Darkwind: Ancient Enemy 2
Author: Mark Lukens Narrated Byteri Barrington
Date: 2019-06-28 00:00:00+00:00
Description: After a rancher finds ten mutilated bodies at an archaeological dig site on the Navajo Reservation, both Captain Begay of the Navajo Tribal Police and Special Agent Palmer of the FBI become involved . . . but the case leads Palmer back up to Colorado where five more mutilated bodies and Stella's vehicle have been discovered at a burning cabin. Cole, Stella, and David escape the cabin, heading south to get David back down to the Navajo lands. Now that Stella believes David is a natural-born shaman, she knows their only hope of David ever defeating the Ancient Enemy is to find a reclusive shaman
Publisher: Tantor Audio

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE SATURDAY

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

PART I SUNDAY

CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN

PART II MONDAY

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

PART III TUESDAY

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

PART IV WEDNESDAY

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
CHAPTER SIXTY
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
CHAPTER SEVENTY
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

DARKWIND:
ANCIENT ENEMY 2
by

MARK LUKENS

Darkwind: Ancient Enemy 2—Copyright © 2015 by Mark Lukens

All Rights Reserved

No part of this work may be reproduced without written permission by the author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead (or in any other form), is entirely coincidental.

Cover Design by: www.damonza.com

PLEASE CHECK OUT THESE OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR:

Ancient Enemy – www.amazon.com/dp/B00FD4SP8M

Descendants of Magic – www.amazon.com/dp/B00FWYYYYC

The Summoning – www.amazon.com/dp/B00HNEOHKU

Night Terrors – www.amazon.com/dp/B00M66IU3U

Sightings – www.amazon.com/dp/B00VAI31KW

The Exorcist’s Apprentice – www.amazon.com/dp/B00YYF1E5C

What Lies Below – www.amazon.com/dp/B0143LADEY

Ghost Town: a novella – www.amazon.com/dp/B00LEZRF7G

A Dark Collection: 12 Scary Stories – www.amazon.com/dp/B00JENAGLC

The Darwin Effect – www.amazon.com/dp/B01G4A8ZYC

Devil’s Island – Coming Soon

A Dedication:

This sequel is dedicated to all of the readers out there who have written to me or left reviews asking for a sequel to my novel ANCIENT ENEMY. After I wrote ANCIENT ENEMY, my first novel, and then published it on Amazon, I had hoped it would do well, but I never would’ve dared to believe that I would get so much positive feedback. I had always planned on ANCIENT ENEMY being a standalone story with an ending that hopefully kept the reader guessing and perhaps thinking about the story for some time. It had started out as a screenplay, and it’s common for horror films to have a kind of open ending to set up for a sequel if the film happens to be successful. Some readers didn’t like the somewhat ambiguous ending, but many others did, and many asked for a sequel. At first I was dead set against a sequel—I had a lot of other projects I wanted to work on, so many other stories I wanted to tell. But then I began wondering what I would write if I wanted to write a sequel. Where would the story go? What would Stella, Cole, and David do now? And then the story kind of unfolded for me. And now I’m glad I wrote the second installment to Ancient Enemy. I’m glad I ended the story, and I have so many readers to thank for that. I wish I could list individual names here, but it would take too long. I do want to say a special thanks to some of the readers who have stayed in touch with me—you know who you are: Kat, Conny, Ann, Mitch, Mark, Bill, Sean, Lisa, Allen, and Sharyl.

Thank you for your comments over the last few years, your help, and your support. I imagine readers like you when I’m writing; I imagine you reading my stories and your reactions to them, and that’s why I continue to write.

Thank you, dear readers, for giving me the opportunity to live my dream.

This book is for you.

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

This book is a sequel to ANCIENT ENEMY, but I wanted to say that I don’t believe you necessarily must read the first one to understand what’s going on in this story. I tried to write this book so it could stand on its own for a new reader, yet still conclude the story for readers who have read the first book. Either way, I hope you enjoy it!

Much of this book takes place in Colorado and on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico and Arizona. I tried to be as true to the geography of the area as possible, but some of the locations in this story are fictional.

PROLOGUE

SATURDAY

CHAPTER ONE

Navajo Reservation—dig site

Randy Tahoma sat on his horse at the edge of the ridge, staring down at the dig site on the canyon floor below. He had ridden by this dig site several times in the past few weeks, stopping for a few minutes to watch the scientists below as they hurried around like ants on little missions. He wondered why they were so intent on digging up the land, digging up the bones of the ancient people. They should let those old ghosts lie in peace. Nothing good could come from digging around down there; Randy was sure of that.

In the many times he had sat up here on this ridge watching the scientists, he hadn’t gone down there to greet them. What they were doing wasn’t any of his business. Many other Navajo in the area were openly critical of the archaeologists and this dig site but Randy tried to mind his own business and keep to himself. Besides, if he went down there they would probably bombard him with questions about ancient stories and local legends. White people thought every Navajo could recite their people’s entire history at a moment’s notice. It wasn’t worth the hassle. He was content to sit up here on his horse and just watch for a while.

Randy was “retired” now … more like forced into it. His sons and grandsons had taken over the sheepherding chores on his property. He still felt like he could work, but they insisted that he take it easy in the years he had left. But now his days were filled with aimless wandering, and that aimless wandering had taken him here to the dig site today.

But he noticed that the camp was different today. Everything was still and silent, no movement anywhere, no sounds drifting up to the ridge where he sat, no smoke from a campfire. He waited at the top of the ridge for almost thirty minutes, bundled up in his heavy coat as he watched the two trailers and tents below. He also watched the line of trucks and SUVs farther away from the camp, all of them parked in a line near a stand of juniper bushes and cottonwood trees.

The mouth of the cave looked like a slit in the rock wall from way up here but he knew it was far bigger than it looked from where he sat. When someone entered or left the cave he could see that two people could easily stand side by side in the mouth of the cave if they wanted to. The opening was wider at the bottom and it narrowed to a crack thirty feet above the canyon floor. The mouth looked like it had been hidden before by shrubbery and plants for a long time, and now those shrubs were cut away and drying up in heaps on the desert floor.

Something felt wrong down there. Every time he’d been here before he had seen at least one person walking back and forth from their camp to the mouth of the cave. He had heard the clicking sounds of hammers tapping on rocks, music playing from somebody’s battery-powered radio, a bark of laughter, the words of a conversation floating up to him. He had seen the lights shining in the two trailers and he’d seen the lights burning on the string of electrical cords that ran from the generator into the mouth of the cave.

But today was different: no activity, no noise.

He decided to ride his horse down a barely perceptible trail towards the canyon floor below. He sensed the nervousness in his horse well before he reached the trailers.

“Whoa …” he cooed at his horse. But he felt as nervous as his horse did.

It was late afternoon now. As the sun dipped lower to the west, the shadows stretched all the way across the canyon floor. There were no lights on in either one of the trailers. The generator that sat close to the mouth of the cave was silent.

“Hello?!” Randy called out.

No answer.

He rode his horse over to a cottonwood tree and got off. He tied the rope around a low-hanging tree limb and then patted his horse for a moment. His horse sputtered and stared at him with wild eyes, shifting his weight nervously.

“It’s okay,” Randy whispered to the horse. “I just want to have a look around. Make sure everyone’s okay.”

Randy walked over to the trailer and knocked on the flimsy aluminum door. He waited for a moment, listening.

No one answered. No one was coming to the door—he would’ve heard their footsteps inside the trailer if someone was approaching.

He knocked again. “Hello?”

Still no answer.

The thought of entering the trailer crossed his mind, but it was rude to enter someone’s home—even if it was a temporary trailer—without their permission. Navajo prized privacy.

He looked at the next trailer beyond this one and thought about knocking on that door. No lights had come on in either trailer since he had been pounding on the door. He glanced over at the line of vehicles a hundred yards away past a field of juniper and sagebrush that dotted the sand and hard-packed dirt. There were four vehicles parked there, all trucks of some kind. There seemed to be a space where a truck had been parked before, but now it was gone. Maybe all of the scientists had left.

In one vehicle? And with their generator and a lot of other equipment left behind?

That didn’t make any sense.

Randy looked at the second trailer again. He walked towards that door and knocked on it. Still no answer. No lights coming on inside.

He was about to walk back to his horse but then he froze when he saw something in the dirt about thirty yards away near the edge of the brush. He walked over there and stood there for a moment, staring down at a large dark stain on the sand. It was dried blood. A lot of it.

Something had happened here … something bad.

Randy hurried back to his horse and pulled his flashlight out of his saddle bag. He turned the flashlight on and shined it back at the two dark trailers. The sky was still blue above him, but the shadows seemed to have darkened even more down here on the canyon floor. He pointed the flashlight beam towards the crack in the canyon wall … at the mouth of the cave.

Don’t go in there, his mind whispered, but Randy started walking towards the mouth of the cave. Maybe somebody was hurt.

He stopped beside the generator for a moment and placed a hand on the muffler. It was ice-cold. He shivered as the wind sliced down from the ridge towards him. He thought about starting the generator up, but he didn’t want to disturb anything. He aimed his flashlight into the mouth of the cave, and then stepped right up to it. The light beam only shined so far into the tunnel, revealing claustrophobic rock walls on both sides, a hard-packed dirt floor, and the lines of electric cords with the construction lights every fifty feet or so that disappeared into the darkness.

“Hello?” Randy called into the mouth of the cave, his voice echoing back at him. “Are you okay in there?”

No answer.

He couldn’t believe he was doing this, but he entered the cave. He had been in caves many times in his life … more than he could remember. He knew his way around caves and with the string of lights in this cave there was no chance of getting lost. He would just venture inside a little ways, just far enough to make sure no one was injured and needed help.

“Hello?” he called out as he walked deeper into the cave. His flashlight beam looked like a laser beam of light stabbing into the total darkness. He moved slowly, his work boots scuffling along the dirt floor, kicking at the small rocks in the way. The path through the rock seemed to narrow slightly the deeper he went, the walls closing in slowly. He’d never been claustrophobic—he’d never been scared of much in his life—but something was frightening him badly now. Something felt bad here … very bad.

And a moment later he smelled the unmistakable coppery scent of blood … the odor of death and decay. Something was dead in this cave farther ahead in the darkness. Something big. Or maybe more than one dead thing.

I should just turn around right now, Randy told himself. Turn around and get back on my horse. Ride home and call the police. Something isn’t right here.

But he didn’t turn around.

He ventured deeper into the cave.

And finally the path through the walls of rock opened up to a gigantic cavern. He felt like he could breathe again now that the walls of rock weren’t pressing in on him, but the smell of rot and decay was so strong now that it was hard to breathe. He held his nostrils closed with one hand, breathing in and out through his mouth, while his other hand that clutched his flashlight trembled slightly, shaking the flashlight beam in front of him.

He panned the light beam around the large cavern and then he shined his light on the most horrifying thing he’d ever seen.

“Oh … no … no …”

The big flashlight nearly slipped out of his hand as he stared at the sight in the darkness fifty feet in front of him, something that shouldn’t be possible.

Then he turned and ran.

He ran back down the claustrophobic tunnel through the solid rock, his footsteps and ragged breaths echoing all around him. He felt like he was being followed, like something was chasing him through the darkness, about to grab him and pull him back …

Moments later Randy was out of the cave and vomiting in the bushes. It seemed so much darker out here now, the night coming so quickly. He wiped the spittle from his mouth with the back of his hand, and then he exhaled, his breath clouding up in front of him in the cold air. His horse was whinnying now and reeling against the rope, threatening to snap it.

But Randy kept his eyes on the mouth of the cave, sure that some demon or monstrosity, some creature of ancient legend, was going to come crawling out of that cave after him. He backed up towards his horse, his eyes on the cave the entire time.

“It’s okay,” he lied to his horse, touching him, calming him down only slightly. Maybe his horse could smell the death all the way out here.

Randy slipped his flashlight back into his saddle bag and then untied the rope from the limb of the tree. He mounted his horse and rode towards the trail that led up to the ridge, both of them glad to be leaving.

CHAPTER TWO

Navajo Reservation—dig site

“I’m not going back in that cave,” Randy told Captain Begay.

Begay stared at Randy. “I’m not asking you to go in there.”

Randy had raced his horse home and called Captain Begay of the Navajo Tribal Police. He knew Begay well and he had the man’s private number. It was early evening by the time Begay and two of his officers drove way out here to the dig site. Randy had ridden back to the dig site to meet them there, but he didn’t venture down onto the canyon floor until Begay and his officers had arrived. He didn’t want to be down there alone.

The officers had come in three vehicles; two of the vehicles were Dodge Durangos painted olive green with the Navajo Police shield among the wide green and yellow stripes down the side. Whipcord antennas poked up from the backs of the vehicles, and they both had large meaty tires and extra gas cans strapped to the back. The other vehicle was an older jacked-up Ford Bronco with faded brown paint and oversized tires, a gas-guzzling dinosaur of a vehicle that rumbled with power.

All three men got out of their vehicles. The two officers who drove the Durangos both wore bulky green jackets over their khaki uniforms with the Navajo Tribal Police patch on the shoulders of their coats. One officer was tall and lean, his long hair tied back in a loose ponytail. The other man was an inch shorter and a little heavier, his black hair cropped short. Randy was glad to see that they both had a sidearm on their hips.

Captain Begay was dressed casually in jeans, a button-down shirt, and a well-worn pair of cowboy boots. He wore the same type of bulky green jacket over his clothes like his two officers. He was a bear of a man with a fleshy face and slicked-back dark hair that didn’t show a strand of gray even though he had to be close to fifty years old. He walked towards Randy who was tying his horse to the same cottonwood tree he had tied him to before. Begay didn’t seem to be bothered by the cold.

“You sure about what you saw in there?” Begay asked when he was in front of Randy.

“I would not bring you out here in the darkness if I was not sure about this,” Randy told him.

Begay waited a moment like he was studying Randy and then he finally nodded. He had a large flashlight in his hand, it looked a lot like the one Randy had used when he had entered the cave only hours ago. The officer with the long hair had an even bigger flashlight with him that he held by a pistol grip handle.

Begay turned to his officers. “Let’s go check it out.”

They walked to the mouth of the cave and Begay stopped at the generator. He looked back at Randy who hadn’t moved too far away from his horse. “You try this generator?” Begay asked Randy.

“I didn’t touch anything.”

Begay looked back at the generator, studying it for a moment. He slipped on a pair of latex gloves, stretching them over his big hands. He pressed the start button a few times but nothing happened. He checked the gas tank. “Full of gas,” he muttered.

He tried the button a few more times but the generator didn’t even try to start. “I guess it’s not going to work.” He sighed and turned his flashlight on and looked at the officer with the big flashlight. “Lead the way with the light.”

Randy watched the officer with the biggest flashlight lead the men into the cave. Begay was right behind him and the other officer was the last man in. And then the mouth of the cave swallowed the men up in its darkness.

The minutes seemed to drag by as Randy waited by the cottonwood tree. His horse wasn’t too happy about coming back here. He fed his horse a treat to try to keep him calm, but he was still jumpy. But he seemed a little calmer with more people around.

Fifteen minutes later the three officers hurried out of the cave. Their tan faces seemed to have grown a few shades paler, and their eyes were wide with shock. One of the officers had his pistol in his hand like he might have to use it at any second. He scanned the ridges around them for any activity. Captain Begay rushed towards his Ford Bronco.

“What do you think happened in there?” Randy asked as he hurried over to catch up with Begay.

“This is an FBI matter now,” Begay grumbled. “I’m afraid you’re going to need to leave.”

Randy didn’t like the abrupt shove off from Begay, but at the same time he was happy to leave this place.

PART I

SUNDAY

CHAPTER THREE

Denver, Colorado

Special Agent Palmer knew the day was going to be a bad one as soon as his eyes popped open in the darkness.

It was the dream … the terrible dream.

For a few seconds, Palmer didn’t know where he was, but then he realized that he was in his condo, in his bedroom, in his bed. It was still dark—either it was still the middle of the night or very early in the morning. Fragments of the nightmare clung to him, but the images were fading fast into the darkness of his subconscious, never to be retrieved again.

His heart was beating fast … racing, thumping hard against his breastbone. He was a little shaky. Something had frightened him terribly in the dream, causing him to wake up.

But what had it been?

He couldn’t remember.

This wasn’t a typical experience for him. He usually didn’t remember dreaming at all, and he could probably count on one hand the nightmares that he’d had in his life. And he’d never woken up from a dream and felt like … like this. A feeling of overwhelming dread and despair.

He lay there very still in his bed for a moment longer, trying to get his breathing and his heartrate back down to normal. For a split second he wondered if he was having a heart attack. He was lean and in decent shape for a forty-six year old man, but he also drank too much and he’d smoked cigarettes for years.

It wasn’t a heart attack. He dismissed that wild thought immediately. There was no pain in his chest, arm, or anywhere else in his body. His heart was just beating fast, like he’d been running at a full sprint. And he was scared … he couldn’t deny that. He’d known fear many times in his life as an FBI agent: he’d had guns pointed at him, he’d been attacked by criminals, attack dogs, and he’d been in car chases, so he knew what fear felt like. And he was afraid now. Afraid of something he’d seen in his dream … something he’d felt.

He tried to remember the dream before it dissolved away into nothingness. In the dream he’d been inside of some kind of building … an unfamiliar place. The building was huge, a maze of hallways and rooms that seemed to go on forever. He was walking down one of the wide halls with his service pistol gripped in his hand. The floor was striped with lines of sunlight that shined out of the open doors of each of the rooms. He looked into each room as he passed by, glancing in through the open doorway. Each room had beds, chairs, rugs, and other furniture … normal stuff. But there seemed to be something that was slightly off about each room. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was, like the room was slightly out of square, or the furniture was placed at odd angles, like everything was just out of kilter somehow.

But why was he so afraid in the dream?

He seemed to think that he’d been following someone through the building, searching for someone, an invisible enemy that he couldn’t find, someone extremely dangerous, and he knew he needed to be careful.

The hallway morphed into a gigantic warehouse that was filled with all different kinds of furniture and appliances for as far as he could see, a lot of it so close together that there weren’t even aisles to walk through. The layout of the furniture and appliances didn’t make any sense to him. In the distance he saw the doorways to the other rooms that he’d been passing by, but they were so much farther away now that he was suddenly in the middle of this vast room.

He heard a voice calling to him from another direction. It was a man’s voice, and the man was alarmed, yelling at him.

Palmer turned towards the other side of the room where the voice was coming from. He saw a man in another room at the far end, maybe forty yards away across the sea of furniture. The man was dressed in some kind of dark pants and a white dress shirt and tie. He was leaning back in an office chair in front of the desk so he could stare out through the open doorway. He stared at Palmer with wide eyes of shock, his mouth hung open.

“What are you doing?” the man yelled as he stared at him in terror.

Palmer didn’t recognize the man, and he didn’t understand what the man was asking?

“Why are you doing that?” the man screeched, and his eyes dropped down just a bit—like he was looking down at something in Palmer’s hands.

Palmer looked down at his own hands in the dream. He didn’t have his gun anymore even though he didn’t remember holstering it. He stood in front of a gigantic metal sink that he didn’t remember seeing before in this room. A tall curved faucet hung over the sink which was big enough to wash a large dog inside of it. The water from the faucet was running. He had something in his hands down inside the sink, washing it in the water. He saw the blood running down his hands, carried away by the running water, the blood turning pink from the dilution of the water.

In his hands was a piece of flesh the size of a softball, part of an organ torn from a person’s body. It was soft and it was still warm.

And then his mind went blank. He couldn’t remember anymore. That must’ve been when he’d woken up with his heart jackhammering in his chest and his breath caught in his throat.

But there was more to the dream, he felt sure of it. Something else had happened after he was at the metal sink washing off that piece of flesh, something he couldn’t remember now … something he didn’t want to remember.

This wasn’t like him. He never had nightmares like this. He never woke up from sleep in the middle of a panic attack.

He sat on the edge of his bed and swung his bare feet over the edge of it. He was cold even though he knew the heat was on. He still felt shaky and his heartbeat and breathing still hadn’t slowed down to a normal rate yet.

What time was it?

A glance at the alarm clock next to his bed told him it was three o’clock in the morning.

He craved a drink but he tried to fight the urge. He should try to get back to sleep, but he thought sleep might be nearly impossible now. Maybe he would make some coffee.

He jumped when his cell phone rang. He grabbed it from the cluttered end table next to his bed and looked at the number. It was Cardenelli, his supervisor.

What was he doing calling in the middle of the night?

An emergency of some kind.

And it was always something bad when Cardenelli called him in the middle of the night.

CHAPTER FOUR

Denver, Colorado

“Yes, sir,” Palmer said into his cell phone.

“Palmer,” Cardenelli barked. “I need you to get to the airport right now.”

“Where am I going?”

“Down to New Mexico. Small town called Farmington. I’ll have a rental car ready for you there. It’s a long drive from there to the dig site.”

“Dig site?”

“It’s on the Navajo Reservation. Some bodies were found at an archaeological dig site.”

Palmer sighed. “Why me? Isn’t there someone down there who could—”

“Agent Klein will meet you there. But I need you down there with him on this one. This one is … it’s a little strange.”

Palmer didn’t say anything. Strange was his area of expertise.

“A captain of the Navajo Tribal Police in that area, a man named Begay, will be there, too. He’s the one who called it in. The Tribal Police are the only ones besides us involved in this right now—no county or state police.”

“Well, it’s Navajo land,” Palmer said. “It’s their bodies …”

“FBI handles murders on Indian Reservations. And these bodies aren’t all Navajo.”

Again Palmer didn’t respond.

“It’s a group of archaeologists, maybe some grad students. Ten of them in all.”

“Ten bodies?” Palmer asked, a little surprised.

“Yeah. We’re going to try and get some info from the universities in the area, see if we can get some IDs on these people. See if any have been reported missing.”

“How were they killed? Shot?”

“That’s the strange part,” Cardenelli said. “From the way Captain Begay described things … well, it’s just a little hard to believe.”

“What do you mean?”

“He said some of the bodies were … cut up … or torn apart …”

“Maybe an animal—”

“No, I already asked him that. He was adamant that it wasn’t any kind of animal attack.”

“Then someone murdered all of these scientists at the dig site? All ten of them?”

“That’s what you’re going to go down there to find out. I’ll send you all the info I have so far. You can read it on the plane. A forensics team will be there by the afternoon. They’re driving over from the Albuquerque office so they’ll be several hours behind you. I’ll get Debbie to get any other info that you need.”

“Yeah.”

“Palmer, I want you to keep those Tribal Police away from the scene when you get down there. Who knows how badly they’ve already corrupted it. When you get down there, talk with them, see what they know, but then I want you to take over.”

“What about Klein?”

“Agent Klein is … well, let’s just say that the very best agents aren’t sent to Indian Reservations.”

Palmer had heard of that before. It was a well-known punishment in the Bureau to be sent to Indian Reservations.

“Captain Begay asked for our assistance, and it’s going to be our case now. You’re in charge when you get down there. You make sure you let them know that.”

“Got it.”

Cardenelli hung up without a good-bye and Palmer hung up and set his phone down on the nightstand next to his service pistol. He switched on the lamp and saw the nearly empty pint of vodka next to the lamp; it was perched close to the edge of the table. He was craving that drink even more right now. He’d drank too much vodka last night, not anticipating going to work today. Maybe a few nips with his coffee would take the edge off of the hangover.

Palmer hated going out of town nowadays. He used to love it when he’d been a younger agent and full of adventure and energy. Now he was just counting down the days until retirement. And when he retired he was going to get as far away from the horrors he’d seen on this job. Maybe he’d go somewhere way up in Wyoming or Montana. Somewhere far away from people.

Ten dead bodies. Torn apart? By what?

But there was more to it than that. Cardenelli wouldn’t be calling him and involving him in this case if there wasn’t something odd about these deaths.

An image of his dream flashed through his mind; he saw the piece of flesh he’d been carefully washing in the metal sink. He could hear the man’s panicked voice in the dream coming from the office as he stared at him in horror: “What are you doing?” the man had screamed at him. “Why are you doing that?”

And then Palmer had looked down at his hands in the sink, he’d seen what he was doing, and he couldn’t answer the man’s question. Why had he been doing that? Why was he washing a piece of flesh off in a sink? Whose flesh had it been? What had it been?

He pushed the thought away as a chill crept over his skin, giving him the shivers. It was just a bad dream. Dreams didn’t have to make sense.

Before he even realized what he was doing, he twisted off the cap of the vodka bottle and took a small sip. He winced as he swallowed the fiery liquid down. A few sips of alcohol should push the fragments of the nightmare all the way away.

He got up and walked over to the sliding glass door that led out to the balcony. He slid the door open and the bitterly cold Colorado air stung his exposed skin as soon as he stepped out onto the balcony. But he ignored the cold, his mind already on the job, on the mystery he would be asked to solve.

Palmer had been with the FBI for nearly twenty years now. He’d trained at Quantico and started out in the Baltimore office for a few years. But when an opportunity came up to join the Behavioral Science team which specialized in serial killers, he jumped on it. He passed the rigorous tests and exams, and he was finally enrolled in the training program. A year later he was working on the worst murder cases in the Maryland, D.C., and Virginia areas. Sometimes he worked as far south as Miami and as far north as Boston. He was called in on the bizarre cases, the hardest ones to crack.

Five years later an opening came up in the Denver office and he requested the transfer. He had grown up on the east coast his whole life, and the idea of the west had always appealed to him: the clean and dry air, the rugged mountains, the desolate and wide-open spaces. He thought the crime out west would be less heinous compared to the cities of America’s east coast … but crime was the same nearly everywhere now.

So he and his wife Teresa and their daughter packed their bags and moved to Denver.

That was twelve years ago.

Teresa left him a little over a year ago. Their daughter was in college now. At least Teresa had waited until their daughter moved out before she left him. She kept the house in the suburbs they’d bought, and she magically had a boyfriend as soon as Palmer packed his stuff and moved to this condo, which was closer to the downtown office.

He’d been in this condo well over a year now and he still hadn’t even fully unpacked yet—half of his stuff was still in boxes stacked up in the spare room. The place was a mess … it lacked a woman’s touch, a woman’s organization. It also lacked the feel of human interaction … it still looked like what Palmer had thought it would be at the time, just a temporary place to live until he and Teresa got back together. But they hadn’t gotten back together and now it was a cave where Palmer hid away in the darkness when he wasn’t out chasing down the worst criminals America had to offer.

He had become the cop cliché. His wife couldn’t handle his brooding; she couldn’t handle his silent focus on the horrors of his day. She couldn’t handle his drinking, his mood swings, his depression, his cynical views of the world. She wanted someone happier, someone who was “there” with her. He couldn’t be that man for her so she’d found a replacement as soon as their daughter was gone (or even before their daughter had left for college, he suspected).

Teresa was a good woman and she deserved better than him. He hoped she was happy.

Palmer came back inside and shut the sliding glass door. He went to the kitchen to start the coffee maker. He needed to get dressed and get to the airport.

CHAPTER FIVE

Farmington, New Mexico

Special Agent Palmer landed at the small airport in Farmington, New Mexico an hour before dawn. A man in a white button-down shirt with a black suitcoat slung over one shoulder sauntered up to him as soon as he was off the plane.

“Special Agent Palmer?” the man asked.

“Yeah,” Palmer answered.

“Agent Klein,” he said and offered a hand in greeting.

Palmer shook the man’s hand. Klein’s hair was buzzed short and he wore glasses with dark frames. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows revealing a Marine Corp tattoo on one muscled forearm. The man was a few inches shorter than Palmer and he had a slight build, but Palmer could tell that Klein was the kind of man who went out of his way to compensate for his height and build.

“I was supposed to have a rental car waiting for me,” Palmer said as Agent Klein rolled down his shirt sleeves and buttoned them.

“We got one for you. It’s at the office. I’m going to drive you there.”

Palmer just nodded as the man shrugged into his black suitcoat.

“No bags?” Klein asked as they walked towards the exit doors.

“Just my carry-on.” Palmer lifted up the duffel bag he carried in his hand. He had an extra change of clothes inside along with his laptop computer. He also had a small travel bag with his toothbrush, toothpaste, mouthwash, and other bathroom supplies inside. And of course he’d brought along two pints of vodka.

They left the airport and stepped out into the frigid air. Klein was a fast walker; he was a man of pent-up energy, Palmer could tell.

They got in Klein’s car and he started it.

“You want to stop for some coffee? There’s a McDonald’s along the way. It’s open twenty-four hours.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Palmer said. A few sips from his bottle of vodka sounded better, but he would take the coffee for now.

Ten minutes later Klein pulled up to the drive-through window and paid for their coffees. Palmer dumped two creams and five sugars into his. He had a feeling this was going to be one very long day.

• • •

As he rode in Klein’s car down the ribbon of blacktop that split the sleepy town of Farmington, Palmer had time to reflect on what he’d read on the plane, the preliminary report downloaded to his phone from Debbie.

These were the details that they had for him so far about the murder case on the Navajo reservation: a group of archaeologists had received permission to excavate some kind of cave in a remote corner of Navajo land where these scientists believed a small Anasazi settlement may have stood seven hundred years ago. And now they were all dead.

Along with the sparse specifics of the case, Debbie had sent him some background information on the Anasazi. They were a large group of Native Americans who had lived in the southwestern United States from about 1100 to 1400. Supposedly they had migrated north from what is now Central American and Mexico. The Anasazi seemed to have been a very advanced culture compared to other tribes in that area at the time. They were masters of pottery, farming, and they built large cities and wide roads while most other Native American tribes at the time were more nomadic, hunting and gathering, following food sources from place to place. Some of the cities the Anasazi built were incredible (and Debbie had supplied a few photos in the report) and the remnants of some of these cities had stood the test of time, many of them still standing today.

But eventually the Anasazi seemed to have abandoned the cities and the roads they had built in New Mexico and Arizona, moving north into southern Colorado and southern Utah where they built more cities, some of them carved right into the sides of sheer rock cliffs or in the mouths of giant caves. These cities were marvels of architecture for their time.

Not long after the Anasazi built these highly defensible cities, they seemed to have just walked away from them, much like they had done before when they’d been farther south. They left behind their pottery, many of their weapons, their buried dead. Archaeologists have found evidence of battles at these northern cities, and even signs of cannibalism. Some scientists and historians believe that the Anasazi were driven away from these cities by other tribes, and others believe that weather conditions such as drought caused them to flee, while other scientists believe that there was internal strife among the Anasazi that led to infighting. But most scholars agree that the Anasazi migrated south again, and either intermingled with or became the Hopi and/or the Pueblo Indians. But no one really knew for sure.

Apparently this group of archaeologists, led by a man named Jake Phillips, had discovered a new Anasazi settlement inside the mouth of a cave that had been hidden for hundreds of years.

And now all of these archaeologists at this dig site were dead. All of them slaughtered.

There were four scientists, four grad students, and a Navajo guide in the list of victims Debbie had sent to him. The report included their names and a brief background of their careers. This group had been working with grant money supplied by the University of New Mexico. Jake Phillips had also reached out to another archaeologist, a woman named Stella Weaver who worked out of Arizona State University at the moment; she was an expert on the Anasazi culture with some wild theories about their possible extinction that didn’t seem to be sitting too well with most of academia. In the report Palmer had read about her, it was claimed that she was fueling conspiracy theories just to get published.

So, Palmer thought as he rode in the passenger seat and stared at the city buildings as they passed them, we have the archaeologists and grad students, and then we have Stella Weaver. There was also the Navajo guide with them—a man named Jim Whitefeather. He was fifty-four years old, an expert tracker and survivalist. That was ten people all together. Ten people. All dead, according to the report. Torn apart.

Klein glanced at Palmer as he drove. “We’ll get your car at the office. Then you can follow me out to the dig site.”

Palmer didn’t say anything.

“There’ll be a few officers from the Tribal Police waiting for us,” Klein continued even though Palmer hadn’t answered him. “One of them, a man named Captain Begay, he’s a real piece of work.”

Palmer just sipped his coffee. He didn’t know what “a real piece of work” meant and Klein didn’t bother expounding on it. Palmer couldn’t wait to be alone again.

“We can refill our coffees at the office,” Klein said.

Palmer could tell that Klein wanted to ask questions about what had happened at the dig site; he was itching to ask why a specialist like Palmer had been sent down from Denver to Farmington in the middle of the night.

“What kind of details did they give you about this case?” Klein finally asked.

“Ten dead. Five archaeologists, four student assistants, and one Navajo guide.”

“All of them dead?” Klein asked and chuckled like he couldn’t believe it. “How?”

“They weren’t perfectly clear on the cause of death,” Palmer said. “We’ll know more when we get there.”

Klein just nodded as he pulled into the parking lot of a non-descript one story building. “Here we are.”

CHAPTER SIX

FBI Branch Office—Farmington, New Mexico

After a quick trip to the bathroom and a refill of his coffee, Palmer got into his rental car and started it. He waited for Agent Klein to pull out of the FBI office parking lot first, and then he followed him. They drove through the town of Farmington which was waking up a little more as the sun peeked up above the horizon to the east. And fifteen minutes later they were traveling through the desert.

They traveled west on U.S. Highway 64 for a while, and then they eventually turned south on U.S. 491. The scenery was amazing. Palmer had pictured a desert in his mind before coming down here—and this place could be called a desert, but it was teeming with vegetation and so many colors. The rising sun drove back the darkness and the layers of rock brightened up with the morning light, seeming to subtly change colors as the sun rose higher.

As he drove, Palmer took a few sips from his pint of vodka he had slipped out of his duffel bag. He stayed pretty far behind Klein’s car to make sure the agent couldn’t see him stealing nips from the bottle. The alcohol helped him relax.

After well over an hour they pulled onto something called Indian Road 96 and drove down the two lane road for a ways until Klein’s car slowed down and pulled onto what looked to Palmer like a dirt trail down into the canyons. The road was bumpy and he had to navigate around pot holes and washouts. Rock walls rose up on both sides of him for much of the drive, but eventually those walls opened up to a gigantic canyon. Small rocks and sand pelted the undercarriage of his rental car as he drove. This was definitely truck country, but so far his sedan was doing okay. They drove around a bend and then Palmer saw the dig site in the distance. Closer to the dirt road was a line of vehicles parked down a sharp decline near a large stand of trees and gigantic bushes. They drove past the vehicles lined up below them and continued on around to the canyon floor down a less steep decline, and then the trail meandered back towards the group of vehicles.

Beyond a sea of brush and rocks, Palmer saw three vehicles parked in a tight group right in front of the two temporary trailers. Two of the three trucks were obviously Navajo Tribal Police vehicles and the other one was an old Ford Bronco. The three men all stood in front of the Ford Bronco, all of them watching Palmer and Klein as they drove towards them.

Palmer glanced over at the line of trucks near the stand of trees as he drove past the trail that led to the parking area. There was a Ford 350 with a camper on back, a heavy-duty Dodge Ram, a Ford Expedition with oversized tires, and a rusty Chevy van. The line of vehicles seemed undisturbed except that two of the trucks had their hoods up in the universal sign of a broken down vehicle. He also noticed that there was a large space in between two of the trucks where another vehicle must have been parked before. There was what looked like gouges in the dirt where a pair of back tires had peeled out in the sand until they caught traction. It looked like the vehicle might have driven right up the steep incline and onto the dirt road that led out of here … but he would have to take a closer look later.

He filed these bits of information away in his mind as he drove the sedan over the bumpy trail through the scrub brush that led to the two trailers which sat end to end. Both trailers resembled motor homes, both about thirty-five to forty feet long. A tent with one canvas wall rolled up had been erected not too far away from the trailers—closer to a rock canyon wall in the distance that rose up to the sky, its jagged top a dark contrast against the peaceful blue morning sky.

Palmer parked his car farther back from the three police vehicles, right beside Klein’s black sedan, and then he cut the engine. He got out and pocketed his keys and then grabbed his coat from the back seat. After slipping his coat on, he stuffed his hands into a pair of black leather gloves. He checked his coat pockets to make sure he had his cell phone, some plastic baggies, and a few pairs of blue nitrite gloves with him.

“Captain Begay,” Agent Klein said as he walked towards the big man. He wasn’t exactly trying to hide his distaste for the captain.

“Agent Klein,” the big man answered and nodded slightly. Neither man offered a hand in greeting. The large man’s narrow eyes shifted to Palmer.

“Special Agent Palmer,” Palmer said and pulled out his ID and badge. He flipped the leather wallet open in a practiced motion, showing the badge and ID to Captain Begay.

“Begay,” the large man said and extended a gloveless brown hand to Palmer.

Palmer shook the man’s hand and it felt like his hand had been squeezed in a piece of machinery for a second.

Begay was a big man, easily three or four inches taller than Palmer’s five foot eleven inches, and he outweighed Palmer by over a hundred pounds. He had a wide face that had been tanned and wrinkled by the relentless desert sun. His mane of dark hair was tied back in a ponytail. He wore plain clothes but he had a police belt with a sidearm, walkie-talkie, and a leather pouch for a pair of handcuffs. Over his plain clothes he wore the same kind of green coat that the other two officers wore. They all had Navajo Tribal Police patches on their shoulders and a small nameplate on the right front pockets of their coats.

The other two officers were both tall and much younger and leaner than Begay. They stared at Palmer, both of them closer to the Bronco which Palmer guessed was Begay’s vehicle. The two officers didn’t stare at him with the animosity that Palmer had expected. Instead, he saw shock and fear in their dark eyes.

They had seen something bad here.

Palmer looked around for a few seconds, taking in the landscape. He noticed that what he’d thought had been a sheer rock wall in the distance actually had a vertical slit in it that was the mouth to some kind of cave. Another canvas tent, this one without walls, had been set up near the mouth with a generator underneath it. Piles of shrubbery and brush that had been cut away from the mouth of the cave were piled up on each side of the entrance to the cave, well out of the way.

“Thanks for coming,” Begay told Palmer in a low grumbling voice, but it sounded like a hollow platitude.

Palmer looked back at Begay and saw the same fear and shock in the man’s coal-black eyes. He nodded at him.

“Agent Palmer is a … a specialist in these matters,” Klein said.

Palmer wished Klein would stop talking.

“What we’ve got here,” Begay said, ignoring Klein completely, “it’s not like anything we’ve ever dealt with before.”

Palmer nodded. “Ten dead bodies.”

Begay shrugged. “Maybe. Can’t really tell.”

“What do you mean by that?” Klein asked him.

Begay looked at Klein with a hard stare. “You’ll see.”

Palmer looked over at the two trailers. “They in there?”

Begay shook his head no. “It might have started in there … there’s blood everywhere inside the first trailer and a big bloodstain in the dirt over there.” He looked back at the mouth of the cave in the distance. “But all of the bodies are in there.”

“What about the other trailer?” Klein said. “Blood in the second trailer?”

“It looks clean,” Begay answered.

Palmer didn’t say anything.

“Looks to me like a lot of these scientists were holed up in the first trailer,” Begay offered his opinion. “Maybe they were trying to hide from whatever was out here.”

“Yeah, thanks for your take on things,” Klein said. “But we’ll take it from here.”

“You mean the scientists were trying to hide in the trailer from the killers?” Palmer asked, ignoring Klein.

“I don’t know what it was,” Begay answered.

“You think this could’ve been some kind of animal attack?” Palmer asked him.

“Forensics will decide that,” Klein snapped at both of them.

Begay shook his head no at Palmer’s question and began to walk towards the first trailer. He shot a glance back at his men as if telepathically telling them to stay put.

The two officers didn’t seem to mind staying right where they were.

Palmer and Klein fell in step beside the big man as they marched towards the trailer, their breaths clouding up in front their faces in the freezing air. Begay spoke again when they were out of earshot of his men. “My guys are a little spooked.”

Palmer nodded like he understood. He wondered how many murder scenes they had investigated over the years. Couldn’t be that many, he guessed. And probably nothing like this.

Begay stopped at the foot of the portable steps that led up to the door of the first trailer. “It wasn’t an animal that did this.”

“The report I got says the bodies were torn apart,” Palmer said. “Maybe a bear—”

“Bears are hibernating this time of the year. And we don’t see many around these parts anyway. They stay more to the north.”

Palmer nodded. “So you’re saying it was a man?”

“A man didn’t do all of this.”

“More than one killer,” Klein said.

Again, Begay shook his head no. A deep scowl lined his face. He looked down at the frozen dirt for a moment, and then he locked eyes with the FBI agents. “I don’t know what did all of this.”

“Okay,” Palmer breathed out, creating his own cloud of breath in front of his face. “Let’s go inside. See what’s going on.”

“You’re the experts,” Begay said. “That’s why I call you guys.”

Palmer thought he heard sarcasm in Begay’s voice. The big man had the expression of a man who knew a terrible secret—a secret that he was going to let Palmer and Klein discover for themselves very soon.

“A forensics team is on the way from Albuquerque,” Klein told Begay, still not making a move towards the trailer door. “I don’t want anything around here disturbed any more than it probably already has been.”

Begay stared at Klein. “We haven’t touched anything.”

Palmer slipped off his leather gloves and pocketed them in one of his coat pockets. The cold bit at his exposed skin right away. From another pocket he fished out a pair of wadded-up blue nitrite gloves and slid his hands into them. These gloves offered little protection from the freezing air. He looked at the trailer door as he adjusted his gloves, waiting a moment before entering. He wasn’t sure why he was hesitating. He’d been to a thousand crime scenes before, he’d seen hundreds and hundreds of dead bodies, some mutilated beyond recognition. There wasn’t anything here that was going to shock or surprise him.

Yet he wasn’t sure why he was feeling a little nervous right now.

Maybe it was the look in the eyes of these Navajo policemen that was spooking him. These were tough and strong men, and they had seen something here that had scared them badly.

Klein slipped on a pair of latex gloves and he wasted no time butting in front of Palmer. He climbed the portable wooden steps to the trailer door and entered.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Navajo Reservation—dig site

The first thing Palmer noticed when he entered the trailer was the blood. The room he stood in seemed to take up almost half of the front of the trailer. There were two couches on opposite walls and a small recliner in a corner. Most likely some of the archaeologists slept on these pieces of furniture for the night while on this dig-site, perhaps taking turns between the couches and the bedroom. To his right, towards the very front of the trailer, there were fold-up tables and a small desk in the corner that looked like something a student might have in his or her dorm room.

Palmer stepped towards the front of the trailer. The desk had a laptop computer on it next to a collection of scientific equipment that he couldn’t name … he thought one of the pieces might’ve been some kind of a microscope. He stared at the laptop and noticed that the edges of the plastic seemed to have been melted, the laptop destroyed. He gently lifted the screen up and saw that it was cracked, the screen dark.

Leaving the laptop open, Palmer walked over to the two tables where collections of labeled pottery and stone fragments were laid out. It looked like it had been a neat display at one time, but now it was a cluttered mess, some of the artifacts on the floor around the table.

Had there been a fight in here? Palmer wondered. Maybe one of these scientists had flipped out and attacked the others, then fled the scene.

Palmer stood next to one of the tables for a long moment, just staring down at the pottery fragments, letting his mind wander. He liked to be the only one at the crime scene, especially when he was the first agent there, but he was here with Klein and the Tribal Police officer. When he was alone, he liked to try to piece together what had happened, let the clues speak to him. He would never go so far as to call it a psychic ability, but if he was quiet and if he just let his mind reach out, it was almost like the murder scene and the dead spoke to him, like they told him a story.

And it felt like this story was beginning to come together in his mind. Maybe it was a disgruntled scientist. Or one of them had had a mental breakdown … like some kind of cabin fever. This person had attacked one of the scientists, maybe killed him in a fit of rage. That’s why there was all the blood on the walls and soaked into the carpet. Knowing he was in trouble, the attacker tried to cover his tracks by killing the others.

Palmer slid his gloved hand into his suitcoat pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He took some photos of the pottery fragments and the destroyed laptop on the desk. The forensics team would take many more photos, but Palmer liked to have his own to study. He took photos of the smears of blood on the corners of the plastic tables; a spray of blood across the artifacts with their neat little white tags tied to them, labeled with some kind of code or filing system that Palmer didn’t understand.

He walked through the rest of the living room area, his footsteps thudding on the floor and making him sound heavier than he was. The cold wood flooring underneath the thin carpet cracked and popped with each step he took.

Begay waited by the front door and Klein had a digital camera that he was using to take photos. But Palmer ignored them, delving deeper into the clues before him.

The cheap venetian blinds that covered the windows were torn and bent in many places. One of the blinds hung askew over the window behind one of the couches. A splatter of blood dotted these blinds.

Hit with a blunt object, Palmer thought. Blood spray from the wound … most likely from the victim’s head.

The living room opened up to a small kitchen and dining area. The appliances were trailer-small: a mini-fridge, a two-burner stovetop, a tiny oven, a row of small cabinets built over the one-basin sink.

There were more signs of disturbance in the kitchen/dining area, more blood stains, more evidence of violence. Palmer checked the refrigerator. It was dark and warm. The generator that provided electricity for this trailer had been off for a few days at least.

The kitchen and built-in seating area that looked like it could barely squeeze three people around it led to a small hallway and doorways to two small bedrooms and a bathroom. He would’ve expected to find some bodies back here, but Begay had already told him that they were all in the cave.

Klein followed Palmer back to the two bedrooms. There was more blood back here, splashes of it in both rooms. Signs of struggle, signs of panic.

“You getting any ideas about this?” Klein asked him.

Palmer just nodded and snapped more photos with his phone, each one making that cute little click-click sound that he loved but couldn’t explain why.

Klein huffed a little at his question being ignored, but Palmer walked away from him, walking back to the living room. Begay opened the door and stepped outside like he knew Palmer was done.

It felt good to be back outside even though it was freezing. The inside of the trailer had been stuffy with the stifling heat of violence … a sensation he’d experienced many times before.

Palmer looked over at the line of vehicles in the distance, over a hundred yards away. “Looks like one of those vehicles is missing. Like it sped out of here. Drove right up the embankment onto the dirt road.”

Begay nodded like he’d already figured out those details for himself.

“Might be our killer,” Klein said. “Either he took his own vehicle or stole someone else’s.”

Begay didn’t say anything—Palmer thought the man seemed to be holding some clues of his own close to his chest.

“You check out those other vehicles already?” Klein asked Begay. Klein’s voice seemed accusatory every time he spoke to the captain.

“Yes. They’re all inoperable.”

“Inoperable?” Klein asked.

“That means they don’t work.”

Palmer couldn’t help the bark of laughter that erupted from him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed.

“Yeah, thanks,” Klein said, his voice seeping with venom. “I know what inoperable means.”

“What exactly makes them inoperable?” Palmer asked as he stared at the two vehicles with their hoods up.

“The batteries have been ripped out of two of them. The other two still have batteries, but they’re dead. The keys are in all of the vehicles. We tried them … they won’t start.”

“You’re not supposed to be touching anything!” Klein yelled at Begay.

Begay pulled out a pair of crumpled up latex gloves. “We know what we’re doing.”

Palmer didn’t like the fact that the captain and his deputies’ hands had been all over the vehicles, but he didn’t say anything. He had the feeling that Begay knew something about all of this and he wanted to find out what that was. Yelling at him like Klein was doing wasn’t going to get them anywhere. He could sense the frustration these men had built up with each other over the years.

“Was there any blood in the vehicles?” Palmer asked. “Any signs of struggle?”

Begay shook his head. “No. Nothing we could see.”

Klein just snorted out a sarcastic chuckle.

Palmer kept looking at the line of vehicles in the distance. “Blood all over the place inside the trailer. But none in the vehicles. If they were being attacked, then why wouldn’t they have run for their vehicles?”

“Because the batteries were dead?” Klein offered.

“All of the batteries died at the same time?” Palmer asked. “That doesn’t make any sense.” He looked at Begay. “If these people were attacked or even killed in the trailer, but their bodies are in the cave, then why isn’t there blood all over the place out here? Drag marks in the dirt.”

“There’s that one area of blood over near the second trailer I told you about,” Begay said, pointing at a spot a few yards away from the middle of the second trailer.

The three of them walked over to the area. Palmer stared down at the large dark spot in the sand. “This is the only place you’ve found blood out here?”

Begay nodded.

“There should be more blood than this,” Palmer said and looked around like he might spot it.

“Maybe the killers cleaned up the blood out here,” Klein said. He obviously was onboard with the multiple-killers-theory. “They could’ve kicked sand over the blood, brushed branches over any drag marks in the sand to cover their tracks.”

Palmer nodded like that could be a possibility. “Why would they go to all of that trouble to clean up the evidence out here but leave blood all over the place inside the trailer?”

Klein didn’t have an answer for him.

“And why would they be so meticulous about the drag marks but overlook this large pile of blood right here?”

Klein just shrugged.

Things were beginning to get strange.

Begay watched Palmer carefully like this was previously covered ground in his mind—but he was no closer to answers than Palmer was.

“Alright,” Palmer told Begay. “Let’s go into the cave and see the bodies.”

Palmer had a feeling that things were about to get much worse.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The cave

Begay instructed the police officer with the ponytail to grab the large battery-powered searchlight with the pistol grip handle and hand it to Klein. The officer looked relieved that he wouldn’t have to go back into the cave.

Palmer, Begay, and Klein walked towards the mouth of the cave. They stopped at the generator underneath the small tent near the entrance, the whole area shielded by a scrub of junipers.

“It doesn’t work,” Begay said.

“Does it have gas in it?” Klein asked him.

“Full tank.” Begay looked right at Palmer. “It just won’t start.”

Palmer thought about the batteries in the vehicles, the laptop inside the trailer, and now the generator. It was like nothing electrical was working around here. He made a mental note to call the Albuquerque office and let them know that the forensics team would need to bring a generator and some gas with them.

As they stepped inside the crack in the canyon wall that was the mouth of the cave, Palmer felt a little nervous. His breakfast sandwich and the coffee from earlier (along with the few sips of vodka) had settled like a small stone inside his stomach. He didn’t have too many phobias—you couldn’t really have a lot of them in his line of work—but he’d never been fond of enclosed spaces. Basements he could handle, man-made structures he trusted … there was always a way out. But nature didn’t always work like that, nature was random and sometimes you could just walk and walk and you couldn’t find a way back out.

A flash of last night’s dream ran through his mind … the rooms in the building that seemed to go on forever, the maze of appliances and furniture in the impossibly large room where he’d been standing in front of the metal sink and washing a piece of flesh off in the water …

He pushed the memory of the dream away and pulled his phone out, taking some photos of the generator and the junipers near it. Taking the photos helped him feel detached from the situation a little, like he was more in control of it somehow.

As soon as they stepped inside the cave, Agent Klein turned on the spotlight. He took the lead with the light and seemed to revel in the importance of his job although his hand trembled slightly which caused the light guiding their way to waver a little. But at least the light was strong and bright.

The three men followed the electrical cords laid out end-to-end along the dirt floor of the cave that led deeper and deeper into the darkness. The mouth of the cave closed in quickly to a narrow passageway after the first fifty feet. Walls of sheer, smooth rock closed in suddenly as they walked single-file into the deeper darkness, Klein in front, shining their way with the spotlight. Palmer was right behind Klein and Begay was a few steps behind him.

No one spoke as they made their way slowly through the crevice of rock. The walls seemed to be closing in and Palmer felt like something heavy was pushing on his chest, making it difficult for him to inhale enough air. He felt a wave of panic wanting to take over.

Fight it, he told himself.

The sounds of their boots and shoes were loud in the numbing silence inside this rock tomb. Their breaths sounded labored and louder inside the mountain, each exhale echoing back at them.

To distract himself Palmer shined his cell phone flashlight at the rock walls as he walked past them.

The walls were definitely closing in, the path getting narrower with each step they took—he was sure of that.

Palmer looked for traces of blood on the walls as they walked past them, but he didn’t see any at all. He shined the light beam from his phone down at the hard-packed dirt floor expecting to see smears of blood and drag marks from the bodies. But there was nothing—only a fine powdery dust and small rocks kicked to the base of the rock walls after countless trips back and forth through this passageway by the archaeologists. He saw that the construction lamps had been set on the floor every hundred feet or so, connected together by the electrical cords. He wished those lights were on right now.

A thought occurred to Palmer and once it popped into his mind he couldn’t get rid of it: What if the spotlight Klein was using went out? What if Begay’s flashlight went out, too? What if the batteries died? All of the other electrical equipment around here seemed to have malfunctioned before … what if their flashlights went out?

What was wrong with him? He’d never been this nervous before. It was a straight shot out of the cave; there was no way they could lose their way. Besides, there was the string of lanterns and electrical cords to follow like a trail of breadcrumbs.

He knew once the forensics team got here they would get another generator running and get these lights working again.

“How far inside the cave are these bodies?” Palmer asked, his words bouncing off the smooth rock walls right back to him. He hoped he didn’t sound nervous.

“This passageway opens up to a big cavern,” Begay said from the darkness behind him. His voice was so low and deep the echoes made his words a little difficult to understand.

“Why would the killer have brought these bodies all the way back here?” Klein asked more to himself than to Begay or Palmer. “To hide them?”

Neither Begay nor Palmer responded to Klein’s question, but to Palmer it seemed like hiding the bodies way back here in the cave was a lot of trouble to go through. He had to agree with Klein that there had to be more than one killer working here. It was hard to believe one man could’ve pulled all of this off. Now he was beginning to rethink his earlier theory, coming up with a new scenario now. What if it wasn’t one of the scientists who’d done this?

Then who? Robbers?

Maybe some of the artifacts the archaeologists had dug out of this cave were worth a lot of money. Palmer didn’t know for sure. He felt certain they had to be worth something. Maybe a band of robbers had staked out the dig site and waited for the right time to attack and steal the artifacts.

But if that scenario were true, then why were there so many artifacts left behind inside the trailer? Maybe the robbers had been looking for gold. Would some of the artifacts have been made out of precious metals? Palmer couldn’t be sure. He wasn’t an expert on archaeology, but it was something to consider.

Another thought came to him: What if some kind of activists killed these archaeologists, some kind of eco-terrorists who felt that these archaeologists were destroying the environment or harming Mother Earth?

It wasn’t so far-fetched. Maybe they weren’t everyday big news, but eco-terrorists were real. Maybe they weren’t such a big deal back east, but they could be a force to contend with in the west. Eco-terrorists had amassed more property damage than all other terrorists combined in the United States. But they didn’t usually kill people—especially not purposely.

Then another thought occurred to him. What if some of the local Native Americans, the Navajo, were displeased with this archaeological expedition? What if, even though Navajo officials had given this group permission to excavate here, there was a small fringe group that hated seeing these scientists dig up their ancestors or disturb spirits or whatever they believed in. What if Begay and his officers already suspected that? What if they even had an idea who was behind this? It started to make sense to Palmer now. Maybe these murders were a message to the scientists, to the white man: Stop digging on their land. But maybe they had gone too far this time and killed one of the archaeologists, and then they had to cover everything up. They tried to hide the bodies, and then they staged a half-baked scene. And maybe halfway through this mess, they just panicked and ran.

“I don’t think they were trying to hide the bodies,” Begay finally answered Klein’s question from right behind Palmer, making him jump a little. He seemed much closer than Palmer thought he was.

Palmer turned a little towards the large man in the darkness behind him, his shoulder brushing against the rock wall as he walked. “What makes you say that?”

“You’ll see.”

Finally, the narrow passageway through the rock walls opened up into a cavern. Klein’s spotlight knifed into the darkness, but it only seemed to shine so far, like a spotlight trying to work deep underwater.

“Holy shit,” Klein whispered. “That stinks.”

Palmer smelled it now as the narrow rock passageway opened up. The smell hit him like an invisible wall.

It was still claustrophobic inside the cave to Palmer, but he felt a little better now that the rock walls weren’t squeezing in on him like they had in the passageway. He shined the meager light from his cell phone around at the cavernous room, but the light only illuminated a few feet in front of him, leaving him in a weak sphere of light that tried to push back the crushing darkness.

It was much warmer deep inside the cave and the air tasted moist on his tongue. He also tasted something else in the air, a taste his tongue knew well after all these years—the coppery taste of blood that went along with the overpowering stench of rot and decay.

“It’s not too much further,” Begay said, shining his flashlight into the darkness like a lightsaber down next to his leg.

“Yeah, I think we can smell that,” Klein said, but he kept moving forward into the darkness.

Klein followed the electrical cord of lamps with the light from his spotlight, and then they came to another wall at the far end of the cavern. They followed the wall, walking next to more electrical cords and lights. The walls looked like they were pitted with tool marks, like the room had been carved out of the rock a long time ago.

The electric cords ended in a big junction box where more electric cords ran off into the darkness connected to spotlights rigged on top of metal stands that stood about five feet high. Klein raised his spotlight’s beam up from the floor and shined it on the objects piled together forty feet away from them.

“Holy … holy hell,” Klein whispered. His voice was pinched off because he had his hand cupped over his nostrils, closing them off.

Palmer stared at the grotesque display in front of them and for a moment all of his thoughts stopped.

CHAPTER NINE

The Cave

Palmer couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Agent Klein shined the spotlight on the collection of body parts piled up together in front of what looked like some kind of city of adobe stone walls that ran far back into the cave, disappearing into the darkness. In front of the grotesque display of body parts was a line of stone tablets laid out with what looked like some kind of ancient writing carved into them. Klein’s hand was shaking more noticeably now, the light shimmering from his tremors, giving a slight strobe-light effect on the carnage in front of Palmer.

“What …?” Klein whispered. “How …?”

“That’s what I was trying to explain,” Captain Begay said.

Palmer stared in disbelief. His legs felt suddenly shaky, his muscles rubbery, the strength draining a little from his body. He felt like a rookie on his first assignment.

“It doesn’t seem like one person could’ve done all of this,” Begay said, but his grumbling voice sounded so far away to Palmer’s ears now, like maybe the large man was slowly backing away into the darkness, backing up from the light that exposed this pile of horrors. “It doesn’t even seem like people did this,” he added.

But it had to be people, Palmer thought. What else could do something like this? Arrange things this way?

Palmer got his breathing back under control. He was certain Begay and Klein had noticed his sudden shock, his quick attack of panic, but he didn’t care. It would be a normal reaction from anyone after seeing something like this.

You’ve got a job to do, he told himself. Calm down and do your job!

Begay was silent, looming behind Klein and Palmer. And even Klein was at a loss for words as he let the beam from his spotlight slowly pan over the horrifying structure built out of human body parts.

Ten people, Agent Palmer thought. Eight archaeologists and grad students led by Jake Phillips; a Navajo guide named Jim Whitefeather; and the expert on the Anasazi that Jake had called in to help him with this dig site—Stella Weaver. All of those people were here in this cave now, tangled together in a mass of limbs, torsos, chunks of flesh, severed heads. Were all ten of them here in this pile or were more of their parts somewhere inside those city walls that disappeared into the darkness? It was hard to tell.

The people in the pile had been torn apart, like some giant beast had pulled them apart as easily as a boiled chicken. A man’s head sat cradled in the crook of an arm that had been pulled off near the shoulder, the rest of the arm gone from halfway down his forearm. Shredded pieces of the sleeve of the man’s shirt still stuck to the pale flesh from the dark, matted blood. Two severed fingers had been stuck into the man’s eyes, the torn ends of the fingers protruding out like stubby little cigars. The man’s mouth was wrenched wide open and his jaw was twisted slightly to the side, jagged pieces of broken teeth that looked like shattered remnants of white tile shined from inside of his mouth.

That was only one grisly sight among the heap of rotting human flesh. A foot stuck up from behind a man’s head, the skin purplish and swollen, the toes almost black with rot. Many of the armless, headless, and legless torsos formed the bottom layer of the human sculpture, huge holes in some of the torsos where organs had been removed. One torso had two fractured pieces of ribs poking out like springs from an old mattress.

The spotlight’s beam suddenly jerked away from the pile of horrors and Klein bent over in the darkness and began retching.

Palmer shined the weak light from his cell phone at Klein. “Are you going to be sick? Go over there if you are … this is a crime scene.”

Klein remained bent over, his spotlight shining down at the cave floor. A string of spittle hung down from his mouth but it didn’t look like he had vomited yet. He nodded his head and grunted. “I’ll be okay. It’s just … just the smell … and the …” He let his words trail off.

Palmer felt the same nauseous feelings in his stomach but he steeled himself and pointed the light from his cell phone at the pile of human parts. Begay aimed his flashlight in the same direction as Palmer, adding their beams of light together.

You’ve got a job to do, Palmer said to himself.

He still had his blue nitrite gloves on, but he didn’t want to touch the bodies … there were so many parts precariously balanced on top of each other, some pieces held together by gummed up layers of dried blood like mortar between bricks.

A few of the body parts had sticks and tree branches rammed through them, holding the parts together like a matrix. He pressed the camera app button on his cell phone and took some photos. The flash went off and the phone made its cute little click-click noise as he captured the horror in front of him on his phone, storing it away safely.

Flash! Click-click. A photo of two heads back-to-back, their heads smashed together so forcefully and suddenly that they looked like conjoined twins connected together.

Flash! Click-click. A female head—her dark hair thick with matted blood, shiny with it, like it had been coated in polyurethane. Her jaw had been removed and her tongue flopped out onto the section of human leg that her head was balanced on top of. Another man’s face had been partially skinned, the cuts so fine and intricate compared to the seemingly frenzied tears and rips of the other pieces, like the killer took his time with this one.

Flash! Click-click. Another photo of a torso stuck on a thick and sharp tree branch.

Flash! Click-click. Another photo of a piece of an arm, the flesh disappearing away into the darkness in a spray of gore across the hard-packed dirt; it looked like a piece of roadkill.

Flash! Click-click. Another photo of a mutilated head sitting delicately on two hands (that seemed to be from two different people) that were splayed out to cradle the head like a dish holding a candle.

Flash! Click-click. A photo of the line of tablets.

Flash! Click-click. A close up photo of the ancient writing carved into the tablets.

Ten people in all.

Were all of them here in this tangled mess? It was hard to tell. Palmer tried to count heads, arms, legs, and torsos, but he lost count. He had counted seven heads so far, but he was fairly certain that pieces of maybe two other heads and faces were buried down in the middle of the tangled body parts with the torsos; one piece of a head might even be stuffed inside the cavity of one of the torsos.

Forensics was going to have to sort all of this out.

“What are those tablets?” Palmer asked Begay. “Is that Navajo writing?”

Begay walked closer to the tablets, his white handkerchief up to his nose and mouth. He studied the tablets for a moment, aiming his flashlight beam down at them. He shook his head no and turned back to Palmer. “That’s not Navajo. Nothing I’ve ever seen before. I would guess that it might be Anasazi writing.”

“The people who built this city in here?” Palmer looked at the adobe walls of the buildings that stood like ghosts in the darkness a few dozen yards beyond the pile of body parts.

Begay nodded. “But the strange thing is that no Anasazi writing has ever been found before.”

Maybe that made these discoveries valuable, Palmer thought. But if the killers were after valuable objects, maybe even objects priceless enough to kill for, why leave them behind? Why leave them displayed in front of the dead bodies like they were? Was it some kind of message?

Palmer felt a sudden overwhelming urge to run … he needed to get out of here. He had his photos. He’d seen enough … but he sure as hell didn’t have any answers. Now he needed some fresh air, he needed to get away from the overpowering stink of rotting flesh. As cold as the weather was outside this cave, Palmer couldn’t wait to breathe in that icy air.

“You see what I was trying to tell you guys?” Begay said.

Palmer nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak right now, afraid his breakfast sandwich and coffee (and let’s not forget the few nips of vodka) might come rolling up out of him whether he wanted them to or not.

“There’s no way a man did all of this,” Begay continued. “Those limbs, they look torn apart, not cut.”

Palmer nodded. “Let’s get some air.”

“Amen,” Klein said.

Begay nodded in agreement and he turned to head back towards the narrow passageway through the rock. Klein hurried in front of the two men so he could light their way back with the spotlight.

They hurried back through the tunnel of rock, the same way they had entered, Klein in the lead with his handheld spotlight shining the way for them. Palmer walked behind Klein with the pathetic light from his phone helping a little, and Begay brought up the rear with his own flashlight. The scurrying sounds of their footsteps, their breathing, and the rustling of their clothing all blended together into haunting echoes that bounced back at them from the darkness.

For a moment Palmer swore he heard another rustling sound from farther behind them. He swore it was the shifting sound of the body parts, like something buried inside of them was pulling itself out. He squeezed his mind shut against that thought. It wasn’t real. He was just spooked, that’s all.

He’d never seen anything like that before, not in his twenty years as an agent specializing in serial and mass killings. He’d seen ritualistic murders before, mass executions by madmen with assault rifles. He’d seen what could be done to the human body. But this was a mixture of both … the raw power of rage tearing limbs away from torsos, and then the delicate precision, almost artistic placement of the pieces, like some kind of horrible sculpture.

No, whoever had done this hadn’t been trying to hide the bodies … they had displayed them.

They finally reached the mouth of the cave, the bright sunlight pouring into the sliver of the entrance, the colder air hitting them like an invisible punch. But at least it was fresh air.

“One person didn’t do all of that,” Begay said as soon as they were outside the cave and walking towards his Ford Bronco. Klein shut off his spotlight and handed it back to the officer who still stood in front of Begay’s Bronco.

“That’s not any kind of animal attack,” Klein said. “That’s for sure.”

“But those people were torn apart,” Palmer said. “Like Captain Begay said.”

Klein looked down at his cell phone. “Can’t ever get a signal out here,” he mumbled like he was purposely ignoring Palmer’s statement.

Palmer shoved his own cell phone down into his coat pocket. He felt his leather gloves in the pocket and pulled them out. He pulled the gloves on over the thin blue nitrite gloves and his hands felt a little warmer.

“Not an animal exactly,” Begay said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Klein snapped at him.

Begay didn’t say anything, but Palmer had an idea of what the big man was getting at—some kind of Native American legend or something, some mythical monster that attacked humans and tore them apart. But Palmer wasn’t going to say anything and let Klein ridicule the captain in front of his own men.

Begay still didn’t seem ready to expound on his statement and Klein dismissed it.

