“Do it,” he growled. “Do it, you bastard!”
My hand was steady, my aim unwavering, as I rested my finger on the trigger—and remembered.
Another day, in a steel room, with a woman I’d driven to rage.
Me, kneeling on a gridiron battlefield.
My father, his back to the bank pillar, in the shadow of a deity.
“No,” I said, turning away.
Megan didn’t object. She joined me. Together, we walked away from Prof.
“Who’s the coward now?” he demanded, kneeling in shadows and flickering firelight. Weeping. “David Charleston! Killer of Epics. You’re supposed to stop me.”
“That,” a new voice said, “can be arranged.”
I turned, completely astonished, as Larcener strolled from the shadows of a stone overhang nearby. Had he been there all along? It defied reason. But—
He reached Prof and lightly rested his fingers on the man’s neck. Prof screamed, going stiff.
“Like ice water in the veins, I’m told,” Larcener said.
I charged toward them across the open cavern. “What are you doing?”
“Ending your problem,” Larcener said, holding on to Prof. “You wish me to stop?”
“I…” I swallowed.
“Too late anyway,” Larcener said, pulling his fingers away and inspecting them. He looked into Prof’s eyes. “Excellent. It worked this time. I did need to check, after our little…problem with your girlfriend.” He looked up at the sky, then glared at the sunlight, stepping back into the shadows. Sparks. The sun was low on the horizon; it had to be at least five by now. I hadn’t realized we’d been fighting so long.
I knelt down beside Prof. He was staring ahead, looking stunned. I prodded him softly, but he didn’t move, didn’t even blink.
“It’s a good solution, David,” Megan said, joining me. “It’s either this or kill him.”
I looked into those sightless eyes and nodded. She was right, but I couldn’t help feeling that I’d failed in some monumental way. I’d fought Prof to a halt, figured out his weakness, and negated his powers. Yet he hadn’t pushed back the darkness.
We could have found another method, right? Kept his weakness engaged until he came to himself? I wanted to weep—but strangely, I felt too tired even for that.
“Let’s go find the others,” I said, rising. I pulled off the vest, still with wires attached for the motivators. We’d need to get the harmsway running again to heal Abraham. I set it beside the metal boxes that held the motivators, then I scanned the sky, hoping to spot one of Knighthawk’s drones.
A flash of light.
Obliteration’s hand fell on my shoulder. “Well done,” he said. “The beast is vanquished. It is time for me to make good on my promise.”
We vanished.
WE appeared on a barren cliff overlooking a scrub desert with sweltering air that smelled of baked earth. Red rocks peeked from the soil, displaying a variety of strata, like pancakes piled high.
Behind me, something glowed brightly. I turned and raised my hand, squinting at it.
“A bomb,” Obliteration said. “Made of my own flesh. My son, you might say.”
“You used one of these to destroy Kansas City.”
“Yes,” he said, subdued. “I cannot travel well when full of energy. I must sun myself in the place I am to destroy, but that creates a conundrum. The more my notoriety grows, the more people flee my presence. And so…”
“And so you took Regalia’s offer. Your flesh in exchange for a weapon.”
“This one was for Atlanta,” he said, then rested his hand on my shoulder in an almost paternal way. “I give it to you, Steelslayer. For your hunt. Can you use this to destroy the king above, the Epic of Epics?”
“I don’t know,” I said, eyes watering against the light. Sparks…I was so tired. Drained. Wrung out, like a threadbare dishrag so full of holes it was good for nothing more than propping up the corner of your wobbly kitchen table. “But if anything can do it, that will.” Even powerful High Epics had been known to fall to overwhelming outpourings of energy like nukes, or Obliteration’s own destructive force.
“I will take you, and it, to the palace above,” he said. “The new Jerusalem. Detonate the bomb with this.” He handed me a small rod, kind of penlike, which was startlingly familiar. A universal detonator. I’d had one of these once.
“Could I…maybe do it from down here?” I asked.
Obliteration laughed. “You ask if you may set aside your cup? Only natural. But no, you must face this in person. I have extended your life to perform this act because I know its result. The detonator has a short range.”
