Visions of Skyfire (20 page)

“Damn it. What the hell is this?”

“I don’t know,” Rune admitted. He wiped one hand across his jaw and then scrubbed the back of his neck. “I hate even thinking this, but—is there any chance that one of the Eternals has gone rogue?”

Chapter 34

“N
o.” The answer came back fast, imperious. Torin had long been the de facto leader of the Eternals. He was the one who had kept most of them from losing their minds during the long centuries of waiting. He was the one who had found his mate first. Their union had set them all on the course that had been charted for them eight hundred years ago.

And now Torin was a voice of reason when Rune really needed one. Because ever since he’d seen Elena’s body, he’d been half convinced that one of the hunters chasing him and Teresa was an Eternal. How else to explain the controlled burns? If he was right about that, then the Awakening itself was in a world of hurt.

“Not a chance,” Torin said flatly. “We’ve all been tight for centuries. We know each other too well. If one of us went off the reservation, then we’d all know about it. Damn it, Rune, this isn’t one of us. There’s got to be a sorcerer or a demon working with the hunters. It’s the only explanation.”

“Maybe.” But it hadn’t felt like a demon hit to Rune. “I didn’t feel any dimensional magic at the site,” he said. “No lingering trace of demon energy. And if there’s a stray sorcerer out there, why haven’t we heard about it?”

“Who the hell knows?” Torin’s voice got sharper. “It’s a big world, you know? All kinds of bad shit could be hiding out there. Hell, there’s always
somebody
trying to stop us and kill our mates. Why would a damn sorcerer be out of line?”

“True enough,” Rune acknowledged. A skittering sound caught his attention and he slowly swiveled his head toward it. His gaze swept the nearby area, then searched farther out, looking for a shadow that shouldn’t be there. A hint of movement in the blackness. But there was nothing.

“The Eternals are solid, Rune,” Torin said, his voice grim and hard as if he was trying to convince not only Rune but himself. “We’ve waited too long for the Awakening. Now that it’s finally here, there’s no way one of us would turn at this late date. Not when everything is finally on the line.”

Rune wanted to believe. He thought of the immortals, who were his brothers, and he couldn’t imagine any of them turning against the group. They had all been stalwart for centuries, banding together for strength. Their god, Belen, had created them for this very purpose. Why would one of them choose to throw his birthright away? And for what?

Still, his mind argued the point. He couldn’t come up with another explanation for what had happened to Elena. And a man made of fire was a pretty damn good one whether he liked it or not.

“You think I
like
even considering this? You’re crazy, Torin. They’re all my brothers, too. But crazy times can push anybody over the edge. And you didn’t see Elena’s body.” Shaking his head, he turned his face into the sharp October wind slicing across the desert, carrying the scent of sage. “The burns were deliberate. One half of her body. No more. Hell, it was like a line had been etched down the center of her. Magic was involved.”

“Undoubtedly,” Torin agreed. “But that doesn’t necessarily make the killer an Eternal.”

Rune shook his head again, hearing his old friend but still having doubts. “What about Egan?”

“Are you on crack?” Torin countered. “Hell, we just found out last month from that freak-of-nature witch Kellyn that she
trapped
Egan in a white-gold cage somewhere at the bottom of the fucking ocean. And now you’re gonna blame him for this?”

“You think I want to?” Rune’s angry shout shattered the quiet of his surroundings and instantly he grimaced and lowered his voice. Sound traveled for miles in the desert and he didn’t need to help his enemies find them. “Damn it, I called Egan brother for centuries before he disappeared, but we’ve only got that ‘freak-of-nature witch’s’ word for it that she’s got him trapped. What if he’s the one who went rogue?”

“No fucking way. Not a chance. I’ll never believe that of one of us. Turning our backs on who we are means turning from our witches. We wouldn’t turn on our mates, Rune.”

“But we won’t know that for sure unless we find Egan. Anybody have anything?”

“No,” Torin grumbled and Rune could picture his fellow Eternal, stalking back and forth, scraping one hand through his long hair over and over again in a fit of frustration. “There’s nothing. I put Odell and Cort on it a week ago, but we don’t even know where to start looking.”

