Tempus Magic Read online

  Tempus Magic

  A Musimagium Story In Time

  Mary Kit Caelsto

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Also by

  Tempus Magic

  Hidden

  Tonic Chords

  Songs and Horns

  About The Author

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Permission is granted to make ONE backup copy for archival purposes.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  TEMPUS MAGIC

  Copyright © Mary Kit Caelsto, 2019

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Cover Art © 2019

  Cover art by ENP Studios

  Book formatting by My Author Home (http://www.myauthorhome.com)

  Electronic Publication Date: March 2020

  Print Publication Date: March 2020

  This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the author.

  Would you like more by Mary Kit Caelsto? Visit https://www.marykitcaelsto.com/newsletter to sign up.

  Subscribers receive free stories. First news about giveaways and promotions…and more.

  Also by the Author

  Women’s Fiction

  Noble Dreams Series

  Steady on Course

  Standing on Course

  Correction on Course

  Walking on Course

  Course Perfect

  Shadbelly Faults

  Husband On Board

  Double Clear

  Riding Double

  Rosettes & Rompers

  Western Star Series

  Spins Are Wild

  Turn & Burn

  In the Chute

  Fantasy/Magic Realism

  World of the Musimagium and Radio Arcana

  Hidden

  Tonic Chords

  Of Songs & Horns

  Songs & Paperwork

  Chasing Neptune’s Cat

  Tempus Magic

  Chapter One

  Some days there wasn’t enough coffee in the world. I stared bleary-eyed at my boss, Reginald Serwer, or the Sewer as we joked behind his back, and at the black box sitting on his desk. Normally papers, most of them stained with coffee rings, covered his desk, never mind the Musa Armis goal of becoming a paperless office. Seemed like as soon as some numb-nuts announced the initiative, we became buried in reams of reports, most of them in triplicate. I suppressed a yawn. “You wanted to see me?” I leaned nonchalantly against the door frame, thinking if I actually sat down I’d probably fall asleep.

  “Sit, Starina.” Reginald pointed a thin finger toward the chair, his ragged nail leading the way.

  “I’m fine,” I muttered.

  “Sit. That’s an order.” Reginald wasn’t smiling.

  Well then, that was different, I thought sarcastically. As if I followed orders. Which may be why I was seeing my boss at the eight o’clock butt crack of the morning.

  He pushed the box across the desk and I eyed it as if it were a rabid dog. “You got a promotion.” He didn’t sound happy about it and that made me wonder if it was even his idea. Reginald threatened to write me up for insubordination more often than I ordered takeout. Since the Great Dividing I hadn’t had time to cook. Armis kept me so busy I could barely catch a bite.

  “A promotion?” I reached for the box and a sense of magic washed over my hands. Now that was interesting. My fingers tingled when I touched the box. I slid it across the desk and reached for the latch. “I didn’t think I was the promoting type. Can I open it?”

  “No, just carry it around and use it as your issued weapon.”

  I grinned at his joke.

  He waved his hand at me. “Yes. Open it.”

  I flipped the latch and opened the lid, not quite sure what to make of the material. It looked like black plastic, but was cool like metal. On a blue velvet so dark it might have been black, except for where the fluorescent lights overhead hit it, sat a funky looking watch. Not an iWatch, but maybe one of the wannabe clones or a really high-tech step tracker. “What is it?” I lifted it out of the box.

  As soon as I touched it, the watch vibrated. A blue and purple display illuminated on the screen. “Hello, Starina Jasmine. Welcome to Musa Tempus.” I flicked my gaze to my boss. “Tempus?” I searched my memory for my way-too-rusty Latin, a dead, dusty old language we all had to learn when we were inducted into Armis. “Time?” I glanced at the watch again. It looked future-y, maybe a bit of Sci-Fi. Perhaps not big budget, but better than some of the B-grade flicks on Syfy. “Time travel? Me?”

  “You don’t have an animal companion. Your instrument is your voice. You’re Tempus material.”

  “I just thought I was a freak!” I stared at the watch as if it might bite me. When it didn’t, and when Reginald didn’t say anything, I sighed and put it on the edge of his desk. “What now?” My soft voice signaled my defeat. I’d been Armis for nearly ten years now, having grown up among the Musimagium. I’d even gone to their exclusive school in Melody. I didn’t think that made me a candidate for anything. Only someone who felt as if she didn’t belong most of the time.

  “Tempus is down the hall and to the right. You’ll report to them now. It was nice working with you. I’ve already transferred the files.” My boss didn’t offer a handshake, none of the customary parting gestures.

  I sat a heartbeat longer than was comfortable, then picked up my watch, closed the lid on the box, then stood and went to the door. When I glanced over my shoulder my boss focused on his computer and I had been dismissed.

