Steelheart (29 page)

“They’re what?” Cody asked.

“Insulated by metal,” I repeated. “He exerts a kind of … ripple of transfersion that travels through and changes nonmetal substances like sound travels through air or waves move through a pool of water. If the wave hits metal—particularly iron or steel—it stops. He can affect other kinds of metal, but the wave moves more slowly. Steel stops it entirely.”

“So these safe-deposit boxes …,” Cody said, stepping into the vault.

“Might have insulated their contents,” Megan finished, following him in. “Some of it will have been transformed—the wave that created the transfersion was enormously powerful. I think we might find something, though, particularly since the vault itself was metal and would work as a primary insulator.” She glanced over her shoulder and caught me looking at her. “What?” she demanded.

“Nerd,” I said.

Uncharacteristically, she blushed furiously. “I pay attention to Steelheart. I wanted to be familiar with his powers, since we were coming into the city.”

“I didn’t say it was a bad thing,” I said lightly, stepping into the vault and raising my tensor. “I just pointed it out.”

Never has getting glared at felt so good.

Prof chuckled. “All right,” he said. “Cody, Abraham, David, vaporize the fronts of the safe-deposit boxes but
don’t
destroy the contents. Tia, Megan, and I will start pulling them out and going through them for anything that looks interesting. Let’s get to work; this is going to take a while.…”

“WELL,”
Cody said, looking over the heap of gemstones and jewelry, “if this achieved nothing else, it at least made me rich. That’s a failure I can live with.”

Tia snorted, picking through the jewelry. We four, including Prof, sat around a large desk in one of the cubicles. Megan and Abraham were on guard duty, watching the tunnel into the bank chamber.

There was a hallowed feeling to the room—like I somehow had to show respect—and I think the others must have sensed it too. They spoke in low, muted voices. All except Cody. He tried to lean back on his chair as he held up a large ruby, but—of course—the steel chair legs were fused to the steel floor.

“That once might have made you rich, Cody,” Tia said, “but you’d have some trouble selling it now.”

That was true. Jewelry was practically worthless these days. There were a couple Epics who could create gemstones.

“Maybe,” Cody said, “but gold remains a standard.” He scratched his head. “Not sure why, though. You can’t eat it, which is all most people are interested in.”

“It’s familiar,” Prof said. “It doesn’t rust, it’s easy to shape, and it’s hard to fake. There aren’t any Epics who can make it. Yet. People need to have a way to trade, particularly across kingdom or city boundaries.” He fingered a gold chain. “Cody’s actually right.”

“I am?” Cody looked surprised.

Prof nodded. “Whether or not we take on Steelheart, the gold we’ve recovered here can fund the Reckoners for a few years on its own.”

Tia set her notebook on the desk, tapping it absently with her pen. On the other mortgage cubicle desks we’d arranged what we’d found in the vault. About three-quarters of the boxes’ contents had been recoverable.

“Mostly we have a lot of wills,” Tia said, opening a can of cola, “stock certificates, passports, copies of driver’s licenses …”

“We could fill a whole city with fake people if we wanted,” Cody said. “Imagine the fun.”

“The second-largest grouping,” Tia continued, “is the aforementioned pile of jewelry, both valuable and worthless. If something in there affected Steelheart, then by pure volume this is the most likely group.”

“But it’s not,” I said.

Prof sighed. “David, I know what you—”

“What I mean,” I interrupted, “is that jewelry doesn’t make sense. Steelheart didn’t attack other banks, and he hasn’t done anything—either directly or indirectly—to forbid people from wearing jewelry in his presence. Jewelry is common enough among Epics that he’d have to take measures.”

“I agree,” Tia said, “though only in part. It’s possible we’ve missed something. Steelheart has proven subtle in the past; perhaps he has a secret embargo on a certain type of gemstone. I’ll look into it, but I think David’s right. If something
did
affect Steelheart, then it’s likely one of the oddities.”

“How many of those are there?” Prof asked.

“Over three hundred,” Tia said with a grimace. “Mostly mementos or keepsakes of no intrinsic value. Anything among them could be our culprit, theoretically. But then there’s a chance it was something one of the people in the room was carrying on them. Or it could be, as David seems to think, something about the situation.”

