Chapter 1

Nearest Village: Barrow, Alaska

335 miles north of the Arctic Circle near the Chukchi Seacoast

December 1, present day

       Her teeth chattering, Peggy Brannigan huddled beneath the warmth of the polar bear skin furs she’d been provided with by her Inupiat Eskimo guide, Benjamin. Wearing a thick woolen coat, three pairs of thermal underwear, two hats, two sets of gloves, and bundled under four polar bear furs, she was still chilled to the bone as the dogsled made its way across the harsh tundra landscape.

       “Faster!” Ben instructed the dogs in his native tongue. “Move!”

       Peggy’s forehead wrinkled as she regarded him. She’d been living and working in Barrow for a little over six weeks now in order to study the ways of the indigenous Eskimos for her anthropological dissertation paper on Inupiaq culture at San Francisco State University. For the majority of the time she’d been in the arctic northern region of Alaska, Peggy’s host had been Benjamin’s family. She’d gotten to know the teenager pretty well in that time and had found him to be a calm, stoic gentleman not given to outward displays of emotion. That he seemed almost panicked for the dogs to move the sled faster was a trifle alarming to her.

       “What’s wrong, B-Ben?” she asked, her teeth chattering away from the bitter wind hitting her directly in the face. She kept her tone neutral so as not to appear alarmed. “Have you spotted some wolves on the hunt or something?”

       Shit! she thought as she bit down roughly onto her bottom lip. It would be ironic indeed if their dogs were picked off by hungry wolves a stone’s throw from the village. Unfortunately, the only way in and out of Barrow was by the occasional chartered airplane or by dogsled, which had given them no choice when seeing to their task but to brave the harsh elements. And the hungry predators.

       Making matters that much worse was the fact that it was briskly snowing on the tundra, which caused visibility to be poor. And since the sun doesn’t rise near Barrow from November to January, the fact that it was two o’clock in the afternoon did them no good at all. It might as well have been midnight for all of the aid daylight hours gave them at this time of the year.

       Peggy took a thorough look around the snowy landscape, trying to ascertain if there were any signs of pack-hunting activity. Her eyes narrowed in question when she failed to spot even a single wolf. The tundra looked so quiet just now that she didn’t see any wildlife at all, not even pregnant polar bears nestling into the hibernation dens that the expectant females carved out of snow banks to rest in. She wrapped the furs tightly around her before putting her question to the teenager again. “What is it, Ben? What’s going on?”

       Ben’s almond brown eyes were narrowed into slits, his expression grim. Peggy winced when she saw the riding crop he was wielding lash down onto the buttocks of the lead dog guiding the sled. The dog let out a pained yelp. “We have to get out of here, Peggy,” he said as calmly as he could in English, though she could hear the fright in his voice. “You’re being hunted,” he said a bit shakily.

       Peggy’s eyes rounded. She swallowed nervously as she again glanced around the snowy tundra.

       Ben hadn’t said they were being hunted, she thought anxiously. He had said she was being hunted. There was a big semantic difference between the two and one she wasn’t certain what to make of. “What are you saying, Ben?” she muttered, her heartbeat accelerating. The serious teenager never said anything he didn’t mean. This was getting weird. And frightening.

       “Igliqtuq!” Ben gritted out, the riding crop coming down on the second lead dog. “Move!”

       Peggy’s heart began thumping wildly in her chest. Her hands knotted into nervous fists from under the polar bear furs. She’d never seen Ben behave this way before. Never. “Ben, please,” she said quietly, an acute sense of panic beginning to settle in. “Tell me what’s going on.”

       The rigid lines of his profile said he wasn’t inclined to answer her. Not out of meanness or disrespect—not Ben. It was something more, she realized. Perhaps the teenager was trying to protect her from this unknown enemy in whatever way he felt he could. Knowing Ben he probably regretted the fact that he’d alarmed her to whatever presence was near to their position and wished he’d kept his fear to himself so as not to worry her.

       It was too late for that. She had gone beyond worry and was nearing the point of panic.

       “Please,” she breathed out, her aqua gaze wide. “Please talk to me, Ben.”

       The teenager took a deep breath as he kept at the dogs, enforcing his instruction to move faster with the occasional harsh flick of the riding crop. She didn’t think he was going to speak to her, regardless of her pleas, so she was almost surprised when he did.

       “Uyabak Nuurvifmiu,” Ben said quietly in his native tongue. “Stone dwellers.” He swallowed a bit roughly, his dark eyes acutely scanning the surrounding tundra as the dogsled made its way through the bitter wind and harsh snowfall. “I spotted one a few minutes ago.”

       Peggy stilled. Stone dwellers. What the hell does that mean?

       The situation just kept getting weirder and weirder. Not to mention more alarming.

       “What are you saying?” Peggy murmured. She swiped a spray of snowflakes from her eyes with the back of her wrist. “Ben, I don’t understand. What’s a stone dweller?”

       The endless barren tundra broke, giving way to the beginnings of Barrow village. The occasional ice-coated hut dotted the landscape, ice fisherman scattered about every so often. Benjamin visibly relaxed, a telling sigh of relief escaping his lips. Peggy’s gaze never left the teenager’s profile.

       “Do not worry yourself over it,” Benjamin muttered. “There is nothing to concern yourself with now.”

       Because the threat had passed. For now.

       Peggy’s eyes narrowed in speculation but she said nothing. If Benjamin wouldn’t tell her what was going on then hopefully his sister would.

       On a sigh her eyes flicked away from the teenager and toward the village they were fast approaching. An elderly indigenous woman wrapped in wolf furs inclined her head toward Peggy as their dogsled passed by and Peggy absently smiled back.

       She hoped she could get Benjamin’s sister to talk to her about the stone dwellers—whoever or whatever they were. Perhaps they were only some bizarre species of predator that the Eskimo people revered and therefore would not gossip about, she considered. Or perhaps not.

       Whatever the case, she had to know what she was up against before she and Benjamin found it necessary to travel to one of the outlaying villages next week for more supplies.

       A chill raced down Peggy’s spine, inducing the hair at the nape of her neck to stir. She swallowed a bit roughly when it occurred to her that something—or someone—was watching her.

       And that the gaze belonged to an intelligent being.