I don’t know if you’re stupid or if you enjoy disobeying orders.” Raúl paced the main room in the Woodroffe home. Several villagers had carried Walker back into his room while Raúl brought his father inside.

“It wasn’t her fault,” Beatrice said evenly. She was tending to Julia, who sported a nasty bruise on her shoulder. Walker had apparently pushed her down in his struggle to get to Hettie and Diablo. Guilt gnawed on Hettie’s conscience.

“I explicitly told you to stay away from my brother while he recovers.” Raúl shook an accusing finger at her. “Diablo’s power is too much temptation for even Walker to handle.”

“Do not blame her.” Javier’s deep, gravelly voice rumbled through the room. The old sorcerer sat hunched in a cushioned wicker chair with his eyes closed. “El Diablo is my responsibility. She cannot control its allure.”

“You shouldn’t have left your bed, Father,” Raúl said a little more gently but no less critically. “You’re not strong enough yet.”

He opened his silvery eyes and glared at Raúl. “Had I known Diablo had returned, I would have wished to see Miss Alabama much sooner.”

Hettie stared in shock. Beatrice stood.

“Raúl, how could you not tell him? Javier’s waited more than a century to take Diablo back.”

“I did it for his sake,” the younger sorcerer said defensively. “He’s too weak to go through with the ceremony.”

“You do not need to worry about my weakness.” Javier smiled. “Taking Diablo out of the world will be my final act.”

Raúl shot him a disdainful look. “That is a stupid, selfish thing to say, Father.”

“Raúl!” Beatrice exclaimed, scandalized. “Show some respect.”

“You are not my mother, Señora Woodroffe.” He pointed at her angrily. “Do not address me as though you are.”

“Have a care with your words, Raúl.” Javier Punta’s rumbled warning seemed to make the ground tremble beneath their feet. “You are talking to my wife.”

Raúl threw himself into a chair opposite his father and glowered. Beatrice bit her lip as if regretting coming between father and son.

The sorcerer beckoned for Hettie. “Come here, child.”

Hettie felt very small approaching the centuries-old sorcerer. His silvery gaze was otherworldly, full of endless wonder and anguish all at once. The lines on his face suggested he wasn’t much older than Uncle, but there were more stories in those wrinkles than ridges in the mountains.

He peered at her with half-closed eyes and tilted his chin up. “You’ve bonded with Diablo.”

“Yes, sir.” She found she couldn’t address him as anything other than sir.

He held out a hand. “May I?”

Reluctantly she drew the gun from her pocket and turned it to him grip first. It didn’t seem right, somehow, to conjure it in front of the mage gun’s creator.

He clasped her hands in his. It felt as though her hand was being buried in gravel pulled from a riverbed—smooth, soft, and cool all at once. Punta’s low incantation filled her head with soothing nonsense words. She relaxed, and he slipped the revolver from her hand.

He held Diablo on the flats of his palms, staring down at it reverently. Tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. “It has been too long, old friend.”

Hettie was filled with a sense of peace. This felt right and true. Like a father being reunited with his long-lost child—

Suddenly, Punta’s face blanched. He dumped the gun from his hold, and it landed on the plank floor with a dull thud.

Raúl was instantly on his feet. “Father, what is it? What’s wrong?”

The sorcerer looked up wide-eyed into Hettie’s face. Angry red marks striped his palms.

“El Diablo … She … she has rejected me.” He stared down at his trembling hands, bewildered and forlorn. He closed his fingers tight. When he opened them again, the burns were gone. Tears filled his eyes. “Perhaps she has forgotten me. Or perhaps she remembers how I betrayed her. Either way, she is no longer mine to wield.”

Hettie stared. “What do you mean? Diablo’s yours.” She held the revolver out to him.

He stared at the mage gun in her hand. “You conjured it.”

She hadn’t meant to—she’d simply wanted it in her hands and hadn’t thought to bend down to pick it up … “Yes. We … bonded accidentally.”

He sat back, his face going gray. “Diablo does not come willingly to anyone. Not even me.” He said it as if to himself, and clasped his shaking hands. “This is about more than just blood bonds or magic: she has chosen you over me.” He glanced up. “The intimacy between you transcends blood. El Diablo knows your mind and heart. She does not want to be unmade.”

