Visions of Skyfire

Chapter 50

“What’s wrong?” Rune glanced at her from the corner of his eye.

“Nothing,” Teresa said, waving one hand in dismissal of what she was feeling. “It’s just … weird, to be riding in a car with you.”

He smiled briefly, never taking his gaze off the winding stretch of road spilling out ahead of them. The tires hummed on the cracked asphalt and the wind from their passing was a constant whine. “No choice really. You have to read the book and you can’t do that while we’re flashing in and out, traveling by fire.”

“Yeah, I know,” she said, keeping her head down, her gaze fixed on the ink-filled pages in front of her. “It’s just weird. So normal, I guess. Even Chico’s freaked out.”

He scowled as the bird hopped back and forth between Rune’s and Teresa’s seats. The irritating whistle continuously poured from the creature’s throat and Rune gritted his teeth in response. The bird had somehow managed to find them at the motel the night before and Rune’s suspicions burned. What the hell kind of bird was it, anyway?

“Well,” Teresa added, “normal except for you buying a brand-new car with a suitcase full of cash.”

Rune didn’t even comment on that. For him, as for every other Eternal, money was no problem. Getting hold of the money hadn’t been an issue, either, since Eternals had access to incredible stores of assets through any number of banks. Buying a car from a dealer outside the city had been the only logical choice. Paying cash meant he had avoided certain paperwork and he preferred to leave no paper trail to mark their passing. It hadn’t been difficult to get the owner of the dealership to forgo a few legalities in exchange for hard currency.

“Have you found anything yet?”

“I’m not sure,” she muttered in disgust. “It’s so hard to read her-my-our writing.” Shaking her head, she flicked him a quick look. “Just the spelling is enough to give you a headache and she-I wrote so damn small….”

“Paper was expensive back in the day,” Rune mused. “No one wasted space.”

“Great. Just great. So all I have to do is thumb through about a million spells and some petty gossip about Serena’s neighbors. No problem.” She turned another page gently, as the paper was old and brittle. “This could take forever.”

“No, it won’t,” he said. “You’ll find what we need, Teresa.”

“You sound confident.”

“I am,” he said, giving her another quick look.

The road ahead was empty. They drove along a twolane highway stretching out to the horizon like a dusty gray ribbon tossed down and forgotten. The sky was heavy with clouds, but patches of blue dotted the expanse. The Chiapas landscape spread out on either side of them—lush meadows and green valleys soothed the eye, and in the distance, mountains high enough to be snowcapped jutted skyward.

“Hey,” she said a few minutes later, “I think I might have found something.” A smile colored her words, and when he looked at her, she was grinning at him. “You were right. I did find it. At least, I’m pretty sure I did. It says …”

She broke off suddenly and pointed. “Wait. Turn off here. That dirt road on the right. It leads to my grandmother’s village.”

He made the turn and floored it, dirt and gravel kicking out in his wake. The ride was a jouncing one, but that couldn’t be helped. Rune knew they were in a race—not only against time but also against those who were after them. His instincts were jangling, warning him to hurry. To get this done and get his witch out of Mexico as quickly as possible.

But that warning, he told himself a moment later, had come too late. He saw the first body lying in the street. Blood had seeped into the dirt around the dead man, telling Rune he had been killed at least a couple of hours earlier.

“What?” Teresa said on a horrified gasp. “What happened?” She whipped her gaze from side to side and saw, as Rune did, more bodies.

Outside stores, across open doorways, in the road itself. Survivors wandered the dusty street in a daze, looking around at the fallen, at the twists of smoke lifting from the still-burning homes. A woman wailed beside the body of a man and lifted her eyes to heaven as if asking why.

Rune’s instincts were screaming. Half the village was dead.

“Oh, my God,” Teresa whispered, dropping Serena’s journal into the duffel bag at her feet and zipping it closed. She turned horrified eyes on Rune. “My abuela. Rune—”

“Where does she live?” His voice was hard with banked rage as he threw the car into PARK and shut off the engine. The air was still, as if haunted by the violence staining the small village. Only the weeping of those left alive shattered an otherworldly silence. Even Chico was quiet, as if he sensed that something was wrong.

“She lives on the outskirts of town. An old cabin.”

Nodding, he said, “Get out of the car. We’ll flash there. Quieter and faster. No one here will pay any attention to us, magic or not. They’re too … destroyed.”

She grabbed the duffel, swung it over her shoulder and clung to Rune when he came to her side. “Hurry, Rune.”

The flames came, carried them away and deposited them just outside her grandmother’s home. It looked exactly as she remembered it. Neatly tended flower beds displayed a wild profusion of color. To the side of the house was an herb garden, and surrounding the old cabin were sheltering trees that offered shade from the tropical sun’s searing heat.

But the house, like the town, was too quiet.

Teresa broke away from him and headed for the front door at a dead run before he could stop her. Rune’s every sense screamed danger. “Teresa! Wait!”

He caught up to her just as the heavy wood door was yanked open. Inside the house, Teresa’s grandmother sat, tied to a chair, her wise brown eyes locked sadly on her granddaughter.

“Abuela?”

A man stepped from the shadows, put a gun to the old woman’s head and smiled. “Hello, Teresa. Long time, no see.”

“Miguel.”