Steelheart (40 page)

Steelheart landed between them. My breath caught in my throat, and I fell utterly still.

He’d changed little in the decade since he destroyed the bank. He had that same arrogant expression, that same perfectly styled hair. That inhumanly toned and muscled body, shrouded in a black and silver cape. His fists glowed a soft yellow, wisps of smoke rising from them, and there was a hint of silver in his hair. Epics aged far more slowly than regular people, but they did age.

Wind swirled about Steelheart, blowing up dust that had collected on the silvery ground. I found I couldn’t look away. My father’s murderer. He was here,
finally
. He didn’t seem to notice the
junk from the bank vault. We’d strewn it around the center of the field and mixed it with garbage we’d brought in to mask what we’d done.

The items were easily as close to him now as they had been when he’d been in the bank. My finger twitched on the trigger of my rifle—I hadn’t even realized it had moved to the trigger. I carefully removed it. I would see Steelheart dead, but it didn’t
have
to be by my hand. I needed to remain hidden; my duty was to hit him with the pistol, and he was too far away for that at the moment. If I shot now, and the shot failed, I’d be revealing myself.

“Guess I get to start this party,” Cody said softly. He was going to fire first to test the theory about the vault contents, as his position was the easiest to retreat from.

“Affirmative,” Prof said. “Take the shot, Cody.”

“All right, you slontze,” Cody said softly to Steelheart. “Let’s see if that junk was worth the trouble of hauling up here.…”

A shot rang in the air.

I
was zoomed in on Steelheart’s face in the rifle scope. I could swear that I saw, quite distinctly, the bullet hit the side of his head, disturbing his hair. Cody was right on target, but the bullet didn’t even break the skin.

Steelheart didn’t flinch.

Enforcement reacted immediately, men shouting, trying to determine the source of the shot. I ignored them, staying focused on Steelheart. He was all that mattered.

More shots fired; Cody was making certain he had hit his mark. “Sparks!” Cody said. “I didn’t catch sight of any of the shots. One of those has to have landed, though.”

“Can anyone confirm?” Prof asked urgently.

“Hit confirmed,” I said, eye still to my scope. “It didn’t work.”

I heard muttered cursing from Tia.

“Cody, move,” Abraham said. “They’ve caught your location.”

“Phase two,” Prof said, voice firm—anxious, but in control.

Steelheart turned about with a leisurely air—hands glowing—and regarded the stadium. He was a king inspecting his domain. Phase two was for Abraham to blow some distractions and try to get a crossfire going. My role was to sneak forward with the pistol and get in position. We wanted to keep Abraham’s position secret as long as possible, so he could use explosions to try to move the Enforcement officers around.

“Abraham,” Prof said. “Get those—”

“Nightwielder’s moving!” Tia interrupted. “Firefight too!”

I forced myself to pull back from my scope. Firefight had become a streak of burning light heading toward one of the entrances to the concourse beneath the stands. Nightwielder was moving up into the air.

He was flying right toward where I was hiding.

Impossible
, I thought.
He can’t—

Enforcement started firing from the positions they had set up, but they weren’t shooting toward Cody. They were shooting toward other areas in the stands. I was confused for a moment until the first hidden UV floodlight exploded.

“They’re on to us,” I cried, pulling back. “They’re shooting out the floodlights!”

“Sparks!” Tia said as each of the other floodlights exploded in a row, shot out by various members of Enforcement. “There’s no way they spotted all of those!”

“Something’s wrong here,” Abraham said. “I’m blowing the first distraction.” The stadium shook as I slung my rifle over my shoulder and climbed out of my hole. I raced up a flight of steps in the stands.

The gunfire below sounded soft compared to what I’d experienced a few days ago in the corridors.

“Nightwielder is on to you, David!” Tia said. “He
knew
where you were hiding. They must have been watching this place.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Prof said. “They’d have stopped us earlier, wouldn’t they?”

“What’s Steelheart doing?” Cody asked, breathing hard as he ran.

I was barely listening. I dashed for the escape hole in the ground up ahead, not looking over my shoulder. The shadows from the seats around me began to lengthen. Tendrils grew like elongating fingers. In the middle of that, something splashed sparks along the steps in front of me.

