Ex-Communication

Thirty-Three Now

CAPTAIN FREEDOM SAT up and felt something flare in his side. A broken rib, maybe two. Fractured at the very least. He’d had enough of them over his career to know the feeling.

The sky flared with blue lightning and he heard the clicking of teeth beneath the rumble of thunder. Whatever had been keeping the exes off this city block had vanished, and now they were shambling toward him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw some of them stumble toward the demon. Cairax was swatting Zzzap and didn’t seem to notice.

Freedom risked a glance behind him past the glassy crater. Stealth and Madelyn had St. George free. The sorcerer was down. They were about ninety seconds from being overrun with exes themselves.

Lady Liberty had maybe five or six rounds left in her, plus one drum on his belt. He didn’t want to waste the ammunition on the undead, but he also wasn’t sure how much longer he’d need to hold off the demon.

The first of the exes closed in on him. It was a noseless man in a gore-splattered lab coat, a former doctor or scientist. Then Freedom saw the grocery store name tag and realized the dead man had been a butcher. The ex reached for him and he grabbed both its wrists in one hand. It bent its jaws to his knuckles and he cracked its forehead with one punch. He swung the withered body around and hurled it at Cairax Murrain.

The demon was still looking in his direction, even while fighting Zzzap. The knife-like talons lashed out and caught the corpse in midair, slicing it in half.

Freedom looked at the approaching wave of undead. The cracked ribs flared as he turned. His legs flexed and he hurled himself away from the crater.

As he landed a dozen exes reached the edge where he’d been. They tumbled in. The first few hit the glassy floor with the loud cracks of breaking jaws and noses. The dead made no attempt to break their fall. Some of them crawled away before the second wave fell on top of them, but not many. In a minute the pit had become a mass of undead limbs and chattering teeth.

Three other exes reached Freedom. He lashed out with his massive fists, breaking teeth and skulls and glad for his Kevlar gloves. The zombies dropped around him, but there was a small pack of six or seven headed his way. Two of them wore bloodstained police vests, even though only one was wearing a uniform.

There was another hiss of superheated air from off to his left. Cairax Murrain was saying something to Zzzap, but Freedom couldn’t understand it over the sounds of shuffling feet, clicking teeth, and sizzling pavement. He glanced right and saw St. George scoop up the sorcerer’s body.

Freedom pulled out Lady Liberty and fired off two bursts at the pack of exes, emptying the drum. He aimed low. The shells blew out knees and shattered shins. Four of the zombies collapsed, and two more fell on top of them. It gave him a few moments, but there were still more coming.

Stealth caught his eye as he reloaded. It was hard to be sure with her mask and cloak, especially in the dark, but the woman seemed to be staring at him. She made a series of quick gestures and Freedom realized she was using Army Field Manual hand signals. And at least two unique to the Unbreakables.

She repeated her instructions. He signaled his understanding.

St. George leaped into the air. He set Max down on the roof of Trader Joe’s. The sorcerer was safe from exes, but he’d die if they didn’t get him to a hospital soon.

“You can’t beat it,” wheezed Max. A few drops of blood came up with the words. He looked pale. “You don’t have the tools.”

“I guess we’ll see.”

Max shook his head. It was a loose gesture without much control behind it. “No chance,” he muttered. “Why bother?”

“Because if we didn’t try,” St. George said, “we’d be no better than you.”

He floated down to the ground. Madelyn and Stealth held their own against the swarm of exes. The dead girl tripped and shoved the exes as they got close. The cloaked woman had her batons out and battered skulls and jaws.

St. George ripped a parking meter out of the sidewalk. He spun it once in his hands and then swung it like a bat. The lump of concrete at the end crushed half a dozen exes into jelly. The impact sent another dozen flying back. He glanced over at Freedom battling more exes and Zzzap dodging the cars Cairax threw at him. “I hope the plan went past getting me free,” he said over the click-click-click of teeth.

“It does,” Madelyn piped up. “You just need to grab the demon.”

“Sorry, what?”

“You must distract Cairax Murrain,” said Stealth, “and then pin it so it cannot move.”

St. George swung his oversized club again. The weight of the concrete bent the pole in the middle. He sent it spinning into the exes. “I don’t understand.”

“And it needs to be facing me,” the cloaked woman added.

“Are you serious?”

“There is no time to explain,” she said. She whirled and drove her heel through the jaw of a dead construction worker. “You must trust me.”

He nodded. “Got it.” He glanced down at his bare arm and the cobweb of scars stretched across it. “Taking on the demon again.”

St. George rose into the air, took a deep breath, and hurled himself at Cairax.

Zzzap still felt cold. Most of the effect of the demon’s claws had worn off, but there was a chill at the center of the energy form. He wondered if it was all just in his head, then realized when he was Zzzap everything was just in his head.

Freedom leaped up to the roof of a car. The back half of the vehicle was melted to slag, a victim of Zzzap’s megablast. He leveled his huge pistol at the demon.

Then St. George shot forward and tackled Cairax. They tumbled across the street, over a low wall, and struck the corner of a Ralph’s grocery store. The brick facade crumbled around them and a few last shards of glass in the picture windows dropped and shattered on the ground.

The building exploded in flames as St. George poured fire onto the demon. Scraps of paper bags and cardboard signs ignited around them. When Cairax tried to push its way out of the rubble, St. George punched it twice in the face. He seized two of the demon’s large horns and slammed the creature’s head down into the floor again and again. He found a chunk of concrete ribbed with rebar, raised it up, and smashed it over the demon’s skull.

Cairax lay still just long enough for the hero to relax. Then St. George caught a backhand with enough force behind it to knock over a bus. He sailed into the intersection, bounced twice off the pavement, and crashed into the side of a street sweeper.

