Monster Hunter Nemesis (40 page)

“You do not belong here!” Franks shouted.

“Then neither do you!”
Kurst’s sudden outburst caused the intercom to buzz into static. When the ringing subsided, he sounded calm again.
“This world belongs to whoever is bold enough to seize it, and I have allied with one strong enough to defeat all the other factions. I will serve as his general and in exchange he will grow more bodies for the Fallen. In honor of our new alliance he has presented me with a Gift. We may have been created in your image, but we have evolved beyond. The first generation has already partaken of this gift, and now I bestow it upon the next.”

“Sir!” the MCB agent by the monitoring station shouted. “Something’s wrong.”

“What?”

“Their vitals are spiking. Heart rates are through the roof.”

Franks turned toward the nearest growth tank. The thing inside was watching him through the glass with milky white eyes. “Shit.”

“Awake, my army.”

Kurst had released some powerful mutagenic chemical into the tanks. Every Nemesis creature Franks had eyes on was stirring. Some were twitching violently, as the greenish fluid around them turned red. Bodies were changing, bones were twisting. Horns were sprouting from heads. Someone shouted a warning as a Nemesis demon spread its newly grown wings and the glass of its tank cracked. Another tank ruptured, and the rushing fluid swept several men from their feet.

“Kill everything!” Franks bellowed as he pulled the trigger.

Glass shattered. A rushing wall of sticky fluid struck him, but Franks was planted there, unmoving as it swept by. Franks kept on shooting as the demon ripped itself free from its wires and tethers. There was movement all around him as the MCB opened fire. Demons either burst through the glass or clambered out the tops of their tanks, their soft, ill-fitting flesh leaving bloody trails. Lights were swinging wildly. There were muzzle flashes all across the factory as his agents engaged the demons.

Franks hammered the demon in front of him, putting round after round through its soft organs. The first noise it ever made was a frustrated screech as it sliced its palms to ribbons trying to crawl across the broken glass. Franks kicked it through the opposite side of the tube.

The tank fluid was as slick as soap, and his men were sliding and falling on the concrete. The wet, misshapen creatures weren’t doing much better, though a few had already adapted and grown suckers on the ends of their limbs. One demon was climbing up a pylon like a monkey, preparing to leap down on top of some of the Swiss, so Franks aimed his rifle and shot the thing through the back of the head. It slipped and tumbled twenty feet to bounce off the floor.

A wet, naked, pink blob of mutating flesh hurled itself at Franks, but it was intercepted in a flash of steel and driven against the floor. One of the Swiss Guard had impaled it on the end of his halberd. Sometimes the old ways were still best. As that man pinned the screaming thing down, two of his comrades rushed up and shot the Nemesis demon to pieces with their Sig 556 rifles. There was a lot to be said in favor of modern hardware as well.

“That way. Move right! Move!” Agent Cueto was shouting over the continuous rattle of gunfire. He was trying to get his men out of the center of the room. That was smart. They had firearms. These moist things didn’t. Why sit in the open and slug it out? Except now that the concrete was covered in slippery slime, moving was easier said than done. Cueto’s boots came out from under him and he crashed on his side.

One demon, its body so young that most of its muscles hadn’t yet bonded to its bones, was crawling rapidly across the floor, dragging its legs behind it, heading straight for Cueto. Franks didn’t have a shot. “Behind you!”

The senior agent rolled over, trying to lift his rifle, but the demon had already reached him. A claw flashed and Cueto roared in pain as it sliced his leg wide open. He kicked out, and his combat boot tore the demon’s soft face off, but that barely slowed it. It began crawling up his legs, scratching at his armor, as Cueto tried to push it back.

“Hang on,” Gutterres rolled across a table and landed with a splash next to the demon. He shoved the muzzle of a 12-gauge against the side of the demon’s head and sprayed a ten-foot cone of pink brains. Cueto hurled the demon off of him. Gutterres got up, grabbed onto the drag strap on his armor and pulled him away. Even though blood was pouring from his leg, the Strike Team commander got his rifle up and kept on shooting.

