Isa narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re far too valuable to simply slaughter, amplifier. And, after my brother helps me properly fold this dimensional pocket, I’ll definitely be having a conversation about you with my father.”
“Isa,” Aiden growled. “You aren’t in a position to threaten anyone right now.”
Isa arched an eyebrow at his younger brother. “You think you can walk them all out? At once? Did you bring four extra blood markers?”
I glanced at Aiden, sensing only then that the black-inked runes that covered every available surface of his and Christopher’s skin had been mixed with blood. Most likely the sorcerer’s.
“I could just use your blood.” Aiden lightly tapped the tip of his baseball bat against the railing to his right. The bright blue glow from the runes etched into the wood lit up the swamp. The swarm of demons that had collected against the dimensional barrier where it pushed up against the railings shied away, pressing back into the quagmire. “That would work even better, since I’m assuming you’re tied to the casting.”
Isa laughed harshly. “You’d kill your own brother?”
“As would you.”
The older sorcerer tilted his head. “Why now? When you couldn’t before?”
Aiden didn’t answer.
Isa laid a heavy gaze on me. “Really? Her? You think she’ll keep you around after she burns you out?”
“I’m here for however many days I get.”
Isa laughed harshly.
Christopher’s magic tingled on my spine. I glanced at the clairvoyant. He had stepped back, looking up at the house. A demon reached through the railing to swipe at his ankle, but he lifted his foot at the last moment. Paisley lunged forward with a vicious snarl, then tore the offending limb from the daring demon.
More demons had crowded against all sides of the patio, blocking the front stairs, pressing closer.
“The spell is thinning,” I murmured. “Will it swallow the house?”
“Yes,” Isa said matter-of-factly.
Aiden frowned, casting a narrow-eyed gaze into the blackened interior of the house.
Isa moved in my peripheral vision, lunging for his brother. I had one blade at his throat a moment after something magical clicked into place just under my elbow. Whatever it was wasn’t attached to me, though.
Isa reacted to my movement — then reacted more strongly to the blade held against his throat. He raised his hands.
I didn’t risk glancing away.
Aiden snorted, raising his left hand into my field of vision. “Really, Isa?” He was now wearing a rune-etched platinum bracelet the thickness of a watchband. Aiden twisted his wrist, dark-blue magic glinting from the runes. “Planning to drag me back? How long do you think you can hold me with these?”
“Long enough to get you home. Father wishes to speak to you.”
“If he wanted to actually talk to me, he’d reach out.”
“You’ve ignored him.”
“Have I?” Aiden asked archly.
“He gave me the bracelets, didn’t he?”
I glanced at Aiden. “There are two?”
He nodded stiffly. “Paired up, they can force compliance. But you have to have enough magic to power them.”
Isa laughed darkly. “Are you suggesting I don’t have enough —”
I stepped forward, replacing my blade at Isa’s throat with my free hand as I let the other blade fall to the porch at my feet. From the moment I made contact, I was pulling his magic from him.
His eyes widened in confusion. Then his mounting panic streaked through the involuntary empathic connection I’d made by touching him.
“Don’t take it all,” Aiden murmured, stepping forward with me. “We don’t want to collapse the dimensional pocket.”
Isa gurgled, lifting his hand. Magic welled up.
Almost gently, Aiden began to pluck the rings from his brother’s fingers.
Isa shifted his gaze from me to his brother with some effort. “Brother.”
Aiden nodded. “Don’t worry, Isa. Be a good boy and Emma won’t have to kill you.”
Dropping my second blade to the porch, I set my other hand on the back of Aiden’s bare neck. He met my gaze, nodding grimly.
I gave him his brother’s magic even as I pulled it from Isa. Even as Isa clawed at my arm. Even as Aiden divested him of all his magical artifacts, transferring the rings to his own fingers, tucking other items into the pockets of the suit jacket I wore. Aiden wasn’t wearing anything with pockets.
“Not … possible …” Isa gasped.
“Impossibly possible,” Aiden said thoughtfully.
