Vargos pulled back her head, tentacles tightening around Van. Her expression unsettled him, for the first time, the shapeshifter showed fear. He felt it too, something followed them in the rush of the etheric wash between worlds.

Van struggled to see as Vargos tensed. Her voice sounded in his head, again, that question of how one spoke beyond the Mundane Plane, even when manifested bodily between worlds.

"Ignore it or you give the beast substance."

Van's instincts screamed out, his body charged with power drawn from around him. Swiveled in Vargos' grasp, he faced the predatory planar creature as it barreled through the mists.

The beast was larger than a buffalo, with the head and flattened face like a hideously deformed pug or bulldog. An enormous mouth of thick, jagged teeth, the size of paving stones, gaped wide with menace. A similar creature consumed the first from behind, and another, more transparent, did so again in a chain that vanished within the rushing mists beyond.

Van brandished the Ouroboros blade as the beast snapped at him with its maw of crooked teeth.

"Lower the Ouroboros blade!" Vargos cried out in his mind. "Do you not hear the creature?"

Indeed he did, the beast whispered to them—it needed only one soul to validate its presence and anchor itself to Earth.

Vargos tightened her grip around Van. "Clear your mind of the creature!"

"Help me fight!" Van slapped the tentacles around him, but Vargos seemed resigned to escape. As a witch, she knew more than Van about such matters.

The beast surged forward and Vargos released a spell. The creature continued, unfazed. Van, having some control over the Ouroboros blade, drove the warped vortex shimmering at the tip of the black crystal into the planar beast. Vargos, her blade inactive, thrashed in the etheric flow; shifting her movements similar to that of a squid.

"Ignore my counsel if you will, as you should ignore the creature!"

"Give me better counsel! You took me prisoner to take my soul and this weapon too, so you must know its secrets!"

Vargos' face twisted with indecision and anger. "The blade is a tool, an ancient instrument meant to mend reality."

"Mend reality?"

"The Escuridon remade the Ouroboros into a weapon, ironic really. If DaFaca entrusted it to you, then you can return us to the Earth."

Van shook his head. "No, we can destroy the creature, else it follows us."

"You do not understand. We cannot fight, and cannot run forever. What valence is needed to calibrate the Ouroboros? We have to escape. Hide, forget the creature as it must forget us, once we return to the Earth."

"Wait, I don't understand, isn't the Ouroboros a snake eating its own tail?" He pointed behind them. "Isn't that creature consuming itself?"

Vargos snapped Van's arm down. "It is a chain of creatures, and the weapon is called an Ouroboros for the symbol of infinity."

The symbol on the rock, among the ruins. The was a primitive representation. Who was the figure standing with the lance-like weapon? A Watcher?

Vargos continued to guide them through the ley line current, metres ahead of the pursuing beast. "Keep your eyes on me, Atman."

*

Day Long kicked at the fallen stones that once hovered around the battlefield. Nathan glanced over his shoulder before returning focus upon the Mascogos. Their kithla led the medicine party in a continuous song around the still unconscious Teven. Juan Semos, recovered, lay nearby, tended by the Mascogo women. Several of the warriors stood mounted guard around the entire group, as their fellows dispatched the remaining diableros and Caddites. The sun sat heavy and bloated behind the western mountains of the Continental Divide, the wisps of cloud and pale Sky colored with twilight hues.

Nathan sighed. Time ticked away and with every passing moment, the likelihood of recovering Van became more unlikely.

Day Long looked about ready to tear a new hole in the Veil to drag back their friend all by his lonesome. For all Day Long's oddities, his loyalty blazed like a beacon. The self-same means the Mascogos hoped Teven to be—a beacon to guide Van home.

*

With each attack the creature grew more powerful, no matter the damage done to it by spell or weapon. The beast's cries grew more coherent and in the depths of the etheric mists, more creatures took form from dark shadows, drawn to its psychic calls.

For all its ferocity, Van kept the frustrated beast at bay, noticing its aversion to the flames around his head. Now a deep black-crimson, the flames intermingled with a crown of golden fire rising from Van's shoulders and around his head, their intensification apparent even from his vantage within them.

Thin, molten lines cut across Van's face, spoke-like from the bridge of his nose. The black crystal gauntlets spread up his arms and across his chest, his long johns consumed by the bubbling black energy which coalesced into the ebony rock. Lightning arced across the stone armor.

The beast reared back from Van, the intensity of the manifest flames blackened its pug-like face.

Van gripped Vargos' tentacle with his free hand. "If you want the creature to ignore us, take its form. Wrap that form around me."

Vargos refused. "Your flames already burn me, and as when I hunted you, your ancient soul is like a beacon to all!"

With that, she unraveled her tentacles, abandoned him, disappearing into the mists. Van spun out of control in eddies left in the wake of Vargos, his mind reeling as fierce as his tumbling body.

