St. George sucked in a last mouthful of air and sent a cone of fire down onto the street. The tongues of flame lashed down and spun in the air. He swung his head and let it wash across the mob.
He couldn’t actually reach them. The burning chemicals went a few yards from the rooftop and sputtered out a dozen feet above the ground. He didn’t have the lung power for anything more. But it got their heads down and let him leap across the street to the top of the ivy-covered building. He sent another curtain of fire over the intersection and the crowd scattered a bit. Some of them fired into the air.
The flames died and their eyes found him. His bare chest gleamed in the sun above the dark, bullet-scarred jeans. The wind spread his hair behind him like a mane. “If you come to the Mount,” St. George roared, “we will fight.”
He reached down, never taking his eyes from the crowd, and tore a basketball-sized chunk of brickwork from the edge of the building with one hand. He held it up for them to see and then brought his fist around to shatter it.
“All of us will fight you. And we will not hold back.”
The hero let the red dust run through his fingers before he hurled himself up into the air.
CERBERUS STOMPED ACROSS the streets of the Mount and keyed her microphone. “Sun’s going down. People are panicking.”
“And this surprises you?” Zzzap’s voice was crystal clear over her helmet speakers.
“Just the level of it. We’ve kept them safe for over a year—”
“And now they think they’re not safe. What have you done for me lately, eh?”
“Nothing, apparently.”
“I could come out and brighten things up.”
“No,” cut in Gorgon’s voice. “The last thing we need right now is for the power to go out and everyone see you flying off into the air.”
“Fair point.”
“I’m trying to get generator crews out, but until they’re up and running you stay put. Got it?”
Cerberus keyed her mic. “Who put you in charge, anyway?”
“I did. One of you guys want it instead?”
A long silence filled the airwaves.
“Yeah, that’s what I figured.”
She tried to come up with something clever and the motion sensors went mad. “Hang on a minute. Got a big crowd.”
A crowd of a dozen families, couples, and individuals was jostling its way up through the long shadows of Third Street. Their bodies were wrapped in backpacks and duffel bags. Their arms were filled with bundles and suitcases. One little boy clutched a cat carrier that shifted and yowled.
In public-address mode, the voice of Cerberus echoed down the street. “Everyone stay calm,” she thundered. “There is no need to panic, no need to rush. Calm down.”
She switched back to standard volume and singled out one man, fortysomething with a dark ring of hair. A special-effects expert who’d become a repairman inside the Mount. “Where do you think you’re going, Henry?”
The nearby crowd stopped to see who she was talking to, and he glared up at her. “Are we prisoners here? Do I have to answer to you?”
She shook her armored head. “Of course not. You’re free to go where you want.”
“Damn right I am.” He pulled his wife and son in tight. “And we want out of here. We all do.”
The crowd murmured and barked in agreement.
“I understand,” Cerberus said. “I just think you need to step back and think for a minute.”
“Don’t tell us what to do!”
“I’m just telling you to stop and think, that’s all,” the titan said. A few blinks raised the suit’s volume by three decibels. “Everyone calm down, stop for a minute, and think. Yeah, what happened a little while ago was scary as hell. I don’t understand it either and I’m scared, too. The Seventeens are coming and there’s going to be a fight. A big one.”
“All the more reason not to be here,” the repairman snapped. He tried to shove past her and she blocked him with a hand twice the size of a hubcap.
“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “How can you be safer outside the Mount, Henry? In here you’ve got guards, lights, and walls. Out there the sun’s going down and there are five million exes waiting to eat you.”
A few people near her flinched. Half the crowd had stopped to listen.
“That’s right. They’re going to eat you,” she repeated. She kept the suit’s unblinking gaze on Henry and ignored the dozens of families around them. “The second you’re through that gate they will tear the flesh from your bones with their teeth and fingers. They will rip you, your wife, and your son apart in a matter of minutes.”
The crowd shuddered as a whole. Henry turned away and met his wife’s eyes.
“That’s if you’re lucky,” she continued. “If not, you might survive and get to watch them change one by one. And then you’ll have to smash their skulls or put a bullet in their brains or just let them kill—”
“Shut up!!” a woman screamed. “Just shut up.” Nervous talk rippled back and forth across the crowd.
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
