Monster Hunter Nemesis (30 page)

Returning to the restaurant, he found that Cratos and Bia had killed everyone inside. Bodies were strewn across the floor. One human had been tossed on the grill and it was creating an obnoxious smell. Stricken would not be pleased, and until Kurst knew whether this serum worked or not, that still mattered. “Why?”

Cratos pointed at a body he’d thrown through the cash register. “That one looked at me funny.”

“Because you took his breakfast burrito. Humans do not like that,” Bia said as she unscrewed the sound suppressor from her pistol and put it away. “We found the MCB car in the parking lot. There was no indication of where they would be going next.”

The large one was rummaging around behind the counter and held up a handful of the frivolous toys meant for the children’s meals. “Yay! Can I keep them, General?”

Kurst was frustrated by this development. It would take too much time to match up all the dead humans with which vehicle was missing. “No. In fact I should destroy you for your stupidity.”

“Sad . . .” Cratos put the toys back.

They walked outside. The corpulent human who had dared question them was curled up on the ground, in a spreading puddle of gasoline, trying to cover his eyes as Thymos sprayed him with the hose and screamed, “I will not be addressed by my inferiors!”

It is time to leave.

Thymos dropped the hose, but with the nozzle still running. The puddle expanded, growing toward the restaurant. They climbed in. Bia tossed a thermite grenade out the window as they drove off.

Cratos giggled. “Pretty sparkles!”

They were on the highway before the expanding fireball had been recorded by the aerial surveillance drone and the details relayed back to STFU headquarters.
“November One Three. We’ve got an explosion near your position. Please confirm, over.”

“This is November One Three. Confirmed.”

“Task Force Actual wants to know if you have acquired the target?”

“Negative.” Kurst looked at his soldiers and frowned. It was doubtful Stricken would consider this a successful field test. So much for gaining more autonomy. “There was a complication.”

A new voice came on the radio.
“Return to base immediately,”
Stricken ordered.

Kurst felt the warning throb inside his skull. It let him know that failure to comply would result in immediate death. “Yes, sir, returning to base.”

He held up the red vial and studied the necromantic sludge in the sunlight.
We will obey . . . For now.

* * *

I feel really hung over . . .

Tom Strayhorn woke up on a counter top. The piercing brightness burning his eyes was sunlight peeking through broken miniblinds. When the room stopped spinning he realized the place was a dump. The walls were covered in old water stains. The broken roof tiles were covered in mottled green bits of mold. Strayhorn tried to sit up, but his muscles didn’t want to work. He was numb and queasy.

“Don’t move.”

A gigantic shadow blocked the rays of sun. It was Agent Franks.

He was wearing a blood-splattered butcher’s apron and a surgical mask.

That was a rather unnerving sight to wake up to.

“Where are we?”

Franks had a small bottle in his hand. He stuck a syringe in it and withdrew some liquid. “An abandoned truck stop in West Virginia.”

He couldn’t remember anything after Dad’s death. The whole thing was like a really bad dream. “What happened?”

“I sedated you.” Franks stuck the needle in Strayhorn’s arm and depressed the plunger. “How do I have a kid?”

“Wait . . . Sedated me. Why?”

Franks scowled at him. He didn’t seem to like being interrupted or being asked questions, and Strayhorn had just done both. “The Elixir can heal
most
things.” There was a bag full of bloody surgical tools next to him on the counter. Franks picked up a mirror and angled it so Strayhorn could look down at his torso. His abdomen had been sliced open from one side to the other, and then roughly sewn shut with what had to be a hundred ugly stitches.

“Oh shit . . .”

“Your liver was ruined. I replaced it.”

“I got a liver transplant? By you?” He glanced around at the moldy, rotten, roach-infested truck stop.
“Here?”
Hopefully whatever Franks had just shot him with was antibiotics. “Wait . . . Who did the liver come from?”

“The STFU handler.” Franks shrugged. “You shot him in the mouth. Organs were still good . . . Don’t think he drank much. The Elixir will force it to work. Now shut up.”

Strayhorn did as he was told.

