Steelheart

40

Each one hit … and each one bounced free of Steelheart, like pebbles thrown at a tank.

I lowered the gun. Steelheart raised a hand toward me, energy glowing around his palm, but I didn’t care.

That’s it, I thought. We’ve tried everything. I didn’t know his secret. I never had.

I had failed.

He released a blast of energy, and some primal part of me wouldn’t just stand there. I threw myself to the side, and the blast hit the ground beside me, spraying up a shower of molten metal. The ground shook and the blast threw my roll out of control. I tumbled hard on the unyielding ground.

I came to a stop and lay there, dazed. Steelheart stepped forward. His cape had been torn in places from Prof’s attacks, but he didn’t seem to be anything more than inconvenienced. He loomed above me, hand forward.

He was majestic. I could recognize that, even as I readied myself for death at his hands. Silver and black cape flapping, the rips making it look more real somehow. Classically square face, a jaw that any linebacker would have envied, a body that was toned and muscled-but not in the way of a bodybuilder. This wasn’t exaggeration; it was perfection.

He studied me, his hand glowing. “Ah yes,” he said. “The child in the bank.”

I blinked, shocked.

“I remember everyone and everything,” he said to me. “You needn’t be surprised. I am divine, child. I do not forget. I thought you well and dead. A loose end. I hate loose ends.”

“You killed my father,” I whispered. A stupid thing to say, but it was what came out.

“I’ve killed a lot of fathers,” Steelheart said. “And mothers, sons, daughters. It is my right.”

The glow of his hand grew brighter. I braced myself for what was coming.

Prof tackled Steelheart from behind.

I rolled to the side by reflex as the two hit the ground nearby. Prof came up on top. His clothing was burned, ripped, and bloodied. He had his sword, and began slamming it down in Steelheart’s face.

Steelheart laughed as the weapon hit; his face actually dented the sword.

He was talking to me to draw Prof out, I realized in a daze. He …

Steelheart reached up and shoved Prof, throwing him backward. What seemed like a tiny bit of effort from Steelheart tossed Prof a good ten feet. He hit and grunted.

The winds picked up, and Steelheart floated up to a standing position. Then he leaped, soaring into the air. He came down on one knee, slamming a fist into Prof’s face.

Red blood splashed out around him.

I screamed, scrambling to my feet and running for Prof. My ankle wasn’t working properly though, and I fell hard, hitting the ground. Through tears of pain, I saw Steelheart punch down again.

Red. So much red.

The High Epic stood up, shaking his bloodied hand. “You have a distinction, little Epic,” he said to the fallen Prof. “I believe you agitated me more than any before you.”

I crawled forward, reaching Prof’s side. His skull was crushed in on the left, his eyes bulging out the front, staring sightlessly. Dead.

“David!” Tia said in my ear. There was gunfire on her side of the line. Enforcement had found the copter.

“Go,” I whispered.

“But-”

“Prof is dead,” I said. “I am too. Go.”

Silence.

From my pocket, I took the detonator pen. We were in the middle of the field. Cody had placed my blasting cap on the dump of explosives, and it was just beneath us. Well, I’d blow Steelheart into the sky, for what good it would do.

Several Enforcement soldiers rushed up to Steelheart, reporting on the perimeter. I heard the copter thumping as it ascended to leave. I also heard Tia weeping on the line.

I pulled myself up to a kneeling position beside Prof’s corpse.

My father dying before me. Kneeling at his side. Go … run …

At least this time I hadn’t been a coward. I raised the pen, fingering the button on the top. The blast would kill me, but it wouldn’t harm Steelheart. He’d survived explosions before. I might take a few soldiers with me, though. That was worth it.

“No,” Steelheart said to his troops. “I’ll deal with him. This one is … special.”

I looked over at him, blinking dazed eyes. He’d raised his arm to ward away the Enforcement officers.

There was something strange in the distance behind him, over the stadium rim, above the luxury suites. I frowned. Light? But … that wasn’t the right direction. I wasn’t facing the city. Besides, the city had never produced a light that grand. Reds, oranges, yellows. The very sky seemed on fire.

