Hired Killer (Cryptid Assassin Book 1)

by Michael Anderle

  It had almost made its final descent from the tree and was now close enough for him to see it properly. The bottom half of its jaw split down the middle to reveal a pair of dripping fangs that he could only assume were venomous.

  It was like it had simply absorbed the DNA of any creature it could get its jaws or paws on—which possibly explained taking the innards—but he couldn't see any human characteristics in the beast.

  Except maybe the eyes, he thought, and a chill traveled down his spine. They possessed a kind of intelligence that he didn't remember ever seeing in the creatures he had encountered in the Zoo. It seemed to study him, evaluate him, and try to determine what the hell he was and what it could take from him. That fact alone was disconcerting enough without the inevitable outcome. He had little doubt that the freak of nature would follow up its appraisal with a vicious and single-minded DNA-snatch.

  Taylor really, really didn't want to be around for that part.

  "Holy shit, you're terrifying," he said and took slow steps away from the tree. It continued both its scrutiny and its descent and for the life of him, he wasn't even sure how it was doing it.

  "I take it you've found the beastie we've been looking for?" Desk asked.

  "Yep," he whispered, although he wasn't sure why. The helmet he wore was virtually sound-proof, and he could only be heard talking if he keyed the outside speakers. Still, it felt like the smart thing to do.

  "Is there anything I should tell Niki?" she asked.

  "Don't you have any of the footage from my HUD?"

  "Oh…right, you have one of those newfangled suits with HUDs that broadcast images as well as sound," she said and he could see the feed going to her monitor. "Oh…wow, that is something straight out of a Lovecraft novel."

  "Right?" He continued to back away. "They didn't have anything like that in the Zoo. There were vines that ate people and a horde of other weird and not so wonderful mutants, but this is a whole new genre of 'hell the fuck no.'"

  "Why aren't you shooting at it?"

  "Because…well, everything I've learned in the Zoo tells me that I should never be the first one to attack something," he explained as the beast reached the place where the bear was still propped up and promptly knocked it over.

  "Well, need I remind you that you're in this business to kill monsters like that and be paid for it?"

  "Oh…right you are." Taylor took a deep breath. If he'd encountered a beast like this in the Zoo, he most definitely would have elected to simply walk the other way if that was an option. Getting into a firefight with something that big would attract everything else in a five-mile radius and there would still be no guarantee that he would get out of either fight alive.

  In the continental US, though, he didn’t have to worry about other monsters coming to this one's aid. It was only it and him, staring at each other, and maybe the voice in his head had a valid point. It would probably be the wisest choice to shoot the fucking mutant before it worked out where his liver resided.

  He raised his weapons—both assault rifle and sidearm—and without so much as a second thought, began to pull the triggers. The powerful weapons lit up the forest up with the flashes of his barrage.

  The beast moved faster than he could believe and curled into a ball around the tree. His opening salvo did nothing to pierce the carapace that protected the lower half of its body. It did more than enough damage to the tree, though, and the huge pine slowly creaked and cracked and started to plummet while the beast uncurled and rushed away from it and toward him.

  "Oh shit." He gasped and flung himself to the left as it charged and uttered a ground-shaking roar as it rushed past him. The massive, razor-sharp claws swiped through empty air that he had occupied not a second before.

  It was fast and it was big—impossibly so on both counts—and he realized that he had underestimated it. With the carapaces covering most of its body and it moving too quickly for him to target it effectively, he would have difficulty killing it. Normally, he would have elected to simply fell it with grenades or rockets and then work it over in search of any weaknesses, but he needed help for that.

  And explosives, of course. He had been allowed to bring the suits and the guns back, but rockets and grenades weren't exactly the kind of thing civilians were supposed to carry, and that included him now too.

  He needed to get creative.

  The suit had finished reloading both weapons, and Taylor opened fired again without delay and kept himself in motion while the creature once again hid its fleshy body behind the carapaces that were still impossibly and annoyingly immune to the bullets. He moved back and reloaded quickly as the creature attacked him again.

  Taylor ducked behind another tree and felt the impact when the creature barreled into it. So, it was intelligent but not really that smart. Or maybe it had thought that it could knock the tree down on top of him?

  He could really do with fresh ideas.

  Cautiously, he circled the tree and opened fire but the creature now stood almost top of him. One of the insect-like limbs on the bottom half of its body swept his legs out from under him while the rest bore down on him. It tried to punch through his armor with both its claws and fangs. The claws failed but a fang more or less succeeded.

  He could actually feel it penetrate the suit, and alarms immediately blared to warn him that the outer layer had been pierced. Thankfully, the inner layers—those that were supposed to provide most of the impact reduction—were still intact.

  "Small miracles," Taylor muttered and powered his right arm down as rapidly as he could. The mutant jerked away and with an odd snap, the fang pulled loose and blood poured over his armor. It uttered another roar, this time in pain, and he positioned his sidearm and pulled the trigger as quickly as he could. In his prone position, he was able to watch the hollow-points drill through the soft tissue of the creature's upper body.

  It was weakened but not dead, not even remotely so. He would need to find a way to actually kill it, and soon.

