Monster Hunter Legion-eARC (45 page)

I got back on the radio. “Screw you,
Nachtmar
. Your world is nothing. You cobbled together all of this from your host’s subconscious. Your days are numbered. They know your secret back on Earth. They know how to kill him and banish you now. They’re going to find your poor human, waste him, and you’ll go back to being nothing. You might find someone else to bond with, but it’ll never be the same. Your glory days are almost over. You’ll be so weak that you won’t even show up on the PUFF table. You’re a nuisance. The best you’ll be able to do after this is make a five-year-old wet the bed.”

The hotel was experiencing a continuous low-level earthquake. “You’re really pissing him off,” Lacoco said as we went up the last flight of stairs. I had one arm draped over his broad shoulder. It was faster than trying to walk on my own swelling foot. Lacoco was half ox, and though huffing and grunting, was dragging me along fairly quickly. “You better know what you’re doing.”

“I’m winging it.”

“The only reason I haven’t dumped your ass is because I trust Earl Harbinger. You’re making that really difficult.” The crashing told me that the gargoyles had entered the hotel. The stairs ended earlier than expected. There wasn’t an opening to the roof. We had to go back out onto the twentieth floor and go back to the first set of stairs. “Hell.” Lacoco murmured when he came to the same realization. Ed led the way through the door.

The gargoyles were below us. Their movements were so destructive and heavy we could feel them vibrating the floor. We’d have to pass back over them.
We’re almost there.

The twentieth floor was an even more chaotic construction mess than the nineteenth. Some walls were in, others were just metal skeletons waiting to be dressed. There was a low animal growl from the opposite end of the hall. A primal fear instinct caused all the hair on my arms to stand up. Something was waiting in the dark between us and the stairs to the roof. With no hesitation, Edward drew his swords. “Ed! Wait!” But the orc was already charging the unknown threat. Ed leapt over a wheelbarrow and disappeared into the dark.

“After him.” There was a sudden movement to the side. Something incredibly cold collided with me and Lacoco. Our flashlight beams whipped about, adding to the confusion. I was knocked head first into the opposite wall.

What now?
Dazed, I managed to get to my hands and knees. I reached for my pistol, but caught a kick in the ribs so hard that it lifted me off the floor. “Ooof!” The air in my lungs came shooting out. I caught the framing, struggling to rise, but a big fist caught me right behind the ear. The framing collapsed on top of me.

In the conflicting light, I’d seen that it was a man. A big dude, at least my size, shirtless, and thickset with muscle.

Lacoco came up with his shotgun, but our attacker blocked the muzzle with one hand and slugged Lacoco in the face with the other. The Remington landed a few feet away. The Hunter roared and drove himself forward. They collided. Lacoco caught an elbow drop to his back, but rammed his opponent through one frame and into another solid one. They came right off, whirled around, and Lacoco was the one that hit the opposite wall, tearing a huge gash through the new sheetrock.

His enemy was me.

Lacoco froze, shocked, and the nightmare version of me hit him again, and again, and again. Harder and faster than I’d ever been capable of in real life. Blood splattered the sawdust as Lacoco’s nose shattered. The fists kept pumping, falling over and over like pistons. The look on my evil mirror twin’s face was completely dispassionate, emotionless. It was my face, but it was younger, free of scars, and the eyes were dead, blank, all humanity shoved aside and focused on only one thing, utterly destroying his opponent.

It was exactly how I’d looked when I’d ruined Jason Lacoco’s life.

Lacoco tried to shove him off, but it was an overwhelming assault. Lacoco hit the floor, and the copy followed him down, knowing exactly how to manipulate an opponent on the ground. He got a knee over one of Lacoco’s arms, and hit him, and hit him, and hit him. Lacoco’s face was being pulverized. An elbow fell and his glass eye had popped out and rolled across the carpet.

It was exactly like last time. I’d lost it. I’d broken his skull open. I’d put out his eye. If I hadn’t been pulled off I would’ve beaten him to death. I’d put him in a coma.

Of course this creature was here. It was made of nightmares. This younger, blank-faced version of me had been Lacoco’s nightmare. I was his monster.

But like the rest of us, Lacoco had gotten a lot better at fighting monsters.

