The Last Hunter - Collected Edition (102 page)

24

When Kat tries and fails to contact anyone on her small portable radio, I start to sprint across the clearing, but Kat snags my arm and stops me cold. “No!” she says. “The first hundred feet are covered with land mines.”

A quick look down reveals a mud covered mound that could be a mine...or not. I suppose not knowing one way or the other is the point. “How do we get across?” I ask. I’m about five seconds away from flying myself across the distance when Kat points to a string of tree trunks that cuts across the clearing.

“Seems like a bad idea,” I say, “Having such an obvious path across.”

“You didn’t notice it,” Kat says. “And the sniper with a direct line of sight down the path, with high caliber rounds strong enough to punch through five men, would have made a pretty good deterrent.”

There’s no doubt that Kat would have been that sniper. As I look at the straight line of trees and trace them back to a well protected bunker, it’s clear that the path across might actually be far more dangerous. But not for us. I work my way through the jungle to the first tree trunk and climb on top.

Grumpy lets out a deep, but gentle roar. I turn and find the giant’s head poking out of the jungle. He wants to come with us. “Stay here,” I say, trying to think it at the cresty as well. I’m not entirely certain how the creature seems to understand me, but it does. He grunts in complaint. “Stay. Here.”

With a sigh, the dinosaur slips back into the jungle and disappears, thanks to his camouflaged skin.

I climb atop the first trunk and work my way across. Once I’m certain the logs are securely embedded in the mud and aren’t going to roll, I run the distance. By the time I reach the end, I’m airborne, spurred by my concern for Luca, the hunters we led here, the soldiers we freed from the Nephilim prison, and all the men and women who have come here since, to fight for the human race.

The rest of the distance flashes past in a blur. I touch down in the center of the base where just days ago I stood with Merrill and Aimee, where I said goodbye to Xin, who gave his life for me and where I killed the shifter posing as Mira. But there’s no sign of any of those events or people present.

Including bodies.

For a moment, the lack of dead puts me at ease, but then I remember who our enemy is. Why leave dead when you can eat them? But there are many other clues about what happened, the first of which, Kat points out, when they catch up to me, running through the front gate.

“There’s no sign of a fight,” she says. “No shells, no blood, no remains. Even if they took the bodies there would still be...parts. The base wouldn’t have fallen without a fight. Even if it was a surprise attack.”

“No footprints, either,” Kainda says, looking at the ground. The easiest way to know a Nephilim has visited, if it’s been long enough for the stench to fade, is to look for footprints. The thirty foot goliaths tend to leave deep impressions.

“The heavy equipment is gone, too,” Kat notes. “No tanks. No artillery. This was a coordinated mobilization.”

“A retreat?” Mira asks.

Hearing the word makes me sick. This is one fight we cannot run away from, even if just the five of us have to fight alone. Kat’s silence doesn’t bode well, but I come to my own conclusion.

“General Holloway understood the stakes. As did Merrill and Aimee, and Luca, not to mention the hunters and soldiers we freed. They wouldn’t run away.”

“As much as I believe that about my parents,” Mira says, “they’re not here.”

“We just need to figure out where they went,” I said, scouring the base for any aberration. Many of the temporary buildings—tents and metal structures—are slowly burning, as is the wall built around the core of the base, and the watch towers. But there are no signs of larger, more violent destruction. “Kat, Em, Kainda, spread out and see if you can find some hint of where they went, and why some of the buildings are burning.”

“And what do you want me to do?” Mira asks, clearly not enthused that I’ve left her out of the search.

“Watch the skies,” I say. “We’re exposed and alone.”

She gives a nod, all hints of disappointment gone. I’ve given her the most important job—keeping us alive. “If you find a gun or something larger than this knife—” She pats the blade tucked into her belt.

I nod. “I’ll look for something, but you’ve done pretty well with just the knife.”

She smiles. “Yeah...” But then forces the grin away and says, deadpan, “Find me a gun.”

No matter how grim a situation, Mira has a way of making me laugh. I leave her with a smile, but it quickly fades as I set to work. My first stop is the large metal Quonset hut structure. Smoke billows from its door and windows, but the structure still looks solid. As I approach the door, the smoke parts for me.

Inside is just a cloud of black. I force the soot from the space, and snuff the fires with a thought. Beams of orange late-day sun lance through the wide open space, illuminating the destruction within. Not a thing remains. Every desk, piece of equipment and scrap of paper has been burned. I catch a trace of gasoline in the air.

