An Ex-Heroes Collection

by Peter Clines

  “I know,” said St. George. “That’s why we’re talking about it. If you say no, we’ll make sure you don’t walk.”

  “Why do you need me? Need my body?”

  The hero tried to think how to explain it. “If we can use your body,” he said, “we might be able to save someone.”

  “Someone,” Jarvis said, “but not me.”

  St. George opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Another line of smoke spiraled out of his nostrils. “Yeah,” he said. “Not you.”

  The older man had another coughing fit. This one coated the inside of the oxygen mask with red and a few black lumps. He grabbed at the rails of the hospital bed to hold himself steady and the machines scolded him with a chorus of beeps. St. George pulled a few tissues from a box near the bed and wiped out the inside of the mask. He tried not to look at the stuff on the tissues as he settled the mask back in place.

  Jarvis took a few slow breaths. His watery eyes found St. George. “Do you think exes remember stuff?”

  “Stealth’s pretty sure they—”

  “Don’t care what she thinks, boss. Want to know what you think. You believe all these nuts, that there’s still people inside the exes?”

  St. George thought about the talking stereo back on Stage Four.

  “No,” he said. “I think people move on. I don’t know where they go, if they go anywhere, but they’re not in there.” He squeezed Jarvis’s hand again. “They’re gone.”

  For a moment neither of them spoke.

  “Before all this,” the salt-and-pepper man said, “I had a cat. Really old thing. Had her forever. Pretty much my only friend. She got sick about a year before all the zombie stuff went down. Stopped eating, started starving. I couldn’t even afford to put her to sleep. Had to watch her twist up and spasm and die in my lap.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “Yeah,” said Jarvis, “it was. I cried like a girl for about three hours straight afterward. But in a way, I was kind of glad. I didn’t have to make the decision to put her to sleep. I knew I was too scared to make it. What if she was going to get better? What if I was betraying her somehow? I wasn’t brave enough for that call.”

  “You’re brave when you need to be.”

  “No,” said Jarvis. “I’m really not.”

  “Could’ve fooled me.”

  “Do it,” he said. He bit back a cough. “If it can save someone else, y’all can do what you need to with my body. I give permission or whatever.”

  “You sure?”

  “Boss, if you say it’s the right thing, I trust you.”

  “St. George,” echoed a voice in his earbud. “Legion’s at the South Wall, maybe two blocks from the southeast corner. About three hundred exes. With ladders.”

  He sighed. “Copy that,” he said into his mic. He looked at Jarvis. “I have to go. Trouble.”

  Jarvis squeezed his hand. “It’s been an honor, St. George,” the older man said. “Thanks for everything.”

  “I’ll be back,” he said. “I’ll get back before …”

  “Just walk away, boss. Y’all can let me fake being brave one more time.”

  “Bye, Jarvis.”

  “Bye, boss. Go save the day.”

  The South Wall reminded St. George of medieval war movies. Trios and quartets of exes ran forward with aluminum ladders, slammed the bases down, and one of the dead people was halfway up before the tops of the ladders hit the Big Wall. Some of the exes even had baseball bats and clubs to go with their helmets. The guards at the top tried to shove the ladders back, or fired point-blank shots into the dead faces as they topped the wall.

  Legion was getting good at controlling multiple exes.

  Captain Freedom was already on the top platforms of the Big Wall. One shove from his boot sent a ladder flying away. As St. George sank down through the air, the officer unholstered Lady Liberty and turned a pair of exes into a pile of loose limbs.

  St. George landed outside the Wall. A group of exes charged him with an A-frame ladder and he stopped it with one hand, knocking them off their feet. He swung the ladder in a wide arc and sent a dozen exes sprawling. He swung again and let it spin away. Another handful of exes dropped, their skulls crushed by the whirling metal.

  The guards on the Wall started laying down suppressive fire. He’d given them the moment of breathing space they needed to turn the tide. Exes ran at the Wall and their heads burst or jerked back. One kept stumbling forward as a bullet thudded off its headgear and St. George put it down with a blow that shattered its forehead.

