Monster Hunter Guardian Read online

  One thing I’ve learned in this business is that when someone starts addressing anyone as daughter of Eve or son of Adam they are evil with a capital E and there’s usually all sorts of weird culty demonic crap behind it.

  The revolver was trained on me, but it would only take the smallest movement to put it back on Albert. Neither one of us could risk making a move. My friend had pressed his hands to the hole, but from the way there was a streak of blood on the wall behind him, there was an exit wound. The bullet had passed completely through his upper torso. Albert was in big trouble. He needed help fast or he was going to die.

  I kept my voice calm. “What do you want?”

  “You’ll find out… Oh, you’ll find out.”

  I was almost certain that Wynne was, in fact, a regular human being. I’d just been having a conversation with a normal person. His skepticism hadn’t been faked. This wasn’t a psychotic break. With the lights and the cold and the voice change, this was a straight-up possession. Wynne might still be in there, but he wasn’t in charge anymore.

  I stared at that gun. We were close enough that tiny black flecks of unburned gunpowder stuck to my glasses. I could see the hollow points in the cylinder. When I was really young, my dad had told me the way to know if someone is about to use the gun they’re pointing at you is to look at their eyes. But he’d never told me what it meant when they started glowing.

  “What are you?”

  The thing inhabiting Wynne’s body laughed. It wasn’t a horror movie laugh, but just a laugh. This new voice was a few octaves deeper and somehow Wynne had picked up an accent that made him sound like he was from Africa. “My identity is not important. What I can do for you is. I know you’re the Guardian. In your possession is an item of great value, an artifact known as the Kumaresh Yar.”

  “What?” My mind froze for just a moment. I hadn’t told anyone I had stashed that thing. Even my husband didn’t know I had it. For good reason too. Last time he’d used it he’d turned back time and nearly blown up the world. That thing was stupidly dangerous. And power-mad idiots kept trying to use it for things like bringing back the dead or opening portals to other dimensions. “Go to hell.”

  The now obviously glowing eyes were looking right through me. “I suspected that would be your answer.”

  I laughed. I wasn’t aware of laughing, exactly, and I certainly wasn’t amused. Albert was still burbling and gasping for air. The instant Wynne looked away I’d go for my gun and hope that the Guardian’s curse would save me if I got shot in the brain.

  “I expected defiance like that from the Guardian. You would not have been chosen if you did not possess the courage of a lioness.”

  “I don’t have it. The last time I saw that thing was when Lucinda Hood and my mother were fighting over it. You should take it up with them.”

  Wynne smiled, but the expression didn’t fit right on his contorted face. “Guardians do not break. Torture, physical suffering would make no difference. But what would you give in exchange for the life of your child?”

  “What?” The word came out of my mouth before I could even fully process the threat.

  “I have your baby.”

  That didn’t make any sense. How could it threaten Ray’s life? Ray was at the compound, surrounded by orcs who would die to defend him. “You’re lying.”

  The thing laughed again, and the already freezing air seemed to get colder. Supernatural creatures lied all the time. Did it actually have my child? But it had possessed Wynne. Could it possess other people? Dorcas?

  “If you’ve done anything to my son, you son of a bitch, I’ll eradicate you.”

  The shots came out of nowhere. I’d been staring at the creature’s evil green eyes and that unnatural rictus grin in its face, trying to decide if it was telling the truth or not, when the pair of bullets struck him in the center of the chest. Wynne tumbled backwards.

  As soon as he was sure the monster wasn’t watching him, Albert had pulled his pistol and put a controlled pair center of mass.

  I drew my gun as I moved over. Wynne was on the floor, gasping for breath. I stepped on his fingers, pinning the .357 Magnum to the floor.

  “Tell me what you meant! What’ve you done with my son?”

  His teeth were bloodstained and little bubbles of blood formed on the edge of his lips. “You’ll find out soon,” said the creature. “We’ll be in touch.”

  In that instant, the sounds of the outside world seemed to come rushing back. I’d not realized that the lights had turned dim and weak, but the garage brightened as they returned to normal. The temperature jumped.

