“Who is that up there, anyway?” he shouted. “The hot bitch is Stealth, I’m thinking. That you, Gorgon? You finally grow some stones and come to give yourself up?”
St. George glanced at her. “When did he spot us?”
Stealth shook her head. “More importantly, how did he hear us?”
“I knew you’d show up sooner or later,” Mighty Joe yelled. “Once I told you two about the Boss of LA, it was only a matter of time.”
St. George furrowed his brow. “What the heck is he talking about?”
“The puppet master. He was speaking to us in the cell.” Stealth looked across the rooftop. The severed skull had stopped moving its jaw and stared back at her. “He sees through all of them.”
“He knew we were coming,” said St. George. “Remember the exes last night?”
She slid across the tar paper, threw her leg into the air, and brought her heel down. The dried skull shattered under her boot. “Suggestions?”
“Get ready to run,” he said.
“And you?”
“I’ll catch up.”
The hooded woman nodded and skittered across the rooftop. Once she was a few yards away she rolled and came up in a crouch with her cloak on. She gave him a nod and vanished behind an air-conditioning vent.
St. George counted to five and pushed down against gravity. His boots scraped on the roof ledge as he swung up. Hundreds of searching eyes locked on him. Shoulder slings rustled, gunmetal scraped on holsters, and rounds slid home. He couldn’t guess how many weapons were aimed his way.
“The Mighty Dragon,” said the ex. “Not who I wanted but still cool.”
“Always glad to please a fan,” he called back. “You should reconsider this.”
“Why?”
He waved at the crowd. “These folks don’t want to get hurt.”
“There’ll be plenty of hurt. Not for us, though.”
“You people,” St. George shouted to the crowd. “You know who I am. You know what I can do. You know how foolish attacking me or my friends would be.”
“Oh, yeah,” bellowed the giant. “You’re strong and invulnerable. But your friends aren’t. You’ve got a fearsome rep and that’s it. We’ve got an army and a plan.”
“Is part of your great plan to announce strategy with the other side listening in?”
“I wanted you to hear,” yelled the giant. “I wanted you to know and be scared.”
“You don’t scare me, big guy.”
“You’re not the only one hiding in there, though, are you? If your people hadn’t killed my man, I would’ve had him tell them.” The giant’s face split in a toothy grin. “You know what, though? You’ve always got all those exes piled up at your gates, right? Time to start thinking big.”
The enormous ex took in a breath, and all the dead things around him did the same.
Derek checked his watch and looked at the crowd of exes pushing on the bars. Three more hours until his shift ended and he went to Mark Larsen’s funeral.
The dead things reached and groped. He’d counted one hundred and sixteen of them earlier. Their jaws opened and closed as they stretched hands and bloody stumps through the gate. There were shiny patches where constant flailing had scoured paint down to metal.
Elena nodded at the watch. “What time is it?”
“Almost five o’clock,” he said.
“Damn.”
“What are you up to tonight after the funeral?”
“Some new DVDs from the library,” she said. “Think I might stay in and finish off a bottle of Matt Russell’s moonshine.”
Makana, the other guard, looked up from his book. “Is that crap any good?”
She smirked. “Christ, no. But it makes me forget the day.”
He mulled it over. “You want company?”
“Depends.”
The rustle of dry skin on metal, the endless clack of jaws, it all stopped. The exes froze in the sinking sunlight. Their collective arms dropped to their collective sides.
Derek straightened up and raised his rifle. “What the fuck,” he murmured.
The eerie silence stretched over five seconds. Then ten.
“TONIGHT.”
Hundreds and hundreds of them spoke with one leathery voice that echoed across all thirty acres of the Mount. Some of it was clear. Some was just hissed air. Everyone understood it.
“TONIGHT THE SEVENTEENS ARE COMING TO KILL YOU ALL.”
The exes in the cage stared up at him. Their announcement echoed off the buildings. Even some of the Seventeens looked shaken.
St. George let a long breath of black smoke curl out of his nostrils. “We don’t have to fight.”
“Pussy.” The giant ex chuckled.
“What’s the point of all this?”
“The point?”
“Why fight? Why aren’t we working together? With your power we could’ve had Los Angeles cleaned out months ago. Why didn’t you join us?”
“Join you?” Mighty Joe furrowed his thick brow and glared up at the hero. “Motherfucker, you just don’t get it. Why didn’t you join us?”
St. George blinked.
A huge finger stabbed up at him. “Why you think we all wanted to kneel down and be your bitches? Life is good as long as you’re in charge, huh? We don’t kneel to no one, pinche. We’re Diecisiete! SS always and forever!”
The Seventeens roared.
They opened fire.
Rifles. Pistols. Machine guns. Hundreds of firearms all aimed at him.
St. George closed his eyes and let one leg settle off the ledge to brace himself. The bullets were heavy rain beating on his body. They hit every inch of him. His skin rippled. His muscles stung. His third leather jacket in a week became tatters, torn away in the high-caliber wind that tried to drive him back.
Under the percussion of gunfire he could hear the screams. Civilians pelted with hot casings as they tried to plug their ears. There were elderly people and children in the crowd. They were terrified.
It was going to get worse for them.
The hero ignored the bullets slapping him and sucked in air. Short, quick breaths filled every inch of his lungs. His chest swelled and he felt the warm sizzle in the back of his throat.
It took a few moments for the rain to stop. St. George opened his eyes and looked down. Saw their fear of the man who stood through
