Crave the Moon

by Lori Handeland

  “Anyone else see ‘the darkness’?”

  “No,” Jase said. “But they all heard the howl.”

  * * *

  Matt had been studying the glyphs again, listening with one ear as McCord and Gina talked. Certainly Matt was concerned about who was dead, but there was something about that wall and the pictures on it that was off.

  Before he could really begin to ponder things, Matt heard McCord’s last sentence, and his gaze flicked to Gina’s. Hers was already waiting for him.

  “What kind of howl?” Matt asked.

  “The same kind we always have around here.”

  “The one that isn’t made by actual wolves.”

  “Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?” McCord asked.

  Matt shrugged. Just because it sounded ridiculous didn’t mean it wasn’t true.

  Too bad he hadn’t figured that out before he broke his mother’s heart.

  “Any tracks?” Matt asked.

  “No.”

  “How can that be?” People didn’t just disappear into thin air.

  “You figure it out, pal, you let me know.”

  Matt’s mind began to flirt with images of pterodactyls swooping out of the night and King Kong–like beasts reaching down from nearby trees to snatch up an unsuspecting A as she sang about ghost chickens in the sky.

  Maybe they’d taken her.

  Any and all of those ideas were, sadly, no more strange than whooshing darkness and unwolves. However—

  “You said someone was dead.”

  Gina glanced at Matt, then back at McCord expectantly.

  “And here I thought you weren’t listening,” McCord murmured.

  Now that the man had told his tale, his nerves appeared to have settled and he was back to his annoying, sarcastic self. How had Gina put up with him all her life? Matt had known the guy less than a week, and he could no longer count on two hands the number of times he’d wanted to kill McCord.

  “If Ashleigh’s ‘gone,’” Matt made quotation marks in the air with his fingers, “then how do you know she’s dead?”

  McCord’s dark eyes met his. “I never said we didn’t find her.”

  * * *

  Gina, who’d still been hoping Ashleigh was just fucking with them, released a sigh that sounded more like a whimper. Jase, whose hand she still held, didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy having a testosterone stare-down with Teo.

  “Where?” Teo asked.

  “Couple hundred yards away.”

  “How?”

  Gina wasn’t sure if Teo were asking how Ashleigh had died or how they’d found her. Didn’t matter. Either one was on Gina’s list of questions as well.

  “She—” Jase began, and then a scream, followed by several shouts, erupted from above.

  The other guests! Gina had forgotten all about them.

  Jase, Gina, and Teo ran for the opening. Jase reached the rope first, grabbed it in his huge, hard hands, then paused, glancing at Gina before handing it to Teo. “You go first.”

  “Kiss my ass,” Teo murmured conversationally.

  “Jesus.” Gina snatched at the rope. “I’ll go first.”

  Jase held the rope out of reach. “You aren’t going up there alone. Who knows what’s going on.”

  The screams and the shouts continued, accompanied by a lot of scuffling.

  “Someone better get up there,” she snapped.

  Jase gave Teo an evil glare, as if he’d done this, whatever this was. “Fine.” Jase started to climb. “It’s not as if he’d be any good at handling a catastrophe.”

  Gina’s gaze met Teo’s as the end of the rope danced like a cobra between them. She thought he’d be very good at handling just about anything.

  “Hurry up!” Jase shouted, disappearing over the lip of the cavern.

  “Go,” Teo said.

  Gina bit her lip and contemplated the distance from floor to opening. She’d climbed ropes in gym class, but she’d never gotten more than ten feet off the ground.

  “You first.” She held out the rope in his direction, and when he began to argue she interrupted. “I might need help.”

  Teo glanced around the cavern. “You’ll be okay down here?”

  “I’ll be better up there,” she said; then when another shriek sounded, she muttered, “Maybe. But we gotta go, so—” Gina jerked her thumb toward the sky.

  Teo leaned over and brushed her lips with his. The action was both surprising and somehow just right.

  She almost told him again what she’d heard when she’d been buried here, admitted that she’d heard it ever since, along with the uneasy feeling that the sorcerer Teo didn’t believe in was not only real but also still very much alive.

