He wanted that damn witch.
But as the seconds ticked past, he had to admit that he also wanted to keep his job. It was important to him. To be on the front lines, protecting humanity from this plague of witchcraft. So, if he had to back off of one witch… he’d simply ramp up his efforts on the others. And maybe, one day, he’d get another shot at Shea Jameson.
Snatching the paperwork from his boss’s hands, he glanced at the witch’s name and address and nodded. “I’ll have her to Terminal Island by this evening.”
“Good. Dismissed.”
As he left, Landry told himself he was a lucky man to be able to do the work he loved.
Chapter 30
“Did you recognize the woman in the vision?” Torin asked.
“No,” Shea told him. “I wouldn’t know her if I saw her out on the street, either. She was pretty much just a shadow in the dark. But she was looking into a glass and seeing us.”
“Scrying,” Torin said. “It’s a way witches have of seeing the future, the past-” He broke off and looked at her. “Somehow you managed to do some scrying of your own. Your magic’s coming back fast. Still, you should have waited for me to return before trying a spell on your own.”
“Please. It wasn’t a spell,” Shea said. “I was just trying to see. And I can’t always wait for you, Torin. I have to find answers for myself.”
“We are together in this, Shea,” he reminded her.
“Yeah, we are.” She laid one hand on his arm and looked up into his gray eyes. “But the truth is, I’m the witch with the evil past and I have to do what I can, when I can, to get to the bottom of this. So while we eat, why don’t you explain what it is we’re supposed to be looking for?”
He frowned as if he didn’t like what she’d said, but he had to admit she was right.
“Black silver,” Torin said, “is the element created by the coven centuries ago. Formed with breath and fire and blood a thousand years before the birth of the one called Christ.”
Shea had had no idea that the black silver was so ancient. “Before the birth of Christ?”
He smiled at the stunned expression on her face. “Long before, when the earth was young and magic was widely sought. The coven was powerful even then and they sought more knowledge and hoped that through the creation of the black silver they could add to the wonders of the world.”
“But…” Shea prompted. “There has to be a but, because the memories I’ve seen aren’t of shiny, happy bunnies. They’re of death and darkness and terror. So what the hell happened?”
Torin frowned at her as he considered her question. His pale eyes locked on hers. “Are you ready for the whole truth?”
“Doesn’t seem to matter if I am or not,” she countered, frowning as her memories darted away again. “You said yourself we have one month. We really can’t risk waiting.”
“True,” he agreed, handing her one of the sandwiches he’d slipped out to get a while ago. Setting his own meal down on the table, he leaned toward her, looking into her eyes.
Since leaving the safe house on the mountain outside Palm Springs, they’d talked about anything and everything. Torin had been giving her lessons in magic but even as she felt her powers growing, Shea knew she still had much to learn.
They had finally stopped for the night at a tiny motel in Flagstaff, Arizona. There was an American Indian feel to the place. Kitschy, she decided, rather than tacky. There were old paintings on the wall, tepee-shaped lampshades and an unusable kiva-shaped fireplace. The beds were lumpy, but the sheets were clean and they hadn’t wanted to risk staying at a more well-known hotel. This one was tucked away in the trees, hopefully far enough off the beaten track that no one would notice an escaped witch and her Eternal.
She unwrapped her sandwich, took a bite and chewed, despite the fact that at the moment the sub tasted like sawdust.
“Tell me,” she prompted.
“Silver is an earth element,” he said quietly and even the room seemed to hold its breath, waiting for the rest. “The metal focuses, enhances, a witch’s power-”
“Wait a minute.” Shea looked at him in confusion. “Gold’s an element, too. So why does it drain us?”
“White gold drains. It’s not a natural element, Shea. It’s an alloy, made by man. They take gold and taint it with other metals. Nickel and palladium usually. Separately, the metals are harmless enough.” He frowned and shook his head. “Combined, there’s something in the metallic makeup that acts in the direct opposite of silver.”
Nodding, she asked, “Okay, and black silver was created by us, so it’s even stronger than natural silver.”
“Exactly. Back in the day, the coven decided that if silver focused their energies, channeling their power into it would increase its strength immeasurably.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
He laughed shortly, passed her a soda and nodded. “Hell, yes, it worked. The element itself was more powerful than any had imagined it could be. Over time, black silver was incorporated into objects of power that came to be known by many names.”
Shea took another bite of her sandwich, knowing she had to eat. But her gaze never left the Eternal sitting opposite her at the rickety table. “What do you mean?”
Opening his soda can, he took a long drink and set it down again. “It was impossible to contain,” he said, lost in his memories of an ancient time. “Power sang through the pieces of silver and called to those with the will to wield it. Depending on the nature of the one holding it, the black silver became the epitome of evil or a force for good.”
“Oh, God…” Shea’s mind raced with possibilities. How many terrible things had been done under the flag of good intentions? she wondered. “Tell me,” she said. “Give me some examples. Ones I would know.”
