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

Funko Pops before I landed on his office chair. The little wheels shot out from under it and I spilled onto the floor.

I lay there for just a second, stunned, but having two molten slugs scorching your chest brings you back to reality fast. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to pull them out because the Drekavacs were approaching, swords and axes raised. I climbed up, rested Abomination on the desk, and started shooting as soon as my sight covered blue.

MHI must have killed a slew of these things, because the remainder were getting really tough. I ran through the rest of Abomination’s ammo to drop three of them. There was still one left, and it was coming at me with only one arm and half his face torn off, so I dropped Abomination and picked up Albert’s chair. I hurled it. The monster slashed the chair out of the air with his sword. I used that time to draw my pistol. The Drekavac lunged at me but I pumped six rounds into him before he fell to pieces.

Every monster in the archives was dead.

Chapter 21

Shit. Shit. That hurts. I put my STI on the desk, grabbed one of Al’s nice metal pens, and used that to pry the ghost bullets out of my armor. They were probably going to leave some severe little burns under there. But I couldn’t worry about that because there was still a lot of noise coming from Earl’s cell. Unfortunately, there was also a river of evil fog flowing in that direction. From the amount, there couldn’t be that many monsters left topside. The stuff was so thick and gave off such an unnatural vibe that it reminded me of the substance that had fed the Nachtmar at the Last Dragon. I really hated monsters who operated beyond our understanding of the laws of physics.

Taking a quick inventory, I still had Cazador and about a hundred rounds for it. I was down to a couple pistol mags. I didn’t know how many monsters were between me and the vault, and it was taking an ever-increasing number of bullets to put each one down. I topped off my guns and moved out. All I had to do was follow the fog stream.

The back of the archives was clear, but when I turned the corner there were a bunch of Drekavacs clustered around the corridor that led to Earl’s vault. The monsters were popping out and snapping off shots, but then having to duck back to keep from getting shredded by what sounded like a M240. Judging by the number of holes in the walls and gun smoke in the air, somebody had already run through a couple of belts to hold them off.

“You never take Melvin alive! Come at me, scrub lords! Melvin is ripped!”

It must have gotten pretty desperate down here for Trip to give our troll a machine gun.

One of the Drekavac leaned out, shot, and must have gotten lucky, because Melvin let out a startled yelp.

“It burns! It burns!” And then there was a clatter as he dropped the machine gun.

The Drekavac immediately took advantage of that lull and rushed the vault.

“Crap.” I went after them. They hadn’t seen me yet, so I popped a Drekavac in the back of the head. They’d absorbed so many lives that braining it didn’t even put it down, and the monster turned around, whipping blue fire across the wall from the exit wound where his nose had been. It shrieked. Two of its brothers heard and turned around to join it in charging me. The other dozen or so continued toward the vault.

I kept hammering the lead Drekavac with Cazador until its body came apart, but the other two were nearly on me. A sword thrust meant to pierce my guts got knocked aside at the last instant by Cazador’s metal handguard. I kept shooting from the hip, but I wasn’t going to stop the other one in time.

Only that Drekavac stumbled as it got shot in the back. Four Hunters were moving up the opposite direction, also converging on the vault. They were doing the combat glide, moving fast and smooth, carbines shouldered. So I dove for the floor to let them have a clear shot. It was more of a desperate instinct than a clear tactical decision, but either way, it was the smart play as those Hunters lit the two monsters up. Blue sparks rained on my head as the monsters twitched and jerked until they disintegrated.

“Friendly!” I shouted, even though that should be obvious since I wasn’t a glowing skeleton.

“Pitt?” It turned out to be Gutterres and his men. I wasn’t surprised to see them down here since they made no secret that they were in this for the Ward. “You hurt?”

“I’m good.” I got up and immediately started reloading. There was a bunch of gunfire and shouting coming from down the corridor. “We’ve got to protect the vault.”

“There’s another wave right behind us,” the big guy, Messina, warned. He was covering their rear with a Para SAW. “But there’s a friggin’ werewolf eating them!”

“Don’t mess with the werewolf. He’s a friendly.”

The mercs all gave me an incredulous look, but Gutterres took it in stride. “Very well.”

“Seriously?” LoPresto asked.

Gutterres shrugged. “The greatest knight in the history of the church was a werewolf.”

“Sonya’s down this way.” I pointed. Judging by the way the fog from the monsters we’d just capped was heading past the Secret Guard guys, toward that next unseen wave, instead of the ones who were already hitting the vault, any of those Drekavacs who made it past Earl were going to be really nasty.

“We’ll clear these first.” Gutterres signaled for his guys to halt. The corridor to the vault was between us. The corners the Drekavacs had just been using for cover had been chewed to bits. Melvin had done a real number on the drywall. “Warrington, LoPresto, first, then me and Pitt. Messina watch our backs.”

“Hang on.”