Monster Hunter Legion-eARC

  “Got them.” There were five figures crouched behind a tow truck. Colorful sports parachutes had been quickly abandoned, and the wind was dragging a few of them down the highway like rainbow tumbleweeds.

  The police car was parked right next to the garage. The driver’s side door was open and I could see a pair of legs hanging out. As I watched, two of the Germans got up and ran for the police car while the others covered them. Their guns were aimed at the gas station, so I put the rifle to my cheek and glassed the windows to see what they were looking for. I turned the focus knob on the Leopold scope until the picture was crystal clear. A huge shadow zipped across the interior of the convenience store before ducking back down. “What the hell was that?”

  “ID?” Trip shouted.

  I wasn’t sure what I’d seen. It had been broad, at least four feet across, couldn’t tell how tall, and dark in color. It had seemed…bristly. “Beats the hell out of me, big, but it moves fast.” I kept scanning. The interior of the shop was trashed. Shelves were knocked over. Some of the windows were broken. Something was spilled on the counter. I couldn’t tell if it was blood.

  The Hind was still moving, but slowly, gliding over the road. The gas station was in the middle of a small valley. There were hills all around, but there was a clear area for at least fifty yards in every direction. If the thing ran for it, there was nothing for it to hide behind besides sagebrush and rocks smaller than it had been. Unless it was bulletproof, we had it cornered. I turned my view back to the Germans.

  The two runners had reached the highway patrolman, and one was dragging him by the arms while the other was walking backwards behind them, eyeing the building. Suddenly the front window of the store shattered outward, but I couldn’t see what had caused it. The Germans rushed back behind the tow truck, but held their fire.

  “What did that?” Holly asked.

  “Can’t tell…” I searched through the scope. I followed the sparkling trail of broken glass away from the station. Something had been hurled through that window, and I found it on the police car’s hood. “Wait. Got it…Oh hell.”

  “What?”

  It was hard to tell, because it was so red and mangled, but I was pretty sure I knew what I was looking at. “I think that’s a human torso.”

  Something shifted inside the store, knocking over another shelf.

  My inclination was to assume there were no survivors inside, hose the place down, then torch it to be sure. But I couldn’t see what Lindemann could see. Maybe he was going to try and reason with it or some nonsense. You never knew. Theoretically, I was in command, but Milo was far more experienced than I was. Earl had left me in charge because Milo wasn’t comfortable with the whole leadership thing, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t pick his superior brain. “How do you think we should play this?”

  “Gas pump is far enough away we should be able to destroy the building and not blow us all up. But…” Milo stroked his long red beard thoughtfully. “Klaus has boots on the ground. Let him make the call.”

  I could see one of the camouflaged individuals pointing and giving orders. A split second later, all five of them rose and opened fire on the building. The remaining windows shattered. The glass cases inside came apart. One German rose and chucked something into the open garage. Lindemann’s men all ducked as one. A sharp explosion later, a cascade of dust and smoke belched out every opening. A lone hubcab went rolling across the parking lot.

  “You know, I’m starting to like these guys,” I said.

  The Hind’s nose was pointed at the building as we slowly drifted across the parking lot, and with Milo and me hanging out by the bungee cords, we could both shoot forward. “They don’t get to have all the fun.” Milo let the 240 thunder. Every fifth round was a tracer, and Milo shredded the facade of the convenience store with a continuous stream of red flashes. Cinderblocks puckered, spat, and then broke. Milo kept working the muzzle side to side, absolutely wrecking the place.

  “Hee hee hee…Pretty.” Skippy, for one, liked the tracer’s effect.

  Once Milo had run through his two hundred rounds, he immediately yanked the cover open, just as Trip pulled over a fresh belt. “It’s cool, but I wish we would’ve brought the mini-gun. Six thousand rpm is so much niftier. In fact, I picked up a brochure for this new model today—”

  While Milo carried on about justifying the purchase of another mini-gun, I was still watching, waiting. The place had been shredded, but there was no sign of the creature. It had to have been hit. The question was if we were dealing with something that particularly cared or not.

