Monster Hunter International

  "Are we?"

  "Sure, but who doesn't? Do you think you just put an ad in the paper for people who can fly Russian attack helicopters?"

  "Why are the Feds hammering us?"

  "We've pissed a lot of people off in Washington. Our company was shut down for a long time. PUFF was only reactivated by the slimmest of margins. There are a lot of bureaucrats who are itching for us to fail. They're making it damn near impossible to get our jobs done."

  "So what are we going to do?"

  Harbinger grinned savagely. "From the amount of money we made on this job, I'm going to buy me some congressmen, maybe even a senator."

  I was shocked. "Are you talking about bribery?"

  "Why? Does that offend you?" he asked.

  "Oh hell no. I'm a libertarian at heart. Screw 'em."

  Chapter 11

  That night I dreamed again. But it was not about my apparent friend, the Old Man with the poor English. Nor was it about the Cursed One and his gang of abominations. This was something different.

  A lone mountain rose out of a bleak, dead forest. The side of the peak had been torn asunder in some sort of huge explosion. Trees had been shattered, stripped of their bark, or bent to the earth. Rock was charred and broken, the very foundations of the mountain had been cracked, and the face of the mighty peak had collapsed in an avalanche.

  Amongst the shale and gravel was a low spot where the rubble had settled into what had once been a natural cavern or perhaps an underground structure. In the deepest depression, small bits of gravel and dust began to stir as something pushed against them from underneath, gradually and laboriously moving the weight of the earth above. Finally a dirt-encrusted hand thrust its way into the air, followed by a massively muscled arm. The torn and bloodied fingers clenched into an angry fist.

  It was covered in black, swirling tattoos.

  I woke up the next morning, groggy, sore, and cranky. We were staying at the bug-infested Radio City Motor Lodge in some little Georgia town that made Cazador look like a thriving metropolis. It had been the closest lodging to the dirt strip that passed for the local airport. It is hard to sleep when roaches keep skittering across your body. My understanding is that since roaches can't shift into reverse, if one of them crawls into your ear canal it can get really nasty and potentially kill you. Sleep on that.

  The injured Hunters had been dispersed to seek medical care. The cargo plane had dropped off Boone's two injured men at their home city of Atlanta. Roberts' body had gone with them. The plane had then continued west, delivering Albert Lee and his fractured rib back to Alabama. Grant Jefferson had flown the plane. He had been sent back to the compound supposedly to take over and continue the Newbies' training. I figured that I probably needed some medical care as well, but Harbinger wanted to keep me around because of my dreams, and also possibly because he worried that I might murder Grant once I was left unsupervised.

  So that left ten of us in coastal Georgia. Eleven if you counted our mysterious helicopter pilot, who had apparently slept in the chopper. I still had not seen the man without his face-shielding helmet, and he never seemed to speak. The experienced Hunters seemed used to the odd behavior and did not even bother to remark upon it.

  There had only been three available rooms. The ladies had taken the nicest one, meaning that the toilet worked, and there weren't as many unidentifiable spots on the walls. I had bunked with Trip, Mead and Milo. Taking pity on me because of the beating I had received, they gave me one of the twin beds. Milo had seniority so he got the other. Trip had won a game of rock, paper, scissors (of course Chuck went rock) to get the couch. Mead got to sleep on the carpet with the mystery stains.

  We gathered in Harbinger's room not long after dawn. A large map of Georgia had been purchased and was stuck to the wall with someone's throwing knives. Julie and Boone both had powerful laptops open and running. Boxes of our gear and munitions had been hastily piled into the corners. We had hired a flatbed to move it from the docks to here.

  The group was sitting around in their shorts and T-shirts, all except for the Newbie squad who had not known to bring any clothing other than our armor. Holly had borrowed some clothing from Julie. Trip and Chuck had stolen some from somebody else. Since I was the only 4XL I stood in the corner wearing my boxer shorts and a towel for modesty. I had hosed the undead juices off of my armor. The suit was still drying in the shower.

