Calamity (Reckoners, #3)

“I didn’t bring you back,” I said. “You faced it, Prof.” I suddenly understood—in strapping on the motivators and trying to take up his powers again after what had happened, he’d faced them. He’d come to risk failure. He’d done it.

He’d claimed the powers. Like Megan, he’d ripped the darkness from the abilities, and sent one sprawling away while seizing the others.

Prof’s powers were now his, and not Calamity’s. The motivator boxes were meaningless.

Prof grabbed me, perhaps intending to teleport us away, but a sudden wave of something slammed into us, sending us sprawling. Calamity started glowing again, a harsh red light, and he spoke….Sparks, that voice. Inhuman, unreal.

Something tumbled from Prof’s hand, and it vaporized as Calamity pointed.

“What was that?” I asked over the terrible screeching that was now Calamity’s voice, speaking a language I couldn’t conceive.

“That was our way out,” Prof said. “Run.”

The teleporter. Hell. I scrambled to my feet as Prof placed a forcefield between us and Calamity, but it was gone in a heartbeat. Fighting him was impossible, it—

Some unseen force tossed me to the ground. Calamity glowed and raised his hands, a beam forming, then shooting right toward me.

Light flashed again, and the beam missed.

Megan stood in the room, holding Obliteration by the throat. He appeared to be choking. I gaped in surprise as she tossed the man aside—he vanished a moment later, not in his customary fashion, but just fading away. Megan raised her gun and started firing at Calamity. It still didn’t do any good, though Calamity screamed again in that strange language.

Megan cursed and dropped down to a crouch beside me. “Plan?” she asked.

“I…Megan, how did you…”

“Easy,” she said, firing again. “Grabbed the Obliteration from the other dimension, showed him the picture of this place, and made him take me up here. He’s still a slontze there, I’ll have you know. Now…plan?”

Plan.

Sometimes you don’t know what you need until you’re in the thick of it.

“Send us both,” I said, stumbling to my feet. “Send Calamity and me into Firefight’s world—but not out in space, please. Send us to Firefight, wherever he is.”

“David, Calamity will kill you!”

“Please, Megan. Please. Trust me.”

She drew her lips to a line, and as I lurched toward Calamity in the shaking room, she released her powers.

I grabbed him, and together the two of us slipped into another place.





WE stumbled onto a rooftop in Ildithia, near a gaping hole smoldering in the ground. Night had fallen; darkness covered the salt city, but I recognized the location. It was above where I’d faced down Prof at the end.

At first I thought something had gone wrong. Had we really entered another dimension? But there were differences. Here, the hole looked like it had been made by an explosion rather than by the tensors. There were also far fewer bodies.

I turned and found that Calamity was standing there growling at me. He raised his hands, summoning light.

“I can show you,” I whispered, “what it is we see in the Earth. You say you’re curious. I can show you something you will wish to see. I promise.”

He sneered at me. But as I watched, his rage seemed to subside. Like…well, like an Epic when their powers retreated.

“You’re curious,” I said. “I know you are. Don’t you want to understand, finally, so that your curiosity will stop nagging at you?”

“Bah,” he said, but lowered his hands and transformed into Larcener. Well, he’d always been Larcener, but he’d stopped glowing, his skin had returned to a human tone, and his robe had transformed to the shirt and slacks he often wore.

“What do you think to do here?” he demanded, looking around. “This is another Core Possibility, isn’t it? One adjacent to yours? You realize I can just send us back.”

“Specks!” Firefight’s voice said. I twisted to find him on the next rooftop over, standing near Tavi. She remained behind, studying me while Firefight jumped, gliding across the open space, trailing flames. “He’s here!” Firefight said, obviously speaking into a mobile. How had he found one that didn’t burn up? “Yes, him.”

“Can you summon the person who wants to meet me?” I asked Firefight, glancing toward Calamity.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Firefight said. “He’s coming.”

“There is something strange about this place,” Calamity said, looking up and squinting at the sky. “Something wrong…”

“It’s a world that you left, Calamity,” I said. “It’s a world where some Epics don’t destroy. Where some protect and fight against those who would kill.”

“Impossible.” He spun on me. “Lies.”

“You know your powers,” I said. “You know what Megan does. You told me yourself, you are their master. Before, you demanded that I deny what I was. Well, I don’t, not anymore. I’m one of you. Now you do it! I dare you to deny what you’re seeing. Deny that this place, this possibility, exists!”