I found it a little strange that no one had called—not Jimmy, not Summer, not Megan or Luther. Then again, two out of three had their hands full with the baby from—
I paused. I’d been about to think hell but that was far too possible to joke about. At the back of my mind hovered the concern that Faith could be the daughter of the last leader of the darkness. For all I knew, she could become the next one. Or even something worse.
I headed up the sharp incline that composed one arm of the horseshoe ridge. The Norway pines provided welcome shade as the sun climbed ever higher. On several occasions a quick grab for a branch saved me from sliding, maybe even falling.
Reaching the top, I glanced into the gaping canyon then up to the peak. I really didn’t want to climb that, but I’d do whatever I had to do to find that damn skinwalker.
If he was close by, if he even existed, he had to know I was here. I didn’t sense anyone, or anything, following me, but that didn’t mean they weren’t.
“I’m supposed to be a sorcerer,” I muttered. “So sorcer.”
Too bad I didn’t know how. I missed Sawyer for more reasons than one. He’d taught me a lot, but there’d been a lot still left to teach.
However, most of what I had learned about magic involved opening myself to the power within, focusing on what I wanted, and believing it could happen. Which wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
I closed my eyes, stilled my mind, fixed the image of a coyote in the center—a black coyote—then . . . well the only way to describe it is that I reached, sending my desire into the world and trying to pull that desire back to me.
Nothing happened.
“Sometimes you need a spell,” I said. “Eye of newt, sacrifice a goat.” I shivered. Sometimes a goat wasn’t a goat but a human. I’d seen both die for the sake of magic. I hadn’t particularly cared for either option.
Since I was alone, with no goat and not a single eye of newt, I sat on a high, flat rock and drank half a bottle of water in a single gulp as I wondered what in hell I should do. When I lowered my head, a black coyote stared at me from a few feet away.
Though I’d been hoping for just such an occurrence, the sight made me uneasy. I wasn’t Navajo, not by blood, but I was a skinwalker by magic. I hadn’t learned everything, but I had learned some things. Namely that the coyote is a bad omen as well as a symbol of black magic. Nevertheless, I needed his help.
“Sani?” I asked.
The coyote began to pant.
As the motel clerk had said, he was big. Maybe he was part wolf; more than likely he was merely part man.
“Can you shift? I don’t have access to a coyote . . .” I searched for a word to explain what I needed—a tattoo, a robe, something to spark the change. That I was even considering becoming a coyote showed how desperate I was. According to Sawyer, that just wasn’t done.
The animal tilted his head so far to the right, he was nearly upside down. I sighed. When I was a wolf—or anything else—I could decipher plain English.
“Do you understand me?” His head bent in the other direction.
What the hell? Either Sani couldn’t or wouldn’t shift, or this wasn’t Sani.
If I were a coyote, we could “talk.” In animal form talking was telepathy. But I’d have to become a coyote to do so. Tigers couldn’t talk to wolves and birds couldn’t talk to coyotes.
“Wait a second!” I got to my feet. The sudden exclamation and movement had the coyote skittering backward. “Shhh,” I whispered.
I tugged the fetish from my pocket, held it up to the shimmering, tree-shadowed sun. The coyote yipped and hurried forward.
“Think this will work?” I asked, but I knew it would. Why else did I have it?
If I was going to shift, I needed to lose the clothes. I narrowed my eyes at the coyote. “I don’t suppose you’d consider turning around?” He lifted his lip and showed me his teeth. “That’s what I thought.”
In the past few months I’d become less shy about being naked, but I still wasn’t wild about stripping in front of strangers. However, I needed to get past that and there was—
“No time like the present,” I said, then pulled my top over my head.
Less than a minute later, I stood naked in the dappled light. The coyote seemed far too interested in my breasts for a coyote.
Putting aside my unease, I curled my fingers around the coyote fetish, pressing the stone into my palm and waiting for the bright flash that preceded the change. The sun continued to flicker over my bare skin; the shadows made me shiver.
I closed my eyes. Centering myself, emptying my mind, opening my heart, I reached for the change.
“That isn’t going to work.”
My eyes flew open. My gaze swept the tree line. Nothing there but the coyote. I spun around. Nothing behind me but the steep, forested ridge.
“Who’s there?”
“Who do you think?”
The voice was deep and aged, with the odd cadence I associated with those who spoke English as their second language.
I turned back. The coyote remained the only living thing besides me within earshot.
CHAPTER 20