The Last Hunter - Lament (Book 4 of the Antarktos Saga) (10 page)

“I thought not,” he says, then brings both hands up out of the pool and flings a thick spray of the stuff up at the ceiling.

There is no dodging it this time. My fingers release and I drop. Wind kicks up around me as I fall, pulling my hair in wild directions. I catch the strong scent of Nephilim blood, but the wind keeps its stinging effects from my body.

As I descend, my emotions take over. I have let Hades assault me too many times without a response. I pull Whipsnap free as my fall is arrested and point the bladed tip at the monster. “Do you know how my master, Ull was killed?” I shout. “Slain by his own arrow! Doing the same thing to you now would be a simple thing. I have seen your kind killed by simple throwing knives. I have seen the bits and pieces of your brothers strewn across the jungle floor. You cannot win this war.”

He stares at me for a moment, frozen in place. And then, he laughs.

His last mistake. Few things set me off like being laughed at.

“There you are,” he says. “You entered here as a boy. Fragile and afraid. I could smell it on you. But here you are now, Solomon, the man, killer of demons, who descended into Tartarus and rose from the depths three months later.”

I’m poised to throw Whipsnap through his forehead, but stop. His voice still sounds horrible, and ragged, but there was a tinge of something else hidden in there. Respect?

“Why did you attack me?” I ask, sensing the battle has come to an end.

“I needed to know.”

“Know what?” I ask.

“If you were capable.”

Get to the point
, I think. “Capable
of what
?”

“Of becoming more.”

I’m about to ask, “more what,” but this time he continues without prodding.

“More...than a man. More than you understand. More than even you believe is possible.”

Of course, he’s being vague again, so all the talking in the world isn’t going to help. “What are you talking about?” I ask.

He points a finger at me. Purple blood trickles from the long fingernail. “Tell me, last hunter, did you know you could fly?”

10

If I’d been asked, I would have said I’m standing on the floor. Not because I feel the stone beneath my feet, but because it’s the only thing that makes sense. I jumped from the ceiling, and without thought, instinctually placed my feet on dry patches of floor. That makes sense. But what I see when I look down...that’s something else.

The floor is ten feet below me. And there are no dry patches. Had I landed in the blood, I’d have likely died. At least I got something right; my instincts
had
taken over. But not in a way I would have predicted. The wind that normally carries me higher when I leap, cushions a fall or shields me from projectiles, now whips around my body, holding me aloft. I can feel its strength pulling at my limbs. My hair whips about. And my scant leather clothing is being pulled in a way that makes me fear I will soon be flying
and
naked.

“I
can
fly,” I say dumbly, as much to myself as to Hades.

The giant settles back in his blood bath, as though lounging in a hot tub.

I focus on the wind currently being generated by instinct and test out this new found trick. I move higher and then closer to Hades. “So you weren’t trying to kill me?”

“You could have died at any time,” he says.

“Then you
were
trying to kill me?”

“Yes,” he says with a sick grin. “But I was hoping you would survive.”

I don’t know why I’m trying to understand the methods of a Nephilim, especially one with the reputation of Hades, but I understand now that it was some kind of test. Pass or fail. Live or die. There was no in between. And I don’t think Hades intended for me to fly, only to see how I would escape his trap.

“Are my friends okay?” I ask.

He rolls his eyes at my concern. “They will survive.”

Thinking about the others reminds me of the corpses scattered around the room. I look down and see a hunter below me. He’s covered in purple blood now. I point to him. “And them?”

“They are very dead,” he says, still smiling.

“Why are they dead?” I ask.

“In service to you,” he says.

“Me? I didn’t ask for this.” I look at the human hunter. “I don’t kill
people
.”

“But they would have killed
you
had I not intervened,” he explains. “Not all hunters are loyal to your cause. You haven’t eluded capture on your own, boy.”

This surprises me almost as much as the fact that I’m flying, which is actually starting to take its toll. I’m slowly, but steadily growing tired. “You’ve been protecting me.”

“Not me,” he says. “My servant.”

The stench of Nephilim blood turns my stomach. “And the blood? Where does it come from?”

“You don’t care where it comes from. It is Nephilim blood. If I slew my fellow warriors, gatherers, seekers, breeders or feeders, you would be indifferent to its origins. Nephilim are deserving of death, of being erased.”

I agree with him, but saying so to a Nephilim who’s supposed to help me doesn’t seem like a good idea. Instead, I chew my lips nervously, which doesn’t exactly exude confidence, either.

“Do not worry, boy. I would agree with you. Our kind...was not meant to be. We are...unnatural.” His eyes look down at the floor and I think I see a flash of shame cross his face, but then it’s gone and his gaze turns back to me. “What you really want to know is why. Why do I bathe in the blood of my brothers? I have heard you have an intellect worthy of your namesake. You tell me. Why do I bathe in blood?”

