Visions of Skyfire

by Regan Hastings

  But there was something more, too. A seed of something dark that scratched at the edges of her soul. Niggling temptation. Seduction. She felt it every time she called on her powers. Something as dark as the lightning was bright. And it knew her. Teresa felt it.

  “You won’t give in,” she told her reflection, lowering her gaze to the tattoo on her mirror image’s breast. She had come too far. Lost too much already to surrender herself to the past. Whatever attractions the pull of dark power had over her, they were nothing compared to the need to find justice for Elena and everyone else hurt by those chasing after this Artifact.

  Feeling her twisted nerves settle, she pulled up a chair in front of the table. She had already laid out six of the white votive candles they’d gotten at the store what seemed like a lifetime ago.

  While Rune was out gathering supplies and checking to make sure no hunters were near, Teresa was going to work a spell. Enlightenment. That’s what she needed. Knowledge of the past, and of the future. A smidgen of help from whatever gods happened to be paying attention.

  Gently, she reached out and laid one fingertip atop the wick of a solitary candle. Instantly, a spark shot from her skin, setting the wick ablaze. Smiling, she did the same for the other five until the ring of light burned in her reality and in the reflective-glass world as well.

  Twice the candle-magic power.

  She sat on the chair naked, and curled her legs up beneath her and squared her shoulders. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, waved her open palms over the candle flames and chanted, “Light to light, I call. Remember me and answer. I search the past to gain the future. Light to light, I call.”

  Eyes still closed, she felt a wind sigh into the room, lift her hair from her shoulders and tangle it around her head. A tingle of awareness prickled her skin when she sensed a presence in the room. It wasn’t Rune—she knew that, because if it had been, her body would have simmered with the raw hunger that tore at her whenever he was near. But Teresa couldn’t risk stopping her spell and opening her eyes to confront whatever was with her.

  If it was a helpful spirit, she would have what she asked. If it was death, she would know that soon enough. She took a breath and continued to move her hands in graceful arcs and designs in the air above the lit candles. If she interrupted the spell now, there was a possibility of a backlash of magic that she wasn’t strong enough yet to combat.

  So she went on, gathering her strength. Knitting together the tattered ends of her courage and holding on tightly.

  “Light to light, I call,” she chanted again, her voice louder this time, more insistent. Her hands moved faster now, in intricate patterns over the candles. She felt the heat of the flames against her palms but didn’t let that deter her. She knew these hand gestures well. Had learned them from her grandmother when she was a girl.

  The gestures represented sacred symbols meant to call down the attention of the old gods. Teresa focused on her task and tried to ignore the unseen presence. She felt the candle flames wavering now with the growing wind. Goose bumps rose on her arms and along her spine. Magic sizzled and snapped. She felt power dancing all around her as the presence came closer, until it was only steps away. The small hairs at the back of her neck stood straight up as she finished the spell.

  “I seek answers,” she murmured, her voice little more than a whispered prayer. “I seek to know. Let the light guide me to the right path for knowledge and power to fight the enemy’s wrath.”

  The wind abruptly died.

  She opened her eyes.

  The candle flames whooshed three feet high, then extinguished in a blink.

  And in the mirror someone moved up behind her.

  Teresa lifted her gaze, felt tears well and whispered, “Elena?”

  Chapter 33

  A few hours later, Rune snapped his satellite phone open, hit number three on speed dial and waited impatiently as a distant phone rang. His mind raced and his blood pumped with the need to return to Teresa. Standing on an outcropping of rock a half mile from the cave where she waited, Rune felt more alone than he had in centuries.

  He’d had to leave her behind when he returned to the village for supplies and now he was grateful that he had. He had seen the circling flock of buzzards first. Dipping and wheeling in the wind, they performed a dance of death that told Rune he wouldn’t have to worry about avoiding the villagers.

  Flashing to the middle of the narrow street, he had been surrounded by carnage. Every villager—men, women, and children—was dead. All of them. They had died in a cascade of bullets, their bodies ripped and torn, and now the buzzards were dropping out of the sky like black snow to finish them off.

