The Monster Hunters

  Or my dad, I thought to myself. The will to do awful things was never something that he had lacked. And right now I just prayed that I could live up to what he’d tried to teach me.

  Julie hadn’t spoken any more about the marks on her stomach, not even to Trip or Holly, though the two of them had surely noticed the ruined state of her vest. “I’ve got to get a sit rep and headcount. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Her voice was strong, the fear compartmentalized and shoved away to be dealt with later. With Earl down, and her Grandpa too old, Julie had to run the nuts and bolts of this show. Her people needed her. She left the room without another word.

  God, I was terrified for her. I watched her leave, wanting nothing more than to never let her out of my sight, but Earl was counting on us, and our only lead was this doppelganger. She’d find us some experienced help from the chaos above, but in the meantime, that left Trip, Holly and me to deal with the doppelganger duct-taped to a chair in the next room.

  “We should interrogate Torres too,” I said as I unrolled the hose that we used to spray down Earl’s cell. I had no idea what I was doing but beating the monster with a hose had definite possibilities. “Where’s he at?”

  They looked at each other in confusion. “We stopped the undead in the basement, but we never saw him,” Trip said. “I’m assuming that other Fed, Archer, picked him up.”

  “The place has got to be swarming with Feds up there by now,” Holly said. “I hope they’ve got the jerk in custody and they’re about to put the screws to him. You know, I never liked him.”

  I hoped they were right. If he’d escaped, then Myers’ stupid escapade had been for nothing. I hadn’t had time to consider what I was going to do about that yet, but Myers deserved a shallow grave for what he’d brought into our house. “We better hurry. When the Feds hear we’ve caught this thing, they’re going to haul it off.”

  “You guys ever done anything like this before?” Trip asked slowly. We all knew that this had the potential to get real ugly.

  “Dude, I was an exotic dancer. How often do you think we had to torture information out of shapechangers?” Holly responded.

  “Weekly?” I answered. I held up the hose, immediately felt stupid, so dropped it. “Don’t look at me like that. I was an accountant. We didn’t go over waterboarding in school either, okay?”

  Trip looked a little queasy. “Maybe we should wait for Sam or one of those guys.”

  “We don’t have the luxury.” I could tell that this was really not something that Trip was mentally prepared to do. He was just too kind-hearted to contemplate torture, even against something like this. I, on the other hand, had just shot a few actual human beings, and it didn’t seem to bother me at all. In fact, I felt strangely justified. I could handle this. “Get your game face on. Earl’s counting on us. There’s a literal demon inside his head, and it’s going to rip him apart until we stop it. We can’t let him down. You with us, man?”

  Trip nodded with more vigor than he felt. “Yeah, let’s do this.”

  “Holly?”

  She snorted. “I’m tougher than you are.”

  No disagreement there. “It can read minds, so don’t think weak. Think mean.” I jerked the door open and we went in to question the creature.

  We had used an entire roll of tape to secure the shape-shifter to a heavy wooden chair. The three of us stood in a row. If I was smart, I probably would have brought a big lamp or something to shine in its face like in the movies.

  “You’re out of your league,” it responded, still wearing my face. “None of you children have the guts. My master holds the keys to life and death and walks in the shadows between worlds. How could you possibly expect me to betray him? My god is a wrathful god!”

  “So is mine,” Trip answered.

  “You’re Baptist,” I pointed out.

  “Exactly.” Trip surprised me. He stepped forward and backhanded the creature in the face. “Where’s the Condition?” my friend shouted.

  The head rocked back, but slowly returned, laughing. I have an evil laugh when I’m angry. No wonder people consider me intimidating. “Come on, Trip, you can do better than that!” Trip hit him again, harder this time. He cocked his fist back for another shot.

  Suddenly the doppelganger blurred and re-formed. The transformation was nearly instantaneous. Now it was Holly that Trip’s fist collided with. She squealed in pain. Trip jerked back, shocked. The fake Holly cried, hot tears pouring down her bruised cheek. “Don’t hurt me, please!”

  Trip raised his hand again, but he was shaking. The doppelganger shifted again, and now it was an older black woman with white hair. “John, how dare you raise your hand to me!” She had a Jamaican accent.

