The Bright Eyes (The Soulless Ones Book 1)

by Leo E. Ndelle

  “Until the mission is complete,” Yoch said, “there will be no killing OR any attempts at killing! At least, that was one of the things the master tasked me to do. So, I am supposed to be your babysitter until you two grow up.”

  “I know I do not need a babysitter,” Yehuda scoffed and Yoch glared at him.

  “For the sake of peace,” Yoch said and turned to face Yehuda, “I would to suggest that you leave the group Yehuda. In time, we will catch up. How does that sound?”

  “I can do that,” Yehuda agreed and his sword vanished into thin air.

  “Thank you, brother,” Yoch said.

  Yochanan walked towards Yehuda and hugged him.

  “I will see you around, brother,” Yehuda said, almost coming to tears.

  It had just dawned on him that Yochanan knew what he, Yehuda, had done but did not pass judgment on him. Yoch, who was so young and yet so wise, still called him brother.

  “I will see you around, brother,” Yoch replied.

  “I will have your head, traitor,” Shi’mon promised.

  “And I would love to see you try, your holiness!” Yehuda replied, giving a mock bow before he vanished from their sight.

  THE END OF PART TWO

  GOOD MORNING, SUNSHINE!

  The Scribe crouched close to Yeshua’s corpse.

  “Here you are,” he scoffed. “My alleged nemesis!”

  He reverently removed the bandages wrapped around Yeshua’s head and pulled back the cloth that covered Yehuda’s face. The Scribe pulled back a strand of hair from across Yeshua’s left eye and ran a finger down his left cheek.

  “So little accomplished!” The Scribe smirked. “How do you plan on stopping me now, Yeshua?”.

  “With our help!” said a voice that startled The Scribe.

  He whipped around to find Salemwalek, Ramalesh and Grandmaster Chang standing in a triangular formation around him, each sage holding a staff in his right hand. A ball of light immediately coalesced in The Scribe’s right hand, and black streaks of light flashed from it.

  “You know what this is?” The Scribe asked, with a dose of condescension.

  “Are we supposed to pee our garments just because you wield the Light of True Death?” Salemwalek answered.

  The three sages pointed their staffs at The Scribe. Beams of energy exploded from each sage’s staff and trapped The Scribe in a sphere.

  “Did your masters not tell you never to play with fire?” he asked rhetorically as he raised his right hand above his head.

  Instantly, the Light of True Death absorbed the surges of energy intended to hold him prisoner. Suddenly, bright, orange flames beamed from The Scribe’s sphere and consumed each of the sage’s staff to ashes.

  “I will deal with your insolence later,” The Scribe smirked as he turned around to face Yeshua. “But first, I must ensure this imbecile dies a true death.”

  But Yeshua was no longer lying on the slab of rock. He was standing at the right-hand corner of the tomb.

  “And your pride has led to your demise!” Yeshua said and opened his right hand.

  Yeshua’s physical form had undergone transmutation to a higher etheric constituency after resurrecting from illusionary death. The Light of True Death traveled from The Scribe’s hand to Yeshua’s.

  “I must admit, I underestimated you, Yeshua,” The Scribe conceded, genuinely surprised. “But as unique as you may be, my existence will not expire at your hands!”

  “For once, you have spoken the truth, Chaos!” Priya interjected as her form coalesced out of thin air. “This madness ends right here, right now!”

  She closed her eyes, and two orbs of shiny black light coalesced in both of her hands as she spread out her arms on either side of her body, aiming at The Scribe. Yeshua raised his right hand above his head with the same intention. The ashes of the staffs of the three sages reconstituted themselves to form staffs, and the three men aimed at The Scribe.

  “It is good to see you too, Order!” The Scrie said. “But you and I will dance later!”

  And with those words, The Scribe clapped his hands once above his head, and a purple flame shot upwards from his feet to his fingertips. In an instant, The Scribe, also known as Chaos, The Anomaly, and The Scientist, was gone once again, leaving no trace behind and impossible to be tracked. Priya let out a scream of rage so intense that it shook the very earth like a rag doll.

  “We will get him, Priya,” Yeshua assured her.

