Monster Hunter Alpha

Chapter 16

The Russians had started it this time.

Sure, there was a war going on. An awful one, by all accounts, but it was the Soviets that had to go and bring a supernatural element into a normal, shitty, human conflict. Let’s say that operations that didn’t actually exist, conducted by hypothetical units, across the border into countries that may or may not have actually been involved, had been too successful. And the Soviets had loaned a specialist of their own to their allies to deal with it. As you may have guessed, there are certain specifics that I’m not allowed to ever get into, especially in a journal.

A lieutenant colonel with no name and an old man in a shirt and tie with no name gave us the final briefing during the flight into Vietnam. If the communists wanted to escalate on the supernatural front, we were supposed to respond in kind. STFU’s mission was to be put into a location where Americans were not supposed to be, and then kill the shit out of the enemy. Move and repeat.

I did not like jobs like this. Not that I wasn’t good at them. In fact, I was really good. I’d come to terms with the fact that I was a monster, but I had to be careful just how much I let the animal out to play. Even monsters have rules. Well, some of us anyway.

Ideally, our actions would attract the attention of the Russian “advisor.” It was hoped that we would then be able to neutralize him. The men without names said that he was known as Nikolai.

So we went hunting.

After running from the monster, Horst and Lins had climbed over a chain-link fence and broken into a storage unit, where they hid, freezing, until they decided it was probably safe to return to their vehicle to make a run for it. Though scared, he was careful not to show it to Lins as the two huddled in stony silence and listened to the werewolves howl. This situation was so far out of Briarwood’s league that it was depressing.

The walk back to the Caddy took forever. He’d gotten turned around while running, the snow wasn’t helping matters, and he wouldn’t admit that he was lost. Their odd route was explained away because walking down the open streets seemed like a great way to get picked off by werewolves, so they’d gone through the backyards. After twenty minutes of hopping fences, they’d reached the scorched grocery store and his Cadillac. Horst had been surprised to find that any other members of his crew had survived.

Jason Lococo was sitting on the hood, scanning for threats. Having burned through his share of silver ammo in the SAW, Loco had taken Jo Ann’s M-4 carbine, which looked like a toy in his hands, to keep watch. Horst almost said something to him about scratching the paint, but the giant looked like he might just open fire, so he refrained.

“Loco, I’m happy to see you,” Horst said, glad that their big man had been too dumb to flee. Loco just grunted an acknowledgment. “I thought you were toast.”

“Whew. I’m just glad you didn’t take the car!” Lins exclaimed.

It was obvious Loco wasn’t happy. “You had the keys.” He hopped off the Caddy, and the shocks sprang up in relief. “Let’s go.”

“Let’s get out of this stinking town,” Horst agreed.

“No. We’ve got to get to the hospital,” Loco said as he went around and opened the rear door. “It puked her up.”

“Jo?” Horst got yet another surprise to find that his girlfriend was still alive. Loco had put her in the back of the Escalade. With the third-row seats put away, there was just enough room for her to lie down. The big man had done his best to clean her up, all of their bottled waters had been emptied, and he had thrown a blanket over her.

The inside of the Caddy reeked. That new-car scent had been replaced by the stench of monster puke. Jo Ann was shivering. Her face had taken on a sickly grayish yellow tone, and she was soaked with sweat. Clumps of her long hair had fallen out, leaving purple blotches on her exposed scalp.

“Ryan?” Jo Ann asked. Even her voice was scratchy. Her eyes were closed, and Horst cringed when he saw they were matted shut with a film of green boogers. “That you?”

His initial reaction was to tell her that she looked like death warmed over. “Yeah, baby, I came back for you,” Horst said instead.

“I knew you would,” she said. “Oh, I don’t feel so good.” Then she gagged and threw up all over the carpet. Horst took an involuntary step back.

“Oh, dude, she’s messed up,” Lins exclaimed, covering his mouth with his shirt. “She’s got a disease from being in that scarecrow’s stomach.”

