Visions of Skyfire

by Regan Hastings

  “It does,” he admitted.

  “There’s something else, too,” she said just as quietly. “Remember I told you I saw my grandmother’s face, as she held out the Artifact to me?”

  He nodded, waiting.

  She bit down on her bottom lip to stem another rush of tears and said, “It wasn’t my abuela I was seeing. I realize that now. It was her sister, Tía Carmen. They look so much alike, it’s no wonder I thought it was my grandmother. Tía Carmen lives outside Barcelona, Rune. The Artifact has to be there.”

  He gave her a slow smile, leaned in and kissed her hard and fast. “Well done.”

  “Yeah. Now all we have to do is get away from these guys long enough to get to Spain and find the damn thing before time runs out on us.”

  “We will,” he said, cupping her face in his palm. He wiped away a stray tear with his thumb, then lifted that tiny bead of moisture to his lips. He drank her tears, swallowed her sorrow and told her softly, “They won’t be able to stop us, Teresa. We will complete this task.”

  Heart in her eyes, she met his gaze and solemnly nodded.

  Chapter 54

  The damp heat slapped at her as Teresa stepped out of the van. It felt as though she was wrapped in a wet electric blanket. Smothering. Stifling. Chico took wing the moment they were free and she heard his vibrant whistle over the wind that sighed through the dense grove of trees. She hoped he kept going. Hoped he remained free rather than coming back to her.

  Teresa took a breath and filled her lungs with the mingled scents of plant and animal life. Just beneath it all, there was a thick undercoating of decay. She had never liked the rain forest, preferring instead the clean sweep of the desert, with its wide-open vistas and sharp, dusty air. The jungle made her feel claustrophobic. Everything was too close. Every tree and bush seemed to be leaning over toward her, cutting off her view of the sky.

  She threw a look at Miguel and his men as Rune, held at gunpoint, climbed out of the van to join her.

  Miguel’s henchmen didn’t look too happy about being there. And she knew why.

  Even this far from the Palenque site, she felt the threads of magic spilling through the air. This place was sacred. The ground hummed with ancient power and the jungle itself was its living guardian.

  “Come on!” Miguel waved his gun to get them moving. “I don’t have all day to stand around in this disgusting heat. Move it.”

  She threw a look at Rune and read the rage burning in his eyes. Teresa understood what it was costing this fierce warrior to be a prisoner to a man so completely beneath him. Her own temper was boiling, demanding to be released, so she could only imagine the depths of her Eternal’s wrath. She reached for his hand and with their fingers entwined, they set off down a narrow path, overgrown with so much plant life it was nearly invisible to the eye. One of Miguel’s men walked ahead of them with a machete and the constant slap of the blade against the growth became a steady accompaniment to their footsteps.

  The jungle closed in around her, making it hard to breathe. Sweat dripped along her spine. The dark mutterings of the men were hardly more than a buzzing distraction.

  It rained, a misty soak that drenched their clothes and left them steaming as the sun came out from behind the clouds again. Water dripped from the canopy of trees that stretched high overhead. It was a miserable trek, but through it all, her fury spurred Teresa forward. She would never forget what her beloved abuela had sacrificed to give them this chance.

  The path led to a clearing and when they stepped into the vast space, Teresa let out a sigh of wonder.

  Palenque.

  Normally, there was a crowd of tourists wandering the area. How Miguel had managed to keep them all out was a mystery, but one she didn’t need to unravel.

  “I don’t like this,” one of the men complained in an undertone.

  “Me neither. Place gives me the creeps.”

  “Shut up,” Miguel told them.

  Teresa wasn’t listening to any of them. Instead, she concentrated on the huge structure in front of her. Her gaze moved over the massive stone palace, covered in dark-green snaking vines and grass crawling up from the well-tended grounds. Smaller structures were staggered around the clearing, with stone steps set into their facades. Everywhere, the jungle pushed forward.

