The Eidolon

The sound of gunfire filled the ashen sky as Lucas ran through the smoking desert landscape. A mountainous valley left ruined by war; a kill zone. Mortar craters peppered the ground and missiles lit up the dawn. His chest tightened as he struggled to steady his breathing.

“No. Not again. Why am I back in this hell!”

A fireball sailed through the airspace above him, descending rapidly. It was one of the Blackhawks, crippled by anti-air defenses. It spiraled wildly as it went down, before crashing a few yards in front of him. Lucas dove into one of the larger craters as the propellers of the helicopter hit the ground and broke apart, flying in a dozen different directions. Against the earth, he felt the shockwave of the crash reverberate through his soul.

He crawled out of the hole, sprinting towards the flaming wreck. Bullets snapped closer and closer to him as he ran but he didn’t care. He gave everything he had to reach that crash site. Rushing right onto the burning wreck, he grasped the handle of the chopper’s disfigured door. An inhuman scream forced itself out of his throat as the heated metal seared into his hands.

Holding back tears, the pain in his cry boiled into rage as he forced the door open. The metal screeched like one hundred metal claws on a chalkboard. Bullets began pelting the chopper’s warped armor, seeking him out. Despite everything, he managed to open a large enough entryway.

It was too late. There, strewn about the wreckage, were six bodies in full combat gear. All were broken by the crash, but through the sounds of creaking metal and the noise of battle, he found the raspy breathes of one who still lived.

Desperately scrambling amidst the wreck, he fished his soldier out of the chopper, the body being noticeably smaller this time. The madness outside was tuned out as he rushed to stabilize the soldier. He removed the helmet and facemask, revealing the terrified face of the boy underneath, Jacen. Lucas struggled to rein in his tears. Jacen was younger than he remembered; they all were.

“Jace, stay with me alright. You’re going to be ok.”

The words spilled from his mouth like a prerecorded message. The boy tried to talk, but his shallow breaths sucked the words back in like a pulsing vacuum. His eyes said enough: ‘I don’t want to die’. Lucas tore open Jace’s Kevlar armor to get the pressure off his chest, desperately trying to rewrite the scene.

Suddenly, the script deviated as Jace stopped all movement. Time itself seemed to freeze as the boy’s head then turned to face him, his bluing lips began moving. Although there was no sound, Lucas read the words.

“You let this happen.”

Time unpaused, and Jace began to violently convulse. Lucas didn’t even try to dodge the geyser of blood he knew was coming. The boy spat it out, then finally went limp in his arms. The tears finally let loose, and Lucas again was the crying child who had flown into the valley that day. Alone as carnage unfolded all around him. That’s when he heard it.

“You failed them, coward. You failed them all.”

The father of all chills ran down his spine. Lucas turned to face the source of that sadistic, familiar voice, drawing the knife on his belt. His eyes widened when, in place of the raging battle, was a field of hundreds of graves under a reddened sky. And in the center the graveyard, his childhood home, engulfed in a green inferno that lit the yard like a horrifying lighthouse. His grip on the knife loosened.

“God, not again…”

“God can’t hear you, son.”

Lucas stumbled back as a shadowy hand emerged from the sanguine horizon. Rising like a tidal wave, it stabbed into the heavens above, before it fell, reaching out for him. His willpower had drained with his tears, his muscle seized, and all he could do was scream.

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Lucas gasped as he shot up from where he had lay dying, adrenaline coursing through his bloodstream. Shooting looks in every direction, the basement of the motel was unchanged. Furnishing supplies and maintenance equipment better illuminated by the light from the chasm above. He found the bird-masked hunter reeling in pain several feet away from him in the rubble. And from the hole in the roof, he heard the commotion of spectators and the approaching sirens. Eight different pitches of siren: eight units had responded, at most sixteen cops. He found the basement door and sprinted to the exit, but stopped when he heard the heavy footfalls of a large group descending the staircase. Raze interrupted his panic.

