The Adversary Read online

  Something pushed Colt to do just that. As a Navajo he had been taught to try to walk in harmony and not to be the proverbial bull in the china shop. Being pushy wasn’t built into his demeanor. Not until now. As he hurried up the bank and onto the trail, Colt’s heart hammered with fear of rejection along with unparalleled excitement.

  “Hey,” Colt called, lifting his hand. “I’m Colt Black. Who are you?”

  The woman stopped, smiling as he drew near her. “I’ve been waiting to meet you, Colt.”

  Stunned by her comment, Colt stared at her. “You were?”

  “Yes.” She turned and pointed down at the lake. “We have to find the emerald sphere. It’s in the area of a vortex in a lake shaped like this. Are you ready? There’s a sorcerer who wants it, too, and he would kill for it.” She searched his eyes, her face serious, her gaze intent. “Will you go with me, Colt? I can’t do this alone. You are my chosen partner on this important journey.”

  “An emerald sphere?” Colt wondered what this was all about.

  “Yes, the world needs it. Only you can help me.”

  “But, you said a sorcerer would try to kill us if we looked for it?” Instantly, Yellow Teeth’s narrowed face, feral yellow eyes and drooling mouth appeared to Colt. Being hunted by a sorcerer was nothing new to him. Was Yellow Teeth the sorcerer going after this sphere in her dream?

  “As a team, we can protect one another. We have to find it before he does.” Her lips pursed, she searched his face. “Please come with me. I can’t do this by myself.”

  Colt wondered if this woman really understood the constant threat of this deadly sorcerer. Even a beautiful dream like this was disintegrating before the evil of his nemesis, Yellow Teeth. Her auburn brows knitted and he sensed her disappointment. Colt tried to think of a polite way to speak about the Skin Walker to her.

  “You’re afraid,” she accused.

  The words hit Colt like ice. There was a note of challenge in her green, brown and gold eyes. Her voice was soft but husky, with a hint of steel behind it. She had courage to call him a coward.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered. In some ways, she reminded him of Mary, so vulnerable and innocent.

  She eyed him intently. “Oh, yes, I do.”

  “I’m not the one you’re seeking.” A protective instinct arose in him and he feared for this woman’s life. Didn’t she know the danger Yellow Teeth harbored? He didn’t want this lovely young woman harmed. The Skin Walker had told him many times that he would stalk him from the spirit world and someday, when Colt did not have his protection in place, he would kill him just as he’d killed his little sister.

  “You’re exactly who I’m looking for.” She pushed her index finger into his chest to emphasize her words. Her eyes grew fierce as she held his gaze. “You have a strong heart. You stand for the quiet goodness that we’re all seeking in this world. You’re the one I’ve come to meet and no one else will do. I know your courage even if others cannot see it.”

  Colt searched the woman’s large, beautiful eyes. Her mouth, full and soft-looking, lifted at the corners. “You don’t want me for this mission.”

  “Your heart is pure. A strong heart full of goodness is the only antidote against sorcery and evil. Love conquers everything, even sorcerers. No, you’re the one I want at my side.”

  Her fervent, emotional plea touched him deeply. He continued to watch her, trying to figure out who she was. Colt thought she might be in her mid-twenties. The wind touched her hair and it moved restlessly across her proud shoulders. Her feistiness and courage shook Colt to his roots. He wanted to be with her. A new kind of strength flooded him.

  “How am I to meet you?” he asked, regretting that he only wanted to continue this new alliance. How could he involve this woman in his ugly, festering world of terror and violence?

  She grinned. “You need to get into your car and drive here, to Banff National Park in Canada. I will meet you at the Château Lake Louise at 3:00 p.m. five days from now. That will be July fifth.”

  “But…what is your name?”

  The dream faded and Colt awoke with a jolt. This had been one of those dreams he had heard about from medicine men. A cosmic signpost that guided a person toward some important and life-changing event.

