Monster Hunter International

  "Never mind. I forgot I was talking to the combat accountant. I haven't seen anything except for bugs and a cottonmouth."

  "Like the killer snake cottonmouth?" I asked, glancing nervously at the ground.

  "Yeah, but it was just a baby. You should have seen the ones we grow in Florida. They climb trees, and drop on you. When you're on the river fishing, they will swim out to your boat and climb in. Mean little bastards," he told me this with a straight enough face that I was not quite sure if he was making it up or not. "Anyway, if you need me, I'll be on the radio."

  "Okay." He started to walk away. I stopped him. "Hey, Trip, one last thing . . . Thanks for coming out here to help me and Julie," I told him. "I appreciate it."

  "Dude, don't worry about it. Harbinger needed somebody not very important to the Feds, is all."

  "Still. Thanks," I said. He shrugged and went back into the house. The screen door clattered behind him. I shifted the RPG to one shoulder and started my patrol.

  The afternoon air was thick with humidity, and moisture gleamed on the surrounding foliage. The once-cleared farmland that had surrounded the plantation had been retaken by swift-growing plants, including the evil nemesis of all that was good in the plant world—kudzu. It was stiflingly hot in my armor, and sweat ran freely down my back. I had left my hockey helmet behind in favor of a simple ball cap to keep the sun out of my eyes. I sipped constantly from my CamelBak. Big guys dehydrate fast in the summer.

  I did not see anything of note as I passed the time. Holly checked in every few minutes to make sure that nothing was trying to kill me, besides the bloodthirsty clouds of gnats of course. So far I liked the South. I liked the people and their attitude, but I sure could do without all of the damned gnats, mosquitoes, chiggers, ticks and other things interested in eating me.

  As I approached the remains of the old slave quarters, I noticed one solid piece of construction not destroyed down to its foundations. It was a tiny building, slightly lopsided from settling over time, probably only ten feet across, but constructed out of thick-mortared stones. There was a very heavy door, but it was hanging open on massive rusty hinges. I debated it briefly, but decided to take a look inside the old relic.

  It must have been some sort of prison cell for the slaves so long ago. The interior of the room was empty, but the few small windows were blocked with thick steel bars set deep into the stones. Thin shafts of light pierced the gloom, but not nearly enough to see by. The inside of the door was banded with iron slats, and the door itself was constructed of ancient pieces of wood, almost big enough to serve as railroad ties. It was a construction far heavier than possibly needed to keep anyone from escaping. There was a latch on the doorframe where a big crossbeam could be set to keep the door closed, probably held in place by a long-since-missing chain and padlock. The air was stale and damp with mildew.

  I entered the cell. It was dark. I blinked a few times, but my eyes were adjusted to the summer sunlight outside. Raising Abomination slightly from its tac sling, I activated the powerful weapon-mounted flashlight. The room was instantly flooded in brightness. Much better. The texture of the stone walls was strange. It took me a moment to understand exactly what it was that I was looking at.

  Scratches. Tens of thousands of scratches. Some sort of hard and sharp implement had scratched every reachable surface. The only clear spots on the walls were more than ten feet high, but even then there were a few marks above that where the creator must have gotten a running start. I looked down. Even the floor was torn with a patchwork of deep marks. The marks were deep, as if struck into the rock with great force.

  An involuntary shudder passed down my now-cold spine. I did not understand what had made the marks, but someone had spent a whole lot of time tearing at the tiny prison. It had to be hundreds of hours' worth of either methodical work, or perhaps savage frenzy. Now uncomfortable, I left the flashlight on until I was back out in the sunlight.

  Holly relieved me on guard duty a few hours later. I took a turn watching the security cameras. It was a monotonous job, but somebody had to do it.

  At least the little room with the monitors had a ceiling fan. The central air had died, and none of us had been able to fix it. The security system was impressive: motion detectors, pressure sensors, and video in regular and thermal images. The most paranoid recluse would be proud to own this system. Very fitting for the home of a Monster Hunter.

