Ex-Communication

Eighteen Now

THE COUPLE ON the other side of the street glanced at Madelyn. She tried to walk casually and watched them without turning her head. When their gaze didn’t leave her, she gave them a nod, a tight smile, and a little wave. The woman returned the wave and whispered something to the man, but they stopped looking at her and kept walking.

It was the third time this morning her disguise had worked, and she was feeling pretty good about it. The collar of her jacket was turned up and Captain Freedom’s cap sat low against her latest pair of sunglasses. She was lucky the hospital had a small stockpile of them. With her hands in her pockets, she was pretty sure she’d pass as a living person if nobody got too close.

She walked down El Centro, a residential street running parallel to Vine. At each intersection she could see the Big Wall a block to the east. If her notes were right, she was two blocks away from the gate she’d walked past with Freedom.

They were going to be annoyed with her for sneaking out of the hospital. The guards on her floor had been pretty lazy because they all thought her memory issues meant she was stupid. She’d heard them talk about how she’d probably forget the way out of the building or how to open doors. Adults were always underestimating her. It pissed her off sometimes.

And she’d been a lot better about writing in her diary since arriving at the Mount. She had a lot more downtime, after all. Dr. Connolly even found two more notebooks for her. It meant she was clearer than she’d felt in ages.

Which was why Madelyn decided she needed to run some tests. Her dad had been very big on teaching her to use rational thought and the scientific method in all things. Schoolwork, cooking, sports, even dating.

In the months she’d spent— years , she corrected herself—wandering the Southwest, she’d come to suspect the exes didn’t react to her the same way they did to living people. It’d never occurred to her they couldn’t actually see or hear her. Even if it had, who’d want to test that theory out in the middle of nowhere?

Madelyn turned down a side street and the sound of clicking teeth grew louder. She stepped out onto Vine. The West Gate and its guard shack sat just a little bit to the south at the next big intersection.

She stayed on the sidewalk and slowed down a bit. There were more people along the street here and she didn’t want to scare anyone. Or get shot. A few of the guards on the Wall were dressed in uniforms, but all of them were carrying big military rifles.

She turned away from the Wall and fished her eyedrops out of her pocket. A quick glance confirmed there was nobody within a block of her, and none of them were paying attention to her. Her head tilted back and she pushed her glasses onto her forehead. The soothing drops washed across her eyes and the sunglasses slid back into place.

Through the gate she could see the exes. Dozens of them. Hundreds, she realized, as she got closer. A lot of them were looking up at the people on top of the Big Wall. Some of them stretched arms through the bars to flail at passing people who were far out of their reach.

She was about ten yards from the gate when one of the guards noticed her. He was a tall man dressed in military camos. She didn’t recognize him. He saw her cap and gave her an approving nod. “Don’t get too close,” he called down to her. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the sound of teeth.

“How close is too close?” she called back. She tried to sound a little flirty. Guys let you get away with a lot more when they thought you were flirting.

She saw his chest move with a chuckle she couldn’t hear. He pointed with his free hand. “See the line?”

Madelyn looked at the bright line painted in front of the gate. “Yep.”

“Stay a yard back from the line and you’ll be fine. They won’t be able to touch you.”

He was reassuring her, she realized. A lot of people probably came to the gates, looking for familiar faces. A lot of those After Death folks. She gave him a nod and he turned his attention back to the creatures on the other side of the Wall.

There were two guards in the shack, but they were eating lunch. One looked at her, and his eyes lingered long enough to worry her. Then he went back to his sandwich.

It was just her and the exes. There were dead men, women, and children. Young and old. Black, white, Latino, Asian. The ex-virus didn’t discriminate.

Except for me, thought Madelyn. It doesn’t want me for some reason.

On the plus side, the exes were falling apart and she wasn’t. They were missing fingers and hair and skin. Some of them had dark sockets where there should’ve been eyes or noses or ears.

Most of the ones at the gate were watching the guards on top of the Big Wall. Their attention kept shifting to the nearest target as the men and women walked back and forth. It made them sway.

A dozen or so at the far end of the gate stretched their hands at the shack. The windows were large enough for them to see the two men inside. Their crooked fingers clawed at the air, trying to pull the structure closer.

She moved a little closer to the shack. The exes there had their eyes at ground level, but she didn’t want to get near enough for the guards to get a good look at her. She took a few steps forward and stood a foot back from the painted line.

None of them looked at her.

She took a breath and held it for a minute. “Hi, there,” she said. Her words were washed away under the torrent of clicking ivory. She tried again and it came out louder than she’d intended. One of the guards walking above her, a rail-thin woman, glanced down for a moment before continuing south along the Wall.

The exes didn’t react to the sound at all. Their heads never moved in her direction. Their grasping hands didn’t reach for her.

A dead man with sun-bleached hair stood right in front of her. It wore a tuxedo jacket over jeans and a brown T-shirt, and it took her a moment to realize the brown was all stains. It stretched its arms toward the guard shack. Two of its fingernails were missing on one hand.

Madelyn took another step and set her toes on the line. She pulled her hand from her pocket and moved it back and forth in front of the dead man’s face. The ex’s eyes stayed focused on the shack a few yards away. “Can you hear me?”

