The Last Hunter - Lament (Book 4 of the Antarktos Saga) (5 page)

“Three,” I say, holding up a brown leather satchel.

She takes the satchel, looks inside at the three fully loaded magazines, and grins. “Perfect.”

“I fail to see what this...weapon will be good for,” Kainda says.

It’s at that moment that the door opens and a Nephilim gatherer steps into the room. Gatherers are what most people know as “grays.” They’re widely considered to be alien in nature, which isn’t too far from the truth. They gather humans from the outside world, for hunters (like Em) or for genetic experimentation—the sort that led to me having six clones. The first is Xin, a half-human, half-seeker, who is now my ally. The second was a horrible little half-human, half-thinker creature that I killed in a subterranean laboratory. And then there is Luca, a six year old, fully human duplicate of me currently hiding underground with the other rebel hunters. There are three other clones I have yet to meet, but from what I’ve been told, by Aimee and Xin, I’d be better off not meeting them. Of course, Aimee said the same thing about Xin, and I would be dead without him.

The gatherer, whose hands hold a wooden box full of dog tags, stops in its tracks. Its oval, jet black eyes go wide with surprise. But it quickly recovers, and before anyone can act, a painful pressure fills my mind. Gatherers and seekers are telepathic. This is a well-known fact in UFO/alien folklore, but the skill isn’t just for communication. Gatherers can literally kill you with a thought.

It recognizes the three hunters in the room as the predominant threat and targets Kainda, Em and me first, dropping us to our knees. But this gatherer has made a mistake. I hear a sound, like a cough, repeat three times in rapid succession. A fraction of a second later, three neat holes form a triangle on the creature’s forehead.

The wooden box drops from the creature’s hands, landing at its feet with a loud
thunk
. The gatherer’s limp body starts to fall backward, out into the hallway, where the purple blood from its forehead is sure to leave a stain and a scent trail that will alert any hunters nearby.

But Wright moves quickly, snagging the gatherer’s wrist and pulling it inside the room. He drags the body to the back corner, while Kat silently closes the door. When Wright stands up from his body disposal duty, it’s as if nothing happened. There isn’t even a drop of blood on the floor.

Kainda grins. “I stand corrected.”

4

“What the hell is that?” Kat asks, standing over the body of the gatherer she’s just killed. It’s large, black, almond shaped eyes are now lifeless. “Looks like something out of Close Encounters.”

“It’s a gatherer,” Em says.

“Close Encounters was based on them,” I say. I remember the movie more for its depiction of late seventies family life, but the aliens conjured by Steven Spielberg were actually Nephilim. As I look over the three, clean holes in its forehead, I can’t help but wonder aloud, “Is it dead?”

Everyone stiffens, even Kainda and Em. They don’t know either.

“I’ve never seen one killed,” Em admits.

“Nor I,” says Kainda.

“There’s no exit wounds,” Kat says. “So the bullets either bounced around inside the skull, turning the brain to pudding, or they fragmented on impact and, well, turned the brain to pudding. Plus, I aimed for the same spot where the big ones are vulnerable.”

But the gatherers are different from the warriors in every way except for their unnatural parentage. Who’s to say what they are capable of, if they have a weak spot or if they can heal. Certainly not any of us. It has purple blood like the warriors, but a warrior would have healed by now. I’ve suspected that only the warriors could heal rapidly, which enables them to rule the various tribes, but these lesser Nephilim could still heal, perhaps just more slowly.

“There is one way to end the debate,” Kainda says, lifting her hammer over the gatherer’s plump head.

“Wait!” I shout.

She holds her strike. I turn to Wright and Kat. “Do you have everything you need?”

Wright holds up a silenced pistol, and then turns around so I can see the silenced assault rifle slung over his back. Kat throws her beloved FAL over her shoulder and reveals that she has also found two sound suppressed handguns as well. She holds one out to me. “Sure you don’t want one?”

I hold up a hand. “Not a fan of guns.”

“And yet, you’re okay with your girlfriend bashing in a dead man’s head?”

“They’re
not
men,” I say with a touch of venom.

“What is girlfriend?” Kainda asks.

“Later,” I say. The classification of our relationship in modern terms might freak her out. It’s freaking me out. I would prefer to be just...us. Hunters. Together. It feels more natural just to
be
, without adding the social pressures of what is expected of girlfriends and boyfriends. Of course, Kainda is oblivious to those things, but I’m not.

“Suit yourself,” Kat says, before wrapping a dual holstered belt around her waist. She slips both weapons home. “I’m good.”

Kainda lifts her hammer again. She looks back at the group. “This could be...messy.”

We all step back. The hammer rises. Kainda’s muscles ripple as she tenses. Then she strikes.

In the fraction of a second that it takes the hammer to descend, I see a flicker of movement in the thing’s black eyes. Not dead. But then the hammer strikes and it is, without doubt, very, very dead.

The head implodes under the weight of Kainda’s strike. But there is no splatter of purple blood. The head, which is roughly the size of a watermelon, is also somewhat similar to the fruit on the inside. Where there should have been a brain, there is only a thick, purple gelatinous substance, like jelly donut filling.

