The Last Hunter - Lament (Book 4 of the Antarktos Saga) (34 page)

ANTARKTOS RISING by Jeremy Robinson

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THE WORLD RACES TO CLAIM A NEW CONTINENT

A phenomenon known as crustal displacement shifts the Earth’s crust, repositioning continents and causing countless deaths. In the wake of the global catastrophe, the world struggles to take care of its displaced billions. But Antarctica, freshly thawed and blooming, has emerged as a new hope. Rather than wage a world war no nation can endure, the leading nations devise a competition, a race to the center of Antarctica, with the three victors dividing the continent.
 
It is within this race that Mirabelle Whitney, one of the few surviving experts on the continent, grouped with an American
 special forces 
unit, finds herself. But the dangers awaiting the team are far worse than feared; beyond the sour history of a torn family, beyond the nefarious intentions of their human enemies, beyond the ancient creatures reborn through
 anhydrobiosis
—there are the
 Nephilim
.

...ONLY TO FIND IT ALREADY TAKEN.

“The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.” 
– Genesis 6:4

EXCERPT:

CHAPTER 1

Angutagrew 
more terrified as each paddle stroke carried his bone-and-sealskin kayak across the unusually placid Arctic Ocean and closer to the whale. His knotted muscles shuddered in spasms, not from the cold but from the realization that his lifelong goal might finally come to fruition. At age fifty-seven, the idea of single-handedly killing a sixty-foot humpback and towing its carcass back to the village seemed a ridiculous task. And while this rite of passage had been a long time coming, his aging body didn’t feel up to the job.

Grasping a bone-tipped spear in his gloved hand,
 Anguta 
did his best to ignore the throb of arthritis attacking his knuckles and waited . . . patiently . . . for the leviathan to return to the surface. Three days of tracking and sustaining himself on cured salmon had taken him this far. If he didn’t take the beast this year, he would return to the arctic waters off the coast of Alaska to try again—and he refused to consider that option. This was the year. He knew it.

“Come to me, whale,”
 Anguta 
mumbled through his thickly
 scarfed 
mouth. “Come to me and I will honor you with a quick death.”
 Anguta 
knew the death would only be quick if he were lucky enough to pierce the whale’s eye and penetrate its brain on the first blow. Otherwise, his first strike would tether his kayak to the whale’s body and a day-long struggle between man and beast would begin. The tradition belonged to his tribe alone, and
 Anguta 
was the only man who had yet to achieve the task. He had tried every year since he was nineteen.

Anguta 
cursed himself for finding the largest humpback in the entire ocean. He had hoped to find a young calf, newly weaned from its protective mother, but instead he had encountered a large bull, perhaps close in age to
 Anguta 
himself.

The old man’s only consolation was that he was not cold. After years of fruitless arctic hunting trips, he had learned that technology could be useful. His outer layers were traditional Inuit—furs of caribou, bear, and seal hide. This covered him from head to toe, leaving only his eyes exposed. Underneath the furs was a combination of moisture-wicking fabrics and a military-grade thermal bodysuit. His eyes were sealed behind a face mask that not only warmed his skin, but by virtue of its tinted surface also dulled the harsh glow of bright sun on white ice.

Anguta 
let his eyes wander across the mirrored water which perfectly reflected the cloud-specked sky. He looked for any distortion that would reveal the presence of a rising whale, but saw only sky. His thoughts drifted with the clouds. He pictured his wife, Elizabeth, a French Canadian originally out of Quebec, feeding the dog team. Their marriage had been extremely unconventional at the time but was more common these days. Though shunned at first for his choice of wife,
 Anguta 
and Elizabeth’s marriage had produced five children and seven grandchildren, all of whom he now missed greatly and wished were there beside him, hunting the whale. His marriage and half-breed children had already broken so many of his people’s customs. Why not one more?

CHAPTER 2

Looking down at the canteen in his hand,
 Dmitriy 
Rostov wished that it was full of vodka instead of water. But his lust for the clean spirit’s warmth on his tongue lasted only a moment, a much shorter duration than it had only a year ago.
 Dmitriy
, at the age of thirty-seven, had learned he was an alcoholic, a plague that claimed 45 percent of his Russian compatriots. It was said that two-thirds of Russian men die with a bottle in their hands, a fate
 Dmitriy 
had resigned himself to . . .

