The dream had been a clue. Someone had wanted me to find this place. The stories from the other Hunters about the pattern…Could it be this mysterious foe that Dad had been sent back to warn us about? If so, then me not fulfilling my duty would only make things worse. This was bigger than me, bigger than my father. I had to face this. I had to know.
That still didn’t make it easy.
“Damn it, Dad.” I went over and aimed my headlamp down the hole.
The ladder was narrow and rusty. In reality, I could only smell rubbery, recycled air, but I could’ve sworn that an odd scent came up the shaft, dust and age. Franks’ light was moving around at the base, about twenty feet down. I swore again and started down carefully, the ladder creaking and shedding red. At least if I slipped, I’d have the honor of taking Franks with me.
The walls were dirt, shored up with rotting wooden beams. There should have been cobwebs or bugs, roots, some sign of life, but the shaft seemed unusually sterile. The shaft opened up in the last bit, enough that I could squeeze in next to Franks. He didn’t even bother to greet me. The floor under my squishy booties was metal.
The air was heavy. I was having such a hard time breathing that I thought my respirator had malfunctioned. I forced myself to look down. Sure enough, just like the dream, there was a hatch.
But there were no scratches. There was no mark from my father’s mysterious antagonist. The metal was covered in dust, only recently disturbed by footprints, but undamaged. I began to breathe again. The dream had shown me this place, but it had also showed me the mark, glowing in the darkness.
What did it mean?
The hatch was open just a crack. Franks reached out and touched the rusty wheel, but it turned freely, having been broken loose recently. I shuffled out of the way as he lifted it. Hinges screeched in protest and the lid thudded into the wall. Another ladder led down.
“You first,” Franks ordered.
“Why?”
“I’m important.”
“Screw you, Franks. You’re the one with replaceable feet. You go first.” I got tired of looking at my own reflection. “Fine. Jackass.”
I started down. The metal shell was several inches thick. My headlamp illuminated the far wall only a few feet away, with each rung of the ladder casting huge black shadows. This ladder was far more sturdy and the trip much shorter. I reached the floor quickly.
It was a circular space, like standing at the bottom of a metal water tank. I estimated that it was the exact same diameter as the dead spot of desert above. I moved aside as Franks dropped down the last few feet.
Between our two sets of headlamps, the entire room was illuminated. “Cozy.”
There wasn’t much inside. Only a stainless-steel operating table off to one side, bolted to the floor, with some tall metal boxes behind it. I began to shiver uncontrollably. The room wasn’t refrigerated. There seemed to be no power supply. So why did I suddenly feel incredibly cold?
The construction of the boxes seemed old-fashioned, with big plates held together with strips of sheet metal and rivets. One side was open, and the interior was packed with copper wires and glass tubes, the contents of which had long since evaporated. There had been batteries at the bottom, but they had melted into a greenish-white acidic sludge. There were no signs or labels on the machine, but there were a few obvious spots, discolored and free of dust, where nameplates had been torn free and taken away very recently. There was a dusting of brass shavings on the floor, gleaming and new compared to everything around it.
“Looks like your Unicorn pals did some cleaning.”
“They’re not pals,” Franks muttered.
A bundle of wires led from the machine, and I followed it back to the table, where it split apart into dozens of individual strands, each of them terminating in two long needles. They were spread haphazardly around the floor, but it felt like they had all been jammed into a body at one point, from one end of the table to the other. I picked up one wire and examined the end. The tip of the prongs was stained with a dry, black substance. I dropped it, not wanting to find out if it was the sort of thing that would eat through a chemical suit.
The table wasn’t shaped at all like the kind of thing you would tie a giant spider to. Rather, it was man-sized and man-shaped. There was far more going on than some simple arachnid. Leather straps hung from the edges of the table. Franks picked up one strap, and it was so dried with age that it cracked in his hand. A very long time ago, someone or something had been strapped down to this table and stuck full of needles leading back to a machine that did who knew what, then buried and forgotten.
My teeth were chattering. “What’s the deal, Franks?”
“You getting anything?”
“Angry.” I gestured at the machine. “What does the MCB know about this?”
He shrugged. Nothing.
“Yeah, well, Stricken sure knows more than he’s telling. Maybe I should go ask him.”
“Your funeral.” Franks went back to examining the table.
“Who is this Stricken guy supposed to be that even you’re afraid of him?”
“I’m scared of no man…”
“What’s Nemesis then?”
Franks paused. That word seemed to make him angrier. “Getting anything yet?”
“I’m not a supernatural Geiger counter, Franks. It doesn’t work like that.”
He mumbled something to himself about useless Hunters and continued looking for clues. I went back to the machine, but its function was beyond me. Whatever it did, judging from the condition of the batteries, it had run out of juice decades ago, but the thing on the table hadn’t moved until recently. Why?
I looked to the ceiling for the first time. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. It was wrong. The top of the space was the same seamless metal as the floor, but there was an odd pattern of discoloration around the hatch. “Franks…” I reached up and found the switch for my headlamp. “Kill the lights.” It went dark. The glass lamps in our helmets faded slowly orange. Then the tank was pitch black. I stood there, respirator laboring, skin burning with cold, and waited.
