The Last Hunter - Collected Edition (46 page)

1

I’m cold.

The thought has repeated itself in my mind a thousand times before I think to do something about it. It’s been so long since I had to worry about hot and cold, that I’m confused by the sensation. While I remember a variety of ways to remedy the situation, my body has lost the instinct. My teeth aren’t chattering. I don’t rub my arms, or hop up and down. I just…stand. And wait. For something. I don’t know what.

For it to end, I think. This nightmare.

I stand before the black gates of Tartarus, staring into the light absorbing darkness, hoping they’ll open again. I haven’t moved since I stepped inside, though I have replayed that fateful decision in between each and every, ‘I’m cold’.

The Nephilim had me surrounded. Ninnis, possessed by the body and spirit of Nephil, stood before me. Powerful. Strong enough to take me. Maybe even break me. And that is a fate that neither I, nor the world, would like to see realized.

It would mean the end of all things.

Though I suspect the world might be doomed, anyway. If anyone could have challenged Nephil, it was me. I know that now. It took help, but I repelled Nephil from my mind and my body, and in a very real way, I defeated the powerful first Nephilim. It wasn’t the first time Nephil had tasted defeat, of course. Someone put him here, in Tartarus, to begin with.

My hope, my only hope, is that someone on the outside knows how to get me out the same way Nephil got out. I’m certain no one outside of the Nephilim inner circle—Enki, Enlil, Odin, Thor, Zeus and the other ancient gods—has a clue, though. So my hope’s eternal flame is more of a pitiful flicker. At best.

I realize I’ve been staring at the doors for some time now. How long, I really have no idea. Time seems irrelevant here. I could have been here a few seconds or a thousand years. I’m not sure. My world currently consists of the ground beneath my feet, the big black doors standing in front of me and the ever-biting cold that has now reached my bones.

Turn around
, I tell myself.

But I can’t.

I’m terrified by what I might see, not because I know what it is, but because I have no clue. Tartarus is a land of eternal punishment, created expressly for the punishment of Nephilim. The
Nephilim
! They’re giants that delight in pain and heal instantaneously. Saying, “You want to go torture each other?” to a Nephilim is like if my friend Justin asked me to spend the night at the Museum of Science in Boston.

So how am I supposed to endure something the Nephilim find torturous?

I’m not.

I’m going to stand right here until the end of time and wait for this door to open.

Several minutes, or maybe years, later, my eyes drift. I see stone. Bleak, pale stone. But at least it’s recognizable. It’s something I can comprehend. Maybe this place isn’t as otherworldly as I expected.

A tick of stone on stone snaps my head to the side. The small pebble rolls and stops at my feet. The bitter sting of a breeze eats away at my back. I catch a glimpse of the barren, rocky world behind me, and turn forward as the wind cuts into my face and whips through my hair.

I should be dead
, I realize. Hypothermic at the very least. I look at my fingers, expecting to see the onset of frostbite. My hands look normal. They just hurt.

Without a conscious decision to do so, I turn around. I’m at the bottom of a short stone hill. Average looking rocks cover the surface. If not for the swirling orange sky, the landscape, as far as I can see it, could be mistaken for the American southwest.
Utah
, I think.
It looks like Arches National Monument
.

Despite the cold, there is no snow. No moisture in the air at all, actually.

Thinking of water makes me thirsty. More thirsty than I thought possible. The sensation moves me forward, up the rise. As I move away from the door, I take in my surroundings. I can’t see far. More rocky terrain rises up to my left and right. And the gates of Tartarus are so large behind me that I can’t yet see around them.

A burst of frigid wind slams into my face as I clear the top of the rise. I push against the wind with my thoughts, but it’s no use. My link to the continent is gone. Unless, I realize, I am no longer on Antarctica.
This is some kind of supernatural realm or alternate dimension
, I think. It’s a ridiculous thought. Before returning to Antarctica, being kidnapped, broken and turned into Ull the hunter, I was a bookworm in love with science. There isn’t a single theory in the books I read that make a place like this possible.

Of course, they wouldn’t make sense of the Nephilim either and I have long since given up wondering how half-human, half-demons are even possible, never mind the supernatural forces that gave birth to them.

I wipe the wind-born tears from my eyes, tilt my head away from the wind and step over the top of the hill. The bitter wind tugs at my feeble clothing—just a belt and a Tarzan-like leather loincloth—and I realize I still have all of my belongings. Whipsnap is attached to my waist, though I don’t remember putting it there. I have a knife, telescope, sunglasses and a flint stone for starting fires—not that there is anything flammable here. In subterranean Antarctica, I would have used dried dung to create a fire. Here, in this barren place, I don’t even have that foul resource.

The wind dies suddenly, as though finally accepting my presence. When I look up, I don’t see fire and brimstone. There’s nothing inherently Biblical or hellish about the place. An endless expanse of barren hills and gorges laid out beneath an angry orange sky. I can’t see any sun to speak of. This could be another planet. It could be underground. Or it could be something beyond my understanding.

