The Monster Hunters

by Larry Correia

  The power went out.

  Chapter 15

  A brilliant flashlight beam clicked on. Franks flashed it around the room.

  “Status?”

  “Commando team is trying to destroy our ward stone. And when they do there’s at least four truckloads of undead waiting to charge in.” I pulled out my own Streamlight and shined it around the room. I spotted my compact STI .45 and picked it up. “We’ve got to protect that ward.”

  Grant, stumbling from the beating, retrieved Torres’ suppressed HK and looted some extra mags from the unconscious traitor. That’s right, I had tossed Grant’s gun down the hallway. Franks was a hulking shadow behind his light. “Archer, request reinforcements. Jefferson, call the Shacklefords and warn them what’s coming.”

  Archer came back immediately. “I’ve got nothing.”

  “No signal,” Grant said. The Condition was jamming us somehow. This was a full-on assault. Hood had set it up perfectly. He must have been planning this forever. Like Holly had said, this was a chess game to him.

  “You know where the ward stone’s at?” I asked. Grant had been around longer than I had.

  “No idea,” he answered. I shined my flashlight on him. He was bleeding from his nose and one eye was swollen shut. I had really clocked him. Served him right, just not for the reasons I had imagined. If we lived through this, I was going to find out why Grant had turned snitch and then I was going to beat him to death.

  “The bad guys were heading into the tunnels by the barracks. Earl said that the stone was centrally located,” I said.

  “Probably in the middle of the property,” he responded. The main building was toward the front. We had some ground to cover.

  The compound was connected to the regular electrical lines. Those must have been cut by whatever that explosion was, probably set by the doppelganger. But we had our own backup generators in the basement. I could hear them begin to whine from down the hall. They were up and running within a minute. The lights came back on.

  The cultists were in the tunnels. Luckily Earl had given me a brief tour. “I know about an entrance to the tunnels. We’re close. We can intercept them. We’ve got to hurry.” I started from the room.

  “Wait,” Franks said as he blocked the exit. “I’ll handle this. My mission is still to keep you safe.”

  “No, you lied. Your mission was to capture your traitor.” I pointed at Torres’ unconscious form. “Now get the hell out of my way.”

  “You were both part of my mission.”

  “You son of a bitch . . .” He had brought a murderer right into my house, and put all of us at risk, just to accomplish his mission. Unfortunately, I couldn’t even afford the luxury of being angry. There was work to be done. “We’re out of time.”

  He contemplated that just for a second. After all, with the warding down, we were probably all going to die anyway. “Fine. Let’s go. Archer, warn the Hunters. Find a way to contact Myers.”

  “Yes, sir!” Archer shouted, whipping out a pair of handcuffs and securing one of Torres’ already cuffed wrists to the heavy desk. Then the efficient agent sprinted from the room, shouting back at us. “I’ll get help.”

  Franks raised his Glock 10mm. He was wearing a suit, and other than what he had stashed in his pockets, probably didn’t have a lot of extra firepower. All I had was my compact pistol, two extra 10-round mags, and a Spyderco folding knife. The rest of my gear was upstairs, fat lot of good that did me right now. Grant had Torres’ piece, but at least he was wearing armor. So it was up to a brute, a snitch, and me, armed only with handguns, to defeat a commando force of heavily armed and amped-up cultists. I led the way toward the tunnels. “Hurry.”

  We reached the storage closet that Earl had showed me. The door was locked. I kicked it open. My ankle was really burning now. Shoving the shelf of cleaning supplies aside, I realized that there was no way I was going to batter this massive door open. The padlock hanging from the massive latch was a serious piece of steel. “Crap! I can’t open it.”

  “Move,” Franks ordered as he shoved past me.

  “Well, that was stupid,” Grant said.

  “Shut it, you rat.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about it, so shove it,” Grant returned. “I saved your life.”

  “I can’t believe you’re a Fed. You lied to us all.”

  “I’ve got my reasons,” Grant replied as he took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the blood from his forehead. “I told you the truth earlier. You think this is all about you? The world doesn’t revolve around you, Pitt.”

