Monster Hunter Guardian

by Larry Correia

  I shuddered a little because, unlike these idiots, I knew what the Old Ones were really like.

  But none of this brought me close to saving Ray. It simply wasn’t possible that the artifact had been sent into the middle of this madhouse. Melvin had said he could get me close to where it had been delivered. They would have wanted a secure place, one they could guard.

  Where around here was a place like that?

  There were businesses, apartments, and hotels all around. It had been years since I’d been in Cologne and I’d just been a tourist passing through. I had no idea where criminals or weird cults gathered around here, or where a group of people who relied on the supernatural and stitched together automatons out of dead creatures would find a safe hideout.

  With nothing to go off of but instinct, I put my bag over my shoulder and just started walking. There was one obvious landmark. I looked again at the cathedral, remembering how much evil likes places of power, but then again some types of undead couldn’t go near a consecrated place, and the Condition—assuming that’s what I was chasing—loved making undead servants. So I went in the opposite direction, toward where the floats were parked.

  The sidewalks were packed with bodies, most of them in colorful costumes. The buildings through here were all four or more stories tall, so I thought about trying to get up high for a better look. Every available balcony already had people on it so I wouldn’t stand out, but then I dismissed that idea. The cultists were probably hunkered down inside somewhere, and if they weren’t, it would take a miracle to pick them out of this mob. Assuming they’d not already left the area entirely.

  I was dying inside. I might have already lost the artifact and, with it, my only leverage to get Ray back.

  Okay, think. I’d been drafted to be the Guardian. I didn’t know what the hell that title actually entailed, but I was connected to this stupid artifact. Maybe it would show me the way.

  So I stopped right there, closed my eyes, and concentrated…

  …and a minute later gave up because absolutely nothing happened, and I felt stupid. I don’t know how my husband put up with that mystical psychic nonsense.

  I checked my phone. Because I traveled so much—or at least I had before the baby—I had an international plan, but there were no new messages. I started thinking that Mr. Trash Bags had let me down after all—and feeling guilty as hell because, for all I knew, the little deranged shoggoth was dead because of me—when I saw a car driving erratically.

  It had lurched out of an alley by a hotel, forcing crowds of drunken spectators to get out of the way, and generally acting like the driver was drunk off his ass, which probably wasn’t unusual during Fasching. It could only fit between the floats because it was one of those dumpy, tiny little things…a Smart Car they called it, which meant it had been named on Opposite Day.

  But as the car got closer, through the open window I could hear the men inside, and their panicked screaming about “Finger” and “Beissen.” As bad as my German is, it’s remarkably easy to understand when somebody is freaking out about something biting his fingers.

  Oh no. I pushed my way through the crowd until I found a gap, then sprinted toward the car. Then there was a high-pitched battle cry that sounded like you’d imagine a hamster would sound if it could talk.

  “Cuddle Bunny made of stars!”

  The passenger was thrashing around and wrestling with something in his lap. The driver looked over at me, and I caught sight of an adolescent face with an uncertain growth of beard. I almost pulled my gun to shoot him, but I needed them alive to question. Plus…it was Mr. Trash Bags. Considering he might not be super reliable at target identification, this could just be some poor kid who’d picked up the discarded bag. But his eyes grew very wide as I grabbed hold of the door handle. He stomped on the gas and drove right across the crowded sidewalk.

  The car didn’t have much in the way of guts or acceleration, but the people got out of the way. Mostly. One woman in a bright green costume went over the hood and landed in the street. The door was locked, and I had to let go before I got dragged.

  But one thing was crystal clear in my mind before I let go: there had been a squid necklace—the symbol of the Condition—dangling under his vapid face.

  For one brief instant, I had the shot, and I could have plugged the driver through the back of the head, but then they were crashing haphazardly through the crowd. The car didn’t seem to be hitting anyone because people were jumping out of the way and there were shouts of drunken offense, but no screams of pain and no thumps. Then they hit a clear patch of road and started making distance.

