Visions of Skyfire

Chapter 10

“He’s fried.” Landry looked at the dead MP sprawled across the shattered windshield of a sedan. The kid’s eyes were wide-open as if he were still surprised.

“What the hell happened to him?”

Landry shot the young agent beside him an incredulous look. “The witch happened to him, you f*ckwit. You heard the report from the desert. She can throw lightning, for chrissakes. Looks like she landed a hit on this poor bastard.”

While the younger agent muttered to himself, Landry narrowed his eyes against the driving rain and scanned the neighborhood. He knew people were watching him. Knew they were too afraid to step outside and get pulled into a federal investigation. All but one, anyway.

“She ran off down the street there. Just left that guy smokin’ on the hood of that car.”

The boy couldn’t have been more than seventeen and both fear and excitement glittered in his eyes. Landry recognized the look. It was the thrill of the hunt.

“How long ago?” he asked the kid.

“’Bout an hour. I called to report it, but it took you guys forever to show up.” Just a touch of disgust colored his tone.

Landry agreed with him. But the MPs had to call in tips, get approval. Hell, even tracking and killing witches was filled with bureaucratic bullshit these days.

“Fine. Thanks for being a good citizen. Your country appreciates your help,” Landry told him.

“Yeah, can I come with you?” The kid was practically bouncing in his eagerness to get in on a witch kill. “I’ll stay out of the way. Swear it.”

“No. Official business,” Landry told him, then cuffed the kid on the shoulder. “But when you’re eighteen, you sign up for MP Youth Camp. Give ’em my name—Landry—as a reference.”

The kid glowed. “Thanks, dude. Seriously.”

But Landry was already moving off, his mind on the witch. They were in a dark zone, so he knew he wouldn’t be able to trace her magic. His best bet was to return to her house. To join the others already there. He wanted this damn witch.





Teresa was shaken.

She’d gone into this with her eyes wide-open. She was no shy virgin offering herself up on an altar of duty. She’d had sex before and had assumed that this would be no different.

She couldn’t have been more wrong.

Despite everything her grandmother had told her, taught her, the old woman hadn’t known exactly what a witch and her mate would feel. If just sex with her Eternal was this overwhelming, what, she wondered, would the Mating sex be like? Mate. She would be this immortal’s mate, she knew. Destiny and all that. But Teresa had promised herself that she would do her duty to her magic, to the world, all while keeping her heart separate.

She’d been in love before and that had turned into a misery the likes of which she was in no hurry to repeat. Miguel, her ex-boyfriend, had been a bastard. He’d hurt Teresa in more ways than she wanted to remember—and he was human. Just imagine what an immortal could put her through. No. She knew now that she had given Miguel power over her by the simple act of loving him.

She wouldn’t be making a mistake like that again. Especially with an already extremely powerful immortal.

A flicker of something that might have been fear sputtered into life in the pit of her stomach, then dissolved again a moment later. That was a worry for another day. For now, they needed to get moving.

“My strength has returned,” Rune said, lifting one hand and watching as blue and red flames danced across his skin.

“I see that.” Teresa moved off him and bent to pick up her clothes, but they were soaking wet and cold as ice. She really didn’t want to put them back on.

Looking back at him, she asked, “You have this house ready for me. Any chance there are clothes here, too?”

He snapped his fingers and instantly he was clothed, in black jeans, a black T-shirt and boots that looked as though they could kick their way through hell without a problem. He smiled at her as he stood up.

“Nice for you,” she said.

His fingers snapped again and she was suddenly dry and warm and dressed in the very clothes that had just a moment before been lying in a sodden heap on the floor. Even her favorite cowboy boots were dry and tucked securely on her feet. She couldn’t help giving him a smile. “Now that’s something I want to know how to do.”

“You will,” he assured her. “In time.”

“Right.” Time. It all boiled down to time. Her powers needed to be fully unleashed. She and Rune had to fulfill the Mating ritual. They had to find the Artifact that she had once hidden from the world. All they needed was time. Trouble was, the people chasing her were determined not to let them have it.

And just like that, they were back to the business at hand. “So what now? Where do we go?”

“You hold the answer to that question.” He came close enough to lay his huge hands on her shoulders. “You’ve been having visions?”

“Yes,” she admitted, staring up into his gray eyes, swirling with power and secrets as old as time. Teresa felt as if he was looking into her mind, though she didn’t feel his presence in her thoughts. Was this new connection between them strong enough for him to sense what she was thinking and feeling?

If it was, then he would be able to see everything as she thought of what had been happening in her life the last three weeks. There were signs she might have missed if she hadn’t been trained since childhood to be on the lookout for the magical world.

A black dog seemed to be outside her house day and night. Candles melted and the puddles of wax formed symbols that resonated with a part of her she didn’t recognize. Ancient whorls and circles and symbols of eternity and rebirth. Storms had rolled into Sedona often enough that the TV weatherman was completely flummoxed by what was happening. He couldn’t explain where the storms were coming from or why there were so many of them.

But she could.

The electrical energies were being drawn to her. To her power. Her growing strength and burgeoning magic.

Her dreams were haunted every night, too. Even now, the jumbled images came back to her in a flood. She didn’t understand most of them. Cages built of fire, burning ferociously in what looked like a dark cave with ancient carvings on the walls. People she didn’t know—two women with long red hair, smiling at her, and tall, powerful men like Rune, covered in flames—holding swords crossed over their chests as they took up protective postures.

In her dreams, she was chased by darkness. She could hear voices whispering behind her and footsteps that raced closer every night. Their pounding beat seemed to resonate within her for hours after she jolted awake, her heart in her throat.

Frowning, Teresa rubbed her forehead, closed her eyes and tried to focus. To sift through the memories choking her. There were more. Snippets of other lives that weren’t her own. A woman who was her—and yet not—sitting beside a campfire as coyotes howled and the night sky blazed with stars rarely seen now because of city lights. She saw the woman chased into the desert, saw her running in terror. Saw her stumble and fall, and then a rockslide rattled down a mountainside to cover her body.

And she saw her grandmother’s face. Her abuela had been in every dream. Every vision ended with those well-loved features smiling at her in encouragement. Whispering, “Ahora, Teresa, ahora.”

Now, Teresa, now.

“Tell me,” Rune said, the weight of his hands pressing ever more firmly on her shoulders. “Tell me what you see.”

“My grandmother. I see my grandmother. We have to go to her in Chiapas. Mexico.”