Monster Hunter Siege-eARC

  “I gots demands.”

  “And we are happy to hear them, your highness.”

  “Each of mine gets paid by the hour like normal, cash, no IRS.”

  Now I was the one being insulted. “Obviously.”

  “My trackers never got to answer to no orc.”

  It wasn’t like they were big on giving orders anyway. Before battle our orcs just kind of hung out, and during, they sort of did their own thing. “I think we can all agree that sounds fair.”

  “Now Skippy demands!” He thumped the table for emphasis. “Elfs no steal Urk souls!”

  “That’s jus’ ignorant! What’d anybody do with orc souls anyway?”

  “Speak it!”

  “Fine. We won’t take nobody’s soul.”

  Skippy seemed really proud to get that concession from her. He and Ed fist bumped.

  “Fine, but orcs can’t go eatin’ no elf babies or cuttin’ off our ears to put on necklaces!”

  The orcs snorted in unison, like that was the stupidest thing they’d ever heard. Why would the elves even bring a baby on the mission to begin with?

  “I told ya’ they don’t make ear necklaces no more, Mama.”

  That was true. Earl had even added that stipulation to the MHI employee handbook after we had adopted the tribe.

  “Shush, Tanya. We’s negotiatin’”

  An hour of intense debate later, the rulers shook on it. We had a deal. Elves and orcs would be working together. It was a truly historic moment. Then the elves pretty much cleaned out the bar.

  CHAPTER 9

  I’d never been to the Holy Land before. Most people on their first trip to Israel, they’d probably see the sights, take a tour, that sort of thing. Trip was a devout kind of guy, and he really wanted to visit a bunch of the important biblical spots. Holly had heard the night club scene in Tel Aviv was great. I wouldn’t know, I’m not a club kind of guy. I’d just be content to take care of business quietly, and then go back home.

  But being Monster Hunters, and being here to talk to a professor who’d gone off the deep end, I wasn’t going to hold my breath.

  This trip was a result of The Van Helsing Institute’s detective work. One of the things I’d asked Rigby to check on was traveling through the Nightmare Realm. He’d discovered that one of the Hunters who’d gone MIA from the Last Dragon was from an Israeli company called Maccabeus Security & Investigations, and that Hunter’s father was an archeologist, who wasn’t just read in on Unearthly Forces, he was one of the Israeli government’s chief consultants on the subject. According to Rigby’s friend at Maccabeus, the professor had been consumed with finding out how to get his son back ever since the incident. That included desperately digging into old forbidden tomes of esoteric and occult knowledge, poking around ancient places of power, and generally scaring the hell out of all his coworkers.

  Now, I didn’t need to look very far from home to see how that kind of fanatical dedication to cracking the supernatural usually worked out. What happened to Julie’s dad was a perfect example. That kind of dark knowledge had a way of getting into your head and twisting things. You want to learn about the other side? No problem. Because there is probably something there, waiting, that would love to help you open the door. You start poking around in that stuff, and down that road lies nothing but a sad death or a padded cell.

  However, since we were stupid enough to actually want to go to the other side, we’d come all the way here because the professor was following a lead that might actually help us make it back.

  The Hunter from Maccabeus who picked us up was a solid looking fellow in plain work clothes, who still gave off a military vibe. He was nearly a foot shorter than me, but he had a strong handshake, and introduced himself as David Gerecht. Surprisingly, he had a British accent. Which I guessed explained how he knew the VHI. He led us through a bunch of security to the parking garage, where we loaded all our bags into a Land Rover.

  “Shotgun!” Holly exclaimed. Which was totally not fair, because I was eight inches taller. I went for the door handle anyway, but she blocked me. “Snooze you lose, big guy.”

  I gave up and got in back. She was at least nice enough to pull her seat forward.

  “I’ll be taking you to see Professor Rothman directly,” Gerecht explained as he got in the driver’s side and put his seat belt on. He had a photograph of a woman and two kids stuck to his dash, and a well read Bernard Cornwall novel on the center consol. “When he found out MHI was interested in his latest project he demanded to see you right away.”

