Larry Correia: Monster Hunter Alpha

Stark checked his phone. Still no signal. He looked to the top of Number Six. It was his turn to be the hero. “I’ve got to go.”

Aino handed him Harbinger’s sniper rifle. “Just in case you see any more werewolves.”

Jason Lococo was mumbling, staring into the distance. “Not so bad…”

The Alpha was climbing up the elevator shaft. Nikolai could tell that the devil-wolf was fully healed, because that strange draining sensation had tapered off. The Alpha no longer needed the extra energy. When he reappeared, he would be virtually invincible.

Nikolai stopped to watch from the catwalk. He placed his filthy yet all-too-human hands on the metal to balance himself, since the world hadn’t stopped spinning since he’d changed back. Harbinger and Kerkonen were below, ready to face their doom with open eyes. Now he needed to decide if he was going to die with them or not.

Flee?

“For what?”

Tvar was silent for a long time. To survive.

“Is that all there is to life?”

I do not know.

“Why not?”

Because I am you, and you do not know.

Nikolai was weakened. The Alpha had easily destroyed him just moments ago. To face him again was suicide.

You were willing to commit suicide earlier to stop me from taking control.

It was true. Losing himself had been more frightening than death. Death held no mysteries. Nikolai believed in nothing. The institutions he’d believed in as an adult had been a sham, and he had no faith in the tales of his fathers. There was no happy afterlife for him, no god to judge him, no eternal resting place to lay his weary head.

Bleak but poetic.

“I come from a bleak but poetic people. What would you have us do? Fight and die, or run as cowards.”

You are…asking me?

“Why not? I’m tired of the struggle. I’m tired of not owning my own head. I’m just…tired.”

The Tvar seemed to think about it for a long time. The Alpha let loose a howl of rage so intense that it felt as if the entire building would collapse on top of them.

He invaded our territory. He killed our pack. She was mine, too, you know. I did not approve, but he took something from both of us. We fight. Our death will have meaning.

Nikolai was surprised by the answer. “Why?”

Because I am you, and these things…I know.

“Incoming!” Heather shouted.

“Get out of here, Kirk,” Earl ordered, and, when he hesitated, Earl snapped, “Go call your people. If we die here, he still needs to be stopped.” Kirk snapped to and fled.

“Heather, get ready.”

He could see the Alpha’s eyes far below. They were shining like golden headlights. The mass of the super-werewolf was taking up a large portion of the shaft. He was climbing straight up, throwing himself upward, yards at a time, claws striking deep into rock and steel. It was like standing at the end of a tunnel with a freight train coming right at you.

There was nothing big to drop down the shaft. Heather tossed a wrench, then kicked in a rusty toolbox. The Alpha didn’t even blink when they hit.

I’M COMING TO GET YOU, HARBINGER.

Earl had three shots left in the Mosin before he had to reload. Aksel had written that he’d struck Koschei right between the eyes. Earl aimed. Fired. There was a brilliant flash of silver light, and the Alpha roared. The headlights blinked twice, then started back up.

“That didn’t work?” Heather shouted. “What now?” She threw over a tarp, looking for something else to toss down the shaft. “What happened to shoot him in the head and say the magic words? Shit. Shit.”

KOSCHEI WAS WEAK. HE HAD NOT FED THE AMULET LIKE I HAVE.

Earl chambered another of the Baba Yaga’s rounds. He aimed carefully. The old gun seemed to be perfectly zeroed. This time he picked a glowing eye.

YOU’RE NOT EVEN A WEREWOLF? I TOOK YOUR SOUL. YOU ARE NOTH-FUCK!

The Alpha shrieked as the silver bullet obliterated his eyeball. “Felt that one, huh?” Earl shouted as he worked the bolt, chambering the last cartridge in the magazine. There was only one beam of yellow light now. It danced wildly inside the shaft as the Alpha shook his head. He resumed climbing.

OH, IT IS ON NOW.

Heather had found an oil lantern. She hurled it down the shaft. The light fell, then shattered on against the Alpha. The oil ignited in hissing flames. The burning werewolf kept ascending.

The fire was dying fast. “Got any more of those?” Earl asked.

“I think the rest are battery-powered.”

“Aw, hell.” Last shot. Earl aimed, trying to time the blinking of the Alpha’s massive eyelids. At least the target was getting bigger…Too bad that meant he was closer. “My, what a big eye you have,” he muttered. Smoke and the stench of burning hair boiled out of the shaft. He pulled the trigger. The other light went out, plunging the pit into smoky darkness.

AARRRGGGHHH! The roar was in Earl’s head and against his ears.

THEY’LL GROW BACK. I DON’T NEED TO SEE TO EAT YOU.

Earl pulled a stripper clip of five of the magic rounds and began to thumb them into the open action of the Mosin-Nagant. He hadn’t used one of these particular rifles since a mission during the Korean War. There was a trick to not getting all the cartridges wedged up against their rims. There. He closed the bolt.

And the Alpha came out of shaft.

Somehow, he seemed even bigger than before. He had to duck his head to get under the cable wheel. WHERE ARE YOU? His nostril holes, which were big enough to fit a grapefruit in, flared. The head turned toward Earl, and the jaws opened. Each tooth was the size of a combat knife. THERE YOU ARE.

The jaws snapped forward, wide enough to completely consume a man. But they snapped shut on empty air.

Earl hit the ground rolling, entangled with a mass of dark hair. They came to a stop, and for a moment, Earl thought that Heather must have saved him. But it was Nikolai in werewolf form. His teeth were only inches from Earl’s eyes, and for the briefest of moments, Earl would have assumed that the fearsome beast, his mortal enemy, smiled. Nikolai turned, snarled, and charged, loping toward the Alpha.

PETROV. Blind, the Alpha swung one mighty arm, ripping thousand pound girders right out of the concrete. Nikolai spun through the chaos and landed on the Alpha’s neck, tearing and biting.

Earl had lost the Mosin. It was a few feet away. He scrambled for it.

Heather, fully changed, joined the fray. She came at the Alpha from behind and attacked his leg, trying to rip through a hamstring. The giant lashed out with one leg, and a paw knocked Heather across the room.

Nikolai never let up to the end. He threw himself at the Alpha, over and over, tearing roast-sized chunks of meat out, spraying blood in great arcs, attacking with unbelievable savagery. One giant claw wrapped around Nikolai’s leg and pulled him away. The Alpha held the other werewolf away from his body, letting Nikolai dangle and thrash. The Russian managed to pull himself up, breaking his leg in the process to attack the tendons in the Alpha’s wrist. The Alpha roared in agony as Nikolai severed the artery.

ENOUGH OF YOU.

The Alpha reached up with his other hand and took hold of Nikolai’s arm. The limb seemed puny between the great claws. The Alpha pulled. Nikolai screamed as one arm was torn off.

Earl’s hand landed on the wooden stock of the Mosin-Nagant.

Nikolai was still fighting, still attacking, even as the blood pumped from his torso. The Alpha sunk his claws into Nikolai’s chest, and, once locked on, pulled against Nikolai’s leg. He screamed again, weaker this time, as his leg was torn cleanly off at the pelvis.

PETER AND THE WOLF. LAST OF YOUR LINE. YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE CHALLENGED ME.