Monster Hunter International, Second Edition

  The Polish winter. 1944. The rubble of the shelled-out town. The burned and blackened church. The Old Man tied to the altar. The incorporeal presence of the Cursed One hovering nearby, hungrily waiting, but already knowing that his calculations had been in error. Jaeger, then merely a human in the black uniform of the SS, holding a gleaming blade high. Bitten by a vampire far earlier in his forgotten youth, the curse of the undead waited in his veins for his suicide and inevitable return.

  Sounds of gunfire coming from the village. Multitudes of German soldiers cut down by the immortal Thrall.

  The artifact, black energy swirling, sitting by the Old Man's head. He did not fight, for he knew this battle was over. The blade flashed down, cutting sluggishly through Mordechai's narrow chest. Blood splattering over the church, over the ancient Place of Power.

  The heart held high, pumping blood down the Nazi's arm. The ritual failed. The time had not been right. The black energy of the artifact dying. The light in the Old Man's eyes dying at the same time.

  The sacrifice bound to the artifact. Mordechai's spirit was chained and enslaved to the ancient box, decades passing, as he was trapped, helplessly bound to this world.

  Until he found me.

  He screamed as he experienced the pain of death all over again.

  I knew I had to wake up. I fought my way forward, pushing away from the Cursed One, like a swimmer with lungs burning for air struggling toward the sky. There was a large tunnel out of the great cave. It was round corrugated metal. It was angled toward the surface.

  Behind me the ghostly scream was cut short. The Cursed One returned his attention toward my fleeing spirit, searching, grasping. Energy slung past me like cracking whips. I knew that if I could reach the surface, if I could reach the air, I could return to my body and wake up.

  It was close—the surface. I raced onward.

  Then suddenly a silent conquistador stood in my path. Blocking my way.

  No. Mordechai's sacrifice would not be in vain. I pushed forward.

  The conquistador did not move.

  It wore a silly cartoon grin. It had a big, stuffed, fake head.

  What in the hell?

  I broke through, the Cursed One raging below. My spirit soared into the night sky and tore across the horizon at impossible speeds. I was free.

  "Owen!" Julie shouted in my ear. "Are you with us?"

  "Ack," I coughed, choking off my shout of freedom. "I'm back," I gasped.

  "Are you okay?" All of the Monster Hunters were clustered around me.

  "Mordechai is dead."

  "We know. He died in 1944," Julie explained soothingly as she ran her hand over my face. "You're going to be okay now."

  I struggled to form words. "No . . . Just now. He's gone. He gave himself up to save me from Lord Machado." I lay still. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest. It had to be at least a hundred and fifty beats a minute. I could feel sweat pouring out of my body, and every inch of me tingled in pins and needles discomfort. My hands were clenched into shaking fists. I forced them to open.

  Several small wooden toys fell from my hands onto the floor.

  Holy shit.

  Harbinger was still squatting at my side. "What did you see?"

  "Grant's alive. He's the sacrifice." Several of the Hunters began to murmur. It was one thing to have one of our own killed in action. It was another thing entirely to have one of our own in the hands of the bad guys.

  "Where are they?" Harbinger pounded his fist into his palm. "Where?"

  "A big cave."

  "Where?"

  "I don't know."

  Harbinger gestured at some of the others. "I want to know every cave in the South. Now! What else?"

  "It was huge. Lots of rock formations. Kind of pretty. Real tall. Taller than this building. The interior had to be at least a hundred yards wide." It was hard to guess scale when you were not in your physical body for reference. "You had to take a big metal tunnel to get into it."

  "Big caves!" Harbinger shouted. "What else?"

  "Uh . . ." I thought back to the final thing that I had seen. "There was a conquistador. At first I thought it was something to do with Lord Machado, but it wasn't. It was stuffed. Like one of those big fake heads people wear at amusement parks."

  "What the hell?" Harbinger said. "Get me caves with conquistadors."

  "Friendly Fernando?" Milo interrupted.

  "Who the fuck is Friendly Fernando?" Harbinger snapped.

