Visions of Skyfire (10 page)

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 fuckup 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.”

Chapter 17

T
he smell stopped them cold.

Teresa gagged and turned her face into Rune’s broad chest. Chico flew from her shoulder to swoop down the hall toward the front of the clinic, but Teresa hardly noticed. She was too busy trying to catch her breath. The stench clinging to the still air of the clinic was overpowering. Rune’s arms came around her and for one brief second she allowed herself to lean into him.

She was so accustomed to standing on her own that it went against her very nature to take comfort from someone else. To depend on someone else’s strength. But at the same time, being this close to Rune felt … familiar in a way that she’d never known before. His body was big, but it felt as though it had been made to fit against hers. And as he held her head to his chest, her own body stirred, despite the situation.

“What is that?” she asked finally, her voice muffled by his body.

He gave her a hard, brief squeeze, then set her back from him. His eyes were narrowed and swirling with energy and power until they looked like two pools of molten silver.

“I’ll find out. Stay here.” He set off down the hall toward the front of the clinic with long strides.

As if from a distance, she heard Chico’s piercing whistle followed by his screech of
“Run for it!”

“Like hell,” she said, following right behind him. “You might as well know right now that I’m not the kind of girl to stay hidden, hoping a big, strong man will come along to save me.”

Her bootheels clicked on the linoleum floor, but the sound was almost lost under the
clomp
of Rune’s heavier steps.

“Teresa,” he said, half turning to glower at her, “you don’t want to go in there.”

From inside the room, Chico continued to squawk
“Run for it!”
over and over again until her head pounded in time with the bird’s voice.

Teresa pushed past Rune and saw—

“Oh, my God. Elena.”

She dropped to her knees beside the charred body of her friend. Anguish flooded her and tears spilled from her eyes, her grief shaking her to her soul. Instinctively, she reached out to take Elena’s hand in hers but stopped before touching her.

Elena.

A howl rose up inside her, but her throat wouldn’t let it escape. There was a huge knot of pain blocking its passage and Teresa knew that this pain would always be with her. She stared down at the body of her friend and wanted more than anything to scream a denial to the universe.

Elena’s left side was charred, the skin blackened and peeling. Her right hand was broken, covered in blood, and her arm bent at an impossible angle. But it was her eyes—open, glassy, frozen in pain and horror—that tore Teresa’s soul in two.

“Oh, my God. Elena.” This time she tenderly lifted her friend’s broken right hand and cupped it in both of hers. Elena’s skin was still warm. Hope leaped up inside Teresa. Blind, desperate hope. “She’s not dead. Not dead. Oh, God. God, she’s hurt bad.” Her words streamed from her in a never-ending flow of horror. Turning teary eyes frantically to her Eternal, Teresa begged, “Please. Help her. You can heal her.
We
can heal her.”

Chapter 18

R
une looked at the body of the doctor and through his pity he felt a sharp stab of worry. One side of her body was burned. The injury was too deliberate. Too … perfect. His rage inflamed him as he realized that there was really only one possible explanation for what had happened here.

Teresa hadn’t drawn the same conclusion he had and he wouldn’t tell her his suspicion. But Rune knew that only an Eternal could have done this kind of damage so precisely.

Could one of his brothers have gone rogue?

Fury pumped raw and fierce throughout his huge body as he considered it, then denied it again immediately. He refused to believe that one of them was capable of such things.

And yet …

He locked his misgivings away for now. He would contact Torin as soon as there was an opportunity and talk about this. But at the moment, his witch needed him—and didn’t need more to worry about.

This Teresa was a revelation to him. In the last couple of hours, he had seen only the warrior side of his woman. Fierce, furious, ready to charge the doors of hell itself with no more than a glass of water with which to defend herself against the roaring flames. She had defied him, cursed him, made love with him, healed him and infuriated him.

Now, she had touched him more deeply than he would have thought possible. In her vulnerability, he saw the witch of his heart. His mate. The woman he would do anything for. The woman he would kill to possess. And he wished with all of his soul that he could somehow grant her the miracle she needed so desperately.

“Teresa …” He didn’t know much about the other dimensions beyond this one. His knowledge was based on centuries of existence. Of seeing countless millions of humans live, love and finally die. He knew of shades, the spiritual essence of those who refused to move on to the next life, instead clinging steadfastly to the one that was over. But Elena was not one of those. She would not be a ghost of herself, futilely trying to speak to the ones she had left behind.

She had moved on already.

“She’s gone, Teresa,” he said, his voice as gentle as it could be when dealing a shattering blow.

They had to leave. Her friend had been killed as a message to Teresa. Rune’s gaze snapped to the wide windows overlooking the narrow rain-drenched street beyond the glass. Somewhere out there, agents—hunters—were tracking her. Planning on locking her away or doing to her what had been done to this harmless woman.

His guts churning with a boiling cauldron of fury and the need for retribution, Rune deliberately kept his voice calm as he said, “We have to go. Now.”

At that moment, her bird flew down from the overhead light fixture to land on her shoulder. Rune couldn’t even seem to mind. It was as if the little creature sensed that its owner needed comfort.

