Smoke wafted up from a lone chimney at one side of a solitary homestead that sat near the edge of a forest. A dusty plain surrounded its other three sides. Enclosed by a worn split rail fence, the wood-framed farmhouse also had a covered wrap-around porch, several smaller outbuildings, and a whole lot of dirt with scant vegetation.
Outback, a few scrawny chickens pecked at the ground next to their coop. Thomas Miller studied the carcass of the deer that hung by its head from a tree. The majesty of the deer’s golden brown eyes was disfigured by the terror of its last moments, and the scarlet river that ran down the hole in its neck stood out like the incandescence of a lighthouse on a starless night.
Thomas caught a fly that was buzzing around his head in between his thumb and forefinger. He crushed the fly absentmindedly, and then flicked it away. The skinning knife in his left hand shook before he could still his body tremors.
With each passing day, it was getting harder for him to resist the pull of the Second Tribulation. It was like an itch at the back of his mind that refused to go away. Thomas knew it was just a matter time before he submitted to its divine call and the thought filled him with dread. That path led to destruction.
He slipped his consciousness into the invisible hole located above the bridge of his nose, just behind his forehead, and it appeared within his Upper Dantien. It was something he was able to do ever since he survived the First Tribulation as a child.
Thomas’ Upper Dantien manifested into a wheat field which he stood at the center of; its colors were more vibrant and rich than their counterparts in the real world. A butterfly flapped its elegant wings just above his shoulder and, off in the distance, a dark storm cloud brewed with palpable menace. Below it, a shadowy figure walked, making his way towards Thomas.
This was something new. Not the storm clouds, he knew what those symbolized. His heart galloped like a whipped bronco. Was the shadowy figure another ill omen of the Second Tribulation or did it represent something far worse? Even after all these years he was no better at deciphering the vague auguries his Upper Dantien sometimes contained.
The sound of Anna over turning an old bucket snapped Thomas out of his inward perspective. “All done?” he asked her with a frown.
“Yes, Pa,” she replied as she took a seat on the bucket.
Thomas gutted the deer by splitting its stomach membrane; he worked the tip of his knife upwards from its pelvis. The aroma of raw meat and blood hung in the air. “Did the forest hold all the excitement you’d imagined?” he asked as he reached into the deer’s abdomen and pulled out its organs.
“At first, there was no thrill in it. Then it got too excitin’ all of a sudden.” Anna responded with a serious expression.
Thomas chuckled while sorting the organs into different pots. “Life’s like that. Large patches of boredom with small spots of pure terror to keep you on your toes.”
“Pa, what does it feel like when you do magic?” Anna asked breaking the sudden silence.
There was an element of transcendence in fatherhood, in watching the life you created grow in fits and starts. Thomas’ heart filled with pride as he paused, taking note of Anna’s dainty nubbins; she was on the cusp of flowering into true womanhood. “That’s a difficult question to answer,” he remarked while popping a piece of raw kidney into his mouth.
“Try,” she pleaded. Her mother held an innate dislike for all talk of the occult and Anna cherished those rare moments where she got to quench her thirst for the subject.
“Magic is a maddingly complex and beautiful song that’s always playing in the background. A First Order Magus collects the echoes of that song through the Upper Dantien which is located right here,” he poked her in the forehead while he explained, leaving behind a red dot on her skin. “Most folk pray to the Architect, but a magus can hear our creator’s voice in his song.”
Anna sat completely captivated by her father’s words. “Will I have magic one day?” she wondered out loud.
“Maybe. My brother never had the gift, but both me and my Pa did,” he said while he secretly hoped she never heard the Architect’s song. Magic was a curse, it had cost his father his life and his son his mind.
“Does Sam have the gift?”
“Sam’s very special,” he answered in a somber tone.
Anna’s still-open eyes froze in disbelief while jealousy and hatred marred her innocent beauty. “But he can’t even put on his britches the right way sometimes. I got to be always taking care of him.”
“You should pity your brother. What happened to him could’ve happened to me, and it might still happen to you. Suffering is the price we pay for the gifts we’re given.”
Anna turned to face the house as Jane Miller, a sturdy, practically-dressed frontier wife, approached her and her father while wiping her hands on her apron. The former beauty of Jane’s youth still shined through the dust and dirt.
“Why are you lazing about?” Jane questioned Anna with a stern look.
“Me and Pa were just making conversation, Ma,” Anna said while her eyes beseeched her father for help. But Thomas knew better than to get in the middle of an argument. Over the years, Thomas and Jane had developed an unspoken understanding when it came to childrearing: he was the anvil and she was the hammer.
“Well, there is work to be done inside,” Jane’s eyes would tolerate no disagreement.
Anna stood in a huff and made her way towards the house. She sent her father one last glance before she disappeared out of view. He sent her a smile which she did not return. Anna was like that, always holding a grudge over every imagined slight.
