Another pulse of energy ran through their individual circles, and the younger witches screamed again. And again.
Kader grunted, then reestablished his footing as if he’d felt a push of power that I hadn’t.
“Plan B!” I shouted, pressing my hand against the magic that held me in the pentagram with the sorcerer.
“No,” he snarled. “Bringing the blades in would be too volatile. The point is to avoid releasing the entity.”
Ocean screamed again, then slumped to one side. I hoped she’d simply passed out — as opposed to suffering a stroke.
Sky was sobbing. She had gotten one of her hands free and was actively trying to tear through the lace that still bound her other wrist. She met my eyes through the maelstrom of power that the elder witch and the sorcerer were throwing at each other, sobbing. “Emma!”
Another strand of the lace beneath her unraveled. She noticed it a second before it struck, lashing around her neck. She got her hand under it, but was already struggling to breathe.
The lace doily under Isa started to pulse. With Ocean knocked out — or dead — Cerise was going to pull Isa into the act of repulsing Kader’s attempt to claim the circle. To contain whatever was in the cracked idol.
Aiden was next to Sky. The younger witch was still fighting, but her eyes were fluttering as she also fought to hold on to consciousness. When she went down, Aiden would be next.
“Let me out of here,” I snarled. “Or I’ll tear my way through.”
“Not advisable,” Kader said coolly, but I could hear the strain in his voice from the level of power he was wielding.
Isa’s eyes snapped open. He snarled. Power exploded around him, contained by his individual circle, as he fought the strands of lace that had latched onto his wrists.
Kader flinched.
“Can you hold against them all?” I asked, trying to be rational, not reactionary. We were dealing with magic I knew nothing about. That was how Cerise had played me so badly. “If she gets Isa and … Aiden … even with me amplifying you, can you hold?”
“I can.”
“And if she’s killing them?” I asked softly, my gaze on Aiden now. On the glowing lace doily under his knees, pulsing with power. “If she sacrifices each of them to the spell? Maybe even to the entity?”
Kader snarled something in that arcane language that belonged to the Azars. Dark-blue power exploded around us, scouring the last of the delicate lace pattern from the main circle.
Across from us, Cerise mewed in pain.
Then she shook her head, settled her shoulders, and tore more energy from the circle.
Sky slumped.
Isa screamed.
The lace doily under Aiden’s knees unfurled and latched on to him viciously, immediately cutting into his hands, wrists, and forearms. He grunted in pain, brow furrowing.
Cerise brought her hands together at her chest, her fervent, blazing, blue-eyed gaze locked to Kader.
And to me.
I caught the moment the elder witch saw me in the pentagram with the sorcerer. She frowned and tilted her head. But not as if she was thinking. More as if she was listening to someone.
Aiden started hissing in pain, twisting against the bindings that held him.
“Get me to Cerise,” I whispered to Kader. “Just get me to Cerise.”
“This is too much, amplifier. Even for you. If Cerise gains you, she will be too powerful for the rest of us. We need to step back —”
I grabbed the back of Kader’s neck.
He went rigid, presumably thinking I was about to snap it.
Instead, I turned his head toward Isa, who’d broken the first tendrils holding him but was now fighting at least a dozen others. And flagging.
Then I rotated Kader’s head toward Aiden.
The dark-haired sorcerer was also fighting. Tearing through the lace doily under his knees, chest heaving in pain, blood seeping from slashes across his arms, neck, and face.
My struggle to breathe was purely psychological, but knowing so didn’t reduce the terror at seeing Aiden hurting. A terror that threatened to overwhelm my senses, my rational mind.
Power thundered through the main circle, held at bay by Kader’s pentagram. A sharp sound drew my attention away from Aiden. The crack on the idol had widened.
And for just a breath, I swore I could see a shadow moving within it — an iridescent blackness.
A cool flood of adrenaline slid through me — hairline to neck to chest to stomach — then filtered down to my bare toes. “Get me to Cerise,” I said coolly. “I’ll contain her. Not kill her. While you get the idol secured.”
Completely without consent, I started pumping more power into the sorcerer. And as I did, I felt the first flicker of his emotions — a flood of willfulness, underpinned by a thread of uncertainty.
Kader reached up, wrapping his fingers around my wrist as he’d done eight years ago. I felt the shift in his emotions — resolution and pride.
“Listen to me carefully, amplifier,” he whispered, turning his head back as far as it would go. “If I’m putting this together well enough, I assume that Cerise needed the power of the others to break the containment spell on the idol. But for that entity to manifest fully into our dimension, our reality …” He trailed off.
Trying to be patient, even as Isa gave in and started screaming in earnest, I gave the elder sorcerer more and more of my power. Blood now speckled the grass around Aiden. “You think it needs a body,” I said, putting together the rest. “I thought she was going to sacrifice you to release it.”
“You can’t let it have me, Emma.” Kader squeezed my wrist almost painfully. “It’s one thing for it to control a witch such as Cerise. But if it could fully manifest through her, then it already would have. Cerise’s ties to the Myers coven most likely kept it in check. Otherwise, the coven would have sensed its intrusion and cleaned things up, as witches like to do.”
