Visions of Skyfire

Visions of Skyfire - By Regan Hastings

Chapter 1

Teresa Santiago opened her arms to the sky as if welcoming a lover. The storm raged overhead and its energy and power filled her like long-dammed water rushing onto a floodplain. She felt it all and gloried in it. The sweep of sensation, the pulse of strength.

Lightning flashed and its charge slammed into the ground at the feet of the woman who stood amid the white-hot bolts like a pagan goddess.

Her long black hair flew out around her in the charged atmosphere, snaking across her eyes, whipping around her throat. Her fingertips practically vibrated with power as lightning danced to her whims.

Electrified white bolts cracked across the black sky, then forked into the desert floor. Sand geysers erupted all around her as energy sizzled and burned. Thunder roared. Clouds roiled. Juniper and manzanita dipped and swayed with the wind. The skeletal arms of the ocotillo behind her waved, scraping at her back like a demon demanding attention.

But she ignored every distraction—including her own apprehension. Exhilarating as it was to command nature in such a way, a part of Teresa cringed, horrified at what she was now able to do. The lightning danced, plowing into the earth at her feet again and again, and every cell in her body sizzled from the near contact. She felt as if she, too, were electrified and that tiny, horrified part of her wanted to run and hide from all of this.

She didn’t, though. Couldn’t. Couldn’t turn her back on the very legacy she had been training for most of her life. Now that it was here, magic opening up inside her, she would simply have to find a way to master it.

Four days ago she had had the first dream. A terrorfilled nightmare with flames chewing at her skin while demons howled and crowds cheered. She’d jolted from sleep in a sharp panic, her own hair wrapped around her throat like a noose as she gasped for air that wouldn’t come. She had known then that her abuela’s prophecies were coming true.

Then the magic appeared. Small things at first. Sparking a match without striking it against anything. Touching the television and it coming to life. Lightbulbs shattering when she touched them. Streetlights blinking out when she brushed against the pole.

And today … She had followed her instincts, somehow knowing that the lightning was calling to her. At first sight of the storm on the horizon, a deep well of power had opened up inside Teresa, as if it had been waiting for nature’s fury to completely awaken. She had driven into the desert outside Sedona, Arizona, to meet that storm head-on. To walk into the maelstrom and somehow master it.

For more than an hour now, she had worked, pulling down the lightning, trying to direct it to specific targets—because what was the point of having the power if she couldn’t control it? And in this time, when witches and even those suspected of witchcraft were being locked away, or worse, she needed that control. Her new power would make her a magnet for disaster. She had to be able to draw on her own strengths to protect herself and those she loved.

“Come on,” she whispered. “Focus, Teresa. Make it work.”

Red sandstone rock formations surrounded her. With sunlight slanting across them, the rocks seemed to glow a brilliant orange and red. Under a forbidding gray sky, they were filled with shadows, their wind-carved surfaces taking on the shapes of faces that seemed to watch her.

She was just outside Red Rock State Park and hoping that both the weather and the harsh terrain would keep tourists at bay.

October in Arizona meant cooler temperatures and an influx of visitors who came to Sedona not only for the natural beauty but also to gather at the many vortexes in and around the city. The vortexes were sites of spiritual ceremonies and drew the mystical and the curious every year. Teresa had gone to a few ceremonies herself over the years, knowing as she did that there was far more to the spiritual plane than most people suspected.

Now, though, she drew on the spirituality of this place to open the heart of her magic. She waved one hand, directing the lightning toward a tower of red sandstone rocks. The jagged bolt of pure power slammed into the ground twenty feet away from the target and she knew that wasn’t nearly good enough. If she were attacked, “close” wouldn’t save her life.

Teresa fought to hone her magic. To perfect the power that had begun to quicken inside her only days ago. She had known what was coming all her life. What she was destined for. But the mystery had been when her magic would appear. The world wasn’t a good place for witches these days, but magic ran in her blood, stretching back through her family’s maternal line for generations. She should have been able to draw on that legacy, but in the face of this new and overwhelming power, she was lost.

She stood tall, her cowboy boots planted far apart to give her a sense of stability that she was sorely lacking. Gritting her teeth, she concentrated, and swung her hand out again to direct another whip of lightning across the desert. Instantly a jagged bolt flew—in the wrong direction.

“No!”

Teresa shrieked as her black truck exploded into a fireball. Flames leaped into the air, plumes of smoke twisted in the wind and flaming tires shot off the body of the truck like Frisbees from hell. As thunder still rattled the sky and wind howled, Teresa stared at the smoking hulk of her truck.

“Son of a bitch.” She kicked the sand and thought not only about the incredibly long walk back home she had to look forward to but also about her now-burned-to-a-crisp cell phone. She couldn’t even call someone to help her. She was stuck—no water, no food, no way home.

She’d grown up here, so she wasn’t a stranger to the desert. But the thought of a long walk back to town through the rain with the storm chasing her sent her stomach to her knees. Added to that was the fact that she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she was being watched …

Steeling her spine, she pushed thoughts of unseen watchers to the back of her mind. If they were out there, somewhere, there was nothing she could do about it. The important thing now, she told herself as she stared at the fire and the billowing black smoke, was control. Just how in the hell was she supposed to protect herself from the coming dangers if she couldn’t manage her own powers?

