It looked like it should have been cold.

The simple thought entertained Pablo as he took one step, then another and another into a world that was real and at the same time not. Shadows and overcast gloom filled him with more of a sinking numbness than any actual chill from whatever fog and vapor decorated the basement floor of this mirrorverse version of "Ashy Slashy's Hardware Store and Sex Toy Emporium."

"Kelly?" Silence. The lack of response came as no surprise. When Ash had attempted this, Pablo had enough time to be ragdolled around and behead a deadite before the Jefe returned with Brandy. It was too much to hope that Pablo was "especial" enough for Kelly to just appear and fall into his arms.

It was smart of her to not answer, which he chose to find comforting, because Kelly was smart. Shit was weird up in this place with shadows that seemingly morphed into things more sinister just outside of his periphery. It was enough for Pablo to feel crazy in the time it took him to climb the basement steps, let alone however fuck long Kelly had been trapped there.

And maybe he was crazy. As soon as his feet left the basement steps, he was standing in a tent on his uncle's property, not the main level of the hardware store. Animal bones littered the ground and a goat skull grinned at him. The center post still wore the bloodstains of Kelly's Eliogos possession. Kelly. The memory of her presence was scattered throughout this hellscape in a way that made Pablo want to believe it was trying to tell him something.

That, or El Brujo was reaching beyond the grave again to tell Pablo to stop being such a dickwit. If that was the case, he hoped the naked lady at least would make another appearance so he could find out if she did or did not like coffee.

Outside the tent led to the streets of Elk Grove and his fish and chip stand. As little sense as it made, it made Pablo giggle. Traveling to his uncle's home had him afraid that he'd continue to go back in time and he didn't exactly have the luxury to reminisce about Honduras or Puerto Rico. Asphalt streets in perpetual nightfall accompanied by the high-pitched shrieks of teenaged boys seemed more promising.

The last time Pablo had seen that boy, it was at Brandy's high school and the kid had more of his insides on the outside of his cheap tux than where they belonged. The boy locked eyes with Pablo and bolted toward the food stand as fast as his canvas sneakers would take him.

"Help me!" Maybe it was a sign he was getting cynical, but hearing those words screamed at him basically cemented in Pablo's mind that the kid was a goner.

He was right; shadows trailed the kid and stretched toward him as he continued to run and dodge. Blackness turned into hands rotted and gray that dug their fingers into his ankles. The boy struggled enough to trip, his yelps louder and increasingly higher decibels with each additional hand that gripped his body.

It was the surge of adrenaline Pablo needed to spring into action. He darted around his food cart and raced toward the kid. "Hang on!"

As the ground opened into a black nothingness to swallow the kid whole, Pablo grabbed the boy by an arm. Experience told him this would not end well. He'd wrench the arm or a torso free and get sprayed with viscera for his efforts. Or worse, he'd get pulled along to wherever that kid was destined to go. Still, inaction seemed somehow worse.

"Hang on," he repeated. "I've got you. I won't let go!"

The boy was too panicked to be soothed. Whatever he was trying to say came out as incomprehensible hysteria, instead. His free arm flailed at Pablo's waist and made Pablo stagger to correct his balance. More hands sprang up from the open maw in the pavement and he could feel them grip his feet and wrap around his ankles.

That's when things got loco. Instead of dragging Pablo in with the kid, the hands began to push him back. They yanked hard enough for him to stumble, like they were trying to shake whatever hold he had on the teen. The boy howled in terror as he sank deeper into the mass of shadowy hands, but Pablo was edged closer to the surface the harder he strained toward the kid. It was a strange sensation to just know instinctively that these otherworldly monstrosities were laying claim to that kid while simultaneously telling Pablo to fuck off.

"No!" As frustrating as it was to helplessly watch the asphalt close in where the boy had just been seconds previous, it was kind of reassuring to see the truth in action of being a bridge between two worlds. Not that the kid probably shared his sentiments. Pablo exhaled a resigned sigh as his body continued to be jerked away from the receding chaos. Any trace of the boy disappeared into the street and all the hands dragging Pablo fell away one by one until he was only aware of a single set of arms.

Pablo snapped his head back and found himself face to face with a pair of angry, kohl rimmed brown eyes. "Kel—?"

"Shh!" She glared at him, a finger pressed firmly against her lips, and nodded toward the theater across the street.

He nodded. "O—"

"Shh!"

"—kay..." Kelly grabbed hold of his arm and took off in a full sprint toward the theater. Pablo allowed himself to be pulled along and searched for an opportunity to ask questions.

As soon as they entered the theater he realized they weren't in the theater. He squinted at the familiar interior, complete with mechanical bull in the corner and rows of pink fucks lining the bar. He shrugged at Kelly, but her anger had only intensified since they'd gotten safely inside.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"Looking for you," Pablo said. "We found your body, it's back at the hardware store, so we just have to get to the rift—"

"Ash already tried that." Kelly shook her head. "And if he wants to kill himself to get here that's fine, because it's Ash, but you know better! You've died once already— you think I want you intentionally killing yourself because I fucked up? Maybe I've been dead too long, maybe that's why it didn't work the first time. I can't believe you killed yourself!"

"I didn't kill myself!"

Kelly just stared at him. "Pablo. Do you seriously think I'd be happier knowing that you accidentally got yourself killed, instead?"