  Down the hall and to the right seemed like odd directions since I knew this hall ended in a dead-end with some kind of strange mural on it out of the 70’s, almost as if the building needed a makeover and hadn’t gotten one yet. I grabbed my box tight enough that my knuckles turned white, felt the flow of magic both inside me and around my new gift, and followed directions. I’d learned early in my career that Armis preferred not to have freelancers among its ranks. Then again, that was the whole Musimagium thing anyway—follow the rules. That my powers ran counter to the usual four elements and I couldn’t play a musical instrument to save my life—literally—branded me as someone who had “rebel” in my DNA. Armis didn’t like that and maybe that’s why Reginald acted as if sending me to a time traveling part of my organization was no big deal. I snorted. Yeah, right. Time travel.

  Look, I could tell you all about magic driven by music, how the notes a human voice can hit trigger certain magical frequencies and that’s how magic works. The history of the Great Dividing when the gods left the world, forgetting little pieces of themselves that took magic from a secret, behind-closed-doors sort of thing to a major player in our world to the fact that it was my group—Musa Armis—that wrote the brochures the government handed out reassuring citizens that magic wasn’t harmful and how to handle it. I snorted. In the right hands magic could be very harmful, but we didn’t want the civilians to know that.

  I reached the end of the hall and the mural. I turned, thinking the weird disco-esque blob picture looked different. I squinted and realized the colors were moving, forming some sort of door. I glanced down at the box and though it was closed, a blue light emanated from beneath the latch. The color
s shifted and a doorway opened containing the same blue glow. I stepped through it.

  “Welcome to Musa Tempus, Agent Kwan. Proceed to orientation.” A smooth, not quite artificial feminine voice said. I swore the voice came over some loudspeaker, though I couldn’t tell where. I glanced behind me and saw a solid wall. I turned, wondering if I pounded on it if they’d let me out. They couldn’t keep me here, could they? A moment of claustrophobia filled me, and I drew deep breaths in through my noise and out my mouth. The walls glowed blue, translucent so I saw offices like the ones I knew at Armis, but this light prevented me from going anywhere but forward. Apparently these people were used to it, because no one looked in my direction. They remained bent over their desks like mindless little drones. Ugh. I hoped they didn’t think about putting me behind a desk. I also wondered if the light came in any other colors because it wasn’t quite working with my lavender hair.

  I headed in the direction the lights directed me thinking I’d just gotten a promotion. Surely they wouldn’t kill me on the first day, and I’d dealt with some pretty crazy things with Armis. I’d never set out to be part of the magical police force. I’d been studying forensics prior to the Great Dividing because honestly I thought it was kind of cool. And then the Great Dividing happened, someone heard me signing along with the radio in my car like I was auditioning for a reality show, and the next thing I knew guys in suits came to my apartment and told me I was a warrior and I’d be joining Armis. Whatever. I’d needed a job anyway.

  The strangely shifting hallway ended at a door, which I figured was mine to enter. It was shut, so I knocked.

  “Come in,” an older, female voice said.

  I opened the door and wasn’t sure what to expect for the office of time travel. Maybe more of those psychedelic designs, pictures of people posing with dinosaurs or someone making bunny ears on George Washington. Instead, I entered a sterile looking office except for the lime green walls and rust orange accented furniture. I sat down on an orange chair wondering just how badly it clashed with my hair. At least I wore black from head to toe.

  “Agent Starina Kwan. Welcome. We’ve had our eye on you for some time. It was only recently a vacancy opened up so I could bring you aboard.” Her voice held a musical note and I sensed just enough power to lend her authority, not enough to influence my emotions. I didn’t think she needed it. Her long white blonde hair was pulled back with a silver clip at her nape, and her hawkish nose and full lips made her look like a haughty cover model. She wore a suit, perfectly tailored I’m sure, and I glanced at her desk for a name plate. There was none.

  “I’m glad,” I replied thinking even in the handbook, and yeah even a magical police force had a company handbook, all agents had to be identified.

  “If you will put on your chronometer, everything will be revealed.” She nodded toward my box.

  So no introductions then. Fine. I opened the box and watched as the device, excuse me chronometer, came to life. Information, including ambient temperature and environmental safety flashed on the screen. I lifted the device, noting how light it was and hooked it onto my wrist.

  The woman’s computer chimed and the voice said, “Agent Starina Kwan online.”

  It all seemed a bit too high tech for me. I lifted the watch to get a better look at it and the display changed. The woman’s face appeared. “Candace Gianrossi, Musa Tempus Director.” A line beneath appeared to list where the person was in relation to me in the agency hierarchy and it read simply “TOP”. Well then, so I knew who I had to obey.

  “Director Gianrossi?” I had a thousand questions, the foremost being how the heck did we travel through time. I didn’t ask them, mostly because I hated appearing stupid. I got enough people who judged me based on my hair and slight, but muscular stature.

  “Very good. Normally I would put a new agent through our six month training program. I’m afraid I don’t have that luxury with you. You’ll find that while we’re not as heavy handed as Armis, we do much the same thing. Most Tempus agents are influencers or teachers. We have very few warriors, and those we do obtain we tend to use on only our toughest cases. You were working on the Stormguard case, weren’t you?”

