Visions of Skyfire

Chapter 16

“Missed him. Damn it, you missed him.” Landry Harper’s right hand curled into a fist and it was all he could do to keep from smashing it into College Boy’s face. The bastard had had one job. Sniper. All he’d had to do was shoot whoever showed up at Santiago’s house.

But the sight of a man appearing within a pillar of flames had thrown him for a couple of stinking seconds and the shot went wild. Now God knew where the bastard and the witch were.

“Get off my ass,” the kid argued, embarrassment warring with anger in his tone.

“How the hell could you miss him?” Landry demanded, still considering throwing that punch. His entire body vibrated with frustration and fury. This is what happened when the higher-ups recruited out of college instead of the military. Give Landry a good old-fashioned foot soldier who knew how to take orders and he could get the job done any day.

“That f*cker had to be six foot five. Made a hell of a target.”

“Yeah and he was on fire, all right?” the kid muttered, wiping one hand across his face as if he could dislodge the memory. “Shocked the hell out of me, okay? How did he do that? What the hell was that?”

Landry didn’t have a clue how to explain the man who’d appeared to be on fire. But he knew that only a month ago, two beings just like him had raided the prison on Terminal Island. They had killed several guards and rescued a couple of witches. So in his book the Fire Man was the enemy, plain and simple. And there was only one way to treat the enemy.

Shoot first—ask no questions.

Ever.

“Doesn’t matter what he was or how he does it,” Landry told him with a sneer. “Your job was to kill him and now we’re up shit creek without the proverbial damn boat or paddle.”

The witch’s house was shot to shit and though they’d searched it thoroughly, they hadn’t found anything to lead them to her. The Fire Man had appeared, taken her bird and disappeared in the time it took to think that sentence. So now there was nothing for them here. Landry knew the witch was long gone. They had no chance of finding her in Sedona.

It meant the hunt had to be turned over to the Bureau of Witchcraft. BOW’s agents would eventually run her to ground. For him and the rest of the MPs, though, this one had been a gigantic waste of time. They would report to their superiors and get the next assignment.

But Landry knew he wouldn’t forget the witch. She would forever haunt him as one of those who had escaped him. The memories of failed missions made for some long, sleepless nights and a hell of a lot of rage.

He left the house with the college kid and walked into the stormy weather. Glancing around the quiet street, he watched as neighbors pulled back drapes and peered out into the driving rain. A silencer had muffled the report of the high-powered rifle, but Landry and the other agents had made a hell of a noise when they broke into the witch’s house. Naturally, they’d attracted attention from the neighbors.

The people in the tidy houses on this narrow street would sneak peeks from behind closed doors, but they wouldn’t come out. No one interfered in a witch hunt. Well, no one except the maniacs in the RFW. The organization Rights for Witches was starting to pick up steam here lately since the daughter of the damn president had joined it. They were getting all kinds of media, and despite the fear that lingered over the very idea of witchcraft, there were now enough bleeding hearts starting to speak up that a man never knew when he’d run into a crazed government protestor. What the hell the world was coming to when a man couldn’t kill a damn witch to protect society, he had no idea.

Landry almost hoped for a confrontation with one of the neighbors. It would give him something to do with the anger pumping through him. But as the minutes passed and the street remained quiet, he knew he was doomed to disappointment.

“What now?”

He looked at the younger man beside him. “Now we go back to HQ, report the f*ckup and get our next assignment.”

College Boy swiveled his head around, as if searching for the very witch they’d already lost. “You mean we just leave? We don’t try to hunt her down?”

“We leave,” Landry said, narrowing his gaze against the darkness and the rain. “This one’s out of our reach. Nothing to do about it.”

“But—”

For the first time, Landry almost felt a kinship to the kid. He was young, but he was eager to kill witches, so that said something for him, anyway. Turning up the collar of his black and gold MP jacket against the rain, he shrugged. “First thing you gotta remember in this game, kid, is that there’s always another witch.”