Monster Hunter Vendetta

Chapter 16

The most defensible rooms in the barracks were the bathrooms. There was only one entrance and no windows. If the cultists had grabbed this instead of the rec room, we wouldn't have been able to dislodge them. We took the women's instead of the men's because it was on the side away from the main building, where the undead seemed to be focusing their attention.

Franks held the ward stone in his big hands and studied it with one black eye and one blue eye, unblinking. The letters were not cooperating. Grant and I covered the doorway. Grant had picked up another Uzi. I had kept the AK-47 and stuffed magazines into every pocket until the weight threatened to pull down my cargo pants. I had found my pistol in the hall and returned it to its holster, but it only had a couple of shots left.

"Any luck?" I asked. Franks didn't answer, intent on the code. "What, they don't teach you this stuff at your fancy academy?"

"Shut up," Grant muttered.

"No, you shut up," I snapped. "I'm not done with you yet. We live through this and I'm going to beat your ass. The last one was just a warm-up."

"You sucker-punched me at gunpoint. Try me in a fair fight, and we'll see how tough you are," Grant responded. He was delusional if he thought that would make a difference. "Torres would already have turned you over to his church if it wasn't for me."

I turned back to the door. "Traitor," I muttered.

Grant was ticked. "You've got no clue. I joined MHI to make a difference. But MHI's all about making money, not about making the world a better place. Myers was just like me once, disillusioned by MHI. He gave me a chance to do something important. MHI let me down, not the other way around. I thought that I had failed you guys, but it was the organization that failed me."

"So you took Myers' job offer?"

"Yes, I did. Best decision I've ever made. He needed somebody who could get on the inside, help catch his spy, and if that didn't work out, at least he had someone undercover to keep an eye on MHI before they did anything really stupid. I got into this to help people. The Monster Control Bureau represent the real heroes. They do a dirty job to protect this country. MHI is just out to make a buck."

"Make a buck? That's right, that doesn't matter when you're born rich."

"Quiet," Franks ordered, tired of our bickering.

I glared at Grant, then went back to watching the entrance. He was a traitor, pure and simple. Myers had used me as bait to clean his own house, and now my friends were paying the price. When this was over, there were some accounts that needed settling.

My face hurt from where the werewolf had clawed me. Touching it indicated that the flesh was rent open in a few parallel strips down my cheek, and I was bleeding badly. Grant had the door covered while Franks fiddled with that stupid thing, so I made my way over to the sink and turned it on. The cold water burned.

Franks looked up from his task and saw me splashing the claw marks. "If you're infected, I'll have to-"

"Kill me? Yeah, I know. That's how we met, remember?"

Franks nodded and went back to the ward.

It was when I looked back in the mirror that I noticed something amiss in one of the stalls. The door was closed, but there was a shadow dangling just under it. Shutting the water off, I approached the stall. I used the muzzle of the AK to push it open.

"G-Nome?"

The gnome had been shoved in the toilet. He was so small that most of his body was squished into the water, and it was awfully pink. One boot was dangling down, and that was what I had seen. His red hat was crunched low on his head, and his white beard was smeared with blood. His breathing was rapid and shallow.

I knelt next to the toilet and removed his hat. His eyes fluttered open weakly. He was badly injured."? 'Sup, tall one," he sputtered.

I reached out and touched his hand. "What happened?"

Black lightning struck and the bathroom vanished.

This time was different than the others. It was the first time that I'd experienced a nonhuman's memories. The thoughts were subtly alien, and it took a moment for my brain to adjust and it couldn't quite settle into the first person, rather I was a spectator in G-Nome's head. He had confided in me Grant's treachery, and he'd left me, confused by how such a physically tough human, a man-mountain of ass-kicking, could be crying and moping like a baby. No self-respecting gnome badass would ever let his homies see him cry. Tall humans were so weird. He knew it came from all of that banging their heads on doorways and ceiling fans and shit.

G-Nome had heard the shower turn on in the girls' bathroom, and though he enjoyed spying on human girls as much as the next gnome, he was excited to watch the Tall One shoot the Snitch. He was from Birmingham, so he'd seen plenty of humans shoot each other, and that never got old. But when he caught the smell of killing on the air, he knew something wasn't right. Suspicious, he'd left the tall human to his business and ported through the wall.

The shower was on when he popped into the bathroom. G-Nome held extra still so the invisibility would hold. He knew from experience that humans freaked out when they caught you looking at them. He could smell which human it was immediately. There was something special about this one. He'd seen her around the compound, and she'd stuck out for some reason, even for a human. It was that younger human hottie, with the redneck accent… Dawn. He'd overheard that she was a human beauty queen, and he could see why-that human was smokin'. Momma had warned him about the dangers of human women, what with their tallness and lack of facial hair.

G-Nome noticed Dawn's discarded clothes and he was reminded of the death smell that had gotten his attention to begin with. They were piled up at the foot of the shower, and they were all messy. She'd been splashed with blood. He got closer and checked them out. The red was in splatters, like she'd slaughtered a pig or something.

Now that didn't make no sense. That red beard, Milo, wasn't having anybody do any work with bodies and guts today. And it was the day of the Hunters' big ceremony. So why was Dawn here, covered in blood, and not in the big building with everybody else? She had been up to something.

