Amplifier 6: Chapter One

excerpts, writing

The dark-haired sorcerer swathed in black tactical gear at my side ran his hand down my spine — or as much of it as he could reach while I was wearing my dual blades sheathed across my back. His conflicting emotions filtered through to me even as I peered through the magically enhanced binoculars I had trained on a tiny, rocky island in the middle of nowhere. 

Literally, nowhere. 

Loaded into a heavily armored, magically fortified helicopter, we were hovering over what was practically the midway point between the Barents Sea and the Norwegian Sea, the southern extents of the Arctic Ocean. Though technically, we were off the northern coast of Norway, we’d left that coast behind two hours ago. I couldn’t see even a shadow of the mainland, not even with the enhanced binoculars.

Five days had passed since we’d been sent the first text message from Samantha and Daniel’s kidnapper, and the sorcerer who’d all but shackled himself to my side was still angry. At the situation, yes. But also at me specifically. That didn’t stop him from reaching out, though, or touching me tenderly in the very brief moments we’d grabbed on our way to finding — and hopefully liberating — my blood-bound teammates.

Aiden had his own pair of binoculars. They cut without difficulty through the gloom of the cloudy night — which wasn’t actual night, because the sun never set in this part of the world in June. But they also somehow highlighted magic, picking up the energy that emanated from the magically inclined as well as magical constructs, then tagging that energy in a medium shade of blue that was slightly lighter than the color of Aiden’s power.

It was closing in on 3:00 a.m. Despite the cloaking on the helicopter and the clouds obscuring the midnight sun, we’d waited until early morning to further minimize our visibility.

Even heavily cloaked in cloud, the sun sliding along the horizon, while never rising or setting, unsettled me. Not that I would ever admit that out loud. We’d been moving too quickly and crossing too many borders to do more than snatch a nap here or there, completely ignoring time zones as we passed through. So I blamed the jet lag for the disconcertion, then ignored it.

To my left, Christopher was outfitted in cool-weather tactical gear like Aiden and me, though with fewer pockets than the sorcerer. He wasn’t bothering to keep watch out his side of the helicopter. His magic was a constant low-grade hum on my upper spine while he shuffled his oracle cards and called out quiet commands to our ground team of two over the comms. Mostly, though, he had been content to allow that team to implement the plan it had taken us three days to cobble together, as they navigated their way to the island, then into the research station that occupied the site’s northern tip.

According to our intel, nine nonmagicals occupied the entirety of Bear Island. Researchers. But I had tuned out what exactly they were researching on a barren rock of an island in the Arctic Ocean, more interested in how we were planning to get them out of our way.

– Endings and Empathy (Amplifier 6), Chapter One

COMING MARCH 30, 2023

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Endings and Empathy is the sixth and final book in the Amplifier Series, which is set in the same universe as the Dowser, Oracle, Reconstructionist, Archivist, and Misfits of the Adept Universe series. Click here for the reading order of the entire Adept Universe.

Published by MCD

I'm a writer. I also bake. And knit. A lot. My novels are available anywhere ebooks/paperbacks/audiobooks are sold online. Find more info on my blog: http://www.madebymeghan.ca

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