  Holly appeared on one of the screens. I was glad to see that she had paid attention to her lessons in tactics and was varying her route to keep any tunneling creatures from being able to set up an ambush. My earpiece crackled as she checked in.

  "Nada. I almost wish that something would attack. This is boring," she told me. On the monitor she moved the RPG to her other hand. "I would love to blast something. These things are awesome."

  "It worked pretty good for you back on that boat."

  "Yeah, you missed it since you were busy drowning. Turned those wights into chum. RPGs rock." She went back to her patrol. I went back to my monitors.

  An alarm sounded and a red light on the control panel started to flash. "We have company," I said into the radio as I checked the appropriate camera. "A car is coming up the lane."

  Julie's voice came over the radio. "Can you tell who it is?"

  "Negative."

  There was a brief pause as she digested the information. "Everybody assemble toward the front. Except for Gretchen, stay back in case one of us is wounded. Holly, use the corner of the house as cover. Trip, you and me, front porch. Owen, second-floor balcony. Be ready for anything."

  "It's daylight. At least it can't be vampires," I said as I left the control room and headed for my assigned area. I swung Abomination around my back, and grabbed the flattop AR-15 that was mounted over the doorway. If I needed to engage targets off the second floor, the .223 rifle would be better suited for that task than my relatively short-range shotgun. I chambered a round. I loved Julie's idea of home decor. She had a weapon stashed every ten feet.

  "It could be anything. We didn't know the CO had gargoyles either," Julie said. Now even she was using the abbreviated form.

  "What if it's the Feds?" asked Holly. "I've got an RPG," she added helpfully.

  "Hold your fire," Julie ordered.

  Somehow, I did not find that comforting. I found a spot on the balcony overlooking the front approach. I left the window closed. If I needed to shoot, I could do so through the glass, and there was no need to give away my position beforehand. I grabbed a nearby dresser and pulled it into position to use as a rest. I gazed through the 4X magnification of the Trijicon scope. The car was a new, black Mercedes, and it was approaching rapidly, spinning up a cloud of dust behind it. I put the illuminated reticle on the car's windshield.

  "I only see the driver . . . No visible passengers. But the windows are tinted. Hard to tell."

  "Roger that," Julie responded. "Everybody get ready. I'll walk out to meet them. It might just be somebody lost, or a salesman, or the Jehovah's Witnesses or something."

  "J-Dubs huh? Like I said, I've got a perfectly good RPG . . ." Holly offered.

  "Mercedes is at two hundred yards and closing."

  "Mercedes?" she responded hopefully.

  "Yes. A new black one," I replied through my mike.

  It was quiet. I watched the car pull into the courtyard and stop next to the dry fountain. The scope vibrated slightly as I waited for the driver to exit. We waited as the driver took his sweet time putting his sunglasses away and checking his hair in the interior mirror.

  Finally the door opened and the driver's expensive Italian shoes touched down on the gravel. I exhaled slowly, perfectly balanced, ready to shoot. Julie's back appeared in my field of vision, quickly approaching the Mercedes. The man unfolded himself gracefully out of the vehicle. He was tall, handsome and wearing a finely tailored suit. Julie hugged the driver, and I watched her kiss him through 4X magnification.

  Shit.

  It was Grant
Jefferson. The insufferable little ass-clown.

  I put the safety back on the rifle, and moved the muzzle into an upward direction. I swore and violently kicked the helpless antique dresser. Grant Jefferson. Monster hunting legend . . . in his own mind at least. Brave hero who didn't think twice about leaving me to die. Perhaps the most stuck-up prick I had ever met, and worst of all . . . Julie's boyfriend.

  I would have preferred vampires.

  "Hello, Pitt." Grant greeted me as I stomped down the stairs. "I'm glad to see you were able to escape those gargoyles." He lied easily enough. I knew that if I had been pasted all over rural Alabama he wouldn't have shed many tears. I resisted the urge to snap-shoot the scumbag right between the eyes.

  "I bet you are," I grunted.

  "Owen saved my life," Julie told him. "If it hadn't been for him I'd be dead. He beat one of them to bits. Saved my dad too."