“Look,” Palmer said to Begay, “I know this seems impossible, but I assure you a person did this. More likely a group of people.” Palmer thought back to his theory of a group of Navajo radicals who wanted to send a message to other scientists who might want to come and dig up their land. It seemed like an extreme theory, but it was all Palmer had to go on right now.

“I know this seems … seems impossible,” Agent Palmer continued. “But when the forensics team gets here, they’ll figure it all out. It might take a while, but they will figure all of this out.”

Begay didn’t say anything, he seemed to be choosing his statements carefully, but Palmer could see the doubt in the man’s dark eyes.

Palmer couldn’t blame Begay. What they’d just seen inside that cave was hard for any person to wrap their mind around. He had heard of cases that were nearly as gruesome as the display in the cave: cult killings, sadistic tortures. He remembered reading about World War II soldiers who had invaded Hitler’s death camps at the end of the war and saw horrors beyond belief, atrocities beyond understanding, things that haunted their dreams. Palmer knew that humans had the will and the power to do unspeakably terrible things to each other.

“There’s no blood in the cave,” Begay finally spoke, staring right at Klein, and then at Palmer.

“What do you mean no blood?” Klein asked and looked at Palmer.

Palmer nodded; he’d noticed the same thing when they had walked through the cave. “I didn’t see any blood on the dirt floor, none smeared on the rock walls, no drag marks from the bodies to speak of.”

Klein looked a little embarrassed that he hadn’t noticed that.

“Not much blood out here either,” Begay said. “Nothing except for that one spot over there by the second trailer. But there’s blood all over the place inside that first trailer. How did this person, or these people, take blood-soaked bodies, all of those pieces of their bodies, from the trailer to the cave without spilling a drop of it?

“I don’t know. It’s strange, but we’re going to get it all figured out.”

Palmer looked over at the line of trucks in the distance near the stand of cottonwoods. He thought about going over there and looking them over.

But before Palmer started walking towards the trucks, the radios from inside both of the Dodge Durangos squawked—an incoherent voice called out through a burst of static from the dashboard radios. The officer with the longer dark hair bolted to his vehicle and snatched the mike up out of his truck. He talked into it for a moment, but Palmer couldn’t make out all of what he was saying—some of the words sounded like they might have been Navajo. After the officer finished the conversation on the radio, he threw the mike back into his vehicle onto the driver’s seat and hurried over to Begay.

Agent Palmer watched the young officer, but the man’s eyes were on his captain.

“There’s been another murder,” the officer told Begay. “Two more bodies discovered.”

CHAPTER TEN

Navajo Reservation—the dig site

“We’re going with you,” Agent Klein told Captain Begay as the man walked towards his Ford Bronco. “It could be connected to what happened here.”

Begay stopped walking and looked at both of the agents like he was thinking something over. He let out a slow sigh. “It’s not too far from here. I’ll leave my men here to wait for your forensics team.”

“Sounds good,” Agent Palmer said. He looked at Klein. “I’ll follow you.”

As Palmer walked quickly to his rental sedan, Begay gave his orders to his two officers. Palmer got in his car and closed the door on the freezing air. He watched the reactions from the two men as Begay told them to wait behind … they didn’t look very happy about staying here at the dig site.

Palmer tore off his gloves and thrust his hands in front of the heating vents, waiting for the air to warm up. Klein was already in his black sedan, the motor running, smoke pluming up from the tailpipe.

Begay got into his Bronco and started it up. He drove away from the other two Durangos and idled down the trail through the brush that led up to the dirt road that cut through the rock canyon. Klein followed Begay, and Palmer followed Klein. Palmer hoped Captain Begay would drive a little slower over this rough terrain until they got back on paved roads.

• • •

Once they were out of the canyons and onto paved roads, Palmer checked his cell phone. He had one bar of signal strength so he dialed the Albuquerque office.

“This is Special Agent Palmer,” he said into the phone. “I’m in the field at a dig site on the Navajo Reservation and I was wondering how far away the forensics team is.”

He waited for a moment, following Klein’s sedan along the desert road. In the distance jagged mountains and mesas lined the horizon with a sea of brush leading up to them.

“They should be there in the next few hours,” the dispatch told him.

“Can you let them know that they need to bring a generator with them? And some extra gas.”

“A generator?” the woman said and she seemed to be writing it down. “A generator and some gas,” she repeated.

“I’m going with Agent Klein to another crime scene. We might not be back to the dig site when the forensics team gets there, but two Navajo Tribal officers will be there waiting for them.”

Again it seemed like she was writing instructions down. “I’ll let them know.”

“Okay, thanks,” Palmer said into the phone and hung up.

• • •

Thirty minutes later Palmer followed Klein and Begay into the small town of Iron Springs. The town was spread out among the dusty hills. They passed a convenience store, a small church, two lines of commercial buildings lining each side of the main street, a fire station/police department, a Mexican restaurant. Beyond the buildings was a water tower rising up into the clear blue sky. Some of the roads branched off from the main road and led to areas of houses or plots of land with trailers on them. They took one of these side roads, heading back out into the barren desert again.

Dotting the tops of the hills in the distance were several trailers, some sitting inside acres of land that had been fenced off where groups of sheep, cows, or goats grazed. Once they were past these homesteads, they rounded a curve where the hills rose up sharply on one side, then flattened out again as they descended down into a valley. On the left side of the road were some small, squat houses set far back from the road and each home sat on at least an acre of land. They drove to the last house and Palmer followed Klein and Captain Begay, pulling over onto the side of the road in the front yard. This house looked neat, the front yard dotted with carefully planted desert fauna in a gravel bed. The house looked recently painted and the metal roof looked newer.

A Tribal Police vehicle, another Dodge Durango, was already parked in the driveway. A police officer with the now-familiar green coat on stood beside his vehicle waiting for them. A compact car was parked in front of the cop’s car, tucked away and protected underneath a metal awning that was connected to the side of the home. A mid-nineties Chevy pickup truck with a king cab was parked in the patchy grass beside the carport.

Palmer and Klein got out of their vehicles at the same time. They walked with Begay towards the waiting police officer. The officer was young and slightly overweight. His dark hair was cut short with a neat part on one side.

“What’ve you got?” Begay asked the officer.

The officer didn’t answer. Palmer couldn’t tell for sure because of the mirrored sunglasses the man was wearing, but he would bet a week’s pay that the man’s eyes had darted to him and Klein in suspicion, spotting two outsiders.

Begay picked up on it immediately. “It’s okay to talk in front of them. This is Special Agent Palmer with the FBI and you’ve probably met Agent Klein before.”

The introduction didn’t seem to set the officer at ease.

“What have you got?” Begay asked again and his tone was unmistakably more forceful.

“Man and woman,” the officer said. “Both dead.” He hesitated for a moment like he wasn’t sure if he should say the rest, but then he added: “It’s John and Deena.”

Begay was silent for a moment and very still. Palmer guessed that the news wasn’t a shock to Begay, he apparently knew this house and he knew the people who lived here. “What about David?”

“He’s not in there.” The officer sighed; it was practically a shudder. “It’s bad in there. I’ve … I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“You put out an APB on David?”

“Yes, sir … regional and statewide. I’ve also got John’s sister, Awenita, calling around about David.”

“Who’s David?” Klein asked.

“He’s their son. He’s only nine years old. He might’ve been taken,” Begay said.

Or worse, Palmer thought, but he didn’t want to voice their deepest fears.

The officer turned and led the three of them to the front door of the house.

Palmer pulled out another pair of blue nitrite gloves and shoved his hands into them. He followed the Navajo police officers and Agent Klein into the small house.

The place was neat inside, tastefully decorated in southwestern décor. But it didn’t look immaculate … it looked lived in, a real family’s home.

“Who called this in?” Begay asked as they stood in the middle of the living room.

“Awenita,” the officer answered. “She wasn’t getting a hold of them for a few days. Said she wanted to drive over here to make sure they were okay. She said she was getting a bad feeling. She rang the doorbell and knocked on the door but they weren’t answering even though both of their vehicles were parked outside. She has a spare set of keys so she let herself in. She found them back there in the bedroom.” He gestured at a short hallway.

Begay walked down the hall to the last bedroom. Palmer and Klein followed him. They all entered the bedroom and Begay moved to the side to allow the two agents inside.

Palmer could already smell the decaying bodies before he even stepped foot inside the bedroom—it was the same smell from the cave, the smell of death that seemed to get trapped inside his nose for a few days afterwards. He smelled the rot, the urine, and the feces. The stench wasn’t quite as overpowering as the cave had been, but it was close. These two bodies had been closed up in this bedroom for at least two days now, he guessed. Maybe three days.

“Holy shit,” Klein said.

Palmer had his cell phone out, ready to snap some photos.

It was a little hard to tell who was who because of the mutilations, but judging from their clothing, the man they called John was sprawled out on the bed, face-down. He was partially clothed, one foot had a sock on it and the other was bare. It seemed like half of his shirt and part of his jeans had been torn away. The blankets underneath his body were soaked with blood, especially underneath his head which had been stripped completely of skin and hair.

His wife was a short and portly woman. She was face-down on the floor, the carpet soaked in blood that had turned dark over time. She too was clothed but it looked like parts of her clothing had been torn away from her body. She didn’t have her shoes on and her feet were purplish in color, one of them more purplish than the other because it looked like it had been twisted around in the wrong direction, her toes pointing up even though she was face-down. Like her husband, the woman’s head was completely skinned; all of the skin and hair gone, leaving only the red glistening meat behind.

Palmer felt another wave of nausea wash over him as he snapped a few photos. The little click-click sound from his phone when he snapped a photo was beginning to get on his nerves now. He wished he’d taken that drink in the car on the way here.

“They’ve been scalped,” Klein said.

“Rounded,” Begay corrected. He pulled a white handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and held it over his nose and mouth. There were already a few flies buzzing around the corpses, some of them bouncing off the glass of the bedroom window that was mostly covered with a sheer curtain.

“Rounded?” Palmer asked.

“Instead of scalping, some tribes used to skin the whole head and scalp, all at the same time. It was called ‘rounding.’”

“Navajos did that?” Klein asked and his words seemed to drip with accusation.

“No,” Begay answered, staring at him.

Palmer sighed. “Why don’t you go check the other rooms?” Palmer told Klein.

Klein hesitated and Palmer thought the agent was going to buck him, but then he left the room without another word.

“This isn’t a robbery,” Begay said in a low voice.

“I know,” Palmer answered. “This doesn’t make sense,” he whispered more to himself than to Begay. He took more photos and moved closer to the woman on the floor, crouching down beside her. He looked at Begay. “Did your officer find their faces anywhere? Their scalps?”

“I’ll check,” Begay said from behind his handkerchief and then he left the bedroom.

Palmer studied the bodies for a moment, waiting for Begay to return.

Klein came back and stood in the doorway. “Nothing else in the house,” he said. “I checked all of the other rooms. No blood anywhere else.”

Palmer nodded. “I need to call the forensics team and let them know they’ve got another crime scene.”

Begay came back into the bedroom. “The officer didn’t find anything else,” he said.

“I need some of your guys posted here until forensics gets here,” Palmer told Begay.

The captain nodded. “I’ll leave someone here as long as they are needed.”

Palmer sighed. “I think we better get back to the dig site,” he told Klein.

“You can follow me back there,” Begay said, already walking back down the hall towards the living room and not waiting for an answer. It seemed like Begay was going back to the dig site whether Palmer wanted him there or not.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Navajo Reservation—the dig site

An hour later Special Agent Palmer and Agent Klein got back to the dig site and met the forensics team. The team was already set up and working. Another generator sat close to the other one at the mouth of the cave and it was running, illuminating the string of construction lights that led into the cave. Three other members of the forensics team were combing over the line of abandoned vehicles. They must’ve drawn the long straws, Palmer thought, to not have to work inside that cave.

Palmer and Klein walked over towards the line of vehicles. Begay had parked his Bronco next to the two Durangos and he was talking with his officers, the three of them keeping out of the way of the Feds, but their eyes darted over to Palmer and Klein as they walked away.

Palmer stopped a hundred yards away from the closest vehicle in the line, a Ford F-350 with a camper top on the back. The three members of the forensics team were all working on that vehicle: dusting it for prints, taking measurements, bagging any evidence they found and labeling it.

Klein stood beside Palmer and watched the activity for a moment and then he looked at the agent. “What do you think we’re dealing with here? I mean, you got any theories yet?”

Palmer watched the men and women work on the truck for a moment, not even glancing at Klein. They were out of earshot of the team members, but all three of them looked so involved in their work that they probably wouldn’t have heard them even if they were closer.

“At first I thought one of the archaeologists went nuts and killed one of the other people here,” Palmer finally said. “And then I figured that person might have killed the others to cover everything up. But after we went in the cave, I changed my mind. I don’t think one person did all of this.”

“I don’t either,” Klein responded. “I think a group of people killed these people and put their body parts in that cave. Maybe four or five killers at least.”

Palmer could tell that the agent couldn’t wait to talk about his own theories, to compare his ideas with a legendary serial killer hunter.

“Might be true,” Palmer answered. “Hard to tell if all ten people are in that … that arrangement in the cave. If they’re all there then one of them wasn’t the killer.”

“Looks like they’re all there in that cave,” Klein said, making up his mind already. “There’s too many body parts in there … has to be all of them. So that means other people killed these scientists. We already know that much.”

Palmer was sure Klein had some suspects in mind already. “I thought of robbers,” Palmer said. “Maybe a group of people trying to steal the artifacts these guys dug up. Maybe some gold trinkets or something. But then when Captain Begay told us that Anasazi writing had never been discovered before, I thought that those tablets in that cave might’ve been valuable. But if that’s the case, then why leave all of those tablets behind, displayed like that in front of the body parts?”

Klein nodded like he could see that possibility, but Palmer could tell that he already had his mind made up about who he suspected and he couldn’t wait to tell him about it.

“And it doesn’t seem like any of the artifacts in the trailer were taken,” Palmer added.

“I noticed that, too,” Klein said.

Palmer thought it might be a lie.

“So then I thought it might be a group of eco-terrorists that did this,” Palmer continued. “Or possibly some local Navajo extremists who were opposed to this dig site on their land. I figured maybe they were trying to send a message and … and then maybe things went too far.”

Klein smiled at Palmer, staring at him and nodding. “That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking the whole time. But not tree huggers. I don’t think they would do something like this. But I could see a group of Navajo radicals sneaking down here and slaughtering these people. A warning for others to stay off their land, just like you said.”

“But the lack of blood in the cave and between the trailer and the cave bothers me,” Palmer said.

“Yeah, it’s a puzzle,” Klein agreed excitedly. “But I think they set this up to look like a mystery.” He lowered his voice a little. “You heard what Captain Begay said earlier, something about it not being people or animals that did this.”

So Begay’s words hadn’t slipped past Klein after all.

“I think these guys set this up to look like one of their mythical monsters did this,” Klein said. “There are still a lot of people around here who believe in witches and skinwalkers and corpse sickness, all of that kind of bullshit.” He looked away and shook his head. “You don’t know the kind of crap I have to put up with here.”

Palmer didn’t respond. It seemed like Begay wasn’t completely ruling out the possibility of some kind of supernatural force at work here. Palmer didn’t believe in that idea, he sided with Klein’s idea, but the clues were most likely going to come from Begay and locals like him.

“There are a couple of other odd things,” Palmer said. He nodded towards the line of vehicles a hundred yards away. “The dead batteries in those vehicles.”

“These people have been dead for two or three days at least. Maybe longer. It’s been freezing. Not impossible that the batteries in their vehicles died.”

“And the generator wouldn’t start,” Palmer reminded him. “And the laptop in the trailer was destroyed. What about the radio equipment in the trailer?”

Klein just shrugged.

Palmer was sure Klein hadn’t even looked at the radio closely.

“If these guys were attacked, then why didn’t they use the radios to contact someone right away?” Palmer asked. “Maybe the radio wasn’t working. Just like all of the batteries were dead in their trucks? But if they couldn’t call for help, then why didn’t some of them run out into the desert? How come some of them didn’t get away?”

“We can figure out the why later,” Klein said. “Right now I think we should concentrate on the who first.”

“What about the bodies in town?” Palmer said, looking at Klein. “You want to pin that on Navajo activists, too?”

“I’m not pinning anything on anybody,” Klein snapped. “I’m just exploring theories that make the most sense.”

Palmer waited patiently for Klein to answer the question.

He sighed. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “Could be another murder altogether that happened around the same time as this one. Husband could’ve killed his wife, and then killed himself.”

“And then skinned his own face off?” Palmer asked.

Klein didn’t respond.

“Or those two murders could have something to do with the slaughter here and we just don’t know what the connection is yet,” Palmer said. “You have to admit that the display of their bodies seems a little similar to those body parts in that cave.”

“They weren’t torn apart,” Klein said. “They weren’t displayed like the bodies in the cave.”

“Yeah, but they were mutilated. Rounded, as the captain said.”

Klein just nodded.

Palmer looked at the line of trucks again. “One of those vehicles is gone. Looks like it drove right up that embankment onto the dirt road. In quite a hurry to leave.”

Klein nodded. “Yeah, looks that way.”

“Why would Navajo radicals come here, do this, and then steal one of the vehicles?”

Klein didn’t have an answer for him.

“Forensics will get a tire tread sample,” Palmer said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky. DMV is working on whose vehicle belongs to who among these archaeologists.”

Klein just nodded again.

Palmer started walking towards the vehicles. Klein hurried to catch up with him. A forensics tech dressed in a white bodysuit and gloves over his clothes stood at the back of the pickup truck, the camper top open and the tailgate down. He looked Palmer’s way as he approached.

“What’ve you got so far?” Palmer asked the tech.

He shook his head like he didn’t understand something. “This is the most bizarre crime scene I’ve ever been to.”

Palmer waited for the man to go on.

“It looks like someone changed the battery in this truck. There’s a battery back here.” He pointed inside the back of the truck.

Palmer and Klein stared at the battery.

“It’s dead just like the one in the engine,” the forensics tech said.

“What are the chances the backup battery would be dead, too?” Palmer asked Klein.

Klein didn’t answer.

Palmer turned around and looked back at the cave. The sun was dipping down lower towards the western horizon behind the jagged mountain tops and the shadows from the ridge had stretched completely across the canyon floor now, the temperature dropping even lower. “Who’s in charge here?” Palmer asked while still looking at the mouth of the cave where a short, heavy man in a white suit had just come out of.

“That’s him over there,” the tech said. “Dr. Alonzo Johnson.”

“Thanks,” Palmer said and he started marching towards the cave without waiting for Klein.

Both agents met up with Dr. Johnson who stood beside a large cooler, drinking down a cold bottle of soda even though it was freezing out here.

“Dr. Johnson?” Palmer called out as he approached.

The older man looked at Palmer and Klein. His wiry hair was pure white and he had a roadmap of wrinkles etched deep into his dark face. He looked shell-shocked and exhausted from his time in the cave. “Please call me Alonzo.”

“I’m special agent Palmer, and this is Agent Klein.”

The older man nodded at both of them like a weariness was pressing down on him.

“You got any ideas yet about what’s going on here?” Palmer asked Alonzo.

Alonzo took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with fingers that were wrinkled like prunes from wearing latex gloves for too long. He sighed and seemed so tired it looked like he might fall over at any moment. The generator was humming along twenty yards in the background, and he walked away from the noise of it. Palmer and Klein fell in step beside him.

“We haven’t run many tests yet,” Alonzo said. “We’re still trying to figure out what we’re dealing with in there.”

Palmer nodded.

“The pieces of the bodies … they don’t look cut apart. They look like they were torn apart. The flesh is ragged with tears, bones pulled right out of the sockets, some of the bones snapped in half like someone would snap a twig. I haven’t really found any signs of tools or weapons used at all. No knife cuts or ax marks in the bone or on the flesh so far. Nothing.”

Alonzo stopped walking and stood near the twisted trunk of tree. Palmer and Klein watched him—he seemed like he had more to say.

“Of course, these are just preliminary investigations. We need to get the bodies … I mean the parts … back to the lab in Albuquerque. We’ll be able to run a lot more tests there. Right now we’re just doing a lot of bagging and tagging. We’re going to be working all night and well into tomorrow. We’ve got some ice trucks coming tomorrow afternoon to start transporting the … the evidence back to lab.”

“Who do you think could do something like this?” Palmer asked Alonzo. “Tearing people apart like that. Snapping bones.”

The older man shook his head slowly in frustration, sighing again, his breath misting up in front of him in the quickly dropping temperature. “I don’t really know. I don’t believe a human could’ve done damage like that with his bare hands. Nobody could be that strong.”

“So what are you saying?” Palmer asked.

Alonzo shrugged. “I don’t know. I just don’t have any answers right now.”

“What about the other crime scene?” Palmer asked. “The one in town?”

“I sent Susan Dorsett over there. The chief of police here,” Alonzo looked around like he might spot the large man somewhere.

“Captain Begay,” Klein corrected.

“Yes, Captain Begay. Sorry. He told me that he would have a twenty-four hour guard on duty outside the home while Susan was there.”

Palmer looked towards the Navajo police vehicles; all three of them were grouped together and parked the farthest away, closest to the dirt trail that led out of this canyon. The three Navajo police officers stood together in a small group watching everything in silence. “Captain Begay seems to be trying to help as much as he can,” Palmer said and looked back at Alonzo.

“Sorry, guys,” Alonzo said. “This one’s going to take a while before we can find anything useful. And speaking of that, I need to get back to work.”

The doctor finished his bottle of soda in a few swallows. Then he turned to head back to the mouth of the cave, the interior lit up in the darkening afternoon now that the construction lights were on.

“You guys working through the night?” Palmer asked Dr. Johnson.

“Yeah,” Johnson said, turning back around to them. “Some of us might try to catch an hour or two of sleep in one of the vans. Sleeping in shifts.” He paused for a moment and then added: “It’s going to be a long night.” He nodded and walked away.

Palmer looked at Klein. “What about you? Are you working through the night?”

“I’m going to stay for a little while, but there isn’t much to do until forensics comes up with some more evidence or the DMV comes back with whose vehicles are still here and which one might be gone.”

“You got some people you can talk to about your Navajo radicals theory?”

“Yeah,” Klein said. “And remember, it’s your theory too.”

Palmer didn’t want to argue with him.

“I’m staying at a motel in town,” Klein said. “There’s plenty of other rooms there.”

Palmer nodded. “Thanks, but Captain Begay asked me to stay the night at his place.”

Klein looked shocked. “He did? Lucky you.”

“We’re going to grab a bite to eat in town. He said he wants to tell me some things.”

Klein nodded and pretended to not look intrigued.

“I think he knows more about what’s going on here than he’s letting on,” Palmer said.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Captain Begay left one officer at the dig site and worked out a schedule so there would always be one police officer there near the edge of the dig site, watching over things. Palmer told Begay that he didn’t need to do that, but the captain insisted and Palmer thanked him for all of his help so far.

Fifteen minutes later Palmer was following Begay’s Bronco as the afternoon quickly turned to evening. And forty-five minutes later they were back in the small town of Iron Springs. Begay pulled into a diagonal parking space in front of the Mexican restaurant. Palmer parked his rental car a few spaces down from Begay’s Bronco and he got out. He met the captain at the front door of the restaurant.

“The food’s good here,” Begay told him.

Palmer nodded—he believed him.

They entered the restaurant and it was bigger than it looked from the outside. The place was about half-full and looked like it could seat a hundred people at full capacity.

A plump waitress met the captain before he was barely inside. “Captain,” she called out and then she escorted him and Palmer to a table in the back that must’ve been “Captain Begay’s table.”

Palmer sat down at the table so he could face the door; an old habit of his. He had noticed the patrons nod and greet the captain as they walked by, and he noticed the lingering stares directed his way. He was wearing his FBI “uniform,” a dark suit and tie with black sunglasses. But it was more than that, people just seemed to get a feeling that he was the law, the authority, and most people tensed up around him whether they realized it or not.

Palmer took his sunglasses off and tucked them away inside his suit coat as the waitress laid down a simple-looking menu in front of him. No menu for Begay, Palmer noticed.

“I’ll have an iced tea,” Begay told the waitress.

Palmer glanced down at his menu, turning it over to where the alcohol would usually be listed. He was pretty sure that liquor wasn’t served here on the Navajo Reservation, but even a few beers would be okay right now.

“Sorry, no alcohol served here on the Rez,” Begay told Palmer with a smile.

Palmer locked eyes with the man, and then opened his menu. The captain was sharper and more perceptive than he had given him credit for.

“It’s been a tough day,” Palmer grumbled, using that as his excuse for searching for something to drink.

Begay nodded in agreement. “Eat something if you’re hungry. I told my wife we would stop by here and pick something up. I’m going to grab a to-go box for her.”

Again, Palmer nodded and then studied the menu again.

“Enchiladas are good here,” Begay offered.

Palmer just nodded. He wasn’t a connoisseur of food, especially since his wife had left him. He just ate these days to satisfy his hunger, and only that much … which often amounted to only a small meal or two a day. He didn’t have favorites or cravings. His freezer in his condo was packed with frozen dinners, his pantry with cans and boxes of convenient foods. A lot of times he would just pick something up … a hamburger or some kind of sandwich, whatever was easy. He didn’t need anything to interfere with the only thing he even cared about in his life anymore … his work and catching these monsters who roamed in the darkness, monsters that many citizens never even knew about. His life now was made up of mere functions to serve the higher purpose of his work. So, yeah, the enchiladas would be fine. They would provide the calories and the nutrients that his body needed to keep going. What he really craved right now was a few sips from one of the pints of vodka in his duffel bag which was now locked in his car.

“Enchiladas sound great,” Palmer said and closed the menu and pushed it towards the edge of the table. He looked around and caught the stares of a few of the citizens of this small town. Most of the people seemed to be Native Americans, but it seemed that there was a healthy mix of whites and Hispanics in the group as well. The eyes that looked back at him were eyes of shock, suspicion, fear, and curiosity.

“I guess everyone in town has heard about the murders,” Palmer said in a low voice when he looked back at Begay.

“News like that travels fast in a small town. Cops talk. People talk.”

Palmer nodded. He was sure that in the homes of people in this town guns were being loaded, threats and promises were being made to loved ones to protect them from the killers lurking out there in the darkness.

“John and Deena were good people. Now they’re dead … slaughtered. And their son is missing.”

The waitress came back for their order. Begay ordered two enchilada plates and a sweet iced tea for Palmer. He also asked the waitress if she could have an enchilada plate ready to go for his wife when they left. It seemed like a common request from Begay.

Palmer felt suddenly anxious and fidgety. He usually liked the challenge of solving a puzzle, but this puzzle felt so different. For the first time in his life Palmer felt like he was out of his league, like he was dealing with someone (or something) much more cunning and dangerous than he was used to. There were too many things that didn’t make sense about these murders.

The food came fifteen minutes later and Palmer was happy with the distraction. He commented that the food was good; it was something he always said to be polite. They made some small talk as they ate.

“Married?” Begay asked Palmer.

“Divorced.”

“Kids?”

“One,” Palmer told him. “She’s at college.” He thought about adding that they didn’t stay in touch with each other much since the divorce, but decided not to.

It turned out that Begay had two kids away at college; there would be no following in their father’s footsteps into law enforcement. Maybe they were the kind of kids who couldn’t wait to escape this small desert town and explore the world, Palmer thought.

Begay watched Palmer like he’d had his quota of small talk for the night. “What do you think? You got any theories yet?”

Palmer pushed the pieces of his second enchilada around on his plate with his fork, dragging it through the salty red sauce it was drenched in. He didn’t have to tell Captain Begay anything … he really wasn’t supposed to discuss anything about the case with him now that the FBI had taken over, but Begay’s query seemed innocent enough, just curiosity for curiosity’s sake. And it also seemed like Begay had some ideas of his own, ideas that Palmer would like to find out about. Begay had already proven himself to be a very perceptive man, and he was a worried cop because twelve people had been slaughtered in his county under his watch.

Palmer shrugged as he stared at Begay. “Not really. No theories yet. I’m going to check in with the forensics team tomorrow morning. See what they’ve come up with.”

Begay seemed like he wanted to say something, like he was wrestling with how to phrase it when he was interrupted by a high-pitched screeching noise.

A tiny woman who could’ve easily been a hundred years old rushed up to their table, her dark eyes wide with fear, her nearly toothless mouth opened in a scream. Her hair was wild, her clothes a little disheveled. She was screaming something to Begay in Navajo, pointing a crooked finger right at Palmer.

Captain Begay stood up and laid a gentle but firm hand on the woman’s bony shoulder. Another woman rushed up to them and tried to escort the ancient woman back outside, but the old woman didn’t want to leave. She kept shouting at Begay.

Eventually the younger woman got the old lady calmed down enough to get her to leave.

“What was that all about?” Palmer asked him.

Begay leaned in closer to Palmer and spoke in almost a whisper. “She says she knows who the killer is.”

Palmer didn’t expect that. “Who did she say it is?”

“Come on back with me to the house,” Begay said. “You can sleep in one of the kids’ rooms.”

Palmer waited for an answer to his question.

“We’ll talk about it at my house,” Begay said in an even lower voice. “You can bring your bottle of vodka inside if you want to.”

That sounded good to Palmer. He stood up and grabbed for his wallet but Begay waved him off. “It’s already been taken care of.”

Palmer nodded, but he opened his wallet and left a generous tip for the waitress.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Captain Begay’s home

Special Agent Palmer followed Captain Begay to his house. They drove farther down the main street, leaving the buildings and streetlights of the town behind them. Without the streetlights, the world was so dark with an amazing display of glittering stars above the desert landscape. The buildings of downtown gave way to houses of different types and styles. The homes looked shut up tight, doors and windows locked and then double checked now that a killer was on the loose.

She says she knows who the killer is. Begay’s words echoed in Palmer’s mind as he drove. Begay promised to explain the woman’s words when they got to his house, once they were out of earshot of the curious patrons all around them in the restaurant.

Begay’s home was about two miles outside of town, down a side road. It was a modest block and stucco structure with a clay tile roof. It looked neat and well-kept with rock and cactus gardens in the front—much like Joe and Deena’s house had looked. Begay parked his Bronco in the gravel driveway off to the left of the home, its oversized tires crunching over the pea-rock driveway. A small car was parked on the concrete driveway and pulled up under an awning. Palmer pulled his rented sedan right in behind Begay’s Bronco, shifted into park, turned off the headlights, and cut the engine. He grabbed his duffel bag and got out. He locked the doors and pocketed the keys.

The front door of the house opened up as Palmer walked towards the walkway that led to the front porch. A thin woman stood silhouetted in the doorway with a small dog yapping away behind her.

Begay joined Palmer in the driveway. He held the Styrofoam takeout box in one of his big hands. “Come on inside.”

Palmer followed Begay to the doorway where he gave his wife a peck on the cheek and handed her the takeout box. A little mutt of a dog jumped at the captain’s leg, pawing at him for attention.

“Welcome,” Begay’s wife said to Palmer, smiling warmly at him. She was surprisingly beautiful, but it was a natural and healthful beauty.

After Begay gave his dog a few pats, the dog ran over to Palmer, jumping at him, showing no fear of a stranger in the house, only excitement.

“He’s our attack dog,” Begay’s wife said.

“I can see that,” Palmer said.

“Get down off of him,” the captain grumbled at the dog, but the dog wasn’t listening to him.

“It’s okay,” Palmer assured Begay and he bent down to ruffle the dog’s fur. He stood back up and glanced around at the house. It was as neat inside as it was outside. The smell of something sweet, sugary, and recently baked filled the air. The furnishings were simple and comfortable, overstuffed couches and a recliner in front of a big TV. There were some small cacti in pots on the shelves. Native American art and modern art hung on the walls.

“You expecting a teepee?” Begay asked Palmer and smiled.

Palmer didn’t respond, suddenly feeling a little exposed and embarrassed. He had to admit that he hadn’t been expecting the modern amenities and décor. He’d always heard stories about Native Americans sticking to their old ways and abhorring any American culture, but this house seemed like it could be any other house in a modern southwestern town.

“Don’t listen to him,” Begay’s wife told Palmer and she gave him another warm smile. “My name’s Angie.”

“Pleased to meet you, Angie,” Palmer said and shook her delicate hand. She seemed to be the opposite of Begay in so many ways: small to his large, soft to his hard, warm to his cold.

“I made some cookies,” Angie told Palmer. “Would you like to try a few?”

“I would,” Begay said.

Angie laughed. “I know you do. I was asking our guest.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you. That would be great.”

Palmer followed Angie to the kitchen and he was handed more cookies on a plate than he wanted to eat.

“Special Agent Palmer’s going to spend the night in Elise’s room,” Begay told his wife.

Angie nodded. “I’ve got the bed turned back. Fresh sheets and a pillow.” Everything seemed to have been planned ahead, probably from a phone call to Angie earlier, warning her that he was bringing a guest home with him.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Palmer told Angie around a mouthful of cookie. “These … these cookies are really good.”

“My pleasure,” she told him.

“We need to talk some shop,” Begay told his wife.

Palmer handed the plate of cookies back to Angie, keeping one for the road. He picked up his duffel bag from the floor that the little dog had been sniffing at and he followed Begay through the kitchen to a family room at the back of the house that seemed to have been added on to the original structure sometime in the past. It was some kind of man-cave: large TV, stereo system, mounted hunting trophies on the wall, assortments of displayed rifles and bows and arrows, framed photos of outdoor adventures. In a corner was a small clay fire pit, and above that was a metal hood and flue that ran up to the ceiling. In another corner was a desk with a computer on top of it and two battered filing cabinets beside it—Begay’s office, Palmer supposed. The whole room was dark and cozy.

Begay unclipped his police belt and hung it on a hook on the wall. He took off his green coat and slung it over the back of a leather chair.

Palmer did the same, folding his coat neatly. He set his duffel bag down beside his chair, keeping it close. He left his gun and holster attached to his belt. He would take them off later when he went to bed—his gun was always on him until he went to bed; it was an old habit from his training days at Quantico.

Begay glanced down at Palmer’s duffel bag and then met his eyes. “It’s okay if you want to drink.”

Palmer wasted no time pulling out his bottle of vodka.

Begay was busy at the small sink behind the bar. He filled a small glass with ice cubes and brought it over to Palmer. “For your firewater?” Begay offered as he handed the glass to Palmer.

Again, Palmer felt a little embarrassed, not sure what the politically correct response should be.

“I’m just messing around with you,” Begay said, and his smile seemed genuine enough. “You want anything else with it? Soda? Juice?”

“No thanks.”

Begay nodded like he’d already figured that.

Palmer accepted the glass of ice and he poured some of the vodka into it. He drank all of it down in a few gulps. Then he looked at Begay and lifted the bottle a little in the universal gesture of: Want some?

“No thanks,” Begay said. “I don’t drink. I’ve seen what it does to people. What it does to their lives.”

Palmer ignored the lecture as he poured another two fingers of the vodka into his glass of ice.

Begay gestured towards one of the leather chairs situated in front of a massive stone fireplace. The captain sat down in the chair he had draped his coat over like he’d been marking his territory, claiming “his” chair.

Palmer drank a few more sips of his vodka, the ice cubes clinking a little. He sat down in the leather chair a few feet away from Begay’s chair, a wood table in between them littered with magazines and a dog-eared paperback western novel.

Palmer was ready to have his question answered. He could tell that Begay was drawing this out, perhaps even enjoying the suspense he was wielding over him. But enough was enough. It had been a long day of horrors like he’d never seen before, and he was exhausted. No more games.

“Who did that old lady in the restaurant say the killer was?” Palmer asked again.

Begay sipped a can of soda and looked at the cold fireplace like he was considering Palmer’s question. It felt to Palmer like he had interrupted some kind of ritual that Begay took part in at the end of his working day, like he was rushing him right now when he needed time to sit down and decompress from the day.

“I’m not supposed to be drinking these,” Begay said, glancing down at the can of soda that was practically swallowed up by his hand. “Angie won’t be happy, but this is like a special circumstance.”

Palmer guessed Begay was either pre-diabetic or he already had the disease. To each their own poison, he wanted to say but didn’t.

“Who’s the murderer?” Palmer asked again, staring at Begay, waiting for an answer.

Captain Begay stared at the dark fireplace like he was collecting his thoughts. “I don’t think you’re going to like what that old woman had to say.”

“Try me.”

“She says the Ancient Enemy killed John and Deena.”

“What’s that? Some kind of Native American legend?”

“It’s a monster. The words she was using tonight actually translate more as skinwalkers or shapeshifters, but the words still equate to roughly the same thing.”

Palmer didn’t say anything—he had learned a long time ago when to stay quiet and listen. He waited for the captain to continue.

Begay took another sip of his soda and then spoke. “I know this Ancient Enemy legend is something that you’re not going to believe, but you asked me what the old lady said so I told you.”

Palmer still didn’t respond. He had a total of twelve bodies now in two different locations with varying degrees of mutilation, no obvious clues left behind by the killers so far, and seemingly no motive, so he was open to hearing any theories right now. Even one as far-fetched as this Native American legend might be. A clue still might somehow surface in it, some random piece of information that might send Palmer in a different direction. His earlier theory of Navajo protestors came back to him. If that theory was true, and things had gotten out of hand, then maybe these people would cover up their crimes with some Ancient Enemy or skinwalker legend. Maybe the pieces were beginning to fall into place. And maybe it was time to play his cards with Begay.

“Do you know of any people or a group of people living around here who might protest something like the archaeological dig site?”

Begay’s eyes narrowed even more as he studied Palmer for a moment. “What do you mean?”

“Maybe some of the local people wanted to protest the archaeologists. Maybe things turned violent. Things went too far.”

Begay didn’t answer. He finished the rest of his can of soda down in a few quick swallows. Then he got up and went behind the bar. He grabbed another can of soda out of the small refrigerator and took his time walking back to his leather chair.

“So, that’s your theory?” Begay finally asked after he sat down in the chair, the springs creaking, the leather crackling. “You’re thinking that some Navajo radicals did this?”

“I didn’t say that. I’m just throwing ideas around.”

Begay didn’t look like he believed that.

“I need to explore all possibilities,” Palmer added.

Begay nodded like that was perfectly reasonable. “There are some who oppose the excavation of artifacts … of our ancestors … on our land. They protest sometimes, and they make their views clear. But they know that the choice is up to the council. I’ve never seen any real violence, though. Maybe some property damage here and there, some theft … but murder? And brutal murders and mutilations like these?”

“Maybe whoever did this is trying to send a stronger message.”

“But there wasn’t a clear message left behind,” Begay said.

“Maybe ‘don’t come here anymore’ was the message left behind.”

“There were no clues left behind,” Begay reminded Palmer. “These guys would have to be master criminals to leave no clues behind.”

“No clues that we know of yet. Our guys will find some clues eventually.”

Begay sighed in frustration. “You have to admit that this is not a normal crime scene. You saw those bodies, the way they were arranged together, forced together. The skin peeled off carefully in some places. Bones and muscles literally torn from the body. You saw that John and Deena’s faces were peeled away.”

“There’s an answer to all of that,” Palmer said.

“You think protestors did all of this to send a message?”

“Our guys will find the clues,” Palmer said again and then realized how accusatory his voice sounded.

Begay’s eyes shifted to the doorway.

Palmer turned around in his chair, expecting to see Begay’s wife standing there. But she wasn’t there.

“It’s late,” Begay said, dismissing the conversation for the night. “I’ll show you to your room.”

“Look,” Palmer told him. “I don’t want to argue with you or upset you, but I don’t want to jump to conclusions either. Let me talk to the forensics guys in the morning and see what they’ve got. Then we’ll take it from there.”

“Agreed,” Begay said.

Moments later Begay showed Palmer to the guest bedroom down the hall and then left him alone.

Palmer entered the bedroom which had been turned into a “cute” guestroom. It was homey with homemade blankets and local art on the walls. No TV or phone, but that was okay—he was ready to close his eyes for a few hours. He could still see the touches of their daughter’s presence in the bedroom: some old photos of her on the walls, a collection of horse riding trophies and ribbons on top of the dresser.

He took off his suitcoat and laid it over the back of an antique chair. He unclipped his belt and laid that over his suitcoat, but he brought his service pistol to the end table and set it down next to the lamp. He removed his tie and unbuttoned his shirt, stripped it off. He found an extra hanger in the small closet and hung his button-down shirt and pants up on it. Only in his T-shirt, boxer-briefs, and socks now, he dug his pint of vodka out of his duffel bag and took a sip. His mind had been going a hundred miles an hour all day and now it was time to let his thoughts wander. Sometimes when he quit focusing so closely on a case for a few hours, new angles of looking at things would come to him.

After a few more nips from his bottle of vodka, Palmer screwed the cap back on and set it down next to his gun. He made sure the bedroom door was locked, turned off the lamp and crawled into bed. The sheets smelled fresh, the blanket was warm.

He lay there for a moment staring at the dark ceiling, thinking about his conversation with Captain Begay. It was true that things weren’t adding up with these murders, but he wasn’t ready to blame these atrocities on some Native American ghost story just yet.

PART II

MONDAY

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Colorado—the cabin

Stella held on to Cole’s jacket as he drove the snowmobile down the lonely snow-covered road that wound through the seemingly never-ending woods. David was tucked in between them. It wasn’t a comfortable ride, but necessary. They were heading south, back to Cody’s Pass. Heading south probably wasn’t the best of ideas, going right back to the town where Cole had robbed the bank and a man was killed, but they needed to get away from that cabin and the horrors that were there.

But it would follow them. The Ancient Enemy would never give up until David was dead and David’s threat to that thing’s existence was eliminated.

Stella’s hands were freezing even though she had gloves on. Her fingers were starting to cramp up from holding on to Cole’s coat for so long now. Cole had told her before they left to beat on one of his shoulders if she needed to stop. But she didn’t want to stop—she wanted to put as much distance between them and that thing as possible.

David seemed okay. He held on to Cole, his arms around Cole’s waist. He had the hood of his coat up over his head, the drawstring cinched, but he was blocked from most of the freezing wind by Cole and Stella’s bodies.

There wasn’t anyone else on this road; the snow was too deep for most vehicles. This was the same road Stella and David had been driving on a few days ago when the blizzard hit, when Cole and his band of criminals had run her Suburban off the road and then carjacked it.

That seemed like such a long time ago.

The events of the past few days swam through her mind even though she wanted to forget them. She and David had fled from the archaeological dig site in New Mexico, driving farther and farther up into these snowy mountains in Colorado. A massive snowstorm moved in and the blizzard got much worse as Stella drove up this mountain road. And then Cole had run out in front of her Chevy Suburban and she ran off the road so she wouldn’t run him over. Cole and his band of bank robbers took over her truck and all of them continued up the road. But her truck’s radiator had been damaged and the engine started to overheat. They had no choice but to take refuge somewhere. The first place they found was a driveway that led through the woods to Tom Gordon’s cabin in the middle of a giant clearing.

Tom Gordon’s cabin. She remembered Jose and the other bank robbers finding the owner of the cabin stuffed down inside the large freezer in the kitchen, his eyes torn out without a trace of blood left behind. That cabin where all the other horrors had happened, where the rest of Cole’s crew had been killed one by one and taken over by that … that thing out there, the Ancient Enemy that had followed her and David from New Mexico.

Stella couldn’t explain exactly what that thing was—the Ancient Enemy. But she’d begun to form some theories … these were theories she hadn’t even shared with Cole yet.

But she knew two things right now as they sped down the snow-covered road.

One: That thing … the Ancient Enemy … whatever it really was—it would be coming after them again, even if it was injured somehow (which she wasn’t sure of and David didn’t seem to know, either). It wasn’t dead; she was certain of that. And she was sure that it would come after them … after David. It still needed someone to kill David before he became too powerful to fight it, before he gained enough knowledge to fight back.

And that led to number two: They needed to get back down to the Navajo lands. If David was a true shaman like he seemed to be, then he needed some kind of training before that thing caught up to him. She never should’ve taken him away from the Navajo lands, but she didn’t know of David’s true power at the time. She couldn’t have known it until she’d seen the Anasazi writings and symbols he had scribbled down inside the notebook in the cabin. When they got back down to Navajo lands, Stella would find an old man she’d heard stories about—a man named Joe Blackhorn. Supposedly he lived alone in a remote corner of the Reservation. She’d never met the man before, and she had no idea if he was even still alive, but she’d heard the rumors about him. They had to try to find him; they didn’t have any other choice.

What if Joe Blackhorn didn’t want to help them? What if they would be putting the old man in danger just by trying to find him?

But what choice did she have? She had to help David, not just for his own sake, but for everyone’s sake. This monster wouldn’t stop after David was dead; it would just keep killing and killing and there would be no way to stop it once David was dead.

This was their only option, and that meant traveling south. And since this road was the only one that led south around here, they had no choice but to go right through the town of Cody’s Pass again.

It seemed likely that cops in this county would still be on the lookout for the bank robbers, but maybe they would be widening their search now, figuring that the criminals were already long gone from the area. But she and Cole still needed to be careful; they needed to be smart.

It would probably be better to drive right on through Cody’s Pass, but the roads were still so bad and they needed to find a vehicle they could drive out of the town; they couldn’t use this snowmobile all the way to the next town with the three of them on it. And they desperately needed a few hours to rest, and they needed some food.

Stella’s face was cold, but at least Cole was blocking a lot of the wind with his body as he drove the snowmobile. He drove fast, the trees and hills of snow raced past them in a blur. They had grabbed Frank’s hat and gloves for David while they were boarding up the windows last night in their preparations to leave the cabin. They’d also found another hat and pair of thick gloves in Tom Gordon’s bedroom for her. But even with the extra gloves and hats, it still didn’t feel like enough protection against the biting wind as they raced down the road.

She watched Cole’s wide back, his gloved hands gripping the handlebar grips and her thoughts turned to him. What was his next move? How long was he going to stay with them? She suspected his primary goal had been escaping the cabin and the terror that had stalked them. Now that they were away from the cabin, what would he do? He had a good share of the stolen money shoved down into his socks and coat pockets. Would he just ditch them now or would he travel with them part of the way? He also still had his gun. Would he hurt them? Would he demand the money back that she had stuffed into her own coat pockets and socks? He seemed like a good man deep down inside … he hadn’t turned on her and David in the cabin when he’d had so many chances to. But she had to remind herself that he was a career criminal and she would have to be wary of him. She would have to be ready for anything.

She didn’t really expect Cole to go all the way down to New Mexico with them. This wasn’t his fight. Yeah, he’d lost his little brother at the cabin, but this monster was too big to fight. Too dangerous. But she also didn’t expect him to ditch them just yet. At the very least, she figured that she and David were good cover for him to get out of this area of Colorado. Once they were farther south, he might leave them, but she would make damn sure that he didn’t hurt them. She hadn’t gone through everything that she and David had gone through just to have Cole put a bullet in their heads once he felt he was safe.

So she didn’t really have any other choice than to trust Cole for now, but she needed to think of things from his point of view. He was a man wanted for robbery and murder. She’d seen his face, she knew his name, she knew details about the bank robbery. He would ultimately be a suspect in the pile of burnt bodies left behind at the cabin. It was only a matter of time before the police got to the burning cabin, discovered the bodies and realized that at least one of the criminals was still at large in the area. It was only a matter of time before the local police, the state police, and maybe even the FBI, were combing the area for him. And that would make Cole a desperate man … and desperate men were dangerous.

She would hold onto the gun Cole had given her back in the cabin, and she would hold onto some of the money stuffed down into her socks. If Cole wanted to leave, then fine. But she wasn’t going to be stranded with David. She wasn’t going to let that happen to them ever again.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Cody’s Pass, Colorado

Cole pulled the snowmobile up into some trees off from the side of the road and drove the vehicle farther into the woods, whipping around the trees at a nerve-racking speed, but also with expertise. They traveled through the trees for ten minutes until they came to a ridge. He slowed the snowmobile down and stopped it right at the edge of the ridge. He cut the motor and the only sound they heard was the freezing wind whipping through the tree branches.

Stella pried her cramped fingers off of Cole’s arms and got off the snowmobile. Her boots sank down into the snow up to her calves. She flexed her fingers inside her gloves, and then shook her hands, trying to force the blood back into them. Her muscles were sore, and she was running on fumes now, running on the last reserves of adrenaline that she had.

Cole got off the snowmobile and lifted up the pair of goggles from his eyes. He’d swiped them from Tom Gordon’s garage this morning before they left. He walked over to the edge of the small ridge and stood beside a pine tree. He stared down the hill and then looked back at Stella and motioned for her to join him.

Stella stuffed her hands down into her coat pockets. She closed her fingers around the gun’s handle nestled in the right front pocket. Her gloves were bulky but she would try like hell to shoot Cole if he tried anything. He might try to push her down this ridge, or club her with the butt of his pistol, or even shoot her right here in the woods.

“The town’s down there,” Cole told her as she walked towards him. He watched her. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said as she got closer to him, seemingly reading her mind.

When Stella stood beside Cole she saw that what she’d thought was a ridge was really just the sharp crest of a hill that sloped gently down into a massive clearing below. The town of Cody’s Pass was nestled down in that clearing between the mountains.

“I’m not going to hurt you or David,” Cole said again. “I wish you would believe that. If I wanted to hurt you two, I would’ve done it back at the cabin, or at any point between there and here.”

Stella nodded, but she wouldn’t let herself become too relaxed around him. He could be lying just so she and David would go along with him and provide cover until they were far enough south where he could get rid of them. He was a thief and possibly a murderer, so lying wouldn’t be out of the question for him.

“We’ve got a few options here,” Cole said. “After we robbed the bank we stashed our snowmobiles a few miles back in the woods, about a mile or so off the road.”

“I don’t know how to ride one of those things,” Stella said right away, lying to Cole.

He stared at her for a few seconds, and she could tell that he didn’t believe her. But he didn’t challenge her on it. He looked back down at the town below them. “It’s too risky anyway. Those snowmobiles might’ve been discovered by now. Cops might even be watching them.”

Stella looked down at the town. Even though the town of Cody’s Pass was in a clearing, a lot of the suburbs were built on the foothills of the mountains surrounding it. Roads wound up into those foothills, meandering through the buildings and houses where lights burned in a lot of the windows. The traffic lights blinked from green to yellow to red and then back to green along the main road through the town and on several of the major cross streets. Apparently the storm hadn’t knocked out the electricity to the town or it had already been restored.

“We need some kind of vehicle to get out of here,” Cole said. “Preferably some kind of truck since these roads still look pretty bad. Looks like some plowing has been done on the main roads down there.”

Stella just nodded.

“We need a place to stay for the afternoon, maybe even the night.”

“There’s a motel in town,” Stella said. “You can’t see it from here, but it’s way down that main road a ways. I stopped there for a few hours on my way into town. We slept in my truck for a few hours until it got too cold for us.”

Cole seemed to consider the idea. “Motel could be kind of risky. Maybe we could find an empty house.”

Stella didn’t think any of the houses were going to be empty.

Cole thought it over for a moment. “A motel could work if you and David checked in by yourselves, and then I could sneak in later.”

Stella just nodded again.

“We’ll ride down closer to the town and stash the snowmobile in those bushes over there.” He pointed at a stand of brush and trees far off in the distance. “Then we’ll walk to this motel you’re talking about. Use the cash you have on you for the room. But first we’ll stop at a store, pick up a few things. We need some food and water. And we need some rest. And lastly, we need some information. I need to see what the weather’s going to be like and find out what the cops know about us so far. Then we’ll work on getting a vehicle and moving south again.”

Stella didn’t ask how Cole planned on procuring a vehicle. Maybe he would pay cash for one at a car lot, or buy one for sale in someone’s yard. But it seemed more likely that he would steal one. Or maybe even carjack one, like he’d done to her and David.

If they could make it to the motel without the police stopping them, maybe they would have a few hours to rest, clean up, eat, and make some plans. But they couldn’t wait too long. The police were going to ramp up their search in the next few hours when they got to the burnt cabin and saw the dead bodies inside of it.

And they couldn’t forget about the Ancient Enemy chasing them.

No, they could never forget about that.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Outside Cody’s Pass, Colorado

Something woke Nora up out of a sound sleep this morning, something that she could’ve sworn sounded like some kind of explosion. It was far enough away to sound like a muffled thump in the distance, but she felt the explosion rumbling through her house, along the floor, rattling the old bones of her home. She got up and wrapped herself in her heavy robe and slipped her socked feet into her favorite slippers.

She’d always been an early riser so she would’ve normally been awake an hour later anyway. It was almost dawn and the sky was beginning to lighten up in the east. She walked through her house, turning on a few lights on the way, still trying to be quiet because her teenage son and daughter were probably still sleeping. She walked through the kitchen to the sliding glass doors that led out onto the wraparound wooden deck outside the house.

Nora looked out the sliding glass doors and saw the smoke rising up over the trees towards the northeastern end of her property. The smoke was black, but she could still make it out against the dark sky that was rapidly lightening with the rising sun.

“What are you looking at?”

Nora jumped and turned around. Her daughter Nicole stood right behind her. She was dressed in wool PJs and her hair was messed up from sleep.

“I heard something,” Nora told her. “I was just checking to see what it was.”

“I heard it, too,” Nicole said, knuckling sleep from one eye. She was fifteen years old but Nora still thought of her as her little girl. “What was it?”

“I don’t know, but there’s something on fire a few miles away.”

Nicole moved closer to look out the sliding glass doors, getting close to the cold glass so she could see the smoke in the sky just out of the edge of her vision.

Nora hadn’t been sleeping too well these last few nights, not with news that dangerous criminals were still on the loose—the bank robbers who had killed poor old Jed.

Poor Jed. She hadn’t been great friends with the old man, but her husband had known him. And now both Jed and her husband were gone.

She thought of her husband, dead six months now. But at least she didn’t live here alone—she still had her children with her. She had Nicole, and she still had Travis, her son, who was nineteen years old now. He hadn’t gone into the military or off to college, he seemed content to work part-time at the Olsen’s farm. He didn’t really seem like he knew what he wanted to do with his life and she wasn’t going to push him. Travis wasn’t like Nicole who already had her life mapped out. She made straight A’s in school (another difference between her and Travis), and she wanted to get a scholarship to go to a good college. She wanted to be a psychiatrist.

Nora was proud of her daughter. But she was proud of Travis, too. She was sure he would find his way in life soon enough. She was in no hurry for Travis to leave. Now that her husband was gone, it was comforting having a man in the house still. She loved having her son around. She felt safer with him here. She knew the day would come when he would leave, and the day would come when Nicole went off to college. It wouldn’t be fair to hold either one of them back, but she dreaded the thought of being all alone in this house deep in the Colorado woods. She had loved it here when her husband was still alive, but these last six months since he’d been gone had been miserable for her. Every room, every stick of furniture, every TV show, every tool in the garage, his truck (that Travis drove now)—they were all reminders of him, constant and painful reminders. Maybe it was time to think about selling the place. She knew that Travis had hoped to have the property handed down to him one day, so she would need to discuss it with him. Maybe if he agreed to keep living here with her …

Normally she would’ve started a pot of coffee as soon as she’d gotten up and then she would’ve turned on the TV, maybe to the local news or Fox News. Maybe she would’ve even got some breakfast going by now. But instead, she walked to the front door in the living room and grabbed her heavy coat from the old-fashioned coat rack. She also kicked off her slippers and slid her feet down into a pair of tall rubber boots that were three sizes too big for her … her husband’s old rubber boots that she couldn’t bear to throw out.

“What are you doing?” Nicole asked.

“I want to get a better look at it,” Nora answered as she walked back across the room to the sliding glass door.

Nicole didn’t even grab a coat; she just hugged her arms and followed her mother out onto the deck.

It was freezing outside. Two back-to-back snowstorms had passed through in the last few days, dumping several feet of snow on the ground and grinding life in these parts to a halt. At least her electricity hadn’t gone out—thank God for that.

They stood on the wood deck and stared at the ever-lightening sky. The smoke continued to drift up into the sky over the tree line.

“Something’s wrong,” Nora muttered.

“I think someone’s house might be on fire,” Nicole said.

Nora nodded. She was thinking the same thing. Could’ve started from a grease fire, or even Christmas decorations. But people were usually very careful in these parts, and she couldn’t help thinking that this fire had sinister origins.

And that led her to think of the criminals on the run. She glanced around at the woods all around them, listening for any sounds of movement out here in the quiet morning. The deck around her home was covered by the edge of the roof, but some snow had managed to drift onto the floorboards. The rest of the world was blanketed with snow … so much snow, more snow than she could ever remember seeing since they’d lived here. It was beautiful, but she knew it was also dangerous.

A cracking sound in the woods to her left demanded her attention. It sounded like something big was moving around in there. She stared at the woods for a moment and she was convinced that she saw a blur of movement in the darkness between the trees.

“You hear that?” Nora asked her daughter.

“It was probably just an animal. Maybe a deer or something.”

“I don’t know,” Nora said, still staring at the thick woods.

“Don’t worry, Mom, those bank robbers are long gone by now.”

Nora nodded, but she wasn’t convinced. She looked back at the smoke in the sky and she was sure that those bank robbers were behind that fire somehow. The fire was maybe five or ten miles north of them she guessed, somewhere between her property and the town of Destin. She tried to remember the names of the distant neighbors around here. Her husband could’ve recalled the names immediately and listed them off to her, but she couldn’t remember any of them.

“That might be Tom Gordon’s place,” Nicole said. “It’s in that direction.”

“What about Tom Gordon’s place?” a male voice asked.

Nora and Nicole spun around and looked at the open sliding glass door where Travis stood.

“Travis,” Nora breathed out and then smiled. “You scared the bejesus out of me.”

“What are you two doing out here?” he said as he stepped out onto the deck, but then he saw the smoke drifting up above the tree line in the distance. “Oh shit.”

“We think Tom Gordon’s cabin might be on fire,” Nicole said. “Either that or he woke up before dawn and decided that he wanted to start one hell of a bonfire.”

Travis only wore a pair of long john pants and a thick, long-sleeved shirt but the cold didn’t seem to bother him.

Just like his father.

Oh, to be young again, Nora thought. Young enough when the cold didn’t bite into her bones and sting her flesh.

Travis bolted back inside their home.

“What are you doing?” Nora asked as she followed her son back inside the house.

“Probably going to check it out, I’m sure,” Nicole muttered, but her mother wasn’t paying attention to what she was saying. She closed the sliding glass door and then slid the vertical blinds shut in front of it.

Travis ran back to his bedroom and he yelled over his shoulder to her. “I’m gonna get dressed and check on Tom. You call the sheriff’s office; let them know someone’s house might be on fire.”

Nora turned to head for the kitchen but Nicole already had the cordless phone in her hand, offering it to her mother. She took the phone from her daughter and dialed some numbers. She didn’t dial 911. When there was an emergency out here, they called the sheriff’s line to his office.

“Sheriff’s office,” a woman answered in a cheerful voice. “Deputy Burnette speaking.”

“Hi, Deputy Burnette,” Nora said into the phone. She watched as Nicole started the coffee machine. She knew she probably shouldn’t let Nicole drink coffee, but she enjoyed sharing a cup of coffee with her in the morning. It couldn’t be that bad for her. Had to be better than a can of Coke in the morning like Travis usually had. “I think there might be a fire,” Nora said. “There’s smoke in the sky about five or ten miles northeast of my house. I believe it might be on Tom Gordon’s property.”

She thought about telling the deputy that her son was going to check it out and make sure Tom Gordon was okay, but she decided against it. The deputy might order her not to let her son go, and she knew that she wouldn’t be able to keep him home.

“Yes, ma’am,” the deputy said, her voice suddenly all-business. “I’ll contact the fire department. Many of the roads outside Destin haven’t been plowed yet so it may take some time.”

“Oh yes,” Nora said. “I understand that.”

“Thanks for calling us.”

“Of course,” Nora said.

“Just stay inside and keep your doors and windows locked.”

Nora inhaled sharply, a surge of fear fluttering through her body. “You guys haven’t caught those bank robbers yet?”

The deputy hesitated like she was selecting her words carefully. “Just stay inside and keep your doors and windows locked.”

“I will. Thanks.” Nora pressed the OFF button on the cordless phone and Nicole took it from her and hung it back up on the wall.

Travis burst out of his bedroom dressed in warmer clothing, a hat, and gloves. He was out the front door in a flash. A moment later Nora heard his snowmobile starting up outside as Nicole prepared two cups of coffee for them.

Nora walked over to the front windows in the living room and watched Travis as he rode his snowmobile towards their driveway that ran through the woods and then led out to the county road.

“He’ll be okay,” Nicole said and handed the cup of coffee to her mother. “He just wants to make sure Tom’s okay.”

Nora nodded, but she didn’t feel okay. She still felt nervous. Her stomach fluttered with fear and she didn’t know why. Something didn’t feel right.

Nicole sipped her coffee and walked back to the kitchen. Nora followed her and she almost dropped her cup of coffee when they heard someone knocking at the sliding glass door.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Near Cody’s Pass, Colorado

Travis sped down the snowy road on his snowmobile. He knew his mom didn’t want him riding around out here. It wasn’t the fire that bothered her; it was the fact that those bank robbers hadn’t been caught yet. They’d never had a bank robbery in their town before that he’d ever heard of, and certainly not a murder. But she didn’t have to worry because Travis brought along a little protection of his own just in case he ran across one of those criminals—his dad’s pistol. If he saw one of those murdering bastards, he wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in that man’s head. He practiced with the gun all the time in the woods behind their house and he was an expert shot now.

The first thing Travis noticed when he got out onto the county road from their driveway was the snowmobile tracks on the road. He stopped his snowmobile for a moment and studied them. The tracks went both north and south, up and down the road. For a moment he thought someone else might have headed to Tom Gordon’s property to check out the fire, but on closer inspection of the tracks he realized that they were heading south. Someone had been riding away from the fire.

He thought about riding south and following the tracks, but he knew that the right thing to do was to go to Tom Gordon’s cabin and make sure he was okay.

Making his decision, Travis drove down the narrow road that wound through the army of evergreens, pines, and firs—all of their branches burdened with snow. The roads were bad, worse than he’d ever seen them before, but it wasn’t anything his snowmobile couldn’t handle.

Everything was quiet out here, and the drone of his snowmobile’s motor was the only sound in the silence. Normally he loved the solitude and silence of the woods, but today he was feeling a little creeped out. Maybe all of his mother’s worrying about these bandits was getting to him a little. He loved his mom to death, but she had always been a worrywart.

He knew she was worried about him leaving home (because they both knew that Nicole was heading off to college as soon as she graduated high school—which would be a year earlier than normal because of her grades). He had told his mom plenty of times that she didn’t have a reason to worry about him leaving right away. He surely hadn’t gotten a scholarship to go to college and he definitely wasn’t signing up for the military even though his father and uncle had both served. And Travis didn’t have any serious relationships in his life right now. He’d dated Jenny a few times, but she seemed more into partying and dating other guys than he could tolerate. She wanted an “open” relationship and Travis didn’t really care for that. He tried to end things with her, but whenever she got drunk and she hadn’t hooked up with anyone else for the night, she would call him. And he would always go running to her when she called. Even though they had some good times, he knew their relationship wasn’t going anywhere. He was looking to stay right here in Cody’s Pass, and she was set on finding a rich guy and getting swept away from this small-town life.

So he wasn’t going anywhere any time soon, and he’d told his mother that many times. But she still worried about it.

These thoughts ran through Travis’ mind as he drove carefully down Tom Gordon’s long and winding driveway through the trees. He tried to hurry, but he needed to be careful—he didn’t want to hit a rock or stump or shrub on the side of the driveway that might be hidden in the snow, and wreck his snowmobile. The smell of the smoke was heavy in the air now.

He had followed the snowmobile tracks the whole way down County Road 217 to the driveway and he’d stayed far away from them so he wouldn’t disturb them. It was a little more difficult not to disturb the tracks in the narrow driveway, but he did his best.

But there was no denying it—someone had driven a snowmobile away from Tom Gordon’s burning cabin and headed south. Was it Tom? Had he gone for help? But why wouldn’t he have called the sheriff’s office himself? His mother’s call seemed like the first one the sheriff’s office had received about the fire. Maybe Tom couldn’t get back inside his house to use his phone. Cell phone? They didn’t work too well out here, and he was pretty sure Tom didn’t have a cell phone anyway.

Travis wasn’t sure what was going on, but it was something strange. His heart was already racing with excitement.

He emerged from the driveway through the woods, driving out into the front field of Mr. Gordon’s property—and there it was, exactly what Travis had suspected all along, the cabin was on fire.

The walls of the cabin still stood strong even though part of the roof had collapsed near the back of the cabin and the front porch was ablaze. It would take forever for the fire to burn through those log walls. Part of the porch had fallen in on itself, but Travis saw what looked like bodies on the floorboards near the open front door—twisted and burnt bodies.

Tom Gordon lived here alone. Why would there be so many bodies on the front porch?

Could those bodies be some of the bank robbers?

It had to be.

Travis drove his snowmobile past the front of the cabin, staying far away from the other snowmobile tracks. He had to be very careful now; this wasn’t just a fire anymore, now this was most likely a crime scene.

He drove towards Tom Gordon’s pickup truck, and then he idled past it towards the open door of the free-standing garage beyond the truck. He slowed down to a stop, his headlight shining into the darkness of the garage. Off to his left the fire crackled and popped, and he could feel the heat all the way over here.

“Hello?” he called out at the garage door.

No answer from inside the garage.

He was pretty sure there was no one alive left in the cabin. But maybe Tom had gone to the garage for safety. But no, that didn’t seem right either. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible had happened here … something terrible had happened to Tom Gordon, too.

He should probably sit right here and wait for the fire and police. Or better yet, he should ride back home. But what if there was still a small chance that Mr. Gordon, or even someone else, needed his help?

Besides, Travis was reasonably sure that if the bank robbers had been here, if they had burned this cabin, and burned those bodies on the front porch, then they were gone now—one or two of them escaping on the snowmobile. A shiver ran through him—if he would’ve left his home moments earlier, he might’ve come face-to-face with them on the county road as they drove south and he drove north.

