Episode 80: Meet Your Maker
Written By Karl White
As promised, after the death of Cuetlachtli, Uti went through records to help Sara find her maker...names, elements, lineage traced through twisted, wild roots, from the spreading of werewolf blood. But on the page, nothing aligned. The long, solitary life of a werewolf affords few things, but time is one of them. Through the long years, Uti diligently combed through histories, stories, and later newspapers, for signs of the curse being passed through violent means. He’d follow trails. Some led to Children of Nature. Others were smoke, with no fire. But there was one name in his ledger he could never confirm, but the brutality attached was proof enough the man in question was a werewolf.
Thomas Crowley had vanished from the world decades earlier, slipping out of public record sometime after his arrest and escape in 1963. When Sara saw a faded newspaper photo of him from his capture, there was no denying, it was him.
Crowley in custody, 1963 - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
What little Uti could reconstruct pointed to Crowley disappearing into the forests of Ontario, where the land swallowed him. Sara wanted justice. She wanted an end. Uti, seasoned as he was, sensed a danger of what awaited, so he refused to let her go alone.
In the back of his mind, being wrong about Cuetlachtli as the Bearer of Light, Uti wondered if Crowley could be the missing link. A criminal, yes, but maybe his elusiveness was a result of being hunted by others...Unaware it was Crowley’s mental state that drove him into the wild. But Uti couldn’t leave anything to chance.
Their hunt began in the spring thaw of 2015. Eyewitness sightings were outdated and scarce, so they’d start at the most logical place -- where Sara was originally attacked. She hadn’t set foot there since that night. The memory, and the pain associated were almost too much to handle, but her need for retribution propelled her forward.
Early on, Crowley remained maddeningly evasive. Only sun-faded bones and weathered signs of past activity proved they were on a trail, albeit cold. The forests in that part of Canada were dense, so finding him could be near impossible. Uti suggested they use their elemental powers to assist, and having never inquired about Sara’s, he was blindsided to learn she held command over ALL of them.
Uti learns of Sara’s powers - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
Uti had known her for months, but he’d only seen her as a resource, never sitting down to complete his census. Never asking what should have been his first question. He felt foolish, heedless, ashamed at how transactional he’d been. There she was, hiking feet in front of him, she could be the key to the whole damn thing, and he hadn’t seen it. His mind drifted...would he have to kill her? Or simply do whatever it took to keep her from the Dark’s grip?
But the quandaries of Armageddon would have to wait, as Sara’s keen senses caught a disturbance to the north. The trail drew them to an elevated ridge overlooking the remnants of a long-abandoned mining settlement...an eerie place emptied of purpose. There, among collapsing buildings and silent streets, they spotted him. Thomas Crowley was no longer a man. He moved on all fours, feral and broken, his mind long severed from reality.
Whatever humanity he once possessed had been consumed by his mental illness and the curse that fed upon it. He stalked the empty settlement like a child raised by wild things, reacting to shapes and voices only he could perceive.
The plan was to wait until sundown when Sara’s powers would peak, then storm in and end Crowley swiftly. But he sensed them, the vibration of other Children of Nature -- and without hesitation, he attacked.
Thomas Crowley conjures Light - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
Drawing on his power of Light, Crowley tore energy loose and the day fractured as photons bent and screamed. Lightning bloomed without clouds, raw brilliance lashing in violent arcs. It was unrestrained power, each blast scorched and split whatever it touched.
Sara answered with balance. Wind rose at her back, bending the strikes away. Earth lifted beneath her feet, anchoring her against the concussive waves. While Sound collapsed inward, swallowing thunder before it could break her focus. She battered Crowley with FIRE, then WATER, rain and sleet, driven like weapons.
But he stormed back, burning brighter, forcing atoms to rupture, electricity tearing free in savage bursts. Though Sara held every element within her, she was fighting a wild storm of a creature, unburdened by reason. His Light struck her full-on, ripping through her defenses, and for a moment the world vanished into white noise and heat.
