Featured Story

The Monster Hunter
By Eric S. Brown
Copyright 2003 by Eric S. Brown



The thing sat perched on top of the car. The car's roof had caved inward, barely able to support the thing's massive weight as its eyes stared at him with burning hatred and the night's breeze ruffled its brown fur.

Greg could only wonder how things had gotten so out of hand. In all his years at this job, he had never been so wrong about what he was up against. It was supposed to have been a were-creature. That was what all the reports the church had given him had said but this thing before him was much more than that. It was a demon straight from the depths of Hell itself.

Greg had worked for the church for the last seventy years. A lot of things had changed. The realm of mankind continued to grow leaving the supernatural fewer and fewer shadows to hide in and forcing more and more "things" out into the light. It was his job to make sure they were destroyed before the world at large came to find out the truth of their existence. Not all the changes in the world had been bad though. Technology gave him an edge he'd never had before and kept him safe from a natural death. A serum of nano-bots flowed through his veins which both kept him young and healed his wounds at an accelerated rate. It also offered lucky side-effect of increasing the speed of even his highly experienced and skilled reflexes by a factor of ten.

The thing snarled at him showing rows upon rows of sickeningly yellow teeth. There was no one on the street in either direction but him and it. The small town of Canton was long asleep. He stood at the top of the steps leading into the hotel where he had tracked the demon to before it had turned the tables on him and watched it as he thought out his next move. He hated the fact that it had found him instead of the other way around. Then in a blur, he made his move. He dove off the steps, twin Desert Eagles appearing in his hands. His first three shots struck the creature knocking it backwards off the car as his fourth tore into the vehicle's gas tank. The falling creature was engulfed as the car blossomed into a fireball, lighting up the night and sending shrapnel flying everywhere. Greg hit the pavement of the lot rolling and leapt to his feet untouched by the debris.

Lights were flickering on in the hotel and buildings surrounding the lot. Greg didn't care though. He let a smile cross his lips. The demon had went down much easier than he had thought. Three blessed silver bullets and one explosion, ha, that was a walk in the park compared to some of the vampires he'd faced. He turned to head back into the hotel and let the desk clerk know what was going. As he did so, two things happened at once. The desk clerk emerged from the hotel shouting and asking if he could help and the creature sprang at Greg from where it now clung to the hotel's wall above the entrance. Somehow, it had gotten behind him and was far from dead.

It moved faster than the normal human eye could follow and only Greg's heightened senses allowed him to perceive it all. He tried to side step its attack but wasn't fast enough. It plowed into him and they toppled back out into the parking lot a mass of sprawling limbs. The clerk saw the thing and screamed, darting back inside and slamming the door behind him.

Greg took the full force of the landing as the creature managed to stay on top. He felt bones snap like wooden twigs inside his chest. He fought the pain and jerked his head to the left just as the creature's claws sunk deep in the concrete scraping his ear. Greg emptied the remaining clips of both Eagles into its belly from below it while kicking out and up with all his strength. The demon howled as it was knocked off him.

Greg dropped the empty guns and tried to crawl away from the thing, watching as its wounds closed. He could feel his own body trying to repair the damage done to it but the creature healed almost instantly. He dug into the lining of his trenchcoat and produced a golden dagger. It was his last and only hope. The dagger was no ordinary blade. It had fallen into his care decades ago. It blade absorbed magical into itself and dispelled it into nothingness. Greg just hoped it was strong enough.

The demon was up already and on the move. It leapt towards him like a great cat, arms spread wide and claws shining in the pale glow of the fire and the street lights. Greg threw the blade. It spun end over end through the air lodging itself into the thing's throat. The world around Greg went white as a being of pure magic met the magical null field of the blade. The demon cried out and vanished into the metal of the blade.

As the glowing dagger clattered to pavement, Greg rolled to get a better view of the blade. He said a quick prayer to thanks to the maker for letting his desperate plan work and then collapsed to the ground once more. He heard sirens blaring in the distance as he wondered if he was really getting too old for this kind of work serum or not. Then he laughed. He knew he would never give up the game.