Travis cut off the engine of his snowmobile and got off, his eyes darting around, his hand itching to grab his father’s gun inside his jacket.

He walked towards the wide-open garage door and stood at the threshold.

“Hello?”

No answer from the darkness.

He hesitated a moment, starting to feel like this might not be a good idea. It was murky inside the garage, but his eyes were already beginning to grow accustomed to it. He ventured inside the garage, his hand still ready to draw his gun if he needed to.

“Mr. Gordon? You in here? It’s Travis from down the road. I saw the fire.”

No answer. Only silence.

“We already called the police!” Travis added. He didn’t like the shakiness in his voice but he was trembling and he couldn’t help it. The cold, the fear, and the excitement were all getting to him. “The fire department’s on the way, too!”

Still no answer. After a deeper search, Travis was sure that no one was hiding in the garage. He found where the snowmobile had been parked, and he saw the crumpled up blue tarp that had covered it.

Travis left the garage and decided to walk around the cabin, keeping at least twenty-five to thirty feet away from the burning cabin. As he walked down the side of the cabin, he kept looking at the woods. He’d grown up around these woods all of his life—he’d hunted in these woods, hiked in them for years, camped out in them—nothing in these woods scared him, but he still couldn’t help feeling like something … or somebody … was watching him.

When he got far enough past the cabin, he saw a vehicle burning in the back—it was parked a few car lengths away from the back of the cabin. It looked like some kind of SUV and he was pretty sure that Tom Gordon didn’t own a vehicle like this.

Travis ran back to the garage and searched through the tools until he found a snow shovel and a fire extinguisher. He ran back to the vehicles and used the fire extinguisher on the vehicle, smothering a lot of the flames out. Then he went to work with the shovel, smothering the rest of the flames with snow. It was hot next to the vehicle and Travis had built up a sheen of sweat underneath his clothes from the exertion.

He stared at the charred vehicle after the fire was out. Most of the fire damage was in the back of the SUV where the fire had started. He walked to the front and peered in through the window. Nobody in the truck, and the tires on the front hadn’t melted yet from the heat. This couldn’t be Mr. Gordon’s truck … he didn’t own a vehicle like this, and when he saw the license plate on front he was even more certain—it was a New Mexico license plate.

What was this truck doing here? It seemed like somebody had purposely set the back of this vehicle on fire, because it didn’t seem like the fire could’ve jumped all the way from the back of the cabin to the truck. But he wasn’t an expert. The firefighters would know for sure.

Travis had a feeling that this was the bank robbers’ vehicle. Obviously they must’ve come from New Mexico to rob the bank here. And then they had ditched the getaway vehicle and escaped on Tom Gordon’s snowmobile.

But not all of them.

They had left some of their crew behind, their bodies burning on the front porch. And Mr. Gordon was probably among those bodies. It was a sad thing to think about, but it was most likely a reality.

Travis continued his investigation around the house to the other side. He saw a discarded gas can. This fire had been deliberately set, yet it didn’t seem like the criminals were trying to hide the evidence.

He had an overwhelming feeling that he should go back home now and protect his mom and his sister. He wasn’t sure why this feeling was so strong. He’d seen the snowmobile tracks on the road beyond their driveway and they had continued south along the road. Whoever had been on that snowmobile was probably down in Cody’s Pass by now, trying to find a way to escape, perhaps trying to find another vehicle.

No, he decided he would wait for the sheriff and the fire department to get here.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Cody’s Pass, Colorado—Nora’s house

“Who’s knocking at the door?” Nicole asked and walked straight to the sliding glass door that led out onto the deck that they’d both been standing on only ten minutes ago. Nora had pulled the vertical blinds back over the glass doors after they had come back inside and they couldn’t see who was knocking.

Fear gripped Nora so badly that she couldn’t speak for a moment. She wanted to warn her daughter not to go to that sliding glass door but her words were frozen in her throat, her muscles paralyzed with fear. There was something bad out there, she was sure of it … something very bad. It was the way the person was knocking on the glass door … three loud and steady knocks … impatient knocks.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

It was one of the bank robbers, Nora was sure of that. One of those animals had been in the woods earlier when they’d been outside watching the smoke drift above the trees. He must have waited until Travis left and then he climbed up onto the back deck and now he was at her sliding glass door. Maybe there was more than one of them.

For a split second Nora thought maybe it might be Travis at the sliding glass door. But she dismissed that idea instantly for a few reasons. For one thing, Travis wouldn’t knock—he had a key to the front door. And she hadn’t heard his snowmobile come back. But even if he’d broken down in the driveway and had to walk back, he would’ve come in through the front door.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

Nicole was at the vertical blinds now, about to pull them aside so she could open the door for the person who was knocking.

Nora lunged for the cordless phone on the wall in the kitchen. She grabbed the phone and it nearly slipped out of her hand. She pushed the TALK button with a trembling finger. She was going to call the sheriff’s office and tell them to get out here right now.

There was no dial tone.

She tried all the numbers on the phone, jabbing at them furiously.

Nothing.

The phone had just been working a few moments ago.

They had cut the phone lines.

Then another thought occurred to Nora. Had she locked the sliding glass door when they had come back inside? She hadn’t heeded Deputy Burnette’s advice on the phone earlier and locked all the windows and doors, but maybe she had locked the sliding glass door … but she was pretty sure she’d left it unlocked.

Nora plucked the biggest kitchen knife out of the wood block on the counter and she ran into the dining room.

“Don’t open that door!” Nora screamed at her daughter, finally finding her voice.

Nicole seemed to be ignoring her—almost like she was in a trance. She slid the vertical blinds to the side and then she stood there, paralyzed for a moment as she stared at the person on the other side of the glass. She seemed frightened but also confused, like she was trying to figure out exactly what she was looking at.

Nora wished Travis was still here. He would know what to do.

“Nora,” a voice said from outside the glass door, a voice that seemed to somehow float into the house through the glass, a voice that sounded so clear to her.

Her heart stopped in her chest for a moment. The person standing outside knew her name. Maybe it was a neighbor or someone from town checking on them. But then again, why wouldn’t they have come to the front door and rang the bell? And why would Nicole be so frightened and shocked by who was on the other side of the glass?

“Nora …” the man said again. The voice was louder. Her name sounded garbled in the man’s mouth, like he was having difficulty speaking, like he might be injured.

There was something familiar about the man’s voice, something familiar in the way he said her name. She knew this man’s voice from somewhere; she could feel it in her bones.

“Nora … I’m home. I’ve come back home.”

Nora knew who it was now … but it couldn’t be. She bolted from the end of the dining room towards the sliding glass door with the knife clenched in her hand.

Nicole was already sliding the door open for their visitor, her face shiny with tears as she stared at the man in the doorway.

“Don’t open that door!!” Nora screamed at her daughter.

But it was too late now.

Nora stopped in her tracks a few feet away from the door as Nicole backed up to let the visitor inside. Now Nora could clearly see who was on the other side of the sliding glass door. She froze in shock and fear just like Nicole had done, her mind trying to understand what she was seeing. The knife slipped out of her fingers and dropped down to the floor with a thud.

The sound of heavy footsteps thumped through the house as the man entered their home from the deck.

“Daddy?” Nicole said as she backed up away from the dead man standing just inside the sliding glass door. His skin was gray and mottled. The suit he’d been buried in was nearly shredded with rot. Clumps of dirt hung in his hair. More dirt was smeared all over his clothes and exposed skin.

“Yessss …” he whispered. “Daddy’s home.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Destin, Colorado

George Joekel was the snowplow driver for the town of Destin, Colorado. He’d been very busy these last two nights plowing the streets of the city and the roads of the suburban neighborhoods. He was a private contractor and he used a heavy-duty plow hooked up to the front of his massive Ford F350 that was equipped with giant snow tires. He was nowhere near done with the work of plowing the streets of Destin, and he’d only managed to catch about six hours of sleep in the last two days, but Sheriff Hadley had called him and told him to stop what he was doing and get on up to Route 217; he wanted him to start plowing south from Destin to an address he’d given to him—the address of a man named Tom Gordon. The sheriff also wanted George to plow the man’s driveway so emergency vehicles could get to a house fire.

George was on it.

He turned his F350 around and headed east towards Route 217, a county road that led down to the town of Cody’s Pass—the same town where the bank robbery had taken place. People had stayed indoors because of these massive storms, but also because of the news that these criminals were still on the run. And with how severe the weather had been in the last few days, it wasn’t that far-fetched to think that those criminals might still be here in the area, maybe holed up inside someone’s home and holding them hostage.

Maybe they were even at this Tom Gordon fella’s place that Sheriff Hadley wanted plowed so suddenly.

Route 217 was a winding pass through mountainous terrain—a strip of two lane road that stretched through the never-ending forest, and now it was completely covered with two and a half feet of snow. George hadn’t seen a snowstorm like this in decades.

It’s all because of this damn global warming, George liked to grumble to the other patrons at the bar, but his worn-out joke didn’t seem to amuse anyone anymore.

George made his living as a landscaper (among many other odd jobs) through the spring and summer, and he had a small crew of helpers. But when the first snows hit, his guys took unemployment from the state for the next few months and George went to work with his truck and plow. He was a one-man operation and he worked very hard to keep it that way. Keeping up with the demand always worried him; he felt sure that the county would eventually elect to hire a plow service from one of the neighboring counties, but he would try to hold on to this gig for as long as possible.

So that meant when Sheriff Hadley wanted a particular job done, George was on it. He still had three quarters of a tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, a thermos of black coffee, and the radio was blasting rock n’ roll.

By the time he had plowed a decent path down the winding, remote road, he saw flashing lights in the misty white distance behind him. The cop cars and emergency vehicles planned on following him right to the source of this emergency.

And now he could see the spiral of smoke rising up above the trees ahead of him. George was betting the fire had started from either a Christmas tree or a space heater. He muttered a quick prayer that no one had been caught in the fire.

He slowed down as his older Garmin GPS unit that was stuck to his windshield with a suction cup told him he was approaching Tom Gordon’s driveway.

The driveway was much narrower than the county road and the tree branches scraped at the sides of his truck in some places as he pushed the snow to the sides of the driveway with his plow. The powerful motor in his truck growled and smoke poured out of the dual exhaust, clouding up behind him.

The driveway plowed just as easily as the road … no rocks or large tree branches in the way, thank God. Fallen tree branches snapping off from the wind or weight of the snow were pretty common in his line of work. He emerged out of the woods into a field that had to be at least ten acres … and there was the cabin in the middle of the field. It was still on fire. The front porch was partially collapsed and part of the roof was caved in near the back of the cabin. A free-standing garage with a pickup truck parked in front of it was far enough away to have escaped the flames, but much of the snow on the garage and nearly all of the snow on the pickup truck had melted away from the heat of the fire.

George didn’t expect to see a young man sitting on a snowmobile in front of the garage waiting for them. But what surprised him even more were the burnt bodies on the front porch—two on the floorboards, and one in the doorway to the home.

But he kept on with his job; he kept plowing a path for the sheriff’s car and the fire truck and the ambulance, creating a large area so the vehicles could park, even getting as close to the front of the cabin as he could so the fire truck could pull right up in front of it.

The emergency vehicles pulled up in front of the cabin as George continued making pass after pass, creating an impromptu parking lot for them in the front field.

When he was done, he pulled up near the sheriff’s car. The sheriff was already rolling down his window.

“You need me to plow some more here?” George asked him.

“No, I think that’s good for now, George.”

“You want me to keep on plowing down Route 217 to Cody’s Pass? I mean I can do that, but I still got a lot of neighborhoods in town to do.”

“I know. Don’t worry about the rest of 217. Freddie’s got some guys plowing the streets in Cody’s Pass. I’m sure they’ll get on up here eventually. Go ahead and get back to town. Make sure you make the pass wider on the way back so these vehicles have an easier time getting back to town.”

“You got it, Sheriff.”

The sheriff got out of his car but George hadn’t pulled away just yet, hesitating for a moment. He was still leaning out of his truck window, the motor of his truck rumbling. “Are those bodies on the front porch?” he asked. “I thought I saw—”

“I haven’t had a chance to look at things yet,” the sheriff said. “I’m sure you got a lot of work to do.”

George knew when he was being brushed off. He rolled up his window and turned his truck around and headed back for the driveway.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Tom Gordon’s Cabin

Sheriff Hadley watched George leave. He was sure the man would be spinning some yarns at the bar tonight for sure.

The firefighters already had their hoses out and they were blasting the flames with water. The sheriff decided to stay out of their way for now and he headed over to the kid who waited patiently on his snowmobile by the open door of the garage. The walking was pretty smooth across the “parking area” that George had created for them, but he had to step over mounds of snow at the edge of the cleared area and then trudge through the knee-high snow to get to the kid who had gotten off his snowmobile to meet him halfway.

“Travis Conrad,” the kid said like he could see the sheriff was struggling to recall his name. “I played football with your son in high school.”

The sheriff nodded. “You called this in?”

“My mom did. She saw the smoke in the sky and I came down here to check it out in case someone needed help.”

“I appreciate that,” the sheriff said as he glanced over at the firefighters blasting the burning logs with the fire hoses. It already looked like they were getting a lot of the fire under control.

Deputy Ann Burnette who had followed the sheriff up here walked up to them from her squad car. She stood a few feet behind the sheriff, just listening.

“There are some dead bodies on the front porch,” Travis said, turning the sheriff’s attention back to him.

“I saw them when I drove in,” the sheriff said.

Travis nodded. “It was easier to see them before more of that porch roof collapsed. I saw three bodies. Maybe even four.”

While you were trampling around the crime scene, Sheriff Hadley thought as he looked at the obvious foot traffic through the snow in front of the garage and down the side of the house through the snow.

Travis followed the sheriff’s eyes. “I wanted to make sure nobody was around,” he explained. “I checked the garage. Checked the back of the cabin. There’s a vehicle back there. It was on fire but I …” He hesitated like he didn’t want to incriminate himself.

“It’s okay, son. Tell me what you did.”

“I found a fire extinguisher in the garage and I put the fire out. Shoveled some snow on it, too. But I tried to stay clear of the cabin. I didn’t want to mess up any of the other tracks.”

“There were other tracks in the snow when you got here?”

“Oh yeah. All over the place.”

The sheriff looked back at the massive parking lot George had created and was now regretting that he had okayed it. He and Deputy Burnette glanced at each other for a moment.

“There were all kinds of footprints all around the house,” Travis continued. “And someone drove a snowmobile out of here.”

This snapped the sheriff’s attention back to Travis.

“I checked the garage,” Travis continued. “You could tell there was a snowmobile in there. There’s a tarp crumpled up on the floor.”

“You saw the tracks the snowmobile made?” Sheriff Hadley asked. The tracks in the driveway would be wiped out now from the plow and all of their vehicles.

“Yes, sir,” Travis answered.

“You saw them beyond the driveway?”

“Yes, sir. They go south.”

The sheriff thought about that for a moment.

“And that vehicle around back, I don’t think it’s Mr. Gordon’s truck. If it is, he must’ve just bought it. It’s an SUV. A Chevy Suburban. White. I can tell because the front of it didn’t get burnt yet. There’s a New Mexico plate on the front.”

The sheriff turned to his deputy. “I need you to get on the horn. Get Ronnie up here with a truck and his snowmobile.”

“Right away, Sheriff,” she said and hurried back to her car.

The road down to Cody’s Pass was too bad to follow the snowmobile tracks in his car. He thought about turning George Joekel around, but he would wipe out the snowmobile tracks with his plow. No, he would wait for Ronnie to get up here with the snowmobile so he could follow the tracks down to Cody’s Pass. When she came back, he would tell Deputy Burnette to call Freddie down in Cody’s Pass and make sure he and his men kept an eye out for possible suspects on a snowmobile.

The sheriff turned back to Travis. “The snowmobile tracks on 217 … you didn’t drive over them on your way here, did you?”

“No, of course not.” Travis managed to look a little offended at the sheriff’s question and possible assumption.

Sheriff Hadley sighed. “Okay. Let’s go see this truck around back that you’re talking about.”

They walked along the same beaten-down path through the snow that Travis had made in his several trips back and forth from the back of the cabin to the garage. The walking was a little easier now that there was a path and their boots crunched along the packed down snow. A few moments later Sheriff Hadley saw the half-burnt Chevy Suburban.

“I’m sorry, sheriff, if I did something wrong,” Travis said.

“No, you did okay, Travis. You might’ve actually saved some evidence by putting that fire out.”

Travis couldn’t help beaming with pride.

Deputy Ann Burnette hurried up to them through the snow. “Ronnie’s on his way.”

“Good. I need you to get some photos of this vehicle.”

Deputy Burnette pulled out her digital camera from a coat pocket and started snapping pictures.

The sheriff walked several yards out in front of the burnt Suburban to keep out of the overspray of water from the firefighters. Travis followed him.

“I think it’s the bank robbers’ vehicle,” Travis said in an excited voice.

The sheriff could tell Travis had been busy working on his theory while waiting for him and the firefighters to arrive. The boy seemed like he couldn’t wait to tell someone all about it.

“I think they ditched their getaway car here,” Travis continued on. “Then I think they stole Mr. Gordon’s snowmobile and headed south. I think one or two of them killed the others, took all the money and ran.”

The sheriff didn’t answer Travis.

“Deputy,” the sheriff said to Ann Burnette. “Run these plates on the truck. Then get on the horn again and alert Freddie down in Cody’s Pass to be on the lookout for these guys.”

As the deputy hurried back to her car, the sheriff wondered why these bank robbers would head right back to the same town where they’d committed their crime.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Iron Springs, New Mexico

Palmer slept in a little later than he usually did; daylight was already filtering in around through the drapes over the windows. He jumped up and grabbed his cell phone to see what time it was. After putting on his pants, he slid his shoes on and laced them up quickly. He opened the bedroom door and listened for a moment.

The house was dark and quiet.

He slipped out into the hall and used the bathroom out there.

Fifteen minutes later he was dressed and had his duffel bag with him. This time when he stepped out into the hallway the smell of coffee hit him right away and he saw the glow of light coming from down the hall.

He walked down the hall, crossed the living room and stepped into the kitchen. Captain Begay and his wife Angie sat at the kitchen table sipping coffee. Begay was already dressed in his “uniform” which consisted of faded blue jeans and a thick flannel shirt.

“I made some toast,” Angie told Palmer. “There’s butter on the table. We have peanut butter and jelly if you want some.”

“Thank you.”

“I can fry up a few eggs if you’d like,” she offered.

“No, please … don’t go to all that trouble. Toast and coffee will be just fine.”

Palmer sat down at the table and ate two pieces of toast topped with what seemed like some kind of homemade jam and butter. He washed it down with two cups of strong black coffee.

After Palmer finished eating, Angie filled his thermos with coffee for the road.

“Thank you,” he told her.

She smiled at him and nodded.

Palmer looked at Begay. “I should get going.”

A moment later Palmer grabbed his duffel bag and thermos and then he went outside. He walked across the driveway and opened the passenger door of his rental car and set his bag and thermos inside, then he took his cell phone out of his pocket and walked down the driveway a little. He dialed Alonzo Johnson’s number, the lead forensics investigator at the dig site. Alonzo had nothing new to report. He gave Palmer Susan Dorsett’s number—she was still working at the crime scene in town.

He dialed Susan’s number and told her he would be there soon to meet with her.

“We’ve found some … some very puzzling things,” she told him.

“What kind of things?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain,” she said. “It would be easier to show you.”

“Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Probably within the hour.”

Palmer hung up and turned around. Captain Begay was standing right behind him. Palmer hadn’t even heard the big man sneak up behind him. Begay had a stoic expression on his face, but Palmer could’ve sworn he saw some kind of vindication on the man’s face like he already knew that more strange facts about this case were going to surface soon.

“I’d like to go with you to John and Deena’s house,” Begay told him. It didn’t sound like a request.

Palmer was going to tell him no, but he hesitated.

“I know we had to ask you guys here for the bodies in the cave, but John and Deena were our people. They were my responsibility.”

“I think their case is going to fall under the same one as the cave,” Palmer told him. “It seems like it might be the same killers.”

Begay didn’t say anything—he just stared at Palmer, waiting for an answer.

“Okay,” Palmer said. “Just you. None of your other men right now.”

Begay nodded like that was good enough for him.

“I’ll follow you to the house,” Palmer told him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

John and Deena’s house

Palmer pulled his black rental car in behind the captain’s Bronco at the side of the road across the street from John and Deena’s house just like he had done yesterday. A Navajo Tribal Police vehicle was parked on the side of the road in front of the house, not too far from the driveway, and a forensics van was parked in the driveway.

Palmer got out of his car into the cold morning air. The sun was peeking up over the mesas in the east, providing light but not much warmth. Palmer shrugged into his coat and slipped his hands into a pair of blue nitrite gloves. Begay, seemingly impervious to the cold, walked up to him. They walked to the house together and one of Begay’s officers waited for them by the front door. The officer nodded at them as they entered the house.

“Ms. Dorsett?” Palmer called out when he stepped into the living room.

“Back here,” the woman replied. “In the bedroom.”

Palmer and Begay started to walk towards the hallway that led back to the bedrooms, but Susan was already hurrying down the hall and she met them at the end of it. She was a small, thin woman with straight hair dyed bleach-blond. She wore a pair of thin-framed glasses on her angular face. She looked stern, her thin lips pressed together in a line. She looked like someone who might run triathlons, Palmer thought. She seemed like she was disciplined, all business, not much of a sense of humor. But then again, the line of work she and he were in could sap a person’s sense of humor after a while.

“Special Agent Palmer,” he introduced himself to Susan Dorsett. “And this is Captain Begay of the Navajo Tribal Police.”

She nodded at them. “Please, call me Susan.” She didn’t offer them a hand in greeting, and neither did they.

“You said on the phone that you found some puzzling things,” Palmer reminded her.

“Yes. We’re going to do a lot more tests, but from preliminary onsite exams … well, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’ve been doing this for nearly twenty years now, and I’ve never seen anything like this before. I don’t know if I can even believe it.”

Palmer and Begay waited for her to continue.

“Come on back here,” she said, not waiting for them. She headed down the hall to the master bedroom.

The three of them entered the bedroom. Palmer and Begay stayed close to the walls, careful to stay away from the body of the woman on the carpet. Everything still looked the same, and the smell seemed a little better now because one of the windows was open. There were a few air freshener sticks on top of the dresser. Yellow plastic markers with numbers on them were distributed around the room next to the bodies and by other spots of blood around the carpet. Some of the dried blood was so dark it almost looked black now.

“Well, okay,” Susan said. “Here it goes. One of the bodies, the body of the woman on the floor … she was dead at least one day longer than the man over there … her husband. Maybe dead even two days before him. Yet it still looks like she was the one who killed her husband.”

Palmer felt like everything around him had just come to an abrupt stop, and somehow he’d just missed something important. “Wait …. What? What do you mean by that?”

“I know. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Like I said, we’ll do more tests when we eventually get their bodies to the lab, but I’m pretty sure those tests are going to come back just like I stated.”

“But that can’t be possible. If she was dead longer than he was, then how could she have killed him?”

“I don’t know.” She let out a sigh. “As far as I can tell, it looks like she ripped his face off and scalped him.”

“With what?”

“There doesn’t seem to be any weapon or tool marks. The only weapons I can identify are her fingers. She must’ve used her teeth, too. We found three pieces of broken teeth from her mouth embedded deep into his face.

“But it looks like her face … I mean her face looked …” Palmer stepped closer to the woman’s body and crouched down, staring at her head which was now covered with a clear plastic bag. Her hands were bagged too. Even with the bag on her head, the woman’s face still seemed like it was mashed down into the carpet.

“Skinned, too?” Susan offered, completing Palmer’s unfinished sentence. “I know. I don’t understand this.”

Palmer just nodded numbly. He pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket. “I … I took some photos.”

Susan nodded. “Yes, we took a lot of photos, too.”

“Did you find the pieces of their face or hair anywhere on them?” Palmer asked. “Or maybe … inside of them?”

“Obviously I haven’t investigated their stomach contents yet … we’ll do that when we get to the lab … but I haven’t found any evidence of their skin or hair in the room anywhere.”

“So the killer might have taken their faces and hair with him. But why?” Palmer felt suddenly sick to his stomach. “There has to be some kind of mistake here. If she was injured that badly, how in the world could she have killed her husband?”

Susan shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Palmer changed the subject. “What about their kid?”

“David,” Captain Begay said. “His name is David.”

“Yeah, David. Did you find any evidence of him in … in all of this?” Palmer gestured at the gory mess all over the bedroom.

“No. No other traces of blood except these two. Maybe the kid ran away.”

“Or somebody took him,” Palmer said.

Susan didn’t comment.

“What about the cave?” Palmer asked Susan. “Have you been out there?”

She swallowed hard and nodded. The look in her eyes told Palmer that she had been in the cave and seen the body parts on display. “I talked to Alonzo. What we’ve got in there is just as strange as this. It’s actually worse.”

Palmer glanced at Begay who stood impassive near the corner of the bedroom. Palmer looked back at Susan, bracing himself as Susan continued.

“From what Alonzo said, we’ve got the same problems there as we do here. Some of the bodies were dead longer than the others. Maybe as long as two or three days in some cases.”

“So the perps killed them one by one,” Palmer offered. But why didn’t the others run or call for help? he wondered. Their sat phones and radios were all dead so they couldn’t call for help. The batteries in the vehicles were all dead so they couldn’t drive away. No one could drain all of those batteries purposely, could they? Maybe all of the headlights were left on at the same time. But even though the vehicles were inoperable, the people still could have run away on foot into the desert. Surely the thought of freezing in the desert had to be better than whatever was happening to the others there at the dig site.

This case was beginning to give him a headache. He needed another drink.

“We’ve got the pieces of the people in piles at the cave now,” Susan said. “And from the nine heads we’ve found, we’re already beginning to make IDs from their wallets and from the photos and background info that the university sent to us.”

“Nine people?” Palmer asked. “There should be ten of them.”

Susan pulled out her phone and scrolled down the screen for a moment with a practiced flick of her thumb. “No,” she finally said, shaking her head. “There were only seven men and two women. One man was definitely Navajo, and he must be the man named Jim Whitefeather. One man was ID’d as Jake Phillips. One man we believe is a grad student named Robert Coggins. A woman named Patty LaFontaine, and another grad student named Phil Carson. And the other woman has been identified as Wendy Rhinehardt. The other three are so … fragmented, their faces destroyed so badly, that we’ll have to rely on dental records … hopefully.”

“Two women?” Palmer said. “There was another woman with them, a woman that Jake Phillips called from Arizona State University. She was an expert on the … on the …”

“The Anasazi,” Begay helped.

“Yeah.”

“You’re taking about a woman named Stella Weaver,” Susan said, glancing down at her phone. “We haven’t found her head, and we’re trying to get matches of the legs, arms, and torsos. Right now we’re sure these body parts are from only nine people.”

Palmer thought for a moment. This woman Stella Weaver was summoned to the dig site by Jake Phillips, and now she’s the only one missing. He wondered if she’d ever made it to the dig site at all.

But at least it was something to go on, somewhere to start.

“Excuse me a moment,” Palmer told Susan and stepped out of the bedroom. He walked back to the living room with his phone in his hand. He dialed Debbie’s number back at the Denver office.

“Hi, Debbie.”

“How’s it going down there?” she asked.

“This is a strange one. Listen, I need a favor.”

“Name it.”

“Can you find out any information on a woman named Stella Weaver? She’s an archaeologist working out of Arizona State University, but she was supposed to be heading to this dig site. Check her DMV records too while you’re at it. See what kind of vehicle she owned.” Palmer thought of the missing vehicle in the line of trucks at the dig site near the dirt trail.

“I’m on it. I’ll call you back as soon as I get any info.”

“Thanks, Debbie. You’re the best.”

“I know.”

Palmer hung up and slid his phone back into his jacket pocket. If Stella never made it to the dig site, that was one thing. But if she made it to the site and now she wasn’t among the missing bodies … what did that mean? And if that missing vehicle was hers ... Could the killers have taken her truck? Could they have taken her? Could they have taken David, too?

Palmer turned around to walk back to the bedroom but Captain Begay was right behind him. He hadn’t even heard the man approach. “You gotta stop sneaking up on me like that.”

“You got any theories yet?” he asked.

“Not yet. I need to get back out to the dig site.”

“I’ll show you the way. Just follow me.”

• • •

Palmer followed Begay out of town, the landscape turning to desert wilderness in no time at all. He allowed himself a small nip from his bottle of vodka as he drove.

He was only halfway to the dig site when his cell phone rang. It was Debbie.

“Hey, Debbie. What did you find?”

“We found Stella’s vehicle.”

“Great,” Palmer said.

“It’s at a crime scene in Colorado. A remote area between the towns of Destin and Cody’s Pass.”

“A crime scene?”

“A cabin was set on fire and there were multiple bodies inside. Her SUV was found behind the cabin, the vehicle partially burned.”

“Shit. Can you get me a flight back up there?”

“Of course. You’ll leave out of the same airport in Farmington you came in at. You’ll fly into a town called Destin. We’ll have a car waiting for you there. From there you’ll need to drive south on Route 217. I’ll send the directions to your phone.”

“As quick as you can, Debbie.”

He hung up and thought about calling his SAC, Cardenelli, and telling him that he was leaving the crime scene down here in Agent Klein’s hands and heading to Destin, Colorado.

But then again, maybe he would wait on that phone call for a little while.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Near Cody’s Pass, Colorado

Travis drove his snowmobile down the snowy road back to his house. He wanted to stick around at the crime scene, but Sheriff Hadley wouldn’t allow it. Travis offered to lead Deputy Ronnie who was on his way there with a police snowmobile, but the sheriff told him that Ronnie was perfectly capable of following the tracks all by himself.

Travis was a little dejected by not being allowed to help, but it had still been an exciting day. He even thought he might want to pursue some kind of law enforcement career someday. He figured he had pieced together the clues pretty quickly on his own; he’d done a pretty good investigation of the crime scene. He wasn’t much of a reader, but he decided that he would start reading true crime books and watch some documentaries, start studying up on this kind of stuff. He couldn’t believe it—he’d been looking for a path in his life for so long now, and he’d finally found it.

He was excited. He couldn’t wait to tell his mother about his idea for a career. Of course she would be happy for him, but she would also be secretly sad and frightened that he would be leaving her someday. If she could have her way, neither he nor his sister would ever leave home.

As he neared the driveway that led through the woods to their property, Travis slowed his snowmobile down to a stop. He sat there for a moment with the motor running. He stared at the snowmobile tracks that continued south down the snowy road. He thought about ignoring the sheriff’s command to go home and keep watch over his mother and sister … he thought about following those tracks. He just wanted to help, and if he could spot one of those bank robbers …

But he decided not to. Maybe the sheriff was right; he should go home and protect his mother and sister. It wasn’t unbelievable that the bank robber (or maybe the two robbers) had only ridden half a mile down the road and then escaped into the woods only to circle back through the trees to find his house. It wasn’t that unbelievable to think that they might already be at his house, holding his family hostage.

A chill ran through him as flashes of desperate men aiming guns at his mother and sister ran through his mind.

He revved the motor and turned down the driveway through the trees. Moments later he pulled up to his house, driving through the same tracks he’d created when he’d left. He drove his snowmobile around the house to the large, free-standing garage and parked it next to the wood and metal awning where his mother’s SUV was parked. He cut the motor and got off his snowmobile. He trudged back through the calf-high snow to the front of the house. He climbed the steps up to the wood deck and kicked the snow off of his boots. He unlocked the front door and entered. He closed and locked the front door, and then he kicked off his rubber boots onto the small tiled entryway. He was sure his mother and sister couldn’t wait to hear what he’d found.

Travis was about to rush into the living room, but he stopped suddenly.

The first thing he noticed was the overpowering stench inside the house, the smell of something rotten … something dead.

The next thing he noticed was the silence. His mom should’ve had the local news blaring on the TV by now. Breakfast should be cooking in the kitchen.

His heart skipped a beat. He’d thought only moments earlier that it wasn’t unfathomable that the fleeing criminals could stop at their house, but now he felt certain that it had happened. His skin felt tingly, his mouth went instantly dry, and his muscles felt a little weak and rubbery.

“Mom!” Travis called out.

No answer.

“Nicole?”

Still no answer.

Oh God, something had happened to them. They were still here because his mom’s SUV was parked underneath the awning. But why weren’t they answering him? Why was the house so quiet? And where was that terrible smell coming from?

This was his time to be a hero, to fight for his family. He yanked his father’s pistol out of the waistband of his pants and he rushed into the living room.

And then he froze in his tracks.

His mom and his sister sat rigidly in two dining room chairs that had been moved into the living room. There was nothing binding them to the chairs, but they were frozen like they were too afraid to flinch or to even call out to him. Their skin was pasty white with fear and their eyes were large circles of shock, rimmed in redness and tears.

They were afraid.

And Travis saw why.

The thing that stood near them in the shadowy living room couldn’t be possible … it couldn’t be real. It was his dead father.

Travis’ dad had died of a sudden heart attack six months ago. He had been buried in the cemetery behind the New Hope church in the southeastern part of Destin.

“What … how …” Travis croaked.

“Shut up,” the monstrosity growled at Travis. The decaying thing looked like his father. He was dressed in the black suit he’d been buried in, but now the clothing was filthy with dirt, some areas torn and hanging in tatters. His grayish face was sunken, his mouth pulled back in a rictus smile that revealed jagged yellow teeth. His eyes were bulging, his gray hair wild and dirty. Loose black stitches hung from the corners of his mouth and eyes.

“You’re … you’re dead,” Travis breathed out. His leg muscles felt like jelly and he was afraid he was going to collapse. He had never believed people could faint or go into shock, but he could believe it now.

Travis realized that his mother was cradling an injured hand in the other. Blood was seeping out of a rag she held around her hand.

He looked back at his dead father. “What did you do to her?”

“I took one of her fingers off,” his dead father said and his smile widened. He lifted up the pale white severed finger clutched in his hand, the end of the finger a gory and ragged mess.

Zombie … that’s what Travis thought of. It was the only explanation. Either that or he was in the middle of a very realistic nightmare. Or he had wrecked his snowmobile and he was trapped inside a coma.

“I assure you this is real, my boy,” his dad said like he’d read Travis’ mind.

Travis looked down at the gun in his hand like he’d just remembered he was holding it. He raised it up and aimed it at the thing that looked like his father. He could shoot it, but he needed to put a bullet through its brain—that was the only way you could kill a zombie, everyone knew that.

His father smiled.

“I don’t know what you are,” Travis said. He was suddenly brave with the pistol clenched in his trembling hand. He glanced at his sister and saw hope in her eyes. That was enough to spur him on. He was going to save his sister and his mother from whatever this thing was. “I don’t know what you are, but you’re going back to where you came from.”

Travis was a good shot. He practiced all the time. From this far away, he knew he could put a bullet right through his father’s forehead, but his trembling hand was the problem right now. But as soon as he squeezed the trigger it was like the alpha waves of his brain kicked in at the last second and his hand steadied just long enough for him to shoot.

The bullet hit his father dead square in the forehead. It rocked his head back, but then his head snapped forward again, the smile never leaving his father’s ghoulish face. A stream of grayish fluid blew out of the back of his father’s head with the bullet, splattering the wall behind him, part of it spraying across a painting, the grayish goo dripping off the frame. More of the same grayish fluid dripped out of the neat hole in his dad’s forehead.

But Travis’ father didn’t collapse. He wasn’t even knocked off-balance by the gunshot. He just stared at Travis with the bullet hole in his face now.

“You can’t kill me,” Travis’ father said in a guttural voice. “I’m already dead. Now I’m going to take your mother and sister apart, piece by piece, if you don’t do what I want.”

“What … wait,” Travis croaked.

“I took your mother’s finger off,” his father continued. “I broke the bone and then twisted it around and around until I could pull it off.”

Nora looked on the verge of vomiting on herself. Her skin was so white, her body trembling so badly. She looked like she was on the verge of shock.

“I could take another finger off,” his dad said.

“No … wait! Don’t! What do you want?”

“Put the gun away,” his dead father growled at him. “You will need it soon.”

Travis bent down and laid the gun down at his feet.

“There’s a boy named David,” his dead father said. “He’s with a man and a woman named Cole and Stella. They have traveled south to a town called Cody’s Pass. I think you have seen their snowmobile tracks in the snow.”

Travis nodded slightly.

“Kill the boy and I will not harm your mother or sister any further. But you must do it quickly. For every hour that you do not kill the boy, I will take a piece of them. A finger. A toe. An eyeball. A tongue.”

“Kill a kid?” Travis asked, his voice squeaking with panic. “I can’t just … just kill some kid I don’t even know.”

Travis looked at his sister, then at his mother.

Nora shook her head no. “Don’t do it, Travis,” She whispered. “Please …”

Travis’ dead father took a step over to the table next to the couch. He picked up the blood-stained kitchen knife. “Have you ever seen someone skinned alive?” he asked as he walked over to Nora. He raised the blade up to her face and pressed the point of the knife gently into her fleshy cheek. “I could take her face off in one whole piece and put it on your sister like a Halloween mask.”

“I’ll kill you first!” Travis roared as helpless tears streamed out of his eyes. “Whatever the hell you are!”

“You want to see what I am?” Travis’ dead father asked. He dropped the knife to the carpet. His body began to bulge suddenly in some places, the fabric of his dirty clothing pushing out. His suitcoat and shirt tore open and a long segmented leg pushed out through his rotted flesh. Grayish goo was stuck to the thing’s giant insect-like leg. But then it wasn’t an insect leg anymore, it morphed into a rubbery tentacle, like a snake.

Travis’ mother screamed and nearly fell out of her chair, trying to lean as far away from the monstrosity next to her as possible. She still held her bloody hand cradled in the stained rag.

“I’m ancient …” Travis’ dead father said. “I’ve been here a long, long time. I am much more than you could ever understand. I am more powerful than you could ever imagine. If you will not kill the boy, I will have some fun with all three of you, and then I will find the next family to kill the boy. And then the next one. I won’t stop. If you want to save your mother and your sister, all you have to do is kill the boy.”

“Okay!” Travis screamed. His eyesight was blurry with tears now. This was all going too fast. He just wanted everything to slow down so he could think for a minute. But the thing that had somehow gotten inside of his dead father’s body wasn’t going to give him a chance.

“Kill the boy,” his dead father said again as the segmented and rubbery thing retracted back inside his father’s body. “It’s that simple. Use your gun and put a bullet in the boy’s brain. He won’t feel a thing. Do it, and then all of this will be over. If not, I can promise you that you cannot imagine the things I can do to them.”

“I’ll do it,” Travis said as tears spilled out of his eyes. “Just please … please don’t hurt them anymore.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Cody’s Pass, Colorado

After they rode the snowmobile down the hill and towards the edge of town, Cole stashed it in the brush and covered it with some broken branches. There was nothing they could do about the tracks leading up to the brush … eventually the snowmobile would be found.

They walked the next mile to the nearest buildings at the edge of Cody’s Pass. As they walked down the sidewalks and the plowed streets of the town, they tried to act normally, and with David’s long black hair hidden underneath the hood of his coat, they just looked like a family walking down the road.

There weren’t a lot of people out walking around even though the storm had passed by hours ago. The sky was blue and cloudless. A lot of the businesses were still closed up, but there were a few people driving around, some driving large pickups, many with plows attached to the front of the trucks.

Stella heard a snowmobile in the distance and turned around to look. It was a teenager racing across a field of snow in the distance behind some houses. All of this snow must be a dream for him, she thought, but a nightmare for others.

After a few more miles were behind them, they spotted a convenience store that was open for business. They walked down to the side of the building and huddled together in the cold.

“Can you go in there and get us some food and drinks?” Cole asked Stella. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to go anywhere where there are cameras right now.”

“Yeah. What do you want?”

“I don’t care. I’m so hungry right now I’d eat anything.” He smiled at her.

She couldn’t trust that smile, she told herself.

“Maybe you should go alone,” Cole offered. “I could keep David with me.”

“No,” Stella answered a little too sharply. “David stays with me.”

“Of course. I understand.”

Cole dug a pack of cash out from the waistband of his pants and peeled off some twenty dollar bills. He handed them to her. “Money might be traceable, but it will take some time. We really don’t have any other options right now.”

Stella nodded.

Cole stared at her for a moment. “You could go in there and tell them about me. You could tell them that you’re with one of the guys that robbed the bank.”

Stella didn’t answer, she just held Cole’s gaze.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did,” Cole said and she thought he almost looked relieved at the idea of it. He would be taken away from this nightmare and placed into police custody, locked away in a cell and protected from this ancient thing that roamed out here. He would be away from her and David, no longer a threat to the thing. She even wondered if the thought hadn’t crossed his mind already, if he might not be weighing his options and waiting for the perfect time to ditch them. He might just be using them for cover right now.

But Stella knew that if she turned Cole in to the police, they would have a lot of questions for her—questions she would have a difficult time answering. And they would take David away. He would be vulnerable to the Ancient Enemy without her. Before long, the Ancient Enemy would find others and force them into action with unspeakable horrors. It could find others who weren’t as strong as Stella, others who weren’t willing to sacrifice themselves to save this boy, others who would kill David in a heartbeat to save themselves.

And of course Cole had already thought all of this through. He had run the different scenarios through his mind as he’d driven the snowmobile and on their walk through town.

He knew she wasn’t going to turn him in—she had too much to lose. David had too much to lose.

“I’ll go with you,” Cole said. For a moment she thought he was talking about the supermarket. “I’ll go with you all the way down there to find this shaman. I want to help stop this thing before it kills others like … like it killed my brother.”

Stella nodded. It felt like they had both come to the realization that their futures were bleak at best, like two gunfighters on the run and being chased by the law. It could only end badly. Even if by some miracle they survived all of this and there was a shaman who could help David, what then? Cole could always stay on the run, but eventually Stella would have to go back to her own life. She would have to face the authorities eventually, face their questions. She would either be charged with crimes like aiding and abetting a criminal or be thrown into the nuthouse. Her career was definitely over now and her life would be over after this.

But why dwell on that? The chances that they would live through all of this were pretty slim anyway.

She took David’s hand and he gave her hand a squeeze. He looked up at her and smiled. She couldn’t let anything happen to him.

“You ready to go to the store?” she asked him.

He nodded and they went.

• • •

Stella entered the convenience store with David and they headed right for the restrooms to wash up. A sense of déjà vu blanketed her, and her mind swam back to that night at the dig site when they had escaped the Ancient Enemy. They had driven the rest of the night up into Colorado and stopped here in this town, parked in the motel parking lot for a few hours of rest. And then they had gone to a gas station to clean up in the bathroom and stock up on some food and drinks.

And here they were again, on the run and going into a restroom to clean up. Only they weren’t in a gas station this time, they were in a small supermarket.

Stella took David with her into the women’s restroom. He went to the bathroom in one of the stalls while she cleaned the dirt and grime from her face and hands at one of the sinks. Thankfully the restroom was empty. She stared at herself in the mirror for a moment and her thoughts drifted back to a few mornings ago when she had stood in front of a mirror at that gas station. She remembered being surprised at how gaunt and haunted her reflection had looked. Now, a few days later, she still had that same gaunt and haunted look. It wasn’t quite the shock to her now as it had been then.

After they cleaned up, Stella told David to keep the hood of his coat up over his hair while they were inside the store. Nobody might remember a mother and her son shopping, but they might remember a blond woman with a Native American child.

David was fine with the hood being over his head—he didn’t fight her about it. He was such a good kid. And she believed that he knew that her only mission in life right now was to protect him and keep him safe.

He smiled at her and took her hand. He still wasn’t talking much, but with the horrors he had experienced, she couldn’t really blame him. If they survived all of this somehow, who knew how long it would take for him to recover. If ever.

“We’re going to shop for a few things,” she told him.

He nodded at her.

“I want you to pick out anything you want to eat. Okay?”

Again, he nodded.

“Just a few things. Just what we can carry in a few bags.”

He seemed to understand. He was ready to start shopping.

But Stella hesitated before leaving the restroom. “Listen, David. I want you to be careful around Cole. Okay? I know he seems nice, and he seems like he wants to help us, and protect us, but we can’t trust him. Okay?”

“Okay,” David whispered.

“I don’t want you going anywhere with him without me. Do you understand?”

He nodded.

“I mean it, David.”

“I know,” he whispered.

After they were out of the bathroom, Stella grabbed a shopping cart and they went down each aisle, trying not to hurry. She kept her selection small and light, foods in boxes or cans that could be eaten cold: packages of crackers, cans of tuna, a few pre-packaged meals that could go in the microwave, a box of Pop-Tarts, a package of energy bars, packs of nuts, a small bag of sugar, and Kool-Aid packets. She only bought one cold drink for each of them, figuring there would be vending machines at the motel. The motel would also have soap, shampoo, and other bathroom needs. She bought three toothbrushes and a travel-size tube of toothpaste, a can of spray deodorant, and a big bottle of aspirin.

They checked out at the cash register and the weight of her pistol inside her coat pocket felt so heavy; she felt like it was obvious to the young cashier that she was packing a weapon. She thought the cashier might have been taking a little too long studying her grocery choices, and then scrutinizing the twenty dollar bills that she’d given her. But maybe it was her imagination. The cashier gave Stella the change and bagged the groceries into plastic bags.

Stella asked David to carry one of the bags, and she carried the other three. They walked out through the automatic doors and a moment later they were back out in the freezing cold air again.

Cole met up with them about a block down the street as they had agreed earlier. The walk to the motel was a long one, at least another forty-five minutes. They didn’t talk much as they walked, and they tried not to glance around too much at anyone out on the street.

• • •

When they got to the Mountainside Inn, Cole waited around the side with the bags of groceries while Stella and David went to check in at the front desk. She wasn’t going to let David out of her sight, and Cole couldn’t blame her for that.

He found a little alcove near the dumpster at the side of the building to hide in. There were no cameras on this side of the building (he hadn’t spotted any security cameras at all so far) and virtually no traffic in the parking lot—foot or vehicle. The motel seemed mostly empty right now, but there were a few cars and trucks scattered around, pulled up tight to the two story building. Maybe some of these patrons were skiers, Cole thought; or maybe a salesman or family members who had gotten caught in the snowstorm while on their way to sales meetings or family visits.

Cole leaned against the wood-sided wall inside the little alcove, protected from view and the wind. He finally had a chance to breathe easily for a few minutes. He’d been so preoccupied with the police that he hadn’t even thought much about the Ancient Enemy (as Stella called it) until now that he was alone on this deserted side of the motel. The tree line was only a hundred yards away across a field of snow that was probably an area of tall grasses in the summertime.

He could imagine another dead person stumbling out of those woods, another hollowed-out puppet controlled by that thing. He could see that person in his mind stumbling forward through the snow, an unstoppable zombie on a persistent mission, a puppet with that strange and crooked smile hung on its face and that glazed look of the dead in its eyes.

But no one came.

Cole had begun to wonder about this Ancient Enemy. A theory had popped into his mind, a theory he had expressed last night when they’d been hunkered down in the cabin, waiting for the dead to come back.

What if David was doing this? Even if he wasn’t aware of it, what if he was somehow causing this to happen?

Of course Stella discounted his theory immediately. And maybe she was right, but maybe she wasn’t. Cole had to look at all possibilities through a detached filter, and as improbable as everything had been so far, the idea of David somehow manifesting all of this, even if it was subconsciously, couldn’t be discarded so quickly. He’d heard of children being born with strong telepathic and telekinetic abilities that faded away as they got older. He wasn’t sure where he’d read or seen this—possibly some horror movies—but he couldn’t rule it out right now. He couldn’t afford to rule anything out.

If David was doing this, even if he was unaware of it, then he was very dangerous. And Cole needed to be ready for that.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The Mountainside Inn

Stella and David entered the lobby of the Mountainside Inn through the double doors set in a wall of glass panels. A chandelier hung in the middle of the lobby ceiling two stories above them. Two sets of wide, carpeted stairs led up to the hallways to more motel rooms. Massive potted plants decorated the corners and stood next to sofas and smaller couches arranged in the middle of the vast room with tables nearby, spreads of magazines fanned out on the table tops. Stella had expected more of a lodgy feel to the motel, something targeted more towards skiers, but this seemed like a much fancier motel for such a small town.

She guided David across the empty lobby towards the long wood counter to their left where a clerk stood behind the counter, dressed in a burgundy vest over a crisp white long-sleeved shirt. He was a little overweight and his dark hair was slicked down and parted severely on one side. He had a neat and trim mustache and wire rim glasses. He smiled at them as they approached.

“Welcome to the Mountainside Inn,” the clerk said.

“Thanks,” Stella answered and smiled at the man. “We’d like to get a room for the night.”

“I think we can arrange that,” the clerk said, typing away at the computer hidden underneath the high counter.

Stella glanced beyond the clerk at the neat counters behind him. There was a chair in the corner even though the clerk chose to stand. A TV was on the counter, but the sound was turned all the way down. It looked like some kind of basketball game. There were displays on the countertop advertising ski lodges, mountain tours, horseback riding, restaurants, a spa, and an Old West museum.

“Name?” the clerk asked.

“Molly Reed,” Stella said without hesitating. She had already come up with the fake name on the way there, the name of one of her professors when she was a student at Arizona State.

“Just the two of you?”

“Yes.”

“I can put you upstairs in Room 237. It has a balcony view.”

Yeah, I really want to hang out on the balcony in sub-zero temperatures, Stella thought. “That would be great,” she said and smiled at him.

He placed a piece of paper on the counter for her and a pen. “Just fill out your vehicle information.”

As Stella filled out a fake address and vehicle information, the clerk worked on getting the key cards ready, running them through a small machine. He placed them in a small paper sleeve with the motel’s logo on them and handed them to her with a smile.

“Do you have vending machines here?” Stella asked.

“Of course. You go up that set of stairs over there, take a right, and to the left you will see a small lobby area with vending machines, an ice machine, and even a few video games.” He gave David a wink. “There’s also a change machine there if you need it.”

“That sounds great, thanks.”

“Checkout is at eleven thirty, and we have a small continental breakfast from seven to ten o’clock. Just some coffee and juice, sweet rolls, fruit, cold cereal, toast, stuff like that.”

Stella’s stomach rumbled with hunger just from the clerk’s description of the food and she was afraid he might have heard it. She smiled at him again. “We might take you up on that.” She put her arm around David, pulling him close to her. “Right?” she asked David. He looked up at her and smiled and then nodded.

“Okay,” the clerk said. “If there’s anything I can help you with, just call down here to the desk. The instructions are on the phone, but it’s pretty easy … just dial zero on the phone.”

“Got it.” Stella was ready to go.

“You guys just passing through?” the clerk asked.

This guy was either nosy or lonely. Either way, Stella didn’t want to get into a long conversation with the guy. “Yeah. On my way up to see my aunt.”

“There are some great things to do around here. And if you’re looking for some suggestions for dinner, there’s a great pizza place just down the road. They deliver, too.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Stella said. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but my son needs to use the bathroom.”

“Oh,” the clerk said, his smile disappearing. “Of course. Sorry. I hope you enjoy your stay here.”

“I’m sure we will,” Stella said and she ushered David away quickly.

They walked up the set of wide steps that were carpeted in the same garish carpeting that covered part of the lobby. What was it with hotels and their ugly carpeting?

A moment later they found the vending machines exactly where the clerk said they would be. They left the bags of food with Cole, but Stella decided to stock up on a few cans of soda and water before going to their room.

“Pick out what you want,” she told David.

He pointed at the Coke button.

Stella found two five dollar bills in her purse, smoothed them out, and then fed them into the change machine. Quarters plunked down into the metal basket and she used them to get two cans of Coke, two cans of Sprite, and two bottles of water. Hot coffee sounded good, but she could come back for that later.

“Someone’s thirsty!” a man roared from behind them.

Stella whirled around expecting the see the clerk for some reason, thinking he had followed them up here.

But it wasn’t the clerk who had bellowed at them. A tall fat man stood there grinning at them. He was nearly bald and his face was red with a splash of broken capillary veins across his cheeks. His gut pushed out of the white button-down dress shirt that was tucked into the waistband of his black pants. He wore a necktie that was only slightly less loud than the pattern and colors of the motel carpeting.

For a moment she thought the large man could be a puppet controlled by the Ancient Enemy, but she dismissed that thought in the next few seconds. It was something about the way he stood, the way he looked at them, but most of all it was the way his voice sounded—he didn’t have that monotone guttural growl.

Salesman, Stella thought. It was the way he was dressed, the overly-friendliness in his voice, a vibe that came from him that was probably so ingrained in his personality from decades of sales work that he couldn’t turn it off anymore.

“Uh …” Stella tried to think of a good reason for all the drinks.

“Great mixers,” the man said and gave Stella an exaggerated wink.

She forced a smile on her face. “Yeah,” she agreed.

“Name’s Bruce Goldman,” the man said. His voice was so loud, and he seemed to fill up the small area with both his personality and sheer mass.

David was eyeing the video games, apparently already bored with Bruce’s conversation.

“Hi, Bruce,” Stella said. She didn’t offer their names, hoping the man would get the hint.

“Heck of a storm we had, huh?”

“Uh, yeah. We just got here.”

“Oh, you missed a doozy. I haven’t seen a snowstorm like that since I was a kid.”

“It was nice to meet you,” Stella said, practically pushing David out of the room towards the hallway.

Wow, people sure were friendly around here.

Stella and David walked down the hall and found Room 237. She saw that there was an exit to a set of outside stairs at the other end of the hall, a great place to sneak Cole up here. She was sure there were cameras around … she just had to hope that the clerk wasn’t studying them.

• • •

Cole still waited in the alcove. It had been at least twenty minutes now and he was beginning to get a little worried. He looked back at the trees covered with snow in the distance, and then he looked at the small drive leading out of the parking lot down to the road below, the road that led south.

The road that led away from here … away from this nightmare.

“Cole,” Stella hissed from around the corner.

Cole jumped and he’d drawn his gun without even realizing it. He shoved it back down into the waistband of his pants and pulled his coat back down over it before she and David came around the corner and saw him with his gun in his hand. He didn’t want them to see a wild-eyed man pointing a gun at them.

“Right here,” Cole said. He grabbed the plastic bags of groceries down by his feet and stepped out from the alcove. He trudged through the snow to her and David who waited by the back of the building.

• • •

They climbed the set of concrete steps outside the building at the far end and entered through a metal-framed and glass door. Even this area was fancy, with two chairs and a table positioned next to a picture window that looked out onto the mountains. A potted plant stood in the corner. The heat was blasting down from the air ducts and it was an immediate relief from the cold.

Cole followed Stella and David down the hall, passing door after door as they walked along the garish carpeting made up of strange geometric designs in muted reds, oranges, and purples. Cole didn’t really like being upstairs, but he couldn’t really complain to the manager about it.

Stella stopped in front of Room 237 and slipped what looked like a credit card into the key slot above the metal door handle. The little light in the shiny metal plate turned green and she opened the door and hurried inside.

Cole was the last one to enter the room and he closed the door and then engaged the deadbolt lock with a flip of his thumb. The lock thunked into place and the door seemed sturdy.

For the first time Stella felt somewhat safe. She took off her coat and laid it over one of the chairs on the other side of the room, spreading it out so the snow would melt and the coat could dry. She helped Cole unpack the groceries from the bags and she put one of the prepared dinners into the small microwave that was on a counter in the area near the door and the bathroom.

She looked at Cole who seemed a little less tense now.

“We wait it out for a few hours,” he told her as if she had asked a question. “We get cleaned up, eat, and then we can sleep for a few hours in shifts.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Route 217—Cody’s Pass, Colorado

Travis drove his snowmobile down the snow-covered road that wound down through the mountains, down into the valley where Cody’s Pass was nestled. He needed to get to the motel at the other end of town, the Mountainside Inn; it was the only motel he could think of. That’s where this kid David would be, the thing inside his dead father had told him. Travis wasn’t sure how that thing knew exactly where this kid was, or why that thing just didn’t kill the kid itself, but he couldn’t think about things like that; he had to do what it wanted or it was going to tear his mother and sister apart. He had to do this, he didn’t have a choice. It was just a bullet in the kid’s head. Lights out. He wouldn’t feel any pain at all.

As he drove into town, trying to stick to the unplowed roads as much as possible, he saw more cop cars patrolling than he’d ever seen before. They must be looking for the escaped criminals. He hadn’t even thought about the bank robbers. Being at Tom Gordon’s burnt cabin this morning seemed like such a long time ago—a lifetime ago. Everything had changed since then.

He was tempted to stop one of the cops and plead for help. But what could he do, tell them that his dead father had dug himself out of his frozen grave and was now holding his sister and mother hostage, tearing pieces of their bodies off one by one? They would lock him up and then there would be no chance of saving his family. The police couldn’t kill that thing … they couldn’t kill whatever the hell was inside of his dead father.

And Travis was sure that the thing inside his dead father—that spidery, slithering thing—would know somehow if he didn’t accomplish his mission. Maybe that thing and this boy it wanted killed had some kind of psychic connection and that thing would know immediately when that link was broken.

What was that thing? Was it an alien? A demon of some kind? Travis even tried to rationalize that he had imagined the whole thing … and the farther away he rode away from the madness the more his mind tried to convince him of that possibility.

Except that his mother’s severed finger was tucked down inside his shirt pocket.

“Put it in your pocket,” the thing that used to be his father had growled at Travis as it stood right in front of him; its breath smelled like moist earth and rotting meat.

Travis had almost retched as that thing stood right in front of him, but he took the bloody finger from the dead man’s hand. His father’s flesh was cold, but his mother’s finger was still warm and moist with blood.

Being so close to his dead father, Travis saw the bullet hole he had created when he’d shot him in the forehead. He saw the flash of daylight through the bullet hole—straight through to the back of his head which had exploded open from the gunshot wound. Shattered, jagged pieces of skull stuck out of the back of his head, and his gray hair was matted down with that grayish goo that had been inside his embalmed body around the edges of the gaping wound. Travis saw the mortician’s stitches hanging from the inside of his father’s lips and eyelids, tiny black strings hanging down after he’d forced his eyelids and mouth open after crawling out of his grave.

“For every hour you don’t come back, I take a piece of them,” his dead father had whispered.

Travis had nodded, afraid if he spoke that he might vomit. The room seemed like it was spinning around him in his peripheral vision.

“Go,” his dead father had whispered. And then he had smiled—it was like invisible strings had just yanked up the corners of his mouth violently, a forced smile underneath the dead, white-glazed eyes.

Travis had stumbled back away from his father and then raced outside. He had puked in the snow before even reaching his snowmobile, throwing up a yellowish streak across the pristine snow. His stomach was emptied, but he didn’t feel any better.

And now he pulled his snowmobile up to the edge of the motel parking lot. They were in there somewhere—the man, the woman, and the boy. He wasn’t sure if he could do this … but he had to. Had an hour passed by already? Was that thing twisting off another one of his mother’s fingers, or cutting a slice of flesh off with the kitchen knife? Travis felt his stomach lurch again; he felt like he was going to throw up again but he didn’t have anything left to purge from his stomach.

He touched his coat where the gun inside bulged as he sat on his snowmobile, staring at the motel in the distance.

Just do it, he told himself. Just get it over with.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Cody’s Pass, Colorado

The commuter jet Special Agent Palmer was in landed at a small airstrip right outside of Destin, Colorado. The snow on the airstrip looked like it had been plowed away recently, but it still looked dangerously slippery to land on. Palmer wasn’t usually afraid of flying, but looking out the small plane’s windshield at that runway made him nervous. The pilot assured him that they would be fine, but Palmer had gripped the armrests of his seat anyway, bracing for impact.

But the landing went smoothly just like the pilot said it would. And a rental car was waiting for him just like Debbie promised. The rental was another black sedan similar to the one he’d driven in New Mexico. It was most likely a different make and model, but it still looked like a cookie cutout car to Palmer.

He got in the car and turned his phone on. Debbie had sent him the address and he’d already programmed it into the GPS app on his phone while he was on the plane. She’d also told him that the road to the address, Route 217, had already been plowed a little earlier.

He was ready to go.

As Palmer drove up into the mountains, following the commands of the female and slightly robotic voice giving him turn-by-turn directions from his phone, he wondered how badly the crime scene had already been compromised.

Debbie had explained as much as she knew about the crime scene while Palmer was still in the air. She’d told him that a burning cabin had been discovered by the sheriff’s department with an SUV parked in back, part of it on fire. The vehicle belonged to a woman named Stella Weaver—and that’s when the FBI got involved. Debbie also told Palmer that there were five dead and burnt bodies inside the cabin—all male.

Stella wasn’t with them.

The drive seemed to take forever on the winding road that twisted its way through the mountains. Walls of snow-covered trees whipped by in a blur outside his car’s windows. He had his headlights on even though it was still the middle of the day, the beams of light shining at the freshly-plowed road. Even though several feet of snow had been plowed to the side of the road Palmer still drove carefully.

“Turn left at the next driveway,” the robot voice from his phone chimed out. “Your destination is just up ahead.”

“I don’t see a driveway,” Palmer grumbled but he slowed the car down gently. He glanced down at the phone and saw the driveway on the screen splitting off from Route 217 and .1 miles at the top, counting down to his arrival. He looked back at the windshield and saw a lone mailbox at the left side of the road, practically buried in the hill of snow that had been plowed into it.

And there was the driveway.

Palmer drove down the twisty, narrow driveway and after five minutes it opened up onto a massive field. In the middle of the field was the burnt cabin, all four log walls still standing but the roof was partially caved in. Part of the front porch had collapsed, but most of the debris had been removed and piled up near the front corner of the cabin. A large truck with a long bed and a crane on top was parked alongside the cabin, the crane removing the last bits of the roof from inside the cabin. A fire truck, an ambulance, the fire chief’s car and two sheriff cars were parked in a plowed area in front of the cabin. None of the lights were flashing—the vehicles had been here for a while now, the investigation going on for some time.

Palmer parked towards the back of the plowed parking area, right behind one of the sheriff’s cars. He turned his headlights off and then cut the engine. He grabbed his phone and got out. He shrugged into his coat, slipped his gloves on, and tucked his phone into his outside coat pocket.

The sheriff approached Palmer’s car. He was a tall man … a large man. He didn’t seem muscular, more like a man who’d always been big and was comfortable with it. He had a ruddy complexion and sharp little eyes set deep in his face. He walked with an air of confidence, a man who was on his home turf.

Palmer reached inside his suitcoat pocket and pulled out his FBI badge and ID. He snapped it open with a flip of his wrist, showing his credentials. “Special Agent Palmer.”

The sheriff nodded. He didn’t offer to shake hands.

“I was told there’s a vehicle here belonging to a woman named Stella Weaver.”

“Yeah,” the sheriff said. “Truck’s around back.”

Palmer followed the sheriff down a well-worn path through the snow to the back of the cabin where the charred remains of Stella’s vehicle remained.

“The fire was deliberate?” Palmer asked.

The sheriff nodded. “We found an empty gas can on the other side of the cabin.”

They didn’t try to hide the evidence, Palmer thought. Just like at the dig site.

“Our fire chief has looked through the damage already,” Sheriff Hadley told him.

“We’ve got forensics and fire specialists on the way,” Palmer responded and he could sense the sheriff tense up a little. It was like a slap in the face, like their hick specialists weren’t as good as government ones.

“I’m told there are five bodies inside the cabin,” Palmer said.

The sheriff gave a curt nod. “Yessir.”

“And the owner of this truck, Stella Weaver, she’s not one of the bodies?”

“Nosir,” the sheriff answered. It sounded like one word the way he said it. The constant use of “sir” reminded Palmer of someone who used to be in the military. “All five are male. Our medical examiner is here now and he’s already taken a look at them.”

Palmer stared hard at the sheriff.

“No tests have been done,” Hadley assured Palmer. “But the M.E. has found some strange things.”

Palmer braced himself, afraid of more strange news, but deep down he knew it was going to happen. “What kind of strange things?” he asked, trying to keep a poker face.

“The M.E., his name’s Carson. He’s right over there by the front of the cabin.”

Palmer walked with the sheriff around the ambulance and firetruck. He met Carson near the front porch as promised. The M.E. was a short man with a pot belly. His gray hair was wild and a little long and he had a pair of oversized glasses on his face that magnified his eyes. He was bundled up in a thick coat and he still had a pair of latex gloves on his hands. The gloves looked fresh. Palmer figured the gloves the M.E. had worn to do a cursory examination, the ones that would have had charred marks all over them from the burnt bodies, were discarded by now.

Carson offered a hand in greeting and Palmer shook it, a quick shake.

“The sheriff tells me that you’ve discovered some odd things,” Palmer said.

The M.E. nodded. “I’ve been doing this for twenty-six years. You think you’ve seen everything …”

As the M.E. let his words trail off, Palmer was reminded of talking to Susan Dorsett, the forensics specialist at John and Deena’s house in New Mexico only hours ago—she had begun with the same preamble. He glanced at the front porch beyond them. The roof of the cabin had collapsed from the fire, but much of the debris had been taken away and piled up in the snow near the house by the firefighters and the crane operator. The floor of the wide front porch was more solid near the front doorway where the door looked like it had been smashed in.

“Who’s been inside the cabin so far?” Palmer asked.

“Just the M.E., the fire chief, and the firefighters,” the sheriff answered. “And me.”

Palmer nodded. He saw that a few of the firefighters were removing the last of the burnt debris of the roof by hand, carrying it out the back door where they were creating another pile.

“I don’t want any of this debris taken away until our guys go over it,” Palmer said.

The sheriff nodded like he already knew that. “We’ve got it in piles beside the house. The fire chief’s preliminary explanation is that there was some kind of explosion inside. Most likely from the gas stove and oven.”

“So this place wasn’t only set on fire with gasoline?” Palmer asked.

“The gas was used as a propellant,” the sheriff answered. “That’s what the fire chief said. The explosion was the spark that set it all off. He found an exploded soda can in there that most likely came from the microwave oven. The can had been thrown across the kitchen in the blast.”

Palmer nodded again and turned his attention back to the M.E. who was waiting patiently.

