Never let them see your fear, her mother had once cautioned her when they had crossed paths with an aggressive group of orangutans during one of their missions. They had held their ground that day and the apes had pulled back and gone on their way.
Pulling her shoulders back, Cynthia matched Hernandez’s posture. His back was ramrod straight. His gun was still loosely cradled and she shot a quick glance at him, but there was nothing on his handsome visage that showed any emotion. A veritable poker face.
As they pressed onward, the obviously inquisitive villagers fell into place behind them, following them to the center of the small collection of adobe buildings. About a dozen or more single-story dwellings were laid out in the shape of a cross. At the center of the cross was a village square and as before, a fountain graced that space, although it was not as grand as the one in the other village.
Word must have moved more swiftly ahead of them since a squat, stocky man dressed in the colors of a calpulli already waited for them in the square. His arms were crossed against his massive chest and a grim set marred what might have otherwise been attractive features. His displeasure at their presence was clear, but then someone stepped between them and the calpulli.
There was something familiar about the presence of the tall and imposing man with his back to them. The pale beige fabric of the tunic he wore strained against his shoulders but draped loosely around a narrow waist and hips. Long, thick hair glinting blue-black in the light of late afternoon fell to his shoulders in shiny waves.
Cynthia didn’t know why he seemed familiar or why she felt an immediate connection.
“These are my friends,” the man said in Nahuatl, holding out his hand and motioning back to her and Hernandez. Turning halfway so that she could finally see his profile.
“Rafe.”
His name escaped her in a pained whisper.
She brought her hand up to her mouth, covered it to keep silent as the calpulli spoke.
“They will bring death and destruction to my people.”
“I will be responsible for them, Medicine Eagle. I will see to it that they leave before She rises once again.”
Leave? Cynthia thought. Leave when they had only just gotten there? When the seemingly impossible had happened and Rafe was still alive?
With a reluctant nod, as if sensing Rafe would not be dissuaded, the calpulli gestured to the jungle with a desultory jerk of stubby and aged-crooked finger. “There are others with them. Make sure you take care of all of them.”
A broad sweep of the calpulli’s arm sent the villagers into motion, returning his people to whatever they had been doing before the arrival of strangers had interrupted their day. Only Rafe remained in the town center.
When he finally turned to face them, his features were stony and almost as forbidding as the calpulli’s had been just moments before.
Cynthia walked toward him until she stood barely an inch away. His greater height had her craning her neck to look up at him and it occurred to her then that he seemed even bigger than before. More impressive and charged with a simmering physical energy that radiated from him.
Alive.
Rafe is alive and standing before me.
“We need to talk,” he said.
Ignoring the way that just the sound of his voice had her heartbeat racing with anticipation, she said, “You bet your sweet ass we do.”
Chapter Five
Hernandez glanced from Cynthia to Rafe, obviously sensing the tension between them. “If you two don’t mind, I’m going to radio for the rest of the team to join us.”
At Rafe’s curt nod, Hernandez did just that.
Rafe stood beside her, silent. Immobile.
It was not the reception she had imagined when in the wildest of her dreams she had found him alive.
When the others arrived a few minutes later Rafe advised, “I’ll show you where you can set up camp for the night.”
With one forceful stride he pushed away from Cynthia and it took a few of her hurried and shorter paces to catch up as he moved down one of the side streets and then turned toward the edge of the village. When she did reach him she finally asked the question that had been rattling around in her brain.
“How could you not let us know that you were alive? And where is the rest of your group?”
He stopped short and whirled to face her, hands fisted at his sides. A look of intense grief twisted his features. “Not now, Cyn. I’ll explain once we’re alone.”
Alone.
Alone with him again, she thought, and despite her anger at his chilly reception and the fact that he had been alive for all these months without getting word to her, joy rose up swiftly at the thought of being with him once more.
At her slow nod, Rafe turned and walked down the last leg of the winding side street until they were at the edge of a sizeable open area that the villagers had cleared from the jungle around them. To one side was a corral holding an assortment of livestock. To the left sat a small patch of vegetables containing various plants and the ever-present corn that was such a staple of the Aztec diet.
With a broad sweep of his hand, eerily reminiscent of the calpulli’s, Rafe motioned to the area of close-cropped grass between the corral and vegetable patch.
“Make camp here. Keep the tents close together and set up a schedule for an armed night watch.”
“Why do we need to be armed?” Rogers immediately challenged, striding up to stand before Rafe. Although Rogers was at least six feet tall and well muscled, he appeared puny compared to her lover.
Ex-lover, she corrected, telling herself that after their fight combined with six months of his absence and failure to contact her that was a more appropriate description.
“She may sense your presence and rise again. She—”
“Enough with the ‘she,’ Santiago. What are we facing here?” Rogers demanded, puffing up his chest and looking back over his shoulder at the rest of the team for support.
“She’s a monster, isn’t she?” Cynthia asked, recalling the entries in Cordero’s journal about the creature that had taken his men and the horrors that had followed until they had decided to leave the area.
