Monster Hunter Vendetta

  "Who do you have here?"

  Skippy shook his head. "Only few . . . ​Grtxschnns, Exszrsd, and—" he grumbled his real, incomprehensible name, reminding me again of why we called him Skippy. "With gub mint here, send tribe away to village. Go home. Be safe. We . . . ​we stay for help." He was right. Orcs, even the ones that stayed with MHI, were still on the PUFF list, and thereby fair game to the Feds. What these three were doing was incredibly brave.

  "They're heading for the front entrance," said a voice on the radio. "Intercept! Intercept!"

  "Belay that order," Myers said. "All units hold position. Wait until we get a shot at those monsters. Pitt, you obstinate pain in the ass, I know you can hear me. Don't you dare go in there."

  I grabbed the radio and pulled the mike over to me. "Myers, that's my family we're talking about."

  "They'll kill you," he said.

  "Yeah, heard that before." I ripped the cord out of the radio. It felt good. Skippy held up his pointer finger and pinky and threw the horns. Rock on. "You guys armed?"

  "No. Security," Skip's hood dipped toward the rapidly approaching concert entrance's row of metal detectors. Gretchen held up her totem stick, complete with feathers and small animal skulls, that she had somehow snuck in. There were two sudden clicks as Edward flicked open the ASP collapsible batons he must have lifted off of Torres and Archer. Edward was a lousy shot, but death incarnate up close. I pulled my big .45 and passed it over to Skippy. "Thanks," he said. "Hold to something, now."

  We drove up the entrance stairs and slammed the radiator into a concrete wall right across from a giant bronze statue of Hank Williams, Sr. The armored Suburban was so heavy I barely felt the impact.

  I leapt out, scanning the crowd. It was a diverse bunch watching the chaos of our car wreck. Most of them were pierced or tattooed, and there was a bewildering variety of hairstyles—everything from shaved heads all the way to long flowing hair and even a few old-school mohawks. They were pointing and laughing at the G-Ride, with its red and blue flashing wigwags perched lopsided on the stairs, which meant security would be here any second.

  Skippy grunted to get my attention. "Disguise." He tossed me a blue windbreaker that said Department of Homeland Security in giant gold letters on the back. It was huge, big enough to fit over my armor even, so must have belonged to Agent Franks. I tugged it on and clumsily hid Abomination under one armpit. It was then that I noticed for the first time that all three orcs were wearing Cabbage Point Killing Machine shirts over their usual baggy, black clothing. Skippy's boldly read hold the pig steady. So the orcs were in disguise too.

  "Get inside," I shouted, and the four of us ran for the entrance. The concert had been going on for a while, so there weren't very many people standing in line, and we rudely shoved past those that were. "Out of the way. Homeland Security. Coming through!" I bellowed. Having already committed assault with a deadly weapon and grand theft auto in the last ten minutes, what was a little impersonating a federal agent?

  Oh crap. The Law. "Who the hell are you?" asked the uniformed cop pushing his way through the sea of tattooed skin. He must have seen the G-Ride.

  "Agent Franks. Homeland Security!" I shouted, still trying to get to the entrance. "We've got a terrorist incident."

  Apparently me and my bloody nose didn't make the most convincing Fed. He held up one hand to stop me, his other hand came to a rest on his holstered sidearm. Alabama cops do not screw around. "Let's see some creds."

  "Edward, my credentials please," I requested. The orc smoothly melted through the crowd and batoned the cop to the pavement before anyone could react. The two figures went down and were lost in the churning mass. "Don't hurt him," I ordered, not slowing. We made it around the corner and away from the Suburban. I broke into a run.

  There were four people wearing yellow security shirts taking tickets and manning the metal detectors at the gate. "No weapons, no drugs, only eight ounces of sealed bottled water, no flash photography . . ." the first guard droned automatically. "Ticket, please." I ignored him and strode right through. The detector started beeping like crazy. "Hey, asshole." One meaty hand fell on my shoulder. I instantly grabbed it and twisted, putting the man in a wristlock. He screamed and went to his knees. My jacket fell open, revealing my shotgun.

