Fish was so drained from fighting what amounted to three named death curses in a row that he couldn’t shield us and walk at the same time. Not even amplified by me. And according to the clairvoyant, I had to watch my own reserves as well. So Knox and Bee worked together to keep themselves mostly upright, and Zans carried Fish telekinetically.
Problem was, prolonged telekinesis and living tissue didn’t mix well, usually resulting in internal organ damage. And that was when Zans was trying to wield her magic precisely. But twenty-one years of practice and the blood tattoos we all bore made carrying us aloft for short stints, or throwing me forward into a battle situation, easier.
Knox got enough glimpses of the immediate future to guide us through the literal minefield waiting for us on the final flight of stairs to the main level. Zans tossed anything the clairvoyant identified in our path — anything that couldn’t just be avoided or neutralized by Fish — over the stairs and down into the depths of the compound. Magic raged at our backs as we finally climbed to the final level of the compound — the only part of the concrete-and-steel building that was above ground.
Then we were within viewing distance of the front entrance. The concrete gave way to windows and glass front doors. A large seating area with straight-backed couches and chairs. Even a few plants.
Unfortunately, the security checkpoint that sealed the entrance off from the outside world was occupied by what remained of the compound’s tactical force, easily another two dozen people.
Plus one massively powerful black witch.
Our current overseer.
Silver Pine.
She stood about three strides this side of the magically fortified bulletproof glass that divided the front reception area from the main security checkpoint. She might have been anywhere from thirty-five to fifty. Age was difficult to estimate in those of the magical persuasion — and even more difficult with the amount of black energy seething from within and around her. She was standing barefoot in a dark cloud of power that writhed across the polished concrete floor in all directions.
She pinned her black-orbed eyes on me as I stepped up ahead of the other four. Deep-blue veins stood out from the pale skin of her neck, upper chest, arms, and lower legs. She was wearing a black silk crepe dress that was tattered from just above her knees to her ankles.
The dark cloud of power around her parted, giving me a momentary glimpse of the bodies arrayed around the black witch. They were wearing the compound’s standard sweats. Cannon fodder. Without question, at least three had already been sacrificed to power the death curses Fish had thwarted. Maybe one more for the dimensional pocket that had blocked the stairwell to the main level, forcing us to take a path dictated by the overseer herself.
“I knew you were a problem from the moment of your birth, Amp5.” Silver Pine’s voice was laced with so much dark power that I had to suppress a shudder. “I begged the others to allow another amplifier to fully gestate. It would have made them the youngest of the fifth generation, but it would still have been manageable.”
I took another step forward. Zans set Fish on his feet behind me, and he placed his hand on my back over my tattoos. His magic smoothed around me, shielding me tightly.
Silver’s gaze flicked to the others, frowning as they stepped up tightly against me. The witch laughed harshly. “Do you honestly think the five of you are enough to get by one of the Collective?”
Within the darkness around her, I could suddenly make out creatures chittering, circling close. Demons at best guess, though I had never seen their specific type before. Sleek heads and spindly arms, possibly double-jointed. Sickle claws, powerful back legs. Somehow, as with the stairwell, the witch had summoned forth a pocket of another dimension, binding all the creatures within to her service.
Her malignant power expanded a few inches across the concrete floor. Then a few inches more. Muffled cries of pain seeped through to me.
The people on the floor … Silver’s sacrifices … some of them were still alive.
I faltered a step.
Fish shifted his hand up to the base of my neck, practically cradling my head. Bee slipped her fingers in from my left, as Knox did the same from the right. They pressed against my back, over the individual blood tattoos that tied them to me.
Zans stepped in front of me. I touched her back, as the others were touching me. Allowing my magic to well up, but not pumping it into the telekinetic yet.
Fish’s nullifying magic stretched out to cover all of us, chilling me through and through.
I welcomed the numbness.
I invited it.
