The Last Hunter: Collected Edition
Author: Jeremy Robinson
Date: 2013-11-20 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Thriller; Science Fiction; Adventure; Fiction; Science Fiction Fantasy; Young Adult; Urban Fantasy
Description: This collected edition of The Antarktos Saga includes all five books in the series—DESCENT, PURSUIT, ASCENT, LAMENT and ONSLAUGHT, as well as never-before-seen art and character designs inspired by the series, an exclusive short story titled “The Children of Antarktos” and an interview with bestselling author Jeremy Robinson, composed primarily of questions asked by fans of the series. Description: I’ve been told that the entire continent of Antarctica groaned at the moment of my birth. The howl tore across glaciers, over mountains and deep into the ice. Everyone says so. Except for my father;
Publisher: Breakneck Media

The Last Hunter – Collected Edition

By Jeremy Robinson

Summary:

I’ve been told that the entire continent of Antarctica groaned at the moment of my birth. The howl tore across glaciers, over mountains and deep into the ice. Everyone says so. Except for my father; all he heard was Mother’s sobs. Not of pain, but of joy, so he says. Other than that, the only verifiable fact about the day I was born is that an iceberg the size of Los Angeles broke free from the ice shelf, a few miles off the coast. Again, some would have me believe the fracture took place as I entered the world. But all that really matters, according to my parents, is that I, Solomon Ull Vincent, the first child born on Antarctica—the first and only Antarctican—was born on September 2nd, 1974.

If only someone could have warned me that upon my return to the continent of my birth, thirteen years later, I would be kidnapped, subjected to tortures beyond comprehension and forced to fight…and kill. If only someone had hinted that I’d wind up struggling to survive in a subterranean world full of ancient warriors, strange creatures and supernatural powers.

Had I been warned, I might have lived a normal life. The human race might have remained safe. And the fate of the world might not rest on my shoulders. Had I been warned…

This is my story—the tale of Solomon Ull Vincent—The Last Hunter.

This collected edition of The Antarktos Saga includes all five books in the series—Descent, Pursuit, Ascent, Lament and Onslaught, as well as never before seen art and character designs inspired by the series, an exclusive short story titled “The Children of Antarktos” and an interview with bestselling author Jeremy Robinson, composed primarily of questions asked by fans of the series.

The Last Hunter

(Collected Edition)

By Jeremy Robinson

For the real Solomon, my son and inspiration.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Since the five books in my series, The Last Hunter, took several years to write and publish, I feel like there should be a ton of people to thank, but the creation of this book has been a fairly closed system between just a few people. First, I must thank Kane Gilmour, who not only edited all five books, but also spurred me to release this collected edition and helped make it possible. I must also thank Roger Brodeur, Patrick O’Sullivan and Frank Bernard for hunting down the typos that snuck into the individual books, making the collected edition sparkly clean.

For an astounding cover that perfectly depicts Solomon, I must thank illustrator extraordinaire, Larry Rostant. And for amazing character sketches, a big thank you to Mark Corotan (markcorotan.com), Rich Woodall (johnraygun.deviantart.com), Christian Guldager (chrisguldager.com) and Dave Freeman.

On the home front, I have to thank my wife Hilaree for all her support over the years and for raising a son that could inspire such a story. You are amazing. To my daughters, Aquila and Norah, your creativity and energy fuel my own. I hope that you will enjoy your introduction into the world of Antarktos, as seen in the new short story, “The Children of Antarktos”. And to Solomon, my first and only son, thank you so much for being you; for being strong and savage when you need to be, and compassionate and forgiving like no other person I’ve met. Without you, this series would never have existed. I hope that when you are old enough to read it, you will enjoy the fictional world I’ve made for you. I love you all.

—Jeremy Robinson

New Hampshire

November 2013

INTRODUCTION

In 2005, I wrote a novel titled Antarktos Rising, in which I created the world of Antarktos. In that novel, we met strange and horrible creatures freed to live on the surface of Antarctica, after an event known as Crustal Displacement shifted the frigid continent to the equator (and South Dakota to the North Pole). The novel was self-published to great success in 2007, and it helped land my publishing deal with Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press. In the years that followed, a nagging urge to revisit the unexplored world of Antarktos grew to the point that I could no longer ignore it.

I let my imagination run wild through the lush Antarctican jungles and dark recesses of the ancient subterranean world. I discovered new creatures and a cast of human beings called hunters, who had been kidnapped from the surface world, broken and remade as ruthless killers—servants to the Nephilim, an ancient race of half-human, half-demons living beneath the surface, but rising to exact their millennia-old plan: the destruction of the human race.

After coming up with the hunters, I immediately knew that one of them would be my main character. At the time, my son, Solomon, was just four years old, but his wild appearance combined with a strong character was exactly what I needed for my hunter. So, the Last Hunter became Solomon Ull Vincent, modeled after my son, along with myself as a child, and he was thrust into a dark world. I suppose it’s strange to write about my son facing such horrible fictional situations, but knowing my actual son and witnessing his passion, compassion and endless kindness, made my fictional Solomon more believable, well-rounded and inspiring—to readers and to myself personally. As a result, The Last Hunter remains my favorite of all my novels.

And I’m now thrilled to release the story in a single collected edition, complete with never-before-seen art, an amazing new cover, a brand new short story and an interview featuring questions from fans of the series. Whether you’re reading Solomon’s story for the first time, or you’re a long-time fan picking up the collected edition, I hope you will enjoy The Last Hunter as much as I do, and that the fictional Solomon will inspire you the way the real Solomon continues to inspire me.

—Jeremy Robinson

P.S. If you’re interested in Antarktos Rising, it is still available, and it’s a great side story for The Last Hunter. If you would like to read Antarktos Rising in chronological order with The Last Hunter, read it after Pursuit (Book 2).

Prologue

1911

Douglas Mawson tasted blood. The chapped skin of his lower lip peeled up like flakes of shaved coconut. The cold had started the injury, and then it worsened thanks to his habit of chewing the skin from his lip. But he was careful about it, nibbling at the still dying flesh like a preening bird. It was the sneeze that split the lip, tearing it down the middle. The sting cleared his mind, but the blood made him hungry. He looked around, hoping to see something that might take his mind off food, but he saw only white ice and blue sky.

Three hundred fifteen miles separated Mawson and his two men from camp; three thousand more from civilization. No man had ever ventured further from home, and only one of them would make it back.

Mawson, commander of the expedition, stood before a white glacial expanse. His angular face, typically clean-shaven but now covered by an inch-thick beard, hid behind a dirty tan scarf. The scarf did little to protect him against the Antarctic cold, which grated his lungs. The rest of him, bundled in a thick, beige snowsuit, felt warmer when moving. Not so much when standing still.

Dr. Xavier Mertz had stopped. He was the point man, riding on skis while Mawson followed with a dog sledge team and Lieutenant Ninnis brought up the rear with a second team and the majority of their indispensable supplies. That Mertz had stopped meant he’d seen something. Most likely something dangerous, like a snow-covered crevasse. They looked solid enough until you put weight on them. Then they could fall through like a trap door.

“What’s the problem, Mertz?” Mawson shouted.

But the man didn’t reply.

Mawson removed his hood in case the man’s words were being muffled. He asked again, “What is it, Mertz?”

The only sign that Mertz had not frozen solid on the spot was his head, craning slowly from side to side.

Mawson signaled for Ninnis to remain behind and stepped off his sledge. He petted the nearest dog as he passed, then headed for Mertz. His feet crunched over the snow and ice, signaling his approach. Still, the man did not move.

Five feet away, Mertz finally responded, his hand snapping up with an open palm. The sudden movement sent Mawson’s heart pounding. But the message was clear: Don’t. Move. And he didn’t. Not for three minutes. Then he spoke again. “Bloody hell, Mertz, what is it?”

Mertz turned his head slightly. “Saw someone.”

“Saw something?”

“Some-one.”

Ridiculous, Mawson thought. They were the first human beings to set foot in this part of the world. So sure was he of that fact that he spoke his mind aloud. “Ridiculous.”

He stepped up to Mertz’s side. “The land is frozen. Not only is there no way a man could live here, there’s nowhere to hide.”

Mertz turned to Mawson. “He wasn’t wearing clothes.”

Mawson frowned. Mertz had a reputation for being a humorous fellow. “My lip is split. My knees are sore. My stomach is rumbling. I’m not in the mood for jokes, so let’s go. I want to be off this glacier before dark.”

“His hair was red. As red as the blood staining your beard. But his body was pale.” Mertz returned his eyes to the snow. “Wouldn’t have seen him if not for the hair.”

Mawson’s patience wore thin. “Mertz,” he growled more than said.

The man turned to him and Mawson saw wide-eyed fear. “I’m not joking.”

With his eyes shut, Mawson took a deep breath. The energy he’d exert losing his temper would drain him later on. He’d need that strength to survive. Calming his voice, he said, “Mertz, look around. What do you see?”

He glanced at Mertz, who was indeed looking. “White. From horizon to horizon. White! There is no one there. Not now. Not before. And if we stand here one more minute, we will—”

A sound like a howl rolled across the frozen plain. Mawson’s voice caught in his throat. It sounded…human. But it wasn’t. “The wind,” he said quickly, noticing the deepening wrinkles on Mertz’s sunburned forehead.

Why hadn’t the man covered his skin? Mawson thought. Before he could ask, a second, louder howl echoed around them.

Before Mawson could once again dismiss the sound, Mertz spoke. “There’s not a breeze to speak of.”

Mawson held his breath. Mertz was right.

Mertz looked at him again. I told you so, his expression said. But as he turned away, his head spun back around, past Mawson, toward Ninnis. His eyes popped wide. His arm reached out. A high pitched, “No!” shot from his mouth.

Mawson turned around in time to see the last of the sledge dogs pulled toward a hole in the ice. It whimpered, digging its claws into the ice. Then it was gone. Ninnis, six dogs and the sledge had disappeared. The glacier had come to life and swallowed them whole.

The two men ran for the spot where Ninnis had been. They stopped short, sliding on their feet as the ice opened up before them. Ninnis had parked the sledge atop a crevasse. Had they but continued moving, he would have made it across.

Mawson lay on his stomach, dispersing his weight, and slid to the mouth of the gaping hole. One hundred and fifty feet below, on a ledge, lay a lone dog. It twitched between whimpers, its spine broken. Ninnis and the other five dogs were gone, disappeared into the darkness beyond.

“Ninnis!” Mawson shouted. “Ninnis! Lieutenant! Can you hear me? Are you alive, man?”

There was no reply. He suspected there never would be. But they couldn’t just leave him. For three hours the two men shouted until their voices grew hoarse. They tied all their ropes together, but the line wasn’t even long enough to reach the now dead sledge dog.

Distraught over the loss of their colleague and friend, Mawson and Mertz didn’t want to give up hope. But they had no choice. Ninnis had fallen with most of their food, their tents and warm weather gear. To survive the three hundred fifteen mile journey back to base camp, they couldn’t spend one more minute mourning the man.

Mawson peeled a frozen tear from his cheek and returned to his sledge. They needed to move.

As they maneuvered the remaining sledge, and dogs, which would later become their food, around the crevasse, neither man heard the muffled cries coming from below. They left without pause, on a journey that would claim the lives of all six dogs and Mertz. Mawson alone would survive the journey and eventually return home to England.

But Ninnis would outlive them both.

Had either man thought to descend the rope they’d fashioned, they would have found their man tucked inside a hollow hidden by an overhang only fifty feet from the surface. After regaining consciousness, he’d tried to call out to them, to reach for the rope, but some unseen force pinned him down. An hour after Mawson and Mertz gave up the search, a hand so white it was nearly translucent, came away from his mouth.

“Welcome home, Ninnis,” a voice whispered in his ear, the breath smelling like rotten, jellied eel.

Ninnis filled his lungs and let out a scream, but the sound was cut short as he was taken by his collar and dragged deeper into the ice.

1

I scream.

I’m too terrified to do anything else. My hands are on my head. I’m pitched forward. My eyes are clenched shut. Every muscle in my body has gone tight, as though clutched in rigor.

The monster knocks me back and I spill into a pile of bones and old skin. But I feel no weight on top of me. No gnashing of teeth on my body. The thing has missed its tackle, striking a glancing blow as it passed, but nothing more. Perhaps because I bent down. Perhaps because it can’t see well in the dark. I don’t know. I don’t care.

I’m alive. For now.

And I don’t want to die.

But I’m certain I’m going to and the events of the past few months replay in my mind. I can’t stop it. I can’t control it. And in a flash, I’m back at the beginning.

I’ve been told that the entire continent of Antarctica groaned at the moment of my birth. The howl tore across glaciers, over mountains and deep into the ice. Everyone says so. Except for my father; all he heard was Mother’s sobs. Not of pain, but of joy, so he says. Other than that, the only verifiable fact about the day I was born is that an iceberg the size of Los Angeles broke free from the ice shelf a few miles off the coast. Again, some would have me believe the fracture took place as I entered the world. But all that really matters, according to my parents, is that I, Solomon Ull Vincent, the first child born on Antarctica—the first and only Antarctican—was born on September 2nd, 1974, thirteen years ago, today.

Of course, I don’t buy my parents’ seeming lack of memory when it comes to my birth. When I broach the topic they start ducking and weaving like spastic boxers. What I’m sure of is that something strange occurred when I was born; something that frightened them enough to bury all record of it. And they’ve done a good job. I’ve searched in and behind every drawer in this house. I’ve scoured the attic and the basement. I’ve even flipped through every one of the thousands of books they have on shelves around the house in search of a hollowed-out core. I’ve found nothing. But occasionally, at a Christmas party or get together, someone who heard the story slips up and reveals a tidbit before covering their mouth and offering an, “Oops.”

They think they’re protecting me, but all they’re really doing is making me feel like a freak. More of a freak, I should say. Everyone else I come into contact with thinks I’m weird, too. My parents just feign ignorance.

In celebration of my uncommon birth, my family is celebrating in the most common way imaginable: a quiet dinner at home. In attendance are my parents, Mark and Beth, and my only real friend, Justin McCarthy. We eat in silence, first enjoying the hot orange grease of Maria’s Pizza, and then the fudgy, chunky center of a Dairy Queen ice-cream cake, all polished off by tall glasses of Cherry Coke.

Nothing like massive amounts of fat and sugar to make you feel older.

Though the party, if you can call it that, is a subdued affair, I look at the gifts with great anticipation, the way a lion does a zebra before pouncing—hunter’s eyes. I don’t want toys. Didn’t ask for any. Not interested, despite grandfather’s continuous donations of G.I. Joes. My parents always know what to get me. Because despite their constant lies about my past, they’re like me.

Smart. Uncommonly so.

Nerds. Geeks. Bookworms. I’d heard all the names at school. Being smarter than everyone in my class exacerbated the issue. No senior in high school likes to be upstaged or outsmarted by a thirteen-year-old with a cracking voice. Though I sometimes wonder if their real problem with me was my resistance to 1980’s pop-culture; I don’t feather my hair, wear friendship bracelets, or watch Music Television. It doesn’t matter now. All that went away when my parents decided to home-school me. My nervousness, tension and boredom has been replaced by excitement, learning and stimulation. Not to mention a name-calling cease fire.

Well, almost. My parents call me Schwartz. The name evolved from my mother’s first nickname for me: first and only, which was short for the “first and only baby born on Antarctica.” They quickly shortened it to FAO and then, thanks to the FAO Schwartz department store, I became Schwartz. After the movie Spaceballs came out a few months ago, my parents stopped using the name in front of Justin because, almost as a Pavlovian response, Justin would say, “I see your Schwartz is as big as mine.”

The first gifts I open are books—fiction and non-fiction, popular and obscure—I like them all. Next come three boxes of Robotix kits. I’ll put the dinosaur-looking robot on the cover to shame with the creature I’ll create. The biggest box comes last. I tear into the bright blue wrapping paper as Justin slurps grease from a leftover pizza slice.

The loud slurp stops short and grease drips on to Justin’s plate. “Whoa,” he says.

To Justin, this is a “whoa” moment. He likes to blow things up. To me it’s a big letdown. My parents see my down-turned lips even as I fight to reverse them.

“You have to build it yourself,” mom says.

“The box says it mimics the pattern of a real lava flow,” dad adds.

I let out a grunt, wondering if my parents IQs have dropped. Or maybe they’ve finally given up caring? The gift is nothing more than a cardboard cone, some quick drying clay, a pouch of red-colored baking soda and a small bottle of vinegar. This is the big present? They had gone on about how surprised I would be. About how incredible the gift was. This is...simple.

Boring.

Justin punches my shoulder. It hurts. I know he didn’t mean it to, but I seem to feel pain more than other people. Justin’s dark brown eyes are impossible to see behind the tinted sports glasses he always wears, but I know they’re wide with excitement. I focus on that to avoid thinking about the pain in my arm.

“Are there any G.I. Joes we haven’t melted?” he asks.

“A few.”

“Let’s go!” Justin dashes from the dining room and takes the stairs two at a time. “C’mon!” he shouts from the top.

“Go ahead,” mom says. “He has to go home in an hour. Mass starts at six in the morning.”

Saturday morning mass is something I never understood. It’s a sacred time. Not mass, mind you. Saturday mornings. A bowl of Cocoa Pebbles starts the morning. Starvengers, Gaiking, Robotech and more, followed by Creature Double Feature, which promises at least one Godzilla movie, fills my day until noon. It is a TV line-up so good that I am sure God skips mass for it too.

“May I be excused?” I ask with a sigh.

Dad chuckles. It’s the kind of chuckle that’s a substitute for calling someone stupid. I’ve heard the laugh enough to recognize the sound. “You don’t need to ask after we told you to go.”

I brush some of my long blond hair, which has garnered more than a few Einstein taunts, out of my face. Mom and Dad wear unreadable smiles. Like they know something I don’t. I hate that feeling—I’ve felt it every day of my life—so I slide off the chair, pick up the large, but light, volcano box and march it upstairs. When I hear mother giggle—just like the kids at school used to—a tear forms in my eye.

I’m such a wimp. No, wimp isn’t the word. That’s like calling someone a chicken. Means they’re afraid to fight—which also describes me—but that isn’t what I mean. Crybaby. That’s the word. One laugh from my mother and I’m all weepy. Of course, the laugh combined with the silly present confirms that they don’t take me seriously. And if they don’t take me seriously, they’ll never notice I’m not a kid anymore—if you ignore the fact that I’m about to bury a bunch of action figures in a miniature volcano—and that means they’ll never reveal the mysteries surrounding my birth. I’m not sure why the day I was born interests me so much. You don’t hear other kids asking about when they were born. But there is something in me, something raw, which longs to know more.

As I near the top of the stairs I wipe my eyes dry and focus on the soft rug lining the stairs. It feels squishy beneath my socks. I find it comforting. Through the banister rungs I see Justin hunkering over a fishing lure case filled with odd toys. I scuff my feet, sliding sock against rug. I walk like that all the way to the bedroom doorway.

“Put out your hand,” I say.

Justin does.

I reach out a single finger and touch it to Justin’s palm. A tiny blue arch of electricity zaps between us with a sharp crack. Justin yelps and flinches away, knocking over the box of toys. “Hey!” he shouts and then moves to retaliate with a finger flick.

I put the volcano box between us and raise an eyebrow.

Justin pauses. “Ugh, fine. Oh! I almost forgot.” He fishes into his pants pocket and pulls out a clear blue cassette tape. Then he closes the door. “My cousin made this for me. Said my mom wouldn’t let me listen to it.”

He puts the cassette into the shoebox sized tape-deck and hits play. Loud music, unlike anything I’ve heard before, fills the room.

I place the volcano box on the floor and let Justin tear into it. I sit down on the bed hearing the music, but not really listening. My eyes turn to the wall, where a five foot by five foot poster of Antarctica is tacked up. I’ve marked all the active United States bases—McMurdo, Amundsen-Scott, Palmer, Siple, Willard—as well as some of the larger foreign stations. A bright green circle marks one of the few bases that no longer functions: Clark. Snow and ice buried the site within a year of my birth. How does something like that happen? Even on Antarctica. Just another one of the mysteries no one seems to know anything about.

Though I haven’t been there since shortly after my birth, I miss the place. I’ve become an expert on the continent and hope to return when I’m old enough. There are so many interesting aspects of Antarctica I long to explore. The founder of Clark Station, Dr. Merrill Clark, is my personal hero. His search for evidence of a human Antarctican civilization—my geographic ancestors—captivates me. And I want to follow in his footsteps.

But it will be a long time before that can happen. I doubt my parents will let me go until I’m eighteen and they can’t stop me. Of course, I do understand some of the reasons I’m not yet able to go. I might be smarter than most adults, but I’m also smart enough to know I have the emotional fortitude of an eight year old. Happens with smart kids, I’ve read. Understanding how awful the world can be is hard for someone without emotional defenses. I should be more concerned with the outcome of the daily ant battles waged on our sidewalk than the starving children in Ethiopia. I stopped watching the news a year ago. The images tended to fuel my imagination, which was not a good thing.

I’m painfully shy, especially around girls. I’m quick to cry, especially if someone is angry with me. And, though no one knows it, I’m afraid of the dark. Not just afraid, I’m terrified of the dark. It’s not a fear of what might lurk in the shadows, closets or under the bed. I’m afraid of my own thoughts. When my imagination is freed from the coils of intentional thought, it drifts to places far darker than deepest black. The horrors of school, of starving kids on TV, and of my parents’ mortality are passing thoughts by comparison.

I sometimes wonder if the dark thoughts are a true reflection of what lies within. Of my soul.

The words of the music finally sink in. “What’s a brick house?” I ask.

Justin shrugs as he places a volcano-shaped cardboard cone onto a sheet of plastic.

“Thirty six, twenty four, thirty six. Are those measurements? Is this a song about construction? Why wouldn’t your mother—”

“They’re measurements all right,” my friend says with a fiendish grin, then holds his hands in front of his chest like he’s gripping two baseballs. “For boobs.”

My immediate embarrassment is multiplied tenfold when I hear mother clear her throat. I spin toward the door, mortified.

“Forty-five minutes,” she says with a grimace. She closes the door behind her as she leaves.

“Thanks a lot,” putting as much anger into my whisper as I can manage.

Justin, who is unfazed by these events, tugs open the pre-moistened bag of quick drying clay. “Just for the record, your mom is a brick house.”

I rub my socks on the rug.

“Ok, ok!” Justin says. “Just help me put this together. We have forty-five minutes to blow it up.”

I sit down next to him and look at the materials. There’s enough here to make three mediocre eruptions. All for—I look at the box—thirty bucks. There has to be a way to make sure my parents get their money’s worth out of this thing. I smile as the idea comes to me.

We finish forty minutes later. The quick dry clay is solid and authentic looking if you ignore the embedded action figures. Nice knowing you, Snake Eyes. But there are a few invisible modifications. First we expanded the internal cylinder that holds the red-dyed baking soda. Instead of three small eruptions, we will now have one large one. And to make things really exciting, we sealed the top of the volcano. This eruption will be as genuine as I can make it.

We both hold syringes pilfered from a chemistry set. Each contains six ounces of vinegar. “On the count of three,” I say. “One.”

“Is this going to explode?” Justin asks.

“Two.”

“Should we wear safety goggles?” He grins before touching his sports glasses. “Oh wait.”

“Three!”

We plunge the needles into the volcano and inject the vinegar.

The bedroom door opens. “Ok, boys. Time to—”

“Mom, get back!” I shout. But a loud hiss behind me signifies it’s too late. I turn around in time to see the entire volcano, which neither I nor Justin had thought to attach to something solid, erupt—from beneath. The entire cone launches off the floor, spraying red-dyed lava as it spins in the air like one of DaVinci’s airships. The cone tilts, shoots forward, slams into the poster of Antarctica, and explodes. Red gore splashes against the poster and the wall. It reminds me of the Greatest American Hero episode where the voodoo loving villain splatters chicken blood on the walls.

I turn to my mother. Her white blouse is covered in red streaks. There is no humor in her eyes as she looks at Justin and says, “Your mother is on her way,” and then leaves.

“What happened to you?” I hear my father ask. He pokes his head in a moment later, eyes wide behind his glasses. “Oh...geez.”

“Sorry,” I say, eyes on the floor.

When he doesn’t reply, I look up.

He’s trying to mask a smile, but failing miserably. “You’re lucky it’s your birthday, Sol.”

“How angry do you think she is?”

“Chernobyl, at least.”

Chernobyl is bad, but nowhere near as bad as super nova. If dad is right, she’ll be over it by morning. I smile back at my father. “It flew.”

My father snickers, looking at the red stained wall. He rubs a hand through his curly black hair. “I can see that.”

The doorbell rings. “That’d be your mom,” Dad says to Justin before leading him from the room. He stops at the top of the stairs and turns back to me. “Clean yourself up and brush your teeth.”

“What about the room?” I ask.

“No amount of scrubbing is going to get that dye out of things. We’ll worry about it in the morning.” He takes one step down and pauses. “Sorry about the poster, Schwartz.”

I hear Justin say a quick, “I see your Schwartz is as big as mine,” from the foyer before opening the front door for his mother.

I look up at the poster. The circle around my birthplace is smudged, the ink running. “Yeah...”

As my mother changes and my father explains the red dye on Justin’s clothes to his mother, I enter the bathroom. Head lowered, I wash my hands and face. With water dripping from both, I reach out and take hold of a hand towel and dry myself. With the towel still over my face, I sigh. I think about my gifts. My birthday. My age. My life in general.

I sigh again. At least tomorrow is Saturday.

I pull the towel from my face and look in the mirror. My skin is white, like snow. My eyes are bright blue. My hair is so blond it only contains a hint of yellow. But I’ve seen all this before and it doesn’t hold my attention. That’s when I see it. Something taped to the shower door behind me. An envelope. On it, the words, “Happy Birthday”, have been written backwards so I can read them in the mirror.

The envelope is in my hand a moment later. I tear into it. My eyes catch sight of what’s inside. I stumble back, sitting on the toilet. As I take out the contents of the envelope, my eyes blur over. I can’t read the words, but I know what I hold. Plane tickets. An itinerary. A map that looks just like the ruined poster on my wall.

“Happy birthday,” the voice of my mother says. I blink my eyes. She’s crouching in front of me, dressed in jeans and a gray Phil Collins T-shirt. She’s smiling.

I wrap my arms around her in a burst of emotion and say, “Thank you.”

My father is standing in the bathroom door. I launch at him, hugging him around the neck, feet dangling above the floor.

When he puts me down, I sniff and wipe my eyes, feeling no embarrassment over the tears. “When are we going?”

“Summer in Antarctica begins in about seven weeks.”

The tears well again, as a single thought repeats in my head.

I’m going home.

2

I can’t sleep. Like the owl that hunts at night, I’ve gone nocturnal. My imagination is in overdrive—Justin would say, “It’s gone plaid.” But it’s actually an improvement. I normally lose sleep to thoughts of awful things. Those frightening images don’t have a chance to manifest tonight. My mind is on Antarctica. What will I see? Penguins? Weddell seals? The South Pole? Where will we go? Can I explore? Who will I meet?

It suddenly occurs to me that Merrill Clark himself might be there. My father has kept in loose contact with him since I was born. They worked together at Clark Station for three summers in a row. I’ve heard my mother tease Dad about Dr. Clark being my real father. She says the same thing about the mailman sometimes, too. So I know she’s teasing. But it implies they’re close. Or were. Of course, it also implies they’re close to the mailman, which makes no sense, because our mailman is a mailwoman.

I also know that Dr. Clark is married. His wife’s name is Aimee. She’s black, which I’ve heard my parents talk about, too. Apparently it’s taboo for people of different skin colors to marry. And they have a daughter, Mirabelle. She’s a year younger than me.

Remembering the daughter makes me nervous. My parents stopped going to Antarctica after I was born. Said it wasn’t a safe place to raise a baby. Maybe Dr. Clark did the same. I know he’s continued publishing about Antarctica, but it could all be based on old research. I make a mental note to ask in the morning. I roll over and squint. It’s already morning. The rising sun cuts through the crack in my shade and strikes my eyes.

The nice thing about being home-schooled—at least the way my parents do it—is that I pick the subjects. I pick where, when and how I want to learn. Not only do my parents trust that I’ll get a better education this way, they feel most kids would too. Dad calls school a “good citizen factory.”

I think my parents were hippies.

But I agree with them.

The point is, I can sleep until noon if I want. And I’ll get more learning done in an hour than most kids will during a full day of school. I roll over and close my eyes. They reopen a moment later.

It’s Saturday.

I’m on my feet and scratching dried red lava from the clock face. It’s not coming off, so I pull the shade and look at the sun’s low position in the sky. It’s September third and the sun is still rising early. I place the time around 6:30, slide into my slippers and head downstairs.

I skip the third and fifth steps because they squeak. I know the sound won’t wake my parents, but I like to pretend I’m a ninja. Five minutes later I’m sitting on the floor, bowl of Cocoa Pebbles in hand. I sit at the long coffee table where my drawing paper and pencils wait.

I pick up the cable remote and remember when I had to get up to change the channel, rotate the top TV dial to U and the lower dial to channel fifty-six. I turn it on and there’s a commercial featuring a bunch of women with puffy hairdos being asked what they would do for a Klondike Bar. Tell a secret? One of the women reveals that her husband works out in his underwear, and I think I’ll never eat a Klondike Bar again. I tune out the next commercial and stuff my mouth with delicious artificially flavored chocolate cereal.

“I wouldn’t do anything for a Klondike Bar,” I say, spraying a few Pebbles on my art pad. “But I’d work out in my underwear for—”

I see something. Not on TV. In the sun room, which is separated from the living room by a large door with twelve small windows. Something inside the room moved. I swallow hard. Some of the not yet chewed, not yet mushy, cereal scratches my throat.

“Dad?” I say. He gets up early on occasion, but I hear no reply.

“Mom?” That my mother would be up this early on a Saturday is ludicrous. I usually don’t see her until ten.

The TV is showing previews of the upcoming programming lineup so I know I have about thirty seconds before Robotech starts. I push the coffee table away, stand up and tiptoe toward the door. I’m a ninja again. Defenseless, but quiet. Of course, the TV has long ago announced my presence.

Maybe there was a burglar? I think. He could have been scared by the TV coming on and fled through a window. Or maybe he’s still in there, waiting for the stupid twelve—make that thirteen-year-old—to check things out.

I think about going to the kitchen for a knife, but I don’t like them. Every time I pick one up, if my mind isn’t on something else, I see myself stabbing whoever else is in the room. I’m an unwilling, mental serial killer.

That’s just one of my unmentionable dark thoughts.

Of course, if I get jumped by a thief, then jamming a knife into him would be completely justified.

With my thoughts full of spraying blood, I feel sick to my stomach. No knife. Not now. Not ever.

I’m at the door anyway and have yet to be jumped. I peek through the glass and scan the small, square room. There’s a couch that pulls out into a bed. It fills up most of the room when opened. And there’s a small desk that gets used once a year when dad does the taxes. Nothing else. No thief.

That’s when I see the living room windows behind me, reflected in the glass of the door. What if I had seen a reflection? My heart begins to pound as I realize I’ve made myself an easy target. I feel a tingling on my neck. Hot breath. The presence behind me feels sinister.

Evil.

I spin around with a roar that scares me. My lips are curled up. My teeth grit. My hands, both of them, are open, but tight, like I’ve got claws to slash someone with.

But there is no one to slash. The room is empty.

I’m still scared. Terrified actually. Despite having the dark thoughts for years, this is the first time I’ve seen them manifest into action. The sound that came from my mouth. The roar. It didn’t sound like me. I can’t sustain a cord that deep without my voice cracking like a panicked goose. Worse, I was ready to kill, to tear someone apart. Had there been someone behind me, I would have attacked. It could have been a thief, or my mom, or my dad. It wouldn’t have mattered.

I would have hurt them.

If I’d gone to get the knife I might have killed them.

I look at my hands, still rigid and ready to gouge.

What kind of person am I?

A sharp clap, like two boards of wood slapping together, spins me around with a shout. The noise came from the sun room. I stand there, frozen. The rapid fire beat of my heart surges oxygen to my muscles, readying them for fight or flight. But I can see most of the sun room still. There is no one there.

The sound repeats, this time to the right, and I finally see the source. A shade is drawn over a window that was left open. The breeze outside is pushing the shade away and then snapping it back. I open the door and enter the room. My pulse slows. I pull the shade and send it flying up. Sun blazes through the east-facing window, and a cool breeze bursts into the room. A painting of a lighthouse on the wall behind me shifts and nearly falls. I close the window before righting the painting. As I shift the canvas, something scrapes along the back of it. I think maybe the nail holding it up got yanked out a little by the breeze, so I lift the painting up for a look.

What I find stuns me. A safe. Behind a painting. It’s so cliché that I’m shocked I hadn’t thought to check for it before. After a quick peek into the living room, I put the painting on the floor and turn my attention to the safe. It’s a combination lock. Probably three digits.

I decide to stick with cliché and try my father’s birthday. No good. My mother’s doesn’t work either. Mine comes next and I’m slightly disappointed that it doesn’t work. But I’m probably the one, aside from thieves, he wants to keep out of the safe, so that wouldn’t make sense. I remember that my father is no good with remembering numbers. Despite being brilliant, he has trouble with phone numbers, street addresses and counting. So he’s always writing things down. I look around the room. Where would he keep the number? It wouldn’t be labeled, combination, but it also would be in a place where he couldn’t confuse the number for something else.

The painting. The artist’s signature was accompanied by a date. I kneel, looking at the bottom right corner. The signature is in a dull red, but the date—7-21-38—is a slightly brighter shade. They were put on at two different times! More than that, there is no way this painting was done in 1938. It’s far too Bob Ross.

I spin the dial, entering the numbers and then turn the handle. The lock clunks and I let go. The safe swings open on its own. Inside are several notebooks, folders, a small stack of money and a small felt pouch. I flip through the notebooks. They’re field notes for his photo books. A few pages have love notes from my mom on them and I suspect this is the real reason he’s kept them. There are three folders, each labeled for a member of the family. They contain birth certificates, social security cards and other legal documents. I notice I have no United States birth certificate, though there are other documents proving my citizenship. There goes my chances of being president, I think.

So far, it appears my parents really do have no secrets hidden in the house. I flip through the wad of hundred dollar bills, counting over one thousand dollars. All that’s left is the felt pouch, which looks like it probably holds jewelry. I take it out and reach inside. The first object I find feels like a photo. I pull it out.

My parents are in the picture. Dad is standing behind mom, who looks exhausted. But she’s smiling. Aimee is with her, by her side. And Dr. Clark is on the other side, next to my father. He’s not really smiling at all. In fact, he doesn’t look well. I turn the photo over and find a note.

To remember the extraordinary birth of your most unusual son. 9/2/1974 - Merrill

The word unusual churns a sick feeling in my stomach. But my curiosity over what heavy object still remains in the pouch distracts me. I turn the pouch over and let the contents slide onto the desk. It’s a rock.

A simple stone. Granite, by the looks of it.

Then it occurs to me that this must be a piece of Antarctica. Possibly collected the day I was born.

I pick it up and feel a surge of emotion. Thoughts and feelings race through my mind faster than I can comprehend. I feel strong one moment, lost the next. Afraid and angry. Resentful and full of wrath. But never happy. Never content. I am alone.

The experience is intense, and staggers me, but it lasts only a few seconds. As the feelings fade, a loud clap sounds out behind me.

I spin around with a shout and hurl the stone.

As soon as it leaves my hand, I return to my senses and realize what’s about to happen. A window, which was also part way open like the one I had closed, shatters with a cacophony that only broken glass can make. The stone is stopped by the screen and lands atop a pile of glass. I cringe as the shards fall away, covering the window sill and floor.

Footsteps hit the floor above. The sound has roused my parents.

I quickly refill the safe, putting everything back in place. I put the photo back in the pouch and then reach for the stone. I pause before picking it up, wondering if I’m going to be overcome by emotion again. With all this broken glass and one of my parents on the way, that would be a very bad thing. But I see no choice, outside of getting caught, and pick up the stone.

Nothing happens.

I slide the stone in the pouch, cinch it shut and place it at the back of the safe before closing the safe door, spinning the lock and hanging the painting back in place. I hear my parents’ door close. A second later the third step squeaks.

I dash into the living room and pick up the remote.

The fifth step squeaks and is followed by my father’s voice. “Solomon? What was that noise?”

Back in the sunroom I place the remote inside the broken window and step back. My father’s voice comes from the living room. “Solomon, what happened?”

He can see the glass and broken window.

He enters the sun room, glancing around. The painting holds his attention for just a brief moment, but then he’s looking at the remote in the window. His annoyance is growing. “What—happened?”

“I threw the remote.”

“I can see that.”

“I thought there was a burglar.”

The look in his eyes says several things to me. He thinks I’m nuts. He thinks I’m not ready to go to Antarctica. He thinks I’m lying. Of course, I am lying, but only partially.

“The shade slapped behind me. Look.” I open the first window I’d closed and draw the shade. A moment later, the shade is pushed in by the wind and then sucked back out. The slap is loud, and I see my father blink in surprise. “See?”