  Trip closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. “Where’s the Condition?”

  When he reopened his eyes, his mother had been replaced with a teenage girl with red hair and freckles. She batted big sad eyes at him. “You promised you’d protect us, Mr. Jones. But you let those zombies get to us anyway. You got scared. You lied! You couldn’t protect us! Sure, you came back and saved the others, but you were too scared to save me. I hate you!”

  “I . . . I’m sorry . . .” Trip stepped back from the creature.

  “Enough,” I said. “Dude, it’s okay.”

  “Sorry.” Trip was wiping his eyes as he left the room. He closed the door behind him. I glanced over at Holly. She was leaning against the wall, impassive and cool. The doppelganger turned its teenage girl face and spoke, only using my deep voice. “Your friend has a soft heart. I’m sure it’ll be delicious.”

  “Your turn,” Holly stated.

  The doppelganger studied me for just a moment. Its changes were almost so quick that it was hard to believe my own eyes. For just a moment, the face would be slack, almost squishy, then it was somebody else entirely. Mannerisms, speech patterns, even size. It would have been impressive if it wasn’t so disgusting.

  Julie Shackleford looked up at me, fearfully, as I approached. “Don’t hurt me, Owen, please,” she pleaded. No. Not she. It. I kept walking.

  “I’m going to figure out how to hurt you. Then I’m going to hurt you until you tell us exactly what we want to know,” I stated. I repeated those words in my mind. I could afford no weakness.

  “Very good, Hunter. Harden your heart,” the fake Julie said. Then my girlfriend was gone and it was my father. “You always were weak, soft; it’s good to see you man up and take care of business. Come on, fatty, show me what you’ve got.”

  I balled up my hand into a fist and slugged the doppelganger in the face. My whole body shook with the impact. “That’s the spirit, boy!” It laughed with my father’s voice. Then he was gone and it was Mordechai Byreika, old and frail. “Boy, what are you doing! Why do you hurt me?”

  It’s not him. He’s dead.

  “Smart you are, boy. But proud, and proud will hurt everyone you love.”

  “It won’t work!” I spat.

  Then it was Julie again. “It doesn’t have to. I just want to enjoy the damage you’re doing to your soul,” it hissed. “Beat your wife, Hunter. Come on. This is what I do for fun.” Then it shifted into the form of a little girl. “Owen, don’t let them hurt me! Don’t let them take me away. Not again!”

  I paused. I had no idea who this was. She was probably seven or eight years old, with dark hair in a ponytail and blue eyes. “So, is this like a test to see if I’m willing to beat little kids or something?”

  The little girl stopped her crying. “You don’t remember me?” she asked incredulously.

  It had to be a trick. I had never seen this kid before.

  The girl giggled. “You really don’t. You, the Chosen with the ability to see everyone else’s memories has his own locked away . . . How ironic. So much power but too stupid to use it,” the little girl said. “Past, future, it is all so linear to you pathetic mammals.”

  “Who are you supposed to be then?” I asked.

  It read my hesitation. “Appare
ntly that’s a secret. Too bad for you. It’s really a sad story.”

  “Z,” Holly spoke. “It’s messing with you. Step back.”

  “I’ve got this!” I shouted.

  “Step back,” she said again.

  “Fine!” I stomped away, seething. This stupid monster was pissing me off.

  Holly stopped in front of the doppelganger. The little girl face studied her. “Now you . . . you’re dangerous,” it said. “Your edge, it is not an act. There are two sides to you, human. Burning hot or freezing cold and somewhere in the middle innocence dies. Delicious.”

  “You can read minds?” Holly asked.

  “Sure can, kiddo,” it replied. Now the doppelganger was an older man with wispy hair and the flushed face of a terminal alcoholic. “You’re never gonna amount to nothing. You’re just like your mom, the tramp. No-good slut—”

  Holly cut it off by slamming the ridge of her hand into its throat. The creature coughed and wheezed, writhing against the duct tape, like the old man was having a heart attack. “You gotta try harder than that,” Holly replied. “I’ve watched episodes of Doctor Phil that were more emotionally wrenching.”

