The Monster Hunters

  If he could only see me now, Stark thought as he jogged through the burning debris. A bleeding werewolf tumbled out of a smoky corner. Stark bellowed as he shot the werewolf half a dozen times. Another one came out, dragging a leg nearly severed by silver shrapnel. Stark gunned it down, too.

  “There! Look over there!” Aino shouted.

  Another one of those big underground floppy-skinned monstrosities was chasing the last Briarwood Hunter between some of the parked equipment. Jason saw them, ducked under the bed of a dump truck and sprinted their way. He was holding Harbinger’s Thompson, which was a good sign, because maybe that meant the scary bastard had gotten eaten.

  Unfortunately, the monster began climbing over the dump truck in pursuit. “Don’t run this way! The other way!” Stark shouted, but it wasn’t doing any good. The idiot was going to lead that thing right to them. “Damn it.”

  Jason was soaked in sweat and gasping for air. Blood was running freely from the bandage on his head, and the side of his coat was stained red. Apparently the monster had managed to hit him at least once. “I’m almost out of ammo,” he gasped.

  “Did you lose my gun? Because that was an issue gun.” There was a form for that, and Stark hated paperwork. Except the monster was lumbering toward them, so paperwork could wait. He shouldered his SCAR and started shooting.

  Jason fired his last few rounds. The bullets hit, but the monster didn’t seem to notice. Its head kept bobbing along. The giant mouth slit was hanging slightly open. Its skin was pocked with dozens of bleeding green bullet wounds. Jason dropped the Thompson and picked up a board. One end of which was on fire. “I’ll hold him!” The big man bellowed as he charged the creature.

  Now, that was brave. Stark had already gone through twenty rounds and not made a dent in the thing. He dropped the mag and pulled another from his armor while Jason ran right up and smacked the monster in the leg. The flaming board broke into sparks and ashes, but the creature didn’t so much as flinch. Jason backed away as the creature raised its two metal hands.

  “Big man! Catch!” Aino shouted. Stark was surprised to look over and see the grizzled old man holding a lit stick of dynamite. He threw it at Jason, who, remarkably enough, reached out and caught it in one hand.

  “Where’d you get that?” Stark asked.

  “Been carrying it around all night. ’Bout time I got to use it.”

  Jason stood his ground, face grim, as the fuse burned down. The creature reached down and grabbed him around the shoulders. Jason’s feet left the ground as the horrible gaping mouth opened wide to swallow him whole. He didn’t so much as make a sound as he was shoved headfirst down the thing’s throat. The skin bag stretched as the Hunter fell inside.

  “That is sick and wrong,” Stark said.

  The monster turned toward them, the pouch on the front bulging and swinging. It took a step forward, then stopped. The head kept bobbing, like it was thinking about something. A green point appeared in the middle of the sack; then it turned into a straight green line as a knife blade sliced cleanly through the skin from the inside. The monster opened its mouth to throw Jason up, but it was already too late.

  The incision was three feet long by the time Jason’s arm and head fell out. The gasping Hunter and a massive pile of slime spilled into the snow. Jason wasted no time as he sprang to his feet and ran for his life. He’d made it ten feet when the dynamite he’d left behind went off. It wasn’t as big of a boom as Stark had hoped for, but it blasted green internal organs six feet in every direction. The blob of a head tilted crazily to the side before the whole monster sank gradually to the ground, flopped over, and lay still.

  “That wasn’t very big.”

  “I only had the one stick. Big man! You okay?”

  Jason stumbled over to them. He was covered in goo, and so dizzy he could barely walk. He sank to his knees in front of Stark and held out his hand. Under all the slime was a knife. It looked familiar. Just like Stark’s SOG knife. Automatically, he reached for the sheath on his armor, but it was empty. “Hey . . . How’d you get that?”

  “You lost it sliding down the hill,” Jason said. “You can have it back now.”

  The Hunter had gotten a lot more use out of it than prying open soda machines. Stark looked at the nasty, stinky mess, and said, “Naw. That’s okay. You keep it. I’ve got to try and signal help before they bomb the shit out of us.”

  “Cool. Gonna rest now. . . .” Jason fell over and hit the ground with a dull thud. “You guys go do what you gotta do.”

