A clear spring sky met Aleya's gaze as she stood and stretched her back. The gentle relief of popping released a prolonged sigh. Then came the strangest sense of the familiar, of Van. A gust of wind blew back her long, golden hair, pressing her light green dress against her slim form. Pulling strands from her face, she cast her gaze about the fields and corrals, the ranch hands, and few horses. The constant sound of the carpenters at work met her ears. The musty scent of unearthed soil filled her nostrils and she breathed out.

"Honey Sly?"

*

Van came to with acid in his throat. He shivered with weakness and felt eyes upon him. His captors knew, likely through the spirit link he'd experienced with Aleya. For it was no dream. No final vision before death. He sensed too, that ultimate instinct of his that served him so well in the Crimea, the same as the unspoken communication forged between he and Teven—instinct.

The two friends shared the shortest of glances and Van knew Teven also controlled his own body and defeated the skinwalker within. Teven held the strangest of blades, strange that is, until Van saw the double-sided conical crystal weapons held by two combatants, male and female, dozens of feet away from him.

A man armed with knives, wounded, lay on the dirt entwined within off-yellow tentacles, with his crystal weapon raised. The man spoke. "Where is your Watcher?"

An olive-skinned woman, who appeared be in control of the tentacles, grinned. "Dead."

The two crystal weapons clashed, the sound high-pitched; not unlike fingernails on chalkboard.

Teven pulled Juan Semos beside Van. "Van, what was that…that blast? How did you escape your diablero?"

Van frowned. "I don't know, how did you?"

"It just…it faded." Teven said. "You?"

"Faded?"

Teven frowned. "I woke up, or rather, it was like a long dream, I was exhausted, ill, like a fever. Then I awoke and did as the shifters did. Mostly, we rode, for days."

"Days? How many?"

"Maybe a week? I think we're in Texas or Mexico."

Van pointed at DaFaca and Vargos. "What are they?"

"Fuck, Van, I don't know. Let's get out of here. But I don't trust their horses. They ain't natural."

Van flicked his head about. "What horses?"

Teven gestured north. "Out there somewhere." He stooped and placed one of Juan's arms over his shoulder. "Help me with him."

Van gripped Juan's arm. "There's desert all around us. Where will we go?"

A horrendous cheer broke out among the diableros. Teven and Van flinched first at the unexpected sound and a second time as an Ouroboros blade embedded itself two feet from Teven. The elder Har fell backwards away from it, part from shock and from the numbing waves radiating from the blade. With Juan Semos supported by one arm, Van, reached forward with his free hand.

Teven sat up. "Van?"

Ignoring Teven, Van gripped the hilt of the Ouroboros blade as diableros charged toward the trio. He recoiled in pain, his body rigid, before he released the hilt and dropped to the ground beside Juan Semos and Teven.

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Teven shook Van. "The hell, that's some sorta weapon of the gods! You don't reach out and touch it."

Van wrung his numbed hand and shook his head. "Need to defend ourselves."

Teven pointed to Juan's fallen macuahuitl.

"Use it!" Van said.

As Teven scrambled to his feet, the first two diableros skidded to a halt brandishing their macuahuitl weapons. One grinned, reaching out to grip the Ouroboros blade, Vargos calling out a warning too late. The diablero all but touched the blade and the weapon's warding erupted, splitting the skinwalker's flesh into molten rivulets which streaked up its arm before the skinwalker exploded all over the Ouroboros blade, it's fellow diableros, Van, and Teven, leaving a minor, smoking crater, a foot deep and five-feet across.

*

Dozens of feet from the newly formed crater, Vargos laughed, DaFaca at her feet, with Nico gloating behind her.

DaFaca's face, hideous and bat-like, glistened with thick blood. His vampirous nature revealed, Vargos watched him with anger and revulsion.

"You spoke of us corrupting and sacrificing our souls? How old are you DaFaca, how long has a camazotz sustained you? A bat-demon? You're no better than the Sepul hordes."

DaFaca moved at incredible speed, seizing hold of Vargos' usurped Ouroboros blade. The two grappled, Vargos overcome with seething rage; let out a strangled, guttural roar.

DaFaca subsumed his vampiric countenance. Blood coursed from deep wounds across his head and back. "We live in this, the Fourth World, in the dominion of death. Is not the bat the symbol of death? How am I no better than the likes of the Sepul?"

Droplets and debris flew out from the two combatants, propelled by the pulse of energy from the Ouroboros blade.

DaFaca held the x-shaped bucket-guard of the Ouroboros blade in one hand and the hilt in the other. "You may hold the weapon of your fallen Watcher, but you can't harness its reality-bending capabilities, Victoria."

Vargos hissed through her clenched jaw as tentacles erupted from her body, to further entangle DaFaca. "And you're too weak to last." Her eyes locked on DaFaca, she yelled at her lieutenant. "Nico, secure the ancient souls. Tie up those damned ranchers and bind them with spells."

*

Christian dropped down onto the red sandstone with a grunt. Pulling off his leather gloves, he rubbed his palms, red with an hour of rope-work to move and secure the mountain howitzers. The group agreed to make the outcropping a fortress for their rations-worth of two days before they rode for Albuquerque. Hernan argued for Sende to ride with immediacy and she refused. With a party of sixteen and twenty-five horses there was no hope of hiding and the horses would soon consume what fodder and feed they grazed around the broken ridge.

With knowledge of naval knots taught to him by Teven, Christian secured each of the discovered cannon, with the aid of the vaqueros, at points around the outcropping, covering each approach. The canister shot would allow each to fire twice and their heights and knots allowed a limited swivel on each gun. The canister itself, once fired, would spray any skinwalkers with shrapnel. These might slow any attack, but it was the few exploding shells that lay ready for loading at a singular point of approach once the diableros arrived.

Sende offered a canteen to Christian. "I don't believe the diableros have any reason to wait. Maybe they…perhaps Señor Long and Drake stopped them."

"If they have, then we've no way to know and can only wait for them to return with the others."

"How will they find us?"

Christian guzzled from the canteen, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and thought better of pouring any over his face and neck.

Sende studied him.

"They'll ride to Albuquerque like we agreed. Then backtrack." he waved his arm. "We can't exactly hide out here. An' it'll work on them arrogant shifters too."

Sende sighed and Christian stood with a dismissive wave. "If any of you are worried you won't be paid, you can ride for Albuquerque now. Give in your promissory notes and you'll receive your earnings for this part of the drive." He glanced at Sende, gesturing with flicks of his hand. "Go on, tell ‘em. Pesos."

Sende cut her eyes at him.

"Go on." Christian pointed at Hernan. "Or you tell them."

Sende raised her hand to Hernan. "We already talked about pay. We have nowhere to go. We drive north to find work. She glanced at her brother. "Perhaps to find work on your ranch."

Christian laughed. "Van's ranch. Well, Aleya's, more I see it. Our ranch maybe, if Teven would decide."

Sende frowned. "Decide?"

"I ain't settlin' out here if my brother don't decide to go into a full partnership with Van."

Marcos blew circles of smoke in the air as the other vaqueros gnawed on dried beef and beans, smoked, or took swigs of water.

Sende shrugged. "We can never escape the reach of the Darkness, no matter where we go, we live in their shadow. But we have no prospects in this mortal world if no one will employ us."

Christian's shoulders fell. "Yeah well, Van hates magic, we came here to make out a new life away from such unnatural things."