“I will,” Franks said without hesitation.
It wasn’t like I went through any sort of complicated decision-making process trying to get myself killed, but I got up, said “Bullshit,” and shoved Franks. He stumbled and nearly fell over. Considering what a beast he normally was, that was telling. Normally, Franks would’ve seen that coming, and then body-slammed me through the planet for making the attempt. The gesture was rude, but we didn’t have time to argue about how he was missing an arm and had a big hole in his heart. Carver would probably kill Franks and then come after us anyway. “See?”
“That settles it,” Stricken snapped. “Here.” He tossed his shotgun over and I reflexively caught it. “Everybody else follow me.”
Franks gave me an angry glare for the shove, but then his expression softened because he knew I was right. Currently, right this second, he was toast. Patch him up, and he’d be far more valuable out there than I would be. With him, it was always mission first. Franks gave me a respectful nod.
That was probably one of the biggest compliments Franks had probably ever paid to anybody. If I hadn’t been concussed and scared to death, I probably would’ve gotten choked up.
Franks limped after Stricken. Sonya had reached into the wreck and retrieved the sword that Milo had given her. She looked up at me, wide-eyed, afraid but trying not to show it, as she realized I was about to sacrifice myself to save them and a bunch of strangers. “What do I do?”
“Stick with Franks.”
“No, I mean—”
“Just do what your dad would’ve done.” I put one hand on her shoulder. “I’ll catch up.”
“Sure you will,” Stricken shouted. “Move your ass, Sonya.”
“Thanks.” Then she ran after them.
The Drekavac was less than fifty yards away and coming over to murder my ass. Stricken’s shotgun was a Beretta 1301 with the shiny marine finish. I chamber-checked. Loaded. It had a sidesaddle full of slugs too. I shouldered it and put the front sight on the monster. If this final body was operating at the levels Gutterres and I had faced on the first night, what I had here should be enough to kill him. If it was like any of the later levels we’d just seen at the compound . . . I was doomed.
Here goes nothing.
I fired. The first slug nailed him in the chest. Fire squirted out the hole. The Drekavac didn’t even wobble.
He started to run. I tried to slow him down by aiming low and putting a slug into one of his legs. It took a chunk out of it. He tripped but sprang right back up. The neurotoxin designed to fry Franks did nothing to Silas Carver’s alien anatomy. His cold-fire-pumping heart didn’t care about poison. I went high and shot him in the head. It blew a fist-sized hole out the back of his metallic skull. The Drekavac kept coming. I kept shooting.
He could have materialized a gun and shot me back. The fact that he didn’t gave me some hope. Silas Carver was running on empty. All he had left was this angry husk and a desire for revenge.
The shogun went dry. I reloaded a single round from the sidesaddle and nailed him again. I got another shot off like that before he was on me.
I saw the punch coming and just barely got out of the way. The next one I wasn’t so lucky and he tagged me in the shoulder. Flailing back, Carver was on me in an instant. I hit him with the shotgun butt across the teeth. He lurched to the side and I used that moment to pluck the last shell from the sidesaddle and shove it into the open port. Driving the muzzle into his gut, I shoved him against the flipped truck, dropped the bolt, and fired. Fiery bits flew everywhere. The heavy slug ripped right through him, ricocheted off the armored plate, and back through his chest. The deformed projectile still had the energy to fly past my ear at lethal velocity.
Good thing it didn’t hit me, because if that jellyfish toxin could put down Franks, it would probably make me shrivel up and die on contact.
Carver hoisted me up by the armor and then hurled me back. I hit the grass hard, but reflexively rolled so that I could draw my sidearm . . . which was still in Alabama. Shit.
The Drekavac kicked me in the stomach hard enough to lift me into the air. I came back down on my face.
