Calamity (Reckoners, #3)(46)
This roadway was quiet, save for the rattling of bike pedals and a voice, farther up the street.
“Now, this’ll just take a minute.” A British accent of some flavor I didn’t recognize. I grew cold as I caught a glimpse of a man with a shaved head wearing spiked black leather. A little neon sphere hovered to his side, changing colors from red to green. A tag, they sometimes called it. Epics who could manifest their powers visually would sometimes walk around with an obvious display—a glow about them, or a few spinning leaves. Something that said, Yes, I’m one of them. So don’t mess with me.
“David,” Abraham said softly.
“Neon,” I whispered. “Minor Epic. Light-manipulation powers. No invisibility, but he can put on quite a show—and drill you dead with a laser.” Weakness…Did my notes have a weakness for him?
He spoke further with the group in front of us while some men in long jackets approached, carrying a device that looked like a plate with a screen on one side. One of the dowsers that Larcener had mentioned. It was indeed identical to the one I’d seen the team use in Newcago.
Neon’s team scanned each person in the group ahead of us, then waved them on. Prof’s hunting Larcener, I thought. He wouldn’t use one of those to try to find us. He knows Megan can beat them.
Neon’s team motioned us forward.
“Loud noises,” I whispered, remembering. “If this goes south, start screaming. It will negate his powers.”
Abraham nodded, looking far more confident as the two of us wheeled our bikes forward. There was a chance this team had our descriptions—depending on how worried Prof was about the Reckoners. I was relieved when Neon yawned and had his team scan Abraham, with no look of recognition in his eyes.
The dowser approved Abraham, and the team waved him forward. Then they wrapped the scanner’s strap around my arm.
And we stood quietly on the street. It took forever, long enough that Neon stepped over, looking annoyed. I started to sweat, preparing to yell. Would he decide to burn me away out of frustration for slowing him down? He wasn’t that important an Epic; the minor ones had to be more careful about wanton murder. If they ruined the working population of a city, the High Epics wouldn’t have anyone to serve them.
Finally, lethargically, the machine gave a response. “Huh,” Neon said. “Haven’t had it take that long before. Let’s search the nearby buildings. Maybe someone’s in them, making our machine flip.” He unhooked the device and waved me away. “Get outta here.”
I moved, noticing as I passed that the dowser had given me a negative reading, as it should. I was no Epic.
No matter what Regalia claimed.
I spent the rest of the ride feeling sick, remembering those moments confronting my reflection in the water. Listening to her awful promise.
You were angry at Prof for hiding things from the team, a voice inside me whispered. Aren’t you doing exactly the same?
That was stupid. There was nothing to hide.
We reached the location where the crate had stopped moving: a street lined with three-and four-story apartment buildings. After two days in the city, I was well aware that the powerful clans looked for locations like this, while what had once been rich suburban homes were now widely ignored. In a world of Epics and rival gangs, living space was far less valuable than security.
The two of us stopped at the mouth of the street. A group of young men no older than me lounged here holding an assortment of old weapons, including one teenager with a crossbow of all things. A large flag flying the emblem of a stingray fluttered above one of the buildings.
“We’re not recruiting,” one of the youths said to me. “Beat it.”
“You have a visitor among you,” I said to them, hoping my guess was correct. “An outsider. Give this person our descriptions.”
The youths shared a few looks, then one ran off to do as I ordered. Within moments I knew I’d guessed something right, because a good number of older men and women with really nice guns came stalking down the street toward us.
“Uh…David?” Abraham asked. “Do you want to say something more, perhaps? That we…”
He trailed off as he spotted one person among the group wearing a hoodie, rifle slung over her arm. The hood made her face difficult to see, but several locks of red hair poked out next to her chin.
Tia.
ABRAHAM didn’t say anything as the two of us were quickly surrounded by armed people and hustled off the street toward one of the apartment buildings. He simply gave Tia a friendly salute, one finger tapping the middle of his brow. He’d obviously figured out what we were doing long ago.
Tia’s people shuffled us into a room with no windows, lit only by a row of candles that were slowly melting onto the countertop of an old kitchen bar. Why bother with candlesticks when your home would be dissolving anyway? Though the room did have an actual wooden door on it, which was rare in this city. It would have to be carted each week to the next location and reattached.
One of the armed Ildithians relieved us of our weapons, while another shoved us down into chairs. Tia stood at the back of the group, arms folded, her face shrouded by that hood. She was slender and short, and her lips—which I could see within the hood’s shadows—were drawn into a line of disapproval. She was the Reckoners’ second in command, and one of the smartest people I’d ever met.