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

This part was going to be really dangerous, not from the group of monsters we were about to box in, but because we didn’t want to get shot by our friends at the other end, and we didn’t want to shoot them through the monsters. So I shouted as loud as I could, “Hunters coming in!”

I could barely hear Trip’s response over the gunfire and monster screeching. “Hurry up. Hold your fire, Melvin.” A long burst of machine-gun fire zipped between me and the Catholics. “No. Bad Melvin! Bad! Put that down.”

“Melvin sorry.”

“You’re good, Z!”

Man, I hate this chaotic part. At least the teams were color-coordinated. The Catholics were all wearing regular street clothing with just plate carriers thrown on top. MHI armor was all various earth tones. “Only shoot the blue ones.”

“Fuckin’ smurfs,” Warrington said.

“Move,” Gutterres ordered.

His men might not have been full-fledged Secret Guardsmen, but I had to hand it to them. They knew their shit. They were quick and smooth, sweeping into the hall and immediately engaging the monsters as they moved. Because storage space was always at a premium at MHI HQ, there were a lot of boxes and crates here, and the two used those for concealment as Gutterres and I moved in next.

Trip had piled up a bunch of crap as a barricade, and the Hunters were hiding behind it. Between us there were half a dozen Drekavacs in the open. We shot them in the back. The vault crew shot them in the front. By some miracle we managed not to shoot each other. Thank you, Saint Hubert!

Ten seconds of rapid but very carefully aimed fire later, the corridor was filled with the fog of dead Drekavacs. Unfortunately, it immediately went zipping down the hall past us, past Messina, and out of sight. It must have found the next batch of monsters to strengthen, because an ungodly screech came from somewhere inside the archives.

The screeching didn’t stop. It was getting closer. And this time it sounded like it was only one voice. The might of hundreds of monsters, collected into one. And that made it so much worse. The noise suddenly ceased, but it didn’t matter. We knew it was coming for us.

“This way,” Trip said. We rushed over to his improvised barricade. It looked like he’d piled up all of Earl’s old army crates and filled them with bricks to use for cover. Now that was showing initiative.

Albert Lee raised his head over the edge of a crate. “Welcome to Fort Kickass.”

When Melvin stood up to his full seven feet of hideous, green, bumpy ugly, I had to bellow, “Hold your fire! He’s on our side,” before the Catholics could waste him.

“What the hell is that?” Messina shouted.

“It’s a troll.” Gutterres was perplexed, like werewolves were one thing, but trolls were annoying. “You’ve got a troll? Why?”

“He’s our IT department. He’s cool.”

Melvin looked at the newcomers with his beady little eyes. “Melvin cool. You cool?”

“We cool,” said Warrington, though he kept his gun at the ready, because Melvin had that effect on sane people.

I surveyed the crew of Fort Kickass. Trip and Lee appeared uninjured. Melvin was missing one hand, but trolls were pretty ambivalent about amputations since they’d just grow a new one. “Where’s Cody?”

Trip jerked a thumb at the bank vault-style door in the back of Earl’s room. “He went inside to try one last time to figure out how to get the Ward from Sonya so we could turn it on and maybe kill all these things.”

“Silas Carver was born on Earth,” Gutterres said. “The stone has no power over him. It wouldn’t work.”

“Cody figured it was still worth a shot.”

“As long as your man doesn’t destroy it,” Gutterres said. “If we lose that stone—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, millions dead. Got it.” I pointed down the hall at where the ghost light was building. “We’ve got more pressing matters right now.”

A single Drekavac lurched into view.

As more and more power coalesced into fewer bodies, they weren’t getting any bigger, but this one was giving off an aura of sheer wickedness. It made the hair on my arms stand up. The temperature plunged. All the Hunters could see our breath. Melvin spit out the Red Bull he’d been drinking, because this thing felt evil. It hadn’t just gathered up the life essence of the ones we’d killed, but who knew how many hundreds more from above.

The Drekavac started toward us. All eight of us started shooting.

I watched in horror as our bullets shattered against the monster’s body. A weapon materialized in the monster’s hand. It wasn’t one of the tiny pistols. Oh, no. It was that damned blunderbuss that had nearly torn the roof off of our headquarters.

“Down!” Gutterres and I shouted at the same time, because we’d both seen that thing in action.

Everybody but Melvin listened.

Lightning hit Fort Kickass. I was pelted by splinters and wet troll chunks.

Melvin hit the wall. His legs were gone.

Most of us popped up and started shooting again. The Drekavac was manipulating its weapon to obliterate the rest of us and only seemed mildly inconvenienced by the dozens of bullets hitting him.

Maybe it was the whole Chosen thing, but I could see what was happening. The ghost fire had collected around this body to strengthen and protect it. Each time we hit it, more of that energy was being used up. Each time it attacked us, more energy was expended, which was why when there was a bunch of them, they were only using the little pistols, and now he’d broken out the big stuff. Give us enough time and we’d break him, and he’d disintegrate like the rest.

Except this one had gathered so much energy that we’d be dead long before that point.

“Get inside the vault!” I shouted.

Trip rushed to the door and started opening it. Lee got there a moment later because of the bad leg. Trip spun the wheel and then the two of them started swinging the incredibly heavy thing