Time Untime

Chapter 3

Noon
Jotting down the time and date for her notes on the soil sample she was testing, Kateri felt as if she was moving forward while stuck in reverse. Her limbs heavy, every movement was lethargic and difficult. Like the entire world was out of synch and she was caught between two competing forces. And no matter how hard she tried to focus on her work, she couldn't stop her mind from replaying her crazy dreams.
What did I eat last night?
Banana ice cream.
That's it. From now on, it's off the menu.
After hours of internal argument that left her doubting her very sanity and condemning her own flagrant stupidity for even thinking otherwise, she'd finally managed to convince herself that everything she'd imagined until she'd gone into the bathroom to brush her teeth had been a dream brought on by too much stress, ice cream, and ...
Something in retrograde. She'd have to check with her cousin later. Sunny always kept up with that weirdness. If anyone could tell her what planet or astrological sign was playing havoc with her life, Sunny was she.
Still, Kateri couldn't get the image of that dark-haired warrior out of her mind. Of course, it would help if the man would keep a shirt on whenever he came into her unconscious mind. What kind of person didn't have enough decency to keep himself clothed while barging into her dreams?
A little modesty went a long way.
Yeah, but clothes on a body so fine was its own form of obscenity.
Shh, mind, have some decency yourself.
But it was hard when all she saw was the pain in his dark eyes as he held her in arms that were warm and welcoming. As his breath tickled her skin. Even now, she could feel his heart pounding against her shoulder and feel the slight trembling in his arms. Almost every time she dreamed of him, he'd press his cheek to hers while he seemed to savor being near her. In those moments, she was always so serene. So happy.
Until he killed her.
It's just a stupid dream.
She really did believe that now. When she'd gone back into her bedroom to dress, the mirror had been free of writing and there had been no sign of the dolls, the raven mocker, or anything else out of the ordinary.
Thus proving her imagination was as active as ever.
And friends wonder why I never experimented with drugs. With her family history, she didn't dare. She had enough insanity without them. Last thing she needed was more.
Ever since her grandmother's death, she'd seen "visions" she couldn't explain. Caverns in the desert and ancient hieroglyphics that were painted on stone walls. Animals that would charge her. But the one thing that had always been constant in all of them was the dark-haired man who either fought by her side or who ...
Stabbed her dead.
Suddenly, her lab door opened to show her grad assistant, Enrique Martinez, coming in with a giant package in his hands. At twenty-three, he was gorgeous and well aware of the fact. Something he took full advantage of with female coeds whenever they needed "tutoring." His list of ever-revolving girlfriends was so long that Kateri had quit trying to keep up with it weeks ago.
"Hola, Dr. Avani." He set the huge box down on the table next to her.
Sitting back on her stool, she smiled at him. She'd told him repeatedly to call her Teri or Kateri. But for some reason, he could never bring himself to be so formal. "Hi, hon. How did your date go last night?"
He made an unhappy sound with his tongue. "Not as well as I'd hoped. She threw me back into the river. Oh well. I'm not too trashed over it. She wasn't exactly what I was looking for either."
"How so?"
He flashed a dimpled smile. "She complained about her food so much to the waiter that I was afraid to eat mine. You never know when an irate cook is going to spice your meat with something extra special. Last thing I need for a woman is a harpie, know what I mean?"
Laughing, she reached for her package to open it. Dang, it was heavy. Had someone mailed her a stack of bricks? She now had a new appreciation for Enrique's strength.
"You laugh at misery, Doc, but Montezuma's Revenge is nothing to play around with."
She gave him a peeved glare. "You're never going to let me live down Gus Guatemala's, are you?"
"You're not the one who lived in the bathroom for three days, Doc. Thanks for that birthday present, by the way."
She snorted. "Yeah, well, at least you'll always remember it. Never let it be said that I don't know how to make a lasting impression."
This time he joined her laughter as he pulled a butterfly knife out of his back pocket, twirled it open, then sliced through the tape on her box.
Arching a brow, she was rather impressed with his knife skills, and didn't want to contemplate why he, a geology grad student, had them. "Aren't those illegal?"
His expression would make an angel weep at his innocence. "Are they?"
She loved how he always answered questions he didn't like with another question. Deflection had its place in the world and he was a master manipulator. Shaking her head, she opened the box to expose a ton of Styrofoam peanuts and something wrapped and taped as if on a dare.
