by James Somers
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?”