“My quarrel was not with you, Hunter. You should have let me fulfill my duty.” Carver grabbed me by the drag strap on the back of my armor, effortlessly lifted all three hundred pounds of me off the ground and tossed me through the air. I bounced off one of the tires and landed in the dirt. “It was a simple contract. Retrieve the item and punish the thief. The Hubertian shackled my gift and the Hunters wounded me, delivering me into the hands of that vile manipulator, Stricken. For this you will pay.”
Drawing my kukri, I slashed at him. He dodged aside, and then backhanded me across the face. It knocked me to my knees. Then he kicked me in the chest and launched me back into the wreck.
Desperate, dizzy, and out of breath, I looked toward the horizon, but the sun wasn’t up yet.
He knew what I was searching for. “You expect the day to save you? In moments, this form shall return to dust, sparing your allies for a time. Only I will vow that I will reverse the Hubertian’s rite, regain all my lives, and come for them when they least expect it. Every last transgressor will pay with their lives. The thief, the Hubertians, the Hunters, the plotter—all of them will die. As for you, there is more than enough darkness left to end your wretched existence.”
I’d bought them time. They’d make the meeting. Stricken would do his thing, persuade the Fey, and mankind would have a chance to strike a blow against the other factions. I’d accomplished my goal.
“Why do you laugh?” Silas Carver asked, confused. “Is this another trick?”
“Job satisfaction.” Struggling back to my feet, I wiped the blood from my lips. “Let’s do this.”
I swung for his head. The monster blocked the blade with his forearm. If that had been a mortal human arm it would be lying in the grass, but all my heavy blade did was take a sparking chunk out of it. Backing up, I raised my kukri and delivered a downward strike with all my might. It hit so hard the impact vibrated through my bones. It only took a chip out of the side of his neck.
He was far tougher than when Gutterres had decapitated him, and that was after walking off being hit by an armored car.
His fist nailed me like a high-speed iceberg.
When I tried to slash him again, he caught my arm and flipped me onto my back. This last form was still crazy strong. He was regular Franks strong. Driving his knee against my throat to pin me, he twisted my arm, grinding it in the socket. I roared in pain. He was going to rip my arm off with his bare hands. He was going to pluck all my limbs off one by one like a malicious kid torturing a bug.
“Assei!”
Suddenly, the freezing grip released and the pressure on my joint was gone. The Drekavac lurched away, spraying fire from one ruined eye socket.
Sonya had come back.
With her father’s sword in both hands, she waded into the monster, striking over and over. Flaming bits flew off the Drekavac with each hit.
I hurt so bad that moving seemed mentally impossible, but I told my brain to shut up and got back to my feet. Sonya was swinging that sword so fast and with such wild abandon that it was like a steel weed whacker. She’d probably slice me by accident, so I flanked around to hit the Drekavac from the other side.
The two of us hacked madly at the monster as he desperately tried to intercept most of our blows with his arms. I took some fingers off. Sonya sliced a chunk of his face. But then Carver drove his shoulder into me, trying to get away from her, and it was like getting trampled by a bull. I went down and caught a freezing boot to the head that left me stunned.
Silas Carver was being driven back as Sonya kept wildly hacking at him. She wasn’t some mystical sword master. It was clear she didn’t know what she was doing. There was nothing smooth about it, except she was just supernaturally fast, terrified, and she was really motivated.
Except ultimately, she was just a kid, and Silas Carver had been k
illing people for centuries. The instant Sonya overextended herself, the Drekavac surged, and clotheslined her so hard that it probably caused an earthquake back in her family’s spirit realm.
“Damnable mortals,” Carver spat. He didn’t even breathe but it was almost like he was winded. He’d been torn to pieces, nothing but a tangle of broken wires, bleeding mass and spitting fire. He lurched toward Sonya, until he stood over her helpless form. He lifted one fist to crush her head. “Worst contract ever.”
I tackled him.
We hit the ground with me on top. I struggled up just enough to get a good angle, and then slammed the kukri through his face, planting it deep into both eye sockets. The steel sank in about an inch. Not good enough.
