Midnight Shadows

by Nancy Gideon

  Tonight it did.

  When had she stopped looking out the windows to appreciate the view? When did it cease to matter where she was, only what she was doing?

  When had she become such a drudge?

  She rolled her shoulders and massaged at the tension bunching at the back of her neck. Tonight, she'd shower and go out for a decent dinner accompanied by too much wine. In the morning, she'd type up her findings, call for flight reservations back to the States and arrange a meeting with the nervous officials that had sought her out in desperation. Her manner would calm them, her words would relieve them, her report would vindicate them. But would it be enough to keep the grass-roots panic at bay? Would her logical conclusions control the hysteria of a people fiercely protective of their cultural icons? That wasn't her problem, was it? She was the Myth-buster sent down from the prestigious Eastern university to abolish their beliefs. And that's what she had done.

  No monsters. Only man-made, media-perpetuated fears.

  She'd steeped herself for too long in the whispers of superstition. Time to get back to the realities of finding a new grant with which to support herself and pay the rent on the apartment she never stayed in long enough to call home. She'd touch base with her mentors, arrange to have her papers published, maybe even book a few speaking engagements. But who was she kidding? She wasn't looking forward to any of those things.

  She was already anticipating the next hunt.

  The sluice of tepid water rinsed away the panic and poverty of the people she'd lived among for more than half a year. Now, it was time to wash away the memory of their faces and their fears, to put them neatly away as research and move on. She'd done all she could to conquer those fears, and in doing so had managed to forestall her own, for a little while anyway.

  At least until she stepped out of the tiny shower stall to hear the phone ringing.

  Wrapped in a thin, ineffectual towel, Sheba dropped down onto the edge of the bed to answer the shrill demand. Probably the desk clerk asking if she wanted some food brought up in exchange for an exorbitant tip. The last thing she expected was for the past to reach out through those inconsistent lines of communications to cruelly snatch her smug sense of accomplishment from her.

  "Sheba? It's Paulo. Can you hear me? I've been trying to reach you all day."

  "Paulo? Oh, my gosh! How are you? It's been ages. Where are you?"

  "Home."

  Home. Tightness clutched within her chest, spreading upward to paralyze her throat, preventing an immediate response. A response she didn't fully understand or want.

  "Sheba? Are you still there?"

  She swallowed hard. “I'm here. What are you doing in Peru? I thought you were taking the scientific world by storm in, where was it this time?"

  "Ha, ha. Very funny coming from a world-weary traveler like yourself. Actually, I'm doing some research right in our backyard."

  "Oh.” The thought of that big, untamed backyard rose up in a tidal wave of unfounded alarm.

  "That was always the plan, wasn't it? For you and me to do good at home? Well, here I am. When can I expect you?"

  Sheba closed her eyes, opening them quickly when her mind's deep, scary recesses brought threatening shadows from the forgotten realm of danger and dread accompanying thoughts of home. She didn't know where those feelings came from—the claustrophobic sweats, the clawing terror, the glassy shards of panic and pain. But she knew she could never go back to the source of those miseries. Never. A defensive wall of distance slammed into place.

  "Paulo, I'm right in the middle of some important work myself. I can't just walk away from it."

  "Can't or won't?

  Never, never, never.

  "Don't be silly, Paulo. I'd love to see you. I really would. Now's just not a good time. I've got notes to put together and—"

  "Yadda, yadda, yadda.” The warm, forgiving laugh reached across the continent to soothe her. “Don't worry about it. Who am I to throw the first stone? It's not like I don't thrive on being a workaholic, too. It's just that I miss you so much sometimes."

  A wad of emotion got the best of her for a moment, skewing her vision and burning in her throat as she thought of the only link to the past that she could return to.

  "I miss you, too, mi hermano, mi amigo,” she managed to whisper.

  "But all gooey sentiments aside, there was another reason I called."

  Sheba smiled at the runaway enthusiasm in his voice. “I'm crushed. But not surprised."

  "A couple of huagueros have everything in an uproar down here."

  What did the misadventures of some Peruvian tomb robbers have to do with her? She was suddenly terrified to find out.

  "Oh? Some new find my colleagues might be interested in?” Did she sound normal, her curiosity genuine? Or did her reluctance and fear shiver through the lines to touch her oldest friend in the world? Apparently not, for Paulo continued excitedly.

  "They found a tomb, Sheba. Buried out in the jungle. Maybe the tomb. I thought you'd want to know."

  Dizziness swam up to engulf her senses. Sickness sloshed in her belly and roared upward to sear her throat and nose with the acrid bite of remembered fear. The world went momentarily black then green.

  Then red.

  "Sheba? Are you still there?"

  She bent over, tucking her head between her knees as nausea thundered in her ears and left her trembling.

  "Sheba?"

  "I'm sorry, Paulo, but I've got to go.” How weak and wobbly her voice sounded.

  "Sheba, I thought you'd want to know.” Apology and the first strains of regret colored his words.

  "Thanks, Paulo. I've really got to go now. I'll talk to you soon."

  She tried to hang up the phone, missing the cradle once, twice, then just letting the receiver fall to the worn rug. The world reeled as she dropped to her knees, swaying in the thrall of a shuddering sickness she couldn't name.

