The Monster Hunters

  “Of course not,” Stark lied as he put his phone away. “That would be overkill. Our primary mission is to protect the population from monster attacks.”

  “Your primary mission is to contain the truth,” Earl said, knowing full well that the MCB was capable of massive overreactions. They’d destroyed population centers before to prevent various supernatural outbreaks. There had been one in Pennsylvania in the eighties, Texas in the forties, and even before there had been an MCB the government had burned a town in Wisconsin. America wasn’t the only one with that policy, either. No country would risk a major supernatural outbreak. Areas had been sterilized in Africa, India, Russia, and Europe, blamed on natural disasters or industrial accidents, and those were only the ones MHI knew about. These events were rare and ugly, but they beat the alternative. “We get this guy now and this op is locked down, Stark. There’s no need for these people to suffer any more than necessary.”

  “Blow up my hometown and I will totally beat your ass,” Heather said.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that, missy, but MCB sure isn’t done with you,” the agent growled. “You know what happens to confirmed werewolves. There’s going to be hell to pay—”

  Earl cut him off. “Stark.”

  “What?”

  “Another word, and I’ll kill you myself and tell Myers the werewolves got you.” Earl didn’t so much as blink as he let that sink in. Stark began to speak, then thought better of it and closed his mouth. Earl Harbinger had a certain reputation amongst the MCB, and even Stark wasn’t pigheaded enough to push him just then.

  Earl studied the faces around him. Heather was nervous but seemed predatorily eager. Being a werewolf had that effect on you. If she didn’t wig out and go insane on them, everything should be okay. Jason Lococo seemed calm, and despite having come from a crappy company was acting like a professional. Aino was a tough old coot who’d seemingly just tagged along for the ride, but his actions showed he was far more committed to defending his town than his words indicated. Stark was still a belligerent jerk, but he was MCB, and they could usually fight. Nikolai had already wandered off, probably arguing with the voices in his head. They were tired and out of their league. He would have traded them in a heartbeat for his regular team, but they’d have to do.

  “All right, everyone. Listen up. We can do this. We’re going to beat this asshole.”

  “You giving a motivational speech?” Aino asked incredulously.

  “Damn straight. I always do. . . . We’re going to get that stinking amulet, and we’re going to cure Heather. If you get scared, keep going. They’re werewolves, and they’re scary, but they die, just like everything else. Remember, this is your turf. He came here. He started it. He hurt your people. And there’s a bunch of folks counting on us back there. We will not let them down. All of you lost someone today—friends, teammates, partners. We’re going to get him before he gets away and does this again somewhere else. Now it’s his turn to lose. It’s his turn to hurt. It’s his turn to fucking die.”

  Earl took the time to look each of them square in the eye. He’d learned a thing or two about leadership over the years, and he could usually tell the measure of a man by looking in his eyes. Whether it was one of his Hunters or a soldier in a trench in France, Earl Harbinger could always see a warrior’s heart, and though here it was either too new, too old, too inexperienced, or atrophied by bureaucracy, they were what he had. They’re scared, but they’ll do.

  “Good hunting. Move out.”

  Chapter 31

  “They’re here,” the Alpha said. “Wake your diggers. Get ready.”

  Lucinda moved to the window. The sun was just peeking over the mountains. There was nothing moving out there except for one member of the pack, in human form, pacing near the gate. “Who? Where?”

  He didn’t know who. The smells were confusing. Petrov was one of them, the female was another. There were some humans . . . and something confusing. It was Harbinger, but not. The not-Harbinger was what annoyed him. You shouldn’t be able to smell a ghost.

  “Get away from the window.” He took the young witch by the arm and firmly pulled her back. The last thing he wanted was for a sniper to put a bullet in her. Then he’d be stuck walking. “I need you alive.”

  “Well, thank you. I’m rather fond of you, too.” Lucinda’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

  “You know what I mean.” The witch’s portal magic was their primary escape route. “Secure my father. I’m not done with him yet. Be careful. He’s a tricky one. Get to the bottom and wait for me. I’ll meet you at the elevator shaft.” His hand unconsciously moved to the amulet. “This shouldn’t take long.”