Feeling his power thinning, then waning, I loosened my hold on Isa’s neck. He collapsed forward into Aiden’s arms. I shook off a lingering feeling of dread and despair — Isa’s emotions, not my own.
“Socks. Aiden,” Christopher called. “We need to move now.”
I nodded, breaking contact with Aiden, though I was still holding a chunk of Isa’s magic. I grabbed up both my blades as I turned away. “We’ll leave the …” I glanced down at the creature that had been Ruwa as I stepped over her. “We’ll leave Ruwa. Opal, you can drop —”
Magic welled up behind me — sorcerer by its tenor. I spun back. Aiden was kneeling by his brother, frowning.
“Aiden?” I asked.
He shook his head, searching through the inner pockets of Isa’s suit. “Something’s automatically triggering. Maybe …”
“Socks!” Christopher shouted, heaving Jenni over his shoulder. The shifter was still unconscious. “The spell is …”
Magic snapped out from the necklace around Isa Azar’s neck, encompassing him. Aiden reared back.
“… collapsing.”
The patio shifted under our feet.
Isa’s hand shot up, wrapping around the back of Aiden’s neck.
I met Aiden’s startled blue eyes.
Then both sorcerers disappeared.
Disappeared.
With a crackle, then a light buffeting of magic.
“Well …” Christopher let out a harsh breath. “Didn’t see that coming.”
I froze in place, unable to breathe, unable to comprehend what had just happened. The patio roiled under my feet.
Aiden was gone.
Demons surged against the railings, reaching, clawing for us, but still held back by the dimensional boundary.
Aiden had just disappeared.
Ruwa sat up abruptly, eyes blazing red, mouth opening in a silent, terrified scream. The spell that had held her cocooned had also disappeared. But that usually only happened when a caster … died. And if Isa was dead, then Aiden —
“Socks!” Christopher shouted.
“Teleportation,” I murmured. My stomach dipped and churned. Teleportation was risky, and a spell that could transport two people … that was …
“Maybe it was an artifact,” I murmured. A magical artifact could have transported two people. Except such an artifact would have teemed with power. It would have overwhelmed Isa’s personal magic, and I would have felt —
“Socks!” Christopher screamed, grabbing my shoulder. “The spell is collapsing. Only the magic tied to Ruwa is holding it in place. Socks!”
“Aiden …” I shook my head, trying to clear it. I met the clairvoyant’s gaze. “Aiden’s … dead.”
A terrible pain sliced through my chest. I momentarily lost all feeling in my legs, dipping forward.
Christopher held me upright, wrapping his hand around the back of my neck, Jenni somehow still slung over his shoulder. “Worry about that next, Fox in Socks. Right now, you need to save us.” His grip tightened, his magic pulsing against my spine. “You need to save us now.”
Opal appeared beside me, grabbing my hand.
I blinked. “Yes. Yes.”
I glanced around. The horde of demons was practically on top of us. The patio was … bending … melting. As were the sides of the house.
“Oh, God,” I whispered.
>
“The amplifier protocol!” Christopher shouted over an oppressive din that had risen, that continued to rise. The sound was somehow pressing against us.
“No,” I whispered, racking my mind for another alternative. “I can’t … I’ll kill you, Knox.”
“You’ve got all of us, Socks.”
“You’ve seen this?”
“I’ve seen you. I see you.”
Not knowing what else to do, I reached for Ruwa, clamping my hands to her head. Her skin sloughed off under my harsh grip. I ignored it, reaching for her magic and for the tie to the spell that had been holding the dimensional pocket in place, pushing past the foreign power that turned my stomach.
Isa had teleported, destabilizing the dimensional pocket. But it had taken the two of them to call it forth in the first place.
I found the sorcerer power still buried deeply within the creature that had been Ruwa. I amplified it, rough, hard, with as much intensity as I could muster. It quadrupled under my touch, then continued to grow as I gathered it.
Christopher set Jenni at my feet, slapping her once, then twice. “Sorry, sorry, Jenni. But you need to wake —”
“Hit me again,” the shifter growled, “and you’ll be wearing your ass as a hat.”