  He had taken what they needed from the store and gotten out of the little town as quickly as possible.

  It had been a long time since he had experienced real fear. But it was with him now.

  Whoever had annihilated that village was after Teresa. And they clearly didn’t care who they had to kill to get to her.

  Every protective instinct he had ever possessed was roaring to the surface. His huge body practically vibrated with the need to safeguard her. Hold her in the circle of his arms, safe from anything that might harm her. But more even than the need to protect her was the ancient, pulsing demand to claim her body again and again. To drive the mating brand to completion.

  To finish this quest.

  Because only then would she be completely safe.

  “Rune. Problem?”

  Torin’s voice shattered his thoughts and jerked him back to the present. An Eternal like Rune, Torin had been the first of them to brand his Awakened witch and find their shard of the Artifact. Together, he and Shea had returned the black silver to Haven—the coven’s home in Wales.

  Wales, with its lush greenery and crashing waves against timeworn cliffs, was a long way from here, Rune mused. In more ways than one. In Wales, there was safety. The coven’s home offered exactly what its name implied—a haven. Here, in Mexico, Rune felt danger creeping ever closer. His sharp gaze swept the dark, empty desert around him. The emptiness was a facade, he knew. There was life out there, behind every rock and bush. Snakes, coyotes, wildcats—not to mention the kind of predator that walked on two legs. Hunters roamed these darkened sands. He could feel it—a hum just under his skin that warned of an encroaching menace.

  But from where?

  “Lots of problems.” Rune’s gaze narrowed on the sliver of moon shining down out of a black star-swept sky.

  “What?” Torin’s voice was taut, expectant.

  “I’ve got Teresa. We’re in Mexico, going to head to Chiapas to see her grandmother in a day or two.”

  “And?”

  “Most recently? We stopped in a village for supplies and got made. A couple of the townspeople tried to earn the reward for capturing a witch. I took care of it and got Teresa to Finn’s cave.”

  “Sounds fine. So what happened?”

  “Just got back from that village. Went for more supplies. Somebody had been there. Took out the whole place.” Shaking his head, he narrowed his gaze on the mountain where Teresa waited for him. “Every last soul dead.”

  “Fuck. Any idea who?”

  “No.” Grinding his teeth, Rune continued. “There’s more, Torin. I was going to call you about this, anyway, even without the dead village. Elena Vargas, a friend of Teresa’s, was killed in Sedona. She was a doctor, Torin. Not a witch. She helped us out and no more than an hour or so later she was dead.”

  Seconds of silence ticked by before Torin said, “How was she killed?”

  “Looked like she was strangled. But not before she was tortured.” He hissed in a breath at the memory. He hadn’t wanted to show Teresa how her friend’s death had affected him, but it had. The woman had died because she had helped him. For that alone, Rune owed her justice. “Arm and hand broken—but Torin, one side of her body was burned to a crisp.”

  “Say again?”

  “You heard me right.” The image of El
ena’s body rose up in his mind again and he didn’t like what he was thinking. Hard not to go there, though. “There’s no way that was done without magic. Unless the guy had a portable blowtorch he carried with him.”

  “Damn it. What the hell is this?”

  “I don’t know,” Rune admitted. He wiped one hand across his jaw and then scrubbed the back of his neck. “I hate even thinking this, but—is there any chance that one of the Eternals has gone rogue?”

  Chapter 34

  “No.” The answer came back fast, imperious. Torin had long been the de facto leader of the Eternals. He was the one who had kept most of them from losing their minds during the long centuries of waiting. He was the one who had found his mate first. Their union had set them all on the course that had been charted for them eight hundred years ago.

  And now Torin was a voice of reason when Rune really needed one. Because ever since he’d seen Elena’s body, he’d been half convinced that one of the hunters chasing him and Teresa was an Eternal. How else to explain the controlled burns? If he was right about that, then the Awakening itself was in a world of hurt.

