The Adversary

by Lindsay McKenna

  “And your grandmother was able to convince these spirits to leave?”

  “Oh, yes,” Shelly said. “She was a wonderful persuader of sorts. She painted such a beautiful, loving picture of the world of light that they wanted to leave. The person’s land or home became calm and quiet once more and the spirit was also in a good place. It was a win-win for everyone.”

  With a shake of his head, Colt said, “You and your family are very brave people. When Navajo see spirits, we run to our hogan, bar the door and stay inside. Spirits can’t get inside our hogans but they can walk around the outsides and peek through the windows. I remember when I was about four years old and I was visiting my uncle’s hogan near Chinle. I was just falling asleep and suddenly I saw the face of a ghost of an old Navajo who had just died pressed up against the window next to where I was lying. It frightened me so much I screamed. My father came and held me. I told him what I’d seen. That was when he told me that ghosts could not enter our homes. After sunset, ghosts come out. That is why when the sun goes down, we remain indoors.”

  “Wow,” Shelly said, “that must have scared the daylights out of you. It would me, too.”

  “My focus is on Yellow Teeth, who I know is stalking us. The spirits of the dead are different and far less of a threat than a Skin Walker. If we discover this emerald, my gut tells me Yellow Teeth will confront me.”

  Reaching out, Shelly touched his upper arm. “Colt, I have a story to tell you. I was taught by my grams that when a malevolent spirit tries to attack you, you send it loving energy. It’s the only human emotion it can’t overcome. The old axiom ‘love conquers all’ has some teeth to it.” She smiled and added, “Pardon the pun.”

  Colt saw she was sincere. “I don’t know how you could love a sorcerer.” There was no way he could send the Skin Walker love. Shelly’s expression was filled with concern. “I just can’t imagine trying to get to my love when I’m in a state of rage and wanting to destroy Yellow Teeth’s spirit. How can anyone?”

  “None of us do until we’re challenged by it,” Shelly told him, dropping her hand. If she didn’t, she would walk into the circle of Colt’s arms and kiss him once again. “I worry about it, too. Can I send Yellow Teeth love if I’m attacked by him? I don’t know. But I do know I’m going to try should it happen. Love is the most powerful emotion in all the worlds. It is the only force that can save our lives if we are confronted.”

  Unhappily, Colt nodded. “It’s not going to work with a Skin Walker.”

  “Nothing in this life is easy. I think you know that.”

  Grudgingly, Colt nodded. “I do.” He was beginning to hate Yellow Teeth in a way he never had. Now, as never before, Colt felt the imprisonment he’d lived within. What he wanted was Shelly. He wanted to be himself around her, not the man behind the protective energy armor.

  Turning, Shelly gazed across at Lake Agnes. They had walked halfway down the one side of the lake. The sun skimmed the tops of the Rockies, and the temperature was finally changing. She was just getting warm and didn’t want to take off her coat yet. “One thing we have to remember, Colt. We have one another. How we feel for one another is a protection in itself.” She wanted to say, We are falling in love, but didn’t dare mouth those words.

  Colt wouldn’t dispute her softly spoken words. Without knowing why, he felt powerfully for Shelly. Not that he’d ever been in love to say, “This is love,” but the feelings deep in his heart told him it might be. “Maybe because we care for one another, that is a possible antidote to a sorcerer?” he teased.

  “Of course it is,” she said with conviction. “I like being your friend, Colt.” Every cell of her being knew she was lying. So long as the shadow of the deadly Skin Walker hovered over them, Shelly knew she couldn’t tell Colt the truth—she was falling in love with him.

  “I do, too.”

  Hearing the unhappiness in his tone, Shelly whispered, “Colt, just let things be. Our minds can mess with us. We have to have faith in an unknown future.” She tapped the left side of her head. “Have you read Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor’s book A Stroke of Insight?”

  “One of my aunts is reading the book.”