  "Anybody else want my ticket?" I asked.

  "Naw, that's cool," said the second guard slowly, hand unconsciously reaching for his radio. There wasn't much I could do about that, short of shooting everybody, and being one of the self-proclaimed Good Guys, that wasn't an option. I let go of the first guard, put my boot on his shoulder, and shoved him out of the way. "Enjoy the show . . ." said the calm one. The three orcs came next, each one taking the time to politely display their VIP wristbands to security people that weren't really paying attention at that point.

  Then we were inside the concourse. This place was huge, with lots of ground to cross, and I knew I didn't have much time. Regular cops would be looking for a big dude in a blue jacket, and a show like this had to be crawling with cops. A giant row of vendors selling souvenirs, tee shirts, beer and food, stretched for what looked like a quarter mile before the building opened up into the actual hall. There were probably a thousand people wandering around, clustered in talkative knots or buying various things between us and my brother. They would have to serve as cover.

  "Walk fast, but try to look like we belong," I said, realizing how stupid that sounded as soon as I said it. A man walked past wearing a Viking costume with lit sparklers on his helmet, and in the other direction went two young women whose only clothing on their upper halves was strategically placed, black electrical tape. Yeah, it had been a long time since I had been to one of my brother's shows. Edward suddenly bolted off to the side in the direction of the restrooms. Either he had seen something, or orcs had easily excitable bladders. I kept moving.

  Damn, more cops. A few of them were running down the concourse back toward the entrance. I bowed my head so I wouldn't appear so tall and got into a line that was either for funnel cakes or nose rings. The Montgomery PD went right past, but I knew that kind of luck wouldn't last for long.

  There was a tap on my shoulder. Edward shoved a giant leather trenchcoat at me. I saw my reflection in his goggled eyes as he nodded at the restrooms. His English was worse that Skippy's. "Fat man. Go pee. No need coat." Then he emitted a low-pitched noise, like shaking gravel in a bucket, that could only have been a hearty orcish laugh. I pulled the DHS jacket off and tossed it on the floor, exposing piles of guns for just an instant, before quickly donning the massive garment, which I discovered came with chains and a row of spikes down each shoulder.

  "Sweet," I said. Gretchen handed me a ridiculous cowboy hat, complete with a swath of what I assumed was real armadillo that she had lifted off of somebody else. Orcs were damn sneaky when they put their minds to it. Living in the shadows of humanity for centuries had that effect. I pulled the hat down low, even though it was way too small, and headed for the show.

  In the main hall, the music was deafening, driven by a giant wall of speakers behind the band. The place was packed. The floor was a sea of bouncing bodies, hands raised, moving in time with the music, a veritable sea of hands and heads throbbing up and down. It was muggy from the body heat, and I immediately began to sweat under the layers of Kevlar and the absurd coat. The air was thick from glycerin foggers, as strobes and lasers cut confusing patterns above us. The three orcs began to bob automatically, unable to resist the instinctive urge to headbang.

  A giant shape loomed over me. Monster! I started to pull out Abomination, only to realize that the huge thing tottering past was some awkward demon costume, made by a girl sitting on a tall man's shoulders, and draped in burlap and tarps. If it hadn't been such a dangerous situation, I would have stopped to admire the fact that they even had red LED lights mounted for eyes. I really needed to get to more of Mosh's shows.

  My brother had always been musically gifted. Dad hadn't really appreciated it sinc
e it was a skill that wasn't directly useful for survival. But Mom had put her foot down and young David Uhersky Pitt had taken classical guitar lessons. Then one day as teenagers the two of us had snuck out to a Slayer concert and he had found his calling in life. The rest was history.

  Brilliant spotlights beamed down on the stage as Cabbage Point Killing Machine played. The singer was moving back and forth, jumping up and down and screaming. Fireballs exploded and soared upward over the stage as the pyrotechicians earned their keep. Then I spotted my brother, the guitarist, just a silhouette standing out in front of a propane explosion, as he played his guitar like I shoot guns. He was one of most talented musicians in the world, in my humble opinion, and I felt pretty justified in that opinion as his fingers flew back and forth faster than the eye could track, coaxing chords out of his instrument not meant for the human ear. The boy could shred.

