by James Somers
Monks were already awake and about their chores in the light of the early morning sun, peeking above the distant horizon in the east. When they saw Cole come through the portal to stand before their temple, they paused. There was no shocked surprise on their faces, only a curiosity lurking behind blank expressionless eyes.
They knew who Cole was or, at least, what he was. These men, appearing distinctly Asian in appearance by birth rather than any sort of glamour, had seen portals many times. Some of them likely had the ability to produce them. They were Descendants, every one of them, which was precisely why he had chosen Shalu Monastery.
On this side of the gateway, the green fire had not appeared. Cole had only materialized from nothing to them. They were not human in the sense that their reflexes would be so slow. He had not come upon them unawares. These monks would have perceived his arrival immediately. Cole wasn’t sure, but they may have even shared a telepathic link. Others within the monastery temple might already know of his arrival.
Cole had suspected telepathy in their ritual for some time, but the subject had never seemed relevant when he had had opportunities to talk with Sadie about it. Those fleeting moments were more precious to him than ever these days. Still, the healers were able to link their minds and their power during their rituals which gave them collectively greater strength than was possessed by any one individual. He hoped they might be able to provide him answers now.
The eyes of the five monks present before the monastery entrance, where they swept the block paths leading inside, darted to the canvas wrap that followed Cole through the portal a moment later. Several cocked their eyebrows. Clearly, the size and shape of this parcel told them it was a body. And, since that body was wrapped head to toe in heavy canvas, it was not a living person in need of their usual blessed healing.
Cole answered the unstated question. “An assassin. I need answers that I hope you and your order can provide.”
Sidelong glances were passed between the monks, all of them deferring to one in particular who happened to be standing closest to the monastery’s main doors. Cole noticed that his robes possibly indicated a higher rank—longer sleeves and an extra bit of color peeking out across his chest. The monk came closer to where Cole stood waiting.
“I am Chetsune,” he said in Tibetan, but did not offer his hand.
Cole understood languages well as a Descendant, though he did not speak them all perfectly.
Chetsune looked behind Cole at the wrapped body. “How long has this person been deceased?”
“Not even a full day to my knowledge,” he replied, hopefully.
The monk considered this momentarily and then looked back at his fellows. Chetsune nodded once to the other monks, before turning back to Cole. They came immediately to collect the assassin’s body, guiding the floating corpse on toward the monastery building.
“We will do our best,” Chetsune said, without making promises. “It may be possible to learn many things since corruption has not yet set in.”
“That is all I can hope for,” Cole replied and then followed Chetsune and the other monks inside.
Upon entering the monastery, the monks immediately veered to the right toward an alcove that appeared to have little to no purpose in the construction. Also, there was no room, not even enough for all of them to stand. However, the monk who happened to be first in line ahead of them, made a gesture and spoke a word in Tibetan that Cole did not recognize.
A shimmer crossed the space before the monk and was gone. A portal, Cole guessed, had just been opened. The monk proceeded forward and quickly vanished. The second monk, walking with the assassin’s wrapped body, followed after and was taken also. Chetsune and Cole came after.
Once through, they came into a bright chamber filled with what Cole recognized as spelled light. This illumination seemed to come from no distinct point in the room. It was simply present—photons of such great quantity that light came from every point in the room at once.
In the center of this cylindrical room stood a squat column. Since there was no other furnishings in this chamber, Cole assumed that this must be where the body would be positioned for their examination. Most likely this was the same place where a patient would be brought in order to undergo the healing ritual.
The first monk in line led the body to the pedestal where it hovered over and settled into position several inches above the stone. Cole had been wondering how comfortable such an arrangement could possibly be for a wounded or sick individual, but this seemed to answer his question. An enchantment kept the patient, or body in this case, suspended and also confined within the space of the pedestal.
A moment later, more monks materialized at various places in the chamber, each one making their way to the body. Still, out of all of them, it was Chetsune who appeared to be in charge. The dozen monks in attendance took up equidistant positions around the pedestal with Chetsune at the head.
Each monk took hold of his neighbor’s hands and then bowed their heads. They began to chant in unison, falling into a gentle cadence. Cole, too, closed his eyes and came into sync with their rhythm, concentrating upon the ritual as Sadie had shown him to do. He was still only an observer, but even this much was fascinating.
Opening his mind’s eye to this process, Cole immediately saw the room in an altogether different light. Rather than prominent solid lines for the room, there were indistinct suggestions of boundaries. These seemed to be superimposed with other boundaries that may have represented the rest of the monastery, though Cole had no idea in what relation this chamber sat with regard to the rest of the temple.
The twelve figures in the midst of the room were surrounded by auras of light, each bearing a slightly different color that ran together and merged with the others to envelop the assassin’s corpse hovering above the plinth. Unlike living patients, the dead body did not produce any living aura itself, but only appeared as a lifeless shell of a man.
