The Last Hunter - Pursuit (Book 2 of the Antarktos Saga) Page 4

  After ten more minutes of scurrying through the small tunnel, I can hear my pursuer’s breath behind me, each one a hiss as though he’s determined to play the role of a snake. Just when I think he’s close enough to reach out and snare my ankle, the tunnel opens up. I stand and sprint, confident that my stride can outmatch his slither.

  When I hear the pads of his feet slapping the stone behind me, it’s clear that he’s also a faster runner than I am. He’s going to catch me.

  I focus on the air behind me and imagine it surging back. My hair billows around my head as a gust of wind surges past me, but does not affect me. The man behind me, however, is struck full force. I hear a grunt, and the sound of a body hitting stone. My defensive strike worked, but only momentarily. The sound of feet slipping on stone returns a moment later.

  Hunters only give up when they’re dead. Ninnis told me that once. But I don’t kill people. Animals? Yes, though only for food or in self-defense. Nephilim? Absolutely. People? I can’t do it. Not even in self-defense. It just feels…wrong. So I’ll have to immobilize this hunter somehow.

  The tunnel floor disappears beneath my feet and I fall forward. My instincts generate a gust of wind beneath me, and it saves my life. I twist my body around a large rib bone that would have skewered me if not for the wind, and I land on my feet.

  Glowing crystals pock the cave wall, helping me see. I’m surrounded by bones, some larger than my entire body. There are cresty skulls, albino goat horns, and an assortment of limbs, and bodies, many of which I do not recognize. And most of them are large. I run around a pile of bones, looking for a way out and I’m faced with a cavern, the enormity of which I cannot fathom. It’s like seeing the Grand Canyon in reverse. The floor stretches out past the horizon where I see what looks like white mountains. I take out my telescope as I run and take a peek.

  The mountains are bones. They’re everywhere, even beneath my feet, where I suspect the powdery white dust coating the floor is pulverized bone.

  Before I can ponder this mystery I hear a rattle and grunt behind me, and I know that the hunter has lunged. I dive to the side, roll and yank Whipsnap from its place on my belt. My weapon twangs into place, clutched in both of my hands.

  The hunter stands ten feet away, no weapon in sight. He’s tall, at least seven feet. That’s big for a hunter. But he’s also incredibly lean. I look at his skin. He is pale, like me, like all hunters, but there is a strange sheen to his skin, almost reflective. His face is hidden behind a black veil that looks like it’s actually been pinned to his forehead.

  Hoping to get some hint of who I’m dealing with, I ask, “Who is your master?”

  “I have no master.”

  No master? How can a hunter not have a master?

  We circle each other. I feel Ull at the fringe of my consciousness, ready to take over when the attack is pressed. And I’m grateful for his presence.

  “Why do you hide your face?” I ask.

  “I am shunned.”

  He feints an attack and my blade keeps him at bay.

  “You are a hunter?” I ask.

  “No, but I will be when I bring you back.”

  “What are you now?”

  “A tracker.”

  This creature being a tracker makes no sense. Hunters are expert trackers. We can sense things in the underground that no one else can. Our sense of sight isn’t hampered by the dark. And we can hear and smell things few others can.

  A bit of Ull emerges, scoffing at his claim. “How can you track better than a hunter?”

  Because I can follow your thoughts.

  The voice is in my head!

  My foe reveals himself, pulling the veil up over his head. His face is white and noseless. In some ways he reminds me of a gatherer, egg shaped head, almond-shaped oversized eyes and a small slit for a mouth. But his eyes are not solid black, they’re bright yellow with a black, cat-like slit for a pupil. That’s when I see his skin for what it is—scales. White scales, which combined with the yellow eyes is similar to the seekers, a class of Nephilim closely related to gatherers.

  Your escape route is admirable, Ull. Bold. The others will not follow you here. But you did not count on me. I am Xin and I will be your undoing.

  A pressure builds in my head as he stares at me. It keeps me from pondering why the others won’t follow me here. I push back, but find the effort far more painful. He’s in my head, searching my thoughts.

