Now he was dead, too, his eyes going dry as they stared lifelessly at the ceiling of the gym.

He was rapidly followed by Mark Burrows, whose mother had helped him tie his bowtie before he left, then Lori Easton, who had to be talked into going to the dance at the last minute by her friends, and Curt Chambers, who was miserable and drunk because he’d finally realized he was gay and could never possibly tell his parents, and then Kevin Hill and Brianna Matthews, who’d decided that this was the night they would actually do it.

Wade ended them all, and Colchester twitched as he swallowed their lives. He drank down their final moments and their memories and the thousands of small joys and sorrows that made them human.

Then the sky lit up. Something hit him from behind. Hard.

He was driven to the ground and his skin burned as he was flash-fried over ninety percent of his body. He realized, with a start, that he’d just been struck by lightning.

It hurt him. It hurt a lot.

But he hadn’t lived this long to die quickly or easily. He was filled to the back of his throat with the lives and blood of others, which took most of the sting out of the blast.

He managed to get up on his hands and knees. He turned his head to see what had happened, and heard his skin crack and split where it was crisp. He looked out of the eye that wasn’t burned shut, even though it was watering from the smoke rising from his roasting flesh.

He saw that little shit, Eric Weiss. The current Merlin.

The boy smiled at him. “Now, for my next trick.”

Cocky bastard.

He was the distraction. Then the real attack came.

The girl. That young woman who was one of the Bright. She didn’t waste time gloating. Off to his left, she leaped into the air, and came down at him with a sword that sang as it split the air, something he knew instinctively must never touch him.

He shrugged off the weakness of his flesh. Rose up. And flew out of her path.

She came down where he had been only a split-second before.

Colchester stood and faced them both. The girl crouched to spring and leap at him again. The boy summoned another ball of lightning in one hand.

They were too late. Years too late.

He raised his arms, and the Well of Stars erupted. Darkness, like a gusher of oil, shot into the air.

The hill bucked and heaved under their feet. Something that looked like thick, black smoke began to hiss from the ground all around them. Eric gagged as it filled the air, leaving a metallic taste at the back of this throat. It smelled like old pennies. It smelled like death.