Monster Hunter Alpha

Chapter 11

Santiago’s last regular visit came in the spring of 1929, my third year on the island.

“How long have you known?” he asked me as we sat on the rocks with our fishing poles.

“Months ago,” I answered truthfully. I’d been tipped off by some of the tonics Santiago had started taking. The cancer was in his bones. I could smell the sick from a mile away. It was natural for a predator to sense weakness. “I figured you’d talk when you were ready.”

“ Sic transit gloria mundi…” He saw my confused expression. “Latin. It means the glory of man is fleeting. Such is life, my friend. The church has already sent a replacement, and he seems like a good enough man. My people will be cared for. I suppose my work here is done. I have done my best, and I go to the Lord with a heart that is free in that knowledge. Are you ready to return to life?”

I wasn’t sure. I asked what he thought.

“You’ve sat on top of this rock and let hurricanes buffet you. I’ve seen you do your very best to torture yourself into changing inadvertently. You have read the Bible seven times, absorbed everything I know about werewolves, and have spent many hours in quiet contemplation. I do not know what else you can do here. My opinion is that it is time to move on. Your curse could be a powerful tool in accomplishing the Lord’s work. Besides, I won’t be around to bring you supplies for much longer, and you are a terrible fisherman.” He reached around his back and drew a familiar revolver. He opened the cylinder and ejected a single cartridge before handing it over. “I believe this belongs to you.”

I took the silver bullet, all alone in its half-moon clip. “You know, I could give you the curse. You’d be healed immediately. Werewolves don’t get sick. You’re a strong man. You could learn to control it, better than me for sure.”

“Do not tempt me, Raymond. I am less afraid of dying than I am of failure…Do you know why I was exiled here?” When I didn’t respond, Santiago continued. “My best friend was a Hunter as well, recruited to our group because of his bravery against the devil’s legions. One day, he was bitten by a werewolf. I was ordered by our knight-commander to end his suffering, but I lied and hid him instead. I tried to help him much as I have tried to help you. I studied everything in the Vatican about lycanthropy. I became our leading expert. However, I still failed. My brother could never control himself. He was eventually consumed with evil. Many innocents died. I was forced to take his life. I was shamed, an outcast to the order, and was banished to live out my days here in a place where I could cause no more trouble.” He turned to look at me, and his sad eyes cut through me harder than my sharpest knife. “I am counting on you to make my life’s work mean something.”

I gave him my word.

Nikolai maneuvered the snowplow through the empty streets of Copper Lake. It was actually a rather beneficial vehicle, considering the present conditions. It was huge, the cab sat up high, and a dump-truck bed full of sand added significant weight, and therefore traction. The amulet was out there, somewhere, but he couldn’t pinpoint its direction. The false moon was maddening, always just beyond the reach of his senses, and it felt like it was moving.

The storm was hurting his concentration. The scents were muddled and confused, quickly buried under pounds of snow. Past the plow’s rapidly beating wipers, the town had taken on a surreal form. They were on a suburban street, nearing the center of town. The only lights from the windows were from battery-powered lights or flickering candles, but almost everyone was asleep. Every edge and straight line constructed by man had been rounded; several feet of snow had already piled up against the small homes. Even the street signs looked like giant white lollipops. There was nothing soft about this snowfall. It was icy and brutal, harsh and unforgiving. Winter had come to smother the life from this place.

Reminds me of home.

“Shut up,” Nikolai said. “I need to concentrate.”

However, the Tvar was right. It was just like home. Their early years together had been spent in the Siberian woods, hiding by day, hunting by night, always staying one step ahead of the NKVD Hunters that had so ruthlessly pursued them. They’d raided the small villages, usually eating livestock or, if the Tvar was in control, people, often children. The Tvar preferred children, said they tasted better. Sometimes the lines blurred and he could not remember which one of them had committed the latest atrocities.

It had been a hard time for Nikolai, the idealistic young man whose life had been destroyed after he’d been mauled by a werewolf, but he’d come to understand the new part of himself and had brokered a peace between the two entities that lived inside the same body. They had come to terms, and that had made them truly dangerous.

Many of Stalin’s finest Hunters had died after underestimating them. Eventually, after a chase that had taken them across the most unforgiving terrain in the motherland to a valley high in the Altay Krai, the NKVD had finally cornered them.