G-Nome was known as the sharpest gnome on the North Side for a reason, and he knew right away that something was up. He snuck over real quiet and picked up her shirt. He sniffed it. The smell told him that it had come from one of the other new humans, but he couldn't remember the dude's name. G-Nome didn't know how much blood was inside a normal human, but if this much got spilled at one time, he was probably dead. He had to tell Harbinger.

The shower turned off. G-Nome dropped the shirt and padded quickly to the corner. He was extra careful to stay still so the invisibility would hold. Dawn stepped out of the shower.

The sight was enough to take his mind off the murder. Aw hells yeah, baby… She had the longest legs of any human he'd ever seen. G-Nome knew he better be paying attention now that he knew some weird shit was going down. She didn't bother to cover herself or dry off. Instead she picked up the clothes and stuffed them into the garbage. Then she stopped and lifted her pretty face to smell the air… He'd never seen a human do it like that before. Humans had terrible noses. G-Nome thought about just porting through the wall and getting the hell out of here, but he was too curious. Dawn's nostrils flared. She spun around, wet hair flying around her shoulders and she stared right at him.

How could she see him? Humans couldn't see gnomes when they were still.

Dawn blinked and then her eyes were solid, colorless, clear as ice cubes. "Tomte," she hissed, and her voice was all wrong, low and scary, and she used the old word for gnome. It took him a second to realize that he was dealing with a Fey and another second to realize that it was the worst kind of Fey of all.

"Doppelganger!" G-Nome sputtered as he reached for the gun in his waistband. But by then it was too late. The creature descended on him.

I jerked my hand away, a trail of black light drifted from his arm to my fingertips. It held for a moment, then drifted off like smoke. I could still feel the pressure of the shapeshifter's hands around my throat.

"Yeah, crazy, huh?" G-Nome smiled weakly. "That was whack…" He trailed off.

He was dead.

I pulled his sopping body out of the toilet and set him gently on the ground. He didn't weigh much.

"Where'd you get a gnome?" Franks asked.

I shook my head. "The Condition has a doppelganger here. That's what Torres was talking about."

"Who?" Grant asked.

"The girl from Texas, Dawn. She must have been on guard duty and killed that other Newbie, then she came back to clean up here and murdered G-Nome." I knew almost nothing about doppelgangers, except that they were some kind of rare shapeshifter. "Then she went back and shot Harbinger."

"So that's how you caught me." Grant muttered. "A gnome…"

"If the doppelganger got away, it could be anyone now," Franks said, not looking up from the ward stone. "I can't figure this out. You have to know the inventor's codes." There was a massive bang as something landed on our roof. Grant and I flinched and raised our weapons, but with a sudden tapping, the noise retreated. There were all sorts of undead out there. "Who could make it work?"

I shrugged. "Earl, of course." I didn't add if he's still alive. "Maybe Julie, or one of the older Hunters, but they're all at the main building. Let's get back there and find somebody." Apparently Franks agreed. He handed the ward to me. I stuffed it in the bag and hoisted the stolen AK. "Tunnels?"

Grant stood. "I don't really want to try the front door right now."

The compound was a war zone. A few hundred yards away the main building was under siege. Black shapes were clambering up the walls. Occasional explosions highlighted more dimly-visible things moving in a circle around the structure directed by robed figures. Muzzle flashes flew from every window on the top floor. Continuous streams of tracers rained from the roof into the surroundings and a few worked patterns across the night sky.

"What are they shooting at in the air?" Grant asked hesitantly.

The three of us were clustered, kneeling next to the opening into the tunnels. The ladder stretched into the darkness below us. "I don't know," I said quickly. This asshole was creative enough to animate bears, so who the hell knew what he had for air support.

Headquarters seemed to be holding its own. The heavy portcullis had been dropped over the front door. A mass of misshapen bodies was piling up at the entrance. Hammering and hacking could be heard even over the gunfire. Suddenly a brilliant streamer of fire ignited from the narrow windows above the door, as someone used a flamethrower to hose down the monsters at the gate. Flaming bodies stumbled about before collapsing.

The flamethrower revealed something else charging out of the darkness. A massive shape, big as a truck, plowed through the burning dead and collided with the gate. The crash echoed across the entire compound.

"What's that?" I hissed.

Four streams of tracers lit into the giant, followed by more fire, and what had to be a chain of 40mm grenade detonations. The now-burning beast backed up for another run. "Hmmm… zombie elephant," Franks answered thoughtfully. "Unless it's a dinosaur. Hard to tell with the armor."

So Hood had either murdered a zoo or he'd pulled a Jurassic Park, but either way, this was really bad. "Back door it is," I suggested, shining my flashlight down the ladder.

Two dozen white eyes blinked back at me.

"Shoggoth!" Franks bellowed. His palm struck me in the shoulder, knocking me aside. A black tentacle exploded from the hole, splitting the air where I had been standing. It snapped back into the dark with a bullwhip crack. Franks yanked another grenade from his damaged suit coat, pulled the pin, and tossed it down the hole. "Back."

