Monster Hunter Alpha-ARC

  Back in Minneapolis, she’d risked her life to save a kid from being sold and disappearing into the underworld. She had been undercover, just supposed to be observing a ‘massage parlor’ for Vice. They’d had no idea what kind of evil really took place there. All alone, the radio failed, no backup, stupidly outnumbered, it hadn’t mattered.…Nobody else was there to protect that kid, so Heather had. It had put her on the fast track to detective.

  But then her mom had gotten sick, and she’d dropped everything and come home. The decision hadn’t even taken a second thought; someone needed her help. Unfortunately, the only thing she could do was help make her comfortable. Her mom’s death had shaken Heather, and then she’d repeated the process with her grandpa, and then finally with her dad. One after the other. Her grandpa had always been a melancholy and angry man, and when he died it was almost like her dad had inherited that darkness, and then when he was gone he’d passed it on to her, like a family curse. By the time all of the dying was over, she’d been left burned-out and empty. She’d given until there was just nothing left inside, and she’d spent the time since on autopilot.

  Then some scumbag had come along and threatened her town. It had awakened that dormant protective nature, and Heather again had a purpose. And she was a force to reckon with when she had a purpose.

  The tracks in the snow behind her were paws, but as the distance grew, the tracks changed. By the time they were footprints, she could think clearly again. She continued running through the trees. The ice should have hurt her feet, but there was no pain. The cold should have cut through her naked skin, but she was warm. Faster than was humanly possible, she ran for town, never getting short of breath, never tiring. It felt good to be strong. It would have been so easy to pick a new direction and just keep on running, but Heather focused on the job. People were counting on her, and she couldn’t afford to let them down.

  * * *

  Copper Lake donated several snowmobiles with full tanks of gas to the cause. Nancy said their owners weren’t around to miss them. She’d sent someone to grab them from a local rental place. They were parked in front of the gym, just outside the pink-slush zone. Earl had sent runners to gather every remaining weapon from his overturned truck and was in the process of strapping the cases onto the back of a newer Polaris while Aino read aloud from Aksel Kerkonen’s journal.

  “I don’t understand this,” Aino complained. “It’s nonsense words.”

  “Repeat them to me.”

  “They’re gibberish.”

  “It’s a spell.” Earl sighed. He hated magic and had zero talent in that regard, but if you spent enough time hunting, you were bound to gain some familiarity. Earl had intimate knowledge of dark magic’s effects; he’d seen the dead rise, seas boil, and fire rain from the skies, but the idea of invoking it himself was abhorrent. But if it meant the difference between beating the Alpha or not, then Earl wasn’t above dabbling in the black arts. “Read them to me.”

  “Aksel wrote that the Baba Yaga walked him through saying these first. I’m no witch of the woods.”

  “No, you’re way too pretty.” Earl had never encountered an actual Baba Yaga. They were rare even in the dark frozen corners of Europe they originally hailed from and nonexistent in his usual area of operations, but by all accounts that particular fey was hideously ugly. “Just sound them out, already.”

  “Well, Aksel couldn’t spell for shit, so this should be close.” Aino cleared his throat and made an attempt at the words. “Allut tvar mataw.”

  Agent Stark, having found some supplies and another weapon, joined them at the snowmobiles. “What’re you doing?” He was livid. “That sounds like Old Ones’ language. You can go to jail just for speaking that stuff.”

  “Add it to the list of things you’re going to prosecute me for,” Earl said. “It’s all in that journal, Stark. The Soviets had a badass werewolf by the name of Koschei dealing out a lot of hurt during the Winter War. He was so tough they called him the Deathless, and it was all because he was wearing that damn amulet. They couldn’t kill Koschei no matter how hard they tried, until some enterprising young officer got tired of retreating and cut a deal with a Baba Yaga for instructions on how to kill him.”

  “How complicated could it be?”

  Aino looked up from the book. “She made some weird magic for them. She killed a bear, and inside its belly was a fox, and inside its belly was a chicken, and inside that chicken was an egg with a silver nugget inside, that she melted into a bunch of needles. Personally I think that part sounds like bullshit she made up so she could charge the army more money. The silver needles, they had to be driven square into Koschei’s forehead. Only place that would do, and they’d only work for a minute. Then somebody had to put their hands on the necklace and say the spell before it could be pulled off.”

