Night Demon

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 by Lisa Kessler. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

  Entangled Publishing, LLC

  2614 South Timberline Road

  Suite 109

  Fort Collins, CO 80525

  Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

  Edited by Danielle Poiesz and Theresa Cole

  Cover design by Heather Howland and Kerri-Leigh Grady

  Ebook ISBN 978-1-62266-074-2

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition March 2013

  The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: Jeep, Google, the Weather Channel, Yellow Pages, Ambien, Wonder Woman, M*A*S*H*, Seaport Village, Ben & Jerry’s, Budweiser, The Doors, “Break On Through”.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  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

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  For Reno – Without you, I might still be stuck at the top of the pyramid at Chichen Itza.

  Prologue

  Blood seeped from the corners of his ancient eyes and down his stone cheeks. Deep in the center chamber of the stone pyramid, the Guardian drew a slow breath. The carved stone of his body gradually became flesh, the rock cracking and falling away from his new, immortal skin. His gray, lifeless eyes had stared into oblivion for centuries, but the time had come for him to see once more.

  New flesh blinked over blind eyes until the ancient spell of life finally granted him sight. His chest heaved, and the erratic rhythm of his heartbeat gradually slowed to match the pulse of Camalotz, the Night Demon, as she woke from millennia of slumber.

  Overhead, birds screeched across the night sky, warning the world below that the heart of the jungle beat once more. Camalotz stirred deep within the earth, buried under a blanket of stone and vines. The low rumble of her hungry growl shook the ground until the entire jungle floor trembled in fear.

  The sleeper was now awake—and yearned for freedom from her prison beneath the dirt.

  The Guardian wondered how long they had slept. As the Demon’s consort and keeper, he stood as the protector and guardian of the mortal world, to shield it from her wrath. Controlling her had proved an impossible task, though. One he had hoped he would never face again.

  The Guardian pushed open the catacomb and made his way out of the ancient stone pyramid and into the jungle, stalking the beasts as they lurked in the shadows. Too many years had passed since living blood stained his lips. His parched throat ached.

  In a few nights’ time, he would have the strength needed to begin his search. He had to find the one who awakened the Night Demon. He helped imprison the beast once before, and now, after so many years had passed, he needed to restrain her yet again.

  The mortal world depended on it.

  Chapter One

  Lukas rested his forehead in his hands in utter frustration. The sun would rise soon, and he still hadn’t deciphered the Mayan glyph.

  Something had changed over the past week in the heart of the Yucatan. He felt watched, hunted by some unseen force. Malice permeated the humid heat of the jungle, and the animals could feel it too, sharing his wariness.

  Whatever haunted the jungle creatures seemed tied to the ancient carvings of the Mayan priests. He wasn’t sure if his expedition, his own unearthing of such dark secrets, had caused the shift, but he needed to find answers. He’d searched too long to leave without solving the mystery, without discovering what made him a Night Walker. In fact, he’d hoped he would never leave the jungle again.

  With every tremor that shook the jungle floor, the sinister presence grew stronger. He’d watched the creatures of the rainforest tremble in fear, their instincts warning them of the danger, of the evil lurking all around them.

  Lukas let out a heavy sigh and turned his concentration back to his research. He needed to focus on the puzzle before him. The secrets he’d been searching for were nearly his. How many times had he yearned for that moment, for the chance to finally understand what he had become and defeat it?

  Ever since he fled the California coast nearly three hundred years before, he’d been tortured by his immortality, unable to accept his new existence. He was a Night Walker, and it was not his choice. His body had been infected, and he became a killer. Only the shift into his spirit animal offered him solace and escape from the new reality of his immortality.

  His thirst for blood had consumed him in the early years. He’d killed often, too often, and it wasn’t long before the madness set in. Lukas lost count of the attempts he made to either cure or kill himself. He’d tried every spell, every remedy he could find, and still he lived in darkness. Even the morning sun failed to ruin his immortal body. He’d been burned, but his body’s instinct to survive took over, and the next evening he’d found himself buried deep within the earth.

  Over the years he’d met and studied vampires, who survived on blood, and other rare species capable of shape-shifting. Although he shared many similarities with these other immortal creatures, he wasn’t any of them. None of the vampires he’d found could shape-shift into owls like he could, and the few shape-shifters he’d met didn’t drink blood. He’d even impaled himself on a wooden stake through his heart, just to be safe.

  It hurt like hell, but it didn’t end his existence.

