Monster Hunter Vendetta (45 page)

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 pixilated 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' pixilated 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 a 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?"

It took my brain a second to process the request. There were windows, and they slid open, but like everything at the compound, they were barred. I had lived in the barracks while I had undergone my Newbie training. Yeah, there was an entrance on both sides, and one in the middle to the rec room. I found myself nodding.

"Flank them," Franks ordered.

I didn't know at what point in time he had become in charge, but I had never actually fought human beings to the death before, so it seemed like a reasonable request. I moved quickly down the wall, but just as I did so, a massive fireball rose from the main building, highlighting strange, disjointed shadows scaling the walls. The undead were here. We were under siege.

The barracks was a very basic building. It was a prefab, shaped like a big H, with a row of sleeping quarters down both sides along a hallway, showers on the end, and the recreation room in the center. I paused outside the side door.

This was nuts. I shouldn't have been scared. I'd risked my life dozens of times now, but facing people was different. Well, they had at least one werewolf, so I guess I couldn't assume the rest of the cultists were human either. I had killed a man but I didn't really know if the reborn Machado counted. I checked my gun and took a deep breath. Screw it. Monster, human, whatever, put a bullet in the right place, and they all go down the same. People are just softer. The knob was cool under my hand as I pulled the door open.

Nothing moved in the hallway.

I moved slowly, setting each boot down carefully so as not to make too much noise. The doors to the Newbies' rooms were all open, everyone having cleaned out their stuff in preparation for getting the heck out of here. Luggage was stacked by each door. The walls had once been boring beige, but just about every inch had been covered by tacked-up posters, pictures, notes, Sharpie autographs, or even graffiti from years of new Hunters.

There was a noise—a crash as something fell over. There was movement in the room to the side. I raised my compact STI and covered the doorway.

A man stepped out, dressed entirely in black, wearing a balaclava and a pair of night-vision goggles pushed up on his forehead. He had the butt of an MP5 against his shoulder, muzzle down, as he swept into the hallway. They were clearing the building, probably getting ready to hole up and defend this place until the Condition secured the compound.

His eyes widened as he saw me five feet away, but it was too late to matter. The bullet passed cleanly through the cultist's face and he dropped in a spray of blood droplets.

"Contact!" someone screamed from the rec room. I leapt over the cultist's body and into the room he had just exited. Someone took the opportunity to fill the hallway with lead, emptying a magazine in a rapid buzz. Projectiles flew through the walls as I flung myself facedown on the carpet. I rolled over and covered the doorway.

The gunfire stopped. I got to my knees and took the corner. Another black-clad cultist was crouched just inside the rec room. He was fumbling, trying to shove a magazine into his subgun. He was mostly hidden, but prefab walls are thin. Since I couldn't see his head and he was probably wearing armor anyway, I aimed low, and cranked off four rounds through the wall.

He bellowed in surprise and fell out of sight. I got up and moved to the back of the room. Sure enough, another cultist responded, tearing the space that I had been inhabiting into splinters. The bars of the window collided with my back. Terrible noises reverberated through the glass, audible even over the gunfire and the angry shouting of the injured cultist. An epic battle was being waged outside.

It was with some shock that I realized that this was my old room. Right there on the wall was my own autograph. ozp: combat accountant. I had been sitting on that bed right there when Trip had talked me out of giving up and quitting after I'd injured Green in training. My autograph disappeared as a bullet plowed through it. I hit the deck. These were high-powered rifle rounds, and they were zipping right through the walls like they were made of paper.