The sun was not a celestial body in the Wild North; it was a physical weight, a golden hammer beating the life out of the Wildcontinent. Heat waves shimmered off the cracked earth of the Nameless Desert, distorting the horizon into a dancing mirage of water that didn't exist.
In the center of this vast, alkaline tomb, a man lay face down.
Wyatt McCarty did not look like a "Kid." He looked like a piece of driftwood spat out by a dry ocean. His clothes—once a sturdy canvas duster and denim—were now bleached by salt and shredded by the scouring grit of the winds. His breathing was a wet, ragged hitch in a silence so profound it felt heavy.
He dragged his right hand forward. The movement was agonizingly slow. His fingernails were gone, replaced by raw, blackened tips that clawed at the sand.
"Not... yet..."
The thought wasn't a voice; it was a vibration in his bones.
Suddenly, the silence was punctured. Not by thunder, but by the rhythmic, metallic clink-clank of spurs and the low, guttural growl of a scavenger.
Three shadows stretched over Wyatt's collapsing frame. They weren't vultures of the feathered variety. They wore wide-brimmed hats, gun belts slung low on their hips, and the cruel, hungry smiles of men who lived off the scraps of the dying.
"Well now, looky here," one of them drawled, his voice like gravel in a tin can. He kicked Wyatt's ribs, a dull thud echoing in the heat. "A tenderfoot who thought he could outrun the sun. All hat and no cattle, this one."
"Check his boots, Silas," the second one spat, leaning over. "The leather looks better than his face. Might get a few credits for 'em in Rustwater."
Wyatt's eyes cracked open. They were bloodshot, the iris a clouded amber. Through the haze of heat stroke, he saw the man named Silas reaching for him. But Wyatt wasn't looking at the man's hands. He was looking at the air around him. It felt... thick. Greasy.
"He's still breathin', Boss," Silas laughed, drawing a jagged Bowie knife. "Maybe we should air his lungs a bit before we strip him?"
"Do it quick," the leader said, lighting a cigar that smelled of cheap tobacco and rot. "I ain't stayin' in this furnace for a corpse."
As Silas lunged, a sudden, violent spasm racked Wyatt's body. It wasn't a seizure of death; it was a surge of something ancient and terrified. Beneath the tattered remains of his shirt, the skin on his shoulder blades began to hiss.
Red, jagged lines—scars that looked like they were being carved from the inside out by an invisible red-hot iron—glowed through the fabric. The Mark was responding to the trauma of the impending blade.
"What the—?" Silas recoiled. "His back! It's glowin'!"
"Kid's a Mark-bearer!" the leader shouted, hand flying to his holster. "Kill him! Kill him now!"
Wyatt didn't scream. He didn't have the moisture left for it. Instead, his pupils dilated until his eyes were entirely black. His muscles swelled, tearing what was left of his sleeves. His fingernails elongated into obsidian talons, and a low, predatory growl—too deep to be human—vibrated from his chest.
The Deor was waking up. The Chupacabra was hungry.
"I told you," Wyatt whispered, his voice a distorted rasp that sounded like two stones grinding together. "I ain't... dyin'... in the dirt."
With a burst of speed that defied the laws of the desert, Wyatt lunged.