  Night Walkers seemed to be a forgotten anomaly.

  Other than his maker, he’d never met or even heard of another Night Walker.

  Out of frustration, Lukas channeled all of his bitterness and guilt into finding a reason to rise each night. Research gave him a purpose, and he devoted years of endless nights to searching out the origins of the race he had unwillingly joined.

  Now he found himself precariously close to another major breakthrough.

  “Any luck with the glyph, Lukas?”

  He turned when he heard Gretchen’s voice. “Not much.”

  “Are you hungry?” His assistant held up a plastic pouch. “I have some jerky here.”

  “No,” he replied, almost too quickly. Human food would never sate him again. “No, thank you, I’m fine.”

  He forced a smile, but he was far from fine. Gretchen’s rich mortal blood tempted him. His thirst smoldered inside of him. He teased the tip of his fang with his tongue, loathing the hunger.


  She shrugged and munched on the jerky while jotting down some notes in her journal. Without electricity, her laptop became an expensive paperweight. He tried not to notice the way she gnawed at her lower lip, fluttering her pen back and forth in her fingers while she pondered her next line.

  He noticed far too much about her these days.

  “I’m going out for some air.” Lukas rose from his chair, pushing his hair back from his forehead, and walked toward the door. “I’ll be back soon.”

  She glanced up, holding him in her green-eyed gaze. “Wait a sec.” Bending to pull an envelope from her bag, she straightened and raised a questioning brow. “It looks like I got a raise I didn’t ask for.”

  “You’re one of the most sought after Mayan linguists in the States. I couldn’t ask you to extend your contract without being sure you were rewarded for your work.” Technically it wasn’t a lie, but he would be paying this contract, not the university she worked for. He didn’t need the money, anyway. And he had one very long lifetime to earn it back if he ever did.

  She placed the envelope on the table. “I don’t know how you managed it. Funding is tight at the university right now. I’m surprised they let me stay on this project, let alone gave me more money.”

  “I promised them results.” Lukas cleared his throat and turned toward the door. “Get some rest.”

  “Whatever you promised, thank you.” She stood up. “Don’t forget your lantern.”

  She held out the light, but all he saw was her pulse beckoning him with its tempting rhythm under her luscious skin. His eyes burned, threatening to glow red with hunger, and inside his mouth his tongue slid over the tip of his fang again, willing it to retract.

  “Lukas?” Gretchen raised her hand to touch his face. “Are you sure you’re all right? You look pale.”

  He caught her wrist before her warm fingers could caress his cool skin and kept his expression purposefully cold and distant. “I said I was fine. I’ll be back.”

  Lukas took the lantern although he had no need for it anymore—immortality gave him night vision that he both hated and appreciated—and disappeared into the darkness of the jungle.

  …

  Gretchen watched him go with an inward sigh. She’d worked alongside many brilliant colleagues, scientists and researchers, but she’d never met a man like Lukas Smith.

  Although she’d doubted that was his real last name. After spending time with him these past few months, she’d noticed a hint of an accent creep into his voice when he got frustrated, and once she’d swear she overheard him mumbling to himself in Russian.

  Smith didn’t sound like a Russian name.

  Not that it really mattered. She’d done her homework before accepting this project. Lukas had a reputation for being reclusive, but genius. His discoveries over the years changed the way the archeological community viewed the Maya, and after working with him, she could vouch for his drive for knowledge. He worked tirelessly all night, every night, deciphering the ancient Mayan glyphs with a tenacity that bordered on fanatical.

  Ever since the Mayan calendar had been deciphered, more glyphs were translated every year. It wasn’t an exact science, but Gretchen loved digging into the pictures and symbols, blending them with the already confirmed characters until she found a new translation.

  They’d been on this site for nearly ten months in the Yucatan, and while she had traveled back to the United States twice during that time, Lukas never left the jungle.

  She sat down in his chair and stared at the rubbing of the ancient stone tile. Glancing over at his jumbled notes, she stared at the glyph again with a more critical eye.

  What did Lukas hope to find? And why did he only seem to work on it at night?

  When she’d first arrived, she chalked his work schedule up to being eccentric—exploring the jungle during the day, decoding the glyphs at night. But as she got to know him, she found him reserved, driven, and committed—not what she’d classify as eccentric. Outright questioning her boss about his work hours seemed like a bad career move, though, so she focused on her research and eventually stopped noticing how little he slept.

