“Emma?” Aiden asked again, though he didn’t try to touch me.
“I’m … I’m …” The Hallowed slithered through my mind in a slow, soothing caress. “We … we are so … powerful.”
Ignoring the sorcerer, we stepped toward the barrier sealing the idol within.
Pentagram.
The sorcerer didn’t think like a witch, so his spell wasn’t anchored deep enough to prevent … leakage.
We slammed our hands forward, clawing and tearing at the power that dared stand against us. Our skin seared. Pain streaked through our senses, but we shoved it away.
We.
Were.
Just.
That.
Powerful.
Shouting erupted behind us. Multiple voices. Other magic welled. We could smell it, taste it.
It was divine.
As we were divine.
The barrier crumbled at our assault. We stepped within, reaching for the idol. Our hands … our fingers … our beautiful limbs were … reddened and stiff.
Bleeding.
Badly hurt.
We picked up the idol.
Power pummeled against us. Exploding against our strong body, causing us to stumble. Different tenors of energy. Multiple assaults from multiple directions.
Trying to stop you.
Us.
Trying to stop … us.
But we would be unstoppable.
We raised the idol over us, over our … head. Then we turned toward the sorcerers and witches who dared keep us from our truth, from ourselves.
They had collected behind us in a half circle as we’d retrieved the idol. The elder in the center, black lightning erupting from his hands. Two others …
Aiden and Isa.
… stood on either side. One of the baby witches on the ground behind them. Awake, her hand stretched before her, but not yet on her feet.
Ocean.
Ocean was alive.
Soon, all would be kneeling.
More energy bloomed behind us. We didn’t have to turn to look, because our body, our mind, could sense magic — sorcerer and witch.
Khalid and Sky. What about Grosvenor? And … Cerise?
The elder sorcerer unleashed his spell. It streaked across the carpet — grass — toward us. But we pulled power to us at the same time. All the essence still remaining in the idol, all the power still buried in the earth around us from the witch’s spell.
We dropped our hand, palm out. The spell hit us.
We absorbed it.
Absorbed it?
Claimed it.
Lightning ran through our veins, chasing pain throughout our system. The power was ours.
All the power was ours.
Because we were the Hallowed.
We tossed the useless idol to the side.
We flung out our arms.
And we smiled.
We smiled and smiled, and unleashed our power. We latched onto every single magical being in the clearing with us, and we pulled their magic from them.
Without touching them?
They screamed, falling to their knees.
Pain. Pain. Pain.
We felt their pain. Their terror. Their fear. Some of them fought. Some were already too weak to fight.
And we felt it all.
It was …
… terrible.
The empathy? I laughed. You can’t have me without the empathy. The Hallowed snarled in my mind, raking mental claws through my thoughts, through my defiant laughter.
The empathy.
We would adjust.
We pulled back our energy, gathered our power.
We …
Were …
So …
Powerful.
Unstoppable.
We smiled at the people panting and moaning in the clearing. The three sorcerers slowly gained their feet.
Kader. Isa. And Aiden.
We smiled.
We could be … benevolent. We could care for our people. Because we were the Hallowed. We were worshipped. Exalted.
We unhinged our mouth, pushing breath through our throat, remembering what it was to talk.
“We are the Hallowed. You will bow before our might. Our strength. Our beauty. You will love us.”
No. No. No.
We took the power embedded in our bones, in our every cell, and we reached out with it … gently. We harnessed the empathy. We used it.
We caressed and cajoled.
We promised comfort and warmth.
We radiated our power. It flooded the clearing, then the orchard, in undulating waves that licked against the property boundary before receding.
We were breathtaking. Overwhelming. We were all. “We are the Hallowed.”
The sorcerers and witches bowed, though the coven witch remained inert. A husk of her former self. Before we were whole, when we were still trapped, we had beguiled the Myers witch into doing our bidding. Whispering tantalizing bits of our power through pathways already rendered susceptible by the sorcerer many decades before.
Him, we knew the moment she fed the first taste of his power to us. Him, we craved.
And through him, we thought to once again walk the earth.
But then we saw our other half. Felt her, tasted her. So we watched. Waiting. Testing. Then hatching a plan in the witch’s mind. More difficult prey needed more tantalizing. More difficult prey needed more power to entice. So we planned. We used the witch as bait. Finally, our second half took the witch’s magic, and …
We …
Were …
So …
Powerful.
Bait? The entire spell? All the … family drama?
Bait. But look how perfect we were together.
We swept our arms forward, encompassing our worshippers. From them, we drew sustenance. With all our power combined, we would claim this part of the world. We would feed and feed ourselves. And when finally satiated, we would feed the others. This body made that possible. This strength. This power.
We had been so hungry, compressed into such a tiny fraction of ourselves. But once well fed, we would rise up.
The nine would regret restricting us. The nine would regret making us small, breaking us. The nine would tremble at what we would become. With this body. This strength. This power.
The nine? The nine … who?