WHUP
. The fake me lurched. The bloody hands left Lacoco’s face and grabbed for his leg. The knee that had been used to block one of Laccco’s arms. Lacoco’s hand came off the floor, holding something boxy and orange, and he drove it against his opponent. WHUP. A black circle appeared in the copy’s chest.
WHUP. WHUP
. Two more.

Lacoco had landed on a powder-actuated nail gun.

As the copy rolled off, Lacoco got one big boot up and kicked him in the face.

The copy crashed into the far wall, reached up emotionlessly, and ripped one of the nails out of his sternum. He immediately started to rise. There was a sharp crack. The nightmare copy looked down in surprise at the new, much larger hole that had appeared in the center of one pectoral. Screw the nail gun, Lacoco had gone for his pistol. His XD .45 extended in one shaking hand, Lacoco lumbered back up, blood streaming from his battered face.

Hands pressed against the holes in his chest as blood trickled between his fingers, the copy turned his head and studied me, speaking with my voice. “You mocked me, Chosen, but I’m not the only one here that causes bad dreams.” He began to laugh.

Lacoco shot him again.

The
Nachtmar
grimaced and slid down the wall, leaving a smear of blood, until he came to a rest, seated, chest full of weeping holes. “It is all for nothing. The human I am bonded with is beyond your reach. You cannot kill him.”

“I know,” I said as I slowly got to my feet. “That’s why I’m going to talk him into doing it himself.”

And then the ancient nightmare creature realized what I intended to do. “No! You—”

This time Lacoco walked over, put his pistol against the copy’s temple, and blew a reasonable facsimile of my brains across the twentieth floor. Lacoco spit on the corpse. “Shut up.” His lips were so mangled and the words were so slurred that they were barely understandable. The big man turned toward me, quivering with fury. One side of his face seemed shrunken without the eye. The other side was battered into split-open pulp. I was amazed he was still standing.

I looked at the pistol dangling in his hand. “That wasn’t me.”

“It was once…” He looked back at the body.

“Neither one of us is the man we were once, and I’m sorry for the man that I was, for what I did to you.”

Lacoco put his pistol back in the holster. “Apology accepted. You can buy me a beer when we get back to Earth.”

“Deal.” I moved my arm around from behind my back, revealing that I’d pulled my own .45, originally to shoot the copy, but had kept it hidden until Lacoco had put his own gun away. “What?” Lacoco shook his head ruefully when he saw that, but he still came up to help me limp along. “I’ve got things to do. I didn’t have time to get shot by you.”

He grunted in acknowledgement as he put my arm over his shoulders and took some of my weight. Then he said, “I gotta say, it felt awfully good to shoot you…the old you.”

I chuckled, then paused to listen for the gargoyles, but I couldn’t hear them. Maybe even here the
Nachtmar
could only pay attention to so many things at once, and there was an army of demons below. But now that the
Nachtmar
realized what I was up to, it would be coming for me with everything it had, which was exactly what I wanted. That would distract it from the others. There was a sudden crash and a cry from the other end of the hall. “Ed!”

We ran toward the commotion. Lacoco’s flashlight illuminated Ed with his back to us. He had a sword in each hand, one raised over his head to slash downward, one extended in front of him to ward off danger. He moved slowly, legs bent, gradually setting his weight on his toes. On the other side of him, something growled and slinked along the ground. I lifted Abomination and flicked on the big light.

Something furry was crouched on the other side of our orc. It was low and ready to pounce, but not wanting to impale itself on Ed’s sword. Bright yellow eyes were unblinking as it prepared to strike.

It was a werewolf.

I was no stranger to werewolves. I’d killed a few of them and I was absolutely terrified of the savage things. It was a werewolf that had nearly killed me and introduced me to the existence of monsters. Werewolves scared the hell out of me. The
Nachtmar
was getting personal now. “Out of the way, Ed!” I shouted as I searched for a clear shot. Ed leapt smoothly to the side. I pulled the trigger.

My buckshot tore a dozen holes in the ceiling. Lacoco had knocked my muzzle aside at the last second. “Hold on. I recognize her. Hey, Red! Is that you?”

It was red. I’d never seen a red one before. The werewolf tilted its head to the side, nostrils flaring as it smelled us. Ed kept his swords up. I put the monster in my sights again, but kept my finger off the trigger. Lacoco had better know what he was doing.

“It’s me, Jason. Can you hear me, Deputy?”

