Three creatures knelt, purred, and made gentle blue eyes. This brought a warmth that loosened my disposition. When I brushed the head of my selected guide, it chirped with appreciation.

  “We only need to tell them where to go,” Owl said.

  “Fort Cross,” ordered Dunbar.

  A glimpse at a patch of missing fur behind my ride’s ear showed a scar that brought remembrance of Nagawitchi of old betraying these trusting furballs. “There, there.” I held my smile. “You’ve been wronged before.” Gazing into Diamond’s eyes that had swollen up from shedding tears, I continued, “Time is the right treatment to take care of you.”

  She gave me a sorrowful stare. “I shouldn’t have been short with you, Doc Apollo. You said you lost a loved one. How do you ever feel right?”

  “In your case, you did all you could, so.” I paused, before a poke from a pistol bruised my back.

  “Git own that flying cat bird, right now.”

  Dunbar sort of threw that name out, “cat bird,” but we all accepted it as classification for this specie. We did so rather unconsciously, may I add.

  Chip threw up a hand. “That’s enough roughhousing with Doc, Deputy.”

  Dunbar climbed up behind me, putting me much closer to that healed nether eye than desired. Giant Chief took up an entire back of a cat birdie. This left one over for Chip and Diamond to share. Chip fixed his eyes on the soil, Diamond the saguaros. “Well, I reckon you noid to get on up first,” Diamond said. “I’m too weak right now for a big man to hold on to.”

  ***

  We had ascended. Right when I thought I’d lose breath, the ridge between the shoulder blades of the animal opened and transmitted waves of oxygen. I grinned, holding on to fur, turning side to side with my coat fluttering up. Don’t know if anyone reading will ever believe, but we were above clouds, ears aching and popping.

  Canyons and rivers appeared to be settings for wooden toy soldiers collected on my coffee table. Couldn’t believe a world so small carried such significance.

  Dunbar pulled snug into me. “We gone fall.”

  I threw back my elbow and hit him on the nose.

  When I turned forward, the birds seemed to be changing course, taking direction from something other than us. All our cat birdies spun in full turns toward the direction of a light. It was cooler than the sun’s but just as blinding. We surged straight forward, unable to make anything out from the beam of energy that took us in.

  How’d our feet get on solid ground? A land a-rotating in the sky? Steam rising from sweltering waters?

  Gemstone shaped lands for no more than two individuals were shipping white clothed men and women to their destinations. Our posse appeared there, already embarking on separate tiny islands. Diamond and Chief shared one. Dunbar stood alone, while I found myself paired with Chip.

  “Nothing shocks me, anymore,” I murmured.

  “Damndest place I’ve ever been,” Chip said.

  We glided by golden statues of winged entities with eyes sparkling like colored diamonds. Heard Dunbar holler, “Gawd damn, we’re supposed to be going to Fort Cross.”

  Funny animals, ones with racoon heads and dog snouts, abnormal like our cat birdies, scurried about on some island of pink leafed trees.

  Words over a gemstone pillared building, that we seemed to be heading for, read “Ether Hub.” A sweet aroma lured us to it, while violin music mounted to what seemed to be a crescendo.

  By the hub, an Aztec warrior, recognized by a white eagle chest plate and headdress as big as him, waited with a glare.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  We edged toward him, which got Chip squatting in that smilin’, wrasslin’ jackass pose. I scolded, “Can’t tell if you want to tussle with him or take him off a sparking.”

  He burst into ire. Fortunately for me, we arrived before he would put me in one of them dreaded collar and elbow tie ups. The rest of the posse alighted after us.

  With smoke rising from the hub, the Aztec said, “Greetings, my name is Xochipilli. Welcome to the Light Entity Hub. Why don’t you all enjoy? That is—all of you but you, Big Owl. Chief, I’ve arranged a one on one with you to follow up on our special agreement.”

  Owl sneered and grunted, as the two departed, together.

  Chip, Diamond, Dunbar and I moved past white robed onlookers. “Well, we’re getting stared at,” Diamond said.

  I picked up on some entity chatter on the white cobblestone road that led to the hub. “You think Owl will soon become one of us,” a female voice said.

  “If so, his transition will be glorious,” another entity replied.

  We made it inside to where we could barely see sapphire laden tables through the cloudy aura. The fumes arose from large, glass, smoking instruments in the hands of the entities. All the white robed men and women looked on with smiles, seemingly enthusiastic on our behalf for our arrival.

