Ex-Purgatory: A Novel

by Peter Clines

Stealth’s arm dropped and the pistol clattered on the pavement.

  “Gotcha,” grinned Smith.

  The cloaked woman lunged forward, her fingers curling for a strike.

  “Punching again?”

  She stumbled in mid step and came to a halt. Her fists trembled.

  Smith raised a hand. “Let’s calm down, okay?”

  Stealth froze for a moment. Then she spun and her boot caught Smith in the gut. Air whoofed out of the other woman and she stumbled back. The cloaked woman followed through with a second spinning kick that cracked across Christian’s jaw.

  “I am always calm,” said Stealth.

  Smith coughed some blood and sputtered out two teeth. “Let’s stop all the violence, then, okay?” Her voice was slurred, but it was clear enough. “Could you help me up?”

  She could feel Stealth glaring at her through the black mask. The cloaked woman reached down and pulled Smith up to her feet.

  Christian pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at her mouth. She spit out a few more fragments of teeth and then tried pressing the cloth on the side of her head. It was soaked with blood in seconds. She grumbled to herself and then waved at Stealth. “Would you take the lead?”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Back to Stage 32,” said the other woman. “It’s a lot more visible than I wanted, but it looks like I’m going to have to have you all beat each other to death. And then, if you’re still in one piece, we’re going to find someplace quiet for a day or two.” Smith looked at the handkerchief again and shook her head. “Word is, you caused a lot of problems when I tried to take you hostage out at Yuma, but I’m sure you won’t cause any trouble at all this time, will you?”

  Cerberus squeezed and pushed down, but St. George pushed back. The battlesuit couldn’t crush his arm, and it didn’t have the leverage to force him down.

  Then the gunshot and scream echoed across the garden and St. George’s head whipped around. He caught a quick glimpse of Stealth with a pistol drawn advancing on Christian, a flash of blood, and then the titan shifted tactics and yanked St. George up in the air.

  He forced his way even higher and the battlesuit stumbled. It took a moment for Gibbs to catch up and let go. The steel arm dropped and some of the small panels across the body scraped and sparked.

  St. George looked across the lot. Stealth was helping Christian up. The pistol was gone. Christian was smiling.

  Cerberus glared up at the hero hanging in the air. Then it ran at Danielle. The steel feet clanged.

  St. George tackled the battlesuit and sent it staggering.

  The punch whipped past Danielle, missing her by a few inches.

  St. George put his fists together and slammed them into the armor’s side, right under the arm. The battlesuit stumbled another few steps and he wrapped his arms around the leg and pulled.

  Cerberus crashed to the ground again.

  He looked back toward the garden. Stealth and Christian had vanished. He could guess what happened if Smith managed to get a few words out.

  Danielle came running over. He opened his mouth to talk but she waved him silent. “Echo sierra alpha victor forty-two,” she called out.

  The battlesuit slammed its mangled hand against the ground and pushed up. The servos whined. The damaged hand sparked on the pavestone walkway.

  She frowned. “Echo! Sierra! Alpha! Victor! Forty-Two!”

  The armored titan got to its hands and knees, then brought one foot up.

  Danielle called out the words one more time and punctuated the phrase with a swear. “Goddammit,” she added. “He killed the external mikes. I can’t shut it down.”

  St. George watched Cerberus climb to its feet. “I can,” he told her.

  “What do you mean?”

  He guided her back as the battlesuit straightened up. “Gibbs isn’t going to stop until he kills us. Or until we stop him.”

  Her eyes went wide. “No.”

  The battlesuit turned around and the lenses locked onto them. St. George grabbed Danielle around the waist and leaped into the air. He flew away from the titan, and realized a moment later it meant he was flying away from Stealth and Smith, too.

  Cerberus stomped after them.

  Danielle stiffened up as the buildings fell away. Her arms pulled in tight, and even her legs pressed together. She gritted her teeth and managed another “No.”

  Below them Cerberus smashed through the low wall around the garden and sent chunks of mortar and cinder blocks flying. An angry backhand crumpled the front of Mean Green.