I blinked through the haze of smoke. Sunlight. Nightwielder was dead. The sun was rising.

Steelheart spun about. Then he stumbled back, raising an arm against the light. His mouth opened in awe; then he shut it, grinding his teeth.

He turned back on me, eyes wide with anger. “Nightwielder will be difficult to replace,” he growled.

Kneeling in the middle of the field, I stared at the light. That beautiful glow, that powerful something beyond.

There are things greater than the Epics, I thought. There is life, and love, and nature herself.

Steelheart strode toward me.

Where there are villains, there will be heroes. My father’s voice. Just wait. They will come.

Steelheart raised a glowing hand.

Sometimes, son, you have to help the heroes along.…

And suddenly, I knew.

An awareness opened my mind, like the burning radiance of the sun itself. I knew. I understood.

Not looking down, I gathered up my father’s gun. I fiddled with it a moment, then raised it directly at Steelheart.

Steelheart sniffed and stared it down. “Well?”

My hand quivered, wavering, my arm trembling. The sun backlit Steelheart.

“Idiot,” Steelheart said, and reached forward, grabbing my hand and crushing the bones. I barely felt the pain. The gun dropped to the ground with a clank. Steelheart held out a hand and the air spun around on the ground, forming a little whirlwind underneath the gun that raised it into his fingers. He turned it on me.

I looked up at him. A murderer outlined in brilliant light. Seen like that, he was just a shadow. Darkness. A nothingness before real power.

The men in this world, Epics included, would pass from time. I might be a worm to him, but he was a worm himself in the grand scheme of the universe.

His cheek bore a tiny sliver of a scar. The only imperfection on his body. A gift from a man who had believed in him. A gift from a better man than Steelheart would ever be, or ever understand.

“I should have been more careful that day,” Steelheart said.

“My father didn’t fear you,” I whispered.

Steelheart stiffened, gun pointed to my head as I knelt, bloodied, before him. He always liked to use his enemy’s own weapon against him. That was part of the pattern. The wind stirred the smoke rising around us.

“That’s the secret,” I said. “You keep us in darkness. You show off your terrible powers. You kill, you allow the Epics to kill, you turn men’s own weapons against them. You even spread false rumors about how horrible you are, as if you can’t be bothered to be as evil as you want to be. You want us to be afraid …”

Steelheart’s eyes widened.

“… because you can only be hurt by someone who doesn’t fear you,” I said. “But such a person doesn’t really exist, do they? You make sure of it. Even the Reckoners, even Prof himself. Even me. We are all afraid of you. Fortunately I know someone who isn’t afraid of you, and never has been.”

“You know nothing,” he growled.

“I know everything,” I whispered. Then I smiled.

Steelheart pulled the trigger.

Inside the gun, the hammer struck the back of the bullet’s casing. Gunpowder exploded, and the bullet sprang forward, summoned to kill.

In the barrel, it struck the thing I had lodged there. A slender pen, with a button you can click on the top. It was just small enough to fit into the gun. A detonator. Connected to explosives beneath our feet.

The bullet hit the trigger and pushed it in.

I swore I could watch the explosion unfold. Each beat of my heart seemed to take an eternity. Fire channeled upward, steel ground ripping apart like paper. Terrible redness to match the peaceful beauty of the sunrise.

The fire consumed Steelheart and all around him; it ripped his body apart as he opened his mouth to scream. Skin flayed, muscles burned, organs shredded. He turned eyes toward the heavens, consumed by a volcano of fire and fury that opened at his feet. In that fraction of a sliver of a moment, Steelheart-greatest of all Epics-died.

He could only be killed by someone who didn’t fear him.

He had pulled the trigger himself.

He had caused the detonation himself.

And as that arrogant, self-confident sneer implied, Steelheart did not fear himself. He was, perhaps, the only person alive who did not.

I didn’t really have time to smile in that frozen moment, but I was feeling it nonetheless as the fire came for me.