Warrior_Monster Slayer Read online

  The winged monster swooped past, deadly talons flashing as early rays of silver light breached the horizon.

  Vrill had said some monsters couldn’t survive in the sunlight, which was why the Black was such a dangerous time.

  The birds, which, now that I got a good look at them in the coming dawn, were more like giant bats, their wings leathery and spread wider than my own arms could reach, didn’t seem to be affected by the light. The worst thing about them, however, were their faces, which were almost human-like, but disfigured and distorted, as if I was looking into my own face in a fun-house mirror.

  The word that came to mind was gargoyles.

  My back ached from where the claws had bit into my skin, but I wasn’t done yet.

  Even as the bat-monster-gargoyle-thing wheeled about and came in for another attack, I dragged myself to my feet and took off, running for the next boulder, which might have a cave I could shelter in.

  Two more gargoyles broke off from the rest, flanking the skies above me, a trio of pursuers releasing shrieks that curdled my blood.

  I had a plan. Not a good one, but it was better than nothing.

  I glanced back, judging the amount of time I had left before one or more of them struck.

  The two on the sides were already angling in.

  Perfect.

  One second, two…

  I dove for the ground, covering my head with my arms. I felt leathery wings beat against me and the bite of sharp talons. I rolled swiftly to the side, realizing my error. These bats weren’t stupid. I’d hoped they would crash into each other and begin fighting, but instead they’d pulled into a hovering position so they’d have an equal opportunity to claw at my skin and peck at my eyes.

  Not good.

  I kicked out desperately, connecting solidly with one of their mutated heads, which were relatively small compared to their wingspan. It shrieked, but pulled back, whipping air against my face with each heavy beat of its wings. The other one slashed at my face and I turned away too slow, pain rising to the surface a moment later. My cheek burned as blood escaped through a trio of gashes.

  I am Warrior Level, I remembered, though I wasn’t sure where the thought came from.

  Yes, thanks to the—what had Vrill called it?—primordial ooze, I had the body of a Warrior now, but that didn’t mean that I was one. My mind still urged me to run, to hide, to cower away from the onslaught.

  That’s the problem, I thought, even as the bat tried to bite at my leg and I barely managed to squirm away. I have no killer instinct.

  Which meant I was going to die.

  Unless…

  When I played video games, I became a different person through my characters. That’s why I had always loved them. It was an escape from my own boring, uneventful life where I was average. On a good day.

  But how did I transfer that mindset to a real-life situation where if I died there was no reset button, no do over?

  It started with a scream, rising from the back of my throat and emerging as a manly bellow I didn’t know I was capable of. Too bad the gargoyle monster didn’t seem to care.

  Yeah, too bad for it.

  Because the growl was only the start. I snapped my arm forward, no longer defending but attacking. My hand grabbed the creature’s small head, which fit nicely into my grip as I shoved my thumbs into its eyes, feeling the soft area within its strangely human skull. Its shriek morphed into a sickening cry of distress, high-pitched and ear-piercing.

  But I didn’t stop squeezing, even as it contorted its body to rake its claws over my forearm, again and again and again, slicing my skin to ribbons, until blood leaked from my flesh like a crimson waterfall, pooling on the ground.

  I squeezed until its head popped, black gore splattering across my body and mixing with my blood on the ground. Worse, my mouth was open because I was still growl-screaming.

  I released the bat monster and it flopped to the ground, dead.

  I turned to the side and vomited.

  The silver sun finally broke fully above the horizon and the rest of the bats fell from the sky, thumping against the ground, blood leaking from their ears, eyes and mouth.

  Their bodies seemed to melt around them, liquefying until all that remained were their skeletal frames, resting in the muck.

  Like Vrill had said, not all the monsters could survive in the sunlight.

  And I’d been wrong about the bats. They weren’t smart at all.

