“No. But I can promise you a good death.”
Magic shifted around the doorframe. I could see but not feel it. Then the door opened, flooding the room with light. I blinked rapidly.
Ruwa, once again swathed in layers of silk, sashayed in.
I flicked a glance Paisley’s way. She’d reverted to her pit bull aspect and was currently pretending to be unconscious. Clever puppy.
Isa Azar then stepped into the open doorway, hands stuffed into the pockets of his suit pants, bunching up the sides of the jacket. He cast his gaze across all three cages, then finally settled on me. “This wasn’t the agreement.”
He wasn’t talking to me.
Ruwa paused, pivoting back to look at Isa. “So you keep saying.” She stood within reach of my cage, but I was biding my time.
Isa stepped into the bedroom. “I had Aiden. Even if not readily agreeing with me, then willing at least to open a discussion.”
“And now we have the amplifier. With or without your brother, your father won’t be able to stand against us now.”
I started laughing. “Kadar Azar has the worst luck in family members.”
Ruwa whirled around, snarling at me. “What do you know about it? You have no idea what he’s done to either of us!”
“I have an idea it’s nothing compared to what he’s done to me.”
Ruwa glanced back at Isa. “What’s she talking about?”
Isa shrugged.
“God, I hated you from the moment I stepped foot in this shithole of a town.” Ruwa slammed her hand down on the corner of the cage. I’d been waiting for her to trigger the rune that I knew was built into the cage’s design, but which I couldn’t see from my vantage point.
Magic surged through the bars, collecting under my feet.
As I’d expected.
These cages had been constructed by Daniel. My blood-bonded brother in arms. I knew that Fish had taken the cages Silver Pine had used with him when he left Lake Cowichan, and the presence of a third cage confirmed that these were duplicates. But it was an easy guess that they functioned exactly the same way.
“This is going to hurt,” Ruwa said, peering down at me. The red haze of her magic clung to her eyes.
“You more than me.”
Power surged through me, searing my every sense, every nerve, from my toes up to my spine — where it encountered the blood tattoo embedded into my T1 vertebra.
Daniel’s tattoo. The anchor for his power. The place where that power became mine to claim, to gather. And eventually to use.
I lunged forward, grabbing the bars of the cage for support, using the nullifying power coating them to numb the pain streaking through my body.
Ruwa flinched, stumbling back. Her hand fell away from the rune.
I started laughing again, racked with agony. Struggling to contain, if not control, all the power that had been pumped into me. My power. Passively collected by the cage, then turned against me.
I’d once asked Daniel if he’d built a back door into the cages Silver Pine bought from him. The cage she tried to use against Christopher. He hadn’t — except he had. Because the black witch hadn’t known that Daniel’s magic didn’t work against any of the Five. Not the same way as it did against anyone else.
So with Daniel’s blood tattooed under my skin, his magic bonded to my T1 vertebra, I was the back door. And Ruwa had just given me a massive boost of the power that had been collected from me the entire time I’d been in the cage. My already formidable power, doubled now.
I could feel foam at the corners of my mouth. As the magic ebbed under my feet, I loosened my hands from the bars. I had to peel my numbed fingers away from the magic-coated steel.
Ruwa and Isa were both staring at me in unabashed horror.
Still fighting residual convulsions, I settled back in my crouched position at the center of the cage. Then I pinned my gaze to the sorcerers.
“Out,” Isa barked.
Ruwa flinched, then her body jerked as she fought the compulsion binding that forced her to obey Isa’s command. She smoothed her gait, striding past the other sorcerer with her head held high.
Isa kept his gaze on me, steady. “I assume you’ll try to kill me if I let you out of that cage? Emma?”
I smiled.
He grimaced, reaching for the door handle as he backed up. “We’ll work this out. A contract will be written up.”
“Sure …” My words were slurred. “Just give me a pen. I can’t remember the last time I killed a sorcerer with a pen.” Then I cackled.
