“Juden.”
He spat on the floor.
Franks rose to his feet and flexed his rocky fists.
“Fuck you,” he said.
“Töte ihn,” snarled the Thule leader. “Schützen sie das Tier.”
Kill him. Protect the beast.
With a howl of fury, the Thule masters snatched up sacrificial knives and rushed at him.
Franks did not wait to be overwhelmed. With a howl of his own, he took the fight to them, wading into a storm of blades. He felt the thud and chunk of sharp edges and knifepoints, but he had no flesh that could scream, no nerve endings to shriek, no blood to flow. Nice. He swung a blow at the face of the first of his attackers, pivoting all the way up from the floor, putting five hundred pounds of mass into a blow that exploded the man’s skull and spattered the five closest men around him with blood and pulped brain matter. Then he pivoted and backhanded another, catching him in the chest and splintering bone. The others tried. They tried.
But they were trying to kill an unkillable thing.
He did not have the same problem.
They were flesh. They were bone. They were alive.
Until they were not.
Franks waded through the chamber, letting knives catch on the roots in his arms and chest, letting the steel snap on the rocks that were his bones. He laughed aloud as he smashed skulls and snapped spines and mashed internal organs to jelly. When he thought about the poor bastards in the shed and their wives and children, it made the sound of pain, the screams for mercy all the sweeter for he had brought no mercy down here with him.
But one other thing burned in his brain as he fought: the words of the leader.
“Schützen sie das Tier.”
Protect the beast.
Protect it?
As he killed another man, he saw the beast rear and tear at the air with its claws. How in hell would that thing ever need protection? And…protection from what? It was designed as a living engine of mass murder. A living, breathing, indestructible tank that fed on its victims and which—if the science that created it was anything like the science that had created him—could not truly be killed. Not in any normal sense of that word.
Protect it?
The leader of the Thule swung an axe at him and the blade bit deep into Franks’ neck and for one minute he was falling.
No.
Drowning.
He felt his chest spasm as filthy water filled his lungs. He smelled the stink of shit and dead fish and rat droppings.
His eyes blinked as they looked up through rippling water and he knew that he was back in the sewers beneath Paris.
And then he was back in the underground chamber…on his knees, feeling the jerk as the leader tore the axe free and raised it for another blow. Franks looked and saw that the axe was engraved with dark spells and terrible words of power.
He can kill me with that.
Franks knew it to be true. Both of them did. All around him, the other Thule were dead or dying, but the leader, splashed in the blood of his brethren, had a look of red joy on his face as he raised that sacred axe. Maybe it was something they had made or—more likely, Franks knew—it was an object of power looted from some sacked tomb or church or shrine. A bronze blade and a handle of hawthorn wood. A weapon kept here…why? Surely not as a protection against the improbable invasion by a supernatural construct like a golem.
There was the circle of salt and the spells of protection traced on either side of them. Yes. The Thule had commissioned the construction of the beast but they were not its masters. Perhaps they might have been had whatever ritual they were chanting been completed. Now the masters of the cult lay in pieces. Only the leader remained…and the beast inside the conjuring circle.
It all made sense to Franks.
And it gave him a clear map of what had to be done.
All of this flashed through his mind in the fragment of a second it took for the leader to raise the sacred axe. Normally Franks preferred sending a lot of ordnance downrange when faced with a real threat, but he didn’t have a gun. So instead he drove one of his rock-studded fists as far into the man’s crotch as he could manage.
He put outrage into the punch.
He put fury into it.
And he put every ounce of the body the desperate men upstairs had made for him.
It exploded the leader. The Thule killer flew apart as surely as if he had been drawn and quartered. Arms and legs tore away from the ruin of his groin. The spine shattered and twisted the torso into a goblin shape. The leader tried to scream, but the shock of the blow burst his lungs and the only thing that came from his mouth was a torrent of dark blood.
The beast howled with fury, driven mad by the smell of all that blood.
Franks sagged back, avoiding the fall of the sacred axe, which landed inches in front of where he knelt.