  "Oh my . . ." Milo said, "Earl, some of us went there last year. Friendly Fernando is like the mascot. It's a tourist place. Biggest cave in the state. I can't believe you haven't been there, since you're from here and all. They even have a little theme park with some rides, and a water balloon tower, and a maze, kids love it, and a gift shop, and . . ."

  Earl stood and grabbed the red-bearded Hunter by the shoulders. "Focus, man!"

  Instead Julie answered, almost as if a light bulb had gone off over her head. "DeSoya Caverns. Lord Machado is in DeSoya Caverns."

  We broke to prepare for our assault. Teams formed up. Weapons were readied. Intelligence was gathered.

  "DeSoya Caverns Park is in Childersburg. Near Sylacauga. About seventy-five miles from here up the 231." Julie pointed at the map. The team leads were gathered while the rest of the Hunters were busy preparing for the mission.

  Harbinger looked at his watch. "If we leave in three hours, we can arrive about the time the sun comes up. Gives everybody a chance to catch a little sleep, and some of our teams have been up for twenty-four hard hours straight. Tired Hunters make stupid decisions. And the last thing I want to do is land on this place when the Masters are awake and prowling."

  "Can we just drop a bomb on it? Bury those bastards?" Boone asked.

  "I don't think so," I answered. "The Cursed One was in something else. There's a hidden rift to somewhere else in the back of the cave. The cave itself isn't the Place of Power. It's just the entrance. If we blow the cave, we're probably doing him a favor, and he's going to be sitting fat and happy wherever that rift goes to."

  "It could be a pocket dimension," Julie explained. "There have been cases of them in monster hunting history. Basically a bubble outside of the regular world, but attached to a fixed point. So if it is a pocket dimension, even if we smash the cavern, it won't touch the dimension, other than to bury the entrance."

  "Then we go in after him," Harbinger ordered. "What do we know about this place? What makes it so special?"

  Julie started to list off factoids. "Twelve stories tall. Football field wide inside. Lots of onyx and marble. First major cavern discovered in this country. During the Civil War, the Confederacy used it to mine saltpeter for gunpowder. During prohibition it was a speakeasy called the Bucket of Blood."

  "So I'm guessing we won't be the first people to put some bullet holes in it," Eddings said.

  "Nope. Plenty of people have been plugged in that cave. Before the Europeans showed up it was an Indian burial ground for at least two thousand years."

  "So now we have a theme park and tourist attraction on top of it. Makes perfect sense," Mayorga pointed out. "The-two-thousand-year-old holy site explains why this is the target."

  "I'm telling you, it's just the gateway," I insisted. "The Place is on the other side of the gate."

  "Can you find the hidden gate and open it?" Harbinger asked pointedly.

  "I don't know."

  "Well, if you can't, plan B is to blow the whole place to hell."

  "Do we have the munitions to do something like that?" a Hunter named Cody asked. "I know we have evil genius Milo and whatnot, but even he can only do so much."

  "Actually, I was thinking that if we don't stop the CO before the moon is up, we call the Feds. They'll just nuke the place."

  "Good plan. Just give us time to get out from under the mushroom cloud first," Cody said. He was a big grizzled man. Other than the Boss and Dorcas, he was probably the oldest Hunter present. He turned to me, expressing some c
uriosity. "Hey, kid, is your dad Auhangamea Pitt?"

  "Yeah," I answered, surprised. "You know him?"

  "One of the baddest Green Berets to ever walk the face of the earth. He kept me alive when I was just a scared kid stuck on a firebase in the middle of nowhere. You look like him. Big and ugly."

  "Thanks."

  "And from what I've heard tonight, you take after him too. So when we get in there, I've got no doubt you're going to get that rift or gate or whatever open. Right?"

  "I'll try," I answered, not knowing if I could live up to my father's legend.

  "Trying isn't going to cut it. Because if we have to fight our way through seven Masters, I can guarantee we won't all live through it. And if some of us get killed, only to get in there and not be able to open the gate, then that is just stupid. I say we just blow the whole thing and bury them," Mayorga said, "Calculated risk."

  "No," Julie snapped, "you're forgetting Grant. He's captive. We have to get him out of there."

  "I don't want to lose my whole team for one person," he retorted. "I vote we blow the cavern from a distance."

  "Come on, May, nobody lives forever." Eddings grinned crazily.

