Grunge (ARC)

by Larry Correia

  However, the basements, which were mostly off-limits to students, were more complex. There were engineering spaces, archives and support tunnels that stretched through the University and even to other buildings. They were going to be somewhere in that complex maze.

  As a “bomb detection unit” we’d been handed keys to all the doors. And we went through the basements checking room after room. With very little luck.

  The door was small and unmarked. It looked like it led to a janitor’s closet. It wasn’t even marked on the blueprints.

  However, beyond was an unlit brick-lined tunnel.

  “This looks promising,” Doctor Lucius said, shining a flashlight into the tunnel.

  The tunnel went about sixty feet and bent to the right. The left side of the tunnel was crowded with piping.

  We entered with Brad in the lead. I was on trail. The order was Brad, Lucius, Louis, Phil, Joan, Jesse, Timmy and myself. Jesse and I had Uzis, Brad was carrying an AR-15, Lucius, Louis, Timmy and Joan were toting shotguns and Phil was carrying an MP5 SPD. We all were carrying stakes, hammers and flammables as well as big knives. I had Mourning in her sheath on my left side.

  We got down to the dog-leg and went around the corner. About another hundred feet down there was a heavy steel security door. Based on where the door had been and the direction, we were basically passing along the northwest side of the library.

  As Brad approached the security door, there was a crash. I’d been checking six since sometimes you hit and they could come up behind you. I turned and the corridor was filled with wights.

  For those fortunate enough to have never encountered wights, I’ll give you a quick rundown. They’re zombies on steroids. Fast, strong, agile, violent as hell, red glaring eyes, pointed snaggle teeth. Their touch is paralyzing.

  I now knew what “iggleurpGRAH!” meant.

  The wights went straight to paralysis on the team. Lucius, Louis, Phil, Joan and Jesse were down before they even knew what had hit them. The wights had been embedded in the brick walls as a sort of mobile booby trap.

  Brad and I had both turned as soon as we heard the crash. Brad was laying down fire with his AR-15 but the wights were in the middle of us and firing was problematic. He was as likely to hit me or Timmy as the wights.

  Timmy was firing as well and the proof of that was when he missed a wight at point-blank range and hit Brad instead.

  Brad would have brought that to his attention in a negative way but the wight grabbed Timmy by the neck causing him to go immediately limp.

  This left me looking at the super-charged undead. I let go of my nearly useless Uzi and drew Sword of Mourning. But then a wight had paralyzed the injured team lead and I was the last team member standing. All four wights turned their attention on me.

  There is a filk popular with some groups in the D&D movement. It’s sung to the tune of “Norwegian Wood” by the Beatles.

  I once had a sword, or shall I say it once had me?

  Oh what a sword, a beautiful sword, it was plus three!

  Its ego was twelve, a fact of which I wasn’t aware.

  I wanted to leave and the sword oh it just didn’t care!

  I, walked through the halls, biding my time, nothing to find.

  Then, I turned a corner, and then I said, “Oh, no. Undead.”

  The thirty-two wights saw me coming and started to laugh!

  I just closed my eyes as my sword started hewing a path!

  And, when I awoke, I was alone, my sword had flown.

  Now, I use a club, isn’t it good…

  No Ego Wood!

  I swear, Sword of Mourning had an ego. Because it more or less leapt into my hand and started hewing a path.

  The first wight took a swipe at me and I took its hand off at the wrist then cut down to the leg in a coup de main, same move I’d used on the trolls. Followed through up, reversed and its head was on the floor.

  “Assei!” I shouted, charging the next three.

  I swear I just closed my eyes and Sword of Mourning cleared a path. What I did, though, was switch from dual hand kendo style fighting to saber. My left hand was on my hip, my right arm was extended and the wights were having to come through a wall of Japanese folded steel to get to me.

  They didn’t stand a chance. Arms and hands scattered in a drift on the floor followed by heads and legs.

