The Last Hunter - Ascent (Book 3 of the Antarktos Saga) (9 page)

I look confused. Then, with a flash of wide-eyed excitement, the boy-me says, “Solomon? Is it really you?”

Now I’m confused. I’m talking to myself?

“Solomon, don’t you recognize me?” the boy says. “It’s Luca.”

“Luca!” I sit bolt upright, wide awake. I’m in the cave by the river.

Was it really Luca? In the past, the six-year-old version of me has seen events through my eyes. Usually moments of high emotion. But that bond has been broken for three months while I was in Tartarus. Perhaps being chased by the centipedes retriggered that connection, but it was delayed so that it occurred during my dream, instead of during the actual high stress event? That’s my best guess, anyway.

Pain pulses up my arm and begs for my attention. The wound is caked in dry blood, as is much of the stone upon which I lay.
Strange
, I think,
a predator should have found me
. I was an easy meal, and easy meals in the underground are essentially unheard of. Not that I’m complaining. Not being eaten in my sleep is a good thing. I just don’t understand it.

Several needs strike me all at once. In the three months I spent in Tartarus, I neither ate nor drank. Sustenance was not required there. I slide down to the water’s edge, dip my good arm into the frigid water and cup several mouthfuls to my lips. While I’d like to dunk my head in the water and drink until my belly distends, I remember my hunter discipline and ration it out, careful not to shock my dehydrated system. After drinking, I wash the dry blood from my arm. The river sweeps the red powder downstream. A predator is eventually going to come calling.

Momentarily sated, I slide back up the bank and turn my attention to the centipede. The small knife I carry is quite sharp. It’s the perfect tool for separating the sinewy flesh that holds the centipede’s shell together. I carve along both sides, and then reach under the base of the carapace, which was severed from the head when I crushed it. With a quick yank, three feet of segmented centipede carapace peels away, revealing a row of segmented dollops of rank, white flesh. At first glance, the meat looks solid, like lobster, but when removed from the body, it turns to something like pasty oatmeal slathered in lard.

I scoop some of the flesh paste onto my fingers and rub it over the wounds inflicted by the centipede. It’s disgusting, but the flesh expedites healing and fights infection. With the wounds covered, I flick the paste off my hand and wrap my arm with cloth bandages I’ve used in the past.

My wounds have been tended to. My thirst has been quenched. All that’s left is my hunger. I scoop out a larger wad of centi-flesh and slop it into my mouth. I wince at the flavor. The normally offensive food is bad enough when eaten regularly, but after three months without food, it’s downright vile. After swallowing the mouthful, I nearly throw up, but manage to keep it, and three more bites down. As I eat, I remember the last time I had this meal, with Em, just before facing Ninnis and Nephil at the gates of Tartarus. Centipede is far more bearable when shared with a friend. At least then, you can laugh at each other’s disgusted expressions.

Thinking of Em gets me to my feet. I stretch and twist my body in preparation for traveling in the underground. I’m still cold, but it pales in comparison to the chill experienced in Tartarus.
I can manage it
, I tell myself, and I can always build a fire. Dung is the fire fuel of the underworld, and it’s usually not hard to find. Feeling slightly more prepared for the journey ahead, I look to the stone wall, find a fissure and slip inside.

Moving through the underworld puts me at ease. It’s like returning home after a long vacation. Its familiarity is welcome. Now if only I had a destination.

I need to go up. To the surface. It’s where Em and Luca will be hiding. But Antarktos is the size of the United States. Finding someone on the surface could take a lifetime. Maybe longer. Especially if they’re hiding and skilled at it. Even if I did know where they were, I don’t know where I am. I’ve never been in this part of the subterranean world. But I’ve got a good sense of direction, even without the sun to guide me. And sooner or later, I’m bound to come across a tunnel I recognize.

But everything seems different. Not only are these tunnels unfamiliar, but the scents of the underworld are off. Actually, they’re gone. I should be able to smell traces of animal feces, urine, fungi and blood almost everywhere. Fresh blood stands out from the rest, but there is always an underlying stench of life in the underworld. But there is none of that now. It’s like the whole place has been scrubbed clean.

