Ex-Communication: A Novel

by Peter Clines

  In the middle of Bronson was a smoking set of lines, a scar in the pavement stretching from one side of the road to the other. The superheated material had turned a fresh, deep black that stood out from the faded charcoal of the street. Three exes had been slashed in half by Zzzap’s burning touch, too slow to get out of the way and too mindless to realize their danger. Steam still trailed from their severed bodies. A spray of gore marked where one had boiled and exploded.

  Two parallel lines marked out a ring fifteen feet across. Inside the double circle was what looked like two triangles—or maybe an hourglass—surrounded by squiggles.

  “Nice job, Barry,” said the resurrected man. His handcuffs jingled as he gestured at the symbols. He swayed as he did, and St. George kept one hand on the man’s shoulder.

  Thanks.

  “So what is it?” asked St. George.

  “It’s the Hexagram of Water,” explained Max, “modified with six of the names of God and a thaumaturgic circle.”

  “A what?”

  “Magic,” said Stealth. “He is claiming this is a magical ward of some sort.”

  “Very good,” said Max. “There’s an appropriate one protecting us at each gate, and some stronger ones around the Mount proper.” He waved his hands to the east and south. It was a clumsy motion with the cuffs.

  Protection? said Zzzap. The gleaming wraith turned to the man with the salt-and-pepper beard and tried to ignore the glare from Stealth. You said they were part of the resurrection spell.

  “Yeah, sorry,” said Max. “It was easier to tell you that.”

  “Okay,” said St. George, “so what are you protecting us from?”

  “Hang on,” said Max. He was scanning the crowd of walking dead. “Wait for it.”

  An ex a few yards away stopped in mid-stagger as its feet brushed the edge of the steaming circle. It had been a petite woman, a redhead with a mane of wild hair clotted with gore and dirt. It wore a tight green henley splattered with blood and filth. It turned, searching, and glared at the people on the Wall.

  “There he is,” said Max.

  The dead thing raised a hand to point at them. It howled. It was the roar of a mammoth or dinosaur or some other huge, primordial beast. It echoed between the buildings. Half a dozen windows shattered.

  St. George winced. Ilya and the other gate guards covered their ears. Even Zzzap flinched back.

  The ex filled out, its desiccated flesh swelling with new life. The trembling limbs stretched and its jaw swung open to reveal a bear trap of ivory fangs and tusks. Blue flames burst out of the ex’s eyes and set fire to its hair. Its fingers stretched out into talons. In just a few moments it was over seven feet tall, then eight.

  Then the dead woman exploded in a spray of gore and blue fire.

  What the hell was that? shouted Zzzap.

  “Remember what I said about how being dead was my safe house? Nothing could touch me?”

  St. George nodded. “Yeah?”

  “Well, I’m not dead anymore.” He pointed at the bright circle of gore that had been the undead woman. “That was Cairax Murrain. He’s pissed I’ve gotten away and he’s coming after me. And anyone he thinks might’ve helped me.”

  What?! shouted Zzzap. His head turned from the steaming remains of the ex to his friends. Stealth was statue stiff. Smoke leaked out from between St. George’s lips.

  “Yeah,” said Max. “I probably should’ve mentioned this would happen a bit sooner.”

  “YOU HAVE PUT everyone in the Mount at risk,” said Stealth. Her sharp voice echoed in the hospital room. She stood wrapped in her cloak, so it was impossible to tell where her hands were. St. George was pretty sure they were near her holsters. He didn’t blame her.

  “Don’t be melodramatic,” said Max from the bathroom. “We’re not at risk as long as we stay inside the walls.”

  St. George stood by the window. Smoke was pouring out of his nostrils in a steady stream, and he hadn’t been able to get the tickle in his throat under control. Part of him wanted to grab Max and shake him, but he didn’t want to set off the fire alarms.

  Freedom stood across from them, his arms crossed against his broad chest. He’d joined them after the radios filled with people talking about the creature outside the Big Wall. He wore his displeasure plain on his face.