  Outside, the patrolling werewolf’s head opened and tossed out brains. He dropped, cleanly killed. The sound of the rifle shot arrived a moment later.

  It had been much more difficult making it back up the ridge with all his weapons, but Earl figured if you were going to bring them, you might as well have some fun with them. He’d made Jason lug the heavy stuff. Being the boss had its benefits.

  He watched as the first werewolf fell through his Zeiss scope. Headshot, asshole. Though he was right-handed, and the bolt-action was set up for right-hand use, Earl shot left-handed when he was prone and using a bipod. That way he didn’t have to break his firing grip or cheek weld against the stock as his right hand quickly lifted the bolt, yanked it back, forward, and back down. It was much faster that way. A spent .300 Winchester magnum brass case was ejected and a fresh round fed smoothly into the chamber. Next.

  He picked up the second sentry. The werewolf was beginning to move, having just smelled the spilled blood of his pack-mate. The Zeiss was pre-zeroed for this load, and Earl settled the 300-yard stadia line on the werewolf’s chest. The target was moving, so might as well aim for the biggest part. There was no wind to compensate for. Earl exhaled as he tracked his target.

  The trigger broke clean. The heavy G.A. Precision bolt-action rifle barely rocked on its bipod. Earl reacquired his target through the scope before the impact. He watched the werewolf shudder as 168 grains of lead and silver pierced his torso. The werewolf stumbled but kept running. Tough guy, huh? Earl worked the bolt.

  Julie was the team sharpshooter, since the girl just had a remarkable natural talent for putting bullets into very small things, very far away, very quickly, but Earl had been the one who had originally taught her how to shoot, and he was no slouch himself. Gotcha. The werewolf was running directly away now. The reticle swayed across the target’s back.

  He exhaled again as his left finger tightened on the trigger. Earl always shot on the respiratory pause.

  CRACK.

  This time the bullet hit the werewolf square between the shoulder-blades. He spilled forward in a tumble of snow and blood.

  Earl looked up from his scope. The mine facility had seemingly come alive with movement. Just like kicking an anthill. He smiled, because there was nothing more rewarding than a target-rich environment. There was a flash of movement from below as Nikolai and Heather sprinted through the trees. “What are you waiting for?” Earl shouted at the others. “Give ’em hell!”

  This is more like it.

  Nikolai could sense the Tvar’s pleasure. To the Tvar, it didn’t matter who they were hunting, just as long as they were on the hunt. The beast’s emotions always seemed to bleed across the lines into his own emotions when it was excited, making it hard to tell who was feeling what. So Nikolai also thrilled to the drama of the hunt. It was intoxicating.

  Still in human form, he sped between the trees. The deep snow was nothing to him. Gravity was on his side. Leaping, he moved with incredible speed toward his objective. Faster and faster, he dodged around trees, under branches, and launched himself over logs. Somehow the young female was keeping up. She should have wrapped herself around a tree by now. Even the Tvar was impressed by her performance.

  She does not move like a pup.

  And she knocked the sense out of us when you threatened he
r earlier, Nikolai reminded both parts of himself. She was not to be underestimated again. One last jump, branches tearing at his arms, and they were in the open, over the road leading to the front gate. An enemy was caught, surprised and in human form, in the clearing.

  But can she do this?

  Still airborne, Nikolai aimed his carbine. The Val spat and hissed as the suppressor absorbed the muzzle blast. The burst stitched across the enemy werewolf’s abdomen and chest, sending him reeling back. Nikolai landed, sliding through the snow, and struck the inferior creature aside with the butt of his weapon. Two more bullets splattered its head into bits before it could even begin to arise.

  His lips pulled back in a grin of semi-elongated canines, and a gush of steam poured out. Nikolai was in his element.

  Down.

  Tvar sensed danger first. There was another enemy closing. Nikolai dove aside as a bullet passed through the air above. He rolled, and came up ready to fire. The enemy was a black shape coming through the trees. There was a flash of gray and he was gone.