  The man was brave, no doubt about that. That kind of gumption would have gotten him far in the MCB. He looked like he was probably going to die, but he’d managed to kick some ass in the process. He’d already lost one hard-charger today. Stark tried to remember back to his training. . . . Something about an obscure creature like this had been talked about in medical. That slime . . . Stark opened the med-kit on his armor and began rummaging around until he found a labeled injector. He gave the Hunter the shot and hoped that he was remembering right.

  Stark checked his phone. Still no signal. He looked to the top of Number Six. It was his turn to be the hero. “I’ve got to go.”

  Aino handed him Harbinger’s sniper rifle. “Just in case you see any more werewolves.”

  Jason Lococo was mumbling, staring into the distance. “Not so bad . . .”

  Chapter 34

  The Alpha was climbing up the elevator shaft. Nikolai could tell that the devil-wolf was fully healed, because that strange draining sensation had tapered off. The Alpha no longer needed the extra energy. When he reappeared, he would be virtually invincible.

  Nikolai stopped to watch from the catwalk. He placed his filthy yet all-too-human hands on the metal to balance himself, since the world hadn’t stopped spinning since he’d changed back. Harbinger and Kerkonen were below, ready to face their doom with open eyes. Now he needed to decide if he was going to die with them or not.

  Flee?

  “For what?”

  Tvar was silent for a long time. To survive.

  “Is that all there is to life?”

  I do not know.

  “Why not?”

  Because I am you, and you do not know.

  Nikolai was weakened. The Alpha had easily destroyed him just moments ago. To face him again was suicide.

  You were willing to commit suicide earlier to stop me from taking control.

  It was true. Losing himself had been more frightening than death. Death held no mysteries. Nikolai believed in nothing. The institutions he’d believed in as an adult had been a sham, and he had no faith in the tales of his fathers. There was no happy afterlife for him, no god to judge him, no eternal resting place to lay his weary head.

  Bleak but poetic.

  “I come from a bleak but poetic people. What would you have us do? Fight and die, or run as cowards.”

  You are . . . asking me?

  “Why not? I’m tired of the struggle. I’m tired of not owning my own head. I’m just . . . tired.”

  The Tvar seemed to think about it for a long time. The Alpha let loose a howl of rage so intense that it felt as if the entire building would collapse on top of them.

  He invaded our territory. He killed our pack. She was mine, too, you know. I did not approve, but he took something from both of us. We fight. Our death will have meaning.

  Nikolai was surprised by the answer. “Why?”

  Because I am you, and these things . . . I know.

  “Incoming!” Heather shouted.

  “Get out of here, Kirk,” Earl ordered, and, when he hesitated, Earl snapped, “Go call your people. If we die here, he still needs to be stopped.” Kirk snapped to and fled.

  “Heather, get ready.”

  He could see the Alpha’s eyes far below. They were shining like golden headlights. The mass of the super-werewolf was taking up a large portion of the shaft. He was climbing straight up, throwing himself upward, yards at a time, claws striking deep into rock and st
eel. It was like standing at the end of a tunnel with a freight train coming right at you.

  There was nothing big to drop down the shaft. Heather tossed a wrench, then kicked in a rusty toolbox. The Alpha didn’t even blink when they hit.

  I’M COMING TO GET YOU, HARBINGER.

  Earl had three shots left in the Mosin before he had to reload. Aksel had written that he’d struck Koschei right between the eyes. Earl aimed. Fired. There was a brilliant flash of silver light, and the Alpha roared. The headlights blinked twice, then started back up.

  “That didn’t work?” Heather shouted. “What now?” She threw over a tarp, looking for something else to toss down the shaft. “What happened to shoot him in the head and say the magic words? Shit. Shit.”

  KOSCHEI WAS WEAK. HE HAD NOT FED THE AMULET LIKE I HAVE.

  Earl chambered another of the Baba Yaga’s rounds. He aimed carefully. The old gun seemed to be perfectly zeroed. This time he picked a glowing eye.

  YOU’RE NOT EVEN A WEREWOLF! I TOOK YOUR SOUL. YOU ARE NOTH—FUCK!

  The Alpha shrieked as the silver bullet obliterated his eyeball. “Felt that one, huh?” Earl shouted as he worked the bolt, chambering the last cartridge in the magazine. There was only one beam of yellow light now. It danced wildly inside the shaft as the Alpha shook his head. He resumed climbing.

