The Monster Hunters

  “Bulky thing,” Aino grunted when he picked up the rifle.

  “You want to kill them, or just piss them off?” Earl asked rhetorically as he retrieved his Thompson in one hand and Aksel’s Mosin in the other. “Everyone on me.” He ordered and he stepped over the edge. The slope was pretty steep, and it would have made a really good sledding hill. It was a fast slide-roll-run to the base. He managed to make it all the way to the bottom mostly upright. He took up a defensive position and waited for the others to catch up.

  There was shooting coming from the mine. Heather was in danger. He almost set off immediately, but stopped himself. Get your head right. These men needed him. Heather could take care of herself. She was, after all, physically tougher than he was now. His team was going to give him a never-ending ration of shit about this. The first time he takes a vacation day in forever, a town gets slaughtered, some terrible artifact gets unearthed, he gets cured of lycanthropy, and finds a lady friend who unfortunately happens to be a really odd werewolf. . . . It was sad that taking a day off could be more interesting than an average day of monster hunting.

  One by one the others slid in behind him. Nobody seemed to have broken anything. Earl set off at the fastest pace he could, which, considering the terrain and everyone’s ragged condition, wasn’t saying much. Stark was walking with a limp, having twisted his leg earlier. Aino was old. Jason had lost a lot of blood earlier. They weren’t going to win any awards for being pretty.

  They’d made it halfway when something began to beep.

  Stark stopped and began to claw wildly at a pouch on his armor. “My phone!”

  Earl signaled a halt. Aino looked like he needed it. He was in good shape for his age, but that age was sufficient to collect Social Security, and his face was red from the exertion. Jason seemed to be hanging in there, though he was walking a little funny, like his side was hurting.

  The phone came out. “Headquarters!” Stark said, out of breath. “Yes! This is Stark . . . Wait. I can barely hear you. We’ve got an emergency. Code Delta-Delta-Five-Niner-Five. You’re breaking up.”

  Earl glanced around the woods. Splitting up was a risk, but they didn’t have time to stop, and Copper Lake needed reinforcements. “Stark! Just men. No carpet bombing. You hear me?” The agent quickly nodded and held up his hand for silence. “Aino, stay with Stark.” The old man nodded thankfully, then leaned the G.A. Precision rifle on a tree so he could put his hands on his knees and hang his head to try to catch his breath.

  “Jason, you’re on me.” With the slowest two left behind, Earl picked up the pace. Sweat was rolling down the inside of his armor but freezing solid on his face.

  They made it another hundred yards before Jason spoke up. The fence was visible just ahead. “Mr. Harbinger?”

  “Just Earl. What?”

  He seemed embarrassed. “If I don’t make it, I’ve got a family to support. See . . . I’ve done some stupid things in my life. It’s hard to make an honest living once you’ve got a record. I used to fight, you know, for money, until this one kid nearly killed me, broke my skull and popped my eye. When Horst offered me this job . . . Well, I don’t care about being a hero or nothing like that. I’m doing this for my little girl. What I’m trying to say is, if there’s any PUFF . . .”

  “You’ve got no time for doubts. Just know that if anything happens, your family will be covered. Just like I’d do for any of my Hunters.”

  Jason summoned up his courage. “Give your word.”

  That stopped him. Earl Harbinger wasn’t used to anyone questioning his integrity. “All right. I swear to you that if you don’t make it, I’ll make sure your family is taken care of forever. You have any idea how many orphans I’ve sent to college? How many houses I’ve bought? I’ve lost hundreds of men, but people still keep signing up, so what do you think I’m going to do?”

  Jason looked down sheepishly. “Sorry . . . Just that the last bunch I worked for . . .”

  Earl had to reach up to clap him on the shoulder. “Was a bunch of shady cut-rate bastards. I’m MHI. So pull your head out of your ass and get it back in the game. Focus, and you won’t have to find out how good the death benefits are.”

  Chapter 32

  The Alpha threw open the doors of Number Six and walked into the sunlight. His senses were overloaded. The air tasted of dust and blood. The pack was being slaughtered. He could feel their pain as the silver seared their wounds. A nearby building was burning. Orange sparks were rising through the black smoke as the beams crackled and broke. And behind all that chaos was the challenge. The amulet was eager. It had been waiting for this moment for thousands of years.