  His small lips turn up. I can hear him laughing in my head. You are not Ull at all!

  He digs deeper.

  Solomon? That is your name. Solomon Ull Vincent.

  I see what he sees. My past replayed for his amusement. My youth. My parents. My kidnapping. Ninnis breaking me. Me saving Ninnis’s life. Then Kainda’s. But he has failed to see the only memory I fought to block: Aimee. If he learned about her, they would no doubt threaten her life to bring me in. And it would work.

  So full of compassion. Your forgiveness is your weakness.

  The pain bursts inside my head and I fall to one knee.

  Xin charges.

  I do the only thing I can. I let Ull loose.

  6

  With a scream, I charge forward bringing Whipsnap up to strike. I see my next five moves in advance. The first strike will open Xin’s chest and put him on the defensive. The next three will cause him to stumble back, but won’t connect, and then with a spin to conceal my action, I’ll bend Whipsnap tight and release it so the mace connects solidly with his head. Seven seconds.

  The first strike comes close to slicing open Xin’s chest, but the wiry tracker is fast and flexible. Still, he is on the defensive, so I press forward. He avoids the next three blows, as expected, so I spin, bend Whipsnap and unleash the kinetic energy of the weapon, flinging the mace end toward Xin’s head.

  The blow misses.

  Ull is stunned. He has never missed before.

  What is it? I think.

  A laugh sounds inside my mind. I am half-human and half-seeker. An experiment of the thinkers and breeders—one of the few survivors. I possess the best of both species, but I am accepted by neither. But that will soon change.

  I thrust. Xin parries.

  Whipsnap extends my reach much further than Xin’s long arms, but I can’t seem to strike the creature. I aim low, but he leaps. That’s when I see it. He leapt before I swung. He leapt when I thought about aiming low. He’s still in my head! He knows what I’ll do as soon as I do it.

  But why isn’t he attacking?

  Humiliation.

  It was a rhetorical question! I shout in my head.

  Stop thinking, Ull, I tell my other personality. Stop thinking!

  My blows come fast and furious. There is no rhyme or reason to them. No technique. I’m like the kids fighting on the school yard, eyes clenched shut, fists swinging, hoping to connect. For a moment, it works, but I feel Xin’s mental tendrils dig deeper and suddenly he’s predicting what I’ll do even before I know what I’ll do. He’s in my subconscious!

  Get out, get out, get out!

  Letting Ull lose was a good idea, but neither of you lack the mental will to keep me out. Xin’s voice echoes in my thoughts. Stop fighting and return to Asgard with me.

  I shout again, lunging, but he dodges every attack, bending his body, slipping out of my grasp. “Stand and fight!” I shout.

  Very well, Xin says. His body bends to the side as I strike with Whipsnap. The blade is just inches from his ribs. Before I can withdraw my weapon and strike again, he sweeps his leg around and knocks me on my back. The hard stone floor knocks the wind out of me, but I’ve suffered worse. I leap back to my feet.

  It doesn’t take a genius to see that this is a losing battle, so I decide to use my other skills. Wind howls through the giant chamber.

  Xin steps back, looking around us. He’s confused. Unsure.

  I focus on a nearby bone. A blunt femur from an unknown species. I will the wind to wrap around it. Carry it up. Strike Xin in the back
of the head. The bone flies.

  Xin tilts his head to the side. The motion is subtle, but causes the bone to miss. I turn my focus to the other bones lying around. He won’t be able to dodge them all. But before I can lift the bones from the ground, I am struck in the face, which is confusing because Xin is still out of reach.

  I glance down and see the femur resting at my feet.

  I don’t understand. The bone should have fallen when I turned my attention away from it. Whack! I’m struck again. A second bone clatters to the floor.

  Such wasted potential, Xin thinks.

  Not only does he know about my abilities, he’s using them against me!

