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