  Sitting up, Colt crossed his legs and pulled the sheet up around his waist. Everything was quiet. He could hear an owl somewhere out on the darkened reservation calling for his mate. Frowning, Colt took a hard look at himself. Maybe this was an opportunity to change his life. He scowled and studied the Navajo rugs across the floor of his hogan. They had been woven by his mother, grandmother and aunts over the years. He wished for the comfort of family through this next journey. Most of all, he wanted to prove that he was better than the child who ran away in fear of a sorcerer.

  Was this beautiful white woman real or just part of a dream sent by a Yei, a Navajo god or goddess? Colt eased to his feet. He struck a match and lit a kerosene lamp on the table. After placing the globe over the flame, he walked over to a small desk. He drew out a paper and pen and wrote down everything he recalled from the dream. This was one time he wished for a phone, but none was available in his area.

  The most obvious truth from the dream was how magnetically drawn he was to this red-haired white woman with the freckles on her cheeks. She was natural and without makeup. Putting the pen aside, he folded the piece of paper. He would drive his pickup to Flagstaff, Arizona, about fifty miles away and go to a library. There, Colt was sure he’d find the information to show his dream had some basis in reality.

  He leaned against the counter and stared off into the semidarkness within the hogan. More than anything, he wanted to change his life. After carrying the weight of a Skin Walker, he was ready for a change.

  He opened his wooden trunk, drew out a pair of clean jeans and a white cotton long-sleeved cowboy shirt. As he dressed, Colt decided to drive to Flagstaff as soon as dawn broke. Until the night was chased away by Father Sun, Skin Walkers and ghosts ruled the land. No one dared step out of their hogan.

  The thrill of unexpected adventure flowed through Colt. He hadn’t felt this alive—ever. What if this red-haired woman was real? His heart burst open with a rush of joy. Could this dream, this woman, bring him a life filled with light instead of constant darkness? He silently thanked the Yei for sending him this dream of hope. And perhaps the Yei, in their benevolence, were giving him a way to change his fortune and future on the reservation by hunting for this emerald sphere. With her…

  Chapter 2

  Shelly Godwin wasn’t sure if the instructions in her dream were real or not. She stood on the patio near the Château Lake Louise. The July day was very warm for the Canadian Rockies and she absorbed the welcome sunlight. Lake Louise’s turquoise water shimmered like a blue jewel in the midday sun.

  She wasn’t sure what the dream meant. After pushing her red hair off her shoulders, she quickly tied the strands back into a ponytail. Who was this mysterious man she’d invited to meet her here? Shelly had had two dreams. In the first she asked this stranger to come on a mission with her. She’d had a second dream the following night, in which she was told to come to this hotel in Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. She was to meet the stranger here at this hotel at 3:00 p.m. on July fifth.

  She looked at her watch. It was almost time. Who was he and would he show up? Burned by a lifetime of failed relationships with men, Shelly wasn’t sure she wanted to team up with another man for any reason. Yet, her prophetic dreams had never led her astray. She came from a long line of Irish seers and her generational DNA had given her the ability not only to have foretelling dreams but also to find vortexes.

  Why on earth would she dream of a man? Terrence, the last failure, had hurt her terribly. She had written a book called Find a Vortex. It had become an instant global bestseller, much to her surprise. Terrence had come into her life to use her and try to ride the coattails of her fame. Shaking her head, Shelly still
felt anger that she hadn’t seen his true colors. All he’d wanted to do was use her name and manipulate her into writing a sequel of which he would be the co-author—in name only. The bastard! When would she learn not to trust men? The lessons had been hard, and now Shelly was gun-shy.

  Pursing her tense lips, Shelly continued to look at the people coming and going from the chic and expensive hotel. Lake Louise was famous and she saw all kinds of people in hiking gear, all rich enough to pay for such a stay. Oh, she had the money, too. Her book had catapulted her into the domain of the rich and famous. She had gone from eking out a living to being very, very rich. And she liked it. But now she had a new challenge. This new man.

  Snorting softly, Shelly rubbed her hands down her jeans and kept watch.

  She remembered from one of the dreams that he was dressed like a cowboy.

