Amplifier 5: Chapter One, Part One

Keeping slightly back from the bedroom window that overlooked the backyard and the gardens so the sorcerer and the dream walker wouldn’t catch me spying on them, I watched as Aiden bent his head, all his concentration fixed on listening to Opal. He was so much taller and deadlier than the little witch. Yet everything about the gesture indicated that every facet of the sorcerer was currently focused on our … daughter. Our soon-to-be daughter. Because that was the choice she’d made.

I just had to get through the next three days. 

The coven witches didn’t care that Aiden and I weren’t officially married yet — that wasn’t what was holding up the release of the adoption papers. But they did want to meet Opal, as part of inducting her into the coven.

And that was Opal’s choice as well. She’d gotten friendly with a second-year witch, Juniper, during their last few weeks at the Academy. Though Juniper was a year ahead of Opal, she had sought out the young witch after the invitations had been issued for the coven retreat. 

Juniper was also being inducted into the Godfrey coven, and Opal had decided to join her. 

The little witch had informed us of that decision with her typical bright confidence. And even when I tried to confirm that she wasn’t choosing that path only for fear of losing me, of losing Aiden and Paisley and Christopher, she’d stubbornly jutted out her chin and reiterated her decision.

Outside, Opal was holding out her hand, palm down, as Aiden took a step back. A light-blue shimmer of magic appeared under the dream walker’s hand, and she started moving along the edge of the garden fence. Slow steps. Her head was bowed. From what I could see of her expression, her body language, she was serious and focused.

She was looking for a grounding stone, which she needed for the induction ceremony. The coven had supplied a list of necessary items as soon as Opal had asked to take part. So I’d spent the last week collecting everything she needed, including a tailored cloak in the coven’s specified color, royal blue, that had to be ordered from a witch who specialized in such things.

Aiden glanced up at the window, catching me spying. He flashed me a grin. I smiled back. Thankfully, the expression wasn’t forced even though I was nervous.

Yes, nervous. 

I had led a squad of genetically enhanced Adepts through life-threatening missions multiple times in the first twenty-one years of my life. I’d run from those who’d bred us, who had controlled us. In the process, we’d annihilated the secret compound in Peru where we’d been raised — along with all the research that had gone into creating the Five. Then, for eight years after that, I’d kept myself, Christopher, and Paisley one step ahead of those who would have enslaved us for our magic. I’d built a home. I’d learned that I was actually capable of love. I’d managed to not outright murder my soon-to-be father-in-law — one of the Collective who’d made me — and had actually saved his life from an immortal entity calling itself ‘the mother of the dawn.’ The Hallowed.

And I was nervous. About meeting witches of the light.

The kind of witches who held their annual coven gathering at a five-star resort on the beach, and who gathered flowers and made healing tinctures and all that other sunshine-and-charm sort of magic.

Those witches made me nervous.

Because I held way too much power. And, if I was being completely honest with myself, I had a habit of beheading first and asking questions later.

Actually, I rarely bothered with the questions.

Except for Opal.

For Opal, I would do anything.

“I’m heading out,” Samantha said from the doorway behind me. “I’ll keep you posted.”

I turned. The dark-skinned, dark-haired telekinetic was wearing black cotton pants and a tight black T-shirt instead of her usual leather. Due to the warm weather. She had a small duffel bag slung over one shoulder, her laptop and other tech gear in a hard case. Also all black. She was on her way to join up with Daniel, aka Fish, somewhere in Europe. She had delayed the trip — more than once — because she’d wanted to see Opal before she went.

“Well,” she sneered, “I’ll keep Christopher informed.”

I nodded, crossing back to the bed, where I had two suitcases lying open, one for me and one for Opal. They were packed for the coven retreat. For the third time. Opal had arrived home last night with Aiden’s youngest sister, Ocean, and had needed all her laundry done. And I was bringing way too much.

Samantha huffed. Then she dumped her bag on the floor, crossed to me, and slung her now-free arm around my neck. Taller than me, she pressed her face to the side of my head and held me for a moment. Power shifted between us, mostly simmering around the blood tattoo on my T4 vertebra. A tattoo that tied the telekinetic to me — for life, as far as we’d been able to figure out. “You could at least hug me back,” Samantha muttered into my hair.