The surviving demons were momentarily retreating for some reason. This was their chance to get to a better position. “Move!” Franks shouted as he walked backwards, firing controlled pairs at each momentary glimpse of slimy demon flesh. The men above them on the catwalk were shooting as well. There was a terrible crash. Franks looked up in time to see one of the Swiss Guard being tossed over the railing to crash headfirst through a diagnostic machine. His halberd landed, clattering across the debris at Franks’ feet.

A huge Nemesis soldier looked over the side to admire his handiwork. He was clothed, and appeared human, until he saw Franks and opened his mouth full of fangs to shout, “The traitor!”

So the regular Nemesis soldiers had joined the fight.
Good.
Franks didn’t have the time to go looking for them. The demon leapt over the edge, dropped smoothly to the floor, and landed in a crouch. This Nemesis soldier was several inches taller than Franks, and so broad he probably had to turn sideways to fit through a door.

“Remember me, Franks?”

“No.”

“You cut my legs! You blew me up with fire! You blew up my sister! You broke our good bodies. Franks is mean!”

Force . . .
That meant Violence was around here somewhere. “You’re dumb.”

“Don’t call me dumb! I am Cratos!” He looked at the rifle in Franks’ hands as they both judged the too short distance between them. The huge Nemesis demon grinned. “Little gun won’t do no good. Now I hurt you like you hurt me!” Cratos bellowed and charged.

Franks stepped on the halberd shaft. The spike lifted. Cratos’ red eyes widened with realization just before it impaled him through the chest. His weight and momentum drove the big blade right through his center of mass.

“You should pay more attention.” Letting the rifle hang from its sling, Franks took up the shaft in both hands and drove Cratos back, smashing him through the sheet metal of a machine, and then wrenching the spike out in a spray of blood. For being so damned big, the demon was still incredibly fast, and was already tearing himself free, so Franks smashed his face in with the halberd shaft. Cratos bit the wood in half. Franks stepped back, looking at the splintered ends of the hard wood. “Impressive.” Then he planted the ax blade deep into the center of Cratos’ forehead.

Cratos shrieked and got up, flailing about, trying to adjust to having the hemispheres of his brain forcefully separated. Franks stepped aside as he thrashed and lashed out. A solid hit from this monster could possibly render Franks combat-ineffective, so he needed to end this quickly. Supposedly these things were based on him, which meant that no matter how much traumatic brain injury they received, the backup systems along the spine would keep all of the basic systems functioning and the body alive. There was one way to test if that was the case . . .

Franks dodged a wild, uncoordinated swing, got behind Cratos and clamped one hand onto the demon’s neck. His other hand caught hold of his belt. Franks couldn’t believe how much Cratos weighed, but he still hoisted the thrashing demon up, arms fully extended, until he was extended far over Franks’ head. By the time Cratos realized what was happening, it was too late, but it was hard to think clearly with a chunk of steel cutting your brain in half. With a roar, Franks hurled the demon’s back down against his knee.

Satisfied the spine was broken, Franks rolled him onto the floor. Cratos flopped and twitched for several seconds, and then he stopped moving, lying facedown in a puddle of slime.

That works.

Judging by the flashlights and gunfire, his men had followed Cueto’s instructions, and gotten to a more defensible position. Too bad this place was still crawling with demons. He still had a lot of work to do. Franks shook one of his new arms out. He’d torn muscles trying to lift that stupid demon, and his internal organs were overloaded. Taking more Elixir so soon was dangerous, but Franks hurried and took another swig of glowing liquid pain. If he continued to push at this pace, death was the most likely outcome, but that was an acceptable mission parameter.

His radio chirped. “Go for Franks.”

“This is Archer. There’s a plane coming in. It’s a large military transport.”

“Stricken’s reinforcements,” Franks muttered.

“Looks like a combat landing.”

Curious.
If Stricken had brought in the military, there was no point in ordering his men to fight them, because they wouldn’t. “Stall.”

“Roger that. There’s a . . . We’ve got incoming! Nemesis on the—”
The channel turned to static.

“Archer. Come in.” There was no response. Nemesis had hit his people topside. Kurst was up to something.
Worse
, the rookie was up there. “Damn it. Cueto, did you get that? There’s a transport landing on the airfield. Nemesis is attacking us above.” There wasn’t an immediate response. Cueto was either occupied or dead.

Extremely loud footsteps rang against the metal above. “Hello, Franks.”