The light was faint at first, so weak that I thought I’d imagined it, but then it began to grow, glowing with the muted color of aged bone. The light took on a sick green tint, and then I could see it clearly.
It was the symbol.
The mark had been placed above. It had seeped through the metal of the tank until its malevolence could be felt inside. It had been placed there to wake up whatever had been strapped to that table. Somehow I knew what it had been like here, asleep, waiting, between worlds. When suddenly the sick light had intruded, forcing itself into the safety of the tank. And it had awoken.
Suddenly weak, my knees buckled. In the darkness I floundered, panicking, until I struck the ladder and held on. The sweat running down my body turned to ice.
“Is that it?”
I couldn’t respond. The feeling of terror that clenched my insides was more than just my own. It was a residue, a shadow of the fear left behind by the occupant of the tank. I tried to move, but it was as if I was frozen to the ladder, and if I let go the darkness would swallow me. The tank was closing in on me. I had to get out.
Something inhuman screeched in my ear.
I flinched away from the noise as there was an impact against my suit. The rubber squeaked as I was shoved against the ladder. Off balance, I landed on my back, the air tank clanging loudly against the metal floor. “Help!” Another hit bounced off my face shield hard enough to drive the back of my head against the ground. I got my hands up in front of me, but through the clumsy gloves I could only feel cold. “Get it off!”
The light from Franks’ helmet was sudden, searing, and I was looking up into the emaciated face of something hideous, blue, and dead. It screeched again, opening a mouth full of rotten, broken teeth. Ice crystals fell and stuck to my face shield. Then just as suddenly, it was gone and Franks was standing over me.
The thing slamme
d into the far wall with a bone-jarring crunch. The light flashed wildly as Franks went after it, and I caught a brief glimpse of a skeletal form, with skin like parchment stretched over bones, and a wild mane of white hair. Then the light swung the other way as it came off the wall and launched itself at Franks.
The unnatural terror that had felled me was gone. I could move again. I fumbled for my own headlamp as I rolled over and stood up.
Franks had caught the screaming thing, used its momentum against it, spun it over one shoulder and hurled it against the steel table. It didn’t seem to feel a thing as it pushed itself off, but I intercepted it and kicked one leg out from under it. Freezing cold burned through the rubber booty and into my foot.
It felt no pain and got right back up. I planted one big rubber fist into the side of its head. It stumbled a bit, but then Franks was on the other side and he slugged it back toward me. Fists aching with cold, I hit it, then he hit it, the skinny thing rebounding back and forth between us as we played undead tetherball. We were both clumsy in the suits, but we were both really good at beating things to death. It screeched again, then Franks knocked its jaw clean off. My next hit sent it spinning over the table where it fell to the floor on the other side.
Two headlamps bounced as we both went after it, ready to stomp the unlife out of the horrid thing. There was nothing there. “What!” The floor was nothing but a tangle of stained copper wires. Breathing hard, I whipped my head around, searching…“Where—”
Franks was scanning too. “It’s gone.”
Gone? “What the hell?” It hadn’t gone up the ladder. We were in a solid metal tank with only one exit. The burning cold in my extremities began to subside, replaced by the hot flush of adrenalin. “Let’s get out of here.”
For once, Franks didn’t disagree.
The desert night that had seemed so bitterly cold before seemed welcoming after the unnatural chill of the tank.
“Where did that thing come from?” The two of us were in the dead circle, scanning the desert with our headlamps. “What was that?”
“Ice ghoul,” Franks said. “Mummified undead.”
“They common around here or something?”
“Only in polar latitudes.”
Dugway, Utah, wasn’t pleasant by any means, but it certainly wasn’t the arctic. “They teleport?”
“No. Glorified tough zombie on ice.”
Now I was really confused. It hadn’t come down the ladder. It had appeared out of thin air, jumped on me, got the hell beat out of it, then disappeared. “I’ve never even heard of those before.”
“Rare. Haven’t seen one since…” Franks trailed off. “Interesting…”
“What?”
“Classified.”
After all that…“Screw you, Franks! You rotten son of a bitch! Take your stupid ‘classified’ and shove it up your—”
“Everything okay, Agent?” the major had waddled back to the circle.
“We’re done here.”
“And the containment unit?”
Franks took one last look at the hole. “Bury it.”
Chapter 9
I had been taken in the back of the pickup to a portable shower, sprayed with foam, scrubbed with brushes, then taken out of my suit, sprayed with hot soapy water, then sprayed with freezing water, then given my clothing, armor, and weapons back. Since there was no indication of any actual chemical or biological agents in that particular containment unit, and there was no sign that any of the surrounding units had been breached, it was probably overkill, but I liked not puking blood or having brain damage, and wanted to keep it that way.
While I was getting washed, rinsed, and repeated, my mind was on the symbol. No matter how much I’d hoped otherwise, I’d known this day was going to come. Everything my father had lived for was to prepare me for this. He had drawn that symbol in the dirt of the Cazador compound to show me what to look for and given me a letter to fill me in and absolve him of his last responsibilities. The letter was still unopened, sitting in one of my gun safes back in Alabama. He was certain that as soon as I read it, his borrowed time would be up. Dad thought I hadn’t read it because I was a coward. Maybe he was right, but I didn’t want to just murder the stubborn old bastard. How would it happen? Would he keel over the minute I read it? That was a hell of a thought, because I didn’t have much choice now.
