The Last Hunter - Ascent (Book 3 of the Antarktos Saga)

by Jeremy Robinson

  Xin’s message repeats in my mind. Don’t trust anyone.

  But how can I do that? Even if it’s a risk, I’m going to have to trust someone.

  Em and Luca without a doubt.

  But Kainda? Her ferocious reputation and past disdain for me make her the most likely candidate for betrayal. But it’s too obvious. The moment she started acting funny, someone would notice. Especially me.

  She grips the hammer and pulls it from her belt.

  And this intimidation is exactly what I’d expect from Kainda. She’s clearly made an effort to change, though. So I decide to risk trusting her. I hold my ground, but make no move to defend myself. She won’t hurt me, I tell myself. She’s glad I’m alive, just like the rest of them.

  When she places the end of the hammer against my chest, I’m not so sure. Still, she has yet to bludgeon me. “You…” Her voice burns with contempt. “You changed everything.” She shoves the hammer forward, knocking me back a little deeper in the water.

  Kainda steps closer, moving out of the shade and into the orange glow of the setting sun. The light transforms her. Her skin looks soft. Her deep red hair tied back in a braid looks pretty. Her eyes, though they burn with intensity, make my insides twist. I’m no longer seeing a fellow hunter. I’m seeing a beautiful girl.

  “Everything used to make sense to me,” she says, nearly shouting. “The world made sense. Hunting. Killing. The Nephilim. Everything. Even hating you. You had everything I wanted, and then you took it all away. You destroyed it.”

  She shoves me again. It hurts, but it’s bearable. And I’m still distracted by the new way I’m seeing her.

  “You could have killed me,” she says. “Could have let that crylophosaur kill me. That would have made sense. But now, I’m just confused. What felt right then, feels wrong now. I don’t like it.”

  She’s in my face now, like this is a WWF pre-match verbal smackdown. And she could probably intimidate any wrestler on TV. But I just stare into her eyes, listening, and trying to make sense of what I’m feeling. As much as she says I confused her world, she is doing the same to me now. Her strength, her passion and her beauty are making me forget that she is a killer and the daughter of Ninnis.

  It’s not her fault, I remind myself. She wasn’t born hard. She was made that way, and she’s proven her true strength by turning against it.

  “Why?” she shouts. “Why didn’t you kill me?”

  When I don’t answer, she takes a deep breath, lets out a sigh, and tilts her head to the water between us. When she does, I see a streak of silky jet-black hair in the center of her head. It’s pulled back tight and mixed in with the braid, visible only from above.

  Innocence reclaimed.

  The sight of Kainda’s black hair is the last straw. My intellect takes a back seat for a moment and my emotions guide my hand to Kainda’s chin. I tilt her head up and two things surprise me. First, Kainda hasn’t broken my hand. Second, I lean in quickly and plant my lips against hers. It’s awkward at first. I’ve never done this before. In fact, I doubt Kainda has either. Hunters aren’t interested in romance.

  But then something changes. Our bodies relax. I wrap my arms around her, pulling her close. Her hammer drops from her hand with a plunk as it sinks beneath the water.

  I’m not sure how long the kiss actually lasts. My mind normally keeps track of such minor details without any effort, but all sense of time is gone. When we finally do separate, she still has that dangerous edge about her—something I think I like—but all of her hostility toward me is gone.

  Her shouted questions register, now that my intellect is free to think again. Why? Why didn’t you kill me? “That’s why,” I say, realizing the truth for the first time. When I saved Kainda from the matriarch cresty named Alice, I was being driven by Ull, who, as it turns out, represents the majority of my emotional side. And Ull is now a part of me. Ull is me, and I him. No longer separate. Which means all of the feelings he had for Kainda, despite her aggression—or perhaps because of it—are my feelings now. I am undeniably attracted to her.

  And apparently, the feeling is mutual.

  A slight shift of brush by the shore sends both of us into action. We separate quickly. Whipsnap springs out as I pull the weapon from my belt. Kainda quickly recovers her hammer from beneath the water. We stand side by side and face…

  Em. She’s smiling and looks a little uncomfortable.

  Busted.

  “Umm,” she says. “I just wanted to tell you. There’s some food. If you want it.”

