Demons and DNA (Amplifier 1) Page 7

  “The pasta is excellent,” I said, deliberately trying to distract the clairvoyant. “Did you add any spices?”

  Christopher chuckled, shaking his head. Then he took his empty plate to the sink, pausing to put a covered casserole dish in the oven and set the timer.

  I had no idea if he’d been laughing at my question or something that was about to happen. I could feel the hum of his clairvoyance, simmering but not fully activated. But I wouldn’t have been surprised if he was being triggered by my reactions to the sorcerer — or by the presence of the sorcerer himself.

  Aiden took another bite, appearing completely unaffected by the oddness surrounding him. Though I had no idea of his background, so perhaps he’d grown up around magical pets and strange siblings.

  “Shall we play twenty questions?” Aiden asked, glancing over at me with a curl of a smile. “You must have them?”

  “And so must you.”

  “Indeed I do. But an exchange would be less … intrusive.”

  “Oh, yes. Let’s play.” Christopher hustled back to the table before I could formulate my first question for the sorcerer. He cleared a space at his end, then tugged his oracle cards out of his back pocket. “My deck.”

  I had commissioned a set of twenty-two botanical cards from a witch skilled in herbology months before. I’d intended them to be a birthday gift for Christopher, but had given them to him in the aftermath of finding Hannah Stewart in the woods. I had hoped at the time that they might help to settle his magic after he’d keyed into me so we could locate her. He had suffered through an onslaught of glimpses of my future for days after we’d brought Hannah out. It was just a starter set, but the clairvoyant hadn’t felt the need to expand it yet.

  The witch had used her knowledge of herbology to shape the discussion of what I hoped to achieve with the oracle cards, pairing certain plants with simplified tarot card intentions as a result. Christopher read the cards as his magic willed, but used the herbs and flowers alongside the cards’ intentions to direct that reading. Pulling them out in front of the sorcerer was a provocative move — a deliberate flaunting and use of Christopher’s power. And my stomach curdled uncomfortably at the gesture, at the direction the conversation was likely to take.

  Aiden’s suggestion of playing twenty questions had been meant to ease the tension, to make the sharing of information reciprocal. But there was nothing easy or playful about Christopher’s cards, except for the clairvoyant himself.

  Aiden’s focus snagged on the deck, but his tone was casual when he spoke. “Your deck, your rules?”

  “One draw per question.” Christopher shuffled the deck, infusing the cards with his magic.

  Aiden’s shoulders stiffened. Then he relaxed, deliberately, tearing another chunk from his garlic bread and eating it.

  “Seven questions, two passes per player.” Christopher placed the cards in a neat stack on the table, then he sat down.

  “No,” I said.

  Christopher lifted his gaze, meeting mine across the table. “I made you apple crisp.”

  I didn’t answer.

  Aiden glanced back and forth between us. Still chewing the last bite of his pasta, he stood, reaching over to take my empty plate. He carried it along with his own to the sink, rinsing both along with Christopher’s. Then, displaying a level of domesticity I wouldn’t have expected for a sorcerer who so obviously came from money, he loaded the dishes into the dishwasher.

  Christopher placed his fingertips on the deck, still holding my gaze.

  “No,” I whispered, trying to communicate my concern without exposing Christopher in front of the sorcerer. “I … I need you here. Present.”

  “Let it be as it will be?” Christopher smirked. “How out of character for you, Emma.”

  Aiden leaned back against the end of the kitchen island, arms crossed, gaze on the table. Listening, but removing himself from the conversation, the equation.

  “I never thought you’d be scared of the future.” Christopher fanned the cards, their identical backs facing up. Then he ran his fingers back and forth, lifting and ruffling them prettily. A trick born more out of magic than skill.

  Paisley appeared in the open doorway of the patio, eyeing the clairvoyant.

  “You know I’m not. Being concerned … being protective is not the same as being scared.”

  Christopher shrugged his shoulders.

  I gripped the edge of the table.

