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

by Jeremy Robinson

  “Lucifer?” I guess.

  His eyes snap toward me. “Eshu,” he says. “But you were close.”

  Eshu. I read about him once, which means I remember every one of the scant details provided about him. He’s a trickster god—meaning he likes to fool people into harm’s way, causing injury, personal loss, loss of faith and even wars. Eshu is the trickster god of the Yorùbá tribe in Nigeria. But he’s not alone. There are many other trickster gods throughout history: Anansi, Lilith, Loki, Māui and like my initial guess, the most famous of them all, Lucifer. Satan. The Devil. While the warriors hold power among the Nephilim, it is the shifters who have had the most profound effect on the human race.

  Eshu’s next statement corrects that last assumption. He spits purple blood as he speaks. “Lucifer is my father.”

  My mind reels with this revelation. The demon, Lucifer, is not only real, but is this shifter’s father. Granted, I knew the Nephilim were the children of a coupling between human mothers and demon fathers, but I never put a name to the fathers, and for some reason, never that name.

  While I try to make sense of this surreal revelation, my guard falls, and Eshu takes advantage. The big Nephilim is quick and agile. He leaps across the ground on all fours and tackles me around the waist before I can react. It’s like getting struck by a charging polar bear. Stars dance in my vision when I strike the ground hard, but I still see Eshu’s open maw as it approaches my neck. The double rows of sharp teeth will have no trouble tearing out my throat. I have just seconds to live.

  Then I see Kainda, in the air above Eshu, hammer raised and ready to deliver a crushing blow.

  But Eshu must have seen my eyes widen. He twists around with surprising speed and backhands Kainda in the side. Her body crashes into the jungle, stopping against the trunk of a tree.

  “Kainda!” I shout.

  My concern causes Eshu to laugh. “Hunters concerned for hunters. It’s heart-warming. Really.” He laughs again, turning his head to the sky with a howl that warriors use just before killing an enemy—me, in this case. Kainda won’t recover in time to help me.

  29

  For all of Eshu’s strength, speed and confidence, he has forgotten that the person he now faces is a hunter, trained by Ninnis and chosen of Nephil. I am not as weak as he seems to think. I put the time he spends mocking me to good use. Whipsnap never fell from my grasp. I slowly pull the weapon up. I turn the blade toward Eshu just as he throws himself down on top of me to finish the job. The blade pierces his chest, sinking ten inches deep.

  For a moment, I think I’ve struck the killing blow. But he reels back and up onto his feet with a shout of pain. I cling to Whipsnap, and I’m pulled off the ground. I’ve impaled his breastplate and the blade can’t slice through. Rather than give up my weapon, I hold on tight, dangling two feet off the ground.

  But I don’t want to be within Eshu’s grasp when his senses return. I pull myself up, plant my feet against his waist, and use my leverage to bend the mace end of Whipsnap around. The spiked ball strikes Eshu in the face, crushing his red nose with a crunch.

  Eshu flails back, but manages to take hold of my arm. His face is twisted with rage. I kick and pull, but I can’t break free. I shove Whipsnap’s blade in deeper, but the pain doesn’t stop him. He opens his mouth, clearly intending to bite my arm off. The pressure on my wrist increases and I shout in pain. “Nephil was wrong, you are not strong at all.”

  At the moment, I agree with him. He’s not even a full sized warrior, and though I’ve managed to injure him, I suspect the injuries will heal. The Krane skin he wore might not have, but I suspect that was intentional.

  His breath tickles the skin of my arm. I close my eyes.

  There’s a sound like a whistle. Two whistles. And each is followed by a wet smack. My eyes snap open as Eshu roars in pain and drops me to the ground.

  The shifter devil stumbles back. Two knives are buried in his eyes. The skill with which they were thrown identifies the attacker.

  Em.

  But she is not alone.

  Bolas wrap around Eshu’s feet, binding him in place. As he tears the knives out of his eyes, there’s a battle cry that comes close to matching any Nephilim’s. Kainda, now recovered, leaps at Eshu and brings her stone hammer down on his head with all of her strength. The crack of Eshu’s skull breaking is loud. The monster falls to the ground, immobilized, but still alive. In fact, I can see the fresh wounds healing.

