Mutt was right.

  I was lost.

  Funny thing, it wasn’t like I knew where I was going to begin with. However, I just had a feeling in my gut—I wasn’t on the right track. Searching blindly for a bullet in a haystack and I couldn’t even find the barn. To make matters worse, the snow hadn’t let up one bit. With how dark the sky was, day and night lost any true distinction.

  My hair was a cluster of a thousand icicles all icebound together. Reminded me of one of those little lacy doohickies rich folk put teacups on. Brushing it out of the way just caused a dozen of them to snap off. My clothes, too, were matted, frozen chunks, and my boots may as well have been made of snow.

  I thought it’d been days. Didn’t know if I was back where I’d started or climbing higher. A mortal me would’ve been dead many times over, whether from starvation or frostbite. I wondered if back at that couloir, I’d truly crossed over into Hell.

  But I trudged on. Lost, blind, and as bitter at the world as the cold. My legs weren’t tired, couldn’t tire, yet each step seemed a chore. I went nowhere. Walking endlessly through frozen time. Still no sign of anything more than rocky cliff faces and endless white.

  It’s hard to describe just how white everything was. I must’ve ascended a bit, since all the trees were gone.

  Eventually, I found myself on my knees. It was like my body—my timeless, immortal body—had just… given up.

  I screamed at the top of airless lungs, ignoring the dangers. My fists pounded through loose snow, unable to break anything or even crunch the ground. Like pummeling a pillow… No relief in any direction. I could’ve been lost in clouds just as easily as this frozen tundra.

  “Is this what you want?” Shouting toward the sky, I stretched my necklace out to look straight at Judas’ reversed cross. How easily I could have ripped it off and faced my demons—or angels. Been done with it.

  “No.” I pushed it down under my shirt.

  Dark thoughts fester in dire times, but this wasn’t me. I looked up, squinted, and there, at the edge of visibility, I saw something odd. Something green in this onslaught of pure white.

  Squelching any thoughts of surrender, I took to my feet and sprinted. Snow kicked up. More battered my face, making it impossible to see. I kept going until I was sure my eyes hadn’t betrayed me. My foot slid down a snowdrift, and I gently came to a stop on a patch of immaculately pruned grass the color of Rosa’s eyes and beaming with life. I blinked the snow off my lashes and cast a wary gaze around.

  A verdant oasis splayed out before me—the full green beard of spring. A small circle of paradise in the middle of a harsh wasteland. Wind and snow whirled around it as if repelled by an invisible shield. And it smelled like spring, so pungent, even my muted senses noted it.

  In the center, a flower grew. One single stem, no taller than my knee. Its petals shone white. Iridescent pearl even though there was nothing in the sky above to make it shimmer. It was as if the light originated from within. Filaments of gold splayed out around the flower’s heart in two rows, like little rays of sunshine.

  The name Mukwooru had used for the flower—okchaya na pakanli—she said it translated roughly in English to “blossoming life.” I didn’t understand it at the time. The description was far more literal than her people often were. I’ve heard of mirages in the desert, tricking the minds of dry-throated men like the sirens of ancient days. I wondered if I too was being deceived.

  I kneeled before the flower. Such a small thing to provide me so much hope. Mukwooru claimed it held healing attributes unlike anything ever discovered. That if this failed to rouse Rosa, nothing ever would.

  “A man wishes to pluck life itself?” whispered an eldritch voice. It was airy, everywhere around me all at once. I nocked an arrow and turned.

  As I spun the other way, a black figure whirred by. I let the arrow loose, just for it to pass through the presence like smoke. The wraithlike creature continued unharmed. It stopped on the other side of the flower, vacillating in wisps, though if I focused, it seemed to be vaguely in the form of a great stag, antlers and all.

  I’d felt this sensation before, heard that all-encompassing, all-around-me voice before.

  “That you, Chekoketh?” I asked, another arrow aimed straight at it.

  “This one does not know that name,” it answered. No mouth moved, but the whole being vibrated with its words.

  “Then what sort of demon are you?” How strange. Normally, around Nephilim and demonic beings, I felt a deep itch beneath the scar in my chest. Unbearable, unscratchable, unreachable—yet always there. A warning, perhaps. Presently, there was nothing. I wondered if that power had been stolen from me, just as my lasso’s blessings had.

  Or was this something else?

  What couldn’t be called a laugh erupted from the thing. I say that because it was barely a whisper, buried beneath the wind’s song.

  “Demon? This one has been here longer than a man’s Heaven or Hell.”

  “I ain’t sure that’s possible.”

  “A man cannot understand.”