  Earl pointed at the antique Mosin-Nagant rifle on the back of his snowmobile. “That’s our long-range needle applicator. We find the super-werewolf. Shoot him in the face. Recite a few words. Then go out for coffee and doughnuts. My treat.”

  Aino grunted. “I better get some damned sprinkles on mine.”

  Stark was unimpressed. “Sure. Magic chicken egg antique silver bullets…How’d that work out last time?”

  Earl didn’t look up from tying down cases. “Our boy Aksel was the only survivor, but he got the job done.”

  “Superstitious nonsense. We should play this by the book. Casting spells is against the law.”

  “I know that, but you want to square off against a super-werewolf that the hardest sons a bitches that ever came out of the frozen north couldn’t beat without cheating, be my guest.”

  “You get an Old One’s attention, or even worse, bring one here, and we’ll be—”

  Earl had never realized just how uninformed a senior member of the MCB could be. Myers, in comparison, was remarkably competent. “Okay, okay. Listen…” Earl tried to control his frustration, but since he was resisting the urge to strangle Stark, he considered it a win. “Didn’t they teach any classes at your fancy MCB school besides witness intimidation? Baba Yaga are fey, not Old Ones.”

  “What’s the difference?” Aino asked.

  “Different dimensions. One’s a whole lot meaner,” Earl explained. “Not that fey are nice, but they tend to keep their unpleasantness to the individual instead of the world-wrecking level. Come on, Stark. Grow a pair.”

  “Still…It sounds like he just made it all up.”

  “He wasn’t an MCB agent bucking for a promotion. Look. I’ll grab the amulet and say the words. You just cover me. Worst-case scenario if the Alpha doesn’t kill me first, which he probably will, is that I piss off some immortal crone and she hops a flight from Finland and comes over here and puts a hex on me. The bitch can get in line.”

  Stark folded his arms. “You shouldn’t joke about that. Curses are serious business.”

  Earl was the last person that needed to be lectured on curses. “Well, I’m short one, figured I’d collect some more. After this I’m thinking I’ll go desecrate a mummy’s tomb or something.”

  “Fine.” Stark relented and climbed onto another snowmobile. “We’ll see who’s laughing when you get turned into a frog. Play with your antique bullets. We need to stop by my car on the way so I can get some modern weapons.”

  Earl just smiled at Stark’s ignorance. Sure, he was packing a pair of wheel-guns, a subgun built during the Second World War, and a rifle design that dated back to the tsars, but he also had an 84mm recoilless rifle and enough shells to obliterate half the county. Earl Harbinger was retro-practical. “Aino, would you repeat those words?”

  Aino complied. “Allut tvar mataw. Allut tvar mataw.”

  The words were harsh, grating, unpleasant on the tongue, but at least they didn’t seem to bend his sanity like the Old Ones’ language did. Earl memorized the words and tried to repeat them. They didn’t feel particularly magical. He was probably going to screw this up.

  Jason Lococo joined th
em a moment later, having borrowed some gear from the locals and unceremoniously dumped it on the back of his snowmobile. Earl had left him the biggest vehicle, an 800cc monstrosity. The giant stopped and silently listened to the words of the Baba Yaga. After Aino read the line and Earl repeated it for the fifth time, Jason asked, “If that don’t work, what do we do then?”

  “Anything you can think of to hurt him, and if that doesn’t pan out, run for your life,” Earl directed. “If I go down, somebody needs to stay alive to warn everyone else about this guy.”

  Stark raised his hand. “Maybe I should stay here then. You know…to report.”

  It was an odd feeling, but Earl had never found himself wishing for the professionalism of Agent Myers before. Despite their mutual hatred for each other, at least Myers wasn’t a chicken. In fact, if he was going to be stuck with an agent, he would have traded Stark for any of the other ones he’d met. Sad to admit, but Franks would be especially useful. Hell, Franks would probably just walk up and punch the Alpha to death.

