Demon Squad 7: Exit Wounds (6 page)

“We know you’re there, assholes!” I called out, turning to give our unknown enemy the full Monty. I heard Katon groan as the group came to a sudden halt. Our pursuers went still, but there was no doubting they were still there.

“Really, Frank?” the enforcer asked.

I shrugged. “Ever think they’re herding us someplace rather than us leading them? Not like we know the terrain. They’ve got home turf advantage.”

“He has a point,” Rahim said with quiet acceptance of our fate, which I really didn’t like hearing. Without Longinus’ power to fall back on, anything we got into would be medieval style, our fight with the monkeys a perfect example of how limited we truly were.

Katon didn’t bother responding to his friend, his eyes scanning the forest to find all our erstwhile foes and to make sure they didn’t creep up behind us.

I figured I’d make it easier on all of us. “Come on, you damn pansies. Come out and get some.”

“
Vaaaaagggginnnnnnaaaassssss.
”

“Pussies,” I corrected.

“
Yeeeesssssss, plllleeeeaaasseee.
”

“I wasn’t offering…” I started, but gave up trying to explain it when Chatterbox’s maggots went still with disappointment. “Oh, never mind.”

It was then that our shadowy followers chose to show themselves. They moved in like an army of gimpy elephants once they’d given up pretending to be stealthy, trying to worry us with their racket. More than two dozen strange figures spilled out from behind the cover of pink trunks, ready for battle.

I heard Veronica sigh. “Way to go, Frank. Any other armies you’d like to challenge?”

“One’s probably enough, for now.”

Dressed in raggedy, blackened fur loincloths held together—and on—by strips of gray leather, our pursuers looked as if they’d escaped a barbaric reenactment of
Cirque du Soleil, the Quest for Fire
edition. Long, colorful strips of cloth jutted from their wild hair in rainbowed furls. The group was closely split between male and female, the distinction made obvious by a complete lack of shirts. A dozen pairs of boobs met my stare as though I were lined up before a perky firing squad. Despite the mossy green hue of them, I would happily set my gun upon those racks.

Chatterbox agreed. “
Faaaaapp, faaaappp, faaaaapppp, uuhhhhhh…
” I could only presume he was having a seizure, grateful it couldn’t possibly be the other, less sanitary alternative that came along with that sound.

The group edged forward, milky white eyes staring us down from emerald faces. While far from modern, the group wielded a selection of weapons to make any primitive savage envious. Most carried short spears, sharpened pieces of crystal strapped to the tips, but they also had swords and knives hanging from their loincloths, the blades carved from some kind of bone. The ivory edges looked jagged and unfriendly, much like you’d expect a prison shank to look. A couple had fierce looking maces, pointy rocks attached to short, thick handles.

“Who are you?” one of the women asked, stepping out in front of the others.

It was like watching a bad Kung Fu movie. Her lips moved entirely out of sync with the words that spilled out, which were, strangely enough, in perfect English. I cast a furtive glance to the others to see if they noticed. The looks on their faces told me they had. They showed incredible restraint by not busting out laughing.

Karra inched forward, turning to make sure they could see her sword dangling at her hip. “Who are
you
?”

The green woman snorted. “You’re bold for fresh meat, I’ll give you that.” The others chuckled and started to slowly spread out. “My name is Mia, for what little value that is to you.”

I heard Karra’s knuckles pop as she tightened her grip on her hilt. “Stand your ground.”

“What is it you want?” Katon asked as he angled off to keep the aliens in front of us. Rahim followed his lead on the other side, Veronica and Rala hovering close at my back.

Mia looked us over for a few seconds, each of us in turn, before answering, her eyes locked on Karra. “My lord would insist we take that blade first, and then his.” She motioned to Katon after.

“You’ll have to pry if from my fingers, bitch.”

The woman smiled. “We can certainly do that,” she said, the strange delay between her expression and her words was disconcerting, but it was hard to take seriously.

“So be it.” Mia raised a hand and waved her people forward. I expected some comical shouts and staggered advance, but there was none of that. The group charged without preamble or hesitation. They came at us, brandishing their weapons in a way that told me they’d done this exact maneuver enough times for it to become ingrained. That didn’t bode well.