  Kainda and I just stand there. Looking at her. No one knows what to say. Hunters don’t kiss. They don’t have feelings for each other. But that’s changing. Em loves me like a brother. Tobias loved her like a father. Those things aren’t supposed to happen, either.

  “I’ll just…” Em takes a step back into the jungle. “We’ll talk later.”

  Em disappears into the jungle and we’re alone again. I slowly turn to Kainda. She’s dripping wet from recovering her hammer, and she’s standing there, ready for a fight that isn’t going to come. She meets my gaze and I know I look equally silly because a glimmer of a smile creeps onto her face. That small smile is like a punch in the gut, but instead of wincing, I laugh.

  Kainda’s smile widens. It’s not much, and it seems to confuse her, or at least the emotions accompanying it does, but it’s something I never thought I’d see. I trudge back to shore and take a seat on a fallen tree. Kainda follows and I force my eyes to the ground so I don’t get caught gawking. I have seen a number of hunters in my time underground and have never once noticed how little clothing we actually wear. And now I’m having trouble not noticing.

  Being a teenager is so confusing.

  Kainda takes a seat next to me. For several minutes, we watch the sun set. The light still stings my eyes some—midday is nearly unbearable without sunglasses—but the diffused light of the falling sun hits Kainda’s high cheekbones in such a way that a little discomfort is worthwhile.

  “So…” she eventually says, “you’re friends with seals and dinosaurs?”

  I’m about to ask how she knows about the cresties, when I remember she was there when the male cresty I named Grumpy allowed me to place my hand on his head. The small pack of predators later aided in her escape with Em.

  “I don’t understand it, either.”

  “What about the other things you can do?” she asks. “The wind. The storms.”

  “I can’t do those things anymore,” I say.

  “I noticed,” she says. “You wouldn’t have had any trouble defeating the others.”

  That she excludes herself from those who would have been easy to defeat, by saying “the others,” makes me smile. Her confidence, I’m realizing, is one of the things I like best about her.

  I begin explaining about how my abilities faded when I entered Tartarus. This brings up all sorts of questions about that strange land, how I got out and how I managed to find the lake. From there, we work our way back. My birth. My life before. When Ninnis took me. How he broke me. And how my memory came back to me. We laugh a little when I recall the things I said to her as Ull, and she seems pleased that some of my insults were made by me pretending to be Ull.

  Sometime during the conversation, our hands find each other. The contact is like a static spark. We both draw back quickly and share an awkward smile. Sure, we kissed, and holding hands is kind of a step backward, but the kiss was…passionate. Holding hands is somehow more intimate. Less guarded. It implies a stronger bond that cannot be forged so quickly, or so it would seem, through a kiss.

  After an awkward moment of silence, I ask her about her life. The story is short and details scarce. But that’s okay. I can fill in the blanks. She would have been broken at a young age. Molded really. She didn’t need to forget her previous life. The underground realm was all she ever knew. Pain. Blood. Violence. She was steeped in it from birth. That she can sit here now, holding my hand, is nothing short of a miracle.
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  Her story shifts quickly to current events. The freed hunters, what they are calling the freemen, have been slowly organizing. Word is spreading, but recruitment is dangerous. If the invitee is not receptive, violence is guaranteed. They had been planning to reach out to the outside world, but every encounter with mankind has ended in violence, too. The men and women who have come to Antarktos, have come to fight.

  “Not all of them,” I say.

  She looks at me, unbelieving. The sun is now down, but the light from the half moon and my now natural night vision make Kainda easy to see.

  “I have friends,” I say. “From my life before. They’re here now. And I can’t picture either of them wanting to hurt anyone.”

  “You saw them?” she asks.

  “No.” The answer discourages me. But I know they’re here. I dig into my pack and pull out the bandanna. “This has Merrill’s scent,” I say.

  Kainda takes the bandanna and smells it. Anyone from the outside world would think she was crazy, but it’s normal behavior for a hunter. In the darkness of the underworld, many things are identified by scent long before sight.

  I take out a single strand of blond hair. “This is Mira’s.”

  Kainda takes the hair and sniffs it. “No scent.” She looks it over. “It’s the same color as your hair…but the texture is different. Rougher.”

