Demons and DNA (Amplifier 1)

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  “I’ll make anything you want,” he cajoled.

  I pulled a chef’s knife from the drawer to cut the butter.

  Christopher flinched.

  Ignoring his reaction — though it bothered me — I placed the butter on the cutting board, slicing it in half, rewrapping one side and returning it to the fridge.

  “Emma,” Christopher whispered. “The cards focus my sight, as you hoped they would. I feel no … residual effects this morning. I was just pleased to have someone new to play with.”

  It was a deliberately childish statement from a twenty-eight-year-old man, meant to remind me that he lived like a hermit and hadn’t had anyone — any friends but the four of us — growing up.

  If the past seven years in the great wide world had taught me anything, it was that some people didn’t even get that much of a childhood. And suggesting that Paisley and I weren’t good enough companions was simply nasty.

  Christopher sighed, rubbing his eyes. “Aiden wants to work on the fence. The new posts were delivered two days ago. I’ll be in the garden.”

  He crossed toward the French-paned doors, yanking one open so quickly that he startled Aiden on the patio, who spun to take us both in behind him.

  Apparently, the sorcerer wasn’t accustomed to people sneaking up on him. So sensing magical signatures was likely an innate ability for him — an ability that was currently compromised.

  But then Christopher spun back, pinning his gaze on me, angry. “You’re acting like a spoiled child. Pitching a fit that she was forced to share a shiny new toy.”

  I looked at him. Then kept looking.

  He faltered, anger draining away. “I’m … I’m sorry. That was projection, I suppose. I’m … you know it’s me who doesn’t want anything to change.”

  It was both of us. But change was upon us whether we wanted to accept it or not.

  “And how are you going to justify your attempt to manipulate me?” I asked coolly.

  Behind Christopher, Aiden frowned.

  “I’m not trying to manipulate you.”

  “What did the cards tell you seven months ago?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “What did they tell you last night?”

  “What is the point of telling you? Outside of a battle, when did you take any direction from me?”

  “From magic, you mean? Because certainly you don’t think you should be able to control me.”

  “Don’t twist my words into something they aren’t.”

  “Then use them properly.”

  He clenched his fists. His magic rose, then settled. “You are impossible to talk to when you’re angry.”

  “Stop trying to slot me into your version of the future like a card from your deck.”

  He laughed harshly. “If only you could be moved so easily. Maybe I’m just trying to get you to not simply tear it all down, like you destroy everything.”

  His words, his accusation, ripped through the calm facade I’d been holding on to fiercely. The small pottery bowl snapped in my hands, and I almost dropped the eggs it had been holding on the ground.

  Christopher looked aghast, taking a step back into the house.

  “Socks … you know I didn’t mean …” He swallowed, fighting through another flush of his magic. His clairvoyance was likely giving him some hint of where this conversation was going. He stopped talking.

  I carefully set the eggs on the counter, gazing down at the broken bowl in my hand and fighting back the need to throw it at him. He’d made me break something I cherished, no matter that it was silly to place any value on mere things. But the bowls, the set of pottery, was something I’d chosen for myself. Something that couldn’t be replaced.

  I set the two pieces of the bowl on the island. Then I stepped back and returned the eggs and butter to the fridge. Baking would have made me feel like I was at home, but I wrapped my anger around me instead.

  “Oh, Emma,” Christopher whispered. “Don’t …”

  Aiden stepped around Christopher, crossing back through the kitchen, rinsing his mug, and putting it in the dishwasher. He glanced over at Christopher, then at me. “Good morning, Emma.”

  A tiny soft spot opened up somewhere in the vicinity of my heart at his use of my name. I ignored it. “Good morning, Aiden.”

  “I noticed the fence was in need of repair last night.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d like to focus on that for the morning.”

  Being physically active would be a good way to help his magic recuperate. It also put him as far away from me as possible while still remaining on the property. Which, if my magic was a lure, was also a smart choice. “Have you remembered anything about your missing three days?”

  His lips twisted into a tight smile. He offered his hand to me.

  I didn’t take it. After the previous night, I wasn’t certain it was a smart idea to touch him, unless I really needed to do so.

  “Flashes,” he said thoughtfully. “Black magic wielded by a witch, as you likely already expected.” He paused, giving me space to comment.

  I inclined my head for him to continue.

  He did so, still holding his hand out for me. “Possibly the beginnings of a memory charm? Though what I was spelled to not remember, I haven’t figured out. Yet. It’s unlikely that such a spell will hold against the full return of my magic, though. But I’ve remembered nothing that tells me why I’m here.” He took a step closer. “Care to verify my sincerity?”

  I eyed his hand, still hanging between us, warring with my need to touch him for all the wrong reasons. “No. If you feel that fixing the fence will be helpful, then thank you.”

  “Call it room and board.” His smile lost its edge.

  I didn’t reciprocate.

  He cleared his throat. “But you’ll have other questions.”

  “You’ll have other questions.”

  He laughed quietly. “Yes. Many.”

  I nodded. “I’m here.”

