Monster Hunter Alpha-ARC

by Larry Correia

  The government didn’t like when its supernatural operatives went rogue, and they were usually dealt with harshly. “I’m not scared of Stricken.”

  “You should be. I don’t know what you think you’re going to accomplish here, but it’s wrong.”

  The Alpha leaned against the cold metal railing of the balcony. “This is bigger than me, Dad. This is destiny. You wouldn’t listen. Nobody would listen before, but they’re not going to have a choice now.”

  “It’s that witch I met earlier. I don’t know what she’s put in your head. She’s a demon’s concubine, Son. I recognize her from the briefings. It’s that Hood girl. She comes from a long line of necromancers. We’ll just explain to Stricken that she brainwashed you.”

  “Do you really have any room to talk about brainwashing? I’m not the one that made my own child into a weapon. Oh, never mind.” Long experience told him where that line of reasoning would take them. There was no need to refight old battles. They’d just have to agree to disagree. “I recruited her, not the other way around. This is my plan. Her god is just along for the ride. I’ve been working on this operation for three years.…” The Alpha paused to let that sink in.

  He could see the pain in his father’s eyes as he realized what that meant. “Even…before your mom died?”

  “Since I saw the bones of the forerunner. It showed me things. The visions were stronger than the fake thoughts Mom stuck in my head and made me think were my own.”

  Dad gasped like he’d just been kicked in the stomach. He started to speak, then stopped, nervous and confused. That would have been unexpected. Mother had used her siren gifts to keep him calm and rational during the full moon, but she had also tried to keep him from pursuing his vision, and that had been simply unforgivable. When she’d begun using her powers to try to make him forget about the amulet, that’s when it had become necessary to get her out of the way.

  He’d always loved his mom. Considering their lifestyle, and the fact he’d been killing people for various black operations since he was a teenager, they’d actually had a pretty normal relationship. His parents had been just, kind, and had done their best to raise him as a normal child, despite his gifts. There had been a lot of love in their home. So that’s why, when it came time to remove Mom, he’d made sure the accident had been as quick and painless as possible.

  Obviously, he couldn’t tell that to Dad. There was no need for him to know how far things had gone just yet. Dad would never come around then. “I wish I could show the forerunner’s visions to you. Then maybe you’d understand.…”

  “But, your mother…Once she passed away, and you didn’t have her to help you, I thought maybe you—”

  “Went crazy? No. Nothing like that. Sure, Mom’s singing kept me on the straight and narrow, soothing the savage beast and all, just like before, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t plan for the future. I know you thought you were doing me a favor, helping hold back the wolf, but we both know you were just keeping me under control. I wasn’t meant to be a slave.”

  “You weren’t a slave,” Kirk sputtered. “If we hadn’t agreed to work for them, they would’ve killed you. But you were the best they’ve ever had. You were serving your country. You did great things!”

  “Sure, but I’m meant for greater things,” he tried to explain to his father for the hundredth time. “You never listen to me. None of you humans ever listened to me.”

  “But, son, you’re human, too.”

  “ENOUGH!” The blast of noise made his father cringe. He was sick of this argument, and if his father dared pursue it much further, he’d be staring at a pile of his own steaming entrails. “I don’t have to explain myself to you. That’s not why I brought any of you here.”

  “Where’s here? And who else are you talking about?”

  “We’re in Copper Lake, Michigan. Heard of it?” he asked, already knowing the answer. Kirk’s face went very pale. “Ah, of course you have.…Imagine that. And did you know that I once read a report about an artifact that might have ended up around here somewhere? Guess what?” The Alpha tapped his chest. “Found it, way down that hole right over there. Damn thing took forever to get to. And I’m the one that brought Nikolai here. Had to gut his wife to do it, too. Turns out he wasn’t as bloodthirsty as you made him out to be.”

  “Maybe he mellowed with age.” Kirk’s eyes narrowed as he realized just how unstable his son had become. “What’s your game, Adam? What’re you playing at?”

