Reckoners 01 - Steelheart

sprayed into the air and showered the ground.
    Shouts. Screams. Insanity.
    The soldiers died quickly. I continued to huddle on my chair, hands pressed against my ears. It was all so
loud
.
    Deathpoint was still standing behind Steelheart. And as I watched, he smiled, then raised his hands, reaching for Steelheart’s neck. I don’t know what he was planning to do. Likely he had a second power. Most Epics as strong as he was possess more than one.
    Maybe it would have been enough to kill Steelheart. I doubt it, but either way, we’ll never know.
    A single
pop
sounded in the air. The explosion had been so loud it left me deafened to the point that I barely recognized the sound as a gunshot. As the smoke from the explosion cleared, I could see my father. He stood a short distance in front of Steelheart with arms raised, his back to the pillar. He bore an expression of determination on his face and held the gun, pointing it at Steelheart.
    No. Not at
Steelheart
. At Deathpoint, who stood just behind him.
    Deathpoint collapsed, a bullet wound in his forehead. Dead. Steelheart turned sharply, looking at the lesser Epic. Then he looked back at my father and raised a hand to his face. There, on Steelheart’s cheek just below his eye, was a line of blood.
    At first I thought it must have come from Deathpoint. But when Steelheart wiped it away, it continued to bleed.
    My father had shot at Deathpoint, but the bullet had passed by Steelheart first—and had grazed him on the way.
    That bullet had
hurt
Steelheart, while the soldiers’ bullets had bounced off.
    “I’m sorry,” my father said, sounding anxious. “He was reaching for you. I—”
    Steelheart’s eyes went wide, and he raised his hand before him, looking at his own blood. He seemed completely astounded. He glanced at the vault behind him, then looked at my father. In the settling smoke and dust, the two figures stood before each other—one a massive, regal Epic, the other a small homeless man with a silly T-shirt and worn jeans.
    Steelheart jumped forward with blinding speed and slammed a hand against my father’s chest, crushing him back against the white stone pillar. Bones shattered, and blood poured from my father’s mouth.
    “No!” I screamed. My own voice felt odd in my ears, like I was underwater. I wanted to run to him, but I was too frightened. I still think of my cowardice that day, and it sickens me.
    Steelheart stepped to the side, picking up the gun my father had dropped. Fury burning in his eyes, Steelheart pointed the gun directly at my father’s chest, then fired a single shot into the already-fallen man.
    He does that. Steelheart likes to kill people with their own guns. It’s become one of his hallmarks. He has incredible strength and can fire blasts of energy from his hands. But when it comes to killing someone he deems worth his special attention, he prefers to use their gun.
    Steelheart left my father to slump down the pillar and tossed the handgun at his feet. Then he began to shoot blasts of energy in all directions, setting chairs, walls, counters, everything alight. I was thrown from my chair as one of the blasts struck nearby, and I rolled to the floor.
    The explosions threw wood and glass into the air, shaking the room. In a few heartbeats, Steelheart caused enough destruction to make Deathpoint’s murder spree seem tame. Steelheart laid waste to that room, knocking down pillars, killing anyone he saw. I’m not sure how I survived, crawling over the shards of glass and splinters of wood, plaster, and dust raining down around me.
    Steelheart let out a scream of rage and indignation. I could barely hear it, but I could
feel
it shattering what windows remained, vibrating the walls. Then something spread out from him, a wave of energy. And the floor around him changed colors, transforming to metal.
    The transformation spread, washing through the entire room at incredible speed. The floor beneath me, the wall beside me, the bits of glass on the ground—it all changed to steel. What we’ve learned now is that Steelheart’s rage transforms inanimate objects around him into steel, though it leaves living things and anything close to them alone.
    By the time his cry faded, most of the bank’s interior had been changed completely to steel, though a large chunk of the ceiling was still wood and plaster, as was a section of one wall. Steelheart suddenly launched himself into the air, breaking through the ceiling and several