Matt Archer: Legend (2 page)

“We dropped him at the other end,” Johnson said. He pressed
a finger against the tiny earphone he had in his right ear. “Tell us what we’ve
got.”

Murphy flung us into drive and burned rubber down the
nearest row of buildings while Johnson relayed my briefing about the rock monster
to Captain Parker.

“Tell him to watch out for Will,” I said as Murphy turned
hard right at the end of the row. We bounced over crumpled metal doors and
chunks of broken concrete. Murph swerved hard to avoid a dumpster.

“Try not to kill us getting there,” I yelped.

“Top of my class, anti-terrorist driving school. Shut your
yap and buckle up!” he snapped.

The headlights caught something brown and lumpy loping along
twenty yards ahead of us. Murphy floored it, cut the wheel hard, and spun us
around so that my door was right behind the rock monster.

I flung the door open, hitting the pavement before the thing
registered where I was. It turned for me and Johnson fired a few rounds, but
they bounced off the monster’s rocky hide. It was a wonder I didn’t get hit by
a ricochet. Swearing, I took off down the nearest row, leading the monster back
to the parking lot, thinking I needed some room to get around it and jump on
its back.

We ran through a crossroads between two sets of buildings
and there was Parker. He skidded to a halt, hiding against the wall. I barreled
past, shouting, “Armpit, armpit, armpit!”

Will rounded the corner at the end of the buildings, waving
me forward. “Behind you!”

I turned to see Parker’s knife flash in the moonlight. He
hung from the thing’s right arm and slashed violently at the membrane, taking
the monster’s arm clean off. Parker fell clear, and the arm crashed down on top
of him. The monster hadn’t figured out it was dead yet, though. It staggered
on, towering right over me as it started tumbling. Will raced forward and
grabbed my arm. He nearly twisted my shoulder out of joint, but managed to pull
me out of the way. The monster’s massive head landed right where I’d been not a
second before.

I fell into the wall of the nearest warehouse and slid to
the ground, landing square on top of Will’s rib cage. He coughed and shoved me
off while Parker groaned in the distance.

Unable to get up, I called, “You okay, sir?”

“Think so,” he yelled back. “Gonna have some bruises,
though. The creature’s arm must’ve weighed a hundred pounds.”

Murphy and Johnson pulled up. The tires of the rental sedan
were smoking. Maybe we should’ve opted for the insurance.

Johnson came to check on us, while Murphy went after Captain
Parker.

“Nice of you to drop by, Lieutenant,” Will said, as Johnson
helped him to his feet. He swayed, and Johnson eased him back to the ground.

“Think you need to sit tight a bit, Cruessan.” He came to
check me out next. “You all right, Archer?”

I nodded. “Just tired and sore. Took a lot of running.
Will’s worse off than I am, though. He had to sprint all over the place and I
landed on him just now.”

Johnson offered me a large, dark brown hand. After he stood
me up, he dusted off my jacket, which was covered with a mix of dust and this
awful, snot-colored slime. He grimaced and wiped his fingers on his pants. “Any
civilians around?”

“Yeah, one.” I swallowed hard. “I think they killed the guy
who runs the tattoo shop. Row three, second building.”

“We’ll get a team in to examine and clean up the scene,
then,” he said. “The Mounties have a special unit we can work with.”

Murphy led a limping Parker to us. Parker took in the damage
and sighed. “Any idea where these things came from?”

Will struggled to his feet. “What’s that?”

A tiny shadow flitted across the tops of the buildings. It
was shaped kind like a…toad? I tightened my grip on my knife. “No idea.”

Before I could do anything, Parker’s knife flashed through
the air. It caught the thing in the leg and it let out a squeal, before
toppling from the building.

We ran over to the body and found a small green imp, maybe a
cross between a goblin and a gremlin, writhing in pain on the concrete. It had
pointed ears, sharp fangs, and knobby bare feet. It was also spitting curses at
us in an ugly language that set my teeth on edge. I had half a mind to use it
for target practice and be done.

Wait. It has information we need.

Right. Always a complication. “What are you?”

“Masss-ter says watch,” the creature hissed.

I’d heard about a master before, and nothing good ever
happened when it was mentioned. “Who’s your master?”

 It cackled an ugly laugh that turned into a gurgled cough.
“A blood-red moon approachessss. We will…leave none alive, not even…your
ssssspirit-guide. You…will die…sssscreaming…wisssshing you…were never born.”

Before I could demand that it explain itself, Parker
snatched his knife from its leg. The little demon had no time to react before
he buried the blade in its chest. With a squeal, it disintegrated into a pool
of gnarly green glop.