  “Borrow her copy when you get home,” Shelly told him. “This amazing woman is a brain neuroanatomist who suffered a major stroke at age thirty-seven on the left side of her brain.” Shelly tapped her head. “And it took her eight years to recover, but she did. And now, in her book she destroys many of the myths about stroke survivors. Equally important, she has made stunning and amazing new awareness about the right and left hemispheres of our brains. The left side tries to anchor us only to this world. Our right side tries to open us up to the love and connection we have with all things seen and unseen in all the dimensions.”

  “So, I’m letting my left brain hold me in fear of Yellow Teeth?” Colt knew it was so much more than that. The threat was real.

  “Yes, you are. Your right brain already knows that love is here and now.” She indicated the path. “Colt, you can recognize the patterns containing threats of dying and stop playing them. Eventually, the left brain understands it can’t play that old tape anymore and quiets down.”

  “That’s an amazing way to look at life,” he conceded. “I think I’d like to stay in my right brain. The Navajo believe all things are connected and related.”

  “Yes, and I bet you’re right-brain dominant because you show such a reverence and connection with all of life. I see it in your aura and I feel it around you. It’s just that some things fed into your left brain, whose job it is to tie you solidly to this time and space. They run a loop of memories that aren’t really healthy for you and keep you imprisoned.”

  Colt shook his head. “I don’t want to argue with you, Shelly. Yellow Teeth is not a figment of my imagination. Your idealism isn’t countered by reality as my life has been.” He saw her deflate beneath his words. So he gentled his tone. “I wish I had your idealism, Shelly. I really do. But that’s not how it happened.”

  “That’s the beauty of relationships,” Shelly said. “Everyone is different. We have to look at where we agree.” Seeing the pensive look on his features, Shelly felt the tug-of-war going on inside Colt. “We each have our own reality, Colt. And sometimes, one person’s experiences or beliefs can touch your own. And then, you compare them to what you believe or know. There’s a cross-pollination that can occur if it feels right. That’s how people influence one another in a positive way. We are windows through which you can look. And if you see something you want, that other person has been a door opener for you. It’s kind of exciting. I love meeting people. I treat each individual as my teacher. I ask, what can this person tell or show me that I need to know? Or this person has come into my life to see what I have and how it may change, grow or be erased from it. People are our best teachers, Colt. I truly believe that.” Even her disastrous relationships had taught her about what to avoid in the next man.

  “Well,” he murmured, turning to Shelly, “you are an incredible teacher to me. I’m not so sure you need to learn from me, though. Your life has been filled with sunlight, mine with storms and darkness.”

  Shelly saw the somberness in his eyes, the heaviness in his roughened tone. “No life is all sunlight. I know that. I just wonder what might have been if your father hadn’t guided you into your present career.”

  Colt hitched one shoulder and gestured toward the lake, now a deep turquoise because of the sunlight cascading down into this steep valley between the mountains. “When you talked about your passion, I remember as a little boy what excited me like that.”

  “What?”

  “I liked walking the land. I would pick up a rock and feel the energy of it. And then, I’d touch a juniper trunk and talk to the spirit within it. A flower would feel different from the rock or the tree. I remember this incredible joy coming up through me.” He made a gesture to his chest.

  “That was passion you were feeling,” she said.

  “My father told me to stop
picking up everything. He would take me back to the truck or the hogan to stop me from doing it. He’d tell me medicine men didn’t do things like that. Instead, he’d teach me a song to sing.”

  “I see…”

  Resting his hands on his hips, Colt scowled. “My passion, my love was in touching living things. I could touch a dog and know if it was sick or not. Or a horse. No matter what I put my hands on, I could pick up the energy and sensation from it, Shelly.”

  “In my paranormal experience, you sound like a natural for psychometry. A psychometrist is someone who can touch an object and pick up a vibe or feeling from it. Often, a visual picture, words or a complete scene will be given to you, as well.”

  “Yes.” Colt stared at her. “That’s what I used to be able to do.”

