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The thing that had been Varnae sat up on the altar, its newly formed body radiating power that made Constantine's bones ache. Red eyes swept across the rooftop, taking in the frozen vampires, the shattered ritual components, and Constantine himself still holding the Darkhold Dagger that had inadvertently completed the transformation.
"You," Varnae said, its voice echoing with centuries that hadn't yet occurred. "You're the catalyst. The synchronicity mage."
Constantine's mind raced. Synchronicity mage. He'd heard the term before practitioners whose magic operated on probability rather than traditional spellcasting. Coincidence workers. Luck manipulators. But he'd never considered himself one of them.
"I don't know what you're "
Varnae laughed, the sound making several vampires collapse. "You don't even know what you are. How delightful. Tell me, Constantine, how many times have you survived certain death? How often have your enemies made improbable mistakes at precisely the right moment? How frequently does coincidence favor you?"
Too many times, Constantine realized with growing dread. The demon at Inferno who'd hesitated just long enough for Luke and Danny to arrive. The temporal crown landing on his doorstep exactly when needed. The artifacts choosing him despite his unworthiness.
"The artifacts," he said slowly. "They weren't testing us. They were waiting for me specifically."
"Correct." Varnae stood, the ritual circle's power still swirling around it. "The Midnight Sons artifacts are attuned to synchronicity magic. They recognize those who walk between chaos and order, whose presence tilts probability itself. You activated them simply by existing near them."
"But why?" Constantine gripped the Dagger tighter. "What's the point of all this?"
"To create me, obviously." Varnae gestured to its new form. "I am not the original Varnae that primordial creature is long dead. I am something new. A vampire-human hybrid born from a ritual powered by three ancient artifacts and baptized in the presence of a synchronicity mage. I am possibility made flesh. The perfect vampire."
Constantine felt sick. "The Countess. She knew. She planned all of this."
"Every step." Countess Varnae emerged from the stairwell, her dress torn and bloodied but her expression triumphant. Blade stumbled after her, clearly wounded but alive. "I spent decades researching synchronicity magic. When I learned you'd arrived in this reality a Constantine variant with latent probability powers I knew you were the missing piece."
"You manipulated everything," Constantine said. "The timing, the artifacts, assembling us here. All to create this thing."
"This being," the Countess corrected. "Varnae will lead our species to dominance. And you, Constantine, will ensure that happens."
"Like hell I will."
Constantine raised the Dagger, but before he could strike, reality hiccupped.
It was the only way to describe it. The world stuttered like a skipping record. Constantine felt his synchronicity powers activate involuntarily, probability cascading in directions he didn't intend.
The rooftop's edge crumbled.
The Countess stumbled backward, her foot catching on debris that hadn't been there a second ago.
A helicopter passing overhead NYPD, by the markings suddenly veered off course, its searchlight sweeping across the rooftop.
Blade, despite his injuries, found a discarded UV grenade that Constantine was certain hadn't been there before.
"What " Varnae started to say.
The grenade exploded. UV radiation flooded the rooftop. The twelve chanting vampires shrieked and crumbled to ash. The Countess threw up her hands, shielding herself. Even Varnae recoiled, its hybrid nature giving it resistance but not immunity.
"Move!" Blade grabbed Constantine, hauling him toward the stairwell.
They ran, Constantine's synchronicity powers still firing randomly. Doors opened at precisely the right moment. Vampire guards appeared in their path but immediately tripped over obstacles that materialized from nowhere. A fire suppression system activated, drenching everything in holy water that someone had apparently replaced the regular water with.
"Your magic," Blade gasped as they descended. "You're doing this."
"I'm not trying to!" Constantine could feel the power spiraling out of control, probability waves emanating from him like ripples in a pond. "It's like like something woke up. Something I didn't know was there."
They burst into the parking garage where the rest of the team was evacuating the last prisoners. Strange took one look at Constantine and his expression shifted to alarm.