Franks met me at the Blackhawk. It was all warmed up and ready to go. “I’ve been ordered back to Las Vegas.”
I climbed in after him. “Any new word on the attack?”
“Grimm Berlin got the bounty. MHI got the assist. Congratulations.” Franks actually sounded bitter. “Case closed.”
A few minutes later we were in the air. By that point I was too tired to even try wheedling any further information out of Franks. I knew it wouldn’t do any good. He seemed even more reclusive than normal. I used the rest of the flight back to get in another nap. Hunters get so used to working stupid hours and being exhausted that most of us develop the ability to sleep the instant the opportunity presents itself.
“Wake up.”
The neon brilliance of Las Vegas was outside the window. I stretched. That had been a solid power nap. Franks was holding something out for me. It took me a second to realize it was an open laptop. He pressed it into my hands, took the audio line out of his headset and plugged it into mine. I flipped it around so I could see the screen.
Special Agent Dwayne Myers, former interim head of the Monster Control Bureau, had aged a lot over the last year. His hair had thinned further and turned whiter. He’d lost some weight, and it wasn’t like Myers could afford to lose much weight to begin with. Thin, tired, face lined with stress, and dark circles under his eyes, Myers was looking haggard. “Pitt. This is a secure video conference, but I need to keep this brief. I will deny this conversation ever took place.”
There was a short list of people I trusted. Myers wasn’t on it and never would be. This man had been prepared to nuke Alabama in order to do his duty. He had ruined thousands of lives in his mission to keep monsters secret from the public, including my own brother. Myers wasn’t the type to let things like collateral damage get in the way of doing his job. He’d used me before and would burn me the second that it became convenient. “What do you want?”
“I take it you’re aware of my demotion.”
“I’ll admit, I cheered a little when I heard. I haven’t got the invitations made up for the party yet, but I did order the cake.”
“Amusing, but I wouldn’t be so quick to celebrate. I take it you haven’t dealt with my replacement yet. No? Well, you are in for a real treat, and I don’t mean the cake. This is a courtesy call. Agent Franks has made me aware of what you’ve discovered—”
“Oh, good. Maybe you can fill me in, because he hasn’t made me aware of shit.” I looked over the top of the monitor as I said that. Franks ignored me.
“I’m afraid that there are some certain specifics which can’t be shared relating to government programs—”
“Like Nemesis?” It never hurt to go fishing.
Myers frowned. “For one. Regardless of what unfounded rumors you’ve heard about that, just be aware that as long as I or Agent Franks are in any sort of position of authority, that project will never be implemented.”
“Because I’ll kill anyone who tries…” Franks muttered under his breath.
“As to our current business, I have no more information about today’s case than you do. That is not why I’m talking to you now. I need you to deliver a message to Earl Harbinger.”
Myers hated Earl. I’d be surprised if the message was anything other than drop dead. “What’s the deal?”
“Tell him that what we spoke about in Copper Lake, I believe it’s happening now. I don’t know what’s coming, but MHI and everyone like you out there needs to be prepared. If I learn of anything that may help, I will pass it on. MHI must be ready to act.”
“Myers, we were born ready. Our greatest imp
ediment to actually doing our jobs is you assholes screwing with us and keeping us in the dark. Franks told you about the symbol we found?” The image of Myers nodded. “Do you know who it belongs to?”
“No, we do not.”
That felt like the truth. “Have you seen it before?”
Myers didn’t answer.
“I thought so. Where?”
“Everywhere. It has been showing up over the last few years with ever-increasing frequency. My sources told me that the Hunters at the conference were talking about many of those same instances today.”
I swallowed hard. My father’s symbol and the pattern of new monster appearances were related. “Myers, listen—”
“I’m out of time, Pitt. Just know that things aren’t what they seem. Changes are being made in how the government does things, about how we combat the forces of the unnatural. I did not…agree with some of these new policies. No matter what you think of me, you know everything I’ve done has been to protect America. I took a solemn oath to defend this country. I will continue doing that to the best of my abilities, no matter how dark things become, no matter what, I will fulfill that oath or I will gladly die trying.”
Myers was beginning to scare me. “I’ll tell Earl.”
“Good luck, Mr. Pitt.” The image went black.
Franks snatched his laptop back and immediately began scrubbing files.
I called Julie from the airport. She was glad to hear that I was back safe, but I was afraid to tell her anything specific over the phone.
“That thing my Dad wanted us to watch for? It’s here. And tell everybody that it’s involved in what we figured out earlier.”
There was a long silence. “That’s not good…”
“We’ll make it work.”
“We always do.”
All of this secret squirrel nonsense was making me even more paranoid than usual. I told her I’d catch everyone up when I got back to the hotel, but there was something else that I needed to take care of first. I ended the call with a heavy heart and a nervous stomach.
Monster Hunter Legion-eARC Page 13