“Son,” he said, clutching me, weeping. “I killed you. I didn’t mean to. I tried to protect you, to save you. But you died. You died anyway.”
“I let you die,” I whispered. “I didn’t help you, didn’t stand up. I watched him murder you. I was a coward.”
Our words became a jumble as we spoke. But for a moment, somehow, everything was all right. I was in my father’s arms. Impossible, yet true.
“But…it is him,” Calamity whispered from behind. “I can see the powers. The same powers.”
I finally released my father, though he kept a grip on my arm, protective. Calamity stared at the sky again.
“You brought him here?” my father said.
Calamity nodded absently.
“Thank you, hero,” my father said, speaking with a confidence I hadn’t known in him since before Mother’s death. “Thank you for giving me this gift. You must be a mighty man of compassion in your realm.”
Calamity looked at us, frowning. From my father, to me, and back.
“By the Eternal Sparks,” Calamity whispered. “I see it.”
I felt the fading sensation. Megan’s power was running out, and we would soon return.
I grabbed my father again. “I’m going,” I said. “I don’t have a choice. But…Father, I forgive you. Know that I forgive you.” It didn’t need to be said, yet I knew that I had to say it.
“I forgive you,” Father said, tears in his eyes. “My David…it is enough to know that somewhere, you still live.”
The world faded, and with it my father. I anticipated pain, a lurching, a tearing away—but I felt only peace.
He was right. It was enough.
Calamity and I reappeared on the glass space station. Megan and Prof stood at the ready, her with her gun, Prof with spears of light. I raised my hands to still them.
Calamity remained in his human form. He didn’t change back; he simply knelt on that glass floor, staring sightlessly. A small red glow finally started to rise from him, and he looked at us.
“You are evil,” he said, almost a plea.
“I am not,” Megan said.
“You will…you will destroy everything…,” he said.
“No,” Prof said, his voice rough. “No.”
Calamity focused on me, standing with the other two.
“Your corruption isn’t enough,” I said. “Your fears are not enough. Your hatred is not enough. We won’t do it, Calamity.”
He wrapped his arms around himself and began to rock.
“Do you know what made the difference?” I demanded of him. “The reason our powers separated from yours? The same thing happened with all of us. Megan running into a burning building. Me entering the ocean. Edmund with the dog. And Prof coming here. It wasn’t only confronting the fears…”
“…it was pushing through them,” Calamity whispered, looking from me to the others, “to save someone.”
“Do you fear that?” I asked him softly. “That we aren’t what you’ve thought? Does it terrify you to know that deep down, men are not monsters? That we are, instead, inherently good?”
He stared at me, then collapsed, curling up on the glass floor. The red light within him dimmed, and then—just like that, he faded away. Until there was nothing.
“Did we…kill him?” Megan asked.
“Close enough,” I said.
The station rumbled, then lurched.
“I knew this thing was too low for such an orbital speed!” Prof shouted. “Sparks. We need to call Tia and…” He grew pale.
The entire station lurched, throwing us to the ceiling. Calamity had been holding it in place. It started to crack, glass all around spiderwebbing from the internal pressure. In seconds we were plummeting toward the Earth, the station shattering around us.
But I was calm.
For in that other world, my father’s shirt had borne a symbol. A symbol I recognized—a stylized S shape. A symbol that meant something.
The symbol of the Faithful.
There will be heroes. Just wait.
I seized the power within me.
I sat on the hillside, resting in the shadow of the fallen space station—which I’d transformed to steel as we fell. I’d made the transformation, then exited through one of the holes in its side. I’d grabbed hold, slowing it, then guided it out of its death spiral and eventually placed it here.
Well…crashed it here. Turns out flying is way harder than people think. In the air, I was about as adroit as seventeen geriatric walruses trying to juggle live swordfish.
Might need to work on that one.
Megan walked over, looking radiant as always, despite the bruises from the, um, smoothness-challenged landing. She sat down and squeezed my arm.
“So,” she said, “you going to get super buff?”
“Dunno,” I said, flexing. “Steelheart was, and my father is. Might come with the portfolio.”
“Should make up for the terrible kissing.”
“Hey, all you have to do to fix that is let me practice.”
“Noted.”
We were somewhere in Australia, according to Knighthawk, who was sending a copter for us. It would be hours before it arrived. I wasn’t about to trust my flying skills to get us back to North America.
I nodded toward the other hillside. “How is he?”
“Bad,” Megan said, looking toward Prof’s silhouette, where he sat staring into the sky. “He’ll have to live with it, as I do. The things we’ve done while consumed by the darkness…well, they feel like our own actions. Dreamlike, sometimes, but still our choice. You can remember enjoying it too….”
She shivered, and I pulled her close. After this, Prof would never be the same. But then, would any of us?
“His powers still work?” I said. “Like yours do?”
She nodded, glancing at her mobile. “Abraham and Cody are doing well, though Prof will need to regrow Abraham’s arm. And…um…you should read this.” She showed me a message she had pulled up from Knighthawk.
“Mizzy?” I asked.
Megan nodded.
“Sparks. I wonder how she’ll take to being an Epic.”
“Well, without the darkness…” Megan shrugged.
r />
It was well and truly gone, so far as we could tell. Megan still thought Calamity might return. I didn’t.
A flash of light appeared in front of us, resolving into a man with spectacles and a goatee, wearing a trench coat.
“Ah!” Obliteration said. “You are here.” He tucked away the mobile he’d been carrying.
Hmm, maybe we wouldn’t need that copter after all. I took a deep breath and stood, hopeful. I gave Obliteration a smile and reached out my hand to him.
He slid his sword from its sheath—yes, he still had a sword—and pointed it at me. “You have done well, and blessed are you, for you have cast the dragon from his heaven. I will give you a week to recover. My next target is Toronto. You may face me there, and we shall see what comes of our clash, horseman.”
“Obliteration,” I said, pleading. “Calamity is gone.”
“Yes,” he said, sheathing his sword.
“The darkness is gone,” I said. “You don’t have to be evil.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I thank you for giving me the secrets you know, Steelslayer. I know why the darkness left me five years ago, when I faced my fear. I have been free of it ever since.” He nodded to me. “?‘And he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.’?”
He flashed into white ceramic and vanished.
“Calamity,” I said, slumping back down, frustrated. “Calamity.”
“You know,” Megan said, “we might need to think of new curses.”
“I had hoped, maybe, on our side he would be good. Once Calamity was gone.”
“They’re people,” Megan said. “Free to be people, David. As it should be. And that means some of them are still going to be selfish, or messed up, or whatever.”
She settled closer to me. “I’m feeling rested, and am up for some exertion.”
I grinned. “Practice!”
She rolled her eyes. “Not that I’m averse, Knees, but I was referring to my powers.”
Oh, right. I knew that.
“You still want to try this?” she asked.
“Yeah, absolutely. He’ll be waiting.”
“All right. Sit still.”