Monster Hunter Nemesis (38 page)

“No, it isn’t! We’re all going to die! We’re all going to die and it’s your fault!” shrieked a disheveled man with the polo-shirted business casual look of an office dweeb. “You played God and we’re all going to pay for it!”

“Heather, this is Eric. He’s one of my intel analysts. Take it easy, Eric. Panicking isn’t going to help anyone. Just calm down.”

The man had started crying. “I swear, if we get out of here, I’m going to tell the Subcommittee everythin—”

CRACK!

A red hole appeared in Eric’s forehead. Blood hit the wall behind him and the body hit the carpet. Stricken had a small pistol extended in one hand. She’d been watching the victim, but Stricken had moved so fast Heather hadn’t even caught the draw. “I said
calm down.”

Except for some weeping, the room was silent.

“Nobody likes a snitch,” Stricken explained as he put the pistol back into the holster on his belt and then covered it with his suit. “Where’s the intercom?” A few people pointed at the secretary’s desk. Stricken went over and pushed the button. “Hey, First. Do you mind if I ask what you think you’re doing out there?”

The voice that came back through the speakers sounded very angry.
“That is not my name!”

“Yeah, got it. Whatever. I’m ordering you to stand down now. All of you need to go back to your rooms.”

“You are a fool, Stricken.”

Heather had to agree with the test-tube monster on that one.

“You do not yet comprehend what you have unleashed upon your world. I am Kurst. That is the title placed upon me by the World Maker when I led the Son of the Morning’s armies into battle in the war before time began. I am Kurst, who stood at the left hand of Lucifer. I am Kurst, who was cast into Hell for my rebellion, where I dwelled until you provided me with this body. I am Kurst, who will grind your bones into dust and reign with fire and blood over your pathetic mortal world. I am Kurst, and my war has never ended.”

Stricken let go of the intercom button. “Well . . . shit . . .”

Heather looked around at the others. They all seemed as perplexed by that as she was. Things had just taken a turn for the weird.

“I would deal with you myself, but Franks has arrived earlier than expected. Farewell, Stricken. I leave you to my brethren.”

“Kurst is leaving. Two others are staying,” Renfroe shouted. “They’re trying the door.”

“It’s going to be okay,” one of the guards tried to assure everyone. “This place was built to survive nuclear war. Without breaching charges or a cutting torch they’re not going to do—”

WHAM.
A fist-sized bulge appeared in the thick metal. Someone screamed.
WHAM.
Another fist struck. Welds broke. Incredibly strong blows kept landing.
The hatch groaned in protest as the metal deformed.

“They’re not supposed to be
that
strong,” Stricken muttered.

Heather didn’t want to stick around to find out what happened once they punched through the hatch. “About that escape tunnel . . .”

“There’s one of them camped at the other end of it,” Renfroe warned.

“That beats two of them in here,” Heather snapped.

Stricken walked to the side, opened a hidden panel, and pushed a few buttons. There was a loud
click
and a seam appeared in the wall. Stricken swung the secret door open to reveal a narrow concrete shaft leading up into the darkness. Ladder rungs were sunk into the sides. “Time to go, people. After you, Kerkonen.”

* * *

It was early in the afternoon. The day was bright but the air was cool as Franks rode on the running boards of an armored Suburban. He savored the feeling of speed and the rush of air over his new skin in the few seconds before they crashed through the chain link fence of the STFU base. The SUV bounced across the rough field at over fifty miles an hour, abusing their shocks, while hurtling toward the biggest hangar. His tie was whipping around in the wind. Franks’ new hands were not yet properly callused, and they ached from holding onto the roof handles. The other MCB vehicles veered off behind them, each element heading toward a different building.

“Movement in the tower,”
a voice reported in Franks’ earpiece. “
Taking fire! Taking fire!”

It wasn’t much of a control tower, more of a shed with windows and a balcony on top of an old wooden house. There were two figures inside and both of them were shooting rifles at his people. A bullet bounced off their armored hood. Franks left one hand on the roof to keep from being flung off, and pulled out a Glock 20 with the other. The long extended magazine hanging out of the grip made drawing it from his suit slightly awkward, but Franks liked this pistol. It was special.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrppppp.