  During our shooting spree, the last slice of orange sun had disappeared. Shadows were lengthening, but too early for night vision. It was a good thing the Leopold gathered so much extra light. I could still see pretty well through it. There was a flicker of movement from inside the destroyed garage. I shifted the scope over just in time to see that something bristly and black was pushing past the car. “Garage!” My finger went inside the trigger guard and flicked the safety forward.

  The M14 barked. Shooting while hanging out a helicopter isn’t the most solid of positions, so the scope rose with the recoil. I brought it back down as the shape moved past the car. I fired again, certain that I got it, but my third hurried shot punched a hole in the car’s front fender. I only got the briefest look at the creature, but it seemed insectlike, with long, terrible legs, and a body coated in thick, bristly hair. Only it was the size of a horse.

  The monster scuttled around the corner of the building and was quickly out of sight. Four of the Germans went running after it. Their muzzles flashed as they got a clear shot.

  There was a strange vibration on my chest. It took me a moment to realize that it was my phone. It was bad timing. They could leave a message.

  “Owen, answer your phone,” Holly ordered from up front.

  “How—”

  “Because one of the guys on the ground is making exaggerated phone motions like we’re playing charades and pointing at us.”

  “Oh…” It took me a second to get to the right pouch. There was no way I could hear over the roar of the rotor, but apparently Lindemann had thought of that as well, and sent me a text.

  Under control. It is ours.

  “You greedy son of a bitch. Lindemann wants us to back off.”

  Want to help? Police needs med evac.

  I let out a long sigh of disbelief. “Skippy, can you land us close to that tow truck?” Skippy grunted an affirmation. I told the others what the message said. We’d just been monster blocked.

  I’d unclipped and was ready to hop out by the time our tires hit pavement. Klaus Lindemann was waiting for me, wearing an odd suit of mottled gray-and-black body armor, with just a bit of a confident smile on his face. He was holding a G3K in one hand and my business card in the other. So that’s how he’d had my number. “I had hoped you were aboard. Thank you, Mr. Pitt, for your help,” he had to shout to be heard over the chopper. “However, we were first. We will take it from here.”

  “My ass you will.”

  “Your ass I will take from here?” Lindemann asked, totally sincere. “I am afraid I am unfamiliar with that expression.”

  My crew knew what to do, and they’d all bailed out right after me. It took Holly the longest to get extricated from the front cockpit, but as our best medic, she went right over to the wounded man while Trip and Milo covered her. Edward sauntered over to stand behind me, still tucking swords into various places.

  “We’re not here to poach your bounty, but you don’t know what that thing is. We’re coming with you.”

  Lindemann paused to listen to his own radio. “It does not matter what it is, because it is disabled and soon to be dead. My men have it.”

  “Z!” Holly ran over. “The cop’s in bad shape. Several bad lacerations and a shitload of blood loss. He needs a doctor now.”

  “We applied a tourniquet,” Lindemann said. “The wound on his leg was very severe.”

 
Too bad Gretchen hadn’t come with us. Even if there was an ambulance on the way, we were in the sticks, and Skippy was still the fastest way out. “Load him in the Hind. We don’t know what hit him though…”

  “Don’t worry. If he starts to change into something I’ll toss him out the door.” It was hard to argue with Holly’s brand of ruthless enthusiasm, plus Trip was already carrying him to the chopper, regardless of whatever I would’ve said anyway. “So unless he turns into a werebird, that should do the trick.” Holly went back to her new charge.

  “I will make sure MHI is put in for an assist.” Lindemann tried to soothe me.

  It didn’t work. “Damn right you will.” I walked back to the Hind, put Julie’s rifle back and took out Abomination. As nice as Julie’s rifle was, having my fat, mean, full-auto 12-gauge Kalashnikov with its silver inlaid bayonet and hefty grenade launcher was strangely comforting. “Because I’m going with you.”

  “That isn’t necessary.”

  “Maybe it’s got a friend.” I turned away from Lindemann. Milo had come up behind me. “Get him to the hospital and update Julie. Trip and Ed are with me.” Edward patted a sword hilt to demonstrate he understood.

  Milo nodded approvingly at Lindemann. “That whole parachute thing was pretty nifty.”

