Chapter 39: THE COLLECTOR'S BALL — Part 2
The artifact gleamed under spotlights, gold catching light with an intensity that seemed almost alive.
It was beautiful—I had to admit that, even as the System screamed warnings into my consciousness. A scarab the size of a fist, covered in hieroglyphs that shifted and flowed like living things, mounted on black velvet that made the gold shine brighter. Two gems formed the eyes, deep amber that pulsed with inner fire.
[ARTIFACT IDENTIFIED: EYE OF AGAMOTTO]
[CLASSIFICATION: LEGENDARY — PROPHETIC]
[PRIMARY FUNCTION: DEATH VISION PROJECTION]
[SECONDARY FUNCTION: TEMPORAL FORESIGHT]
[WARNING: EXTREMELY DANGEROUS]
[WARNING: DO NOT ALLOW HOSTILE ACQUISITION]
"The Eye of Agamotto," Lazarus continued, his voice hushed with reverence, "is said to show the death of anyone it observes. Some legends claim it shows not just death, but the path leading to it—the choices and consequences that bring each soul to its end."
The crowd murmured. Skeptics and believers alike watched as Lazarus approached the artifact with the careful reverence of someone handling something sacred.
"Tonight, I will demonstrate."
His fingers found pressure points on the scarab's surface—a sequence that suggested years of study, of experimentation, of trial and error to understand how the thing worked. The gems pulsed brighter. The hieroglyphs accelerated their movement.
And then the Eye opened.
Light exploded from the artifact—not ordinary light, but something deeper, something that bypassed the eyes and went straight into the mind. Images cascaded through the ballroom, projected onto walls and ceiling and the backs of everyone's eyelids simultaneously.
Trenches. Mud and blood and barbed wire, soldiers drowning in gas while artillery turned the earth into hell. The Western Front, but worse than any photograph could capture—the reality of industrialized slaughter rendered in impossible detail.
The images shifted.
Cities burning. Bombs falling in patterns that suggested deliberate destruction rather than military necessity. London. Berlin. Warsaw. Tokyo. Flames climbing into skies that rained ash.
Faster now.
Trains. Cattle cars packed with human beings, faces pressed against slats, eyes that held no hope. The trains arrived at platforms, disgorged their cargo, and the cargo walked toward buildings with chimneys that never stopped smoking.
Six-pointed stars sewn onto chests. Yellow against dark fabric. Children wearing them. Old men wearing them. Everyone wearing them, filing into lines that led nowhere good.
Someone screamed. The sound broke the spell for a moment—a woman collapsing into her escort's arms, her evening gown pooling around her on the marble floor. More screams followed. Guests stampeded toward exits, evening attire forgotten in animal panic.
I couldn't move.
The images kept coming—not the distant history of wars already fought, but the future. A future I knew was possible, that I'd been fighting to prevent since the moment I'd awakened in this body. The Eye showed it all: concentration camps, mass graves, the systematic annihilation of peoples and cultures that the world wouldn't fully understand until it was too late.
[TEMPORAL FORESIGHT ACTIVATED]
[DISPLAYING: PROBABILITY MATRIX — HIGH-LIKELIHOOD FUTURES]
[WARNING: EXTENDED EXPOSURE MAY CAUSE PSYCHOLOGICAL DAMAGE]
Lazarus stumbled back from the artifact, his composure shattered. Whatever he'd expected, it wasn't this. He'd played with fire and found an inferno.
But Kaufmann was moving.
The Ahnenerbe researcher pushed through the panicking crowd, his expression focused, professional, utterly unaffected by the horror playing out around us. He'd seen the visions and understood them for what they were: strategic intelligence. Foreknowledge of what was coming. A weapon more valuable than any army.
I intercepted him three feet from the display case.
The collision was hard—shoulder into chest, momentum carrying us both away from the Eye. Kaufmann grunted, recovered faster than expected, and suddenly we were grappling, two professionals fighting for control while the world burned around us in projected images.
"You don't understand." His voice was tight, controlled. "The future can be shaped. Guided. What the Eye shows isn't destiny—it's possibility."
"I know exactly what it is."
