Demon Squad 7: Exit Wounds (8 page)

Memories flooded me, and I felt my borrowed body tremble, sickened and amazed at the same time that I could still feel fear despite the tamping down of Hobbs’ vampiric emotions.

“
Too long,
” it whispered, the sound of footsteps treading a shallow grave. “
Too long…too long…too long…
” A serpentine slither flutter in the air before its face. “
Revenge!
”

Its shout stirred all sorts of unpleasant feelings, but unlike the last one I’d encountered, which had stared me in my eyes and recited its threat, this one seemed to be talking to itself. It looked at nothing, its multi-mouthed face staring off in the other direction from where we hid.

“
Reckoning is at hand.
”

It floated in circles, as though it were lost, shining eyes taking in everything yet appearing to see nothing.

“
Too long. His infernal…infernal prison.”

The devourer’s voice faded, and then grew louder, repeating its words as though they were a mantra. Over and over they spilled loose from its invisible maws, the same as they had on Earth, but strangely, they lacked the same venom. The thing was a record stuck in a groove. I watched as it circled, my terror losing its edge as it repeated itself like a Rain Man Renfield. Had I not experienced its gnashing teeth and soul-shredding power firsthand, I might have pitied it…then shot it in its face, if I had a gun, that is.

The constant repetition started to grate on my nerves, and I wondered if my fear of it had come from my being tied down, bound and helpless. Now that I looked at it, hovering back and forth without purpose, it didn’t seem so scary, so threatening. It was a poor man’s Angel of Death, clad in shoddy FX with a voice that made Gilbert Gottfried sound frightening. At least that’s what I told myself. I could still remember its teeth chewing me into pieces and swallowing me down into the blackness, every moment an agony. Still, I made myself face it, stared it down—even if it was only the back of its head—and not flinch when it came closer to our tenuous hideout.

Finally, after what seemed hours, it appeared to find a hint of resolve as one of the dragons—its scream too distinctive to miss—roared somewhere in the distance. The devourer stopped its muttering and aimless drift and turned to stare off into the trees in the direction of the sound, its ghostly form going rigid. And then it was off, vanishing into the gloom, the flicker of its eyes gone a moment later. I let out a non-breath in relief and slumped to a seat on the ground.

“It’s gone,” Katon told everyone, though he held his position.

“You okay,” Karra whispered as she came over to me, wrapping her fingers in mine. And to my surprise, Rala was right there beside her, concern etched across her sour expression. She must have known what I’d been thinking the whole time

I nodded, grateful for my undead host’s ability to remain frigid—literally. It wasn’t like I could puke or shit myself or even squeeze out a drop of pee. It made appearing unfazed so much easier. “I’m fine,” I answered, also glad my vamp-voice didn’t quaver.

“
Iiiiiii nnnneeeeeeddd aaaa bbeeeerrrrrr.
”

“You and me both, CB. You and me both.”

“Those things creep me out,” Rala admitted.

I nodded in agreement. “Didn’t realize there was more than one.”

“They are legion,” Mia said, keeping her voice low. “Connected in spirit, though not in flesh.”

Which somewhat explained why it rambled on exactly like the one that had munched on my guts. Had it seen what the other had seen, experienced it? It was freaky to imagine that being the case. The damn thing had eaten me. Had the others tasted that? Did they want more?

A tremor rattled through me, but it brought along an interesting thought in its wake. One I hadn’t allowed myself to think since we’d been tossed through the portal. I disengaged my hand from Karra’s and stood, peering once more through the cracks in the net and out into the night, letting my eyes and ears wander.

Strange sounds still echoed in the darkness, shrieks and roars and who knows what else, reverberating through the ebony pall, making it clear there was more out there than just the things that had stormed past our hole and the devourer. This world was full of creatures, all of which clearly wanted blood, if Mia’s reaction was any indication. There would be death and pain and terror. But there was also hope, slim and fragile, but hope nevertheless. I smiled as an idea took root in my skull, and then turned to Mia.

“How long does this
night
last?” I asked, remembering to amend my statement before she answered. “And don’t tell me until morning.”

The flash of a grin brightened her lips. “It will be many hours until the sun returns to the sky and the darkness retreats. We must stay here until it does.”