“But … you’re its maker. You’re supposed to take it back.” Panic seized her. All that struggle and travel, everything she’d come here to achieve … “I can’t keep it. There are people after it—after us.” Tears of desperation burned in her throat. “You have to take it. You have to help me undo … this!” She gestured at herself, the extra years, the unwanted burden.

Punta shook his head bleakly. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do for you.”

Hettie lay in bed that evening with her eyes wide open, trying to unhear Punta’s decree, trying to erase the feel of Walker’s weight on her, the manic hunger in his eyes and the reek of his clammy skin. When the revolver jumped into her trembling fingers for the third time that night, she grudgingly accepted its cold comfort and slipped it under her pillow. It seemed no matter how little interest she had in the mage gun, it was bent on sticking with her like a loyal, mangy, flea-bitten hound.

She suppressed a sob. She never thought she’d miss Cymon so much.

A leaden sense of defeat welled inside her. Punta said he could do nothing to lift Diablo’s curse—which meant they’d come all this way for nothing. She would never get her years back. Never be able to hold another weapon. What was she supposed to do now? Raúl had insisted he and Abby try their spell on the solstice, but hoping for the best seemed futile.

Troubled as she was, her thoughts drifted, and soon she found herself floating, anchorless in a dark dream void. Hettie looked around, unable to distinguish up from down. All she knew was that she had to go. What her destination was, she wasn’t certain. But the impulse was undeniable, and she struggled to pump her legs so that she began a steady march.

She suddenly collapsed against a hard surface, sliding down against cool, smooth wood. The world came into focus as she blinked dark stars out of her vision. Before her sat a plain door. Had she been sleepwalking? She pinched herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming now. The door swung open soundlessly, and slowly she got to her feet and entered.

The sharp smell of herbal remedies assailed her. Candles by the bedside illuminated the figure lying in the bed.

“I’m sorry to have disturbed your sleep,” Javier Punta rumbled, “but I didn’t know how else to call for you.”

Hettie hesitated. “How did you—?”

“Dream interpolation. It’s a spell that allows me to communicate with people in their sleep. Not always effective, but your mind is … open to such influence.”

She didn’t much appreciate people influencing her, especially if all she was wearing was a nightgown. She folded her arms over her chest. “What do you want?” Wariness overtook her need to be polite.

Javier smiled. “I’d hoped you’d come and talk with me.”

“It couldn’t have waited until morning?”

“I didn’t want Raúl to know you were here.”

She frowned. “This family sure keeps a lot of secrets.”

He gave a rheumy sigh. “Do not think me deceitful. My son is young and misguided and loyal to a fault, but his heart has always been in the right place. He often has the best of intentions, but they sometimes lead him astray.”

“Like when he kept us two apart?” She gritted her teeth, knowing she was being rude. She huffed. “I suppose it wouldn’t have made a difference in the end.” She pulled up the chair next to the bed. “There’s really nothing you can do to break Diablo’s curse?”

His silver eyes flickered over her. “Had I been able to take El Diablo from you, I might’ve coaxed back the years you’ve lost. But she—well, he—is completely bonded to you now, loyal to you and you alone. Perhaps he senses I mean to undo him. Perhaps he simply does not wish to be parted from you.”

“You talk about it like it’s a person.”

“I’m surprised you do not. I thought with your bond, he might have … spoken to you by now.”

Hettie wasn’t about to admit she had heard it speak in her mind. She’d rather believe she’d made it up than treat the mage gun as a living thing.

Javier seemed to read her thoughts and smiled. “There is much about Diablo you will need to learn if you are to become his caretaker.”

Hettie sucked in a breath. “Caretaker? But … I can’t. I have to … to destroy it.” She hesitated over the words. It felt as if she’d just proposed she deface a work of art or a religious artifact. She’d accepted that she would relinquish the weapon to its maker, but she hadn’t thought of it as destroying the Devil’s Revolver. She shook her head. “There are people after it. People who’ll kill me and everyone I know to get it.”

He lowered his chin. “I am sorry you must carry this burden.”

She rubbed her itching palms together nervously. “There must be something you can do. I can’t hang on to it forever.”

“You must. You are each other’s custodians, inseparable until your dying day.” He closed his eyes and tilted his head. “I can sense that you were tested together, your bond forged in fire.”

