The Last Hunter - Collected Edition (87 page)

“Solomon!” A smile appears on his face, but I only see it for a moment because then he’s got me in his arms, crushing me with love. I can feel the sobs wracking his chest. His memories have been restored.

“Merrill?” It’s Aimee. She sounds confused. He lets me go and turns to her. “It’s Solomon! He’s alive!” He seems to realize what has happened and turns to me. “She doesn’t remember yet.”

“Merrill, what are you—”

I step up to Aimee. This one is easy. “You are a precious boy.” I kiss her forehead. The same surge of energy courses through my lips to her head, and I don’t even get a chance to step back and see the change in her eyes before her arms are around me. She hugs and weeps and rubs my back like only a mother can. When she finally separates and looks in my eyes, she says, “You
are
a precious boy.”

With a gasp, I remember the news I have for the Clarks, which is also the answer to Holloway’s question.

“She’s alive,” I say to Aimee, and then turn to Merrill. “Mira is alive.”

“But, the shifter,” Em says.

“Didn’t kill her,” I say. “Xin and I saw it. In his memories. She’s
alive
.”

Holloway speaks up. “If you’re right, we can send a squad to—”

“No,” I say. “I’ll go.”

“Son,” Holloway says, growing angry. “You have just proven your worth to my men, and me. You have also instilled in us the firm belief that we cannot win this war without you. If you leave now—”

“General, please,” Aimee says. She might understand the logic of Holloway’s words, as do I, but as a mother, Mira comes first. As she does for me, as well.

“I will not leave her,” I say. “How many people have died because of me? Xin. Hades. Cerberus. Wright. How may more whose names I don’t even know? I will not lose someone else—”

“Solomon,” Kat says, stepping up next to me. She looks angry. “My husband died so that we could live to finish this fight, and I will not let you invoke his name in defense of running off to save a single girl. Your place is here now. You need to
focus
.”

On the surface, I agree with Kat. There is a lot at stake, so why am I so intent on rescuing Mira? Is it for the Clarks? My promise that they would be reunited? Is it selfish? Or nostalgia. Some kind of need to see the girl in the photo again? I find the answer in Kat’s words.

Focus
.

You have found your passion, your focus and your faith.
The Kerubim’s words replay perfectly in my mind.
But you lack the hope that binds these things together. You will not be strong enough to defeat Ophion until you find it.

I look at Kat.

Focus.

Then at Kainda.

Passion.

And finally, Em.

Faith.

“Hope is a person,” I say. “You remember what Adoel said.” I point at each of them, identifying them one at a time. “Focus. Passion. Faith. Mira...is hope. The Kerubim said I would not be strong enough without her.”

I’m shocked by who replies first and what she says. Kainda steps forward. “I’m coming with you.”

I can see that Em is also about to volunteer, but I stop her. “You and Kat stay here. Prepare them. Protect the shofar. Use it if you have to. Kainda and I will travel fast.”

We back away toward the exit.

“Thank you,” Aimee says.

Merrill holds her shoulders and says, “Godspeed, Solomon.”

“We will return as fast as we can, General,” I say. “I know it’s hard to understand, but if I’ve learned anything over the past years, it’s that one person can change the outcome of a battle, or the course of history.”

Kainda and I hurry for the gate, where Grumpy and Zok wait for us, as though summoned. I don’t understand why or how, but I’ve learned not to question everything.

Before leaving, I turn back to the group and say, “Don’t be afraid. Hope still lives. I’m going to bring her back.”

Epilogue

Lieutenant Belgrave Edward Sutton Ninnis remembered.

Everything.

His long life as a hunter, every detail of it, still resided in his mind. All of the skills learned and knowledge attained, were still a part of him. But the burning hatred that consumed his being, especially for the boy, Solomon, had been dulled.

More than dulled, it had been beaten down. Crushed. By a new anger, one shared by the boy himself. Their lives—what they could have been—had been stolen.

Ninnis remembered taking Solomon. Remembered breaking him. Training him. Even feeling some sense of pride in all of it. But now he knew how the boy viewed those events. Exactly how the boy felt, because Ninnis now recalled his own breaking.

It took nearly a year. Endless days spent in the dark. Fighting off feeders. Eating their flesh. Tending his wounds. Slowly losing himself and the memories of the woman he adored. Solomon was just a boy. Ninnis had been a man. A soldier. And when he broke, it was a violent thing that filled his heart to overflowing with rabid hatred.

He killed the hunter who broke him first. Many more followed.

He remembered them all, too. Their faces. Their own hatred. The smell of their blood in his nose and the look in their eyes as life faded away. All that time, Ninnis never fully realized why he enjoyed killing so much, or why he always stayed to watch their lives slip away.

But he knew now.

He envied them. Their freedom. And he hated them all the more for it.

He also knew, as Solomon did, that these things were not him. Not really. Lieutenant Ninnis, the soldier, had never killed a person. He put his training to use by exploring the world. He kept a sketchbook with him wherever he went, drawing landscapes and technical drawings of animals and plants he’d never seen before. He scribbled notes about what he saw and penned letters to his wife. His Caroline. That was the real Ninnis.

The man who had returned, though far too late.

He hid within his own mind, a fragment of consciousness surrounded by a turbid blackness that now sought him out.

When Solomon blew the shofar, Ninnis, who’d watched the events as though from afar, was thrust back into his mind and body, fully and completely. It was a gift, and he thanked the boy for it, but Nephil now knew Ninnis was not gone. And if he could not hide, the monster would destroy him.

Were he still a hunter, Ninnis would have charged toward his fate, never knowing that he secretly longed for the release of death, or in this case, banishment from his own body. But now that he remembered himself, and the good person he once was, Ninnis wanted to fight.

Ninnis
, the voice echoed in his thoughts, filling his mind, seeking him out.
I am close, Ninnis
.

And for once, the dark lord Nephil, the ancient Ophion, was not lying. Ninnis could feel the cold closing in around his consciousness.

Belgrave
.

A whisper this time. And his first name. Not Ophion.

Despite having no body, he saw a bloom of light, distant at first, but then growing closer. He felt warmth.

Belgrave
, the voice beckoned.

He moved toward the light, drawn by its warmth and repelled by the cold blackness at his back.

But was this a trick?
Who are you
?

A shape began to form in the light. A figure.

A woman.

Belgrave
, the voice said again, and this time he recognized it.

Caroline!

As she came fully into view, revealing the face of the woman he loved, married and lost, she spoke again.
Your time has not yet come, husband.

I can feel you, Ninnis
! Nephil shouted.

As his emotions swelled, he sensed the darkness closing in, tracking him down.

Ninnis fled the darkness and into the arms of his wife. He clung to her and she to him, their embrace impossible to sever. Ninnis felt a flood of love, forgiveness and mercy, qualities that, since the time of his own breaking, he’d experienced from only one source: Solomon.

With the boy’s image locked in his thoughts, pressure consumed Ninnis’s formless mind, pressing him into the arms of his wife, merging them together until nothing, but light, remained.