by Brenda Huber
Something niggled at him, something was…off.
But he couldn’t quite—
Of course! Why hadn’t he noticed it the first time he’d come here? There were no wards, no enchantments. No mystical protections designed to fend off or repel his kind. Frowning, he opened his senses and did one more search, just to be certain.
Nada. Not so much as a chip of a ward stone. Not a wisp of lingering enchantment.
W. T. F?
No wonder these people had lost the sword. Damned careless, if you asked him. With a growl, he knelt to pick the lock. But the moment his hand brushed the doorknob, the door popped open.
Not even locked.
Of all the inexcusable, incompetent, lazy…
He straightened, opening his senses up once more as warning bells went off in his head. Suspicion stirred.
Too easy.
Still, he could sense no other demonic presence, nothing human or angelic. Was this some kind of trap? Sebastian paused for a moment, just to make sure there wasn’t an electronic alarm system either.
There wasn’t. He snorted and shook his head, disgusted all over again.
How stupid. A woman living alone, and a Guardian no less. Of all people, she should know better.
Sebastian eased into what appeared to be the living room and closed the door. He glanced around, looking for a good place to start.
The term organized chaos came to mind.
Stacks of corded newspapers rested near the door. As if someone had bound them with the intention of carrying them out for recycling, but then gotten sidetracked. Indeed, the majority of the house was in much the same state. Baskets of clothing sat near the foot of the staircase, clean and neatly folded, but someone had neglected to take them the rest of the way upstairs and put them away.
A vacuum cleaner waited near the end of the couch with its cord wrapped up in perfect order. The floor was spotless, but the vacuum had yet to be put away. A green, reusable grocery bag rested on the counter dividing living room from kitchen, half unpacked and pretty much forgotten. Everywhere he looked tasks were partially completed.
His attention landed on the coffee table. A notebook rested atop a tidy stack of papers. A file box sat on the floor nearby, lid open. After scanning through the papers on the table, he found what he realized was her itinerary.
Could she make this any easier?
Again, the uneasy feeling of walking into a trap rippled over his skin. He perused the detailed schedule. The script was feminine and flowing. He smiled when he located not only her destination, but also the name of her guide.
Piece. Of. Cake.
He should have just done this earlier, rather than chase her all over town. Then he’d be the one a step ahead. But he’d thought he’d be able to catch up to her and just snatch her off the street. That she’d eluded him time after time, without even knowing she was eluding him, jerked his chain all over again.
A bloodcurdling screech rent the air, catching him off guard. An enormous ball of pissed off orange fur came hurling at him from out of nowhere. Searing pain exploded down the side of his face as he fought to tear the yowling monster away. Instead of dislodging the little beast, he only succeeded in fueling its fury. It sank spiky claws into his shoulder and chest, ripping streaks of fire across his flesh. Sebastian bellowed in shock and pain.
His mind raced as he sought to fend off the attack. But the damned thing clung like a bur. Animagi? But what kind? It didn’t smell like Animagi, though. And he’d never encountered one so small before. Was this a hybrid? Each wound the creature inflicted throbbed and pulsed as if injected with venom of some kind. But weak venom, as it didn’t induce immediate hallucinations or paralysis, but damn did it burn all the same.
And just like that, the fiend was gone. Only then, as the devil crouched, hissing and spitting in the corner, back arched and luminous irises glowing, did Sebastian get his first real look at his assailant.
A damned cat.
Sweet saints, he hated cats. And they hated him.
Witness exhibit A.
His chest, scratched to hell and back, stung something fierce. Wetness dripped onto his now shredded T-shirt. Scowling, Sebastian probed his burning cheek. His fingers came away smeared with crimson. He snarled. The double damned cat let out another screech and scurried for cover.
One thing was for certain. Professor Phoebe Mackenzie better enjoy her brief reprieve. Because once he caught up with the woman, he damned well might strangle her with his bare hands.
Chapter One
Phoebe hefted her carry on and stifled a huge yawn. She readjusted the shoulder strap as she strode down the terminal in Alberto Acuña Ongay International Airport. She’d made it to Campeche, Mexico without incident.
When’s the other shoe going to drop?
Nope, don’t do it, she scolded herself the moment that traitorous self-sabotaging thought slipped out. Don’t jinx yourself.
Phoebe skimmed the crowd at the gate, looking for her guide Ricardo. She didn’t see him, but she was familiar enough with both Ricardo as well as her general location that she wasn’t the slightest bit anxious. Mexico—particularly the jungles and all its small hole-in-the-wall villages—were a second home to her and she spoke the regional dialects like a native.
She should. She’d pretty much grown up here.
Even before her quest to recover the stolen sword had begun, Phoebe had already been well-versed in many of the archeological ruins of Mexico. She’d spent more of her formative years exploring them at her father’s side than learning in a traditional classroom. The mythology. The art and architecture. Creation stories. The very ruins themselves. It was all in her blood, as it had been in her father’s. He’d taught her everything he knew.
Perhaps one of the most important things she’d learned from his tutelage was to hire a dependable guide, one she could trust with her very life. After all, no one knew the lay of the land as well as a local.
