Free WINDWALKER (THE PROPHECY SERIES) by Dinah McCall Page B

then began moving from man to man, eyeing each one of them carefully.
    “What do you say, George?” Nantay asked.
    George Begay nodded. “Yes, these are the ones,” then he walked toward his truck, got in and drove away.
    “Who the hell was that?” Conroy asked.
    Nantay poked his rifle in Conroy’s back. “That was the man who told us you were coming, now walk forward, Mr. Washington.”
    Conroy frowned. “What do you mean, told you we were coming?”
    Nantay paused. “The Pony Express has long since disappeared. How did you think we found you?” he said, and hauled them into jail.
     
    ****
     
    When Conroy and his men never called in, Emile Harper knew something had gone wrong. These were men who knew if they got caught, they were on their own. However, if they’d been made, then it was all the warning the Birdsong woman would need to hide out, which meant next time she would definitely not be in her grandfather’s house. So much for brute force. Moving on to technology.  
     
    ****
     
    Binini Island – West Indies
     
    Thanks to Madame ReeRee, he knew something the U.S. government did not. He knew where Layla Birdsong was hiding, and he thought it a place most fitting. According to ReeRee she was still on the Navajo reservation, but not near any settlements. She’d already gone to ground and was holed up by water in a place called the canyon of death. It was ironic that he’d been able to confirm the existence with a voodoo queen and Google, although he found out later that the correct translation was the Canyon del Muerto. The internet was a wonderful invention.
    But, just as he was about to celebrate an easy retrieval, further research brought his premature celebration to a halt. Canyon del Muerto wasn’t just a little spot on the map. It was miles and miles and miles of land in a remote part of the reservation. However, anything worth having, was worth fighting for, and he knew just who to call.
    He ordered some bread and cheese and a bottle of his favorite wine to be brought up from the wine cellar, then settled into the most comfortable chair in the library to make the call. It was a silly little ritual, but Prince believed in bad luck, so repeating a ritual that had brought him good luck was needed to offset the bad.
    He took a sip of the wine, rolling it around in his mouth and then sucking it under his tongue to get the full bouquet before letting it slide down his throat. He allowed himself a small moment of ecstasy at the perfection of the taste, and then broke off a piece of bread, slathered on some of his favorite soft cheese, and took a big bite. He was chewing as he punched in the numbers, and swallowed as the call went through. One more sip of wine as the phone began to ring, and if everything in the universe was aligned as it should be, his call would be answered before the third ring.
    One ring, then two. He was holding his breath as the third ring began, then a click, and the voice he’d been waiting for came online. He smiled.
     
    ****
     
    Maurice Tenet was an oddity in the world of humans. Being an albino meant always being the one who stood out in a crowd – never being the guy on the beach with the buff bod and oiled-down pecs. Women were nice to him, but mostly through curiosity. He had sex when he wanted it because he could buy it, and liked the setup far better than all the crap that came with a ‘relationship’.
    But the older he got, the more serious his eye condition became. He lived with the risk of blindness, not to mention suffering with the skin conditions that were a result of his affliction. He could have become a bitter man, but instead of feeling like he was missing out, he had, instead, created a world around him in which he was the norm, and anyone else he let in became the odd man out.
    He drove a white car with white interior and wore only white clothing. He lived in an oversized white beach house in LaJolla, California in which all the walls, furniture and