  “That’s good.” Though honestly, after being squished into an airplane for that long I’d really wanted to shower, stretch out on an actual bed, and get in a nap first. The three of us had hit four countries in the last seven days—research and recruiting—so the travel was catching up on me.

  “Since Ari disappeared the professor has been killing himself, working around the clock. No sleep, no food, just work, and then running off to some other dig site. He’s been very excited about an old fort out in the Judean Desert. That’s where we’ll be meeting him,” Gerecht said as he drove us out of the garage.

  Even though logically I knew what time it was here, and I could see out the windows at landing, but it was still a little weird to see that it was dark out. I’d been flying around the world so much putting this mission together that it was like my internal clock had just given up. For me now, life was a perpetual four AM.

  “You want to tell me now why this is so important to MHI?”

  “We’re not at liberty to say yet,” Trip explained. “No offense.”

  “I’m not that easy to offend, but you didn’t just fly a few thousand kilometers on a whim.” He waited a moment, but none of us fessed up. “That’s fine. You don’t have to tell us. My boss says that she looks forward to the legendary Earl Harbinger owing her a favor.”

  Earl had warned me about the head of Maccabeus in case we met. Aiya Trebitsch may have looked like a kindly little grandma lady, but she was an old school Monster Hunter, who’d gotten her start ridding a kibbutz of a devil bat infestation with nothing but a Mauser K98 and a lot of attitude. She was still tough as nails, and her company followed her example.

  “You don’t sound like you’re from here,” Holly said.

  “It’s a land of immigrants. We speak a hundred languages in this country. Anyone you meet will probably know English, as well as Hebrew, and Arabic. But yes, I emigrated here a long time ago. If anything I still sound this way because I’m the one who always has to deal with foreigners, or handle the damned tourists who get in trouble. I grew up in London.”

  “So that’s how you know the Rigbys?” I asked.

  “Oh no. Wrong side of town for that. I’m from East London. The Van Helsing management are upper crust. I met them while they were consulting on a case in Jerusalem back when I was a police officer there. They were following a serial killer that was actually a doppelganger. Long story, but that was my first monster experience, Maccabeus made me an offer, and I’ve been there ever since.”

  It was hard to do much sightseeing at one in the morning. Even then, Trip was glued to his window just in case. The lights along the highway were nice, I guess.

  “So where are we going again?” Holly asked.

  “The Judean Desert. It is a long enough drive, you can get some sleep if you want, or I’ve got a cooler with sandwiches in it if you’re hungry. The fortification Rothman is digging up was used by everyone from Romans to crusaders. Don’t worry about what hour we’ll arrive. He’ll still be up. Aiya is worried about him, so a couple members of my team are pulling security for the site.”

  “Why? Is it dangerous there?”

  “Not particularly by our standards. That area hasn’t been rocketed it months.” Gerecht said that so dead pan that I wasn’t sure if he was messing with us or not. “Mostly I think Aiya is worried the professor is going to pass out from exhaustion or forget to eat. We want to keep him healthy. He’s a bit odd, but
he’s sort of a national treasure.”

  * * *

  I woke up because the Land Rover slamming on the brakes caused me to bounce my chin off my chest. “Huh?”

  “Car accident!” Holly exclaimed.

  I didn’t speak Hebrew, but I’m pretty sure Gerecht was swearing. I cracked open my eyes. Dust from our sudden stop wafted through the headlights. We were on a gravel road. Ahead of us was another vehicle, but its front end was down in a ditch. Beyond our lights the desert was pitch-black. I scanned around for threats. The red brake lights revealed nothing but sand and rocks behind us. Gerecht threw it in park and hopped out. He didn’t bother to turn off the engine or even close the door, but immediately sprinted to the wreck.

  Trip and Holly must have stayed awake, because both of them bolted from the car faster than I did. I started getting out too, but I’d been so deeply asleep that I’d drooled on my shirt, so it took me a second.