I ran toward the barracks. I could hear Grant huffing along beside me. The grenade detonated, but rather than a boom, it was a hiss. Thermite. The shoggoth made an unbearable noise, a terrible distorted wail, like somebody had overloaded a bank of speakers by having an insane howler monkey attack the microphone. We clamped our hands over our ears. The noise faded away.

When I turned around, smoke was pouring from the hole. "Is it dead?"

Franks looked at me like I was stupid. Of course not. Harbinger had said that the warding kept out undead and transdimensional creatures, which apparently included the Condition's pet shoggoth. With the shield down, it must have burrowed right into our tunnels. "We've got to get back down there."

"No more grenades," he replied.

They were only vulnerable to fire. Now there was no way to get into the main building. "Damn it!" That thing would own us in the tunnels.

"Quiet!" Grant exclaimed, holding up his hand. Large wings batted above us in the night. The shoggoth's scream must have gotten its attention. The three of us ducked back under the overhanging roof of the barracks. The thing circled for a moment, each beat of the wings ponderous and slow. As the noise stopped, something landed on the roof above us with a crash of breaking shingles.

I held my breath. I was screwed. Monsters below us, monsters above us, monsters all around us. We were armed with a few stolen small arms and a magic rock that we didn't know how to work. We had nowhere to go, and my companions were a snitch and a psycho. Talk about bleak. Dust fell from the overhang as the winged monster above us shifted.

There was a flash from the opposite side of the compound. There was a violent impact overhead and whatever it was above us crashed into the roof. The mystery creature leapt upward, visible for just a moment as a gray mass, before two wings spread wide and it jerked straight up and out of sight, absurdly fast.

What was that? Grant mouthed, obviously afraid.

I shrugged, hell if I know, then pointed in the direction of the muzzle flash. It had come from Milo's workshop. Either Milo was at his shop and had sniped the thing, or somebody else had done us the favor. Either way, it beat sticking around while other things came to see if there was anything edible over here. Franks realized what I was thinking and nodded. There were a few terrain features we could use for cover between us and the shop, but there was a long expanse of open ground at the end. Sticking Milo clear out there made sense when he was playing with explosives and deadly chemicals, but didn't seem so clever right about now.

"Leapfrog," Franks stated. He pointed at Grant, "One," then at me, "two," then jerked his thumb at himself. "Three. Move."

If something spotted us, we were as good as dead. Grant took one quick look at the dark sky, then back at the fires leaping up around headquarters. Nothing seemed to be coming this way. His Adam's apple bobbed visibly as he swallowed hard, then he took off at a full sprint for the next building. It was a Tuff Shed we stored maintenance equipment in. He reached it, then spun around, jerking his head in every direction. He waved for me to come, then raised the Uzi and waited.

I leapt to my feet, moving as fast as I could. My blood was thundering in my ears as my big boots slammed into the gravel. I made it halfway before I heard the wings. Grant was looking right over me, eyes unbelievably wide, as he jerked the Uzi up and opened fire. I fell on my face, sliding across the dirt like I was trying to steal a base. The winged monster zipped past me in a blast of wind. Jerking my head up, I saw the wings spread as it soared upward again, giant three-toed talons trailing behind. I wanted nothing more than to lie here and try to hide, but that was suicidal. Clambering back up, I ran the rest of the way to the shed.

Grant was stammering. "Okay, walking dead, that's fine. Running dead, I can handle. But the flying dead? Hell with this. I quit."

I gasped for breath. "Too late. You're fired." Franks had seen what had happened to me, but went for it anyway. He moved unbelievably fast for such a big dude, arms and legs pumping like an Olympian. "Here it comes," I said, as I caught sight of the flying monster banking around. It was trailing Franks now, high in the air. It tucked its wings in and plummeted like a missile right at him. The AK's iron sights were rudimentary at best, and I could barely see them in the dark, but I did my best, pumping round after round at the speeding target. We weren't going to stop it in time.

Franks must have known that. He suddenly stopped, throwing his weight back, skidding through the gravel as he turned, raising his own stolen AK one-handed and firing, a long strobe-effect burst of full-auto right into the creature. It flared its wings at the last moment, then Franks was simply gone, scooped right off the Earth and sucked into the sky.

They passed right over us, and the last thing I saw before they disappeared over the top of the shed was Franks crawling up the monster's legs and actually punching it in the face.

The land-based undead had heard the gunfire and shadows were moving in front of the flames, lumbering our way. Grant and I looked at each other, then at the direction Franks had gone. That was the direction we were heading anyway. Tactics were out the window, and now it was time to haul ass. Correction-speed is a tactic. "Run!" I shouted.

We cornered the building, moving fast for the relative safety of Milo's workshop. Grant is a lot lighter than I am, and even wearing his armor, he quickly left me in the dust. When you're getting chased by a zombie bear, I guess you don't need to be faster than the bear, just faster than your friends. I briefly contemplated shooting Grant in the leg.

Then I heard the beat of wings again. Damn it, not now. This time the beating seemed somehow lopsided and unbalanced. The gray shape appeared out of the sky ahead of us, ungainly, with one wing fluttering. A darker shape that could only be Franks was dangling from one side, slamming a fist repeatedly into the monster. It spiraled down, out of control, and crash-landed into some kudzu-coated trees.

