I crashed through the brush until I blundered into a clearing. The flashlight I’d given Sonya was lying on the ground, still on. There was a glowing blue spot, still flickering with weird fire, where one of the dogs had gotten blasted. The other one was at the base of a tree, snarling and leaping, scratching at the bark because Sonya had climbed up into the branches. She had dropped the empty shotgun but fished the little .380 out of her pocket and was trying to get an angle to shoot the dog below her.
I saved her the effort and put a load of buckshot into the back of its head.
“About time,” she shouted as the dog dissolved. Then she hopped off the branch, which had to be ten feet up, to land effortlessly on the ground. “I thought you said you could protect me.”
“You’re not making it easy.” I looked around, trying to get my bearings, and it was then that I realized that she hadn’t just run off without me, but she’d done it in the wrong direction again, and taken us further away from the road. “You’ve got a horrible sense of direction in the woods.”
“That’s kinda embarrassing actually, considering my family tree. It’s a long story.”
“Save it. Come on.” I pointed. “This way.”
Sonya retrieved the light and shotgun. “What was your name again? Opie?”
“Owen. Now stay close because I can’t help you if you’re running off like a—”
There was a hissing crack as the lightning bolt hit the tree Sonya had been hiding in. The trunk blew apart, throwing chunks of wood in every direction. The shockwave put me on my ass.
I sat up, blinked a few times, and realized the newly re-formed Drekavac was stalking through the trees toward us, manipulating its archaic weapon, probably to reload. How do you reload lightning? But I didn’t have time to think through magical weapon logistics. “Run!”
Getting to my feet, I cranked off several quick shots in the Drekavac’s direction. Rather than let me kill it, this time the monster ducked behind a tree trunk. Maybe it only had so many lives, or maybe it was just tired of having to pull itself together. Either way, it wasn’t shooting at me for a second, so I fled.
I crashed through the forest as fast as I could. Sonya’s light was bobbing along ahead of me. At least this time she was heading in the right direction. It wasn’t until I’d gone too far to go back that I realized I’d lost my gear bag when the lightning had struck. Most of my kit was back there in the clearing. I kept my light pointed straight ahead so I could see the ground, because if I stumbled here, I was probably going to get flash-fried.
There was another hiss-crack as the Drekavac fired. The lightning hit a stump next to me and ripped it to pieces. I could feel that impact in my lungs. Dirt rained from the sky. I vaulted over a waist-high boulder, turned around, and snapped off two more shots at the Drekavac, forcing it down. It probably expected me to run, but instead I waited a second, sight on the spot where I’d last seen the Drekavac. And the instant the pilgrim hat rose into my vision, I pulled the trigger.
The hat went flying and the Drekavac stumbled out of view. He hadn’t disintegrated into sparks that time, so I’d probably only winged him. I moved up on him, aggressive, searching for the glow, looking for a shot.
And then his damned falcon hit me right in the head.
It had dropped out of the sky like a bomb. The only reason I didn’t lose an eye to a talon was that it struck my flipped-up night vision first. The PVS-14s got torn off, but better them than my face. It screeched, pecked, and scratched at me, wings beating around my head. It was a lot bigger than it had looked in the air, with a wingspan longer than I could stretch my arms.
I punched it out of the air.
The ghost falcon hit the ground. I shouldered Abomination and fired. I was so close the buckshot dug a hole in the ground right through the bird.
Then one of the dogs came out of nowhere and bit my arm.
I roared in pain as its fangs sunk into my flesh. Searing cold crawled up the limb. It hit right near where the reptoid had gotten me earlier, so it really fucking hurt. The jaws clenched and the dog pulled, dropping its haunches, trying to drag me off my feet.
My left hand was on Abomination’s foregrip. I hit the button to pop out the bayonet and stabbed it right through one burning eye. I shoved the silver blade through the dog’s head until the point popped out its opposite ear hole. The jaws unclenched as it dropped dead, black skin crumbling to nothingness.
