The Last Hunter - Collected Edition (34 page)

He shouts again, this time raising a victorious fist into the air, “I’m free!” And as his daughter embraces him, joining in his laughter, I see something amazing. A shock of the man’s blood red hair turns brown.

Innocence reclaimed. I laugh with them.

19

I barely notice the five mile walk as I’m led to Tobias’s and Em’s hideout. We move in silence, vigilant against hunters—who might be looking for me, or for them. Despite the silence, my mind is alive with excitement. I have made friends. Allies. Skilled allies.

Of course, they don’t yet know who I am. Who I really am. And the evil that lives inside me. But I will tell them soon. They need to know that I’m not just an average escapee. Not telling them would put them in more danger than I care to consider. If I’m to shed any more of this blood red hair—like Tobias—I must embrace everything the Nephilim abhor. I’ve done a good job with forgiveness, mercy and love, but need to add honesty to the mix.

I’m so lost in my thoughts that I fail to notice the shifting view of the mountains to my left. I just keep my eyes on the ground, following Tobias. We’re walking along an old path, worn down by the occasional passage of modern man. The firm ice and treaded gouges left by numerous Sno-Cats ensure that we won’t leave any footprints behind. My eyes linger on the tread marks. There have been fifteen thousand, five hundred and twenty-one grooves. I didn’t mean to count them. I barely noticed I had. But when the number pops into my conscious thoughts, it snaps me from my reverie.

A sudden weakness sweeps through my body. I let out a grunt and fall to my knees.

Tobias is by my side in a flash. “Are you all right?”

I feel winded. Emotional. Desperately close to something. Something I have craved since I left Antarctica as a baby.

I’ve felt this intense draw once before. I look up and see the Sno-Cat tracks stretching toward the horizon.

“Is he okay?” Em asks.

I feel Tobias’s hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know,” he says.

“We’re there,” I say.

His hand pulls away.

“How…did you know?”

“This is home,” I say, looking to my left. Except for a shift in the white, snow-coated areas of the massive stone mountains, the view matches my memory perfectly.

“Solomon,” Em says. “This
is
our home, but how did
you
know?”

“I’ve been here before.”

Em turns to Tobias. “Is he the boy?”

“You dug in the ice,” Tobias says. “Until you bled. We watched from a distance. I had to recover the small portion of ceiling you uncovered.”

I nod briefly and take several deep breaths to steady myself. The emotional surge that caught me off guard is fading.
I need to get harder
, I think. If something like this happened at a crucial moment, I’d be dead. But how can I repel all things Nephilim while simultaneously becoming some kind of hard-hearted warrior? Isn’t that exactly what they are?

“Solomon.” Tobias’s voice sounds serious. He senses I’m holding something back and it has him on edge. “When you dug in the ice. That wasn’t your first time here, was it?”

With a shake of my head, I say, “No.”

“Father,” Em says. “I don’t understand. This place has been buried for—” She gasps as something occurs to her.

She does that a lot
, I think.
Gasping
. It’s kind of a funny habit for a hunter—an ex-hunter.

“You don’t think…” She crouches down in front of me, looking at my face, which is hidden behind a hood and sunglasses. “Are you him? Are you the baby?”

A thousand memories of this place, seen through the eyes of a baby, flash through my mind. Many of the memories involve the rusty ceiling as I lay on my back, but there are also smiling faces and cooing voices. My mother and father. Dr. Clark. Aimee. The emotions surge again, but I fight against them this time. If they start to see me as a blubbering, over-emotional nutcase, they might not trust me. And if they don’t trust me, they will never help me.
I need allies
, I remind myself.
Pull it together
.

At least they can’t see my face, so the effort I put into calming my voice and regaining my feet is hidden from them. “Yes,” I say. “I was born here. This…was my home.”

“It’s
him
,” Em says to her father, her voice a whisper. She digs into her coat, opening a pouch hidden within. She pulls out a small, white square. “It’s you.”

I take the paper from her hand and turn it over. It’s a photo of a baby. A boy, I think. The photo is a Polaroid, like the one I carry around. The baby has bright blue eyes, a one inch ring of fuzz around its head and a goofy smile. The rainbow-striped, afghan blanket the baby lays on catches my attention. I’ve had it since the day I was born. My mother made it. “This photo is of
me
.”

Tobias and Em look at each other. “Father, it’s
him
!”

He turns to me and says, “It’s a good thing we didn’t kill you.”

“Why, exactly, is that good thing?” I ask. I can think of several good reasons, but I’m a stranger to these people. Sure, they’ve been living in Clark Station One, and happened to find a photo of me, which is surprising, but I sense there is more going on here.

“You are the first and only son of Antarctica,” Em says.