Hettie hadn’t told anyone about her journey to hell. Not even Uncle. The old sorcerer had sold her love for her parents to the devil in exchange for her life, and she hadn’t exactly been grateful about it. Hettie had made a similar deal for Abby’s, and she’d come back a bloodsucker. Forced to face that fact, Hettie didn’t much like herself for her hypocrisy.

But she was so tired of hiding the truth. Javier Punta was an ancient and renowned sorcerer. Maybe he’d have a solution to Abby’s unnatural blood hunger.

“Where do I begin?” she asked on a weak laugh.

“Where all tales do. At the beginning.” Javier settled into his bed.

Hettie began her story in Montana, on a ranch with her ma, pa, Abby, Cymon, and Uncle. She went on about Newhaven, about the day she’d first met Walker Woodroffe at a shooting contest. It had been the same day she’d saved Ling Tsang from a gang of hoodlums. The day she’d killed a man in self-defense. The day everything went wrong.

She told him about how Butch Crowe’s gang, backed by a Kukulos warlock, had killed her family and nearly killed her in Crowe’s mad quest to find Diablo. She told him about how Uncle had bargained for her life with the devil. She told him about how she’d gone to hell and back to rescue her sister from the Crowe gang, and all their adventures along the way. Then she explained how her pa, John Alabama, had once wielded the mage gun as the legendary outlaw Elias Blackthorn, and how years before she was born Uncle had tracked John down, spared his life, and helped him build a new one.

“So it runs in your family,” Javier said. “In your blood.”

“It was a mistake,” she said. “I opened the box it was sealed in. Uncle brought me back from the brink of death so I could. Sometimes I think he shouldn’t have…” She trailed off.

“It’s no coincidence that your father was the one who took Diablo from its place among thieves and murderers. It is no coincidence that his life was spared by your uncle Jeremiah’s bullet, or that you were spared by Butch Crowe’s.” Javier folded his hands. “Divine and infernal forces are at work.”

She didn’t much cozy to anyone dictating her life, gods and demons included. But as Pa used to say, life dealt cards blindly.

She’d been dealt the ultimate hand—a power few could wield. Pa had hung on to Diablo without letting it corrupt him for over twenty years: she vowed to do the same. “If I’m going to be Diablo’s caretaker, I need to know as much about it as possible.”

He nodded sagely. “I will answer any questions you have.”

She had so many, it took her a moment to collect her thoughts. “The stories say that you trapped a demon inside a revolver. I’ve been thinking about it a lot and … well, this is a Colt, a lot like my pa’s. They didn’t make these until a few years ago, but you’re … um, a lot older.”

Javier chuckled. “You’re very perceptive.” He beckoned her closer. “If I may, you should see Diablo in its original form.”

She leaned in. He pressed his palm lightly against her brow and murmured a few words, then took his hand away. Stars danced in her eyes, and she blinked them away. “Now look.”

She conjured the revolver without thinking and jumped in surprise.

The thing in her hand was solid and heavy like a gun, had the smooth black grip and cool matte black metal barrel, but she saw something else, too. Like a living thing, only made of light with dark blotches coursing over and through it, squirming like worms or flowing like blood. She squinted, trying to see something more—a face, perhaps, though why she thought there’d be a face she couldn’t say.

“Part of Diablo’s power is that it conforms to the wielder’s thoughts,” Punta said. “It changes with each person who holds it. When I first created it, it took the form of a single-shot pistola. Not that it ever needed reloading in any mundane sense of the word.”

It conforms to the wielder’s thoughts … Maybe that explained why she’d been able to close Juan’s wounds with it, despite its murderous intent.

She had so many other questions about her visions, the time bubble, the revolver’s other fantastic powers. But she found herself asking, “Why did you create it?”

Punta sank back. “In a word, hubris. I only meant to protect the people I loved. All my life I have been hounded by those who sought to control my power—bandits, military, politicians … even my own family.”

A deep sadness glazed his eyes. He went on. “I needed a symbol, an ally to show these people I had the means to protect myself. Once upon a time, staffs and wands were the sorcerers’ symbols of power, but they have grown out of style, except to a few adherents of the old ways. Perhaps you’ve seen my son’s baton? It was once part of another sorcerer’s staff, lost to time now. Raúl does like the old ways best.” He smiled briefly.