Let them come. Soon … soon … we would drain the nine, one by one. But first, look at how our worshipers loved us.
We smiled.
The witches and the sorcerers had gathered before us. Their stilted steps had smoothed out as we laced power around them, embracing them. The youngest kneeled first, then most of the others. Peaceful, loving gazes fixed to us.
They adored us. Idolized us.
They would give us everything we asked for, everything we needed, even if it cost them their own lives. They knew, held suspended within our power, that we were benevolent. Loving. They understood that our power must be unleashed to bring that same love to everyone, everywhere.
The elder sorcerer resisted our call the longest. We reached out to him specifically, sending a murmured promise to him along a tendril of power, caressing his cheek, connecting us.
He settled onto his knees, face up, and turned to us. Ours.
All of them.
Ours.
We reached for their power again, for their magic, and they gave it to us willingly. We pulled and pulled, harvesting it for ourselves, feeding our body, fortifying our strength.
We knew … we knew we had only so much time before the nine arrived. We needed all the magic before then. We needed to solidify our hold on these vessels and ourselves.
The more magic we held, the more we were bound together. Never to be pulled asunder again.
Except …
One of the dark-haired sorcerers straightened …
His feet were bare in the grass. He strode toward us, head bowed reverently. He’d been hurt earlier. Half-healed slashes marred hi
s face, neck, and arms.
His magic had been delicious. But the Myers witch had refused to let us drink as deeply as we had wanted.
You. Not me. I would never —
The sorcerer walked through our glorious net unimpeded. He brushed away our beguiling limbs of power as he bent to pick up the cracked idol.
What need did he have of the idol?
To contain us?
Hurt us?
We lashed out with —
No! I curled my fingers into fists. Unable to pull my arms back, I could at least stop myself —
Us.
We.
We were the Hallowed.
The sorcerer looked at us then, meeting our gaze when he should have been on his knees like the others. His eyes blazed with a fierceness that was breathtaking. He was … we could feel him, his emotions … so clearly. As if they were our own.
Aiden.
Aiden.
Aiden was terrified and … sad. Aiden was resisting … resistant, immune to … me … us.
Aiden was immune to the Hallowed.
A heady pride swept through me. All this time he’d thought … he’d been concerned about being addicted to my power. He had worked on the refraction rune for months, yet here he was. No runes, standing before me, standing in the maelstrom of my power personified, and —
We realized he was beautiful. Almost as beautiful as we were. We realized that we loved him. Differently from how we felt about the others, who were devoted to us but unworthy.
He was ours.
Our match.
“Emma,” Aiden whispered, still walking through the flood of our power. “Emma. Love.”
We allowed him to approach. We invited him closer and closer, gently allowing our hands to settle on his shoulders, caressing him with our power, our majesty.
The unplundered depths of his power beckoned to us, teasing from within his eyes. We blinked and leaned a little closer.
He pressed the idol against our chest.
It was cold.
Nasty.
We raised our hand to shove it away. To push him. To make him —
No!
No.
Not Aiden.
Never Aiden.
We paused.
We … struggled … drawing in some of our power to fortify our connection, to cement ourselves within. To quell ourselves.
To placate ourselves.
Then we … capitulated.
We agreed to not hurt the sorcerer —
Aiden.
We looked into the sorcerer’s eyes again. We would not hurt Aiden. His magic was divine, delectable. We were more — much, much more — than he, but we wouldn’t hurt him —
Aiden.
We wouldn’t hurt him to get to his power. It was ours already.
He already belongs to us, I whispered. So we don’t need to make him kneel or push him away.
We stepped closer instead. The cracked metal of the idol dug into our skin as we wrapped our hand around his head, slipping our fingers through his thick, silky hair. A sensation both familiar and utterly new at once.
We laughed.
We liked feeling.
We liked feeling with this body especially.
Aiden.
His lips brushed ours. Magic undulated between us. We breathed him in, sipping the power that he had offered us freely.
He bit our lower lip.
Playfully?
We drew away, watching him.
Biting could mean many things. We might have misjudged his intentions …
He smiled, wickedly. So deliciously wicked.
We laughed, touching his face. Feeling the tiny spikes on his cheeks and jaw, rough against our skin.
Stubble. Aiden hadn’t shaved that morning, hadn’t put on his suit. And that meant something … indicated something. But I … I …
The sorcerer ran his fingers down our other arm, capturing our hand and then raising it to his lips. He kissed our palm, sending delightful shivers across our skin. We liked that feeling. We wanted more. So we watched, waiting to see what else he would do, what other gifts he would give us.
He pressed our hand on the side of the urn, keeping his hand over ours. His fingers wove between our fingers, so we were both touching the metal.
We frowned.
We didn’t understand the game.
We didn’t like to play. We didn’t like being played with, especially when we didn’t know the rules.
Holding the urn pressed between our chests, the sorcerer tugged our fingers from his hair, kissed our palm, then placed our hand on the other side of the urn.
