Ex-Communication: A Novel Read Free

single shots, each one finding a new target.
    More than a dozen of Legion’s puppets dropped, their strings cut. Stealth took a step forward and her cloak swirled in the night breezes. The pistols never stopped. Every round found the open space in a helmet.
    Within thirty seconds she’d dropped as many exes. Maybe more. She spun on her heel and kicked another as its head cleared the platform. The hard hat it wore cracked under her boot.
    The pistols spun in her hands, came in close to her waist, and her fingers whirled. The Glocks came back up with fresh magazines and continued to fire. Freedom knew decoratedmarksmen and snipers who would’ve been in awe of the woman’s accuracy.
    He fired off another burst from his own weapon and saw an ex in a military helmet drop, its face an unrecognizable mess. A zombie slipped over the wall closer to the corner and flew back out a moment later. A second form followed it. The ex hit the ground hard. The second figure hovered in the air on the far side of the intersection.
    St. George, the hero once known as the Mighty Dragon, was a solid six feet tall, and the muscles of his wiry body were visible even under his stitch-covered jacket. His golden brown hair gleamed in the spotlights from the Big Wall. It brushed his shoulders and matched the leather of the jacket.
    Freedom felt his own shoulders relax a bit.

    St. George settled in the air above the crowd of exes. Even with a quick sweep across the horde, he could pick out unique features on each of them. They’d been people once, after all. Before they’d died.
    A gore-faced girl with a bright green tank top and charred-black hands. A Hasidic man whose beard was caked with blood. A dark-skinned woman with a quartet of bloody bullet holes in her chest. A little boy missing his lower jaw. A knife-thin man in a leather trench coat. About half of them wore some kind of protective helmet. One large, bald ex glared at him through a hockey mask before it gave him the finger with both hands.
    He took in a deep breath, felt the tickle of mixing chemicals in the back of his throat, and sent a wave of fire washing down over the swarm. It lit up the intersection with golden light. He swung his head and washed the flames across the back line of the horde.
    Half of the exes stared at the flying hero even as their hairand clothes caught fire, their teeth still clicking away. The others, the ones wearing helmets and hard hats, flinched. They moved in perfect synchronization, all turning their heads away to the right as they raised their left arms to shield their faces. A handful of them glared up at him.
    St. George drifted down into the crowd, grabbed a few exes by their necks, and hurled them back away from the wall. He moved through the horde like a man weeding a garden, plucking one dead plant after another. Over a dozen of them crashed against the buildings and pavement before all of them shifted their attention to him. The horde took in a rasping breath and spoke with one voice.
    “Next time,
pinche
,” they growled.
    A shift rippled through the crowd of exes as Legion’s guidance vanished. Their expressions sagged and their teeth started clicking again. The ones closest to St. George stumbled toward him on unsteady legs.
    He drifted into the air, away from the grasping hands, and back to the platform. A few more gunshots rang out, but he could see the horde was settling down. There were still a few dozen exes pawing at the wall, but without Legion controlling them it was a mindless action that would never get their feet off the ground. Climbing was too complicated for them.
    “I think he’s gone,” St. George called out. Wisps of smoke drifted out of his mouth and nose, like an idling engine. His boots thudded against the platform across from Stealth. “Everyone okay here?”
    Makana shook his head. “We lost Daniel.”
    Another guard raised a trembling hand. There was blood on his fingers. “I … I think I got bit,” he