Even while watching his sons being magically consumed, Kader still managed to sneeringly maintain his ingrained sorcerer prejudices.
“I won’t let it have you, Kader. Let’s go.” I removed my hand from the back of his neck.
He held on to my wrist. “No. You’ll have to kill me. I’m dead already if it gets me, because those who will come then will slaughter me without mercy.”
“Those who will come?” I said mockingly, twisting out of his hold.
He let me go with a pained wince. I had probably been rougher than necessary.
Kader met my gaze. “The Collective made you powerful for a reason.” He jabbed a finger toward the idol. “Entities such as whatever is contained in that urn do not walk the earth unchecked.”
Behind the idol, Cerise was amassing more and more power. Whatever she hit us with next was going to hurt.
“Even the Five united —”
“We don’t have time for a lesson,” I snarled. “I’ll kill you if it gets hold of you.”
“Instantly,” he said. “You can’t hesitate.”
Isa slumped.
Aiden screamed, over and over.
The magic beneath Grosvenor started pulsing.
I spun, unleashing my power, fingers clawed toward the edge of the pentagram.
But before I could dig in and try to tear through it, Kader placed his hand on my back, pushing me forward.
I took a step.
The pentagram shifted with me.
Another step and I was beside Khalid. His head was still thrown back in an expression of ecstasy.
Two more quick steps and I was beside Aiden.
He’d been watching our progress, half-slumped to the ground. Ribbons of his blue sorcerer power still twined around him, as if he’d tried to shield himself and had only been partially successful.
He slammed his free hand to the magic between us as I stepped by him.
I met his pained gaze, brushing my fingertips across his palm, even though I couldn’t actually touch him. “I’ll be right back.”
I turned and ran, pulling the pentagram and Kader with me.
I made it three steps before Cerise unleashed her spell. It slammed into Kader’s pentagram, shredding it so thoroughly that my momentum actually carried me through, tumbling into the onslaught of power.
I lost all sense of time and space, of up or down.
Then, my shoulders crashing into something metal, I hit the ground.
I pressed my palms into the grass, making it to my knees, blinking Kader into focus. He was still on his feet, nearer to Cerise than me. I must have taken the brunt of whatever the elder witch had hit us with. Power emanated from him, burning in a wide beam directed at Cerise.
The metal object behind me was warm. It hummed with its own power. There was something soothing about the warm vibration, something inviting —
I rolled away, coming up facing the idol. The center section of the urn was cracked completely in half now, yet somehow the top section remained still suspended above it.
Because more than just metal bound the entity inside.
The Hallowed.
I instinctively brushed away the whisper that crossed my mind — and then was suddenly uncertain as to whether it had simply been my own voice, my own thought.
“Emma!” Aiden shouted from somewhere far, far away. “Emma!”
I turned my head, tearing my eyes away from the urn with far more effort than was reasonable. I saw the dark-haired sorcerer as he drew a fistful of power, then punched it against the magic containing him, keeping him away from me.
He screamed, fighting his mother’s spell as it attempted to latch onto him even more viciously.
The Hallowed.
I was moving before the words finished echoing through my mind.
Not just words — a title.
A benediction. A belief.
I charged past Kader. He pulled back on his spell an instant before I would have hit it. He spun to the side, ducking. I lunged for Cerise, even as she turned the torrent of power that she’d been holding against Kader on me.
The torrent just … died.
Or rather, it opened up.
For me.
My hands slid through the edge of the main circle, crossing through the power that pulsed in the individual circle in which the elder witch stood. I latched onto Cerise’s wrists. I was already pulling power from her before her eyes widened in shock. I had moved faster than she could react.
That was fast.
Even for me.
My momentum slammed the witch back against the edge of her circle, which held her firmly enough that she didn’t fall.
Witch magic hammered against me as Cerise rallied to fight back. I drained her, pulling energy that felt oddly unfocused and feeble — especially for someone who had just been holding Kader Azar at bay, one-on-one.
Cerise slumped against me, her power diminishing under my hands rapidly. Too quickly. As if she were somehow already drained. Another trick perhaps? I kept pulling and pulling, pivoting with the witch in my arms as I turned to check on Kader.
The elder sorcerer was weaving his tattered mobile pentagram back together with the idol at its center.
Cerise mewed in pain against my chest. I turned my focus to the witch’s power, not wanting to take too much, too fast. I had promised that I wouldn’t kill her.
I could feel the magical bindings the witch held to the main circle. I slowly lowered Cerise to the ground as I gathered those ties for myself. There were more than I’d expected.
That was odd.
I tugged on the shortest tie, and suddenly I could feel Ocean on the other side of it. Acting on instinct, I let the tie go instead of claiming it. It snapped back to Ocean, and the younger witch simply vanished from my mind, my senses.