An anchor and a beacon. His own soul served as a beacon, drawing the creatures to him. The creatures sought to use him as an anchor to the Earth and the Mundane Plane. His only escape was to hide that beacon and if so, his friends would be unable to find him.

Aleya.

Earlier in the day, trapped in his own mind by the diablero, Van saw Aleya.

His strength.

Aleya, his true strength, she and his friends forged his world. His clarity. They allowed him to overcome the possession and find himself, overcoming his fear of corruption through magic. Now he needed that anchor to guide him home.

*

Day Long paced, the kithla held a hand over Teven's head and his torso—two points of power within the body.

Nathan placed a hand on the scout's shoulder. "Patience."

"Ain't got the time, Silver Hair. The longer we wait, the less likely we'll find Van. The Spirit World ain't like hereabouts."

"Yes, I am aware."

Day Long shrugged off the blonde scout's hand. "Yeah, you are."

Crossing his arms, Nathan watched the Mascogo ritual. The rurales continued to sing, preparing Teven's Astral body to enter the Spirit World beyond the damaged threshold of the Veil.

*

Everything seemed so far away, Aleya, the ranch, his friends, and the Earth. Is this how the Spirit World functioned? Was this what Vargos meant? A realm of mind and spirit; of thought, dictated by intent?

We don't create the world around us so much as we and those we love anchor us to it.

Only the surge of the etheric river kept Van ahead of the planar beasts. They snapped as they drew closer, his sole source of momentum remained the flow of the dragon line. A creature flanked him on each side with the third inches from him, its mouth wide with hunger. The howling pain of the beast tore through Van's mind, its teeth and face ablaze with black-tipped flames.

An aura wrapped around Van in a protective envelope, pulsing in tune with the energies of the Ouroboros. Van stared at the weapon, and for the first time considered whether the Ouroboros was the source of protection or if the weapon unleashed a curious force within him.

Held at bay, the beasts undulated like serpentine dragons, crowding him at a hesitant, predatory distance.

He couldn't run forever, just as Vargos said.

Van focused once again on the Ouroboros blade, gripped it with both hands and stared at the black crystal facets in its two cones. Only then did he notice a silver cord two feet from the glow given off by the weapon. The string-like filament disappeared into the mists that swirled in the wakes of the three planar beasts pursuing him. The Watcher, DaFaca, held a connection to the Ouroboros. DaFaca served as an anchor to the weapon.

*

The kithla spoke, stirring both Juan Semos and the impatient Day Long. Nathan looked to the Seminole scout with apprehension.

"What happened?"

Anxious, Day Long clenched his fist. "They're ready to guide Teven into the Astral after Van."

Insistent, the kithla waved the two scouts toward the center of the circle of singing Mascogos, to sit on either side of Teven.

*

Cautious of the flames and aura which protected Van, the planar beasts made tentative attempts to bat Van between them. Their infernal cries only served to draw more of their kind. The creatures' intrusive voices crowded his mind, as each threatened to find their way to Earth, to feed and sate their eternal hunger. His potential for escape, to return to Earth included the dangerous possibility of travel with the creatures. What then?

For a moment, another voice spoke in the cacophony, familiar, intent, direct.

Teven.

Surrounded as he was, Van didn't see Teven. Was his old friend in the Spirit World with him?

"Van! Day Long's people, they're trying to rescue you."

The Black Seminole scout's people? Hundreds of miles from Florida? Van dismissed the question, the mystery of Day Long irrelevant, now was the time for more pressing answers.

Van concentrated on Teven. "Find the Watcher, he has a tether to this weapon, he can call me back."

*

The high notes of the Mascogo song pierced the ears of the two scouts. Day Long rocked on his haunches, impatient. Nathan flexed his hands, sore from long tension held as tight fists.

"Pohis." The kithla murmured. Louder, "Teven. Pohis!"

Day Long sprang forward and gripped the shaman. "Well? The hell did Teven say?"

Speaking in the nasal tones of the Mascogo, the kithla explained, as Day Long jumped up and twisted, studying the ruined landscape of dead men and horses. He yelled out in English and Mascogo for the group to search for DaFaca.

On his feet, Nathan raised his hands. "What did Teven say, did they find Van?"

"He did, and Van has a way back. Sounds crazy, but no more crazy than today. Find that sinister fella dressed all in black."

Riders joined in and within minutes, a Mascogo warrior called out from across the battlefield.

The scouts set off at a run and found DaFaca laying on the ground beside the mounted Mascogo rurale. Even after the hellish tornado, DaFaca's unearthly garments remained immaculate, darker still in the dim twilight.

"Recall your weapon, El Capitan."

Perplexed, Nathan stared at Day Long. "What weapon?"

"Van said you need to call your weapon back. Do it." Day Long spat. "Devuelve tu arma!"

Coughing, DaFaca rolled to face the scouts. "I speak English."

"Then do as we ask or the lot of us will do you in." Day Long said.

Still confused, Nathan stepped between the two, paddling hands with the frustrated Seminole before glancing back at the Watcher.