  Maybe Grant just brought out the worst in me, but I wasn’t in the mood to listen to his crap. “Well, yeah, it does. So screw you.”

  Franks studied the big lock for a moment. Maybe he was planning on shooting it. Realistically, as solid as that chunk of steel was, we were going to run out of ammo and die from ricochets long before we broke it. Franks put his gloved hands around the lock, braced one big foot against the door and pulled with all his might. He roared as the metal bent, tore, then broke free. He fell back. Whatever the hell Franks really was, he sure was handy to have around.

  Franks tossed the broken lock on the ground. He cracked his knuckles. “Go.”

  I pulled out my flashlight as we entered the tunnel. I remembered how to get to the intersection, but the only other time I had been down here, I had gone in the opposite direction than we needed to go. But rough estimation should get us toward the barracks.

  The tunnels were cold, and without Earl to lead me, they felt strangely eerie. I set off in the direction of the barracks. Running with pistol in one hand, light in the other, I almost missed the turn. Franks collided with me. I picked the direction that seemed correct.

  “Booby-trapped?” Franks asked.

  “Uh . . . I don’t actually know.” Earl had never mentioned it, but all things considered, that seemed like a definite possibility.

  “They should be. Stay behind me.” Franks took the lead. He raised his light and scanned ahead. The big man took off at a run. It was a struggle to keep up. Franks was fast. I followed the bobbing light. It paused as he came to another branch. I guessed approximately where we were and shouted for him to keep to the left. Franks disappeared again.

  “Damn, he’s quick,” I gasped. “What the hell is he?”

  “I don’t know either,” Grant answered. “That was classified.”

  “Well, you’re about useless.”

  We had to be getting close now. Suddenly the tunnel ahead of us was plunged into darkness. Franks had killed his flashlight. There had to be a reason, so I did the same. My eyes were not adjusted to the dark at all, so I placed my hand against the cold wall and shuffled forward blindly. My heart was pounding. I could hear Grant breathing hard behind me.

  Something large and warm bumped into me. I almost shot him. “Suppressed weapon,” Franks whispered. There was some shuffling as Grant handed off Torres’ gun. “Count to thirty, then follow.”

  I counted. I got to twenty-five before I heard a pair of thumps that could only be the silenced .45. I moved forward.

  The tunnel curved, and my boots collided with a large, soft object. I knelt down. My hands landed in something sticky and hot. Blood. In utter darkness, I felt around. The body was wearing a tac vest covered with MOLLE pouches full of equipment. My fingers landed on lips and teeth. Goggles. The man had been wearing night-vision goggles. I tore the device off his head and held it up to my eyes. The world was immediately bathed in a brilliant green glow. I flinched as I realized Franks was squatting a few feet ahead, looking right at me. Alien and terrifying in the unnatural light, his eyes glowed. He held up one finger in front of his lips to indicate the need for silence. Apparently he could see in the dark too.

  The Condition did not skimp. These were at least as good as the third-generation monoculars that MHI issued. I pulled the strap and chinpiece over my head. It was absurdly tight, and immediately began to hurt my face and cut off
the circulation to my throbbing scalp. But I have an enormous head, so what do you expect.

  Grant bumped into me. I put my head next to his ear and whispered for him to stay here. The cultist had an Uzi subgun with a massive sound suppressor at his side. I pressed it against Grant to replace the HK. He clumsily found it in the dark and took it from me. The goggles cut down my field of vision so much that it was like looking through a toilet-paper tube. When I looked back up, Franks was gone. I followed.

  I heard voices. “We’ve retrieved the stone, Mistress. The warding is down.”

  “Excellent, take it to the surface. The Shadow Lord wants it immediately.”

  We were too late. The voices were getting closer. I reached another intersection. How big was this place? Maybe if I could put the stupid thing back, it would turn the shield back on. I was drastically turned around by now, but I could clearly tell which direction the sound was coming from. Franks materialized through the pixelated glow. He held up both hands. Five fingers on one, three on the other. Eight men.

