Ex-Heroes, Peter Clines [reading like a writer txt] 📗

her outfit was that tight and showed off that much. And she had a lot to show off. I say this as someone who deals with some of the hottest women on Earth every week as part of my day job. Black straps and belts crisscrossed her body, accenting her curves, a lot like the utility harness I wore. But mine was store-bought and I don’t think there was a quarter inch of material in hers that didn’t need to be there. Pushed back over her shoulders was a dusty, Middle Eastern–looking cloak with a wide, layered cowl. The black and gray stripes were urban camouflage.

The dominatrix-ninja.

One of the Seventeens moaned and I glanced away, just for a second. She was gone when I looked back.

I was tier three or so, enough that a two-story jump was just possible with a little effort. I took a running start, hit the center line of the street, and leaped.

I landed on the bleached tar paper of the roof. The goggles were open, draining anyone who caught sight of me, but there was no one. I looked behind some air vents and an access door. She’d vanished like some little ninja-stealth adept.

No big deal. All of the hero types must have been hearing about each other. I knew I was curious about the monster in Venice. The dominatrix had probably come down to this part of town looking for me. Maybe hoping she could be a sidekick or something.

My coat flapped in the wind as I dropped back down to street level. No time to play cat and mouse with another hero. If the fucking kid was right and there was a power vacuum in the SS, this part of LA was going to be hell on Earth by the end of the week.

LOS FELIZ WAS northeast of Hollywood proper. With the trees, brick shops, and the two-screen movie marquee, it wasn’t hard to pretend this section of the city was part of a small town somewhere.

Big Red trundled to a stop under the trees. The scavengers hopped off the truck and spread out to a practiced perimeter. The lift gate hissed down and Cerberus lumbered off onto the pavement. Lady Bee slid off the cab, landing with a clack of hard soles. She opened the jockey box under the truck and pulled out a bundle of canvas grocery bags.

“Everyone listening?” asked St. George. He nodded at Lynne. “Okay, for those who haven’t done this often, and the rest of you who’ve heard them thirty or forty times—here are the rules. Groups of three. We check in every half hour. No one goes off alone. No one does anything alone, no matter what. You see something, you tell the rest of the group. You want to go look at something, go with the rest of your group. You need to piss, I hope you like company.”

Jarvis squeezed off a round and dropped the overweight ex wandering out of the alley by the bookstore. The pallid woman fell face-first onto the sidewalk. They heard her nose snap on the pavement.

“And as Jarvis just pointed out,” St. George added with a glare, “don’t shoot unless you have to. The noise attracts them.”

The salt-and-pepper man winced and lowered his rifle.

“If you hear a shot, or shots, don’t panic. Don’t run. That just gets people hurt. One of the easiest tricks to surviving out here is to walk. Use your brains, use your walkies, find out what’s going on first. Don’t run unless you know you need to run.”

He looked at them until they all nodded their understanding.

“Okay, then. Ty, David, Billie, check those apartments up there. Mark, Bee, you take Lynne and search all the ones on this side. Andy, Jarvis, Lee, you’ve got ground-level shops. Luke and Ilya, stay with the truck. I’m going to mind this intersection here. Cerberus, that intersection up there is yours. Questions?”

“What about Barry?”

“Barry sleeps unless we need him.”

Ty twisted a pair of canvas bags into a wide rope and yanked it through his gunbelt. “How long do you want to spend here?”

“I’m hoping we can do this block in two hours. Move east, then north. It’ll let us hit most of these small shops.”

“I think there’s a Ralphs or Vons or something three blocks that way,” Lynne said, nodding.

Cerberus shook her head with a faint whine of servos. “Grocery stores were the first things people hit,” the titan said. “Assume anything with its own parking lot was looted at least a year ago.”

“I’m hoping we can get all of this street and the block to the east done today,” said St. George. “Sundown’s at seven-twelve. Half-hour drive back. We should have the truck loaded and ready by six at the latest.”

Billie slapped the tactical holster strapped to her thigh. “Let’s do it.”

Mark banged on the stairwell door three times while Lady Bee pulled the fire extinguisher from its socket. Lynne watched behind them with her rifle ready. She nodded at the gray door. “Why do you pound on them again?”

He pushed the door open with his foot and waited. The stairwell was lit by random shafts of sunlight. “You haven’t been out much, have you?”

“Not really. Too young before.”

“Noise attracts exes, like St. George said,” explained Bee. “Before you open anything—doors, closets, whatever—you make some noise. If there are any on the other side, they’ll try to walk through the door to follow the sound and you can hear them.”

Mark nodded. “Either that or they’re far enough away you’ll have time to shoot them.” He stepped into the stairwell and gave a quick glance down and up. “Looks good. Down just leads to the emergency exit.”

“Smells like shit in here,” said Lynne.

“Lots of dead stuff in these places,” said Bee.

“Exes?”

“A lot of it’s just dead.”

“Hey,” said Mark, “more looking, less talking.”

“Oh, you love it,” said Bee. She leaned back and her eyes and rifle followed the stairwell up. “What man wouldn’t want a little