He leaves her and runs as fast as he can back to the meadow. He does not look at the bodies, or the blood. He pays no attention to the light show and the sounds coming from the top of the hill, where Eric and Colchester are breaking every known scientific principle. He finds RANN-D. It stands, looking dead and empty and alone.

He hopes it’s not empty.

He goes to the robot’s back, searches, and wraps his fingers around a hidden switch and pulls. A hatch pops open, revealing the wide compartment where he always kept his emergency equipment.

It falls into his arms, still heavy, its tanks fully loaded with his special hydrogen peroxide mixture.

His jetpack.

He sprints back to Carrie, slower now, hauling the pack with him. When he reaches her, he slides his arms through the straps and clicks the buckles. He scoops Carrie up in his arms. Is it the loss of blood that makes her so light? No, that’s impossible. It’s the adrenaline. He reminds himself to think clearly.

He swallows once, takes a deep breath, and grabs the ignition switch in his right hand. It’s a simple relay, no diodes or microchips or memory. It should still work.

It has to work.

He presses the button.

Nothing.

And then a click. A hissing noise, and the jets open up, and Danny feels the power begin to build. He feels the long-forgotten sensation of gravity clinging to him for a second before liftoff, like a mother letting go of her child’s hand.

Then he’s soaring through the air, holding Carrie as tight as he can, trying desperately to remember how to steer this idiot thing.

This time, he promises, he will not be too late.

37

Lightning and Thunder, Demons and Angels

The two magicians, with Jeremy between them, throw magic at one another like it costs nothing. They stand on a dragon’s back, drawing strength from years of sacrifices, the blood soaked into the earth, and all the myths and legends that run close to this place, the beating heart of America’s dreams of itself. Right here, right now, they can make anything happen. And they do.

Colchester uses the Agony Lens, which focuses the entire suffering of a lifetime — every broken bone, every broken heart, every toothache, every headache, all the way up to the final shuddering cough before the last breath — into a single moment, and turns it on Eric. Eric shifts it into a parallel history, and says a small and silent apology to the version of himself that has to bear it.

He counters with a weapon forged in the legends of a forgotten people who lived in this valley, carried by their culture-hero and used to slay gods and giants. Millennia ago, it put the dragon in the ground.