Strangely, rather than a silver bullet, they had been offered a pardon. Impressed by reports of the chase, Stalin himself had decided that young Nikolai Petrov would be a remarkable asset to the cause. The man of steel had a fearsome old werewolf serving him and had decided that Nikolai was to be his protege. In one fell swoop, Nikolai had been given a mission, a mentor, and a purpose.

You miss it.

“Sometimes,” Nikolai answered truthfully. The mission had ultimately been a failure, their mentor a madman. Yet Stalin had given him something greater than himself to believe in. The loss of the Soviet Union and its subsequent desecration had left him empty and selling his abilities to the highest bidders in a world without purpose. Nikolai was a fatalistic man without a bit of optimism in his soul.

Yet, surprisingly, he had found a purpose again, a reason to live. He’d found a human girl who did not fear him. It had seemed so impossible. Lila. She’d demanded the best from him and loved him despite the things he had done. So he’d silenced the Tvar. Oh, how it had fought, but in the end, Nikolai had won. They had built a life. Nikolai had lived as a man. They had been happy, for a time…Before Harbinger had recently ruined everything.

So Nikolai had chosen to set his other half free. It had become so much more demanding since then. It made it difficult to think clearly.

I smell killing.

He stomped on the brakes as a figure ran into the street ahead and fell. The giant vehicle weighed many tons and slid to a gritty stop, inches from crushing the man beneath the plow.

Nikolai took the Val rifle in hand and stepped out of the truck. He dropped into the snow and walked around the front. The man was already scrambling to his feet and had put one hand on the ice-crusted plow blade to steady himself. Clad only in a pair of blue coveralls, he was shivering uncontrollably and stunk of fear so badly that Nikolai could actually taste it on his tongue.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” the man cried, looking back over his shoulder, terrified.

Nikolai’s nostrils twitched. Another werewolf was closing fast. She had been tracking this man, and it was easy to understand how, since his fear stink was like a beacon. Nikolai could not hear the female’s approach over the rumble of the truck’s diesel engine and the howl of the wind. The headlights illuminated only a small patch of road, and the snow was so thick that it was as if the air was filled with hissing static. Nikolai put the Val’s stock to his shoulder and deactivated the safety. The metal was ice cold against his cheek. It gave him clarity.

The werewolf hurled herself through the static. The man-prey screamed and fell against the plow as Nikolai calmly lined up the sights and pulled the trigger of the suppressed rifle. The only sound was the metallic clack of the action flying back and forth and the sharp thwack of the bullet’s impact. The werewolf stumbled as the heavy projectile pierced her leg, just as he’d intended. She kept coming, but Nikolai stepped forward and slammed his palm into the inferior creature’s snout.

She squealed like a pup and landed on her back. Rolling through the snow, she retreated on all fours, crying, leaving a bright red trail behind.

Finish her!

“I know what I’m doing,” Nikolai said.

A hand fell on his coat. “Oh, thank you! Thank you!” the prey cried pathetically, as he got out of the snow. “You saved my life. That thing tore Bud apart. It ripped his throat right out, and then it came after me! There’s more of them there, a whole bunch! We’re all gonna die!”

The human’s sobs sickened him. It was hard to imagine that he’d once been that soft and pathetic himself.

You were. Until I came along.

“Control yourself,” Nikolai ordered. “Where are the creatures?”

Still shaking uncontrollably, he wiped his eyes. His name tag read Stevenson. Besides fear, he smelled of petrol and cigarettes. “At the grocery store. Bud was unloading his ice-cream truck. I went in to fire up the generator. Powers out,” he explained as Nikolai cocked his head to the side. The young werewolves would have been attracted to the noise and activity. “Have to keep the heat on or the veggies wilt.” Shivering, he folded his arms in a vain attempt to stay warm. “Thanks, buddy. My name’s Justin. You saved my bacon. We better get out of here, though. There were at least two more of tho-”

Nikolai reached up, grabbed a handful of hair, and brutally drove Justin’s face into the thick metal at the top of the plow blade. There was a sickening crack as teeth shattered. Nikolai let him flop limply into the snow.

Excellent.

For a moment he wasn’t sure if that impulsive action had been his, or the Tvar within. Sometimes it was hard to tell. Nikolai decided to accept responsibility. “His whining annoyed me.”

