Peter Clines - Ex-Heroes

Her arms ached for the cannons. One burst would turn the bald man to mist. A cloud of red mist with boots.

“So, I see a lot of guns aimed this way,” he said. “You want to drop ’em all, or are we going to do this the fun way?” Again with the stupid grin.

The titan flexed her fingers, wrapping them into armored fists the size of footballs. “It’s not going to be fun.”

“Matter of opinion. Any last words?”

“Yeah.” She glanced up at the sky. “What took you so long?”

The bald man looked up and the air exploded into flames between them.

St. George landed in front of Big Red , inhaled, and spat a second cone of fire at the Dodge. He leaped back up, twisting in the air over the pickup, and threw more flames down on the people in the truck bed.

The Seventeens screamed. A few leapt from the Dodge, and as they did it blossomed into a ball of light and heat. The tree branches above caught fire.

Another leap carried the hero back to the garbage truck. The demon flailed at the air in his direction. Gunfire washed over the street. The rounds chimed as they struck Cerberus and wrinkled St. George’s clothes. A few sparked off the pavement. His new sunglasses exploded into shards of black plastic.

Some spotty return fire came from Big Red . The Seventeens crawling from the burning Dodge winced and threw up their hands.

The bald man stood on top of the truck and grinned. He swung his AK down and emptied the magazine at St. George. The hero’s leather jacket shredded apart.

“HOLD YOUR FIRE!” bellowed St. George. Smoke poured from his mouth as his voice echoed on the street over the gunshots, the sound of the burning truck, and the cries of the wounded Seventeens.

The bald man’s AK ran out of ammo and locked. He shrugged and tossed it down into the truck. “Give it a rest,” he called out to his people.

“So,” said St. George, “let’s review. You’ve just wasted a bunch of ammo, we did not. We’re bulletproof, your people are not. We’re near our base, you are not. Did I miss anything?”

“I’ve got the demon,” said the bald man.

“Then set it loose,” St. George said. “If you really think a zombie version of Cairax can take two heroes who were both better than him when he was alive, go for it.”

The bald man’s smile faltered.

“Just keep in mind, the minute you do, the kid gloves are off. Right now you can all walk away. You unleash that thing and we take it and you apart.”

The two men stared each other down across the dusty street. A curl of smoke twisted from St. George’s nostril. Cairax leaned forward again, snapping the chains tight.

The bald man nodded. “This one’s yours, dragon man,” he said. He stomped twice and the huge truck began to back away. “Just remember if Peasy doesn’t get his man by—”

A crack echoed on the street and the Seventeen’s glasses leapt from his head. The bald man tumbled back into the garbage truck and it came to a halt with a hiss of brakes.

Billie lifted her eye from the sights.

Fire flashed in St. George’s mouth. “What the hell was that?!”

She shrugged. “Cerberus said to take him out.”

“What?”

“Before you got here,” explained the armored titan.

“Things changed. They were leaving!”

“So what?” said Billie. “They just killed Ty!”

One step put St. George at the truck. He yanked the rifle out of her hands, twisted it into scrap, and she flinched away. “They kill,” he shouted at her. “We don’t. Not unless there’s no other choice. We’re the good guys. We’re supposed to be better than them.”

“They killed Ty,” she snarled. And then her eyes went wide. “Hey, dragon man,” called someone behind him. The bald man.

He was back on top of the garbage truck. A gory hole spread across the side of his face. The eye hung low in the shattered socket, and the flesh had peeled back to reveal the ivory teeth set in his jaw. The slow blood was dark and clumpy.

His good eye leered at them from a sunken socket. Without the sunglasses, they could see the chalky irises and wide-open pupil. The eyes of the dead.

“As I was saying,” he said, “Peasy gets his man by the end of the week, or we grind your home into the mud. You got me?”

St. George stared up at the dead thing. “What the hell are you?”

“New rules, dragon man,” the ex said. “We’ve been playing by new rules for months and you’re just finding out now.”

The hero landed on top of the garbage truck next to the dead man. Down in the bin, a score of rifles leaped to cover him, but the bald man waved them away. Up close St. George could see the ragged flaps of flesh Billie’s shot had made, the dark veins under the skin, smell the decay. The ex grinned at him through its mangled face.

“End of the week,” it said. “The boss gets what he wants, or you all die.” It reached up and gave its mangled face a prod. “You might want to get in a little target practice before then.”

The ex stomped his foot again. The truck beeped as it backed up to Marathon. St. George stepped back, gliding down to the street. The bald man gave him a salute as the truck turned and rolled back out to Western.

Cerberus thudded up next to him. “He’s an ex.”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.” He glared up at her. “Where the hell do you get off telling them to kill people?”

“We were outnumbered and outgunned. We did what we had to.”

“Do it again, Danielle, and I will peel you out of that suit and scrap it with my bare hands. Clear?”

“Don’t get all high and migh—”

“Luke,” he bellowed. “How many extinguishers are you carrying?”

“Just the one we brought with us. We stripped most of them out last night.”

He pointed at the flaming Dodge. “Somebody get that fire under control. The rest of you spread out. Standard watchdog. Try to raise the Mount again. Get Mean Green back out here with some more firefighting gear.”

“ Road Warrior ’s already got two extra extinguishers on it,” said the driver.

“Whoever can get out here first. Last thing we need is a major fire running loose in the city.”

There was a single gunshot from the truck. Billie lifted her pistol from Ty’s forehead and rammed it back into her holster.

Gorgon pounded his fist on the door as he entered the mill. “You here?” he called out. He shrugged out of his duster and walked into the huge room.

Cerberus had adopted one of the studio’s workshops as her own. It was a large space, but the armor maintenance filled most of it. Filmset walls made a small private area for her bed and a few pieces of furniture. The plumbers had knocked one of the side-by-side bathrooms apart and replaced it with a bare-bones shower.

The room was centered around four large work tables made from full-sized sheets of plywood. Carved shapes of foam were mounted on each one, cradles for specific pieces of equipment. One table had a laptop. Another had a small Honda generator mounted under it.

A four-step ladder stood between them. The metal titan stalked back and forth by it, fastened to the wall by a thick power cable that ran into the armor’s waist. “Where’ve you been?”

“Domestic disturbance.” He threw his coat over a chair and tugged at his gloves.

“We’re going to be late.”

“We’ll be fine. Not like they can start without us.”

“The wrenches are over there.”

“Okay.”

“You’re not going to be able to get it all on your own. We should wait for St. George.”

He shook his head and tapped his goggles. “I told you, I broke up a fight on the way over here. I’m good for an hour or so. I told him to just get Barry.”