The Shaman looked him over, trying to decide if he should hold him back any longer or turn him loose.
“You know what you must do,” the Shaman said.
Armando held out the board. “Take the Ouija. Let us do it now.” Armando removed his jacket and threw it in a heap on the floor of the dwelling. “Come,” he said. “The sun is setting, we must build a fire.”
He watched Armando kneel outside the tent and begin to stoke the remnants of that morning’s ashes. Good, you must want it. As he turned his focus to the task at hand, flecks of orange popped around the Shaman’s irises. Hardly able to conceal it any longer, he could barely contain his rage at this petulant boy. So much work he’d put into him. So long he’d cultivated his plans to subjugate the cartel leaders and seize control of their criminal network. Once his pupil proved his worth, the Shaman would step into power and Armando would serve as his hellhound.
While Armando worked outside, the Shaman went to a far corner of his dwelling and pulled back an old dusty blanket. He found an antique backpack hidden in a pile of what looked like junk. He opened it, pushed aside a bundle of papers, and rifled through it until he found the pouch that hid the Himbeergeist raspberry Schnapps. He looked back over his shoulder to be sure Armando was still outside, then took a deep pull from the flask. He quickly stashed it, then dug a bit more until he found what he had been looking for. In his hands, the small pouch of coins hummed with a familiar energy. He untied the strings, looked inside and saw the faint oranges and reds seeping out of the edges. “In time,” he murmured to them. “In time, you will be freed.” He tucked them back in the pack, secured it shut, and pushed it back into the junk pile before he covered it up with the blanket.
He was glad to have that work done. He knew Armando would insist on taking the Ouija, and despite his abilities, the Shaman could not access the In Between or the Ocean of Tar without it. Nor could he duplicate the Ouija.
The Shaman stood, centered himself, and then turned to the fire growing just outside his dwelling, remembering the roots of his powers. I am Seti I. Roots that reached all the way back to Dr. Laurence K. Muska. Man of Set. To the connection that had been made all that time ago. Beloved of Ptah. A connection that had been passed down from Dr. Muska, through his father, then his older brother, and then to him. Pharaoh of Egypt.
Months ago, working through the Shaman, Seti completed his harvest from the malevolent purgatory of The Before and stored an assortment of depraved entities in the reddish coins. In addition to his wives, daughter, Vizier, consorts, and those closest to him stored so long ago in the orangish coins, Seti now had what he needed to start restoring his inner circle. The boy must not fail.
The deal had been struck by sunset, the fire roared, the Ouija board sat between them, and the Shaman completed the third repetition of the now familiar chant. Armando had returned to the blackened shores many times since being infected by the entity from the Ocean of Tar. He’d kept his distance, pausing at the shore, glaring into the eyes of the horrid monster, studying it, sensing its psychic energy reaching out to connect through the temple of the eye, which resided in its forehead. The fallen being shook with rage and hunger and a desire to be free from the liquid purgatory reserved for the condemned. It had pleaded with him more desperately with each visit.
Now, standing before the glassy surface, Armando watched the horrid monster move excitedly in jerky motions, anticipating the connection as Armando knelt to put his finger to the tar once again. It had been so long, but he never forgot the sensation. The thrill of tapping into an energy so vast he could not comprehend its power. The boney hand reached up once again to grab his arm. Bigger now, more powerful, Armando stood and lifted it from the tar. Clawed fingers dug into his skin once again—deeper. It swung at him with its free arm, feet kicking the air sending drops of tar flying. Armando reared back as he held it up and reached for his blade. But instead of chopping the arm off again, he swung the blade around and pushed the tip into the neck of the energetic manifestation, just enough to pierce it. Then he used his strength to lift it the rest of the way from the muck, entirely on the tip of the blade. It let go of his arm and grabbed the blade with both hands, legs flailing, jaws gnashing the points of its stained teeth.
Armando spoke in a commanding voice, “I have freed you from the Ocean of Tar. In exchange for your freedom, you must serve me. If you accept, you must fill the mythological construct of a pishtaco. Although your energies may once again wander in La Luz Mala, you are bound to me eternally and must come immediately when I call.”
It wriggled harder before weakening at the tip of the knife blade.
“If you fall from my blade, you will return to the Ocean of Tar and the offer will be revoked,” Armando stated. “Do you accept?”
A moment’s pause, then a long hiss filled Armando’s mind. “Yeeessssss.”
“Then say the words.” Armando demanded.
“I accept your offer of eternal service in exchange for freedom.” The words filled Armando’s mind. “And consider yourself fortunate. I am no mere fallen being. I am an actual demon unfairly banished here long ago. The pishtaco is no damned myth, for that is what I am. You summoned me to the surface. Did you not think that after all this time, I would come to know your desires?”