  I managed to sit up, clamping my left hand around my right arm, which was mutilated. I stared at it, no longer feeling sick now that I’d expelled the bat’s blood from my mouth. I’d never liked the sight of my own blood, but for some reason it no longer bothered me. Perhaps it was because my body no longer resembled my own. Instead, the blood intrigued me, and I leaned closer to look at what was under the surface of the skin, all of which was revealed by the deep runnels carved by the bats’ talons.

  Severed veins. Corded muscle. And bones.

  The pain was immense. I gritted my teeth and growled through them.

  That’s when I saw a familiar, tall form running toward me, blade flashing in her grip but no longer glowing.

  Vrill.

  Despite the pain and the foul nature of what I’d just done, a smile crossed my face.

  Until she stopped, frozen in her tracks. Her eyes swept past me, narrowing with an emotion I couldn’t quite place.

  Still clutching my arm, I swiveled my head around to see what was behind me.

  Not what—who. Eve, her short, black dress rucked up on her thighs to allow her to sit on what she was sitting on. Not a motorcycle, of course, but the black-furred beast I’d thought I’d imagined as we tore along the streets back home.

  As I watched her, several others appeared at her sides. None were human.

  I glanced back toward Vrill, but she was already gone.

  NINE

  PRANKED

  I tried to get up, to run, but my legs were like jelly now, my energy sapped by my flight and fight.

  I stumbled, collapsing in the dirt, blood flowing out of me too fast to be anything but bad.

  My cheek pressed against the dirt and I watched Eve dismount from the massive panther, her wickedly smokin’ body approaching on an angle because of my perception.

  The others flanked her. Aliens, all of them. Then again, I was an alien here too.

  I licked my dry lips, trying to find moisture where there was none. There was so much I wanted to say to her, to ask, but my vision was swimming now, a product of my significant loss of blood.

  I could almost see my character’s life meter draining inch by inch, approaching the end of the line. Death.

  Eve stood over me, her dress blowing around those perfect legs. It wasn’t a bad view for the last I’d ever see. That’s when I noticed what she was gripping in her hand. The white, almost-glowing fruit I’d see her hold before. It was cut in half. She squeezed and I knew to open my mouth this time, catching the bittersweet liquid in my mouth.

