Steelheart (The Reckoners #1)

The stadium fell silent.

“You see that pattern the soldiers set up in the stands?” Abraham asked over our line. “They’re being very deliberate. It’s intended to ensure they don’t hit one another with friendly re. We’re going to have trouble catching Steelheart in a crossfire.”

I kept glancing over my

shoulder. I saw no other movement in the seats behind me.

“Ah,” Abraham said softly. “It worked. He’s coming. I can see him in the sky.”

Tia whistled softly. “This is it, kids. Time for the real party.”

I waited, raising my ri e and using the scope to scan the sky. I eventually spotted a point of light in the darkness, getting closer.

Gradually it resolved into three gures ying down toward the

center of the stadium. Nightwielder oated amorphously. Fire ght landed beside him, a burning humanoid form that was so bright he left afterimages in my eyes.

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 sts 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, final y. He didn’t seem to notice the junk from the bank vault. We’d strewn it around the center of the eld 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 nger twitched on the trigger of my ri e —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 re rst to test the theory about the vault contents, as his position was the easiest to retreat from.

“A rmative,” 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.





36

I was zoomed in on Steelheart’s face in the ri e 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 red; 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 con rm?” Prof

asked urgently.

“Hit con rmed,” 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 cross re 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. Fire ght 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 ying right toward

where I was hiding.

Impossible, I thought. He can’t— Enforcement started ring 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 rst distraction.” The stadium shook as I slung my ri e over my shoulder and climbed out of my hole. I raced up a ight of steps in the stands.

The gun re 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 ngers. 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 gun re, 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 ashlight. Those shadows were

alive, and they were getting close.

I got the ashlight on, shining it to destroy the shadows around the hole, then grabbed the rope with one hand and slid down.

Fortunately the UV light a ected 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 con nes of the stadium. My

ashlight shone mostly UV light through its lter, 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 ashlight 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 ashlight in one hand and the gun in the other, my new ri e slung over my shoulder.