Monster Hunter Nemesis (8 page)

CHAPTER 4

Humans call it Hell. That name will do. For a few rare mortals the barrier between worlds is thinner. They have caught glimpses that were beyond their understanding. These mortals spoke of lakes of fire and brimstone. That would have been much nicer than the reality.

Hell is everything terrible, and absolute nothing at the same time. Calling it cold is a lie. Cold would be something. There’s no time, so you can’t even call it eternity. Eternity would give you something to track. It is the lack of creation. It is Void.

Mortals don’t have enough words to explain how shitty it is. We’d brought it on ourselves and we knew it. Eventually you create torment for yourself, because at least torment is something.

Most give up. Their spirits consume themselves, collapsing like a dying star, until they explode and scatter bits of their consciousness across the worlds. Mortals hear these as whispers, urging them to cause harm.

The strongest of the Fallen never give up. Their spirits remain intact. The Fallen have nothing better to do than plot how to make those that stayed loyal just as miserable as we were. It gives us focus. We’d do anything to escape. Our spirits were banned from ever being born into mortal bodies, yet the cunning ones were always trying to cheat their way into this world.

There are ways . . .

10 Days Ago

Franks filled out the same stupid answer to the same stupid question for the hundredth time, looked up from his computer and out the window, thinking to himself that somewhere out there was a horrible monster in need of killing, and how unfortunate it was that he was stuck here instead. In the good old days they just let Franks do what he did best, but choke one director and suddenly everyone expected you to explain yourself.

He wanted to be in the field. The last update from Vegas said that MCB R&D had been able to track the portal and it might even be possible to launch a recon mission into the Nightmare Realm. Now that would be a proper mission worthy of Franks’ talents. Instead he was doing this crap.

Preferring to be in the field, Franks didn’t use his office much. It was as unadorned as his apartment. Most of the surfaces were dusty. There was a stack of commendations and plaques in one corner that he’d never bothered to hang up. All the paperwork and binders were perfectly ordered. The last time his office had gotten messy was when the cinder beast had destroyed this floor a few years before. He’d not appreciated the disturbance.

The ninth floor of the MCB building was quiet. The ops center and media monitoring stations were on the floors below them and would be fully staffed around the clock. Most of the field agents stationed in DC had either been dispatched to the Las Vegas cover-up, or they were backfilling the regional offices of those who had. The office staff had gone home for the night hours ago. It was 1:15. Agent Strayhorn had fallen asleep in one of the office chairs in front of his desk. Somewhere down the hall the cleaning crew turned on a vacuum cleaner and the rookie bolted awake. “Huh?” He glanced around quickly before remembering where he was. “Sorry. I was . . . I was just resting my eyes.”

This was scut work, not a real mission, so he didn’t care if his agents slept on the job. At least when they slept they weren’t annoying him with constant nattering. This way they’d be well rested for when there was something important to do, like killing things. He had dismissed Jefferson and Archer, and would have sent them all home if Myers would have allowed it, but Myers felt he needed handlers until this was over, so that was all there was to it. Franks ignored the rookie and went back to his forms. Having spent time in Hell, he knew that government paperwork was the closest mankind had ever come to achieving true soul-crushing misery.

“Where’s Radabaugh?”

“Coffee.” Franks nodded toward the hall. There was a cafeteria downstairs.

“I wasn’t asleep,” the rookie said, even though he’d been snoring when Radabaugh left. If this had been real guard duty there would have been a reprimand. The TO hadn’t cared because if doing paperwork was tedious, watching someone else do it was even worse.

Franks made a noncommittal sound and went back to typing his statement. He’d have Jefferson edit it in the morning, because he didn’t think Myers would approve of answers like
because Director Stark is a pathetic maggot he’s lucky that’s all I did to him.

He worked for a few more minutes before Strayhorn got up the nerve to talk to him again. “Do you mind if I ask you a question, Agent Franks?”

“Don’t.”

“Sorry.” The rookie went back to counting the ceiling tiles. He began to tap absently on the arm of his chair. The sound was annoying. Franks glared. He stopped, probably uncomfortable that he was sharing the room with a monster. “Sorry.”