As Crowley’s Light surged again to finish Sara, brighter and purer than anything ever seen, Uti employed his power. He bent Wind into tight, invisible corridors, stripping oxygen from Crowley’s gathering energy. He collapsed the barometric pressure and stole the air from Crowley’s lungs —- it crippled him long enough for Sara to regain her footing and change into a werewolf.
Sara and Crowley engage in the final battle - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
As she transformed, Crowley shifted too. With the elements falling silent, there was only teeth and claws left to finish the fight. Two cursed bodies collided in the ruins of the settlement. Sara was stronger, focused -- but Crowley was relentless, fighting without fear or future. In the end, she didn’t overpower him, she outlasted him. And when she dealt the final blow, it wasn’t triumph that filled the air, but release, as the PURE LIGHT within him collapsed, imploding with a final mercy...but as Crowley fell lifeless, Death appeared.
He harvested the Soul of Suffering residing in Crowley, to deliver to Satan. But there was another reason the entity was there. Crowley was indeed the Bearer of Light the Dark sought, but not for the reasons believed...Uti AND the Wolf Tribe had been deceived. Crowley had grown into something too powerful to stand with others. And his death wasn’t meant to save mankind, but a sacrifice to inch the world closer to its end.
Death appears - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
DEATH: Still the light born of earth, lest it be shaped into something the world cannot endure.
Another Procession had been enacted -- Three now in total. But Death gave another warning to Sara and Uti.
DEATH: Hear this. The elements were never meant to stand together. Find the Tribe of Wolves. Divide them by any means, before what waits is given form. There are two others of light...you Sara Ivy, being one...but you are what was set aside to oppose what comes, so focus your strength.
Death vanished, leaving Uti to wonder the fates. And revealing to Sara, her powers didn’t make her chosen, but necessary. And while it was not the all-out war the vampires had descended into, nor the heavy battle for souls the soldiers of the Light were fighting, the reckoning was an important spoke in the wheel of life, ever turning.
By the modern age, the Wolf Tribe existed only as myth. Though Uti the heard truth from his maker Obec, he never knew the fates of the others. Believing most had long since faded into extinction.
But, they’d survived, adapted, scattered. Like Obec, some recognized the deception by the dark and wanted no part. But the rest of the tribe believed themselves anointed. Beings destined to heal mankind. In reality, they sold their souls, spreading their curse like sacrament to malevolence. Over centuries as their powers refined, their arrogance deepened, and they mistook their longevity for divinity.
Five remained together: Kur, Maer, Rhod, Sof, and Xaron, each bound to a respective element, FIRE, EARTH, WIND, WATER, and SOUND. One was missing.
The Rooted Ones- © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
In 1925, the five members reemerged in Mexico as Los Arraigados -- The Rooted Ones, a traveling magic act, appearing in masks, wielding their supernatural abilities.
By the 21st-century, they were performing underground, in Las Vegas, sustaining themselves in anonymity. During a secret show, they were recorded, the video surfacing online, drawing attention from the Dark...and from someone else...
In 1963, during Thomas Crowley’s rampage at the State Mental Hospital, there was collateral damage. Prisoners wounded but surviving, later exhibiting signs of the curse Crowley carried. So they were quietly executed…the incident, covered up.
But there was another unknown survivor, nurse Bess Bishop. She was attacked by werewolf Crowley and understood immediately what had been passed to her. She concealed her wounds, escaping notice. And soon after, she vanished, avoiding the fate imposed on the others, by those determined to erase the truth.
Bess Bishop, circa 1962 - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
Retreating to North Dakota, she lived a tortured life in exile. Enduring the curse in isolation as something rare and fateful awoke within her. Crowley wasn’t a one-off. He was a branch, powerful enough to pass Light to those he made. Like Sara, Bess could command the element.
In 2017, when footage of Los Arraigados spread across the internet, for the first time -- Bess saw others like her. Wanting answers, she set out to find them. Not realizing the Rooted Ones were seeking her as well. And with them, the Dark waited patiently for the final convergence, for all the elements to stand together at last.
And though the Fight for Nature had not yet met its end, the Fight for Life and the deadly plague that came with it, would be next.
TO BE CONTINUED…