We … growled. But the sound was odd to our ears. Not the right response in our new body. We needed to speak more words. But we couldn’t find the —
The sorcerer placed his other hand over ours, pressing our flesh into the rounded sides of the idol. All of our fingers touching the cold metal now, the urn still digging against our upper ribcage.
“Emma,” he said again.
Our name.
My name.
Ours.
No. You are the Hallowed. I’m Emma.
“We are the Hallowed!” we cried. We clamped onto the power inside us. We tried to burrow in deeper. “We are powerful. Beautiful. The world will tremble at our step. They will bend. Kneel.”
Power lashed out from us as we fought ourselves again. That wild energy buffeted Aiden, flooding the clearing, then the property in another wide wave. Splashing against the boundary line, then rolling back to us.
We gnashed our teeth. We howled again. Lashing out, again and again, but never gaining hold.
The kneeling witches and sorcerers started chanting again. Over and over.
“The Hallowed. The Hallowed.”
I could understand the language now.
Calling us. Worshiping us. But their emotions flooded back to us, that fear and pain writhing over us.
We did not like that.
We didn’t like to feel pain, discomfort.
We didn’t like being made to feel … scared.
We withdrew into our body, into our strength. We tried to burrow deeper. But there was a wall there, an impassible wall of smooth, impenetrable stone.
Why fight us at all? Together, we were magnificent. Why not open the barrier? Allow all of us passage? A home, a nesting place.
We snarled at the sorcerer still standing before us, still holding our hands to the urn though we didn’t want to touch it at all. “Why do you not bow?” we asked. “Why do you not love us? Worship us?”
Aiden laughed, low and dark. The fresh onslaught of his emotions overrode the lingering residual of the others, transmitted to our skin and somehow into our minds.
We did not like that connection. We did not understand it. How it was even possible.
No. You don’t understand it.
Aiden pressed his hands over ours with such force that our bones ached, and his worry and concern gave way to adoration and pure happiness. “I already worship you, Emma. Every time I catch sight of you unexpectedly, my heart … hitches. Every time you smile at me, or laugh, I feel like I could be lost with you forever and never notice. Every time I’m inside you, I only want to be deeper, embedded into your soul.”
“Aiden …” I whispered.
“Don’t leave me, love.” He kissed me gently. “Put the Hallowed back in the urn.”
No! We will not go back.
“All the power?” I asked Aiden.
“Yes,” he said. “You don’t need it. You don’t really want it, do you?”
But we … we together … “We could rule the world.”
He nodded. “Yes, we could. But we don’t want to. We want our home, our family.”
We.
We.
Aiden.
Opal.
Christopher.
Paisley.
And me.
That was my ‘we.’
“Yes,” I said.
I reached for all
the foreign energy still seeping into me from the idol, not all of it anchored yet. I traced that magic — the Hallowed — until I found it all, spread through my system, weaving through my veins, drilling into my bones.
I wasn’t so easily beguiled.
I wasn’t so easily broken.
I grabbed hold of that energy, as I would have if I were draining another Adept.
And I pulled.
The Hallowed fought back.
A fierce tide of anger — of betrayal — surged through me. Claws slashed at me, rending my very soul when they couldn’t hook into flesh and bone.
But my soul was already in tatters.
And my heart …
I bit down on the pain, refusing to give it voice. I held Aiden’s gaze, even as my own eyes burned.
My heart was already impenetrable.
“Emma?”
“I’m … holding … it …” I gasped. “I can hold.”
Aiden nodded, then he began chanting, “The Hallowed. The Hallowed.”
I trembled as the entity trying to take root in me writhed and howled.
He calls us, it whispered. He wants us. We. We together …
“Aiden,” I cried. “That’s not … don’t feed it.”
“Listen, Emma,” Aiden murmured. “Listen to the magic.”
I shook my head, dismayed. I wasn’t going to be able to hold the Hallowed much longer. I didn’t know how to put it back in the urn. “I can’t fucking hear magic, sorcerer!” I snapped.
He laughed, deep and earnest. But he kept chanting.
“The Hallowed. The Hallowed.”
The entity … shifted, peering through my eyes for a moment, watching Aiden. Looking to strike. Through me.
He calls me, it whispered.
Then Kader was beside us. And Isa. And Sky. Cerise, Ocean, Khalid, and Grosvenor were all still down, their magic muted, drained. Kader, Isa, and Sky pressed their hands over Aiden’s and mine. They took up Aiden’s chant.
Their voices were rough, gazes sharp, words deliberate.
It was a spell.
A casting of pure intent.
All of them were focused on one thing — retrieving the Hallowed.
Their magic was in my reach, dancing over the back of my hands and arms.
They were feeding me a spell, and cloaking it in the same words that had fed the Hallowed, released the Hallowed, and been demanded by the Hallowed.
I grabbed the magic dancing on my skin. From Aiden. From Kader. From Isa, and Sky. I tangled their power, their intent, around the entity.
It fought.
Idols and Enemies (Amplifier 4) Page 29
