Ex-Communication: A Novel (35 page)

“And that’s sunset,” said Max twenty minutes later.

They drifted between trees and buildings down La Brea Avenue. It was one of the more urban sections of Los Angeles, and he’d heard it called “Beverly Hills–adjacent” a few times back when people talked about apartment locations for something other than looting. Several lanes wide, a fair number of trees, and a mix of warehouse-like stores and small shops. Hard to believe just a few blocks to the east it looked more like a small town than a big city.

“It’s not actually down,” St. George said. “It’s just lower than the buildings. We’ve still got another ten minutes or so.”

“And then it gets even harder to see anything.”

Exes staggered after them, like paupers to a banquet. St. George and Max had collected a large crowd of followers as they flew back and forth across the neighborhood. Some fell behind as others joined the chase. There were sixty or seventy of them at the moment, trailing behind the flying men in a loose fan. They shuffled between cars, dragging against the sides, and added the scraping noise to the sound of their clicking teeth.

St. George panned his eyes across the road again. There were a lot of cars, all covered with dust. It meant lots of places to hide. “Isn’t there some kind of locator spell you can cast or something?”

“Yeah,” said Max, “but gosh-darn-it, I missed that day at Hogwarts.”

“You don’t need to be an ass about it.”

“Sorry. A little tense. I didn’t think it’d take this long to find either of them. Or for Cairax to find us.”

Something moved quick in the corner of St. George’s eye and he heard a sound over the
click-clack-click
of the exes. He spun and brought the sword up, inhaling hard as he did. He felt the tickle at the back of his throat and realized it was just another
zombie, a tall man who had been coming to join the pack. It had stumbled off the sidewalk and fallen against a Mercedes.

He let the breath out slow and smoke twisted from his nose and mouth. He glanced down and saw Max’s outstretched hand was shimmering like a hot sidewalk. The other man sighed and let his fingers relax.

“So,” said St. George, “you thought we’d’ve found them by now?”

“Well, yeah,” Max said. “Cairax wants to get me, so either he was going to keep Josh close until the possession took effect, or he was going to be waiting at the seals to pounce the moment I stepped outside. I’m not really sure what’s going on.”

St. George checked the crowd of exes below them. His eyes flitted down to the tooth on his lapel and came back up. “He should be pretty tough to miss. Long tail, purple hide, ten feet tall.”

Max grunted. “That isn’t what Cairax really looks like, y’know.”

“No?”

“That’s what it looks like when it’s squeezed into my shape, if that makes sense. Sort of like how a filet-o-fish is shaped like a bun, not like a real fish. It’s not natural, it’s just easier to swallow.”

“So it’s going to look different?”

“It’s going to look a bit more pure.”

St. George turned and brought the sword up again. “Interesting choice of words.” The quick movement had been an ex’s shadow this time, stretched out long as the last rays of sunlight slipped between two buildings.

“Just take what you remember and dial it up to eleven,” Max told him.

“It was already at eleven.”

“Then take it to thirteen. More fitting, anyway. Hey, can we take a quick break?”

“What?”

“You’re the super-strong guy who can fly, but I’ve been dragged by one arm for half an hour. My shoulder’s going numb.”

St. George looked around and spotted a flat area on the roof shared by an oversized pet shop and a huge lamp store. He flew over and set Max down. The sorcerer swung his arm in a circle a few times, then rolled his shoulder back and forth.

St. George turned and looked down at the street. The shadows were getting darker. “How long do you need?” he asked Max. “We probably shouldn’t stop for long, right?”

“Just a minute.” He said. He shook his hand out like a pitcher getting ready for a big game. “I’m not going to be much use if my arm doesn’t work.”

On the street below, the crowd of exes spread out. Some of them lost track of the two men on the roof and stumbled away. A dozen or so were trapped on the far side of cars, helpless until dumb luck moved them around. They kept their blank eyes on St. George and clawed at the air. Others pushed their way through the lamp store’s broken display windows. The sound of crunching glass made its way up to the roof.

“I don’t suppose there’s a chance the demon just left? Didn’t you say he might just decide you weren’t worth it?”

Max walked to the edge of the roof to stand by St. George. He rolled his shoulder again. “It never works out that way. D’you remember any fairy tales where the devil makes a deal with someone but then never bothers to follow through in the end?”

“Not off the top of my head.”

“There’s a reason for that.” He shook his head. “He’s too pissed to leave. We just need to find him before he finds …”

St. George followed Max’s gaze. Across the street was a small storefront that might have been an art gallery or some kind of showroom, something that looked more East Coast than Los Angeles. He remembered searching it years back and finding nothing useful. The huge picture window had been smashed ages ago, if the leaves on the inside floor were any sign.

Josh stood inside the gallery, watching them. He was just
far enough in that they never would’ve seen him if they’d been floating down the center of the street. A deep sigh moved his chest as he locked eyes with St. George.

The man formerly known as Regenerator was tall and broad. His build was solid, despite months in a cell with no food. His white hair almost glowed in the gallery’s dim interior, while his gray eyes were just dark enough to be black in the fading light.

St. George risked looking away for a moment. There were at least sixty exes between the lamp store and the gallery. Too many to have a conversation at street level.

He glanced back. Josh hadn’t moved. He looked tired.

Max shrugged. He put his fists side by side to make a row of tattooed knuckles, then rolled them back-to-back. A few murmurs slipped from his lips as he pushed his fists forward and opened them. He whispered a few more words, closed his eyes, and swung his hands away from each other.

Twin clouds of dust and dry leaves rose up off the street. A few of the cars squealed and lurched in either direction. The exes slid across the pavement as if they were being swept aside. Some of them fell over and kept moving. One of them, a dead woman in shorts and a gory tank top, kept trying to stagger forward even as she was swept back.