I step further inside, walking over the embers of whatever was in this building. I’m sure the heat would be burning me if I could feel it, but since that moment with Kainda, I haven’t felt any temperature beyond a comfortable ambient seventy degrees. It’s odd, but it has its benefits. While the others have been sweating in what is obviously sweltering and humid heat, I’ve been just peachy.

My search yields no results. Nothing was left behind. No messages. No markings. And nothing that couldn’t be burned to a crisp.

I hear a crunch behind me. A quick sniff reveals the scent of sweat and guns. Kat. “Find anything?”

“Just scorched earth,” she says.

“What about the radio?” I ask.

She holds the radio to her mouth, pushes the call button and says, in very non-military fashion. “This is Katherine Ferrell looking for General Kent Holloway. If anyone reads, answer now.” She lets go of the button and we listen to thirty seconds of static before she speaks again. “They either have no radios or are out of range. My best guess is that they were up to something and didn’t want to risk a chance of the enemy discovering what that was, so they bugged out and set the place on fire. Also, the smoke will draw the Nephilim here, at least in part, and they’ll still get a good taste of the mine field, which is the one and only thing they
did
leave behind.”

“But they knew we were coming back,” I say. “And you were just here a few days ago.”

She crouches down, picks up what looks like an artifact covered in soot, but it just crumbles in her fingers. “Things change fast in war. And as for you, there was no guarantee you would come back. No offense, but not even I thought it was a guarantee. And let’s be honest, you almost didn’t make it back.”

Well...she’s right about that. “So they just up and left without a clue?”

“Didn’t say that, but if they left something behind for us to find, it’s going to be subtle. I doubt they want to advertise where they went, but I can tell you one thing for certain.”

I wait for the big reveal in silence.

“They either went north or south.”

Of course.
They wouldn’t have headed inland. They would lose the support of the Navy if they did. And there is only ocean in the other direction. “Assuming they didn’t retreat.”

“They didn’t,” she says.

“How can you be sure?”

“Holloway knows I would hunt him down and put him in a hurt locker.”

We leave the husk of a building and split up to search every inch of the camp. On my way to the outer wall, I spot Mira standing still and looking down at a patch of earth. A lump forms in my throat when I realize what she’s looking at—Xin’s grave.

I find myself walking to her, the wall a distant memory. The earth covering Xin’s body no longer looks fresh. It’s as dark and muddy as the rest of the ground inside the base. If not for the stone, still in place, there would be nothing to distinguish it as a grave.

I step up next to her, looking at the stone. A single word is inscribed on it, carved by my hand with a knife: Xin.

“The body buried here looks just like you?” Mira asks. I told her the story just once. She has a good memory. Although it’s not exactly an easy story to forget.

“We were twins,” I say.

“But not at first?”

“At first, he looked like a gatherer. White, scaly skin. Yellow eyes. Moved through the underground like a snake. Nearly killed me.”

“Why didn’t he?”

“I saved him.”

She lets out a laugh. “Seems to be the story of your life.”

“What do you mean?”

“All the people following you—” She motions to the gravestone. “—giving their lives for you. They all wanted to kill you, but in the end, your mercy and forgiveness saved
them
.” She motions behind us with her head despite there being nothing there. “Including your hoochie mamma wife.”

“What’s a hoochie mamma?” I ask.

“Never mind,” she says. “The point is, well, I don’t know what the point is. I guess I’m just glad to know you.”

I stand in silence for a moment, absorbing the compliment. I’m about to dismiss myself and continue my search when Mira asks, “What’s the arrow for?”

I scrunch my forehead. “What arrow?”

“On the gravestone,” she says. “Did Xin use a bow and arrow?”

I kneel down and inspect the gravestone more carefully. It’s really just a basketball size hunk of granite I pulled out of the ground. It’s smooth, but not polished. I find the arrow etched into its gray surface, near the bottom, almost covered by mud. I didn’t make this. Why would someone else? What does it mean? I look in the direction the arrow is pointing and see nothing but ruins and the ocean beyond.

Mira crouches down next to me. “Maybe you’re supposed to flip it over. You know, like it’s a piece of paper?”

My response is to lunge forward, grasp the stone and flip it over. The other side is devoid of anything interesting, but it’s also covered in mud. With a thought, I condense water from the humid air and force it beneath the mud, souring the stone clean. Two strings of numbers are revealed, each with a single decimal point.

Mira and I look at each other, eyes wide and say the same thing, “Coordinates!”

