The sound of Ace's gunshot woke me. My hands sprang up out of reflex, though my arms hit something solid. The thump and showering of fine powder after the strike were a good indication that they were blocked by some sort of wall, located only inches above my face.

I opened my mouth to speak, to ask anyone who might be listening what the hell was going on, but coughed as dust filled my throat. It coated my tongue like a film of grainy paint that I had to scrape off with my teeth just to get out words.

There's darkness, like midnight with a cloud-covered moon, and then there's the darkness where no matter how hard you try, there's just nothing there to see. This was that second kind.

I blinked away more dust and tried to focus.

I said it before, Black Badges could see in the night as well as a mountain lion, but in this—the total absence of any light at all—I merely strained and strained some more. It was all in vain. Couldn't see a damn thing.

"Hey!" I managed to shout. My words stopped inches away, like they were being caught in a fishnet.

Might as well have been since even as I patted around and kicked my legs, being unable to feel anything and now see anything had me floating in a senseless prison. The only sounds were deadened thuds made by my movements and a slight ringing in my ears that wouldn't abate. And the smell? Barely anything. Stagnant air. Dirt. Earth.

Shit.

Looked like I'd finally made it. Looked like Old Lucifer had finally caught up to me in the form of a Yeti and sent me packing to hell. That's what this was, I figured. Though, where was all the ice? The cold? The frost and little demon imps driving icepicks through skulls and worse?

"Nah," I groaned.

That son of a bitch couldn't take me so easy. This was something else. Just didn't know what yet.

I rolled a bit, and something slipped from my pants pocket. A slight, otherworldly shimmer from something provided the scant illumination I needed for my enhanced sight to kick in.

I quickly scooped up Shar's mirror. The two pieces were loose, barely able to clasp. I find that hinges, like men unhappy with their lots in life, tend to protest when called to duty. The glass itself had a permanent crack down the middle, and yet, even in this oppressive darkness managed to shine bright as the Almighty himself because you know who was waiting in the fractured reflection—an angry wisp, a storm cloud on the cusp of bursting into a lightning show.

"I warned you, Crowley," Shar said. Where my voice had been muffled into near silence, hers blared like thunder. "You could have reached Elkhart first. You could have stopped them."

"And you could've told me," I hissed, then gagged on some more dust. "All-knowing my ass."

"This is how it must be, Child."

I nearly scoffed at the title, as if I were anything close anymore, but she continued.

"If you knew the beginning from the end, you would take shortcuts. All you needed to do was follow the path laid before you. Now, look at what your impetuousness has caused. Like an infant throwing a tantrum."

"Hey, it's you people who labeled us all Children."

"And continually, you prove us correct."

My fingers clenched, wanting to crunch what was left of the mirror for good, but it was my only source of light. Just like always, in such desperate need of her, like an addict.

"So, what's this—Hell?" I asked.

"Your own personal one, perhaps," she responded.

I swallowed hard. She wasn't wrong. I'd lived my whole life and unlife in the West, under the big open sky and the range. Where even on the darkest nights, the moon couldn't be missed. Wide-open space was my friend, and this… well… my eyes searched my surroundings and found the answer fast.

Slats of wood formed a box around me. Above and below. Side to side.

A goddamn coffin.

And there came a subconscious fear that I hadn't even known I had until that moment. Being confined in dark, tight spaces. What did them newfangled doctors call it? Claustrophobia? It's a fear I'm sure any rational man or woman might have, but worse for me. They'd suffocate and die and get that sweet release, but Old James Crowley? Naw, I didn't even need air to breathe.

So, what would happen after an hour? Two?

Hell, it could've been that long already.

How about a day?

I could wind up trapped down here, alone with my thoughts for all of eternity.

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"I'm starting to think angels and demons ain't so different," I said as I bucked and kicked, a new kind of hopelessness setting in. But I couldn't shift Heaven or Earth in my form. I wasn't a Yeti. Didn't have that kind of strength.

Maybe I should beseech a demon for an upgrade.

"If you think this is Hell," Shar said, soft and sultry, "I do so pity you. You cannot even begin to comprehend the anguish."

"I'm starting to get an idea." I kicked to break free once last time, then groaned and lay flat. "Fine. I'll bite. What happened up there?"

"You chose a beast of burden over enacting the White Throne's judgment."

I assumed she meant Timperina, which didn’t help calm me.

"Timp ain't just some horse,” I spat.

Which was a lie. She was, by all accounts, just a horse. That didn't mean she wasn't the one being in the world I'd call friend, but there was no arguing that. I'd chosen protecting her over my quarry, and I'd do it again every goddamned time.

How long had I been out that someone mistook me for dead; had time to give me a proper burial? My feet were bare. Duster was gone. My guns and my knife—all gone. I'd been scavenged and tossed away, and yet Shar's mirror must've looked so beaten it was mistaken for trash along with me.

I patted around the space more, my unfeeling hand scraping along the back of my head until my fingers sunk through a wound. I could only tell because they snagged on something and got stuck. I yanked, and the moment I did, that dull ringing in my ears vanished.