  Blessed sleep took me.

  ~~~

  I felt warm and comfortable when I awoke. I wasn’t dead, which was something I was getting used to. I felt like a cat with nine lives. How many had I used already? Two? Three? Despite my alien surroundings, with the glowing vines and soft murmur of moving water, it felt normal. Was I really adapting to this new planet?

  Less than a week ago I was getting up and going to a place I despised, spending most of my waking life sitting in a cubicle and working on a project no one cared about. Was this really any worse?

  The fact that it was even a question showed how much I’d changed in the short time since my abduction. Hell, a week ago the thought of fighting a real-life monster was something resigned to fantasy books and video games.

  “I killed it,” I whispered, more to convince myself than for any other reason. When my back was against the wall, I’d managed to do the unthinkable, becoming my character from A-Civ, who took down alien monsters and brood mother
s by the dozen. He always did what he had to do to survive, and so had I.

  My arm, I remembered, glancing toward the right.

  Where the torn-apart ruin of my forearm had been there was an uninterrupted stretch of taut new skin. It was laced with thin white scars, the kind you get years after a bad injury, when the wound is fully healed.

  How long had I been asleep?

  I stared at my arm, feeling strangely numb, like I was looking at someone else’s scars. My scars had always been deeper, harder to see. Though I’d always understood that kids were mean because of their own insecurities, it hadn’t stopped their teasing from hurting.

  It didn’t help that my dad had always told me to stand up for myself, like it was as easy a thing as pressing a button on a controller to throw a punch. For some maybe it was.

  “The primordial ooze can be used for things other than leveling up,” a voice said, snapping my attention back to the opposite side. Eve was sitting nearby, her legs pulled up to her chin, her arms wrapped around. “But I’m guessing you already knew that. Vrill likes to talk.”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t know that. She told me a little about the ooze, but not that. That’s what healed me? How long did it—”

  “One Black,” she said. “Your wounds were numerous, but not severe.”

  Not severe? Her characterization made me wonder what sorts of injuries she’d seen that would be considered severe. Then again, we were on a planet full of monsters, so…

  “Where is Vrill?” I asked.

  Eve’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Goddesses, she works fast. Damn woman has a knack for poisoning the well.” Clearly, she was talking to herself. “Look, I’m sure she told you things. Her sob story about her lover, Darcy. Am I right?”

  “Yes.” Except she’d left out the ‘lover’ part. I’d thought my man-brain fantasies about Vrill and another attractive woman were dumb and adolescent. Well, technically they were, but they were also true, assuming Eve was telling the truth.

  “What she told you isn’t untrue, but she’s also leaving certain parts out. Like the fact that she and Darcy were the two best Seekers we’ve ever had. We were in a bad place when I found them and brought them here.”

  “You mean ‘abducted.’”

  “Call it what you want.”

  “I’m calling it what it is.”

  “Goddesses,” Eve said, rolling her eyes. “Why do humans always have to be so melodramatic?”

  “Aren’t you…human?” I asked.

  “So what? I can’t criticize my own race?”

  It was a fair point, but… “How did you become—”

  “The Finder? Long story. It’s a good one, but we don’t have time for it now. Now we need to get you back on your feet and into action. The last Black was bad—real bad. We need all the Warriors we can get for the next one. You survived the Circle. You even survived your first Black on your own. That never happens. The goddesses are impressed. I’m impressed.” She said it with the same kind of certainty one had when talking from direct experience.

  Though my cheeks warmed at the compliment, it wasn’t fully deserved. “I wasn’t alone. At least not the whole time.”

  “I know. Vrill. We saw her. We were tracking you but had to stop when the Black arrived. You were lucky it ended when it did. Otherwise your life would’ve been forfeit. Still…taking down a gargat with your bare hands? That’s something a Level 3 would struggle with.”

  “Level 3 is…” I asked. Vrill had admitted she was a Level 4 Seeker, and I was a Level 2 Warrior, but no one had mentioned what came in between.

  “Protector,” Eve said. “In the good old days we used to have multiple Protectors. Now we only have one. Most plateau at Level 3. Vrill and Darcy were rare exceptions. Which is why it hurt so much to lose them.”

  She spoke of Vrill like she had died too, which bothered me a little. “What comes after Level 4?”

  “You’re an inquisitive guy, huh? Don’t you worry your pretty little head about what comes after. We haven’t had a Level 5 in decades and no one has ever reached Level 6. If someone had, maybe we wouldn’t still be fighting this infernal war.”

  “Tell me about it—the war. Why are the Three Goddesses dying? What brought you to this point?”

  “Jesus Christ, Warrior. You’ve been here, what? Two Blacks?”

  “Three,” I answered. “I think.”

  “Three Blacks. Once you’ve survived a hundred, or a thousand, nights, then we can talk. If I explained our history in detail to every Outcast that arrived I wouldn’t have time to do anything else.”

  With that, she stood and headed away, toward the pond.

  “Wait,” I said. “What do I do now?”

