Chapter One Hundred and Nine - Monster Takedown "Okay... ready?" I asked. "I am," Fran whispered back. I glanced at her one final time, just to be doubly sure, but she was standing there, both hands on her handgun as if she was in line at a shooting range, and while I couldn't see her eyes well from the shade of her cap, her face seemed set and determined. Good enough, I figured. I took a deep lungful of air, reached up, and lowered my mask. The shout carried, echoing off the stone walls and around the slight bend at the end of the passage. New ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄhapters are published on 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝⚫𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖⚫𝕟𝕖𝕥 I snapped my mask back into place, then shifted. I had reloaded all of my guns, my sword was planted tip-first in the ground next to me, and I had three spare shells between my fingers, for a quick reload. We waited. The dinos didn't come hurtling around the corner. For a moment I was worried that we wouldn't see hide or... feather of any of them, but that moment passed as I heard stones shifting and water splashing. There was the strange sound of something large sniffing at the ground, then the first of the dinosaurs came around the corner. As agreed, I'd take the first few shots. Fran wasn't as good of a markswoman, and her gun didn't have the penetrating or stopping power of either of mine. I'd have passed her my revolver, but I was worried she might drop it, and it wasn't like we could practice to get her used to the recoil. The noise might attract the dinos early, and I hadn't brought boxes of ammo with me, just a few dozen loose rounds in a pouch. Anyway, as the first velociraptor sniffed around and slowly raised its head like a deer looking up at the hunter, I placed the little bead at the end of my shotgun's barrel over its face in my one-eye-closed vision, then gently squeezed the trigger. The gun barked, the monster's head exploded. I pumped a fresh round into place, then slid one of the shells I was holding into the tube magazine, returning it to full. "More will be coming soon," I said while I worked my jaw. How many times had I considered bringing ear protection, and why did I never actually do it? Two more monsters popped into view. I aimed at the nearest, fired, then fired two more times. One of my shots had only grazed it, and the other two, while they hit, didn't have the killing power I needed to take it down. I pumped two more shells into the next, then lowered my gun. "Take it out?" I asked. I started to reload the tube fully, pulling extra shells from a thigh pocket. "Got it," Fran said. The monster was injured already, but it still took off running in our direction, bloodied mouth opening wide and tongue hissing with. Fran took a shot, waited a half second, took another, then repeated that twice more. The monster crashed to the ground, just a couple of metres away, very dead. She put another round into its head from up close anyway. I finished reloading, put a shell directly into the chamber, then reshouldered my gun. "Three of seven, right?" I asked. "Yes. Three of the seven we saw. There could be more," she said. "Mhm," I agreed. I was still sighting down to the end of the passage, and I continued for a few more seconds, then a few more, then what had to be an entire minute. I felt a bead of sweat slowly roll down the middle of my neck from my sweat-matted hair. The new hat was a little too warm. So was the poncho. All-black, thickly padded gear, was not suitable for the deep jungle. Figures. "Where are they?" I asked. My arm was getting tired from holding the gun up for so long. "Maybe they're wise?" Fran asked. Shit... yeah, no one with proper thinking skills would run into a space where three others of their sort had died. The correct thing to do in this kind of situation would be to go around from another direction, or wait in ambush, and we'd already established that the velociraptors were very much ambush predators. "Okay," I said after a while, my voice kept low. "We're going to have to push in." "Yeah, I think so," I replied. "They've got our number. There's four left, right? They'll maybe be waiting around the corner, or maybe they're real smart and they backed out of the area, but either way, they're not coming here. Too smart for that." Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Fran worked her jaw, then nodded. "So, we move in." She holstered her handgun, then flicked her hand to the side, summoning a lightsword. "I'll take point. Shoot past me." "That's reckless," I said. "I'm feeling a little reckless lately." I watched her walk past me, eyes darting to her, then down, then back to the end of the area I could see from where I stood. Damn... that was a bit hot. Maybe I had a thing for confident women? Louise, Jane in her own way, Francisca... huh. I should get a therapist. As long as it wasn't a hot lesbian one. That might be problematic. "Yup, I'm here, and ready," I said as I snapped back to the moment. Maybe I needed a small nap because my focus was wandering. Fran carefully moved around, stepping to my left, then further around so that there was as much space between her and the open space where the dinos had been as possible. She was walking a little strange, low and a bit crab-like so that the point of her sword was always pointing towards the enemy. Almost as soon as she could see into the cliff-sided plain, there was a burst of motion. Something big and greenish rushed out of the underbrush. Fran's sword moved around fast, smacking something out of the air, and I heard her gasp. My attention was mostly on the target though. I lined up fast, and shot. Then I racked a round and shot again. Fran leapt to the side, sword swooping into a side circle that cut a furrow into the neck of the monster falling next to her. Then there were three more, and I was worried. I fired over and over, until I had to switch tubes. I did, then continued to pump lead into the monsters but by then they'd reached Fran. "Fuck!" I shouted as I dropped the gun, picked up my sword, and ran in. I couldn't see her, one of the monsters had turned its back to me and was blocking her from sight, but I did see the light of her blade casting long, swinging shadows against the walls around us. Darting in, I swiped at a passing tail, cutting into it. The monster it was attached to spun around lightning quick. It reminded me a little of Mister Couchtop when he was after a feather-toy, only about two hundred pounds heavier and with much longer teeth and... actually, about the same appetite for my flesh. I ducked as a tongue came spitting out, followed by a few flecks of foamy saliva, then I jabbed my sword forwards, point-first into the monster's gullet. The blade-tip dug into its palate without piercing through, but it did cut a gash across its tongue. The monster reeled back, and as it did so, I fired a Shadow Bolt from my hand. It flinched, closing its eye. And that was enough for me to dart in and lunge at it again, this time holding onto the middle of my blade so that I was gripping it almost like a spear. I thrust the last foot or so of naked steel right into the monster's neck. It leapt, clawing at the air, but missing me. When I pulled the sword out, it was with a hard downwards swipe that opened a deep cut. The monster went down, gasping on blood. I looked up and discovered another on the ground, dead, and the last was hissing at Fran, its hackles raised, feathers vibrating. She was injured. I saw startlingly red blood and... cursing, I rushed to the monster's side. It spun to face me, and that's when Fran charged forwards in a perfect rapier strike, free hand raising for balance and her entire body moving so that she'd have as much range as possible. The top of her glowing sword stabbed into the monster's chest, right between two thick ribs. It sizzled there for a moment, then the monster slowly collapsed. It was one of those that I'd hit, I noticed idly, its skin peppered with buckshot and dozens of small, bleeding holes. Not enough to kill it, though. "Shit, are you okay?" I asked. Why did that feel like I'd run a marathon? It couldn't have been more than a quarter mile's worth of running around, and I'd done more at the gym in an afternoon, and yet I was so much more tired than that. "I... could use another bandage," Fran said. She dismissed her sword and gingerly touched her side. This was... proving to be difficult.