"A great collection of novellas that range the gamut from fluffy to meatier fare."
Reviewed by Vicky Gilpin
Posted January 6, 2011
Romance Paranormal | Romance Anthology
Gena Showalter's Ever Night is a stand-out short
story in this collection: each year on her birthday, Rose
Pascal travels to another world. Instead of being chased or
eaten or killed by what she perceives to be monsters, she
is thrust into the company of a handsome, but dangerous --
and dangerously acerbic -- man who asks her for information
she does not have and expects her to train to face him in
combat. A jewel of a story, Ever Night quickly ramps
over the original "what if" of the plot to dwell on deeper
concepts of preconceptions. In Shannon K. Butcher's The Collector, Neal Etan
needs an artifact from Viviana Rowen or a friend of his
will die. It's that simple. However, the demon hunter's
quick purchase, (or snatch-n-grab, if necessary) of the
artifact is no simple matter when he realizes that
Viviana's touch dams his own barrage of pain. He has to
quickly gain her trust in order to give them both time to
discover what they've been looking for. Jessica Andersen's Crystal Skull revolves around
what happens when an archeologist makes the discovery of a
lifetime, and finds it has dangerous connections to her old
flame. Can she train him in the power of hope, or will the
shadows of his past and the all-too-deadly monsters in
their present be too much? Finally, in Deirdre Knight's Red Angel, Jamie Angel
confronts a manner of creature he's never encountered in
the flesh: he knows Sunny isn't human, but no one believes
him. As his family is trained to destroy evil creatures,
he's concerned about Sunny, and he tells himself it has
nothing to do with her beauty. When he discovers her
secret, he endangers them both, and it's up to Sunny to
learn how she can save them. This quartet of stories based around the themes of
paranormal romance and hunting serves as a great diversion
that ranges the gamut from fluffy to meatier fare. The
stories have clever or cute elements within their packaging
of paranormal romance, and all four are engaging and
worthwhile reads.
SUMMARY
Four hot authors come together in this steamy collectino
to tell new stories about shadow creatures, intoxicating
magic, and hunters who know a little something about a
good slay. In New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter's Ever
Night, Rose Pascal is swept into a dark, haunting world
every year on her birthday - a world ruled by a warrior
king who hunts her kind. Neither of them can deny the
passion that soon consumes them both... In Shannon K. Butcher's The Collector, demon hunter Neal
Etan sets out to acquire a powerful artifact, but finds
much more in beautiful Viviana Rowan. The antique dealer's
touch strengthens his magic - and her life may be in
Neal's hands if they don't recover the artifact in time... In Jessica Andersen's Crystal Skull, archaeologist Natalie
Albright's dig gets shut down amid rumors she has awakened
the local demons. But when the terrifying underworld
creatures attack, Natalie must team up with her ex to
survive. As they fight the ancient menace, they discover a
destiny that binds them together - and threatens to tear
them apart... And in Deidre Knight's Red Angel, Jamie Angel, leader
ofthe deadly Nightshades, has tracked every kind of
monster and demon that roams the darkness, but none of his
experiences can prepare him for falling in love with one
of the creatures he's trained to destroy...
ExcerptExcerpts for Both Gena Showalter's Ever Night & Jessica
Andersen's Crystal Skull Below. Gena Showalter "Ever Night" Prologue
After centuries of waiting, Torin’s patience was long dead.