  “No! Chaos is mine and mine alone!” she snapped and vanished in like manner.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: UNLEASHED

  An ambulance tore through the streets of Bucharest like a predator fixated on a prey. The driver had seen many things in her professional life, but the patient, or victim, in the back of the ambulance was the first she had ever seen. It was taking her three colleagues in the back all their strength to contain the naked, severely mauled and bloodied lady in the stretcher, who was convulsing as if she was possessed by Lucifer herself. Her eyes had rolled back in her head, and her teeth were clenched so tightly that they seemed to have fused together.

  “What could have done this to her?!” asked EMT #1.

  “Maybe it was a bear!” said EMT #2.

  “Bears don’t maul like that!” countered EMT #1.

  “Bear expert now?” asked EMT #2 rhetorically.

  EMT #1 switched his position to sit on the bloodied female’s left elbow and used his hands to pin down her left shoulder and forearm at the same time.

  His coworkers decided to change their strategy as well. EMT #2 was sitting on the victim’s right elbow and pinning down her right shoulder and forearm, while the strongest of the three, EMT #3, sat on her knees with his back towards her, and leaned forward to hold down her ankles with both his hands. The victim wrestled some more. Her strength was unimaginable, but the EMT’s new positions seemed to hold her fast. They had no time to strap the bloodied victim down.

  “It looks more like a dog bite,” said EMT #2.

  “Must be from outer space or a mutant because its paws that have thumbs!” EMT #3 said. “Take a look at her tummy! I can’t turn around now, but I noticed already.”

  It was then that the other EMT’s noticed ripped chunks of flesh just above the victim’s hips. It looked like four fingers had dug into the sides of her belly, accompanied by palm prints on either side of her waist. They deduced that the thumbs had found their respective spots on her back. The evidence seemed to suggest that he victim might have been grabbed from behind by something with very large, clawed hands and that ‘something’ was definitely not human. The ambulance was at the last busy intersection before the final two-mile stretch from the hospital. EMT #3 began trying to strap the victim’s legs down.

  Suddenly, the victim stopped struggling and became perfectly still. She closed her eyes and her body went limp as she let out a big exhalation of air. The EMT’s looked back and forth at one another and then at the female. Slowly, they peeled themselves off her arms and legs but remained on high alert.

  “What’s going on back there?” asked the driver when she realized the ruckus had ceased.

  No one replied. EMT #1 pressed his left index and middle fingers in the victim’s jugular to feel for a pulse. There was none. He then bent over and let his cheek hover over the victim’s nose for a few seconds. There was no breathing either. And while he was listening for the female victim’s breath, he never noticed the victim’s lips peel into a grin. He never noticed her canines turn into long, sharp fangs. He never noticed how brightly her eyes shone as they snapped open. But most of all, he never got to fully appreciate how lucky he was for his quick and painless death. He was fortunate not to witness the hell that would break loose on the busy streets of Bucharest in the middle of the day as Eva Blades emerged from the back of the ambulance as a soulless, Bright Eye luper.

  Patrick received instructions from Shi’mon through telepathy: ‘Bucharest: Locate and liquidate the Luper.’ At the time, he was in New Zealand
investigating reports regarding multiple sightings of a nine-foot tall humanoid creature accused of abducting children and women. It turned out that there was a nine-foot humanoid creature, but she was not responsible for the abduction of the children and women. Instead, she was trying to help free the abductees from the actual culprit; an interdimensional parasite that preyed on the human essence.

  Patrick had addressed the situation. The parasite had been removed and neutralized, eight out of the eleven children and women were saved, and three were never accounted for, presumed dead. Patrick also helped relocate the nine-foot giant to a spot in the Amazon jungle that had not yet been accessed by humans. The creature was grateful and found some relatives of hers, although these relatives were a foot shorter on average than she was. Regardless, they welcomed her to their clan.

  Patrick teleported over to Bucharest. He followed the ambulance as it tore through the streets. Patrick zipped his way through the crowd so fast that the untrained eye could not consciously register his presence. And if at all anyone did notice him, he would turn out to be just a figment of their imagination. He assumed this was going to be an easy mission. A little exposure to sunlight and Houston, we have a barbecue! No need for the UV bombs or decapitation. He already considered the EMT’s and the driver to be dead and there was nothing he could do about it. But then, everything had gone contrary to expectation, and chaos had become the word of the moment.