My father looks from the drawn shade to the broken window. He still doesn’t look happy, but he’s calming down. “Next time you think someone’s in the house, you come get me.”

I nod.

“And you can pay for the window out of your allowance.”

I’ve already spent the money from my allowance on books, so I’ll be paying for the window with my birthday money. I think about the wad of hundred dollar bills in the safe, but decide it’s in my best interest to keep that knowledge to myself.

“C’mon,” he says. “Let’s clean you up.”

He turns and walks into the living room.

Clean me up? I look down and find blood on my hand. The cut isn’t bad, but I didn’t even feel it happen. My thoughts return to the stone and the way it made me feel—what it made me do. And for a moment, I’m not sure I want to go back to Antarctica after all. But then the craving to revisit my home returns and I know nothing will keep me away.

3

The weeks pass in a blur of anticipation. Life is a routine of eating, sleeping and studying, though I doubt I retain anything aside from the object of my fascination. I reread all my books on Antarctica, paying special attention to those written by Dr. Clark. I review a history of the continent and mark the beginnings and ends of all major expeditions in colored lines on my new, larger, map.

But I leave the map behind, which is fine with me because inside of twenty-four hours I will have set foot on the continent of my birth.

My leg shakes as I sit alone in the back seat of my father’s pea soup colored sedan. I’m surrounded by luggage. If the car were to crash, I’m sure I wouldn’t budge. But only ten minutes from home, the close confines are making me feel claustrophobic. I stuff as much of the luggage as I can behind my parents’ seats. The view out the window is unimpressive—mostly trees lining the highway—but I feel better.

When my father switches on the right turn signal, I forget all about my discomfort in the back seat. I stretch my neck up, looking out the front windshield. Exit five. Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I wonder if one of them has to pee, but I see no restaurants or gas stations. And we’ve only been on the road for thirty minutes. This should have been a straight shot to Logan airport in Boston.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

My dad turns back. He’s smiling. “Just a quick detour.”

I look at my watch. There’s still plenty of time. But my curiosity is piqued. “To where?”

“You’ll see,” says mom, but she’s got a jovial tone in her voice. Once again, they know something I don’t and find it humorous. My stomach churns for a moment, but I distract myself with thoughts of home. I want to enjoy every moment of this trip. Instead of watching the road, I poke at the fabric hanging down from the car’s ceiling. Just as I’m starting to wonder what kind of weak glue the manufacturer used, the car stops.

I look up. A large wrought iron gate is opening up before us. That’s when I notice we’re at the top of a very tall hill. The car pulls forward. The driveway is long and lined by grass that’s still green, despite the frigid late fall weather. The house is a brick colonial, clearly old—perhaps early 1700s—but impeccably maintained.

“Who lives here?” I whisper under my breath. The question was rhetorical and directed at myself, but my father hears. He puts the car in park and turns around with an arm up on the back of his seat. The smile on his face tells me that this detour is for me. His next words confirm it.

“Merrill Clark lives here. His family is joining us.”

Mom and Dad exit the car as a man steps out of the front door. I can’t see his face because Mom is already hugging him. Dad shakes his hand next. I’m in the front seat now, shaking with excitement and fear. For other New England kids, this would be like meeting Larry Bird or Wade Boggs. I’m going to be spending the next few weeks with my hero. And I’m desperate to make a good impression.

Should I quote him? Should I tell him my theories on ancient Antarctican civilizations? Should I ask him to sign my copy of Antarktos?

I decide, push the car door open and step out. Before I know what’s happened, I fall forward, reach out and land on the paved driveway, which feels harder in the bitter chill. I land with a slap.

The pain is sharp, rising from my hands, traveling up my arms and descending to my gut. The blow has sucked away my breath. But I hold back my tears. I don’t gasp for air. I don’t even look at my parents. If they’re laughing, I’ll cry for sure. So I focus on figuring out what happened. A quick look back answers that question. My shoelace is wedged in the car door. I yank at it, but instead of coming free, it snaps in half. I fall back, hitting my head.

I feel a growl rising in my throat. I’ve never been more embarrassed. I want to go home.

“You okay?”

The voice doesn’t belong to either of my parents and certainly not to Dr. Clark. I turn my head toward the person standing above me. A girl. Her skin is a deep tan, but her hair, tied back in a tight bun, is as blond as mine. She smiles down at me and for a moment, I hold my breath. She’s stunning. She’s a girl. And she’s smiling at me. This is a first.

She reaches down and takes my hand. I’m too flabbergasted to realize she’s pulling me to my feet, so she ends up doing most of the work. She’s strong. Stronger than me, that’s for sure.

Once I’m standing again, some sense returns. I quickly look to my parents and Dr. Clark. They’re still talking, oblivious to what just happened.

“Don’t worry,” the girl says, “no one saw you.”

I turn back to the girl, seeing her for who she is. The dark skin. The blond hair. And her eyes. “Mirabelle Clark,” I say.

“Solomon Vincent,” she says. “But I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to say our own names, not each other’s.”

When she starts shaking my hand, I realize she hadn’t let go. My hand begins to sweat so I break away from the handshake, feigning an itch on my head. I can tell by her smile that she sees through my ruse. To her credit, and my relief, she doesn’t mention it. Instead, she heads toward our parents and motions me to follow.

“C’mon,” she says. “Introduce me to your dad.”

My dad? I think. What’s so great about—? Then, I see the camera around her neck. My father is a photographer for National Geographic. Many of his photos from their Clark Station years are in Antarktos. If Mirabelle wants to be a photographer, then my dad is probably her hero as much as her father is mine.

Knowing this is a great relief. For a moment I worried that I would be constantly paired with Mirabelle throughout the trip, unable to pursue my interests because our parents were trying to play Antarctican matchmakers. But as I watch her walk away, I feel my face flush. Not only is she pretty, but she spoke to me with a kindness I hadn’t yet experienced from a girl my age.

In fact, she’s got me so distracted that when I’m introduced to Dr. Clark, I totally botch the quote, making myself look like a buffoon. As they pack the cars, I’m told there are chocolate chip cookies on the kitchen counter if I want one. I don’t, but I want to be out of sight so much that if they had said there were chocolate covered locusts in the kitchen, I would have accepted the offer just the same. I suppose I’m like an ostrich, hiding my head in the sand. I sometimes wonder if this habit will make me a pushover as an adult, too, but I’ve seen my parents ignore enough problems around the house to know that even grownups sometimes have trouble facing life’s challenges. And I’m only thirteen. So I’ll put my head inside a cookie jar or metaphorical sand and not feel bad about it.

Like the outside of the house, the inside is old, but well maintained. The hardwood, which is everywhere—floors, mantles, railing, stairs—shines with a polish that looks new, but I suspect is just cared for. Even with the polish, I don’t feel like I can’t touch anything. Justin’s mom has a room in their house that we can’t even walk through. A living room in which no one lives. This is a great inconvenience, because the living room leads to the den, where the TV is, and instead of walking straight through, we have to walk around the entire first floor.

This house doesn’t feel untouchable. This home is lived in. This home is loved.

Straight through the hallway at the center of the house, on the kitchen counter, I see the cookies. I still don’t want one, but if someone follows me in, I don’t want to look like a klutz, a doofus and a liar.

On my way to the kitchen, almost every floor-board I step on creaks. Ninjas would hate this house, I think before picking up one of the coaster-sized cookies. I take a reluctant bite. The brown sugar melts in my mouth, followed by a still warm burst of semi-sweet goodness. I change my mind about the cookie and pick up a second.

“Don’t eat too many,” a woman says, spinning me around on my heels.

Her skin is two shades darker than Mirabelle’s but her smile seems even brighter. I recognize her immediately. My father took a stunning photo of her once, sitting on a glacier wrapped in a blanket, having a picnic. Only, that’s not why I recognize her. “Hello, Mrs. Clark. How are you?”

She stops, puts a hand to her ample hip and says, “Well, aren’t you the polite one.”

I’m not sure what to say, but I’m not nearly as nervous around Mrs. Clark as I am around Merrill, or their daughter. I continue with a compliment. “These are really good.”

“You know, as much as I know everyone loves these cookies, you’re the first person to compliment them.”

This strikes me as odd, given how good they are. She takes out a plastic bag, loads it with three more cookies, takes the second out of my hand, adds it to the bag and hands it to me. She gives me a wink that lets me know we’re in cahoots. I nod and stuff the cookies into my cargo pants pocket.

“Thank you, Mrs. Clark.”

“Enough with the Mrs. stuff. Call me Aimee.”

I’ve never once in my life been invited to call an adult by their first name. I heard once that an art teacher at my former high school allowed the students to call her by her first name. But someone told her she couldn’t and she quit. I remember thinking she was silly for quitting, but having now experienced the sense of pride over using an adult’s first name, I understand. It’s a gift. An acknowledgement of not being superior simply for being older.

“I like how you spell your name.” Then I try it on for size. “Aimee.” But I drag the E sound out.

She laughs. “I have my mother to thank for the spelling. I like it now, but kids made fun of me a lot for it when I was your age.”

I think about the kids in my school, imagine what they’d come up with, and nod. They’d probably still make fun of her name. They certainly made fun of mine. Solomon. That alone could be bad enough. But my middle name—Ull—what were my parents thinking?

Granted, I appreciate the significance; Ull was the son of the Norse god, Thor. He was the god of winter, which is how I ended up with the name. Being born in a place of perpetual winter, I suppose it makes sense. Ull was also the god of death, the chase, combat, archery, hunting and trapping. I’ll never be good at any of those things, but at least my light complexion and ultra-blond hair fit the Viking look. Still, being named for a Norse god does not do wonders for a person who’s already socially blacklisted.

She sits on a bar stool and starts on a cookie. I perch myself in the stool across from her like we’re old chums.

“So how nervous are you?” she asks.

“Nervous?”

“About going home.”

I feel like she has somehow torn me open and looked at my soul. To everyone else I’ve appeared nothing but excited. In truth, I’m fearful of what I’ll find in Antarctica. I can’t fully explain it, but I think it has to do with my high expectations. It’s like when you go to a movie everyone has said is amazing, but it’s only so-so, and you end up hating it because of your raised expectations. I’m afraid that will happen in Antarctica, because I expect my homecoming to be magical. Even I know that’s stupid. Any real magic done in the past was simply science ahead of its time used on naïve people. Antarctica will not be magical, but I wish to my core that it will be. Of course, my rock throwing incident also has me worried that I’ll become a raging psychopath the moment I set foot on the continent.

“A lot,” I admit. “Part of me wants to spend a lifetime there, learning about the place, searching for its history.”

“For your history.”

I feel a wash of embarrassment. “I know anything found on Antarctica isn’t really my history, but—”

“You were born there,” she says firmly. “You probably have a legal claim to the continent, too. The history of that place is as much yours as South Africa is mine.”

“You were born in South Africa?”

She nods. “I spent the first year of my life there. And I still feel a strong connection to the country even though I have no memory of the place and have yet to return.”

“You can’t remember it?”

“I was only one when my parents came to the States.”

I look at the plate of cookies, feeling awkward. Once again, she looks inside me and sees what no one else ever has. She gasps. “You can remember Antarctica, can’t you?”

I give the slightest tilt of my head. I can. “Clark Station smelled like rust. There was a lot of it on the walls, and around the doors. My parents’ room was decorated with Indian wall hangings—India Indian, not American Indian.”

Her open mouth confirms the accuracy of what I’ve said. I remember much more, but I’ve made my point.

“I knew you were smart, Solomon, but I had no idea...” She puts her cookie down. “Do your parents know?”

I shake my head, no. They already treat me special enough.

She nods as though she understands why, and I think she really might.

“What was the very first thing you remember?” she asks.

“You mean after I was born?”

Her eyes go wide for a moment. A wide smile follows as she realizes I’ve just made a joke. She picks up the cookie again and takes a bite. “Yes, after you were born.”

“First memory?”

“Very first.”

I pause. I know the answer. But I don’t want to freak her out. I think she’ll see through it if I try to lie. So I tell the truth. “You.”

The cookie falls from her hand.

“Your face,” I say. “You delivered me. You were smiling just like you are now. When I saw you, when I looked into your eyes, I felt...loved.”

“And you stopped crying,” she says, and I can see tears in her eyes. Good to know I’m not the only crybaby going on this trip.

“I remember our eyes meeting,” she continues. “And then you just stopped crying. I thought it was a fluke, but you stared up at me so intently.”

“And then Dad took me,” I say, “and I didn’t like it.”

“He wasn’t used to holding a baby, never mind a newborn.”

“Let’s go, you two!” Dr. Clark yells from the front door.

Aimee wipes her eyes and dumps the cookies into a Tupperware container. She picks up a bag and heads for the door. “Let’s get a move on, Sol. I’ll keep quiet about your memories if you keep quiet about those cookies in your pocket. Otherwise we’ll have a riot on our hands.”

I smile as I follow her to the door. For the first time in a very long time, I’ve made a friend. And it’s not Merrill, whom I admire so much, or Mirabelle, who is age appropriate and beautiful, it’s Aimee Clark, who is not only the first person I met upon entering the world, but is also the nicest.

I make a mental note to be far away from her when I step off the plane and onto Antarctica. If I get violent, I don’t want her anywhere near me.

4

The car ride to Logan Airport is cramped. Not only am I still surrounded by luggage, but I’m also wedged in tight with Mirabelle Clark. I have never been this close to a girl for this length of time. I’ll be dehydrated from sweating before we even reach the dry air of the airplane cabin.

But it could be worse. She doesn’t smell like a girl. Few things irritate me more than the chemical scents women and girls douse themselves in. Scented soaps, perfumes, deodorants—they’re all bad. The worst ones are those made from animal pheromones. Don’t people realize what they’re spraying on themselves? Gross.

She also seems to have no interest in talking to me. Instead she’s playing twenty questions with my dad. More like one hundred and twenty questions. They’ve been talking photography since they shook hands. Dad seems to be enjoying the conversation as much as Mirabelle. The only interest I showed in photography was when I read all of dad’s camera manuals and how-to guides. As a result, there are several points in the conversation when I could correct both of them on the proper way to light, frame or filter a shot. But I learned to keep my mouth shut about such things long ago. No one likes a know-it-all.

What stinks about the current scenario is that I have yet to talk to Dr. Clark. My dad said we’d get to talk on the plane, but I’m starting to doubt it. He doesn’t seem all that interested in me. Back at the house, our eyes met and he looked quickly away, like he wanted nothing to do with me. I’m sure I read his face right. I’ve seen that look before. Several times.

But Dr. Clark is not the reason for this trip. I try to remind myself that. Unlike Larry Bird, Dr. Clark isn’t used to having young fans or being a role model. He may positively loathe children, though I doubt it. Mirabelle seems too well adjusted.

In fact, I think I’ll be okay with her joining us on this trip. I can’t stand most kids my age, but she’s well spoken, fairly intelligent, kind and pretty. Though that last quality is a drawback and will probably prevent us from ever really being friends.

I’m suddenly being ribbed by Mirabelle’s sharp elbow. At first it hurts, but then I remember whose elbow it is and it tickles so much I flinch away. But she and dad are laughing and don’t notice. Was there a joke at my expense? I’ll never know because they’re back to talking about cameras—Polaroid this time.

Before I can tune out the conversation again I’m punched in the shoulder. It hurts as much as one of Justin’s slugs and I have to fight the urge to cry out. But Mirabelle is smiling in my face.

“What do you think about Polaroid?” she asks.

And there it is. I’m in the conversation. I’m not sure how to answer. I don’t know what’s been said so far or if I’ll contradict it. Mirabelle has no patience for my pause.

“Well?”

“The first Polaroid camera was sold in 1947. It uses self-developing film that works when microscopic crystals of iodoquinine sulfate—”

“No, no, no,” she says, “that’s what you know. What’s your opinion of the cameras? Of the photos they take? What do you think?”

“Oh, well. I like to shake them,” I say. It’s true. Vigorously shaking a Polaroid photo gives me some kind of strange satisfaction. I have yet to determine why.

She’s nodding, but has a look on her face that says, who doesn’t? And she’s waiting for more.

“They provide instant gratification, which is fun I suppose, but the images are small, not nearly as clear and seem to fade quickly.”

She punches me again. “There, you see?” She’s talking to my dad. “Exactly what I said, but more intelligent sounding. Not great quality, but instant gratification.”

Before I realize it, she’s got her head on my shoulder. Her curling blond hair tickles my cheek. And a Polaroid camera rises in front of us. As my nervousness at her close proximity rises to near panic status, a flash of light blinds me. While my eyes recover, I feel a faint breeze and hear a repetitious flapping. When I finally recover, I see Mirabelle leaning over, writing on something with a permanent marker. Then she’s back up and handing me a Polaroid picture.

“The first of many memories,” she says.

I take the picture and look at it, dumbfounded by what I see. There’s Mirabelle, smiling wide, eyes unbelievably dark, head on my shoulder. And then there’s me. Despite my nervous jitters I look happy. Really happy. In fact, this might be the first photo of me sporting a genuine smile.

Beneath the photo, Mirabelle has written: Mira and Sol, 1987.

“Mira,” I say, reading her name.

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” she says.

“Why not Mirabelle?”

“Kind of a mouthful. Does your family call you Solomon?”

They don’t. I shake my head, no.

“Well, we’re both lucky. Our names sound just as good shortened as they do long.”

My eyebrows rise involuntarily. “You like my name?”

“Are you serious? King Solomon the wise and his legendary mines. Solomon Grundy—the nursery rhyme and evil comic-book zombie super villain.”

Then she’s singing, “Any hemisphere. No man’s land. Ain’t no asylum here. King Solomon he never lived round here.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“The Clash,” she says.

“Clash of the Titans?” Harryhausen was a genius with stop motion, but I don’t recognize the lines as being from any of his films.

She gives me a funny look. “You don’t listen to music much, do you?”

“Only what Justin brings over. He’s my friend.”

She digs in her backpack. “I kinda figured that.” She pulls out a bright yellow cassette walkman. She extends the earphones as far as they’ll go and stretches them over both our heads, one side on her right ear, the other on my left. Then she hits play and I hear a tune similar to the one she was just singing.

I don’t hear the words at first because I’m distracted by the softness of Mira’s cheek up against mine. She’s bobbing her head to the music and our skin is rubbing. As I grow accustomed to the closeness, I hear the beat again. Then the tune. To my surprise, I like it. Then I hear the lyrics, and I’m not so sure.

There ain’t no need for ya. Go straight to Hell boys.

Go straight to Hell boys.

5

Logan is a whirlwind of confusion. I’m not sure how my parents can navigate through the terminals. But they do. And after checking our luggage and Dr. Clark’s massive amount of supplies—so much that he needed to get special permission to bring them—we’re on the plane and in the air.

I sit in a window seat, watching the East Coast pass below us as we head south. My mom and dad are sitting next to me and coax me into eating a small bag of peanuts and drinking a Sprite. I’d be worried if this was all I had to eat—the airline food is hideous—but I know Mom’s carry-on is full of food and drink. As my father’s photography assistant it’s her job to be prepared for anything, which includes my father’s voracious appetite.

About an hour into the flight, people become restless and a sort of musical chairs breaks out. Some people move to unoccupied rows, seeking solitude. Other people shift spots so they’re sitting next to friends or relatives they weren’t seated with. About five minutes into the shift, my parents are on their feet.

“I’m going to visit with Aimee,” mom says. “Your father needs to pee. Won’t be long.”

I shrug, not really caring where they’re going and turn my attention back to the view. I can no longer see the ocean. That’s right, our stop-over is in Texas. Then Peru. Then... As my thoughts turn to Antarctica, I feel my Dad return to his seat next to me. But something’s not right.

I sniff. The person next to me doesn’t smell like my Dad. I turn, expecting to see Mira, but it’s not her either. It’s Dr. Clark. He looks over at me, his dark hair ruffled in the back from leaning on his seat. And there is something odd about his eyes. Not the color, they’re a perfectly normal blue. It’s the tightness around the edges. He looks nervous.

I know I must, too, because he forces a smile. I return it with one I’m sure looks equally as awkward. He clears his throat. “Sorry,” he says. “I’m just excited to meet you.”

“Excited to meet me?” I’m honestly thrown by this.

“You are the modern equivalent of what I’ve spent most of my career searching for.”

“An Antarctican.”

He nods.

“That doesn’t make me special. If anything it makes me stranger than I already am.”

“Strange, my boy, is a good thing,” he says. And I can tell he’s not joking. “We live in a world of mediocrity, of settling for society’s norms. Anything outside of that is deemed strange. If you’re smart. If you’re creative. If you simply just want something different for your life. Of course, you’re all three of those, aren’t you?”

“So, I’m stranger than most?”

“Better than most,” he says with a wink.

I can tell he’s relaxing, which is good, because it’s helping me relax, too.

“We weren’t put on this Earth to be stagnant.”

I think about his word choice. Stagnant in the current context means a lack of progress. But when talking about the physical world it means things are going foul from standing still. It’s a loaded sentence. “So our brains will rot if we aren’t strange?”

“Precisely.” He laughs. I smile. This is going much better then when I fell on my face.

“But I’m not really different because I was born on Antarctica, am I?”

His smile fades some and I know the answer to my question. He thinks I am different. More so than makes any sense. “Why?” I ask, but then think, because he knows—he was there when I was born.

“There is so much about Antarctica we don’t know,” he says. “The vast majority of the continent, which is the size of the United States, is buried beneath the ice. What little is exposed has been all but scoured clean by the katabatic winds.”

Katabatic winds are created when gravity pulls dense air down a slope from higher elevations. Since Antarctica is essentially a big mound of snow, this is commonplace. The winds can reach speeds faster than any hurricane and a few of the people who have been lost on the continent disappeared into a cloud of rushing snow carried by the winds. Just one of the many dangers the continent offers visitors.

Hello and welcome to Antarctica, I think, try not to get killed!

“But we know people visited Antarctica, even lived on Antarctica, more than six thousand years ago.”

“The Piri Reis map,” I say.

He nods, growing excited. “Not only does the map show animals reminiscent of cattle and mink, it also shows other strange creatures and odd looking primates. Even a wall of some kind.”

“I’ve often wondered if those were just embellishments by the artist,” I admit.

“That is a possibility,” he says, “but I highly doubt it. The map’s details are better than any modern map, and it depicts the coast of an Antarctica free of ice. Given its geographic accuracy and the fact that the continent would have had to be ice free at the time, there is no reason to doubt that the land was populated. The map itself proves that ancient humans visited the continent.”

“Makes sense,” I say. “But that doesn’t make me any different.”

“You might change your mind when we get there,” he says. “There’s something magical about the place. And I think a little bit of that magic was instilled in you when you were born.”

Magic? I can’t believe a man like Merrill Clark would buy into such things. I can’t stop myself from asking. “You don’t believe in magic do you?”

“Not in the sense you’re thinking,” Dr. Clark says. “Not the hocus pocus, bunny-in-the-hat kind. I do believe in the supernatural. In God. But that’s not what I’m talking about either. It’s hard to describe. What I do know is that something truly strange happened when you were born. Something that still excites me when I think about it. Perhaps we’ll understand the science behind it someday, but—”

“You think it will happen again when I go back, don’t you?” I ask.

“Can’t say I haven’t considered the possibility. But you were on the continent for several weeks before it was safe to move you. The event never repeated itself, though the storm that eventually buried the station didn’t let up for years.”

His eyes drift to the seat in front of him. I can tell he’s remembering something. He snaps out of his thoughts and says, “The truth is, I hope nothing happens when you set foot on Antarctica.”

Like becoming overwhelmed by negative emotions and going on a killing spree, I think, but then I force the concern from my mind. This is the moment I have been waiting for. Clark knows everything my parents have hid from me. His memory is the safe I need to crack. “What happened?” I ask.

“You’ve heard, I’m sure. About the howling.”

I nod, but the look in my eyes betrays how little I actually know. I heard about the howling on two occasions, both at gatherings my parents hosted, from people whose memories of the past were diluted by alcohol at the time.

He chuckles. “Have they really not told you yet?”

My anger at my parents’ silence increases and my voice oozes frustration. “Dad says the only howling was my mother.”

He looks down the aisle in both directions and then leans in close. He’s clearly about to tell me something my parents wouldn’t want me to know. When he speaks, his eyes are wide and his voice is animated. “Well, I’m sure that’s all he could hear, but the rest of us...it was like a Viking war horn sounding from all around. I felt terrified when I heard it. Then the wind came. Tore the roof away from one of the research buildings. The wind carried snow so thick I couldn’t see more than a foot. It’s a miracle I made it back at all.”

“You were out in the storm?”

He’s quiet for a moment, lost in thought again. “I was,” he whispers. “I was. And I’m the only one who saw it.”

Saw what? I think, but he doesn’t give me time to ask.

“You know about the ice sheet breaking free?”

I dip my head down in a nod.

“I was there. When it broke. A flash of blue, like lightning contained in the ice, shot down the hill toward the ocean. When it reached the edge of the continent, where the ice floated on top of the ocean, the energy burst, dissipating suddenly. The crack of the ice was so loud it hurt my ears. The split spread to the horizon in both directions and then it was free, a six hundred square mile iceberg formed at the moment of your birth. The wind came just after that, then the snow. I was bedridden for days afterwards. Nearly lost a toe. I still have a ringing in my ears. I’ve never seen another storm like it since.” He fixes his eyes on mine. “How do you think you got your name?”

“Solomon?”

“Ull, the god of winter. You descended on Antarctica that day and brought your storm with you.” He gives me a smile. “Don’t let your father fool you. He knows everything I’ve told you is true.”

“You think that’s why they named me, Ull?”

“I have no doubt.”

“Why?”

He laughs at this. “Because I gave you the name.”

This has me stunned. Dr. Merrill Clark named me? Ull, the god of winter. It sounds unbelievable, but now that I’m thinking about it, it makes too much sense. My father has very little interest in ancient cultures, religions or history in general. He’s more concerned with capturing the here and now on film. But Dr. Clark, he’s an anthropologist who has written extensively on the ancient religions of the world, including the Norse gods. He’s telling the truth.

The insanity of all this has me shaken. For a moment, I understand why Mom and Dad kept all this from me. It’s so...unbelievable. So strange, even for me. If not for my experience with the Antarctic stone in my father’s safe, I might have discounted everything Clark said. But if it’s true...

I shake my head. Though I have a thousand more questions, I feel overwhelmed and need to process what I’ve heard. So I whittle my queries down to one and ask, “My parents kept this from me my whole life. Why are you telling me now?”

“To prepare you.”

“For what?”

“In case it happens again.”

6

I spend the next two flights getting to know Merrill, Aimee and Mira in a kind of round robin rotation where everyone switches seats and either strikes up a new conversation or continues an unfinished one. I’m sitting with Mira now, and it’s dark, so she’s sleeping, but I’m wide awake. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been more awake in my life.

Not only am I on a small plane over a very, very cold ocean between Peru and Antarctica, not only am I sitting next to a girl whose presence still has me feeling funny, not only am I going home to Antarctica, but I’m now also afraid that the whole continent will explode beneath my feet the moment I step down from the plane.

I’ve had sixteen conversations since my first with Dr. Clark and not one could distract me from his account of my birth. So much so that I can’t remember long portions of those conversations. Me, the kid with the perfect memory, can’t remember! I must have tuned them out entirely.

For a moment I worry if I made a bad impression somewhere along the way. Maybe I stared dumbfounded while someone spoke? Maybe I drooled like I was in some kind of vegetative state?

According to the kids at school, that’s what I look like all the time, so I decide not to worry about it.

A yawn grips my body. When it lets go, I’m exhausted. I look around the cabin. Mira isn’t the only one asleep. Aimee and my parents are too. The only one who’s not is Merrill. He’s staring out his window.

I wonder what he’s looking at. It’s dark outside, so there shouldn’t be much of a view, and he’s looking down, not up, so he can’t be looking at the moon. He’s suddenly aware of me. He motions toward my window. He wants me to look. But Mira has the shade drawn.

I look back to Merrill. He’s insistent so I know there’s something worth seeing, and I know he won’t mind that I have to lean over his daughter to look. I reach over and raise the shade. Darkness fills the window. Just like I thought.

I lean forward, trying not wake Mira, but her nappy hair has exploded into a blond pompom around her head that is impossible to avoid. I pause, expecting her to wake up, but she remains asleep. I press my face against the window and look toward the front of the plane. At first I see nothing, but then, with my eyes adjusted to the dark, a wall of white emerges. Antarctica is just ahead, glowing in the moonlight like a continent-sized ghost. Beyond the sheet of white, an arc of dark blue fills the sky. The day is coming.

I’m dazzled by the sight for a moment. Until my fears return. Then I feel like I’m going to puke. I feel the same way when I go to the dentist. I sit in the chair, eyeing the room for any signs of drills or needles. If I see them, well, the physical reaction is severe.

Thankfully, I’m distracted by Mira, who has just stretched herself awake and in doing so has wrapped her arms around me. She pulls me down, bringing my face just inches from hers. My heart is pounding. Is she going to kiss me? I’ve never kissed a girl! Dr. Clark is probably watching! But...her eyes are closed. Then they’re open, looking into mine, growing wide.

“Hello,” she says, sounding confused and embarrassed. Then she notices her arms around me. She lets go and looks positively panic stricken.

“Hi,” I say.

“What...happened?”

“I was looking out the window,” I say. I’ve managed to pull my face away from hers, but am still too frozen to move away. “I think you grabbed me when you stretched.”

“Mmm,” she says, looking at the window.

I can tell she doesn’t want to talk about it anymore so I change the subject. “We’re almost there. Look for yourself.”

She moves to the window and I force myself to sit back in my seat. As I’m sitting, I glance back at Dr. Clark expecting to see a father’s glare. Instead he’s still staring out his own window. This eases my anxiety some, but the adrenaline flowing through my body as a result of almost being kissed will take some time to dissipate. I look at Mira, noticing her very full lips. Perhaps a long time to dissipate.

The “Fasten Your Seatbelts” sign glows red and the captain’s voice booms from the intercom. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are making our final approach to Williams Field, Antarctica. Please return your seats to their upright position and fasten your seatbelts. If you were smart enough to unpack your winter gear, put it on now. You’re going to want it when we open the doors.”

Everyone is awake now. Putting up their seats. Buckling their seatbelts. Rubbing their eyes. But no one is putting on any snow gear. I wonder if the captain knew this and was trying to be funny.

I feel the plane bank and then descend. I look past Mira. Through the window I see flat, white ice. The stars are just barely visible in the now navy blue sky. Morning on Antarctica.

The landing is smooth despite the runway being nothing more than densely packed snow. I wonder if the whole runway will break free and float away when I step on it. Even if it did, that wouldn’t matter much. The whole runway sits atop a sheet of ice that moves inexorably over and into eighteen hundred feet of ocean. Just a few years ago, in 1985, they had to relocate the entire airfield to its current location. As long as the frozen conveyor belt continues to slide away from the continent, they’ll have to move the airfield every fifteen years or so.

The plane comes to a stop and the captain enters the cabin. He’s dressed in snow pants and a white parka. “Listen up folks. It’s cold out there. Colder than many of you will have felt in your entire lives. There’s a transport waiting for you outside. They’ll take you to Willy Town while we unload your equipment. Gear up at Willy Town and visit the galley for your first taste of Antarctican cuisine. Any questions?”

No one has any.

The captain turns to the outer hatch and looks back at us. “Just do me a favor and don’t stand around in the cold. No one likes cutting off fingers, but we have to do it occasionally.”

The door clanks open. A burst of air and snow slams into the cabin but then quickly abates. A lot of people make loud “brrr” sounds and start rubbing their arms. I head for the door.

The captain gives me a once over. I’m dressed in black pants and a black turtleneck. As I realize my hair is floating around my head thanks to a buildup of head-rest static, I expect the captain to make an Andy Warhol joke, but this man is sinister. He aims below the belt.

“This isn’t a beatnik poetry session,” he says. “Get in the heated cab and bring a coat next time.”

What he doesn’t know is that I have a coat. I’m sure my mother is fishing it out right now. But I can’t wait. And I want to do this on my own. If something happens, I don’t want anyone to see it. I don’t want anyone to be in striking distance, either.

I nod to the captain and head outside. A burst of Antarctican air hits me before I’m halfway down the steps. I breathe it in. I let it out. My muscles relax. A smile creeps onto my face.

I stop at the last step, looking at the packed ice just ten inches away. I move to step on it slowly, as I would ice that was a half inch thick, but am bumped from behind by one of the other passengers I did not meet.

“Are you nuts?” the woman says as she rushes past me, headed for the Sno-Cat transport waiting ten feet away.

I lose my balance and fall forward, landing hard on my feet.

Nothing happens.

I wait.

Still nothing.

More people are rushing past now.

Relief floods my system, further relaxing me. Maybe Clark was wrong about me? Maybe my parents had nothing to hide?

Then I look up at the plane and see Dr. Clark. He’s looking out the window at me, a big grin on his face. Nothing happened, I think, so what’s he so excited about?

Another passenger rushes by, this one dressed in a thick coat, but just as chilled as the others.

That’s when I realize what Dr. Clark has already figured out.

I’m not cold. Not at all.

7

The next day is so rushed and chaotic I rarely have a chance to remember I’m on Antarctica. It’s more like a snow camp for adults. I spend the first half of the day in a distracted stupor, trying to figure out how I seem to be immune to temperature changes. I know I felt cold at home. I remember feeling hot on the plane. But here, where I should be shivering with everyone else, I feel nothing beyond a comfortable warmth I peg around seventy degrees. With no explanations forthcoming, and no chance to discuss the development with Dr. Clark, I set my mind to my surroundings, and I absorb what I can of Antarctica.

There are more people than I expected. A few hundred populate Willy Town. At the center of the town are a few large, but moveable, buildings. Surrounding the buildings are rows of large metal shipping containers that store supplies, serve as homes and utterly devastate the landscape. The rows of bright red, green, orange and yellow look like the Breakout video game I used to play on my Atari.

After everyone is dressed, we shuffle from building to building, suffering through hours of briefings on weather, safety and schedules. Even Dr. Clark, who has spent more hours on the continent than most, must endure the endless lectures. The one interesting bit of news I learn is that my family is an official part of the Clark expedition, at least temporarily. We’re not here as tourists. None of these people are. We’re here to work, or at least that’s what everyone has been told. By the time we’re done, most people have warmed up, but now everyone is hungry and night is beginning to fall.

When given the option to eat food from our supplies or visit Willy Field Tavern, both my parents vote emphatically for the tavern. This comes as a surprise to me. In my lifetime I’ve never seen either of them take a drink. And they certainly haven’t gone to any bars. But they seem eager to visit the tavern and become slightly jovial as we maneuver through the Jujubes-colored maze.

We arrive at the tavern five minutes later. The white building sports angled walls and looks like it could fall over with the slightest shift of the ice. Two metal supports on the side validate this concern. But my parents and the Clarks all enter without pause, so I follow.

The inside is like something out of a movie— Bob’s Country Bunker from The Blues Brothers. A real cowboy establishment. Even has horns mounted on the wall. Fluorescent beer signs adorn the walls and a thick cloud of cigarette smoke hangs in the air. I try not to cough, but can’t stop it. Mira is coughing now too. She gives me a look of disgust, apparently as unimpressed as I am.

As our parents lead us to the back of the establishment, I scan the room. Most of the patrons are men—large hairy men wearing thick, brightly colored, full-body snow suits. The few women in the room are surrounded by men, many of whom are staring at my mother.

I suddenly feel hot. I had yet to feel any kind of temperature change since our arrival, but now my cheeks are burning up. It’s not the air, though, it’s my emotions. An uncommon rage has struck me. I glare at one of the men eyeing my mom and catch his attention. I’m not sure what my face looks like, but the man actually turns away.

That’s when I notice more than a few people are looking at me. You’d think Mira, with her dark skin and light hair would attract more attention. Even the bartender is glaring now. He’s just standing there, rubbing a glass clean like it’s covered in sap, staring at me. One man, sporting a long white beard, sits in what appears to be a barber shop chair. When he sees me, he starts spinning the chair. With every rotation he meets my eyes again.

My anger fades rapidly, replaced by fear. These people strike me as wild. Some seem positively unhinged. Then I remember that there are no real laws on Antarctica. This isn’t the United States. There is no sovereignty here. Well, some would say I have sovereignty here, but I don’t think that would go over well with this lot.

We sit in a booth at the back of the room where a vent in the ceiling holds the smoke cloud at bay. It’s a tight fit, but the six of us manage, with the Clarks on one side, my family on the other.

“Kinda creepy in here,” Mira says to me.

I look out at the room and several people look away. “Very,” I say.

“What’ll it be,” Dr. Clark says, “Penguin Club or Salisbury Seal?”

I glance down at the menu. Sure enough, normal meats have been replaced with the Antarctican equivalent. Penguin is no doubt chicken. Seal is beef. The fish, well, that’s probably fish. “Penguin,” I say without missing a beat.

“Attaboy,” Dr. Clark says with something sounding so close to pride that I second guess my assessment of the menu.

The waiter, who also happens to be the bartender, appears at my side. He looks down at me while he speaks to the group. “What can I git for ya?” His voice is deep and rough. His accent southern, maybe Louisianan.