“Stories of your birth have been told in the underworld for years,” Tobias says. “The Nephilim have been awaiting your return.
We
have been awaiting your return as well. I should have realized it was you that day, digging through the ice. How else could you have known about this place? I could have taken you then. Spared you the—”

I take a step back, my defenses coming up. “Taken me? You would have taken me, too? Are you no better than them?” I stab my finger downward.

“Solomon,” he says, a little bit of sadness creeping into his voice. “Had I found you first, you would have been spared the breaking. The three tests. I could have trained you myself. The corruption would have never turned your hair red.”

“But why take me at all?” I ask. “Why not protect me. Send me home? Warn the others?”

“Because,” Em says. “We need you here. It is a fate that could not be avoided.”

“I’ve known that since the day of your birth,” Tobias says.

“How?” I ask.

Tobias pulls his mask down so I can see his face. “Because I witnessed it. I saw the light. The power of your birth shattered the ice and buried this place beneath thirty feet of snow.” He steps closer. “Solomon, please trust that we mean you no harm. You are here now, and that is what is important.”

While I do not like the fact that this man would have kidnapped me if given the chance, I do believe his motivation isn’t necessarily evil. And life with Tobias would have been better than my life underground, with Ninnis. I would still retain my innocence. Nephil would not reside within me. And Aimee would not have been taken captive.

Tobias reaches out a welcoming hand toward me. “Come. See your home again. There is someone who would very much like to meet you.”

“Who?” I ask.

“Luca. My son.” He flashes a grin. “You two have a lot in common. Come, follow me.”

He leads me to the entrance to Clark Station One, a tunnel some two hundred feet away from the building. The entrance is cleverly disguised by a snow covered hatch. The first fifty feet of the downward sloping tunnel is so small that we have to slide down on our bellies. After that, it levels out and is tall enough to stand in.

“A defensive bottleneck?” I ask. Any enemy foolish enough to enter the tunnel could be easily dispatched before their whole body exited the small hole.

“Yes, yes,” Tobias says with a dismissive wave of his hand. Then he’s walking quickly toward the gray outer door of Clark Station One, which I can see ahead.

“I can’t believe we didn’t recognize you right away,” Em says.

“From the baby photo?” I ask. “I’ve changed a lot since then.”

“Mm,” she says.

I absolutely hate it when someone rubs in the fact that they know something I don’t, especially when it relates to me. Always have. It makes me feel stupid. And angry. So I change the subject. “Is Em short for something?”

“Emilie,” she says. “With an I and an E at the end. Not a Y.”

“The German spelling,” I say.

She nods, and doesn’t seem all that interested in my questions. Her eyes, like her father’s, are glued to the door ahead of us.

“You don’t have his accent,” I say.

“An American teacher taught me how to speak English. I didn’t see my father much when I was young. I didn’t see him much at all, actually. Not until we escaped.”

“How
did
you escape?” I ask.

“Not now,” she says. “We’re here.”

We stop in front of the door. Tobias knocks two times, pauses and then knocks three times. The door opens from the inside and Tobias rushes inside. He bends over and scoops up a small body. “Solomon,” he says, turning toward me. “I’d like you to meet my son, Luca.”

I see the boy’s eyes and my heart skips a beat. They look so familiar. When I look at the rest of his face, I immediately know why I know his eyes.

It’s because they’re mine.

Luca is
me
.

As a child.

“Luca,” Tobias says. “This is Solomon—”

“—your brother.”

20

The next hour is surreal as I give myself a tour of the place where I was born. But he’s not me. Not really. Even though he is identical to me at six years old.

Identical
.

Even his pure blond, unbroken hair. But he does not share my memories, and only some of my personality. I bring none of this up, because he is beyond excited to meet me and is leading me around by the hand, pointing out Tobias’s room (my parents’ room), Em’s room (the Clarks’ room) and his bedroom (my bedroom). He even sleeps in the makeshift crib—a cot with slabs of wood nailed around the sides to keep me from rolling out—that my father and Dr. Clark made for me. I look at its metal and wooden frame, now sporting a mattress of feeder skins, and look up. There is more rust on the ceiling than I remember, but it is still the same place.

I feel instantly at home and the smile on my face is genuine.

But I cannot stop thinking about the little me holding my hand. How is he possible? Why is he here? Is he really my brother?

I feel sick to my stomach with the thought. I had a twin who was taken at birth and maybe he’s only six because he lived underground all this time?

The questions don’t stop coming, so when the tour finishes in the living room I think I might get a chance to speak to Tobias in private. But Luca has other plans. He props himself up on my—his—bed. His little legs dangle over the side.

“Will I look like you when I’m older?” he asks.

The answer to that question is simple. Yes. You’ll look exactly like me when you’re older, but I don’t think he knows the truth. He can see that we look alike, but he doesn’t recognize his older face the way I do my younger. So I stick to the story. “Brothers often do. Some even look like twins.”