  By the time I got there, Gerecht had gotten out a flashlight, slid down the ditch, and was reaching through the driver’s side window. The vehicle must have been going fast, because its front end had completely crumpled against the rocks. I was still a little befuddled, but I realized that it was another Land Rover, matching ours down to the paint color, and that suggested company car.

  “Help me. Gil is unconscious,” our guide said.

  “Don’t move him. He could have a spinal injury. Get out of my way,” Holly ordered as she climbed down. “I’m a medic.”

  Gerecht complied and Holly took his place in the window. She’d even brought her carry on, which I knew she always kept an emergency trauma kit in. Holly had been going to nursing school when she had been recruited by MHI, and had gotten plenty of training and practical application ever since, especially for punctures, lacerations, and impact injuries.

  “Who is it?” Trip shouted down at them.

  “It’s Gil. He’s one of the two men I left guarding the professor.”

  “Get your light in here. He’s breathing,” Holly said. Gerecht stuck his flashlight through the window. “I’ve got a pulse. Air bag deployed. Looks like it knocked the shit out of him. Hang on…I’ve got blood. He’s got a cut to the abdomen, and there’s a stab wound on his leg.”

  He didn’t get those from driving into a ditch. “How far are we from the site?”

  “It’s just over that next rise, less than a kilometer,” Gerecht shouted back. “Something must have happened. Maybe he was going for help.”

  “Or running from something,” Trip said. He’d pulled his own flash light out and aimed it at the back of the crashed Land Rover. “Z, check this out.”

  I walked over to see what Trip was pointing at. It took my sleep addled brain a second to process what I was looking at. The back window had been shattered. A pole was sticking out, and it had been poked into the rear of the back seat. No. Wait. That’s not a pole. “Trip, is that a spear?”

  “Yeah, man. I think it’s a spear.”

  Gerecht shined his light in the back seat, swore again, then drew a handgun from a holster on his belt. Yep. That was a spear. He looked up at me. “There are weapons in the boot.”

  “On it.”

  I ran back to our Land Rover, opened the back gate and started shoving our luggage out of the way. There were several gun cases. I grabbed the top two. By the time I ran back, Trip had wrenched the spear free and climbed out.

  “I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure that’s a friggin’ spear.” I said as I dumped the cases in the dirt and started unzipping one.

  “It’s a pilum. The Roman legions used them.”

  If anybody would know that, it was Trip. “Okay. Who is out in the desert throwing pilums at passing cars?” The first case contained a short barreled, folding stocked, micro Galil. The Velcro side pouches held loaded mags. Score.

  “This isn’t some replica. I think it’s ancient.” Trip shoved it toward me.

  It wasn’t a blade so much as a long metal shank, which had apparently bent on impact. The metal was dark, pitted, and flaking rust, like something you’d see in a museum. The wood looked old, and I bet I could twist it into pulp with my bare hands. But regardless of its age, something had just hurled it with a great deal of force. “What the hell, man?”

  “It was stuck all the way through the back seat.”

  I rocked a mag into the Galil and worked the charging handle. Whatever it was out there in the desert throwing spears at people, I was more than happy to shoot the hell out of it.

  Holly must have decided the wounded Hunter was safe to move, because she and Gerecht were dragging his unconscious body up the hill. Trip rushed over to help while I kept watch. They got him laid down in the headlights and Holly went back to work on him, while Gerecht and Trip armed up.

  “What did Rothman set free?” I asked.

  “It might not be supernatural. Could have just been an asshole with a big knife. Whoever it was, he was torqued,” Holly stated. “I don’t think it pierced his stomach, just muscle and fat, but that’s a lot of little blood vessels cut. I’m going to have to tourniquet this leg though.” She pulled a black nylon bag out of her carry on and took her tourniquet out. It was basically a strap, a buckle, and a lever. The hole was above his knee. It wasn’t squirting, but it was a whole lot faster than a trickle. She cinched the strap around his thigh and grabbed the lever. “Hold him down. This will probably wake him up.”

  Trip and Gerecht got their hand on his shoulders. Holly cranked it tight. Gil woke up screaming and thrashing, but they kept him from hurting himself further.