  "Really? Good job . . . Newbie," Grant said. Trip entered behind them and rolled his eyes when he saw Grant.

  "We had a little help." I thought of the farmer with the NRA hat and elephant rifle. "Some folks aren't too chicken-shit to risk their lives for somebody else."

  "Owen!" Julie snapped. "We don't have time for that right now."

  Grant surprised me then. I had not known that the man had any humility in him at all. "No. That's okay. I'll admit, I made a tactical error. I didn't think I could save you, so I retreated to a more advantageous position. It seemed like the prudent thing to do at the time." He draped one arm casually over Julie's shoulders.

  I figured that was probably as close to an apology as he had ever mustered. I bit my tongue to keep from saying anything further. Holly entered from the back and Gretchen glided silently in from the kitchen. Julie shrugged out from under Grant's arm and sat down. She was back to business.

  "So what's going on back at the compound?" Julie demanded. "And more important, how's Doctor Nelson?"

  Grant adjusted his silk tie as he spoke. He did not like being ordered around, but he knew his place. "The doctor's going to be okay. He suffered a coronary, but he's stable." I breathed a sigh of relief.

  "As for the compound, Myers and the Monster Control Bureau agents are still there. They want your father, badly. APBs have been issued for him, you and Pitt. They're making life difficult. All of our personnel have been grounded until Ray Shackleford is found. "

  "That sucks," Julie said.

  "There is good news, though. There have been undead attacks all over Georgia, Alabama and Eastern Mississippi. Looks like the seven split up to cause trouble. Over the last two days, newly created vampires, wights and zombies have wreaked havoc."

  "That's good news?" Trip said incredulously.

  "Sure is. The Feds are jumping, trying to contain the outbreaks, and still watch the spots they think are Places of Power. Local law enforcement doesn't have any idea what's going on because the Feds are keeping them in the dark. Every National Guardsman and Reservist in the South has been called up on emergency duty. Local officials are panicking. The news is reporting it all as terrorist attacks and Homeland Security has moved most of the Southeast to condition red."

  "I'm still not grasping the 'good' part of that," Trip replied.

  Grant sighed in exasperation, as if baffled by the ignorance of Newbies. "Harbinger's put the word out to all of the local officials who are on our side. The Governor's office, state legislatures, even Congress and the Senate, pretty much every pro-Hunting politician." I imagined that some of our bounty from the Antoine-Henri job had been used to grease a few palms as well. "They're putting pressure on Myers to let us go so we can do our jobs. We have contracts with these states that we can't currently fulfill because of the Feds. Lots of people are getting ticked off, and the worse the crisis gets, the more their complaints get heard by Myers' bosses in Washington. The last thing that they want is for it to get so bad that the truth can't be contained from the general populace."

  "So you think they're going to let us go?" asked Holly. "The Feds are just going to back off?"

  "I think so," Grant said smugly. Which I took to mean that Harbinger thought so, and Grant liked to be right. "If there are more attacks tonight like there were last night, then they aren't going to have much choice."

  "I'm surprised they're doing this. It isn't like vampires to provoke confrontation with humans. They're powerful, but there are lots more of us than there are of them. Direct confrontation with the living usually gets them staked and chopped in short order. Why all of these attacks?" Julie mused.

  "Because in three days, it isn't going to matter," I told them. "The seven are only here to help the Cursed One. They know that we're onto them. They have nothing to lose. They attack. They create more undead. They cause confusion and spread human forces thin. That's what they want."

  "Three days?" Grant asked in confusion.

  "That's when my dad says that they will use their artifact," Julie said. "Come on, what else?"

  He continued, "Harbinger doesn't want to turn your dad over. He thinks the Feds have a leak. How else could the CO have known about Ray? The only people who know about him are us and them." Grant seemed saddened that this news did not shock us.

  "I told you so," Trip said. I golf-clapped for him. He flipped me the bird. All in good fun of course.

  Our visitor ignored our antics. "We learned some more things while you've been away." He nodded in my general direction, not quite willing to actually mention any contributions I have made, but needing to emphasize the source of their intel. "We found the name Byreika. We think we know who he is, or maybe I should say, was."

