The Monster Hunters

  Then Earl spied the abandoned oxygen bottle and had an idea. As his daddy, Bubba Shackleford, the greatest Monster Hunter who’d ever lived, had always taught: when all else fails, kill it with fire.

  Heather came to, flat on her back, looking at the dimly buzzing florescent lights. Her head throbbed from the impact. There was a warm slickness coating her chest. I’m bleeding. Disoriented, she reached up, pulled open her ruined shirt, and felt around her shoulder. The strap of her vest had stopped most of the damage, but there were several ghastly punctures in her skin, trickling slowly. It hurt, but nothing felt broken. Mostly her head ached from bouncing off the floor. Lucky. She could have ended up like the nurse. A wave of nausea hit as she stood. There was crashing and banging coming from a nearby room, probably that Harbinger dude getting killed, but Heather was focused on Buckley’s room. Chase Temple was injured and needed help. She had to get him out of here.

  There was a path of giant red paw prints leading back to Buckley’s room. The blood on the floor made it slippery. She had to use the door frame to steady herself.

  There was a man standing in the center of the hospital room. He was tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a black suit, and had his back toward her. There was a pistol in his hands, and something about his demeanor just screamed law enforcement. Help had arrived. Thank God.

  Temple was on the floor, alive but hurt bad. Bailey was upside down in the far corner, obviously dead, nearly decapitated. The man was standing over Chase and asking, “Were you bitten? Did the creature bite you?”

  “On my leg,” Chase answered through gritted teeth. “It’s bad. Help me, please.”

  Heather caught the man’s profile as he shook his head sadly. He was young, beefy, with a buzz cut. “I’m really sorry, man.”

  “What?” Chase reached out plaintively. “Just get me out of—”

  The suit raised his pistol and coldly shot Chase twice in the chest and then once in the forehead.

  The world dropped out from under Heather. Her mouth fell open in shocked disbelief, but no sound came out.

  The murderer lowered his weapon and shouted, “Clear!”

  Heather stumbled back, reaching for her Beretta, but her holster was empty. Her gun was somewhere back where she’d landed. Still dizzy, she tripped over a severed arm, slipped in the blood, and fell. The killer heard her and came into the hall, pistol trained on her face, finger on the trigger. “Don’t move! Agent Stark. Hallway. I’ve got another survivor.”

  A different man appeared from a side room, also in a suit, also pointing a gun at her. This one was even bigger than the first, older, bald, and looked like he meant business. “Shit. Local cop . . . This is gonna mean a lot of paperwork. Where’s the creature, lady?”

  Scared to death, she tried to keep her voice composed. These bastards had just executed poor Chase. She was next. “Back that way. Please. Don’t shoot.”

  “Were you bitten? Did it bite you?” the murderer demanded.

  He must not have realized that she’d witnessed what happened when he’d asked Chase that same question. “No! I’m fine,” Heather exclaimed. They’re going to kill me. She knew that if she made a sudden move they’d shoot, but she had to do something. She wished that she’d worn her backup gun, but the little .380 she’d bought for that purpose was sitting in her sock drawer because she’d gotten lazy.

  She had other tools on her belt though. . . . Steady.

  The older man got closer, gun still carefully trained on her, grabbed the tattered remains of her coat and pulled it back. She cringed as the fabric pulled at the wound. Biting his lip, he studied her bloody shoulder for a moment and then turned to his partner, shook his head, and stepped out of the way.

  “Wait! I’m fine! What’re you doing?”

  “I’m sorry. This is for the best,” Deputy Temple’s executioner apologized as he aimed at her heart.

  “She’s wearing a vest,” corrected the older one.

  “Oh, yeah.” He shrugged. “Didn’t think of that.” The muzzle rose toward Heather’s forehead.

  Then the hospital exploded.

  Chapter 8

  My new home was a tiny black rock in the middle of the ocean. There were some trees, a beach, and a shack. I could walk across the whole island in two minutes.

  “Nice place,” I said, glancing around the shack that had been tied together out of the remains of an old shipwreck. “How’s the neighbors?”

