Monster Hunter Guardian

by Larry Correia

  He’d better be.

  There was a question from one of the secret nave bays. It was a strange voice, high and balloon juicy with what seemed like an undertone of snickering, “How do we know he’s the genuine article and undefiled? If he’s been touched by magic, other than that of his breeding, his value is markedly lower.”

  Brother Death smiled and I wished he hadn’t. “A good question, fine sir, a very good question. We assure you there is no trickery here. Since I would not ask such extraordinary confidence in my word alone—” The syringe came out so fast it was like a magic trick. One moment Brother Death was gesturing, the next he had jabbed a needle into Ray’s leg. My son wailed.

  You could see that for whatever reason he couldn’t see Brother Death, wasn’t aware of him or his movements. Then, out of nowhere, there was this lancing pain in his thigh. As the syringe filled with blood, Ray’s face crumpled in a mix of outrage and shock. He opened his mouth to wail and raisins dribbled out.

  It was the most woebegone countenance in the whole world, and I wanted to hold him so badly my arms ached. It took all my self-control to not leap up and run to him.

  Brother Death handed the syringe to one of the little green men who scurried away. Moments later, a different one—I could tell because it was the same one who’d escorted us to the table because his tie was slightly askew—carried a tiny glass with some blood on the bottom into our nave. He set it on the table for our inspection.

  I didn’t know what we were supposed to do with it: sniff it, taste it, or merely test it for magic? As horrible and cruel as it was, the logical part of me appreciated the assurance that Ray hadn’t been interfered with, but the rest of me still balled my fists into concentrated points of rage.

  Ray was now snuffling gently, in that kind of offended way he had. He’d done that when I woke him up too early or when he didn’t get something he wanted, even if the thing he wanted happened to be a train he saw passing by. His eyes shone with tears; there were tears down his face and I wanted to kiss those away so badly. He looked down, saw the raisins on the table, and picked another one up and shoved in his mouth, gumming it to death happily.

  Brother Death waited a while before crossing his arms across his muscled chest, looking smug. “I assume everyone is satisfied.”

  “Very much so,” someone with a French accent declared. “A prime vintage.”

  “Only the best for you, my friends.” Brother Death chuckled. “Now let the bidding commence.”

  What followed was a deranged—and magic-powered—version of The Price is Right. The curtains behind the podium closed. A shimmering partition, as of water running, came down in front of them.

  One of the other bays lit up. The magical barrier that prevented us from seeing what was on the other side got a neon glow around the edges.

  Across the shimmering curtain, two young women in shackles materialized, both pulling at their bonds, attempting to escape. They were probably around eighteen, though they might have been underage, and identical twins.

  A gravelly voice grumbled something in a language I didn’t recognize, explaining their offer. Brother Death scowled at the image for a long time before he said, “Very well.”

  The second partition lit up. I didn’t understand this offer which seemed to be a step pyramid of some sort, which looked ancient and gave off a sickly green glow. It was the sort of glow that made me think Kill it with fire. But from various tables around us, a mumble and a sigh arose. Apparently that was something impressive.

  It was then that I realized I wasn’t going to understand a damn thing about this auction. I’d thought it was going to be all numbers, “A million souls.” “Two million souls” “Three million souls and a vanilla cookie.” But apparently it was nothing like that.

  As other booths lit up, other images joined those first two on the board: more images of people; one image of a grave with a fine mist over it that probably had something to do with ghosts; various artifacts, particularly swords and knives; one building; a—was that Elvis flipping pancakes? That was another one that got oohs and ahs and I had no idea what it was all about. And then it was the high-pitched thing’s turn, and the picture that appeared was of what looked like an entire hospital ward of newborns. Yes, whatever that thing was, it was going to die too. I didn’t know how or when but I was going to make it my life mission to rid the Earth all these monsters.

  More people appeared on the board, some shackled, some with vacant eyes. This whole thing was sickening and depressing. A woman with a British accent started describing her offering, and I realized it was Lucinda Hood.