The demon stalked out after him. “This is most welcome,” Cairax hissed. “My defeat at your hands was a gnawing insult. How pleasant it will be to right those accounts.”

Zzzap blasted the demon in the chest. Freedom hit it with two bursts from Lady Liberty. Cairax glared at them, cringed away from Freedom’s shots, but didn’t slow its march toward St. George. Blue flames sparked behind its teeth as it roared.

The hero was waiting for it. St. George tore the door off the street sweeper and flung it at the demon. The amount of raw force behind his throw made up for his lack of finesse. It struck Cairax in the shoulder, sprayed dark blood across the pavement, and knocked the monster back a few feet.

Freedom leaped over a dozen exes to land on the roof of an SUV. It crumpled under his impact. He winced as his ribs shifted in his chest.

Zzzap circled around to the monster’s far side and let his feet drag through a crowd of the dead.

St. George yanked the plastic seat out of the cab and hurled it at Cairax. The demon put up a hand and shattered it in midair.

The plastic shrapnel sprayed back over Captain Freedom, and he threw up an arm to protect his eyes. When the rain of fragments stopped and his arm came down, the demon’s tail was a foot from his neck. He spun and the barb tore at his shoulder instead of his throat, but the move made him slip on the uneven roof of the SUV. He grabbed the closest thing he could. It was rough and scaly, even through his glove, and writhed in his grip. When the scorpion tip whipped up he let Lady Liberty tumble away and grabbed the tail with both hands.

Cairax glared over at the huge officer and St. George slammed a fist into the side of the demon’s head. It was like punching a statue. He threw two more punches, scratching his knuckles on the barbs and horns covering the creature’s skull.

The demon hissed at the hero. Its tongue snapped out between long teeth and lashed at St. George’s face. It drew blood at his temple. The long arms lashed out in wide swings, but the hero soared back and out of reach.

Stealth charged forward. Her batons cleared a path through the exes. She leaped into the air, sheathed the batons, and drew both Glocks as she landed next to Freedom on the SUV. Bullets tore through the meat of the tail.

Cairax shifted its hips and its tail slashed through the air, yanking Freedom off the SUV and away from Stealth. The tail smashed the huge officer against the pavement, then flipped him into the air. Freedom’s hands slipped and he spun into the sky, then back down.

It met him halfway. The barbed tip speared him in the side, just under the ribs, and the impact knocked him back into the air again. He slammed against the roof of a bus and the recoil tumbled his body down the street and into the crater full of exes.

The barbed tail curled around Cairax like a snake. A good six inches of it dripped Freedom’s blood. The demon chuckled.

A tall ex, a dark-skinned man with a bullet-ridden torso, reached across the roof of the SUV for Stealth’s leg. She stomped down on the dead man’s hand, pinning it to the roof, and then shattered the wrist with a swipe of her pistol. A snap kick sent the ex stumbling back into the swarm. She looked back up and bullets tore through the air, pinging off Cairax’s horns and teeth.

St. George grabbed a Mini Cooper and heaved it into the air, but the door ripped off the frame and the car tumbled out of his hands. It crashed to the ground on its side and sprayed glass across the street. He shook his head and lunged at Cairax again. He drove his knuckles into the demon’s chin hard enough to shatter the bones of a normal man. His next punch could’ve crushed cinder blocks. He locked his fists together and brought them down with enough force to dent steel.

Cairax dropped to one knee. Its tail twitched and trembled. St. George stood in front of the demon—still taller on its knees than the hero—and grabbed one of the horns growing from its skull. He slammed his fist into the monstrous face again and again. Then he seized another horn and launched himself upward.

St. George dragged Cairax into the sky. The demon’s long limbs flailed at the air for a moment and then it laughed. The sound almost made St. George lose his concentration, and they dipped for a moment.

Cairax reached up and clawed at the hero’s chest. The talons gouged his flesh and set his nerves on fire. He gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the wetness spreading across his body. He went another thirty feet into the air, spun the demon around, and hurled the creature at the ground. Cairax plummeted down and the pavement cracked under the impact.

Zzzap flew up to hover by his friend. He nodded at the slashes on St. George’s chest. You okay?

“I’ll live,” he said. “How about you? You look a little pale.”

That thing can take some serious punishment. I’ve burned up half my reserves .

“Are you going to be okay?”

I’ll be fine, but I don’t think I can do anything else big if we’re going to pull this off .

“Pull what off?”

Just get him pinned. This is going to be so awesome if he doesn’t kill us all. Whoops .

Zzzap pointed his hands down and blasted Cairax Murrain as it leaped up at them. The demon pushed through the blast, like a shark forcing its way through a wave, but the heroes had flown higher into the sky. Its claws swiped at the air below them and it plummeted back to the ground.

The demon landed hard, crushing a trio of exes beneath its hooves. It roared up at the two heroes, crouched to leap again, and white fire exploded in its eyes. Cairax howled and stumbled back.

Stealth braced her leg and fired Lady Liberty again. The pistol was huge in her hands, a cut-down combat shotgun with nowhere to hold on. She had one hand on the grip and the other in front of the drum magazine to steady it. The trigger stayed down and Lady Liberty bellowed her magazine at the demon. The shells burst into white flame against the dark flesh of Cairax’s face and chest, like flares in the darkness. The demon threw his claws up and staggered back.

St. George dropped out of the sky and drove his heels into Cairax’s skull. He wrapped one arm around the thick neck and hooked the other under the beast’s shoulder. He couldn’t reach far enough for a half nelson, but he grabbed one of the demon’s long spines and held tight.

The huge pistol ran dry and Stealth let it drop. She spun to her left and held out her hand. Her fingers went wide to catch their target and signaled to Madelyn to—

Madelyn was nowhere to be seen.