  “I made sure you saw the bulletin about Petrov. Sure, you’re retired, but once Unicorn, always Unicorn. I knew you’d call Harbinger. You and Mom used to talk about him like he walked on water, like he was supposed to be some sort of role model for me or something. Of course you’d call your old buddy Mr. Wolf, and all I had to do was sit back and enjoy the show.…I actually thought you’d have come yourself, but I guess you’re getting a little old for field ops. I wanted you here, too, though, kind of like you’re attending my graduation. Sorry about Lucinda’s digger roughing you up.”

  “What happened to Earl?”

  “He’s dead. Once I knew he was the one, I tore his soul out.”

  “No, not Earl,” Kirk stammered. “Why?”

  The Alpha patted the amulet tenderly. “He lives on in me. Ironic. I guess he lived up to that name he picked when he was with you. Harbinger. One who prepares the way. I wonder if the forerunner was whispering to him when he picked that name?”

  “You ungrateful little bastard,” his father snapped. “Earl saved my life and your mother’s. If it hadn’t been for him—”

  “I’d never have been a werewolf.” The Alpha smiled.

  It was another painful revelation for Kirk Conover. The man was barely able to form the words. “You…you know?”

  They had tried to keep him in the dark, and, like everything else, they’d failed. “I pieced it together. Most of the files on your original task force had been redacted, but I narrowed it down to two possibilities—Harbinger or Petrov. You never told me who it was, so I invited them both. Harbinger was the superior. He felt right. It was him, wasn’t it?”

  Kirk just nodded.

  “So, he was my real father.” The Alpha pumped his fist in the air. “Ha! I knew it.”

  “I’m your father.”

  “My human father,” he sneered. “Cut me in thirds, and that’s the most pathetic bit. Part god, part king of the beasts, and what? Human? You want me thank you for my worst parts? You rate a card on Father’s Day, but that’s about it.”

  The light in Kirk’s eyes died. He bowed his head. “Your mother would be very disappointed in you.”

  The Alpha grabbed his father by the throat and lifted him into the air. It took all of his reason to stop from ripping the insolent little man in half and throwing him over the rail. Disgusted, he tossed Kirk back on the catwalk. The old man hit the cold metal with a grunt of pain.

  This hadn’t been what the Alpha was hoping for at all: adversarial, bitter. He’d been hoping for guidance, but now he understood that had only been his remaining humanity being weak and needy. Let it wither and die. It was better this way.

  “I didn’t abandon man. Man abandoned me. I’m not an attack dog to be kept on your master’s leash. I’m the first of a new kind. I’m the next stage of evolution.” The Alpha felt the amulet burn hotter. The challenge was close. “And I’m only one step away from perfection.”

  Kirk didn’t look up. “My son is dead.”

  The Alpha was angry that the words actually managed to sting him still. He shouted at his pack. “Put the human back in his cage.” He stomped off to face his final challenge. “I’ll deal with him later.”

  * * *

  “What’s the plan?” Stark asked.

  Earl studied the Quinn facility through his binoculars. The place was a huge, twisting warren of old buildings and rusting machinery. Heather had said that the tallest structure was Number Six. It was an imposing gray rectangle that dominated the facility. T
o reach it would require covering a lot of forest, breaching the perimeter, and making their way through a maze of potential ambushes.

  At least it was all downhill from here, literally. Earl adjusted his position, trying to find a more comfortable way to lie prone on an icy boulder. Body aching, muscles sore, freezing, bandages pulling…He’d forgotten just how much being human could suck. He put down the binoculars and took out a smoke. Then decided against it. Wind was in their favor, but that could change soon enough. He put the pack away with a belabored sigh.

  “Plan?” Stark asked again.

  Sneaking in would be impossible against that many hyper-sensitive werewolves. The fence was only chain-link, but it was topped in razor wire. Heather and Nikolai could hop it, but the rest were going to have to go through the gate. A full-on frontal assault was their best option.

