If he was lucky, the mentalist would be moving quickly and not paying much attention to every step he took. If he was careless enough to step into the trap, the vicious metal teeth would incapacitate him and keep him in place until the Hunter’s men could collect him later.
The Hunter allowed himself a quick smile as he entered the secret tunnel and pushed the button on the other side to close the tunnel door behind him.
He was safe for the moment.
Still, he couldn’t afford to slow down. Not now. The hidden tunnel ran for about six miles, and at a relaxed, but quick pace, mostly uphill, he figured he could make it to the other end in just about an hour—maybe a little longer. Finally, his weekly running regimen was going to pay off in a way that really mattered.
Once he was above ground, he could get to his people, and finally he would be safe. Then it would be just a matter of time and manpower before Mr. Walker and his girlfriend were both captured and the tables were turned one final time.
The Hunter didn’t achieve his status in life by giving up, and he didn’t plan on starting now.
Chapter 48
TRENT WANTED to make the humans in front of him suffer for their sins—for their parts in the atrocities beneath the city of Las Vegas and for the aching wound in his shoulder that was burning with increasing intensity.
But the Hunter was his only concern now—his only prey.
The three remaining men now pointed pistols at Trent, but even though they clearly had the advantage, Trent could smell their fear. Their hands shook with a combination of apprehension and adrenaline as they faced a man whom they did not fully comprehend.
The armed men inched closer, shouting commands at Trent that he could not understand.
He ignored them all and dove backwards over the glass wall.
Shots fired over his head as he fell the twenty feet to the floor below and landed on top of one of the Hunter’s dead henchman. Using the body of the large man to soften his landing, Trent rolled forward from his fall, came up in a crouched position, and set off at a run in one fluid motion.
He couldn’t hear anything but a loud ringing in his ears, but as he ran as fast as he could across the concrete floor, he could clearly see the clouds of dust rise up all around him as the bullets of the men missed their mark.
In exactly four seconds, Trent was across the floor and in the tunnel entrance where the Hunter had disappeared only minutes before.
Trent looked both ways down the tunnel. He could not see the Hunter, but the man’s stench lingered. His smell was so overpowering to Trent’s heightened senses that it was almost as if he could see the trail of odor that the Hunter had left behind.
He knew the Hunter couldn’t be that far ahead of him as he took off at a moderate run in search of the evil man.
Once he caught up with the Hunter, he would not make the same mistake the Hunter had made earlier. Trent would take full advantage of any opportunity he had to end the life of the man who had caused so much suffering to others in this world.
As he ran down the tunnel, Trent’s shoulder leaked blood, and despite his increased stamina and strength, he felt the fatigue of the day and of his injuries take their toll. But he was too close to his prey now, and he forced himself to persevere.
He followed the Hunter’s trail, first up the main tunnel, and then into the side tunnel that ran more steeply uphill.
With every step, he could tell that he was closing in on the man.
After following the Hunter’s trail into yet another side tunnel, Trent stopped in mid-stride. This was the same place where he had just recently passed the disembodied legs that had been wedged into the hidden alcove in the wall. But now, the two limbs gently bobbed back and forth in the several inches of water that still covered the tunnel floor.
There also was a new scent here. A strong smell of metal. When Trent looked down, he could clearly see the jagged teeth of a bear trap that had been left on the floor, covered to a great extent by the floating limbs.
Trent picked up one of the legs and dropped it into the center of the trap. As soon as the leg made contact, the jaws sprang shut so hard that they tore almost clear through the man’s leg bone.
Trent snarled and stepped carefully around the already-sprung trap.
He went a few steps farther, but the Hunter’s trail was no more. He went back to where the Hunter’s trail vanished. It was if the man had disappeared into the very walls of the tunnel itself.
In frustration, Trent pounded his fist and then his left shoulder into the wall first once, then again and again. On the third try, he thought he felt the wall move slightly, but despite a renewed fury, Trent could not budge the wall any further.
With a loud growl, Trent sprinted up the main tunnel as fast as he could. If the Hunter had found a way to travel inside the tunnel’s walls, Trent would just have to move faster if he was going to catch the man when he finally decided to show himself.
A faint voice whispered to Trent from the back of his mind.
It said only one word, Zana.
Trent heard the name and understood.
He had to find the woman with black hair before the Hunter did.
He raced through the tunnels now that the water was so shallow. When he again came to the tunnel with the four-foot high ceiling, he sped through its entrance without thought and deftly traversed the short distance until he emerged into the larger room with seven-foot ceilings.
Trent jumped up and pulled himself into the side tunnel that led to the Troll’s lair, and in seconds he burst into the hay-strewn room that the Troll had called home.
But the woman was not there.
When he sniffed the air, he could tell that the Hunter had not been there recently either.