  Rubbing her arms, Shelly frowned. Was she ready for this? Only a year had passed since she’d booted Terrence out of her life. Since then, Shelly had holed up and kept to herself. She continued giving lectures around the world on how to find a vortex, what it was and how to work with one if it was discovered. Her publisher was happy with her. At every lecture, a hundred or more people came, and they all bought her book. She had rebuilt her life. So why did she feel as if it was all about to change?

  Turning on the heel of her hiking boot, Shelly kept searching the sea of people walking up and down the smooth flagstone patio that led up to the hotel.

  All this because of two crazy dreams! Shelly was used to dreams from her guides. Her parents had taught her from an early age that her guides—or what some might call their guardian angels—would help her throughout her life. Her dreams had always come true, so she had no reason to doubt these recent ones. They just didn’t make sense.

  She thought more deeply about the man she’d seen in the dream. He was a ruggedly handsome cowboy dressed in a white cotton shirt and blue jeans. He was sinfully good-looking in a rugged way. What had made him seem dangerous were the four scars across his left cheek, as if someone with long nails had raked his flesh. He had a hardness about him. Where did it come from? She could see it in the way his mouth thinned, the narrowed look in his intense blue eyes. He was awfully standoffish. The sense of danger swirling around him was palpable. And yet she felt no manipulative energy around him. Did it matter? As much as she trusted no man, she couldn’t help but want to know more about this cowboy.

  At the end of the dream, she was told her partner would bring the rest of the information. They could piece it together and get an understanding of why they had been brought together on this sacred mission.

  The idea intrigued Shelly. A mission. An important one. One that could help the Earth. She was always eager to do anything that could uplift the environment. That was what had made her drive from her home in Canmore, a town just outside the park, here to Lake Louise. Pure curiosity about this mysterious mission had drawn her. Not entirely the man, although Shelly had liked his looks. Again, she looked at her watch. Time was crawling by. Were her dreams really going to come true? She’d know shortly.

  COLT BLACK PARKED HIS rental car in the hotel’s lot and got out. He stood in the hot July afternoon sunshine, his curiosity level high. He took his black Stetson out of the car and settled it on his head. It was 2:30 p.m.; he had enough time to just stand and open up to the energy of this place. It had taken a lot for him to get from his Navajo reservation to Canada. His conscience smarted.

  He’d told his powerful medicine-man father about his dreams and he had urged him to come to Banff. His mother, who was a white woman and teacher on the reservation, had agreed with her husband. When his relatives had found out about it, they became angry. Who would continue to give them money for food? Colt held a part-time construction job in Flagstaff. While he did get paid for conducting ceremonies on his reservation, it wasn’t enough to feed his needy relatives. Some family members had accused him of being selfish. Was he being selfish? It was too late now.

  As he scanned the busy parking lot, Colt noticed the huge hotel in the distance. He was used to living on the spare Southwestern desert near Chinle, Arizona. The dream had shown him this hotel and the name above the front entrance. In a second dream, an ancient yet youthful Yei goddess had given him more instructions. The Yei had told him it was important he meet the red-haired woman at 3:00 p.m.

  It all seemed strange. This was the first time in Colt’s twenty-eight years of life that he’d ever traveled outside of the U.S.A. His work, his focus, was on the Navajo reservation where he’d been born and lived.

  This was different. All of it. He admired the lush greenness of the firs, the mighty Rocky Mountains clothed at their peaks with white snow, their blue granite sides and their lower slopes clothed in evergreen trees. He always loved going to Flagstaff, the nearest large town to the Arizona part of the Navajo reservation, where the Grandmothers, a set of four mighty peaks that rose to fourteen thousand feet, stood above the town. Colt enjoyed his job as a boss of a construction team there because of the coolness at seven thousand feet, the lush trees and shrubs. Where he lived there was desert and plenty of rocks, cactus, red earth and beautiful, towering buttes. But there were no trees like this. Just Juniper, a scrubby, short tree.