“Can’t Shea do a locator spell on him or something?”

“Not without a focus. Something that belongs to Egan. And we’ve got nothing.”

“What about his place in Edinburgh?”

“You think we didn’t check?” Torin barked. “I sent Cort there to bring something back, but when he got there, the place was empty. Either that fucking witch cleaned it out to prevent us finding him or—”

“Or,” Rune finished for him, “Egan’s the rogue and he went into hiding.”

“No, damn it. It’s not one of us.”

“Well, who, then?” Rune threw one hand up, called on the fire and watched his hand burn, as if he needed something to focus his rage on. “If it was a dark witch, I would have sensed her presence in Sedona. Demons leave behind trace dimensional residue and a sorcerer leaves astral energy. I could have tracked it.”

“Maybe. It’s a big city, man.”

“Not that damn big and whoever was there at Elena’s office was close to Teresa and me.” The flames on his hand winked out and again he was surrounded by darkness. All around him, silence reigned but for the small noises made by the creatures whose home he had invaded. “There’s something else going on, Torin. Something big—and it’s out there alongside the hunters and the feds.”

“Fuck me.”

A rueful laugh shot from Rune’s throat. “Yeah, that about covers it.”

He felt Torin’s mounting frustration as his own. But Torin was in Wales, on the other side of the damn globe, and wouldn’t be able to help even if Rune asked for it.

Torin sighed. “You need me to get a couple of the other Eternals out there to help?”

“No,” Rune said. He didn’t like thinking it, but damn if he wanted more Eternals around here until he was convinced they weren’t at the heart of this mess. He didn’t want to believe that Egan had gone rogue, but not even Torin could deny that it was a possibility. “I can handle things here. I’ll keep Teresa safe and we’ll accomplish our task. But I do think you should check into this.”

“No shit,” Torin said. “I’ll get Shea and her aunt Mairi on it. They can check the Sanctuary libraries.”

“Good.” That was something else they’d discovered only last month. The earth’s witches had maintained knowledge down through the ages and had stored everything they learned in dimensional libraries that any witch could access through a portal if she was close enough to one of the Sanctuaries. “Hope you’ve got some ideas, because I don’t have a clue what they should be looking for. If it’s not one of us—”

“And it’s
not
,” Torin said.

“Then we’re boned.” Rune shook his head. “There’s something new out there, Torin, and we need to know what it is.”

“Agreed,” his friend said. “Shea and Mairi will cover this with witchcraft. In the meantime, Mairi’s mate, Damyn, and I will hunt down a few of the other Eternals. See what we can find out. And we’ll step up the search for Egan. Damned if I’m willing to accept that he or any of us is behind that doctor’s death. We’ll figure out who the new player is.”

Rune slapped his phone shut and tucked it into the pocket of his jeans. He was no closer to an answer, but at least he wasn’t alone in his hunt now. Torin and Damyn would check on the Eternals in Europe. Rune would contact Finn and get him to do the same in the States.

He turned his head to stare at the rock formation nearly half a mile away from him, and he had to smile. It jutted into the sky, sharp and angled, like a fist raised skyward. Naturally Finn would choose to build his home beneath such a rock. The Eternal was always ready for a fight—and, Rune told himself, that would come in handy if this got any uglier.

Beneath that mountain Teresa was waiting for him. She had no idea that her precarious safety had just gotten a lot more complicated. He thought back to the massacre at the village and felt a ball of ice drop into the pit of his stomach.

Federal agents, police, violent civilians, witches, demons, sorcerers, even perhaps a rogue Eternal—they were all out there, just waiting for their chance at her.

But as long as Rune lived, no one would hurt his woman. He would kill any who tried.

Chapter 35

P
arnell sat in the shadows, watching his “allies” down shot after shot of tequila. The ramshackle tavern they waited in was hardly more than a hut, but nothing more was needed, anyway. This was just a stop on a long, well-laid-out road. Lifting his beer, Parnell took a sip and set the glass down as his gaze traveled the smoky interior.

