Monster Hunter Alpha-ARC (42 page)

Heather made a sad whine through the wall of the container. “Yep, I know. I won’t blow him up until I get that amulet for you. I promise.”

Earl grunted under the weight as he got the big nylon bag slung over his other shoulder. It was easy for a werewolf to forget how much good armament weighed, but not so easy for a man. He almost left Aksel Kerkonen’s old Mosin Nagant rifle behind, but decided against it. There was something special about that odd silver ammunition, and it was related to that journal. He might need it. Aksel had defeated the bearer of the amulet once before, and it would be foolish to discount that.

What else?
He had pouches for hand grenades. Might as well fill those, too. Inside the shop, the snow-cutter’s engine turned over with a roar and a belch of diesel smoke. There was a sudden howl from the box, and Heather began to thrash. “Easy. You’ll be fine here. I’ll be back…Probably.” She made the same noise. It sounded
familiar
. Earl was no longer in touch with his instincts. They were buried too deep on a human. Then she growled, so low and dangerous he could barely hear it over the tractor.

Heather was trying to communicate. She was trying to
warn
him.

Earl turned just as the
vulkodlak
swung. Ducking, the claws parted the air where his head had been. He stumbled back, raising the Mosin as it struck again. Claws tore a divot from the wooden stock. Earl retreated as fast as he could without tripping over his own feet.

The
vulkodlak
had been a young man. He was dressed like he’d been killed in bed. The bites were obvious on his neck and chest. It was as if he’d been brought back to life, and partially twisted into a werewolf, but left trapped inbetween and awkward. One arm ended in a werewolf’s claw and the other ended in a human hand. His limbs were misshapen and clumsy, and it was only that distorted nature that allowed Earl to avoid being torn apart.

It struck again. The rifle blocked the hit but was torn from Earl’s hands and sent sailing into the night. Before another attack could land, Earl swept his hands down and grasped both revolvers. The twin Smith & Wessons came up spitting flame. The
vulkodlak
stumbled back as he stitched bullets through its naked chest and into its face, but it didn’t go down. Extending an arm, Earl drove the muzzle right into one of the creature’s eye sockets, squishing the white orb back into its skull, and fired. The expanding gasses of the muzzle blast actually blew the other eye out in a white spray.

It tottered for a long second before dropping into the snow. “Tough bastards,” Earl noted, not that anyone could hear him over the tractor as it came rolling far too fast out of the shop. It was too far to one side, and the edge of the scoop ripped through the wall. Earl had to step away to keep from being run down. The engine roared as it was given too much throttle. The blades began churning with a terrible metallic roar. He couldn’t figure out what Aino was doing, but then he realized that the driver was distracted by the two
vulkodlak
that were trying to smash their way into the tractor’s cab. Earl couldn’t hear the words Aino was shouting but could recognize that he was angrily cursing the monsters that were trying to eat him.

Shrugging out from under the heavy Carl Gustav, Earl stuck his partially empty revolvers back into the holsters and ran after the tractor. The tractor spun around in the county yard, sucking up snow in the whirling blades and spraying it in a magnificent arc across the sky. Earl swung his Thompson around and took it in both hands.

The snow-cutter clipped the side of a school bus hard enough to shove the entire thing a few feet. Yellow metal was torn apart in a shower of sparks as soon as the blades touched. The tractor veered to the right as a
vulkodlak
drove its fist through the window of the cab. Aino threw himself to the floor to avoid the claws, but the creature forced itself against the spreading safety glass. Aino would be dead in seconds.

Earl shouldered his Thompson and took careful aim. Blood puckered up the
vulkodlak
’s side, forming pink mist clouds before the tractor’s lights. It lost its grip and tumbled down the moving tractor, only to disappear under the rear tires with a sick crunch. The tire kept on turning, painting the snow red behind it.

One more.
But it was on the other side of the cab, and Earl didn’t have a shot. The wheel had been turned. Aino was no longer steering, and the snow-cutter turned back toward the shop, scraping and tearing its way along the county vehicles. Earl ran, trying to position himself for a clean shot. The snow-cutter continued doing a doughnut around the yard in a widening arc, and Earl realized it was heading right for his truck.