“It has no brain,” Wright notes.

“Or blood,” Kat adds. “Not really.”

I turn to them. “Like I said.
Not
a man.”

“Doesn’t smell like a man, either,” Wright says.

While the gatherer might not be oozing gallons of blood, its jellied insides have a strong odor. Wright gathers some shotgun shells, pries them open and dowses the ruined cranium with gunpowder. The strong chemical smell quickly masks the scent of gatherer gore.

Kainda covers her nose, finding the modern odor more offensive than the insides of a dead Nephilim. “What is that smell?”

“Cordite,” I say.

“Not quite,” Wright says. “Cordite isn’t used in modern weapons. This is basically wood chips soaked in nitroglycerin and coated with graphite. Bigger bang for less buck and a much stronger odor.”

“Huh,” I say, feeling awkward. It’s not often that someone knows something I don’t. But I was never very interested in modern weapons before coming to Antarctica. My knowledge of the subject is limited to what’s in textbooks.

Armed and satisfied that the gatherer is now fully dead, we sneak back into the hallway. After closing the door to the armory behind us, I pause and sniff the air. There’s just a hint of the gatherer’s scent. But someone would have to walk right by the door to pick it up. And since the hall is still devoid of life, I don’t see that happening any time soon.

We quickly backtrack to the steps and then turn down the hallway leading to the cellblock. The scent of humanity is thick in the air, but the prisoners’ voices have faded to nothing.
Are they all dead?
I wonder. Have they been taken away? It doesn’t seem possible. We were in the armory for just ten minutes.

As we reach the end of the hall and peek around the corner into the cellblock, I have my answer. The prisoners are terrified. A single Nephilim warrior wanders down the massive hallway, bending down before each cell, looking at the men contained within.

The twenty-five foot giant wears a chrome helmet that resembles a goat’s head, with twin curling horns. His cape is coated with white fur and...there’s something different about his legs. While the other warriors I’ve seen thus far were human like in appearance—if you ignore their height, dual rows of sharp teeth, six fingers and toes and demonic eyes—this one has hoofed feet and hairy, goat-like legs. Tucked into his belt is something that looks like a flute. The weapon in his hands resembles a shepherd’s crook, but the hooked end is flattened and sharpened like a scythe, and the other end of the weapon’s staff holds a barbed tip.

From his appearance and our location, I have no trouble guessing the identity of this monster. “Pan,” I whisper. He’s nearly three hundred feet off, but Nephilim have exceptional hearing.

“You’ve met him?” Em quietly asks.

I shake my head, no. “But I recognize him. From the outside world’s mythology. What I don’t understand, is why a warrior is guarding prisoners? Where are the hunters?”

“Looking for us,” Kainda whispers. “And Pan does not guard prisoners, he watches over his
flock
. These men are food. He is selecting them for a meal.”

Voice’s rise in panic, bringing my gaze back to Pan. The long hallway is lined by barred, twenty-foot square cells, each jam packed with soldiers from the outside world. I see a variety of different uniforms and hear a number of languages, most of which are not English. But they’re all afraid. As well they should be.

Pan opens one of the barred cell doors and reaches inside. The men swarm away from the oversized, six fingered hand like shoaling fish fleeing a pod of whales. One of the men is caught and pulled from the cage. He kicks and punches bravely, shouting at the giant in what I think is Russian.

The Nephilim shepherd just laughs at the man, his voice a booming chuckle that smacks of Jabba the Hut’s, “Huu huu huuu.” When the sharpened end of the crook comes up, I realize what’s about to happen.
He’s going to decapitate the man!

I stand and step into view, shouting, “Stop!”

“Solomon,” someone hisses, but I’m not sure who because my heart races as Pan’s cold gaze turns on me. Then he laughs again, “Huu huu huuu,” and licks his lips. Apparently, I look delicious.

5

“Who are you, little one, to speak to me so boldly?” the giant asks.

He doesn’t recognize me, I realize. Which makes sense since we’ve never met and it’s not like there are wanted posters with my face hanging around the underworld. He might recognize Whipsnap, based on its description, but it’s still wrapped around my waist. But perhaps the most convincing misdirection is my all blond hair.

Hunters have blood red hair like their Nephilim masters. I don’t fully understand how it happens, but it’s an outward representation of the Nephilim corruption. As that corruption fades, so does the coloration. Em has a patch of brown hair that covers her bangs and a portion of the side of her head. Kainda has a black streak on the top of her head, but she combs it in with the red, masking it in a tight braid.

But my hair is nearly white blond. There is no trace of Nephilim corruption. Such a thing is unheard of for a hunter, even a freed one. If anything, he’ll take me for a teacher.

The giant licks his lips.

Or maybe just a snack.

Movement to my side brings my attention back to the others. All four look ready to charge out. “No,” I say to them. “I need to do this on my own. I need to know I still can.”

The first and only time I killed a Nephilim warrior was when I used the wind to fling a giant arrow into his unprotected forehead. I haven’t repeated the task since. In fact, I pretty much dread this. While I can face down Ninnis, vessel of Nephil and the man who broke me, I find fighting something so big, so inherently evil, unnerving.