“Send you on a suicide mission because it’s your destiny.” Earl scowled at me for a long time, like he wanted to yell at me some more, but then he shook his head and began walking back to camp. “I’ll think about it. We’re done talking.”
“That’s bullshit, Earl!”
He didn’t bother to turn around. “We’re done, because if I made my decision right now, your ass would be on the next plane back to Alabama.”
* * *
This time of year, nights up here were short. I had built a campfire in front of my luxurious new shipping container apartment, just far enough away that it wouldn’t catch the straw bales we were using for insulation on fire. A bunch of the MHI regulars had gathered around, as well as some of our new friends. Milo was happy for the opportunity to make s’mores. There were a lot of these little bonfires going on around the camp. And being Hunters, somebody had flown in large quantities of alcohol. At one of the nearby fires they had started singing loudly in Spanish. Of course that meant the next barracks over had responded with a competing song in Polish, which got the Germans going, which set off my people, so on and so forth. At least the racket had probably scared the bears away.
Not being a drinker and having a terrible singing voice, I had skipped the festivities and used a sat phone to call my wife. I was sitting on a log in the dark. Julie was tired and grumpy that her back hurt, everything felt puffy, and our baby seemed to be practicing martial arts by kicking her bladder. There was nothing new about my dad. Apparently he was keeping his promise to be there to welcome me home. He was too stubborn to die. When I’d talked to Earl about having the will necessary for the job, I’d inherited that from him.
Julie was still venting to me. “I’m doing the best I can. Only we’re as busy as ever but half of our employees are up there having fun.”
I looked back at the hay-covered metal box I would be living in. “Super fun.”
“You know what I mean. I’m shuffling resources, but we can’t keep up. We’re meeting our contracts, but our competitors are picking up PUFFs before we can get to them. PT Consulting has grabbed at least three gigs that should have been ours. They don’t know where we are, but they’re loving this. Armstrong even called me the other day to gloat about how either they’re getting faster or we’re getting slower. He is such a douche.”
“The douchiest. Friggin’ Parakeet Testicles.”
Julie giggled. “You know, you could always bring Particle Toast in on the mission.”
Getting her to laugh always made my day. “I would rather eat Gretchen’s cooking than invite those polo-shirted dickweeds along for the ride. The only way they’d be useful is if our high-value target’s weak-spot vulnerability was the overwhelming power of smug.”
“Sure, but then they’d be shorthanded too. Plus, I think Holly has a thing for their lawyer. Did you know he dropped that lawsuit against her because she agreed to have dinner with him?”
“No way! She didn’t tell me anything.”
“Girl talk, hon. You don’t get to participate. Come to think of it, you did not hear that rumor from me.”
A figure appeared in the darkness practically right next to me. I jumped. “Got a minute, Z?” Earl moved like a ghost.
“You scared the shit out of me! Damn, man. Don’t do that. Milo’s giving out those bells hikers wear to keep the bears from eating them.” Obviously, none of the Hunters—other than Milo—would use them. “You should put some on so you don’t give people heart attacks.”
“I’m not big on tinkling when I walk. And I wasn’t even trying to be sneaky.”
“Hey, Earl!” Julie shouted in my ear.
Of course, he heard her. “Hey, kiddo. I’ve got to borrow your husband.”
She was a trained Monster Hunter, and she didn’t even bother to question the man who’d practically raised her. When there was work to be done, you did it. “Love you, hon. ’Night.” And she hung up before I could say anything else.
“Sorry about that. If I’d known who you were talking to I would have waited. That girl really misses you. I know it’s hard not to be there right now. I was off on a hunt when my son was born too. It is what it is.”
I was still kind of mad at him from earlier. Where did he get off threatening to boot me from the mission that I had come up with? “What’s up?”
Normally, this would be where Earl would rattle off a series of commands, and I’d go do them, but instead he sat on the log next to me. He didn’t talk for a long time. When he did, he sounded tired. “You think losing a few men because of a decision you made is tough? Try hundreds .”
