Chapter 2:

The right eye, a unique flowing watercolor of green and blue, was locked away by a man who had, after witnessing creation itself, blinded himself with bandages. Now he moves unimpeded through a forest at the edge of time, waiting for the world to catch up.

Fire lashed out angrily at the night sky, raging in spite of the snow blowing all around it, until hollow steel snapped over it and left only a faint ember behind. The glowing end of a cigarette ate away at paper and tobacco before smoke flowed forcefully from the mouth of a short man leaning against the outside of a diner.

“Two months,” the man growled as he stared without seeing into the distance. Anger is a hard emotion to hide, but Jason had to stow it away. “Anger,” he thought to himself, “only makes facts harder to see.” Truth was, though, the facts were near impossible to see as it was; Jacob had disappeared, and Ken was dead. Sure, the situation was far from a “who dun it,” the big question was more like, “why do it?”

Two months had passed since Ken hurriedly ran out the door and disappeared, and every lead Jason chased down ended colder than this Chicago blizzard had any dream of being. As his vision cleared, Jason saw a man in a thick tattered coat leaning over a trash fire across the street. Looking around, he couldn’t help but notice how quiet the night was. Jason dug in his own coat pocket for his wallet as he crossed the street.

Tired as Jason knew he must have looked, he smiled and gave the unfortunate man two hundred dollars with a handshake and “Merry Christmas!” despite the fact that the holiday was several days past. As Jason walked on, he looked up at where the moon would be and allowed himself to wonder, for just a moment, about conversations he’d never get to have.

It had finally stopped snowing; the cold lashing wind had blown the storm system off of the frozen Montana wood. Moonlight made red snow now visible under the bodies of the men Marcus Fields had left behind; he had been tracking a dirty bomb for a while now. Materials, most of them mundane, had been moving about the country in strange ways before they all settled here. Marcus was trudging through the snow towards the nest of a global terror organization.

A café bombing in Togo, a car bomb in Bombay. They were inexperienced, sloppy, and Marcus had stopped every plan ever since. Now they had enough material to load a semi-trailer, enough to level a neighborhood, and enough to make Manhattan uninhabitable for generations. It was their big play, to show the world they’re bigger than anyone gave them credit for, which was true, but they were smaller than they thought.

He could see a guard shack, a little snow-covered earthen structure, invisible from the air; the man inside napping against a PKM mounted in the window. Marcus walked right up to him and rammed his knife into the man’s heart; he never felt a thing, and Marcus lowered him to the ground. Beyond the shack was another earthen structure, a larger one with a garage-type door. Marcus’ brown eyes gave way to soul-sight; he couldn’t see the room through the door, but he could see people if they were there, their souls, intentions, but there was nothing there, or anywhere around for as far as his vision was good.

Below, maybe thirty, forty feet down, there they were. Thirty men in total, four seated around something, two men standing near them, two walking away, one standing still, and the rest laying down. Marcus walked over and stood over the larger group of probably sleeping terrorists and placed his hands on the ground. The Earth itself groaned quietly before Marcus began to descend, his little slab of earth taking him down as an elevator would and stopping just over the heads of the likely sleeping soon-to-be victims.

Marcus used his art to push away the walls of his elevator until his mineshaft covered the men below him and he pushed his floor through their ceiling. The stone slab crashed to the floor below, and Marcus now stood in front of a man, towel around his waist, toothbrush dangling from his mouth, shock in his eyes. The blow Marcus delivered sent the man crashing through the wall behind him and bowling over a similarly stunned man in what appeared to be a bathroom.

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The two walking men burst in through a door and crumpled as 150 grains of .300 blackout nearly silently nested between their eyes. Marcus began to work his way down a hallway; he swiftly passed closed doors and dimmed rooms, all empty. For now, he was focused on the six remaining souls in this bunker. Five standing, one sitting, three confused, two afraid, one… calm?

