Idols and Enemies (Amplifier 4)

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  I tightened my grip on my blade, recalculating how it extended my reach, and factoring in how big a hit I could take from the elder sorcerer and still meet my goal —

  “Emma,” Aiden whispered again. “Just … a few more minutes?”

  I tore my gaze from Kader. Aiden had stepped to one side, as had Paisley. Clearing my path. The dark-haired sorcerer’s hands were also raised. But in a plea, not preparing to cast.

  “A few more minutes?” Aiden repeated. “To clear my mother of his accusation? Then you can kill him. I won’t stand in your way. It’s your choice. Your right.”

  Kader snorted. “It would be ill advised.”

  Right.

  Kader would see me coming. And he’d already informed us of what exactly he intended to do with his dying breath. The death curse. A curse that — if the elder sorcerer could pull it off — might take Aiden with it as well. He was also of the Myers bloodline.

  I pointed my blade at Kader. “You will watch your mouth in my home. I’m done with the insinuations, the nasty verbal jabs.”

  “I didn’t realize you were so delicate, amplifier.”

  Aiden barked a laugh. “I’d never realized you were so unobservant, Father.” He spat the title with derision and an inadvertent punch of power that rippled across the sealed pentagram. “Emma wouldn’t kill you just for any slight, large or small, that you’ve inflicted upon her. No, when she takes your head, it will be to protect those she cares about.”

  “Perhaps you could give me a list,” Kader said coolly, though he had dropped his hands back down onto his knees. “So I know who is off limits.”

  “I believe Emma has already outlined her parameters.”

  Kader smirked. “Of course. She always was exceedingly efficient. My apologies, amplifier. While in your home, I will attempt to keep my insinuations — regarding those you care about — to myself.”

  Aiden stepped back to the edge of the pentagram, carefully keeping out of my direct path to his father. “There is definitely a smudge, a wound, in your magic. Over your heart. Ironically.”

  “Yes.” Kader’s tone was icy, clipped.

  It must have been painful to suddenly need to take orders from your creations. I smiled, loosening my grip on my blade.

  Paisley paced the outer edge of the pentagram, occasionally flicking one or more of her tentacles against it. Each time, she would pause to peer at Kader, as if trying to see what Aiden saw.

  The dark-haired sorcerer muttered a few more words, and the power in the pentagram shifted, coalescing in a light-blue cloud over Kader’s chest. Aiden muttered another arcane word — a question this time, by its tenor. A thick rope of magic appeared, resolving into the links of a hazy chain. The chain cut off at the edge of the pentagram. To my sight, at least.

  Aiden’s expression was inscrutable. He uttered three more commands, power shifting and churning in the pentagram with each word.

  Kader was smiling to himself. The expression was knowing, smug.

  Aiden hissed quietly, then looked at me. He ran his hand through his hair.

  Then I realized that the cloud of magic over Kader’s chest was light blue, as was the hazy, thick-linked chain.

  Not the deeper blue of Aiden’s sorcerer power.

  Not the dark, almost black hue of Kader’s power.

  The light blue of witch magic.

  Aiden pulled a short steel blade from his back pocket — a blade I was certain hadn’t been there a moment before. It was the same blade I’d seen him use when mentally trapped by the mystic, or very similar at least. Though the rune along the edge of the bolster was newly inscribed.

  “Really?” Kader huffed disdainfully.

  Ignoring his father, Aiden sliced the blade across his forearm, just enough to draw blood. He tucked the blade into his back pocket, where it somehow managed to not slice through his jeans. Like everything the sorcerer wielded or wrought, it had clearly been honed with magic.

  Aiden pressed the forefinger and middle finger of his right hand in the wound, coating them lightly in blood. Then he leaned down and transferred the blood into the carved center of one of the small pentagrams, where the obsidian stone had been embedded.

  He moved to the next outer pentagram, repeating the blood transfer. Adding the power residing in his blood to the power he could manipulate within the main pentagram. Then on to the next.

  “A personalized rune would be cleaner,” Kader said. “Blood is so … sloppy. Lazy.”