She glanced around. The guards were ignoring her for the moment, wrapped up in their breaks or their duties. She reached across the line and tapped the ex on the back of its grasping hand.

It paused for a moment, then went back to reaching for the guard shack. Both her feet were past the line. They could grab her. There were three of them who could reach her without even trying. But they didn’t try.

Madelyn slid forward, lined up between the bars, and punched the ex in the shoulder. The tuxedo corpse rocked on its feet, but its focus never shifted. All the exes around it ignored her, too.

“Hey,” yelled someone up on the Wall. “Get back behind the line!”

Madelyn looked up and saw the guard in the camos staring at her. His face was trying to decide if it was angry or scared. Two other guards were turning to see what he was yelling about.

Then everything happened at once.

An ex a few feet away, two down from the one she’d punched, shifted on its feet. It was a thin man in a long coat. It wore a helmet wrapped in digital-camo cloth. The ex looked around and she realized it was reacting. It was doing something different. Like the ones had the other day when she was out with Freedom.

It had a pistol. It slid the weapon out from under its coat and brought it up. The barrel pointed between the bars at the gatehouse. The dead man’s face pulled into a grin.

Something landed behind her. The camo guard had leaped twenty feet through the air to land on the pavement. The name on his coat said JEFFERSON . His hand reached for her shoulder. He was looking at her, not at the exes. Not at the ex with the gun.

She acted without thinking. It was like soccer. The ball came at you and you leaped to block it. You didn’t think. She knew the ex was going to shoot the guards in the shack, so she just acted.

She twisted away from Jefferson and pushed down on the gun just as the ex squeezed the trigger. The pistol jerked under her hand, and the blast sparked against the pavement in front of the shack. The arm fought back and she struggled to keep the weapon pointed at the ground. The barrel was hot now.

“Gun!” bellowed Jefferson. He leaped back and swung his rifle around. At the same time he grabbed Madelyn by the arm with his free hand and yanked her away from the gate. He was strong. Really strong. It crossed her mind he was one of her dad’s super-soldiers just as her feet left the ground and she sailed through the air. If Jefferson hadn’t held on she would’ve tumbled across the road. As it was her hat went flying and her hair spun in every direction. The landing shook her and knocked her sunglasses to the ground.

The guards up above looked confused. Some of them shot down into the exes outside the Big Wall. Jefferson fired through the gate. The ex with the pistol slumped with a hole in its head.

A dozen sleepwalking exes woke up. Their posture shifted, their eyes became alert beneath their helmets. Pistols and rifles appeared from under shirts and coats. Some of them aimed at the guard shack. A few leaned back to aim at the guards on top of the Wall. At least three aimed at Jefferson, enough to make him hesitate for a moment. Shots echoed across the street and one of the guards howled and grabbed at his arm.

None of the exes aimed at Madelyn. None of them even looked at her.

She lunged past Jefferson again and grabbed a pistol from the dead man holding it. The gun flew over her shoulder and she reached through the gate to yank a rifle away from the next ex.

The exes looked confused. “WHAT THE HELL?” they all roared at once.

The rifle was heavier than Madelyn thought it would be, so she let it clatter on the pavement halfway through the bars. She took two quick steps and grabbed a pistol with each hand. She tried to think of it like a game. The weapon-grabbing game. One of the handguns went off as she grabbed it, and another shot thundered near her head. She cringed away but didn’t feel any pain.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?” The exes looked past her at Jefferson. Then up in the air and all around them. Their heads moved in sync, like dancers or those Olympic swimmers. They were so confused they’d only fired a dozen shots so far.

She smacked a pistol out of withered fingers and brought both palms down on a soldiery-looking rifle with a curved clip. The dead man holding it fought back and snarled at the weapon. Her fist flew through the bars to punch the ex in the nose and she twisted the rifle away. She threw a clumsy kick and another pistol spun into the air.

More gunfire exploded around her. She flinched away from the exes, and just as she realized the sound was coming from behind her Jefferson dragged her clear again. He held his rifle in the other hand, snapping off shots like it was an oversized pistol. The guards from the shack joined him.

A dozen exes dropped across the width of the gate. They roared and fell and the ones behind them picked up the roar. The guards up on the Wall fired into the mob of exes. There was some return fire but it didn’t last long.

Madelyn took a few deep breaths. It had all happened so fast. She glanced at the watches on her wrist and guessed maybe five minutes had passed since she walked up to the gate.

The exes at the gate tripped over their fallen brethren. Jefferson moved in and slid the fallen weapons away with his foot.

Then he turned and his rifle settled on Madelyn.

She threw her hands out and shouted, “Hey, whoa!” Even as she did, she saw her sunglasses on the ground. She really needed to get a strap or a lanyard or something for them. She blinked, then closed her eyes. “Call St. George,” she said. “Or Captain Freedom. I know what I look like but I’m not one of them.”

“It’s her,” murmured someone. “It’s the corpse girl I heard they were keeping at the hospital.”

Madelyn opened one eye. Three of the guards up on the Wall were still watching the exes beyond the gate. The rest stared at her with awe. Jefferson lowered his rifle a bit. She guessed if it went off now, it would hit her in the gut instead of the head.

