Steelheart (The Reckoners 1)

“You’re getting close, Megan,” Tia said. “You should be on them in another few minutes. Maintain your speed; the limo is driving faster than it usually does.”

“Do they suspect something?” Cody asked.

“They’d be fools not to,” Abraham said softly. “Conflux will take extra care these days, I should think.”

“It’s worth the risk,” Prof said. “Just be careful.”

I nodded. With widespread power outages in the city, disabling Enforcement would leave the city in disorder. It would force Steelheart to step forward and take a firm hand to prevent looting or riots. That would mean revealing himself one way or another.

“He’s never afraid to fight other Epics,” I said.

“What are you talking about?” Prof asked.

“Steelheart. He’ll face other Epics, no problem. But he doesn’t like putting down riots by himself. He always uses Enforcement. We assumed it’s because he doesn’t want to bother, but what if it’s something more? What if he’s afraid of crossfire?”

“Who’s that?” Abraham asked.

“No, not an Epic. It just occurred to me—what if Steelheart is afraid of getting hit accidentally? What if that’s his weakness? He got hurt by my father, but my father wasn’t aiming for him. What if he can only be hurt if the bullet was meant for someone else?”

“Possible,” Tia said.

“We need to stay focused,” Prof answered. “David, shelve that idea for the moment. We’ll come back to it.”

He was right. I was letting myself get distracted, like a rabbit doing math problems instead of looking for foxes.

Still … If I’m right, he wouldn’t ever be in danger in a one-on-one fight. He’s faced other Epics with impunity. What he seems to be afraid of is a big battle, where bullets are flying around. There was a sense to it. It was a simple thing, but most Epic weaknesses were simple.

“Slow down just a tad,” Tia said softly.

Megan complied.

“Here it comes.…”

A sleek black car pulled out onto the dark street in front of us, going the same direction we were. It was flanked by a couple of motorcycles—good security, but not great. We knew from the Reckoners’ original plan to hit Conflux that this convoy was probably his. We’d use the dowser to make sure, though.

We continued along behind the limo. I was impressed; even though they didn’t know where the limo was going, Tia and Megan had timed it so that the limo came onto our street, not the other way around. We’d look far less suspicious this way.

My job was to keep my eyes open and, if things went wrong, to return fire so Megan could drive. I slipped a small pair of binoculars out of my pocket and hunkered down, sighting through them and inspecting the limo ahead.

“Well?” Prof asked in my ear.

“Looks good,” I said.

“I’m going to pull up beside them at the next light,” Megan said. “It will feel natural. Be ready, Abraham.”

I slipped the binoculars into my pocket and tried to look nonchalant. The next light was green when we hit it, so Megan kept trailing the limo at a safe distance. The light after that, however, turned red before the limo reached it.

We pulled up slowly beside the limo, on the left side.

“There’s an Epic near us for sure,” Abraham said from the back of our van. He whistled softly. “A powerful one. Very powerful. The dowser is focusing in. I’ll have more in a second.”

One of the motorcycle drivers looked us over. He wore an Enforcement helmet and had an SMG strapped to his back. I tried to peer through the windows of the limo and catch a glimpse of Conflux. I’d always wondered what he looked like.

I couldn’t see through the tinted rear glass. But as we pulled forward, I caught sight of someone sitting in the passenger seat. A woman who was vaguely familiar. She met my eyes but then looked away.

Business suit, black hair cut short over her ears. She was Nightwielder’s assistant, the one who had been with him at Diamond’s. She was probably a liaison to Enforcement; it made sense for her to be in the limo.

Something still made me suspicious. She’d met my eyes; she should have recognized me. Maybe … she had recognized me, but hadn’t been surprised to see me.

We pulled forward, the light green, and I felt a spike of alarm.

“Prof, I think it’s a trap.”

At that moment Nightwielder himself flew through the top of the limo, his arms spread wide, lines of darkness stretching from his fingers out into the night.

28

MOST people have never seen a High Epic in their glory. That’s what we call it when they summon their powers in earnest—when they rise up in their might, their emotions kindled to wrath and fury.

