Monster Hunter Bloodlines - eARC Larry Correia (all ebook reader .txt) 📖

just as eternally binding as making a contract with a Fey queen.”

“Good to know. Luckily for me I’m not the one who has to choose between it or the electric chair.”

“How morbid!” Stricken grinned. “Only you forget, Pitt, I said there were two reasons I demanded to speak to a Chosen before I’d sign this thing.”

“What’s the second one then?”

Stricken extended finger number two. “For the longest time I thought I wanted my old job back, but I’ve really enjoyed being freelance, so I’m not signing shit. I just needed to buy some time for my associate to get here.” He raised his hand toward the mirror, then he put finger number one down, so that he was flipping off everyone on the other side of the glass. As he did so, a wall of thick black smoke suddenly rose up behind his chair, coalescing into two giant bat wings. “So long.”

A form rose through the smoke. It was a voluptuous woman, only with horns, fangs, and a tail. She wrapped her wings around Stricken’s shoulders, protectively covering him. Franks or Heather immediately fired through the glass, except Stricken and the succubus vanished in a flash of fire. The wave of heat knocked me from my chair before I was blinded by smoke.

Chapter 5

The humans who had been caught near Stricken’s demonic smoke bomb exit lurched, coughing into the MCB bullpen. The interrogation room had gotten so thoroughly gassed that it had activated the fire alarm. I felt like I’d been flash-banged and my borrowed MCB T-shirt wasn’t a very good gas mask.

The bullpen area was much less chaotic, but the whole place stank of sulfur and it was still hard to see. Luckily, they must have disabled the fire sprinklers to keep from frying all the computers, because at least we weren’t getting drenched. The MCB agents who hadn’t been nearly suffocated were scrambling, weapons out, thinking they were under attack.

Figuring that smoke rises, I found a corner and laid down on the carpet to try and catch my breath. While lying there, I realized that the flash from the demon had been actual fire because my eyebrows and arm hair were singed and crinkly. I felt like I had a sunburn.

Franks probably had armored lungs or something because inhaling all that smoke hadn’t done anything to hamper his ability to shout orders. “Jefferson! Do you have Stricken’s signal?”

Grant ran to a laptop that was open in one of the cubicles and started clicking buttons.

“You stuck a tracker on Stricken?” I asked between bouts of coughing.

“Of course. Four of them. There’s no way he’ll . . . ” Grant trailed off and stared at the screen. “I’ve got nothing, Franks.”

Franks stood there, wearing an expression of absolute disgust on his big square mug. I realized that he was holding a chunk of the table from the interrogation room in his hand, the steel of which was still glowing orange from being magically sheared through. So much for the chains.

Cueto was leaning against a cube wall, tie undone, wheezing. “How’d that thing breach our perimeter? Franks!”

“Yes, sir.”

“What was that?”

“Unknown.”

I was a little surprised he said that, because Franks was normally super observant. But he had been busy throwing his body through glass after his bullets hadn’t worked so maybe he hadn’t seen her face. I’d been closer and must have gotten a better look. I pointed at the last picture on the MCB’s Most Wanted wall, of the demon woman with the fangs. “That’s her right there.” I hacked up some brimstone phlegm and spit on the MCB’s carpet.

“Maybe,” Franks muttered.

“No. I’m sure. You’re probably going to want to bump her up a few spots from number ten.”

“Damn it,” Cueto said. “Alert every agent in the city. Lanoth is in league with Stricken. We don’t know how far her kind can shadow-walk carrying a passenger. They might still be near. Get a sniper team on the roof and scramble the chopper. Check the footage from every camera. And somebody open some windows already!”

The director must have forgotten this particular MCB office was in a basement. It took me a second to pick Beth from STFU out of the chaos because she’d wrapped a scarf around her face to filter the smoke. She was only a few feet away. Her ninja skills must have been second only to Gretchen.

“Where’s Heather?” I asked her.

“She ran outside to use her nose,” Beth said. “If she catches a scent, she’ll call for backup.”

Considering taking Stricken alive had already resulted in him escaping once today, I very much doubted she’d be waiting for backup. If Heather found Stricken, she’d pluck his heart out, then call it in. “Good luck with that.”

“We paid those stupid elves to draw their stupid magic runes on all our offices to prevent this kind of invisible magic portal bullshit!” Cueto roared. “How did a succubus get in here? I want answers!”

I sure hoped those weren’t the same elves MHI used. “Did any of those elven contractors ever happen to work for STFU while Stricken was in charge?” I asked Beth quietly.

“We used European elves as contractors. They’re snoots, but their work is usually solid. The American ones are usually a little too yee-haw, fly by the seat of their pants for us. But if Stricken learned their runes he could have taught his people how to get around them. I’ll go check on that. You should stick around, Pitt. MCB isn’t done with you yet. If MHI knew there was a Ward up for grabs and didn’t call it in, there’s going to be hell to pay.” The head of Unicorn stomped off to make some calls.

According to Heather, her current boss was actually a moral and decent person, so basically Stricken’s total opposite. However, Beth still worked for the uncaring federal leviathan, and I didn’t want to wait around to get yelled at or worse. So as soon as Beth was out of sight, I got up and headed for the