“Right, well. I need you to hang on to Emma.”
“What the fuck for?” But Jenni wrapped her hand around my right ankle despite her protest.
I pulled the last of Ruwa’s magic, holding onto the link to the power that felt as though it was feeding the weight pressing down on us. The demons surged forward against the collapsing dimensional barrier, over the stairs, tearing through the railings, barely an arm’s length away now.
“Do you understand, Opal?” Christopher was yelling. “You don’t let go, no matter what. Emma is going to pull out your magic. And you’re going to let her.”
Opal wrapped her arms and legs around my left leg. She nodded, cheek pressed to my outer thigh.
I continued amplifying the power I’d pulled from Ruwa, tripling it again instantly. Pumping more and more of my power into the spell now tying me and the sorcerer to the dimensional pocket. Until it thickened. Became tangible.
Paisley, in her smaller pit bull form, shoved herself between my legs, pressing her shoulders against me. She wound a tentacle around each of my knees, then looped more around Opal’s arms and shoulders.
“Ready!” I cried, feeling the magic trying to rip itself from my grasp. The pocket was trying to absorb the tie for itself. I held on.
Christopher wrapped one arm around my upper chest, squeezing me against him so harshly that he constricted my breathing. But I didn’t need to breathe deeply. I just had to let the magic have its way.
Ruwa’s face and head crumbled to ash under my hands. I let her go, harvesting the last of her life force and feeding it to the magic I’d gathered.
Someone was screaming. It might have been Opal. But I pushed the concern aside. I couldn’t do anything else. This was the only thing I knew, the only way.
This was why I’d been created. Why I existed at all.
The roof of the patio tore off as the dimensional pocket continued to try to claim us, to keep us forever.
I reached to the sides, flicking my fingers and erecting a tightly woven barrier around us, channeling the sorcerer magic I’d gathered from Ruwa. The power slammed into place.
I took Jenni Raymond’s magic, strength flooding through my limbs. I tripled it, then fed it to the barrier.
I took Opal’s magic, channeling her inherent witch ability to manipulate the magic I’d collected. And with that power, I tightened the barrier, slipping it underneath us, lifting us from the patio just as it started ripping up at the edges. Behind me, the house rumbled, then started crumbling, consumed by the dimensional pocket.
Christopher pressed his lips to my ear, settling his free hand over the tattoo on my spine that bound us together — for good and evil, forever. “I see you, Fox in Socks,” he whispered. “I see you on the other side.”
I closed my eyes, taking the clairvoyant’s magic, harnessing his deep well of power and adding it to the barrier I’d erected.
Amplifying it. Doubling it, tripling it all.
Holding.
Holding.
Holding against the onslaught.
And I saw myself through the magic harvested from the clairvoyant. I saw the sheer, stark darkness as it rose, as it pressed against the shield. As it tried to absorb the barrier I held.
I opened my eyes to greet it — and saw that darkness filled with teeth, claws, blazing red eyes, and an oppressive, seething blackness. I could feel the people I loved, the people I owed protection, still clinging to me. Their grips were firm.
I had them. And I wasn’t going to let go.
“You don’t get to have us,” I screamed as the long limbs of the swamp swelled, swallowing the house, the patio, the front stairs. I screamed my utter defiance into the dimensional pocket trying to absorb us, consume us.
Christopher chuckled against my neck.
The darkness took my sight.
Then it tried to take my magic.
But I held fast.
I held fast.
Even as I lost connection to … everything … everyone.
I held fast.
Even as I lost consciousness.
I held.
Chapter 10
A sliver of magic brushed over me, briefly caressing my forehead, then dissipating.
It didn’t come back.
I couldn’t see.
I couldn’t feel.
Couldn’t move.
Couldn’t breathe?
Adrenaline flooded through me. I was panicking. And suffocating.
The magic brushed against me again. It started to move away, but I reached for it. I reached with my own power because I couldn’t move my arms, couldn’t grab with my hands.