25

As it turns out, they headed south. But there isn’t a single tank tread, wheel groove or boot scuff to show their passage. Kat thinks they took helicopters and ships. It would have been a massive troop relocation in just a few days, but doable. The question is, why move at all?

Knowing our answer lies roughly an hour to the south, we head out, rejoining with Grumpy and Zok on the far side of the mine field. With the sky dimming to a deep purple hue, we ride fast and in silence, keenly aware that just hours separate us from a desperate battle for which we are not yet prepared.

But there is one more obstacle in our way. A cliff, rising from the coast and stretching far inland creates a natural barrier that not even a behemoth could force his way through. We stop a half mile away, craning our necks up at the towering cliffs. I see no sign of human defenses at its base or at its top.

“I’m just going to put this out there,” Mira says, “just in case any of you tough-as-nails types are thinking it. I’m not climbing up this cliff.”

No one argues.

“Heading inland will take us too close to the Nephilim,” Em says. “Their scouts have no doubt discovered the ruse and have changed the army’s course.”

“I could try flying us over,” I say.

Grumpy lets out an uncomfortable roar and four women, five if you count Zok, turn to me with looks that say, “Don’t even think about it.”

“Word to the wise, kid,” Kat says. “When you’re talking about flying five people and two dinosaurs half a mile up into the air, don’t use the word ‘try’. Besides, none of that will be necessary. The military is running the show. They wouldn’t leave us a way to find them if reaching them was impossible.”

“I could open a tunnel through the cliff,” I say.

“Save your energy,” Kat says. “You’re going to need it. And we don’t know how thick the cliff is. Could be a mile across at the top.”

“Where to, then?” I ask.

She points to the left. “Where the cliff meets the ocean.”

Grumpy turns in the direction Kat is pointing, but doesn’t move until I give him a gentle nudge with my heels. Then we’re off and running, but not for long. The jungle growth here is new and thick. The cresties have a hard time walking through, so we have to dismount and clear a path. Again, I could use my powers, but Kat is right, any unnecessary use of my abilities will drain me some, and we have no idea how long it will be until I need them in a big way.

By the time we reach the base of the cliff, the last light of day is struggling to stay above the horizon. Where the stone wall rises from the sea is cloaked in deep shadow, black as night. Despite the darkness, I have no trouble making out the ledge jutting out over the sea, which is roaring a hundred feet below. It’s just eight feet wide, barely big enough for the cresties to pass single file. It’s wide enough for a band of humans or a line of Nephilim, but they would be easy targets. And since Nephilim are prone to dying when they drown, the wingless variety would likely avoid this route.

“I can’t see a thing,” Mira complains. She takes out her glowing blue crystal, but this isn’t the inside of a cave, where the light can reflect. It lights our party’s faces in dull blue, but that’s about it.

“Let me see,” I say, taking the orb from her. “The crystals glow because the molecules are active. When they collide, they glow. The color is determined by which elements are dominant in the crystal.” Suddenly, the sphere blossoms with light, illuminating the ground, the cliff and the ledge. It’s so bright that it hurts to look directly at it.

“What did you do?” Mira asks.

“Sped up the molecules so they collide harder and more frequently.”

“It’s not going to explode or something?” she asks.

“I don’t think so,” I say.

Kat laughs. “You really need to work on your declarative statements. Even if you’re not sure, sound sure.”

I start to sigh, but she cuts me off.

“I’m not kidding. You’re going to be sending men to their deaths. If you don’t sound confident about the benefit of their sacrifice, or the chance of their survival, they’re going to head for the hills. Armies are only as brave as their leader.”

“No one is braver,” Kainda says, stepping between Kat and me. “Do not insult him again.”

“I have no doubt about his abilities,” Kat says. “But whatever army we have waiting for us doesn’t know him beyond the rumors they’ve heard, or the show he put on at the FOB. Beyond that, he’s just one man. And he hasn’t earned their confidence yet. If he’s not exuding confidence in the way he talks, or even walks, they’re going to see it.”

I put a hand on Kainda’s shoulder. “It’s okay. She’s right.”

“So let me hear it,” Kat says. “Are we going to win this war?”

“Yes,” I say quickly, but it almost sounds like a question.

Kat grunts. “Going to have to work on your lying, too.” She heads for the ledge, stopping at the edge. The cliff is two hundred feet thick and the ledge stretches the entire distance. But I see nothing to indicate a human presence on the other side.

“How far are we from the coordinates?” I ask.

“Almost on top of them,” Kat says, then raises the radio to her lips. “This is Katherine Ferrell looking for General Kent Holloway, does anyone copy?”