  It changed again. Now it was a young woman. It was hard to tell what she looked like because every inch of her was coated in dried blood, dirt, and filth. “Holly, you bitch. You left me alone in the pit. I’m dead because of you.”

  My teammate snorted. “Worked through that, chief. Cindy died because she gave up. Vampires killed her. I didn’t do it. Is this supposed to make me feel guilty?”

  “Guilty? You should. You could have taken me with you! Whore!”

  The doppelganger began to thrash, swearing and crying hysterically. Holly turned to me and shrugged. She went back to the creature, walking a slow circle around the chair, studying the mirror image of somebody who had apparently been a fellow prisoner in the vampire feeding hole. “I think that we’re going about this all wrong,” she said slowly.

  The creature continued to curse her. I couldn’t tell if the fear was genuine or fake at this point. Holly paused in front of it and pulled out her folding knife. The Benchmade flicked open with a snap. “Let me test this theory.” The creature flinched and thrashed away. “Hold still, or I’ll really screw this up.” She slowly poked her blade into the creature’s face. A clear fluid began to bleed from the cut. The woman screamed. I turned away involuntarily.

  The screaming stopped. I risked a peek. Holly was holding up the dripping knife. “Yep, just like I figured. The tissue is all soft underneath, malleable. Like the fingers Julie blew off.”

  Holly had carved a chunk out of the thing’s face. The flesh underneath had the consistency of raw dough and was leaking a viscous juice down its neck. “Oh, gross.”

  The doppelganger hissed. “You think you’re so clever.”

  “Yes. Yes, I do,” Holly responded. “See, I don’t know how your biology works, but I’m sorta like what passes for a medical professional around here now, so I’m just going to keep cutting pieces off until I find something important.”

  It had reverted back to the form that it had been in most of its stay at the compound: the Newbie, Dawn. The young woman looked terrified. “Please . . . please don’t hurt me. Owen, don’t let her hurt me.”

  “Hurt you? You killed Billy Tanner in the control room. Slashed his throat wide open. You set up an attack that cost us I don’t know how many more Hunters dead and injured. You tried to assassinate my boss.” Holly smiled maliciously. “Hurt you? Dawn, you can read minds, so I want you to read what I’m thinking about doing right now.” Holly closed her eyes.

  The creature flinched.

  Holly’s smile was terrifying. “Think that’ll hurt?”

  “Okay, okay.” Dawn blinked, and her eyes were suddenly clear orbs. Her entire face went slack, the color seemed to fade, the features just sloughed away, leaving a blank mass of goo where the head had been. The hair retracted as those ice cube eyes watched us. There wasn’t even a mouth, just an indentation in the doughy mass. It puckered inward as it spoke with Dawn’s voice. “So, you want to see what I really am?”

  “What the hell?” I muttered.

  It was some sort of . . . well . . . I didn’t know, doughy asexual humanoid blob, utterly pale and damp. It seemed to shrink inward, as if it had been artificially inflating itself to reach correct human proportions. The fingers exposed from the end of the tape were stubby little white sausages that wiggled like hooked nightcrawlers, except the end of each one terminated in a hard yellow point. “Happy now?” Its voice was utterly bland, toneless, accentless, neither masculine nor feminine.

  “Yeah, that’s much better,” Holly gagged.

  “Maybe you should go back to the beauty queen,” I suggested. How had this . . . alien made it through the warding? Damn, the Pillsbury Doughboy had come on to me.

  “Shove it, human,” the doppelganger said, hissing bubbles through its face. One crystal eyeball swiveled to study me, bulging out of the lumpy head, independent of the other. Apparently it had read my thoughts. “Your ward meant nothing to me. I was born on Earth. There are more of us here than you expect. We’re everywhere, preparing the way for the great and inevitable return of—”

  “Shut up, Gumby.” Holly silenced it by shoving her knife against the creature’s chest. “Where’s the real Dawn?”

  “Dead,” it answered. “Replaced not long after Harbinger and Shackleford made her a job offer. We did not even know of this one at the time.” It twitched one eye at me. “I was just to observe. The High Priest believed that MHI might pose a future threat to his plans.”

