Ex-Heroes (25 page)

Another few decibels. “I don’t like it either, but we all know it’s true. It’s easy to forget because we’ve got a life in here, but out there it’s still hell.” The battlesuit took a few steps back, thudding on the cobblestones. She upped the volume again, almost back to PA levels. “If anyone wants to leave, I’ll walk with you to Melrose right now. I’ll try to protect who I can when you go through the gate, but my priority has to be the people inside the walls. You all know this.”

Some of them glanced at the gate. They could all see it from here. None of them moved.

Henry figured out he was the example, and she felt a wave of sympathy for him. He hated her and he knew she was right. It would take him months to live this down. If he was alive months from now. “What should we do, then?” he growled.

“Get home,” Cerberus said. “Seal the stages, just like we’ve always planned. Anyone who can fight, I’m pretty sure we’ll need it and we can use you, but it’s more important to stay and protect your families.”

She stomped back a few steps and the last rays of sunlight gleamed on her armor. “And for God’s sake, everyone try to stay calm,” she added. “Tonight’s going to be bad enough without a riot inside the walls, okay?”

* * * *

Stealth had covered half a mile. She raced across rooftops, hurled herself over alleys, and dispatched any ex in her way with a savage blow. When St. George caught up, she was charging down Doheney Drive, her hood draped back over her shoulders. He dropped down, grabbed her by the shoulders, and bounded back up to the rooftops.

“You okay?”

“I am fine,” she panted. She took three deep breaths, stilled the gasping, and pulled her hood back into place. “You are bruised.”

He looked at himself. Red and purple spots blossomed across his skin. And most of his pants had crumbled away. “You notice I’m bruised before you notice I’m almost naked?”

“I have seen naked men before. I have never seen you bruised.”

“Yeah, well, it takes a hell of a lot. For the bruising.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I think so.” He looked at her, hidden in the shadows of the hood. “Since when do you actually care?”

“Of course I care,” she said. “You are a valuable asset.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere.”

She glanced at the sky. “We have less than half an hour until darkness.”

St. George shook his head and gestured for her to rest. “Don’t worry. We’ve got a good lead. Even if they were ready to march, they can’t make it across the city that fast.”

She glared at him. “If he was controlling the ex in our cells from Century City, what kind of range does that indicate?”

A map of Los Angeles blossomed in his mind, covered by a wide red circle. “Hell.”

She pointed at the street below them. The milling exes were all still shuffling and stumbling, but there was a rhythm to their movements. They were wandering north. “His army is already at the Mount,” she said. “You should go on ahead of me.”

“No way. We go together.”

“I can manage without you.”

“Maybe. But the Mount can’t afford to lose you, either.” He held out his hand. “You’re a pretty valuable asset, too.”

She looked at him for just a moment with the faint tilt of her head that meant she was thinking. Then she grabbed his hand with both of hers.

St. George leaped into the air, dragging her up behind him. He swung his arm and Stealth flew through the air to land on the rooftops across the street. She took off running and he soared after her.

* * * *

Gorgon stood between Christian Nguyen and the trucks. Christian stood between him and the crowd. Harry the driver stood near her left shoulder, Diamint by her right, and almost two hundred people behind her.

“You can’t tell us what to do,” she snapped. “No one elected you. No one voted for you. If we want to leave, you have no authority to stop us.”

“I don’t,” he agreed, “but I’ve got a responsibility to keep you safe. Even when you don’t want me to.”

She laughed. “We’ve all seen your idea of safe,” she sneered. “We’re surrounded by monsters and someone dies every week.”

“And you think there’s somewhere better out there? You think Burbank is fine and we’re just keeping it secret?”

“That’s for us to find out,” said Diamint. “None of us came here to die.”

“No one is going to die!”

“The Seventeens are all exes now!”

“We’re supposed to be safe,” yelled a woman. “St. George said it would be safe here.”

“You are safe,” Gorgon shouted.

“The Mount’s already surrounded!”

“You’re not fooling anyone,” yelled Christian. “We’re just cannon fodder to you. You’re going to use us to cover your own escape! You’re going to leave us here to die!”

The crowd tilted and became a mob.

“We’re taking the trucks. That’s that.” The heavyset driver stepped forward with his fists clenched.

