Predator Cold War 18

At any rate, this was clearly his chance-or at least the best he was going to get.

"Hey!" Schaefer shouted, charging at the monster with the entrenching tool raised. "Remember me?"

The alien turned, startled, just as a man would, and Schaefer swung his improvised weapon. The sharpened edge skidded across the creature's chest, drawing glowing yellow-green blood, but the blade didn't bite deeply. Schaefer took another swing, backhanded, and reached his free hand out to grab the thing's mask. He'd tried that trick before, last summer in New York, and it had worked pretty well then... The monster was still half-crouched, off-balance, trying to rise.

It grabbed at the entrenching tool and caught it, stopping it dead in midswing-but it had caught the tool by the blade, and the razor edge sliced into the palm of the thing's hand. Luminescent yellow-green blood dribbled slowly onto the snow underfoot. Schaefer grabbed the edge of the creature's mask and twisted, trying to blind it; at the same time he tried to pull the entrenching tool free. The tool didn't move; it was like pulling at a steel post. The mask, though, shifted awkwardly. The thing staggered, confused. It pulled the entrenching tool from Schaefer's hand and flung it away, then reached both hands up to straighten its mask, but before it could recover, Schaefer threw his full weight against it.

It tripped over a dead Russian's leg and toppled backward into the snow, its mask coming off in Schaefer's hand. Gas hissed, and the creature roared deafeningly. Schaefer threw himself on top of the thing's chest, his knees on its arms, pinning it. Then he raised the mask, over his head in both hands and brought it slamming down
edge first on the monster's face.

"New York wasn't so bad," Schaefer said as he raised the mask for a second blow and saw yellow-green ooze dribbling from the thing's hideous, multifanged mouth.

"At least I could grab a hot dog when you weren't in sight." He swung the mask again.

"Siberia, though-Siberia sucks. I'm freezing my butt off out here!"

He drove the yellow-smeared edge of the mask down onto the thing's eyes for his third blow and felt the creature twitch beneath him.

"What did you want to come here for, anyway? Go home, why don't you?"

The thing roared again, and something whirred. Schaefer froze, the mask raised for a fourth blow.

"Uh-oh," he said as the black shoulder cannon began to pivot toward him.

He flung himself backward, and the blue-white fireball roared up into empty space.

"Go home!" the creature bellowed, in Schaefer's own voice, as the detective scrambled to his feet and the cannon began to home in for a second shot. Schaefer dove sideways, but the white fire, whatever it was, tore the skin from one side of his scalp.

"Dammit!" Schaefer said as he staggered, trying to keep the blood out of his eyes. One hand flew up to feel the wound and found hair and flesh gone. "You son of a...That was a new haircut!"-pg.439-440 chpt.26