The Monster Hunters

  Horst was wide-eyed and seemed glad to just get out of there with his life. Earl let go of his collar and gestured with the knife at Larry. Horst helped lift his dazed friend, and the two stumbled for their car. “Horst,” Earl shouted after them. His former employee stopped. “As a professional courtesy, one hunter to another, you get one free pass. Cross me again, and I put you in the ground.”

  Horst gave him a nod of acknowledgment, but Earl could see the hate in his eyes. This one could be trouble. Earl briefly entertained the thought of just gunning them down and being done with it, but a terrible wail came from the house at his back. It was audible even over the wind. The Briarwood men scrambled for the perceived safety of their car. Earl turned and lifted his subgun. “Damn it, Heather, not now.” He started up the icy steps as the Cadillac fled. He didn’t want to execute Kerkonen, but it didn’t sound like he was going to have much choice.

  Where am I?

  It took a moment. It was dark, but she could see okay. She was on the kitchen floor, which just raised other questions, like how she’d gotten there. Then she saw the damage. The fridge was open, and the power had to be out because no light was coming from it. The digital clock must be out on the microwave, too, since it was blank. Then, as the clarity of her vision improved, she saw that the microwave was broken open and the fridge door was puckered with holes. Cabinet doors were hanging from broken hinges. The window over the sink was shattered and snow was blowing in. The flimsy curtains around the window were billowing in the wind.

  Why am I sticky? Ewww. What is this mess?

  Something warm and wet was on her hands, on her face. It soaked her clothes, making them cling to her body. She felt nauseous and feverish.

  I must have gotten really drunk.

  Slowly the events of the night came trickling back. Buckley, the monsters, getting bitten, running, striking back . . . Then the trickle turned into a flood, and as the dam burst, Heather realized exactly how she’d ended up on her kitchen floor. Lifting one tattered pant leg, she checked, but her calf muscle was whole and smooth. She lay there, breathing hard, thankful to be alive and wishing that it was in fact all a bad dream but already knowing that it wasn’t.

  Her senses were too acute. There were voices in the front yard, two engines running. The kitchen smelled of broken containers, freshly disturbed dust, and . . . death? In a panic, she realized that she couldn’t remember what had happened after she’d gotten shot. It had hurt. She’d been scared, but after that . . . What? What had she done? She remembered the inwardly directed fear turning into outwardly directed anger, and then nothing.

  Chairs had been turned over. One was broken. There was a darker shape in the shadows under the kitchen table. These memories seemed alien, out of place, but she knew that it had just been hurled there. The blood on her clothing, on her face and hands, had come from it. Hurt, she had lashed out. She remembered instinctively eating so she could recover, and then a sudden shock and revulsion. The other set of memories had tapered off then, leaving her alone.

  She crawled toward the table. “Otto?” There was no answer. The shape didn’t move. It was him. Otto was dead. She reached her dog, pulled him into her lap, and started to sob, rocking back and forth. She’d killed her dog, her friend. Heather lifted her head and howled her sorrow with a voice that was more than human.

  Otto had been murdered, and she barely even remembered doing it. Tears cut through the blood on her cheeks. This was what Harbinger had warned her about. She was a monster. She hadn’t even changed physically, and she’d eaten her dog.

  The steps were audible a long way away. Harbinger walked softly by anyone’s standards, but each boot fall seemed like thunder in her ears. He stopped in the doorway. Her back was to him, but she didn’t need to turn to know that he had a gun pointed at her. “Heather?” he asked hesitantly, surely ready for her to leap up, with golden eyes and fangs to attack him, so he could mow her down without remorse. “Heather?”

  “I killed him,” she whispered.

  “What?” There was another step. A glass shard ground between his sole and the floor.

  “Otto. I killed Otto.” She held the cooling mass of blood-soaked fur tightly in her arms as she rocked back and forth. She’d pulled another one of his legs off. Had the evil part of her thought that was funny? “I killed him and I ate him.”

  The Hunter was quiet. Her mind’s eye could see the old gun at his shoulder as he lined the sights up on the back of her head. She’d never see it coming. She deserved it. But instead of putting her out of her misery, he said, “It was an accident. You reined it in quick. That’s a good thing.”

  “Shoot me, Harbinger.”

  “Only if I have to.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.” There was a metal-on-metal click as Harbinger put the safety on and a creak of a nylon strap as he set the weapon down. There were two more steps and then a gentle hand on her shoulder. His voice was soft. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  Chapter 18

  The memories are murky here. I’m missing days, and sometimes even weeks from this period. Rocky hurt me badly here.

  STFU had been working well together for several months when we were sent to operate out of an area known as Salem House. During this time we may or may not have hypothetically entered another country, like say . . . Cambodia, for example. We were inserted by a CH-3, which is a huge and very handy helicopter. All of this riding in helicopters for the last few months had convinced me that MHI really needed a chopper, and I promised myself that when I got home, I was going to buy us one.

  A long-range patrol had disappeared. It was believed to be the work of the mysterious Russian. Conover hoped to pin down if this Nikolai even existed, and if so, what he was and how we should best go about killing him.

