Bonds and Broken Dreams (Amplifier 2) Read online

  I sensed nothing amiss and nothing foreign. I crossed to the barn. It must have been Christopher calling me, perhaps unwittingly creating a connection through our shared blood binding. We’d never been able to speak mind-to-mind previously without Bee. But it was never a surprise when one of the Five developed a new ability.

  It hadn’t started snowing again, but the salt Christopher had placed down hadn’t yet melted all the way to the sod. I could see multiple tracks leading to and from the back door of the barn, including the path that Aiden had taken to the back fence line to work on his property wards.

  I skirted the exterior stairs to the loft, which had also been cleared and salted. I opened the door and stepped into the barn. Blinking to adjust my eyes to the dim interior, I quickly shut the door behind me, stomping my boots on the rubber mat.

  Christopher was standing in profile, hands braced on the high counter that held the incubator, and seemingly fixated on the eggs held within. His magic was a low simmer. It ghosted across the top of my spine but didn’t linger.

  I removed my jacket, toeing off my boots and setting both next to Christopher’s on the boot and coat rack, respectively.

  “It’s hot in here,” I murmured.

  The clairvoyant grunted. “Just feels that way because of how cold it is outside.”

  I slowly crossed to him, wary of his reticent demeanor, which was often an indication that his magic was about to manifest. “We’ve been colder.”

  He snorted. “For short periods of time. On mission. Not … trapped, caged …”

  I paused, making a show of peering into the incubator. Though I really didn’t know what I was looking at. “Are they hatching?”

  “Day twenty,” he murmured. “Soon. Aiden made certain that the generator turned on after the power went out last night, so they shouldn’t be affected. I’m hoping for olive eggers. A cross between the black copper Marans rooster and the Ameraucana hens.”

  We’d had this conversation before. But occasionally, Christopher repeated moments, either out of comfort or from not knowing whether a previous exchange had occurred solely in his head.

  “Green eggs.” He smiled softly, presumably pleased at the reference to the children’s book.

  I opened my mouth to tease him about just needing moldy ham, but what had woken me was more important. “I heard you calling me.”

  His head snapped up, giving me a glimpse of the white of his magic simmering around his irises. The power wasn’t fully manifested. “Not me.”

  “But something is wrong.”

  He shook his head. “No. Not … the snow is triggering.”

  I frowned. “You think it’s magically induced? That would be a hell of a spell. Possibly requiring a full coven. And to what end? And … Aiden would have picked up on it.”

  Christopher laughed quietly. He sounded relieved, which was an odd reaction for someone who’d just suggested he felt trapped.

  “Triggering emotionally,” he said, still chuckling. “But I’m an idiot to not just come to you, to allow your need to rationally tag or assess every emotion to ease my mind.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a compliment,” I grumbled.

  He grinned. “It is.”

  “And your sight?”

  “I’ve been getting disjointed glimpses all morning. You with your books in the house, tracking Aiden and Paisley around the property …” He frowned, peering at me. Then he started laughing again.

  “Apparently I’m hilarious now. Yet another hidden talent.”

  Christopher shook his head, raising his hand toward me but not touching. “You have runes imprinted on your cheek.” He tilted his head. “Backward and possibly upside down.”

  Damn it. That was what came from falling asleep on Aiden’s notes. I’d probably ruined them.

  Christopher’s head snapped back suddenly, magic flooding through his eyes, splashing over my face, neck, and shoulders. Then, somewhat unusually, it retracted back to the clairvoyant.

  He gasped. His hand, still extended toward me, flexed twice. “Paisley.”

  Paisley? I dashed back to the door, shoving my feet into my lined boots and grabbing my coat.

  “Paisley,” the clairvoyant murmured again, his magic fading into a simmer. “Paisley’s tracking an interloper.”

  “Interloper? On the property? Now? Soon?”

  He nodded, stepping toward me.

  I grabbed his coat off the rack and handed it to him. “The sorcerers?”