  The exes twitched and slowed. Three of them staggered to a halt and their ladder crashed to the ground. Another one dropped the golf club it had been waving. The five-iron tangled in its legs and the dead woman tripped face first to the pavement.

  St. George floated into the air and grabbed an ex from the top of a tilting ladder. The ex, a shriveled dead man with a monk-like circle of hair around its bare head, clawed at his arm. The hero drifted back up to the top of the Wall. “Good job,” he told Freedom. “I feel like you didn’t even need me.”

  “Every bit helps, sir,” said the captain. “You probably just saved us half an hour before Legion got frustrated and gave up.”

  “Hey,” said one of the guards. He pointed at the ex twisting in St. George’s grip. “Is that Picard?”

  A lanky woman shook her head. “I think he’s too short.”

  “Damn,” said the other guard. “That’d be some serious points, getting Captain Picard.”

  Freedom gave the man one of his practiced looks and the man turned his attention out beyond the Wall with a nervous salute. “It was clumsy,” the officer said to St. George. “In a classic siege, your ladders are never taller than they need to be. It slowed him down enough that he lost the advantage his armor’s been giving him.”

  St. George swung the dead man out over the edge of the Wall. “You’ve been involved in a lot of sieges?”

  “I studied military history at West Point, sir.”

  St. George’s earbud squawked again and he glanced either way down the Wall. “Go for St. George,” he said.

  “Sorry to bother you, boss,” said a woman’s voice. “Small problem.”

  “What’s up?”

  The voice paused. “Jarvis passed ten minutes ago,” she said. “We were going to … you know, take care of him, and Zzzap said we needed to wait until we talked to you.”

  “That can’t be right,” said St. George. “I was with Jarvis half an hour ago. He was doing fine.”

  The airwaves were quiet for an uncomfortable time. Freedom’s face had gone solemn across from him. St. George was struck by the thought of how many people were probably listening in. Other guards. Stealth. Zzzap, watching the signals pass back and forth through the air.

  “Doc Connolly says he, uhhhh … he took his oxygen mask off,” said the woman. It was Lynne Vines, he realized. She was pulling a shift at the hospital between scavenging missions. Just like Jarvis did. Like he used to.

  “She thinks he did it right after you left,” Lynne continued. “He was so weak he passed out and … well … By the time the machines went off it was too late.”

  St. George glared at the ex pawing at his wrist and then hurled it out over the houses as far as he could. It sailed across the street, bounced off a red-tile roof that was probably very expensive a few years ago, and hit the side of a tall apartment building. It left a dark stain on the wall before dropping out of sight.

  “St. George?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Copy that. Zzzap’s right. Don’t put him down. Get whatever restraints you can and strap him down to his bed. Once he’s tied down tight, just leave him alone.”

  “ARE YOU WEISS?”

  It was the third café I’d gone to looking for the man, and I was starting to feel anxious. On one level, I was in no rush and had no deadlines. On another level, this was even more urgent than getting to the right spot for the eclipse.

  The guy I th
ought was Weiss looked up at me. He had long gray hair and a goatee that twirled into a rope under his chin. On a guess, he was seventy pounds overweight. “Who’s asking?”

  “A friend of mine in the States recommended you. Said you’re the best tattoo artist in Paris.”

  Weiss shrugged. “I just get a lot of the expat trade,” he said. He took another bite of his sandwich, a prissy little thing made out of a croissant. I could see white meat and bright green lettuce hanging out of the edges. It looked tiny in his fat fingers. “It’s my day off, though. Sorry. There’s some guys down in the eighteenth arrondissement who do great work. They can do whatever you need.”

  I sat down in the chair across from him. “Not as I hear it.”

  He frowned at me. “What are you looking for? A sleeve? Tramp stamp for your girlfriend?”

  I shook my head. “Not exactly.”

