I sat on the stone, shivering. Somebody immediately dropped a dry blanket over my shoulders. Trip gave some orders, and the other three Hunters sprang into action, anchoring ropes so we could get out of here safely.
“This crazy flood started a few minutes ago.” Trip had to shout to be heard over the super fountain. “We took cover up here.”
“Sorry.” My teeth were chattering. “Flood’s my fault.”
He laughed. “I kind of figured.”
“Where’s everybody else?”
“Outside. Last few days we’ve only been leaving one skeleton crew to monitor the gate, just in case. One of your team has been here around the clock always. We never gave up on you, man. Never. You cut it close though. Once these guys clear a path we can wade over to the main tunnel. I can’t believe this. You’re the last one. We can go home!” Trip looked triumphant. Apparently they had been eagerly awaiting this moment. Too bad I was about to ruin the mood.
“You got a radio? I need to talk to Earl fast.”
“Zero comms since the storm started. It’s causing some sort of interference.”
I didn’t know what storm he was talking about. “Have you seen Jason Lococo come through?” Trip shook his head in the negative. “Good. If you see him, shoot him.”
“VanZant said he was dead.”
“He is. That’s why you need to shoot him. VanZant made it?”
“Him and five others. That was about seventy hours ago.”
No wonder I felt like crap. I’d been in the ground for nearly three days.
“They thought you had bought it. The expedition was already worn out. The tomb below was empty. We held out as long as we could, but once the survivors got back, Earl had to make a call. The siege is over, Z. Most of us have already left. The rest are breaking camp.”
“Already? The plan was to hold this place for a month!”
Trip put one hand on my shoulder. “Z, buddy, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you’ve been gone for six.”
CHAPTER 27
When Trip had mentioned a storm, he hadn’t specified that it was a blizzard from hell.
The convoy out was a lot smaller than the one I’d ridden in on. Slower too, but that was because our trucks had been replaced with fat, lumbering, snow crawlers. They were basically big boxy cabins on tracks. There was no way our armored trucks could cross this place in the winter without getting stuck, but we weren’t supposed to still be here in the thick of winter.
Outside the snow crawler’s windows it was a compete white out. Howling winds were driving the snow sideways. Everybody who’d been drenched at the portal had dried off and changed clothes before going outside, otherwise we would’ve frozen to death in the time it took to make it to the vehicles.
“How the shit is it winter already?” I asked through chattering teeth.
“It’s been winter for months. Just be glad this piece of crap has a good heater.” Trip tried the radio again. “Come in, Bride. This is Skeleton Crew. We’ve retrieved the last MIA and we are all returning to base. The site is abandoned. Over.” He waited, frowning, but got nothing but static in return.
There were five Hunters in the crawler. Most of them had their guns ready and were watching out the windows for threats except for Dr. Boris, who had been waiting at the crawlers, and who’d been poking, prodding, and shining lights in my eyes ever since. He was currently checking my blood pressure. He’d not said hardly a word to me, but then when he got done reading the gauge on the cuff around my arm, he turned to Trip. “He’s in awful shape, but he’s human all right. Not another Doppelganger.”
When he said that, the Hunters who’d had their weapons ready relaxed a bit. They hadn’t just been worried about monsters out in the snow, but rather monsters hiding among them. “Guessing you guys have had a problem with those?”
“You have no idea,” Boris muttered as he removed the Velcro cuff. He handed me a protein bar. “Now eat something before you die. Slowly. Doctor’s orders.”
I put my borrowed parka back on then started cramming what tasted like compressed plywood dust into my mouth. It was the best meal ever. “Oh thank you, thank you.” I was going to eat this thing and then pass out.
“If you start to puke like the others, at least have the decency to hang you head out the window first. Those men will all be fine by the way. They’re recovering at the Bride. Gretchen made them soup.”
I would commit all sorts of terrible acts for a bowl of Gretchen’s foul tasting healing soup right now. “How’s Julie? Have you guys heard anything from Julie?”
“Not for a few days…Oh man, you don’t know.” Trip grinned. “Congratulations, Dad.”
It was a lot to take in, and I had a million questions, but only one thing really mattered right then. “Are they safe? Did anybody try to kidnap the baby?”
“What? No. Last I heard they’re just fine. Your little dude is adorable. And since you weren’t around to argue over the name, it’s Raymond Auhangamea Pitt. You know how the Shacklefords are about tradition and all their Raymonds. Julie won’t let Earl call him Little Bubba.”
I closed my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. That lying trickster bastard had been screwing with my head. Everything was going to be okay. We just had to make it home. There were only two other crawlers behind us. It was a far cry from the impressive convoy I’d ridden in on, and we didn’t have any air support either. “Are we safe to make it across with just this?”
“You missed a lot, man. We’ve been busy,” Trip explained. “There’s nothing left to fight. We killed pretty much everything.”
“It was epic,” Boris added helpfully.
“Except once Krasnov ran out of bodies to turn in, there was no payments to skim, so the authorities started getting anxious.” Gerecht said. Somehow the guy from a country in the desert had wound up driving a snow crawler, but he seemed to be doing okay at it. “Krasnov just went back to Moscow to beg for more time. Good thing you showed up when you did because they’re probably going to evict us soon.”
