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  Evolve

  The Scourge Wars Book 1

  D.W. Belfield

  Copyright/Disclaimer

  Copyright © 2019 by Derek W. Belfield

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  This is a dark fantasy novel. It has an anti-hero lead and contains graphic violence, explicit language, and sexual themes. Save us all the trouble and stop reading now if you're the type of person to leave a one-star review mentioning this kind of content when you've been warned.

  Cover Illustration Copr. © 2019 by Paoli Torres

  Cover design by Paoli Torres

  Editing by Lucas Luvith

  Acknowledgment

  No book is the product of a single person and I have been blessed to have a team behind me who believed in my dreams long before I knew I needed them to.

  I would like to say thank you for the support from my wife, parents, siblings and other family members who I pestered with my ideas until they were tired of hearing about them.

  I am also thankful for the friends who believed in me and supported me by reading my story in its worst forms and gave me the feedback and loving support that I needed (and some sweet AV equipment).

  I also want to thank the Marines above and below me who were enthusiastic about this project. They afforded me the opportunity and support to make this book happen. Also, I *may* have threatened some of them with low proficiency and conduct scores if they didn't share my work. Please don't submit an EO complaint.

  Finally, I want to thank my editor, Lucas. I told him that the easiest part of this process was probably the writing. I only had the luxury of saying that because I knew he would come behind me and turn my garbled words into a book to be proud of.

  Prologue: Wrong Side of the Bullet

  Jonathan Slate took a moment to bask in his accomplishments. He wasn’t usually one to entertain such unavailing emotions; those were for lesser minds with lesser ambitions. However, he had just received the concession call from his counterpart nominee for President, Sean Dougherty, and couldn’t help but feel the triumph of a political battle well fought and fairly won. Out of respect for Sean—or, at least, for the positive media coverage—Jon allowed him to have the first word with his supporters in his hometown, in Michigan before addressing his own in the Texas state capital, Austin.

  Jon was just out of sight behind an unassuming press partition, situated in front of the capitol building steps. With eyes closed, fingers laced behind his head, he waited patiently with legs crossed in the fold-up chair his staff had provided. Despite the modest and bland stage that was set for such a significant situation, a content smile formed on his face. This expression was unlike the usual megawatt accessory he painted on himself, like a geisha’s makeup, or the well-crafted leer taught by his public image consultants. Instead, it resembled a Cheshire grin of malicious glee—like a tiger’s grinning maw, dripping with the blood of its prey.

  He could hear the crowd’s energy swell just mere yards away as they watched Dougherty’s speech to his supporters on their various mobile devices. The news vans were excitedly reporting live updates, and cameramen and women desperately tried to catch sight of the politician. Jon allowed the crowd’s murmuring to increase in pitch and intensity, like an expert maestro in front of an orchestra.

  Once the magic moment arrived in the instinctual pause between crowd and mob, Jon opened his eyes. His light gray orbs fixed upon one of his staff members, who involuntarily shuddered at the unusual intensity.

  “Rebecca, is it time?” His voice was calm and measured with rich undertones that caused even the most ardent detractors to feel comfortable. He knew it was time, of course, the crowd had settled to a dull roar, and the energy in the air was just right.

  Rebecca took a corroborating glance at her watch before stuttering, “yes, Jo—I mean…” pausing as the full import of the moment hit her. “Yes, Mr. President-Elect,” she corrected with a shy smile that Jon returned with a roguish one of his own.

  “Well,” he grinned, “We mustn’t keep the people waiting.”

  He stood up with poise, straightening his tie, ready to address the anticipating crowd. His staff followed suit behind, him like he was the center of the universe—orbiting like celestial bodies. In some ways, that was true. Every one of his staff members were here for this single moment, their sole purpose; to win Jonathan Slate the presidency.

  As he strode into view, posture unbent by age or sickness. The crowd cheered, erupting with a cacophony of yelling, clapping and whistling. Being used to this response from his many speeches on the campaign trail, he took it in stride before reaching the podium and placing his hands on either side. The smallness of the rostrum, however plain, was dwarfed by Jon, who appeared larger than life in comparison; a strategic move by his team of political psychologists to elevate the occasion.

  As he stood there, patiently waiting for the crowd to calm, he waved presidentially according to etiquette, switching hands appropriately to sustain practiced gesticulations to particular parts of the crowd, one hand always grasping the podium. He made sure to meet the eyes of participants in different parts of the massed gathering and, occasionally, conjure a surprised expression as if he genuinely recognized someone within the sea of unfamiliar faces.

  Once again, another tried and true tactic—the carefully crafted show—and that was precisely what this performance was, a show, echoing in the moment one of Jon’s favorite quotes from Macbeth.

  Away, and mock the time with fairest show. False face must hide what false heart doth know.