I veered slightly off course, heading for the trees. The noises were clear. Somebody was administering a severe beating. The monster was on its back, Franks was astride its chest, raining hammer blows down on its mutant skull, beating the hell out of a creature that was approximately the size of a living-room couch.

One giant claw shoved Franks off and the creature sat up. It was a zombie, but a zombie of what I couldn't tell you. Its legs ended in raptor claws, but its upper body was that of a man. Leathery bat wings extended from each shoulder, one clearly crushed and broken by the fall. Its face was a skull now, but about the size of a five-gallon bucket and filled with teeth that looked like rusty nails. Blank eye sockets swiveled toward me.

It took me a couple of shots in the dark before the skull exploded into powdery fragments. It dropped.

Franks appeared. His breathing was ragged. "I hate flying coach."

"Man, you're a regular comedian tonight," I said as I jerked another magazine out of my pocket and reloaded. "We've got to keep going, more bears coming fast." But he didn't respond. When I glanced back, he was facedown into the kudzu. "Aw hell."

Grant had kept on running for the workshop and I could no longer spot him in the dark. I could, however, hear the undead getting closer. Franks weighed a ton. The smart thing to do was leave him here. It wasn't like I owed him any mercy. This whole thing was his and his stupid organization's fault.

I actually made it a couple of steps toward the workshop before I stopped. He wouldn't have left me. "ARRGHH! Stupid Fed. Stupid Franks." I scooped him up, got one arm over my shoulder, and shouted in his ear, "Move your ass!" His big head lolled to the side. He was unconscious. "Oh, it can never be easy. Never! Easy!" I heaved him into a fireman's carry. The kudzu vines dragged at my boots. The shuffling, metallic snorting of the undead was getting closer. Safety was still a hundred yards away. I kicked my feet through the thick plants and tripped and stumbled for safety.

I could see the workshop clearly now. Someone was moving in one of the windows, a long tube on their shoulder. I cleared the kudzu and could run again, slipping through the dirt, ankle throbbing with each step. A terrible noise came from the workshop and a streak of fire tore past. The trees behind us exploded. Rocket launcher. Oh, these monsters had picked the wrong place to mess with.

More rockets followed. Judging by the rate of fire, Grant had reached the workshop and was joining in. Milo had a ton of stuff stashed.

"Pitt!" A voice bellowed behind me. "I'm coming for you."

The Englishman.

I risked a glance back. A towering thing was making its way through the smoke and falling debris, each footfall shaking the very earth. It had been an elephant once, and a big one, a majestic beast, but now its ivory tusks were sheathed in iron, its head plated in steel, its bones wrapped in wire and Kevlar sheets. Riding on its back was my nemesis. He was no longer wearing simple clothing, but had dressed for the occasion with an ornate black robe, a golden pendant of his squid god on his chest. His rough features shifted under the shadows of his cloak.

"Hood," I spat.

He raised one hand, signaling a halt. The zombie elephant reared up on its hind legs, rising high into the air, blowing air through its dusty lungs like a damaged tuba. It came back down, forelegs slamming into the dirt with an impact that shifted the ground underfoot. "So you know my name… There's power in knowing one's name." There was another bear, and something that looked like it had been stitched together out of a German shepherd and a goat, and behind them were at least a dozen humanoid zombies, all in various states of augmentation. His troops began to fan out in a circle around me. "How did you find out?"

Franks was dead weight on my back. There was no way I was going to reach the workshop now, so I slowly lowered him to the ground. "Carlos Alhambra told me."

The shadow man nodded, unsurprised. "Killing him would have been smarter, but he deserved to suffer." There was another concussion from the workshop, but Hood merely waved his hand in the direction of the oncoming rocket. The darkness seemed to coalesce and solidify, and the warhead detonated harmlessly well short of us. "Destroy that nuisance," he ordered, and several of his minions immediately charged the workshop, scampering off through the swirling wall of black.

The wall blocked the lights of the workshop, but Milo's rocket fire had ignited the small copse of trees, and I had some flickering light to work with. But it was even dimmer than what I had in Mexico, and he had been virtually unstoppable there.

"You got what you came for. Let the others go and I'll come with you."

He laughed above me. "Oh, come on, mate. You had your chance to do it my way. I've squandered years of work for this moment. Do you have any idea how much time it takes to put together an army of the dead? I've been collecting corpses like some people collect stamps." He stroked the mottled, rotting back of the elephant. "But tonight has put quite a dent in my collection. So, no, I'm going to see the heart torn out of MHI before I go."

"Where the hell do you get dead elephants anyway?" I asked.

"The internet," Hood responded. "Zoos, circuses, that sort of thing."

"Oh…" I still had the AK in one hand. He saw me thinking about it, and shook his head.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"If you were me, I'd kill myself," I responded. "And you know.. that's not a real bad idea…" I raised the hot muzzle and stuck it under my chin.

He stood on the back of his mount. "Wait!"

"Delivering me with half my head missing might piss off the Dread Overlord, don't you think?" I stuck my finger on the trigger. I wasn't bluffing. "Call off your army and I'll go with you. Otherwise I blow my brains out and you've got to break the news to your super oyster."