That guide was Ricardo Esteban Reynosa Alcalá. Her father had relied on Ricardo without reservation. Phoebe did as well, and he’d never let her down. In fact, on their last trip together, Ricardo had saved her life, at great risk to his own. If Ricardo said he would meet her, then meet her he would.
But then, that wasn’t strictly true, she corrected herself. Not the meeting part, the worry part. She was plenty worried. Not that Ricardo would stand her up. What troubled her was that she would be exposing Ricardo, and any other innocent villagers they hired, to the increasing dangers she faced. She was terrified over the prospect, but she had no choice. The fate of something far greater hung in the balance.
That understanding still didn’t mitigate the guilt. Ricardo had already been put at risk, had almost died because of her. If anything else happened to that sweet man, she just didn’t know what she’d do.
She caught herself tracing her fingertips along the jagged, puckered scar tissue running from the edge of her jaw, just below her ear, down to the center of her throat. She made a conscious effort to drop her hand to her side. Drawing a deep breath and stiffening her spine, Phoebe gripped the strap on her bag with renewed purpose.
The sword prophesied to be the tool that brought about the end of the world had been stolen. Her father, the sword’s Guardian, had been slain by Hell’s minion. A demon.
A demon just like the one that had—
She forced a swallow and shook that frightening thought away, squaring her shoulders. That left her—and her alone—to locate the ancient artifact and secret it away once more. Hide it and protect it with her life if need be.
Talk about the weight of the world resting on the wrong shoulders.
Grim, Phoebe scanned the crowd again, looking for her ride. And, even as she did so, she found her thoughts wandering over the details of her fruitless search, picking it apart. Time was ticking away. She could feel it
like a giant, razor-sharp guillotine poised over her head. Urgency pushed her to hurry, though she didn’t know why. Knew only that something—something momentous—was happening. Somewhere. And it involved that sword. She had nothing more than a gut feeling—and the theft of the sword, of course—as proof, but she couldn’t shake the certainty.
She’d begun her quest to reclaim the sword by retracing her father’s last excavation…the location of her father’s murder. For the thousandth time, she wished she’d gone with him on that trip. Wished she hadn’t let other obligations stand in the way. Maybe if she’d gone along things would have been different…
And, even as she was filled with regret and guilt, she knew the truth. If she’d gone along, if she’d been there with him, she would most likely be dead now too. And there would be no one left to shoulder the burden.
So was it her sense of duty and the lifelong lessons she’d been drilled to accept as a child of a Guardian that drove her to recover that sword?
Or was it survivor’s guilt?
Not like she could sit down on a shrink’s couch and have her emotions, her beliefs and her drives, professionally analyzed. First, if she didn’t end up locked away in a psych ward, at the very least her good name and all her research would be tainted. Second, and maybe more importantly, her father had insisted, through his journals, that secrecy was of the utmost importance.
No, she wouldn’t be discussing her family legacy. Not with anyone.
Well, no one but Ricardo…but he was family, so that didn’t count. Not really.
Whatever it was that drove her, she wouldn’t give up. She felt the weight of responsibility pressing down on her like a mountain on her chest. And she still struggled with the crushing grief. A grief that had been her constant companion ever since the moment she’d received her father’s final letter. A letter that had begun with those cursed, cliché words.
My dearest Gum Drop, If you’re reading this letter, then I didn’t make it out of the jungle alive. I’m so sorry, angel, but I leave to you a terrible burden…
His revelation had turned her world upside down. On her first expedition after her father’s death, she’d scoured the ruins of Los Guachimontones or—more accurately—a small area less than two miles south of the ruins. As close as she could guestimate to where her father’s maps and encoded journals had indicated something of importance was hidden. As close as she could guestimate to where her father had been slain. Though even in the coded language that only the two of them knew, he was ever-careful never to refer to it by name, surely he had to be pointing her toward the sword.
She hadn’t found her father or his grave. Nor had she found the sword. But she had found another journal, as it turned out.
That had also been the sight of the first in a long series of brutal attacks. That particular incident had resulted in the death of an innocent worker. And yes, she was keeping score, her conscience would allow for nothing less. The running tally was currently three. She could only pray to God there wouldn’t be any more destined for the books. But she couldn’t stop now, couldn’t risk the fate of the world over the risk to a single human life, even if it was her own.
Her search had already taken her back into the jungles of Mexico. La Venta Olmec and Toniná, otherwise known as the House of Rocks. She’d located another journal, and a series of encoded maps. She’d extended her search to those of Chacalán, referred to by the locals as The Valley of the Throat Cutters.
But there she’d come up empty handed, the sword eluding her yet again.
Well, maybe not empty handed. She’d walked away with a pile of clues, another of her father’s many journals…and a nasty scar to remind her that someone out there would do whatever it took to keep the pilfered sword.
She caught herself fingering her scar once more and gritted her teeth. It had become a nervous habit. Forcing her hand to return to the carry-on strap, she scanned the crowd. Her search for the sword had become a big scavenger hunt.
The stakes were astronomical, and failure was not an option.
