Gorgon threw off the exes and ducked as the massive fist sailed over him. He drove a punch up into the thick wrist and felt something crack.
“Kind of slow yourself, fugly,” Gorgon shouted. “Your mind somewhere else, maybe?”
The monstrous ex rumbled and stepped back. “Think you’re clever, don’t you?” The exes all fell back as well, leaving Gorgon in another circle.
“Smarter than you, for what that says.”
Rodney lunged again. The hero jumped up and drove his heels into the giant’s chin. It was a weak kick. Tier three without a doubt. It pushed him back more than Rodney.
Gorgon grabbed his walkie and keyed the send button four or five times. And then huge fingers grabbed the tails of his duster and whipped him into the air. He flew, whirled, crashed into the mob of exes, the dead bodies cushioning his landing. Teeth were on his sleeves and got his arms up to protect his face. He threw out a few punches and kicks and they all backed away again.
“Okay,” bellowed Rodney. “Fun’s over.”
Gorgon stood up and heard the crack at the same time his side burned. He thought the giant had broken one of his ribs. Then he looked down, saw the hole in the side of the duster, and felt the blood spreading.
There was another gunshot and his shoulder exploded with pain. His knees shook for a moment and he heard the Seventeens howling. He keyed the walkie again.
The giant loomed over him. “Still feeling tough? Still think you’re better than me?”
“Fuck, it’s not about what I think,” said Gorgon. Everybody here knows I’m better than you.”
Rodney, the crowd of exes, and the sky spun around him and a beat later he felt the ribs collapse where the kick had connected. He hit the pavement and heard something snap inside the goggles. One of the lens sections tumbled in against his eye.
Rodney sneered. “This your big last stand, esse ? This what you’d call being heroic?”
Gorgon spit out a blob of blood. “Nope,” he said. “I’d call this round three.”
He turned his smile to the bright sky as the last of the night fled and the sun raced around the corner. It incinerated a crowd of exes near the gate then shot back to hover above them. Lay off the mic, for Christ’s sake, said Zzzap. You sure you’re ready for this?
“Guess we’ll find out.”
Rodney scowled with his one eye. “What the fu—”
Gorgon pulled off his goggles.
For a moment, just the barest of instants, the man-shaped silhouette in the air dimmed. The false daylight flickered to gray and Zzzap sagged. Then his outline flared back up and he vanished up and across the Mount.
And Gorgon was on fire.
“OH, YEAH!” he roared. He couldn’t even guess what tier this was. Fifty? One hundred? He could feel strength burning out of his eyes, mouth, every pore of his skin. “YOU STILL WANT TO THROW DOWN, YOU FUCKING FRANKENSTEIN WANNABE?!”
The hero lunged forward and his fist struck Rodney with the force of a train engine. The enormous ex hurtled back, smashing through a steel fence like a missile through a garden trellis. He shredded the roof of a dusty sports car and slammed into the minivan parked beyond it.
Gorgon bounded after him, covering twenty feet with each leap. “Come on!” he bellowed. “You and me, big guy! It’s what you always wanted!” He hurled the sports car into the air and the giant scrambled to dodge it.
A quartet of exes seized the hero’s arms and neck. He crushed their skulls like paper cutouts and whipped the bodies away, sending everything behind him sprawling for half a dozen yards.
Rodney tore the axle from the sports car and swung it like a bat. He brought it whipping around and Gorgon caught the end. A quick shove and the steel bar cracked back into the giant’s face. The hero hammered down again and sent the huge Seventeen sprawling.
* * * *
Stealth fought from her position on the ground while she reloaded the Glocks and tried to clear her head. She kicked and swept with her legs until the slides both dropped home. At this range, bodies dropped one after another with each shot, and she didn’t pause to see if the blood spraying was black or red until she was back on her feet. She emptied the pistols to give her a moment of breathing room and swapped in another set of fresh clips. Her last set.
Rodney’s strike had knocked her forty feet down the road. There were hundreds, more likely thousands of exes between her and the gate. She would not make it back on foot.
The gate shuddered and a gap appeared.
Hundreds of exes backed by hundreds more pushed on the ornate double gate. Between the gunshots she could hear the terrible creak of the bars as they bent under the weight. The gap was already over a foot and opening wider. Derek, Katie, and a dozen others stood on the wall firing down into the horde and Stealth could see the pikes lashing out.
Something grabbed her shoulder. She spun and pistol-whipped the ex across the jaw. The backswing crushed its temple and the dead thing dropped. Another eleven shots opened the circle again and left a howling Seventeen with an arm all but severed at the elbow.
A few yards away a king-cab truck gunned its engine and moved for the gate. It pulled out into the wide intersection and its cowcatcher shoved exes out of the way. The Seventeens in the back howled and banged on the roof of the cab as it gained speed.
Her Glocks spat fire and dropped a score of exes as she charged the truck. The Seventeens saw her coming and shouted. Their aim was sloppy and nervous and she felt three individual rounds tug at her cloak for an instant each.
The last ex dropped and Stealth used its body as a springboard. She holstered the weapons in midair and her kick threw the first Seventeen off the far side of the truck and into the mob of exes. Her boots clanged on the truck bed and she drove the heel of her hand into another man’s chin.
They bumped each other, hesitated, and she took them apart. One hand blocked a roundhouse punch, twisted the man’s wrist around, and a strike slammed into his armpit to dislocate the shoulder. Her leg shot back, burying her heel in a woman’s stomach. She grabbed a Seventeen’s shoulders and the same knee flew forward as his head came down. A knife stabbed at her and she broke three of the fingers holding it and the wrist behind them. Her baton shattered the passenger window and she dragged the man out by his hair. The driver’s nose hit the steering wheel four times before the Glock pressed against his head hard enough to force his right eye shut.
“You were heading for the gate,” Stealth said. “You will continue to do so. Slowly.”
* * * *
St. George slammed the Chrysler down on the demon and flattened it to the ground. The hero leaped into the air and dropped hard onto the roof. All four tires blew out and the last two windows shattered.
Beneath the car Cairax looked dazed. Most of its head and one arm stuck out beneath the passenger door, salted with broken glass. Its diagonal eyelids clicked shut a few times. The thing looking through the eyes went away and the demon’s jaws started to gnash together.
“About damn time,” said St. George.
Up and down the street he saw the shift. Thousands of exes slumped a little more, moved a little less, like a mass loss of confidence. The monster shifted under the car and reached up for him with a clumsy arm. The Chrysler groaned as the dead thing tried to push it out of the way.
The hero balanced on the swaying car and threw a glance back to the gate. “I think we’re good,” he shouted. The claw latched onto his leg and yanked him off the car. Cairax smashed St. George against the pavement, then swung him around. His head cracked against dozens of withered ankles and he was airborne again, just for a minute, before being slammed into the street again. His ears were ringing.