  “You’re very chatty for a dead man,” I said.

  Kader raised his chin, smirking. Again. “I am dying. A dying father. Shouldn’t I see that my wisdom is passed on to the next generation? To my most favored son?”

  “Favored?” I scoffed. “Before you set him up to usurp Isa, you mean?”

  Kader’s smile sharpened. “Is that what Aiden told you?”

  “No.” It was my turn to be smug. “Isa.”

  His face blanked.

  So that was an Azar trait.

  “Didn’t mention it, did he?” I said.

  The elder sorcerer transferred his attention back to his son, not bothering to answer me.

  Aiden straightened from the last of the outside pentagrams. Once again raising his palms toward the power simmering in the magically sealed, copper-inlaid main pentagram. Blood slowly dripped from the shallow cut on his forearm.

  “Wasteful.” Kader sniffed. “And risky. In the wrong hands.” His gaze slid to me.

  I smiled. “I don’t need blood to bring you to your knees, Kader Azar.”

  Kader’s tone warmed. “I’m already bowed at your feet, amplifier.”

  Aiden ignored us, muttering commands that sent waves of churning magic throughout the large and the smaller pentagrams alike. Their copper edges glowed with power.

  Kader flexed his fingers, then rolled his shoulders and neck. Not in pain, but as if he was actively trying to accept the touch of his son’s magic. To not fight or negate it.

  Aiden stepped back, arms falling loose at his sides and his gaze on the ground. His voice was thick with emotion. “I can’t break it. Not without … some more time.” He lifted his gaze to me, his expression unreadable.

  So I closed the space between us, touching his arm to trigger my empathy. “Heal this, please.”

  He shook his head as if just realizing that he was still bleeding. An arcane word closed the wound. Another word scoured the blood from his arm and from where it had dripped on his jeans and the white slat floor.

  Under my light touch, his emotions were tangled and confused.

  “I’ll take Kader,” he said quietly, though his voice was still rough, “back to his compound. I’ll deal with … this …” He shrugged one shoulder toward his father, blazing blue eyes locked to mine. “I’ll take care of it there. Away from you, from the … property.”

  From Christopher and Opal, he meant.

  “No,” I said. “You’ll deal with it here. You can get any books or tools you need sent to you.”

  Relief flooded through our empathic connection, and Aiden nodded.

  “Delightful,” Kader said, straightening to stand. He stepped from the pentagram, again easily passing through Aiden’s magic. The boundary didn’t dissipate. It didn’t even flicker. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to nap before dinner.”

  “The sheets on the bed in the loft suite were just changed,” I said. It was definitely clear now that Christopher had glimpsed someone staying in the loft, hence his making the bed before he’d left. But I had no idea if Kader was also the threat the clairvoyant had seen when he’d texted earlier about me needing my blades. “There are fresh towels in the bathroom. Dinner will be at seven.”

  “Your hospitality is most appreciated.” Kader stepped toward the door to the suite, retrieving the satchel he’d already set there. As if he’d known he’d be staying.

  He stepped inside. The door shut behind him, and magic flared behind it. Wards, I presumed. Erected without any preparation or runes t
o anchor them.

  Aiden’s shoulders slumped. He snapped his fingers and the magic of the pentagram dissolved. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  “No,” I said fiercely. “You don’t say that to me. You think that I wouldn’t agree to help protect your family?”

  “Of course not.” He scrubbed his hand across his face, then said it again. “Of course not, but —”

  “There is no ‘but’ between us, Aiden Myers.” Myers. Not Azar. Reminding him who he was, who he had chosen to be.

  A slow smile curled across his face. It didn’t quite meet his eyes, but it was almost there. “Well,” he drawled, “there could be a butt between us. I’m always open to suggestions. Though I do adore looking you in the eyes.”

  I laughed huskily, surprising myself.

  Aiden leaned in to kiss me.

  I tilted my head back in anticipation, then paused.

  Paisley was sitting practically between our feet, gazing up at us. She dropped her mouth open in a sharp-toothed smile when I noticed her.