  I stand above the fallen Nephilim and yank Whipsnap out of his chest. He coughs purple blood, smiles and looks at me through one of his now healed eyes. “You are nothing,” he says.

  “You,” I say, interrupting the shifter. “Are about to die.” I raise Whipsnap above my head. “You will cease to exist. So you see, Eshu, it is you, the Nephilim, who are nothing.”

  A look of fear stitches across his face a moment before I bring Whipsnap’s razor sharp blade down, decapitating the monster.

  I step away from the growing pool of purple blood, catching my breath. Kainda steps up next to me. “Now you’ve killed two of them.”

  “I had help,” I admit.

  “Yes,” she says, looking at me with a look of satisfaction, “You did.”

  Em rushes up to us. Adoni inspects the scene.

  “Are you all right?” Em asks.

  Kainda huffs like it’s a ridiculous question. I answer for both of us, “We’re fine.”

  Adoni whispers something in another language, but I can tell by the sound that it’s a curse. He’s looking at half of Krane’s shed face. His voice shakes with horror as he asks, “This was Krane?”

  “A shifter,” I say. “He was trying to speak to the fathers.”

  “A shifter?” Em says. “I didn’t think—”

  “Nor did I,” Kainda says, her back to us as she stares into the jungle. “But they are real. And among us.”

  Trust no one. Xin’s words now make sense. If a shifter can take human form, they can probably take any human form, even those of people I trust. But Kainda, Em and Adoni have proven themselves to me tonight through their actions.

  “We need to leave,” Adoni says. “If he made contact—”

  “He didn’t,” Kainda says. “He had just begun the ritual.”

  Adoni stands, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter. The Fathers will know he tried to initiate contact. They will know that his ritual was interrupted. And they will know the mission with which he was tasked. They will come for him. His blood will be easy to track.”

  “We’ll head underground,” Em says. “We’ve planned for this.”

  Em is right. The hunters need to flee. It is not yet time to strike. Our numbers are too few, and we need help from the outside world. But I cannot join them. Not while the Clarks are here, and in danger. And not until I find Hades and the Jericho Shofar.

  “Go,” I say. “But I cannot go with you.”

  “What? Why not?” Em says quickly, a hint of anger rising in her voice.

  “I need to go to Olympus.”

  “His friend is there,” Adoni says, but he’s not defending me. “The teacher.”

  “Aimee?” Em says. She met Aimee once, in the Norse library. She knows how much Aimee means to me.

  “Solomon, you can’t—”

  “Mira is here, too. And Merrill.”

  Like with Aimee, Em knows all about Mira and Merrill. She knows about the photograph. About the note that Mira left behind for me. She knows.

  “Sol…”

  “I also need to find Hades,” I say.

  Adoni staggers back, eyes wide with fear. “Hades! Why?”

  “He is not like the others,” I say.

  “No,” Adoni says. “He is far worse.”

  His fear begins to infect me. I can’t let it. “It doesn’t matter. Cronus said he would help us.”

  Adoni is confused. “Cronus?”

  “The Titan,” I say.

  “You met…a Titan?”

  “In Tartarus.” My
patience wears thin. “It’s a long story and we don’t have the time. But I need to find Hades.” I look at Em. “And I need to save my friends. Both are at Olympus.”

  “I’m going with him,” Kainda says, attaching her hammer to her belt and crouching by the purple pool of blood. She takes a leather wineskin and carefully scoops up some of the blood.

  Collecting Nephilim blood strikes me as revolting. My nose crinkles in disgust and I ask, “What are you doing?”

  Kainda caps the skin and wipes away the blood on the outside with a leaf. “It saves lives,” Kainda says. “It could save yours.”

  I can tell she finds it as revolting as me by the way she pinches the skin between two fingers and quickly ties it to her belt. She’d rather not be taking it, but she’s right. The blood could save a life. At least the Nephilim are good for something.

  “Then I’m coming, too,” Em says.