“A mage gun, however … creating one was a real show of skill. Few sorcerers can make them; metal and magic do not mix. But I was young and proud and foolish. I wanted my enemies to know I was not to be trifled with. So I endeavored to bind the infernal powers of a demon to my weapon. I did not understand the consequences of my actions…” He looked away. “I did not understand he could not be controlled as Diablo was.”

Goose bumps erupted along Hettie’s arms. “Who is he?”

He paused. “Do you believe in God, Hettie Alabama?”

“I’ve been to hell,” she said matter-of-factly, though she wasn’t sure where he was going with this. “It’d be mighty odd if I didn’t believe in the other place, too.” Not after what she’d been through, though she doubted she’d ever have a chance to confirm it.

Javier pressed his palms together. “One of the rules of magic is that there must always be balance. For all the good magic can do, there are always consequences.” He closed his eyes. “Creating an infernal mage gun demanded the highest of prices. I summoned the demon from hell and bound it to my weapon, but I did not realize at the time that my spell would also summon a divine entity to wield it.”

Hettie’s snakebit hand throbbed, and she felt something cold slither through her. “A divine entity?”

“The powers of a true demon can only be controlled by someone with pure intent and righteousness. Someone above mortal concerns, someone who does not seek power over others. Anyone lesser would corrupt Diablo’s purpose, slide the scale too far into darkness.”

Hettie felt lightheaded. “You’re … you’re talking about an angel.”

“His name was Abzavine.” The words fell at her feet like heavy stones. “When Diablo was created, he was dragged down from heaven and given corporeal form to act as guardian of the infernal power. He is immortal, and a sorcerer of the highest order. He was the one who funneled the magic at this natural node point and built the wall around the village to protect me and the mage gun. He taught me how to use Diablo, how to control it. And he helped prolong my life—it was my duty, he said, to be Diablo’s caretaker. I think he was perhaps punishing me in his own way for tearing him from his home.”

She swallowed thickly. “So … how did you end up losing Diablo?”

“In its quest for the secret that made our home so rich in magic, the military laid siege to our village. As a divine entity, Abzavine was sworn not interfere with human affairs. His perceived indifference soured many of the villagers who’d lost loved ones in the attacks. I lent Diablo to one of my most trusted friends so that he might lead a charge to drive our assailants away while I defended the people within the walls. After the battle, he disappeared with Diablo.

“Abzavine was furious with me. He’d told me never to relinquish the weapon to anyone else. The angel left us then to find Diablo. He was angry, and he promised he would return to teach me a lesson. It has been more than a hundred years,” he said wearily. “And still, I await his return. I never thought I would see Diablo again before I saw Abzavine.”

Hettie absorbed the man’s words, but her mind lingered on the angel and the broken statue in the courtyard that had seemed so familiar to her.

Abzavine.

Zavi.

She was certain they were one and the same. It explained the Kukulos warlock’s phenomenal powers, his ability to lend his magic out so readily. It explained why he wasn’t affected by Diablo’s blast.

“That broken statue in the courtyard—”

“The villagers smashed it after he left. They did not think him worthy of their … devotion.”

Two or more generations later Zavi had been forgotten, relegated to an obscure corner of the courtyard, his legacy hushed, buried.

The fallen angel of Villa del Punta who’d nearly brought the world to an end.

“I think I may know what became of your angel,” she said, and proceeded to tell him about the warlock who’d kidnapped Abby. Javier’s expression grew more and more troubled, and when she told him about using Diablo to drop a ton of rock onto the angel, Punta closed his eyes.

“I did not think he would fall so far,” Punta said, disturbed. “An eternal life in heaven has no time or meaning, but he told me once … living on this plane, with mortals dying all around him to mark the passage of time, drove him to distraction. He didn’t like impermanence. He thought we were feckless and changeable creatures. He came to resent the village, and me, over time.”

And so he’d decided to end the world. She couldn’t know the warlock angel’s twisted mind, and yet, deep down, she knew this had to be the answer.

“But … I killed him,” she said, hesitating. “You don’t need to worry about him anymore.”

Punta’s violet eyes fixed on her. “You may have stopped him for a time,” he croaked, “but he cannot be killed. As long as Diablo exists, so will he.” He looked up into her face despondently. “Abzavine is most assuredly alive.”