“Enforcement sharpshooter!” Tia said. “Targeting you, David.”

“Got him,” Abraham said. I couldn’t pick Abraham’s sniper shot out of the gunfire, but no further shots came after me. Abraham might have just revealed himself, though.

Sparks!
I thought. This was all going to Calamity really quickly. I hit the rope and fumbled with my flashlight. Those shadows were alive, and they were getting close. I got the flashlight on, shining it to destroy the shadows around the hole, then grabbed the rope with one hand and slid down. Fortunately the UV light affected Nightwielder’s shadows as well as it did him personally.

“He’s still after you,” Tia said. “He …”

“What?” I asked urgently, holding the rope with the tensor glove, feet wrapped around it to slow my fall. I passed through open air beneath the third deck of seats, above the second deck. My hand grew hot with the friction, but Prof claimed the tensor could handle that without ripping.

I dropped through the hole in the second deck and through the ceiling of the restroom, emerging into the complete darkness of the concourse. This was where things like the concession stands were. At one time the outside of the place had all been glass—but that was now steel, of course, and so the stadium felt enclosed. Like a warehouse.

I could still hear gunshots, faint, echoing slightly in the hollow confines of the stadium. My flashlight shone mostly UV light through its filter, but it did glow a faint, quiet blue.

“Nightwielder sank into the stands,” Tia whispered to me. “I lost track of him. I think he did it to hide from cameras.”

So we’re not the only ones with that trick
, I thought, heart thumping in my chest. He’d come for me. He had a vendetta—he knew I’d been the one to figure out his weakness.

I shined the flashlight about anxiously. Nightwielder would be on me in a second, but he would know that I was armed with UV light. Hopefully that would keep him wary. I unholstered my father’s pistol, wielding the flashlight in one hand and the gun in the other, my new rifle slung over my shoulder.

I have to keep moving
, I thought.
If I can stay ahead of him, I can lose him
. We had tunnels in and out of places like the restrooms, the offices, the locker rooms, and the concession stands.

The UV flashlight gave off very little visible illumination, but I was an understreeter. It was enough. It did have the odd effect of making things that were white glow with a phantom light, and I worried that would give me away. Should I turn off the flashlight and go by touch?

No. It was also my only weapon against Nightwielder. I wasn’t about to go around blind when facing an Epic who could strangle me with shadows. I crept down the tomblike hallway. I needed to—

I froze. What had that been in the shadows ahead? I turned my flashlight back toward it. The light shone across discarded bits of trash that had fused to the ground in the Great Transfersion, some formerly retractable stanchions for line control, a few posters frozen on the wall. Some more recent trash, glowing white and ghostly.

What had I …

My light fell on a woman standing quietly in front of me. Beautiful hair I knew would be golden if I were seeing it under normal light. A face that seemed too perfect, tinged blue in the UV beam, as if sculpted from ice by a master artist. Curves and full lips, large eyes. Eyes I knew.

Megan.

BEFORE
I had a chance to do more than gape, the shadows around me started to writhe. I dodged to the side as several of them speared through the air where I’d been standing. Though it seemed as if Nightwielder could animate shadows, really he exuded a black mist that pooled in darkness. That was what he could manipulate.

He could have very fine control over a few tendrils of it, but usually he opted for large numbers of them, probably because it was more intimidating. Controlling so many was more difficult, and he could basically just grab, constrict, or stab. Every patch of darkness around me started forming spears that sought my blood.

I dodged between them, eventually having to roll to the ground to get under a group of attacks. Doing a dodging roll on a steel floor is
not
a comfortable experience. When I came up, my hip was smarting.

I leaped over several of the steel crowd control stanchions,
sweating and shining my flashlight at any suspicious shadows. I couldn’t turn it all directions at once, though, and I had to keep spinning to avoid the ones at my back. I paid vague attention to the chatter from the other Reckoners in my ear, though I was too busy trying to not be killed to digest much of it. It seemed that things were in chaos. Prof had revealed himself to hold Steelheart’s attention; Abraham had been located because of his shot to save me. Both he and Cody were on the run, fighting Enforcement soldiers.