Jo Ann Schneider was seriously ill. Horst tried to remember back to Newbie training. That hot blonde, Holly Newcastle, had run them through a big lecture on all the horrible things you could catch from monsters and what to do about them. Unfortunately, he’d spent most of that lesson ogling Holly and not paying attention. That stuff had mostly been aimed at the eggheads destined to end up in support roles, and Horst had known that he was destined to be a team leader instead. Only now Jo Ann was like melting or something, and it might even be contagious.

“She’s running a fever,” Loco said. “I thought about carrying her, but figured the monsters would’ve smelled her and got us. She needs antibiotics or something.”

“Antibiotics won’t fix that, man. That’s like Ebola or AIDS!” Lins insisted. “Bitch’s got Ebola-AIDS. I’m not getting in there with her. No way. No fu-”

Lins flinched as Loco reacted with surprising speed. One huge hand encircled Lins’s throat. He let out a pathetic squeaking noise as he was dragged eye to glass eye. “Then you can walk.” Loco didn’t so much as raise his voice, but it was obvious that Lins was seconds from getting his windpipe crushed. “Gimme the keys, Larry.” Eyes wide, Lins reached into his coat and pulled out the jangling ring of keys. Loco snatched the keys away, then held him there for another second, like he was contemplating just squeezing a bit harder, but then let go. Lins stumbled away, coughing.

Loco looked at Horst next. “You got a problem, boss?” Those too-small, not-quite-pointing-in-the-same-direction eyes were crazy. He certainly lived up to his nickname.

Embarrassed that he was scared of his own henchman, Horst just shook his head.

“You getting anything?” Harbinger asked her for the third time in as many minutes.

Heather thought about it, but wasn’t sure of how to answer. That buzzing noise had been stronger a little while ago, but it had faded out. “It’s weird. It was strong, but then it tapered off. Now there’s another one, like a background noise. It’s not as loud, but it seems bigger, if that makes sense.”

“That’s the moon,” Harbinger explained as they turned onto another familiar street. The snow chains were making a huge difference in traction, and despite her earlier assessment of Harbinger’s status as another stupid tourist driver, he actually knew what he was doing.

“So I can actually hear the moon?”

“Sorta. It’s complicated.”

“Well, I should probably learn it, don’t you think?” she replied. “Duh.”

“No need for sarcasm. I can spend our limited amount of time teaching you about werewolf minutia that I learned from dusty old books that are probably wrong, or I can stick with the important bits about how not to turn into a complete raving cannibal. Entirely your call.”

“Anybody ever tell you that you’re not a very likable person?”

“Once or twice.” Harbinger relented. “Well, near as I can figure, the Hum isn’t actually the moon itself, but the lunar cycle causes whatever makes it. That’s the Hum that we hear. It’s a low-frequency sound, stronger in some places, though nobody knows why. Even some humans can hear it once in a while, but it doesn’t affect them like it does us. Maybe it’s magnetic fields, and we’re just more sensitive. Maybe it’s something magical. Hell if I know, but whatever it is will trip our internal switch, guaranteed, right along with the full moon. You’ve got three nights a month where you will not be able to control it.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad.” She could deal with three lousy nights. Harbinger just scowled and watched the road. “What? There’s a catch. There’s always a catch.”

“It’s complicated…Three nights you have to change, but you’re going to want to change all the time. Like a dog, when something runs, they want to chase it down. That’s us, only worse. Something pisses you off, you want to kill it. You want something, you just take it. Something turns you on…” He stopped himself, glanced over at her, and began to blush. Heather was surprised, but Harbinger seemed downright old-fashioned. “Sorry.”

“I’m a cop, Harbinger, not a nun. I started on a big-city department, and the attractive ones always get loaned out to vice on prostitution stings.” Heather had never thought of herself as beautiful, but she knew that she at least qualified as pretty. “You’ve got assets, you work them. Thirty-six D, baby.”

Harbinger coughed politely. “Gotcha.”

Mr. Tough-guy-monster-slayer hadn’t struck her as a prude. “I’ve seen things that would blow your mind. Just a word of advice: The hooker with all her teeth? That’s the undercover cop.”

