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

“When they passed us on the river, I was on my way to help them escape. Aimee’s freedom and the Clark family’s safety has always been part of my core. Without them, all of them, I would have been lost to this place.”

Kat’s only response is to take a fresh scoop of flesh and swallow it down.

Wright grimaces at the ease with which she eats the meat. He looks at me. “Sounds like the three of you have been through a lot.”

“You’ll get a taste of it soon enough,” Kainda says.

“I’d say we had a pretty good taste already,” Wright says.

Kainda is about to argue. And I understand why. The endlessly violent and hate-filled life of a hunter is probably impossible to imagine without experiencing it firsthand. But we’re not here to compare scars.

“You encountered the Nephilim?” I ask. I know the answer, but not the details.

Wright gives a nod. “Several times.”

“Killed them, too,” Kat adds, scooping another wad of flesh into her mouth. She takes a chew, which even I think is gross, swallows and then notices the three stunned expressions staring back at her. “What?” she says a little defensively. She motions to her half empty segment of centipede. “This isn’t that bad.”

“You...killed a Nephilim,” Em says. It’s not a question, but it’s full of disbelief.

“More than one,” Kat says. “Once you get those metal bands off their heads, you can just pop them in the head like anyone else. She looks at Whipsnap, Kainda’s hammer and Em’s collection of knives strapped around her waist and across her chest. “You guys really need to upgrade your arsenal.”

“Could you do it again?” I ask.

“If you can get me a gun, sure.”

Kat’s confidence, similar to Kainda’s, is refreshing.

Em’s eyes brighten. “I know where to find some.”

“We don’t have time to go somewhere else,” I say. “We need to get to Olympus.”

“They’re
at
Olympus,” Em says. “The warriors keep the weaponry of those they capture in a cell on the prison level. I’ve seen it.”

Kainda nods. “They do the same in Asgard.”

“We’d be a hell of a lot more useful if we had some weapons,” Wright said.

I mull the options around in my head. The distraction wouldn’t add too much time to our journey. And we might not find Hades where Em believes him to be. We might very well have to search all of Olympus. And if that’s the case, it seems likely that we’ll encounter some kind of resistance. It would be good to have all of us armed, especially if the husband and wife team are able to take down Nephilim warriors. Before meeting them, the only two people to kill a Nephilim, not counting the ancient stories, were Mira, who slew Enki with a grenade, and me, when I killed my master, Ull, with his own arrow.

I take a dollop of flesh and eat it. “Weapons it is.”

3

Olympus. Despite conjuring visions of opulence, white columns and gilded gold, everything is actually quite similar to Asgard. Brown and gray stone coated with thousands of years of grit, subterranean moss and the occasional blood stain, both purple and red. That’s not to say the massive halls, hewn from the inside of the mountain aren’t impressive. The sheer size alone is stunning. But the place is dark, brooding and full of death’s scent.

It’s so dark, in fact, that Wright and Kat, whose eyes are not accustomed to the permeating darkness of the underground, can’t see well enough to walk. Wright keeps a hand on my shoulder and Kat keeps a hand on Em’s. It slows our progress, but that’s okay. We need to move in silence, anyway. Not that we’ve come across anyone.

While we’ve only just entered the outer halls of the citadel, Em expected to find hunter sentries at all the entrances to the underground city. But as we step past the fifty foot arch leading to the first of many grand hallways, there isn’t a soul in sight. In fact, even the mixture of human and Nephilim scents seem faint, like no one has been here in a week. A breeze tickles my neck, reminding me that the surface of this previously snow and ice covered mountain is now warm and lush. Could everyone be on the surface? Or perhaps the breeze is removing odors that would normally linger.

I decide to err on the side of caution and assume the latter.

“Where is everyone?” Kainda asks, though she sounds more disappointed than confused.

“There were a hell of a lot of those Nephilim on the surface,” Kat says. “They were everywhere.”

“But the hunters stationed here,” Kainda says. “They shouldn’t have left.”

“Maybe the old citadels are no longer important?” I ask as it occurs to me.

Kainda chews on this. With the surface open to them once again, the Nephilim might have no use for these ancient subterranean structures.

“How far are we from the surface?” Wright asks.

“About a half mile,” I tell him.

“Geez.” Wright shakes his head. “In that case, it’s possible they are on the surface, and near the surface. The outer fringe of this place was a beehive of activity when we first saw it. If they’re smart, and I think they are, they won’t fully abandon the underground bases. It’s just bad strategy. They could survive a nuclear assault down here. They’re just not guarding the lowest levels because, let’s be honest, who in their right mind would try to attack the Nephilim in the pitch black, a half mile underground.”

That’s an easy answer, “Nobody.”

Wright grins. “Which is why this is going to work. They’ll never expect it. Now let’s move.”