  But no matter how hard nature tried to reclaim it, the building remained. Magical energies pulsed from within the structure, the very air resonating with power that fueled the dampened magic inside Teresa. She felt the ancient force of unbridled energies soaking into her skin, feeding what gifts she had with immeasurable abandon. “Amazing,” she whispered.

  “It is,” Rune agreed.

  “Yes, yes,” Miguel snapped. “It’s amazing. Wonder how they built it. Where did the Mayans do their sacrifices? Jesus, you two sound like the tourists our men chased out of here. I don’t give a good damn about the stinking temple. All I want is what’s inside and you’re going to get it for me.”

  Rune glared at the much smaller man. “You should learn when to keep your mouth shut, human.”

  Miguel’s fist tightened on his pistol. “You should remember that even if I can’t kill you with a gun, I can kill her.”

  “Do it and die.”

  “Tough talk from a guy with a white-gold chain around his neck.”

  “Rune,” Teresa said softly, “let’s just do this and be done.”

  “Good plan, Teresa.” Miguel motioned with his gun hand, steering them toward a much smaller building that sat at the crest of a low hill.

  It could have been an English country cottage from the lines of it. Until you looked closer and saw the jagged stones making up its skeleton and the sharply pitched roof. Blank doorways and windows stared out emptily at what had once been an arena filled with worshippers.

  Teresa stared up at the small temple. “Temple of the Moon,” she whispered.

  Miguel laughed from behind her. “Actually Temple of the Dead Moon. Or Temple of the Skull. Kinda looks like a skull, too.”

  She threw him a glare, then dismissed him as she shifted her gaze to Rune. He was watching her as if they were alone in the clearing. The men holding them at gunpoint might as well have been on Jupiter for all the notice he gave them.

  “Do you feel it?” he whispered.

  “I do.” It only surprised her that the others couldn’t feel the energy pulsing off the moon temple in this amazing place. But their ignorance would help her and Rune.

  “Let’s go,” Miguel ordered, waving them up the side of the grassy knoll toward the temple.

  Guns still aimed at them, Teresa went first, with Rune hot on her heels, a living barrier between her and the dangerous men behind them. She slipped, caught her footing and kept on. There was something ahead. Magic. Energy. Power. And it sang to her. Her body, chilled as it was from the white gold, reacted, her cells awakening with every step that brought her closer to the source of that energy.

  Heart racing, she smiled to herself and kept climbing, eager now to reach the top. To enter that long-abandoned temple that was somehow reaching out to her.

  At the peak, the ribbons of power were stronger, wrapping themselves around Teresa and Rune as they stopped just outside the gaping doorway. She tried to see into the inky shadows within, but with the hot sun behind her, she simply couldn’t.

  “Okay,” Miguel said, “here’s the deal. Just in case that old bitch was trying to set me up somehow …”

  Teresa took one instinctive step toward him, but Miguel just held his gun steadily pointed at her. “You two are going in there first,” he said. “And don’t get any ideas. I can cover you through the doorway.”

  Rune grabbed hold of Teresa’s upper arm and held her back when she would have charged Miguel, gun or no gun. Logically, she knew he was right. Emotionally, she wanted to rip that arrogant expression off Miguel’s face.

  “Get movin’,” he said, waving his gun again.

  Furious, feeling more trapped than ever, Teresa turned an
d walked toward the temple. She hadn’t taken more than two steps, though, when Rune moved in front of her to go first. “Stay behind me,” he said quietly.

  Again, he was risking himself to save her. Again, Teresa felt a wellspring of love rise up inside her. It nearly drowned the grief for her grandmother and the fear and rage inspired by Miguel. Rune was, in every way she could think of, her mate. Without him, she was incomplete. With him, she could withstand anything.

  Over the cries of the animals that lived in the rain forest, Teresa heard Chico shrieking and whistling and she wished he would fly away to safety.

  Then she followed Rune into the temple. Deep shadows made the temperature much cooler and the relief from the sun was instantaneous. The stone walls were empty, only vestiges of what they had once been, the grass and vines encroaching even here, beyond the reach of sunlight.

  The others followed, just a few steps behind them—and were stopped dead at the open doorway.

