Visions of Skyfire

Chapter 59

Barri Gotic was the center of the old city of Barcelona. In the hush of moonlight, narrow streets lined with tall buildings became shadowy cobblestoned labyrinths. The walkways felt almost like tunnels with the sheer walls of the bordering buildings rising up on either side. This area had been around since before the Romans, and Rune felt ancient times draw close as he and Teresa made their way past outdoor cafés in the Plaça del Pi—a square filled with trees boasting tiny white lights and a line of artists displaying their wares, hoping for customers.

Teresa took the lead, with Rune’s sharp gaze searching for possible danger as she led them down Carrer de Pi, another narrow, only-for-pedestrians street. The buildings on either side of the street seemed to stretch heavenward, with brilliant splashes of color spilling from flower boxes and vines trailing around ornate iron railings on the balconies.

It should have been beautiful, peaceful even, Rune told himself. Instead, there was an underlying sense of something dark layered just beneath the beauty. Something that nibbled at his instincts, prodded him to keep at battle-ready tension.

“God, I remember this place,” Teresa murmured, her fingers tightening around Rune’s. “And not just from when I was a kid and we visited Tía Carmen. I’m talking about old memories. There used to be laundry hanging out here,” she said, waving her free hand to indicate the space between the buildings on either side of the street. “People shouting, arguing. Babies crying. And the street was awful. Filthy.” She shook her head and lifted her hand to rub at a spot in the center of her chest. “It feels …”

“What?” Rune prompted. “What do you feel?”

She looked up at him. “Close,” she said. “I feel close to the Artifact. It’s here. In the old city. I know it.”

“Then we’ll find it.”

Nodding, Teresa said, “First, Tía Carmen. I want to make sure she’s okay.” She darted through a doorway and up a flight of stone steps.

Rune stayed close, and as they climbed to the third floor, they passed apartments with crosses nailed to the wall. A couple of the doorways were draped in ropes of garlic and Rune’s instincts went on high alert. Teresa stopped before a closed door painted a bright emerald green. She lifted her hand to knock, but Rune caught her hand in his.

“Something is off,” he said, glancing out a narrow window to the moon in the sky. “Did you notice all the garlic and crosses? People are trying to ward off evil.”

She paled a little and looked at her aunt’s closed door. “Evil? The Artifact? Or—”

He sensed a presence within the apartment. He held his fingers to her lips and for the first time reached for her mind with his.

Someone is in there with your aunt, he communicated to her.

What? Her eyes were wide. Terrified. Who?

Whoever it is has magic. The swell of power was unmistakable. Was it a friend of Teresa’s aunt? Or, more likely, an enemy?

“Wait,” he told her, whispering now, not willing to rely on their new mental connection. “Let me go in first.”

Her eyes narrowed and her features tightened as she picked up on the tension coiling inside him. “No. We go together.”

“We have no idea who might be in there,” he said.

“I know. But I’d rather face whatever it is as a team, Rune. I’ve already lost enough. I don’t want to lose Tía Carmen, too. And we’ve come too far together to split up now, don’t you think?”

“I do,” he said, his voice hardly more than a breath of sound. “Are you up for it?”

“I am.” She lifted her chin and flexed her fingers, sending tiny blue and white sparks flashing from her fingertips. “This is why we’ve been training, right? I mean, it’s not just about the Artifact, is it?”

Her eyes shone in the soft light. “I mean, yes, we get the Artifact, find redemption, all that—but aren’t we supposed to be helping people, too? Like my aunt? Isn’t that what power should be used for?”

Dazzled by her, Rune could only stare for a long moment. Then he bent, kissed her and whispered, “That’s exactly what power should be used for, Teresa. You make me proud to walk alongside you.”

She took a deep breath, blew it out and said, “Thank you. Now, what do we do?”

He was about to offer a plan when from inside the apartment a short, sharp shriek of pain exploded, then died in the next instant. Time was up. Rune grabbed Teresa and flashed them both inside.

Moonlight slid through an open window and washed the narrow room with a silvered glow. Crocheted doilies dotted the surfaces of chairs and tables. Candles burned in scarlet glass votives, their flames creating dancing shadows on the walls. The scent of charred fabric scarred the air.

“Oh, God.” Teresa pushed free of Rune’s grasp and dropped beside the old woman lying crumpled on the floor.

“Tía Carmen?” she whispered.

Rune quickly swept through the small apartment, assuring himself that the intruder was gone. Magic lingered behind, though, a trace energy that felt as dark as it was powerful.

“Rune, she’s alive!” Teresa’s voice, strained with fear and what could only be tears choking her throat, reached him and he was at her side in an instant.

The old woman was the mirror image of Teresa’s grandmother. The same wise eyes shone with patient stoicism, though the pain she felt had to be monstrous. Her left arm had been burned—in the same way Elena’s body had been back in Sedona. Rune knew now that their enemy—whoever that might be—was in Barcelona.

“Teresa …” The soft, breathy voice came from her aunt and Teresa bent over her, talking quickly, quietly.

