Stroke of Midnight (Nightcreature #1.5)(80)

He smiled as another shudder claimed him, thoroughly enjoying the effect he was having on her, just like old times. "Yeah… baby, so have I."





RED MOON RISING





LORI HANDELAND





CHAPTER 1


? ^ ?

A red moon rising through a sultry evening sky is a rare and stunning sight. Such a moon will forever remind me of the first time I saw a skinwalker.

Staring at the nearly full moon lifting past the trees surrounding my isolated cabin, I shivered. I told myself I was spooked because I was alone. Growing up in a house filled with brothers, the word "alone" had never been in my vocabulary. Maybe that was why I chose to be a writer. I needed some quiet time.

However, living in Chicago, where every man in my family was a cop, I was lucky to get two minutes to myself. Another reason I'd escaped to Arizona.

Night pressed against the windows. I watched the trees and I waited. Something was out there, had been there every night of the seven since I had arrived. I'd never seen a thing, but I felt… watched. I might have blown off my unease as deadline fever, except every morning, in the damp earth at the edge of the clearing, there were tracks.

My cell phone shrilled, and I emitted a sound that was half gasp, half shriek. My heart thundered hard enough to make me dizzy as I punched the on button. Before I could say hello, my agent started talking.

"Maya? Honestly, I've been waiting all day and half the night to call. I know how you hate to be interrupted when you're working. So, how's the book coming?"

I winced. It wasn't. I didn't have a word written. Hell, I didn't even have an idea. I also didn't have the advance I'd already been paid. I'd used the money to do a little thing I liked to call eating and sleeping off the streets.

I was in big trouble.

"Terrific, Estelle. Best work I've ever done."

"Uh-huh."

Estelle was no one's fool. Not even mine. Which was the reason I'd hired her.

"How many pages today?" she asked. "The book's due in a month, you know?"

I knew.

I glanced out the window again. The trees swayed. The moon pulsed. I was completely alone as I'd always dreamed of being. I had nothing to do but write. So why wasn't I?

Because my greatest fear had materialized. I'd lost it. Whatever the "it" was I'd had in the first place that allowed me to write some twenty action-adventure novels under the name M. J. Alexander.

I made a living. Kind of. I wasn't rich, and probably never would be, but I had a job I loved. Or at least I had until last week.

"I don't know why you felt the need to fly all the way to Arkansas," Estelle said.

"Arizona."

"Whatever."

Estelle, a born-again New Yorker, originally from New Jersey, was vague on the details of any place west of Trenton.

"You're so isolated there."

"I'm at the edge of the Navajo nation. There are thousands of people a stone's throw away."

A very long throw, to be honest. I hadn't seen a single Navajo, or anyone else for that matter, but she didn't need to know that.

"Don't they keep them behind a fence or something?"

"A reservation isn't a prison." Even though Estelle couldn't see me, I rolled my eyes. "The government granted the Navajos their homeland long ago."

Unlike many tribes that had been relocated to much crappier land than that which they'd been driven from, the Navajo resided on their traditional homeland. Damn near a miracle considering the U. S. of A.'s record in Indian affairs.

"I don't understand you anymore, Maya. You're not the adventurous type."

True. I'd always been safety girl, never take a chance, never rock the boat. I didn't ski; wouldn't own a skateboard. I drove the speed limit at all times. And skydiving? Yeah, right.

I'd behaved out of character by selling everything I had and moving halfway across the country. This was probably the biggest adventure I'd ever have, and I was already sick of it.

I liked my life to follow a plan; I didn't care for any surprises. Which was probably why my sudden writing block was freaking me out.

My family faced danger every day, so I preferred mine on a page, safely tucked away in a book. My mother had been killed going to the store for milk. She'd stepped off a curb and bam—out went her life. How's that for adventure?

Since I was six, whenever the phone rang, whenever someone knocked on the door, I caught my breath, expecting the worst. So what in God's name was I doing here?

I was desperate. I had to do something to jump-start the muse, and moving to the middle of nowhere was the most excitement a woman like me could withstand.

"I'll be fine, Estelle," I murmured, even though she wasn't really asking about me but the book, and I doubted the book would be fine. Still, I wasn't ready to admit that. Not yet.

I hit the end button, cutting off my agent mid-word. Then I powered down the phone and threw it onto the couch, before sitting down at the desk.

Blah, blah, blah, I typed onto the empty blue screen of my laptop.

"Well, at least I wrote something."

I'd taken to talking to myself a lot over the past week. If that kept up I just might be certifiable. At least then I'd have a reason to miss my deadline.