Em leads the way in and up. The first stairwell we reach spirals up to the next level, fifty feet above. The solid stone stairs are carved out of the wall, following the perfect curve. I’m not sure how the ancient Nephilim carved stone with such precision, but the more I see of it, the more I understand they had a hand in the creation of the ancient world’s religious wonders: the pyramids at Giza, Stonehenge, Pumapunku, Teotihuacán, Machu Pichu, Tiwanaku, Easter Island—there are similar structures all over the world. Most of the megaliths were built to worship the ancient gods, who I now know were the Nephilim posing as gods.

Glowing crystals embedded in the wall light the stairs running along it, and allow Kat and Wright to move without help. The outer stairs are four feet tall and equally deep—sized for Nephilim. But the stairs running up the inner edge of the spiral are human-sized, which makes the ascent bearable. Two fifty foot flights later, I’m starting to find this climb particularly unbearable. So when Em holds up her open hand, signaling for us to stop, I’m relieved.

I crouch and climb up to the top of the staircase where Em is ducking down. “What is it?” I ask.

She taps her nose.

I smell the air. People. Lots of them.

But they don’t smell like hunters. They smell afraid. That doesn’t mean there aren’t hunters nearby, using the heavy odor to mask their own.

“This is the prison level,” Em says. Pleading voices echo off the walls. “Sounds like the cells are full.”

“What will they do with them?” I ask. I can’t imagine what Nephilim would want with this many people. They don’t need any more hunters. And they don’t need to interrogate anyone. They know everything they need to know about the outside world, except where I am.

She shrugs, but Wright has an answer.

“They’re eating them,” he whispers. “Eating us. We saw the remains of a Nephilim barbeque in the jungle. The people being kept here are nothing more than cattle.”

This news is not surprising. Not at all. The Nephilim are cannibals. They eat anything and everything. But knowing that people, locked away in the Nephilim cells on this floor, are destined for the slaughter house is an offense that I can’t shirk off for the sake of the mission. This cannot stand.

“We will set them free,” I say.

My four comrades have four different reactions to what I’ve just said. Wright clearly agrees. Kat is skeptical. Em isn’t sure. And Kainda is offended, which bothers me. A lot.

“We will be exposed,” Kainda says. “
You
will be exposed.”

What I took for indifference to the plight of these people has been revealed to actually be concern for my welfare.

“Don’t worry about me,” I say. “The men in these cells are probably soldiers, yes?”

Wright nods. “Though I can’t say where they’re from. Not everyone here will be happy to see a bunch of Americans.”

“We’re not Americans,” I remind him. “
We
are Antarctican. And I’m fairly certain the soldiers in those cages now know the world has a common enemy.”

“Agreed,” Wright says.

I look at Kainda. She reluctantly nods.

I move to exit the stairwell. Kat stops me with a hand on my arm. “Wait.”

I turn around, not really interested in hearing another reason to abandon my fellow man, but ask, “What?”

“Guns first,” she says. “The prisoners will be guarded. They have to be. If things go south, I want a gun.”

“Go south?” Em says, not understanding the modern slang.

“Go wrong,” I say to her, then to Kat, “You’re right.” Back to Em. “Guns first.”

We move fast and silent. The solid stone makes moving silently fairly easy, but if we do make a sound, it will be amplified by the vaulted ceilings. Em stops by a human sized wooden door. It’s simple and unlocked. Not exactly the kind of place you would expect an arsenal to be kept, but Nephilim and hunters have no need for modern weapons, and there’s generally no one else around to take them. I suspect they are kept only to be studied and understood.

Em opens the door. The room is pitch black, but she steps inside. A moment later, I hear a click and the room blooms with yellow light. As I step inside, my eyes are drawn up to the electric glow. It’s one of the over-sized light bulbs, like the one I saw in the Asgard library, and like what can be seen in ancient Egyptian pictographs, such as those depicted at the Temple of Hathor at Dendera, in central Egypt.

When Kat curses in glee, I look at the rest of the room. Stone shelves are covered in black, metal weaponry. I see handguns, rifles, machine guns, knives, grenades and an assortment of gear I don’t recognize. While Kainda closes the door behind us, Wright and Kat fan out into the room, scouring the weapons like kids loosed in Toys “R” Us with a million-dollar gift certificate.

I join them, looking over the guns. “What should I look for?” I ask.

“Anything with a sound suppressor,” Wright says. “In these caves, our ears would be ruined by anything without one, and our position would be given away.”

“You mean like a silencer?” I ask. My knowledge of weapons is mostly based on what could be seen on daytime TV in the 80s.

“No such thing,” Wright says, “but, yeah, that’s the general idea.”

“In that case,” I say, heaving a heavy rifle off one of the stone shelves. “Will this do?”

Kat turns to me and her eyes light up. “Oh dear boy, you know the way to a woman’s heart.”

Kainda grumbles, but doesn’t say anything.

Kat takes the weapon from me, whispering its features, as she looks it over. “Sound suppressed FN FAL. Selective fire. Collapsible stock. Good. Should make it easier to carry underground.” She hefts it in her hands. “About ten pounds.” She ejects the magazine. “Standard NATO rounds. Thirty round magazine. This is good.” She holds up the straight magazine with a distinctly angled bottom. “Any more of these?”