“Evict or bomb. That part’s up in the air still, but either way, we’ve gotta go.”
We won. I couldn’t believe it. We hadn’t killed Asag, but we had beat the City of Monsters, and pulled off the wildest rescue mission ever. We had won.
Then the earth split open beneath us and our snow crawler tumbled into the dark.
* * *
There was blood and snow on my face. The crawler was on its side. The other Hunters were lying still, covered in broken glass. It smelled like gasoline and dust. My ears were ringing from the impact. There was a body across my knees, pinning me down. I was too dizzy to move. The white storm was above us. Everything around us was black. We’d crashed into a tunnel. Slowly sound began coming back. I heard groans and coughing, the creaking of metal, and the crunch of glass beneath boots.
Whoever was walking around stopped right in front of me. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the shadows.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Asag said, still using Lococo’s voice, still wearing his face. “I truly don’t know how you managed to escape. An unexpected turn. Uncertainty used against me? It’s a thing of beauty.”
Someone’s rifle had landed nearby. I reached for it, but an invisible hoof stepped on my hand. I shouted as Asag’s demonic bodyguard ground my fingers against the metal.
“Stop, just stop, Owen. We don’t have much time. These will wake soon, or the ones above will come down to rescue you, and then I’ll have to slaughter them all. You should have stayed buried. Now I either have to kill you—and have to learn about an all new champion before the final battle—or break you once and for all.”
“You’re supposed to be this big force of uncertainty, flip a coin, asshole.”
“Leaving the fate of millions up to pure chance?” An evil smile split his face. “I love it.” He was still wearing the tattered jacket, covered in now frozen leaves, and from an interior pocket he produced his MHI chal
lenge coin. “They buried Jason with this. Harbinger gave it to him. It meant a lot to him, a symbol of a fresh start.”
The Hunter on top of my legs was still breathing. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that his coat had fallen open, revealing a holstered pistol.
Asag held up the coin and showed me the happy face. “Heads you live. Tails you die.”
“Do it.”
He tossed the coin into the air, tracking it upwards with his one eye.
I hoped even the invisible demon prince had to be momentarily curious enough to watch the result, so I went for the holstered gun with my left hand. I ripped the Sig P320 from the holster, lined up the sights on Asag’s chest—hoping this unknown Hunter didn’t do something stupid like carry chamber empty—and started pulling the trigger.
CRACK CRACK. Two to the body. CRACK. One to the head.
The coin landed.
“Master!” The red demon became visible as he violently swatted the pistol from my hand.
But he was too late. Lococo’s head was thrown back. He stayed that way for a few seconds, shuddering, as if he was staring up at the storm. Slowly, Asag took a halting step toward me, revealing a splatter of bloody brain chunks stuck to the wall of the crawler. He faced me and dropped to his knees. There were two red holes over his heart and the last bullet had disappeared into the black hold consuming half his face.
Asag twitched as he struggled to hold on just a bit longer. Blood spilled from his mouth. “I liked possessing this body. Now it’s ruined. I’ll have to find another.”
I’d failed Jason, but at least I could make sure he was finally laid to rest. “You didn’t deserve this one.”
The red demon lifted his claws to rip my throat out, but Asag shouted. “Wait!” The creature stopped. Asag pointed one shaking hand at the coin.
It had come up heads.
I win.
“Let him live. He’ll wish for death soon enough.”
The monstrous prince didn’t like it, but he obeyed his master. Claws retracted back into his fingers. The weighty hoof lifted from my fingers. Cringing, I brought my injured hand to my chest.
“I promised to see you at the end of the world, Owen. I’m looking forward to it very much.” Asag’s stolen body was obviously dying, but he crawled toward me, over the unconscious Hunter, until he leaned in close and whispered into my ear, “And when we meet there, just remember that I am the one who stole your child.”
The body collapsed on top of me as the ancient spirit fled. The back of his skull had been split wide open. Snowflakes fell in the hole.
Only the red devil remained. “It’s your lucky day, human.”
I suspected that Asag had been telling the truth about my son. I didn’t feel lucky.
The prince leaned over and picked up the coin. There was blood all over it. “Monster Hunter International…If only I had known what a thorn you would eventually become.” He looked with disgust at the unconscious Hunters around him. “My greatest regret is that when I killed Bubba Shackleford, I did not eradicate his entire blood line when I had the chance.” Then he vanished, leaving behind smoke and the stink of sulfur.
* * *
Twenty hours later, a hundred Hunters from a dozen companies and three species stood on the rocking deck of the Bride, beneath the northern lights, watching the distant shadow that was Severny Island.
The sky was made up of brilliant green and purple streaks. My dad had stared up at these same lights when he’d died the first time. I could only hope that he was up there, watching over us now. I needed to be as strong as he had tried to make me for what was coming next.
Earl Harbinger walked up and stopped at the railing beside me.
“Any word from home?”
“Nothing yet. They’re still trying.”