The howl of the monster went on and on.
The room seemed to shimmer and Franks could feel the foul water lapping at him. He touched a hand to the deep wound in his neck and it came away wet, smelling of sewer filth. Amazingly, impossibly, he was bleeding water from where his body floated all those hundreds of miles away.
“Fuck it,” he snarled and snatched up the axe. The hawthorn wood burned his fingers. It hurt flesh that had no nerve endings. Franks swore at that, too, but he rose with the axe in his hand.
The beast stopped howling and watched him approach, its red eyes suddenly narrow and wary. Franks’ feet felt leaden as if the axe weighed a thousand pounds.
“Fuck it,” Franks mumbled, his speech becoming slurred. He stopped at the outer edge of the salt circle and stared the enormous monster in the face. It bared its teeth at him. “Yeah, and fuck you, too.”
Frank swung the axe.
-9-
Les Égouts de Paris (The Sewers of Paris)
(August 21, 1943)
He floated for a long time. More dead than alive, more gone than here.
Then he blinked himself awake. His mouth opened and he drew in a double lungful of vile water, then came porpoising up, wretched, coughing, spitting it out. He fought and thrashed his way to the edge of the walkway and clung there, weak, shaken.
Alive.
Alive?
He looked at the arms that hung over the slimy bricks. The faintness of old stitching and the scars of a thousand battlefields were there to be seen. A roadmap of the places he’d been and the things—the truly terrible things—which had been done to him. Things he had paid back.
He had never felt weaker.
For a moment, he thought he could hear the echo of some great beast crying out in fear and surprise and agony.
Franks smiled at the darkness around him…and in him.
Afterword
I originally decided to write Monster Hunter International because I was a gun nut who loved horror movies. With most monster flicks, the majority of characters are clueless victims, but my favorite protagonists were the ones who fought back, used their brains, and found a way to triumph at the end. I really wanted to tell the story of what happened to all of those survivors after their monster encounters.
Also, it is kind of a running joke that a monster movie starring one of my people would be boring because we’d just blast the critter in the first few minutes, roll credits. So if you’re going to have a story about capable, smart, well-armed heroes, that means you’re going to need tougher monsters, or lots of them.
Then it stands to reason that if monsters are real, they’re a recurring menace, and you’ve already proven you’re good at hunting them, you should be able to make a decent living at it.
And thus MHI was born.
Luckily for me, it turns out that there were a lot more people who wanted to read that kind of story than I ever dreamed of. The Monster Hunter series has been popular, successful, and I’ve been given the opportunity to write several more books set in this world since.
When editor Bryan Thomas Schmidt approached me about putting
together an anthology of stories set in the MHI universe, I figured that maybe some authors would be interested in telling these kinds of stories, too. I was humbled by the response we got from so many top-notch, talented story tellers.
This collection features some of my favorite authors. I hope you enjoyed reading their stories as much as I did.
—Larry Correia
Biographies
Co-editor and creator of the Monster Hunter Universe, Larry Correia is the New York Times bestselling author of the Monster Hunter International series, the Grimnoir Chronicles, the Saga of the Forgotten Warrior, the Dead Six thrillers with Mike Kupari, the Adventures of Tom Stranger Interdimensional Insurance Agent, novels set in the Warmachine universe, and a whole lot of short fiction. Before becoming an author, Larry was an accountant, a gun dealer, and a firearms instructor. Any similarities between his resume and Owen Z. Pitt’s is purely coincidental. Larry lives in Yard Moose Mountain, Utah, with his very patient wife and children.
Jim Butcher is the author of the Dresden Files, the Codex Alera, and a new steampunk series, the Cinder Spires. His resume includes a laundry list of skills which were useful a couple of centuries ago, and he plays guitar quite badly. An avid gamer, he plays tabletop games in varying systems, a variety of video games on PC and console, and LARPs whenever he can make time for it. Jim currently resides mostly inside his own head, but his head can generally be found in his home town of Independence, Missouri.