“Eztli Etalpalli. Blood Wing. A demon demi-goddess. The natives believe She is descended from Izpapalotl, the Clawed Butterfly.”
“Jaguar claws and wings sharp as knives,” Hernandez recited, recalling the description of the goddess in Aztec mythology, and Rafe nodded.
“Eztli Etalpalli attacked us when we approached the temple. She has my brother David and one team member in her temple.” Rafe turned and pointed to the tallest and broadest of the mounds along the exterior wall.
Dani stepped up next to Booth and shot Cynthia a worried look. “But what about the rest of your team? Are they here with you?”
“Four are dead. She killed two of them during her attack, two later on. She has my brother and the last team member,” Rafe replied, his voice lifeless as he turned and stalked away.
Hernandez reacted immediately. “Set up camp as Dr. Santiago instructed. Make it two fully armed people per shift on the night watch. Also have the spare ammo within easy reach. Cynthia will go and find out more from Dr. Santiago.”
Grateful that he recognized what she needed, she mouthed a thank-you, spun around and chased after Rafe, but he had stopped not far from their intended camp for the night, as if he had been waiting for her. He stood in the dirt path leading back to the center of the village, head bowed and hands clenched tightly at his sides. As she approached, he glanced at her with sorrowful eyes and said, “I’m sorry.”
“You’re damn right that you should be sorry—for not letting me know you were alive.”
He shook his head and his sable hair, longer now after so many months, shifted with the strength of the motion. “I’m sorry that you came here, Cyn. You’ve risked your lives and the sooner you leave, the better it will be.”
She sensed he was getting ready to bolt once again, so she stepped in his wa
y, barring his escape. She positioned herself as closely as she could, making it not only impossible for him to move, but for him to ignore her.
He had no choice but to gaze straight down at her from his greater height, but as before, the power of him enveloped her and she couldn’t resist touching all that strength. She laid a hand against his chest. The cotton of his homespun shirt was coarse against her palm, and beneath it he trembled.
Was it with fear or passion? she wondered until she met his gaze and knew.
“Take me somewhere private,” she beseeched.
With a loud ragged sigh, he complied. He reached up and took hold of the hand she had laid against his chest. She experienced a jolt of connection as skin met skin and the familiarity of his touch awakened old memories, but the sensation of something odd nestling there created concern.
He tempered his pace, aware that she couldn’t keep up with his longer strides. As they walked past the homes and villagers, the natives stared after them, faces still filled with both interest and apprehension.
Cynthia tried to ignore them, focusing instead on the man carefully striding beside her, wondering what else he would have to say once they were somewhere private.
He surprised her by not heading to any of the adobe huts along the street or surrounding the town square. Instead he turned up another broader path and continued onward until they were past the edge of the village once again and standing before an igloo-shaped mound in another open grassy field. The front of the mound had been excavated, revealing the stones and colorful Aztec tiles that had probably been hidden beneath the remaining vegetation-covered sides of the hillock.
Rafe pointed to the short opening in the middle of the excavated wall.
She had to bend to enter, the crude doorway being no more than about four feet high and three feet wide. When she was within, she realized that the structure had once been a steam bath. The vent to allow the smoke to exit at the top of the mound had been cleared of debris and weak afternoon light filtered downward, illuminating the bare furnishings within.
Rafe had set up a small cot alongside one wall. A torn but carefully mended sleeping bag rested neatly on the cot. On a stone bench beside the cot, Rafe had placed a rusty oil camping lantern. He walked over and lit it with a lighter that had also been resting on the bench. The lantern was surprisingly strong, creating a wide circle of light in the area around the cot.
The light played across the remaining items on the stone bench. A broken radio and cell phone, their pieces carefully placed beside one another as if someone had been diligently working on repairing them. The map to the temple she had seen so many months earlier. And finally, closest to the light and the cot, a picture of her in a protective leather frame.
The presence of the photo gave her hope but still left too many questions to which she needed answers.
“Why, Rafe? Why are you here? Living like this? Hiding?” she said as she faced him completely.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Why don’t you at least try to explain?” she challenged.
With a long sigh, Rafe stepped closer to the circle of light and grasped the hem of the coarse cotton tunic he wore. His hands shook on the ragged edge of the cloth as he hesitated for just a breath’s length, but then he snatched the garment up and over his head, exposing his upper body.
She gasped with shock at the viciousness of the scars marring his once perfect physique. Deep ridges cut across his ribs on the left side of his body. At his right shoulder, two thick-scarred irregular circles led to more ridges, shallower this time, but no less painful to behold.
No doubt existed in her mind that such wounds might have been fatal. Should have been fatal, she realized as she stepped up to him and laid her hand on his side. Experienced the depth of the wounds beneath her fingers before she skimmed her free hand upward to his shoulder.
There she traced the edge of the ragged and heavy circular scars with her thumb and he sucked in a breath at that caress.