I drove an elbow into his ribs, felt something give. He twisted away, drawing a weapon from beneath his jacket—a compact pistol that gleamed in the Eye's golden light. I grabbed his wrist, redirected the barrel, heard the shot crack past my ear into the ceiling.
The Eye's visions continued—mushroom clouds now, cities vaporizing in instants, the culmination of everything the earlier images had promised. More guests fled. More screams echoed. The ballroom was chaos, and in the center of that chaos, two men fought for possession of an object that could shape the future.
"James!"
Eleanor's voice cut through the noise. She appeared from the crowd, champagne bottle in hand, and brought it down on the back of Kaufmann's head with force that surprised both of us. Glass shattered. Wine sprayed. The German scientist collapsed.
I lunged for the Eye.
The moment my fingers touched it, fire raced up my arm—not burning exactly, but a heat that carried weight, consequence, the accumulated horror of everything it had shown. Images flooded my mind: my death, my possible deaths, a hundred thousand ways this moment could end badly.
I pushed through it.
The Eye came free from its mounting, gold heavy in my palm, gems still pulsing with residual energy. The projected visions flickered, faded, died. The ballroom fell into darkness relieved only by emergency lighting.
"Fire! Fire in the east wing!"
Eleanor's voice again, shouting in German with an accent that could pass for Swiss under stress. The remaining guests—those who hadn't already fled—rushed toward the western exits. Security personnel mobilized toward the phantom fire. In the confusion, we had perhaps ninety seconds before someone realized what had happened.
"Move." I grabbed Eleanor's arm. "Sam's waiting."
We ran.
The château's corridors blurred past—service passages Peggy had mapped, shortcuts that avoided the main halls where security would be responding. The Eye burned against my chest where I'd shoved it inside my jacket, heat seeping through fabric, reminding me with every step that I was carrying something that shouldn't exist.
Behind us, shouting. Kaufmann's voice, recovered enough to sound alarm. "Stop them! The Americans—they have the artifact!"
Footsteps echoed in the corridors. Guards responding, redirecting, hunting.
"Side door." Eleanor pointed ahead. "Twenty meters."
The door was locked. I hit it with my shoulder, felt the frame crack but hold. Second impact. Third. Wood splintered, and we were through into Alpine air that hit like a wall of ice.
Sam's car waited exactly where it should be—engine running, headlights dark, a shadow among shadows. We crossed the distance in seconds, threw ourselves into the back seat as Sam threw the vehicle into motion.
"What happened in there?" His voice was tight. "I heard gunshots."
"Later." I pressed the Eye against my chest, trying to contain its heat. "Just drive."
The car tore down the mountain road, leaving Château Lazarus burning with light behind us. I could see pursuit organizing—vehicles mobilizing, headlights snapping on, the machinery of capture engaging.
Eleanor pressed against me in the back seat, her breathing ragged. Her dress was torn, champagne staining the fabric, but her eyes were steady.
"The visions everyone saw. The camps, the bombs." Her voice was barely audible over the engine. "That's what you've been fighting to prevent."
"Part of it."
"How long have you known?"
The question cut deeper than she intended. How long had I known? Since before I'd arrived in this body. Since memories that didn't belong to me had shown me what this world would become if no one intervened.
"Long enough."
She didn't push further. Whatever answers she wanted, this wasn't the moment for them.
The Eye pulsed against my chest, hot and hungry, full of visions that showed only death. I'd taken it from Lazarus, from Kaufmann, from everyone who wanted to use its power for their own purposes. Now I had to decide what to do with it.
Behind us, headlights appeared on the mountain road. Pursuit vehicles, closing fast.
"They're following." Sam's voice was calm, professional. "Two cars, maybe three."
Peggy's voice crackled through the radio she'd smuggled out of the château. "Road ahead splits in four kilometers. Left toward the border. Right toward the lake."
"Which is safer?"
"Neither. Both routes are exposed." A pause. "But the lake road has options if you need them."
I looked at the Eye in my hand, feeling its weight, its heat, its terrible promise. The visions it had shown were possibilities, not certainties. The future could be shaped. But by whom? With what tools?
"Take the lake road."
Sam didn't question. The car turned right, heading toward darkness and whatever waited beyond.
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