In six hundred years Braddock had been able to avoid fearing every death.  He basked in the exhilarating coldness of its anticipation and he savored the rush of adrenaline that coursed though his body.  He didn’t particularly care to die, but when the time came, as it always did again and again, he thrived on the sickening thrill of it.  This time however, there was a tinge of nervousness, almost panic that he was unfamiliar with.  Maybe it was because this time he had time to contemplate its arrival.  Maybe it was because he knew there would be an audience.  Or perhaps it was that even though he was guilty of a great many crimes, the one he was being executed for was one he was not guilty of; and that was new to him.  In fact, he had been the victim of the crime rather than the perpetrator… in a manner of speaking.  He’d never been formally executed before by any justice system, corrupt as this one may be, and never with as much time to ponder its arrival.

He sat in the moist, dank cell on the mattressless metal cot and dragged his foot idly through the condensation that collected on the stone floor.  The scratching noise it made echoed eerily out of the cell, down the hall and back at him as it too, could not escape.  He wished they would finally come for him.  He wanted to be put in front of the firing squad and have done with it.  Just execute me, already, he thought.  And make it quick.

Braddock may have never feared death but he had always hated the pain of dying; that, he never got used to and resigned himself some time ago to the fact that he never would.  It was almost an intolerable experience, but what choice did he have?  Sometimes it was a blade through the chest that he could feel piercing his heart.  He could feel the cool air rush into his chest cavity and sting the dying organ.  The constriction of the muscles sent waves of pain to his head and, when he was still able, he gritted his teeth to get through it.  Sometimes it was a high fall that did it.  Those were more tolerable.  They were usually quick, but he still had to endure the feeling of his skull caving in as it smashed against the rocks, the street or the dirt.  He had been burned to death on four occasions and drowned three times.  He wasn’t sure which of those he hated more, but they were two of his least favorite ways to die.

Being shot was probably his most preferred way to go.  It was usually quick and the pain lasted only a few seconds.  He smiled one last time as this thought crossed his mind.  Better this way than any other.

A uniformed guard approached his cell with an assault rifle slung over his shoulder.  He looked at Braddock and pointed his index finger at him with his thumb raised, mimicking a gun.

“Do it, puto.” Braddock grinned at the guard.  But the guard just closed one eye, took aim and pulled the mock trigger a couple of times then simply walked away.

When his executioners finally came for him, the anticipation, familiar and naked, returned twofold.  The cold sweat, the adrenaline making his hands shake, the short, ragged breaths, even the way he involuntarily shifted his eyes away from the eyes of others and never settled on a single thing for more than a few seconds were all the signs of a walking dead man, inside and out.  The soul was not afraid but the body was so it was only deep down that Braddock smiled.

He was lead to an open yard lined on one side by a battered brick wall.  Its face was pitted by hundreds of bullets.  He could see the blood stains on it and in the dirt where they stood him, where they had stood countless other criminals.  As he walked over it, he could smell the iron and salt of human blood tainted with a taste of gunpowder and mixed with the gritty mud and dirt.  In front of him stood the firing squad, stoic and emotionless.  Their immaculate uniforms were pressed and the brass affects were polished to a brilliant shine.  The razor sharp uniforms seemed out of place on the sweaty, unshaven riflemen that stood in the jungle enclosed village.  Behind them stood a small crowd of witnesses, none of whom he recognized.

Colonel Xavier Ramos was a tall lanky man with an almost handlebar mustache and he carried himself with an air of confidence.  Though he too was unshaven and unwashed, he looked as if it were not necessary.  Almost as if a bath would do more harm than good to his appearance.  His eyes were dark and experienced and his face was lightly scarred from some past battle but it was only apparent upon close inspection as they were hidden among the scars of bad, youthful acne.  He was in command of the firing squad and seemed to take a certain perverse pride in that.  He offered Braddock neither cigarette nor blindfold but did ask if he had any final words.

He gave Ramos a long once-over, smiled and said, “You’ll do.”

Ramos looked confused for a moment and then smiled himself.  He backed up a few steps and turned to the firing squad with his sword raised.

Braddock never heard the gunshots when the order came.  He felt only the blistering heat of half a dozen bullets tearing through his body, smelled the overwhelming odor of gunpowder and finally the taste of the blood soaked dirt as his face hit the ground with an audible thud that pointlessly fractured his jaw.  Blackness slowly engulfed him.

A feeling like a thousand needles rolling over his body slowly came over him.  The ambient noise sounded muffled as if it were being locked in a shrinking room.  All sensation was slipping away and Braddock felt like a piece of tape being pealed from the inside of a balloon.  There was numbness and then nothing.  An eternity passed.

