The Last Hunter - Ascent (Book 3 of the Antarktos Saga) (20 page)

Kainda takes the bandanna and smells it. Anyone from the outside world would think she was crazy, but it’s normal behavior for a hunter. In the darkness of the underworld, many things are identified by scent long before sight.

I take out a single strand of blond hair. “This is Mira’s.”

Kainda takes the hair and sniffs it. “No scent.” She looks it over. “It’s the same color as your hair…but the texture is different. Rougher.”

Kainda hands the hair and bandanna back to me. “This…Mira. She is the girl from the image you carried.”

How does she know about that? She sees the question on my lips and answers. “My father spoke of it. Said she was your weakness. That you…loved her.”

While things like love are foreign to hunters, jealously is not. And Kainda isn’t very good at concealing it. But I’m no better at lying, so I tell the truth. “I did love her. I still do, I suppose. She means a lot to me. But twenty years have passed for her. She’s a grown woman. Maybe with a husband. Children. Who knows? But I feel strongly about her father, Merrill, too. And Aimee, her mother.”

“Aimee? Not the teacher?”

I’d left that detail out of my story, but if I’m trusting Kainda, I’m trusting Kainda. “Yes. She is Mira’s mother. She helped deliver me when I was born.”

“But…you took her. Gave her to the masters.” Kainda looks confused, until she sees my downturned eyes. “She does not like me.”

I recognize that Kainda is trying to lighten the mood, but she’s not very good at it. She manages to change the subject.

“Mira. Did you ever…” Kainda places her fingers against my lips.

I smile. “No. Never. We bumped feet once.”

Her forehead scrunches up. “You bumped
feet
?”

“Hey, it’s kind of a big deal to a fourteen year old boy.”

Kainda’s jealously fades as she laughs at me. And I actually don’t mind that she’s laughing at me.

“They had a dog with them,” I say. I hold up the bandanna. “That’s the strong smell on this.”

“What is a dog?”

Right. There are no dogs on Antarctica. “They’re hairy. Four legs. A tail that wags when they’re happy.”

“Woof.” Kainda does an impression of a dog barking. It’s so spot-on that I know she’s seen it. Seen them.

“That’s it!” I say.

She points out at the water. “They crossed the lake toward Olympus. Three days ago. The dog was with them. It made that noise when your—” She shakes her hand at the water, looking for the right word. “—other friends greeted them.”

“The seals,” I say. “Gloop.”

“The seals. Yes.”

I nearly ask if anyone spoke to them, but it’s clear they didn’t. “We have to find them.”

“Because of her?” Kainda says.

“Because of all of them. Adoni thinks Aimee will be at Olympus, too. And they’re our best chance at getting help.”

She squeezes my hand. “We will find them together.”

Knowing that Kainda, this infinitely dangerous woman who has somehow won my heart, will be by my side when I enter the Nephilim stronghold in search of Hades, and the Clark family, fills me with confidence.

A chill runs up my spine. At first, I think I’m cold, but the nighttime air is still a perfectly comfortable temperature. Then my mind catches up with my body. There’s a scent in the air. It’s subtle, but unmistakable.

Blood.

Nephilim blood.

28

A general rule of thumb for anyone trying to hide from Nephilim is: if you detect their presence, run away. Apparently, neither Kainda nor I, abide by this rule. Instead, we quickly determine the direction of the wind, and thus the direction from which the smell emanates, and run
toward
it. It’s not because we have a death wish, it’s because people we care about are nearby and in danger. At least, that’s my motivation.

When Kainda says, “You should go back and warn the others,” I know her motivation is the same.

It’s the same reason why I won’t abandon her now. Only one hunter has managed to kill a Nephilim before. Me. And that was with my abilities. If there is any hope of defeating whatever waits for us in the jungle, it is together. Kainda must realize the same thing, because she doesn’t urge me to leave again.

We run, side by side, through the jungle. Fast and quiet. Concealed in the shadow of the canopy that, in the darkness of night, feels almost like the underground. As the scent of Nephilim blood grows stronger, we arm ourselves and slow our approach. Even hunters don’t leap into battle without first knowing what they’re facing.

A beam of moonlight streaks through a hole in the canopy, lighting a small clearing. At the center of the clearing is a shape I recognize. Krane. He’s kneeling on the ground, head downturned like he’s injured. Did Krane already face the Nephilim and lose? I step forward, intending to ask, but Kainda’s firm grip on my shoulder stops me.