  What was politics but a series of false faces? Jon was ready to display his next.

  The crowd responded to even the slightest of Jon’s movements with unbridled enthusiasm. In a world that drifted further from organized religion, they had turned politicians into their gods. He accepted their worship with grace. He paused and took a visible breath as if he was overwhelmed; a modest touch that engendered him with the crowd. Another round of cheers, clapping, and whistling descended upon him. It was in these moments, Jon felt as if Caesar must have when he rode into Rome after his victory over Pompey. Finally, the tumultuous noise died down to an excited hush. Knowing the exact moment to pause and the exact moment to speak was a lesson that Jon had inscribed onto his very heart.

  “Good evening, my fellow Americans,” he said with reverence. “I am thankful for the time and energy that brings you here tonight, allowing me the pleasure—and honor—of speaking to my dear friends and distinguished guests this evening. After all, what brought us together is the culmination of a hard-fought journey that has consumed much of the American discourse for over a year.

  “My opponent, Senator Dougherty, waged an honorable campaign with a poise we haven’t seen in close to three decades. Before this election, political campaigns have been waged using vitriolic, bombastic, and divisive speech; but I am proud to have joined the Senator in a pledge to speak only of the issues we face as a nation, and let the people decide upon our character.

  “This election was close, and I can empathize with Senator Dougherty and his family on the difficulty of this moment. In the term ahead, I look forward to working together again as colleagues and friends...”

  Jon paused and looked into the cameras as if to address Senator Dougherty directly, supposing that, in some way, he was. While, on the surface, their ca
mpaigns appeared nothing short of honorable, the cutthroat politicking they were each guilty of behind the scenes, in fact, had ruled out any possibility of ever being friends; an impalpable irony Jon would never acknowledge

  “…and now, I want to express my thanks to—”

  Interrupting his performance, a deadly rose bloomed on Jon’s chest.

  A second later, the sound of a gunshot cracked through the capitol.

  The sound reverberated across the marble buildings of the plaza and as if it were emanating from everywhere and nowhere at once. It wasn’t until a blood-curdling scream from a member of the crowd running away at the moment of realization, that panic ensued. Like a disturbed anthill, people swarmed in every direction, illogically and simultaneously convinced they were the next targets of the mysterious shooter. It was the perfect exemplar of an individual’s tendency toward over-inflated self-importance.

  Despite the crowd’s hysteria, there could only be one target of this assassination. The Secret Service agents assigned to Jon, since he had been confirmed as his party’s nominee, knew this and shoved passersby out of the way to rush to their charge. The sound of the bullet cracking through the air hadn’t even finished it’s final reverberations before agents had tackled the President-elect to the ground.

  The agent that tackled him, William Turn—or “Bill” as his friends called him—had already seen the blood spill across the politician’s chest. He cursed, realizing the consequences of security flaws they may have overlooked that enabled this moment. This site had been chosen well before the speech had been conducted.

  Earlier that day, as routine, agents had combed over every inch within a square mile of the stage. The capital police had been the epitome of professionalism since the Secret Service had contacted them to coordinate the President-elect’s protection. After all, this speech wasn’t Austin’s first political event the city had hosted. Bill himself, had recommended that the President-elect wear a bulletproof vest, but his public image consultants had advised him to forsake it for just this evening. He knew he should not have allowed political snakes to override good sense.

  Acting quickly, the agents shuttled the President-elect into an ambulance on standby and set off to Austin Heart Hospital in less than a minute from the time the round had impacted his chest. As Bill sat in the ambulance next to the President-elect, and the EKG tolled the death knell, he idly wondered how Texans would feel about having not one, but two presidents assassinated in their state. It wasn’t an apropos thought, he knew, under the given circumstances, but tragedy didn’t often inspire the rational.

  President-elect Jonathan Slate died en-route to the hospital at the age of 53. He was a devout Christian, Yale Law School alumnus, Marine Corps veteran, Governor of Texas, husband to his wife of twenty-five years, and father to a single daughter; the last, being perhaps the only thing he truly cared about. In the end, despite the self-important vision he held for himself, Jonathan Slate was just a man on the wrong side of a bullet.

  Chapter 1: Welcome to Somnium

  Jonathan supposed that there had to be a first time for everything. Even dying had a first time, it would seem. Maybe he was in heaven. The humorous thought crossed his mind as he felt himself return to consciousness. He had always been a Christian since the time he was small. Being brought up in a strict, conservative household; God was just kind of something that he had always done.

  Later, when he was an infantry commander in the Marine Corps, his faith was renewed as the adage “there are no atheists on the battlefield,” seemed especially poignant in the winding, bloodstained streets of Iraq. At that point in his life, he was sure that heaven would be waiting for him. After all, God wouldn’t send him to hell when he had already been there.

