Lightning cracked out from the plasma. Hit the windowed doors to my side. I caught a glimpse of EJ drawing the energies of the lightning strike into the iron supports that fed the wards, using the power instead of allowing it to harm the building. The plasma ball dimmed for a second, then glowed brighter.
The possible futures had changed when I fell onto Lee, shifting cards in the hands of a drunken gambler. So many. All bad.
The energies that didn’t belong here created a wind. A storm in miniature. Lightning arced out of the ball of plasma. Slammed into the building next door. Crackled and spat. Energy crawled across the building’s façade.
My arms were shaking, hands frozen by the energies I was handling. Eyes burned by the dark light. I wouldn’t be able to hold on for long. The whirlwind grew. Taking everything into itself, even matter. Two deck chairs crunched into a mangled ball. Clay pots ready for spring herbs collapsed. A tea mug. All were swept up, slamming into my staff and disappearing within, along with the demons. I sat up.
I hadn’t guessed that matter could be taken into the void. I had to keep it pointed away from people.Shitshitshitshit.
Wordless, I screamed with the effort of holding on to the staff.
But the drones weren’t done. “Lee! To our side!” I shouted.
Another drone zipped in beneath the porch roof. Villetti raised his weapon. Tried to aim through the tornado winds.
A small clay pot hit the staff. The pot cracked and fragmented.
The staff bucked. Sucking demons out of the human world. Taking themelsewhere.
Villetti’s body jerked. He’d been caught in the staff’s energies.
Pulled by the staff, Lee slid away from me, through the snow, toward the metal tip. Sitting upright, his back to me, bent forward, toward the new threat. Two-hand stance, he fired a steady blast at the last drone. Ignoring his own danger. Shouting the drone’s location into his comms.
A shotgun sounded from a higher apartment balcony.
The drone exploded. More demons were swept into the staff.
I fell forward, landing on my chest in the deep snow beside Villetti. I stretched ahead. Holding the energy-sucking, life-devouring staff past him.
The darkness of the staff’s alternate universe was wide open. I hadn’t expected it to do this, to be so powerful. Its own energies reached again for Villetti. For his life.
He jerked. A spasm shaking him like a seizure. He dropped flat. His body bucking.
I rolled over him, crushing him into the snow. Holding him in place. My null cloak once again covered us both. Weakly, his hands pulled the cloak tighter around us. And still the demons came. A roar of orange light and black motes cascaded over us, the greenish shade of old, decaying bodies, the stench of graveyards, charred bones, brimstone. A maelstrom.
My arms trembled. My breath came in shallow gasps. My spine arched with a wrenching spasm from the strain. And still they came.
Beneath me, Villetti stirred. He slithered around underneath me, sitting upright. Pulled me onto his lap, my backagainst his chest. His arms, still weak from the loss of his life force, extended around me and clasped his hands around mine, helping me hold the staff.
“Feckin’ Staff of Doom,” he said into my ear.
I gasped a laugh. Breathing, huffing as if I raced for my life. And his.
Sounding stronger, he added, “Grizz says that was the last mini-drone. Almost done, sweetheart. Almost. Hang on. We’ve got this.”
Sweetheart.I laughed, the sound high-pitched and not quite sane, my cackle buried beneath the roar of the demon-wind. Tears pooled in my eyes, froze on my face, some whipped away by the vortex of the staff.
Another minute went by. At least. It felt like an hour. I trembled as if I had a high fever. Or was dying of hypothermia. Only Villetti’s strength and warmth and his hands wrapped around mine allowed me to hang on.
Distantly, I heard the sound of EJ’s flute playing astrengthworking, but most of the working’s power was ripped away, along with the dark energies.
With acrack, the last of the power was pulled inside. The sound echoed down the street.
Silence fell like the snow, soft and gentle. Colors vanished into the normal dark of night. A wind blew in beneath the porch roof. Snow swirled within it, here and there mixed with sleet. I somehow released my cramped grip on the staff’s activating stone. It closed with a second reverberatingcrack. I dropped it into my lap. My hands were white and frozen, my nails purple.
I slumped forward.
Villetti pulled me against his chest. “I have you, Ange.”