Seconds ticked past until at last Teresa laid Elena’s hand down with a final stroke of her fingertips. Then she turned to Rune. The shock and pain still shone in those chocolate-brown eyes of hers, but the tears were drying and a flicker of anger rose up. “I want to find them. I want to hurt them like they hurt her.”

“I know.” Rune pulled her to her feet and she went, reluctantly. Pushing his fingers through her hair at her temple, he cradled her head in his palm. “And I feel the same. Your friend didn’t deserve this. The bastards who did it will pay, Teresa.”

She nodded, lifting her face to meet his. Fascinated, Rune watched her expression shift and change with the fleeting emotions that were charging through her. Misery, despair, hope and determination all showed themselves briefly on her features. And his admiration for her rose higher as she put her pain aside.

“We’ll go to Mexico. See my grandmother. We’re going to do what we have to do and then I’m going to find who did this to Elena and make them wish they’d never been born.”

“
We
will find them,” he corrected her.

She studied him for a heartbeat or two, then nodded again. “Yes, Rune.
We
.”

He pulled her in close and wrapped his arms around her.

When she whispered, “Take me away from here,” he called on the flames and granted her wish.

Chapter 19

O
n the other side of the country, President Cora Sterling, first female president of the United States, was having afternoon tea with a group of would-be radicals. As her thoughts wandered, she smiled to herself and wondered if Nixon had felt as out of place when he met with Elvis Presley at the White House. Of course, she thought, all Elvis had wanted was a badge from the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Naturally enough, the director of the BNDD had refused Elvis’s request. But half an hour later, President Nixon had presented Elvis Presley with the badge himself.

Ironic, she mused, that Elvis had wanted to do his part in fighting the drug culture, only to die as a result of his own excesses seven years later. Still, Nixon had made an important step in meeting the popular singer: The nation had taken note and for one brief moment, the wildly disliked president had looked almost … cool.

Cora Sterling was in a different boat altogether. Her approval ratings were skyrocketing every day. Yet it wouldn’t hurt for the media to know that she was taking the time to meet with people hungering for change.

Glancing around the small, elegantly set table, she glanced from one eager young face to the next before finally settling on just one. Her own daughter, Deidre Sterling, was now the public face of RFW. Rights for Witches had been growing in popularity for the last several months, but it wasn’t until Deidre signed on that the group had attained any sort of credibility.

Before Deidre, RFW was dismissed as deluded rabble. Foolish people who refused to see the inherent dangers of witchcraft. They were mocked on cable news shows, and social networking pages were continuously throwing verbal stones. But Deidre had changed all that.

Cora looked at her daughter and felt that stir of pride she always experienced around her girl. At twentyseven, Deidre had a mind of her own and a spine of steel, just like her mother. Which, Cora admitted silently, didn’t always make her easy to deal with.

“Madam President.” One of the young women spoke up and Cora turned a pleasant smile toward her. The slim brunette’s cheeks flushed a bright pink and she opened and closed her mouth a few times, as if she was suddenly too nervous to speak.

Cora waited, since her long-held belief insisted that
He who speaks first, loses.

“Mom,” Deidre said into the stiff silence, “we appreciate you meeting with us. We know how busy you are.”

Cora gave her daughter a smile, reached out and patted her hand, then turned back to the brunette. “Of course I’m happy to meet with bright young people filled with ideas.”

A couple of the women exchanged sharp looks as if trying to figure out whether or not they were being patronized. But finally, after having found her courage, the brunette spoke up again.

“Madam President, the RFW is determined to shut down the prison camps where women—”

“Internment centers, not prison camps,” Cora corrected and the brunette stiffened, but nodded.

“Fine. These ‘camps’ are dangerous.” Her brow furrowed and her eyes took on the glittering light of the true believer. “Men prey on the inmates and innocent women are being swept up in raids when they’ve done nothing to deserve it.”

Cora didn’t care for the woman’s attitude, but she really couldn’t help but admire her spunk.

“I’m sure you all mean well, and I really do respect the fact that you’re all so impatient to change the world,” Cora started to say.

“Impatient?” The brunette—what was her name? Ah, yes. Susan Baker—interrupted her. Cora frowned, but it didn’t keep the woman from continuing. “It’s been ten years since magic was revealed to the world and in that time the prejudice and hatred have only grown. If we’re not ‘impatient,’ more people will die.”

One of Cora’s eyebrows winged up. She wasn’t accustomed to being taken to task. And certainly not in her own parlor. As if picking up on her ire, one of the Secret Service agents stationed around the room moved closer. Cora gave him a slight shake of her head to let him know she was fine and could handle one overwrought young woman herself.

“I understand your passion,” she said, looking at the woman with the steady gaze that had gained her seventy percent of the popular vote in the last election. “In fact, I applaud it. But you must understand that change takes time. And effort.”

“We do, but—”

“Mom.”

She shifted her focus to Deidre, expecting common sense and support. She got neither.

Instead, her daughter said, “When you were elected you pledged to close the camps. It’s been two years and they’ve only expanded. All we’re asking you to do is to keep the promise you made.”