  "This ain't a democracy," Harbinger said. "I decide. . . ." Mayorga looked at him sullenly. Harbinger turned back to me. "Owen, for the last time. Can you open this rift?"

  I thought back to the vision. I was still shaking from it. Finding the spot would be easy. I did not see how it was opened, but somehow I felt that I could. But if I was wrong, a whole bunch of Hunters might die in vain. I answered carefully, "Yes. I can do it."

  "Okay, we go in," Harbinger decided. "Julie, gather all the intel you can on this place."

  "Speaking of which," a female team lead, who's name tag read Paxton, interjected, "this place had to have come up on the Feds' radar for potential sites. They've got to have guards stationed there."

  "I know folks in the National Guard here," Boone said. "I'll make some calls and find out what's stationed there."

  "We can assume they're dead or turned. Probably at least bitten, and enthralled so they can still check in on the radio. We'll just have to assess when we come to it."

  "Should we contact the Feds first? I know they're a bunch of dicks, but we're talking about the fate of the world here," VanZant asked.

  The Boss spoke up for the first time. "No. We hit it at dawn. If we fail, then we call them. I would really prefer to see this handled without an atomic bomb used on my home state." He poked a hole in the map with his hook.

  "If we pull this off we are going to be rich," Hurley said.

  "Or dead," Mayorga muttered.

  "Tell your teams what's up. Grab some rest. We hit DeSoya Caverns at dawn," Harbinger ordered. The team leaders quickly dispersed, excited or nervous at the thought of another mission. Julie gave me a little smile before picking up her laptop and leaving. Harbinger looked at me. Steel blue eyes unblinking. "Well, this is it."

  "I guess so."

  "Sorry about your friend."

  "You would have liked him, Earl. He was a good man." I thought of Mordechai throwing himself at the Cursed One to give me a chance to escape. I remembered my promise to finish this business. I intended to keep it.

  "Well, what're you waiting for?" Harbinger asked as he removed a cigarette from the pack in his pocket.

  "Huh?"

  He flicked his Zippo and ignited the flame, taking his time in responding. "Brief your team."

  "But . . ."

  He took a long drag. "I've got three Newbies that seem to think you're their leader. Trip, Holly and Albert would follow you anywhere. Whether you know it or not, you're a leader. That's good enough for me. Consider this a promotion."

  "But . . . I'm no leader."

  "Yes, you are. I know none of you have a damn clue, so I still want y'all attached with my team. But they answer to you, and they stick with you. No matter what. Do what I tell you and you should be fine." He held out his hand. I shook it. He almost broke my fingers. "Don't screw up."

  "I won't let you down, Earl."

  He only nodded. Gave my hand one final bone-crushing squeeze, and then moved on, leaving me alone in front of the map. Alone, except for my doubts and uncertainty. I hurried to find my team.

  Milo Anderson crashed into me. He excitedly pushed a loaded five-round Saiga magazine into my hand. He had an insane gleam in his eye, as he seemingly did whenever he had the opportunity to harness whole new forms of destruction.

  "Think this is going to work?" I asked.

  "Not a bad idea. They were oversize, so I had to trim them a smidgen. Hope that don't mess up the mojo. Lucky for you I had the reloading bench already set up for 12 gauge," he answered as he tugged absently on his beard. "If this works, it should be awesome. If not?" He shrugged.

  "If not, at least my death should be relatively spectacular."

  "That's the spirit." Milo grinned. "Lightweight projectiles. Low powder charge. This is short range only, like conversational-distance short range. Accuracy is going to suck. Penetration is going to be negligible. Probably won't have enough pressure to cycle Abomination's action. So plan on going manual."

  "Can do. Thanks Milo."

  "Good luck, Owen. I've got to go grab some spears and my garlic wreath. Catch you on the flip side." The strange Hunter ran to take care of his team's supplies.

  I contemplated the magazine. I sure hoped this worked.