  Santiago chuckled. “Far enough away that you won’t be sorely tempted to devour them.”

  It took a while to help move the supplies ashore. He would return to visit once a month.

  “There was once a knight commander of the Order of Christ by the name of Bartolomeu Zarco Cabral. He was bitten by a lycanthrope, but after spending some time cloistered in meditation on top of a mountain, he was eventually able to control his nature and became a fearsome warrior for good. He even protected Prince Henry the Navigator from a master vampire once. He was a fascinating man.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the knight or the navigator. “Uh-huh . . . And how much time did he spend meditating on that mountain?”

  “Twenty years before he was able to not fly into berserker rages,” Santiago said but then tried to reassure me. “But you strike me as a fast learner.”

  * * *

  Nikolai saw the fireball rise in the distance. It was barely visible as a flash of orange through the haze of windblown snow, but he’d seen many explosions in the snow over his long life, dating back to Stalingrad during the Great Patriotic War, and he knew immediately just from the sound and color that it had been small, and from the time for the sound to travel exactly how far away it had been. Considering the strange events that were culminating in this small town, it was certainly no accident.

  Assessing the explosion was the first coherent thought he’d had since the accident. It took a moment for the Tvar to return direct control to him. It was jealous, but it knew that now was the time for careful strategy. Ruthless savagery would surely have its turn, but for now Nikolai needed to be the one in the driver’s seat.

  A poor analogy.

  “Silence,” Nikolai wheezed.

  The lights along the road were out. In fact, most of the lights in town were dark. The taillights from the snowplow were visible fifty yards away. He realized that he had struck a tree. Three ribs were broken. One lung was punctured and had subsequently collapsed. Pressure was building in the cavity as blood filled the space. That was the most pressing injury. Compound fracture of the femur. Left tibia broken. Armani coat, absolutely ruined.

  Nikolai grimaced as he drove his thumb into his side and pulled out the rib. He palmed the jutting bone back into his leg. Impediment removed, the flesh immediately began to reform as the cells burned energy to return themselves to their normal station. Nikolai understood the science. A werewolf had two separate biological settings. Through horrendous amounts of physical energy, it was able to rapidly change between the two patterns. As a side effect, any deviation from those sets was quickly corrected.

  Nikolai understood that, but even after eighty years, watching his flesh reseal before his eyes still seemed like magic.

  What was that?

  There was only one thing that could have that kind of powerful effect upon them. “The amulet is free,” Nikolai explained to the Tvar. The false moon was still there, but not as strong now. The direction was unclear. He sniffed the air. “But . . . No vulkodlak yet. There’s still time.”

  Harbinger must have it.

  “Do not be a fool.” Nikolai stood, bent over, and hacked up a great clot of blood. His breathing slowly returned to normal. He felt much better already. “Do not let your hate make you stupid. If that nye kulturny svoloch’ had it, we would already be dead. One of Harbinger’s minions must have retrieved it. We have to intercept him before he can activate it.” He then noticed the dead body cooling in the snow. “What’s all this?”

  Driver of the snowplow. He came to he
lp us. I struck him to protect us. We should eat him now.

  Regeneration took fearsome energy. Nikolai’s stomach rumbled, but he knew that human flesh would only inflame the Tvar and make it intolerable. “There is not time for your foolishness.” Nikolai limped away. By the time he reached the remains of the BMW, the limp had corrected itself and he walked with purpose.

  The rental vehicle’s boot was crushed, but he was able to get his fingers into the crack, break the hinge, and pry the lid open. Fortunately the rifle he’d picked up at the safe-drop was undamaged. The suppressed Val was a favorite of Russian monster exterminators. It stood to reason that they knew what they were doing. The crash had shattered the glass in the Cobra optic, so he pulled the locking lever, slid it off, and tossed the scope away. The iron sights were robust and would be sufficient for his needs. He put on the blue camouflage vest full of spare twenty-round 9x39 magazines, then folded the Val’s metal stock and slung the weapon under one arm. He found a spare overcoat and put it on, not that he desired protection from the cold, but just in case there was a need to be discreet.