  Paisley prowled forward, eyeing the cards as if she was thinking of eating them — her default response to tension.

  Christopher dropped his gaze from mine, gathering the cards into a stack in his hand, then fanning them again, backs up. He repeated the pass, flipping the cards to display the botanical drawings, then once more with the backs facing up.

  “I have no issue with being read,” Aiden said, breaking the silence. “I have nothing to hide. Nothing relevant to our current situation, anyway. At least not that I remember.”

  Christopher’s magic had suffused each of the cards. If I had been more sight sensitive, I would have seen them glowing with his white-tinted power. He gathered them together, holding them and all the magic he’d generated, captured in his right hand. “How mad are you going to be, Socks?”

  “Mad.”

  “Mad enough to leave?”

  “The room. Yes.”

  He laughed quietly, his power coiling around him.

  I wanted to snap at him, to slap him, to say something nasty to stop him from playing around. But I couldn’t bring myself to hurt him. Using his magic always had repercussions for Christopher. In the middle of a crisis or an unavoidable situation, that fallout was an acceptable cost. But deliberately casting cards, treating it like a game? That was just stupid.

  There was a lot of idiocy going around today, starting with me.

  Christopher held the cards toward the sorcerer. “Draw three.”

  Aiden stepped forward.

  Swiftly standing, I shoved my chair back from the table, then had to grab it so it didn’t crash into the far wall.

  Aiden paused, leaning over with his hand extended and staring at me. His expression was inscrutable.

  I’d moved too quickly. Too quickly for whatever type of Adept he’d assumed I was. Some sort of witch, most likely.

  I set the chair down gently. Carefully and deliberately, I folded my napkin and set it to the side.

  Aiden pulled a card, placing it face up on the table to expose the black-inked botanical drawing and intention.

  Ginger. Manifestation.

  Fear coiled in my belly.

  The sorcerer regarded the ginger card for a moment. Then he looked up and locked his gaze to me as he pulled a second card from the stack in Christopher’s hand. He flipped and set the second card next to the first.

  I broke Aiden’s gaze to glance down at the drawing and intention he’d revealed.

  Rose. Partnership.

  Christopher laughed quietly. Delightedly.

  I pivoted, crossing out of the room, wanting to take myself out of the equation before the sorcerer could pull the third card. But avoiding Christopher’s magic was impossible with his blood tattooed next to my spine.

  Behind me, Aiden flipped the third card, murmuring, “Strawberry? Movement?”

  “You, I believe.”

  “Is that why there’s a box of strawberry plants outside on the railing of the loft?”

  “You’re quick, sorcerer.”

  I practically jogged the length of the hall, taking the stairs two at a time, trying to get out of earshot before —

  “And ginger? Emma?”

  Christopher laughed, loudly enough that I could hear it from upstairs.

  I made it to my bedroom, shutting the door and leaning against it.

  Ginger. Rose. Strawberry.

  Christopher had pulled those three cards, three times in a row, the day I’d presented him with the oracle deck.

  Something was coming.

  Something h
ad already arrived.

  Christopher’s sight of the future usually only manifested in glimpses of a few minutes ahead. Sometimes as far as thirty minutes out. But occasionally he saw further. He’d been working with the oracle deck for only seven months, but it was possible that it focused and magnified his power — on top of the fact that his magic had come back stronger after being so thoroughly drained by me.

  In the aftermath of that draining, we had thought that we might be free of the responsibility that came with wielding such power. Well, I’d thought it. I had hoped I might be free. But Christopher believed in fate, in destiny, and he wielded his magic accordingly. Perhaps that was an easier attitude to adopt when you didn’t have as many stolen lives on your tally as I did.

  It was also possible that sleeping one room over from me, unshielded — that sharing space with me for the last seven years — had amplified the clairvoyant’s magic.

  He had obviously seen Aiden coming. At a minimum, he’d caught a glimpse of the sorcerer in the oracle cards seven months before. And he hadn’t mentioned it.