  I sighed. “Isn’t it time for you to get back to helping Christopher and Samantha?”

  Paisley poked Aiden in the thigh with her bovine bone, waving the dirt-smudged book over her head again.

  Aiden chuckled. “Next time, you could just leave the book in the study.”

  Paisley shifted her gaze to me and huffed.

  “I’m not stopping you from reading,” I said neutrally — even though the idea of the demon dog actually trying to manipulate magic beyond her own inherent powers was disconcerting.

  I really adored my home. I really didn’t want to see it destroyed.

  Paisley shouldered her way between us, heading down the interior steps and clearly expecting us to follow her.

  “The spell she wants?” I asked Aiden quietly.

  “Tracking,” he said. “I’m guessing she wants to test it with the egg.”

  “She’s having trouble homing in on Bee,” I whispered.

  “Seems so. Though I didn’t pick up even a moment of hesitation in all the tests we ran with you, Christopher, and Samantha.”

  “She’s only met Bee once. As a puppy …” I trailed off, recalling Kader’s loaded comment regarding Paisley including Aiden in her programming.

  Aiden brushed his fingers against the back of my hand, questioningly.

  I shook my head. “We don’t actually know how Paisley is tied to the Five. Samantha still hasn’t found a powerful enough tech to unscramble all the data she collected when we took down the compound.”

  “The Collective,” Aiden spat, glaring at the loft door.

  “Yes, one part of the Collective. But it wasn’t Silver or Chenda or even your father who oversaw the division that bred Paisley. We know that much.”

  Aiden grimaced. Then he looked thoughtful, lowering his voice as if he was worried about being overheard. “The Five …” he said. “Do you think Daniel …?”

  He let the question trail off, but I understood what he was asking. I knew someone — intimately — who could nullify just about any sort of magic. Perhaps even the spell that was killing Kader Azar. There weren’t many spells that Fish couldn’t nullify, especially when amplified by me. But I shook my head.

  “I had the same thought when I first saw your father,” I said. “But Daniel would try to kill Kader the moment he saw him.” As well, I wasn’t putting Aiden’s fate in anyone else’s hands. I didn’t add that out loud, though. I just sighed as I said, “I’d better text an update to Christopher.”

  Aiden snorted, quietly amused.

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “Just that you’re more dismayed by the idea of communicating with your blood-bound brother via text than you are by having your sworn enemy sleeping in your loft.”

  “I have no sworn enemies,” I said archly. “The very idea is beneath me. But if I did, keeping them near would just make them easier to deal with.”

  Aiden’s expression sobered. “And easier to protect me.”

  I didn’t answer. He was right, of course. I didn’t want him to have to spend a moment alone with his father.

  The dark-haired sorcerer brushed a kiss against my cheek. “What did I ever do to deserve you?”

  I twined my fingers through his. “You found me. Me, Emma.” My throat closed up so much that I couldn’t finish the thought, couldn’t fully express the idea that I’d only truly started figuring out who Emma Johnson was after making the choice to let Aiden, and then Opal, into my life.

  “Yes,” Aiden breathed, as if he perfectly understood me.

  A terrible howl rose from below, prickling up my spine and undulating through the open rafters of the barn.

  “Really?” I cried down the stairs. “We’re not at your beck and call, Paisley!”

  Aiden moved toward the stairs, tugging me with him. Together, we descended to collect the mouthy demon dog.

  “Two days of freedom. That’s all we get.”

  Aiden chuckled. “Would you really have it any other way?”

  I grinned at him. “I do get a bit stabby when bored.”

  “You’re always stabby, Emma. Delightfully so.”

  I snorted.

  Chapter 3

  Aiden was buried in books in the study. Literally. The pile on the side of the desk nearly blocked my view of him from the hallway door. I could see his fingers, though, covered in the same ink soaking into the pages of his notebook in tiny puddles.

  Paisley was situated in a chalked circle in the center of the wood-paneled room. Opal often practiced spell work in the same position, with Aiden close enough to rescue her but not focused solely, intimidatingly, on her.

