Visions of Magic

Chapter 29



With Torin out rounding up food, Shea took some time to try to get things straight in her head. So much had happened so quickly, she hardly knew what to think anymore.

But one thing was sure. Nothing was ever going to be the same for her again. Not since her Awakening. Not since Torin.

She stood in front of the bathroom mirror and slipped out of her shirt and bra. Staring at the two tiny flames, the beginning of the mating brand at the tip of her breast, she felt a swirl of magic rush through her. She inhaled sharply and let it come, relishing the sensations of her very soul opening up to new possibilities.

“Torin said the memories would come,” she whispered to her reflection, and noted the frown on her own face. “But can I afford to just wait? If there’s magic in me, shouldn’t I be able to draw on it?”

Seemed reasonable enough, she thought, still frowning. The question was, how to do it?

“Maybe it’s just a matter of concentrating,” she said. Lifting both hands, she placed her palms on the cold mirror and stared into her own eyes. With her mind focused on the magic, on the secrets she needed to know, she concentrated as she never had before.

Seconds ticked past and the silence in the room closed in around her. The world narrowed until all she could see was the reflection of her own green eyes staring back at her. And just when she thought nothing at all was going to happen, she noted the change in her mirror self’s eyes.

The green filled with shadows, darkened and then fired with sparks. Then her vision blurred, became indistinct while at the same moment, she felt raw strength pulsing inside her. Power. Magic. It was there, within her. She drew on it, giving herself up to it, surrendering to whatever might come next.

In her reflected eyes, she saw . . . something. A woman. Looking into a mirror, as she herself was. Shea watched, swaying under the onslaught of the vision, as the strange woman murmured a chant. And in the glass the woman held, figures appeared. An image of Shea, under attack by a crowd of people and Torin, fighting for his life. For their lives.

And the woman surrounded by darkness laughed.

Shea jolted back from the mirror, breaking the link and shivering as the sound of that evil laughter continued to spill out all around her.





“I know I hit her,” Landry said. He stood at attention in front of his superior’s desk. There was always a followup interview after a hit. The MPs, like the feds, had to keep their paperwork straight. “I shot, she fell, the man dropped on top of her.”

His boss wasn’t happy about the situation, seeing as the Do Not Kill order had gone out and Landry was claiming he hadn’t heard it.

“You were told not to kill her.”

Landry shrugged. “Reception was bad. Missed that part of the call.”

“Sure you did.”

Orders or not, Landry told himself, no one cared about a dead witch, not really. Well, except maybe for whatever big shot had put out the order in the first place. But for those of them in the trenches, a dead witch was a safe witch.

“Never mind,” the other man said with a resigned sigh. “Did you see bodies?”

“No,” Landry admitted, remembering the thick mist that had swept into the area, hiding his targets from him, obliterating the scene. “A fog came up suddenly and hid them. Hell, it hid my car, too. Took me a half hour to find it.”

His superior sat forward in his desk chair, picked up a pen and tapped it against a neatly stacked sheaf of papers. “We sent a team out a few hours later. They found the car was on the side of the road, but the witch and the man were both gone. We found blood, yes, but no bodies.”

Landry gritted his teeth. She’d escaped. Gotten away once more. But he knew where his bullet had hit her. She couldn’t have gone far. Not even magically. “Let me track them.”

His boss sighed. “By now, they’ve realized that she was bugged and they’ve gotten rid of it. You have no way of knowing where she went.”

Leaning both hands on the desktop, Landry stared into the other man’s eyes. “I don’t need GPS. I can find her. And when I do—”

“Forget it,” the man said with a shake of his head. “We’ve got plenty of witches around here to worry about. BOW’s taking this over. We’re out.”

“Out? I’m the one who caught her in the first place!”

“And according to the feds, we’re the ones who let her escape.”

“It’s the MPs’ fault that the internment camp is loaded with incompetent morons?”

“Forget it, Harper. As far as our organization is concerned, it’s over.” He gathered up the papers and began to flip through them. Pulling one free, he handed it over. “I’ve got a new assignment for you. This witch is hiding out in Sunset Beach. Got a tip. So forget about the one that got away and go retrieve this one.”

Landry stared at the legal notice giving him the right to apprehend and thought about not taking it. He knew he could find that witch and her man. BOW didn’t have the right to tell him to back off. His insides jumped with adrenaline and restrained fury as he fought with himself over just how to handle this.

He wanted that damn witch.

But as the seconds ticked past, he had to admit that he also wanted to keep his job. It was important to him. To be on the front lines, protecting humanity from this plague of witchcraft. So, if he had to back off of one witch . . . he’d simply ramp up his efforts on the others. And maybe, one day, he’d get another shot at Shea Jameson.

Snatching the paperwork from his boss’s hands, he glanced at the witch’s name and address and nodded. “I’ll have her to Terminal Island by this evening.”

“Good. Dismissed.”

As he left, Landry told himself he was a lucky man to be able to do the work he loved.