Demon Squad 7: Exit Wounds Read online

He pointed the direction of the blood trail, and then to his ear. The rest of the group made their way closer while I listened harder, hoping to hear what he had. That was when I heard a low grunt, followed by the slither of the grass, the sounds repeating in slow, but regular intervals.

  “What is that?”

  The words were barely out of my mouth when I heard a dull thud behind me, and then Karra cried out.

  Free from her leash, shreds of it wrapped about Karra’s sword, Mia blew past us before anyone could react, a red smear across her forehead. I reached out for her but she was gone, darting over the bloody grass and barreling into the woods.

  “Fucking bitch!” Karra screamed, wiping blood from her cheek, her nose swollen and red. “She head butted me.” Without waiting on anyone else, she ran off after the green woman, sword gleaming and thirsty for payback.

  The rest of us took off in pursuit, Katon and Rahim hustling the DSI ladies along to keep them from pulling the same shit Mia had. Turned out, they really have the time to. Not more than fifty feet from where we’d started at, Karra hovered over a lump of sloppy meat, which lay in a sea of its own blood.

  “Damn.” My feet stumbled as I came up behind her. “You didn’t have to kill her.”

  “I didn’t,” she answered unhappily, pointing at the person squirming on the ground who was decidedly not green or even female, for that matter. He was an angel, and he stared at us through crimson eyes.

  A crusted stump pressed against the wound of his stomach, though he had several from the looks of it. He held his other hand out to us, gold rings glistening on his thumb and two remaining fingers as he whispered through blue-black lips,” Help me.”

  Eleven

  We’d run across a buffet of weirdness out here in God’s prison, but the guy lying slumped on the ground was the weirdest of them all. That was mainly because, just like us, he didn’t belong there. I didn’t even need to notice his lips were in sync with his words to know that.

  “Who are you?”

  The angel turned his head to look me over. Despite the obvious agony that distorted his face, there was a clear sense of distrust in his stare. Not that I could blame him. He wasn’t exactly in a position to be generous with what little was left of his ass. Someone had worked him over good, sans the courtesy of a reach around.

  A section of his knee had been hacked away not to mention his hand, which looked an awful lot like Rahim’s—you know, gone. On top of that, his second hand, the one wavering before me, looked as if it’d been in a fist fight with a piranha. The missing fingers were chewed off at the second knuckle, ragged skin and crusted blood and bone capping them. He hadn’t lost them easily.

  “Who are you?” Katon repeated, moving closer while trying not to be too threatening, but there really wasn’t any way for a six foot-tall, leathered up and spiked bloodsucker with a sword in his hand to look friendly.

  The angel stared for a moment, the reluctance of his expression finally cracking a little once it sunk in he wasn’t gonna find much in the way of alternate help out here. We were the best he was gonna get. “Forgive me, friends,” he said. His voice was a waterfall of gravel but surprisingly strong given how horrible he looked. “I am…Ilfaar.” He hunched in on himself as he tried to sit higher in the grass. Blood oozed from his myriad wounds.

  “How did you end up here?” Rahim asked from behind the enforcer.

  Ilfaar loosed a gurgled sigh. “It’s a long story, but suffice it to say I was struck low by a cruel fiend who invaded my world. I was lucky to escape with my life, such as it is, by retreating here.”

  Veronica dropped to a knee beside him. “You came here by choice?”

  Ilfaar’s eyes narrowed. “Did you not?”

  “We’re not prisoners, if that’s where you’re going with that,” I answered, hoping to defuse the angel’s wariness. If he came to Tenebrae of his own free will, he likely had a way out of it, too. He also had to know what the place was and the type of folks living there. The last thing we wanted him thinking was we were there because we were supposed to be.

  Rahim must have had the same thought. “No, we’re most definitely not here by choice, but like you, we were forced here against our will.”

  The angel’s eyes took the measure of us, no doubt seeing the war torn look most of us displayed, and nodded as if he understood. “Then it’s fortuitous we have stumbled across each other, friends.” He gave a weak, blood-spattered smile. “Perhaps we might be of assistance to one another, after all.”