  Chip and I exchanged uneasy glances. “You don’t think we died, do you?” I said.

  Both of us answered “no” at the same time.

  At a table, center of the room, a blonde headed, white robed man waved us over. Puffing ether out a blunt, the European accented light entity said, “Brilliant. Do you bloody feel it, blokes?”

  A couple gal light entities stared on at him, puffing their own ether, admiring whatever edicts he may espouse.

  The European said, “Name’s Friedreich.”

  In the sweet-smelling room, Dunbar’s boots reverberated against the stone floor. After he came through the clouded atmosphere, a ray of light shone on his scowl. He said, “I don’t see no monument for the one who knows his name. Where’s his?”

  “Damfino. And get out my space. You’re cutting a finger. I wish to speak with your pals.” Friedreich replied.

  “The hell you mean?” Dunbar growled back.

  “You stink like the slops. Better leg it.”

  “Why don’t you dirn well make me, you bluebelly namby pamby.”

  “Our laws won’t allow us to kill or be killed by mortals. Unless? Are you looking for me to hand you your arse for the rubbish of it? I’ll oblige.”

  “What I want to know is if you aint worshipping the truest one who knows his name, who the evangelist preaches on, then what are you wrongfully bowing down to.”

  “We don’t have all the answers. What I can tell you is we’re dead. But we died in such valor, we were made light entities. There’s a war between us and the dark entities. It’s happening right in your alley, scumbag. It’s a war to claim the western expansion for our respective realms. And you had better beware, because everyone who calls themselves a preacher of light entities aren’t for truth.”

  “So, what you want from us?” Diamond said. “Ahem. Bloke.”

  “It’s not what we want. It’s what we must have.”

  We heard buzzing that became more aggressive as it went, then we turned toward a motion picture that came through the white haze. The picture sucked our vision through trees eaten up by cicadas. When our view came out the other side of the forest, it was pulled passed stone stairs of a temple to fiery alters at its entrance. Along the way, a heap of light entities’ dead and mangled bodies smelt of ashes, carried a stench of smoke that became suffocating.

  At the top of the great stone stairs, the Aztec light entity who we’d seen earlier, Xochipilli, came a-running for his life. He met Friedreich halfway down.

  “My heart is split in two on the ways of peace, which we’ve been taught,” Xochipilli said to Friedreich. “All these light entities have died a second death; because of our negligence to get the source of power, the blood, we’ve needed, while Sam Hill, through his witch, has become invincible.”

  “I told them all,” Friedreich shouted. “We have waited too long. Never again.”

  “Never again,” Xochipilli affirmed.

  From the top of the temple, a shadowy figure tilted his top hat at them.

  Friedreich cast a threat that rang into the air toward the mysterious creature. “We will pay all of you dark entity scumbags back one hundred times over. You hear?”

  ***

  The motion picture disappeared and left us back in the hub with Diamond gazing down, Dunbar hanging his mouth open, and Chip and I staring at one another in awe.

  Friedreich balled his fist. “You saw it. We entities draw power from blood. The dark ones have gotten tons of it from Calamity, while us light ones have starved. For us to win, we need blood. But we’ll do it the right way.”

  I stroked my goatee and gazed out the window. Outside, Owl pushed Xochipilli aside. What I read from the Aztec’s lips were, “You owe us a blood payment.”

  I turned to Friedreich and said, “You’re asking for blood?”

  “There’s a vaquero,” Friedreich said. “That lad was put here to be a vessel for us to use.”

  “A young vaquero and blood. I don’t like anything you're saying,” I said. “You're no different than the dark entities, thirsty, wanting to use—yes, use— human vessels, and you don’t mind if those vessels are children.”

  Chip threw his hands up, just coming short of making contact with Friedreich. “We’ll handle this ourselves. Leave the children alone. You’ll come through us before you take any of them.”

  “You be careful how you say that,” Friedreich replied.

  Dunbar stepped betwixt them “We gone see. We gone see what the evangelist at Fort Cross says, and if your dirn cat birds take us off track again, I’ll blast them dead.”

  “Your mingin attitude’s not setting right with me,” Friedreich said, getting into Dunbar’s face.

  The door slammed open, and Giant Chief ‘s silhouette was mounted high behind the white ether smoke. “Let’s go… Now.” Chief ordered