The woman he craved was, at last, almost his. For hundreds
of years, he’d wandered the far reaches of the globe, a
shadow in his woman’s life, always alert for signs of the
magicks stirring. Now, that the moment had come, to have
the Awakening strike on a tidy suburban street in Long
Beach, California seemed almost a joke. One he didn’t find
amusing. Across the street from him, a bell rang and hundreds of
school children spilled from a pale green stucco building
like ants from a hill. Their bright laughter was sharp to a
man already on a razor’s edge. His gray eyes narrowed
behind his dark glasses as he watched the kids scatter in
the sunlight. The last barrier between him and his woman
had fallen. His skin felt electrified with the rising of
power in the air. His blood hummed and if he’d had a
heartbeat, it would have been thundering in his chest. A woman hurried past him to gather up her child and gave
him a quick, appraising glance. Her steps quickened, her
gaze shifted from him and she rushed her child away as if
they were being chased by demons. He knew what people saw when they looked at him. Taller than most men, he had long dark hair that fell loose
to his shoulders. He wore a black T shirt that clung to the
hard muscles of his chest and abs. His black jeans and
scuffed, shit-kicker boots finished off the dangerous
image. His face was lean and hard, sculpted with sharp
planes and angles and his pale gray eyes gave away none of
his thoughts. He looked exactly what he was. A warrior. A killer. A Sentinel whose second chance had finally arrived—and this
time, he wouldn’t be denied. Chapter One
“They took my mom away last night.” Shea Jameson wanted to lock her classroom door and walk
away. It was the only sane thing to do. But the tremor in
her student’s voice pulled at her. The day was over at
Lincoln middle school and the hallways should have been
emptied. Shea knew because she always waited until everyone
else had left the building before she headed home. She made
it a point to avoid crowds whenever she could. As a
teacher, she was faced with classes filled with kids
everyday, but they didn’t bother her. It was the parents of
those children that worried her. She looked down at Amanda Hall and sympathy rose up inside
her. Shea had heard the rumors, the whispers all day. She’d
watched as the teachers reluctantly protected Amanda from
those who only yesterday had been her friends. And she knew
that the girl’s situation was only going to get worse. “Ms. Jameson, I don’t know what to do.” Her heart broke for the small blond girl leaning against a
row of closed lockers in the empty school hallway. The
child’s face was streaked with tears, her blue eyes
swimming with them. Her arms were crossed over her middle,
as if trying to console herself and when she looked up at
Shea, stark misery and panic were stamped on her small
features. She wouldn’t be able to turn her back on the girl, despite
the risks, Shea thought with an inner sigh. How could she
and still live with herself? “I’m so sorry, Amanda.” She glanced over her shoulder to be
sure there was no one near. Not a soul was around though
and the silence, but for Amanda’s soft sniffling, was
deafening. The beige walls were decorated with posters
announcing the coming Fall Festival and Shea’s gaze slid
away from the drawings of cackling, wart encrusted witches
burning at stakes. The small hairs at the back of her neck were standing
straight up and she would have sworn that there was someone
close by, watching her. A shiver of something icy slid
along Shea’s spine, but the halls were still empty. For
now. She shouldn’t have stopped, a voice in her mind whispered.
Shouldn’t have spoken to the girl. No one knew better than
Shea that there were spies everywhere. That no one was safe
anymore. If someone should see her talking to this child,
her own personal nightmarish circus would begin again and
there was no guarantee that this time, Shea would survive
it. But how could she walk away from a child in desperate need?
Especially when she knew exactly what Amanda was going
through? Shifting her books and papers in her arms, Shea
dropped her free hand on the girl’s shoulder and tried to
think of something comforting to say. But lies wouldn’t do
her any good and the truth was far too terrifying. If Amanda’s mother had really been taken, she wouldn’t be
coming back. In fact, it was probably only a matter of time
before the authorities came to snatch up Amanda as well.
And that realization pushed her to speak. “Amanda,” Shea asked quietly, “do you have anyone you can
stay with?” The girl nodded. “My grandma. The police took me there last
night. Grandma didn’t want me to come to school today, but
I did anyway and everyone’s being so mean...” She shook her
head and frowned in spite of her tears and a flash of anger