I’m not sure if this is another test, but I decide to treat the riddle like it is, just in case. I look at the pool of purple blood. There are dark, almost black, stains around the edge. Dried blood. So this is not the first time he has done this. My eyes fall on the blade he used to shave his head, and likely his whole body. He is hairless. He looks like a Nephilim, but the blood red telltale sign of his corruption has been removed.

Why?

The answer hits me like a cannonball to the gut and I blurt out, “You’re not corrupt.”

He opens his arms and smiles, this time lacking any kind of sinister intention. “And yet my dark heart is feared more than most.”

“You shave to hide your hair.”

“As yellow as your own,” he say.

“You bathe in blood to mask your scent.”

“And to further my mad reputation. I make no secret of it when I pluck a lesser Nephilim from the halls above and drain its blood into my pool. As a result, I have very few visitors and have been left alone to watch, and wait...for you.”

“Why didn’t you help me before?” I ask.

“Even the finest ore must be melted in the hottest flames before it can be forged into a great weapon. You needed to...suffer. You needed to break. Without these things, you could not have been remade.”

When I was ten, my uncle Dan lost his job. I heard my mom talking to my father one night. They thought I was sleeping, but I was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, listening to every word. Uncle Dan had some kind of mental breakdown, but not from losing the job. It was the job itself that created a wellspring of depression and anxiety in the man who wanted to be a painter. He didn’t want to sell insurance. But he had bills to pay, and mouths to feed and a mortgage. All the things that trap people into thinking they are stuck, like mice cowering in front of a cardboard cutout of a cat despite the exit to freedom being just beyond it—my father’s analogy, not mine. And finally, his despair overwhelmed him.

Broke him.

And my parents, who were not the kind of people to be trapped by circumstances of their own creation, weren’t worried about Uncle Dan. They were excited for him.

“It’s too bad he had to get so low to realize his life was his to shape,” my father said. “But I’m glad he did.”

“Rebirth is never painless,” Mom replied.

I couldn’t see them from my position on the hallway stairs, but they shared a quiet laugh. In my mind’s eye, I could see them smiling, and I smiled with them. I heard kissing after that and went to bed, but the next day we went to visit Uncle Dan. He was a different man. A happy man. A remade man.

The idea that I, like Uncle Dan, had to be brought to my lowest point so I could reach my highest is horrible.

But true.

That doesn’t make it okay, though. Uncle Dan chose to sell insurance. He chose to buy a big house. And nice cars.
I
was kidnapped. Taken against my will. I’m not reaping the results of my own poor choices. I’m adapting to an abusive world that would have killed me a thousand times over. What did Uncle Dan have to worry about? Bad credit?

Uncle Dan would have made a horrible hunter.

“I didn’t choose this,” I complain.

“Who would?”

No one, I think. And that’s the point. No one would choose to be broken and remade in the way that I have been. No one with half a brain anyway. So whoever was chosen, or fated, or whatever to defeat the Nephilim would be remade unwillingly.

“Your kind never come willingly,” he says, “but once you do...”

“You mean humans?” I ask.

“Moses,” he says. “Jonah. Noah. Thomas. Paul. All resisted at first. All of them eventually broke.”

He sees my skepticism. “Would you prefer examples from other sources of literature? Or perhaps modern history? Your United States didn’t enter World War II until it was broken at Pearl Harbor.”

My deeper confusion prompts a smile on the beast.

“I’ve had many teachers over the years,” he says.

“Your examples were all old men. And a country. I was thirteen years old when—”

“King David slew my brother when he was just a boy.” He shifts in the pool, getting comfortable.

“He also did horrible things,” I counter.

“As have you.”

I tense. My anger builds. But I reign it in, remembering Cronus’s gift. “I have been forgiven.”

Hades concedes with a nod. “As was David.”

Arguing with Nephilim who have been alive for thousands of years is really annoying. I’m not accustomed to being on the receiving end of a verbal checkmate, but there it is. So I change the subject. “I’m here for the Jericho shofar.”

“I have been waiting for you since you entered the gates of Tartarus,” he replies. “I knew who you would find there. And I felt confident you would return, and eventually find me. But...despite having seen you do great things, worthy of the chosen ancients, I am not convinced you will return with the shofar, and your life. One must be sacrificed for the other.”

11

Out of all the confusing things Hades has said thus far, “One must be sacrificed for the other,” takes the cake. If
I
am sacrificed, how can I retrieve the shofar? If the Jericho shofar is sacrificed,
how can I retrieve the shofar
! I decide that this riddle can wait because, obviously, both the shofar and I need to make it through in one piece. If we don’t, then all of this is for nothing. “Do you know where it is?”