"Hold on," Franks whispered from the ground. He'd woken, and had reached into his suit, pulled out a flask, and was unscrewing the lid. Hell of a time for a drink…

Hood's voice was soothing. "You don't want to kill yourself. Suicides go to hell, you know."

"Oh, like you believe in hell," I muttered.

"Got me there, but we can still work this out. Alive is preferable, just for the amount of suffering that he can inflict on you, but dead? I could probably clean you up right well, if you leave me no other choice." He seemed to grow angrier the more he thought about it. "You think you can threaten me with your death? I'm a king of death! Look around you! Death is my servant! Death is my art!"

Franks put the flask to his lips and poured the contents down his throat. He grimaced in pain as if the liquid really burned going down. Some of it spilled out and dripped down his face. It glowed blue in the dark.

That got Hood's attention. "Well, well, well… Special Agent Franks, I'd almost forgotten about you. I see that you've some of the Elixir of Life. I always wondered how something like you managed to stick around for so very long. Personally, I'd thought that Herr Dippel had taken the formula to his grave. You really must give me that recipe." Franks dropped the flask and began to convulse in the dirt. Hood shook his head sadly. "Painful, and wasteful. You can't expect a dosage of the Elixir to save you now."

Franks was shaking badly as he struggled to his feet, using my belt for help. I kept the AK pointed at my brain. I could hear his body reacting to the potion. Franks' bones were popping. The veins in his face were pulsating. The shadow man was obviously surprised by this development. Franks smiled, teeth white in the dark. "One dose? Try five, asshole."

Hood paused. "Impossible… No flesh could withstand that level of purification."

"You've got to work up to it." My protector shrugged out of his coat and yanked off his clip-on tie, Glocks dangling on both sides from a double-shoulder holster. His shirt hung in a blood-soaked ruin. The firelight flickered across his body. The muscles in his neck throbbed and pulsed. He pulled off his strangler gloves and tossed them to the side, the bones in his hands cracking as he rolled them into fists.

His left hand had HATE tattooed across his knuckles…

The dead trucker in Montgomery had that same tattoo.

No. That was the dead trucker's tattoo… That was the dead trucker's arm.

My mouth fell open and I almost dropped the AK. Franks spoke quietly, "Primary mission. Protect Pitt from the Condition." He glanced over at me, one blue eye reflecting the firelight and nodded through gritted teeth. "I've never failed a mission."

Franks was built out of spare parts…

The shadow man, suddenly afraid, gestured at his undead. "Take them!"

The monsters surged forward. I jerked the AK down and opened fire. Franks crossed his arms, then whipped them outward, a Glock appearing in each hand, firing with terrifying accuracy right through the joints in the zombies' helmets. The elephant bellowed, stampeding forward, coaxed on by its master. Hood shouted a maniacal cry as the elephant bore down on us.

There was a blur of motion as something leapt through the air onto the elephant's back. Earl Harbinger landed directly behind Hood, dumping an entire magazine of. 45 from his Tommy gun into his enemy's back. Hood's body rippled like water. The gun emptied in seconds, Earl Harbinger grabbed the shadow man by the robes and flung him from his perch. Hood fell hard in the dirt. Earl jumped after him, landing in a crouch. The elephant was heading right at me, and I dove aside, tree-trunk legs crashing past like thunder.

"You!" Hood spat from flat on the ground. The robes shifted as his flesh turned to molten shadows. They swirled and re-formed. Now he was standing. He calmly brushed the Alabama red clay from his fancy outfit. "So my assassin failed."

Harbinger stood. "Shot the hell out of me with silver bullets." He raised his arms, displaying his battered leather bomber jacket. "You should have told her to shoot me in the head. I don't just wear this coat 'cause it looks cool. This is one-hundred-percent-genuine minotaur hide." He thumped it for emphasis. "Bulletproof." Earl smiled his predatory grin. His eyes were glowing gold. "You're looking good, Marty, for a dead man."

Undead were swirling all around. The humanoids were wearing helmets of hardened steel, only their lower jaws open and chomping. I shoved my muzzle into an onrushing zombie's mouth. The jaws clamped down automatically and I fired, the bullet ricocheting around inside the bucket, pulping the skull to bits. A zombie bear intercepted Franks, knocking him to the ground, slicing him about between the razor sharp legs. The Fed, unperturbed, jammed his guns into the intersection of the bear's protected head and body and severed the neck with a slew of 10mm rounds. The bear collapsed, crushing him beneath.

Hood and Harbinger were circling each other. The Condition's high priest was speaking. "A dead man, Earl? On the contrary, I've never been more alive." He waved one hand, and it warped into a foot-long shadow blade. His other hand twisted into a three-fingered claw, wide as a shovel head.

"I'll have to remedy that," my boss replied. "I'll get it right this time."

"You destroyed my old body. Rather admirably at that, but the spirit that was residing there came from this vessel. Think of it as trading up for a new model car." Hood swung the shadow blade and Harbinger ducked under it.

I kicked the legs out from under another zombie, slammed the AK under its chin, and blasted it. I moved to help free Franks, but with a bellow, he pushed the giant bear off him and heaved it aside. He sprang to his feet and slammed his fist through an approaching zombie's helmet. HATE came out clutching a handful of brain and the zombie dropped like a sack of potatoes. A goat-dog thing charged Franks, snapping at his legs, but he punted it across the clearing and into the burning trees.