She took in a breath and cleared her throat. “That’s right,” she said. “I’m from the hospital. And I need to get back or St. George is going to be angry with me.”

“She’s still got her soul,” said a woman on the Wall. She pulled a string of rosary beads from her pocket and crossed herself. “It’s true. They can come back.”

The guard by the shack murmured something. Madelyn realized he was praying. She looked at Jefferson. He glanced at the others and back at her.

Then she heard fast, heavy footsteps—someone running up behind her. Jefferson’s face relaxed even as his shoulders squared up. “Sir,” he said, “this young woman claims you know her, sir.”

She turned and looked up into Freedom’s face. He gazed down at her and set his jaw. “I do,” he said, “and I’ve been looking for her.”

Nineteen

Now

ST. GEORGE STOOD in the air and examined the symbol burned into the pavement outside the West Gate. Even with a dozen exes meandering over it, he could see it was different from the one up on Bronson Avenue. That one had been an hourglass, but this looked more like a pair of overlapping triangles. He tried to read some of the words scribbled out along the lines, but the walking dead made it hard to see anything more than a few syllables here and there. It wasn’t English, and it didn’t look like any of the Spanish words he knew. If he had to guess, he’d say it was Latin.

The edge of the circle was twenty feet out from the Big Wall, past the crosswalk and across from a dust-covered bus stop. For a moment he thought about flying up and looking at it from above. Then he remembered the dead woman twisting and exploding at the North Gate. There were two stains on the far edge of the circle where the same thing had happened here. He decided he could see it well enough from where he was.

He looked at the swarm below him and picked an ex at random. It was an emaciated woman with blond hair and clothes that had been stylish before the end of the world. She’d probably been pretty when she was alive. Now the skin was stripped from its chin and half its neck. Its bottom lip was gone and the teeth were yellow and cracked.

He wondered if the wound was how the woman had died. Maybe an ex had torn off part of her face with its teeth, letting her get away only to die and rise. Or maybe it was something someone had done trying to put the dead woman down, a blow to the skull that had missed.

St. George swooped down and lifted the dead thing by the back of the neck. It twisted in his grip as the ground fell away beneath its feet. A few nearby exes made awkward grabs at him as he rose back into the air with his catch. He drifted across the Wall and settled down in the open space inside the gate.

His boots tapped the pavement but he kept his arm up. The dead woman saw Cerberus, Jefferson, and another guard named Derek standing in a loose semicircle. The ex stretched out its arms and made awkward grabs at them. It swung back and forth in St. George’s grip.

Madelyn shifted behind Cerberus. She’d been skittish around the guards since Freedom left. St. George shook his head and gestured for her to come out in the open. “You’re safe here,” he told her. “No matter what happens, you’ll be safe.”

Jefferson stepped forward, his rifle braced in one arm. He batted away the grasping fingers, and gave the ex a quick pat-down with his free hand. “Clear,” he said.

“Can’t believe we need to start watching them for weapons,” said Derek. “I mean … a zombie with a gun? It sounds like a joke.”

“Not anymore,” Cerberus said. She pointed at a pair of exes in camoflaged helmets. “Legion got to the armory out in Van Nuys. Weapons, ammunition, helmets, body armor.” Her head shook back and forth. “For all we know he’s got a dozen exes out there watching the walls through telescopic sights.”

Derek grimaced at the thought. So did a few guards on the Wall within earshot. The casualness faded from their movements.

St. George gave the ex a shake and raised his voice. “Rodney,” he shouted. “Time to have a talk.”

His voice echoed out across the street for a moment and then the dead woman stopped thrashing. The clicking teeth stopped and its face shifted from a blank mask to a surly grimace. It reached back to swat the hero with one hand. “Told you plenty of times, dragon man,” the ex said, “it’s Legion now.” Without a bottom lip, its voice was a drunken rasp, like the words were being dragged into the air across sandpaper.

Cerberus leaned forward with a hiss of servos and scraping armor.

St. George set the dead thing down. It shrugged a few times and turned to glare up at him. The ex had been a tiny woman, a good six inches shorter than the hero. “Got a question for you,” he said. As an afterthought he added, “Legion.”

The dead woman snorted. “The answer is fuck you.”

“All that time you were hiding out at Krypton, while Dr. Sorensen was covering for you, were you ever going to keep your side of the deal you made?”

Madelyn stiffened at the mention of her father. Her face got hard and she took a bold step away from Cerberus. Her sneakers slapped hard on the pavement, almost a stomp.

The ex didn’t even glance at her. “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” it said to St. George.

“The one where you told him you’d find his family for him.”

The dead woman sneered as best it could. “What’s it to you?”

“Think of it as your big chance to prove you’re better than I think you are,” said the hero.

Madelyn took another few steps forward. The only person closer to the dead woman now was St. George. Madelyn stood up straight in front of the ex.

Legion tried to spit at St. George, but without a lower lip it just leaked thick oil over its chin. “Yeah, my word matters,” it growled. “I looked for them, just like I said. Didn’t make any difference. His old lady’s dead and walking. Never found the girl’s body. Figured it was easier to let the old guy think I was still looking.”

“And it gave you a place to hide,” said Cerberus.

