Calamity (Reckoners, #3)(51)

But sparks, that device looked cool. Hopefully it would survive our activities here. Once we had Prof and Tia back, I could return to running point, where I belonged.

I left Abraham and walked down to the bottom floor to check on Larcener. I stopped in the doorway to his room.

Wow.

The once-bare walls were now draped with soft red velvet. A set of lanterns glowed on mahogany tables. Larcener lay on a couch as elegant as any we’d had in the Babilar hideout, wearing a pair of large headphones, with his eyes closed. I couldn’t hear what, if anything, he was listening to—the headphones were likely connected wirelessly to a mobile.

I stepped into the room. Sparks, it seemed way larger than it had before. I paced it off, and found that it was bigger.

Spatial distortion, I thought, adding that to his list of powers. Calamity, that was an incredible power. I’d only heard rumors about Epics having it. And his ability to materialize objects from thin air…

“You could beat him,” I said.

Larcener said nothing, remaining on his couch, not opening his eyes.

“Larcener,” I said, more loudly.

He started, then ripped off his headphones and shot me a glare. “What?”

“You could beat him,” I repeated. “Prof…if you were to face him, you might be able to win. I know you have multiple prime invincibilities. Add on top of those the ability to create anything, to distort space…you could beat him.”

“Of course I couldn’t. Why do you think I’m here with you useless idiots?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet.”

“I don’t fight,” Larcener said, moving to put his headphones back on. “I’m not allowed.”

“By who?”

“By myself. Let others do the fighting. My place is to observe. Even ruling this city is probably inappropriate for me.”

People, including me, tended to work under the assumption that all Epics were essentially the same: selfish, destructive, narcissistic. But while they did share these traits, they also had their own individual levels of strangeness. Obliteration quoted scripture and sought—it seemed—to destroy all life on the planet. Regalia channeled her darkness toward greater and greater schemes. Nightwielder, in Newcago, insisted on working through lesser intermediaries.

Larcener seemed to have his own psychosis. I reached into a bowl on a little marble pedestal beside the door. Glass beads trickled between my fingers. No—diamonds.

“I don’t suppose,” I said, “you could make me a—”

“Stop.”

I glanced at Larcener.

“I should have made this clear at the start,” he said. “You get nothing from me. I am not here to give you gifts, nor to make your life easier. I will not become some servant.”

I sighed, dropping the diamonds. “You don’t sleep,” I said, trying a different tack.

“So?”

“You gained that power from another Epic, I assume. Did you take that one specifically because of the nightmares?”

He stared at me for a moment, then suddenly tossed his headphones aside and leaped to his feet. He took a single step, but crossed the wide distance between us in an instant.

“How do you know about my nightmares?” he demanded, looming in front of me. Larger. Taller.

I gaped, my heart racing again. Before this, he’d been determinedly lazy with us. Now—dwarfed by Larcener, who stood seven feet tall, with a terrible sneer and wild eyes—I felt I was a moment from being destroyed.

“I…” I swallowed. “All Epics have them, Larcener. Nightmares.”

“Nonsense,” he said. “They are mine. I am unique.”

“You can talk to Megan,” I said. “She’ll tell you she has them. Or you can go find any Epic and beat it out of them. They have nightmares, which are tied to their weaknesses. What the person fears becomes—”

“Stop your lies!” Larcener shouted, then growled at me and spun on his heel, stalking back to his couch and throwing himself down. “Epics are weak because they are fools. They will destroy this world. Give men power, and they abuse it. That is all one needs to know.”

“And you’ve never felt it?” I asked. “The sudden darkness that comes from using your powers, the lack of empathy? The desire to destroy?”

“What are you talking about?” he said. “Silly little man.”

I hesitated, trying to read him—and having a tough time of it. Maybe he was constantly consumed by the darkness. He certainly acted arrogant enough.

But he hadn’t hurt any of us. He liked to order us around, but not in the way of an Epic, I realized. In the way of a spoiled child.

“You faced it young,” I guessed. “You grew up as an Epic, able to get whatever you wanted, but you never felt the darkness.”

“Don’t be stupid,” he said. “I forbid you to speak of this idiocy anymore. Darkness? You want to blame the terrible things that Epics do on some nebulous idea or feeling? Bah. Men destroy themselves because that’s what they deserve, not because of some mystical force or emotion!”

He has to be facing it continually, I thought. Whatever his fear is, he must see it every day, and defeat it. That was what we’d learned with Megan; if she didn’t stay vigilant, the darkness crept back toward her.