"I'm invulnerable in the dark, and this little fire isn't nearly enough," Hood stated proudly as he swung his blade hand. Harbinger bounded over it, flying through the air at his foe, his own hand opened into a claw, swinging with a roar through the ornate robes. Earl rolled through the robes, crashing into the ground as all resistance gave way. He was up, bewildered at the empty fabric in his hands. A twelve-foot solid shadow rose behind him, and he screamed as a black spike was driven into his back.

"Earl!" I shouted.

"Stay back!" he ordered, bloody spittle flying from his mouth. Harbinger spun, tearing through the shape to no effect. One whipping tendril struck him across the abdomen, launching him back into the darkness. He hit the ground closer to the fire.

The shadow surged under the robes, the fabric rising into a man shape, and then settling into the form of Hood as he strode toward Harbinger. "You have no idea how much I've looked forward to this." I shot Hood square in the back of the head. The bullet zipped out his forehead. He paused, looking back at me slyly. "Patience. I'll be back for you."

Earl rose. He was shaking badly. There was a hole in his chest, and it gradually closed, pinching off a trail of blood. There was a loud series of booms from the main building, like the sound of launching fireworks. "This whole owning-the-night thing ain't fair," Earl said as he pointed at the sky. "And if you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck."

The sky lit up with a brilliant fireball. It drifted slowly toward the Earth. Then there was another, and then several more, appearing in rapid succession. The compound visibly brightened as the parachute flares and star shells floated downward. The compound's mortars were filling the sky with burning phosphorus light.

"That's cheating, Earl." Hood smiled, seemingly eager for this fight.

Flickering shadows played across Earl's features as more shells rained from the sky. "My daddy always said that if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying hard enough."

Franks twisted the head off of the last zombie, and immediately began walking toward Hood. The shadow man paused between the two foes, glancing warily between them. The new illumination revealed that the zombie elephant was turning around, coming back for another pass.

Hood nodded slowly, determination hard on his craggy face. He studied the sky, watching the fireballs. "This won't be enough to save you." He wrapped his hand around his talisman. It glowed with a black lightning that was eerily familiar. He seemed to grow in size, density and darkness, like he was sucking energy from his surroundings. His voice was low and terrifying. "A bureaucrat's Frankenstein and the redneck Wolfman are no match for the Lord of the Shadows, High Priest of the Dread-"

"Shut up already," Franks said as he walked forward. Tendrils of blackness shot from Hood's hands, lashing into the Fed, knocking him easily aside. The ground swelled under Hood, like a rising bubble. The dirt ripped wide open, revealing a giant rolling slug of tar. Packets of reflecting eyes glared in every direction. The shoggoth had returned.

"Owen! Get the ward to Milo. He knows what to do!" Earl shouted as he ducked and dodged under waves of black energy. "Go!"

I did as I was told and ran for the workshop. It was our only hope. No matter how tough Earl and Franks were, I knew they couldn't defeat Hood and his minions. The roars and crashing intensified behind me. Gunfire and explosions continued to rock the main building as the bulk of the undead kept up their assault. I sprinted through the artificial wall of darkness, holding my breath like it was a poisonous vapor. I cleared the wall within a few steps, and there was the workshop. I leapt over numerous undead that had been blasted or scorched into pieces. "Milo! I need your help!"

Milo's head popped up on the roof from behind a stack of discarded LAW rocket tubes. "Owen, what's going on?" he shouted.

I reached into the satchel that was bouncing against my side and hoisted the stone above my head as I ran. "Activate this thing!"

"I'm on my way down," Milo exclaimed.

I started to lower the stone, but it disappeared from my hand in a blast of wind. The stone was gone! Jerking my head up in surprise, I was shocked to see one of the flying undead, the stone encircled in its talons, as it beat its mighty wings and gained altitude. I screamed in frustration.

BOOM!

The creature's leg exploded with a terrible impact. The entire talon fell, severed, still clutching the ball. Running, I caught it all in my outstretched hands. I looked up to see Grant on the rooftop, his head poking up from behind the scope of a Barrett M82A1. 50 caliber. "Move your slow ass, Pitt!" he shouted.

The roll-up garage door was closed. The man-door next to it flew open, and Milo was there, holding a giant flamethrower that had the burninator and a cartoon dragon painted on it. "Let me see it," he cried as he shrugged out of the flamethrower straps.

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

Grant had opened fire on something. I turned to see the zombie elephant come swirling through the black wall like an undead freight train, lumbering right at the workshop. I slammed the ball, severed talon and all, into Milo's outstretched arms, and pushed through the door. I closed it behind me and, for some unknown reason, threw the dead bolt. Milo gave me a look that indicated the idiocy of what I had just done, then he snapped out of it, and started swiping his hands over the numbers.

"Hurry," I suggested.

"You think?" he responded, beady eyes intent behind his glasses. "Oh, it's been a long time."