  "Pitt. This is an informal meeting. You shouldn't dress up so much," Sam told me. At least he didn't try to steal my towel and flick me with it. I could tell he was tempted.

  "Okay, everybody. Here's the situation," Harbinger began, a cigarette dangling unlit from his lips. "We have seven very powerful vampires, possibly Masters, that landed somewhere near here, along with some other monsters of unknown type. They must have arrived sometime in the last three days. If they launched as soon as the freighter turned south down the coast they would have arrived near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, though my gut feeling's that they didn't do that. The ship dropped anchor off this coast for a reason. If they came straight to shore they would've landed in this area east of us." He put his finger on a spot of coastline. There were a lot of islands, peninsulas and inlets under that fingertip.

  "If they started moving as soon as they landed, then they could be almost anywhere. They could still be on foot, or they could have secured some transportation. If they're in a vehicle then they could be in Florida, Alabama, or South Carolina by now."

  "Vampires can drive?" Chuck asked blankly.

  "Yes, Mead. Vampires can drive. Just not during the daylight. If they secured a truck with a trailer, it would give them a place to sleep during the daylight hours too."

  "What if they split up?" Milo asked.

  "They won't," I answered. Nine heads swiveled in my direction. I tried to cover myself with the towel as best as I could. I was a little self-conscious, especially with all of the thick red scar tissue on my chest and back. "They're like a protective detail. The Cursed One is their principal. They're guarding him. Wherever he goes, they go."

  "Yeah, about that. I've been meaning to ask, how do we know you aren't just bloody nuts?" Priest asked. "No offense intended."

  "None taken. To be honest, I don't know. But the seven coffins is a pretty good indicator."

  "Fair enough," he answered.

  "What about this Cursed One? Do we have anything on record about that?" Milo asked.

  "Negative. I can't find anything. Lots of things with curses, but not that match this one. Nothing comes up in a search, and nothing under Lord Machado. No entries about anything wearing a suit of armor either. I've got a bunch of folks hitting the books back at the compound looking for something. There might be something in the old archives that hasn't been scanned in yet." MHI kept meticulous records of all known monster encounters, and also drew upon a massive library of information gathered from around the world. The stuff that we dealt with did not just pop up during a Google search.

  "Maybe if we had a better description it might help," Julie said coldly. She was still pretty mad at me.

  "Sorry, I was incorporeal at the time."

  "Machado is a Portagee last name. It means ax. Like the kind that an executioner would use," Sam told us. His useful information was a bit of a surprise. His teammates regarded him strangely. The cowboy spent a lot more time busting heads than he did studying monster history. "What? I had a master chief with that last name. He thought the ax thing was pretty cool."

  "We're listening to the local police bands. If we're lucky somebody will see something and call it in; if we're unlucky, somebody is going to end up as lunch. So we are also listening for any missing persons reports. This is Boone's turf so he's trying to contact some of the locals who might be first in line for information."

  "First in line?" Holly queried.

  "Cops, coroners, reporters. In this case, I'm going to contact hookers, pimps, and drug dealers. Also some backwoods hillfolk that I've dealt with before. When vampires
feed, they will usually go after the underbelly of society. They keep off the radar that way."

  "How often do they need to feed?" Trip asked.

  "Unknown. The usual low-level vamps that we deal with seem to do it every chance they get, with probably a minimum of about once a month. I know that the Feds have captured a few in the past and done testing on them, even starved a few, but they don't share that kind of info with us," Julie said.

  "Speaking of the Feds, I had to call them," Harbinger said sadly. He paused during the inevitable cursing long enough to light his cigarette and take a long drag. "Didn't have much choice. We're still short-handed. We have to face the fact that we might not be able to tackle all of them, especially if they're roaming together."

  "What did they say?" Milo asked.