Great. Just what she wanted. A broken nail and tape burns.
Enrique slid his knife into his pocket before he lifted up her notebook from the desk. "Nice drawing, Doc. Is this your boyfriend or something?" There was a strange glint in his eyes. If she didn't know better, she'd swear it was a light of recognition.
Heat radiated from her cheeks as she realized what Enrique had in his hand. Why didn't I close it?
'Cause she'd been a little preoccupied with convincing herself the subject of her drawing was a delusion brought on by one rom-com too many.
"No. I sketch sometimes to clear my head." It'd been her attempt to drive the mysterious warrior out of her thoughts so that she could focus on her research and tests.
Hadn't worked. But it'd been a valiant effort on her part that had blown up in her face. Instead of clearing her thoughts, every line of his chiseled face and rock-hard body was now permanently branded into her mind.
For some reason, she'd drawn him from the side profile, looking to the left with the light falling across his face and highlighting his features and bare torso in a pose so sexy, she was sure it was outlawed in most states. She'd left his long hair down and his throat was bare of the silver, bone, and turquoise necklace he wore in her dreams. In his hands, he held a massive war club. It reminded her of a canoe paddle, except the paddle's edge was spiked with thin jagged pieces of glass. A forgotten weapon modern man only knew about from prehistoric glyphs, the club had a flat side that allowed Mayans to knock their victims unconscious while the obsidian glass could cut through flesh and bone faster than a scalpel or bone saw. She didn't know why she saw him with a Mayan weapon, but it was one he'd used several times in her dreams.
Even without it, though, he looked lethal and powerful. Mesmerizing, and absolutely lickable.
Things she didn't want Enrique to know she thought about. Ever. She slid the pad out of his hand and closed the cover.
With a devilish grin that said he knew more than he should, Enrique took it in stride. "By the way, did you hear about Dr. Drake?"
"Which Dr. Drake?" There were four of them on campus, and two of them in the geology department where she and Enrique lived most of the time.
"The one you went on your dig with last summer down in Mexico. It's in your e-mail. I forwarded you the notice earlier. He dropped dead on a plane a few days ago."
She gasped in shock at his lack of tact. Dang, boy, didn't your mother teach better? You don't just firebomb someone with tragic news....
A little warning would have been nice.
The Drake he referred to was Fernando Drake from the sociology and anthropology department at Millsaps College in Mississippi. She'd been friends with him since they'd met in Reed Hall as sophomores at the University of Georgia-Fernando had been kind enough to kill the bug in her dorm room that had been terrorizing her for days.
Something he'd done with flair as he heard her screaming for a shoe to kill the beast. Flame-red Doc Martens boot in hand, he'd rushed through her open door, and killed it on the floor by her roommate's bed. Even more heroic, he'd taken its remains and given it a burial at sea in the boys' bathroom.
No one could ever accuse Fernando of being anything less than the best of gentlemen.
And since they were barely thirty, Fernando was way too young to just fall over from anything. She'd never even known him to have a cold or a headache. "What?"
"Yeah. Freaky thing, too. They said there wasn't a mark on his body anywhere, but that when they did the autopsy, his heart was missing. How weird is that, huh? It's like something out of Fringe, you know?"
The room spun as old tales whispered through her head. She literally felt as if she were free-falling. Reaching out, she touched the table to center herself before she fell off her stool. "You're joking."
"Why would I joke about something so grisly? I'm not that big a jerk." He frowned. "You okay, Doc? You look a little sick."
She was a lot sick as her mind went to a place she definitely didn't want it to go. Raven mockers were said to eat the heart out of their victims and to leave no external trace whatsoever. The only way to see their work was to open the victim's chest and find the heart gone.
Unable to breathe through her constricted throat, she opened her e-mail so that she could read the article about Fernando's death herself. But it did nothing to calm her. If anything, it made it all the worse.
Enrique was right. Fernando had been flying home when the flight attendant had tried to wake him so that he could put his seat upright for landing. She'd discovered him dead and had assumed it a heart attack. Yet during that flight someone, or something, had removed his heart with surgical precision while not leaving a single mark on the body anywhere.
Not something one came across every day. Not unless one was completely insane or a medicine woman or man guarding the hearts and souls of the dying.
Yeah, right.
I don't believe in raven mockers. At least that was what her head kept saying. Too bad the rest of her consciousness wasn't listening.
Over and over, she heard her grandmother's stories and saw the twisted figure from her dreams that had flown out her window.
