The Last Hunter - Collected Edition (61 page)

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.”

The idea that I’m part of some ancient hunter arranged-marriage situation makes me a little sick to my stomach. But it still doesn’t make sense. “Kainda doesn’t seem like the kind of person to let customs dictate what she does.”

“She is a hunter in every way, Sol. She would take the arrangement seriously.”

I frown, a little disappointed by the idea that Kainda’s interest is merely the product of custom.

Em lets out a gentle laugh. “But that doesn’t explain her affection. It is most certainly not part of the arrangement.”

I’m about to ask more when Kainda skids to a stop above us. My face flushes as I think we’ve been caught talking about her, but Kainda quickly says, “I found something. I think we’re close.”

She heads off, back up the rise. We chase after and don’t stop until we near the crest of the hill. The smells hit me first. Blood—human and Nephilim. Modern weapons. Old Spice.

“They were here,” I say.

“Not long ago,” Kainda says. “The body is not yet rotting.”

Body!?

I rush to Kainda as she squats next to a body. The man’s limbs are mangled and it looks like he might have been folded at the waist—in the wrong direction. He’s got a shaved head and wears military fatigues. The patch on his arm identifies him as a British soldier. His weapon, a modern looking rifle, lies a few feet away, bent and broken. A large knife is sheathed on his belt.

“Do you know him?” Kainda asks.

“No,” I say. “But he must have been with them.”

Em surprises me by taking the man’s knife. She sees my confused look and says, “I’ll avenge him with it.” She attaches the knife to her belt, adding it to her collection. She keeps the knives around her waist and attached to two criss-crossing bands that form an X over her chest. The man’s knife is larger than all the rest, but it fits her ensemble nicely.

“There are tracks,” Kainda says.

We quickly split up, following the group of tracks as they lead down the other side of the hill. Bullet casings litter the area. More dried Nephilim blood. They were putting up a good fight by the looks of it. Some of the paths lead further downhill, but two of them end. Three if you count the Nephilim that attacked them.

Em and Kainda join me at the scene. There is dry human blood on a stone. Not much of it, which is good. There’s a lot more dried Nephilim blood. And something else, so subtle I nearly miss it. It looks like purple dust. I reach a hand out.

“Don’t touch that,” Kainda warns.

“Why? What is it?”

“The powder will knock you unconscious if you inhale it,” Em says. “On your skin, it will sap your strength.”

“They were taken,” Kainda says. “Alive.”

I look at the evidence. The scuff marks. The positioning of human and Nephilim footprints. The boot sizes. The blood. Merrill’s scent still lingers. He was one of the two, which leaves no doubt in my mind that Mira left the smaller boot prints. I recreate the scene. Mira fell and hit her head. She was confronted by a Nephilim. Merrill came to her aid. And if Em is right, they were both knocked unconscious and taken. “But…”

Em and Kainda look at me. “If they were taken, where are the tracks?”

The three of us scour the area. The big Nephilim’s footprints are easy to spot, and where he came from is clear. But how he left…

“It’s like he flew away,” Em says.

Kainda scoffs. “The masters
cannot
fly.”

No one argues, though I’m not so sure. The Gigantes in Tartarus had no trouble flying. And the scorpion-like tail in the thinker lab hinted that experiments had been done using attributes of the old Nephilim.

Before I have time to consider the possibilities, gunshots echo in the distance. The staccato picks up and I can hear Nephilim shouting war cries. A battle is being fought nearby. I intend to join it.

I break into a sprint, heading downhill toward the sound of a river. The trees thin and I catch a glimpse of a tall mountain just a few miles away. But it’s more than a mountain. It’s a city, built right into the stone, or carved out of it. I slow, looking at the amazing structure. It’s stunning and horrifying.

“Olympus,” I say.

Kainda and Em slow and look. “I’ve never seen it like this,” Kainda says, her voice sharing a little bit of the awe I feel.

Em brings us back to reality, saying, “It’s a horrible place.”

With that, I turn my head downward and start to run. The sound of the river is louder and I can smell the moisture in the air. Once we reach the river, we can—

The ground shakes. A boom louder than anything I’ve ever heard rolls past. We stumble, fall and slide to a stop just as the shaking fades. The river is just twenty feet bellow.

“What was that!?” Em shouts.

Kainda is quick to her feet, hand on hammer, looking for danger.

