Idols and Enemies (Amplifier 4)

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  My arms rose of their own accord, reaching out to the sides. The arms of the others all did the same. My fingertips brushed Khalid’s fingers on my right and Grosvenor’s on my left. They in turn touched Aiden and Isa. Then Ocean and Sky. And finally Cerise.

  Power shot out from each of the individual circles — thick strands of lace linking the eight of us. Then with another push of power from Cerise — a power I could now feel — more thin panels of lace connected each of the eight circles to the main circle.

  I withdrew my arms, opening and closing my hands into fists. Had my limbs actually moved on their own? Was Cerise manipulating us all that effectively? Except I couldn’t feel anyone in my head — and I knew that feeling intimately.

  Another push of power from Cerise radiated through both sides of the main circle. It touched the individual circles, feeding off each of us, then returned back to Cerise. She gathered the power siphoned from us and thrust her hands forward.

  Dingy white magic slashed through the main circle, calling forth a web of diamond-patterned lace that hovered around ankle height. As the linking lace had spiraled out toward him, Kader shifted slightly to the side, standing between Khalid and me now. He was situated within one of the pattern’s large lace diamonds.

  I had a clear view of Cerise. Her eyes were blazing blue, head thrown back, arms spread wide. I ran my gaze around the circle. Every single other person, including Aiden, matched Cerise’s posture.

  Except me. And Kader.

  All their blazing blue eyes were peering skyward.

  White magic webbed all around us.

  “Kader,” I whispered.

  “I see it.” He glanced at me, then at each of the others. Then he looked down at himself, at his hands.

  “It’s not connected to you,” I said.

  “No.” But even as he said it, the web around him expanded, then contracted. Then another slow expansion and contraction.

  As if it were …

  Breathing.

  Cerise started muttering again. As before, I didn’t recognize the language.

  Magic shivered through the lace doily under my feet. My mind began to drift. Everything was so … pretty.

  The power … the people … the dawn-lit sky above …

  I smiled, feeling warm, blissful.

  “Amp5!” Kader barked.

  I flinched. I hated that name. That designation. I raised my head, not realizing that it had fallen back, already snarling at the sorcerer.

  My maker.

  The Collective incarnate.

  He deserved everything coming to him. He deserved to die a slow, painful death, to feed —

  “Emma!” the elder sorcerer shouted.

  I blinked.

  To feed … what?

  Kader Azar came into focus before me. He was reaching toward me, offering me his hand.

  Another pulse of energy rode Cerise’s muttered words. The desire to kneel flooded through me.

  I didn’t.

  Everyone else sank down onto their knees. Their hands were placed palm up on their thighs, their heads fallen back. Including Aiden.

  But not Kader.

  “Emma,” the elder sorcerer said urgently. He was gesturing toward the center of the circle.

  A crystal vase filled with flowers had appeared on the grass, set within the diamond lace pattern. The flowers looked … familiar.

  I blinked.

  The vase turned into a mason jar, similar to the one Paisley had eaten.

  I blinked again.

  No. Not a vase.

  It was … a statue of some sort? A shapely figure holding an urn above its head. Cast in a bronze-colored metal.

  I blinked again and the crystal vase with familiar blossoms reappeared — the apple blossoms with the dark centers that had been set beside my bed. The flowers were a magical construct of some sort.

  “Do you see it?” Kader hissed.

  I nodded, though I wasn’t completely certain.

  A whisper ran through the lace spell, then another, and another. Until it emanated from seven different throats. Cerise’s spell, picked up by the others.

  Except they were all speaking in one voice now.

  “What are they saying?” I asked.

  “I’m not catching all of it,” Kader said. “But the chant is … ‘The Hallowed. The Hallowed.’ It could be an ancient Celtic dialect?”

  My heart started racing, fear shivering down my spine. Which was good, because it washed away the last lingering traces of the compulsion.

  Compulsion that Cerise had tried on me multiple times over the last two days.

  No.