Each of the three behind me were drained, their magic a whisper of what it usually was. I could power them up for a short burst. But I didn’t think it would be enough to get us through the black witch as well as the team arrayed across the security checkpoint.
“Knox?” Fish asked in a whisper.
“It’s up to Socks now,” the clairvoyant said.
I swept my gaze across the security station, noting the face of every single person standing against me. Against us. They bristled with their individual power, ready to back the black witch.
She was, after all, the current overseer of the compound. The representative of the Collective.
Standing on the far right, Mark Calhoun and Becca Jackson were also behind the bulletproof glass. They were obviously under guard, but not bound. And only steps away from freedom. Their escape would be easily facilitated, given a big enough distraction.
I met each of their furious gazes. Then I smiled.
“What exactly is so funny when you’re about to die, Amp5?” Silver Pine asked. “When you’re about to take responsibility for the deaths of your entire generation?”
Fish chuckled. Then Knox and Bee joined him.
Zans glanced back at me.
Instead of addressing the black witch, who didn’t deserve any more of my attention, I spoke to the tactical team standing behind her. “If you retreat now, I can’t promise that you’ll survive. But you will die if you remain.”
“Oh, please —” the black witch started to snarl.
I slammed my magic into Zans.
The telekinetic flung her arms wide out to the sides. Her magic blasted out of her in a storm of steel as she let loose with the ball bearings she’d taken from the weapons cache, tearing through and shattering every piece of furniture between us and the witch. Then Zans brought her hands together, shattering the bulletproof glass from its outer edges in toward the center.
The tactical team beyond the glass rushed for cover.
Silver Pine stood within the black cloud of her power, untouched. Magic glinted from a curved steel knife as the black witch crouched to grab one of the humans arrayed around her feet, then slashed her throat.
I pumped more magic into Zans. She grunted, gathering the ball bearings, the shattered glass, and the broken pieces of furniture. Then she used that debris to pummel the shield the witch held around her.
An inky-scaled, ragged-toothed creature reached out of the dark magic seething around the witch. The demon ate her victim. But Silver Pine remained focused on whatever spell she was pooling in her hands. Another creature dragged another of the witch’s sacrifices into the black pool of power.
I pushed Zans slightly. She stepped forward obligingly, continuing to batter all her magic against the black witch’s formidable shielding. The four of us followed in tight formation.
I had to get to the witch, to lay hands on her, before she released the spell she was preparing.
Fish faltered. I paused so he could give me more of his weight.
“Zans,” Knox whispered. “The spell is for Zans …”
I dropped my hold on Zans, spinning under and around Fish’s arm so he stood between me and the telekinetic.
The black witch released the spell.
It sped toward us.
Fish wrapped his hands around Zans’s shoulders, condensing his shield to concentrate solely around her.
I slammed my hand over the blood tattoo on his spine, amplifying him with everything I had. Bee shakily pulled her katana. Knox raised his shortsword. They crouched beside me, unshielded.
The spell hit Zans over her heart. She grunted, falling to her knees and dragging Fish with her.
Then I was the only one standing upright.
The ball bearings, the debris, and the glass shards that Zans had been holding all fell to the floor.
And for a moment, it was just me facing the black witch who had decided that I should die.
Why? I still had no idea.
And I didn’t really care.
Because the front doors were open. The tactical team had fled. And through those doors, I could see daylight. And greenery.
Knox wrapped his hand around one of my bare calves, Bee around the other. Fish reached up to me, sliding his hand around the back of one knee.
I glanced down, meeting Zans’s pained gaze. The black witch’s named death curse writhed across her chest, trying to find a way through Fish’s fading shield. A way to dig into her skin, to claim her life.
“You should know better, Silver Pine,” I said, looking up to meet her self-satisfied gaze. “You’ve just handed me the way through your shield.”
The witch scoffed. “You don’t have that kind of power, Amp5. First, you’d have to be able to tear the blood curse from Tek5 before it kills her.” She yanked another sacrifice victim before her curved steel blade. “And I’m already halfway to dropping you.”