  “You know a way out of here?” Rala asked, shuffling over with CB, maggots all atwitter.

  Ilfaar glanced at her and smiled. “A gentleman is always careful with his secrets, young one, but I’d be a poor negotiator to ask for help and not have something to exchange for it, would I not?”

  Rala grinned hopeful, but it was Shaw whose reaction drew my focus. She stood just behind the little alien, out of sight of everyone else, her eyes locked on Ilfaar. A hummingbird of a smile lighted on her lips for just an instant before it vanished. My hackles rose at seeing it. The woman was an iceberg. She only smiled when she was hurting someone or planning on hurting someone.

  I followed her gaze to Ilfaar’s wounds where his severed wrist pressed hard against the stab wound that threatened to spill his guts onto the grass. Seemed a weird thing to get excited over, but I knew better than to discount the wight. She was plotting something. I just had no damn clue as to what.

  “Let us say, I have some knowledge of this world most don’t have,” Ilfaar continued, fighting back a hacking, wet cough. “Though it would seem time is against me.”

  Katon sidled closer. “Let me take a look.”

  “No!” The angel brushed Katon’s hands aside with the remnant of his own. “No, but thank you, friend. I fear I am beyond such meager help as this world can provide. If you would assist me, I ask only that you help me to stand so we might be on our way before this place gets the best of me.”

  Katon cast a glance in Rahim’s direction, the wizard pausing a moment before nodding in response. It looked like a decision had been made. I sighed, wondering just how desperate we’d become to grasp at every rotten straw held our direction. I presumed Katon and the others would be wary of this gift horse but there was no clue what we were getting ourselves into. We didn’t know shit about this guy but experience told me angels weren’t to be trusted, no matter where they came from. Might be the pot calling the kettle black, but whatever. It was true, and I wanted to learn a little more about our new acquaintance.

  “This being who tossed you in here: what was his deal?” I asked as Katon helped Ilfaar to his feet, agony etched across the angel’s face. He pressed to his belly fearful he might become the after shot in a Disemboweled Diet ad.

  His gaze turned to me once the wave of pain dissipated. “He was a right bastard, that one.” Ilfaar wobbled on his feet and Katon held him steady. “Some foul beast named Lucifer.”

  Everyone’s eyes snapped wide just as I was sure mine did.

  “Hey, isn’t that—” Rala started.

  “Yeah,” I shouted, cutting her short. “We’ve heard of him. He most certainly is a right prick bastard, that stupid old guy.” I cast a sharp, silencing glare at Rala and Veronica, following it up with one to Shaw and Venai, covering it with a couple short coughs. “Sorry, alien allergies,” I said, waving at the air. “These pretty trees are killing my lungs.”

  If Ilfaar noticed my efforts, he showed no sign of it, letting loose a phlegmy chuckle. “It seems the cretin has a reputation universe-wide, and not a good one. I had hoped to slay him but he caught me by surprise, unaware.” He motioned to the wreck of his body. “I gave nearly as good as I got, but not quite…” he let his words trail off with the obvious conclusion.

  I bit my lip and nodded, wondering just what we’d stumbled into besides a bullshit artist. I couldn’t see Ilfaar shining Daddy’s shoes let alone giving him a run for his money, but the fact that Lucifer handed me the key to th
is realm to hide it away and yet was off dealing with folks who just happened to have access to it couldn’t have been a coincidence. My head was swimming with that thought as I glanced around at the others.

  To my surprise, everyone kept their mouths shut about who I was, but I could see the sliver of a smile on Shaw’s face. She was storing that information away for when it would be most useful. When she dropped that bomb, it would make the R.I.P.D. movie look like a blockbuster. If I hadn’t already been keeping an eye on her, I certainly was now. The only saving grace was that she wanted out of this place as badly as the rest of us. If Ilfaar could get her home, she’d sit on her revelation until it would best screw me but not her. I just needed to make sure that particular circumstance never arose.

  “What do you need from us?” I asked, making sure to be the one opening his mouth so no one else would.