  I tried to stick to the edge of the main floor, as the bodies were only tightly packed here, as opposed to absurdly packed into the center. I headed directly for the stage. There was probably a better way to go around, but I had never been here before and had no idea how the area behind the stage was laid out. Not to mention that there were bound to be more cops back there too.

  It was deafening, but I heard a voice in my radio earpiece. I clamped one hand over it in order to hear. "—ing on the freeway. North side of Montgomery," it was saying. It was somebody else from MHI.

  My microphone was in a strap that rode around my neck, a military design used so soldiers riding in turrets could still be heard over wind noise. Hopefully, it would work in here. "This is Z. I'm inside the concert."

  "What is that noise?" I recognized that voice as belonging to Grant Jefferson. "Are the cultists attacking?"

  "No, that's just the music." I had to remind myself that when I had driven Grant's car last summer, all of the stations had been programmed to opera or something. "Stay outside the concert. Feds are crawling all over the parking lot, and they're ticked. They'll probably just arrest you on sight."

  "What? I can't hear you over that horrible racket." Some people just can't appreciate good music.

  I started to reply, but choked it off as I saw them. Two things were making their way toward the stage, parallel with me but on the opposite side of the floor. They towered over the jumping crowd, a pair of huge, slumped shapes, merely black outlines in the flashing lights. The first was much taller than everything around it, and the other was even larger, and unlike the flailing costumes I had seen so far, these were moving far too smoothly, cutting their way right through the unsuspecting masses.

  Grabbing Skippy's arm, I pointed at the monsters. His goggled head swiveled back and forth. Finally, he shrugged. He couldn't see them. "Damn it, the two big things. They're huge. Right there." I pointed again. The other orcs looked as well, standing on their tiptoes to see, then glanced at each other, shaking their heads as thousands of sweaty bodies jostled around us. They couldn't see them either.

  There was no time to ponder that mystery. I doubled my efforts to get to the stage, pushing and shoving, a big man on a mission. Across the hall, the ogres, or oni, or whatever the hell they were, were moving at about the same speed. Somehow, the people being plowed out of their way didn't even seem to notice.

  An elbow caught my cheek and a heavy boot kicked me in the thigh. This was the kind of crowd that didn't react well to rudeness. I just kept going. Edward clotheslined a large youth to the ground when said youth took issue with me cutting in front of him. The closer I got to the stage, the more violent it was going to get. Anybody who has been to a show like this knows that the front few rows were not for the faint of heart. It was a downright Darwinian environment. The floor narrowed as it got down to the stage, which was serving to funnel us closer to the approaching monsters.

  Risking a quick glance to the side, I could see them clearly through the fog. The lead thing was at least a foot taller than my 6 feet 5 inches and even then, it seemed somehow hunched over. Its head was covered in some sort of gray shawl. It collided with the moshers, and they just parted before it, a few of them getting confused looks on their faces, but none of them seeing the creatures.

  "See them now?" I shouted at Skippy.

  "No," he said, while looking right at them. "Smell. Smell monsters."

  I don't know how Skippy could smell anything over the odor of thousands of bodies and various types of illegal smoke, but whatever worked. The first creature was almost to the stage as I reached the base. More yellow-shirted security were standing behind a row of aluminum rails separating the mob from the band. I climbed over the rail, only to have several pairs of strong hands shove me back. Only tough guys got this kind of job. It was the kind of thing that I probably would have done in the past and enjoyed. I had always been about gigs that allowed me to punch people and get paid for it.

  So it wasn't anything personal when I palm-struck the guard in the chest and launched him back into the concrete. I just needed to get on that stage. The other guard touching me went down with a flick of Edward's stolen baton, crying out and holding his fingers. I was over the railing and pulling myself up to the stage in a second, losing my idiotic cowboy hat in the process.

