Calamity (Reckoners, #3)

The debris settled to reveal that most of the floor of the suite was gone. I had ended up inside Prof’s chambers, near Tia, who had taken cover beside the desk, her mobile gripped tightly in her fist. It was connected by wires to the data drive of a computer powered—along with the swinging lightbulbs—by the small generator that puttered in the corner.

Megan hadn’t so much as flinched. She turned toward me. Behind her, on the other side of the hole in the floor, Prof’s guards called to one another and pulled themselves out of the rubble. To her right, Prof loomed over Tavi, who was crumpled on the floor. Her forcefield was gone. She stirred, but didn’t rise.

Megan met my eyes, hands raised before her. Her lips curled in a sneer, but she held my gaze, then gritted her teeth. I sensed a plea in her expression. Still lying on the broken floor, I yanked my gun from its holster, then leveled it and fired.

At the generator.

Like the one above, it had a gas tank. It didn’t explode as I’d expected, but the shots punctured it and sparked a fire, sending up jets of flame.

The lights immediately went out.

“No!” Tia cried.

Megan stared into the fire, and it danced in her eyes.

“Face it, Megan,” I whispered. “Please.”

She stepped toward it, as if drawn by its heat. Then she screamed and ran forward, passing me and thrusting her arm into the flames.

Megan collapsed. Tavi vanished. The rents in the air shrank away. I let out a relieved breath and managed to crawl over to Megan, dragging my pained foot behind me.

She trembled, clutching her arm, which she’d burned severely. I pulled her farther from the generator, in case it flared up, and folded her into my arms.

In the pitch-black room, there were only two lights: the dwindling fire…

And Prof.

Megan squeezed her eyes shut, shaking from her ordeal. She’d saved our lives, had put my plan into motion, and it hadn’t been enough. I could see that easily as Prof strode toward us. He stepped up to the lip of the broken hole in the floor, then across it, a forcefield forming under his feet. Lit from beneath, he looked like a specter, his face mostly in shadow.

Prof had always possessed a kind of…unfinished look. Features like a stack of broken bricks, his face usually accented by stubble. Today though, I could spot signs of exhaustion as well. The slowness of his step, the streaks of sweat on his face, the slump to his shoulders. His fight with Tavi had been difficult. He was practically indestructible, but he did get tired.

He studied me and Megan. “Kill them,” he said, then turned his back on us and walked off into the shadows.

Two dozen guards lowered their weapons to fire. I pulled Megan close, close enough to hear her whisper.

“I die as me,” she said. “At least I die as me.”

Fire. Her powers were negated. She was always without them for a minute or two after deliberately burning herself.

If she died now, would it be permanent?

No.

No…What have I done?

I twisted, sheltering her as the guards opened fire in a terrible barrage. The walls exploded in sprays of salt chips. The computer monitor shattered. Bullets pelted the area, accompanied by the earsplitting sound of weapons fire.

I clutched Megan close, my back to the assault.

Something stirred again within me. Those depths lurking in my soul, the blackness below. Shadows moving around me, screams, emotions like spikes piercing me, the sudden and overpowering sensation from my dreams. I threw back my head and screamed.

The gunfire stilled, a few last pops sounding as the magazines fell empty. With an enemy Epic in their sights, these people had not hesitated or held back. Several flipped on lights attached to their guns, to inspect their handiwork.

I awaited the pain, or at least the numbness, that came from having been shot. I felt neither. Hesitant, I turned to look behind me. Destruction surrounded us—floor, walls, furniture splintered, pocked, broken…all except in my immediate area. The ground here wasn’t broken at all. In fact, it was glassy and reflective. A deep, burnished silver-black. Metallic.

I was alive.

Regalia’s voice whispered from my memory. I have been assured that you will be…thematically appropriate.

“Impressive,” Prof said from the shadows. “What did she do? Open a door to another world and send the bullets through?” He sounded tired. “I will have to do this myself. Don’t think it doesn’t pain me.”

“Jonathan…,” a voice whispered.

I frowned. It had come from nearby. Who—

I’d forgotten about Tia.

She slumped against the saltstone desk, lit by the fluttering firelight. She had been hiding there, but the bullets had gotten her. She bled from multiple hits, mobile clutched in her fingers. It had been shot straight through.

“Jon,” she said. “You bastard. You feared it would come to…this.” She coughed. “I was wrong, and you were right. As…always.”