Then the other dog jumped on my back.
I went down hard enough to catch a mouthful of trail dirt. It was on me. I managed to roll over as it snapped at my face. I managed to get one hand on its head, trying to hold it back, but it was like wrestling a block of ice. Its teeth were going for my throat.
And then its head popped and all I could see for a moment was a shower of blue sparks.
Sonya was standing there, with smoke rising from the end of her double barrel. “Quit dicking around and let’s get out of here.”
I was actually surprised that she’d not kept running. I grunted as I got to my feet. “Thanks for coming back.”
“I’m not going to make a habit of it.”
We stumbled through the woods. The teeth marks in my arm burned. I could still move all my fingers so it hadn’t severed any tendons, but I switched Abomination to my left hand because it hurt less that way. We kept on for a few more minutes, as the fog seemed to dissipate a bit, and there was no sign of the animal menagerie from hell.
“You’re not going to bleed to death, are you?” Sonya asked.
“Not anytime soon I hope.” I shined my light on my arm and winced when I saw it was a bloody mess.
“I don’t see any more glow. Do you think he’s gone?”
“Not a chance.”
Chapter 10
Running for your life through a dark and unfamiliar forest kind of sucks. But after a few breathless minutes I saw a glimmer of light just ahead. That had to be the road. We had to splash across a stream, and then scramble up a steep moss-covered embankment. There was a metal guard rail at the top. Sonya hopped right over. Because of the angle I had to kind of crawl up, and flop over the rail onto the asphalt.
It turned out the lights I’d seen through the trees had been for a little country gas station and convenience store. It was the only building in sight. There were a couple of cars parked there. Sonya started toward the store.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“His aura is jamming our phones. I’m going to see if they have a wired phone that works to call for help,” she said. “Like what do you call the old-fashioned kind?”
Was she trying to make me feel old? “You mean a landline?”
“Yeah, like a landline or whatever.”
“And involve some more innocent people so they can get murdered by that thing? Hell no.”
“I’m not going to endanger anybody.”
“Did you miss all the severed limbs back at the bar or the guy it put through the ceiling? Everyone around you is in danger. This creature is here because of you. You interrupted a deal between some really evil assholes, and this Drekavac thing is their insurance policy. The guy you stole it from, Stricken, he’s bad news and has seen shit you can’t even imagine, and even he called this monster relentless. It’s not going to stop until it kills you or we figure out how to kill it permanently.”
Sonya scowled at me, then looked back at the convenience store, which appeared well lit and relatively inviting when compared to our ominous patch of shadowy roadside. “What are we supposed to do then? Keep running until it catches us?”
“Or until my friends find us.” That was honestly my only real hope. I could keep killing this thing all night, but it only needed to get lucky once and I was toast. We could keep trying to stay ahead of it, but I didn’t even know if this was the kind of entity that would stop at dawn, or if it cared about daylight at all. I checked my phone, but still nothing. My radio was in the bag I’d lost, so I couldn’t even try that to see if my team wa
s close. “I’ve got a GPS tracker on this vest and help was already on the way to the bar when this thing showed up.”
“What if the thing is messing with the GPS signal like it is our phones? Then what, huh?”
I sighed. That was likely. The air had been clear for a little while, hot and fog free, so it was possible we’d lost it, or maybe it needed time to recuperate or something. This could be our best chance. “Okay, but we make it quick, and then we get out.”
We hurried over to the gas station. The car that had been fueling up at one of the pumps drove off. There was only one other vehicle parked at the side, probably from whoever was working. There were clouds of bugs flying around the overhead lights. The night felt normal and alive, which was a good sign.
