Monster Hunter Legion

  But then someone blew a hole through the top of the dragon’s head big enough to see the stars through.

  I was washed away in a sudden burst of slime, sent spiraling out of control down the street. The Nachtmar rose, spraying glowing fluid in every direction as another colossal hit ripped through its back and out its chest. I saw the flash that time. It had come from out of the sky. There was a helicopter turned sideways, hovering over the conference center.

  Looks like Franks got his air support. But then I recognized the familiar, odd, bulbous shape of MHI’s MI-24 Hind. That wasn’t MCB air support. That was my wife hanging out the side of a helicopter with a free sample 20mm cannon.

  The dragon opened its mouth to engulf the helicopter in flames. “No!” I slipped and scrambled my way forward, trying to get to the embedded ax. Fire arched across the sky, but Skippy was too fast, and the Hind rose up and away just ahead of the attack and out of the dragon’s range. However, that wasn’t even close to being out of Julie’s range, and as the chopper turned and with just enough time passed to work the bolt, a third round blasted through the Nachtmar’s jaw, through one of its arms, and through the engine block of an upside-down police car.

  The street was aglow with spilled dragon blood. The bitter taste was in my mouth. The Nachtmar was visibly smaller, deflating as its essence was spilled from its wounds.

  Someone passed me quick on the right. The Nachtmar had returned to all fours, but only for an instant as a two-foot line was slashed along one wrist. Franks appeared on the other side as the claw rose, easily dodging the same type of attack that had crippled me. Franks had learned from my mistake, and as the claw went past he hacked a chunk off of it the size of a Thanksgiving turkey with his ancient Roman sword.

  Movement on the left. This was even faster, just a flash of red fur, and claws sunk into one of the rear legs. The werewolf was gone as quickly as it had struck, and by the time the dragon’s tail pulverized that area into nothing, Heather Kerkonen was attacking the other leg.

  The Nachtmar rose up on its tail and hind legs, one unscathed wing covering the entire street. It aimed its head downward, preparing to engulf the street directly beneath it in flame, taking us all to hell with it. But then Julie’s next round creased the side of its skull, took one horn completely off, and the burst of flame went to the side to melt the front of another casino and to cook their world-famous fountains into steam.

  I reached Lord Machado’s ax and grabbed on with my working hand. Desperate, still being peppered with bullets from all around and now being hacked to bits from beneath, the Nachtmar slammed its remaining wing inward against its body. The concussion hit the street and a massive blast of wind swept everyone away. The others were closer. I saw Franks hurled through the air to disappear into the steam. Heather was knocked through the windshield of an army truck.

  I held onto the ax as the wind washed over me. It tried to carry me away, but I was as embedded to the earth as the ax. Fuck you, Nachtmar. I’m not done yet.

  When the wind passed, I wrenched the ax out of the ground and started forward. The Nachtmar, now half its original size and rapidly disintegrating, was trying to steady itself on four damaged limbs. The head came around, searching for me desperately, its final hope.

  But instead I was its doom.

  The mouth gaped wide before me. I swung from the shoulder. The ax tore the end of its snout off. I blinked away the slime and stepped to the side as the teeth slammed shut where I’d just been. I swung again, removing half of its bottom jaw.

  The head struck the ground hard. I followed, striking, lifting, striking. Each hit took another chunk from its neck. The muscles of my arm burned. My blood was rushing out of my injuries. I stumbled, but kept going. The head rose, trying to get away, trying to escape the hungry ax.

  Too weak, I couldn’t follow it. I was about to pass out. The Nachtmar was coming apart all around me, great chunks of the creature disintegrating and falling to explode on impact. I couldn’t reach its head, but its body was still here. I turned toward its torso and just in time to be hit by one of its falling limbs.

  I found myself on my knees. The dragon had lost too much mass to remain cohesive and its body began to split and flow into dead nightmare slime. The dark body became translucent and I could see the opposite side of the street through it as it melted.

  There . . .