  “What the fuck?”

  Chapter 55

  Teresa spun around to face the man who had forced them here. He looked stunned as he once again tried to walk into the temple—and once again came up against an invisible barrier.

  Miguel’s features twisted in fury as he slammed his hands against air and found something solid. “What is this, Teresa? What the hell are you playing at?”

  Teresa didn’t answer—she was shocked herself. She just left him shouting furiously as she tugged Rune farther back from the doorway. Everything made sense now. Why her abuela had sacrificed her life for them.

  “My grandmother sent us here, Rune.” She looked around and above her, gaze sweeping over the cold stone as if seeing an old friend after a long separation. “The whole site of Palenque was sacred to the Mayans, but this particular temple is the one built to the moon.” She smiled for the first time in hours. “And I was the moon priestess. It’s welcoming me, Rune. I can feel the power here strengthening me.”

  He scrubbed his big hands up and down her arms and the heat of him was a welcome rush.

  “The temple is warded magically,” she said, shivering as another wave of mystical power eased inside her. “Protected by powerful magic. Nothing evil can get in.”

  As her words sunk in, Rune turned to watch Miguel throw one of his thugs against the barrier, only to see the man bounce away like a rock off the surface of a lake. A few more tries were just as unsuccessful. Rune smiled, slow and wide, keeping himself between Teresa and the doorway. “Your grandmother, Teresa, was almost as amazing as you.”

  She grinned back at him, feeling the mystical energies swarming around them. The chilling cold of the white gold was muted as power rushed through her. “Do you feel that?”

  Outside, men were shouting and a gun was fired. Bullets, too, bounced off the energy barrier, ricocheting from its surface to other targets. Someone screamed.

  “The magic is pure here,” Rune said, taking a breath as though a heavy weight had been rolled off his chest. “Rich and timeless. Even the white gold won’t hold us in here.”

  “I know.” Teresa could already feel the truth. That her powers were bubbling back to life as though the necklace around her throat didn’t even exist.

  She looked down at her hands and willed the lightning to life. At first, there was simply a sputter of sparks dazzling the tips of her fingers. But as the power of the temple soaked into her skin those sparks flared and grew, in spite of the white gold’s dampening effects.

  “Can you get the gold off my neck?” Rune asked.

  “Yes.” She lifted the chain and felt the cold of the metal against her skin, trying to dwarf what was inside her. But Teresa held on, and with the surge of strength she had gained from the temple’s interior, she succeeded.

  Concentrating her power, she shot a small blast of lightning at the links of the chain around Rune’s neck and sighed in satisfaction as the thing shattered. Quickly, she dropped the white gold and watched as it fell to the dirt at their feet.

  He stretched his arms out wide and pulled in a great breath, as if he had been released from a box three sizes too small. Smiling, he said, “Now you.”

  Rune used the fire of his touch to melt the links at her throat, then brushed the offending necklace aside and let it land on the floor beside the first one.

  Only then did he turn to face their enemies again. Miguel hadn’t given up. He kept firing at the doorway, despite the ricocheting bullets that continued to endanger both him and his men. The barrier held, permitting no entry. Miguel’s men were gathered into a knot, hiding from the bullets and from a power none of them understood but all of them feared.

  “We need to leave, Teresa,” Rune told her, face grim but determined as he narrowed his eyes on the man still screaming threats and obscenities at Teresa. “I’m going out there to clear the danger. Then I’ll come back for you.”

  But she grabbed his hand and shook her head. “No, there’s a better way.” Threading her fingers through his, she looked up at him and let him read the idea in her eyes. Rune glanced at the sunlit, grassy area, then back at her. When he nodded, he squeezed her hand tight, stepped to one side and waited.

  Teresa inhaled sharply, deeply, and lifted her free hand. With Rune’s and her powers recharged from the temple, with the strength of her mate pushing through her as a focus, she drew down the lightning.