  “Tell you what. Go see Laura in the twentieth. She’s fantastic. She did one of Angelina Jolie’s tattoos. She’s got pictures and everything. Tell her I sent you and she’ll knock ten percent off her prices. We trade back and forth all the time.”

  He turned his attention back to the prissy little sandwich. I let him take two more bites before I set my hands on the table and laced my fingers. He sighed and set his brunch down again.

  “Perhaps I wasn’t clear,” he said. “It’s my day off. Go fuck yourself.”

  “Perhaps I wasn’t clear,” I echoed. “I need a tattoo.”

  I stretched my arms and let one of the images on my left arm slide out from under my sleeve. His fingers stopped an inch from the sandwich. He eyed it for a moment, then leaned back in his chair. He studied my face. “Who’s your friend in the States?”

  “Ernie Redd. You might know him as the Go-Between Guy.”

  He smirked for a moment. “I know him as Ernie. He’s still alive?”

  I nodded. “He’s probably never going to leave his house again, but he’s alive. Most of him, anyway. He lost his left arm and six toes.”

  “Lucky bastard,” said Weiss. “It could’ve been his head.”

  I nodded. “Or worse.”

  Weiss nodded, too. “Or worse.” He pointed at my arm. “Who did the arma dei? It’s a little rough on the edges. The lines aren’t great.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I did it myself five years ago.”

  Weiss wrinkled his brow. “You know enough to come to me, but you tried to do one of these yourself?”

  “It was a rush job. I didn’t have time to consult an expert.”

  He studied my face again. “What’s your name, kid?”

  “Maxwell Hale.”

  He gave a slow nod. “Hale,” he repeated. “Heard of you. Word on the lines is you’re a cocky little bastard.”

  I smiled. “I’m only cocky if I can’t do what I say I can.”

  “Like build a working Sativus?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  He looked at me for another moment and then his eyes went wide. “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “No.”

  “You just want me to take your word for it?”

  I sighed and tugged out my travel wallet. “Don’t try anything,” I told him. “It’s bound to me. Fifty-foot tether. We’d both be dead before you got to the end of the block.”

  He gestured at his bloated stomach. “Do I look like a big runner to you?”

  “Appearances are deceiving.”

  “Fair enough,” he said. “No tricks. Let’s see it.”

  I pulled the medallion out by the chain, careful not to touch it. It’d been a week and the runes were still warm. The air cracked with fresh enchantments. At least, it did if you knew how to listen for them.

  Weiss bit his knuckle. “That’s amazing,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  He leaned his head far to the left, then far to the right. “Amazing,” he said again. “Of course, I find myself wondering why a cocky little bastard who can do something like this needs me.”

  I let the medallion settle back in the nylon folder, wrapped the Velcro band across it, and tucked the whole thing back under my shirt. It was warm against my chest. “Insurance,” I told him. “Someday this thing might get loose and I want to have plenty of safeguards.”

  “Why?” Weiss noticed the second half of his sandwich and picked it up. “After being tied up in there, anything’s going to be too weak and embarrassed to cause you any serious problems. It’d probably just spit a hex in your direction and run for home.”

  “Right,” I said. “If it was weak to start with.”

  He raised the sandwich to his mouth. “Did you catch a nightmare duke or something?”

  “No,” I said while he tore off a mouthful of food. “It’s Cairax Murrain.”

  Weiss sprayed croissant and Romaine lettuce across the table. “What?” he shouted. “Are you insane?”

  The café was silent. Everyone turned to look at us. Mostly at him, but more than a few eyes flitted at me. “Sit down,” I said in a low tone. “You’re making a scene.”

  He glared at me, then at everyone else. In true French fashion, they all politely looked away and began to talk about us in hushed whispers.

  He sat down.

  “This is Paris,” hissed Weiss. “There are over two million people here and you bring that thing into the heart of the city?”

  “It’s safe.”

  “It’s Cairax Murrain,” he said through gritted teeth. “You’ve got the Reaver Lord tied up with cobwebs and Chinese finger cuffs and you’re telling me it’s safe?”

