The Adversary

by Lindsay McKenna

  Chapter 15

  Victor didn’t wait long after giving Jeff orders to climb into their rental car and begin scouring the highway on either side of the lodge. If the two Taqe had escaped to the highway, Jeff would find them. On a hunch, Victor went back to the canoe wharf where Lothar was waiting for him.

  “Ready?” Victor said. Lothar had taken a red canoe from the shore and slipped it in the water.

  “Yes, my lord. This is a good plan. Why wait for someone to come and count canoes? If they’ve stolen one, we will, too. And perhaps we can find them before the day’s activities begin around here.”

  Victor climbed in and took the bow position. “That’s right. I’m assuming they did take the canoe and they’re out here somewhere on this lake.” Victor peered through the gloom and spotty fog as Lothar sat in the stern of the canoe and began to paddle across the placid, glass-like water. He cursed the Warrior for the Light. Black’s power was much more than he’d ever anticipated, especially since he had enclosed himself and the woman in a bubble of invisibility. Narrowing his eyes, Victor began to hunt for evidence of the Taqe on the lake. Dawn was coming but far too slowly for his thinning patience. Much of the lake remained dark and plunged in deep shadows. He couldn’t make out anything on the water. But then, Victor told himself, if he were the Taqe, he would hug the shoreline in hopes of not being spotted. That would be a far better strategy.

  “We should know fairly soon if they’re here,” Lothar said, paddling strongly in the stern.

  The canoe glided out of the wharf area. Moraine Lake was a north-to-south oblong lake. There were a lot more forest trees around this one and fewer talus slopes than there were around Lake Agnes, making it harder to spot the Taqe now. But in another hour, the light would help them to see anything on or near the shore of this glacial lake.

  “See them?” Lothar asked, hope in his tone.

  “No,” Victor growled. “It’s too dark yet.” When he possessed a human, Victor lost much of his vaunted paranormal skills. Even now, looking through the eyes of his host, Victor would be hard-pressed to pick up auras. And energy trails were out of the question. “Paddle along the shore. About six feet away from it. My senses tell me they went south from here.” No, they had to do this the old-fashioned way and Victor was comfortable with the situation. After all, he’d been able to steal one emerald this way. Why not another?

  “Right,” Lothar said. “If they’re here, we’ll find them.”

  SHELLY SUCKED IN a deep breath as she knelt in the brush about ten feet away from the lakeshore. “You were right,” she whispered to Colt, who knelt at her side. Right out in front of them a red canoe with two men in it glided by.

  Colt’s eyes narrowed. Turning, he whispered into her ear, “That’s them, but they’ve possessed different bodies. I can feel them and see the signs in their auras. Over at Lake Louise I didn’t know what I was looking at, but now I do. They have nearly the same aura signature that Trip Nelson and those twins had over at Lake Louise.” Three sorcerers! That blew Colt away. And then there was Yellow Teeth. Who were these sorcerers?

  Shelly felt some relief as the canoe passed them. The man in the front was lean and about five foot ten inches tall. The taller, stouter man in the back was doing all the paddling.

  “Those poor people…” Shelly whispered.

  Mouth tightening, Colt slid his arm around her shoulders as they crouched tightly together. They’d stashed their bright-colored jackets, and their dark green and tan shirts would help them blend in to the landscape. After another five minutes, the canoe disappeared around a curve toward the southern end of Moraine Lake.

  “We’re okay for now,” he told her in a normal voice. Straightening, he got up and retrieved their jackets. He handed Shelly hers and they put them back on because it was chilly.

  “What now?” Shelly asked, standing and zipping up her red jacket. “Do we wait?”

  “We’ll continue our investigation of this lake from the shore side. I’m leaving the canoe here. I hope that the sorcerers will think that we aren’t here.” As he gazed toward the dawning light on the lake, Colt picked up his pack. “We’ll work slowly down the shore behind them and stay in the brush where we can because of the bright colors of our jackets. Chances are they’re going to scour every bit of Moraine by canoe. That will take them a couple of hours and give us more time.”

  “And when they take the canoe back to the livery, what then?” Shelly asked, sliding on her knapsack.