Could the flood that killed Behemoth have affected the entire underworld? Could everything be dead?

No. I’d smell the decay.

Unless everything were swept away.

But to where? There would be pockets of trapped flesh everywhere. The underworld would reek of death, even three months later. No, this is different. I think everything, and everyone, has left. All the flood did was clean away the filth.

But not all of it. A strange odor reaches my nose. It’s like a mix between Nephilim blood and something antiseptic. Or chemical. It’s a smell that makes no sense in the underworld. Curious, I follow the scent path and exit into a large, unnatural tunnel leading up at a steep angle. The walls are smooth and barren of decoration except for two lines of glowing yellow stones spaced four feet apart. A large staircase twisting up through the tunnel sports four-foot tall steps—sized for a Nephilim warrior. A second staircase, with steps sized for human beings, runs parallel.

The tunnel is curved, so I can’t see what lies in either direction, but I sense up is the way to go, and I begin my ascent. Despite the odd smell, I haven’t detected any trace of something living. The Nephilim blood is disconcerting, but it smells old. Dry and powerless. Still, I keep a hand on Whipsnap, just in case.

The smooth stairs, so unlike the rest of the world, feel strange beneath my feet. In fact, everything about this tunnel is odd. I run my hand along the wall as I follow the steps up. The surface feels polished. Like velvet. It speaks of a precision I didn’t believe the Nephilim capable of. They’re more brutish. And violent. More likely to create a tunnel by smashing the stone with their bare hands than something so…clean.

The feeling of cleanliness increases. The tunnel feels
more
than clean.

It feels sterile.

I reach the top of the stairs and quickly understand why. Though to say I understand what I’m looking at isn’t accurate, because it makes no sense.

12

The space is more like a modern room than a cavern, in that it, like the tunnel, was carved from the stone with precision. It’s a giant rectangle, fifty feet tall, maybe two hundred wide and three times as long. The ninety degree angles where the walls meet each other, the floor, and the ceiling are all perfect, and seamless, hewn right out of the solid stone as though with lasers. Rows of oversized light bulbs, like those found in the library of Asgard, line the ceiling and cast the room in light so bright that it stings my eyes.

Why Nephilim would require such bright light is beyond me. Like other denizens of the underworld, they have grown accustomed to the dark. I fish around in one of my pouches and dig out my sunglasses. After putting them on, I check out the rest of the room.

Rows of large glass containers full of purple liquid line the walls. But that’s not what’s strangest about them. They appear to be attached to some kind of machine. A modern machine built of metal, each with a terminal that looks like…a computer, but far more modern than anything I saw in 1988—the year I was taken from the world outside. The size of the stations is also confusing. They look like they were built for humans.

Not humans
, I realize.

Thinkers.

The thinkers are Nephilim who are renowned for tinkering with living things, and are apparently technologically advanced. While I haven’t seen a thinker before, judging by the size of the terminals, they must be similar to the gatherers and seekers, whose lithe bodies, large egg-shaped heads and oval eyes give them an alien appearance.

The center of the room holds lines of tables, some large enough to hold a thirty foot Nephilim warrior. Some small enough for a human child. But all of them are just a few feet off the floor. And all of them have troughs running around the edges.
To siphon away blood
, I think. Operating tables.

This is a laboratory!

As I walk into the room, I see purple stains around many of the largest tables and around the drains in the floor. Several warriors recently went under the knife. But why? Nephilim are impervious to harm. For what reason would they need surgery? Knowing no answers would come from this line of questioning, I move deeper into the lab. To my left, the purple liquid-filled tanks grow smaller, as do the tables to my right. The space is very organized.

Thinkers, like human thinkers—scientists, doctors, philosophizers—appear to crave order on the level of someone with obsessive compulsive disorder. Everything about this place is in order. Symmetrical. Which I normally appreciate. When I was five, I had these flat wooden shapes. I sorted them by shape and color and arranged them into symmetrical patterns that my parents would tape together. I’ve always appreciated symmetry, but here, in the underworld, I find it unnerving.