He walked over to where the other werewolf had fallen. The blood splatter was bright and easy to spot on the snow. He got on his knees and drank in the scent, then picked up a handful of slush and put it in his mouth, rolling it around, savoring the arterial blood and the smoky taste of bone marrow. She was young and had not been one of them for long, a few months perhaps, but long enough to be a valued member of the enemy pack. Particles of silver began to burn his gums, so he spit the blood out.

Badly wounded, unable to regenerate from the poisonous silver, she would surely retreat to her Alpha to die amongst her pack.

Clever and ruthless. I like this side of us.

Justin moaned incoherently as he returned to the truck. Nikolai climbed back into the cab, ground it into gear, and drove, trapping and dragging the weak human beneath the plow blade. The body was dislodged within half a block and crushed beneath the tires. The bump barely registered. Nikolai rolled the window down as he drove slowly, savoring the painful cold and following the scent of blood.

Not knowing who else in her small department was still alive, Heather had tried Sheriff Hintze’s home first. It was near the station, by itself at the end of a long driveway, but Harbinger’s truck was barely sufficient to get even that far without chains. No one who lived in Copper County was a stranger to snow, but this storm was absurd, even by Michigan standards. The only reason the roads were still passable at all was because the howling wind was pushing most of the accumulation off the flat spots. There had to have been two feet in the last hour.

The lack of radio and phone was infuriating. Help was as close as the next county over, but there was no way to reach them. As soon as she had some help, she’d send somebody on a snowmobile, but until then she was on her own. She had left a note at the station, just in case somebody else came in, but she doubted that anyone would. Copper County was a relatively unpopulated place and had a correspondingly small sheriff’s department. There weren’t that many deputies to begin with, and she knew that almost half of them had been killed in the last few hours. Heather had a bad feeling about the others.

Heather knew that she was too late as soon as she arrived at the sheriff’s house. His front door was wide open, already lodged in place by a fresh drift. The beam of her flashlight found what was left of Sheriff Hintze right inside the front hall, wearing pajamas and missing most of his neck.

A few hours ago, that sight would have scared her, perhaps even made her nauseous. Now she just felt anger. She crouched next to the body, with her Winchester 1300 ready to blast anything that moved, but the house was quiet except for the creaking of old boards. The thing that had done this was long gone. She caught herself sniffing the air, shook her head, and retreated to the porch.

Harbinger had said that it was a coordinated attack. Of course they had eliminated the sheriff. Her boss had been a sharp man and would have stood in their way. Yet why did she believe Harbinger? He was a mystery. And if she were to believe what Harbinger told her about the attack, then why shouldn’t she believe him about the other things he had said? Her shoulder itched, but it didn’t even hurt in the slightest. She was scared to look at it.

The night had already been so emotionally draining that the sight of her dead boss hadn’t even disturbed her. Heather simply returned to the still-running pickup truck and set out for her next destination. She was so hungry it hurt. Heather could smell the food in the backseat and dragged Harbinger’s cooler around. Barely slowing to rip the packaging off, she started stuffing her face, not even caring what it was, as she drove back down the sheriff’s driveway. Regardless of what Harbinger told her, she still had responsibilities to attend to. She’d taken an oath to protect and serve, and she took that oath very seriously.

A few lights were on at the corner grocery.

It was a relatively small building. The kind of locally owned, overpriced, but convenient place that managed to hang on despite competition from big chain stores. It had already been decorated for Christmas. The signs said this place was called Value Sense Grocery, sixpacks of Dr. Pepper were on sale, and there was a werewolf noisily devouring the contents of some poor sucker’s chest cavity right inside the front door by the shopping carts.

Earl crouched behind the oblong block of ice that he suspected was concealing a mailbox and watched the windows. He was downwind, and even if it suddenly shifted, as it kept on doing, he’d put the wolfsbane back into a pocket. Other than the one visible target, there was at least one other member of the pack in there. He wanted to make sure he got as many as possible, as fast as possible. Anything that ran meant he would have to chase them down, and that would take time. Time spent chasing was time that could be better spent proactively killing these upstart punks before they murdered too many innocents.

