Hellbender

Book excerpt: Doug wasn't sure whether he should trust Satan.The red flag was that he said he was Satan. But the deal was good: Listen to Satan's story in exchange for some donuts. And Doug only half-fulfilled his part of the bargain.But maybe he should have listened better, because during his friend Bryce's next scheme (theft with light to moderate treason-the usual), Doug and the rest of his friends-Lulu (the fun one) and Charlene (the not fun one)-end up with a powerful artifact, a small metal cube with world-ending power that Lulu decorated with bunnies. And now everyone wants the bunny cube, which means Doug, Bruce, Lulu, and Charlene are being pursued by a insane supermodel general, an army of sadists, a vast criminal organization, a smaller, more-in-startup-mode criminal organization, and an unstoppable killing machine-the worst kind of killing machine.Doug and his friends may be a bunch of losers who aren't particularly smart or good at anything, but they have one thing going for them: a really cool name for their mercenary group. And now it's up to Hellbender to save the world-well, what's left of it. It's pretty ruined and war-torn already. But, you know, they live there, so they kind of need it.It's a mess, but that's what you get for listening to Satan. Or half-listening.