Summary:Steelheart

This page contains a chapter by chapter summary of Steelheart. We hope this summary will make it easier to find specific areas of the book, as well as providing a quick plot refresher for anyone who doesn't want to take the time to reread the entire book. Similar summaries will be completed about future books in The Reckoners series.

Prologue

"I have seen Steelheart bleed."

David Charleston (who is eight years old at the time) and his father visit First Union Bank. The bank is an extremely large building fashioned with revolving glass doors and a multitude of cubicles and hallways. During their visit, David's father is speaking with a mortgage man and negotiating payments. In the midst of their conversation, David notices an epic dressed in a black business suit stroll casually through the bank's entrance. Initially, no one pays the man much attention. Then, the newcomer raises a finger, and with a nonchalant tapping motion, causes a nearby woman and her clothes to vaporize instantaneously into dust. Then screams begin to sound and the epic, who eventually introduces himself as "Deathpoint", continues to massacre people at random within the bank chamber. During his slaughter, Deathpoint remarks to the victims how he decided to rob a bank that morning and came to the realization that money is worthless to him, as he can take anything he pleases. And since killing humans is "extremely inconvenient", he decided to strike fear in the people instead, so that no one would dare challenge him from any future requests or favors. While Deathpoint continues to kill the people one-by-one, Steelheart bursts onto the bank's floor and asks Deathpoint, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?". Deathpoint is dumbfounded and fearful at Steelheart's arrival and begins to stammer. Deathpoint then tries to harm Steelheart by pointing a finger at him, but his attempted attack appears to be futile. Steelheart tells Deathpoint that he has claimed dominance over the people of Chicago and that Deathpoint may be a subservient epic to him. Then, enforcement and police officers arrive on the scene and begin shooting at the two epics. Deathpoint hides behind Steelheart in the midst of the fire-fight and prepares to try and kill Steelheart again, from behind. Before the officers entered, David's father managed to scramble into a nearby cubicle and obtain a pistol from one of the fallen bank guards. When all of the enforcement had been killed, Deathpoint raised a finger to Steelheart, directly behind him. David's father reacted instinctively, and shot Deathpoint cleanly through the forehead. He dropped and Steelheart turned to see where the shot had come from. In that moment, a huge realization came over David, his father, and Steelheart. The bullet had grazed Steelheart's cheek while passing by and blood was seeping from the small cut. Steelheart stared at his own blood in horror, and then proceeded to break David's father's ribs with an energy blast and shot him in the chest with the same pistol that had killed Deathpoint. Wild with rage, and in an effort to make sure no one would be able to speak of seeing the blood, Steelheart transfused every inanimate object in the entire building into steel. David, after seeing the transfusion, hid within the steel vault of the bank. The vault provided ample protection during the collapse, and a rescue worker was able to get him out later that day. So as to keep himself safe from Steelheart's knowledge, David fakes his own death while being removed from the remains. David leaves the scene when the rescue worker goes to search for more bodies, just in time, as Steelheart returns with Faultline to bring the building crashing down and bury it in a massive pile of dust and rubble. David then runs away from the site and vows to gain vengeance in the name of his father and to do all in his power to see Steelheart bleed again. Later that day, Steelheart performs the Great Transfersion, transforming most of Chicago, and part of Lake Michigan into steel. Steelheart later builds his palace on the lake.

Points of View

David Charleston

Other Characters

David's Father, Steelheart, Deathpoint, Faultline

Part One

Chapter 1

10 years later, David hurries through the understreets of Newcago, which is in perpetual darkness thanks to Nightwielder. He climbs up some stairs to the overstreets, coming out near the Reeve Playhouse. Quickly ducking into an alleyway, he starts to watch the Playhouse. He's relieved when people start pouring out, indicating he was on time, with a play having just finished. Fortuity, a High Epic with precognition powers, walks out of the building, dressed in a red suit with a cape, and with woman on each arm. David waits impatiently, based on intelligence from an informant named Bilko, expecting the Reckoners, a resistance group dedicated to killing Epics, to attempt to kill Fortuity. David's musings are interrupted when a woman in a red dress approaches Fortuity, distracting him from his present company and seemingly encouraging him to join her at a nearby dance club. The woman leads him towards a dark, empty alley which would serve as a shortcut to the dance clubs, when Curveball, an epic whose guns never run out of ammo, interupts them. As he keeps on gesturing back to the Playhouse, David guesses that Curveball is summoning Fortuity, and that if Fortuity went with Curveball, it would ruin the Reckoners plans. Wanting to not miss the opportunity of meeting the Reckoners, decides to help out.

