Monster Hunter Legion-eARC

  “Go left here,” Mordechai told him.

  “Turn left,” Mosh said immediately. Holly looked at him incredulously, but Mosh just pointed at his temple. “Dead guy said so.”

  “Freaking Pitts.” But Holly didn’t argue. She turned down the next hall. They entered another desk and cubicle filled room. There were doors on each side and half of each wall was a frosted glass window.

  “Stop. Get down.” Mordechai ordered. Mosh repeated the warning without even thinking about it. Holly took a knee behind a water cooler. Mosh crouched behind her. Holly held up one hand. Voices.

  The sound was coming from the room ahead of them. “It’s for your own safety, Doctor.” The man sounded confident, in control. “Our security’s been breached. There’s activity in the parking garage. Follow me.”

  “Coming here was a mistake. If he knows I’m here he’ll come for his revenge, mark my words.” The second man sounded old and raspy. “There’s nothing you can do against him. Save yourselves.”

  “You heard Mr. Stricken. Everything will be fine, sir. In the meantime we’ll be moving you to a more secure location outside of the city. We have a car waiting.”

  “You’re not listening, idiot. There’s no such thing as a secure location when Mark Thirteen is involved.”

  The first speaker was losing his patience. “Grab him. Let’s go.”

  The doctor protested, swore, and called them names, but then the sound was moving away. Mosh lifted his head enough to see shadows moving through the frosted glass. There were four upright figures. One of those was pushing a fifth in what could only be a wheelchair.

  Holly was already crawling forward. Mosh realized what she was doing. They were going to have to move through this area, and she intended to surprise them. She looked back at him, mouthed the words get ready, then rolled into a cubicle across the aisle. Mosh fell back into the cubicle behind the water cooler and squished himself next to the desk, which, judging from the nameplate, belonged to someone in marketing named Arlene. There were lots of framed pictures of a plump woman with her cats and another one where she was posing with Elton John at this very casino. Focus, Mosh! The men would pass Holly. She’d make a move and then he’d back her up. Mordechai had steered them to the perfect spot.

  “Thank you.”

  Not now, Mordechai! Having gotten his Glock back from the MCB, he took it out and held it in his clumsy, nerve-damaged hand. Owen and the other Hunters were counting on him. He couldn’t let them down. Holly had called him a quitter, but Mosh Pitt was no quitter. A quitter wouldn’t pull a gun on armed Monster Hunters in order to kidnap an old man in a wheelchair…Shit. That doesn’t sound any better. Footsteps and a repetitive wheeled creak were coming their way. Mosh was so nervous he could barely breathe, but at the same time he was excited. It was like how he used to feel back in the days when he’d first started playing in front of an actual audience. I’m ready to rock.

  “That’s the spirit, boy.”

  Mosh gritted his teeth together and blinked his eyes rapidly. The Hunters moved past Holly’s hiding place. The continuous stream of complaining from the scientist was like a tracking beacon. They were almost on him and he knew that they’d see him as they went past and he’d get shot to death.

  “Don’t move!” Holly shouted.

  Mosh leapt up and aimed his Glock over the top of the cube. The men were in the process of turning back toward Holly. Dressed in matching camouflage uniforms and wearing bulky tactical vests that all of them were carrying rifles that would be a lot more devastating than his little 9mm. He hadn’t really thought about what to say, and on TV cop shows they usually said drop the gun or freeze, but unfortunately what came out of his mouth was, “Drop the freeze!”

  The tiny man in the wheelchair was ancient and he stared at Mosh with rheumy eyes. “Drop the what? Are you an imbecile?”

  The Hunters had been caught completely flat-footed. Eyes flashed between Holly and Mosh. They were holding rifles, but their muzzles were down. The man in front regarded Mosh with calculated belligerence and ice-blue eyes so cold that they suggested he’d killed a lot of people. The Glock was shaking all over the place. The Hunter was doing the math, deciding if he could raise his rifle to shoot Mosh in time. Even if Mosh got a shot off, he’d have to hit the man in something unarmored, which wasn’t that big an area…

  “Don’t you move, Armstrong. Don’t even think about it.” Holly had a good command voice. “I’ll drop you like a sack of shit.”