  "Nothing basically. They said thanks for the tip. That was it. I think they thought I was nuts."

  "We can handle them, Earl. We don't need no Feds," Sam said.

  "Maybe if we catch them while they're sleeping and toss in a couple hundred pounds of C4. Facing them while they're awake? No way." There was some murmuring at that. We were a testosterone-charged, confident, well-trained team. "No offense, but I'm the only person here who has actually killed a Master. I'm one of the only people alive who has even seen one. And I was just lucky. Trust me on this one. We're good, but we ain't that good. If we find them, we wait until they hole up, and then we blow it to hell with bombs or napalm or something. Face to face, no thanks."

  "Who else can we call in?" Boone asked.

  Julie played with her laptop for a minute. "Closest other Hunters are Hurley's team out of Miami, but they're on a case in the Bahamas."

  "Lucky bastards," Sam grunted.

  "Nope, they're tracking a luska." She shuddered.

  "Oh, never mind," he said quickly. I did not know what a luska was, but if Sam or Julie did not want to mess with one, neither did I.

  "After that the only other MHI personnel in the south are Boone's guys, and then the Newbies and a few others at the compound. I don't think we want to call up Grandpa or Dorcas. Going out from there we have two teams in the northeast, both on cases right now in New York and Baltimore. Next closest after that is Phillips, who's currently dealing with some devil monkeys in St. Paul. Only five other teams left, and they're out west or out of the country. Every single team is working a case."

  "We need to speed up the training process," Milo suggested.

  "I know, I know. But it doesn't do any good to train them fast if they just get killed on their first mission. Julie, send every team a message. Give them a brief summary about what we're probably facing and tell them that if we beep them, they need to drop whatever they're doing and get here as quick as they possibly can. This case takes precedence over anything."

  "Because of the danger to people?" asked Trip, always looking out for the little guy, being the team's resident good Samaritan and idealist.

  "No, because the bounty on a Master vampire is fricking huge," Sam said.

  "How huge are we talking about?" asked Holly. We had been told that our next bimonthly check would probably hover around $20,000 for our cut of the action from the Antoine-Henri. I couldn't wait to see what the year-end bonus looked like.

  "Like we could buy Idaho kind of money."

  "Back to business. Here's the plan. We break up into groups. One group stays here at base, monitors communications and checks all of the gear. Boone will take a group and start hitting up his sources."

  "Priest can take a group also, he knows the same people I do. We can cover more ground that way. Some of these folks are not the kind of people that you can just get on the phone."

  "Good. Final group takes the chopper. I'll head up and down the coastline looking for that little boat or where it might have possibly landed. Pitt comes with me and we will see if we can't identify anything from his dream."

  "Uh . . . what do we do about cars?" Mead asked.

  "Head into town. Buy some from the locals. Let Milo do it. He's our best scrounger. We have two suitcases full of money, so try to get something nice." And I had wondered why we had IRS troubles. We threw cash around like the Cali cartel.

  "Oh, and somebody, for the love of all that is holy, buy Pitt a pair of pants."

  The Hind sat on the broken tarmac, looking like a squat and angry amphibian. I jumped out of the back of the pickup, and just barely had time to grab my gear before the truck roared off and sprayed me with gravel and dust. Milo was having entirely too much fun with the jacked up 4x4 that he had just bought off of a local named, and I'm not making this up, Cooter. There were even naked lady silhouettes on the mud flaps, and a little sticker of Calvin peeing on a Ford symbol in the back window. Harbinger and I headed toward the chopper.

  We were wearing normal clothing, concealing only handguns, with our more serious gear shoved into the duffel bags that both of us were lugging. The pistol that I had under my shirt had belonged to Roberts. It was a big, stainless steel, Smith & Wesson 4506. Not my style, but it was available, and he was not using it anymore. It sure beat being unarmed. Milo had picked me up some regular clothes at the nearest country store. The only shirt they had in my size was lime green and was emblazoned with the deep philosophy of "No Fat Chicks."

