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

“So much for being reasonable,” Stricken said as he tossed something on the ground.

The world was consumed in a blinding flash.

Chapter 24

I couldn’t see. It felt like the ground had disappeared from beneath my feet. I dropped. Panicked, flailing, only then it felt like gravity changed direction, and I was falling up. I suddenly hit the ground, only from an entirely unexpected direction, and bounced off it with my shoulder.

Facedown, I lay there, dizzy, trying to get my bearings and trying to blink the purple blotches from my vision. The world was spinning but beneath me was smooth concrete, so I held onto that bit of stability, even though I couldn’t understand how the forest had suddenly grown a concrete floor.

Last thing I’d known, the Drekavac had been about to attack, so I rolled over and shifted my gun in the direction that I thought he was in, except I still couldn’t see. Stricken must have used one hell of a flash-bang.

“Franks! Sonya!”

Sonya shouted from somewhere off to my side. “I lost the grenade!”

Fuck!

I couldn’t see a damned thing but I started smacking my hands around on the floor, desperately looking for the deadly little thing before it went off.

“Calm your tits,” Stricken said. “I’ve already taken care of it. If you’re going to be on my team, you’ve got to learn to handle your ordnance better.”

Focusing on his voice, I could sort of make out the shape of Stricken standing there. The surprising part about that was Franks hadn’t immediately shot him. Except when I craned my head in that direction, I saw that Franks was surrounded by several figures who all had guns on him. When I looked behind me, there were more men pointing rifles at me. I was still having a hard time focusing, but they looked like soldiers.

We were no longer outdoors. There was a roof overhead. We were in some big room . . . a garage. There were several trucks parked inside. The succubus extinguished her flaming whip and hopped up on a truck to sit on the hood. There was a really loud AC unit running and no windows on the cinderblock walls. There was no sign of the Drekavac. When I saw that we were all inside a big circular scorch mark burned into the floor, I realized what had happened. It was some variation of the portal rope magic I’d first seen used by the Sanctified Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition.

“You teleported us?” No wonder I was feeling motion sick.

“Well, it was either that or stand around there waiting for old Carver to try and murder everyone, and trust me, he still had plenty of horsepower. You wouldn’t have been able to shut him down in time. You can thank me later.” Stricken had Sonya’s grenade in one hand and the unscrewed fuse in the other. That must have been close. They only have a four or five second fuse. Stricken was faster than he looked. “Take care of that for me.” Stricken tossed the grenade to one of the soldiers, but luckily the surprised man caught it, though he fumbled it, wide-eyed and terrified, a few times before he got it under control.

Sonya threw up. I didn’t know if it was from her almost blowing herself up, or the nausea of falling through a portal to who knew where, but it was an understandable reaction to either event.

I slowly moved my hands away from Cazador so none of Stricken’s guards got the wrong idea. “Where’s the Drekavac?”

“Alabama, for the moment. Hopefully your buddies take his final body out. Otherwise he’ll be coming after us soon. How soon, I don’t know. I’m a little fuzzy on the details of how he travels long distance.” Stricken sighed. “What a waste. Silas is a real talent. I would’ve killed to have him on Unicorn. My backup-pick monster isn’t as impressive, though they’re probably equally as annoying.”

“I’m gonna kill you, Stricken,” Franks stated in a very matter-of-fact manner that was still convincing, despite the six dudes with assault rifles aimed at him.

“I know. You’re going to kill me. Which is why I should just take you out now and get it over with. It’s not like I need two Chosen.” Stricken picked up the shotgun that was supposedly loaded with the special Franks-killing slugs, except rather than aiming it at Franks, he rested it over one shoulder. “The fact that I haven’t popped you, even though I could, should indicate that this is way bigger than our little feud. You’re really going to want to hear me out, Franks. You can get back to hounding me to the ends of the Earth after we keep the Old Ones from tearing the planet a new asshole. You know I wouldn’t reach out to the likes of you for help if it wasn’t that serious.”

Franks made an angry hmmmm noise. Because there really was no way Stricken would turn to someone who wanted to end him that much unless something really bad was going to go down otherwise.

Now that I could mostly see, I slowly took in the details of the garage. There had been at least twenty men waiting outside the circle for us to arrive. They were dressed in woodland camo fatigues with mismatched load-bearing gear. Most of them seemed pretty freaked out about the portal magic they’d just seen, which meant they were new to this kind of thing. They were armed with a variety of weapons, including a couple I didn’t recognize, which was saying something because I’m a huge gun nut. Among the soldiers were a few gringos and black guys, but most of them were about as tan as I am, but they were on average a whole lot shorter.

“Where are we?”

“Brazil,” Stricken said.

Well, shit. I sure wasn’t going to get home by the time we’d told the babysitter. “Send us back.”

“Sorry. Only had the one rope. Those things are not cheap. You ever been here before?”

Only