Chapter 2

David runs up to the two epics and the woman and pretends to have been sent by Spritzer, the man who runs the playhouse. He tells Curveball that Spritzer said to call him back, to not bother Fortuity. They believe David and so David starts walking to the Playhouse with Curveball. Curveball asks David which team he's in, and David gives him a name of a known team leader, Eddie Macano, unaware that Curveball had witnessed his death the week before.

Chapter 3

David flees as Curveball draws a handgun and starts shooting at him, until Fortuity tells him to stop. Fortuity is in handcuffs, as part of the Reckoner's trap. Megan Tarash, the woman in the red dress, shoots Curveball and draws her weapon on David, but he convinces her that he is not with the Epics. Megan radios Tia to blow up the Reeve Playhouse, and she does, then tells David to stay where he is. The Reckoners set off a series of bombs to lead Fortuity into their trap. As Megan chases Fortuity, some thugs with machine guns appear, aiming at Megan. David draws his rifle and aims at them.

Chapter 4

David kills three of the thugs with three shots, but the fourth thug escapes. David then catches up with Megan, who is pursuing Fortuity, and takes a shot but misses, and tries to have Megan help him lead Fortuity into a checkmate scenario which would nullify his Epic power. David steals a car and tries to stop Fortuity from escaping Megan but he shows superhuman reflexes by leaping onto the windshield then off the back of the moving car. David stops the car, and Fortuity returns to go after David, but he is shot in the chest.

Chapter 5

Fortuity falls dead from a bullet wound. David realizes that Megan fired both his rifle and her pistol at the same time, cutting off Fortuity's path of escape somehow and nullifying his power. A dozen thugs show up, firing uzis and forcing Megan and David to take cover in the car. Megan throws a grenade disguised as a tube of lipstick at them, injuring some, and giving them time to escape. They encounter a garbage truck driven by a Reckoner, Prof, and Megan and David get onboard. There are three other Reckoners beside the driver: Abraham, Cody, and Tia. As they ride along, the Reckoners debrief Megan. They abandon the garbage truck since it is now compromised. They enter the understreets and weave along a circuitous route for an hour to make sure they are not being followed, then stop to confront David.

Chapter 6

The Reckoners submit David to scan and blood tests to verify that he is not an Epic. They then interrogate David about how he learned how they were going to take down Fortuity, and he explains that he used rumors and logic. David then tells them that he was there to join the Reckoners, but they tell him that they aren't recruiting and that they don't want to see him again, and Prof says they are just killing Epics, not changing the world.

Chapter 7

As the Reckoners walk away, David shouts at them that they are negligent and cowards for not going after the upper escelon Epics like Steelheart but they ignore him. He then says that he saw Steelheart bleed, and this gives them pause. David tells the story of the day he met Steelheart in full detail, which he had never revealed before due to the deadly secret that it contained. The Reckoners discuss his story and decide that it fits with what they know of events from that day. They interrogate David further and he deduces their next target, which impresses and alarms them. Prof changes plans and tells his team that they will instead remain in Newcago, in a safehouse known as Hole Fourteen. David figures out that Prof is actually Jonathan Phaedrus, the founder of the Reckoners.

Chapter 8

As they walk to the safehouse, Prof tires of David's constant questions, and tells Megan to keep an eye on him while the others walk ahead of them.

David tries unsuccessfully to flirt with her, and she refuses to reveal any top secret information about the Reckoners, but she does ask questions about his life and background and about the Newcago area. David mentions that he left notebooks filled with his research on Epics and the Reckoners in his flat, and Megan realizes that the girl whose car he stole could identify him to Enforcement, which could compromise all of them.

Chapter 9

Prof orders Cody and Abraham to blow up David's flat before Enforcement can get their hands on the notebooks, but David argues successfully that there is valuable intelligence that will help their own mission. Prof orders Megan and Cody to accompany David to retrieve the notebooks if it is safe, or destroy them otherwise.

They arrive near his flat, and Megan suspects a trap, which David confirms when he spies a shimmering garbage bin that is an illusion created by an Epic named Refractionary. David convinces them to ignore Prof's orders and retrieve the notebooks despite the trap. David tells them he has a smoke grenade in his flat that he can use to neutralize Refractionary's powers, and that he will spring the trap.

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four