  When it was done, the wights were still alive but scattered in pieces among my fellows. I couldn’t exactly torch them there. I spitted their heads with Mo No Ken and carried them further down the tunnel, around the corner. Then I collected the hands as well. They’d been touching and reparalyzing my team mates.

  I came back around the corner and was confronted by a “woman of indeterminate age.” Best I can say. European looking, well dressed and clearly furious.

  “Those are expensive, you know,” she said in a cultured voice. The accent was Latin derivative. It was mild and could have been French, Spanish, or Italian. “I hope you weren’t planning on destroying them.”

  “I am well paid to do so, madam. They, like you, are a scourge on the Creator’s Earth.”

  “Oh, you Hunters are so single-minded,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Would you prefer to discuss philosophy, madam?”

  “No,” she said. “I’d prefer to rip your throat out.”

  “Bring it,” I said, going to high stance. “Bitch.”

  She hissed and charged me. Jesus, she was fast.

  I got the description of master vampires vanishing in that moment. She didn’t vanish she just crossed the intervening fifty foot distance nearly faster than I could strike down from a high stance.

  Nearly.

  By luck as much as anything Mo No Ken went through one of her outstretched arms. I had struck as if she was in front of me and that was fortunate. Her left arm flopped to the floor.

  Her right arm struck me like a sledge hammer and tossed me into the wall so hard the air was driven from my lungs by the impact.

  I swung again but she was just gone. Bent over Timmy, charging up with a little snack.

  I sprung forward but as she stood she hit me, again, this time in the stomach. The air flew out of my lungs again and I landed twenty feet down the corridor.

  I hit and rolled, popping back to one knee like a jack-in-the-box and swung instinctively.

  It wasn’t a good strike. It was well off the sweet spot of the katana. But I could feel the crunch as the sword went through hardened bone.

  Mo No Ken went through both her legs, just above the knees.

  “And that’s why they call me Iron Hand, bitch.”

  She crashed into me with her right hand latched onto my harness. I threw up my right arm to protect my throat and she tore into my right forearm ripping straight through my armor, trying to get to my vulnerable throat. It might be protected by a throat guard but she was going to go through it like light cloth.

  Which was when Doctor Joan managed to crawl over, and jam a stake right through the vampire’s ribs. The vampire shuddered for a moment then her fingers slowly slid off my harness and she slumped to the floor. Her mouth was still working and she was still moving slightly. She scrabbled at the hole the stake had made, trying weakly to remove it, but the stake was messing her up as badly as the wights’ touch had my teammates.

  Doctor Joan got to her feet with that wobbly “I’m trying to shake off paralysis” walk, and partially supporting herself on the wall.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. She didn’t mean was I unhurt. She meant was I hurt worse than it looked.

  “You get really tired of physical rehab in this job,” I said, pulling out a bandage. “Shit, she was strong.”

  “Old one,” Doctor Joan said, putting on the bandage and tying it tight. It was blood soaked in a second.

  “Why the hell would an old one like that be so obvious?” I asked.

  “Good question,” Doctor Lucius said. “And good job getting her.”

  “Just as soon as I
can stand up, I get the head,” I said. Mo No Ken was still in my lap.

  “You sure you’re up to it?” Doctor Joan asked.

  “I can take that bitch’s head off left-handed.”

  Which I did.

  There were a few more vampires, just as the gnoll had said. Most of them were on the floor in the usual weak new vamp huddle. There were, however, two beautifully inlaid coffins. In the occupied one was a just gorgeous young man, like some sort of Raphael picture.

  He deliquesced just like the others when we took his head off.

  Most of the survivors were too traumatized to talk, the ones who’d been there longer anyway. But after we got them out of the room they’d been held in, the Doctors were able to coax the whole story out of some of them.

  You know how sometimes a rich old lady will get involved with a younger man ’cause he makes her feel young again? And she’ll start doing all sorts of crazy things to please him? Go skydiving, learn SCUBA, that sort of thing?

  Yeah, it was like that.

