Demons and DNA (Amplifier 1)

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  Officer Raymond pushed through the front door of the building, scanning the street and spotting the Mustang. She jogged down the short run of concrete stairs, then sauntered along the front path and across the grass toward me.

  I opened the door, stepping out. “Stay here,” I murmured to Paisley. Then just to remind her that she was supposed to be a dog, I added, “Good puppy.”

  She panted at me playfully, her blue tongue longer than it should have been when she was wearing her pit bull form. And forked. Such a brat.

  Officer Raymond slowed to a stop on the sidewalk a few steps away from the nose of the car, crossing her arms. “So you know him now?” she asked mockingly.

  I’d already answered that question. I just looked at her, since words hadn’t worked the first two times.

  She dropped her gaze, then snarled at her own reaction. “Stop doing that!”

  “Stop repeating the same idiotic questions,” I said mildly, surprising myself that I’d bother to offer the shifter any advice.

  “You … put me off.”

  “It’s not me. It’s that you aren’t used to being challenged, not used to not being able to bully someone.”

  She tilted her head. “Nah, it’s just you. Not only don’t you need my protection, I have a feeling I have to protect everyone else from you.”

  Ignoring the way her assessment rang completely true to me, I eyed her coolly. “Is that why you sent me after Hannah Stewart?”

  “Well … I didn’t know you then, did I?”

  “You knew me from the moment you scented me, shifter. It isn’t some vague foreboding you feel. It’s instinct based on what your senses naturally pick up. It’s the magic you’ve allowed to atrophy.”

  She curled her lip into a snarl.

  I gave her a moment.

  She did nothing.

  As expected.

  “Did you get a name from the sorcerer?” I asked.

  She sighed, frustrated. “No. He hasn’t spoken other than to ask for the washroom and a pen and paper. He’s been doodling for over an hour in the holding cell. All he has to do is make one phone call and … and I can’t really hold him without drawing attention, not even if you decide to press charges.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the entrance. “He’s on his way out. Didn’t even have any personal belongings to collect. I asked Wilma to pick up donuts since she practically runs the rumor mill around town and I didn’t want to give her the chance to conduct her own interrogation. And Jake is on patrol.”

  The shifter had skipped over the part that would happen between the sorcerer making his phone call and drawing unwanted attention to Lake Cowichan. Specifically, that some faction of the Adept world would become involved — the witches Convocation, the shapeshifters Assembly, the sorcerers League. And despite my earlier goading, I didn’t want that any more than she did. Not that I was on the wrong side of any of what was going on, but any Adept in a position to represent one of those governing organizations would know that I was an amplifier and that Christopher was a clairvoyant — possibly before even laying eyes on either of us.

  A pack representative might not care in the least, though Jenni Raymond would definitely draw their attention. Closeted shifters were more than simply frowned upon, and the various packs were rumored to eliminate those who refused to offer their necks to an alpha. It was difficult for a shifter to maintain control of their beast without a pack’s influence — though, as far as I knew, Jenni Raymond’s biggest issue was acknowledging her magic and using it properly in general, rather than a lack of control. Still, Adepts carefully avoided any and all situations that might draw the attention of the mundanes.

  But if the witches Convocation got involved, they would definitely want to keep tabs on Christopher and me. Maybe even try to draw us into the nearest coven.

  Then there was Paisley, who wasn’t even remotely a dog, and who would be a problem for anyone in a position of power in the Adept world. I’d have to prove I could control her, or they would demand her head. And proving any of my abilities would only paint a larger target on my back.

  I had a more immediate problem, though. “I doubt a sorcerer was simply doodling, shifter,” I said derisively.

  She stiffened her back, but then hesitated. “That’s … I thought sorcerers needed magical objects. He had nothing on him, not a ring, not even a penny.”

  Her ignorance was baffling. She could transform into an animal. How had that not made her seek out every bit of magical knowledge she could?

