A film of sweat from the sticky heat covered his body and festered under his black clothes. Trickles of moisture invited the mosquitoes and midges to feast on his face. He ignored the whine in his ears and the flutter of moth wings. He walked past the arrow-straight rows of trees like a soldier, focused on where he had to go and what he had to do.

Time was passing. He needed to hurry.

He saw the sanctuary high above him, cresting the hillside. The stone tower shimmered in the glow of spotlights. People could see it for miles from the swampy lowlands. The tower looked out of place, like something stripped from a European cathedral, too perfect and ornate for the scrub lizards and dripping Spanish moss of central Florida. Its pink marble shined like candy. Ceramic grilles adorned the stone, depicting flamingoes and baboons cavorting in Eden. Adam and Eve were pictured on the tower. So was the snake, whispering sweet nothings in Eve’s ear.

Now he would crash the party in paradise. An invisible wraith. A bearer of death.

Kill the fortunate son.

‘What are you doing?’

He stopped dead. The hot wind brought the orange trees to life. Clusters of ripe fruit swung from drooping branches. He looked back, but he was alone with the voice in his head.

‘What’s happening? I’m scared.’

He beat his forehead with a gloved fist to drive the memories away, but he found himself reliving the sensations regardless. The panic. The fear. Blackness and light whipping through his brain, faster than he could see. A shudder rippling through his body, a blow to the chest. And blood. So much blood, pooling and flooding like a crimson lake in the moonlight.

‘Why is there so much blood?’

He remained motionless, waiting until the tiny voice went away. There was too much at stake to obsess over things he couldn’t change. He couldn’t afford to give in to emotions now. The only emotion he could allow into his heart was hatred. If he could channel his hatred, if he could taste its bitterness, he could do what he needed to do.

The orange grove ended at a slope that led to the hillside sanctuary. It was the highest mountain in a flat state. He climbed, with the tall grass crowding him. He beat away the insects now, because they had become insatiable, flocking around him like a biting cloud. Their whistling chatter was deafening. He used a penlight on the ground and saw lizards skittering back and forth across the trail ahead of him. He felt as if he were trudging through a primitive rain forest, thick with humid air that weighed on his chest.