  “A witch.” Christopher shoved his feet into his boots, opening the door at the same time.

  A witch?

  “We’re going to need Aiden,” Christopher said. Then he exited into the cold, shielding his eyes from the onslaught of light.

  “Southwest corner,” I said as I followed him, remembering to close the door behind me.

  “I know.” He stepped off the path, crossing away at a diagonal. The snow nearly topped his rubber boots, making it almost half a meter deep. “You need to get to the gate, Socks.”

  I crossed around the barn, leaving the shoveled path to push up the driveway. Or at least push through the snow where the driveway was normally situated. The slight indentation between the yard and the flat gravel was the only guide to keep me from walking all over Christopher’s roses —

  A shriek cut through the chilled air. I started running, clumsy in the boots, uncertain where the shout had come from. Apparently, sound travelled oddly over snow. Bouncing off it somehow. I could see the gate at the top of the drive. It was closed, covered in snow —

  Something slammed into the fence to the far left of the gate. Magic shifted across the snow toward me.

  I stumbled to a stop, waiting for an attack, an assault.

  The air was still. The snow-phobic chickens were quiet, tucked into their coop, as they had been the last couple of days. I couldn’t hear the cows at the Wilsons’ farm, probably all still inside —

  Paisley roared. Then she appeared, suddenly loping through the leaf-bare fruit trees, directly across from where the snow had been shaken from the front fence. She was wearing her large blue-nosed pit bull aspect, practically surfing over the snow.

  I darted across the driveway, leaping over the spots where I thought Christopher’s dormant flower bushes lay, hoping to intersect Paisley’s path.

  Unfortunately, with me hindered by my boots, the demon dog was faster.

  Someone shrieked again — a female voice by its tenor. More magic moved along the fence, knocking the snow off in the direction of the gate.

  Paisley snarled viciously, homing in on what appeared to be invisible prey.

  I was six meters away, weaponless.

  Magic erupted, momentarily revealing a small figure crouching against the fence. The spell slammed Paisley in the chest. The demon dog shook off the assault with barely a pause, gathering her back legs to launch herself at the invisible attacker.

  “Stop!” I shouted. Magic born from my fear of Paisley getting hurt rippled across the snow before me.

  The demon dog snapped her head back in my direction, growling at being checked. Eyes gleaming red.

  “Alpha formation,” I said, slowing my own pace now that I had her attention.

  Paisley lowered her head, flattening her ears and curling her lips back from sharp teeth.

  “Now!” I shouted.

  She skulked back to me, belly cutting through the snow, taking up a position at my right and two steps behind.

  I continued steadily forward, tracing the tracks from the orchard along the inner edge of the fence. Someone had entered the property under the guise of a masking spell, only to be chased back to the gate by Paisley.

  Someone who could hide her magic from my senses.

  Or …

  I paused about three meters back, quieting the crunch of my own steps through the snow and immediately picking up the sound of someone weeping over the chattering of her teeth.

  The issue wasn’t that she could hide her magic from me.
Whoever was under the masking spell simply wasn’t powerful enough for me to pick up her magic all the way from the house or the barn.

  “Emma?” a voice whispered. An echo pulled from my dream in the study. “Emma.” Magic snuffed out, quashed by its wielder. Its sobbing, cowering wielder.

  A young witch.

  Medium-brown skin. Darker brown hair that was currently matted on one side, as if she’d been lying in one place for too long. Too slim, too tiny for a thirteen-year-old. She was wearing jeans and a thin sweater. No hat or scarf, runners caked in snow.

  If I had been close enough, I would have been able to see that her blue eyes, currently softly glowing with her witch magic, were flecked with brown shards.

  Opal.

  The child witch from my dreams.

  The child from the botched job in San Francisco.

  She was in Lake Cowichan.

  That didn’t make any sense whatsoever.

  “Emma!” she cried. Then, as if losing the last of her strength, she broke down into ragged sobs, slumping sideways into the snow.