The ex turned to the armored titan. Its gaze passed right through Madelyn. She even stepped to the side to stay in front of the dead woman’s face. “Fuck you, puta ,” Legion spat at Cerberus. “I don’t hide from nothing.”

“Except me,” she said. The titan held out one massive gauntlet at head height and squeezed it into a fist. The ex gave her the finger.

St. George nodded. “So you looked for his daughter and never found her?”

Legion returned the nod while Madelyn waved both hands in front of the ex’s face. “Yeah. Never saw any sign of her. What’s it to you, esse ?”

St. George smiled. “Okay,” he said, “I think that answers that.”

“Answers what?” growled the ex.

“It makes sense in a way,” said Cerberus. “I remember the military tried using dead bodies as bait for a while, but the exes only react to living people.”

“Yeah, I remember something about that,” said St. George. “The bait thing.”

“Bait?” echoed Legion. “What the fuck you people talking about?”

“Doc Sorensen ran some tests out at Krypton, sir,” offered Jefferson with a polite nod to Madelyn. “He said it’s some kind of perception thing, like how the T. Rex in Jurassic Park can’t see you if you don’t move.”

“ Jurassic Park ?” echoed Cerberus.

Legion’s eyes flitted between them. “What the fuck you people talking about?”

Jefferson glanced at the talking ex, then back to the heroes. “I remember it because the T. Rex scared the piss out of me as a kid. Pardon me, ma’am,” he added to Madelyn. “He said it was something to do with the reptilian brain. They see everything, they just process it different than we do. Living things get priority over dead things, moving things get priority over still things, things they see get priority over things they hear, like that. He said that’s why they run into walls and stuff.”

“They don’t need it, so they don’t register seeing it,” said Cerberus. She looked at the dead woman. “And he’s in the exes, so maybe he’s stuck using their senses. Or not using them, I guess.”

“And she’s dead,” said St. George with a glance at Madelyn, “so she’s not a priority.”

Legion looked down at the body he was wearing. One of the hands flexed open and closed. The ex’s brow furrowed in confusion. “She who?”

“We know he can see nonliving things,” said Cerberus. “Maybe it’s a focus issue?”

Madelyn took her cap off and waved it in the air in front of the dead woman. “So, you’re saying I’m not invisible, I’ve got a perception filter? Like on Doctor Who ?”

St. George, Cerberus, and the guards all looked at her.

“ Doctor Who ,” she repeated. “It’s this sci-fi show from England.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of it,” said St. George.

“Heard of what?” said Legion.

“Okay,” Madelyn said, “well, there’s this thing they use on it called a perception filter. It’s like a force field that makes things inside it less interesting so you can’t focus on them. So you’re sort of invisible but not really. You’re just … very forgettable.”

She waved the cap in front of the ex again for emphasis.

“Well, there’s one way to be sure.” St. George took a few steps back and looked at Madelyn. “Go ahead and hit him.”

“Her?” asked Madelyn, nodding at the ex.

“This some game, pendejo ?” asked the dead woman. “Who you people keep talking to?”

“Yep,” said St. George. “Go for it.”

Legion looked up at St. George. “What?”

Madelyn let the cap drop from her hand. It hit the ground and Legion’s head shifted to glare at it. The dead eyes went wide for a moment. “The fuck?” he said.

“See?” said Cerberus. “He saw that.”

“That’s the big guy’s hat,” said the dead woman. “Where’d that come fr—”

Madelyn slammed her fist into the ex’s shoulder. It wasn’t a great punch, but Legion staggered back a step and spun around. “What the FUCK!” he shouted. The ex reached up to probe its shoulder with its fingers. It glared at the heroes.

“He can feel getting hit,” Madelyn said, “I just don’t think he knows I’m doing it.”

“Maybe it’s because he doesn’t know what to look for,” mused Cerberus. “He can’t prioritize you because he doesn’t know you’re there. It doesn’t even seem like he hears you.”

Madelyn leaned into the ex’s ear. “Hey!” she shouted. “I’m right here!”

“Hear who?” said Legion. The dead woman looked up at Cerberus, then past Madelyn to the roof of a nearby building. “Stealth up there somewhere? This her idea?”

“Hit him in the face,” said Cerberus. “For science.”

Madelyn grimaced, but threw another punch. It caught the dead woman on her bare jaw. Legion stumbled and spun around, clawed hands missing Madelyn by a good three or four feet. The ex spat out a mouthful of Spanish swears and curses that made St. George’s mouth twist into a smile. She poked the dead woman a few times from different directions, making it twist around, then placed her hands on its back and shoved it toward the gate. The dead thing stumbled and tried to get its balance back.

“Oh my God,” said the armored titan. “Once again, science makes the world a better place.”

Jefferson snorted out a laugh.

“This feels kind of mean,” Madelyn said. “I mean, I know he’s the bad guy, but he can’t fight back or anything.”

“You’re not doing anything he doesn’t deserve a hundred times over,” said Cerberus.

“True enough,” said St. George, “but I think we’ve learned what we needed to know, anyway.”

“What is this?” snarled Legion. “Got someone invisible now, that it? Pushing me around and taking my guns?”