  “Where’s Harris?” Sound carried strangely down here, so I couldn’t tell how far away the voice was.

  “I sent him to cover that tunnel,” the woman said.

  “Wait . . . I smell his blood.”

  I rubbed my sticky fingers together. I had wandered right into the dead cultist’s body. I was covered in his blood. But how could he smell it? Damn it. They weren’t all normal. . . .

  “Hunters! They’re here. I can smell them now. They’re close. Let me transform and hunt them. Please?” The voice sounded eager, hungry. “Pretty please?”

  “Be careful. I’ll take the humans up to secure the stone. Kill them all, my love.”

  I saw Franks’ pixelated face mouth the word werewolf. Of course. It couldn’t ever be easy, could it? I hoisted my STI and gave him a thumbs-up. Silver bullets. Franks pointed at me, then pointed down one passage. I nodded and proceeded in the indicated direction. Franks disappeared down the other.

  I hate werewolves. Werewolves are what got me involved in this business to begin with. I’m scared shitless of werewolves. But there was no time for fear. I could dwell on the absolute bowel-clenching terror of trying to take on a ball of razor claws and fury in this enclosed space, or I could man up and go kill him. Less than a minute later a howl reverberated through the tunnel.

  That transformation had been quick. This wasn’t some wimpy young werewolf like the one that had almost ended my life. But even tough lycanthropes weren’t immune to silver. That thought immediately made me think of Earl. If he had been hit with MHI-issued ammo, he might already be dead.

  I kept swinging my head back and forth in wide arcs, scanning through the narrow field of view, gun trembling in my hands, waiting for the cultist-wolf to appear. When he did, it was unbelievably fast. One second the tunnel was open, the next, something was in front of me, a massive, hairy shape, with eyes glowing over a gaping maw full of teeth. The tritium night sights on my little pistol glowed like road flares in the night vision. I jerked the trigger twice.

  The noise was brutal in the confined space. Smoke floated in front of the lens. The werewolf was gone. I’d missed.

  Damn, he’s fast.

  The tunnel walls seemed to press in around me. I moved forward, gun up. If he reappeared, I wouldn’t have much time to put him down. I had to incapacitate him quickly, because if he got in range, I knew that he’d tear right through my unarmored vitals.

  Waiting, I covered the corner. He had to come through here. If I rounded the edge, he could be right there. I listened for breathing, but my ears were still ringing. I didn’t have time for this. If the cultists got away with that stone, we were going to be up to our ears in dead things. They were probably already swarming over the fence. Crap. I surged forward, pistol raised. The hall was empty.

  I ran in the direction that I thought the voices had come from. The werewolf was still out there somewhere in the darkness, but I had to reach that stone first. My enhanced vision revealed a larger open space ahead of me. I came up on the corner ready to shoot, but there was no movement.

  There was a big steel portal in this room. It was an old-fashioned vault door with a giant, spinning wheel in the center. There was a perfect circle cut through the side of the door. I touched the edge. Several inches of steel had been cleanly sheared. It was cool to the touch. They had used some sort of magic to bypass Earl’s security, and judging from the shape, it was probably another one of those magic ropes. Inside the room was a concrete pillar, looking almost like a speaker’s podium, but with an empty indentation in the center about the size of a softball.

  There was a scraping noise behind me, claws on rock. I spun, but couldn’t see anything. Stupid werewolf’s stalking me. Well, let him come. One of us would be faster than the other. It was that simple. I ran after the cultists. This tunnel was trending upward, but we seemed to be circling back toward where I had left Grant. I was so lost.

  Scritch.

  I spun on the ball of my foot, gun punching out. A black shape barreled toward me, eyes glowing like green balls of fire, saliva flying from rows of teeth. I fired.

  We collided, slamming me painfully down. There was a flash of heat and fur rubbed across my face. I rolled over, gun tucked in tight against my body. My goggles had been knocked askew. I couldn’t see anything. Something moved before me. There was a tearing of wind, and claws ripped four lines through my shirt. I opened fire.