  No, that wasn't quite true. She knew the name. It was Peru. Paulo called it home. But to Sheba, it would only mean one thing.

  Death.

  The smell drew him out of the darkness. Not the rich aroma wafting from the stew pot, nor the bite of cheap alcohol filtering outward on each softly snored breath, but a more subtle bouquet, one rich and bold and vital. One stirred up, not by a wooden cook spoon or the pull of a cork, but issued forth with a steady, timeless beat.

  The scent of life. The fragrance of renewal and eternity. It beckoned, an irresistible pheromone from the figure slouched and slumbering drunkenly on the front steps.

  The lone predator crept in closer, nostrils quivering, mouth moistening in anticipation of the feast to come. So easy, so unaware of the danger. The man on the porch muttered. The empty bottle fell from his slack hand, hitting the ground with a hollow thud. Just as the unsuspecting victim soon would after the swift attack left him an equally emptied vessel.

  Closer. Easing through the brush without sound, more a shadow than a man. A deadly shadow.

  The door to the shack burst open, flooding the dirty yard with light. A large woman's silhouette filled the opening, hands on hips in the picture of indignant fury. The killer sank back into anonymity. Patiently, he waited in the shadows, waited and watched for his chance to come again.

  The angry woman advanced upon her hapless husband, waking him rudely with the smack of her spoon against one ear.

  "Paco, you useless piece of dung! I work all day at the lodge to put food on the table and here you sit, too drunk to taste it."

  Rubbing his ear against abuse both physical and verbal, Paco Ruis struggled up from the pleasant embrace of liquor to confront the shrew he'd married. She's been pretty then, with tiny feet, good teeth and a waist he could span with his meaty hands. Now, her teeth were almost gone, and he could barely get his arms around her. The teasing laugh of that young girl had aged to the harping chatter of a squirrel monkey, always barking about how she provided for them by toiling at the lodge while he drank up her precious earnings
. It wasn't his fault there was no work. He'd made a good living as a street vendor until the government ended his right to hawk his wares on the sidewalks of the city. He and others like him were pushed from their shanty town, forced to follow the north-south highway bulldozed into the jungle where they were promised resettlement and work.

  Only there was no work, no way for a proud man to provide for his family. His wife, his once beautiful Maria, didn't understand a man's shame in letting his woman bring home the means for their survival. She couldn't comprehend the misery that coaxed him to the bottle. She could only nag and belittle, carving away at his machismo pride until little was left of the man he'd once been.

  "You were supposed to have brought in wood for the stove, but instead you've spent the day wallowing in the comfort of cheap liquor."

  "It's the only comfort I get here, woman,” he roared, satisfied when she took a few cautious steps back as he wobbled to his feet. He'd been an imposing man with a hot temper. Now he was a pitiful one, and the temper was quicker. Only when it had its way did she give him the respect he was due. Perhaps it was time to show her who was boss. His eyes narrowed at the thought, and a thin smile gave her warning.

  For all her bulk, she was still fast on those tiny feet. She dodged back into the house and barred the door as he crashed into it, bellowing her name in impotent rage.

  "Maria, open this door. I am the man of this house. Let me in."

  "Man?” she shouted back through the surprisingly strong door. Neither would yield to his bullying. “Then act like one. Do a man's work instead of whimpering into your bottle like a child. Go out into the jungle and find wood. Once you've cut and stacked it, perhaps the honest sweat will clear the fumes from your brain, and I can open the door to you once more."

  "Puta!” He battered the barring portal one last time, but it was only for effect. His shoulder was sore, and the hinges showed as little sign of relenting as the she-dog on the other side. “Bah! Find your own wood, woman. You are the man of the house now. I will find myself another bed to lie in."

  He waited to see if the oft-tendered threat would sway her. A stony silence was his answer. He sighed. With his bottle empty, he had only two choices, cut the wood and grovel his way back into his still-pleasurable bed ... or go find another bottle.

  He reeled off the porch, stumbling down the steps and into the dirt patch yard. Finding a bottle would be much easier and more rewarding on this steamy night than chopping wood. That decided, he started down the narrow path that would take him to the village. There he would find more drink and perhaps a more malleable female to share it with.

  He'd gone twenty yards, surely no more than that, when he began to have second thoughts. He could still see the flickering lights from the windows of his home, and they looked more inviting than a long walk in the dark. Besides, his pockets were empty. Wondering how much wood it would take to calm her mood and earn him a way back under her covers, Paco left the path in search of fallen timber. He'd drag a few branches back, make a grand show of chopping them into kindling, then romance his wife from her evil temper. And perhaps tomorrow he would go with her to the lodge to see if they offered any work a man could do.

  He'd bent to wrestle a limb from a tangle of vines when he heard a faint sound behind him. Could Maria have followed him, worried that he might not come home? He refused to turn and greet her. Let her make the first apologizing overture.

  But when that overture came, there was nothing apologetic about it.

  Powerful hands clasped either side of his skull. He was jerked upright, then off his feet with a strength that defied even the biggest men he knew. Then, with a quick, savage wrench of those hands, Paco Ruis knew nothing at all.