Dr. Clark and my father place the orders. The man seems to be keeping one eye on the pad of paper he’s writing on and the other on me. He stabs his pen onto the pad as he finishes, takes one step away and then stops. He turns back to the table.

“You look familiar,” he says.

“We were here thirteen years ago,” my father says. “Several years in a row. Ate here more than a few times.”

“Wasn’t talkin’ a you,” the man says, then looks at Merrill, who is about to speak. “Or you.”

He’s talking about me. As I grow nervous my mind plays through several rapid-fire scenarios, most of them ending with this man and several customers beating me to a pulp. My body tenses. Beneath the table, I feel my fingers tightening like they did that day in the living room. Like I have claws.

What’s wrong with me?

“You been here before?” the man asks.

“No,” I answer quickly, wishing the man would leave so we can eat and leave the smoke filled tavern.

He grunts, still looking at me.

My father, who seems nonplussed by the situation, nudges me. He hasn’t said a word, but I quickly understand what he’s telling me. I have been here before. But I don’t feel like talking about that for some reason.

Mira, on the other hand, does. “He was born here.”

The man’s eyes widen, and when they do I can see that one of his eyes is glass. He hadn’t been looking at me while he wrote. This calms me some, despite the grossness of his lazy, fake eye. He stares down at me for a moment. “Over at Clark Station?”

“Yes,” Dr. Clark says with a big smile, clearly happy that the man remembers me after all this time. “I’m Dr. Clark.”

But the man pays him no attention. “You going to be here long?”

The question is directed at me. I’m not sure if he’s talking about the tavern, Willy Town or the continent. With a shaky voice, I answer, “We’re staying the night in town and heading out in the morning.” I don’t say where we’re going because I’m not sure.

The man grunts, heads back toward the bar and says over his shoulder, “Welcome home, Ull.”

Everyone at the table is stunned to silence. Then Mom is smiling and laughing. “I had no idea they’d remember you!”

“First and only child born on the continent,” Dad says. “Probably hard to forget.”

All four adults are talking now, but I don’t hear what they’re saying. I’m still rooted to my seat, gripping the edges with my fingers. The rest of the tavern has fallen silent, all eyes on me.

Mira has noticed as well. She surveys the room and turns back to me. She looks nervous. In her fear, I find strength. I meet the eyes of those looking at me and nod my head in acknowledgement. This seems to break the spell and everyone returns to their business—eating, drinking, carousing.

Mira has seen the change in my body language and shoots me a look. I’m not sure where the will to face down a tavern full of the world’s thickest, hairiest men, came from. I can’t stare down a golden retriever. But I did. I give her a smile and she returns it.

I pull out an imaginary notepad and start writing on it with an imaginary pen, “Note to self, girls like it when boys stare down freaky old drunk people.”

Mira laughs out loud. A moment later, I feel her foot touching mine. This would normally cause me to flinch away or excuse myself to the bathroom, but I don’t move it. I allow the connection to be made. It’s subtle and our skin is separated by multiple layers of socks and boots. But we both feel the pressure and for a thirteen year old boy and a twelve year old girl, this is a significant step. I think. I’ve actually never done this before.

I smile back at her. In a matter of minutes I’ve managed to speak to the freakiest man I’ve ever met, stare down a room of drunks who all seem to know who I am and initiate physical contact with a girl that I now suspect will kiss me before I leave this continent. I’m changing, I think. And while I’m not sure where my newfound confidence is coming from, I like it.

8

It’s morning and I’m lying on my back, staring at the bare plywood ceiling five feet above my head. I’m in the top bunk of a fairly uncomfortable double-decker bed. Dr. Clark and my dad slept on cots. My mom and Aimee share a bunk bed across the room. Mira is sleeping below me. I’ve been lying here all night, thinking about the people in the tavern, about the bartender calling me Ull, about what the day will bring. For the second night in a row, I spent the last eight hours with my eyes open. How many hours have I been awake? I wonder.

“Forty-eight,” I say to myself.

I’ve had trouble sleeping before, but nothing like this. And it’s not even my horrible thoughts that are keeping me awake. I’m simply not tired.

I slide out of my sleeping bag and dangle my feet over the edge. My mom is wrapped up in her sleeping bag, still wearing her parka. Aimee too. Dad is buried beneath his blankets. I have no idea what he’s wearing. Dr. Clark is sound asleep. Looks to be dressed in a thick sweater. I look down at my legs. I’m wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt. I shed my outer layers last night. I wasn’t hot, just itchy.

I should get dressed before Mom sees me, I think. She wouldn’t be happy to see me dressed like this. And I don’t want her to know I’m not cold. She’d probably think I had a tumor and catch the next flight home. Since it hasn’t come up, I don’t think Dr. Clark has told my parents yet. He probably knows they’d send me home, too. Besides, if they can keep secrets from me for thirteen years, I’m entitled to keep a few of my own.

I can’t see Mira, but I know she’s asleep because she snores. They all snore. Even if I was tired, I doubt I’d have slept through the noise, any more than I could sleep with a pack of squealing pigs.

The ladder leading to my top bunk squeaks like a tortured lab rat. Using it will only wake everyone up. Without thinking I push off the bed and fall to the floor. I land on my toes, bend at the knees and stop in a crouching position next to Mira, who has a red-hooded sweatshirt up over her head. The agility and silence of my leap brings a smile to my face.

Like a ninja! I think.

I gather my clothes and tiptoe to the open space by the door. The room’s only window is on the door. I can see dirty snow on the ground, a bright blue metal shipping container, and a frozen puddle of something foul that can only be vomit. A sense of frustration builds quickly. This is not the Antarctica I came to see.

Before I know what I’m doing, I’m opening the door and stepping outside. I breathe deep. The air is fresh. The sun, just peeking over the horizon, makes me smile. But it’s not enough. I need to—

A hand on my shoulder startles me.

Dr. Clark steps around me, fully dressed for frigid conditions, but still hopping up and down, rubbing his arms. Steam pours from his nose and mouth with each breath. I exhale hard and see nothing. Dr. Clark notices, too, but says nothing about it.

“Spoke to a few people last night,” he says. “Seems you’re something of a legend around here. More than a few stories about your birth have been shared around the fire on cold nights over the past thirteen years. And there are a lot of cold nights here. A few people—the ones with functioning brains—are happy to see you back. The others, not so much. If we weren’t heading out to Clark Station Two today, we might even have trouble on our hands.”

I’ve heard everything he said, but the only thing that really registers is ‘Clark Station Two’. Before I can ask about it, Dr. Clark continues.

He steps in close. “The point is, put on some clothes.” He shoves a jacket into my hands. “If anyone saw you out here like this, like it’s the middle of the summer, there would be no doubting the stories of your birth.”

“I thought I should be proud of being strange,” I say, sounding a bit more obtuse than I meant to.

Dr. Clark looks both ways quickly like we’re dealing drugs. “Not. Here. People disappear all the time on Antarctica and no one questions why. People get lost in whiteouts. Drunks get buried in snow. It happens. If these people decide a sneeze from you could sever this ice shelf and carry them all into the ocean...”

He doesn’t have to finish. I know what he’s saying. I could disappear.

“You would find me,” I say.

He takes my shoulders in his hands. “Solomon, listen. When people go missing in Antarctica, they’re usually not found. If they are, they’re frozen solid.”

“But that can’t happen to me.”

His voice gets louder. “You’ll be as stiff as the rest of them if you’ve got a knife in your back.”

This gets my attention. I’m looking both ways now, too.

“You’re changing. We both know it. I saw you jump down from the bed just now. You didn’t make a sound. You were in complete control of your body.”

This fills me with pride.

“I also saw you fall at my house. I’d never seen a more clumsy kid.”

This turns my eyes to the ground. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t want you to be embarrassed, but if I have to embarrass you now to keep you alive, I will.”

I nod, convinced.

But too late. I sense movement to the side. I suck in a panicked breath and turn. But Dr. Clark has sensed it too. He steps closer, obscuring my body with his. He pulls open the door and shoves me inside. The door slams shut as I fall to the floor. I land in a heap, still holding my clothes and the coat Dr. Clark gave me. I look up into the eyes of my mother, father, Aimee and Mira. The way they’re looking at me, like I’ve just stepped out of a flying saucer, tells me everything Dr. Clark said is true.

I start shaking like I’m freezing. “I—I forgot where I was,” I say. “Went outside.”

My father shakes his head and pulls me to my feet. “That’s our Schwartz.”

Not any more, I think.

9

The ride to Clark Station Two is long. Nearly two hundred miles. We’re traveling at a steady twenty miles per hour. If we don’t stop we’ll make it there in ten hours, and that’s assuming there are no mountains or fissures in the way. That’s a full day’s drive in a cramped Sno-Cat cabin. There are four cats in our train, each carrying people and supplies. Each is driven by a member of Clark’s research team, who arrived a month earlier to oversee the construction of Clark Station Two. Dr. Clark said, “They’re the brawn to our brains.” I like that—our brains. The woman behind the wheel of my Cat is named Collette. She has the same hourglass figure as my mom, but is twice as thick and nearly a foot taller. She’s also twice as loud and likes to tell jokes I’m certain my parents wouldn’t appreciate.

But my parents aren’t here. They’re in one of the other Cats catching up with an old friend named Steve Wright. Seems he was part of the original expedition too, but like my parents and the Clarks, had a child—a son named for his father—and hasn’t been back since. Steve said he didn’t invite his son along because he felt the trip would be too dangerous but then quickly explained that his son was something of a risk taker. “He’d get himself killed on this continent,” the man said.

My thoughts drift to the real reason behind our visit to Antarctica, revealed to me just before our Sno-Cat journey began. Clark Station Two was built for the express purpose of an anthropological excavation not far from Clark Station One.

Before being forced to abandon Clark Station One, Dr. Clark had found what he believed was the remnants of an ancient wall protruding from the ice. It could turn out to be a random pile of stones, but Dr. Clark felt certain there was more to it. And if he was right...if he was right it would redefine the way we think about the world. A human civilization would have lived on Antarctica before it was frozen over, perhaps before the continent was located at the South Pole. What excited me most about this idea was that it would mean I really did have some kind of geographic ancestry—that I wasn’t the first and only Antarctican. The idea fascinated me, and I hoped Dr. Clark would make the discovery during the month my family would be part of the team. A month is hardly enough time, I think. I’d prefer to stay here for much longer, maybe forever, continuing Dr. Clark’s work.

A loud laugh from Collette snaps me out of my reverie.

Sitting next to the jovial woman is Mira. She’s in the front seat, so there won’t be any toe touching going on, but I now find her to be a calming presence. In fact, I’m looking forward to exploring and documenting our discoveries together.

Actually, the closer we get to Clark Station Two, the calmer I get. My eyes close a few times, but I don’t want to miss the views. I force myself up into a sitting position. Collette has finished her newest joke, something about a horse, and it must have been especially rude because Mira is just smiling uncomfortably.

This seems like a good time to change the subject, so I ask, “How far is the new Clark Station from the first one?”

Collette gives a quick half turn of her head, looking back at me like she forgot I was here. “The boy speaks!”

Now that she mentions it, I realize I haven’t really said much of anything in the past three hours. Not that she’s given anyone a chance to speak. But I don’t recall laughing at her jokes, either.

When she realizes I’m not going to take the bait and offer myself up for teasing, she asks, “What’s your interest in the first Clark Station? It’s nothing but a sheet of white, just like the rest of this frozen desert.”

Despite my doubts about Collette’s intelligence, she has accurately described the climate here. The bitter cold saps all the moisture out of the air, turning it into snow or ice. This makes it one of the driest environments on Earth. And the coldest.

I see Mira about to reply and cut her off. “Just curious.” I can tell Collette has no knowledge of my birth or the strange events surrounding it. If the story has been kept from new additions to the crew, it must have been at Dr. Clark’s request. And he’d been right about keeping it quiet. “My parents worked there,” I add.

Mira is squinting at me, but then seems to understand. “My dad did, too...obviously, I guess.”

Collette gives Mira a look like she’s a pitiful wet cat. “Really,” she says, her voice oozing sarcasm.

I’m starting to not like Collette, but I press her for information. “So you haven’t been there?”

“I’ve been there, all right. Clark Station Two is only about five miles beyond Clark Station One. I’ve driven over the site more than a dozen times. Like I said, nothing but snow. Ain’t nothing left.”

“Nothing at all?” I say.

“Unless you’re some kind of physicist who can see things no one else can.”

“Well, we already knew you weren’t a physicist,” I say, immediately wondering if she’ll take insult at the comment. The look of horror on Mira’s face supports this concern.

But the thick woman guffaws. She holds up her hand. It’s hard to see as we bounce over a series of ice heaves, but the one detail I’m sure she wants me to see is hard to miss. Her hand is covered in grime and a layer of black sludge is trapped beneath her fingernails.

“A mechanic,” I say.

“Damn straight,” she replies, and then launches into a joke about blond mechanics.

I tune her out, thinking about what she said. But my exhaustion suddenly catches up with me. I feel myself lolling over like I’ve been drugged. I hear Collette’s loud voice fade like she’s walking away. Then nothing.

I dream of a jungle. It’s tropical and lush. The animal calls are like nothing I’ve heard before. Life surrounds me. I can’t see it, but I can sense it. Living, beating hearts. They’re getting closer. Hunting me. I long for home, for safety, but don’t know the way. The branches scratch me as I run, snagging my clothes, tearing my skin. The cries get louder. Closer. I feel heat on my neck. Something inside me changes with that heat. A sudden rage that spins me around to face my attackers. But I’m alone. That’s when I see it—a long gray building, like an airplane hangar. I recognize it immediately.

I sit up, eyes wide. Awake. Collette is quiet now. Mira is staring out the window. A rising panic grips me. We’re going to miss it! “Stop the Cat,” I say.

Collette snaps to attention, “We’re only a few miles away. If you have to pee, you can hold it.”

“I need to get out,” I say, my voice gravelly with either sleep or anger. I can’t tell which.

“Just let him out,” Mira says.

“Look, kid, I know that—”

“I’m going to throw up!” I shout. It’s a lie, but it gets the desired effect. Collette the mechanic would no doubt be in charge of detailing my lunch from the back seat. The Cat rumbles to a stop. I fling open the door with the desperation of someone who is truly about to puke. I jump to the ice, thrilled to be on my feet again, and run.

I don’t know exactly where I’m running, only that I’m drawn forward. I’m focused on the ice, but feel my gaze drawn upward. There are mountains in the distance. The sight of them stops me in my tracks. I’ve seen them before. Not just the range, but these exact mountains from a slightly—what should be imperceptible—different angle. About fifteen feet below.

I waste no time thinking about how I can sense the difference in angle. No one is that smart. Not even me. Instead, I fall to my knees and with bare hands, dig into the packed snow. I still can’t feel the cold, but I can feel pain. At first, my fingers sting, then they throb. I see streaks of blood in the hard snow, but don’t stop. I’m almost there, I’m almost—

A hand on my shoulder stops me. I turn to see my father looking down at me with worried eyes. “What are you doing?”

I’m breathing heavily. And I don’t have an answer.

“Where’s your coat?” he asks next. But then he’s looking beyond me, at the hole I dug. He takes a step back and I see the rest of our crew gathered around in a semi-circle, looking at the boy with no coat and bloody fingers. But my father’s not looking at me. I trace his line of vision back to my freshly dug hole and see a gray aberration just beneath the surface.

He kneels down and wipes the snow away. The metal surface is ribbed and slightly curved. He looks at me. “Is this?”

I nod. “Where I was born.”

I hear Collette asking “How did he know?” over and over.

“Sol, you shouldn’t—”

Something about the tone of his voice coupled with a surge of embarrassment sets me off. “Shouldn’t what!” I stand and face him, unleashing years of frustration over my hidden past. “You’re the one who hid this from me! You’re the one keeping secrets!”

To my surprise, and my father’s, I shove him. Hard.

He stumbles back. “Sol...”

I step toward him, bloody fists clenched. Collette is shouting something, her voice warbling like an injured turkey’s. I hear my mother’s voice, but not her words. “I opened your safe. I found the rock. Why didn’t you tell me what would happen.”

“What happened?” my father asks.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I shout again. The people standing around me become blurs. I can’t see anyone through my tears. My energy drains suddenly, and I fall to my knees. The world turns black.

As I fall, my father catches me and picks me up like I’m five years old again. I can feel him carry me back toward his Sno-Cat. I’m asleep before we get there and have no memory of the rest of the trip to Clark Station Two.

10

I wake up confused, not because I don’t remember where I am—I know exactly where I am—but because the noise of the place is unfamiliar. I feel like I’m in a subway station and somewhere in the dark, there’s a train barreling toward me. Shaking metal. Screeching. A deep resonating rumble that chatters the teeth.

But there is no train. I’m in a bed. There’s a wool blanket pulled up to my chin, but it’s not itchy. The room is small and formed from four metal walls and a metal ceiling. I’ve seen bread boxes with more style. There are no windows. A desk with a lamp on top is next to the bed. The lamp is the room’s only source of light, glowing a dull yellow.

A rumble rolls across the ceiling, like a wave of energy has coursed through it. Fear twists my gut. Is this my fault? Has the ice broken? I jump out of bed, steadying myself on the desk. Stumbling toward the door, I notice I’m fully dressed. I’m not wearing a coat, but I’ve got on insulated pants, full body long johns, a turtleneck and a sweater. I twist the door handle and give it a pull. The door opens and I hear a gentle ring somewhere, but don’t bother trying to figure it out. I need to find out what’s...happening.

I stop in the hallway and listen. I hear nothing. No storm. No shrieking metal. No subway car. The world has gone silent.

The hallway is long and lined with doors on either side like a college dorm. I’m sure my parents are behind one of these doors, but don’t want to risk walking in on a half-dressed Collette or someone else I have yet to meet. I find my feet and walk down the hall, careful not to make any noise.

The hall opens up to a large room that is one part kitchen, one part lounge. Lights triggered by motion sensors illuminate the room. There’s a counter-top, sink and fridge to my left; a TV and two couches to my right. A laptop sits closed on a desk. There’s a door directly across from the hallway. I head toward it, not knowing what’s on the other side.

The door is heavy and thick, but swings open with little effort. The short hallway beyond is lined with jackets and snow gear hanging from hooks. Each set of clothing is labeled with a name. I see mine down near the end.

I pause in front of my jacket, knowing it’s not necessary, but consider wearing it anyway.

No, I think, it will just get in the way.

Get in the way of what?

The door leading outside opens just as easily as the first door. I step out into the night and am dazzled by the stars above me. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many, even in the back woods of Maine. But there is an aberration in the sky. One of the stars is moving. It grows closer and I can focus on it, seeing it for its true self—a snowflake lit by the light pouring from the hallway behind me. I’ve left the door open.

I turn to close the door and notice the sky behind me. There are no stars. Every pinpoint of light in the sky to the south has been blotted out by something massive. The snowflake, I think.

That’s when I hear it. A tiny tick, like a grain of sand falling on a tile floor. I close my eyes and hold my breath. A moment of silence passes before I hear it again. Tick. Then again. Tick, tick.

It’s the snow. I can hear each flake as it lands on the ice.

I smile at the magic of it, of my home, and know I won’t be sleeping for the rest of the night. This is what I came for, I think. I want to experience this new world and up until this moment, I haven’t really. I’ve made a fool of myself. I’ve been feared. Maybe even threatened. And I’ve freaked out almost everyone I’ve met. Not that everything has been all bad. I consider all the Clarks to be my friends. Dr. Clark is a confidant and mentor. Aimee is a friend and emotional support. And Mira, well she might be all of the above and something more. I’m not sure how teenage courtship is done, but since I’m the only teenage boy within a three thousand mile radius, I think my chances are pretty good. Probably won’t be this good ever again.

Carpe diem, Schwartz, I think. Carpe diem.

I sense a presence behind me, but unlike so many other times in the past, I’m not frightened. I remember the jingling bell I heard. Dr. Clark no doubt rigged my door so the bell would sound when I left the room. Can’t have me walking around in the snow, can we?

I stand there, looking at the stars, waiting for him to give me a coat or tell me to go inside. But he does nothing. Must be looking at the stars, too, I think. This late at night, he must figure that no one will see me.

The tick, tick of the falling snow has picked up. “There’s a storm coming,” I say.

“You have no idea,” replies my visitor, but it’s not Dr. Clark. The voice is higher and wet.

I turn toward the voice, still not fearing it, then quickly realize I should. A flash of something red, hair maybe, and a streak of dirty flesh is all I see before something strikes me in the stomach and sends me sprawling back onto the ice. I climb to my knees, but the air has been knocked from my lungs. I suck in a breath, but all I manage is a wheeze.

The man laughs at me from the darkness. I can see the door ten feet away, but my attacker has disappeared into the night. I spin around, looking for him, knowing he’s going to attack again. But he’s invisible, he’s—behind me!

I duck low to the ground in a crouch, pivot around and lunge. I throw a punch that feels wild, but the solid impact I feel on my hand tells me I found my target. I see a large shape fall to the snow and pounce on it. One hand has a fist full of fabric, pulling the immobile form up. The other is raised high, ready to strike again.

I let out a roar that sounds something like an angry ape. Then I see her face.

Her face.

Aimee’s face.

The hatch opens and Dr. Clark’s silhouette fills the space. “Aimee!” he shouts, jumping to her side. As he lifts her head in his hands, I see her face, swelling and bloody. He turns to me. “What happened?”

But I’m speechless. I can’t fathom how to explain what happened, or why. I stand there, as frozen as the ice beneath my feet and for the first time since setting foot on Antarctica, I feel cold. Not my skin. My heart.

Dr. Clark’s eyes drift from mine to my clenched fist. He squints at it for a moment and then his eyes are wide and full of fear. He scoops Aimee up and carries her inside without saying another word. When he’s gone I look at my fist. It’s covered in blood.

Aimee’s blood.

11

“What happened?”

I’ve been asked that question twenty-two times by five different people in the past ten minutes. I suppose they keep asking because I have yet to give a good answer. I’m in shock, but mostly I’m worried sick. I just cold-clocked the person who welcomed me into this world with a smile.

The first thing I did after coming back inside was wash the blood off my hand. It wasn’t a matter of erasing the evidence. I had no intention of denying the truth...but I didn’t fully know the truth, either. Someone was out there. Someone attacked me. But telling them that—well, it will just make me look crazy.

Crazier.

Aimee is lying on a cot in the living area. Dr. Clark and my mother are tending to her. The rest of the crew stands around waiting like sentinels. Mira kneels by her mother’s side, her eyes wet and closed. Is she praying? I wonder. My father stands behind me, hands on my shoulders, but I’m not sure if he’s comforting me or restraining me.

Aimee moans and blinks for a moment, but doesn’t regain consciousness. Dr. Clark looks back at me, his face a mix of anger, sympathy and fear. As the rest of the eyes turn toward me I know the question is going to come again. “What happened?”

The tone of his voice tells me I better answer this time.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Don’t be sorry,” Dr. Clark says. “Be honest.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

He gives me a long hard stare. “I believe you.”

Some of my tension dissolves with those three words. I’m not sure why I assumed they would all treat me like some kind of untrustworthy criminal. They know me.

I take a deep breath and then spill my emotional guts. “There was someone else out there.”

Dr. Clark looks skeptical and I know why. He saw the blood on my hand and is wondering if I’m trying cast the blame on someone else. “I’m not saying I didn’t do this, I did.”

Collette gasps.

“But I didn’t know it was Aimee.” The next words are hard to say because even I know they sound ridiculous. “I was attacked.”

“In the middle of the Antarctic night?” Collette asks, her voice steeped in a thick tea of doubt. “Were any of you outside tonight?” she asks the crew.

The universal answer to this question is, “no,” of course. Even I know that, and I tell them so. “It wasn’t any of you.”

“Then who?” someone asks.

I meet Dr. Clark’s eyes once again. He seems to understand something unusual happened outside. For a moment, I think he’s trying to tell me not to speak, but write his expression off to confusion. “It was a man,” I say. “I think he had red hair. Long red hair. Maybe closer to maroon. And...and I’m not sure he was wearing clothes.”

“What a piece of work,” Collette says before letting out a laugh that lets me know she’s not buying a word of this. But I don’t care about what she thinks. I need Dr. Clark to believe me. I need Mira to believe me. And my parents. I can feel my father’s grip on my shoulders tightening. His anger is building with the ridiculousness of my story.

“I’m telling the truth,” I say, surprised that I’m standing up to the tank-sized woman. “Someone was out there. He punched me. Knocked me down. I thought Aimee was him.”

“Solomon...” the doubt in my father’s voice stings with betrayal. How could he believe I did this?

I try to shrug away from my father, but he holds me tight. “I’ve never hit anyone in my life.”

“Could’a fooled me,” Collette says. “She’s out for the count. Might have a concussion.”

“Is that true?” I say, a rising panic making me sick to my stomach.

“Most likely,” Dr. Clark says.

Before the interrogation can continue, the roof rumbles. I instantly remember the sounds I heard upon waking. I’d assumed it was part of a waking dream, but I’ve been awake for too long for that to be the case again. I know for sure when I see everyone in the room look up.

One of the crew, a man I haven’t met, dashes to the laptop. I can’t see the screen, but I’m sure he’s checking the weather. My suspicions are confirmed a moment later. “Holy hell. Wind speed is up to seventy miles per hour!”

The roof shakes again. Louder this time. “Eighty miles per hour!”

My dad takes his hands off my shoulders and enters the hallway leading outside. I hear the second door open a moment later and then quickly close. He returns a moment later, covered in snow.

“It’s a whiteout,” he says. “I couldn’t see more than a foot.”

“Where’d this come from?” someone asks. “There was nothing on the weather report.”

Dr. Clark and I share a glance. We’re both wondering the same thing. Is this my fault?

“This is Antarctica, folks,” Dr. Clark says. “This is the kind of thing we expect to happen.”

The roof shakes so hard I wonder if it’s going tear away.

“One forty!” shouts the man at the laptop.

Collette looks whiter than usual, her eyes locked on the roof. “This place wasn’t built to hold up to sustained winds of this force. If this keeps up we’ll—”

The lights go out.

Someone whispers, “Oh God.”

“What happened?”

While the panicked discussion continues, I listen. Beyond the voices and rumbling wind, something is different. It’s not a new sound. It’s a missing sound. “The generator is off,” I say. I’d heard the rumble of the generator when I woke and recognized the sound from our time in Willy Town.

“He’s right,” Collette says.

“Where is it?” I ask. “Can we get to it?”

“Backside of this building, between here and the lab. Has its own little hut. But no one can go out there right now. Between the snow and wind, you’d wind up frozen and lost in a matter of minutes.”

The discussion continues, but within the hushed cacophony of frightened voices I hear the only one that I want to.

“Merrill,” Aimee says.

“I’m here,” Dr. Clark says. “The power is out.”

“Merrill,” she repeats. “He was telling the truth.”

“What do you mean?”

“Solomon.” Her voice is harder to hear as I sneak away in the dark, but I hear my guilt cleared as I enter the hallway. “There was someone else out there.”

A flashlight blinks on.

“Hey, stop!” a voice shouts out.

But they’re too late to stop me. I’m already outside. I slam the outer hatch shut and walk into the storm. I hear the door open behind me. I’m only ten feet away, but I’m invisible. Through the howling wind I hear my father’s shouting voice. I’d like to stop and chew him out for not believing me, for not trusting me, with anything. But there’s no time. Without the generator there is no electricity, but there is also no heat. Within the hour those people inside will be popsicles.

I lift my bare hands up to my face where I can see them. The snow melts on contact as it hits me. I can feel the pressure of the wind, the sting of the whipping snowflakes, but not the cold. Having everyone I love freeze to death would be bad enough, but having to stay out here, waiting for rescue with their corpses...who could endure such a thing?

Tracing a hand along the outer wall of the bunk house I move to the back of the building. The snow is already half way to my knees. If it keeps up, Clark Station Two might be buried. I stop in my tracks. This is my fault. The station is going to be buried, just like the first one was! I double my effort, slogging through the snow. If we need to dig ourselves out in the morning, I want the heat running for as long as possible. Maybe we can make the metal building hot enough to melt the snow gathering on it?

I reach the end of the building and follow the wall around to the back. The building containing the generator must be nearby, but I can’t see a thing. I follow the back wall, scouring the area for any hints. That’s when I notice a stub of black just above the snow-line. I brush away the snow, finding a wire that leads down to the ice. After digging for a minute I find that it leads straight out and away from the bunk house.

I still can’t see it. I pause, recalling the stories of people getting lost in the snow, of death and limb amputation. But those people could feel the cold. I can’t. I could probably wait out the storm in a swimsuit and be no worse for wear.

I strike out into the snow, aiming myself along an imaginary line. Ten feet from the bunk house, I realize the wire could have turned in a different direction. I could be going the wrong way. If I don’t find it within thirty feet I’ll turn around and follow my foot prints back. But a quick glance back reveals my foot prints have been filled with snow or swept away by the wind.

There’s no turning back, I decide, and continue forward.

A clang rings out as I run into something solid. I hold my head with one hand and reach out with the other. It’s a metal wall covered with snow. If I hadn’t run into it, I would have never seen it. I follow the wall and find the door latched shut, but not locked.

I fumble around in the dark, looking for the generator. What I’ll do when I find it, I have no idea. I’m sure I can figure it out, but blindness will make the task more difficult. As I graze my hand across the wall, it strikes a hard, plastic, cylindrical object. My mind flashes with recognition as it falls to the floor. I bend down, searching for the flashlight. It’s at my feet, and happily, still works.

The beam is dim, but it’s enough to light the generator. Two things strike me right away. It’s unplugged from the circuit board that distributes the power to all the buildings at Clark Station Two. And the power is switched to “off.”

This was no accident caused by the storm.

The red haired man. He’s still here. He drew me out.

With my heart hammering, I focus on the task at hand. I go to work on the circuit breakers, turning them all off. The plug goes in next. Then I turn to the generator. It’s been running a while so it’s probably already primed. I switch it to “on” and give the cord a solid yank. The engine roars to life, healthy and strong. Then I’m back at the circuit breakers. The main goes on first, then one switch at a time, slowly restoring power to the system.

The last switch belongs to the generator shed itself. When I flip the switch the interior lights up so bright that I squint. With my eyes half closed, I barely make out the figure leaping out from behind the generator. He’s definitely naked, or close to it. His hair is red. His eyes, like mine, are squinted tight as if the light hurts, but he seems to have no trouble moving because he hits me a second later.

The snow outside breaks my fall, but once again I have trouble catching my breath. I expect him to press the attack, but he vanishes into the storm again.

Or has he? I sense something to my side and look for it. All I see is a wall of snow. But there’s a voice hidden in there. “We’ve been waiting a long time for you.”

For some reason, I don’t doubt or question what he says. “Who are you?”

“I’m who you will become.”

A blow to the side of my head sends me sprawling. I think about the pain and how much it must have hurt Aimee when I hit her. I roll over and try to sit up, but I’m pinned. I can’t see him, but I know the man is straddling my waist. His face resolves from the snow. His skin is white, whiter than mine if that’s possible, and opaque. Blue veins pulse just beneath the surface. His eyes are wide now, and dark. Nearly black. His smile reveals shattered and rotting teeth. I can’t see his body. It’s blocked by snow and the unnatural blood red dreadlocks dangling from his head.

When he speaks I smell his breath, like rotten ground beef. But the smell doesn’t bother me nearly as much as his words, “Time to go home.”

The pain from the first blow to my head quadruples with the second. I’m dazed now, nearly unconscious. I feel pressure around my ankles and a scraping on my back. He’s dragging me. After a few moments, the sky above me begins to clear. The storm is easing. For a moment I can see the stars overhead. But then the reality of my situation sets in—I’m being taken—and the night sky is blurred by my tears.

I hear my name being called in the distance. My father’s voice. Then my mother’s. Dr. Clark’s. Mira’s. They’re looking for me.

“Here,” I mumble.

Then the silhouette of my captor blots out the sky. I hear my name one more time, the voice as desperate as I feel. I open my mouth and fill my lungs to respond, but I never get the chance. I don’t feel the blow. I’m unconscious before the pain registers.

I awake—who knows how much later—and find myself underground.

Covered in blood and surrounded by bodies.

12

My foot rolls on a bone as I kick away from the bodies. There’s so many of them, I can’t make out what I’m seeing. It’s like someone decided to play a game of pick-up sticks with discarded bones. I fall backwards, landing on a lumpy mass. My hands are out, bracing against injury. Rubbery flesh breaks my fall, its coarse hair tickling between my fingers. I haven’t seen the body beneath me, but I know—somehow—that it’s dead.

Long dead.

This is little comfort, however. After finding my footing, I stand bolt upright. My chest heaves with each breath. Each draw of air is deep, but the oxygen isn’t getting to my head. I try breathing through my nose, and the rotten stench of old meat and something worse twists my stomach with the violence of a tornado. I drop to one knee, fighting a dry heave.

“Slow down,” I tell myself. “Breathe.”

I breathe through my mouth. I can taste the foul air, but I force each breath into my lungs, hold it and then let it out slowly. Just like I learned at soccer practice. I only lasted a few practices before giving up, but at least I came away with something. Calm down. Focus. Breathe.

My body settles. I’m no longer shaking. But when I look up I wonder if I’ve done something wrong. Stars blink in the darkness, like when you stand up too fast. But they’re not floating around. They’re just tiny points of light, like actual stars, but I get the feeling they’re a lot closer. The brightest of the light points are directly behind me, and to test my theory I reach out for them. My hand strikes a solid wall.

Stone.

The points of light are small glowing stones, crystals maybe. I’d be fascinated if I weren’t absolutely terrified.

My hand yanks away from the cool surface as though repulsed by a magnetic force. For the first time since waking, a rational thought enters my mind.

Where am I?

It’s a simple question. Finding the answer will give me focus. I turn my mind to the task while my body works the adrenaline out of its system.

The dull yellow stars behind me are large, perhaps the size of quarters. They wrap around in both directions, almost vanishing as they shrink with the distance. But I can see them surrounding me with a flow of tiny lights. There is no door. No escape.

I’m in a pit.

Full of bodies.

Long dead bodies, I remind myself as my breathing quickens. It’s like looking at the mummies in The Museum of Fine Arts. They can’t hurt you.

With my eyes better adjusted to the dim light, I crouch down to look at the bone I stepped on. What I see causes me to hold my breath, but I find myself calming down for two reasons. First, my mind is engaged, and like Spock, my emotions, which can overwhelm me, are being choked out. Second, the bones are not human.

The nearest limb looks like a femur, but it’s as thick as a cow’s and half the length. I try to picture an animal that would have such thick, short limbs, but nothing comes to mind.

I scan the field of bones. Most are similar in thickness and size, but many I can’t identify. Whatever these bones belonged to, I’m fairly certain they’re not human. In fact, they don’t belong to any creature I’ve ever seen before.

Remembering the soft flesh that broke my fall, I turn around and look down. If not for the clumps of rough red hair sticking out of the sheet of white skin, I might have mistaken it for a chunk of rug padding. The skin is thick, perhaps a half inch, and hasn’t decomposed at all despite the bones beneath it being free of flesh.

A scuff above me turns my head up as dirt and dust fall into my face. Someone is above me.

“Who’s there?” My voice echoes.

The only response I get is silence, which makes me angry. I’ve been beaten and kidnapped after all. “Hey! I know you’re there!”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

The sinister scrape of the voice makes my stomach muscles tighten. This is the man who took me.

“Why?” I ask through clenched teeth, determined not to show this man fear.

“Because...” I suspect his pause is for dramatic effect. When I feel the sudden urge to pee, I know it’s working. “...you’re not alone.”

I spin around, forgetting all about my bladder. I can’t see more than ten feet of body-strewn floor. Beyond that it’s just a sea of light flecks. If there is someone down here with me, I’ll never see them.

Then I do.

In the same way we detect distant objects moving in space, I see a body shifting to my left, blocking out the small lights.

“Who is it?” I whisper.

“Not a who,” answers the voice.

Not a who? Not a who!

“What am I supposed to do?” My whisper is urgent, hissing like the man’s voice.

“Survive. Escape.”

“How?”

“That’s up to you.” I hear him shuffling away from the edge. His voice fades as he speaks for the last time. “I will not see you again until you do.”

A rattle of bones turns my attention back to the sneaking shadow. My eyes widen. It’s no longer slinking to the side. It’s growing larger, blocking out more and more stars. That’s when I realize it’s not growing larger, it’s getting closer.

In the moment before it strikes, I hear it suck in a high pitched whistle of a breath. I duck down to pick up the thick bone that tripped me up. But it’s too late. The thing is upon me.

13

I scream.

I’m too terrified to do anything else. My hands are on my head. I’m pitched forward. My eyes are clenched shut. Every muscle in my body has gone tight, as though clutched in rigor.

It knocks me back and I spill into a pile of bones and old skin. But I feel no weight on top of me. No gnashing of teeth on my body. The thing has missed its tackle, striking a glancing blow as it passed, but nothing more. Perhaps because I bent down. Perhaps because it can’t see well in the dark. I don’t know. I don’t care.

I’m alive. For now.

And I don’t want to die.