  A knot of dread dropped to my gut. “I was,” I admitted, though we’d done horribly with it and as far as we knew he was still at large. Someone with magical powers, who had learned how to drain emotional energy from people and liked to form his own little cult. A religious commune in California. Crazy gun nut militias in Texas. Even a local food co-op somewhere in Wisconsin. I’d stumbled on the case in my first year with Armis, and for the last five years we’d been tracing him. He’d show up. We’d get a lead, and he’d go underground. From what we understood the authorities, the civilian ones, were also looking for him, but we hadn’t had a lead in three months.

  “He’s charmed some of our magical tech guys and has gone timeline independent.”

  “Timeline Independent?” I tested the unfamiliar and very corporate-sounding term out. “He’s learned how to time travel.”

  “Yes. Like I said, I don’t have time to train you, so I’ve taken the liberty of pairing you with Agent Angelo D’Caddario.”

  As if she conjured him the door opened, and a guy a little older than I, his blond hair in waves around his face and down to his shoulders, dressed in a suit that had to be Armani or something, because it looked like it cost more than my entire monthly paycheck, entered. He took one look at me, arched a perfect eyebrow, looked down his sculpted Roman nose that sat between cheekbones a model would kill for—I know because I’d seen it—then turned his attention to the Director. “My new partner?”

  “Agent D’Caddario, meet Agent Starina Kwan.”

  Oh goodie, I was the little Korean duckling in a department of Italian swans. This ought to be interesting.

  Chapter Two

  Angelo brought me to an office that had two desks, both equally empty except for a coffee cup on his. No photos, no mementos, not even a “hang in there” cat picture was taped on the clear dividers between them. A rectangle opening allowed us to talk, presumably, but otherwise, it was like we were in two separate garishly decorated cubicles. The same green walls, orange desk color scheme was in play here and it made me feel a little bouncy. Maybe the colors were supposed to have that effect.

  “That’s your desk,” he said. A small white cardboard box sat on it, and I recognized my coffee mug on top.

  “Thanks,” I replied. “So you’re stuck with me, huh? I’d say I’m sorry, but I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be doing.”

  He smiled. “You’ll find out soon enough. There’s a training module on your computer that’ll show how to use your chronometer and a couple of annual ethics training you need to take before we can go out. Then I’ll get you the Stormguard file and the greatest hits from it, catch you up to speed on what we’ve done, see if you can add anything since you were actively working the case, then we’ll go.”

  “Go? Like time travel.” Damn, I sounded stupid this morning, but in my defense, I usually sucked down about four cups of coffee before I talked to anyone.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Angelo replied with far more humor than I’d expected. For someone who looked like him, I figured he followed the rules and slapped down anyone who wanted to mess with the time instance or whatever the terminology was. I hoped there was a time travel 101 course on this computer so I could at least not be totally clueless when we began.

  I turned on the computer, thankful at least to see the normal login screen and that my credentials worked. Maybe some IT guy bumped me up a level or maybe Tempus simply used the Armis security protocols. “So what do you do? Like go into the future and stop some kid whose coming into his powers from turning his baby sister into a toad?” Not my case, but one I’d heard about as a classic, low-key Armis job. “Or do you just police time so only we have the power to travel through it?” Because that one I’d believe. The Musimagium were sticklers about controlling technology, magic,
whatever as long as it had to do with their domain. I’d seen magicians have their power wiped all because they refused to come into our organization, and while I didn’t agree with it, the whole “protect magic at all costs” thing made sense. It really did. Because right now, having magic in the hands of those who chose not to follow certain ethical guidelines was the proverbial loose nuke.

  “More or less,” he answered.

  I had the feeling I wasn’t getting much more out of him. I’d been brought on for Stormguard. “So what’s our objective? Go to the future bring him in?”

  “If we can. Otherwise, just bring him back to our time and make sure he doesn’t have the ability to time travel again.”

  I frowned, not only because of how long it’d taken for my computer to load, and that the five icons on the screen. Where was my blackjack game? My link to funny magic cat videos, otherwise known as socius doing stupid stuff? Documents. Chronometer Orientation. Tempus Training. A web browser. Email. It all sounded positively like a job. I sighed and opened my email. “So you don’t care if we bring him in?” I bit my lip. I’d spent most of my career trying to bring this guy to justice, never mind that he’d slipped through our fingers at each attempt. If I could travel through time, then I’d be able to go back to when he was sleeping and grab him or something. Surely that wasn’t against the rules.

  Angelo turned and faced me through the clear divider. “Look, Starina. I know Armis is all about bringing people to justice and we let them do their jobs. Apprehension. Trials.” He waved his hand as if he were dismissing someone’s stupid fan theory about a Sci-Fi show. “That’s not what we do here. Our job is to protect time.”

  “Protect time?” I rolled my eyes at him. “Doesn’t time protect itself the same way magic always returns to a state of equilibrium?” Sure, magical backlash happened and there’d been some crazy things going on since the great dividing. People showing up with animal faces. The talking animals that became magical companions. Even unicorns and other mythical beasts coming to life. All of it was considered the last remnants of the gods. I didn’t quite buy it because well, the Musimagium had a history going back to before the Revolutionary War and the Great Dividing didn’t happen until well into the twenty first century.