“Look at the ground,” she whispers.

A ten foot circle of leaf litter has been cleared away to reveal smooth earth below. Strange symbols, like crop circles, have been etched into the soil around him.

“Is it a trap?” I ask.

“Worse,” she says, tightening her grip on her hammer.

Krane begins to mumble, speaking Sumerian. I catch just a few words. “Fathers.” “Hear me.” “Come.”

“What’s he doing?” I ask.

Kainda looks about ready to explode. “Speaking to the Fathers.”

“The Fathers?”

“The Nephilim Fathers.”

My mind figures things out. Krane is speaking to demons!

“But why would—”

“I didn’t think they were real,” Kainda says, and I think she’s talking to herself, but then she looks at me. “He is a shifter. A Nephilim who can look human.”

The ramifications of this are vast. I’ve heard in the past that there are Nephilim living out in the world among the human race. I wondered how such a thing could be possible. Here is my answer. Krane the hunter, friend to Em and Kainda, is a Nephilim. I can’t imagine what would have happened if he had been the one who held the knife when I placed it against my throat, instead of Tunis. But things could still get very bad. If he’s trying to speak with the demon fathers, he is no doubt communicating my presence.

A purple glow radiates from the ground in front of Krane and I see a deep pool of purple blood.

“They’re coming,” Kainda says. “We must stop him. Now!”

Kainda charges from the jungle. I follow close behind. And despite our ferocious intent, we both remain silent. No battle cries. No hint of approach. Kainda raises her weapon, preparing to strike Krane’s head. I shift the blade end of Whipsnap back, ready to strike with deadly force. If Krane is a Nephilim, there’s no need for me to hold back.

Five feet from Krane, the wind shifts. He sucks in a surprised breath.

Kainda swings hard.

And misses.

Krane ducks beneath the blow and Kainda’s momentum carries her beyond her target. Krane leaps up and spins around to face me, but he isn’t prepared for where he finds me. I leapt from a rock and am now airborne. On a collision course. Krane jumps back, but Whipsnap’s reach covers the distance. The bladed end arcs through the air, tracing a purple line down Krane’s chest.

We both land and square off. The purple blood at the end of Whipsnap’s blade reveals the cut down Krane’s torso to be an inch deep. Not a mortal wound for a Nephilim, but it’s something. Kainda takes a fighting stance behind Krane. She catches my eye and somehow I understand what she’s thinking. Our next attack will be as one. He cannot defend both sides.

We circle him slowly.

Tension builds as we prepare to attack.

Then I notice something strange. Krane’s wound is not healing. Nephilim warriors heal from physical wounds very quickly. Shifters must be different. Which means that I don’t need to hit this thing in the forehead to kill it. The wound catches my attention again. Not only is it not healing, it seems to be…growing.

“Something’s not right,” I say to Kainda.

“We’re wasting time,” she replies. Her voice is almost a growl.

I glance at the purple blood. The glow is fading. Whatever Krane was doing, we interrupted it. He needs to kill us to continue. So why isn’t he attacking? Nephilim don’t fear hunters. “He’s tricking us,” I say. “Wants us to get closer.”

Krane laughs. His voice morphs from something human to something else. Something horrible. He slaps his hands against his chest, digs his fingers into the wound and takes hold of his flesh.

What the—

With a roar, Krane tears his chest open. Purple blood showers to the ground, forcing Kainda and I to leap back. The blood has healing properties, but in its pure form is so powerful, it can kill. Had we been closer, as I suspect he desired, we would have been coated in the stuff. I cringe, expecting to see an exposed ribcage and slippery organs, but what I see is far worse.

Krane’s skin seems to explode away from him, falling like sheets of wet toilet paper. And his body…it grows. From within. His new skin is dark red and covered with scales. He grows taller. His already large muscles expand. It’s as though a much larger creature had been compressed and was barely contained within a human shaped shell. He’s now ten feet tall—just like the Nephilim skeleton Merrill uncovered by the wall. His face splits down the middle. The flesh slides away, teeth and all. An angular Nephilim face is revealed—yellow eyes, double rows of teeth and horn-like knobs on its forehead. In fact, he looks very devil-like.