The werewolf stood upright and dipped its—no, her—head, seeming almost
calm.
I’d only been around a few fully transformed werewolves in my life, but I’d never seen anything like that before. Normally they were all fury and snapping. Edward, totally confused, even lowered his swords a bit.

The change back into a human was incredibly rapid. I’d seen fast werewolf transformations before, but never anything like this. It made Earl look sluggish. Bones popped out of now ill-fitting sockets. Fur receded. “What the hell?” Within thirty seconds there was a naked redheaded woman standing in front of us. When she lifted her head, her eyes were still glowing gold. “Damn.”

“Jason Lacoco?” She still sounded too deep.

“This is the second time I’ve seen you naked. I’m starting to think you like me or something.”

“Are you real?” she asked suspiciously, her voice already returning to a normal tone.

“Are you?” I asked her back. I wasn’t ready to believe anything here in crazy world.

The golden eyes had dimmed. “I’ve been fighting every crazy thing you can think of since we got stuck here. When I saw your little friend I thought it had started throwing ninjas at me.” She bent over and picked up some camouflage clothing from the ground and used that to cover herself. “Quit staring.”

“If it helps, I’m focusing on my sight. Not you. No offense.”

Ed, seeming satisfied that the scary werewolf lady wasn’t going to eat him, sheathed his swords and bowed. The werewolf woman gave Ed a look that suggested she didn’t trust him at all. There was a huge bloody gash in her side, but it was already knitting itself closed. It didn’t seem to be bothering her much now, but Ed had tagged her good.

“Gonna introduce us or what, Lacoco?”

“Z, this is Heather Kerkonen.”

Heather? Earl’s girlfriend?
Blame it on the head injury, but I’d been too frazzled to realize who I was talking to. I’d met the red werewolf at last. “Your team went missing.”

“I’m the only one left. It’s been a
long
day. You’re MHI then. Yeah, you’ve got the happy face patch.” She was suddenly hopeful. “Is Earl here?”

“He’s down in the casino. But how’d you get here?” I was still suspicious that this was another trick. I was no longer pointing Abomination
at
her, but I was pointing it
near
her.

“We tracked the Mark Thirteen after it escaped Dugway. We caught him, fought him, and next thing I knew we were wandering through a fog filled with monsters. At least until this hotel appeared out of thin air. I was checking it out when your little buddy stabbed me.”

“That’s how he says hello.” There wasn’t time to chitchat. Every second I was here the Hunters in the casino would be under siege. “We’ve got to keep going. I need to get to the roof now. I know how to beat this thing.”

“Not until I get to talk to Earl Harbinger,” she insisted, but she did pick up her backpack and follow.

The need for haste was suddenly punctuated by a loud crashing noise from behind us. The floor popped, cracked, and lifted. The
Nachtmar
’s gargoyles were active again.

Heather sighed. “More? Hell…not again.” She looked over at Lacoco. “Leave me your radio. I’ll contact Earl myself.”

I was surprised when the big man didn’t argue. Lacoco really trusted her. He unclipped his radio and passed it over. “It’s on the right channel.”

“I’ve got this. Go do what you’ve got to do.” Heather began quickly shoving the clothing back into the backpack at her feet. There were even shoes in there. I’d never heard of a werewolf with the presence of mind to keep its human things with it before. “This is such a pain.”

Werewolves were tough, but…
“That’s a gargoyle.”

“So? Fifth one I’ve seen today. One of the guys on my team hated gargoyles. Why couldn’t Benny be terrified of My Little Ponies? No. Has to be gargoyles.”

“You’re unarmed!”

She smirked at me. “The only thing that bothers me about these things is that I can’t
eat
them. Even the soft monsters turn to sand after you kill them. I’m starving. I’d murder a nun for a cupcake right now…From Earl’s description, you must be Z, the mystical accountant. Here.” She reached into the backpack, pulled something out, and tossed it to me. I caught it with one hand. It was a set of military dog tags. “I snagged them off our target in Dugway before he blinked us all into la-la land.”

The gargoyle would be through the floor in a matter of seconds. “Good seeing you again, Deputy,” Lacoco said as he dragged me down the hall.

“You too. I’ll be in touch.” Behind us, Heather took a moment to use the radio. “This is Heather Kerkonen. Come in, Earl Harbinger.”