Bonds and Broken Dreams (Amplifier 2)

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

“I’m your commanding officer. You will obey a direct order from me.”

  She flashed her teeth at me.

  “Paisley.”

  The demon dog wrapped her tentacles around my fingers and palm again, grumbling under her breath. Magic seared into my skin.

  I gasped.

  Paisley’s hold loosened.

  “No. You know how much you need to take, so take it. Then wait.”

  Paisley’s grip tightened. Her magic slashed through my skin. Then she started draining my blood.

  I kept my gaze on her steadily, even after I grew lightheaded enough that I had to lay my head down on my arm.

  Then I slept.

  Isa Azar was crouched over my extended arm when I woke, eyeing the still-weeping burns on my fingers, wrists, and hand. He turned his gaze to Paisley, not realizing that I’d woken and was watching him. My entire body felt numb, weakened. As expected after feeding blood to a demon-hybrid dog, as well as being in continual contact with the nullifying cage.

  I wiggled my fingers, then flexed, drawing Isa’s attention.

  “This is … interesting …” he mused, raising an eyebrow.

  I pulled my arm back through the bars, cradling it on my chest. Every nerve ending in my body alternately tingled, then felt as though it was bursting into flame. “I’m glad you’re here, Isa,” I whispered.

  Surprise flashed across his features — he looked so much like Aiden, yet nothing like him at all. “Why is that, Emma?”

  “I’m going to need your magic.”

  He frowned.

  I laughed.

  Isa carefully blanked his expression. “I can’t keep you here much longer, amplifier.”

  “Oh yes? So if I don’t sign your contract, I’ll have to be put down?”

  “Regrettably.”

  I laughed quietly, stretching out my legs one at a time. Flexing my toes, then slowly bending my knees. I was feeling lighter, more like myself. My immunity — stolen from many Adepts over many, many years — was finally kicking in. “You’ve made four mistakes so far.”

  The sorcerer snorted, settling back on his heels just out of my reach. “I see. Are you going to enlighten me before you die?”

  I gurgled out a laugh. “Before you die. Yes. It seems to be a running motif for me these days. I never used to be so chatty. But then, when you have a team like the Five with you, there’s no need to do any stalling.”

  Isa’s shoulders stiffened, and he glanced toward the sealed door. “I’m all ears.”

  “True. Aiden is much more visually appealing.”

  He sneered.

  I laughed again, slowly feeling more and more like myself. I bent my arms at the elbow, clenching and unclenching my fists, warming up my muscles. “Mistake number one. Using cages built by my blood brother, my warrior kin.”

  “I have no idea what you mean.”

  “You’re about to find out.”

  Isa snorted.

  I rolled over onto my side, then settled back into a crouched position. Muscles stretching, loosening. “Mistake number two. Assuming Paisley is magic.”

  “The dog? Clearly she’s magical.”

  “Mistake number three. Assuming the cages would nullify my magic … once that magic was fed to Paisley.”

  The first hint of concern flittered across Isa’s face. He dropped his gaze to my arm. There was no way to conceal the fact that I was healing. Rapidly. Being naked did have some disadvantages when one was stalling for time.

  “And mistake number four?” Isa asked archly.

  Gathering all my strength, I moved, slamming my hands against the cage bars. Isa flinched. But I didn’t reach for him this time.

  This time, I grabbed the bars. The nullifying magic seared into my skin.

  “You assumed I was just an amplifier.”

  Paisley’s tentacles snaked out, winding around Isa and around the bars I was already holding. The sorcerer flung himself to the side. Then, fueled by my blood and with my help, Paisley tore the door from my cage, slamming it sideways into the sorcerer.

  I lunged forward, stumbling and falling to my knees as I cleared the numbing influence of the cage. Magic boiled out from Isa, then the cage door reversed course, slamming into me and pinning me against the far wall.

  Isa staggered to his feet, hand held toward me, muttering under his breath.

  “Come a little closer, sorcerer.” I smiled.

  The steel against my chest pressed harder, constricting my breathing. I wrapped my hands around two of the bars and began pushing back, fighting the onslaught of magic that Isa was throwing at me.

