The Amplifier Protocol (Amplifier 0)

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  More hands grabbed me, Zans working with Bee now. I knocked them back with a nasty pulse of my magic. That was what they got for touching my skin.

  Then Knox was crouching next to me, reaching past me and pressing a small warm body into my hands. Sharp teeth bit me. Then the little creature Knox had found suckled at the wound it had created.

  The three of them dragged me from the room, back into the stairwell. My skin had blistered painfully, tears streaming down my face. I coughed and coughed.

  Something exploded above us.

  The other four hunkered around me. Nul5 tightened the ward he was still holding so that it covered us tightly.

  The building shook.

  I wiped my face. Then I looked down at the furry creature I’d rescued.

  It was a blue-furred puppy with viciously sharp teeth. And a tiny mane of tentacles that hummed with magic.

  So, not just a dog.

  The puppy blinked red-orbed eyes at me — clearly marking it as some sort of demon hybrid. Then it wrapped one of its tentacles around my thumb.

  “Bred to track us,” Zans said.

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  She nodded toward Fish, who’d laid out her hard drives before him on the concrete floor. He was systematically warding them. “It’s on one of those. One of their experiments. If I can still retrieve the data.”

  “Then we kill it,” Fish said.

  I looked at him steadily. Then I smiled, letting him know I’d murder him, or any of them, before I’d allow them to kill the innocent creature in my hands. A creature that hadn’t asked to become what it was. Just as we five had been given no choice.

  Everyone else in the compound, anyone else working for the Collective, had made the decisions that had shaped all our lives, wooed by money and the accumulation of power. And I would kill any of them who stood between me and saving the others. But the puppy was untarnished.

  Fish grimaced. “You could have just said no. Put it in Zans’s backpack, then. You need your hands free.”

  “No.”

  Another explosion rocked the compound. Then another. We all paused, looking up at the stairwell. It held.

  Zans shucked off her pack, retrieving the last of the explosive devices from it and clipping them to her belt. She shoved the empty pack at me.

  I passed the demon puppy to Knox, touching the back of his hands lightly. “Thank you.”

  He nodded. The skin on the left side of his face was a deep pink.

  I could only imagine how much worse I looked. I got the backpack on frontways, cinching it as tightly as I could over my chest. I couldn’t wear it on my back without it interfering with my blades. Knox tucked the demon puppy in the bag, but it started to whine when he zipped it up.

  Fish locked his gaze to me. “You are absolutely, mind-bogglingly ridiculous.”

  Zans snorted.

  I unzipped the pack, just enough that the demon puppy could stick its nose out. “We aren’t going to die because I stopped to rescue a dog. We’re going to die because of you and Zans, and your little revenge side project.”

  Tension rippled through Fish’s face, but he didn’t deny my assessment. Zans looked away.

  I wasn’t stupid.

  “So when we do die, it’ll be on your heads,” I said coolly. “Pray you go first. Because if your screwing around with data collection gets Bee or Knox killed, I’ll murder you both myself.”

  Neither of them answered me. But then, what could they have said?

  I could kill them. That had never been in question.

  “Let’s move.” I stood up.

  Fish dropped his shield. Nothing fell on our heads.

  I headed for the stairs. “They’ll come at us with everything now.”

  The four of them gathered around me without question. We headed up.

  Fish was in front, holding a mobile shield. Me behind him. Bee and Knox on either side of me. Zans at the rear. If we were attacked, Knox and Bee would drop back, and Zans would step up beside Fish where I could amplify both of them at the same time.

  Only five levels to go.

  Chapter 7

  “Hold,” Knox whispered.

  We paused halfway up the northeast stairs that led to level two, waiting, watching as Cla5’s magic ringed his light-gray eyes, then faded.

  He shook his head grimly. “This isn’t going to be good.”

  “Beyond our control?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  Nul5 dropped his shield and my ears popped. Then he snapped it back into place, taking a moment to reinforce it. Zans shifted so she was ahead of me. Then she and Fish, shoulder to shoulder, started climbing again.

