Visions of Skyfire

Chapter 5

“F*cking rain.” Landry Harper hunched deeper into his jacket and wished he were chasing a witch in Hawaii. Instead, he was cooling his heels outside a dump of a house in Sedona, Arizona, where it should, he told himself, at least be hot.

But no, he was freezing his ass off and getting soaked to boot. He was posted outside Teresa Santiago’s house, and trying to stay as inconspicuous as possible. Not easy when even a moron had the sense to get in out of the rain.

Still, he wore a black jacket over his MP uniform, disguising it enough that no casual passerby would notice him for what he was: a man on a mission.

A man determined to capture or kill as many witches as he could find.

Now there was a thought to warm a man’s soul despite the f*cking cold rain. He smiled to himself and kept his gaze locked on the narrow white house with the red Spanish tile roof. It was empty. He’d already checked that out, despite knowing that the witch was in the desert being hunted by his friends in a helicopter. Landry liked to keep his t’s crossed and his i’s dotted. And that meant checking everything out for himself. The minute he allowed others to step in, that’s when things went to hell.

Just look at what had happened last month. He’d caught a damn witch, turned her over to the internment camp on Terminal Island in California and then left, satisfied that she was at least off the streets. Locked up where she couldn’t harm innocents. But no, those idiots in charge had allowed her to escape.

“I should have killed that bitch when I had the chance,” Landry muttered. “Just like I should have been the one taking the shot in the desert instead of standing here freezing my nuts off.”

“Stop your bitching. Christ, what kind of agent are you, anyway?”

Landry sneered as the voice came sharp through his earpiece. His partner was stationed in a nice, dry room in a B&B, focusing a telescopic lens on the street and the back of the witch’s house.

“Yeah,” Landry muttered, flashing a furious scowl at a passing man who looked at him as if he were a lunatic, talking to himself. “Easy for you to say,” he continued when the man was gone. “You’re not standing here drowning, waiting for a damn witch. The others should have killed her back in the desert.”

“They missed her. It’s our chance at her now,” the voice reminded him. “And if you blow this stakeout by pissing and moaning I swear to God I’ll kill you instead.”

He’d like to see the little pissant try. Fury pumped through him at the criticism. Landry had been on these stakeouts for years. That damn kid in the room with his high-tech equipment thought he was hot shit. But Landry had caught more witches than that know-it-all little bastard could even dream about.

But he wouldn’t make waves. One way to get yourself taken off a hunting team was to shoot your mouth off one too many times. And Landry would never give up the hunt. He would find every damn witch he could and he’d kill them dead, given half a chance. And it still wouldn’t be enough to ease the pain that had gnawed on him ever since a witch’s emerging powers had exploded, killing Landry’s wife and child.

He turned his mind from the memory, deliberately locking his loved ones away into the otherwise empty darkness of his heart. Landry was no longer that man who had loved his family. Now he was a hunter. Pure and simple. And this witch, Teresa Santiago, was his target today.

If they had gotten better intel, he told himself, they’d be stationed around this town at all of the witch’s haunts. But no, the powers that be had only just found out about the witch and who the hell knew how. Their information was sketchy at best and all Landry’s superiors had been able to come up with on short notice was her damn address. A neighbor had told them about her stealing off to the desert a few hours ago. Seems the witch often went into the desert to be alone. So one team was out there in a chopper, using high-tech magical tracking devices to home in on the witch’s position—for all the good that had done them. There were still more agents combing the streets of Sedona for her, just in case she gave the chopper boys the slip, and Landry and the college boy were here.

Well, College Boy was welcome to his safe and warm cubbyhole. Landry was a boots-on-the-ground kind of guy. He preferred being as close to his target as possible, even if it meant standing in the rain waiting for the supernatural bitch to show up.

And she would, he knew. Yes, she’d gotten away from the team in the desert, but she wouldn’t run without coming home first. Witches were, after all, women, and she would need to pack before doing a disappearing act.

Then he’d have her.