  Surprise flickered across his face. He pulled his right hand back, still muttering. A second well of dark-blue magic formed in his open palm.

  Having created some room to move, I slid sideways along the wall, toward Paisley’s cage. Isa mimicked my movement, going for the door.

  His hold on the cage door, and therefore on me, was weakening. But I really didn’t want to take the hit of whatever spell he was building in his right hand.

  I reached toward Paisley’s cage, straining against the magic still trying to pin me in place. I brushed my fingers across the top edge — Ruwa had thoughtfully already shown me how to unlock the cages.

  Isa dropped the magic holding me in place. I fell forward, still holding the cage door, but managed to finish the unlocking sequence.

  Isa threw the orb of energy he’d called forth directly at me.

  Paisley lunged out of her cage, swallowing the magic whole. She went down, crashing into the other two cages.

  Isa darted for the door, tearing through the sealing spell and fleeing.

  I let him go, crawling over to Paisley instead. She made it to her feet, dropped open her mouth, and let out a terrible roar, releasing the spell she’d swallowed. The magic slammed through the doorway, shredding through the walls on both sides of the hall.

  “Wow,” I said, laying my hand on Paisley’s back. “That might have seriously hurt. Thank you.”

  She snuffled and snorted, but let me scratch her behind the ears.

  “We need to find Opal.”

  She headed toward the door without further encouragement. I paused to scoop up the pen where it had been knocked against the baseboard by the door.

  I had a promise to keep, after all.

  Then I stepped into the hallway.

  I’d been in the Grants’ house once before, having snuck in to steal some of Tyler’s hair for the perimeter spell Christopher had set up for me at Hannah Stewart’s apartment and store. The hallway looked as I remembered it. Except for the large hole Paisley’s swallowed spell had torn through the wall into the main bathroom. Another doorway sat open at the far end of the corridor to my left, leading to the master bedroom. To my right, stairs led down to the main floor. Threadbare beige carpet spread underfoot. Empty picture hangers marked the graying walls.

  It was the sorcerer stepping up to the top of the stairs who gave me pause.

  Aiden.

  Paisley snarfled happily, sliding past me through the doorway. I stopped her with a hand on her back. She looked up at me questioningly.

  “Emma?” Aiden asked, raising both of his hands. “You’re okay, then. That’s a relief. When Isa contacted me … Emma? Everything okay?”

  Aiden. My heart had done that odd, painful, twisty thing upon seeing the sorcerer. But I was certain that my heart could be fooled just as easily as my eyes. Aiden Myers in all his glory — breathtaking, blindingly blue eyes, a hint of stubble further defining his jaw, pristinely pressed suit, white dress shirt with the top two buttons undone.

  Aiden took off his suit jacket, taking another step toward me. He offered the jacket to me, to cover my naked body. He was wearing rune-scribed platinum and gold rings on seven of his fingers. They appeared to be the ones that Isa had returned to him.

  I smiled.

  An answering smile spread across his face.

  “The facial hair is a nice touch,” I said. “But you
forgot the copper rings. And that Aiden doesn’t wear the suit if he doesn’t have to.”

  Aiden paused, eyeing me warily. “The suit is layered with protection spells, Emma. I wouldn’t face Isa without it. And copper doesn’t hold magic as thoroughly as gold and platinum.”

  I frowned. That was utterly reasonable. And I hadn’t gotten a good look at the rings Isa had returned to Aiden in the diner, so I couldn’t tell if the ones worn by the Aiden standing before me were legitimate.

  The tenor of his magic was all Aiden.

  I wanted it to be Aiden standing at the end of the hall.

  Except I didn’t need to be rescued.

  Magic shifted — sorcerer magic by its tenor — under my feet. Someone was casting a massive spell on the ground floor.

  “We need to go, Emma.”

  “Where’s the bat?”

  Aiden hesitated for a breath, then said, “Emma, be realistic. I couldn’t bring a weapon into the house. I made a deal with Isa. Let’s go.”

