The Last Hunter - Collected Edition (42 page)

34

Do you know about the experiments
?
I think to Xin
. The duplicates of me
?

Abominations
, he replies.
Destroyed as they should have been
.

Not all of them.

How do you know
? Xin asks.

A teacher
, I think, but I keep Aimee’s identity hidden.
She told me some were left alive
.
Six of them
.

The blood of six Nephilim races around the carved out tracks that end in six straight lines. The lines lead to the circle surrounding me. It won’t be long.

Impossible
, Xin says.

I’m not sure where Xin is. It’s possible he’s not even in the chamber, but I ask,
Can you see the boy with Kainda
?

I can
.

Search his face. His eyes. They are mine.

Xin says nothing for a moment.

During his silence, the six trails of blood reach the inner circle simultaneously and begin to surround me.

Search his mind if you have to!

More silence. The blood is close to spilling over into the shallow bowl in which I stand.

It’s true
, Xin says.
He is you
.

Not me
, I think
. My brother
.

Xin is intelligent. Like me. So I know he’s understood what I’m telling him. But I say it clearly for him so there is no chance of a misunderstanding.
You are my brother, Xin. As is Luca, the boy. You were both created…from me. We are family. We are brothers.

Xin doesn’t reply and I fear the silence will be permanent this time. Xin, in many ways, is a monster. He is half Nephilim, after all, born from a breeder, unlike Luca, whose mother was human. But Xin is also good. He showed that to me when he saved my life. I believe he sensed the bond between us even then. But I fear the revelation of his true origin might be more than he can process.

I reach out to him one more time,
Xin!
Speak to me!
But he does not return and even if he did, I would not hear him. The blood circle overflows. Trickling paths of blood slip over the side and roll toward my feet. As it does, Enki shouts a command.

Chains snap taut and fifty Nephilim giants grunt as they put all their strength into pulling open the gates of Tartarus. Enki turns his face toward me. “Ull, chosen of the Nephilim, do you willingly give yourself to the spirit of Nephil?”

My breath quickens as my heart pumps adrenaline through my veins. I glance to Luca. He looks as terrified as me. My eyes shift to Kainda. She’s watching me with an expression that catches me off guard.

There is pity in her eyes.

She knows I am not Ull. She knows what I am sacrificing for the boy.

Her eyes glisten and a single tear falls.

I look back up at Enki. “I do.”

The blood reaches my feet.

A searing heat reaches up through my body, burning like the sun. I scream, but remain rooted in place. My body convulses. I feel my mind and thoughts fading, but I fight for lucidity.

There is chanting all around me now, loud and insistent.

A strong wind billows past me, but it has nothing to do with my abilities. Until Luca is safe, I cannot reveal myself. A loud groan like a fog horn rolls out of the opening doors. Through blurry vision, I see only blackness beyond the doors. But somewhere in the dark, something moves.

I hear the name of Nephil repeated again and again as the chanting grows more fervent. And then I see it. A black shape, like a cloud, reaching out for me, stretching its limbs out like a striking squid.

The black tendrils reach me and stab into my chest, clutching my chest in a frigid grip. I feel my heart stop, but the heat burning up from my feet restarts it. I die again and again, but am quickly brought back each time.

Pain explodes in my stomach and then surges through my body as though it’s flowing through my veins. I’m not sure if I’ve stopped screaming yet, but I’m suddenly aware of my shrieking voice again. The pain moves up through my chest. My jugular feels like it will burst as the pain moves higher. And then it’s in my head. There is a flash of white hot pain and then the world ceases to exist.

The circle of blood is gone.

The army of Nephilim is no more.

The cavern. Behemoth. Luca. Kainda. All gone.

I am alone in a world of painless white.

A voice booms around me. “Who are you?”

“Solomon Ull Vincent,” I say.

“The chosen?”

“I am,” I say.

“Why have you locked me away?”

This is Nephil, I realize. And he knows I’ve locked away the small bit of his personality that was transferred to me when I consumed his flesh.

“Because,” I say, flexing my hands and gritting my teeth. “This is my body. My mind. And it will never belong to you!”

“You think you can resist me?” The voice shouts and suddenly I’m standing in front of the mental vault door Xin helped put in place. The black form is there too, flowing with black tendrils. It reaches for the door, snakes its way into the cracks and pulls.

The door shatters into pieces.