I left my blade planted in him, stood up, and stomped on the spine of the kukri, and I kept on stomping as the monster twitched and jerked, head wires popping, until I’d driven the steel all the way through and cut the top of his head off.
Silas Carver twitched a few times, and then he was still . . . Liquid fire poured out as the contents of his skull emptied, creating a puddle of ectoplasmic mud. The body slowly began to crumble into ash. I checked the east. It was getting bright, but no sliver of sun quite yet. Thirteen and done. We’d defeated him before dawn. He was done forever.
I spit on the disintegrating corpse.
CHAPTER 27
As the sun rose, Sonya and I helped each other up the path toward the grove. We were both in bad shape. I don’t know which one of us was leaning on the other more. I was over twice her size, but that whole spirit-hybrid-strength thing provided one hell of a boost in the durability department.
Okay, I’ll be honest, she was the one mostly keeping me upright, because I was messed up.
“The Ward is going to be late,” I said, punch-drunk with words slurred through my swollen lips.
“I told Stricken to stall them. He wasn’t happy but he’ll deal with it.”
“You shouldn’t have come back for me.”
“You said to do what my dad would do. What would my dad have done?”
“Slutty elves.” Then I giggled.
“Shut up. I’m trying to be heroic.”
“Thanks.” I meant it. She’d saved my life. And to think she’d said she wouldn’t make a habit out of it. She was all about looking out for herself, but when the chips were down, she’d risked her life to save another’s. “That was a very Monster Hunter thing to do.”
She didn’t say anything to that.
The path Stricken had indicated was easy to follow. It looked like a regular old hiking trail winding between the very lush undergrowth. Thankfully it wasn’t too steep, because if it was, I’d have to stop and take a nap, but that was probably just the brain damage talking.
“We’ve got company,” Sonya said.
We were about a quarter mile from where we’d crashed and a couple hundred yards down the path, when I looked back over my shoulder to see that a green deuce-and-a-half truck had pulled off the road and was driving across the field after us. The tarp was down, revealing that the back of the truck was filled with men in black uniforms. The Gatos had found us.
We hobbled faster down the path, except from the way the truck was heading directly for us, we had already been spotted. I’d retrieved Cazador from the wreck, but there were far too many of them for me to try and shoot it out.
There were two stone statues just ahead, one on each side of the path. They were so weathered that it was hard to tell, but they had to be the image of some ancient goddess. They were solid enough to stop bullets though, so we could at least hide behind them.
The truck reached the edge of the field but was far too wide to make it up the path. It stopped. A bunch of men immediately bailed out and started shooting at us. The supersonic rifle bullets made a terrifying crack as they sped past. The subsonic pistol rounds sounded like angry bees buzzing by. The only thing that kept us from getting killed was the range, but they were making up for that with volume.
Except the instant we were past the statues, the noise abruptly stopped. It was dead quiet.
We had crossed a border.
This was Fey land.
The creatures appeared all around us, lining the path. Short and tall, thick or thin, but all oddly crooked things. Hairy beasts that looked like ogres but without heads and instead with eyes in their chests and mouths on their bellies. Gnome-sized things that looked like monkeys, but with a tail that ended in an all-too-human hand. And too many other strange new things I’d never seen before, all at once, jabbering and hooting, assaulting my already battered senses.
Marching toward us was a cadre of what had to be their soldiers, because their bearing reminded me of the Fey knights I’d fought in the Nightmare Realm. Only these were seven feet tall, bronze-skinned, wearing uniforms made of animal skins and decorated with bones, and carrying strange wooden weapons that appeared organically grown rather than built, studded with obsidian spikes—but these were clearly Fey knights, and thus scary as hell.
I looked back. There was a pile of bullets lying there on the path, like they’d instantly run out of energy and just fallen out of the sky, except they were still spinning from their rifling. I had no logical explanation for that. The Fey followed different laws of physics than we did.
In the distance, the death squad had stopped shooting, and that same too-familiar officer I’d seen earlier was madly gesturing for his men to cease fire. Apparently, his orders didn’t include starting shit with the Fey. Smart. I’d seen what these things could do.