A blast rocked the stadium, the sound traveling down the hallway and washing over me like stale cola through a straw. I threw myself over the last of the steel stanchions and found myself shining the light frantically about me to stop spear after spear of blackness.

Megan was no longer where she’d been standing. I could almost believe she’d been a trick of my mind. Almost.

I can’t keep this up
, I thought as a black spear struck my jacket and was rebuffed by the shielding. I could feel the hit through my sleeve, and the diodes on the jacket were beginning to flash. This jacket seemed a
lot
weaker than the one I’d worn before. Maybe it was a prototype.

Sure enough, the next spear that caught me ripped through the jacket and sliced my skin. I cursed, shining the light on another patch of inky, oily blackness. Nightwielder was going to have me soon if I didn’t change tactics.

I had to fight smarter.
Nightwielder has to be able to see me to use his spears on me
, I thought. So he was nearby—yet the hallway seemed empty.

I stumbled, which saved me from a spear that nearly took off my head.
Idiot
, I thought. He could move through walls. He wouldn’t just stand in the open; he’d barely be peeking out. All I needed to do was …

There!
I thought, catching a glimpse of a forehead and eyes peering out from the far wall. He looked pretty stupid, actually, like a kid
in the deep end of a pool thinking he was invisible because he was mostly submerged.

I shined the light on him and tried to get a shot off at the same time. Unfortunately I’d switched hands so I could have the flashlight in my right hand—which meant I was firing with my left. Have I mentioned my thoughts on pistols and their accuracy?

The shot went wild. Like,
way
wild. Like I came closer to hitting a bird flying above the stadium outside than I did Nightwielder. But the flashlight worked. I wasn’t sure what would happen if his powers vanished while he was phasing through an object. Unfortunately it looked like it didn’t kill him—his face was jerked back through the wall as he became corporeal again.

I didn’t know what was on the other side of that wall. It was opposite the field. Was he outside, then? I couldn’t stop to look up the map on my phone. Instead I ran for a nearby concession stand. We’d dug a tunnel through there, wrapping down through the floor. Hopefully, if I could keep moving while Nightwielder was outside, he’d have trouble tracking me down once he peeked in again.

I got into the concession stand and crawled inside the tunnel. “Guys,” I whispered into my mobile as I moved, “I saw Megan.”

“You
what
?” Tia asked.

“I saw
Megan
. She’s alive.”

“David,” Abraham said. “She’s dead. We all know this.”

“I’m telling you I saw her.”

“Firefight,” Tia said. “He’s trying to get to you.”

As I crawled I felt a sharp sinking feeling. Of course—an illusion. But … something felt wrong about that.

“I don’t know,” I said. “The eyes were
right
. I don’t think an illusion could be that detailed—that lifelike.”

“Illusionists wouldn’t be worth much if they weren’t able to create realistic puppets,” Tia said. “They need to— Abraham, not left! The other way. In fact, throw a grenade down there if you can.”

“Thanks,” he said, puffing slightly. I could hear an explosion twice—once through his microphone. A distant portion of the stadium shook. “Phase three is a failure, by the way. I got a shot off on Steelheart right after I revealed myself. It didn’t do anything.”

Phase three was Prof’s theory—that one of the Faithful could hurt Steelheart. If Abraham’s bullets had bounced off, then it wasn’t viable. We only had two other ideas. The first was my theory of crossfire; the other was the theory that my father’s gun or bullets were in some way special.

“How’s Prof holding up?” Abraham asked.

“He’s holding up,” Tia said.

“He’s
fighting
Steelheart,” Cody said. “I’ve only been able to see a little, but— Sparks! I’m going offline for a moment. They’re almost on me.”

I crouched in the narrow tunnel, trying to sort through what was happening. I could still hear a lot of gunfire and the occasional blast.

“Prof’s keeping Steelheart distracted,” Tia said. “We still don’t have any confirmed crossfire hits, though.”

“We’re trying,” Abraham said. “I’ll get this next group of soldiers to follow me around the corridor, and then let Cody goad them into firing across the field at him. That might work. David, where are you? I might need to set off a distraction blast or two to flush out the soldiers behind cover on your side.”