“Something like that,” said St. George. “Might want to keep it in mind next time you try rushing the walls.”

“I’ll remember it,” grunted the dead woman. It took in a hissing breath and so did a dozen exes pressed up against the gate. They all spoke with Legion’s voice. “I’LL REMEMBER IT THE NEXT TIME YOU’RE OUTSIDE.”

“Y’know, you’re starting to overuse that trick,” St. George said. “It’s not as scary as it used to be.”

The dead woman made another messy attempt to spit at him and then her jaw started chomping up and down again. Madelyn hopped away from the ex. The teeth clacked together half a dozen times before St. George grabbed the dead thing and pitched it over the top of the Big Wall.

“Game’s changing again,” Legion said from the gate. Now it was a dead man with a helmet and a series of silver loops running along each lip. “I got guns. I got armor. Next time we do this it’s gonna be big.”

St. George walked up to the gate. “Try it,” he said. “One of these days—”

“What, dragon man?” The ex grinned at him. Half its teeth were cracked from banging against each other for months. “You can’t stop me. Can’t do anything. Go ahead and beat up a hundred stiffs. Two hundred if it makes you feel all macho. Can’t touch me, and you know it.”

Smoke curled out of St. George’s nose as he glared at the dead man through the fence. He could feel things twisting at the back of his throat and swallowed the flames down. His fingers curled into fists and he had to fight the urge to drive one of them through the ex’s face.

Someone stepped next to him. Madelyn reached out and poked the tip of the dead man’s nose. Legion growled and stepped back from the gate.

“I can touch you,” she said, “and you’ll never know it’s coming.” She stood up straight and crossed her arms. “Damn it, that was totally cool and he couldn’t even hear me.”

The dead man squinted at the air next to Madelyn. Then its gaze flitted to the left and locked eyes with her. She took a quick step back.

“There you are,” the ex growled. “All fuzzy and blendin’ in, but I see you.”

St. George snapped his fingers. Legion glanced at him, and when the pale eyes swung back they went past Madelyn. The dead man scowled and took a few more steps back.

“I’ll figure that one out, too,” Legion said. The exes stepped back, clearing a path for him as he marched away from the gate. “You go ahead and keep thinking I’m stupid. How many people that cost you so far?” He looked back over his shoulder. “How’s your buddy with the beard doing? Jarvis?”

St. George’s fists shook. He breathed out hard and licks of flame slipped out between his lips. He took in a breath to yell after the ex, or maybe send a ball of fire, and froze.

On the far side of the street, just across the symbol burned into the pavement, two of the exes had turned to face Legion. Their faces twisted into twin expressions of pure rage. Their eyes swelled and burst, spilling blue fire across their faces.

Uncertain muttering broke out across the Big Wall.

“Rodney,” St. George called out. “Stop moving!”

The dead man sneered at him over its shoulder as it stepped onto the symbol. “It’s Legion!” said the ex. “Not your fucking servant boy to call up when you want something. Remember that next time you want to play fucking games.”

“Seriously,” yelled St. George. “Look out!”

The exes at the seal bent and swelled. A third one opened its mouth to reveal a forest of long teeth. A fourth held up hands with dagger-like fingernails.

“You’re pathetic, dragon man, and any day now I’m gonna—”

The distorted exes pounced on Legion as he stepped off the symbol. It was like watching cats fight, a ball of teeth and muscle and claws that spun and twisted too fast to see more than glimpses. More exes piled into the fight, some of them with burning eyes and some shouting in Spanish.

And then they started to explode. And Legion started to scream. It was a long howl of pure agony.

Instinct pushed St. George into the air. “Cerberus,” he shouted, “get ready to go out there. We need to—”

He dropped out of the sky and hit the pavement hard next to the silver titan.

“Don’t do it, George,” someone said.

Max stood in the street behind them. Somewhere he’d found a charcoal suit. The sleeves were pushed up to reveal the tattoos on his forearms. He had his hands pressed palm to palm against each other so his fingertips touched his wrists.

St. George leaped to his feet, focused on the spot between his shoulder blades, and stayed on the ground. Something pushed down against him. He focused harder and the something pushed harder.

Max shook his head and raised his hands without separating them. “I can’t let you go out there.”

The hero glanced out the gate. The screaming was more ragged. Between the exes he could see the bursts of blue flame and dark gore. “It’s killing him. We can’t just—”

“No great loss,” said Max. “But either way, you’re the last person who should step past the seals.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Not against that.”

Cerberus took three huge strides and set an armored gauntlet on Max’s shoulder. Her fingers flexed. “Let him go.”

St. George tried to throw himself into the air again. He couldn’t even jump while Max held him down. “Even Rodney doesn’t deserve that.”

“Not the point. You’re not a normal human, George. You’re tough. You’re strong. Your body could take possession as is. He could use you.”

“Boss,” shouted Derek from the top of the Wall. “It’s stopped.”

St. George glared at Max. The sorcerer looked at the silent street through the gate and nodded. “Don’t go out there,” he said. “Seriously.”

He glanced up at Cerberus and pulled his hands apart. St. George lifted into the air. The hero floated up and settled on the platform by Derek. Madelyn dashed up the staircase to stand next to him.