  And then it was the real Colin Wynne who was staring up at me. The glow was gone, and these were just normal eyes, blue and frightened. His expression was one of total confusion, as if he couldn’t remember what had happened or how he’d wound up on the floor or why I was standing over him or why everything hurt, but then he was dead.

  I rushed over to Albert. “Damn it, damn it, damn it.”

  He was pale and shaking, his whole face contorted in pain. I holstered my gun, grabbed a big rag that was hanging from a hook, and pushed it hard against the wound. There was blood everywhere. While I kept pressure against the wound, I got out my phone and dialed 911.

  “Get out of the office,” Albert wheezed. “It’ll be fun, you said.”

  “You’re going to be fine,” I lied.

  The last thing Albert said before passing out from blood loss was, “I didn’t even get barbecue.”

  CHAPTER 5

  As I ran back into the garage carrying the big med kit from the car, a cell phone began to ring. It was sitting on top of the diagnostics computer.

  I grabbed for it before I could think. If I’d thought, I’d have realized that the call would probably be for the dead guy. But as I picked up the phone, I saw that the screen read Guardian

  “Son of a bitch.” I couldn’t believe they had the audacity to be calling me right now. I wasn’t in the mood to talk, what with my friend bleeding to death. So I shoved the still-ringing phone in my pocket and went back to Albert. I got compression bandages on the entry and exit wound. He’d gotten hit up high on the chest, and my biggest worry was that the bullet had nicked the superior vena cava.

  He was losing too much blood and I couldn’t stop it. We were in a rural area. There was no way that an ambulance would get here in time. “Come on, Al.” I wrapped my arms around him, hoisted him up, and pulled him towards the car, feet dragging. Luckily Albert wasn’t a big dude. I was actually an inch or two taller than he was and running on desperation strength.

  I got him into the passenger seat, slammed the door, ran around to the driver’s side, got in, started the engine, and shot out of there so fast that the tires sprayed gravel everywhere.

  “Hang on, man. I owe you that lunch.”

  We’d passed the closest hospital on the way in. At regular speeds it had been twenty minutes from the garage. I floored it. I was going to try and get there in ten.

  The phone I’d taken had started ringing again.

  I pulled it out, put it on speaker, and dropped it on the dash so I could keep both hands on the wheel. That’s kind of necessary when you’re doing over a hundred on a twisting country road. I didn’t say anything. Apparently I didn’t need to. The African-accented voice that I’d last heard from Wynne’s mouth came on the line. “Listen carefully, Guardian.”

  I was dealing with a monster that was capable of possession and projection. Usually that meant something incorporeal, and those were rather weak, but this thing didn’t strike me as weak.

  “You will give me the artifact—or your child will suffer.” It went silent, and in that silence I heard a scream.

  Look, there are so many things weird about being a mother that if every woman didn’t have the capacity to become one, motherhood might be considered a supernatural condition. One of those things is the ability to know our kids from a glimpse or a sound. Objectively, all babies look a lot alike, even
if mine was supersized. But mothers can always tell when it’s their baby crying.

  And coming through that phone was my son’s cry.

  I couldn’t talk. My heart clutched. My mouth went dry.

  “Now you understand that I’m telling you the truth. If you give me the Kumaresh Yar, I will return him to you unharmed. If not…I have interesting plans for your child.”

  The call ended. I screamed—a prolonged primal scream.

  A firefly glowed in front of my windshield briefly, then exploded on impact with green goo. I hit the windshield wipers and washer fluid. Damn things were out earlier every year. We didn’t used to get them till May.

  “Julie, go back to the compound,” Albert rasped. He’d come to and had heard that phone call. “I’ll be fine. You need to save—”

  “Did I ask you to talk?” I said, taking my impotent fury out on my wounded friend. “Hospital first. If you die, Albert Lee, I’ll never forgive you. I’ll go back to the other side and kill you again.”

  “Okay.”