  The female vampire was old. Probably a couple of centuries. She had met and turned the beautiful young man, Stewart, sometime in the last decade. Somewhere in England. He was the one that was all into the Vampire Mystique and had convinced her to concentrate on beautiful college students instead of nasty, stinky bums.

  Their lair was well-hidden and they’d apparently hit several other towns before coming to Seattle. If it hadn’t been for the gnolls we never would have found them. They’d have moved on and kept doing the same thing. She wasn’t stupid enough to stick around after raising a furor that was for sure.

  I kind of felt sorry for the old bloodsucker.

  It was beauty killed this beast.

  CHAPTER 13

  Technically, I was still on rehabilitative leave. At least, that was the reason the Doctors Nelson gave for letting me have the weekend of the full moon off. If they’d been honest, I think it had more to do with me taking on what was now officially classified as a “Major” vampire with a sword.

  But it was giving me more time to dial in my muscles and balance. And the PUFF on that old biddy could have kept me in coeds and sushi for a year. I wasn’t sweating it.

  The team might have been, though, because lately lycanthrope activity had been high. It seems like ever since the Skykomish Werewolf, more and more of the damned things had been popping up. These were all first full moon types. No great shakes, still a little confused by it all, making newbie mistakes. The problem being, no two of them on investigation had the same back-story. They all seemed to be getting bit different ways. Just one of those random upticks.

  But it meant the team had been busy every full moon while I’d been doing physical therapy, physical training and banging any girl I could get to hold still for five minutes. It was getting a little boring.

  I was considering this as I started out on my morning run to Ravenna Park. The winter morning was crisp and cool since a cold front had just moved through. It was surprisingly dry for Seattle. The full moon was settling to the east, gilding the light frost on the trees, and as far as I knew there hadn’t been a call-out for a lycanthrope. So far, so good. Maybe the uptick had died off.

  I sped up as I crossed Ravenna Avenue, heading into the park. With the cool weather there should be a minimum of bums activity.

  As I crossed Ravenna I noted, distantly, a group of blue lights over by 54th Street. I put it out of my mind. Not my concern.

  I passed the playground, heading deeper into the park, starting to push it. I really needed a good hill at this point but that would have to wait till I got back to the apartment.

  I was flying along, good marathon pace, barely breathing hard, totally in the moment when the howl erupted.

  “Oh, you have got to be shitting me,” I muttered. “Not again.”

  But the howl was distinct. There was a werewolf in Ravenna Park. And here I was in light gear with a measly 1911.

  I slowed to a walk, calming my breathing, gave it about two hundred feet walking then stopped, drew my 1911 and sniffed the air. Human senses were nothing compared to a werewolf but sometimes, with the new ones, you could pick up their scent.

  The howl had come from near the sulfur spring. I walked in that direction, weapon in a two-handed grip, occasionally stopping to sniff. About half way there I smelled it at the same time as I heard the crunch of frosted leaves underfoot. From behind me.

  I spun in place as the werewolf broke cover, rushing at me and growling gutturally.

  There wasn’t much light and exactly zero time to think. I fired three rounds and dodged to the side. Its claws scored my right arm and it dropped, useless. I managed to hold onto the weapon and switched to left, turning again and bringing the weapon around in a one-handed grip.

  The werewolf was on its side, panting, whining and trying to lick the wounds on its foreleg and chest. I didn’t bother to close, just put the last four rounds into the body. My right arm was up to a reload and as soon as I was reloaded I closed till I had a solid bead on the head.

  Werewolves don’t turn back to human form after you kill them like in the movies. It is more like they’re so tough that even mortally injured they turn back before they expire. It started to crackle and reform into a terribly skinny guy in his twenties with a scraggly beard and long hair. He looked like any ten students you’d see in the UD on any given day. I shot him twice in the head.