  I checked myself from snatching her up in my arms, shoving away the anger that had risen in order to coolly assess the situation. I ignored the girl, scanning the immediate vicinity as well as the road beyond the gate for the primary assault that had to be coming.

  Nothing else made any sense. This had to be a precursor to an attack. The girl was a decoy.

  Christopher’s magic shifted on my spine, indicating the clairvoyant’s approach.

  Opal was muttering something under her breath. She gathered herself into an upright fetal position, holding her knees, rocking. I could barely make out her words.

  “Found you … found you …”

  Nothing else happened.

  The road had been cleared, but I couldn’t hear any cars approaching from either direction. No one attacked.

  I hunkered down just out of reach, peering at Opal. She didn’t match her dream aspect. Her skin was dull, slack. As if she’d recently lost weight that someone as tiny as her couldn’t afford to lose.

  Paisley stepped up to my side. She was holding the bovine femur in her mouth. And before I could react, she poked Opal in the shoulder with it.

  The young witch’s eyes snapped open. “Demon!”

  “Good call,” I said. “But obvious, since you’ve already met Paisley. Haven’t you, Opal?”

  Her gaze snapped to me, then she blinked rapidly. The way Christopher had done when we were younger, and he was trying to stay in the present.

  “Have you been invading my dreams, Opal?”

  Her lower lip quivered. “Yes. But not intentionally … at first.”

  I quashed the need to gather her in my arms a second time. There was a game being played and I wasn’t aware of the rules — or even who all the players were. Opal might have been a pawn. She could have been the start of an offensive volley. But there was no way she was simply another coincidence.

  Paisley jabbed the bone toward the young witch again, this time aiming for her lower arm. Opal wrapped her hand around one end, looking at the demon dog with a deep seriousness. She straightened, still holding the bone. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to Paisley. “I didn’t recognize you.”

  The demon dog’s eyes glowed red as she gently tugged the bone away from the witch, tucking it back into her currently invisible mane. Then she looked at me as if she was ceding the interrogation.

  “Oh, are you done, then?”

  Paisley huffed, opening her mouth in a massive smile spiked with sharp teeth.

  I nodded, though I really had no idea what the demon dog had been doing with the bone. Somehow using it to test the witch’s sincerity or verifying her identity, maybe? “Track Opal’s path onto the property, please. Don’t cross the ward line.”

  Paisley pressed her nose into my neck, snuffling dramatically and covering me with slobber.

  Opal giggled, watching the demon dog as she prowled off to our left. Then the witch settled her gaze on me, shivering.

  I finally gave in to the need to protect her — at least from the cold — stripping off my jacket and wrapping it around her shoulders. She pulled her feet under her, matching my crouched position, then she burrowed into the puffy jacket.

  The cold was cutting. I could hear Christopher’s and Aiden’s steps through the snow. Unhurried but steady. They were crossing up the driveway behind us, likely scanning for further threats.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “Invading your dreams. I … I didn’t know any other way to contact you.”

  “Where’s your mother, Opal?”

  Her face crumpled.

  That had been the wrong question. “Why are you here?”

  “I don’t know,” she cried. “I was at school … and … and …” She started sobbing again. “Not … my …” She clutched her throat. “… Mom …”

  She wasn’t sobbing. She was choking.

  “Emma … she took me …” Opal coughed, her face turning red. “Made me … made me …”

  “Stop, Opal,” I said, trying to keep calm myself. “Stop talking.”

  She shook her head, clawing at her throat. “I … need to tell … you …”

  “Aiden,” I shouted, feeling him near as I grabbed Opal’s arms. Now that I was in contact with the witch, I could feel the spell she was trying to fight. Her magic churned ineffectively. “Aiden!”

  “I’m here.” The sorcerer brushed against me, reaching for Opal.

  “No!” she screamed, batting at him.

  He ignored her, hovering his hands over her throat, then chest. I scrambled to her opposite side and caught her hands in my own, trying to keep her still without hurting her.

  Opal slammed her head back in the snow, over and over.