  “A hand walking, first.” The angel grunted as Katon slipped beneath his shoulder to better support him. He paused for a moment as though contemplating or seeking something out with his senses, and then gestured toward the mountain, of course. “Our path lies that way. I fear it will not be without its challenges.”

  No shit.

  There was a collective groan as we started off. Everything in this world seemed to point to the guardian sanctuary, and every time we took another step that direction, it became clearer and clearer we’d end up facing down the dragons eventually. Nobody wanted that. One had to presume that a creature designed to guard an entire prison world of weird freaks would be sufficiently difficult to deal with, especially if all the medieval fairy tales are to be believed. Empowered, we’d probably kick their asses six ways to Sunday, but that was the crux of it all. We were shit outta luck and power. That’s what made this place so dangerous. The game was on their terms.

  “What about the bitch?” Karra asked, slipping close to me so no one else could hear.

  I wanted to ask which one, but I knew better, so I wiped the blood from her lip and smiled. “Mia knows where we’re headed so I suspect, at some point in the near future, she’ll come to you. Won’t that be fun?”

  Karra’s face erupted in a malevolent grin. I could only imagine the brutality she was visiting upon the green woman inside her head. That was why I loved her. Well, one of the reasons. I couldn’t discount her great ass in the equation, so I waved her on ahead of me, letting her soak in her thoughts. Carnage, take her away.

  Besides, the view was way better than the salmon sea of hard wood around us. I settled into a casual pace and let fangs and his newfound companion lead the way, the group shuffling along in relative quiet. But of course my moment in Happy Town was short lived. Slowed down by the caravan of misfits we’d gathered, we couldn’t have traveled more than a couple of miles before Katon brought us to a jarring halt. Ilfaar coughed and spit out some inventive comment as to the breeding habits of someone’s mother, which I presumed to be Katon’s, before the enforcer slapped a hand over the angel’s mouth. After a short stare down, resulting in the angel biting his tongue, Katon passed Ilfaar to Rahim to babysit.

  “You’re with me, Frank,” he whispered, turning to the others as they came together in a tight circle. “The rest of you, stay just inside the tree line when we reach it,” he met everyone’s eyes in turn, “and out of sight, understand?”

  CB bobbled on Rala’s arm as the others nodded. I could see the question of what we were doing burning in their eyes, but like me, no one asked it. Katon paused a moment to make sure he had our attention before waving us forward. It only took another minute or so before we figured out what had spooked him as he stopped again and motioned for the group to hold. A short distance beyond the cluster of tight tree trunks stood the answer.

  We’d found Gilligan’s vacation home.

  Much like the set of the original King Kong, great planks of wood rose into the sky of the broad clearing. Easily fifty feet high, and coming to a carved point at the apex, they were lashed together with stripped branches that had been woven between the boards by the millions. The pink, blue, and purple of the source materials made me wonder if we’d stumbled across the secret headquarters of My Little Pony. The place might have looked right at home in El Paseo, but slapped in the middle of an alien forest, the DYI Channel abortion looked more playhouse than fortress. At each of the corners waved an oddly plain flag, little more than a slash of red across a black background. The slim wooden poles they fluttered on creaked in the breeze.

  A reinforced wooden gate stood about dead center of the place, recessed behind the walls. It wasn’t exactly a marvel of engineering, but it was sufficiently bolted against us by the looks of it. The thing looked super heavy, so I figured there was some sort of primitive pulley system hidden out of sight that allowed them to raise it.

  “I don’t see anyone,” I said, my eyes scanning the fortress. The only movement was the sullen flap of the flags.

  “Neither do I, but can you smell that?”

  I took a quick sniff and realized I could. “Is that…blood?”

  Katon nodded. “Would appear so.”

  The sharp tang of it was suddenly so obvious I wondered how I’d missed it before it was pointed out to me. Clearly I needed more practice as a vampire before I could hang with Blackula.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s fresh, whatever it is,” he answered with a shrug. “And there’s a whole hell of a lot of it stinking up the place.”

  “Can we eat it?” Rala asked, sneaking up on us. She sniffed the air, a mix of hunger and excitement on her face. It was damn creepy.