At least a dozen unmoving exes littered the street past the symbol, and enough parts and gray meat to make up another dozen. The remaining undead stumbled around like shell-shocked survivors of a bomb blast.

While they watched, another ex stopped and turned to look at them. A heavyset man in a bloodstained football jersey. It roared and flames poured out of its mouth and ragged nostrils. Its eyes boiled away. A hand came up and pointed a long spidery finger at the figures on the Wall.

“What the fuck is that?” muttered Derek. “A couple exes did that the other day.”

“And why’s it pointing at me?” asked one of the guards.

“It’s pointing at me,” St. George told him.

Derek shook his head. “Are you sure? It looks like it’s aimed right at me.”

“I’m sure. Calm down.”

“So what is it?”

“It’s death,” said Max. He was up on the Wall next to them. “It’s the most nightmarish death you can imagine.”

The ex stretched and twisted. Tusks and fangs burst from its mouth even as its spine arched like a snake. A forest of spikes sprouted across its back and arms, shredding the football jersey. The prehistoric roar echoed from its mouth again and shook the Big Wall.

The blue flames swallowed its head, burning it down to a bare skull. Its flesh tore at the joints and the dead thing burst like a water balloon. Dark blood and gore splattered across the street.

Max raised his voice. “Cairax Murrain is going to kill every living thing it can, anyone it can reach. Make sure everyone knows. Man, woman, child … superhuman.” He looked at St. George and let his gaze drift over to Cerberus down at the gate. “Right now, the only safe place in this city is inside these walls.”

The muttering that had echoed along the Big Wall turned into nervous discussion. Some of the guards crossed themselves. Others gripped their weapons even harder. They all stared out at the symbol burned into the pavement, just a few yards out from the gate.

And a few of them were on their radios, spreading the word.

St. George grabbed Max and leaped down to Cerberus. “Great,” he snapped. “You just scared a bunch of people.”

“Good,” Max said. “Right now none of you are anywhere near as scared as you should be.”

Madelyn pushed past the guards on the Wall to race down the staircase. She leaped past the last few steps to land in a crouch on the pavement. A few quick steps put her right next to St. George again.

He barely noticed, his attention focused on Max. “Look, it’s your demon, right? If I can beat it alone, Cerberus and I can go out there and—”

“You didn’t beat Cairax, George. You beat me.”

“No, I think it was—”

“No.” Max shook his head. “What you beat was a shadow. That was Cairax Murrain starved, handcuffed, gagged, and shoved in a sack. It’s like punching Mike Tyson when he’s asleep. And even then, the only way you beat him was taking the Sativus off and turning him back into me.”

The sorcerer turned to gesture through the gate. “What’s out there now is the real thing. No psychic chains, no magical restraints, no limits whatsoever. None. It’s at full strength and it’s seriously pissed off that I had it bound for over two years. Way, way more pissed than I thought it was going to be, and that’s really saying something. So trust me when I say you do not want to go out there. Out there, you’ve got a life expectancy of two minutes if you’re lucky.”

Cerberus’s feet scraped on the pavement. “You don’t think he’d last that long?”

“No,” said Max with a shake of his head and a meaningful stare at St. George, “I meant he’d be lucky if he died that quick.”

Twenty

Now

FREEDOM LIKED WALKING the streets. It reminded him of being on patrol, which was much more in line with what he was trained to do. Plus, after close to three years in the desert at Project Krypton, there was something luxurious about the trees, shrubs, and small lawns of Los Angeles.

He hadn’t been thrilled with the idea of using Madelyn as a test subject, let alone with one involving exes. He understood how important it could seem on one level, but he also knew in the long run it wouldn’t mean much. Freedom was a longtime believer in Bradley’s old adage, “Amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics.” Having one person at the Mount who couldn’t be detected by the exes or Legion would be more of a minor convenience than a major advantage.

Especially when the one person was a teenage girl.

“Six, this is Seven,” echoed a voice over his earbud.

“Seven, this is Six,” he responded.

Even though she’d grudgingly accepted her new position at the Mount, First Sergeant Kennedy still insisted on using military protocol and call signs over the radio. It had caused chaos at first as every Wall guard, deputy, and scavenger with a radio took on a self-assigned number. She’d finally sat all of them down for a series of lessons and explained why they couldn’t refer to themselves as Sixty-Nine, Eight-Fifteen, Red Five, SG-1, or any of the others they’d picked.

And they all still just called for St. George by name.

“Six, this is Seven,” Kennedy said. “Update on that domestic dispute at Raleigh. Got a little out of hand. We’ve got three in the brig, two injured. One civilian, one of ours.”

“Seven, this is Six. Anything serious?”

“Six, this is Seven. All injuries are minor. I’ll let you talk to the deputy when you get back.”

Kennedy using the word deputy meant it was one of the civilian peacekeepers. If it had been one of her own soldiers, she would’ve called them out and used verbal shorthand to let Freedom know the exact infraction. It was a habit he noticed her using more and more, keeping civilians and soldiers separate.

When Freedom had taken command of the Mount’s police force, it had been a disorganized mess. Looking back over the past months, he could admit they hadn’t helped matters by expecting everyone to conform to military standards. The call signs had been the tip of the iceberg. After a few years of postapocalyptic life, his people were as unprepared to deal with civilians as the civilians were to deal with structured law enforcement.