Franks pulled over a chair and sat down. The old thing creaked under his weight. Even sitting, Franks still seemed to tower over him. “Myers wouldn’t lie to me. How do I have a child?”

Strayhorn wasn’t sure how to answer that. Franks’ DNA was an ever-evolving conglomeration of his various parts. “You mean, like biologically? Well, you’ve got human parts . . .”

“It better be the anesthetic making you stupid.” Franks sighed. “Who is your real mother?”

Strayhorn told him.

“I see.” Franks slowly nodded. If he felt any emotion at all over that revelation, he kept it hidden.

Strayhorn had been waiting to meet his real father for a long time. This was
very
different from how he’d imagined it as a child. “She abandoned me when I was a baby.”

“Where is she now?”

“She killed herself.”

Franks showed absolutely no reaction.

“I bounced around a lot in foster care. I ran away a few times, lived on the street, got arrested and put back in the system. Then when I was a teenager, Dwayne Myers found me and gave me a home. . . .” Strayhorn tried to wipe the sudden tears from his eyes, but his arms still didn’t want to respond with enough coordination to do it. “He was a good man.”

“Yes. What did Myers tell you?”

“I didn’t find out about any of this until I was an adult. Growing up I just thought Dad was some sort of secret superspy. He never talked about what he did. We moved a lot. He’d get a call then disappear for weeks at a time. There were mysterious guys in suits showing up at all hours to bug him. That sort of thing. When I asked how come he’d found me, he’d said he’d known my real father, but he always talked about you like you were dead. He made up some bullshit story and I believed it. I grew up. Tried to play baseball, just like he did, but I wasn’t good at it. I joined the military, then the Marshal’s Service. I met my first monster before I ever knew about the MCB. Once I got recruited, imagine my surprise to find out my boring old foster father had been in charge of the whole damned thing. He never even so much as wrote me a letter of recommendation. Yeah, Dad really was that much of a hard-ass when it came to things being top secret. I never suspected what he really did until I was part of it.”

“OpSec,” Franks stated.

“Screw OpSec. I had to be
cleared
before I could know about my real father. Then he tells me it’s you and you’re not only still alive, you’re not even human.”

Franks gave a noncommittal grunt.

He was so incredibly sore that it hurt to talk, but it felt good to get the story out. “He warned me not to talk to you about it. I think he figured I would meet you, and that would be enough and I’d let it go. I think he was worried you’d freak out.”

“I do not
freak out
.”

“They said that about you. I didn’t just learn about monsters in the academy, but I’ve got my Dad telling me that I was part monster. The only reason I ever had the little, screwed-up family I did was because Myers took pity on me. He learned about me, and just in case I inherited some of your weirdness, he didn’t want me being summarily executed or scooped up by something like Unicorn. Once I knew who you were, I bugged him for a chance to be on your detail. Of course, this isn’t the reunion I always imagined growing up. Son of Frankenstein. Wow.”

Franks just shook his head.

This was really awkward. “I know, I know. Fictional doctor, not the . . . Monster? Creation? Sorry.”

Franks picked up a paper cup from the table. The glow told him it was the Elixir of Life. “How’d you know about this?”

“Car accident a few years back. I was brain dead and on a respirator. Dad figured it was worth a shot . . . He didn’t explain how I came out of the coma until I was in the MCB though . . .” Strayhorn chuckled. “When it came to secrecy the old man had such a stick up his ass that he was like a corndog with legs.”

“Heh . . .” Franks
almost
smiled.

He had to ask. “What happened with you and my real mother?”

“Classified.”

“Go to hell. Myers never told me. I want to know.”

Franks mulled it over. “She was a witness. I was ordered to intimidate her into silence. Instead, she . . . found
comfort
in my presence.”

“I bet you don’t get that much.”

“It is unusual, but has happened a few times before. We were together for a short time. Then she left in the middle of the night. I never saw her again.”

“Why’d she kill herself?”

Franks stared at him for a long time. “I don’t know.”

“Then guess.”

“She finally realized what I really was.” He stood up and pulled off the blood-covered apron. “Jefferson and Archer are outside. I’ll be in contact in a few days.” He began walking away.

“Wait? That’s it? Just like that you’re out of here?”