What good is it to be a witch, she demanded silently, to be able to pull down the lightning from the sky, if you can’t freaking control the magic? Disgusted, she muttered, “Could this day get any worse?”

As if the gods were answering, Teresa heard a distant, pulsing beat, like the heartbeat of a giant. The thrumming sound seemed to jolt up from the desert floor to her feet and into her chest, where it pounded along with her own suddenly galloping heart. Stunned, she just stood there, trying to assimilate it, and then she realized something else.

The sound was getting closer.

She whirled around, gaze searching, straining to see past her surroundings to whatever was coming. Her own heartbeat was pounding in time to that otherworldly sound. She scanned the dark skies in all directions. The shadows of the craggy mountains jutted up from the desert, scratching at a sky still churning with ragged bolts of lightning.

Thunder boomed, but just beneath that awesome noise and power there was something else. Something low-pitched and dangerous, like the deep-throated growl of a predator. Fear tightened into a hard knot in her belly. She trembled, swallowed hard and felt her breath catch in her lungs as she found the source of that growl. Against the lowering gray clouds, there was a darker spot.

A blot of black that was headed right for her. An instant later, Teresa identified the heavy beating sound—the whup-whup-whup of helicopter blades churning through the air. Mouth dry, fear racing through her, she looked at the emptiness surrounding her and knew she was in deep shit.

She’d come into the desert to be alone with her burgeoning magic. But being alone also meant that there was no one to help her. Though if that helicopter was what she thought it was, no one could have helped her anyway.

As the chopper closed in on her, she saw the bright yellow slash across its belly. Black and yellow. The MPs’ colors. The Magic Police. They’d found her. Somehow they’d found her and she knew that if they got their hands on her, she might as well be dead.

A captured witch had little hope of escape and every expectation of execution. Though not until after torture and imprisonment, of course. Fear nearly choked her. She wasn’t ready for this confrontation. She’d had no time to prepare. To conquer her magic and make it work for her.

The power she had been relishing only moments ago now felt like an anvil tied around her neck. She was about to be captured and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. She couldn’t even hop into her truck and make a run for it.

She had no weapon and the helicopter was even closer now.

Weapon.

“God!”

She didn’t need a weapon—she was a weapon.

“Now’s the time, Teresa,” she muttered, instantly lifting both hands high over her head. All around her, lightning danced, pulsed, the air scorched from thousands of volts. Her hair lifted in the wind; her eyes narrowed on the helicopter. She stabbed one hand toward it and a lightning bolt sizzled past the black beast, barely missing it. The chopper dodged, dropping several feet in an instant and turning slightly to allow someone to stand in the open doorway.

Someone with a gun.

“Damn it!” Teresa dove for the ground as the first crack of bullets chattering from the automatic weapon enveloped her. Still too far away, she thought wildly, but not for long. She ran toward an outcropping of rocks. Yes, there might be snakes in there, she thought, but out here there are bigger dangers. She crouched behind a sand-encrusted boulder and jabbed her hand at the chopper again. Once more, lightning split the sky, racing to do her bidding but still missing the damn target.

“Teresa Santiago!” a voice shouted over a bullhorn. “Surrender now or we will kill you.”

The thunder crashed and the helicopter blades sounded like the heartbeat of a hungry beast. Closer now, those same blades were churning up the sand, throwing it at her, stinging her skin and her eyes. She couldn’t even risk turning her back to the flying sand, since that would mean turning her back on her enemies. Each second that passed brought them ever nearer and Teresa knew she was out of time. There was no escape. She glanced around at the wild emptiness surrounding her and saw no options.

“Die here,” she murmured frantically, “or die in prison. Not much of a choice.”

So she did the only thing she could do. She stood her ground and threw yet more lightning at the men who had somehow followed her into the desert. Bolt after bolt shot toward the helicopter heading directly toward her, yet none of them hit. Desperation fueled her movements and she knew that her aim was only getting more erratic, but she couldn’t do anything about that now.

How had they found her? How did they even know about her?

Fury laced her fear and somehow tangled in the threads of her power. She felt something new … something old pulse within her, strengthen. As if her power was centering itself. Staring hard at the incoming helicopter, she sent one more bolt of lightning at her enemies and this time she scored a hit. A small, jagged bolt slapped the tail rotor of the chopper, sending the machine into an uncontrolled spin. Torn between elation and fear, Teresa watched as the pilot struggled for control. She didn’t want to kill anyone, but damned if she’d stand still and be shot, either.

The pilot recovered, the chopper continued on and the gunman took up position again. Teresa braced herself for the inevitable.

She looked up into the face of death—the incoming chopper—and lived.

A wall of fire appeared in front of her and the bullets flying at her embedded themselves in the flames instead. Teresa staggered back in surprise, looked up and met the pale gray eyes of a warrior. Fire surrounded his body, enveloping him in a living wall of flame. His features were drawn tight in concentration and his muscled body swayed with the impact of more bullets, but still he stood between her and danger.

“Hold on to me,” the stranger ordered.

Teresa didn’t even think about it. She jumped into the fire that covered the man, hooked her arms around his neck and shouted, “Go, go, go!”

And in another bright flash of flames they were gone.