  “Oh, come on, Agent Stark.” Jason chuckled. “You were all excited for us to be killing werewolves when you thought you were going to get a cut.”

  “Shut up, you idiot!” Stark hissed.

  “Huh?” Earl’s eyes narrowed. “Cut of what?”

  Stark held up his hands defensively. “I don’t know what this guy’s talking about. Cut? What cut?”

  “You didn’t know?” Jason shook his head. “Yeah, Horst gave Stark something like twenty percent of our PUFF. He told us about the infected deputy in the hospital. That was supposed to be an easy kill.”

  Stark had called Briarwood? But that meant when Joe Buckley turned early at the hospital and killed all those folks and cursed Heather…That all could have been prevented. MCB’s own regulations would have required them to stay with anyone they even suspected was infected until it was confirmed if they were or not. Stark had not only known, he’d left someone newly cursed unattended in a crowded place. Earl’s gloved hand curled into a fist. Sam Haven had warned him about this guy, and apparently Sam hadn’t been exaggerating. He walked toward Stark’s snowmobile.

  “That’s nonsense!” Stark shouted at Jason while trying to look indignant and failing miserably. “He’s lying, Harbinger.”

  “When collecting on the deputy didn’t work out, Stark told Horst all about you,” Jason said. “I wasn’t there for that conversation, but Horst thought you were worth so much PUFF that it was worth shooting me in the back and leaving his girlfriend to rot to death to try and kill you.”

  “You did what?”

  “Harbinger, I—” Stark’s nose was smashed flat as Earl punched him square in the face. He fell over the side of his snowmobile. Earl followed him around and slugged him again as he started to rise. The impact hurt Earl’s fist. Stark hit the snow, groaning. Earl took a step back, shaking his aching hand, then changed his mind, came back, and kicked Stark in the ribs.

  “I’d suggest that you stay down!” Earl was mad, downright enraged. If he’d still been a werewolf, it would have taken every bit of his self control not to change right then. Stark had violated a sacred trust. Earl had earned his PUFF exemption. Who was this bureaucrat to take that from him?

  Stark reached into his coat. Earl no longer possessed superhuman speed, but he was by all reckoning still a very quick man. Drawing his Bowie knife, he grabbed Stark by the hood, jerked his head up before he could reach his pistol, and placed the cold steel edge against Stark’s jugular. That stopped him cold.

  A flick of the wrist and the agent would die. “I did everything they asked me to do.…Do you have any idea how many people I killed, how many friends I lost, war after war, so that some government flunky could stamp a piece of paper that said I got to live like a man?”

  Blood was running from Stark’s nose. “N-no,” he whimpered.

  “I’ve seen your kind before, boy. A new generation of assholes comes along, you forget about the sacrifices made by the ones that came before. They mean nothing. To you, we’re all the same. You can’t tell the difference between a man and a monster. Oh, you’ve got your rules, only they never apply to your kind. And their protections only apply to people like me when it’s convenient for people like you.” Earl twisted the bone handle of the razor-sharp knife. Stark yelped as it cut his skin.

  A pair of boots stepped into Earl’s field of view. “Am I interrupting something?” Nikolai asked politely.

  “Not really. I’m just deciding on whether to slit Agent Stark’s throat or not.”

  “I found the scent,” Nikolai said. Earl paused and looked up. The Russian gestured toward the hills.

  Earl leaned in close and hissed into Stark’s ear. “It’s your lucky day.” He let go of the hood, and Stark flopped face down into the snow. Earl stood up and sheathed his knife. “Where?”

  “He went north along Cliff Road.”

  “The only thing up there are some farms and…That’s toward the old Quinn mine,” Aino said.

  “The one that Aksel worked at?” Earl asked.

  “The same. One of the deepest in the world, ’til part collapsed and killed a mess of us.”

  “That sound like a reasonable place to hide a mystical amulet to you?” he asked Nikolai.

  “It was on my list of places to look. A mile underground and filled with water. The amulet would have been extremely difficult to find.”