  Then he grasped the rope and scooted upward with easy, coordinated movements of hands and legs and feet. She watched him all the way, ignoring the sudden increase in the chill of the air now that she was alone.

  “Okay.” Teo stared at her from above, hair hanging around his face, the moon bright at his back. He wiggled the rope. “Tie the end around your waist. Walk up the wall. I’ll pull from here. Piece of cake.”

  It wasn’t, but she made it, Teo hauling her in as soon as she crept close enough to haul. As his arms came around her she realized that though she’d been scared of what was down there, what she might see, what she might find, she hadn’t worried once about being trapped. Because from the instant she’d fallen in she’d known that he would get her out.

  Teo released her, frowning into the cavern.

  “What?” She spun, afraid she’d see more black smoke shooting out.

  Teo snatched her elbow, drawing her back from the edge. “We left the lantern.”

  The hole in the earth seemed to glow, golden flickers dancing around the opening like a flame.

  “Probably better we did,” Teo continued. “Don’t want anyone to fall in accidentally as they run around like chickens with their heads chopped off.”

  “What is it with the chickens?” Gina murmured.

  The moon shone brightly, the storm that had caused this mess no longer rumbling even in the distance. The scene that spread out before them was illuminated in shades of silver—the sky gray, the mountains charcoal, the swaying grasses white. Everything that moved across the moonscape appeared etched in black.

  “What happened?” she shouted.

  No one bothered to answer. No one even bothered to glance her way.

  The screams had stopped. Gina wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. Did it mean the horror was over? Or that it was just over for whoever had been screaming.

  She cast Teo a worried glance, then hurried toward the nearest outline that resembled a person.

  “Hey,” Gina murmured as she approached.

  The outline threw up its arms and shouted, “Fuck!”

  Melda. Gina should have been able to tell by the short, squat, Mrs. Claus–shaped shadow even before the woman turned, revealing the shimmering tracks of her tears.

  “Where’s Mel?” Gina asked.

  “Gone,” Melda whispered. “Whoosh.”

  Gina wanted to shout, Fuck! herself, but she figured that would be redundant.

  Teo appeared at her side. “You heard?” she asked, and he nodded.

  His gaze, gray-green in the moonlight, scanned the area. “Did you see anything, Melda?”

  “The darkness took him,” she said; then she sat, right down in the dirt as if her legs could no longer hold her.

  “The darkness is really starting to piss me off,” Gina muttered, and moved to the next outline.

  “Derek,” she said as soon as she recognized the kid, hoping that if she used his name, she wouldn’t scare the shit out of him as she had Melda.

  No such luck. He wheeled toward her, fists raised. Gina started to bring her own fists up, but before she even got them waist high Teo had inserted himself between them. “Whoa, buddy,” he murmured, his scratchy voice strangely soothing, perhaps because it was so recognizable.


  The boy’s hunched shoulders relaxed, though he didn’t lower his fists until Teo set a hand on them and pushed them down.

  “Where’s your dad?” Teo asked.

  Gina’s own shoulders hunched as she waited for the inevitable gone. Instead, Derek pointed to two figures standing far enough out on the plain that they appeared small.

  Considering whom Gina and Teo had accounted for so far and the distinctly male-shaped silhouettes, Gina checked off Jase and Tim on her mental list as present and accounted for.

  “Where’s Amberleigh?”

  “Probably still chattering in a corner,” Derek answered, gaze fixed on his father.

  “There is no corner, Derek.”

  The kid threw Teo an “are you for real?” glance, then jerked his head in the direction of the tree.

  Amberleigh sat at the base, sucking her thumb.

  “Peachy,” Gina muttered, and started for the girl.

  As Gina walked away she heard Teo ask, “What did you see?” and Derek answer, “Not one damn thing.”

  Amberleigh wasn’t any more help than anyone else had been. Of course the incessant sucking of the thumb didn’t allow her to say much, but considering all she seemed able to say was: “Whoosh!” Gina let Amberleigh have at it.