  Giving her a chance to win Ray was the only reason I’d not shot her. She’d kept her word. Better her to win than any of these monsters, but she was a distant second choice to Management.

  Her presence did complicate matters, because if we lost and I tried to grab Ray, Lucinda would certainly try to kill me. She had some powerful magic, and I’d be stunned if she was here on her own.

  Brother Death seemed pleased at the Condition’s offer, and the bidding continued.

  Then I heard a familiar voice. I’d recognize it anywhere because she used to tell me bedtime stories with it. I’ve been told she sounds a lot like me.

  “Is that…?” Hansel looked nervously toward the nave at the far end of the church.

  “Susan Shackleford, Master vampire, and all around bitch.”

  She hadn’t sent a rep. She’d come here in person. Of course! This was her grandson we were talking about. Mom was all about family. I’d been afraid she’d drop whatever she was doing to be here for this. The creature wearing the body of my mother offered up several slave pits and five young vampire slaves. I noted that Brother Death lingered on her offer for a long time.

  My stomach was clenched. I was terrified. If Susan won, I’d never get Ray back. Worse, she was incredibly dangerous. Even though she was relatively young by vampire standards, she was more powerful than other vampires ten times her age. My best guess was that it was because she’d used her Hunter knowledge to track down, feed upon, and suck the potent life out of various mystical creatures.

  Despite being a vampire, her personality was still basically Susan Shackleford. Even if it was a twisted, evil version, I knew exactly what she would do. Like me, there was no way Susan would accept losing this particular auction. If someone else won, Susan would strike. Brother Death’s comments about temporary peace aside, she’d kill whoever won and just take Ray.

  So would I. Only I wasn’t a bulletproof superhuman killing machine.

  I found that I’d subconsciously reached up and touched the mark on my neck. I hurried and snatched my hand away before I could disturb the makeup concealing it.

  The tentacled monster next to us offered up…something. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it looked like a box covered in lichen, only when the image was put on the board, the lid opened a bit, and a terrified, very large eye looked out.

  Our turn came, and Hansel announced, “The missing box of vials from the Affair of the Poisons.”

  There was some muttering from the audience. This was the spiritual descendant of that event, and they’d probably thought it had been lost forever. Brother Death nodded, but he didn’t say anything else.

  I whispered to Hansel, “I thought you said we had more stuff to offer?”

  He shook his head and mouthed back at me: “Save it for the next round.”

  I hadn’t realized there were going to be rounds of bidding. This was horrible already.

  The two booths after us offered, and neither of them elicited much response from our host.

  And then Brother Death went from game show host to a bridezilla surveying her gifts. He turned toward one image, put his hands on his hips, and said, “You insult me.” He started making a swiping gesture with his finger, and images vanished. Swipe, the girls were gone. “And what is this trash I could buy at a thrift store?” Swipe, goodbye to various pieces of arcane jewelry. “What do you expect
me to do with souls already this broken by torment?”

  Swipe, and the grave with the mist over it vanished.

  The tentacle monster was off the board. So, too, was the first offering with the bound-up identical twins, and the one that I guessed was from the actor—an image of a dozen or so women with vacant eyes—and the high-pitched thing’s offer of something that looked very much like the contents of Marchand’s refrigerator, only much older and, oh yeah, somehow still alive despite being in pieces.

  Left on the board were the bids from Mother Dearest, Lucinda and the Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition, and Management.

  “Now for those remaining,” he said, grinning at the audience while my son blissfully ate raisins on what might very well end up being a sacrificial altar. Just like a Pitt, eating in the face of doom. “How do you wish to sweeten the pot?”

  Round two, the remaining naves lighted up.

  “Excellent,” Brother Death crowed. “Hold nothing back, my friends, for this is your final chance to sway me.”

  We offered a gently smoking bottle filled with a red liquid. “Circe’s potion,” Hansel said. It looked exactly like the kind of crazy thing that the Management would have in his vaults, for the historical value, though to Brother Death the real value would be if it was the same curse that Circe had used to turn Odysseus’ men into pigs. I made a note not to get barbecue anywhere near where that bottle might have been.

