Free Demon Squad 7: Exit Wounds by Tim Marquitz Page B

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