Stop it! This was the twenty-first century, not the first. She was sitting in a state-of-the-art lab facility at the University of Alabama-not some wattle-and-daub hut in a North Georgia field.
She forced herself to look around the room. She wasn't surrounded by cave paintings and questionable herbs that doubled as hallucinogens. She was here with the gas and ion chromatographs, an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer, electron microprobe, isotope ratio mass spectrometer, her electron microscope ...
Her world consisted of things such as Betsy guns, single- and three-component geophones, StrataVisor seismic acquisition systems, and CHIRP subbottom profilers. She was a scientist, not a medicine woman doling out concoctions made from things she grew in her garden.
She refused to believe in any of this. There was a logical explanation for what had killed Fernando. There had to be. "What do you think happened to him?" she asked Enrique.
Like her, he was a scientist who didn't buy into mumbo-jumbo.
"El chupacabra."
Well, so much for that theory. She rolled her eyes at him. "Really? A goat sucker? Last I checked, they only drank blood, and that from animals. I've never heard of one taking a human heart."
"Yeah, but you don't know, right?" His accent changed from regular American to a thicker Spanish that only came out whenever he was excited or angry. "Abuela, she used to tell me stories of el peuchen where she grew up."
And here she'd foolishly thought she was up to date on the scary legends. Leave it to Enrique to find one she'd never heard of before. "El peuchen?"
"Si. It's a gigantic flying snake, right? Or sometimes it can change its shape to other things, but it's mostly a feathered snake that hunts at night. And it's a cousin or something to el chupacabra. Abuela used to tell me how it would come out and suck their blood or eat their hearts. In the morning, they'd find the hapless victims in fields or near streams. Her mother was the village machi and, to protect the village, she would drum it out whenever it started feeding. So I'm thinking el peuchen must have hitched a ride on the plane and got him."
"Then why did you say chupacabra?"
"'Cause no one outside of Chile or Argentina has ever heard of el peuchen. It's not exactly big up here, you know? Besides, I've never heard of one of them coming this far north. Chupacabra, on the other hand..."
As much as she hated to admit it, he had a point. Still ... "You don't really believe that, do you?"
"I know you want me to say no, Doc. I do. But ... Abuela knew things. She saw things. Things no one could explain, no matter how much science you want to put on it. She said they were visions given to her by the Holy Mother back in the day. When I was a boy, she told me I could see them, too. But I didn't want to see them and so I didn't. Just because we study science, it doesn't mean there aren't things that defy us. For everything we know, there is much more we don't. Things no one can find out with an empirical test." He jerked his chin at her computer screen. "And that is something we definitely don't know."
He was right about that.
Not wanting to admit it, she went back to unwrapping what felt like a giant round rock.
Enrique helped her until they uncovered ...
A giant round rock.
His scowl deepened along with hers as she pulled the plastic back to reveal a hand-chiseled wheel the likes of which she hadn't seen since they left the dig months ago.
"What is that?" he asked.
She ran her fingers over the intricate carvings as she studied the giant red stone that had to be thousands of years old, judging by its worn condition. "It appears to be a Mayan calendar, but the glyphs aren't exactly Mayan." More than that, there was writing on it, too. Not glyphs, but something that appeared to be an ancient Greek script.
Okay ... someone had to be screwing with her. They had to be. One of her friends must have made this up as a joke.
Because she'd never seen anything like this. No one had anything ancient Greek with Native American. There was no way for it to exist.
But what if it was real?
It can't be. Those two cultures had never intermingled. Ever.
Frowning, she dug through the peanuts until she located a note near the bottom. Prepared to have it say "April Fool's," she quickly skimmed it.
Teri,
We found this seal in the center of our site under an ornate headstone unlike anything I've ever encountered. I have never seen glyphs like this. The other script looks Greek to me-yeah, I know, go ahead and laugh-which shouldn't be possible. I've sent a photo of the writing to Dr. Soteria Parthenopaeus in New Orleans to see if she can read it and I've asked her if she has any idea how anything European could be on a Preclassic stone in the Yucatan. My initial test results say the stone is 14,000 years old. Not a typo. Believe me, I know it's impossible, but I've checked and rechecked a thousand times. It can't be right, so I'm sending this to the best geologist I know for corroboration. Or for you to tell me it's time to update my equipment and better ventilate the shafts we've been working in. I've included several soil samples for you, too. Please call me as soon as you get this.