Franks returned the greeting as his night-vision-capable eye struggled to focus. All he could make out was a gigantic, misshapen form. “Kurst.”

“That aircraft is our way out of this place. It is remarkable what you can arrange on such short notice when you have all of Stricken’s authorization codes. We will start over, away from the mortal’s prying eyes. A place has been prepared where we will grow in number.”

“You’ll never make it. They’ll shoot you down.”

“None of these humans will be alive long enough to warn the others.” Kurst walked down the stairs. Other than being bipedal, there was nothing recognizably human left about his form. He made Cratos’ mutated body seem tiny in comparison. Kurst had to be at least eight feet tall, with skin stretched so tight over powerful muscles that it had split apart in places, and the sides of his skull had grown into a twisted forest of horns.

“What happened to you?”

“I have temporarily molded this form to be more to my liking. Don’t worry. I can change back in order to blend in with the sheep when necessary.” Despite speaking through an elongated mouth full of sharp teeth, Kurst’s voice remained unchanged. “Impressive, isn’t it?”

“I’ve seen better.”

“That Gift I spoke of earlier? I had to use most of it on myself to be able to achieve this form, but it is worth it.”

“You always were greedy.”

Kurst laughed. “We are the third of the host, Franks. Greed is our way. Have you pretended to be human for so long that you’ve forgotten that? You disgust me, brother. You were the fiercest amongst us, but now you are His dog, groveling beneath the table for whatever scraps the mortals will give you.”

“You talk too much.” Franks reached down, grabbed the broken halberd, and wrenched the ax blade from Cratos’ skull. “Let’s go.”

* * *

If Heather had known that she wouldn’t be able to fully transform into a werewolf yet, and also that the Nemesis soldier she was supposed to fight was going to suddenly grow spines like a damned puffer fish, she would’ve told Stricken to shove that PUFF exemption up his ass.

She was swatted to the ground again, but rolled out of the way before the monster could stab her. Heather sprang to her feet, and with no better option, slugged the monster in her twisted face. Even in human form a werewolf was still extremely strong. The thing’s face was harder than it looked, but spongy beneath. Something gave beneath her fist.

“Ah! Gross!” Heather wiped her knuckles on her shirt as she backpedaled.

The impact had caused the monster’s face to split open, like cracking a crab shell, and ropey tendrils of meat were hanging out. The red mass was slurped back into its head. “Is that the best you’ve got?” The Nemesis soldier seemed to be enjoying itself.

Ducking, Heather barely managed to avoid having her head torn off. The monster was terrifying, like a bunch of children’s nightmares all smashed together in one bucket, but that disfigured body was clumsy, and probably slower than it should have been. That was keeping Heather alive, but without claws and teeth, she’d not been able to hurt the thing. All she could do was buy some time.

Stricken had used Heather’s distraction to climb out of the hole and get to the door. He punched in a code, but nothing happened. Stricken immediately tried again, but his only reward was a red flashing light.

“You forgot the code!” Heather cried out as she narrowly kept from being eviscerated. “Idiot!”

But Stricken didn’t respond. He tried the code again. The red flashing continued, but now it was joined by a warning buzzer. Renfroe crawled out of the hatch, saw what Stricken was doing, and shouted, “Stop! One more and the system will lock us out.”

Stricken stepped away from the keypad. Heather had never seen him appear emotional and out of control before. “The numbers he gave me don’t work! Fix it!”

Bubble gum and spider webs . . .

“That’s not Stricken. He set us up—” The monster dove and crashed into Heather, driving her back against the wall. Needles and spines sank into her arms. She screamed.

“Son of a bitch!” Renfroe shoved the fake Stricken out of the way and put his hand on the keypad. His flesh began to glow. The red warning light turned green.

Heather slipped and fell. The thrashing monster was on top of her, snapping at her face with multiple mouths. Desperate, Heather got hold of the thing’s arms and tried to keep the viciously piercing tentacles away from her body. She squeezed so hard that the monster’s skin ruptured and blood poured out around her hands. “Get us out of here!”

“On it,” Renfroe answered, distracted and concentrating.

The Nemesis soldier had grown a horn from the center of her face. The head lifted, rising on extra vertebrae, until the point was aimed right between Heather’s eyes.
You’ve got to be kidding . . .
The horn fell.