  Not Cerise.

  At least not just Cerise.

  I looked at the vase that wasn’t a vase, at the center of the main circle. It was an idol of some sort. The kind that might have been worshiped by some cult hundreds or thousands of years ago.

  My gaze snapped to Kader. “I think we’re about to find out what Cerise Myers dug up in the coven archives.”

  “Yes,” he said grimly. “And it’s been feeding off me, through Aiden, for well over a year now …” Magic shifted through the diamond lace of the main circle, calling Kader’s attention. But his point was clear.

  Whatever being was contained in that idol wanted out. And it needed way more than just sips of Kader’s magic to get free. Would it take all of our deaths? Or just Kader’s? Was that why Cerise — or whatever was controlling Cerise — had put him in the main circle with the idol?

  The chanting rose in intensity. The same foreign phrase that Kader had translated for me repeated over and over again. The Hallowed. The Hallowed.

  Power pulsed through the spell again, highlighting the outer circles one at a time. Beginning with Cerise, then jumping between Sky and Ocean, then Aiden and Isa, then Khalid and Grosvenor.

  The spell welled up under my feet, trying to draw magic from me. Not trying to drain me, though. More like it was sharing all the magic it had gathered, then adding mine to the mix.

  I could feel the spell well enough that I knew I could attempt to thwart it at any time. But I understood that what was happening might well be what was necessary to remove the spell from Kader —

  A cracking sound erupted from within the circle. The noise was so sharp and brutal that I thought it might have been Kader’s neck breaking. I might have missed the sudden death of the sorcerer while staring at my feet.

  I raised my gaze to see that he was still standing before me, though. The elder sorcerer was staring at the vessel — which now had a lengthwise crack running through its widest section.

  I’d been compromised. Again. Not completely incapacitated, but definitely slowed down. Except it wasn’t Cerise who’d been influencing our moods, making us more amenable. It was the Hallowed, manifesting through Cerise. It absolutely explained the shift in the witch’s power.

  And it also made clear my own vulnerability, and the way the magic had initially been able to sway even me.

  I had never faced … whatever I was about to face.

  Kader shook his head as if trying to clear it. Then he turned and thrust his hand toward me again. Darkly tinted sorcerer magic had gathered around his other hand. Whatever was happening in Cerise’s circle, it didn’t appear to stop the sorcerer from casting. An oversight. Or Cerise didn’t think the spell could be torn down from within.

  But then, Cerise really didn’t know me at all.

  Which meant she’d have no idea why the only sorcerer still standing, still holding himself outside the enchantment of the spell, was offering his hand to me.

  I glanced over Kader’s shoulder at Aiden. He was completely enthralled, kneeling, head thrown back. A dark-blue globe of power pooled in each of his hands, that same power gleaming from his eyes.

  The others were all in identical positions, though Aiden’s magic glowed the brightest.

  Emanating from Cerise’s connection point to the main circle, energy started licking down the diamond-patterned lacework
that stretched from edge to edge. The chanting picked up in speed and power, becoming unnaturally loud now.

  The Hallowed. The Hallowed.

  “Stop thinking, Emma,” Kader shouted over the sound. “You know what needs to be done.” The sorcerer’s eyes were blazing with power. His face had thinned, appearing almost skeletal. Whatever was contained in Cerise’s idol was consuming him. Quickly.

  “Amplifier!” he shouted again, demanding. Then he softened his tone. “Emma.”

  “You have no right to my magic,” I snarled. “Or that name.” I had no idea why I was taking the time to protest. Except that … except that it might have been nice to stay in place, to greet the Hallowed … to open myself to the Hallowed …

  Kader bared his teeth in a smile. “I’d like to save my sons. How would you prefer to go about it? Pick up your blades, then slaughter everyone between yourself and Cerise? If you wait long enough, that might be your only option. If she … if it … can turn them against you, that is exactly what’s going to happen.”

