Free Monster Hunter Alpha-ARC by Larry Correia

full moon and couldn’t make it into the time-locked steel cage that took up half the truck’s bed. Neither option was as nice as his cell back at the compound, but the portable cage beat the hangover from the sedatives.
    The cop came back a minute later and handed over his license and a yellow carbon copy that read violation in big black letters across the top. “So much for getting off with a warning.”
    Her uniform coat was a giant puffy green monstrosity with an embroidered yellow badge. A black knit cap hid her hair, and her cheeks were rosy from the cold. She was already coated in falling snow. “I only cited you for the stop sign. You’re lucky you caught me in a good mood. I can throw the speeding on there too if you want. Twenty over is a pretty hefty fine,” she stated flatly. The cop had fine features, a nose that was a little too big to be perfect, green eyes, and the hair that had strayed out from under the cap was a dark red. He decided that she could be pretty if she actually smiled, but she didn’t strike him as the smiling type. Human scents always told a story. She wore the smell of workaholic stress, was healthy despite a lack of sleep, lived alone, had a dog, and had eaten Oreos and Diet Mountain Dew for dinner.
    Asking where she’d bumped into a former KGB assassin was out of the question. Nikolai could be masquerading as anyone. By most standards, Nikolai spoke better English than Earl did. “You get many strangers in these parts?” he asked.
    “Not usually, until it’s good snowmobile weather, but lately we seem to be swimming in them.”
    “Really…What for?” Where did you meet him?
    But apparently she wasn’t the small-town type that liked to gossip about strangers. The cop just shrugged. “Just slow it down. You’d better be more careful. Your behavior could hurt somebody.”
    That was the general idea. But he just nodded politely. Knowing where she’d met his enemy could be a real advantage, so he tried one last time before she had a chance to walk away. “What do you say I buy you some dinner and you tell me more about your lovely town?”
    She paused, incredulous. “You realize that never works, right?” Then the deputy surprised him with the barest hint of a wry smile. “And you’re not my type. Good night, sir.”
    “Type?” Earl muttered to himself after she was gone. “Hell, girl. I ain’t your species.…” Earl stuck the new ticket in the center console with the others. Owen got mad when he didn’t save his receipts. Brushing the snow off the mirror, he watched her walk back to the cop car. At least she made those uniform pants look good. Must work out a lot. He waited for her to drive away and even waved as she went by before putting it in gear and heading back to the main street.
    The last hour had been spent getting a feel for the area, but now he was starving, and Earl wasn’t inclined to hunt down his nemesis on an empty stomach. Plus, he wanted to talk to more of the residents. There were definitely strange things going down in Copper Lake. The presence of multiple werewolves suggested that Nikolai was up to something unexpected.
    The Russian had always been like Earl, a loner. It wasn’t like him to run with a pack. Task-force intelligence had believed that Nikolai had gone so far as to refuse to create others of his kind for his controllers. Stalin had been the last leader that Nikolai had held enough respect for to bow to that command. Not that having fewer werewolves was a particular loss for the Soviet war machine, since the vast majority of them turned out just as dangerous to friend as to foe.
    Kirk Conover had always felt that Nikolai had avoided creating others because he liked being special, being the only werewolf that the KGB could count on. Earl had known it was because Nikolai simply hadn’t wanted the competition. It had been a long time since the USSR had collapsed and Nikolai had gone missing, but Earl had just assumed that some things