I didn’t say anything.
“We do this job, men die. You go to war, men die. But we still do it because it’s got to get done. If you’re good at it, eventually you end up in charge, and then it’s your men dying. It’s awful. It’s a shit deal. Every one of them will haunt your dreams even after so much time has passed you forgot their faces. I’ve lost Hunters, soldiers, friends…family. You want to get those men back. I know. Damn, I know.”
Earl was blinking too much, like this was hard to say. I’d never seen that from him before.
“Julie is like my daughter. I love that girl so much. This is a family business but it kills me every time she goes out. Losing anyone is hard. Losing a brother, a son . That’s harder.”
I was moved. “Are you saying you think of me like a son?”
“Oh, hell no. You know my son. Even with one eye and a hook for a hand, he’d make you look like a pussy on your best day.” Then he laughed. “You’re all right, kid. But don’t get a big head. I was thinking favorite son-in-law. Tops.”
I grinned and shook my head.
We sat there for a bit, not boss and employee, nor mentor and student, but just two men who’d ended up in one hell of an unforgiving career…listening to some really awful, drunken, singing competitions.
“This business, with the factions picking champions and destinies…I’ve never told you what all I saw in Copper Lake. Me and Heather are like that too, I think. Whole lot of effort over a whole lot of centuries, all comes down to picking a few folks who can do what needs doing. At first, the idea of things out there testing us, picking the best…Where do they get off, using us like that? But the more I think about it, the more I realize the bad shit is coming anyway. At least this means somebody out there still cares what happens.”
After a while I said, “I’m still the best man for this job, Earl.”
“I know.” He reached over and rested one hand on my shoulder. “All right, Z. Iron-will the hell out of that bitch.”
CHAPTER 11
I hate running. Hate, hate, hate it. Running is something that skinny people do so they can brag about it to those of us who come in adult sizes. I’m actually an okay sprinter. I’ve got long legs, and I’m surprisingly nimble for a big dude, but distance running is for masochists and crazy people who want to collect foot problems and repetitive stress injuries. My insane runner friends kept trying to tell me that at some point you were supposed to get this euphoric feeling during a run, but as far as I could tell that was propaganda they told themselves to feel better about having such a ridiculous pastime. The closest I ever came to euphoria was when the aches got numb. Running sucks.
Hate it.
But here I was, panting and sweating my way up a rugged mountain trail, into my sixth eight-minute mile, and still running my ass off. Because I’d decided that by D-Day I was going to be in the best shape of my life, or I was going to die trying.
Right about now though, with everything hurting and my lungs on fire, death seemed way more likely. But screw that. If there was one thing I did have in excess, it was stubbornness. I was used to my team counting on me, but this time I had a whole army. If Rothman’s hypothesis about the gate was right, I couldn’t let those missing Hunters down. The longer it took me to get out, the longer the guys on the outside had to hold the gate for us. I was doing this for all of them.
Thanks t
o Gretchen, my injuries from the Last Dragon were fully healed. I’d drank so much of her foul, magical, healing swill that I’d probably permanently damaged my sense of taste, but just five months ago I’d had a bone sticking out of my arm, so it was worth it. I’d started lifting hard again, hitting the heavy bag, even doing wind sprints and rope work.
When I wasn’t managing things for Earl, I was working out, or I was being trained in something. Small unit tactics, land navigation, demolitions, you name it. With the talent pool we were recruiting from, it was pretty much guaranteed that for any military skillset there was, we probably had here one of the best in the world at it. Earl had immediately roped our most expert into educating the rest of us.
For me personally, that meant teaching people how to shoot better. I’d lost track, but I was burning through a case of practice ammo a day. My fingertips were nothing but unfeeling calluses from loading mags. With this many Type A show-offs present, we’d started the Camp Frostbite Four-Gun—rifle, pistol, shotgun, and grenade launcher—Weekly Shoot-Off and Barbeque Appreciation Society to see who was really the best. I was currently third overall, because though I dominated the close and fast stuff, there were some damned good precision riflemen here.