  I curled my fingers into fists, looking at Aiden again. If I tore through Cerise’s spell on my own, and if she sent Aiden at me in response, I knew I would be able to quell him without harming him.

  But if they all attacked me at once? I couldn’t guarantee anything.

  “Can you turn the spell against her?” I shouted at Kader, straining to be heard over the chanting.

  He shook his head. “It’s still witch magic, which I cannot wield. But I might be able to sever the connections. One at a time.”

  “Without killing Cerise?”

  The power seeping through the lace diamonds in the main circle was closing in on Kader, creeping forward from the sides as well now.

  “I doubt it,” he said.

  “What about … what about destroying the idol?”

  He grinned at me. “Risky, amplifier,” he shouted back.

  “Contain it, then? While I hold Cerise?”

  The lace diamond that Kader was standing within brightened at its tip, energy slipping down its sides. As my own natural resistance became full immunity, I could feel the compulsion finally. A beguiling tendril of dirty white energy licked Kader’s cheek, drawing his attention away from me.

  The grin slid from the elder sorcerer’s face.

  He took a hesitant step forward.

  The lace started to shift around him, the pattern blurring. The top section of the diamond opened, creating a passageway to the vessel, the idol.

  Damn it.

  I slammed my palm against the power that sealed the main circle between Kader and me, finding little resistance. I was tied to the spell, because my lace doily was tied to the spell, however lightly. And since I was part of it, I could pass through it.

  I grabbed Kader’s hand before he could turn fully away, slamming my power through him. He stumbled to the side, then whirled back toward me. The fingers of his free hand clawed, crackling with the dark pulse of the spell he’d been calling forth. He was reacting as if I’d attacked him, not amplified him. As if he was about to wrench my heart from my chest.

  Still standing in my individual circle, I pulled him closer, hitting him with another flood of power. His pupils dilated, spreading wide enough that only a hint of yellowed white edged his blackened eyes. A terrible grin stretched across his too-thin face — filled with pain.

  Then his hand dropped to his side. His expression softened, and he laughed. A deep throaty laugh, head back, throat exposed.

  For a moment, I thought he might have been fully taken by Cerise’s leeching spell. That by amplifying him, I had somehow increased the connection of the spell.

  The chanting stopped. So abruptly that my ears continued to ring with its din.

  Kader tugged me toward him, pulling me from my individual circle into the main circle. The spell allowed me to pass through with minimal resistance.

  The diamond lace pattern shuddered, quivering. Then it started narrowing, as if to squeeze us.

  Kader thrust his free hand toward the ground. A blackened pentagram seared itself across the grass, just big enough to encompass our feet without slicing through the main circle. Another spark of power from the elder sorcerer sealed it — and sealed us within it — the moment after it encompassed our feet.

  He did it all without a word of power, nary a murmur of a spell.

  Then he spun me. Placing his hand on my hip, he guided me back a step. The pentagram shifted with us.

  No.

  An echo of the pentagram hovered around our ankles. I could still see the seared lines across the grass a step behind us.

  Kader shifted into me again, moving me through a more and more complicated series of steps. I stumbled, trying to keep my footing while still amplifying him.

  He was dancing. Or trying to dance.

  With me.

  Trust was most definitely a missing component, though. Hence the stumbling.

  More power exploded around us, filling the pentagram. The magic was dense but not suffocating.

  We spiraled through the main circle, keeping to the outer edge but never breaking the seal. Somehow, we were collecting the diamond lace as we twirled around and around the idol.

  Cerise and the others remained silent. The sounds of the still-cooped chickens started filtering in. Then a lone car on the main road. Though we should have been mostly concealed from the road, I seriously hoped Cerise had added a layer of obfuscation to her main circle.

  Kader shifted his hands, switching which of my hands he clasped and which hip he held. Then he switched the direction of the dance, of our slow spin. Our bodies were close but not touching. When we’d met, eight years ago, he was taller than me. But the rapid aging of Cerise’s spell meant he stood slightly shorter now.