  “I’m sure they’ll ask the attendant how many canoes there are and find one missing.”

  “That means they’ll come back and start hunting for us onshore,” she said, unhappy.

  “Right. But that’s two hours away. If we get lucky, we’ll stay hidden and they won’t be able to figure out where we are. That buys us more time, too.”

  Giving the dark waters a longing look, Shelly said, “Oh, how I wish the sphere was close and we could find it and then get out of here without them knowing anything.”

  Colt led her out of the brush and they moved along the shore. “Nothing in life is easy, Shelly. You know that.”

  “I know,” she murmured, taking the lead. The light was getting brighter and brighter. It was easy to see the stones, the fallen limbs and branches along the shore. “If wishes were horses.” She laughed softly.

  Colt wanted things to be easy, too, for a lot of other reasons. Just knowing the sorcerers were on this lake, probably seven minutes ahead of them, sent alertness flowing through him. Shelly had said there was no way to combat a sorcerer except through love. When Colt thought about Shelly’s form of protection against all sorcery, he found it hard to embrace. She’d never encountered a sorcerer until now and had never tested her theory. He trusted his own training now as never before.

  If one of the sorcerers struck, Colt knew he would go after Shelly. Would his bubble of protection hold against such an attack? Colt wouldn’t know until it happened. This made searching the shore even more important. Most of all, they had to remain hidden.

  After another ten minutes of walking, Shelly pulled up. They had come to the curve in the lake. From their vantage point they could see the red canoe farther down to the south hugging the shoreline. She stood back and remained hidden by the trees. “There they are.”

  “Yes,” Colt said, coming up and placing his arm around her shoulders. “They’re trying to find us.”

  Shelly welcomed Colt’s unexpected embrace and leaned against him. “My knees are shaking.”

  “I know.” Colt looked into her upturned face, and his heart squeezed. A fierce love welled up through him. “It’s going to be all right.” He didn’t really believe that, but he wanted her to believe it.

  Closing her eyes, Shelly rested her head against his shoulder. “I just want this over with. I never realized just how horribly dangerous it was going to be.” Pursing her lips, she added, “I wouldn’t have done it, Colt. I wouldn’t have shown up here hoping to meet you.”

  “Too late now,” Colt said, pressing a chaste kiss on the top of her head. “We’re okay, Shelly. Those dreams we had are real. The Great Spirit chose us for this. I don’t know why, but we need to find this emerald. Let’s keep looking for a vortex.”

  “I’ve never wanted to see two boulders sitting together as much as I do right now,” she said in a fierce undertone. What was this gemstone sphere all about? Colt was right: curiosity drove them forward. She hoped it would be worth it because right now, their lives were on the line—literally.

  Laughing softly, Colt released her. “I know what you’re saying. So long as the sorcerer is in sight of us on this lake, we have to be shadows. Let’s continue to walk the tree line. We can see the shore well enough and they certainly won’t see us.”

  “Do you think they’ll see our jackets?” Shelly asked in a worried tone.

  Colt considered the question. She wore a red one and he wore a yellow one. The sun was coming up and they were on the west side of the lake. That me
ant as the sunlight poured above the line of mountains, it would hit them first. Right now, they were covered in deep shadows. “When the sun starts to bridge the mountains to the east of us, we’ll take them off and stuff them into our day packs. I think we’re safe enough for now. They’re looking forward, not behind them. We’ll stay far enough into the brush that if they do look around, they won’t spot us.”

  “Good,” Shelly said. “It’s cold! Only after the sun comes over the mountains does it really start to warm up here.”

  Colt agreed. “Okay, let’s move back into the woods a little more.” Brush grew sporadically and they could thread in and around those areas. It gave good cover. The going was slow because plenty of limbs had fallen over the years due to heavy snowfall. They had to stay focused or else.

  VICTOR STOOD ON THE WHARF, hands on hips. The man tasked with canoe rental was mollified as Victor handed him plenty of extra cash for the canoe they’d used. When they’d floated up to the dock, the man, a square-faced Scot named T. S. Mitchell, had blustered angrily at them. Their sincere-sounding apology had instantly mollified him.