  The crunch of footsteps had Gina glancing up. Jase and Tim had returned. She patted Amberleigh on the shoulder. “You okay?”

  “Whoosh!” Amberleigh said around the thumb.

  Gina stalked toward Jase. “What were you thinking to bring her out here?” She threw out an arm to indicate Amberleigh. “She’s slipped a cog. She needs a doctor.”

  “She didn’t have that many cogs to slip.”

  “Jase, so help me—”

  “Gordon’s a doctor.”

  Gina cut her gaze to Tim, who shrugged. “Don’t tell me you agreed that dragging her on horseback farther away from medical care was a good idea?”

  “Uh—no,” Tim said. “But then, no one asked me.”

  Gina narrowed her eyes on Jase, and he held up his hands—one now held a rifle—in surrender. “Okay. Bad idea. I figured she’d snap out of it.”

  “Does that…,” Gina stabbed her finger at the tree, “look like she’s gonna snap out of it anytime soon?”

  Jase contemplated Amberleigh, then sighed. “No. That just looks like she snapped.”

  Behind him, Melda still sat in the dirt. She was rocking and humming, but at least she wasn’t, yet, sucking her thumb.

  Teo and Derek joined them. Tim put his arm around his son’s shoulders. It was a testament to what had happened in the past twenty-four hours that the boy let him.

  “What did you find?” Gina asked.

  Jase and Tim exchanged a glance. Tim’s eyes shifted toward Derek, and Gina tried to think of something she could send the boy away to do.

  “I’m not leaving,” Derek said. “Whatever’s out there could get me, too. I need to know what’s going on.”

  “He’s right,” Teo murmured. “Tim?”

  The man pulled his son closer, as if he could keep him safe by proximity alone, then nodded.

  “Mel’s out there,” Jase said.

  “Shit,” Gina murmured. “Dead?”

  “Throat torn out.”

  Gina’s eyes widened. She didn’t know what she’d expected but not that.

  “Same as the girl’s,” Jase continued.

  Gina frowned. “We’re talking animal then?”

  “God, I hope so,” Jase muttered.

  “Why would you hope so?”

  “Because if a human did that, we’ve got bigger troubles than we can handle.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Gina soon discovered that the troubles they couldn’t handle were only just beginning.

  The men, minus Derek, who’d been deemed old enough to hear about death but not old enough to see it, were headed for the horses, planning to use one to bring back Mel’s body. Gina and Derek were headed for Melda to break the news when Tim’s voice drifted across the cool, silent night: “Where’s Ashleigh?”

  “It’s Amber-leigh, Dad. And she’s by the tree.”

  “Shit,” Jase said, and Gina got a chill. “The body’s gone.”

  “That’s imposs—,” Teo began, and then: “Shit.”

  Gina pointed to the ground next to Melda, who was still humming what sounded like “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” over and over and over. “Stay here.” Derek opened his mouth, and Gina snapped, “I mean it.”

  The kid emitted a long, grievous, put-upon sigh, but he sat and he stayed.

  The men stared at the ground, where an empty sleeping bag and several pieces of rope lay scattered about. The horses seemed unperturbed, though they could have been stomping and neighing earlier and, in the mayhem, no one would have noticed. The dirt around them did appear overly churned up.

  Jase walked a few yards to the east, bent, and peered more closely at the ground. Gina joined him. She saw immediately what he was staring at.

  Tracks. Going thataway.

  Gina lifted her head, squinted into the gloom, but she saw nothing, no one.

  “Boots,” Jase muttered. “Of a small man.”

  “Or a woman with freakishly large feet.” Gina remembered the unpleasant scrunch of newspaper against her toes as she attempted to walk in borrowed copper high heels. “Like Ashleigh.”

  Jase glanced up, eyes widening. “She’s dead, Gina.”

  “You’re sure?”

  He looked away. “No one could survive that.”

  “Instead, someone snuck in here, unwrapped the body, tossed it over his or her shoulder, and left without anyone seeing a thing.”

