Thomas nearly yanked his hand away when he felt something start to twist and turn inside. It felt right and wrong all at the same time, and it scared him.
The body started to glow as power was seeping in or out; it was hard to tell. The spell was one of the better ones, and the pain was almost more than the City could bear. This wasn't like feeling his, its, the children die. This was much worse.
Thomas's mouth opened to release a scream. He didn't want to die. He hadn't thought about it. He was dying. The City would live, but he was dying. The scream never came.
From the outside it would look like Thomas Townsend was having some sort of attack. His body shuddered as he silently screamed. It took mere moments, but inside the City writhed in agony at the unexpected expansion. Anyone with any gifts would feel it; the power returning. The strange balance of the place coming back. But, from the outside, it would be rather anticlimactic because in the end, the only thing that happened, other than than brief odd glow, was Thomas Townsend collapsed in a heap, still holding to the Cowboy God's hand.
Thomas Townsend was empty. The coroner would say he died from an aneurysm, or heart failure, or complete organ shutdown. It was hard to say. Simply that the force animating the body was not there.