The combined light of the monks, however, soon penetrated the assassin’s body, probing throughout, questing for the answers that Cole sought about the nature of this killer. He could only guess at what they saw of the assassin’s condition. He was outside of the process completely and blind to the results.
The ritual continued for the next hour before the light returned to the individual monks and they completed the matter. Cole receded back to his body in spirit, opening his eyes to find the room just the same and the wrapped body also. However, Chetsune and the other monks did not look entirely pleased with what they had found. As the others retreated, disappearing again through the portals by which they had come, Chetsune came to speak with him.
“I will give you honesty, if you will do me the same courtesy,” he said by way of an introduction.
A little surprised by this beginning, Cole said, “Absolutely, of course. Is there something wrong?”
He still looked troubled, maybe even perplexed.
“This man was blind,” he began.
“Correct. In fact, this was the primary reason given by his intended victims, the sprites, as to why they could not deal with him themselves. Most of their tribe dwelling in the Amazon were killed including their queen.”
“He was blind, but he was not born that way,” Chetsune continued. “This man is fully human, but his physiology has been severely altered.”
“You believe he was made blind in order to attack the sprites?” Cole asked.
“No,” Chetsune said. “The blindness appears to be a side effect of the process he was put through in order to ramp up his metabolism and the rest.”
“The rest?”
“This human has been altered in order to produce greater speed and strength. His vastly increased metabolism would have required almost constant eating in order to replenish the calories he was burning.”
“This was a soldier sent by Hitler,” Cole offered.
“That is troubling,” Chetsune replied thoughtfully. “However, this man was disposable. He was made to
burn out quickly. I suppose after his job was done.”
“Disposable soldiers? That seems pretty inefficient, even for Hitler.”
“Well, this is the result of whatever process he was put through,” Chetsune said. “It likely wasn’t the intention, though. Probably just another side effect. In this case, he was killed anyway, so it didn’t matter.”
“The sprites indicated that Hitler himself arrived after the queen was taken,” Cole said. “Apparently, he is the one that actually killed his own assassin.”
“The bullet to the head?”
Cole nodded.
“Then he never meant for the soldier to leave,” Chetsune said.
“The war has carried rumors of grisly experiments conducted by the Nazis,” Cole replied thoughtfully.
“This fellow might have been an unfortunate coincidence. Hitler saw an opportunity and used it on the sprites.”
“Except for one thing that doesn’t make sense,” Cole said.
“What?”
“Why would he have been conducting experiments upon his own soldiers?”
Return
Cole finished his business with the monks at Shalu Monastery. The mechanism of this transformation still eluded their investigation. They had been unable to determine what method had been used to cause the physiologic changes in the human assassin sent and killed by Adolf. Something at the molecular level, but the biological trail was cold. Maybe if he had still been alive, certainly then, but there was nothing that could be done for that condition.
Chetsune had been concerned about the body—who had been exposed to it and so on. Cole had tried to assure him that only he and Brody and the sprites had been near. As far as touching the man, none of them had. Telekinesis had made it unnecessary to handle the corpse.
“Still, I think it is best that we incinerate the body here,” he had insisted. “It’s possible, though there is no residual radiation, that such energy was used. Or maybe some sort of pathogen. At any rate, we should destroy it and not take the risk of exposing anyone else.”
Cole agreed easily with him. Chetsune assured him that they would take care of the matter. Cole thanked them for their help and the information they had gathered. They offered him a meal which he politely refused, relaying his need to return in a timely manner so he could share their findings. Cole departed from the Shalu Monastery and Tibet the same way he had come.
When he arrived back home, returning through the hearth portal which had delivered him, Cole found both Brody and Sadie standing in the library. They had plainly been speaking with one another. The expressions on their faces told him with one glance that neither of them were pleased with the direction of their conversation.
This looked like the same old argument. Brody attempting to hold on to her for safety’s sake, Sadie pulling away as she sought some consolation for her dead mother. For his part, Cole had always tried to stay out of these melees between them. He could sympathize with them both, after all, and had no desire to take sides uselessly.
The fact of the matter was that Sadie would leave anyway. Nothing either of them had said to her so far had dissuaded her from this need to find Southresh and Adolf and punish them. Cole couldn’t blame her for her feelings, but Southresh seemed, to him, to be out of reach and Adolf excessive.
The idea that she might find the fallen angel and then somehow outsmart him and dispatch him to Tartarus seemed ludicrous. Oliver James, a man said to be vastly experienced and more powerful than either Sadie or himself, had failed to stop the angel. Not to mention he had never been said to be subject to the kind of emotionalism Sadie was consumed with presently. What hope could she have for success?
As for Adolf, it was true that he had become a blight upon humanity, and he was directly responsible for her father’s current poor health. His campaign to eradicate the Jews was the most heinous of his crimes so far. However, he was no less inclined to destroy anyone who stood in his way toward world domination. But fighting Adolf meant fighting Lucifer, and this alone made the prospect even less likely to succeed than doing away with Southresh.