  A cyclone builds around me, lifting me off the ground. Whipsnap flies from my grasp. The air is sucked from my lungs. I am trapped. A prisoner of my own abilities. Despite the whipping wind roaring in my ears, I can still hear Xin’s voice as though he were speaking directly into my ear.

  Your mind is different than others I’ve tasted. More complex. Layered. Ull is so like the other hunters. Primal. Arrogant. Strong willed. But then there is Solomon. You are weak and lack courage, but are so…full of information. Mathematical equations. Every sight and smell for each of your years. You have read and retained the words of Einstein, Shakespeare and…who’s this? Dr. Merrill Clark.

  He’s close, I think.

  And he hears my fear.

  Close to what?

  I fill my thoughts with images of Polaroid camera manuals. Page after page fills my thoughts. But then a conversation emerges. I’m in the car with my parents. With Mira. They’re talking about Polaroid cameras and suddenly Mira is ribbing me with her elbow, asking me what I think. I focus on something else, but Xin has latched onto the memory. He plays it forward. Mira’s head is on my shoulder. My heart pounds in my chest. She raises her camera and snaps a picture.

  The picture.

  He steps forward and reaches out a long, white scaly arm. He undoes the pouch where I hold the photo.

  “Stop!” I shout. For a moment, the wind ebbs and my body lowered.

  Ahh, he thinks. Here is your strength.

  He reasserts his dominance over my mind and I’m lifted higher.

  He laughs again. How can this young thing mean so much to you? A hunter. The vessel of Nephil. And yet your connection to this girl, to this image, is far more intense.

  He’s truly confused by my feelings for Mira. I can feel him sorting it out. Reliving my time with her. The intensity of my emotions overwhelms him. He steps back, shakes his head and contorts his face like he’s just tasted something foul. The photo falls from his hand and he turns his full attention back to peeling back the layers of my mind.

  He digs deeper than before, violating my most sacred thoughts. But none of them hold his interest like the two mental doors I have put in place. He knows these are my two deepest darkest secrets. They are the things that will unhinge me. Perhaps even break me. He knows this as surely as I do, but he can’t see beyond my barricades.

  He tests the first and senses my panic. No, no, no, I think.

  But he doesn’t fight. He moves to the second door and gives it a shove.

  “NO!” I scream, panic sweeping through my body like a physical force.

  This time he laughs aloud. I feel him pull his influence out of the rest of my mind and focus on that single mental barricade.

  The wind falls away and I drop to the ground, clutching my head. “Don’t,” I say. “Please!”

  The barricade weakens.

  “Don’t let him out!”

  Xin has no intention of stopping. The idea of breaking me is too enticing. If he accomplished something the infamous Ninnis failed to do, he would be accepted. He would be exalted. Praised!

  Time seems to slow as I realize that Xin has entered my mind so deeply that he has given me access to his as well.

  I relive his youth. A blue liquid world I mistake for the ocean at first. But there are distorted figures around me, walking past, staring in at me with big black eyes. I’m in a tube. A glass chamber. And I’ve been grown. A table is cold beneath me. Lights shine in my face. Sharp pain traces over my body as incisions are made. The process is repeated again and again until everything they needed to know has been acquired. Then I’m cast aside to die. But I don’t. I survive and they’re impressed enough to let me live, feeding me scraps. But I listen and watch. I learn and plot. And I desire to be accepted. To be…

  Loved.

  The deep sense of longing brings tears to my eyes and removes the last bit of strength I have.

  The barricade breaks.

  Xin is the first to scream, first in my head and then in his body as his mind is forced from mine by someone more powerful than us both. The blunt pain in my head turns into an all consuming fire. My scream joins with Xin’s. Our voices roll through the giant cavern, bouncing off the walls for miles. I fight for control of my mind and body, but I’m weakened by Xin’s invasion and I find myself incapable of regaining control.

  Nephil is free.

  7

  I laugh hysterically, though the voice is not mine. It’s as though puberty has come and gone and my voice has been replaced by a booming baritone. More than that, the words that follow my laughter are cruel and mocking. The kind I heard all my life.