“Lucifer?” I guess.

His eyes snap toward me. “Eshu,” he says. “But you were close.”

Eshu
. I read about him once, which means I remember every one of the scant details provided about him. He’s a trickster god—meaning he likes to fool people into harm’s way, causing injury, personal loss, loss of faith and even wars. Eshu is the trickster god of the Yorùbá tribe in Nigeria. But he’s not alone. There are many other trickster gods throughout history: Anansi, Lilith, Loki, Māui and like my initial guess, the most famous of them all, Lucifer. Satan. The Devil. While the warriors hold power among the Nephilim, it is the shifters who have had the most profound effect on the human race.

Eshu’s next statement corrects that last assumption. He spits purple blood as he speaks. “Lucifer is my father.”

My mind reels with this revelation. The demon, Lucifer, is not only real, but is this shifter’s father. Granted, I knew the Nephilim were the children of a coupling between human mothers and demon fathers, but I never put a name to the fathers, and for some reason, never
that
name.

While I try to make sense of this surreal revelation, my guard falls, and Eshu takes advantage. The big Nephilim is quick and agile. He leaps across the ground on all fours and tackles me around the waist before I can react. It’s like getting struck by a charging polar bear. Stars dance in my vision when I strike the ground hard, but I still see Eshu’s open maw as it approaches my neck. The double rows of sharp teeth will have no trouble tearing out my throat. I have just seconds to live.

Then I see Kainda, in the air above Eshu, hammer raised and ready to deliver a crushing blow.

But Eshu must have seen my eyes widen. He twists around with surprising speed and backhands Kainda in the side. Her body crashes into the jungle, stopping against the trunk of a tree.

“Kainda!” I shout.

My concern causes Eshu to laugh. “Hunters concerned for hunters. It’s heart-warming. Really.” He laughs again, turning his head to the sky with a howl that warriors use just before killing an enemy—me, in this case. Kainda won’t recover in time to help me.

29

For all of Eshu’s strength, speed and confidence, he has forgotten that the person he now faces is a hunter, trained by Ninnis and chosen of Nephil. I am not as weak as he seems to think. I put the time he spends mocking me to good use. Whipsnap never fell from my grasp. I slowly pull the weapon up. I turn the blade toward Eshu just as he throws himself down on top of me to finish the job. The blade pierces his chest, sinking ten inches deep.

For a moment, I think I’ve struck the killing blow. But he reels back and up onto his feet with a shout of pain. I cling to Whipsnap, and I’m pulled off the ground. I’ve impaled his breastplate and the blade can’t slice through. Rather than give up my weapon, I hold on tight, dangling two feet off the ground.

But I don’t want to be within Eshu’s grasp when his senses return. I pull myself up, plant my feet against his waist, and use my leverage to bend the mace end of Whipsnap around. The spiked ball strikes Eshu in the face, crushing his red nose with a crunch.

Eshu flails back, but manages to take hold of my arm. His face is twisted with rage. I kick and pull, but I can’t break free. I shove Whipsnap’s blade in deeper, but the pain doesn’t stop him. He opens his mouth, clearly intending to bite my arm off. The pressure on my wrist increases and I shout in pain. “Nephil was wrong, you are not strong at all.”

At the moment, I agree with him. He’s not even a full sized warrior, and though I’ve managed to injure him, I suspect the injuries will heal. The Krane skin he wore might not have, but I suspect that was intentional.

His breath tickles the skin of my arm. I close my eyes.

There’s a sound like a whistle. Two whistles. And each is followed by a wet smack. My eyes snap open as Eshu roars in pain and drops me to the ground.

The shifter devil stumbles back. Two knives are buried in his eyes. The skill with which they were thrown identifies the attacker.

Em.

But she is not alone.

Bolas wrap around Eshu’s feet, binding him in place. As he tears the knives out of his eyes, there’s a battle cry that comes close to matching any Nephilim’s. Kainda, now recovered, leaps at Eshu and brings her stone hammer down on his head with all of her strength. The crack of Eshu’s skull breaking is loud. The monster falls to the ground, immobilized, but still alive. In fact, I can see the fresh wounds healing.

I stand above the fallen Nephilim and yank Whipsnap out of his chest. He coughs purple blood, smiles and looks at me through one of his now healed eyes. “You are nothing,” he says.