dazzled her damp eyes. “My mom’s not evil, I don’t care
what they say. She didn’t do anything wrong. I would know.” Shea wasn’t so sure of that. These days, secrets were all
that kept some women alive. But even if Amanda was right
and her mother was innocent, there was little chance she’d
be released. Still, what was important now was Amanda’s
safety. The girl had already learned one harsh lesson today—
don’t trust anyone. Her friends had turned on her and soon,
everyone else would, too. Once word got out about her
mother being taken, the girl would be in danger from so
many different directions, she’d never find shelter. “Amanda,” Shea whispered fiercely, “don’t come back to
school tomorrow. Go to your grandmother’s and stay there.” “But I have to help my mom,” the girl argued. “I thought
you could go with me to the principal and we could tell her
that my mom’s not what they think. Mom’s the President of
the PTA!” Shea winced as the girl’s voice rose. She couldn’t afford
for anyone to see them. Couldn’t risk being seen helping
the child of a detainee. Leaning down, she caught Amanda’s
eyes and said, “Your mom would want you to be safe,
wouldn’t she?” “Yeah...” “Then that’s the best thing you can do for her.” “I don’t know...” “Amanda listen to me,” Shea said, her words coming faster
now as the creeping sensation of being watched flooded back
into her system. “There’s nothing we can do to help your
mom. The best thing for everyone is for you to leave here
and go straight to your grandmother’s. Okay? No stops. No
talking to anyone.” “But—“ A door opened down the hall and Shea glanced toward the
sound. Her stomach pitched with nerves as she spotted the
school principal coming out of her office. Lindsay Talbot’s
eyes narrowed as she looked at Amanda and Shea huddled
together speaking in whispers. Instantly, Ms. Talbot darted
back into her office and Shea could only wince. “Just go, Amanda,” she said, giving the girl’s shoulder a
quick squeeze. “Go now.” The girl picked up on the urgency in Shea’s voice, nodded
briefly, then turned and ran down the hall toward the back
door. Once she was gone, Shea took a breath, steeled
herself and walked in the opposite direction. Her heels
clicked on the tile floor as she neared the glass wall of
the school’s office. The front door was only a few feet
away and the sunlit afternoon shone like a beacon of
safety. She was leaving, no matter what, she thought, but
she had to know what Ms. Talbot was doing. Shea glanced through the office windows in time to see the
principal hang up the phone. Then the woman turned around,
met Shea’s gaze and gave her a cat-about-to-eat-a-canary
smile. Just like that, it was over. All of it. Shea had been happy here. For awhile. She liked teaching.
Liked the kids and she’d been convinced that over the last
year and a half she’d found safety. That her behavior, her
gift for teaching was enough to prove to everyone that she
was nothing more than she claimed to be. A sixth grade
science teacher. But as she met Lindsay Talbot’s hard stare, Shea felt the
old, familiar stir of panic. Fear rushed through her
system, churning her stomach, making her hands damp and
drying out her mouth. She had to run. Again. She let her papers fall to the floor in a soft rustle of
sound, then she tightened her grip on her shoulder bag and
raced for the front door. As her hand dropped to the cold,
steel bar and pushed, she heard Lindsay Talbot call out
from behind her, “You won’t get away. They’re coming.” “I know,” Shea murmured, but ran anyway. What else could
she do? If she stayed, she’d end up with Amanda’s mother.
Just one more woman locked away with no hope of ever
getting out. Outside, she squinted at the beam of sunlight that slanted
into her eyes, and took the steps down to the sidewalk at a
dead run. She dug into her purse as she turned toward the
parking lot and blindly fumbled for her keys. Her only hope
was to be gone before the MP’s arrived. It would take them
time to find her and in that time, she’d disappear. She’d
done it before, she could do it again. Dye her hair, change
her name, find a new identity and lose herself in some
other city. She wouldn’t go back to her apartment. They’d be expecting
her to, but Shea wasn’t that stupid. Besides, she didn’t
need anything from her home. She traveled light these days.
A woman constantly on the move couldn’t afford to be
dragging mementoes from one place to the next. Instead, she
kept a packed suitcase in her car trunk and a stash of
emergency cash tucked into her bra at all times, on the off
chance she’d have to leave in a hurry. A cold wind rushed at her, pulling her long, dark red hair
free of the knot she kept it in. Slate gray clouds rolled
in off the ocean and seagulls wheeled and dipped overhead.
