Set in 1913, The Firewalkers follows police sergeant Gabriel Diego in the hard-bitten mountain town of Lakambaga, Cavite. Silver-spurred Americans and their new rule of law bristle against the fading glory of Gabriel Diego’s blood uncles, old generals spurned by Emilio Aguinaldo during the Philippine-American War. Meanwhile, a monster leaves behind mangled corpses of children as the cowboy Apache Kid searches the town for the remote memories of something else more magical.

Following this startling work of historical fiction made of magic and woodsmoke, Erwin E. Castillo finishes with “The Watch of La Diane,” a seductive companion story that follows two young lovers traveling across 1970s America. In a new preface for this edition, Castillo writes, “events of our interesting times, public as well as precious, were grist for these intertwined narratives that hoped to confront the present with amuletic relics of an invented past.”