Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

  The ghost glared at her, and she decided maybe this spooky spirit was still a little frightening.

  When he spoke, cold chills having nothing to do with the weather ran down her arms. “I was one of the evil ones during my time in your world, woman. I didn’t follow the prescribed Way. And when my life was cut short, I was taken without finding harmony.

  “But I have been given one last chance to change the outcome. Do not spurn me, Message Bearer.”

  “You were a Skinwalker in this life?” Yikes.

  “I have been standing by, waiting for you to learn the Way,” the ghost told her. “Now you have learned to understand my words, and you will provide access to the Brotherhood.”

  “Uh…” Lexie wanted to run, but her legs seemed glued to the stoop. Getting away probably wouldn’t save her anyway. The ghost would find her no matter where she went.

  “You must tell the Brotherhood that Sarge’s spirit has stayed behind in their world in order to betray the evil ones. He has sought out a courier in you, hoping to earn the harmony he seeks in the fourth world. He brings word of an end to the scourge of the Navajo Wolf.”

  “Well, I suppose I—”

  The ghost grabbed her by the arm and it felt like she’d stuck her hand into an ice machine. “You must. I’ll give you the directions. You will listen and take the message.”

  Lexie tugged her arm out of his grip and glared back at the ghost. “Take it easy, will you. What kind of directions?” She was scared but not cowed.

  “There is a map buried in Dinetah. One showing the way to ancient writings. Writings destined to be the Dine’s salvation. I have knowledge of where such a map exists.”

  A map? Lexie remembered Michael talking about a lost map. If this spirit knew the way to find it…

  “I’m not sure I believe you,” Lexie hedged, not positive how much she could trust in a former Skinwalker. “But I guess that’s not my call. I’ll take your message. The Brotherhood will decide what to do.”

  Just then, the moon dropped behind a cloud, spreading shadows across the entire eerie scene. But as the Skinwalker’s ghost began to relay directions for locating the map, Lexie could’ve sworn she saw a smile gleaming from his dark, haunting eyes.

  Michael picked up Lexie’s limp hand and noticed how cold her skin still seemed to the touch. The two of them were sitting together in his parents’ religious hogan along with Lucas Tso.

  A few minutes ago Michael had draped a half-dozen blankets around her shoulders, trying to raise her body temperature. But he could see her continuing to shake and knew her lips were still carrying a slight tinge of blue even after he’d made her drink hot coffee.

  She’d called him an hour ago, right before dawn, and tried to explain about another spirit having given her a message. Michael had come home right away, after asking Lucas to accompany him back here to speak with her.

  Lucas Tso was the Brotherhood cousin most familiar with hearing and seeing things not of their world. An artist when not working for the Brotherhood, Lucas was known as the sensitive one. Finding his dream woman a few months ago had caused him to lose some of his power to hear others’ thoughts. But Lucas could still listen with his heart instead of his mind and hear what others often missed. This morning, Michael wanted Lucas’s help listening to and deciphering Lexie’s ghost story.

  “You say this spirit called himself Sarge?” Lucas sat on the other side of Lexie and spoke quietly.

  She nodded. “Yeah. He was talking like there was some third person. But I’m sure that’s what he meant.”

  “There was such a man who lived in Dinetah and who betrayed his clans as a Skinwalker,” Lucas informed her. “Our cousin, Hunter Long, and his new wife were forced to take his life. He died before he could give anyone instructions for finding where he’d hidden a map stolen from the Navajo Wolf.”

  “His spirit ghost gave me those instructions,” Lexie said with a raspy voice. “I have them memorized if you will finish writing them down.”

  Michael was having trouble with the concept, not the directions. He leaned in to look past Lexie and to speak to his cousin.

  “Why would a Skinwalker, even the ghost of a Skinwalker, want to betray his brothers?” he asked Lucas.

  Lexie turned from facing Lucas and stared at Michael with a pained expression. “Is it the ghost you don’t believe, or is it me?”

