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She squeezed the trigger but held her magic to charge the attack. The barrel of her gun span, churned, whirred, and grew translucent with the accumulated light within. Pain welled inside her as she drained thick chunks of her soul to build the attack stronger and stronger. Her arms and legs quivered uncontrollably; blood spurted from her numerous open wounds. Clair Ibsen's face leered at her as it expanded its mouth into an apocalyptic void.

The moment it spat another hefty volley of seeds Sloan released her magic. The gun roared with a grenade blast of light, a final spark that surged through the dead air and incinerated the seeds en route.

At the same time, Winnipeg rushed forward, traveling close behind the all-illuminating orb of pure power. For a brief moment of suspended silence the archon Clair Ibsen watched with dull apprehension, perhaps even fear—a sight that swelled Sloan with vindication as she rolled back from the recoil.

The orb struck the archon. At the moment of impact the orb collapsed and all light was sucked out of the cavern. The whole cylindrical structure plunged into the nonexistence of absolute darkness. One second passed, two seconds passed. Then the light flared in tumultuous eruption of sight and sound. A horrific roar accompanied the spreading particles as the archon lurched back with a vast bristling of its feathered throat. A billion tiny rivets spread across the Clair Ibsen mask like the craquelure of mummification.

In the next moment, Winnipeg, who had been behind the orb all along, whipped her arm horizontal across the mask. Clair Ibsen split in two, her mouth cut with a Glasgow smile. The two halves spread in opposite directions, afloat with ponderous sluggishness, as if physics itself had been staggered by the attack.

Clair Ibsen shattered.

(Chapter 11)