“Lucas, visualize the first structure you saw upon your arriving in this town. Hurry now, recall as much detail of it as you are able to.”

“Raze, this isn’t the time for a goddamn lesson-”

“Do it boy!”

The demon’s outburst snapped him out of his daze. He had never heard him sound so demanding, almost threatening. Seeing no alternative though, Lucas shifted his focus to the Circle K on the edge of town. It serviced four pumps, with a large awning for semis next to them. The main building’s old white paint job had peeled off in many places, and the price sign had been glitching between 2.85 and 3.09. The more he recalled, the more he felt his body coursing with heat, a furnace wind that enveloped him like a blanket.

The footfalls were at the basement door, the rusted knob turned. And in the rubble, his would-be killer had risen. The fireball had singed the grey armor, turning the bird mask an emaciated charred color, like a zombified raven. It looked at him with its callous gaze.

“Now cross your arms!”

Lucas crossed his arms on his chest, and the winds went up into a cylinder of flames. Just as the blanket around him ignited, Lucas swore he saw the mask grin.

Within a pillar of fire, he felt weightless. The gravity of Earth had ceased its pull on him and for an instant he knew what it was to be air. Then the moment was over, and Lucas felt the ground under him again. The column of fire burnt out, planting him outside, right in the middle of the road into town. And just to his left was the Circle K.

The experience left him feeling like he been struck in the head with a tack hammer. The world spun as he stumbled away from the road, drunk off the migraine’s bite.

“Rifting exacts much strain on your mind. The pain is intense, but dissipates quickly. Mind your footing.”

Raze’s words fell on muddled ears amidst the storm of emotion he felt. He hobbled toward the gas station, aimlessly walking until he tripped on his own feet, crashing into one of the pumps. A new rush of adrenaline from the impact sobered him up just enough to spot the reason why Raze had told him to come here. Parked under the corner of the awning was a dusty, covered pick-up truck.

It had taken him three minutes to get on the road. He had ripped off the tire boot he’d installed on the F-150, causing the right wheel to wobble violently as he sped down the road. Leadfooted on the gas, Lucas’s eyes were glued to the rearview mirror, his heart thumping in his chest. It was only until Tucumcari was well out of sight that he noticed the smoke fuming from the hood and half his dash lit up. He pulled over onto the sand and began to run.

“Where are you going?”

“I can keep this up for a couple of hours. By the time he finds the truck, I’ll be across the Canadian River and halfway to Conchas Lake-”

“Lucas, enough. I am in your mind. Your fear is as palpable to me as the desert around you. It is suffocating. Stop running and breathe.”

The demon’s words subconsciously acted on his legs. His pace slowed with every kick, until he stopped, kneeling on the asphalt. And one deep breath after another, he expelled the storm in his mind.

“I died, Raze. I fucking died. Then I was in - and now - how am I back?” It took all his restraint to stop from asking ‘why’ instead.

“Regeneration is one of the most quintessential gifts I have granted you. It permits you to surpass the limits of mortal men, and fight on when all others have fallen.”

It was only then that Lucas was conscious of his physical state. He touched his unbroken nose. The stinging pressure of the gunshot wound in his clavicle was gone. Apart from the afterthought of the migraine, the only damage he saw were his clothes, now a raiment of charred rags.

“Were you planning on telling me about this?”

“I had hoped to, once you had gained a greater mastery of your abilities. Cheating death is a double-edged sword that must be wielded responsibly, else you forgo your potential because you think yourself invincible. Alas, fate forced my hand, and I could not let you die.”

He couldn’t decide whether to be grateful or angry at that.

“Guess I’ve eaten my words.”

“Indeed. Your methods have allowed you to conquer much adversity. As skilled as you are, however, you are still human. Hone the power I grant you, and you will be more, whenever the need arises.”