  “Some sorcerers cast with magical artifacts, often handed down through generations. Some steal those objects. The magical black market is robust, and hazardous. Some commission objects, but alchemists are extremely rare.” I paused, waiting to see if Jenni Raymond’s head was going to explode from information overload.

  She waved her hand, encouraging me to continue.

  That was surprising. She had previously displayed what I’d taken as xenophobic tendencies, including not wanting to interact with her own kind. Perhaps I’d read her wrong. “But some sorcerers … particularly skilled magical workers … can call forth and harness magic with runes.”

  “Runes? Like … elf language?”

  “Elves don’t exist. But yes, on the surface, it’s a language that is based in many ancient languages. Though a sorcerer of power might spend years creating their own alphabet, sometimes building off a system of symbols and sigils handed down through a family over centuries. And a tremendously skilled sorcerer no longer needs to write down their spells. They simply speak and magic … moves.”

  Officer Raymond had paled.

  But I pushed forward, feeling a need for some reason to impart a hard-learned lesson. “There are some Adepts who can bind you with a single drop of your blood and only a few words.”

  “Like … like the power an alpha has over a pack?”

  I glanced at the RCMP officer. Some of her hair had come loose from her slicked-back bun, feathering around her forehead and temples. I couldn’t read the emotion simmering in her light-brown eyes, though. With a single touch, I could have bridged the divide between us, but I had enough of my own feelings roiling uncomfortably around inside me. I didn’t need hers as well.

  “Why do you do that?” she whispered. “Stare for so long? What are you looking for?”

  I looked away, answering her first question. “No. Not like the way an alpha has power over a pack. That’s a reciprocal binding. It can’t be taken by force. And it binds the alpha as much as the pack member.”

  She was staring at me, completely in doubt.

  I snorted. “You’ve heard differently?”

  She shrugged.

  “Sure there are rogue pack-like organizations,” I said. Because I had encountered one, in fact, when they’d been working with a black witch. I had rescued the sorcerer Kader Azar from their clutches — and had somehow signed my own death warrant by doing so. “Most groups of that nature are short-lived. As soon as they call attention to themselves, the Assembly wipes them from the face of the earth.”

  Jenni Raymond shuddered and rubbed her arms. So there was a story there, buried under her brusque and brazen attitude.

  But then, we all had pasts we kept locked away in the deep recesses of our minds. Things done in the dark — to us, by us. Especially me.

  “You think the sorcerer is one of those ones who can bind someone just by speaking to them?” she asked.

  The aforementioned sorcerer stepped from the front doors of the RCMP station. He scanned the parking lot, then the street, setting his gaze on me.

  Jenni and I looked back at him.

  “Well, look who finally decided to join us,” the shifter drawled. “I guess he had to fix his pretty hair.”

  “No,” I said, answering her last question while ignoring her unnecessarily rude commentary. “Not in the shape he’s currently in.”

  “Hurt?”

  “Drained. Magically.”

  Jenni sucked in a breath. “That �
� that’s possible? To drain someone of their magic? There are spells that can do that?”

  “Complicated spells. Witch magic. Normally … normally triggered and performed during sex. And such spells don’t work on females.”

  And there was me, of course. I could drain an Adept to the brink of death. But I didn’t mention that as an option.

  Jenni Raymond threw back her head, laughing uproariously.

  The sorcerer frowned.

  “Seriously …” She struggled to speak through her amusement. “You’re telling me it’s possible that someone fucked the magic out of this sorcerer?”

  I didn’t answer. It wasn’t her language that put me off, though. It was that I found myself loathing the idea that the sorcerer had been intimate with … anyone. And that was a completely irrational reaction.

  He meant nothing to me. I owed him nothing. And vice versa.

  The shifter stopped chuckling. She was eyeing the sorcerer again. “You know,” she said conversationally. “I don’t think he’s coming over here, Emma.” She snorted, sauntering away toward the sorcerer, who had indeed paused just beyond the glass front door. “I’ll put him on a bus. You can thank me later.”