  I think the time for that is past.

  Nikolai ignored the Tvar. The rest of his baggage could be left behind. Everything was clean and untraceable. The car had been rented under a false identity. The time for careful investigation was past. He had to find and neutralize Harbinger before it was too late. Now he just needed new transportation. Nearby, the snowplow’s engine was still running. It would do.

  The hunt begins.

  The pack had gathered in the trees. The darkened town stretched before them, defenseless, soft, and ready to be harvested. The power had been cut. The witch assured him that all electronic communications with the outside world were blocked. The storm was upon them. He had placed teams on each of the roads out of town. To all intents and purposes, the humans of Copper Lake had been cut off from the safety of their herd. By the time the rest of mankind knew what happened here, it would be too late.

  The amulet of the Deathless was a warm weight against his bare chest. It had been asleep for a long time, but it had been dreaming, and the dreams had led him here to fulfill his mission in life. It seethed with power, but it hungered for more. There were two others like him here, worthy enough to satisfy the needs of the amulet, drawn like moths to the flame, slaves to their own instincts, directed here through treachery and deceit.

  He turned to the pack. Most of them had only been turned in recent months and were therefore expendable. The core of the pack had been with him for some time. He had turned them, taught them, and kept them under control; a difficult task to do in utmost secrecy. It was exciting to think of what they could do when given such absolute freedom. “There are two strong werewolves here tonight. Either one will do, but I absolutely must have one alive. Everyone else, turn them, devour them, or harvest them for the vulkodlak as you see fit.” Studying the fearsome predators crouched in the snow, he could almost taste the coming slaughter. “Run free, my children. Run free.”

  The werewolves let forth a triumphant howl and leapt from the tree line, loping downhill to where the unsuspecting humans were waiting. The prey would never see them coming. He watched his children go, anxious for them, as any good father should be.

  The witch was observing quietly. She was bundled in a fur coat, which made her slight form seem far larger than it was, only her gleaming eyes visible under the hood and scarf. She was flanked by her two diggers; giant, gangly, unnatural things that stood with perfect stillness. Their abnormal forms were difficult to make out in the blowing snow. The witch stank of excitement, with just a touch of apprehension. “You really believe that your children will be able to bring you Harbinger or Petrov?”

  “Bring them? Of course not . . .” Already he could hear the sounds of breaking windows as the pack reached the houses on the periphery. “My children will slaughter the sheep of this town, but none of them is a match for the hunter or the assassin. I expect the pack will flush them out, force their little game, bring them to each other’s attention. The survivor will be weakened. Ready to harvest.”

  The witch fidgeted inside her massive coat. Now there was nervousness in her scent, nearly as strong as her regular smell of fanaticism. Maybe now that the moment of truth was upon them, the fearsome nature of their adversaries had fully sunk in.

  He chuckled. “You really don’t need to worry. I could have taken either of them before. With this”—he gestured at the amulet—“they won’t be able to touch me.”

  “They’re bloody unpredictable,” the witch insisted.

  Unlike your father, I’m not enough of a fool to underestimate Harbinger. The thought went unspoken. It would only anger the already sensitive witch, and he needed her focused. “I have it under control.”

  There was a long, icy silence before she responded. “Very well.”

  His children howled from below. Prey had been cornered. It made him want to change, to glory in the hunt himself, but he had other responsibilities to attend to. Years of preparation came down to this one night. “Just be ready.”

  “Don’t worry about me.” The witch was as dedicated to this mission as he was, but for entirely different reasons.

  The screams of the dying haunted the wind. He clutched the amulet tightly.

  * * *

  Stark realized that with Briarwood almost here, Agent Mosher was about to cost him a whole bunch of money by plugging the injured cop. That was one easy bounty, and he wished he’d caught Mosher before he’d popped the other one. He was just forming the words when the whole hospital shook. Orange fire spilled from a room down the hall as Stark hurled himself to the floor. Most of the flames disappeared quickly, rising into the ceiling tiles, leaving only smoke and choking dust. It had been a small explosion, but it had certainly gotten his attention.

