Valentina stayed up playing with Julian for the next two nights, seemingly to cling more to him.

  I’d warned her of captured shadows: how those of Nagawitchi killed their humans to become the Ana tribesmen, how that of baby Martin’s and those of several Grand Josian children had been stolen.

  Taking Julian to the cave to save the baby girl’s shadow was out of the question. Problem was Julian kept begging to go. The morning came when he only had until the clock struck midnight to get there.

  ***

  The ocean gave off a hushing sound as Valentina, with folded arms, was striding along the coastline. I jogged up to her; inquired after her wellbeing.

  “I feel so terribly for my sister, but if I don’t get Julian out of this area today, he’ll go on his own to that cave. I can’t lose him.”

  I looked on with understanding.

  “I guess this is goodbye, Doc Apollo. I’m going to gather some things from the market, then hurry Julian back to the port.”

  As the words goodbye formed at the end of my tongue, a familiar squawk woke up the beach. A cat birdie, hair standing, came diving down.

  “What in dad’s name?” I said.

  After it landed, Diamond disembarked. I felt my grin extend from ear to ear, but she was hollering and waving both arms in an emergent need. Chip tumbled off the bird, then lay in the powdered soil, bullet wound in his arm, grunting and holding back as much pain as he could.

  “Who are they?” Valentina said.

  I had no time to answer for the rush I was in to get inside and collect everything I needed.

  ***

  Finger inside the sheriff’s punctured wound, his blood and life in my hands, I said, “You got lucky. The bullet’s as shallow as you.” Then, my forceps came down.

  In the backdrop, the other two cat birdies landed. Guess they smelt their companion out. All three reunited with chirping and purring.

  Chip smiled through pain and gore. I smiled back; missed that ol’ ape man grin, who knew?

  ***

  Valentina had been gone off all morning, taking her brother to get food at the market to prepare for a long trip back to the port.

  Inside the shack, Diamond and I had gotten caught up while we were monitoring Chip. He was sleeping with his wound packed.

  “Thoink you so much for getting that bullet out.”

  “Anything for you, miss.”

  She filled me in on her time with Gustavo and how Dunbar betrayed them. She said, “We lost Gustavo, the blacksmith, too. Dunbar shot him.” She had a melancholic tone in her voice. “Oh, my back is hurting.”

  “Why’s that?”

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  With her worried eyes drifting to Chip, she said, “Guess I was cooking some good tortillas back at Gustavo’s, because the sheriff was eating a lot of them the morning we went to those ruins and was heavy to hoist up and throw on that birdie.”

  “He has gotten rather fat,” I said.

  After we shared a laugh, she said, “You know, I’ve been searching all-day, all-over San Marina for you.” Her tanned face appeared paler than it was when I last saw her; her blue eyes hopelessly in love. She whispered, “Doc Apollo, I’m afraid for Chip.”

  Valentina busted in, smacking the door against the wall. I tried to slow her down, but she wouldn’t have it. She was hyperventilating, saying her words backwards. “I need, somdy-body. Julian ran away to the hills. I turned one second, and he was gone. Ayuda.”

  “Let me get you some water,” I said, withholding my worst suppositions on what may happen to the boy. While she pleaded with Diamond, I boiled a cup of water over a fire along the beach. Brainstorming on how the hell we could save this kid, I said aloud, “What options are there?”

  When I got back inside, the sheriff was now awake, sitting on the bed. She plopped right beside him, eyes shrunken. She said, “I turned for one minute to get my liquor, and Julian got away. He ran for the hills. We have to get to him before the witch does.”

  Chip roared in pain, yanking a boot on. His crew cut had grown in the month we’d been separated, so much that he had a mess of bed hair. He locked and loaded his six-gun shooter, had it pointed up. “So, Calamity is here?”

  ***

  Betwixt two fiery torches, Calamity rocked in her chair, sneering behind her veiled witch hat. The amber rocks on the cave’s walls cast a yellowish ambiance down a room which held a stone table, all four of its corners marked by winged entity statues. A hooded dark entity with a green chin swayed forward and knelt.

  “Shedim,” Calamity said. “I haven’t seen you since the night that you captured Martin Coffee’s shadow.”

  “Hmm.” His voice was so deep and dark that it had been said to create depression in some hearers of it.

  “It is especially nice to collaborate with a dark entity who can think, rather than one of the many who go about groaning and falling all over themself.”

  “I see. I will leave now if we’re going to be insulting.”

  “Oh, you know this mission is supposed to be too big for that. Besides, take it as a compliment. You are highly intelligent and, might I add, ruthless.”

  “I know it cannot be easy for you to have lost Ahote. Now you have no choice but to depend on us.”

  Calamity laughed a little, then bellowed out a long, unrestrained fit of it. “Shedim, you don’t think it’s disappointing that we are here in the final hours of your presence for this year, and we’re ordered to sacrifice a child rather than claim a throne?”

  Standing to his feet, Shedim said, “Sam Hill knows what a threat this child will be to that throne if we don’t end him now. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Yes,” she said, a hint of disgust in her voice. “You are the expert when it comes to child operations.”

  “Your backhanded compliments aside, I’ve done it. I’ve lured him in. I commanded the bats to let him through, and he is here. You can thank me later, but we both know you won’t.”

  “He is?” Calamity said with a measured tone.

  Across the room, other side of the stone table, Julian was aiming his golden bow.

  “He is indeed,” Calamity said.

  “I can’t be in here with that fucking bow,” Shedim said, shaking his head and exiting through a door along the back wall.

  Calamity turned her measured tone into a rare peppy one. She even smiled for Julian. “De Hero,” she said, standing and then bowing. “You are such a strong and magnificent boy. Ask around, I bow for nobody, but you are a real young belvedere! We both know a child of your magnitude doesn’t want to shoot me with that. You want to be the hero who saves your sister’s shadow. I promise that I won’t be cruel. Go ahead, lay on the table. Let’s get this over with, as merciful and painless as we can. Shall we?”

  The child hugged his bow and lay down. Calamity shook her head in disagreement for her own actions then slowly made her way to him. She extracted the scalping knife, once used on Giant Chief. When she looked down, Julian was squeezing his little eyelids shut.

  She stopped herself, sneering in disgust. “This is really what it’s come to, Hill?” In the second of her reluctance, a kick from his spurred shoe to her growen sent her to a bent over posture. Felt like she’d been hit with a rock. She cursed, as he sped off.

  Shedim and an endless line of dark entities entered. Calamity’s eyes wide, she climbed on the table and pointed at them like a preacher would at a congregation. “You will not leave this room again. You hear me? Hill has put me in charge, and I say it’s time to rachet our efforts up, all the way to the Light Entity Hub and beyond. Gather the shadow of Romina; bring her to me.”