“Um, sir?” Johnson said. He wiped a hand across his
forehead. “Don’t you think that might’ve been premature?”

“My knife told me to finish it off,” Parker said, sounding
shaky. He gave me a startled glance. “It, I mean,
he
told me.”

“So your knife-spirit’s a dude?” I asked.

Parker nodded, looking like he might be sick. I’d been the
first to hear the blade-spirits in my head and slowly the other wielders were,
too. It took some getting used to. Small wonder Parker was freaked out; finding
out your knife-spirit wasn’t an “it,” but a “he,” was enough to send anyone
over the edge. Jorge, the medicine man who made the knives, was the only other
member of the team who had adapted to the voices as much as I had. But then
again, he knew the spirits well enough to bind them to the blades.

Bind them…

“Oh, crap,” I said. “Our spirit-guide—they meant Jorge.
They’re going after Jorge.”

Will leaned against the car door, pinching the bridge of his
nose. “And a blood-red moon…there’s a set of lunar eclipses coming soon,
right?”

 “Yeah, the first one is at the end of this year, I think.”
I turned to the soldiers. All I got in response was a set of very grim looks.

Parker pulled out his cell phone. “I’ll call Colonel Black
and let him know.”

The others gathered into a little clump, staring at me with
worried eyes. I didn’t blame them. It had been three years since the start of
the last set of full lunar eclipses, when we’d been invaded for the first time.
Another set meant only one thing…

Monsters 2.0.

Captain Parker’s voice rose and fell behind the wall of his
hotel room, which was next door to ours. Will was taking his own sweet time in
the shower. I didn’t begrudge him that; he’d sprinted around that parking lot
like a boss and looked kind of tired. Having me fall on him after pulling me
out of the rock monster’s way probably hadn’t helped much, either.

And waiting gave me time to eavesdrop.

As soon as we hit the hotel’s lobby, Parker headed for his
room to call Colonel Black to brief him on our encounter. Johnson and Murphy
stayed behind to observe the retrieval and clean up. When we’d left, guys in
Hazmat suits were carefully putting chunks of slime-coated rock into huge metal
containers. Most crumbled when they picked them up, and some of the pebbles put
off a weird, sickly yellow glow. I really hoped it wasn’t radioactive.

“…first eclipse should be in December,” Parker was saying.
“Yes, sir. The enemy threatened Jorge directly….Yes, sir, I understand that
Peru’s not under the dark zone for that eclipse, but the warning made it sound
like….well, I think Major Ramirez may be needed down there to help Jorge. He’s
ready, and he knows the area better than the rest of us.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Ramirez, back out
in the field? It’d been six months since we’d rescued him from the demons that
held him captive in Afghanistan, but he’d been on leave ever since.

“Dude,” Will yelled from behind the bathroom door, “I have
an enormous bruise on my back from when we fell. We’ll need to cook up an
accident story for the ‘rents.”

“Yeah, I guess we can’t use a football game since you
haven’t played all week. Bruise’ll be too fresh.” Trying to figure out how to
maintain his cover made me think of Mamie. Beneath my older sister’s pig-tails
and innocent smile lurked a seriously creative liar, and she had a knack for coming
up with cover stories. I really missed her since she left for college. “If you
just wear a shirt whenever they’re home, you should be in the clear, right?”

“Probably.” He opened the door, wearing shorts and a
Greenhill High t-shirt. “Hear anything?”

“Sounds like the colonel’s gonna activate Ramirez.”

Will let out a low whistle. “Think he’s ready?”

I shrugged. PTSD was a strange thing. If anybody had a
reason to kill a few monsters, it was Ramirez. “His hand’s fully rehabbed and
Uncle Mike says they’ve been working out together at the Pentagon gym. He’s
probably ready.”

Parker knocked on the door between our rooms, cutting the
conversation short. I opened up to let him in, not surprised to see that he
hadn’t changed out of his dust and slime smeared civvies. His rust-colored hair
stuck up in about nine places, and his jeans had a big rip in the knee, with a
crusty scab to match. It’s not like I could talk; I hadn’t cleaned up either.

“Is the colonel really sending Ramirez to Peru?” I asked.

“I should’ve known you’d be listening in,” Parker answered,
sounding tired. I noted how pale he was, enough that his freckles stood out on
his face. The last few years had been a grind for all of us.

“Ramirez is going active effective immediately,” Parker said.
“They’re putting together his team now, and they’ll deploy to Peru next week.
Murphy will likely be reassigned back to the major’s team.”

