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Brandon flicked a cigarette out of his mouth, blowing smoke rings.

The smoke turned grey next to the frost of his breath and vanished soon enough. It had to be a solid negative fifteen degrees out but, at this point, he was so used to being frozen he was certain his blood must contain anti freezing agents.

He shifted back into his little alcove between two large pink boulders. Branches had fallen over the two so that the snow and ice melt had formed a gleaming roof, giving him more than ample protection. He thought it neat. His natural enemies his unwilling friends.

The cigarette was gone too soon, nicotine just starting to hit his blood. The dawn was approaching quickly though and he’d have to be on the move again. He reflected that his current circumstances, while unfortunate, were the most interesting he’d ever had.

It wasn’t every day you got thrown into the precious few corners of the unknown and told to hunt down something that by all accounts didn’t exist. The woven band of leather, stone, metal, glass and grass that covered his entire left forearm however- now that, that was something new. He knew a thing or two about survival. About witch doctors too. But something this elaborate was rare. And warm.

In the icy tundra of the Motherland, that woven band had done something. In the three short days he’d been out here, his luck had been nothing short of astronomical. Shelter, weather, even the run in he’d had with feral animals- smooth.

Brandon rubbed his arm through his heavy layers. An electric current spread over his scalp, pooling over his cheekbones. He shrugged his pack on and buckled everything down. It didn’t make any sense but he knew somehow that within the next two days his quest would be finished. His curiosity burned.

Sure, he was being forced into this. The collar of explosives wrapped around his throat was definitely an uncomfortable novelty to his normal travels. Still though. Something brilliant was about to happen. No one called in a favor, only to have you ambushed and bundled off to the Siberian wilderlands.

Jojen had needed to save his own skin. Brandon understood that fine. He’d done the same to more than his fair share of contacts. Even sold a few to ease his way. But this was new. And in this business, that meant death; yours or others, but always on a large scale.

A flicker of blue light snared his eyes. And the band around his arm grew hot. The hunt was on.

The tracks he’d been following were odd. Sometimes bird, sometimes bear and sometimes man made. He didn’t know why they changed or even what made them. But his woven band burned hot when he held it over them.

Brandon trudged on, eyes ranging over his surroundings. White, white and white. Ice, snow, mist, and rocks. He had been passing through a thickly wooded area for the first few days, but it looked like that was over. A sardonic look graced his features under his layers. Tonight he would be well and truly frozen.

As the sun began falling to the west, the tracks became harder to find. It shouldn’t have been possible but they jumped in huge margins, twenty, fifty even half a kilometer apart at times. He’d had to double back and take a new orientation six times already. Whatever it was he was hunting knew. Knew he was hunting it.

The knowledge sent shivers of anticipation down his spine. Maybe a lesser man would have been afraid. And maybe they would’ve been right. But Brandon felt none of that. He just wanted to know and go. See whatever it was that required such secrecy and then leave this frozen wasteland. He was thinking he’d venture somewhere warm. Mombasa, perhaps.

The sun was hanging on the edge of the world. Eight minutes until full dark. But it seemed his ungodly luck was to continue. The Northern Lights blossomed into view. Ribbons of pink, blue, orange, green and purple, stretching from one corner of the globe to the next. But far more interesting were the spots of white-blue he kept catching at the corner of his eyes. His band was a constant burn now.

Wights, perhaps. Willo’wisps. Either way, it seemed he was on the right track. He crested a small hill and froze, still as the ice around him.

A ghostly elk stood before him. Ten times the size of any normal creature he’d ever seen, glowing blue-white. The Northern Lights played in small ripples over its pale haunches and rack. The band on his arm was rattling, beads moving up and down his arm. Its eyes were black. No other color than deepest shadow, yet as it turned its head ponderously, light trails painted the air where they had been.

Brandon knew if he looked in them, he would be lost. His gun was in his hand and fast as he dared he raised it. The elk took a ponderous step away. He aimed for the throat, angling it so the bullet would exit its skull. A clean, quick kill.

A crack resounded through the night, startling a few small foxes and rabbits into running. The elk fell with a heavy thud. Brandon stood and trudged over, watching in mute fascination as blood seeped into the ground. Black as its eyes, it melted the snow and spread out faster than he would have thought possible, turning white and ice to green and grass.

Some got on his boot and began to melt through it like acid. He wiped it off quickly with a fistful of snow, feeling it turn to mud between his fingers. The collar around his neck hissed and unclasped itself. Brandon pulled it off, tempted to throw it in the spot of summer blooming in front of him. Just to see what would happen.

He didn’t though. Nor did he step into the warmth he felt just in front of him. He may not have been religious man, not even spiritual, but the little voice inside his head, the one that had always kept him safe, was shrilling at him. He had done something wrong. Something very, very wrong.

The next morning, when the choppers found him, the out of season growth had already withered and died, encased in frost. The crews set to bagging up his kill with admirable haste. But one of the native men took a look at him and promptly turned his back, refusing to get off his chopper. The argument escalated between him and the others telling him to help. A gunshot echoed and the fight finished.

Brandon gave the Russian pilot a carefully curious, who shrugged and lowered his pistol.

“They call you godkiller, say you’re cursed,” the Russian said in heavily accented French. He shrugged philosophically. “Now, they’ll keep quiet about it at least.”

Brandon chuckled. “Why’s that?”

Instead of an answer the pilot threw him a small mirror. Brandon caught it easily and held it up to look at his face. His gorgeous auburn hair was bone-white now, pink lips blue and his eyes, once green and vivid- were solid black. No iris, no pupil, no white. The mirror shattered in his fingers.

God killer.

The pilot gave him a neutral look and gave his crew a series of rough, quick commands. The body of the beast was loaded up and everyone was buckling in. Brandon stepped up to get in, but found himself the target of six guns pointed unerringly at his head. He stepped back.

“So sorry,” the man nearest him said, “you bad luck. Very bad luck. No go.”

Brandon watched as the two helicopters took off, noting the direction they flew. They meant to leave him to die here. He should’ve felt cold at that thought. But it seemed he no longer felt the cold. The heavy layers he had on, were becoming quite uncomfortable. He shrugged them off.

He’d get his revenge. He began walking. An hour later a small fox, sat watching him a top a boulder some distance off. It bounded away as he got closer and Brandon decided he’d take a rest. As he sat the lichen and moss turned brown and fell off the boulder, dead and rotten. He stared at the moss awhile, thoughts distant and hazy.

God killer.

So be it.