The woman must have left on her own once the waters had begun to subside, and now she was probably roaming the tunnels, unaware that the Hunter was on the loose.
The panic of a desperate animal filled him, as the civilized part of Trent screamed to his animal self that they had to find Zana before the Hunter did.
Trent’s body had been injured several times already and was still giving up blood from multiple lacerations, but even as he prepared to take off at a run again, he noticed that his many cuts had started to heal. His leg had almost completely stopped hurting, and even the gunshot wound in his shoulder wasn’t bleeding as much. In fact, the only piece of him that seemed to ache more than ever was the bite wound on his right shoulder that never seemed to go away.
Even though his body was ready for one last push to find either Zana or the Hunter, he didn’t know where to look for either of them.
The smell of the Hunter was nowhere to be found, but as he left the Troll’s lair, he picked up the smell of almonds floating in the air here and there.
Trent started moving again, following Zana’s scent as best he could.
After weaving his way through the maze of tunnels for another fifteen minutes, he suddenly detected a faint echo of the Hunter’s odor as well.
Trent put his nose to the nearest wall. He could tell that the stench was coming from behind the concrete.
Filled with renewed energy and purpose, Trent tracked the Hunter’s scent for almost another quarter of a mile before it disappeared again. Trent smashed at the wall with his fists and rammed the concrete with his shoulder, but the wall was solid, and it did not move.
He had lost the Hunter’s trail once again, and even worse, he could no longer detect the scent of almonds in the air.
Chapter 49
AT ONE TIME, the Hunter had been a big game hunter of some renown.
And as he made his way through the hidden maintenance tunnel, he felt an exhilaration he had only experienced twice before—once when he had bagged the beautiful and critically endangered black rhinoceros in Tanzania, and much later in life when he had hunted his first human.
One day, while deep in the jungle on a hunt for a rumored albino jaguar, one of his men had stolen the Hunter’s mo
ney box and had made off with it in the night. The Hunter had been furious, giving up the hunt for the rare cat, and focusing all of his resources on finding the thief instead.
The man gave quite a chase before the Hunter caught up to him and had him executed.
That had been the Hunter’s first taste of human prey, and he immediately knew that there was money to be made from the experience.
When he later settled in Las Vegas and discovered the secret world that was thriving in the hundreds of miles of storm drain tunnels beneath the town, he knew he had found a way to realize his dreams.
Thus was born the idea for his monthly hunt and for his Lodge, both of which were open only to the elite set of extreme gamblers who came to him to satisfy their forbidden desires.
The Hunter had been running for almost a full hour, and with only a few hundred yards left until the end of the maintenance tunnel, he would soon be back in the main tunnel system. After that it was only a quarter of a mile or so until the parking garage. Once there, he only had to set foot into the underground garage, and the whole place would erupt with alarms set off by its motion detectors.
The owner of the Paradise Hotel was a personal friend, and the Hunter knew he would be well cared for once he took the elevator to the ground level above. If he ran into any guards along the way who had been dispatched to investigate the alarm, all he had to do was mention his real name, and they would assist him however they could.
As the Hunter finally arrived at the end of the maintenance tunnel, he stopped to listen for any noise coming from the other side of the concrete slab that acted as the tunnel’s door.
As best he could tell, all was quiet.
He braced himself for whatever he would find after opening the door, wishing for the hundredth time that he had not dropped his weapon, but determined to move forward nonetheless.
He gathered his courage and pushed the button to open the door. As the door swung open, the light from the maintenance tunnel cast his elongated shadow across the illuminated area in front of him.
Once the door was completely open, he stepped out and looked around.
He crouched down and listened, but once again, he heard nothing.
Rising to his full height again, he closed the tunnel door behind him, pulled out his small flashlight again, and set off toward the garage and his impending freedom.
After about an eighth of a mile, he could clearly see a light ahead coming from the left side of the tunnel. He knew it must be the garage—his way out—and his spirits lifted.
However, as he sprinted the final distance, he suddenly stopped short.
Half a dozen men—obviously members of the homeless population who lived in the tunnels—blocked the entrance to the garage. None of them looked particularly formidable on their own, but there were still six of them, and half of those were holding some form of stick or bat.
They stood with their arms crossed and glared at the Hunter as he stood there, frozen.
They didn’t advance on him, but the Hunter had no doubt that they wouldn’t let him pass without a fight.
With a curse, the Hunter took off running again, continuing his way up the main tunnel. He knew plenty of ways to the surface, and soon he would be up top and among civilized people again.
And no group of homeless scum was going to stop him.
Chapter 50
TRENT QUICKENED his pace, frantically running from tunnel to tunnel until he once again detected a trace of the Hunter’s odor.
This time, the smell was not coming from behind a concrete wall. The man was in the open again and moving up the main tunnel.
