I enjoy pretty much all the pacing, here. You really built it up and built it up and had us looking forward to the final confrontation with Galano and the inevitable riot. But. Hmmm. I'm not sure that all the specifics of the final confrontations are working, here.
Because I don't feel like Colin really won, against Galano. The mojo comes when you need it, that's a rule of this universe, but... it was somewhat unsatisfying to have none of Colin's plans have any relevance to the final method of defeating him. :( Colin's blood separates Joseph's second shadow which Colin and Gutierrez and Laney use to strangle Galano, basically, yes? But then Joseph uses his baton and Galano falls to the ground and I'm ultimately not sure why that moment is the moment he is defeated. It feels like Joseph was the primary actor in this scene -- which wouldn't necessarily be a problem, if Noel wasn't the primary actor in the next scene, essentially de-centering Colin from his own story. Does that make sense? Just, Colin doing something after Galano falls -- maybe Galano is stunned, or Laney and Gutierrez hold him down with the shadow, while Colin draws something in blood over the shadow, or on his chest or face, (combining his art-magic with the blood-magic with the exorcism plan), and then Galano shatters into salt. Or something else! But since most of the prison mojo in this story is fairly intuitive, or your writing has made it seem that way, I feel like I need the mojo of the final confrontation to be that way, too. And I need Colin to be its primary force.
Okay, then the riot scene -- the chaos, the fear, the riders and soldiers, all wonderfully well-drawn. And I do love, love love love, that it's Noel who faces down the Darkman. But the method he did it really threw me out of the story. When Noel inflicts pain, it is visited upon him -- why would this mojo reverse itself at the critical moment? Noel receives pain; that's what I latched onto about his character. Why does that characteristic transmute into something else when he's facing down Evil? It's a really wonderful idea, and I would love to see it work Chekov's-gun style, but in this draft it's just a few degrees off from connecting, for me. Give me some reason; maybe a pondering from Colin in the chapters before, or an explanation from him after.
I do love Colm -- the more innocent/childlike identity -- blinking into existence in the riot and warning the other prisoners about the Darkman. That was an excellent moment, set up and executed well. Good payoff of a good idea at the right moment. It's just that as these chapters stand, I feel like that and disconnecting Joseph's shadow are his only real moments of plot realization, and they're secondary to other people's moments of plot realization.
And after all that crit, I will say that I love you had Colin playing a long con, here, after Galano as revenge for Grace all this time. As I and some of the other comments have noticed previously, you could make it clearer that Grace is the mysterious lady and note her presence a little more strongly. I think if you do that, the payoff of Colin's revelation gets even bigger than it already is. (And it's pretty darn big! It was one of my favorite moments of this story, as a reader.)
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I enjoy pretty much all the pacing, here. You really built it up and built it up and had us looking forward to the final confrontation with Galano and the inevitable riot. But. Hmmm. I'm not sure that all the specifics of the final confrontations are working, here.
Because I don't feel like Colin really won, against Galano. The mojo comes when you need it, that's a rule of this universe, but... it was somewhat unsatisfying to have none of Colin's plans have any relevance to the final method of defeating him. :( Colin's blood separates Joseph's second shadow which Colin and Gutierrez and Laney use to strangle Galano, basically, yes? But then Joseph uses his baton and Galano falls to the ground and I'm ultimately not sure why that moment is the moment he is defeated. It feels like Joseph was the primary actor in this scene -- which wouldn't necessarily be a problem, if Noel wasn't the primary actor in the next scene, essentially de-centering Colin from his own story. Does that make sense? Just, Colin doing something after Galano falls -- maybe Galano is stunned, or Laney and Gutierrez hold him down with the shadow, while Colin draws something in blood over the shadow, or on his chest or face, (combining his art-magic with the blood-magic with the exorcism plan), and then Galano shatters into salt. Or something else! But since most of the prison mojo in this story is fairly intuitive, or your writing has made it seem that way, I feel like I need the mojo of the final confrontation to be that way, too. And I need Colin to be its primary force.
Okay, then the riot scene -- the chaos, the fear, the riders and soldiers, all wonderfully well-drawn. And I do love, love love love, that it's Noel who faces down the Darkman. But the method he did it really threw me out of the story. When Noel inflicts pain, it is visited upon him -- why would this mojo reverse itself at the critical moment? Noel receives pain; that's what I latched onto about his character. Why does that characteristic transmute into something else when he's facing down Evil? It's a really wonderful idea, and I would love to see it work Chekov's-gun style, but in this draft it's just a few degrees off from connecting, for me. Give me some reason; maybe a pondering from Colin in the chapters before, or an explanation from him after.
I do love Colm -- the more innocent/childlike identity -- blinking into existence in the riot and warning the other prisoners about the Darkman. That was an excellent moment, set up and executed well. Good payoff of a good idea at the right moment. It's just that as these chapters stand, I feel like that and disconnecting Joseph's shadow are his only real moments of plot realization, and they're secondary to other people's moments of plot realization.
And after all that crit, I will say that I love you had Colin playing a long con, here, after Galano as revenge for Grace all this time. As I and some of the other comments have noticed previously, you could make it clearer that Grace is the mysterious lady and note her presence a little more strongly. I think if you do that, the payoff of Colin's revelation gets even bigger than it already is. (And it's pretty darn big! It was one of my favorite moments of this story, as a reader.)