  Deep inside of the dragon’s chest cavity was a small, misshapen figure, manlike, the size of a child, only twisted and distorted, its limbs too long and uneven, its head too big. It was the actual alp, the actual form of the creature here on this plane.

  It stared at me with big red eyes. It knew I was the cause of its failure, the cause of its banishment and future starvation, and its last act of defiance in this world would be to kill me. The remainder of the dragon’s body turned, angling itself to fall and crush me beneath. I lifted Lord Machado’s ax, and with all of the strength I had left, hurled it through the air. It spun, end over end, as the alp’s already gigantic eyes widened in fear. The ax split the dragon’s belly, but my aim was off and I only struck the alp on one side.

  The alp let out a silent scream, bubbles appearing in the fluid around its mouth. It began to disintegrate around the ax wound, but it was still alive for the moment, and the melting dragon corpse took another tottering step toward me. I was about to be crushed.

  A second object came flipping through the air, only this time the aim was true, and the bone handle of a knife suddenly appeared in the center of the alp’s face.

  It was the Black Heart of Suffering. The tiny creature seemed to swell the instant it was struck by the knife. It twitched and jerked spasmodically, wailing in agony that none of us could hear . . . It thrashed as its form broke into pieces.

  And then it was perfectly still, floating in the bowels of its gigantic creation.

  “Good shot, Mosh . . .” I croaked as I turned to look over my shoulder. Mosh was there, but he was staring at his open hand that had just had a magic knife snatched from it. Standing next to my surprised brother was Edward the orc. Well, that makes more sense. Ed’s clothing was scorched and charred, but he was in one piece. Ed raised one arm defiantly and flipped the bird at the dead alp.

  The nightmare dragon was dead, and what was left of it was splitting into multiple chunks, spreading apart, with long mucus strings dangling between the pieces. I got to my feet. Deliriously thinking that I really needed to get my arm looked at before I bled to death and that I was still really close if this damn thing decided to fall on me.

  I was hit hard in the neck. I reached up, found something hard jammed in there and pulled it out. It was a dart. “Son of a . . .”

  But then the remains of the Las Vegas Strip rushed up to hit me in the face.

  CHAPTER 27

  I woke up slowly in a hospital. Not the best place to wake up, but at least I was waking up, period . . . That meant that we had won. It took me a minute to remember what we’d won against, and how I’d wound up here. We’d defeated the Nachtmar.

  Everything was fuzzy. Looking down. One of my feet was in a cast. My toes were ugly and purple sticking out the end of it. Looking to the side. My opposite arm was also cast. I could feel the dull ache of other injuries, and the itch of stitches in several places over my body. I’d gotten messed up. Again. Despite being hurt, I didn’t care about myself. The only coherent thought I could latch on to was who else had made it? Who had we lost? I looked to the other side . . .

  “Stricken . . .” I croaked.

  The head of the nefarious Special Task Force Unicorn was leaning in the corner, watching me from behind his strangely colored sunglasses. “You’re awake. About damned time.”

  He sounded funny, like I had water in my ears. I was still too doped up to be angry, but I still tried to sit up. I tried a few times, but couldn’t quite make it. I gave up and sunk back into the pillows. I’d kill him later. Right now I was just tired and thirsty.

  Stricken walked over and
stood over the bed. It was the first time I’d met him in person. He was too tall and too thin. It was like he tried to avoid the sun coming through the miniblinds. “Owen Zastava Pitt . . . I’m going to make this simple for you. I’m going to ask you some questions. Your answers will determine the rest of your life. Ready?”

  “Up yours,” I whispered.

  “Let me set the stage for this next question, help you get in the right frame of mind.” He gave me an eerie smile. “You met the dragon under the casino.”

  “Management?”

  “No. The other dragon. Yes, Management, you idiot. While my people were investigating the scene, it came to my attention that our dragon friend had a problem with eavesdropping. That’s a terrible habit. Shows a real lack of character. So here’s my question. What do you know?”

  I meant to say fuck you, but what came out instead was, “Nemesis.”