“Ahem. Well, let’s just say it can get ugly. New moon, with some practice, you can control yourself, even changed if you have to. The closer it is to the full moon, though, the harder it gets, and on the full moon, it’s tough as a human, and changed, not a chance. I’ve had years of practice, and I still lock myself into a vault on those three nights…Well, I did. I’m still not used to thinking I won’t have to do that anymore.”

Heather went back to looking out the window. They were covering a lot of ground, but it was all neighborhoods where the scouting parties had already checked. She’d taken a map and a marker and had split Copper Lake’s tiny neighborhoods into sections for the other groups to check. Nobody had questioned her authority when she’d given out the assignments. Apparently, if you acted as if you were in charge, everyone just assumed you were. “Turn left up here.”

Harbinger complied. “You getting something?” he asked hopefully.

“Confused. That’s about it.” Heather was feeling pretty good right then. The bouts of rampaging hunger had settled down, as had the out-of-nowhere anger. She didn’t feel too different, though every light on the dash seemed too bright, the engine was too loud, the air flow from the heater was obnoxious against her exposed skin, and she was being assaulted with so many confusing smells that she could taste the air. “Level with me, Harbinger. How hard is this going to be?”

“That depends entirely on you,” he answered, completely evading her question.

“Don’t be such a chickenshit. Give it to me straight.”

Harbinger didn’t respond for a long time. This seemed really difficult for him. She started to say something else, but he cut her off. “You need to know I am, or was, I guess, a rare one. Honestly, there’s only been a handful of us ever to control it. It takes an iron will. It gets easier, but I’ve worked at this for a really long time. Almost everyone turns pure evil. Most that keep it contained, it ain’t because they want to. It’s because they’re afraid of someone like me coming along to take them out, so they keep it low key. I’d say ninety percent are dead within a few months of getting turned, another nine percent make a year, tops…” he trailed off. “That one percent left, though, they’re the dangerous ones. Most of them don’t give up the hunt-they’re just clever enough to hide it.”

“And then there’s a few like you.”

“I suppose. We’re an odd breed.”

Heather wasn’t the quitting type. The trophy case she’d broken back at the school had held a bunch of items with her name etched on them. She’d made the boy’s hockey team out of spite just because somebody had once told her girls couldn’t play. It was similar reasoning that had caused her to become a police officer. Life had beat her down at every opportunity, but she still sucked it up and got along. There had been plenty of opportunities to give up. She’d lost so many people, so quickly. After the personal tragedies of the last few years, nobody would have batted an eye if she’d just given up, but having inherited an Irish temper and Finnish stubbornness, she was just too damned obstinate to let life win. So, if Harbinger could beat this curse, so could she.

“You said that you’ve been doing this a long time?”

He chuckled as he glanced over at her. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you…” She didn’t blink. “Hell. All right. I was born in 1900.”

“And?”

“Nineteen and nothing. One-nine-zero-zero,” he explained. Heather stared at him blankly. “Nineteen hundred A.D. You know, the one after 1899. I fought in World War One. I’ve got grandkids older than you. You’d like this one great-granddaughter of mine, though. I think you two would probably get along great. She don’t take no crap off nobody, either.”

Heather closed her eyes. If it wasn’t for the fact that she’d watched a cut on her knuckles heal in four seconds in addition to a bunch of other weird supernatural goings-on, she would just have assumed that Harbinger was stoned, but at this point, anything seemed plausible. “So, werewolves don’t age?”

“No. We still age. Just really slow. The transformation is a rejuvenating process, like a monthly tune-up. Plus, you heal faster and you don’t get sick. I haven’t had a cold since the Twenties. If it wasn’t for the uncontrollable bloodlust, this curse does have its good side. I’ve smoked about a million cigarettes, but got fresh lungs every full moon. Oh, your fillings will fall out when your teeth change into fangs, but you don’t have to worry about cavities ever again.”

It was insane. “That’s just so…Wow…Hell. I don’t even know.”

