The Monster Hunter Files - eARC Read online

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Thistle

  Small Problems

  Darkness Under the Mountain

  A Knight of the Enchanted Forest

  The Manticore Sanction

  The Dead Yard

  The Bride

  She Bitch, Killer of Kits

  Mr. Natural

  Sons of the Father

  The Troll Factory

  Keep Kaiju Weird

  The Gift

  The Case of the Ghastly Spectre

  Huffman Strikes Back

  Hunter Born

  Hitler’s Dog

  Afterword

  Biographies

  The Monster Hunter Files - eARC

  Edited by Larry Correia & Bryan Thomas Schmidt

  Featuring Stories in the world of Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter International

  Advance Reader Copy

  Unproofed

  Baen

  For well over a century, Monster Hunter International has kept the world safe from supernatural threats small and large—and in some cases very, very large. Now, join us as MHI opens their archives for the first time. From experienced Hunters on their toughest cases, to total newbies' initial encounters with the supernatural, The Monster Hunter Files reveals the secret history of the world's most elite monster fighting force.

  Discover what happened when Agent Franks took on the Nazis in World War Two. Uncover how the Vatican’s Combat Exorcists deal with Old Ones in Mexico. And find out exactly what takes place in a turf war between trailer park elves and gnomes. From the most powerful of mystical beings to MHI’s humble janitor, see the world of professional monster hunting like never before.

  Featuring seventeen all new tales based on Larry Correia’s bestselling series, from New York Times best-selling authors Jim Butcher, John Ringo, Jessica Day George, Jonathan Maberry, Faith Hunter, and many more.

  Contributors:

  Larry Correia

  Jim Butcher

  Mike Kupari

  Jessica Day George

  John C. Wright

  Maurice Broaddus

  Brad R. Torgersen

  Faith Hunter

  Jody Lynn Nye

  Quincy J. Allen

  Alex Shvartsman

  Kim May

  Steve Diamond

  John Ringo

  Bryan Thomas Schmidt & Julie C. Frost

  Sarah A. Hoyt

  Jonathan Maberry

  BAEN BOOKS by LARRY CORREIA

  Monster Hunter International

  Monster Hunter Vendetta

  Monster Hunter Alpha

  Monster Hunter Legion

  Monster Hunter Nemesis

  Monster Hunter Siege

  Monster Hunter Memoirs: GRUNGE (with John Ringo)

  Monster Hunter Memoirs: SINNERS (with John Ringo)

  Monster Hunter Memoirs: SAINTS (with John Ringo)*

  The Monster Hunter Files (edited with Bryan Thomas Schmidt)

  The Grimnoir Chronicles

  Hard Magic

  Spellbound

  Warbound

  DEAD SIX (with Mike Kupari)

  Dead Six

  Swords of Exodus

  Alliance of Shadows

  *Forthcoming

  The Monster Hunter Files

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Larry Correia. All stories © 2017 by Larry Correia, except “She Bitch, Killer of Kits” © 2017 by Larry Correia and Faith Hunter.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 978-1-4814-8275-2

  Cover art by Alan Pollack

  First printing, October 2017

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  tk

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed in the United States of America

  For the reader fans,

  who so enthusiastically await every new MHI story and book,

  and the writer fans who came along for the ride.

  We hope you enjoy reading this

  as much as we enjoyed putting it together for you.

  Introduction

  The following reports have been compiled from the archives of Monster Hunter International, as well as items which are believed to have leaked from the United States Monster Control Bureau, MI4 and the British Supernatural Service, the Blessed Order of St. Hubert the Protector, Special Task Force REDACTED, other miscellaneous monster hunting organizations, and individual records.

  Though I can’t verify all of them, I believe that these accounts are for the most part accurate and should be useful for all of our Hunters in the field. But as always, when dealing with unearthly forces it is best to tread carefully. Like Earl Harbinger says, keep a flexible mind.

  —Albert Lee

  Cazador, Alabama

  Monster Hunter International is the premier private-sector monster eradication company in the business. In addition to being MHI’s Finance Manager, Owen Zastava Pitt is widely believed to be the “Chosen One.” Owen vehemently denies this rumor. —A.L.

  Thistle

  Larry Correia

  “Hello, little girl.”

  “I’m not a little girl,” she answered, not looking up from the picture she was drawing. A nurse had brought her a stack of paper and a box of colored pencils to keep her occupied. They had told her that somebody from something called Child Protective Services would be coming to take her to a new home. That was silly. She didn’t need protecting, and she didn’t want a new home. She wanted her old home back, like the way things had been before…

  Before the monsters came.

  “My apologies, miss,” the man said as he pulled up a chair and sat on the other side of the table. He was wearing a suit and tie, and seemed very polite. “The doctors say you can leave the hospital now. I’m here to take you somewhere safe.”