“These three bodies were out here on the porch when I got here,” Carson said, gesturing at the three charred bodies lying on the front porch, one near the doorway on his stomach, arms reaching out towards the door like he was trying to crawl back inside. “Two more just inside the doorway there.”

The M.E. noticed Palmer staring at the body near the doorway. “Looks like he was trying to crawl back inside the house during the fire, doesn’t it?” the M.E. asked Palmer like he was seeking his opinion.

Palmer didn’t nod. He just looked back at Carson. “So that’s the strange thing about the bodies? Because one of them looks like he might’ve been crawling back inside the cabin?”

“Oh God, no,” Carson said and chuckled. “There’s a lot more than that.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The cabin

The M.E walked over to the edge of the front porch and pointed at the closest burnt body. His hand was trembling as he pointed and Palmer didn’t know if it was from nervousness or excitement, or both. “The flesh around this man’s neck is gone. Only the spine is remaining. And, I know it’s hard to tell now, but areas of the flesh around the mouth are gone.”

“Maybe the explosion—”

“No,” the M.E. said, cutting Palmer’s words off. “The explosion didn’t cause that. These wounds were there before the fire. He also has an ax in his hand.”

Palmer noticed that. The man’s burnt hand was skeletal and still wrapped around the handle of the charred ax.

“Why would this guy be holding an ax?” the M.E. asked. “He couldn’t have even been standing up with his neck like that; he wouldn’t have been able to hold his head up at all.”

“Maybe someone placed the ax there after the fire started,” Palmer offered, but it didn’t make a lot of sense. “One of the bank robbers who got away.” But why put an ax in the man’s hand? he wondered.

“And that guy over there,” Carson said, pointing at the next body, pretty much ignoring Palmer’s theory. “The back of his body and the back of his head has all been hollowed out.”

“The explosion …” Palmer said again, hoping it would be an explanation.

“I don’t think so. For one thing, this guy is outside here on the porch, not inside where the explosion took place.”

“And the explosion wasn’t that powerful,” the sheriff said. “Fire chief told me that.”

The M.E. nodded at Sheriff Hadley and then looked back at Palmer. “And again, those wounds look to me like they were created before the fire … before the explosion. Someone gutted this guy from the back and left him on the front porch. Took all his organs out, his muscle, bones. Everything … it’s all gone.”

The M.E. stepped up onto the porch and the sheriff followed. “Fire chief said it’s safe enough inside the house now.”

Palmer stepped around the outstretched hands of the man reaching for the door. He was reminded of photos he’d seen of people trapped in ash in Pompeii, frozen forever in their last acts on Earth, frozen in screams of agony.

“This guy,” Carson said, pointing down at the man in front of the door. “He doesn’t have any eyes. Torn out completely.”

Palmer felt that sick feeling in his stomach again. This was shaping up to be more and more like the crime scenes down in New Mexico. What the hell was going on here? Who the hell was doing this kind of shit to people? Bank robbers? That was hard to believe.

“And he’s got a wound down his side where it looks like something ripped him open.”

Palmer didn’t say anything.

“It looks like something pushed its way out of his body,” the M.E. said. “They all have similar wounds, holes and splits about a foot or so in diameter, ragged edges, the walls of burnt flesh pushed out.”

“What could do something like that?”

Carson shook his head; his big eyes magnified behind his glasses. “I can’t say for sure. But the bodies just inside the cabin here are just as strange.”

The M.E. and the sheriff entered the cabin, stepping around the man’s burnt body on the floorboards. They both walked gingerly on the floor even though the sheriff had claimed it was safe to enter the building.

Palmer followed them inside and saw the other two bodies immediately.

“This one over here doesn’t have any eyes,” Carson told Palmer.

“Like the one on the front porch.”

“Sort of,” Carson answered. “But this guy’s eyes look like they were cut out with a lot less precision than the one on the front porch. And you’ll notice here along his side, the hole in his flesh.”

Palmer felt that sick feeling wanting to surface more forcefully, but he crouched down and took a closer look. The M.E. was right, it was like something had been inside of this man and had exploded out of him. He even saw what looked like the sharp point of a broken rib sticking out through the charred flesh, the bone gleaming white in contrast to the blackened flesh and clothing.

“But the strangest one is over here.”

The M.E. walked over to the last body. “It looks like this guy had been torn apart into pieces and then fused back together somehow.”

Palmer shook his head. “What do you mean? How can you tell something like that?”

He pointed down at the deep cuts in the man’s arms and legs, the clothing melted away in the fire. “Jagged and deep cuts. Snapped bones. But it looks like they were … I don’t know any other way to say it than they were somehow fused back together.”

“Like from heat? Maybe the fire.”

“No,” the M.E. told Palmer. “I don’t think so.”

“Then how?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t have any kind of guess. Like I said, I’ve never seen anything like this in twenty-six years. Never heard of anything like this.”

Palmer’s mouth was suddenly dry and he could feel the beginning of a headache coming on. He could really use a drink right now. He wondered how he could get back to his car and sneak a nip from the bottle in his duffel bag.

What the hell was going on here? Palmer wondered. He echoed the M.E.’s sentiment—this was the strangest crime scene he’d ever seen in the years he’d been with the Bureau. They had numerous bodies with damages that seemed almost supernatural. And the only connection to the archaeologists’ bodies and these murders was Stella Weaver. Her vehicle had to have been the missing vehicle from the dig site, and now it was here. But she wasn’t here. Was she involved in this somehow? The murderers could’ve taken her and her vehicle from the dig site. They could still have her captive, or they could’ve dumped her body in the woods somewhere on the way up here.

And there was still the missing boy to consider. How did David figure into all of this? Maybe the murderers killed David’s parents first. They took David to the dig site, then killed the archaeologists and took David and Stella with them up here to Colorado. They still could’ve dumped both of their bodies along the way, or they could still have them.

“No ID’s on the bodies yet?” Palmer asked even though he was fairly sure that hadn’t happened yet with the degree of mutilation and burning done to them.

“Not really,” the sheriff said. “But we think we know who these guys might be.”

Palmer looked at him with raised eyebrows, his curiosity piqued.

“There was a bank robbery a few days ago in Cody’s Pass, a town south of here. The robbers killed one of the customers and got away with two metal cases of money.”

Palmer nodded for him to continue.

“We think the bank robbers were holed up here. We think one of these bodies is the owner of the cabin, a man named Tom Gordon. He lived here alone. We found the two metal cases they used in the robbery, same description the witnesses gave. And we found several guns. A lot of the money was still inside the cases. Not much damage from the fire because the cases were made of metal.”

They were all quiet for a moment as Palmer thought this through. “So,” Palmer finally said, “these guys rob a bank, come here in that vehicle stashed around back, then one of them kills the other four guys in his group, rigs an explosion, sets fire to the cabin, leaves most of the money behind, and …”

“There were snowmobile tracks leading away from this cabin,” Sheriff Hadley said. “The guy must’ve taken Mr. Gordon’s snowmobile from the garage out there and drove right out of here.”

Palmer glanced back at the doorway, at the front yard cluttered with vehicles.

“Not easy to see now,” the sheriff said quickly. “But they were there. And Mr. Gordon’s snowmobile is gone from the garage.”

Palmer looked back at the sheriff. “Why would he kill all of his partners and not take the stolen money?”

“Well, we’re not sure he didn’t take any of the money,” Sheriff Hadley said. “Some of it might be gone.”

The sheriff walked across the debris-littered floor to the two metal cases on the floor near a destroyed couch, burnt down to the floor with metal springs poking up out of it. The cases were charred black, but open now revealing the packs of money stacked up inside. Palmer and the M.E. followed him there.

“I would guess these cases were full when they left the bank,” the sheriff said. “We’re working with the bank right now to see how much money is missing, and then we’ll count this up. But just by eyeballing it, I’d say some of it is gone.”

“But that brings us back to why the lone robber wouldn’t have taken all of the money with him. He could’ve carried the two cases with him on the snowmobile. Right?”

The sheriff shrugged. “Sure. Could’ve strapped them down to the back.”

“Why would he go through all of this trouble? Why would he mutilate the bodies of his crew like this? Seems like he would’ve just shot them and escaped with the money. I mean the fire … that’s what drew us here. Why would he create a bonfire if he was trying to escape?”

Neither the sheriff nor the M.E. had an answer for him.

“Let’s step back outside,” Palmer said, moving towards the doorway. He needed to be away from the burnt flesh smell and charred wood.

The M.E. remained on the porch as Palmer and the sheriff walked towards the garage and the pickup truck parked there.

“That pickup truck,” Palmer said.

“Tom Gordon’s truck.”

“Why would this guy take the snowmobile and not the pickup truck? I can see why he wouldn’t take the SUV, but why the snowmobile instead of a pickup?”

“Roads are bad. Route 217 out there wasn’t plowed when this guy left. It would be too hard to get this truck down the road. Maybe too dangerous.”

Palmer nodded. That made sense.

The sheriff seemed satisfied that he’d figured out something that Palmer hadn’t.

But still, there was something about the truck. Palmer stared at the front of it for a moment. “Does it look like the hood’s unlatched to you?”

The sheriff looked at the truck, his eyes widening a little. “Yessir.”

They walked over to the pickup truck. A lot of the snow had melted off the truck from the cabin fire.

“Let’s look inside,” Palmer said.

The sheriff lifted the hood up and they both stared down in shock.

“Holy shit,” the sheriff breathed out. “Looks like someone took a baseball bat to this engine.”

Or an ax, Palmer thought. And then he thought of the ax still gripped in the dead man’s hand on the porch.

Another thought occurred to Palmer. “Come on, let’s check out the SUV in back.”

They hurried down the same path through the snow to Stella’s Chevy Suburban, the packed-down snow crunching under their boots. Palmer went to the driver’s side and reached his hand through the now glassless window and pulled the latch for the hood. It thunked easily. The sheriff lifted the hood up as Palmer got back around to the front of the vehicle.

“Same thing,” the sheriff muttered.

Palmer didn’t say anything. It was similar but not the same. Except in this vehicle the battery was gone. It looked like it had been ripped out of the vehicle.

“So they drive this vehicle here,” Palmer said more to himself than to Sheriff Hadley. “Then one of these guys destroys the vehicles, kills most of his buddies, sets the cabin on fire, takes part of the stolen money and escapes on a snowmobile.”

The sheriff shook his head like it was all beyond him.

The fire, Palmer thought as he looked back at the cabin. Thin fingers of smoke drifted up to the sky. “Who called this in? Someone had to have seen the smoke in the sky this morning.”

“Kid from down the road,” the sheriff answered. “Travis Conrad. Nineteen years old. Good kid. Played football with my son. He drove his snowmobile here. He’s the one who saw the snowmobile tracks in the snow. He also put the fire out on the SUV, trying to save any evidence.”

“He saw the snowmobile tracks the escapee left behind?” Palmer asked and his voice sounded sharp with accusation.

“Yessir,” the sheriff answered. “He saw them all the way down to his property. He followed them here.”

“He have any idea where the tracks were going?”

The sheriff shrugged. “Said they went south past his house.”

“South? You mean back to Cody’s Pass? Back to the place where they robbed the bank?”

Again the sheriff gave a slight shrug. “He said it seemed that way, but this guy could’ve taken the snowmobile off into the woods at any point. I’ve got one of our guys following the tracks right now on a snowmobile. I’m waiting to hear back from him.”

Palmer nodded like that made sense.

“Where’s this Travis Conrad now? The one who reported this.”

“I sent him back home.”

“I want to talk to this kid.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Cody’s Pass, Colorado—The Mountainside Inn

Stella had eaten a quick meal of basically snack food with David and then she took him into the bathroom with her to get a bath. She really wanted a shower, but she settled for a sink bath and she washed her hair while bending over the bathtub. She kept the door locked and she kept her gun on the top of the toilet tank lid within easy reach the whole time. She thought about letting David stay out in the room with Cole while she took a shower, but she decided against it. Cole wouldn’t kill David now, would he? Why would he do it now when he could’ve done it so many other times before? But people changed, people cracked, people eventually broke down. She’d seen it many times in the last week or so.

She made David take a bath and she promised him that she would be right outside the bathroom door if he needed her. After David had taken his bath, she brushed his hair and made him brush his teeth. Now that she was full, clean, and warm, she realized how tired she really was. She was suddenly a little light-headed and her muscles were rubbery with exhaustion.

David lay down on the bed closer to the windows that looked out onto the scenic view of the snowy mountains that the motel clerk had told them about and he fell asleep almost immediately. Cole was in the same place where he’d been when they had gone into the bathroom … right in front of the TV, perched at the end of the bed. He was flipping from news station to news station with the remote control.

“Anything?” she asked as she pulled the sheet up over David. He rolled over, breathing even heavier now.

“The weather’s getting better,” he told her. “All of the snowstorms have moved out of the area and there isn’t any bad weather forecasted for the next few days.”

“What about us? Anything about us on the news?”

“Nothing about you and David, but there’s still a manhunt out for me. Nothing about the fire at the cabin yet, but I’m sure they’re keeping a lid on that until they figure out exactly what happened there. But they’ll find your vehicle. Hopefully it’s burnt enough to slow them down a little.”

Stella sat down in one of the padded chairs at a built-in writing desk against the wall. She watched Cole as he studied the TV with the remote control in his hand. “How far are you really going to go with us?” she asked, blurting it out. No sense in dancing around the issue anymore. She wasn’t sure if she could trust Cole to tell the truth, but she could at least gauge his reaction to her question.

“I already told you … I’ll go all the way with you,” he said, turning towards her. His face was expressionless, his dark eyes on her the whole time, never looking back to the TV. “I know you don’t believe me, but I want to help. I want this … whatever this is, to end. I want to at least try. See if we can find this … this person to train David …”

“Shaman,” Stella finished for him.

“Yeah, this shaman. See if he can help. If anything can be done at all. And if it can’t …”

“Then what?”

“Then we’ll figure it out from there when we have more information.”

Stella sighed. She was so tired, the exhaustion washing over her now.

“I’m being honest with you,” Cole said. “I don’t know how many times I can say it to you. I don’t know how to make you believe me.”

Stella didn’t answer. She was ready to crawl into bed beside David and sleep for a few hours, but she couldn’t help still feeling wary with Cole in the room with them. She couldn’t make herself trust this man completely.

“Do you really think a shaman, or anyone like that, could defeat that … that thing out there, whatever it is?”

“I don’t know,” Stella said in a low voice. She glanced at David to make sure he was still asleep. “But it’s the only thing I can think of. Our only shot.”

Cole nodded. “Yeah, but what if you can’t find one of these shamans?”

“I’ve heard of a shaman down there on the reservation. He’s supposed to be pretty powerful. A man named Joe Blackhorn.”

“And you know this guy?”

“No.”

“You know where he lives, though.”

“No. But we’ll find him. I know someone I can talk to. She’ll know someone who can find Joe Blackhorn”

Cole smiled. “Yeah.”

“I know it’s not much of a plan, but what else can we do? The only person who can fight this thing is David, and the only way he can learn to fight it is from a shaman. A real shaman.”

“Then that’s our plan,” Cole said and turned back to the TV. “Why don’t you get a few hours of sleep. Then I’ll sleep while you guys are awake.”

Stella nodded. “I need some sleep.”

“We all do,” Cole said and turned the TV off. He stood up. “I’m going to take a quick shower.”

Stella nodded at him and stretched out beside David on the bed, curling her body up around him. She heard Cole walk away and enter the bathroom. A moment later she heard the water running in the shower.

Her eyes closed for a moment and flashes of the terrors they’d seen ran through her mind and …

… she opened her eyes again. She thought she’d only closed her eyes for a few seconds, but she saw Cole coming out of the bathroom through her half-open eyes. He only had his pants on and he laid his shirts out over the two chairs by the table so they could dry. It looked like he had washed them out in the sink. She studied his body; he was lean, nothing but muscle and bone, not an ounce of fat. She had suspected that. He had a few tattoos on his back and shoulders, and a light sprinkling of hair across his chest and a line of hair down his abs.

She closed her eyes again and she was back at the dig site in New Mexico, holed up in that trailer, armed with their pathetic weapons that could do nothing against the god-like being that waited in the badlands outside for them.

The Darkwind, Jim Whitefeather had called it. The Darkwind was another name for the Ancient One, or the Ancient Enemy, or the Anasazi.

In the dream, Stella was at the mouth of the cave again, finding David for the first time. He had blood all over his hands and some smeared on his face. She was panicking at the sight of the blood, yelling for help. He was just a little kid, and his eyes were round with shock.

The other archaeologists and grad students came running to help her.

“Is he hurt?” one of them asked.

“I don’t think so,” Stella said. “I don’t think it’s his blood.”

“What happened?” Jake asked David. “Is someone hurt?”

David wouldn’t respond.

“If someone’s hurt, then you need to tell us,” Jake barked at David.

“Where are your parents?” Stella asked David.

He still wouldn’t answer. He was shivering from both fright and the cold. Jake swooped in and scooped David up. “Let’s get him inside. Get him warm.”

Inside the trailer, Stella got David cleaned up as best she could. The blood was mostly on his hands and face, and there were blood stains on the front of his shirt. She washed his hands, arms, and face, and then she gave him one of her T-shirts to wear. It was a little too big on him, but it fit well enough. She washed the few spots of blood off of his coat in the sink and then hung it over a chair so it could dry.

After talking to David for an hour, she at least got him to tell her his name, but that was about all.

Jim Whitefeather suggested that they contact the Tribal Police. They could be looking for this boy right now. They tried their radio but it wouldn’t work. Neither did the sat phone. Jim told them that he would drive and contact the nearest neighbors, ask them to call for help, but none of the vehicles would start—all of the batteries were dead.

Jim was scared by then. Stella hadn’t known Jim Whitefeather very long, but they had formed a bond with each other. She respected his culture, and he knew it. Jim could tell that she was interested more in preserving the artifacts, the culture, and getting the history right rather than fame and fortune. She knew Jim was a strong and brave man, and the fear she saw in his dark eyes when he pulled her away from the others unnerved her. He was a seasoned scout and tracker. He’d grown up on this land as had his ancestors for generations. He knew this land; he knew its secrets, its stories, its legends … its monsters.

“Listen to me closely,” he told her in a low voice, his eyes darting around to make sure no one else was listening. “Something bad is out there.”

Stella was about to tell Jim that she feared David’s parents were hurt somewhere and David had run away to get help for them. That was the story they were all set on. But she could tell that Jim believed something else. “Yeah, his parents are probably hurt—” Stella began, but Jim cut her words off.

“No. It’s worse than that. Much worse than that.”

“What do you mean? How do you know that? Has David talked to you?”

“No. But this has happened before.”

“What has happened before?”

“I could be wrong about this, about that boy, but I’ve heard stories like this all my life.”

“What stories are you talking about?” Stella’s mind raced as she thought of all the stories she’d heard from the Navajo culture, anything that would have something to do with a small boy showing up dazed and bloody at a dig site.

Jim Whitefeather shook his head like it didn’t matter now. “We don’t have much time. I’m going out there to get some help, but I’ve got my pistol and I’m going to try to track that thing out there.”

Jim was the only one of them that carried a weapon, an old .38 revolver. “What thing?” she asked. “An animal? A bear or mountain lion?”

“You need to stay inside this trailer,” he told her, ignoring her question like he didn’t have time to explain. “Don’t go out there. All of you need to stay together. And protect the boy, Stella. He’s your only hope of staying safe.”

“Jim … this doesn’t make any sense.” Her voice was getting louder.

Jim’s eyes darted around again, and then he smiled at her. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got to try. Hopefully you’re right and he’s just a hurt child that went looking for help. But the radio isn’t working and all of the batteries in the trucks died at the same time. It’s too much of a coincidence.”

Moments later Jim Whitefeather left on foot to go for help.

Then Stella’s dream flashed forward hours later. They found Jim’s mutilated body outside the trailer, propped up against a tree like a trophy. His gun was gone. The limbs of his body were bent at strange angles, bones snapped underneath his skin and clothing. His mouth hung open way too wide and his eyes were gone leaving behind deep black holes.

And then the dream flashed forward again. A panic settled among them. They wanted to get out of there but the phones, computers, and radios still didn’t work. And none of the trucks would start. They even switched a few of the batteries for spare ones, but they were dead too.

They didn’t have any weapons. They didn’t have any way to communicate with anyone else. They were stuck way out here in the middle of the desert with a madman out there stalking them.

But they would learn soon enough that it wasn’t a person out there … it was something else, something ancient and powerful, something beyond imagination.

After Jim’s body was gone some of the people wanted to interrogate David; they were frustrated that he wasn’t telling them anything.

“He knows something,” Phil said. “I know he does. He knows who’s out there. We need to make him tell us what he knows or we’re all going to die.”

Stella was the one who stuck up for David. Jake helped her at first, but after Jim came back and called them outside, after he started asking for things, then taking another one of them away in the middle of the night, the fear started taking hold of them. Even Jake began to turn against David right at the very end. People could change; fear could change them … even the bravest, even the best of people.

But Stella wouldn’t let them hurt David.

Protect the boy, Jim had told her before he left, staring at her with that fear in his eyes.

And then Jim became a messenger for that thing, an eyeless puppet for it. Jim wanted the boy. He promised that all of this terror would end if they just killed the boy …

Stella snapped awake from the nightmare, her breath caught in her throat. She sat up in bed, looking around at the unfamiliar room. Her gaze rested on David beside her, still sleeping. Then she saw Cole sitting in the chair by the table. He had his shirt back on and he was staring at her, concerned.

“You okay?” Cole asked her.

The TV was off. The drapes were closed. The room was murky even though it was still daytime outside.

“Yeah,” Stella said, taking in some deep breaths. She looked at Cole again. He seemed to be stretched out in the chair, half-asleep. “How long have I been asleep?”

“About two hours,” Cole told her, keeping his voice low so he wouldn’t wake David up.

Stella nodded, her mind beginning to chug along again now. She was in a motel room with Cole and David, resting for the first time in such a long time. But they couldn’t stay here long. It would only be a matter of time before the Ancient Enemy found them.

“You should get some rest now,” Stella said.

“I’ve been dozing a little,” he said, but she could tell it was a lie.

“Just stretch out on the other bed,” she told him as she moved slowly to the side of the bed, trying not to disturb David. “I’ll stay awake for a few hours.”

Cole seemed like he was going to argue about it, but he surprised her by getting up and walking a few steps over to the bed. He only had his jeans, socks, and a T-shirt on. His face looked drawn, the bags heavy under his eyes. He needed sleep or he was probably going to pass out soon.

“Don’t let me sleep past dark,” he told her after he rolled over onto his side. “We should leave before it gets dark.”

Stella nodded even though he was facing away from her, already breathing heavily. “Okay,” she said.

But she had different plans.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Cody’s Pass, Colorado—The Mountainside Inn

Stella waited thirty minutes, making sure Cole was deep asleep. She wasn’t sure how heavy a sleeper he was, but if he was feeling even remotely safe like she had been, and if he was half as exhausted as she was, then he might be dead to the world for a few hours. This was her chance to get away from him.

He’d said that he wanted to go with them all the way down to the Navajo lands, but she wasn’t sure if she could believe him. And with the cops searching everywhere for him and his crew, she and David might do better on their own.

She got up and walked over to where she had laid her clothes out. She kept her eyes on Cole the whole time as she put her shoes on and her other heavier shirt. She shoved her pistol down into her waistband at the small of her back, and then she stuffed the packs of money back down into her socks. She still had some packs of money in her coat pockets. She collected a small bag of snacks, two bottles of water and kept them by her coat.

Cole hadn’t moved at all.

Stella got David up. He didn’t even make a sound; he just opened his eyes and stared at her. She gestured at him with hand signals, hoping he understood that she wanted him to leave with her.

She helped David get his shoes on, his heavier shirt, and then his coat.

They were ready to go. Cole was lying on his side, facing the door. He didn’t have a sheet or blanket on him. He was breathing so heavy he was practically snoring. Stella and David stood near the TV, both of them watching Cole. She glanced at David, locking eyes with him. She nodded, indicating that they were ready to go. She took David’s hand and they walked past the foot of Cole’s bed.

She had a flashback of sneaking out of the trailer at the dig site while everyone else slept, while David was outside.

As they got around the bed and stepped into the small hallway where the bathroom was, Stella kept her eyes on Cole. She expected his eyes to be wide open, a smile on his lips as he caught them in the act of leaving him. She had tried to concoct a lie, but anything she said would be transparent; Cole would see right through it, he would know what she was doing.

But Cole wasn’t awake. His mouth was partly open, and he was still breathing heavy.

The trick was going to be opening the door without waking Cole. She stood at the door and turned the deadbolt knob as slowly and carefully as she could. It slid back out of the doorframe back into the door without a sound. She pushed down on the metal handle slowly, and then pulled the door open. She was surprised that the door hadn’t made much of a noise, but they seemed like newer doors, like this motel had been remodeled recently.

One last look at Cole as they slipped out the door into the hallway … he was still sleeping.

She closed the door gently, letting it click into place as it closed. It sounded so loud to her in the silence of the hallway, but she didn’t hear anything beyond the door in their room, no shouts of alarm or stomping feet as Cole ran towards the door.

“Come on, let’s go,” Stella whispered to David.

David hesitated for a moment, staring up at her like he didn’t understand why they were leaving Cole behind.

“We have to,” she whispered. “I told you, we can’t trust him.”

David finally took her hand and they hurried down the hall.

The motel was so quiet. She knew there weren’t many guests at all, but it seemed deadly quiet. She couldn’t help feeling that this was a bad sign.

They hurried down the wide carpeted steps to the lobby. When they reached the lobby floor, Stella and David walked hand in hand, hurrying towards the large glass doors in the wall of glass.

“Going somewhere?” the clerk asked from behind his counter on the other side of the room.

Stella looked over at the man as they walked, already forcing a smile on her face. But then she stopped dead in her tracks.

There was something wrong with the clerk. He was standing in the same spot he’d been in when he had checked them in. He was wearing the same clothes, the red vest and white button-down shirt. But it was the expression on his face that had stopped her cold. She’d seen that flaccid, dead expression a few times now … she’d seen it on Jim Whitefeather’s face, and she’d seen it on Frank’s face when he had come back and asked for things.

Stella let David’s hand go and she inched her hand to her side, moving it slowly towards her back for the gun.

The clerk didn’t blink as he stared at her, his face so slack he looked dead.

“Uh …” Stella stammered. “We’re just going out for something to eat.” She felt David’s hand pawing at her; she heard the whimper in his throat.

“You can’t leave,” the clerk said and his mouth popped up into a smile like invisible strings had just jerked the corners of his mouth up. But his eyes behind his round glasses were still cold and dead.

Stella whipped her gun out and aimed it at the clerk.

The clerk stayed right where he was, the bottom half of his body hidden behind the long wooden counter. The counter was hiding something horrible, she was sure of that. He stood very still and his smile dropped back down into a blank expression, his eyes still staring at her. “I’m going to get the boy. You can’t run forever. Sooner or later you’ll need to sleep, and that’s when I will be there, looking down at you.”

Something was moving underneath the counter. Stella could hear the squelchy sound of something wet whipping around down there. Then she saw the ends of a few whipcord tentacles poking up above the edge of the counter, black and slimy, like snakes peeking up at them. And then they disappeared back down behind the counter again.

“I want to show you something,” the clerk said, his voice lower and more guttural now. He turned to his left, but only his top half seemed to turn and Stella heard the crunching of bone, the tearing and stretching of skin, the ripping of flesh. His legs propelled him to the little wooden door at the end of the counter, and she could hear his footsteps behind the counter which sounded like a clattering noise, like someone trying to get their footing.

I don’t want to see this.

Stella aimed her gun at the clerk as he stumbled out from the little doorway in the counter. The lower half of his body had been twisted completely around, his legs backwards, his feet poking out behind him. He walked forward, shuffling unfamiliarly on his backwards legs. The top of the clerk’s pants underneath his vest was caked with dried blood. Strings of drying intestines and gore hung down to his thighs among the ragged tatters of the bottom of his button-down shirt.

“Stay away from us!” Stella yelled. She took a step back and she still felt David clinging to her with one hand. He was still whimpering with fear.

Then the clerk stopped walking towards them. He just stood there, staring at Stella and David with that blank expression on his face. Then he suddenly smiled again and looked towards the lobby doors.

Stella couldn’t help following his gaze.

There was someone outside those doors—a young man running up to the lobby doors from the parking lot. He was wearing a brightly colored jacket, jeans, and rubber boots. He had a knit cap on but no gloves.

And he was carrying a gun.

Travis entered the lobby through one of the glass doors. Melted snow dripped off of his pants and boots, leaving smears of water on the tiled floor.

“Get out of here!” Stella told the young man.

Travis raised his gun, but he didn’t point it at the thing that used to be the clerk. Instead, he aimed it right at her and David.

“What the hell are you doing?” Stella yelled at him.

The kid couldn’t have been older than eighteen or nineteen years old, she thought. He looked like a clean-cut kid. And now she saw that he was crying, his arm shaking as he aimed his gun at them.

“Back away from the kid, lady,” the teenager said.

Stella didn’t move. She pointed her gun at the new intruder. She knew now that he had come for David. The Ancient Enemy had done something to this young man. “You can’t do this,” she told him.

“I don’t have a choice,” he said as he cried harder.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Cody’s Pass, Colorado—The Mountainside Inn

Cole opened his eyes as he lay on his side in the motel room bed. His dead brother Trevor stood right next to the bed, the pieces of his dismembered body stacked back up together again, the ragged cuts in his skin somehow fused back together, tattered and blood-stained strips of clothing hanging off of his purplish and boated skin which was blackened with rot at the edges of each piece. His brother smiled at him as he stared down at him, leaning over him, the scar of his severed head circling his neck. “Brother,” he whispered. “You need to wake up now …”

Cole snapped awake and jumped up, ready to backpedal across the bed away from the monstrosity that used to be his brother.

But there was no one there beside the bed.

He realized that he’d been dreaming. He looked around at the motel room and saw that he was alone—Stella and David were gone. For a split second he thought they might have gone back down to the vending machines to get some more sodas and snacks, but their coats were gone. Stella’s gun was gone too; their hats and gloves, the cash she’d stuffed down into her socks and coat … all of it was gone.

They’d left him.

Cole jumped to his feet and grabbed his boots and laced them up quickly. He stuffed the packs of cash down into his socks and pushed his pants legs down over them. Then he grabbed his gun and stuffed it down into the waistband of his pants. The other gun was in his coat pocket with more packs of money. He pulled his knit cap down over his head and slipped his hands into his thin leather gloves. He shrugged his coat on and headed for the door.

The hallway was stone quiet and it felt peculiar out here. There was this feeling of evil around him. He didn’t know how else to explain it. It was like a terrible storm was coming, the rumbling of thunder signaling the danger that was approaching, an electric static in the air, the taste of ozone on his tongue like the air itself was alive with energy. A creepy-crawly fear danced on his skin, and his hairs stood up on end, prickling his skin.

Stella and David were in trouble. He wasn’t sure why he was so certain about that, but he was. They had snuck out and now they were in danger.

The Ancient Enemy was here in this motel somewhere.

Cole crept down the wide hallway, silent as he moved past closed door after closed door. But then he saw something on the ugly carpeting in the distance … dark stains on the floor.

He hurried down the hall, and as he got closer he realized that the stains were blood and streams of gore.

Oh God no …

His heart felt like it had stopped in his chest as he stared down at the smears of blood and meat on the carpeting. The line of gore led to an open door of a room.

Cole clenched his gun harder, an anger burning inside of him.

It got them … it had gotten one of them … maybe Stella …

He darted inside the room, his gun aimed out in front of him, his finger on the trigger ready to shoot in a millisecond. He was all the way inside of the room, looking everywhere at once. This was someone’s room. There was a suitcase at the end of the bed, clothes piled up inside of it. More clothes were draped across one of the two chairs by the table next to the wall. The TV on top of the dresser was on, but the sound was turned all the way down. It looked like a normal messy motel room … except for the splashes of blood all over the floor, walls, and across the bedspread.

But no bodies anywhere.

Cole heard a noise from behind him in the hallway … the rustling of fabric, a light footstep, and then a whisper.

“Cole …” a male voice whispered from the hallway.

For a moment Cole thought the voice was from his dead brother, the nightmare still so fresh in his mind. But he knew it wasn’t Trevor’s voice … this was the voice of that thing … the Ancient Enemy.

“Cole … come here … I need to show you something.”

Cole aimed his gun at the doorway.

The person was still out in the hallway, hidden from the view of the doorway—Cole saw the man’s strange-looking shadow falling across the threshold.

“It’s a secret, Cole,” the male voice whispered from behind the edge of the wall. “But it’s a secret that you need to hear.”

Cole backed up a step, moving deeper into the room. He glanced around him. He was trapped in here. He looked over at the sliding glass doorway that led out to the small balcony, the ground twelve feet below that. But it was his only way out. Then he saw a cell phone, wallet, and a set of car keys—all of them grouped together on the table next to the bed.

A slapping noise brought Cole’s attention back to the doorway. A hand shot out from the hallway, grabbing the doorframe. The fingers trembled as they held on to the door jamb. The ends of the fingers seemed to have been ruined, like they’d been smashed flat with a hammer, the fingernails long gone. Drops of blood dripped down from the ruined hands, running down the door jamb to the ugly carpeting. Patches of skin were missing from the man’s wrist like the pieces had been carefully peeled away.

“It hurts, Cole,” the unseen man said from out in the hallway. “It hurts so much and it won’t ever let you go.”

A thin tentacle about the thickness of a garden hose shot out from the hallway, flapping around in the air until it slapped the other side of the doorway, the end of it flattening out and sticking there, attaching itself to the doorjamb. The black flesh of the tentacle was slick with mucus.

Cole wasn’t going to stick around to see what this thing really looked like. He darted for the keys on the table and then he jumped up on the bed, running across it in two big steps, avoiding the splashes of blood, and then he landed on the floor on the other side.

“You don’t have the kid to protect you now, Cole!” the man’s guttural voice cried out from behind him.

Cole could hear the thing coming in through the doorway, rushing inside the room. But he didn’t turn around to see what it was doing. He could imagine the thing rushing towards him, feelers and tentacles and spindly legs propelling the mutilated body forward, closer and closer towards him.

Two seconds later Cole was out on the balcony, the keys and his gun already shoved down into his coat pockets. He could’ve shot at the thing, but he knew from experience that it wasn’t going to do any good. He was up and over the railing in one smooth movement, sliding down on the spindles in the railing until he hung from the bottom of the balcony, his legs dangling in the cold air. His gloved hands were slipping on the cold metal of the balcony spindles and he knew that at any second one of those feelers or tentacles was going to wrap around his hands and grab him … and then they would never let him go.

He dropped to the ground, not even looking to see where he was going to land. He felt the cushion of snow break his fall and then he hit the hard ground underneath, tumbling away down onto the parking lot. He hit something hard under the snow … it felt like it might have been the edge of the sidewalk. But he didn’t let it slow him down. He was on his feet in a second, adrenaline coursing through his veins, heating up his muscles.

Cole drew his gun and aimed it up at the balcony he had just dropped down from.

Nothing there.

It hadn’t come after him.

Well, he wasn’t going to wait for it to find him again. He yanked the set of car keys out of his coat pocket and pressed the unlock button on the key fob. He looked around the parking lot, pressing the lock and unlock buttons until he saw a white Chevy Tahoe’s headlights and taillights flashing on and off in rhythm with the push of the button.

That was their ride.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Cody’s Pass, Colorado—The Mountainside Inn

Travis fired his gun at the ceiling as the tears streamed down his ashy pale face. “I’m not playing around, lady!”

Stella stole a glance at the clerk. He was still waiting near the counter, his face slack and his body frozen like he was a robot that was turned off for now. Except for his eyes—they were still watching her and David.

“What’s your name?” Stella asked Travis.

“We don’t have time for that,” he cried. “I don’t want to hurt you. I just need to kill the boy, that’s all.”

“You can’t do this,” Stella told Travis.

“That thing … whatever it is, it’s got my sister and my mom. It’s going to tear them apart if I don’t do what it wants me to.” His words were running together as he cried harder.

Stella stared at the boy … he was really still a boy. “Listen to me. It’s already too late for them. It’s killed them already.”

The fear crossed Travis’ face and he shook his head no. “No. No, he promised that he wouldn’t hurt them anymore. He said he wouldn’t kill them if I did what he wanted.”

“That thing is a liar,” Stella said.

Travis aimed his gun at Stella now, his hand shaking. He wiped at his eyes with his other hand, trying to clear his sight to shoot.

Stella heard a noise at the top of the stairs. She saw Bruce the salesman … or what was left of his mangled body … crawling towards the steps, tentacles whipping out of him, propelling his ruined body along as it slid down the stairs. Bruce was screaming with every movement.

He couldn’t still be alive, could he?

Every exit was blocked again.

Stella looked back at the clerk who had taken a step forward with his backwards legs, that creepy smile on his face again.

It was over, Stella thought. She and David had nowhere to run to now. This kid was going to shoot both of them or those monsters that used to be the clerk and the salesman were going to close in on them. She looked down at David. He was their only hope now, but he looked too frightened to fight back.

“David,” she whispered as tears streamed out of her eyes. “You have to do something. You can’t let that thing win; you can’t let it get you.”

“Last chance, lady,” Travis said, bawling now, his hand shaking even worse than ever.

“Do it, Travis …” the clerk uttered as it took another awkward step towards Stella and David with its backwards legs. “Do it or I’ll take your mother and sister apart.”

Bruce was still screaming over and over again as the remnants of his torn and shredded body was propelled down the carpeted steps by the feelers, tentacles, and segmented legs.

His name was Travis, Stella thought. Maybe she could get through to him by using his name. “No, Travis,” she said. “You can’t shoot David. He’s just a boy. That thing lied to you. It’s already killed your mother and your sister.”

Travis looked at the clerk with tears on his face, lowering his gun a little. “Is that true?” he asked the clerk. “Did you kill them already?”

“Do it, Travis,” the clerk growled. “Do it or you will experience things you never thought were possible.”

David looked at Travis, at the gun pointed right at him. But then Stella realized that he was looking beyond Travis … at something outside the glass doors, out in the parking area.

Something else was coming for them.

And then Stella heard the noise from outside. It was a low grumbling sound, hard to hear at first underneath Bruce’s constant screams.

Travis heard the noise from behind him outside the glass doors, but by the time he turned around, it was too late. The back end of a big white SUV crashed in through the lobby doors, knocking Travis down flat on the tiled floor, and then the vehicle drove right over top of him and skidded to a stop inside the lobby.

The driver’s door flew open as the glass and pieces of metal framing crashed down to the floor and the parking lot outside. Cole was out of the vehicle in an instant, pulling the back door open like a limousine driver. “Get in!” he yelled at Stella and David.

Stella grabbed David’s hand and they bolted across the lobby to the waiting vehicle.

Cole was still behind the open back door, using it as a shield and waiting for them. He had his gun in his hand, aimed beyond Stella and David as they ran towards him. He shot at the thing that used to be Bruce the salesman, and then he shot at the thing that used to be the clerk.

When she and David reached the back door of the SUV, Stella looked back to see if Cole had stopped either one of them with the bullets. And then she froze as she watched them. The air seemed to warp around the clerk and Bruce as the bullets hit them, like the air was shimmering for a moment, folding in on itself, distorting anything near the two of them. And then the whipcord tentacles propelling Bruce’s mangled body forward were gone, only his mangled body was left behind. The clerk’s dead body collapsed down onto the floor like nothing was holding him up anymore. The Ancient Enemy was gone from their bodies now. It seemed like the Ancient Enemy had bent time and space around their bodies and then teleported away.

But to where?

Where would the Ancient Enemy pop up next?

David crawled inside across the back seat of the waiting vehicle.

Cole still had his gun aimed at the two dead men, ready to fire again if he needed to. “Get in!” he yelled at Stella.

Stella was sure Cole had just seen what she’d seen. That thing … those things that were inside those bodies were gone now. They had just disappeared.

She got in the back of the Chevy Tahoe and pulled the door closed.

Cole was back inside the SUV, stomping down on the gas pedal as he closed the door. Tiny diamonds of shattered glass poured off the hood and roof of the white SUV as he gunned the gas and drove out of the lobby of the motel, one of the back tires spinning on Travis’ arm for a second, smashing it flat, the skin splitting and blood jetting out.

“You okay?” Cole yelled at Stella as he jerked the steering wheel to the left, taking the curve too quickly, speeding down the parking lot exit towards the road. He hit the brakes and the truck slid the rest of the way down into the street. He turned the steering wheel the other way and the back end of the SUV fishtailed out into the middle of the road. Cole took his foot off the gas, the motor roaring with power. He didn’t touch the brakes, letting the truck slide all the way. Then he gently pressed the gas, turning the wheel the other way now to overcorrect their spin. The whole world of white snow raced by outside the windshield in a blur, but Cole finally got the truck straightened out.

Stella looked out the rear window at the Mountainside Inn, at the destruction they were leaving behind. But she didn’t see the Ancient Enemy anywhere.

Cole sped down the street, but he was slowing down a little as they came to a curve, the road climbing up into the mountains, the woods beginning to get thicker now.

David was sobbing with terror. Stella held him close as he cried. “Sssh,” she told him. “It’s okay. We got away. It’s not following us.”

“Why won’t it leave me alone?” he cried.

She didn’t have an answer for him. “I won’t let it get you,” she promised him.

Cole didn’t say anything as he drove.

David’s cries stopped and he wiped at his eyes. He was still tired, she could tell.

“Lay down here,” she told David. He curled up on his side on the big back seat, drawing his legs up to him.

Stella looked down at the sea of garbage on the floorboards of the back seats. There were soda cans and bottles, crumpled up fast food bags, potato chip bags, candy wrappers. She looked behind her at the back and saw stacks of boxes of samples of whatever Bruce had been selling. She didn’t open any of the boxes.

“This is a salesman’s truck,” Stella told Cole from the backseat. “His name was Bruce. We met him at the vending machines.”

Cole just nodded. “Yeah, I met him, too. Only he wasn’t Bruce anymore.”

Stella saw a quick flash in her mind of the salesman beaming at them while they bought their cans of soda and bottles of water. He’d just wanted to talk to them and she had brushed him off. Then she saw what that monster had done to him, twisting his body up, parts of him crushed, pieces of jagged bone sticking out, yet the Ancient Enemy had kept him alive somehow so he could scream with every painful movement down those set of stairs.

“We need a map,” Cole said. “This guy’s a salesman, maybe he has a map.”

Stella brushed David’s hair back from his forehead. His eyes were closed but he wasn’t sleeping yet. “I’m going up front to look for a map,” she told him.

David didn’t nod or even open his eyes.

Stella crawled up to the front from the back and sat down in the passenger seat. There was as much garbage on the floorboard up here as there was in the back. There were a few issues of some kind of trade magazines among the trash. In the cup holders there were two Mountain Dew bottles and a soggy McDonald’s paper cup with a lid and a straw. Obviously Bruce had lived off of sugar, fat, and caffeine.

Stella searched the center console first. She found a car charger for a cell phone, two lighters, packs of mints and chewing gum, several pens, wadded up pieces of paper, self-help cassette tapes, a few CDs.

“Maybe the glove box,” Cole suggested as he drove. The sky was still clear, but it was darkening quickly, the sun was already down behind the mountains. There were hardly any other vehicles on the road which was good, but it also made them more of a target to a passing police car.

Stella opened the glove box and found three maps among the other clutter inside the glove box which was stuffed to capacity. One was a map of New Mexico, and two were maps of Colorado. She opened up one of the Colorado maps and refolded it until she had a square of the section they were in right now.

“We need to find the most remote roads down to New Mexico,” he told her. “The backroads.”

She nodded, following a series of roads with her finger. She found Cody’s Pass and followed 217 down the map. “In a few miles, take a right,” she told him. “It’s called Cutler Road.”

Cole nodded.

She put the map on the center console and managed to get the glove box closed. She glanced in the back seat and David looked like he was sleeping now.

“We need to find a place to lie low for a few hours,” Cole told her. “Rest for a bit. I don’t want to drive too much farther until later.”

She nodded.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Cody’s Pass, Colorado—Nora’s house

Sheriff Hadley followed George Joekel in his squad car down Route 217 to Nora Conrad’s house as George plowed the road in front of them. The sheriff had called George thirty minutes ago and told him to turn around and come back; he’d changed his mind and now he wanted him to plow the road down to Cody’s Pass now that Ronnie had already taken off on the police snowmobile to follow the tracks. The sheriff still hadn’t heard anything from Ronnie yet.

Special Agent Palmer followed Sheriff Hadley’s cruiser. Palmer was on the phone as he drove, making sure the forensics team from Denver was on its way to the cabin. He wanted everything bagged and tagged, no mistakes on this one. This case was too big, too strange. Next, he checked in with Debbie: still no leads on Stella or David. No sightings of them anywhere, no credit cards or bank cards used.

Even though the road was plowed now, the back tires of Sheriff Hadley’s car kicked up snow and Palmer had to constantly use the wipers to push the scattering of snow out of the way. He dropped back a few more car lengths and it gave him the opportunity to take another few sips from his bottle of vodka. He was pretty sure the sheriff might smell it on his breath, but he didn’t care.

Could these bank robbers be the ones who had killed all of those people down at the dig site in New Mexico? Palmer wondered. Could they have taken Stella Weaver and David? It had to be the same killers because the deaths all seemed similar … they all seemed strange.

But something was wrong. Palmer felt like he was missing something very important, overlooking some clues that he wasn’t piecing together.

Twenty minutes later the sheriff’s car slowed down to a crawl on the slick road and parked on the side of the road near the entrance to a driveway that was hidden in a group of trees much like the driveway to the burnt cabin had been.

George stopped his truck and jumped out onto the snowy road. “You want me to plow that driveway for you?” he asked the sheriff.

“No, that’s good enough,” Sheriff Hadley told George as he got out of his squad car and slammed the door shut. “We’ll walk to the house from here.”

George nodded. “You still want me to plow all the way down to Cody’s Pass?”

“Yes,” Palmer answered for the sheriff as he walked up to the two men. “I have a feeling we’ll be going there soon.”

George didn’t nod at Palmer; he waited for an affirmation from the sheriff, showing his loyalty to him.

Sheriff Hadley looked a little annoyed at the intrusion from Palmer, but he looked back at George and nodded. “Yeah, George. Go ahead and plow all the way down there. Then come back up with another pass all the way back to Destin.”

“You got it, chief,” George said and smiled. He hurried back to his big truck which was rumbling in the middle of the road.

Sheriff Hadley looked at the driveway full of snow in front of them. “More snowmobile tracks,” the sheriff said, pointing at the sets of tracks with a gloved finger. “Looks like he’s been in and out of here a few times today.”

Palmer didn’t say anything. He sucked on a breath mint which made the chilly air taste even colder around his teeth. He figured the sheriff suspected the reason for his breath mint, but Palmer still didn’t care. He was probably a walking cliché in the sheriff’s mind anyway—the FBI agent with a drinking problem but too good at his job to get fired. Why not live up to it?

They both trudged through the snow that blanketed the driveway, both of them walking in the ruts created by the snowmobile tracks, their shoes crunching the snow down as they walked. The trip to the house took a few minutes, but neither man spoke, both of them had their hands shoved down into the pockets of their jackets.

Nora’s house was a simple wood framed one story structure with a wooden deck built onto the front of it that continued around the right side of it, presumably to the back, Palmer thought. The windows were dark. No smoke drifted up from the chimney.

“They might not be home,” Palmer said.

Hadley chuckled like he knew an inside joke. “Nora doesn’t go anywhere. She’s hardly been out of the house since her husband died six months ago.”

Palmer wasn’t sure if the sheriff was expecting him to express some kind of sympathy or not so he changed the subject. “Your dispatch get a hold of any of them here?”

“Nope,” Sheriff Hadley answered. “But Nora’s truck is here, and like I said, she never goes anywhere anymore.”

Palmer thought they were there to talk to Travis, not his mother. But he didn’t say anything.

“Well, we’re here,” the sheriff said and started trudging through the snow towards the house. “Might as well knock on the door.”

They walked through the snow, the sheriff already beginning to huff and puff a little from the exertion. “I don’t see Travis’ snowmobile over there,” he said through misty breaths. “Might have to come back later.”

Palmer thought he would head on down to the next town if Travis wasn’t here.

The sheriff waited by the wood steps that led up to the deck as Palmer climbed them. “You go ahead and knock,” the sheriff said. “I’m going to go look around back for Travis’ snowmobile.”

Palmer didn’t argue. He continued up the steps as the sheriff worked his way through the snow to the far corner of the house. Palmer approached the front door that had a glass storm door in front of it. There was some scattered snow on the deck up here, but a porch roof had kept a lot of it off of the floorboards, and it looked like some of it had been shoveled off recently. Maybe yesterday. He opened the storm door and pounded on the wood door with the edge of his balled-up fist—a police knock.

He waited a moment.

No answer. He didn’t hear any footsteps inside the house coming towards the door.

There was a window on the left side of the door and he cupped his hands to the sides of his face and tried to look through it. No luck … drapes covering it from the inside.

He knocked again.

Still no answer.

He rang the doorbell again, holding the little button down with his gloved thumb. He waited a few seconds and pounded on the door one more time.

Giving up, Palmer let the storm door close on its pneumatic hinge. He walked down the wood deck, following it around to the side of the house. The deck was sturdy and well-built, constructed by someone who knew what they were doing. When he got to the back of the house, he saw the sheriff in the backyard, walking towards a free-standing garage that looked somewhat similar to the one on Mr. Gordon’s property. A large Soccer Mom SUV was parked in front of the garage underneath a massive wooden awning with a tin roof that was covered with snow.

“I don’t think Nora’s truck has moved since the storm came,” The sheriff called out to him from across the yard. “I don’t see Travis’ snowmobile anywhere.”

The sheriff started walking towards a set of wooden steps that led up to this back section of the deck as Palmer walked over to a set of sliding glass doors. The vertical blinds behind them were closed but he saw that the sliding door was open about six inches.

Palmer tensed a little as he stared at the door.

Sheriff Hadley noticed Palmer’s reaction. “What’s wrong?”

“That door’s open,” Palmer told him in a low voice. He didn’t wait for Hadley; he was already on the other side of the door, his gun in his hand and ready if he needed it. Something felt wrong here. He didn’t know what it was, but after the carnage and horrors he’d already seen, it felt like something terrible lay beyond those doors.

“Nora Conrad!” Sheriff Hadley yelled at the sliding glass doors, standing on the other side of it. “It’s Sheriff Hadley!”

No answer from Nora. No sounds from inside at all. Everything was eerily quiet around the house. Even the wind had died down to nothing.

“Ms. Conrad! Are you in there?”

No answer.

“Is it okay if we come inside?”

Still no answer.

Hadley looked at Palmer almost like he was seeking permission to enter the home. Palmer could see the concern on the sheriff’s face. The man knew this area, he knew his neighbors, and, like Palmer, he knew something was wrong here.

“She’s always home,” Sheriff Hadley said for the third time.

Palmer nodded for Hadley to enter the home. He would take any flak for this decision if he had to … but right now he was going to trust his instincts. After what he’d seen at the dig site in New Mexico, and at the young couple’s house, and then at the cabin only hours earlier, he knew this wave of strange deaths wasn’t over yet.

Sheriff Hadley slid the glass door open and the warm smell of rot and death drifted out at them from between the vertical blinds, clashing with the cold air. The smell backed the sheriff up a step.

“Your door is open!” Sheriff Hadley yelled with his gun drawn, still following procedure. “We’re coming in!”

Hadley went in first, pushing the vertical blinds to the side. He stepped into the house like a man who had a familiarity with the property, like he’d been in this house many times before, maybe for coffee or a beer with Nora Conrad’s husband when he was still alive.

Palmer was right on the sheriff’s heels, his gun aimed into the murky room. They were in the dining room, and they both saw the carnage in the living room to their right.

“Clear!” Palmer said as he aimed his gun at the empty kitchen. He looked back at the sheriff.

Sheriff Hadley only walked a few steps towards the living room and then he stopped. His big shoulders were slumped, his gun loose in his hand almost like he was going to drop it. He was frozen with shock, his mind and body shutting down.

Palmer looked past the sheriff into the living room at the body of a man on the floor and the pieces of two women spread out all over the furniture and the floor. Palmer got a sudden flashback from the dig site, the body parts stacked up on each other in the cave. But the pieces in this house were fresh, the blood still wet and glistening in the early afternoon light that flooded in from the open sliding glass door. And these pieces weren’t carefully arranged together and displayed like some twisted piece of artwork—this looked more like a temper tantrum thrown by a monster.

Even though there were differences, this still had to be the work of the same killers.

Palmer studied the man on the floor closest to them. He lay sprawled out on the hardwood floorboards about ten feet away. He was face-down, his arms stretched out. His skin was gray and he wore a dark suit coat and pants that were filthy with dirt and grime. He also had a hole in the back of his head big enough for Palmer to stick his fist through. The edges of the hole were rimmed with jagged pieces of broken skull and a grayish-colored goo.

Palmer’s eyes wandered over to the pieces of the two women. Their heads were on two dining room chairs that had been set up in the living room side by side, about three feet away from each other. Both of the heads were facing towards him. One woman looked much younger, a girl really, and her eyes were closed. The other woman’s eyes were wide open like her last moment in life was one of shock and surprise. Both of their mouths were wide open, their dull dark hair hanging down off the sides of the chair, wet with blood. A pool of sticky blood was puddled underneath the two chairs on the wood floor. Arms and legs, pieces of their torsos, and ragged strips of clothing were spread out all over the couches, chairs, and a massive wood and glass coffee table … blood smeared everywhere.

Sheriff Hadley hadn’t moved a muscle yet. Hadn’t said a word.

“That man on the floor isn’t Travis Conrad, is it?” Palmer asked in a low and even voice.

The sheriff shook his head no, his Adam’s apple bobbing furiously like he was either trying to swallow, talk, or inhale a breath.

“We need to see if Travis is still here in the house,” Palmer told him.

Sheriff Hadley just nodded. He hadn’t even looked at him yet.

“I’m going to check the rest of the house,” Palmer said in a low voice and walked away from the sheriff, giving him time to process what he was seeing in front of him. But eventually the sheriff was going to have to snap out of his fog and do his job.

Palmer walked over to the front door in the entryway. He checked the front door. Unlocked. He saw puddles of water where someone had come in and the snow from their boots had melted.

He went into the kitchen. It was cozy, decorated in a flowery country design with geese being the main theme. There was coffee made in the coffee machine, a loaf of bread open on the counter, and frying pans on the stovetop ready to cook. A normal kitchen ready for a normal day.

Palmer walked down the hallway off of the kitchen with his gun still in his hand. He checked all of the bedrooms and bathrooms, expecting to find Travis’ body back here somewhere. But Travis wasn’t back here and there wasn’t a drop of blood or any signs of struggle.

The master bedroom was a little messy, the bed unmade, a few clothes draped over a wingback chair near the window, the closet door open. Palmer looked at a few of the photos in frames on the dresser and hanging on the walls. He saw the women from the living room at various ages, along with a young man who must be Travis. And he saw the husband who had died six months ago.

The girl’s bedroom was neat and organized, and Travis’ bedroom was the opposite, messy and cluttered. Sports posters covered the walls in Travis’ room along with a rifle mounted on a wood rack.

Palmer hurried back into the living room. He found the sheriff still standing in the same spot. It looked like he hadn’t moved a muscle.

“It’s all clear back there,” Palmer said. “Travis isn’t in the house.”

The sheriff didn’t respond.

Palmer touched the sheriff’s shoulder gently; he didn’t want to startle him with that gun still in his hand. He spoke with authority, his words sharp and commanding. “Sheriff Hadley, I’d like you to holster your weapon.”

The sheriff finally turned and looked at Palmer, seeming to slowly come back to life. He lifted his weapon up like it weighed a ton and slid it into the holster on his belt.

“The house is clear,” Palmer said again. “Travis Conrad isn’t here.”

“Yeah,” Hadley croaked.

Palmer glanced at the pieces of the women, at their heads sitting on the two chairs. He noticed that their necks were congealed with dried blood and that the cuts were ragged as if their heads had been torn away from their bodies. It was the same thing with the pieces of limbs and torsos. He couldn’t be certain just by looking at the pieces—forensics would have to make that call—but judging by what he’d seen down in New Mexico, these murders looked very similar.

Who could do something like this? Who had that kind of strength? And why tear the women apart and just shoot the man?

Palmer couldn’t let himself get mired down in questions that he couldn’t answer at this time. He needed to compartmentalize his thoughts and focus on the things that he could solve right now.

“Who’s the man on the floor?” Palmer asked Sheriff Hadley.

Hadley looked back at the corpse on the floor like he needed to see it again to believe it. He tried to talk, his mouth moving, but no words were coming out.

“Sheriff?”

“It … it can’t be possible.” The sheriff’s words came out in a hoarse whisper.

“What can’t be possible?” Palmer heard the echoes of the forensics people he’d talked to yesterday and today in the sheriff’s words.

“That man is Nora’s husband.”

That stopped Palmer for a moment. He shook his head slightly like he hadn’t heard Sheriff Hadley correctly. “Wait a minute. I thought you said her husband was—”

“Dead. Yeah, that’s right. He’s dead. Been dead for six months.”

“But then what’s he doing here?”

“I don’t know.”

Palmer was quiet for a moment, staring down at the corpse on the floor, staring at him in a new light now. The black suit, the gray goo coming out of his brain. Why would someone bring a dead man here just to shoot him in the head?

Just then the sheriff’s shoulder mike crackled to life, making him jump a little. He grabbed it and thumbed the button. “Sheriff Hadley here.” His voice sounded much stronger than it had only seconds ago.

“Ronnie called in from Cody’s Pass,” a woman’s voice said from the mike. “There’s something strange going on at the Mountainside Inn. A car crashed into the lobby.”

“We got some more pressing matters here at the moment,” Sheriff Hadley said. “Get Freddie to—”

“There’s a lot of dead people there,” the woman on the mike squawked. “At least three so far. Mutilated. One of them is Travis Conrad, the kid you were looking for.”

Sheriff Hadley and Palmer locked eyes.

“We need to get there,” Palmer told him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

South of Cody’s Pass, Colorado

Cole pulled the SUV off the road into a wooded area that was hidden from the road. He wanted to keep this vehicle off the road for a little while, and he needed some time to gather his thoughts.

It was dark all around them and he had the lights off. He had all the doors locked. It was getting cold, but not too uncomfortable just yet. He’d told Stella that they needed to wait a few hours before finding another vehicle, wait until it was later. He already had an idea of a place where he would find one.

David was still asleep in the back seat.

It was risky sitting here in the dark near the woods. After what they’d seen tonight, Cole knew that the thing following them, the thing Stella called the Ancient Enemy, could pop up at anytime and anywhere. But if they were spotted by police, chased by them, then it would be over. They wouldn’t be able to get David back down to the Navajo Reservation; they wouldn’t be able to get him to a shaman. Once David was in police custody, he would be a sitting duck for that thing. It would find someone to kill David, it would frighten some person badly enough with what it could do to people, and that person would snap and kill David.

He couldn’t let that happen.

• • •

Stella sat in the passenger seat and stared out the dark windshield. She glanced around at the side windows every few seconds. She couldn’t help being nervous out here, but Cole was right—this was better than being caught by the police. At this point the police might be shooting to kill. The keys were in the ignition, dangling there.

But maybe the vehicle wouldn’t start, she thought. Then she pushed that thought from her mind. She tried not to think about the Ancient Enemy at all. Maybe it could follow their thoughts, maybe even read them. She tried to think of something else.

They were in Bruce’s Chevy Tahoe. Bruce the salesman who had been so friendly to them when they were standing by the vending machines, the man who had seemed so lonely, like he just wanted someone to talk to for a few minutes, the man who was dead now.

Dead because of her.

She wondered if Bruce had a family. Kids of his own. There were a few suits of clothes on hangers in the back seat, a dark blue suit and a black one. They covered one of the back windows. The rear of the SUV was filled with boxes of samples of whatever he was selling.

They were quiet for a moment as they sat there. Cole had his seat leaned back, one foot up on the dash beside the steering wheel, stretching his leg out. He stared out at the darkness beyond the windshield, lost in thought. He had one of his pistols resting in his lap, ready if he needed it.

“What was that back there?” he finally said.

Stella didn’t answer.

“Are there more than one of those things?” he asked, looking at her. He kept his voice low so he wouldn’t wake David up.

“I … I don’t think so,” Stella said. “I think all those things are part of the same … the same organism.”

“What makes you say that?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. It just seems that way to me.”

“But maybe there are a lot of those things and they’re like …” He seemed to be struggling with the concept for a moment. “Like they’re all connected together through their thoughts.”

“Like some kind of hive mentality?”

“Yeah. Like bees or ants are all separate creatures but they operate with the same goal. But this would be way more—”

“More complicated than ants or bees,” she said, nodding like she understood what he was trying to say. “It’s like the pieces of this thing can split off and do things separately, but then all the pieces can come back together as a whole any time it wants to.”

“You saw those things crawling out of Trevor, Jose, Frank, and the others at the cabin when it was burning, didn’t you?”

Stella nodded.

“They seemed to be changing … like changing their form. They were like giant insects for a minute, then like some kind of thing out of the ocean, then like something I’ve never seen before. And they crawled out of those bodies, and they joined together. And then … then they were gone.”

She nodded. She remembered.

“And today at the hotel, when I shot at them, they just … just disappeared again like they’d done at the cabin.”

“The air seemed to actually warp around them when they disappeared,” she reminded Cole. “Like it had altered the space around it, the very molecules.”

“This is like science fiction shit,” Cole said. “Something you’d see in some kind of horror movie about aliens from another planet.” He thought for a moment. “You said something about aliens before when we were at the cabin. Do you think this thing could be some kind of alien?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. It could be. Who knows? The Navajo, along with many other southwestern Native Americans, have stories of Star People that came down to Earth, supernatural beings. Some of these Star People are actually in their origin stories. And there are many who believe that cultures have been visited by aliens many times in the past.”

Cole shook his head in frustration and looked out the window. “How the hell are we supposed to fight an alien … something from another planet?”

Stella glanced into the back seat and looked at David. He was still curled up on his side and sleeping deeply. She had covered him up with one of the suits that Bruce had hanging up by the back door. She was glad to see David getting some sleep now.

She looked back at Cole who was still staring at her in the darkness. She could see his breaths fogging up in front of him. It was beginning to get pretty cold in here. “I just wanted to say … to say thank you for saving us. You could’ve run if you wanted to back at the motel. You were already in this truck; you could’ve just kept on driving.”

“I told you I wasn’t going to run out on you.”

“Yeah. And I’m sorry we ran out on you.”

He just stared at her.

“I was just scared,” she said.

“I know you find it hard to trust me,” Cole said. “I understand that totally. I’m a criminal. But like I told you back in the cabin, I’ve been trying to change my ways for a while now. The only reason I was at that bank was because of my brother. I wanted to do this one last job so he could pay Frank off.”

She nodded.

“I’ve been trying really hard to change my ways,” he told her. “And I’m still trying very hard.”

“I know.”

He smiled and nodded as he started the truck. “Okay. Now let’s go steal another truck.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Cody’s Pass, Colorado—The Mountainside Inn

Everything was turning to shit pretty quickly for Special Agent Palmer.

He stood in the lobby of the Mountainside Inn which now had a gaping hole where the lobby doors used to be. Shattered glass and twisted pieces of aluminum framing lay scattered on the lobby floor and outside in the drop-off part of the parking area. And right in the middle of that wreckage lay Travis Conrad’s body, twisted and run over. He had a gun near him, a gun that was registered to his dead father, a gun that had apparently been fired recently. He also had a severed finger in his shirt pocket—a finger that Palmer was willing to bet was a perfect match to the missing finger on his mother’s hand.

There were two other bodies in the lobby—the clerk whose bottom half wasn’t lining up at all with his top half, and the remains of one of the guests, a man named Bruce Goldman. It looked like Bruce had fallen into a meat grinder and then was pulled out before the machine was able to turn him completely into hamburger. Bruce’s vehicle was missing from the parking lot, a 2012 Chevy Tahoe. It was most likely the vehicle that had been used to the smash through the lobby doors and run Travis over.

There were no answers here to these murders, no reason for them, no obvious method of how two of them had been done.

And there were a few other things making all of this much worse for Special Agent Palmer.

Number one: There was a growing group of reporters, journalists, and camera operators gathering outside in the early evening beyond the police tape. Their vans were parked in the parking lot, cameras raised up on poles on top of the roofs, lights set up. Attractive male and female reporters clenched microphones in their hands with their local news station logos on them and they wore practiced grim expressions on their face. Some of the reporters were from the local paper and the nearest TV station, but a few of them had already come down from Denver. And there were probably a lot more of them flying in at this very moment. Palmer wasn’t sure where all of these people were going to stay because the town’s hotel was now a major crime scene.

Someone had already leaked this story to the press. Maybe it was one of the cops at the burnt cabin, or maybe even one of the firefighters, someone willing to take a few hundred dollars in exchange for this swarm of reporters invading their small town.

Number two: Sheriff Hadley was still in shock. He stood in front of Travis Conrad’s body. He wasn’t the only one who was traumatized; all of the local cops on the scene stood around with the wide-eyed look of shock in their eyes, like they were trying to navigate through a world they couldn’t understand anymore, a world they never could’ve imagined.

Three: Palmer had called Alonzo Johnson and Susan Dorsett, the lead forensics technicians down at the New Mexico sites. They had tested for DNA evidence, and they had plenty from the victims, but nothing from a perp. No animal or human DNA whatsoever. No blood or skin samples, no clothing fibers, not a single hair. It was like those people down there had been killed by something invisible … by something that wasn’t there.

And here was number four … his ringing cell phone. It didn’t take Cardenelli too long to hear about these murders on the news and/or an internet report. Thank God Cardenelli had only heard about the murders here in Colorado on the news and not the ones in New Mexico yet. Palmer was surprised those details hadn’t been leaked to the press yet, but he thought that maybe the Navajo didn’t want a ton of reporters and cameras trampling across their land so they weren’t willing to sell themselves to reporters so quickly or cheaply.