  They flew over Five and Four. “He’ll run out of power using it like that,” Danielle gasped. “Without Barry recharging it, the suit won’t last long at all.”

  “How long?”

  She was taking quick breaths through her nose. “Put us down.”

  He dropped down between Stage 4 and the Edith Head Building. A few people watched them land, drawn out by the sounds. Danielle relaxed as the walls rose up around them and he set her on the ground. “Maybe forty-five minutes,” she said. “An hour tops. If you can just keep him—”

  He shook his head. “That’s too long. If we keep this up, he’s going to kill someone. And Smith has Stealth.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” He turned to the gawkers. “Run,” he told them. “Get as far from here as you can.”

  One man looked around. “What’s going—”

  “Run!” St. George looked at Danielle. “I have to—”

  “I know!” she snapped.

  The ground shook. They heard the hiss and stomp of the battlesuit coming toward them. There was a crash of metal on concrete.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Danielle squeezed her hands into fists. “Do it.”

  Cerberus appeared between two buildings. Gibbs yelled something over the speakers but he’d switched to public address mode and his amplified words were lost in their own echo and the stomp of armored feet.

  The battlesuit charged them.

  St. George leaped to meet it.

  He ducked a punch and then a follow-up swing from the damaged hand. When the next fist came at him he braced his legs and caught it. A few steps to the side kept the arm out straight and St. George far enough away that the other arm couldn’t reach him. The titan tried to pull free but he yanked back and kept it off balance. The feet hissed as pistons and servos adjusted.

  He pulled again. When Gibbs tugged back, St. George let go with one hand and grabbed the steel thumb with the other. The metal fist clenched around his hand. If he’d been a normal man, his fingers and forearm would’ve been crushed to powder.

  St. George drove his free hand up into the battlesuit’s elbow as hard as he could. Metal squealed under his knuckles. At least one servo sparked and blew out.

  The steel fingers released him. Cerberus tried to shake him off but he drove two more punches up into the joint of the arm. The second one got even more sparks. The third one made it go limp and sag at a wrong angle.

  The hero grabbed the forearm with one hand, the dead M2 with the other, and wrenched the whole thing away. The elbow joint cracked and some ball bearings sprayed out onto the street like steel raindrops. A half-dozen cables yanked free. An armor plate broke off and clattered on the ground. The M2’s ammo belt twisted until some of the links bent and it snapped apart.

  The battlesuit took a few heavy steps back. Gibbs raised the remains of the arm. St. George thought he could see the man’s own fingertips exposed in the twisted remains of the elbow.

  The titan roared and the mangled hand—the pincer—swung around and caught the hero in the side of the head. It slammed him across the road and into the corner of Four hard enough to break cinder blocks. He tumbled across the building and spun out onto Avenue R. He hit the ground face-first, and a spray of rubble pattered around him.

  He raised his head and saw people running toward him. Billie Carter was in the lead—alive and well, her face grim under her spik
y hair—with Ilya just a few steps behind her and two more past that. He could hear Cerberus stomping after him, getting close.

  St. George rolled onto his back just as Cerberus brought a foot up to crush him. The hero drove his heel into the battlesuit’s other ankle. He felt it dent under the blow, but it didn’t break. It was enough that the foot came down to regain balance rather than do damage. The titan wobbled for a moment as it compensated for the damage.

  “We never trusted you,” roared Gibbs over the speakers. “Any of you!”

  A fireworks display of small-arms fire sparked and pinged off the armor. The scavengers emptied their weapons at the battlesuit. Some of the rounds ricocheted down to slap St. George in the thighs and chest. After the M2s, they felt like bug bites.

  It didn’t hurt the titan, either, but it distracted Gibbs for a moment. “Traitors,” he bellowed at them. The battlesuit pulled its foot back and kicked St. George in the ribs, hurling him at the scavengers.

  His ribs tore at his insides, but he managed to twist in the air and miss Billie and one of the others. His hand smacked against Ilya’s arm and he was pretty sure he felt one of the other man’s bones crack. He hit another building—he wasn’t sure which one—shoulder first and left a crater in the wall.