“Are they going to contact Jorge?” I asked.

“The colonel said he’d try…you know how Jorge is about
technology. If we can’t reach him by sat-phone, we’ll have the Peruvian
National Guard look for him.” He didn’t sound convinced that the Guard would
have much luck. “But he seems to sense when we’re coming, like the
knife-spirits keep him informed on what’s going on. I bet Ramirez finds him
waiting by the drop zone with cookies and lemonade.”

Will laughed. “The thought of Jorge and cookies doesn’t go
together.”

No doubt. An Ivy-League educated medicine man didn’t really
go
with anything. Jorge was one of a kind. “So now what? Are we still on our
investigation here, or do we need to go back?”

Parker shook his head. “We stay—we have that meeting at the
university tomorrow, and I need to ask the experts some questions. There’s
something prowling around up here, and I don’t think it was just those boulder…things.”

I didn’t, either. The rock monsters seemed special ordered
to come after us.

Or, if I was totally honest, to come after me. I’d had a
series of freak accidents the last year or so. A truck nearly killed me during
my driving test, a parachute failure almost turned me into a pancake in
India—stuff like that. Just last week, all the shelves in my closet had
collapsed without warning. If I hadn’t jumped clear, I’d probably have a dent
in my skull right about now.

“Well, if we’re going to meet with some profs in the
morning, we need some sleep,” I said.

Will took that to mean right now and flopped down on his
bed, wincing when he landed on his bad shoulder. He started snoring about eight
seconds later.

“I’ve never seen anyone who could just sleep like that,”
Parker muttered.

I grinned. “Wait five minutes and I’ll pass out on command,
too, sir.”

Parker left me then, giving me a chance to shower. I
grimaced when I saw the damage. Scrapes along my jaw, a cut on the back of my
left hand, and dust mixed with slime in my hair, turning my brown buzz cut into
greenish fuzz. I knew I’d be sporting a dozen bruises in the morning too. Hazardous
after-school job, monster hunting. At least I didn’t have to hide the truth
from my mom anymore. Without Mamie home, it was nice to have someone there to
fuss over my injuries, especially since I didn’t have a girlfriend to worry
about me.

I climbed into the shower, angry I even started that train
of thought. Turning the hot water up as high as it would go, I scrubbed my skin
raw, trying to shake loose the memories of my time with Ella. I couldn’t change
things, and it was no use being a crybaby about it. So she broke up with me, so
what? My life was a soldier’s life now; personal misery had to be shoved aside
for the job.

Yeah, right man, I thought as I dried off and put on my
t-shirt and shorts, keep telling yourself that and maybe you’ll believe it.

But tonight, I was feeling extra low; the lies I told myself
just wouldn’t stick. And when you feel low, you do stupid things.

Like call your ex.

I walked out into the hotel room and had my phone in hand
with Ella’s number pulled up before I realized what I was doing. I wanted to
ask Will to talk me out of it, but his snores rivaled an earthquake. There was
no way he’d wake up to tell me this was a bad idea, and I hit “send” without
thinking.

It rang once, twice, three times. Deciding she would let the
call roll to voice mail, I had my finger on the “end” button when I heard a
soft, “Matt?”

My breath caught. “Hey.”

“Is something wrong?” Ella asked.

“No. I was…I was just thinking about home and called.”

“Where are you?”

“Canada.” Why did I do this? Just the sound of her voice was
enough to undo the little bit of calm I’d scraped together in the last four
months.

“Canada. Job?”

“Yeah.”

She sighed softly. “Are you hurt?”

Yes. “No.”

“Good. But I can tell you’re not okay.”

I leaned back on my bed, one hand holding my phone to my ear
and the other flung over my eyes. I could almost see her: auburn ponytail a
little messy from the day, slightly smudged eyeliner, shirt untucked, bare
feet. I’d made myself a promise to let her go and be the solider everyone
expected. That’s what the knife-spirit wanted, and Ella had picked up on that
somehow. Bitterness welled up in my throat. I’d fight for the knife, God knew I
would, but what good was it when I didn’t have Ella to come home to?

“Matt?”

“I’m here.”

“You don’t sound good.”

“I’m just tired.”

There was this long pause, then Ella said, “Okay, but I
still worry about you.”

I laughed—so wrong, but I did. “Yeah, right.”

“Why did you call me?” she asked, anger creeping into her
voice.

