The Last Hunter - Collected Edition (110 page)

37

“Goodbye, Ull,” Nephil says, and I feel him pushing on me, forcing me from my own mind and into the oblivion that awaits Nephilim. I won’t die, I’ll simply be trapped in this dark place for the rest of time, or until an asteroid destroys the planet or the sun becomes a red giant and absorbs the Earth.

Before I wink out of existence, I feel a building pressure. It’s not Nephil, it’s
opposing
Nephil.
Resisting
him.

And it’s
not
me.

As the pressure behind me builds, a searing pain ignites in my mind and I feel, more than hear Nephil’s surprise.

Push him back, Solomon!

The voice screams at me, focusing my thoughts as I focus on the name of the one speaking to me.
Xin!

This was his gift.

His consciousness has been buried in my head, waiting for this moment, defending my mind against the one who could take it.

Push him back, but do not expel him.

Then what?
I ask.

Control him!

Bind him!

And then
—I start to ask, but the answer comes to me.

As the wall of darkness is pushed to the fringe of my mind, I feel my body again. I can sense the world around me. I hear my own voice, screaming, but I also hear Nephil, screaming through Ninnis. He’s connected to both of us!

Zeus and Enlil look on. I doubt either knows what to expect from this bonding. They have no idea that Nephil is being repelled.
Not repelled
, I think,
contained
.

“Now, Solomon!” Cronus shouts, then I hear him scream to his remaining Titans, “For the King!”

Through foggy vision, I see Cronus charge past, sword drawn. He leaps at Zeus and with one swing, lops the surprised giant’s head from his shoulders. His second swing is parried by Enlil and the Nephilim horde rushes in, held at bay by twelve Titans, hacking and slashing with a bravery that sets my mind to the task.

Luca
, I think,
the horn!

I turn to find the small boy lifting the horn.

Over your head
, I tell him.

He holds it high.

As I reach out to the elements, I feel Nephil grow stronger. He’s pushing Xin and me back. But then, the wind obeys and explodes through the shofar with a force beyond that of the amplified speaker system. The valley vibrates with its power. The Nephilim army shrieks and wails. And then, all at once, the shofar shatters, the last of its sound echoing off the valley walls.

Nephil’s darkness tears out of me, retreating to Ninnis’s body. But he finds no refuge there.

Ninnis...is himself.

His intense eyes lock onto mine and we come to an understanding. Ninnis twitches and screams as Nephil fights for control. He falls to his knees, clutching his chest. Tendrils of darkness squirm out of him, but are pulled back inside.

“I have him, boy!” Ninnis shouts and then screams again. “I can’t hold him for long.”

Ninnis’s strength is beyond comprehension. The combined consciousnesses of Xin and I struggled to repel the monster, but Ninnis is binding him on his own. Knowing what to do, I walk to Ninnis, but before I reach him, I fall to my knees. My stomach revolts, roiling. Then I vomit, a single glob of coagulated purple blood, coated in bile splatters to the ground.

Free of Nephil’s body, my strength returns. As it does, my sense of Xin’s presence fades.
I will see you again, brother,
he thinks, and then he’s gone. Again. But there’s no time to mourn the brief return and loss of Xin. I quickly focus on the glob of flesh below my face, removing the fluid from it with a thought. With the body of Nephil reduced to dust, I crawl to Ninnis and wrap my arms over his back, lending my strength to his. The darkness cuts through us both now, and together we fight.

But not alone.

I feel a hand on my back. Then another. I look up and find Kat and Mira supporting me. Ninnis raises his head, too, feeling the hands on him as well. “Daughter!” he says, surprised to find Kainda’s head just inches from his own.

“I’m here, father,” she says, her words full of compassion.

Ninnis’s lips tremble. When he looks the other way and finds Em, he sobs. “But—I killed your father!”

“And I forgive you,” Em says. She turns her eyes to me. “Do it.”

Finding strength in the faithful resolve of these four women, my hope, faith, focus and passion, I turn my thoughts to the Earth, to my larger body. I reach out, further than ever before, for hundreds of miles, until I feel the deep dark void that was the first behemoth’s home.

With a scream of exertion from me, the ground beneath us opens up and swallows us whole. We descend on a disk of stone and soil, rocketing downward at an angle like we’re on a rollercoaster fashioned in hell. Strata of Antarktos flash past in a blur as we descend through millennia of time, back toward the very beginning of mankind, of Nephilim and this ancient conflict.

Nephil reaches out, struggling to leave the confines of Ninnis’s body. One by one, we shout in pain, feeling his dark touch. But Nephil finds a united front and a cage of unwilling hosts.

And then, we arrive. We drop through the cavern’s ceiling. It takes a supreme effort to slow us before we strike the ground, but I manage. Nephil realizes where we are before the others do and he explodes with fury, screaming, “No!” through Ninnis.