  Nikolai blinked. The female had hit the enemy so hard and fast it was as if he had just vaporized. They landed some distance away, a tangle of flailing limbs. Kerkonen got up, grabbed the enemy by the neck, and hurled him into an ancient tree. The wood cracked with a noise audible across the entire clearing. Limbs broken, the werewolf slid down the trunk. Kerkonen approached her fallen antagonist as she freed the shotgun slung over her back. She shouldered the weapon and shot him, once, twice, three times. Satisfied that he was dead, she turned toward Nikolai and gave him a very American thumbs-up signal.

  That girl is not normal.

  “No. She’s certainly not.”

  Sexy, though. I’d mate that.

  For all its flaws, the Tvar was a remarkably straightforward thing. “Mission first.” Nikolai ran for the gate.

  The ground underfoot rumbled. Earthquake. Nikolai lost his balance and fell as the earth suddenly ruptured. Snow flew into the air between the metal posts of the main gate. A square block of rusting metal was thrust into the sky. Three spikes extended from the end. The block crashed down, scrambling for purchase as ungainly limbs stretched behind it. A giant creature was leveraging itself out of the ground.

  Burrower!

  Despite never having seen one before, Nikolai recognized the creature from his training. They were minions of the Old Ones. According to the KGB analysts, despite their fearsome appearance, they were not supposed to be that tough. He lowered the VAL and fired as he charged. The 9x39 rounds sparked off the monster’s armor or tore hunks of stinking green meat from its hide. He would wrench its featureless head from its body. At the edge of the hole, Nikolai leapt for the monster’s neck.

  One metal claw swatted him across the clearing. The air erupted from Nikolai’s lungs as he tumbled through the branches. He hit the trunk of a tree and fell, crashing, face first into the snow.

  It appears the briefings were mistaken.

  “What the hell is that?”

  Earl finished shooting the leg out from another werewolf before he looked up to see what Aino was shouting about. A bubble had formed in the road at the gate. The bulge split, and a monster came crawling out. It was one of the Old Ones’ things from the supermarket. Nikolai ran at the monster and got smacked across the road.

  “That’s the thing that ate Jo,” Jason said.

  Stark aimed his .308 SCAR at the monster and started popping off rounds. Jason and Aino followed suit. It was a noble effort, but Earl knew how tough these things were. Small-arms fire wasn’t going to be enough. “The Gustav! Bring me the big one!” Earl popped up from behind his rifle. “Hurry.”

  Jason lumbered over with the Carl Gustav Recoilless. Earl took the tube from him, flipped the latch, and hinged open the breach. It was far more effective to run these in two-man teams, one gunner, one loader, but there hadn’t been time to train anybody. “And the case. Hurry.”

  He hadn’t brought much on the trip. Each round of 84mm ammunition took up a lot of space. Jason hauled the Cordura case over and flipped it open. Earl picked a High-Explosive-Anti-Tank, slid it in, and locked the breach behind it. He took a knee and threw the Gustav over his shoulder. “Get back!” he warned. True to its name, the recoil wasn’t bad, but the blast was a real bitch. Military regulation limited the number of rounds a soldier could shoot through one of these things daily because they were worried about the damage it could do to your internal organs.

  He found the creature in the scope. It was fully out of the hole and striding toward Heather. He just hoped the girl had the sense to get out of the way. Its curious, eyeless head was bobbing back and forth as folds of empty skin spilled and bounced from every unarmored joint. Earl braced himself and fired. The concussion shook the entire ridge.

  His aim was true. The round struck the Old Ones’ minion in the midsection. It disappeared in a explosive flash. The HEAT round was meant for taking out armored vehicles. Nothing living, short of maybe a dragon, was going to survive that.

  Earl watched through the 3X magnification of the Gustav’s scope. It was raining meat in the clearing. Come on, Heather. Where are you? As the smoke and dust settled, he could see that the monster’s torso had been ripped open right through its armor and green liquefied guts had been sprayed everywhere. It was toast, but there was no sign of Heather. . . . There. Heather was alive and picking herself up out of the snow.