I snagged the magic.
I reeled it toward me.
It thinned.
I fortified the connection, pumping my own power into it.
It tried to wrench away from me, as if I’d hurt it, burned it. But I couldn’t just let it go. I couldn’t die. Not now, not yet. I reached up and grabbed …
… someone’s wrist. Skin almost searingly hot under mine, fingers wrapping around my forearm.
Then I was being pulled, dragged through thick muck and sludge across a hard, rougher surface, and finally settled onto something solid but chilly, crunchy.
I was on the ground, in the snow.
The person who’d found me rolled me on my side, pounding on my back — once, twice, then a third time.
I threw up, gasping for air as I spewed out thick, inky liquid that burned my throat and mouth. I settled onto my back. But then, involuntarily convulsing, I rolled onto my other side, knees into my chest. Coughing out whatever was trapped in my lungs.
A soft, cool cloth slid across my closed eyes. Then across my cheeks and mouth.
I opened my eyes. They stung. I blinked against the bright day. The sky above me resolved into light-gray cloud.
“Emma? Emma!”
Lani Zachary was leaning over me, dark hair tumbling around her face. She’d been talking for a while, but I hadn’t heard the words. She moved away for a moment, then quickly returned, dribbling something into my mouth.
I choked on it, then realized it was water and tried to swallow.
“Jesus H. Christ …”
Lani Zachary had pulled me from the smothering darkness.
“What the everlasting hell are you doing?”
Her magic. Her dim, almost-dormant magic wasn’t so quiet now. I squeezed my eyes shut, grief sinking in.
I had done that. Trapped in the darkness, feeling her presence, I had amplified her latent abilities. Without permission. To save myself.
Lani tapped me lightly on the cheek. “Emma? I’m going to get you over my shoulder, okay? I’ll take you to the hospital. That will be quicker than waiting for a �
�� unless you think I shouldn’t move you …”
I rolled away from her helpful hands, snow underneath my palms and knees. I sat back, trying to focus. I was slicked in a viscous substance that reeked. I raised my arms. A suit jacket hung from me in shreds. I was practically naked.
Everything started clicking back into place. “Where am I?”
“The Grant farm. Emma? What the hell is going on?”
I looked around. All I could see was snow and … and a huge swamp. A swamp where the house — maybe the barn as well — had once stood. “Oh my God …”
“Jesus, yes,” Lani said. “What the hell happened here? It feels wrong, Emma. Really wrong … and … and I don’t feel … right either. We need to go.”
I tried to get up.
I fell.
Lani grabbed for me.
I shoved her away, crawling, scrambling back toward the edge of the blackened swamp. I couldn’t see anything but an oil-slick bog edged in snow. The shape was more oval than round. I couldn’t feel any magic. “The others! Lani! The others! Where are the others?”
“There’s no one else here, Emma. I … I … I’m not even sure why I decided to drive out this way. I just knew … I should.”
I forced myself onto my feet, limbs shaking. I reached out, seeking magic, any magic. I picked up Lani hovering behind me instantly, her previously dormant witch magic now a whispered hum. I brushed the sensation away, refocusing.
“Christopher. Christopher. Christopher.” I turned the clairvoyant’s name into a mantra, sending it forth like a sorcerer would cast a spell. I knew his magic as well as my own. It lived under my skin, tied to me.
I couldn’t feel it at all. Not on the property. Not even in the tattoo on my spine.
A terrible sob of fear rose in my chest, threatening to choke me. I stuffed it back down, reaching for cool rationality instead.
Lani.
Lani had found me with her magic.
She could find the others.
I spun back to my friend. Her eyes widened. My friend who wielded her magic instinctively, fixing what needed fixing. She knew nothing of the Adept world. I was going to have to ruin that life view now, ruining everything for her. And doing so would destroy the friendship we’d been slowly building.
I had never actually had a friend before. Not one that wasn’t involuntarily bound to me.
Bonds and Broken Dreams (Amplifier 2) Page 27