Fernando
Chills spread over her arms as she stared at his name on the paper and a million memories assaulted her. Even now, she could see him sitting outside the pyramid last summer as the sun set behind him. Grimy and sweaty with his hair matted and sticking up all over his head, he'd been happy and excited even though they'd been excavating for ten hours straight in the worst sort of heat. Flashing her that boyish grin of his, he'd popped open a lukewarm beer and handed it to her. "Despues del trabajo-cerveza!"
Tears welled in her eyes. That had been the worst-tasting beer she'd ever drank, but his company had made it seem perfect. Fernando had always been a good friend to her and she would miss him terribly.
Why did he have to die? He was too young. He'd had too many plans.
She clenched her teeth, forcing her tears down as she focused on what Fernando would want her to do. Work always came first. It was why he didn't have a wife or even a girlfriend.
Focus, Teri.... By the date and time on the package, he'd sent it to her the same day he'd boarded the plane to come home. No doubt it'd been too heavy for him to pack or carry, what with all the airline restrictions nowadays.
Not to mention, the stone was huge.
In more ways than one. If this really was fourteen thousand years old, and if that was Greek writing on it, it would entirely rewrite the historical record and change everything they thought they knew about the ancient world. Both here in the Americas and in Europe.
Fourteen thousand years predated any known script-writing system. Come to think of it, it might even predate ancient Greece....
She frowned at the thought. When was Greece founded? She had no idea. That wasn't her area of expertise. She'd never been all that fond of traditional history. That had been Fernando's scope of knowledge, and while she'd picked up a great deal of information on her digs with him, most of it was Mesoamerican and not European.
But even with her limitations, she knew this was epic to the extreme. One of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time ...
There is no such thing as a coincidence. The universe and spirits are always sending us omens and signs. You must learn to see and read them. Only then will you be able to control your destiny.
Her grandmother's words haunted her.
But what was this a sign of?
"Do you believe the world's going to end in two weeks?" Enrique asked, dragging her thoughts back to where she was.
"What?"
He jerked his chin toward the calendar in her hands. "You know, the Mayan thing? Isn't the world supposed to end any day now?"
At least that added a small twinge of humor to her sadness. She'd listened to Fernando rant and rave against that all summer long. It'd been his sore spot the way she couldn't stand how some people left their shopping buggies in the middle of the aisle so that no one could get past them. Rudeness always set her off.
"No, sweetie. There's absolutely nothing in the Mayan culture or writings to suggest the world will end this year. Like the Cherokee and other natives, they have a cyclical calendar system, and the fourth cycle ends on the 21st, but they never once wrote anything about it being apocalyptic."
Fernando would be so proud to know that she'd actually been listening to his tirades. That thought caused pain to lacerate her heart as she finished Fernando's diatribe in honor of him. "That was a distortion made back in the days when we could only read about thirty percent of the Mayan glyphs ... if that much. Then back in the nineties when everyone was terrified of Y2K, some scholars repeated the old misconception and cashed in on it. So don't start giving away your personal effects. You'll be needing them on the 22nd and whatever you do, don't forget to buy something for your mother and abuela for Christmas. They'd be very upset at you."
He let out a sound of supreme aggravation. "So the date's not important to the Mayans at all?"
"Yes and no. They'd think of it the same way we throw parties on December 31st and why we partied like it was 1999. It's the end of an era for them, and the beginning of a new one. But other than tossing down a few drinks, or taking a few heads as the Mayans were prone to do, it's no cause for alarm."
"Unless you're one of the heads they have their eyes on."
She laughed. "Exactly."
Enrique sighed like he was disappointed that time would carry on. "Well, damn. I better pay my light bill when I get home. I was hoping I could let it slide."
Before she could comment, a new voice interrupted them. "I wouldn't rush home if I were you. The world may yet come to a bad ending."
Kateri sucked her breath in sharply at the thickly accented male voice that intruded on their conversation. Neither Spanish nor Indian, his accent was more a soft blending of the two. One that made the deep rich timbre sound exotic.
Frowning, she looked past her assistant to find what had to be one of the sexiest men she'd ever seen in the flesh. He'd paused just inside the doorway so that he could watch them. Though she doubted he was much over average height, if that, he had an aura so powerful that it seemed to fill the entire room. It was the raw intensity of someone used to being worshiped and feared ... most likely at the same time.