  We found the remains of the patrol in short order. They’d been wiped out so fast that they hadn’t even tried to use the radio. Only two of them had time to fire their weapons. It hadn’t done them any good. I could smell the other werewolf everywhere. He’d left me a note, written on the back of a map and pinned to a dead soldier with his own bayonet.

  You kill mine. I kill yours. It is a game. Who is better? Let us find out, brother.

  —Nikolai

  That was the real beginning of our war.

  STFU ambushed a supply train the following day. We killed ten men. I left a note on the leader.

  Come out and face me like a man.

  Two days later we responded to a raid on a firebase. We were requested by name, which Conover found embarrassing for a unit that did not actually exist. Four men on guard duty had been killed silently, before the intruder had made it all the way to the center of the camp, where he’d left a note on the commanding officer’s cot. He’d taken the major’s head with him. Nobody else had heard a sound.

  Dear Mr. Wolf and Special Task Force Unicorn,

  You are not trying very hard to impress me. You can do better than this.

  —Nikolai

  The next night was the full moon. I informed Conover that there would be no need to dig a hole. I was going out alone. He pulled the task force inside the perimeter and issued silver bullets.

  * * *

  Saying that the bridge was out was an understatement. A better description would be that the bridge had been blown to bits. Though rusty, Stark knew his way around demolitions, and he could tell that whoever had taken out the bridge had not known what they were doing, so had made up for it with volume. A few well-placed small charges would have dumped the whole thing into the river. Instead it looked like one really big one had been set square in the middle and detonated. It had worked, though. Nobody would be driving across the scorched remains of that thing anytime soon.

  Agent Mosher thumped the steering wheel in frustration. This was the second bridge they’d checked. The first had been just as ruined. “Not again!”

  “At least there aren’t any bodies at this one,” Stark pointed out. There had been
a pair of snowmobiles abandoned at the last bridge. They’d gotten out to investigate and found where the riders had gone downstream a bit and attempted to cross the icy river at a low spot. The werewolves had picked them off on the far side. A few bloody limbs sticking out of the snow had been the only evidence. Stark checked his watch. They’d be covered by now, probably invisible until spring.

  There was one other route out, but Stark had no doubt that it, too, would be covered. Even sitting here, he could tell they were being watched. The trees were thick on each side of the road, surely crawling with werewolves. This was abnormal behavior. Werewolves never showed this kind of coordination or planning. Even the most organized packs the MCB had ever encountered hadn’t shown nearly this level of sophistication.

  “Maybe we should try to ford it. It doesn’t look too deep,” Mosher suggested.

  The kid’s desire to be the hero was coloring his judgment and making him stupid. “They’d like that, I bet. The river isn’t frozen solid enough yet to walk across. We don’t have wet suits. You fall in that water and you’re in trouble, trust me. And they’ll just be waiting on the other side to pounce, just like those assholes at the last place. Wet, freezing, you’re an easy target.”

  Agent Mosher cursed under his breath. It took a while to get the Suburban turned around. Plows weren’t running, and they’d be lucky to make it back to town without getting stuck. “Careful,” Stark ordered. If they got trapped out here, he knew that they were as good as werewolf chow. “Nice and easy.”

  “I can drive in this, sir. I’ll get us there. Map shows a third route,” Mosher said. “The next town is to the southwest, and it’s on the same side of the river, so no bridges. Let’s try that next.”

  Stark’s contrarian nature made him want to argue. They could easily get stuck or slide off the road, and then they could either walk out and get eaten by werewolves, or they could stay put in the Suburban until they ran out of gas to run the heater, in which case they could freeze to death or be eaten by werewolves. So he really didn’t have any other ideas.

  The drive was nerve-wracking. It was a black-and-white, wind-whipping, snow-hurling world outside their windshield. They passed a car abandoned on the side of the road. The doors were open, the interior filling with snow. There was no sign of the driver. Mosher knew better than to even ask about stopping to check. Slowly they made their way through the slippery countryside.

  They drove for half an hour. The silence was uncomfortable. Stark missed the constant chatter of the radio. He needed to make conversation. “So, Mosher, how’d you get recruited?”

  “Akkadian sand demon attacked my convoy heading out of Faluja.” Mosher laughed nervously as their rear end slipped, but they straightened out and managed not to end up in a ditch. “Though none of us knew what an Akkadian sand demon was at the time. We just thought of it as a giant skeleton-mummy that sand-blasted people to death. Turns out they’re all over the place in Iraq. Official story said we’d hit an IED. A couple of us survived, got recruited. How about you, sir?”

  “Deep Ones,” Stark said.

  “I hear fish people are nasty,” Mosher said. “We’ve been torpedoing their cities since, what, the Thirties?”

  “You don’t know the half of it.” As deepwater imaging had gotten better, every country that could afford subs had gone to work eradicating those vermin. They were down to hiding in tiny settlements off the coast, and the last of their cities were too deep to reach. “Scaly bastards climbed up a cruise ship, ate the men, kidnapped the women. I had just joined SEAL Team Two. We were nearby on a training mission. Small team got inserted by chopper before the sardines could escape. Smoked them all, saved a few hostages, but lost some good men.”

