The Monster Hunter Files - eARC

by Larry Correia

  Drip. Dripdrip. Drip.

  The coppery, rancid smell of old blood hit my nose as something wet pattered down on my head. I reached up and felt the wetness in my hair, then looked at my fingers. Red.

  I looked up.

  Twenty or so bodies hung, ignoring gravity, pressed to the vaulted ceiling. In their center was the priest, his mouth moving in a silent help me. Each time it opened, blood dripped from it.

  Help me.

  Drip. Dripdrip. Drip.

  Help me.

  Drip. Dripdrip. Drip.

  The bodies shifted all at once, then fell.

  Gutterres dove to the right while I dove to the left. Bodies thudded to the floor around us and hit pews with the crunching of bones and rending of flesh. Blood splashed over us from the multiple impacts.

  As I tried wiping the blood from my eyes, I caught a glimpse of a single figure walking out of the cathedral, framed in the moonlight. The blurred figure’s silhouette turned to look back at us and presented me briefly with a profile. A thread of familiarity ran through me at the sight and I tried to clear the rest of the blood from my vision. When I opened my eyes again, the figure was gone.

  “Fedele,” Gutterres said, “I think we have a problem.”

  I tore my gaze away from the doorway and looked to the Knight. His eyes were locked on the twitching, broken body that hung across the pew in front of him. I wiped at my eyes again and was able to clearly see the dead body. It wasn’t twitching in death.

  It was twitching as if something was trying to push free of the skin and bones it was imprisoned in.

  His eyes met mine, and in that instant no verbal communication was needed. Simultaneously, we shouldered our rifles and opened fire on the corpses. Hesitation at shooting the broken bodies was not something we had a problem with. God already had the souls of these individuals in his embrace. He would forgive us for destroying the flesh before us, and neither Gutterres nor I wanted to see what was trying to escape the bodies.

  I don’t remember running dry, but soon all my mags were empty and discarded on the floor of the church, and I was hacking at the bodies with my sword. My throat hurt from a prolonged scream. Not one of the bodies was in a piece bigger than a collection plate. Gutterres had out a pair of long knives and had attacked the corpses like I had.

  The loss of control we both had experienced was…frightening. Something truly primal had taken hold of our minds and bodies, driving us to the slaughter we had enacted upon these bodies. And yet…I felt as if I had done right by them.

  “You okay, Fedele?”

  “Yeah,” I replied. My words were hoarse and my breathing heavier than it had been in a long time. “You?”

  “I think so.”

  I looked around at the devastation we had wrought. “I don’t think we can clean this up, Gutterres.”

  He nodded in agreement and with a shaking, bloody hand pulled his phone from a pocket. He tapped out a number, then held the phone to his ear. After a moment he said, “This is Gutterres. Requesting permission to burn our location. The grounds are no longer sanctified and are beyond the help of…anyone.” He paused, listening. “Yes, that includes the Pope.” He listened again. “Thank you.” He returned the phone to his pocket, then took a few calming breaths before meeting my eyes.

  “Fire was sanctioned?”

  “Sanctioned and endorsed.”

  I looked around at the cathedral, once a beautiful and holy building sanctified to God. Even before it had been remodeled, it had been a bright and hopeful place. A refuge against the storms of the world. Now it was a tomb of violence and…other. None of the bodies moved anymore, and nothing had spilled from their insides as we hacked at them. Whatever had been about to happen, we’d stopped.

  For now.

  The vision of that profile in the doorway fluttered back to my awareness. A hawkish nose and the hint of a cruel smile. Thousands of people had those features but…

  “Fedele?”

  I let out the breath I’d been holding and nodded. “Let’s burn it down.”

  Twenty-one Hours Earlier

  “You don’t look happy to see me, Fedele.”

  I looked over my shoulder, purposely taking my time and letting my eyes linger on the wall-hanging clock. The hands showed it was three in the morning. Having made my point, I returned my gaze to my visitor, Michael Gutterres.

  “What do you want, Michael? It’s late.”

  “Or early,” Gutterres suggested. “It’s not like you were asleep.”

  Funny guy, Gutterres. Though he had a point. I don’t sleep. Haven’t since 1533, when I was given the Gift. But the intrusion still bothered me. This was my time. Time when I could relax my mind and meditate.

  And when Gutterres made a house call, it was always bad news.

  I sighed and stepped aside. “Come in.”

  His ordinary-looking face split into a bright smile. Michael Gutterres was the type of man who could disappear into any crowd: not overly tall or short, his features a blend of Asian and Caucasian, his clothes nondescript. The only thing preventing him from being completely unnoticeable was his parked Ducati I glimpsed in front of my home. It looked new.

  “Did you throw your money away on another new motorcycle, Michael?”

  “My last one didn’t survive an encounter with the Fallen.”

  “I heard about that business with Franks.”

  “I imagine you have.”

  “And he was not exterminated? I admit my…surprise…that he kept his covenants.”

  “Is that respect I hear in your voice, Fedele? I thought you found him—oh, what was your exact word?—unholy? You two are more alike than you like to admit.”

