The Eden Prophecy

CHAPTER 3

A half mile from La Bruzca’s sprawling warehouse, a craggy hill covered in thick trees and exposed gray rock loomed over the valley. Locals called it the Martyr’s Hill, as the dome-shaped rise had been shelled and bombed repeatedly during the Serbo-Croatian War and had been a bloody battleground in the ethnic struggles of this land for a thousand years before that. It stood quietly now, at peace like the rest of this land.

Sitting amid that stillness, huddled under a camouflaged cloak, a man watched from this hill. Pale as bone, with a shaven head, sunken eyes, and the skin on his face stretched and taut, he held up a pair of binoculars, scanning the street in front of the warehouse.

No movement yet, no shooting or shouting. Just as he’d suspected. But no answers, either. And he’d come here in search of answers.

At great expense, this ghost of a man had uncovered the information about La Bruzca and his missiles. He’d leaked it to the right parties and the right parties only. And then he’d come to learn the truth.

With nothing to do but wait, he lowered the binoculars and rubbed at a dark tattoo that marred his neck. It covered a scar where someone had tried to slit his throat eighteen months earlier; a reminder to him that he had enemies on all sides.

Once he’d been a man of power and prestige, carrying a well-known name and a title. Others listened to him, obeyed his orders. But like the man he’d come to watch, the tattooed man had been cast out. Unlike the man below, the world at large would not forgive him his crimes. And that burned the very depths of his soul.

So be it, he thought. To be hated and feared by all was something he could embrace. Far better than a worm begging from the dust. Far better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.

Upon leaving the hospital with his neck sewn together, he’d killed the man who cut him. Shot him and then stabbed him with his own knife and left him in the street in front of his house for others to find. It had been a moment of liberation.

During his life the tattooed man had been responsible for dozens of dead. Men, women, even children had died under his watch. Most had been killed collaterally. A few on direct order. But they were distant actions twice removed. At the time he had felt like a king sacrificing pawns. But to avenge himself in person brought a satisfaction and a wave of giddy power.

Now he would bring revenge to those who had wronged him. If he could not be part of the world, then he would destroy it and all that was good in it.

He chose a new name: Draco—Latin for the Serpent. Those who helped him now did not work for him but worshipped him. They were pariahs like he was. Lost souls. He took them in and became their Master, the one who would show them a new way. It complicated things, but it was necessary; a man could not punish the world alone. He needed an army.

When his plan came to fruition the whole world would feel the pain, even those who devoted themselves to him. They would not understand until it was too late; such was the fate of those who followed. But the others would see and they would know who had bested them.

He wanted one group in particular to bear the brunt of his wrath. And to be sure he had the right targets, he had to know the truth, he had to see the face that had answered La Bruzca’s call.

A garage door opened on the side of the warehouse and La Bruzca’s thugs pushed a white sedan out onto the drive. It caught the sun, gleaming like polished marble.

Draco raised the binoculars and watched as one man filled the tank from a plastic can while another removed something from the trunk.

La Bruzca came out next, followed by the man in the leather jacket, who opened the sedan’s door as if he owned it. He paused with a foot on the sill of the door, one arm resting on the roof, and the other clasping the open door frame.

Focusing the eyepiece, Draco could see their lips moving and watch them laughing, all without sound or context. A smile from the man in the leather jacket breathed arrogance and stirred the bile in Draco’s heart. And then he turned and looked directly up the hill, almost right at Draco.

The truth was shown forth. The others called this man Hawker, but Draco knew his real name. And if he had come for La Bruzca’s missiles, there could be no denying whom he worked for now.

Draco had his answers. The Serpent would devour the Hawk, but not before destroying everything he might hold dear.