  He still had hold of her hand and managed to give it a squeeze before she ripped it from his grip. “I believe you think you know what you saw. But it’s hard to imagine—”

  “Fortunately,” she interrupted with a shake of her head, “Lucas seems more inclined to give me the benefit of the doubt.”

  Michael didn’t know what to say, or how to make her understand. She was his whole world. But his world had never included ghosts and spirits of dead Skinwalkers before.

  Catching everyone’s attention, Lucas reached into his backpack and withdrew a drawing pad and pencil. “Are you willing to try an experiment?” he asked Lexie.

  She shrugged. “I guess.”

  “Good. Then I want you to describe the man you saw.”

  “The ghost? ”

  Lucas smiled at her. “Yes, the ghost. I’ll try to draw what you’re describing.”

  Lexie shot him a quizzical look, then nodded and began giving a physical description of what she’d seen. After about ten minutes of Lucas sketching the attributes as she gave them, a picture of a man began to form.

  It was a man Michael knew well when he’d been alive. Lucas had drawn the perfect likeness of Levi “Sarge” George, who had been the Executive Director of the Navajo Department of Public Safety before he’d given himself over to witchcraft.

  Michael was stunned. He himself had stood over the dead body of Sarge George out in the desert and verified his identity as the dead Skinwalker who’d been able to turn into a wild dog.

  “Yes, you’ve got it right,” Lexie said when Lucas was done drawing. “That’s the ghost I saw.”

  Lexie turned back to Michael. “Now do you believe me?”

  “It isn’t that I don’t—”

  “Yes, it is. You thought I was dreaming—or lying.”

  Both of them got to their feet while Lucas turned to a clean page on his pad. Michael dragged her into a far corner and lowered his voice.

  “I never once thought you were lying.”

  “Just dreaming then?” She twisted out of his reach.

  “I think we’d better put off our wedding. You wouldn’t want to be saddled with a wife whose daydreams tend to be realized in terrible ways.”

  He breathed in. “We are going to put off the wedding.”

  The gasp that came from her mouth cut him clear to the gut. As she narrowed her eyes and lifted her chin, he could see her trying desperately to pretend it didn’t matter.

  “But only for a few hours,” he amended quickly.

  “Just enough time for the Brotherhood to locate the map.”

  Her eyes wide, she opened her mouth but no sounds came out. He hoped she would eventually forgive him for giving her the wrong impression. But she’d been so quick to call things off, and he’d wanted to make her think it over.

  “I’ll go notify everyone of the changes while you and Lucas draw up the directions to the map you have memorized.”

  They all needed to work fast this time. Fast and smart.

  15

  L exie paced the floor of her in-laws’ medicine hogan, worrying about Michael and trying to find harmony. The family had moved back into their home at the same time as Lucas had finished writing down Sarge’s directions to the buried map. Michael had gone to join other members of the Brotherhood to find that map about fifteen minutes ago.

  “Would you like me to do a short version of the Blessing Way ceremony for you?” Lucas asked. “It wouldn’t take much time and it might bring you peace.”

  Lexie shook her head quietly. “I’m hoping the old medicine man we’ve been looking for will be found soon. He�
��ll give me the Sing that I need. But thanks.”

  She studied Lucas for a moment. “Why didn’t you leave with Michael?”

  “I thought you might need me.”

  That was an odd thing to say. But Michael had told her Lucas sometimes said and did strange things. The guy was so soft-spoken and seemed so full of empathy, though, that Lexie felt right at home with this Brotherhood cousin.

  Joining him again and sitting cross-legged on the floor, Lexie tilted her head to watch his expression. “You did a terrific job of drawing that portrait of the ghost from what I described. How’d you learn to do that?”

  “I’ve never done that kind of thing before. But as you spoke, I saw a face. Clear and sharp. As if it were a photograph in my hand.”

  “That’s really cool. Do you think you could do the same kind of thing again?”

  “Perhaps. Whose face did you have in mind?”

  Lexie had been mulling this over for days. Always in the back of her mind, no matter where she went, the image of the Skinwalker Bear as he’d changed into a man kept coming into her consciousness.