Though she still struggled to reconcile why he’d waited until his death to tell her about the sword, she understood why her father had encoded everything in his journals. Concealing the clues, leading her on an exhausting chase. He didn’t want to make it easy for the other team. And he’d known she was up for the challenge, had prepared her for this himself, in his own way. Teaching her their special codes, drilling them into her. Telling her the mythological stories over and over. Training her to decipher the secrets of the past. He believed in her.
Had believed, she corrected, blinking away the sudden sting of tears. Even now, faced with the most complicated challenge of her life—maybe especially now—it was difficult to grasp that he was gone.
So yes, she understood it was necessary. But it was also damned frustrating.
This time, armed with the latest coded journal, and the last of her hopes, Phoebe was headed to Balamkú in Campeche.
Balamkú, known as Jaguar’s Temple, was one of the Mayan Ruins located in the Rio Bec Region of the Yucatan Peninsula. Calakmul and two other ruins were located nearby, so close together they could be visited in one day if necessary. Which made this expedition convenient if she’d misinterpreted the clues and the first location turned out to be a bust.
She’d taken a hiatus from lecturing—provided she returned to her job at all—which allowed her two months for the trip. God willing, she wouldn’t need even a quarter of that time. After all, should she succeed in finding the sword, reinventing herself and finding a new place to live—a new place to hide—took time.
Time she wasn’t sure she had.
In all their travels, she and her father had not visited these particular ruins. According to her research, Balamkú was small, a series of detailed reliefs covered by a stone temple. So she wouldn’t spend a lot of time there, would instead devote her energy to searching the grounds around the temple before moving on to Calakmul.
Access to the interior of the temple at Balamkú was limited to a single door. And that door was kept locked at all times. But you could enter with the aid of a worker on the site. While the pyramid wasn’t supposed to be very spectacular from the outside, the interior was documented to hold beautiful designs consisting of the three large images of a rabbit, an alligator, and a jaguar. The major reliefs were flanked by many small animal carvings.
In all honesty, search for the sword aside, Phoebe couldn’t wait to see the ruins. All of them. Mayan culture, thanks to her father, had become an addiction for her. A link to him, if she were being truthful.
A short, squat woman bumped into Phoebe in her rush to join a group of people nearby. Men and women milled all around the airport terminal. Some holding name placards. Others laughing and hugging. Businessmen talking on phones and tourists with their maps and their huge rolling suitcases strode this way and that.
Her attention snagged for a moment on a tall man at the far end of the crowd. He stuck out like a sore thumb amidst so many swarthy Mexicanos. His mussed hair was bleached blond, his skin lightly kissed by the sun, and wow was he tall—at least six foot five if he was an inch. Golden stubble covered a lean jaw that looked as if it could take punch. Although he was dressed like he’d just stepped down off some billboard for designer jeans, he looked as if he’d be more at home at the helm of a Viking longship with battle hammer in one hand and a bolt of lightning in the other.
She snorted over that bit of fanciful imagination. A Viking god? Exhaustion must have taken a greater toll than she’d realized. More likely, he was nothing more than a surfboarder who was a god only in his own mind.
His stop-your-heart-handsome face was screwed up in a frown as he stared hard at something in his hand. A piece of paper…or a picture maybe? She craned her neck for a better look, her curiosity piqued. She just couldn’t seem to help herself.
But then someone call
ed her name nearby. The surfboarder’s head snapped up, and for just a split second their gazes connected. Electric blue eyes seared her, pinning her in place. An odd awareness, foreign and hot, sizzled through her.
“Professor Mackenzie?” A heavily accented voice called once more from her right.
Phoebe sucked in a shuddering breath and blinked, breaking the connection with Surfer Boy. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose with her index finger as she turned to the burly man calling her name. He wasn’t much taller than she, but what he lacked in height he made up for in girth. His dark hair, what was left of it, had been slicked back. His goatee was well trimmed. His olive complexion was sun weathered and pockmarked. He wore a short sleeved button down with a palm leaf design, khakis, and loafers. He held a placard with her name on it.
“Here,” she called, waving. He reached her side and thrust out a beefy paw.
“Me llamo Juan, Señorita,” he introduced himself. He released her hand and reached for her carry on. “¿Habla español? ¿Cómo estuvo tú viaje?”
“Sí, hablas español,” she assured him, and then continued on in Spanish, “My trip was just fine, gracias.”
He nodded, smiling a huge gap-toothed grin as he accepted her bag. The fact that she spoke fluent Spanish must have just made his job infinitely easier.
“Did Ricardo send you?” she queried, once again thankful she picked up foreign languages as easily as some people picked up the common cold. The driver wasn’t a huge surprise. Ricardo had sent them before.
“Sí. He has been detained. I am to take you to meet him at el Cantina. The car is this way,” he replied, rambling cheerfully in his native language as he maneuvered her toward the exit. “You have more bags, no? If you would like to wait in the car, I will return for your things.”
“Gracias.” Phoebe rubbed at the knots in her neck. She’d been so lost in thought, focused on her search, that her other bag had slipped her mind. Ugh! Some days she’d forget her head if it weren’t attached.