  They were three hundred yards away, on a ridge that provided them with solid cover and a good field of fire. The sun would be coming over the hill any minute, and it would be at their backs. He really couldn’t ask for much more. However, it was easy to forget that he’d been up all night, and exhaustion had set in. A tired Hunter was a stupid Hunter, and they couldn’t afford any mistakes. He needed another opinion. “Nikolai?”

  The werewolf was so quiet and motionless that it was easy to forget he was only a few feet away. “You are thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Square peg. Square hole. Go with our strengths.”

  “What?” Stark looked back and forth between them. “What’s he thinking?”

  “Yes,” Nikolai answered. “I’m fastest. I will secure the gate. The rest provide covering fire and eliminate the sentries from here.”

  “What sentries?” Stark asked.

  Earl handed Stark the binoculars. “First building in, two stories. Looks like an office. Top window, several of them moving in there.”

  “At least three more roaming inside. Two more in the trees just outside the main gate,” Nikolai said. “Do not bother to look. You will not see them.”

  “You a good shot, Agent Stark?”

  “Qualified expert.”

  Earl grunted. Maybe in his prime. Stark gave him the impression of somebody who spent a lot more time manning a desk than practicing at the range. “Recently?”

  “Recent enough,” Stark snapped.

  Shaking his head, Earl slid back down the boulder. The other two followed him. Stark made more noise than he had, but Nikolai made far less. They made their way through the trees toward where the others were waiting. The snowmobiles were handy, but loud, so they’d parked at the base of the ridge and hiked in. The snow had made for treacherous footing, especially with seventy pounds of recoilless rifle and ammo on his back.

  Heather, Jason, and Aino were crouched in a small ravine below. Aino was using a headlamp with a red lens, still searching Aksel’s journal for anything that might help. Jason raised his gun when he heard a branch snap above, then lowered it when he saw his new employer. Earl slipped and slid down the last twenty feet. Exhaustion and grace were mutually exclusive, but he tried to make it look like he’d meant to do that. Stark lost it halfway down the incline and tumbled the rest of it, making Earl look like a ballerina in comparison. Nikolai leapt off the top and landed quietly at the bottom. Show-off.

  “We on?” Heather asked. While he’d been scouting, she had cut a hole in the middle of the gray wool blanket to stick her head through and tied a length of paracord around her waist to secure it. It made for a semi-passable poncho, more for modesty than to protect her against the elements. She was still missing pants and barefoot but had his coat on under there. Earl didn’t mind. He figured Travis would have approved of Heather’s general attitude.

  “We’re on. Nice poncho, by the way.” Heather took up the edges of the blanket and curtsied. The rest of the group gathered around Earl. “We set up there,” he pointed at the ridge above. “Shoot the hell out of anything that moves while Nikolai runs in. On my mark we follow.”

  “The pup can follow me, if she can keep up. Once inside, stay out of my way,” Nikolai said. “When I am excited, it can be…difficult to tell friend from foe.”

  Earl grabbed Nikolai roughly by the sleeve. “Don’t you dare hurt anybody on our side.”

  Nikolai struck Earl’s hand away. “If you’d followed that advice yourself, we wouldn’t be in this predicament now, would we?” Nikolai turned and walked away.

  “What was that about?” Stark asked nervously.

  “Nothing,” Earl muttered. “It’s not important. When we leave the ridge, move quick, but stick together. Stay alert. We’ll wait until the sun comes over the hill, so we’ll have some light.”

  “Sun’ll be up in fifteen minutes,” Aino said.

  Stark pulled out his cell phone. “Still no signal.” The Fed had been checking it every few minutes since they’d set out.

  “When there is, you damn well better just call for reinforcements and not an airstrike,” Earl warned.

  “What? They’d actually blow up the town?” Heather asked.

  “Of course not,” Stark lied as he put his phone away. “That would be overkill. Our primary mission is to protect the population from monster attacks.”