I began looking for something that could stop a zombie elephant. There had to be something. I paused in front of Milo's giant wall of weapons. What gun for armored zombie elephant? Man, what kind of messed-up job do you have to ask yourself that kind of question? Then I had my answer, sitting right in front of me on a giant wheeled tripod. I grabbed the handles of the device and began to push the heavy weight across the linoleum. "Is this loaded?"

"Of course," he responded absently. Milo stood in the center of the room, studying the ward intently. "The ward is like a puzzle, but with coordinates based on ley lines, and the letters are substitutes, but the hard part is that it's in German… Now what was that-"

The roll-up door collapsed as the pachyderm from Hades rammed its way through. Milo looked up in time to see the looming threat bearing down on him, 15,000 pounds of undead fury. I cranked the mighty harpoon gun toward the beast, grabbed the trigger, every bit of the circular sight filled with gray rotting flesh, and pulled.

Leviathan discharged. The concussion of the harpoon gun actually lifted me off the floor. Driven by a mighty charge of gunpowder, the six-foot, machined-steel spear drove right through the armored bucket of the monster's head, a roll of cable unspooling through its entire body and out its backside. The beast jerked as the harpoon embedded itself in a steel support pylon. The huge weight dropped instantly, cable pulling right through the decaying flesh, and it fell to the side, taking down row after row of shelves in a mighty crash.

I picked myself up from the floor. The room was filled with smoke from the gun's charge. I coughed. "Milo?"

No response.

The elephant's head had been torn off, rotting neck no match for gravity, and was dangling like a pinata on the taut cable. The body was on its side, limp, storage shelves crushed beneath it. Right where Milo had been standing-

He was under it! I ran over to the monster, trying to figure out some way to get under the body. If he was between the metal shelves, he might still be alive. There was no way I could reach him. I needed something to pry up an edge of meat. "Hang on, buddy! I'm coming for you." I spotted a crowbar, and started to work it under one leg.

Then I heard a strange noise, muffled beneath the corpse. Like somebody was trying to start a lawnmower, or a weed whacker, or…

A chainsaw.

I automatically stepped back as the powerful device caught with a roar. There was a terrible racket as Milo attacked the elephant from underneath. Thirty seconds later the chainsaw erupted out the elephant's flank, spraying fluids, and a disgustingly coated Milo came crawling out from the stomach. He took a mighty gasp of air as his head pushed through the skin. He killed the chainsaw and tossed it. I grabbed him by the hand and tried to pull. Milo pushed me back, reached deep inside the guts, and pulled out the ward stone.

"You okay?"

"Shush!" he sputtered through a face full of rotting elephant blubber. His fingers flew across the stone. There was movement at the torn-open door. I glanced over to see more undead coming. A winged beast landed right in the entrance, hopping forward on its one remaining leg. This was it.

"Bingo."

Milo moved the last letter into place. A visible shockwave traveled outward from the stone. The air bent in a violent oval. It washed across my body, but I felt nothing. The wave hit the undead and they simply exploded, flesh parting, bones and sinews flying like shrapnel. The wave expanded outward, surging across the compound, a tsunami of destruction, obliterating undead on impact.

There was a terrible wail, a scorching-evil distorted cry, like when we hit the shoggoth with thermite, only far worse. The shoggoth fled before the wave, screaming in pain the entire way.

That left just one thing…

Milo tumbled out of the elephant, sliding in a pile of squishy entrails. "Ew… this is karmic payback for making Newbies do the Gut Crawl, that's what this is."

I picked up the discarded flamethrower, hoisting the heavy pack onto my back. A thick tube led from the pressurized napalm pack to the heavy-duty nozzle gun labeled the burninator. Its operation seemed pretty self-explanatory. I snagged a portable spotlight with my other hand and headed for the exit. "Grab anything that makes light and follow me."

The star shells were slinking across the sky. The noise of the battle was tapering off, gunfire and explosions ceasing as the undead on the outer edge of the ward's area of effect were driven off and their cultist handlers retreated. The wall of artificial darkness was still standing and I ran straight through it, heedless of danger. I tripped over a dismembered zombie and fell, sprawling over more bodies. Struggling upright with the heavy flamethrower in one hand, I turned on the brilliant spotlight and shined it outward.

Franks was on his hands and knees directly before me, lacerated, torn, holding one hand to his abdomen. He was coughing blood. It shone red and frothy in the light. I shouted at him as I approached. He looked up, unable to speak, but pointed. I followed his finger with the beam of light. There was a mighty thing there in the shadows, two hulking hands clamped down on a seemingly tiny object. The thing was bent over, like it was devouring whatever it was holding. When the light struck, the giant shape was replaced with Hood's normal form. He was holding Earl's head in his hands. When Hood lifted his hand to shield his eyes, Earl fell over, limp.

I set the spotlight on the ground, still covering Hood, and hoisted the flamethrower. He had to step away from Earl before I could use the deadly Milo-designed weapon. "Come and get me, Hood! Bring it!"

He stepped away from Earl and walked toward me, using the sleeve of his robe to protect his sensitive eyes from the light. "You're a brave man, Pitt." He swung his hand downward and the spotlight exploded into shards of glass and plastic. His body was instantly replaced with the towering solid shadow. "It's over, though. Your protectors are finished."