Isa shut the door. Magic flooded through the frame, sealing us within.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jenni Raymond snarled. “You’re insane.”
“Who would you rather be caged up with?” I asked flippantly, laying my head forward on my bent knees. I needed to sleep to shake off the residual of the feedback spell.
“What did he mean by contract?”
“He’ll free us if we sign … in blood … that we won’t kill him.”
“That … that’s good, isn’t it? That means Aiden’s brother wasn’t in on it. Kidnapping us.”
“No. It means he’s a sneaky bastard, trying to bind us to an agreement that he intends to twist beyond its obvious parameters. It’ll be a backward binding, especially if Ruwa is the one drafting the contract. She’s supposed to be a specialist.”
Jenni growled under her breath. “So that scene, the bit they did when they opened the door, was just for our benefit?”
“Possibly. Shut up now. I need to sleep for a bit.”
“You are such an asshole.”
“I know.”
Isa Azar stepped back into the makeshift prison room quickly enough that I was certain he’d already had the contracts he now carried drawn up. I had managed to sleep for maybe ten minutes. Not enough to take full advantage of the game the sorcerer was about to try to play with me. But the surge of magic I’d gained from Ruwa’s attempt to torture me had settled.
Barely glancing at the cages that held Jenni and Paisley, Isa Azar crouched down in front of my cage. I ignored him, keeping my gaze on the open doorway and the hallway beyond. I couldn’t see Ruwa, nor could I feel any magic outside the cage. But keeping count of how many people I needed to take down when I carved a path for our escape was always a solid plan.
“Emma,” Isa said softly, “I must apologize that you’ve gotten caught up in my feud with my brother —”
“And Opal?”
“Sorry?”
“If I’m simply a pawn to be used against Aiden, why involve the witch? She has no connection to Aiden.”
Isa opened his mouth to speak, then thoughtfully shut it.
I leaned forward on my toes, grinning. “Are you actually being played that badly, Isa Azar?”
“I have the situation well in hand,” he said stiffly.
“It’s one or the other, sorcerer. Either you’ve backed every move Ruwa has made — kidnapping Opal, then Jenni, me, and Paisley. Or she’s dragging you along …” I trailed off, recalling Ruwa’s requests to negotiate with me, and her suggestion that she had attempted to hire me through proper channels.
My inbox had been unusually full lately with unread emails from the recruiter, Karolyn Dunn. I grinned.
“The binding,” I said.
“What binding?” Isa snapped.
“Ruwa needs me to break your binding.”
“Nonsense. It is unbreakable, until her death.”
I stretched out one arm, then the other, judging the distance between the bars and Isa. “What is death when you have the likes of me at your side?”
Isa’s eyes gleamed, which wasn’t the reaction I’d expected. I stared at him. I had no idea what motivated the sorcerer. The easy answer would have been jealousy, envy. But of the two brothers, Isa was the one in the superior position. He was older, which meant he had more training and experience than Aiden. And he was the scion of the Azar cabal.
“You know that your father kno
ws,” I whispered. “When did you put it together? That Kadar Azar set brother against brother when he discovered you helped Silver Pine get her hands on him?”
Isa’s expression turned stony.
“Was it Ruwa who persuaded you to mend ties with Aiden? Telling you that the two of you together would be strong enough to usurp your father?”
“Ridiculous,” Isa snapped. Then he fanned the sheaf of paper in his hand. “Sign these and I let you out of the cage. We can all go our separate ways.”
“It’s too late for that, Isa. And I’m genuinely sorry. I never take pleasure in killing. And I worry that when I kill you, I will hurt Aiden. But your transgressions against me and those under my protection won’t be signed away, not even in blood.”
Isa shook his head, sneering. “I took you for a rational being —”
I lunged forward, thrusting my arm through the steel bars. Slamming my shoulder and chest against the cage, I clawed my fingers into Isa’s suit jacket. Magic numbed me wherever I touched the steel. I ignored it.