  The resurrected man tapped the razor on the sink and rinsed away another inch of salt-and-pepper beard. St. George always suspected Jarvis would look a good ten years younger without the beard. He still knew the face beneath it, but it seemed more like a mask now. Jarvis never had that confident, almost smug look in his eyes and tone in his voice. He didn’t have a barely hidden swagger when he moved.

  But he did now.

  They locked eyes for a moment in the mirror while Max brushed the razor under his nose. For just a moment the confidence and swagger vanished and St. George saw two looks flash across the other man’s face. Relief that he’d escaped a horrible fate. Worry that somehow he hadn’t.

  St. George also noticed Max’s eyes were brown. Jarvis’s eyes had been blue.

  Then the moment passed and Max winked at him.

  “And if someone did not stay within the walls?” asked Stealth.

  “Well, if someone goes out there, one of two things will happen,” Max said. He reached up with the razor and scraped away a little more of Jarvis. “More than likely Cairax will just kill them.”

  “But you’re Cairax,” said Freedom.

  “No,” said Max. “We’re two separate beings. Always have been. I just borrowed his body now and then. And maybe a little of his mind-set.”

  “Which was your excuse for molesting a dead actress,” said Stealth.

  “Hey!” snapped Max. He turned from the mirror. “That’s not what happened at all. The whole thing just got blown out of proportion. And none of you did anything to stop it, I might add.”

  Stealth didn’t flinch under his glare.

  “I slipped a dead woman the tongue and she bit it off. That’s it. Considering what my perceptions were being filtered through, it’s an amazing example of self-control.”

  “Well,” Freedom said dryly, “at least now we know you didn’t do anything disgusting.”

  Max turned back to the mirror. A moment passed. No one spoke while the resurrected man scraped at the bit of Jarvis on his chin.

  St. George took a slow breath and managed to get the flames in his throat under control. The trailer of smoke from his nose turned to a thread. “So it’ll kill anyone who goes past your marks,” he said.

  “Yeah. Probably.”

  “How?”

  “Well, you’ve seen the exes. He’s got a good four or five seconds before those bodies explode.” He stopped shaving and glanced over his shoulder. “You’ve fought Cairax, George. How much damage do you think he can fit into five seconds?”

  Stealth’s head shifted inside her hood. “What is the other possible result of passing the wards?”

  “He might try to possess whoever goes out there. But the odds of pulling it off with an unprepared body are next to nil. Really, it’s just another way he could kill people.” Max splashed some water on his face and the last of the salt-and-pepper beard was gone. A few drops spotted his hospital scrubs.

  “What do you mean?”

  Max grabbed a towel and wiped off his cheeks and chin. He let it drop and ran his fingers across his scalp. “If it isn’t suitably prepared with the right sigils and agreements, a normal human body just can’t take the stress of demonic possession.”

  “Yours did,” said St. George.

  “Yeah, but mine was prepared, plus I had the safeties in the medallion. Anyone else would just burst like the exes. It’s like boiling a frog—you’ve got to go slow to even have a chance of it working.” The sorcerer gestured at himself. “Look how long it took me to work my way into Jarvis’s body. He’d need at least twice as much time.”

  Max stopped and ran his fingers across his scalp again. “Weird having short hair.
Kind of weird having hair at all, to be honest. Been a long time.” His lips shifted and one of his cheeks bulged. “Jarvis was missing one of his back teeth, too. That’ll take some getting used to.”

  St. George felt the hostility coming off Stealth. Max either didn’t notice it or didn’t care. The hero cleared his throat rather than smacking the sorcerer. Max glanced at him, then put his hands down.

  “If what you are saying is true,” said Stealth, “the demon could possess an ex just as you did.”

  Max shook his head. “He’s too big. A demon needs a sentient soul to use as … as an opposing force, sort of. Without one, going slow isn’t an option. They just rush right into a body, like filling a water balloon with a fire hose. Believe me, if the wards weren’t up, people would be popping left and right in here. Cairax is just too impatient for his own good. That’s why his kind didn’t overrun the world millennia ago.”