  “Not a chance,” Torin said flatly. “We’ve all been tight for centuries. We know each other too well. If one of us went off the reservation, then we’d all know about it. Damn it, Rune, this isn’t one of us. There’s got to be a sorcerer or a demon working with the hunters. It’s the only explanation.”

  “Maybe.” But it hadn’t felt like a demon hit to Rune. “I didn’t feel any dimensional magic at the site,” he said. “No lingering trace of demon energy. And if there’s a stray sorcerer out there, why haven’t we heard about it?”

  “Who the hell knows?” Torin’s voice got sharper. “It’s a big world, you know? All kinds of bad shit could be hiding out there. Hell, there’s always somebody trying to stop us and kill our mates. Why would a damn sorcerer be out of line?”

  “True enough,” Rune acknowledged. A skittering sound caught his attention and he slowly swiveled his head toward it. His gaze swept the nearby area, then searched farther out, looking for a shadow that shouldn’t be there. A hint of movement in the blackness. But there was nothing.

  “The Eternals are solid, Rune,” Torin said, his voice grim and hard as if he was trying to convince not only Rune but himself. “We’ve waited too long for the Awakening. Now that it’s finally here, there’s no way one of us would turn at this late date. Not when everything is finally on the line.”

  Rune wanted to believe. He thought of the immortals, who were his brothers, and he couldn’t imagine any of them turning against the group. They had all been stalwart for centuries, banding together for strength. Their god, Belen, had created them for this very purpose. Why would one of them choose to throw his birthright away? And for what?

  Still, his mind argued the point. He couldn’t come up with another explanation for what had happened to Elena. And a man made of fire was a pretty damn good one whether he liked it or not.

  “You think I like even considering this? You’re crazy, Torin. They’re all my brothers, too. But crazy times can push anybody over the edge. And you didn’t see Elena’s body.” Shaking his head, he turned his face into the sharp October wind slicing across the desert, carrying the scent of sage. “The burns were deliberate. One half of her body. No more. Hell, it was like a line had been etched down the center of her. Magic was involved.”

  “Undoubtedly,” Torin agreed. “But that doesn’t necessarily make the killer an Eternal.”

  Rune shook his head again, hearing his old friend but still having doubts. “What about Egan?”

  “Are you on crack?” Torin countered. “Hell, we just found out last month from that freak-of-nature witch Kellyn that she trapped Egan in a white-gold cage somewhere at the bottom of the fucking ocean. And now you’re gonna blame him for this?”

  “You think I want to?” Rune’s angry shout shattered the quiet of his surroundings and instantly he grimaced and lowered his voice. Sound traveled for miles in the desert and he didn’t need to help his enemies find them. “Damn it, I called Egan brother for centuries before he disappeared, but we’ve only got that ‘freak-of-nature witch’s’ word for it that she’s got him trapped. What if he’s the one who went rogue?”

  “No fucking way. Not a chance. I’ll never believe that of one of us. Turning our backs on who we are means turning from our witches. We wouldn’t turn on our mates, Rune.”

  “But we won’t know that for sure unless we find Egan. Anybody have anything?”

  “No,” Torin grumbled and Rune could picture his fellow Eternal, stalking back and forth, scraping one hand through his long hair over and over again in a fit of frustration. “There’s nothing. I put Odell and Cort on it a week ago, but we don’t even know where to start looking.”

  “Can’t Shea do a locator spell on him or something?”

  “Not without a focus. Something that belongs to Egan. And we’ve got nothing.”

  “What about his place in Edinburgh?”

  “You think we didn’t check?” Torin barked. “I sent Cort there to bring something back, but when he got there, the place was empty. Either that fucking witch cleaned it out to prevent us finding him or—”

  “Or,” Rune finished for him, “Egan’s the rogue and he went into hiding.”

  “No, damn it. It’s not one of us.”