Isa threw himself back. His suit pocket tore off in my hand. He fell on his ass, staring at me. Dumbfounded. The individual pages of the contract settled onto the carpeted floor between us.
I pulled back, gripping the bars. “You put me in a cage, Isa Azar. Not even your father was ever stupid enough to do that. I’m going to shred you. Bleed you. I’ll tear the skin from your skeleton and suck the magic out of your bones.”
Fear — actual terror — crawled across his face.
I shuffled back, crouching on the balls of my feet in the center of the cage, ready for the magical hit I was about to take. Absorbing one more blast of my own magic would hopefully be enough to help me override the nullifying power of the cage.
Isa ran his hand down his lapel, smoothing his suit. Then he ran the same hand through his hair, regaining his composure. “I believe there’s been a misunderstanding. I’m not —”
“I no longer care. Your words mean nothing to me. I don’t care if caging me wasn’t your primary intention. I don’t care who your father is, or even who your brother is. No one puts me in a cage. No one attempts to keep me against my will and lives.”
“Emma —”
“Either start the torturing part of our misunderstanding or get out of my line of sight.”
Isa got to his feet, crumpling the contract beneath his polished dress shoes. He smiled at me, mockingly. “There are other ways to bend you to my will, amplifier.”
“Then try them, sorcerer. I cannot be bound. I cannot be contained.” I pinned my gaze to his. “Don’t you know? Your own father made sure of that.”
He frowned. He still didn’t truly know who I was. He must have pieced some bits together, presumably through his association with Silver Pine. But he really had no idea of the truth.
I grinned, somewhat manically. Then I wrapped my arms around my knees, tucking my thighs to my chest for warmth. Conserving energy, keeping my gaze pinned to the sorcerer, knowing he wouldn’t be standing on the other side of the cage for much longer. I laughed darkly.
Isa’s expression settled into that cool detachment that was apparently standard for an Azar sorcerer. Aiden pulled it off more convincingly.
“The mundane weapons quelled you easily enough,” Isa said evenly. “So you can be killed.”
I snorted. “No one is immortal, sorcerer. But it will take someone with much more power, much more commitment than you to do the deed.”
Isa spun on his heel, then marched stiff-backed out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him. Magic sealed its edges.
“Well …” Jenni Raymond drawled from the confines of the cage to my right. “That was intense.”
I frowned. “I was trying to goad him into giving me another blast of the magic stored in the cages.”
“You know that’s insane, right?”
“Do you want out of the cage or not, shifter?”
“I really, really do. Because I really, really need to pee.”
I didn’t answer her. If Isa wasn’t going to trigger the cage, I was going to have to come up with another plan.
I settled my gaze on Paisley, trying to judge the distance between us.
The door slammed open, embedding its knob into the drywall behind it. I involuntarily flinched. I hated not being able to sense magic.
Ruwa strolled into the room, grinning at me. “My turn.”
I tensed. But the sorcerer abruptly turned toward the cage that held Jenni, slamming her hand over the rune embedded in the top right corner. Triggering the feedback torture spell built into the nullifying cage.
It hit the shifter so hard that it appeared to freeze her in time and space for a moment. Then she started screaming.
Ruwa left her hand on the rune and her gaze on me, gauging my reaction.
I simply looked at her, silently promising her a long, lingering death.
Jenni collapsed.
Ruwa frowned, lifting and pressing her hand a few times on the rune. Nothing else happened.
The feedback spell had run out of juice — most likely because Jenni Raymond didn’t have much juice to begin with.
I promised myself that after I got out of the cage, I was going to have a short, nasty conversation with Fish. Building two of these cages for a witch he was sleeping with was bad enough. But apparently building and selling them in volume?
Of course, Fish’s loyalty was to the Five, first and foremost. And since none of us could be held in such a cage for very long, he undoubtedly saw no ethical reason not to make a profit with his magic. Unfortunately, I was about to run out of the time I needed to develop enough of an immunity for my magically fortified strength to return.