Max opened his eyes and looked at the pristine path across the street. “Looks great when you do it with water,” said Max. “Very biblical.”

“You can keep them away?”

Max let his hands drop. “It’ll stay for a while. It only goes side to side, so watch your back.”

The hero stepped off the roof and sailed down to land in the center of the street. His boots tapped the pavement and he took a few steps forward. The white-haired man watched him come.

“Hey, Josh,” St. George said. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a few exes staggering inside the lamp shop. One of them, a dead woman, had already spotted him. It would take a few minutes to reach him.

Josh stepped out of the gallery. He’d found some new clothes that fit him pretty well—a pair of dark slacks with stained cuffs and a rumpled jacket with a pair of bullet holes in one shoulder. He still wore the plain white T-shirt from his imprisonment, soaked with blood from his escape. His feet were still bare, and broken glass crackled under them as he walked. “Coming to talk with me twice in one month,” he said. “I’m starting to feel special.”

“We don’t have a lot of time,” St. George said. “We need to get you back inside.”

“Back in my cell, you mean.” His hands hung at his sides, and the withered hand twitched at the mention of imprisonment. The sleeves were too short for his long arms, and the pale bite was just visible past his wrist.

“Honestly, right now it’s just important we get you back inside the Mount,” said St. George. “Even just inside the Big Wall. We can talk in there.”

Josh chuckled. “I don’t think Stealth or the others are going to be in a talking mood.”

A few feet away, an ex stumbled toward them and hit Max’s barrier. It swayed for a moment, its jaws gnashing at the air, and then tipped over backward. Its skull hit the pavement with a solid
thunk
and it went limp.

“I know you’re not too happy with us,” said St. George. “I know you’ve got no reason to go back, but you’ve got to believe me. We have to go and it’ll be quicker if you don’t fight.”

“And if I did fight?”

“Please,” he said, “we really don’t have time. There’s something out here looking for you, and if it finds you … it’s not going to be good for anyone.”

“So?”

St. George took another step toward the man. “Don’t give me ‘so,’ ” he said. “You still care about people, Josh. You’re still one of the good guys at heart.” He nodded at Josh’s pale
and shriveled right hand. “You’ve been showing everyone how guilty you feel for years.”

Josh glanced down and shook his head. “You’re too late, George.”

“We can still work something out,” the hero insisted. “Please, just come back with us. We can make everything—”

“No,” said Josh. “You’re too late.” Blue fire sparked in his eyes. His mouth opened in a broad smile made of long, alien tusks. “It found me hours ago. We’ve been waiting for you to come to us.”

Later, as his life drew to a close, St. George would look back on the moment with perfect clarity, each and every detail seared into his mind. Josh’s clothes shredded apart and his entire body turned inside out, twisting along unnatural lines and angles. The hero could see gleaming bones and stringy muscle and glistening organs, all painted with blood. The man’s insides churned along those strange angles, and then they pulled together and were back where they belonged, hidden beneath the flesh.

Not the same flesh, though. This skin was the color of a fresh bruise and stretched drum-tight over a skeleton more than twice the size it had been a moment before.

It loomed over the hero, a dozen feet tall. Saucer-like eyes dominated its face, portholes into a world of cold fire. A crown of curling horns wrapped around its skull and became a crest down its back. Its tail whipped back and forth like an enraged snake.

“St. George,” it said. The smooth voice sounded like an English baritone imitating Josh. Despite its polish, it made his skin crawl and left a foul taste in the air. “George Bailey. The Mighty Dragon. Such a great man does not need so many names.”

Cairax Murrain reared up, stretched back its lips, and a mouth filled with a thousand tusks and needles grinned down at St. George.

“Such a delight to see you again.”

MADELYN PICKED HERSELF
up off Highland Avenue and checked the sword. She’d landed on it, but it didn’t look damaged. Her right hand was torn up, though. There were a bunch of long gashes on her palm from sliding on the pavement, and she was pretty sure her middle finger and ring finger were broken. Dislocated, at least.

She walked back and kicked the bike. The rear wheel had locked up and sent her flying while she was swooping around an ex. The master link had fallen off the chain, and now one end was wrapped around the gears and axle. She was pretty sure she could have fixed it if she had tools. And light. And the master link.

And the time. According to her two watches with glow-in-the-dark faces, she had about two hours until Max’s deadline. One hundred and ten minutes until hell on earth.

She waved at the ex, a desiccated man her dad’s age with a bald head. Bloodstains blended with the dark red flowers on its Hawaiian shirt, and ran down onto its shorts. “You can have the bike,” she said. “I didn’t like the color anyway.”

Madelyn checked the sword again and started walking south. She wanted to run, but her eyes didn’t work well in the dark and she didn’t want to risk another accident. While she walked she grabbed her two twisted fingers with her left hand.
They throbbed, but they didn’t hurt as much as she knew they should. Dead nerves.

She took a deep breath out of habit more than anything else and pulled hard. There was a double pop and a flare of sharper pain. She wiggled the reset fingers. Not great, but she’d be able to use them.

It took her ten minutes of brisk walking to reach Sunset. She cut across the parking lot of a strip mall. If she remembered right, it was a mile to the northeast corner of the Big Wall. There was a pair of bodies on the far side of the lot. Two kids about her age, from their size and clothes. She glanced over her shoulder and across Highland to the gray shape of the high school. She wondered if your parents had to be in the film industry for you to go to Hollywood High School.

There were dozens of exes wandering in the street, but they were spaced out enough for her to dodge them. Madelyn set one hand on the sword and started jogging. Not a full run, but faster than walking. She was pretty sure she’d still see anything dangerous before she tripped over it.