  “I only saw this man’s face for a few seconds. And I was so scared I didn’t think I would remember any of it. But I believe I do now. Enough at least to give you a decent description.”

  “Tell me the circumstances.”

  “It was early in the morning and I saw a huge bear. I thought it was going to attack Michael so I chased after it throwing rocks.”

  “You threw rocks at a bear?”

  “Well, yeah. But it turned out the thing was a Skinwalker using his animal form. Michael had come running up saying a chant, and then the bear’s image sort of melted into a man. I managed a quick glimpse of him from where I was standing, but Michael couldn’t see his face at all.”

  Lucas studied her a moment. “A Skinwalker Bear? Hmm. How big was the man after he’d changed over? Tall or short? Heavyset or thin?”

  “Um. He was a big guy. Taller than Michael even. And much, much heavier.”

  “Are you saying fat?”

  Lexie nodded and began describing the man she had seen. She surprised herself with how well she could bring the man’s face into her mind. And Lucas surprised her even more by drawing him exactly the way she remembered.

  When the portrait was almost done, Lucas stopped drawing and stared down at the face he’d drawn. “I’ve seen this guy before. He works at the college. The name’s Gorman, I think.”

  “I heard Michael talking about a professor there named Gorman,” she told him. “I think he might be the one who started the rumors about me being a witch.”

  Lucas stood up and reached out to help her to her feet, as well. “I’ll call Michael and the Brotherhood. We need to locate Gorman right away. Before the other Skinwalkers can spirit him off the way they’ve done in the past.”

  Lucas started to leave, but stopped midstride and turned back. “Listen to me, Lexie. I have something to say that has nothing to do with Skinwalkers, but may be just as important to your future.

  “I recently married a woman I’d secretly loved for most of my life. It took me much too long to admit my love, though. And I almost lost her because of my silence.

  “Don’t let the same thing happen to you.” Lucas put a hand on her shoulder. “Your mind has been telling you to trust in your husband-to-be. But your heart hasn’t been ready to give him a chance.”

  “I trust Michael.” Lexie wasn’t sure she wanted this kind of impromptu lecture from Michael’s cousin.

  “Not here where it counts the most, you don’t,” Lucas told her quietly as he fisted a hand against his chest. “Stop thinking so much and let your heart guide the way. It’s where the answers lie. You’ll find the harmony you seek if you’ll just listen to it.”

  Michael stepped from Hunter Long’s SUV following behind Hunter’s brother, Kody. He led his two cousins across a skimpy lawn toward Leonard Gorman’s ranch-style house. Since they’d spoken to Lucas Tso, the three Brotherhood members had made their way here to confront the suspected Skinwalker. But Michael was still having trouble accepting that Professor Gorman was in fact a real Skinwalker. As a solution to a mystery, it seemed too easy. After all, Gorman had the best access to Michael’s office and could have stolen the laptop with ease.

  Too obvious. The fool might as well have worn a T-shirt announcing his allegiance to the Navajo Wolf.

  Michael, Hunter and FBI agent Kody had driven out here to Gorman’s house in order to question the man. If the professor really turned out to be a Skinwalker, Michael knew things would turn dangerous at any moment. That’s why all three of them were armed and ready for anything.

  Kody knocked on the door and announced himself as an FBI agent. The three men stepped to the sides of the door frame, out of the direct line of fire, and waited for some kind of response from within.

  Michael heard rustling noises, coming from the other side of the curtained front window. “Someone’s home,” he told the others. “And Gorman is known to live alone. So it’s probably him in there.”

  Kody knocked louder. “Open up, Gorman. We want to talk.”

  Suddenly, a high-pitched buzzing noise split the air. The three Brotherhood men looked up, recognizing the Skinwalker attack alert. Each drew his weapon as Kody made a move to try the doorknob. Michael’s whole body vibrated with uneasy feelings.