  “Oh,” Bee whispered beside me. “Flynn’s dying.”

  My foot slipped on the edge of a step. I compensated, brushing away the pinch of dread trying to drill into my stomach.

  Knox nodded curtly, confirming that the pending death of my teammate was what he’d already deemed unchangeable. He had seen more than that, of course. But Knox kept what he saw to himself more often than not. After twenty-one years, he had figured out what battles were worth fighting. Not that he could control what any of us chose to do when faced with a challenge he had already deemed impossible.

  Zans pushed past the rest of us and onto the landing first. Her dark-eyed gaze fell on something in the far corner. She glanced back at me as Fish brushed by her to secure the door leading to the second-level corridor. I couldn’t read the telekinetic’s expression, though her battle stare usually alternated between stoic and jovial.

  She wasn’t feeling playful now.

  I stepped past her.

  Flynn was tucked into the corner by the door, facing the upper stairs. His face was ashen, eyes closed.

  I stumbled again, but managed the five steps necessary to kneel by his side. He looked dead already, blood staining his chin, neck, and chest. His hands were cupped at his waist.

  Jackson had slashed an X across his chest with her rune-marked red tape. Which didn’t make any sense. She wasn’t a healer.

  “Socks,” Flynn said, choking up blood. “Been waiting for you.” He opened his eyes. They were rimmed with blood and boiling with his unleashed magic.

  Pain ricocheted through my stomach that had nothing to do with my wounds. I clamped down on it.

  “Yeah,” Flynn gurgled. “It was a hell of a curse. Shredded our shields. I took the brunt of it, so … no worries for Becca or Mark.”

  I reached for him, brushing my fingers against his cheeks.

  He sighed. “No, Socks. I’m gone. I’ve been holding on for you.” His gaze flicked to various points over my head, then settled on Zans over my right shoulder. “You’ll only waste your magic on me. I was dead the second the curse hit me. But …” He bowed his head, looking down.

  He opened his cupped hands. Dark-blue power, teeming with energy, was pooled in his palms. He began to cough, blood flooding out of his mouth. Somehow, he managed to catch most of it in his hands. The magic he’d collected flared and expanded.

  Now the rune-marked tape made sense. Flynn was readying his final spell — a sure-to-be potent death curse. Becca had hoped to help him anchor it with the tape, waiting for us, holding. Building on the curse until he was ready to unleash it … ready to die.

  A terrible pain gripped me, tearing through my chest, then forcing its way out through my throat in a ragged sob.

  “Hey now, darling,” Flynn murmured. “I should have died on our first mission … Aruba … do you remember? You stepped in, took that … curse …”

  I remembered the mission, but hadn’t known the location. “It was meant for me.”

  “No, Socks. You never did figure out that part … we were always there for you, as much as you were there for us …” His voice faded, and he closed his eyes.

  I reached for him again, but this time touching him tenderly as I never could have when he was … among the living. But in this half-life, I could reach for his emotions. I could feel
his fear and his resolution.

  He took a shuddering breath. “Go now,” he said. “I need to cast.”

  “I could —”

  “No. Go now, Socks. They’ve blockaded the stairs, you’ll need to cross through … level two. Calhoun and Jackson are right in front of you. Go … go. Don’t say goodbye.”

  I dropped my hand from his cheek, standing and stepping away through the door where Fish held his shield, waiting. Knox and Bee touched the top of Flynn’s head, then stepped into the hall.

  “Zans,” Flynn whispered.

  I glanced back to see Tek5 set one knee on the floor and lean over the dying sorcerer.

  “I wish …” Flynn coughed up more blood. “I meant to kiss you at the Christmas party. Before it got shut down.”

  Zans clenched her hands into fists.

  I looked away, meeting and holding Fish’s inscrutable gaze.

  “But … but I knew I wasn’t worthy of you … of your … your …”

  I shoved myself against Fish’s shield, desperately needing to be out of hearing distance.

