I crouched beside him and lay a hand atop his bloodied chest. Insects scampered across the back of my hand and crawled up my sleeve. I ignored them, instead closing my eyes and extending my consciousness – probing, searching. But it was no use. There was nothing left to find.
Varela's soul was gone.
My meat-suit's heart thudded in its chest as the realization hit. Now, I don't know how the white-hats play it, but the souls of the damned don't just up and leave on their own. That means whoever attacked these men wasn't human – as far as I knew, there wasn't a man alive who had the means to steal a soul. That meant Collector.
Problem is, we Collectors ain't exactly the Three Musketeers. All for one and one for all sounds all well and good, but hell doesn't work that way. Varela's soul was
I took a calming breath, and willed my racing heart to slow. The last thing I needed now was to freak. I forced myself to look over the scene, certain there was something I had missed.
Turns out, I was right.
It's embarrassing, really, because in retrospect, it was so damn obvious. But when I'd first approached the camp, I had no reason to assume Collector. I just figured one of Varela's competitors had beaten me to the punch, in which case Varela's massive chest-wound made sense – I mean, he had to die of
I retreated to the fire, toppling the spit and sending the hunk of now-charred meat into the flames. For the first time, I realized how recently this must've all gone down – the meat, though burned, had yet to cook off the spit, and though the air was hot and thick with moisture, the bodies weren't bloated, and showed no signs of rigor. Whoever'd done this had beaten me by a matter of minutes. Of course, that knowledge didn't help me much – a few minutes was plenty of time for any Collector worth his salt to disappear. I pushed aside all thought of pursuit, instead focusing on my immediate task. I shoved one of the support branches from the spit into the embers until it caught. Then I returned to Varela's body, torch in hand.
The flame danced in the sudden breeze as I swung the branch at the writhing mass of bugs that blanketed Varela's chest. Reluctantly, they parted, frightened by the fire but unwilling to relinquish their blood meal. As they shifted, I caught a glimpse of something odd – letters, three inches high, carved into the dead man's flesh.
I lost my patience with the flame and dropped to my knees, scattering the remaining insects with a sweep of my arm. Beneath them was a message, ragged and crusted brown with drying blood:
That bastard, I thought. I should've known.
I must've spent a half an hour sitting there, marveling at the presumption, the sheer arrogance that pervaded every grisly slice. Eventually, though, I rose and left the camp behind, plunging once more into the jungle – this time heading south.
Toward Bogota.
Toward Danny.
Copyright © 2012 by Chris F. Holm
All rights reserved.