I crane my head side to side and see nothing. Endless nothing. A deep sense of loneliness twists around inside me and makes a nice spot for itself in my gut. A shiver rises from my legs and shakes through my core. My body, it seems, has just remembered how it’s supposed to respond to freezing. My muscles twitch so hard I find it difficult to stand.

What’s the point of standing? I think.

There is no place to go. Despite the cold, I’m not going to die. In fact, I might already be dead. So I should probably just sit down, grit my teeth and wait for eternity to end.

A moment later, I shake so bad that I don’t have a choice. I fall down to my butt and pull my legs in close. But there is no escaping the cold. Nor the loneliness. This is the fate I chose when I stepped back into the gates of Tartarus. This is the sacrifice I made to save Luca. As I begin to weep, a shift in the orange sky at the horizon catches my attention.

There’s something there. Something different from the endless rolling stone hills and swirling sky. It’s sharp. And vertical.
A tower
, I realize.

I stay rooted in place. In this place, the tower can’t be a good thing.

But it’s something.

Where’s Ull
? I wonder. Ull is my middle name, given to me by Dr. Merrill Clark, a friend of my parents, husband of Aimee Clark, whom I kidnapped and delivered to the Nephilim, and the father of Mirabelle Clark, the first girl I had any kind of romantic feeling for. But Ull became my one and only name after I was broken by Ninnis and turned into a hunter. I served the Nephilim Ull, son of Thor, before killing him, too. But ‘Ull’ is now how I identify that dark side of me—the side that enjoyed being a hunter. He is part of me, but also separate from me. In fact, we generally loath each other, though we worked together to force Nephil from my—
our
—mind. But I have yet to sense his ferocity, his strength. I fear that aspect of my personality has either been suppressed or removed. Ull’s passion would help me now, and I suspect helping someone, even a split personality, might be against the rules of this place.

With shaking hands, I dig into one of my pouches and take out the telescope given to me by Ninnis on my birthday, back when I was still Ull. I fight to extend the frozen metal as it clings to my skin. But I get it open and peek through the lens, careful not to let my eyeball touch, and flash freeze to the metal. The tower comes into view, still distant, but clearer. It’s not natural, I think. Someone built it. But why? And when? And for what purpose?

Where Ull is passionate, I am curious. And in this case, the resulting action is the same. I push myself up against the cold and set out toward the tall tower. I could probably figure out how far away it is, but have no need to figure out how long the journey will take.

I have eternity.

2

I wish I could say, “I can’t remember the last time I felt this desperate for warmth.” But I can’t say it. I remember
everything
. The last time I should have felt cold was a few years ago when I first climbed down the airplane stairs and stepped onto the Antarctic ice. I wore only pants and a long sleeve shirt. The cold should have stung me then, like it does now. But I felt nothing. Immunity to the temperature on, and under, Antarctica was the first manifestation of my connection to the continent. For the past several years, I’ve experienced the elements somewhere around seventy-five degrees, night or day, covered in snow or standing in a fire pit.

But now…

A shudder quakes through my body.

I push through it, walking in what I hope is a straight line, toward the distant tower now hidden by the rising grade before me.

As I walk up, I search my memories for warmth. Before coming to Antarctica, I was a cartoon junkie. At least, I was on Saturday morning, when the good cartoons were on. But it’s not the shows I focus on. It’s my afghan. My mother knitted the rainbow colored blanket for me and it rested at the end of my bed, every night of my life. My father turned down the heat at night, which left the downstairs bitterly cold on winter mornings in Maine. So the afghan found its way around my shoulders most winter mornings and warmed me while I ate my cereal, watched cartoons and drew.

The memory warms my heart, but does little to improve my physical condition. I’ve heard that just thinking about fire can warm your body, but I’m now positive that’s a bunch of malarkey.

Malarkey
. Justin’s mother used that word a lot. Mostly when we’d done something awful (like leave a scuffmark in the pristine, forbidden living room). We were always full of malarkey back then.

I trip and fall to my hands and knees. I hit hard, but feel no pain. I’m too numb to feel it. When I look up, I realize my reverie had done its job distracting me. The hill is gone. I’m in a gorge, but I have no memory of cresting the hill, descending the other side or entering this valley. I look back and the stone walls wrap around a corner, obscuring my view of whatever terrain I covered to get here.

The dream-like quality of my arrival in this new place disturbs me, but there’s no wind here. I’m also somewhat comforted by the stripes of stone strata surrounding me. If not for the strip of orange sky thirty feet above me, this would feel like the underground, which, if I’m honest, has become my home.

I search the area for a cave, or even a good-sized crack I can squeeze into. If there is an underground here, maybe I could warm up. The ambient temperature just ten feet underground is fifty-five degrees. Not exactly warm, but it’s an improvement. Survivable. Not that I’m dying. I don’t think it’s possible to die in Tartarus. What good would an eternal land of torment be if you could simply die to escape?