He recalled the voice in his dream: ‘You failed them…’. If Raze had discovered him only six years earlier, perhaps he wouldn’t have failed them. If he had been granted this power then, they would all be alive. Were the sins of his past hunting him in the form of this mystery man? If so, it was time to face them.

Lucas looked back toward his truck, now a distant speck down the road, as the sun finally rose. He basked in the warmth of its rays as it lit up the land around him. The southwestern desert seemed to come alive in the morning light. The chirps of distant swallows welcomed the morning and the skittering of ants on the road signaled the start of the day. The brown hills specked with the bright greens of shrubs and cacti, and the yellows of the desert flowers his sister had loved so much. He saw her smile in their bloom, and despite the years since she’d left, it assured him that everything was going to be ok.

With a final deep breath, he stood up.

“Alright Raze, I commit myself to your power. Fully this time.”

“I am glad we can begin in earnest, champion.”

Under the remains of his shirt, Lucas felt various tingling sensations on his sternum and saw the familiar crimson light of Raze’s hellfire. He tore off the burnt rags to see a unicursal hexagram burning itself into his chest. The symbol traced itself into his skin, glowing brighter than the morning sun. Then the fiery worms doused themselves, leaving the shape drawn in clean scar tissue. Lucas traced the scars with his finger as he began to jogging back to his truck.

“For now, I suggest retreat is your best course of action. Put distance between yourself and this new enemy.”

“Distance won’t be enough. This guy, whoever he is, he’ll find me.”

“You know this as a certainty?”

“He knew how I operate, countered every move I made, and had the speed to do it. And he knew my old designation. This wasn’t just some assassin; he’s trained specifically to kill me.”

Piecing together his conclusion out loud hit him like a ton of bricks, and he thought back to the chilling grin on the hunter’s mask. The smile of death come to greet him.

“I need to go completely off grid. Find someplace to train. My only advantage is your power, and I’d best know how to use it well.”

“If he is trained to hunt you, will he not be able to determine your hiding places as well?”

“Probably, which is why I’m going to assume my usual safehouses and maneuvers are compromised.”

Reaching the truck, he opened the bed and lifted the dual-sport motorcycle he had sitting in the back onto the road. After putting on a spare set of clothes in the armrest compartment and grabbing the go-bag he kept in the truck, Lucas revved up the bike, mentally mapping how to get to his destination.

“Time to see a friend about a favor.”

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Lucas had followed the road out of Tucumcari until he was twenty miles outside of Conchas Lake National Park, where he had gone offroad. He rode north, stopping twice in the desert wilderness to refuel and keep the sun from overheating the bike. Every few minutes he instinctually looked back, praying his hunter wasn’t following him.

It took nearly four hours of cautious riding and sweating to get to the closest private airfield in the town of Springer. The cash in his go-bag came in handy to pay for a same-day tour flight to Santa Teresa, New Mexico. Upon landing, Lucas visited the tech center of the local library. Logging onto his parawatch.com account, he had left the code phrase in the Comments forum of the Q&A page, praying that it would be acknowledged.

The prayer was answered well into the night. The rendezvous point, Penny’s Diner, was just beyond the town limits so meetings there wouldn’t draw attention. Hours of waiting inside made his legs sore from tapping away at the floor. At 10:00pm he heard the three diner staff beginning to whisper about kicking him out, when a final customer walked in. The man walked up to the counter and spoke to the three waitresses for a few moments before placing a wad of hundreds on the counter, which they graciously divided amongst each other and retreated to the back.

Lucas couldn’t help but smile as Olek came over to his table in the corner of the diner. His brown hair had receded even more, leaving him nearly bald now. And with his all-black outfit, he was aging into a Slavic mob boss look.

“You’d think after all this time in the States, you’d have learned how to not look suspicious.”

“Ey, it is practical clothing.”

“You’re wearing sunglasses at night.”

The stocky Ukrainian gave some hearty chuckles as he sat down, folding the glasses and storing them within his windbreaker. Lucas caught a glimpse of the sidearms in his underarm holster.