  “There’s a lot of that going around.”

  “Jase—” Gina began.

  “You got a better explanation?”

  Not one that she wanted to go into right now, so she shook her head.

  “Ready?” he asked, assuming—rightly—that they would now be the ones to go.

  Gina turned, and her gaze met Teo’s. She didn’t even have to tell him to stay here, to take care of things. He nodded as soon as their eyes met, then put a hand on Tim’s shoulder and led him toward the others.

  “Should we take a horse, bring back Mel?”

  Jase shook his head. “Let’s see what’s going on first.”

  Probably a good idea. Kind of hard to handle a horse and a—

  What? An invisible Aztec sorcerer who had somehow survived thousands of years and was now on a rampage?

  She kept that thought to herself, but she left the horses behind.

  Gina and Jase followed the boot tracks for maybe a hundred yards before Jase stopped and said, “Shit.” There also seemed to be a lot of that going around. Then he glanced to the left, the right, behind them, head swiveling faster and more frantically with every turn.

  “Lose something?”

  “The other body.”

  Gina blinked, opened her mouth, shut it, tilted her head, and— “You sure?”

  “Would you quit asking me that?”

  “If you’d quit saying things that make me.”

  Jase turned in a slow circle, gaze scanning the ground. “It was right there.” He pointed to a spot directly in front of them. A spot the tracks seemed to be headed right for.

  Neither one of them spoke; they followed the trail, which ended at a big circle of dark in the dirt. Even in the waning moonlight, Gina knew blood when she saw it.

  “And you’re certain Mel was dead?”

  Jase didn’t even bother to answer. Really, from the amount of blood, he just had to be.

  “Whoever snatched Ashleigh must have come over here and snatched Mel, too,” Jase said.

  “I’d agree with you, except for one thing.”

  “What?”

  Gina pointed to the other side of the big, dark splotch. “There are two sets of tracks.”

  A sudden howl, followed quickly by another, brought their heads up. What they saw brought Jase’s gun up, too.

 
The horizon had just begun to lighten with the first hint of dawn, illuminating the silhouettes of two wolves, snouts lifted to serenade the dying moon.

  “You see that?” Jase murmured.

  “Uh-huh.” Gina even blinked a few times, but they didn’t go away.

  “Explains a few things.”

  “It does?” In her opinion, the wolves only brought up more questions.

  “They tore out Ashleigh’s and Mel’s throats.”

  “Wolves don’t do that,” Gina said.

  “I bet these do.”

  Gina didn’t answer, because she bet they did, too.

  They had two dead people with their throats torn out by an animal—something that had never happened here before. Then they saw two animals of a type that had never been seen here before.

  One plus one equaled two. Always. And it was a much saner explanation than an escaped sorcerer. However—

  “The wolves don’t explain the whoosh, or the darkness, or the disappearing bodies surrounded by human tracks.”

  Jase nodded, still staring at the horizon. “We need to get back to the ranch.”

  * * *

  Returning to Nahua Springs proved both easier and harder than Gina had anticipated.

  Easier because while Melda and Amberleigh were not themselves, they weren’t lobotomized or deaf. The instant the two heard the party was headed home, they hopped on their horses and took off. The only hard part was keeping up with them.

  On the other hand, Teo refused to leave.

  “You can’t stay here,” Gina insisted.

  “I can’t leave the cavern open and unguarded for just anyone to crawl around in.”

  “We’ve had this talk. No one comes here.”

  “Someone came here and took the damn mummy,” he muttered.

  Gina bit her lip. She wasn’t so sure.

  She glanced at the wolves, which continued to sit on the horizon and watch them, still as statues guarding an Egyptian tomb.

  She and Teo needed to figure out what in hell was going on. How they’d do that she wasn’t sure. But it wasn’t going to be out here where God only knew what was hovering.

  “I can start translating the glyphs,” Teo began. “If you’d just call my assistant and—”

  “No.”

  He blinked, the eyes behind the glasses he’d retrieved along with their tent, bedding, and horses confused. “No?”