Lights were dim, as they were in most bars. There was a fire roaring in a stone hearth on the far wall, dispelling the October chill in the desert night. Hard-bitten men with murder in their eyes gathered around the tables, playing cards and drinking incessantly. They were celebrating the slaughter of the village, he told himself. Proud of having shot down unarmed civilians and telling war stories as if they’d faced down a demon horde.

Idiots.

He had had them kill everyone in the village for expediency’s sake. Otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered. But he hadn’t wanted to risk word getting out about the witch and her immortal bodyguard.

Now he watched the men who worked for him. He knew there wasn’t one of them who wouldn’t sell him out for the right amount of cash. But knowing that, he paid them well. He hated what they were. Brutality for its own sake served no one. A man without loyalties couldn’t be trusted and these men had no fealty to anyone but the person paying them. There was no discipline here. No belief system. No driving ambition beyond the visceral one to maim and destroy.

He reined in his disgust with effort. For now, he needed these men. For now, they were a means to an end that he was determined to reach. For too long he and his brothers had languished in obscurity. Pushed aside and banished without another thought by the very god who had created them. All for the sake of
them
.

The Eternals.

Immortal bastards, all of them. Self-righteous, arrogant assholes who thought that they and they alone were the keepers of the magic. Well, he and the others had a surprise for all of them. After centuries of exile, it was time to show themselves. To reclaim what had been taken. To step up and announce themselves not only to the Eternals but to the world.

And to the witches.

“Any word yet?”

A voice interrupted his thoughts and Parnell flicked a glance at the obnoxious human who had had the nerve to plunk himself down at Parnell’s table. With short black hair, whiskered jaws and dark brown eyes, Miguel was probably thought to be a handsome man. Unless one took the time to look deeply into eyes that were as empty as the desert he hailed from.

Parnell could have appreciated the man’s dedication to violence if there’d been a reason for it. Instead, this smiling, murderous creature was simply soulless. And the man appeared to be under the mistaken impression that he and Parnell were partners. Equals. When the truth of the matter was that Parnell would have liked nothing better than to see him dead this instant for his treatment of the witch, Teresa.

Instead of following orders and romancing the woman, this boil on the ass of humanity hadn’t been able or willing to hide his own abusive nature from her. And so Teresa, being a sensible witch, had tossed him out of her life. Luckily for the bastard sitting opposite him, Parnell had plans for the witch. Personal plans beyond the scope of the strategy that had been laid in place over the last centuries. So if the human male had actually harmed Teresa in any way, Parnell would have ripped his lungs out of his chest and left him gasping for air that would never have come.

Parnell watched the man and felt an inferno rage inside him. Flames leaped to life on his fingertips, flaring blue and yellow and red.

Miguel looked at them, grinned and observed, “Man, if I could do that, I wouldn’t be wasting my time in this shithole of a bar.” Shrugging, he asked again, “Any word?”

Parnell took a breath and allowed the flames to fade away. He took another slow sip of his beer before trusting himself to speak. “We’ve heard nothing yet.”

Those handsome features twisted into a disappointed pout. “Then how will we know where to go next?”

Parnell’s irritation grew by leaps and bounds. To be questioned by anyone went against everything inside him. For those questions to come from a human that he would love nothing more than to execute was even more insulting. But he would play the game as he had laid it out.

“Everything’s in place,” he said, promising himself the pleasure of killing this particular human as soon as possible. “Our eyes and ears will keep us informed.”

“I still say we should just go to Chiapas,” the man whined impatiently. “If you had listened to me, we wouldn’t be sitting here in this crappy bar waiting for word that will only tell us what I already said.” He leaned back until the rickety wooden chair beneath him rested solely on its back legs. “I know Teresa. She’ll go to her grandmother. She was always talking about the old witch.
Abuela
this,
abuela
that. Made me sick. So I know all about the old woman. We could be there right now, waiting. Then we could grab Teresa the minute she shows up.” He smiled to himself. “I can’t wait to see her again, you understand. I’ve got some unfinished business with her. And once she’s no good to you guys, she’s mine. Right?”

“Idiot.” Parnell kicked out, sent the chair toppling over and the man in it sprawling. Before he could leap to his feet, Parnell had one foot on his sternum, holding him down.