There was a blinding flash of green-white light and like a butane torch cutting through tissue paper, a hole two feet across appeared in the cinder block. The hole was high up on the wall, well above the heads of the children but right about where the suddenly weightless coyotes were floating. One of the coyotes caught a straight blast. The beam of light cut it in two. The segments floated, spraying weightless globules of red.

The children screamed and John screamed and Drake backed away from the wall, away from the zone of weightlessness.

Edilio’s head appeared in the hole. “Mary. Down on the floor.”

“Everyone get down!” Mary screamed, and John threw himself onto a runaway toddler.

Edilio yelled, “Sam, go!”

A new hole burned lower down, chest level, and this time the beams of light scoured the room, blasting walls covered in faded art projects, burning through coyotes, setting them alight to float like flaming Macy’s parade balloons.

“Okay, Dekka,” Edilio yelled.

The coyotes hit the ground hard, some dead, some alive, but none with any desire for a fight. The door flew open, yanked by some unseen hand, and the animals ran over one another trying to escape.

“Pack Leader!” Drake bellowed. “You coward!”

The annihilating beam of light swung toward him. He hit the floor, cursing, and rolled out toward the door.

Gone, Chapter 43