Zans convulsed. But snarling against the pain, she slid her hand up my leg, settling it next to Knox’s.
I looked away. I looked past the destruction. I looked beyond the death the witch was preparing. My death.
It was sunny outside.
A breeze stirred the trees.
If I’d been closer, I might have been able to smell the air.
Was it moist and hot today? Dry and fragrant?
I let go. I released every barrier I held in place. Magic flared across my skin, down my limbs. Magic sparked between me and Bee, me and Knox, me and Zans, me and Fish, searing their skin to mine.
My arms floated to the sides as the magic rose through me, combining, intertwining. I gathered more and more power from the others, taking every last drop.
I closed my eyes, throwing my head back as I allowed the power to fill me, to have its way.
And for a moment, I was Bee. I could hear the thoughts of the others, including those of the people who’d fled from the building, trying to clear the compound or readying last defenses.
For a moment, I was Knox — seeing in flashes everything the witch was going to throw at me, seeing the hurricane I was about to create, seeing me wipe out everything in my path.
Then I was Zans — and all the debris rose again to whirl around us.
And finally, I was Fish — taking the nullifying power and wrapping it around us, protecting us from anything and everything.
Well, everything but me.
I was about to kill everyone.
And I was okay with that.
I opened my eyes, snapping my hands out to the sides. The gathered magic moved with me. I flicked my fingers, commanding the power into a whirlwind around us. Nothing touched us as the tornado I commanded ravaged the room.
Creatures — demons — boiled from the black magic pooled around the witch. Springing forward with claws and teeth, ready to rend me limb from limb.
Effortlessly, I caught them each, one at a time, with a lick of energy, pulling them into the tornado and tearing them apart. I would have stolen their magic as well, but it wasn’t compatible. Or necessary.
My feet left the ground, until I was hovering a few inches above the floor. The others kept hold of me.
I reached out another lick of power, delicately. I caught the curse trying to kill Zans. I brought it even with me so I could whisper to it.
I met the gaze of the black witch, battering the edges of her shield with the whirlwind of power at my command.
I willed the tornado to move toward her, to carry us with it. It shifted forward, slipping around the witch’s pool of black magic, chipping away at her defenses.
I paused a few steps away from her.
“Silver Pine,” I said, my voice laden with magic not my own. “This death belongs to you.”
I thrust my hand forward, slamming her with the death curse that had been named for Zans. The curse I had renamed, thereby turning it on its creator, against the barrier of magic she still held between us.
The curse slithered through her shield, striking her in the chest. She screamed, collapsing into the seething black cloud of magic she’d fed with blood sacrifices.
I didn’t bother watching her die.
Thanks to Knox’s clairvoyance, I knew that the compound’s external defenses were about to be turned against us. And we’d have a better time surviving the onslaught outside of the concrete building.
I willed the tornado, the hurricane that was powered by all of us at once, to move. It tore through the entranceway, widening it as it transported us out of the building.
Magic pummeled my shielding, then explosions that were likely artillery. But the tornado of power consumed it all.
Knox’s hand fell from my ankle. I paused, not wanting to lose him by moving any farther. Then Bee dropped away. And Zans.
I pumped more and more of myself into the magic swirling around us. We remained untouched.
Fish’s hand fell away.
Unanchored, I drifted higher up into the vortex, fueling it. Losing control of the torrential power as it depleted the magic I’d gathered from the others … as it depleted me.
I threw my head back, adrift.
I could see blue sky above me.
I had made it out.
I would die on my own terms.
I’d be free.
The vortex tugged at me, draining the final licks of my power. I melted into it, giving it permission to consume me.
My first and last choice made solely for myself.
I was the vortex.
I was the Amplifier Protocol.
I slipped away, losing consciousness.
Death was peaceful and still.
And I wasn’t alone within it.