“I’m going to take the gag off, OK?”
They were at the swimming hole. Miguel Coyote had parked the Honda beneath the same tree that Tracey and Co had been sitting under on Sunday. The day that Wayne had drowned. He had propped Lori up against the trunk and was leaning over her now, his pale eyes glittering silver in the moonlight.
“Do you promise not to scream?”
Lori nodded and he undid the red bandanna, sitting back on his haunches, knotting it round his head.
Lori took a deep breath. Not to scream, just to clear her lungs. Screaming would be useless. No-one would hear her. The swimming hole was miles from anywhere.
The pond itself had been cordoned off by a circle of blue tape. A sign that said ‘No swimming allowed until further notice’ had been stuck in the soft sand round the edge. Lori wondered whether Wayne’s head was still down there, buried in the mud, where the divers had overlooked it. She shuddered.
“Poor Wayne.” she said, dully.
“Poor Barney,” said the biker. “The only person Barney ever hurt in his life was himself. His death was my fault.”
“Then you killed him?” Lori shrank back against the tree. “Are you going to kill me?”
“Don’t try to act the innocent, Lori.” There was scorn in his voice. “You know who killed him. And so do I. I know all about it.”
“About what?”
“About the Dreamcatcher and the voice and the weight-loss and Perry. About the wishes and the dreams. And the nightmares. About all of it.”
“How do you know?”
“I know because I’m ‘the seeker’. It’s my job to track this thing down and destroy it.”
Tracey knew where they were going long before they got there. She recognised the road. She’d been there often enough with Perry. Once she heard the motorbike engine cut out, she parked the roadster and went the rest of the way on foot, so they wouldn’t know anyone was following.
She crept along the unmade track that led down from the highway to the swimming hole, hugging the bushes until she came to a point where she had an unrestricted overview of the area.
Then she hid behind a rock where she could hear what was going on and settled down to eavesdrop.
“Where is it?” asked Miguel Coyote.
“Somewhere safe,” said Lori.
“Safe?” Coyote gave a harsh laugh. “Nothing’s safe while that thing’s on the loose. Where have you put it? Barney said it was hanging on the end of the bed. He must have gone back to get it when...”
He paused and Lori put her hands over her eyes, trying to blot out the memory of Barney lying on his back, of what had been done to him.
“If it had been there when I came in tonight I would have taken it and left, no questions asked,” said Coyote. “But it wasn’t. Where have you put it?”
He took Lori by the shoulders, squeezing hard enough for it to be painful.
“Tell me, Lori,” he said. There was an edge of menace in his voice. “Tell me before anybody else gets hurt. Before you get hurt.”
“You’re hurting me now,” said Lori. She was afraid. This boy was strong. And dangerous. Why should she trust him?
Coyote saw the fear in her eyes and relaxed his grip.
“Sorry,” he said. “But this can’t wait. I know about the Dreamcatcher. I know you have it. I know its powers. I know it promised to make all your wildest dreams come true. That’s why you can sing. That’s why you’ve lost all the weight. That’s why Perry is in love with you and not with Tracey. But it’s a double edged sword, Lori, people get hurt in the process.”
“I know,” Lori blurted, bursting into tears. “I didn’t mean for any of it to happen.”
“I know you didn’t.” Miguel sat down beside her and put an arm round her shoulders. “Just tell me where it is.”
“I hid it in a drawer,” sniffled Lori. “The top drawer. In the sideboard. In a brown envelope. In our front room.”
Bingo.
Tracey eased herself away from the rock and started to retrace her steps back to the car, stumbling over ruts and falling into potholes in her haste. She was seething with excitement. She had to get back to Lori’s house before anybody else did and find the charm.
It was magic.
“I KNEW it,” she muttered to herself. “I KNEW there was something weird going on.”
But this was better than anything that she’d anticipated. A Dreamcatcher that made all your wildest dreams come true. She’d steal it and she’d wish herself rid of this allergy thing and she’d get Perry to be besotted with her again. And then she’d dump him. Serve him right. And make a million dollars. And become a supermodel. And get her own back on stupid Lori Morrison.
So people got hurt in the process? Tracey couldn’t care less. In fact, it made the whole thing even better. Tracey could think of a lot of people she’d like to get hurt in the process. Mr Quentin for not giving her the part. Sheriff Watson for coming into her room when she’d told him to stay out. That wet-back kid in the next block who kept whistling at her when she went by. Mary-Lou for looking at her as though she’d crawled out of a drain. She’d like to give them all a twinge or two. And make Lori Morrison scream. Really scream. In agony. She’d wish something totally dreadful on her. Buried alive. Eaten by crocodiles. Or a long, painful, incurable disease. Something that would really make her suffer.
