The Last Hunter - Lament (Book 4 of the Antarktos Saga) (17 page)

“Nephil,” I say in greeting. “Or do you prefer Ophion?”

He waves his hand dismissively, turning to face me. “Whichever you prefer.” Ninnis’s eyes are solid black. The black tendrils extend out of his body, but don’t physically alter it. There are no wounds. This is the spirit of Nephil in its raw form, contained within Ninnis’s body, but able to extend its reach outside of it.

Despite my rising fear, I analyze the situation. Nephil is here, alone. That hasn’t worked out so well for Ninnis in the past, which he must know. So why is he here? To talk? That doesn’t fit.

Unless he’s not alone.

I turn back to the others, looking into the darkness of the tunnel behind them. I pull the air toward me and sniff as it flows past me. One hundred feet. Two hundred. Three hundred.
There
! Just a football field away, hidden behind a bend is the gang of hunters and the two clones that pinned us in the High River tunnel and killed Steven Wright.

We’re trapped.

Again.

18

“Stay close,” I whisper to the others. “We’re not alone.”

Kainda, Em and Kat leave the shelter of the tunnel and join me in the wide open space. We head for the center of the chamber, keeping a steady distance from Nephil, while getting as far from the tunnel as possible. We’re severely outnumbered, but there is plenty of room to run if need be. Plus, out here in the open, I can use my abilities in a much bigger way. Trouble is, I’m still feeling a little tired, a fact that Nephil quickly picks up on.

“You look weak, hunter.” Nephil lowers himself toward the ground. He raises a hand toward Hades. “Though, you are certainly fairing much better than our mutual friend.”

I glance at the giant and notice something I’d missed before. He’s not breathing. My eyes dart to his forehead. The dark purple blood drying on his bald head nearly conceals the wound, but I see it—a two inch slit. I look back to Ninnis and find his sword, Strike, hanging from his waist. The first twelve inches of the blade are coated in Hades’s blood.

“No,” I whisper, then louder, “You killed him?”

“He betrayed me,” Nephil says. “Betrayed all of his brothers. His life alone could not repay what was taken.” He grins. “Fortunately, he has so much more to give.”

“He knows,” I whisper to Kainda.

“Yes,” Nephil says, as though he could hear my words as easily as though I’d shouted them. “I know...
everything
. Not even the mighty Hades can resist the touch of my spirit.”

Despite the fact that Hades was a Nephilim warrior with a reputation for bloodlust, his death causes me great sadness. He had tasted the freedom of Tartarus, yet returned to the underworld with the Nephilim. He gave up a life of peace, living among the enemy, his true intentions concealed by the blood and gore that repulsed him. And now he has paid the cost for that sacrifice, with his life. He has been erased. As though he never was.

But my memory of the giant, and the lesson to be learned by his sacrifice, will live on.

My eyes, wet with tears, look beyond Nephil, to the gates of Tartarus. He was so close. Just a mile away. He could have covered the distance in a minute. Anger replaces my lament.

“I’m going to throw you through those doors,” I say, stalking toward Nephil.

A howling wind fills the chamber, summoned by my unconscious.

“I am the storm,” I tell him.

Thunder rumbles through the cavern.

“Solomon,” Kainda say.

I ignore her. “I am the wind.”

Ninnis’s hair whips wildly as a gust of wind strikes him, but the tendrils hold him still.

“
Sol
,” Em says, and I detect the warning in her voice.

“I am the—”

“Hey kid!” It’s Kat. “Cut the melodramatic bull crap and turn around!”

I turn.

And face an army.

It’s not just the hunters. Or my two clones. There are at least fifty warriors as well. Some step out from behind stone pillars, others from behind bone mounds, and still more step out of side tunnels all around.

Nephil chuckles. “Like I said, I know
everything
. I missed you at Hades’s chambers by hours, but was able to track his descent. We found him here, just short of his salvation. Once possessed, the mind gives up its secrets rather quickly. I know about the Jericho shofar, Solomon. I know what it does. How it works.” He grins with a burning hatred that not even Ninnis could achieve. “And I know
where it is
.”

No... This can’t be. Not even
I
know where it is. Hades gave me vague hints that I’m supposed to figure out along the way to prevent this very thing from happening.

To my surprise, Nephil moves away from me. We’re surrounded. Outnumbered and out-muscled. Escape might be possible, but not without exacting a toll on my already weary body. He knows that, too, I think. He’s not here to waste time trying to kill me. He’s here to slow me down. Or rather, that’s why this small army is here. Nephil intends to find the shofar first!

“Take them,” he says before his tendrils, moving like squid legs over the stone floor, carry him away.

“Ninnis!” I shout. “Resist him! Fight!”

“Ninnis is no more,” Nephil says he drifts away. “His voice has been silent for some time now.”