She hardly noticed. Parents were still milling around out
front, picking up their kids, but Shea ran past them all,
ignoring those who spoke to her. Her car was at the far end of the parking lot, closest to
the back exit. She was always prepared to run and wanted to
be able to slip away while her pursuers were coming in the
front. She was sprinting now, her heart hammering in her
chest, breath strangling in her lungs. She held her keys so
tightly the jagged edges dug into her palm. The soles of her shoes slid unsteadily on the gravel laced
asphalt, but she kept moving. One thought pulsed through
her mind. Run. Run and don’t look back. Her gaze fixed on her nondescript beige two door compact,
she never saw the man who leaped out at her from behind
another car. He pushed her down and her knees hit the
asphalt with a grinding slide that tore open her skin and
sent pain shooting along her nerve endings. Hands reached for her as a deep voice muttered, “Gimme the
purse and you can go.” Absently, she heard voices rising in the distance as
parents saw the man attacking her. Oh God, not now, she
thought as she turned over and stared up into the wild eyes
of a junkie who desperately needed money. She couldn’t deal
with this now. Couldn’t have all this attention drawn to
her. He pulled a knife as if he sensed she was hesitating. “Give
me the money now.” Shea shook her head and when he reached for her again, she
instinctively lifted both hands as if to push him off and
away. She never made contact with him though. She didn’t
need to. A surge of energy pulsed through her and shot from
her fingertips and as a whoosh of sound erupted, the man in
front of her erupted into flames. Shea stared up at him, horrified by what was happening. By
what she’d done. His screams tore through the air as he
tried to run from the fire. But he only fed the flames
consuming him and as his shrieks rose higher and higher,
Shea staggered to her feet, glanced down at her hands and
shuddered. That’s when she heard it. The chanting. Over the sounds of the dying man’s cries, voices roared
together, getting louder and louder as she was surrounded.
One word thundered out around her, hammering at her mind
and soul, reducing her to a terror she hadn’t known in ten
years. She looked up into the faces of her students’ parents as
they circled her. People she knew. People she liked. Now
though, she hardly recognized them. Their features were
twisted into masks of hatred and panic and their voices
joined together to shout their accusation. “Witch! Witch! Witch!” Shea fought for air as the mob tightened around her. There
was no way out now. She was going to die. And if the crowd
didn’t kill her, then the MP’s would take her away when
they arrived and she would be as good as dead anyway. It
was over. The years of terror and dread, the hiding, the
praying, the constant worry about survival. “Stop!” she shouted, her voice raw with horror at what
she’d done. At what they were about to do to her. “I didn’t
do anything!” A useless argument since they’d all seen what had happened.
But how? How had she done it? She wasn’t a witch. She was
just... her. “If I had power, wouldn’t I be using it now?” Some of the people around her seemed to consider that and
their expressions reflected worry. Not what Shea had been
after. If they were worried about their own safety, they’d
be just that much more eager to kill her. Her head whipped from side to side, desperately looking for
a way out of this. But she couldn’t find one. In the
distance, she heard the wail of sirens and she knew that
within minutes, the MP’s would arrive. And the Magic Police
weren’t going to let her get away. They might save her from
the mob—on the other hand, they might stand back and let
these everyday, ordinarily average people solve their
problem for them. Frantic now, she stumbled back as the crowd pushed in until
she realized they were herding her closer to the burning
man stretched out on the asphalt. Heat from the flames
reached for her. The stench of burning flesh stained the
air. Shea looked from the dead man to the crowd and back
again and knew that whatever happened next, she deserved it. The fire suddenly erupted, growing until hungry licks of
orange and red flames leaped and jumped more than six feet
high. Someone in the crowd screamed. Shea jolted. Black
cars with flashing yellow lights raced into the driveway
and then screeched to a stop. Men in black uniforms piled
out and pointed guns, but they were the least of her
problems now. Flames reached for Shea. Engulfed her. The roar of the
quickening flames deafened her to her surroundings. She
screamed and looked up into a pair of pale gray eyes
reflecting the shifting colors of the fire. She felt hard,
strong arms wrap around her, as a deep voice
whispered, “Close your eyes.” “Good idea,” she answered, then fainted for the first time
in her life. Jessica Andersen "Crystal Skull" Deep in a rainforest south of the Mexican border
“For an archaeologist who’s made the discovery of her
career, you don’t seem all that happy,” Javier said from
the far side of the underground cavern, where he was
systematically photographing a panel of carved
hieroglyphics. Wearing jeans, scarred boots, and a UFC t-
shirt, the ex-wrestler handled the high-tech camera as
expertly as he wielded their portable excavator and the
double-barreled shotgun that was his constant companion out
in the field.
Natalie grimaced. Should’ve known he wasn’t down here just
to take pictures. Her grizzled dig coordinator—and good
friend—wasn’t big on being belowground. The others must’ve
deputized him.
Settling her headlamp more firmly over her dark ponytail,
which was damp at the ends from the cool condensation that
slicked everything inside the ancient temple, she focused
on the painted clay pots she was supposed to be
examining. “I’m just tired.”