All thirty rounds ripped through the control tower and its inhabitants in less than two seconds. Franks was probably the only member of the MCB who could use a full-auto 10mm handgun with the cyclic rate of a buzz saw, especially one-handed and bouncing around on the side of a moving vehicle without uselessly decorating the clouds. Even with the brand new, still unsteady hand, he was certain he’d hit both targets several times each.

Except they kept on firing, which told Franks he was dealing with Nemesis. MCB agents came out of their turrets and opened up with their machine guns. Their hidden snipers engaged the tower with their .50, but Nemesis wasn’t backing down. “Keep going!” Franks ordered as bullets tore through the air around him. They reached the side of the hangar and the driver stomped on the brakes. Franks stepped off the running board and hit the ground, but his new leg wasn’t quite strong enough yet to take a twenty-mile-an-hour impact, and he stumbled. Franks crashed into the dirt and slid on his face until coming to a stop.

He rolled over, yanked another long magazine from his belt and slammed it home. He cranked that off through the tower windows in another continuous burst. He saw blood hit the broken glass a split second before it disintegrated entirely. One of the Nemesis soldiers leapt out the back. The other took a .50 to the chest and bounced off the back wall.

MCB were bailing out, taking cover, and pouring fire into the tower, until the Mk19 belt-fed 40mm mounted on their command truck pulverized the building into splinters and fire. He caught a glimpse of one of the Nemesis soldiers still inside the collapsing structure before losing sight of it in an expanding cloud of dust and smoke.

Franks reloaded, stood up, and holstered the Glock. His new leg was shaky, but it would do. One of the agents came around the side of the Suburban and tossed Franks an FN SCAR. He might not be wearing proper armor, but he’d buckled multiple pistol belts together and put them over his shoulders like a makeshift bandoleer, so he was covered in pouches, mags, grenades, and knives.

“Secure the buildings now!”
They were all on the same radio frequency, but Franks bellowed the command with so much volume that everybody, including their sniper overwatch and the Catholics on the approaching bus, heard him. Franks ran toward where he’d seen the soldier go down.

He had to duck as the demon came out of the wreckage and hurled a large beam at him. The soldier was so shredded that he couldn’t tell if it had been a male or female body, but it didn’t matter for long, because Cueto dropped a 40mm grenade at the thing’s feet. Franks was just outside the blast radius, but he was still pelted with red rain. He saw where the biggest chunk of body landed, then gave some quick hand signals for some of his men to finish it off.

There was movement in his peripheral vision as the other Nemesis soldier from the tower rushed into the nearest hangar. Surprisingly, the demon he’d thought had been finished by the 40mm had gotten up, grabbed its guts, and with an awkward limping run, made it to that hangar as well. That was an impressive level of resilience. Franks shouldered the FN, guessed where the demon would be through the wall, and started putting rounds through the tin. Most of the other agents couldn’t see what he was shooting at, but they followed his example and within seconds that building was absolutely riddled with bullet holes.

The MCB tasked with taking that building were on it moments later, tossing bangs through the windows and doors before sweeping inside. Franks followed them. He was almost there when an MCB agent’s body crashed through the wall to fly far out into the field. That was immediately followed by the sounds of screaming and gunfire.

The door was too far, so Franks crashed through the wall.

A single Nemesis soldier was in the middle of the open space. A couple members of the assault element were sprawled around it, leaking blood from deep lacerations. The rest of the MCB were falling back and taking cover. The demon’s scorched, torn flesh was pulsing and throbbing, mutating right before their eyes. Part of it was spouting fur and the other half scales. One arm had been blown off. It turned, revealing a hideous dog face, and when it opened its mouth, a long tongue that ended in a snake head rolled out. The snake even hissed at him.

That was unexpected.

Franks walked forward as he emptied the FN into the demon’s remaining arm trying to cripple it. Dropping the rifle the second it was dry, he pulled
two
full-auto Glocks, one in each hand, and opened fire. The demon twisted and jerked, trying to scurry away, but this time Franks concentrated on its legs. Sixty rounds of 10mm didn’t leave the demon with much more than bloody stumps, and by the time Franks dropped the two empty Glocks, the demon had flopped to the floor. Franks kicked it in the chest.

