“Having a bad night, brother?” Caine shouted, exultant. “It’s going to get worse.”

Caine raised his hands, aimed not at Sam, not at Sam at all. Instead, he directed the impossible energy of his telekinesis at the church. It was as if an invisible giant, a creature the size of a dinosaur, had leaned against the ancient limestone. The stone cracked. The stained-glass window shattered. The door of the church, the weak point, blew inward, knocked clear off its hinges.

“Astrid!” Sam cried.

Screams, panicked screams from the plaza, mixed with snarls and wild yelps as the coyotes fell on the children.

Suddenly the impossibly loud clatter of a machine gun. Fire blasted from the roof of the day care.

Edilio running from the burned building, three others behind him, charging the coyotes.

Caine blasted again and this time the invisible monster, the beast of energy, pushed hard, hard against the front of the church.

The side windows, all the ancient stained glass and the new, exploded in a sparkling shower. The steeple swayed.

“How you going to save them, Sam?” Caine exulted. “One more push and it collapses.”

Jack at Sam’s feet, clutching him, tripping him, strangely strong.

Sam fired blindly at Caine as he fell.

“I can save you! Save me!” Jack pleaded. “The poof, I can save you.”

Sam fell hard, kicked at Jack’s grasping hands, wiggled free, and stood up in time to see the front wall of the church sag and collapse slowly, slowly inward.

The roof shuddered and slumped. The steeple teetered but did not fall. But tons of limestone and plaster and massive wooden beams fell in with a crash like the end of the world.

Gone, Chapter 44