  He spread his arms wide. “Here I am! Face me!”

  There was a disturbance in the smoke, a whirl of air, imperceptible to any lesser being. The Alpha turned with just a hint of a smile on his face.

  Nikolai Petrov leapt through the fire, descending toward the Alpha.

  Almost as if the world were in slow motion, he watched the bullets, like fat silver slugs that he could reach out and snatch from the air. He moved aside as they cracked into the steps where he had been standing. The Alpha was so aware that he could watch the action of Nikolai’s rifle move back and forth and see every clean bit of brass glinting in the sunlight. Nikolai’s eyes widened as he descended, because to him it would have appeared as if the Alpha had just disappeared.

  The Alpha casually reached out, caught an ankle, and pulled. The lesser werewolf hit the steps with a meaty thud. The Alpha lifted him effortlessly and hurled him against the wall. Corrugated metal collapsed around Nikolai.

  “Well, well, well . . . Comrade Nikolai Petrov, scourge of the steppes, Stalin’s favorite werewolf, the ghost of Koh Valley. Killer of man, woman, and child. It’s a real pleasure to meet you in person. You’ve got no idea how much I’ve heard about you over the years. According to my mom, you were a cross between Freddy Krueger and the Boogeyman. I’ll admit I’m a little disappointed. You don’t seem to live up to the hype.”

  Nikolai coughed as he dislodged himself from the wall. He stumbled but caught himself on a piece of scaffolding. “I’ve come to challenge you.”

  The Alpha laughed. “I’ve been waiting.”

  Nikolai spit a mouthful of blood onto the concrete. “You killed my Lila.”

  “Was that her name? I forgot. Tough girl. It took her forever to die. She was a screamer, though. I never thought she’d shut up. That’s why I pulled her tongue out, in case you were wondering.”

  Nikolai charged. The Alpha let him come. Fists flew. The Alpha just moved around them. It was amusing to watch the effort. It was like a petulant child trying to lash out at its parents. He could smell Nikolai’s fury, his desperation, but under that was a hint of fear, and as none of the blows landed, the fear grew. It was delicious. He decided to see if he could taste more of that.

  He struck Nikolai down. Bones cracked against the pavement. The Alpha stepped back and casually removed his hat. He carefully hung it on the end of the handrail. The hat had been a Christmas gift from his mother. His overcoat followed, and he was careful not to wrinkle it as he hung the items over the railing. “You want a challenge? Let’s do this right. I’ll give you time to get ready.”

  The shotgun blast hit him at the base of his spine. The silver burned briefly before his hyper-regeneration shoved the buckshot pellets out of his flesh. He turned to see the new female werewolf, twenty yards away, pumping her shotgun.

  “Nice poncho, Rambo.”

  She pulled the trigger again, so he moved from the path of the spreading silver cloud. Taking the warm shotgun barrel in one hand, he ripped it away from her. The look on her pretty face told him she hadn’t seen that coming. “I’ll deal with you in a second.” He took the shotgun in both hands and struck her with it like it was a baseball bat. The wooden stock shattered, and the female went bouncing across the ground.

  He tossed the now-bent shotgun aside. “Where were we, Petrov? Oh, yeah. You were challenging
my supremacy.”

  The Russian was transforming, bones twisting, skin stretching. The Alpha calmly removed his ruined shirt, kicked off his shoes, and waited. Nikolai’s change only took half a minute, but to the Alpha it seemed to drag on forever. His challenger’s body needed to burn its own energy to fuel the transformation. The Alpha knew that the amulet would fuel his instantly.

  Nikolai was ready. He rose, snarling, filled with fury. The Alpha had to admit that before he’d found the amulet, he would have thought of Nikolai as an impressive, even fearsome specimen of the lycanthropic species. A century old, hardened by wars, torture, and driven mad by insatiable bloodlust, Nikolai should have been terrifying.

  But not anymore. The Alpha didn’t even bother to change. He yawned theatrically. “You’re not even worth my time.”

  Nikolai hurled himself at the Alpha.

  Stark was pacing back and forth. MCB headquarters was barely audible. He thought it sounded like Agent Archer on the other end, but he had one flickering bar, so it was really hard to tell.