If anyone else was impressed by their organization, it didn’t show. Karra met the first of the advancers with her usual grace. A spear jabbed her direction and was turned aside with a casual twist of her sword. The green alien screamed as his wrist was cut to the bone, and then went silent. His head, nearly severed, toppled backward until it caught the remnants of his spine, yanking the rest of his body down in a gush of piss-yellow blood. Karra snatched the spear from his flopping hand and tossed it to me.

“You can join us anytime today, Frankie.”

“The pointy end faces the bad guys, right?”

Karra laughed and gutted another of the aliens, throwing the body behind her so Veronica and Rala could raid it for weapons.

I adjusted the spear and leapt forward, surprised at how responsive my host was since it had been healed. It didn’t feel half bad. One of the women met my charge. She was fast, her bone blade whistling through the air, but she wasn’t as strong as I expected. I met her slash against the haft of my spear, and it stopped her blow cold. Her white eyes were expressionless, but I could have sworn I saw them widen. Regardless, I didn’t give her the opportunity to try again, going on the offensive.

I punched her in the tit.

What’s more offensive than that?

She stumbled back as if I’d shot her, mouth agape and boob jiggling, flashes of red amidst the green wiggle. That was when I hit her across the cheek with the shaft of the spear. She went down like a One Direction fan, and I tried not to giggle.

Katon had secured an extra weapon and had cut his way through the ranks with brutal fury. He wasn’t holding back. The strange yellowish blood sparkled in the air as he hacked and slashed at anything within reach. The composed assault broke under his and Karra’s counterattack, bits and body parts oozing out across the dark soil. Rahim held his own, bashing the aliens aside with an appropriated mace while Veronica protected his flank. Rala looked out of place behind them, clutching to the book and zombie head for dear life. Chatterbox didn’t seem to care. He still stared at the menagerie of boobs scattered across the field, clearly not giving a damn if they were upright and bouncy or prone and limp.

Is it necrophilia if two zombies get it on? Ooh, what if one is a vampire?

I didn’t really expect my brain to have an answer. I was just philosophizing the inherent immorality of undead romance. My brain wanders to weird places when I’m killing stuff, but I really needed to learn to pay attention. I nearly had my eye shishka bobbed while I was contemplating the mating rituals of corpses and the market for fleshy replacements for blow up sex dolls.

Mia snarled as I darted back, her blade just grazing my eyebrow. “Stand still, meat.”

“Fuck that noise.” I spun and jabbed at her with my spear, but she was good. She knocked it aside with her dagger and cut a shallow line down my biceps while I dodged away again.

She closed, not giving me a chance to get settled. A one-two thrust with her blades caught me slipping. The dagger point sunk into my chest about an inch while the longer blade bit into my hip,
clanking
against the bone.

I grunted and yanked it free. Black blood squirmed from the holes, and my hip stung something fierce, but neither were killing blows. The quick glance I’d take to confirm that, though, was just enough opportunity for her to try again. She came in low, trying to be slick, but she might well have been holding up a sign advertising what she intended. I held my ground and feinted with my spear, driving my fist into her face.

There was the loud
clunk
of knuckles on flesh, and she stumbled back, her hand instinctively going to her cheek. Chivalry be damned, I drove my foot into her crotch and pulled back my spear to stab her in the guts. Karra and Veronica got to her first.

Like two sledgehammers popping a zit, the dynamic duo punched Mia at the same time, from opposite sides. The alien’s lips puffed out in a serious duck-faced camera pout, and she slumped to the ground without a sound. Her head bounced a couple times before it settled, white eyes starting at the canopy without seeing a thing.

“I could have handled her,” I told the pair, who shared a conspiratorial glance and pretty much ignored me.

Katon and Rahim came over and joined us, the last of the attackers still on their feet and darting off into the forest, leaving us alone with their fallen brethren and a stash of hardly used weapons and crotch covers.

“What now?” I asked as I rolled one of the unconscious alien women over and disentangled the leather straps that held her loincloth on.