I nodded. That was exactly what I wanted to hear. “How about you get some rest,” I told Karra, helping her to her feet, one handing gently caressing her belly. “It’s gonna be a long night.” I led her and Rala to the middle of the hole and gestured for them to sit, Rahim, Veronica, and Chatterbox already stationed there in a loose circle, Mia’s leash wrapped tight about the wizard’s stump.

“You, too, Katon,” I told the enforcer. “You’ve been running ragged since we landed, and I’ve had the benefit of a heal. I’ll take first watch.”

He stared at me with his usual distrust. “I’m fine.”

“Suit yourself,” I answered dropping down alongside Karra. She leaned into me, setting her head on my shoulder, her hand wrapped about my waist.

Chatterbox whispered a lullaby: Helstar’s “To Sleep, Perchance to Scream.”

Eight

It took a long time for everyone to settle in, especially after CB’s less than considerate anthem, but they finally did. The tiny chamber echoed softly with snores and soft exhalations. Everyone’s but mine.

And not just because I was vacationing in a corpse. As I’d told Katon, his little stunt to clean up my crust had filled me with energy, but it was more than just that. I couldn’t have slept if I wanted to. My brain was on full auto, thoughts spurting like a bukkake Gatling gun. I only needed opportunity.

I glanced over at Katon and found him leaning against the wall by the netting. His eyes were squeezed into tiny slits, but there was no telling if he was still awake. I’d never seen the guy sleep before, and I couldn’t be sure he ever did. What the fuck did I know about vampires? Not enough, for sure, but if I was gonna do something, now was the time.

I slipped loose of Karra and got to my feet as quietly as possible, leaning her onto Rala’s shoulder in hopes neither would notice. Both exhausted from the day’s misadventure, they didn’t so much as stir. Chatterbox lay in the alien’s lap, his face buried in her crotch, so I was certain he wouldn’t be turning around to spot me anytime soon. A quick glance at Rahim and Mia told me they were out, too, the wizard’s leg over the leash to ensure the green woman couldn’t go anywhere without alerting him. Hands and arms bound, she wasn’t much of a threat. She’d have to chew her way loose if she wanted to escape, and there was no way she could do that without folks noticing her gnawing on the thick ass cords she was bound by.

Across the room, Veronica slept as she always did; like a baby. The woman might harbor the weight of the world in betrayal, but it never stopped her from getting in her allotted eight hours of beauty rest. She would sleep through a hurricane as long as no one mentioned sex or money in the midst of it. If she could bottle her lack of remorse as a sleep aid, she’d be a billionaire. I only wished I had some of it right then.

Everyone was here because of me. If I hadn’t been so damn insistent on finding out the truth of my father and his bullshit, none of us would be here. Azrael would be withering away inside Limbo, and the rest of us would be laughing it up in the real world with only the usual group of folks trying to kill me. Instead, we were stuck in some alien prison created by God, with apparently no one knowing any way to get out but some mysterious group of
others
who’d trekked through at some indeterminate point in the past. I shook my head at that. As usual, I was in deep.

I snuck by the ex-wife and gathered my spear and an extra dagger, and glanced back one last time at Katon. He hadn’t moved since I got up, so I figured that was as good a sign as I was gonna get. Without another glance back, I scampered up the root ladder and up to the secret tree door. It took me a minute to find the latch that opened it, but once I did, it was a simple procedure to pop the lock and slip outside without making too much noise.

The darkness greeted me with a frigid embrace.

I shivered and made sure I could find the outside latch when I came back—
if
I came back—and started off. Something vaguely resembling a plan floated inside my skull, but I needed more information to go on, and the only way to get that was to adventure out into the world. So I did, with hope in one hand and shit in the other. The odds of things going south were pretty high, but I had to do this alone. I’d already put the rest of the group—and my child—at risk, so there was no way I was gonna add any more grief to their lives. No, this harebrained scheme was all on me.

After a quick survey to make sure some hideous beast wasn’t lurking about to ingest my intestines, I started off in the same direction the devourer had gone after cutting a telling slash in the tree bark. The devourer hadn’t left a trail, seeing how it floats, but I had the benefit of recognizing which way the dragon’s call had sounded. If I was right, that was the way it had gone. If I was wrong, my whole idea was shot to hell, so it really didn’t matter. It was as good a direction as any, at that point.

