Ex-Communication - Ex-Heroes 03

by Peter Clines

  Stealth glared at him for a moment. Then she nodded once in assent.

  The sorcerer turned to St. George. “How do the runes feel?”

  “They itch,” said the hero. Max had painted a series of symbols across St. George’s back and chest with a fat brush he’d found in one of the scenery shops. He hadn’t used regular paint. It was something oily that just smelled wrong. He’d mixed it up while the two heroes had talked with Dr. Connolly. “It feels like a peeling sunburn.”

  “Good,” said Max. “That means they’re working. Should give you an hour or two if we’re lucky.” He looked up at the sky. “We should get going. We’ve got half an hour or so until sundown. Maybe an hour till full dark.”

  St. George nodded. He exchanged a solemn look with Freedom, then turned to Stealth. He had a sinking feeling this was the last time he was going to see her, and she had her mask on.

  “I’ll be back soon,” he told her.

  Her head dipped ever so slightly inside her hood. “I am certain you will.”

  He waited a moment, wondering if she was going to crack and hug him or something. He thought about hugging her. He thought about pulling her mask up and giving her one last kiss.

  But she was cool and professional. She didn’t crack. It would be demoralizing to the guards if she did. So she walled herself off and didn’t give any hint of what they’d shared. She was cold and strong and merciless so no one else had to be. So everyone else could just live.

  It was who she was, and it was part of the reason he loved her.

  He hoped he survived to tell her.

  Max traced one of his tattoos with his finger and looked at St. George. “I can levitate pretty easy, but I’m not fast. How do you want to do this? Piggyback?”

  “God, no,” said the hero, turning away from Stealth. He gave a wink to the guards. “If I’m going out to my death I don’t want to look pathetic doin% are togetherg it.”

  They all chuckled. The mood rose a little bit.

  He focused on the spot between his shoulder blades, floated into the air, and held out his hand. Max grabbed it wrist to wrist. They rose up and floated out past the Big Wall.

  The exes below tilted their heads back and followed them through the air. They snapped their jaws open and shut. Their desiccated fingers stretched up to claw at the empty space below Max’s feet.

  “A little higher would be nice,” said Max.

  “You’ll be fine,” said St. George.

  They drifted over to the circle burned into the pavement. The shambling dead hid it well from the Big Wall, but from overhead it was easy to see. St. George paused in the air just before it. He looked down at Max. “As soon as we’re over it? Or once we’re past it?”

  “Past it. The seal itself is the end of the safe area. He’ll see us, but you should be safe from any level of possession.”

  “Should?”

  “For a while, anyway,” said Max. “If he wants to kill either of us, he’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.”

  “Great.”

  They floated a few more feet. A cluster of exes shuffled below them and brought the sound of clicking teeth. One of them stumbled and fell over backward. The others trampled over it, still reaching for the heroes.

  “Hang on tight with both hands,” St. George said. “If it comes at us, I’m going to move fast.”

  “If it comes at us, you’re going to want me to have a hand free,” said the sorcerer.

  St. George took in a deep breath. He glanced over his shoulder at the Big Wall, where Stealth and Freedom stood watching him. The breath hissed out of his nose as black smoke. He tightened his fingers around the sword and swallowed.

  They crossed the seal.

  Nothing happened.

  St. George turned in the air. There were a hundred or so exes in his line of sight, but none of them was streaming blue fire or growing claws and horns. He swung the sword once and it made a whipping noise.

  Still nothing.

  “So far, so good,” said Max. His free hand was up with the middle and ring fingers folded flat against his palm. A set of devil horns. “Which way are we headed?”

  St. George rose another foot or so in the air and headed west.

  “And that’s sunset,” said Max twenty minutes later.

  They drifted between trees and buildings down La Brea Avenue. It was one of the more urban sections of Los Angeles, and he’d heard it called “Beverly Hills–adjacent” a few times back when people talked about apartment locations for something other than looting. Several lanes wide, a fair number of trees, and a mix of warehouse-like stores and small shops. Hard to believe just a few blocks to the east it looked more like a small town than a big city.

