On the Hunt

Knowing the autopistols, jade-laced ammo, and pump-actions scabbarded crosswise over his back would've clued the other man that he'd been out hunting, JT tensed. "Why? What happened?"

"Your girlfriend found a bat temple two days ago. Which you would've known if you'd been watching her like you said you would."

"She's not—" JT began, then broke off as his blood iced. "She what?"

No. Impossible. She couldn't have. In the months she'd been charting the surrounding forest, she had found only three clusters of carved pillars and a small scattering of tumbled stone foundations. There was no way—the gods weren't cruel enough—that she had found a damned temple in the three days he'd been gone.

But Rez wasn't big on jokes, and his dark eyes were deadly serious.

JT's gut headed for his toes on a down elevator to hell. Natalie. "Why didn't you fucking call me?"

"The satellite signals are all screwed up. Something to do with sunspots."

Or the equinox. The barrier was getting more and more whacked as the end-time approached.

And Natalie was in the thick of it, stirring things up with the take-no-prisoners, all-or-nothing enthusiasm that lit her like a beacon.

JT cursed himself. Rez was right—he should have been there. He was the one who had convinced the village council to let her team stay. But there was no point in looking back. They needed to deal with the problem in front of them, do some damage control. "Even if she found something, we should be okay for this cycle. I took out another pair of the tatter-winged bastards late this morning."

Rez shook his head. "We lost a dozen goats an hour ago."

"You—" Fuck. That meant there was another pair of demon bats out there.

Which didn't compute—they'd never had two pairs come through together. Then again, they'd never had more than six per quarter, and his tally was already up to eight. He didn't know if the increase was because of Natalie's discovery, or because they were getting closer to the end date.

But the whys and hows didn't matter. What mattered was killing the ones that got through.

He set his jaw and ignored the throbbing aches that came from seventy-two hours of freeze-dried rations and minimal sleep. "Okay. I'm going to need ammo, and—"

"There's more. The council decided to boot the archaeologists and seal the temple. They're over there right—"

"Son of a bitch." JT took off for the dig site at a dead run, not waiting to hear the rest.

As he pounded through the rain forest, pulse hammering in his ears, he could only hope to hell he wouldn't be too late, because he knew two things for sure: One, there was no way Natalie would give up her discovery without a fight. And two, the villagers wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice the ancient ruins—and possibly the archaeologists—if they thought it would keep the camazotz away.

"You can go back inside and retrieve your equipment," the white-haired elder decreed in the local dialect, with Aaron translating for Natalie and the others. "Then go and pack up your tents and trucks. You must be gone from this area by nightfall."

"But we . . ." Have permits, Natalie started to say, but then broke off because she'd already pointed that out—repeatedly—and the men clearly didn't give a crap.

There were thirteen of them, a sacred number. Wearing a range of denim cutoffs, tees, and woven textiles, they seriously outgunned her team with a mix of shotguns and automatics, along with a strange-looking grenade launcher held by a hatchet-faced man at the back of the group.

She had seen most of them around, had shared meals with at least three. But now they met her eyes with grim determination and no hint of apology.

Swallowing hard, she looked at the cave mouth, where the dreaded bat creatures were carved with their tattered wings spread, their catlike mouths split in silent stone screams. "Please. I can report the discovery without giving away your location. I'll do whatever you want; just don't make me leave now. I need more time."

She was borderline begging and she didn't care. She'd get down on her hands and knees and eat dirt if that was what it took. This wasn't just a career-making find; it was personal.

But the elder shook his head. Through Aaron, he said, "We are out of time. Tomorrow is the equinox, and the creatures are already walking among us."

"With all due respect, the legend of the camazotz comes from that." She pointed behind her at the tunnel mouth. "A carving. Stone. Maybe some priests in bat costumes. Whatever's killing your livestock, it's not a six-foot-tall demon with glowing red eyes."

Inwardly, though, she remembered the way Cooter used to growl, The locals know more about their home ground than you book-smart punks ever will . And she was acutely conscious of the hard lump in her zippered pocket. If solid rock could disappear and then reappear carved as something else, could she really be so certain that magic and the camazotz didn't exist?

She couldn't be, but that wasn't the point right now. "I need another month. One month, that's all."