  The man in front turned slowly to study Holly. Her pistol was moving slowly back and forth between the four heads. Now she didn’t look like she would miss. One of the men must have made some movement that Holly didn’t approve of. She turned the pistol on him. “Is that vest bulletproof? It looks bulletproof. Let’s find out.” BLAM. The sudden noise made Mosh jump. The bullet hit the Hunter square in the chest. He gasped and stumbled back a few feet, but stayed on his feet. Holly quickly shifted her gun back toward the leader. Her eyes flicked over to the man she’d shot. “Yep. Bulletproof. Bet that still hurt, though. Don’t waste my time, Armstrong. I’m in a hurry.”

  The Hunter named Armstrong smiled disarmingly, but his eyes still betrayed murderous intent. Mosh had never seen teeth so white and perfectly even. This guy had paid his dentist’s mortgage off. “Well, seems we’ve been bushwhacked right in our own base of operations. Put them down, boys.”

  “Nice and slow. One at a time,” Holly suggested. All of the black rifles were clipped to their armor on slings, and it took the men a moment to undo them and place them on the floor. “Pistols too. In a pile. That’s good…I know some of you are packing backups, but I only like surprises on Christmas and birthdays. Sudden moves make me twitchy. Put your hands on top of your heads and keep them there. Next round goes into something softer than Kevlar.” They did as they were told.

  “FBI?” the old man had read Holly’s jacket. “Are you kidding me? Don’t you know who I am?”

  “She’s no cop,” grunted the man Holly had shot. He was red-faced and wheezing. “She’s Monster Hunter International.”

  “That’s right, so I guess you can say I’m violating the shit out of your restraining order. Hey, are those zip ties?” She gestured her pistol at one of the vests. “Awesome. You get to zip-tie your buddy’s wrists together. You heard me. Nice and tight.” She waited until he’d done the other three. “Mosh, bind him. Watch out, that’s Ultimate Lawyer. He’s a kung-fu expert and an attorney.”

  “Kung-fu? Please. I do Krav Maga, Muay Thai, and Brazilian jujitsu.” That particular Hunter was rather intimidating and Mosh really didn’t relish the idea of going near him. He saw Mosh looking at him. “Mosh, huh? Thought you looked familiar. Relax, buddy. I know the drill.” He stuck his own hands through the zip-tie loop, then bit the end and pulled it tight with his teeth, securing himself. “By the way, love your work. ‘Hold the Pig Steady’ is my favorite workout song.”

  “Thanks,” Mosh answered, not really sure what else to say.

  Once they were bound, Mosh made sure the zip ties were tight, and then used the rest of the zip ties to attach their hands to the straps on the next Hunter’s armor. He figured that would make pursuing them sort of like playing Twister. It only took a minute, and none of the Paranormal Tactical men tried anything, but he was sure that was all due to Holly’s readiness to shoot any troublemakers in the face. He tied Armstrong’s wrists to one of his men’s pistol belt; that way, Armstrong’s hands were pressed against the other guy’s crotch.

  “Is that necessary?” Armstrong asked.

  “Necessarily hilarious,” Mosh answered.

  “Pick up their guns,” Holly ordered. Since there were four rifles and four handguns, that was a lot more difficult than it sounded. But he got the pistols partially tucked into various pockets, and managed to sling a rifle over each shoulder and one in each hand, all without shooting himself on accident. So he called that a win. “Listen, guys. We didn’t have a choice.” Holly got be
hind the wheelchair. “We’ve got to run, but this was nothing personal.”

  “You shot me!”

  “Yeah, yeah. Sue me.”

  Ultimate Lawyer chuckled. “Oh, don’t worry. We will.”

  Holly looked to the leader. “Look, Armstrong. Stricken is using you. He already knows how to stop the monster, but he’s willing to let all of those Hunters in there die first just to score some political point. I’m not going to let that happen, and the doctor here is going to tell me how. After that, you can have him back. Don’t come after us. You don’t want that much blood on your hands, and I don’t want your blood on mine.”

  But Armstrong wasn’t in a listening mood. “You’ll pay for this. Kidnapping—”

  “It isn’t kidnapping.” Holly began pushing the wheelchair away. “It’s borrowing.”

  “Assault—”

  “Attempted murder,” corrected Ultimate Lawyer.

  “You’ll pay for this, Newcastle!”