But I’m certain I’m going to and the events of the past few months replay in my mind. I can’t stop it. I can’t control it. And in a flash, I’m back at the beginning. A moment later, my mind returns to the present. I’m still in the pit. Still waiting for death. But I feel different somehow.

My attention is drawn down. The thick bone is still in my hand. I stand, holding it at the ready like Hercules’s club or Thor’s hammer. What I wouldn’t give for an ounce of their strength right now.

But strength is something I lack. I can already feel my limbs growing weak from fright. If this fight doesn’t end quickly I’ll probably lie down and accept death like a deer in the jaws of a mountain lion. It always amazes me how quickly prey animals accept their fate once caught. Will I be any different?

The answer surprises me.

A shift of shadow to my left catches my eye. But this time the fear is drowned out by a rage I have felt before, a rage that now has an outlet. I lunge for the shadow, bone-club raised. The thing flinches back, surprised by my attack. My first swing misses, nearly spinning me around. But I follow it up with a backhand swing worthy of John McEnroe. The impact hurts my arm, but it lets me know I’ve hurt the thing, too.

The thing stumbles back, letting out a high pitched whine as it strikes the wall. I struggle to see it, but it’s backlit by the wall. I can, however, see its silhouette more clearly now. Its body is egg-shaped and maybe four feet tall, with short, thick legs. Its arms are almost comical—short stubs sticking out to either side as useless as a T-Rex’s tiny appendages. I feel emboldened by the thing’s size and awkward build. But I’ve underestimated its will to live. This thing doesn’t want to die as much as I don’t.

It lets out a shrill scream and charges again. I start to duck, but this time it doesn’t leap. Instead, it lowers its top half—I can’t see where the head begins or ends or if it even has a head—and plows into me like a battering ram. It lifts me off the ground and carries me ten feet before slamming me into a stone wall. I hear a crack as my head strikes, but I don’t lose consciousness. There’s too much adrenaline in my system for that to happen.

But when I open my eyes and look at the thing, I wish I had fallen unconscious. Then I wouldn’t have seen it. I wouldn’t be awake when it devoured me. But I am awake, staring into a set of jaws that looks like it belongs to a great white shark—rows of serrated triangular teeth set into a jaw that protrudes from the mouth. The entire top half of the creature, just above its pitiful arms, has opened up to take me in. I have no doubt I’ll be severed in half. I’ll spend my last living moments bleeding out in this thing’s gullet.

I can’t die like this.

“Get off of me!” I scream. My voice distracts the creature. Its jaws close slightly, revealing a pair of perfectly black eyes, like two eight balls jammed into the top of a killer Humpty Dumpty. Tufts of thick brown hair cover its milky skin.

I’ve seen this before. The remains of these creatures litter the cave floor. These things aren’t killing people here, they’re being killed. It wasn’t put here to kill me, I was put here to kill it.

“Get off me, I said!” I shout, further confusing the beast. I dive to the side, but it clamps down on my shirt—a red, white and blue flannel that looks much more patriotic than any piece of clothing should. I spin around and lose my balance. The shirt rips as I fall away. My hands stretch out to brace my fall and I plunge into a litter of bones—the bones of this thing’s kin. But my right hand catches on something sharp. A hot burn strikes my palm, followed by a warm gush of liquid over my wrist.

I’m bleeding.

And the thing can smell it. I hear its quick breaths, sniffing as a dog does. Then I hear the smacking of lips and then it moves again, closing in on me.

Ignoring the pain in my hand, I dig into bones and find the sharp object. Playing my fingers over it gently, I feel a large triangular tooth. Then another. And another. In my mind’s eye I can see its shape: a broken jawbone from one of these creatures. I find an end that has no teeth and grip it.

I’m back on my feet for only a moment before the creature charges again. But I’m ready for it. Whatever this thing is, it’s deadly, but it’s not smart enough to realize I would anticipate the same attack.

I step to the side and swing down. I feel an impact, and then a tug on my weapon as the teeth catch flesh. A sound like tearing paper fills the air and makes me sick to my stomach. I can’t see it, but I know I have just sliced open the creature’s back.

It whimpers and stops.

I step closer.

It steps away.

Some instinct I never knew I had tells me I’ve inflicted a mortal wound. The thing is dying. I see its form again as it nears the far wall—egg shaped body, tiny arms, squat legs, large eyes. And I recognize it for what it is. Not the species, the age.

It’s a baby.

I’ve just killed a baby.

As it mewls against the wall, each call weaker then the last, the jaw-weapon falls from my hand.

“No,” I whisper, falling to my knees. What kind of a sick world have I been brought to?

I want my mother.

I scream for her. “Mom!” I scream again and again, my voice growing hoarse. My face is wet with tears and snot. My body is wracked by sobs between each shout for my mother. My thoughts turn to my father. How awful he must feel now that I’m gone, knowing I disappeared while angry with him. Not only had he lied to me for thirteen years, but he also believed I was capable of hurting Aimee. He didn’t trust me. Never had. But I trusted him now. Was this what he was protecting me from? This thought strikes me like a fist and I long for my father’s presence. He could protect me. I yell for him next.

But he doesn’t come. He can’t hear me. He’ll never hear me again. How could he?

My voice fades to a whisper. Pain stabs my head with every beat of my heart. The pinpricks of light surrounding me are now blurry halos. In the quiet, I can no longer hear the ragged breathing of the young creature. Certain it’s dead, I weep again, mourning not just the death of this deformed thing that tried to eat me, but the death of something much more precious to me: my soul. As my body gives way to exhaustion, I slide down onto the stone floor, surrounded by bones and wonder, maybe that’s the point.

14

Three days have passed. At least I think it’s been three days. Feels like it anyway. But there really is no time down here. And my watch is missing, so I have no way to measure time other than to count it out in my head. But that kind of concentration is impossible with my stomach growling. That’s too mild a word. It feels like a rabid hamster with razor claws is loose in my gut. I’m being eaten alive from the inside out. My already skinny frame has lost several pounds.

But that’s not the worst of it. People can go without food for a good number of days, but not water. Three days is the max. I’m still alive because I haven’t sweated, I haven’t moved much at all. I considered drinking my own urine—it is sterile—but couldn’t bring myself to do it. I now regret that decision. My lips are starting to crack. My tongue is swollen and I feel a relentless fatigue.

I’m never going to get out of here.

Even if I were healthy, I couldn’t escape.

I checked all the walls; they’re fifteen feet tall all around. There are a few crevices and centimeter deep ledges that I’m sure a rock climber could use to scale toward freedom. But I’m a thirteen-year-old bookworm. I have trouble climbing the staircase at the Bunker Hill Monument in Boston. At my best I would be trapped here, and I’m currently at my worst, or quickly nearing it.

For a moment, I wish Justin were here with me. He’s the consummate preteen boy. MVP of the soccer team I quit. Manages trees like a monkey. I’m sure his ancestors were successful hunter-gatherers. Sure, my ancestors might have discovered fire or invented the wheel, but in a pit of doom I’d take his lineage any day. He’d have climbed out of this pit before the egg monster emerged from the shadows.

And I am seeing shadows now. Over the past three days my eyes have adjusted to the darkness more than I thought possible. I can see the walls of the pit around me, lit by the crystals. It’s still not quite enough to read by—not that I have a book—but seeing provides at least some comfort.

Thinking of Justin makes me homesick. I’m sure my parents are still searching for me. I’m sure Dr. Clark has told them about my inability to feel cold here. They still have hope. But I’m so far away.

Of course, this cavern could be only ten feet below Clark Station Two. It’s impossible to tell, but I feel a distance from the world that I can’t explain. I’m trapped in a dream. Or on another planet. Beyond reach.

In my heart I know it’s true. At the very least I’m out of earshot. I screamed my voice raw earlier. I don’t know if my throat has healed yet. I haven’t tried speaking. There’s no one to talk to, and I’m determined not to go mad talking to myself. What would a crazy person do down here? There are no pigeons to feed.

A smell tickles my nose.

The hamster in my stomach runs circles.

I smell meat. Cooking meat.

I don’t recognize it, but I would eat it. I would devour it.

I stand, fighting the ache in my legs, and smell the air. It’s divine. I wait there and count out ten minutes, hoping my captor doesn’t want me to die. He’ll bring me food, I tell myself. He needs me for something. He wants me to survive.

On my own.

The thought is mine, but I fight against it. There is no arguing, though. He wants me to survive. To escape, even. But without help. This is some kind of test. Like when I met Justin. After his mother escorted him to my backyard and asked if I would play with him, I brought him to a neighbor’s yard and had him scale a fifteen foot hunk of granite. I couldn’t do it myself, but he didn’t know that. I was in awe when he did it. And he was in awe at what I could do with LEGOs. It was a simple test: complete this task and we will be friends. Could this be something similar?

The hamster is in a rage. “Eat!” it shouts from within.

“Eat what?” I say aloud.

My voice is apparently healed.

As I spin around, looking for a meal that isn’t there, I see the limp silhouette of the egg-monster.

No, I think, but my legs are already carrying me toward it.

Before I see the thing, I smell it. The odor of decomposition turns my stomach, gagging the hamster momentarily. But then it returns, stronger then ever.

I reach out for the beast, regardless. Its flesh is rubbery and rough. I push, mouth watering with the expectation of feeling firm, potentially edible muscle. But the body gives like a water balloon. I wonder if its insides have liquefied, decomposing fully within itself in just three days. I confirm this theory when I push on the skin, and a thick black gel oozes from the wound I created. The substance slides slowly and then slips free, falling onto the back of my hand.

I yank back from it, disgusted. The smell hits me again, but this time it’s not the body that stinks—I’ve backed ten feet away—it’s my hand that reeks. I shake it, flinging the rotten jelly to the floor, coating stone and old bone alike. But I can’t remove it all. I take off my shirt, wipe my hand clean and wind up to throw the shirt to the top of the fifteen foot wall.

As the shirt flies away from me, I think better of discarding it and pinch the fabric just in time. I hold it out away from me and then discard it on the opposite end of the pit.

When I’m done, I’m struck by the fact that I’m back to square one.

The hamster is picking up speed.

The odor of cooking meat grows stronger.

Weakness washes over me.

But then something new joins the chorus of discomfort. A sound.

In all my time here, the only thing I’ve heard is myself. My breathing. My voice. My movements. Other than that, this place is more silent than anything I’ve ever experienced. So the wet slurp I hear now strikes my ears like a gunshot.

I spin, looking for the source, and find nothing. There is nothing around me, in the pit or atop the wall. The floor is stone.

Up, my subconscious whispers. Look up.

I have yet to see the ceiling of the cave. It is the one place that remains concealed by absolute darkness. But now something descends from above. It reminds me of an oversized drop of honey, pushed slowly from the bottle and stretching out. A giant teardrop.

But this does not look sweet. Slime drips from its sides. I can’t see its true color, but my imagination colors it mucus green. And it’s wriggling. From the inside. As it dangles just above the floor, I step closer.

Something moves within. I see the shape first, bulbous and stubby. Through the translucent skin I see distorted details—mottled flesh, a wide, sickly grinning mouth and closed eyes.

The two large eyes snap open. Black circles stare back at me. Only a foot of open space and a lettuce-thin sack separate the newly birthed egg-monster and me. It sees this just as easily as I do, and like me, it is hungry.

Its stubby arms claw at the sack, tearing it with small, but sharp claws. It’s like a giant sized clone of the hamster in my stomach.

That’s not entirely true. The hamster is on my side. And it, too, is clawing to get out.

As I turn and run, I know this fight will be different. The outcome may change. I may lose my life. But this time...this time we won’t just be trying to kill each other, we’ll be trying to eat each other.

I pick up my tooth-filled jawbone and spin around, facing the creature as it emerges from its womb.

15

My first mistake is assuming that this creature will act and react like the first. It doesn’t. While the first egg-monster charged like a bull, this one is intent on dizzying me. It runs in frantic circles, spiraling slowly toward me with each lap. A thick glob of drool stretches from its open, dagger-filled mouth. I’m positive it will switch directions at any moment, and by the time it does, I’ll probably be on the floor watching the room spin.

My second mistake is over-estimating my own abilities. The thing has been sprinting madly for only thirty seconds, but the jaw-saw (that’s what I’m calling my weapon) already feels heavy in my hand. My heart pounds from exertion and fear. I stumble around on weak legs, tracking its run.

I can’t keep it up. I’ve got maybe a minute of energy left. Probably less before I succumb to dizziness.

So I stop and catch my breath.

This seems to confuse the creature. Its next two circles maintain a ten foot radius.

I watch it run as my dizziness ebbs. Its stubby legs are ridiculous. To say the egg-monster is running isn’t accurate. Bobble’s the word. The ten-inch legs, which end in small two-digit feet, have no knees. Each step brings the leg out and around. Like I said, ridiculous.

Then it’s moving closer again. Only now I know exactly where it’s going to strike. I think I’ve got it outsmarted, and perhaps I did at one point, but I’ve already repeated mistake number two.

It lunges from behind, as expected, and I spin to greet it, raising the jaw-saw and swinging. But the weapon is heavy and my movement is at half speed. Rather than striking the beast with a row of razor sharp teeth, I biff it dully with my forearms.

My only consolation is that the movement saved my life. Rather than ending up inside the gaping shark-like jaws, it sideswipes me and sends me sprawling. The rough skin of the creature rubs against my arms as it passes, sheering off a few layers of my skin. But I hardly notice the burn. There is no time to consider it. The creature is arcing into another spiraling sprint.

I regain my feet, holding my weapon in both hands. It’s going to wear me down. Just standing now is a challenge.

Then it occurs to me that even though this creature has a different plan of attack than the first, it may be equally dull. It will try the same thing again. I’m sure of it. It will run circles, close in and then pounce from behind. Probably from the same optimal distance. Not that any of that will help me. I still won’t be able to spin and strike.

So I’ll just have to stop it before it gets that far.

I judge the distance between us.

Five rotations left.

I grip the jaw-saw like a baseball bat. I haven’t played since T-ball, but I remember the basics. Eye on the ball. Step into the swing. Follow through.

When it begins its fifth and final revolution, it passes within range. I shout, step forward and swing with all my remaining strength, which isn’t much, but I’m swinging into its run. Its own momentum should inflict most of the damage, I just need to get the jaw-saw there.

The blow is solid and sends a tingle up my arms. The jaw-saw is yanked from my hand. I turn to watch it go, hoping to see its teeth buried inside the beast. But they’re not. The egg-monster’s jaws have clamped down on my weapon.

The thing stops and gives the object in its mouth a few playful tosses, like a dog with a dead mouse, positioning my weapon across its own jaws. It turns to me, its black spherical eyes somehow conveying humor. Then it bites down. The jaw-saw shatters into three fragments. The two on the sides of its mouth spin away onto the bone littered floor. A giant black tongue pushes the third piece from its mouth, then works at the tiny fragments encased in its drool.

One bite, I think. That’s all it will take. One bite and I’m lunch.

I back away, but don’t watch my step. A bone trips me and sends me to the floor. As I scramble away on my hands and feet, the thing rises taller. Seeing me on my back triggers something in the creature. It knows I’m defenseless.

Flinging its short, straight legs into motion, the thing charges. Now it’s acting like its sibling. But it’s faster. More ferocious. It occurs to me, as the thing bears down on me, that the first egg-monster I faced had already been in the pit for who knows how long. It was already weakened. I think this one could fight all day without stopping.

Not that it will have to. The fight will be over in ten seconds—the time it will take it to reach me.

I reach out with my hands, searching for something with which to defend myself. My right hand grasps a long bone. I pull it out. It’s a human femur. I nearly drop it in disgust, but manage to hold onto it and thrust it out, hoping to channel Luke Skywalker’s Rancor-stopping technique.

In a flash I see the bone I’m holding enter the creature’s open maw. Then the jaws close. My eyes close, too, so I don’t see what happens next. But I hear it. And then feel it. A crunch and slurp of splitting flesh strikes my ears a moment before an intense pain jolts up my arm.

I scream as I’m struck and lifted. A moment later the back of my body and head strikes the solid wall of the pit. Spots of light dance in my vision for a moment and then fade. I wait for a second strike, for teeth to surround and sever my head.

But the attack has stopped. The pressure holding me against the wall is steady. The egg-monster has stopped moving. And then I see why.

The broken bone I jabbed into the creature’s mouth ended with a jagged, sharp tip. The creature’s own powerful jaws had shoved the bone up through its head and out its forehead. I can only assume it pierced whatever passed for a brain in the process.

But before it died, the beast’s jaws did their work, closing just enough to grip my arm in a death-vise. It could be worse. The bite could have easily severed the limb. The four quarter-inch-deep puncture wounds are insignificant by comparison. Of course, there is still the issue of freeing my arm from the jaws without filleting my skin.

The creature is heavy and hard to push, but it’s still on its feet, and once propped up, begins to fall backward, which is extremely painful for me since my arm is still clutched in its jaws. I move with it, hopping up onto its body, straddling it just below the lower jaw. The movement deepens the wounds and sends a fresh wash of pain through my body. I grunt, which sounds more like a primitive growl, and steady myself above the creature.

Its black eyes have fogged over. The black tongue dangles from the side of its partially opened mouth. My blood seeps over the gleaming white teeth and drips into the thing’s throat. For a moment I fear it will awaken and finish the job, but then I look again at the large bone sticking out of its head.

“You’re dead,” I tell it.

But it doesn’t reply.

“I’m going crazy,” I say. “But you? You’re dead.”

I plant my right foot against its upper jaw and push down. For a moment it doesn’t budge, but then slowly, the jaws separate. I was hoping the mouth would simply snap open and get the painful part over with, but no such luck. I can feel the teeth sliding slowly out of my flesh. A warm pulse of blood pours out. A snag and pull of serrated tooth on sinew follows, along with a stab of pain. The thirty seconds it takes to free my arm feels like thirty minutes.

But then I’m free and standing over the monster like Hercules himself. Wounded, but alive.

I stand still for a moment, my chest heaving with each breath. I’m changing, I think, and realize I have thought this before. It began when I arrived at Antarctica and I couldn’t feel the cold. My agility increased. Then my confidence. And now some hidden killer instinct has emerged. I’m not sure what this is, but it’s helping me adapt, physically and emotionally, to this harsh new life. So I’m thankful for it.

I look at my wounds. There are four of them. Assessments run through my mind: stitches, antibiotics, apply pressure. But I ignore them. Something else has my attention. The hamster in my gut had hidden while I was fighting for my life, but now that the deed is done and I’m still breathing, it’s back with a vengeance.

For a moment I consider finding the shirt I discarded and tying some clean strips around the wound, but now something else distracts me from the injury: a fragment of jaw-saw still holding three teeth. I move back to the carcass and kneel by one of the muscle-filled stubby legs.

My first cut is tentative.

The second goes deep.

By the third I’m lost in my hunger and sawing away.

Moments later, I’m eating.

I’m surviving.

For now. I have no idea what comes next.

16

After filling my belly, I weep.

Not from guilt over the horrors I’d seen and done. Not for the newborn monsters I’d slain, or even the one I’d eaten—I’ve had veal before and calves are infinitely more adorable than the egg-monsters. I understand survival of the fittest. In school I had been at the bottom of the food chain.

The killing doesn’t bother me. I’m far from a vegetarian and these things are hardly animals in my book. It is my unexpected response to these things that revolts me.

I didn’t notice at first. But as I cut and eat the flesh, and drink the life-giving blood, I become aware of a tightness in my cheeks. The kind you feel after going to a friend’s birthday where wearing a grin is as mandatory as the party hats.

I am smiling.

The meat is stringy and tough. It tastes unlike anything I’ve had before, but is decidedly raw—firm and slimy, like chunks of a rubber slug. But I am enjoying it. When my self-awareness returns—I don’t know when it checked out—I am horrified by what I find.

My t-shirt is blood-stained and beginning to dry. The coagulation clings to my chest. My cheeks and chin are saturated in blood and bits of flesh. I can feel my skin tightening as it dries. With no water to wash myself, I know the red stain will turn brown and flaky, only disappearing when my outer layers of skin fall away.

I see myself without a mirror. Feral and frightening. My hair dangles in front of my wet eyes. The blond hair has turned red at the end. I don’t remember getting my hair in the blood, but it is long and I don’t recall much of anything about my recent meal.

I move to stand and my stomach protests. I’m not sure I’ve ever eaten more. My gut, normally flat and skinny, is distended, but not from hunger like the Ethiopians on the news. My stomach is full of raw egg-monster. I’m like a lion that gorges and then rests in wait for the next meal.

Unable to move, I realize that’s exactly what I need to do, too. I’m not sure how long the carcass will keep. It’s cool in the pit, but the other body turned to a jelly filled sack within days. I might get one more meal out of it, but I’m not sure. I need to rest, I decide. And wait.

It was three days between hatchings, maybe four. It may be as many before my next meal arrives.

I feel I should cry again, thinking of these living newborns as meals to be slaughtered, but I don’t. It’s the way of things now. I have no choice in the matter. My tears dry as I fall asleep.

I dream of darkness.

Not total darkness. I sense a light source behind me and to the sides I see a fading blue. As I fight to move, I realize I’m swimming—clawing at the water. Below me is a face surrounded by a white veil. I close the distance. The veil is hair. The face is Mira’s.

I wake up.

Tears return, but I don’t embrace them. I stand and kick my foot angrily, stubbing a toe on a loose bone. I pick up the limb and throw it out of the pit. My stomach rumbles through the streams of tears. I’m hungry already? How long did I sleep? I have no way to know.

As I walk to the carcass, my stomach growls with expectation. The hamster has not yet risen, but I can feel him stirring.

I stop short of the slain creature. A puddle of fetid black slime surrounds it. The meat is useless to me. But how long did it take? How much time has passed? Not having all the answers is a new feeling for me and it roils my already fragile emotional state.

More tears come. “Stop crying,” I grumble at myself. The new, cold corner of my soul tells me no amount of tears can help me. The logic that I have always embraced tells me I will need the fluids. The recently released animal in me licks the salty tears from my cheeks as they pass—this seems mostly involuntary.

“Stop crying!” I scream. “You weak fool. You pitiful little thing!”

I choke out a single sob and then set my face into a stone-like gaze. The tears built up in my eyes drip free, but no more follow. Something in me has broken, or has been fixed. I suppose that’s a matter of perspective.

I vow to never shed a tear again. Not while I’m here. There is no room for those kinds of emotions. They’re a weakness. I squelch my sadness, homesickness, compassion and kindness. If they rule me here, I will die.

Free of these things, my thoughts clear and for the first time since waking up in the darkness, I ponder escape. I approach the wall and once again feel the rough, cracked surface. Only this time, I dig my fingers in and pull. To my surprise, I am able to lift myself off the ground. But only for a moment. My fingernails bend backward and I fall to the stone floor. The knob of some discarded limb digs into my leg. I stand and kick it away, ignoring the pain, and return to the wall.

My second attempt is no more successful. I’m not strong enough to climb out, but that can change. My fingernails aren’t thick enough, but that too can change. And if it can’t, my mind will come up with a solution my body can handle.

A slurping sounds from behind. I recognize it and spring into motion without hesitation. I no longer have the jaw-saw, but any sharp object will work. I pick up a humerus—human—but I’m unfazed by that detail. The knobby head of the bone shatters away when I smash it against the wall, leaving a jagged, but sharp tip behind.

It’s a short spear, but it will work.

I turn and see the egg-sack lowering from above. The thing inside has not yet begun moving. And I’m determined to never give it the chance. It goes against my sense of fairness, but my life isn’t exactly fair anymore, either. There are no rules here.

I rush the thing silently, knowing a battle-cry might startle it into action. Then I’m in the air, arms back and spring loaded. I thrust the bone forward, piercing the opaque sack and then the egg-monster within. The whole dangling thing shifts when I strike. It stretches out as I pull it to the ground and pin the now writhing creature to the floor. With a loud snap, the stretched material breaks open above my head.

As the broken tendril retracts into the darkness above me, a gush of fluid pours out. It washes over me, but I pay no attention to it. The creature beneath me has stopped moving. And I am hungry.

For a moment, some part of my mind thinks, I am lost, but the thought is quickly overwhelmed by, I am hungry.

As I tear away the gelatinous womb my smile returns.

This time, I welcome it.

17

Killing. Eating. Sleeping.

That sums up what my life has become. Days and hours have no meaning anymore so I can’t say how much time has passed. All I know is I kill an egg-monster, I eat egg-monster meat to the point of bursting and then I sleep. When I wake, I’m hungry again and it’s not long before the next hatchling arrives. This cycle leaves me very little time to focus on escape, and deviating from it could mean death.

I’m not sure how many times the cycle has repeated. I never do try to count. But there are many more bones in the pit than when I arrived.

During the small periods of time I have, mostly while eating, I think about escape. I have tried piling the bones, but the rounded surfaces can’t support my weight. I’ve tried fashioning a rope from strands of the egg monsters’ skin, but the flesh never truly dries and the knots binding them slip apart. And despite a thickening of my muscles, I have not yet been able to scale the walls, though I have lost a few fingernails in the effort.

Having just finished a meal, I burp and sit back, thinking about how much sweeter this egg-monster tasted. My father used to say that taste buds change. I always thought he was just saying that to get me to eat something I didn’t like, but maybe he was right? I may have acquired the taste for egg-monster steaks.

“Raw, please,” I say, grinning.

And no, thinking of my father didn’t make me sad. Not at all. As promised, I have not shed a tear.

As I pick my teeth with a bone shard, I see a splash of color peeking out from beneath some bones. It’s my shirt. Not my undershirt. I discarded that along with my pants when they became too thick and sticky with blood. This is the patriotic flannel I got rid of because it became fouled by the decomposed remains of an eggy. That hardly bothers me now, but I still feel no cold, so the shirt holds little interest.

As a shirt.

It could be used for something else entirely, I realize.

I can feel the meal making me drowsy. I know eating a lot of turkey doesn’t really make people tired. It’s the full stomach. And my stomach is certainly full. The effect of eating the egg-meat is like popping a sleeping pill. No matter how hard I fight, I’ll be asleep within ten minutes.

I have just enough time to grab the shirt and return to what has become my home—a ten foot radius of floor I keep free of bones and blood. I have lined the floor with the skins of several egg-monsters, and in the middle I have several stacked up. It’s nearly as comfortable as my bed back home.

I make it back to my bed with the shirt just in time. Seconds later I’m asleep. The process of waking, killing, eating and sleeping repeats several more times before my latest escape plan comes to fruition. I get a few minutes here and there to shred the fabric, select prime bones—they need to be strong and sharp. Finally I create my bindings and cinch them to my hands.

Having just awakened, I hold my hands up and look at the newly fashioned climbing claws inspired by Justin’s Ninja magazines. Eat your heart out, Michael Dudikoff. I have tied a filed down jaw fragment to both hands. Each contains three short, serrated triangular teeth that I’ve made sure can support my weight. They will do the job my fingernails have failed to do. But I’ve gone a step further. Atop each first joint knuckle is a longer, thinner tooth. When I make a fist, they stick out a full inch. A punch would inflict four puncture wounds. A swipe would be just deep enough to eviscerate and kill an egg-monster.

There will be no more looking for or losing weapons. I am the weapon now. And with my hands free, I can climb out of here with everything I need, which is nothing. My clothes are gone except for my brown flannel boxers and I tore those up the legs because they occasionally hindered my mobility. I’m sure I look like a teenaged Tarzan, but who’s going to see me down here? I got rid of my boots. They were heavy, slowed me down and made climbing all but impossible. My toes grip the stone much better and the soles of my feet have become leather thick. I can also move in silence.

I stare up at the fifteen foot wall and, for a moment, doubt what I’m about to try. Not because I think I’ll fail, but because for the first time, I think I’ll succeed. I’ve become comfortable here. The routine is comforting. I’m surviving. Above this wall...I have no idea what awaits me. I could just stay. But my curiosity is a force to be reckoned with and no matter how cold I have become inside, it will always be the force that guides my actions.

I place my hand against the wall, sliding it up until I find a lip with my fingertips. I raise my hand higher until I feel the teeth of my climbing claw slip into place. I repeat the process with my other hand, digging in a little bit higher. One of my feet goes next, finding a crack to wedge in. Then, with all three limbs I heave myself up.

I find a foothold first, then begin the search for the next handhold. When I’ve found it, I start on the other hand.

That’s when I hear the slurp.

An egg-monster is descending.

My stomach growls.

My hand pauses.

If my climb fails and I fall back down, the beast will be free and waiting. I consider leaping down and killing the thing before leaving, but I know that if I smell its blood, I will eat. And if I eat, I will sleep. And the will to escape might very well have left me by then. It has to be now. Or I’ll spend the rest of my life here.

The thing hits the stone floor with a wet splat. I can hear it tearing through the womb.

For a moment I can taste it and the long-silent hamster comes to life. I’m a slave to this hunger and that fact fills me with anger. I have sacrificed a lot to survive, to reach this point. I will not be a slave to this thing, this cycle.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. As I reach up to find the next hand-hold, I can hear the monster breathing now. Its awkward legs are stepping in circles. It’s hungry too, and no doubt smells my rank scent.

The teeth of my climbing claws bite into the stone and I rise higher. The movement betrays my position. The thing is coming for me and I’m not yet high enough to avoid its jaws.

I block out the oval-shaped human-eating Pac-Man pounding toward me and focus on the wall. I move with confidence, pushing and pulling, searching and finding. I feel a breeze on my foot as I pull it up. The creature has struck the wall just beneath me.

I pause, listening. The thing is not moving. The impact has either killed it or knocked it unconscious. I’m not sure which, but the smell of blood fills my nose a moment later. I feel my instincts pulling me away from the wall. Finish the kill! Eat the flesh! Sleep! The cycle beckons.

Then I feel the surface beneath my raised hand. The texture is no different than the wall, but it is deep. I reach as far as I can and know my hand has reached the top. I forget the egg-monster and ignore the hamster. Ten seconds later I’m standing on top of the fifteen foot wall that has been my prison.

I am free.

But the glory of escape is short-lived. A solid wall stretches out before me. I follow it around, finding a two foot deep ledge surrounding the pit. For a moment I think I am a prisoner once more. Then I see a spot of black on the far side. A tunnel. I run for it and soon find myself squatting in front of a small hole in the wall about three feet wide and perhaps two tall. But the size is not consistent. This was not a hewn out crawlspace. There are rises in the tiny space, and rocks.

A year before coming to Antarctica I went to Polar Caves in New Hampshire, with Justin and my parents. After the guide told me which hand-holds to take and how to twist my body, I easily maneuvered through the Lemon Squeeze. I imagine getting through this space will be similar. There is only one way through. Getting it wrong will send me back, or worse, leave me stuck.

I turn back to the pit, feeling its pull for me increasing. Then I smell something coming from the tunnel. Food. Cooked food. And I suddenly remember what I’ve been missing. I enter the tunnel without looking back, and as it turns out, without looking forward. Ten minutes into my own personal Lemon Squeeze and I’m stuck.

18

I will not cry.

Wedged tight inside Antarctica’s esophagus, I can feel my claustrophobia building. But I will not cry. I am stronger than that now. The last time I felt the world closing in around me was in the back seat of my parents’ car on the way to Logan airport. Escaping that predicament was as easy as shifting the luggage. The spot I’m in now presents a far greater challenge.

Without thinking, I pushed myself into a gap that was too small. I ignored the pressure on my chest and pushed onward, desperate for freedom. What I got was stuck. Both arms are wedged forward, pinned in front of me. They are useless for pulling, or pushing. So I won’t be going back the way I came. I can now recall clearly what I ignored before. A second branch off to the right, larger than the straight shot I chose.

Like the Orange Crush, I think. Too big or simply not brave enough, my father and mother always took the Orange Crush over the Lemon Squeeze at Polar Caves. It’s a slightly more roundabout path, but all that’s required to pass through is a simple crouch. This Lemon Squeeze had an Orange Crush alternative, and I failed to take it.

It’s a lesson, I think. Slow down. A mistake down here, whether pitted against an egg-monster or squeezing through a crevice, can be deadly. That’s when I realize that this must be part of the test too. Whoever took me is seeing if I’ll survive. It’s a test I’m meant to survive, but that doesn’t mean I can’t fail. Of course, things could be worse. Somehow I can still see, despite the absence of crystals in the walls here. The air is fresher. And I can hear something ahead. A swish of something—water, wind, something else—I don’t know.

But what really keeps me from panicking is the fact that I have a plan. I don’t like it, but it should work. The largest part of my body is my ribcage. Despite bulking up on egg-monster meat, my stomach is still slim and according to my mom, Vincent men have skinny butts. So if I can get my ribs through the small space, the rest of me can follow.

But that’s going to hurt.

A lot.

My ribs are partially compressed already, wedged in stone. As a result, my breaths are shallow and quick. Getting enough oxygen to stay conscious is an effort. If I hadn’t focused on the task I might have passed out already. Time is critical.

Unable to see behind me, I move my feet from side to side, bending them as close to my body as I can. Once I find purchase, they will provide the force I need to squeeze through. I find a good sized rise on the floor for my right foot and a crack in the wall big enough to slip my toes inside.

I breathe faster, hoping to increase the amount of oxygen in my system. It will soon be starved, but the effort simply taxes my body, so I stop. And rather than suck in a deep breath, I push it out. I force the air from my lungs, shrinking them down and reducing the pressure on my ribs. I know its time to move when I feel my back come away from the tight ceiling.

I push.

I slip forward.

The skin of my bare chest clings to the rough stone, slowing my progress. Each rib compresses as I move through the tiny space, bending near to breaking before popping through. If not for the stone grit gripping my skin, I would already be through.

I push harder.

A different kind of pain flashes into my mind. It’s not dull like the constant pressure. It’s sharp. And wet. The stone has opened a wound. The sudden pain causes me to suck in a breath.

It’s a mistake.

My chest expands quickly. The ribs currently in the stone’s grip bend, and then snap. This deeper welling of pain brings a scream from my mouth. Not of anguish, but of anger. I shove hard with my feet while the scream carries the air from my lungs. My body slips forward, the movement lubricated by my blood.

With a final pop of rib over stone, I launch from the stone orifice and land on my side. Despite the pain in my chest from both internal and external wounds, I laugh, which of course increases the pain. But this doesn’t bother me, because I’m moving again.

I choose my path more deliberately, backtrack when things get too tight and try multiple handhold arrangements before committing myself. I make remarkable time, slipping through the bowels of the South Pole like some kind of worm.

After rounding a tight corner, I stop when a breeze tickles my face. It’s wet and fresh. I ignore my learned caution and rush through the final stretch of tunnel. Then I’m free.

I’m in a cavern, perhaps forty feet across and twice as tall as it is wide. A waterfall pours down from the upper right, pooling in the middle and then disappearing down a hole on the left. A kind of tunnel vision overcomes me and I run for the swirling pool. Had I heeded the lessons learned in the cave—caution, patience, observation—I would have noted the cooling embers of a fire. I would have seen the packs of supplies. The tools. The meat hung to dry. More than that, I would have seen him.

Of course, he makes himself impossible to ignore. He allows me to reach the water, to cup it in my hands and raise it to my lips. Then he strikes. His arm goes around my throat and squeezes. The water flies from my hands as I reach up and take hold of his arm. My climbing claws stab into his flesh, creating six neat puncture wounds. But he shows no reaction. He simply squeezes tighter.

He drags me away from the water and tosses me away like I’m a bag of something vile.

The stone floor is unforgiving when I land on my broken ribs. I roll to ease the pain in my chest, but in doing so lay my back onto the still hot embers. I feel a sharp sting, and the sound of my sizzling skin is quickly drowned out by my scream. I roll off the fire, and still feeling the heat, I make for the water once more.

He strikes again. This time with both fists. He strikes my chest, knocking the air from my lungs and sending me flying over the extinguished fire. My back slaps against the smooth stone wall, pushing a stuck-on ember further in. The pain clouds my mind, but his message gets through—the water is off limits.

I brush the back of my hand over my back, freeing the hot ember and reducing the pain. As I catch my breath, I look at my foe, who has emerged from the shadows.

He is a man, and for that I am grateful. But he is unlike any man I have seen before. He’s hunched forward, concealing his height, which I place around six feet. He’s skinny. Skinnier than me. But he’s strong. His muscles are unbelievably defined and snaked with thick veins. A small piece of cloth covers his waist and groin, but he’s otherwise naked, like me. His body is remarkably clean and pale white, nearly translucent. His face and body are hairless, but his head holds thickly clumped, blood-red hair that hangs down to his shoulder. I’d seen the hair before, but up close, the feature that catches my attention is his face. It’s covered in wrinkles.

He’s an old man, I think.

I look at my climbing claws and think about how easy it was to use them against the egg-monsters. Could an old man be any harder? Something deep within revolts at the idea. He’s a human. They were food. Could I really just kill him?

I could, I think.

And he reads my mind.

“You may try once,” he says, his English perfect and proper, tinged with a British accent. But the sound is wet and rough. Barely human. He steps to the side, giving me a clear path around the burning embers. This makes no sense.

“You want me to kill you?” I ask.

“If you can kill me, you are already fit to take my place.”

Take his place? As what?

I don’t bother asking. To my surprise, I charge.