  “Thank you.” Lindemann gave a little bow. “You must be Milo Anderson, the Edison of Monster Hunting, the DaVinci of creative destruction, or would that be destructive creation. Your work is legendary.”

  I swear that Milo blushed. “Oh, totally exaggerated.”

  “Give me a freaking break.” I was still in a bad mood about losing out on a ridiculous bounty by a matter of seconds. “Come on.”

  Lindemann, Trip, and I made our way around the garage as the Hind lifted off and sped away with the rest of my team. It always seems extra quiet after you’ve been listening to the Hind and Skippy’s music when it was suddenly gone. The windswept desert was eerily still.

  “Klaus Lindemann, this is Trip Jones,” I said, gesturing at my friend as he pulled off his ski mask. It was a lot warmer without the airflow. Trip shook Lindemann’s hand. “One of MHI’s best.”

  “Now you’re just sucking up,” Trip replied with a smile.

  “And this is Edward.” Of course, his mask stayed on. I hadn’t thought about how to introduce our orc, since it was supposed to be a secret that we had them. Thankfully, in the near darkness, the green skin and yellow eyes didn’t stand out as much. Ed didn’t offer to shake hands. “He’s our…administrative assistant.”

  “I see…” Lindemann said, studying Edward and his many edged weapons, but not commenting further.

  The creature’s trail was easy enough to follow in the snow, having left a chaotic pattern of two-inch-circumference holes in the snow. The boots of Lindemann’s men had obliterated many of the tracks. I recognized the little pockmarks in the snow as spots where hot brass had hit and immediately melted through.

  “I can assure you, gentlemen. I would not cheat you out of the assist money. We run a scrupulous operation at Grimm Berlin. Mr. Harbinger, I have no doubt, would assure you of our integrity.”

  “He’s spoken highly of you.” Well, he put them in the All Right category instead of the Asshole category, which was about as good a compliment as you could get from Earl Harbinger. “I don’t doubt you. More than anything I’m curious to see what all the fuss is about.”

  “Ah, well in that case, we are in agreement.” There was a small wooden shed with a bit of light seeping out around the edges of the door, but we could see from the tracks that the monster hadn’t gone anywhere near it. Stepping over a chicken-wire fence and making our way through a dead vegetable garden, we found the other four Hunters at the side of the old trailer house. They were standing in a semicircle, rifles shouldered, weapon-mounted flashlights illuminating one spot on the ground at the end of the trailer. One of the Hunters called out in German, then immediately began to rattle off a bunch of information to his boss.

  “They swept the house. Empty. There appeared to be a single occupant. An older man. The mechanic. Certainly the corpse that is now decorating the policeman’s automobile.”

  As I made my way around the Hunters, I finally got a good look at the creature.

  “That’s it?” Trip was incredulous.

  It was a giant spider. Or what was left of one. It had been riddled with bullet holes. It was hunched up on itself, its exact shape hard to see. Trip’s reaction was understandable. Sure, a tarantula the size of a loveseat was terrifying, but not ten million dollars terrifying. By our standards, something like this wasn’t that abnormal, and depending on the size and severity of the infestation, was worth a few thousand bucks, tops.

  “I do not understand,” Lindemann said. He barked a command at one of his men, who leaned into his rifle and cranked off several shots. The bullets struck, splattering the snow with bits and pieces of fuzzy meat. It didn’t even twitch. Certain that it was dead, Lindemann walked right up to it and shoved it with his boot. It rolled over on its back. The eight legs splayed open, revealing the damaged underbelly. Yellow guts rolled out into the snow. “Curious.”

  He was thinking the same thing I was. “This is too simple. One of the guys from my Newbie class got a dozen of these things with a homemade bomb.”

  Too bad Albert Lee wasn’t here. He was an expert on giant spiders, but then again, our librarian had rapidly become an expert on everything. Lee had even instituted a companywide program of our Hunters turning in mandatory after-action reports for every case, all so he could catalog monster behaviors, reactions, and vulnerabilities, then analyze the results, and file them for future reference. It was a really good idea, but I’d hated writing reports at first. It felt too much like school, but after Lee had given me crap for being needlessly stuffy and doing things like never using any contractions in my early reports, I’d loosened up, and now writing about my cases came more naturally.