The elder shook his head. "You have an hour."

Three men handed off their weapons and broke away from the group, unshouldering rucksacks she hadn't realized they were wearing. They knelt several paces away from the cave entrance, keeping wary eyes on the carved monsters as they started unloading flat boxes that were stenciled with U.S. military markings and the words CAUTION, EXPLOSIVES.

"You can't blow it up!" She lunged toward the men, but was brought up short when Javier grabbed her arm.

"Natalie, no!" As he dragged her back, she realized that the other villagers had brought up their weapons; their eyes were white rimmed, their fingers on the triggers. They were terrified, and terror could make people do awful things.

Like killarchaeologists.

She clutched Javier's forearm, her fingers digging in. "We can't let them destroy it!"

"Is it worth dying for?" His eyes flared with the temper he reserved for when she was doing something really stupid.

"Yes! I found—" She broke off, unable to telll him why. "Damn it."

He shook her. "It's just a ruin. Let's get our stuff and get out of here, like the man said."

But she couldn't do that. No way. Her mind raced. How could she— Oh, hell. "I need to talk to JT," she blurted.

She would do anything she could to save the sacred chamber where she had found the crystal skull. Even grovel to the one man she had ever come close to falling for . . . and who had dumped her flat when she'd told him so.

Chapter Three

JT's bungalow, which was a cross between a bunker and the jungle version of a bachelor pad, was surrounded by a twenty-foot-high stone wall topped with wickedly pointed chunks of jade and obsidian. The stones sparkled in the fading sunlight that glinted down through the gap that the walled compound made in the rain-forest canopy.

When the gates were closed, there was no getting inside.

They were closed.

Natalie's heart sank as she let the Jeep roll to a stop. She was going to have to get out and use the intercom panel. Let the groveling begin.

She hated this. But the villagers had agreed to give her an hour, and the clock was ticking.

A quick look assured her that the fireproof lockbox under the driver's seat was secure. After the run-in with the locals, she had locked the crystal skull away. She was dying to carry it with her, but she'd be devastated if she lost it. What was more, she didn't trust JT not to hand it over to the villagers if he thought that would settle things down. He had made it brutally clear that he had his life exactly the way he wanted it and didn't intend to do—or let her do—anything to upset that balance.

Well, what do you expect from a guy who's got FREEDOM inked in big letters on his forearm?

Her exes would probably appreciate the irony of her being on the receiving end of the "it's not you; it's me" letdown.

Embarrassment—it wasn't heartbreak despite what Javier thought—churned in her stomach as she headed for the touchpad next to the gate. Mildly resenting the fact that he'd never given her the code, she leaned on the buzzer, then stared up into the security camera, trying to fake a pleasant "let's just be friends" smile.

There was no response.

She didn't know which was worse, the thought that he wasn't home . . . or that he was.

After buzzing a second time, she hit the intercom. "JT? It's Natalie. This is business, okay? Not personal. Let me in."

Still nothing.

"Shit." Now what? She couldn't call him with the satellite transmissions on the fritz, which left . . . nothing. A chill skimmed through her at the knowledge that she was forty minutes away from losing the biggest find of her career, along with the first tangible link she had managed to uncover in nearly a decade of searching for something—anything—connected to the locket she had been found with as a baby. Frustration slapped through her, making her skin itch, but she reminded herself that she still had the skull. That was something, right? But the itches didn't subside.

She turned and headed back to the Jeep. She had made it halfway there when the background forest noise went silent. And she realized with sudden sickening clarity that the itch wasn't frustration after all. It was a warning!

The instincts she had been ignoring suddenly lashed at her, through her, bringing images of jaguars and the recent livestock kills in the area. She was a woman walking out alone, unarmed.

Stupid move, Nat. Her heart leaped into her throat as she lunged for the Jeep, and the weapon within it.

She was a few paces short of the vehicle when a dark blur erupted from the greenery and slammed into her, sending her crashing into the side of the Jeep and then down. High-pitched squeals battered her eardrums, making her head ring, and she screamed as a dark-furred, red-eyed creature leaned over her, its batlike face splitting into a three-cornered leer of moist, inhuman hunger that she had seen before, carved in stone.