A former Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician in the US Air Force, Mike Kupari is a veteran of Afghanistan and previously had worked in the Middle East as a security contractor, and was a firearms instructor. He’s worked as an unexploded ordnance technician, clearing former military ranges of explosive hazards, and continued his career in the chemical weapon demilitarization program. His first book, Dead Six, cowritten with Larry Correia, was published in 2011, when Mike was still deployed. The sequel, Swords Of Exodus, was released in 2013. The conclusion to the trilogy, Alliance Of Shadows, hit bookstores in Fall 2016. His first solo novel, Her Brother’s Keeper, debuted in 2015, and a sequel is in the works.
Mike has lived in many places, but frequently travels the country with his dog and bird.
Jessica Day George is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen young adult and middle-grade fantasy books, including Silver in the Blood, Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow, the Dragon Slippers trilogy and the Castle Glower series. She feels very fortunate to be a fantasy author, since her degree in Humanities and Comparative Literature, with a minor in Scandinavian Studies, means her only other career path is being a museum docent, and she doesn’t like being quiet. She collects garden gnomes and also has gnome pajamas and socks. She likes dark chocolate, knitting, Disney vacations, and eating her weight in popcorn at the movies. Originally from Idaho, she has lived in Delaware and New Jersey, and now resides outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, with her husband, three children, and a puffy white dog.
John C. Wright is a retired attorney, newspaperman and newspaper editor, who was only once on the lam and forced to hide from the police who did not admire his newspaper. In 1984, he graduated from St. John’s College in Annapolis, home of the “Great Books” program. In 1987, he graduated from the College of William and Mary’s Law School (going from the third oldest to the second oldest school in continuous use in the United States), and was admitted to the practice of law in three jurisdictions (New York, May 1989; Maryland, December 1990; DC, January 1994). His law practice was unsuccessful enough to drive him into bankruptcy soon thereafter. His stint as a newspaperman for the St. Mary’s Today was more rewarding spiritually, but, alas, also a failure financially. He presently works (successfully) as a writer in Virginia, where he lives in fairy-talelike happiness with his wife, the authoress L. Jagi Lamplighter, and their three children: Orville, Wilbur, and Just Wright.
Maurice Broaddus is the author of the Knights of Breton Court urban fantasy trilogy: King Maker, King’s Justice, and King’s War (Angry Robot Books). His fiction has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Asimov’s Science Fiction, Lightspeed Magazine, Cemetery Dance, Apex Magazine, and Weird Tales Magazine. Some of his stories are being collected in the upcoming Voices of the Martyrs (Rosarium Publishing). He co-edited Streets of Shadows (Alliteration Ink) and the Dark Faith anthology series (Apex Books). You can keep up with him at his web site, www.MauriceBroaddus.com.
Brad R. Torgersen is a multiple-award-winning and award-nominated science fiction author, who is a healthcare information technology geek by day, and a United States Army Reserve Chief Warrant Officer on the weekend. His short fiction appears frequently in the pages of Analog magazine and Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show magazine, while his novels are published by Baen Books. Recently returned from military deployment to the Middle East, Brad has been married for over two decades, has one daughter, one cat, one dog, and lives in Utah. Find him online at www.bradrtorgersen.com.
New York Times bestselling fantasy author Faith Hunter was born in Louisiana and raised all over the south. She writes two contemporary Urban Fantasy series: the Jane Yellowrock series, featuring a Cherokee skinwalker who hunts rogue vampires, and the Soulwood series, featuring earth magic user Nell Ingram. Her Rogue Mage novels are a dark, post-apocalyptic, fantasy series featuring Thorn St. Croix, a stone mage. The roleplaying game based on the series is Rogue Mage, RPG. Find her online via her website: www.faithhunter.net, on Twitter as @hunterfaith, and at www.yellowrocksecurities.com and www.gwenhunter.net.