As they turned their attention from each other to Cole, Brody was overcome by a puzzled expression. Cole knew why, but Brody still voiced his question before he could explain.
“Where is the body?” he asked.
Sadie must have already been informed about the assassin and our first plan to have her examine his body. She didn’t seem surprised by her father’s question.
“Since I wasn’t sure when Sadie might return, I opted to take the body instead to Tibet,” Cole replied.
“To the healers at Shalu?” she asked.
“Yes. I had hoped also that their numbers might enable them to provide a more in depth analysis since we were dealing with a corpse instead of a living being.”
Sadie gave Cole a look that told him she wasn’t buying this excuse. He didn’t want to say that it had anything to do with her limited training in the healing arts. But she likely knew that was part of it, even if he was trying to beat around the bush about it.
Brody was more to the point. “And the results were?” he queried.
Cole settled in on the information. He hoped to leave any unwanted inferences about Sadie’s abilities behind, in addition to the matter of her many and long absences. He had honestly been surprised to find her back from Germany so soon.
“I spoke with a monk there, called Chetsune,” Cole began. “He and eleven other monks performed the healing ritual upon the dead man. Upon its conclusion, Chetsune told me that his physiology had been altered by a means they could not determine. However, he did affirm that the man was completely human despite what he had accomplished.”
“Did they determine why he could do these things?” Brody asked.
Sadie stood by, listening, though still not looking entirely pleased. Cole could tell something was pressing on her mind. Hopefully they would have an opportunity to speak without her father around.
“Chetsune noted that the assassin’s strength and speed would have been greatly increased,” Cole continued. “He did mention, however, that the blindness did not appear to be something that was engineered. Most likely a side effect that Adolf put to particular use against the sprites.”
“And they were unable to determine causality?” Sadie asked.
“Well, perhaps because the man was dead?” Cole offered. “He mentioned the possibility of radiation, but dismissed it almost as quickly since there appeared to be no residual traces in the man’s tissue. Since he was not surgically altered, Chetsune even hazarded a guess that some sort of pathogen might have been employed to bring about the changes.”
“But they found no traces?” Brody asked.
“He did not say exactly,” Cole recalled. “Only that their findings remain inconclusive on that point.”
Brody nodded gravely. He looked tired, worn down. Most likely the matter with the sprites and their new home in the Amazon had taxed him. Brody would have done the spell himself for them. There was no one else to call for it, and he figured he still owed some debt to their Queen Luxana even in her death.
“And the body?” Sadie asked. “Surely, you didn’t allow them to keep it.”
Cole was a bit taken aback by this—more by her tone than the accusation itself. Apparently, matters with Adolf had gone their usual way. Adolf had either not materialized as Sadie had hoped, or he had gotten away again.
Despite her blunt manner, Cole attempted to answer calmly. “Chetsune expressed a need for the body to be burned,” he explained.
“Burned?” Sadie exclaimed in some bewilderment.
“Yes,” Cole continued, determined not to be baited into an argument. “Chetsune was very concerned that exposure to others might lead to further problems. He specifically asked about our exposure to the body before bringing it to them in Tibet.” Cole addressed Brody in particular here, saying, “I gave him permission to burn the body in the interest of preventing any transmission. I hope you don’t mi
nd.”
Brody was about to agree when Sadie interrupted. “But you don’t know that it was a pathogen, and now we’ll never know because they incinerated the only evidence.”
“Sadie!” Brody said abruptly. His fatherly tone had the desired effect of halting her outburst. “We cannot be too careful if a lethal pathogen is involved. Cole did the right thing by having the body destroyed.”
She relented but was not mollified. Brody sighed. All of these matters were weighing heavily upon him. They were upon them all.
He walked over to his daughter plaintively, laying his hand upon her upper arm. “Please,” he said, “let’s not fight amongst ourselves.”
She nodded curtly, but said nothing, her eyes still upon the ground.
Brody leaned forward and kissed her upon the forehead gently. “I need to rest,” he said.
Cole wondered if he actually required the rest, or if this might only be an excuse to give Sadie and him the opportunity to speak with one another alone. Brody had long held out a hope that Sadie would settle down, forget about this matter of vengeance and marry. They had discussed the issue before, and Brody knew of their feelings for one another.
“Before you leave, daughter, please come and say goodbye,” he added.
She nodded again, this time a little more hesitant and her eyes rose to meet his. Brody smiled, kissed her again on the forehead, and then vanished cleanly from the room. No smoke, no lights, or theatrics of any kind.
Sadie’s eyes then found Cole’s. “I’m sorry,” she said.
He sighed, not a little relieved, though still tense because of the brief altercation. They were standing only a few feet apart now, but he could sense a great distance between them. The only time this feeling abated was when she was actually gone, her presence a constant reminder of the state of their relationship.
“No need to apologize,” Cole said, attempting to smile a little. Then, because he felt the question could not be avoided, he asked, “So, you’re leaving again?”