Coyote Gorgeous (6 page)

Madison shrugged.
"
Everyone I know carries a gun. All
cops and rangers. Unlike you, they are often overbearing,
impatient, controlling, always stressed
out.
"

"
But you are
not like them.
"

"
I try not to
be. And with you, it’s easy.
"

He arched one brow.
"
How so?
"

"
You are a
good listener.
"
She wanted to
say
kind, full of attention,
patient,
but she had to remain
professional.
"
For them,
accepting this dinner would constitute a breach of
ethics.
"

He nodded his
appreciation.
"
It takes
courage to stray from the pack.
"

She felt herself blush at
the compliment.
"
Thank
you.
"

Kal rose and picked up the
dishes.
"
Can I offer you
anything else?
"

His sexy voice evoked a
number of things, but Madison quickly pushed the naughty images
from her mind. She stood, drank her last drop of coffee and handed
him the empty cup.
"
I’m fine.
Thanks for a wonderful dinner. I guess it’s time to set up for my
watch.
"

While Kal went back to the kitchen,
she removed the vase of flowers and couldn’t resist smelling their
heady scent before setting them on a chair. What a lovely touch.
But she would need the table surface for her equipment.

Kal returned and lifted
the four corners of the tablecloth with the remains of their meal,
gathered it like a bundle, crumbs, silverware and all, and carried
it into the house.
What an odd way of
cleaning a table
.

Madison went to retrieve her weapons
from the truck. Despite the full moon, the stars shone brightly.
When she returned to the back deck, carrying a heavy leather bag,
the crickets had replaced the background music.

She heard Kal fussing in the kitchen
while she set up the M-14 on its stand, on the bare deck table.
Aiming it out toward the desert, she screwed on the silencer. No
reason to wake up the neighbors, or disrupt the wildlife with loud
gunshots in the night. She adjusted the scope then dug into the bag
for an empty clip and a box of cartridges. She inserted cartridges
in the clip.

Kaletaka brought her a mug
of steaming coffee.
"
To keep
you awake. There is a full pot inside.
"

"
Thanks. This
might be a long night.
"
She
also needed the caffeine to offset the effects of the alcohol in
her blood. How could so little affect her so much? Maybe it wasn’t
the wine but the company.

Glancing at the rifle, Kal
frowned.
"
I’ll leave you to
your work. I’ll keep the house unlocked.
"

"
You’re not
staying?
"
To hide her
disappointment, Madison walked away and, one by one, blew out the
candles lined up on the banister.

"
I’m meeting
my agent in Scottsdale, at the art gallery. The opening is in two
weeks. We have to iron out the last
details.
"

"
At this time
of night?
"
Was this a lie?
Was he going to meet a woman
? Madison
hadn’t asked him about a girlfriend. It would be just like her to
fall for another charming womanizer.

"
Artists have
nocturnal habits.
"
He looked
down again, as if ashamed.
What was he
hiding
?

"
I guess I’ll
see you when you come back, then.
"
Even to herself, Madison sounded clingy and hated it.
Besides, she knew nothing about local artists. He could be telling
the truth.

"
Don’t wait
up for me.
"
He smiled and his
green eyes sparkled.
"
Should
I leave the porch lights on?
"

"
No, please
turn everything off.
"
She
wanted to see him again soon but didn’t dare ask. She forced a
light tone into her voice.
"
This glass house lights up like a beacon. I don’t want to be
seen against it. Besides, the full moon provides enough of a
glow.
"
Madison wished he
would touch her. Maybe kiss her.
What? Had
she lost her mind?

Fortunately, he remained
at the glass door and waved.
"
Good night, then. And good hunting.
"
He walked back inside, and the lights went
out.

Madison heard the front
door close. She inserted the clip into the rifle. Locked and
loaded. Then a motorcycle sped into the night. She smiled.
Yes, Kal would be the motorcycle
type
.

She fished her weapons belt out of the
bag and cinched it around her waist. She might need the sidearm as
well. Then she settled into a chair facing the backyard and the
expanse of desert.

As she waited for her predator, the
night grew very quiet. The lights at Mrs. Esteban’s ranch next door
went out as well. Only the sounds of locusts and crickets filled
the air, with the occasional scurry of small rodents, and the
flapping wings of nocturnal birds and bats. Madison welcomed the
soothing calm of the desert at night.

Her thoughts returned to Kal. She
couldn’t believe she’d just met him this morning. Although she
enjoyed his company, she could not afford to trust him. Could he be
that different from the other men in her life, or just manipulating
her? She found it difficult to believe that such a sophisticated
man could be a ruthless animal killer. Still, the sordid truth
often baffled detectives. Human nature had too many quirks to make
hasty judgments that often proved to be wrong, as Madison had found
out with Jake.

She checked her watch. Eleven thirty.
Soon the predators would come out of their lairs to feed and mate.
The howl of coyotes in the distance raised the short fuzz on
Madison’s nape.

Despite the odd paw prints, the killer
had to be a bear. Recent studies showed that wild animals had begun
to grow larger, stronger, and more dangerous. Not only in the
Unites States, but all over the world, as if a global mutation
process had started. It could explain the strange
tracks.