  “What the hell?” Mosher shouted as he uncovered his head.

  Stark coughed as the dust settled on them. He rolled over and got up. “I don’t kn—” There was a small pain in his shoulder and another in his side, and then he nearly bit his tongue off as a horrible, jittery, twisting bolt of white-hot pain surged through his entire body. His muscles involuntarily clenched as he collapsed back to the floor. Except for a buzzing twitch, he couldn’t move, couldn’t even scream.

  Then as quickly as the pain had come, it was gone. “What the hell?” There was the injured cop, sitting there, pointing something at his chest, and then Agent Stark realized there were skinny little wires leading from his body back to the thing in the cop’s right hand. “Son of a—” But then she hit him with the Taser again.

  Mosher bellowed incoherently and grabbed his face, rolling and thrashing across the bloody floor as the cop jumped up and ran for her life. She disappeared into the smoke just as Stark regained enough coordination to raise his Glock and crank off several wild shots after her. With disgust he reached down and yanked the Taser barbs out of his body, wincing as the little fish-hooks tore skin. “Mosher!”

  “My eyes!” Mosher shouted. “I can’t see a thing!” Then Mosher began coughing uncontrollably as his mucus membranes kicked into massive overdrive. There was enough residual pepper spray in the air that Stark nearly choked. Even looking at Agent Mosher made his eyes water. The cop had hosed his partner good, coating his face in sticky orange-dyed foam.

  How dare you? Enraged, Stark got up and ran after her. He reached the burning room and turned quickly, looking down both hallways. The cop was nowhere to be seen. “Come back here!” he shouted.

  “Hey, Agent Stark,” someone said from behind him. He turned to see the outline of a man walking through the smoke. “You’ve got a crispy werewolf in there.” Earl Harbinger jerked his thumb at the fire. “He was immune to silver, I shit you not, so I roasted his ass. I think all the surviving patients have hightailed it outta here. You see a fire extinguisher around here, anywhere? Figure I better put that out.”

  The filthy, stinking werewolf had the audacity to stop there, right in Stark’s face, and
pull out a pack of smokes. Harbinger paused after putting one in his mouth. He held out the pack. “Want one?”

  Stark clenched his teeth together. MHI was here. Harbinger had stolen his kill. He was going to ruin everything. The MCB agent was so furious that he could feel his face turning red. He’d just been embarrassed, tasered by a Yooper cop, and now he was getting mocked by a bloodthirsty monster. Stark lifted his Glock in one big hand and pointed it right at Harbinger’s smug werewolf face.

  “So . . . You don’t smoke?”

  “You’re under arrest,” Stark spat.

  Unfazed, Harbinger raised an eyebrow as he lit the cigarette. “What for now?”

  “You had something to do with this! You damn werewolves stick together.”

  “Well, that sure explains why I just burned one to death.” The smoke from the fire finally activated the emergency sprinklers around the fiery room. Harbinger glanced up in annoyance and took the now-sodden cigarette from his mouth. “It never fails . . .”

  The water must have been sitting in the pipes for a long time, since it was as dark and foul as Stark’s temper. The agent blinked as it got in his eyes, but he kept the gun on the sneaky werewolf. “You’re coming with me. You’ve got some questions to answer.”

  “Listen, Stark.” Harbinger seemed a little perturbed. “I ain’t got time for your MCB power-trip nonsense. There’s something weird going on here, something bad, and I need to figure it out before any more innocent folks get hurt.” The two of them stayed there, glaring at each other in the artificial rain. “All right, let me try this again. We just had somebody turn into a werewolf for the first time, and not on the full moon. That don’t happen. It can’t happen. And he was immune to silver. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? The lights are out all over town, and I can hear more werewolves howling for blood. There’s something else out there, something evil, and I can feel it coming. We ain’t got much time.” The Glock didn’t move. Harbinger sighed. “So I suggest you lower that heater ’fore I cram it up your ass sideways.”