  “If it knows that,” asked Freedom, “why’d it try to possess the exes outside?”

  “Why do people punch walls?” Max shrugged. “And it’s pretty creepy, you’ve got to admit. It sends a message.”

  “If what you are saying is true,” said Stealth, “demonic possession should still be a common occurrence.”

  “Well, it’s more common than people think,” said Max. “Up until the ex-virus, they couldn’t come through on their own, and once it had wiped out ninety percent of mankind, there just wasn’t a point. Why make the effort to manifest in this world for just a few souls? Y’know, unless they really wanted to kill someone.”

  “Wait,” said Freedom. “Why couldn’t they come through before the ex-virus?”

  “Because of the Pope.”

  “What?”

  “The Pope. That’s the whole point of there being a Pope. He’s God’s chosen warrior against evil. You didn’t think the son of God really wanted to create some borderline-fascist religious bureaucracy, did you?”

  “You’re joking,” St. George said.

  Max shook his head. “The fisherman’s ring. Annulus Piscatoris. Ever hear of it?”

  “Yeah, it’s like the Pope’s signet or something.”

  “Or something. The real one, not the decoy but the one that’s passed down in secret, is an anti-touchstone. As long as it’s on a living finger, nothing demonic can manifest on Earth in a material form within nine hundred and sixty-three miles of it. Did you know there’s a cardinal whose sole duty is to hang out near the Pope so he can put the ring on if he dies unexpectedly? He’s the one who wears it while they’re choosing a new one, too.”

  They all stared at him.

  “You,” said St. George, “are making this up.”

  “So if we cannot leave,” said Stealth, “what are we expected to do?”

  “Just relax,” said Max. “After a while he’ll get bored of stalking around out there and head off to plot some demonic revenge against me.”

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know. A little time. Ten or twelve days, maybe.”

  “Ten or twelve days?” echoed Freedom.

  The sorcerer nodded. “Two weeks tops.”

  St. George felt the fire building in his throat again. “You’re saying we might not be able to go out into the city for two weeks?”

  “Two weeks at the absolute most,” said Max. “It’ll probably be less than that.”

  “There’s no chance we could sneak out?” Freedom asked. “A small team, maybe with a diversionary action?”

  Max shook his head. “Cairax is a demonic spirit. He can be in multiple places at once and he can see every living thing inside the walls. There’s no getting out without him knowing.”

  “The other option,” said Stealth, “is we surrender you to this entity now.”

  Freedom’s lips twitched at the corners.

  “You could,” Max admitted, “but we’re the good guys. Besides, it probably wouldn’t make a difference. Demons are legendary for holding a grudge, and there’s no way you’d convince it I misled you.”

  “Lied,” corrected Freedom.

  “It’s all in your point of view,” said Max. “All of this will blow over in a couple of days. Trust me.”

  “I think we’re all having a little trouble with that right now,” said St. George.

  There was a knock on the door and Billie entered with a duffel bag. “Hey,” she said. “I got a bunch of his clothes. Did you want to dress him up for a funeral or something? He didn’t have an actual suit.”

  “Too bad,” said Max. “I like a good suit.”

  Her eyes flitted to the resurrected man and she gave a polite nod. Then she looked at him again and her eyes went wide with recognition. One hand rose up. The other one dropped to her holster.

  Freedom set a hand on her shoulder. “At ease,” he said.

  “Jarvis,” she said, “you’re—”

  “I’m not Jarvis,” said Max.

  “But you were dying,” she said. “I came and saw you.” After three years of dealing with the undead, St. George could see the conflict on her face. She wasn’t sure if she should hug her friend or shoot him.

  “It is not Jarvis,” said Stealth. “His body is being used by another … person.”

  Max took the bag of clothes from her. “Thanks,” he said. He held out his hand. “Billie Carter, right?”

  Billie looked over her shoulder at Freedom, then at St. George. The hero gave her a small nod. She held out her hand.

  “Maxwell Hale,” he said. “Max. Pleased to meet you.”