"If you have any sense, you'll do as he asks, although I admit, I don't know what that is."

"I maintain a tether to my Ouroboros blade, but I am too weak to recall it to me. Your friend must trigger the sheath of the Ouroboros."

Day Long and Nathan frowned at each other. Nathan sensed it before Day Long acted, gripped and twisted his fellow scout, the Seminole's boot missing the Watcher by inches.

"Get off me, Silver Hair!"

"Hold up and let's speak to your shaman friend. Get word to Van through Teven. If it doesn't work, well then, you can go to work on that…whatever he is."

*

Batted between the burnt and blackened planar creatures, Van continued to draw comfort from Teven. His voice grew distant, weaker, and harder to focus on.

A fourth creature burst into flames, only to be replaced by the next in its chain, while those undulating around it, fought for dominance.

"Anything?"

"They're searching for the man in black." Teven's voice answered within Van's head.

He laughed, people always said the two of them seemed to know what the other was thinking—more so after the Crimean War.

"They found him. He said to sheathe the weapon."

"Sheathe it how? Shouldn't he be wearing the sheath?" Van studied the hilt. A sheathe, what did that mean? He turned the blade over. "He has to explain how."

Teven's voice grew weaker still, the pull of the Spirit World drawing Van further away, with the standoff between planar beasts and dark flames unending. Running, lost, to become someone else, somewhere else.

Alone.

*

The long hours of the afternoon ended, the call of night weighed heavy on all who'd fought and survived the day. Hope ran short as DaFaca raised his remaining hand to recall the Ouroboros from its sheath.

In the smallest shimmer of the cool evening air, Van appeared beside DaFaca with the Ouroboros held between them.

DaFaca released his hold of the weapon and closed his hand into a fist. The Ouroboros grew silent, the twin vortices at the end of each cone gone. With the weapon's security activated, the pain returned. Wincing, Van dropped the blade.

DaFaca considered the Ouroboros and Van. Both weak from their ordeals, the two men lay in silence, propped on their elbows, the scouts and a number of Mascogos gathered around them.

"You have accomplished much this day." The Watcher said.

"Did what was needed to help my friends." Van sat up, his head tight in a vice of incredible pain. "Will you promise safe passage to us?"

"I am in no position to stop you."

"No." Van raised his trembling hand and fought to halt the tremor. "We mean to make a cattle business. We must return each year to gather stock."

"Ah, I see. For all you've accomplished, you have also done much to right my failing with Vargos and her compatriots. This I can do for you in return, but only inasmuch as there shall be no presence this far north of those who would do you harm. I will not come to your defense."

"You'll watch." Day Long scoffed from where he stood, with arms crossed.

Looking to the two scouts, Van grinned. "How's Teven?"

"The Lord of the Gray is sleeping it off."

"I'm fine, Mr. Long." Teven hobbled toward the group assisted by the kithla. Juan Semos followed out of the twilight, aided by two of the Mascogo women.

"Glad to have you back, Van, what's next?" Teven said.

"We ride." Helped to his feet by Nathan and Day Long, Van and DaFaca shared a final glance.

"You are perhaps, the great thunderbird, the raven."

"What? My family name means "raven", is there some significance?"

"The raven and the crow are two sides of the same coin." DaFaca flipped his spectral, demonic hand over, palm down. "Portents of luck and death. Mediators between life and death. The raven represents life and the crow, death."

"Then by that reasoning, am I not the crow? Look at what happened here. Wherever I go, death follows."

Dismissive, Day Long grunted. "Some would say there ain't a lick of difference between the two damned birds."

"Those would be the ignorant and the blind." DaFaca said.

Day Long laughed. "We're only as blind as we want to be."

Van rubbed his chin. "I've experienced a great deal these past few days. Curious things."

"Ah, you sense it. You waste your potential." DaFaca grinned and this was all the more unsettling. "You are the bringer of light. Perhaps you will hold back the darkness. You are not blind to the Otherworld, I do not think, to this Other West."

Day Long smirked. "Van's a patient man, a kind man, an' kindness is a language even the deaf an' the blind can understand, brethren."

Stunned, Nathan stared at the Seminole scout.

Punching Nathan on the shoulder, Day Long continued. "Now, let's get out of here ‘fore more Caddites show up lookin' for their brothers."

*

With the surety of being recaptured should they hesitate, the battle weary drovers pulled on their reins and charged north, away from their fallen captors and the Caddite stronghold of distant Los Orlos. Behind Teven, Van, and Juan Semos, Nathan and Day Long waved to the Mascogo riders as the rurales turned south toward Mexico.

A cloud of dust wafted across the field of battle, the sun bloated and sinking behind the mountains to the west. DaFaca's wounds ached, he winced as he laughed. "Captain Bran. Of course. The souls. It's all about the souls."

His Ouroboros blade beside him, DaFaca activated and extended its dimensional sheath around him and disappeared, his laugher fading with the final light of day.