Gorgon lifted a warning finger. “Don’t try it, Harry.”

Harry tried it and ended up on his back with a bleeding nose. A blond man made a run for the trucks and Gorgon backhanded him into the mob. Someone deeper in raised a pistol.

“You can’t stop us all,” Christian shrieked, and her face dropped as the words left her mouth.

His goggles irised open and he left them open. He felt dozens and dozens of eyes lock onto his. The strength crashed over him like a wave, every muscle in his body spasmed, and his nerves buzzed with pins and needles like they’d been asleep for days.

Tier six, he though. A solid tier six.

Over seventy people dropped. Their legs folded, their necks lolled, and they fell with their eyes still locked on his. He was pleased to see Christian was one of them. She was going to have a great bruise on the side of her head.

“There’s too much going on to deal with this right now,” he bellowed. The lenses snapped shut. “You all need to go back to your homes and make sure the buildings are secure. Those of you who can still walk need to help those who can’t.”

Their eyes went skyward and a murmur passed through the crowd.

St. George dropped down to the pavement. Except for a pair of shredded jeans he was mostly naked, and it was obvious he was hoping no one would notice. His exposed skin was covered with bruises and welts.

The hero looked at Gorgon but spoke to the crowd. “What’s going on?”

“Just explaining to these folks you were coming back from your mission as soon as possible.”

“There was doubt?”

“There was.” Under his breath Gorgon added, “You look like you got the shit beat out of you.”

St. George bounced his eyebrows in agreement and turned to the crowd. His eyes flitted between the people slumped on the ground and the ones still standing. “Gorgon’s right. Everybody needs to calm down,” he said. “I’m sure things have been scary here, but it’s going to get worse if everyone starts panicking and doing crazy things.”

A voice shouted from the back of the crowd. “The exes spoke!” It launched a wave of cries and questions.

“But the Seventeens--”

“How are they--”

“The exes said--”

“What if they--”

St. George held up his hands until they quieted down. “I know there’s a bunch of creepy stuff going on,” he said, “but you have to believe me. There is nowhere in this city safer than right here, right now.”

Stealth stepped out of the shadows behind some civilians and they shrieked. “St. George is telling you the truth,” she said. “Return to your homes, protect your loved ones, and we shall protect all of you.”

The mob was just a crowd now, and the crowd broke apart. People helped Gorgon’s victims to their feet and carried the ones that couldn’t walk.

“Make sure all the stage entrances are locked,” called St. George. He helped Christian up and ignored the unsteady glare she shot at him. “Tonight you’re in or you’re out, people.”

As they scattered Stealth pulled the camera from her belt and summoned an image. St. George caught a glimpse of the monstrous ex, tight enough to make out the cross tattoo on its head. “This being seems to have some sort of history with you,” she told Gorgon, handing him the camera. “He mentioned you by name several times.”

Gorgon pondered the distorted face for a moment and a grim smile formed under his goggles. “Well, fuck me,” he said. “I guess he found his gamma rays after all.”

“You know him?”

“Yeah.” He handed the camera back. “That, my friends, is Rodney Casares, top enforcer for the SS. We’ve got grudges that go way back.”

St. George glanced at the picture again before the camera went dark. “That’s what you wanted to get back here for?”

“No,” she said. “That was a confirmation. Gorgon, summon every guard, scavenger, and volunteer you can. Issue extra ammunition and prepare the walls for a full assault. Then meet us in the lobby of Roddenberry in fifteen minutes.”

She gestured at St. George to follow her.

* * * *

Josh Garcetti checked on his latest patient, an appendicitis case. She’d come in on her own, he’d pulled out the offending organ, and now she was asleep. Her stitches were clean and tight, no seepage at all. He tried not to dwell on the fact that at one time he could’ve repaired her without a single incision.

He made a few quick marks on her chart, stepped out to the nurses’ station, and made another set of notes on the night log. Then he turned to the cabinets and found himself inches from Stealth.

He stumbled back and the move yanked his withered hand out of its pocket. “Jesus,” he snapped. “Do you have to pop out of nowhere like that?”

The cloaked woman said nothing.

Footsteps made him turn and St. George stepped in from the hallway. He was bare-chested and covered with bruises.