“
Dima
, come see this.”

 . . .
 until 
he’d met her.

Viktoriya 
Petrova.

“Coming,
 Vika
,”
 Dmitriy 
called as he picked his way across the stone-strewn shoreline of
 Vadim 
Bay. The bay was part of the Kara Sea, a remote region off the northern coast of Siberia which could only be navigated during mid-summer. The bay was a large U-shaped inlet with cliff walls on either side. Behind the rocky shore grew a forest of strong pines that creaked and swayed in the salty sea breeze.

Rounding a boulder,
 Dmitriy 
came face-to-face with
 Viktoriya
; it was the closest their faces had ever come to touching, though still not quite close enough for
 Dmitriy
. She was bundled in a red parka and thick snow pants. Even in the summer, the temperature at
 Vadim 
Bay, located hundreds of miles north of the Arctic Circle, was cold enough to chap the skin.

Surprised by
 Dmitriy’s 
sudden appearance,
 Viktoriya 
stumbled back and tripped over a loose rock. She yelped as she plummeted down.

“Vika!” Dmitriy’s 
strong and steady hand had sprung out before he could think about what to do and snagged the arm of her parka. Her descent stopped.
 Dmitriy 
thanked God he was sober. A year ago, she would have fallen to the rocks and he would have laughed drunkenly. He realized now that he would never have come this far without her encouragement. He had been headed for a very early retirement from the Ministry of Emergency Situations, but when
 Viktoriya 
had been assigned as his new partner, she had seen something worth saving in him. She had an iron will and whipped him into shape; when the reviews came in, his report showed a marked productivity increase. Now only ten days away from his fortieth birthday, he was a new man. His job was saved.

No.
 More than his job. 
He not only began to care for himself while on the job but also at home. Showering daily, brushing his teeth, wearing deodorant—all the good habits that
 Dmitriy 
had abandoned during his days as a drunk returned. The pale, oily-skinned, puffy-faced waste of a man had, under
Viktoriya’s 
influence, changed to the core. He’d shed pounds, smelled clean, and when he finally began shaving again, displayed the handsome face of which his mother had once been so proud. It wasn’t that
 Viktoriya 
had changed his mind—she’d infected his heart. Like his person, he kept his apartment neat and nicely decorated. Just in case she came to visit. Just in case the day came that he would tell her everything he felt. He’d always imagined being at home, in the city, on that day. But here, alone, in the wild, he felt brave. Today would be the day.

He pulled her up until her cushioned body rested against his. They were closer still than ever before—close enough for
 Dmitriy 
to smell the subtle fragrance of her perfume. Rose.

“
Vika
, are you all right? I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Fine. 
I’m fine.”
 Viktoriya 
looked into his eyes and paused for a moment. Unspoken words flashed between them, stripped away his bravery, and transformed his mind into that of a nervous fourteen-year-old boy on his first date.

CHAPTER 3

From her perch high above the city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Mirabelle Whitney could see that the trip into town for an ice cream wouldn’t be worth it. Not for another few hours, anyway. Her royal red, nineteenth-century Victorian house sat atop Prospect Hill, the tallest hill in the seacoast region at two hundred feet. From her second-floor bedroom deck, she had clear views of downtown Portsmouth and the ocean beyond. To her left, she could see Kittery, Maine, across the
 Piscataqua 
River, and to her right she could see the thick tree lines of Greenland and Rye.

This was the view that kept her anchored. There wasn’t a single time of the year when the scenery dulled. Her eyes lingered on the downtown again. The congestion that clogged the streets and spilled onto routes 95, 1, and 16 was due to the combination of summertime revelers and rush hour traffic.

Tonight, she thought. I’ll get ice cream tonight.

Whitney stretched her lean body, allowing her midriff to peek out from between her white tank top and khaki shorts, absorbing every ounce of warmth she could. She wasn’t a huge fan of the moist New England summers, but she knew warm summer air would soon be a thing of the past.

Sweet ocean air passed through her nostrils as she breathed deeply, took half of her long blond hair, and rolled it into a bun on the side of her head. A quick jab with a decorative chopstick she’d saved from a trip to Tokyo held the bun in place. As she rolled up the other side, a frigid breeze tickled the hairs on her forearms. She shivered.

Ocean breeze is cold today, she thought.