“No!” It slammed the edge of its scoop directly into the Ford, t-boning it with a wall of spinning blades. “Not my truck!” The MHI truck didn’t even slow the snow-cutter. The truck was lifted and shoved sideways, then crushed and scraped along the garage building, slowly levered upward until it rolled free onto its side. “Awww! Son of a bitch!”

The edge of the snow scoop hit the cinder-block wall of the county garage. The tractor lurched to a violent stop, and the other
vulkodlak
was dislodged from the cab and flung into the snow. Earl opened fire on the run. The creature didn’t even have time to rise before he’d nearly decapitated it with a long burst of silver bullets. He stopped long enough to shoot an additional five or six more rounds through the
vulkodlak
’s head. “I was fond of that truck!”

The tractor was stopped, but still running. His truck was toast. There was no movement inside the cab. “Aino! Are you ok—” Earl didn’t see the final
vulkodlak
until it was too late. It crashed into him, shoulder-checking him to the ground. He hit hard enough to punch through the cushion of snow to impact the hard pavement beneath.

It was on him in a second, claws flashing. He raised his forearm and felt the bone jarring impact as the claws struck minotaur hide. His other hand raised the Thompson into the beast’s belly and force-fed it a string of .45 slugs. The
vulkodlak
swatted the muzzle aside as it rolled away.

Struggling to his feet, Earl tried to lift the Thompson, but the creature circled back and hit him again. Claws struck his side, bouncing off the coat, but the impact staggered him back. The monster darted away.

Disoriented, Earl searched for the target. This one was quicker than the others.
There!
It was coming around, another shadow flickering in the darkness. This
vulkodlak
was different from the others, more like a werewolf that had died and been partially twisted back into a human. Its skin was burned to charcoal, and red flesh twisted beneath where the black split open to weep congealed blood. Earl recognized him immediately, because he’d already killed him once before.

Buckley charged. Earl fired from the hip. The bullets took the
vulkodlak
’s legs out from under it, but it still reached him, taking them both to the ground. Buckley sunk his teeth into Earl’s shoulder. The pressure was unbearable, and Earl shouted as he was shaken. The teeth didn’t penetrate the hide.
That’s another one, Travis.
Gun trapped between them, Earl drew his Bowie knife and slammed it between Buckley’s ribs, again and again, as Buckley gnashed and ripped with his fangs.

Realizing that he didn’t have a killing grip, Buckley released his jaws and leapt aside. Earl clambered to his feet. It was a rematch, only now Buckley was the strong one and Earl was the weak. Buckley looked down at the new gashes through its torso, then back at Earl, understanding that this prey could bite back. Buckley began to circle.

Earl lifted the knife protectively. The Thompson was dangling against his chest, but the bolt was forward. It was empty. There was no time to reload. Steam hissed from Earl’s mouth as he shouted to be heard over the roaring blades. “So, Buckley, how many times does somebody have to kill you before you stay dead?”

Arms spread wide, Buckley leapt. Earl stepped aside as he lashed out. The thick Bowie sliced Buckley’s bicep to the bone. The
vulkodlak
didn’t seem to feel the steel. Buckley’s momentum carried him away, but he immediately turned back to charge again.

He’d been tagged. Earl blinked as he felt the sudden burn where a claw had sliced across his cheek. Blood rolled down his face. “That the best you can do?” Earl wiped it away. He moved a few feet, trying to get the blades directly behind him. They were close enough that he could feel their artificial wind.
Vulkodlak
were tough, but hopefully they weren’t very bright. “Better monsters than you have tried to take me, boy. Come on!”

Buckley charged. Earl sidestepped as he stabbed, hoping to get Buckley closer to the snow-cutter, but the
vulkodlak
had anticipated the move and adjusted. One solid forearm caught Earl’s chest, and both of them went down hard. The side of Earl’s skull slammed into the steel edge of the snow-cutter’s scoop.

The impact nearly knocked him out. Earl was facedown in the snow. Head swimming, only a foot from the whirling death blades of a tractor that was only not rolling forward because one corner was jammed into a building. Groaning, he rolled over. The animated corpse of Deputy Joe Buckley was standing over him. The hilt of the Bowie knife was sticking out of Buckley’s neck. Blood ran down the
vulkodlak
’s cracked chest and splattered onto Earl.

Buckley’s claw wrapped around the knife handle. Blood leaking sluggishly, he jerked it out and tossed it into the snow. Buckley cocked his head to the side, white eyes gleaming. This time it was going to bite something unarmored, and that would be the end. Earl got ready. The least he could do would be to shove them both into the blades while it was distracted eating him. “Nobody eats me and gets away with it.”