  She continued toward him, digging into her pocket and pulling something out. “Yo, pretty boy,” she cackled. “I guess you need bus fare.” She flicked something into the air that caught the light. A two-dollar coin.

  The sorcerer stepped to the side, raising his hand defensively and spitting out a single word. A lick of magic shot out from his palm, so weak that I could feel it more than see it. He wavered on his feet as the energy to fuel the spell was torn from him.

  The coin froze in the air, held there by the spell the sorcerer had unleashed. He’d thought the shifter was attacking him and had reacted instinctively, using magic he couldn’t afford to expend.

  Officer Raymond stumbled, then stared openmouthed at the coin. She swore, fragrantly and viciously.

  The sorcerer stepped past her, moving steadily toward me.

  “You can’t just do shit like that here,” Jenni Raymond howled at his back.

  He ignored her.

  The sorcerer was still wearing the dark suit and white dress shirt, but he’d cleaned up as best he could in the bathroom sink of a police station. As when I’d seen him in the diner, everything about him spoke of particular grooming habits — shoes polished to a high sheen, expensive haircut, manicured nails. But the custom suit was loose where it shouldn’t have been, and he sported a few days’ growth of facial hair. And the scratch that was just starting to heal on his cheek still looked a lot like road rash.

  Something compressed in my chest. It was a completely different sort of pain than the grief I thought I might have been experiencing earlier when I’d contemplated fleeing town. My heart started beating erratically. But as if I were panicking, not like I’d been running.

  That didn’t make any sense. And it somehow hurt.

  I clenched my hands.

  The sorcerer’s steady stride hitched.

  I forced myself to relax, calling forth a cool resolve. I just needed to ask him a few questions, then we’d part ways. I’d go back to the house and would somehow persuade Christopher to leave.

  The sorcerer took another few steps.

  The coin clattered to the concrete path behind him. Officer Raymond snarled, snatching it up, then retreating to lean against her cruiser on the other side of the parking lot. She was glowering at the sorcerer’s back. But assuming she actually accessed her shifter abilities, consciously or not, she was still well within earshot.

  I’d have to be careful how I worded any of the dozen questions I needed to ask.

  The sorcerer paused about ten steps away, keeping his hands loose at his sides. A town bus pulled up to the corner. His eyes tracked it to its stop.

  He was thinking of leaving.

  I needed to encourage that. “I’m Emma.”

  He looked back at me, his blue eyes cuttingly sharp in the bright daylight. “Aiden.”

  Aiden.

  I needed to ask him what he was doing in Lake Cowichan. Ask him who sent him. Ask him if he was looking for me and Christopher.

  “There’s a suite over the barn,” I blurted. Then, utterly aghast at what I’d said, I flushed, heat flooding through me. A half-dozen words in, and the conversation was already a confusing mess of emotions and —

  “Are you inviting me home?” His question was pitched low, and perhaps a little amused.

  “To the barn. Yes.”

  He nodded.

  The doors to the bus whooshed closed behind us.

  He watched it drive away.

  My chest started to ache. I wanted to climb into my car, race home, and eat ginger snaps right out of the freezer. I would eat the dough if I didn’t have any baked. It was absurd — the conversation, the offer, and my reaction.

  “I know what it’s like,” I said. “Not having any magic. You’ll need to sleep, eat, exercise.”

  “Yes.” He didn’t step any closer.

  Paisley hooked her paws over the top of the windshield of the Mustang, pulling herself up.

  Aiden eyed her warily.

  Placing her feet deliberately, Paisley prowled down the glass and over the hood of the car. Pausing perched just behind my shoulder, she snuffled and huffed in my right ear, liberally dousing me with spittle and snot.

  I huffed out a sigh, wiping the side of my face and neck. Some of the tension I was carrying through my chest eased.

  Catching every nuance of our interaction with his razor-sharp blue eyes, Aiden’s gaze turned amused.