  “I’ll find you.” Then inexplicably, Aiden reached over to collect the two pieces of broken pottery. I didn’t ask him why. I didn’t try to stop him. He crossed back out of the kitchen, wordlessly stepping around Christopher and down the patio steps.

  Paisley appeared — she must have been sunning herself on the far side of the patio — padding after the sorcerer silently.

  “I’m sorry,” Christopher said.

  “I’m not going to run away from whatever the cards are telling you. I’m not going to destroy everything we’ve built.” I pinned him with a hard look. “I don’t only destroy.”

  “I know … that was a shitty thing to say, to even suggest. It isn’t even remotely true.”

  “It was uncalled for, and needlessly nasty.”

  “I’m saying sorry.”

  “You shouldn’t need to say sorry. You shouldn’t have said anything you need to feel sorry about.”

  “You are the only person on the face of the planet that only fights with the truth. Not all of us are capable of rising to your exacting standards.”

  “You were apologizing?”

  He sighed harshly. “Yes, I was.”

  I waited.

  His magic shifted, pulling his focus elsewhere for a moment. He shook it off. “It’s not what the cards are telling me, but what I’m reading into them that … that …”

  “I’m not going to leave you,” I said, taking a guess at what was bothering him, at what his magic was whispering to him. “But if you want to go to one of the others, we can arrange that. I would never keep you here if you needed to go.”

  “It’s not that. It’s never that. If I have to pick only one of the Five, I pick you. Always and forever.” He stepped forward, then faltered again. His magic rose and fell.

  He was definitely struggling with something his power was showing him. Glimpses of the future, which he was trying to absorb while still continuing to converse with me in the present.

  Giving both of us a moment, I pulled app
le juice out of the fridge and poured myself a glass.

  Christopher laughed, smiling sunnily as if we’d moved through making peace.

  And maybe we had, in his head.

  “Paisley would never leave you,” he said. “And I’d miss her.”

  “Paisley is free to go with you,” I said stiffly, not allowing myself to be dragged forward into his foreseen future with everything still unresolved between us in the present. “She’s more attached to you, anyway.”

  He snorted. “Because you’re so unlovable. A murderer. A force of destruction, annihilation.”

  I glared at him.

  “Sorry,” he said. Again. “I think I might be having a few different conversations at once.”

  I shook my head. “Go. Garden.”

  “Are you banishing me?”

  “If that’s how you want to see it, then yes.”

  “Such a hard-ass.”

  “The garden will ground your magic. Then we’ll talk about your manipulations. I won’t have you playing with me.”

  His face blanked. His magic quieted. “I would never play with you, Socks.”

  “You can’t say you’d never do something when you’ve already been doing it.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, but I cut him off.

  “Don’t blame your magic. You’re more than capable of channeling it properly. But you’re bored with the restrictions you think I impose upon you.”

  “You do impose them.”

  “You want to use your magic wildly? You want to let it consume your mind and soul? Go to Samantha. Run wild with her.” Both of us knew that the telekinetic would never say no to anything Christopher wanted. She would encourage him, use him up, in her vendetta against the Collective. And yes, I still assumed she was pursuing that vendetta even after all the years that had passed.

  Christopher smiled. He had finally gotten a rise out of me.

  “This is a ridiculous conversation,” I said.

  “It is.”

  “Go. Garden.”

  “Do I get cookies later or not?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  He turned away.

  “Does he stay?” I asked. “You read his cards last night, yes? What did they tell you?”

  He paused at the doorway, not looking at me. “I don’t know. The ginger card represents you, of course … a power boost, energy. An increase in potential.”

  “But it also represents manifestation. Action, awareness, success …”

  “Love.”

  “Change.”

  “Yes. Change.” He looked back at me over his shoulder. “But we’re accustomed to that, Socks. Nothing is going to sneak up on us.”

  “But it might knock us over the heads.”

  He laughed as if I’d been joking.

  I hadn’t been.

  “The sorcerer isn’t here to cause you harm.”

  “And you?”

  “Not me, either. Or Paisley. You know I would have seen it.”

  “In the short term.”

  He laughed again. “Well, no one can give you guarantees about the long term, Socks. And you’ve never needed it before.”

  He was right. I had never fretted so much about the future as I had since laying eyes on Aiden.

  A knock on the front door abruptly called my attention away from the grimoire I’d been working on deciphering since even before Hannah Stewart disappeared. The sorcerer-crafted spellbook was written in a customized rune-based language. But even with three additional reference texts, I’d only been able to compile a key of two dozen characters so far. And honestly, half of those were guesses based on similarities rather than perfect matches.

  Ember Pine had sent me the leather-bound, magically potent grimoire when I requested information about magical transference. Then, upon realizing I couldn’t read a word of it, I’d had to request her to source and send the reference texts. Which weren’t particularly readable themselves, as Adepts weren’t big on sharing magic outside of their covens or familial units.

  Runes were not my area of expertise. Not in the least. I excelled with a sword in my hand, not a pen. And I had spent the previous two hours refusing to take the grimoire and as much of the translation as I had already cobbled together to Aiden, who was obviously well versed in rune-based spells. But asking the sorcerer to look over my work and help fill in the blanks would open up an entirely new set of questions — such as why I was interested in magical transference in the first place — and we hadn’t even gotten the first set of questions answered yet. Specifically, why Aiden was in Lake Cowichan and if anyone was going to be coming to collect him.