Through the window I could see that there was a kindly looking woman in her fifties working behind the counter. Since I was huge and scary, even when I wasn’t filthy, bleeding, and wearing a tac vest, I was probably going to frighten her, and then have to calm her down, which would take precious time. Sonya was a little dirty but looked relatively unthreatening, even with the heavy metal vibe going on. “I’ll stand guard out here and watch for the fog. Call that bottom number.” I handed her one of my business cards. The second number on it was to MHI headquarters, and with a Hunter currently MIA it would certainly be manned. They would be able to vector my team and all of Boone’s guys right to us. “Try not to freak that poor lady out.”
“Will do.” Sonya handed me the sawed-off. Then she brushed the leaves out of her hair, and poof, just like that, she was a totally different person. One second, she was the nose-pierced rocker, the next she was a cherubic little blonde girl with rosy cheeks and a pixie cut. Even the intricate tats on her arm had vanished, leaving just pink skin. “I used to use this face to sell Girl Scout cookies. I totally killed it.”
“I bet.” Though come to think of it, I really could go for a box of Samoas right then. “Hurry up.”
Sonya went inside. I went to a shadowy corner and watched for sign of the Drekavac. So far, each time I’d run into the monster, I’d been warned by the temperature swing. Hopefully, that wasn’t an effect that he could just turn off at will or I was screwed.
I had to remind myself this was worth it. All I had to do was keep this obstinate little thief alive despite the best efforts of a spectral bounty hunter, then we could get the Ward from her, use it to destroy Asag once and for all, and then my family would be able to live without constantly watching over our shoulders for assassins every second for the rest of our lives.
I’d given away my good med kit, but I still had my little emergency blow-out pouch on my armor. After I secured the sawed-off through some of the straps and slung Abomination, I did a quick wrap around the dog bite to control the bleeding. It still needed a good cleaning, but hopefully hell hounds didn’t carry rabies . . . hell rabies? Wow. That would be bad. While I worked I told myself it looked worse than it probably was.
What was taking her so long? I started walking back toward the window so I could look inside, but then I saw headlights approaching. Thankfully they were regular, normal headlights, and not blue fire beams coming from a horse skull. They were pulling into the gas station, so I moved back around the corner to stay out of sight until I could figure out who this was. Hopefully, it was one of my coworkers, but then I saw that it was a battered old minivan, which certainly wasn’t one of MHI’s fleet vehicles.
But it turned out that it was a Hunter after all.
Gutterres winced as he stepped out of the minivan’s driver seat. The Vatican Hunter’s clothing was charred and burnt in spots. There was a bright red burn mark crawling up his neck and ashes on his face. Battered, covered in dust and blood, it looked like he’d had a much worse time than I had. Gutterres started limping toward the front door, but then he paused, as if he sensed something, and then spun and aimed a handgun my way. “Show yourself.”
I moved slowly out from the corner. “Rough night?”
Gutterres lowered his pistol when he recognized me. “You can say that. It’s not often I get knocked across a forest and then have to carjack a vehicle to go for help. Pitt, right?”
“Yep . . . Gutterres?”
“The one and only. Is the girl safe?”
“She’s safe.”
He glanced at the store. “Is she inside there?”
“She’s in there supposedly calling my people for help. Did she call you instead?”
“I wouldn’t know if she had. My coms are down.”
“So are mine.” The two of us stood there beneath the hum of the fluorescent lights. This was where it got sticky, because my track record for diplomacy with other groups of Hunters was decidedly mixed. “Here’s the thing though. That deal you had with her? MHI really needs that Ward Stone.”
“That’s unfortunate. So do we.”
“I figured. Only we need it to save the world.”
“Isn’t that a coincidence.” Gutterres didn’t budge. “Perhaps you can petition my superiors to borrow the Ward, after we’re done using it to save the world.”
“We could compare notes over which one of us has the bigger problem and prioritize from there.”
“A reasonable proposition. Or I could just claim the property my organization has already paid for and go on my way.”