  “Copper Lake, Michigan. Werewolves, damn it. Hundreds of werewolves!” he shouted.

  Buzz-crackle. “—wolves? Status of—” Hiss-pop.

  “Shit!” Stark kicked a tree. Sadly, that just caused a cascading chain reaction of cold snow to break loose from the upper branches to fall on him. A nasty bunch of ice managed to go down the back of his collar, slide down the inside of his shirt, and lodge in his underwear. “The status is FUBAR!”

  The bitter old immigrant had gone off to the side and found a log to sit on. He seemed to be deep in thought.

  “—rk.” The static was unbearable. Stark had no idea what the agent on the other end had heard so far. “—for extraction?”

  “Huh? I can’t hear you. Mosher is dead. Most of the town’s dead. I need help now.” He remembered Harbinger’s warning, but it had been unnecessary. Stark didn’t want the MCB to have the Air Force bombing the place until he was out of here himself. After that? Screw them. But not before he was safely on a flight home. “I need reinforcements. No bombing.”

  Crackle-buzz. “Request bombing? Please veri—” And then nothing.

  Stark screamed in frustration. “No! No bomb!” But the call had dropped. He hit the speed dial for headquarters and then wildly waved the phone overhead like it was a magic talisman that could ward off evil. “I lost my connection!”

  “Connection . . .” Aino muttered. “Huh . . . I just thought of something.” He pulled the old Finnish journal out of his coat and flipped to the end. It was a good thing no werewolves came up on them at that moment, since Stark was running in circles trying to get a signal while Aino buried his nose in a book.

  “Well . . . this sucks.” Agent Stark gave up and took a seat on the log next to his only remaining companion. For all he knew, everyone else was dead.

  Aino closed the book. “I just figured something out. They’re gonna do it wrong. We’ve got to warn them.”

  “Probably too late,” Stark said. “We need to get out of here before my people blow us all up.”

  “No,” Aino stated with grim determination. “Come on. We can still catch Earl. If I don’t, Heather’s going to die. I know why she’s different than the others.”

  Stark just shook his head. They were screwed either way. It was a little overwhelming. He hadn’t been this tired since BUD/S, and he’d been a lot younger and had actually given a damn back then. He should have been at home, sleeping in his warm bed. He should have caught his daughter’s concert, even if it would have been terrible. He never should have tried to game the system to score PUFF money, and now he was going to die for it. . . . Oh well. Being nuked sure did beat having fish monsters lay their eggs in you, so it could always be worse.

  “Mr. Stark,” Aino pleaded. “I need you to watch my back. We have to reach them. The spell is all wrong. Aksel figured that out afterward. . . . Come on! Get up. I shoulda died a long time ago, buried in that mine right over there. Only Aksel Kerkonen risked his life to drag me out. I owe him, and I never paid him back. So now I owe his grandkid. She’s a good girl, and she’s about to lose her soul if we don’t go get them.”

  Stark just sighed. He hadn’t really been listening to the old hillbilly’s blathering. Instead he’d just realized that being nuked was only better if you were close to the impact area. Otherwise it meant a lingering death from radiation poisoning. Bummer.

  Aino tried a different tact. “You want to reach your pals?”

  “Obviously.”

  “I know where you’d probably get great reception.” Aino pointed through the trees at the tallest thing in view. Stark followed his finger to the top of Number Six.

  Heather was facedown in the snow. She rolled over and blinked up at the light. Her red hair was spread in a halo around her aching head. Her ears were ringing. She reached up in time to feel the skin crawling closed over a gash in her skull. Her fingers came away covered in blood.

  “Why, you . . .” Heather sat up. The dizziness was passing as the bones of her skull fused back together. “Dirty, miserable . . .” She let the anger free, and it washed away the rest of the pain. “Horrible, awful, worthless son of a bitch!”

  Her Winchester was there on the ground. The stock was broken and the barrel was bent into an L, but she wouldn’t have picked it up even if it was still in working order. She was going to rip this bastard apart with her bare hands.

  Nikolai had changed completely. She’d never seen his werewolf, but she had no problem recognizing him. His hair was dark, his form sleek. The power, speed, and ferocity was apparent, but it wasn’t doing him a lick of good against the Alpha.

