Calamity (Reckoners, #3)

Someone else…Prof was a gifter.

“When we were younger,” Tia whispered urgently, “we experimented with Jon’s powers. He can create lances of light, forcefield spears. He gifted the ability to me. And I—by accident—launched one of those lances at Jon. David, the wound he took that day didn’t regenerate. His powers couldn’t fix it; he took months to recover, healing like a normal person. We never told anyone, not even Dean.”

“So someone gifted with one of his powers…”

“Can negate the rest. Yes.” She glanced at Carla, who was waving urgently, then leaned in to me, continuing to speak very quietly. “He fears them, David. The powers granted him, the weight they bring. And so he lives his life with a great dichotomy—he takes every opportunity he can to gift his powers away, to let the team use them so he doesn’t have to. But each time he does, he gives them a weapon that could be used against him.”

She gripped my arm. “Get me out,” she said, then turned and rushed to Carla, who led her from the room.

—

They let us watch. From a distance, using scopes atop one of the apartment buildings, where they’d hollowed out a nice little hidden sniper nest. We were attended by a couple of guards who—we’d been promised—would let us go, assuming that Prof took Tia and left without demanding more.

Again I had to watch a man I loved and respected act like someone else. Someone proud and imperious, bathed in a faint green glow from the forcefield disc he stood upon.

I felt so powerless as the Ildithians led Tia up to him, then forced her down on her knees. They bowed and retreated from Prof. I waited, sweating.

Tia was right. He didn’t kill her immediately. He surrounded her in a forcefield, then turned and stalked away, her orb trailing behind him.

He never gifted us that power, I thought. He gifted us forcefield protection in the form of the “jackets,” but only in small amounts. The globes, those spears I saw him use the other day…He didn’t let us know about those abilities.

For fear that someday they might be used to kill him. Sparks, how were we going to get him to give away his abilities? I knew his weakness, but approaching it still seemed impossible.

As Tia and Prof left, I closed my eyes, feeling like a coward. Not because I’d failed to save Tia, but because of how badly I’d been wanting her to come with us.

She would have taken over, been in charge. She’d have known what to do. Unfortunately, that burden was now back on me.





I was somewhere dark and warm again.

I had memories…voices, like my own, that spoke in harmony. Together we were one. I’d lost those voices somehow, but I wanted them, needed them. I felt an ache, being separated from them.

At least I was warm, and safe, and comfortable.

I knew what to expect, though I could not brace myself in the dream. So the crashes of thunder still shocked me. The peals of terrible, blaring sound, like a hundred raging wolves. Garish, cold, harsh light. Snapping, attacking, assaulting, smothering. It came at me, and sought to destroy me.

I shot bolt upright, suddenly awake.

I was back on the floor of the upper room of our hideout. Megan, Cody, and Mizzy slept nearby. Abraham was on watch tonight. With an unknown Epic in the hideout, none of us were comfortable sleeping on our own or in pairs, and we were certain always to post a guard.

Sparks…that nightmare. That terrible nightmare. My pulse was still racing and my skin was clammy. My blanket was soaked in sweat; I could probably have wrung out an entire bucketful.

I’m going to have to tell the others, I thought as I sat there in the dark, trying to catch my breath. Nightmares were directly tied to Epics and their weaknesses. If I was having a persistent one…well, it might mean something.

I kicked off my blankets and realized that Megan wasn’t in her place. She got up in the night a lot.

I picked my way around the others toward the hall. I didn’t like this fear. I wasn’t the coward I’d been as a child. I could face anything. Anything.

I reached the hallway and checked the room across from ours. Empty. Where had Megan gotten to?

Abraham and I had returned from the Stingray Clan’s base late enough that we’d decided to call it a night and save digging into the new information Tia had given us for tomorrow. I’d told them Prof’s weakness, which had set them thinking. That was enough for the moment.