  A bullet whizzed past his head. The werewolves were returning fire from the two-story building at the entrance. It would be difficult for them to aim directly into the sun, but throw enough bullets and they were bound to hit somebody. “I’m done screwing around.” Earl tilted the Gustav so he could pop the breach, but there was a tug that stopped him.

  “Got you,” Stark said as he pulled out the empty shell. The weapon rang like a bell.

  So Stark wasn’t totally useless. He knew how to act as a loader. “Bunker buster,” Earl ordered without looking.

  “H-E-D-P,” Stark responded as he shoved the shell in and locked the breach behind. He slapped Earl on the shoulder to indicate they were ready, then retreated to keep from getting his eardrums busted. “Go!”

  Earl centered the crosshairs on the office building. Though solid looking, it appeared to made of wood and brick. The bunker-buster round had been designed to demolish reinforced concrete, so even though there wasn’t any silver involved, this wasn’t going to be pretty for the werewolves inside. Earl fired.

  The 84mm round hit the front wall, penetrated, and detonated inside a fraction of a second later. Half the building was instantly turned into splinters and brick dust. Ten seconds later the rest of the structure collapsed with an epic groan.

  “Best damn thing to ever come out of Sweden not involving bikinis!” Earl shouted.

  As Stark ran up and popped the breach, Earl scanned the facility. Heather was picking Nikolai out of a tree. Injured werewolves were moving in the wreckage and in the equipment yard behind it. He only had a few rounds left for the Gustav, but one of those rounds had been specially loaded with six hundred and sixty-six silver ball bearings, because in addition to being a mad genius, Milo also had a sense of humor. “Gimme the Demonsterfier.”

  Stark yanked the spent shell out. Pong.

  “De-monster . . . what?”

  “The red one,” Earl growled.

  “Are you okay?” Heather asked Nikolai.

  “Fine,” he said, brushing her hands away. “No need to be concerned.”

  There was a bone sticking out of his arm, the jagged edge had ripped through his coat. “But—”

  Nikolai grabbed it with his good hand and wrenched it back into place. It made a sick crack. “See? Insignificant,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Heather was still not used to the unnatural toughness aspects of her condition. “The way’s clear. Harbinger blew up the—”

  Suddenly, Nikolai shoved her onto her back.

  He’s going to kill me. But then, before she could react, she
heard the high-pitched whistle overhead. The shell air-burst in a black cloud over the mine. There was a sound like ten million angry bees and a horrendous rattle of impacts. Then the werewolves began to scream.

  “Hunters . . . always with a trick up their sleeves. Come. We’re clear.” Nikolai got to his feet and plucked his tubular rifle out of the snow. “What are you waiting for?”

  “Just catching my breath,” Heather said.

  “You don’t need to catch your breath anymore. That’s your human psychology making you inefficient. Come.” Nikolai extended a hand to help her up. Heather hesitated. Nikolai seemed relatively sane at the moment, so she took the offered hand. He pulled her upright. “Thinking like you’re still human will get you killed.”

  “I’ll be human again.”

  Nikolai laughed mirthlessly. “I’ll believe that when I see it. Why would you want to, anyway?”

  “It’s a curse.” This sanctimonious prick was really ticking her off. “Wouldn’t you give it up if you could?”

  “Of course . . . not . . .” Nikolai stopped, bewildered, then shook his head. “Enough. We’re wasting time.” He ran toward the screaming.

  Since her best bet at salvation meant following the murderous lunatic, Heather followed, the ice crunching between her bare toes.

  The facility was clear, seemingly free of targets. The remaining werewolves had taken cover indoors. There was no sign of the Alpha or the other burrowing monster. There was movement as Heather and Nikolai cleared the gates. They had to keep up the pressure.

  “Move out!” Earl shouted. There was one HEAT round left for the Gustav. “Jason, sling this.” The Briarwood Hunter took the tube and threw it over his shoulder. In Jason’s other hand was one of the SCAR rifles they’d scrounged from Stark’s Suburban. Visible heat waves were rising from its barrel. Stark had the other SCAR, and Aino was still using his old lever-action .30-30. “Aino, take my bolt gun. You need something that shoots silver bullets.” Earl tossed the old miner his last magazine.