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I planted my boots into the black sand, spreading my feet and bracing myself as five hundred pounds of pissed off fiend barreled my way.
"Sam!" one of the other hunters yelled. "Fuck's sake, move your ass, man!"
I braced my gun in both hands and forced myself to take my time lining up the shot. The jerk of the gun firing was like an extension of me. Like breathing. The recoil was minimal, for me. I absorbed it with my own inhuman strength and kept moving.
The thing bearing down on me took a shot to the forequarters. To the chest. Still, it's freaky-assed body just kept right on coming, mad red eyes full of hunger and malice. I aimed, squeezed. If I could hit it in the head, that would be a kill shot. But the damned thing whipped its muzzle to the side at the last second and the shot just grazed its shoulder.
Now I was out of fucking ammo. I'd used it all on the thing's dead friend over there. Hadn't smelled this one until too late. And of course, the stupid humans with me had only been focused on the one they were tracking. This was why I usually hunted alone. Less chance of stupid errors that way.
I dodged out of the way as the beast barreled past me, letting it go for the other hunters. Their guns blazed. But of course, it didn't faze the damned thing. I crouched and threw my gun at the back of the fiend's head.
Sure, this time I hit my mark. The handgun bounced off the back of its skull and the fiend whirled back toward me, death in its blazing red eyes. I pulled my knives from the sides of my calf-length leather boots as I stood.
"Sam!" one of the humans called again. "What the fuck are you doing?"
I ignored him. I was hunting, obviously. Moron.
I ran at the monstrous beast, my eyes cataloging as I picked up speed. It had thick skin, almost like scales. I had no idea what kind of fucked up species it was, but it looked like a giant lizard and a mangy werewolf had mated and tossed the resultant offspring into a vat of acid. The snout was full of wicked-asssed teeth. Most of the body had some sort of armor. And there were weird patches of fur interspersed with shiny patches of skin that looked like scars.
I ran at it. It leapt at me. I hit the ground and skidded, sliding under its belly, knives sinking deep and tearing a long double line through its thick skin as I spilled its guts.
Rolling, I got my feet under me and crouched again, wiping thick, foul blood out of my eyes. My hair hung about my face in long, sticky clumps, and I raked it back out of the way. The thing still wasn't dead. But it was getting there. It lunged at me and I jumped onto its back, wrapping one arm around its throat and sinking my knife into the back of its head by the base of its spine. It shook me off, dislocating my fucking shoulder in the process.
I let my arm dangle for now. I had bigger things to worry about.
"Sam!" A gun hit the ground a few feet away. I ran to it, each step jolting my arm and sending sharp, electric jabs of pain through my body. Scooping up the gun in my good hand, I lined up. Just as the abomination went to lunge for me again, I pulled the trigger. Its head exploded, and it finally fell to the ground, skidding to a stop at my feet, twitching, but not getting back up.
I emptied the gun into it for good measure, then tossed the weapon back to the other hunter.
"Son of a bitch, Sam," one of the humans complained, "you know they want the heads. Now we won't get half the bounty."
I shrugged, then regretted it. Damn it, I hated dislocated joints. What a pain in the ass. "They'll still have a pelt," I said, tossing the guy one of my knives.
Part of me was glad the head had been destroyed. Humans hated the fiends that had invaded their world. I understood, believe me. I hated the damned things too. But it rubbed me the wrong way to think of some rich guy sitting in his mansion, boasting about the mounted head of a beast like this, when he'd never even handled a weapon before, let alone gotten his hands dirty.
I went to retrieve my other knife from where I'd dropped it. Wiping it off on my pants, I put it back in my leg sheath. Then I cradled my throbbing arm in my good hand and found a rock to sit on. Leaning forward, I pinched my injured forearm between my knees. Then I jerked my body back, hard, nearly falling off the rock. The arm slid back into place with a loud, wet, pop.
"Damn, kid," an older hunter said, chewing on a nasty cigar as he handed me a flask of watered-down hooch. "They wasn't kiddin' about you."