“I wish we were twins,” he says with a grin.

The kid has just met me, but I can see in his eyes that he’s already idolizing me. It makes me uncomfortable and I can’t help but wonder how much he’s been told about me. And how much of it is true. “Why?” I ask.

“Because you’re so big.”

That’s the first time in my life someone has called me big, and I almost argue, but let it go because most teenagers are big in comparison to a six year old boy. “That’s it?”

He thinks for a moment and then his eyes go wide. He jumps down from the bed and fishes out a cardboard box from underneath it. Inside are several drawings on water damaged sheets of paper and five very worn crayons. I wonder what will happen when he runs out of crayons? Or paper. It will be a sad day for him.

He shoves a piece of paper in my face. On it is a small boy. And a very tall man. Both look angry. It’s hard to tell what they’re doing, but Luca translates it for me.

“It’s you,” he says. “You’re fighting the bad men.”

“Bad men?”

“I’m not allowed to say their names.”

“How did you know I would fight the bad men?”

“Father told me.” Luca flips to the next drawing.

The giant is on the ground. I think he’s dead. And the boy stands above him.
On top of him
. That’s when I see the large arrow sticking out of the giant’s head. I take the picture and sit down in an old metal folding chair next to the room’s desk.

“I saw you,” Luca whispers. He pulls the drawing down so we’re looking eye to eye. “I saw you do it.”

It seems impossible—only Ninnis saw what really happened the day I killed Ull. No one else knows. Is Luca some kind of a prophet? “What else do you see?”

“Just the big things. When they happen. Like dreams.”

“You can’t see what’s going to happen?”

He shakes his head, no.

“Can you see anyone else?”

No again. “Just you.”

Footsteps approach. “Don’t tell father,” he says, snatching away the drawing and putting it back in the box. “He doesn’t know.”

Em arrives in the doorway, but Luca is still nervous. He puts his hands behind his back and tries to hide his smile by pushing out his lower lip with his tongue. I used to do the same thing. It’s a dead giveaway that mischief is afoot.

Em squints at him. She’s got thin eyes already and they essentially disappear. Her face is wide, but pretty, and her cheeks are covered in freckles. At least half of her straight hair is brown. She’s also not nearly as pale as me.
They’ve been on the surface for some time,
I think.

“What are you two up to?” she asks.

Luca’s smile can’t be contained. He’s guilty of something, but says nothing.

“Brother stuff,” I say.

“Yeah,” says Luca. “Brother stuff.”

“Not sister stuff?” Em says.

Luca sticks out his tongue.

Em tugs on my shirt. After meeting Luca, Tobias gave me a pair of old jeans and a flannel shirt that I think belonged to Dr. Clark. I never saw him in it, but I’ve seen him in many others like it. The clothes are too big for me, but I look almost normal for the first time in years.

Years…

“Father wants to speak to you now,” she says, motioning with her head for me to follow.

Luca starts to follow us, but Em stops him. “Just Sol.”

“Aww,” Luca says with a stomp of his foot, but he turns around and goes back into his room.

Em looks back at me and sees my funny grin. “What?”

“Nothing.”

She stops. “
What
?”

“You called me Sol. Reminds me of home. Of my family. It’s…it’s nice.”

“Oh,” she says. “Good.”

She leads me to my parents’ old room, now Tobias’s and stops by the door. “You can think of us like that now if you want. Like family. Did you have a sister before?”

“I was an only child,” I tell her.

“Sad.”

“I had a friend. Justin. He was like family. Like a brother.”

“Well,” she says. “Now you have a sister. And a little brother.”

I smile wide. “Thanks.”

She opens the door for me and stands aside. Tobias stands with his back to me.

“Come in, Solomon,” he says. “Close the door behind you.”

I do.

“I want to tell you everything, Solomon. About me. About Emilie. And about Luca.”

I see his muscles grow tense. Something is bothering him.

“But I’ve been thinking and came to a realization. I need you to tell me
everything
.”

“I—”

“
You
are holding back,” he says, turning around to face me. He’s got Whipsnap in his hands. I left it in the living area, which I knew was stupid, but I couldn’t bring myself to carry a weapon while Luca showed me around the home. “No ordinary hunter could kill Ull. I’m one of the best, and I failed to come close. Not even Ninnis could do it. I know what they planned to do with you. I know about Nephil. And Tartarus. And the blood. The only way I can see you killing Ull is by using a strength greater than your own, which means you are already bonded with the body of Nephil.”

He lowers the blade tip of Whipsnap, of my own weapon, toward my stomach. “Which means you brought that monster into
my
home, to
my
children, and if you cannot explain yourself in the next few moments, I will gut you where you stand.”