"I didn't—!" He stopped himself and smirked. He straightened himself up and tried to see how smooth and cool his voice could sound. "I'm not dead."

"Seriously."

"I'm not!" he insisted. "I'm El Brujo Especial! I have a foot in each world. I don't have to die to save you."

"You don't?" Immediately, her demeanor relaxed. "Alright. Let's get to saving, then. Got a plan? Last time, I couldn't cross through the rift with Ash."

Pablo nodded with a grin. "Yeah, we fixed that," he said. "Some ancient Sumerian chick was inhabiting your body, so you had no space to return to. She's gone, now."

"Wait. Someone else was using my body?" She stalked over to the bar and slumped into a stool. "I was stuck down here because someone was using me as a meat puppet!"

"I mean, well, yeah. Kind of."

Kelly brought a glass of pink fuck to her lips, sniffed it, and then thought better of it. She dropped the drink back down on the bar. "But whoever it is, they're gone now, right?"

"Yeah," Pablo said. "We fixed it."

"Fixed it with a bullet?" She laid her head down on the bar. "Please tell me that asshole is dead."

"Oh yeah," he assured her. "Super, soul-scorched kind of dead."

That made her smile. "Good." Kelly hopped to her feet. "I've had enough of this place. Pablo, let's get the fuck out of here."

He nodded. "Sounds good. We need to get to the rift."

"The basement of the hardware store," she said. "But this world isn't exactly built like ours."

"I've noticed," Pablo replied. "Will we be back on the street when we walk through this door?"

"Yeah, probably," she was already peering out the window like that would tell her anything, "but we have to be quiet and we have to be quick. Those shadow demon what-the-fucks are attracted to noise and they're looking for dead souls to drag somewhere I can only assume is worse than here."

Pablo joined her in scowling at the window. "Quick and quiet. Gotcha. How hard can it be to make a break for it across the street?"

"Without Dalton as a distraction? It could get a little tricky."

"Dalton was down here?" He snorted, "Of course."

There was that smirk. "Why? Jealous?"

"No! I mean, maybe just a little."

"Come on." The smirk grew to a full grin as Kelly flung open the door. "Quick and quiet. Stay close to me."

Leaving the bar placed Pablo immediately into the passenger seat of the Delta. Not the worst thing, since it was parked across the street from the hardware store, but he could see Kelly next to him, beating her head against the steering wheel.

"This is my fault," she muttered. "I'm thinking too much about last time."

Pablo dropped a hand on her shoulder, if for no other reason than to stop her from hitting her head again. "It's okay," he told her. "The rift is right over there. We've got this."

Kelly sighed. "Yeah. Alright, let's go."

Gingerly, she lifted the latch on the car door so that there was a barely audible click. She lucked out and managed to open the door without so much as a creak as she stepped softly into the deserted street. Kelly gestured for Pablo to follow, which he did, climbing across the center console and digging his elbow into the steering wheel for support.

He wasn't sure what was more startling: how loudly the Delta's horn echoed in the empty street, or how instantly Kelly's narrowed gaze of concentration turned into an expression of wide-eyed shock. Pablo jerked his arm away from the horn and he and Kelly just stared at each other in the stretched eternity of seconds that followed.

"Shit," he breathed.

Kelly nodded and silently mouthed, "fuck."

That was all the time given to them before the ground surrounding Kelly ripped open and exploded with shadowy hands. Grabbing, pulling, dragging, she immediately found her voice. "Fuck!" There was no hesitation as she fought back, kicking, screaming, clawing. "Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, Pablo— FUCK!"

No. He did not overcome death and possession to wield otherworldly powers only to just pick up cute chicks at bars. He was meant to do something with these abilities. And if Pablo couldn't save the one person that had lived through it all (her recent foray into death excluded) alongside him, then there was no point. He leapt out of the car and lunged at her, his arms tightly wrapping her body in a bear hug.

The hands behaved predictably. Like with the boy, they shook and yanked at him as they tried to pry Kelly from his grasp. Pablo doubled down and crushed her against his chest.

"No," he declared. "This one is mine."

A defiant move that could easily go one of two ways. He pushed aside the knee jerk reaction to hold his breath and try not to flinch. If the Jefe were here, he'd drop his pants at the very jaws of hell and pull out the measuring tape, the least Pablo could do was hold his head high and prove just how powerful a vagina he was. His lip curled back into a snarl as he repeated, "This one is mine!"

He felt something swell in his chest, maybe anxiety, maybe vomit, but he dared the universe to say it was anything other than confidence. Whatever it was, it worked. The hands fell back into the shadows until nothing but Kelly's slight frame was pressed against him. She caught his eyes with hers, and without missing a beat, they wordlessly sprinted toward the entrance of the hardware store.

There were no more tricks from the Deadlands as they dashed through the store and bounded down the basement stairs to the rift. Kelly stopped him with a snort. "This one is yours?" She raised an eyebrow at him.

He chuckled nervously. "I didn't mean you were mine like I owned you, just that they couldn't claim you because you were already with me—"

"Pablo, that was badass."

"...Yeah?"

"Definitely badass." She reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze.

"Yeah. I thought it was pretty cool. I've got a few more tricks, too." Pablo cleared his throat. "Maybe I'll show you them once we're out of here."

"Uh huh." Her deadpan response did nothing to diminish her grin. With her hand still securely clenched in his, Kelly pulled Pablo back through the rift.