  They were getting away from me.

  The nearest float was the Cthulhu one. It wasn’t nearly as fancy as some of the others here, mostly being a giant papier-mâché monster on the bed of a Mercedes truck. I ran over and opened the door; the chime told me the keys were in it. The burly blond behind the wheel barely had time to open his mouth before I pulled him off the seat and shoved him into the road. It wasn’t as hard as it sounds because he seemed really drunk, which was good, as he was a lot bigger than I was, and I didn’t have time to fight random Germans. I tossed my gear bag on the passenger seat, got behind the wheel, slammed the door, started the engine, ground the gears, and then laid on the horn and the gas. The driver was sitting in the gutter, staring at me as I drove away, seemingly baffled by this turn of events.

  The float gradually built up speed. The already angry crowd didn’t like getting out of the way again, but they’d already been bested by a Smart Car. They weren’t going to stand up to a truck, even a stupid-looking one with a cartoon Old One dangling over the roof. They got out of the way, though a few chucked their beer bottles at the cab.

  “Move, assholes!” Normally monster hunting was all about protecting the innocents, but right then I truly would have run them down. Luckily, I didn’t have to.

  I got it up to a whopping twenty miles an hour by the time the Smart Car made a right at the end of the street. I made that turn in a vehicle so top heavy that I thought for sure it was going to tip over. Then I realized that I still had people riding on the back, now clinging to Cthulhu in terror.

  Most embarrassing car chase ever.

  I made that corner, and then the next one too, though that one was only on two wheels. It’s not a drive I’d care to make again. It had been easier to drive a van across Alabama with animated, giant gargoyles on my tail.

  We were moving away from the main party streets, but it was still crowded with pedestrians. The car sped along erratically, forcing people to jump out of the way. And then, just as they started to gather up behind the Smart Car to talk about how weird that was, I charged in, honking, driving a truck loaded with Cthulhu and frightened drunks. The crowd screamed, the Germans on the tentacles screamed, and I probably got called a lot of names.

  The Smart Car sped ahead, around a set of sidewalk tables. Fortunately, that warned the occupants of the tables enough that they were out of the way by the time I crashed through them. And there was no way, no way at all, in the world, that I could squeeze this thing into the space the Smart Car had. Nor did I intend to. Instead, I plowed into the tables—crunch, crunch, crunch—making the good people of Koln run—scream, scream, incoherent insult—while the tentacles of Cthulhu waved madly in my rearview mirror and men in lederhosen jumped off, and I tried very hard not to kill anyone.

  At the end of the sidewalk, the car darted onto a climbing side street, and I plunged after them. Now that we’d left the main parade area behind, this road was a lot more open, so I floored it. I just had to be careful not to run over the Smart Car and kill all the disgusting cultists before I could ask them where the hell they’d taken my baby. Seriously, I remember my brothers playing with Matchbox cars bigger than that thing.

  I bumped it once or twice, trying to make them spin out, and each time I smacked into it with controlled force, through the open window I could hear their panicked shouts and the little hamster voic
e screaming, “Consume!”

  With me on their tail and Mr. Trash Bags in their laps, the cultists tried something desperate. Ahead was the entrance to a parking garage. There was no way I could fit. The Smart Car didn’t even slow down as it crashed into the plastic arm blocking the entrance.

  I had no time to check my progress, nor would I. Yeah, yeah, the garage top said something about nothing over three meters, and I was damn sure my vehicle was taller, but I didn’t care. I crashed into the garage with an awful ripping sound. Cthulhu pretty much exploded. Hopefully all the passengers had jumped off before that.

  Only when I looked in my rearview mirror, I realized a sedan was tearing into the garage after me. There was no siren, so it probably wasn’t cops. But I’d worry about my pursuers after I cornered my target. All of a sudden my side mirror shattered as they started shooting at me. Probably not the Polizei then.