  Kainda hands the hair and bandanna back to me. “This…Mira. She is the girl from the image you carried.”

  How does she know about that? She sees the question on my lips and answers. “My father spoke of it. Said she was your weakness. That you…loved her.”

  While things like love are foreign to hunters, jealously is not. And Kainda isn’t very good at concealing it. But I’m no better at lying, so I tell the truth. “I did love her. I still do, I suppose. She means a lot to me. But twenty years have passed for her. She’s a grown woman. Maybe with a husband. Children. Who knows? But I feel strongly about her father, Merrill, too. And Aimee, her mother.”

  “Aimee? Not the teacher?”

  I’d left that detail out of my story, but if I’m trusting Kainda, I’m trusting Kainda. “Yes. She is Mira’s mother. She helped deliver me when I was born.”

  “But…you took her. Gave her to the masters.” Kainda looks confused, until she sees my downturned eyes. “She does not like me.”

  I recognize that Kainda is trying to lighten the mood, but she’s not very good at it. She manages to change the subject.

  “Mira. Did you ever…” Kainda places her fingers against my lips.

  I smile. “No. Never. We bumped feet once.”

  Her forehead scrunches up. “You bumped feet?”

  “Hey, it’s kind of a big deal to a fourteen year old boy.”

  Kainda’s jealously fades as she laughs at me. And I actually don’t mind that she’s laughing at me.

  “They had a dog with them,” I say. I hold up the bandanna. “That’s the strong smell on this.”

  “What is a dog?”

  Right. There are no dogs on Antarctica. “They’re hairy. Four legs. A tail that wags when they’re happy.”

  “Woof.” Kainda does an impression of a dog barking. It’s so spot-on that I know she’s seen it. Seen them.

  “That’s it!” I say.

  She points out at the water. “They crossed the lake toward Olympus. Three days ago. The dog was with them. It made that noise when your—” She shakes her hand at the water, looking for the right word. “—other friends greeted them.”

  “The seals,” I say. “Gloop.”

  “The seals. Yes.”

  I nearly ask if anyone spoke to them, but it’s clear they didn’t. “We have to find them.”

  “Because of her?” Kainda says.

  “Because of all of them. Adoni thinks Aimee will be at Olympus, too. And they’re our best chance at getting help.”

  She squeezes my hand. “We will find them together.”

  Knowing that Kainda, this infinitely dangerous woman who has somehow won my heart, will be by my side when I enter the Nephilim stronghold in search of Hades, and the Clark family, fills me with confidence.

  A chill runs up my spine. At first, I think I’m cold, but the nighttime air is still a perfectly comfortable temperature. Then my mind catches up with my body. There’s a scent in the air. It’s subtle, but unmistakable.

  Blood.

  Nephilim blood.

  28

  A general rule of thumb for anyone trying to hide from Nephilim is: if you detect their presence, run away. Apparently, neither Kainda nor I, abide by this rule. Instead, we quickly determine the direction of the wind, and thus the direction from which the smell emanates, and run toward it. It’s not because we have a death wish, it’s because people we care about are nearby and in danger. At least, that’s my motivation.

  When Kainda says, “You should go back and warn the others,” I know her motivation is the same.

  It’s the same reason why I won’t abandon her now. Only one hunter has managed to kill a Nephilim before. Me. And that was with my abilities. If there is any hope of defeating whatever waits for us in the jungle, it is together. Kainda must realize the same thing, because she doesn’t urge me to leave again.

  We run, side by side, through the jungle. Fast and quiet. Concealed in the shadow of the canopy that, in the darkness of night, feels almost like the underground. As the scent of Nephilim blood grows stronger, we arm ourselves and slow our approach. Even hunters don’t leap into battle without first knowing what they’re facing.

  A beam of moonlight streaks through a hole in the canopy, lighting a small clearing. At the center of the clearing is a shape I recognize. Krane. He’s kneeling on the ground, head downturned like he’s injured. Did Krane already face the Nephilim and lose? I step forward, intending to ask, but Kainda’s firm grip on my shoulder stops me.

  “Look at the ground,” she whispers.