He drew nearer, but I hesitated, I couldn't risk immolating Earl. Werewolves couldn't regenerate from fire. "What'd you do to him?" I demanded.

For the first time I thought I could make out facial features on the shadow blob's head. Hood was smiling. "I'm assuming since you spoke to Carlos, you met the little imp I put in his head? Well, the thing that I just set loose in Earl's mind is much, much worse. Serves him right." Franks surged to his feet, charging past me with a roar. Hood swatted him down, brutally hard. "And as for you…" Franks hit the ground, and the shadow man paused long enough to kick him in the ribs, launching him across the clearing. "I have dominion over everything without a soul. I don't know how you're managing to resist my commands, but I'm going to drag you home and dissect you until I figure it out."

Unable to wait any longer, I pulled the Burninator's dual triggers. The first one ignited a pilot light while the second opened a valve of pressurized napalm. A wave of intense heat washed over me, singeing the hair from my arms. The fire lanced out in a fifty-foot beam, exploding right into the hulking shade.

Hood howled in rage, the shadow shape shrinking into a human form in the firelight. He extended both hands, palms open toward me. The fire seemed to wash over him, around him, but didn't burn him to a crisp. He grimaced as black energy crackled from his squid amulet, down his arms, and out his hands. The energy collided with the fire, pushing it back. Sparkling bits of napalm fountained into the air, hissing and burning as they fell to earth.

I kept the triggers mashed down, but I could see the wall of flame being pushed back toward me. The heat rose. The moisture was torn from my skin. I gritted my teeth as it began to cook my flesh and burn my clothing. Milo's flamethrower was no match for Hood's magic. The heat was unbearable. I couldn't breathe. The black magic was pushing the fires ever closer, and finally with a scream of heat-exhausted frustration, I was forced to release the twin triggers. I collapsed to my knees. The shadow shape loomed overhead.

Then the world exploded in light and eye-searing agony and an ear-rending screech. Hood screamed with real pain. I was instantly blinded. It was like somebody had driven ice picks through my eye sockets. It was so bright that it threatened to overload my brain. "Owen, get down," Milo ordered. I was too stunned to comply. Hands hit my back and shoved, slamming my face into the cooler dirt. "Secret weapon time!" Milo shouted. I covered my head as the intense flashing barrage continued.

Thirty seconds later, the terrible noise stopped. I looked up, but all I could see were flashing lights and purple spots. Then some rectangular shape was looking down at me. It was a blank, faceless monster. Milo flipped back the welding mask and grabbed me by the arm. "Let's go!"

I could barely see. Hood was still shouting, the light having actually seared his shadow flesh. There were other sounds now, a chopper overhead, surely using a spotlight, and the voices of approaching Hunters.

The purple blotch that must have been Hood was moving, staggering about. "It's not over, Pitt!"

"You lose, Hood!" I bellowed.

"But even in defeat, my servants have secured your fate. I'll see you soon." There was a scrambling noise that ended in a pop as he used one of the magic portal ropes, and then he was gone.

I collapsed to my knees. "What's going on?"

Milo yelled in my ear. "My secret weapon!"

"I'm blind, not deaf, damn it."

"Sorry. I just made the world's biggest flash-bang. That was a whole bunch of magnesium and aluminum powder there! I didn't know if I had the mixture right either, but we didn't all blow up, so I guess I did. Come on." He helped me up. Stumbling, led by Milo's elephant-blood-covered hand, he led me away from the noise. He found a clear spot, and had me sit.

I could barely see my hands. "What's going on?"

It took him a moment. "Hunters are securing the area. The crazy shadow dude is gone. All the undead are blown up. Fed choppers overhead."

"Where's Earl?" I asked. Milo hesitated. "Milo? Where's Earl?"

"They're working on him, but… he's not moving."

I was still blind. "Take me to him!"

"You're not a medic. Let them do their thing," he said calmly. I reached out and grabbed his wrist, hard. "Ouch!"

"No time to explain. Get me over there quick, or he's going to die."

Milo might not have understood, but Hunters were flexible under pressure. He pulled me back the way we had come. I was starting to see shapes and color further away. There were a group of Hunters clustered over a still form.

"He's not responding," someone said. "Physical wounds are regenerating, but something's wrong. Temperature's dropping rapidly."

"Let me through," I said. "I can help."

"Z, what're you doing out here?" It was Holly. She sounded shocked to see me. "What happened to-"

I cut her off. "No time. This is like what happened to Carlos." Milo guided me closer. I knelt at Earl's side.

Holly understood. "Everybody step back," she ordered.

"What're you talking about?" a purple shape that sounded like Cooper asked.

"Z knows what he's doing," Holly said tersely. "You Newbies get ready in case something bad comes crawling out of Earl's head. And come with me, Coop, we've got a rat to catch."

I had no idea what she was talking about. I touched Earl's chest. His breathing was almost undetectable and he was utterly cold to the touch. Blood drizzled down my lacerated face and onto my open hand.

I have to save him.

Having no real clue what I was doing, I concentrated, trying to remember what I had felt before when I had activated the power. I could sense it. I could feel the alien presence. Hood had called it an imp, a demon. Whatever the hell it was, I had to figure out how to evict it, and fast.

The world blinked out of existence.