  She didn’t answer. There was no such thing as safe as long as the monsters were out there.

  “I’m terribly sorry about what happened to your parents. I’m a good listener. Would you like to talk about it?”

  “No,” she muttered, scribbling furiously. She was compelled to draw the battle while the memories were still fresh. She would never allow herself to forget. “I’m drawing monsters.”

  The man picked up one of her pictures. The page was covered in streaks of yellow and green, with bursts of purple. Yet there were black claws amid the golden lines, and beneath the chaotic swirl were dismembered stick figures, single-line arms, legs, and circle heads with Xs for eyes scattered around. She had scribbled over all the body parts with red.

  “You’re very talented.”

  “I know.”

  “What’s going on in this one?”

  “Good guys fighting bad guys. The good guys tried super hard, but father and mother died anyway.”

  “Well, thankfully you’re here.” He slid over another picture to look at. One stick figure was bigger than the others. Red fire shot out the end of an angry cartoon gun. Over the figure’s chest she had drawn a happy face with horns, and then colored it green. “Who is this?”

  “His name is Owen. He kills everything.”

 
* * *

  “Owen Zastava Pitt?” the sheriff called out. He looked like an old cowboy.

  “Yes, sir,” I answered as I approached the wooden barricade blocking the road.

  “Figured it was you. The lady on the phone told me you were a really big fella.”

  The lady in question was my wife. Julie was back in Cazador conducting business. It was the full moon so Earl had stayed home, too. That left me in charge. The rest of my team was parked down the hill in our air-conditioned rental SUV until we got the go-ahead to poke around the crime scene. I couldn’t blame them. Arizona in July is hotter than hell.

  “Monster Hunter International, at your service.”

  I shook the sheriff’s hand. Appropriately, it had calluses like he had spent a lot of time roping horses or whatever it was cowboys did nowadays. My hands were about the same, but that was from weapons, weights, and a few years of beating the ever-living snot out of the forces of evil.

  “Monster Hunter International…” His eyes were squinty and suspicious beneath his cowboy hat. “I still can’t believe that’s a thing.”

  “Since 1895. The Feds read you in, I’m assuming.”

  “They did…and were assholes about it. I’m supposed to blame this string of killings on mountain lions. Can you believe that shit? This is our fourth attack in two weeks, but they went on and on about the need for secrecy, and I don’t feel like getting prosecuted for violating national security”—he nodded in the direction of the yellow police tape—“which is why we’re talking over here, while all my men are over there collecting bits and pieces of my constituents.”

  We were pretty far from the nearest actual town, but somebody had set up a roadside fruit stand at the intersection of two roads. It had been flattened and there was dried blood all over the plywood. Deputies were placing little plastic numbers next to the scattered body parts and taking photos. There were a lot of little plastic numbers.

  “How many bodies are we talking about, Sheriff?”

  “This time? Three, I think…It’s kind of hard to tell where one ends and the other begins, though. And lots of parts are missing.”

  “Eaten?”

  “Looks that way.” He spit on the ground. “You don’t sound surprised.”

  I shrugged. “You get used to it.”

  “So MHI has seen this before?”

  “Well, we don’t know what it is yet, but this is the sort of thing we deal with.”

  “Often?”

  “Every damned day, sir. Every damned day.”

  * * *

  When MHI had gotten the call, the closest regional teams had already been booked. So it fell on the Cazador team to fill in. This latest attack had happened while we were in the air. As far as the sheriff’s department was concerned, we were wildlife consultants. The county was paying us a hefty fee just to show up, and assuming we caught whatever was killing people, we’d collect PUFF on it, too. I loved getting paid twice for the same job. I’m still an accountant at heart.

  We were down two regulars, but Albert Lee had volunteered to come along. Since he’d gotten severely injured, he had mostly worked as the company archivist and researcher, but knowing we were short-handed he’d said he could still drive a truck or guard a base camp. He and Holly Newcastle were off interviewing some of the witnesses to try and figure out what we were up against.

  That left the rest of us at the latest scene. Trip Jones got a copy of the medical examiner’s report from the prior attacks from one of the deputies and started reading. Milo Anderson had been doing this sort of thing for decades, and was by far our most experienced Hunter, so he went poking around in the splintered wreckage of the fruit stand. I wasn’t exactly CSI, and had no idea what I was looking at, but I tried to help. All I could tell was that whatever had done this had really messed these people up. I’m talking arms pulled off. And gashes through muscle and bone that looked like they had been inflicted with one of Ed’s battle axes.