  Even freed of my float, the truck was less maneuverable than the Smart Car in this confined space. The garage was packed with parked cars and the turns were tight. The cultists went down a floor on a sharply curving ramp. My truck hit the side and I left a shower of metal sparks and tearing concrete. They were going to shake me in here.

  But then Mr. Trash Bags must have turned his attention to the driver because suddenly they turned hard to the side and smashed directly into a big concrete pillar. I don’t think those little cars had a lot of crash protection because the cultists flopped out of it like the contents of a smashed egg. I needed one of them alive to interrogate, to tell me where my baby was.

  I slammed on the brakes. The chase car was trapped on the ramp behind me. Screw those guys. I put it in reverse, stomped on it, and smashed the rear of the flatbed into their hood.

  Like Earl always said, “When in doubt, be aggressive.” Bailing out, I pulled my .45 and ran back up the ramp to the Smart Car, using the side of the truck as cover.

  They were rattled, but trying to get out of the wrecked car. One, two, three, four, five, six…what the hell had this been, a clown car? They all had that pale, fanatical, scraggly look the Condition loved, only this time with a skinny-pants Euro-trash vibe. My aim point was just below that squid necklace. The first one out of the back seat went down with two holes in his chest.

  This next part is going to sound callous, but it was like shooting fish in a barrel. I’ve got a reputation as one of MHI’s most precise shooters and it isn’t because I’m that talented, it’s because I’m efficient.

  My next target was passenger side, and he got priority because he was behind cover and lifting what appeared to be a sawed-off shotgun. I leaned around the rear of the truck, aimed at his face, and fired. I don’t know if I got him, but he dropped behind the car.

  The driver hung a pistol out the window and started cranking off wild shots in my direction. I shifted back a bit and put a pair of bullet holes through the glass right over him. His pistol clattered to the concrete. Movement to the left, but that one was running up the ramp, trying to get away. Movement to the right, and another one fell out of the back seat. Gun! So while she was on her hands and knees, I shot her in the side, and then when she rolled over, chest.

  My slide was locked back empty and I still had threats. My hand instantly went to my side for a spare magazine that wasn’t there. Shit. So I calmly went back to the cab of the truck, grabbed my gear bag, dragged it over, got a spare mag out, and reloaded.

  Before I could go back to finish the job, I heard sirens.

  I was in the country illegally, didn’t even have my passport, and had just shot a bunch of people after stealing a truck and driving it through a crowd of pedestrians. And I still needed to take a hostage, so it was time to go.

  The two from the Smart Car were messed up, but still moving. There were more cultists on the ramp, and I didn’t know how many were dead, wounded and still dangerous, or perfectly healthy and ready to shoot me. They’d be coming after me, but there was also an incendiary grenade in my bag and a giant flaming truck was one hell of a barricade. So I fished in the bag for the grenade, threw the bag over my shoulder, pulled the pin, dropped the grenade onto the floorboards, and trotted away.

  The grenade went off with a foom, and the truck cab was instantly engulfed in flames. It turns out all the leftover Cthulhu bits were exceedingly flammable, too, because within seconds the entire ramp was a giant fireball.

  Gun up, I stalked towards the wrecked Smart Car. One blood-spattered cultist was lying on the concrete floor and didn’t look like he was up to answering any questions. The driver’s airbag had deployed, and that one was groaning.

  “Cuddle Bunny?” a voice called from inside the car, followed by a human scream as the driver came to and realized he still had a shoggoth on him. He struggled to open his door while a little creature who looked like a very small blob made of oil, eyeballs, and teeth crawled around his head and greeted me through the window with, “Cuddle Bunny!”

  The bad guy got the door open and fell out, screaming and swatting at Mr. Trash Bags. It was doubtful they’d ever had Ray—there was no sign a baby had ever been there, and not enough space to hide one—but lying there on the seat of the stupid Smart Car was one of the most powerful magical artifacts in the world.

