Monster Hunter Alpha-ARC (53 page)

Heather frowned. “Harbinger…Wait.”

Now was not the time to get mushy and nervous.
“I’ve got to do this.”

“No.” Heather scrunched up her nose, like she could smell something bad. “He’s coming to us.”

* * *

Stark nervously looked down the hole in the ground at the entrance to the Quinn Mine. That thing had crawled out of there before Harbinger had blasted it with the 84mm. How many more of the Old Ones’ creations were hiding under their feet?

There was still gunfire coming from nearby. Stark forced himself to move toward it. The crusty bastard with the accent was right behind him.

Douglas Stark had been brave once. He’d been a member of one of the proudest fraternities of warriors in history,
briefly
. It had been his first operation that had ended up fighting Deep Ones. Stark liked to think that if he would have just stuck with fighting other mortals, he would have been okay and not discovered that he was a coward. But instead he’d been whisked into the top-secret world of monster eradication.

Even then, he’d managed to be brave, a little bit, when necessary. MCB agents were called upon to do all sorts of terrifying things, but Stark had always managed to maneuver himself so that it was somebody else doing those things instead of him. Sure, he’d fought monsters, killed a few, but he wasn’t the one to volunteer for it. Following Franks around had been the scariest thing he’d ever done, but Franks had been the one to do all the dangerous stuff, which was justifiable, since it was impossible for Franks to actually die. Stark had always hid his cowardice well. Luckily, since the MCB was a government agency, the keys to success were often more related to time served and working the system than sticking your neck out.

Having spent the last decade in management, though, the part of his brain that controlled bravery hadn’t gotten much use. Stark was a good manager, an excellent paper-shuffler, witness-intimidator, and PR doctor, but always in his heart he knew that he had a tendency to choke under pressure. It was hard to admit, but that was probably the single biggest reason he hated the fact that Dwayne Myers had been promoted instead of him. Myers was just as sly, just as cruelly efficient in the completion of his duties, but Myers actually led from the front. Myers actually was brave, and Myers was also perceptive enough to know that Stark wasn’t.

If he could only see me now
, Stark thought as he jogged through the burning debris. A bleeding werewolf tumbled out of a smoky corner. Stark bellowed as he shot the werewolf half a dozen times. Another one came out, dragging a leg nearly severed by silver shrapnel. Stark gunned it down, too.

“There! Look over there!” Aino shouted.

Another one of those big underground, floppy-skinned, monstrosities was chasing the last Briarwood Hunter between some of the parked equipment. Jason saw them, ducked under the bed of a dump truck and sprinted their way. He was holding Harbinger’s Thompson, which was a good sign, because maybe that meant the scary bastard had gotten eaten.

Unfortunately, the monster began climbing over the dump truck in pursuit. “Don’t run this way! The other way!” Stark shouted, but it wasn’t doing any good. The idiot was going to lead that thing right to them. “Damn it.”

Jason was soaked in sweat and gasping for air. Blood was running freely from the bandage on his head, and the side of his coat was stained red. Apparently the monster had managed to hit him at least once. “I’m almost out of ammo,” he gasped.

“Did you lose my gun? Because that was an issue gun.” There was a form for that, and Stark hated paperwork. Except the monster was lumbering toward them, so paperwork could wait. He shouldered his SCAR and started shooting.

Jason fired his last few rounds. The bullets hit, but the monster didn’t seem to notice. Its head kept bobbing along. The giant mouth slit was hanging slightly open. Its skin was pocked with dozens of bleeding green bullet wounds. Jason dropped the Thompson and picked up a board. One end of which was on fire. “I’ll hold him!” The big man bellowed as he charged the creature.

Now, that was brave.
Stark had already gone through twenty rounds and not made a dent in the thing. He dropped the mag and pulled another from his armor while Jason ran right up and smacked the monster in the leg. The flaming board broke into sparks and ashes, but the creature didn’t so much as flinch. Jason backed away as the creature raised its two metal hands.

“Big man! Catch!” Aino shouted. Stark was surprised to look over and see the grizzled old man holding a
lit
stick of dynamite. He threw it at Jason, who, remarkably enough, reached out and caught it in one hand.

“Where’d you get that?” Stark asked.

“Been carrying it around all night. ’Bout time I got to use it.”