  She stopped and glanced back. “Climb the vines. Kloop will get you sorted out and answer any basic questions you might have.”

  “Kloop?”

  “Currently, our one and only Protector. He’s seen two hundred and twenty-six Blacks. If you want to survive half that many, you’ll listen to what he says. And don’t disturb Minertha’s slumber.”

  I was about to ask another question, but lost my words and every thought in my head when she slipped her dark dress off by the straps, letting it fall in a heap at her feet. She stepped out of it gracefully, her curves fully revealed except for the thinnest of thin portion blocked by her thong, which was black and silky rather than the leopard print I’d gawked at while riding behind her on the motorcycle.

  She dove headfirst into the pool, vanishing beneath the crystalline surface.

  What was with this place and beautiful women willing to reveal their bodies to me? Then again, I supposed it made sense. When every day was a life or death situation, modesty was the least of one’s worries.

  Still, my loincloth was stretched tight under Little Sam’s salute of appreciation. “Cool down, man,” I muttered, rising to my feet and readjusting myself, wondering who Minertha was.

  I glanced at the vines growing down either side of the gully. They glowed various colors—green, blue, white. Beautiful. Which side was I supposed to climb?

  I was about to ask Eve, who had resurfaced at the far side of the pond, when movement caught my attention.

  Oh. My. Gods.

  I knew immediately that she had to be one of the Three, though she was completely different from the mermaid-like one with the blue-green skin I’d seen before.

  No less beautiful, just different, like the difference in beauty of a tree versus a winding river.

  For one, I hadn’t noticed her because she was lying on a rocky, reddish-brown outcropping. I hadn’t noticed her because her skin was the same color as the rocks, and just as hard-looking. I knew from experience that sleeping on rocks was not fun, but she seemed to relish it, stretching out like a cat and yawning as she rolled over.

  Her body was hard, but not blocky, her curves as smooth and round as stones sculpted by the rush of water over many years. I was fairly certain she was nude, though most of my view of her was blocked by a rock table.

  Her eyes fluttered open, a rich, beautiful brown. They focused on me, and I could see the exhaustion in them. Like she’d given up. Like she had nothing left to give.

  And then she winked, the most surprising gesture in the world coming from a goddess. There was something…sly in that expression. I was captivated to the point of speechlessness. Thankfully, she seemed to know what I was thinking. She pointed at the far side of the gully, where the vines grew over and around the pond, some of their colorful tendrils submerged in the water, glowing softly beneath the surface like swimming pool lights.

  I caught a flash of perfect flesh as Eve swam past the lights.

  Fuck me, I thought. How was a man supposed to think straight in this world? I almost wished I was faced with a bloodthirsty monster to help me refocus on something other than the beautiful women I was surrounded with.

  Almost.

  I turned back to offer a wave of thanks to the rock goddess—Minertha—but she’d already
rolled over and gone back to sleep. Her angle allowed me a perfect view of her backside. By the goddesses, she was attractive beyond description.

  I closed my eyes, counted to ten, and then traipsed toward the opposite wall, skirting the edge of the pond, where Eve continued to frolic beneath the water’s surface.

  I reached the glowing vines, craning my head back to look straight up. From this vantage point, the crest of the cliff looked incredibly high. A couple days ago I wouldn’t have had the guts to attempt such a climb, my childhood memories stripping me of all confidence. But after being chased by a mob of vicious fanged demons while climbing a cliff made my current task seem much less formidable.

  I took a deep breath and began to climb.

  The higher I got, the more of the sun I felt, the bronze rays painting my skin with warmth. I began to sweat, my muscles tight with exertion. It felt…amazing. Knowing my body could handle my weight. Feeling like I was capable. Goddesses, is this how those confident muscle-bound jocks in high school felt all the time?

  I wished they could see me now, loincloth and all.

  I glanced back once, and almost lost my grip, barely managing to cling to one of the vines with one hand, the rough tendrils sawing at my palm. I almost fell because Eve was stepping from the pool and I could see the swell of her breasts from high above, her nipples erect after her swim in the cool waters.

  She looked up at me and laughed before pulling her dress back over her shoulders to cover her nakedness. My loincloth pressed against the cliffside. Dammit, I thought. Betrayed by anatomy again.

  I thought about cold showers and my eighth-grade teacher, Mrs. Bletts. She’d been as big and round as a pumpkin and her breath smelled like onions. Of course, then my dirty mind conjured images of Mrs. Evans, who was a real-life version of the male fantasy school teacher with her pencil skirts and low-cut blouses that revealed the curve of her ample bosoms.

  What the fuck is wrong with me? I thought. It felt like I’d aged backwards to my adolescence, when blue balls were a part of daily life.

  I opened my eyes and started climbing, hoping the act of doing something, anything, would clear my mind.