  The song finished in a flourish of guitars and drums, along with a propane explosion right over my head. The lights twirled and flickered as they spun the spotlights like a kaleidoscope. I was up and over, rolling onto the hardwood planking as the crowd went insane, asking for, no, demanding an encore. I got to my knees as the lead singer tossed his microphone and leapt past me into the waiting arms of the crowd. He was surfed back and forth on the sea of hands, and I had to admit that at any other time it looked like fun. Mosh better not do that, because I didn't fight my way all the way up here just to have him go and jump the hell off. I headed for the guitarist. I sensed the orcs right behind me as one of them, Skippy, left us and sprinted toward the row of speakers.

  My brother had pulled his instrument off, and was waving it over his head like some medieval weapon. People said that he looked a lot like me, but I never saw the resemblance. He was a few years younger, a few inches shorter, and a few pounds lighter. Personally, I thought he looked more like Mom, with me being darker, uglier, and more beady-eyed like Dad. He was wearing a tank top, showing off the typical Pitt family bulkiness and love of lifting heavy objects, and also demonstrating that three quarters of him was inked with various designs. You have no idea how angry that made my dad. Mosh had a long black goatee; his head was totally shaved and shiny under the lights. I was going prematurely bald, and my brother, blessed with a full head of hair, shaves his. Jerk.

  For a second I thought Mosh was going to bring the guitar down and smash it on stage, but that would be like me smashing a perfectly good firearm. He was a rock star but we had been raised too cheaply to ever be wasteful. Finally, he lowered the guitar and shook his fist at the crowd, the wide grin of a man doing what he loves and knowing he's the very best at it on his tanned face.

  Then he saw me. His mouth formed my name as he tried to process what I was doing here. Security was coming from offstage to get me, but he waved them away as I got closer. Confused, he was starting to ask me a question when the first monster hit the stage. A body in a yellow tee shirt flew twenty feet in the air, screaming, before crashing into an overhanging speaker and taking the entire assembly crashing to the floor in a shower of sparks. The crowd loved it.

  The guard's impact caused a giant confetti dispenser to break open prematurely, spilling tons of reflective bits of white paper like snow. "What the hell, man?" Mosh shouted as a great gray mass vaulted effortlessly onto the stage, knocking over stands and crushing a huge bank of Digitech pedals. Through the wall of sparkling fake snow, the creature turned toward us. The face underneath the gray hood was human, mostly, but twisted, somehow too long, too pointy, with a mane of curly black hair framing bulging red eyes set in a purple hag's face. The shroud fell open as the monster rose to its full height, towering over us, spreadin
g wide long purple arms, six-fingered hands opening into a bank of nails the size of steak knives. The form was that of a human female, but far too enormous, with skin the texture of punching-bag leather.

  The audience cheered.

  I swear it actually smiled—gleaming white pointy teeth poking out in an evil grin—turned, and bowed to the crowd.

  "That's one big chick," the drummer said stupidly.

  Then it was back to business, as the thing crossed most of the huge stage in two steps, curled toe claws digging splinters out of the floor. A black, forked tongue licked past lips as it spoke, with a voice that sounded surprisingly normal and feminine. "Come along, little performer. Show's over."

  "Shit!" Mosh shouted, stumbling back, knowing full well that this wasn't part of the act. "What's that?"

  "Oh, now everybody can see them!" I shouted as I pushed past my brother, shrugged out of the stupid coat, raised Abomination and flipped the selector down to full auto. The EO-Tech holographic sight settled on the creature's center of mass as I jerked the trigger. Abomination recoiled up and to the right as I stitched a line of buckshot impacts across the creature's torso. The purple shape jerked under the steady impacts, raising claws to protect its face as I blasted it with a continuous roar of ten magnum rounds. No normal being could have lived.

  "Mosh. Run," I ordered as I dropped the spent magazine and pulled another one from my vest.

  The clawed hand came down and belligerent red eyes focused on me through the swirling confetti. "You!"

  New magazine rocked in, I jerked the charging handle to chamber another round, aimed and fired. The one-ounce silver slug could have blasted a hole through a medium-sized cow but it didn't seem to phase the oni. The projectile actually made an audible, buzzing, ricochet noise and there was a clang as the drum set took the hit.