My hands are gripped into fists, the one inch teeth extending from my knuckles. I aim for his throat like I would the belly of an eggy. One slice. That’s all it would take. And the man who brought me to this hell-on-earth, the fiend who took me away from my parents and everyone else I care about, would be dead.

My fist cuts through the air, headed for the man’s neck. But it finds only empty space. The old man moves like lightning, sidestepping the attack and striking my back. I fall forward, landing half-way in the pool. Without thought, I gulp in a drink. The water is fresh and cold. The distraction nearly costs me my life.

A pounding pressure smashes into my back. The man is on top of me. I push against the pool floor, but find it slippery with algae. He grips my long hair and shoves me down. I shout and thrash, helpless in his hands. My lungs begin to burn. My broken ribs pulse with pain with each heartbeat.

As the urge to breathe becomes unbearable, I resign myself to my fate and stop fighting. My mind turns to the past, to those I’ve lost, but as the images take root, he pulls me up.

Sounding like a howler monkey, I breathe hard. Despite filling my lungs, each breath seems to have no effect. He drags me over the stone floor by my hair and shoves me into the corner.

I shiver, but not from the cold. Coming so close to death has broken some part of me that had yet to break. As my breathing evens out, I pull my legs to my chest and look at the floor, afraid to meet the eyes of my captor.

His feet approach and stop in front of me. The toe nails are thick and yellow. Possibly sharpened as well. By the way his lower legs bend, I can tell he’s squatting in front of me, but I don’t look up.

“You will stay in this corner until I tell you otherwise,” he said. “Understand?”

I nod.

He strikes my head. The pain is sharp, but doesn’t cause injury. “Speak your replies. Head nods do no good in the dark.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do not call me, sir,” he says, his voice even now.

I’m not sure what to call him, but I suspect the truth. “Master?”

He chuckles. “Were you lucky, that might be true. You will meet your master when you are ready.”

“What should I call you, then?”

I see his hand lower. He takes my chin and raises my head. My eyes meet his—dark black saucers surrounded by bloodshot white. He smiles a rotting grin. “You can call me Ninnis.”

19

“Sit,” Ninnis says. And I obey, settling down against the stone wall. We’ve been at this for some time. I recognize that he’s treating me like a dog, that he’s training me like a dog. The simple commands of sit, stay and come are the basics of canine obedience. I should be revolted by the idea, but I really don’t mind.

I’m fed once a day, sometimes after begging and always his leftovers. I’m not sure what it is I’m eating—it’s not egg-monster—but it’s cooked. He rations out my water, pouring it in a depression in the floor from which I sip it. My wounds are healing well, though I’ll have more than a few messy scars.

I contemplated escape only once. He was asleep, lying by the waterfall. I thought if I were quiet enough I might be able to dive into the river and let it pull me away. One step forward, just one, and I saw his muscles tense. He somehow sensed my movement. Or my thoughts. I’m not sure which.

But I wouldn’t do that now. I’m seeing things differently.

My time in the pit with the egg monsters made me strong and toughened me inside and out. My passage through the tunnel made me cautious and thoughtful. He is helping me. Preparing me. He spoke of my master, who I believe is also his master. He is acting under compulsion, but he’s also working hard to make sure I survive.

So I appreciate Ninnis. I listen to him. Without him I would be lost.

I sit in my spot while Ninnis prepares and cooks a limb of some creature. I’m not sure where it came from. I suspect he hunts while I sleep. The meat has a pungent odor, but my mouth waters nonetheless. I whine.

“Wait,” he says.

He turns the meat once, letting both sides cook. I watch the fat drip away and sizzle in the small fire fueled by the defecation of creatures I have yet to see. “Tell me about your father,” Ninnis asks.

This is the first time he has spoken to me aside from commands. I’m so taken aback that I fail to answer.

“Speak!” he shouts over his shoulder. Not answering now would result in a beating. I’ve endured four already, for various offenses. But they were necessary. I’m sure the lessons will save me some day.

I search for something to say about my father, but can’t think of anything. I try to imagine him so that I might describe his face. But all I see is a blur, as though the lens peering into my perfect memory has been smudged. I try to imagine my mother. The results are the same.

Ninnis is on his feet now, storming toward me. I tense for a beating, but he stops. In one hand he holds the roast meat, its juices dripping down over his hand and forearm. In the other hand, he holds a knife. I’ve seen the blade before. It’s very old. About five inches long and sporting an engraved wooden handle. I’ve only seen bits of the engraving, but I think it’s some kind of military insignia.

“Speak, boy!” Ninnis screams at me. “Can’t you remember your own father?”

“I—I can’t,” I say. “I’m trying to remember him, anything about him, but I can’t.”

Ninnis steps back, all hints of anger erased. “And your mother?”

“Nothing.”

“Stand,” he says.

I obey, casting my eyes to his feet like a subservient animal. He takes my hand and places his knife in it. When he lifts my hand, my eyes follow. The tip of the knife is placed over Ninnis’s heart. He lets go of my hand, leaving the blade in my control. “I want you to kill me,” he says.

I stare at the knife, which has already nicked his skin.

“Kill me,” he repeats.

It would be so easy. A quick thrust and I would be free. But like a lost dog, I would simply roam the underworld, unsure, hungry and longing for the one who keeps me safe and fed. I can’t kill Ninnis any more than I can kill myself.

“Ninnis, no!” I shout, dropping the knife and wrapping my arms around him.

He stands there with his arms out for a moment, then returns my embrace. I can’t see his face, but I know he’s smiling. After stepping back from me, Ninnis holds out the roast limb. “Your reward,” he says. “Come. Eat with me.”

A true smile creeps onto my face and I sit with him by the fire. The meat is tender and fatty. I eat with gusto, but do not fill my stomach. When I place the meat down and wrap it in skins as I’ve watched Ninnis do, he nods in approval. I have learned far more than obedience during my time here. Ninnis has modeled moderation and survival skills I will need. I know which stones will light a fire. I know which skins are best for water and which are best for meat. I know to keep clean and free of infection.

We live like subterranean Neanderthals for a time, getting to know each other—two men living off the land—like hunters. I enjoy this time of bonding, of camaraderie. Ninnis is as good a friend as I’ve ever had.

I sleep and dream of egg-monsters. They dance around me. They fall at my feet, worshiping me, chanting the name, “Nephil.”

The vision fades as I’m nudged awake. Ninnis stands above me, his belongings slung over his back in a bundle of skin. “Time to go,” he says. “There’s something I want to show you.”

I gather my things, bundling food, scooping water in a skin and donning my climbing claws (Ninnis was impressed by them, but only recently told me so). He leads me through a tight passage. It’s tall enough to stand in, but very narrow. On the other side, Ninnis says, “Keep track of the small spaces you see. Remember them and they will save your life.”

I nod, but am not sure what could threaten Ninnis’s life. He seems a King in this underground realm. The tunnel beyond the tight fissure is vast, carved out by the river that falls into what was our living space. Erosion has smoothed out the river bed, but a sea of boulders skirts the eight foot wide waterway. It’s over these giant stones that we travel. Crystals glitter from the cavern ceiling and from many of the boulders. Ninnis stays in the darkest parts of the tunnel. He’s following a path I think he has traveled many times in the past.

After several hours I realize that we have been heading steadily up, but it’s not until the first hint of daylight strikes me that I realize how far up we’re going. The distant light is really just a speck, but feels intense on my eyes.

“Here,” he says, holding something out to me. I take the strange thing and look at it for a moment. Then I remember what they are and what they’re for.

“Sunglasses,” I say.

“Got them from a gatherer.”

I stop. He hasn’t mentioned gatherers before. In fact, he has said very little of the world in which I now live. “A gatherer?”

“Later,” he says. “Put them on when the light becomes unbearable, but you will eventually have to operate in daylight without them.”

“We go outside?”

He nods. “Occasionally. If ordered.”

“Like when you got me?” I ask.

“Exactly.”

I follow him over a line of stones that looks like a ruined wall. “What are we called?”

He looks back at me, confused by the question. I explain. “If there are gatherers, then there must be names for everything else in this world.”

A smile stretches across his face. “You’re quick. I can see why they chose you, Ull.”

Ninnis has been calling me by my middle name all along. So much so that I’m not sure what my first or last name was. I know I had them, but like everything else down here, my memory of them is a fog. All that remains is Ull. And when Ninnis finally answers my question, I know why he chose to use that name.

“There are gatherers, warriors, seekers, feeders, breeders, thinkers, and us.”

I lean forward expectantly.

“The hunters.”

I smile wide. Ull, the Norse god of the hunt. This pleases me.

One hundred yards from the tunnel exit, I can no longer bear the light. I put on the sunglasses and find they only offer partial relief. Ninnis is squinting but requires no artificial aid. The exit is a small hole dug into a wall of blue ice. Through the tunnel is a circle of blue sky. The tunnel is horizontal, so I realize we must be high up. Inside a mountain perhaps.

Ninnis pauses by the exit and reaches into his pack. He pulls out a small device and holds it out to me. I take it and flip the copper cylinder in my hands. For a moment, I don’t recognize it. Then, in a flash, I do. I take hold of one end and pull. The telescope expands.

I think I’ve used one before. Maybe even had one of my own.

“You like it?” Ninnis asks.

“Very much.”

“Good.”

“It’s for me?”

Ninnis nods. “A gift.”

“For what?”

Ninnis chuckles like I’m silly for asking. “For your birthday, of course.”

Some part of my brain, perhaps the part in charge of numbers, isn’t totally blurred out and I think, I’ve been here for eleven months.

“How is that possible?” I ask.

He understands what I’m asking. To me, and possibly him, it feels like a month, two at the most, has passed.

“Time is different here,” he says. “Outside, time moves faster. For us, we only met weeks ago. In that time outside, several months have passed. If I were to tell you how long I have lived here, I might say ten years. But in the outside world, perhaps one hundred years have passed.

“You’re one hundred years old?” I ask, eyes wide.

Ninnis grins. “I was thirty-four when I arrived.”

“One hundred and thirty-four years old...How is that possible?”

“A gift that now belongs to you. Your body will age as though it were still in the outside world despite your perception of time being different. But your body will resist the deterioration of age with uncommon resilience.”

“And when I reach your age, I will train my replacement?”

Ninnis shakes his head. “From what I understand, you are to be the last hunter.”

“The last?”

“Destined for some greater purpose. You need not worry yourself with such things right now.” Ninnis takes my shoulder in his hand. He motions toward the tunnel. “Let’s go try out that spyglass, eh?”

20

It takes five minutes for my eyes to adjust to the light enough to see, even with the sunglasses on. Of course, it doesn’t help that the sky is nearly cloudless and most of Antarctica is covered in a sheet of sun-reflective white. I’d like nothing more than to retreat into my subterranean home, but Ninnis insists that I try out my birthday present.

The fact that it’s my birthday hardly seems deserving of mention or gift. It’s a tradition of the outside world, and I doubt I ever considered it a day of any significance. But I cannot deny the gift from Ninnis. Rejecting it would be an insult to the man who has given me so much already.

So I follow him over the snow-covered mountain. My bare feet sink into the white powder, disappearing beneath a foot of the stuff. It slows our progress, but we make it to our destination—a bare ledge—in good time.

Ninnis lies down on the gray stone, which is magically free of snow, and I take the spot next to him. Below us, the mountain stretches down, a long slope of white ending in a mixture of stone and snow. And this leads to a mixture of bright colors. Reds. Blues. Yellows. The colors make me sneer. They’re revolting. Like a blemish on the pure landscape. Beyond them is a long stretch of white that ends in a sliver of blue ocean.

Ninnis points toward the sea of bright colors. “What do you think?” He motions to the telescope. “Give it a try.”

I pop open the telescope and place it to my eye. The bright colors pop out as large metal boxes. Even uglier up close. Between the boxes are people, bundled in thick clothing. I observe them for several minutes, watching the lazy way they walk, the grime covering their hands and the gray snow beneath their feet. “Disgusting,” I say.

“Quite,” Ninnis agrees. “How do you feel?”

“Angry.”

“Why?”

I put no thought into the answer, speaking quickly and honestly. “I hate them.”

“Good,” Ninnis says. “Very good.”

A strong wind rolls down the mountain behind and over us. It scrapes away the top layer of snow and pelts our backs. The fast moving flakes sting my skin, but I’ve learned to deal with pain far greater than this.

Ninnis taps my arm. “I’m impressed.”

I turn to him. “With what?”

“Your resistance to the cold.”

I look at my skin. It’s pale white and like Ninnis’s, partially translucent. I can see the blue of my veins below. I turn my attention to Ninnis. His skin looks similar, but is pocked with goose bumps. He feels the cold. I decide to keep the fact that I feel nothing to myself. I don’t want Ninnis to think I’m strange. I don’t know why I fear that, but I do. He might stop being my friend.

“There,” he says, pointing beyond the blocks of color. “Quickly.”

I look through the spyglass and focus beyond the ugly city. A large airplane is parked on the ice. An airport, I think. The word sounds foreign in my mind, but I know what it means. A treaded vehicle pulls up to the staircase hanging down from the side of the plane. A line of people file out of the vehicle and rush up the stairs into the airplane. Weaklings.

The stream of people is followed by a final pair. They’re moving slower than the others, not worrying about the cold. Halfway to the staircase one of them stops. It’s a woman. I can tell by her shape. Brick house, I think, but I’m not entirely certain what it means so I keep it to myself.

The woman falls to her knees and is caught by the man. He holds her for a moment, while her body shakes. Crybaby. Then the man has her up and moving again.

“What do you think of them?” Ninnis asks, peering through a set of binoculars I did not see him take out.

“The man and woman?”

“Yes.”

I watch as the woman turns her face to the mountains as though looking for something. Her face is twisted, like she’s in pain, and for a moment I think she is looking right at me. Her gaze makes me uncomfortable, so I look at the man instead. He just looks sad, but unlike the woman seems resigned to whatever tragedy is making the woman weep. “Crybaby,” I say as a second wind rolls down the mountainside.

“Indeed,” he says. “Anything else?”

“I hope they all leave. This isn’t their home.”

“Very intuitive.”

“Who are they?” I ask.

“They came here to look for something.”

“Did they find it?”

“No.”

“Will they ever?” I’m not sure why I care whether they do or not, but I can’t help wondering.

“Never,” Ninnis replies with conviction. “It is lost to them forever.”

I watch them take the steps slowly and enter the plane. When they’re finally out of sight I feel restless. The need to get back underground overwhelms me. When I turn to Ninnis to ask about leaving, I find his head turned toward the sky.

I follow his eyes up and find the blue sky above us blotted out by a roiling storm cloud. “Where did that come from?” I ask.

“I was wondering the same thing.” He looks at me and is about to speak again, but a rumble we can both feel distracts him. He looks up. His eyes widen. Then he has my arm clutched in his hand. “Run, boy, run!”

I glance up as we backtrack toward the cave entrance. A wall of white is rolling down the mountainside. Avalanche, I think.

Faster than I thought possible, we’re back at the cave entrance. Ninnis motions me through. “Go!”

I dive in, sliding through the slippery tunnel with ease. Before I’m through I feel a wave of pressure pushing behind me. When I reach the cave and turn around to pull Ninnis through, I find him missing. The tunnel is sealed with packed snow. I dive into the tunnel and crawl to its end. I pummel and scrape the fresh cork of snow. But it is packed tight. Not even the sharp tips of my climbing claws can break through.

Ninnis is gone.

My friend is gone.

I mourn his loss for only a moment—sadness results in death—Ninnis taught me that, and then I turn to the tunnel leading back down into the heart of the mountain, and beyond that perhaps, the heart of Antarctica itself. I take a tentative step forward, the first tingle of fear taking root. I have no idea what waits for me in the dark, nor how to reach my unknown master. I am lost without my guide but—no.

I am not afraid.

I have survived worse.

Ninnis told me I was a hunter. Like him.

I glance down at my claws. I feel the weight of my pack and the supplies it contains. I am ready.

It’s time to hunt.

21

There are twenty-one small fissures in the walls of the underground river tunnel. These are the nooks and crannies I think I can fit through, but just barely. Fifteen more are tunnels I can crawl through easily, though I don’t know whether or not they shrink or expand later on. I suppose that’s true with all of them. Each could taper off to nothing.

Have patience, I tell myself. Explore each tunnel. Become as familiar with this place as Ninnis.

Three tunnels are tall enough for me to walk through, perhaps eight feet tall. Only one really counts as a branching cavern. It’s a stone’s throw away from the bottom of the river tunnel, where Ninnis and I first entered from our waterfall hideaway. It’s close to thirty feet tall. What’s strangest about it is that it seems to be the most worn tunnel. Many stones are crushed flat. The floor in the center is worn smooth, as though well-traveled. This seems like the most likely avenue to reach the ones Ninnis spoke of. Also the most likely place to find something to hunt.

Walking alone in the sparse dark space of the new cavern, I find myself relaxing, feeling right at home. I have a sense of having been here before. An uncommon familiarity. But I know I’ve never been here before. While I can’t see my past clearly anymore, I sense it wasn’t here. Or was it? Some parts of my memory—very old images—remain less fogged. I suspect because they are memories of Antarctica, perhaps of some significant event.

I focus on recalling this memory. Something about it feels important. Before I can recall anything with clarity, I hear a sound. It’s a gentle scraping, amplified by the echoing tunnel.

Crouching low, I advance. Boulders on the side of the tunnel conceal my approach. I move in silence like Ninnis taught me, keeping three limbs in contact with the stone at all times. Stealth and balance are keys to a successful hunt.

A scent tickles my nose. I suck it in slowly, tasting it. I cannot recognize the specific origin of the odor, but I know it’s blood. A fresh kill. I move closer. The scraping is just on the other side of a tall, obelisk-like stone. I chance a look.

My head pokes into view for the briefest of moments. But in that time I’m able to take everything in. The fresh kill is a large albino centipede, perhaps the size of my arm. Ninnis cooked one once. I have come to enjoy a lot of questionable meals, but the centipede was one of the more revolting. Even Ninnis cringed at its flavor.

The creature atop the death-coiled centipede must lack taste buds entirely, because its head is buried beneath the white exoskeleton shaking back and forth feverishly, devouring the slick insides with abandon. As for the predator, I’m not sure what it is. It’s hunched over, so I can only guess its true height, but it appears to be five feet long with two feet of tail and another two of neck. Its torso is about the size of a cocker spaniel. Its hind legs smack of ostrich, but the claws on its three toes are infinitely sharper. Its forelimbs are short, but dexterous, tipped with tiny hands that grip the centipede carcass. Shiny green skin, perhaps scaled, covers most of the body except for the back, where it is patterned with splotches of maroon. Though I fight the conclusion—it’s beyond imagining—I can’t help thinking that this is a small dinosaur.

How can I see all this? I wonder. I know there is no light here, but I can make out details like this without problem. I’ll have to ask Ninnis. But Ninnis is dead. A question for another time, then.

Right now, it’s time to hunt.

The creature doesn’t see, hear or smell me coming. With its head buried inside the centipede’s gullet, its fate is sealed. Perhaps if the ground was less firm, a vibration from one of my footfalls might give me away. But the cave floor is solid rock.

I approach it from behind, arms tense. My plan is simple and according to Ninnis, the safest way to make a kill. Attack from behind, slice the neck and then retreat while the prey bleeds out. “Many denizens of the underground are equipped with sharp claws and teeth,” Ninnis told me. “And most thrash wildly about as their life comes to a close. Best to distance yourself until the life goes out of them.”

One quick, deep cut and then retreat. The whole attack should take seconds.

But I never get that far.

I hear breathing.

Not mine. Not my prey’s. It’s deep, like the lungs of a large horse.

You fool, I say to myself. Following Ninnis’s advice on hunting is no good unless I also follow his rules on survival. I paid attention to my prey, but not the world around us. I took its size for granted, assuming it was full grown and never once considering it might be the young of something larger.

Less than a day since Ninnis departed this world and I’m about to join him. He had so much faith in me. I shake my head, determined not to let him down.

I turn to face the new threat while the baby finishes its meal, oblivious to what is going on behind it.

A face stares at me from the shadows, hanging low over a boulder. I can’t see its body, but I sense it is tense, coiled and ready to pounce. The face is colored green, like the baby’s and sports a ruddy splotch shaped like an arrow on its snout, which tapers up from two large nostrils and ends with a large crest behind the eyes. And those eyes hold my attention. Two yellow orbs with black serpentine slits stare back at me.

I hold my breath when the head slides forward, emerging from the shadows. A long neck follows, then two short arms. I call them short, despite each being longer than my arms, but in comparison to its body, which is massive, the arms are disproportionate. I see two crouched hind legs in the darkness and hear its tail swishing back and forth like an agitated cat’s.

Aim for the eyes, I think as it stops only a few feet from my face. It sniffs, taking in my scent with deep breaths. It leans closer, nudging my shoulder as it smells...my hair?

The thing, which is without doubt a living dinosaur, snaps its head back like it’s been slapped in the face. The dinosaur turns its head up and opens its mouth, revealing two rows of needle-sharp teeth, and calls out two quick barks.

Two distant barks reply.

Then four more even further away.

There are more of these things! Many more!

As it brings its head back down, I have no doubt the dinosaur will pounce, so I make the first move. I swing out with an open palm thinking wax on, but not recalling the reference. The tips of my climbing claws dig into the beast’s forehead, cutting the flesh until striking the thick bone of its eyebrow and glancing away.

It’s a paltry distraction, but it’s enough.

With a roar, it lifts its head for a moment.

When it lowers again, I am off and running.

Like the young dinosaur, I can’t hear anything as my rushing blood courses past my ears. I suspect it runs as silently as I do, too, because despite the thing’s size (I’d guess twenty feet from snout to the tip of its tail) I still can’t feel any vibrations beneath my feet. I’m breathing too hard to smell anything. And like my mother says, I don’t have eyes in the back of my head.

My mother?

The distraction nearly costs me my life.

The river saves it.

I hit the water and fall down as the dinosaur’s jaws snap shut above me. The water sweeps me away. As the water pushes me downstream and pummels me into stones, I get a look back. The dinosaur has not given up the chase. It pounds through the water behind me.

I see three small tunnels rush by. Each would have provided refuge from the ancient predator. The tunnel ends up ahead and I see the crevice that leads to the waterfall hideaway. I swim for shore, but the current is too strong, and the river bottom is too polished to get my footing.

I pass my salvation in a blur before being sucked underwater. The river tunnel ends in a whirlpool before descending deeper. I’m pulled into it, spinning madly. I can’t see. I can’t breathe. And the pain of my head striking something hard registers for only a moment. As consciousness fades, I think, did I remember my mother? The question is answered by darkness.

22

I regain consciousness underwater. My lungs burn. My head throbs. And all around me, the water rushes. But I don’t panic. I have come closer to drowning and do not fear it. Again, thanks to Ninnis.

Just as I decide to swim with the current, turning my body forward, the river falls out from under me. As I flip, head over heels, I see snapshots of the river, now an endless waterfall, turning into a broad, fine mist next to me. I see water far below, frothing with white where the waterfall meets it. This water stretches out and away further than I can see, but there is a shoreline to the left and something else. Something large.

I focus on the approaching water. I vaguely remember hearing about someone jumping off a bridge into water to kill himself. I’ll reach terminal velocity—one hundred twenty miles per hour—in about fifteen seconds. At that speed the water will feel like solid stone. I’ve been falling for six seconds.

Ten seconds into the fall, there is no more time to calculate. I strike the water, feet first (this saves my life) and plunge deep under water. The impact doesn’t kill me or break any bones, but it does fog my mind nearly to the point of unconsciousness. I must have forgotten to breathe while falling because my lungs scream for air. I know the surface must be near, but in the weightless dark I don’t know which way is up and with my lungs empty, I lack the buoyancy to float.

I’ll float just fine once my dead body fills with gas, I think.

I swim. I have no choice. But I choose the wrong direction. When my head strikes the hard bottom, I know this for sure. Spots dance in my vision, possibly from lack of oxygen, possibly from the impact. Either way, I’m disoriented.

My body fails me, going limp. My mouth is close to opening. My vision fades. I slide to the bottom, which now feels like a soft cushion and use the last of my energy to clutch my mouth shut. I feel water rushing over me, pulling my hair over my face. And then, once again, darkness claims me.

I open my eyes and see a rock cut so perfectly at a ninety degree angle that I know it’s manmade. This thought keeps me from closing my eyes again, despite how badly I want to. I’m battered from head to toe. My lungs hurt. Muscles I didn’t know I had cry out in pain. But the carved stone is a mystery my mind cannot ignore.

After squeezing my eyes shut a few times, I can focus beyond what lies right in front of me. I twist my head, turning it down an incline of several more angled cuts. A massive staircase. Each step is four feet deep and just as tall. The stone steps descend into what I can only describe as a lake. It reaches out to the dark horizon which sweeps up and over me, concealing the cavern ceiling that must be a half mile high. Maybe more.

I roll over, sit up and freeze. A pair of black eyes stares at me from the water. Unlike most of the monsters living underground, I recognize this one. It’s a Weddell seal with an unmistakable patchwork of dark brown and beige skin. Exactly how I can identify this creature, I can’t recall, but the only thing that makes me doubt its identity is that we’re far underground.

“How did you get here?” I ask it.

It responds by sliding back into the dark water.

Something about seeing it move triggers a faded memory. Not from my past. This one is recent. The soft bottom of the lake, where I should have drowned. The water rushing past. This out-of-place seal saved my life.

“Don’t go,” I say. As it slips away, I stand and hop down the steps and into the water. But it’s gone before I can reach it. It surfaces again, thirty feet out, rolling on the surface to catch a breath before diving back down. A smile creeps onto my face as eight more humps rise and fall. A family. It’s nice to know not everything in this subterranean world wants to eat me.

Before turning away, I see my dim reflection in the water. I haven’t seen my face in so long, I feel like I’m looking at a stranger. My skin is paper white. The blue around my pupils, which are open wide, has been reduced to a thin line of color. And my hair is streaked dark red. There appears to be as much blond hair as red, but...hasn’t it always been that way?

I tire of looking at my face and haul myself out of the water and onto the lowest step. I then set myself to the task of climbing the steep staircase. Eight steps in all. Thirty-two vertical feet. At the top, I need to stop and catch my breath. I bend over, hands on knees, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Did Ninnis teach me that?

When I stand upright I’m looking at something I would have never thought possible. The staircase is just the beginning of something huge. Something ancient. It can best be described as a temple complex. There are several small step pyramids surrounding a larger, spiraling tower, like a Sumerian ziggurat. Its top is concealed by darkness. Obelisks and statues line the streets, though many are broken. In fact, the place looks like it has been through a war. A few wars, really. The buildings are scarred with gouges and impact craters. A wall that once surrounded much of the site is now a crumbled pile of stones.

As I approach the ancient metropolis I am dwarfed by its scale. Like the four-foot steps, this place was made for, or by, giants. The only standing city gate must be sixty feet tall. The ruined walls, which looked small from a distance are still piled twenty feet high. How tall were they when they still stood? I now know how a mouse feels when it looks at a house. I could disappear inside this place. Hide like a rodent in the nooks and crannies.

I enter the temple court, walking through the massive gates feeling smaller than ever. And more exposed. I pause to get my bearings. I hold my breath and listen. A faint breeze is rolling over the temple from the lake. The air smells clean, like it does after a rainstorm. I see no hints of movement. I am alone, I think, which is good. Without my pack and climbing claws I am defenseless. In fact, I’d better find a weapon of some kind in this place. I will soon need to make a kill and eat.

As I round a black obelisk covered in circular symbols that look vaguely familiar, I come upon the most massive statue I can recall seeing. It’s like the Colossus of Rhodes, I think. But this giant isn’t standing guard over a harbor, or even looking out at the water. He sits atop a fallen obelisk, back rigid, head looking straight. I cannot see the face, only its back.

As I walk slowly closer, details resolve and something starts nagging at my subconscious. The statue has been painted in dull colors. Brown armor. Gray skin. Red hair covered by a Viking-esque helmet covered in what appear to be rows of upturned teeth that remind me of the dinosaur’s open jaws.

Red hair.

When my subconscious finally breaks through, it’s screaming.

Who builds a statue on a fallen obelisk!

I stop.

This is no statue.

The red hair is not painted.

This giant...is alive.

I take a nervous step back. My footing is firm. My step silent. I pause before stepping again, sensing a shift in the breeze. It’s now at my back. At his back, too. The movement is so subtle I almost miss it. The giant’s head cocked to the side.

For a moment I think my presence has gone unnoticed, but then see a twitch in the mammoth man’s calf muscle. He is shifting his weight to stand. Once on his feet, the giant would stand nearly twenty-five feet tall and could cover the distance between us in four strides.

Though I feel a tinge of shame for running once again, I see no alternative, and put my feet to the stone. Silence pursues me, but I suspect the thing is simply playing with me, giving me a head start. A moment later, my suspicion proves correct as the first thundering footfall gives chase.

I don’t look back as I pass back beneath the gate. My eyes are on what’s in front of me. A small section of cave wall to my right is essentially a dead end. To my left are the four foot steps. Even if I manage to make it to the steps and vault down them without twisting an ankle, what would I do then? Swim like the world’s slowest minnow. The giant would pluck me from the water.

I head for the wall, hoping for a crack in its surface. The ground beneath me shakes. Unlike the large dinosaur, this giant is heavy and far from light-footed. As he gets closer, the vibrations nearly knock me forward.

As I near the wall, its details leap out. I see two large cracks, but both are five feet from the cave floor. Getting inside would take time. And I don’t have any time to spare. In fact, I think the giant is right behind me.

Then why hasn’t he squashed me or picked me up? I wonder.

Not caring about the answer, I focus on the wall again and find my escape route. At the bottom of the wall is a horizontal crevice about a foot high and six feet wide. I can fit. And quickly.

A few feet from the wall, I dive forward and slide across the gritting stone floor. I ignore the pain as several wounds tear open on my chest and hands and pull myself into the wall. Just as my feet slide in behind me, a thunderous boom shakes the tunnel. I glance back to see the giant’s large, six-toed bare foot just behind me.

Was he trying to crush me? Or taunt me?

I pull myself deeper, caring more about escape than answers, but get my answer when the giant begins laughing. His voice is deep and rumbles through me. I can feel the pulsing laugh in my chest. It chases me into the darkness, stripping away my confidence and filling me with a fear that goes far beyond physical pain or death.

That thing...that man...was evil.

And I hope I’ll never see him again.

23

“You’re dead now,” I say to the small, arm-sized centipede. The thing had put up quite a fight, thrashing and trying to bite, but the rock in my hand proved too much for it in the end. I know now why the small dinosaur picked it for a meal—centipedes are stupid. It didn’t take too much effort to sneak up on the thing. If not for its hard shell, my first strike would have killed it. But its carapace was like a turtle shell and breaking through took four solid whacks.

Now the thing is leaking its white, cream cheese-like innards all over a boulder. The sight and smell of the thing makes me pause, but I haven’t eaten in days. I scoop some of the fleshy sludge up with my fingers. For a moment I wonder if it is poisonous.

No, I think, the dinosaur ate it.

Holding my breath, I put my hand in my mouth and scrape the stuff off with my teeth. I swallow quickly and repeat the process. The centipede tastes as bad as I thought it would, but it’s settling nicely in my stomach. When I’m done I rinse the taste out of my mouth at a small spring I found. The caves are covered in small springs and finding water is rarely a problem anymore. Food is a different problem, because food here either runs away or tries to eat me.

But I won’t need to eat again for at least another day, so I take some time to explore. Keeping track of where I’ve been is simple. My perfect memory, at least back to when I first came here, has assembled a three dimensional map of every place I’ve been. Today I’m determined to fill in a gap. Then I’ll have a three cubic mile territory memorized.

What bothers me about this gap is that I’m not sure what’s there. I haven’t seen the dinosaurs again, so maybe they nest there. The giant, too. Anything could be there. I tell myself I’m likely to find nothing. There are many large and small tunnels leading out of my territory and creatures as big as those would need territories vastly larger. But still, I’m nervous about what I’ll find.

I squeeze through a tight space and for a moment think I’ve got myself stuck again, but then I’m through and sporting a new scrape on my chest. I ignore the sting and dripping blood as I arrive in a wider, inclined tunnel. It’s tall enough to stand in, maybe eight feet tall and four wide. My mind fills in the holes in my mental map. If the tunnel carries on in either direction as straight as it appears to, then one side would reach the large river tunnel and the other would reach the surface.

But I can’t just assume this. I need to make sure. So I take the tunnel left, looking for branches along the way. I find none, but thirty minutes later I reach the river. After a quick drink, I backtrack up the tunnel. An hour later, I reach the surface. The entrance to the tunnel is blocked from view by a stone jutting out from the mountain. I step out of the tunnel and find the outside as dark as the inside. It’s night. And it’s snowing. I crouch in the snow half way up the mountain. It’s peaceful out here. I sense that nothing will try to eat me here, and the snow—I eat some—tickles my tongue as it melts. I listen to the tick, tick of snowflakes landing and wonder where I’ve heard the sound before. I have no memory of it, but ticking doesn’t strike me as something new, just something I enjoy.

My stomach isn’t rumbling yet, but I know it will be soon. So I head back into the tunnel, destination: river. I hope to find something more significant to eat than a centipede, but I also have no weapon, so something that couldn’t make a meal of me would also be spectacular.

As I walk down the tunnel, taking note of the tiny fragments of glimmering stone that help me see, I try to create stone weapons in my mind. How would cave men do it? I’ll need a stick. Some rope. And a sharp stone. A stick on its own might do the job, I think. Well, not against a—

A white square—its whiteness and perfect edges completely foreign in the underground—catches my attention. It’s in the middle of the tunnel floor.

How did I not see this before? I wonder.

I don’t know, but here it is.

I crouch down to the flat thing. What is it?

Before picking it up, I smell it. There are traces of something I can’t place, but have smelled before. I taste it. The same. I place my finger against it and yank it away.

I laugh at my ridiculousness. I’m acting like an ape who discovered fire. I know this is from the outside world, and I know in my core that it is harmless, but something about it has me on edge. As I reach for it I think I would rather be facing down a dinosaur. My cowardice before a piece of paper makes me angry. I snatch it up and turn it around.

It’s an image. Two faces have been captured. A photograph, I think. A Polaroid. I can remember facts about the process of taking photos, of film and development, but nothing beyond that. No real memories. Just information. And the two people in the image are strangers to me.

There is a girl. Dark skin. Light hair. Her head is leaning on a boy’s shoulder, his hair as light as hers, though much straighter. And his skin is as white as hers is brown. Both are smiling. Happy. But the bared teeth make me feel like the pair want to eat me. Like they want to tear me apart.

I don’t like this image.

I turn it back over, unable to look at it again. I want to destroy it, but find myself unable to do so. I can fling it outside, I think. Let the wind take it away. I step toward the cave exit again and stop. It feels wrong for some reason. Despite my loathing of the image, my gut says it could be important later on.

So I save it.

Not on my person. That would be unbearable.

I find a thin crack and insert the picture. When it’s almost all the way in, I tap it with my finger and it disappears into the space. I peer in after it. I’ll need a stick or something thin to pry it out later on.

I stand back. No one will ever know it’s there. For a moment I wonder if I’ll remember where it is, but make a mental note on my map. If I need this image again, I’ll know where it is.

Until then I make a silent vow to avoid this tunnel and the photo that scares me more than being eaten alive.

24

I’ve adopted a new system of time. Who’s to say whether or not it coincides with the twenty-four hour days on the surface? I doubt it, but I have noticed I have regular periods of sleep followed by regular periods of being awake. I suppose I could count out the minutes and translate this into hours, but trying to force time underground to make sense in terms of the above-ground world will only distract me. So I judge days by my waking and sleeping now. But how long is a day really? For all I know it could be a week. It doesn’t matter anymore.

According to my new calendar, I’ve been on my own for a month. It’s been twenty days since I found and hid the photo. And in that time I have hunted and been hunted. I have killed and nearly been killed. But, as Ninnis taught me, I have survived.

I have a new weapon. At its core is a staff of very flexible wood. It’s old, and I’m not sure how it got down here, but it bends like a fishing pole, so it follows me through the tightest squeezes, but it’s rigid enough to make a good thrusting spear. At one end—the spear end—I have attached a sharpened bone from a dinosaur skeleton. I had hoped to use one of its teeth, but the skull was missing. On the other end—the mace end—is a baseball-sized stone. It’s not intimidating to look at, but it’s solid, and dense. I fashioned the weapon after realizing there are two types of creatures in the underground. Those that you need to stab. And those that you need to bludgeon.

In addition to the weapon, which I have dubbed Whipsnap, I now have a thirty-foot rope created from the skins of several different prey creatures. After skinning the creatures, I dried the skins and then cut them into thin strips, which I then braided together. The line can stretch and hold my weight, even after a deadfall. I learned this the hard way, but now I know.

I have stones for making fire. A collection of dried dung for fueling said fires. And a collection of sharpened bones I use to pry apart, fillet, skewer and otherwise dismantle my meals. I’m a regular subterranean butcher and chef rolled into one.

But I have yet to take down anything bigger than me.

That changes today.

