bradley soulgaze

“We don’t have a couple of hours,” I said. And because I can let people know my intentions, too, I met Bradley’s gaze and said, “Any of us.”
When I give people that look, they look away.
Bradley didn’t.
The eyes, they say, are the windows to the soul. They’re right. How long it takes to trigger the soulgaze varies, but it seems to work faster for people in heightened states of emotion—and we were standing in the middle of millions of people in heightened states of emotion. It was fertile ground for such a connection.
So I got to See Bradley, and where he stood was not only a man in a modest custom suit, but also the spreading trunk of some oak tree so enormous as to look squat, rising to branches that cast far more shade than its source occupied.
It didn’t take a genius to realize that I was looking at the man’s character—that he bore the burden of his duty with stolid responsibility. It didn’t mean that he was impervious to corruption or anything—but, like that solid tree, barring some injury or illness of character, it would hold up under the strain for a good long while. The image hit me with the same kind of impact you might experience in the ocean, as a wave lifts you off your feet. I had to take a stagger step to keep my balance, fighting to break the connection.
I don’t know what I look like in a soulgaze. The only mirrors for the human soul are the people around us. All the people who had been my mirrors hadn’t generally reacted with great positivity to what they’d seen.
Bradley let out a sharp, huffing cry and took a staggering step back. He stumbled and went down, catching himself awkwardly on his elbows and wrenching his neck. He lay there for a second, gasping.
“The fuck!” Rudolph screamed. He’d cleared his jacket from his gun and had his hand on the grip. “The fuck! The fuck did you do to him, Dresden!?”

Battle Ground Chapter 4, Page 34