It didn’t help that there was a fair amount of animosity toward the soldiers. The people of the Mount had lost family and friends, lives and homes, and the U.S. Army hadn’t been there to protect them. Freedom had overheard more than a few grumbles about the men and women of the Alpha 456th Unbreakables becoming part of the command structure in Los Angeles.

Which was the problem. Freedom and his soldiers were military trying to command civilians. It was a gray area they were still exploring. He was used to conditions of absolute authority, and the huge officer was very aware the only reason the civilian police listened to him or Kennedy was because Stealth had told them to.

He was close to the southwest corner of the Big Wall, on a street called Larchmont, when he heard a faint noise over the echo of teeth. He’d heard it before, in Afghanistan. A series of sharp pops echoing back and forth between the buildings. The sound of gunfire in a quiet city. There was nothing else quite like it.

He tapped his earbud. “This is Six,” he said. “Report. I hear shots fired?”

Another squelch of voices stepped over one another before a voice stood out. A man shouted into his microphone loud enough to make Freedom wince and grab for his ear. “It’s out,” the man yelled. “It got out!”

“This is Six,” Freedom said. “Calm down.”

“It got out,” repeated the man. “I think Katie’s dead. It was so fast, and the bullets didn’t stop it. They didn’t even slow it down!”

“Twenty-Four, this is Seven,” said Kennedy. “Stand by, units are coming to your position.” She’d identified the man’s voice and given Freedom the location. Twenty-Four was shorthand for second platoon, fourth squad. And squad four was inside the studio walls, broken into a few small teams to guard different positions.

Freedom started running. He was three blocks from the Mount. The long, north–south blocks of Hollywood. “Twenty-Four, this is Six,” he said. “Coming to you.”

“This is Danny—uhhhh, Twenty-One—on the Wall. It just went over the Wall right by the Melrose Gate.”

Too much chatter and not enough information. He still didn’t know who or what they were fighting. It didn’t sound like exes. It sounded fast.

As Freedom passed an intersection he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. A figure dashed across the road parallel to him, two blocks over and heading south. He saw the pale skin and thought an ex was inside the walls, but no ex moved that fast, even the ones Legion controlled. The captain turned his head and got a quick glimpse of the figure—a blood-splattered old man wearing khakis and a white T-shirt.

Freedom made a snap call. He pivoted and went after the man. “Six to Seven,” he called out. “Target engaged.”

Whoever he was chasing was fast, even barefoot. Not as fast as Freedom or the other super-soldiers, but enough that for a moment he worried he was chasing one of his own. He closed the gap. The old man was a few yards ahead. And he was running out of road. Beverly was just a block ahead.

A new voice cut over the chatter. “Freedom, this is Stealth,” she said. “St. George is moving to join you. Stop the prisoner at all costs. Use lethal force, nothing less.”

The word prisoner stood out. So did lethal force . And so did the tone in Stealth’s voice. He’d never heard it in all the months he’d known the woman, but it almost sounded like she was worried. Maybe even scared.

Freedom had enough sense to know anything that scared Stealth was something he shouldn’t be second-guessing.

He stopped in a shooting stance, pulled out Lady Liberty, and fired off three quick bursts with the massive handgun.

A handful of red carnations blossomed across the old man’s back and thighs. One grew out of his shoulder. He stumbled and flew through the air, carried by his own momentum and the impact of several twelve-gauge slugs at short range. His body crashed onto the pavement, rolled a few yards, and came to rest. It twitched twice.

Freedom walked over to the crumpled figure. The man wasn’t as old as he’d thought. The hair was deceiving, and it was shockingly white against all the blood soaking the man’s clothes. His gray eyes stared up at the sky. One of his hands looked withered and bony, like a corpse. His shoulder was a tangle of red sinews.

He took a slow breath and tapped his earbud. “Seven, this is Six,” he said. “Be advised, target has been neutrali—”

The man rolled to his feet.

He locked eyes with Freedom and hurled something at the huge captain. It struck him in the shoulder, just past his body armor. It cut fabric and broke the skin, but even at the joints Freedom’s muscle was too dense for it to penetrate far. He brushed it away and it clattered on the ground with a sound like wood.

The chalk-haired man was on the move and half a block away, sprinting like he’d caught his second wind. Freedom raised his pistol and fired again. The prisoner staggered but kept moving.

He raced out onto Beverly, headed straight for the Big Wall. The guards had heard Lady Liberty and were waiting for him. None of them were Freedom’s soldiers. All five of them opened fire. Many of the shots sparked on the pavement—the guards weren’t used to a fast target—but a good number hit. Freedom saw the man’s limbs jerk and tremble, but he never broke stride.

Something uncoiled from the prisoner’s shoulder like a snake and he swung his arm up at the guards along the top of the Wall. A long cord lashed out and wrapped around the neck of one of the guards. The man let out a wet cough. His companions stopped firing and leaped to help him, grabbing at the line.

The prisoner jumped. He went hand over hand up the thick cord to the top of the Wall. A dozen feet in seconds. The guards didn’t even realize they were helping by pulling on the line until the white-haired man was on the platform with them.

