Icon: Two raised fingers.
Unique Arcana Characteristics: Pale from cannibalistic diet. Teeth filed into sharp points. Eyes turn white when he uses his mind-control power.
Before Flash: Miner.
The Lovers (VI)
Vincent and Violet, Duke and Duchess Most Perverse
“We will love you. In our own way.”
A.k.a.: The Milovníci twins
Powers: Pathokinesis and love manipulation (can warp and pervert any who love). Replication (can create carnates, living duplicates of themselves). Command inducement and sense scrying (can command carnates and borrow their senses).
Special Skills: Torture.
Weapons: Their carnates. Also, torture implements, pistols, booby-traps, explosives.
Tableau: Look-alike twins, a male and a female, stand hand in hand with a bloody windmill spinning in the background and dead roses at their feet.
Icon: Two overlapping triangles, bisected with arrows.
Unique Arcana Characteristics: Violet is part of Vincent, an absorbed twin.
Before Flash: Lived their entire lives in the Shrine, their father’s doomsday bunker, studying their line’s chronicles.
The Centurion (VII)
Kentarch Mgaya, Wicked Champion
“Woe to the bloody vanquished.”
A.k.a.: The Chariot, the Wanderer, the Phantom
Powers: Teleportation. Ghosting (intangibility, can phase rapidly between corporeal and incorporeal.). Ghosting extension (can make objects and other people intangible). Superior aiming.
Special Skills: Covert operations, intelligence collection, tactical satellite communications, target acquisition, and offensive raiding. Marksmanship.
Weapons: Whatever’s available.
Tableau: A warrior in a horse-drawn chariot, dressed in a red tunic and a helmet with a red-feather crest. Waterfalls and waves appear in the background.
Icon: Horse’s head.
Unique Arcana Characteristics: When intangible, a faint outline of his body remains.
Before Flash: Newlywed Kenya Special Forces soldier, training an elite anti-poaching unit. Descended from a long line of Maasai warriors.
In the shadow of Mount Kenya
Day 0
Outnumbered and outgunned.
At least a dozen poachers fired on me with automatic rifles, their bullets chewing up the side of my truck. On the other side, I hunched down, taking cover, my own rifle in hand.
I’d already used most of my ammo, was down to my last four bullets. Sweat dripped into my eyes as I awaited an opportunity to return fire.
To think I’d once complained that my new assignment here would be too soft! When my superiors had dispatched me to this park to train rangers, I’d wondered why they would punish me.
I wasn’t simply a soldier in the KSF; I was the best, breaking records so thoroughly they would stand forever. I’d learned from my father, an unmatched lion hunter, that there was power in excellence.
Then I’d quickly discovered that a conservation ranger’s job was not only dangerous—it was a widow-maker. Every animal was a target of poachers, but especially the rhinos, with horns worth more than their weight in gold. This park had become a frenzied war zone.
Though my wife had been afraid a lion would get me, a far more dangerous predator had me in its sights.
One shot rang out above the others, echoing over the plain. It blasted straight through my truck, inches from my head. A high-caliber hunting rifle. Gasoline began to pour from a hole in the tank.
The gunfire ebbed. “You don’t belong here, soldier!” one of the poachers yelled. “You never should have come!”
They wanted revenge for the deaths of their men during an earlier shootout with my conservation rangers. Today this gang had caught me driving alone to retrieve gear I’d used for a drill, my last task before my leave began.
“Surrender, and you’ll live,” another one shouted. “Stay and die. This is your last chance to walk away.”
A lie. They executed anyone who laid down arms.
But surrender still beckoned. My beautiful Issa was expecting me home tonight. My yearning to get back to her played tricks on my mind, whispering, “These men are telling the truth. Of course they will let you go home.”
I forced myself to accept reality. I would die if I fought; I would die if I didn’t.
I am already dead.
I replayed Issa tracing the claw-mark scars across my chest, asking me not to take this park assignment because of the lions. I’d explained to her that I had earned those scars. I’d heard the maddened lion roaring with fury, warning me away, and still I’d foolishly stalked it.
I’d vowed to her that I would be safe because I would never ignore a warning again.
Yet now I was a dead man. Hatred for these poachers blistered me inside. I could at least take a few of them with me. “No surrender!” I leapt up, pivoting and aiming through the busted windows of my truck. Two controlled shots. I hit one poacher between the eyes. Another in the skull. I dropped back down. “Not today!”
They opened up with their machine guns, spraying bullets.
Amid the gunfire, I caught a different sound—a copter? Coming up from behind the ridge? If it was the park’s copter, I might live. If it was theirs, I would die.
A lull. I chanced another shot, hitting my third target. One bullet left.
The helicopter appeared over the rise. . . .
Not ours. Two shooters inside had me dead to rights.
A dying man’s life truly did flash before him. Mine had been filled with polarities and extremes. Fundamental forces in combat.
Old and new. Life and death. Love and hate.
Ancient Maasai tradition clashed with my modern military life. I’d hunted lions as a boy; now I protected them.