“What the hell, Frank?” Katon asked, pointing at Chatterbox. “You’re as bad as that guy.”

“For your information, I’m just getting something to cover my twig and berries.”

“Why not take one of the men’s then?”

“Ewww, that’s just nasty, man. I don’t want their barbarian funk all up on my bits.” Besides, I really wanted to do a quick biological examination of a different species. All in the name of science, of course.

Karra smacked me on the back of the head while I slipped the loincloth loose. “There will be no spelunking on my watch.” She knew me too well.

I sighed and got to work situating the loincloth so it hid my vampire junk. As I did that, Veronica and Katon lifted Mia to a seated position and were working diligently to tie her hands behind her back with the strips of cloth they’d pulled from her hair.

“All I did was try and sneak a peek, and I got thumped,” I said to Karra. “These two are practicing their bondage skills and no one says a word?”

“We’re restraining her, Frank,” Katon answered.

“I get that. What’s the safe word?”

“I think I like the other version of you better.” Rala rolled her eyes at me.

“You’re not the only one, kid,” Katon added, yanking a knot to ensure Mia was leashed up nicely.

I ignored them. “So, now that she’s hogtied, what are you planning on doing with her?”

“As you so eloquently stated earlier, we don’t know anything about the lay of the land or what we might run into, but I’m fairly certain she does.” He motioned to the woman, her head lolling uncomfortably on her neck. “We just have to convince her to tell us.”

“We should find somewhere else to interrogate her, though,” Karra said. “Her people underestimated us the first time, but if there are more lurking in the woods we might not be so lucky next time.”

Everyone agreed, so we started off with a minimum of fuss. Rahim tossed Mia—freshly gagged—over his broad shoulder and trudged off in the direction Katon suggested we go. The rest of us walked alongside while the enforcer masked our tracks to keep us from being followed so easily again.

It was an hour before we’d found a quiet place to discuss Mia’s future.

#

“Time to wake up, Miss Congreeniality.” A slap across Mia’s already bruised cheek brought her to with a start.

The first muffled words out of her mouth were very unkind, but I couldn’t stop from laughing. It was like watching a piss poor ventriloquism act, her teeth clamped tight against the gag for a good three seconds before all her complaints were out.

“Say Jalapeno on a stick,” I told her.

“Stop antagonizing her, Frank.” Katon pushed me aside and knelt down before our captive. “I’m going to take the gag off, but we need you to play nice.”

Mia growled low in her throat, but Karra ended that by dangling the point of her sword about an inch from the woman’s chest.

“We’re reasonable people, Mia, but there isn’t a single one among us who values
your
life above their own.” Katon paused to let that sink in. “Do we understand each other?”

Mia offered up a shallow nod, and Katon untied the knot at the back of her head and tugged the wad of material from her mouth. She took a moment to work her jaw and moisten her lips, but she didn’t shout. We were off to a smashing start.

“Now, tell me why you attacked us.”

“Is that really the question we need to be asking?” I interrupted, coming over to stand in front of the alien woman. “Just tell us how to get the fuck out of Disneyland here, and we’ll let your mossy little ass go, simple as that.”

Mia just laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“We were stalking you because we thought
you
might know how to escape Tenebrae, just as the others had.”

“The others?” Rahim and Karra asked at the same time.

A crooked smile colored Mia’s lips. “You are not the first to come to our world in recent times.”

“And yet you don’t know how they left?” Katon asked.

Once more the woman smiled, but she said nothing.

Karra raised her blade and set it against Mia’s neck. “I’m in no mood to play games with you. Tell us what you do know or I start hacking pieces off and cauterizing the wounds until you do.”

I gestured to Rahim. “He wouldn’t tell her the time.”

Rahim raised his stump and wiggled it a little. Chatterbox chuckled, and Mia snapped her head about where she could see the disembodied head. The grin disappeared from her face.

“You don’t
even
want to know what he did,” I told her. CB’s tongue flitted in and out of the hole in his cheek.

Mia exhaled hard and nodded. “Okay, I have no urge to die. I’ll answer whatever questions you have as best I can.”

“Good. What is…the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?”