That was guns, but my fists were getting plenty of use too.
There was no shortage of other Hunters here who wanted to fight, and all of the tough guys wanted a shot at Owen Zastava Pitt. Legends of the Great Buffet Fight had grown in the telling. Milo had shipped in rubber mats so we wouldn’t break anything getting tossed on the ground. We had to keep it friendly, because any Hunter injured doing stupid crap was one less Hunter capable of taking the island. We got as violent as we could short of anybody breaking a limb or dying. So it was all in good fun.
But all of that meant there wasn’t any part of me that wasn’t already sore before my daily run even began.
Lococo and VanZant, you’d better still be alive when I get there.
I didn’t even know John VanZant that well. I liked the guy. I respected him. Julie had been friends with him for years, but it wasn’t like we were buddies or anything. Since he was short, his guys called him the Hobbit. He’d been the company’s mortar expert, because that’s what he’d done in the Army, was one hell of a boxer, and had been one of our most popular team leads. He struck me as a modern warrior scholar: sharp, diplomatic, good sense of humor, but give him a challenge and VanZant would never back down.
Jason Lococo, on the other hand, I knew even less about personally, but our lives had collided long before either of us were Hunters. He had been an ex-con trying to make a living, and I had been a young punk with a chip on my shoulder trying to prove something. We’d met in an illegal underground fight, where I’d lost my mind and he’d lost his eye.
He was big—bigger than me. Like Franks big. And tough. Fists of stone and head like a brick. He seemed to have the personality of a brick too, though Earl told me to give him a chance, because he’d been a hero in Copper Lake, and he had a little girl he loved more than the whole world. But I never really did get that chance, because Lococo had been one of the lucky Newbies to get to visit the Last Dragon, yet unlucky enough for me to have to leave him behind. First, I’d ruined his life, and then a decision I made had taken it.
You don’t realize how little you actually know someone until they’re gone. Maybe if I’d done something different, they wouldn’t have gotten stuck on that roof. There were too many ifs and maybes. Hunters have to make split-second decisions, and none of us bat a thousand.
There was nothing like a long run to give you time to dwell on every call you’ve ever had to make.
As I crested a rise, movement ahead caused me to break out of my funk and focus on the now. I slowed to a walk and put my hand on my pistol. With all the bears up here, of course I was running with a gun. There were enough of us constantly using the trail that there was always noise to warn off the wildlife, and help was always near. Milo had blazed a path that avoided most of the heavy cover, to keep us from getting inadvertently eaten by a grizzly. Only there were still a few spots where you could round a bend and surprise something, like this one.
There was a giant moose blocking the path, and it turned out moose were really big damned animals in person. The thing was magnificent and awkward at the same time. It was like a shaggy, lurpy cow on stilts, with antlers you could use for umbrellas.
It was amazing that something that big could be that stealthy. Twenty feet away from each other, we both stopped, watching. Those big black eyes were nonchalantly locked on me. Milo said that the moose up here actually killed more people than the bears. In case it was feeling frisky, I drew my .45, and then felt like an idiot because this bull moose was the size of a compact car and probably weighed a ton. A 230-grain bullet at 850 feet per second would probably tickle . I made a mental note to hit the armory before my next run and see what handguns they had in .454 Casull or .500 Magnum.
I admit, the moose was making me nervous.
“Hey,” I said, hoping human noises would scare it off. “Beat it!”
The moose just stood there blocking the trail, with an attitude that said Fuck you, I’m a moose.
I could respect that.
“Fine. Be that way.” My chest was heaving as I looked around. It was truly a beautiful, cloudy day. From up here the vista was cold ocean one way, craggy mountains the other, and the greatest army of Monster Hunters the world had ever seen below me. Sweat stung my eyes as I watched them getting ready to go kick evil’s ass and save the world. It filled me with pride. There was something about a view this epic that made me feel like I could accomplish anything. We were going to complete this mission, defeat Asag, and I was going to bring my people home.
