Bonds and Broken Dreams (Amplifier 2)

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  I knew he was right. It was an idiotic, last-ditch suggestion. Even a skilled tracker would find it near impossible to track someone through a teleportation spell. I needed sleep myself.

  “Hey.” Opal spoke up softly from the doorway into the hall.

  I whirled around. I was so riled up that I hadn’t felt the young witch approach. She flinched.

  “Hey,” Christopher said. “Are you hungry?”

  She nodded, wandering farther into the kitchen, keeping her gaze pinned to me. “I just dreamed of Aiden.”

  My stomach flipped, then churned.

  “He’s looking for you, Emma. But he’s all tied up.”

  “Where?” I whispered. “Where did you see Aiden looking for me, oh dream walker?”

  She smiled. “It looked like a bedroom in a cabin. You know, with log walls? It had a view of a river. I only noticed because Aiden said you would like it.”

  I moaned, looking to Christopher. “Cabins on the river? Isa … Isa must have rented one. Honeymoon Bay? Youbou?” Then I stopped short, remembering. “Wait … Jenni said something about the sorcerers stopping at the Riverside Resort when they first came into town.”

  Christopher grabbed his phone, applying his thumbs to it. “Yep. Log cabins.” He turned the phone screen to me, displaying a page for the resort. “It’s closed for the season. About a ten-minute walk from the lodge. Private. The perfect place for Isa to set an anchor.”

  I was already racing for the back door.

  “You can’t run the whole way there!” Christopher shouted. “Wait for me.”

  I didn’t wait.

  The clairvoyant caught up with me on the main road, though he practically had to cut me off to get me to climb into the SUV he’d brought back from the Grant farm after letting me sob out my grief.

  “You should have stayed with Opal,” I snarled, slamming the passenger door closed so quickly that I almost caught my foot in it.

  “Paisley is more than capable of babysitting,” Christopher said mildly. “In fact, I’m fairly certain the witch can take care of both of them herself. Jenni Raymond is meeting us there, but we’re closer.”

  I clung to the door handle, pinning my gaze to the snow-covered road — and trying hard to not start praying. Praying that we were right about the location. Praying that we hadn’t taken too long to get to Aiden. Praying that the teleportation spell hadn’t drained so much magic from Aiden that he’d been dying, dreaming his last dream, when Opal found him.

  Not believing in a higher power made such moments almost impossible to endure. I hadn’t known that before. And I could have gone a lifetime without that knowledge.

  Chapter 11

  Christopher negotiated the SUV through the thick snow at the top of the drive that led into the Riverside Resort, pausing by the gate. I jumped out, snapping the lock with a sharp tug before I realized it had been hanging half open on the latch.

  Heedless, I swung the gate open but didn’t bother climbing back into the vehicle. I would be able to sense magic more clearly when not surrounded by steel. The driveway fell gradually away from the main road, curving down through snow-shrouded evergreens toward the icy, deep-flowing river. At my far right, tracks in the snow either crossed up from or down toward the cabins arrayed on the river’s edge, leading to the main road.

  Just a single set of tracks. Left by a human.

  If I had been more sensitive to magic, I might have been able to feel if the footprints in the snow contained any residual. The tracks could have been left by whoever took care of the property in the off-season. But the fact that they were already filling over with snow made my heart squelch into a hard lump. A painful clutter of emotions lodged so tightly in my chest that it somehow hindered my breathing.

  I stepped to the side, so that Christopher could pull through the gate, parking at the top of the drive. It didn’t make sense to go farther down and risk getting stuck at the bottom of the hill, even with the tires chained. Fighting through the irrational fear that had been threatening to immobilize me since Aiden and Isa disappeared, I closed my eyes, breathing in the chilly air deeply.

  I was scared. Terrified.

  I was scared of what I might be about to uncover — specifically, finding Aiden dead at the destination point of the teleportation spell. Because that I couldn’t fix. Not with all my stolen power, or all the skills I’d obtained, or any of my training.