  One of the other Germans spoke English. “Could there be more of these around?”

  “For that sort of bounty, there would have to be a colony of them…” Lindemann said. “Which one of you dropped the spider?”

  “It was me,” said another of the men, surely speaking English for me and Trip’s convenience. These Europeans were so helpful like that.

  “Good work, Hugo. We shall stuff it and make a toy for your children to play on. It will look rather nice in your flat. That is all such a meager beast is useful for.” Lindemann kicked the monster again for good measure. “What game is this Stricken playing at? Why waste all of our time for this?”

  “I survived the Stuttgart Massacre,” said Hugo. “I saw horrors you cannot imagine. The chancellor herself personally presented me with the bounty payment and certificate of appreciation. I hate to think we will make far more money for shooting a large bug than for surviving hell on earth. It makes no sense.”

  “I intend to collect the bounty promised,” Lindemann vowed. “There is much the American government does that makes no sense…” he looked at me. “No offense.”

  I snorted. He wasn’t going to get an argument out of me on that one. “MCB will be coming from the first attack site soon. Cops will be on the way too.”

  “Take photos,” Lindemann directed. “I have heard rumor that the Monster Control Bureau will destroy evidence to keep from paying bounties.” That was a new one on me, but two digital cameras were flashing within seconds. These guys were certainly efficient.

  Trip took me aside. “Something’s fishy.”

  “I know. This is too easy.” I wasn’t about to say anything about Earl’s girlfriend in front of the Germans, but there was no way a single giant spider took out a werewolf.

  “A very wise man once said there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. This seems suspiciously like free lunch territory to me.” Trip looked over at the trailer. “I’m going to poke around.”

  “Take Ed. Keep him away from the Feds too. Myers’ whole provisional don’t ask, don’t
tell if you’re an orc might not be in effect anymore.” I wish I had thought of that before keeping Edward here. “Where’d he go anyway?”

  Trip pointed. Edward had walked over to the dead spider and was examining it. He drew one of the many knives strapped to his body, squatted down, and sawed off the last few inches of one of the legs. He speared the chunk of leg, dropped it into a cloth, wrapped it up, and stuck it inside his coat. “What’s wrong, Ed?”

  Edward looked at me, seemingly confused. He struggled to find the words. His English wasn’t nearly as good as his brother’s. “Spy-der…Not real.”

  “Looks real to me,” Trip said. “What do you mean?”

  “Not real.” Edward shrugged. “Fake.” Our orc patted his coat. “For show.” Then he wandered over to inspect the nearby shed. Curious, I followed him.

  Ed held up one hand, motioning me to stop. In one sharp movement he drew one of his swords. Trip and I instinctively shouldered our guns and pointed them at the shed. Lindemann caught the movement and raised his H&K. The three of us fanned out. Edward looked over at me and nodded, then he ripped open the door.

  It was a chicken coop.

  The light I had seen earlier was a single large bulb designed to keep the birds warm. There were a few straw-covered shelves where the chickens made nests and laid eggs. Edward looked around inside, then sheathed his sword. Trip and I slowly lowered our weapons. Edward picked out a large white chicken, reached down, and scooped it up.

  The bird seemed rather nervous. “Edward, why do you have a chicken?”

  Edward tucked the chicken carefully under one arm. “Sacrifice…For tail row-tor spirits.” Then he walked toward the trailer. It took the befuddled Trip a second to realize that was where he had been heading to begin with and he followed along.

  Lindemann paused by my side. “Your administrative assistant is an odd sort.”

  “Chicken theft? That’s totally going on his next evaluation.”

  Chapter 7

  While Trip checked the trailer, I investigated the shop. Between the German’s explosive device and Milo’s mad minute, every light in the place had been busted, so I used my flashlight to maneuver. We had really trashed the garage, and everything that could break, had. I poked around behind the tool chests and shined my light down into the oil pit, but the only other spiders I could find were the normal, itty-bitty kind, and even then, chucking a small bomb into an enclosed space did wonders for cleaning out the cobwebs.