After that I would love my wife and raise my kid in a way that would make my father proud.
It was strange, but stopping for that one stark moment gave me hope.
Maybe this moose in the road was God’s way of telling me to stop and reflect on life. Also that running was stupid, and it was time to turn around and go back down.
“Okay, I’m done,” I gasped, “but me not doing this last mile is on you, not me.”
The moose blinked stupidly. Then it suddenly turned and trotted off.
Still breathing hard, I watched it go. Within thirty seconds the giant had disappeared. I looked up the now-clear trail. I had no excuse not to keep going. “Shit.”
Even nature was conspiring against me.
* * *
When I got back to camp, Milo was waiting, and he had that manic gleam in his eye that told me he’d been up to something awesome.
“I just finished something. Follow me, hurry!” He began walking away with purpose, the multiple bear bells on his belt jingling. He also had a can of pepper spray that was about the size of a fire extinguisher. Milo must have still felt bad about that grizzly he’d had to shoot.
“Okay. Hang on.” I was soaked in sweat and everything was sore, but when Milo got in one of these moods, you dropped everything and went with him, because it was either going to be like Christmas, or you were at least going to get to see an awe-inspiring explosion. “What did you do? Taping cameras to bats again?”
Milo hurried toward the depot, and I obediently fell in line behind him. “Hey, I only did that once; it was a legitimate science experiment. We’re attacking an underground city, we could use a whole flock of spy drones! How was I supposed to know the little guy would escape, the battery pack would catch on fire, and it would be nesting in the roof of Earl’s shack at the time?”
“PETA would have thrown a fit.”
“Poor little dude, but I’m suspicious he sabotaged my camera. That bat did seem kind of depressed…Naw, what I need you for is pretty straightforward. I’ve got a new gun for you.”
I was intrigued, but also a little offended. “I’ve got Abomination.” My full-auto shotgun was something of a trademark for me. We’d been through hell together. Literally. When you find a piece of kit that
never lets you down, you get really loyal to it. Telling me to get a new gun was like telling me to get a new wife. Thanks, but I like things the way they are. “You already built me a gun.”
“I sure did, and it’s great. But Earl told me about your harebrained universe-hopping idea, thinking you’re going to have to go off by yourself in that crappy nightmare world. That’s stupid, by the way, because I’m coming with you.”
“Hey, I would love company, but I don’t make the rules. If we get there and it turns out Rothman’s wrong and we can have a whole MHI company picnic on the other side of the gate and still get back, I’m down with that. But when was the last time you were on a hunt and something worked out more conveniently than expected?”
“Hmmm…” Milo stopped to think, because that was a hard question. I threw on the brakes and nearly collided with him. Good thing his bear bells made a handy warning device. “Fair point.” He started walking again.
“Exactly. Murphy is like the patron saint of monster hunting.”
“It’s actually Saint Hubert. I know that because the Vatican guys get super sensitive if you make fun of their name. But okay, worst-case scenario then, if you have to go over there by yourself, and what if—” Milo stopped suddenly again. This time I did bump into him, playing a bad solo of “Jingle Bells.” Milo was searching the nearby hillside. He pointed. “See that black rock? The one that looks kind of like a hippo taking a nap.”
“An oddly specific description.” I found the one he was talking about. It was about six hundred yards away. “Okay. Got it.”
“Imagine you’re all by yourself in awful swirling fog murder monster land, when uh-oh! There’s a death hippo! Coming right at you!” Milo shouted. “What do you do?”
“First, I’d wonder if there’s such a thing as a death hippo.”
“It’s the Nightmare Realm, anything can happen!” Milo shouted and waved his arms. “Quick! What do you do?”
Monster Hunter Siege (Monster Hunters International Book 6) Page 18