Yikes, I just realized that--assuming anyone ever shows up and reads these posts--you will have no context for my previous posts because I failed to tell you about the first novella in the series, Fierce Hunger. Here's the cover.

And here's a bit about it: In the spring of 1876, when two Colorado deputies return to the tree they’d tied their horses to before chasing a fugitive into a forest, the horses are gone, without a trace. As they walk back to town, leading their bound prisoner, they discuss the possible reasons for their predicament. Xavier Garza, the half-Zuni deputy, believes he knows the answer: Atahsaia—a Zuni word meaning cannibal demon. His partner, Thomas Wilkins, scoffs at such superstition, until the mounting evidence changes his perspective on monsters—and on trust