  “Emma,” Aiden grunted.

  I wrapped both of the young witch’s wrists in one hand, pressing my other palm to her forehead.

  “It’s a spell,” the sorcerer muttered.

  “I know it’s a goddamn spell,” I snapped.

  “Not helpful, Socks,” Christopher whispered, stepping close enough that I could see his face. The white of his magic had wiped out his eyes. His expression was grim.

  “No,” I said, denying whatever the clairvoyant was already seeing of the young witch’s future. Or, rather, her lack of future. “No. No!”

  Aiden slipped his fingers into Opal’s front pocket, tugging out a steel chain, like one of those used to hold the plug for an older bathtub. The chain was strung through a large ring set with an opalescent stone.

  “No!” Opal screamed. “Mine! Mine!” She started convulsing, foam forming at the corners of her mouth.

  Unable to continue doing nothing, I gently reached for her churning magic, tangling it with mine. Boosting it, trying to give her the strength to fight the spell choking her. Though if she didn’t know how to use her magic defensively, I couldn’t do it for her.

  Dangling the chain and the ring in one hand, Aiden tugged a black marker from the pocket of his jacket, tearing the cap free with his teeth as he tugged up Opal’s sweater, exposing her stomach. “Hold her still, Emma,” he growled, spitting the black plastic lid into the snow.

  I moved my hand from Opal’s forehead, pressing it to her upper chest. She shuddered and convulsed. “I can’t help her,” I cried. “She doesn’t know how to counter the spell.”

  And I was no healer.

  Something cracked in my chest. Something terrible that had been lodged there, dammed up. Pain flooded through me. “Aiden. Aiden.”

  “I’ve got it, Emma.” He’d drawn a pentagram on Opal’s stomach, the black lines only slightly darker than her skin. He allowed the ring and the chain to pool in the center of the pentagram, then started muttering under his breath. Magic rose. He traced the pentagram over and over, coaxing the magic into place.

  Opal went terribly still.

  “Aiden!” I cried.

  “Give me a second. I’ve been cast
ing all day, and I just —”

  I didn’t wait for another opening. I slammed my hand against his chest, matching his magic with my own before he’d even seen me move. I amplified him, amplified the spell on the tip of his tongue.

  He grunted, his eyes blazing a darker blue.

  The pentagram on Opal’s stomach snapped closed.

  The witch took a shuddering breath, then started coughing.

  Aiden met my gaze. I couldn’t read his expression, but I picked up a hint of his frustration and concern with my empathy, even through his thick layers of clothing.

  He dropped his gaze, plucking up the ring and the chain. “I’m good, Emma.” He looked at me pointedly, then shifted his gaze to where I was still touching him, still amplifying him. “See to the child, please.”

  I dropped my hand, already knowing I’d made the wrong choice by amplifying Aiden without permission. My gaze dropped to Opal. She was watching me through half-closed eyes.

  Christopher sighed contentedly, a smile curling his lips.

  “She was going to die,” I said, needing Aiden to know.

  “Yes,” the clairvoyant said. “She’s okay now. For a while, at least. The property is clear. No other immediate threats looming.”

  I shivered, cold inside and out.

  Christopher turned away. “I’ll make some cocoa and tea.” His footsteps crunched in the snow as he walked back to the house.

  “That’s mine,” Opal whispered, her gaze on Aiden. “That ring. That’s all I have of my mom.”

  He nodded. “I understand. I can break the curse without damaging it.”

  I gathered Opal in my arms, lifting her. Aiden stood at the same time, his gaze heavy on me.

  I almost said I was sorry. Then Opal closed her hand to a fist in my hair, and I couldn’t bring myself to have wished for a different sequence of events. “She’s alive.”

  The sorcerer nodded, turning away. “I’ll bring the ring to the house after I break the curse. Don’t try to question her until I get back.”

  I followed him, bristling at the command — and at the implication that I should have waited before talking to Opal the first time. But I let him walk away. I had forced myself and my opinions on him enough already.