  OH, IT IS ON NOW.

  Heather had found an oil lantern. She hurled it down the shaft. The light fell, then shattered against the Alpha. The oil ignited in hissing flames. The burning werewolf kept ascending.

  The fire was dying fast. “Got any more of those?” Earl asked.

  “I think the rest are battery-powered.”

  “Aw, hell.” Last shot. Earl aimed, trying to time the blinking of the Alpha’s massive eyelids. At least the target was getting bigger. . . . Too bad that meant he was closer. “My, what a big eye you have,” he muttered. Smoke and the stench of burning hair boiled out of the shaft. He pulled the trigger. The other light went out, plunging the pit into smoky darkness.

  AARRRGGGHHH! The roar was in Earl’s head and against his ears. THEY’LL GROW BACK. I DON’T NEED TO SEE TO EAT YOU.

  Earl pulled a stripper clip of five of the magic rounds and began to thumb them into the open action of the Mosin-Nagant. He hadn’t used one of these particular rifles since a mission during the Korean War. There was a trick to not getting all the cartridges wedged up against their rims. There. He closed the bolt.

  And the Alpha came out of the shaft.

  Somehow, he seemed even bigger than before. He had to duck his head to get under the cable wheel. WHERE ARE YOU? His nostril holes, which were big enough to fit a grapefruit in, flared. The head turned toward Earl, and the jaws opened. Each tooth was the size of a combat knife. THERE YOU ARE.

  The jaws snapped forward, wide enough to completely consume a man. But they snapped shut on empty air.

  Earl hit the ground rolling, entangled with a mass of dark hair. They came to a stop, and for a moment, Earl thought that Heather must have saved him. But it was Nikolai in werewolf form. His teeth were only inches from Earl’s eyes, and for the briefest of moments, Earl would have assumed that the fearsome beast, his mortal enemy, smiled. Nikolai turned, snarled, and charged, loping toward the Alpha.

  PETROV. Blind, the Alpha swung one mighty arm, ripping thousand-pound girders right out of the concrete. Nikolai spun through the chaos and landed on the Alpha’s neck, tearing and biting.

  Earl had lost the Mosin. It was a few feet away. He scrambled for it.

  Heather, fully changed, joined the fray. She came at the Alpha from behind and attacked his leg, trying to rip through a hamstring. The giant lashed out with one leg, and a paw knocked Heather across the room.

  Nikolai never let up to the end. He threw himself at the Alpha, over and over, tearing roast-sized chunks of meat out, spraying blood in great arcs, attacking with unbelievable savagery. One giant claw wrapped around Nikolai’s leg and pulled him away. The Alpha held the other werewolf away from his body, letting Nikolai dangle and thrash. The Russian managed to pull himself up, breaking his leg in the process to attack the tendons in the Alpha’s wrist. The Alpha roared in agony as Nikolai severed the artery.

  ENOUGH OF YOU.

  The Alpha reached up with his other hand and took hold of Nikolai’s arm. The limb seemed puny between the great claws. The Alpha pulled. Nikolai screamed as one arm was torn off.

  Earl’s hand landed on the wooden stock of the Mosin-Nagant.

  Nikolai was still fighting, still attacking, even as the blood pumped from his torso. The Alpha sunk his claws into Nikolai’s chest, and, once locked on, pulled against Nikolai’s leg. He screamed again, weaker this time, as his leg was torn cleanly off at the pelvis.

  PETER AND THE WOLF. LAST OF YOUR LINE. YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE CHALLENGED ME.

  The Alpha wrenched off Nikolai’s other arm. Nikolai’s head hung, weak and limp. He held Nikolai over the shaft.

  LIKE YOUR EMPIRE, TO THE GRAVEYARD OF HISTORY’S FAILURES YOU GO. . . .

  Great claws pulled free of Nikolai’s body and the Russian tumbled into the dark.

  The Alpha turned, satisfied. NOW, WHERE ARE YOU, HARBINGER? Still blind, the monster flared his massive nostrils as he sought the scent of his enemy.

  And Earl shoved the barrel of the Mosin nearly a foot up the Alpha’s nose. He jerked the trigger.