  My right arm was bleeding copiously. After safeing and holstering I pulled off all my gear until I got to the T-shirt, pulled that off, ignoring the cold, and wrapped it around my arm. Then all my gear had to go back on. Doing all that with, effectively, one hand was a pain in the arm. Then I thought about what to do.

  “Fuck it.”

  Somebody was bound to have heard the shots but given that Seattle PD was probably carefully not looking for a werewolf in the area, God knew when there’d be a response.

  As I was contemplating my next move, my pager went off. 911. Wonder what that call was for? Werewolf? There wolf. There castle.

  Shock makes you think funny things.

  Finally I went back to trotting. I trotted back the way I’d come, crossed 54th street and headed for the lights. The blue lights that is.

  They had police tape up, then a new item, and a bunch of officers making sure that no-one who wasn’t authorized entered the scene. Which appeared to be a single family home. Although in this area it was probably a six college student home.

  “I’m looking for Lieutenant Paulding,” I said, holding up my arm. “And are there any paramedics around?”

  Paulding appeared as I was having my arm rebandaged by a clucking female paramedic. Cute one, too.

  “Jeeze you guys are fast,” Paulding said. “I just called Doctor Nelson.”

  “Yeah, well your perp is over by the sulfur springs. That’s how fast we are.”

  “You already got him?” Paulding said.

  “More like he nearly got me. Do I look like I was on a hunt? I was out for my morning run.”

  “How’d you get it?” he asked.

  I pulled up the windbreaker I’d refused to take off for the paramedic.

  “You run armed?” he asked, surprised.

  “You don’t?” I said. “With all the stuff you know is running around this place?”

  “Point.”

  “Hell, I’m wearing Second Chance and chainmail,” I said. “Better safe than sorry.”

  About that time Doctor Joan pulled up, got out of her Honda and rubbed sleep out of her eyes.

  “Chad?” she said, when directed over to the ambulance. “Are you okay?”

  “Just a scratch.”

  “He needs to go to the hospital,” the paramedic said. “He needs stitches.”

  “I’m sure you could stitch me right up,” I said, batting my baby-blue eyes. “I’ve got all the gear at my place.”

  “You are relentless,” Doctor Joan said, chuckling. “What happened?”

  “Eighty-six twenty-four
,” I said, using the short PUFF code for a juvenile werewolf. “Encountered on my morning run. I was planning on making a strong pitch today that I was physically back in condition to return to work. On second thought, maybe a couple more weeks.”

  “I’ll call off the dogs,” Joan said, shaking her head.

  “Seriously, when do you get off shift?” I asked the paramedic. “Want to catch breakfast? I make a killer eggs Benedict…”

  * * *

  I decided to move Becca-Anne onto my “keep this one around” list. Not only could she do really great stitches, a useful skill in this job, she banged like a screen door in a hurricane…

  * * *

  The arm was about healed and I’d decided to take a chance and return to Saury.

  I’d been avoiding my favorite bento place for very good reason. Just because I was willing to take on the yakuza over whether it was mete to use the supernatural in org-crime, didn’t mean I was particularly courting fugu poison in my wasabi. Steering clear of Saury was just good sense. But I was seriously jonesing for udon and a salmon roll. And nobody did salmon roll as good as Saury.

  So there I was, back in my regular spot. Let’s just say I was sampling everything very carefully. Touch to the lips, wait to see if there was any negative reaction, then take a bite.

  “That is really unnecessary,” Michael Oshiro said as he sat down next to me. “If we were going to have you assassinated, we wouldn’t be that obvious.”

  “Paranoia is a survival trait in both our professions,” I replied. I took a careful taste of the sake.

  He barked out an order to the server who scurried away like he’d met the devil himself.

  I took a look over at his hands and grunted.

  “I’d have thought at least one knuckle,” I said.

  When a yakuza failed in some manner, the traditional punishment was to cut one of his fingers, usually starting at the pinkie, down a knuckle. Some unlucky yakuza were missing most of a few fingers. Michael, surprisingly enough, was only missing the tip of his little finger. And that was old.