  I threw the pen. It was hefty, well weighted for throwing. I tossed it like it was a small sharp knife.

  Aiden’s reaction was slightly delayed. As expected. I did move faster than him. He dropped his suit jacket, twisting away.

  I closed the space between us, even before the pen embedded into the drywall behind his right shoulder. I pressed my hands to his face, already taking his magic for my own. Pulling it from him harshly. He gasped, grabbing for my arms — which only gave me more skin contact to work with.

  Panic, then anger, roared through the instant connection my empathy triggered between us.

  “The problem with your little shapeshifting routine, Ruwa,” I said, “is that apparently you can’t countercast quickly when wearing someone else’s face.”

  The false Aiden fell to his knees, gasping in pain. His face rippled under my hands, skin darkening and smoothing. I pulled more and more magic from the sorcerer, taking it for my own, shaking off the last of the residual weakness from being in the nullifying cage.

  Paisley snarled as she prowled past me, checking the other rooms along the hall.

  “Emma …” Ruwa’s face settled, her silky hair lengthening over my fingers to spill down her back. She gasped, dark brown eyes rolling up in her head. “I needed your help.”

  “You mixed me up with someone who cared, sorcerer,” I said.

  Then the tenor of her magic shifted under my hands — bringing with it a feeling of wrongness. A revulsion.

  I instinctively pulled away, breaking her weak hold on my arms in the same motion. She collapsed at my feet, hitting her head on the carpet without trying to break her fall.

  The discordant magic I’d inadvertently collected from her writhed across my hands and forearms, unabsorbed. I flicked my hands, trying to shake it off. It clung to me, so I ignored it instead. Eventually, it would dissipate. I had absolutely no idea what the hell Ruwa had done to be carrying such power, but it was obviously tied to her shapeshifting abilities.

  Well, her former shapeshifting abilities. Ruwa was dead. Not breathing, drained of magic, lifeless eyes staring sightlessly upward. There was no hint of red in them anymore.

  Dying was one way to dissolve the bond between her and Isa. Though it seemed unlikely that either sorcerer would thank me for it.

  Paisley prowled back into the hall, pausing at the top of the stairs and fixing her red-orbed eyes on me.

  “Empty?” I asked, confirming what I could already feel. No one with magic in their blood was currently on the top floor of the house.

  Paisley turned to skulk down the stairs, which was answer enough. I scooped up the suit jacket Ruwa had dropped, pulling it on and securing both buttons. It brushed against my upper thighs, and the lapels opened all the way down to my lower rib cage, so it didn’t cover much skin. But if it was coated in protection spells, as Aiden’s real suit jacket should have been, it might mitigate some of the hits I was about to take from the sorcerer lurking downstairs.

  Isa Azar. Casting some spell that roiled under my bare feet, even through the carpet in the hall. Oily magic that stank of burnt, wet wood. A more intense version of the magic that had clung to the house after it had been invaded by Silver Pine’s greater demon.

  I couldn’t feel any other magic, meaning that Opal and Jenni might not be in the house at all. Or they might both be dead.

  I yanked the pen out of the drywall, tucking it into the pocket of the suit jacket. Then I rolled the sleeves up my forearms as I slowly descended into a darkness that had apparently swallowed the ground floor of the house. I kept one shoulder against the wall as I turned the corner of the stairs, so as to not be such an obvious target. Paisley was already somewhere ahead of me.

  The stink of the magic Isa was calling forth — or perhaps simply reinforcing — became almost suffocating as I stepped off carpet and onto hardwood, moving into the lower hall completely blind.

  Thankfully, I already knew the basic layout of the house. The entrance should have been about ten or twelve paces directly in front of me, with the living room off to the right and the dining room to the left. I stepped back, keeping my shoulder against the wall, heading for the kitchen instead.

  That would be the most likely place to find weapons, other than the barn or garage. Despite letting Ruwa lead him around, Isa Azar was no idiot. And he was powerful. It was going to be a fight to lay hands on him, to finish him.

  But oddly, I realized that Opal and Jenni were my first priorities. There was no way Isa could escape now, nowhere he could go, without my being able to find him. I had no need to rush to extract revenge, even if doing so brought Kader Azar back into my life.