  “You still can,” Shelly said. “That is another of your natural paranormal skills, Colt. All you have to do is allow it to come back. The right hemisphere of your brain is where all our skills resides. Just touch something, close your eyes and allow the information to flow into you. This is something you were born with and it won’t disappear.”

  Turning, he said, “You mean to say that perhaps my path in life, my passion or skill, has nothing to do with me becoming a medicine man?” Even if that was true, Colt knew it would not make a difference. His path was to confront Yellow Teeth. And one of them would die.

  Chapter 9

  “They’re doing the same thing,” Victor snarled. He stood on the wooden deck of the busy teahouse that stood on one end of the lake. He watched the Taqe walk the banks of Agnes. Lothar and Jeff had binoculars and observed every step of their investigation. The one side of the lake was, for the most part, talus from the slopes above, although the evergreen trees grew down to the shore in places. For the most part it was easy to watch the Taqe.

  “My lord, they are moving more slowly than they did at Lake Louise,” Jeff said. “There are far more large boulders by the bank and they hesitate to check each set.”

  Grunting, Lothar said, “They seem particularly interested in any two that are together along the shore.”

  Victor scratched his head. “I have the fourth emerald sphere. It showed me the two boulders. How can they know one is white and the other black?”

  “Do you think the sphere told the Taqe about them in a dream?” Lothar wondered.

  “Anything is possible,” Victor said with a scowl. “We didn’t know that much about the spheres in the first place. We’re learning as we go along. I thought it would only give information to me because now I’m its owner.”

  “Maybe they’re hunting for a vortex where these boulders should be? Is that a combination that the sphere would be found in?” Jeff asked.

  “It seems prudent to think in those terms,” Victor said.

  Lothar told Jeff to continue to watch the Taqe as they slowly made their way around the lake. “My lord, if that is so, then this is truly looking for a needle in a haystack. You’ve seen the topo map of this area. There are many lakes. If the Taqe don’t know which lake, then they have an almost impossible job in front of them—just as we do.”

  Victor stepped off the deck and stood beneath a fir tree. Behind them stood the popular teahouse. There weren’t many visitors at this time of morning, which suited him. “Well, if this is so,” he told his underlings, “better they do the hard work and we just sit back and wait for them to find the sphere.”

  “Why would an Incan priest or priestess hide a sphere here in this area?” Jeff asked.

  Grimacing, Victor snarled, “Who knows what was in the minds of those men and women Emperor Pachacuti sent out from Peru? They were to place them around the world in centers of power.”

  Lothar looked around the sunlight-drenched basin where Lake Agnes lay. “From a geomancy point of view,” he said to no one in particular, “this is a place of great power.” Lifting his finger, he pointed to the ring of mountains that surrounded the steep valley below. “We know mountains are a key energy, just as trees are. And when you have a circle of mountains like this that funnel into a narrow, small valley below, the power is much higher than it would be on a plain or set of low-lying hills.”

  “True,” Victor said. “And if you look at Lake Louise, it’s also in a similar design of mountains with a lake at the bottom of their massive slopes.”

  “Hmm,” Victor said. He opened the topo map so it showed a part of their current area. “So, perhaps if they do not discover the sphere at Lake Agnes we would ask ourselves what other areas are similar to these two. That might be their next area to explore.”

  Lothar pointed to another oval lake. “My lord, the other possibility is Moraine Lake. It sits southeast of Lake Louise and Lake Agnes. It, too, is surrounded by mountains just like this area.”

  “Interesting, interesting,” Victor said. Excitement wove through him. “We know they are looking for a vortex, two boulders and a place of geomagnetic power. They’ve already searched Lake Louise without finding the sphere. Now they’ve come to Lake Agnes.” Peering down the slope toward the turquoise lake, Victor said, “And if they don’t find it here, my bet is they’ll go to Moraine Lake next.”

  “Do you want me or Jeff to go scout out Moraine Lake while the Taqe are here?”