  I wasn’t going to put him in a position of knowing more about me than I did about him. Adepts might be naturally secretive, but they traded in power. Especially sorcerers, since they wielded their magic through artifacts and written spells. And I wasn’t going to put myself in the position of being collected or contained ever again.

  Even more so because Aiden made me feel … things.

  Brushing a remembrance of the sorcerer bathed in moonlight and mostly naked aside as swiftly as it surfaced, I set the books on the coffee table. Then I was off the couch and peering out the front window quickly enough that Lani Zachary actually squeaked and jumped back from the door when she saw me.

  Then she threw her head back and laughed.

  Because I’d startled her? That was an odd reaction. Wasn’t it?

  Still chuckling, Lani held up her red toolbox and called through the window. “Will you flip her, Emma? Nose out?”

  I had completely forgotten that Lani was dropping by to continue cataloging various parts for the Mustang. The first time she’d tuned the car up, she insisted it was my duty to make sure it was fully restored, with only original parts. And I hadn’t been able to figure out how to demur. I had bought a vintage collectible, after all. But I had done so on a whim, because it was flashy and looked like freedom. Not because I thought it came with any responsibility. But Lani had quickly disabused me of the notion of driving the Mustang simply because I liked the way it felt, or how it handled the curves of a road.

  “I’ll be right out.”

  Still chuckling slightly to herself, Lani turned to lean against the front post, facing the front yard, the orchard, and the barn. The ex-air force tech did that often, as if she didn’t like open spaces at her back.

  Yet the most dangerous being in Lake Cowichan who could possibly attack Lani was currently in the house behind her. Me.

  I grabbed my cardigan and the car keys. Normally I would have backed the car into the barn knowing that Lani was coming, because she preferred natural lighting if she could get it. But bringing the sorcerer home had made me forgetful. That was annoying.

  I joined Lani on the patio. Her hazel-eyed gaze dropped to my bare feet with a grin, but she pushed off the post and sauntered across the yard toward the barn without a word.

  The wide front doors were already open, which was typical when Christopher was gardening, so he could come and go easily.

  As we drew near, a blue nose poked up from the back seat of the Mustang, sniffing the air. The nose was followed by pointed ears and sardonic black eyes.

  Paisley had been sleeping in the back of the car. Exactly where she wasn’t supposed to be.

  “Out,” I said, crossing around to hold open the driver’s side door.

  Paisley rose, taking her time to stretch. Then she made a production of yawning, flashing single rows of teeth for Lani’s benefit.

  “Don’t make me repeat myself,” I said.

  Paisley grumbled, her look telling me she was considering walking over the trunk.

  I shook my head at her. Paisley was entirely capable of keeping her claws from damaging the paint, but Lani would have a fit.

  Grumbling some more, Paisley exited through the driver’s side door, slinking around the side and back of the car. Then she circled around, past Lani, climbing the stairs up to the loft. Heading for Aiden’s bed.
/>
  No. The bed in the suite.

  It didn’t belong to the sorcerer.

  “Jesus,” Lani said, watching Paisley. “I know I say this every time, but it bears repeating. She must have some mastiff in her bloodline.”

  I slid into the driver’s seat and started the car, then carefully pulled it out of the barn, turned, and reversed back in. Lani propped her toolbox on the narrow workbench, heaving open the hood before I even got the car turned off. I made certain that the parking brake was fully engaged, then climbed out.

  She opened the hood all the way, securing it as she propped her phone off to one side of the engine, already peeking delightedly at the mechanics arrayed before her. “I think I have a pretty comprehensive list of internals. I just wanted to double-check a few things, part numbers and such. Whoever you bought this beauty off of kept pretty good care of her.”

  “Okay.”

  “We’ll also have to discuss the tires. You’ve been driving her for a while?”

  That last part was an actual question. Lani most often spoke to herself while she was mesmerized with the Mustang’s engine. I hesitated long enough in answering that she actually looked at me.

  “Emma?”

  “I drive … occasionally. Around the lake … and …”

  Lani snorted. “I wasn’t asking for an accounting of your whereabouts, Emma. You bought the car about three years ago, right?”

  I nodded, feeling stupid for not understanding her initial question. I’d purchased the car on a whim, literally after cashing the cheque from my third contract job, in the fall of 2015.

  “And you drove it into town?” Lani grinned. According to her, Christopher’s and my arrival in Lake Cowichan had caused a bit of a stir. More so because we then hadn’t left the property for three months afterward. “From?”

  “From?”

  “Did you get the car shipped into Vancouver?”

  “No.” I cleared my throat. This was regular conversation. I was acting like an idiot, but I couldn’t shake the feeling, could never shake the feeling, that anything I said, anything I admitted to, would be used against me. That all of it would somehow be transmitted to the Collective. “I bought it in Southern California. We drove up and down the coast for … a while.”