I’m not sure why I’m reaching out to Ninnis. He’s as black-hearted as the rest of the Nephilim and hunters now closing in around us. But I know he never intended to give himself fully to Nephil. If the man could fight back, return to himself, it could disrupt their plans. But it seems even Ninnis has been lost.

Wright. Hades. Ninnis. Even the stranger slain by Pan. I can feel their deaths adding weight to a newly forming burden. This war needs to end—I turn to face the force encircling us—but not, it seems, without fighting another battle.

“We can’t defeat them,” Kainda says.

“We don’t need to,” I reply. “We need to follow Nephil. Down.”

“Where?” Em asks.

This, I don’t know. Nephil is now out of sight. “We’ll break through the circle and figure it out from the—duck!”

An arrow zips past our heads, carried high by a gust of wind. The shot was intended for Em. It serves as a trigger. The hunters rush in. Five make it close before I can act, but the rest are knocked to the floor when I bring the air above rushing down.

Kainda meets the five attackers first, kicking one in the gut and backhanding another.

“Kain,” Em shouts, lifting her single remaining knife.

Kainda draws her hammer, while kneeing a man’s chin, breaking his jaw. With a glance, she sees the hunter approaching Em. She twists the hammer in her hand and Em throws the knife—at Kainda.

The action not only confuses me, but the attacking hunter as well. Before either of us understands what’s happening, the knife deflects off the hammer’s stone head and punctures the hunter’s heart. He drops to the floor with a look of surprise frozen on his face.

“Geez,” Kat says, equally impressed. “Take this,” she says to Em, tossing her a knife. “You’ll do better with it than I will.”

Kat, who’s rifle is missing, draws her silenced pistol and starts dropping the hunters I’ve knocked to the floor. I hadn’t intended to kill the men and women, just immobilize them, but I don’t say anything, despite my growing discomfort.

This is war.

People die.

But they don’t have to.

A woman screams, not in pain, but in fright. A female hunter lies on the stone floor. Kainda stands above her, hammer raised.

“Stop!” I shout.

To my surprise, everyone listens.

My instinct is to give some kind of speech, expose the error of their ways, turn them to our side, but there isn’t time for that. The hunters are closing in.

I back away from the two hunters still standing, and the woman cringing on the ground next to two dead bodies. Em, Kainda and Kat know enough to stay close to me. I focus on the air, moving it slowly. I’ve done this trick before, to fuel and starve a fire in this very chamber, but this time, I’m starving the hunters.

As one, they fall to the ground choking and gasping. Their faces turn red. Desperation fills their eyes. I have removed the oxygen from the air surrounding them, and just when their bodies are about to give in to death, I return it. Some fall unconscious, some wheeze, but all are incapacitated. Their lives are spared.

The warriors break into a jog. They’ll close the distance in seconds.

I try the same trick. It doesn’t work. They’re either holding their breath or know that killing me, or at least knocking me out, will undo the effect.

“What do we do?” Em asks.

Axes, swords, maces and spears rise up as the gods of old close in. They’re dressed for battle, wearing the fine armor of their various tribes: Egyptian, Sumerian, Norse, Olympian, Aztec and more. Wings open wide, making their presence even more massive and blocking any and all escape routes. From beneath the wings come long scorpion tails, twitching and eager to sting.

I try to push them back with a wind, but only manage to slow them down and drain my energy. Their united front is too large, and there are no natural katabatic winds to call to my aid in the underground.

We back away until we’re standing at the feet of Hades. He seemed so confident. But here he is. Dead. Maybe he was wrong? Maybe everything in this screwed up world is just wrong? And all of this—all of it—is just humanity and inhumanity, acting out in some base instinctual way, like Japanese fighting fish who fight to the death for no other reason than the instincts that drive them.

A shadow falls over us.

I look up.

A gargantuan body descends.

I move to defend, but notice the thing’s trajectory and pause. It lands between us and the warriors. The thing is twenty feet tall and concealed beneath a cloak, perfectly camouflaged to look like the plain gray stone that composes much of the underworld. When the cloak billows upon landing, I see that the inside is also camouflaged, but brown. We could walk right by it and never know it was there. The cloak is unfastened and falls to the floor behind the massive bare feet, revealing the pale-skinned legs and torso. Like Hades, its head, what little of it can be seen as it hunches forward, has been shaved bald. Its arms stretch out, all
four
of them, each wielding a tremendous curved sword.

For a moment, I think this must be some Indian god Nephilim. Shiva or something. But then it turns its face toward me, and then another, and another. Each of them looks
just like me
.

My sixth clone is Cerberus, a combination of me and a Gigantes.

Speaking one word at a time in three slightly different voices, Cerberus says, “Go. Solomon. Now!”

19

I don’t move. I can’t. The realization that my sixth clone is a three-faced, four-armed giant is staggering enough, but the faces and voices, are recognizable versions of myself. The tone. The emotion. The
concern
. This creature might be different from me in almost every physical way, but I sense its core personality is very similar to mine. With the exception of Luca, this monster might be the clone most similar to me.