Jason stood his ground, face grim, as the fuse burned down. The creature reached down and grabbed him around the shoulders. Jason’s feet left the ground as the horrible gaping mouth opened wide to swallow him whole. He didn’t so much as make a sound as he was shoved headfirst down the thing’s throat. The skin bag stretched as the Hunter fell inside.

“That is sick and wrong,” Stark said.

The monster turned toward them, the pouch on the front bulging and swinging. It took a step forward, then stopped. The head kept bobbing, like it was thinking about something. A green point appeared in the middle of the sack; then it turned into a straight green line as a knife blade sliced cleanly through the skin from the inside. The monster opened its mouth to throw Jason up, but it was already too late.

The incision was three feet long by the time Jason’s arm and head fell out. The gasping Hunter and a massive pile of slime spilled into the snow. Jason wasted no time as he sprang to his feet and ran for his life. He’d made it ten feet when the dynamite he’d left behind went off. It wasn’t as big of a boom as Stark had hoped for, but it blasted green internal organs six feet in every direction. The blob of a head tilted crazily to the side before the whole monster sank gradually to the ground, flopped over, and lay still.

“That wasn’t very big.”

“I only had the one stick. Big man! You okay?”

Jason stumbled over to them. He was covered in goo, and so dizzy he could barely walk. He sank to his knees in front of Stark and held out his hand. Under all the slime was a knife. It looked familiar. Just like Stark’s SOG knife. Automatically, he reached for the sheath on his armor, but it was empty. “Hey…How’d you get that?”

“You lost it sliding down the hill,” Jason said. “You can have it back now.”

The Hunter had gotten a lot more use out of it than prying open soda machines. Stark looked at the nasty, stinky, mess, and said, “Naw. That’s okay. You keep it. I’ve got to try and signal help before they bomb the shit out of us.”

“Cool. Gonna rest now.…” Jason fell over and hit the ground with a dull thud. “You guys go do what you gotta do.”

The man was brave, no doubt about that. That kind of gumption would have gotten him far in the MCB. He looked like he was probably going to die, but he’d managed to kick some ass in the process. He’d already lost one hard-charger today. Stark tried to remember back to his training.…Something about an obscure creature like this had been talked about in medical.
That slime
…Stark opened the med-kit on his armor and began rummaging around until he found a labeled injector. He gave the Hunter the shot and hoped that he was remembering right.

Stark checked his phone. Still no signal. He looked to the top of Number Six. It was his turn to be the hero. “I’ve got to go.”

Aino handed him Harbinger’s sniper rifle. “Just in case you see any more werewolves.”

Jason Lococo was mumbling, staring into the distance. “Not so bad…”

Chapter 34

The Alpha was climbing up the elevator shaft. Nikolai could tell that the devil-wolf was fully healed, because that strange draining sensation had tapered off. The Alpha no longer needed the extra energy. When he reappeared, he would be virtually invincible.

Nikolai stopped to watch from the catwalk. He placed his filthy yet all-too-human hands on the metal to balance himself, since the world hadn’t stopped spinning since he’d changed back. Harbinger and Kerkonen were below, ready to face their doom with open eyes. Now he needed to decide if he was going to die with them or not.

Flee?

“For what?”

Tvar was silent for a long time.
To survive.

“Is that all there is to life?”

I do not know.

“Why not?”

Because I am you, and you do not know.

Nikolai was weakened. The Alpha had easily destroyed him just moments ago. To face him again was suicide.

You were willing to commit suicide earlier to stop me from taking control.

It was true. Losing himself had been more frightening than death. Death held no mysteries. Nikolai believed in nothing. The institutions he’d believed in as an adult had been a sham, and he had no faith in the tales of his fathers. There was no happy afterlife for him, no god to judge him, no eternal resting place to lay his weary head.

Bleak but poetic.

“I come from a bleak but poetic people. What would you have us do? Fight and die, or run as cowards.”

You are…asking me?

“Why not? I’m tired of the struggle. I’m tired of not owning my own head. I’m just…tired.”

The Tvar seemed to think about it for a long time. The Alpha let loose a howl of rage so intense that it felt as if the entire building would collapse on top of them.

He invaded our territory. He killed our pack. She was mine, too, you know. I did not approve, but he took something from both of us. We fight. Our death will have meaning.