𓂓
Evan rested on his haunches surveying the In Between from his perch in the gray mountains. Even from this far away, he could see the wound in the glassy surface where the condemned one had been torn from the Ocean of Tar, the name given to that particular purgatory, the barrier that separated the In Between from The Before.
Evan turned upward. What looked like a sea of clouds swirled above him in shades of gray. Multiple eddies and currents flowed in all directions. Scores of whirlpools formed and spun on the surface, twisting into the barrier above—the barrier that separated the In Between from The Beyond. As the textures above came into focus, Evan could see they were not clouds but masses filled with the spirits of the dead sent to a much different purgatory than the Ocean of Tar. Each whirlpool spun off the currents, twisted intensely for a moment, then ended with a burst of light in the center. Evan now knew that burst of light to be a spirit who had been granted transcendence from that purgatory and into The Beyond. Evan had trouble recalling how frequently he’d noted this event because time seemed to have little meaning here. But each time the sea of clouds would sparkle with bursts of light as if celebrating, then resume its flow.
Evan had come to understand that those who had not yet been granted passage to The Beyond were trapped in the cloud-like currents above, and those who had been evil enough to condemn, but not yet drawn into The Before, were trapped below the surface of the Ocean of Tar. Some part of him also knew that many, trapped within either purgatory, would never get out of limbo. Both condemned to look down or look up at those souls or entities that shared opposite ends of the same fate—an eternity of nothing. Karmic penance for lives wasted. Neither good enough nor bad enough to be granted passage out of their respective purgatories.
A windless, desolate no man’s land separated these purgatories. The In Between. It is here Evan had encountered die Wächtergeiste.
At some point after his death, he found himself In Between. He had felt the pull of responsibility for Elena and Jackie. Felt they needed his help. The Beyond beckoned from above but he had been reluctant to go and so remained In Between.
Then they had come. Die Wächtergeiste.
He didn’t know how many, couldn’t see them or hear them, they had just impressed upon his metaphysical energy the importance of the day Elena would be saved and that he could help, even in death.
But that wasn’t all. Evan also came to understand that he would have to do more than save Elena. Die Wächtergeiste had implored upon him to help heal the wound in the Ocean of Tar in the process, lest it be cracked further by the seething mass of malcontent that surged underneath. The goals were linked, and if he refused, an upwelling of malevolent entities would eventually break the surface, flood the world with despair and ignite the fall of humanity. From the break in the glassy surface would ooze many scores of condemned if he failed. Wasted would be the lives of good men and women who had given all to trap them there.
At the Inception, die Wächtergeiste had been given the task of guarding the vastness of the Ocean of Tar, but they allowed one from the Earthly Realm to slip in through a portal that had somehow been hidden from them. They had seen the growing boy standing on the shores of the Ocean of Tar many times. Although alarmed by his presence, they could not take action on the energy of one still alive. By the time they learned of his plan to free one of the condemned, it was too late. They had not known what happened until the entity was torn from the tar and brought back into the world through the hidden portal. Since the portal had been created in the Earthly Realm, they could not pursue its owner nor could they destroy it.
Many years had passed by the time Evan arrived In Between. His presence In Between had been the long-awaited final key in the synchronicity now playing out. They needed the right agent to work through the living and act on behalf of die Wächtergeiste. They needed a spiritual proxy already connected to the worlds now colliding.
Evan had not hesitated to say yes.
Now, the impression die Wächtergeiste had wrapped around the remnant energy of his mind clarified the depths of the undertaking—the entity that escaped must be either destroyed or recaptured. And through Clay, Evan must help the psychic who helps them all. Only through this chain of souls could the entity be returned to the Ocean of Tar.
𓂓
The older man picked up the call and grumbled, “Si,” through his congestion.
“Viejito,” The Alphabet King muttered, his throat still scratchy.
“I was napping, poco hefe.”
ABCs allowed himself a small smile as he leaned back in one of his plush leather chairs, turning an unlit cigar in his hand. Seeing his potential at an early age, the Shaman began calling him ‘poco hefe’ as a teenager. Now it had become a term of endearment, if there could be such a thing between these men.
“I have encountered something... unusual.” ABCs paused, unsure how to proceed. Rolling the cigar under his nose, he breathed in the complex fragrance.
“What is it?” the Shaman asked.
He returned the cigar to the humidor. “A man. His power seems similar to mine, in the way that you taught me.”
“How can this be? I know of no other practitioner who can...” His voice trailed off.
ABCs recounted the scene in the parking lot at the hospital. “His eyes glowed with bright white light. He seemed amplified in every respect but unrefined. Speed, strength, and untainted courage. Like a raging animal. His raw energy seemed to disrupt my connection with the pishtaco.”
“Hmmmm.” The old man sighed on the other end. Evading an explanation, he asked, “You were not able to hold the connection like I taught you?”