Marcus tore around a corner into the view of one of the confused, a man with a rifle, door guard. Before the man could completely lift his weapon, he had six new holes; Marcus checked the souls, one still calm, seated, the others were frantic, afraid. He stepped back when one lifted his arms, and as he did, rounds tore through the wall in front of him.

Marcus only needed one, and was unwilling to risk a direct confrontation with five armed men so he took aim with his soul-sight and killed all but the one who remained seated, unperturbed. He reloaded and stepped into the room. The man seated at the table had the soul of the serpent; his was imposing, but not more powerful than an average man. Marcus had seen that quality before; the odd part was the serpent's intent; he didn’t have one, evil or otherwise.

He said nothing when Marcus walked behind him, sat across the table from him, or placed his rifle on the table. Marcus pulled a pack of gum from his pocket and began slowly chewing two sticks. He sat across from a man whose mind he could not see into, and whose soul was eerily quiet. Marcus abandoned his soul-sight and looked upon the man; a coat hid his body, shadows veiled his eyes, the only thing he could see was the man’s hands, fingers laced atop the table, covered in scars all the way to his sleeve.

Marcus broke the silence at a low rumble. “As far as I know, you’re all that’s left. Cancun, Serbia, Kilimanjaro, Venice, Caracas. All gone. So, why don’t you save me some time. Am I missing anything? Got any collaborators I can pay a visit to?” The man giggled under his breath, then laughed aloud before looking at one of the dead men on the floor.

“No, no,” he was mumbling through a voice like he’d just gotten a throat massage with a cheese grater, “That’s all of them,” he pointed to the one he was looking at, “He was actually the last, funny, he’d have loved to meet you, he was curious what was going on everywhere else. I am the collaborator. I should have guessed it was you, Marcus, to think he almost shot me over it, ME! I gave this organization everything!”

He turned and looked at Marcus; his eyes climbed pretty far up the list of things to be confused about, one emerald green, the other, dead gray, not a sign of life behind it, but bulging, pulsing veins led to it. Marcus glared at the man. “I don’t believe I told you my name.” “Oh, of course you did, Mr. Fields! So long ago now it’s no wonder you don’t remember.”

His laughter was piercing, his smile unnatural, and his face was as covered in scars as his hands. Marcus leaned back in his chair. “Fine. I’ll bite. Who are you?” “Oh, Marcus, I’m hurt! And here I thought I was the memorable one between us!”

The man looked directly into Marcus’ eyes; the veins around the grey eye bulged; a clear tube Marcus hadn’t noted earlier filled with a sickly green fluid, and the grey in the man’s eyes fled outward, followed as if chased by his pupil as the dead eye took on the soul-sight. Marcus instantly followed suit, out of time to ask questions, but he found himself in an entirely different place than before.

The Serpent's soul filled the room; his power left Marcus feeling adrift in the ocean. He grabbed his rifle from the table, and the man began to move; evil intent filled the room, drowning out even the serpent itself. Marcus fought the urge to vomit as the stranger leapt from the table, landing on the barrel of the rifle Marcus had jammed in his face.

Marcus let go and jumped back, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jacket; he came back with brass knuckles, nearly too late as the stranger was upon him again. This time the man had made a mistake; he was too close, and moving too fast. Marcus’ right hook spun the freak’s head 180 degrees, and he slammed to the floor.

The intent in the room vanished, and the man’s soul looked like a dying flame. Marcus returned his brass knuckles to his pockets and stepped over the stranger to retrieve his rifle. “Maybe a more accurate question would have been ‘What are you?’” Marcus pondered, and then heard shuffling behind him.

“Oh,” the stranger groaned as Marcus turned in shock, “We are many things.” The should-have-been-a-dead-man lunged again, howling his piercing, now broken laugh. Marcus slammed his fist into the dirt floor, and a sharpened timber burst from the ground and buried itself in the freak’s chest.

Marcus watched this time and made sure that the soul dissipated.