  Dead was dead.

  I shook my head sharply, focusing on reaching out with my senses, seeking any and all magic nearby.

  Preceded by a pulse of his magic, Christopher stepped up beside me.

  But I couldn’t feel any other source of power. I tamped down on another rise of panic.

  “Follow the tracks?” the clairvoyant asked quietly. His magic was quiet, not even simmering near the surface as it usually did when we worked side-by-side.

  I nodded, stepping forward. Walking the perimeter of the entire property — so that we’d have a solid idea of what we might be facing magically — would have been the safer, smarter course. But I wasn’t sure that Aiden had the time for us to be cautious. If we were walking into a magical trap I couldn’t feel, or that Christopher couldn’t see, then it was going to grab us either way. And we would fight through it. As we always did.

  Shoulder to shoulder, we cut down the drive, moving farther onto the property. Carving our own path through pristine snow that had been left unplowed throughout the storm, deep enough to trickle into my calf-high boots.

  “Residual magic in the tracks?” I asked, wishing I had my blades. Again.

  Christopher shook his head. “I doubt either of the sorcerers would have left any if it was something they could avoid. Too easy to trace.”

  “Isa was drained.”

  “And the teleportation spell would have taken a huge chunk of magic to fuel.”

  I picked up my pace as best I could in the clunky snow boots. Christopher remained tight by my side. Another quick glance confirmed that his light-gray gaze was still devoid of magic. “Something could be blocking you still.”

  “Yes.”

  Blocking a clairvoyant of Christopher’s power was difficult — unless whoever we might have been about to face off against still had some of his DNA from the sample that Ruwa had collected while wearing Jenni Raymond’s face. But it was far more likely that so-called sample would have been used up with the spells the demon-bound sorcerer had already cast.

  “Ruwa’s spell couldn’t still be holding, right?”

  “After death? Normally, I’d say that was impossible. But I’ve never seen a demon possession on that scale. Or the shapeshifting ability I assume the sorcerer borrowed from her bound demon.”

  “I think when I drained Ruwa … the first time, when she approached me wearing Aiden’s face in the house … I drained her to the point of near death, allowing the entity to fully take over. But that might have been possible only because it was in a pocket of its own dimension.”

  Christopher nodded grimly.

  We rounded a slight curve in the road. The tracks we were following led us to a tiny cabin perched on the icy edge of the river. Again, I couldn’t feel any magic in the vicinity. The cabin door was closed, blinds drawn. No smoke curled from the chimney.

  It had been cold enough the previous night to have needed a fire. It was cold enough to need a fire today.

  I strode forward, stepping up onto what I assumed was a set of wooden stairs, though I couldn’t see them under the snow. Christopher tucked himself against my back, facing out and casting his gaze around the rest of the resort. This would have been the perfect position from which to attack us, from the sides or behind. Strategically timed while we were most focused on our primary mission.

  Focused on recovering Aiden.

  The doorknob turned easily in my hand. “Not locked,” I murmured. If there was an Adept waiting for us inside, they should have felt our magic as we approached. They’d be lying in wait. “Spells around the door?”
>
  “Not that I can feel.”

  I shoved open the door. Both Christopher and I spun to either side, pressing against the exterior walls.

  Nothing happened.

  I crouched, pivoting. The snow was practically up to my elbows in this position as I peered through the door, making myself less of an obvious target.

  Across the room, Aiden’s blazing blue eyes met mine. Those eyes and the top of his head were the only things visible above the edge of a queen-sized bed that had been stripped of blankets.

  Alive.

  Aiden was alive.

  My heart slammed into overdrive.

  “It’s clear,” the sorcerer growled. I could see his breath on the chill air.

  I straightened up — and only then saw that Aiden’s arms were awkwardly cuffed behind him, cranking his shoulders back at a nasty enough angle that they might both be dislocated. He’d most likely fallen while trying to twist out of the cuffs that held him to the wrought-iron headboard.

  “Isa?” he asked, snarling his brother’s name like a curse.