  Now, I ain’t exactly a proud fellow, but being talked down to gets on my nerves. It’d pissed me off when Shar did it, calling me “child,” and it pissed me off now. I tightened my pull on the bowstring.

  “Usually, ‘a thing’ announces itself before they start with insults.”

  If this creature recognized my snark, it ignored me.

  “A man comes here to take, take, take like countless others. A man seeks the power over death itself, though he has not even power over himself.”

  “Didn’t come here to hear you perorate. I’m only here for the flower.”

  The wraith quaked.

  Was that anger?

  “One thing, then the next,” it said. “From one peak to the one beyond, until all is swallowed by a man’s endless yearning for more, more, more. This one knows your kind. A man wants what he should not have. What he does not deserve. He seeks to take what is not his. He is greed. He is avarice.”

  I had to consider my words, consider how much I divulged. However, up here at the end of the world, faced with a creature claiming to be older than God, I figured I’d take my chances. “A Spirit Talker sent me for it, that’s all. Mukwooru.”

  “A man speak names as if names possess meaning. This one sees only the heart and a man’s is stained. Leave now and be spared what is justifiable.”

  “Trust me, wraith. If I could receive what I justly deserve, I’d welcome it with a smile.”

  “Liar.”

  That small, trivial word staggered me. Was he right? I often said I’d give up the ghost in a heartbeat if it meant being done with all this Heaven and Hell nonsense. What if… I’d truly been given that opportunity?

  Whatever this was, it was playing games.

  I’d dealt with my suitable portion of creatures from otherworldly planes. I thought I just about had this one’s ticket. It was a loud dog, growling at the end of a long chain. All bark, no bite.

  “Here’s what’s gonna happen,” I said. “I’m gonna take that fucking flower, and you and I are gonna part ways without any more of this ‘a man’ bullshit. Then, I’m gonna trek down this mountain and—”

  With whiplash speed and whispering violence, the wraith darted around me once, then through me, causing me to shut right up and drop the bow. In that briefest moment, I relived all my memories. Not merely seeing them, but being in them. Like a Divining well beyond anything I’d ever been capable of.

  I was an infant, born covered in my mama’s guts, screaming and crying into this shit hole of a world. Then a boy, awkward and gangly and out of place. Caught my pa laying hands on my ma and didn’t like it. I spoke up—hell, I was the loud dog in this scenario—which earned me the belt myself. Then I was out on my own, thieving just to get by on scraps until Ace and the Scuttlers found me and brought me on.

  Bank jobs. Train heists. Shootouts with sheriffs. Hiding out when things got too hot, then rise and shine to another day of it all over again. Living free as an outlaw, a party to sin after sin after sin. Wondering futilely whether if my dad had smacked me harder, maybe I might could’ve led a straight life. Not realizing it was his sins which burgeoned in me.

  Stolen story; please report.

  And Ace was there. Always cackling and grinning and counting greenbacks. Leading me around like a dog with pups, until I finally had enough of his crimes. That when he put hands on a young Rosa and her momma, I bit. He traded my transgression for a bullet intended to send me to the grave—that was where they ended, the visions.

  All the years in between now and then, my decades as a Black Badge… absent, as if they never had been. Erased memories of a dead man. I knew this wraith had witnessed it all—my waste of a life in a muzzle flash.

  “A man is dead, yet here,” the entity spoke, a sickening tinge of curiosity bleeding into its tone. “What is he?”

  I winced. The moment the wraith extricated itself from my chest, those vivid memories became a fog. Emotions both good and bad stormed within me like a tornado on the plains. Working tear ducts or not, I wanted to cry, and I wanted to scream, and I wanted to smile all at once.

  “I thought you knew it all?” I hissed through my teeth.

  The wraith swirled around me in a probing manner. “A man is a perversion. A Nephilim… No, something else.”

  It once again plunged through me, and I had the incredible opportunity to sprint through my rotten life again.

  “Fucking hell!” I groaned when it ended, then started to laugh. Everything in me jumbled. I think I was grinning like madman who’d finally cracked.

  “Don’t you dare try that again.” I picked up the bow again and gripped it so tight, the wood started to splinter.

  “There. A man is barely a man. He is a weapon. Ahhh, yes. Forged to be used. By one and then another.”

  “What the hell are you—”

  Searing pain coursed through me as the wraith entered me once more. My bowstring snapped, sending an arrow in a lazy arc at nothing. When the torrent ended, I found myself panting for a breath I wasn’t worthy to draw. Sensation of mortality lingered in me, making it feel like I was drowning. Choking. Dying.

  “Stop!” I screamed.

  “A weapon has no identity, for neither bullet nor arrow bears a name. A weapon is only death clutched in death’s hand.”