“Where’s Kurst?”

“Preparing the way!” the demon shrieked.

The snake tongue lashed out, trying to bite him, but Franks caught it before it could sink its fangs into him. “Wrong answer.” He ripped the demon’s tongue out of its head. A geyser of blood erupted from the thing’s mouth. So much for getting anything useful out of it, so Franks repeatedly stomped on the demon’s head with his boot. He smashed it until his foot hurt. He did it until he was sweating from the exertion and its skull was pancake flat.

That would settle it down for a minute.

“Evacuate the wounded. You two, drag this thing outside and burn it,” Franks told the agents. They immediately did as instructed.

“We’ve got the airfield locked down.” Cueto entered, took one look at his injured men and began swearing. Then he saw the twisted mutant as it was hauled past him. “What the fuck is that?”

“Nemesis.”

“I thought they were supposed to look human?”

“They are.”

“Well that sure as hell doesn’t! I’m assuming this is a bad development?”

“Yes and no.” The demons had not had physical bodies for long; they were powerful, but Franks knew from experience it took a lot of time and practice to maximize your effectiveness after modifying a body. They’d had just enough time to be truly dangerous with their original forms, but now they were somehow shape-shifting them into something else. Demons tended to be greedy and flashy when they found a way to Earth, like they were trying to make up for lost time. There was no way they were practiced in such complex forms yet.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“They’re overcompensating. If it hadn’t stopped and tried to scare these men, it would’ve gotten away too.” Franks picked up his guns and started reloading them as he followed the blood trail. The wounded demon had entered, heading one direction, and then turned back to engage the entry team. The other tower guard had kept going. Once he was past the stacks of equipment and shelving it was obvious that the hangar was just a cover for the entrance of a much larger structure. The floor sloped downward. There was a tunnel large enough to fit a semi truck carved into the bedrock. At the end of the slope was a massive steel door, so heavy it had to be operated by hydraulics on the other side.

The blood trail ended at the door. The handle wouldn’t budge. He keyed his radio. “Breachers to main hangar. We’ve got a bunker.”

As they walked back toward the surface, Franks downed another dose of the Elixir. It was better to get the pain and weakness out of the way with fewer witnesses.

Cueto watched Franks grind his teeth and wipe away the tears of blood, but didn’t comment on what he’d seen. That was nice. “I’m guessing this thing was originally built to withstand Russian nukes, Franks. I don’t know if we’ll be able to cut through before Stricken’s reinforcements get here.”

“Got a better idea?”

“Yeah. I should have stayed in bed.”

The Catholic tour bus had arrived and the Swiss Guard were debarking. Their civilian attire had been replaced with flecktarn camouflage and armored vests. They were armed with Sig rifles and surprisingly enough, a few halberds. It was amusing watching them trying to maneuver the long pole arms through the bus door. Not that Franks was going to tell them how to do their jobs. Having dealt with many demons in his life, it was hard to argue with the effectiveness of pinning them to something solid with a giant spear.

Gutterres drove his motorcycle directly into the hangar and parked next to them. “Any luck?”

“They’re holed up below us,” Agent Cueto answered. “It’s going to take a while to get in, and since Stricken probably saw us coming a mile away, I doubt we’ll make a dent in those monster blast doors before his people get here. I hope the Pope has a good lawyer on retainer for you guys.”

The Secret Guard tilted his head. “What gave it away?”

“Your Swiss tourists all said a motivational prayer in Latin before getting back on their bus, and they’re sporting enough crucifixes to open a Catholic school.”

“I’ll have to speak with the Monsignor about being a little more subtle in the future. I won’t confirm or deny anything, but please think of the large Swiss men as our infantry.”

“That make you spec ops?”

“Something like that.”

The MCB breachers ran down the slope and went to work on the main door. The report they radioed back was as bad as expected.
“We’re drilling now, but this is thick, heat-treated steel. We’ll need a few minutes.”

“So what now?” Gutterres asked.

Cueto checked his watch. “Ask your boss for a miracle.”