  “Amateur hour,” I snapped as I reached in, grabbed the Kumaresh Yar, and stuck it in my pocket. I stood over the driver and aimed my gun at his face. The cultist stared at me, eyes wide in horror. He was very young, for sure not even twenty, and ran true to type for Condition recruits. He was skinny, had mouse-colored hair all shaved down one side of his head and long on the other, and so many face piercings that it looked like he’d run face-first into a conveyor belt full of metal castings. He wore tightly fitted leather pants and a shirt, which in a healthier human would showcase muscles, but in him just showcased the places where he hoped wishfully that muscles would materialize.

  He started to cry and plead for mercy.

  He also had a shoggoth on his head, pulling at his hair with the style and élan of a cowboy busting broncos, and there was a chunk missing from his ear, which probably meant Mr. Trash Bags might have got carried away.

  “Good job, Mr. Trash Bags. No more biting for now.”

  I pulled out my knife. The cultist screamed and raised his hands, and mumbled stuff in German, then yelled, “It wasn’t my fault!” in English, then shrieked as though I’d cut him as my knife flashed towards his throat.

  Of course, what I’d actually cut was his squid necklace.

  We’d run into these before. They were the Condition’s way of making sure their members didn’t talk. When they did, the necklace would come to life and strangle them. I was going to nip that in the bud.

  The cord actually gushed some weird black liquid as I cut it and must have tried to come to life, because it sort of writhed, then tried to grasp my hand as I flung it aside. It landed, slithered a bit like one of their portal ropes before burning up with a green fire, and ended up looking like a line of melted tar.

  The garage was filling with smoke. I couldn’t hear the sirens anymore over the crackle of flames, but this place was going to be swarming with cops soon. “If you try anything, I’ll shoot you in the dick.” I assumed he would understand that well enough.

  Like most Germans, he spoke decent English. “It wasn’t me,” he said, staring at the necklace in a sort of fascinated wonder. “I was just joining the club because it was college and they said they had much beer and I could live forever. And they made real magic, which was being cool.”

  I ignored his babble and patted him down quickly. All he had was a knife which, to be honest, was one of those pseudo-cabalistic pieces of junk you can get at every New Age store, and which would probably break to pieces if he tried to stab anyone with it.

  Then I noted that the passenger had dropped his cell phone. So I went over and picked it up, which was when he started to rise, scattering safety glass. Since he made a very zombielike groan suggesting that he’d expired and his magic necklace had brough
t him back to unlife, I promptly shot him in the head.

  The living cultist shrieked. Seeing how casually I’d blown his friend’s brains out must have driven home the point that I meant business.

  The iPhone was locked, so I stuck the dead guy’s thumb on the button. Bingo.

  “Get up.” He did. I nodded toward the AUSFAHRT sign over the stairs and shoved him. “Move.”

  CHAPTER 9

  I walked my captive, Mr. Trash Bags in one coat pocket, away from the garage, seeing police cars and fire trucks converging on the scene the whole time. Because of the nearby super party, there was a massive crowd of curious witnesses gathering to see what was on fire.

  This was a blessing in disguise because it enabled me and my looking-worse-for-wear prisoner to make it through without being noticed by the authorities. I stayed a step behind the cultist the whole way and made sure that he knew if he tried anything I’d kill him. He must have been tempted to run a few times, but he was too chicken. I didn’t even need to have my gun out because of Mr. Trash Bags, so the cultist kept walking obediently. While we moved, I went into the settings on the dead guy’s phone so it wouldn’t lock again. There could be something useful there.

  A really drunk man, who I think was supposed to be dressed as a vampire, had taken off his red velvet cape and hung it on a fence while he watched the fire trucks. I grabbed the cape as I walked by, threw it on, and put the hood up. I probably looked like a militant Little Red Riding Hood, but it hid my face from street cameras, and the gear bag, too.

  We headed away from the party zone. Once there was nobody around, I told him to turn down a dark alley behind a closed-down restaurant. It was much like any witness-free alley in America, just cleaner. I made him take a seat behind some little wheeled dumpsters and started asking questions.