  “You wish to be a hunter?” I shout as though it’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. “I don’t even know what you are!” I laugh again, when Xin reels back from the words like he’s been hit.

  Whipsnap is somehow in my hand again. I don’t remember picking it up. I watch as a spectator, while my body strikes. The blade strikes Xin’s side. His scales provide a momentary resistance to the blade, but the razor edge cuts through when the weapon is drawn back and fresh blood spills.

  Red blood, I notice.

  Not purple, like the Nephilim.

  The sight of it only sends me—Nephil—deeper into a rage.

  “You see!” I shout. “You’re an albino seeker with human blood! An abomination! Your body should have been dashed on the rocks and used as food for the feeders.”

  Feeders are egg shaped Nephilim with stubby arms and legs, massive jaws, rows of shark-like teeth, and pounds of fatty flesh, which is the staple food of many Nephilim. It’s a cannibalistic society, but the breeders hatch the feeders—what I call egg-monsters—on a regular schedule and if they are not destroyed, they become giants, consuming everything they come across. Ninnis once told me there were three of them living in the underworld. I have yet to meet them and hope I never do.

  My sight goes black for a moment. The blindness scares me. But I can still feel myself moving. Fighting. Killing. But the sight of it has been hidden from me.

  Because it would revolt me, I think. And in my revolt, I would gain strength. Nephil must be contained, but I lack the strength after Xin’s assault. As I feel my true self fading, I reach out with my thoughts.

  Xin.

  Xin!

  Who? I can’t—Solomon. How? Xin’s thoughts are broken. Distracted. He’s under attack. Help!

  To help you, you must help me, I think.

  I feel the mace end of Whipsnap swing wide and connect with something solid, but soft. Xin screams within my mind.

  Back to the door, Xin shouts. Close it!

  I see myself at the door, which I hadn’t visualized before. It’s old, and wooden, but held together by metal beams. I think I should have imagined a bank vault, but the ancient door somehow seems more appropriate. Nephil deserves a dungeon so that’s what I’ve conjured up. Xin appears next to me, uninjured and ready for battle. While the condition of his physical body is a mystery to me, I suspect his injuries are severe.

  What do we do? I ask.

  Force him back.

  I look to the door. It’s open, but Nephil is not here. How?

  This is still your mind, Solomon. You are in control if you choose to be. Bring him to us.

  I turn all of my attention on Nephil. He appears immediately—by choice, I re
alize. He wouldn’t back down from a fight. But he looks nothing like I thought he would—thirty feet tall, blood red hair, multiple rows of sharp teeth. I thought he would look like the other Nephilim. Instead he appears as a black, shapeless mass. A living shadow.

  Little Solomon believes he is a man, Nephil says with a laugh.

  Ull appears by his side, staring at me defiantly. I forgot that despite his independent streak, Ull is a hunter at heart and wants to see Nephil rise. While Ull is handy on the battlefield—he cannot resist a fight and does not wish to be harmed—he is ultimately my enemy. I am my enemy.

  Focus, Solomon! Xin says.

  I no longer feel my body moving. The fight has moved to the realm of the mind and the fact that Xin is still here means he is alive on the outside.

  A wind kicks up inside my thoughts. I direct it at Nephil and try to force him through the open door. But it flows through him like he’s not there. Ull charges at me, arms outstretched, fingers hooked. He means to distract me while Nephil finishes taking control.

  Xin meets him half way.

  The combat between hunter and tracker is intense and brutal, but this is in my mind and no blood spills. The pain is all in the mind, and as Xin lands a solid kick to Ull’s gut, I feel the pain as well.

  How am I supposed to force Nephil back, when the person helping me is also hurting me? Then I remember, this is my mind. The physics of this world are mine to control, like the environment on the outside.

  Xin, I think, come back to me!

  After quickly striking Ull, which dazes me, too, Xin dives back, rolls and regains his feet by my side.

  What do you intend to—