Jody Lynn Nye lists her main career activity as “spoiling cats.” She lives northwest of Chicago with one of the above and her husband, author and packager Bill Fawcett. She has written over forty books, including The Ship Who Won with Anne McCaffrey, eight books with Robert Asprin, a humorous anthology about mothers, Don’t Forget Your Spacesuit, Dear!, and over 140 short stories. Her latest books are Rhythm of the Imperium (Baen Books), Wishing On a Star (Arc Manor Publishing), and Myth-Fits (Ace Books), the 20th novel in the Myth-Adventures series begun by Robert Asprin. Jody also reviews fiction for Galaxy’s Edge magazine and teaches the intensive writers’ workshop at DragonCon. Jody can be found at www.jodylynnnye.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jodylynn.nye, on Goodreads at “Books by Jody Lynn Nye (Author of The Dragonlover’s Guide to Pern)” and on Twitter @JodyLynnNye.
Quincy J. Allen, a cross-genre author, has been published in multiple anthologies, magazines, and one omnibus. His first novel Chemical Burn was a finalist in the RMFW Colorado Gold Contest. He made his first pro sale in 2014 with the story “Jimmy Krinklepot and the White Rebels of Hayberry,” included in WordFire’s A Fantastic Holiday Season: The Gift of Stories. He’s written for the Internet show RadioSteam, and his first short-story collection Out Through the Attic came out in 2014 from 7DS Books. His latest novel, Blood Ties, Book 1 in the Blood War Chronicles, is now available in print and digital editions on Amazon and digital format on Kobo, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and Smashwords. The sequel Blood Curse, Book 2 of the Blood War Chronicles, debuted at Comicpalooza and Denver Comic Con in June of 2016 and is also available in print and digital formats.
He works as a Warehouse and Booth Manager for WordFire Press by day, does book design and eBook conversions by night, and lives in a cozy house in Colorado that he considers his very own sanctuary—think Bat Cave, but with fewer flying mammals and more sunlight.
Alex Shvartsman is a writer, anthologist, translator, and game designer from Brooklyn, NY. He’s the winner of the 2014 WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction and a finalist for the 2015 Canopus Award for Excellence in Interstellar Writing. His short stories have appeared in Nature, Intergalactic Medicine Show, Daily Science Fiction, Galaxy’s Edge, and a variety of other magazines and anthologies. His collection, Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma and Other Stories, and his steampunk humor novella H. G. Wells, Secret Agent were published in 2015.
Alex is the editor of the Unidentified Funny Objects series of humorous science
fiction and fantasy. In addition to the UFO series, he has edited the Funny Science Fiction, Funny Fantasy, Coffee: 14 Caffeinated Tales of the Fantastic and Dark Expanse: Surviving the Collapse anthologies. His website is www.alexshvartsman.com.
Kim May has been a dancer, competitive swimmer, actor, singer, model, bald spot duster, and slug licker. Sadly, she wasn’t paid for any of it so she gave it all up in favor of spending her days working at one of the oldest independant bookstores in Oregon, and spending her nights writing. True to form, Kim writes a bit of everything: sci-fi, fantasy, steampunk, thrillers, young adult, and tie-in fiction. The one consistency is that she often draws inspiration from her Japanese heritage. In fact, in 2013 she won The Named Lands Poetry Contest with a haiku. You can find her short stories in Eclipse Phase: After the Fall, and in multiple volumes of Fiction River. Find out more about Kim May at her blog: http://ninjakeyboard.blogspot.com.
Steve Diamond founded and runs the review site, Elitist Book Reviews (www.elitistbookreviews.com), which was nominated for the Hugo Award in 2013, 2014 and 2015. He is a Hugo-nominated author and writes for Ragnarok, Baen, Privateer Press, and numerous small publications. Residue, a YA Supernatural Thriller/Horror novel, is his first novel-length published work. He is also the editor of the Horror anthology, Shared Nightmares. Find out more about Steve at http://thethroneofbooks.com.
John Ringo had visited twenty-three countries and attended fourteen schools by the time he graduated high school. This left him with a wonderful appreciation of the oneness of humanity and a permanent aversion to foreign food. He chose to study marine biology and really liked it. Unfortunately, the pay was for beans, so he turned to database management.
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