  I shook my head.

  He grimaced.

  Tires crunched in the snow. I spun back but Christopher was already stepping away from the door, brushing his fingers against my arm. “It’s Jenni.”

  I glanced up the drive, noting the police cruiser rolling to a stop behind Aiden’s SUV. “Water?”

  The clairvoyant nodded, wading down the snow-covered stairs. “She’ll have some.”

  I stepped into the cabin, lightly closing the door behind me. Not looking directly at Aiden for fear of collapsing or losing my mind to irrational anger, I swiftly crossed around the bed.

  He had managed to drag the blankets off to keep himself warm. Both of his wrists were cuffed with the rune-etched bracelets his brother had snapped on him at the Grant house, right before I’d drained Isa of his magic and given most of it to Aiden.

  “I don’t know how to break these.” My words came out stressed, filled with tension.

  “I can talk you through it,” Aiden said. “I just couldn’t reach them with my fucking toes. You need to shift the runes on both bracelets at the same time.”

  I nodded, keeping my gaze on the cuffs and away from Aiden’s face, away from the terrible twist of his shoulders. Feeling all logic, all rationality slowly seeping out of my grasp. I was on the edge of completely losing it.

  “Emma?”

  “Just tell me what to do, Aiden.”

  He grunted. “You might have to turn the bracelets. You’re looking for two sets of matching runes.”

  “Shapes?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen these particular cuffs before, and I didn’t get a good look at them before I stupidly fell off the bed trying to get at Isa. But they’ll be the only two that match.”

  I knelt beside him, reaching over his twisted shoulder and trying to not touch him or put any weight on his arms or torso. My hair fell down around him.

  He sighed. “Emma.”

  “Just let me do this, Aiden.”

  He nodded.

  I found the twinned runes. An inverted triangle slashed through the middle with a straight line, which I thought might represent the element of earth. A circle with a dot in the center that I thought might represent either the sun or the precious metal, gold. “I see them.”

  “You’re going to need some of my magic. You can do that, right? If I call a spell forward, you can wield it?”

  Feeling far too shaky to answer him verbally, I gently touched my thumbs to his exposed skin, just under each bracelet.

  Aiden whispered something in that arcane language he spoke. Magic shifted toward his hands. I grabbed it for my own, gathering it under my thumbs.

  “Place the ring finger of each hand on one pair of runes.” Aiden’s exhaustion and pain were so intense that they filtered through even the tenuous empathic connection I’d made by touching the skin of his wrists.

  I placed my fingers on the inverted triangles, then nodded stiffly.

  “Then a forefinger on the second pair.”

  “Done.” All four runes glowed softly under my touch.

  “Now pull the fingers toward each other, drawing the runes together.”

  That was an awkward gesture, and my fingers didn’t want to cooperate. But the runes slid easily, somehow melding together to create an entirely new rune, etched with a dark-blue glow. “Done.”

  He muttered another word, feeding me another magical intention. “Now press the new runes with your thumbs.”

  I took the magic he’d called forth and pressed the runes. The cuffs released with a click, tumbling onto the ground. Aiden groaned sharply, painfully as his arms also fell. I tried to take the weight off him, helping him lean forward, then slowly bringing his arms down to rest at his sides.

  He panted with pain. “Woke … found Isa watching me, wanting to talk. Again. Fell off the fucking bed … couldn’t get back up. He left.”

  “Your right shoulder is definitely dislocated,” I said, touching it gently.

  He nodded. “Do it.”

  I settled my hand under his elbow. And without giving him any other warning, I popped his shoulder back into place.

  He roared in pain.

  The door to the cabin slammed open, doorknob crashing against the log wall. Christopher charged in, holding a bottle of water. Jenni Raymond appeared on the threshold behind the clairvoyant. She was in uniform. Apparently, they’d both been waiting outside.

  “Dislocated shoulder,” I said. “I think the other one is just sprained.”

