Ex-Communication, Peter Clines [ebook reader online free txt] 📗

on their backs and shoulders, a faint pull on the eyes. All his bodies looked around and saw nothing, but the feeling remained.

You insult the great name of my sibling with your ignorance and arrogance. Perhaps a lesson in humility is in order. If nothing else, it should relieve my boredom while I await my new vessel.

Legion rolled his fingers up into tight fists. All of the walking dead within three blocks copied him, guided by his anger. “Oh, yeah?” he spat. “Fucking coward. Come out here and give it your best shot.”

And a few moments later, every ex in Los Angeles County screamed at once.

“MA’AM,” SAID FREEDOM, “sir, with all due respect, this is your fault.”

It made Stealth pause. St. George had said it was possible to catch her off guard, but this was the first time Freedom had ever seen it happen. He wondered how often anyone dared interrupt the woman.

He was in Stealth’s meeting room with the other heroes. It was a rare thing for Freedom to be invited to these morning meetings. He understood they were informal, though, and the other heroes had known one another for years.

The cloaked woman stood on the other side of the conference table and stared at him. He’d learned to sense her stares, even through the blank balaclava she always wore.

St. George stood next to her, leaning against the edge of the table. He’d looked preoccupied for the whole meeting so far.

Barry was in his wheelchair off to the side. He was also much more subdued than normal. If fact, Freedom was pretty sure the man hadn’t spoken yet.

Danielle sat next to the wheelchair. He’d come to learn what a rare thing it was for her not to be wearing the Cerberus armor if she had a choice. Even now, with Lieutenant Gibbs and the boy, Cesar, able to operate the battlesuit, it was still her wearing it more than half the time. He’d known a few tank officers who were the same way—not comfortable unless they were surrounded by steel.

The arrangement of the room also didn’t slip by the captain. He’d been on this side of similar tables three times before. Two of them were for official inquiries into the deaths of soldiers under his command. The other was when he was brought into Project Krypton and had the full scale of the project revealed to him.

He still wasn’t sure which type this meeting was. All four of the heroes looked uncomfortable. It could be going either way.

“Please,” said Stealth. Her voice was ice. “Continue.”

“I’ve been here for eight months now, ma’am, and this is the first I’ve ever heard of a high-security prisoner in the Mount. One being held a hundred yards from my own quarters.”

“Are you claiming you have never heard of the Cellar?”

“Of course I’ve heard of it, ma’am,” he said. “Everyone in the city has. And everyone has a different idea what it is. I’ve been told it’s a quarantine area, storage for ex-humans, and where we keep monsters.” He gestured at St. George. “One very excited little boy told me it’s where you hide the magic lantern that gives you your powers, and you have to go down there to recharge.”

Barry looked up at his friend. “You’ve had a magic lantern all this time and you didn’t tell me?”

St. George smirked. So did Danielle. It didn’t break the mood, but it cracked it enough for everyone to breathe.

Freedom plowed ahead. “Who is the prisoner? Why did you have him locked up? And where did he get all these primitive weapons from? Is it some … ritualistic thing?”

“Man, that’d be nice,” Barry said. “So much simpler.”

“Speaking of ritual,” said Danielle, “wasn’t Max supposed to be here for all of this?”

Without turning Stealth pointed over her shoulder at one of the numerous video screens in the room. The high angle showed Max in another meeting room somewhere. He was scratching notes and symbols on a huge whiteboard. His brow furrowed at the board as he went back and erased a pair of lines. “He has been notified twice,” said Stealth. “It was a courtesy. We do not require his presence.”

“Still working on his demon-banishment thing?” asked Barry.

“So he claims. Legion’s scream seems to have worried him.” Stealth tossed something onto the marble tabletop. It made a hollow sound as it bounced over to Freedom. “This is the weapon the prisoner attacked you with?”

He picked it up. “It looks like it, ma’am. I couldn’t be certain. I only saw it for a moment.”

It was a thick piece of pale hardwood. It had been scraped down to something that was almost a blade. He recognized the scratches down the length from crude weapons in Iraq. Someone had dragged the spike across rough stone or concrete to shape it.

Then he registered the thick knob under the handle.

“This is a bone,” he said.

“Yeah,” said St. George.

“Someone slipped your prisoner a leg of lamb when you weren’t looking?”

“It is a human tibia,” said Stealth. “To be precise, it is the prisoner’s left tibia.”

Barry tipped his head back and rubbed his temples.

Freedom set the bone down. “I’m pretty sure the prisoner had both of his legs.”

St. George nodded. “Yeah, he did.”

Freedom frowned and nodded at the table. “And the whip?” It had been coiled and stuffed into a large evidence bag. He wondered how Stealth had actual evidence bags when his people were using Ziplocs.

“Identifying exact muscle tissues is more difficult without certain tests,” she said. “However, judging from the density and length of the sinews, I feel confident saying it is comprised of nine sartorius muscles. There are also eleven molars worked into the braid, to increase either traction or damage. Possibly both.”

Danielle shuddered and looked away from the table.

Freedom pondered this for a moment. “So there are multiple victims,” he said. “He killed other people before he got out and we missed it somehow.”

St. George shook his head. “No,” he said. “They’re all his. The prisoner’s.” He tapped