Nothing came to me. Of course, this wasn’t the time to plan. The time to plan was before everything went wrong, before your mentor was betrayed and corrupted, before the girl you loved was shot. Before your friends died.
Something appeared in the distance, moving over the waters, and I sat up straighter to get a better look. A small disc—a forcefield, I realized—with a figure in black standing atop it. It grew larger and larger as it sped through the air.
So Prof could use his fields to fly. His power portfolio was amazing. I stood up, balancing on the rooftop, gripping the necklace that Abraham had given me, which dangled from its chain in my fist.
It flashed bright as the sun finally broke over the horizon, bathing me in light. Was it my mind, or was the light stronger than it should have been?
Prof approached on his flying disc, his lab coat fluttering behind him. He landed on the other side of the small peaked roof from me, and regarded me with a strange interest. Again I was struck by how different he seemed. This man was cold. It was him, but a him with all of the wrong emotions.
“You don’t have to do this, Prof,” I told him.
He smiled and raised a hand. Sunlight bathed our rooftop.
“I believe in the heroes!” I shouted, holding up the pendant. “I believe they will come, as my father believed. This is not how it will end! Prof, I have faith. In you.”
A forcefield globe appeared around me, breaking the roof tiles under my feet, enclosing me perfectly. It was exactly like the one that had killed Val.
“I believe,” I whispered.
Prof squeezed his hand closed.
The sphere compressed … but suddenly, though I’d been inside it a moment ago, I wasn’t in it now. I could see it right in front of me, shrunken to the size of a basketball.
What?
Prof frowned. That sunlight, it was getting brighter, and brighter, and …
And a figure of pure white light exploded into existence between me and Prof. It blazed like the sun itself, a feminine figure, radiant, powerful, golden hair blown back and shining like a corona.
Megan had arrived.
Prof summoned another forcefield globe around me. The figure of light thrust a hand toward him, and suddenly that globe was around Prof himself instead. Megan was changing reality, making possibilities into fact.
Prof looked even more surprised this time. He dismissed the globe and summoned another around the figure of light, but when it started to shrink it was around him again in an eyeblink, closing him in, threatening to crush him.
He dismissed it, and I saw something else in his eyes I’d never seen before. Fear.
They’re all afraid, I thought. Deep down. Newton fled from me. Steelheart killed anyone who might know anything about him. They’re driven by fear.
That wasn’t the Prof I knew, but it was the High Epic Phaedrus. Confronted by someone who manipulated his powers in ways he didn’t understand, he became terrified. He stumbled away, eyes wide.
In the space of a heartbeat, we were somewhere else.
Me and the glowing figure. One building over, inside a room with a window through which I could see Prof standing on the rooftop. Alone.
The glowing figure beside me sighed, then her glow vanished and resolved into Megan, completely naked. She fell, and I managed to catch her. Outside the window, on the next building over Prof cursed, then hopped on his disc. He sped away.
Sparks. How was I going to deal with him?
The answer was in my arms. I looked down at Megan, that perfect face, those beautiful lips. I’d been right to have faith in the Epics. I’d just chosen the wrong one.
Her eyes opened, and she saw me. “I don’t feel like killing you,” she whispered.
“More wonderful words have never been spoken,” I said back.
She stared at me, then groaned, closing her eyes again. “Oh hell. The secret is the power of love. I’m going to be sick.”
“Actually, I think it’s something else,” I said.
She looked at me. I was suddenly made conscious that she was very, very naked, and I was nearly naked as well. She followed my eyes, then shrugged. I blushed and put her down, then moved to find something for her to wear. As I stood, however, clothing appeared on her—the standard jeans and shirt, shadows of clothing from another dimension. Good enough for now, I supposed.
“What is the secret, then?” she asked, sitting up and running her hand through her hair. “Every other time I’ve reincarnated, I’ve been bad when I first came back. Unable to remember myself, violent, destructive. This time … I feel nothing. What changed?”
I looked her in the eyes. “Was that building already on fire when you ran into it?”
She pursed her lips. “Yeah,” she admitted. “It was stupid. You don’t need to tell me it was. I knew you probably weren’t in there, not for real. But I thought—maybe you were, and I couldn’t risk that you might be.…” She shivered visibly.
“How afraid of the fire were you?”
“More than you can possibly know,” she whispered.
I smiled. “And that,” I said, gathering her into my arms again, “is the secret.”
Epilogue