He could have ordered the rookie to shut up, or go stand in the corner, or
something
, but his question was probably more interesting than the stupid reports. “Ask,” he demanded.

“I’ve been briefed now on your history and what you are . . .”

He raised an eyebrow.

“No. I’m fine with it. It doesn’t bother me. You’re a legend for a reason. I don’t just mean like legend in the Bureau, I mean like a literal legend, around the world. You’re folklore. Hell, you’re
literature.
”

Franks hated that particular book. It portrayed him as a whiner. He found it—there was a relatively new slang term that fit—emo
.
And Franks was certainly not
emo
. The rookie was looking him in the eye. That was impressive. Very few humans were able to do that when they had an inkling what he was. The rookie was tougher than expected, but that was the nature of an organization that only recruited people who had already established themselves as professionals. Franks thought of Strayhorn as
the rookie
only because that was what the other agents had called him. By Franks’ standards, all of them were new and inexperienced. “What then?”

“I was just wondering why you still work for the MCB? You’ve done this so long. It’s not like you’re obligated to anymore. You’re PUFF exempt. Why do you still do this job?”

That was complicated. First there was The Deal and then there was The Contract. He had an oath to uphold, an impossible promise to keep, a huge debt to pay, and the only way he could ever hope to accomplish those lofty goals was by doing the one thing he was good at. He’d been a warrior for eternity, and unlike the humans who’d fought in the war in heaven before they’d been born, he still remembered his purpose, and he was damned good at it. Hurting the things that preyed on humanity was the only thing keeping him out of Hell, but like all complex answers it was just easier to say, “Classified.”

Strayhorn broke eye contact and looked out the window. “I understand.” Humans had a hard time with long awkward silences. Franks didn’t mind them, as he didn’t really grasp the awkward part and he enjoyed the silence. Strayhorn, apparently, did not. “Something’s been bothering me, about all of this, about the MCB, about our mission, about the First Reason . . .” The rookie turned back to him. “I thought you’ve been doing this so long you might have a good answer.”

Myers had sent orders to not let anything bad happen to the rookie. So that probably precluded Franks’ initial inclination to toss him out the window. Answering his stupid question would probably be easier than shutting him up, or would at least have less paperwork involved, so Franks nodded for him to continue.

“Part of my last job included witness protection. Now part of my new job is witness
intimidation
. Yes, I know we can’t let people realize the Old Ones are real, because then that’ll make the Old Ones stronger. I know their evil is supposed to be unimaginable, so it’s for the witnesses’ own good, but it’s . . . just so damned hard to stomach. We threaten people to keep their mouths shut. I know the better we do our job, the more likely they’ll stay quiet, and the less likely we’ll need to do anything worse, but you’re who they send when we need
worse
. I can’t believe I’m saying this . . .”

The rookie talked a lot. The window-tossing option was starting to sound more appealing.

“Sorry, I’m rambling. I can’t say this to my TO or the others because if they thought I was having doubts about the mission I’d get drummed out of the Bureau. I get why we do it, but we threaten innocent people and once in a while actually have to do something awful to keep them silent . . . You’re the one they send when that’s necessary. How do you do it?”

“Usually a suppressed pistol. Close range. Unless I’m ordered to make it look like an accident.”

Strayhorn went grey. He took a deep breath, composed himself, and continued. “Not the actual act . . . I’d ask you how you sleep at night, but the briefing says you don’t sleep at all. How do you reconcile doing something evil to fight evil?”

Curious.
Franks was not used to one of his subordinates using such strong terms concerning his actions. Strayhorn was either remarkably brave or remarkably stupid. “Why do you need to know?”

“I just do.”

Humans had to make everything so damned complicated. “Old Ones are worse.”

“And keeping the Old Ones from being worshipped is worth killing innocent people?”

