The bald eagle soared high above the Sierra Nevadas, occasionally releasing one of its famed “kreeeeeeeeeeeee” noises to echo down upon the earth below. Maybe someone heard it, and marveled. Maybe not. The eagle didn’t care- it was on the hunt. Both intent and intense, the bird’s sharp golden eyes could pick out the movement of a rabbit hundreds of feet below. A rabbit was hardly a good catch, to be honest- this eagle preferred a nice, big salmon. Fresh and still wriggling.

Something down there moved. Something big. At first, the thing was impossible to identify- merely a silent black shape sliding in and out of tree cover below. But it didn’t take long for the eagle to make out the thing more clearly. It was a black box of some kind, and as it moved, it stuck to an odd gray track, bare and empty of undergrowth. The eagle had seen such strange sights before- the track was always there, after all, like a huge and unmoving snake stretching into the horizon- but the black thing, and its like, were uncommon.

The majestic avian watched, effortlessly spiraling upon nothingness, as the black box slowed and then completely stopped. A human appeared, and then another. The eagle did not like this appearing- it did not understand it. They had not been there, and then they were. It heard a clunk as of something falling shut. The humans- that was what they were, clearly- started walking into the forest. Then they were gone, hidden in deep and ever-thickening woods.

***

“Really, Yogwo, slow down. You do exhaust me.” Arch-Shaman Goonda struggled along the none-too-smooth gravel road with all the elegance and grace a two-thousand year old could muster. Up ahead of him, Yogwo rose one clammy hand to shade his eyes from the brilliant stellar orb slowly floundering its way down to twilight.

“But, dude- I mean, Arch-Shaman- we’re running out of time.”

The Arch-Shaman retched a glob of yellowish saliva into the dust. “Time, Yogwo? You aren’t exactly the one to be lecturing me on time. Trust me, I am not running out of time. And if I am not, neither are you. It really grates with me, Yogwo. It really does. Patience is a virtue. Confucius said that. I think. Anyways. It befits a Grand Shaman to be patient, and here you are complaining about…”

Hector covered his ears and kept walking down the barren mountain byway.

Two more nights had passed with nothing amiss. Nothing to alert Hector of impending doom, either from the police or from Flores. Two more nights in which he had talked about the fern with Goonda until he could hardly bear the inaction. And Goonda hadn’t said very much excepting what Hector had already known from his own experience with the infinity fern.

There had been a few remarkable things, though. Upon further conversation, the skeletal Arch-Shaman had gotten over the miserliness that came naturally to one of his age, and had dropped several disjointed nuggets of information that convinced Hector he knew more than he was letting on to. What was it that he said? “Those ferns can do more than make you immortal, Hector.” That’s peculiar enough. What else can they do? How do I make this ratty old man tell me?

And then there had been something else, something far more shocking, something revolutionary. If what the ancient Mayan codger said was true, there were methods of transforming an immortal into a mortal- a half-death into a full-death, so to speak.

Goonda evidently hadn’t cared to educate Hector on what exactly could do such a thing, and that galled the young fugitive. That guy’s been around since before Christ was born. You’d think he would be a little less grumpy by now. But then again, Hector did admit that life must get pretty boring sometime around the 200-year mark. And it didn’t help that the man had about as much physical ability as he had joy and happiness- which was to say, not very much at all.

“Why are we walking again?” Yogwo’s scratchy wail brought Hector back to an unpleasant reality. “You said this wasn’t, like, very far, dude…”

“It isn’t. In fact, I think I see the spot just ahead.”

“Where?” Yogwo strained his eyes, seemingly probing every direction except the one in which Goonda pointed.

“By that car, you hopeless buffoon.” Goonda took a deep breath, probably preparing to deliver yet another lecture on the virtues a Shaman must possess- and then promptly let it out in a stifled exclamation of dismay. “Wait a second or two! Why is there a car?!”

Hector raised his eyes to peer further down the road. Indeed, a sleek black car was parked some three hundred yards away. It was clearly out of place in the backwoods of California.

“Police?” Hector’s half-question held more fear than he would’ve liked.

Goonda peered at the vehicle, muttering sentences in a language that was definitely not English, or anything remotely close. Yogwo stood stock-still on one foot, the other frozen mid-step. Hector wasn’t sure why he didn’t put his foot down. Does he think it makes him more camouflaged or something? Oh well. I shouldn’t even bother with him anymore. There’s no understanding the ways of a Grand Shaman, that’s for sure-

“Not police,” croaked Goonda. “I don’t know who the Ukulamaniki would park their car right there, but it ain’t the police.”

Yogwo put his foot down, then raised the other one. “What’s an Uk-”

“Silence,” snapped Goonda in clear frustration. “Don’t make me call down a curse on you.”

Yogwo didn’t respond.

Goonda’s black, snakelike eyes slid to Hector. “Hector, my old brain isn’t what it used to be.”

“…Oh…” replied Hector. You’d think. He wasn’t quite sure what this had to do with anything.

“You mentioned the police were after you. Did you mention anyone else, or is that my mind playing tricks on me again?”

Hector’s mouth dropped open. Flores. “Uh, yeah. That would be Cruz K. Flores, drug-lord and king over pretty much every big-time criminal in Mexi-”

“We’ve met. Spare the biography for later.” Goonda scratched his lengthy neck in deep thought. “If that’s Flores, he knows something about this fern as well. This does not bode well.”

Hector’s eyes narrowed, and all the patience in him evaporated. “He knows more than I do, that’s for sure. I don’t even know why you two crazies tried to drag me over to some corner of the woods in the first place! What’s this big hike for anyways, huh? Why are we here, Mr. Mysterious? And why is he here?”

Goonda smiled eerily.

“I’ll tell you in a minute. For now, we run.”

Yogwo put both of his feet onto the rocky surface of the road. “And what next?”

“We fight.”