Calamity (Reckoners, #3)(24)

Mizzy nodded slowly as Abraham got into the car. I put the gun down.

“Guess I’ll have to sit on this thirst for vengeance,” Mizzy said. “Smother it real good.”

“No,” I said.

She turned and looked at me.

“Keep that fire alive, Mizzy,” I said, then I pointed out the rooftop. “But aim it at the real target. The one who actually killed your friends.”

Calamity hung outside, a bright red dot in the sky, like the targeting point on a scope’s overlay. Visible every night.

Mizzy nodded.

Abraham started the car, not asking to be caught up on our conversation. As we moved, my phone blinked and I sat back, anticipating another round of banter with Megan.

Instead, her text was brief, yet chilling.

Hurry up. We decided to scout close to the city, to get a glimpse. Something’s happened.

What? I messaged back, urgent.

Kansas City. It’s gone.





I tried to think of a proper metaphor for the way the slag crunched under my feet. Like…like ice on…No.

I stepped across the wide-open landscape of melted rock that had been Kansas City. For once, words failed me. The only proper descriptor I could think of was…sorrowful.

The day before, this had been one of the points of civilization on an otherwise dark map. Yes, it had been a place dominated by Epics, but it had also been a place of life, culture, society. People. Tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of them.

All gone.

I crouched down, rubbing my fingers on the smooth ground. It was still warm, and probably would be for days. The blast had warped stone and, in an instant, turned buildings into molten mountains of steel. The ground was covered in little ridges of glass, like frozen waves, none taller than an inch. Somehow they conveyed the feeling of an incredible wind blowing from the center point of the destruction.

All those people. Gone. I sent a prayer to God, or whoever might be listening, that some of them had gotten out before the blast. Footsteps announced Megan. She was lit by the morning sun.

“We’re dying out, Megan,” I said, voice ragged. “We capitulated to the Epics, and we’re still getting exterminated. Their wars will end all life on this planet.”

She rested a hand on my shoulder as I crouched there, feeling the glass that had once been people.

“This was Obliteration?” she asked.

“This matches what he did in other cities,” I said. “And I know of no other with the powers to do this.”

“That maniac…”

“There’s something seriously wrong with that man, Megan. When he destroys a city, he considers it a mercy. He seems to think…seems to think that the way to truly rid the world of Epics is to destroy every single person who could ever become one.”

The darkness had given Obliteration a special kind of madness, a twisted version of the Reckoners’ own goal. Rid the world of Epics.

No matter what the cost.

My mobile blinked, and I ripped it off the place where it usually rested, strapped to my jacket’s shoulder.

You see this? It was Knighthawk, and he’d included an attachment. I opened it up. It was a shot of a large explosion blasting out from what I presumed to be Kansas City. The photo had been taken from far away.

People are sharing this right and left, Knighthawk sent. Aren’t you guys heading that direction?

You know exactly where we are, I texted back. You’re tracking my mobile.

I was just being polite, he sent. Get me some photos of the center of the city. Obliteration is going to be a problem.

Going to be? I sent.

Yeah, well, look at this.

The next shot was an image of a lanky man with a goatee walking through a crowded street, long trench coat fluttering behind him, sword strapped to his side. I recognized Obliteration immediately.

Kansas City? I asked. Before the blast.

Yeah, Knighthawk wrote back.

The ramifications of that sank in. I scrambled to dial Knighthawk’s number, then lifted the phone to my ear. He picked up a second later.

“He isn’t glowing,” I said, eager. “That means—”

“What are you doing?” Knighthawk demanded. “Idiot!”

He hung up.

I stared at the phone, confused, until another message came. Did I say you could call me, boy?

But…, I wrote back. You’ve been texting me all day.

Totally different, he wrote. Didgeridooing invasion of privacy, calling a person without their permission.

“Didgeridooing?” Megan asked from over my shoulder.

“Profanity filter on my mobile,” I said.

“You use a profanity filter? What is this, kindergarten?”

“Nah,” I said. “It’s hilarious. Makes people sound really stupid.”

Another text came from Knighthawk. You said that Regalia created a motivator from Obliteration. What do you want to bet she made more than one? Look at these images.

He sent another sequence that showed Obliteration in Kansas City, working on some kind of glowing object. It was bright, but you could still tell it was doing the glowing, not Obliteration himself.

Timestamp on that last one is right before the place got vaporized, Knighthawk sent. He destroyed Kansas City with a device. But why use one of those instead of doing it himself?