  I stepped forward. “Where is this High Priest? Where’s Hood?”

  The creature shook as it laughed. The sound was utterly emotionless. “He’s with your brother.”

  What? Holly and I exchanged glances.

  “I hid during the initial assault. My attempt on Harbinger had failed and I waited for an opportunity to redeem myself rather than return to the Exalted Order in shame. I sensed the presence of the acolyte known as Torres. So I freed him. In his wisdom, he suggested that I take your form so we could get close to one of your loved ones. Torres will go far in the Order. I found your brother and asked him to follow me to the basement. Torres led him into the tunnels. They are gone now, surely reunited with the High Priest by now.”

  I stumbled back in shock. Mosh? Gone. I could envision this creature leading him away. Mosh would have trusted what he thought was me. He would never have even guessed. It had to be lying. Mosh had to still be upstairs. “You bastard. I don’t believe you!”

  “Believe it, hairless monkey. I’m sure he will be contacting you soon. I returned here to try and finish my assignment. I was to neutralize Harbinger. When I found that the High Priest had already dealt with him, I fled. That’s when you caught me.”

  It was telling the truth. Mosh was gone. They’d taken my brother. Rage darkened my vision. My boot collided with the doppelganger’s chest. It flew back, crashing violently into the floor. The creature emitted a high-pitched squeal. I kicked it again, shattering the back of the chair against the concrete. “Where?” I put the boot to it, stomping the monster over and over. It felt spongy, but something hard cracked on the inside. “Where’s my brother?”

  “Z!” Holly shouted. “Calm down. We don’t know what kind of abuse this thing can take.”

  “Where’s Hood?” The impact of my steel-toed boot slid the doppelganger across the floor. I kicked it again.

  Holly grabbed one of the straps on my vest and tried in vain to pull me back. “Stop it!”

  I paused, fists clenched tight, breathing hard, seeing red, stomping back and forth, hot air blowing through my nostrils. This thing had my brother.

  Slumped on the floor, it laughed at us one final time. “Go suckle your warm-blooded young, filthy mammal,” it hissed. “My work is done.” It made a rattling noise and the protruding eyes flopped limp.

  Unclenching my fists, I glanced at Holly. She look
ed back at me, shocked. “Did I kill it?” She shrugged. It was more like it had just given up the ghost after taunting me. “Oh crap . . . what do we do now?”

  There was no time to contemplate that question. The door flew open with a bang. It was Sam Haven. Trip was right behind him. “We’ve got a problem,” the burly Hunter said quickly. He didn’t even seem to notice the doughy monster lying dead on the floor.

  “Sorry, Sam, I think I killed it,” I responded.

  “No. Some of the cultists survived. They’ve regrouped the remaining undead.”

  But that didn’t make any sense . . . with the ward in place they couldn’t touch us.

  Trip was panicked. “They’re burning the orc village!”

  Chapter 18

  A horn was blowing.

  The sound echoed across the compound, a plaintive wail, coming from the direction of Skippy’s village. The sun was rising over the hills and a thick plume of black smoke was rising from the nearby forest. I leapt into the back of a waiting pickup truck. Trip, Holly, and Sam were right behind me. I slammed my palms down on the truck roof and shouted, “Go! Go!” to the unknown Hunter who was driving. The truck lurched forward, threatening to knock us down. We tore across the red dirt, dawn’s first light turning us into long shadows. Dust hung in the air from vehicles that had left moments before us.

  I stared at my companions. All three of them were dazed. An attack on us was one thing, but the orcs? There were children there. We bounced onto a narrow forest road, forcing all of us to duck to avoid the stinging branches.

  Sam caught my glance. “A bunch took off as soon as we heard the war horns. Skippy and their warriors weren’t home. They were helping us,” he shouted. “Cheating, rat-bastard sons a bitches!” Furious, he slammed one meaty fist against the side of the truck.

  The tribe had lived with MHI for years, they could have settled inside the boundary of the compound and the protection of its warding, but they were too uncomfortable around humans to ever live inside our walls. Their people had been persecuted for generations, and even though they considered themselves part of our clan, they preferred solitude.