  Magic gleamed in the elder sorcerer’s blackened eyes. And for the first time since he’d arrived, I felt the full depth of Kader Azar’s power, his magic. He couldn’t hide it while I was amplifying him.

  He was beyond formidable.

  If it came to it, I might not actually be able to kill him. Not on my own. Not even with Cerise’s hallowed spell eating him from within.

  It was a good thing I didn’t believe in impossibilities.

  Kader laughed, pulling me against him and murmuring, “My darling daughter …” His arms snapped out, spinning me. My hair was dancing in the ever-thickening magic of the pentagram — the unleashed and amplified sorcerer power. “Look at you. True beauty. Such power.”

  We stopped, magic still churning around us. The echo of the pentagram sealed over the edges of the one burned into the grass. We’d completed three circuits — two counterclockwise and one clockwise — before returning to our origin point.

  The lace of the main spell was twined around the pentagram, as if it had been gathered along its points and spokes.

  Kader released my hand, only to touch my cheek. His blackened eyes blazed with power — his and mine combined.

  He would have been unstoppable with me at his side.

  His smile sharpened, as if he were reading my mind.

  And maybe he was.

  Then I realized I couldn’t read his emotions through our skin-to-skin contact. That was utterly disconcerting.

  I gave him one last blast of amplification. His eyes narrowed into self-satisfied slits as he greedily absorbed the energy without flinching.

  I leaned into him, whispering against his ear, “I might still kill you tomorrow.”

  He laughed huskily. “Always a possibility with you … and everyone in your life. Emma.” His use of my name was pointed, claiming.

  I stepped back.

  Still smirking, and now radiating power, Kader turned to face the idol and Cerise. As he raised his hands to the sides, dark-blue tendrils of magic started slipping into and twining through the reams and reams of white lace he’d somehow coiled around the pentagram during our dance.

  “Claiming the spell?” I whispered, standing tightly behind him.

  “Testing the
response …” He trailed off, fingers spreading as if feeling for something I couldn’t see.

  I glanced back at my blades lying in the grass. “I could just take Cerise out of play.”

  Kader hummed thoughtfully, still easing the threads of his magic through the white lace. “Might be too late for that. The entity might have taken too much control. We’d still need to bottle it.”

  “And I’d be responsible for killing Aiden’s mother.”

  “I gather that’s what has saved my neck for the last few days.”

  I changed the subject. I didn’t go around simply murdering people, for a variety of reasons. I didn’t need to list them all for the sorcerer who had been largely responsible for the death toll I’d racked up prior to my twenty-second birthday.

  If I thought about it too much, I might forget that Aiden still held some feelings for his father.

  “And if you can’t claim it?” I said. “Can you at least block it?”

  “Yes,” Kader murmured. “But only gradually. The key is to replace the anchor points without —”

  Cerise raised her hands. The light-blue witch magic blazing in her eyes also welled in her palms. The third eye on her forehead winked open. Power shuddered through the main circle, as if the lace was trying to untangle itself from the spokes of Kader’s pentagram.

  The elder sorcerer increased his own output, energy flowing out of him freely now as he outright attempted to claim the main circle.

  Cerise reached to her sides, palms facing Ocean on her right and Sky on her left. The younger witches were still kneeling in their individual circles, heads thrown back.

  Tendrils from the lace doily — I couldn’t tell whether it was the actual fabric or the yarn or rope from which Cerise had constructed them — lashed around Sky’s and Ocean’s wrists. They cinched so tightly that I could see them cutting into flesh, even through the magic churning and clashing within the main circle.

  “Kader,” I whispered. “We’re going to have to switch to plan B.”

  Power pulsed under Sky and Ocean.

  They screamed.

  Their eyes snapped open, faces etched in agony. Both of them were suddenly and completely aware of what was happening — as if Cerise had severed the connection to the primary spell that had held them in thrall. Now she was pulling power directly from them. Blood seeped from their wrists as they struggled to free themselves.