Page 82 of Demon Loved
“Do what you must,” he said quietly.
He’d also continued to hold on to her hand this entire time, and she knew he wouldn’t let go now, not even if she commanded him to press himself flat against the ground the way the rest of them had just done.
No, he was going to stand next to her and continue to boost her powers with his own.
A scream shredded the night as one of the Collector’s minions was lifted into the air as if he was being sucked into an invisible tornado. Was it the man whose face she’d glimpsed so briefly only a few minutes earlier?
Impossible to say. One by one, the remaining three met the same fate, disappearing into the void she’d created as if they had never been.
However, the Collector still stood where he’d been this whole time, although the weird, oily energies he’d summoned now swirled around him faster and faster, as if he thought their sheer velocity would be enough to save him from also being drawn into the nothingness between worlds.
“You can’t do this!” he shouted at her. “You can’t control what you’ve created. It will destroy you and everyone you love!”
The Brianna from a few minutes earlier might have believed those words. Now, though, she realized they were only a ploy, a desperate attempt to get her to reverse the magic she now controlled so their enemy might have a chance to escape.
“I don’t think so,” she said, and he bared his teeth, although she wasn’t sure whether the grimace was in response to her stubbornness or the phantom winds that had begun to pull at his flesh.
“You are a foolish, stubborn child,” he spat. “You know nothing. Do you think something like this can stop me? I, who have the power of a hundred magical tools at my disposal? I will crawl back from whatever hell you have created so I might take my revenge against you and all these foolish McAllisters. You have no idea what you’re doing!”
No, she thought, I know exactly what I’m doing.
She wouldn’t bother to say those words out loud, though. It was enough that she’d recognized her own strength, her own abilities, and was allowing herself to use them.
In that moment, though, she saw their enemy’s weakness. If his own powers had been sufficient, would he really have been compelled to seek out all those artifacts to make himself invincible?
Probably not.
Speaking of weak….
The energy that had surged through her earlier was nearly depleted. Her powers had helped her shift the dimensional focuses so the void had been created, but she realized they weren’t limitless. She was only a human woman, after all, not a goddess, not a being from another plane like Belshegar.
“I don’t know….” she whispered, and he bent and placed the gentlest of kisses against her forehead.
“You do know,” he replied, then touched her on the temple and again on her heart. “You know in the deepest of places that you can do this. You must.”
Yes, she had to. She couldn’t give up now, not when she was the only one who could save her clan. Even Connor and Angela…even her father…didn’t have the ability to make this happen.
Just like that time you ran the Sedona marathon, she told herself. You thought you were going to drop those last three miles, but you did it anyway.
So do it now.
Energy surged through her. She saw the rift between dimensions widening, reaching out like a hungry mouth to swallow the Collector whole.
Threads of darkness resembling thin, reaching fingers began to flow across him. He pulled at them, the ring on his hand pulsing wildly as he tried to summon enough energy to counter their strength.
But then the ring shattered, bits of crystal flying everywhere, and he flung up his hands to protect his face.
That seemed to be enough, because now the darkness of the void grasped him by the arms and legs and pulled him backward. For one moment, his shocked gaze met hers, imploring, begging her to stop this.
She wouldn’t, though. Not when he represented a threat to everyone and everything she loved.
A final despairing shriek, and then he was gone, the darkness taking him within.
Taking him far away.
The earth rumbled beneath her feet, and Brianna let go of Belshegar’s hand, falling to the earth as the world spun around her. She had to make herself lie against the ground, because she thought if she tried to lift a single finger, she would go flying off and be swallowed up just as the Collector had.
All the lines of energy that had connected the witches and warlocks in the circle shivered once and then went flying apart, sparkling against the night sky like the world’s biggest fireworks explosion.
