Firefight

50

“What have you done?” I screamed at Regalia. I spun and rushed to the bedside, ignoring the projection. I seized the aged woman by the front of her gown with one hand, pulling her up toward me. “What have you done?”

She breathed in, then spoke with her own voice for the first time, rasping, feeble. “I have made him strong.”

I looked back at the screen. Prof dispersed the last of the energy and fell to his knees. The room grew dark, and I realized the filter was still on. I dropped the sword and fiddled with the buttons on the side of Regalia’s bed, trying to bring the light back up on the monitor so I could see what was happening.

The screen returned to normal. Prof was kneeling in the room, his back to us. Before him, the floor ended in a perfect circle, vaporized in the release of power. A trembling figure walked up to him from behind. Val. She reached him and hesitantly put a hand on his shoulder.

He raised an open palm to the side, not looking. A forcefield surrounded Val. Prof squeezed his palm shut into a fist. The forcefield collapsed to the size of a basketball, Val still inside. In a heartbeat, she was snuffed out, ended.

“No!” I screamed, scrambling back in horror at the awful sight. “No, Prof …”

“He’ll kill the Reckoners quickly,” Regalia’s projection said softly, almost in regret. “A High Epic’s first move is usually to remove those who knew him best. They are the ones most likely to be able to find his weakness.”

I shook my head, appalled. It couldn’t … I mean …

Prof swung his hand out. I heard Exel shout. His voice cut off mid-phrase.

No …

Prof stood up and turned, and finally I could see his face, twisted, shadowed, marred by hatred and anger, teeth pulled together, jaw clenched.

I didn’t know this man any longer.

Mizzy. Tia. I had to do something! I-

Regalia was coughing. She managed to do it triumphantly. Growling, I seized the sword and raised it over her. “You monster!”

“It was … coming …,” she said between coughs. “He … would have let it … out … eventually.”

“No!” My arms trembled. I shouted, then brought the blade down.

And killed my second High Epic for the day.

I stumbled back from the bed, blood spreading onto the white sheets, some of it staining my arms. On the screen, Prof walked lethargically past Val’s remains. Then he stopped. A piece of the wall in his room had opened up, showing a series of monitors like the ones in this room.

One showed a map of Babilar with a circle on it. A place out in New Jersey-this house? It seemed likely, as the other screen in front of him flickered, then showed a shot of the room I was in. Regalia dead in her bed. Me, standing with bloody arms, wrapped in a cloth at my waist.

I looked up at the corner of my room and saw for the first time a video camera there. Regalia had set all of this up so she would be able to confront him after what he’d done. It seemed … it seemed she’d wanted him to come to her.

Prof looked me over in the screen.

“Prof …,” I said, and my voice sounded in his room, across the city. “Please …”

Prof turned from the monitor and strode from the room. In that moment I knew. It wasn’t Tia or Mizzy I needed to worry about protecting. Neither of them had ever killed a High Epic.

I had.

And so he was coming for me.