  A ten foot circle of leaf litter has been cleared away to reveal smooth earth below. Strange symbols, like crop circles, have been etched into the soil around him.

  “Is it a trap?” I ask.

  “Worse,” she says, tightening her grip on her hammer.

  Krane begins to mumble, speaking Sumerian. I catch just a few words. “Fathers.” “Hear me.” “Come.”

  “What’s he doing?” I ask.

  Kainda looks about ready to explode. “Speaking to the Fathers.”

  “The Fathers?”

  “The Nephilim Fathers.”

  My mind figures things out. Krane is speaking to demons!

  “But why would—”

  “I didn’t think they were real,” Kainda says, and I think she’s talking to herself, but then she looks at me. “He is a shifter. A Nephilim who can look human.”

  The ramifications of this are vast. I’ve heard in the past that there are Nephilim living out in the world among the human race. I wondered how such a thing could be possible. Here is my answer. Krane the hunter, friend to Em and Kainda, is a Nephilim. I can’t imagine what would have happened if he had been the one who held the knife when I placed it against my throat, instead of Tunis. But things could still get very bad. If he’s trying to speak with the demon fathers, he is no doubt communicating my presence.

  A purple glow radiates from the ground in front of Krane and I see a deep pool of purple blood.

  “They’re coming,” Kainda says. “We must stop him. Now!”

  Kainda charges from the jungle. I follow close behind. And despite our ferocious intent, we both remain silent. No battle cries. No hint of approach. Kainda raises her weapon, preparing to strike Krane’s head. I shift the blade end of Whipsnap back, ready to strike with deadly force. If Krane is a Nephilim, there’s no need for me to hold back.

  Five feet from Krane, the wind shifts. He sucks in a surprised breath.

  Kainda swings hard.

  And misses.

  Krane ducks beneath the blow and Kainda’s momentum carries her beyond her
target. Krane leaps up and spins around to face me, but he isn’t prepared for where he finds me. I leapt from a rock and am now airborne. On a collision course. Krane jumps back, but Whipsnap’s reach covers the distance. The bladed end arcs through the air, tracing a purple line down Krane’s chest.

  We both land and square off. The purple blood at the end of Whipsnap’s blade reveals the cut down Krane’s torso to be an inch deep. Not a mortal wound for a Nephilim, but it’s something. Kainda takes a fighting stance behind Krane. She catches my eye and somehow I understand what she’s thinking. Our next attack will be as one. He cannot defend both sides.

  We circle him slowly.

  Tension builds as we prepare to attack.

  Then I notice something strange. Krane’s wound is not healing. Nephilim warriors heal from physical wounds very quickly. Shifters must be different. Which means that I don’t need to hit this thing in the forehead to kill it. The wound catches my attention again. Not only is it not healing, it seems to be…growing.

  “Something’s not right,” I say to Kainda.

  “We’re wasting time,” she replies. Her voice is almost a growl.

  I glance at the purple blood. The glow is fading. Whatever Krane was doing, we interrupted it. He needs to kill us to continue. So why isn’t he attacking? Nephilim don’t fear hunters. “He’s tricking us,” I say. “Wants us to get closer.”

  Krane laughs. His voice morphs from something human to something else. Something horrible. He slaps his hands against his chest, digs his fingers into the wound and takes hold of his flesh.

  What the—

  With a roar, Krane tears his chest open. Purple blood showers to the ground, forcing Kainda and I to leap back. The blood has healing properties, but in its pure form is so powerful, it can kill. Had we been closer, as I suspect he desired, we would have been coated in the stuff. I cringe, expecting to see an exposed ribcage and slippery organs, but what I see is far worse.

  Krane’s skin seems to explode away from him, falling like sheets of wet toilet paper. And his body…it grows. From within. His new skin is dark red and covered with scales. He grows taller. His already large muscles expand. It’s as though a much larger creature had been compressed and was barely contained within a human shaped shell. He’s now ten feet tall—just like the Nephilim skeleton Merrill uncovered by the wall. His face splits down the middle. The flesh slides away, teeth and all. An angular Nephilim face is revealed—yellow eyes, double rows of teeth and horn-like knobs on its forehead. In fact, he looks very devil-like.