  St. George took a breath and his ribs howled. He forced another breath and pushed himself out of the wall. Grit and rubble dropped off him.

  Billie and the others were reloading on the move. Cerberus stalked after them. She was shouting something at the battlesuit, but it sounded muffled and echo-y in his ears. He shook his head and the world became a little clearer.

  The hero launched himself at Cerberus again. Gibbs saw him coming, the pincer hand came around again, and St. George landed inside the blow. He blocked it with his own forearm and slammed three punches into the titan’s stomach—an array of overlapping armored plates. He heard the impacts echo inside the battlesuit. One of the plates cracked under his knuckles.

  Gibbs roared again. The titan’s arm pulled in tight and crushed St. George against its chest. One of the small open hatches scraped on his cheek. Cerberus looked up at the sky, then brought its steel head down onto the hero’s skull with a crack. St. George reeled for a moment, spots swirling in his vision, and Gibbs battered him with the stump of the damaged arm.

  St. George stretched his arms out and hammered his fists into the titan’s sides. He did it again and again, at least half a dozen times before the arm pinning him against the battlesuit released him. They stumbled apart, he shook his head clear, and then Cerberus lunged forward again, the pincer fingers stretched out.

  He threw himself into the air and soared above the titan. It reached after him and he grabbed it by the wrist. He dropped back to the ground, pulled, and threw Cerberus over his shoulder. He didn’t let go of the broken hand, and the battlesuit’s own momentum tore it loose at the wrist with a crack of metal and electricity.

  The titan smashed into the corner of a warehouse. Cracks raced up the wall. Large swaths of plaster and concrete broke free and tipped out over the street. A landslide of rubble raced down the side of the building.

  St. George hurled the hand aside and threw himself forward, snatching Billie and a bald man out of the way just before the remains of the warehouse wall smashed into the ground. “Get lost,” he said. “You guys can’t stop it.”

  Billie glared at him. “Can you?”

  He set them down. “Just stay clear and keep everyone else out of the way.” He looked around for Danielle. She’d vanished. He was sure she hadn’t been near the wall when it collapsed. She’d either run for cover or couldn’t stand to watch the suit get ripped apart.

  The rubble shifted around Cerberus. The titan pushed itself to its feet again. It stood with its back to St. George, as if it was gathering strength.

  “Gibbs,” he said, “There’s enough holes in the armor. I know you can hear me. We can still work this out. I know this isn’t your fault. Stop now and shut the suit down.”

  The handless arm swung around and hit him like a wrecking ball.

  St. George hit a wall, scraped across it, and slammed into Four again. Momentum bounced him off the corner and threw him back out into the street. He hit the pavement and tumbled another two yards.

  The street shook under him. He tried to focus, to throw himself into the air, but his head was spinning and the titan’s foot caught him in the side before he was even a few inches off the ground. He crashed into another wall and fell. He heard people shouting, but wasn’t sure if it was inside the building or somewhere in the distance.

  Cerberus stomped over and glared down at him. A Y-shaped crack ran through one of the eye lenses. Servos hummed as the battlesuit raised its foot over St. George’s face and blotted out the sun.

  Then the sun leaned to the left and dropped down to light up the street. The foot started to fall and the brilliant wraith struck like lightning, shooting through the raised leg just below the knee. There was a deafening hiss, Gibbs howled in pain, and the two sounds mixed and echoed across the lot.

  The half-fused foot clanged on the ground next to St. George’s head. Molten metal splashed over it. A few drops hit his arm and burned what was left of his shirt. He swiped them away.

  One of the thick toes twitched a few times and then grew still.

  Cerberus tried to keep its balance on one leg. St. George reached up, grabbed the still-glowing stump in both hands, and shoved. The titan tipped over and hit the pavement.

  Zzzap hung in the air a few yards away, shaking. Gahhhhh, he said. He waved his arms. I hate doing that. I think I’m going to puke.