  He gritted his teeth and took full advantage of its moment of weakness to maneuver his legs out from under where it had them pinned and managed to twist himself to position them for maximum leverage. He used them to push as hard as he could and added the power function of the suit to launch the beast at the already weakened tree.

  The pine shuddered under the impact and the creature bounced off with a soft crunch. The sound reminded him of when he stepped on a cockroach. He grimaced at the thought, aimed his reloaded assault rifle at the tree, and held the trigger down until it was empty. The frag rounds ripped through the trunk and it groaned as it began to topple onto the wounded mutant.

  It tried to move out of the way, but one of the branches speared easily through the carapaces of its midsection and impaled it. Another branch caught it a little higher up and pinned it to the ground as the full weight of the tree thundered on top of it.

  Another roar issued, still suffused with pain but less enraged, which told him he’d managed to wound it severely. Taylor pushed to his feet and brushed its blood from his arms and chest. Cautiously, he yanked the severed fang from where it had been buried in his suit.

  He looked at it and made a face. Scientists would want to study the venom that still seeped from the tiny pore at the tip. Maybe someone could devise an antidote for it to use should anyone else be poisoned—although hopefully, there weren’t more of the monsters around.

  Then again, there was always the second fang that hadn't come loose, he thought but resisted the urge to attempt to crush the fang in his fingers. Instead, he dropped it and ground it under his heel.

  "Is it dead?" Desk asked into a silence punctuated only by his heavy breathing.

  "All but." Taylor waited while his suit reloaded his assault rifle with frag rounds before he strode to where the creature continued its death throes.

  "I wish I had something wittier to say," he remarked gruffly and aimed the assault rifle at the abomination’s face. "But…well, eat shit and die,
I guess. I'm too tired for this crap."

  He raised his weapon and unloaded the magazine into the creature's upper body until all movement ceased.

  "Now it's dead," he told Desk and moved closer to the body. "You can go ahead and let Banks know."

  "She'll want to see the body," she reminded him.

  "Shit, right…hold on." He holstered his weapons again before he took the final paces toward the beast. Moving the tree was out of the question, of course, but he could always simply drag the mutant out from under it.

  His attempt precipitated considerable cracking and splattering as the pieces still impaled by the tree tried to stay in place, but they were no match for the power of his mech suit. Before long, he dragged the long-ass beast behind him as he proceeded down the mountain.

  "I don't suppose you've ever done anything like this?" Desk commented dryly.

  "I never had to drag a body out of the Zoo, no," he conceded. "And never really had the opportunity to, either. Some of the scientists did cut into a few of the larger critters to get samples they wanted to study, and it was my job to cover for them while they did."

  "Were you any good at it?"

  "The— Well, I almost said the best, but that's not really true, no." He had always been better on the offensive than holding and defending a single position.

  “I know it’s a weird thing to say, but I think I actually missed this." He glanced over his shoulder at the creature he hauled unceremoniously over the rough terrain. "Having to evade and look for the opportunity to attack while I fight for my life against an alien monster. Well, what the hell do you know? You’re dead.”

  "What was that?" Desk asked, clearly confused by the last statements.

  "I’m having a talk with my new friend here." He patted the disgusting and slightly destroyed head. "I think I'll call him Fluffy."

  "You're weird." It was a simple statement rather than a direct insult and he decided to take it as a compliment. “That aside, I think I should remind you that you don’t need to drag the whole body back.”

  He stopped, frowned, and studied the cumbersome and already smelly corpse. “I don’t?”

  “Obviously not. I’m in your head, remember? I have access to your feed, which means everything you see and do. As of right now, you’re looking at one very dead monster. All I need to do is send that to Banks as proof of the kill.”

  "Right. That makes things easier. Thanks."

  “So, how did our little field experiment go?”

  He rolled his eyes. Unlike him—although he’d been sufficiently distracted—she clearly hadn’t forgotten their agreement. Now that he thought about it, though, it hadn’t been a complete waste of time. She had actually contributed valuable information that he would otherwise not have access too—and saved him the pain in the ass trek with the beast in tow. Still, it irked him that he had to concede the point.

  “Well…” he said reluctantly, and she chuckled. “Okay, I admit that you might have added some value—you know, in the interest of straight and narrow honesty—but it’s early days. One small mission isn’t a total game-changer.”

  “Oh, so you’d want to continue the experiment?” Did she have to sound so fucking smug?

  “Uh…maybe. But,” he added hastily before she could put her triumph into words, “that doesn’t excuse the whole hacking thing. No way. You still invaded my space without my permission.”

  “Well,” she replied quickly, and he thought he detected a note of cunning in her tone. “It would seem I have much to make up for. Perhaps that can be addressed in our further experiments. It’s only fair to give me the opportunity to redeem myself, even if technically—as I’ve already pointed out—your suit was under my jurisdiction at the time.”

  “I suppose we could discuss it,” he said after a long pause during which his mind rather disloyally considered the potential advantages her redeeming herself might bring to future missions. Her participation had opened a window to all kinds of possibilities, although he sure as fuck wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of telling her that. Not right now, anyway. It wouldn’t hurt for her to stew a little, although she didn’t seem to be doing much stewing, in all honesty. Still, he could hang onto a little of his pride. “Later, though. The boys in blue and Banks are waiting.”

