Demon Squad 7: Exit Wounds (11 page)

“Which way?” Katon asked Shaw once we’d surveyed the area.

The wight pointed casually off in the direction of the mountain.

“Helpful as always, I see.” Shaw huffed but wouldn’t rise to the bait. I sighed, realizing how fun it was gonna be having her along on our journey to the center of the prison-verse.

Katon apparently had the same thought. He stepped up behind Shaw and nudged her shoulder. “Let’s get going.”

Shaw hesitated until Karra walked up alongside them, tugging Mia by her leash.

“Play nice and we won’t duct tape you to a handful of branches and drag you along behind us up the mountain.”

The threat was a little off the mark seeing how none of us had any of that sweet silver stuff stashed anywhere, but Shaw seemed to get the drift. She held her ground for a second before stalking off toward the trees.

“Nothing a little charm can’t resolve,” Karra said with a wink, pulling Mia along and motioning for Venai to start walking.

The Nephilim grunted and followed after her boss. The rest of us gathered around, forming a semi-circle of bodies Shaw and her compatriot would have to circumvent in order to ditch us. The fact we were all going the same way made me think the pair would be good. No point going it alone when there are other folks to throw into the path of danger. That’s what I was thinking, at least.

Then I was thinking about how long we’d walked, how annoying the pink trees were, how frustratingly quiet the forest was and how much effort it was to listen for danger while being bored out of my mind. And then I thought about cookies. That thought lasted a long while, but it eventually got pushed to the side by more pressing matters: Cake. While Hobbs’ renta-corpse didn’t need food to keep going, my brain was geared toward and altogether different body. That body loved to eat. And while I wouldn’t starve while we made our way through the alien forest, I started to think that others among us probably would, including Karra and the baby.

“You guys hungry?” I asked.

A bevy of annoyed moans was my answer.

“Starving.” Rala clutched at her stomach, juggling Chatterbox and the tome to do it.

“I’d only just forgotten my stomach growling at me,” Veronica complained. “Thanks, Frank.”

I sighed as Karra gave me a glance that pretty much confirmed my heartlessness.

“We’ll find something,” Katon said, though I wasn’t sure if he had something in mind or was just simply trying to quiet all the complaints so the rest of the realm wouldn’t hear us coming.

“What the hell is there to eat in this place, anyway?” I glanced to Mia hoping she’d tell us there was a Taco Bell around the next tree. Would midget monkey meat taste good in a burrito? Couldn’t be any worse than whatever rodent they use now.

The green woman chuckled. “We live off the land. There’s plenty to eat.”

“Mind pointing some of that bounty out or is ‘plenty to eat’ code for dried dragon chips and devourer ooze?”

She wrinkled her face. “Hardly.”

I started to press her to put her food where my mouth was, but Katon silenced us all with a hiss. He dropped to his knees near a cluster if foliage that grew wild about the base of a humungous tree trunk. The rest of us came to a halt, Karra laying her sword across Mia’s collarbones to keep her quiet. The woman went silent, but I couldn’t read the look in her eyes. They locked on Katon.

“Blood,” the enforcer whispered, holding up his hand so we could see the fluid wet upon his dark fingers. He gestured to the grass where more redness stained its natural orange. It didn’t take a tracker to tell something had gone that way, the shoots of grass bent and pushed aside, blood trailing.

“We’re all here,” I whispered back, wondering what he wanted us to do with a shrug and raised hands.

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 this 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.