The Old Ones were outsiders. They weren’t part of The Plan for this reality. Their intrusion into this world would change everything. Too many humans were soft, weak, easily swayed, and they’d worship anything that was sufficiently powerful, and the Old Ones were powerful beyond mortal comprehension. If they had enough worshippers, then the lines between worlds would blur, and our reality would fall under their jurisdiction. Humans didn’t seem to realize just how good they had it, living under their current benevolent steward, with crazy ideas like free will and eternal progress. Humans thought small. They had a hard time realizing that the Old Ones took the long view. They were vindictive and spiteful masters. Let them take over and they’d own humanity from before they were born and for an eternity after they died. All mankind would witness Hell for themselves. So yes, he occasionally had to shorten an already short mortal life to keep that from happening. They were collateral damage. And when that was necessary, it was better for him to be the one to pull the trigger than some poor soft human who still possessed a soul that could be damaged by the act. Franks’ immortal spirit was already an irreparable mass of scar tissue. He had no humanity to sacrifice. It was best if he was the one to drop the hammer.

So he shrugged.

“I don’t know, Agent Franks. I don’t think I could do that.”

“Do your job right and you won’t have to.”

* * *

The Spider appeared to be an Asian female in her late teens. The humans in the van had unconsciously placed themselves as far away from the Tsuchigumo as possible within the tight confines of their vehicle. Kurst sat directly next to the creature. Its presence did not bother him. Its illusion magic would affect his eyes but was not nearly strong enough to cloud his mind.

The creature’s mask was very convincing, with wide eyes and a bubbly schoolgirl demeanor. During his current existence the doctors had exposed him to many popular culture materials, so that he could better blend in with human societies, so he understood that the
Japanese schoolgirl
act was supposed to be attractive to some humans. The Spider put one delicate hand on Kurst’s bicep. “Ooh, you such a strong big man.”

Kurst had only had this flesh body for a short time, but he’d been watching the mortal world for centuries. Long ago his spirit had observed such perverted beasts take on the form of beautiful women to seduce unsuspecting men, before spinning them into a silken cocoon and sucking their life out. The Spider was wasting its time on him.

He put a small measure of his true power into his response and whispered in the old tongue.
“I am not food for you. I am your better.”

It hadn’t expected to hear him speak in such a manner. The Spider recoiled in horror as it realized it had bothered something far more dangerous than itself. For just a split second the mask slipped, and Kurst was staring into dozens of black eyes and hairy mandibles, but then the illusion returned before any of the humans noticed. It scooted as far away from him on the seat as possible.

“Did someone say something?” Foster asked from the driver’s seat. No one answered. “Damned bunch of freaks,” he muttered under his breath.

In addition to Kurst, the passenger van carried four human overseers, two of Kurst’s
siblings
, the Tsuchigumo, and a human under a Fey curse named Renfroe. Stricken’s plan was cunning, and Kurst was impressed with how even if they failed to eliminate their primary target it would still be a victory. However, Kurst did not plan on failing.

He had waited a very long time to see Franks again.

Franks is mine. You may hurt him, but I’m the one that gets to send him back to Hell.

The other two Nemesis assets received the message and understood. Stricken and his scientists were unaware that their Nemesis creations could communicate freely with each other telepathically. It had amused him to discover that STFU was so oblivious to the horrors they had invited into their world. Each of the thirteen spirits who had claimed these powerful new bodies had been leaders among the Fallen, but Kurst had outranked them in the before time. They would do exactly what he ordered now.

The streets of the American capital city were empty this early in the morning. Steam rose from manhole covers. Kurst liked how the buildings here were gilded palaces. Pride was what had gotten his kind exiled, yet how quickly mortals forgot themselves and erected marble monuments to their own meager power. He hated humans so much.

“That’s the MCB building. Get ready,” Foster said.

“There are four cameras on us.” Renfroe could sense such things. The tall, extremely skinny, bespectacled man was still a human being, but he had peculiar abilities that made him just odd enough to be on the ragged edge of being PUFF-applicable.

“Don’t disrupt them until I tell you to,” Foster ordered. He was listening to an earpiece connected to the command center. “Spider, the second that door slides open, I want you doing your thing, just like we talked about.”