  Aiden was trying to control his breathing, and to not jostle his arms. “Nothing some healing runes can’t fix. Just give me a moment to remember how to move my hands.”

  Christopher crossed around the bed, handing me the water bottle. I opened it, but hesitated to place it at Aiden’s mouth. I didn’t want to treat him like he was a child or an invalid.

  Aiden twisted his lips wryly, flexing the fingers of his left arm. His right arm was still immobile. Then he reached for the water bottle. I kept my fingers under it as he guided it to his mouth and took a swig.

  “We thought we’d lost you, sorcerer,” Christopher said lightly. “Couldn’t pick up or track your magic.”

  Aiden nodded, taking another small sip. “The cuffs dampen magic. Thankfully, Isa didn’t have enough left in him to use them to compel me.”

  “But he woke up first.”

  “Yeah, he woke up first. Carved a rune on the bed so I couldn’t move it …” Aiden sighed harshly. “I suppose I should be thankful he didn’t kill me.”

  “Jenni and I are going to follow the tracks in the opposite direction.” Christopher brushed his fingers against my shoulder.

  I nodded.

  “He’s long gone.” Aiden rested his head against the side of the bed. “It’s been hours.” He settled his gaze on me. “I knew you’d come, but couldn’t figure out how to let you know where I was. So I tried to sleep a bit.”

  “Opal.”

  “Yeah. I was hoping she’d look for me. But I wasn’t certain she’d get through the dampening field of the bracelets.”

  “She did.” My stomach had soured. Every word I uttered felt like ash in my mouth. I knew it was simply a chemical reaction from the adrenaline wearing off — but still, I suddenly felt lost. Overwhelmed by all the unaccustomed emotion that had been pumping through me for hours, days.

  “I’ll see you at home?” Christopher asked quietly, almost as if he was doubtful of my response. His eyes were ringed with a dim white glow — his magic showing him some hint of the immediate future.

  I suddenly realized that I didn’t actually know the answer to that simple question. Not in my heart, at least. I was that shaken. “Of course,” I said, lying. “Leave me the keys to the SUV. I should be able to drive it in the snow.”

  Christopher nodded. “They’re in the vehicle.” He stepped to the door. “Emma … Socks …”

  I met his gaze. He tilted his head,
listening to whatever his magic was telling him. Then he smiled sadly. “Remember the dandelion card.”

  He stepped out, closing the door behind him. It didn’t latch properly. He must have broken the handle when he’d smashed the door open against the log wall.

  “What does the dandelion card represent?” Aiden asked.

  I shook my head, still feeling oddly dead inside. As if I were still suffocating, still trapped in the demon swamp. Though I could breathe easily enough. “Revelation,” I murmured. “But I don’t understand the message. Assuming there is any message that Christopher was trying to convey.”

  Aiden gazed at me intently. “Something his magic is showing him of your immediate future?”

  I shrugged.

  He set the water bottle aside, reaching for me with his left hand. He held his right arm across his torso protectively.

  I shied away — something I’d never done in my entire life. I never stepped away from any threat. I might not invite it, but I met everything head-on once it was coming for me.

  Surprised flitted across Aiden’s face. Then his expression became impassive.

  I cast around in my mind, trying to figure out what I was feeling, what I needed from the moment in order to move forward. “I think you … I think Isa might have thought he was saving your life.”

  “Teleporting me out and leaving the rest of you to die.” Aiden’s tone was far angrier than his expression.

  I could have reached out and touched him. I could know exactly what he was feeling.

  But that wouldn’t tell me what I was feeling. In fact, that might muddy everything I so obviously needed to sort through.

  “But we didn’t die,” I said.

  “Thankfully.”

  “I’m difficult to kill.”

  “I’m grateful for your resilience. And not just because you’ve rescued me … or because you can amplify me.”

  “I know, but …”

  “But?” He smiled grimly. “I come with too many strings?”

  I shook my head emphatically.

  And suddenly I knew.

  I knew what I needed to say.

  “I come with too many strings,” I murmured.