Dressed entirely in black, he wore his thick ebony hair pulled back into a ponytail. He pinned her with a stare so unsettling, it made her hands shake. There was something about him. Magnetic and scary, it set fire to the very air around them.
It literally sizzled.
His skin the same color as a perfect piece of caramel, he moved with the feral lope of an accomplished predator. Even though his gaze never wavered from hers, she had the distinct impression that he could see everything around him.
For that matter, she wouldn't be surprised if he could see behind his back, too.
"Why would you say that, Mister..." She dragged the word out, hoping he'd fill in the missing detail.
Luckily, he took the hint as he closed the gap between them. "Verastegui, Kukulcan Verastegui. But most people refer to me as Cabeza."
The way he said his full name, she could almost taste something sweet and luscious ... like warm cocoa.
Except one thing destroyed the image. The fact that she knew what his nickname stood for. "They call you ... Head? Why?"
One corner of his mouth quirked up into a smile that was both amused and threatening. "Pray that you never find out."
Her gaze dropped to the gold ring on his left pinkie. It bore a Mayan symbol, but she wasn't close enough to identify it, and though he was hotter than hell, she didn't want to get even a micro-inch nearer to him. His lethal persona said he might take her arm off if she tried.
"Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Veracity?"
"Vair-ross-STUH-gee," he corrected, rolling his R so that it sounded like a purr.
Enrique put himself between them, forcing Cabeza to stop short of reaching her.
Go, Enrique. Twenty-two-point bonus on your next test. God love that boy for being overprotective.
The scary glint in those soulless black eyes said Mr. Head didn't like or appreciate the interference. Cabeza spoke to Enrique in Spanish, but his accent was so thick that Kateri couldn't catch the individual words. However, there was no missing the way Enrique curled his lips before he shot back with a fiery retort.
Somehow, she didn't think they were discussing the weather or getting directions to something off-campus. They rather reminded her of a telenovela.
Cabeza laughed in a low, throaty tone as he tossed a smug expression at her. "You should call off your Chihuahua, chica. I'm really not in the mood to clean blood from my clothes."
Enrique started for him, then all of a sudden, froze as if someone had flipped an off switch. He stood stock still with one arm raised and his features contorted by anger.
Yeah, okay ... that wasn't right.
Gasping, Kateri took a step back, only to collide with the lab table that cut off her retreat. Crap!
"Relax, bonita. If I wanted you dead or harmed, you'd already be so."
Right ... He didn't know her at all if he thought that.
Her hands shaking with controlled fear, she reached into the pocket of her lab coat so that she could clutch her tactical pen-something her uncle Danny had insisted she always carry in case someone attacked her. If Cabeza didn't freeze her too, she had one heck of a surprise for him. She might be short and comparatively tiny, but thanks to her uncle Danny and cousins, she was all muscle and trained to fight dirty with the best of them. "What do you want?"
"You own a certain item that I require."
"And that would be?"
"A stone."
That was like asking the ocean for a single molecule of water. "Look around the room. I'm a geologist." She gestured to the shelves on her left that were lined with boxes of rocks- kind of what he was if he thought she was going to give him anything while he threatened her.
And that display was nothing compared to the ones she had at home. "Been collecting stones since I started walking. I need a little bit more than one noun. Could I buy an adjective there, Pat?"
His gaze turned dark. Deadly. "How about you just cooperate and give me what I need?"
Kateri pulled her pen from her pocket. "Let me think ... um ... no." She ran for the door.
Unfortunately, he ran faster and cut her off halfway to her destination. She slashed at him with her pen, but he caught her wrist in a move that was so fast she didn't see it until he had her pinned. Damn, he was a lot stronger than Mr. Hulk appeared. And that said it all.
"Give me your time stone," he growled in her ear.
"My wha-Who?" Her gaze went to the calendar Fernando had sent. Was that what he was talking about?
Okay, that he could have. Whatever it was, it definitely wasn't worth her life.
"You mean that?" She pointed toward it. "Take the stupid thing. It's all yours."
He glanced toward it, then did a double take. He released her so fast, she stumbled backward.
She ran for the door, but when she tried to open it, it wouldn't budge. Where was a grenade when you needed one?
Better yet, a key.
His features reverent, Cabeza ran his hand over the ancient carvings. He caressed the calendar like a lover he thought was lost to him. "How did you get this?"
"UPS."
He curled his lip and raked her with a sneer. "Where was this found? Tell me!"