Today is the day I overcome one of my lingering fears. Granted, it’s not the biggest specimen I’ve seen, but it’s a start.

My map of the underworld has expanded from three cubic miles to four miles deep and twelve square miles around. The territory is vast and overlaps in several places with the domain of the dinosaurs that I now call Crestosaurs. Cresty for short. Not very Latin sounding, I know, but it’s descriptive. The crest atop their heads ranges in size and color on the males. The most dominant have tall, bright red crests. The females have average-sized green colored crests. But the females are also much larger—up to thirty feet long—though they never stand fully upright. Even the biggest stands only fifteen feet high. They are lean, fast and move in packs.

But they hunt alone.

Like this one.

At ten feet long, it’s no lightweight, but it’s still an adolescent and not the best hunter. It chases after everything it sees, running madly, striking fast. It catches a centipede, toys with it for a moment, then gets distracted by something else further down the tunnel.

We’re in a river tunnel I call the Deep River. It’s actually very shallow, but it runs about a mile beneath the High River, which drains into the old temple ruins (which I have yet to return to—that is a fear to conquer on another day). This river is wide, nearly forty feet, but the ceiling and floor are covered with stalactites and stalagmites, some of which merge and form columns running floor to ceiling. A scattering of smaller stalagmites makes moving quickly difficult because I’m likely to impale my foot if I’m not careful, but the large ones provide ample hiding places. And this allows me to stalk my prey without fear of detection.

As the young cresty claws at a stone, trying to flip and chase down the small crab-like thing that scuttled beneath it, I sneak up behind. With my free hand and feet, I cling to the larger stalagmites and shift from one to the next, careful to keep my feet out of the rushing water. I’ve learned not to underestimate any creature in the underworld and I’m not about to start with one that could remove my head in one bite. A drip or splash might be enough to alert the beast to my presence.

I’m within striking range now, just ten feet away. I consider my approach. Silent? Check. Down wind? Check. Out of sight? Check.

Something tickles my foot.

I look down. A long green tendril slides back and forth over my foot. The rest of it disappears into the water. Is it a snake or some kind of worm?

I can’t tell, but I’ve never seen it before, and if it lives down here, it’s a predator. I expect the thing to bite into my foot with whatever small jaws it has, but it suddenly disappears beneath the water, as though pulled away.

Pulled away.

The cresty has stopped scraping the rock. I can still smell it, but it’s not moving. It’s waiting.

For me.

I take a deep breath. It’s time.

With a howl I jump out from my hiding spot, Whipsnap held high.

The dinosaur has misjudged my position and nearly falls over with surprise. It may have detected me, but the element of surprise is still on my side. I press the attack, lunging with the spear tip. But the cresty is fast and leaps away.

And now it’s angry.

The cresty snaps at me twice, eyeing my weapon. It’s smart enough to know rushing into a blade would hurt. But how smart can it be, really? Dinosaurs have what? Almond sized brains?

I lower the spear tip slowly until its point fully pierces the water.

“Out of sight, out of mind,” I say. Either emboldened by the disappearance of the spear tip or spurred by my voice, the cresty charges.

Whipsnap earned its name because of its ability to snap back into place. When I lift with my arms, the blade pops back out of the water and rises to meet the dinosaur’s chest. The cresty tries to backpedal, but a sudden and fortunate gush of water helps carry it forward. The blade sinks in, but stops at the beast’s breastbone.

Had that been the extent of my attack, the cresty might recover, but I am far from done. I have imagined this technique again and again and have practiced on boulders. I know it can work and I put it to the test.

With the blade firmly planted in the cresty’s chest, I bend the back end up and over. I can feel the shaft tensing as it bends to the point where I feel it will break, and then beyond. But it doesn’t break.

The mace end clocks the dinosaur on the head, stunning it for a moment. But the impact also frees the blade from the breast bone. As I sidestep, the spear end of Whipsnap springs down and out, returning to its straight form. But it has done far more than straighten. When the blade snapped down it was still buried in two inches of flesh. The cresty has been eviscerated.

As its guts fall out, I jump back and wait. The cresty thrashes, slicing its innards to bits. A few minutes later, the thing is dead.

I smile. I have overcome my fear and I’ll have food for another month. And by then I might be strong and fast enough to take down one of the grownups.

Before I can really savor my conquest, my smile fades.

Had I still been fighting the cresty, I might have missed it.

A drip.

I’m being hunted.

25

The hunter is good. I haven’t detected any movement, scent or sound since the drip. But I know it’s there. The key to my survival is to not let it know that I know. So I gut the cresty right there in the water, letting the river carry away the blood and undesirable organs. This also helps me narrow down my list of potential predators. The blood would have sent some into a mindless hunger. But the predator remained silent even as the river carried the copper odor of a fresh kill past its nose.

It could be another cresty, I think. They don’t eat their own kind. Not that I’ve seen anyway. But it would have to be another small specimen. The stalagmites couldn’t possibly hide a large cresty.

Of course, it could be something new. Every time I think I’ve got a handle on the strange creatures living underground, I run into something new. This might be one such occasion. And if that’s the case, I’ll need to be extra careful.

With the dead crusty ready for butchering, I drag it to the shore. I pull it half way behind the largest stalagmite I can find, leaving the lower body still visible from the river, but hiding the upper torso, and my body from view. I cut into the dinosaur, making sure the tear of skin is loud. The cut tells the hunter that my attention is on the kill, that this is a good time to strike.

This is not at all true. In fact, I have never been so focused on the world around me. The river fills the cavern with a ceaseless bubbling. The air is clean, but tinged with a mineral scent. The breeze, carried by the water, tickles my skin. There is no sign of the hunter. And this is the moment most creatures in the underworld would shrug their shoulders and return to their meal, only to become a meal themselves a moment later.

Not me. I slide in the dark maze of stalagmites, working my way quickly upriver, then across the water, shifting from one stone pillar to the next like a monkey in the Amazon. In complete silence, I work my way downstream, cross the river again and come up behind the hunter.

I’m downwind. I’m silent. I’m home. A smile creeps onto my face. Whatever predator I’ll find has been down here longer than me. It has most likely evolved to life in the underworld. I’ve been here just over a year, and I’ve got the thing beat.

I close in slowly. The hunter is still hidden from me. But I find it right where I expected it to be. The thing is concealed in shadow, crouching low, but it is approaching my kill, ready to pounce.

The distance between us is less than ten feet. Two leaps from stalagmite to shore will close the distance in silence. And then, Whipsnap will finish the job. I picture my movements like I do before any kill. One leap. Then another. In the air I’ll flex Whipsnap in my hands and upon landing, will let the mace spring loose and sweep out the predator’s legs. Once it’s down, the spear tip will finish it off.

Had the hunter turned around it would have seen my white teeth spread in a smile. But it didn’t turn.

I leap once. Then again.

Whipsnap bends. And snaps!

I hear a roar of pain as Whipsnap sweeps its legs. The creature falls back. A cough escapes its lungs as the air is knocked from them. I pull the spear back, lining up my strike, aiming for the thing’s core. My muscles tense, ready to thrust the spear home.

“Wait!” the hunter screams. The voice rolls down the Deep River cavern. I pause, which is strictly against my rules of engagement, and had the voice been any other, I would have struck. But I recognize this voice. It disarms me.

“Ninnis?” I ask.

“Help me up, Ull.” A hand emerges from the shadow.

I take hold and pull my mentor to his feet. Despite being dead and nearly killed again, his smile is infectious.

“Well done,” he says.

I eye him up and down suspiciously. There is no hugged greeting. No cheerful reunion. I am a hunter now. “I thought you died.”

“I know. But it takes more than a little snow to kill old Ninnis.” He leans against a stalagmite. “Not that it didn’t take its pound of flesh.” He holds up his left hand. His pinkie and ring finger are missing. “Frostbite.”

I know I should feel some kind of compassion about my friend losing his fingers, but think, if he’d been faster, he’d still have those fingers.

He seems to sense my assessment of his injury and gives a nod. He wouldn’t be soft on me, either.

“Why didn’t you come to me earlier?” I ask.

“This was the first of three tests,” he says.

“Surviving on my own?”

“That was part of it, yes. But you also beat me.”

“You had to do the same thing when you were trained?”

He nods.

“What happened to your trainer? Is he still alive?”

He laughs. “No, no. I ran him through.”

He sees the shift in my gaze and my tightening grip on Whipsnap. He knows what I’m about to do.

“You can kill me if you’d like. I’ve seen the way you handle that weapon. But it’s not necessary.”

Our eyes lock. “Why did you kill your trainer?”

“The man was a savage. A brutish relic from the past. He deserved to die. I’d like to think I’ve done right by you, Ull.”

I loosen my grip on Whipsnap. “You have.”

“Besides, if you killed me now you might never pass the next two tests.”

“Tell me about them. The tests.”

He waggles a finger at me. “Later.” He eyes my kill. “Right now, I’m famished.”

I pull the cresty out from its hiding spot and squat down next to it. If a roast leg commemorating Ninnis’s return will loosen his tongue, I’ll oblige him. My curiosity over the next two tests has been piqued. Not to mention the long list of questions I have about the creatures and locations I have discovered since he went missing. And if he doesn’t answer my questions, well, I might have to unleash a little savagery of my own. Either way, I’ll get my answers. But it’s nice to have someone to talk to. I would prefer to not have to kill Ninnis yet.

26

“You were watching me the whole time?” I ask Ninnis before taking a bite of the meat I’ve just prepared over a fire of dried dung. The cresty is tender and juicy like pot roast and I have to slurp the juice from my lower lip after biting it.

“You weren’t in eyeshot the entire time.” He takes a bite and talks with his mouth full. “That’s impossible down here. But I was never more than a few hours behind you, following your tracks, inspecting your kills, gauging your progress. You almost caught me once.”

My eyes widen at this revelation. I had no idea Ninnis had survived, let alone remained close by. “When?”

“You found the photo, yes?”

“I did.”

“I noticed you were exploring every tunnel and knew you’d head toward the surface. I was leaving the photo behind, when you returned.”

“Where did you hide? I didn’t see any cracks or tunnels above that spot.”

Picking his teeth, Ninnis reveals, “I was outside. Above you. Be glad you never looked up or your test would have come early.”

Before I can ask what he means by that, he asks, “What did you do with the photo?”

“Destroyed it,” I say. The lie comes easily. I see no reason to tell him I kept the image. I still don’t know why I did it, but I think telling the truth will somehow fail one of his tests.

“Why?”

“The image revolted me.” This, at least, is the truth.

“You didn’t recognize the people?”

“Should I have? Who were they?”

“Relics from your past, but you’ll never see them again.”

“Good,” I say, tossing my meat to the ground, my appetite sapped by the memory of the two smiling faces. “Why did you expose yourself?”

After a good burp, Ninnis rubs his stomach and says, “It wasn’t my intention to expose myself.”

I squint at him, suspecting the truth before he confirms it.

“I was to kill you.”

“But you failed.”

He nods. “And you passed.”

I sit straighter, puffing out my chest.

“Don’t get cocky, boy. Besting me was a simple thing compared to what comes next. You’ll lose the next fight you’re in. There is no way around that.”

This news deflates me, and I can hear the truth of it in Ninnis’s voice. He’s not trying to frighten me. There’s a look in his eyes, too, like he’s remembering his own test.

“Then what’s the point?” I ask.

“The test isn’t about winning. It’s about how you lose. There are only two possible outcomes. You’ll die, or you’ll be broken.”

“Broken?”

“You remember your first days with me?”

I remember the dog days well. Ninnis’s commands were like the very word of God to me. My obedience was unquestionable. “I do.”

“But you are not that frail boy anymore. You are Ull, the hunter. Confident. Skilled. But obedient? Not anymore.”

I cross my arms. “You haven’t asked me to do anything.”

He lets out a soft chuckle. “One look in your eyes says you’re more likely to gut me for asking anything of you than to obey. That will change tomorrow, but it won’t be my voice that commands you. It will be your master’s.”

I pick up a cresty leg bone that’s been picked clean and play with it in my hands. “My master... What can you tell me about him?”

“You tell me,” Ninnis says. “You’ve already met him.”

My stomach clutches. I nearly regurgitate my meal. “The giant.” The words escape my mouth like a gasp. “At the temple.”

“We call it, New Jericho,” Ninnis says with a nod. “As a reminder.”

“A reminder?”

“Of the treachery of man.”

“Who is he?” I say, unable to hide the quiver in my voice.

“It’s good that you’re afraid,” he says. “Shows you still have some common sense left. You might just survive the breaking.”

I lean forward, anger filling my eyes and bunching my muscles. “Ninnis, who is he?”

The old man actually relaxes under my harsh gaze. He leans back. “Your master is your namesake.”

My nose crinkles. This makes no sense. “Ull? How can I meet myself or be my own master?”

The question sends Ninnis into a fit of laughter. I wait it out as patiently as possible, realizing that he was speaking of the giant. A giant who shares my name. Ull. Norse God of the hunt.

Norse God of the hunt!

I launch to my feet. “Ull is real?

Still snickering, Ninnis says, “All the ancient gods are real, though they are not gods in the sense that men believed them to be. They are certainly godlike, having supernatural fathers and human mothers, but they are not all powerful creators. Some would have you believe as much, but it’s just not true. They are, however, our superiors in every way. And they’re nearly as old as mankind. Our half-brothers.

“At first, we worshiped them. Their size and strength set them apart and above us. They were the heroes of old.”

“The men of renown,” I add.

He gives me a hard stare. “How do you know these words?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I’ve retained a lot of information despite having no memory of where or when I learned anything.”

He accepts the answer and continues. “Despite their heroic feats, mankind turned against them. With numbers too great to count, a flood of humanity forced the masters underground, long before this continent lay at the bottom of the world. And then the world shifted and Antarctica froze over, trapping the masters here, where they wait for a thaw, and freedom.”

“Why don’t they wage war on the surface?” I ask.

“They will,” Ninnis says. “When their leader returns.”

“When will that be?”

Ninnis shrugs. “I don’t know. But I suspect you will have something to do with it.”

“Me?”

“You are a child of Antarctica. The first and only human child born on the continent in thousands of years, since before the shift. Their magic—they call it spirit—courses through Antarctica to the core. The creatures you’ve seen. The gigantic caverns. This whole world couldn’t exist without it. And when you were born, some of that spirit merged with you. The moment you returned, they knew, and I was sent to bring you home.”

This was all fascinating, but my mind has wandered back to my impending meeting with the true Ull. “Then he can’t kill me.”

“Oh, he rightly can,” he says. “And will without hesitation if he thinks they have misjudged you. And you have a lot of ground to make up.”

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t make a good first impression.”

I remember my meeting with the giant (Ull) at the temple (New Jericho). I had been terrified. Confused. Unhinged. I frown at the memory of his laugh. The deep bellow had permeated my core. And I must face that laugh again. Tomorrow.

My hunter’s instincts return. Before any successful hunt, I must rest. My intellect wants to spend the night asking Ninnis questions, but my instincts tell me to sleep because tomorrow I will face death, and if I’m to die I want to do it well rested.

“Then I will make a better second impression,” I say before lying back and closing my eyes.

I hear Ninnis laugh again. “And how will you do that?”

“Simple,” I say. “I will draw first blood.”

27

Five minutes after waking, we start walking. And we keep walking. For hours. Then we’re squeezing, climbing and swimming. All in silence. Ninnis’s attention is on the journey and all the potential threats along the way. I focus on these things as well, but I’m also thinking about what will happen when we reach our destination.

Ninnis claims to not know our destination, only that we must enter the master’s territory. Once there, he’ll find us.

Some time ago, we crossed the border of my mental map and entered the unknown. I’ve been extending the map in my mind, but for any other purpose than backtracking, it’s useless without exploring the side tunnels. I make note of all the tunnels, cracks and crevices we pass, along with rivers, bodies of water, pitfalls and other important markers, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever return.

I think that’s what bothers me. I hate not knowing. It must be some kind of core personality trait because the less I know about this day, the more I’m consumed with irritation.

Ninnis’s hand slaps against my shoulder. He’s ducked behind a boulder at the end of the tunnel. The space beyond is hidden from view, but the ceiling is vast. He spins back to me and hisses. When danger is near, this is his way of saying, “Shut-up and stay put.”

But as he observed the night before, I’m no longer subservient to him. I sniff the air. It’s a cresty. I look at Ninnis and feel sorry for him. The scent of cresty blood is easy to detect. The dinosaur is injured. And close. There is nothing to fear.

I leap over Ninnis, Whipsnap held high, and land on the boulder. I scramble silently up the stone. Near the top, I crouch on my feet, preparing to leap out and attack. The size of the cresty doesn’t matter. If it’s injured, it will fall as easily as a pup. I glance back at Ninnis, who is now up and smiling, and charge over the boulder.

As I move, something about Ninnis’s smile strikes me. It’s so subtle I nearly miss it. And it’s not so much in the shape of his mouth but in the shape of his eyes. A little pinch of his crow’s feet that says I’m about to learn a lesson.

Look before you leap, I think.

And I do.

And nearly too late. But I’ve managed to stop myself just as the blade of an axe bigger than my body whooshes up from below. Had I jumped out as planned I would have been cut in two.

The giant stands. He’s monstrous.

His red hair extends from his head down to a full beard that is braided and decorated with human skulls. A large cresty head rests on his head, just above a thick band of gold covering his forehead. The cresty head is attached to a skin hanging down behind him like a cape, containing a quiver of arrows the size of a pole vaulter’s pole. He holds a massive bow in one hand and the axe in the other. His red haired chest is bare. His upper arms are adorned in gold bands, and cresty skin gauntlets cover his forearms. He wears tall, brown, soft-soled boots. A gold-buckled belt holds up a brown-scaled skirt.

He is every bit the giant god-man you’d expect...if you could fathom such a thing. Before this moment, I’d thought I could. I’d seen his back side before, though dressed differently. But nothing could prepare me for this monstrous form.

I look at Whipsnap. My weapon is pitiful. I steal a glance at my pale body. The physical prowess I’ve earned during my time underground seems wholly inadequate.

For a moment I wonder if submission is the point of this test. To acknowledge his superiority over me. Pledge my allegiance to him.

As he nocks an arrow (I didn’t even see him attach the axe to his belt, but there it is) I know this is wrong. Everything Ninnis taught me has led to this point and the biggest lesson he has taught me is ruthlessness. Ull will be no different. And I can’t be either.

I focus on the bow. The string goes taut. The silver tip of the arrow fades from view as it lines up with the spot between my eyes. This is when I act, arching back as far as I can without falling over. I see the giant arrow pass over my face. I feel the tickle of its large feathers against my stomach.

Then I’m up again, and just in time. The axe is back out and crashing down toward me. I dive to the side. Bits of stone shrapnel sting my back as the boulder explodes under the blow.

I hit the stone floor in the massive chamber and roll. A quick glance at my surroundings reveals an arena of sorts. The ceiling is perhaps a hundred feet high. The circular space—not a natural formation—is perhaps three hundred feet across. And all around us are the faces of ancient gods, some of which I recognize, carved into the walls. The Egyptian gods: Set, Anubis, Isis and Osiris are the easiest to recognize. Some look South American. Others are clearly Norse. There are Roman gods. Sumerian. Asian. Deities from all of the world’s mythologies are represented.

But I have no time to dwell on these things. There is only time to run. Which I do.

The laugh pursues me again.

But this time I don’t feel its effect.

Instead, I work out a plan. I told Ninnis I would draw first blood, and that’s precisely what I intend to do. I just need to get something out of my pack.

I expect to hear the pounding footfalls of Ull behind me, but he’s not giving chase. That’s when I remember the bow. I look back and see my death approaching. A burst of fear grips me, but a sudden wind throws off the arrow’s trajectory. The projectile passes over my back and buries itself in the solid stone wall on the other end of the arena.

I return my attention to my pack as Ull roars in frustration. I resist the urge to taunt the giant. I need him to think I’m fleeing.

I grip my thirty foot braided skin rope and take it from the pack, which I then drop to the ground. Still running, I place the loop over my shoulder and find the end weighted with a dense stone. As I reach the far end of the arena, I turn and find Ull taking aim once more. He fires. I duck left as a second gust of wind comes and the arrow slams into the wall behind me. When I stand up again, I realize the shot would have been off even if I hadn’t moved. Given the renewed roar of frustration coming from the giant, I guess he’s not accustomed to missing.

But he’s not going to give up. And I need him closer. Much closer. As he nocks a fourth arrow, I pull myself up onto the third arrow, stand atop it, look back and give Ull a cocky little wave of thanks before taking to the wall like a spider.

The effect is immediate. The giant throws down his bow and arrow, takes up the axe again, and charges. As he thunders across the arena, the cresty headdress and cape falls away, exposing the gold ring on his forehead. Seeing the ring on its own struck me as odd. It wasn’t decorative. In fact, unlike the rest of Ull’s garb, it looked a little silly and out of place. It must have some other significance, I think, and decide to add it to my list of targets—after I draw first blood.

My climb ends when I reach the long snouted carving of Anubis. I stand on the forehead and loose my rope.

Ull is halfway to me. I have just seconds to act.

I spin the line and throw it out. I see the weighted end wrap around the tusk of a god-head I don’t recognize. I would normally test the line and make sure it’s secure. But I don’t have that luxury. Ull, and his axe, are upon me. I leap out and away as the axe comes down. Shards of stone once again pound my back, but I swing away quickly, one hand on the braided line, the other clutching Whipsnap.

As my swing arcs down and away from Ull I think about the arrows that nearly killed me. I would like to say I dodged them on my own, but I don’t think that’s the case. In both circumstances I felt a gust of wind strike just as I flinched. A theory comes together in my mind and I think back. When I fought and killed the cresty, a gush of water aided me. When Ninnis was nearly killed by an avalanche, I felt strong emotions—emotions I fought to bury. A hundred smaller examples fill my memory as my swing reaches its apex. Bursts of wind. A surge of water. A cloud of snow. All seemingly in response to my emotions and reactions.

Ninnis said Antarctica was infused with the magic—with the spirit—of the masters, and being born here, I was too. Maybe that magic somehow bonded me to the land, water and air?

As I swing back toward Ull, I decide to test the theory. It’s probably the worst time in history to try something like this. It might get me killed. But I can’t resist.

I had planned to let go at the base of my return swing and plunge my spear tip into Ull’s foot, quickly do whatever damage I could to slow him down and then keep moving. My new plan is much more direct.

The return swing takes me back to where the head of Anubis used to be (it’s a heap of stone on the arena floor now). A cloud of stone dust fills the space between Ull and me, which is convenient because it keeps him from swatting me out of the air like a fly. And when I let go of the rope at the apex of my swing and take to the air, that’s as close an approximation of what I am to the giant as I can conceive. I am a bug in his sight.

But I pack a nasty sting.

Putting my theory to the test, I wish with all my being that I would be carried higher. The request isn’t forced or phony. If I fall, I’ll die. For a moment, I start to fall, but the sinking in my stomach, churns a surge of emotion through my body and a gust of wind catches me and carries me higher, straight toward Ull’s head.

The dust parts for me. I emerge from it and let out a howl. Ull turns toward me, the briefest look of surprise in his black eyes. Then his confidence returns, but only for a moment. I see his eyes reflect fear. I unleash Whipsnap, striking an upward blow to the golden ring surrounding his large head. There is a clang of stone on metal. The ring springs free from his head and flips away.

I sense several things that mark a change in this encounter. First is Ull’s brief fear. Second is Ninnis’s gasp, audible all the way across the arena. Third is the pulse I see beneath Ull’s forehead. It’s a soft spot. And Ull is hardly human. Whatever it is, it must be vital.

I twist as I fall, facing Ull’s body. I stab out with Whipsnap. I merely meant to impale the scaled leather skirt and slow my fall, but I pass the skirt and stab deep into the meat above his knee. The spear tip catches and I slam into his booted shin.

The tip comes loose and I fall the rest of the way to the stone floor.

Ull steps back, glancing down at his bleeding leg while testing his bare head with his other hand, searching for the missing metal ring. He’s not holding his axe. He’s paying no attention to me. This is my chance.

I get to my feet, take aim with Whipsnap and let the spear fly.

A moment later, it plunges deep into Ull’s flesh.

28

Ull lowers his hand. He had raised it at the last moment, allowing the spear-tipped end of Whipsnap to pierce his hand, rather than his forehead. I stand there, stunned, as the giant looks at the weapon buried in his hand and smiles. His teeth are yellow and sharp. When he lets out a laugh I see multiple rows of teeth, just like the egg-monsters.

He turns his eyes on me and holds out his wounded hand. With his other hand, he takes the spear and pulls it slowly out of his flesh. Blood drips as my weapon slurps out of his hand. The blade bites for a moment, but he tugs at it quickly and the whole thing comes free.

He tosses Whipsnap aside like it’s a used-up matchstick and holds the wound out for me to see. Blood oozes from the hole in his hand for just a moment. Then as quickly as Whipsnap pierced his hand, the wound seals over and disappears.

A shudder runs through Ull’s body. His smile widens. And his eyes are back on me. “Pain is delightful, don’t you think?” The deep bass of his voice shakes my insides.

For a moment, I wonder how it is this ancient man-monster can speak English, but decide it is one of the least perplexing things about this world. Ninnis could have easily taught him the language.

When Ull takes a step toward me, cutting the distance between us in half, I know there is nowhere I can run. With no weapon, I have no defense. My only consolation is that he’s not nocking an arrow or wielding the axe. But when his arm reaches back, I know he’s going to strike me.

I could run and might avoid his reach for a time. I might even make it to Whipsnap.

But what he has just shown me makes the effort useless. Ninnis told me that this was a fight I could not win. And he’s right. Killing Ull would be impossible.

As the swing descends I think I should try to relax my body as tense limbs can’t flex and break more easily. But no matter how hard I will myself to stay limber, my muscles cramp up with a sudden twitch.

Two things run through my mind before the blow connects.

This is going to hurt.

And, if he’s not trying to kill me now, I passed!

A grin spreads on my lips a moment before he sends me flying. I feel my arm and several ribs break. I see the floor passing beneath me. There goes Whipsnap. How far did he hit me? I spin around and see the stone floor of the cavern rising up to meet me. Landing may hurt more than being hit, and my insides cringe. With the twist of fear comes a burst of wind. It doesn’t stop me, but it certainly slows me down.

I hit the stone, roll for several feet and then slide to a stop on my back.

The pounding of Ull’s feet is hard to ignore, even with my body screaming out in pain. I turn toward him, wondering if he’s done. The look in his eyes says he’s not.

So I stand to face him again.

There is no pause when he arrives. He simply strikes me and sends me flying. I land near the entrance.

I think both arms are broken now, but my legs are fine. It’s hard to say, as I feel the pain from my wounds from head to toe. I turn and see Ninnis’s feet nearby.

Then Ull is pounding toward me again.

I sit up and try to stand. It’s harder without my arms.

“Stay down, you fool!” Ninnis hisses at me.

But I won’t stay down. My body may be broken, but my will isn’t. And I know what I want. Ull has revealed the true nature of the spirit living in me.

Anger. Hate. Pain.

I crave it.

It fuels me.

I spit blood at Ninnis’s feet and face my master.

Ull stops above me, pausing. I can feel my face swelling and I’m sure he can see it. I smell my blood seeping from countless wounds. My arms dangle uselessly. I am beaten. I am broken.

I look up at him, meeting his eyes.

My body wobbles. I giggle. The funniest quote has entered my mind. I don’t know what it’s from, but I know it’s funny and I speak it aloud. Mimicking Ninnis’s proper accent, I say, “Please sir, can I have some more?”

Then I laugh hysterically.

The last thing I remember about this day is Ull saying, “You have earned the use of my name today, little Ull.”

Then he honors my request, and gives me more.

29

After a long time not feeling hot or cold, the burning that courses through my body upon waking makes me scream. Ninnis is above me a moment later. I can’t hear his words over the pain, but his open palms are urging me to stop.

I see my arms then, flailing like wounded fish, splashing something red that could be my blood, but looks more like fruit punch. I focus on my arms and stop them.

But I’m still screaming.

Ninnis is right above me now. He’s enunciating very clearly and though I can’t hear his voice over my own, I can read his lips.

“Calm down,” he says. “It hurts less if you don’t fight it.”

I try. I try my best. And reduce the scream to a whimper.

But the pain is so intense, permeating me to the core, that I think bottling it up completely might make me explode.

“What’s happening?” I manage to squeak out.

“You’re being healed,” he says. “The technique is typically used on a limb or wound, but your whole body was broken. You almost died. We had to immerse you.”

I manage a look down. I’m lying in what I can only describe as a stone tub. It’s full of watery red liquid. “What is it?”

“Ull’s blood diluted with water. Straight blood would kill you.”

“Feels like it’s killing me.”

“If we left you in there, it would. In fact, if you hadn’t been born here, I think it would have already. But you seem to have a little bit of their blood in you already.”

I give a weak nod. “The spirit of the Nephilim.”

Ninnis leans in closer. “Where did you hear that name?”

It’s hard to focus on an answer, mostly because I don’t know, and that’s what I tell him.

He stares at me. I can tell he doesn’t believe me.

Then it comes to me. “Heroes of old. Men of renown. There were Nephilim on the Earth in those days, and I am like a grasshopper in their sight.”

I know I’m paraphrasing. Probably butchering whatever it is I’m quoting. But my mind has put together some puzzle pieces. “I must have read it somewhere before I came here.” I can see Ninnis believes me now. “Is that right? Are our masters the Nephilim?”

He nods. “They are.”

My head spins, but I don’t think the cause is the revelation of my master’s identity. The pain is dulling, or my consciousness is fading. I feel my heart skip a beat. “How will you know when to take me out?” I ask, but it comes out garbled. The brown stone room swirls around me.

I feel my head lull back as my vision fades.

Ninnis says, “That’s how I know.” And I feel his arms slide under me. Then nothing.

When I open my eyes again, I no longer feel pain. In fact, I’m positively comfortable. I’m lying on my side and can see the gray skin of an egg-monster beneath me. Actually, it must be a stack of skins, because when I shift my weight, the cushion conforms to my body. Two soft skins cover me like blankets. Since my life underground began, I’ve slept without cover. The weight feels good.

For a moment, I think I will drift back to sleep, but I force myself up as memories of my bloody baptism return. I remove the blankets and inspect my body. My wounds are healed. I move my arms. They work without a hitch. I take a deep breath. There is no pain, so my ribs must be healed, too.

I slide out of the bed and stand. My balance is good. A few good leaps confirm my legs are strong. I fall forward like a tree cut by Ull’s axe and catch myself just inches from the stone floor. Strong as ever.

Hopping back to my feet, I inspect the room. The brown stone walls are similar to what I saw from the tub, but are covered in graffiti. Swirls, circles and intersecting lines. The symbols look vaguely familiar, like those on the obelisks from New Jericho. Hanging from a hook next to the bed (which, as I suspected, is made from a stack of at least thirty eggy skins) is a cresty head and cloak that matches Ull’s. I try it on.

The teeth are sharp and bite into my forehead. But I don’t mind, the pain feels good and the grip helps it stay on. The cloak hangs over my shoulders and stops just before the floor. I wish I had a mirror.

“It suits you,” Ninnis says from the doorway.

I turn toward him and find him dressed in black leathers, though much of his body is still bare. He notices my inquisitive look. “When we are in one of the citadels, we are to dress as our masters do. It’s a sign of respect, but it also protects you.”

“Protects me?”

“From the others. Until you are branded, the cloak marks you as the property of Ull, son of Thor, son of Odin. A strong bloodline that the others will not dare violate. If you misstep and require punishment, it will be handled by your master, or your master’s brethren alone. The Norse will not go lightly on you, but they won’t kill you either. Certainly not after the promise you showed in the arena.”

I brighten at his words. “I did well?”

“You did exceptional. In fact, I have never heard of one of the masters being wounded in the trial. Ull is quite proud. He has spread word of your deeds across the continent over the past month.”

“A month? I’ve been unconscious for a month?”

“Roughly. I think. Thirty wakings and sleepings. That’s how you keep track of time, yes?”

I’m not sure I ever told him as much, but he had watched me for quite a while. It’s possible he figured it out.

“My injuries took that long to heal?”

“Your wounds were healed the moment I took you out of the bath. But the effect of the master’s blood on the mind is powerful. And your exposure was intense. How do you feel?”

“Never better.”

“Good,” he says. “Your final test is tomorrow and while it will not be as painful as the last, it will require all of your skills. When you pass that test, this room will be yours along with one like it in all the citadels. You will be part of the Norse house and receive all of the benefits of the bloodline.”

“When will I be branded?”

Ninnis sits on the bed and tests the cushion. “You won’t be.”

“Why not?”

“You will belong to the Norse for a time, but once you are prepared for the task, body and soul, you will offer yourself up to another.”

“Not given?”

“No,” Ninnis says. “You must give yourself over to him willingly.”

“Give myself to who?”

He ponders answering for a moment, then shakes his head. “You have earned the truth. Or at least the small part I dare reveal. You will give yourself to the very first master. He is the oldest and strongest of them, and they are all named for him. Nephil, father of Enlil and Enki, who is my master and ruler of this world.”

“Is he here now?” I ask eagerly. “Can I meet him now?”

Ninnis frowns and looks to the floor. “He is not here. He has not been among us for a very long time.”

“Where is he?”

He continues staring at the floor, like he can see straight through it. “Below us. In Tartarus.”

Tartarus. “I thought that was a Greek version of hell?”

“Tartarus predates the Greeks. It is a physical realm, unlike hell, and is far worse. He is a prisoner there. His spirit is trapped. Unable to escape until bonded with a body strong enough to enter Tartarus and return.”

My eyes grow wide. “They think I can do this?”

Ninnis stands. “I’ve said too much.”

“But—”

“Speak of this to no one,” he says. “You will be told everything when the time is right.”

“Ninnis, please,” I persist, but that just fuels his anger.

“Quiet, Ull! You best focus yourself on the final test! Eat. Regain your strength and wit. If you fail tomorrow you will learn nothing more than what hell awaits you in the afterlife as you are torn limb from limb. You have earned a place of honor here. See that you retain it!”

I bow my head, acknowledging his wisdom. “What is the final trial?”

“A hunt. On the surface.”

My heart races with anticipation. My sleeping body missed the hunt.

“And our prey?”

Ninnis grins now, his anger erased. “The best kind. Human.”

30

I haven’t slept again by the time Ninnis comes back, but I have eaten, three times. I’m not sure who brings the food, but every so often there is a knock on the wooden door. When I answer it, there is a plate of cooked meat on the hallway floor. It is the best food I’ve eaten since I can remember, but there is no one to thank for it.

Though I’ve been in the room for hours, I haven’t ventured more than a few feet past the door. The hallway dwarfs my room, which is closer to a mouse hole by comparison. I’m not sure, but this must be some kind of human-only portion of the citadel. The doors lining both sides of the hallway are all human sized despite the space being large enough for two Nephilim walking side by side.

Most of the doors are open and the rooms beyond are empty. I suspect that they belong to other hunters, like Ninnis—like me—who are in other parts of the continent right now. I wish I could meet them now, but suspect I will after I pass this third and final test.

I lie on the egg-monster skin bed and stare at the ceiling. But I’m no longer seeing its graffiti-covered surface. Instead, I picture as many different scenarios as possible. I know I’ll be on the surface, so there will likely be snow on the ground. Maybe cracks in the ice to hide in. If I’m lucky it will be night, but I suspect it will be day. The darkness of night would make things too easy.

It will be daylight. I’m sure of it. And the sun will hurt my eyes. In fact, with the surface of Antarctica largely barren of cover and either stripped clean by high winds or covered in snow, hiding may well be impossible. My white skin will help me blend in with the snow and ice. But my hair—I take a handful of the clumpy red mass and pull it in front of my eyes—my hair will stand out like a beacon.

The odds are against me being stealthy. But maybe that’s not required? Before I can picture a thousand ways to charge at and quickly kill another human being, Ninnis is at the door.

“It’s time,” he says.

The journey is several miles of uphill paths. Ull accompanies us most of the way and sets our pace at a brisk walk—for him. Ninnis and I have to run to keep up and when the terrain gets rough, that becomes a challenge for both of us. Several hours later we reach the end of our journey. The forty foot tall tunnel shrinks down to ten and Ull stops.

“This is where we part ways, little Ull,” he says. “I will wait here for your return and the report of your success or failure.”

I nod.

“Should you succeed, you will be welcome in the halls of Asgard for the rest of your days.”

“Asgard?” I ask.

“The citadels,” Ninnis says. “Asgard. Olympus. Tuat. They’re the dwelling places of the masters.”

“I—I know,” I say. “I just never thought they were—”

“Real?” Ull finishes. He leans in close, his head larger than my body. “We are very real, little hunter.” He motions for the small tunnel ahead. “Now go. And do not fail.”

“I won’t,” I say before heading into the tunnel with Ninnis.

After another mile hike, we reach the end of the tunnel. A wall of glowing white caps the end. I squint at the bright sphere of snow.

Ninnis dons a pair of sunglasses.

“None for me?” I ask.

“Not this time,” he says. “No weapons. No gear. Just this.”

He holds up a leather bag.

“What’s this for?”