“She did this to you?” She laid her hand flat against the other deep scars at his shoulder. They were a sickly pink color, too new to have faded to the silver of fully healed wounds. Very visible against his skin, which had been tanned to a golden color by the tropical Mexican sun.
“She was trying to take me away, but I fought hard after she sank her talons in me. Somehow I managed to get her to release me and I hid in the underbrush. The screams—”
“I know. Believe me, I know.”
He cradled her jaw and stroked his thumb across her cheek. “I could never really imagine what it must have been like for you. How you suffered.”
Her throat tight with emotion, she managed to say, “You survive. You have to…for them.”
Rafe nodded and continued, finally understanding. “I heard David cry out. I wanted to go help him, but I was too weak. All I could do was lay there, praying for help, but none came.”
“What about the villagers?”
Rafe shook his head. “The villagers have lost too many of their own to the demon. They had to have heard the attack, but wouldn’t come out until the morning to see what had happened.”
“But they took you in? Tended to your wounds?” He became stiff as stone beneath the seeking touch of her hands as she kept them on his flesh, experiencing that odd sense of energy along his skin.
“I was near death,” he confessed and laid a hand over hers at his shoulder, stilling the motion of her hand. “I would have died if the calpulli hadn’t gifted me with part of his spirit.”
“Gifted you?”
“He is a nahual,” Rafe explained.
“A sorcerer? And you believe—”
“I didn’t at first. Besides, I was half mad with grief and the pain of the injuries,” he confessed.
“But you believe in his powers now?” she challenged, not as ready as he to accept such supposed claims.
“How else can you explain this?”
With a deep breath, he closed his eyes and stretched his arms wide, his hands spread open. At the centers of his palms came the first shimmer of something coalescing. A hum commenced, like that of a low electrical current, and as he exhaled slowly and then took another deep breath, held it, the power’s buzz seemed to grow beneath her fingertips on his skin.
The light in the room intensified and she jerked away from him. Uneasy awareness rose that the glow was coming from Rafe.
Small pinpricks of light now danced along his outstretched fingers and cavorted up to his wrists, static electricity winding around his extremities.
“Rafe?” she questioned and the light called to her, so she stepped toward him again, laid her hand on his bare chest. As she did so, a small tingle greeted her, and at that, Rafe dropped his hands and opened his eyes, breaking the electric connection.
“What was that?” she asked and rubbed her hand against the warmth of his skin.
“His nahual power, now mine. It’s the reason I didn’t come back to you. I needed to learn to control it. To use it to free my brother and the last team member.”
“You think your brother—”
“David is alive. Eztli Etalpalli has been leaving her victims for us to find. Drained of blood. Half-eaten. David hasn’t been one of them yet.”
“So you think they’re still alive? That she has them in the temple?” she asked, rubbing her hand back and forth against his chest, trying to comfort him with her touch. Trying to understand what he was now and how that changed whatever they had been or could be in the future.
“I’m hoping David and my other team member are still alive.”
And including Rafe, only three men had survived out of a team of half a dozen, she thought.
“Why are you insisting we leave? We can help you—”
“The demon will sense your presence and once She does, She may try to take you also. I can’t risk that,” he said and cupped the side of her face again. His palm was rough as she remembered it. The hand of a man of action. But as r
ough as his skin was, the caress was tender and filled with restraint.
He might say he wanted her to leave, but his touch said otherwise.
She slipped her hand over his, imprisoning it as she leaned in to his touch. Rubbed the side of her face against his palm. “I can’t leave you now. We won’t let you fight this battle alone.”
“Alone,” he repeated, and with a deep, body-shaking sigh, he enveloped her in his arms. Softly he whispered, “You can’t even begin to guess how alone I feel.”
She held him to her tightly, her hands pressing against the broad width of his back to meld his bigger body to hers. Rising on tiptoe, she nuzzled his face with her nose before lightly skimming her lips over his. However different he was, he was still Rafe, wasn’t he? And no matter the ultimatum she had issued about being first in his life or else, she still cared for him. Enough to not abandon him when he needed her.
As for where their relationship would go later….
“You’re not alone anymore. We’re here now. I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere.”
Eyes narrowed, Rafe considered her for far too many heartbeats. Pulling away from him, she shot him a quizzical look. This time he answered her unspoken question almost immediately.
“That’s a very different attitude from the Cyn who tossed me out the door in New York.”
To deny it would be a lie, so she didn’t. “I did a lot of thinking in the months you were gone. In the days since Cordero’s map—”
“Cordero?”
Realizing that Rafe was unaware of the reason for their presence at this village, she explained. “I was asked to authenticate a journal and map found in a Missouri cornfield. The items had supposedly belonged to a conquistador by the name of Juan Domingo Cordero and it turned out the documents were authentic.”
“And that’s what ripped you out of your safe little shell and brought you here?” he said, and there was no denying the anger and disappointment in his voice.
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