  “You, too,” she said. She stared at him. Her gaze flitted from his eyes to his chin and up to his hairline.

  Max pulled a few different shirts from the bag. He reached back and pulled the scrubs over his head. His shoulders and chest were covered with elaborate designs. Four smaller ones on his back framed a perfect circle of bare skin.

  “I didn’t know Jarvis had so many tattoos,” said St. George.

  “He doesn’t,” Max said as he shook out a pinstriped shirt. “I do.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” said Freedom.

  “No, it does,” the sorcerer assured them. He pulled the shirt on while he searched for another analogy. “It’s like … Okay, you know how you have hair in the Matrix even if you don’t in the real world? Because in your mind you picture yourself with hair?”

  “Are you trying to explain this using The Matrix?”

  “I’ve been hanging out with Barry a lot, okay? It’s the same thing, though. The soul is all about identity, and the body is part of someone’s identity. Granted, we all tend to picture ourselves a little taller, a little thinner, but past that there are always physical things we just accept as an inherent part of who we are, and these are the things that are hard-wired into our soul. They carry over in cases like this.”

  Max gestured down at his chest. “All these tattoos are part of me. It’s how I see myself. You could say they were inked into my soul as well as my skin. But if, say, Billie here came back, she’d probably only bring her Marine Corps tattoo with her, not the rose or the dolphin.”

  Stealth shook her head. “Psychosomatic tattoos?”

  “If you like.”

  “You’ve got a big bare patch on your back,” said Freedom.

  “Because that one wasn’t supposed to carry over,” said Max. “Big, soul-scarring magic. One use only. If I can’t see it, it can’t become part of my identity.”

  St. George looked at the ink patterns as Max buttoned the shirt up. Now that he knew what they were, he was surprised he didn’t recognize them sooner. He remembered the night Cairax had beaten him bloody, and the tattoo-covered man the zombie demon had turned into.

  Billie’s hands knotted into fists as they all mulled over the explanation. “How,” she growled, “do you know I have a dolphin tattoo?”

  He rolled his eyes. “I was a ghost here for a year and a half. Believe me, I’ve seen every tattoo everyone has.”

  She fumed but said nothing.

  The resu
rrected man pulled a pair of jeans and some underwear from the bag and let his hospital pants drop to the floor. A minute later he tugged on some socks and was searching the bag again. “This was all he had for ties?”

  The thought of slapping Max passed through St. George’s mind again. “I don’t think Jarvis was ever worried about formal occasions,” he said.

  Max sighed, selected a tie, and tossed the rest back in the bag. “So how are we playing this?” he asked. “I knew my return wasn’t going to get cheers, but I didn’t expect it to be this cold. Am I a prisoner? A partner? A free citizen?”

  St. George glanced at Stealth. “I don’t think we need to make you a prisoner,” he said.

  “Good.”

  “However,” said Stealth, “it would be best if you did not go anywhere unescorted.”

  Max knotted the tie around his neck. “Still worried about what Father Andy said? That I’m going to cause an uproar?”

  “There is that possibility,” she said, “but I still believe it is slight. There is no need to cause confusion with your borrowed body.”

  “It’s not exactly borrowed,” said Max. “I can’t give it back.”

  “Stolen, then.”

  “I was going to suggest donated. My hair will change color in a day or two, that’ll help,” he added. “I think I might lose a few pounds, too.”

  Freedom gave him a look. “Just like that?”

  “Coming back from the dead burns a lot of calories,” said Max. “Speaking of which, I haven’t eaten a meal in almost three years. Not one I’d want to remember, anyway. Any chance of getting some food?”

  “Billie,” said St. George, “can you show him around? Maybe keep an eye on him until Freedom gets someone assigned to him?”

  She gave a sharp nod and looked at Max. “Ready when you are.”

  Max held out a hand to St. George. “Thanks again. I owe you big time.”

  St. George looked at the hand for a moment and then shook it. “Let’s just get rid of the demon as quick as we can.”

  The sorcerer held out his hand to Stealth, but she stared past him. He pursed his lips, nodded, and left with Billie.