  I couldn’t even risk looking at him, but he really didn’t sound good. Instead, I took out my phone. “Call Dorcas.” It rang several times and then went through to her voice mail. “Damn it.” My eyes were burning. A pickup pulled out in front of us. I had to lay on the horn and drive through the grass to keep from T-boning him. That would have extra-sucked considering I hadn’t taken the time to buckle Albert in.

  “Call headquarters.” That number was for the front desk. Again, no answer. Normally that wouldn’t be too surprising. There was no Newbie class going on and most of the Hunters who normally worked at the compound were off on the siege. If any team leads needed anything important they’d call me directly. But right now, the lack of answers was terrifying.

  Inside me, something was ticking like a frantic clock. You know that biological clock people talk about? It’s nothing to the mom clock that tracks every second her baby might be in danger. I was going to kill the assholes who’d taken him. I didn’t even care if this possessor was incorporeal. I’d make it a body just for the purpose of taking it apart molecule by molecule.

  I was just glad no dogs or kids got in my way because I wasn’t stopping for anyone.

  The next call warned the hospital we were on the way—Asian male, thirties, gunshot wound to the chest—and that they’d better be ready.

  “Blood type B positive,” Albert added through clenched teeth. “Heh… Be positive. Good advice.”

  I told that to the hospital, hung up, then went back to trying everyone else. No one answered. Not even my home number. Neither Amanda Fuesting nor Grandpa answered the phone. Instead I got my own, annoying voice, saying, “This is the Heart of the Dixie Historical…”

  I looked down at my hands, clenched and smearing blood all over the steering wheel. Right. Of course no one was there. Because when I got there, if I found anyone in the compound alive and well and my son gone, I was going to personally injure them.

  I took a deep breath and remembered that Skippy’s tribe had a couple cell phones. We’d even put them on the company plan, but the orcs didn’t particularly care for the things and only used them grudgingly.

  “Call village.”

  It rang only twice before a voice answered, “Eh?”

  This was going to be tough. Our most conversational orcs had all gone on the mission.

  “This is Julie. No one is answering the phone at the compound. Is my son okay?”

  There was a silence, then the orc said. “Hello, Juw-eee. I Shelly.”

  I hadn’t even realized I was talking to a girl, but I knew Shelly. She was one of the younger orc females, and I could always pick her out even in disguise because she was the one with a lazy eye. She’d been learning English and was probably better with it than my mediocre Orcish. “Is Baby Ray okay?”

  There was another voice talking rapidly behind her in their rumbling language. “Uh…Dorcas take baby. Great Chief call her… The Boss sick, Dorcas say. She go your house. Baby Ray go your house.”

  “Okay, listen carefully, Shelly. Baby Ray is in danger. How many warriors do you have?”

  “Urk great warriors! All!”

  That was pride talking, not reality. Most of their experienced warriors had gone with Ed to the island. They’d only left enough to guard their village. “Yeah, okay. I need you to gather all your warriors and go to my house. Protect the baby. I’ll meet you there.”

  The hospital was visible in the distance. I’d made it in eight minutes. Good thing MHI didn’t skimp on our company fleet cars. I was so desperate I thought about calling the cops—our local sheriff was read in on the supernatural; you kind of had to be when you were in charge of the county MHI had been headquartered in for the last century—but I was dealing with a monster that was organized, had a plan, and was capable of possessing people. This was way over their heads, and that thing might have my kid as a hostage.

  Not to mention once the authorities got to Wynne’s garage, I’d probably be a murder suspect. I hadn’t thought of that.

  I jammed on the brakes right in front of the emergency room doors. There were already doctors and nurses waiting outside. This was a quiet part of the country. They didn’t get a lot of emergency calls about incoming gunshot wounds.

  Luckily there weren’t any cops here. Yet. But I wasn’t going to stick around.

  “You’re going to be okay, Albert.”

  “Get your kid,” he mumbled as they pulled him out of the car.