  Speaking of Edward the Orc, he was just sort of doing his thing—meaning he was standing there awkwardly, staring off into the distance, wearing a ski mask and hood even though it was a sunny one hundred and six degrees, and making the sheriff uncomfortable. I’d told everybody to keep it low key, so we were wearing normal clothes and had left all of our gear in the truck. Sadly, Ed’s idea of low key meant carrying only one sword.

  The sheriff looked at Ed—who had gotten on his hands and knees to sniff the dirt—and shook his head. “Wildlife consultants, my ass.”

  “At least he isn’t stealing anyone’s chickens,” Trip said, not looking up from the reports.

  “You say so.” The sheriff just looked perplexed. “The victims are the proprietor, who I knew, and two customers. Not locals. No ID on them yet. Their cars are all over there.”

  There was one old pickup, and a Honda with out of state plates. The area around us was rugged low hills, lots of rocks, yellow grass, and scrubby plants. There was a hot wind that tasted like dust. Judging by the traffic turning around back at the roadblock, this was a pretty busy road for people driving between small towns, but very few people lived near here. There were only a few houses in sight, solo trailers mostly. If our monster was on foot, then its range—and victim pool—would be limited. But in this job, you never assumed. For all I knew, it could drive a car. Or fly.

  Trip was thinking the same thing I was. “Sheriff, where were the other attacks?”

  “First was three miles north of here, then five miles west. Last was about eight miles south, toward town.”

  “Sounds like hunting grounds. I don’t think it’s passing through.” Trip said. “I know there has been a lot of activity recently, but have people turned up missing in this area before?”

  He frowned. “Well, once in a while. This is a pretty quiet place, but the terrain is rugged and unforgiving. We’ll have a hiker disappear every few years. Usually they get lost and fall off a cliff, but sometimes they just up and go missing and we never find a body. Every now and then we find abandoned cars on the highway, and we can’t track down the owners. But as far as the actual number of missing persons, that I couldn’t tell you for sure.”

  “How come?”

  “Illegals, son. I don’t know how many people I’ve got walking north across my county any given day. They don’t exactly declare at the border and get their passports stamped.”

  Most predatory monsters were clever enough to pick off targets who wouldn’t be missed. It was possible that whatever this thing was, it could have been active for a lot longer than the last few weeks. It might have just gotten sloppy lately.

  “Anything special happen around here about the time the killings started? Construction projects? Earthquakes? Weird lights?”

  “Human sacrifices?” Trip added. “Raining frogs?”

  “Now you guys are just messing with me.”

  “Pandemonium! Dogs and cats living together!” Milo’s voice was muffled from beneath the collapsed stand.

  “Nothing particular that I can think of. There’s always wildfires this time of year, but nothing close by. Big heat wave rolled through around then, that’s about it.”

  I made a mental note to have Lee check the area’s history. Maybe we had some sort of monster that got riled up when it got really hot. If it was, of course the friggin’ thing would decide to live in Arizona.

  “Found something.” Milo crawled out from beneath the splintered wood. I helped him up, and Milo dusted off his cargo shorts. He’d put on latex gloves, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he’d gotten something white in his long red beard. I think it might have been brain tissue. “In addition to fruit, they were also selling fake topaz jewelry, pot, and what I think are illegal Mexican fireworks.”

  “I can respect capitalism,” I said. “You know what we’re dealing with?”

  “No clue. Claw marks indicate they’re long and sharp, four fingers, but I didn’t see any hair, so not a werewolf. Chupacabras suck bodies dry, but don’t rip
apart corpses like this. Daytime rules out some undead, especially vampires. Speed it got in and out without being seen by cars rules out most of the others. That takes care of our usual suspects.”

  The sheriff crossed himself.

  “But whatever it is, it’s prickly. Scratches on the wood and paint wherever it rubbed.”

  “It’s got spikes?” I asked.

  “My guess, thorns.” Milo held out one glove. “And it left these behind.”

  It was a purple flower, partially crushed and splattered with blood. As far as flowers went, it was spikey and aggressive-looking. “I’m not a botanist, Milo. What is it?”

  “It’s from a bull thistle, a nonnative, invasive species. Eurasian origins, but all over the US now. They’ll grow anywhere a little moisture can collect above five thousand feet,” Trip explained. We all looked at him funny. “What?”

  “Nerd,” I said.

  “I only know that because there was a note in here.” Trip held up the police report. “They’ve been found at every attack…You’re just mad that I win at Trivial Pursuit sometimes.”

  “Only because of the sports questions!”

  The sheriff stepped forward and took the flower. “Yep, every time. When I thought I was dealing with a regular old-fashioned murderer, I figured maybe it was some sort of ritual or something, but they’re just kind of left there, like litter.”

  “Do you think it could be some kind of plant monster?” Trip asked.