  Perhaps the sorcerer Azar needed to face what he’d created.

  I quashed my thoughts of vengeance, focusing on the present. Revenge was a game for Fish or Zans, anyway. I preferred to operate in the present.

  I found two large knives in the kitchen. They weren’t equally weighted, and their balance for throwing was completely off, but they would do. Paisley found me as I was blindly going through kitchen drawers, twining one of her tentacles around my ankle as if reassuring herself of my presence. As if she’d lost me in the suffocating darkness that had seemingly swamped the entire main floor. I moved blindly into what I knew to be the eating area off the kitchen, keeping my hip against the L-shaped counter until my fingertips brushed against glass.

  I pressed my nose against the sliding doors, blinking but still unable to see outside. No snow, no stars. Nothing.

  A feeling of dread firmly settled into my stomach that I wasn’t able to fully ignore. I had no idea what sort of spell the sorcerers had managed to encase the house in. But this level of magic took a lot of power to fuel.

  The kind of power accessed through blood sacrifices.

  I entered the dining room from the kitchen entrance, a soft orange glow greeting me as I cleared the doorway. Candles. Set at the five corners of a pentagram scorched into the hardwood floor. The dining room table and chairs were missing.

  I paused, letting my eyes adjust to the change in light level. My stomach churned at the condition of the body contained within the pentagram, fueling whatever spell was tied to it. I’d seen a lot of gruesome things in my life. I’d had a lot of defensive magic thrown at me when I went after targets for the Collective. But, even after taking a few more steps into the room, I couldn’t fully assess what sort of dark magic I was looking at.

  A body that had once belonged to Peter Grant had been flayed from the neck down, intestines and entrails wrenched forth and deliberately laid out in some sort of webbed design. Those bloody organs and tissues were connected to the five points of the pentagram. Deep shadows of magic stretched out from each point, shooting across the floor and up the walls as if they connected to something beyond the room, beyond the house. But what that might have been, I didn’t know.

  A noise drew my attention to the far right. Opal was pinned in the corner, apparently trapped by the exterior lines of the spell. I coul
d distinguish the witch in the low light only by the blue magic highlighting her eyes, and the dimmer pools in each of her palms.

  She didn’t react to my presence. Didn’t look my way even as I stepped forward, then hesitated at the edge of one of the shadowed lines bisecting the floor between me and the young witch.

  Paisley sidled up beside me, leaning in to sniff the dark magic that cut through the room, keeping us from crossing to Opal. The demon dog coughed, then huffed, seemingly agreeing with my assessment. Peter Grant was very dead, but the magic felt active. I glanced over at the corpse. I could try disrupting the spell. Except I had no idea what it was doing, other than cloaking the entire ground floor of the house in some sort of seething darkness.

  A cold shiver ran through me. I’d seen magic like this before, though on a much smaller scale. Magic that felt oily and slick. Magic that had also made Paisley cough. Power she’d feared instinctively as a puppy.

  Silver Pine had once blocked a stairwell in an already heavily fortified underground compound with what had appeared to be a pocket of the demon dimension. I hadn’t stopped to examine the spell then, nor attempted to walk through it. But this felt awfully similar — in a completely overwhelming way.

  I shook my head, quashing the terror that threatened to distract me from my task. I quietly backtracked to the hall that bisected the house. I would grab Opal through the other doorway. That way, if doing so disrupted the spell, we’d be closer to the exit.

  Once again tracing the wall with my shoulder so I could keep a knife in both hands, I crossed through the house, expecting Isa to appear out of the darkness at any moment. He didn’t. Which wasn’t completely unexpected. He was likely just as smothered by the black magic choking all the air out of the house as I was.

  If I were Isa Azar, I would have already fled the house. Fled the property. That wouldn’t explain Ruwa’s final attempt to quell me by wearing Aiden’s form. But the two sorcerers might have been working at cross purposes, with Isa only unwittingly coming along on Ruwa’s attempt to … do what? Have me break the binding spell that Isa held on her?