Blood ran down his white face from the cut on his cheek and nose, so that the left side of his face was encased in a red mask. But other than where the knife had made a path in his flesh, he seemed unharmed.
The officer stood there in the sleet and stared back at the boy. A presence hung between them, as real and palpable as the moisture that fell from the sky. A hatred so deep and strong radiated from the boy’s eyes that the officer imagined it would cut him down where he stood. The pressure that had been building in the air multiplied, until it was almost unbearable for the few remaining soldiers in the vicinity, although the boy and the officer didn’t seem to notice. The intensity in the stare grew and bloated until there was no longer room between them, and the officer felt he might be pushed back because of it.
Without thinking, he drew his pistol from the holster at his side and pointed it across the ditch. His finger squeezed the trigger three times in succession, and smoke from the barrel obscured his vision. The heaviness and pressure in the air lifted with the gunshots, as if the shots had pierced a swollen hide. Nearby soldiers shook their heads to rid themselves of the vacuum left behind.
When the cordite began to clear, the officer saw that the area in which the boy had been standing was empty. He examined the trees and brush beyond for a swinging branch or a patch of flattened shrub. Nothing remained to indicate the boy had ever been there.
He felt an irresistible urge to cross the ditch, climb through the roughly strung wire, and follow the boy into the forest. He needed to, it was imperative to find him now. Just as he began to move in that direction, a panting soldier ran up to him and stopped a respectful distance away.
“Are you injured, Oberführer?” the youth nearly yelled, seemingly deafened by the explosion from the plane.
The officer stood staring at the woods beyond the camp, and it was only after the soldier repeated himself that he glanced over and acknowledged the other man. “I am fine.” The officer threw a last fleeting look at the edge of the camp where the boy had disappeared, and then turned back to the soldier that stood before him. “Ready my personal car, we will be leaving momentarily.”
The younger man nodded and ran back the way he had come. The officer turned begrudgingly from the ditch and the unmoving occupants within it. He strode across the expanse of the white-layered camp, past the flaming wreckage of the destroyed plane, and disappeared into the still heavily falling snow.
Part 1
Chapter 1
“Evil is done without effort, naturally, it is the working of fate.”
—Charles Baudelaire
Black Lake, Minnesota, October 1990
Darkness was drawing its shade across Lance’s window when he heard his father’s palm strike his mother’s face for the first time that night. The sound made him wince, as though he were the one being slapped. Not that he couldn’t imagine what it felt like. All he had to do was rub his face or ribs gently, and he could recall every place that he’d been struck. It was Friday night, so his father had taken the liberty of unleashing some pent-up anger on him earlier in the afternoon since Lance wouldn’t have to return to school until Monday. By the end of the weekend, the split on the corner of his mouth and the dark marks on his abdomen would heal enough to be unnoticeable.