Despite the crowd of fascinating weirdness, I had to stop and check myself for bullet holes, but my luck had held. “Are you okay?”
Except Sonya was just staring at the Fey, dumbstruck, because even though half her ancestors came from a different bizarro world, she’d mostly grown up like a human, and this had just gotten weird. There was a reason Earl always preached that the most important trait a Hunter could have was a flexible mind.
“Sonya!”
“I’m fine. Fine!”
The lead Fey knight stopped right in front of us. I couldn’t see his face because he was wearing a helmet made out of the bleached skull of some kind of predator I’d never seen before. There was no greeting. No elaborate introduction. He just pointed impatiently for us to continue down the path. We were late.
Except I had to check one thing first. I aimed Cazador at the death squad leader, and then cranked the magnification on the scope all the way up to twenty-five power so I could get a better look at the man.
Impossible.
I’d only ever seen him in human form once, and that had been in the brief instant before I’d shot him in the head. Except I was absolutely certain.
I’d seen through his eyes, lived his memories, felt what he’d felt, and knew just how insane he had been five hundred years ago, and that had been before he’d been cursed by the Old Ones and turned into a force of absolute evil. There was no way he could be here now, alive and seemingly human, but there he was. I had no doubt it was him.
It was Lord Machado!
It took me a second to get over the shock but fuck that guy. I estimated the range, adjusted for the holdover and wind, flipped the safety off, put my finger on the trigger and—
The Fey knight violently slapped Cazador’s muzzle down.
“Dahk!” That had to mean no. The blank skull face looked down at me and made an angry, disapproving gesture. Killing was not allowed. Just as the death squad wasn’t allowed to start a fight with the Fey here, neither were the Fey or their guests allowed to attack the servants of the Old Ones. This was neutral ground.
Too bad the Fey were fools. They didn’t realize how dangerous Lord Machado was. If he was back, things were far worse than anyone realized. But I also had no doubt these Fey would kill me before I could get off a shot if I tried again. I put Cazador back on safe. “After you.”
As the big truck with my somehow-returned-to-life enemy drove away, the band of monsters led me
and Sonya to the meeting.
* * *
It was like walking into a living castle.
The grove was made out of the thickest, greenest plant life I’d ever seen. It was probably a pretty normal place most of the time, but with Fey royalty present the plants had taken on unnatural vitality, grown at mind-bending rate, and woven themselves into intricate designs to please their queen. The forest had grown into the form of a throne room. The canopy created a dome fifty feet tall, but with plenty of gaps to let in the perfect amount of light and shadow. All the blooming flowers probably smelled nice to everybody else, but they were hell on my allergies.
There were hundreds of odd beings assembled there. Fey come in all shapes and sizes, some familiar, others not, making it even harder to tell what they truly looked like. It was hard to tell which of the furs, feathers, bones, and plants on them were part of the creatures, and what was clothing. The visible skin was often painted in wild colors. It was hard to read their alien faces and body language, but some seemed curious, others haughty and dismissive of the humans who were petitioning them.
Stricken and Franks were standing before a throne made of flowering vines. Upon that throne sat what had to be the singlemost beautiful woman I had ever seen. I couldn’t even begin to describe her features because there weren’t human equivalents. She was absolute perfection. A goddess of sunshine, fertility, and rainbows, so I knew right away it was a bullshit illusion to trick us. Fey royalty looked like whatever they wanted to look like for their audience. From what I’d read about various queens, her real form could be a cockroach and she’d still come across as angelic if that behooved her at the time.
Stricken was talking. We’d caught him mid-presentation, giving the massaged version of Franks’ résumé. “After defeating the hosts of hell, who brazenly tricked me into giving them Earthly bodies, Franks has since continued to serve as a Chosen of the God of Light, as a champion of righteousness and dispenser of indiscriminate justice.”
Monster Hunter Bloodlines Page 35