  Considering the plan, Victor said, “Yes, go. This lake is small and they will be done searching by noon. I can watch. And if they find the emerald sphere here, I can take it from them without your help.”

  Jeff lowered his binoculars. He heard excitement in the Dark Lord’s tone. “It is a long hike over to Moraine Lake. There is no easy way to reach it. We need to go back down the trail to Lake Louise and then drive over.”

  “Then get packing,” Victor told them. “We’ll be in telepathic contact with one another. You let me know when you get there. You’ll have to stay overnight at Moraine, so watch for grizzly bears over there. This time of year they’ve just had their young and are hungry. The elk and deer in this region have also just had their babies and the grizzlies are looking for easy meat targets. Just stay alert.”

  Nodding, Jeff packed his binoculars away in the large pack he had on the ground near his feet. “My lord, just this morning a forest ranger put up a warning of bear activity on the trail at Moraine Lake.”

  “All the more reason to remain quick-witted,” Victor growled.

  Watching his men shrug into their large packs, Victor stood with the binoculars pressed against his eyes. His sense was that the emerald sphere was not at this lake. He couldn’t be sure, however. Only when a Taqe got near enough to it would the emerald unveil its location. And it would never pop out of the fourth dimension to a Tupay like himself. Feeling impatient, Victor growled a curse as he watched the two work slowly and tediously along the rocky bank of the small lake.

  “LOOK,” SHELLY SAID, indicating an area about fifty feet ahead of them, “two boulders together.”

  Colt said, “I’ve never seen a lake with so many of the right-size boulders. Those two you see are both black. We need a black and a white one. Plus a vortex. And we haven’t felt one of those yet.”

  “I know, I know,” Shelly muttered, moving carefully along the talus. The stones were all rounded and therefore slippery. Her boots had good grip, but even so, it was dicey going. Holding out her arms to keep her balance, she worked her way along the bank toward the two boulders. “You’re right. I haven’t felt any vortex energy yet. And we’re halfway around this lake.” She stopped and straightened. The warmth of the morning sun felt good as it rose higher and higher into the sky. A golden eagle flew in lazy circles around the basin that contained the lake.

  Colt came and stood nearby. He saw a sheen of perspiration on her face. He was sweating, too. “I would think this lake would have at least one.” At this altitude trying to walk the bank was demanding. Sometimes, the rock slopes ended and there was a strip of yellowish-white soil. Colt was eager to get to those areas simply because they were easier to traverse. However, there were also relatively few boulders along
the soil bank.

  Pointing across the lake, Shelly said, “I’m sensing one over there.”

  Colt squinted his eyes and observed the area. Few people were at the lake yet. The water was like glass, the mountains above reflected dramatically in it. “Good, because I’m picking up on the same energy.”

  Shelly smiled at him. “We’re a good team.” She meant that in more than one way. As always, Colt was closed up and unreadable. Except to her. Now that she’d had the pleasure of seeing the rest of him, she could sense his emotions. Right now, the shadows in his narrowed eyes told her he wanted her. Mouth tingling in memory, Shelly understood as never before why they had to remain focused. She’d had a night to think about Yellow Teeth, his constant threat to Colt. And to herself. Colt would be unable to love anyone unless the Skin Walker was destroyed. How did one destroy a spirit? Shelly wanted to pursue that with him, but the time wasn’t right.

  “I don’t see any physical signs that one could be over there,” he said. “Trees that have five or more trunks or that bend or twist in a direction different from others show a vortex, too.”

  “I know. Sometimes, though, there are vortexes without any natural finger pointing at them.” Shelly watched as Colt drank from his water bottle. Look, but don’t touch. The rest of the way across the lake’s bank, he’d remained in his introspective mode. Shelly could feel his turmoil. And, if her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her, the turmoil was him wanting her in every possible way. Oh, yes. When she’d finally fallen asleep last night, her dreams had been torrid. Even now, she felt an ache deep within her. It was an ache only Colt could dissolve.