Etienne would fall in love with Motecuma’s oldest daughter, Quetzalli, an azure-eyed beauty who possessed the Guardian’s Hunahpu bloodline. The couple would raise eight children in the southernmost part of the Valley of Mexico, a land the mighty Aztecs had once ruled.

Like her father, Quetzalli was a Nagual witch. Mesoamerican witches dated back a thousand years. They had counseled kings and could forecast events. It was said a Nagual could cause sickness by sucking the blood of his victim or by giving him the ‘evil eye.’ It was believed the more powerful witches could even capture a man’s soul.

Twenty-seven generations after the Rafelo-Quetzalcoatl bloodline began, Don Alejandro Rafelo was born. Like his ancestor, André, Don Rafelo sought a different path.

The villagers of Morelos both despised and feared Don Rafelo. They said his ojo made him powerful, that his K’az-al t’an-ob (curses) caused serious and painful diseases.

Blessed with intelligence and a feverish lust for power, Don Rafelo made it his life’s calling to learn the truth behind the power of the Nagual. Unlike the superstitious locals, he knew the witches gained their insight—not from spells and incantations, but from their bloodline. The Olmec, Aztec, Toltec, and Maya had risen to power under the tutelage of two great Nagual, Kukulcán and Quetzalcoatl. Don Rafelo knew these men had sired dozens of children, and that his own family’s spiritual abilities could be traced back to Quetzalcoatl. What Don Rafelo needed to increase the power of his lineage was a descendant of Kukulcán’s bloodline.

He would find his genetic link in Cecilia Meztli, a Mayan woman whose maternal ancestors were raised in the city of Chichén Itzá, sired by the great Kukulcán himself.

Too old to have children, Don Rafelo selected his sister’s son, Miguel Aurelia-Rafelo, to wed Cecilia. The curanandero warned the girl’s family to stay away from Don Rafelo, but the Meztlis owed Don Rafelo money, and the arranged marriage would pay off the debt.

The azure-blue-eyed Madelina Aurelia was born seventeen months later, and Don Rafelo had the minion he had long sought. The Nagual conspired against the infant’s parents, intent on raising the child himself. Following a series of tragedies, the family secretly fled Morelos and headed for America.

Seventeen years later, Don Rafelo’s prized apprentice died after giving birth to Lilith Eve Robinson.

Lilith finishes mowing the backyard lawn as Quenton returns home from church. Hearing him enter the house, she quickly positions the frayed lounge chair so it faces the sun, her heart racing. She removes her bikini top just as Don Rafelo had instructed, then lies back on the chair, rubbing oil over her exposed breasts, moaning just loud enough for her legal guardian to hear.

Quenton is in the bathroom urinating. Hearing the noise, he peeks between the curtains of the open window and stares at the topless teenager.

‘Sweet Jesus …’