But.
Absolute power would destroy me.
EJ tossed Raccoon a set of activated palillos. Raccoon placed the castanets on Nyoka.
Shiloh was standing, her eyes focused to my side.
Ravensport. I hadn’t forgotten. Using hands and knees, I made it to my feet, and turned toward the woman, activating the staff.
A pop of sound and a whoosh of air alerted me that the MOC of New York had left the building.
Instead, an officer stood at the door. Weapon raised. “Police! Police! Stay where you are! Hands in the air.”
Rocas. That was her name.
“Bad guys are gone, Rocas,” a familiar voice said, “or dead.” Villetti. He’d followed us after all.
His warm brown eyes were suddenly in front of me. “Angie?”
“Don’t touch her, Lee. She’s full of power,” EJ said. Awkwardly, my brother got to his feet and stumbled to me. Villetti stepped to the side, out of EJ’s way, as if he thought EJ was dangerous or something.
EJ said, “Your stasis won’t hold Nyoka for long, Ange. We have to kill her and take the demon into a vessel.”
“Not just stasis,” I croaked, my voice sounding as if it were coated with ground glass. “Superpowered stasis. We have time to find another way.”
EJ knelt in front of me and said, “Ange. Your hands.”
I looked at them. I had avoided doing that until now. The flesh had a pearly sheen. Kinda glowy.
I opened my mouth. My lips cracked, and I tasted blood. “Huh. How ’bout that.”
“You have to release the ley line energies. Understand? They’re burning you up inside. You have to let them go or you’ll lose control and kill us all. Or burn yourself up. Either would really suck.” He chuckled, the sound pained, raspy.
I could let it go. All the possessed were down. But it was warm inside me. And my hands didn’t ache right now.
“Can you drop the power, Ange?” EJ asked.
“I don’t know,” I grated, my bloody lips cracking. “It seems to…It likes it here. It likes being used.”
“Power always wants todosomething,” he said, clearing his throat, trying to find a voice. “Raw power doesn’t care how it’s used. Power isn’t a moral being. It isn’t sentient or conscious. It’s just power, like lightning. And the one who has it has to use it properly. Morally.”
“Or it…” I licked blood off my lips. “It tends to corrupt, absolutely.”
EJ smiled, sadly. “Let it go, Ange.”
I studied my hands. The glow grew brighter. My palms were white and shimmering, as if the sun shone through the frostbitten flesh. Too much power. I frowned. The maths were fading. The…the solutions were disappearing. I had to try to figure out how to release the energy without blowing the mission church and all the people and bodies into dust. It’d be nice to heal everyone and myself while I was at it.
I directed some of the power into my hands.Healing.Stasis, something. I sent a burst of healing out. My hands glowed brighter as it looped back into me.
“Too late,” I whispered, talking about healing.
“Let it trickle away,” EJ said, his words begging, not understanding my statement. “Let it go, slowly.”
I remembered the thin thread of white-blue magic, bright as the sun, that was part of my own gifts. I found it. That strandof power had twined its might with the ley line. Gently, I teased it free of the power deep in the earth, and as I unraveled it from my own, I released the energies, letting them flow through the narrow thread and into the deeps. When the last of the energy had drained away, I tugged the thread of my magic.
It snapped back into me.
I fell.