"Your aura," the Sorcerer Supreme said. "It's fluctuating wildly. What happened up there?"
"Long story. Short version: I'm apparently a synchronicity mage, the ritual used that to create a super-vampire, and now my powers are going haywire." Constantine felt another probability wave pulse outward. A support pillar cracked but didn't collapse. A vampire guard's gun jammed. Danny's phone rang his aunt, apparently calling at the exact moment they needed a distraction.
"We need to contain this," Strange said urgently. "Synchronicity magic is notoriously unstable. If it continues to amplify "
The building shook. Not from structural damage, but from probability itself warping. Constantine felt it his powers reaching beyond the building, beyond the block, spreading across Manhattan like an invisible wave.
"Too late," he whispered. "It's already spreading."
Across New York, impossible coincidences began occurring.
Spider-Man, in the middle of fighting the Shocker, suddenly found his opponent's equipment shorting out for no apparent reason. The villain's gauntlets sparked, overloaded, and exploded harmlessly, leaving him stunned and vulnerable.
At Avengers Tower, Tony Stark discovered that three separate projects he'd been struggling with for months suddenly clicked into place. Solutions appeared in his mind fully formed, as if his subconscious had been working on them all along.
In Hell's Kitchen, a building fire that should have killed dozens was prevented when a fire truck responding to a false alarm three blocks away happened to be in position the moment flames erupted.
And in the Sanctum Sanctorum's library, every book related to synchronicity magic flew off the shelves simultaneously, pages flipping to relevant passages as if guided by invisible hands.
Wong stared at the chaos. "This is unprecedented. Synchronicity magic doesn't operate on this scale. It shouldn't be possible."
Strange was already reading the open books, his enhanced perception processing information at superhuman speed. "It's not just synchronicity magic. It's synchronicity magic amplified by the Midnight Sons artifacts, which are themselves probability engines designed to tilt the odds in favor of those fighting darkness."
"So Constantine carrying the Medallion is acting as a supernatural luck amplifier for the entire region?" Wong's voice rose. "That's "
"Catastrophic if left unchecked," Strange finished. "Good fortune for heroes means bad fortune for villains, which sounds beneficial until you consider the balance. The universe maintains equilibrium. Every improbable success on one side creates improbable failure on the other. If this continues, the probability backlash could "
Reality stuttered again. Every electronic device in the Sanctum shut down simultaneously, then rebooted. The wards flickered, failed, then reasserted themselves stronger than before.
" could reshape local reality into something unstable and dangerous," Strange concluded grimly. "We need to get Constantine back here immediately."
In the Tribeca building's parking garage, Constantine felt the power continuing to spread. He could sense it now threads of probability connecting him to thousands of people across the city. Heroes he'd never met. Villains whose plans were unraveling. Innocent people experiencing impossible good fortune or devastating bad luck depending on their proximity to supernatural threats.
"I can't control it," he told Strange. "Every time I try to pull it back, it just spreads further."
"Because you're fighting against your own nature," Strange said, hands already weaving diagnostic spells. "Synchronicity magic is reflexive. It responds to subconscious will, not conscious control. You're trying to stop it, but some part of you believes we need every advantage we can get against Varnae."
"Well, don't we?" Luke Cage said. He and the others had finished evacuating the prisoners and were gathering around Constantine. "Super-vampire on the loose, Constantine's magic giving good guys an edge seems like a win."
"In the short term," Strange agreed. "But this level of probability manipulation creates instability. Reality isn't meant to be this biased. Eventually, there will be a correction a massive probability backlash that could be worse than anything Varnae threatens."
Danny frowned. "How much worse?"
"Imagine every piece of bad luck being saved up, compressed, and released simultaneously across the Eastern Seaboard. Buildings collapse. Accidents multiply. Heroes fail at critical moments. Millions die not from supernatural threats but from improbable catastrophes."
The parking garage fell silent.