  “I’ll give you death!” Throwing the bow aside, I drew one of my Peacemakers and aimed it right between the wraith’s wispy antlers. It was already loaded with silver rounds. I might’ve been a bit off my game, but I knew how to prepare for a trek into the wild.

  “And yet this weapon who is barely a man remains so typically human.” Its quiet yet reverberating laugh was pitiable. I felt a foot tall, the darkness of its being spreading all around and over me. “Weapons are of little use here. No. Life is the only trade. It is the only rarity. A man comes here seeking life yet can offer none in return.”

  I cocked the hammer back. “I’ve killed plenty of things that claimed they couldn’t die. Care to test me?”

  “A man is angry.” The creature said it like a taunt.

  “Well, aren’t you a wise fucking owl? No shit.”

  “A man is desperate.”

  More taunts.

  “Because you’re wasting my goddamn time!”

  “A man even claims holding over time itself. A man is selfish.”

  It felt like the right moment to change tack. Anger and threats were getting me nowhere. It wasn’t likely the thing had a heart, but a Black Badge needed to know when to play another card. “Please. I’m only here to save a friend.”

  Despite my shaky gun hand, it remained aimed at the wraith as I slowly edged toward the flower.

  “Has a friend petitioned to be saved?”

  “She can’t,” I replied tersely. “Hence, needing me.” I kneeled quickly and tried to scoop up the flower, only for my hand to halt mere inches from it like it’d struck brick. An unseen force made my fingers quake. Repelled me.

  “A man would alter fate,” the wraith said, goading me. “Alter destiny. And a man believes he is not selfish? I see through him. A man saves this friend for himself. Guilt weighs heavy upon him.”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t come here to argue details.”

  I willed my hand forward, desperate to break through the force to no avail. It didn’t hurt. It didn’t… anything. And yet, I wanted to scream.

  “What will a man forfeit in return for this blessing?”

  “And you call me selfish,” I spat. “What do you want?”

  “This one would demand a man’s soul upon the end of a man’s mortal life. Yet, a man does not live. A man’s soul does not belong to him. So, what then is there for a man to give?”

  I pulled back. More and more, I found myself asking what sort of spectral being I’d stumbled upon, but I knew a barter when I entered one. Souls were its currency. It lorded over the flowers, demanding the promise of a man’s soul in exchange. A life for a life. Robbing him of a chance at the afterlife, since it was a rare thing for a man destined for Hell to be after a life-restoring plant.

  They’d be devoured in death. Doomed to an eternity of nothingness.

  It was only then that I saw it. This thing that seemed to be comprised of black mist was something far more awful. Writhing within its undulating, nebulous form were other nebulous things ever-moving—countless souls. I could almost see their wailing faces. Trapped, forever.

  I imagined Rosa trapped within herself, unable to escape, destined for death, and I couldn’t bear it. “I’ll give anything, dammit! Name the price.”

  “No.” The answer was simple, and nothing followed.

  A beat of silence passed before I rose with all the grace of a dizzy cow. I took a step forward. “There’s always a price!”

  Blackness swirled around me, disorienting me. Everything faded except for the entity and the innocent little flower.

  “A man cannot afford what this one would seek.”

  “Anything,” I pleaded.

  “A man offers anything, but would a man be willing to pay it? Would a man leave this place, flower in hand, and return with this friend? Would a man offer their soul as penance?”

  Her soul… My heart couldn’t skip, but I pawed my chest anyway. A habit not unlearned over decades. The nature of souls and all that was well beyond my simple mind. Though if I’d learned one thing as a man out of time, out of control of his own fate, it’s that I couldn’t wish that upon anyone else. Especially not Rosa.

  As if it had read my mind, the wraith hissed, “Rosssa,” like the devil’s serpent. “Yes. That is a friend’s name. A man wears her soul as he does his own. A man is nothing without her soul. He has sacrificed everything already.”

  My head tilted back against my will. Black tendrils lashed out from the creature and surged into my nostrils. The antlered head vacillated aggressively, and I heard the sounds of Hell itself pouring out all around me.

  Within the chaos, the creature’s still, small voice spoke. “How far will a man go to deny his own damnation?”

  I raged against it all, desperate to be heard. “You won’t fucking touch her!”

  Any second thoughts went out the proverbial window. I fired a silver round right at the damn flower.

  It was as if time stopped. The air rippled, and the energy enveloping the flower practically absorbed the bullet, and the silver round disappeared in a fray of sparkly blackness.