  “So, tell me,” Victor said in his most charming manner, “are there any other canoes missing?”

  “Aye, there is, sir. A green one.”

  “Are you sure?” Lothar demanded.

  “Yes, sir, I am.”

  “I see,” Victor murmured. He turned and looked out across the lake. The sun had risen and the temperature was warming. Moraine looked like a stunning turquoise jewel set amid the dark blue-gray granite and white-capped Rocky Mountains. At any other time, he’d have enjoyed the beauty of Banff, but not this morning.

  Turning, he said to Lothar, “Let’s go. I don’t know about you, but that early-morning canoe trip has made me hungry. Ready for breakfast?”

  Lothar nodded and said, “I’m hungry enough to eat a buffalo!”

  Victor waved to the Scot. “Thank you.”

  “Sir?”

  Victor halted. “Yes?”

  “You know there’s a grizzly bear alert out, don’t you? We can’t rent our canoes today because there’s a sow grizzly with two cubs on the eastern side of the lake.”

  “Oh,” Victor murmured, “I didn’t know that.”

  “Yes, sir. And if you’re planning on hiking in this area, that entire side of the lake is off-limits today. Sometimes this sow comes down to the lake hunting for newborn elk calves. And today is that day.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” Victor said, lifting his hand to the Scot.

  As they walked up the hill, Victor said, “That’s an interesting twist, don’t you think?”

  “What? A bear down at this lake?”

  “Yes. I know those Taqe are here. They were smart enough to dump the canoe and continue their search on foot.” At the top of the hill overlooking the lake, Victor frowned. “The only question now is—where are they? Which way did they paddle before they hid the canoe?”

  Lothar shrugged. “I haven’t picked up anything on them.”

  “Of course not,” Victor said, frowning. “They’re warriors. They know how to cloak themselves and hide from us. There’s no way for us to detect them.”

  Victor turned on his heel. “Come on, let’s go to the parking lot and meet Jeff. He didn’t find anyone on the highway because the Taqe are here at this lake. Let’s go get him and eat breakfast here at the lodge.”

  Lothar nodded; he felt starved. “And then what, my lord?”

  Moving toward the wooden lodge, Victor smiled. “I think the best way to find those two is to find that grizzly bear.”

  “What do you mean?” Lothar asked.

  Rubbing his hands together, Victor said, “After breakfast, I’m going to ditch this body and go find that mother grizzly. We may not be able to find the Taqe but I’ll guarantee you this—a bear can smell a human if they are downwind from them a mile away. I’ll possess the bear and go hunt for them.” He snickered, pleased with his plan. “It takes a hunter to find a hunter…”

  “STOP!” SHELLY THREW out her hand. They stood about three feet inside the tree line on the eastern side of Moraine Lake. “A vortex!”

  Colt came up to her side. “Yes, I can feel it, too. Let’s approach.”

  Shelly moved ahead while Colt kept watch from the rear, constantly perusing the lake for the sorcerers. There were no other canoes on the lake and that confused Colt. It was a beautiful, clear day; why was nobody out paddling? That made him even more wary than before.

  Pointing, Shelly said excitedly, “It’s an androgynous vortex!”

  Colt shifted his focus to where she was jabbing her index finger. He looked down at her. Her face was flushed, her eyes glimmering with excitement.

  “Do you see those two boulders over there, too?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I have to climb down the bank to see…” Shelly whispered. “This is it, Colt! I just know it.” She pressed her hand over her heart.

  Wary, Colt said, “Maybe.”

  “No, this is it.”

  “What will you do first?” Colt knew how he’d handle this, but Shelly had spent her life hunting vortexes. Besides, it focused her on something positive rather than the sorcerers hunting them.

  “Walk into the vortex. Find out what kind of portal it is or where it goes or what it’s connected to.”

  “You might disappear,” Colt said. “Are you prepared for that?”

  “I am.”

  “Have you disappeared before in one?” Colt had and he knew it could be a parallel world that she’d step into.

  “Yes. I scared my father to death one time. We were checking out an androgynous vortex in the Northern Territories when I disappeared.”