"How do we stop it?" Constantine asked quietly.
"You need to ground the excess energy." Strange pulled out a crystal that glowed with steady white light. "This is a probability anchor. It creates a stable reference point that synchronicity magic can't affect. If you can focus the energy into this, disperse it safely "
The building shook again. Through the parking garage entrance, Constantine saw Varnae emerge, flanked by Countess Varnae and a dozen vampires who'd apparently survived the UV grenade.
"Found you," Varnae said pleasantly. "And just in time. I can feel your power, Constantine. It's magnificent. Chaotic. Wild. Exactly what I need."
"Need for what?" Blade stepped forward, reloading his shotgun with silver rounds.
"To become truly immortal." Varnae's smile was terrible. "I'm a hybrid now vampire and human, supernatural and natural. But I'm still vulnerable to probability. Random chance could kill me. A lucky staking, a coincidental decapitation, an improbable sunrise. But if I bond with a synchronicity mage, absorb their power..." It gestured to Constantine. "Then probability itself becomes mine to command. I become unkillable by chance or design."
"Yeah, that's not happening," Constantine said, even as his powers pulsed again, responding to the threat.
Varnae charged.
But so did Constantine's synchronicity magic.
The parking garage's sprinkler system activated, holy water again, someone's modification from earlier. A car alarm startled Varnae mid-leap, throwing off its trajectory. Blade's shotgun, which should have been out of silver rounds, somehow had one left that caught a vampire guard perfectly.
"You see?" Varnae said, shaking off the holy water. "Your power protects you instinctively. But it's undisciplined. Crude. Imagine that power refined, controlled, wielded by someone with centuries of strategic thinking."
It attacked again, faster this time. But Constantine's synchronicity magic responded faster still.
A chunk of ceiling fell, blocking Varnae's path. Strange's restraining spell, which should have missed, caught the hybrid vampire perfectly. Elsa's thrown dagger, deflected by Varnae's hand, ricocheted off three surfaces and struck the Countess instead.
Every attack failed. Every defense succeeded. Probability bent so far in the heroes' favor it became almost comical.
"Constantine, stop!" Strange shouted. "You're accelerating the backlash!"
But Constantine couldn't stop. His subconscious had taken over, flooding the area with probability manipulation. He watched in horror as his powers transformed the fight into a farce vampires slipping on holy water, their weapons jamming, their attacks failing in increasingly improbable ways.
And with each failure, Constantine felt reality strain further. Like a rope being pulled too tight, about to snap.
"The anchor!" Strange thrust the crystal at Constantine. "Ground the energy now before "
Reality snapped.
Constantine felt it a massive correction as the universe reasserted balance. All the good luck, all the improbable successes, suddenly reversed.
The parking garage's structural supports, weakened by earlier fighting, gave way simultaneously. The ceiling began to collapse.
Strange's defensive shields, which had held against every attack, suddenly failed. A piece of debris struck him, knocking the Sorcerer Supreme unconscious.
Blade's shotgun exploded in his hands, the mechanisms finally failing after years of improbable durability.
Danny's chi powers flickered and died, exhaustion catching up with him all at once.
Every bit of good fortune reversed in seconds. The probability backlash Constantine had been warned about, concentrated into one catastrophic moment.
And Varnae laughed.
"Perfect," the hybrid vampire said, walking through the collapsing garage untouched by falling debris. "You see what happens when you manipulate probability without understanding it? Chaos breeds chaos. Now, shall we try this again? Surrender your power willingly, or I'll take it by force while your friends die around you."
Constantine looked at his fallen teammates, at the collapsing building, at the probability anchor lying just out of reach. His synchronicity magic was still active but uncontrolled, making everything worse.
He had seconds to decide: surrender his power to Varnae, or risk another probability wave that might kill everyone.
Some choice.
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đ If you'd like to support me or read EARLY ACCESS Chapters, you can find me on Patreon đ
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