Freedom was a dozen yards from the Wall. He flexed his legs and hurled himself into the air. The guards were too close to the prisoner for him to use Lady Liberty again.

The prisoner lashed out and a guard staggered. Another one opened fire. The white-haired man and a guard stumbled back, but only the guard dropped.

Freedom landed on the Big Wall. He heard two-by-fours crack under his heels, the wooden platform trembled, and the stack of cars groaned beneath them. For a brief moment the whole structure tilted.

“On your knees,” he bellowed. “Get on your knees with your hands on your head.” Even as the words left his lips, he remembered Stealth’s insistence on lethal force and realized nothing had stopped the man yet.

The prisoner glanced at the captain, then at the crowd of exes gathered below.

Freedom lunged forward.

The white-haired man threw himself over the railing and plunged into the horde outside the Big Wall.

Freedom looked over the edge. The prisoner had vanished beneath at least twenty undead. They swarmed over him and the sound of clicking teeth seemed to grow louder.

He turned to the men on the Wall. The two who were still on their feet, the shooter and a cornrowed woman, just stood there. Freedom knew the look. They were up and locked. The shooter kept glancing between the railing and the man he’d shot. The woman was frozen with her mouth half open.

“You,” he snapped at the shooter. He pointed at one of the bodies. “Check him. Now.”

The man blinked awake and ran to the fallen guard. The woman was still frozen. Freedom ignored her.

The man who’d been shot coughed and spat up some blood. Freedom could see the dark stain spreading across his chest. Bleeding but not spurting in pulses and not whistling. Serious, but probably not fatal if he got care soon enough.

The other man had a blade buried in his chest. It looked like it had been carved from pale wood—more of a stake than a blade. He was still breathing, but it was erratic. The shooter was gripping his hand and speaking to him, urging him not to quit.

The last guard, the one who’d been throttled by the prisoner’s line, unwrapped the last coil of it and tossed it aside. He was covered in blood. His hands were soaked with it, but there wasn’t enough to be arterial bleeding. The rope had just slashed through the skin of his neck.

“Seven,” Freedom said, “this is Six.”

“Six, this is Seven,” she replied.

“Seven, this is Six. Emergency medical to Big Wall south at Windsor. We have three wounded. One serious, one critical.”

She signaled her acknowledgment and his eyes fell on the line. He prodded it with his boot, then crouched to look at it. His brow furrowed.

The rope was a crude whip. The long strands weren’t leather, just sinew and tendons that had been dried and braided together. There were white barbs along the length of it, gathered in tight quartets. They gave the weapon a strong resemblance to a length of barbed wire. It took a moment for Freedom to realize he was looking at close to a dozen teeth woven into the whip’s lash with their roots pointing out.

He heard a noise and looked up to see Stealth. Her cloak streamed behind her. “Where is the prisoner?”

Freedom nodded at the railing. “He’s dead, ma’am. He threw himself off the Wall. The exes tore him ap—”

Stealth took three quick strides to the railing. Her hands flicked and her pistols were out. Freedom saw a quick ripple of movement within her hood as she scanned the street at the base of the Big Wall.

Then she fired both weapons, aiming at something across the street. Freedom unholstered Lady Liberty and joined Stealth at the railing just as her pistols ran dry. It took him a second to realize what she was shooting at.

The prisoner stood there, arms spread wide. His clothes had been shredded by the exes, and his skin was smeared with gore, but he was smiling. A dead woman latched onto his forearm and tore a mouthful of flesh away. Another one gnawed on his calf. The white-haired man didn’t seem to notice.

Stealth’s fingers shifted and empty magazines dropped from each pistol to rattle on the platform. She reloaded in seconds and was firing again. Freedom raised his own weapon and Lady Liberty thundered. The trigger-happy guard joined them, but Freedom could tell the man was just spraying bullets.

The prisoner flailed under the assault. His skin ruptured and blood sprayed across the lawn behind him. He staggered back and dropped on the grass. The exes chewing on him were torn apart by stray rounds from Lady Liberty’s bursts. Their remains fell on either side of the man.

“If you don’t mind my asking, ma’am,” said Freedom, “what the hell was that all about?”

The cloaked woman ignored him. She reloaded again.

The prisoner rolled over and scampered across the lawn on all fours.

Stealth tracked him and led her shots like a decorated marksman. Freedom saw her score half a dozen hits before the prisoner got back to his feet. The white-haired man sprinted to the end of the block before glancing back, and Stealth rewarded him with three rounds in the face. His forehead burst apart and he slumped against an SUV, but he was moving again before he hit the ground. He shook off the impact, rolled under the vehicle, and vanished.

A shadow passed over them. St. George hung in the air. “Go,” she shouted at him. “That way!”

The hero shot across the road after the escaped prisoner. He got to the SUV and shook his head. He raised his hands to his mouth and called out a name twice.

Freedom waited for the cloaked woman to turn to him, but she stared out after the prisoner. He took the moment to shove his earbud back in. The panicking man still monopolized the airwaves.

“Oh, Jesus,” said the voice on the radio. “The Thing got out. It got out of the Cellar.”