The darkness swirls out of Ninnis, striking Kainda, Kat, Mira and Em away. They sprawl across the cavern floor.

The tentacles quickly fade again, reeled in by Ninnis. “Quickly, Solomon!” He looks over his shoulder to the gates of Tartarus, which oddly enough, already lie open.

I throw his arm around my shoulder and we hobble together toward the gates. As we walk, Ninnis speaks through grinding teeth. “Solomon. I cannot thank you enough. You have saved me.”

“And now you, us,” I say. “We’re even.”

“Not remotely,” he says, grunting in pain. “My daughter. You will care for her?”

“She is my wife,” I tell him, and he manages a pain-filled laugh. He places his forehead against mine and whispers, “Son.”

Despite all of the horrible things Ninnis has done, all of the people he has killed and the anguish he has caused, I find it in my heart to forgive him again. “Father,” I whisper.

He barks loudly, and I can’t tell if it’s a laugh or a sob, but it transforms into a shout of pain. “Gah!”

I’m thrown away by a curtain of black.

Nephil has taken control again. He turns to face me, just a foot away from the gaping blackness of the open gate.

I catch myself with a cushion of air.

Ninnis’s eyes appear for a moment, filled with concern, not for entering the gate, but that Nephil might yet escape.

I summon a wind, throwing it at Ninnis. Black tendrils shoot out, embedding themselves in the floor. Hurricane force winds slam into Nephil, but he resists, rooted like some ancient tree. He’s shouting at me, but his words are lost in the wind.

Unfortunately, Nephil is fueled by rage, anger and hatred. Exhausted from the battle, and our journey through the center of the Earth that would boggle Jules Verne, I am growing weaker. Fast.

I fall to my knees, urging the wind to grow stronger, but I can feel its force ebbing along with my reserves. On my hands and knees, I can now hear Nephil laughing, fully possessing Ninnis once more. I turn my head up and look at him. I’m sickened by his smile, by the look of victory in his eyes.

So close,
I think,
we were so close.

Tears roll down my cheeks.

The world is lost. Nephil has w—

A pair of arms slip out of the darkness behind Nephil. They’re human, but strong. Before Nephil can react, the arms wrap around Ninnis’s throat and lock together in a perfect chokehold. The black tendrils flare wildly, but they cannot assail their attacker. To do so would mean passing through the gate!

The darkness grips the cavern floor like an angry squid, but while Nephil is spirit, Ninnis is human, and his beet-red face, now turning purple reveals a desperate need for oxygen. As Ninnis’s eyes flutter, the tendrils lose their power and one by one, they slide free from the rock.

Then, all at once, Ninnis falls back and is yanked through the gates of Tartarus, taking Nephil with him.

I sit up, staring at the gates, unbelieving.
That’s it? We’ve won?

I look around, finding Em, Kainda, Mira and Kat, all climbing back to their feet, staring at the gate with the same look of disbelief frozen on their faces.

Em looks at me and laughs.

A smile creeps onto my face despite the pain waging a war on my body.

“We did it...” Mira says, sounding relieved.

When I turn to Kainda, I’m surprised to find tears in her eyes. Then I remember that it was Ninnis, her father, who ultimately saved us. Returned to his true self, he became the man I always knew he was, and probably the man that Kainda always wanted him to be.

It’s Kat’s reaction that really catches me off guard. She walks toward the open gates. Then she runs.

“Kat!” I shout to her. She doesn’t know what lies on the other side. She doesn’t—

She shouts, and I flinch at the word. “Steve!” She shouts again, desperate. “Steve!”

Just as she’s about to dive through the gates, the arms emerge again, and then the body they belong to. Kat shouts her husband’s name again and dives into his arms, nearly tackling them both back through the gates.

“Wright!” I shout, and I’m on my feet and running. When I reach the pair, I wrap my arms around them both. “You’re alive!”

He laughs and pats my shoulder. “I’m not easy to kill.”

“But the hunters,” I say, remembering the dire situation we left him in.

“Were only interested in you,” he says. “They left me to die, but I found my way here, to the gates.”

“But how did you open them?” I ask.

“I didn’t,” he says.

“I did,” says a booming voice from above. Cronus drops through the hole in the ceiling, his wings unfurling to stop his fall.

“You’re alive!” I say, surprised. “But Adoel—”

“—is even more cryptic than I am,” he finishes with a grin. He turns to the gate and finding no sign of Nephil, says, “You have done well, young King. The dark lord Ophion was still connected to the warriors above when he left this world.”

“You mean—”

He nods. “His army is in ruin.” He steps toward the open gates, takes one and closes it. “But your work as King has only begun. The lesser clans are scattered, but living, as are those hiding among men. Battles await you in the future, but mankind is saved.”

He reaches for the second door and begins to close it, stepping toward the darkness. It’s now that I notice there are no other Titans present. “The other Titans?” I ask.