All my filters shut down, leaving only the raw truth behind.
“Because I miss you. Because I want you back. Because I’m sick of being lonely
and still can’t understand why you broke up with me. I’m in a strange hotel
room in a city a long way from home, listening to Will snore like a freaking
chainsaw, and I can’t keep bad stuff from running through my head.” I was
breathing harder than when I’d chased the rock monster, trying to hold back the
avalanche threatening to break free. “
That’s
why I called you.”

I heard a muffled sniffle on Ella’s end of the call and
instantly felt like the world’s biggest ass. “Ella…I didn’t mean to unload on
you.”

“I deserve it. Breaking up with you was the worst thing I’ve
ever done,” Ella said in a small, hoarse voice. “But this little voice in my
head kept telling me ‘he’s getting hurt because of you. He’s distracted from
his job, and it’s
your
fault. You should let him go for his own good.’
The funny thing? As soon we broke up, that voice stopped. That doesn’t mean it
didn’t kill me to do it, though.”

A little voice? One that
told
her to break up with
me? A cold vise gripped my lungs until I could barely breathe. “And what if I
told you that voice was lying? What then?”

“But it wasn’t,” Ella whispered. “Was it?”

No, technically it wasn’t—because the little voice belonged
to someone who truly believed I couldn’t do my job if my loyalties were
divided.

And right now, I hated Tink down to my bones.

I stared at the ugly plaid blanket on my bed, trying to keep
from losing it. “I don’t know.”

Ella let out a soft breath. “And until you do, you’re safer
without me.”

I had no answer to that, but in a small way, just the sound
of Ella’s voice eased the tension making my shoulders ache.

I’d never be safe without her.

The knife-spirit stirred in my head and a buzzing started at
the base of my skull. I squeezed my eyes shut tight, but the buzzing only got
louder. Feeling a burst of anger building up in my chest, I said, “I wish
things were different, that I didn’t have to do this job.”

“Sometimes I do, too,” Ella said. “But with you doing this
job, I can sleep through the night, knowing I’m safe from monsters.”

“There’s that, I guess.”

“Yeah.” Ella chuckled, a husky sound that beat back some of
Tink’s annoyed buzzing. “Good night, Matt. Stay safe.”

“’Night, Ella,” I said, then jabbed the “end call” icon hard
with my thumb. “What do you have to say for yourself, Tink?”

That I’m quite weary of that nickname
, she said, with
a trace of snark I found much too human.
But the girl is right—you have too
many concerns to manage without adding entanglements.

“You’re one to talk,” I growled. “I can’t get more entangled
with anything than I am with you. So tell the truth—were you the ‘little voice’
telling Ella to leave me?”

She didn’t answer
,
and that was answer enough. I was
so sick of being controlled. I knew Tink was Good, because she and the others
helped us fight, but sometimes I wondered if she was
good.
Things always
seemed to go her way, whether I liked it or not. Did she care, even a little,
about Matt-the-guy? Or was she happy enough controlling
Matt-the-Monster-Killing-Machine? I couldn’t answer that question, and it
scared me, to know I was at the mercy of something that might not allow me to
be completely human.

“Next time I manage to find a girl who likes me, which might
be never because of you, butt out,” I told Tink. “Don’t worry about the job.
I’m up for it, so stop underestimating me.”

As you wish
, she said, all cold and commanding.
Now,
sleep.

Like always, I started feeling drowsy the moment Tink
ordered me to rest. Grumbling because she was just doing it to stall our
conversation, I crawled under the covers. I fell asleep quickly, but after all
the drama, I was primed for a nightmare.

I run through the dark, panicking. Mamie screams in the
distance, but I can’t see. Sounds echo along the rock walls of the tunnel. I
run and run, never able to close the gap.

“Where are you!” I shout.

No answer; just screams of pain. Someone is torturing my
sister. I
have
to find her!

Footsteps pound behind me and a creaky, sinister laugh
rings out. I don’t have to turn around to know the shadow man is chasing me. An
oozing darkness that never knew the light. A figure with a human shape, but is
something else entirely.

“You’ll never find her,” it whispers, stretching tendrils
of shadow to catch my arms. “She’s mine.”

Mamie’s screams are cut short…

“Matt! Wake up!”

I twisted around so fast, I fell out of bed. “Ow.”

“Sorry,” Will said. “But you told me to wake you up if you
were having a nightmare.”

“It’s okay.” Getting to my feet took some effort. I was
wrapped up in my sheets like a mummy. “I’m good. Go back to sleep.”

Will settled back down, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. The dark
man didn’t come very often. When he did, it usually meant trouble. The dream
was another warning.