  The convoy of mismatched vehicles tore northward at dangerous speeds, dawn fast approaching. I sat in the passenger seat of one of the MHI Suburbans. My armor was still damp and cold from Natchy Bottom. You can't just drop twenty pounds of Kevlar and Cordura into the drier. I had my shotgun clenched between my knees. Over a dozen magazines of assorted 12-gauge ammunition and 40mm grenades rode in pouches on my chest and sides. I was wearing both of the STI .45s that Julie had given me, along with several magazines of silver bullets. My ganga ram was strapped across my chest, and several sharpened white-oak stakes rode in a pouch on my back. I had smoke, frag and incendiary hand grenades. And just for luck, on my ankle I was wearing the little .357 which I had used against Mr. Huffman.

  I had used our last few hours to get some much-needed sleep. I had not dreamt, and I felt a chill loneliness. I was certain now: The Old Man was gone.

  The wipers beat rhythmically. The rain was increasing, running almost like rivers down the road. The wind was howling and the big vehicle rocked as strong gusts hit us. Being the only one of us who had lived through any hurricanes, Trip assured us that this storm was not far behind in intensity. The sheets of falling water were so thick that I could barely see the taillights of the vehicle ahead of us.

  The storm had come out of nowhere. It had the mark of the Cursed One on it. I worried about Julie, buckled into the Hind with the rest of her team. Surely Skippy would get them through.

  The Newbie team had been crammed into the overloaded Suburban for the trip. Holly had taken to calling us the rainbow coalition team, since we had one white female, and males of the Black, Asian, and Other categories. All we needed was a lesbian and a guy in a wheelchair and we were ready to salve even the biggest liberal's angst. The others were sharing the second row of seats, and the driver was a talkative little Hunter named Gus, out of Hurley's team in Miami.

  "Yeah, you guys should have seen it. Little town outside of Pensacola. Vampires nested all over the city works building. We're ready to go in and hit them fast and hard. We get stopped by the mayor for—guess what? You guys ain't gonna believe it . . ."

  "What, Gus?" Lee asked in exasperation, not wanting to egg him on, but seeing no other way out. Gus had talked nearly nonstop since leaving the compound. Everybody dealt with the stress of an upcoming mission in their own strange ways, I supposed.

  "She was a big Anne Rice fan. She wanted to 'reason' with them. She just thought that they were misunderstood. She wanted to open a 'dialogue.' " He took his hands from the wheel long enough to make quote motions with his fingers. I started to
instinctively reach for the wheel as we began to hydroplane.

  "I hate that sensitive romantic vampire bullshit," Holly said.

  "Yeah, exactly. You wouldn't believe how hard killing undead got after those damn books came out. Every love-starved housewife out there started thinking of them as tragic homoerotic Fabio-looking things. Morons. Well, anyway, so the mayor goes and gets eaten and Hurley says to us—"

  The radio cut him off.

  "This is Harbinger. We've got to land the chopper. Storm is getting too bad to fly—even for Skip. We're putting down before Sylacauga." The radio went out.

  "So, anyway, Hurley says to us—" Gus was cut off again.

  "Pick us up. Clearing at the end of the road right before town. Skip will stay with the Hind. Hopefully the weather will clear enough that he can take off and provide some air support later."

  I saw brake lights ahead. Gus swore and slowed down.

  "What's the problem?" Holly asked.

  "Shh," Trip hissed. He rolled down his window, letting rain in.

  "What are you doing?" Holly asked.

  "Hear that?" he asked.

  "No," I answered. But it was no secret I had the worst hearing of the bunch.

  "What is that?" Lee asked nervously.

  "Tornado sirens."

  "What's that mean?"

  "It means we have a tornado warning. Weather is weird for them so it probably isn't just a warning on conditions. Means some have been seen in the area."

  "How will we know if one is nearby?" Lee asked.

  "It'll sound like a million freight trains. You'll know," Trip warned.

  I noted with some concern that the clouds had turned green, a sick deadly color.

  Other noises could be heard over the rain, thumping against the roof of the Suburban. Small round things were smacking wetly against the window.

  "Now, that's different," Gus said as the wipers knocked away the blood and meat on the windshield.

  "Dude, roll the window up!" I shouted.

  "Oh, gross!" Trip exclaimed as something hit him.

  It was raining frogs. Thousands of tiny amphibians were striking us, bouncing off of the hood or road. Some were falling faster than others, hitting hard enough to explode in little red puffs.