I gripped the detonator in a sweaty palm. A death sentence then. Perhaps the bomb could have been rigged with a timer, but I doubted Obliteration would agree to that.
I didn’t even get to say goodbye to Megan, I thought, feeling sick. Yet here was the chance I’d insisted I sought. An ending.
“Can I…think about it?”
“For a short time,” he said, checking the sky. “But not long. He will soon rise, and we cannot let him see what we are planning.”
I sat down, trying to clear my mind, trying to recover some strength and confront the opportunity I’d been handed. I tried to sort through it. Prof defeated, but drained of powers. He’d seemed so numb when I’d looked at him, as if he’d been hit by some strong blow to the head. He’d recover, right? Some assumers left their prey stunned, even brain-dead, after their powers were taken. Those people recovered when the powers were restored, but Larcener never gave back what he stole. How had I never considered that?
Sparks, how had I missed Prof’s weakness? His timid planning, the way he looked for excuses to give away his powers and mitigate failures—it all pointed to his fears. All along, he’d been unwilling to fully commit.
“Well?” Obliteration finally asked. “We have no more time.”
I didn’t feel any more rested, despite the breather. “I’ll go,” I whispered, hoarse. “I will do it.”
“Well chosen.” He led me to the bomb that, I assumed, had been placed here in this wasteland to gather heat from the sun. I moved closer to it and got a sense of its shape—a metal box about the size of a footlocker. It wasn’t hot, though it seemed as if it should be.
Obliteration knelt and put one hand on it; the other he placed on my arm. “?‘You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.’ Farewell, Steelslayer.”
My breath caught as I was seized in the flash of light. A second later, I found myself looking down at Earth.
I barely heard the crash behind me as Obliteration left, abandoning me. I was in space. I knelt on what appeared to be a surface of glass, looking down at a gloriously stomach-twisting sight: the Earth in its splendor, surrounded by a haze of atmosphere and clouds.
So peaceful. From up here, my daily concerns seemed insignificant. I tore my eyes away from that sight to look around, though I had to put my back to the bomb and squint to make anything out over its light. I was in some kind of…building, or ship? With glass walls?
I stumbled to my feet, noting the walls’ rounded corners, and a distant red light somewhere in this glassy structure. Then I realized that despite the fact that I was all the way up in space, my feet remained planted on the surface beneath me. I would have expected to float.
The bomb shone like a star behind me. I fingered the detonator. Should I…do it now?
No. No, I needed to see him first. Up close. He glowed crimson, bright as the bomb, but was somewhere ahead of me in the ship, his light refracting through corners and surfaces of glass.
My eyes were gradually adjusting, and I noticed a doorway. I stumbled toward it, as the floor was uneven, lined with ladderlike grips and bars. The walls were also uneven, made of different compartments filled with wires and levers—only it was all glass.
I passed through a corridor, with difficulty. There was something
etched into one wall, and I ran my hand over it. English letters? I could read them—some kind of company name, it seemed.
Sparks. I was in the old international space station, but it had been transformed into glass.
Feeling an unreal disconnect, I continued toward the light. The glass was so clear, I could almost believe that it wasn’t there. I stumbled through room after room, my arm out to make sure I didn’t walk into a wall, and the red light grew larger.
I eventually stepped into one last room. It was bigger than the others I’d passed through, and Calamity waited on the far side—facing away from me, I thought, though he was so bright it was difficult to make out much about him.
Arm raised against the light, I clutched the detonator tighter. I was being stupid. I should have blown the bomb. Calamity might kill me the moment he saw me. Who knew what powers this being had?
But I had to know. Had to see him with my own eyes. I had to meet the thing that had ruined my world.
I walked through the room.
Calamity’s light dimmed. My breath caught in my throat, and I tasted bile. What would the people below think? Calamity going out? The light lowered to a faint glow, revealing a young man in a simple robe, with red glowing skin. He turned to face me…and I knew him.
“Hello, David,” Larcener said.
“YOU,” I whispered. “You were down below! With us, all along!”
“Yes,” Larcener said, turning to regard the world. “I can project a decoy of myself; you know this. You even mentioned the power on several occasions.”
I reeled, trying to connect it all. He’d been with us.
Calamity had been living with us.
“Why…What…”