  Stricken chuckled over my surprise. “Don’t be alarmed, Mr. Pitt. There’s a potent chemical cocktail in your IV bag. You couldn’t lie to me if you wanted to . . . I was afraid of this. What do you know about Project Nemesis?”

  “Nothing about what it actually does. Something big, I think. You want it. Franks and Myers don’t. It scares them. You’d let everyone die to make your point.” It hurt to talk, but I couldn’t stop. It was like there was no stop between my mouth and my brain. “Heard you . . .”

  “I was afraid of that.” Stricken picked up a pitcher of water. “You look thirsty. Want a drink?” I nodded. My mouth was very dry. “Who else knows about this?”

  I bit my tongue until I could taste blood.

  There was something sinister about the way Stricken leaned over me. Like he was an undertaker and I was in a coffin. It made me giggle. “Don’t be like that, Mr. Pitt. What else do you know?”

  “Your real plan . . .”

  Stricken filled a plastic cup with water from the pitcher. “Oh, really? And what would that be?”

  “The Last Dragon and all those folks dying wasn’t the important part. They were just targets of opportunity when you figured out how tough the Nachtmar was. You wanted to expose Hunters to it. You knew it would think we were tasty. But even if you got your permission to do your project, you’d still have to deal with Franks, and he’d just kill you, because he just don’t care. Even if you aren’t scared of him, your collaborators are. This whole thing was to push Franks over the edge.”

  That caused him to pause. “Interesting. Go on.”

  “Sure, the deaths would help your agenda, especially since it was a bunch of professional Hunters. That ought to scare ’em. But you knew you’d get that permission anyway eventually. But then Franks would stop you. You need him gone, but he’s too important to just pop. You set this up. You made it impossible for him to do his job without breaking the rules . . . You knew what he’d do. Franks can’t not do his job. But now that he’s in trouble, you’ve got an excuse to get rid of him.”

  Stricken was nodding along. “That dragon was way more tuned in than I expected.”

  “Naw.” I waved my good hand dismissively. “I figured that out myself.”

  “Remarkable,” Stricken agreed. He put the water cup on the table next to me. “You MHI types are just full of surprises. What else do you know?”

  “You plan on killing me.”

  “Well, that goes without saying. Anything else?”

  “You’re not gonna kill me.”

  This was amusing him. “Want to bet?”

  “You can’t kill me because I’m the only one that can stop the real bad guy . . . He’s coming.” I sang that last part for some odd reason. It made sense at the time. “You know he’s real. You’ve seen his signs all over the place . . . Wanna know a secret?” I lifted my head and tried to lean in conspiratorially. I couldn’t even whisper right. “I’m the Chosen One.”

  Stricken stepped away from the hospital bed, stroking his pointy chin thoughtfully. “I see . . .” like that messed with his schemes.

  “Yep. I’m the Champion of everything. You kill me, you’re on your own. I don’t know what your fancy secret Nemesis thingy is, but it won’t work. You’re gonna need us. You’re gonna need me. Like, my family’s been prepping for this for like forever. Prophecies and stuff, generations of this kind of thing, people coming back from the dead. The works.” My words were really slurred. The stuff in the IV was potent. “He’s scared of me.”

  Stricken didn’t seem convinced. “You really believe that, don’t you?”

  “Yup. It’s my destiny.”

  “Hunters never cease to amuse me. I’m not too worried about this new threat. I know all about him. With Nemesis assets in place we’ll be able to handle anything the other side throws at us. No more being puppets on a string for a bunch of cosmic superpowers and their endless bickering. I’m changing the rules of this game once and for all.”

  Stricken turned and walked to the door, then paused, deep in thought. “But, tell you what, Pitt, just in case you’re not completely delusional . . . I wouldn’t drink that water if I was you.”

  I looked over at the cup, then back at Stricken, but he was already gone. I hadn’t even seen the door move. I reached over, picked up the cup of water, poured it back in the pitcher, dumped the whole poisonous thing into a potted plant next to the bed, and went back to sleep.