Torin scraped one hand across his face and she watched as he silently argued with himself. He was a completely disciplined man. Some would probably think him cold, detached. But she had reason to know that the unapproachable mask he wore disguised a man-Eternal-of deep passions and unswerving loyalties.
She’d never felt more safe in her life than she did in his presence. Which, she thought, was fairly ironic considering that the first day he’d saved her, she had run from him, landing herself in prison, for God’s sake. But since that night, she’d come to understand that she hadn’t so much been running from him as she had been trying to escape the feelings she had for him.
“Tell me,” she insisted.
He nodded. “Very well, then. A few that you will recognize. In 1776, a pen crafted of black silver was used to sign this country’s Declaration of Independence.”
Shea smiled. “Well, that’s a good one.”
“And in 1862, the land mine, also crafted of black silver, claimed its first victim of many.”
“Oh, God.” Her stomach lurched unsteadily and she set her sandwich aside, no longer able to bear even the smell of it.
“Twenty-one years later, black silver seeped into the crust of a dormant volcano. The magma within instantly flashed and the sound of Krakatoa exploding could be heard three thousand miles away.”
“Volcanoes, land mines…”
“The Wright brothers’ first flying machine. Then later,” Torin added solemnly, “the Titanic. Hitler wore an Iron Cross made of black silver, and Albert Einstein’s desk lamp was created from the element.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“I have had many years to follow its trail.”
Shea shook her head, as if simply denying the truth of what he was saying would make it so.
“Neil Armstrong’s lunar module in 1969 carried black silver in its casing, and in 1994 the black silver machetes carried by the Hutus were used to massacre eight hundred thousand Tutsis in a few short weeks.”
“Right and wrong,” she murmured, “good and evil.”
He reached across the table and folded his fingers over hers. Shea felt the heat of him slide through her system, chasing away
the bone-deep chill enveloping her.
“The element itself was neither good nor bad,” he whispered. “It simply was. It was man who made the choices in how to use it.”
“And that makes it okay that the witches created it?” Shea asked, pulling her hand free and standing up. She walked to the front window, and with the tips of her fingers pulled back just enough of the drapes to look outside. The lights in the tiny parking lot were dim, since only two of the four were working.
Beyond the asphalt lot, trees stood tall and straight as soldiers on parade. And overhead, the moon continued its glide across the sky. Every night, the moon was a little closer to completing its monthly cycle. And every night, they were a little further from the success of a mission that Shea didn’t even completely understand.
“Come away from the window, Shea.”
“What did the coven do with the black silver, Torin? You said they created it, but what did they do with it?”
He stood up, his chair scraping against the scarred wood floor. Crossing to her, he pulled her hand from the drapes and drew her away from the window. “It was decided that they would gather all of the black silver they could and create the Artifact.”
More memories stirred inside her mind, tantalizing her, tormenting her with snippets, twinges of recognition.
“Some of the magical element was gone, escaped into the world-as I told you, it showed up in many different times and places. But the coven was able to gather most of it and together, they used their powers to fashion the Artifact.”
She closed her eyes, trying to grab hold of a thread of memory. “Describe it.”
“A black silver crest, crafted from a series of interlinking Celtic knots, as many of those in the coven had come from Eire originally.”
She could almost see it, Shea thought, focusing her mind on the nebulous images drifting through her consciousness.
“When whole, the Artifact is a key to the dimensional portals of other worlds, other realities. The magic captured within was so powerful, so all-consuming, that simply touching it would drive a mere man mad,” he said, his voice deep, soft, mesmerizing. “When the coven saw what it had created, even they trembled. And so it was women of immense power who protected it-and the world.”
The image in her mind dissolved like sugar in water. She sighed, opened her eyes and looked up at Torin. “What went wrong? I saw that vision, remember? I saw me-not me, but me-and the others, calling on something dark. Terrifying.”
His jaw tightened and his pale gray eyes flashed. “It was the year 1200. The last great coven of witches, reincarnations of those who had first created the Artifact, arrogantly thought to harness all power for themselves.”
This she remembered as he spoke. This vision floated back to her on dark wings and settled in her mind like storm clouds. She saw it all again as Torin described it. More, she felt it all again.
“They set a circle,” he said, “and channeled all of their energies into the Artifact, hoping to open the doors to other dimensions, other avenues of power. Instead, they opened the gateway to Hell.”
“Oh, God…”
He held on to her shoulders as she swayed in reaction to his words, to the memory. More images appeared in her mind and she once again watched as Torin described the events of that long-ago night.
“Demons poured from the doorway until at last Lucifer himself stepped through into this world.” He paused, took a breath and regretfully admitted, “The Eternals couldn’t breach the circle of power to reach their witches. We were forced to remain on the outside, battling those demons that escaped. We couldn’t help. Couldn’t get to you.”
His fingers tightened on her shoulders and Shea reached up to cover his hands with her own, linking them as they should have been linked on that awful night.
She saw it all in a blinding instant. The blood, the terror. Pain and light and noise erupted in her mind in a rush. Shea shrieked in response, held her head and crumpled to the floor at Torin’s feet.