  The rear tires of the ambulance suddenly left the ground for a second as if some insane force had attempted to lift the ambulance. Since there was no one outside trying to lift the ambulance, Patrick concluded someone’s body must have been slammed into the roof of the ambulance with enough force to lift the rear tires of the ambulance off the ground. Immediately after that display of brute strength, the back doors of the ambulance flew open as the bloody, battered body of an EMT flew out like a projectile and crashed into the windshield of an oncoming sedan. The sedan screeched to a halt, and there was an immediate half-a-dozen car pileup. More chaos erupted, and Patrick waited for the Bright Eye to emerge and be barbecued. The Bright Eye did emerge into the daylight, but there was no barbecue. Patrick cursed out loud!

  The Bright Eye was dragging a screaming and wailing female EMT by her hair on hot tarmac. A savagely mauled and dismembered body lay on the floor of the ambulance, and the glass partition between the driver and the back of the ambulance was shattered and bloodied. The roof of the ambulance had a huge dent in it. The chaos on the streets spiked at the horrific spectacle. Patrick threaded his way through the pandemonium, towards the Bright Eye. The Bright Eye stood in the middle of the streets in defiance to the daylight. Her transformation was only partial, but she was still not supposed to be able to survive in sunlight. Some folks, out of either sheer stupidity, insanity or a sad combination of both, whipped out their cell phones and video cameras and started taking pictures and videos of the Bright Eye. Damn social media!

  Bright Eye Blades lifted the EMT slowly in the air by her hair with her left hand and drove her hand right through the EMT’s gut. As she then retracted her hand from the EMT’s gut, bloodied internal organs hung loose from the dying EMT’s eviscerated torso. Bright Eye Blades then drew the EMT closer, bared her fangs and sank them deep into the EMT’s neck. When she yanked her head backward, a huge chunk of flesh was torn off the EMT’s neck, and blood spurted from the EMT’s jugular like a drinking fountain. Bright Eye Blades dug her fangs once again into the bleeding, dying EMT’s neck and, as she drank from the fountain of blood, she completed her transformation into a luper. Blades let the lifeless body of the EMT drop on the tarmac and howled! Then, she turned her attention towards a teenager, who was recording the gory sight with his cell phone.

  Blades zipped towards the young boy, whose camera could only capture a blurred line of zip. In a flash, the young lad realized just how foolish he had been to be recording the sight instead of fleeing from it, and in his moment of realization, he realized his death was also a given. But even in the moment of realization, he still thought about the millions of likes, followers and subscribers the video would earn for him. He thought of the internet fame and all the tail he would get. Yes, he would become an internet star, just like... Dang it! His phone was suddenly fried, along with every electronic device within a half-mile radius, as Patrick unleashed a very powerful EMP from EMP grenade he had manifested.

  Patrick zipped to intercept Blades. He caught her right wrist with his left hand, sank and twisted his hips to the right. Still maintaining pressure on Blades’ wrist, he aligned his left forearm with Blades’ right elbow. This caused Blades to veer towards her left. The tip of her the claw of her left middle finger scraped the young lad’s throat, leaving a paper cut on his throat. But that was not all. Patrick did a backward cross-step with his left leg in the same swift motion, twisting and turning Blades’ right wrist violently. Her spine was locked as her entire body helplessly turned about her right shoulder. Her right wrist was broken, and her skull slammed on the scourging tarmac. Patrick raised his right foot to finish the job, but as he brought his foot down to crush her head, Blades was already issuing a counter.

  She parried his right ankle just enough to make him miss his target and used the momentum of his descent to take him in an ankle lock as she rolled him over her left side. She now had the advantage, and Patrick’s back was on the tarmac. She aimed a kick at his groin to give him something to think about before she broke his ankle in multiple places, but Patrick continued with the momentum of his fall, rolling over on his hands so that his back was towards Blades for a split second. Using the brute force, he pulled his right forward as he did a forward roll and Blades the luper was catapulted through the air. She rolled to cushion her fall and turned to face Patrick. The two opponents were now in a crouching position, each sizing the other. Patrick heard rapidly approaching police sirens and decided it was time to finish the mission. Blades grinned and bared her fangs. The two of them zipped towards each other.

