Deep in the beautiful azure flames, Keech sees O’Brien’s cabin reflected back, as if captured within the prisms of an otherworldly mirror. Except the cabin inside the fire looks different. He glances away from the hearth, expecting to see O’Brien and the other young riders sitting around him. Instead the place is empty of people. A table and chairs stand in one corner of the room near a squat iron stove. A bed piled high with furs and blankets sits against the back wall. The space is comfortable, lived-in, boasting simple decorations of bellflowers and forget-me-nots, a modest bookcase with leatherbound volumes stacked on the shelves. This cabin is a home.
A heavy rug sits on the floor—a rug different from O’Brien’s. Keech knows that a trapdoor still sits beneath it, but under this door lies a small hollow dug into the ground. Inside the hole rest two ancient artifacts reclaimed from a powerful being. They should not be here, these relics; their very presence corrupts this peaceful mountain with danger.
The sound of talking outside draws Keech to the cabin’s front door. When he opens it, he sees a slender gunman clad in black standing on the front porch. The man is tall and delicate-looking, with a dark, pencil-thin mustache lining his upper lip, but he commands a powerful demeanor as he gazes beyond the southern meadow.
“Hello?” says Keech, but the gunman doesn’t seem to hear. “Mister?” he says, but again, no answer.
Then Keech realizes the man is not really there. Neither is he. Keech knows he is still staring into the sapphire flames that O’Brien created with the Cerridwen Herb, watching a specific memory take shape before him. And within this peculiar space and time, he sees and hears and understands more than he ever could in the real world.
A second man, a gruff bruiser, stands next to the tall gunman. “Milos, what do you sense?” this new man inquires, and Keech smiles when he realizes who he’s looking at. The fellow is bald, just as he was at the Home for Lost Causes, but his thick beard is missing in favor of a woolly mustache that hangs over his lips. Someday soon the bruiser will rename himself Abner Carson, but for now he is known as Isaiah Raines, sometimes called Ragin’ Raines by his companions.
“Nothing. Everything’s quiet,” says Milos Horner, his eyes squinting past the sunny field. “But it always makes me nervous when it’s too quiet. Let’s make this meeting quick.”
Across the porch, their partner Red Jeffreys sits in a cedar chair, gently rocking. “I couldn’t agree more, gentlemen. I’ve had a bad feeling since I woke up.” Jeffreys is dressed in his usual deerskin apparel, but Keech notices one different detail about the man in this particular time and place: the tin star on his chest. Since he joined the Texas Rangers, Jeffreys has been calling himself Edgar Doyle, but for this reunion, the Enforcers again refer to him as Red. He pulls a brown wool cloth from his coat pocket and polishes his wooden pipe. After packing the pipe with fresh tobacco, Red places it between his teeth.
“Then let’s get down to it,” barks a deep voice, calling the other Enforcers on the porch to order. The voice belongs to a barrel-chested cowpuncher, a bearded ox of a man who has been calling himself Noah Embry for the past decade, but here and now he is Bennett Coal, or Rowdy Bennett. He is eager to resolve their business so he can travel back to his ranch in Missouri, where he left his son, Nathaniel, and pregnant wife, Sarah. “The topic on the table is what to do with the relics inside this cabin. No one leaves this place till we find the solution. And after we leave, we never speak of these things again, not even to our loved ones. Understood?”
The other men agree at once.
“O’Brien?” says Rowdy. “Do you understand the terms?”
Standing behind Red Jeffreys, a stocky woman with wild copper hair stares at the men with dark, unsettling eyes. “I only understand that we was foolish to keep the relics together in the first place. Those cursed things oughta be a thousand miles apart, not hid together under a danged mattress.”
“The Fang of Barachiel is far from cursed,” says Rowdy.
“If the Reverend wants to spill blood for it, it’s cursed,” O’Brien says.
Milos Horner turns to face his fellow Enforcers. “Even still, O’Brien’s right. Keeping the two artifacts together begs for trouble. They must go to different locations. If just one were discovered, it wouldn’t be enough to release Rose.” As soon as he’s done speaking, Milos swivels back to the edge of the porch to study the hills.
O’Brien cackles. “This is only what I’ve been sayin’ for years, boys. When we first ran from the Reverend, I suggested we hide the relics in separate locations, but you all insisted I was bein’ overly cautious.”
“Come on, Em,” Isaiah says. “At the time, it made more sense to keep the relics on the move, together and accounted for. Far easier to carry a bundle than grapple for loose leaves in the wind. But now we’re all settlin’ down.”
“Exactly so,” Red Jeffreys adds. “Things have changed since we broke rank. I’m tired of dealing with this mess. I got a family now. And a proper occupation.” He taps the tin star on his chest. “I want to get on with my life.”
“So we’re decided, then,” O’Brien says. “We split up the Fang and the Stone, as we should have a decade ago. Put ’em where they stay lost forever.”
Milos points out across the meadow. “Perhaps Bill can talk to his people, fetch us some help in hiding them.”
