The bayou looked so peaceful. He peered out over the dark pool where hordes of dragonflies danced above the waters, winged jewels of emerald and ruby and sapphire. The thought of his son filled him with hope. The blades on the helicopter whirred, and the prop wash whipped up the ashes, blew them onto Lucius's tongue and into his face.
The helicopter rose no more than ten feet before a white tracer round coated in phosphorous streamed from the jungle. Such rounds presented a severe fire hazard, and perhaps half a second after it slammed into the chopper's tank, the helicopter exploded. None of Lucius's men had time to leap for safety.
Bits of fiery shrapnel slammed all around Lucius while a fireball erupted into the sky. The props and hood exploded upward, while the ruined body veered and nosed into the swamp. Flaming debris rained down everywhere, amid falling bolts that thunked loudly. Most of the rubble sank instantly, while some of the insulation and seat cushions floated on the water, flaming ruins.
Lucius lay there in a daze, fading from consciousness. Watching, waiting, watching....
Bron rose up from his hiding spot in the jungle. His body had been hidden behind a fallen log, and it was a good thing. Return fire from one of the guards had sprayed into the log, almost as if the Draghoul knight had spotted him.
Heart hammering, Bron hurried through the cypress trees along the water's edge. He felt lucky. Killing Lucius had been easy, almost too easy. The Draghoul guards had tried to flee, as he had hoped. The sniper shot had taken his enemies by surprise.
He'd been well concealed in the shadows, away from the blazing sunlight. His enemies had directed most of their suppressive fire across the swamp. He'd hoped that they would think he was on the opposite shore.
Few snipers in the world had been as good as Ramira, and almost all of them were masaaks. Along with the training, he'd learned all about how to field dress his weapon, an Israeli galil ACE 52 assault rifle. It was a bit heavy for his inherited tastes, but the barrel was long enough to ensure accuracy for long-range shots like this one had been, and Ramira had installed a Humboldt laser sight on the gun's Picatinny rail. With a dead wind on a day like today, the bullet had hit within an eighth of an inch from where Bron had aimed.
At only two hundred yards, it had been easy to sever Lucius's spinal cord, leave him alive, paralyzed.
Now Bron reached his father and found him breathing almost imperceptibly. Bron twisted his father's face up, so that he could look into it.
"Hello, father," Bron said.
"My son," Lucius mouthed.
"This isn't over, I know," Bron said. "I learned from your man Stalzi. You're too powerful for me to take out this easily. So I wanted to see your face, and let you know: I'm going to destroy everything you've created."
Lucius peered up at Bron, and there was no fear in the dying man's eyes: only admiration for his son. Lucius smiled broadly, and then his breath faltered, and his focus slid from his son into the eternities.
With his father dead, Bron went back to the dock and waited. The swamp was quiet by day, the air as heavy as a wet shroud. Bron's thoughts came jangled.
He crouched for a bit, and sat. In the distance, an alligator growled, and a white egret flew up out of the trees. Dragonflies were everywhere, glittering in the morning sunlight.
Stress pulled at the muscles in Bron's neck. As the adrenaline wore out of his system, it felt as if a darkness settled over him.
Was I right to kill him? Bron wondered.
It had seemed like such a good idea, to make a statement, to put the monster down, declare war. Yet it accomplished so little.
Olivia had argued against it, claiming it was too big a risk. But Bron remained firm.
He'd pulled the trigger easily enough.
Yet now an arctic front seemed to blow through the hollow landscape of his soul. Bron crouched on the dock, shaking, suddenly chill despite the heat. He peered around at the swamp as if through a haze.
There was nowhere that he could go. He didn't know the way out.
He wished that he was not alone, that Whitney was there. Today was supposed to have been their first big date, out hiking in some incredibly beautiful canyon.
I'm missing it, and for what?
He wondered what she would think if she knew what he had done.
A week ago, he thought, I longed to know my past, to know who I am. Now I know: I'm a killer.
He wondered if he should ask Olivia to erase the memory of the past twenty-four hours, but he knew that he couldn't do that. What was done was done, and sometimes forgetting can be far worse than remembering.
Memories can haunt a man. Memories can be a form of torture. No one had understood that any better than Ramira, a woman trained in a hundred forms of torture.
A foreboding warned that more Draghouls might be coming, and each little movement in the forest, each slap of a leaf or crunch of a twig, brought Bron more alert.
After a few minutes, Bron went and heaved up the little that he had in his stomach. Miserably, he sat and waited for Olivia to return in the boat and take him to safety. Olivia, or Whitney, or anyone.
He longed to be rescued from what he was becoming.
Back in Saint George, Whitney woke that morning to the sound of doves cooing in the backyard.
She grabbed her cell phone, checked it for messages, and found none.
She lay in bed for a long time, wondering what had become of Bron. He'd taken off early from school, and though she'd left three messages, he hadn't returned her call.
They were supposed to leave early this morning, drive up to Bryce, and go hiking through the fairy canyons. It was perhaps the most beautiful place on earth, and they could drive there for fifty dollars. It wasn't as if her mom had money to spare, of course. Her mom was making a tremendous sacrifice for Bron, for this date, and he hadn't called.
She resisted the urge to dial him again. Maybe his phone was broken, or maybe he'd gotten hurt.
She thought about how his lips tasted, and how his embrace made her feel warm and mushy inside. She longed to have his arms wrapped around her now, to be hugged. Or maybe, she worried, he's not as crazy about me as I am about him.
Galadriel raced in the dawn, her feet pounding the pavement as she took the long climb above Pine Valley, into the trees.
She had wakened to a dream about Bron. In it, she had been in her hospital bed, an IV dripping into her arm, and he had told her, "The human body can be shaped by will. You can choose the figure that you want, then sculpt your muscles and pare away your fat until you choose the exact form you want.
"In fact," he went on, "through will alone you can shape your entire future. You can take control of your destiny."
In the dream, he'd shoved will into her.
She wondered what it would be like to have limitless will. If I could have all I want, what would I shape myself into?
I wonder if there's a way to exercise my will, make it grow more powerful, make it respond to my wishes more forcefully?
She suspected that there was.
She'd never been a runner, but she knew that Bron had done a little racing, and she hoped that someday they might be able to run together.
The sun was still creeping over the bowl of the valley, and a pale blue fog wound along the creeks. The air smelled of bitter juniper and sweet grass. Meadowlarks sang in the tall grass at the roadside.