Agent Palmer answered his phone. It was the third time Cardenelli had called. He had already left two voicemails threatening bodily harm if he didn’t call him back right away … he couldn’t ignore his boss any longer.

“What the hell’s going on down there?!” Cardenelli yelled as soon as Palmer answered his phone.

Hello to you, too, Palmer thought, but he didn’t think his superior would appreciate his sarcastic sense of humor right now.

“I’m not exactly sure yet,” Palmer answered Cardenelli’s question.

“What do you mean you’re not sure? I’ve got the TV on and there are reports coming in about mass killings down there in two small towns. Something about a cabin fire and missing bank robbers …”

“Yeah, I’m still trying to piece it all together.”

“I’d like to know what the hell you’re doing there in the first place. You’re supposed to be investigating the dig site in New Mexico. You know, the place I told you to go to!”

“Forensics has taken over down there, and I left Agent Klein in charge of questioning—”

“Leaving Klein in charge is like letting a monkey try to fuck a football.”

“These murders are all connected,” Palmer told him.

That shut Cardenelli up for a moment.

Palmer continued quickly before his SAC started yelling at him again. “A woman named Stella Weaver was the only person missing from that dig site. And a nine year old boy named David Bear was missing from the other murder scene in Iron Springs.”

Agent Palmer summarized what had happened in the last twenty hours, telling Cardenelli how Stella’s vehicle was found behind the burning cabin near Cody’s Pass, a cabin with more mutilated bodies inside which included the owner of the cabin and four out of the five bank robbers who had committed the crime a few days ago in Cody’s Pass. He then explained what he and Sheriff Hadley had found at Nora Conrad’s house (he left out the part about Nora Conrad’s dead husband lying in the middle of the living room floor with a bullet hole in his head).

And now he was here at the Mountainside Inn where three more bodies lay, including Nora’s son Travis Conrad.

“Is this some kind of … of spree killing or something?” Cardenelli asked him, his tone a more reasonable speaking voice now.

“I really can’t find much of a motive to the killings down in New Mexico. Nothing seemed to have been taken except for Stella and David. If these bank robbers are the ones who killed all of those people down in New Mexico, then I don’t know why. I don’t know why they would take their time slaughtering a Navajo couple and a group of archaeologists, and then take a woman and a child and steal a vehicle, rush up here to rob a small bank in Cody’s Pass, and then kill each other at a cabin during a snowstorm and leave most of their money behind. I don’t know why the last bank robber left would kill several more people in a house, cutting two of them up, and then come here to kill three more.” He took a deep breath after the long sentence. Cardenelli was still quiet, still listening.

“All I know now is that one of the bank robbers, Stella Weaver, and David Bear are all still unaccounted for,” Palmer added. He glanced over at the forensics team crowded around the remains of Bruce Goldman’s body like they weren’t sure where to begin with it. “We’re going to look at the security video here and question some people in town. Somebody had to have seen one of these people. One man couldn’t have done all of this here,” he said in a low voice.

“Listen,” Cardenelli said. “I want you to keep a lid on this.”

“Got it,” he answered, but he had another idea.

“Get this under control down there before those reporters run away with this story.”

“Yeah.”

Palmer hung up his phone. He stood there and watched the forensics team and the cops in the large lobby for a moment. He ran through what he’d just said to Cardenelli in his mind. And no matter how many times he ran different scenarios in his mind, nothing made much sense. It was like he was missing major pieces of the puzzle.

A monster.

Captain Begay’s voice popped into his mind. Skinwalkers and ancient enemies. Palmer knew that those kinds of stories and legends were part of Begay’s culture, but Begay was also a cop and he needed to look for a logical explanation for what had happened.

And there had to be a logical explanation. People wanted to believe in monsters because they didn’t want to believe that their fellow human beings were often the true monsters, the real bogeymen that crept along in the darkness and hunted their own species, the creatures that did unspeakable things to their fellow humans just for the pleasure of it.

Palmer took the pack of breath mints out of his suitcoat pocket and popped one into his mouth. It had been several hours since he’d taken a sip of vodka, but he couldn’t take a chance that any of the reporters might catch the scent of it on his breath. Cops would keep his secret among themselves, they might resent Palmer for his weakness, but they would uphold the blue code of honor and not rat on one of their own. Reporters were another matter altogether.

He walked out of the lobby towards the police tape and barricades in the distance. They had set the barriers so far away purposely because the lobby was well-lit and now visible at night to the high-powered cameras the press had brought with them. At least the emergency vehicles and forensics vans were blocking much of the glass wall of the lobby now.

As Palmer approached them, the reporters crowded towards the barriers like dogs excited about a possible treat.

“I want to make a quick statement,” Palmer said as cameras were aimed at him, lights were shined in his direction, and microphones were thrusted towards where he stood a few feet away from the stretch of police tape. Two police officers were nearby in case this mob got out of control.

“I’m not taking any questions right now,” Palmer said as cameras flashed. “I just want to let you know that right up front.”

Palmer knew Cardenelli was not going to be happy about him talking to press right now, but he was out of options. He wanted to get the word out about Stella and David.

“We’re looking for two people of interest,” he told the reporters. “They are not suspects at this time, just people we want to talk to. I don’t have any photos of them with me, but I will get some sent to you soon. One of these persons of interest is a woman named Stella Weaver. She’s twenty-nine years old. She’s an archaeologist who works out of Arizona State University. She was last seen driving a white Chevy Suburban truck with New Mexico plates. She may be traveling with a child, a nine year old Navajo boy named David Bear. If anyone out there has seen these two, or talked to them, in the last few days, we’d like to hear from you. Thank you.”

Palmer turned away from the mass of reporters and he could already hear the questions fired at him even though he’d already told them that he wasn’t taking any questions.

“What about the bank robbers?” one of the reporters barked.

“Does the burnt cabin have anything to do with this?” another screamed at him.

Palmer ignored them as he walked back up the steep incline from the parking lot to the Mountainside Inn that stood up on the hill in the darkness. The police and emergency lights were shining, the blue and red lights were flashing off of the woods in the distance.

Someone would come forward soon, Palmer thought as he walked back to the motel. Someone had to know something. Someone had to have seen something.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Southern Colorado

Cole parked Bruce Goldman’s Chevy Tahoe at the edge of the parking lot of the bar, closer to the trees. He had the truck turned off, all of the lights off, and they were waiting as Cole watched the bar.

The bar was a rinky-dink, honkytonk place, a large wood building with an antique neon sign that read: Ollie’s Bar. The O in Ollie’s name was burnt out. The lights were dim at the entrance, but it was enough to reveal how seedy and rundown the place was. The parking lot was plowed, creating piles of snow around the perimeter of it, yet there were still fourteen vehicles parked there—hardcore drinkers, people who weren’t going to let a little thing like the snowstorm of the century keep them from their nightly ritual, people who would prove to nature, and to each other, that they would venture out on a night like this to drink.

It was a little after eleven o’clock. Late enough so new customers probably wouldn’t be coming, and still a little too early for many of them to be leaving. It was now or never, and Cole had already spotted a large pickup truck with a king cab as his target. The pickup looked like it was from the mid-nineties. It was rusted around the wheel wells, it had big meaty tires, a bent side view mirror, dents all over it that showed how many times this driver had driven home drunk. A few faded bumper stickers were pasted on the tailgate.

Even though Cole would rather drive an SUV or mini-van, this truck was their best option. It would be the easiest one for him to break in to and to hotwire, and it would fit in with the ubiquitous pickups in the area. He just hoped everything worked in the truck: the radio, the heater, the lights.

“You ready?” Cole asked Stella. He had already explained to her that she was going to have to drive Bruce’s truck and follow him after he stole this pickup truck. They couldn’t keep driving Bruce’s vehicle; every cop in this state was going to be looking for it now. A pickup truck in this area was the best camouflage for them, and by the time this guy wandered out and reported his truck stolen they should have a good head start down to New Mexico. It wasn’t too much farther to the Ute Indian Reservation from here, and from there the border into the Navajo Reservation. Once they were they were on Navajo land Cole felt that they would be a little safer from the police.

But not safe from the Ancient Enemy, he thought.

One thing at a time, he told himself. They needed this pickup truck and they needed to ditch Bruce’s vehicle.

“I’m ready,” Stella told him.

Cole slipped out of the SUV and walked towards the truck in the distance as Stella slid over to the driver’s seat. The SUV was already pointed towards the road, so once Cole got the truck started she could fall in right behind him.

• • •

As Cole walked towards the pickup truck, he realized that Stella could just start the Chevy and take off, leaving him behind. She had a vehicle now, she had some money, and she still had the gun he’d given her. She had tried to run away from him only a few hours ago, so what would stop her now?

And what would happen if she ran? he asked himself.

He would be stuck here on foot. He would probably go inside, have a drink, and then wander away. Maybe hitchhike to California.

But Stella and David would be in danger, Cole thought. The Ancient Enemy would still pursue them, not him anymore.

It would be her choice if she was going to run away from him again—there was nothing he could do about it now.

His boots crunched on the light film of snow and ice that coated the parking lot as he walked towards the line of vehicles near the bar. The pickup truck was parked right next to a beat-up van, and he already had the multi-tool in his hand that he’d found in Bruce’s SUV so he could switch the license plates.

Nobody had come out of the bar yet, and he ducked down behind the van, working quickly to unscrew the Colorado license plate.

• • •

Stella watched Cole as he unscrewed the license plate from a big Dodge van. Her eyes kept darting from Cole to the entrance of the dark building with its neon bar signs in the windows. She could hear the faint thump of music from inside the bar and the occasional bray of laughter or a stray hoot or holler.

Cole had just finished switching the license plates on the two vehicles and he seemed like he was about to get inside the pickup truck, but then he stayed crouched down at the rear of the truck as the door of the bar slammed open. Two overweight men dressed in jeans, boots, bulky coats, and cowboy hats stumbled out of the bar and walked down the snowy walkway that had been cleared and salted.

Stella had no way to warn Cole that the men were approaching, but she was sure he’d heard them by now. She leaned back a little in the driver’s seat, keeping in the shadows. The keys to the Chevy Tahoe hung from the ignition … all she had to do was turn the keys and drive across the parking lot to Cole if they spotted him.

Cole kept still as the men stumbled down the sidewalk in front of the bar that had a pathetic line of snow-covered hedges underneath the windows. They laughed and clapped each other on the shoulders as they walked past the pickup truck and van towards a car that looked like it had been rescued from the junkyard; it had different colored quarter panels, a cracked windshield, and no hubcaps on two of the tires.

“What’s he doing?” David asked from the back seat.

Stella turned around in her seat and looked at David. “You’re awake.”

He knuckled sleep from his eyes and looked back out the window. “What’s he doing?” he asked again.

How was she supposed to explain this? “He’s borrowing a friend’s pickup truck so we can drive it back down to New Mexico. Back to your home.”

David didn’t say anything.

“We’re going to try to find someone to help you,” she told him. “We’re going to find a shaman. He can help you with your … your gift. Help you get stronger.”

David still stared out the window, watching Cole as he slipped in between the pickup truck and the van, and out of view of the two drunk men who were getting into the wreck of a car.

“You need to get stronger so you can fight back against the Ancient Enemy.”

“I don’t want to fight it,” David said in a voice so low she could barely make out his words.

“I know you don’t. I know it’s scary, but you’re the only one who can fight it. You’re the only one who can beat it. You understand that, don’t you?”

David didn’t answer.

“David?”

“Yes?” he finally answered.

“It won’t stop following you,” she told him. She didn’t want to scare him, but he needed to know the truth. “It will never leave you alone until you kill it.”

David looked scared as he stared out the window.

“I’ll be here for you as long as I can stay alive,” she said. “But you heard that thing when it was inside the motel clerk. It’s going to keep bringing people to us, people who will want to kill you. It’s scared of you, David. That’s why it does these things. You need to remember that … it’s scared of you. It’s scared of your power.”

The old car with the two drunks inside backed out of its parking space with a throttling rumble. The back end spun a little in the snow on the parking lot, and then fishtailed a little more when the driver hit the gas too hard. She couldn’t tell if it was intentional or not.

After the car left the parking lot, Cole went right to work on the pickup truck. Stella couldn’t see what Cole was doing because he was hidden in the darker shadows between the vehicles, but he was inside the truck within minutes. The dome light inside the truck hadn’t come on … either it didn’t work or Cole had smashed it right away.

“Is Cole going to stay with us?” David asked. “He’s not going to leave, is he?”

The thought of running away had crossed her mind again, but she shook her head no as she looked at David. “No. I told you, he’s getting his friend’s truck so we can drive down to New Mexico.”

David seemed satisfied with her answer, or he didn’t feel the need to question it any further. She was sure he felt safer with both her and Cole around him.

“David … you told me before that your parents are gone.”

David just nodded as he watched Cole out the window. “They’re dead,” he said. “That thing killed them. It was inside my mom … and …”

David let his words trail off and Stella didn’t push him.

“There’s no one else in your family to take care of you?” she asked after a moment.

David didn’t answer.

Was he all alone? Stella wondered. Was he all alone in this world with a monster straight out of a nightmare pursuing him? And now the only protection he had was an archaeologist and a criminal. Stella felt like crying at the hopelessness of it all, but she needed to be strong for David.

She heard the pickup truck start up and she looked across the parking lot.

Cole backed the pickup truck out of the parking space with the lights still off. He drove the truck slowly across the snowy parking lot, the engine idling. The brake lights flashed as he slowed down when he got to the road.

Stella started the Chevy Tahoe and followed him out onto the road.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Southern Colorado

An hour later Stella still followed the pickup truck Cole had stolen. They had kept to the backroads for a while and now they were driving down a road through the woods that seemed like a dirt trail covered with snow. She was afraid of getting stuck out here … they couldn’t be trapped out here in the woods, in the dark. The Ancient Enemy would find them again.

She pushed the thought away and concentrated on following Cole. The snow was a little lighter down here than it had been a hundred and twenty miles north, up in the higher mountains. Maybe the snowstorm hadn’t been as bad down here, but the driving was still slippery enough for her.

Finally, Cole pulled the pickup truck over on the side of the road in an area where the road widened out a little and the woods weren’t as close. She parked behind him and watched as he got out of the truck with its lights on, the motor still running. He hurried up to the Tahoe and she rolled the window down.

“Go ahead and get out,” he told her. “I’ll drive the Tahoe into that bare area over there.”

Stella didn’t respond. She turned around to the back seat and looked at David. “We have to get out now. We need to switch vehicles.”

David didn’t complain. He opened his door and stepped out into the night. As they walked away from the Chevy Tahoe, Cole got inside the vehicle and drove it across the road to a bare area, and then he drove it up as far as he could into the brush and the trees. Stella heard the branches and twigs scratching at the Tahoe, and then crunching underneath the heavy vehicle.

David took Stella’s hand as they hurried to the waiting pickup truck, smoke from the exhaust drifting up into the dark night, glowing in the taillights. She felt the night closing in around them, and she thought she heard the sound of twigs and branches snapping somewhere else in the woods, on the other side of the road … something big moving around out there in the darkness.

It’s just your imagination, she told herself. She needed to get inside the pickup truck.

You’re not any safer in there than you are out here, her mind whispered.

Stella opened the driver’s door and hopped inside. She crawled across the bench seat, over the center console. She didn’t want to get in on the passenger side—she didn’t want to be that close to the woods. David crawled into the truck after her, and snuggled up beside her. She pushed the door lock down for the doors, but she kept the driver’s door wide open for Cole who was already hurrying back through the darkness towards the pickup truck.

If there was a time that the Ancient Enemy could strike, it would be now, she thought. She could imagine a dark and constantly changing lifeform racing out of the trees or floating down through the air and enveloping Cole, trapping him before he could get to the truck.

But Cole made it inside the truck and he slammed the door closed on the cold air and the darkness. He put the truck in gear, turning it around in the middle of the road, and then he drove back the way they had come.

“Shouldn’t we set fire to the Tahoe or something?” she asked as they drove away.

He looked at her strangely.

“Get rid of any evidence,” she added.

“That’s just in the movies,” he told her. “Setting fire to that truck would be like setting a signal fire for the cops. As far as evidence goes, they already know I stole that guy’s truck. Besides, I wore gloves the whole time anyway.”

Stella nodded.

“Stick to archaeology,” he told her with a smile.

David snickered right beside her, looking up at her with a grin.

Stella looked at David. “What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing,” he giggled.

“Aren’t you sleepy?” she asked him. It was about two o’clock in the morning now. “You can hop in the back if want to lay down.” The truck had a full-size king cab in the back but there were a lot of tools and other junk back there that David would have to move out of the way first.

“No,” he answered.

He had slept for a few hours earlier and she suspected that it would be difficult for any of them to relax until they were out of these woods. The claustrophobic walls of trees on both sides of the road reminded her too much of the road to Tom Gordon’s cabin, and the driveway, and everything that had happened there. She didn’t know why Cole had to drive so far into the woods to ditch Bruce’s SUV, but at least it was done and over with.

“There’s a … a smell in here,” Stella said, wrinkling her nose.

“Yeah,” Cole answered. “Like old socks and a wet dog.”

Again, David laughed. He was probably overly tired and happy now that they were safely inside a vehicle and leaving these woods.

Safe? She thought. That was a laugh. They wouldn’t be safe until … until what? Until they found a shaman and he taught David how to defeat that thing out there once and for all? Who was she kidding? What were the chances of all of that happening? What were the chances of finding this shaman that she had only heard whispered rumors about before, the man called Joe Blackhorn? What were the chances Joe Blackhorn was even still alive? What were the chances he would be willing or even able to help them? What were the chances that any of them would survive until then?

But she couldn’t think about that. She would drive herself crazy if she kept torturing herself with these thoughts. All she could do was push on and keep moving. If it didn’t work out, then they would figure something else out … but she wouldn’t ever give up.

As Cole drove the rumbling pickup down the rutted, narrow trail through the woods, Stella stared out at the black forest. The trees whipped by in a dark blur. The only light came from a mostly full moon and their headlights. She could imagine the Ancient Enemy, whatever it was, hurrying through the brush and trees, following them as quickly as their truck moved, some kind of constantly shifting creature that could be insectoid at one moment, and then reptilian, and then part sea creature, and then something else that human eyes had never seen before, something that couldn’t be understood, something that could fry human wiring and drive them insane if they stared at it too long.

David snuggled up against Stella. She looked down at him to see if he was nodding off, but he just stared straight ahead out the windshield with wide eyes. He was quiet again. Of course with the trauma he’d been through, she could understand his silence. She was surprised that he hadn’t suffered more serious mental shock so far. But sometimes children were more resilient in these areas than adults were, especially when it came to something unexplainable. It was easier for David’s mind to accept that a monster was out there in the darkness, popping in and out of dimensions, from its own world into ours whenever it wanted to.

Time seemed to stretch out, but eventually they were out of the dark woods and back onto a paved road. They drove south down a road they had mapped out on one of Bruce’s maps earlier.

“We’ll find somewhere to crash for a few hours,” Cole said as he drove. “It’s too risky driving around out here at night with the cops looking for us. We’ll start driving again around five o’clock in the morning, that way we’ll look like any other pickup truck on its way to work.”

Stella didn’t say anything. Cole seemed to know what he was doing when it came to criminal matters. She just stared out the passenger window, comfortable with David snuggled up against her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Southern Colorado

David crawled into the back seat of the pickup truck and went to sleep by the time they got to the next town.

Cole drove slowly down the streets until he spotted an all-night diner/truck stop. He parked in a far corner where some semi-trucks were parked. Their pickup truck was hidden from view of the street, partially blocked from the other trucks, but it still felt somewhat safe for the moment.

He left the pickup running for a while, but turned off all of the lights. It felt warm and safe to Stella for the first time in a while.

“I guess you don’t have any kids,” Cole said after a long moment as he sipped some coffee that they’d bought at a gas station thirty minutes ago.

Stella shook her head. “What makes you say that?”

“I don’t know. If you had a family, I would think you would be trying to get back to them right now.”

It made sense to her. Maybe Cole was more perceptive than she gave him credit for.

“Let me guess,” Cole said. “You’ve been too focused on your education and career to have a family.”

“You should be a psychologist,” she told him sarcastically as she munched on a cold French fry. “What about you? Too busy stealing stuff for a family?”

He chuckled. “Never wanted a family. I’m right about your career, though. Right?”

She sighed. “After college, I couldn’t wait to get out in the field and work. I had so many theories about the Anasazi, theories that contradicted everything scholars were teaching, but I needed proof. There were accepted theories of the disappearance of the Anasazi. That’s what happens when a bunch of scientists agree on a theory, no one even tries to counter it or seek out other possibilities. It’s too much work for the scientific community, and they will make you out to be some kind of whacko or conspiracy theorist if you don’t go along with academia like you’re supposed to.”

“What were your theories?”

She looked at him for a second, smiling at him. “I’m sure you’re really interested.”

“Well, yeah. Since some ancient thing is chasing us now. Since everything that’s happened, I’m sure you’ve had to have changed your original theories a little, I would guess.”

“Well, yeah. Of course.”

Cole was quiet for a moment, waiting for Stella to continue.

“It’s widely believed as fact now that the Anasazi migrated up to the New Mexico and Arizona areas from Central America nearly a thousand years ago. They built roads and cities, large underground kivas. They raised crops and livestock. Those things were kind of unheard of in this area among the North American tribes at the time. Many peoples of Central and South America had built cities, roads, and complex civilizations, but the other tribes of Native Americans in the southwestern region didn’t really build cities.”

Cole sipped his coffee. He was listening to Stella, but he kept glancing around at the parking lot all around them every few seconds.

“It has always fascinated me that many of those people who built cities in South and Central America eventually abandoned them, and some of the people seemed to have practically vanished.”

“Like the Anasazi?”

“Sort of. Some of these people seemed to have just walked away from the massive cities they had built: The Olmecs, the Maya, the Inca. Some are still around, but it still doesn’t explain why they would just walk away from these massive cities they had spent so much time and effort building. And the Anasazi did the same thing here in what is now New Mexico and Arizona. They built large and complex cities and then for some reason they abandoned them and moved north up into southern Colorado and southern Utah where they built highly defensible cities, some of the cities built right into the sides of mountain faces and rock cliffs.”

“I remember you telling me about that before.”

“Yes. Well, they eventually abandoned these strongholds, too. Evidence shows that they moved south again, maybe down into northern and central Arizona. They left a lot behind at these cities when they left: their pottery, their tools, their dead. It’s like they just ran.”

“So what are your theories?” Cole asked her. “Why do you think they ran?”

“First let me tell you what the accepted theories are right now. There were many signs of strife at these sites, but no real signs of hostile fights with other tribes. It seems more like they were fighting with each other. There is even evidence of sacrifice and cannibalism.”

Stella ate the last of her French fries and then set the bag down on the floorboard with all of the other trash the pickup truck’s owner had thrown there. “Anyway, the accepted theory is that the Anasazi just decided to abandon all of their cities, their technology, their culture, their law, their religion, and go south to either become modern-day Hopi and or Pueblo, or assimilate into those tribes.”

“But you don’t believe that.”

“No. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Why change their culture so drastically in such a short time? Why leave such defensible cities to build a new society in wide open spaces in the desert? Why not just go back to the older cities they had built before in Chaco canyon and other places? Most archaeologists cite weather or drought or other similar reasons, but to me they don’t seem justification enough to just run away from everything so quickly.”

“So what was your theory?”

“I didn’t really have a clear one yet, but I didn’t want to go along with the accepted theories just because everyone else was. That’s what I was looking for … some kind of proof.”

“What do you think now?” Cole asked her.

Stella was quiet for a moment. She stared out the windshield at the truck stop diner in the distance. The few patrons inside looked warm and comfortable inside at the tables, plates of food and cups of coffee in front of them. They looked safe.

“I think this … this thing has been around for a long time. I think it might sleep for certain periods of time and then it wakes up … maybe it sleeps for decades or even centuries. But when it wakes up, I think it feeds for a certain period of time. I think this thing has been in many places in the world, at least in this hemisphere. There may even be others like this one. It might live in a different dimension, a time and space that we can’t understand, like a fourth or fifth dimension.”

It looked like she might be losing Cole a little, but she went on. “I think at various times in history it has attacked people … maybe even whole civilizations and cities. I think it took what it wanted, maybe even wiping out whole groups of people, and then it rested again for a period of time.”

“Any chance of publishing your theory now?”

She looked at him and then burst out laughing. She knew he’d meant it as a bad joke, and it really wasn’t that funny, but she couldn’t help laughing until tears rolled out of her eyes. After the emotional rollercoaster she’d been on, her mind felt scrambled and it felt good to laugh. “I just might,” she finally answered.

Cole looked out the window again. She studied his face in the darkness. “What are your plans after … this?” she asked him.

He looked at her and sighed. “What do you mean? If we survive?”

Stella didn’t answer, but it was what she was asking.

“After the bank robbery, after Trevor paid Frank back, I had planned on us going down to Costa Rica. Get him away from bad elements. I bought a place on the beach there years ago … nothing special, but it’s paradise to me. I’ve got a friend named V.J. who owes me some big favors. He can get me some new IDs so I can get on a plane.”

It sounded like Cole had it all figured out.

“But that’s if we survive this,” Cole said in a low voice.

“Yeah,” she answered. “If we survive.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“Try to get some rest,” Cole told her in a low voice. He sounded sleepy. “We’ll take off in a few hours.”

PART III

TUESDAY

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Destin, Colorado

Special Agent Palmer was trapped in the nightmare again.

It was the same dream he’d had before, the one where he was inside a massive warehouse full of furniture and appliances, and hallways and rooms that looked like they belonged in houses. It didn’t make any sense, yet within the dream it seemed to make perfect sense; it seemed so real … like the only reality there was.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been trapped inside that endless building but it seemed like he’d been there for such a long time now. He had worked his way up and down the same wide hallway he had walked through before, peering into the rooms set up with furniture and décor like they were showrooms. Windows that looked out onto the world let in a dull sunlight, like the light at the end of a cloudy day. He could escape out those windows, but somehow he knew he wouldn’t be able to get them open or break the glass.

Besides, he knew he had to keep moving down the hall. He needed to be somewhere …

Then he was at the metal sinks again … a massive pair of sinks situated in the middle of all of this furniture and appliances for as far as he could see.

And there, not too far away, was an office built into the middle of the furniture. The office looked even more out of place among the sea of furniture than the sinks did.

The water was running in the sink, and he was holding something soft underneath the faucet, washing it, being careful with it.

“Hey!” the man from the office yelled at him.

Palmer looked down at his hands, at the unidentifiable piece of flesh he was carefully rinsing off. He watched the dark blood drain from the soft flesh and his hands, the blood swirling down into the drain, becoming pink from the dilution of the water.

The man from the office stared at Palmer, leaning back in the same old decrepit office chair, the springs screeching in protest at the angle of the man’s posture. His eyes were wide with shock, his mouth agape, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His lips trembled and his hands gripped the armrests of his office chair, clawing at it.

“He’s coming!” the man said, his voice a shuddery whisper … yet Palmer heard him so clearly like you do in dreams.

“You have to run. You have to run right now. He’s coming for you and by God, believe me, you don’t want to see him. You don’t want to see what he really looks like.” The man’s voice rose higher and higher, becoming a yell, then a scream of panic.

Heavy footsteps thundered from the hallway.

Palmer looked away from the man in the office towards the other end of the vast room, back to the wide hallway he had walked down only moments ago (or was it hours ago now). The sun was setting now, night falling so quickly across the land out there, smothering out the daylight like a giant blanket.

A man was approaching from way down the hall, hidden in shadows. But it wasn’t a man … it was a coyote … and then a spidery thing … and then a man again … constantly changing.

A growl, and then more thudding footsteps …

He was coming!

Palmer had to run! If he didn’t run right now, that thing was going to catch him.

He turned and ran through the furniture, dodging around armchairs and loveseats and dining room table sets and end tables stacked on top of each other. He darted around a line of old refrigerators that looked like they’d been brand new in the early nineteen fifties. He bolted past armoires and dressers with mirrors attached to them.

In one of those mirrors Palmer caught a glimpse of the thing right behind him, reaching for him with a spider-like leg that was somehow changing into a tentacle dripping with slime. Each sucker on the underside of the tentacle had tiny rows of rotating sharp teeth.

Palmer woke up, stifling a scream as he sat up in bed.

For a second he couldn’t remember where he was. He had an overwhelming urge to jump out of bed and bolt for the door.

He had to run … that thing was coming.

Palmer’s heart thudded in his chest and panic squeezed his lungs. He groped in the darkness beside him, looking for the familiar end table from home where the lamp was, where he kept his gun beside him while he slept … and the bottle of vodka.

His fingers found the lamp, an unfamiliar one. It took a few moments for him to find the light switch, but then he did.

The lamp lit up the room, driving back the darkness in a second.

He was in a motel room. He was in Destin, Colorado.

It was just a nightmare. The worst one he’d ever had. It wasn’t just what he’d seen in the nightmare, but also what he’d felt … an utter hopelessness. Why run? It would just hunt him down and find him. He couldn’t outrun it forever and it would never stop chasing him.

Palmer got up and paced around the room. He only wore his underwear and a white T-shirt. The shirt was soaked with sweat even though the room was chilly because he hadn’t turned the heat down real low when he went to bed.

Everything was coming back to him now. He’d driven back to Destin to get a motel room since the only hotel in Cody’s Pass was now a crime scene. It was late as he drove back down the snowy roads that wound through the mountains between the two towns. Debbie had already booked a room for him at a place called the E-Z Rest Motel on Sixth Street. He was checked in by a bored clerk who hardly spoke to Palmer.

He’d picked up a sandwich from an all-night fast food drive-thru, wolfed the burger and fries down, and then drank a few nips from his bottle of vodka which now sat right beside his service pistol on the end table next to the bed. The lid was on the bottle of vodka, but he was still glad he hadn’t knocked it over while fumbling for the switch on the lamp.

His heartbeat and breathing were finally back to normal. He grabbed the remote control for the TV and pressed the power button. He found a news channel and left it there with the sound down low. He checked the time on the alarm clock: Four o’clock in the morning.

He lay back down and tried to go back to sleep, but he wasn’t so sure he was going to be able to.

Instead, he propped his back up against all of the pillows on the bed and stared at the TV.

CHAPTER FORTY

Southern Colorado

Before the first lights of dawn broke the eastern horizon, Cole was back on the road. He’d slept two and a half hours and felt like he needed more, but he was too edgy to sit still in one place for too long. He knew it would only be a matter of time before some puppet of flesh approached their truck.

Stella woke up for a few minutes when he started the truck—actually, she jolted awake.

“You can go back to sleep,” he told her as he pulled out of the diner parking lot, following a semi-truck out onto the road.

A few hours later in Cortez, Colorado, Cole pulled into a Wal-Mart parking lot.

Stella woke up as he looked for a parking spot close to the entrance. It was a twenty-four hour Wal-Mart, but it wasn’t too busy at this hour.

“What are we doing here?” Stella asked.

“I need to get a few things,” Cole told her. “I’ll get us a few more drinks and some snacks,” he said. “I won’t be long. Just keep the doors locked. Keys are in the ignition.”

She stared at him and he could read her eyes: You’re really ditching us this time.

He didn’t bother arguing with her. He’d told her enough times that he was going to see this through to the end, he didn’t know how else to convince her now.

The Wal-Mart wasn’t crowded at all when Cole entered and grabbed a cart. He felt a little funny walking in this store with all the security cameras around; here he was, one of the most wanted men in Colorado right now walking around in a department store.

He didn’t want to take too long in here. He headed right for the clothing section first. He bought some baseball caps, new coats for all three of them, a better pair of gloves for Stella (ones that actually fit her). He bought another set of clothes for David and a big shirt for Stella and another one for himself. They could all use a change of clothes.

Next he bought a small cooler so they could carry some drinks with them instead of stocking up at gas stations and drive-thru lines at fast food joints.

For his last purchase he would need to go to the tech section of the store. There he bought the cheapest Smart Phone they had and then he asked the guy working there to sign him up for one of the cheapest services. He only needed the service to work for one phone call. He paid for the phone at the tech counter with a stolen credit card he’d gotten from V.J. before the bank robbery job, and then he paid for the rest of his stuff at the checkout line using cash from one of the packs of money.

Five minutes later he was out in the cold air again and walking to the pickup truck. He was relieved not to see cop cars racing down the parking lot aisles, screeching to a halt in front of the store, cops jumping out and aiming guns at him.

Maybe they could really make it down to the Navajo Reservation.

“Everything okay?” Cole asked Stella when he got back inside the truck. He set the cooler in the back and handed some of the bags to Stella.

“Didn’t see any cops,” she told him.

David was sitting up in the back seat, knuckling sleepy bugs from his eyes. “Where are we?” he grumbled.

“He’s alive!” Cole said.

That got a smile out of David. “I’m hungry,” he whispered.

“We’re going to get you something to eat right over there,” Cole said, pointing to a McDonald’s in the far corner of the massive parking area.

“What are these?” Stella asked, looking through the bags.

“I bought us some coats, hats, and gloves. Also an extra shirt for each of us.”

“Thanks,” she said.

“I wanna see,” David said and Stella handed him a gray coat that looked like it might be a little big for him.

Cole started the truck and pressed the button to lock the doors. He turned the heat up one notch and then he picked up the cell phone and dialed a number from memory.

The phone was ringing in his ear and he hoped to hell V.J. was going to pick up at this early morning hour.

“Hello?” V.J. croaked into the phone.

He had woke him up.

“V.J.!” Cole yelled into the phone.

“Who is—” A pause as V.J.’s mind came fully awake. “Wait a minute, is that you, Cole?”

“Yeah. Sorry I woke you up.”

“Naw. It’s okay, man. What’s up?”

“I need a favor.”

“Yeah, I figured that.”

“I’ve got a throwaway cell phone and I need it scrambled so it can’t be traced. I also need it beefed up. Top of the line service. We’re going to a … a rather remote area.”

“What? Costa Rica finally?”

“Yeah. Eventually. But we have to go somewhere else first.” He glanced at Stella who wasn’t abashed at watching him while he talked on the phone.

“Look, I’ve got some money in that account that you know about,” Cole told V.J. “Clean it out … it’s yours.”

“That’s a little generous for what you’re asking.”

“Well, I think I’m going to need a few more favors from you down the road. You know, before Costa Rica.” If I live that long, he thought.

“Sure. You got it. You know that.”

“Thanks, man.”

“No problem. I’ll get everything set up and send you some links in the e-mail that I’ve got for you. Don’t use the phone anymore until you get my e-mail. Okay?”

“Got it.”

“When you get the e-mail, click on those links and let the info download completely. Then you should be good to go after that.”

“You’re a genius.”

“I know. Anything else?”

“Not at the moment. Like I said, I might be calling you a few days from now for a few more favors.”

“You know I owe you anyway. What about Trevor? How’s he doing?”

Cole felt his throat closing up quickly. He knew V.J. was going to ask about Trevor eventually. He cleared his throat. “He’s … he’s dead.”

“Dead?”

“It’s a long story. Not one I want to talk about on the phone right now.”

“Yeah, man. I’m sorry to hear about that.”

“Thanks.”

“You should probably get off this phone now.”

“Yeah.”

“Take care, man.”

“You’ll hear from me soon.”

Cole hung up the phone and wiped at his eyes. He sniffled in a big breath and set the phone in the center console. He looked at Stella. “You can’t use that phone until I get an e-mail that will make this phone untraceable.”

Stella nodded like she’d heard that part of the conversation.

“You hungry?” he asked her.

“I am,” David said from the back seat.

Cole couldn’t help smiling. He put the truck in gear and drove across the parking lot to the McDonald’s. A few minutes later they ordered a variety of sandwiches and hash browns … more food than they could eat right now, but they would save the rest for later—it wasn’t like that kind of food wasn’t going to go bad anytime soon with all the preservatives that were in it. And of course they got two large coffees for them. Cole felt like he was living off of coffee right now.

He also took two No-Doz that he’d bought at Wal-Mart and swallowed them down with a few gulps of the coffee.

He thought about switching vehicles again, but they weren’t too far away from the border according to the map. Besides, he wanted to get back on the road, back on the move. And this time of the morning was the safest time to be traveling, the least likely time to be pulled over by a cop. They would just be one more work truck.

As they drove down the road, David munched a little on half a sandwich and drank a few sips of his soda, and then he lay back down to go to sleep again. He needed as much sleep as he could get, Cole thought.

Cole wished he could sleep as deeply and easily as David could. But every time he closed his eyes he saw his brother, his body parts stacked up again, a collection of parts brought back to simulated life, a grotesque puppet controlled by that thing.

All of this was still hard for Cole to wrap his mind around; it was like some nightmare that had come to life. He was used to the world being reliable, a natural set of physical laws that could be counted on. But now the world was tilting out of order, everything off balance now, like some kind of dream world that he was trying to navigate his way through now.

And now that Trevor was gone it made everything so much more surreal. Of course he had prepared himself for the possibility that Trevor could die someday. It was a possibility all humans entertained no matter how much we tried not to dwell on it. And with Trevor’s choice of employment, his risk of death was a hundred times higher. But Cole hadn’t expected Trevor to die right in front of him. And not in that gruesome way … torn apart into pieces and then put back together into some kind of Frankenstein’s monster and possessed by that thing, that creature or being or whatever it was.

Cole wasn’t particularly afraid of dying … he never had been. He wasn’t a religious man and he figured the lights just went out when you died … the show just ended. But after these last few days, after the things he’d seen, his idea of what reality was—and what existed outside of our own narrow perceptions—was changing abruptly.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Cody’s Pass, Colorado

Special Agent Palmer jumped awake when his cell phone rang. He didn’t think he was going to be able to fall back asleep after the nightmare he’d had, but at some point he had drifted off … probably from pure exhaustion.

“Agent Palmer,” he said into the phone after the third ring. He didn’t even look at the number, his eyes still blurry with sleep. The TV was still on across the room from the foot of the bed and the sound was turned down almost all the way. Daylight was invading the room from around the edges of the blackout drapes over the front windows.

What time was it?

He glanced at the alarm clock. The red digital numbers glowed brightly in the murky room. Almost eight thirty.

“Agent Palmer?” the sheriff asked on the phone even though Palmer had just identified himself to the caller.

“Yes, Sheriff,” he said with a sigh.

“You said you wanted to speak to any witnesses.”

Palmer nodded. “Yes, I did.”

“We’ve got two of them lined up for you.”

“Great. Text me some addresses and directions if you could.”

“Sure.”

• • •

Both of the witnesses were young women and they were both cashiers. Palmer decided to visit the woman named Melissa Caldwell first. She had seen Stella and David at the gas station where she worked on the morning of the bank robbery. The other cashier was a teenager named Cassandra who worked at a small grocery store in Cody’s Pass. Sheriff Hadley had pointed out that both of them had been questioned already, but Palmer still wanted to speak to both of them in person.

He drove his rental car through the treacherous mountain pass from Destin down to Cody’s Pass. Melissa lived in a small two story apartment building and there was already a police cruiser parked outside to keep any reporters from harassing the young woman.

Palmer parked his car near the squad car. He flashed his ID at the officer as he walked by and then climbed a set of concrete steps at the corner of the building that led up to a walkway protected from the snow by the edge of the roof. He walked about halfway down and a door opened up before he even got there.

Melissa filled up the doorway, smiling at him.

“Melissa Caldwell?”

“That’s me.”

Palmer pulled his ID and shield out again, flashing it at her. “I’m Special Agent Palmer with the FBI. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

She nodded. “Yeah, the sheriff told me you were coming by.” She moved out of the way so he could enter her apartment. “Come on in.”

Palmer entered Melissa’s small and cluttered apartment. The smells of old cooking grease and dirty diapers hit him right away. She gestured at a lumpy couch against the far living room wall. “Have a seat.”

He sat down on the very edge of the couch cushion, his body hunched forward and tense.

Melissa sank down into the corner at the other end of the couch, and it was like that section of the couch had become molded by her body over the years. She grabbed a gigantic To-Go cup (probably from the gas station where she worked, Palmer thought) and sipped something red and sugary from it, sucking the liquid up through a straw.

“I’m here to talk to you about the woman and the boy you saw on the morning of the bank robbery,” Palmer said as he pulled out a small notebook from inside his suitcoat pocket.

“Yeah. That was right before the big storm. I remember it. I remember her and the boy too.”

“Do you remember what kind of vehicle the woman was driving?”

“It was a big white truck. I don’t know what kind it was or what year. I’m not good with that kind of stuff.” She smiled sheepishly. “I remember that she bought fifty bucks in gas.”

“Did she have anybody else with her besides the boy? Did you see anyone else in her vehicle, or someone pumping gas for her?”

“I don’t think so. I’m sure it was only her and the boy in the store.”

Palmer jotted down some notes and then looked back at Melissa who was watching him intently.

“Did she only purchase gas when she was there?”

“No. She bought some other stuff.”

“You don’t happen to remember any of the stuff she bought, do you?”

“Oh yeah.” Slurp—another big sip of the fruit juice. “She looked like she was stocking up on supplies for a trip or something. She bought toothbrushes, a small tube of toothpaste, which is the only size we sell there. She bought some toilet paper. She bought some drinks and a few snacks. I even asked her if she was going on a trip or something. I asked if she was heading north. I told her a bad snowstorm was coming, but she didn’t seem to care.”

Palmer just nodded.

“Yeah. I told her she should wait out the storm.”

“How was her appearance? Was there anything unusual that you noticed about her? Did she seem nervous or angry? Was she in a hurry? Anything like that?”

“Yeah. Now that I think about it, she seemed nervous. Maybe even scared. And she was definitely in a hurry. It seemed like I was going too slow for her when I was ringing up her items. You can tell things like that after you’ve done this job for a while.”

“Of course,” Palmer said and smiled at her. “Is there anything else that you remember?” He would check the gas station security camera footage, but he wanted to see if anything popped up in Melissa’s memory right now.

“Something strange did happen when she was in the store,” Melissa said and leaned forward a little like she was letting Palmer in on the secret. She looked excited, like she couldn’t wait to share this with someone.

“Hi,” a kid said.

Palmer looked across the living room. Beyond a sea of toys scattered across the carpeting stood a two year old boy dressed only in a saggy diaper. The kid waved at Palmer and he had a big glistening grin on his face.

“That’s Brent,” Melissa said.

Palmer smiled at the boy and waved back at him. “Hi, Brent,” he said, but then he turned his attention back to Melissa, waiting for her to continue.

“Yeah, I already told the police about Jed being in the store that morning. He came in all the time, almost every morning. Usually for coffee, but sometimes for a donut or a sweet roll.”

Palmer nodded.

“Jed was the one who got killed in the bank robbery.”

Again, Palmer nodded.

“Anyway, he was there that morning. That was the last time I ever saw him. He went across the street to the bank and …” She let her words trail off as she looked away almost like she could still see him walking away.

“I know this must be difficult for you.”

“Jed was a good man,” Melissa said, choking up a little, and then she miraculously recovered in seconds. “But he came in when that lady and her kid were in the store. She was at the counter and I was ringing her stuff up, and then she started looking around and panicking, like she’d lost her kid or something. But he was right down the aisle where she’d left him. And he was holding hands with Jed.”

“Holding hands with him?”

“Yeah. She ran right over to them and ripped her kid’s hand right out of Jed’s hand, like he was a pervert or something.”

“Do you think Jed grabbed David’s hand?” Palmer asked. He would try to double check with the security footage at the gas station if the angle was right.

“No. I think that kid grabbed Jed’s hand. And the lady was like all over him about it. But the weird thing is that Jed was like … like all stiff for a minute while he was holding the kid’s hand. His eyes … he looked like he was sleepwalking or something, like he wasn’t seeing what was there. You know what I mean?”

Palmer nodded as he scribbled down some notes in his little book.

“And then Jed kind of snapped out of it when he let go of the kid’s hand. It was like he’d just woken up or something. He walked back to the doors and I asked him if he was okay. I even said, ‘You don’t need anything today?’ Or something like that. And he just shook his head and said that he needed to get to the bank. But it was weird. It was like Jed wasn’t himself. Like he looked sick or something.”

“And then he went to the bank.”

“Yeah. He didn’t even get any gas even though he was parked in front of the pumps. He just got in his truck and drove over to the bank. And then … he …” Melissa’s face crumpled a little again with emotion, on the verge of crying.

“That does sound a little strange,” Palmer said. “Anything else you can tell me?”

Melissa took another loud slurp from her gigantic drink and then she shook her head. “That’s about all I can remember.” She stared at Palmer like she was looking for approval for a job well done.

Palmer stood up and tucked his notebook away inside his suitcoat pocket. “Thanks for talking with me.”

She stood up, beaming. “You think you’re going to catch those guys who robbed the bank?”

“We’re working on it.” Palmer thought of all of the charred bodies at the cabin, and the one man who was still on the loose.

He left Melissa’s apartment and headed back down to his rental sedan. It seemed strange that David would hold a stranger’s hand and then that stranger would go right across the street where a robbery was going to happen only minutes later.

Quite a coincidence.

But Palmer didn’t believe in coincidences.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

New Mexico—Navajo Reservation

“I don’t like this,” Cole said as he drove.

They had driven across the border into the Navajo lands hours ago. The sky had turned from gray clouds in Colorado to deep blue sky in New Mexico, but the air was still bone-chillingly cold.

Stella glanced at Cole, but she didn’t respond to his comment. They’d already had this debate twenty minutes ago when Alice had called back.

Right after they crossed the border, Stella called Alice Newcastle, another archaeologist that she knew, a woman in her late fifties who had worked in this area for decades, working at practically every major dig site at one time or another. Over the years Alice had built up a trust with many of the Navajo people, and she even spoke a little Navajo which was one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn. If anyone knew how to find Joe Blackhorn, it was Alice.

She knew Cole thought this might be a setup. And she had to admit that it had crossed her mind as well. But what other choices did they have? David needed help from a shaman … and he needed help fast.

Alice had been a little distant on the phone when Stella called her from the now-secure cell phone. The conversation replayed itself in her mind.

“It’s me, Alice. It’s Stella.”

“Stella …”

She could hear the shock in Alice’s voice, the trepidation, the uncertainty of what to say next.

“I know you’ve probably heard some things about me,” Stella said.

“The police have contacted me about you,” Alice practically hissed into the phone like she was keeping her voice low without being aware of it. “Not just the Tribal Police, either. The FBI, too. They’re looking for you. They’re saying that you might be traveling with a Navajo kid, David Bear, whose parents were murdered.”

“Listen, Alice. You know me. You’ve known me for years.”

Silence on the phone from Alice.

“Everything isn’t what it seems to be, and I can explain everything to you. I just need some help first.”

Alice was still listening. At least she hadn’t hung up.

“I need to find Joe Blackhorn,” Stella said.

“A difficult man to find.”

And Stella knew that was true. She had tried to get in touch with the reclusive Joe Blackhorn many times before but he was protected by the people he knew. Alice told Stella a few years ago that she had talked to Joe Blackhorn but she didn’t know where he lived.

“I know,” Stella said. “But I need his help.”

“You need a shaman’s help?”

Stella was getting frustrated, but she had to control the sudden anger and impatience rearing up inside of her. She also had to think of things from Alice’s point of view. “I just need you to put me in touch with someone who can introduce me to him. Someone who can show me how to find him.”

There was another long pause on the phone.

“Alice, please. I need help. David needs help. I swear I can explain everything.”

Alice seemed to be weighing it over in her mind.

“In person,” Stella told Alice. “We’ll meet in person. Just you, me, David, and someone who can help me find Joe Blackhorn.”

“David’s parents were murdered,” Alice said in a cold voice.

“I know,” Stella said. “I told you I can explain what happened.”

“You know who killed them?”

Stella hesitated for a moment, then: “Yes.”

“Then you need to tell the police,” Alice screeched into the phone.

“I will, but I have to protect David first. Will you set up a meeting? Anywhere you want. I can pay this person whatever he or she wants. And I can pay you, too.”

“I don’t need any money,” Alice said and Stella knew that was true. Alice came from a wealthy family—Old World money from oil and mining. They had more money than they could ever spend. Alice could’ve spent her life jet setting around the world and partying in world capitals, but instead she chose to spend her time out in some of the most remote locations and dig through the dirt for shards of pottery and pieces of bone. Alice’s family’s money gave her the freedom to pursue something much more valuable to her than money.

And then it clicked in Stella’s mind. She could offer Alice something much more valuable to her than money.

“I’ve discovered some things, Alice. Things about the Anasazi.”

“I’m listening.”

“These are major breakthroughs. Things that could rewrite history.” She could tell that Alice was intrigued.

“What is it?”

“Jake Phillips called me down to a dig site … a cave, and we found a city inside that cave.”

“A city?” Alice was getting excited.

“Yes, an undiscovered city. But there was more than that. An even bigger discovery.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to talk about this on the phone. Only in person.”

Alice took her time thinking it over.

“Okay,” Alice finally said. “I’ll call someone I know. It may take a little while, but I’ll call you back as soon as I get a hold of him. Is this number you’re calling from a good one to call you back at?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

“Thank you so much, Alice. You don’t know how much help this is.”

“I just want you to know that this friend of mine will hear you out, but there’s no guarantee that he will decide to take you to Joe Blackhorn. Is that understood?”

It was the best she could do, Stella realized. “Of course.”

After Stella hung up the phone, she and Cole had had their disagreement about meeting with Alice and whoever else was coming with her.

Then, forty-five minutes later, Alice had called back and told Stella to meet her and her friend at a gas station on the outskirts of Sanostee off of Route 491 in two hours.

Stella told Alice that they would be there and hung up the phone. They could be at that location in an hour.

“I still don’t like this,” Cole said again. “It doesn’t feel right.”

“You don’t like what?” David asked from the back seat of the truck.

Stella spun around and smiled at David. “Look who’s finally awake.”

David smiled back at her. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

“Number one or number two?” Stella asked.

David held up one finger.

“I’ll pull over,” Cole said.

He slowed the pickup truck down and pulled off of the ribbon of blacktop that ran down through the breathtaking landscape all around them. The scenery looked both beautiful and dangerous at the same time.

Many people thought the southwestern desert was a barren and lifeless place, Stella thought. Many people thought it looked like the dunes of the Sahara or something, but these lands that she’d come to know so well were a beautiful place, a myriad of colors and layers upon layers of ecosystems making up one giant living world out here.

“It’s cold out there,” Stella told David once the truck had stopped. “Button up your coat.”

Cole got out of the truck, but he left it running. Stella knew he had his nine millimeter on him in his coat pocket and she had hers with her. She got out and opened the back door of the king cab for David who hurried out into the cold.

Stella walked with David away from the truck.

“Over there by that rock,” she told him. “Not too far away.”

He smiled at her and ran across the dirt and sand to the large collection of rocks. He stood there in front of the rocks and a moment later he was peeing.

Stella smiled. This almost felt normal, and she wondered if this is what being a mother felt like.

A snapping of brush startled her.

Stella’s hand was in her coat in a flash, her fingers curling around the gun handle.

“Cole,” Stella said in a low voice. She glanced back at the truck and saw that he had his hand inside his coat pocket like he was ready to draw. He was looking up at the endless blue sky where some buzzards were circling overhead.

Another snapping of brush. Louder now and closer.

“David, you almost done?” Stella asked as she walked a few steps closer to him.

“Almost,” he said.

There was something in the brush only a few yards away. More than one.

“I think we’ve got a problem,” Cole said from right behind Stella.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

New Mexico—Navajo Reservation

Cole had seen the buzzards land on the rocks all around them on both sides of the road. The buzzards just sat there, perched on the rocks, staring at him with no fear. Cole thought he could see an intelligence in those eyes.

He glanced up and down the road again; it looked like a black ribbon heading up into the rocky hills. No cars or trucks in sight, no sounds except the cold breeze and the rustling in the brush all around them.

Across the road he saw a coyote come out of the brush and stand at the edge of the road. The animal just stood there, its eyes on Cole the whole time. And in those eyes he saw the same intelligence that he saw in the buzzards’ eyes.

It was the Ancient Enemy inside that coyote … Cole was sure of it. Inside the buzzards, too.

Cole hurried around the back of the pickup truck to Stella, his hand inside his coat, ready to draw his gun.

“I think we’ve got a problem,” he told Stella, startling her.

But then they both looked over at the brush just beyond the rocks and saw the animals coming out slowly: two more coyotes, a jackrabbit, four rattlesnakes slithering forward. All of them were just staring at them, watching them with those same intelligent eyes.

David hurried back to them, staring at the line of animals as he ran into Stella’s arms.

“I think we need to get back to the truck,” Cole said. “We all just need to walk together very slowly.” He had his gun in his hand, his finger on the trigger. “I’ll watch the animals. You two just get back to the truck.”

Cole didn’t look at Stella or David—he kept his eyes on the line of animals, his gun aimed at them. The rattlesnakes had curled up into coils, their rattles shaking. He heard Stella and David running across the sand to the waiting truck, the motor still rumbling.

That thing can turn the truck off, Cole thought. It can destroy the engine in a second if it wants to.

But the truck was still running. Maybe David was blocking that thing’s power somehow. Maybe David was getting stronger with each confrontation with that thing whether the boy realized it or not.

Cole backed up to the tailgate of the truck, and then he backed up to the driver’s side corner. He turned his back on the animals from the brush and kept an eye on the coyote that stood motionless across the road. He shifted his eyes to the buzzards perched up on the rocks in the distance as he ran to the driver’s door.

He hopped inside the truck and then closed and locked the doors. He shifted into drive and peeled out of the sand and back onto the road, the rear tires spinning on the pavement for a minute, barking in the air before they caught traction.

“You see that?” Cole said as he sped down the road. “Those animals. That thing … it was in them somehow.”

“We’re okay,” Stella said and looked at Cole. “I think it’s getting more and more afraid of David.”

They locked eyes for a second, and then Cole looked back at the road.

Maybe she was right, Cole thought. Why hadn’t those animals attacked? Why hadn’t the Ancient Enemy shown itself just now? They were isolated out here in the middle of nowhere. What easier time was there?

But maybe it was David holding that thing back. It was still afraid of David, like Stella had just said. Maybe it was more afraid now than it had been in the cabin. More afraid than ever. Was David really getting stronger?

“I’m hungry,” David said from the backseat.

It was such a normal thing for a child to say that Cole almost barked out a laugh and a sob at the same time.

Stella turned around in her seat and handed David a McDonald’s bag. “Here’s a sandwich and some hash browns. They’re cold now, but still good.”

David didn’t complain. He took the bag from her. “Can I have one of the Yoo-hoos in the cooler?” he asked.

“Sure,” Stella told him.

David opened up the cooler in the back seat and cracked the can open.

Stella turned back around and stared out the windshield.

Things had gone somewhat smoothly since they had left the Mountainside Inn behind and the three dead bodies, Cole thought. The Ancient Enemy hadn’t shown itself again until now.

“I still don’t feel right about this meeting,” Cole finally spoke as he drove down the road, his hands gripping the steering wheel so hard it felt like he could’ve snapped it in his hands if he wanted to. He couldn’t seem to relax. Not only was there the threat from the Ancient Enemy, but they had the cops to worry about. He couldn’t let the cops take David.

“Alice is the only one I can trust,” Stella said. “There are some other people I could’ve called, but she’s the only one I can trust, the only one who knows people who can find Joe Blackhorn.”

“We’ll get to this gas station early. If anything seems funny …” He let his words hang in the air.

Stella just nodded. She was learning to trust Cole’s instincts. He had developed almost a sixth sense when it came to trouble from the cops. If something was wrong at this gas station they were going to, then she was sure he would be able to tell.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Cody’s Pass, Colorado

Special Agent Palmer drove to the other side of Cody’s Pass to a neat little neighborhood that sprawled up into the foothills of the mountains which rose up sharply out of the valley. Some of the houses in the neighborhood were perched up several levels above the rest of the development. He drove halfway up into the hills and parked in front of a neat little middleclass home.

He got out and walked up a steep set of wood steps to the front porch where Cassandra and her parents were already gathered and waiting for him. He flashed his badge and ID at them as he walked up and introduced himself.

Cassandra’s parents welcomed him inside their home with nervous smiles and quick little gestures.

“Can I get you something to drink?” Cassandra’s mom asked as she closed the front door. “We just made a fresh pot of coffee.”

Palmer could smell the coffee mixed in with some kind of vanilla-scented candles burning somewhere in the house. He smiled at her. “No thanks.”

The parents sat down close to each other on a loveseat near the recliner where Cassandra sat. Palmer sat down on the last piece of available furniture—a couch against the wall right underneath some kind of abstract painting. Cassandra’s parents didn’t seem like they had any intention of leaving their teenaged daughter alone with him so he took his notebook out.

Cassandra looked nervous.

“How are you doing?” Palmer asked and forced a smile on his face—it felt like a foreign thing to him these days.

She smiled back. “I’m fine. Thanks.”

The parents seemed to beam with pride at how politely they had trained their daughter.

“No need to be nervous,” Palmer told Cassandra. “I just want to ask you a few questions about a woman and a boy who came through your checkout lane yesterday afternoon. I know you’ve already answered some questions for the police, but I just wanted to ask you a few more.”

She nodded and seemed to be bracing herself.

“Are these people suspects?” Cassandra’s mother asked with a dramatic clutching of hands in front of her, eyes wide with alarm that perhaps her daughter had been within arm’s reach of actual fugitives.

“We don’t know yet,” Palmer answered and looked at Cassandra’s parents who were huddled together on the loveseat.

He turned back to Cassandra. “How did the woman and the child seem to you when you checked them out at the store?”

“Uh … they seemed normal, I guess. The kid was real quiet.”

“Did the woman seem nervous to you? In a hurry? Scared or angry?”

Cassandra thought it over for a moment. “Not angry. But she seemed like she was in a hurry. Maybe nervous. I don’t know. Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. Just give me your honest impressions. That’s all. There aren’t any right or wrong answers here.”

She smiled again—an awkward teenager smile.

“Do you remember what the woman bought when she was in your checkout line?” Palmer asked. The police would have a list from Cassandra’s cash register, but he wanted to hear what she had to say.

“I don’t usually pay a lot of attention to what people buy,” she answered. “But it seemed like this lady was stocking up on stuff. She had toothbrushes … three of them. A small tube of toothpaste. Different kinds of snacks.”

These sounded like the same things Stella and David had bought at the gas station store a few days earlier. The most interesting thing was that she’d purchased three toothbrushes … so the other person still had to be with her and David at the time.

“And she paid with cash?” Palmer asked.

“Yes.”

Palmer already knew that Stella had paid with cash … twenty dollar bills, and the police were comparing the serial numbers with the stolen money from the bank. But Palmer already knew they were going to match. He already knew that Stella and David were traveling with one of the bank robbers for some reason. It didn’t make a lot of sense. Was Stella in on the bank robbery the whole time? Maybe she and the robbers had set up a robbery at the dig site, taking something valuable they wanted from there. And then they traveled up here to Colorado to rob a bank. Then they turned on their own crew, killing all of them, and then they fled to … Travis’s house to kill his family? And then what? Back here to Cody’s Pass? To a hotel where they murdered even more people, including Travis? And what did the little boy David have to do with all of this? If they had killed all of those scientists and grad students down at the dig site and they wanted to flee as quickly as possible, then why would they go all the way to Iron Springs to kill David’s parents and then abduct him? Stella Weaver didn’t have any kind of criminal record—she was squeaky clean. What would make her go along with all of these gruesome killings so suddenly?

There was something he was missing … large pieces of the puzzle that he couldn’t see yet. It seemed like he had missed something important down in New Mexico, some clue that he had overlooked.

He thought about the Mountainside Inn. Why would Stella, David, and the bank robber she was traveling with stop there? Stella had checked in with a fake name and wrote down fake info for a vehicle. Palmer had checked the footage from the CC cameras in the lobby, but there was a lot of interference on them, and they stopped working altogether before showing exactly how Bruce Goldman and the hotel clerk were killed.

Why would Travis follow Stella and David to the Mountainside Inn? Why were Travis’ mom and sister slaughtered? Why was Travis’ dead father dug up and taken there? Why was he shot in the head? Why did Travis have his mother’s finger with him? Why wasn’t there a trace of DNA evidence at any of the murder scenes? And there was no DNA evidence that Stella or David had ever been inside Nora Conrad’s house—their killers had to have been someone else.

Palmer smiled at Cassandra, getting his mind back on the interview in front of him. “Anything else you can think of that seemed strange to you about them?”

Cassandra shook her head no. “They were bundled up in coats. And they looked … they looked kind of dirty.”

“Dirty?”

She smiled, revealing a mouth full of braces. She glanced at her parents like she was waiting for approval to say something impolite.

Her mother gave her a solemn nod to keep going.

Cassandra looked back at Agent Palmer. “I don’t want to be mean, but they kind of smelled bad.”

Palmer couldn’t help chuckling a little and his laughter seemed to set Cassandra more at ease. “Smelled bad? Like body odor?”

“Yeah. But it was more than that. There was another smell, like smoke. It was kind of faint, but …”

Palmer nodded, the image of the smoldering cabin flashed into his mind for a moment. He jotted down a few notes in his notebook and then smiled at Cassandra. “Thank you. You’ve been a lot of help.”

Cassandra smiled back at him and then she looked at her parents who got up and walked Palmer to their front door. All three of them watched Palmer walk away from their front porch to his car.

Palmer got inside of his rental car and started it. He sat there for a moment with the engine running as he stared down the street. He was tired and this case was just spinning around in circles in his mind. None of it was making sense. What was he missing?

He thought of Captain Begay down at the Navajo Reservation and his talk of skinwalkers and other ancient legends.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

New Mexico—gas station

Cole had staked out the gas station and he felt as good as he could about this meeting. He told Stella that he was going to wait in the pickup truck while she and David went inside to meet with Alice and the man she’d brought with her. He was sure that this friend of Stella’s wasn’t going to talk freely with him sitting there.

She reluctantly agreed.

Cole watched Stella as she turned around in her seat and explained to David that they were going to see a shaman who could help him with his power. But first they needed to find this shaman, and these people were going to help with that.

“My friend is going to ask me some questions about what happened to your parents,” Stella told David. “You have to be ready for that. She may even ask you about it.”

David nodded.

“Just answer whatever you feel comfortable with, okay? If you don’t feel like answering a question or talking about something, you don’t have to.”

David nodded again, and Cole could see that the kid was close to tears.

“I don’t want you to be scared, David,” Stella told him. “You know I would never do anything to hurt you.”

“I know,” David whispered.

Cole’s attention was drawn to two vehicles that had just pulled up to the far end of the gas station parking lot where the newer diner had been built onto it. A beat-up pickup truck followed a small import car. After the vehicles parked, a skinny woman with gray hair got out of the small car that was covered in dust, and a tall, thin man with a long dark ponytail got out of the battered GMC pickup truck that had different colored fenders and big tires on the back.

They walked towards each other, but neither of them smiled at the other, and neither one touched the other in greeting, not even a handshake. And neither one of them looked this way to their truck.

But they know we’re here, Cole thought.

Then the two of them entered the diner through a glass door.

Cole looked at Stella and he hoped that this friend of Stella’s was honest. And maybe she was; maybe she really wanted to help.

But Cole needed to stay ready and on edge; he hadn’t met too many people in his life who were honest and who kept their word.

“You got your gun in case anything goes sideways in there?” Cole asked Stella.

She nodded. “I don’t think anything’s going to go sideways.”

“Not just with them,” Cole reminded her. “If you see anyone else in there who … who doesn’t seem like themselves …”

“I know,” she said.

And he knew she did. The Ancient Enemy was close now—that little incident in the desert with the animals was proof of that.

“I don’t like leaving you alone out here,” she said.

“We don’t really have a choice. You need to get this information and I don’t think they’re going to be so willing to talk with me sitting there.”

Stella nodded.

“I’ll be okay,” Cole assured her. But he thought of others who had been alone and away from David’s presence—they had been taken by that thing. His brother Trevor had been taken by that thing right out of the bathroom window in the cabin.

Maybe David will still be close enough for some kind of protection, Cole thought. And he swore he could see the same thought in Stella’s eyes.

She looked at David. “You ready, kiddo?”

He gave her a small smile and nodded.

Stella got out of the truck and opened the back door for David. He slid out and stood beside her.

“Good luck,” Cole told her.

“Thanks,” she answered and smiled, and then they closed the doors and walked away.

Cole watched them walk towards the building as he pushed the button down to lock the doors.

David’s still close, he thought. Maybe that’s why the animals hadn’t attacked earlier, because David was still close. How close did David have to be to remain under the wing of his protection?

Cole had his nine millimeter tucked down underneath his leg, ready to draw it in a second if he needed to. He had filled up the gas tank an hour ago when they’d first gotten here to the gas station, and he kept the truck running with the windows rolled up and the doors locked.

He thought of the animals that had come out of the desert brush, the buzzards perched on the rocks. So many of them … all of them just watching. That thing was inside all of those animals at the same time.

How powerful was this thing? Did they even have any hope of fighting it? Could David ever be that strong or was the Ancient Enemy just playing with them right now?

Was that thing all around them all the time? Constantly following them and watching them? Was this thing some kind of god?

Or maybe an alien as Stella had suggested. That was an even scarier concept.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Navajo Reservation—gas station

Stella walked across the parking lot to the door of the little diner that was attached to the sprawling building of the gas station store. The store had been packed with goods because the next nearest store and gas station were forty miles away. That made this a busy little gas station. And that was good for her and David. Plenty of other people around.

And good for Alice, she thought.

Alice and the friend she’d brought with her waited at a corner table as far away from everyone else as they could get. Both of them already had bottles of drinks in front of them: a bottle of water for Alice and a can of soda for the Navajo man.

Stella held David’s hand as they walked towards the table.

Alice popped up from her seat and rushed over to hug Stella. Alice was a tall woman, nearly five foot eleven and even though she was stick-thin, she was a lot stronger and tougher than she looked. She was still a pretty woman, but she had aged prematurely from decades of hard work under a brutal sun. But her eyes were alive like little glittering gems.