  “It’s not actually down,” St. George said. “It’s just lower than the buildings. We’ve still got another ten minutes or so.”% are together

  “And then it gets even harder to see anything.”

  Exes staggered after them, like paupers to a banquet. St. George and Max had collected a large crowd of followers as they flew back and forth across the neighborhood. Some fell behind as others joined the chase. There were sixty or seventy of them at the moment, trailing behind the flying men in a loose fan. They shuffled between cars, dragging against the sides, and added the scraping noise to the sound of their clicking teeth.

  St. George panned his eyes across the road again. There were a lot of cars, all covered with dust. It meant lots of places to hide. “Isn’t there some kind of locator spell you can cast or something?”

  “Yeah,” said Max, “but gosh-darn-it, I missed that day at Hogwarts.”

  “You don’t need to be an ass about it.”

  “Sorry. A little tense. I didn’t think it’d take this long to find either of them. Or for Cairax to find us.”

  Something moved quick in the corner of St. George’s eye and he heard a sound over the click-clack-click of the exes. He spun and brought the sword up, inhaling hard as he did. He felt the tickle at the back of his throat and realized it was just another zombie, a tall man who had been coming to join the pack. It had stumbled off the sidewalk and fallen against a Mercedes.

  He let the breath out slow and smoke twisted from his nose and mouth. He glanced down and saw Max’s outstretched hand was shimmering like a hot sidewalk. The other man sighed and let his fingers relax.

  “So,” said St. George, “you thought we’d’ve found them by now?”

  “Well, yeah,” Max said. “Cairax wants to get me, so either he was going to keep Josh close until the possession took effect, or he was going to be waiting at the seals to pounce the moment I stepped outside. I’m not really sure what’s going on.”

  St. George checked the crowd of exes below them. His eyes flitted down to the tooth on his lapel and came back up. “He should be pretty tough to miss. Long tail, purple hide, ten feet tall.”

  Max grunted. “That isn’t what Cairax really looks like, y’know.”

  “No?”

  “That’s what it looks like when it’s squeezed into my shape, if that makes sense. Sort of like how a filet-o-fish is shaped like a bun, not like a real fish. It’s not natural, it’s just easier to swallow.”

  “So it’s going to look different?”

  “It’s going to look a bit more pure.”

  St. George turned and brought the sword up again. “Interesting choice of words.” The quick movement had been an ex’s shadow this time, stretched out long as the last rays of sunlight slipped between two buildings.

  “Just take what you remember and dial it up to eleven,” Max told him.

  “It was already at eleven.”

  “Then take it to thirteen. More fitting, anyway. Hey, can we take a quick break?”

  “What?”

  “You’re the super-strong guy who can fly, but I’ve been dragg remember falling asleep6Lre togethered by one arm for half an hour. My shoulder’s going numb.”

  St. George looked around and spotted a flat area on the roof sha
red by an oversized pet shop and a huge lamp store. He flew over and set Max down. The sorcerer swung his arm in a circle a few times, then rolled his shoulder back and forth.

  St. George turned and looked down at the street. The shadows were getting darker. “How long do you need?” he asked Max. “We probably shouldn’t stop for long, right?”

  “Just a minute.” He said. He shook his hand out like a pitcher getting ready for a big game. “I’m not going to be much use if my arm doesn’t work.”

  On the street below, the crowd of exes spread out. Some of them lost track of the two men on the roof and stumbled away. A dozen or so were trapped on the far side of cars, helpless until dumb luck moved them around. They kept their blank eyes on St. George and clawed at the air. Others pushed their way through the lamp store’s broken display windows. The sound of crunching glass made its way up to the roof.

  “I don’t suppose there’s a chance the demon just left? Didn’t you say he might just decide you weren’t worth it?”