  Earl remembered the smell of the creatures that had held him earlier. They’d stunk of the deep earth. “Unless you had some critters that could dig for you. Then it would have just taken time. He’s probably using the mine as a base of operations now.”

  Nikolai stopped and tilted his head. The expression was recognizable to Earl now. Nikolai was listening to the voices in his head. “Yes. Yes, I believe he would.…Follow me.” Nikolai mounted a waiting snowmobile, fired up the engine, and sped off.

  “You trust that crazy?” Aino asked.

  “Not at all.”

  “I better come with you, then,” Aino said.

  “What’re you, seventy?” Earl asked.

  “Meh, I’m only twenty. It’s the climate. Long winters. Hard on the skin,” the old man said. “I can help. I know that place. It’s a big facility. And I know the mines, if you have to go down.”

  Aino Haapasalo was cantankerous and stubbornly brave, but neither of those traits would keep them alive against what they were facing. “It’s been a long time,” Earl pointed out.

  “When a place tries that hard to kill you, you don’t forget it very easy. And don’t you feel guilty about maybe me dying. I shoulda died years ago. I’ve just been passing time since then. Besides…” He held up Aksel’s journal. “I’m the only one that can read this. It might come in handy still.”

  Regular people never ceased to amaze him. He reached over and slapped Aino on the arm. “All right. Mount up. Follow the crazy Russian.”

  Stark rolled over with a groan and pressed his sleeve to his broken nose. He flinched when Earl kicked him in the leg. “What’re you waiting for? Let’s move out.”

  “But…I—”

  “Oh, you thought making me mad might get you out of some honest work? I don’t think so. See, me and your boss go way back. We sure as hell ain’t friends, but he’s a real letter-of-the-law kind of man, and I know he holds his people to the same standards. You, on the other hand, are taking bribes and breaking PUFF exemptions for money. Help beat this Alpha, and I’ll be inclined to forget some of your misdeeds the next time I talk to Myers. Now get your ass up before I change my mind.”

  Stark glared at Earl as he lumbered to his feet, but he didn’t say another word as he reluctantly got back on the snowmobile. He flipped down his goggles over his still bleeding nose. There may not have been any words, but Earl could see the message clearly etched on Stark’s jowly face. You’ll regret this. The snowmobile engine started with a roar, and Stark took off after Nikolai.

  “Now, that’s the spirit.” Bringing Stark along might tur
n out to be a mistake, but he didn’t particularly like the idea of leaving him here to cause trouble, either. So it was either bring him or murder him. When the MCB did show up, it would be nice if he’d have a chance to explain the night’s events before Stark could put his spin on it. But just in case…Earl turned to Jason. “Do me a favor. If Agent Stark shoots me in the back, blow his fucking head off.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jason answered as he got onto his snowmobile. It looked far too small to carry him. The whole vehicle creaked as he settled in. “You know, I already like this job better than my last one.”

  Chapter 29

  The forest was eerily quiet in the predawn stillness. The snow had stopped falling. The wind had died. There were still sporadic gunshots coming from town, but they seemed so distant that it was almost peaceful. The fact that anyone was still alive to be shooting seemed like a good sign, while the fact that there was something still to shoot at was very bad.

  Somebody was coming. First she heard the engines. Instinctively taking cover behind a tree, she waited for them to pass. The sounds echoed along the hills a long time before the snowmobiles would be visible. There were several of them, and they were coming from town. That meant they were probably on her side, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

  Next, she smelled them. The engines were hot, the exhaust was acrid. The lead rider was odd; something about his smell distorted her senses, like an air-freshener covering up something pungent. The effect was probably the wolfsbane that Harbinger had warned her about. It was supposed to mess with a werewolf’s nose. The others weren’t cloaked, though, and she could get a clear fix on them. Some of the riders tasted like fear, others of determination and…tobacco?

  Heather’s nose crinkled. Harbinger.

  Relieved, she stepped out from the cover of the trees and ran for the approaching headlights. There was no problem navigating down to the road, since her vision had changed. Seeing in the dark was easy now. She raised her arms overhead and waved. Someone shouted, and the headlights turned toward her.