“It’s very rare for an Epic’s weakness to be influenced just by proximity to something mundane,” I said, shrugging. “Unless an object in the vault emitted a kind of radiation or a light or a sound—something that actually reached Steelheart—the chances are slim it was the culprit.”

“Look through the items anyway, Tia,” Prof said. “Maybe we can find a correlation to something Steelheart has done in the city.”

“What about the darkness?” Cody asked.

“Nightwielder’s darkness?”

“Sure,” Cody said. “I’ve always thought it was strange that he kept it so dark here.”

“That’s probably because of Nightwielder himself,” I said. “He doesn’t want sunlight shining on him and making him corporeal. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was part of the deal between them, one of the reasons Nightwielder serves beneath Steelheart. Steelheart’s government provides infrastructure—food, electricity, crime prevention—to compensate for it always being dark.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Cody said. “Nightwielder needs darkness, but can’t have it unless he’s got a good city to work from. Kind of like a piper needs a good city to support him, so he can stand on the cliff tops and play.”

“A … piper?” I asked.

“Oh please, don’t get him started,” Tia said, raising a hand to her head.

“Bagpiper,” Cody said.

I looked at him blankly.

“You’ve never heard of
bagpipes
?” Cody asked, sounding aghast. “They’re as Scottish as kilts and red armpit hair!”

“Um … yuck?” I said.

“That’s it,” Cody said. “Steelheart has to fall so we can get back to educating children properly. This is an offense against the dignity of my motherland.”

“Great,” Prof said, “I’m glad we now have proper motivation.” He tapped the desk idly.

“You’re worried,” Tia said. She seemed to be able to read Prof pretty well.

“We’re getting closer and closer to a confrontation. If we continue on this course we’ll draw Steelheart out but will be unable to fight him.”

The people at the desk grew still. I looked up, gazing at the high ceiling; the sterile white lights around the room provided insufficient glow to reach the room’s farthest corners. It was cold in this room, and quiet. “When’s the last moment we could pull out?”

“Well,” Prof said, “we could draw him to a confrontation with Limelight, then not show.”

“That might be kind of fun on its own merits,” Cody noted. “I doubt Steelheart gets stood up very often.”

“He’d react poorly to the embarrassment,” Prof said. “Right now the Reckoners are a thorn—an annoyance. We’ve only done three hits in his city and have never killed anyone vital to his organization. If we run, what we’ve been doing will get out. Abraham and I set in place evidence that will prove we’re behind this—that is the only way to make sure our victory, if we obtain one, isn’t attributed to an Epic instead of ordinary men.”

“So if we run …,” Cody said.

“Steelheart will know that Limelight was a fake and that the Reckoners were working on a way to assassinate him,” Tia said.

“Well,” Cody said, “most Epics already want to kill the lot of us. So maybe nothing will change.”

“This will be worse,” I said, still looking up at the ceiling. “He killed the
rescue workers
, Cody. He’s paranoid. He’ll hunt us actively if he finds out what we’ve been up to. The thought that we tried to get to him … that we were researching his weakness … he won’t take that sitting down.”

The shadows flickered, and I looked down to see Abraham walking up to our cubicle. “Prof, you asked me to warn you when we reached the hour.”

Prof checked his mobile, then nodded. “We should be getting back to the hideout. Everyone grab a sack and fill it with the things we found. We’ll sort through them further in a more controlled environment.”

We got up from our seats, Cody patting the head of the dead—and steel-frozen—bank patron who slumped beside the wall of this particular cubicle. As they left, Abraham set something down on the desk. “For you.”

It was a handgun. “I’m no good with …” I trailed off. It looked familiar.
The gun … the one my father picked up
.

“I found it in the rubble beside your father,” Abraham said. “The transfersion turned the grip and frame to metal, but most of the parts were already good steel. I removed the magazine and cleared the chamber, and the slide and trigger still function as expected. I wouldn’t completely trust it until I give it a thorough once-over back at base, but there’s a good chance it will fire reliably.”

I picked up the gun. This was the weapon that had killed my father. Holding it felt wrong.

But it was also, so far as I knew, the only weapon ever to have wounded Steelheart.