There’s just a moment of static before a deep voice with a thick Russian accent answers, “Da, we read you. Please state business.”

Kat switches to speaking Russian and the conversation flows much more quickly. After a brief exchange, Kat lowers the radio. “This is the place.”

“This is where my parents are?” Mira asks.

“Da,” Kat says. “Welcome to Mother Russia.” With that, she steps out onto the ledge and starts toward the far end. Grumpy and Zok take some coaxing, but eventually follow us onto the ledge. I really don’t know if the stone will hold their several ton weight, but if we fall, I have no doubt I can catch us all, despite how insecure my words might sound.

Halfway across, Em says, “This seems too easy. Too undefended.”

“There are bombs under the ledge,” Kat says.

“How do you know?” I ask.

“They told me,” she replies. “Said they would blow us up if we did anything funny.”

“And you’re telling us now because?” Mira says.

Kat smiles. “That aghast look on your face never gets old.”

Before Mira can retort, the same deep Russian voice, no longer distorted by the radio, shouts out. “Is far enough. State your business.”

“I already did,” grumbles Kat, and I can tell she’s about to volley a string of angry Russian in their direction.

“Let me handle this,” I say, stepping forward.

“You sure you—”

I shoot her a look that shows how serious I am, and then reach a hand out to Mira. “Light, please.”

Mira puts the crystal in my hand. I give Kainda a wink, which makes her smile, and step forward.

With every step I take, the light grows brighter. The end of the ledge is lined with thick brush hiding the Russian from view.

“That’s close enough!” the Russian says again, sounding angry now, almost like he’s in pain.

“They’re wearing night vision goggles,” Kat hisses from behind. “The light is hurting their eyes.”

I stand my ground. “Are you in charge of this outpost?”

“Da,” says the Russian.

“Can you see me?” I ask.

“Da,” he says again.

“Do you know who I am?”

Silence.

They’re either obstinate, unsure or unconvinced. “You know the name, Katherine Ferrell?

“Da,” the man says again, “But we also know of the shifters.”

They’ve been educated. This is good. “Then you know that shifters can’t do this.” A wind picks me up off the ground and I float closer to the end of the ledge. I set myself down again, encouraged by the fact that I haven’t been shot at. I’m just ten feet from the brush when I say, “Show yourself.”

To my surprise, the brush stands up. And it’s not just one man, it’s twenty, each sporting a high caliber weapon. The largest of them, a man who looks like a bush, whose face is painted black, steps forward and removes a pair of night vision goggles. His eyes are bright blue, the kind of eyes I picture women swooning for, but they also look deadly.

He raises an assault rifle at my face. “Your name?”

I speak calmly and confidently. “I am Solomon Ull Vincent, the last hunter and
your
leader. You will let us pass now.”

His bright white teeth flash with a grin. He steps to the side and the other camouflaged men follow his lead. They watch us pass with intense stares, but give the dinosaurs a wider birth. Once we’re past, the men resume their positions, becoming the forest once again.

Kat slides up next to me. “Good job.” I start to say, “Thanks,” but she speaks over me. “Lucky they didn’t shoot you, though. Spetsnaz aren’t known for their patience.”

Spetsnaz?
While I don’t know much about the details of military weaponry, I do know about the major military units. Spetsnaz are the Russian special forces whose training regimen isn’t that dissimilar from the breaking of a hunter. It would make Rambo cry like a little girl. In fact, hunters might be the only fighting force on the planet whose training is more grueling.

“Well, I say, if I can impress Spetsnaz, maybe there’s hope for me ye—”

I stop in my tracks. We’re standing at the top of a hill leading down to a massive clearing where a mind-numbing sight awaits us.

Mira says, “Holy—”

“Now this is more like it,” Kat adds.

Kainda says nothing, but she’s smiling, and takes my hand in hers, our still fresh bonding wounds pressed against each other.

It’s Em who notes the one detail that is less impressive, but perhaps the most strange. “I’ve never seen that flag before.”

She’s right. There are several flags billowing in the wind, all lit by a variety of spotlights. They’re not any of the most likely subjects: American, Russian, Chinese or any European nation. The first aberration from standard nation flags is that they’re mostly white, which normally is a sign of surrender. But there is a splotch of green at the center of the flag. The shape is hard to make out, but there is a single yellow star at the core. A stiff breeze directed by my thoughts holds the flag straight out long enough for me to discern the shape: Antarctica. “It’s an Antarctican flag.”