Monster Hunter Bloodlines - eARC by Larry Correia (read a book .txt) 📕

be hundreds of miles away by now. So this might be a wild goose chase, but we decided to hit everyone she had ever associated within the Atlanta area, going in order of how recently she’d had dealings with them. The rest of the Hunters were already busy chasing down other leads, and we didn’t even know if Sonya was our actual target, so Earl and I split up to start checking her contacts out.

The first few places I stopped by were total duds. One apartment was empty and for rent. The other was a normal-looking house in the suburbs, but nobody was home, and there was three days’ worth of junk in the mailbox.

It was dark when I arrived at a bar on the outskirts of the city. A few of her identities had liked this place, and she had posts about meeting up and partying here. It was not at all what I expected. When Sonya’s mom had said that her daughter had some friends here who were into the same music scene, none of her profiles had prepared me for this.

The establishment was named Perdition’s Abyss; I kid you not. The sign announcing that name was spray-painted on a rusty old car hood that had been stuck in the ground. There was a chain link fence around the property. There were bars on the windows, and razor wire on the tar paper roof. The parking lot was gravel and holes. There were more jacked-up trucks than cars, but motorcycles outnumbered them both. There was even a big-ass Rottweiler on a chain run to dissuade anyone from trying to sneak in the back door.

I parked the company truck and headed for the entrance. Even out here it smelled like stale beer, puke, and weed. I could already hear the music blaring from a hundred yards away. It was heavy metal, and was a cover of one of my brother’s songs, which was kind of nifty if you think about it. It gave me a feeling of connection.

Inside, it was dim, crowded, smelly, and deafening. One look around told me this was a rough bunch. The clientele appeared to be a mix of bikers, rednecks, roughnecks, and that type of youthful belligerent who’d managed to get kicked out of everywhere else respectable. It wasn’t a strip club, per se, so I assumed the drunk women dancing on tables were volunteers. This was the kind of place where if somebody got stabbed, they’d just throw some sawdust on the floor to soak up the blood and keep on trucking. If the health inspector ever came for a visit, they’d just murder him and bury his body in the woods out back. I felt right at home. Working in this kind of place was how I’d put myself through college and where I’d discovered the lucrative world of illegal underground fighting. Knocking men unconscious with your bare hands is a great way to pay tuition.

The bouncer at the door was one big fella, like several inches and a hundred pounds bigger than me, far right side of the bell curve, chonky boy. He had cauliflower ears, scars all over his knuckles, and a beard that had probably won more fights than most people would ever see. Tough guys tend to automatically size up other tough guys, and he looked me over, decided I wasn’t obviously high or looking for trouble, and nodded. I nodded respectfully back. Professional courtesy.

The band was doing a decent job of recreating Cabbage Point Killing Machine’s music, but the sound system in here was painfully distorted. All the regulars had to have permanent hearing damage by now. I gave the room a quick once-over, looking for anyone who might be Sonya. There were a bunch of girls close enough in size and age to be her, though none of Sonya’s online profiles had been in the persona of sleazy bar skank. Places like this always attracted a disproportionate number of suburban girls who wanted to live dangerously. I scanned for anybody else interesting. I’d worked in places like this long enough that I easily picked out the resident drug dealer, and also the guy I would talk to if I really wanted to buy a cheap handgun with the serial numbers ground off. So, the usual.

Trying to figure out how to play this cool, I went up to the crowded bar. They were so busy it took a minute before I caught someone to ask for a beer. The bartender was female, had a mohawk, and asked me what brand. I told her whatever was cheap. I didn’t intend to drink it anyway. Working in places like this and dealing with alcoholic morons had really soured me on the whole drinking thing, and I’d just never picked the habit back up, but I figured having a bottle in hand would make me look more natural.

I was suspicious enough that I checked out the bartender as she fetched my drink, but she was too tall, too busty, and probably ten years too old to be our shapeshifter. Unfortunately, she caught me staring. Fortunately, she seemed to take that as a compliment and gave me an obviously flirty grin in return. Considering I’m a rather ugly individual, that should tell you how comparatively unattractive most of the other meatheads in here were. I reflexively got embarrassed at her smile and knew that Julie would laugh at my discomfort. Thankfully, they were so busy the bartender had to go right back to work.

As I watched the crowd, I tried to figure out how to proceed. I couldn’t just whip out my phone and start asking random strangers “Have you seen this girl?” because, first off, I figured that only worked in cop movies, and second, though I had a bunch of pictures of her, I didn’t know which face, if any, Sonya would be currently using. But what the hell, the bartender seemed kind of into me, so it couldn’t