A few yards from the cabin, a man and woman stand in the knee-high grass and watch a dark-haired child race about in the field, chasing a butterfly. The man—known among the Enforcers as Bill, but whose real name is Black Wood—is handsome and tall and wears dark trousers and a beaded vest. With arms that look as strong as trees, he scoops up the toddler and swings him, to the boy’s delight.
“Go to your gathering. I’ll watch him.” The woman, Erin, takes the boy with a tender embrace, but something in her expression speaks anger. This reunion is dangerous. Erin wants Black Wood to finish this business and send away his old team so they can return to their life hidden in the Rocky Mountains.
Black Wood leans into his wife. “This will be done before nightfall. Once we have this decided, you will never see these people again.”
Erin kisses her husband’s cheek. “Do what’s right, then come back to me.” They share a moment where they see only each other, then Black Wood turns and walks to join the other Enforcers on the porch. Erin urges her young son toward the barn. “Come, Keech, my little pumpkin. Let’s go pet the ponies.”
At the cabin, the Enforcers discuss the idea of Black Wood’s appealing to the Osage in Missouri for help hiding the artifacts. “Perhaps the elders can help us,” Black Wood confesses, “but this would be asking much.”
Isaiah scrubs a hand over his trail-worn face. “I don’t see any other way, old friend. The Char Stone must stay isolated. We’ll need another means to hide it. Something separate from the Prime. Something Rose could never pry into.”
“Everyone, hold.” Milos Horner raises a hand to silence them. His ever-vigilant eyes—those of a Diviner, a mystic seer—fix on the forested hills beyond the meadow. “Something ain’t right.”
The Enforcers grow alert. Stowing his pipe, Red Jeffreys abandons his chair to stand at attention. His Ranger star gleams in the pale sunlight.
“What do you sense?” Isaiah asks.
For a moment, Milos says nothing. Each Enforcer waits with fear and anticipation as the Diviner’s deep gaze penetrates the mountain territory. He shivers as he gives his grim report. “I see Coward. About thirty thralls armed with muskets. And Ignatio.”
“Coward sniffed us out,” Rowdy Bennett growls.
Milos closes his eyes. “I see Big Ben, as well as Bad Whiskey.”
“What about Lost Tucker?” asks O’Brien.
“No, but I do sense Weavers, a good dozen of ’em, maybe more,” says Milos. “I’m afraid they’ve got the drop on us. It’s too late to flee.”
“Dandy,” O’Brien snarls.
Without delay, the Enforcers prepare their particular forms of magic. They draw upon their focus, marshal the energies of the unseen world. They are wizards of the West, a force not to be trifled with.
Except one of them is distracted.
Black Wood.
“My wife and son need me,” he murmurs. Dipping into the cabin, Black Wood locates his longbow and quiver, then reappears on the porch. “You never should have come here,” he tells his old partners, then dashes toward the barn.
“We’ll take care of this!” Isaiah calls after him.
One second later, the world explodes as musket fire rains down on the meadow from the nearby hills. The Reverend’s thralls charge out from the tree line, scuttling behind Coward and the vicious, red-bearded brute Big Ben Loving.
“Better say your prayers, you double-dealin’ backstabbers!” roars Big Ben. He yanks a pouch out of his long leather coat and dips his fingers inside.
Coward’s voice bellows out from beside the Harvester, “The Reverend seeks blood for your betrayal! Time to pay!”
The Enforcers stand shoulder to shoulder at the edge of the cabin. Rowdy Bennett gazes after Black Wood, who is racing to join his wife and son. He addresses the team. “Whatever happens to us or the relics, protect that child. We may have brought death to this place, but we will not allow death to touch the boy.”
Isaiah is the first to sprint toward Rose’s horde, hollering a battle cry as he goes. Musket lead zings past, missing him by inches, but he doesn’t stop. He reaches into his shirt and pulls out a fragment of glowing silver. “You want blood, Coward! Come and get it!”
The other Enforcers leap to join the fray. Enemy bullets bounce off Rowdy’s skin as he picks up a barrel-sized stone and hurls it across the meadow, where it tumbles through the front line of charging thralls. With frenzied fingers, Red Jeffreys summons a behemoth whirlwind that rumbles toward Big Ben. O’Brien throws a spray of emerald powder into the air, and invisible walls of protection form around the group.
The Enforcers function together with the nimble expertise that comes from years of training and riding as an outfit. Their coordinated defense makes them nigh unstoppable.
Isaiah smacks the glowing silver on his palm to the forehead of a gibbering thrall. The reanimated fiend collapses at his feet, shuddering and jerking as a pollution of black smoke pours from its mouth. In seconds, Isaiah stills two more of the dead, spitting shouts and curses at Coward as he works. The remaining thrall army begins to fall back.
Big Ben Loving swivels around to shout at the retreaters. “Stand your ground, you pathetic curs!”
Approaching the barn, Black Wood yells for his wife and son, but no voices return from inside. He prepares to enter when a dark voice calls out from behind the structure.
“Where do ya think yer goin’, pilgrim?”