Nikolai was surprised by the answer. “Why?”

Because I am you, and these things…I know.

* * *

“Incoming!” Heather shouted.

“Get out of here, Kirk,” Earl ordered, and, when he hesitated, Earl snapped, “Go call your people. If we die here, he still needs to be stopped.” Kirk snapped to and fled.

“Heather, get ready.”

He could see the Alpha’s eyes far below. They were shining like golden headlights. The mass of the super-werewolf was taking up a large portion of the shaft. He was climbing straight up, throwing himself upward, yards at a time, claws striking deep into rock and steel. It was like standing at the end of a tunnel with a freight train coming right at you.

There was nothing big to drop down the shaft. Heather tossed a wrench, then kicked in a rusty toolbox. The Alpha didn’t even blink when they hit.

I’M COMING TO GET YOU, HARBINGER.

Earl had three shots left in the Mosin before he had to reload. Aksel had written that he’d struck Koschei right between the eyes. Earl aimed. Fired. There was a brilliant flash of silver light, and the Alpha roared. The headlights blinked twice, then started back up.

“That didn’t work?” Heather shouted. “What now?” She threw over a tarp, looking for something else to toss down the shaft. “What happened to shoot him in the head and say the magic words? Shit. Shit.”

KOSCHEI WAS WEAK. HE HAD NOT FED THE AMULET LIKE I HAVE.

Earl chambered another of the Baba Yaga’s rounds. He aimed carefully. The old gun seemed to be perfectly zeroed. This time he picked a glowing eye.

YOU’RE NOT EVEN A WEREWOLF? I TOOK YOUR SOUL. YOU ARE NOTH—FUCK!

The Alpha shrieked as the silver bullet obliterated his eyeball. “Felt that one, huh?” Earl shouted as he worked the bolt, chambering the last cartridge in the magazine. There was only one beam of yellow light now. It danced wildly inside the shaft as the Alpha shook his head. He resumed climbing.

OH, IT IS ON NOW.

Heather had found an oil lantern. She hurled it down the shaft. The light fell, then shattered on against the Alpha. The oil ignited in hissing flames. The burning werewolf kept ascending.

The fire was dying fast. “Got any more of those?” Earl asked.

“I think the rest are battery-powered.”

“Aw, hell.”
Last shot.
Earl aimed, trying to time the blinking of the Alpha’s massive eyelids. At least the target was getting bigger.…Too bad that meant he was closer. “My, what a big eye you have,” he muttered. Smoke and the stench of burning hair boiled out of the shaft. He pulled the trigger. The other light went out, plunging the pit into smoky darkness.

AARRRGGGHHH!
The roar was in Earl’s head and against his ears.
THEY’LL GROW BACK. I DON’T NEED TO SEE TO EAT YOU.

Earl pulled a stripper clip of five of the magic rounds and began to thumb them into the open action of the Mosin-Nagant. He hadn’t used one of these particular rifles since a mission during the Korean War. There was a trick to not getting all the cartridges wedged up against their rims.
There.
He closed the bolt.

And the Alpha came out of shaft.

Somehow, he seemed even bigger than before. He had to duck his head to get under the cable wheel.
WHERE ARE YOU?
His nostril holes, which were big enough to fit a grapefruit in, flared. The head turned toward Earl, and the jaws opened. Each tooth was the size of a combat knife.
THERE YOU ARE.

The jaws snapped forward, wide enough to completely consume a man. But they snapped shut on empty air.

Earl hit the ground rolling, entangled with a mass of dark hair. They came to a stop, and for a moment, Earl thought that Heather must have saved him. But it was Nikolai in werewolf form. His teeth were only inches from Earl’s eyes, and for the briefest of moments, Earl would have assumed that the fearsome beast, his mortal enemy, smiled. Nikolai turned, snarled, and charged, loping toward the Alpha.

PETROV.
Blind, the Alpha swung one mighty arm, ripping thousand pound girders right out of the concrete. Nikolai spun through the chaos and landed on the Alpha’s neck, tearing and biting.

Earl had lost the Mosin. It was a few feet away. He scrambled for it.

Heather, fully changed, joined the fray. She came at the Alpha from behind and attacked his leg, trying to rip through a hamstring. The giant lashed out with one leg, and a paw knocked Heather across the room.