  After a time in politics, Jonathan knew there would be no place for him in heaven. What was it that Harvey Dent had said? “Die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain?” In a politician’s first term, they all thought they were the hero. Jonathan had no such self-deceptions. He enjoyed the battle and power. Or at least, he didn’t enjoy the feeling of being powerless. So if this wasn’t heaven, then what was it?

  There was a population of people who thought that all things in life were material. Consciousness was simply the travel of electrical signals across neurons in the brain. Intellectual elites would scoff at the idea of a soul, magic, or the supernatural. Jon wasn’t sure how he knew he was conscious, that was as of yet, an unexplainable concept for the living. But a kind of magic did carry on after that bullet to the chest had robbed him of life. There were no neurons to carry a current. He had no eyes to open, no limbs to move, and no senses to rely upon. Objectively, it was a terrifying experience. Yet, he existed. He hadn’t realized how comforting the sound of his own heartbeat or the steady inhale and exhale of his breath could be until he found himself bereft of those sensations.

  When those things were stripped from him, all that existed was an endless darkness.

  All that was left was one’s thoughts, and the self-reflections of a life lived. Jonathan didn’t like what he saw there. This obsidian dream was as deep and unknowable as the question of life itself.

  Eventually, a heavenly luminescence did appear, and Jon found himself in the tenebrous vacuum of space. Populating the emptiness lived a bounty of stars, planets, and all manner of celestial bodies.

  It was a sublime and humbling experience to witness, the grandiosity of the universe and to know how small one’s place in it. In comparison to the vastness of heaven, being president of a nation on a tiny rock didn’t seem so exceptional. His mind had no hope of comprehending the complete splendor of his surroundings. There was no anchor, no planet to connect himself to. He simply drifted in the endless complexity of the universe.

  For someone like Jon, whose entire life experience had been built around his own ego, the vastness of space held its own kind fear. At least it’s something. Jon reflected. Anything was better than death. He was unsure of how long he spent in the place without time and substance, but he didn’t want to go back. At least here, he could watch the celestial forms of the cosmos dance in their circular orbits. He observed the universe around him without eyes and basked in the beauty of its austerity.

  An indeterminable time later, he began to feel the coldness of his surroundings. He had forgotten the feeling of humanity’s most ancient enemy: the cold. Chilling pain pressed upon his soul and burned it with glacial impunity as his spirit was ravaged again, and again, by arctic gusts of cosmic origin. It was an exquisitely meticulous agony. Jon had no flesh to torment. Instead, his quintessential being was shaped for the next chapter of his existence. He’ didn’t know it, but he had been selected.

  To pass through this realm to the next, he would need to be remade. For too long, he had been unaccountable to anything but his own desires. He had forgotten what it was to truly live. Life was agonizing. It was the pain of lost love, the jealous burn of a lover scorned, and the icy derision of his father. It was the knowledge of a best friend’s betrayal, the death of an unborn sibling, and the wasting frailty of elderly parents all at once. These were bitter brews that made the rest of life taste sweet.

  As Jon’s spirit was flayed by the tragedies of life, Jon was sure that this must be hell. His pastors had gotten it all wrong. Hell was not a place of warmth and fire, it was the cold and hungry shadows that are ever-present between the light. The soul is timeless. One simply needed to turn from the warmth of a life well-lived to find themselves in eternal torment. Like a simple creature, Jon could not fathom why he was suffering. It had started with no warning, and it continued with no context. Like a beaten beast, he cried for succor.

  Yes, this is hell. The acknowledgment of this experience as hell brought a measure of relief to Jon.

  Through the grief and fear, at least the realm of pain was something that fit within his worldview: It was context. Pain without a frame of reference is madness. This place would surely drive any reasonable person mad.
He could only track the sands of the hourglass by the way that he was slowly getting used to his burden.

  The ice didn’t seem so chilling, and the knifelike pain didn’t seem so profound. Jon thought, perhaps insanity is finally claiming my soul. The realization was a pleasant one considering the circumstances.

  A part of him hoped that a real death awaited him. While another clung to life with whitened knuckles.

  The endlessness which he had spent in this form, had made him infinitely tired. Shaken from his maudlin thoughts, he noticed a star seemed to be approaching him from a vast distance. Jon supposed that it could be a trick of perspective. It was hard to tell the size and position in reality without measurement. Perhaps the star was merely growing. Something in the depths of his being— maybe it was a helpless hope, the same faith that clung to his life, such that it was—informed him of the star’s movement.

  As it drifted closer, the light began to burn Jon. It was like holding an ember with winter-chilled hands. What should have been a comforting balm, instead became an unbearable burden. His soul had almost become used to the iciness of space, and now the gentle warmth began to slowly increase in intensity until he felt as if his very soul were alight. He screamed endlessly in the depths of his own soul as the burning ripped its way through him.