  “Em,” I say, shaking my head.

  “You can’t,” says Adoni.

  “What about Luca?” I ask.

  She turns to Adoni. “Take Luca and the others underground. Six groups. Six different paths. When you reach the gathering place, wait for us.”

  I raise my voice. “No, Em, you need to stay—”

  “She needs to come,” Kainda says. She bends down to Eshu’s severed head and yanks out the knife still buried in his eye. “We need her help.”

  I know how impossibly hard that admission is for Kainda to make. So hard, in fact, that it quickly convinces me she’s right. I sigh. “Adoni, do as she says. We will find you.”

  Adoni looks like he might argue, but he’s outnumbered three to one. And, I suspect, he’s outranked by Em, Kainda and now by me. He bows in defeat and backs toward the jungle.

  “Adoni wait,” I say. “When we meet you next, do not trust us until…” Until what? I know what I want to say. We need some kind of password system that only the four of us know, just in case one of us is replaced by a shifter. My solution is ridiculous, but without context, they’ll never know. I raise my hand and do my best Vulcan greeting, opening my fingers, two to each side, and say, “Live long and prosper.”

  He looks at me like I’ve gone crazy. Maybe he has seen Star Trek? “It’s what I’ll say the next time we meet. So you’ll know I’m not—” I nod to Eshu’s dead body. “—one of them.”

  He nods his head in understanding. “Ahh.”

  “And you,” I say. “Will do this.” I reverse my two center fingers so that they come together, leaving just the index and pinky fingers extended. “Nanu nanu.”

  Adoni raises his hand, performs the gesture perfectly and says, “Nanu nanu.”

  I nearly laugh, hearing someone here say Robin Williams’s greeting from Mork & Mindy, but I contain my humor. “Perfect,” I say. “Now go.”

  As Adoni leaves, Em calls after him, “Tell Luca I love him.”

  Adoni waves in response, then fades into the dark jungle.

  I turn to Kainda and Em. “Thank you. For coming.”

  Kainda rolls her eyes and stomps off in the direction of Olympus. “I hope you’re not going to talk the whole way there.”

  Em smiles at me and pats my shoulder. “You have strange taste, brother.” Then she follows after Kainda.

  I take one last look at Eshu’s body. It took four hunters to kill the ten foot tall Nephilim. And now the three of us are heading into the core of the Nephilim world, where thirty foot giants reside. But my friends are there, too, and they have no idea what waits for them.

  I’m coming, Mira, I think. I know there can never be anything between us, but she stole a part of my heart a long time ago, and never gave it back. She will always be important to me. If she and Merrill are here to find Aimee, they’re here because of me. If something happens to any of them… I’m pretty sure I would drown under the weight of that burden.

  With renewed urgency, I run into the jungle. As I pass Em and Kainda, they give chase. The Clarks have a three-day head start, but I doubt they can travel as quickly as three conditioned hunters. We’ll gain ground quickly. And if we can catch them before they reach Olympus, we might be able to save them. If not…

  I’m coming.

  30

  We run for the rest of that night and half of the following day. We hear occasional bouts of distant gunfire. Twice, we cross strong cresty scent trails and steer clear. We don’t fear the dinosaurs, but they could delay us. That said, while we might be hunters and conditioned for long distance runs, we can’t run forever.

  I slow my pace when I see a group of boulders that will conceal us as we rest. I test the area with my nose. There are a thousand subtle smells, including blood, smoke, fresh-cut wood and gunpowder, but most of them are carried by the wind. We have been moving steadily upward for several hours now and the wind rolls down-slope, carrying the scents of Olympus with it.

  Satisfied that there’s no danger lurking nearby, I settle down next to a rock and lean my head back. Em slides over the rock and sits next to me. She’s out of breath, like me, but she’s also covered in sweat.

  She looks at me and frowns. “You’re not even sweating.”

  I look down at myself. She’s right. I’m definitely feeling the effects of running so far, though. I’m exhausted. And hungry. My lack of perspiration can wait. Em seems to be thinking the same thing. She takes out a wrapped cloth, opens it and hands me a stick of dried meat. I don’t even ask what it is. I just eat it, chase it down with a drink from my water skin and rest my head.