  And later, when a woman's screams echoed through the trees, startling birds into flight, a soft chuckle teased about that cacophony of sound.

  "That's right, my dear. You run. You tell them all what you've found. Tell them what terror walks among them in the night. Tell them to be afraid, very afraid. And tell them to get ready to pay."

  Chapter Two

  Frank Cobb appeared at ease as he regarded the man on the other side of the big mahogany desk, but his thoughts were far from relaxed. Anything that had to do with Greg Forrester or Harper Research pushed him right to the razor edge of self-preserving caution.

  He had every reason for his suspicions. He'd sat in this same spot before, only then, the office had been bigger, just as the other man's reputation had been bigger. But Cobb had learned that when things got smaller, they weren't necessarily less powerful, only more driven and, therefore, more dangerous. Forrester had that stink of danger about him even in the cool of the climate-controlled facility. And Cobb had to wonder what was making the man sweat and how that would affect him in the long run.

  "There's a flight leaving for Lima in two hours.” Forrester pushed an airline packet across the gleaming desk top.

  "Lima, Ohio?"

  "Lima, Peru."

  Cobb looked at the packet but didn't pick it up. “What's in Peru that interests you and Harper?” And me?

  "One of the Center's pursuits is in biological prospecting. The Amazon is rich in plant life with properties no one's ever cataloged. There are alleged blood-cleansing seeds in Peru, cancer-killing vines in Iquitos, the burseraceae bush and samples of una de gato known to alleviate cancer and AIDs. The possibilities are limitless."

  Cobb was unimpressed by his humanitarian fervor. “Along with the profits."

  Forrester ignored Cobb's dry summation as if it were beneath him to comment. “The only problem is researchers run into a lot of governmental red-tape. They aren't allowed into some parts of the country."

  "And you want me to smuggle a group of Seattle scientists across the borders into Peru. That's certainly a new twist."

  This time, Forrester expressed his annoyance with a brief, brow-lowering scowl. “No. Harper is funding a young economic botanist named Paulo Lemos. He's a Peruvian. So far he's been very successful in penetrating jungle areas that have been off-limits to us before."

  "Sounds like you've found an economical answer to the problem. So what's the problem?” And there had to be one if Forrester had asked for him by name. He was on retainer to Harper as a problem solver.

  A dirty job, but ... but the pay more than made up for it. Usually.

  Forrester's irritation grew more difficult to hide. It didn't take a huge leap for Cobb to make the connection between the administrator's struggle to regain face with the Center and the Peruvian botanist. Lemos was Forrester's project, and Forrester's star would rise or fall with the young man's success. Cobb had learned that the smooth-spoken, grandfatherly Forrester's ambition was like the cancer his center studied—voracious, unpredictable and totally merciless about what it devoured. He'd almost been swallowed whole once before and didn't like the sensation of being chewed and spit out according to Forrester's taste of the moment.

  Apparently, the man was now teething on Lemos, and Frank didn't envy the boy's position.

  "There's been some ... trouble,” Forrester conceded at last.

  Wasn't there always? Here it comes. Cobb could imagine Forrester's maw opening wide, getting ready to take a bite out of his butt.

  "Could you be a bit more specific?"

  "There have been some grumblings from the indigenous population, nothing too overt or threatening up until now."

  "Gee, I wonder why they wouldn't fling their arms wide open to welcome a new plague of resource-stripping locusts among them."

  Forrester's hard stare cut Cobb's sarcasm off at the knees. “There have been killings."

  Suddenly, Cobb was all attention though he never actually moved. “Who and why?"

  "Just natives at first, random choices. The local authorities thought it some kind of new cult-thing rising up in one of the isolated tribes. No reason to get involved or to worry us."

  "Until?"

  "Until one of the guests was murdered at an exclusive ecotourism lodge.
The wife of a very influential political supporter."

  Cobb got the picture. The deaths of a few natives were no big deal. Write it off to jungle law or some such nonsense. But touch one of the elite...

  "And so?” Cobb prompted.

  "And so the government is thinking of closing down the entire area. Surely you can see what that means?"

  Sure. The area would revert back to its rightful owners, and the killings would stop. Secretly, Cobb applauded the official reasoning. But those weren't the officials paying his salary. “No more research. No more potential cures. No more potential profits."

  "Exactly."

  "So what do you want me to do about it?” For Cobb, it all boiled down to that.

  "Go to Peru. Stick close to Lemos. The government is still on the fence, so I want him to get as much work done as possible in case they pull his ticket."

  "You want me to babysit."

  Great.

  Manicured fingers fanned wide and pressed down on the shiny desktop as the executive leaned forward for emphasis. “I want you to do what you do best. Observe, investigate and eradicate the problem."

  "The problem being?” If Forrester thought he'd be game for a little high profile assassination, he was wrong. Cobb wasn't in that business anymore.

  "I want you to stop whoever's behind the killings. Or whatever is."

  "Isn't that what Peru has a police force for? Won't I be stepping on some pretty big official toes?"

  One elegant hand flicked the problem away with a flourish. Why not? It wasn't going to be his problem for much longer. If Frank decided to take the job.