  Would the red-haired woman of his dreams be here to meet him? Colt looked around. Sometimes he saw the spirit of the Skin Walker in the distance, hiding and watching him. Would Yellow Teeth be here, as well? Even though he didn’t sense his nemesis yet, Colt couldn’t relax. The moment he did, Yellow Teeth would come in and try to possess him. As always, Colt was enclosed in the energy bubble of protection.

  Swallowing hard, Colt made his face unreadable. As he watched people driving in and out of the large parking lot, he felt completely out of place. Dressed in his Southwestern clothing, he didn’t blend in at all with the tourists. The cars were new and many were very expensive models compared to the small blue Toyota Prius he had rented at the Calgary airport.

  Colt sauntered toward the hotel in the distance, tension tight in his gut. Jays swept around and squawked at him. They, too, seemed to warn him. Jays only cried out in alarm when a threat was imminent. Despite this, he tried to enjoy the wildflowers along the edge of the lot, their heads waving in an inconstant breeze. Most of all, he deeply inhaled the pine-scented air into his lungs. Trying to subdue his curiosity, Colt stepped onto the broad concrete sidewalk and continued toward the magnificent modern hotel.

  Part of him was interested and the other was as excited as a little boy. This was a great adventure, his father had told him. One had to follow one’s dreams wherever they led. Still, Colt worried about his relatives. His father had told him they would manage without him until he could fulfill the demand of his dreams: to find this woman. Who was she? He had information to share with her. Nothing had prepared him for this moment in his life.

  “RENO, I DON’T KNOW what’s wrong.” Calen stood in the mission room of the Vesica Pisces foundation in Quito, Ecuador. She looked at her Apache husband who sat at the desk. “Why am I not getting a dream about where the next sphere is located?”

  Reno heard the concern in his wife’s voice and, rising, walked over to her. “I don’t know, Calen.” He slid his arms around her and pulled her against him. After pressing a kiss to her hair, he said in a gruff tone, “Maybe because Robert Cramer was killed on the last mission and the sorcerer Guerra stole the emerald sphere? Or that Victor Guerra, the Dark Lord of the Tupay, has it now? Was he able to find out through the spirit of the emerald where the next one is and where to look for it?”

  With a muffled sound of frustration, Calen leaned back enough to search Reno’s cinnamon-colored eyes. “I feel so guilty. I feel as though we’ve failed everyone. What about the other emerald spheres still out there? What is going to happen to them? If I don’t get a dream about where the next one is, we’re in trouble.”

  Nodding, Reno said, “I know. Maybe because Guerra stole the fourth sphere, the spheres have set up a different
energy pattern. We just need to be patient, Calen.”

  “I feel that they’re punishing us. Not that we don’t deserve it.” Sun shot through the floor-to-ceiling windows in their office planning room. “We lost Robert Cramer because we didn’t do our job.”

  Reaching out, Reno slid his large copper hand down the length of her back. It was July, winter in Quito, Ecuador. “We did the best we could,” he soothed, his voice a rumble. “No one said finding all seven emerald spheres was going to be easy. We made a mistake in choosing Robert for the last mission. He really wasn’t up to it on a clairvoyant level, but we didn’t know it at the time.” Giving Calen a slight smile, Reno added, “We’re doing the best we can, Calen. We knew there were going to be challenges. Victor Guerra is turning up the heat. He’s already got one of the seven emerald spheres. There are three left to find.” Reno left the rest unsaid: that without all seven spheres the Emerald Key necklace could not be restrung and worn by Ana, the daughter of the sorcerer who now was working with them.

  Glumly, Calen said, “I know…and there’s no way to get it out of the Tupay stronghold, either. We can’t just waltz in there and take it. No Taqe is allowed in there, just as no Tupay is allowed into our sacred and protected Village of the Clouds.”

  Reno squeezed her gently. “Listen, there’s something going on that we don’t know about. I feel the Great Spirit is still helping us, but maybe in a different way. Guerra has gotten too used to the way we did business. We didn’t change tactics. We became too sure of ourselves. That’s why we lost Cramer and the emerald. I don’t believe we’re being punished to the extent that we’ll never be able to find the other spheres.”