  A tremendous jagged bolt shot from the sky with unerring accuracy. It slammed into the ground beside the group of thugs huddled together and three of them dropped instantly, dead before they hit the ground. Another bolt chased the first, but by that time the survivors were on the run.

  Men screamed.

  Miguel cursed.

  Chico whistled and shrieked, his cries audible above the furious blast of the lightning.

  Teresa filled the area with lightning. Her power sang inside her as it never had before. Magic coursed through her veins, alive, bristling with energy. Rune was her stalwart. Beside her, clutching her hand, he gave her the focus and concentration she needed to target her magic with efficiency. She felt his pride in her abilities. Felt his strength. His faith.

  The sizzling bolts crashed to earth one after another, cutting off escape routes, driving the men as if they were being herded. And still she called for more, filling the heavens with her fury. With her need for justice. With the magic that was the very core of her.

  As for Miguel, another wicked bolt of energy hit too close to where he continued to attempt to force his way into the temple. He slapped both fisted hands against the barrier keeping him from what he most wanted. “You bitch! This isn’t over, Teresa! I’ll find a way to end you!”

  Teresa watched with a cool detachment and sent another jagged bolt toward him that slammed into the ground by his feet. Knocked over by the powerful blast, Miguel screamed. Fury claimed her and with that emotion spiking inside her, Teresa’s ability to aim was compromised.

  Finally, he seemed to realize that if he stayed, he wouldn’t survive. So he ran like the dog he was and Teresa’s lightning chased after him, crashing again and again into the earth and trees.

  When the esplanade was empty, Teresa quieted the lightning and all that was left was the sun, shining down on the ancient site. Hands still locked together, she and Rune stepped outside the temple. The dead lay scattered on the grassy surface and the others—like Miguel—were gone.

  She hated that the man who had killed her grandmother had escaped. But she wouldn’t waste precious time chasing him down. Miguel had said himself that if he failed, his superiors would finish him. She didn’t wish death for anyone—but she couldn’t bring herself to feel sorrow for him, either.

  “Wait for me here,” Rune said tightly, gaze narrowed in the direction that Miguel had fled. “I’m going to finish this.”

  “No,” Teresa told him, releasing his hand long enough to wind her arms about his waist and hold on. Grief for her grandmother was still welling inside her. She felt the burden of what she’d done here with her magic.
Men were dead. Yes, they were evil and probably would have killed her with no remorse if given the chance. She had done the only thing she could do to save both herself and Rune. To make sure they lived to complete the quest that was so important, not just to them but to the world. Still, guilt and regret pinged around the pit of her stomach like steel balls in an old pinball game.

  Defending themselves was one thing. Deliberately chasing someone down—even Miguel—just to kill him was something else.

  “Don’t, Rune. Just … let Miguel go to whatever end is waiting for him. He’ll be in hell soon enough.”

  He shook his head and blew out a breath. “It’s a mistake to let him go. He’ll only report to whoever’s in charge of this mess exactly what happened.”

  “Let him,” Teresa argued, burrowing closer to Rune’s solid strength. Tears filled her eyes and choked her voice. Grief for her grandmother warred with pride in what the old woman had done for them. She’d sent them here, knowing that Palenque’s magic would be enough to free them.

  Although her abuela had known that the cost would be her life, she had set Teresa on the path she needed to walk.

  “It doesn’t matter what Miguel does anymore,” she said, swallowing back the tears. She wouldn’t dishonor her grandmother’s sacrifice by weeping and wailing over it. Teresa knew that her abuela was now on another plane and wherever she was, the old woman was watching.

  Teresa would make her proud.

  She looked up at her mate and waited until his gaze met hers. Those gray eyes swirling with power and emotion stared back at her.

  “Miguel means nothing,” Teresa said. “It’s more important that we go to retrieve the black silver. The Artifact is out there and until we get it back, no one will be safe.”

  The warrior in him wanted to argue. She could see that easily in his clenched jaw and the flash of his eyes. But after a long moment of tense, strained silence, Rune bowed his head briefly. “You’re right, of course. Your grandmother sacrificed herself to see that we could do what we must do.”