“Transformations burn calories like running a marathon. So we eat a ton. When we go to buffets, my team always teases that I don’t get full, I just run out of time. I try to fatten up every month. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised after the beating I took earlier if I didn’t lose thirty pounds today alone.”

“Wait!” Heather came out of the seat so suddenly that Harbinger stepped on the brakes. The truck slid in the snow.

“What? Do you sense the amulet?” he asked quickly, scanning back and forth for threats.

“No. Not that. You mean that I can eat whatever I want, all that I want, and I can’t ever get fat?”

Surprised, Harbinger stammered his response. “Well, of course.”

It was a remarkably exciting idea. “Doughnuts, cookies, chocolate? Oh my God. Pie?” Heather asked. Harbinger just nodded along through the list. “Seriously… Pie?”

“Hell, you can do all that and wrap it in bacon if you feel like it.” Harbinger waited for a further outburst, but none came.

Heather sat back, deep in thought, wearing a giant grin. They got moving. About half a block later, she spoke again. “If I’d known that, I would’ve gotten bit by a werewolf years ago.”

“Well, there is all the murder,” Harbinger pointed out.

“I know, but all-you-can-eat pie!” Heather chose to look on the bright side. Besides the temper, she’d also inherited her mother’s sweet tooth. Unfortunately, Mom had gotten fat and developed type 2 diabetes by the time she was forty. Heather loved to eat and hated to work out but exercised religiously because she had vowed not to end up like her mom, fat and with amputated toes. “Pie, Harbinger. That’s awesome.”

Harbinger just shrugged. “If I said anything, I’d be a hypocrite. If R.J. Reynolds has a corporate jet, I probably paid for it.”

They reached her street. It was eerily quiet, cloaked in fluffy white and completely dark. “Pull over up there. The blue one. That’s my house.” Not that the color mattered, since every house was plastered in snow. “I just thought of something.”

“Snack run?” Harbinger asked, only partially in jest.

“We live until morning and I’m going to eat an entire birthday cake and wash it down with a Super Big Gulp. No. Something that the prisoner said about my grandpa earlier got me thinking.” The truck stopped, and she hopped out quickly, dragging the Winchester along. Harbinger left the engine running and followed with another one of those old tommy guns of his. She had to shout to be heard over the wind. “Somebody else came by asking about my grandpa, too, looking for a necklace. He said his name was Peterson.”

That got Harbinger’s attention. “Handsome fella? Little shorter than me?”

“Yep. He seemed nice at first, but there was something off about him.”

“That was Nikolai Petrov, Stalin’s favorite werewolf.”

“Friend of yours?”

“I’ve almost managed to kill him twice now. I caught his stink on your clothes earlier. You’re lucky to be alive.”

They started toward the house. Harbinger kept moving his head side to side, always searching. Heather couldn’t explain it, but she knew that there were no werewolves near. They were close, but not close enough to be an immediate problem. The whole weird sense thing was kind of cool. She heard the other engine long before she saw the lights. “There’s somebody coming.” Heather pointed down the road.

Harbinger had to squint for a long time to even see it. He swore. “I feel like I’m blind.”

It was an SUV, a Cadillac with all the extra chrome, spinning rims, and obnoxious bling. Heather immediately noted the Illinois plates. More tourists. Which meant that she needed to warn them. She started waving.

The roads were barely passable. Visibility was awful. Loco was driving. Lins was in the passenger seat with the window rolled down, more worried about catching whatever Jo Ann had than frostbite. Horst had the middle row to himself, trying to figure out how he could salvage what was left of his company, and Jo Ann was in the back, making strange wheezing noises. Risking one glance, Horst winced when he saw that she was faring even worse, her face a mottled purple and gray, like one big spreading bruise, and her sweat had taken on a thick, mucuslike sheen. Little bubbles formed on her nostrils and popped every time she exhaled.

After that, he kept a scarf over his nose and mouth, and his eyes forward.