“Several hundred feet below the exit you will find a man and a woman. Put this over her head and capture her, alive.”

I take it. “And the man? Can I kill him?”

“No,” he says. “The point of this test is subtlety and control. The outside world can’t know we’re here until we are ready to reveal ourselves. He must believe her disappearance to be an accident or result of some natural phenomenon. You got lost in a storm. I fell into a fissure. And we were both left for dead as a result.”

I understand and head for the snowy wall. For a moment I think I’ll have to dig through, but a small opening on the left reveals a sliver of blue sky. I slide through the narrow opening and find my eyes assaulted.

I adjust to the light slowly, but after several minutes I can open my eyes enough to see the world around me. The mountain slopes down and splits into a valley, barren of snow, far below us. In the valley, two people kneel by what looks like a large, partially uncovered limb. I can’t make out what they’re doing, but I suspect the woman is the one dressed in bright pink. I can’t remember why, but pink feels like a feminine color to me. The man is wearing bright orange.

I step out into the day and Ninnis takes my arm. “Take as long as you need. If you’re detected, you fail. If they escape, you fail. If you resort to violence, you fail. Understand?”

“I do,” I say, pulling away.

“I’ll be watching,” he says, holding up a pair of binoculars.

I put the leather bag over the top of my head and stuff my hair up inside. Ninnis gives me a worried look, like I’ve lost my mind. I know I must look ridiculous, but my plan will work. “If they see me, they’ll see a brown rock on the white snow.”

He smiles. “We’ll see about that.”

I lie down on the snow, feeling the powder melt beneath my warmth, but feeling no cold in return. “Be back soon.” I pull myself across the snow, sliding on my stomach and begin a slow descent toward my unsuspecting prey.

31

It takes me two hours to slide down the mountainside. It’s not hard work—my body heat melts the top layer of snow, making it slick beneath me, and I can’t feel the cold—but I’m careful. My targets’ attention is mostly on the ground and whatever it is they’re working on. But occasionally one of them will look up. I am perfectly camouflaged with my white skin and hidden hair. But it’s possible one of them could notice the brown rock/bag covering my head is moving slowly toward them. They’re probably admiring the view, which is impressive, even through my squinted eyes.

My thoughts turn to Antarctica. It’s a magical land deserving of admiration, possibly even worship. They’re right to admire it. But it’s my land. I am bonded to it and it to me. No one has told me this, but I can feel it.

And I can prove it scientifically.

I pause there in the snow, exposed but invisible, and apply some scientific method. I’m not sure why I know this, or why I feel it’s important, but I know it will erase my doubts, and if true, will help my current situation.

Step one. Ask a question. Am I bonded to Antarctica and its environment below the surface, on the surface and...in the atmosphere?

Step two. Background research. I’ve already done this. I’ve experienced several examples of my emotions and strong reactions creating an environmental response. I’m also impervious to the effects of the environment. I don’t just not feel cold, it actually does no harm to my body. No reddening skin. No frostbite.

Step three. Construct a hypothesis. According to Ninnis, when I was born on Antarctica, its spirit, created by Nephilim magic (or something supernatural) was channeled into my body. Ninnis claimed it made me part Nephilim. As much as I’d like that, I don’t agree. I think it bonded me with the continent. The Nephilim made this land a living thing and when I was bonded to it, they gave it a brain—albeit, unknowingly. That’s my hypothesis.

Step four. Test with an experiment. I’ve been debating what this should be. Something subtle, that only I will notice.

I check my targets. They’re hard at work. With my eyes trained on them, I slowly roll onto my back. Subtle, I think, then focus my mind and emotions on a single event.

It’s only thirty seconds before I see it above me, fluttering down from above. The tiny snowflake descends above my face and lands on the tip of my nose. My hypothesis is true. I repeat the test to be sure, this time bringing five flakes down. When they touch down on the tip of my nose and melt, I focus on the resulting bead of water. It doesn’t run off to either side, or roll toward my forehead as it should (I’m laying downhill). Instead, it does as I will it, evaporating back into the atmosphere.

I fight the intense urge to laugh, and realize my elation might make me sloppy. I have a task to finish and Ninnis is probably wondering why I’m just lying here. For some reason, I don’t want him to know what I can do. Not yet. If they know that I’m different, that I’m strange, they may not welcome me. They may not allow me to offer myself to Nephil. I just can’t risk that yet.

So I turn myself over and stalk my prey.

I can hear their voices now, filtering up out of the valley. They’re deep in conversation.

I take a chance, thrusting myself hard. My body slides over the snow, building speed as I descend. I travel a distance that would have taken an hour to cover at my previous pace, in thirty seconds. As I approach the valley, I make a show of putting my hands on the snow to stop. But this is not what stops me. A burst of wind, like that katabatic in reverse, skims across the snowy slope and slows me to a silent stop.

I pull myself behind a rocky outcrop at the top of the valley wall. I can see them below. It looks like they’re digging a bone from the ice. I recognize the limb as a cresty femur, but this one is old. Fossilized.

If they only knew much fresher specimens still lived beneath their feet.

A quick survey of the valley shows very little cover to hide behind. And the trip back up, with the woman in tow, will be slow. For a moment, I wonder if they want me to fail. Or maybe it’s just Ninnis. Did he devise this test? When I succeed, will he be disappointed?

And I will succeed. There is no doubt about that.

My first task is finding an escape route that doesn’t require me dragging the bright pink clad woman all the way back up the mountain. I turn my attention to the valley, searching for cracks or fissures that may lead underground. Where are you? I think. Show yourself.

A puff of dusty air rises from behind a boulder. I can’t see it, but I know its there. I can feel it now.

Now to address the issue of concealment.

With my head lowered and eyes closed, I create a storm inside me. I see it building like a dark monster, swirling with anger. I see an army of thick snow flakes carried by intense wind. It pours out of me.

My eyes snap open. I’m exhausted. Barely able to move.

What’s happening to me? I think.

Then a shadow falls over me. Then the valley. I don’t bother turning around. I know what’s there, blotting out the sun. When the first flake of snow arrives, I grin and feel a measure of energy return. But it’s barely enough to move, let alone strike.

I hear the voices below, engaged in a conversation tinged with sarcasm, but I can’t make out the words. But a moment later, the man turns in my direction and I can hear exactly what he says. “My... Where’d that come from?”

She says something. His name I think. And then he’s shouting and grabbing a blue tarp. “Wrap up the fossil! I’ll get the other side. Fasten it tight!”

“There isn’t time!” she shouts, and she’s right. The snow and wind descend over them like a crashing wave.

The world turns white. Judging by their shouts, they’ve lost each other in the whiteout. I stand without fear of being seen and enter the valley. As adrenaline rushes into my body, my energy returns. I can’t see the woman, but her cries for help are like a lighthouse beacon. As I run toward her, my emotions soar. I feel the wind kick up behind me, pushing me forward, and when I can no longer contain my excitement I let out a howl. My voice mixes with the rushing wind as my soul mixes with the land.

I remove the hood from my head, unleashing my long red hair. A flash of bright pink directs me to the woman. I approach from behind and with the quickness of a cobra strike snap the hood over her head. I plant my hand over her hooded mouth, stifling her cry to a dull, “Hmph!”

She fights for a moment, but a quick strike to the back of her skull saps her energy. Her legs go out from under her and she falls into my arms. I make for the crack in the valley floor and slide in, dragging the woman behind me. Her thick jacket catches a few times, but the crack opens wide a few feet down, and then we’re through.

I want to remove the hood and look into the eyes of my prey, but I’m not sure I should. Not following the test parameters exactly as described might lead to failure. So I leave the hood on and cinch it shut around her neck. I’ve never been in this tunnel before, but I know the general direction I need to go to find Ninnis again: up.

As I carry the woman deeper, I will the storm to last a few minutes more, long enough for the woman to have conceivably wandered off. Just another victim of Antarctic whiteout conditions.

I find Ninnis about an hour later. He’s still at the tunnel exit, scanning the area below with his binoculars. His distraction is so intense that he doesn’t hear me approach. I clear my throat.

Ninnis whirls around, ready for a fight, but then sees me.

And then the woman.

He is honestly stunned, but not disappointed like I had worried.

“How did you—I don’t—what...” He pauses, shaking his head. “I’m having a hard time believing what I just saw, and what I didn’t see, and what I’m seeing now. The storm, it just came and went precisely when you needed it to.”

I shrug.

“How did you know?” His voice is growing angry. He suspects I had something to do with it. Maybe he remembers how Ull’s arrows somehow kept missing me. Maybe my sudden stop at the bottom of the mountain wasn’t convincing. Or maybe it’s just the convenient timing of a whiteout storm. But he’s starting to suspect.

So I lie. “I felt a cold breeze on my back about halfway down. You saw me roll over?”

He nods slowly.

“I was watching the storm, gauging its speed as it rose up over the mountain. It came in fast, so I slid down in time to take advantage. When it struck, so did I. There was a crack in the valley floor. It led to a tunnel, and here we are.”

He stares at me for a moment. A hint of a smile appears.

“Did the man see anything?” I ask.

“See for yourself,” Ninnis says, handing me the binoculars. I step outside and look down the mountainside. The man was still in the valley, which was coated with a thin film of snow. He’s pacing, hands cupped to his mouth, screaming. He saw nothing. All he knows is that the woman is missing. It’s all he’ll ever know.

When I re-enter the tunnel, Ninnis is kneeling down next to the woman, checking her pulse. “She’s alive,” he says before standing up and offering me his hand.

I shake it.

“Congratulations,” he says. “You passed in rare form. As seems typical for you.”

The woman stirs. Ninnis strikes her without pause and she falls limp again. “Come,” he says. “Let’s get you back to the citadel and clean you up.”

“For what?” I ask.

“Your banquet. I’ve heard it will be like no other, in honor of Ull the hunter, vessel of Nephil, Lord of the Nephilim.”

32

I’m feeling pretty good. Actually, I can’t remember ever feeling so happy. So proud. I have overcome the hardest challenges of the underworld. I have joined a people whom I respect, and who will one day worship me. And I have discovered my bond with the land of Antarctica. Despite being the smallest of my kind, I am larger than life. I could see it in the way Ull looked at me when Ninnis related the story of my final test.

When we returned to the citadel, I saw many more Nephilim warriors, some smaller than my master, Ull, some larger. All of them bowed to me as a sign of respect. But I wasn’t introduced to any of them—though I see symbols and headdresses that look familiar. I was led back to my quarters, given a bowl of fresh water and told to wash. Which I did.

And now I’m sitting on my bed waiting. I’ve been waiting so long I start to think this is really the final test. If it is, I’m about to fail. I stand and turn toward the door. At that moment, there is a knock.

I rush for the door, swing it open and find no one. There is, however, a bundle of clothing on the hallway floor. I scan the giant hall, looking for someone, but find the space empty. Who could hide from me so quickly? It doesn’t seem possible.

The clothes are a smaller scale of Ull’s. The leather scaled skirt. The gauntlets. And a golden ring for my head. But what holds my attention are the objects lying to the side of the clothing. There is Whipsnap, now polished and sporting a razor sharp metal blade and spiked mace ball, my climbing claws, restrung with fresh leather straps, and my telescope, which I thought lost forever in the New Jericho lake.

I collect the items and retreat to my room. I dress first and find that every-thing fits perfectly, from the soft soled leather boots to the plain metal crown. I find a satchel attached to my belt, big enough to hold the climbing claws and a pocket that buttons, in which the telescope fits snugly. There are also two clips on the belt. I’m not sure what they’re for until I find that Whipsnap fits in them securely. I bent the shaft around my body, clipping the other end in place so that the blade and mace are to my sides, both pointing back. It seems like a silly design to me until I take hold of the weapon and give it a tug. Both ends detach simultaneously. Whipsnap springs out, snapping open in my hands. One second, it’s hardly visible around my waist. The next it’s in my hand and ready to kill. I’ll need to unclip it for tight squeezes, but having my hands free most of the time will be a great help.

After securing Whipsnap to the belt, I don my cresty hood and cloak. I once again long for a mirror and then remember the bowl of water. I place the bowl on the floor and stand over its still surface. The perspective of my reflection makes me look like a giant. Like the great Ull, himself. My garb and red hair, which is a darker red than I remember it being before, complete the illusion.

Looking and feeling like a giant, I can no longer resist leaving my room. I have not been formally welcomed yet, but I know this is my home now. I can go where I please. As I leave my room behind, I decide I won’t go far. Though I can go wherever I want, I still do not know my way around and would not want to miss the banquet being prepared in my honor.

I start by inspecting some of the other nearby rooms. Some are completely empty. Others hold weapons and discarded clothing, I assume from other hunters who are somewhere else in the citadel, perhaps tending to the needs of their masters or preparing for the banquet.

I think about who will be there. Ninnis said that at least one member from each of the warrior tribes will be there along with a representative from each class—seekers, thinkers, breeders, feeders, gatherers—along with many of my fellow hunters. I wonder what they’ll look like. What they’ll sound and smell like. And what will we eat? Will there be new meats to try? Will we dine on roast cresty or egg-monster stew?

As my mouth waters over the possibilities, I notice one of the human-sized doors is closed. Was it open before? I think it was, which means someone might be inside. I head for the door, hoping the person inside will recognize me, bow and show me respect. I just can’t get enough of this, which I suppose is good, since I suspect it’s a habit that will carry on indefinitely once I accept the spirit of Nephil to live inside me.

Ull confirmed what Ninnis told me about Nephil, but left out many details. “Enki has reserved that honor for himself as Nephil’s first son,” Ull had explained on the hike back to the citadel. “Your patience will be rewarded.”

And it would be. Of that I have no doubt.

But patience is hard to come by when boredom is stacking the odds.

So I knock on the door.

No one answers.

I knock again. When no answer comes a second time, I decide that I not only have the right to wander the halls of Asgard, I also have the right to open doors. I find it unlocked and step inside.

The room is as plain as mine. An egg-monster skin bed. A stone shelf. Little more.

A lump in the corner moves. Shakes, really. Is that a person?

“Hello?” I say.

The body trembles.

I search the room for clues and see a splash of pink just beyond the bed. A quick peek reveals a thick pink jacket. This is the woman I captured. Her lack of response immediately fills me with anger.

“Answer me, woman.”

I hear a squeak of sound. Did she speak or simply cry out?

I step closer.

She’s dressed in leather rags. Her black hair is tied back in a tight braid. Was it like that when I took her? I wonder, but then remember her head was covered by the jacket’s hood. Her skin is dark, darker than anything I’ve seen underground. Her dark hands cover the side of her face, which is turned into the corner of the room.

“Tell me your name,” I say.

Her hands shake.

I clench my fists. “I am the hunter who took you. You will show me respect.”

“Why?” she says, her voice a chaotic vibrato.

“Why, what?”

“Why...” She sniffs. “Why did you take me?”

“I do not know why the masters wanted you specifically, but you were my final test.”

“Test?”

“To become one of them.”

“Who are they?”

“They are the sons of Nephil, the Nephilim. The heroes of old. The—”

“Men of renown,” she finishes.

This infuriates me. “Who are you?” I shout. “Show me your face!”

Her shaking hands lower. Her cheek bears a fresh wound, perhaps dealt by me, or Ninnis, or after she was brought here. She turns slowly, and then looks up, meeting my eyes.

Her eyes strike me like one of Ull’s arrows. I stumble back as her face contorts into something horrible, something sinister, burning with hate. And I feel an emotion I thought I would never experience again.

I am unhinged.

I am terrified.

33

When I strike the hard stone wall, my senses return for a moment. I take hold of Whipsnap and pull. The weapon snaps out. I toss my cresty skin to the side, spin the weapon into position, blade forward, and meet her eyes again.

My mind explodes.

I’m no longer in the room. The woman is gone. Everything is gone.

I am warm and comfortable, surrounded by darkness, and supported on all sides by something soft. Then something disrupts my state of bliss. An intense pressure builds around me. It does not hurt, but it is not comfortable either.

The pressure continues for some time, and I have a feeling of rushing through it.

I’m fast-forwarding through the memory.

Is this a memory?

What’s fast-forwarding?

I’m not remembering this. I’m reliving it.

Then there is light. And cold. And wetness.

I feel myself being drawn up, away from the warmth.

There is a crackle of sound so crisp and clear that it frightens me. When I scream, a high pitched squeal comes out. The noise that frightened me was my own voice. Everything smells wrong.

That’s because I’ve never smelled before.

There’s a tug on my belly. And a pinch. I cry out again. I’m shaking from cold and fright. Confusion grips my thoughts. I can feel myself slipping into hysteria.

Then I see her looking down at me. She’s smiling. And her eyes...her eyes!

“No!” I scream, swinging Whipsnap out, intending to sever the woman’s throat, but I don’t come close.

She stands, pushing herself back into the corner, but never taking her eyes off me. She reaches out a shaking hand.

“Stay back!” I swing again, this time throwing myself off balance. I drop Whipsnap and catch myself on the bed.

She speaks a single word that throws me violently into the past once again. “Solomon.”

She’s looking down at me, holding me in her hands, wrapping me in some-thing warm. I’m used to warm and wet, but warm and dry is better than cold. And now she’s speaking to me. Smiling as she coos my name. “Solomon,” she says. “Solomon.” Her inflections are soothing. Her white teeth hold my gaze as she speaks. She brings me up close, so close I can feel her warm breath. “You are a precious boy,” she says, and then turns me away.

As she turns me I see the room through blurry eyes. But I see shapes I will come to know well and recognize them instantly.

Outside the memory, I shout for them. “Mom! Dad! Where are you?”

The memory of my birth flickers.

The stone room spins around me.

I fall to my knees.

My mind is on fire. Pressure builds around the chink in whatever mental dam has been put in place. Memories come fast, but are really just a quick spray. The first year of my life returns. The dam weakens. Then breaks.

In a single moment, like the explosion of an atomic bomb, thirteen years of perfect memory—nearly seven million minutes of data—slams into my mind at once.

I’m two years old, wearing blue footie pajamas. I’m staying at my grandmother’s house with my parents. And I’m entertaining them by standing in the potty-training potty and waving my arms around.

I’m five now. My parents are ice skating, motioning me to follow. I don’t have skates on, and the ice is slippery, and I can see flowing water in the distance where the river enters the lake. I know that’s bad and I worry about falling through.

Seven. I’m riding my banana seat bike in the driveway. I don’t ride in the street anymore. Not since a neighbor got hit by the diaper truck after riding straight out of the driveway. It rained recently. I can smell the water on the warm pavement.

The next three years flash past in a blur of school, playing and being tested. Then I’m in school and the kids are all older than me. I feel very small and afraid. All I can think about is going home, and that’s okay because I know all the answers.

Thirteen. I’m sharing pizza with Justin and my parents. There’s a volcano for my present. A song about brick houses. And an explosion of red. Then comes the ticket. One of the pivotal moments of my life. I flash to the trip. Dr. Clark is with me, telling me I’m different, and special. And Mirabelle. The nicest girl I ever knew, who managed to steal my heart and image with the click of a Polaroid camera.

The night of my capture returns in detail. Ninnis attacks. I strike Aimee. The generator. Then the pit.

I pitch forward and vomit.

When the contraction ends, I suck in a bile flavored breath.

Then I’m vomiting again. It feels like my organs are sliding out of my throat, like there will be nothing left of myself when I am done. When I realize that is exactly what is happening, I accept it, and wait.

When I’m done I’m surprised to find only a small puddle beneath my mouth. I have not eaten in some time and the majority of my heaves brought up nothing, except, I think, my soul.

When I stand, I am myself again.

I am Solomon.

I bring my eyes up and meet hers once more.

She can see the change in me. In my eyes. In my body language.

I am Solomon.

Solomon!

“Solomon,” I whisper as though hearing my name for the first time.

She nods. “Solomon.”

When I speak her name, my last bit of toughness breaks. “Aimee?”

She reaches out to me with both arms. I rush to her and bury myself in her embrace, weeping for what I’ve done to her, for the life that I have lived since I last saw her, for thinking—for believing—that the woman who first showed me love was evil. Her arms are strong around me. Her head is pressed on top of mine. And she speaks a sentence that clutches my throat and squeezes, “You are a precious boy.”

I have been reborn.

Into her arms once again.

And despite all I have done, all the pain I have caused her, she has loved me first.

Again.

34

My senses return long enough for me to close the door. I can’t be seen like this. They might kill us both. Or decide to break me again and steal my memories a second time. Were I still alone, I think I might prefer death to losing myself again, but I now have Aimee to consider.

And I brought her here. I brought her here.

With the door closed I sit on the bed and weep silently. Aimee sits next to me and rubs my back. Her affection only makes me cry harder, but I think that’s what I need—to pour the vileness out. The tears are purifying.

Thoughts of my father and how we parted fill my thoughts. “My father,” I say.

Her hand pauses on my back. “Misses you horribly. As does your mother.”

“They believe I’m dead?”

After a pause, she whispers, “Yes. They stayed for a year searching for you.”

I remember seeing them now. Looking through the telescope. They looked so sad. A sob escapes my mouth. I know how heartbroken they must have felt. I’m feeling it now.

“You’ll see them again,” she says confidently, but it’s hard to believe.

It’s ten minutes before I’m able to speak again. “I’m sorry. For taking you.”

“I forgive you,” she says with missing a beat.

“Why?”

“You weren’t yourself.”

This is true, but, “If I had been stronger, this wouldn’t have happened.”

She turns my face toward hers. Dry white lines streaking over her cheeks from her eyes reveal she’s been crying too. “What did they do to you, Sol?”

I relate the story as best I can, concentrating on the important events: the night I was taken, my time in the pit, my first kill, my training, the three tests that ended with her capture. She listens to it all silently, reacting to everything with an array of facial expressions. When I’m done, tears fill her eyes again.

“My poor child,” she says, touching my cheek with her hand. “Why? Why did they do all this to you? Who are they?”

“I think you know who they are,” I say.

“The men of renown,” she guesses.

I nod.

“The Nephilim?” She shakes her head. I can see she thinks it’s impossible, but she looks around the room, seeing the reality of things. She can’t explain it. “But how?”

I relate the story Ninnis told me. About the Nephilim living among men, how they were worshipped, how they were our heroes, and then how we eventually turned against them and drove them away. “We pushed them underground,” I say. “And they’ve been living here since.”

As I relate the story, I feel a stirring of sympathy for my masters.

They’re not my masters!

I feel an invisible hand clutch my throat. They still have some hold on me. Like a trapdoor spider, everything they turned me into is waiting for my guard to drop. Then it will strike out, fill me with poison and consume my soul again. Ull, the hunter, is fighting for dominance.

I clear my throat and tense my body, mentally shoving Ull down deeper. Never again, I think. I will never be you again.

“Sol,” she says, “That’s not who the Nephilim are.”

I look at her like she’s crazy. Of course that’s who they are. Ninnis told me.

Ninnis is a liar!

Ninnis is your friend.

“No,” I say aloud.

She takes my shoulders. “I don’t know all the details, only what Merrill has told me. Which is actually quite a lot. But I’m not an expert.”

Merrill. Merrill is my friend. Merrill can be trusted.

NO!

Listen to her.

I clench my eyes shut, willing the voice of Ull to shut up.

I am Solomon. I am Solomon.

“The Sumerians believed they were gods. That much is true. And they record that the Nephilim were also referred to as the Elohim and Anunnaki, both of which mean: those who from Heaven to Earth came.”

“Heaven?”

She gives a quick nod.

I fail to hide my skepticism. I’ve seen and experienced the unbelievable, but Heaven? When I speak, my voice is layered with doubt. “Angels?”

She shakes her head and actually manages a small grin. “No, Sol. Not angels. Angels that come to earth, and make their home here are—”

“Demons,” I say. This word rings true. There is nothing heavenly or angelic about my mast—the Nephilim. They are, in every way, demonic. But are they really demons? Fallen angels? I still don’t think so. “The Nephilim aren’t demons.”

“You’re right,” she says. “They are the children of demons. The heroes of old. The men of renown. There is more to that quote, you know. ‘The Nephilim were on the Earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God (demons) went to the daughters of men (human women) and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.’ There are several more references to them in the Bible, but that’s just one ancient text. There are records of the Nephilim in every ancient culture on Earth. Stories of giants with red hair—”

She takes my hair in her hand and holds it out for me to see. The blood red color makes me sick. I can now remember my real hair, so blond it was almost white. Like Andy Warhol.

“—half human, half animals, double rows of teeth, horns, and strange means of transportation. There are carvings of them all around the world created by cultures separated by thousands of miles and uncrossable oceans. The Nephilim once ruled over mankind, Sol.”

“Then what happened?”

“A flood.”

“The flood?” My skepticism is brewing again. “Like in the Bible?”

She nods. “But not just the Bible. The Sumerians divided time into two Epochs.”

“Like B.C. and A.D.?”

She nods. “But for the Sumerians, it was before the flood, and after the flood.”

“Then Noah was a Sumerian?”

She shrugs. “In the beginning, I think we all were. But the point is, every ancient text preserved from every ancient culture in the world features the Nephilim, or giants resembling them. A great flood. And the freeing of man from the Nephilim corruption.” She pauses, looking unsure of her next words, but speaks them anyway. “Which you have felt first hand.”

She’s right about that, at least.

“Solomon, the Nephilim are corruptors of mankind, not just our minds and bodies, but our souls as well. They are our oldest enemy.”

The truth of it all settles in. They are, in fact, planning to attack the surface. And I am part of that plan. I am the key. “They’re going to make me their leader,” I say. “I’m supposed to lead them in a war against humanity.”

Her eyes pop open. “When?”

“I don’t know. They don’t seem to be in a hurry, but within my lifetime.”

“Why you?” she asks. “You’re...human.”

“I’m special,” I say. “Merrill told you about what he saw the day I was born?”

“Yes, but—”

“It’s all true,” I say, and then explain about the spirit of the Nephilim, about how it resides in the land of Antarctica and how it bonded me with the continent when I was born.

“That doesn’t sound possible.”

“You have no problem with demons mating with humans and a worldwide flood,” I say.

She’s silent for a moment. “But how did it make you different?”

I close my eyes and focus on the air in the room. I can feel it around me, billions of microscopic molecules. I turn it in my mind. I spin it. When I feel the pull on my hair, I open my eyes. Aimee’s rags are waving in the wind. Her braid hovers over her shoulder, held out horizontally. She steps closer to me, into the eye of the small cyclone I have made.

“Okay,” she whispers. Terrified.

The wind falls away fast as I feel horrible for scaring her. But she believes me now. “I’m connected to the continent. I feel no cold. The wind, snow, water and land are part of me. I don’t know how it works. And they don’t know about it. I don’t think it was supposed to happen.”

“Then it’s a blessing,” she says. “A gift.”

“For what?”

“To fight them.”

“Fight them?”

She leans in close. “They will enslave the human race if they can, Solomon. They will corrupt us all. They have to be stopped.”

All I want to do is take Aimee and leave. I know this is probably impossible now, but I have to try to find a way. We can return to the surface and hop on a plane back to New Hampshire. Back to my parents. And Justin. Mira and Dr. Clark. And forget all about this place. But fight them?

I can’t. “If I stay here... They want to— I’m supposed to—”

She takes my hands in hers. “It’s okay, Sol. We can figure this out together. You’re not alone anymore.”

“To become their leader, I need to offer myself...I need to take in the spirit of Nephil.”

“The spirit of the Nephilim? You said that happened when you were born.”

“Spirit is the word they use for supernatural energy. Like magic. That’s what I absorbed when I was born. In this case, it’s more of a traditional meaning. The spirit of Nephil, their leader. He was the first Nephilim. The first child born of a human woman and a demon father, if that’s what you believe. If I accept his spirit, which is trapped in Tartarus, far below us, it will live in me. I will become him and he me. Being born here, with the Nephilim magic in me, makes me strong enough to contain him, permanently.”

“Tartarus?”

“It’s a place worse than—”

“I know what Tartarus is, but I never imagined it was—”

“Real?”

She nods.

“I’ve been thinking the same thing every day since I got here.”

A smile stretches onto her face. “I’m sure you have.” The smile fades. “If everything you’ve told me is true, we can’t let it happen. We have to stop them.”

“Just the two of us?” I laugh at the insanity of it.

“No,” she says. “Just you.”

My smile fades. She’s serious.

“I’m not sure I’ll survive the day. I don’t know what they have planned for me, do you?”

I don’t, and I shake my head. “I won’t let them kill you.”

“You may not have a choice.”

“Why?” I say, my voice raising an octave. “Why do I have to do this?”

“It’s not fair,” she says. “Lord knows, it’s not fair. Your heart...your heart was so pure.” She looks at the floor as sadness sweeps over her face. She doesn’t want to say any of this to me. But she does, because she believes it. “Sometimes people are chosen for things that are so much bigger than them. But they are given the strength to persevere, to see it through.”

“But what can I do?”

“I don’t know.” Her honesty is killing me. “But you are the next step in their plan. They cannot move forward without you. And that gives you the advantage. No human child has been born on Antarctica since you. You are unique, Sol.”

“You think they won’t kill me?”

“What do you think?”

I’ve passed their tests. And I am the only human Antarctican. But can they wait for another? They’ve waited thousands of years to find me. But in another thousand years, where will the human race be? Probably living on other planets. Probably strong enough to resist them. She’s right. If they’re going to attack and win, it will have to be soon. With me as Nephil’s vessel. “You’re right. They won’t kill me. But maybe I should kill myself.”

She grabs my arm, squeezing tight. For the briefest of moments I have the urge to swat her away, but I fight it. I’m in control. Not Ull.

“Killing yourself is never an option,” she says. “You don’t think that ever again.”

When I don’t respond, she takes my chin and gives me a good motherly stare. It feels good to be so cared about. “Never again,” she says.

I concede. “Never again. But what then?”

A voice from the hallway makes my hair stand on end. It’s Ninnis. He’s calling for me. For Ull.

“You’re the smartest boy I know, Solomon,” she whispers quickly. “You can control the very elements around you. You know what they want. You’ll figure out how to stop it.”

“I don’t think I ca—”

Ninnis calls out again. He’s closer now. Approaching the door.

Aimee’s eyes widen with fear. “Your face,” she says.

I’ve been crying. My eyes are probably swollen. I can feel my dried tears on my cheeks. Ninnis will see my weakness the moment he opens the door. “Get on the floor. Don’t move until we leave.”

She listens and immediately dives to the floor, feigning unconsciousness. I jump over her, place Whipsnap next to me and plunge my hands into the bowl of water left for Aimee on a stone countertop. As the door opens I splash the water onto my face and scrub the tears away.

“Ull?” Ninnis says. “What are you doing?”

I turn to Ninnis, fighting a rising sense of doom, and smile. “She threw sand in my eyes.” I laugh.

Ninnis approaches and looks at Aimee’s motionless form, then to Whipsnap. “You struck her?”

Be Ull, I say to myself. Adopt his personality, for now.

“She deserved far more,” I say and then point to my vomit. “Once in the stomach to make her bow. A second to her head to silence her.”

Ninnis checks her pulse. “She’s alive.”

“Why?” I ask. “Why is she still alive?”

Ninnis smiles and looks up at my face, which is still dripping with water. “She’s to be a teacher.” He inspects my eyes. “She got you good.”

I rub my eyes. “Does it look that bad?”

“The redness will fade,” he says. “You’ll look yourself again for the banquet. Of course, we’ll have to keep this to ourselves, Ull the future Lord of the Nephilim almost bested by a human woman!” He lets out a guffaw that tenses my back.

I force a laugh of my own. “Let me help break her.”

“Alas,” he says, “Teachers are not broken. Her knowledge of the outside world is important. Her memories must remain intact, for now. I’m sure when they’re done with her, you can do whatever pleases you. Until then, she is not to be harmed.” He hands me Whipsnap. “Understood?”

I attach the weapon to my belt, as comfortable with it in my hands as ever. The personality of Ull may be suppressed, but my acquired skills and knowledge have remained. I nod.

“Good,” he says. “It’s time to go. There are many who want to meet you before we dine. Your reputation has spread to the coasts and beyond.”

Beyond? I think, but before I can ask what he means, I see movement outside the door.

35

“Ahh,” Ninnis says to the newcomer. “You made it.” It’s a woman, dressed in clothing similar to mine, but with a breastplate. The weapon hanging from her belt is a mallet with a stone head. One good whack from that could crush just about any skull in the underworld, except maybe a Nephilim’s. Her hair is red, like Ninnis’s (and mine), but her skin is deeply tan. She is far younger than Ninnis, but she’s an adult. I place her around thirty years old, but with time so different down here, she could be eighty. I’m shocked when Ninnis greets her with a hug.

He motions for me to follow him outside Aimee’s room, which I now realize is not locked because there is no chance of escape. I leave the room and close the door behind me. Pretending to be Ull will be easier if I know Aimee cannot hear the things I say.

“Ull,” Ninnis says, “I’d like you to meet Kainda.”

She takes my hand in a crushing grip. For a moment I nearly shout in pain, but then remember who I’m supposed to be. I return the squeeze and then some. My emotions may have returned to a more fragile state, but my body is still strong. I apply pressure until I see her wince. That’s when I see the resemblance.

“Your daughter?” I say.

Ninnis looks surprised. “How did you know?”

“You have the same eyes.” I work hard to hide my disturbing thoughts but can’t resist asking. “She was born here? On Antarctica?”

“I was,” she says, “but I’m not like you.”

I raise an eyebrow, allowing it to ask the question I can’t, because I fear my voice will quiver.

“The breeders have tried to bind humans to the spirit of Antarctica for longer than we have lived,” Ninnis says. “They have grown humans. They have bound humans to animals. They have even allowed us hunters to take wives and have children of our own. But nothing has worked. Not until you were born.”

“And we had nothing to do with that,” Kainda says and then smiles. She is much more pleasant to look at than Ninnis. Her teeth have yet to rot. “You’re special.”

An honest smile comes to my mouth. “So I’ve been told.”

“And please don’t say it again,” Ninnis says. “It’s going to his head.”

The friendly banter is confusing me. Ninnis seems like the polite English gentleman he would have been before his corruption. Maybe it’s Kainda, or simply that my trials have finished. Are the Nephilim more civilized than I have come to believe? Will pretending to be Ull be as hard as I thought?

“If you’d like,” Ninnis says, “You may have Kainda as your wife.”

My heart hammers in my chest. This will be even harder.

Kainda bows. “It would be my honor.”

Ninnis stares at me a moment and then breaks out laughing. “Our fearless hunter is blushing.” He claps me hard on the shoulder. “If Kainda is not to your liking, there are many more women for you to choose from. Perhaps even some your age.”

Kainda looks positively scorned as Ninnis leads me away. I turn back and offer a, “Nice meeting you.” She doesn’t reply. She just clips and unclips the hammer hanging next to her slender thigh.

She is beautiful, I think. In an Amazonian headhunter kind of way.

“Will she be angry?” I ask once we’re out of earshot.

Ninnis cackles. “She has killed for lesser offenses. But she wouldn’t dare touch you, lest she be sent to Tartarus herself. And you may yet change your mind about her. She is one of your clan, after all, and clan marriages are preferred.”

My mind runs through a list of Norse gods. The hammer is the giveaway. “She belongs to Thor.”

“Your observations serve you as well as ever,” he says. “Thor is Ull’s father. The hierarchy of the clan would normally allow Kainda to choose you as her mate. But your future as Nephil’s spirit holder gives you...special privileges.”

Like the privilege to not have a mate at all, I think. Not for a long time. And certainly not down here.

He leads me down a large spiraling staircase. The inner steps are small, human sized. The outer rim has four-foot steps built for Nephilim feet.

At the bottom of the stairs is a creature I’ve never seen before. It’s about five feet tall and spindly, sporting arms and legs like a walking stick insect. But its head is large and shaped like an upside down egg. Two dark almond-shaped eyes frame a tiny nose and a slit for a mouth. It just stands there, watching us.

“Ull, this is Lagash,” Ninnis says to me.

“Greetings Ull,” I hear, but not with my ears. The voice is in my head.

In my head! Can it hear my thoughts?

I fight my growing panic and say, “Greetings to you, Lagash. You are—”

“A gatherer.” Its voice enters my consciousness like a hammer-driven nail. “Do not resist my voice, Ull, it can damage your mind.”

I try responding with mine, the way Ull might. You have not yet known damage. I focus on an image of me beating Lagash with Whipsnap. Stay out of my head.

I see his black eyes shift to my belt. Then he bows and steps away.

A few moments after we pass, Ninnis looks back at Lagash, who is still standing by the stairway. “What did you say to him?”

“I showed him what would happen if he forced his way into my thoughts again.”

Ninnis laughs. “Be glad he is a lesser gatherer. The elders are more dangerous than any warrior.”

“Be sure to point them out to me, then, so that I do not offend.” I fake a laugh and give Ninnis a punch in the shoulder the way Justin used to do to me, the way that says, we’re friends.

We’re in a part of the citadel I’ve never seen before. The hallway is lined by massive, forty foot doors. Ancient statues fill house-sized alcoves. And carvings, as detailed as those found in the world’s ancient tombs, decorate the walls. I can hear voices and footsteps beyond the doors. But we see no one else. He leads me to a set of double doors so vast I think you could fit a 747 through them.