Bad Whiskey Nelson steps around the corner, standing in Black Wood’s path. His black overcoat ripples in the breeze. The needlepoint quill of his goatee is slick and groomed. And, of course, this younger Whiskey has both of his eyes. With terrible speed, he draws a Colt six-shooter from a holster on his hip and cracks off three angry shots in succession. Black Wood leaps behind a broad hay bale, barely evading the gunfire.
“Aces move, Bill!” says Bad Whiskey, cackling. “But you know I’m faster in the end!”
Taking a deep breath, Black Wood readies his longbow as Whiskey’s Colt bellows a fourth round at the bundle of hay.
“No sense in hidin’, Bill! Yer mine!” the scoundrel hisses. “You don’t stand a chance against—”
Before the outlaw can finish, Black Wood nocks an arrow, leans around the hay bale, and releases the shaft.
The obsidian arrowhead strikes Whiskey in his left eye—a perfect shot. The villainous man topples without another sound, landing in the charred grass with a heavy thud.
Black Wood hurries into the barn, searching for Erin and young Keech.
Back in the clearing, the battle rages in a blur of motion and gunsmoke. Rotted thralls fire their muskets, and someone has set a blaze to the cabin. The fire grows rapidly, spitting embers into the meadow.
A company of fanged men and women dashes out of the flames as though born of them. These are the Weavers, merciless creatures corrupted by the Prime, a nightmarish lot with skin as pale as curdled milk. They attack with ferocity, but the Enforcers counter every move they make, guarding one another’s backs, pushing the monsters back into the fire.
There is but one misstep, one weakness in the Enforcers’ armor. Isaiah has rushed too far ahead, stepping outside O’Brien’s protective walls.
Coward shrieks, “We see you! Time to meet your maker, Raines!”
A monstrous ripple of energy flows across the meadow as Ignatio, the Reverend’s lieutenant, emerges from the trees. Multitudes of hideous tattoos cover the sorcerer’s skin, blanketing his chest and back, his face and neck. He shows Isaiah something black in his grasp, a squirming thing reminiscent of a leech. Ignatio murmurs, “Hasta siempre, Raines.”
Before Isaiah can step behind O’Brien’s shield, the tattooed man drops to one knee and slams the dark thing he holds into the ground. A pool of thick black liquid, slick and viscous, springs from the soil and forms tendrils. One snaps forward and grips Isaiah’s boot. He tries to pull away, but the inky goo snakes up his leg, reaches for his hand, touches his skin.
Screaming, Isaiah drops to his knees as the darkness pushes into his flesh, rides his veins, grips his heart, infects his mind. His eyes glaze over with night, a pair of pitch-black coals.
While this happens, Rowdy Bennett knocks Big Ben Loving unconscious. Red Jeffreys’s whirlwinds toss the Weaver army back into the flames engulfing the meadow. The other Enforcers are holding their positions.
But they are too late to help Isaiah.
He has been corrupted, tainted by Ignatio’s curse. He snarls like a rabid dog, and pure fury engulfs his mind. “Bill!” Isaiah bellows. “You’re mine!” He charges for the barn.
The walls of the structure don’t slow Isaiah in the least. The cursed man crashes through the timber, snapping the wood as easily as crunching brittle twigs.
Inside the barn, the ponies shriek with terror. Isaiah barrels forward, Ignatio’s curse aiming him straight at Black Wood.
Stepping in front of his wife and child, Black Wood mutters, “Isaiah, what are you doing?”
“Look at his eyes!” Erin shouts. “He ain’t himself!”
Black Wood begs for his friend to regain his senses, but his words fall on deafened ears. Roaring with fury, Isaiah leaps at the man, leaving a trail of terrible murk in his wake. Black Wood stands firm, a solid wall in the way of Isaiah’s rampage, and the two men crash together. An explosive crack thunders between them as their knuckles meet.
The toddler Keech starts to wail. Erin tries to comfort the boy, but her husband’s battle drowns out her voice.
Black Wood and Isaiah grapple, two unstoppable forces searching for the slightest hints of weakness in each other. Amid the struggle, Black Wood screams, “Please, Isaiah, stop!”
Isaiah hears nothing; he can feel only the red storm of Ignatio’s curse.
Black Wood hears Keech screaming and shakes with sorrow and fear. If he must kill his friend to save the boy, then so be it. He focuses all his power into his fist and drives his knuckles into Isaiah’s chest. The cursed Isaiah flies backward, crashing into a post. The log shatters, causing a ripple effect that destroys the barn’s roof. Long splinters explode throughout the structure. The horses shriek in their stalls.
Isaiah staggers back to his feet.
Black Wood realizes he has only a moment to rescue his wife and child. He turns to scoop them up and run. He is not ready for what he sees.
Erin staggers and drops to her knees, a spear of wood buried in the middle of her back. Keech tumbles from her arms and weeps. The light in Erin’s eyes dims as she pitches forward, landing facedown in moldy hay.
Black Wood screams: “Mah-shcheen-kah!” Anguish paralyzes him—till Isaiah suddenly rises before him.
“You killed her!” Black Wood shouts—but if he means to speak more, the words are cut off as the mindless, enraged Isaiah grips Black Wood’s neck.
With cursed hands, Isaiah Raines crushes the life out of his friend.