  The light was blinding. This time the message that the Alpha broadcast telepathically was an unintelligible signal of so much confusion and pain that it momentarily shorted out Earl’s brain.

  The Alpha reared back, hit the pulley, did a turn, then fell. Earl dove to the side to keep from being crushed. The impact of the Alpha’s body shook the foundations.

  NNNNNNUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuu.

  Earl shook his head. The Alpha was down, flat on his back. The rifle was still sticking out of his nose. There was no time to lose. He had no idea how fast the monster could regenerate from something like this. Nikolai’s life had bought him a distraction, and it was his only chance. Earl jumped over one outstretched arm, grabbed handfuls of black, and began pulling his aching body up the Alpha’s torso.

  The amulet. There. It was barely visible through the hair. There was no chain holding it. It was like the silver had turned molten and seared itself to the werewolf’s chest. It was an open palm, three claws, just like the forerunner’s skeleton, just like the dream from when his curse had been ripped away.

  He grabbed the amulet in both hands, sinking his fingers into the Alpha’s skin, and shouted the words from Aksel’s journal. “Allut tvar mataw!” And he pulled with all his might.

  Nothing happened. The amulet didn’t even budge.

  “Allut tvar mataw. Allut tvar mataw!” Earl roared. Somehow he pulled harder. Veins stood out in his neck. “Allut tvar mataw! Motherfucker!” The amulet hadn’t moved a bit. “This is why I hate magic!”

  Earl looked to the rifle. The Alpha had to be regenerating. Time for another dose of silver to the old brain-stem.

  HARBINGER.

  The entire body shuddered beneath Earl’s knees. “Aw, hell.”

  GIVE MY REGARDS TO PETROV.

  Earl tried to move, but the arm was so big, there was nowhere to go. It was like trying to dodge a wall. It hit him, and he tumbled overboard. He hit the ground hard, only to be hit again. His body scraped and banged across the gravel as the Alpha shoved him over the edge and into the shaft.

  Earl was falling.

  Desperate, he reached for something, anything. His hand struck metal, stone, metal, and somehow he grabbed on, for just a split second. The impact wrenched his arm from the socket. The ledge he’d grasped crumbled, and Earl fell again.

  Air tore by. Earl hit a center cable. He touched it. Sliding. Then hit it again. Somehow he grabbed it, slowing himself. Friction burned his gloves as he fell.

  Can’t die. Not like this. Earl got his other hand on the cable. Still falling. Can’t stop. He hit it with his leg, trying to wrap himself
around the cable. It abraded through his armor and into his skin. The pain was horrific, but he squeezed tighter.

  He was slowing. Slowing. Then there was no more cable. The end zipped past his leg. Past his hands and was gone.

  He barely had time to make a noise before the ground hit him.

  The Alpha pulled the rifle out of his nose. It hurt like a son of a bitch. The silver needle had literally scrambled his brains. He should have eaten Harbinger, at least for the calories, but kicking him over the edge so he could plunge to his doom had been strangely satisfying, too. He lay there for a moment, using his other senses as his eyes slowly healed. He began to shrink. It took too much energy to sustain the great-form for long. Waves of heat bled from him as he took his human form.

  That had to be all. The challenge had to be complete. There was nothing else for him to prove. Listening intently, he waited for the amulet to tell him another secret, but the damned thing was silent. “What more can you want from me?” There was still no response. “Please?”

  “Adam!” It was his father. His human father. His real father; his werewolf father was dead. “Adam, stop.” The Alpha turned to face him. Kirk had found a revolver somewhere, probably one of Harbinger’s, and he took it in both hands and aimed it at his son’s heart. His father had a surprisingly grim look on his face. “You’ve got to stop this. It’s that thing on your chest. It’s changing you. It’s messing with your head.”

  “You can’t blame it on the amulet, Dad. It’s changing me physically.” The Alpha tapped himself on the head. “But I’m the one calling the shots. This is my plan. My mission. My destiny.”

  “These are silver bullets in here. I don’t want to shoot you, but I will.”

  “I’ve got no doubt you would. You always were the tough one. You made that decision a long time ago, didn’t you? That if your horrible, cursed, monster son ever went wrong, ever went bad, you’d be the one to put him down. Duty, honor, country . . . Family came way after everything else.”

  The gun was barely moving. “I love you, Son, but I will kill you if I have to.”