  He grunted, but shifted the magic standing between me and the corridor stretching out before us. Five steps was all it took. Either Flynn had stopped talking, or I couldn’t hear his dying declaration anymore. The words weren’t meant for my ears anyway.

  Magic brushed across my bare collarbone, licking my skin. I glanced down into the backpack, wrapping my hand around the demon puppy as another short tentacle curled up from the mane ringing its neck and brushed against my fingers. Magic followed, scouring Flynn’s blood from my hand.

  “Paisley,” Knox murmured. “Her name is Paisley.”

  “Okay,” I said, not questioning the name or the gender. “Paisley.” Knox had named the Five, after all, whether some of us liked his choices or not.

  Zans stood abruptly, striding toward us. Her entire body was tensed in fury. That emotion I could pick out easily enough, but I’d never seen the telekinetic wield her anger with such cold disdain.

  “Move,” she said. “I’ll take point. Nul5, we’re going to need to be shielded from the back.”

  Fish opened his mouth to rip her head off — for assuming she could order him to do anything, let alone tell him to do his duty even as he was already doing it.

  I shook my head.

  He clamped his mouth shut, falling back behind Bee and Knox.

  We were about three-quarters of the way along the corridor when Flynn unleashed his death curse in the northeast stairwell.

  By succumbing to death.

  Magic slammed against Fish’s nullifying field. It actually shoved him forward into Knox and Bee.

  The concrete floor rumbled under our feet. Anyone in the path of the spell, whatever team was blocking the northeast stairwell and whoever had hit Flynn with the spell that had killed him, wouldn’t be left standing. In fact, based on the light display pulsing across Fish’s shield, I doubted whether the stairwell would even be passable.

  A sorcerer of Flynn’s caliber held a lot of magic in his blood, in his life force. Enough to wipe out many enemies.

  But then, if you were willing to die to do so, you could wreak a lot of vengeance.

  Waiting for the residual to fade before moving, we all turned to look at Zans.

  She was standing a couple of steps ahead, head bowed, hands clenched at her sides.

  Flynn’s magic faded.

  Zans glanced back down the corridor, snarling and laughing at the same time. “I bet that stung them. And I haven’t even gotten started yet.” She pinned her dark gaze to me. “Are you with me, Socks?”

  She didn’t have to ask. Truthfully, she really shouldn’t have asked, because there was wild magic embedded in vows — when the words were wielded by those such as us.

  “To the end,” I said.

  “To the end.” Knox, Bee, and Fish echoed the words behind me.

  Magic shifted around us, then settled. We were already tied. By birth, by blood, and by magic. Those bonds might have been forced upon us, but we had no one else. No reason not to die for each other.

  Knox fell at the entrance to the southeast stairwell leading to level one. I felt a thick strand of dark magic brush past my shoulder, just before the clairvoyant shoved himself in front of Bee and took the blood curse aimed at the telepath in the chest.

  A named spell. It could have been nothing less to get through Fish’s shield.

  Meant for Bee.

  Designed to kill her.

  Which meant that the Collective had more than hair clippings stored elsewhere in the compound. Or someone with forethought had collected what they needed from level five before we destroyed it. They had blood samples, and taken recently. Because once blood was removed from a body, the magic within it faded quickly.

  Moreover, for such a spell to get through Fish’s nullifying field, there was no doubt that a black witch had just sacrificed a life to fuel it. Maybe even slaughtered one of the tactical team that still stood between us and freedom.

  That wasn’t going to be good for morale.

  Bee shrieked, grabbing for Knox as he staggered back.

  “Zans!” I shouted.

  Zans grabbed Bee, pulling her away so she couldn’t touch Knox — not while the spell was still live, still seeking its ultimate target.

  Fish grabbed Knox, lowering the clairvoyant to the concrete floor. The named spell solidified into a black creeping mass, spiderwebbing across Knox’s chest. The only reason the clairvoyant was able to step in front of the curse at all was because of the tattoo inked in Bee’s blood on his spinal cord.