I wrapped my hand around her forearm, skin to skin, and my other arm around her waist.

She rocked me slightly. And I allowed the contact, though more magic flared between us. Even when I wasn’t actively amplifying Samantha, I was still feeding power to her. That passive transfer had always happened to some extent, for anyone who spent any regular time around me. But it had gotten much more difficult to suppress since the Hallowed had triggered my latent empathy. Somehow weaponizing it.

As if I needed more weapons at my disposal.

“If we find Bee,” Samantha asked softly, almost tentatively, “we can bring her back, right?”

“We’ve talked about it. Extensively,” I huffed, slightly pissed that she was bringing up the topic. Again.

There were many, many reasons that the Five couldn’t, shouldn’t reunite. And the biggest one, not including Christopher, was out in the yard right now looking for a grounding stone that ‘spoke’ to her. Her tie to her home.

I would never do anything that might compromise the security of Opal’s home.

“There’s that other property,” Samantha murmured. “It’s a blank slate. Now that you’re done with it.”

She meant the Grant property, claimed in the aftermath of Opal, Jenni, and me being kidnapped by Ruwa, Aiden’s ex, and the collapsing pocket of the demon dimension. “It’s in Opal’s name.”

“We’ll lease it.”

I sighed. “You don’t know that this new lead will even pan out,” I grumbled.

Samantha released me, grinning. Like she’d won this round of the debate. “It will. Knox is getting glimmers.”

“Christopher is constantly getting glimmers.”

Samantha scooped up her abandoned bag and stepped out into the hall. “Got to say my goodbyes.”

She was jogging down the stairs before I could say anything else. Not that I actually had anything else to say. Samantha had been living at the farm full-time for the last few weeks, ever since she’d hauled Christopher to Europe, following another lead on the whereabouts of Amanda, aka Bee. The telepath who made the other four of us the Five. But that lead had gone cold, assuming it had ever been warm to begin with.

I knew that if Bee didn’t want to be found, it was best to leave her alone. Any telepath of power couldn’t be compromised or taken against her will — not for long, not for the eighteen months she’d supposedly been missing. And as far as I knew, Bee was the most powerful telepath in the world.

So she wasn’t responding to emails? I didn’t respond to emails either.

By choice.

I zipped up my suitcase, refusing to repack it a fourth time. Lani would arrive in a few minutes. The part-time intuitive/full-time mechanic was taking the drive up to Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver Island with us, but hadn’t agreed to do more than simply meet with the Godfrey witches. Or as she’d put it, surf, eat fresh crab, and baby herself.

Ocean was joining us as well. Aiden’s sister had applied for an internship with one of the Godfrey witches over the summer. Then she’d head back to the Academy for the first year of her specialization in potions.

Christopher and Aiden were rather put out not to be included, but coven gatherings were witches-only events. Except for me. Because I was Opal’s guardian, the witches couldn’t stop me from coming, though I had no plans to participate in any of the weekend’s sessions or lectures.

As I was closing Opal’s suitcase, Paisley lumbered into the bedroom, currently in her extra-large blue-nosed pit bull form. Shoulders rolling and ears flattened on her head, she made a point of not acknowledging me as two tentacles flicked out from her neck and wrapped around the handles of the suitcases.

“Thank you,” I said, running my fingers over her head. 

She dodged my touch, abruptly turning back the way she’d come with the suitcases suspended off the ground.

Speaking of those who were pissed about having to stay at the farm instead of meeting the witches.

I didn’t miss the irony.

Everyone in our household wanted to go, except me.

Shaking my head at the demon dog, I grabbed Opal’s new backpack from her bedroom — a bright-orange, boxy-shaped, vegan-leather bag that was an end-of-year gift from Aiden. Then I headed downstairs myself, trusting Paisley to put the suitcases in the trunk of the Mustang rather than absconding with them. The backpack was one of multiple gifts my dark sorcerer had bestowed upon the little witch the moment after she returned home with a bright smile, and a suitcase stuffed full of dirty clothes.

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