“Stella,” she said as she hugged her. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“Thank you for doing this, Alice,” Stella whispered back.

Alice let Stella go and smiled down at David. “And you must be David.”

David nodded, but he didn’t say anything to her, grabbing Stella’s hand again.

“Come on and sit down,” Alice told them. “Are you guys hungry? Thirsty?”

“No thanks,” Stella said. “We just ate a little while ago and we have some drinks in our cooler in the truck.”

Alice glanced towards the windows like she could still see the truck … and Cole sitting inside of it.

“He’s helping us,” Stella explained.

Alice just nodded.

“It’s a long story,” she said.

“Yes … a story you promised to tell me about.”

Stella nodded and she looked at the Navajo man who had remained very still and silent the whole time.

“I’m sorry,” Alice said. “This is Billy Nez.”

Billy offered a hand to Stella and she shook it.

“Ya-tah,” Billy said in greeting.

“Ya-tah-hey,” Stella answered back.

Billy had rough and strong hands, but he shook her hand with the gentlest of grips like he was trying not to hurt her. Then the man turned to David and gave him a smile and offered his hand to him.

David shook the man’s hand and Billy seemed to freeze for a moment, his dark eyes glazing over like he was in an instant trance. It only lasted for a second or two, and maybe Alice hadn’t even noticed, but Stella had. Billy looked the same way the old man in the gas station had looked when David had taken his hand.

He’s seen something, Stella thought. David just showed him something.

“So, it’s time to tell me everything,” Alice said, her focus right on Stella.

“I’m going to tell you,” Stella told Alice, and then she met Billy’s eyes. “But you’re not going to believe me.”

Neither one of them said anything.

“Please don’t interrupt me until I’m finished,” Stella asked. “I know all of this is going to seem … outlandish, but just let me get through all of it. Once I’m done, then you’ll know why I need Joe Blackhorn’s help so badly.”

“Fair enough,” Alice said and she looked at Billy for his blessing.

Billy nodded solemnly.

Stella took a deep breath and began her story.

• • •

Forty minutes later Alice stared at Stella with a dumbfounded expression.

“And now we’re here,” Stella said, finishing her story. “And we need help. David needs help.”

“I … I don’t know what to say,” Alice said in a low, husky voice, and then she cleared her throat. “It all sounds …”

“I know you don’t believe me,” Stella said. “I understand that. I know you think I’m crazy. But if you could just help me find Joe Blackhorn, if I could just see him for a little while, then I’ll turn myself in and David can go back to his family. And the man we’re traveling with will turn himself in to the police, too.” Stella was telling a lie, but she wasn’t even sure if she was lying. She knew she couldn’t speak for Cole, but she wasn’t sure what she was going to do if she survived all of this. “The only thing I care about right now is getting help for David.”

Stella could feel tears of frustration threatening. She hated being in this position of begging for help.

David grabbed her hand on the table and held it.

Stella couldn’t help the tears now … she wiped away at them. “Sorry.”

Alice’s eyes were tearing up and she reached across the table and took Stella’s other hand and held it for a moment.

Billy just sat there in his chair, his body rigid, his dark eyes unreadable. He hadn’t said a word the entire time when Stella told her story.

“I want to help you,” Alice said and she looked at Billy. The two of them stared at each other for a long moment, almost like they were reading each other’s mind, and then Billy nodded slightly.

“Okay,” Alice said. “We’ll help you. Billy knows how to find Joe Blackhorn, how to get in touch with him. He’ll let him know you’re coming to see him.”

Stella felt a rush of air escape her lungs, the tension draining out of her and she cried some more. “Thank you, Alice.” She looked at Billy. “And thank you so much, Billy.”

Billy nodded again in response. He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a piece of paper folded up neatly. He slid the folded piece of paper across the table to her. “These are the directions to Joe Blackhorn’s property. He lives far away from here. The closest town would be Many Farms.”

Stella looked down at the folded up piece of paper that looked like it was copy paper for a printer. She glanced around at the others in the diner, but they were all in different areas of the dining area and involved in their own conversations. She reached into her coat pocket slowly and she could sense the other two tensing slightly.

“Just the payment I promised,” Stella whispered, but she kept her movements slow. She grabbed the envelope of hundred dollar bills out of her coat and then slid the envelope across the table at Billy.

Billy took the envelope in a flash, like a snake reaching out for a mouse in a lightning-quick movement, and then the envelope was gone, tucked safely away inside of Billy’s jean jacket.

Stella looked at the folded paper on the table again and she snatched it up. She didn’t unfold the paper and look at it—that would be rude. She tucked the square of paper down into the pocket of her jeans. “Thank you so much,” she said to Billy.

“I will send someone to speak to Joe Blackhorn,” Billy said. “He will tell Joe Blackhorn that you will be there tonight.”

“Good,” Stella replied. The sooner the better.

“There’s no promise that Joe Blackhorn will help you,” Alice said and then she looked at Billy like she was making sure this was true.

Billy shrugged but he kept his eyes on Stella. “I cannot speak for Joe Blackhorn. He is his own man. But if you tell him your story maybe he will listen, and maybe he will help.”

“That’s all I’m asking for,” Stella told them. “Just a chance.”

“It is a long journey,” Billy said. “You will want to begin soon.”

“Yes,” Stella said, standing up.

Alice came around the table and gave Stella another hug, squeezing her hard for a few seconds.

“Thank you for doing this,” Stella whispered to Alice.

“Be careful,” she said and let Stella go. She looked down at David who was standing up now.

Billy looked at David and nodded at him, but Billy didn’t shake his hand again.

Stella and David left the diner and hurried back out to the pickup truck where Cole was still waiting.

• • •

After Stella and David were gone, Alice grabbed her coat and looked at Billy. “Thank you for coming with me,” she said. “I know that kind of nonsense must’ve been hard for you to sit through.”

Billy didn’t say anything.

“I need to make that phone call now,” she told Billy as she made her way to the hallway that led to the restrooms.

Outside of the women’s bathroom, Alice got her cell phone out of her purse and dialed the number for the Tribal Police office. “Hello, can I speak to Captain Begay?” she said after a receptionist answered.

Alice waited a few minutes on the phone and then she heard Captain Begay’s deep gruff voice. “Captain Begay speaking.”

“Hi, this is Alice Newcastle. I spoke to you a few hours ago.”

“Yes,” Begay perked up. He was silent, but she could practically feel the tension from him through the phone, the impatience … the hope.

“It’s done,” Alice said. She couldn’t help feeling bad. She felt like she was betraying a friend, but it was obvious now that Stella was mentally disturbed. She didn’t know which parts of Stella’s story were true, or if any of it was true, but she couldn’t let this continue. Stella needed help … and Stella was right about one thing … David needed help most of all.

“They’re on their way to the destination?” Begay asked.

“Yes. We sent them to a friend’s property and told that friend not to be there. He’s going to leave a note on the door saying that he’ll be back in a few hours and sign it as Joe Blackhorn. Stella, David, and whoever she’s with will be there tonight, within a few hours. I’ll send you the address they’re going to. It’s near Many Farms.”

There were distant clattering noises on the phone; it sounded like Captain Begay was searching for a pen and paper. “Okay. Send the directions to the e-mail I gave you before.”

“Okay,” Alice said.

“Thank you, Alice,” Begay said after he was done. “I know this probably wasn’t easy for you.”

“Just go easy on her,” Alice said.

“Everything will be fine,” Begay told her and he hung up.

Alice pulled up the file on her phone that had the directions and a hand drawn map that Billy had made in it. She wrote out a quick e-mail and attached the file and then sent it to Captain Begay’s e-mail address.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Navajo Reservation—Captain Begay’s office

Captain Begay hung up his phone and checked his e-mail.

The e-mail from Alice was there with an attachment. He read the e-mail, opened up the attachment and looked over the handwritten directions and roughly drawn map. It was good enough, he supposed. He knew the area this was in. He printed out twenty copies of the map and the directions.

As the copy machine on the other side of the office spit out pages, Begay dialed his lieutenant who had a group of officers waiting on standby. “We’re good to go,” Begay said into the phone. “We’ll meet in half an hour and then head out there.”

Begay looked up at the large map of the Big Reservation on the wall beside him; he was already planning out the best route to this place that Stella thought was Joe Blackhorn’s property. Stella Weaver, David Bear, and whoever they were traveling with would be on their way to the destination now. They would get there and read the note. Hopefully they would wait. Begay and his men would have them boxed in by then.

Nobody was going to get hurt, Begay thought. That was the most important thing. This was going to go smoothly and nobody was going to get hurt. Begay and his men were going to show up in force, box them inside in the canyon, and then the man with them was going to surrender. And after that David would be back with his aunt … he would be back with his family again. It would take a long time for that boy to heal, Begay thought, but the process could at least begin.

Begay got his coat and put it on. He was about to head out to his car, but he hesitated for a moment. He reached into his wallet and took out a business card. He stared at the card for a long moment, not sure if he should do this at this time or not. He could put this off for a while; he could claim that he had gotten wrapped up in the pursuit of Stella and the others.

But he decided to make the call.

Begay picked up the black phone on his desk and dialed the number on the business card. The phone rang four times, then five. Begay was bracing himself for the call to go to voicemail, but then Palmer answered.

“Special Agent Palmer here.”

“It’s Captain Begay from the Navajo Tribal Police,” Begay said into the phone.

“Yes.”

“We’re going to be apprehending Stella Weaver and David Bear soon,” he said.

Silence for a moment.

“They are traveling to a man’s property. They believe it’s the property of a man people claim is a shaman … that’s sort of like a medicine man.”

Palmer breathed out a huff of breath like he was annoyed. “I know what a shaman is. Are they traveling with someone else?” Palmer asked. “A man?”

“Yes,” Begay said. “How did you know?”

“There have been some … some developments up here. She was up here in Colorado at numerous crime scenes, and it seems like they might be traveling with a man who was involved with a bank robbery and several murders.”

“What kind of murders?” Begay asked. “Like the bodies we found here?”

Palmer hesitated on the phone. And it seemed to Begay like Palmer wasn’t sure how much he should tell some lowly Tribal Police officer. Then Palmer sighed and spoke. “Yeah. They’re a lot like the ones down there. Mutilations.”

“How many?” Begay asked. He was sure he was pushing his luck with Palmer. He wouldn’t normally pry like this, but he felt some kind of strange bond with this FBI agent that he couldn’t explain.

“A lot,” Palmer said. “Five in one location. Three in another. And three in one other place.”

Begay just sighed. “Thanks for the heads up about the man,” he said.

“No problem. I’m coming down there right now. I’m going to be flying in to Farmington as soon as possible.”

Begay nodded again; he already knew that was going to happen.

“Have you notified Agent Klein yet?” Palmer asked.

“Not yet. He’s going to be my next call.”

“Good. Just be careful, captain. This guy Stella and David are with, he’s a real piece of work judging from what I’ve seen so far up here.”

Begay sighed heavily into the phone again. “We’ll take all necessary precautions.”

Palmer hung up and Begay set the phone receiver back down into the cradle gently.

Eleven more bodies up in Colorado. All from one man? That didn’t make any more sense than what had happened down here. Begay thought about this woman and this boy traveling with a possible bank robbery and murder suspect. They had gone up to Colorado and now they had come back down here. Why? Just to go and see Joe Blackhorn? Everyone around here knew that Blackhorn was a shaman … a powerful one, the rumors said. Begay didn’t know the man—he had never met him—but he had heard the stories of the man’s colorful past.

Why were they risking everything to meet with Alice Newcastle just to find Joe Blackhorn? Begay wondered. They’d had plenty of chances to run. They could’ve went anywhere from Colorado. They could’ve even left the U.S. But instead of running, they were going to what they thought was a shaman’s property.

Begay didn’t feel good about this. After the bodies and mutilations he’d seen, and then Palmer’s description of what had happened up in Colorado, this didn’t feel right. He tried not to be a superstitious person, but this felt otherworldly to him, something that was too big for him and his men. Too big for the FBI.

He picked up the phone and dialed the FBI office in Farmington. Moments later he got Klein on the phone and told him what was going on.

“You wait for me!” Klein screamed into the phone. “I’m on my way! Don’t do anything until I get there. You understand me?”

Begay hung the phone up without responding to Klein’s orders, but he felt like throwing it across the room. He hated Klein giving him orders; he hated the fact that murders and other major crimes on the Rez fell under the jurisdiction of the FBI and the government. It was like the whites didn’t believe the Navajo were smart enough to take care of themselves, to solve their own problems.

It was an old argument, one that would never be solved; nothing was ever going to change so there wasn’t any use in ruminating over it.

Begay grabbed his hat and plopped it down on his head, adjusting it. Then he walked towards the door to gather his men together.

He had no intention of waiting for Agent Klein.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Navajo Reservation

Cole drove the pickup truck down Route 13 around the Lukachukai Mountains. He would connect with another small road and then another one after that. The farther they traveled the more remote everything became.

The afternoon was giving way to evening, the shadows lengthening, the sun dipping down below the mountains, the air getting even colder.

But within a few hours they should be at this man’s property, this shaman.

Cole still didn’t feel right about this, but he didn’t want to pound the point home again to Stella. He’d made his case already and he wasn’t going to keep doing it. They had made their decision. Like Stella had said, what other choices did they have?

What if they ran? Would that thing just keep following them to the ends of the earth? Was there a place they could hide from that thing? It was like David was a beacon to the thing, like that thing could always tell where David was going, and it wouldn’t stop until it had someone kill David for it, until the threat of David was gone.

They had eaten a little more from their stash of snacks, but none of them were very hungry.

It was a scary feeling driving to this shaman’s property, but there was also a feeling of hope. Maybe the shaman could finally help them; maybe this shaman could finally explain everything to them.

Cole wondered what he was going to do when all of this was over. But he didn’t like to plan too far ahead. Right now he just wanted to focus on what was in front of him right now, put all of his energy into surviving.

And he needed to stay alert. He still wasn’t sure if they could trust Stella’s friend, and if anything looked shady he wanted to be able to get out of there.

“Shit!” Cole yelled.

Cole slammed on the brakes as two pickup trucks pulled out onto the road from each side. Both vehicles had been hidden behind large rocks and brush and now they were blocking the road, parked nose-to-nose.

“Hold on!” Cole yelled as the truck slid to a stop on the road, the tires screeching in the cold air.

The evening was approaching quickly, but there was still plenty of light to see the men in the pickup trucks. There were two men each in the cabs of the trucks and two men in the beds of each of the trucks. All of the men in the beds of the trucks were laying low with the barrels of their rifles pointing at them.

“What the hell is this?” Cole muttered. He slammed the pickup truck’s gearshift into reverse and stomped on the gas pedal as he turned around to look behind him.

Two more pickup trucks pulled out from the brush and rocks behind them, parking nose-to-nose in the middle of the road like the trucks in front of them had done.

They were blocked in.

Cole stomped on the brakes and the truck came to a jarring halt.

Stella looked into the back seat at David. He was scared, holding on to the back of the seat, his fingers dug into the fabric.

“It’s okay,” Stella whispered.

It’s not okay, Cole thought as he sat there with the pickup truck rumbling, his options running through his mind.

Could these men be flesh puppets controlled by the Ancient Enemy?

It was possible.

Or had they been double-crossed by Stella’s friend?

That seemed to be a more likely scenario to him.

Cole glanced back in front of them at the men hunkered down in the back of the two trucks aiming their rifles at them.

“You guys need to hold on,” Cole said. “Make sure David has his seatbelt on.”

“What are you going to do?” Stella asked him.

“I’m going to ram them,” he said and looked back at David. “You stay down low, you hear me?”

David nodded, staring at Cole with wide eyes.

“Wait a minute, Cole,” Stella said. “We don’t even know what they want.”

“I think it’s kind of obvious,” Cole said. “Your friend set this up somehow. They want to apprehend us for the cops. Or even worse, to enact their own justice for David’s parents.”

Cole gripped the steering wheel. The truck was still in reverse with his foot on the brake. He thought the best idea would be to reverse into the trucks behind them, perhaps saving any damage to the front of the truck so it could still run.

“Wait a minute,” Stella said and pointed at the windshield. “Someone’s getting out of the truck.”

Cole looked out the windshield at the tall thin man walking towards them from his pickup truck. The Native American man showed no fear. Cole recognized the man now. He should’ve recognized the beat-up GMC pickup the man had gotten out of. It was the same man who had met with Stella and David at the gas station diner.

“It’s Billy,” Stella said.

Cole pulled his nine millimeter out of his coat pocket and held it down low in his lap, ready to use it.

“Don’t shoot,” Stella said and opened the passenger door.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Navajo Reservation—Route 13

“What the hell are you doing?!” Cole yelled at Stella as she got out of the truck and stood there next to it.

“It’s Billy,” Stella said again. “It’s the guy who was with Alice at the diner. He wants to tell us something.”

Cole looked back out the windshield at the tall Navajo man who stood like a statue in the middle of the road. He had his hands raised slightly in the air in a half-hearted surrendering gesture, and there was something white clutched in one of his hands.

“He has the envelope I gave him,” Stella said, not even looking back inside the truck at Cole. “The one with the money in it.”

Stella started walking towards Billy.

Cole put the truck in park but he left it running. He looked back at David who peered out the windshield, his hands cupped over the back of the seats. “Wait here,” Cole told him.

Cole got out of the truck with his gun in his hand.

“You can put your gun away,” Billy said to Cole, his deep voice carrying easily down the road.

Stella, who was now halfway between the front of their pickup truck and Billy, looked back at Cole. “Please put it away,” she said.

Cole glanced back at the two pickup trucks behind him. All of the men were armed, just like the men in the two pickup trucks in front of them. All of them had their rifles aimed at him and Stella. There was no way Cole could fight all of them.

“We don’t want to hurt you,” Billy told Cole as Stella walked a few steps closer towards him. He still had his hands raised in the air.

“What do you want?” Cole asked as he looked back at Billy.

“I want to show you the way to Joe Blackhorn’s property.”

“That’s where we’re going,” Cole yelled back.

Billy gave them a small smile and shook his head no. “I gave you a different set of directions than I gave to Alice.”

Stella stopped in the middle of the road.

“Alice called the police,” Billy said. “She had it planned that way all along. We set it up so you were going to a friend’s property.”

“But it’s not really Joe Blackhorn’s place,” Stella said.

“That’s correct,” Billy said. “The police, and I’m sure the feds, are on their way there right now.”

“Why are you helping us?” Stella asked.

“Before our meeting, I drew up two different maps and sets of directions. I took them both with me. I wanted to hear your story first. We’ve heard stories of what happened to those people at the dig site, including Jim Whitefeather. He was a friend of mine. And now we’ve all heard what happened to that boy’s parents. Some Navajo don’t believe in the legends anymore, and the whites don’t believe in them at all. But there is too much evidence to deny that something is going on right now. I wanted to hear your story first and then I would decide which directions I gave to you. I gave you directions that led to this spot.”

“So you believe me?” Stella asked.

Cole now realized that the men in the back of the pickup trucks were pointing their weapons away from them and towards the rocks and brush like they were afraid something might come out of the wilderness.

Like animals, Cole thought.

And now Cole heard sounds way out there in the growing darkness; there were animals moving around out there.

“We don’t have much time,” Billy said and lowered his hands. He held out the white envelope to Stella.

“You can have that for helping us,” Stella told him.

“I don’t want this money,” he told her. “It’s blood money, isn’t it?”

Stella couldn’t deny it.

“Take your money back. Inside the envelope is another set of directions. When you get to the end of this road, head north instead of south. Then follow the directions I’ve written down from there. Joe Blackhorn lives very far out in the desert, past Kayenta. But I was not lying when I said that I sent someone to contact him. He knows you are coming. I was also not lying when I said that I cannot be sure if he will agree to help you.”

“I understand,” Stella said as she stood right in front of Billy. She accepted the crumpled up envelope from him. “Thank you for helping us.”

“I’m helping David Bear,” Billy practically spat out. “I’m helping our people.”

Stella nodded like she understood.

Without another word Billy turned around and headed back to his pickup truck.

Stella hurried back to the truck and got in. Cole got in the driver’s side and they slammed the doors shut at the same time. Cole pushed the button down to lock the doors.

They watched out the windows as the trucks all turned around in the road and drove away in two different directions, their taillights growing smaller out the windshield and in the rearview mirror.

Stella opened up the envelope. All the money was still there, but another folded piece of paper was right on top of the hundred dollar bills. She pulled the paper out and unfolded it. It was much like the other paper: handwritten directions in neat handwriting and a hand drawn map.

She looked at Cole and then gave him the paper so he could look at it. She opened the glove box and pulled out a map of the Navajo Reservation they had bought at the gas station earlier. She selected a marker from the center console and marked the route to Joe Blackhorn’s property.

Cole watched Stella trace the route as he put the truck in drive, his foot still on the brake pedal. He glanced out the driver’s side window at the rocks and brush all around them. The land was getting very dark behind them, and the sun was dying behind the jagged mountains in front of them in purple and deep blue hues.

A howl from a coyote sounded from somewhere to their left, somewhere deep in the brush. Then another howl answered. And another one answered that one. It was like they were talking to each other.

“Let’s get going,” Cole said and he stomped down on the gas pedal.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Navajo Reservation

Special Agent Palmer raced down the road in the night.

He was angry. He had talked to Agent Klein who was also angry that Captain Begay and his men hadn’t waited for them. And now Begay and his men were at the property that was supposed to be a ruse.

Palmer called Begay’s cell phone again. The last five phone calls had all gone to voicemail and Palmer hadn’t bothered leaving a message. But this time Begay picked up.

“Captain Begay speaking.” He answered the phone officially even though Palmer was sure the captain knew who was calling him.

“Begay,” Palmer snapped. “You were supposed to wait for us.”

“They’re not here,” Begay said, ignoring Palmer’s words.

Palmer sped down the road, the headlights from his black rental car piercing the darkness. According to his GPS he was almost there. He was driving along a road that wound through canyons and led down into a valley below. “What do you mean, they’re not there?”

“They’re not here,” Begay said a little slower like he was talking to someone who couldn’t understand him. “I don’t think they were ever here.”

Palmer wound around a bend in the twisting road and saw the police lights flashing below in the valley. Outside lights illuminated a scattering of structures that looked like trailers and maybe some kind of large barn.

Klein was already there, but Palmer hadn’t called him yet, wanting to talk to Begay first.

“I think either they smelled something rotten here,” Begay said, “or they were tipped off somehow.”

“Tipped off?”

“Maybe by the man who Alice met them with.”

“And who was that?”

“She won’t say,” Begay answered.

“Hold on. I’m here now.”

Palmer parked his car, a cloud of dust rising up all around it. The property was situated in a dale with jagged hills all around it, the largest hill of rock rising up only a few hundred yards behind the three mobile homes grouped together on the property.

Agent Klein marched right up to Palmer as soon as he got out of the car. “I’m reporting Captain Begay,” he said through clenched teeth. “I gave that sonofabitch explicit orders to wait for me.”

Palmer ignored Klein as they walked towards Begay who stood with two other officers. Other Tribal Police officers were milling around the scene, some of them standing next to their police vehicles.

“So what happened?” Palmer asked Begay, keeping his voice neutral.

“Like I told you, I think they were tipped off.”

“And you can’t get to this guy? You can’t make this Alice person tell you?”

“I can question her,” Begay said.

“Maybe you should tell her that she’s going to be charged with obstruction of justice.” Klein said.

Palmer pulled Begay away. “Can we talk a minute?”

Klein looked like he’d been slapped in the face and Palmer held up a finger to him, gesturing at him to wait behind.

“Sorry about that,” Palmer muttered as they walked away. “Is Klein always like this?”

Begay just stared at him, offering no information but his eyes answered the question for Palmer.

“Yeah,” Palmer breathed out. That’s why Klein was stationed out here, and that’s why he’d been here for so long now. “I know you don’t want to lean on this woman …”

“Her name is Alice Newcastle. She’s an archaeologist. She’s been working here for almost thirty years. Very respected in our community by many Navajo.”

Palmer nodded.

“And she’s very wealthy. Her family can afford the best lawyers in the country. And she’s very stubborn and principled.”

“Well, maybe if she realizes that her friend tricked her and Stella and the man she’s with are still on the loose …”

Begay nodded like he’d already thought of that. “I tried that line with her. She is concerned, but it’s still not a good enough reason for her to break her word. I don’t even know where they met Stella at; she won’t say anything. I’ll get my officers to start questioning people, but that could take days, maybe weeks.”

Palmer nodded and sighed heavily again. He had rushed down here and they were back to square one. “What about this guy they’re trying to find … Joe Blackhorn? Where does he live?”

“Not many know.”

Palmer winced. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“The few people who know where Joe Blackhorn lives keep it a secret. Joe Blackhorn doesn’t like to be bothered.”

“But there’s got to be some kind of property records or something.”

“He lives off the grid. People help him. He used to be a professor at Arizona State University years ago. He was kind of famous in those circles, I gather. And then he just stopped his research about fifteen years ago and came back here. No one knows why he changed so suddenly. I heard he cashed in all of the money he made and searched the Rez until he found a place to squat.”

“So he’s just living in a travel trailer or something out in the middle of the desert?”

Begay shook his head no. “More likely he’s living on someone else’s property, someone who’s helping to hide him from everyone else. Probably has his vehicles registered in someone else’s name.”

“God, this is going to be like a needle in a haystack,” Palmer said, wiping a hand through his close-cropped hair.

“Like I said, I’m going to have my people ask around. Maybe someone will talk eventually.” Begay glanced back through the cold darkness to make sure Klein wasn’t coming their way, and then he looked back at Palmer. “I’m more interested in why a woman and a fugitive would risk everything to come back down here to find a shaman.”

Palmer didn’t say anything.

“That doesn’t strike you as odd?”

Of course it did, but Palmer didn’t admit it.

“You still don’t think there are some … some unexplainable things going on here?” Begay asked.

Palmer stared at Begay and then a revelation hit him suddenly. He began to wonder if Begay really knew where Joe Blackhorn lived. He began to wonder if Begay knew someone who knew that information. He began to wonder if Begay really believed in all of this supernatural mumbo-jumbo. He began to wonder if Begay was going to go after Stella and David by himself tomorrow.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Navajo Reservation

The headlights knifed into the cold darkness, barely lighting their way as Cole drove down the rough trail across the hard-packed dirt that was really just two ruts in the frozen ground. At least their stolen pickup truck was suitable for this kind of travel with its large knobby tires, high clearance, and tough suspension. Even though the suspension was tough, it wasn’t comfortable—this definitely wasn’t a Lincoln Continental they were traveling in. Each bump and dip rocked the pickup, the frame of the truck creaking and squealing, the cab shaking, the beams of lights from the headlights bouncing around in the darkness in front of them.

Cole gripped the steering wheel tightly, practically wrestling with it as it bucked in his hands. He drove agonizingly slow down the trail, afraid that one false move might bury a tire or, even worse, snap an axle.

Stella looked out at the darkness all around them. It had gotten dark hours ago. The trip down the lonely roads had taken such a long time, but once they got to this trail it was even worse. It seemed like they were traveling forever into the darkness.

Along the way, Stella had seen the shining eyes of the desert animals staring back at them from the darkness. She’d also heard the lonesome howls out there in the distance. It would only be a matter of time before those animals caught up to their truck and trotted alongside of it, gathering, waiting to attack as one.

“How much longer do you think?” Stella asked Cole. She turned around and glanced back at David to see if he was asleep. But he was wide awake. Who could sleep in this rocking truck anyway?

David gave her a wan smile.

“I don’t know,” Cole said. “Maybe you should check the map again.”

Stella turned back around and stared out the windshield. She had checked the hand drawn map Billy had given her several times now. She was sure Cole was going to suggest that her “friend” Billy had given them a fake map to either play a joke on them or lure them out into the middle of nowhere and get them stuck out here.

She didn’t believe that. She couldn’t explain why she trusted Billy, but she did. It felt like he realized the seriousness of this situation and he wouldn’t do all of what he did just to play a joke on them. If he’d meant them harm, he could’ve done that when they had blocked the road.

“How’s the gas?” Stella asked.

Cole looked down at the gauges in the instrument panel and he scrunched his face slightly like something was bothering him.

“What is it?” she asked, sitting up a little straighter.

“These gauges … their kind of going crazy.”

Just then the headlights went out, plunging them into complete darkness. A split second later the truck hit a deep rut that sent them up into the air and crashing back down to the ground. The force slung all of them forward against their seatbelts and then rocked them back down to their seats.

“Shit!” Cole yelled as the headlights came back on brighter than ever, then dulled back down to their regular brightness.

But the truck had slowed down almost to a crawl. Cole pressed the gas pedal down and the back tires spun in the dirt.

Stella grabbed at the armrest on the passenger door with one hand and the center console with her other hand, bracing herself for a lurch forward if the truck suddenly jerked free from the rut they were stuck in. “What happened?”

“Tire,” Cole said as he fought to control the steering wheel jumping in his hands.

Stella looked into the back seat at David who stared back at her with wide eyes. “It’s okay,” she told him.

But it wasn’t okay. How many times had she said that to David? How many times had she told him that everything was okay? How many times had she lied to him now?

Cole stopped the truck, but he kept the motor running.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him again, feeling the panic building up inside of her. “What’s wrong with the tire?” She watched him as he stared at the instrument panel on the dashboard.

“I think one of the front tires came off the rim,” he said as he studied the instrument panel. It reminded Stella of when he had jumped into the driver’s seat of her Suburban when he and his bank robbery buddies had carjacked her truck on the snowy road in Colorado.

“The rim’s probably bent,” Cole said in a monotone voice, his hands still gripping the steering wheel.

“So we’re stuck?” Stella asked even though the answer seemed rather apparent.

“Yeah,” Cole answered, his voice practically a whisper.

“Can’t we drive on a flat tire?” she asked. She felt the panic really beginning to mount now. “We’ve got to be close to Blackhorn’s property now. Maybe only a few miles away. Can’t we push the truck a little farther … as much as we can?”

Cole still hadn’t looked at Stella. His eyes were on the headlight beams shooting out into the darkness in front of them. “Normally we could try to drive as far as possible, but these ruts are too deep. This road is too bad.”

We could try, Stella almost said, but she could tell Cole had more to say.

“The tire and rim are the least of our problems right now,” Cole told her and finally looked at her. Then he looked back at the gauges on the dashboard. “The truck’s starting to run hot. The engine’s going to overheat soon.”

“Well, let’s drive as far as we can before it seizes up. Let’s get as far as we can.”

Cole still hadn’t put the truck back into drive. The motor was rumbling, but it was also sputtering like the engine was misfiring.

Stella looked out the windshield at the headlight beams and saw that they were flickering badly now, about to go out.

“Alternator light’s on, too,” Cole said, his voice still monotone like a doctor delivering a terrible diagnosis. “It’s like all the systems are shutting down at the same time.”

Stella didn’t have to ask how or why that was happening. She knew the Ancient Enemy was doing it somehow, just like it had drained all the batteries of the vehicles and killed their phones, radios, and the generators at the dig site. The Ancient Enemy seemed to have some kind of power over electricity … maybe that’s how it operated dead people’s brains and nervous systems, through electrical power. It had drained the battery of her Suburban at the dig site, but then somehow David had brought it back to life enough for them to escape, even though he probably wasn’t aware of how he’d done it. When they got to the cabin, the Ancient Enemy probably destroyed the electrical systems of her Suburban and Tom Gordon’s pickup. But then it had also beaten the engines of both vehicles to pieces with an ax so David couldn’t fix them.

That thing out there could’ve disabled their truck at any time before, but it chose this moment now to strand them out here. It seemed to have been hesitant for some time now, like it had been waiting for the right time to attack … and that time was now.

A flash of movement streaked across the dimming splash of light from their headlights—a coyote darted in front of their truck, disappearing back into the darkness.

Stella stifled a scream, her body tensing up, frozen for a moment.

“I saw it,” Cole said in a low voice.

Their pickup truck’s engine was really sputtering now … dying. The headlight beams were fading even more.

“I’m scared,” David said in a low voice from the back seat.

“We’re going to be okay,” Stella said, telling David that well-worn lie again. She needed to start telling David the truth and it needed to start right now.

She turned around in her seat and stared at David. “No, I’m sorry, David. We’re not okay. That thing out there has stopped our truck. And now it’s coming for us. And you’re the only one who can fight it. You’re the only one who can stop it.”

David didn’t look so sure about that.

“You have to find the power inside of you. You’ve done it before … you can do it again.”

David just nodded, but he seemed close to tears.

Stella hated yelling at David, but the situation was critical now. The Ancient Enemy had attacked them at the Mountainside Inn, but that was over twenty-four hours ago. It had laid low for a while, waiting for the right time to strike. It had been hesitant, Stella was sure of that, but now it was ready and it had finally struck, disabling their vehicle. And now there wasn’t a group of dead people coming towards their vehicle in the darkness … but there were plenty of animals out there.

Stella turned back around in the passenger seat, looking out the windshield again. “What are we going to do now?” she asked Cole.

He sighed. “We could wait until the morning and then walk.”

“Those animals out there are going to attack soon.”

“They can’t get in here,” Cole said. “And at least in the daytime we can see them to shoot at them. If we try to walk at night then they’ll be on us before we ever see them coming.”

As if answering Cole, a howl from a coyote pierced the night.

And then another howl.

And another.

We’ll freeze to death if we wait in here too long, Stella thought but she didn’t say it out loud.

The pickup truck was still in park, still rumbling and chugging. The heater was already blowing cold air. The radio was reduced to static. Their cell phone had lost any signal hours ago. The dials of the speedometer, alternator gauge, and gas gauge were spinning wildly back and forth.

Stella looked back out the windshield and her breath stopped for a moment, her body frozen with fear, her skin crawling with dread.

“I see it,” Cole whispered, his words barely heard over the sputtering motor.

In the flickering light of the headlights a horde of snakes, spiders, and scorpions traveled across the two ruts in a wide line like a group of pedestrians crossing a busy city intersection.

“Those spiders and scorpions,” Stella said, fighting for her breath. “They’ll be able to get inside the truck, won’t they?”

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Navajo Reservation

“Those spiders and scorpions will be able to get in here!” Stella said again, her voice squealing in panic.

Cole only nodded, swallowing hard, too shocked to speak for a moment.

Stella had seen Cole afraid many times already in the past few days. She’d seen his shock as the reanimated dead attacked them at the cabin, but this seemed to be a new level of trauma for him, a new depth of fear, some subconscious phobia finally tapped.

Stella looked back out through the windshield at the impossible sight. There were hundreds of those creepy-crawly creatures traveling across the ruts in the dirt right in front of their truck in an orderly fashion. And there were probably thousands and thousands more out there in the darkness, all of them summoned from the square miles of desert all around them by the Ancient Enemy. She had worked out here in these deserts for years now; she knew how many snakes and spiders there were.

“They’re going to get inside the truck,” Stella said again, her voice lower this time. “They’re going to get in here and … and attack one of us … and the other one is going to have to watch that person die.” She could imagine her or Cole covered with tarantulas and scorpions until that person panicked enough to bolt outside where the coils of snakes would be waiting, their rattles shaking in unison like the buzzing of cicadas.

No, this was too much.

“David,” Stella said, turning around to look at him.

He was crying. He looked miserable. “I don’t know what to do.”

“You have to fight it,” she told him. She was holding on to the back of her seat and staring at the child who watched her with a hopelessness in his dark eyes. She felt the tears slipping out of her own eyes. “You have to try.”

Just then the cab of their pickup truck was lit up with a bright light.

“Headlights!” Cole said, pointing out the windshield.

Stella turned back around and plopped back down in the passenger seat.

A vehicle was speeding towards them down the rutted trail, its headlights washing their vehicle in light.

The lines of snakes, spiders, and scorpions scattered, trying to crawl out of the way of the oncoming truck and rush back into the darkness, but the truck ran many of them over.

The truck slowed down and pulled right up to the front of their truck so that the two trucks were pointed grill to grill with only a few feet in between them. The headlights dimmed down from the high beams to low beams. The truck looked a lot like the pickup truck they were in, only older and more beat up. The interior light flicked on and an old Navajo sat in the driver’s seat. He rolled down the window a little and stuck his arm out into the night, gesturing wildly at them to get into his truck.

“That must be Blackhorn,” Cole said, already reaching for the door handle of the driver’s door. “We gotta go!”

“We should all go together,” Stella said. “All of us from the same side.”

“Wait,” David said from the back seat.

Stella was stunned to hear David speak, and she was also surprised at the sound of his voice, it seemed a little stronger than it had ever been before.

They both turned around to look at David. The other truck’s headlights bathed David in light.

“What is it, David?” Stella asked.

“Let me go first,” he said.

Stella was already shaking her head no, ready to dismiss that idea.

“I think he’s right,” Cole said.

“I don’t want him going out there first,” Stella said.

Cole glanced out the windshield at the truck that was so close to them. “Look,” he said, pointing at the truck.

Stella saw that there were already several tarantulas and scorpions clinging to the grill of the truck, crawling up the metal quickly like ants on a mission. One particularly large tarantula clung to one of the headlights, blocking out the light a little.

Stella looked out her passenger window down at the ground which was lit up from the truck’s headlights revealing a living carpet of snakes, spiders, scorpions, desert rats, and a vast assortment of insects.

“Blackhorn’s not going to wait there forever!” Cole said. “If we don’t do something soon his truck is going to be covered in those spiders and scorpions. He’ll have to leave.”

David jumped over the back of the front seat, crawling into the front.

“Out the driver’s side,” Cole told David as he scooted over to the middle and let David crawl into the driver’s seat on the other side of him. “That’s the shortest way to the passenger side of Blackhorn’s truck.”

Stella didn’t object this time; she knew David and Cole were right even though she didn’t like the thought of David going out there first.

“You can do this,” Cole told David as he opened up the driver’s door. Their truck had already stalled and the headlights were out. The keys hung uselessly in the ignition.

David didn’t answer Cole. He didn’t turn around to look at either one of them. He took a deep breath and stuck his foot out into the space, lowering it down towards the dirt.

The critters scurried away from his foot, crawling back into the darkness like David’s foot was a magnet repelling them.

“They’re backing away,” Cole said. He glanced back at Stella with an insane smile of disbelief on his face. “He’s making them back away!”

David stepped down onto the dirt beside the truck. The spiders and snakes crawled back into the darkness, keeping ten to twelve feet away like there was an invisible barrier that they were unwilling to cross.

“Come on,” David said to Cole and Stella without looking at them.

Cole got out of the truck right behind David, and Stella got out behind him. She stood there huddled together with Cole and David.

“We all walk slowly towards the truck,” Cole said. “We stay together.”

They walked slowly and Stella watched the hordes of animals back away even farther into the darkness.

The spiders and scorpions were already falling off of Joe Blackhorn’s truck and dropping to the dirt and then scurrying away.

They were going to make it, Stella thought as they inched closer to the waiting pickup truck.

A coyote howled from the darkness. Then another one. These howls seemed angry. Snakes hissed all around them and their rattles buzzed in the cold night air.

“Almost there,” Cole said.

Stella kept her hands on Cole’s back just like she’d done when they’d been on the snowmobile. And David was in between them just like on the snowmobile, but he was still enough protection to keep the animals driven back.

They got to the passenger door. Cole opened it. “You first, Stella,” he said.

She clamored inside the truck into the back seat; Blackhorn’s pickup had a king cab and a back seat like the pickup they’d just been in, only this one didn’t have all the clutter that the other one did.

“You next, kiddo,” Cole told David.

David climbed up into the truck.

Cole looked back at the sea of animals all around him and as soon as David was inside the truck the snakes, spiders, and scorpions shot out of the darkness for him. Coyotes bolted out of the blackness, snarling, eyes practically glowing with fury.

“Cole!” Stella yelled. “Get inside!”

Cole just got inside and slammed the door shut before three coyotes thumped into the passenger door. Joe Blackhorn shifted into reverse and stomped his foot down on the gas pedal without even looking behind them.

The back tires spun for a moment in the rutted dirt, but they grabbed quickly. The truck bumped and creaked as it picked up speed, backing up over animals. They could hear the thumps and crunches as it ran over snakes, insects, spiders, and other small animals that hadn’t gotten out of the way in time.

Joe Blackhorn spun the steering wheel around in his wrinkled hands like an expert racecar driver. They all held on while the truck spun around to head back the way it had come from.

Stella looked out the rear window of the truck. She expected to see the bed of the truck awash with spiders and scorpions, but there wasn’t a single creature there. All of the desert animals stood in a line in the darkness, all of them watching them drive away.

She turned back around and looked at the front of the truck. David sat in between Cole and the old Navajo man who wore a flannel shirt and a red bandana over his long gray hair that he had tied back in a long braid. His skin was wrinkled and dark, but he looked trim and healthy for an old man.

He turned and looked down at David for a moment before looking back out the windshield. “It’s really you,” he said in a low voice. “It’s like looking at a ghost.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Joe Blackhorn’s property

“What do you mean by that?” Stella asked. “What do you mean, it’s like looking at a ghost?”

The old Navajo turned around in the driver’s seat and looked at Stella who was leaning forward from the back seat. He gave her a humorless smile. “All in good time. I’m Joe Blackhorn.”

I figured that, she almost said, but stopped herself. This man had just saved their lives. Perhaps she, Cole, and David could’ve walked all the way to Joe Blackhorn’s house in a tight group with all of the snakes, spiders, and other animals following them, but it would’ve only been a matter of time before the animals got to one of them.

“Stella Weaver,” she finally said and offered him a hand.

“Forgive me if I don’t shake,” he told her. “This road … I need to keep both my hands on the wheel.”

“Please do,” Cole said. He nodded at Joe Blackhorn and smiled. “I’m Cole. And this is David.”

“David,” Joe Blackhorn said. “Even the name’s the same.”

“What do you mean by that?” Stella demanded.

“I will tell you everything soon,” he said as he drove. He didn’t seem particularly worried about the horde of animals they’d left behind nor traumatized by what he’d just witnessed … almost like he’d been expecting something like it.

“Did Billy Nez tell you about us, Mr. Blackhorn?” Stella asked, trying a different line of questioning.

“Yes,” he answered. “And please, just call me Joe.”

“Joe,” she said.

“Billy told me that you were looking for help. He told me a little about what had happened at a dig site and to …” he hesitated a moment like he wasn’t sure if he should go on. “And what happened to the boy’s parents,” he said in a lower voice.

“You’re going to help us?” Cole asked.

Joe drove for a moment, his truck bouncing around on the rutted road. He drove a lot faster than Cole had dared to drive on this rough road, but he seemed to know where all of the worst bumps and dips were and he navigated around them almost with a sixth sense. “Let’s get you back to the house,” was all he said.

• • •

Twenty minutes later they drove down a steep decline and there below, tucked neatly in a narrow valley, was Joe Blackhorn’s home. The headlights from the truck splashed across several structures and the foothills of the ragged mountains rose up sharply right behind the property like a wall of rock in the darkness. Stands of cottonwoods and junipers flanked the structures on both sides, boxing them in.

Even if the headlights hadn’t spotlighted the buildings, the full moon and the cold cloudless night sky of stars would’ve been enough light to at least make out what was down there: four main structures, and only one had lights on inside—a singlewide mobile home that looked like it was new back in 1975. A large shed sat a few yards from the end of the trailer. Another building, what looked like it could’ve been a horse or cow stable, was set far off from the trailer and it had a large corral beside it that was fenced in with a myriad of building materials including wooden posts, wire mesh, pieces of chain-link fencing. In between the horse barn and corral was an old hogan closer to the foothills, shrouded by trees and shrubs.

Stella recognized the hogan, a traditional building of the Navajo, but this building looked (and felt) abandoned to her, like Joe Blackhorn had left that structure alone for quite some time now.

There was some debris stacked up beside the shed and near the back of the trailer: wood planks, wire mesh, pieces of metal, a few old truck rims, fencing supplies.

A squat wooden structure with a mishmash of plastic and glass panels in it that made it look like some kind of greenhouse stood between the end of the trailer and the horse stables. A metal and wood windmill tower stood behind the trailer about fifteen feet away and the metal blades turned slowly and creaked in the cold air.

There were three old vehicles parked near the nose of the trailer. One of the vehicles, a pickup truck from the 1950’s, was just a rusted hulk sitting on rotting tires. There was another pickup truck that looked very similar to the one they were in. It looked like it could still be drivable, but maybe it was reserved for parts. Parked near the truck was a 1980 AMC Concord, the paint far past faded now. It had been a while since Stella had seen one of those cars.

“Here we are,” Joe said as he parked right beside the other pickup truck and shut off the engine and the headlights.

“Is it … safe?” Cole asked.

Joe looked at his property out through the windshield and then he looked out through the driver’s window. He looked back at Cole, and then down at David in between them like he was waiting for David’s judgement on this matter.

David just nodded.

“I think it’s going to stay away for a while,” Joe said. “But it won’t stay away for long.”

“So you know what that thing is … the Ancient Enemy?” Cole asked.

“Is that what you call it?” Joe wondered.

“I’ve heard it called the Darkwind,” Stella said from the back seat.

“It’s had many names through the years,” Joe said as he opened his driver’s door and got out.

Cole, David, and Stella got out through the passenger door, all of them looking around, trying to spot any movement in the dark, all of them traumatized by what they had just been through.

A barking startled them and a dark German Shepard mix ran up to them, yapping at them and wagging its tail.

“He’s harmless,” Joe said and then he spoke harshly to the dog in Navajo. The dog came over hesitantly towards Cole, Stella, and David, sniffing at the air, then the dog shadowed Joe as he walked to the steps that led up to the aluminum door that was the front door of his trailer.

Not a particularly sturdy-looking door, Stella thought.

Joe opened the door and the dog rushed inside. He held the door open for Stella. She went in first, followed by David and then Cole.

Stella wasn’t ready for what she saw inside Joe’s trailer. She had expected the messiness of an old man’s bachelor pad, or maybe the traditional décor of many of the Navajo that she’d known over the years. And there was a mixture of those two things; plenty of clutter and mess, and plenty of Navajo woven baskets, pottery, and blankets. But the bookcases that filled the corners and wall space in the living room surprised her. The shelves were crammed with science books. There were also pieces of science equipment on the shelves in front of the books. The home was neat and orderly, but a cluttered mix of Navajo culture and modern science.

The black German Shepard rushed right up to David, pawing at him to be petted, his tail wagging.

Joe spoke sharply to the dog in Navajo, and the German Shepard sat back down, but he stared up at David with big brown eyes, panting. “I told him to quit pawing at you,” Joe told David.

“He listens to you?” David asked, smiling.

“Yes,” Joe said, smiling back at David. “I’ve taught him all kinds of tricks.”

“Can I pet him?” David asked.

Joe seemed to think this over for a moment, but then he smiled. “Only if you want a friend for life.”

“I do,” David said and giggled. He dropped down to his knees and petted the dog.

“He really likes you,” Stella said to David.

“What’s his name?” David asked Joe.

“I call him Łizhini.”

“How do you have electricity way out here?” Cole asked Joe. “I didn’t hear a generator running?”

“I have a windmill generator in back,” Joe answered. “I also have some solar panels on the roof I bought a few years back. And there’s a gas-powered generator in the shed in case of an emergency, but the solar panels do a good job of storing up the electricity throughout the day. I also have a well for water with an electric and hand-cranked pump. I have a greenhouse out there and a garden for food. Two horses and a few goats are in the barn way out there and there are a few chickens that run around here. Totally off the grid, as they say. I still go into town about every month or so for basic supplies like gasoline, flour, sugar, any building supplies I might need.”

David stood back up but the dog pawed at him again.

Joe looked at David. “You thirsty?”

Stella thought about all of the drinks and food they’d had to leave behind in their stolen pickup truck. At least they still had their guns and the cell phone on them, not that the cell phone was any use way out here in the middle of nowhere.

“Yes, sir,” David answered.

“I’ve got some tea made. I can put some sugar in it for you. Would you like that?”

David nodded. He followed Joe into the kitchen and watched him prepare the tea. The dog followed David and sat down near him, his tail thumping on the linoleum floor.

Cole looked at the flimsy front door like he was expecting something to burst through at any moment.

Stella knew how he felt. Joe Blackhorn seemed awful relaxed after the display of power by the Ancient Enemy that they’d just seen out there. She slipped off her coat and laid it down on the arm of the sofa, folded over gently. Cole took off his gloves and stuffed them into the pockets of his coat and then hung his coat up on a coatrack that looked like it had been constructed from deer antlers.

Stella walked from the couch over to one of the bookshelves near the TV and perused the titles. There were books on physics, astronomy, biology, business, and many books on ancient civilizations and Native American tribes. Stella had read many of the books on Native Americans and ancient cultures. There was also a fair mix of fiction among the books, many of them dog-eared paperbacks: mysteries, thrillers, science fiction, and even some horror.

She picked up an old sexton from one of the shelves, studying it for a moment.

“I’ve collected some old science equipment years ago,” Joe said as he walked back into the living room. David was drinking a glass of tea as he walked over to the couch. He set the glass down carefully on the coffee table that was cluttered with books.

“You want to watch TV?” Joe asked David.

“Yes, please,” he answered.

Joe pulled a blanket down off the back of the couch and fluffed up some pillows for David. “Lay down here,” he said as he turned the TV on. “It’s satellite TV, not the most reliable, but let’s see what we can find on there.” Joe flipped through the channels until he came to an animal show, something about animals on the African plains.

“You two can help yourself to some coffee or tea,” Joe told Stella and Cole as he set the remote control down on the edge of the coffee table. “It’s there in the kitchen if you want it.”

“Thank you,” Stella said. She followed Cole into the kitchen which was at the front of the trailer. She fixed herself a cup of coffee. The coffee smelled strong, and she thought that both of them might need it.

After David was settled in the couch, tucked down into the blanket and stretched out, his shoes on the floor beside him and the dog on the floor right beside him, Joe came into the kitchen. He took a bowl of what looked like loose herbs and lit the concoction with a lighter. A pungent but not unpleasant smell came from the bowl. He took the smoking bowl and a large eagle feather to the front door and waved both of them slowly over the door as he chanted under his breath. The chanting sounded like a mixture of talking and singing.

“You think that’s going to work?” Cole asked.

Joe walked back into the kitchen and set the burning bowl of herbs back on the counter near the coffee pot. He slid the eagle feather back into a hook over the sink. “It can’t hurt,” he said as he turned around to look at Cole. “I’ve been performing The Enemy Way ceremony for the last few days.”

“What’s that?” Cole asked.

“It’s a ceremony to ward off evil spirits, ghosts, and demons,” Stella told Cole. “It’s the opposite of the healing ceremony called The Blessing Way.”

Joe just nodded and stared at her. “I could feel something out of balance for at least a week now. A disharmony in nature … an evil that was approaching.”

“Is that how you knew we were out there?” Cole asked.

“Billy Nez sent a friend of ours to come see me not too long ago. He told me what happened to …” Joe glanced into the living room at David, and then he looked back at them and continued in a low voice. “He told me what happened to David’s parents and what happened at the dig site. He asked if I could help. I told him I would do what I could. So I knew you were coming tonight. When you didn’t get here …” He let his words trail off.

Stella crept back into the living room and looked at David. The German Shepard looked up at her from the floor, watching her.

David looked like he was already asleep, breathing deeply. He was so exhausted, so traumatized by what had happened so far. He might be the key to their survival, to many people’s survival, but he was still just a kid who got tired, a kid who couldn’t stay up for two days straight like she and Cole could. He needed some more sleep. He needed to rebuild his strength … and rebuild his power, wherever that came from.

Stella walked back towards the kitchen and stopped and looked at another piece of science equipment.

“I used to be a scientist,” Joe said as if Stella had asked a question. “A theoretical physicist.”

“I remember someone telling me that,” Stella said, joining them in the kitchen.

Joe gestured at the small table and chairs in the kitchen. “Please … sit.”

Cole sat down near the wall with his hands wrapped around his steaming cup of coffee. Joe sat at the head of the table facing towards the living room, and Stella sat down on the other side of the table.

“I’m sure you’ve heard stories and rumors about me,” Joe said to Stella.

“Yes. I heard you were a scientist, but then you gave it all up to come back here to become a medicine man.”

Joe nodded. “I came back here for a certain reason.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Joe Blackhorn’s home

“When I was young,” Joe Blackhorn said, “the Diné culture was drilled into me. I resisted it; I knew there was a huge world outside the Rez and I wanted to explore it. So many of my family, especially the elders, looked at me like I was a traitor to my people for wanting to leave, like I was some selfish bastard who was willing to turn my back on my people and their ways. They promised me that I would only get hurt if I went out there into the white man’s world and became indoctrinated into the white man’s ways.”

Joe took a sip of his tea, thinking for a moment.

Stella glanced at Cole. She could see he was impatient to find out what they were going to do about the Ancient Enemy roaming around out there in the darkness somewhere, but she didn’t rush Joe Blackhorn.

“I had tired of what I called the mumbo-jumbo of my culture,” Joe continued, “of the fear and suspicion they lived with and the depression and apathy I sometimes saw. But I was young then. I was seeing everything through a young man’s eyes … a selfish young man’s eyes. I got a scholarship from the government to go to college, some kind of program to help Native Americans or something, and I enrolled at Arizona State.”

“I went to Arizona State,” Stella said.

Joe just nodded, but he didn’t look very impressed with the coincidence. “I think I was there a few decades before you were. And it was a different time then. People weren’t as tolerant to other cultures as they are now. But I toughed it out. I learned and I got a degree in quantum physics and a minor degree in molecular biology. Of course I explored other sciences while at college and afterwards, but I wanted to learn how things worked. There was so much I wanted to learn, and I sought it all out.”

He paused for a moment, taking another sip of his strong tea, and then he continued. “After college I worked for a research company in Phoenix. But I learned rather quickly that sometimes science can be a whore sold to the highest bidder. I began to realize that as a scientist I didn’t work on whatever project I wanted to … many times research projects were funded by either the government or large corporations. And believe me, they expect certain results when they’re shelling out the money; they expect data to be skewed their way. You learn to play along with their rules or you get thrown out of their private club. You don’t buck the system or you get ridiculed. You don’t ask questions, you just accept their beliefs like dogma. I began to realize that the pursuit of knowledge of new truths wasn’t cultivated like I thought it would be. I had this fantasy of scientists discovering things like the great scientists of the past had done: Newton, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Plank, Einstein—scientists who discovered things for the good of all humans, scientists who sought out the truth.”

They were all quiet for a moment. Stella looked at Cole who gave her a grin. “I’m afraid this is a little over my head.”

“I’m sorry,” Joe said. “I’m going off on one of my little tangents about the scientific community.”

“No,” Stella said. “I understand completely. I’ve run into roadblocks along the way in my career. I’ve tried to challenge preexisting notions about archaeology and I’ve been met with the same skepticism and sometimes outright contempt for even daring to challenge the status quo. I’ve been laughed at and even threatened. I’ve always believed there were different reasons for the disappearance of ancient peoples than scientists were proposing; the disappearances of the Olmec, the Inca, the Maya … and the Anasazi.”

“And now you believe you’ve found an answer to your theories?” Joe asked.

“Unfortunately,” Stella answered. “And this is a truth I don’t want to share with the world.”

“I’ve learned over the years that some secrets are kept from people for their own good,” Joe said. “I’ve learned that if many people knew some of these truths, then those truths would shatter their conception of what the world around them is really like.”

Joe sighed and shrugged like none of it mattered anymore. He took another sip of his strong tea. “The more I learned about physics,” Joe continued while still looking down at his cup of tea, “the more I realized that there are so many things we don’t know about even if the scientific community pretends that it does. What is matter built of? Why do the smallest particles blink in and out of existence constantly?”

“Is that true?” Cole asked.

Joe nodded.

Cole looked at Stella for her opinion and she nodded at him, agreeing with Joe.

“Atoms make up all matter,” Joe said.

Cole nodded, indicating that he knew at least that much.

“Well, atoms are made up of even smaller particles: protons, neutrons, electrons, quarks, neutrinos, photons, etcetera. But when we study some of these smallest particles, they are here one moment, then gone, then back again. This world around us that seems so solid is made up of all of these tiny particles that are here and then not here and then here again.”

Cole looked a little queasy at the prospect of that.

“This gives the theories of different dimensions plausibility,” Stella said.

“Exactly,” Joe said, coming to life a little, getting a little more excited. He seemed to like having someone to talk about science with. Even though he claimed to loathe the politics of it, he seemed passionate about pure science and discovery. “The idea of different dimensions used to be science fiction, but now it’s almost universally seen as science fact.”

“Different dimensions?” Cole asked. “Like where that thing out there comes from?”

Joe remained silent.

“Where did this thing come from?” Stella asked Joe.

“I don’t know,” Joe finally answered. “I can admit when I don’t know something, unlike many scientists. I believe the Darkwind could be from a different dimension or even an alien. I have my theories about it.”

“What are your theories?” Stella pressed.

Joe didn’t answer right away. He leaned his head back a little and sighed, looking up at the ceiling for a moment like he was lost in thought. “After I saw the corruption of science, the weaponization of it sometimes, I yearned to come back home. I yearned for the stories of my people, of my land, the place where I felt at home. Now, some of those stories told by elders that I had scoffed at before didn’t sound so ridiculous to me after learning about the disappearing particles, the Big Bang, the expanding universe, and all of the other things I was forced to accept as scientific truth. I came back and became a yataalii, a medicine man. I learned from an uncle and studied as hard as I ever had in college. I learned that this world we live in isn’t the only world there is. There are other worlds all around us, intertwined with us … scientists call these different dimensions. Many scientists believe there are at least eleven different dimensions, and some believe in an infinite amount. Most of the time these worlds are separate from ours, and the barriers between the worlds are strong. But sometimes, under the right conditions, doorways in these barriers can be opened. And there are people, those who are born with certain powers, who can open these doorways whether they realize it or not.”

“People like David.”

“Yes,” Joe said. “Like David.”

“But David doesn’t realize this yet,” Stella said. “He doesn’t fully understand the power he has.”

“David could be causing this, too,” Cole said. “Isn’t that right?”

Stella glared at Cole—she didn’t like that line of thought from him that he seemed to be stuck on.

“In a way,” Joe answered. “Maybe he’s helping to open a doorway for the Darkwind.”

“But not controlling it,” Cole said.

“Not really. But in a way they might be controlling each other, feeding off each other’s energy, driving the other for a while.”

Joe took another sip of his tea and sighed. “I believe that in these other worlds, these other dimensions, there are monsters there—true shapeshifters, true demons, the things we see in the shadowy corners of our nightmares. I even believe that some of us catch a glimpse of these monsters in our nightmares when the barriers between our world and their worlds are the thinnest and the weakest.”

Joe looked at Cole, then at Stella. “You ever have a nightmare that you woke up from that scared you so badly but you didn’t know why? Your heart is pounding in your chest, your skin covered with sweat. You’re tense, ready to run. You try to remember the dream but all you get are fragments of it. Maybe you hear the voice of the monsters in your mind, a scrambled and garbled message like a thousand words mixed together, like a thousand whispers. But for a moment in your dream, you understood those voices, you understood those ancient words, and you understood how everything in the universe worked, how it all fits together.”

Stella felt her skin crawl at the thought of it.

“But then the rational mind takes over,” Joe said and smiled a humorless grin. He took a sip of his tea.

The wind howled outside the trailer, a strong gust rocking it just a bit.

That’s not the wind, Stella’s mind whispered. It’s that thing out there screaming at us in frustration, calling us, threatening us.

“The rational mind protects you,” Joe said. “It’s designed to protect you, to shut down the memories of your glimpse into their world. There are weak spots between our world and so many other worlds … their world. The Hopi used to call them sky holes, dimensional portals. And beyond those portals was a dark world they called ‘the ocean of pitch.’ I call them weak spots, and I think these ancient things can get through sometimes when those doors are opened.”

“And someone like David can open the door,” Cole said.

“David has already opened the door.”

“Can he close it again?” Stella asked.

“I hope so,” Joe muttered. “Only he knows how to close it even though he may not realize it yet.”

The wind shrieked outside again, a blast of it rocking the trailer. They were all quiet, all of them looking into the living room at the front door.

David was still asleep, but the dog had raised his head up, a whimper caught in his throat.

“Tell me what has happened to you so far,” Joe said to Stella.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Joe Blackhorn’s trailer

Stella made another cup of coffee and sat back down at the table.

She began telling Joe everything that had happened. She told him about Jake Phillips calling her down to the dig site with the great discovery he’d made. She told him that after a few days David wandered into camp near the mouth of the cave. Stella had been the one who had found him, and she’d seen the bloodstains on his hands and face.

She told Joe that Jim Whitefeather seemed to be scared of David, but he agreed to go and get the police. He left. But then his dead body was outside, slumped up against a tree … his eyes gone. Then he disappeared, and then he came back—only he wasn’t himself anymore. He asked for things … and all of it was leading up to sacrificing David.

She told Joe about how she escaped from that place after Jake sliced his own throat. She told Joe about her reckless journey north up into the snowy mountains of Colorado. She told him about what happened in the gas station, and then being carjacked by Cole and his crew.

Joe looked at Cole in a new light now, but Stella continued on. Joe had just preached about how much he valued the truth in science and she wasn’t going to lie to him now about Cole. She told him how Cole had only been there with the bank robbers to try to save his brother from Frank, to get him paid back so he could get Trevor out of Frank’s crew.

She told him about what had happened at the cabin, how Frank was taken in the middle of the night. And then the others were taken one by one. She told him about their escape on the snowmobile and what had happened at the hotel. She told him about their journey back down here to the Navajo Reservation to find him, to find someone who could help David, someone who could teach David to fight back against this thing.

Joe had remained silent during Stella’s recounting of what had happened. He finally nodded. “The bodies at the dig site have been discovered,” he said. “And David’s parents.”

Stella felt like crying. She’d heard the same thing from Alice. She had dared to believe that maybe a few of the archaeologists at the dig site had made it, but deep down she knew it wasn’t true.

“They were all slaughtered,” Joe said. “Details aren’t being released, but people talk. The police and FBI are baffled by what has happened.”

Stella nodded.

“So what do you think that thing is?” Cole asked. “I know you said it comes from another dimension.”

“I don’t know,” Joe said. “There’s a story in our culture of the Star People who came down from the skies and born the first man and first woman. It’s not too different from the Adam and Eve story in the Bible. In fact, there are more similarities between religions around the world than people care to admit, similarities in their origin stories, similar tales of great floods, of prophets coming to preach to them, so many similarities even though so much land, sometimes even continents, divided all of these cultures for a millennia.”

“So you think this thing might be an alien from outer space?” Cole asked, trying to get Joe back on track.

Joe shrugged. “Alien, yes. From outer space? I don’t know. Maybe it’s an alien from its own world, its own dimension. Maybe it lives on an alternate Earth where its kind is as normal as our animal and plant life are to us. But their world is so fundamentally and physically different from our world that it would drive us insane if we stared at it too long.”

“So it’s an alien in the truest sense of the word,” Stella said. “A lifeform that’s strange to us, completely foreign.”

“Yes.”

“You said that this has happened many times before,” Stella said. “You mean like with the Anasazi? Like how they disappeared?”

“Yes. But even more recent than that. I believe the Darkwind slips through every so many years … every one hundred and twenty years to be exact.”

“So it sleeps for a while and then it wakes up,” Cole said.

“I don’t think it’s quite that simple.”

“Then what?”

“I think it has something to do with people like David.”

“Why do you think the time span is a hundred and twenty years?” Stella asked. “That seems like a pretty specific number.”

Cole didn’t give Joe a chance to answer. “When we were driving here you said that looking at David was like looking at a ghost.”

Stella’s eyes widened with the memory. “That’s right. You said even his name is the same. What did you mean by that?”

Joe nodded. “I need to show you something that you may not believe.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Joe Blackhorn’s trailer

Joe Blackhorn said he wanted to show them something they wouldn’t believe, but Stella was sure that after the things she’d seen, after what she’d been through, she might believe just about anything now.

Joe got up from the table. “I had to search through the spare bedroom for it.” He stopped and smiled at them. “The spare bedroom is my storage room now, so I’m sorry that all I can offer you is the living room to sleep.”

“That’s fine with us,” Cole said.

Stella and Cole’s eyes met; she could read his thoughts—if we can sleep at all.

“It would probably be a good idea if we all slept in the same room anyway,” Cole suggested as he looked back at Joe.

Joe nodded like that was a good idea, one he’d already thought of. “I knew you were coming,” Joe said. “And I wanted to find this folder to show you. It has some information in it that I’ve collected over the years.” He shook his head in frustration and smiled at them. “It would be easier to show you.” He held up a finger, indicating that he’d be right back.

Stella turned around in her kitchen chair and watched Joe as he walked into the living room. Her eyes shifted to David for a moment, making sure he was still asleep. The dog lifted his head a little as Joe walked through the living room, but he made no move from the couch to follow his master.

Joe picked up the remote control to the TV and turned the volume all the way down, but he left the TV on. Then he went down the hallway to the back of the trailer.

Stella looked back at Cole. He sipped his coffee. He looked exhausted; the days of sleeplessness and shock were adding up to much more than either one of them could take. The idea of all of those spiders, snakes, scorpions, rats, and insects that had surrounded their truck ran through her mind again. She could imagine all of those creepy-crawly creatures making the journey down the bumpy trail to this little valley and standing on the ridge like an army. A shiver ran through her.

Her mind felt like it was going to snap. She didn’t feel like herself anymore, and she hadn’t felt real for a while now. Talking a little bit about science tonight had eased her mind a bit, but not nearly enough. Part of her just wanted all of this to be over with and part of her even welcomed the dark, comforting embrace of death, of the nothingness to wrap around her and take her away.

But she knew that the Ancient Enemy would never let death envelope her. The Ancient Enemy would keep her alive … it would let her suffer as it used her body as a puppet.

