Free Demon Squad 6 The Best of Enemies by Tim Marquitz Page B

whip of tentacles silenced any answer he might have given. I juked back as if practicing Tae Bo for paraplegics, suckered tendrils snapping all around me. The creatures filled the street now, pushing everyone further down the block. The surrounding buildings groaned against the tide of alien flesh, pieces of shattered glass and exterior decorations rained down as they were knocked loose of their moorings. I glanced over and saw Scarlett crawling to her knees this side of the first monster. She was right in its path.
    “Shit.”
    Knowing how little magic did to hurt these things, I leapt forward, rolling under the slapping tendrils and grabbed my cousin. Katon was there the instant my hands seized on her arm. He glared at me, but there wasn’t time for our pissing match. I yanked Scarlett behind me and pushed her toward Rahim as wet noodles slammed across my back, ripping away tiny mouthfuls of flesh. One lashed around my thigh but before it could tighten, it fell away in pieces.
    “Move your ass, Frank.” Katon spit the words out as cleaved aside more of the tentacles that reached for me.
    It was like old times—sorta. There was no doubt we were still gonna have our chat , but my dragging Scarlett out of the fire had earned me a few minutes reprieve.
    Rahim snatched up Scarlett, handing her off to Rachelle, as a sudden burst of gunfire ripped up the asphalt beside Katon and me, the bullets tearing into the closest monstrosity. It jerked and shrieked its displeasure, its voice barely louder than Shaw’s, who pretty much did the same thing.
    “No, don’t shoot it!”
    Her warning was lost on the gunmen lining the trembling roofs. They went on and on, filling the creatures with bullets. The only thing they succeeded in doing was drawing the attention of one of the monsters. It turned in its slow, inexorable way and started toward the nearest building. Shaw and Jorn stood between it and the men atop the roof. The sorry expressions plastered across their faces made it clear they were well aware of their unfortunate placement.
    Rahim’s power prickled the hairs at the base of my neck, but I warned him off. “Don’t waste your time. They’re pretty much immune to magic.”
    He stared at me, his power still wafting off him, but he held it in check.
    “Gotta improvise,” I said. “Brute force.”
    I could still taste the sour nastiness of the other critter I’d tangled with so the last thing on my mind was going mano-a-mano with a kraken. So instead, I went and snatched up a lamp post that had been knocked over by one of the RPGs, hefting it up as though it were a baseball bat. It was a little charred, but otherwise structurally sound. As the thing lashed at me, I pulled back my makeshift weapon and cracked it across the skull. There was a muffled thump , as if there was something more solid beneath its malleable exterior, and the creature slammed into the ground. The road vibrated beneath us.
    Katon darted in and cleaved a few more pieces of squid off before it rumbled and rose back into the air, shrieking. A quick glance across the way told me Shaw and Jorn were stuck. Above their heads, their men kept firing. While the bullets were hurting the thing, they were too small to do enough damage to bring it down. None of them had thought to whip out their RPGs in the panic, so it was just a matter of time before they ended up as squid food. But to be honest, I couldn’t find it in me to care.
    I gave Shaw a smarmy wink, the kind inebriated old men give waitresses when the alcohol has turned back the clock a good fifty years, and raised my bat for a home run hit. Rahim grabbed my shoulder and pulled me aside.
    “Damn it,” he growled, the deep resonance of his Care Bear form colliding with his humanity.
    His magic rippled across my senses, and I saw it spread from his outstretched fingertips to the building nearest us. Brilliant cords of energy wrapped about the base of the building.
    “What are you—” And then it