Which was true. The members of her six-person team had been
pulling double shifts ever since she had discovered the
cave two days earlier. They were racing to catalog the
artifacts before things hit meltdown territory with the
locals. Which was imminent.
She had all the necessary permits, but the residents of the
nearby village had stopped caring about the paperwork the
moment she had peeled back the overgrown vegetation to
reveal a cave entrance carved with images of winged,
humanoid creatures that matched the local legends of the
bloodthirsty bat-demons known as camazotz.
Add to that the approaching equinox—which was supposedly
when the creatures came up from the underworld and
terrorized the villagers—and the fact that a local jaguar
had recently developed a taste for livestock, and she had
herself a village on edge. There was real potential for a
pitchfork-wielding mob to descend on the dig at any
moment.They probably would’ve been there already, if it
hadn’t been for her connection to American ex-pat and local
hero, JT Craig.
And how much did that reminder suck?
Javier snorted. “Girl, you showed up everyone who said you
were crazy for turning down a season at Tikal and
bushwhacking out into the middle of nowhere instead. But
you did it. You found a new freaking ruin. Tired or not,
stressed or not, you should be happy-dancing from here to
base camp and back again. So what gives?”
She shrugged, the motion pulling where her lightweight camp
shirt stuck to her skin. “There’s no such thing as a ‘new
ruin.’ It’s an oxymoron.”
“You’re the moron if you think I’m letting you change the
subject. So give. What’s wrong?”
“I’m—” fine, she started to say, then cut herself off
because she knew that wouldn’t fly with Javier, especially
when she wasn’t fine. She was restless and stirred up,
itchy and twitchy. “I just keep thinking that I’m missing
something, that I’m not where I’m supposed to be.”
And wasn’t that the story of her life?
“We’ve gotten this far following your instincts, so I’m not
going to diss them now.”
Which was true. Others might think she was too brave for
her own good, going off into a particularly volatile
section of rainforest based on her gut feelings and the
devil that kept pushing her to do more, be more, but Javier
and their teammates followed her without complaint.
Still, though, his tone had her glancing over to where he
was fiddling with the tripod-mounted camera and attached
laptop. “Why do I get the feeling there’s a ‘but’ coming?”
“But if you’re feeling off, are you sure that it’s about
the dig and not about—”
“Don’t say it,” she interrupted, scowling back at her pots.
“Somebody has to.”
“Or not. I’ve never let my personal life interfere with the
work before, and I’m not going to start with JT. Weren’t
you the one who told me that I’ve got the dig-site
boyfriend thing down to an art?”
He hadn’t meant it as a compliment, either. Ever since he’d
married Nikki, the team’s bubbly computer guru, he’d been
busting on Natalie’s long string of short-term, no-harm-no-
foul relationships. He had seen her ten-week relationship
with the gray-eyed ex-Army Ranger as a step in the right
direction.
Or not.
“This time was different. You and JT were—“ He broke off
when someone shouted his name from topside, the word
echoing along the stone tunnel that led down to the sacred
chamber. “What?” he bellowed back, setting up a reverb that
made Natalie wince.
“We could use you up here,” Aaron shouted back.
Natalie breathed a sigh of relief at the interruption.
There was no point in talking about her and JT. What was
done was done … and they were way done.
Javier scowled. “Dang it. I just finished setting up this
shot. Couldn’t the crisis du jour have waited a few
minutes?”
They both knew could’ve shot five frames in the time it had
taken him to set up this one. He‘d been stalling so he
could push her some more on why she’d ended things with JT.
What he didn’t know was that it had been the other way
around.
Waving him off, she said, “Go ahead. I’ll take care of the
pictures.”
“Come topside when you’re done. You should eat something.”
The “and we’re not done with this conversation” was implied.
Once he was gone, she tried to clear her mind and focus on
the work at hand. She took the picture he had set up, then
started to move the camera to frame the next set of glyphs
while the attached laptop added the image to the composite
they were assembling of the entire carved panel. But
instead of setting up the next shot, she found herself
shifting aside the camera so she could get up close and
personal with the hieroglyphs that made up the huge,
intricate text.
For a moment, she let herself imagine the artisan who had
chiseled the words into the cave wall. He would have known
who he was, where he belonged within the hierarchy of the
ancients: The scribes had been more than peasants but less
than royalty, falling roughly equal with ballplayers and
engineers. On some level she envied that—not the
stratification, but the identity.