  “Buh-bye,” Holly said. Armstrong was still shouting after them. The old doctor was cursing. Holly took the next corner and pointed them back the way they’d come in. The wheelchair was capable of a surprisingly high rate of speed. Mosh followed along carrying almost forty pounds of extra guns. At one point a Hunter’s pistol worked its way free from his waistband and landed on the carpet with a thump. He turned back to retrieve it. “Leave it,” Holly ordered. “We’ve got to keep moving. I think Armstrong’s got help on the way.”

  “How?”

  “I didn’t think of it at the time, but the way he said he was being bushwhacked and where was too convenient. It was probably because he had his radio on.”

  “Oh, man!” Mosh looked back down the hall. He couldn’t hear anything now, but that was probably because the Hunters were trying to figure out how to free themselves from the zip ties. “They’re going to be really mad.”

  “Well, duh. I did shoot that one guy.”

  “You promised not to shoot anybody!”

  “I promised not to kill anybody. Huge difference.” They reached the storage room and went inside. “This will do. Help me barricade the door. It’ll buy us some time. This is the only way into this room other than the service tunnel.”

  “How do you know that?” Mosh asked incredulously as he dumped the black rifles on the floor. They had practically sprinted through here the first time.

  “Situational awareness. Try to keep up.” Holly turned the doctor’s chair to face her. “Okay, Doc. We’ve got to make this interview fast and then you can go back to your friends.”

  “They’re no friends of mine. Times may change, and men come and go, but there will always be opportunistic wastrels like the Stricken, attached like leeches to a project like Mark Thirteen. The more secretive and expensive the project, the more leeches.”

  “Great.” Mosh was surprised to discover how out of breath he was from the short run. He had used to work out religiously but had let that slide along with everything else. He picked a nearby heavy metal shelf stacked with plastic elephant heads, and struggled to drag it in front of the door. “We’re on the same page. We only want to stop this monster.”

  “Nonetheless, I refuse to share any classified data with you.”

  Mosh stopped to study the scientist for the first time. He was a tiny, shriveled man. His skin was thin and blotchy, with purple veins right below the surface. He had a blanket over his shrunken legs, but was wearing a white shirt, neat red tie, Mr. Rogers sweater, and a gray tweed sport coat. “Please?”

  “What’re you supposed to be anyway?” The doctor squinted to glare back at Mosh. “Some sort of gypsy?”

  By Mosh’s standards he was dressed rather conservatively. “I’m a guitarist.”

  “Devil music, I bet.” The doctor snorted. “In my day the only men that had tattoos on their necks were queers and convicts. I’m not telling you anything. Disrespectful youth have no understanding of what it means to keep an oath.”

  Not having a good answer for that and expecting a bunch of angry Hunters to kick down the door any minute, Mosh went back to stacking heavy boxes of paper onto his freshly moved shelf. “Don’t expend too much energy,” Holly warned. “When they find us, if they can’t get through the door easily, they’ll blow a hole in the wall. Okay, Dr. Blish—”

  “Don’t say my name!” the old man shrieked. “Are you trying to get us all killed? If he realizes I’m here, he’ll destroy us all. He hates me, and for good reason. I warned Stricken not to bring me this close, but he said that he wanted my visual confirmation. The manipulative swine. He had me dragged from the rest home and brought here despite my protests. I think Stricken merely wanted to see if my presence would provoke him into revealing himself. I am the worm on the end of the hook.”

  Truthfully, the idea that they might draw the monster’s attention freaked Mosh out. A bunch of scary, six-armed, snaggle-toothed monster costumes stared back at him. Holly looked around cautiously, but didn’t seem convinced. “Fine. No names then. But I really need to know how to kill this thing.”

  The old scientist’s cranium seemed way too big as he shook his head in the negative. It reminded Mosh of a pinkish-purple lollipop sticking out of a sweater. “Foolish girl, it is incapable of dying. We killed his body once, but he simply willed himself back into existence. If we could simply kill it then we wouldn’t have needed to bury the host. By every calculation it should still be lying dormant. If you could totally destroy its host, it will simply find a new one and the nightmare will continue.”

  “Whatever. I only want to get my friends back. They’re trapped inside the Last Dragon.”

