Firefight

25

I leaped to my feet as her image coalesced from a rising figure of water. I immediately reached for my gun-which, of course, I didn’t have on me anywhere. Not that it would do any good.

We’d known she might be watching-you always had to assume that, in Babilar. We could have gone outside her range to practice, but what would be the point? She knew about the spyril already, and we were confident she didn’t want us dead. At least not immediately.

She stepped onto the rooftop, still connected to the sea by a tendril of liquid. She held a dainty cup of tea, and as she sat down a chair formed out of water behind her. Like before, she wore a professional suit and shirt, her white hair pinned up in a bun. Her dark African American skin was furrowed, creased with wrinkles.

“Oh, be still,” Regalia said to me over her tea. “I’m not going to harm you. I just want to get a good look at you.”

I hesitated. I could imagine this woman as a judge on television-distinguished, but harsh. Her voice had the air of a wise mother who was forced to intervene in the petty antics of immature children.

She was a preacher too, I remembered from my notes. And didn’t Obliteration quote scripture at me? What was the connection there?

The Reckoner in me wanted to leap into the water and get away as quickly as possible. This was a very dangerous Epic. I’d never interacted this way with Steelheart; we’d stayed far away from him until the moment we sprang our trap.

But Regalia ruled the waters. If I leaped into them, I’d only be more in her power.

She doesn’t want you dead, I told myself again. See what you can learn. It went against my instincts, but it seemed the best thing to do.

“How did Jonathan kill the Epic who had those powers?” Regalia asked, nodding toward my legs. “Normally an Epic has to be murdered in order for such devices to be created, you know. I have always wondered how the Reckoners managed it in the case of those jets.”

I remained silent.

“You fight us,” Regalia continued. “You claim to hate us. And yet you wear our skins upon your backs. What you really hate is that you cannot tame us, as man tamed the beasts. And so you murder us.”

“You dare talk to me about murder?” I demanded. “After what you did by inviting Obliteration into this city?”

Regalia studied me with an expressionless face. She set her teacup aside and it melted, no longer part of her projection. Wherever she actually was, she was sitting in that chair, so I tried to remember how it looked. It was just a simple wooden seat, with no ornamentation on the sides or back, but maybe it could give us a clue as to where her base was.

“Has Jonathan told you what he is?” Regalia asked.

“A friend of yours,” I said vaguely. “From years ago.”

She smiled. “Yes. We were both made Epics at around the same time.” She watched me. “No surprise at hearing he is an Epic? So you do know. I had assumed he was still maintaining the act.”

“Do you know,” I shot back, “that if an Epic stops using their powers, they revert to their old selves? You don’t need us to kill you, Regalia. Just stop using your powers.”

“Ah,” she said, “if only it were so simple …” She shook her head as if amused by my innocence, then nodded toward the waters out in Central Park Bay. They rippled and moved, small waves forming on the surface and changing as quickly as the expressions on the face of a child trapped in quicksand made of candy.

“You took well to that device,” Regalia said. “I watched the other man practice, and he required far longer to accustom himself to its power. You are a natural with the abilities, it seems.”

“Regalia,” I said, stepping forward. “Abigail. You don’t have to be like this. You-”

“Do not act as if you know me, young man,” Regalia said. Her tone was quiet but firm.

I stopped in place.

“You have killed Steelheart,” Regalia continued. “For that alone I should destroy you. We have so few pockets of civilization remaining to us, and you bring down one that has not only power but advanced medical care? Hubris of the most high, child. If you were in my court, I’d see you locked away for life. If you were in my congregation, I’d do even worse.”

“If you hadn’t noticed,” I replied, “Newcago is running just fine without Steelheart. Just like Babilar would run fine without you. Isn’t that why you’ve forced Prof to come here? Because you want him to kill you?”

She hesitated at that, and I realized I might have said too much. Did I just give away that Prof knew her plan? But if she really wanted him to stop her, she’d expect him to figure it out, right? I needed to be more careful. Regalia was not only an Epic; she was also an attorney. That was like putting curry powder in your hot sauce. She could talk rings around me.

But how could I get information from her without saying anything? I made a snap decision and jumped off the rooftop, engaging the spyril and jetting through the water of Central Park Bay. I burst from the water a few minutes later, landing on another roof far north of the one I’d been on before.

“You do realize how ridiculous you look doing that,” Regalia said, stretching up from the water, speaking even before her new shape fully formed.

I yelped, pretending to be alarmed. I left this building and splashed farther northward until I was at the very northern edge of the bay. Here, exhausted, I broke from the water again and settled onto a rooftop, water streaming from my brow.

“Are you quite done?” Regalia asked as her chair formed from the water just before me again. She picked up her cup of tea. “I can appear anywhere I want, silly boy. I’m surprised Jonathan didn’t explain this to you.”

Not anywhere, I thought. You have a limited range.

And she’d just given me two more data points that would help Tia pinpoint her true location. I slipped off the roof into the water, intending to take another swim and see if I could get her to follow one more time.

“You are good with the device,” Regalia noted. “Did you ever know Waterlog, the Epic in whom those powers originated? I created him, you know.”

I stopped in the water beside the building, frozen like a beetle who’d just discovered that his mother had been eaten by a praying mantis.

Regalia sipped her tea.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“Oh, so that interests you, does it? His original name was Georgi, a minor street thug down in Orlando. He showed promise. I made him into an Epic.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, laughing. Nobody could make Epics. Sure, once in a while new ones appeared. Though the vast majority had been here since about a year after Calamity’s rise, I knew of a few notable Epics who had only recently manifested powers. But no one knew why or how.

“So certain in your denial,” Regalia said, shaking her head. “Do you think you know so much about the world, David Charleston? You know how everything works?”

I stopped laughing, but I didn’t believe her for a moment. She was playing me somehow. What was her game?

“Ask Obliteration next time you see him,” Regalia said idly, “assuming you live long enough. Ask about what I’ve done to his powers, how much stronger they are, despite what I have taken from him.”

I looked up at her, frowning. “Taken from him?” What did she mean by that? What would she “take” from an Epic? And that aside, was she also implying she’d enhanced Obliteration’s powers? Was that the reason for the lack of cooldown on his teleporting?

“You can’t fight me,” she said. “If you do you’ll end up dead, alone. Gasping for breath in one of these jungle buildings, one step from freedom. Your last sight a blank wall that someone had spilled coffee on. A pitiful, pathetic end. Think on that.”

She vanished.

I climbed up onto the rooftop and wiped some water from my eyes, then sat down. That had been a decidedly surreal experience. As I rested I thought on what she’d told me. There was so much that it only grew more troubling the more I thought it through.

Eventually I jumped back into the water and swam to the others.