Calamity (Reckoners, #3)(36)

Behind me, Mizzy gave Abraham and Cody an update. I kept my attention on Prof. He looked not unlike Steelheart, who—though taller and more muscular—had stood frequently in that same domineering pose.

Out in the square, a baby started crying.

My breath caught. I spotted the woman clutching her baby, not far from where Prof stood. She frantically tried to soothe the child.

Prof raised his hand toward her, a look of annoyance on his face. The sound had jarred him out of his contemplations, and he sneered toward the disturbance.

No…

You learned quickly: Don’t bother the Epics. Don’t draw attention. Don’t annoy them. They’d kill a man for the simplest of things.

Please…

I didn’t dare breathe. I was in another place for a moment. Another crying child. A hushed room.

I looked into Prof’s face, and despite the distance, I was certain I saw something there. A struggle.

He spun and stalked away, leaving the woman and her child alone, barking at his new Epic lackey. The forcefield sphere holding Stormwind trailed after him, and he left a bewildered crowd.

“We ready to go?” Megan asked, standing up.

I nodded, letting out a long, relieved breath.

There was still something human inside Jonathan Phaedrus.





“I did see him, Megan,” I said, unzipping my backpack. “I’m telling you, Firefight was there in the crowd.”

“I’m not doubting you,” she said, leaning against the pink saltstone wall of our new hideout.

“Point of fact,” I said, “I believe you were doing exactly that.”

“What I said is that I didn’t pull him through.”

“Then who did?”

She shrugged.

“Can you be absolutely sure he didn’t slip through?” I said, taking several changes of clothing out of my pack and kneeling by the trunk that was going to be my sole piece of furniture. I stuffed the clothing inside, then looked at her.

“On occasion, when I pull a shadow from another world, the fringes bleed,” Megan admitted. “It usually only happens when I’ve just reincarnated, when my powers are at their fullest.”

“What about when you’re stressed or tired?”

“Never before,” she said. “But…well, there are a lot of things I haven’t tried.”

I looked up at her. “Why not?”

“Because.”

“Because why? You have amazing, reality-defying powers, Megan! Why not experiment?”

“You know, David,” she said, “you sure can be stupid sometimes. You have lists of powers, but you don’t have any idea what it’s like to be an Epic.”

“What do you mean?”

She sighed, then settled down on the floor next to me. There were no beds or couches yet—our new hideout wouldn’t ever be as lush as the one in Babilar had been. But it was as secure as we could make it. We’d built it ourselves over the past few days, hiding it as one of the large “cancerous” lumps of salt that grew across Ildithia.

I’d given Megan some time at first, not wanting to push her about Firefight. She was often evasive for a few days after she used her powers strenuously, as if even thinking about the powers gave her a headache.

“Most Epics aren’t like Steelheart, or Regalia,” Megan explained. “Most Epics are small-time bullies—men and women with just enough power to be dangerous, and just enough taste of the darkness to not care who they hurt.

“They didn’t like me. Well, Epics don’t like most anybody, but me especially. My powers frightened them. Other realities? Other versions of them? They hated that they couldn’t define limits to what I could do, but at the same time my powers couldn’t protect me. Not actively. So…”

“So?” I asked, scooting closer, putting my arm around her.

“So they killed me,” she said, shrugging. “I dealt with it, learned to be more subtle with my powers. It wasn’t until Steelheart took me in that I had any kind of security. He always did see the promise of what I did, rather than the threat.

“Anyway, it’s like I’ve told you. I took what my dad had taught my sisters and me about guns, and I became an expert. I learned to use guns to mask the fact that my powers couldn’t hurt anyone. I hid what I could truly do, became Steelheart’s spy. But no, I didn’t experiment. I didn’t want people to know what I could do, didn’t even want him to know the extent of my powers. Life has taught me that if people learn too much about me, I end up dead.”

“And reincarnating,” I said, trying to be encouraging.

“Yeah. Unless it’s not me that comes back, but just a copy from another dimension—similar, but different. David…what if the person you fell in love with really did die in Newcago? What if I’m some kind of impostor?”

I pulled her close, uncertain what to say.

“I keep wondering,” she whispered. “Is next time going to be the time? The time I come back and am obviously different? Will I be reborn with a different hair color? Will I be reborn with a different accent, or with a sudden distaste for this food or that? Will you know then, once and for all, that the one you loved is dead?”

“You,” I said, tipping her chin up to look her in the eye, “are a sunrise.”