Bringing it around to the light of the mirror, I saw it, a cluster of wet dollar bills, still with some of that Yeti's preternatural frost on the edges. They must have speared straight through into my brain stem, paralyzing me until the last bit of magic ice melted and it dislodged.

"Not the way money usually undoes a man," I said

, flicking the wad against the wall of my tomb.

"Who knows who that possessed sinner will harm next," Shar replied. “Or what the Fallen One influencing him is after.”

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, Your Glorious Divinity. This is all on me. But what about his partner who can apparently control animal minds? That troubles me more."

“I’m not yet sure how the Pagans fit into the equation.”

I moaned. “Of course you aren’t.”

"But rare is a Yeti. Only a Child so consumed by hate could commune with one of Hell's minions in such a reckless way to forsake the soul. And when the power becomes too great, and the human parts die… self-control goes with it. There will be casualties."

"I'm well aware of how this possession works, Shar—"

"That is not my name."

"Shargrafein," I spoke the second half of her name like it was a curse word. "So, why don't you help me out of here so we can end this?"

"Perhaps we should dispatch another of our Hands. Let you lie here, considering the difference between acquiescence and obedience.”

"Look, I'm sorry for having a heart," I told her. I tried to keep the panic from my voice but I don't think I had much success. "I promise I'll play nice. Do just what the White Throne commands. Now let me out."

"Perhaps they might listen better."

"Let me out!" I banged against the sides of the coffin again, and somehow, they seemed like they were closing in more. Dust billowed, further filling my throat. "I get the lesson!"

"Do you?"

"Goddammit, you're as bad as Ace sometimes!"

I winced. No answer came, but using her Lord's name in vain straight to her was probably not my smartest of decisions, current situation considered. But you bury a man alive and tell me he won't spew some of the worst kinds of curses before his air runs out.

"I'll follow your path or whatever else you need of me like I always do," I said, grinding my teeth. I could sense her incredulity. "Sure, I stray. Ain't that just what Children do? But I'm loyal, dammit. Got no choice but to be. I'm loyal, you hear?”

The memory of me turning on Ace flashed through my mind. I wasn't loyal to my last boss, though he had it coming. Would she hold me to that?

"I get the job done," I said to hammer home the point. But my voice had grown soft by now.

Shar didn't answer, so I kept talking.

"And now that that icy bastard and his pals put me down here, it's personal. You better believe that. I'm gonna send all three of them on a freight train straight to Hell. You tell the White throne that. Straight to Hell!"

Silence responded.

The light of the holy mirror winked away, casting me once more into what felt like unholy darkness. Maybe that was Hell, eternal separation from the light.

"Shar!" I screamed.

My legs and arms thrashed like a fish out of water, far out as could be. I knew rage wouldn't get me anywhere, but I couldn't help it. I hated getting bested. Visions of Ace Ryker and his tapered beard, cool blue eyes, a crooked grin flashed across my mind's eye over and over again. Visions of that day I died because I'd tried to save someone who couldn't save themselves. And here I was, all over again. Doing the same stuff.

Trying to be a hero in a place where there weren't any.

Minutes passed, me getting more and more pissed off. My limbs didn't tire from exertion—they couldn't—but my brain sure as hell did. Punch by punch, I lost myself to frustration until I was just lying on my back staring up into endless black.

All these years serving the White Throne, and a possessed Yeti was to be my undoing. Well, not really. I was the one at fault. Stubborn as a mule, like always. Saving that little girl and her mother from Ace, protecting Timperina, Agatha—damn that soft spot in my black, dead heart.

Then a tremor came. The entire coffin rattled me around like a stagecoach through rocky terrain. A thin sliver of light pierced through one of the coffin's fine lines, and I heard its lid groaning. So, I went back to pushing with all my considerable might.

And what do you know? The lid cracked off and flew upward.

I gasped as if I needed the air. I was staring up at bright sunshine.

I set to clawing my way upward out of what was to be my forever home and heaved my body over the ledge of a deep hole. I laid there for a moment, face down in the dirt, and not a second later, a snort greeted me. Glancing up, Timperina's long tongue licked me chin to forehead. I grabbed her head, pulled her close, and gave her a loving tug on her mane. Then, I used the momentum it provided me to rise.

"Quite a bit of trouble you caused, girl," I said.

Then I turned Timp aside so I could get a look at her. The ice explosion had left a few little nicks here and there, but mostly, she was no worse for wear.

"C'mon. Let's get on."

We turned, me leading her by the reins, and I stopped dead.

A winding trench wove from my grave through the cemetery, somehow not disturbing any other plot or headstone. A thin funnel of wind and dust swirled in front of the nearby church, slowly vanishing into the pale, cloudless sky.

A twister. Common in these parts, only, they usually wreaked chaos. This one's path seemed almost purposeful, affecting nothing except for my own grave.

Standing by a freshly dug hole across the yard was a scrawny kid. Must've been the gravedigger. He stared, all color drained from his face. Then, he dropped the shovel and silently ran in the opposite direction of town.

Now, I'm not one to complain about miracles, especially when they benefit me, but I glared down at the cracked mirror in my palm and muttered, "Show-off."