As the two fiendish powers struggled with the morsel of this man’s soul, one aching for the flesh to control, the other merely for the flesh and soul to devour, Sam Hunting Wolf found the last of his energy to speak his final prayer.

The core that contained his soul closed and expelled the fiend from him like a bullet. And as the shrieking and roaring of the foiled beast filled the tunnel, Sam spoke the rest of the prayer to expel that which he had called. It bellowed in agony as it struggled to retain a hold on its host. And in its frenzy it reached out to take more fuel.

The trick. The big trick.

The shaman would not be the meal.

There was so much fuel. A great dark well of evil from which it could drink. The Trickster was an endless feast of dark energy. It screamed as Sam’s prayer continued to shrug it from him, screamed as its cells began to revert to the cells of a man, and the darker more powerful thing that was losing its host lashed out its tendrils and drew its sustenance from the Trickster before it.

It could have no hold on the earth. The man was too powerful. The walls tumbled around them as it began to enter, to devour its weaker dark cousin.

The Trickster screamed. More in fury than in pain. And as a numb Craig McGee watched, hiding the faces of his two companions against his breast, the thing that Sam Hunt had become shimmered and moved and glided like mist into the body of the demonic form that cowered against the shaking wall.

Sam Hunting Wolf stood naked in front of the horror, unable to move, his regained body a slashed and ruined mess.

He was still muttering the prayer, the simple one Calvin had taught him, though never knowing its purpose. It was the most simple prayer he ever taught Sam: a small prayer of thanks for the wind and the sun and the earth and the flower. It was a prayer that sealed his place on earth by rejoicing in it in all its forms, making him impenetrable and strong again with love. It was the prayer that would condemn this nightmare to a fight for its own soul with the dark one Sam had called, until the greater darkness sucked it dry and left it cancelled and powerless beneath the rock. Powerless until it could grow again. For grow again it would.

But then.

Then they would be ready once more.

A boulder the size of a car tumbled from the breaking walls and fell feet from the shaman. He continued to mouth the words.

Two huge cracks appeared above the writhing black beast.