Dead Harvest

  I stepped clear of my hiding place and wandered into the camp. The buzzing here was deafening, and up close its source was clear. The entire place was swarming with insects – millions of them – all fighting for their share of the feast laid out before them. The corpses of Varela's men teemed with them – from tiny flies and gnats to massive, iridescent beetles the likes of which I'd never seen, all attracted by the scent of spilled blood and dead flesh, still too faint for my meatsuit's nose to recognize. I counted seven men around the fire. Five of them were riddled with bullet-holes, and abandoned among them was a Kalashnikov assault rifle, its action open, its clip spent. Each of the dead men carried a Kalashnikov of their own, strapped across their backs as if they had been at ease when they'd been attacked.

  By the look of the other two, I'd say those first five got off light.

  The first of them lay face-down a few feet from the fire. His rifle lay beneath him, as if he had been holding it at ready when he was attacked. No doubt this was the sentry I'd been listening for. It looked to me like he'd come running to help his buddies when the shooting started. An admirable reaction, to be sure, but apparently not the smartest play. I rolled him over with the toe of my boot. His neck flopped like a wet noodle, and his head lolled to one side. A crushing blow from a rectangular something-or-other had caved in his nose and made tartare of his face – all meat and teeth and glistening bone. A glance at the abandoned Kalashnikov confirmed the gunstock was to blame; it was caked with blood and bits of flesh. Whether the blow had been enough to snap his neck, or his assailant had done it afterward for good measure, I couldn't say.

  "What the fuck happened here?" I asked of no one in particular. For a moment, I thought I might just get an answer – the sentry's ruined lips parted and emitted a faint, rustling whisper. Then a cockroach the size of my fist crawled out of his mouth, antennae twitching in the still night air. I eyed it for a moment, but if it knew what went down, it sure as hell wasn't talking.

  The last of the bodies lay spread-eagled on the forest floor. His hands and feet were staked to the ground with knives no doubt scavenged from the belts of his dead companions. His shirt lay open at his sides, exposing his mutilated chest, now crawling with all manner of bugs. Unlike the sentry, his face had been spared, though I suspect that was more for my benefit than for his. His eyes were clouded and glassy, and his features were twisted into a rictus of pain, but still, there was no mistaking that face.

  Varela.

  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 my responsibility – no exceptions, no excuses – which meant if I wasn't the one to bring him in, then I had failed in my mission. And believe me when I tell you, my employers don't take kindly to failure.

  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 something. But when you take a soul, the body dies. So, then: why the bloodied chest?

  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.