  “Your primary mission is to contain the truth,” Earl said, knowing full well that the MCB was capable of massive overreactions. They’d destroyed population centers before to prevent various supernatural outbreaks. There had been one in Pennsylvania in the Eighties, Texas in the Forties, and even before there had been an MCB the government had burned a town in Wisconsin. America wasn’t the only one with that policy, either. No country would risk a major supernatural outbreak. Areas had been sterilized in Africa, India, Russia, and Europe, blamed on natural disasters or industrial accidents, and those were only the ones MHI knew about. These events were rare and ugly, but they beat the alternative. “We get this guy now and this op is locked down, Stark. There’s no need for these people to suffer any more than necessary.”

  “Blow up my hometown and I will totally beat your ass,” Heather said.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that, missy, but MCB sure isn’t done with you,” the agent growled. “You know what happens to confirmed werewolves. There’s going to be hell to pay—”

  Earl cut him off. “Stark.”

  “What?”

  “Another word, and I’ll kill you myself and tell Myers the werewolves got you.” Earl didn’t so much as blink as he let that sink in. Stark began to speak, then thought better of it and closed his mouth. Earl Harbinger had a certain reputation amongst the MCB, and even Stark wasn’t pigheaded enough to push him just then.

  Earl studied the faces around him. Heather was nervous but seemed predatorily eager. Being a werewolf had that effect on you. If she didn’t wig out and go insane on them, everything should be okay. Jason Lococo seemed calm, and despite having come from a crappy company was acting like a professional. Aino was a tough old coot who’d seemingly just tagged along for the ride, but his actions showed he was far more committed to defending his town that his words indicated. Stark was still a belligerent jerk, but he was MCB, and they could usually fight. Nikolai had already wandered off, probably arguing with the voices in his head. They were tired and out of their league. He would have traded them in a heartbeat for his regular team, but they’d have to do.

  “All right, everyone. Listen up. We can do this. We’re going to beat this asshole.”

  “You giving a motivational speech?” Aino asked incredulously.

  “Damn straight. I always do.…We’re going to get that stinking amulet, and we’re going to cure Heather. If you get scared, keep going. They’re werewolves, and they’re scary, but they die, just like everything else. Remember, this is your turf. He came here. He started it. He hurt your people. And there’s a bunch of folks counting on us back there. We will not let them down. All of you lost someone today—friends, teammates, partners. We’re going to get him before he gets away and does this again somewhere else. Now it
’s his turn to lose. It’s his turn to hurt. It’s his turn to fucking die.”

  Earl took the time to look each of them square in the eye. He’d learned a thing or two about leadership over the years, and he could usually tell the measure of a man by looking in his eyes. Whether it was one of his Hunters or a soldier in a trench in France, Earl Harbinger could always see a warrior’s heart, and though here it was either too new, too old, too inexperienced, or atrophied by bureaucracy, they were what he had. They’re scared, but they’ll do.

  “Good hunting. Move out.”

  Chapter 31

  “They’re here,” the Alpha said. “Wake your diggers. Get ready.”

  Lucinda moved to the window. The sun was just peeking over the mountains. There was nothing moving out there except for one member of the pack, in human form, pacing near the gate. “Who? Where?”

  He didn’t know who. The smells were confusing. Petrov was one of them, the female was another. There were some humans…and something confusing. It was Harbinger, but not. The not-Harbinger was what annoyed him. You shouldn’t be able to smell a ghost.

  “Get away from the window.” He took the young witch by the arm and firmly pulled her back. The last thing he wanted was for a sniper to put a bullet in her. Then he’d be stuck walking. “I need you alive.”

  “Well, thank you. I’m rather fond of you, too.” Lucinda’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

  “You know what I mean.” The witch’s portal magic was their primary escape route. “Secure my father. I’m not done with him yet. Be careful. He’s a tricky one. Get to the bottom and wait for me. I’ll meet you at the elevator shaft.” His hand unconsciously moved to the amulet. “This shouldn’t take long.”

  Outside, the patrolling werewolf’s head opened and tossed out brains. He dropped, cleanly killed. The sound of the rifle shot arrived a moment later.

  * * *

  It had been much more difficult making it back up the ridge with all his weapons, but Earl figured if you were going to bring them, you might as well have some fun with them. He’d made Jason lug the heavy stuff. Being the boss had its benefits.