I could only nod. The expedition had been cut off from the outside world for several days. First it had been the super storm, and ever since the Russian Navy had been jamming our signals. Last we’d heard from the other teams the army had escorted everybody else to the airfield at gunpoint and forced them on flights out of the country. After our crashed snow crawler had gotten dug out, all the remaining Hunters on the island had been evacuated to the Bride. The military had let an ice breaker get us off the beach and cut a path to open sea, but other than a brief warning about what was about to happen, nobody would talk to us, the radios were still blocked, and we couldn’t even get a satellite signal. Apparently we had worn out our welcome.
“I should be there for them, Earl.”
“But you aren’t, because you were saving the lives of six good men.”
“I couldn’t save them all.”
“You never can, kid. You never can…We lost people, but we derailed a plot to destroy the world. We broke a super monster’s stronghold and set his plans back years.”
“Will that be enough though?”
“You never know, until it’s not.”
I was just so weary. “This enemy isn’t what we expected, Earl. Not at all. He’s a force of nature, but this is all a game to him. The more things break down, the more they fall apart, he wins. Even fighting him feeds him. I’m not sure how we survive this one.”
“We’ll figure it out, because that’s all we can do. First things first, the minute I’m sure they won’t shoot him down, Skippy can get you to the mainland. Then you’re going to hop on a jet back to Alabama.” He reached over and rested one hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’m sure they’re fine. Because come on, can you imagine what Julie would do to anybody stupid enough to mess with her family?”
Night briefly turned to day as a nuclear bomb detonated inside the City of Monsters.
“Good riddance,” I whispered.
Our expedition had cleaned the place out, but it would have rebuilt. More monsters would move in. Until it was excised, it would remain a perpetual, festering source of evil. Supposedly this time they’d dropped a ground penetrating bunker buster directly on top of the gate to close it once and for all.
“Well, now that the world knows about their weapons test, maybe they’ll quit blocking our calls.” Earl paused to light his cigarette. “Bunch of ingrates.”
The Hunters watched in silence as the shadow of the mushroom cloud rose. Then most of them began to cheer, because to hell with that place.
Hang on, Julie. I’m on the way home.
* * *
EPILOGUE
A card table and two folding chairs had been set in the center of the warehouse. Two men sat across from each other, one mustached and fat, the other unnaturally pale and thin. Their respective bodyguards hung back a polite distance.
“Did you get it?” Stricken asked.
“Do you have my money?”
Stricken hoisted a duffle bag off the floor. He made a show of it being heavy, and dropped it on the table so it would make a satisfying thump. It was all about the presentation. Then he unzipped it so the Russian could see all the cash inside. “I’m a man of my word. Now it’s your turn, Mr. Krasnov.”
The Hunter looked to the side and nodded. One of his men approached carrying a plain cardboard box, about three feet long, six inches wide, and six inches tall.
“You stuck an ancient unholy relic of absolute destruction in a cardboard box. That’s like carrying the Mona Lisa around in a shit encrusted wheelbarrow.”
Krasnov shrugged. “Had to put it in something.”
The thug placed the box in front of his boss, then hurried off like Stricken was a ghost. So they still told scary stories about him here…Good.
Stricken was almost giddy with excitement. His plans were coming together. Only Krasnov didn’t immediately open the box to show Stricken the prize, nor did he reach for the money. He hoped the mobster hadn’t gotten cold feet, because slaughtering all of these Russians would be a pain in his ass, and he was still hoping to catch the symphony tonight. Moscow had a pretty good one.
“We had a deal, Krasnov.”
“Some of my men died get
ting this. They would be ashamed to know who for. Unicorn has done much evil. I would not like it if this thing was used against people. Most especially other Hunters.”
Krasnov had been a lot more amenable to the idea of stealing this when Stricken had first approached him, so he must have become fond of his rivals during their long expedition. Fighting side by side did that to most. Loyalty was a far more complicated motivator to deal with than simple greed, so Stricken cut to the chase. “Spare me the sanctimonious bullshit, Ivan. I do what needs to be done. Period. Nobody else on your little expedition knows I held back one page of the Petrov report from everybody but you. Your men were the only ones who could access the secret chamber in Gorod Chudovish. None of the others ever has to know, and if they ever hear a legend about the existence of this thing, they’ll assume it just got melted in a nuclear fire. I’ve already paid you a significant advance to retrieve that item for me. So hand it over before things get complicated.”
“That does not answer me. What will you do with it?”
“Whatever I damned well feel like.” Stricken just stared at him through his oddly tinted glasses, daring him to argue. Krasnov was beginning to sweat. “You didn’t try to use it, did you?”
“I’m not a fool, Stricken. A device of such nature is not for man. It corrupts all it touches.”
“That’s loser talk. Beneath that city you got a little glimpse of what’s coming. You can’t beat that with bullets or bombs. It’s time to fight fire with fire…But look, if it makes you feel any better, I only intend to use that thing to succeed where all of you Hunters failed. I’m gunning up for big game.”
“Take that foulness and get it out of my country.” Krasnov snatched the bag of money off the table and stomped away. The bodyguards followed.
He waited until they had left the warehouse before opening the box to examine his prize. It was beautiful. “Now I am become death…Oppenheimer ain’t got nothing on me.”
Stricken began to giggle.