  “A man dares threaten Wendigo!” A deep rumble formed in the entity’s belly and pulsed outward. Those tendrils, which seemed like little more than steam, hoisted me into the air. The black amalgam of ghoulish faces solidified as the creature’s head became an eyeless stag’s skull with obsidian-like antlers.

  I tried to shoot again, and found my arm held firmly back.

  The creature screeched something fierce. So shrill, it was like a pin dragged around the inner borders of my own skull. Then it jutted forward. Its antler pierced my right ribs, and I fucking felt it. Every damn bit. Fire burst through my side, and I screamed. My eyes were shut against the pain, but I forced them open just in time to see the beast’s shoulder crash into my belly. I heard the quiver of arrows fall free from the sling over my own shoulder as I was driven back with enough force to snap my spine before we struck the mountainside.

  While I wasn’t used to pain, I fought through it and strained for the knife tucked into my boot. Once in hand, I hacked at the antler to try and get free. Even dusted with silver, the knife did nothing. In fact, the blade chipped.

  “This one is beyond any weapon a man can comprehend!” the wraith thundered.

  “And I’m beyond death.” Ditching my knife, I whipped my lasso at the nearest outcrop of rock and pulled hard. The antler slid through the gap in my ribs where it was lodged. Sure, it wouldn’t kill me, but the feeling of it tearing open my skin and shredding whatever inside me passed as sinew made me wish it had. Finally, I dropped free, white bones poking out of my side. The pain subsided immediately, and I made a break for the flower.

  The wraith—Wendigo, apparently—was back on me in seconds. Frills of darkness engulfed me. I turned and fired every round left in my revolver. The stag skull chipped away with each bullet. Below was nothing, only darkness deeper than a starless desert night’s sky.

  Nothing stopped it. I was trampled like I’d been hit by a runaway wagon, limbs and hooves of pure void pinning me to the snow-laden ground. The terrifyingly emotionless skull stared down.

  “A man is nothing,” Wendigo said. “A man will only ever be nothing. A man cannot die, but death is a mercy.”

  The raw power of the thing weighed on me. Ice and earth shifted beneath us. Frozen dirt cracked as we sank.

  “A man will remain. Part of the frozen mountainside for eternity. A blemish in history. Forgotten.”

  Before I could do anything, as if there was anything to do, an arrow glanced off the stag’s skull. The trill of a tongue echoed. In the blizzard, it could’ve come from anywhere. Another arrow split off a sliver of antler bone.

  “A man brought another soul!” Wendigo boomed.

  A blur raced by us. For any normal person, they might’ve thought they were seeing things. For me? It was just an average day. A mangey dog held a cluster of arrows in its jaws, and had a bow slung around its neck like a collar, as if it were designed to be there. The very same bow and arrows I’d forsaken earlier for bullets.

  “I told you to stay behind!” I growled.

  With Wendigo distracted, I was able to wriggle my torso free. I couldn’t go anywhere, but it was just enough to grab its antlers and hold on tight for what could have ended up being the bull ride of my life.

  “Bullshit,” I hissed. “You’re never gonna forget me.”

  I snapped the end of an antler off and drove it right through skull’s empty eye socket. Its ghoulish body pulsed with a new level of intensity. I bashed the shard with my elbow once, twice, until the stag’s skull began to split.

  “You won’t keep me from what I came for!” I screamed, smashing it again. “You hear that? Nothing will!”

  Suddenly, the vibrating slowed. Wendigo’s all-encompassing presence began to dissipate.

  Saints and elders, I was winning.

  “A man does not see,” it said. The rage had fled its tone as it reverted to its earlier air of curiosity.

  I pounded the bone again with all my wanton might and the skull split off into three chunks. Beneath that hellish mask remained something so serene and calm, it was almost scarier. All the eerie, unformulated faces simply watched.

  I’d taken down plenty of weird monsters, but tranquility in the face of defeat wasn’t normal. Unless…

  I whipped around and saw Mutt kneeling before the okchaya na pakanli. He was in his human form, a silhouette against the driving snow. The bow was still strung around his neck, and the arrows clattered to the ground from his mouth.

  He whispered something as he reached for the glowing flower. For him, it didn’t resist. At the same time, Wendigo receded farther from me, releasing a sound that seemed far too much like relief for my liking.

  Finally, it said, “A man is free to leave.”

  “What?”

  “A weapon who is barely a man is not so alone, it appears. But a man must be warned that wherever a man goes, Death is his companion.”

  The wraith’s final words came like a sough. I barely heard them, because as its shadow waned, I witnessed clearly as Mutt gripped the flower’s stem and pulled it loose, easy as pie.

  The barter was made.

  The soul was spent.

  And it wasn’t mine.