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

hundred of them stood halfway down the street, near the crater. They stretched across La Brea Avenue, blocking it, at least four or five rows deep. Their arms were crossed. Their jaws didn’t move. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a similar line behind them, and one in either direction on 3rd Street.

They were surrounded.

“I have no ammunition,” said Stealth. “I assume the captain is incapacitated. Is Zzzap well enough to fight?”

“Maybe,” said St. George. He did a double take and stared at her face. The hole in her mask had vanished.

“Focus, George,” she said.

“How did you—”

“I carry a spare mask in my belt.” She tipped her head to the line ahead of them. “Be ready.”

One of the exes marched forward. It had been a tall, lean black man once. Two fingers were missing off its left hand. A gaping hole in its side was clogged with ropy lengths of meat that had probably been intestines before they were hit with a shotgun blast. It had both eyes, and St. George could see Legion’s expressions behind its face.

The ex stopped ten feet away from them, just past where the spray of ash and dust ended. St. George rolled his fingers into fists. He felt Stealth tense next to him.

“Could kill all of you fuckers right now,” said the dead man. The fingers of its mangled hand curled into a fist, then went loose again. Its jaw shifted side to side.

The heroes didn’t move.

The ex shook its head. “You got an hour.”

St. George waited a few moments. He let a few curls of smoke twist out of his nose. “Meaning what?”

“Got an hour to get back behind your Wall,” Legion said. “Nothing’ll bite until then. After that, you’re on your own.”

“Just like that?” said St. George. “After all this time, you’ve got us down and beat and you’re just walking away?”

“No,” said the ex. “You’re walking away. I’m lettin’ you.”

“I do not believe you,” said Stealth.

“The fuck do I care if you believe me or not?”

St. George looked the dead man in the eye. “Why?”

Legion waved the mangled hand at the web of ash. “I ain’t stupid. El demonio here was gonna trash my city. You helped stop it. Gets you a pass. One time only.”

St. George and Legion stared at each other for a moment, and then the hero nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, fuck you, too,” said the ex. “Last thing I want is to owe you anything.”

“One hour, then,” said St. George.

Legion grunted at the hero and glanced at Stealth.

She crossed her arms. “This changes nothing.”

“Damn straight.”

“You are a murderer.”

“Take a look in the mirror, puta,” the ex snorted. “We’re all killers. I just killed people you liked more, that’s all.”

The dead man turned and walked away from them.

“And what happens next time we’re outside?” called St. George. “We’ll just go back to trying to wipe each other out?”

Legion looked back. “Guess you’ll find out,” he said. “You got an hour.”

The dead man’s face went slack and it stumbled on its next step. But its jaws didn’t move. The lines began to break up and the silent exes staggered off in different directions.

St. George looked at Stealth. She stared after the dead man. “Now what?”

“Captain Freedom requires medical attention,” she said. “Zzzap, Corpse Girl, and I will make our own way back to the Big Wall. If Legion keeps his word, we should have no problem reaching the South Gate within an hour.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“We shall find a secure location and await your return. For now, you should get the captain to the hospital.”

“Yeah,” said St. George, nodding. “He was looking pretty … damn it.”

He hurled himself into the air and headed back to the Trader Joe’s.

The puddle of blood around Max wasn’t as wide as St. George expected, but he was still pretty sure the sorcerer was dead. The man’s skin was as white as Madelyn’s, and his chest was soaked in red where the bullets had punched into him. He didn’t move at all as St. George landed on the rooftop.

Then he shook and coughed up a spray of red. His eyes fluttered and he looked up at St. George. “Ahhh,” he croaked. “So … you won.”

“Yeah.”

“Congrat …” He coughed again and flecks of blood came out of the holes in his chest.

“Save it,” St. George said. “I’m going to get you to the hospital.”

Max’s head trembled side to side. He raised his hand an inch and tried to wave the hero back. “No,” he wheezed. “Done this enough times now.”

“You have another cheat lined up?”

Another minimal shake of the head. “I’m done. Glad … glad you killed him.”

“Is this your deathbed conversion?”

The sorcerer managed a weak smile. “Was on your side all along.”

St. George shook his head. “Sorry. I don’t buy it.”

“Why’d I … Why’d I tell you how to kill him, then?”

He looked at the dying sorcerer.

“Every word I said … almost every thought I had …” Max paused to suck in some air and the chest wounds wheezed. It was a wet sound. “…   had to convince one of the nine lords of the Abyss I was on his side.”

“I wish I could believe you,” he said.

“That’s … that’s the trouble with the real world, George.” He took another wheezing breath. His last one. “Good and evil are never … that black …”

Max let the air out of his lungs. St. George waited a moment, making sure the man was gone. He left the body on the rooftop.

Madelyn reached down and tapped the gold band on the skeletal finger. It swung back and forth. She shivered. “Do you think he’s really dead?”

Stealth looked at the skeleton. “Cairax Murrain or Regenerator?”

The dead girl rubbed her arms. “I don’t know. Either of them?”

“I believe the demon has been killed or banished.”

“And the … the other guy?”

The bones of the arms and legs looked shorter. The teeth in the skull were still long, but not the tusks they’d been just a few minutes earlier. The horns were little more than lumps across the frontal and parietal bones. It might’ve