  “You’ll be fine. You’ll be fine,” Gerecht kept telling his friend, while Holly went to work plugging the holes. “What happened?” He mumbled something I couldn’t understand, but having lost too much blood, the wounded Hunter was already nodding back off. His head dipped, and he was out. “Stay with me, Gil! Gil? Damn it.”

  “What did he say?” Trip asked.

  “Centurion, I think.”

  “He’s got a concussion.” Holly ripped open a package with her teeth and spit out a chunk of wrapper. “So take that with a grain of salt.”

  Trip and I exchanged a nervous glance. She’d been too busy to see the Roman spear. Centurion was probably accurate. “Gerecht, you get revenants up here?”

  “This dig wasn’t listed as a danger site. There wasn’t anything supernatural cataloged here. Unless…” he trailed off, scowling. “Rothman was mumbling about this tomb because it belonged to a mighty warrior, who had supposedly ventured into another world to rescue someone, but made it back because he’d found this artifact that would always show the way home. He thought this might be where the artifact is buried. But Aiya suspected he was desperate enough that if he found the remains he might attempt to commune with the dead, to ask the warrior how he’d done it. Our orders were not to let him try anything so stupid.”

  “You were babysitting. You think he would try anyway?”

  “Desperation makes haste, and haste makes stupidity. Rothman has read many of the old incantations, he could have tried something while my men weren’t looking. Gil’s phone was on the floor, he was trying to call me when he passed out and crashed.”

  “Right now we’ve got to assume Rothman woke up something nasty.”

  “Maybe, but all kinds of pain in the ass undead collect in these old tombs.” He looked toward the rise. “I’ve got another man in there, and there were some workers too. We have to save them.”

  “Your buddy here isn’t crashing, but he’s not got all night. I’ve got the bleeding slowed, but I can’t tell if he’s got any internal injuries. He needs a hospital bad.” Holly had blood up to her elbows. Totally calm, she wiped her hands on her ruined shirt. She had seen a whole lot worse than this. “Was that little clinic we drove by on the way in the closest medical care?”

  “Yes. Can you find your way back there?”

  “No problem. I can evac him.”

  “You need a hand?” Trip asked.

  “Just
get him into the passenger seat. There’s not much else you guys can do.”

  I jerked my head in the direction I thought the dig was supposed to be. “Then we’ll head that way and look for the others.”

  Trip and I carried Gil to the still running Land Rover and got him buckled in. While we did so Gerecht was on his phone, speaking in rapid fire Hebrew to someone I assumed was his boss. He hung up. “Help is on the way.”

  “How far out?”

  “Too long to wait for them.”

  Holly flipped the vehicle around and went tearing back toward civilization with the wounded man, while the three of us set out up the desert road. We ran as fast as we could, flash lights bouncing. The night was cool. The air was dry, probably the driest, cleanest air that had ever filled my lungs. My ankle still hadn’t had a chance to fully heal, and it was burning. Gretchen was probably going to grumble at me again.

  By the time we reached the top of the hill. I was breathing hard and sweating. The other two were fine. In my defense, Gerecht was close to half my mass, and Trip was a college athlete, I had about eighty pounds on him, and I hated running. I was just proud to keep up.

  “There.” Gerecht pointed his light. Like us, he was carrying an eyeball melting flashlight that carried for a long ways. Monster Hunters wanted all the lumens.

  At first it looked like a camp site more than anything. There were several big tents set up. If I’d not known what it had once been, I would have just thought the ancient fort was a bunch of rocks piled up to make a few walls. Caution tape had been strung up to keep anyone from falling into the black holes that were excavation pits. There were a few big construction lights, but they were off. The biggest tent had a generator next to it, but the engine wasn’t running. There was a car and a truck parked there as well. Other than the yellow tape flapping in the desert wind, there was no movement.

  “It could be dangerous. You two don’t need to go in there with me. These aren’t your people. This isn’t your fight.”

  “Bull crap. We’re going.” Trip was very matter of fact about it. Most Hunters paused to figure out if there was an angle where we could get paid, but Trip was the sort who would do the hero thing for free.