Jane gazed at the ominous red horizon that stretched across the sky while Thomas got back to field dressing the deer. “Make sure you wash your dirty carcass before you bring it back inside,” she said absentmindedly as she puzzled out what portents, if any, the heavens held.
“I had planned on it.”
She turned to him, hands going to her hips and said, “I wasn’t talking about the deer.”
Their love had kindled during the innocence of youth and, though it no longer burnt as fierce as it once had, the coals of their passion still simmered with flesh charring radiance. “I know,” he replied with a small smile.
“A storm is coming,” Jane muttered as she looked back up at the sky.
Thomas froze mid movement as the hair on the back of his neck stood on its end. Those words, why had she chosen those words? he asked himself. But for better or worse, she was right: there was a storm coming. Neither of them noticed the subtle shaking of the pots on the ground as the earth moved with a small tremor.
■
Twilight encroached while dark storm clouds bricked overhead. The last remnants of a bright spring day clang about the Miller’s solitary homestead, but like a dark tide, the menacing gloom swelled. The night grew fatter and died with every flash of lightning. Soft rain turned violent, pounding the roof with its sadistic pitter-patter.
Within the master bedroom, Thomas laid in bed, drifting off to sleep, listening to the sounds of the storm. Next to him, Jane stared up at the ceiling and asked, “Do you ever feel like life just sort of happened while we slept?”
The sound of Jane’s voice jolted Thomas’ eyes open before they began to close again. A long day of working on the farm had drained his body of energy and left behind exhaustion in its place.
“I swear, it was just yesterday the children were just babes in our arms. Now they’re almost full grown,” she continued with a face scarred by worry. “Anna will be married off in a few years, but what will happen to Sam? When we’re gone, he won’t have anyone to take care of him.”
“Go to sleep, Jane. Go to sleep,” Thomas said from a place halfway into the realm of dreams.
Suddenly, Anna’s scream shattered into the room. Thomas exploded out of the bed with Jane a step behind him. Thomas’ mind ran rampant with twisted possibilities. He did not know what he would do if something happened to his little girl.
They erupted into Anna’s bedroom and found her sitting up in bed with tears running down her cheeks. Thomas engulfed her within his comforting arms and kissed her tear-streaked face, “Anna, what’s wrong?”
“He’s coming,” she whispered in terror while lightning lit up the room, making the wooden dolls on her shelf look sinister.
“Who?” he asked as he gagged on a spear of fear. “Who’s coming?”
“It was only a night terror,” Jane jumped in trying to put an end to this silliness.
A banging sound rang through the house as something slammed into the front door. Thomas and Jane shared a look; her eyes gave him permission to do whatever he felt needed to be done.
“Pa, I’m scared,” Anna’s small voice said.
“You two, go get Sam and stay back here,” Thomas said in a voice that inspired trust.
Thomas exited the room without another word. He made his way to the kitchen as the banging sound came again, louder this time. He stopped in front of the kitchen table and removed a six-shooter from a holster that was affixed to the bottom of the table.
The sounds of lightning and thunder faded away as the sound of his heart filled his soul. Danger threw him into a metamorphosis; his heartbeat slowed, he stood straighter, and he seemed years younger. His whole body itched with anticipation.
Thomas opened the door and the body of a rain-soaked stranger splashed onto the floor. He wore a hat pulled low over his head and an overcoat tightly drawn around his body.
Rain flew into Thomas’ face as he shoved the six-shooter into the stranger’s neck. All Thomas’ old instincts came roaring to the forefront. You’d never put your gun to an enemy’s head because that would give him an opportunity to disarm you. You’d push it into his neck because it allows him no room to maneuver without getting shot.
“What do you want?” Thomas asked the stranger.
Unfazed by the gun, the stranger replied, “I’m lookin’ for a place to hold out against the storm.”
“There’s a barn down yonder,” Thomas pointed with his free hand while allowing the stranger to climb to his feet. Something about the stranger made Thomas think of a starving wolf excommunicated from its pack.
“That will do just fine.”
“I’m Thomas Miller,” Thomas said as Jane entered the room with a rifle in hand and Anna and Sam hiding behind her legs. The two men never broke eye contact while appraising each other.
“I go by Lizard,” he said with a shit eating grin and then he turned to Jane and tipped his hat. “Ma’am.”
Thomas shut and locked the door after Lizard left. He turned around and found Jane staring at him with a strange expression. “What?”
“I don’t like seeing that thing in your hand,” she said with sad eyes that held a touch of fear.
Thomas looked down at the six-shooter in his hand; it was still perfectly balanced, it fit his hand like a deer skin glove. He tried to push away the criminal pleasure he received from the weight of it in his hand. The six-shooter had a name, and as he whispered it in his mind, the canals in his body coursed with torrents of magma-like arousal.
Bloodlust.
Nowhere & Nothing 
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