  Max walked to the edge of the roof to stand by St. George. He rolled his shoulder again. “It never works out that way. D’you remember any fairy tales where the devil makes a deal with someone but then never bothers to follow through in the end?”

  “Not off the top of my head.”

  “There’s a reason for that.” He shook his head. “He’s too pissed to leave. We just need to find him before he finds …”

  St. George followed Max’s gaze. Across the street was a small storefront that might have been an art gallery or some kind of showroom, something that looked more East Coast than Los Angeles. He remembered searching it years back and finding nothing useful. The huge picture window had been smashed ages ago, if the leaves on the inside floor were any sign.

  Josh stood inside the gallery, watching them. He was just far enough in that they never would’ve seen him if they’d been floating down the center of the street. A deep sigh moved his chest as he locked eyes with St. George.

  The man formerly known as Regenerator was tall and broad. His build was solid, despite months in a cell with no food. His white hair almost glowed in the gallery’s dim interior, while his gray eyes were just dark enough to be black in the fading light.

  St. George risked looking away for a moment. There were at least sixty exes between the lamp store and the gallery. Too many to have a conversation at street level.

  He glanced back. Josh hadn’t moved. He looked tired.

  Max shrugged. He put his fists side by side to make a row of tattooed knuckles, then rolled them back-to-back. A few murmurs slipped from his lips as he pushed his fists forward and opened them. He whispered a few more words, closed his eyes, and swung his hands away from each other.

  Twin clouds of dust and dry leaves rose up off the street. A few of the cars squealed and lurched in either direction. The exes slid across the pavement as if they were being swept aside. Some of them fell over and kept moving. One of them, a dead woman in shorts and a gory tank top, kept trying to stagger forward even as she was swept back.

  Max opened his eyes and remember falling asleep">? together looked at the pristine path across the street. “Looks great when you do it with water,” said Max. “Very biblical.”

  “You can keep them away?”

  Max let his hands drop. “It’ll stay for a while. It only goes side to side, so watch your back.”

  The hero stepped off the roof and sailed down to land in the center of the street. His boots tapped the pavement and he took a few steps forward. The white-haired man watched him come.

  “Hey, Josh,” St. George said. He glanced over his shoulder aoffin, even th

  MADELYN PICKED HERSELF up off Highland Avenue and checked the sword. She’d landed on it, but it didn’t look damaged. Her right hand was torn up, though. There were a bunch of long gashes on her palm from sliding on the pavement, and she was pretty sure her middle finger and ring finger were broken. Dislocated, at least.

  She walked back and kicked the bike. The rear wheel had locked up and sent her flying while she was swooping around an ex. The master link had fallen off the chain, and now one end was wrapped around the gears and axle. She was pretty sure she could have fixed it if she had tools. And light. And the master link.

  And the time. According to her two watches with glow-in-the-dark faces, she had about two hours until Max’s deadline. One hundred and ten minutes until hell on earth.

  She waved at the ex, a desiccated man her dad’s age with a bald head. Bloodstains blended with the dark red flowers on its Hawaiian shirt, and ran down onto its shorts. “You can have the bike,” she said. “I didn’t like the color anyway.”

  Madelyn checked the sword again and started walking south. She wanted to run, but her eyes didn’t work well in the dark and she didn’t want to risk another accident. While she walked she grabbed her two twisted fingers with her left hand. They throbbed, but they didn’t hurt as much as she knew they should. Dead nerves.

  She took a deep breath out of habit more thanfor

  It took her ten minutes of brisk walking to reach Sunset. She cut across the parking lot of a strip mall. If she remembered right, it was a mile to the northeast corner of the Big Wall. There was a pair of bodies on the far side of the lot. Two kids about her age, from their size and clothes. She glanced over her shoulder and across Highland to the gray shape of the high school. She wondered if your parents had to be in the film industry for you to go to Hollywood High School.