  I crossed to the window, gazing out into the now-dark night, exceedingly aware that I was standing over the clairvoyant and the sorcerer. Only fir flooring, timbers, and plaster stood between us.

  He had thought that I would run. That was why Christopher hadn’t shared the details of that first reading seven months before. But he was forcing it on me now. That realization eased the trepidation that had taken up residence in my stomach. The cards, and the future they hinted at, were about me. Not about the sorcerer then. About my choices.

  Seven months ago, I would have run.

  And now I was only thinking about it.

  Christopher wanted to stay.

  It was possible he was using the cards, and Aiden, to influence me.

  I had approved the list of plants the witch had chosen to tie to the basic tarot deck when I’d commissioned the oracle cards. And each card had a wide range of interpretations, of course. In Christopher’s hands, in his castings, they became tied to his magic more than anything.

  But I knew what the rose card traditionally represented. What lay behind the Partnership intention carefully handprinted underneath the black-inked drawing of the flower.

  Love.

  Relationships.

  Marriage.

  I could handle lusting after the sorcerer, even if that feeling was unlike any desire I’d ever experienced before. Finding him interesting, intriguing, being drawn to him — all that I could blame on chemicals or magic.

  But love? At first sight?

  The idea was absurd.

  Ridiculous.

  Unbelievable.

  I lay awake, tracking Christopher’s magic as he wandered out to the garden in the moonlight, then finally came upstairs to his bedroom at the front of the house. I couldn’t feel Aiden at all.

  Around 2:00 a.m., I finally admitted to myself I wasn’t going to fall asleep. I rolled out of bed, crossing over to the east-facing window and peering out through the curtains.

  A single lamp set on the side table in the seating area illuminated the suite over the barn. The curtains were open but I couldn’t see the sorcerer. He might have been on the bed, but I could see only the bottom right-hand corner, and the quilt appeared to be neatly tucked in.

  Movement drew my attention down and to the right. Illuminated by only a sliver of moonlight, Aiden appeared at the base of the exterior barn stairs, jogging up. He was barefoot, wearing shorts but no T-shirt. He paused on the landing, breathing heavily and looking out across the garden. Over the strawberry plants on the railing.

  He’d been running.

  His lower rib cage and stomach were bandaged. The dressings were white against his darker skin, catching the soft light filtering out of the loft through the window in the door behind him.

  He pivoted, sweeping his gaze over the main house, scanning the windows of the lower floor, then those above. It was too dark to clearly see his face, so I wasn’t certain of his expression, but his body language appeared relaxed. Even weary.

  I remained still, holding the curtains open. If the sorcerer picked up magical auras, I couldn’t do anything about him spotting me gazing at him from my bedroom window, but I was otherwise standing in the dark. My heart thumped painfully. I recalled his long fingers flipping the rose card from Christopher’s oracle deck. The runes he’d inked within his tan lines had been almost completely faded, likely washed off.

  Aiden lifted his face to the sky, settling his feet deliberately on the painted wood deck.

  The moon was just a sliver overhead. A waxing crescent.

  The sorcerer swept his arms forward in what I assumed was a tai chi move. The motion was slow, labored. He was still hurt. He’d hidden it well at dinner. But then, I would have been careful to not act like prey in a greater predator’s den as well.

  It wasn’t tai chi. Not any sequences that I recognized from my martial arts training, at least.

  He took a half-step turn, executing the moves again.

  Another turn.

  As if he was facing the individual points on a pentagram.

  If I had been closer, I would have felt the magic he stirred with each move. It would be muted, dull. Unfocused without an actual pentagram. But the sorcerer wouldn’t want to waste energy on sealing or filling a barrier. He was simply gently coaxing his magic to heal, to grow.

  A witch would have chosen the middle of the garden or the yard to call forth such magic, as did Christopher, because witches naturally drew energy from the earth. Some sorcerers sneered at magic that could be called forth without proper artifacts or written spells. But seeing as he was currently barefoot and choosing to stand in the filtered moonlight instead of stepping back into the suite, it was obvious Aiden wasn’t one of them.