The dark brown fur of a second enemy was briefly visible as it moved past the cash registers and a plastic Santa Claus. It joined the first, lighter-colored werewolf over the human remains. The two began to snap at each other, competing playfully for the tastier bits. The lighter-colored one was dominant, and the newcomer moved to the other end and started chewing on a leg.

“Enjoy that last meal, boys,” Earl said to himself as he came out of the snow and walked for the front door. Lifting the Thompson, he waited until he was just on the other side of the heavy glass door and couldn’t possibly miss.

Seeing those two there, just having a good old time, really irked him. He’d worked hard for over eighty years to make up for his own early mistakes, and these youngsters thought that they could come along and do whatever the hell they felt like. Earl realized he was grinding his teeth together. Wanting them to see their punishment coming, Earl raised the muzzle of the Thompson and banged it hard on the glass. “Hey!”

The two heads snapped up instantly, dripping blood and chunks of flesh, glaring at him.

The Tommy gun roared as Earl mowed them down. He worked the subgun back and forth, emptying an entire stick magazine of silver. 45 bullets into the two werewolves, a continuous stream of hot brass flying out the side. A row of soda bottles behind them exploded as the monsters jerked and twitched. The werewolves fell as Earl ducked under the door rail and through the broken glass, already yanking the spent mag from the Thompson.

The light one was dead. The dark male was trying to crawl away, its body perforated multiple times. The wounds were closing. “Oh, a new guy, huh?” Earl shouted as he pulled the bolt back on a fresh mag. “I guess nobody told you about the two rules?” The werewolf had reached the check stand and was using it to pull himself up. Earl let the hot subgun hang by its sling as he drew his bowie knife.

The werewolf turned, snarling. Earl swung the heavy blade, cleaving through half the throat in one mighty swing. The werewolf fell back, blood squirting everywhere. “And rule number one is no killing”-Earl raised the blade again and slashed it through the other side; the werewolf’s head spun free and landed, bouncing down the rubber belt of the check stand-“innocent people!” The body tottered for a second before falling. It hit the floor with a dull thud, one leg kicking spastically.

Earl lowered his dripping knife. He could hear a generator running in back. The lights over the check stands were on, giving him a good look. The now-headless body still had the tattered remains of a red grocery apron tied around the midsection. Another poor sap, turned today. Earl spat on the floor.

“What’s rule number two?”

Raising the bowie, Earl turned toward the voice. It had come from the middle of the store, somewhere between the aisles, but he couldn’t see anyone. Most of the store’s lights were still off. “Who’re you supposed to be?” Earl asked evenly.

The voice was calm, almost friendly, and oozed confidence. “I’m the one you’re looking for.”

It wasn’t Nikolai’s voice, that much was certain. Earl wiped his knife off on his leg and returned it to the sheath on his belt. He took up the Thompson. “You the leader of this pack?”

There was a jovial laugh. “I’m the leader of all werewolves.”

“Uh-huh. And if I had a nickel for every asshole that told me that…” Walking to the side, Earl peered down the next shadowed aisle. They were perpendicular to the check stands. Even in the dark, he’d be easy enough to spot. He’d find this guy, shoot him full of holes, and finish this.

“Those were mistaken. I don’t make mistakes. I’m the king of werewolves, the next step in our evolution. The future, if you will. I am the Alpha.”

The voice seemed to be coming from the left side of the store. Earl kept walking, gun up. He had to keep him talking. “Why are you doing this? Seems kind of stupid to pick a fight you can’t win with humanity.” Next aisle. Clear.

“Don’t assume man will win this one. Perhaps, the better question is, why are you here, Harbinger?”

Next aisle. Clear. “I came here looking to finish Nikolai Petrov. I figure once I clean your clock, I’ll go kill him and be back in Alabama before supper.” There were only a few aisles left.

Oddly, Earl’s superior hearing couldn’t pin down exactly where the voice was coming from. “Yet you don’t know why Nikolai’s here, either, do you?”

Clear. “Can’t say that I do…Something about a magic necklace, I gather.”

“Amulet,” the voice corrected. “Of Koschei the Deathless, to be exact. It’s why I lured you both here. Only the soul of the most powerful of werewolves can awaken the amulet. Lesser souls gets lesser results. Only the fiercest will do. That would either be you or Petrov.”

Clear. “That’d be me.” One last aisle. Earl’s hand tightened around the Thompson’s grip. “Obviously.”

