Cool air wafted through paneless windows. The forest outside was thick with the sound of birds, chirps overlapping each other in a twittering chorus. The room smelled faintly of mountain skies and half-yellow leaves. Human voices murmured indistinctly from somewhere below. An excitable breeze brought a little too much dust in from outside.

Flores sneezed explosively and jolted awake. Reality seemed to flicker and shift uncomfortably. It felt like he was peering into a mirror- a mirror made of very clear Jell-o. Flores thought about that. The scene before him kept wobbling and stretching. Maybe the Jell-o mirror was in an earthquake as well. But only a little one. Like the ones in Japan.

His mind shut off before he could vomit.

When he woke, he glanced around. The birds kept up their clamorous chatter. The wind had died down- just a bit- and the sun had hardly moved.

He opened his eyes. The earthquake had subsided somewhat, he thought, because now the Jell-o wasn’t jiggling quite so badly. There were people standing above him. Weird, Flores thought, and closed his eyes again.

“Wait! Sir! Flores! Eh, uh, um, uh, master! Sir!”

Flores rubbed his eyes fiercely and shook his head, clearing away the last of his disorientation. Five men stood looking down at him. Giuseppe Caglio, his trusted Italian aide; Thaddeus Gnostro, a nondescript, shabby, and, at this moment, quite high man of uncertain nationality; Maximus Doran, a pale, bald Norwegian with icy, nervous eyes that darted incessantly; Marcus Angel, Flores’ bodyguard and brother to the recently deceased Karl Angel; and the ratty man from the lab. Flores didn’t know his name.

“What is it? Where- what- what happened?”

Caglio spoke first. “You are now immortal. Congratulations, sir.”

Flores blinked, contemplating this. “Good. About time. And?”

“Well… uh…”

Several seconds passed in silence.

Flores glared at the Italian. “Well, what?” Caglio shot a look at Doran. Doran grimaced, showing unpleasantly pointed teeth, then turned to glance at Marcus Angel. The towering man shifted on his feet.

“I said,” Flores hissed, “What?” His voice was cold, serpentine, and worst of all, rapidly rising in pitch- a sure sign of impending doom to those who knew the drug-lord. One eye twitched menacingly in his fleshy face, and his mustache quivered as if preparing to strike.

“I-it’s Torres, he’s, uh, gone, and we don’t, um, know where he went, and, um, Blair’s gone too, and, uh, we, uh, we, we dunno where he went either, and, um… yeah,” stuttered Angel, rather lamely.

“WHAT?!” Flores’ exclamation was followed by a sort of half-muttering, half-wheezing stream of indistinct rage that no one present could confidently interpret. Marcus Angel gulped fearfully and edged his way farther from the mattress upon which Flores was lying.

“Sir,” Doran rasped in a dry, grating tone, “we’ve been looking for them all day. Torres was the first to go. Last anyone saw him was Gnostro here. Here’s how it happened: So Torres is supposed to be on guardhouse duty. We send out another man to take a turn at the guardhouse, and… he’s gone. The shotgun’s gone too. Cameras didn’t show anything.” He paused, eyes still scanning the room. “We started the hunt. You were still knocked out, so we…” Flores glared dangerously and the man hastened on. “Uh, anyways, we sent out a search party. We all split up into pairs of two. There were eleven of us. Blair was the only guy on his own. Last I saw him, he was walking into the woods on the east side. Twenty minutes later, everyone regrouped, but he was missing. There are still guys looking out there-” Doran nodded towards the open window- “but who knows what they’ll find, if they find anything at all. Now I’ve given them weapons, and radios. Personally, I think it’s an animal. Maybe they got jumped. There was a cougar around last night.”

“You have done well, Doran.” Flores narrowed his eyes in consideration. “An animal, you say?” He stroked his many chins in thought. “I suppose it could have been an animal…”

“Me,” chimed in Gnostro, “I sez it’s sumpin’ not nat-ee-ral, y’know? A ghost fer’ sure. They always did say there wuz’ strange happenenz’ ‘round these parts. Why, you done shoulda’ heard ‘bout the hauntin’ o’ ‘89, why, the-”

Flores looked at Gnostro, and there was something in that look that scared the man into silence.

“Perhaps,” Flores announced to the room, “this animal-” he put special emphasis on the word- “did get those men. But perhaps, it was not an animal. Perhaps… it was a man!”

He paused for dramatic effect.

“A, uh, a man, suh’?”

“You mean Hector Domini, don’t you, sir,” said Caglio.

“I do.” Flores stared at each man in the room in turn. Some shifted uncomfortably. Some looked away. Only Doran met his gaze.

“You know what to do, Doran.”

“We’ll burn down the forest if we have to, sir. No matter what, we will find them.”

As the six men left his presence, Flores uttered a low chuckle. He could hardly wait.

***

“So you’re saying they know you’re here?” Arch-Shaman Goonda glared daggers at Hector and Yogwo.

“Well,” Hector said, pausing to catch his breath, “we think so. At the very least, they know something’s up. Ky- ah, Yogwo here put two men out of action. By now, it must be obvious that they’re missing.”