I can’t see the tower anymore. The gorge might lead me in the wrong direction, but going back doesn’t appeal to me. My bare feet slap on the smooth stone floor as I begin walking forward once more. The smoothness of the stone tells me that a stream once ran through here and eroded rock. Which means that there could be water.

Ice, more like it
, I think. But I could melt it.

Thinking about water kick starts my stomach again. I fish into a pouch and pull out a dry stick of meat. It’s tough, and I need to grind my teeth to eat it, but the two bites I ration for myself feel like a Thanksgiving dinner.

Images of Thanksgivings past rocket through my mind. I hear family laughing and telling stories. I smell the turkey cooking. My mouth waters as it remembers the tangy sweetness of mom’s homemade cranberry sauce.

In a flash, the two bites of dried flesh seem entirely inadequate. My stomach shouts for more. I’m tempted to consume all of my meager food supply, but life in the underground has taught me discipline. I turn my thoughts away from food.

I look up and find the gorge transformed. I’ve lost myself again. It doesn’t look like I’ve gone as far this time, but who’s to say this gorge isn’t a hundred miles long. Not that time has any meaning here. I could have just walked for a year. A hundred years. The Nephilim might have already taken over the planet. Luca, Em, Aimee and Mira might all be dead and buried. Maybe there isn’t even a human race to return to?

Could this be the torture of Tartarus? Not knowing? Have I been here for ten minutes? Or ten years? I feel my face, expecting to find the long shaggy beard of an older man. But there’s nothing. Not even the quarter inch of fuzz that had grown on my cheeks. My skin is smooth. Soft even.

I look at my arms. They’re thin and frail.
Like I was before life underground
. The arms of a nerd.
What’s happened to me
?

Weakness
, I think.

This place is searching for my weakness. I’m unaccustomed to the cold, so it freezes me. My memories hurt more than help. And now my physical strength has been taken.
One at a time
, I think. This place is going to whittle away at me, bit by bit, until I’m so pitiful that I wish for death. Which, of course, will never come. The process won’t be quick, either. There’s plenty of time.

How would this play out for a Nephilim? Pain would hurt. Really hurt. They would be vulnerable. Frail. Small. Helpless.

Like me.

Like the real me.

Pitiful.

To be pitied.

My thoughts turn down a dark road of self-loathing and I’m not going to stop it. I deserve this. I asked for this.

As my attention shifts inward once again, I lose sight of the stone walls around me. The world slips away.

For a moment.

And then it returns with a sharp impact.

I stumble back, hand to head, confused by what’s happened. The tunnel turned and I didn’t turn with it. I walked straight into the wall.

Klutz.

The sharp pain brings tears to my eyes.

Crybaby
.

The voice in my head reminds me of Ull, but it’s not him. It’s me. Or this place. I can’t tell the difference, but wherever it comes from, it knows exactly what to say.

“Shut up!” I shout. My voice echoes through the crevasse. To punctuate my anger, I make a fist and swing a punch toward my own leg. But the pain of the blow is dull. At first I think it’s because my body has become so frail, lacking the strength even to inflict pain on itself. But that’s not it. I punched something.

Something solid. But not like a rock, or it would have hurt my hand.

I look at the pouch hanging off the right side of my belt. Something large and rectangular fills it. After untying the leather strap holding it shut, I flip the pouch open and gasp.

It’s a book.

A book.

My memory of the thing returns. I took it from the Nephilim library in Asgard, when I returned to see Aimee, before heading for the gates of Tartarus. I pull the brown leather-bound book out of the pouch, and I look at the faded gold text on the spine. Despite the tortures of this place, I smile, and read the text on the front cover.

The Pilgrim’s Progrefs

John Bunyan

I note that the title is spelled with an ‘fs’ at the end, which was common in the sixteen hundreds. This is an old copy, I think, and I gently open the cover.

THE

Pilgrim’s Progrefs

FROM

THIS WORLD,

TO

That which is to come:

Delivered under the Similitude of a

DREAM

Wherein is Difcovered,

The manner of his letting out,

His Dangerous Journey; And fafe

Arrival at the Defired Countrey.

By John Bunyan

LONDON,

Printed for
Nath. Ponder
at the
Peacock

in the
Poultrey
near
Cornhil
, 1678.

1678…
1678!
This is a first edition
, I think, growing excited. Before coming to Antarctica, reading books was a passion of mine. My parents had thousands. I read them all and then some. I consumed them. But not this one. I’ve
never
read this book. I turn the page and read.

The AUTHOR’S
Apology
For His BOOK

When at the first I took my Pen in hand,

Thus for to write; I did not understand

That I at all should make a little Book

In such a mode; Nay, I had undertook

To make another, which, when almost done,

Before I was aware, I this begun.

By the time I reach that seventh line, I’ve forgotten the tower. The cold. The pain. And my feeble condition. The horrible world I now live in slips away as these words, written more than three hundred years ago, reach out across time, and maybe space, and deliver a gift I thought impossible in this place.

Hope.