  I glanced at the others. While there was a bunch of uncertainty pursing lips and squinting eyes, there was no doubt the mention of food had sunk in. If we’d have crashed in the Andes I would have feared for my ass cheeks. As it was, it was obvious we needed to find something for everyone to chow down on soon before things got desperate. I clenched my teeth as I thought about our baby starving in Karra’s belly. My gaze slid away, heavy with shame.

  “Let’s check it out,” I said before I could change my mind. It didn’t matter that it was what Katon had wanted me to do since he’d ferreted out the place. It was simply what needed to be done. If there was something to eat inside, we had to have it, end of story.

  Katon gave me a knowing nod, but Ilfaar held up a butchered hand.

  “Is this wise?”

  “We’ve been traveling for a while without sustenance,” Katon answered with a cool glance at the angel, “and it would appear we still have a long way to go before we’re free of this place, so—”

  “It stands to reason we plan for the worst,” Rahim finished. “Go, find what you can, but be careful.” His eyes shifted to me. “Both of you.”

  Katon grinned and slipped off through the foliage without a sound. I sighed, blew Karra a kiss, and followed after him, mostly not making a sound. We were committed.

  The enforcer wasted no time once he was in the clearing. He bolted across the killing field—a medieval term that popped into my head like the makeshift arrow I kept expecting—and pinned his back to the wall, eyes surveying the sky above. I turned on the afterburners and reached the fortress just a split-second behind Katon, plastering my spine to the boards so tightly I was afraid I might ooze through the cracks if I didn’t stop pushing. Katon seemed unimpressed by my inner dilemma. He laid a hand on my arm and pointed toward the far corner of the fortress before mimicking a climbing motion. He was the king of charades because my mind immediately jumped on the image of my dumb ass scaling the wall like a ninja.

  “Seriously?” I mouthed.

  He nodded, and I felt the empty space that was Hobbs’ undead stomach tighten. Katon didn’t bother to stick around and help me work through my performance anxiety. He ran down the line of the fortress, cast a quick glance around the corner, and then scrambled up the wall as if he’d done it a million times. Knowing him, he probably had. All throughout, there hadn’t been a single noise anywhere around us. There was only the stench of somet
hing newly dead. That didn’t bode well for whatever was inside, but it sure was good news for us.

  Not wanting to be left behind—or at least telling myself I didn’t want to be—I rushed to the opposite corner and followed his example. Nothing lurking that I could see, I stuffed my spear into the waistband of my thong and imagined I had on my Spiderman Underoos. Once I was set, I grabbed a couple handfuls of vine and pulled myself upward. It was easier than I expected. With plenty of places to wedge my toes and fingers, I was a blind kid on a first date.

  A quick glance over at Katon told me he was keeping pace with me so I could just climb and not worry about it being a competition. The stink of copper grew thicker and thicker until I couldn’t smell anything but it and the vaguely bitter, weather-worn wood I pressed my face against. Despite the space between the boards, I couldn’t see shit through the cracks. A second layer of wood blocked the inside of the fortress from view no matter how I angled to peek through. Bob the Builder must have been proud.

  A few short feet from the top, I saw Katon wave. I stopped and looked over at him, still surprised by how comfortable it was clinging to the outside of a wall and dangling four stories above the ground. He raised his hand, fingers splayed, and started counting down. All my comfort faded in a pucker of undead rectum. My mind seized on a million images of corpses lining the inner fortress and some weird critter turning them into lunch. And while I’d seen plenty of death in my time, wholesale slaughter didn’t tend to leave behind environments conducive to continued existence.

  Katon hit one and leapt the last little bit to the top of the wall. I did the same without hesitation. If I’d given myself any time at all to think about it, I wouldn’t have gone so willingly. As it turned out, that would have been the smart thing to do.

  The stench hit me full in the face. All around the inside lip of the wall were strung dozens of rat-looking creatures, each the size of a small pony. They’d been cut open from the neck down to their shriveled little giblets, guts hanging out like morbid wind chimes, swaying in the air and stinking up the place. Their skin was a moldy strain of black. The green woman’s comment as to there being plenty to eat came to mind, and if I had a working stomach, I’m sure it would have revolted