In that instant I lose myself. Nephil is supercharged as the darkness within the vault merges with his spirit. I feel myself reaching out, beyond my physical body, out into the continent. Antarctica becomes an extension of me like never before. I can feel its mass as though it were my own body. Its rivers are my blood. The snow, my skin.

But my reach doesn’t end there.

I feel the ocean beyond.

And more land. South America first. Australia. North America. Europe. Asia. I feel the tectonic plates, shifting and grinding above the molten layer beneath. For one explosive moment I feel bound to the entire planet. But I’m out of control, or rather, under control. I grip the entire planet, holding it, holding myself…and spin. I feel my skin come loose and wrap around my body, tearing and grinding, exploding and burning.

I scream, falling to my knees and clutching my head. The connection is broken. The darkness swirls before me. Nephil is reborn and whole again, inside my body. Inside my mind. And I stand against him, alone.

“Not alone, Solomon” a voice replies to my thoughts. It’s my voice, but deeper and more confident. Ull emerges from the broken vault.

“You’re stronger than the last time we met,” he says.

“And you’re not trying to kill me. Don’t you want to be bonded with Nephil?” I ask.

“I spent enough time with the beast to know he has no intention of sharing our body with me. He seeks to destroy us. To make our body his own. This cannot happen.” He suddenly has Whipsnap in his hand. “We must fight him together. As one.”

Laughter shakes the world apart. We are surrounded by the dark, standing in a pillar of light. I find a duplicate of Whipsnap in my hands and I stand back to back with Ull.

The darkness sweeps around us. I see eyes. Yellow eyes. And claws. Razor sharp. We stand in the eye of an evil hurricane, but the wind is laughter—mocking, hateful laughter.

“Stand your ground, Solomon,” Ull says. “This is our mind. You bound him once, you can do it again.”

The laughter reaches a high pitch as a streak of black separates and swoops toward me. Blazing yellow eyes burn at me. Claws reach out. I swing Whipsnap down, bringing the blade into and through the thing’s torso. I strike nothing. The blade has passed through the body as though it is immaterial. The thing’s claws, however, are solid.

Four red streaks appear on my side. A blazing pain follows. I smell my blood and feel its warmth on my side. I look down. The gash is deep. Fearing my organs will slip out, I drop Whipsnap and press my hands against the wound.

Ull shouts a battle cry and swings. He screams in pain, but swings again, and again.

We fall to our knees together. Defeated.

As the dark swirling hatred moves in to consume us, I say, “I forgive you, Ull.”

He looks over his shoulder and meets my eyes. His face is covered in blood. “Too late.”

I nod. My separate sides, unable to reconcile, are weaker on their own. I cannot stand up to the monster. I don’t even stand a chance. I lower my head in defeat.

“Get up,” a raspy voice says.

“You aren’t alone,” says a second, younger voice.

I look up to find Xin and Luca standing above Ull and me.

Xin reaches his hand down to me. “It’s time to fight, brother.”

35

Xin pulls me up and I see little Luca yank Ull to his feet. The boy is stronger than anyone would believe.

Xin’s yellow eyes are just inches from mine. “Remember,” he says. “This is your mind. Your rules. To win, you will need to believe that. We can support you, but the fight is yours.”

I look at Ull. “What about him?”

“Ull is your heart,” Xin says. He gives you strength, but this fight is taking place in your mind. And that is
your
domain.”

I’m not sure what surprises me more, that Xin is here with Luca or that Ull has been identified as my heart. But I suppose it makes sense. He is all passion and fire, while I am logical and thoughtful. It doesn’t mean I’m without heart. It just means that Ull is the part of me that feels the deepest, and since the breaking, that part of me has been angry. Full of rage. Destructive.

The blackness known as Nephil has shifted away from the four of us, perhaps contemplating this new development.

“Heal your wounds,” Xin says.

I look down and tell myself that this isn’t real. That it’s all in my mind. And that my wounds are imaginary. The gashes seal and the blood flow stops. The pain, however, doesn’t fade.

Ull seems to fare better. Not only are his wounds gone, but he looks like he could take on a polar bear in a wrestling match and come out unscathed. I suppose it’s easy to let go of reality when you’re all heart. My mind has a hard time accepting that this reality, isn’t real. But I do my best, because I suspect all the physical strength in the world will matter little in this place.

The darkness howls and spins closer. The four of us form a circle. Ull is to my back, Xin to my right and Luca to my left. Each one of us now holds a Whipsnap of our own. “Stand your ground!” I shout.