And she could do it.
It was within her power.
Or would be.
All she had to do was get hold of the Dreamcatcher.
Top drawer. Sideboard. Envelope. Front room. Right.
Sniggering under her breath, Tracey slid behind the wheel and drove off in the direction of Backwater Ridge.
“Did you hear something?” Miguel Coyote cocked his head, listening.
“What?”
“I thought I heard a car.”
“People come out here all the time – to pet.”
Lori wiped her eyes. She could have screamed, she thought. There had been someone around after all. Aloud, she said...
“Where did the Dreamcatcher come from? How come I found it?”
“It’s a long story,” said the biker. “Evil has always existed in one shape or form. And as for why you...?” he sighed... “Let me try to explain...”
He told her how, once upon a time, almost two hundred years ago, a troop of US Cavalry, looking for glory, had fallen on a peaceful Indian encampment and slaughtered everything in sight. Except for the Medicine Man, Yellow Dog and his young assistant. They were up in the hills, collecting herbs to cure a sick child.
When Yellow Dog saw what the soldiers had done, the things they’d done, he swore revenge. But he was an old man, not a warrior. And the boy was too young. So he turned to magic to fulfil his oath. He conjured up a great demon and trapped it in the Dreamcatcher. Dreamcatchers are white magic, Coyote explained. They protect babies in their cribs from harm. Hold their good dreams. Send their nightmares back into the void. But this Dreamcatcher did the opposite, promising dreams, turning them into nightmares. Black magic. The blackest. Then Yellow Dog laid a curse, not only on the men who had done the deed, but on their bloodline for a hundred generations. Finally he let the Dreamcatcher loose to do its worst.
“That’s where you come in, Lori,” Coyote finished. “The Dreamcatcher hones in on anyone connected to the massacre. After nearly two hundred years that’s an awful lot of people. Not counting the innocent bystanders who get caught in the crossfire. Hundreds of prospective victims. Scattered all over the continent. Willing victims. Because almost everyone has dreams.”
“Like me,” said Lori, numbly.
“Just like you. Although some of them have less conscience. Some don’t care who gets hurt along the way. Until the time comes for them to pay. Then they’re sorry. Very very sorry.”
“Why? What happens?” Lori hardly dared ask.
“Every bad deed they’ve ever done comes back to haunt them, counts in the payback. None of the deaths are pretty. But some...are less pretty than others.”
This time Lori put her hands over her ears. She was doomed. A horrible death. And afterwards...a fate worse than...for all eternity. She didn’t want to hear any more. But Miguel prized her hands away, making her listen.
“The thing about Backwater Ridge is that it seems to have a high concentration of the descendants of the original troop. So the force is very strong here. At first I couldn’t make the connection between you and it. There weren’t any Morrisons in the original command. But one of the soldiers was Ezekial Mason. And your mom’s maiden name was Marjorie Mason. It’s using you to get at a lot of other people. You’re just the catalyst. You’ve let it out in the open. All their deaths will be down to you.”
“Oh no,” said Lori. “What am I going to do?”
“You can’t do anything. I have to do it. I have to find the Dreamcatcher and destroy it. When Yellow Dog was dying he realised what he’d done. In calling up the demon to revenge that one settlement, he had called down bad luck on the rest of the tribe. Until the Dreamcatcher is located and destroyed that bad luck will continue to rebound on the whole nation. So he sent a ‘seeker’ to find it and get rid of it. Send it back to the dimension from which he’d conjured it.”
“How?”
“Certain rituals. Sand. Salt. Incantations. You wouldn’t understand. But I have to find it first. And the seeker’s powers are limited. He can’t undo what’s already been done. He can only exert a certain amount of damage control. And the demon is clever. And the demon has many faces. While I only have one.”
“But this happened two hundred years ago,” said Lori. “So there’s a new seeker for each generation, right?”
Miguel Coyote looked at her obliquely and she felt the goose-pimples rise on her skin.
“Something like that,” he said.
He held her gaze for a few moments more while she felt the blood drain from her face, then he stood and reached down to pull her to her feet.
“Beware of what you wish for, Lori,” he said, softly. “For your wishes might come true. Now let’s go get this thing.”
“But what about me,” said Lori, desperately. “What’s going to happen to me? I sold him my soul. If you destroy the Dreamcatcher does that mean I’ll go to hell?”
“If I DON’T destroy it you’ll go to hell,” he said. “You and a lot of other people. Tracey Barnes for one. One of her ancestors led the charge. You can bet the demon has something very special lined up for Tracey. Unless we get to it first.”