There is a glow about them. The air grows sharp, like it’s become full of electricity. Heartbeats still. The wind holds its breath. Nightwielder’s rising made this the third time I’d seen something like it.

He was clothed in night, and blackness writhed and twisted about him. His face was pale, translucent, but his eyes were alight, his lips drawn in a sneer of hatred. It was the sneer of a god, barely tolerant of even his allies. He had come to destroy.

Looking upon him, I found myself terrified.

“Calamity!” Megan cursed, slamming her foot down on the gas and swerving the van to the side as shadows leaped from around Nightwielder toward us. They moved like ghostly fingers.

“Abort!” Tia called. “Get out of there!”

There was no time. Nightwielder moved in the air, ignoring things like wind and gravity. He flew like a specter out in front of his car and toward us. He wasn’t the true danger, though—the true danger was those tendrils of blackness. The van could not avoid them; there were dozens.

Shoving aside my fear, I raised my rifle. The van rattled and jolted around me. Wisps of darkness moved up, wrapping around the vehicle.

Idiot, I thought. I dropped my rifle and shoved my hand into my coat pocket. The flashlight! Panicked, I flipped it on and shined it right in Nightwielder’s face as he floated up beside my window. He was flying face-first, like he was swimming in the air.

The reaction was immediate. Though the flashlight gave off little light that I could see, Nightwielder’s face immediately lost its incorporeity. His eyes stopped glowing, and the shadows vanished from around his head. The beam of invisible light pierced the dark tendrils like a laser through a pile of sheep.

In that UV light, Nightwielder’s face didn’t look divine. It looked frail, human, and very, very surprised. I struggled to get my gun up to fire at him, but the rifle was too unwieldy and my father’s handgun was strapped under my arm where I couldn’t get at it while holding the flashlight.

Nightwielder looked at me for the space of a single heartbeat, his eyes wide with terror. Then he fled in a blink, streaking sideways away from the van. I wasn’t sure, but it seemed like he’d been losing altitude as I shined the light on him, as if all his powers were weakening.

He vanished down a side street, and the shadows that had been moving around the van retreated with him. I had a feeling he wasn’t going to be back anytime soon, not after the scare I’d just given him.

Submachine-gun fire erupted around us, bullets pelting the side of the van with metallic pings. I cursed, ducking down as my window shattered. The motorcyclists had opened fire. Thou

gh I was crouched low, I could still see a terrible sight: a sleek black Enforcement copter was rising from behind the commercial buildings in front of us.

“Calamity, Tia!” Megan screamed, twisting the wheel. “How did you miss that?”

“I don’t know,” Tia said. “I—”

A ball of light propelled by a long smoke trail snaked through the sky, exploding into the side of the copter. It tipped in the air, flames chewing its side, bits of debris fluttering through the sky.

Rotors slowing, it began to fall.

Rocket launcher, I realized. Prof.

“Don’t panic.” Prof’s voice was steady. “We can survive this. Cody, Abraham, prep for the split.”

“Prof!” Abraham said. “I think you—”

“Four more copters coming!” Tia cut in. “It looks like they had them hidden in warehouses all along the limo’s route. They didn’t know where we’d hit them; that one was just the closest. I … Megan, what are you doing?”

The copter was out of control. Smoke billowing from one side, it was spinning in a crooked circle and coming down toward the roadway right in front of us. Megan wasn’t turning; she’d punched up the speed, leaning over the wheel and driving the van forward in a frenzied, insane rush right toward where the copter would hit.

I tensed, pushing myself back in my seat and grabbing the side of my door in a panic. She’d lost her mind!

There was no time to object. Bullets pelting us, streets outside a blur, Megan drove the van right under the copter as it crashed to the street with force enough to make the earth beneath us tremble.

Something clipped the top of the van with a ghastly screech of metal on metal, and we spun out to the side, hitting the wall of a brick building and grinding my side of the van along it. Noise, chaos, sparks. My door ripped free. Bricks ground against steel mere inches from me. It seemed to last forever.

Then, a second later, the van lurched to a halt. Trembling, I took a deep breath. I was covered in pebbles of safety glass; the windshield had shattered.