  I ignored his barb. I knew he didn’t mean it. Franks and I were nothing alike. I was the product of a more blessed creation. But still…I was almost impressed that Franks had kept his end of the deal. “You could have called me.”

  “You were busy with the Sons of Anak in New Zealand. We handled the Fallen. God was with us.”

  “He always is,” I said and closed the front door. “Now, why are you here? Does the Secret Guard have a mission for me?”

  “For us.”

  “Us?” If the Vatican wanted or needed my help, the situation was potentially dire.

  “Yes. Try not to look too put out.”

  “What’s the mission?”

  Gutterres smiled. “When was the last time you visited Mexico?”

  * * *

  Within an hour we’d left my New York home and were on a private jet heading to Hermosillo, Sonora. My last visit to that particular region of Mexico happened nearly twenty years ago.

  Gutterres was asleep within moments, leaving me to my thoughts. How I would love to sleep. To dream. It’s been so very long since I’ve had that type of respite. In these moments, my memories always seem to take me back to the time when I was made into the man I am today—to the Gift.

  Some product of the Gift makes sleeping impossible. My own theory is that my body, on the cellular level, has no need for it anymore. If I am able to live for centuries without hardly aging a day, then why would I need sleep?

  I heal faster than normal humans—and faster than many of the supernatural creatures that wander the earth—but the scars I carry from the day the Gift was given to me have never faded. Neither have the memories.

  That morning—for the procedure was carried out with the dawn—the stones of the monastery were cold upon my naked back. One of the monks performing the Lord’s will could heal any person or creature he laid his hands upon. I’ve not seen many of his kind since…the occasional faith healer; most were frauds.

  I remember his face as he knelt over me. A hawkish nose set in a severe—almost cruel—face. His dark eyes burned with a terrifying intensity.

  His assistants would cut deep into my arm first, down to the bone. I can still feel the scraping of that blade. Two other monks would hold the incision open while the healer would take a piece of bone—bar
ely a sliver—and heal it in place. The bone was from a saint, they said.

  To my right was the pile of bones from that saint. I have no reason to doubt the veracity of the claim now, but at the time I wondered how much of a fool I had been to commit the small theft that put me in the hands of the monks.

  For each bone in my body, they cut a sliver of bone from the skeleton. The process was long, bloody, and painful. The times I passed out they paused in their work to slap my cheeks until I was awake. They said my consciousness was vital to the process. It went the full day until completed the following dawn. Though the monk healed me after each blood-dripping cut into my body, I lapsed into unconsciousness for the next three days in what would now be identified as a coma.

  The number of days for recovery, they insisted, was not happenstance.

  The bones of that saint—a name I have never been able to discover—are grafted into my own. I’d been given a unique gift, the Gift, and though I haven’t been perfect—far from it—I’ve tried my best to let my abilities be of good use to the Vatican and to the world.

  The monk who conducted the procedure died shortly after the working his…magic. As far as I can tell, I haven’t aged a day since 1533. Most people would think that the memory of the pain I experienced that day would have long since faded. Pain like that doesn’t go away…ever. It is the sharpest memory I have. It kept me going when I was “young” and still learning my new place in this world.

  I mostly work for the Secret Guard at the Vatican, though I’ve never been to their headquarters. I work through intermediaries, like the Knight, Gutterres. I suppose the Secret Guard want their deniability, too. Or just an added layer of safety. I understand, and I approve.

  I felt Gutterres’ gaze on me. “Have you finished sleeping, then?”

  “Some of us still need it, Fedele. What occupies your mind?”

  “Memories.”

  “Of those I’m sure you have many. Any in particular?”

  “Of the Gift.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  Gutterres and I rarely spoke of the Gift. The subject made him uncomfortable, though I never understood why. He’d seen more than most people in the world. He could hunt vampires by himself, and he’d fought the Fallen. Yet the mere mention of the Gift killed any conversation.

  “Are you ready to tell me what mission we have set upon?”

  Gutterres nodded and stretched in his seat before speaking. “Mass disappearances.”

  “How many is ‘mass’?”

  “We don’t even have an accurate number. At first it was a person here and there, which could easily be attributed to cartels and the like. Then, starting last month, people began disappearing in higher quantities. Several at a time. Then last week an entire neighborhood.”

  “And we are just now being called in?”

  “No one noticed until hardly anyone showed up to Mass yesterday. The local priest put the pieces together and called us directly.” Gutterres shrugged and let out a long sigh. “There once was a time when something like this would never have gone unnoticed. Communities spent time together, knew when the simplest of things was wrong in their areas. Now people keep their heads down and keep to themselves, afraid that the perpetual outrage and hostility of the world will unmake them. I’m sorry, Fedele. There are times when even my faith is tested by discouragement…the adversary at work.”

  I waved his apology away. “When you live as long as I have, you see this sort of thing come and go in cycles. I was in Salem in the 1600s when the citizens where murdering women and men wholesale on the presumption of witchcraft. Like now, many people kept their heads buried in the sand for fear of their lives.”

  “What were you doing in Salem?”