“You could try . . . ” I let that threat hang, like he’d have to go through me first. Except that only seemed to amuse him, which I’ll admit was kind of annoying and also a little worrying. Earl warned me not to pick a fight with this particular dude. “Look, man, I need that rock to kill Asag. I’m sure by this point you’ve heard of him.”
Gutterres nodded slowly. “Disorder. The chaos demon who was leaving his mark at massacres around the world, who has been oddly silent since your siege of the City of Monsters.”
“He’s not just any old demon. He’s a world-ender. But yeah, you guys should have come to that party. You really missed out.”
“We like to do our own thing. But okay, Pitt. Killing Asag is a worthy goal. I’ll give you that. Except that attempt would require destroying the stone, and do you have any evidence it would actually work?”
“I killed a Great Old One that way.”
“From my understanding you’re the only man alive to ever do so.”
I shrugged. “I guess that makes me kind of the expert.”
“Too bad the Old Ones hail from an entirely different reality, working on an entirely different set of rules than Asag’s species—”
“There’s more of them?”
Gutterres openly scoffed at my ignorance. “I’d assume so. How could there not be?”
I’ll admit, I hadn’t really thought about that much. One of them was bad enough. “So what does the Pope need another Ward for? Don’t you guys already have one?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss what we need it for. My assignment is to retrieve this one, and time is of the essence . . . So please, step aside.”
Neither one of us was pointing our guns at the other, but we were both still holding them. I didn’t like the idea of harming a fellow Hunter, but I had no doubt this particular holy warrior was dedicated enough to his order and mission that he’d shoot me in the head and sleep like a baby tonight. Only I couldn’t back down because this was bigger than either of us, so if he lifted that pistol I’d fucking end him . . . though unlike Gutterres I’d probably feel remorse afterwards. A very tense few seconds passed.
Only I never got to find out which one of us was more committed because our standoff was interrupted.
The lights flickered. The buzzing insects scattered. It was suddenly very cold.
“Not this guy again.”
“We should continue our debate later,” Gutterres suggested.
“Truce,” I quickly agreed, because he didn’t strike me as the sort to shoot me in the back as soon as I turned around. The Vatican guys couldn’t possibly earn an alright on the Harbinger scale if they were dishonorable back shooters. I s
tarted looking for targets. “Let’s blast this jackass.”
“That’s a bad idea. I’m guessing you’ve not fought one of these before.”
“This is my first time on the Drekavac express. Would not recommend.”
“How many times has he been destroyed so far tonight?”
“Uh . . . ” That was a good question. I’d kind of lost track during all the excitement. “Does his petting zoo count?”
“They’re all facets of the same being, but only the humanoid form ultimately matters.”
“Five or six probably?”
“Then you’ve only seen him at less than half his might. Shooting him is a waste. He can be reborn thirteen times before the cock crows, and each time he’ll simply come back stronger. The last few forms are incredibly deadly. The only way to keep him from re-forming is to take his head as a trophy.”
“Decapitation. Got it.” I could work with that.
“It has to be clean. That’s got to be the killing blow. If he’s killed before his head comes off, he’ll just come back. Got it?” Gutterres was staring at the fog bank that was curling along the edge of the road. It was skulking along like a living creature, low and hungry. “How are you with a blade?”
“I can Lizzie Borden the shit out of stuff, but it isn’t exactly graceful. I’m way better with a gun.” I wished Edward was here. He loved decapitating things. “You?”
“Superb.” And the way Gutterres said that obviously wasn’t boasting, it was simply an honest assessment of capabilities in the brief moments before battle. “Only I lost my main blade when I got hit by lightning. All I’ve got left is this little fellow.” He spun a hooked karambit around in his left hand that he’d kept hidden from me before. There were two kinds of men who carried karambits. Morons who liked to spin them around and show off who were more likely to cut themselves than their opponents, or psycho knife fighters who were really good at hooking limbs and severing tendons. Gutterres didn’t strike me as a moron. He’d probably been intending to surprise me with that nasty thing if we had thrown down.
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