Visions of Skyfire

Chapter 13

“She was here, yes?”

“Who?” There was only one person this man could have been interested in, but she wouldn’t let him know she knew that.

He was so big, she thought wildly. He took up so much space that his very presence in the room with her felt like a direct threat. Just by breathing, he seemed to ooze menace, until Elena felt the cold chill of fear sliding into her bones.

Well over six feet tall, he had a thick, muscular build that would have made him popular on a football field. His hair was long, past his shoulders, and the color of new wheat. But it was his eyes that held her attention. Shades of pewter swirled in their depths as he stared at her, and for a moment she thought she saw flames licking at their centers.

When he smiled, it was a mere curve of his lips, as if he was mimicking something he’d seen once but didn’t completely understand.

She had no idea who he was, but clearly he was after Teresa. Elena had never seen him before and his appearance minutes after her best friend left was a bit too coincidental. But if he was after Teresa, he wouldn’t get any help from Elena. She would never betray her friend.

“Teresa Santiago,” he said. “Where is she?”

Suspicions confirmed, Elena hid her fear behind a blank mask. “I have no idea.”

“Is that right,” the man mused, running one hand across the receptionist’s desk.

Elena’s breath caught as she noticed the trail of flames following in the wake of his hand’s movement. “How—”

He shot her a look and those gray eyes of his went cold, dispassionate. Like a winter sky about to spit snow on unsuspecting people.

“You know how,” he said, walking back to her, leaving behind him a line of flames that swept across the desk to devour the paperwork stacked there.

The crackle and hiss of the spreading fire shot ribbons of sheer panic through Elena. Magic. And not the Mother-Nature-protect-the-earth kind that Teresa had been born to wield. This was the kind of threatening power that had people terrified of the supernatural. And right at that moment Elena totally understood.

She was alone with someone who could set her on fire at his whim and she had no defense. But she was still safer than her friend. This man knew that Elena was no threat to him. If, on the other hand, he caught up to Teresa, there was no telling what he would do to her. So it was up to Elena to keep that from happening. She wasn’t a witch. She wasn’t in trouble with the MPs or the Bureau of Witchcraft. But she had the distinct feeling that this man had nothing to do with the feds.

He was clearly magical himself, so whatever his reason for looking for Teresa, it wasn’t to lock her away in prison. There was something else going on here. Elena wondered if Teresa even knew that she had more to worry about than the federal agents assigned to track her down.

Once she got out of this, Elena promised herself, she’d find a way to warn Teresa about the newest danger. And she would get out of this. After all, she was a doctor, not a witch. This guy had no reason to hurt her. Neither did the feds. She was no threat to anyone. So all she had to do, she assured herself silently, was to be cooperative—within reason—and then he’d go away.

Please, God, let him go away.

Over the snap and hiss of the fire Elena whispered, “Who are you?”

Before answering, he touched her desk once more and the flames instantly died, snapping out as if they’d never been. She could almost have convinced herself she’d imagined everything—but for the charred pieces of paper and the curled edges of the manila folders. She swallowed hard and tried to find the courage she would need to stand against a man like this. And as that thought whispered through her mind, he turned his head and gave her that cold, empty smile again. As if he knew exactly what she was thinking—and found it amusing.

“Who am I?” he repeated, his voice a deep rumble. “Interesting question. One I’ve asked myself many times and I’ve yet to find the answer.”

Great. Riddles.

“Seems simple enough to me,” Elena said, sidling closer to the desk. If she could just tip the receiver slightly off its cradle and hit 911, she could get help. Please, God—she needed help. “You do have a name, don’t you?”

“Don’t all beings have names … Elena?”

Her heart kicked into a gallop. Hearing her own name on his lips was intimate. Terrifying. “So what’s yours?”

“Why do you want to know, I wonder.” He followed her slight movement across the room. “Could you be stalling? Trying to buy your friend time?”

“Friend?” She glanced around, anywhere but into his eyes. She quickly noted the everyday ordinariness of her clinic. The coloring books scattered across a child-sized table. The baby bottle someone had left behind. The candy-coated air, now smeared with the lingering traces of burned paper.

“Teresa Santiago,” he said and all trace of amusement was gone from his features. “Where is she, Elena?”

She stopped. Only a foot or two from the desk and she stopped dead, sensing the danger suddenly erupting between her and the man with the pale storm-colored eyes. She felt the coiled tension vibrating off him and shared it. Her mouth was dry, her palms were damp and panic was scraping at her throat. Still, she found the courage to look right at him and lie. “I don’t know.”

He sighed and clucked his tongue at her. “You’re lying.”