  I smiled. “Hunting the real witches. They were amongst the most vocal accusers of the innocent and had wrought spells to make the minds of the masses more suggestible. That was my first encounter with true and powerful witchcraft. I was relatively young at the time. I had not yet learned humility. I nearly lost my life.”

  “I’ve never heard this version of events in the official records of the Secret Guard.”

  “Those were my ‘Freelance Exorcist’ days.”

  “Ah. Did you save any of the falsely accused?”

  “One,” I answered. “Her name was Sarah. She went on to marry and have a family. I still keep an eye on her descendants.”

  “Their very own guardian angel?”

  I smiled. “Back to the disappearances. Any theories?”

  “Not as of yet.” Gutterres smiled and pointed a finger at me. “That’s what you are here for. The Secret Guard doesn’t typically go in blind. They don’t have your particular skill set.”

  “So, essentially, you are expecting things to go as poorly as possible, and I’m here so you don’t lose any more men and women.”

  Gutterres spread his hands in front of him. “Sounds fun, no?”

  Of all my Secret Guard liaisons over the centuries, I liked Michael Gutterres the best. He was the closest thing to a friend I’d had in over two hundred years.

  I smiled.

  Present Day

  As we drove south to the outskirts of Guaymas, Gutterres called the Swiss Guard for backup. We both knew, without putting voice to the words, they would never arrive in time to be of any practical help, but it was protocol.

  We left the burning wreckage of the cathedral behind us. Both Gutterres and I felt the pain of lighting a church aflame, but we also knew it was the only way to properly cleanse away the stain inside it.

  “I need a shower,” I said.

  “Me too,” Gutterres agreed. “And a map.”

  “Why the map?”

  “With our contact gone, we have no way of knowing where to go next. I’m hoping we can chart out the disappearances, where possible, and use that data to find a likely spot where the people are being taken.”

  “You don’t think it was the church?” I asked.

  He shook his head, keeping his eyes on the road ahead of us. He obviously knew where he was going, but I didn’t bother asking the destination. “Those kills were fresh, and they felt more like a message. A hastily scrawled message, but ultimately clear.”

  “Stay away?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “So somewhere out here is another den of abducted individuals?”

  “I think so. But I have the feeling that it will be far worse once we find them.”

  We drove southwest for another twenty minutes, the road changing from paved to dirt. It was after three a.m. I was drained both physically and mentally, but the real weariness was on a deeper, more emotional level. The events in the cathedral had figuratively scraped me raw. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the bodies twitching, and I knew it was wrong on every level. Evil. But it also seemed familiar in a way I couldn’t explain. And that silhouette…I couldn’t shake the memory.

  “We’re here.”

  I hadn’t even noticed the car stopping. I rubbed a hand across my eyes, took a calming breath, and then pushed the passenger-side door open. Three in the morning, and it still seemed I was being boiled alive in the heat and humidity. Gutterres pushed himself out of the car, and I could tell he was wearier than I. That man still needed rest in the traditional way. He pulled at the back of his shirt where it stuck to his skin.

  “Do you think a dry heat would be better than this humidity? It has to be, right?”

  Gutterres. Always trying to bring a bit of calmness and levity to the situation. He was a good man. “I imagine the people in the dry heat say the same thing about humidity. ‘The humidity has to be better, right?’”

  He smiled, then pointed at the humble home in front of us. “This is where we rest. It’s a safe house the Secret Guard keeps. We have maps inside. And water.”

  “I could use a shower.”

  “I never said running water.” He walked by me into the small home.

  I pulled my belongings from the car and followed him in, closing the do
or behind me. Gutterres was already at a small table in the center of an empty kitchen, map spread out before him. The water he had mentioned was in the form of several stacked, one-gallon bottles of purified water. I walked straight to the stack and pulled the top container off. I tore off the cap and drank straight from the bottle. It was a messy business, but at the moment I didn’t really care.

  Gutterres was mumbling to himself like he did when working out a problem. I found it an annoying habit, but it worked. He was marking areas on the map with a black Sharpie. “These are the places we know—or think we know—where abductions took place, according to the priest.” He motioned me over. “I need you to look at this and tell me what you see.”

  I watched as he marked more and more places. He pulled out his phone, checking it for any more information, and then marked a few more. The pattern was fairly obvious.

  “San Carlos.”

  He nodded his agreement. Nearly every abduction reported by credible sources formed an equidistant arc from Guaymas and its surrounding communities around the rich retirement community of San Carlos. It was hard to miss.

  “No one else noticed this?” I asked.

  “Some of this information is coming in right now in real time. Our little request to burn down a cathedral has garnered some attention. But you are right. There is enough here to have given anyone from the Order a good idea of where to go.”

  “Are they in the business of withholding information?”

  “Not usually.”

  “So you think this looks like a trap, too?”

  “You are suggesting the Secret Guard has a mole that is setting us up?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything,” I replied. “I’m reading the situation and making my best determination as to how much danger we are walking into.”

  “I see.” His mind was spinning, that much was easy to read. He nodded and looked at me. “Your evaluation then?”

  “Once we are done here, you may need to do some housecleaning.”

  “You don’t recommend we abort?” Gutterres asked. “Even though this is obviously a trap?”

  “Where’s the fun in that?”