  Someone was coming around to my side. Their lips were moving. Asking something about me being hurt. Why would they think that? And then I realized I was covered in Al’s blood. But it didn’t matter, because the second my friend was out of the vehicle, I was driving again. A nurse had to jump out of the way to keep from going over my hood. The passenger side door only got closed by the air flow.

  And that is the last I remember of that drive. I drove as fast as I could, breaking every speed limit, and I might very well have evaded pursuit too. Nothing registered, nothing made any impression on me beyond the memory of my son crying through the phone.

  I hadn’t thought about what I was going to do yet. My son was my son, but surrendering the Kumaresh Yar to an evil force meant the entire world, including my son, would be in danger. In the wrong hands, that thing was crazy dangerous. It was a time-traveling weapon of mass destruction.

  No. It was a false choice, I thought as I started down the gravel road toward my house. It was a wrong choice. A stupid choice. I wasn’t going to choose. I was going to get my son back, not give them anything, and the evil assholes were going to regret the day they’d messed with my family. There’s only one thing that we Shacklefords take more seriously than killing monsters, and that’s defending our families. This was both.

  This creature was going to find out he’d picked on the wrong mother.

  There were orcs—a whole bunch of them—in the back of a pickup truck in front of my house, and more of them milling around on my front porch. They weren’t masked, and they’d rolled up so fast that they’d not even bothered with their war paint. I could tell from their dejected expressions that it hadn’t gone well.

  How bad was it?

  I got my answer as I ran inside. There was blood splattered across my living room. Dorcas was lying on the carpet with two orc healers kneeling over her.

  “Is she—?”

  “Lives,” said one of the orc ladies quickly. “But much hurt.”

  Then I realized that Dorcas was missing her artificial leg. It had been yanked off and was lying in the hall. From the look of it, she’d been beaten with her own leg.

  I ran towards the stairs following a trail of blood droplets and stopped, aghast.

  Lying there was my grandpa, in his pajamas and socks, holding an old 1911 in his one hand, the slide locked back empty, surrounded in spent brass.

  “No, no, no.”

  Orcs moved out of the way so I could reach him. Grandpa was dead. The Boss, Ray Shacklef
ord the Third, was dead.

  I registered several things at once. He’d been stabbed multiple times in the chest. I didn’t know with what, but there was a lot of blood. I looked around, but there weren’t any bullet holes in the walls, which meant Grandpa had hit whatever he was aiming at.

  He’d been in hospice care, practically at death’s door, but when he’d heard the commotion, he’d cowboyed up one last time and gone out fighting.

  Oh, Grandpa.

  There wasn’t even time for my heart to break. I ran past his body and into my room. The crib was empty. I went from room to room shouting Ray’s name. There was no sign of my baby. I half expected to see Amanda, the nurse, dead somewhere too, but she wasn’t.

  The orcs were looking at me, confused and sad. They tried talking to me, but I was having a hard time understanding anything. I’m a professional. I’ve been through some terrible things. I don’t panic. But this time, I was on the verge.

  I couldn’t think about Ray being in danger. I had to focus on piecing together what happened so I could find him. My house had a security system. The doors were always locked. Hit a button, the armored shutters would drop, and this place was practically a vault. Only Dorcas had a key and knew the codes.

  She’d taken Ray from the compound and then gotten jumped by something on the way in here. Grandpa had heard and tried to help, and it had gotten him killed. Whatever had done that had then left with my baby…

  Shelly had said that Dorcas had gotten a call, something about Grandpa. They’d been friends for forty years; if she thought Grandpa was about to pass on, of course she’d come. And since Ray was her responsibility, obviously Dorcas would take Ray with her.

  Damn, this thing had been organized.

  That also meant there was only one possibility who could have convinced Dorcas she needed to come here.

  The nurse’s room was empty too. Her things were all there. Nothing looked like it had been packed, but there was also no sign of a struggle. Had Amanda been willingly complicit…or possessed like Wynne?

  I rushed back downstairs to where the orc ladies were still tending to Dorcas. With her face all bruised and bloody, she looked really messed up.