  “How long were you gone? Where did you go?”

  “It was about five minutes before I reappeared, but it felt as though I was gone a lot longer than that. My poor dad was beside himself with worry. He knew enough not to step into the vortex himself. So he waited, but it was hard on him.”

  Colt could see why. “Where did the portal open up to?”

  “It was an interesting one,” she said. “Are you familiar with the Australian Aborigines and their Dream Time?”

  “Yes, but tell me what you know,” Colt said.

  “Dream Time is another term for a whole bunch of androgynous vortex sites around the world. The Aboriginal people know where these vortexes are located in Australia. They enter the vortex, the door opens and whisks them into the fourth dimension. They can travel along these energy ley-line highways to other places. The androgynous vortexes are placed far apart, yet they help make travel easy. This way metaphysical knowledge has been traded and shared with mystics the world over from ancient times to the present,” Shelly said eagerly. “Not only that, the mystics of the different countries shared their symbols, artwork and legends with one another. No matter where you go around the world, you will see identical symbols from one continent to another. And this is how much of it happened. Isn’t that exciting?”

  Colt absorbed her enthusiasm. “It’s interesting. So, this vortex might be a door to that inner highway that the elders traverse?”

  “I won’t know until I step into it.” She reached out and squeezed his hand. “Now, if I disappear, don’t panic, okay? I’ll be back. I know how to enter and leave a vortex portal, so just be patient.” She stared up into Colt’s turbulent blue eyes, seeing worry in them. Reaching up, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Her lips impulsively met his and she didn’t care that this distracted Colt. She needed to kiss him. There was danger entering this type of a vortex and she didn’t want to leave without telling him goodbye.

  Stunned by Shelly’s sudden kiss, Colt groaned and wrapped his arms around her curved body. The moment her lips brushed his mouth, they parted. She tasted sweet, as only Shelly could. Taking her full weight, Colt anchored her and breathed in the scent of her riot of red hair that swirled around at her sudden move. He hungrily pressed his lips to her soft and exploring mouth. He felt her
smile beneath his and relaxed for the first time since they’d begun this quest. Her tongue moved boldly across his lower lip. The jolt of electricity dove down through him to his lower body. The world ceased to exist as Colt absorbed her in every possible way.

  The firmness of her breasts pressed against his chest. Her arms were lean and strong, holding him close. The beat of her heart reminded him of a little bird. Her lips wreaked a fire that exploded through him. As her tongue tentatively touched his, Colt lost all contact with the world outside. The movement was so sensuous that he felt his knees grow weak with need—of her.

  Breathing raggedly, Shelly pulled away, her hands on his shoulders. She looked up into his hooded blue eyes and smiled. “I’ll walk in the vortex but I’ll be back.” She tried to sound confident. Shelly released Colt, spun on the heel of her boot and walked forward with authority toward the invisible vortex. And then, she was gone.

  Colt felt the portal open and close. He could see the white and gold energy and the door. Shelly disappeared in an instant, gone to somewhere unknown. He loved Shelly. He loved her as he’d never loved another woman. It took everything he had to wait for her. Colt knew medicine men who had gone through portals on the reservation—never to come back. It was always a dicey proposition and he tried to control his anxiety, to continue his high state of alert.

  Just as he wrestled with Shelly’s absence, he sensed a sorcerer nearby. Was he in a canoe? On foot? Colt wasn’t sure. But he did feel that the sorcerer stalked them in earnest. This time, their adversary intended to find them.

  Chapter 16

  Shelly stepped into the vortex energy. The moment she placed her left boot on the black boulder and her right boot on the white boulder, she felt an incredible shift of energy and closed her eyes. Where would the vortex take her?

  Her lips still tingled from Colt’s kiss and her heart swelled with incredible love for him. No matter what happened on this dangerous journey, she had met the man of her dreams. Her past relationships no longer had a hold on her. Colt was a trustworthy person, a man she could love without fear of being used or manipulated. With that emotional energy swirling about her, Shelly did not fight the unseen but felt movement around her. This was a familiar sensation, which calmed any anxiety she might have had.