He had probably been a priest, given the religious
overtones of the cave. He would have worked in there, hour
after hour, painstakingly carving each symbol and
pictograph of a language that had allowed its users to
embellish at will, turning words into art.
So beautiful, she thought, trailing her fingers along the
carved panel.
It was also an enigma. Everything else in the room belonged
to the good guys: The altar on the opposite wall was a
carved chac-mool that honored the rain god; the winged
serpent motifs on the walls represented the creator god,
Kulkulkan; the carved and painted rainbows up near the
ceiling were a reference to the goddess Ixchel; and the
ballgame scenes painted on the clay pots she had been
examining paid homage to the sun god, Kinich Ahau. All sky
gods, positive influences.
The glyph panel, though, was different.
The nine rows of text—for the nine layers of the
underworld, Xibalba—looked like normal Mayan hieroglyphs …
except that in every pictograph that should have contained
a human or animal figure, there was a bat-demon instead, a
camazotz, with sharply pointed ears, tri-cornered mouth,
pushed-in nose, long fangs and talons, and strangely
tattered wings.
The locals believed the ancients had built the temple to
appease the camazotz, and that she risked awakening more of
the creatures by excavating the sacred site. But although
Cooter, her crazy-brilliant Mayanist mentor, had harped on
the value of trusting the natives to know more about their
homes than any visitor—however well educated—could, logic
said that the legends of the camazotz had come from the
temple itself, and maybe costumes worn by the members of
the bat cult that had probably worshipped there. Not the
other way around.
“Chicken and egg,” she murmured, trailing her fingers along
the writing.
The wonky glyphs meant that she couldn’t read the text.
Instead, she would have to farm it out to an expert, which
was why the photographs, tracings and other records were a
top priority.
So get back to work. But the same gut instinct that had
prompted her to turn down the safe-bet Tikal project and
disappear into the jungle, and that had eventually led her
to the cave, now rooted her in place.
A chill prickled across her skin, an almost electric
crackle that was how her gut feelings sometimes hit her.
She was missing something. But what?
Frowning, she stared at the panel, touched the carved
surface. The silence in the echoing chamber amplified the
small sounds of her breathing, making the air seem to throb
with the quiet. Her fingertips scraped along the carved
stone, from ridge to dip, from one bat-faced demon to the
next, the next, and—to something else.
She froze, her pulse going zero-to-sixty as the shape
jumped out at her.
There was a bird among the bats.
And it wasn’t just any bird. It was the bird.
The parrot’s head sat atop three stacked circles and wore a
flaring headdress of curling feathers in a glyph that was
achingly, acutely familiar. Yet the parrot’s head didn’t
correspond to any pictograph in the historical record. She
knew that for a fact … because she had been searching for
it ever since her thirteenth birthday.
“Holy. Shit.” She touched the small silver pendant she wore
around her neck. She had found it!
All the restless, edgy energy that had plagued her since
she’d first set foot inside the cave—hell, in the forest
itself—suddenly concentrated itself in her chest. A hot,
hard buzz seared through her system, saying: Do it.
But do what?
Swallowing hard, she touched the parrot’s-head glyph,
stroking a finger along the feathered headdress and down
the curved beak. It was really there, really real. It was—
“Ow!” She yanked back her hand and stared at her fingertip,
where a thin slice oozed blood. “What the hell?”
Getting in close to the wall, she squinted at a gleam of …
was that glass? Impossible. The ancient Maya might have
built pyramids and carved intricate writing and art, but
they had done it all without using metal or wheels, never
mind glass. They had been knappers and carvers, mostly,
which left her with …
“Jade,” she breathed, seeing the faint blue-green sheen to
the material of the thin blade that had been inset into the
carving, almost as if its maker had wanted to punish the
person who dared to touch the strange glyph.
Or … take a blood sacrifice from them. Blood had been the
basis for many of the rituals of the ancient Maya. And
even, some said, their magic.
When she was around other academics, she snorted at the
idea of true magic. The Mayan shaman-priests had been
experts at misdirection, using hidden doorways and polished
stone mirrors to make the kings and masses believe that
they could teleport themselves, move objects with their
minds, and summon fire with a thought. Privately, though,
she had hung on Cooter’s stories about ancient magicians,
wishing they were true .