He reached for her and something crashed through the window, shattering glass into the room until it fell like clear, sharp rain.
A metal cylinder clattered to the floor not more than a foot from them.
“Damn.” Torin wrapped his arms around her and flashed them out.
An instant later, the motel exploded in a fireball that lit up the night sky.
Chapter 31
Sanctuary stood alone, deep in the Uinta mountains of Utah, a safe zone for women-witch and human. Here they weren’t hunted. Here they could simply live. Of course the threat of discovery hung over them all the time, but hidden as they were, that threat was far less than it could have been.
Rune was the only male in the camp and as he stalked across the compound, he noted that several little girls were trailing after him, giggling and pointing. As if he belonged in a zoo, he told himself. Wasn’t it enough that he was stuck here until his mission was complete? Irritation spiked. Then he stopped, spun around and flashed into flames.
Rather than being scared off, the girls screamed in delight. One of them waved a hand in the air, making rain spill from a solitary cloud directly over his head.
That should teach him to tease a witch, he thought as his magical flames spat and sizzled in the wet. A witch of any age. He swiped rainwater from his face as the tiny cloud dissipated.
“Girls! Go to your classes, please.” Karen Mackey clapped her hands together and the children scattered.
“I’m sorry about that,” she said, giving him a tense smile. “They haven’t seen a man in-well, a long time.”
“It’s all right. I’ll be gone soon enough. Once I know Terri and her family are going to be all right…”
“They’re being assigned housing now,” she said. “Thank you, for bringing them to us.”
Karen was about forty, with short, dark hair that curled around her heart-shaped face. She focused wise blue eyes on him. “It couldn’t have been easy.”
“Wasn’t.” He didn’t even want to think about the last eight hours, trapped in a car with three human females. His powers and strength were just now regenerating. But it was worth it, he knew. They’d managed to save more innocents from the world at large and that was worth any price.
Throughout the years, witches had lived in peace and practiced their magic in secret. Belief in magic died out. The supernatural was dismissed as legend. Until that day ten years before when power had exploded into the public consciousness. Since then, no woman was safe. Witch or human.
The Sanctuary network had been born and until the world came to its senses again-if ever-these women would have to remain hidden.
“They’ll be safe here,” he said and looked out at the still-snowy peaks in the distance. Spirit Lake spread out in front of them, shining dark blue in the starlight. The lake provided plenty of fresh water for the witches and the rough terrain discouraged most people from the area. Here at ten thousand feet, the camp was secluded and hidden by both heavy stands of trees and magical protection wards. Should any hikers stray too close to camp, a feeling of dark dread would overcome them, convincing them to run from the area.
So far, the only other beings the witches had had to worry about were the mountain goats that inhabited the region. It was as close to a perfect hiding place as they could get.
The moon slipped out from behind a stream of clouds and painted silver across the surface of the lake. Shadows crouched and a wind whispered through the trees.
“They’ll be fine,” Karen told him. “We have many human women and children here. You don’t have to be a witch these days to need a safe place. Sanctuary’s protected from both magical incursion and human.”
“Magic?” he asked, sliding a glance at her.
Frowning, she nodded. “We’ve had to upgrade, so to speak, our protection wards lately. We heard about a few witches, broken during torture, who’ve switched sides. Dr. Fender is still at work somewhere,” she added, with a shiver of unease.
R
une understood the sentiment. Dr. Henry Fender began experimenting on witches some years ago. He was the one who had told the world about the uses of white gold in blanketing a witch’s power. The word was that any witch who found herself on his table died screaming.
“Apparently, the good doctor is now convincing some of his ‘patients’ to work for him.”
Rune scowled. The doctor had become legendary in a very short space of time. He had spearheaded the early efforts to contain the witches, but soon his sadism had forced even the government to cut him loose. There were limits, apparently, to what BOW was willing to do. “But the feds stopped using Fender a few years back.”
“Yes, but he’s taken over a large action group,” Karen told him, barely restrained fury coloring every word. “The Seekers find witches and hold them so that Fender can perform more experiments.”
This was not good. No witch would be safe as long as Fender was allowed to continue his madness.
“To what end?” he demanded.
“He’s looking for a way to drain our powers and use them for himself.”
Rage filled Rune, cold and dark, forcing him to battle his own instincts in order to remain calm. It wasn’t enough that witches were being hunted, jailed and executed. Now there were human monsters looking to exploit them for their own greed? They talked about shutting down the power when in reality, what they wanted was to steal magic any way they could.
And people thought witches were evil, he told himself wryly.
Torin and the other Eternals had to know about this. They would have to find Fender somehow and send him from this world before he could do more damage. Finding one human male on this overcrowded planet would be quite the task, though. Yet, even as he thought about it, Rune wondered if an Awakened witch couldn’t cast a locator spell. Why not use the very magic the man hungered for against him?
He reached for the satellite phone in the pocket of his black jeans. Torin needed to hear this. Not only about Fender, but about the second tracker the witches had found on Terri. If Shea was still bugged, their escape was going to be short-lived.
Visions of Magic a-1 Page 15