  Paisley stepped down onto the bumper, then padded over toward the sorcerer, flopping down right in the middle of the grass halfway between us. She rolled over on her back, wiggling back and forth and batting her front paws at him.

  That … she … was she flirting?

  The sorcerer cracked a smile. Then he laughed.

  The warm sound spread across me, mellowing the remainder of the absurd pain that had lodged itself in my chest.

  Aiden hunkered down, reaching out his hand. Paisley rolled onto all fours, obligingly closing the space between them and allowing him to pet her.

  A thoughtful look replaced his smile, and he glanced up at me questioningly. So, even drained as he was, he could feel that Paisley was more than simply a dog. So perhaps it had been just my magic that had drawn him to the diner, and not anything more nefarious.

  “I apologize,” he said, still petting Paisley and peering up at me. “For laying hands on you without permission. I am … I was not myself, but it won’t happen again.”

  “It wouldn’t have happened the first time,” I said archly. “Had I not allowed it.”

  A slow smile spread across his face. I had amused him somehow, but I wasn’t certain what he was reading into what I’d said.

  I crossed around to the driver’s side of the Mustang, climbed in, and started its beast of an engine. The vibrations under my feet steadied me further. I could navigate this situation, despite my weird reactions to the sorcerer. And it would be better to get the answers I needed before deciding to abandon everything Christopher and I had built.

  Paisley gathered herself. Then, leaping from about three meters away, she landed perfectly in the middle of the back seat of the convertible.

  The sorcerer’s jaw dropped.

  “Paisley,” I hissed.

  Aiden straightened, smoothing his suit jacket. Then he sauntered over, opened the door, and slid into the passenger seat beside me.

  I pressed my foot to the gas the second he got his seat belt clicked into place. Jenni sauntered back into the station, eyeing us as I pulled away.

  We drove without speaking. With the top down, even with the windows up, the barrage of air rushing past the Mustang wasn’t conducive to chatting. It was delightfully brain numbing, though, so I didn’t have to listen to my inner voice telling me for the hundredth time that I was being absolutely, idiotically insane.
/>   It also didn’t help matters that that same awareness kept noticing things about the sorcerer sitting next to me, close enough to reach out to, close enough to touch. Such as the fact that his magic came and went in a dull, irregular pulse. Or the way the sleeve of his suit jacket and shirt shifted back to reveal his wrist. Or a glimpse of a rune he’d inked on his palm, along with a ring of runes within the tan lines around each of his fingers.

  The red roof of the barn came into view around the time the sorcerer turned to regard me. I could feel the weight of his steady gaze, squinting against the sun just beginning to dip over the valley.

  I glanced at him. The wind caught my hair, blowing it all around us. He smiled, teeth white against his tanned skin. He raised his hand slowly, as if he wanted to capture my hair but would give me time to pull away.

  Paisley shoved her way between the seats, breaking into the moment. Deliberately, perhaps.

  I looked back at the road, slowing to pull into the drive. Though even as I moved my foot from the gas to the brake, before I shifted gears, I had the thought, the feeling, that I could have driven past and kept on going forever, following the sun. If he was sitting beside me. Aiden.

  The tires hit gravel. I loosened my hold on the wheel, allowing the car to find purchase without forcing it into a skid.

  It was an attraction. That was all. I was simply attracted to the sorcerer. Just because I hadn’t experienced any attraction this intensely before didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. It was chemical, somehow. It would ease.

  I would gain an immunity to him, just as I did to any other magic, any other drug.

  Still, letting him get on the bus would have been the smarter move.

  Aiden shifted his gaze out the window, seemingly taking in every part of the property as we traversed the driveway. The red-roofed, white-painted farmhouse at the end of the drive. The dozens of fruit trees of all varieties in the orchard to our right. Dahlias and roses in full bloom, edging the drive all the way up to the house from the mailbox and the farmer’s stand by the open gate.