Most people would think it strange that he felt not even the slightest bit of concern for Jo Ann’s wellbeing. Sure, he liked her okay. She was easy on the eyes and helpful to have around, but Ryan Horst didn’t really like anyone. People were just kind of there. Some benefited him, others didn’t. If she died, it would be really inconvenient, but that was about it.

The thing that was really bugging him was that this job was a total failure. His company, and by extension, he personally, would look bad. Horst didn’t really care about people, but he sure did care about what the important ones thought about him. Kelley was dead, Jo Ann was probably going to die, and he figured that Lins and Loco would bail on him now that he wasn’t going to be able to pay them. At this rate, he would never make it big.

They were close to the hospital when he saw the headlights. It was the first active vehicle they’d seen since sliding out of the grocery-store parking lot. A large pickup was parked on the side of the road, lights on, the exhaust cloud indicating that it was still running. Two figures were clumping through the snow by the truck. Horst swiveled his head as they crunched past. It was a man and a woman, both bundled up, both carrying guns. The woman was trying to flag them down, probably to warn them that her stupid town was covered in monsters. Loco just kept on driving. The man gave them a slow appraisal, then a cold nod as they passed on by.

Recognition slapped Horst right in the face. “That’s Earl Harbinger,” Horst said. He’d hit the jackpot. “Stop the car.”

“We’ve got to get Jo help first,” Loco stated.

“Stop the car, idiot. Harbinger’s the werewolf,” Horst exclaimed, but they didn’t so much as slow down. “Loco, listen to me. He’s worth a fortune.” Horst spun around. Harbinger and the woman were already out of sight. By the time they got Jo Ann dropped off, they’d lose him.

And Horst would lose millions of dollars.

He turned back. “Stop the car. That’s an order. We need to pop that guy, right now.”

Loco didn’t budge. He was too stupid to listen to reason. “She’s dying. We don’t have time.”

Shit! “Harbinger’s the oldest werewolf in the world. The PUFF on him is huge, and he’s getting away.”

Lins looked over the seat, suspicious. “Why didn’t you tell us that before?”

Because I was going to keep most of it. “Because I didn’t want you distracted. But I got the intel right from the government.” Well, Stark, anyway. “Harbinger’s head is worth at least a million bucks.”

Lins’ motives were easy to understand. He didn’t even have to think about it for long. “You heard the man, Loco. Pull over.”

“We’ll go back for him once we get Jo some help,” he insisted. “The hospital is just over there.”

“Screw that!” Lins shouted. “I didn’t come up here to get some disease, I came up here to get paid!”

“No,” Loco said with more force.

Horst glanced out the back window. Harbinger was sure to drive off in the other direction, taking all that ridiculous PUFF with him, and there was no way he was going to admit defeat that easily. Loco was a moron. Horst reached into his coat and unsnapped the thumb break on his shoulder holster. He turned forward, voice low and deadly as the FN Five-seveN cleared nylon. “Last chance. Stop this car or else.”

“You gonna shoot me? Kill me and Jo both?”

“She’d want us to catch him. She was committed to this company.”

Loco laughed. Horst had never heard him laugh before. It was a mirthless sound. “You’re a real piece of work, Horst.”

Decision made, Horst pushed the muzzle of the FN deep into the seat ahead of him and said, “Larry, grab the wheel,” then pulled the trigger. The concussion of the 5.7mm was sharp in the enclosed space. Stuffing flew from the hole in the fabric. Loco bellowed as the bullet slammed into his back. Lins went for the steering wheel and tried to jam his foot over the brake. The big man was tough, though, and got a hold of Lins’s shirt, so this time Horst lifted his gun and shot Loco in the back of the head.

Lins got control of the vehicle as Loco’s heavy skull hit the steering wheel. They slid to a stop, sideways, in the middle of the road. The safety glass was broken, and there was blood on the dash. Loco moved slightly and groaned in pain. Horst must have only winged that big noggin and would gladly have pumped a few more rounds into it, but Lins was now blocking the shot. His only remaining employee reached over, found the door handle, and spilled Jason Lococo out into the snow.