“Yes.” Franks tossed the bloody apron on the floor.

“I thought maybe you’d want to talk . . .”

Franks paused. “Why?”

Strayhorn didn’t really know what to say to that. “That’s what people do.”

“I am
made
of people . . . Do not mistake that for
being
one,” Franks said. “You wish to talk? I’ll talk. You’ll listen. Your existence is unexpected, but changes nothing. The mission comes first. Myers wanted you alive to testify, so that’s what you’ll do. Jefferson will gather agents who were loyal to Myers. I still have to destroy Nemesis. There is a type of magical device which can detect a demon’s location. I know where such a device is stored.”

“Where?”

“Alabama.”

“That’s a long drive. Lots of traffic cameras.” Franks had done something to modify the bone structure of his face since they’d first met, but Strayhorn didn’t know if it would be enough. “You’ll be seen.”

Franks pointed at a cooler on the floor. “I kept his liver and his face. I will wear it like a mask.”

Holy shit. That was creepy.

“No wonder my mother left you . . .” It was one thing to find out you’d been sired by a monster built from spare body parts, it was another to find out that he was a fallen angel who’d escaped from Hell. “What Dad said back in the shipyard, about you and Nemesis—”

“True, but
classified.
”

“Got it.” Even when Franks was attempting to be conversational, he was very intimidating, but Strayhorn pushed on. “When you said she realized what you are, you’re not talking about her knowing you were the idea behind Frankenstein. She knew that already, didn’t she?”

Franks didn’t so much as blink.

“But she learned what you
really
are. She couldn’t handle the idea that she’d fallen in love with a demon.”

“I informed her.” Franks lowered his head for a brief moment as he thought it over. It was the only sign of weakness that he’d ever seen from Franks. “That was a mistake. It can be . . .
difficult
for a mortal to deal with such truths. This is why my origins must remain classified.”

“Does that mean that I’m a . . .” Strayhorn really didn’t want to finish that particular sentence.

“You possess the spirit of a normal human.”

“Oh, thank God.”

“Yes, thank Him. I don’t know how your existence fits with The Deal, but if your body had been inhabited by one of the Fallen, I would have destroyed you already.”

“Wow. Thanks,
Pops
.”

“Don’t call me that . . .
ever.
” Franks picked up the cooler and left the room without another word.

* * *

The last twenty-four hours had been hell. Franks had shot down one of his helicopters, killing one of his precious prototypes and injuring another so badly that it had to go back into the vat to grow new legs. Then Franks had killed two more saving Myers, and now Myers was missing, out there plotting who knew what manner of nefarious bullshit. The blood analysis suggested that Myers had lost so much he was probably dead, but with that sneaky bastard, nothing was confirmed until they had a corpse on a slab. Until then, Myers was just one more thing to worry about. Then some of his prototypes had decided to slaughter a bunch of civilians and blow up a gas station, which could have been a complete fuck-up with the administration if he hadn’t thought fast and blamed that on Franks too.

He could tell his supporters on the Subcommittee were getting cold feet. If the President punked out now, all of his efforts would have been for nothing. Stricken popped some extra strength Tylenol and got back to work.

He’d just gotten through chewing out the prototypes for burning the gas station. They’d had a good excuse. They thought they’d seen Franks inside, and that was enough to justify an immediate, violent response. They’d been mistaken, but they’d still been forced to eliminate the witnesses. They were programmed not to lie to him and their version of events was plausible. He’d thought about flipping the kill switch and annihilating them, or at least the big stupid one, to serve as an example to the others, but it had been his call to send them without an overseer, and he was already down a few units. So he chalked it up to a learning experience.

Stricken’s office at the STFU bunker was completely unadorned. There were no pictures, commendations, or awards on the walls. There wasn’t even a nameplate on his desk. In fact, there was nothing on his desk except for his computer. He liked it that way. It was a habit formed over decades of working undercover in foreign hellholes. The less he had, the less he’d have to burn or shred if he needed to leave in a hurry. Nice and simple.
Clean.

Unfortunately, now he had to take care of some more STFU personnel matters, and that would be anything but clean.