  I could have crossed out of my room, slipped down the stairs, then through the kitchen. Moving silently through the dark, I could slowly climb the exterior barn stairs to the loft. Meeting his piercing, intense gaze, I could slip off my cotton nightie, then press myself against him. Running my fingers over every inch of his warm skin, slick with sweat. His muscles would flex, moving under my touch. I would match him movement for movement as he gathered his magic, ghosting each of his steps around the pentagram that existed only in his mind, my lips pressed to his neck, his shoulder, behind his ear.

  I could open myself to him, fully and without hesitation, without worry. Meeting his magic with my own, filling him, giving him back everything he’d lost and more. I could make him powerful, even more than he already was. Stronger, faster. I could make him my match.

  He would lift me, carry me into the loft and over to the bed with all of my limbs and magic wrapped around him. Energy would roll and spike between us as he in turn filled me, entangling our power and joining our bodies. Tasting each other, breathing the same breath, pleasure building … cresting and —

  I pushed myself away from the window, away from the sight of Aiden in the moonlight. The curtains fell into place, shuttering my view. The desire I’d allowed free rein was almost debilitating. My heart was racing, my limbs loosened, weak.

  I stumbled to the bathroom, leaving the lights off so I didn’t catch sight of myself in the mirror. I didn’t need to see the flush I could feel on my face, neck, and chest. My nipples were almost uncomfortably hard against the soft cotton of my nightie. A heavy warmth had pooled between my legs.

  I ran the cold water, wetting and pressing a hand towel to my face, neck, and upper chest. Heating the towel with my skin, then cooling it off again. Again and again. On repeat until my desire faded to a slow simmer.

  I wasn’t going to force myself on the sorcerer. He’d be a fool to actually say no to me, of course. As drained as he was, as possibly addicted to magic as he was.

  But I didn’t want to be desired for my magic. Even for a night of pleasure, I didn’t want to be sought solely for my body and my power. And I most certainly didn’t want to be falling for someone who would ta
ke what I had to give that way, offering nothing in return.

  And what could Aiden offer me? Even if he wasn’t a threat, he was unnecessary to the life I was building. He wasn’t an asset in any way. He was the opposite, in fact, because he distracted me. And Christopher. He was a liability in every way.

  Steadier, I returned to my room.

  Paisley was stretched across my bed.

  She was currently the size of a mastiff, and more than capable of getting through any door in the house, whether manually or magically locked. She glanced at me lazily over her shoulder with red-slitted eyes, daring me to kick her out.

  I climbed into what little space she’d left for me, and finally fell asleep to the sound of her breathing.

  Chapter 4

  The spotless kitchen smelled like coffee. A quick investigation unearthed used grounds wrapped in brown paper towel in the compost bin in the fridge, but Aiden must have cleaned and put away whatever items he’d cobbled together in order to brew it.

  Which didn’t explain where he got the coffee in the first place. Presumably, Christopher had ordered it from our regular grocery delivery service without telling me. Another part of whatever events he’d seen around the sorcerer’s arrival.

  Needing to do something with my hands, I pulled butter and eggs from the fridge and set them on the kitchen island.

  The sorcerer in question was out on the back patio, leaning against the post at the top of the stairs, gazing out at the grounds, and sipping from one of my stoneware mugs. The French-paned double doors were closed, and Aiden’s magic was still so muted that I couldn’t feel it through the glass and wood that separated us.

  He looked like he belonged there — hair mussed, scruff further darkening his jawline, mug in hand.

  I liked the smell of coffee in my kitchen. Far more than I would have thought, since I couldn’t stand the taste of it.

  Christopher appeared in the doorway to the hall, hesitating for a moment at the edge of my vision before striding in. “Breakfast?”

  Ignoring him, I removed two eggs from the container, setting them in a bowl to come to room temperature, then returning the carton to the fridge.