  Our pilot was waiting for us. I finally got to see him without his helmet. Unfortunately he was wearing a black balaclava and tinted goggles. Harbinger waved as we approached. The pilot waved back.

  "So what's the deal with the pilot?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, it's already eighty degrees out here and he's wearing a ski mask."

  "Oh. He's just shy is all."

  We stopped in front of the chopper. I held out my hand and introduced myself. The pilot tilted his head to the side and studied my hand. I gradually lowered it, and finally put it my pocket, slightly embarrassed.

  "Well, he's foreign. Weird customs, you know, a bit antisocial."

  "Right. Nice to meet you, Mister . . . ?

  The pilot grumbled something guttural and incomprehensible. It sounded like gibberish to me. I looked to my boss.

  "It means Skull Crushing Battle Hand of Fury in his language. We call him Skippy." Harbinger seemed to be enjoying himself. "Saves on time that way."

  "I was told he came with the chopper?"

  "Kind of. It's a long story. I met him in Uzbekistan. His tribe came from there. MHI is kind of his tribe now. He has himself a little place just outside the compound. Skip here is one hell of a pilot, however, and keeps this bird running great too."

  "You have great taste in music, Skippy," I told him slowly. "One of the bands you played, CPKM. My brother plays guitar for them."

  "You . . . are . . . blood of . . . Mosh Pitt?" The pilot's voice was very deep, and he seemed to struggle with the unfamiliar words.

  "Yes. He's my little brother. I can probably get you some backstage passes when his tour comes through town. I think they're playing Birmingham in September."

  He dropped to his knees. I stepped back in surprise. Skippy prostrated himself on the ground and bowed until his balaclava was touching the asphalt. He said something else in his strange language.

  "Skip, please, you're making a scene," Harbinger said as he grabbed the pilot's arm and stood him up. The airport manager was watching us through his trailer's miniblinds, and another pilot, putting fuel in his Cessna, stared at us strangely.

  "Sorry, Harb Anger . . . I not know . . . that big scarface Hunter . . . how you say . . . Grzystilikz?"

  "What? Royalty? Oh hell no."

  "Huh?"

  "He thinks you're from a royal family. Uh, equivalent to a great war chief or something like that." He shrugged. "I've never seen Skippy bow to anybody before."

  "Wow. Uzbekistan really appreciates their heavy metal. No, Skippy, I'm not royalty. This is America. And I'll still get us some VIP passes, okay?"

  "Great honor . . . great honor on my tribe." The gravel voiced pilot seemed positively giddy.

/>   "All right, let's get in the air. We're burning daylight." Harbinger tossed his duffel bag into the crew compartment. Skippy bowed a final time, not quite as deeply as before, and then he ran for the pilot's compartment. From the horrible noise he made, I think he was trying to sing the chorus from "Hold the Pig Steady." I work with the strangest people.

  We spent the next hour flying over the coast around St. Catherine's Island and then to the east of Sapelo Island. We were not having much luck. There were lots of places where a little boat could be landed, and there were a lot of boats in the area as well. But none of the spots we flew over matched the little patch of sand from my dreams.

  "It's possible that the boat washed back out to sea. Weather report says the tides have been pretty low the last few days, but you never know."

  "I hope not," I replied. Skippy was blasting my brother's CD loud enough to be heard over the rotor. He had one heck of a good sound system installed in this thing. Harbinger kept cringing every time the music got particularly good. There is just no accounting for taste.

  "We can either head toward Brunswick or Savannah next. I would guess Brunswick, since it's smaller," Harbinger shouted over the noise, pointing at the map. "They're probably staying away from population centers."

  I shook my head in the negative. "In my dream there were a lot of lights nearby. From overhead it was pretty big. I say Savannah."

  "Okay, then." He keyed the intercom button. "Skippy, take us north, hug the coast. Stay low. If the ATC hails us, let me know."