And right then, there was nobody in the room but her.
Do it, her instincts said, coming suddenly so much louder,
so much clearer than they ever had before. What have you
got to lose?
There was magic in blood, at least according to the stories
the crazy old Mayanist had regaled his students with, year
after year … until he disappeared into the rainforest.
Logic said he’d had an accident or been killed by bandits.
Inwardly, though, she had preferred to think he’d found the
magic-wielding warriors he had sought. She and Cooter had
been very alike—both out of place, both searching for
something. She wanted to believe that he had found his
place in the end.
Do it.
Senses spinning, heart pounding, she pressed her
bloodstained fingertip to the parrot glyph. The moment she
made contact, the restless, edgy energy inside her went
supernova, and a strange, soundless detonation thudded
through her.
She reeled back. “What the hell?”
Her hand was vibrating, sending pinfires streaking up her
arm and leaving her struggling for breath. Then she simply
stopped breathing, freezing dead as the carved stone making
up the parrot glyph shimmered, rippling and pulsing as
though it had suddenly come alive.
Moments later, the glyph and the surrounding stone
disappeared, revealing a shallow niche that contained a
small, lumpy something.
Holy shit, was all she could think. Holy shit, holy shit,
holy shit.
That hadn’t just happened. It was impossible. Unbelievable.
Only it had happened. There was a hole in the wall where
the parrot had been. What was more, the humming
restlessness inside her had become a warm, satisfied glow,
one that had stopped saying do it and now urged take it.
“I can’t,” she whispered. She had to document the object
from every angle before she touched it, had to investigate
the trick door. Because it had to be a trick door. The
alternative was ... Impossible.
Take it, those deep-down instincts whispered. This is for
you alone. You found the parrot glyph. Your blood opened
the door.
Hand moving almost without her conscious volition, she
reached in and touched the solid, lumpy object. It shifted,
suddenly gleaming luminous amber as the overhead lights
caught the stone.
Maybe an inch in diameter, the clear yellow crystal had
been carved with perfect detail into the shape of a human
skull.
Take it. Hard, hot possessiveness washed through her. She
wasn’t aware of making the decision, but suddenly she was
picking it up. Cupping it in her palm, she raised it to eye-
level. The sockets were dark with shadows, save for two
pinprick gleams reflecting back from her headlamp, making
the skull seem to stare back at her as it warmed against
her skin.
Holy. Shit.
“This is a joke, right?” she said, trying to interject
logic into a situation suddenly turned incredible. Javier
and the others were trying to cheer her up with a gag,
riffing off the legendary crystal skulls that were supposed
to help save mankind from the so-called 2012 Mayan
doomsday.
But how had they managed it? If they found the trick door,
they would’ve said something, she thought, glancing back at
the wall. It’s a huge—
Her mind blanked at the sight of a solid wall, with no sign
of the niche. The carvings were back in place once more …
but the parrot’s-head glyph was gone.
In its place was a screaming skull.
Oh, holy shit times a million. The screaming skull glyph
wasn’t supposed to exist, either. It represented—according
to the doomsday nuts, anyway—a group of warrior-magi who
were supposed to save mankind from the rise of ancient
horrors at the end of 2012: the Nightkeepers.
“Impossible,” she whispered, staring at the screaming skull
and feeling the warm, solid weight of the crystal in her
palm, the fading sting of her sliced finger.
“Natalie?” Javier called.
She jolted, flushing. “I’ll be up in a minute.” Her heart
hammered in her ears and the rush of blood through her
veins had taken on a strange humming sensation.
“I don’t think we’ve got a minute. We need you up here.”
Javier’s voice was too tight, she realized suddenly.
Something had happened topside. Oh, crap.
She hesitated. What now? Stay and investigate the skull
glyph? Go up and tell the others what she had found? Go up
and tell them nothing? Something told her that the skull
was hers alone. A secret.
“Natalie, now!”
“Coming!” Her hands shook as she tucked the skull into an
inner zippered pocket of her tough bush pants. Then she
bolted up the tunnel. An odd, almost tribal rhythm pounded
through her veins, t making her feel tough and capable,
strong enough to take on the doomsday herself. Not that she
believed in the end-time. That had just been another of the
stories.
Then she stepped out into the late afternoon sun, and a
cold dose of reality slapped her right across the face.
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