She chuckled at the
skinwalker legend. What had prompted such a ludicrous belief? She
also wondered what other legends might pertain to
werecoyotes
. Pablo’s
words came back to mind. Chupacabra! What could he have
seen?

The hours passed slowly. Madison dozed
off.

*****

The desert fell silent.

Black as the night itself, Puwhakah
prowled on two hind legs, slightly hunched under the invigorating
glow of the full moon. Its clawed feet elicited only the faintest
dribble of gravel down the slope leading to the ranch. The
delicious smell of fear from the horses in the enclosure far below
made its spine prickle. Puwhakah discerned with delight the frantic
beats of their panic-stricken hearts, the rush of warm blood
pumping through their veins.

These intoxicating sensations filled
Puwhakah with new vitality. What fun to desecrate the skin of its
host, distorting the human features into a fierce feline
appearance. A thing of beauty.

Through the fortuitous invasion of
this host, Puwhakah’s dark soul could finally experience life
again. Now that it had found a tractable human to inhabit, it would
regain its full powers through the thrill of killing.

What a rush, worth all the burn and
the sting of traveling through lightning strikes. Even pain could
be pleasurable. Anything to feel alive. Too long had Puwhakah been
banished to a futile, unheeded shadow. It refused to be ignored any
longer.

Poor, stupid, helpless animals below.
Puwhakah relished their whimpers of terror. They knew they would
soon die, and no one could help them. The dogs were dead. And at
this time of night, humans slept so soundly, they wouldn’t notice
the sudden quiet.

Sure, they would lament in the
morning, but by then Puwhakah would be long gone, melted back into
smooth human skin, walking in the light of day, hidden in plain
sight, inside its unsuspecting host.

Soon, Puwhakah would have enough life
force to take over the host completely, to roam the world
unimpeded, night or day, transforming at will, full moon or not,
enjoying life beyond limitations.

The scent of prey pulled Puwhakah down
the slope, toward the mouth-watering blood of young animal flesh.
But animals were only the beginning. Soon Puwhakah would be ready
to feed on human life force, just like in the old days.

Puwhakah suddenly paused, holding his
breath. A presence, watching. A holy one. How could this be? But
the foe did not attack. Why? Should Puwhakah kill his enemy
now?

*****

Madison awoke with a
start. How long had she been sleeping?
Damn the wine.
The full orb of the
moon had traveled west through the starry sky, and the distant howl
of the coyotes had ceased. Had she embarked on a fruitless
hunt?

Her thoughts returned to
Kal as she went into the darkened house to refill her coffee mug.
The moonlight streaming through the skylights allowed her to see
without having to turn on the lights.
Shouldn’t he be back by now? Or did he intend to stay out all
night?
She knew nothing about the man. He
could be involved in drugs, illegal trade. And why should she care?
She didn’t intend to date him.

Back on the deck, striated clouds
scurried across the moon, projecting moving shadows onto the desert
floor. Madison saw something creeping among the bushes toward the
house. She heard a distant growl. Could it be Felix? No. It was too
big for a bobcat or a coyote. It was as tall as a man, but even at
this distance, she could see it didn’t walk like a man. Was it her
predator? What if it were human? She dare not shoot.

Through the magnifying lens of the
M-14, Madison discerned a stocky body standing on two hind legs,
and the distinct head of an animal. It didn’t look like a bear.
Definitely a beast, but what kind? The legends of skinwalkers came
back to mind and she shivered at the thought of pure
evil.

Madison shook her head. There were no
such things as skinwalkers. She aimed through the scope again. The
beast rushed straight at her, lumbering from side to side as it
ran. What was it? The incredible speed and bulk of the animal would
make it lethal. When moonlight glinted on a jaw full of sharp
fangs, her survival instinct took over, negating any reasonable
explanation. As the animal raced toward her in the dark, Madison
aimed for the chest and fired.

The silenced shot barely popped in the
quiet of the desert night. Through the scope, Madison saw the beast
go down and heard a faint groan. Pulling her sidearm out of the
holster, she left the M-14 on the table and ran down the steps,
toward the downed animal, fifty feet away. She stopped short when
she reached the spot where she’d seen the beast fall, heart beating
hard. There was nothing there.

She knew she’d hit the mark. She never
missed. And the M-14 always dropped a living target, no matter how
big. Her flashlight revealed a glistening pool of crimson blood on
the ground. She recognized the tracks of last night’s predator, the
same large hind foot. But what she had shot wasn’t a bear. Now the
wounded animal had fled. How far could it go, losing so much
blood?

With a flashlight, she followed the
blood trail as it meandered through the desert landscape. To her
surprise, the trail ended. How could the bleeding suddenly stop,
along with paw prints and broken twigs? Confused, Madison searched
for more of the strange tracks, in vain.

At least the beast
wouldn’t kill tonight, and would probably die of infection from its
wound, but she’d let a wounded animal escape. Jake would enjoy
pointing out that blunder.
Damn
.

Disgusted, unable to search in the
night for an animal that had simply vanished, Madison returned to
the house and packed up her gear. The hunt was over. The creature
certainly wouldn’t come back for her to finish it off. She would
have to track it again in the morning.

Tomorrow, in broad daylight, she might
be able to pick up the trail, and find out where Kal had spent the
night.

Chapter Three

Emerging from deep slumber, Kaletaka
heard the front doorbell chime.