In the distance, there was a pinprick of light.  It swayed slightly and then rushed forward growing larger.  It coalesced into a blurred image as a presence rushed by in the opposite direction, the former soul on its way out.  The next moment he was standing over the lifeless body of Roberto Durante, his former host.  In his new right hand was the sword pointed at the ground.  With his left, he scratched his almost handlebar moustache.  He turned to the witnesses as the gunshot echoes faded away.  They sat motionless save one.  A single woman was making a hasty exit.  Their eyes met knowingly as she turned one last time before disappearing.  It was Darya.

~~~

Before Amanda Niles was taken by Darya, she was a talented photojournalist for a popular American magazine.  Her specialty was the happenings in Third World countries.  Her current assignment had taken her deep into Central America to cover a growing revolution.  Two days into her assignment, she stumbled upon a battle of a smaller scale.  A man and a woman were fighting on a dirty, narrow street behind an abandoned nightclub when they were approached by a man wielding a heavy blade.  The third man demanded their money and waved the blade threateningly.

Amanda began snapping pictures.  She was well trained and her presence went unnoticed.  She watched the fight continue and the couple seemed unaware of their assailant and his demands.  At least that’s what she told herself.  It seemed to her that they just simply ignored the man.  They were unconcerned by his threats.

Are they really just ignoring this guy? she thought to herself, amazed.

“I said ‘give me your money or I cut you both’,” he tried again.  The fight continued uninterrupted.  The woman swung a well aimed right hook and caught the first man across the chin.  He reeled under the force of the blow but recovered expertly.  He swung back and punched the woman with a solid kidney shot.  Amanda was incensed and her instincts almost forced her into the fray.  If the knife-wielder hadn’t been there, she would have leapt on the man.  How dare he hit a woman like that!

“Aye, chingow!  I cut you both,” said the knife-wielder and drove the blade into the man’s chest.  The man grasped at his fresh wound, but the knife was already out and plunging into the woman.  She dropped almost instantly.  The knife-wielder grabbed her purse and turned to the man bleeding and gasping on the street.

Amanda had stood by too long.  Her own safety didn’t matter anymore and she rushed to the woman

“C’mon, puto.  C’mon!”  The thief knelt down and rifled through the bleeding man’s pockets as he died.  A few people were coming out into the streets now and were rushing to help the fallen couple.

Amanda scooped up the dying woman in her arms and to her great surprise, just before her own soul was replaced, the woman looked up at Amanda and with her last breath, said “I’m so sorry” and died.  Amanda Niles, too, was no more.

~~~

After the execution, Darya, acting as Amanda Niles, for that was who she was now, made her way back to the hotel room.  She had changed the reservations of her American Airlines flight back to the States some time ago, but was now running late to the airport.  Things seldom follow accurate schedules in Third World Central American countries, especially executions.  Plane flights, however, do.  Because of this, she had to rush to the airport.  The quicker she could catch a flight back to the States, the more distance she could put between herself and Braddock-Ramos and she didn’t want to miss this flight.  He was a mere criminal when he had become Durante and thus easily avoided, but her efforts to have his life spared had gone unrecognized.  Even using the threat of press exposure in her American magazine failed to sway the court to spare Durante’s life.  Three days after he was arrested, Braddock-Durante was killed.  And once he was executed and Braddock became Colonel Xavier Ramos, he was now a formidable threat here.  But if he followed her to the States he’d be easier to deal with.

On the plane, Darya-Amanda used the time to study her new host.  She read every document she carried, browsed her laptop for personal effects; photos, writings, emails.  She went into a meditative state and waded through the foggy memories that the soul hadn’t taken with them on its way out. She had images of family members and committed as many of their names and relationships as she could to new memories.  She had a boyfriend that she had broken up with for reasons that were missing but somehow he was still in Amanda’s life.  They were trying to get back together or he was and she wasn’t… it wasn’t clear.  She had glimpses of the office where Amanda had worked but the car she owned and had driven to that office was missing somehow.  Rebuilding memories that the previous soul had partially taken was like trying to rebuild a fine spider’s web blown about by the wind.  It was delicate and fleeting but with enough care and patience, she could reconstruct the better parts of it.

~~~

Braddock used a different approach.  He took the basics and damn the rest.  He took I.D. cards, bank accounts, weapons and useful personal effects.  From the fractured memories, he extracted the names of the closest people around him that he could use to his advantage.  For the names he couldn’t extract, he simply asked regardless of the odd stares he’d get in response:

“Her name is Miriam, Colonel.  She is your mother.”  He just grunted in response and dismissed the worried look he got.

He picked up languages and accents easily.  For some reason, they always seemed to stay with the host body.  He assumed such natural things learned over a lifetime and taken for granted stayed with the host while personally important things, like your mother’s name, were taken with the soul.  They were closer to the previous host and thus more important.  He preferred it that way.  He had little use for personal relationships.

“Well, Miriam wants to know why you are packing up and leaving,” Lt. Juarez explained a second time.

“Tell her I cannot do this anymore,” Braddock-Ramos didn’t even look up from his fervent task.  “Yes.  Tell her I cannot execute anymore people.  God says ‘thou shalt not kill’, yes?  Tell her I cannot sin against God any longer.”  He put his military ID in his breast pocket and celebrated with agradezca a dios as he found Ramos’ passport.  He kissed it and placed it in the same pocket.

“She is your mother, Xavier.  YOU must tell her.”

Braddock-Ramos sighed incredulously and snatched the receiver from Lt. Juarez’s hand.

“Madre, I cannot talk now.  I call you later, si?...  No, mama.  No…  No.  I must go.  Adios.”  He gracelessly placed the receiver on the phones base and waved dismissively at Juarez as if to say: You see.  It’s not difficult. “Now go get my car.  We are leaving.”

Lt. Juarez saluted and spun on his heel.

Braddock scanned Ramos’ mind and learned where the files to Roberto Durante’s case were stored.  He quickly retrieved them, grabbed his duffle bag and headed outside to the waiting sedan.

The criminal file had some detailed information on the crime and thus the witness that pointed the finger at Durante.  He would need that information.  Witness: Amanda Niles, 26.  Reporter, columnist.  Born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico; still has family there.  Moved to Los Angeles at eighteen to attend UCLA.  Graduated blah blah blah.  Works for International Explorer Monthly.  Still resides in Los Angeles… Home address and telephone number.  Perfect!