Something moved in Earl’s peripheral vision. It took a moment to focus past Buckley’s gleaming teeth to see that the stainless-steel lid of the prison-coffin was dangling, broken and open inside the rolled-over pickup. Earl had never seen a red werewolf before.

Buckley didn’t know she was there until it was too late. Claws flashed from the right, from the left, flaying Buckley’s back open. He turned, stepping off Earl, as Heather cleaved him twice more, crossing an X of lacerated flesh clear through his ribs. He raised one arm, and she batted it down. The other came up, and she took it off cleanly at the elbow. Buckley’s hand spun off into the night.

A
vulkodlak
was no match for a
real
werewolf.

Heather lashed out, spraying blood across the yard. Buckley was crumbling, falling, but that wasn’t enough. Heather was out for
murder
. She slashed his throat clear to vertebrae, then sunk her fingers into his neck, down, until she caught his sternum, and using it like a handle, hurled the
vulkodlak
into the roaring blades. Buckley simply exploded. One instant he was there; the next he was replaced with a rapidly expanding cloud of meat. A second later blood belched out the top spout, spreading a fine mist of Buckley into the air.

The werewolf stood, heaving, a dark red that was visually striking against the snow. No longer recognizably human at all, Heather turned toward Earl and bared her teeth.

Earl went for his gun.

She effortlessly caught his wrist, claws curling around it,
hard
. Her fangs were inches from his neck. His other hand was pinned beneath his body. She had him. Earl sighed. “Better to die by your hands than some filthy undead.”

Her nose pressed against his bloody cheek. He knew that she was smelling him, checking for the fear smell of prey.

But Earl Harbinger had no fear, just acceptance, as he closed his eyes and waited for death. There would be no reasoning, no begging. He’d be gone, but hopefully he’d made a difference. He was dying as a man, free of the curse, which was far more than he’d ever dreamed of.

Hopefully, she’d do better than he had. He spoke as clearly as possible. “Listen, Heather, you might remember my words later. No matter what happens. I know you can beat the curse. There’s a journal in my pocket. I want you to have it. It’s what I’ve learned. Maybe it’ll help you. If you remember, come back and get it off my body when you’re you again.”

Her breath was hot against his neck. The coarse hair abraded his skin. It would be over soon. Lips peeled back, and he could feel the teeth against his neck.

She licked his cheek.

Uncertain, Earl cracked open his eyes. Heather stepped back and growled. Her eyes were shining gold, the same as his would have, only there was something different there that he’d not ever seen in another werewolf. Something surprising.

Reason.

“I’ll be damned.” He could have sworn that the terrifying werewolf actually nodded. Heather took another few steps back, lifted her head, and howled in triumph. She’d destroyed Buckley, so she’d earned that.

“Earl, look out!” Aino shouted.

Earl turned to see Aino aiming down the sights of the old Finnish rifle. “Wait!” Earl cried, but it was too late. Aino fired. “No!”

Heather studied him quizzically and seemed to shrug. Then she turned and ran from the yard, barely even slowing to leap over the fence to disappear into the snow.

Aino hadn’t shot Heather? Earl rolled over. So what had…
Oh.
His target had been the first
vulkodlak
that Earl had shot in the eye. It had gotten back up, and he hadn’t even heard it coming over the tractor. Judging from what that odd silver bullet had done to the
vulkodlak,
the projectiles had to be magic. Fully half of the creature’s torso was gone, spread across ten feet of the shop’s wall.

His head was throbbing as he got up, but being close to those moving blades was just plain unnerving. “I thought you were going to shoot Heather.”

“Why would I do that? She seemed friendly enough. Did you see that shot?” Aino asked, limping up. “
Voi kyrpa!
Son of a bitch blew up!”

Earl stumbled over. “Nifty. Gimme that rifle. We’ve got a town to save.”

Chapter 26

There was blood on the carpet. He stared at the floor and the congealing puddle between his feet before he realized that the blood had come from interior of his skull. The pain had subsided, but he could only vaguely recall the sensation of his head coming apart. There was something hard in his mouth, crunching and rolling between his teeth. Clumsily, he spit it into his hand. It was bone and lead fragments.