Battle Ground magic amp

Maybe if it had happened somewhere else, at a different time, I might not have been able to stop them all. Maybe if it had just been me, it would have gone badly. But tonight, my city was under siege. Tonight, millions of terrified people were going to die unless they got help from people like me. Tonight, their fear rode the air, an inflammable mist that only needed a magical spark to roar into reality.
Tonight, Chicago fought for its life.
And my shield held against them all. Though it scorched my wrist, though my feet were driven six inches back across the green grass, I stopped them.
All of them.

Battle Ground Chapter 12, Page 114-115


“More than what can handle?” I demanded.
“Reality,” Bob said. “That’s partly why the Tuatha fought the Fomor to begin with. Balor and his stupid Eye.”
“Whoa, wait,” I said. “Reality can break? That can happen?”
“Obviously it can happen,” Bob said, annoyed. “There’s . . . a structure to the universe, right? And like every structure it has limits. And a point of catastrophic failure.”
“So when Ferrovax the dragon is bragging about cracking the world . . .”
“He’s not kidding,” Bob said, nodding vigorously. “And it’s a process that feeds on itself. Like, you got about eight million terrified humans running around town right now, providing more and more energy for available use.”
Murphy rolled out onto the street and turned west. I felt weirdly like the subject of a presidential motorcade, what with the Knights and werewolves running escort. “So what can we expect?” I asked.

Battle Ground Chapter 16, Page 156


I had thought through the spell before, but I’d never really tried it. It worked pretty well—except that rather than just going away, the power was cycling up one arm, around my shoulders, down the other arm, and then out between my hands again. It was a cycle that fed upon itself, and between that and the power-laden air of the terrified city, the energy built a whole hell of a lot faster than I would have liked. It had to go somewhere.

Battle Ground Chapter 19, Page 181


The lance of energy that emerged from my blasting rod was an order of magnitude more potent than any I had thrown before, thanks to the cloud of terror over the city. The very air boiled and shrieked in protest, and when the blast hit the ground among the enemy fire team, the thermal bloom that erupted was a sphere of white-hot light. The concussion of that expanding heat slapped me in the chest so hard that it rocked me back a step.

Battle Ground Chapter 25, Page 225-226


I couldn’t get over how easy it was to use magic in the boiling air. I’d already performed several spells that by all rights should have left me in need of a breather and a meal. Instead, the latent magic in the air made me feel exhilarated, eager to do more. Which isn’t different from any other kind of power, I suppose. And it held the same dangers. So I was careful about how much force I used on the trees. Just enough to rip through each trunk and send them crashing down toward the street below.

Battle Ground Chapter 25, Page 227


In the shadows of the Bean behind us gathered the malks and Black Dogs, the rake and the ogre, the gnomes and double dozens of the viciously mischievous Little Folk of Winter.
Before us, the Sidhe abruptly began to chant and sing, gesturing with their hands as they did. Flickers of light glittered over the cohort in a dome. Shapes and sigils, runes and formulae, crackled briefly in the air, as two hundred sorcerers gathered their power from the hyperenergetic air.
What the hell? I held up my staff, opening the channels to the energy storage structures inside, and drew that energy down into it. The task normally took an hour of intense concentration and exhausting effort, when I had to provide the energy for the staff myself. With the air gone mad with power, the staff charged in seconds, which should not have been possible, not without the excess energy overflowing into waste heat and burning the thing to a crisp.
Instead, it simply let out a low hum, the runes carved into glowing green-gold, and the faint, excellent scent of scorched wood edged the night.

Battle Ground Chapter 27, Page 246-247


I let myself look concerned, drew in a breath and my power, and waited.
The Fomor Sorcerers’ Club chose to attack me when I looked distracted. I mean, who wouldn’t, but especially these jerks.
Predictable.
They lobbed those bilious green spheres of acid at me.
I spun toward them, my hand lifted, fingers spread, and pulled out an old one. I sent forth my power in the same moment that I drew on the silent gale of magic in the air, shouting, “Ventas servitas!”
On an ordinary night, the gale that my spell conjured would have been able to toss furniture around a room.
Tonight, I could have tossed furniture trucks.

Battle Ground Chapter 28, Page 256-257