I hadn't bothered to learn the humans' names. Once I was done with this job, I'd never see them again. I took a swig of the disgusting water and stood, twisting to crack my back. After retrieving my gun, I went to help skin the fiend and its brother. Sure, the bounty was less without the heads, but the skins would get us good money from the association when we turned them in.
The other two human hunters looked me over as I approached. "Dude," the youngest one said, scratching at his week-old stubble. "You should hunt with us all the time. I don't care if you are a cur bastard, those are some skills you've got there."
I ignored him and shrugged out of my leather jacket, setting it aside and ripping into the other kill, grimacing at the hot blood that coated my hands. "Like I want to be saddled with a bunch of humans."
The middle guy huffed as he worked at the stinking pelt he was carving off. "You're lucky we're not hunting you. Fucking mongrel."
It didn't even bother me. Much. Just one more reason I always worked alone. The only reason I was out here with these idiots now was because I needed the money and someone had cashed in a favor. I wasn't going to get mad and leave before I got my cash, much to the human’s disappointment. Too bad, asshole.
Once the skins were off and loaded into the rusty old jeep the hunters used, we burned the bodies and hauled ass across the wasteland and into Westhold to get the bounty. When that was done, I left the humans behind, thank fuck, and made my way back home.
Westhold was one of the border towns. It wasn't gated and pristine like the bigger cities, but it did have a wall with an electric fence that sometimes worked, and a few dedicated guards. Not enough to stop any of the truly motivated fiends, but enough to keep out most minor irritations. I made my way out of the business district and toward the seedier part of town, but not quite into the outskirts.
My sanctuary was an old cannery that had been abandoned after the rift. I let myself in with my keys and a hastily muttered word to release the wards, then jogged up three flights of metal stairs. The place might be dingy and the security mediocre, but at least I had my own space. And I didn't have to deal with a landlord who would sell me out to people who'd murder a mixed breed cur like me in their sleep for a few coins.
Locking myself inside my apartment loft, I activated the wards to keep any minor magical threat out. Those things had cost a pretty penny, but they were worth it. I wondered what humans had done for security back before the rift breach. How had the weaklings lived without magic?
I shucked my torn, bloody clothes into the washer before stepping into the shower. They probably lived just fine, I reminded myself. Since they didn't have murderous fiends from another dimension trying to eat their faces.
Thomas Vega and his team were world renowned for their scientific work and their brilliant theories around quantum physics. Until they opened up a rift that let monsters the human media had labeled "fiends" overrun the world. Now the scientists were considered war criminals—even if they had managed to close the rift back up. The damage was already done, and the panicked human populous needed someone to blame.
The fiends were like nothing Earth had ever seen; hundreds of varieties of terrifying creatures fueled by energy that could only be called magic. They bred like rabbits. And they interbred with Earth species, making nasty crosses called "curs" or "mongrels" that were usually even worse than their monster parents.
Large portions of the globe had been destroyed before the rift was sealed, and guilds of licensed hunters formed, managed by the local government, in order to protect civilians.
Some curs, like me, weren't bloodthirsty monsters. But that was a rarity. And the human population wasn't inclined to be too accepting of them, since most humans had family who’d been devoured by the original horde of monsters.
I stepped into the scalding shower and washed away the blood, hissing as the water hit a few raw spots and scrapes. I'd heal faster than a human, but it still fucking hurt. Running my hands through my blue-streaked black hair, I soaped up. I glanced at myself in the mirror as I was drying off. My angular cut hair bumped about my jaw. I should get it cut, but I was just stupid enough to admit it looked good long. My hair was the one physical feature I actually liked.
Pulling on underwear and a tight sports bra, I tugged on some jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt with a boat neck that wouldn't rub on the healing scrapes that tracked across my shoulder, just shy of my neck. The fucking fiend had almost slit my throat with its damned lizard claws.
I glanced around my sad, empty apartment, then pulled out a bottle of cheap vodka from the cabinet. I needed booze. And lots of it.