  A shriek of pain. I’d got him! The last shots in my pistol were gone in a split second, my slide locked back empty. I automatically dropped the mag and jerked another one from my belt, slamming it home and chambering a round. Claws scratched and I cranked off ten more shots in that direction, as fast as I could pull the trigger, muzzle blast creating a strobe effect as the shape rolled away from me.

  It was quiet except for my breathing. Adrenaline was pounding through my system. I reached up with my shaking left hand and jerked the goggles back into place.

  Agent Franks towered over me. I jumped. He had the suppressed HK in one hand. The werewolf was curled into a fetal position between us, a bristling mass of hair and muscle. Air hissed from its perforated lung. I’d nailed the werewolf repeatedly. Franks raised the pistol and put a final round through the creature’s skull, splattering the tunnel floor. Franks nodded. “You got him . . .” Then he pointed at his abdomen. “And me.”

  It was hard to tell through the night-vision, but there was a leaking hole low in his side. I’d shot Franks! “Oh, man, are you okay?”

  He appeared to think about it as he stuck one finger in the entrance wound, not feeling any pain. “Bullet struck my pelvis below my vest. Glanced upward . . . Hmmm, hit a kidney. You owe me a new one. Come on.” He turned and stalked after the cultists.

  Now that was tough, even by Monster Hunter standards.

  “I’m sorry!” I exclaimed as I stepped over the dead werewolf. I’d never shot anybody by accident before. It was humiliating. Even if it was a pretty intense situation, I was still supposed to be the master of this stuff. I shoved my final magazine into the smoking STI and followed Franks.

  Twenty feet of tunnel later, there was a chattering of submachine-gun fire. I pressed myself against the carved stone, but it wasn’t directed at us. It was coming from just ahead. Franks surged forward. I followed. Grant was kneeling at the corner, metal Uzi stock at his shoulder, firing blindly down the hall. He must have stumbled around totally in the dark until he had heard the cultists. There was a ladder leading up into the night. There was one body at the base, and another one dangling with an arm trapped through the rungs. Way to go, Grant.

  Somebody stuck an arm down the hole and muzzle flashes sparked as they shot at us. Franks extended the HK and fired. There was a scream of pain and a clatter as the man dropped his gun down the hole. Franks hit the ladder and began to climb. He jerked the dead cultist off and let him drop. “Grant, follow us. We’re heading up!” I shouted.

  “I’m blind, idiot!�
�� he responded.

  “Head toward the gunfire,” I suggested as I started climbing. Franks was nearing the top. There was a sudden boom as something detonated above him. He fell a couple of rungs, and I cringed, waiting for him to land on me, but he caught himself with a grunt. The cultists had grenades. Franks growled in frustration, blood falling from him and splattering my upturned face as he shoved himself up and through the hole.

  I was out a second later, a cloud of dust and smoke still hanging in the air from the explosion. I tore off the goggles. The sun had just gone down, but it was brilliantly bright compared to the stifling tunnels. Franks was already moving, firing the suppressed pistol through the swirling dust. It ran dry, and he dropped it, automatically drawing a Glock. I couldn’t see what he was shooting at, but I took off after him.

  It took me a moment to orient myself as the dust cleared. We were at the north corner of the barracks. I ran, subconsciously crouching over as bullets crashed through the dirt at my feet. Somebody was shooting at me! I hugged the wall behind Franks, safely around the corner. I’d never actually been in a gunfight before. It was certainly different than fighting monsters!

  Franks nodded at me. “Five left.”

  I was gasping for breath. I glanced down at my gun. “I’m down to my last ten rounds.”

  “So shoot each one twice,” Franks replied. He reached down and checked his side. Blood was drizzling out from under his suit and soaking his pant leg. “I’ve got to stop this.”

  “Sorry,” I stammered. I had often dreamed of shooting Franks, just never by accident. He had lost his sunglasses and in that brief lull I noticed something strange under the lights of the barracks. His eyes had changed. They had always been dark, almost black, and one still was, but the other was light blue.

  Franks caught me staring and turned his head away. He pointed at the door the cultists had entered. “They’re covering that entry. Is there another way in?”