“No.” She shook her head for emphasis and prayed he would believe her. “I haven’t seen Teresa in—”

“Hours?” He finished for her, taking a step closer. “Minutes?”

“No. Weeks.” She told the lie and lifted her chin as if to convince both of them that she was giving him nothing but the truth. “She’s a witch, you know—”

“Yes,” he said softly. “I know.”

“Well, when I found out what she was, I tried to turn her in, but she, um—” Elena took another half step toward the desk, hoping he would put her movement down to nervous confusion. “She threatened me,” Elena said, hoping to hell that she was putting just enough surprise in her tone.

“Did she?” He walked toward her and before she could blink, he had his hand on the phone and was shaking his head. “No phone calls, Elena. We’re not through talking yet.”

Disappointment welled up inside her. She’d been so close to calling for help. And now …

“What do you want from me?” she managed to ask. Her abject fear must have been written on her features, because he shook his head again.

“I’m not a rapist, so have no fears there.”

One fear down, about a hundred to go, Elena thought wildly. “I can’t help you,” she said, her voice low, words tumbling over each other in her haste to get him out of her world. “I don’t know where Teresa is.”

“I know she was here.” He reached out to stroke the tips of his fingers along her jawline.

Elena shuddered, half expecting to feel the burning sting of fire on her skin. But his touch was cold. As cold as his eyes.

“I can feel the lingering trace of her magic,” he told her, “so there’s no sense lying to me.”

Oh, God. She swallowed hard and fought to keep her voice steady as she asked again, “Who are you?”

“My name,” he said, “is Parnell. And all you need to know is that I’m looking for Teresa. You can either help me and live to tell the tale, or …”

He didn’t have to finish the threat. Heck, leaving it unsaid did far more internal damage. Elena’s mind took over the challenge and filled in that unfinished sentence with any number of horrifying possibilities. And she had no way to defend herself against any of them. She was at his mercy and judging by the cool dispassion in those gray eyes, mercy was not something Parnell was very familiar with.

“Parnell,” she said, using his name deliberately, to forge some bare-bones connection with him. To force him to see her as a person and not just an impediment to what he wanted. “I don’t know what you think I know, but I can assure you—”

He smiled. “Another lie. I can smell them on you, you know. Your blood chemistry changes. Humans are very … predictable in their responses.”

“Humans?” Fear ratcheted up inside her. Just when she had thought she was as panicked as it was possible to be and still live, she found out there was more.

Yes, she knew he had magical abilities. But so did Teresa and she was human. How could he not be? What was he? If he wasn’t human, what exactly was she dealing with and how in the hell was she going to survive? “You’re not—”

“No, I’m not. Haven’t you already noticed that I’m something a little more than your average male?”

Yes, she had. The trail of fire across her desk had given her that much information. But what was he? Witches were women. Were there other forms of supernatural beings out there that the world hadn’t discovered yet? Well, why not? If witchcraft was alive and well, why not a man made of fire?

“Ah,” he said, watching her. “I see that I’ve made my point. Maybe you’re ready to be more cooperative now?”

“Yes.” She set her purse down on the nearby desk and reminded herself to breathe. “What do you want to know?”

“Where did Teresa go?”

“I really don’t know,” she told him and waited for his super-sensitive nose to pick up on the fact that she was telling the absolute truth.

Parnell smiled and nodded. “Very good. Keep being honest with me and we’ll get along just fine, Elena.”

A rising tide of panic lifted from the pit of her stomach to sweep through her body. That was all the information she had to give him. She couldn’t tell him anything else even if she wanted to. So why was he still here? What more could he want from her?

“But I’ve just told you. I don’t know where Teresa went.”

“Yes, but you do know the witch,” he mused and closed the distance between them in the span of a single heartbeat. “I’m sure if you really search your mind, you’ll be able to give me lots of details about Teresa’s life. Where she might go. Who she might trust.”

Elena’s breath caught in her throat as his big hands came down on her upper arms and he lifted her up until she was balanced on her toes, trying to keep her feet.

“Now,” he said, locking his gaze with hers, “we’re going to have a long talk, you and I.”

Elena swallowed hard and tried to look away. But that pale gray gaze was now swirling like liquid silver, glittering with power and secrets, and it held her as if she were a rabbit staring down a cobra.

“I have no wish to torture you,” he said.

Good. That’s good.

“But make no mistake,” he promised as his eyes glowed with a hot brightness that shone like the porch light to hell, “I will. To get what I want, I will do whatever’s necessary.”

Helpless, Elena did the only thing left to her.

She prayed.