  The curse had to be fulfilled. There wasn’t any other way to break it. The named victim had to die.

  But … the Five might be able to hold it at bay.

  Knox groaned, pained, arching up as the curse dug into his flesh, tasting his magic.

  “You could have said something,” Fish growled.

  “No time,” Knox gasped.

  I kneeled beside the clairvoyant, reaching for Fish’s hand, for his permission. Nul5 nodded, hovering his hand over the curse on Knox’s chest, palm down.

  I placed my hand on top of his, palm up but not touching, not yet. Then I looked over at Zans and Bee.

  The telepath was already unzipping the armor from her left arm, and Zans had pulled a knife.

  We had to feed the spell to get it off Knox. Then we had to contain it. Or turn it back on its caster.

  Bee and Zans stepped forward. Ignoring Knox writhing on the floor, the telekinetic steadied the telepath’s arm and sliced shallowly just below her elbow.

  Bee directed the blood so that it dripped into the palm of my hand. The magic contained within it tingled against my skin. The telepath stopped bleeding, withdrawing her arm.

  “Is that enough?” she asked.

  I met Fish’s gaze. The sacrifice required was so extreme — a life for a life — that we’d only ever attempted to break a curse of this caliber once before. We had failed then. But Knox and Bee were tied together, and the curse was already confused. So we might have a better chance this time.

  Fish nodded.

  I imbued my magic into Bee’s blood, just as I would have if it were still running in her veins. I amplified it, giving it depth and volume.

  Then I rotated my hand, slamming my blood-and-magic-filled palm down on top of Fish’s hand.

  The combined magic — Fish’s, Bee’s, and mine — lashed around our hands. I pumped more and more energy into the casting. Fish reached down and ripped the curse from Knox’s chest. With our hands still connected, Fish and I stood in tandem.

  The curse curled around our hands, consuming the magic tied to Bee’s blood.

  “It’s strong,” I muttered.

  “I need a blood circle, Bee,” Fish said instead of answering. “Around my feet.”

  “But … but …” Bee stuttered.

  “Just do it.”

  The telepath darted forward, slashing the knife across her arm again, just below the fir
st wound. Walking around Fish, then ducking under our linked hands, she allowed her blood to drip, creating a ragged circle around Fish’s feet.

  The telepath stepped back.

  “Let me have it,” Fish said to me.

  I didn’t want to let the curse go. The named spell had almost eaten through the magic in my palm. And Fish was tied to Bee in the same way Knox was, the same way we all were.

  The curse, trapped in a circle with him, could kill the nullifier.

  “Trust me, Socks,” he whispered.

  I nodded, letting go of the magic and stepping back.

  A nullifying field snapped into place between me and Fish. He crouched, gripping the curse, then lowered it until it touched the blood Bee had splattered on the floor. The curse eagerly slipped from Fish’s fingers, spreading across the blood, consuming the magic stored within it.

  Fish pulled a black wax pencil from his pocket, quickly inscribing another circle around the blood circle. He stepped back over both, then imbued the wax with his nullifying magic. A secondary ward snapped into place around the curse.

  Fish took another step back, then another. We all waited, ready to defend ourselves if the curse wasn’t satisfied with the amount of magic in Bee’s blood.

  “Black witch?” I asked.

  Fish grunted. “Felt like it. Powerful.”

  “The overseer? Silver Pine?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t know. I’ve never gotten near enough to get a bead on her magic.”

  “It would make sense,” Zans said. “Losing the Five on her watch isn’t going to be easy to explain to the Collective.”

  Fish grimaced. “If I had more time and Socks’s help, I might be able to nullify it.”

  “We don’t have time,” Zans said, wrapping a rune-marked bandage around Bee’s arm. “Not if they’re willing to throw named blood curses.”

  “She’ll run out of sacrifices before she gets us all,” Knox muttered, rubbing his chest. He was sitting, propped up on one arm. But he didn’t look like he’d be walking any time soon.

  “She?” I asked. “Did you get a glimpse of her then?”