  "The Old Man?" I was shocked.

  He pulled a piece of paper out of his suit pocket. He carefully unfolded it and read. "Mordechai Byreika. Born in Lodz, Poland, in 1874. Freelance Monster Hunter. Did rather well for someone who worked solo, mostly in Eastern Europe. Last whereabouts were when he was arrested by Nazis in 1941, he was sent to a concentration camp, escaped, was recaptured, sent to another camp in 1943, and never heard from again." Grant handed the paper over to me. There was a single, grainy, black-and-white photograph photocopied under the information.

  It was him all right. Slightly younger, not quite as worn down by age and time, but still with the same hard eyes behind small glasses. I was sure of it. In the picture he was standing, with a rifle in hand, in front of the corpse of some sort of massive scaled monster. It was a trophy shot, the kind that you took as proof to collect on a bounty.

  "Is that the man, Owen?" Julie asked, standing up, and crowding next to me to see the picture. Trip and Holly followed closely, also curious to see. Gretchen was inscrutable under her burkha and shades. She wandered off toward the kitchen, probably bored and looking for something to eat.

  "This is him. I'm sure of it. How did you find him?"

  "His journal is in the archives. It was found on a contract mission to Prague back in the '80s."

  "We collect information from old Hunters every chance we get. We aren't any smarter than the old-timers, we've just learned from their experience," Julie explained.

  "Lee found it. He was cross-referencing everything in the archives, and the name stuck out. He remembered Pitt saying that name from his dreams."

  "Remind me to give Albert a fat bonus when we get back," Julie said. "What's in the journal?"

  "Years and years of hunting, but if you skip to the end, he was after the CO. It was kind of like a quest for him. Killing that particular monster was his Holy Grail," Grant told us. I found that a slightly ironic turn of phrase to use about a Jew. "Byreika studied him for years. He was sure that the creature's physical body was someplace in Europe. His search led him to believe that the Nazis were in league with Lord Machado."

  "In league for what?" Holly asked.

  "Complete and total control over time."

  "Sounds familiar," I said.

  "It's worse. Byreika studied this for years. He was convinced that the CO had the ability, and the insanity, to do it. The only thi
ng holding him back was that he needed a certain artifact that was protected by some sort of ancient guardian. Once it was taken from the guardian, it had to be taken to a certain place, at a certain time, and activated with a special blood sacrifice. The journal went into a lot of details about what he thought would happen if the CO was successful."

  "How bad?" all of us asked in unison.

  "I don't know, haven't read it yet. But Harbinger absolutely freaked out. Said that we should shoot your dad rather than let anything come near him, including the Feds. Milo read it, and then he had to call the general authorities of his church. Even Sam didn't look so good, and I didn't even know that man's brain was wired to understand fear. I mean, I've never seen those three scared of anything before, ever."

  "I've only seen them scared once," Julie stated. I thought of her story, with the giant pupil looking through the rift into our universe.

  "Literally the end of the world," Grant told us as he adjusted the lapels of his expensive suit. "I mean, seriously, I'm a little nervous about the whole thing myself."

  Holly cleared her throat. "This might sound bad . . . and I'm sorry to be the one to bring it up, but if it's that serious, why don't we just kill Ray right now?"

  "Holly!" Trip sputtered. "That would be murder."

  "Hey, I'm trying to be practical here," Holly retorted. "Whole world dies, or one nutcase buys it, no offense, Julie . . ."

  "None taken," she said.

  "Then I'm siding with the whole world. It's a pretty sucky place, but I like it not destroyed. Let's just plug Ray and bury him in the backyard," Holly said. I reminded myself to stay on her good side. Trip looked disgusted. Grant seemed impressed by her logic. I was morally ambivalent, but it was too damn hot to have to dig a deep enough hole to hide a body.

  "I've thought of that myself," Julie told us. "But there's one problem. Dad is probably not the only way for them to find their Place of Power. I mean, Dad found a way, so that information is out there somewhere. And on the other hand, he is our only way to find out where the Cursed One is going to be . . ."