  He finally pushed through the trees and into view of the road, the police cars, and the officers still huddled in a curious and wary group. They had likely heard the gunfire and the falling trees and decided to stay. They watched him approach in silence and he could only imagine their thoughts as he sauntered closer.

  "Like I told you," Banks told them smugly. "He's a specialist. Did the critter give you any trouble, McFadden?"

  Taylor raised his arm to reveal the hole it had made in his armor. "Nothing more than can be expected from the critters around here."

  "Fair enough," she replied with a casual shrug. "Shall we get out of here?"

  "Damn straight. I need to find someplace to sleep for about a week," he said, shaking his head.

  "I can see that," she replied. "And you've earned it. The money should already be deposited in your bank account, minus taxes."

  "Correct," Desk said and called up his bank statement, which confirmed a deposit of a little over ten thousand dollars despite the fact that it was already past banking hours.

  "Not bad," he said as he clambered into the SUV with Banks. He chose not to protest the fact that she had accessed his bank account as well. He could maybe use that as ammunition down the line if he ever needed it.

  "You'd be surprised what the government is willing to pay to avoid a civilian panic," she replied and started the engine.

  "I still think I should be paid more for the job, though," he pointed out. "Seriously, did you see the size of that critter?"

  "As a freelancer, you will be allowed to set your own rates," she explained. "For this job, though, the Bureau did have a say in it since it was basically an audition of your skills."

  Taylor shook his head. "Whatever. For now, get me to the nearest motel so I can have something to eat and crash."

  "I’m reasonably sure you need to peel that armor off," she pointed out. "And…sheesh, maybe wash it too. Is that blood?"

  He glanced at the creature’s blue blood that stained his breastplate. "Huh. I guess it is."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  He desperately needed to crash. It had been a long couple of days, and Taylor literally collapsed in the four-star hotel where Banks had dropped him off and slept for a full fourteen hours. She had told him to bill them for the room and expenses, minus alcohol since he was technically still on the job.

  It was, she had explained, a kind of job-well-done celebration. He had been too tired to argue that it should have included alcohol if that was the case. Besides, it didn't really matter. He didn't want to be in DC any longer than he had to be and wanted to return to Vegas to see what Bobby had achieved with the renovations. The guy had said the work would start the day he left.

  After a day or so of rest and recovery, as well as restoring his suit to a functional condition—he had needed to put work into the hole the creature had made—he set off for Vegas. This time, he was in no hurry to get there. A four-day drive was all the time he needed to get there and also allowed him proper rest on the homeward journey.

  One of the perks of the job, Desk told him, was that he could bill the FBI for traveling expenses too. Of course, Banks' superiors would probably try to cut down on those once they realized he would fly to and from some of the jobs he had to work on.

  He was happy with that. While he could pay his own way if he had to, there was no harm in having it paid for him. He needed to make what he thought he was owed for eliminating a scary monster that would have laid waste to that area of the country if it had been allowed to roam free. Ten grand didn’t cover it in his opinion.

  After the overly long trip home, Taylor was ready to immerse himself in the business of opening his own shop, and it appeared t
hat Bobby was happy to see him too. The man had driven out in his own truck to meet him as he entered the city, excited for him to see how the renovation work had progressed.

  He had a few definite expectations, as evidenced by the money he’d left in his employee’s care to use for the work, but he hadn't expected them to be met and surpassed after only a week.

  It was immediately apparent that the contractors who had been called in were among the best and liked to work for or with Bobby. Most of the doors and windows had been redone and made to look new. Prefab was a difficult material to make appealing, but at least it didn't look quite the eyesore that he had left behind.

  He could see his vision begin to take shape and said as much when he and his friend sat down for lunch inside the newly refurbished break room behind the grocery store.

  "The place always had potential, and damned if the guys working on it didn't have a good idea of how to reach it," Bungees said with a laugh. He popped two beers open and handed one to Taylor. "Oh, and I got a carrier order from one of the delivery services that works to and from the Zoo. We already have suits on the way for us to start working on."

  "Now that is music to my ears, my man," he said with a chuckle and tapped his bottle against his friend’s. "Although I guess it needs to be said that the first suit we should work on is mine."

  "I still get a bonus for that shit, right?" the other man asked and narrowed his eyes.

  "Of course, you do, you greedy motherfucker." He laughed. "But yeah, it's only a little hole right under the arm." He patted at his ribs on the right side. "The beastie caught me there with a poisoned fang. I barely escaped from that shit with my life."

  "How much did they pay you for the job?"

  "Ten grand. Plus expenses."

  "Ten grand for a week's work?" The man leaned back in his seat. "Folks around here would kill for that kind of opportunity."

  "The chances are they would be killed for it, between you and me," he replied. "You should have seen this critter, Bungees. It was like it absorbed the DNA from the animals it killed—and maybe the humans too—and assimilated it all. I have pictures if you want to see."