Yogwo grinned and swung his stick like a baseball bat, barely missing Hector’s forehead in the process.

Goonda spared the Grand Shaman a disdainful look before returning his focus to Hector. “So, what do you want me to do about it?”

“Well…” Hector glanced at Yogwo. “We have a plan. Care to explain, Yogwo?”

“Yeah, dude. I mean, no, dude. I mean,” the filthy man scratched his head, “yes, I am willing to explain our plan… dude. So, pretty much, I have the stick. Hector has that Torres guy’s shotgun. You have, uh, the, uh, the magical forces or whatever.”

“Wrong,” Goonda said. “It’s called-”

“Anyways,” continued Yogwo, “We all hike up to the compound again. You come this time. We go around to the back, where they won’t expect us. Maybe you can do something big up front. Dissolve a car or something. I-”

“Something as complex and well-Ordered as an automobile will be difficult for even I to dissolute,” interjected the Arch-Shaman. “Not to say I couldn’t do it, but there are better ways to cause a-”

“Okay, pal,” Hector said, “we get it. Just… divert them. Somehow. Draw attention to the front of the compound, while we get around the back.”

Goonda started to grumble in opposition, but Yogwo cut him off. “Big thankies, Hector. Like I was saying, we come in through the back and take out the watchmen there. Hector, try not to use the gun unless you have to. And then we find the big man- Fulton?”

“Flores.”

“Flores, yeah, dude. So we find Flores, and send him to flower heaven.”

Goonda and Hector exchanged a look. “Flower… heaven?”

“Yeah, dude! Y’know, Flores? Like ‘floral’? Flowers?” Seeing his friends’ blank stares, Yogwo went on. “Maybe it wouldn’t be flower heaven, seeing that the big guy’s a drug lord, but it sounds better than flower h-”

“Okay,” interrupted Hector, “move on with the plan. Time is short.”

“We find the big man, shoot his henchmen, get Ike here to bite him, and walk out like nothing’s happened.” Yogwo glanced inside the backseat of his car. Ike, the huge stone-sleeper they had taken from Serpentemple, was slithering around amiably. Yogwo opened the rear door, whistled some kind of signal to the snake, and let it wrap around his shoulders like some kind of insane scarf.

Goonda shrugged. “Sounds too easy. But I don’t have a better idea.”

One hour later, the three men had hiked a good way around the side of the mountain. Obscured by thick forest and high rock, the compound lurked above, invisible to their eyes.

Upwards they trudged, keeping their eyes peeled for enemy activity. Each step brought them closer to- to what? Hector wasn’t sure what would happen, but he was ready for anything. He hoped.

Suddenly, Yogwo froze. “Shhhh,” he whispered, and lowered himself into a half-crouch. “There’s someone up there,” he said, gesturing to a spot on the mountainside above, about twenty yards away.

As Hector followed suit, he peered towards the area Yogwo had indicated. There was nothing there that he could discern- nothing but trees and underbrush. The spot looked no different from any other-

Movement- bushes and tree branches shaking- caught Hector’s eye, and he stopped breathing.

Someone was there. Close. Very close.

“What should we do, Arch-Shaman?” hissed Yogwo from the corner of his mouth.

Goonda thought for a moment. “I’m no general. Let Hector decide, it’s his battle.”

Hector sent a glare in the old Mayan’s direction, but his gaze almost immediately returned to the spot where something had moved. “We get as close as we can. Then, we either club him,” he nodded at Yogwo’s cudgel, “or tackle him. We shoot him only as a last resort. If this guy’s looking for us, there must be others.” He glanced at Yogwo. “Which means we were seen when we took down Torres. If not, at the very least they know he’s missing.”

Yogwo nodded. “I’m the stealthiest,” he said in a loud whisper. “I’ll deal with the dude up ahead.”

Silently, the young Grand Shaman crouch-stepped further up the slope, occasionally pausing to take cover behind the rocks and undergrowth that littered the forest floor. Hector was impressed- Yogwo was stealthy, if not especially strategic. Soon, he disappeared from their sight entirely.

“Hey!” bellowed a thick voice that Hector didn’t recognize. “Get off me! I’ve found them! I-”

A shot fired. Someone yelled. Two more shots went off, accompanied by more yelling and scuffling in the bushes ahead. Suddenly, Yogwo cried out in pain. Someone else was laughing maliciously. “Are there others? Where are the others?”

Hector forgot about being stealthy.

With a roar of defiance, he rushed up the hill. The shotgun felt as light as a feather in his hands. He didn’t have to turn his head to see Goonda scrambling up the incline right beside him.

Bursting through the undergrowth, Hector skidded to a halt. Yogwo was on the ground, clutching his forehead in pain. His club lay broken in half some distance away. Two men stood over him. Ike, the stone-sleeper, was coiled around Yogwo’s chest, prepared to strike at anyone who approached.

Hector leveled the shotgun at the first man. His finger tightened on the trigger, and time seemed to stop.

I’ve never killed a man before.