  * * *

  “Oh, my head . . .” This time I woke up to a much more welcome sight next to my bed. “Hey, hon.”

  Julie startled awake. She’d been sleeping in the chair next to the bed. “You’re up.” I was glad to see the relief on her face. “Thank goodness. You’ve been out forever. How’re you feeling?”

  “Sore and drugged.”

  “You took a beating. Two broken bones in your foot, a compound fracture in your arm, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Sore is understandable.”

  “Is Stricken still here?” I asked suspiciously.

  “No . . . He was never here. Nobody’s seen him since he left the city during the dragon attack. There are several hundred Hunters in town who’d love to make him have an accident.”

  “He was just here,” I looked over at the potted plant, suspicious that it would be turning brown already, but it was fine. “I think he was.” The concept of linear time was still a little fuzzy.

  Julie reached over and stroked my cheek. “I’ve been here almost the whole time, and when I wasn’t, somebody else was. Trip and Holly have been practically camped in the hall. We didn’t see anybody.”

  Weird. Had I imagined that conversation? I felt okay. The memories started coming back. “You . . . You came back on the chopper . . .”

  Julie nodded. “What’s a girl supposed to do? And by the way, that twenty millimeter is great. It’s so big I had to use all the bungees to hold it up, stick the barrel out one door, then hang myself out the opposite side to aim it.”

  “But the Nachtmar—” It had wanted to possess a new host. “The baby!”

  “Don’t worry.” Julie patted her abdomen. “Tanya promised she could ward it off with elf magic if it came around. Skippy almost had an aneurism when he found out she was drawing runes on his helicopter, but I talked him down because they were only in Sharpie. Tanya said she could handle anything disembodied.”

  “And you trusted her?” I raised my voice.

  Julie raised an eyebrow. She won the argument. “And if I hadn’t come back . . .”

  “I’d be getting dissolved inside a dragon right now,” I admitted. “Sorry. It’s one thing to worry about one of you. I don’t know if I can handle two.”

  “Better get used to it. I took a test an hour ago. Earl’s nose was right. I guess this is official.”

  “What if—” There were a thousand questions.

  “We’ll deal with whatever happens, like we always do.”

  And that pretty much summed it up. We’d be okay. “You’ll be a good mom.”

  “And you’ll be a great dad.”

  We sat in silence for a long time. It was
weird to have time to think again. I didn’t want to ask, but had to. “Who’d we lose?”

  “We’re still trying to figure that out, but he hurt us.”

  “Lacoco and VanZant?”

  Julie shook her head. “MIA.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to sink back into the bed. They were dead because of me. “I had to make the call,” I whispered.

  “You were right, though. The Nachtmar concentrated on us. The demons attacking the conference center lost focus, and when the Nachtmar followed us through the clouds, it broke the spell. If he hadn’t followed us, who knows what would’ve happened. If we hadn’t made it off that roof, the Last Dragon might still be on the other side.”

  Being right didn’t make it any easier. Lacoco had a little girl. “I had to make the call.”

  She patted my hand as she began to cry. “I know.”

  EPILOGUE

  Mosh stopped the rental car at the end of the driveway. He took way too long to shut the engine off. It was like he was debating putting it back in drive and making a run for it. I couldn’t blame him.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  He glanced over at me. He’d gotten out of Vegas in better shape than I had physically, but his face was still bruised, swollen, and scratched from his fight with the nightmare cultists. Basically, the Pitt brothers looked like crap. “We could just pretend this whole thing never happened.”

  “Like that ever works out.”

  Mosh sighed and shut the car off. “Let’s do this and get it over with.”

  It took me a minute to get my crutch out of the backseat. Even with Gretchen’s additional attentions, she said the human doctors were right, and I was going to be on that crutch for a while longer. My brother met me on the other side of the car and the two of us stared up at the house with dread. There was still a discolored spot on the driveway from where a Condition cultist had bled all over it. This part was much harder than squaring off against a nightmare monster.

  “You hear anything new?” Mosh asked, obviously stalling for time.