  “Thanks,” said St. George.

  You’re welcome. Didn’t want to risk hitting you with a blast, and I figured we didn’t want to incinerate whoever’s in there. Gibbs?

  “Yeah.”

  What’s up with him?

  “Smith.”

  Figures. Does Danielle know you had to—

  “Yeah.”

  Zzzap made a static-y noise that might have been a sigh.

  St. George limped over to the fallen titan. It was like a wounded turtle, stuck on its back with no limbs left to push itself over. The stump pounded on the ground. The handless arm swung at him again but couldn’t reach him. Billie, Ilya, and the others approached from the north, reloading as they closed in.

  St. George hooked his fingers under the helmet’s chin. He braced his foot against the armored shoulders and pulled.

  The battlesuit groaned, metal squealed, and Cerberus’s armored skull ripped free of the body. Shrapnel sprayed like blood. A tangle of cables dragged loose from the armored collar. Each one snapped, sparked, and popped apart. The thrashing limbs went limp.

  The large eyes flared for a moment, one after the other, and then died.

  Lieutenant Gibbs’s head looked small on top of the huge torso. He had a bruise over one eye. “God damn you,” he snarled at them. “You’re traitors. No one will ever trust you again. No one!”

  So where’s Danielle and Stealth?

  “Smith’s got Stealth,” said St. George. “I’m not sure where Danielle slipped off to.”

  Zzzap floated a few feet higher in the air. Did Smith get her, too?

  “Not sure. I’m going to head toward Gower. Can you do a perimeter check?”

  On it. The gleaming wraith shot into the air and vanished.

  St. George dropped the armored skull on the ground and hurled himself up over the buildings.

  Christian Smith guided Stealth along Avenue C. They’d run into two or three people, but a few words from the mayor had sent them on their way. They could see the cross street up ahead.

  “Not long now,” said Smith. “I was happy to let you all starve to death peacefully, you know. I really wanted to avoid anything big and showy like this. I’m not big on direct confrontation. Still, I think you’ll protect me from any potential threats, won’t you?”

  Stealth said nothing, but her head jerked up and down once.

/>   Smith smiled. “And you’d warn me if you knew of any trouble up ahead, right?”

  “Yes.” The cloaked woman stumbled, just for a moment, as if her foot had caught on something. “There is no trouble up ahead.”

  “Wait, what?” Smith stopped walking. “Why did you … What are you hiding?”

  “Many things,” said Stealth. “Perhaps most important is that someone has been following us for half a block now.”

  Smith spun around and the gunshot echoed on the street. The bullet whizzed past her, close enough that she flinched away.

  Danielle lined up the Glock with both hands and fired again. Her aim wasn’t great, but the round hit Christian Smith in the calf, just under the kneecap. The Asian woman howled and dropped to the ground.

  The redhead walked forward. The pistol stayed on Smith the whole time. “You fucking son of a bitch,” she snarled. “George had to destroy Cerberus because of you.”

  Smith tried to speak, but all she could manage was a few angry whimpers as her hands flailed at her ruined leg.

  Voices were shouting down the street. Danielle recognized Madelyn’s pale figure running toward them. A few guards were behind her, their own weapons up and ready. Captain Freedom loomed behind them, looking groggy but keeping pace.

  Danielle aimed the Glock and fired one more time. This time the round took two fingers off a flailing hand and smashed into the other kneecap. Smith screamed and fell backward. Her hand twitched and splashed blood over her shirt.

  “Hold the barrel of the pistol in your hand,” said Stealth.

  “What?” Danielle glanced at her.

  “Hold the barrel of the pistol in your right hand. It will be warm to the touch from firing, but will not harm you. Raise the pistol to shoulder height and swing so the tip of the magazine connects with the side of the skull. Your target should be the temple just above the cheekbone.”

  Danielle looked down at the thrashing woman. Smith was trying to gasp out words, but couldn’t focus.

  She turned the Glock around in her hand. She swung and cracked it into Smith’s head. The woman went limp and slumped to the ground.

  Danielle let out a long breath.