The thought came suddenly, unexpectedly. Like a pebble thrown across a frozen lake, it skidded across the surface of his mind. He had never killed. What was he, a murderer?

But it would be right, Hector thought. It would be just. He’s attacking my friend.

So you kill him?

It is self-defense.

Do you want to be like him?

Like who? Hector already knew the answer.

Like Flores. This is what he would do. Do you want to stoop to his level?

Time picked itself back up again.

I’ve never killed a man before.

Hector pulled the trigger.

The gun jumped in his grip. BOOM.

The first man toppled like a falling tree. There was blood on the ground. Hector didn’t notice. His friend was in danger.

Acting without thought, he pivoted and swung the shotgun, club-like, full force into the second man’s face.

Time regained its usual speed. Hector blinked and looked around. Yogwo was still on the ground, openmouthed. Even Goonda was gaping at Hector. The entire encounter had taken mere seconds, but Hector felt like it had been an hour.

“I… I…” He choked the words out. “I killed him.”

“I’m sorry,” Goonda began in an unusually sympathetic tone. “It-”

“No, you didn’t, bro,” interrupted Yogwo.

Goonda closed his mouth with a snap and glanced at the ground where the first man lay. It was not a pretty sight. The man’s right arm, the one once clutching his weapon, had disintegrated in the force of the shotgun’s blast. It was little more than a useless, bleeding mess at his side. But Hector’s aim hadn’t been especially good- the man’s face and torso were (comparatively) in much better shape. He was still breathing, though barely.

“Well,” said Hector.

“Well,” said Goonda.

“Welp,” said Yogwo, “don’t have all day, do we?” He picked up the second man’s gun, a short black carbine. “I’ll be taking this. The guy almost shot me with it, so it must be good.”

Suddenly, an indistinct shout rang out from above. Hector spun, all thoughts of stealth disappearing from his mind. It was too late for stealth, now.

“It was down here!” someone yelled. There was more talking that Hector couldn’t make out. Someone was crashing through the bushes up the hill and a good bit to their left.

“We need to move,” Hector told the others. “Now.”

“Truer words have not been spoken recently.” Goonda started to climb, Yogwo tailing him closely.

They moved at a run. Goonda, for all of his two thousand and thirty-seven years, managed to keep up with the younger men- just barely. At one point, Yogwo offered to carry the Arch-Shaman on his back, but Goonda only wheezed in the negative and continued his valiant struggle up the mountain.

They were going for Flores.

Really, thought Hector, there isn’t anywhere else to go. I’m sure they would catch us eventually, even if we do make it to the car. Flores has plenty of his own vehicles, and even more weapons. They could only make a break for the compound and hope no one found them before they found the drug-lord. When they did…

Suddenly, a towering figure appeared out of the foliage. Hector fired at the man without much thought and kept running. He was vaguely aware of a bullet whizzing somewhere by his face. And then another.

Crouching low, he sprinted further up the mountain. They were so close. The trees were growing sparser now, giving way to shrubs, bushes and boulders. The compound was visible ahead, white walls looming low like a predator preparing to pounce.

We’ll make it, Hector urged himself. “We have to make it!”

Three men suddenly emerged from the building ahead. Hector skidded to a stop and focused on them. The first was a tall, thin man whose dark features Hector couldn’t make out clearly; the second was shorter, with a bald head and a startlingly pale, white face; the third dwarfed the other two. Hector immediately recognized Flores’ towering bodyguard, one of the twins, although he didn’t know his name.

All three carried weapons, and they were all staring directly at Hector.

“They aren’t-” Yogwo gasped for breath beside him- “they aren’t shooting at us.” He sank to his knees before adding a belated “dude.”

Hector nodded. One of the men- the short, white-faced one- spoke into what looked like a radio of some sort.

The crashing pursuit through the woods on either side of them- their rear side was still open, as far as Hector knew- suddenly drew up.

“To the left,” Goonda whispered. “Baddies.”

Hector jerked his head to the left. Sure enough, men were visible through the trees, slowly approaching. Their madcap chase had given way to a methodical walk.

“On the right too,” whispered Goonda again. A quick glance confirmed this to be true. Hector locked eyes with a man approaching their right flank: “Snad” Jacobson, one of Hector’s first clients as a drug dealer. He smiled weakly at Snad. Snad only sneered in reply.

“Are we surrounded?” asked Yogwo. “I think we’re surrounded.”

“Not in the rear, at least not yet.” There were probably fifteen men in total flanking them, Hector estimated. Maybe twenty. Too many to fight, but if no one came up behind them, maybe they could run for Yogwo’s car…

A sound up ahead startled Hector out of his plotting. He hadn’t realized how quiet everything had become, but now, the noise of a door slamming thirty yards ahead of them echoed in the mountain air.

A door, Hector thought vaguely. Who slammed-

Yogwo let out an involuntary sound that was half-gasp, half-choke.

“Crikey,” muttered Goonda.

Up ahead, guarded by his three most trusted henchmen, his great bulk straining at a ballistic vest, stood Flores.