  To those who still dared to stay behind and watch, all they saw was a naked, bloodied, feral creature and a black, bald man disappear from a crouching position and, in a blink of an eye, a naked, bloodied, feral, headless creature’s corpse was on the ground about ten feet from her initial crouching position as her head rolled down the street for another seven feet and came to a stop underneath a car. A second later, her headless body and head burst into flames, the ashes that got blown away by a gust of wind, and the black guy was nowhere to be found.

  Patrick appeared in a restroom of a sushi restaurant in the heart of Tokyo. His next stop would be Kioshi’s place. She would provide him with some much-needed release. As he walked out of the restroom in a freshly pressed dark-blue suit and matching shirt he had made manifest, he retrieved a phone from his pocket more for show than anything else. The phone was not even turned on as he raised it to his ear.

  “We have a serious situation!” he said telepathically. “The Bright Eyes are now day-walkers!”

  “Yes,” Shi’mon replied. “I know!”

  ***

  It was just another mundane day with Catholics and tourists thronging the Vatican. Fr. Castro was still sulking after being yanked away from his vacation in Venezuela, his home country. ‘BLUE ALERT: RETURN TO THE VATICAN AT ONCE’ the highly encrypted text message had read. He thought Rosanna; about how she cradled his head against her bosom to ease his anger. She understood he had to go. He loved her so much, and she reciprocated. One day, he would quit the Order and start a family with her. He had saved enough money for both of them over the years working as an agent for the Order. Plus, with his skillset, he would find employment in no time. But, for now, duty called, and he had to answer. Rosanna had given him a befitting farewell.

  Fr. Castro cursed under his breath again and reached into his khaki pants to retrieve a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, but then he remembered smoking was not allowed within the Vatican walls. He cursed again, a little louder this time, and returned the pack o
f cigarettes in his pocket. He could really use some nicotine right about now. He lifted his face cap and dabbed at the beads of sweat on his forehead with a red, cotton handkerchief. He then returned to taking photos of whatever he could, just like the thousands of tourists who flocked the capital city of the smallest sovereignty in the world.

  “Scuzi, Signore, parle l’inglesa?” asked a tourist from behind in heavily accented Italian.

  Fr. Castro turned around to see the friendly-looking face. The tourist was a young man, early thirties, perhaps, one-point-eight meters tall, of seeming strong build with green eyes and crew cut hair, most likely ex-military.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Fr. Castro lied in an Australian accent. “I don’t speak Italian.”

  “Oh, you speak English then,” said the young man in a British accent.

  His eyes lit up as if he were excited to meet someone, finally, who could speak English.

  “Good, perhaps you could be of help then?”

  “Perhaps I could,” Fr. Castro replied, smiled and inched closer towards the stranger.

  “Wonderful! How would you like to be a messenger to the rest of the world?” the young man asked with a fake grin.

  Fr. Castro’s eyes narrowed, feigning confusion, but adrenaline flushed throughout his body. He pressed a concealed button on his camera to alert the order of imminent trouble.

  “I’m not sure I understand you, sir,” Fr. Castro faked confusion. “Are you a reporter with a news channel?”

  “No, I’m not,” the man replied. “But the world is about to know about us.”

  His eyes flashed brightly and then returned to normal. Fr. Castro hit two buttons on his camera at the same time to confirm that there was danger present. The stranger then closed his eyes once again, and when he opened them, the brightness remained. The next time he smiled, his canines were elongated, and there was pure evil in his bright eyes.

  Fr. Castro wasted no time. He hit a button on the camera, and UV light flashed from it straight into the stranger’s eyes, blinding him temporarily. As the stranger jerked his head to the right away from the flash, Fr. Castro reached behind his oversized flannel shirt and retrieved his pistol. He fired two shots into the Bright Eyes’ chin, and both bullets found exits at the crown of Bright Eye’s head. The Bright Eye hit the ground with a thud, and there was pandemonium in the Vatican. Fr. Castro still had his weapon trained on the Bright Eye as he spoke rapidly into this radio. Chaos also broke out at three other locations in Vatican City as three other priests neutralized similar threats. But Fr. Castro was surprised when the Bright Eye did not burn to ashes in the afternoon sun. Cautiously, he approached the Bright Eye.