  Even though they’d been working closely together for a few months now, he still remained a mystery. Maybe that explained part of her attraction to him. She was a sucker for piecing together a puzzle. It’s what led her to a career in archeology in the first place, and more than likely, that was what kept her here with Lukas. The fact that his looks were every bit as tempting as his brilliant mind didn’t hurt, either.

  Her six-month contract with his research team had expired four months ago, but she’d renewed it without a second thought. And Lukas apparently negotiated a pay increase for her. She hadn’t even thought about it. She’d had no intention of leaving him or the site.

  They found something here—something no other archeologists had seen. Just ten miles from the ruins of Chichen Itza, deep in the heart of the Yucatan rainforest, they found an altar. Unlike the elaborately carved and painted Mayan sacrificial monuments, this one appeared simple and plain. She labeled it an altar because, for now, they had no other word to classify it.

  When they first stumbled upon it, she mistook it for some sort of well or aqueduct. Mayan “cenotes” were common in the area, exposing the underground rivers that flow beneath the rainforest, but once she and Lukas started deciphering the Mayan writings it became apparent that the deep, seemingly unending hole by the altar had been built for a far darker purpose.

  It was never intended to be used for obtaining water.

  The Mayan priests sacrificed a woman here, the glyphs explained, but her identity and the purpose of her death was unclear. From all they had deciphered, the Mayans believed she was a Goddess. Goddess of what still remained a mystery.

  The carvings also described the hole in the ground as a passage to the center of the earth. The woman’s heart had been torn from her chest while she was still alive—the typical ritual for the Mayan ceremonies—but this one differed from the other ceremonial sacrifices. According to the glyphs, after removing her heart, for some reason the priests burned it and dropped the rest of her body down into the core of the earth.

  Burning the heart and separating it from the body detoured from tradition. The Mayans believed in reincarnation. In fact, they had a God solely for that purpose. Their culture considered it an honor to be sacrificed, and the people carried the belief they would be born again to have another chance at life. They drained the heart of blood and disposed of it with the body.

  She couldn’t figure out why they would have destroyed the heart of this woman. Why vary from the tradition? Were they trying to stop her from being reincarnated?

  Gretchen’s brow furrowed as she stared at the tiles again. There was another strange piece to this puzzle. These glyphs named the Mayan priests, calling them Night Walkers. No other ruins had given the priests such a title, and yet this small, simple altar was very specific about the priests being a different race from the rest of the Mayan population.

  According to her translations, the Mayan people believed the Night Walkers were blood-drinkers, immortals who lived only after the sun set.

  Discovering the beliefs and religions of ancient civilizations made working in the dirt and heat worthwhile. Seeing it through their eyes offered her a glimpse into their world where magic and superstitions ruled over science. She’d never come across the Night Walker reference in any of her research before, but the Mayans were known for combining magic with science, and that seemed to be the information Lukas kept investigating.

  Gretchen wanted to publish their findings but he refused. He didn’t want to share anything with the rest of the world until they had a clearer picture of what they’d actually discovered. He wanted more answers first.

  Her university had sent multiple requests for the status of her research project, too. She could have leaked the information they found to the university, who partially funded the expedition, but so far, she hadn’t. The thought had
crossed her mind, but in the end, she couldn’t bring herself to betray Lukas’s trust.

  Ten months ago, she would have. Ten months ago, her career meant everything to her. But now that she knew the man behind the research, she admired him. Okay, maybe more than admired. She could acknowledge her attraction to him, how tempting he was, but she still managed to keep their relationship professional.

  During the months they’d spent together in the rainforest, Lukas had many chances to make a romantic advance, but he’d never so much as touched her. He’d commented on her red hair in the moonlight once, but sadly, that was the closest he had ever come to breaching their professional relationship.

  It was for the best, of course. The last thing she needed was an even stronger emotional tie to get in the way of her research.

  But being trapped in the jungle with a handsome, intelligent man made it impossible for her to ignore the sight of his chiseled torso when he changed his shirt, or the way he tangled his fingers in the back of his unruly hair when he was deep in thought. She was still human. She’d had more than one late-night dream about his fingers tangling in her hair, his passion directed at her instead of his notes.

  Gretchen forced the thoughts from her mind, turning back to her work. Work was something she could control.

  Lukas most certainly was not.

  She sipped her tea, carefully turning the rubbing of the tile glyph on the worktable. The stone bore the image of a wolf. It was odd, really. In all of her research into the ancient Mayan culture, she’d never seen a depiction of a wolf.