I, on the other hand, sit still and listen. That was an explosion. A very large one. And explosions that big can have aftereffects. A distant roar confirms my fear. As it grows louder, I stand and motion for Kainda and Em to run away. “Run! Get higher!”

“
What
?” Kainda is offended that I would retreat. “Why?”

“The river!” I shout. The roar nearly drowns out my voice. “It’s flooding! Run!”

As I run, I look to the side and see a wall of water tearing through the jungle, heading straight for us.

31

There’s no time to run up the hillside, so we take to the trees instead, climbing the tall trunks like chimps. We reach the canopy just before the water hits. The roar beneath us sounds like Behemoth—powerful and hungry. I move across the canopy, trying to reach the river’s edge and maybe get a glimpse of what’s happening.

The trees shake when the water strikes. I lose my grip and fall a few feet, but catch myself. The fall didn’t feel dangerous, but when I look down, I realize I nearly lost my life. I’m dangling over the river with no other branches beneath me. It’s a fifty-foot fall into a raging torrent. The river has grown and expanded into the jungle on either side, and if I fell, it’s possible that I’d be swept into a tree and knocked unconscious—if not snapped in half. Either way, I’d likely drown. I pull myself back up as the water deepens and speeds up.

Looking upriver, I see a frothing crest of water perhaps twenty feet tall, rushing through the trees. This is going to get worse before it gets better. “Hold on!” I shout, but I don’t think anyone can hear me above the water’s roar.

I swing myself up onto a branch and wrap my arms and legs around it like I’m a sloth. The water approaches as though in slow motion. I can’t take my eyes off it. It’s A force of nature. Seeing the water reminds me of the flooded underworld. Had the rushing waters looked like this? I decide against it. With so many underworld species now flourishing on the surface, they had time to get out. But Behemoth, trapped underground, found its chamber slowly flooded and eventually drowned.

A speck on the crest of the approaching wave catches my attention. There are trees and other debris pushed by the raging waters, but this object has the distinctive shape of a boat. A wooden boat. And it rides the wave like a surfer.
How is it not being smashed into the jungle
, I wonder, and then I see a man—a human—at the back, guiding the thing with a large rudder. The craft looks like an unfinished yacht without a mast. It stretches at least twenty-five feet. But it’s also clearly not designed for people. Instead, I suspect it’s something closer to a Nephilim rowboat, designed to carry just two of the giants. But to what?

My question fades as I look at the other passengers. There is a thin man with tan skin whose uniform I recognize as Chinese. A survivor of the Nephilim attack? Another looks to be Arab, but I’m not sure and then there is a black woman. But she’s not dressed in military clothing like the rest, she’s—Aimee!

The boat is swept beneath me and I see her face. And next to her—Merrill! A blond mop of hair whips my head toward the center of the boat so fast that I nearly fall out of the tree.

Mira.

Seeing her face brings tears to my eyes.
My old friend
… I thought I’d never see her again. Or Merrill. And yet, they’re all here and reunited. How they managed to find each other and escape Olympus is beyond me. But they did it.

I hear voices rise up from below.

“Whitney!” It’s the man at the rudder. His face looks Hispanic. His clothing is black. Military. U.S. I’d guess. “How are we doing, chica?”

I’m surprised when it’s Mira who replies. “Keep to the left, Cruz.”

Their voices fade as the craft moves past.

I shout to them, desperate. “Mira! Merrill! Aimee! Up here!”

My voice is lost in the roar of the river.

For a moment, I think they’re looking at me, but they’re not. They’re looking beyond me. At the sky.

What are they watching for?

The boat is carried quickly away, and if the man, Cruz, can keep them in the middle of the river, they won’t slow until reaching the lake.

With my friends out of reach, my thoughts return to the question of why Mira responded to the name, Whitney. Did she change her name? Was it some kind of military code name? Her middle name? None of these possibilities rings true. Then what?

She called the man Cruz, which is a common Hispanic last name. So he was probably using her last name, too.
Whitney
. Mirabelle Whitney, not Mirabelle Clark.
She’s married
. The answer fills me with jealously and anger.

Granted, I knew she would be older than me, and that there was a possibility of her being married, or even being a mother. But the reality of it hurts. It’s not like she was ever my girlfriend. I didn’t even know her that long. But her photo carried me for so long that I guess I became attached. And her being married, for some strange psychological reason, feels like a betrayal. She lived her life without me.

And that means everyone else did, too.

Merrill.

Justin.

My parents.

