Josh glanced down and shook his head. “You’re too late, George.”
“We can still work something out,” the hero insisted. “Please, just come back with us. We can make everything—”
“No,” said Josh. “You’re too late.” Blue fire sparked in his eyes. His mouth opened in a broad smile made of long, alien tusks. “It found me hours ago. We’ve been waiting for you to come to us.”
Later, as his life drew to a close, St. George would look back on the moment with perfect clarity, each and every detail seared into his mind. Josh’s clothes shredded apart and his entire body turned inside out, twisting along unnatural lines and angles. The hero could see gleaming bones and stringy muscle and glistening organs, all painted with blood. The man’s insides churned along those strange angles, and then they pulled together and were back where they belonged, hidden beneath the flesh.
Not the same flesh, though. This skin was the color of a fresh bruise and stretched drum-tight over a skeleton more than twice the size it had been a moment before.
It loomed over the hero, a dozen feet tall. Saucer-like eyes dominated its face, portholes into a world of cold fire. A crown of curling horns wrapped around its skull and became a crest down its back. Its tail whipped back and forth like an enraged snake.
“St. George,” it said. The smooth voice sounded like an English baritone imitating Josh. Despite its polish, it made his skin crawl and left a foul taste in the air. “George Bailey. The Mighty Dragon. Such a great man does not need so many names.”
Cairax Murrain reared up, stretched back its lips, and a mouth filled with a thousand tusks and needles grinned down at St. George.
“Such a delight to see you again.”
MADELYN PICKED HERSELF up off Highland Avenue and checked the sword. She’d landed on it, but it didn’t look damaged. Her right hand was torn up, though. There were a bunch of long gashes on her palm from sliding on the pavement, and she was pretty sure her middle finger and ring finger were broken. Dislocated, at least.
She walked back and kicked the bike. The rear wheel had locked up and sent her flying while she was swooping around an ex. The master link had fallen off the chain, and now one end was wrapped around the gears and axle. She was pretty sure she could have fixed it if she had tools. And light. And the master link.
And the time. According to her two watches with glow-in-the-dark faces, she had about two hours until Max’s deadline. One hundred and ten minutes until hell on earth.
She waved at the ex, a desiccated man her dad’s age with a bald head. Bloodstains blended with the dark red flowers on its Hawaiian shirt, and ran down onto its shorts. “You can have the bike,” she said. “I didn’t like the color anyway.”
Madelyn checked the sword again and started walking south. She wanted to run, but her eyes didn’t work well in the dark and she didn’t want to risk another accident. While she walked she grabbed her two twisted fingers with her left hand. They throbbed, but they didn’t hurt as much as she knew they should. Dead nerves.
She took a deep breath out of habit more than anything else and pulled hard. There was a double pop and a flare of sharper pain. She wiggled the reset fingers. Not great, but she’d be able to use them.
It took her ten minutes of brisk walking to reach Sunset. She cut across the parking lot of a strip mall. If she remembered right, it was a mile to the northeast corner of the Big Wall. There was a pair of bodies on the far side of the lot. Two kids about her age, from their size and clothes. She glanced over her shoulder and across Highland to the gray shape of the high school. She wondered if your parents had to be in the film industry for you to go to Hollywood High School.
There were dozens of exes wandering in the street, but they were spaced out enough for her to dodge them. Madelyn set one hand on the sword and started jogging. Not a full run, but faster than walking. She was pretty sure she’d still see anything dangerous before she tripped over it.
After another ten minutes the abandoned cars started to thin out and the exes started to get a little denser. The noise of their jaws got louder. Another two blocks and she saw Amoeba Records and the Jack in the Box facing each other across the street. A few more yards and the Cinerama Dome loomed up in the night. She was a block from the Big Wall. She grabbed the sword and broke into a run.
The Corner came into view, and she could see the guards standing on top of the Wall. Three or four hundred exes clogged the intersection below them. The dead pawed at the stacked cars and reached for the men and women on the platform.
Madelyn didn’t want to risk being another face in the crowd. She stopped near the back of the horde and waved her arms. She jumped up and down a couple of times. “Hey,” she yelled to them. “Over here!”
One of the guards straightened up and peered out at her. A few flashlights lit up and searched her out. “Here,” she said. “I’ve got the sword!” She pulled it out and waved it over her head.
She heard them talk over the sound of the exes, but couldn’t make out any words. They gestured at her a few times, but it seemed like it was part of the discussion, not signals intended for
