Lori Handeland - Crave The Moon

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to Peggy Hendricks, whose wealth of information in many areas has been a constant help to me. This time, I appreciate her knowing the intricacies of loans, deeds, and foreclosures.

And a big thank you as well to Sharon Antoniewicz, my go-to girl on all things motorcycle.

Any mistakes are always my own.

In the first century, he lived for vengeance.

During the second, he hungered for blood.

By the third, he yearned for destruction.

But eventually

All he craved was the moon.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

You got another letter from moldy, old Dr. Mecate.

Gina ONeil glanced up from grooming a horse to discover her best friend, Jase McCord, holding up a brilliantly white business-sized envelope. She knew exactly what business it contained. How could she not, considering the obstinate Dr. Mecate had sent her at least half a dozen others just like it?

It would behoove you to allow me to dig on your property.

What in hell was a behoove?

Proving my academic theory would increase the cachet of your establishment.

She had the same question about cachet.

I would be happy to advance remuneration.

Who talked like that?

Helloo. Jase waved the envelope back and forth, his wide, high-cheekboned face softened by the chip in his front tooth that hed gotten when he was bucked from a horse at the age of eight. His face, combined with his compact but well-honed body, made him look like a marauding Ute warrior, which was exactly what he would have been if born in a previous century. What should I?

Gina snatched the envelope from his hand. Ill take care of it. In the same way shed taken care of all the others.

Direct deposit into the trash can.

Gina turned back to Lady Belle, and Jase, who was familiar with Ginas moods, left.

Nahua Springs Ranch was not only Ginas home but also her inheritance. Once one of the most respected quarter-horse ranches in Colorado, Nahua Springs had become, after the death of Ginas parents nearly ten years ago, one of far too many dude ranches in the area. Nevertheless, theyd done all right. Until recently.

Recently shed begun to receive as many letters from bill collectors as she did from Dr. Mecate. Certainly his remuneration would be welcome, considering their financial difficulties. Unfortunately, what he wanted from her was something Gina couldnt give.

If she opened the letter she knew what shed find. A request for her to let him search for Aztec ruins on her property.

She couldnt do that. What if he went there? What if he found it?

Gina crossed to the open back doorway of the barn, drawing in a deep breath of spring air as she stared at the ebony roll of the distant mountains and the new grass tinged silver by the wisp of a moon.

Giiiiii-naaaa!

Sometimes the wind called her name. Sometimes the coyotes. Sometimes she even heard it in the howls of the wolves that were never, ever there.

The singsong trill haunted her, reminding her of all she had lost. Shed come to the conclusion that the call was her conscience, shouting out the last word her parents had ever uttered in an attempt to make sure she remembered, as if she could ever forget, that they had died because of her.

Everything had both started and ended in that cavern beneath the earth.

Kids will be kids, she murmured, echoing her fathers inevitable pronouncement whenever she and Jase had gotten into trouble.

Let them roam, Betsy. What good is having this place if she cant run free like we did?

Ginas parents had been childhood sweethearts. Boring, if you left out the star-crossed nature of their relationshipBetsy, the daughter of the ranch owner, and Pete, the son of the foreman. Everyone had considered them as close as brother and sister. When Betsys father had found out they were closer, hed threatened to send her to college on the East Coast, right after he used his bullwhip on Pete.

The reality of the coming grandchild had ended both the threat of a whipping and any hope of college. Not that Betsy had cared. Shed loved the ranch as much as Pete had, as much as Gina did now.

Gina and Jase had been kids that day, heading straight for the place Jases granddad, Isaac, had warned them against.

At the end of Lonely Deer Trail the Tangwaci Cin-au-ao sleeps. You must never, ever walk there.

According to Isaac, the Tangwaci Cin-au-ao was an evil spirit of such power that whoever went anywhere near him died. Basically, he was the Ute Angel of Death, and he lived at their place. What fifteen-year-old could resist that?

Certainly not Gina.

Shed become obsessed with the end of Lonely Deer Trail. Shed crept closer and closer. Shed taken pictures of the flat plain that dropped into nowhere, yet a tree appeared to grow out of the sky. And when that sky filled with dawn or dusk the tree seemed to catch fire.

How could anyone not want to explore that?

Jase hadnt wanted to go, but shed teased him unmercifully. In the end, hed given in, as shed known he would. To Jases credit, hed never once said, I told you so.

Not when the earth had crumpled beneath them.

Not when theyd tried to climb out and only succeeded in pulling an avalanche of summer-dried ground back in.

Not when theyd been buried alive, unable to move, barely able to breathe.

Not even when theyd both understood they would die there.

Because if Ginas sleep was disturbed by the ghostly, singsong trill, if on occasion the wind also called her name, if she felt every morning in that instant before she awoke the same thing shed felt in that cavernthe stirring of something demonic, the reaching of its deformed hand in a mad game of Duck, Duck, Goose, pointing first at Gina, then at Jase, before settling its death claw on her parents, well

That was probably I told you so enough.

* * *

Mateo Mecate stared at the hieroglyphics until they blurred in front of his overworked eyes. He might be one of the foremost scholars in Aztec studies, but the letters still sometimes read like gibberish. He shoved them aside, removing his glasses and rubbing a hand over his face.

According to the calendar, May meant spring. As usual, Tucson wasnt listening. The temperatures had been pushing ninety for a week.

The door to Matts small, dusty, scalding office opened, and his boss, George Enright, stepped in. His gaze went to the papers on Matts desk, and he frowned.

Mateo. Enrights voice held so much disappointment, Matt expected him to cluck his tongue, then shake his head, or perhaps his finger, in admonishment. This has to stop. Ive put up with it thus far because of the respect I had for your mother. But the time has come to move on.

Enright was the head of the anthropology department at the University of Arizona, where Matt was a professor of archaeologyhis specialty, like his mothers before him, the civilization of the Aztecs.

Nora Mecate had been a descendant of that great civilization. Shed been fascinatedsome say obsessedwith proving a theory shed gleaned from ancient writings passed down through her family for generations. She spent her lifeno, she gave her lifetrying to prove it.

You could become the chair of this department when I retire. But you need to abandon your mothers ridiculous theory. Youre becoming a laughingstock. Enright lowered his voice. As she was.

Matt stiffened. Any academic who refused to face facts became an amusing anecdote at the staff watercooler. Matt had noticed a lot of the graduate students staring and whispering lately.