  The tracking spell the demon dog had found in her spellbook required a personal item of the person she wished to track — namely Bee. But since we didn’t have anything for her to use, Aiden had persuaded her to try a sense-enhancement spell instead. Paisley had been practicing for the last hour.

  After texting an update to Christopher with no immediate response, I had come down to water the lemon, lime, and avocado plants that resided in the window seat. But there really wasn’t much room for me in the small study. Nor could I contribute much to the spell work or research being conducted. So I wandered into the kitchen to mix up a new batch of ginger snap dough, to freeze and slice as needed.

  A casserole that I’d put into the fridge to defrost earlier that morning would do for dinner. Aiden could steam some asparagus or make a salad to go alongside it. Christopher had prepped a half-dozen meals before he left, each enough to last us for a couple of days. Apparently, the clairvoyant thought we were incapable of feeding ourselves. Or, as with the made-up bed in the loft, he’d seen the need for us to have extra food on hand — though clearly without actually seeing that our guest was going to be one of our makers. If he had seen that, Christopher never would have agreed to meet with Samantha in Europe.

  I was rolling the last log of cookie dough when magic shivered up my spine, dissipating as swiftly as it hit. Then a second and third shiver followed.

  Aiden swore robustly from the study.

  It wasn’t just a single impatient Adept waiting at the driveway gate, but three separate points of power. Sorcerer magic, as far as I could assess. And my heightened sensitivity to the outer property wards was a little disconcerting.

  For the first time, I wondered if it was possible I was absorbing power from Aiden without realizing it. I had never had a long-term partner other than Daniel, and we hadn’t had sex as regularly as Aiden and I did. Samantha and Daniel had always sneered at my ‘stolen juice,’ but the other powers I’d absorbed while under the control of the Collective had all been deliberately and aggressively taken. If I was stealing magic from Aiden, it was a much subtler process — and was likely offset by the fact that I perpetually amplified him in turn.

  The dark-haired sorcerer appeared at the arched doorway to the hall. His eyes were a little wide. Stressed. I shoved away the thoughts of w
hat I might be slowly stealing from him, and finished sealing two of the rolls of dough in plastic wrap. I left the third roll on the cutting board to slice and bake.

  Apparently, we were about to have additional visitors.

  Aiden grimaced, scrubbing his hand across his face. “More Azars,” he said.

  “Isa?”

  He nodded.

  “And the other two?”

  He tilted his head. “You felt that?”

  “I did.” I washed my hands, drying them as Aiden calmly watched me. I adored it when he homed in on me. His shoulders relaxed, hands now loose at his sides instead of curled into fists.

  “Best guess, another brother … or two. Plus someone I don’t know well.”

  I crossed toward him. “Shall I bring my blades?”

  “The second retrieval spell should still be active, so one of them is only a thought away.”

  I nodded, then moved for the front door.

  “Unless you … want to kill Isa? Right off, I mean.”

  I paused in the hall, gazing back at Aiden and taking a moment to consider his question seriously. Did Isa Azar deserve to die? Was I the person to judge him?

  No. Though I had plenty of reasons to kill Isa after what he’d done to Jenny, Opal, and Paisley, I wasn’t the law. “If he attacks me. Or you,” I said.

  “He’s more likely here to kill our father.”

  “Really?”

  Aiden nodded stiffly, frowning as he stepped close to me. “Why else would he risk coming back? And in force?”

  “Isa knows that it would take more than three sorcerers to overpower me and you. And he has no idea that Christopher isn’t here.”

  “We hope,” Aiden muttered.

  “You think he’s compromised someone in town? To keep watch on us?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him. And whoever he hired wouldn’t necessarily think there was anything nefarious about him keeping tabs on his wayward brother.”

  I grinned. “Because that’s what you would do, my dark and deadly sorcerer?”

  Aiden laughed. “I currently have a network of thirteen … no, fifteen operatives sending info my way every week regarding various people. Including one at the Academy with Opal.”