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

planted one of their friends headfirst through the roof. “What the shit, man?” one of them shouted as we were all drenched in years of accumulated ceiling dust, because even in a place this seedy, there are certain rules, one being that it’s never cool to violate the laws of physics.

Then it drew a sword.

When three feet of blue glowing pirate cutlass came out, I think every other armed individual in this place had the same thought that I did, which was screw that. Guns rose. Of course most of these guys had guns. This was Georgia after all.

I shot first. At least half a dozen others joined in. Plenty of rounds missed and put holes in the walls, but a lot more hit. The guy standing next to me whipped out a Yeet Cannon and shouted, “Let’s dance, homie!” as he held the gun sideways and dumped the whole mag in the monster’s general direction.

The thing jerked and twitched as it was riddled with bullets. It bled sparks. I nailed it repeatedly where the brain should be. The body seemed to break apart, into shards of black and blue, before collapsing into the fog.

My ears were ringing. At some point the automatic sound system had turned back on and started playing Rob Zombie’s “Lords of Salem.” It appeared the monster had vanished. I hadn’t seen where the shadow hounds had gone.

“Damn it, Jack! Why’d you let that freak with the dogs here?” the bartender shouted for her missing bouncer. “You know the cops shut us down for a week every time we have a homicide!”

I retained my partially spent mag, reloaded with a new one from my belt, and then walked toward where the monster had dropped. There was a vortex of fog swirling a foot off the ground with a pale glow coming from the center of it. As I watched, the monster slowly rose from the mist. And I don’t mean it stood, I mean it floated up through the floor.

The wide-brimmed hat tilted back, allowing me to stare into the horror that was its face. There was no skin. Instead of flesh and bone it looked like barbed wire had been twisted into a sort of human form to make a cage that barely contained the cold fire burning within.

“Amusing.”

As it said that, whatever warmth had been lingering in my body fled. I cranked off two rounds into its chest, but then had to dive to the side as the sword whistled past my head. The monster followed. One palm shot out and struck me in the ribs. It was like getting hit with an ice-cold hammer, and I flipped backwards over a table.

Which was when the dogs came seemingly out of nowhere to attack the crowd. Jaws clamped onto the throat of the man with the empty pistol and dragged him down, gurgling. The other bit a biker on the arm, which was unfortunately holding one of those goofy Taurus Judge shotgun pistols, and when he spasmodically jerked the trigger, he accidentally shot another biker in the leg.

As the thing with the sword waded into the crowd, the fog seemed to follow, billowing outward, filling the space. It swung and removed a man’s arm. Then spun and took off another man’s foot. That was one sharp sword! Somebody smashed a chair over the monster’s head, but it simply turned and ran him through the guts, then yanked the sword out in a red spray.

“The prey is escaping,” the monster told its dogs. “Get her.”

Since I was lying on the sticky floor, I had to sit up to see the stage. Sonya had seemed really cocky earlier, but from the surprised look on her current face, she hadn’t been expecting anything like this.

The dogs let go of the men they’d been mauling and bounded across the room directly toward Sonya. One leapt onto the bar and ran down it. I fired at that one, nailing it in the ass and spinning it around in a blue flash. The dog flew off the bar, crashed into the wall of bottles, and shattered a lot of glass.

The other dog jumped at the stage but crashed against the chain link fence. The fence was meant to keep the band from getting pelted with trash on open mic night, it really wasn’t intended to stop a really pissed off demon dog, and it began tearing it down immediately. Only Gutterres came from behind and slashed it with some manner of edged weapon. The dog’s neck split open, leaking light, and then the whole beast disintegrated.

Sonya bolted from the stage.

Gutterres went after her.

“Wait!” I got to my feet. “Shit!”

The monster with the sword came at me, looking like a hellish version of Solomon Kane, and I had to scramble backward to retain my head. My back hit the bar. It swung downward, and I barely had time to get out of the way before it planted the glowing blade deep into the wood. I drove my pistol into its armpit and fired. It grabbed my wrist with one gloved hand and slammed my knuckles against the wood hard enough to leave a dent. I lost control of my gun and the STI went sliding across the bar.

The bartender with the mohawk had ducked down when the dog had gone flying past. She stood up now, having retrieved a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun from under the bar. From only a foot away, she blasted the monster right in its nasty wire face.

The pilgrim hat went flying. The thing collapsed in a shower of sparks and the black matter turned to fog.

The dog I’d shot was still in one piece though, and it collided with the bartender, jaws snapping for her face, but all it got was a mouthful of wooden stock. It tore the shotgun away, but better the gun than her throat.

I slid over the bar, grabbed two handfuls of icy fur, and slung the dog hard into the wall. The mirror