  “Then you have my condolences, because they’re already dead. I will not help you. I am sworn to secrecy, and I am a man of principles.”

  Holly swore under her breath as she paced back and forth. It was obvious she was thinking hard. Her expression changed subtly before she gave Mosh a malicious look. “Is that how it’s going to be, then?”

  “I am afraid so, my dear.”

  “Well, that’s too bad…Dr. Blish, scientist from Decision Week, who worked on the Mark Thirteen project at Los Alamos and who knows our monster personally. You would’ve been a young man back then. I should probably point that out in case he doesn’t recognize you, Dr. Blish.”

  “Stop! Are you mad? If he hears, he’ll kill you as well!”

  “That’s a risk I’m willing to take.” Holly raised her voice. “Did you get that? Blish. It’s spelled B-l-i-s-h.” Suddenly she reached down, grasped the arms of his chair, and jerked him around. She bent over and stared him square in the eye. “Man of principles, my ass. Quit wasting my time. Tell me what you know or I swear that I will get on the intercom and call this son of a bitch down on top of us. Talk!”

  “Please, stop.” The doctor quavered. “I’ll tell you everything.”

  The ancient scientist seemed like he might begin crying. Mosh had never helped abuse a senior citizen before. “Damn, Holly. You don’t screw around.”

  “Sure I do, just not when my people are in danger. Spill it, Doc.”

  Blish’s lower lip was quivering so badly that for a second Mosh thought the old man was having a seizure. “We never intended for the project to end this way. We were the best and brightest, the superior scientific minds of our day. I was the youngest member of the team, but my theories on disembodied entities were considered revolutionary. Our goals were noble. We were trying to end the war with the smallest loss of life possible. The host subjects were all volunteers. They knew the risks going in. We simply never could have imagined this outcome. We would never have sacrificed those men. Only he doesn’t know that. He thought that I lied to him. I swear that I didn’t.”

  Mosh was confused. “Host subjects?”

  Blish wiped his nose with his sleeve. “You don’t even know about them?”

  “Enlighten us. Back up a little.”

  “The being that is terrorizing your friends is only half the issue. The destruction is merel
y the manifestation of one man’s anger over his betrayal. However hopelessly they are entwined, we are facing two separate foes, a human test subject and the disembodied creature which was bonded to him. The creature that is farming nightmares is merely an alp.”

  “Bull,” Holly said. “There’s no way. Alps are pathetic.”

  The only thing Mosh knew with that name was a mountain range. The skiing was awesome, and the nights were cold, but the women were beautiful…But he was fairly certain that wasn’t what they were talking about. “What’s an alp?” Mosh asked.

  “They’re parasites. Little floaty ghost bastards. We only spend like thirty minutes on them in Newbie training. They’re the monster under the bed that gives little kids nightmares and then feeds on their terror. A really strong one can give an adult bad dreams, maybe. That’s it. Ignore them long enough and they get hungry and go away. They’re not even PUFF applicable because they don’t have a corpse to turn in. You’re telling me this thing that’s killing professional Hunters and sucking giant buildings into other dimensions is an alp?”

  “Yes, in part. It is the driver, but it is not the engine. The goal of my original experiment was to capture one of these nightmare feeders and find a way to magnify its strength.”

  “Your goal was to make the boogieman stronger?” Mosh was incredulous. “Are you nuts?”

  “Shhh.” Holly put her hand on his arm. “The boogieman is different.”

  The doctor sighed. “I will try to keep it simple for our sideshow freak.”

  “Now that’s just unnecessary—”

  “The alp, or nightmare feeder as it is colloquially known, hails from another…plane. It is a sort of nightmare world that only rarely connects with our own, and when it does, it barely registers in the human subconscious. My doctoral research documented the creatures, and we even succeeded in capturing one for study. Though fascinating, it was relatively weak, hardly dangerous at all. Our worst side effects were discomforting dreams and headaches. After the war began, we were invited to continue our work at Los Alamos, where we succeed in capturing several more alps. One of the other projects came up with a way to magnify the alp’s strength through exposure to…Never mind. I could talk for days about the details. What matters is we made the alps far more capable. Now the test targets were overwhelmed with nightmare stimuli, even while awake. It was astounding. Imagine, ending a war simply because the enemy populace was too terrified and distressed to continue fighting…”