“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 s
topped 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.
Chapter 60
Teresa entered the chapel, despite the twinge of trepidation curdling inside her. She knew what she had to do, but damned if she was enjoying it. This mystical scavenger hunt had taken too much from her already and she couldn’t help fearing that she had yet more to lose.
The stillness was oppressive.
Her own footsteps on the stone floor sounded disrespectfully loud and almost eerie in the quiet. Like a ragged heartbeat. Like there was someone or something else in here besides her and Rune.
She felt his presence, of course. As linked as they were, emotionally and physically, Teresa knew that she would always be aware of him whenever he was close. And she was desperately grateful to have him close at the moment.
Her gaze swept the chapel as she walked down the nave. The center aisle of the church was slender, as if it had been designed for the fragile, wealthy ladies of a court long gone to dust. Arched stained glass windows ringed the interior of the chapel, but the moonlight outside muted the brilliant colors that would have filled this place in sunlight like the spun wheel of a kaleidoscope. Directly in front of her towered an amazing altarpiece, with different sections, each telling the tale of the Epiphany.
“Teresa?”
She glanced back at Rune, just a step or two behind her, and nodded. “I’m okay. We go through that doorway on the left.”
He followed as she led, and with every step she took, she walked deeper into the past. Memories rose up in her mind, nearly choking her with their intensity. She had been here so long ago. Scared. Desperate. Ashamed.
She still carried the echoes of her sisters’ screams in her heart and mind. She could still smell the sulfur that had wafted through hell’s gate with the swarm of demons. She could feel Rune’s fury, his disappointment, and she wanted nothing more than to hide away until her death when she could begin the reincarnations that would lead to her atonement.
So she had come here. To Barcelona. To the wall built by the Romans, because she had recalled Rune telling her of his days here. She’d remembered his reluctant admiration of the strength of the Romans and she had thought to borrow some of that legendary strength to protect what she herself hadn’t been able to.
Teresa stepped through an arched stone doorway into the blackness of what had once been a storage area. Now it was simply a small unused stone room, its walls echoing with the voices of the past.
“Teresa?”
“God, I remember this,” she whispered, her soft voice rippling in the tiny room like the tide rushing to shore.
She took a breath, let it out and whispered, “It’s here. In the wall.”
“In it?”
She turned her head to look up at him and gave him a small smile. “Yeah. I thought that the Roman wall would somehow be strong enough to conceal it, to shield it.”
Turning back, she walked to the far wall, dropped to her knees and touched a dark stone, skimming her fingers across its surface. Instantly, the stone rippled, its surface trembling with a barely leashed power.
Rune went down on one knee beside her. He felt her hesitation, her doubt, as he would have his own—and how could he blame her for it? Eight hundred years had come and gone and she was once again having to face who she had been. What she had done. As if the black silver sensed his presence, it began to hum and vibrate with the magic rising inside it. Teresa swallowed hard, glanced at Rune and then reached for the stone.
It fell into her hand, instantly morphing into the black-silver Celtic knot it had been centuries before. Power emanated from the thing in thick, inky waves that seemed to reach for them with greedy fingers.
Hissing in a breath to steel himself against the draw of the dark magic, Rune looked to Teresa and saw her gaze fixed on the now-gleaming black metal. She stroked it with a single fingertip and seemed to enjoy the current of power that washed through the black silver at her touch. “Teresa?”
She stroked it again, but looked up at him. “I was right, Rune. It’s almost alive. I can feel it. It’s calling to me.”
“It has been waiting.” A deep, unfamiliar voice spoke from the right.
Teresa and Rune turned as one to face the tall blond man with swirling gray eyes who entered the anteroom.
“The Artifact has been waiting for your return and its chance to reenter the world,” he said with a courtly bow. “Just as I have.”
Chapter 61
Rune pushed Teresa behind him and drew his knife. Looking into the man’s Eternal gray eyes gave him a jolt of shock. But Rune didn’t recognize him.
He held the wicked blade out in front of him and crouched in a stance of readiness. Whoever the hell this was, he wouldn’t be getting anywhere near Teresa. “Who are you?”
The blond laughed and the sharp sound echoed weirdly in the chapel. “Your question tells you exactly who I am.”
“You talk in circles and you don’t belong here. Get out now.”
Instead, the man walked lazily toward Rune, giving the impression of a predator slinking up on its prey. Well, Rune was no man’s prey and he damn sure would make certain Teresa wasn’t, either.
As the man passed them, Rune began to edge Teresa toward the doorway and the chapel. He didn’t want a confrontation here in this small antechamber. There was no room for movement, and in close quarters like this Teresa stood a chance of being injured. She moved with him. Though he couldn’t look at her, he heard her footsteps on the stone and knew that she understood what he was trying to do.
He had another worry as well. He had heard from Torin how the Artifact had affected Shea when they had gone to retrieve her shard. How the dark magic had come close to overpowering her and how they had had to battle their own dark desires to keep from surrendering to the call of the black silver.
Now, with this … man interrupting them, Rune couldn’t give Teresa his support as she held the Artifact. Instead, he was forced to keep his entire focus on the immediate threat.
Straightening up to his full, formidable height, Rune continued to back out of the room, though he held up one hand with the palm facing the man and called on the fire in the same instant. Living flames engulfed his raised hand, swimming and burning over his flesh in brilliant colors. Shadows leaped on the historic stone walls and danced in his opponent’s eyes. “Get out now before this goes too far.”
Visions of Skyfire Page 26