Not the appropriate tone, buster. She'd never been one to be ordered around by anyone, anytime. Anywhere. Ignoring his command, she tried the knob again. C'mon door ... open, open, open!
Why wasn't the damn thing opening?
'Cause this day just didn't suck enough already.
That thought had barely finished, before the whole door blew apart in her hands. Shielding her face with her arm, she fell away in an effort to protect herself. Cabeza launched himself at her. Dodging his grasp, she ran for the opening, only to collide with a solid wall.
No, not a wall- A giant mass of a man who had to be seven feet tall stood in the center of the doorframe. One who snarled something at Cabeza in a language she'd never heard spoken before.
Kateri barely got out of the line of fire before the two of them went after each other with everything they had. They let fly blows that should have killed any normal human being. But neither of them did more than growl and attack as they continued to block her exit.
It was like being trapped by Godzilla and Mothra.
With no thought other than survival, she ran toward the closet in back. If nothing else, she could try to hide there.
As she broke even with the last table, where she'd left her purse, she grabbed her phone out of it. Intending to call security, she cursed as it started ringing in her hands.
Dammit! It better not be a telemarketer.
She flipped it open, and started to tell whoever it was that she was a little busy when she heard her cousin's voice.
"Teri? Is everything okay?"
"Sunny! I need help in my lab. Now! Call campus security for me. I'm being attacked." She'd barely finished the last word before her phone went dead.
"We can't be having that, can we?" Cabeza asked as he kicked the mountain away from him.
He started toward her.
Her eyes widened as the other man ran at him and slammed him against the wall. That had to hurt, but since he was doing her a favor, she was actually rooting for the mountain to win.
I have to get out of here. Especially before they turn that hatred on me. One hit like that, and she'd never recover. Kateri ran toward the front again. Please have heard me, Sunny. Please call help. She loved her cousin dearly, but the woman could be extremely absentminded and oblivious at times.
She glanced at Enrique, who was still frozen mid-gesture. He needed help, too.
What do I do?
Kateri was almost to the closet door when someone grabbed her arm and pulled her to a rude stop.
Furious, she turned on the newcomer, intending to attack. But as she raised her arm for the blow and focused on her latest annoyance, she sucked her breath in sharply. Recognition hit her like a sucker punch.
"Talon?" It was Sunny's husband. All six foot four, rippling muscles tattooed with Celtic tribal marks, of him. "What are you doing here?"
Had he been in town? Was that why Sunny had called?
He didn't answer her question as he pulled her back and put himself in the line of fire to protect her. His blond wavy hair was cut short except for two long, thin braids that fell from his temple. Just as Cabeza would have hit him, a fourth man caught Cabeza and lifted him off his feet. He slammed Cabeza to the ground before he kicked the mountain away from them.
"Get her out of here, Celt," he growled at Talon over his shoulder.
Without hesitation, Talon tossed her over his muscular shoulder as if she weighed nothing at all and ran with her out of the room. Not the most comfortable of sensations. But she was too grateful to be out of that room to protest.
Talon didn't set her down until he reached her office at the end of the next hallway.
"Enrique's still in the lab," she told him.
"Cabeza will get him."
She sputtered at his lackadaisical tone. "That's the problem. I don't want him to."
"Why not?"
Why not? Really? "I like him. He's a good assistant, and those are really hard to find."
Talon scowled at her. "Then why don't you want him saved?"
"I do want him saved. Not fed to Cabeza."
Talon's frown deepened. "We are both speaking English, right?"
"Yeah."
"Then why do I feel like we're not?"
Before she could answer, the tall, scary man who'd slammed Cabeza to the floor appeared by his side. Literally-by his side.
How had he run in so fast that she hadn't seen it?
Not that it mattered right this instant, because ... Holy firecracker ... How had she failed to notice him?
Yet during the fight, she'd barely registered the man. Now the sheer ferocity of his presence jarred her. Just over six feet, he was built like a tank, and those black clothes added an even more sinister look to him. Not that he needed it. His black hair was slightly longer than Talon's and he wore it with his bangs covering a pair of obsidian eyes that froze her the instant they met her gaze and held it in a tight fist.
Her knees went weak from terror. How had he appeared in here without using the door? It was still closed from Talon and while the man might be fast, she would have surely seen it open and close. Not to mention, hear the bell on it.