  “Well, who, then?” Rune threw one hand up, called on the fire and watched his hand burn, as if he needed something to focus his rage on. “If it was a dark witch, I would have sensed her presence in Sedona. Demons leave behind trace dimensional residue and a sorcerer leaves astral energy. I could have tracked it.”

  “Maybe. It’s a big city, man.”

  “Not that damn big and whoever was there at Elena’s office was close to Teresa and me.” The flames on his hand winked out and again he was surrounded by darkness. All around him, silence reigned but for the small noises made by the creatures whose home he had invaded. “There’s something else going on, Torin. Something big—and it’s out there alongside the hunters and the feds.”

  “Fuck me.”

  A rueful laugh shot from Rune’s throat. “Yeah, that about covers it.”

  He felt Torin’s mounting frustration as his own. But Torin was in Wales, on the other side of the damn globe, and wouldn’t be able to help even if Rune asked for it.

  Torin sighed. “You need me to get a couple of the other Eternals out there to help?”

  “No,” Rune said. He didn’t like thinking it, but damn if he wanted more Eternals around here until he was convinced they weren’t at the heart of this mess. He didn’t want to believe that Egan had gone rogue, but not even Torin could deny that it was a possibility. “I can handle things here. I’ll keep Teresa safe and we’ll accomplish our task. But I do think you should check into this.”

  “No shit,” Torin said. “I’ll get Shea and her aunt Mairi on it. They can check the Sanctuary libraries.”

  “Good.” That was something else they’d discovered only last month. The earth’s witches had maintained knowledge down through the ages and had stored everything they learned in dimensional libraries that any witch could access through a portal if she was close enough to one of the Sanctuaries. “Hope you’ve got some ideas, because I don’t have a clue what they should be looking for. If it’s not one of us—”

  “And it’s not,” Torin said.

  “Then we’re boned.” Rune shook his head. “There’s something new out there, Torin, and we need to know what it is.”

  “Agreed,” his friend said. “Shea and Mairi will cover this with witchcraft. In the meantime, Mairi’s mate, Damyn, and I will hunt down a few of the other Eternals. See what we can find out. And we’ll step up the search for Egan. Damned if I’m willing to accept that he or any of us is behind that doctor’s death. We’ll figure out who the new player is.”

  Rune slapped his phone shut and tucked it into the pocket of his jeans. He was no closer to an answer, but at least he w
asn’t alone in his hunt now. Torin and Damyn would check on the Eternals in Europe. Rune would contact Finn and get him to do the same in the States.

  He turned his head to stare at the rock formation nearly half a mile away from him, and he had to smile. It jutted into the sky, sharp and angled, like a fist raised skyward. Naturally Finn would choose to build his home beneath such a rock. The Eternal was always ready for a fight—and, Rune told himself, that would come in handy if this got any uglier.

  Beneath that mountain Teresa was waiting for him. She had no idea that her precarious safety had just gotten a lot more complicated. He thought back to the massacre at the village and felt a ball of ice drop into the pit of his stomach.

  Federal agents, police, violent civilians, witches, demons, sorcerers, even perhaps a rogue Eternal—they were all out there, just waiting for their chance at her.

  But as long as Rune lived, no one would hurt his woman. He would kill any who tried.

  Chapter 35

  Parnell sat in the shadows, watching his “allies” down shot after shot of tequila. The ramshackle tavern they waited in was hardly more than a hut, but nothing more was needed, anyway. This was just a stop on a long, well-laid-out road. Lifting his beer, Parnell took a sip and set the glass down as his gaze traveled the smoky interior.

  Lights were dim, as they were in most bars. There was a fire roaring in a stone hearth on the far wall, dispelling the October chill in the desert night. Hard-bitten men with murder in their eyes gathered around the tables, playing cards and drinking incessantly. They were celebrating the slaughter of the village, he told himself. Proud of having shot down unarmed civilians and telling war stories as if they’d faced down a demon horde.

  Idiots.

  He had had them kill everyone in the village for expediency’s sake. Otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered. But he hadn’t wanted to risk word getting out about the witch and her immortal bodyguard.