  The Alpha was still in human form. He’d stripped to the waist and seemed to be enjoying himself while easily avoiding Nikolai’s rending claws and snapping jaws. It was as if he’d appear, then move so quickly that he just reappeared in another place. Heather blinked, but it wasn’t her head injury that was causing that effect. He was just that fast.

  One human hand caught Nikolai’s wrist and wrenched it back until it snapped. The Alpha’s foot lashed out and caught Nikolai’s ankle. Heather cringed as bones shattered. Nikolai fell, held up only by the Alpha’s whim. He tried to bite the Alpha, but the man just punched Nikolai in the chest hard enough to leave a dent. Blood sprayed from between Nikolai’s jaws as he hit the ground.

  Nikolai lay there, gasping, as his chest gradually reinflated. The Alpha turned to her with a confident smile. “Hi. I’m surprised to see you back up and around already. But you’re something special. I can see that . . . You’re very special.” Heather’s knees turned to water. She felt dizzy and flushed. The Alpha’s voice was so soothing.

  “I can smell it in your blood. You’re something different. You’ve got a birthright, too. Just like me, but you’re not the challenge, either. What’s your name?”

  “Go fu . . . fu . . .” She couldn’t finish the insult. She was just too tired. Her eyelids weighed a hundred pounds each. She just wanted to curl up someplace warm and go to sleep.

  “What’s your name?” he asked again.

  Heather wanted nothing more than to make him happy. He was simply beautiful, the most beautiful thing in the world. It was understandable now why his followers were so fanatical. He was beautiful, and he wore the moon around his neck. The Alpha was positively radiant.

  And that radiance had murdered half her town . . . .

  The anger came boiling back, and the heat of it burned away the haze. Rage was her anchor. He was trying to hypnotize her. Hell with that. “My name’s Deputy Heather Kerkonen of the Copper County Sheriff’s Department. But you”—she spread her arms as she felt the rage turn into strength; she uncurled her fists as her fingers stretched into knives—“you can call me death.” She screamed as she rushed him.

  “Nice!” the Alpha said. One hand shot out and hit her right in the throat. She slashed his arm, but he didn’t seem to notice. His fingers crushed off her air. “Cheesy line, but a good try. Fiery.
I like that! I’ve got a way with the opposite sex. You can say it runs in the family. So it’s been a long time since I’ve had a woman resist me like that. I’m going to enjoy our time together.”

  Heather thrashed, but he was far too strong. He flipped her around and dragged her in tight. Her back was pressed against his chest. His nose pressed against her hair as he drank in her smell. Blood was leaking from his arms where her nails sliced, but the Alpha didn’t seem to care. “Ahh . . . I understand now. So that’s why you’re so different from my other new children. Your grandfather took something with him when he touched the amulet. A little bit of the forerunner’s spirit joined his. He must have passed it on to you.”

  Heather could sense the truth in the Alpha’s words as she thrashed and tried to break free.

  “I see now . . . You’re his heir. The forerunner’s essence is in your veins. That’s why you’re so in control. You’ve been prepared for this your whole life—just another thief from a line of thieves. Good thing I came along to take that essence back.”

  Sensing his distraction, she responded like she’d been trained. She threw an elbow into his ribs, then kicked her heel into his groin. At least that seemed to catch his attention long enough for her roll forward to toss him over her shoulder.

  The Alpha hit the ground as Heather backed away. “You’re a monster!” The change was on her now. It didn’t even hurt this time. She tried to shout something else, but it came out as an inarticulate growl past her sharpening teeth. She nearly tripped over Nikolai, who was coming to and looked ready to get back into the fight. Maybe the two of them together might have a chance.

  “I’m a monster?” the Alpha laughed as he stood up. “Look who’s talking, babe. You want a monster. I’ll show you a real monster.”

  The humming noise that Harbinger said was the moon multiplied a hundredfold, only it wasn’t in orbit. It was ten feet away and closing. She covered her ears and screamed. Nikolai howled. The Alpha seemed to shimmer with heat. The snow around his feet instantly turned to water; then the puddles turned to steam. His skin bubbled and stretched, before it ripped open, revealing tufts of hair.