“Don’t speak, Tía Carmen. Please. Be still. You’ll be all right.” She turned her gaze up to Rune, her eyes silently pleading and demanding that they save her aunt. “We have to help her. Please.”

She needed him and he wouldn’t fail her. “We will try. Together.”

Taking Teresa’s hand in his, he laid their joined hands gently atop Carmen’s burns. The old woman winced and hissed in a breath, but otherwise lay still.

“Concentrate,” he said. “Let your magic rise and focus it on your aunt.”

Teresa closed her eyes instantly. A look of intensity came over her face as she breathed slowly, deeply, searching for the center of her power. Rune felt her strength join his and their combined magics swelled between them. He called on the fire and focused all he could on easing the pain and healing the flesh of the woman who meant so much to his woman.

Carmen jerked beneath their touch, moaned once, and an instant later lost consciousness. Pain and fear had claimed her and she slept through the last of the healing ritual. Rune kept watch on her while the magic and the fire combined to soothe the burns and heal her injuries. Moments later, he said, “It is done.”

Teresa’s eyes flew open and she looked first at him and then at her aunt, examining the now-unblemished skin on her arm. “She’s all right? She’ll be okay?”

“She will,” he said. “We were lucky to get here in time.”

“Lucky,” she repeated, staring down at her aunt. She brushed aside a stray lock of graying black hair from Carmen’s face, then let her fingertips trail along the old woman’s papery cheek. “She was hurt because of me. Just like my grandmother died for us.”

“Teresa—”

“You saved her, Rune.” Her beautiful brown eyes filled with tears as she looked at him and Rune felt the slam of her emotions churning through him. “You saved her for me and a thank-you just isn’t nearly enough.”

“You owe me nothing,” he told her.

“I owe you everything.” She ran her thumb over the back of his hand. “You didn’t just give me back my aunt. You showed me who I was. Supported me. Helped me. Trained me. You’ve been there. Always. I want you to know what that means to me.”

Rune pulled her close, wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in the curve of her neck. He inhaled the scent of her and let it wash through him like a powerful blessing. This witch, this woman, had become everything to him.

Her voice came soft against his ear as she said fiercely, “I’m tired of death, Rune. I want this finished.”

“And so it will be,” he swore, pulling back so that he could look into her beautiful brown eyes. “We find the Artifact and this is finished.”

She nodded and looked down at her aunt again. “Can we leave her?”

“She will sleep and be better for it. Whoever did this won’t be back—they’ve gotten what they could already.” Cupping her cheek, he turned her face up to him. “The only way to ensure her safety is to finish this. Finally.”

“Yes,” she said, reaching up to cover his hand with her own. “I’m ready, Rune. With you, I’m ready.”

Rune carried Carmen to her bed and Teresa covered her with a quilt that had been neatly folded at the foot of the mattress. After looking around once more to make sure there was no danger, they left the apartment and slowly went back down the stairs the way they had come. Teresa’s gaze swept the stairwell and he saw her noting the crosses and the garlic. She rubbed at her chest again, as if her heart were aching, and he thought, Of course it is.

But he couldn’t help wondering if there was more to it than grief for all she had lost. Was she feeling the presence of the black silver? Was her pain more than regret? Was sense memory rising up inside her?

She stepped into the shadows of the narrow street and Rune came up behind her, laying both hands on her shoulders. He felt her tension and shared it.

Moonlight poured from the sky. The moon itself was nearly full. Their thirty days nearly done.

Teresa tipped her face up to the moon and let its light shimmer over her, through her. He watched as she gathered her strength, filling herself with the moon’s magic. When finally she turned her head to look at him, her eyes were clear, but worried.

“There’s something happening here, Rune. Beyond what happened to my aunt. There’s something … dark.”

A shout, scuffling feet and then a scream jolted the quiet atmosphere and they both whirled around to stare down the street. A police car, lights flashing in the night, was parked outside an apartment. As they watched, a woman was dragged kicking and screaming from her home. Even from a distance, Rune spotted the white-gold chain around her neck as two burly policemen strong-armed her into the backseat of their marked car. An old woman walking by spat at the trapped woman, and Teresa hissed in a breath.

“So,” she murmured, “the Spanish version of MPs?”

“Close enough,” Rune told her and steered her in the opposite direction of the police. They didn’t need more trouble. They had more than enough already. “Come on. Keep walking.”

“To where?”

“That’s up to you,” he said, keeping one arm around her shoulders and her body pressed along his side. “Open your mind. Your senses. Call on the moon again. Whisper a chant. Just … trust your instincts, Teresa. Open yourself to the past and let it lead you.”

“It already is,” she said softly. “I can feel the black silver. It’s like a dark hum of energy burning through my mind. Can you feel it?”

“I sense its presence. But no, I can’t feel it yet.”

“Others are sensing it, too, Rune.” She glanced around the street as they passed, noting for the first time the tight features of the people. Shops were closing, windows were shut against the night, curtains drawn, sealing people inside their homes as if they were hiding.

