A Fall into Reality (A Hammer on Witches 1)

The world is a magical place.

Yes, that’s true once again. Magic is pouring back into its veins like alcohol down a drunkard's parched throat, received with a greed that only forced abstinence could have induced—and just as with the boozer, the world doesn’t really care what it's drinking. As long as it flows.

A magical place. Inhabited by magical people who, just yesterday, had no idea of their talents. The old big players are gone, the new ones aren't that big yet, and the method of trial and error is experiencing its golden age.

A magical city. Prague has never deserved this title more. It is here that magic is purest and strongest, here that the interests of the old-new éminences grises of the global power struggle are concentrated, and here that many have drawn the front line of the clash with the growing magical anarchy. No one really knows what will come of the union of new, raw power and the uncontrollable civilisational progress of the 21st century… And so, all sorts of things are being tried. For example, Walter Semerád heading the extensive apparatus of the Vatican Investigation Commission, which is both a dream come true and the worst nightmare for the ambitious necromancer. Or many different kinds of wine, because Klaudie Doskočilová is already looking up at rock bottom, and only through the bottom… sometimes of a bottle, but usually just a leaky box of wine.

Vincenc isn't trying anything. Vincenc is dead.

And Felix would be watching it all helplessly from a divine perspective, if he didn't have much more important things to do in orbit…

Welcome to the new reality.