“So, my boy, wot seems to be your trouble. I do not remember ze last time you sent a ‘site crash’ review.”

“I’m in a bit of a tight spot right now. I was doing an exchange with the COI when last night, when I was ambushed.”

Olek’s brows furrowed. “Lawrence?”

“I can’t rule it out for certain, but it didn’t seem like it.”

“Vas the exchange public? How did this person see you?”

“I sent in a drone as always, but this guy must have known about the meeting. He hacked and delayed the recordings on all my cameras, which gave him time to find me by tracking the drone’s transmitter signal.”

Lucas’s mind drifted back to the masked man standing over him as he choked on his own blood. The face of his would-be killer obscured, with only an unserious speech pattern to confirm that he was even human.

“He wasn’t like anyone that came after me before. He read me like a book, knew everything I was going to do. He – caught me off-guard.”

“But zere is not a scratch on you.”

“That’s because – I was lucky I guess.”

Olek shot several quick glances out the window of the diner, and Lucas noticed that he had fully unzipped his windbreaker as the conversation had gone on. He was glad to know the contractor hadn’t lost his edge.

“You need a place to lie low zen?”

“At least until I have a better idea of what I’m up against. I can’t go to any of my places. Would you be able to do a favor for a friend?”

“Ze last favor I did for zis friend landed me on seven international watchlists.” Olek gave a smug smirk.

“Unlike that business in Malaysia, I’m not asking that you do this for free.”

Lucas reached under the table and fished a USB from his go-bag, discreetly passing it to Olek.

“Three hundred Bitcoin in a Grand Caiman account. The holding company’s info is on there too. Passcode: 11874265. It scrambles every two hours, so open it soon.”

“Ha, you have just bought yourself my finest safehouse in zis part of ze country.”

“I was actually hoping for something a bit more spacious. With enough room for recreation. A place that you don’t plan on insuring.”

The veteran operative raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Doing a little science project, are we?”

“Call it research. I also have a few more requests if that’s alright. Nothing that won’t be covered by my payment.”

He passed Olek a letter he had written up at the library. The man took a few moments to process his asks, but in the end gave a nod of agreement before putting the paper back in its envelope.

“Zere is an old steel factory just outside Chapparal. Acquired under very remarkable circumstances. I had ze old equipment auctioned off, so ze main floor is completely unoccupied.”

“That’ll do just fine.”

“Very well. I will need two days to get everything in order for you. Ze coordinates will be on parawatch by Wednesday night. It is a hidden location but keep your head down getting zere. I would hate to compromise zat place.”

“Will do. As always Olek, it’s a pleasure doing business with you.”

“Of course it is. Take care, Lukash.”

Lucas got up with Olek, parting ways with a firm handshake. As they walked out of the fluorescent lit diner and into the parking lot, he reached out with his eyes and ears into the night. There was shuffling in the sand, too slow to be footsteps: a rattlesnake on the hunt. The nearby creosote bushes were rustling, but not concealing anyone: a breeze had picked up. His heartbeat quickened with every sound and movement, becoming a paranoia fueled roller coaster. It had been years since he had felt like this.

“Still your wits, young one. You have lost your pursuer for now.”

The demon’s words brought little comfort, but snapped him out of his spiral.

“Yeah, I know. Never good to get complacent though.”

Mounting his bike, he heard the ignition of Olek’s car start up. The bright lights of the diner illuminated the vehicle like a chromed spotlight. The navy-blue classic Impala reversed and started for the exit onto the street when a thought came over his mind. Lucas waved for Olek to roll down his tinted window. The man begrudgingly obliged.

“Wot now, ey? I want to catch some sleep before I get started.”

“I won’t keep you. Just wanted to add something to that list of requests.”

“Alright zen?” the Ukrainian pulled out the letter and reached for a pen from his glove box.

“The second bullet point, make them fireproof.”