his whiskey glass.

While the first assassin was momentarily stunned, the second moved with unnatural speed, flanking him. It lunged, its own star-forged dagger aimed right for his heart. Finch summoned a plume of shadow-fire, forcing the creature to leap back, but he was already on the defensive. These weren't some back-alley ghouls. They were hunters. Disciplined. Purpose-built.

He dove behind his heavy oak desk as a bolt of cosmic energy vaporized the spot where he’d been standing. Peeking over the edge, he saw them advancing, their movements synchronized, their silver eyes fixed on the softly glowing egg. They weren't here for him. He was just an obstacle.

An idea sparked. With a flick of his wrist, he animated the collection of esoteric junk on his shelves. Books flew like angry bats, cursed daggers spun through the air, and a jar of pickled kraken eyes exploded in a shower of foul-smelling brine. The chaos bought him a few precious seconds.

He needed an out. He was a good fighter, but two-on-one against celestial assassins was a losing bet. As he scrambled for a better position, his foot slipped on a stray stack of files. It was a small mistake, a moment's imbalance, but it was all they needed.

The first assassin was on him in a flash, its star-blade cleaving through the air. Finch brought a forearm up to block, a secondary ward flaring to life around his arm. The blade sheared through the magic, and white-hot pain seared his flesh as it cut deep into his bone. He cried out, staggering back.

The second assassin was already there, its movements a blur. It drove its dagger forward, a perfect, inescapable strike. Finch saw it coming. He saw the cold, triumphant light in its silver eyes. He saw the blade pierce the worn leather of his trench coat. He felt the impossible coldness of it slide between his ribs and puncture his lung.

Time slowed. The pain was a distant thing, a fading echo. His vision tunneled. The glowing egg was the last thing he saw. He had failed. The pact was broken before it had even begun.

No.

The word was a silent scream in his mind. Not like this.

With the last of his will, he focused on the intricate symbol on the back of his hand. It flared with a pale, silver light.

"Chronos!"

The world didn't rewind. It shattered.

For Finch, it was a nauseating lurch, a feeling of being violently pulled backward through his own history. The agony in his chest vanished. The gash on his arm sealed itself. The air re-knit itself around the assassin’s blade, which was now inches from his coat. The world snapped back into focus with a gut-wrenching jolt.

He was back. Only a few seconds, but it was enough.

He now stood exactly where he had been, his foot poised over the same treacherous stack of files. The first assassin was mid-swing. The second was beginning its lunge.

This time, Finch didn’t slip.

He dropped, letting the first assassin’s blade whistle over his head. In the same motion, he slammed his palm onto the floorboards. A web of crackling energy shot out, ensnaring the second assassin’s legs and causing it to stumble. As it fell, Finch rose, a shard of pure shadow in his hand, and drove it directly through the creature’s obsidian mask. It didn't scream; it simply dissolved into motes of dying starlight and dust.

The remaining assassin hesitated, its silver eyes flickering from its fallen partner to Finch. That hesitation cost it everything. Finch was already moving, his trench coat flaring behind him. He wasn't just a warlock; he was a detective who knew how to win a brawl. He slammed the assassin against the wall, grabbed the hand holding the star-blade, and twisted. Bones made of something far more brittle than calcium snapped with a sickening crunch. The blade clattered to the floor. Before the creature could react, Finch whispered a final, guttural word of unmaking, and it too collapsed into a pile of cosmic dust.

Silence descended once more, broken only by his own ragged breathing. The office was a wreck. The door was gone. But the egg was safe, pulsing calmly as if nothing had happened. He clutched his chest, feeling the phantom pain of the fatal wound. The rewind always left a ghost.

But then, a new sensation washed over him, colder and more terrifying than any blade. It was a feeling of being seen. Not with eyes, but by a consciousness as vast and uncaring as the void between galaxies. The temporal scar left by his rewind, his cheat against fate, had flared like a supernova in the cosmic darkness.

And something had noticed.

A name, ancient and terrible, whispered through the static in his mind. Aeon.

A cold, calculating awareness locked onto his soul, a predator sensing the twitch of its prey across an impossible distance. It was the Father of the Zodiac, Chronos’s great rival, the ultimate arbiter of destiny. And Finch had just appeared on his divine radar.

He looked from the dust on the floor to the softly glowing egg. His greatest power, the ability to turn back the clock, was now a beacon. Every time he used it, the hunter would get closer.

He was no longer a private investigator. He was a man on the run, guarding the birth of a god, and hunted by another. The quiet life was over. The pact was due.