“George,” Josh said with a nod. “What happened to you? What the hell’s going on?”

“When we were discussing the recon mission,” said Stealth, “you said you have had the virus hanging over you for two years. You were bitten less than fifteen months ago.”

He blinked twice, then a third time. “That all? Feels like a hell of a lot longer. Sorry I don’t have a computer-like mind like you.” He shrugged and re-pocketed his dead hand. “Is that everything? Mr. Willis would love to get a few Vicodin so he can sleep.”

Her feet shifted and she was between Josh and the cabinet.

He sighed and pointed at a row of bottles. “Do you mind?”

“The first definite sighting of an ex-human,” she continued, “was twenty-two months ago. An unidentified woman assaulted a group of Seventeens in a parking lot. The attack which infected Rodney Casares.”

Josh shrugged again, but his angry eyes flitted between the two heroes. St. George realized his hands had rolled themselves into fists.

Stealth still hadn’t moved. She was tense but fluid. She was confident.

“Your wife died two years ago, didn’t she, Regenerator?”

The doctor’s glare settled on her even as his shoulders slumped, and St. George felt something twist in his stomach.

They’re going to kill me for this.

I was one of the most important heroes on this coast. When I first started out I was the Immortal, the man who couldn’t be killed. A regular Jack Harkness, for those of you who watch BBC America. I’ve been shot, stabbed, beaten, crushed, impaled, and even eviscerated. And I don’t even have scars.

Everything I was--everything I am today—-is because of Meredith. She was the love of my life. People say shit like that all the time, I know, but there’s just no other way to put it. I thought I was in love twice in college, once with a foreign exchange student, and once because I mistook phenomenal sex for love. There was one time in my early twenties when I wanted to be in love, wanted so bad to make this woman happy, but I just couldn’t. It wasn’t there. Not until Meredith.

Stupid and cliché as it may sound for Hollywood, we met at a wrap party for a movie. Some low-budget Sci-Fi Channel thing. She was dating a grip. I was with a makeup artist. From the moment I saw her I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Black hair, blue eyes, and a set of mismatched earrings. She’d lost one of each and just decided to make a set with what was left. We started talking at the bar, chatted all night, and pissed off both our dates. A month later we were both single. Two months after that we were together.

And two years after that she died.

It didn’t happen quite like that. There was a lot more to it. Finding a Beverly Hills-adjacent place we both liked. Buying furniture. Teaching her how to drive stick. Rescuing a pair of stray kittens we named Lewis and Clarke. Proposing to her while we were getting lawn-bowling lessons.

And then there was the oddness of me developing superpowers.

Meredith helped with that, too. She was there for every part of it, keeping me sane. That first time, straining noodles, we both thought it was just dumb luck the boiling water didn’t leave me with red skin and blisters. Then there was the broken glass we thought slashed my hand, but there wasn’t even a hint except for the cut in my shirt cuff.

Of course, the one we couldn’t ignore was the kid with the green bandanna stabbing me in the gut. I know now he was a Seventeen. Then I just knew he was the punk who made Meredith scream by trying to kill me.

We’d just seen Eddie Izzard at the Wiltern and were walking to where we parked, a few blocks up Oxford. She never liked parking in structures and called it a scam. The kid grabbed her arm, shouted for my wallet, and then he twisted her arm and she screamed. I lunged and pounded him until he was unconscious, and that’s when we realized he’d stabbed me six times during our fight. Six bloody holes in my shirt, but not a mark on me.

When we saw the news reports about the Mighty Dragon, Blockbuster, Zzzap, and the rest, we both knew what I had to do. Meredith bought a full-body motorcycle suit and stitched on a logo, and for months I was the Immortal, the man who couldn’t be killed. I was hit by cars and shotgun blasts. Threw myself off buildings. One night after a gang shoot-out I got home and pulled twenty-three bullets out of myself.

And then we made another discovery.

Mere cut herself with a kitchen knife while chopping broccoli. Nothing deadly, maybe a stitch or two. We laughed--it was bound to happen someday, she was so clumsy. And I held her finger and felt a tingle, a flow of my power, and she gasped as it closed up. The skin sealed together without so much as a pucker.