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

a fairly good-looking dude who could also run really fast. “Yeah, you’ve been a pain in my ass all day.”

Then Sonya surprised me by pulling a little pistol out of her pocket and pointing it at my head. “Who are you? Talk or else!”

It’s hard enough to speed on a windy country road in the dark without the added distraction of potentially catching a .380 in the dome. “Put that away, kid. I don’t have time for your drama.” I was still holding the shotgun, and it was still generally pointed in her direction, so I turned it a bit and thumped her in the stomach with the muzzle to accentuate my point. “If I wanted to hurt you, I could’ve cut you in half already.” Then I slowly removed my hand from the shotgun and left it sitting on the center console to show I meant her no harm. Plus, I really needed both hands to drive this fast. “See? Now put that thing down before you shoot me by accident and kill us both.”

I risked a glance at her and realized that despite being able to change her face, she really couldn’t hide her emotions that well. In the dim lights from the dash, I could see that her lip was quivering and her eyes were watering. She actually was scared. Good, because so was I. She slowly lowered the tiny pistol. “Okay. But only because I want to.”

“My name’s Owen Pitt. I’m friends with Earl Harbinger.”

“You know Harbinger? You’re MHI?” That seemed to surprise her.

“I bet you wish you hadn’t run from us now, huh?”

“Are you kidding? Earl’s cheap. The Catholics just paid me two million bucks for that rock.”

“No shit?” Robbing monsters really was lucrative.

“Well, it was one million, but they’re pretty desperate, so I made them a counteroffer. Speaking of which”—Sonya got out her cellphone—“I need to check my bank account and see if they wired the money yet.”

“Now? You’ve got other problems.”

Sonya scowled at her phone. “No signal? Lame.”

“Listen, the Catholics aren’t the only desperate ones. MHI really needs that rock. There’s an evil chaos god who wants to destroy the whole world, and that Ward might be the only thing that we can stop him with.”

“Sounds like a personal problem.”

There was a Y in the road. I went right. The Drekavac was out of sight. If we were lucky maybe I could shake him.

“Where’s the Ward now?” I demanded.

“So you can swipe it?” She barked a sardonic laugh at me. “It’s somewhere safe. I’m not telling you.”

“Then I should pull over and you can get out and walk home.”

“You wouldn’t leave me at the mercy of that thing. I know MHI is a bunch of goody two-shoes.”

I started slowing down.

“Whoa . . . Hey. What are you doing?”

“Letting you out. Maybe that glowing pirate can give you a lift.” I braked. “He seems nice. Or you can tell me where the stone is.”

“But the Secret Guard already paid me a bunch of money for it!”

“Pay them back.” But then I saw two blue lights in my rearview mirror, growing rapidly. Tough talk aside, I couldn’t actually leave her to get murdered by the spectral terminator. “Shit.”

As I sped up, Sonya smugly said, “Called it.” But then she turned around and looked out the back window, to see the rolling wall of doom fog closing fast. “You’d better step on it.”

“I am.” But from the way those lights were gaining on us, ghost horse was rocket powered. “How’s he tracking you?”

“I have no idea.”

Oncoming cars zipped past, but then they careened wildly out of control as the Drekavac’s ride struck them. He was coming down the middle lane and catching up fast. The only thing that seemed to briefly slow him down was actually killing him, and even that only seemed to help for about thirty seconds. “Can you shoot?”

“Duh. I’m an expert. Better than you probably. Didn’t Earl tell you who my dad was?”

“So shooting ability is genetically inherited now? Spare me the cocky bullshit, you friggin’ orphan.”

“I’ve got a mom.”

“And she seems nice. You should call her more often. She’s worried about you. There’s some gun cases in the back seat. Do me a favor and pop this guy.”

Sonya rolled smoothly into the back seat. My bigger guns were on the floor. I could hear her unzipping the top case. That would be my shotgun, Abomination. It had a short enough barrel it wouldn’t be too awful for her to maneuver back there.

“Okay. Got one. Now what?”

I checked the mirror. Ghost horse was within fifty yards and closing. “Shoot him!”

“Uh . . . ” There were some metallic noises as she ineffectually fiddled with various things. “How?”

“Expert my ass. See the big lever on the right side? That’s the safety. Flip it down.”

“Got it . . . ” She must have yanked on the trigger. “Nothing’s happening!”

“You’ve got to chamber a round.”

“I’ve not seen one of these before, okay?”

“It’s a Kalashnikov! Third World goat herders use these!”

“Quit yelling at me. Jeez!”

Twenty yards. And objects in the rearview mirror are closer than they appear. “Pull back the charging handle all the way and let it go. That’s the handle that sticks out the right side.” The familiar noise told me that she’d just successfully loaded it. “Now—”

There was a thunderous roar as Sonya yanked the trigger. Unfortunately, the combination of my rushed instructions and her gun illiteracy meant that she had flipped Abomination’s selector from safe to full-auto, and a full-auto 12-gauge loaded with magnum buckshot, you really need to hang on and know what you’re doing. Which Sonya clearly didn’t, because she blew out the rear window, shot the tail gate, launched about fifty bucks worth of silver down the road, and then blew a hole in the truck’s roof in one burst.

“What the shit, Sonya?” My ears were ringing and none of those had been anywhere near the Drekavac.

“It’s empty.”

I leave a short five-round mag in Abomination when it’s in the case. The bigger mags were all too long to fit and still