Unlike her, Talon didn't seem to think it unusual that he had materialized in her office. "Did you get the kid?" he asked the man.
"Barely. I stashed him in the public toilet. He should be safe there until he regains use of his body." The man jerked his chin toward the windows. "Help a brother out, Celt. I could have gone up in flames just now, you bastard. Think ahead. Ask for my help. Blow me up. Shit. What kind of friend are you?"
"Screw you," Talon snarled before he moved to the blinds and closed them. "Mess with me, boy, and I'll bring the daylight inside where you stand."
The man gestured at Talon with something she assumed must be obscene.
Talon flashed a taunting grin. "Not on your best day, Cabeza. But feel free to keep fantasizing about me. Most women do."
The man scoffed and grabbed his "package" and shook it. "Yeah, I got your woman for you, Celt. Right here."
Kateri held her hands up before they started a fight to equal the one she'd just left. "Wait, wait, wait..." She pointed to the man. "He's named Cabeza, too?"
The man quirked a brow at her. "Too? I'm pretty sure I'm it. Haven't ever come across another."
Her own head was starting to throb. "The other man in the lab. The one you attacked. He said his name was Cabeza."
"His mama named him Head?" Talon snorted derisively. "Damn, that's cold. And here I thought this Cabeza had it bad."
"It was a nickname. His real name was Kukulcan Verastegui."
The Cabeza in front of her broke off into a fierce round of what sounded like Mayan cursing. She had no idea what he was saying, but it was raw and explosive as he gestured furiously to punctuate his tirade.
She turned her frown to Talon. "What's he saying?"
Talon shrugged. "I'm from Britain, not Mexico. No idea."
"That pendejo is not me." Cabeza broke off into a mixture of Mayan and Spanish and then returned to English, but this time his accent was much thicker and he rolled his Rs viciously. "His name, for the record, is Chacu. Ese cabron hijo de la gran puta, pretending to be me. I should have cut his throat for my Act of Vengeance!"
"The real question is, did you cut his throat today?"
Hands on hips, Cabeza glared at Talon for asking such a thing. "No. He got away, along with the ... what's the word? Uh ... Pigeon crap?"
"Chicken shit?" Talon offered.
"Si!... that was with him. They vanished before I could kill them."
"Why were they fighting?" Kateri asked. "And why were they after me?"
Cabeza arched a brow at her. "Don't you know?"
"Why would I ask if I knew?" She turned her attention to Talon. "And how did you get here so fast? Where were you?" Talon and Sunshine lived in New Orleans ... not here in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Last time she'd made that drive, it'd taken her four hours, and she didn't drive slowly.
"You'll want to sit down for this." Talon turned the chair in front of her desk around for her.
A sick feeling settled deep in her stomach. "Think I'll stand. Now, what's up?"
The men exchanged a solemn look as if they were silently willing the other to speak first.
"Did Chacu say anything to you, other than pretending to be me?"
"He said he wanted my stone."
A tic started in Cabeza's jaw. "And the other ... creature with him? What did he say?"
"Nothing. He showed up and Cab-" She broke the word off as his eyes snapped ebony fire at her. "Chacu attacked him."
"Any idea why he's handing out your name?" Talon asked.
"No idea. His hatred of me is legendary. But he's not exactly engraved in my heart either. My want-them-dead list, however, is another matter."
Kateri cleared her throat to get their attention. "And you're both avoiding my questions."
Talon let out a sarcastic laugh. "That's because you're going to freak and neither one of us wants to deal with it."
Well, at least Talon was honest.
"I'm not going to freak," she assured him.
It was now Cabeza's turn to mock her. "That's what they all say, chica. And then they all freak."
Talon laughed again-for real this time-as he met Cabeza's gaze. "You remember that time when..." He glanced at her. "Never mind."
She ignored that segue entirely. "Look, whatever it is, I can handle it. I'm not a child, and Talon, you know I don't ever overreact to anything."
Cabeza crossed his arms over his chest. "Is this true?"
"So far. But I've never dumped anything like this on her before. There's always that first time for everything."
That offended her. "So far? Thanks for the vote of confidence, Talon."
He held his hands up in surrender. "At least it's something."
"You better tell her, Celt ... before another comes. We need to get her to shelter while we can."
Kateri definitely didn't like the sound of that. "Shelter from what?"
Talon let out a long sigh. "All right. Fine. You asked for it. Let's see you not freak when we tell you that you're the mother of Armageddon."