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But it wasn’t enough.
A quasar erupted from the palm of my hand, following the path of the ancient knife, and I felt Maria’s bones as they melted. I drank up her poisoned soul as she died. Turning, I dragged the dark beam of energy with me as I screamed, tears spilling down my face. I felt each death as the endless stream of power literally liquified the daemons and witches alike who stood before me. My screams of grief and rage turned to manic sobs as each soul climbed up the river of oblivion spilling out of me and continued to fuel my power.
‘Shit,’ Rycon exclaimed before leaping towards Conrad, Meredith, Mr. Abbey, and Conrad’s grandmother. ‘Get the fuck out of the way. She’ll never forgive me if I let any of you die,’ he snarled, but I didn’t care.
I was going to burn this fucking planet to the ground.
60
The magickal storm I had summoned tore through the wasted docks beneath me. With each passing second, I lost more and more control. Clair’s smiling face hovered just behind my mind’s eye.
I love you, Raven. How many times had she patched me up? How many times had she held me when I had been afraid? My rock, my pillar, my strength. And now she was dead.
The beat of the drum in my chest ran even faster. Daemons from Ash Nevra’s army weren't even pretending to fight anymore. They were running.
Running from me.
The daemon in me smiled. I pulled their life threads together and knotted them in my hand as they ran. Closing my fist around the knot, I allowed the hatred, the rage, and the grief inside of me to flow down their spools, and I relished as they all dropped to the ground. Dead. Like the birds. Like Mrs. Serafini. This time I wasn’t afraid. This time, I called for the reaper and invited him in like an old friend.
I spun on an axis, my planets and stars orbiting around me with purpose. Kieran, where was Kieran? I finally found his life thread, which he desperately tried to conceal with magick as he gathered his powers around him.
I blinked, and I was in front of him. In shock, he nearly jumped out of his skin as I hovered motionless before him, my hair whipping in the storm that raged in my translucent orb of power. The beat of the drum in my chest sped up to a climax as I faced him, toes pointing towards the ground, my all-black eyes glued to his face.
“You killed her,” I no longer needed to use my mouth to speak. I’m pretty sure every living being heard me project those words. I wasn’t even bothering to try to contain my rage. The very ground beneath me splintered, and the asphalt broke apart.
“No, I didn’t,” Kieran snapped, his voice faltering against his growing anxiety. I could taste his fear on my tongue, and it pleased me. Before I could react, he slipped through a hole in The Veil and simultaneously closed all the remaining gateways behind him.
No.
My rage built higher at his escape, and the beating drum hammered along with my heartbeat. My scream alone was deadly, and any glass in the immediate vicinity shattered. I could hear police sirens and feel Rycon hiding my allies behind a nearby container.
The planets in my aura whirled faster, and the midnight in my heart expanded, blanketing the docks and plunging us into darkness. That drumbeat was relentless. Faster and faster it built, the black hole where Clair had been was growing and sucking me down. I knew the power would consume me, and I would die amongst the thousand corpses I had just created.
I did not care.
Suddenly Amon was before me. As a reflex, I threw up my hands, ready to incinerate him as he hovered near my impermeable aura. He didn’t so much as flinch.
“You need to stop, or the power will consume you,” his voice was low and even. It was a testament to my advanced senses that I could hear him at all over the storm of energy that was continuing to build around me.
I didn’t need to tell him I was ready and willing to accept death. My grief had consumed me. The torture had broken me. The quiet would be a relief. I hovered before him and waited as the power around me continued to build. He did not look sympathetic. His face hardened.
“That is enough , Raven.”
He floated forward toward my shield. I pushed him away with my considerable might, but he waved a hand and deflected the blow. Okay. He was very powerful.
He forced his way into my shield. The energy tore at his silver hair. I pushed against him, but he continued to compel himself into the inky orb I had formed around me. Finally, he was hovering with me over the wasted docks in the eye of the storm.
“Raven. You need to stop.” He repeated. My heart was crashing against my chest, and my energy literally started to crush several nearby shipping containers as if they were tin cans. The police sirens were getting louder.
“They killed her,” my voice cracked. I sounded odd and far away. Despite the raging storm outside my safe little orb, I had unintentionally preserved Clair’s body. I could still see where she lay among the ruins, protected by a small domed shield I had created around her without realizing it.
“I know.” He said as he floated closer. Without the triquetra to separate us, he reached out a hand to touch my face, which was still soaking wet with tears. His touch immediately caught the attention of my daemon. “We will avenge her, but we cannot do that if you die here, now.”
I thought of all the souls I had collected, and the many, many more, that could still be held responsible. I thought of Ash Nevra. A daemon I had never met, who was responsible for all of my pain. She was probably sitting comfortably somewhere, relishing in Clair’s death, hoping I would follow my mother into the afterlife. Another memory hit me like a hurricane.
I was a child again, sitting in the office of my elementary school. Jeremy had just finished a shouting match with the principal, who had expelled me. The kids that day had shut me in a locker. That had been a bad idea.
The ringleader of that particular prank ended up in the hospital shortly after I got out.