  Lucinda gave a triumphant laugh, and a mummified hand appeared on the board. It appeared ancient and must have belonged to a small woman or older girl. Brother Death looked toward that nave. “Is that…?”

  “Indeed.” She sounded very impressed with herself. “Behold, the hand of Fatima.”

  I didn’t have any clue what that was, and yet, I still held my breath. Brother Death seemed really pleased. I looked to Hansel who, despite being so stoic, had begun to tremble. His leg was bouncing nervously. Whatever it was, he’d not been expecting it.

  “Did we just get outbid?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “I don’t know.”

  Brother Death looked back and forth, long and hard, between the hand and the potion. “Decisions, decisions,” he muttered.

  Then Susan’s nave lit up. Her offer was a statuette of some sort. It looked repulsive and it had African art lines, but I didn’t recognize the sounds spoken to name it.

  Brother Death gasped. “Does it still work?”

  “Would I pawn off a counterfeit in a place such as this?” Mother asked, indignant.

  “What is it?” I demanded of Hansel.

  “I…I don’t know.”

  Brother Death began to laugh, a deep, malicious sound. He looked at the board and made a gesture, swiping our offering right out of consideration. “I’m sorry, but there are some things that cannot be passed up. The baby is yours. You may claim your prize.”

  There are things you can’t process. There are shocks or grief so great that all you can do is sit there, feeling like someone has upended a bucket of cold water over your head, and it has somehow turned you to ice.

  Susan came strolling out. She really did look like me, only her skin was vampire pale, her body immortal perfect, and she didn’t bother with a mask. Why? She was a rock star in this crowd. There was grumbling from just about every booth up and down the way.

  Mother’s smile turned feral. “I just want all of you to know that I won him fair and square and that, unlike my daughter, I’m not going to be so careless as to let anyone—anyone—steal him from me.” The threat was clear to all the other monstrous guests. “It’s long been a dream of mine to bring my family together again, to make them all immortal, and this is the beginning of that. I’m going to take this powerful little guy and raise him up right, so he’s a credit to the Shackleford name.” Then she approached the table. “Hey, Ray, it’s Grandma.”

  Ray looked up at her as though it was the first time he’d seen anyone inside the church. He seemed doubtful. For a moment, it hung in the balance how he was going to react.

  Here I should note that my mother and I look very much alike, and since becoming a vampire had rejuvenated her, we could pass for the same age.

  “Come to Grandma, honey,” she held out her arms.

  Ray chose to give a fat, little, rolling chuckle. I wanted to believe there was doubt in it, but really there wasn’t. My son didn’t know anything of vampires or evil, and this creature looked like Mommy, so she was probably the most comforting thing he’d seen in a long, long time. He extended his chubby arms toward her.

  We’d lost. It was time for plan B. “Wait!” I shouted.

  The vampire stopped. She turned toward my nave, incredulous. She couldn’t see me, but she could recognize my voice as well as I could recognize hers. “Julie?”

  “Get away from him.”

  Brother Death scowled in my direction. I couldn’t tell if he could see me through the magic or not. “The bidding is done. The dragon’s offering was insufficient. My decision is made.” He began to grin needles. “Unless…”

  “Hold on,” Susan snarled. “I already won.”

  But Brother Death held up one hand to silence her. It turned out the Adze was as greedy as the legends made them sound. “Perhaps I was hasty. Let us see if the other Shackleford has anything she’d like to bid.”

  “There’s one more thing.” I reached into my stole, pulled the real artifact from where it had been suctioned onto Mr. Trash Bags, and held it up. “Offer it,” I snapped at Hansel.

  I don’t know how the magic worked, but the image behind Brother Death changed to show my shaking hand clenched around the Kumaresh Yar.

  If there had been gasps at some of the offerings before, this positively floored them. Of course, most of the regular humans had no idea what it was, but the monsters knew.