  “That’s too bad, sir,” Mosher said.

  It had worked out well for Stark’s career, though. Sam Haven had been the senior surviving SEAL on that op. Haven had not been pleased with Stark’s performance, even going so far as to accuse Stark of choking under pressure, but what did they expect? It wasn’t like Stark had gone in there knowing there were fish monsters laying their eggs in tourists. However, Chief Haven had been too honest for his own good, and fought with the MCB over the necessary eradication of the survivors. Haven had been drummed out of the Navy, and Stark had become the official hero of the moment. The rest was history.

  The last road out of Copper Lake was also history. Luckily, Stark realized what was going on before they drove into the kill zone. “Stop,” he ordered. Mosher complied immediately. Thankfully, the bright white of the snow gave enough contrast that he could make out the multiple vehicles parked ahead. A truck had been stopped across a narrow, low point in the road, completely blocking it. Some of the cars had tried to go around the truck skirting the forest and had promptly gotten stuck. No one was visible. “It’s a trap.”

  “Crap.” Mosher put it in reverse, looked over his shoulder, and sped them back the way they’d come. The first bullet pierced the windshield and center console between them. Other rounds struck the Suburban, hitting with loud metallic pings. “Ambush!”

  Stark couldn’t see where the sniper fire was coming from, but he could see the shadows moving between the trees, paralleling them. Werewolves. “Keep driving!” Stark ordered as he rolled down his window, picked up his SCAR-H, and fired the rifle out the window. The stock was still folded, so he didn’t hit anything, but it made the pursuing werewolves think twice, and they took cover.

  Mosher got them around the bend, and the incoming fire stopped. The junior agent did a three-point turn, cutting deep new ruts in the snow, while Stark scanned for threats. Don’t get stuck. Don’t get stuck. The werewolves had hunkered down and were just watching now, their mission accomplished.

  Stark swore and punched the dash. These things were everywhere.

  They were half a mile from the ambush before Mosher spoke. He was flushed with excitement. “We should stop here, try to cut through the forest on foot.”

  “Negative. I saw at least two werewolves moving, plus the shooter, who had to be in human form. That’s scary good coordination for these beasts. As thick as that forest is, in these conditions? We’d be dead in ten minutes and never even see them coming.”

  “We’ve got NVGs and thermal,” Mosher said.

  “And they’ve got a million years of evolution, and that—” Stark waved his hand at the frozen landscape outside the cracked windshield—“is their element. Stalking prey in the woods is what they do! Regulations say that facing lycanthropes in wooded environments requires at least a complete fire team.”

  “The next town is only a few clicks,” Mosher insisted. “I could run that in no time. Let me out, you head back to town and I’ll go for help.”

  And leave me alone? Oh, hell, no. The kid was brave but incredibly stupid. “Regulations say that we can’t split up.”

  Agent Stark wasn’t a coward. He’d done some remarkably brave things . . . when he was younger. This easy little job to earn some under-the-table PUFF had turned into a disaster, and he really didn’t feel like getting eaten for nothing. He’d been like Mosher once, full of piss and vinegar, but years of pushing paper in a soulless bureaucracy had sapped that youthful naïveté. He’d long ago accepted that he wasn’t a hero, he was a bureaucrat. The young guns like Mosher were the ones that got to risk their lives playing hero. Stark was management now.

  His young partner must have taken Stark’s lack of response as hesitation. “We need to do something. People are dying!”

  Stark sighed. He needed to take a different tack. Mosher was too earnest for his own good. “You’re right, Agent. And getting torn apart in the woods isn’t going to help them. Get us back to the hospital. We’ll do what you suggested earlier and protect these yokels.”

  He obviously didn’t like it, and they drove on in stony silence, but like all good MCB agents, Gaige Mosher knew how to obey orders.

  Earl Harbinger found himself in a tricky predicament. Normally he wouldn’t be too concerned being ar
ound someone newly turned into a werewolf. Worst-case scenario, they’d flip their lid and he’d have to deal with it with some good old-fashioned violence. But he was no longer in a position of strength. Before, if there was a sudden change, and he caught a surprise claw, he’d just tear the upstart’s head off and then heal up in short order. Now, if Heather wigged out on him, he’d probably be dead before he got his gun out. He wasn’t the king of the werewolves anymore. Now he was just another fragile human, and therefore he should do what any sensible human would do in his situation and promptly shoot her dead as soon as her back was turned. Instead, he found himself trying to comfort the distraught young woman turned killing machine because she was upset she’d eaten her dog.

  “I’m pretty sure Otto had already been shot before you got to him,” Earl explained. “I’m sure that’s what set you off. He probably never felt a thing.”

  Heather had managed to wipe off most of the blood, and she seemed relatively okay after spending the last ten minutes in the bathroom puking. She pushed past him and walked down the hall. “You think so?”

  “Sure. Otherwise he would’ve just run from you. Dogs are smart like that. Besides, don’t beat yourself up about it. The first time I changed I ate a family of five.”

  “That really doesn’t help.”