She glanced at Cole again. He’d been such a surprise to her. He’d saved them at the hotel in Colorado even though she and David had run out on him. She couldn’t help feeling attracted to him in some odd way like she’d never been attracted to a man before. In the short time they had known each other, they’d been through more trials and tribulations, more loss and fear than most couples go through in a lifetime. She knew he felt something for her, too.

Why had Cole stayed with them and helped them? Maybe he was trying to prove his goodness to her, maybe this was his way of atoning for his past sins, maybe it was all about revenge for his brother’s death. Maybe revenge fueled a man like Cole more than fear or even love could.

Stella knew she loved Cole in a way … a deep love of two people who had walked through hell together. It was hard to explain. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever really loved a man before, but she knew she loved Cole in a strange way. She’d had her flings in high school and in college, but she’d never let herself get too close to anyone because her career had been her driving motivation in her life. She figured once she got out into the field, once she made some great discoveries and published papers and wrote some books, then she would have time for a husband, for a family … time for love.

But the years had slipped by quickly with no real relationships … and no real discoveries out in the field, either. She’d had an off and on again relationship with Jake Phillips, mostly off. And when he’d called her about his great discovery in the cave, she couldn’t help wondering if it was just a ploy to get her out there and together with him. Maybe she’d been too jealous of Jake to get close to him. He had made some discoveries, written some books, published some papers, secured some grants … all the things that she had wanted to do.

But it hadn’t been a ploy to get her down there with him. Jake had really discovered something amazing—an entire city built deep inside a cave. But the most incredible thing was the collection of tablets with the ancient writing carved into them.

Her life had changed when she went down to that dig site. From the discovery of Anasazi writing, to David showing up, to the Ancient Enemy pursuing them … everything had changed. She didn’t think about publishing papers or writing books anymore. Now all she thought about was protecting David and surviving.

Jake had changed, too. He had changed into an animal that last night at the dig site, ready to agree with the others, ready to sacrifice David to that thing out there. And then that night when she had run away with David, she watched Jake rush towards her with the hunting knife. He said he only wanted to give it what it wanted, but she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to kill her, too.

And then Jake’s eyes had cleared at the last moment like he’d woken up from a dream. He stood out there in that scrub brush next to the trailer, out there in that cold night, in that cold wind with the coppery smell of blood on it. She liked to believe that in that last moment Jake had realized the animal he had become, and now she understood the nobility of his actions as he ended his life, and maybe how he was disgusted with his own cowardice. Then she watched him cut his own throat.

But Cole had never even thought about sacrificing David to that thing out there. He had even killed Jose to save David. Maybe Cole was smart enough to know that the Ancient Enemy would never let them go if David was killed. Maybe Cole knew they would be even more vulnerable than ever. Maybe he had been using David as a shield. But once they got away from the cabin, he could’ve run so many times. And he didn’t need to come after them after they had run out on him at the Mountainside Inn. He had already been in Bruce the salesman’s SUV by then with the engine running—he could’ve just left the parking lot. But he didn’t, and she thought she might love him for that, too.

Cole touched her hand.

Stella looked at him. He smiled at her like he’d been reading her thoughts.

Joe came back from down the hall into the living room. His footsteps were so light he hardly made a sound on the old floorboards of his trailer. He held what looked like a three-ring binder a kid might take to school. He entered the kitchen and sat back down at the head of the table.

On closer inspection, Stella realized that the binder was actually a cheap photo album with a dark vinyl cover. Joe opened it up and she saw news clippings from magazines and newspapers carefully positioned behind the clear plastic covering the thick white pages. There were also internet printouts that had been cut to size to fit the pages. There were articles and photos and also many pages of notebook paper in between the white stiff pages of articles and photos; the notebook paper was filled with small, neat handwriting.

Joe flipped through the pages, looking for something. “What is happening now,” Joe said as he flipped through the book, “what is happening to David … it has happened before.” He looked up at Stella, and then at Cole. He left the book open, apparently having found what he’d been looking for. “I don’t have proof of every occurrence in the past, but I have enough to recognize a pattern.”

He still hadn’t shoved the book Stella’s way but she could see the open pages and she saw what looked like three articles and photos that had been cut out from internet printouts and newspapers, all situated neatly under the clear plastic sheet. On the opposite page was a piece of notebook paper secured in the three-ring binder. The notebook paper was filled with small, neat handwriting.

Joe was still looking at them, his hands clutching the edges of the photo album protectively. “In September of 1891, something like this happened not too far from here in a town, a settlement really. A lawman and bounty hunter named Jed Cartwright apprehended a fugitive, a half-Navajo named Red Moon, who was wanted for twenty murders along with robbery, horse thievery, and various other crimes. Jed and his partner, a man only listed as Roscoe, and a younger man named Stephen Dobbs, caught Red Moon in the northwestern corner of Arizona and they were taking him back to Smith Junction.”

Joe sighed, pausing a moment. “Jed never showed up at Smith Junction. The story goes that somehow between where Jed and his men had apprehended Red Moon and Smith Junction, they were jumped by a band of Navajo pretending to be skinwalkers. Roscoe and Dobbs were killed … mutilated, and Jed made it to a ranch where he found a whole family slaughtered … the only survivor was a young boy. A boy named David.”

Joe slid the photo album across the table to Stella and she saw a grainy black and white photograph of a boy who could’ve been David’s twin.

She looked back at Joe. “This is … this looks just like …”

“Now you understand my reaction when I saw David.”

Stella slid the photo album across the table so Cole could see the photo. He stared down at the photo for a long moment, and then he looked back at Stella. “This looks an awful lot like David,” he agreed. “But it could still be a coincidence. I’ve had people come up to me before and swear I was someone else.”

Joe nodded. “Yes, I thought of that. But it’s the rest of the story that might sound very familiar. I wrote it down, piecing it together from various sources.”

“What’s the story?” Stella asked.

“When Jed Cartwright got to the ranch and found the family slaughtered, he took the boy with him. They took two horses and began to ride to Smith Junction. But they didn’t make it all the way there. They stopped in a small town along the way, seeking help. It wasn’t long before the members of that town were wiped out.”

“Did the boy live?” Stella asked. “Did he survive?”

Joe shrugged. “No one knows. Jed never turned his bounty in and the slaughter in that town was attributed to either a rogue band of Apache or a part of Red Moon’s gang seeking retribution.”

“But you said there was more,” Stella reminded him.

Cole pushed the photo album back to Joe.

“There’s another account,” Joe said. “Not too much information on it, but about a hundred and twenty years before that in 1771, a whole village was wiped out. The people were slaughtered, mutilated in the most horrendous way. I have a few clippings of people telling their story, but there are no actual newspaper accounts of it like there is with what happened in 1891. And there are stories of similar happenings a hundred and twenty years before the 1771 event, all the way back to the late twelve hundreds.”

“When the Anasazi disappeared,” Stella said. “When they had supposedly walked away from the cities they had built into the sides of cliffs.”

“Yes,” Joe said.

“Archaeologists like to give many reasons why the Anasazi walked away from those cities,” Stella said. “They cite conflicts with the Spanish explorers, but there was no record of the Spanish ever reaching this far inland before 1300. Other tribes attacking them doesn’t make sense to me because the Anasazi were the most sophisticated and advanced culture at that time in the area. Some archaeologists cite drought and weather changes … but if that’s true, then why did they head south into the Arizona and New Mexico deserts where the drought could be worse? Some archaeologists say inner conflicts destroyed the Anasazi because of the evidence at these cities of mass killings and cannibalism.”

“And of course when scientists can’t figure out what happened to an ancient culture, they always cite religious reasons,” Joe said. “Why were people sacrificed in the Maya culture? We don’t know. Must’ve been religious reasons. Why were those gigantic designs drawn on the Nazca plains in South America? We don’t know. Must’ve been religious reasons.”

“But the killings and cannibalism at the Anasazi sites,” Stella said, getting Joe back on track. “What if those people were told to kill and mutilate? What if a dead person had been sent back as a messenger, demanding things until they gave up what the Ancient Enemy truly wanted?”

“Someone like David,” Joe said.

“And if they sacrificed someone like David,” Stella continued quickly, “then they were completely vulnerable to the Ancient Enemy.”

Joe nodded and sighed.

“So we know there’s a cycle,” Cole said. “We believe there has been at least one boy like David a hundred and twenty years ago, and other similar instances going all the way back to when the Anasazi disappeared. We know the Ancient Enemy or Darkwind or whatever, is most likely some kind of alien creature that we can’t possibly understand that slips through from its dimension into ours with the help of a true shaman like David, a true shaman that can hurt it, possibly destroy it, so the Ancient Enemy must force someone to kill David before he grows up and becomes powerful enough to kill it or send it back. We know all of that, but what do we do now?”

Stella and Joe looked at Cole, and then Stella looked to Joe for the answer.

“I have been preparing,” Joe said. “I have been praying very hard as I performed The Enemy Way ceremony. I know that I must give David a crash course in medicine.” He looked at Stella. “You said he wrote down symbols … ancient writing.”

“Yes,” Stella answered. “I don’t have the notebook with me; it burned up in the cabin. But I recognized the symbols as the written language of the Anasazi—they were the same symbols I saw on the tablets that Jake and I got from the dig site, buried deep in that cave where we found a city buried inside.”

Joe huffed in disappointment. He looked away like he was in deep thought for a moment. And then he looked back at Stella. “Have you ever asked yourself why David showed up to you where he did? Why he came all the way to your dig site?”

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Joe Blackhorn’s trailer

“Of course I’ve wondered why he came there,” Stella answered. “I never knew how he found us or why. I never knew where he came from. He would barely talk to me. I figured something traumatic had happened to him. Maybe a car accident or something. Like I told you earlier, we sent a man named Jim Whitefeather to go for help … but he came back as a messenger for the Ancient Enemy, asking for things from us. Later, David eventually told me that his parents weren’t here anymore and I assumed they were dead, only by then I knew their deaths hadn’t been an accident … the Ancient Enemy had gotten them. I could never get much more out of David. But now you say he lived with his parents in Iron Springs. I know where that is, and it’s pretty far away from the dig site. A lot of treacherous walking to get to us.”

Joe nodded solemnly. “Yes. And David didn’t seek out help in Iron Springs, or at any of the ranches along the way. He went straight to you … or I should say straight to the dig site.”

It was dawning on Stella suddenly. “The dig site … he was drawn to it.”

“I believe so,” Joe said. “Whether he ever realized it or not, I think it was a place of safety for him.”

“And this dig site is where you found samples of the Anasazi writing,” Cole said.

“Yes,” Stella answered, the word coming out as a whisper as she thought back to it. “It was a huge discovery; the first collection of writings from the Anasazi culture. If those writings could be deciphered, then the story of the Anasazi could finally be told, perhaps even the mystery of why they had abandoned so many cities finally solved. Finding those writings was like finding the hieroglyphics in the Egyptian ruins.”

“And David wrote some of those symbols down in that notebook in the cabin,” Cole said, obviously going somewhere with this line of questioning.

“Yes,” Stella said.

“Then maybe David saw those symbols at the dig site. Maybe he copied down what he’d seen at the dig site in the notebook at the cabin.”

Stella shook her head, already dismissing that idea. “No, that couldn’t be possible. Those symbols he drew in that notebook were perfect copies of the Anasazi writings. No way he could’ve copied them so perfectly.”

“Maybe David’s a savant,” Cole said. “Possibly autistic. He shows the signs.”

“He also shows the signs of a traumatized child,” Stella argued. “And his behavior’s changing. He’s opening up to us now, talking more, relating more. He could be autistic, I don’t know, but as far as the writing, we hadn’t even taken most of the evidence out of the cave yet. And David had never even been in that cave.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Stella snapped. “I was leaving the cave when I found him so I know he’d never gone in there.”

“Unless he snuck inside the cave in the middle of the night.”

Stella already knew where Cole was going with this. David had left the cabin in the middle of the night when the electricity went out. “We never found him outside at the dig site like we did at the cabin,” she said, but then she thought of the night she left. She thought about David being outside the trailer, staring at the cave in the distance. Had she told them about that?

Joe sipped his tea, watching them silently.

Stella looked at Joe as an idea occurred to her.

He stared at her and raised his eyebrows like he’d been patiently waiting for her to reach the obvious conclusion.

“We need to go back to the dig site, don’t we?” she asked.

Joe just stared at her for a moment. “Or another place like it.”

Stella felt her heart skip a beat in her chest. Was there another place like the dig site at the cave? Another Anasazi city waiting to be discovered.

“There’s a sacred place not too far from here. It’s one of the reasons I chose to live here.”

“And we need to go there, don’t we?” Cole said.

Joe nodded again. “I think there are many places on Earth where the barrier is weak … hot spots, if you will … and this place is one of them.”

Thoughts swirled through Stella’s mind. There was another place like the dig site? “Is it an Anasazi ruin?”

Joe sipped his tea again. “Most Navajo don’t go near this place, mostly out of superstition and fear, and many don’t go near it out of reverence. Like I said, it’s a sacred place. It’s a place that must be left alone.”

Stella felt the sting of his words. She could interpret what he meant—he and other Navajo didn’t want this place scoured by scientists.

“Of course,” Stella told him, but she couldn’t help wondering what secrets and discoveries were hidden there. But she refused to pester Joe about it—he wasn’t going to give explanations until he was ready, she had already seen evidence of that.

“Where is this place? You said it wasn’t too far away.”

“A few hours away,” Joe said. “We can get there by horse or four wheelers.”

“So what are we going to do … use David as bait?” Cole asked, clearly disgusted.

Joe shook his head slowly. “No. We will be using ourselves as the bait. It can’t attack David, it can’t kill David, so it will go after one of us.”

They were all silent for a moment.

“I will prepare us as much as possible,” Joe told them. “But only so much can be done in such a short time against a powerful chindi like the Darkwind.”

Joe stood up. “We should get some sleep for a few hours. Rest our bodies and minds, build up our strength. We will need it. When the sun is up, I will begin working with David.” He walked over to a kitchen drawer and pulled out a spiral bound notebook similar to the one David had written on in the cabin. He found a ballpoint pen in the drawer and brought both items to the table. “First, David will need to draw those symbols again, that same ancient writing he wrote down before. As much as he can remember.”

Stella nodded.

Joe left the kitchen. “I’ll get us some blankets,” he said over his shoulder.

Stella and Cole looked at each other as the wind howled even harder outside the trailer.

PART IV

WEDNESDAY

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Captain Begay’s house

Special Agent Palmer woke up from the nightmare even before the sun was up. It was the same dream as before. He was back in that warehouse, or building, or whatever it was, that seemed to go on forever. Something was chasing him, something that constantly changed form, some shadowy monster. But it wasn’t a mindless monster—it was smarter than he was, anticipating his every move … and he knew he wasn’t going to get away from this monster.

He’d never had nightmares like this one before in his life and he felt a little queasy as he sat there on the side of the bed. But at the same time the thing in his dream seemed familiar somehow, like he had encountered it many times before, like he had seen it several times throughout his life, just glimpses really, but he hadn’t remembered it until now. And now all of those memories were crashing back onto him.

That thing in his dream meant to kill him and it would never stop chasing him. He still felt that sense of hopelessness left over from the dream, the hopelessness of ever escaping it. That thing was everywhere … it could come into our world anytime it wanted to. And in the dream Palmer knew all of this; he understood it all and how everything fit together.

A shiver ran across his flesh like the dancing legs of a thousand spiders.

Where had that thought come from? He hated spiders.

Palmer sat there on the edge of the bed for a moment longer in Captain Begay’s home … in Begay’s daughter’s old room. Even though Begay and his wife had turned their daughter’s bedroom into a guestroom after she left for college, the bedroom still felt somewhat like Begay’s daughter lived there. It had the feel of so many bedrooms that Palmer had seen over the years, museums to missing or dead children.

He wore only his underwear and white T-shirt. His dark suit was folded up neatly on the chair across the room, his suitcoat and overcoat hanging up in the small closet. His ID and badge, cell phone, service pistol and shoulder holster, and a pint of vodka were on the nightstand next to the bed. His duffel bag was on the floor across the room, still opened up and exactly where he had dropped it last night.

After a sip of the vodka, Palmer sat there for a moment longer. The dream was already fading away and his mind was turning to this case he was working on—the strangest case he had ever been assigned to.

He thought of Begay’s “raid” on the property last night. They had been tricked, set up by someone, and Palmer had a feeling Begay knew who it was.

Palmer got up and got dressed in the darkness. He slid his shoulder holster on, and then slipped his service pistol down into the holster; it was a reassuring weight against his body. He stuffed his cell phone down into the leather pouch on his belt. He hid the vodka bottle down in his duffel bag after one last swig and then he grabbed his travel case with his deodorant, mouthwash, shaving cream, razor, toothpaste, and toothbrush inside. He left the room to use the bathroom in the hall.

The house was still dark and quiet; the only sound was the humming of the heat through the ducts in the ceiling. Palmer slipped inside the bathroom, closed the door and locked it.

After using the bathroom, Palmer went back to his room and slipped his suitcoat on. He grabbed his overcoat and duffel bag and walked back down the hall to the living room and kitchen.

Like the last time he had stayed here, Captain Begay’s wife Angie was up and moving around in the kitchen. The aroma of coffee and slightly burnt sausage hung in the air.

“I made a plate for you,” Angie said and stared at Palmer for a moment.

He knew she wasn’t going to let him turn down breakfast a second time, so he sat down at the table. “Thank you.”

“The captain’s still getting dressed,” she said as she set a plate full of scrambled eggs, sausage, and fried potatoes down in front of him. “Salt and pepper is on the table. There’s hot sauce or ketchup if you need it.”

“No, this will be fine,” he said and smiled at her.

Begay entered the kitchen dressed in a long-sleeved flannel shirt, a pair of faded blue jeans, and a pair of worn hiking boots. Apparently Begay was figuring on outdoor work today.

“Sleep well?” Begay asked Palmer.

“Like a baby,” Palmer lied.

Angie set a plate of food down on the table in front of Begay and then she set a plate of toast in between the two men. Begay buttered his toast carefully and then slathered it with the homemade jam.

Palmer watched the big man eat for a moment. Where Palmer was indifferent to food, he could tell that Captain Begay took pleasure in it and that he had particular tastes and rituals when it came to eating.

“What’s the agenda for today?” Palmer asked after shoveling another bite of food into his mouth.

Begay shrugged as he ate. “Keep searching for your fugitives.”

Palmer sensed that the captain’s plans didn’t include him, but he wasn’t going to be brushed off that easily.

Begay chewed his food slowly and looked at Palmer. “You still have to stay here?” he asked bluntly.

“Yes,” Palmer answered. Another lie. Cardenelli wasn’t very happy about Palmer abandoning the crime scene in Colorado closer to his own territory, but Palmer wasn’t going to give up this collar to Klein so he could screw everything up. And he wasn’t going to let a murder suspect (or suspects if Stella turned out to be involved in all of this somehow) over to Begay—and Begay knew it, so it didn’t need to be said. Threats didn’t need to be made right now, especially not in front of the man’s wife. He hoped they could keep things civil.

“Any leads?” Palmer asked as he ate another bite of his breakfast. It was his way of asking the same question: What were they going to do next?

Begay wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t letting it show. Palmer could tell that Angie sensed the unease and tension in her husband, but Palmer didn’t care if he was hurting anyone’s feelings or stepping on anyone’s toes—he’d learned over the last few decades to be a single-minded machine when it came to searching for criminals and solving crimes.

“We’re going to find Billy Nez,” Begay said as he took another bite of his food.

“Who’s that? Someone hiding from you?”

“He was the one with Alice when they talked to Stella and David.”

“How do you know that? You talked to him?”

“Someone I know saw them all at a diner together. Someone who owes me a favor.”

“Good,” Palmer said. “I’m going with you.”

Begay didn’t argue. Palmer could remind Begay that he had let him tag along to the crime scene at John and Deena’s house, but he didn’t say anything.

Palmer got up to take his plate to the sink, but Angie swooped in and intercepted him like she’d been waiting for him to make a move to clean up. “I’ll take that,” she said with a forced smile.

“Thank you, Angie. That was the best breakfast I’ve had in a long time.”

She nodded and the smile on her face never wavered. “Thank you, Agent Palmer.”

Palmer looked at Begay who wasn’t hurrying through his breakfast. “I’ll wait for you outside. I have a few phone calls to make.”

Begay nodded but he gave him a “whatever” look with his eyes.

Palmer got his coat and duffel bag and went out through the front door.

• • •

After Agent Palmer went outside, Begay continued eating his breakfast. He enjoyed his wife’s cooking, it was one of the great pleasures of his day, and he wasn’t going to let the sour FBI agent ruin his breakfast.

He wasn’t too happy about Palmer riding with him all day, but he couldn’t exactly kick him out on his own. This was an FBI investigation now whether he liked it or not and it was best to play ball up to a point. Besides, working with Palmer was much better than working with Klein.

Begay stopped eating. He could feel the weight of his wife’s stare on him. He looked at her. She stood by the stove, watching him. She looked a little nervous, holding her hands in front of her, rubbing them; it seemed like the winter weather was affecting her arthritis again.

“What’s wrong?” he asked her.

“I don’t feel good about this.”

“I’m just going to track down Billy and find out what he knows.”

She sighed and shook her head slightly. “You know what I mean,” she whispered as if Palmer might somehow overhear her from outside.

He knew exactly what she meant. Angie was a believer in all things mystical, and Begay had to admit that she had a gift of some sort. She’d predicted things plenty of times before with an uncanny ability and a spooky accuracy. Even though he wanted to brush off her fears right now, he knew he had to respect them and listen to whatever warning she had to offer.

“I had a bad dream last night,” Angie said in a low voice.

Begay got up and took his plate to the counter. As good as the breakfast was, he didn’t think he would be able to finish the last few bites now—he’d suddenly lost his appetite.

“There was this … this thing in my dream,” Angie said. “It was chasing me. And chasing other people. It looked a little like a shadow, constantly changing and moving, but it wasn’t a shadow. It was real … it was all of the evil in the world rolled up into this black form.”

Begay laid a hand on his wife’s shoulder, a gentle touch.

“I’m scared,” she said.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Begay said.

“Not just for you,” Angie said and her dark eyes flicked to the front door in the living room. “For him, too.”

Begay nodded and exhaled a long breath. “We’ll be careful,” he said. “But I have to go. It’s my job. It’s his job too.”

Angie bit her lip and forced a smile, but Begay saw her lips trembling just a bit. She nodded, indicating that she understood that he had a job to do. “Just be careful,” she whispered.

“It’s my middle name,” he said.

He kissed her, and she grabbed on to him and hugged him tight like he was going away and she might never see him again. That hug, the way she clung to him, scared him a little more than her warnings and bad dreams had.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

Captain Begay’s house

Special Agent Palmer stood outside Captain Begay’s house in the cold air. The world was lightening up quickly, the sky such a deep blue already. He walked to his black rental car that he had parked in the strip of gravel beside Begay’s driveway last night. Begay’s giant Ford Bronco was parked in the driveway right behind Angie’s car.

As he walked to his car Palmer dialed Agent Klein’s number to get an update from him.

Agent Klein was at the dig site already.

“Some group of scientists are here,” Klein said on the phone. “They’ve been here since last night, poking around everywhere. They’re calling this dig site one of the greatest finds in the last fifty years. Definitely in this century so far, they said. I’m constantly beating these guys back away from the cave like flies off shit. I don’t know how many times I need to tell these bozos that this is still a crime scene. I don’t care if they found Amelia-fucking-Earhart’s airplane in there.”

Palmer stared out at the end of the driveway as he listened to Klein drone on. He watched his breath mist up in front of his face.

Palmer instructed Klein to remain at the dig site and got a groan from the agent who wanted to team up with Palmer, and then he finally got Klein off the phone.

His next phone call was to the forensics offices in Albuquerque to see if they’d gotten anywhere. Most of the team wasn’t there this early, having worked late into the night, but Susan Dorsett, the woman he’d talked to at David’s parents’ house, talked to him for a few moments on the phone.

“I only have a few minutes,” she warned him. “I’m really busy.”

Palmer asked her some quick questions.

No, she hadn’t discovered anything new. No, there was still not a shred of DNA evidence found on the bodies. No, they hadn’t gotten any further in this investigation.

“How am I supposed to put this in the report?” Susan finally asked Palmer.

Palmer didn’t have an answer for her, and he really didn’t think she was expecting one from him.

He told her that he would get back with her later in the day, that he had something to work on right now. She seemed relieved to get off the phone.

Palmer looked at his cell phone in his hand. He needed to call Cardenelli, but he decided that he would put that call off as long as he could. Instead, Palmer called the forensics team up in Colorado. He got someone named Ben on the phone.

The forensics team in Colorado was just as baffled as Susan and her team was down here in New Mexico.

“One of the people in Nora Conrad’s house was her husband,” Ben said.

Palmer remembered the sheriff up there saying that the dead man on the floor with the bullet hole in his head was the woman’s husband, the girl’s father, and that he had been dead for at least six months.

And Ben verified that now. “Why would someone bring a dead man there and then put a bullet in his head?”

Again, Palmer didn’t have answers for the man. “What about the bodies from the hotel?”

“It just gets more and more bizarre,” Ben said. He was breathing hard into the phone. He sounded overweight. “One of the victims …” He sounded like he was looking something up real quick—Palmer heard the sound of the clicking keys of a keyboard. “A Travis Conrad, son of the dead guy in the house, was definitely run over by a vehicle. But the other two … one was twisted completely around, his spine snapped in several places, muscles torn, ribs smashed to pieces, organs practically liquefied.”

Palmer just nodded and rubbed at his temple with his other hand.

“And the other one … it looks like he came out of a garbage compactor. I don’t know how anyone … how a person could possibly do this to other human beings without some kind of high-powered machinery being involved.”

Palmer sighed into the phone. “I know this is a strange one,” he said. “Did you find any kind of evidence on the victims? Some hair samples, skin, blood … anything?”

“Nope. Nothing. Not one bit of DNA evidence at all. It was like these people were mangled without even being touched.”

“Okay,” Palmer said. He was ready to hang up now. This was getting nowhere.

Begay stepped out of his house and closed the front door with a thump.

“I gotta go. Thanks.” Palmer hung up his phone and met the big captain by his Ford Bronco.

Begay got in his truck and hit the button to unlock the passenger door for Palmer.

CHAPTER SIXTY

Joe Blackhorn’s property

An hour after the sun was up everyone was awake inside of Joe Blackhorn’s trailer.

Joe made a quick breakfast of eggs, some kind of shredded meat, and a fried mixture of potatoes, peppers, onions, and tomatoes.

David picked at his food, but he drank two glasses of juice. He brightened when Stella gave him the spiral bound notebook and the pen.

“Remember when you drew those symbols in the notebook at the cabin?”

David nodded.

“Do you think you could draw those again?” she asked as she opened the notebook up and folded the cover back to reveal the first blank page.

David nodded. He took the notebook and went to the couch, curling up on it, his eyes on the paper, his hand clutching the pen, already drawing furiously.

Stella watched David for a moment. She felt like crying while she watched him and she wasn’t exactly sure why. He seemed like such a normal boy at this moment, just a boy doodling in a book. But there was nothing normal about David, and nothing normal about what they had been through. Maybe the trauma was catching up to her; maybe she was finally having a breakdown.

Joe and Cole cleaned up the kitchen. Stella went in there to help, wiping the small wood table down.

The wind outside was picking up again, gusts shaking the trailer slightly. But there had been no attacks through the night. No army of animals and other creatures stood guard on the ridge in the distance. No dead person had stumbled across the desert and up to their door, waiting outside for them, calling them and asking for things.

“Why hasn’t it attacked?” Cole asked as he put the plates in the cabinet.

“I think it might be building its strength back up,” Joe said. “Kind of like we’re all doing. Maybe it needs to rest like we do. What it did last night—with all of those snakes and spiders and other animals—that must’ve taken a lot of energy.” He shrugged. “Or maybe it’s planning its next attack. I don’t know. All I can do is guess.”

“Does David know?” Cole asked in a low voice.

They all glanced at the living room. If David was listening to their conversation, he didn’t show it; he was still concentrating on the ancient language that he was scribbling down on the notebook paper. Joe’s dog was sitting near David, watching him draw.

“I don’t know,” Joe said in an even lower voice, almost a whisper. “I think he knows when it’s close.”

Stella remembered when they were back in the cabin—David always knew when Frank was out in the snow waiting for them.

“So what now?” Cole asked again. “That thing out there isn’t going to rest forever. Do we go to this … this place you were talking about?”

Joe nodded. “We need to go soon.”

“How soon?” Cole asked. “If we wait too long, then the four wheelers won’t work. It will destroy them just like it disabled our truck when you picked us up … and just like it destroyed the engines of the trucks at the cabin. And it will probably kill your horses.”

Joe nodded like he had already considered those possibilities.

“David has to be ready,” Stella said and looked at Joe. “We can’t put him in front of the Ancient Enemy until he’s ready.”

“It’s true he needs to be ready,” Joe said, “but Cole is right. We need to hurry.”

“I’d be surprised if the horses aren’t already dead,” Cole mumbled, “and the four wheelers and all the other vehicles out there trashed.”

“Yes, but we can’t rush David into this,” Stella said. “If we don’t get this right …”

“But we have to bring David to the place where he can fight it the best,” Joe insisted. “We have to take him to the place where he has the best chance of defeating the Darkwind … killing it, or at least sending it back to where it came from. And we do need to hurry.”

“So when are we going?” Cole asked.

“Today,” Joe said like he’d just made up his mind. His face was set in a grim expression like he wasn’t going to change his mind.

“Today?” Stella said, not hiding her surprise and horror.

“He’s right,” Cole told Stella. “We need to do this before we’re trapped here. You know what will happen if we’re trapped here.”

Stella sighed and glanced back at David.

David still hadn’t looked their way; he was still concentrating on his notebook, seemingly in his own world right now.

“You two need to understand something,” Joe said.

Stella and Cole looked at Joe again.

“This journey we’ll be taking will be dangerous. David will offer some protection, but when the Darkwind is strong again it will attack and all of us may not survive.”

Both Cole and Stella nodded … they understood.

Joe smiled at him. “But I’m going to bring along some things that can help us. Some things to help give us an edge.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

Special Agent Palmer rode with Captain Begay in his jacked-up Ford Bronco as they drove down a strip of pavement that seemed to run on forever through the rocks and sandy hills.

They had been driving for hours, and they had already stopped to talk to a few people. Begay had gone into homes and buildings on his own, asking Palmer to wait in the truck. Through the morning Begay had questioned several people about where Billy Nez was. Palmer was sure that bargains had been made by Begay to find Billy’s whereabouts … and he was sure that threats had been made, too.

Close to eleven o’clock, Begay left a stucco-covered adobe building where some men milled about outside. Palmer wasn’t sure what kind of place this was, but he’d waited in Begay’s truck for twenty minutes while Begay talked to some of the men inside.

Once Begay got back in the truck, his expression gave nothing away. He stared ahead with the mirrored sunglasses still on his face. He put the truck in reverse (he’d left it running for Palmer while he’d been inside to keep the heat on) and backed up to leave the dirt parking area.

Obviously Begay wasn’t going to volunteer any information.

“Well?” Palmer finally asked.

“He told me where to find Billy,” was all Begay said. It even sounded like he was angry about having to tell Palmer that much.

Palmer knew Begay wasn’t happy that he had insisted on riding with him instead of following him around all day in his rental car. Palmer had given up trying to memorize the map and the crisscrossing of the roads out here on the Big Reservation. This reservation was huge—fifteen thousand square miles: the size of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts put together. He knew it would’ve only been a matter of time before Begay ditched him and then Palmer would’ve been hopelessly lost out here in these badlands. It was amazing to Palmer how remote some of these places were, and the GPS and reception on his cell phone were spotty at best. So he had decided to ride with Captain Begay whether the man liked it or not.

• • •

Hours later, they drove down a long rutted trail through the brush and rocks, and then down a steep decline towards a large stand of trees with a creek running through them. Mountains rose up sharply in the distance. It was as beautiful as it was foreboding, Palmer thought.

Ten minutes later they pulled up to a group of trailers. Palmer thought the place looked like some kind of refugee camp. The trailers were rusted-out hulks with debris piled all around them. Abandoned junked cars and car parts hid in the weeds and scrub brush. A clothesline full of clothes was set up right in the front yard above a scattering of children’s toys.

A pregnant woman holding a baby came to the front door of the trailer, the door barely hanging on by its hinges. A curious three year old dressed in an oversized sweatshirt and baggy pants stood beside the woman on the untrustworthy wood deck in front of the door.

A scruffy-looking dog poked its head out of a doghouse that looked like it had been constructed from petrified wood. The dog didn’t even bark at them, it just stared at them with large eyes.

“Is this where Billy Nez lives?” Palmer asked as Begay parked the truck and turned off the engine.

“No.”

Palmer didn’t expect Begay to expound.

Begay got out of the truck and Palmer opened his door and stepped out into the cold. One thing was for sure, he wasn’t staying in the truck anymore.

“Ya-tah,” Begay said to the woman as he walked towards the trailers that sat nose to nose in the distance.

The young woman hadn’t made any kind of movement to come down and greet them.

Palmer watched as Begay made some kind of hand gesture to the woman. “Ya-tah,” he said again.

“Ya-tah-hay,” the woman finally answered in a low voice. She made a half-hearted gesture of her own back to Begay.

Begay said something in Navajo to the woman.

She just nodded her head towards the trees and the creek off in the distance.

“He’s that way,” Begay said to Palmer and he was already walking towards the trees.

It was a five minute trek through the woods that lined the stream. Then they came to a squat dome of a structure that was covered with mud and grass. Not too far away from the mud hut, a fire was crackling inside a pit in the ground that was surrounded by rocks. Palmer noticed that there were rocks in the fire too.

“Wait out here,” Begay said as he walked towards a flap that served as a door to the hut.

Palmer thought about arguing.

“Sacred ceremony inside,” Begay said over his shoulder as if he sensed that Palmer was going to debate his request. He took off his coat before entering the hut, laying it down neatly over a large flat rock.

Palmer just nodded and sighed. He thought Begay had come here to arrest Billy Nez, not hang out with him inside some sweat lodge. Obviously obstruction of justice was a petty crime out here in these parts. Palmer hoped Begay would at least get the information they needed.

• • •

Begay pulled the flap back from the mud-covered hut and entered the dark steamy interior.

Billy Nez sat on a small colorful rug that was spread out on the hard-packed dirt floor on the opposite side of the hut. Billy was nearly naked, only wearing a loincloth. His skin was shiny with perspiration and his long dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail. He used to be a muscular man long ago, but now what muscles he had left sagged on his old man’s body. The wrinkles were deep lines etched into his brown face.

Begay noticed that there was a similar woven rug spread out on the floor not too far away from the flap—an invitation for him to sit down, Begay guessed. And in between the two rugs was a pit dug into the dirt floor which was filled with hot rocks and burning kindling. The meager amount of smoke the fire put out drifted up towards the hole in the middle of the ceiling at the top of the dome.

Begay unbuttoned his shirt a little and rolled up the sleeves to his elbows. He sat down cross-legged on the small woven rug. It was already so hot inside the hut—a stark contrast with the bitterly cold air outside.

“Did you come here to arrest me?” Billy asked in Navajo.

“Depends,” Begay answered in Navajo. He was sure Palmer had stayed close enough to the hut to listen to their conversation; he might even be right outside the flap. But he wouldn’t understand any of it.

“I have an FBI agent with me,” Begay said. “He’s waiting outside right now.”

Billy nodded, but he didn’t seem alarmed. He seemed like a man who felt righteous in his innocence. He didn’t ask what he was being hassled about. He didn’t try to run when they had shown up. He wasn’t drunk right now or belligerent. These were all plusses in Begay’s book, all good marks in favor of Billy Nez, and Begay would return the favor by hearing the man out.

“You tricked us,” Begay said when he realized Billy Nez was in no hurry to begin the conversation. “The map Alice Newcastle gave us led to an abandoned house.”

“I gave Alice the wrong map because I knew she would break her word and call the police. It doesn’t matter how long she has lived here on this land with us, she will never be one of us. She will never truly understand our ways.”

Begay sighed. He didn’t want to get off track into some philosophical conversation with Billy right now. “Alice called us because it was the right thing to do. Those three are wanted by the law.”

“One is only a boy.”

“Yes, but the man they are traveling with is a suspect in at least twenty-one murders, two stolen vehicles, and one bank robbery. You’re helping a possible criminal.”

“Sometimes you must overlook some bad to find the greater good.”

“And you think twenty-one murders is only a little bad?”

“I don’t believe your suspect murdered those people.”

Begay nodded. “And who did?”

“You know who murdered those people. You know what murdered them.”

Begay didn’t respond.

Billy Nez ladled some water from a wooden bucket near him and drenched the hot rocks. The rocks hissed when the water hit them, steam rising up instantly.

“It has happened before,” Billy said when he put the wooden ladle back into the bucket of water. “The chindi is back and it wants things.”

“Chindi?” Begay asked, surprised that Billy was using the Navajo word for ghost.

“Chindi,” Billy repeated. “Or yenaldooshi—skinwalkers. Darkwind. Anasazi, Ancient Enemy. Whatever you want to call it. But it’s here again. What happened to that boy’s parents and what happened to those belegana scientists in that cave, you know there is no rational explanation for that.”

“So you led those three where? Right to the chindi?”

“No. I led them to someone who can help them.”

“Who?” Begay asked.

“A yataalii—a true medicine man.”

“What’s his name?” Begay asked. “Joe Blackhorn?”

If Billy was surprised that Begay already knew they had gone to find Joe Blackhorn, he didn’t show it.

“We know that’s where you sent them. But we just don’t know where to find Joe Blackhorn. I need to find those three before something else happens. I need to help David.”

“The boy is pursued by the Darkwind. Only he can drive it away again.”

Begay let out another long breath, trying to remain calm.

“I know you say you don’t believe,” Billy said. “I know you try not to believe. But deep down inside, you know something is wrong with these murders. You know something is different about the boy and the woman on the run.”

Begay thought of his conversations with Agent Palmer a few days ago and how similar they were to the one he was having with Billy right now. But in that conversation it had been him trying to convince Palmer that something supernatural might be going on, and it had been Palmer who wouldn’t even consider it.

“I met with that woman and the boy,” Billy said.

Begay nodded, indicating that he already knew that. “The boy’s name is David. David Bear.”

“They were not being forced to do anything by that man they were with. They are not being held captive by him.”

“You met the man with them? You saw him?”

“He waited outside in a pickup truck while we met the woman and David at the diner. Once they were inside the diner, they could’ve asked us to help them. They could’ve called the police. They could’ve run. But they didn’t choose to do any of those things.”

Thanks for your expert opinion, Begay thought but he bit back the words.

“They risked everything to find Joe Blackhorn,” Billy said.

Once again Begay thought of the same thing he’d said to Agent Palmer not too long ago. Why would they risk everything to come back down here and find this shaman?

“Alice knew that I knew how to find Joe Blackhorn,” Billy continued. “We agreed to give the woman a different map so she could be caught by the police. But what Alice didn’t know was that I drew two maps, and the other one led to Joe Blackhorn’s home. I wanted to hear the woman’s story first. After I listened to her story, I knew she was telling the truth, and I knew the Ancient Enemy had come again. I knew the boy could fight the Ancient Enemy and I knew Joe Blackhorn could help him. Later, we ambushed the three of them on the road and I gave the woman the real map. I put her on the path to find Joe Blackhorn.”

“I need to find them,” Begay said. “I need you to show me where they are.”

Billy ladled more water onto the hot rocks, taking his time. Then he shrugged. “I have a map that I have drawn for you. But the four of them may not be there now.”

“Why not? Do you know where they are going?”

“There’s a sacred place,” Billy answered. “A place where the barrier between our world and the Darkwind’s world is the weakest. Joe Blackhorn will take the boy there to fight it, to send it back for good.”

Begay was beginning to get impatient. He was starting to sweat underneath his clothes and his crossed legs were cramping up a little. “Billy, I won’t come back here and arrest you if you give me that map. If you help me.”

“This is going to be a dangerous journey for you,” Billy said. “Who are you taking with you?”

Begay didn’t answer; he just huffed loudly, hopefully showing Billy that he was tiring of this game of his.

“Many could be killed,” Billy said, unperturbed by Begay’s show of disapproval.

Begay thought it over. He had to be careful here because he knew Billy Nez was not afraid of being arrested and locked up. He couldn’t threaten him to get what he wanted. He had to make sure that Billy was telling him the truth and not sending him on another wild goose chase.

“Don’t take too many men with you,” Billy said. “They will just end up dying and their blood will be on your hands. I would ask you not to go, to let the boy fight the Darkwind on his own, but I know eventually someone else will tell you where Joe Blackhorn lives.”

“I won’t take any of my men with me,” Begay promised, but he knew one person that he would be taking with him whether he wanted to or not, and that person was standing right outside the flap of this hogan.

Billy pulled out a small leather bag from behind him and opened the drawstrings. He pulled out a folded-up piece of thick white paper and another object. He stood up, the sweat running down his nearly naked body.

Begay stood up, happy to stretch out his aching legs. He wiped at his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. He was actually looking forward to going back out into that cold weather again.

Billy walked around the pit of hot rocks and stood in front of Begay. He handed him the paper. “This is the map.”

Begay didn’t bother unfolding the paper and looking at it, that would only offend Billy Nez. He tucked the folded-up paper down into the pocket of his jeans.

“I have something else for you,” Billy said. “I want you to accept it and keep it with you all the time when you pursue these three.”

Begay just nodded.

Billy held the other object in his hand out to Begay. It was a necklace of worn leather string with a large silver and turquoise charm on it.

“This is a special charm,” Billy said. “This is a magical charm that will protect you on your journey.”

Begay accepted the gift. He noticed that the charm could be twisted open. “What’s inside the charm?” he asked.

“Something to keep you safe,” was all that Billy would say.

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

Captain Begay sat down in the driver’s seat of his Ford Bronco as Special Agent Palmer got into the passenger seat. The woman was standing again at the trailer door with her baby in her arms, staring at them silently. The dog poked his head out of his gray petrified home and watched them as silently as the woman did, and with seemingly the same expression.

“So?” Palmer asked as soon as they were back inside Begay’s truck. Palmer hadn’t said a word to Begay as they hiked back through the woods from the hut, and then across the junk-littered front yard to the truck. Billy Nez hadn’t come out of that mud hut structure with Begay so Palmer had to assume that Billy wasn’t being arrested today, which led him to assume that Begay had retrieved the information they had come all the way out here for.

Begay started his truck. It had gotten cold in the truck in the short time they’d been gone, but it was still better than the freezing wind outside. Begay turned the heater up all the way as he shifted into reverse and backed down the rutted trail that served as the driveway. Begay stretched a meaty arm out over the back of the seats as he turned around to look out the rear window, backing his truck up in between two rusted relics of automobiles to turn around.

Palmer felt agitated, shivering a little with both the cold (which didn’t seem to affect Begay at all) and the excitement that they could finally be close to finding the trail that led to Stella, David, and whoever they were traveling with. He was also agitated because Begay seemed to be purposely taking his time answering his question.

Palmer noticed the necklace that Begay was sporting as soon as he left the hut. He’d thought about asking about it or making some kind of wisecrack about bribes, but he kept his mouth shut, not sure if he would be somehow unknowingly offending the captain.

Begay shifted into drive and pulled back out onto the rutted trail from between the two rusted vehicles.

Palmer remained silent for a moment longer, waiting to see if Begay was going to respond to him yet. Begay seemed to be a different man now after his time inside the hut with Billy. Maybe they had smoked something together in there.

“Where are we going?” Palmer asked when he couldn’t stand Begay’s silence any longer.

Begay pulled out onto the narrow two lane road from the rutted driveway. There wasn’t another vehicle in sight on the road in either direction for as far as Palmer could see.

“Right now I’m going to find a gas station and fill my truck up.”

“He speaks,” Palmer said sarcastically. “And then?”

“And then I’m going to drive to Joe Blackhorn’s property.”

Palmer’s heart skipped a beat. He knew Begay had gotten the information they needed. “That guy …”

“Billy Nez,” Begay said.

“Yeah, Billy Nez. He told you where to find Blackhorn?”

“He gave me a map.”

“A map? Let me see.”

Begay drove in silence for a long moment, staring out the windshield.

Palmer was getting a little tired of the silent treatment. “Uh, the map?” he asked him.

“I burned it.”

“What?” Palmer asked. “What do you mean, you burned it?”

“I threw it in the fire right before we left,” Begay said.

“I didn’t see you do that,” Palmer said.

Begay glanced at Palmer for a moment, his expression saying: There are many things you haven’t noticed. “I’m not taking anyone with me to Joe Blackhorn’s place,” Begay said and turned to stare out the windshield again, his big hands gripping the steering wheel.

Palmer shook his head a little. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about. What … you’re worried this is another trick?”

Begay looked at Palmer again, his dark eyes fierce now. “No. Billy is telling the truth. This is no trick.”

“What is it then?”

“This is serious. Where I’m going … what we’re dealing with … it’s dangerous. More dangerous than you can imagine.”

“Jeez,” Palmer said, sighing out the word as he looked out the passenger window at the desert whipping by at eighty miles an hour. He looked back at Begay. “Not this again. What did that guy say to you in that hut?”

“Hogan,” Begay corrected. “It’s not a hut … it’s called a hogan.”

“Whatever,” Palmer said. He didn’t really care if he was offending Begay right now by calling a mud hut by the wrong name. “You let that guy, Billy Nez, spook you.”

Begay gave a slight shake of his head. “I’ve known it all along; I just didn’t want to admit it. But I know it now. What we’re dealing with, it’s bigger than you can imagine.”

Palmer tried hard to control his temper. “I want you to draw a map for me and my men. Right now. Pull over right now and draw that map.”

Begay glared at Palmer again, but not with hatred. This time there was a sadness in his expression like he was looking at some kind of farm animal that couldn’t possibly ever hope to understand him.

Palmer didn’t like being looked at like that.

“I’m going out there alone,” Begay said. “I’m not bringing my men with me. I’m not going to risk their lives over this. You can go with me if you want. If not, then I can drop you off at the gas station and I’ll have someone come get you.”

Palmer chuckled. He couldn’t believe this shit. “I don’t think you should be giving me orders. I have jurisdiction on this case. The FBI has jurisdiction when it comes to murder cases here. I think you already know that.”

Begay looked back at the road as he drove, still gripping the steering wheel tight with both hands. But he didn’t explode with anger at Palmer’s words. When he finally spoke, his words were soft, almost conversational. “Yes, you are correct about the FBI having jurisdiction, but I don’t care. We’re doing things my way or I drop you off. You choose. I don’t imagine that your superior is too happy right now that you’re down here and that you’ve abandoned your crime scenes up in Colorado. I don’t think your superior is too happy that you’re down here chasing a bogeyman with me instead of letting Klein and the other agents down here handle this. And I also don’t think your superior would be too happy to hear that you’ve been stumbling around down here with vodka on your breath the whole time.”

Palmer bristled. Begay was right, Cardenelli wouldn’t be happy about a report like that at all. Cardenelli wasn’t happy with Palmer at the moment, and if he got another report about Palmer’s drinking …

Begay softened even more and looked at Palmer again. “I didn’t want to threaten you, but this is important.”

Threaten? Palmer thought. Begay had probably threatened someone earlier to find Billy, and then who knew what threats Begay had made in that hut—in the hogan—to get that map from Billy. And here he was, threatening him. No, Palmer was pretty sure that threats were a part of Begay’s normal everyday police procedure.

“What we’re facing is dangerous and powerful,” Begay said.

“Yeah, you’ve already said that.”

“But you don’t seem to understand what I’m telling you. I know deep down inside you know this. I know you or your forensics teams can’t explain what happened to those archaeologists at the dig site, or David’s parents, or all those people up in Colorado. I know you don’t want to admit it, but you sense that there’s something strange and powerful happening here. Something … supernatural.”

Palmer wasn’t going to admit shit. He leaned his seat back a little, crossed his arms in front of his chest, and closed his eyes. Maybe he would nap on the way to the gas station instead of listening to Begay’s bullshit. He’d slept like crap last night because of the nightmare.

“Well?” Begay asked.

Who was the impatient one now?

“I’m in,” Palmer grumbled with his eyes still closed. “How long until we get there?”

“About an hour to the gas station,” Begay said. “And then another four to five hours after that to Joe Blackhorn’s place.”

Palmer didn’t answer. He just kept his eyes closed. He was going to let Begay play the game his way, but when they found Stella and David, and whoever they were with, then it was going to be his show.

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

Captain Begay pulled into the gas station. Palmer had been asleep for nearly an hour now. He’d been fidgeting in his sleep, mumbling, breathing hard. Having a nightmare, Begay thought. That made him think of what his wife had told him that morning about the nightmare she’d had.

He hated to wake Palmer up; he figured the man needed some sleep. He also loved the peace and quiet without Palmer talking the whole time. White men always talked and talked instead of remaining still and listening, without truly seeing things. Palmer didn’t want to see the truth; he wanted to see his own version of the truth. But Begay was afraid that Agent Palmer was going to see the truth soon—they were both going to see things that they couldn’t imagine.

Begay pulled up to the outermost pumps of the newer gas station and turned the truck off.

Palmer woke up abruptly, sitting bolt-upright in his seat.

“Getting gas,” Begay said.

Palmer nodded as he looked around, coming fully awake now.

“I recommend that you use the bathroom while we’re here if you need to,” Begay told him. “I also recommend stocking up on some snacks and drinks. If we break down out where we’re going, we could be there a while.”

“Lovely,” Palmer grumbled and got out of the truck and started walking to the gas station store.

Begay got out and walked to the back of his Bronco. He opened the back hatch and looked all of the supplies over. He usually kept spare gas cans, jugs of water, and food back here in case he ever broke down, but he’d made sure last night that everything was stocked up. Besides the basic supplies, he also had a handwoven blanket, two plastic tarps still sealed in plastic, a large first aid kit, an additional spare tire along with a jack and four way tire iron, a jump kit for the battery, a cardboard box of canned and boxed food along with two can openers, six gallons of purified water, six emergency flares, a shovel and a pick, and a few pieces of scrap two-by-fours.

He also had a small duffel bag—his personal prep bag. It contained an extra pair of hiking boots, an extra pair of clothes, two pairs of socks, a wide-brimmed hat, work gloves, a rain slicker, a portable water filter, lighters, and two flashlights with an extra pack of batteries.

Begay also had a twelve gauge pump shotgun with a lock on the trigger and a full box of shells.

There were places out here in the remote corners of the Big Rez where he might not see another person for days … weeks even. There was no cell phone service in many of those areas. It would be crazy not to have some kind of provisions in his vehicle.

He grabbed the two ten gallon gas cans. One still had about five gallons of gas in it, but he took both out and filled them up to the top and then returned them to the back of his Bronco, securing them to the side wall with bungee cords.

Next, he filled up the truck’s gas tank, using his fleet card to pay for it at the pump. After he was done, he walked to the gas station store at the other end of the concrete parking lot.

Inside the store, he saw Agent Palmer over by the coffee machine. He was preparing some kind of gigantic cup of coffee.

Begay went into the restroom and used the toilet. He washed his hands in the sink afterwards and stared at himself in the mirror for a moment. He searched his eyes, looking for fear in them. He wanted to walk into this without fear. He wanted the spirit of his warrior ancestors to guide him.

He thought back to this morning, back to his wife. She’d been scared; he could tell she was rattled even before she told him about her nightmare. She had seen visions before, visions that had come true, so Begay had to take her infrequent warnings seriously.

Begay was afraid right now, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him from doing his job. He would go to Joe Blackhorn’s place and confront this thing. He would save David, that poor boy, a boy who had endured so much tragedy already.

He touched the silver and turquoise charm that hung from his necklace.

… to keep you safe, Billy Nez had said. Begay hoped it was true. He sang a quick prayer and then left the bathroom.

Palmer was already back inside the Bronco when Begay got to it.

“Packs of peanuts and protein bars,” Palmer said, pointing down at a paper bag between his feet on the floorboard. “Also a six pack of drinks.”

“You’re sure you’re ready for this?” Begay asked. He hadn’t started the truck yet. He still had the keys in his hand and Palmer still had a last chance to back out. “Once we get out there we’re going to lose all cell reception. We’ll be too far to drop you off.”

Palmer just glared back at him like he’d been insulted.

Begay wasn’t trying to insult Palmer; he just wanted to make sure that Palmer was absolutely ready for this.

“Just drive,” Palmer said. He unzipped the duffel bag next to him and pulled out the half empty pint of vodka and poured a little bit into his steaming cup of coffee.

Begay watched the agent spike his coffee, but he didn’t say anything. They were both breaking protocol and regulations right now … they had been all morning. They both had dirt on each other now.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

Zeke and Joanie had parked their RV on the hard-packed dirt out in the middle of the desert a few miles away from Piute Creek. They had been out here for three days now looking for meteorites on the desert floor and at the foothills of the mountains.

Zeke knew Joanie was already tired of wandering around the desert looking for space rocks or nuggets of gold or silver. These little nuggets were rare but they could bring big money, especially the meteorites. But what little they’d found so far had barely paid for their expenses on the last three trips out here.

But what else was he supposed to do? Zeke thought. Ever since his neck and back problems had placed him on permanent disability, it wasn’t like there were a lot of opportunities for him to make money. The disability payments damn sure weren’t enough to pay the bills and keep Joanie’s constant supply of liquor flowing freely.

At least the raggedy RV they drove around out here was paid for, and so was the equipment they used. They just needed money for gas, food, and some extra cash for the liquor, cigarettes, and lottery tickets—which were also three of Zeke’s vices.

They were back in the RV now, taking what Zeke liked to call a siesta. They usually worked for a few hours in the morning and then for a few more hours in the evening because it was too hot to work underneath this sun during the middle of the day. Of course it was cold right now—a wicked cold front had come through last week, but at least it hadn’t snowed down here like it had up north where they’d had record snowfalls—but even through the winter Zeke liked to stay on their “siesta” schedule.

Joanie had already drank down a shot of whiskey while Zeke cooked a lunch of canned tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for them. Their lunches usually became their dinner because they mostly snacked and drank in the evening. Joanie drank a lot more when they came out here in the desert than she did when they were at home, which was a modest singlewide trailer in an adult mobile home park. She said the loneliness got to her out here.

“You don’t need to be afraid,” Zeke had told her plenty of times. “You got me here with you.” But Zeke guessed that he wasn’t reassuring enough for her somehow.

Zeke was fine with the solitude of the desert; he’d never been a big fan of people, especially crowds. And the dream of finding that million dollar meteorite or gold nugget was what kept him coming back out here over and over again. Eventually they were going to find something big and then he and Joanie could buy a condo on the beach or whatever the hell she wanted.

He had just buttered four pieces of cheap white bread on a plate while the frying pan heated up. He slapped some American cheese on the pieces of bread and put it all together in the pan.

Then he froze for a moment. He swore he’d just seen something move on the cluttered countertop next to the small stove.

The RV rocked a little with a sudden gust of wind. It sounded like someone had just thrown a handful of sand against the side of their RV.

That was strange, he thought. The weather was supposed to be good … cold, but calm. The worst of the winter weather was already north of them now.

Zeke looked towards the front of the RV, but he had already pulled the shades over the windshield, blocking the light from coming in through the glass. He thought about going up there to remove the cardboard shades so he could peek out through the windshield and check on that wind, but Joanie was already stretched out on the tiny built-in couch a few steps away. Probably close to passing out for an hour, he thought.

The smell of the burning sandwich brought his attention back to the stove. He flipped the sandwiches over in the frying pan. They weren’t burnt too badly.

He heard a skittering noise from behind the bread and tub of butter next to the stove, and then he saw the source of the noise.

“Holy hell,” Zeke said, instantly taking a step back away from the counter.

A tarantula … a big hairy tarantula was inside their RV. It sat there for a moment right on the countertop like it was watching Zeke, like it was daring him to try to kill it. And then it was gone, disappearing behind the loaf of bread and then the canisters.

Zeke moved some of the stuff around on the countertop, but he was tense, ready to jump back if he saw that thing again.

Where the hell did it go?

Then he heard the tarantula inside the cabinets. It was so heavy that he could actually hear the thumping of its feet along the wood as it ran around in there, and the tinkling of dishes as it disturbed them.

Damn, those things gave him the creeps. Spiders and snakes were some of the things he couldn’t get used to out here in the desert.

The smell of burning bread caught his attention again.

“Shit,” Zeke muttered as he turned the burner off and set the frying pan on the cold part of the stove. Now the sandwiches were really burnt … he could eat his, but he was sure that he’d have to make Joanie another one.

He spun around as he heard the spider crawling inside the cabinets across from him.

What the hell? How did the spider get from one side of the kitchen to the other without him seeing it? Were there two of them?

Like the first one, Zeke could actually hear the dishes rattling slightly inside the cabinet as the spider crawled around in there.

“What are you doing over there?” Joanie called out from the couch, already sitting up a little.

“Uh … nothing,” Zeke said. “Just burnt the damn sandwiches is all.”

“I’m not eating a burnt sandwich,” Joanie said.

Of course not, Zeke thought. You’d rather drink your lunch anyway.

Another gust of wind hit the RV, shaking it.

“Is there a storm out there?” Joanie grumbled. She pulled down on the string, raising the cheap plastic blinds up over the window above the built-in couch.

And then she froze.

Zeke looked at his wife, frozen on the couch. Then he saw what she was staring at.

“Spiders,” she croaked.

If there was someone who hated spiders more than Zeke, it was his wife. He rushed a few steps over to her as she jumped up to her feet, still staring at the window, clutching at herself.

“Start the RV,” Joanie hissed. “Get us out of here.”

Zeke barely heard his wife as he stared at the window. It was covered with tarantulas. At least twelve of them, maybe fifteen of them, clinging to the window outside. But it wasn’t only tarantulas; there were other kinds of smaller spiders, two scorpions, and some other kinds of bugs.

What the hell were they parked on? Zeke wondered. There was some kind of infestation here.

“Move the RV!” Joanie screamed, pushing at Zeke. “Get this thing going!”

Zeke’s legs felt weak and numb, yet he also felt adrenaline pumping through him at the same time. It was like he had plenty of energy, but his muscles were turning to mush at the same time. It felt like a nightmare where he needed to run, but everything was in slow motion.

Joanie pushed at Zeke again, almost knocking him off-balance.

He tore his eyes away from the window full of spiders. Joanie was nearly in a full-blown panic now—he needed to get her out of here.

Something was definitely wrong with this spot he had parked on. He didn’t know what it was, and he didn’t really care to know what it was, he just wanted to get away from here.

Zeke stomped through the galley kitchen on his way to the front of the RV and then he thought about the two spiders climbing around inside of their cabinets.

Two of those spiders had already gotten inside of their RV. How many more were in here now?

It didn’t matter … they were leaving right now.

Zeke plopped down in the driver’s seat, the springs underneath the torn upholstery squealing for a moment. He had the ring of keys in his hand even though he didn’t remember digging them out of his pants pocket on the way to the driver’s seat. He stabbed the key into the ignition and twisted it.

Nothing.

What? his mind screamed.

He could hear the now-constant wind outside, shrieking as it grew stronger. He felt the RV shaking, rocking gently back and forth. But he also heard other sounds underneath that shrieking wind. One sound was a distant howl of a coyote a mile or two away, but the other sound was closer … right on the other side of the cardboard sun protectors stuffed up in front of the windshield.

He tore the cardboard panels away and his breath stopped for a second as he stared at the windshield covered with spiders, scorpions, and insects. He nearly screamed. He couldn’t remember actually ever screaming in his life, but he was about to scream right now and he was afraid once he started that he wouldn’t be able to stop.

Joanie was yelling something from behind him, but he wasn’t listening and she sounded so far away even though he knew she was only steps behind him.

Start the RV, he told himself.

He twisted the ignition key again.

Nothing.

He twisted the key again and again.

Nothing.

“Start the fucking truck, Zeke!” Joanie screeched from right beside him. He hadn’t even heard her run up behind him.

“It won’t start!” he yelled back at her. He pumped the gas pedal with his foot as if that would help and he twisted the key over and over again, afraid he was going to snap the key off in the ignition in his panic.

“What … what do you mean …”

“It won’t fucking start!” he yelled at her. He didn’t know why it wouldn’t start and he didn’t really think they had a lot of time to sort through the possibilities. Right now they were under attack and they needed to get out of this RV. It was only a matter of time before those spiders and insects got inside. Maybe the cold was driving them in … he didn’t know.

Zeke popped up from his seat and pushed his wife out of the way.

“What are you doing?” she yelled, her wide eyes rimmed in tears now as she followed him.

“We gotta get out of here,” he told her. “There’s some spiders in here already. They’re in the cabinets.”

She darted through the galley kitchen and clung to him as he pulled the shotgun out of the tiny closet that was right next to the doorway that led to their tiny bedroom at the back of the RV.

“We can’t go out there,” she said, already knowing what he was doing.

Zeke grabbed his coat and slipped it on. “We don’t have a choice. Those things are going to get inside!”

Now, even underneath the wind and the coyotes, they could actually hear the spiders and other critters crawling over the metal shell of their RV, thousands and thousands of little legs skittering across the aluminum out there.

“Get your coat!” he yelled at Joanie.

They both screamed as something pounded on the flimsy aluminum door that led outside.

Someone was out there knocking on their door.

More knocking on their door. Who would be out there with all of those spiders and insects?

Zeke pointed his shotgun at the door and caressed the trigger with his finger.

Joanie screamed again and Zeke turned to her. She had just put her coat on and a dozen spiders and a few scorpions dropped out from underneath her coat, some of them clinging to her pants on the way down. She jumped around in a little circle, swatting at herself and screaming.

The door flew open, torn off its hinges by the wind.

But it wasn’t the wind that had torn the door away. When Zeke saw what waited in the doorway for them, he finally screamed. The edges of his vision went dark and he knew he was going to pass out. He pulled the trigger of his shotgun and felt the weapon buck in his arms from the blast.

But the thing kept on coming …

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

Joe rode his horse while Stella and Cole each drove a four wheeler. David rode with Cole since Cole was much more experienced with the four wheeler than Stella was. They had traveled in a pretty tight group from Joe’s property down into valleys and then up over the sandy hills, venturing deeper and deeper into the wastelands.

They had been traveling for almost two hours now when Stella brought her four wheeler to a stop. She pulled her goggles up and stared at the horizon. Cole parked his four wheeler right next to Stella. He looked at her, and then he looked to see what she was staring at.

Joe stopped his horse on the other side of Stella’s four wheeler.

Stella stared at the black shapes on the horizon. The structures stood silhouetted on a flat expanse of land in the distance with the line of mountains beyond them.

“That’s it?” Stella asked Joe without looking at him. “That’s the sacred place?”

Joe nodded and nudged his horse forward. Stella watched the old man for a moment as he rode away, then she pulled her goggles down over her eyes again and followed him.

• • •

Fifteen minutes later they pulled up to the structures and stopped their vehicles again. Joe pulled up slightly on the reigns of his horse. “Whoa,” he whispered, but his horse pranced around a little, jittery now that she was this close.

This was it? Stella thought. She looked at Joe whose horse still seemed to be agitated, seeming to sense the evil in the air all around them.

Joe looked back at her, reading her eyes. He nodded.

“I thought …” Stella said and looked back at the ghost town they were in front of. “I thought we were going to some kind of … of sacred place.”

“This is a sacred place,” Joe said.

“It’s a ghost town,” she said.

Joe nodded like that was obvious.

“This wasn’t built by the Anasazi or Navajo,” Stella said, her eyes still on the dusty street that split the town in half. There were dilapidated two and three story structures on both sides of the street, some so worn they looked ready to collapse. At the far end of the town, about five hundred yards away, was a white church.

Joe nodded again like her statement was obvious. “I know you might have thought we were going to an ancient city built by the Anasazi, but this is still a sacred site, I assure you.” His horse was prancing around again, eyes wild. “We need to go inside that church down there. There are a lot of preparations we need to make.”

The old man didn’t wait for them; he was already riding his horse down the middle of the road through the ghost town.

Cole nodded at Stella and then he put his four wheeler in gear. David held on to Cole, but he stared at Stella for a moment almost like he was making sure she was going to follow them.

The wind had picked up suddenly. Sand swirled through the air, pelting her skin. She pulled her goggles back down and followed Cole, David, and Joe. She looked at Cole and David who were off to her right a little and still in front of her. The tinny sound of their four wheeler’s motor echoed off the skeletal buildings and petrified wood siding and shingles.

Porches and decks built in front of some of the buildings were crumbling away, not rotting in this arid weather, but just slowly disintegrating away to dust. Many of the windows had been broken out long ago, some of the pieces of glass hung there like sharp teeth; the broken windows allowed glimpses into the gloomy interiors of the buildings. This was a one-street town abandoned a long time ago, yet it felt like someone was here watching them.

It knows we’re here.

The wind gusted again.

The Darkwind, Stella thought. She sped the four wheeler up a little more, getting closer to the others, staying in as tight a pack as they could. She could imagine that dark, constantly re-forming mass of tentacles and alien-like feelers materializing out of the wind and sand, gaining substance and pushing its way into this world in a solid form. Maybe it could only stay solid in this world for a short time. Maybe it needed to be inside something. She didn’t know. She didn’t understand it, she would never understand it. She just wanted David to send it back to where it belonged and then close that door forever.

The front of the church looked like it had been painted white when they’d been farther away from it, but now that they were right in front of it she saw that a lot of the old paint had chipped and peeled away a long time ago and the wood had been bleached white from the sun and wind. But at least the structure still looked solid; at least it looked safer than the other buildings in this long-forgotten dead town. The church’s double doors still had a little bit of red paint left on them, some of the paint had soaked into the dry wood over the decades, darker down in the cracks. A corroded metal bell still hung high up in the steeple above them and the stained glass windows were cracked but mostly intact.

Joe got off his horse and whispered something into her ear. He gave his horse a kiss on her nose, and then patted her shoulder. The horse looked relieved to take off; she ran back down through the town the way they had come.

“I can’t leave her outside for that thing,” Joe explained and he seemed to be close to tears. “She’ll find her way home.”

