Epoch

Book 1:

We Shall Not All Sleep, But We Shall All Be Changed

"Do not be afraid; our fate
Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift."
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

Prologue

It didn't get destroyed, but oh how Arthur Nielsen wished it did.

As he lay dying, the warehouse in ruins around him, his lower half lying approximately five feet away from the rest of him, he wondered how long it should have taken for the world to crumble.

He'd done the astrolabe malarkey already, used Ferdinand Magellan's artifact to change the world. To bring the Warehouse back... to bring back Mrs. Frederic. Helena.

But that hadn't worked well enough, had it? He'd gone mad. Of course, he'd brought them back, but at what cost? Leena? The Warehouse? Hope.

Yet again the world had lost it, as Pandora's box came undone in the blast. It wasn't Sykes this time, oh no.

But it was just another child, all grown up. Ruined by the Warehouse and its inability to protect her. Ruined by the evil, not hate, in her heart. And yet… she had loved. Jasmine Forbes had loved Pete Lattimer so desperately, but either way, love couldn't save her. Love couldn't save any of them, and that was the scariest thing to come from it. She was evil to the core, and yet evil could still find its way to love.

The astrolabe hadn't helped all those years ago… in the long run it had just changed things. Killed other people. Put a time delay on the end of the world.

His head swam and he risked a look down at himself, shaking at the sight of his legs so far away. Tears trickled down his face when he noticed Myka's body crumpled over Helena's. She was dead. Helena was still alive, but barely.

It wouldn't be long.

He looked around, knowing that the sudden headache and the nausea were because he was losing too much blood. He was glad he couldn't see Claudia, wherever she was. He sent a silent goodbye to each and every one of them, then closed his eyes and laid down his head.

At least they had tried. They'd gone out kicking and screaming. They'd gotten Jasmine to crumple to the ground, they'd seen that little bit of good in her, like they had with Sykes. But it was too late. Unlike Sykes, it was just far too late. They couldn't go back this time.

It wouldn't be fixed, and—

Artie paused, shifting his head. The metal clunk behind his ear sounded for the second time, and though he was losing a hell of a lot of blood, he wasn't senile. He was actually quite lucid.

He howled in pain as his arms moved, reaching behind his head and clutching the metal artifact in his hand.

It didn't get destroyed, but oh how Artie Nielsen wished it did. Because the joy and the hope suddenly blossoming from his chest was excruciating. Maybe, just maybe… it'd be okay.

"Richard Wallingford," he gasped. "This better be worth it."

Those thieving Turks. The old Warehouse guardian shook his head as he clutched abbot Richard Wallingford's clock in his palm, his thoughts thickly swimming around his already overwhelmed brain. Shaped very much like Magellan's astrolabe, the clock consisted of a star map which rotated behind a fixed rete, and when suspended from a human thumb by a ring at the top, observations could be made; the altitude of the sun by day or the moon at night.

All very straight forward, albeit the mathematical genius behind the instrument. Until, of course, Wallingford died and the clock was unfortunately unfinished.

Thereafter, William of Walsham continued working on the astrolabe and twenty long years later, the instrument was finally complete.

Artie mused as his eyes drooped from loss of consciousness that William must have worked so hard to turn things right that the clock had become an artifact.

And thus, instead of the clock being destroyed during Henry VIII's reformation and the dissolution of St Alban's Abbey in 1539, the clock was stolen or rather, tracked by warehouse agents. The Turkish agents of Warehouse 9 shipped it to Constantinople and brought the artifact to safety.

And yet…

Artie gripped the clock and spun the dial, blinking open his tired eyes to watch the spark of energy dash about his face and hands. And yet here it was.

Here it was indeed.

He gave the world one last painful smile and closed his eyes. Maybe hope still lived after all.