“We can’t know if it was something about the gun that allowed Steelheart to be hurt,” Abraham said. “I felt it would be worth digging out. I’ll take it apart and clean it for you, check over the cartridges. They should still be good, though I might need to change the powder, if the casings didn’t insulate against the transfersion. If it all checks out, you can carry it. If the opportunity presents itself, you can try shooting him with it.”

I nodded in thanks, then ran to get a sack and haul out my part of what we’d found.

“Piping is the most sublime sound y’all have ever heard,” Cody explained, gesturing widely as we walked down the corridor toward the hideout. “A sonorous mix of power, frailty, and wonder.”

“It sounds like dying cats being stuffed into a blender,” Tia said to me.

Cody looked wistful. “Aye, and a beauteous melody that is, lass.”

“So, wait,” I said, holding up a finger. “These bagpipes. To make them, you … what was it you said? ‘Y’all need to kill yourself a wee dragon, which are totally real and not at all mythological—they live in the Scottish Highlands to this day.’ ”

“Aye,” Cody said. “It’s important y’all pick a
wee
one. The big ones are too dangerous, you see, and their bladders don’t make good pipes. But you have to kill it yourself, you see. A piper needs to have slain his own dragon. It’s part of the code.”

“After that,” I said, “you need to cut out the bladder, and attach … what was it?”

“Carved unicorn horns to make the pipes,” Cody said. “I mean, you
could
use something less rare, like ivory. But if you’re going to be a purist, it has to be unicorn horns.”

“Delightful,” Tia said.

“A grand word to choose,” Cody said. “It, of course, is originally a Scottish term.
Del
coming from Dál Riata, the ancient and
great Scottish kingdom of myth. Why, I think one of the great piping songs is from that era.
‘Abharsair e d’a chois e na Dùn Èideann.’
 ”

“Ab … ha … what?” I asked.

“Abharsair e d’a chois e na Dùn Èideann,”
Cody said. “It is a sweetly poetic name that doesn’t really translate to English—”

“It means ‘The Devil Went Down to Edinburgh’ in Scottish Gaelic,” Tia said, leaning in toward me but speaking loudly enough that Cody could hear.

Cody, for once, missed a step. “You speak Scottish Gaelic, lass?”

“No,” Tia said. “But I looked that up
last
time you told this story.”

“Er … you did, eh?”

“Yes. Though your translation is questionable.”

“Well, now. I always did say you were a smart one, lass. Yes indeed.” He coughed into his hand. “Ah, look. We’re at the base. I’ll continue the story later.” The others had arrived at the hideout just ahead and Cody scurried up to meet them, then followed Megan up the tunnel.

Tia shook her head, then walked with me to the tunnel. I went last, making sure the cords and cables that hid the entrance were in place. I turned on the hidden motion sensors that would alert us if someone came in, then crawled up myself.

“… just don’t know, Prof,” Abraham was saying in his soft voice. “I just don’t know.” The two of them had spent the trip back walking ahead, speaking softly. I’d tried to edge up to hear them, but Tia had pointedly placed a hand on my shoulder and drawn me back.

“So?” Megan asked, crossing her arms as we all gathered around the main table. “What’s going on?”

“Abraham doesn’t like the way the rumors are going,” Prof said.

“The general public does seem to accept our tale of Limelight,” Abraham said. “They are scared, and our hit on the power station has had an effect—there are rolling blackouts all over the city. However, I see no proof that Steelheart believes. Enforcement is sweeping
the understreets. Nightwielder is scouring the city. Everything I hear from informants is that Steelheart is searching for a group of rebels, not a rival Epic.”

“So we hit back with a fury,” Cody said, crossing his arms and leaning back against the wall beside the tunnel. “Kill a few more Epics.”

“No,” I said, remembering my conversation with Prof. “We need to be more focused. We can’t just take out random Epics; we have to think like someone trying to capture the city.”

Prof nodded. “Each and every hit we make without having Limelight appear in the open will make Steelheart more suspicious.”

“We’re giving up?” Megan said, a hint of eagerness in her voice, though she obviously tried to cover it.

“Not by a mile,” Prof said. “Perhaps I will still decide we need to pull out—if we aren’t confident enough about Steelheart’s weakness, I might do just that. We aren’t there yet. We’re going to keep on with this plan, but we need to do something big, preferably with an appearance by Limelight. We need to squeeze Steelheart as hard as we can and drive that temper of his.
Force
him out.”