  “This is the Kumaresh Yar, the artifact used by Lord Machado to open a portal to the Old Ones, and by Owen Zastava Pitt to break time.”

  “You only have that because you stole it from me,” Susan spat.

  Then the spell around the Condition’s nave shimmered as Lucinda stormed through it. “Wait a bloody minute! My people hired you to steal that from her. She can’t bid what’s rightfully mine.”

  “Back off, girl,” Susan warned the high priestess, “or I’ll finish what I started and rip off your other hand.”

  “Bring it, cunt. I’m ready this time.” Lucinda raised her metal prosthetic, opened her fingers revealing that the symbol of Asag had been carved on her palm. Susan recoiled and hissed. Apparently an unholy symbol could work as well as a holy one, provided the bearer had sufficient faith, and Lucinda was a fanatic.

  Susan and Lucinda appeared to be in a standoff. The transformation was subtle, but the vampire had gone into a predatory mode, crouched just a bit, like she was ready to pounce. Except she didn’t because there appeared to be sparks snapping between Lucinda’s fingers. An energy was building in the air, and the tiny hairs on my arms stood up.

  “Now, now, ladies. Please, keep it civil or my security will have to get involved.” Several of the clay men stepped into view as Brother Death said that. “I’m sure you would not want any harm to inadvertently come to the baby before you take possession.”

  “My men hired you to steal the Kumaresh Yar from her, Death,” Lucinda spat. “You made a deal.”

  “And I kept it, Priestess.” Brother Death seemed amused by all of this. “I fulfilled my part of the contracts. It is not my fault your men lost it again immediately afterward.”

  “Hang on… Contracts? What do you mean contracts plural?” Lucinda asked.

  “Hey,” I shouted. “You assholes want this evil thing or not? I’ll just leave it here, take my kid, and you can sort it out.”

  Most eyes were on the necromancer and vampire who were about to throw down, but my words got Brother Death’s attention and, I assumed, every other monster’s here who knew just how incredibly valuable the artifact was. The other items put up for bidding were useful f
or all sorts of evil, but in the right hands, this thing was take-over-the-world super evil. Brother Death wasn’t the only greedy thing here tonight. I’d been counting on that.

  I lowered my voice and told Hansel, “Give me your jacket.”

  “Why?”

  “Because your pockets are full of ammo and I’m not going to make you follow me for what comes next.”

  He hurried and shrugged out of his jacket, with an expression that said something like, I didn’t see anything, and I won’t see anything even if I see anything, so don’t do anything that I have to see or respond to, please.

  Brother Death turned back to address Lucinda. “Yes, Priestess. I fulfilled two contracts that day. One for your foolish minions to get the artifact, but the other…was so that I could repay a longstanding debt.”

  “To whom?” Lucinda demanded.

  “You wear his symbol upon your palm.”

  “What? No. Explain yourself!” She looked like she wanted to aim her killing hand at Brother Death, but to do so meant that Susan would attack. The vampire was pissed off and ready to fight. And I’d seen her move before. It would be like a flash of lightning followed by blood painting the church.

  While most of the participants were fixated on the two powerful supernatural forces who looked like they were about to slug it out, I lowered my hand. Once the artifact was no longer in view on Brother Death’s magical display for the bidders, I slipped the real artifact back to Mr. Trash Bags to hide and palmed the fake rock.

  Brother Death chuckled. “Asag does not reveal everything to his servants. You should realize by now he enjoys his games. It seems the father of this child vexes him, so he retained my services. I took the artifact for your minions. I took the child on behalf of your god.”

  I’d felt like this when I saw my brother die at the Christmas Party. It was like the world had ended and there was nothing, absolutely nothing I could do about it. It had taken me years to come out of that stupor and even think of fighting monsters again. It had taken a vampire outbreak to shake me out of it. Now that feeling of helplessness hit me all over again. Ray was still sitting there, eating his raisins, blissfully unaware.