The specters swarm again, their yellow eyes burning. They attack, one at a time, swooping, striking. I feel their claws pass through me, but remind myself that they cannot hurt my body, because it doesn’t exist here.

But the effort is tiring. I sense the others losing strength, too. And as we tire, Nephil grows stronger.

Ull shouts, swinging Whipsnap at everything that comes close, but to no effect.

“Ull,” I shout over the howling wind. “Do you feel it?”

“What are you talking about?” He shouts back.

“This wind. In your hair. Between your fingers. It belongs to us.”

He turns to me and I see the blackness assault his back. He grits his teeth and gives it no attention. I face him and put out my hands.

“We will settle things between us,” he says. “When this is over.”

I nod, and he puts his hands in mine. A blast of emotion fills my mind. All of Ull’s anger is passed on. All of his power. And something surprising: love. But there is no time to dwell on this. I siphon his energy, my energy, and build a cyclone of my own. It radiates out from us, enveloping Luca and Xin and shielding all of us from further attack.

Xin turns to me, shouting over the rushing wind. “You cannot contain him this time! He is too strong!”

“Then what?” I ask.

“You must expel him!” Xin shouts. “Cast him out! Without a body, he will be undone.”

So I push.

And my cyclone expands against the darkness. I feel myself growing weary, the drain of using the elements seems to affect me even in my mind. But still, I push harder. Ull screams, his rage fueling me.

“You’re doing it, Sol!” Luca shouts. The boy’s voice and the innocence I hear in it strengthens my resolve.

My scream merges with Ull’s, our combined voice exploding the whirlwind outward. The blackness bursts. The white world returns.

Ull and I both fall to our knees, heaving with each breath.

“Did…it work?” I ask.

“Almost,” Xin says. “He is wounded, but still here.”

I look up and see the darkness retreating into the form of a Nephilim warrior. The black giant staggers back as though struck, clutching his stomach. When the thing lifts up its head, yellow eyes glow at us.

“Get up, brothers,” Xin says, his voice filled with urgency. “We cannot let him regroup!”

Before I can get up, Xin charges with a battle cry. To my surprise, Luca follows him, Whipsnap raised to strike.

Ull looks over at me. I can see his blazing eyes and savage grin behind the curtain of red hair that hangs over his face. “Come, Sol,” he says. “Let’s finish this.”

We rise together, running side by side. The wind at our backs lifts us into the air, our twin Whipsnaps poised to strike.

Xin reaches Nephil first and slices a deep cut into the thing’s leg. But it does no damage and he’s kicked aside. Luca fares no better as he strikes and passes right through the leg. He stumbles and falls behind the giant. Ull and I share a glance as we descend toward Nephil. We’re thinking the same thing.

Of course we are
, I think.
We are me.

Ull arrives first, stabbing Whipsnap at the giant’s chest. But the action is a ruse. He spins the weapon around, bringing the mace side up toward Nephil’s head. At the same moment, I put my mind to work, imagining the golden ring that protects the Nephilim soft spot.

There is a clang of metal on metal and the ring is knocked free. And where the ring once was, there is now flesh. Not blackness. Not some supernatural cloud. The forehead revealed beneath the ring undulates with a pulse.

With a battle cry that would make Ull proud, I draw Whipsnap back, take aim and thrust it forward. The tip strikes flesh and tears through.

A scream more horrible than anything I’ve heard—the scream of a being that has waited thousands of years to be set free from a prison or torment—tears through my mind.

And then I’m back. In the real world.

There is no longer blood at my feet. Instead it covers the bodies and faces of the six Nephilim kings still standing around me. The cyclone I created in my mind must have been formed here as well. When exhaustion pulls me to my knees, I have no doubt.

I realize that the massive chamber has fallen silent. I scan the faces around me. They’re not looking at me, they’re looking above me. I turn my head up and find the blackness of Nephil spinning above my head.

That’s when a terrible pain clutches my body. I curl in upon myself as something burrows through me. My stomach sours and feels heavy. After three hard contractions, I pitch forward and heave. I feel a thickness rising in my throat. I heave again and feel it stick. I cannot breathe! With the last of my strength and breath, I heave one last time. When the thing comes loose and spills from my mouth, I scream and then suck in a loud breath.

I feel the room’s attention turn back to me. And then to the object lying in front of me.

It’s a thick, dark, purple blob, like a large, bloody loogie.

The body of Nephil.