Calamity (Reckoners, #3)(75)

“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.”

Prof stepped into the light of the soldiers’ weapons. That haggard, broken face seemed to change, his jaw dropping. He seemed to see for the first time that night. So he got to watch as Tia breathed a last ragged breath and died.

I knelt, stunned, and barely heard Prof’s roar—his sudden, shocked cry of agony and regret. He tore across the hole in the floor on a field of light, charging past me and Megan, ignoring us as he grabbed Tia.

“Heal!” he commanded her. “Heal! I gift it to you!”

I held on to Megan, deadened, disbelieving. Tia’s figure remained limp in his hands.

The floor vaporized. The walls, the ceiling, the entire tower. It all shattered to dust in the face of Prof’s tormented scream. Soldiers dropped like stones, though a bubble sprang up around Prof and Tia.

My stomach lurched as Megan and I also began to plummet through salt dust seventy stories toward the ground. “Megan!” I shouted.

Her eyes had drooped closed. I held on to her, tumbling.

No. No. NO.

Bodies fell around us in the night, sprays of dust and furniture, scraps of cloth. They passed us.

“Megan!” I screamed again, over the sound of wind and terrified soldiers. “Wake up!”

Her eyes flared open and seemed to burn in the night. I jerked, barely keeping hold of her—as suddenly I was in a parachute’s harness.

We smacked the ground mere moments later, hitting with a distressing crunch. Then the pain arrived. I gasped at its intensity, like a wave of electricity running up my body from my legs. It was so overpowering, I couldn’t move. I suffered it, staring upward into the black sky.

And at Calamity, who stared back.

Time passed. Not much, but enough. I heard footsteps. “He’s here,” Abraham’s voice said, urgent. “You were right. Sparks! That was a parachute. One of ours, but I didn’t leave any behind….”

I turned my head, blinking away salt dust to find him, a hulking form in the night.

“I’ve got you, David,” Abraham said, taking me by the arm.

“Megan,” I whispered. “Under the chute.” It had drifted down over her after we hit.

Abraham moved over, picking at the parachute. “She’s here,” he said, sounding relieved. “And she’s breathing. Cody, Mizzy, I need your help. David, we’re going to have to move you. We can’t wait. Prof’s up there, glowing. He could come down at any moment.”

I braced myself as Abraham hefted me over his shoulder. The other two arrived, pulling Megan out of the rubble. There was no time to worry whether they were doing more damage than good.

They dragged us off into the night, leaving behind the wreckage of a mission we had failed, utterly and completely.





I didn’t sleep, though when Cody had us pause in an alley to see if we were being tailed, I let Abraham give me something for the pain. Mizzy worked on a litter to help carry Megan and me while Abraham inspected me. Turned out I’d snapped both legs when I hit the ground.

The sky had turned sour by the time we left that alley, and a misty rain started falling on us, making the roadway slick with salty water. The saltstone held up better than I’d have expected though. No mass melting of the city.