They all lived on without me. They all went to parties. Saw movies. Vacationed. Laughed. Loved.

Without me.

The realization stings.

I know it’s selfish, but I can’t stop it.

I can’t, but something else can. A shadow. It moves across the river so quickly that I’m not sure I actually saw something. How could a shadow fall on the river, anyway?

If it were flying, I realize, turning my head up.

It’s just a speck when I see it, circling like some kind of predatory bird. But it looks far too high, which means it’s also quite large. Hanging onto my perch with one hand, I take out my telescope and extend it using my teeth. With the spectacle to my eye, I try to find the airborne figure. It takes some time to zero in on the moving target, but when I do, I gasp.

Enki.

With the wings of a Gigantes.

And the tail of Cronus the Titan.

The thinkers somehow managed to imbue the Nephilim warriors with attributes previously held only by the eldest of their kind.
That’s how they’re going to reach the world
, I realize. Antarctica might now reside at the equator, but an ocean still separates the continent from the rest of the world.

They’re going to fly to the mainland
. I remember the small boat. The river is now deep enough to carry much larger vessels.
Maybe they’ll even sail to the mainland
?

Enki is brother to Enlil. Together, they are the sons of Nephil and kings of the Sumerian Nephilim, the most ancient and powerful warrior clan. Next to Nephil, who now resides in Ninnis’s body, they are the rulers of the underworld, commanders of a supernatural force beyond the comprehension of mankind.

So the question is, why is Enki here?

As he swoops downriver, the answer is clear. He’s after the Clarks. Why he’s after them is beyond me, and frankly, unimportant. What is important is that the Clarks escape. That doesn’t seem likely if Enki is tracking them though.

I glance to the right, looking up river. Olympus rises high into the sky. Hades is there and the secret resting place of the Jericho Shofar with him. My answers and perhaps the only hope of defeating the Nephilim wait to the right.

To the left are the Clarks. My friends. And they’re about to face Enki on their own.

The decision is easy.

I’m nothing if not loyal.

I slide to the side of the branch, hanging by one arm. If I can keep myself afloat in the middle of the raging river, I should arrive at the lake just minutes after the Clarks. I might not be able to reach them in the water, but if Enki sees me, I have no doubt he’ll forget all about the Clarks.

I let go.

My fall snaps to a stop after just a few inches. A vice grip of pressure sends a wave of pain down my arm. I’m pulled up until I come face to face with a very angry hunter.

“What are you doing?” Kainda says. She’s standing on the branch and holding onto one above her with her free hand. That she’s strong enough to lift me up with one arm is impressive. Unlike Em, Kainda has muscles that match mine.

Em slides through the canopy and joins us. The look of concern means she didn’t see Kainda catch me. She only knows that Kainda is holding me out over the river. But her trust in Kainda is evident. She doesn’t draw a knife. She simply says, “What happened?”

Kainda either doesn’t hear the question or ignores it. She has some of her own. “Why were you leaving?”

Before I can think of a good reply, she comes up with an answer herself. “Just one look at her and you were going to leave!
I
—we mean so little to you?”

Em inches closer. “What are you talking about?”

“Mira.” Kainda says the name with disdain. “And the teacher, Aimee. They just passed in a ship.”

Em’s eyes widen. “Is this true?”

“Yes,” I say, and try to explain, but Em interrupts.

“And you were leaving?” I can hear the sting of betrayal in her voice too.

I sense that Kainda is about to speak again so I shout, “Shut up! Both of you!”

Kainda allows me to stand on the branch. My wrist is sore from where she gripped it, but I can’t rub it with my other hand without falling from the branch. So I ignore the pain and say, “Yes, the Clarks just went by in a boat. Merrill was with them. And three other men. Soldiers, I think.”

Em interrupts with, “But why—”

“Enki!” I shout, freezing both of them in place. “Enki was following them! And they don’t stand a chance unless I go help! I know Hades is near, but they are my friends and I never—” I look into Kainda’s eyes, “—
never
abandon my friends.”

I look to Em. She nods, understanding.

I don’t wait for Kainda to say whether she understands. We can work it out later. Right now, the Clarks need my help. I swing down on the branch, take a look at the river below, and let go. The cold water envelops me and yanks me forward. As I surface, I hear two splashes behind me. I spin and find Kainda and Em swimming toward me, closing the distance. I catch Kainda’s eyes and mouth, “Thank you.”

In response Kainda swims past me and says, “She better be worth it.”