  He reached out and stopped Kody. “Hold it. I don’t like this. Breaking down the door now doesn’t seem all that smart to me. Let’s go check the back and sides of the house before we do anything stupid.”

  Spinning around, Michael took off, and Hunter and Kody followed along. The three men hadn’t gone thirty feet, though, when their entire world exploded in a blast from behind. The noise was deafening. A crush of hot air and splintered wood threw all of them to the ground. The windows and doors had been blown out.

  Michael recovered first and made sure both his cousins were okay. Kody had a gash on his forehead from flying glass and Hunter seemed dazed. Michael got them to their feet and pulled each one closer to the road and Hunter’s SUV. Just then, another explosion rocked the house. The blast shot fire out the windows and flames licked upward through a hole in the roof.

  But this time they were all a safe distance away. Michael called the Navajo Nation Fire Department, then tended to his cousin’s wounds with a first aid kit from Hunter’s SUV. He thought momentarily about turning around and making his way inside the still burning house to look for the assistant professor. But he was sure it would be a lost cause. He knew Assistant Professor Leonard Gorman would eventually be found dead inside the burned-out shell of his house. It wasn’t the first time the Skinwalkers had killed one of their own rather than let him be captured alive.

  The Brotherhood was closer than ever to getting their ultimate answers. The map was already in their hands, and they would have the parchments located within days. All thanks to Lexie.

  As he thought of her, Michael looked at his watch, checking how much time he had left until their wedding. He needed to change clothes and drive the thirty minutes to his parent’s house, all in slightly less than an hour.

  Another sharp call sounded from on high then, capturing his attention again. Looking up, he spotted an owl as it soared on the downdrafts. Out of place in broad daylight, the bird was sailing higher on the breezes and flying in large circles, moving in and out of the billowing smoke still coming from the smoldering house.

  And of all the weird things, Michael could’ve sworn he heard that damned owl laughing.

  Lexie straightened the folds of the long Navajo skirt around her body and sat down on a lawn chair placed in the position of honor beside a newly lit bonfire. It had been set behind Michael’s parents’ house. The flames roared and danced. But she’d been paying only half attention to both it and to the sounds of Jack as he played ball with his cousins. Her other half had been listening for Michael’s truck to arrive out front.

  Her husband-to-be had called a while ago to say th
e firemen had found Professor Gorman’s body. It seemed to her like a horrible way to die. But Michael said Skinwalkers tended to die the way they’d lived. With violence surrounding their hearts and bodies, and evil deeds keeping them from finding harmony.

  She’d been sitting here for fifteen minutes, trying to stem a growing case of the jitters—not brought on by Michael’s near death in the explosion, but more caused by her coming marriage to a man who didn’t love her. Soon enough, Michael would show up and she’d be faced with watching him go through with his self-imposed life sentence of a sham marriage.

  His family seemed as determined as he was to have the two of them marry. The clans had gathered. The food was prepared. A temporary arbor structure had been built for the ceremony. Everything was ready and they only awaited Michael’s arrival to begin.

  So Lexie tried to focus on what was going on around her rather than on what the man she loved was preparing to do with his future. She spotted Michael’s mother, looking vibrant in an evergreen long-sleeved blouse and matching long skirt with the most beautiful turquoise and silver squash blossom necklace around her neck. The older woman was in her element as she made sure guests were comfortable while they awaited the beginning of the ceremony.

  Thrilled by the idea of keeping this intelligent and strong woman in her corner for good, Lexie hoped the life she was preparing to undertake with Michael would turn out to be worthy of her mother-in-law’s respect. Michael’s father stepped to his wife’s side then, and Lexie watched as he whispered something in her ear. Councilman Ayze was dressed in a well-tailored, expensively cut suit. His black hair, streaked with silver, had been combed back off his high forehead. The picture he presented today was both handsome and vital.

  The two of them made a grand looking couple. Michael’s mother handed her husband a cup of coffee as he smiled and patted her shoulder. They seemed quietly attentive to each other’s needs, and the long-lasting bond of admiration and respect between them was obvious to anyone watching.