  Then I open my eyes. “Where’s Kainda?”

  Kainda replies from above. “Up here.”

  I turn my eyes up and see Kainda further up the incline.

  “You two rest. I’m going to scout ahead.” She doesn’t wait for an acknowledgement or for approval. She just turns and goes.

  “She’s a machine,” I say.

  “What’s a machine?” Em asks.

  “Something man-made. Out of metal usually. They can move for a long time, and are stronger than men.”

  “Then yes, she is a machine.”

  We share a smile and Em gets serious. “Why her?”

  I know she’s talking about Kainda. She saw us kiss. For a moment, I’m terrified that I’ve read our relationship all wrong, that Em sees me as something different than a brother. She did pretend to be my wife, after all. “What do you mean?” I ask, suddenly nervous. “You don’t—you aren’t…interested in—”

  “Oh! No!” She looks like she’s just tasted something foul or licked a frog. “Ugh. Gross.”

  “Okay! Okay!” I say, laughing.

  She shakes her head at me and takes a bite of dried meat. “Gross.”

  I lean my head back on the stone, returning my thoughts to her question. “I don’t know,” I admit.

  “Aside from the obvious,” Em says, then makes an hourglass motion with her hands.

  I laugh again. It’s nice to have an open conversation. I can speak more freely with Em than I have with anyone in the past. “When I…you know…”

  Em places her fingers against her lips.

  “Right,” I say. “It was instinct. It felt right.”

  Em nods. If there is anything a hunter understands, it’s instinct.

  “I just saw her hair, and—” That was it. Kainda is beautiful, and has other qualities that attract me to her—confidence and strength, but what makes her irresistible is that black streak in her hair. While there are many other hunters who have shrugged off the Nephilim, Kainda’s bonds were tighter than most. “I had Aimee,” I say. “You had Tobias. And he had Luca. Our connections helped us escape. We didn’t have to do it alone. Kainda was born here. She was raised by Ninnis. Can you imagine?”

  I can see by the look in Em’s eyes that she can’t.

  “She not only defied her master, Thor, one of the most powerful Nephilim warriors, but she also defied Ninnis, the most skilled hunter in the underworld. She knew nothing but the life of a hunter, and never once experienced what it meant to
be loved. And yet, here she is, freed from captivity because of her own courage.”

  I look at Em. She nods.

  “She deserves love.”

  “You’re right,” Em says. “Just try not to make her upset.”

  I’m about to offer some kind of witty reply, but instead say, “What I can’t figure out is, why me? I mean, aside from the obvious.” I give my muscles a flex and raise my eyebrows a few times.

  Em sticks out her tongue like she’s throwing up and we share a laugh. Then she gets serious. “I think her reasons are probably similar to yours.” She leans forward, takes my hair and pulls it around to where I can see it. “You’re free. Totally free. No hunter has ever done that before. I don’t think anyone has even considered the possibility. I know I hadn’t.”

  “The burden was lifted in Tartarus,” I say. “I didn’t do it by myself.”

  “Doesn’t really matter how it happened,” she says. “Only that it did.”

  I look at the ground, wondering if that’s all there is to it. Is Kainda attracted to my freedom or to me?

  Em seems to sense my thoughts and adds, “Plus she probably likes your, you know—” She flexes, and her muscles, while a little smaller than mine, are quite impressive. She laughs, but then grows serious. “Also, she was…offered to you. As a wife. By her father. Hunters take that seriously. It’s kind of an unsaid thing, but marriage is the only real relationship hunters are allowed. The coupling is supposed to be about producing stronger children.”

  “Selective breeding,” I say. When she looks at me oddly, I know she doesn’t understand. “It’s what the outside world calls it. They do it with livestock. To create stronger animals.”

  “Exactly. They want stronger hunters. But some pairs bond—” she pauses, searching for the word. “Emotionally. Though it is hidden, and no one would ever admit it. But it’s there. Kainda was offered to you by her father. You have been bonded.”