I glanced to my right. Ocean was still slumped in her circle, deathly pale. As I watched, her chest rose, then fell.
Cerise’s power sputtered under my palm. I turned my attention back to the other ties I’d collected from her. Would letting all of them go at once inadvertently release the entity at the same time?
Damn it.
I hated screwing around with magic I had no actual ability to cast.
I tugged the thickest tie, finding Sky on the other end. I released the binding.
I found Isa, releasing him.
I found Aiden —
Cerise started convulsing under my hand. There was a chance I was now killing her.
I met Aiden’s gaze. Everyone else was still down, excepting Kader. Even Khalid. But my sorcerer was watching me.
Looking at me as if he loved me.
Even as his mother died by my hand.
I released the tie binding Aiden to the main spell. Then Grosvenor and Khalid.
I still held three ties, and I could feel at least one more bound to Cerise that I hadn’t claimed.
The first tie bound Cerise to the individual circle in which we both stood.
The second stretched away from me without end. At a guess, it was bound to the individual circle that was supposed to be holding me.
The third tie led to the main circle.
The binding I hadn’t claimed yet was attached to the idol.
And I had no idea which of the four ties to release first.
If I released the connection to Cerise, I might collapse the entire spell. Thereby releasing the entity.
If I disengaged my own connection, I might not be able to hold on to the rest of the ties, which would then revert to Cerise. Or, worse, they might dissolve to release the entity, which would grab Kader in turn.
If I released the binding to the main circle, it was likely to dissolve all the others at the same time.
A conundrum.
Maybe even the first conundrum ever that I couldn’t just hack my way through, knowing I’d make it to the other side.
The wrong move, the wrong choice, and Aiden might lose his entire immediate family.
Release the wrong tie and I might lose Aiden.
So … I hesitated.
Cerise stilled, but I kept my hold on her wrist.
“Hurry up, boy,” Kader snapped, shooting a glance at his youngest son.
Aiden snarled something — some kind of arcane command that tore through the remnants of the spell binding him in place. Power quaked through the main circle, shuddering through the ties I still held.
Cerise gasped, her eyes snapping open.
Aiden stepped into the main circle, passing through the boundary as easily as I had. It was tuned to his magic, after all. It had to be in order to leech power from him.
Cerise grabbed at my arm — I was already holding her wrist — pulling me to her even as she rose up. She bit down, hard enough to actually pierce my skin.
I shook her off without effort, tossing her head back and forth a few times before she lost consciousness again.
Blood rose in tiny spots on my forearm.
“Emma?” Aiden asked.
I glanced up at him. He had joined his father, working to fortify what I assumed was a containment spell for the idol. Whatever they were doing had succeeded in thinning the connection that hovered just under my palm. The final tie, which I hadn’t taken from Cerise yet.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m holding the ties to the main circle, and —”
Something warm slid over my hand, twining up my wrist and licking the spots of blood on my arm.
“Emma?” Aiden asked again.
“Keep focused!” Kader snapped.
The fourth tie. The tie that bound the idol to Cerise. Somehow, without my actually claiming it, that tie burrowed into my skin, pulsing through the bite marks even though they were barely scratches.
I took the tie for myself, dropping the three others at the same time. The power of the main circle flickered, then died. The individual circles sputtered, then faded away.
Ocean and Sky collapsed fully onto the grass.
Isa mo
aned.
Aiden and Kader both barked words of power, fighting back against the entity.
Because they didn’t know.
It already had hold of me.
I rose, calling up my magic as if I could actually manipulate it, wield it. I visualized a barrier between myself and the binding cinched around my forearm.
Except …
It was already inside me. It had gained access by piercing my skin, sipping at the power in my blood.
It was in my bloodstream, flooding through me.
The Hallowed.
Magic exploded around me as I unleashed one last wild attempt to hold the threat at bay. The wave thundered through the orchard and across the grass.
Someone cried out. Sky, I thought.
Aiden pivoted toward me. Kader’s eyes grew wide as he followed his son’s gaze.
Warmth curled through my mind. “Yes,” I whispered. “The Hallowed.”
The Hallowed.
The Hallowed.
And it was …
We were …
Yes.
We.
We were …
So …
Powerful …
Chapter 10
We stretched our … arms …
Yes. We had arms.
And legs.
A strong body.
The Hallowed.
We stepped toward those who would keep us in check. Sorcerers.
They stared.
Their fear was … delicious. We could still taste their power. It had sustained us through the transition. It would continue to feed us.
No. That was … wrong. I didn’t feed off —
The elder sorcerer laid hands on us, grabbing our forearm.
No one touched us without permission.
We flung him off. He tumbled away through the green carpet, coming to a stop at another sorcerer’s feet.
Grass. Not carpet. Isa. Isa’s feet.
We turned to the barrier impeding our forward progression.
“Emma?” the sorcerer standing to our left whispered, reaching out to us.
We raised our hand to shove him away —
No! I yanked my hand back, stumbling slightly.
Idols and Enemies (Amplifier 4) Page 28