  There were dozens of exes wandering in the street, but they were spaced out enough for her to dodge them. Madelyn set one hand on the sword and started jogging. Not a full run, but faster than walking. She was pretty sure she’d still see anything dangerous before she tripped over it.

  After another ten minutes the abandoned cars started to thin out and the exes started to get a little denser. The noise of their jaws got louder. Another two blocks and she saw Amoeba Records and the Jack in the Box facing each other across the street. A few more yards and the Cinerama Dome loomed up in the night. She was a block from the Big Wall. She grabbed the sword and broke into a run.

  The Corner came into view, and she could see the guards standing on top of the Wall. Three or four hundred exes clogged the intersection below them. The dead pawed at the stacked cars and reached for the men and women on the platform.

  Madelyn didn’t want to risk being another face in the crowd. She stopped near the back of the horde and waved her arms. She jumped up and down a couple of times. “Hey,” she yelled to them. “Over here!”

  One of the guards straightened up and peered out at her. A few flashlights lit up and searched her out. “Here,” she said. “I’ve got the sword!” She pulled it out and waved it over her head.

  She heard them talk over the sound of the exes, but couldn’t make out any words. They gestured at her a few times, but it seemed like it was part of the discussion, not signals intended for her. One of them raised a walkie-talkie to his mouth. She started forward through the crowd and two of the guards leveled their rifles in her direction.

  “Hey!” she snapped over the sound of chattering teeth. “It’s me, the Corpse Girl. I’m on your side.”

  The discussion on the Corner platform had turned into an argument. One woman reached out and pushed the guard’s rifle away. He resisted and brought it back to settle on Madelyn. They were waving and pointing.

  She looked at her watches. Just over an hour until the Hell-mouth opened or whatever was going to happen. “I have the sword,” she shouted. “Get St. George or Captain Freedom or someone on the radio.” She shoved an ex aside and took three more pronounced steps forward.

  The two guards with rifles freaked out. One of them lifted his gun to his shoulder. The other fired from chest height. The shot echoed across Sunset Boulevard, drowning out the click-click-click of teeth for a moment.

  The ex in front of Madelyn twitched and gore sprayed out of its shoulder. She felt a tug on her sleeve and smelled hot metal. The bullet had miss
ed her. Barely.

  She dove back and crouched low behind another ex, an obese man that stank of filth. A second shot rang out, and then shouts from the platform. She wasn’t sure if they remember falling asleepXofA c were shouting at her or each other. The dead man stumbled toward the Wall, attracted by the noise, and she shuffled to stay hidden behind it. She glanced down and something dark dripped out of its pant leg.

  It crossed her mind that maybe they wouldn’t let her back in. She’d snuck out without permission, and maybe they had firm rules about contact with exes. A good chunk of the population inside thought she was a prophet or omen or something, but there were also a lot of folks—probably including the two men shooting at her—who thought she wasn’t different from any other dead thing.

  They had to let her back in! They needed the sword.

  All her stuff was inside. She hadn’t brought her backpack or her heavy coat or anything. It had just been a given they’d let her back in. Honestly, she was hoping to impress St. George and convince him she could be useful to him and the other heroes. It would be cool to have someone like St. George impressed with her.

  But maybe that wasn’t going to happen now. She glanced back down the dark road, back the way she’d come. There’d be a backpack somewhere in the high school. Now that she knew she didn’t have to hide, it’d be easier to scavenge for supplies.

  Her diary was inside the Mount. If she didn’t find something to write on, she’d wake up tomorrow and maybe not even remember being there. Her memory had been getting better, but she didn’t think any of it would stick without the diary.

  If they didn’t let her back in, she was going to die all over again.

  Then the sounds from the Big Wall died down and a voice bellowed out across the intersection, thundering over the sounds of dead teeth.

  “Madelyn!”

  She waited a moment. She’d played enough video games and seen enough movies to know what happened to someone who poked their head out to look. The obese ex shuffled a few more feet and swayed back and forth.