  “He’s bound,” I said. “It’s a perfect Sativus.”

  “You think.”

  “It is. You saw it. If he wasn’t bound do you think any of this would be here right now?” I gestured around us.

  Weiss shook his head. “So what are you looking for?”

  “I need a Marley.”

  He snorted. “You need your head examined.”

  “Can you do it? I know it’s a specialty piece.”

  He sighed. “I can do it. I’m one of maybe three people on Earth who can do one for you.” He sighed again and looked at me. “What’s on your back right now?”

  “There’s a curse ward on each shoulder and a Crowley’s Knot between them.”

  “What type of wards?”

  “One Coptic, one Germanic.”

  “Anyone gunning for you right now?”

  I gestured at the pouch under my chest. “Besides the obvious?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not that I know of.”

  He rubbed his chin and the rope-like beard swung back and forth. “Crowley’s Knot isn’t doing anything if you’ve got the arma dei,” he mused. “I can move both of the wards around onto your chest or arms if they’re bare.”

  I nodded. “I’ve got three Ka marks on my left arm, but that’s it.”

  “I know a woman at a clinic who owes me a couple of favors. They do facelifts and stuff, and they’ve got a YAG laser. It’ll hurt like hell, but we could have your back clean in a week and start working a week after that. I can get all the inks ready while your back’s healing. It’ll take another three days to do the tattoo.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “You know once you’ve got a Marley that’s it, right? There’s no going back, no getting rid of it. You’re bound here forever if you can’t resurrect yourself.”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  He shook his head. “You’re one crazy motherfucker, kid.”

  “Will it carry through? The Marley?”

  Weiss shook his head. “That’s why you have to get it on your back, so you can’t see it. If it carried through to the next life, it could seriously fuck up your soul.”

  I smiled. “Well, that’s what I’m trying to avoid.”

  “IF I COULD interject for a moment,” said Father Andy. He reached up and scratched his neck just above his clerical collar. “There are some bigger questions here, are
n’t there?”

  St. George stopped staring long enough to glance up at Andy. “Like what?”

  Andy gestured at the figure stretched out on the bed, the center of attention. Jarvis’s body was handcuffed to the railings. Restraints ran across its chest and legs. A bright red foam brace, the kind used for neck injuries, held its head down. The corpse had started moving three hours after Jarvis died. It had been moving a lot more in the five or six since then.

  Andy looked the dead man in the eyes. “You said there are lots of spirits here?”

  The ex nodded. “A few dozen, at least,” it said. It had Jarvis’s voice, but the inflections were off, as if the salt-and-pepper man was doing a very good impression of someone. It sucked some air through its lips. “It’s hard to be sure.”

  “Why so many?” asked Danielle. She stood by the door, across the room from Stealth. Her eyes were everywhere except the body. “Is it because so many people had violent deaths?”

  The ex shook its head. “Ghosts aren’t really that rare,” it rasped. “There are all sorts of reasons for people to end up stuck here on Earth. The real trick is doing it deliberately.”

  “So there are a lot of ghosts here?”

  Jarvis’s body tried to shrug under all the straps and cuffs and its brows wrinkled for a moment. “Like I said, it’s hard to be sure.”

  “Why?”

  “This isn’t like the movies, George. We’re not all hanging out in the ghost clubhouse or something. It’s a form of purgatory. Yeah, you get to see your friends and loved ones, walk through walls, sneak into movies, all that stuff. But you can’t interact with anything. You can’t even see other ghosts. There could be a hundred other spirits in the room with us right now. I can’t see ’em.”

  “But you have said there are several dozen here at the Mount,” Stealth said.

  The ex nodded again. “I can sense them pretty much the same way you do. Cold spots in a room. Echoes that sound a little off. I’ve just got more experience spotting them and telling them apart.”

  “So who are they?” asked St. George. “Or were they, I guess?”

  Another awkward shrug from the dead man. “No clue. I can tell them apart, but for all I know there’s thirty or forty dog and cat ghosts wandering around looking for balls to chase or something.”