“Historically, it would seem to be a draw. Your truce was inconvenient to me. Ideally, I wanted the two of you to meet to decide the victor before I harvested his soul. I wanted only the best of the best for this moment.” His voice had an almost youthful pitch to it, but it was hard to tell with a werewolf. Earl didn’t sound like a smoker. “But with both of you murdering all my children…”

Last aisle. Earl swept around. Damn it. The aisle was empty except for another mutilated human corpse spread from one end to the other. He had to be hiding behind one of the end caps. Earl moved quickly, silently, down the aisle toward the back of the store. His wet boots barely made a sound.

“I’ve had to expedite matters.”

Earl reached the other end and peered around the corner. Nothing was moving in the shadows of the meat and dairy section. He sniffed the air. The intruder had to be wearing wolfsbane as well. Earl couldn’t pick up anything over the delicious smell of all that raw meat. “You want to challenge me? Let’s go then.”

It was impossible to isolate the source of the voice. Magic? “One doesn’t challenge his inferiors, Harbinger.”

“How about you come out and face me? King of the werewolves and all that, or you just talking a big game?”

“I’m more than a werewolf, more than you can comprehend. And either way, as I’ve said, I’ve had to expedite matters. I’m afraid you have another challenge to face first. Then I’ll deal with whichever of you proves worthy.”

Earl froze. The doors on the dairy cabinet had started to vibrate. Something was coming.

“Before I go, though, you’ve piqued my curiosity. What’s rule number two?”

The front of the grocery store lit up as headlights flashed through the glass. The vibration turned into a rumble as a powerful engine revved. The lights grew in intensity as the vehicle rapidly approached.

“Stay off my bad side,” Earl muttered as the giant truck’s steel snowplow blade crashed through the front of the store.

The truck exploded through the wall in a shower of glass and cinderblock fragments, barely even slowing as its heavy steel plow obliterated several checkout stands, displays of food, and three rows of tall shelves. Seemingly unstoppable, it came right down the center of the store. Cans, bags, and boxes were flung in every direction as the truck plowed everything aside. More shelves collapsed, causing a domino effect, in a cascading wave of destruction.

Earl moved quickly, dodging to the side, heading for the back corner, swearing the whole way but unable to hear himself over the terrible racket of breaking tile, shattering glass, and roaring engine. He dove to safety just as the orange snowplow collided with the back wall of the meat department with a thunderous crash. The plow caught a heavy steel pillar, causing the truck to lurch to a stop so suddenly that the dump-truck bed lifted a foot off the ground, spraying sand everywhere. The truck’s impact tore the steel support beams right out of their concrete foundation. The entire building shook at the hit, and twenty feet of ceiling collapsed into the interior.

The Value Sense was a wreck. Dozens of jugs of milk had been knocked out of the dairy case and popped open on the floor. The center of the store had a furrow dug through it, and only a few outer aisles still had their shelves standing. The big diesel engine was still running hard, but it was stuck, plow driven halfway through the back wall.

“Son of a bitch,” Earl muttered as he picked himself off the floor. The unbroken lights were flickering, and sparks shot from a crushed electrical box on the back wall. Fresh snow came flooding through the hole in the roof. Lifting his Thompson, he focused in on the cab of the truck. “Nikolai…”

Better safe than sorry. Earl fired a magazine of. 45 ammo into the cab of the truck, puckering bullet holes through the door as he approached. Earl replaced the stick magazine in the Thompson as he ran up the side of a collapsed shelf, kicking bags of chips out of the way. He stuck the barrel through the driver’s side window. Empty. Something had been jammed down on the accelerator. “Shit.”

He glanced toward the ruined front of the store but could see nothing out there in the swirling storm. The engine was so obnoxious indoors that he could barely hear himself think, and the exhaust was pumping out a noxious cloud. Annoyed, he jerked the door open and reached down for the knife that had been used to wedge down the gas pedal.

Surprisingly, the blade had been stabbed through one of his own MHI patches. What’s that doing here? He pulled the familiar happy face with horns off, noting that the patch was an old one, stained with dried blood. There was a backpack sitting on the seat, unzipped. Something wrapped in black electrical tape was visible inside the pack. Then Earl knew what a colossal mistake he’d made. “Shit!” he exclaimed, diving away from the bomb.

He didn’t quite make it.