Ruwa growled with dissatisfaction. The noise sounded foreign coming out of a human throat — which reminded me that she was still an unknown player, both magically and motivationally. She pressed a series of points on the cage. Deactivating it, I assumed. Then it clicked open.
Jenni Raymond lay motionless behind the steel bars, breathing but unconscious.
Ruwa reached in, dragging the shifter roughly out by her arm. She was too strong. Granted, she could have been accessing magical artifacts hidden under the layers of her silk dresses, or even using amplification runes. But given her shapeshifting abilities, I didn’t think that was the case.
She dropped Jenni on the carpeted floor. “Drained. Useless.”
“What did you think was going to happen?” I asked.
She looked at me, inexplicably grinning. “You’re trying to turn Isa against me.”
I snorted. “You’ve made your own choices.”
Ruwa grimaced. “Indeed I have.” She toed Jenni, sighing. “Now I’ll have to milk the mundanes a little longer.” She eyed me. “Unless you’d like to power up your friend, amplifier? I’m sure she’d appreciate it.”
“She wouldn’t.”
Ruwa eyed me a little longer. Then she gathered the individual papers of Isa’s contract together, placing the pile just within reach of my fingertips. Carefully staying out of that reach as she did so. She pulled a black pen from the pocket of her dress and placed it on the contract. “Sign on the dotted line, amplifier, and you’ll be home in time for tea.” She lifted her gaze to meet mine. “You like tea, don’t you?”
“You think you can own me, sorcerer?” I asked casually.
She smiled. “I already do. You just don’t know it yet.”
“It’s not dotted.”
“What?”
“The line. On the contract. It’s simply a line, not a series of dots.”
“Are you … is that supposed to be a metaphor?”
“No. Just an observation. Also, I’ll need something sharper than a nib.” I nodded toward the pen. “To sign in blood, I’ll need to pierce my skin. A sharp kitchen knife will do.”
I met her gaze steadily — and picked up that red haze over her pupils again. If it was some sort of active magic, I was confused about why I could see it while confined to
the nullifying cage. Though I could see the magic when the seal on the door was triggered, so maybe the cage wasn’t nullifying all my senses. Still, I had no idea what type of power Ruwa was accessing.
“You want me to give you a knife?” she asked mockingly.
“You want me to sign the contract in blood, yes? This is all just some big power play, isn’t it?”
She narrowed her eyes.
“You really didn’t think it through, did you?” I said quietly. “Didn’t do your homework. How could you have witnessed any part of the incident in San Francisco and still think you could succeed at this?”
“I’ve succeeded already,” she said archly. “I neutralized the clairvoyant, so he couldn’t come to your rescue. Then I put you and the dog in nullifying cages, not blood-fueled pentagrams.”
I had to cede her those points.
Fortunately, though, I wasn’t going to be in the cage for much longer.
Ruwa grabbed Jenni’s arm and dragged her out of the room, sealing the door shut behind her. So now I had to find the shifter in addition to the witch on my way out of the Grants’ house.
I turned to look at Paisley. “Ready?”
She slowly blinked her eyes at me. They began to glow red.
I lay down on my side, still trying to minimize my contact with the cage, but needing to stretch my arm as far as I could toward Paisley. My skin instantly numbed wherever it came into contact with the steel floor.
Paisley reached through the bars of her cage with two tentacles, wrapping them around my fingers. I concentrated, trying to feel my magic under my skin. Even though the cages didn’t dampen the magic that came with her demon genetics, Paisley had been hurt and drugged. I needed to amplify her, so she could heal and transform fully.
But I hadn’t yet developed enough of an immunity to the nullifying cage to manifest my amplification power. Paisley flexed her tentacles around my fingers comfortingly.
I met her gaze. “You’re going to have to take it.”
She narrowed her eyes, withdrawing from me slightly.
“Paisley,” I whispered. “You know the magic is in my blood. You’re going to have to take it.”
She snarled.
Bonds and Broken Dreams (Amplifier 2) Page 23