“It’s like the black silver is waking up.” She shivered a little in the damp cold seeping in off the ocean. “The Artifact is connected to the Awakening witches, Rune, and it knows that we’re coming.”

He pulled her to a stop, unmindful of the cursing people who were forced to go around them. An icy wind shot down the narrow passageway directly off the ocean and wrapped them both in a chilled embrace. Looking down into her eyes, he asked, “Are you saying that the Artifact is alive?”

“Not breathing, but, yeah. In a way, I think it is.” She swallowed hard and gazed off into the distance. “I think the magical energy we infused it with has somehow become … more than it was eight hundred years ago. I think it’s waiting for us to use it again. And that darkness that’s inside it? It’s spreading.” She glanced at the shadow-filled street, at the scurrying people. “Look around, Rune. The black silver is affecting everyone here.”

“If that’s true, then we have less time than we thought.”

“I know.” She took his hand and started moving.

“The closer the witches come to containing the Artifact, the more it will fight to survive. We have to go, Rune. Now.”

She sped up, her footsteps clicking against the cobblestones. Rune kept pace, refusing to let go of her.

There was danger all around them. Her aunt had nearly been killed, cops were on the prowl and there was an unknown enemy waiting for his chance. And if Teresa was right about the black silver … then the danger the other witches and their Eternals would face would only grow.

The fire that made him roared within, flames churning. His power was stronger since they had mated and he knew he was going to need every advantage when he finally faced their enemy. But Rune would do whatever was necessary to see this task to completion.

His gaze sharp, he continuously searched the streets, the alleys, the people passing by. A baby wailed in an upstairs apartment. From somewhere nearby came the sound of a solo violinist, creating haunting, sighing sounds that drifted through the night like tears.

And Teresa was hurrying now, following her own instincts.

“There—”

They stopped in a square, another plaza situated between Barri Gotic and the Via Laietana. A section of the old Roman wall faced them, with three massive towers still standing.

Teresa looked up at it and pointed at the tallest of the spires. More than a hundred feet high, it was slender, with curved arches cut into the stone. Rune opened his senses to what Teresa was feeling and experienced it himself. The black silver created a smear in the air, like a spill of darkness through a sunlit meadow. No wonder the people of Barcelona were beginning to react to such a menace in their midst.

Even humans would be sensitive to the malevolence building in the black silver.

“It’s there.” Teresa pointed again at a section of the old Roman wall with an excited, if wary smile.

The wall itself was impressive as hell. Tall, sturdy, looking much as it had when the Romans had first constructed it so many centuries ago. Rune had seen it being built and he felt a flicker of admiration for those long-dead Romans. They were gone, but their legacy, their stamp on history, remained.

Now…

“The Royal Chapel of Saint Agatha,” Teresa said on a sigh. “It’s in that bell tower.”

“And the Artifact is there? In a church?”

“No,” she said, with a shake of her head and a rueful smile. “Even I wasn’t nervy enough to plant such evil inside a chapel. It’s just outside. Close enough that I hoped something of the sanctity of the chapel would help control it. I remember it all now. Everything.”

Her gaze lifted to his and he read resignation as well as regret and fear shining in her brown eyes. “What is it, Teresa?”

“I just wanted you to know, before we go in there—” She paused for a look at the ancient wall and the stone steps that led to the chapel. Then she blew out a breath and said, “Where do I even start. Remember when I told you I wouldn’t let myself love you?”

“Yes,” he said, threading his fingers through her thick hair with a gentle touch. “I remember.”

“Well,” she said, reaching up to grab fistfuls of his black shirt and pull him down until their mouths were just a breath apart, “forget that. I didn’t mean to. But you’ve been there. Every moment. You taught me to fight. Stood beside me. You make me feel strong even when I know I’m not. So, before we go in there and face … whatever, I want you to know that I do. Love you, I mean. I really do, Rune.”

His unbeating heart fisted as he looked into her eyes and saw more truth, more love than he had ever found anywhere before. The eternal cold that had been his only companion for more centuries than he cared to count began to thaw and his soul drank in the woman before him.

Rune knew what that admission had cost her. She had loved before and had her love used as a weapon against her. Now, in the midst of the trials and danger they faced, she found the courage to love again.

“In all our time together,” he said softly, “all those centuries, all those lives, you have never said this to me.”

She dipped her head briefly, then lifted her eyes to his again. “I was an idiot. But I’m not anymore. I do trust you, Rune. And I love you with every beat of my heart. I just wanted you to know that before we finish this.”

“I’m glad you told me,” he said, bending to kiss her hard and fast and deep. When he came up for air, he held her face in his hands. “I love you, Teresa Santiago. I am in awe of your strength, your courage, your resilience. You humble me and make me proud.”

A fresh sheen of tears swamped her eyes, but the tears were obliterated by her brilliant, if a little shaky, smile. “Okay, then,” she said, turning her face toward the Roman wall and the past that would lead to their future. “Are we ready?”

“We are,” he told her and took her hand again for their walk into the past.