Spear out in front of me and the dagger tucked into the waist of my borrowed fur-panties, I gritted my teeth and made like a commando squirrel, darting and ducking behind the massive pink tree trunks—marking each one—and doing my best to move silently, or at least not fall on my face.

It went pretty well…for a while. Whatever creatures loomed in the darkness, they’d chosen to do so elsewhere, which was fine with me. I hadn’t realized how much of a head start the devourer had gotten on me while I waited for everyone to pass out so I needed the peace to focus.

The passing trees were a blur of sameness, so much so that I eventually stopped flitting and flirting and just started walking, dragging the spear point across them to mark my path. It reminded me too much of a game of hide and seek I’d played with Baalth when I first came to Hell. I counted and he’d teleported to Earth while I searched. It took three days before anyone bothered to tell me Lucifer had sent him on a mission. Asshole.

It made me glad I killed him.

That warm moment aside, I was starting to wonder just what Mia was so afraid of when I stumbled right on top of a perfect example.

No longer pretending to have ninja skills, I stepped around a tree and came to a sudden, gut-wrenching halt. Just ten yards from where I stood was yet another fine example of God’s creativity, if not His sense of proportion or sense.

If you thought the platypus was a deformed, odd-looking thing, let me tell you, it has absolutely nothing on its precursor.

Over fifteen feet tall, the platymonster’s bill jutted out three feet from its face, but it looked much more like an alligator’s maw than a duck bill. Teeth that reminded me of mutant chainsaws lined the edge, both on the inside and outside. There must have been hundreds of them, but I wasn’t about to sit there and count. Bulbous eyes swam in pitch black pools, reddened stripes flitting in their depths.

Fortunately, the thing hadn’t seen me, but there was no telling how good its sense of smell was, not that I saw a nose anywhere on it. I jumped behind a nearby trunk, keeping an eye on the thing just in case.

It stood on its hind feet…fins…feet-fins—whatever—and clawed at a different tree, reaching for something apparently hidden in the branches. Its sloped back reminded me of Godzilla. Serrated spikes erupted from its spine and ran the length of it, a trailing mountain range, until they morphed into a furry tail, which just happened to be shaped like a
le fleur de-lis
, each point tapering into a razored edge of dark bone.

The thing squeak-roared—it was
so
cuuuuuuute
—at whatever it had treed, ripping handfuls of branches and leaves down as it tried to reach its quarry. I was glad for whatever was up there and certainly didn’t want to trade places with it. I backed away slowly, making sure the nearest tree stayed between me and the flustered beast, and ran off behind its back. If it noticed, it didn’t let on.

After I was certain I’d gone far enough to avoid it, its frustrated squeals fading into the distance, I turned back the direction I’d been going initially and started off once more. This time I made sure to go full-stealth. If that was what innocent little platypuses looked like here, I sure as hell didn’t want to run across a real predator. I really wasn’t in the mood to be romanced by a wolver-rex or whatever represented the apex critters in this world.

A little more cautious this time around, I kept my head in the game and wound my way through the woods, avoiding anything making strange noises rather than seeking it out. It was kind of counter-productive, seeing how I was actually looking for the devourer, but it made me feel a little better about my chances of surviving until morning.

It wasn’t until I heard a shout that sounded distinctly human that I changed my strategy. It burst from the woods in stuttered, violent tones.

Undead asshole puckered, I ran toward the noise, spear in hand. Halfway there I wondered if I was being an idiot. Well, more than usual. If Mia was a good example of her people, the rest would be hunkered down someplace safe until morning. This wouldn’t be any of them. Who did that leave?

My skull vibrated with the likelihood of who it was, and my feet dug into the soft earth in response. Unfortunately, I hadn’t stopped soon enough.

Way quicker than I had intended, I found myself in the middle of a cluster of trees just a short distance from two folks I’d really hoped to never run across again: Venai and Rebecca Shaw. And it was just my luck that the devourer was there with them. Well, more like it was on top of them, and we’re not talking missionary, though it certainly looked like someone was getting screwed.