Though not nearly as unnerving as what I see next. A body. It floats in one of the smaller purple tanks. I can’t take my eyes away from it as I walk closer. It appears to be a child, free floating in the purple liquid, which I now realize must be diluted Nephilim blood. When an operation is complete, the subject, if needed, can be immersed in a bath of healing Nephilim blood. I look at the still form of the body inside the tank as it slowly rotates. Apparently, this one couldn’t be saved by the blood of the Nephilim.

The body is upside down and spinning, like there’s a gentle current in the tank. I can hear the whir of equipment working. There must be a filtration system in each tank, but they’re efficient and well maintained. I can barely hear the sound. The face comes into view and I step back. The eyes are big and black, like a gatherer’s. The body is skinny, also like a gatherer’s, but that appears to be more from starvation than natural physiology. In fact, the ribcage and other bone structures appear to be human.

I look closer and gasp. While the face has the eyes and non-existent nose of a gatherer, it has human lips. They’re pink and full in a way I recognize.

My parents call them Vincent lips.

My lips.

“No,” I whisper. This is one of the failed attempts to duplicate me. “No…”

I spin around, looking at the other tanks. There are a few more on this wall holding bodies, but every single tank on the far wall is also full. Maybe fifty bodies. Fifty dead copies of me.

This is where Xin was created.

And Luca.

And the four other duplicates I have yet to meet.

As anger wells inside me, I turn to the far side of the room and find several surfaces covered with glass tubes, trays of surgical tools and odd-looking supplies whose function I can’t possibly guess. But what I can see is that they’re all neatly organized, waiting to be used by thinkers—Nephilim who have created and killed versions of me, again and again and again. I turn my anger toward their organized stations. I unclip Whipsnap and lash out. Glass shatters. Supplies fly through the air. My rage-filled shouts echo around me. Organization becomes chaos.

But while my vengeance is messy, it is far from satisfying.

That is, until I hear a shriek of despair.

I spin to face the newcomer who has just entered the lab from a small adjoining hallway. The figure is short for a Nephilim, about a foot shorter than me. Its body is concealed by a purple hooded cloak that also hides its face. But its head is the size of a large, egg-shaped watermelon.

Is this a thinker?

I steel my thoughts, preparing for a mental attack. I have no idea if the thinkers are capable of such a thing, but since the gatherers and seekers both can, I decide to ere on the side of caution.

But no mental attacks or communications come.

The thing just stands on the other side of the room, looking back and forth frantically at the destruction I’ve wrought. In fact, the thing doesn’t seem to notice me at all until, still filled with anger, I pick up a glass bottle and smash it against the wall.

The thing’s head snaps toward me. Then it starts walking in my direction. Walking is a generous word. It’s more of a shamble. And it’s speaking. Not to me. It’s more of an angry muttering, like a grandmother tired of loud teenagers. The voice is high and sharp, mixed with the occasional growl. As it moves across the floor, it steps through fields of broken glass, which crunches beneath its feet. A trail of purple bloody footprints forms in its wake. The glass cuts the flesh, but this is a Nephilim. It’s not only healing from the wounds quickly, but it’s also enjoying the pain.

As I take a defensive stance, I feel a prick on my own foot. I glance down and realize that I’m surrounded by glass too. But if I cut myself, I won’t be healing so quickly.

Clack, clack, clack
. The thing reaches up and taps its fingertips across the top of a table as it walks past. The impacts sound hard, and I think the thing must have long hard fingernails. But when it closes to within twenty feet and taps its fingers on the next table, I get a look at the hand. Scalpel-like blades have been surgically inserted into each of the thing’s six fingers.
Clack
,
clack,
clack
. The muttering intensifies. The tapping grows louder. More irritated.

The small Nephilim is trying to intimidate me. And it’s working.

“Stop!” I shout.

The thing’s head twitches up slightly. I can feel the thing looking at my face, but its eyes are hidden in the stark shadow created by the bright overhead lights. I can see its mouth now, small, like a gatherer’s, but full of little, almost needle-like, teeth. The mouth opens and lets out a laugh.