Trent followed the olfactory trail at a steady run until he saw a bright light up ahead coming from the side of the tunnel. He approached, slightly hunched over, ready for anything. He saw six young people standing at the edge of the tunnel, as if guarding the exit.
Trent smelled the air around him.
He walked past them and sniffed in their direction just to make sure that the Hunter had not somehow escaped by going through them.
He had not.
The Hunter’s path clearly continued straight up the tunnel, and Trent took off at a full sprint, knowing that the Hunter was not far away.
As he sped along, he followed the Hunter’s trail through the tunnel system.
Trent soon came to another tunnel with a lowered ceiling, and he sped through that as easily as if he had been strolling across a field of cool, soft grass. As he emerged from the smaller tunnel, he saw a fresh footprint in some mud left over from the now fully receded flood waters.
He noticed as he continued on, that whether because of the recent flooding or for some other reason, the tunnels were devoid of their usual homeless tenants.
So close to his prey, Trent pushed his body as fast as it would go, farther and farther until time and distance meant nothing to him. All he had was his will to triumph and to deliver justice to the Hunter.
At one point, he passed a set of metal rungs that ran up the side of the wall to a manhole cover above. Just as with the previous tunnel exit, several men stood with their arms crossed, as if guarding the exit.
Trent knew that it would require little effort to tear his way through the small group of men, but he didn’t even pause as he continued following the Hunter’s trail.
Further up the tunnel, again, there was a group of males guarding yet another tunnel exit.
Trent now moved with more caution as he continued past this latest group of men. He clearly understood what was happening.
The Hunter was being herded.
To where and by whom, Trent did not know, but he would soon find out.
He knew he must be right behind the Hunter, that at any minute he would overtake the man, but he had to run yet another mile before he turned a sharp corner, and saw a dot of bright light several hundred yards in the distance.
Trent’s first though was that the Hunter had finally made it out of the tunnel somehow. If the Hunter had escaped, Trent would have failed in his calling this night—failed in doing the one right thing that would justify all of the carnage he had caused throughout the rest of the evening.
And that would not do.
With all of his might, Trent’s spirit pushed him one last time as he broke into a full run. As he got closer and closer to the light, the bright dot expanded into a large circle.
The silhouette of a man standing still and framed by the brightness also came into view.
Trent slowed to a walk and approached to within ten feet of the motionless Hunter before stopping.
Between the Hunter and the approaching dawn of the world outside, a large group of people stood, blocking his exit. There were both males and females in the crowd, each holding various poles, sticks, and other objects that were clearly being carried as weapons.
Standing at the front of the pack, was their leader—the female with black hair, named Zana.
And all of Trent finally understood.
Zana had not fled the Troll’s lair.
She had not run for her life in fear.
She had instead gathered together the denizens of the underground world in which she lived and had become the predator herself, herding the Hunter into her trap.
Chapter 51
TRENT’S SENSES were assaulted by all manner of smells from the Hunter. The predominant scent was a heady mix of anger and fear.
As Trent stepped closer, the one called Zana shouted out to him.
He still could not understand her words, but he could tell by her body and her face that she was deadly serious about whatever she was saying.
The hidden piece of Trent whispered to himself that vengeance was hers to take, and Trent stopped his advance.
The Hunter was speaking quickly and loudly to the crowd, and when he turned around and saw Trent, his speech became broken and his throat dry.
As one, the crowd surged forward.
The Hunter looked at Trent and started backing up toward him.
Before the Hunter got close to Trent, he stumbled and fell to the ground.
Like an insect swarm angered at the disruption of its hive, the humans instantly covered the Hunter.
The screams of the evil man were like soothing music to Trent’s ears.
They were the sounds of vengeance being delivered, and the notes of the world being that much better off.
Trent turned his back on the crowd and from the pathetic screeches still coming from the once so-mighty Hunter.
He inadvertently thumbed the polished silver pendant that still hung from his bare neck. Whatever had overtaken Trent that evening had done so to protect him from what had to be done. But now it was time to end the night and to tend to his own sanity.
As he slowly walked away, a little piece of Trent returned with each step.
He remembered the full moon—the hunter’s moon—that had been out earlier that night.
He had walked closely with death since then many times—both causing it and observing it. Everything that had happened that night had been too much for him, and he knew that he would not have survived if his other self, whatever that was, had not taken control.
As more and more of his normal self returned, he prayed to a God in which he did not even believe that he would never have to go through another night like this again. Maybe others were meant to be killers, but Trent was not.
He had made this same prayer exactly one month ago, and it had not been answered then either.
As he heard the receding sounds of the crowd still delivering its vengeance, Trent knew that the Hunter deserved every last ounce of pain he was receiving. He also knew that there were evil men everywhere, and that there would always be someone or something in need of justice in the world.
The Whittier Trilogy Page 30