Stella didn’t want to ask how Joe planned on getting back home—she assumed that she and Joe would ride the four wheeler back together. Or maybe he didn’t plan on all of them going back. But she didn’t want to think about that.

Cole cut the engine of his four wheeler and Stella killed hers too. They all got off the vehicles and unbuckled their helmets and pulled off their goggles, setting the equipment down on the seats.

Joe had his pack of supplies slung over his shoulder as he walked up the path through the rock garden that led up to the wood steps and the double doors of the church. He opened the doors, pushing them all the way open. He looked back at them, waiting for them to follow him inside.

Stella looked back at the ghost town. Joe’s horse was already beyond the town now, in a full trot across the desert. The wind was kicking up again, howling down through the buildings. Something, a loose piece of siding or a shingle perhaps, flapped loudly.

She looked back at the church and followed the others inside. The inside of the church was empty except for a layer of debris and garbage all over the wood floor. It looked like the church had been stripped bare of the pews, stage, dais, and any other furniture or anything else a long time ago. A few bare studs stood at the far end of the left side of the large room like pieces of a skeleton, probably where rooms had been sectioned off before.

The ceiling was vaulted to a peak high above them and thin shafts of daylight streamed down through a few of the small holes—they looked like laser beams of light shooting down at the wood floor that was covered with dust, broken pieces of wood, scraps of debris.

Joe found part of an old bench in the middle of the clutter and he set it upright and laid his pack down next to it on the floor. He wasn’t wasting any time; he was already taking items out of his pack and setting them on the bench.

Cole, Stella, and David walked across the littered floor, skirting around the larger debris. They gathered around Joe who was softly singing to himself in Navajo. He pulled out a clear mason jar filled with a thick dark fluid from his pack.

“Owl’s blood,” Joe said as he set the jar on the rickety bench. “I’m going to use this to paint the symbols on David’s face and hands.”

Joe set what looked like a bundle of feathers tied together next to the jar of blood—it looked like a set of rudimentary paintbrushes. He also set the spiral bound notebook that David had drawn symbols in this morning near the brush and jar of blood. He took out a long wooden stick that had symbols carved into it. The stick had feathers, beads, and some kind of small dried bird claws tied to it with thin pieces of leather. Next, he slipped a necklace of beads and turquoise around his neck. And the last things he took out of his bag were four plastic containers of lighter fluid and two boxes of large kitchen matches. He picked up one of the bottles of lighter fluid and one of the boxes of matches and handed them to Cole.

“This is for the snakes and spiders if they get too close,” Joe explained.

Cole nodded like he already knew what to do with them, and then he stuffed the container of lighter fluid down into his coat pocket and shoved the box of matches down into his pants pocket.

The wind was getting stronger outside. Sand pelted the outside walls of the church and rattled the stained glass windows. The wood beams and walls creaked and moaned from the gusts of wind.

And underneath that wind, Stella heard the howl of a coyote, and then another one. She looked at the others—they’d heard the howls too.

David grabbed Stella’s hand as he looked around at the church with wide eyes.

“I don’t understand,” Stella said as she held David’s hand while looking at Joe. David squeezed her hand hard and she thought she could hear him breathing more quickly now. “You said we were going to a sacred site. What’s so sacred about a ghost town?”

Joe nodded at her. “I promise this is a sacred site. This is where we need to be.”

“But …” Stella began, but then David’s words cut her sentence short.

“I think I’ve been here before,” David said.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

The trail to Joe Blackhorn’s property

“There’s the truck,” Captain Begay said as he slowed his Ford Bronco down to a stop on the rutted trail that led to Joe Blackhorn’s property. He parked right behind the old blue pickup truck.

“That’s the truck they stole in Colorado,” Palmer said. “Matches the description that was sent in.”

They both sat in the Bronco for a moment, both of them watching the parked truck in front of them.

“Nobody inside,” Palmer said as he got out of the Bronco, dropping down to the ground from the high truck. He pulled his service pistol out from his holster just in case.

Begay got out from the driver’s side, but he didn’t pull out his gun.

Palmer looked around at the desert brush that stretched out to the mountains all around them. They were down in a depression in the land here—the trail continued on past the stolen pickup truck, rising up to a ridge in the distance, then disappearing over the top.

Palmer walked up to the rear of the pickup truck and glanced in the bed, holding his service pistol aimed down at the ground but ready if he needed it. There was nothing in the bed of the truck except a few pieces of construction debris scattered all over the place: scrap pieces of wood, stripped pieces of wiring, sawed-off metal pipe, a few rusted brackets.

“Hello?” Palmer called out just in case someone was lying low inside the cab of the vehicle. “Special Agent Palmer with the FBI.”

Palmer saw Begay on the other side of the pickup truck. He walked casually to the king cab back window and peered inside. “No one in there,” he said.

Palmer relaxed a little and walked up towards the passenger door. He peeked in through the windows. No one in there like Begay had said. There was a large cooler in the back along with a lot of other junk. The front passenger floorboard was littered with trash and fast food bags. The keys were still in the ignition.

He looked down at the front tire. “Tire came off the rim over here,” Palmer said as he holstered his weapon. “Front passenger tire.” The tire was eaten up, barely clinging to the rim which looked bent and was dug down into the dirt.

Begay walked on ahead of the front of the pickup truck, studying the ground.

“Truck broke down,” Palmer said re-creating the scene for Begay. “They must’ve left on foot from here.”

Begay didn’t respond. He walked on ahead a little farther, studying the ground for a while. “Tracks here,” he said. “They got into another truck over here.”

Palmer looked down at the ruts in the dirt trail in front of the truck, following them until he came up beside Begay. He saw the tire tracks in the dirt, but he couldn’t be so sure of what had happened like Begay seemed to be. But he wasn’t going to argue with the man’s tracking skills.

“What the hell’s that?” Palmer asked, pointing down at dozens of smashed spiders, scorpions, and two snakes among the tire tracks.

Begay walked over and stared down at the dead animals and insects. “The truck ran over them,” he said. “A lot of them”.

Palmer didn’t respond. He just watched as Begay walked away from the rutted trail. Palmer was ready to get back in the Bronco and continue on to Blackhorn’s property, but he didn’t say anything as Begay wandered around in the brush and sand. He watched Begay stop and crouch down, studying the ground for a few minutes. Something seemed to be bothering the captain.

“What is it?” Palmer finally asked. It didn’t seem like Begay was going to volunteer anything.

“Strange,” Begay said as he stood up and walked back towards the stolen pickup truck, staring down at the dirt like he was following a trail.

“What’s strange?”

“There are all kinds of animal tracks around here.”

Palmer just nodded. He wanted to point out that they were in the middle of the wilderness, but he didn’t say anything. He wanted to get to Blackhorn’s property before these guys got away again. But he’d learned so far that he wasn’t going to hurry Begay along until the man was ready.

“A lot of animals,” Begay said as he pointed down at the ground. “Coyote tracks back there all over the place. And there are snake trails everywhere.”

“Snake trails?”

“Looks like hundreds of them,” Begay said.

Palmer looked back at the two dead rattlesnakes in the ruts among the crushed spiders and scorpions. He felt a shiver dance along his skin, and he nearly trembled at the thought of hundreds of snakes crawling all over each other across the sand.

Begay walked over to the pickup truck. “Scratch marks all over this truck. Maybe from bird claws. More animal tracks, too.”

Palmer watched the captain for a moment. “What are you trying to say? A horde of animals and snakes came out of the brush?”

“Yes,” Begay answered and looked at Palmer. “It’s like they surrounded the truck.”

Begay pointed at disturbances all over the dirt around the truck, but Palmer couldn’t really see it. He’d had probably a total of a few hours at Quantico when it came to following tracks in the dirt, so he had to trust that Begay knew more about this than he did. Still, it was hard to believe that all of these animals and snakes had surrounded the truck.

“Is that normal?” Palmer asked.

Begay just stared at him and Palmer thought he was going to get a sarcastic remark from the captain.

But Begay just shook his head and looked back out at the desert. “Rattlesnakes have been seen in large groups before, especially during mating season. Snake balls, some people call them.”

Again, Palmer shivered at the thought of a bunch of rattlesnakes writhing together in a giant ball, the cacophony of the shaking rattles filling the air.

“Let’s get to Joe Blackhorn’s place,” Begay said and started walking back towards his Ford Bronco.

Finally, Palmer thought.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

Joe Blackhorn’s property

Twenty-five minutes later Special Agent Palmer and Captain Begay saw Joe’s trailer and the other buildings down in the shallow valley below as they drove the trail up over a ridge.

Palmer was tense and excited. Maybe this was it; they were finally going to get these guys. It was how he always felt when he was close to collaring criminals. The place looked quiet and abandoned, but they could still be there, hiding out in that trailer or one of the other buildings. His senses were on high alert and he noted everything in vivid detail. Time seemed to be slowing down a little. He noted the wood barn and fenced corral. He noted the mud building in the distance—a hogan, as Begay had called it. He noted the trailer and shed and greenhouse near it, the windmill generator in back. He noted the two pickup trucks parked next to each other which looked like they ran, and the two older vehicles which looked like they didn’t.

Begay pulled his Bronco up twenty feet away from the backs of the pickup trucks parked side-by-side near the front of the trailer. He shut the engine off and he and Palmer got out of the truck at the same time.

“Joe Blackhorn!” Begay called out as he walked to the front of his Bronco. “I’m Captain Begay with the Navajo Tribal Police! We just want to ask you a few questions!”

No answer from the trailer. No sound at all except the freezing wind. Nobody came to the trailer door. Nobody peeked out the windows.

Everything was quiet, but then that silence was shattered when a barking German Shepard came bolting out from behind the trailer, running right towards them.

Palmer pulled his gun out of his holster, ready to shoot.

“Don’t!” Begay yelled and jumped in front of Palmer, staring at the approaching dog.

Begay yelled something in Navajo at the dog, a series of sharp and commanding words.

To Palmer’s amazement, the dog stopped in its tracks and stared at them. The snarling creature had become an adorable dog in a matter of seconds.

“He’s just scared,” Begay told Palmer without turning around to look at him, keeping his eyes on the dog the whole time. “He’s scared of something,” he said in an even lower voice. “I don’t think Blackhorn’s here.”

“Great,” Palmer said. A mist of his warm breath clouded up in front of his face as he said the word. “If this is even Joe Blackhorn’s place. Maybe Billy Nez tricked you again.”

Begay said something else in Navajo and the dog turned and ran towards the door of the trailer. Begay followed the dog.

Palmer followed Begay to the trailer.

The German Shepard hurried up the wood steps and waited at the door. Begay climbed the steps and stood beside the dog, knocking on the door.

No answer.

Begay waited a moment and then he twisted the door handle, testing to see if it was locked.

It wasn’t.

“What the hell are you doing?” Palmer hissed. He looked down at the German Shepard, expecting the dog to suddenly attack now that Begay was opening the door.

“I’m seeing if this is Joe Blackhorn’s trailer,” Begay answered simply.

“You can’t just … just go inside.”

“Of course I can,” Begay said. “Navajo leave their doors unlocked. We don’t steal from each other. If we need something, we ask and the other gives.”

“Well, in my world, we call this breaking and entering.”

“Stay out here if you want to,” Begay said.

After Begay opened the door all the way, the German Shepard darted inside like it was glad to get into the safety of the home. Begay didn’t try to keep the dog out.

Palmer sighed and looked around at the other structures in the distance. “I think I’ll take a look around out here,” he said.

“Suit yourself,” Begay said and entered the trailer, leaving the door wide open.

Palmer didn’t feel good about what Begay was doing. He just wanted to get away from the trailer and distance himself from the crime that was being committed. Begay could be ruining this whole case by entering a suspect’s home without a warrant.

He walked over to the two pickup trucks parked next to each other near the front of the trailer. He peeked in through the windows of each of the trucks but he didn’t see anything unusual.

He walked over to what looked like a small greenhouse. And sure enough it was loaded with plants on both sides of a wide aisle. It was still somewhat warm inside.

Next, Palmer checked out the hogan at the rear of the property. He wasn’t sure if a mud hut qualified as breaking and entering, but he pulled the wood door open anyway and peeked inside. He took a few steps inside the hogan. There was no furniture anywhere. The floor was dirt and there was a pit in the center of the hogan that was surrounded by a circle of rocks. The walls were constructed out of wood beams and filled in between with stones and mortar and straw. It was warm inside the hogan and there was the ghost of the smell of fires from the past in here.

The last place Palmer checked was the corral and the barn. Inside the barn he found stalls where two goats watched him. There were two other larger stalls, and a horse was in one of them. The other stall was empty.

“Horse is gone,” Begay said from behind Palmer.

Palmer whirled around, almost drawing his gun. He breathed out a sigh of relief. “You scared the shit out of me. I didn’t even hear you walk up.”

“Injun training,” Begay said.

Palmer ignored the man’s remark. “Anything in the trailer?”

Begay shook his head. “It’s Joe Blackhorn’s trailer,” he said but didn’t offer proof of how he knew that. “He had some guests here. Looks like they had some breakfast and then left. There are some extra blankets and pillows in the living room.”

It was them, Palmer thought—had to be. Their stolen pickup truck was on the trail a few miles back and now this reclusive old man had entertained some guests.

“So they were here earlier and now they left,” Palmer said. “But where?”

“Someone took a horse,” Begay said nodding at the empty stall in front of Palmer. “Looks like there’s space in the shed behind the trailer where vehicles used to be parked. Most likely four wheelers. A lot of four wheelers and dirt bikes out here.”

Palmer nodded. “So they left on a horse and on four wheelers.” He looked beyond Begay and noticed that the German Shepard had followed the captain out here to the barn. The dog was sitting there watching them, like it was waiting to follow them wherever they went next.

Begay noticed that Palmer was looking at the dog. “Blackhorn’s got a doghouse for the dog behind the trailer,” he said, “but I don’t think he wants to stay there. He wants to follow us around. He’s scared of something here.”

Palmer nodded.

Begay walked past Palmer, entering the barn. The captain looked down at the dirt, studying the tracks left behind by the horse. He followed the tracks out of the barn and corral, and then to the shed behind the trailer. And then he followed all of those tracks towards the front of the trailer, and then he kept on walking past it.

Palmer followed Begay but he kept his distance, not wanting to unknowingly disturb any tracks. He’d probably already done some damage by walking around out here earlier.

The German Shepard stayed a few paces behind Palmer. He turned around and looked at the dog, holding the dog’s stare for a moment.

The dog growled at him, but he didn’t attack. He sat down on his haunches and refused to follow them any further.

“Don’t stare at him!” Begay called back over his shoulder without turning around.

Palmer turned back around from the dog and shook his head. He kept on walking, following Begay out into the desert.

Once they had walked a few hundred yards past Joe’s collection of structures, Palmer looked back at the dog. He had remained in the same place, just watching them.

Begay finally stopped walking and Palmer caught up to him.

“Dog’s afraid of where we’re going,” Begay said as if Palmer had asked.

“Where are these tracks leading to?” Palmer could see the clear horse and four wheeler tracks in the dirt now.

Begay pointed. “Over that ridge.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Is there somewhere specific they would be going to from here?”

Begay shrugged. “I don’t know. We can follow their trail as far as possible in my truck, but I have to assume that the trail gets too rough for a vehicle if they took four wheelers and a horse. But I can get a lot farther in my truck than he could’ve gotten in his.”

“Why would Joe Blackhorn drive off into the desert with these three?”

Begay shrugged again. “He’s helping them.”

Here we go again, Palmer thought.

Begay looked at Palmer like he could read his mind. “This is the last chance,” Begay said. “They’ve gone somewhere out there to confront the Ancient Enemy. If you want to stay here, I can go alone.”

Palmer shook his head, tiring of Begay’s constant warnings. “I don’t think the German Shepard would be too comfortable with me hanging around here with him.”

Begay didn’t laugh at Palmer’s joke. He turned around and started walking back towards Joe Blackhorn’s place.

Palmer fell in step beside him.

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

The ghost town

“What did you mean by that?” Stella asked David. “What do you mean, you’ve been here before?”

David didn’t answer.

“You’ve been here with your parents?” Stella asked him.

David shook his head no, but it seemed like he was confused, deep in thought. He also looked like he was on the verge of tears. “I haven’t really been here before,” he said. “But at the same time, it feels like I’ve been here before.”

Stella looked at Joe for help.

“Remember when I told you about a man in 1891 named Jed Cartwright who found a boy named David?” Joe asked. “And I told you that the boy’s family was slaughtered when Jed found him.”

Cole and Stella nodded. David squeezed Stella’s hand even tighter.

“I told you that Jed and David went to a town and that those people were wiped out by the Darkwind … this is that town.”

David said that he’d been here before.

“Everyone in town was killed?” Cole asked.

Joe shrugged. “There are different stories, but many believe that a yataalii, a Navajo medicine man, was here in this town—a relative of Billy Nez’s clan—and he helped David close the door on the Ancient Enemy.”

“If he defeated it, then why is it back now?” Cole asked.

Joe shrugged again. “Maybe they didn’t succeed, or maybe they didn’t kill it but only managed to send it back to its world, and now, one hundred and twenty years later, it has come back. Or maybe this is a different Darkwind this time.”

Stella thought about the time of one hundred and twenty years—a person’s life span. Was David somehow the reincarnation of the David before him, and the David before that? Was he somehow related to this ancient being somehow?

She didn’t want to think about that. David was just a boy, she told herself. Just a little boy who needed help.

The wind rocked the side of the church, the wood creaking even louder. The ceiling above them groaned in protest. A howl sounded in the distance. The coyotes were closer now … all of the animals were closer now.

“Come, David,” Joe said. “We have to hurry. It’s almost here. You know that, don’t you?”

David nodded and he pulled his hand away from Stella’s grasp.

Stella knelt down and grabbed David’s shoulders gently before he turned to walk to Joe. She locked eyes with him. “We’re going to get through this,” she told him. “You’re strong enough to beat this evil. You understand me?”

He nodded.

“You listen to everything Joe tells you. But you have to believe in yourself … you have to believe that you can do this.”

“I’m scared,” David whispered.

“I know,” Stella answered and she couldn’t stop the tears from falling now. “I know you’re scared, but you’re stronger than that monster. You can hurt it. You can send it back. No matter what happens … no matter what happens to us …” She glanced at Cole who nodded in agreement and then she looked back at David. “No matter what happens, you just concentrate on sending that thing back through the doorway. Back to its own world.”

David nodded and hugged Stella fiercely. She hugged him back. She was so sorry David had to go through this, but she wasn’t going to tell him that right now. She wanted him to stay strong.

She let him go and she wiped at her eyes. “Go to Joe,” she whispered. “Do what he tells you to.”

• • •

Forty-five minutes later Joe had the symbols from David’s notebook painted onto David’s face, hands, and arms. The symbols looked like perfect replicas of the ones in the notebook. They looked almost like dark red tattoos on David’s skin.

Joe used the rest of the owl’s blood to paint a large circle on the wood floor after Cole and Stella had helped him sweep the debris out of the way. He’d painted more symbols inside and outside the line of the circle. David now stood alone in the middle of that circle as Joe danced around the outside of it, waving his carved wooden stick, rattling the bird claws, beads, and feathers, singing a prayer in a low voice.

Cole stood the farthest away from the circle. He had his gun in one gloved hand, his finger caressing the trigger, his eyes on the double doors at the front of the church in the distance.

Stella stood halfway between Cole and the circle. Her gun was still in the waistband of her jeans.

The wind had remained constant over the last thirty minutes, howling and screeching around the eaves of the church. The building creaked, the stained glass windows rattled in their frames, the whole building seemed to sway a little from some of the stronger gusts.

Shadows flew outside the stained glass windows … birds, buzzards, and bats. Some of them bumped into the glass, some of them already beginning to peck at the pieces of stained glass.

The howls outside from the coyotes were closer now.

The Ancient Enemy was closer now.

Cole and Stella had barred the front doors shut as best they could with some old pieces of wood and two-by-fours. Cole had managed to brace them against the doors at angles, but he knew the pieces of wood wouldn’t keep that thing out when it finally came.

A moment later something pounded on the doors from outside.

Then another pounding.

And another one.

It was here …

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

Captain Begay drove his Ford Bronco as far into the desert as the big knobby tires would allow. They had driven for almost forty minutes, traveling deeper and deeper into the desert. The trail was easy enough to follow even from his truck, but then the trail ran up to some narrow passageways through sheer cliffs of rock. No way to get the truck through there. They could’ve backtracked and tried to find a route around the groupings of rocks, but they might drive too far out of the way and lose the trail for good.

“We’ll have to walk from here,” Begay said.

Palmer didn’t argue.

“Take some water with you,” Begay said.

Palmer had taken a few nips from his bottle of vodka on their bumpy ride through the desert, trying not to spill any of it, but he left that behind and took Begay’s advice; he slipped a bottle of water down into his outside coat pocket. He zipped up his coat and slipped his gloves on. He wished he had a hat but he would just have to tough it out.

Begay went to the back of his truck and grabbed a small backpack that was obviously loaded with supplies. Palmer watched him as he rummaged through the pack like he was performing a last-minute check.

“What have you got in there?” Palmer asked him.

“Just some extra water and some other stuff,” Begay answered without looking at Palmer. He buckled the straps and slipped the backpack on. Then he grabbed the shotgun, unlocked the trigger guard and shut the hatchback.

And then they started walking.

Palmer wasn’t exactly out of shape, but he was no athlete either, and twenty minutes into the walk he was breathing a little heavier and the muscles in his legs and lower back were already burning. He glanced at the captain who walked beside him, but the big man seemed to be breathing normally, having no trouble with their hike through these rocks even though he was probably a hundred pounds heavier than Palmer was.

Begay didn’t talk on their walk, and Palmer was glad because he was probably too out-of-breath to answer coherently.

The groupings of rocks gave way to a gradual dip down into the desert floor that was a sea of brush and shrubs, some of them thorny and sharp, with dozens of trails through them. Palmer followed Begay as he wound his way through the paths through the brush, following the beaten-down trails left behind from the four wheelers and the horse. Palmer kept glancing down at his feet, looking for any rattlesnakes in the brush. The thought of all of those snake trails near the abandoned truck they had seen had gotten to him and he wondered how many thousands of rattlesnakes were out here where few humans ever walked.

Ten minutes later Begay stopped. The vegetation had thinned out and even though the sand was packed down a little harder in this area, the trail from both the four wheelers and the horse was still evident.

“Look at that,” Begay said.

Palmer saw it—a horse was trotting up to them.

“That must be their horse,” Palmer said.

Begay nodded and clicked his teeth. The horse came right up to him.

This guy has some kind of way with animals, Palmer thought. A regular Dr. Doolittle.

The captain whispered into the horse’s ear, stroking the animal’s flank gently. The horse looked jumpy, staring at Palmer with wild eyes. Begay patted the horse and whispered to her again. The horse took off towards the sea of brush, following the trail they had just left behind.

“Why is their horse coming back without them?” Palmer asked.

Begay didn’t answer. He started walking again.

Twenty minutes later Begay stopped at the edge of the brush which opened up to an expanse of open desert. In the distance was a line of structures that looked like dark shapes on the horizon with the mountains beyond them. Palmer could tell the structures were man-made.

As they got closer to the structures, Palmer realized that they were buildings in a ghost town. He’d heard of ghost towns before, but he’d never really seen one in person before.

“Do you know this place?” Palmer asked. His breathing was better, his lungs more used to their hike and the altitude now.

Begay shook his head. “I don’t come out this way much. Nobody does. A lot of this land is sacred Anasazi land. Many Navajo don’t go to these places.”

“But why would a town be built here? That looks like a …” Palmer didn’t know how to phrase it exactly.

“You mean this is the kind of place white people might build?” Begay asked with a smile.

Palmer just sighed.

“There were towns all over here in the eighteen hundreds before the government sectioned off the reservations for the Navajo, Ute, Zuni, Hopi, and others. Many of these towns were built up during the silver rush, or as way stations along the way to the west coast. But just like towns are disappearing in the Appalachian valley now as the economy changes, people left these towns for the same reasons.”

A howl rang out through the air. Then another one.

Begay looked over at a ridge that ran along to their left, running all the way from the sea of brush they had walked through and then beyond the ghost town. “Coyotes.”

Palmer looked at the ridge and saw that it was dotted with coyotes. They stood there in a line like a regiment of soldiers. His skin crawled as he thought back to all of those animal tracks around the stolen pickup truck.

“Is that normal?” Palmer asked, nodding towards the line of coyotes in the distance. “All those coyotes up there on the ridge like that?”

“Nothing is normal about this,” Begay answered.

They followed the trail through the hard-packed sand to the edge of the ghost town as the wind began to kick up, nearly blotting out the ghost town now in the sandstorm. Palmer stayed tense, but he kept one arm shielded over his eyes. If something was coming for them in this sandstorm, they wouldn’t see it until it was too late.

They got to the edge of the town and the buildings lining both sides of the dusty street provided some protection from the swirling sand. Begay carried the shotgun as he walked down the wide street through the middle of the town and Palmer had his service pistol in his hand.

“They could be in any of these buildings,” Palmer said.

Begay looked down at the tracks in the sand. Palmer looked down at the dirt, too. The wind hadn’t blown the tracks away completely because of the buildings, but Palmer could barely see them anymore.

“Their horse came back from that church down there,” Begay said and pointed at the white church in the distance. “And their four wheelers are parked there.”

Then that was probably where they were, Palmer thought. But they still needed to be ready in case a shot rang out from one of these decrepit buildings on both sides of them. He didn’t think he needed to tell Begay that.

More howls sang out in the distance and the wind shrieked down between the buildings as Palmer and Begay made their way down the dirt street towards the church like two gunslingers marching towards a shootout. Once they were in front of the double doors of the church, the wind was stronger, the sand swirling harder, pelting them like a dry stinging rain.

Palmer looked to their left and saw shadows moving towards them in the sandstorm. Some of the shadows were definitely coyotes creeping forward, their bodies hunched low to the ground. But there were also some kind of birds flying through the swirling sand; some were large birds like buzzards, but others were smaller … maybe they were bats. And there were other creatures on the ground slithering towards them. Snakes—had to be snakes.

But there was something else out there moving around in the sandstorm—it looked almost like two people stumbling around out there.

Could it be Stella or the man she was with, or Joe Blackhorn?

Palmer was about to point the two people out to Begay, but then the two people were gone, lost again in the swirling sand.

Begay and Palmer got to the front doors of the church and Palmer pushed on the door. It seemed like it was locked or barred shut. He kicked at it as Begay turned around, his shotgun aimed at the swirling sandstorm and the shadows advancing towards them. He was singing a prayer under his breath as he held his shotgun steady.

Palmer kicked the door again.

Then another kick.

Then another.

Finally the doors splintered and broke open. Palmer pushed the doors open all the way, his gun aimed into the gloom. “FBI! Everyone down now!!”

CHAPTER SEVENTY

The pounding continued on the front doors of the church.

Cole had his nine millimeter in his hand, the gun aimed at the double doors. His finger was on the trigger, ready to shoot.

David still waited inside the circle of owl’s blood Joe had painted on the floor. Joe danced around the outside of the circle, shaking his carved stick ordained with feathers, beads, and claws. He continued singing a prayer.

Stella was about to hurry towards Cole.

“Stay there,” he told her, his gun still aimed at the double doors.

Stella stopped—she trusted him.

Cole didn’t have time to explain, but he wanted to be away from Stella, David, and Joe when the Ancient Enemy came inside. He was willing to be the first one taken when that thing came, willing to buy David some time if he had to. But he had a surprise for the Ancient Enemy. He was going to shoot it, he was going to burn it, he was going to hurt it somehow before it took him. He was going to make it pay for what it had done to his brother. He wasn’t going out without fighting to his death.

And now the Ancient Enemy was here, pounding on the door, kicking it in.

Cole was ready.

But then he froze when he saw a man dressed in a dark coat and tie stumble inside the opened doors, a fog of swirling sand following the man inside.

“FBI!” the man yelled, aiming his gun right at Cole. “Everyone down now!”

Cole didn’t lower his weapon.

“Drop your weapons now!” the man yelled.

A split second later an even larger man entered the church right behind the man in the suit and tie. This man wore a bulky green Navajo Police jacket with a backpack over it. And he was carrying a shotgun.

Joe had stopped dancing and singing around the circle.

They all stared at the two men who stood in the doorway for a few seconds with the fierce sandstorm behind them.

The other man, the Tribal Police officer, closed the doors on the howling wind and stinging sand. He managed to prop up a few of the pieces of wood that Cole had used before, bracing the doors closed again.

“I’m not fucking playing around!” the FBI man screamed, still aiming his gun right at Cole and taking a step closer. “Lower your weapon now! Put it down on the floor and kick it away!”

“Joe Blackhorn?” the Tribal Officer said as he turned back around to face them, casually holding the shotgun in his hands but not aiming at them.

Joe nodded. “I’m Joe Blackhorn.”

Palmer’s eyes shifted to Joe and then to David who stood inside the circle of blood with red symbols painted all over his face and hands. “What the fuck is going on here?”

“I’m Captain Begay from the Navajo Tribal Police,” Begay announced, ignoring Palmer. “We’re here to apprehend these two and take David back to his family. This man with me is Special Agent Palmer from the FBI.”

Joe smiled and shook his head slowly. “You two came at a very bad time.”

Begay looked at Cole, locking eyes with him from across the room. “Sir, could you lower your weapon please?”

Cole didn’t lower his gun. “How do we know you’re who you say you are?” Cole asked them.

“What the fuck are you taking about?” Palmer growled. “I’ll show you my ID and badge after you throw your gun down on the floor.”

“I’m not putting my gun down,” Cole said.

“Wait,” Begay said, looking at Palmer.

The Tribal Police officer seemed to be trying to calm the FBI agent down, Cole thought. He laid a big hand on the agent’s shoulder. “Just lower your weapon a little, please. We don’t want any accidents here.”

The agent glared at Begay: Don’t tell me what to do, his eyes said. Then he looked back at Cole. “You’re a suspect in twenty-one murders, two stolen vehicles, and one bank robbery.” He smiled like he was delivering information about Cole that the others might not know about.

“You need to get away from those doors,” Joe told the two cops.

Agent Palmer’s eyes shifted to the old man. “I’m not playing games anymore.”

“The Darkwind is coming,” Joe said, looking right at Begay.

“We need to brace those doors back up,” Cole said. “How many men you got outside?”

“None of your fucking—”

“We’re alone,” Begay said, interrupting Palmer. “We don’t want anyone hurt here,” he said again.

“You need to get away from those doors,” Joe said again.

The wind was shrieking outside. Sand pelted the walls and stained glass windows. More shadows moved past the windows outside—buzzards flying past the glass, their claws and beaks pecking at it on the way, punching out little holes in the colorful sections. Above them, more birds pecked at the holes in the roof, enlarging them.

Outside, coyotes continued their howling. Now it sounded like there were hundreds of them.

There was a pounding at the doors behind the two cops.

Palmer and Begay turned and pointed their weapons at the doors, backing up a few steps across the debris-littered floor. Then Palmer turned back around and aimed his gun at Cole again. “Who’s out there?!” he yelled. “Who’s with you?!”

“It’s the Darkwind,” Joe said.

Begay didn’t wait for Palmer; he backed up even farther away from the doors, moving closer to Cole and the others.

More pounding on the doors. It was so forceful, the doors barely holding.

“Get back,” Begay told Palmer. “Get back away from those doors right now!”

Cole moved farther away from Stella, Joe, and David who still stood inside the circle. Cole still held his gun steady on the FBI agent, but he wanted to be farther away from the others in case this madman started shooting at him.

“Agent Palmer!” Begay shouted.

Palmer looked back at the doors, pointing his gun at them. The doors were bulging inwards.

“It’s the Ancient Enemy,” Begay told Palmer.

Both men backed up towards Cole and all three of them aimed their weapons at the doors which were still bulging inward like something heavy was leaning against them, pushing on them slowly.

“It’s here,” Joe said and he began singing again in a low voice, shaking his feathered stick at the air as he danced around the circle of dried owl’s blood.

Stella looked at David who stood inside the circle, his eyes wide with fear as he stared at the double doors of the church bulging inward.

“You can do this, David!” she told him. “You can stop it!!”

Cole watched Stella and David for a second, but then he looked at the line of stained glass windows high up on the walls at the other side of the church. Tarantulas and scorpions were crawling all over the outside of the stained glass windows, somehow sticking to them in the sandstorm, and many of them were crawling in through the holes in the glass pecked away by the buzzards, dozens of the spiders and scorpions falling down to the floor.

A rattlesnake wriggled its way in from underneath the bulging doors.

“No … no … no …” Palmer muttered. He shot at the snake, blowing the top half of it away in a spray of blood.

The doors burst open, both doors slamming into the walls, one of them falling off of its hinges from the force.

Two people stood in the open doorway with the swirling sandstorm behind them … the man and woman who used to be Zeke and Joanie.

“David,” the woman who used to be Joanie said, lifting a thin arm up like she was reaching out towards him. “We’ve come to take you back home with us.”

CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

Zeke and Joanie stood in the doorway of the church. From behind them, materializing from the sandstorm, snakes crawled inside the building. Spiders and scorpions skittered among the slithering snakes, some of the spiders darted across Zeke and Joanie’s hiking boots, but the man and woman didn’t seem to notice or care.

Zeke and Joanie were both dressed in soiled jeans and torn flannel shirts, but their faces weren’t their own anymore—their heads were covered with the dead faces and scalped hair of David’s parents. The skin was gray and mottled, their eyes rolling around loosely in the sockets behind their flesh masks. Their mouths hung open, teeth sticking up at odd angles, their tongues lolling around inside their mouths like the writhing snakes on the floor.

Both of them took a step forward in unison.

Stella and the others had seen that walk before—these were the dead controlled by the Ancient Enemy.

“Oh God,” Begay said. “That can’t be possible. Those are David’s parents’ faces.”

“Those two are already dead!” Cole yelled as he glanced at Begay and Palmer who still held their weapons aimed at the slowly advancing couple. Cole looked at David who stood inside the circle of blood, trembling with fear. “Those aren’t your parents, David!”

“What the fuck is this?” Palmer whispered from beside Begay, shaking his head slowly like he was trying to clear it.

“Those are David’s parents’ faces and hair on those people,” Begay said.

Palmer nodded like he remembered the corpses of David’s parents. Their faces had been skinned away, their hair scalped, all of the pieces missing. But here those pieces were … stuck on these two people in the doorway.

“Stop right there!” Palmer yelled at the man and woman. “FBI!!”

The couple took a step forward, their tongues swirling around inside the mouth holes of their skin masks, their eyeballs so large they looked ready to pop out of their dead faces. They walked with the jerky movements of zombies in horror films.

“I said stop or I’ll shoot!” Palmer warned. “I swear to God, I’ll shoot!!”

The snakes slithered forward, passing Zeke and Joanie. The spiders, desert rats, and scorpions poured in through the doorway, marching onward like an army. More spiders, rats, and scorpions spilled in through the broken stained glass windows on both sides of the church.

“Shoot them with the shotgun!” Cole yelled at Begay.

Begay didn’t even respond or look at Cole; he slithered out of his backpack and let it drop down to the floor, and then he pumped his shotgun and fired. The buckshot tore the arm off the woman at her shoulder, the arm disappearing in a spray of blood.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Palmer yelled at Begay, horrified.

Begay didn’t answer. He pumped the shotgun again and blew part of the man’s leg off, the leg gone now below the knee.

But the man and woman kept stumbling forward.

“David,” the woman said in a guttural voice. “We want you to come with us. We want to show you things …”

“How … how can they still be walking?” Palmer asked.

“Because they’re already dead!” Begay yelled, pumping his shotgun again. “I know you don’t want to believe it, but it’s true!”

Joe took the bottle of lighter fluid out of his coat pocket. He pointed the bottle down at the floor in front of him and squirted the fluid all over the floorboards in a wide arc. He plucked one of the large kitchen matches out of his jeans pocket and struck it. The flame sparked into life and he threw the burning match down onto the wriggling spiders and scorpions coming towards him in a crawling, living wave. Flames whooshed up on the floor, burning the closest critters. The other creatures backed away from the flames for a moment.

Cole glanced quickly at the flames and then he pulled the bottle of lighter fluid and the small box of kitchen matches out of his coat pocket that Joe had given to him a little earlier.

He squirted the fluid all over the closest line of spiders, scorpions, rats, and rattlesnakes. He plucked a long kitchen match out of the box, but his fingers were shaking so badly he almost dropped the match and the box. But he was finally able to strike the match against the side of the box.

It didn’t light.

The creatures were getting closer, glistening now with the lighter fluid all over them. Cole slid the match over and over against the side of the matchbox but it still wouldn’t light. He wished he still had his brother’s Zippo lighter with him.

After one more strike the match lit and he tossed it on top of the wet snakes, rats, scorpions, and spiders in front of him. The flames rose up immediately, the fire racing across the animals’ backs. The rats squealed and the snakes hissed; the animals writhed in pain on the floorboards.

Cole took a step back. The fire was holding them back, but it would only work for so long … more of the creatures were coming right towards the wall of flames.

“I said stop fucking walking!” Palmer yelled at Zeke and Joanie.

The couple took another step forward, Zeke hopping on one leg now.

Palmer squeezed off a shot, hitting the man dead center in the chest, knocking him back a step. But then he kept on hopping forward again.

“David, we want you to come home with us,” the woman said, her voice just a gurgling grumble.

The Ancient Enemy could put human masks on these people to look like David’s parents, but it couldn’t mimic their voices. The voice always sounded the same … that same guttural growl.

Palmer shot three more times, knocking both the man and the woman back again, but neither one went down. “What the hell?” he muttered.

Begay blew a hole in the side of the man’s face, erasing part of it. The rest of the man’s face slid off of his red glistening skull like a latex mask, the hair sliding off behind him. All that remained was the meat and tendons on his face with some pieces of white bone gleaming through. The one eye that was left rolled around wildly in the socket. His jaw had been broken in half from the impact of the bullet, but he still tried to gnash the teeth together that he had left.

A new wave of spiders, rats, scorpions, and snakes were crawling in through the open doorway. More of them poured down from the broken windows. The buzzards and other birds and bats shattered the rest of the stained glass windows, pouring in and swirling above them, flying through the smoke from the fires that burned inside the church.

“David!” Stella yelled as she turned to look at David. “Do something!”

David closed his eyes, tears slipping out. He looked lost … hopeless.

Joe kept on singing his prayers, but he had another container of lighter fluid in his hand; he squirted the liquid towards the fire, fueling the flames, keeping the snakes, spiders, and other creatures back away from him and the circle.

“We’re going to take your friends, David,” Joanie said. “We’re going to take them all away from you. You’re going to watch them die one by one.”

Joanie looked at Palmer and Begay. “You can stop this, Palmer,” she said.

Palmer had a confused look on his face: How does she know my name?

“Kill the boy and all of this will be over,” Joanie growled.

Palmer stared at the snakes slithering towards him. Some of the snakes had curled up into a coil, their rattles shaking, ready to strike—their combined rattling was like the sound of a million cicadas inside the church.

“Kill the boy!” Joanie screamed at Palmer. “Just kill the boy!!”

“Don’t listen to them!” Stella told Palmer. “David’s the only one who can hurt it!”

Two tarantulas crawled over Palmer’s shoes and he pulled his feet away, backing up, but the spiders and scorpions were all around him and Begay now. He shot at a few of them, blowing them into bits until his gun clicked.

Then he reloaded.

The wind outside was even louder now, screeching in through the broken windows, bringing the stinging sand with it. The wood beams in the ceiling creaked and moaned from the strain, ready to give way soon.

“David, fight it!” Stella screamed over the howling wind, the rattling snakes, and the flickering fires.

“Last chance!” Joanie yelled at Palmer. “Last chance to kill the boy! We will win! We always do!” She opened her mouth wide and a fat hairy tarantula crawled out, dropping down to the floor at her feet in a pool of thick saliva.

Begay pumped his shotgun and blew the woman’s head off of her shoulders.

Zeke and Joanie, now without most of their heads, collapsed down onto the floor. Their bodies twitched and bulged. Something large moved around inside of their bodies, struggling to get out.

Cole squirted more lighter fluid at the line of fire in front of him, dragging the fire along with the stream of fluid. “Over here!” he yelled at Palmer and Begay. “Get behind the fire!”

But the fire wasn’t all the way around them yet, and now the crawling creatures were advancing from behind them, the snakes slithering quickly through the debris, their rattles shaking.

The wood floors began shaking, trembling underneath their feet like an earthquake.

Stella looked down at the floorboards beneath her feet and watched as they exploded. Skeletal hands reached up from underneath the floor, grabbing Stella’s ankles. She saw wide eyes in a skull staring up at her, a rictus grin in the darkness below.

“Come down here with us, Stellaaaa …”

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

“No!” David screamed when he saw the hands from underneath the floor grab Stella’s legs.

Stella tried to pull her foot out of the skeletal hands’ grasp, but they were too strong. More floorboards exploded away. Spiders and scorpions fell down into the darkness below. The hole was getting bigger and Stella could see so many more bodies down there crawling all over each other, their eyes glowing in the darkness, their teeth gnashing.

“David, help me!!” Stella screamed. She beat at the hands as she fell down onto her butt. The hands were dragging her towards the ragged hole in the floor.

“You can’t have her!!” David screamed and then his body went rigid, like he was going into a trance. The ancient writing that Joe Blackhorn had painted on David’s face and hands glowed bright red and seemed to move, coming alive on his skin. Threads grew from the symbols and crawled down David’s face, down his arms and hands, down his clothes, down to the floor. The threads grew thicker and wound together like vines, moving towards a black ball of darkness that was forming on the floor in front of David.

David’s eyes rolled back in his head and his body began to shake.

• • •

The ruined bodies of Zeke and Joanie were twisted together on the floor, their skin melting together for a moment, then pushing away as something inside forced its way out from underneath their flesh. Black tentacles and feelers poked out through their skin, whipping frantically in the air around them, and then changing form. A segmented leg that looked like a giant spider leg pushed out, but then folded back in on itself.

Begay pumped his shotgun again and pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

He pulled the trigger again and again.

Still nothing. He turned the weapon around in his hands, holding it by the barrel like a baseball bat, and he beat at the snakes all over the floor around him and Palmer.

But there were too many of the creatures. One snake shot out and sank its fangs into Palmer’s left calf. The FBI agent screamed. Another snake got him in the other calf. A tarantula crawled up his pants leg. And then another one.

Begay grabbed the rattlesnakes and tore them off of Palmer’s legs, ripping their fangs out of his flesh and clothing. He flung the snakes across the room into the fire in front of Cole.

Cole came over to help Begay, squirting lighter fluid all around them in a circle, dragging the line of fire he’d created over with him, then continuing it on around them in a big circle. The flames rose up in front of them for a moment and they couldn’t see the Ancient Enemy crawling out of Zeke and Joanie.

• • •

David stood in the circle of owl’s blood, his eyes still closed, his body still trembling. The spinning black ball that had formed on the floor in front of him crackled with electricity as it began to rise up from the floor, gaining mass and solidifying, hovering in the air and spinning faster and faster.

David opened his eyes. His pupils had rolled all the way back into his head, only the whites showing now. His hands were out at his sides, his head leaned back, mouth opened a little, his body shaking violently now. The painted symbols were all off of his skin, all of them turned into threads of electricity that crackled around the spinning ball that was getting bigger and bigger.

• • •

Stella beat at the skeletal hands grabbing at her from underneath the floor. More of the dead were pulling her down into the hole. She grabbed the gun out of the waistband of her pants and aimed it at the dead skeletal creatures that held on to her. She pulled the trigger over and over again, shooting at the dead things until the clip was empty.

But the bullets didn’t slow them down. She blew one away, but others took its place, grabbing her legs and dragging her down into the hole. Her legs were almost down below the floorboards now. She dropped her gun and grabbed at the floorboards, her fingernails snapping off as she tried to dig them into the wood and hold on.

Joe was suddenly at her side. He grabbed at Stella’s wrists, pulling at her. He strained as he pulled at her, but he was losing this tug-of-war. The dead were too strong. She was slipping farther down into the hole.

The birds and buzzards above swooped down around Cole, Palmer, and Begay, then flew away, pecking at them. Begay swung at one of the buzzards, connecting with it like a baseball bat with a ball. He knocked it away in a fluttering of feathers.

The spinning black ball in front of David grew bigger and bigger, spinning faster and faster, opening up into a void, like a hole in reality, sparks of lightning flashing out of it and through it, crackling in the air.

“Don’t look at it!” Joe yelled at Stella as he struggled to hold on to her. “Don’t look at David! Don’t look into their world!”

Stella wanted to look at David; she wanted to make sure he was okay. But she heeded Joe’s advice. She knew that one glimpse into their world might drive her insane. She closed her eyes and she could feel the electricity in the air all around her, she could feel the hair on her arms and her head wanting to stand up. But she concentrated on fighting to stay out of the hole in the floor.

• • •

As the flames around them died down quickly, Cole watched as the Ancient Enemy stood up from the two dead bodies that had somehow twisted together in a melting of flesh—if standing up could be the correct term. The thing unfolded itself from the two bodies, then refolded, then unfolded again, constantly reforming itself, changing constantly as it achieved solidity. And then the air around it began to shimmer and distort.

Oh God, Cole thought … it’s going to teleport away again like it did at the Mountainside Inn. It was going to teleport away and they were going to lose it.

• • •

Begay beat at the snakes and spiders and scorpions, but none of them attacked him—they only attacked Palmer and Cole. Palmer had been bit twice so far, maybe more than that, and Begay wasn’t sure if Cole had been bit. Begay had seen the black hole opening up in front of David, and he knew that David was fighting that thing across the room, drawing that thing back into its own world. Begay just needed to hold on a little longer … he just needed to give David a chance to defeat the Darkwind.

There was a screech in the air as the Ancient Enemy was drawn across the floor, its constantly changing form stretched out, tentacles and feelers trying desperately to hold on to the floor much like Stella was trying to hold on. But that thing seemed like it was losing the battle … Was David winning?

• • •

Stella was almost over the edge of the hole in the floor now, her legs dangling down inside. She could feel more of the skeletal hands down inside the hole grabbing on to her. It seemed like they were making a last ditch effort to pull her down into the darkness. She could feel Joe pulling on her wrists, but it felt like she was slipping away from him.

She looked up above Joe at the swirling birds in the smoky air. A few of the buzzards and bats were dive-bombing Joe, trying to get him to loosen his grip as they pecked and clawed at him. But he wouldn’t let go. He kept his head down, his teeth gritted, his eyes on her, and he would not let go.

But Stella saw something else above the birds and bats that concerned her even more—the church ceiling was shaking apart now. Debris and pieces of wood and shingles were already raining down around them. Then she heard the popping noise of wood beams snapping, braces breaking loose.

And then part of the roof was caving in, collapsing down onto them.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

“Look out!” Cole yelled. He pushed Begay and Palmer out of the way of the large section of roof that was falling down on them—it was the size of a king-sized bed. He managed to get Begay out of the way, but the piece of roof fell down on top of Palmer, burying him underneath it in a cloud of dust and sand.

• • •

Stella pulled her legs as hard as she could, and Joe was helping, but it seemed like the skeletal things were still making one last massive effort to pull her down beneath the floor with them. She thought they were going to tear her legs off.

• • •

The Ancient Enemy tried to distort the space around it, trying to bend and fold itself around the shimmering air … but it was losing the battle. The alien thing slid across the floor towards the spinning vortex, screeching in fury and fear, twisting and writhing as it was dragged along, feelers and tentacles flapping around and slapping at the floorboards. The Ancient Enemy resisted, but the force from the spinning black hole was too strong, and it was sucked into the gaping hole in reality, back into its own world. With one last screech of anguish, the constantly twisting and changing black thing was gone.

• • •

Stella felt the grips of the dead hands loosen on her legs all at once. She saw the dead bodies rise up out of the holes in the floorboards like invisible cranes were picking up their bodies. The dead shot across the air towards the spinning black hole. She couldn’t help it, she turned to look.

“Don’t look,” Joe whispered. He was right there beside her, and he hugged her, shielding her from the sight as he held on to her.

• • •

Cole watched as the animals that weren’t on fire suddenly backed up away from them. If animals could’ve looked like they had suddenly woken up in confusion, then this was it. The buzzards, birds, and bats swirled above them in the smoke, and then they all shot up and out through the large hole that was in the ceiling now, escaping out into the sandstorm above. A few of them flew out of the broken windows, some of them colliding with each other in a panic, but then escaping.

Snakes, spiders, and scorpions skittered away from the fires that were dying down quickly, slithering and crawling back towards the open doorway like an army, and others escaped down into the cracks in the floor and at the edges of the walls.

Cole looked over at the black hole in front of David as the hole turned back into a spinning black ball crackling with electricity, getting smaller and smaller until it closed up on itself and disappeared into nothing.

The church’s walls were still rumbling and more of the ceiling was going to collapse soon. The storm outside was at its strongest now.

“Help me get him out of there!” Begay yelled at Cole.

Begay grabbed a corner of the large section of roof that had fallen down on Palmer, and Cole took the other. They managed to move the piece of roof back far enough to see Palmer underneath, unconscious now, but they had moved it enough to pull him out.

“We need to get him to the door!” Cole said.

Begay looked a little uncertain about that, but the snakes, spiders, and scorpions were almost entirely gone now, and the dead bodies of the man and woman had slipped into the spinning ball along with the Ancient Enemy that had been inside of them.

“It’s over,” Cole said. “David won. That thing is gone!”

Begay didn’t question it. He grabbed one of Palmer’s arms and Cole grabbed the other one. They pulled him through the debris across the floor.

“We gotta go!” Cole yelled at Stella and Joe who were crouched down on the floor together. Stella grabbed her gun and stuck it down into the waistband of her pants as she got to her feet. Joe helped her stand and they looked at David.

David had collapsed on the floor inside the circle and he was unconscious now. The spinning ball or hole in their reality or doorway or whatever it had been, was gone now. There was only the ozone smell in the air from the crackling electricity.

The sandstorm was already dying down, but the building was still shaking, still ready to collapse.

“Get David!” Cole yelled at Stella. “We need to get out of here. This building’s going to collapse!”

Stella darted to the painted circle. She scooped David up in her arms, and Joe followed her through the debris as the roof caved in behind them, crashing down section by section as they both ran to the doorway.

All of them got outside of the church as large sections of the roof fell down to the floor behind them. Cole and Begay dragged Palmer down the wood steps, and then down the path through the rock garden and into the dirt street of the ghost town. Stella cradled David in her arms, and then she dropped down to her knees and set him down on the sand near Palmer.

“Is he …?” Cole asked Stella.

“He’s still breathing,” she told him as tears streamed down her face.

Cole looked at Palmer. He was still breathing, too. But he had lacerations on his face and hands, and he looked pale from the snakebites.

A crashing sound from behind them turned all of them around to the church. The roof had caved in all the way, but the walls in front were still standing, and somehow part of the steeple had held up. From the front it still looked almost like a regular church.

But they were out here now; they were safe.

“David won,” Cole said to Stella, and he realized he was crying too. “David, beat it. He sent it back.”

Stella nodded. “It’s over,” she said. “It’s really over.”

Joe hugged Stella, and then he pulled away and smiled at her.

“I’m going to need you two to raise your hands up slowly,” Begay said.

Cole turned around and saw that Begay was pointing his service pistol at him.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

“What are you doing?” Stella yelled at Begay.

“He’s a wanted criminal.”

“He saved your life!” Stella screamed at Begay.

“It’s okay,” Cole told Stella and he raised his hands up a little in front of him.

“I need you to take your gun out and throw it over to me,” Begay told Cole.

Cole nodded, indicating that he understood. He reached inside his coat and pulled his gun out slowly and held it with two fingers by the barrel. He threw it across the sand to Begay where it landed with a thud.

Cole raised his hands again. “Take me,” he said. “I’m the one you want. Just let them go.”

“He was helping them get here,” Joe told Begay, “helping David get here so he could send the Darkwind back to its own world.”

“I didn’t kill those people,” Cole told Begay. “I helped rob that bank in Colorado. One of our guys killed that old man in the bank, not me. But they’re all dead now, including my brother. That thing … the Ancient Enemy killed all of them.”

Begay picked up Cole’s gun from the sand and stuffed it down into the waistband of his pants. He looked at Stella. “What about you? You have a gun?”

Stella nodded, already resigned to the fact that they were going to get nowhere arguing with this man. “I’ve got one in my waistband,” she said in a low voice. “It’s empty,” she added.

“Throw it over here. Move very slowly.”

The wind was dying down and the air was almost still again. The coyotes were gone. The spiders, snakes, and scorpions had all crawled away to their safe havens.

Stella pulled her gun out slowly and then threw it across the sand to Begay. “You don’t have to do this,” she said.

Begay didn’t answer.

“That man is dying,” Joe said, nodding down at Palmer. “We need to get him to a hospital.”

Begay looked at the four wheelers parked near them, and then he looked back at Joe. “I have my truck parked a few miles away from here. I followed your trail, but I had to follow you on foot after the group of rocks.”

Joe nodded like he understood exactly where Begay was talking about.

“I have a large first aid kit in the back of my truck. There’s anti-venom in there for rattlesnake bites. Agent Palmer will still need medical attention, but the anti-venom will help for now.”

Joe nodded again.

“I want you to take one of your four wheelers and get the anti-venom for me.”

Joe didn’t move.

Begay lowered his gun and holstered it. “I’m not going to arrest you two,” he told Cole and Stella. “I just want to help Palmer and I want all of this to be over. I just needed to have your guns.”

Cole lowered his hands and nodded like he understood, but he still looked wary.

Joe walked over to his four wheeler without another word. He started it and then drove off down the street towards the ghost town.

“What about the FBI agent?” Stella asked Begay. “How are we going to get him out of here?”

Begay just sighed … he didn’t have the answer.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

“Look what I found,” Joe said as he drove up on the four wheeler with his horse following him. It had taken him nearly an hour to get to Begay’s truck and back. “We can put the agent on my horse and take him back with us,” he said as he smiled.

After the injections of anti-venom, Cole helped Begay load Palmer’s body up onto the horse, laying him facedown over the back of the horse. Joe got into the saddle, and rode the horse with Palmer’s body right behind him.

Cole drove one of the four wheelers and he had Stella with him. Begay drove the other four wheeler with David on the back. They all traveled away from the ghost town.

• • •

Thirty-five minutes later they were at Begay’s Ford Bronco. Begay and Cole laid Palmer down in the back seat. Palmer was somewhat conscious for a few moments, but he didn’t seem to know what was going on, and then he passed out again.

Begay looked at Stella and Cole. “When Agent Palmer wakes up, I’ll tell him that you two got away. But I have to take David back with me. He has an aunt who’s very worried about him.”

Stella nodded. She knew this was coming. She knew there would come a time when she would have to let David go.

Cole knelt down in front of David and gave him a hug. He wiped at tears in his eyes. “Thank you, David, for fighting that thing. For sending it back. For saving all of us.”

“Thank you for helping me,” David said, holding on to Cole tightly.

Cole stood up and then Stella knelt down in the sand in front of David. She was already crying but she smiled at him. “You’re a special kid. Don’t you ever forget that.”

David cried harder. “I love you.”

“I know. I love you too, but I have to go now.”

David held on to her, sobbing.

“Okay,” Begay said and even his eyes were wet with tears. “We have to go. I need to get Agent Palmer to a hospital.”

David let Stella go and he climbed up into the passenger seat of Begay’s Ford Bronco.

“Buckle your seatbelt,” Stella told him, wiping away at her tears.

David smiled at her and then Stella shut his door. She watched David slip the seatbelt over him. Stella looked away from David.

Joe walked up to Begay. “Thank you,” he said. “You’re doing the right thing.” And then he said something else in Navajo that Stella and Cole couldn’t understand.

Begay looked down at his necklace and he took it off. “Billy Nez gave it to me before I came out here,” Begay answered Joe in English. “He said it would keep me safe.”

“May I open it?” Joe asked.

Begay handed it to him.

Joe studied the silver and turquoise charm on the necklace for a long moment and then he twisted it open. He pulled out a small lock of hair tied in a tight braid with a thin piece of leather string wrapped around it. He held it up so everyone could see.

“What is it?” Cole asked.

“It’s a lock of David’s hair.”

Cole looked confused and he glanced over at David who waited in Captain Begay’s truck.

“No,” Joe said, smiling. “This lock of hair is from the other David … the one before this David. This is what kept those snakes and spiders away from you. It’s what kept you safe on your journey to this ghost town. It’s been passed down in Billy Nez’s family.”

Begay nodded solemnly as Joe handed the necklace and lock of hair back to him.

“I will make sure it gets back to Billy Nez,” Begay said and then he walked to his truck and got in the driver’s side. He started the truck and drove away.

• • •

An hour and a half later Stella and Cole sat in Joe Blackhorn’s trailer. They were both exhausted but energized at the same time. Cole was ready to get on the road soon. He didn’t entirely trust Begay’s word that they wouldn’t come after him and Stella. And even if Begay’s word was true, Cole still didn’t trust the FBI agent. When Agent Palmer woke up, he would come after them for sure. But they probably had at least twenty-four hours before that happened … at least he hoped so.

Joe prepared a big dinner and they drank more tea and coffee. Stella talked with Joe about archaeology and past civilizations and the history of the Navajo. She seemed surprised about some of the things she’d learned from Joe. It was a good dinner. For the first time in such a long time, they felt safe.

• • •

Later that night Cole and Stella lay on the living room floor covered up with the blankets even though it was warm inside of Joe’s trailer. Joe had gone to the back to his bedroom, followed by his dog.

It was warm inside the trailer. It was quiet. They were safe. But Cole wouldn’t truly feel safe until he was out of the country.

He asked Stella what her plans were now and he was surprised when she asked him about Costa Rica.

“What about your job?” he asked her. “Your career?”

Her head lay on the pillow, her blond hair spread out on it, her skin so white in the moonlight filtering in through the open blinds over the windows. She smiled in the darkness, her eyes twinkling. “My career is over. I’ll never get hired by another university after this. If I go back, the cops will arrest me. They will interrogate me until I give you up. They will ask me question after question about what happened and they’ll never believe me. They’ll charge me with something.”

Cole nodded. He agreed with her about that.

She smiled at him. “I don’t see that I have many other options besides running away with you … if you want me with you.”

Cole smiled and nodded at her. “I do.”

“So you feel like having some company?”

“More than you know,” he said and kissed her.

She kissed him back, and then they looked at each other for a moment. She smiled at him.

Moments later exhaustion took over and they both fell asleep in the darkness.

• • •

Cole and Stella got up early the next morning. Joe had offered one of his pickup trucks to them. He told them they could take it down to a small airport near Page, Arizona and leave it there. He would have someone pick his truck up for him in a few days.

On the way to the airport, Cole planned on calling V.J. and asking him to have a small airplane and pilot waiting for them. He would also have V.J. create new I.D.’s for them so they could fly out of Phoenix down to Costa Rica. V.J. owed Cole a lot, and this would more than make them even now.

Cole left a pack of money hidden in Joe’s refrigerator and they left Joe’s home as the sun was just coming up. They got into his pickup truck and started it, then drove down the long and rutted trail away from his place. They passed the pickup truck they had stolen and driven here. Cole maneuvered around the truck carefully on the hard-packed dirt, and then they drove away, leaving it behind.

Stella stared out the passenger window as they drove. She was happy now. Still tired and sore, but happy. She hoped David would do well. She knew she would never be able to have any contact with him again, but that was okay. She wanted him to have a normal life now, and she didn’t want her presence to ever bring back those terrible memories of his parents’ death and everything else that had happened afterwards.

She’d meant what she’d said about finding a new life down in Costa Rica. She felt the same way Joe did now, that science had let her down in some way. There was still so much out there in the world to see, so many things to discover, so many more mysteries that science didn’t have the answers to.

But she didn’t think she could completely abandon her love of archaeology. She could explore ruins in Central America. She could write papers and publish on websites. She could write books. For the first time in a long time she felt some hope, she felt like the future was wide open for her … and it felt good.

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

Iron Springs—hospital

Captain Begay visited Special Agent Palmer in his hospital room. He was recovering fully from the rattlesnake bites—the anti-venom that Begay had given him had saved his life. The ceiling collapsing down on him was a different story; he had two broken ribs and he had bruises all over his body. But he seemed to be in good spirits despite his injuries.

Begay set a small potted cactus down next to Palmer on the table beside him. Palmer lay in the hospital bed watching him. The TV was on across the room, mounted high up on the wall, but Palmer had the sound turned all the way down. There was a view of the desert out the window.

“Thanks for the plant,” Palmer said.

Begay nodded. He smiled at Palmer. “They tell me that you’ll live.”

Palmer nodded. “Doesn’t feel like it,” he said and grinned.

The two men were silent for a long moment.

“What about Stella and that guy she was with?” Palmer asked.

Begay just stared at him.

Palmer sighed like he already knew the answer. “They got away, didn’t they?”

Begay didn’t confirm nor deny.

Palmer looked away from Begay at the window. He stared out at the desert for a long moment. “I saw some things I never would’ve believed,” he said. “I can’t explain what happened. I … I don’t even know how I could.”

Begay remained silent.

Palmer looked back at the big captain. “But if they got away, then they got away. I’m not going after them. There’s no evidence, nothing to tie them to the crimes. My guess is that they’re heading out of the country.”

Begay just shrugged. “Not my problem anymore.”

Palmer smiled. “Me either. I’m going to retire. My wife, she always begged me to retire before I killed myself with this job. Maybe she’s right. Maybe it’s finally time to quit.”

Begay nodded and stood up from the chair. “I have to go. I hope you get better soon.”

“I will.” He watched Begay walk to the door. “At least the nightmares have stopped.”

Begay stopped at the door and looked back at Palmer, waiting for an explanation.

“I kept having these nightmares,” Palmer said. “I saw that thing we saw in the ghost town … or just a glimpse of it … in my dreams. It was chasing me. And I had the feeling that if it ever caught me …” He let his words hang in the air.

“Well, it didn’t catch you,” Begay said and he left.

• • •

Begay left the hospital and got in his truck. As he drove, he thought of Palmer’s dream, of the Darkwind chasing him in his dream. And then he thought of his wife’s dream, the one she’d had before he had left with Palmer to go out to Joe Blackhorn’s property. It was like they’d had the same dream. The Darkwind had been coming for all of them … who knew what it would’ve done if David hadn’t sent it back.

Begay shuddered at the thought.

He drove out to David’s aunt’s house. He had called Awenita earlier to let her know he would be coming by. He just wanted to see how David was doing. She told him David was doing really well considering what had happened, but it would be a long road to full recovery. David was still quiet and withdrawn.

Begay parked alongside the road in front of Awenita’s home and got out. He went inside and talked with Awenita for a moment, and then he talked with David.

David was more talkative now, but he was still a quiet child. He was still scarred by what had happened. Probably always would be. Begay felt a profound sadness inside of him. Why did all of this have to happen to a little boy like David? Why did this kind of responsibility have to fall on the shoulders of such a small child?

Who knew the way the world really worked.

At least it was over. At least David was safe.

At least they were all safe.

• • •

Half an hour later Begay left David’s new home with his aunt. David surprised the captain by giving him a hug before he left. The boy squeezed him tight for a few seconds before letting him go. Begay smiled at David. He knew then that David was going to be alright someday soon.

Begay walked to his truck parked across the road. On the way to his truck he heard a noise in the desert brush. He stopped and watched as a coyote crept out of the brush. The coyote just stood there, watching Begay for a moment.

Was there an intelligence in that coyote’s eyes? Begay wondered.

Was the Ancient Enemy back?

But then the coyote ran away, bolting back into the brush.

No, Begay told himself as he got into his truck. It was gone. The Ancient Enemy was really gone.

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

Thank you so much for reading my book!

I have a favor to ask of you. If you could take the time to leave a quick review on Amazon, it would mean so much to me and it could help other readers. Being an author is a dream come true for me, and it only happens because of readers like you. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Mark Lukens has been writing since the second grade when his teacher called his parents in for a conference because the ghost story he’d written had her a little concerned.

Since then, he’s had several stories published and four screenplays optioned by producers in Hollywood. One script is in development to become a film. He’s the author of many bestselling books including: Ancient Enemy, Descendants of Magic, The Summoning, Night Terrors, Sightings, The Exorcist’s Apprentice, What Lies Below, Devil’s Island, Darkwind: Ancient Enemy 2, The Darwin Effect, Ghost Town: a novella, and A Dark Collection: 12 Scary Stories. He’s a proud member of the Horror Writers Association.

He grew up in Daytona Beach, Florida. But after many travels and adventures, he settled down near Tampa, Florida with his wonderful wife and son … and a stray cat they adopted.

He loves to hear from readers! You can find him on Facebook at Mark Lukens Books, and on Twitter @marklukensbooks. You can follow him on his blog at www.marklukensbooks.wordpress.com and he can be reached via e-mail at marklukensbooks@yahoo.com

Read the first book in the series. Ancient Enemy … it’s out there and it’s waiting … you have to give it what it wants.

www.amazon.com/dp/B00FD4SP8M

Twelve horror stories … one for each month of the year.

www.amazon.com/dp/B00JENAGLC

How do you hide from a psychic serial killer? That’s just what Tara must do as the monster who slaughtered her family has found her again.

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Four film school students investigate a remote cabin where an alien abduction reportedly took place many years ago … but they encounter much more than they ever could’ve imagined.

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Ryan wakes up in a motel room with a bag of stolen money, bullet hole scars on his chest, and no memory of his past. His only clue is an address in a small Oregon town where all of the horrifying answers are waiting for him.

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After a tragic accident, seventeen year old Danny goes to live with his father who is an exorcist … but their first case together will reveal mind-blowing secrets that will change Danny’s life forever.

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Six strangers wake up in a ghost town where they must figure out the rules in a twisted game before it’s too late.

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After suffering from debilitating nightmares, Pam goes back to her father’s estate to uncover the horrifying source of the dreams.

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