He shouts out in a language I don’t understand, then notes my attention. “Sumerian,” he says. “The original language of the Nephilim, which was then taught to men. You’ll learn it soon enough.”

A loud creaking echoes in the vast hall as the doors open inward.

On the other side is a space built like, and as large as, a football stadium. A staircase descends to the floor, perhaps fifty feet below. Lining the edges of the space are skins and furs arranged into human and Nephilim sized lounging areas. Spread throughout are creatures cooking on spits. Bowls of food I don’t recognize are arranged around the rooms. And the smell, even to my newfound self, makes my stomach rumble. I may no longer be Ull anymore, but I am still accustomed to the food here. And it has been some time since I ate.

But the creaking of the door has captured the attention of the fifty-odd creatures in the room. There are ten Nephilim warriors, some wearing masks I recognize as the heads of more famous gods: Anubis, Zeus, Odin and others. Ull is there, too. There are a few gatherers staring up at me with their big black eyes, but I don’t feel them in my head. There are bulbous sickly looking things with rolls of fat that cascade like waves when they move. Their round faces are feminine, but few other features are apparent. Even their arms seem to have been overtaken and absorbed by their fat. There is a group of humans, dressed for some ancient battle. These are my fellow hunters. When I see Kainda standing among them already, I make a mental note that she is fast. I see others in a flash. Strange creatures, some of which appear to be half man, half animal, but I don’t have time to get a good look.

One of the warriors has stood. His hair is red, like the rest, but his eyes are yellow. When I see the dark leather garb that matches that of Ninnis, I know who he is: Enki, first son of Nephil.

When his eyes meet mine, even across a distance of more than one hundred feet, I have to fight to not show my revulsion. But the stare is short lived. He bares his teeth in a snarl, turns his head to the ceiling two hundred feet above and lets out a howl. Soon everyone in the room is howling, even Ninnis.

For a moment, I’m dumbfounded. What’s going on? Then I realize this is their applause. They are praising me. I feel a swell of pride as the intensity of the sound shakes me to the core.

Then I’m howling with them.

A smile creeps onto my face.

Ull is rising.

36

Energy courses through my body. I feel bonded to all in the room. The howl, just now ending, creates a strong sense of belonging to the pack. Like wolves. A tingle rolls down my spine and my hair stands on end. And when the chamber has fallen silent again, I stand in awe of what I have just experienced. When the energy fades, so does Ull, and that awe is replaced by repulsion. But that dark side of me arrived at an opportune time. When Ninnis claps me on the shoulder, I know joining in was the right thing to do.

Enki bows his head slightly and opens his arms, motioning to the room as if to say, this is all for you. Then he sits and begins to eat once more. The menagerie of Nephilim follows his cue, and the feast begins anew.

I am thankful for this. There will be no speeches. No idle chit-chat. This is a time of primal bonding.

I follow Ninnis down the staircase and into the stadium-sized lower floor. The first creatures to greet me look like gatherers, but are covered in green scaly skin, almost like a cresty’s, and have yellow eyes, like Enki’s. The things ooze malevolence, but they bow as we pass.

“The seekers,” Ninnis says to me. “They work closely with, but do not always get along with, the gatherers. They have been subservient to the gatherers since their coup failed.”

This news astonishes me. I pictured the Nephilim as one big happy—yet exceedingly evil—family, bound to a common goal. Ninnis senses my question. “The Nephilim have warred among themselves for centuries, culling the weak as they do.”

“Have the hunters ever revolted?” I ask.

“We are not fully Nephilim. It is not our right,” he says, and I think, revolution is never a right, but is always an option. I stay silent though, because he continues, “…though we may take part in battle if commanded by our masters.”

“Aren’t all the Nephilim our masters?”

“No. Ull is your master. Enki is mine.”

“What happens if one of our masters dies?”

Ninnis looks at me with a raised eyebrow. “Such a thing hasn’t happened since the death of Nephil. Killing warriors is near impossible, but it’s also forbidden. They are the strongest. And will lead the battle against the topside. By your side, of course.”

I make an effort to puff up my chest with pride, but I’m really just trying to keep myself from passing out. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Without a master,” Ninnis says. “You would be free.”

A genuine smile fights to spread my lips. I resist it, but the twitch in my facial expression hasn’t gone unnoticed. “You find that pleasing?”

“Not at all,” I say. “I will be free soon enough.”

He turns fully toward me, confusion and anger tensing his forehead into a maze of crisscrossing lines. In that moment I am reminded of how old Ninnis is, despite his physical ability. “When I accept the spirit of Nephil,” I add. “I will have no master.”

Ninnis pauses. And then laughs. “Right you are!”

When we reach the bottom of the stairs, I feel positively puny, like I’ve been shrunk down to the size of an ant. The ceiling is so far above me. Even the smallest of the Nephilim, the gatherers, stand taller than me. And the tallest, Enki and the other warriors, tower over me, even when they’re sitting on the floor.

But all of them bow. Every single one, until we reach the fat one.

She (I call her a she because her eyes are vaguely feminine) is revolting. From a distance, I could not see the details of this thing. Where a nose and mouth should be, there is something that looks more like a beak. And indeed, there are feathers on her head instead of hair. The body is composed of rolls of fat that have enveloped her arms and legs almost completely. I think I see wiggling fingers protruding from a spot half way up, but it’s impossible to tell. She could just as easily have stubby wings. Her head sits atop the mass of flesh like a cherry on a fifteen foot tall ice cream sundae.

“She does not bow,” I observe.

“Breeders are unable to move,” he says, pointing to what looks like a massive stretcher beneath her body. “They cannot move without assistance and only the warriors are strong enough to move them. Gaia is here because she was your breeder.”

This last statement stuns me twice. The first is the revelation that this sickly blobbish bird-woman-thing is Gaia, the Greek fertility goddess otherwise known as Mother Earth. She’s depicted so beautifully in the books I’ve read. The second is that she is somehow associated with me. “My breeder?”

“Where do you think all the feeders came from?”

“Feeders?”

Ninnis chuckles. “That’s right. You call them egg-monsters. She was far above you in the pit. She could not see you, but she could hear you, and smell you. The feeders hatch from her eggs.”

This is far beyond anything I’d expected. I scan the room quickly and see several roast feeders on spits. “They’re Nephilim? They eat their own young? I ate their young?”

“It is the purpose for which they are born,” Ninnis says. “True Nephilim are born of human mothers, not Nephilim mothers.”

I can feel my stomach tensing and keep talking to distract myself. “What happens if they are not eaten? Do they die?”

“If a feeder escapes into the wild and survives, they become insatiable eating machines larger than any Nephilim.” He glances at me. “May you never run into one.”

My eyebrows rise. “There are loose feeders?”

“Three,” he says. “They roam the largest, deepest tunnels underground, eating everything that crosses their path.”

With a shake of my head, I look back at Gaia. “What do the breeders eat, if they can’t move?”

He stops. “Watch. It shouldn’t take long. They’re always eating.”

We stand there for a moment. Then I see a centipede crawl out of a crack in the wall behind the breeder. It crawls up her feathered backside and scrambles toward the head.

“Is she emitting a pheromone?” I ask.

“A what?”

I have to remind myself that Ninnis’s education is a hundred years old, and I would guess didn’t include much science to begin with. “It’s like a scent. Something that attracts the centipede.”

He nods. “I think so.”

The centipede stands beneath Gaia’s open beak and rises up, its antennae twitching. With a snap, the beak closes down over the creature, consuming half of it with one bite. She tilts her head back while the centipede’s legs twitch madly. With a flex of her throat, the centipede vanishes.

I turn away. To watch any more is to invite intestinal doom.

I see several more different variants of Nephilim, but I never get a chance to ask about them. We have arrived at our destination. A group of ten hunters lounge on the floor, all sharing a roast feeder and cups of water. All are dressed formally in leathers and carry a variety of weapons—swords, knives, hammers, maces, bows and arrows—but nothing quite as unique, or homemade, as Whipsnap and my climbing claws.

Kainda glares at me for a moment, then tears a chunk of flesh from the feeder and gnaws on it. The rest bow and move their limbs to allow Ninnis and me passage to what I assume is my spot. As far as I can tell, it is the only seat in the room, and looks like a throne cut from solid stone. I sit in its fur-covered seat and find it quite comfortable, almost like it can hide me from the monsters surrounding me.

Ninnis sits on the floor next to me.

“Why am I in a chair?” I ask, “While everyone else sits on the floor?”

“This does not please you?”

His question makes me remember that it should please me. I am Ull! I laugh. “It pleases me very much. I was wondering what the significance was.”

“It represents your future throne,” Ninnis says. “After the bonding.”

I see another glare from Kainda shot in my direction, and something inside me snaps. Perhaps it’s a little bit of Ull, I don’t know. But when she takes another chunk of flesh from the feeder, I take hold of Whipsnap, pull it free and send its blade snapping into the meat, pulling it from her hand.

The other hunters fall silent. I bring the meat to my mouth and take a bite. When I’m done, all but one of the hunters is grinning. Kainda is not. So I fix her with a stare of my own and say, “Rude not to offer your future lord something to eat.”

All eyes turn to Kainda and she is forced to bow.

“You are bold beyond wisdom,” Ninnis whispers to me.

He’s right, of course. I can’t say what got into me. Ull is my only excuse, but I can’t say that. To Ninnis, I am Ull.

Before I can respond, a booming voice fills the chamber. It is Enki. He’s speaking Sumerian so I can’t understand what he’s saying, but there is a howl in response to it. The howl brings a surge of energy, but I don’t join in this time.

Neither does Kainda.

Enki walks toward the hunters. He could squash every last one of us in just a few stomps of his massive foot. But he kneels down on one knee, offers a bow and holds out a glass vial that looks tiny in his hand. “It is time, little Ull, to accept your place among us.”

Enki glances at Ninnis and communicates something with his eyes. Ninnis hops to his feet and takes the vial from Enki. He approaches me, holding the now small container like it is a holy relic.

I realize that’s precisely what it is when Enki speaks again. “This flask holds the last drops of blood from our lord, Nephil. It is the last of his body left on this Earth, free from the confines of Tartarus.”

A howl follows this statement.

“With his blood, you will bind your body with his.” He speaks directly to me now. “Over time, it will make you stronger and prepare you for the spirit of Nephil. This is a privilege beyond description and an honor we can only bestow once. Are you prepared to accept the body of Nephil? Are you willing to surrender yourself to his spirit? Will you, as lord Nephil, lead his children against the human race?” This last part is said loudly, with arms outstretched, and it is met with the loudest howl of the night.

I can feel Ull clawing to get out, but I resist him. I need to make this decision, not him, and every atom in my body is screaming, NO! It will mean revealing I am no longer Ull the hunter. It will mean my death.

Not your death, a voice inside me says. Ull?

They will not kill you.

They will break you.

Again.

Say, no.

His agreement with my decision to decline reveals the error of my ways.

No, no, no.

It takes all my effort, but I speak my one-word reply with a grin.

Say, NO!

“Yes.”

37

Ninnis slowly raises the vial toward me. I detect a slight shake in his hands. His eyes are glued, not on me, his future lord, but on the blood. There is an undeniable craving in his eyes.

In all the hunters’ eyes.

I suspect many of them are fighting the urge to take the blood for themselves. Perhaps this was an honor for which all of them were considered? Perhaps they’re just envious?

Whatever the cause, something is holding them back. They’d have to get through Ninnis first, who despite craving the liquid himself, is unshakably loyal to the Nephilim. I would come next, striking with Whipsnap (well, Ull would, I’m not entirely sure what I would do) and perhaps even Enki would get involved. But even then, if they survived all of that and drank the blood, would they survive the physical bonding with Nephil’s body?

I suspect not. And I think that is the most likely reason none of them act on their desire.

The vial is warm to the touch, as though the blood has just been drawn. I think about drinking the ancient liquid and become queasy.

Can I do this?

I look around seeing hundreds of eyes turned toward me, some of them larger than my head. I know there’s no choice. I must do this.

To survive.

For Aimee.

For everyone I love on the surface, who will die if the Nephilim invade.

I pull the stopper and hold the vial in the air, instigating a howl that I hope will supply me with courage. As the howl reverberates through the chamber and my body, I place the vial to my lips and turn it up. But the liquid does not immediately fall. Despite being part supernatural, the blood has dried some. It slides down the throat of the vial slowly, a gelatinous blob.

The blood falls into my mouth and I immediately know the squishy mass is too big and too solid to swallow hole. With my eyes closed and my head still turned toward the ceiling, I give Nephil’s blood three solid chews and then swallow.

I can feel it, sliding down my throat, but there is no other change aside from the tears of disgust building in my eyes.

Then it hits my stomach with the force of a giant’s fist. I pitch forward, screaming in pain. A burning flows through my veins, moving down my legs and then back up. My torso is next, then my neck and finally my brain. The burning speeds my thoughts and heightens my awareness. But I am still me. Nephil’s body has no effect on my thoughts.

And I can only think of one thing as I curl into a ball, gritting my teeth and wailing with pain: run!

Now is the time. I am the carrier of Nephil’s blood. They cannot kill me. With it, I may be strong enough to resist breaking if I’m captured. I may be strong enough to undo everything they have spent thousands of years preparing for. But I must run.

Now.

I focus this burning energy far beyond myself, reaching out to something beyond my intellect. The burning in my veins is matched by a strong wind now roaring through the underground tunnels. The snapping of my over-tense muscles is mirrored by the cracking of the continent’s stratus layer as water finds a new path.

My only chance of escape is chaos.

And to do that I must give the Nephilim something they have never seen before. Something they do not enjoy. Something they fear.

I hear Ninnis speaking to me. I cannot hear his words, but I detect concern. Was I supposed to experience this pain? Did any of them know what, if anything, would happen when I drank the blood? As the pain subsides, a grin replaces my gritted teeth. They fear they have chosen wrong. That I am not strong enough to contain the essence of Nephil.

Assuaging their fears, I uncurl and stand. Something about me must look different, because they stare at me with wide eyes. Even Enki looks stunned. But I am not concerned with what they think. My energy is focused above them.

It’s only a few seconds before someone notices and shouts out in Sumerian. All heads turn up. Including mine.

Swirling at the top of the chamber is a black cloud. It’s small, but it quickly grows in size as water pours in from above. When the cloud fills the upper atmosphere of the chamber, the temperature suddenly drops.

I hear Enki growl. He’s not enjoying this. But he also doesn’t know if this was caused by my bonding with Nephil. In fact, he may be wondering if it’s Nephil doing this.

The warm air at the bottom of the chamber mixes with the cold air above. The friction builds quickly. A blinding light flashes across the ceiling accompanied by a crack of thunder so loud even the seasoned hunters sitting before me cup their ears.

Then, miles underground, where the temperature is a steady sixty-five degrees and weather doesn’t exist, it snows. And not gently. The whiteout is as intense as anything ever seen on the surface. And the wind whips around the chamber like a cyclone.

Everyone is blind.

Except for me.

The wind parts the snow for me, creating a path to the stairs and then to the massive doors above, which have blown open. I run to the stairs and take them two at a time, shedding my armor and cloak as I go. Where I’m headed, it will only slow me down. I leave on my leather undergarments and the belt which holds my weapons, everything else remains on the stairs.

I enter the tunnel beyond the exit and find it empty. There are a hundred ways to flee from here, many better than the one I choose, but I must see Aimee before I leave. I find the spiral staircase and charge up.

The storm has ended. I can feel it. If not for the energy provided by Nephil’s blood, I would have never been able to pull the storm together this far under-ground. Even now, I can feel my energy falling back to normal levels. I’m just thankful the storm didn’t exhaust me, like it did on the surface when I took Aimee.

But even at full strength, I may not be able to escape. Once they recover from the storm and find me missing, the search will begin. I need to be gone from this place when that happens.

At last I can see Aimee’s room ahead. I sprint for the door and open it without knocking. She’s sitting on the bed. Her head snaps up, and for a moment she smiles. Then she sees the look of panic on my face.

She stands. “What happened?”

“I need to go,” I say. “But I needed to thank you first.”

“For what?”

“For saving me. For forgiving me despite the awful things I did to you. I’m not sure how you can.”

“Solomon,” she says with a slight smile. “Nothing is unforgivable. And it was not you who did those things.”

I embrace her hard and then step back. “I might be gone for a while, but someday, we’ll both leave this place. I promise.”

She squeezes my hand and says, “We’ll leave together,” but I can see the doubt in her eyes. “Go,” she says. “And don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

My look of doubt is impossible to hide, too.

“Just like living in a lion’s den,” she says.

I have no idea what she’s talking about, but her smile is genuine. I step back into the hallway and am stopped in my tracks by a booming voice that sounds more confused than angry. “What are you doing?”

It’s Ull. He’s not wet from the snow. I hadn’t seen him leave the banquet hall, but he must have. And now he’s seen me with Aimee.

Far from being stupid, Ull puts the pieces together quickly. I’m no longer dressed for the feast. I’m saying goodbye to the human I captured. And I’m terrified by his presence.

I think it’s my fear that tips him off. He sees the change in me. Knows I’m me again.

But I’m not as weak as he thinks. I may not be a savage killer, but I will defend the people I care about. And if Ull lives, Aimee will surely die or be tortured. And I will not allow that to happen.

I step out into the middle of the hall and face my master. With one hand on Whipsnap, I look him in the eyes, pour on an English accent and repeat the quote I used in the arena, which I now remember comes from Oliver. “Please, sir, may I have some more?”

I have no doubt he remembers the odd phrase composed of the last rebellious words I spoke before he broke me, body and mind, endearing my will to his.

His response is immediate.

And violent.

His axe cuts through the air so fast I barely have time to respond. I leap up and the axe passes below me, so close that I actually roll off of its blade and back to my feet. I know what’s coming next, so I’m already focusing on creating a strong wind. Three arrows, each a kill shot, are deflected away from me at the last moment. Two slam into the far wall and stick. The third ricochets off.

Losing his patience, Ull tosses the bow to the side, most likely recalling he had to get up close and personal in our first encounter. I remember it too, and decide I would prefer to stay out of his reach. I need to reach his head, remove that golden crown and see how well that protected part of the warrior body heals. But there are no god-heads carved into the stone and I don’t have my rope.

Still, there might be another way. Not all of the energy delivered by Nephil has left. I still have some strength. And if I can deflect massive arrows...

I take Whipsnap from my belt. It springs to life in my hand, like a living thing, eager once more for the hunt. But this is no hunt. It’s a fight.

To the death.

I charge, bending Whipsnap in my hands. Ull charges too. His arm is raised back, ready to smash me to the floor like a fly. One good hit, that’s all it will take, and this will be over.

Whether it’s him striking me, or me him. Either way, one of us is going to die.

Twenty feet away he begins to swing.

I jump.

For a moment I can see his swing is going to connect. Then the wind picks me up and carries me higher. His eyes go wide with the realization that he has missed. This tiny insect can fly, albeit briefly.

He tries to duck to the side, but Whipsnap has a good reach and when I let it loose, it connects with the crown as it did in the arena. And just like then, the crown flies from his head. I think, what a fool (for not securing it tighter) and then concentrate my energy far behind me, far down the hallway where one of Ull’s arrows lies on the floor.

Everything moves slowly. The crown is still sailing away, flipping end over end like a tossed coin. Ull’s forehead is exposed. The loose skin pulses with his heartbeat. I can hear it. Thum. Thum. Thum. I focus on it. Even as I fall, I will the wind toward it.

The arrow passes over me in a blur, moving as fast as it did from Ull’s bow. But this time, the projectile finds its target. I hear a tearing sound followed by a slurp. The impact knocks the giant off his feet. He falls beneath me.

I land on Ull’s still chest. The arrow is buried in his forehead. And he doesn’t move. The giant is dead.

The Nephilim can be killed.

I stand up, looking down at my former master and realize I am free. Not from pursuit, or threat of life, slavery or future breaking. But free of the monster I called my master. A part of me loved this thing, the way an abused person loves an abuser, but my eyes have been opened.

“I am free,” I say, and a single set of ears hears me.

I turn and face Ninnis, who has just reached the top of the staircase. He’s soaking wet and has a funny look on his face. I realize it’s because I’m standing on the chest of a dead Nephilim. “They can be killed,” I say to him.

His face is grim. Unreadable. He shakes his head, and then runs away.

Though this is out of character for Ninnis, I know not to waste time questioning it. My retreat takes me in an opposite direction, and I find the path wonderfully free of pursuers.

I squeeze through a maze of passageways, covering my tracks as best I can. I travel in water whenever possible to erase my scent. I move for days without stopping for food.

Despite my hunger, every step away from Asgard fills me with a hopeful energy. Even in the darkness, there can be light. My mind returns to that day in the car. We’re on the way to Logan airport. Mira is sitting next to me. The photo of us is in my hand. And Open Up Your Heart (And Let the Light Shine In) by Gail & Rosemary Clooney is playing on the oldies station. Mira knows it and sings along.

Mommy told me something a little girl should know

It’s all about the Devil and I’ve learned to hate him so

She says he causes trouble when you let him in the room

He will never ever leave you if your heart is filled with gloom

So, let the sun shine in, face it with a grin

Smilers never lose and frowners never win

So, let the sun shine in, face it with a grin

Open up your heart and let the sun shine in

The memory is infectious and the lyrics reflect how I feel. I play it back in my head, and I’m soon singing along quietly. I’m whistling the song, feeling hopeful about the future and eventually rescuing Aimee, but when I reach my destination, Ninnis is waiting for me.

38

“Nice tune,” he says, leaning against the tunnel wall. He looks calm, collected and refreshed.

“How did you find me?” I ask, my hand resting on Whipsnap.

“If you’re wondering how I tracked you, I didn’t. You covered your scent nicely. But I knew where you were going.”

I squint at him, asking how without saying a word.

“Where is it?” he asks. “Where did you hide it?”

I stay silent. I answer only to myself now.

“I knew you couldn’t destroy it.”

“Why didn’t you say anything about it?”

He smiles. “We all keep trinkets from the topside. You were doing so well I didn’t see the harm in it.”

“Whoops,” I say.

“Was it the photo?” he asks. “Is that what brought your memories back? They are back?”

I nod. There’s no reason to lie about that. “Not the photo.”

I shrug. “I think it was Nephil’s blood.” Now this I need to lie about. To protect Aimee. “Must have made my mind strong enough to undo the breaking.”

He ponders this before offering his own shrug. “You won’t come back?”

“What about Ull?”

“Without a witness they won’t know if you killed him or if you had help, which it certainly appears you did, though you and I both know that’s not true.”

“You weren’t a witness?” I ask.

“A witness who also happened to be your trainer. When you killed Ull you put my reputation in jeopardy. I would be strung up, filleted alive and fed to a breeder if they knew the truth.”

“What do they know?”

“That something strange happened when you were bonded with the blood of Nephil. That you disappeared shortly after. And that someone, most likely another warrior, killed Ull.”

Which means, I think, with the exception of Ninnis, my escape has gone perfectly. “When I stood up after taking the blood. Before the storm. What was everyone looking at?”

“You haven’t seen it?”

I shake my head. I have no idea what he’s talking about.

He motions to his head. “Your hair. There’s a streak in it.”

A streak? I’m fairly certain the coloring of my hair over time represented the progress of my corruption. I was fairly certain the change was permanent. “What color?” I ask.

“Blond,” he says.

I want to smile. To leap with joy. Maybe everything that’s been done to me can be undone or repaired? Maybe one day I’ll see the sky and not need to squint. Or I’ll share a birthday meal with friends. Or any number of things I took for granted before. But in my heart, I know those things are a long way off. “What happens now?”

He shifts away from the wall, casually holding his hands behind his back. “All of the hunters have been sent out to search for you. They will track you down, subdue you if necessary, and bring you back.”

“But that’s not why you’re here,” I say, looking back down the tunnel. “You came alone.”

He grins. “I’m here to break you. Again. And bring back Ull, the hunter.”

When he pulls his hand out from behind his back, I give a yank on Whipsnap. My weapon cracks open, but is immediately pulled from my hand. Ninnis knew I would use Whipsnap and snared it with a line, yanking it away. He tosses my weapon behind him.

For a moment, I think he’s going to say something again. But he lets out a wail as savage as anything I’ve ever heard in the underworld or above it, and charges. His arms are outstretched. His fingers curve into hooks.

I fall back under him, unprepared for such ferocity. Ull would have been, but I’m not him anymore.

When I hit the stone floor, Ninnis has my arms pinned back. His long, thick, and sharpened fingernails are digging into my skin.

This is how it starts.

The breaking.

And I can feel a part of me—the part that flinches under Justin’s punches or weeps when my mother laughs at me—shrinking back. But I’m more than that now. I have been broken and repaired. I have all the skills of a Nephilim hunter. I am bonded with the continent of Antarctica on a supernatural level. I am the killer of warriors and have consumed the blood of Nephil, lord of the Nephilim.

“AND YOU THINK YOU CAN BREAK ME?”

The voice is unnatural.

I’m not even sure it was mine. But it came out of my mouth and roared like thunder.

A wind kicks up from the tunnel below and races toward us. Ninnis has let go of me and sat up. He’s shaking with fear.

Then an invisible force strikes him and carries him up the steeply graded tunnel. I pick up Whipsnap and give chase, but I lose sight of him when he’s launched from the tunnel like a human cannonball.

I enter the night and find a clear sky full of stars and a full moon. It’s bright enough to make me squint. Ninnis lies still, three hundred feet below. I go to him and crouch down. His chest rises and falls. He is alive.

I could kill him now. It would be so easy.

Without realizing I’m doing it, I place Whipsnap’s blade against his throat. I see myself cutting him open, watching his blood gush into the white snow.

And I remember the voice.

My voice, that was not mine.

The bloodlust reveals that I have more than just Ull inside me now. There is a new voice.

Nephil.

Some part of him is there. Fighting for control.

And I won’t give it. Not to either of them.

In all my time underground, I have killed to eat. I have killed in self-defense. Insects. Dinosaurs. Feeders. Dozens of other stranger creatures. Including Nephilim. But I have never killed a human being.

And I’m not going to start now. Not by the direct action of running him through, nor by the indirect action of leaving him to freeze to death.

I take Ninnis by the hand and drag him back to the tunnel entrance. This will be the second time I’ve spared his life. I doubt he will honor my mercy by returning the favor, but to save myself, I need to save him too.

I leave him sitting by the entrance and scrawl three words into the stone wall across from him. It will be the first thing he sees when he wakes up. I’m not sure the power of the words will affect him as they did me, but I can hope.

Further down the tunnel, I stop by a crack in the wall. It takes me thirty seconds to work the Polaroid photo out of the wall with Whipsnap’s blade tip. I risked everything for this photo, heading to familiar territory when I should have been headed deep. But when I look at the image and see my face, so young and so happy, and next to me is Mira—the sight of her breaks my heart—I feel the voices in me fall silent. This photo is my anchor to myself and to everything I’m fighting for.

But right now, I can’t fight. I’m not even sure how to fight what is coming. Despite all I can do, I am just one person alone against a supernatural army. So I run. As fast and as deep as I dare, I run.

39

Forty days later, I stop. Though I’m not sure it was really forty days, by underground standards or topside standards. I haven’t slept much. But I’ve traveled far and deep and have found a place I think the Nephilim, and the hunters will at least think twice about before following me.

It’s one of the largest caverns I’ve seen. The ceiling is hundreds of feet up but not concealed in darkness. Instead, it’s covered in the luminescent crystals that lined the pit. So many, in fact, that I need a few minutes to adjust to the light.

I stand at the edge of a waterfall, looking down. Below me is a lake, not as vast as the one at New Jericho, but big enough. And the light shines on the water just right, so I can see the animals living in the water. There are fish, lots of them, but none are large enough to eat me. There are no seals here, either. If there were, I imagine the cavern’s primary denizen and topper of the food chain—a pack of cresties led by a thirty-foot matriarch—would have eaten them long ago.

Living among cresties is a risk, but there are several other animals living here, and more than a few of them are prey for the cresties. As long as they don’t detect my scent, which seemed to have set off the first mother cresty I encountered, I should be fine.

And the risk is worth it. Not only are there fish and other prey animals to eat—birds, both in the air and flightless, what appear to be herds of hairless mammals, and if necessary, the cresties—but there are also plants. Trees, shrubs and vines surround the lake. Plains of tall green grasses roll into the distance. I have no idea how this is possible, without sunlight. Maybe the stones actually produce ultraviolet light? Maybe the spirit of Antarctica makes it possible.

I don’t know.

I honestly don’t care.

All I know is that I can live here. Maybe long enough to repair my soul. Or come up with a plan.

What I don’t know, is how to get down.

I am perched three hundred feet above the lake. The rocks to either side of the river are slick and impossible to climb down. I’ve already backtracked and searched side tunnels with no luck. Short of spending months exploring miles upon miles of cave systems, this is the only entrance to sanctuary.

Then I remember who I have become.

“I am Solomon,” I say. “Solomon Vincent, the first and only child born on Antarctica. I am home.”

I walk into the river. Like so many other things in this land that seem to crave my death, the water fights to pull me over the edge. But I’ve learned to stand against such things. I can stand in the river and walk against its power. I can focus my will upon it and redirect its flow. Maybe even move mountains when I’m strong enough. Or, if I choose, I can go with the flow—

—and jump.

Epilogue

When Ninnis woke, he didn’t open his eyes. He allowed his other senses to reach out first, showing no signs of consciousness. There was a cold breeze on his skin, but not too cold. He’d been brought back into the tunnel. And though his body ached, he could tell his wayward protégé hadn’t beaten him. In fact, it seemed the boy had saved his life by dragging him back inside.

Ninnis could still smell Solomon, but the scent was faint, faded by hours.

He listened but heard nothing more than the distant wind outside.

He was alone.

With his head tilted toward the floor, he opened his eyes. He inspected his toes and remaining fingers. No signs of frostbite.

Why? He thought. Why didn’t he kill me?

He must know I’ll find him again. And if I can’t break him, I’ll kill him. Better that he disappears forever than stain my reputation with the truth.

But can I kill him?

He repeated the question in his mind, over and over, and never came up with an answer. He was mortal. That was certain. But the true extent of the boy’s abilities were unknown.

His affronts against the masters couldn’t be overlooked. If he would not serve them, he would die, and the battle against the human race would have to be fought under Enki’s rule—something that had been proposed in the past. Only Enki’s insistence that they free Nephil had stopped the movement.

But with Nephil’s blood consumed by a hunter turned rogue, what was to stop them? The hunt for Solomon would continue, but at some point, whether he was never found or found by Ninnis and killed, the war would have to be waged.

And what could stop them? What force on earth could stand in the way of the mighty Nephilim?

Ninnis looked up and found the answer to his question etched in the stone wall.

I forgive you.

Prologue

Lieutenant Ninnis was once a proud man. An adventurer with a scruffy beard, blazing blue eyes and a swarthy disposition akin to a pirate—the nice sort. But that man died long ago. Or at least the parts of him that understood things like love, friendship…and forgiveness did. The latter of the three had vexed him for the past several months.

Little Ull, the hunter he had kidnapped, broken and trained, had turned against their masters. And a final conflict with the boy, whose memories of his life before Antarctica had returned, had left Ninnis wounded, inside and out. The pain from the broken arm and several snapped ribs paled in comparison to the shame that boiled his insides and kept sleep at bay.

As punishment for his failure to recapture the boy, Ninnis’s wounds were left to heal naturally, over time, rather than accelerated by the blood of the masters. This not only heaped hot coals of disgrace on his head, but also kept him out of the ongoing hunt. No one knew Ull better than Ninnis, and without him, they would never find the boy. And if they did, they wouldn’t stand a chance, not without the knowledge Ninnis possessed.

First, the boy had some kind of power over the elements. At first Ninnis had thought it was a side effect of being bonded with the body of Nephil, but Ull had always shown a strange resistance to the cold. Second, the boy’s memory had returned. He knew he was really Solomon Ull Vincent, not simply Ull the hunter. So his choices and strategies would vary greatly from those of a typical hunter. And third, some part of Nephil did indeed reside in the boy. He’d heard it in the boy’s voice when they last met. That made him unpredictable and more dangerous than Ninnis wanted to contemplate.

But none of this weighed as heavily on Ninnis’s thoughts as the three simple words Ull had scratched into the stone wall. Ull could have left Ninnis for dead, having knocked him unconscious in the freezing Antarctic air. But he didn’t. The boy had dragged Ninnis underground, laid him in a tunnel and left a message for him to find upon waking.

I forgive you.

Ninnis had scratched the message away, but it had been etched into his memory, haunting him every time he closed his eyes. After everything he had done to the boy—taken him from his family, starved him, broken him, stolen his memory and treated him like a dog—Ull had forgiven him? It didn’t make sense. Even with the boy’s memory returned, what kind of a person could do such a thing?

The strength of that gesture frightened Ninnis more than anything he’d faced before, but it also enraged him. He had little doubt that the message was left to taunt him. It made him look weak. Frail. Like an old man whose mind and actions were not his own. Poor, poor Ninnis.

It was time to set the record straight.

It was time to find Ull.

He would bring Ull back and break him again, or kill him.

Ninnis sat on a stool, checking over his equipment. Satisfied, he wrapped his belt around his skinny waist and tied it tight. He carried a water skin, binoculars, the trusty knife he’d had since his time in the British Army and an empty pouch for food rations he would hunt along the way.

Ninnis looked around his small room covered with symbolic graffiti left by the hunters who occupied this space during the thousands of years before his birth. After spending months recuperating here, he loathed the place. He was a hunter. Meant to roam the underground, to seek out and battle the enemies of his master—not to nurse wounds. He stood, walked to the door and yanked it open. A massive foot greeted him.

Ninnis stepped out of the room and looked up into the large eyes of a giant. He gave a bow and spoke his master’s name with reverence. “Lord Enki.”

“Rise, Ninnis,” Enki said, his voice resonating in the tall hallway that held two rows of doors to the quarters of other human hunters and teachers. “You join the hunt?”

“If it pleases you, Master.”

“It does,” Enki replied. “You have handled your punishment with strength and character, as I knew you would.”

“Thank you, Master.”

Ninnis stepped back, surprised by Enki crouching before him. “I have something for you. A gift I think will come in useful.” He held out a sword that glimmered in the flames illuminating the tunnel. It reminded Ninnis of a machete, but longer.

Ninnis took the offered blade and tested its weight in his hand. It felt good. Light. He swung the blade noticing how little effort it took. But it would not do. “Master,” he said carefully, “It is a blade without comparison, but its size will slow my progress through the underground. I cannot use this.”

“An assessment I knew you would make,” Enki said with a nod. “But you are wrong.”

The giant took the sword, pushed a small switch Ninnis had not noticed and gave it the tiniest of twitches. The blade curled in on itself, snapping into a tight roll of metal that would take up very little room.

Ninnis’s eyes widened. A grin spread on his face.

Enki handed the sword back to him. “Test the blade,” he said. “On my flesh.” The giant held out his forearm. “The blood that spills is yours.”

Sword in hand, Ninnis toggled the small switch back to its original position and shot his arm out towards Enki. The blade unfurled quickly as it arced through the air, fully extending as it passed by the master’s arm. A two inch deep, ten inch long slice opened up on Enki’s arm, but only a single drop of blood emerged before the wound healed.

“I will call it Strike,” Ninnis said. “As it resembles the serpent.”

When the drop fell, Ninnis reached out for it, and caught the purple fluid on the sword’s blade. He brought the weapon up to his mouth, paused for a moment, and looked up at the giant. Enki gave a nod and Ninnis licked the blood from the blade.

A moment later, the old hunter fell to the stone floor clutching his stomach. The intense pain felt like a fire raging inside his body. But then, just as quickly as it had begun, the flames subsided. Ninnis stood, feeling stronger than he had in years, and when he looked up at his master again, a newfound malevolence had entered his eyes.

“Now go, my hunter. Find Ull and bring him back to us so that his body might be bonded with the soul of my father. Do anything it takes. Do you understand? Anything.”

Ninnis nodded. He did understand. There were laws in this kingdom, and even Enki, who ruled the warrior clan, was subject to them. But he had just given Ninnis permission to break them if need be. That meant Ninnis could kill anything or anyone that got in his way, whether another hunter, a watcher, a gatherer or even a warrior. Ninnis and all his fury were to be unleashed on the underworld for the first time. He smiled at his good fortune and thought, Your forgiveness will be your undoing, Ull.

I am coming.

1

It starts with a shriek. The hunt. High pitched wails follow. Breaking branches. The pounding of panicked feet. A squeal and then silence. I’ve grown so accustomed to the sounds that I can sleep through them; I know, because I sometimes discover kills I did not observe, which is rare, because here, in this massive cavern I now call home, I know everything.

The hunters are a pack—fourteen strong—of meat eating dinosaurs I call cresties, and not because they have clean teeth. A large boney crest rises up behind their yellow serpentine eyes, giving them an ominous appearance. At first I believed the crest was involved in attracting a mate, but since both the male and female cresties have crests, my assessment makes little sense. And it’s the females that cause the real trouble. Not only are they the hunters, but they’re also far larger than the males. The pack’s leader, who stretches thirty feet from snout to tail and stands fifteen feet tall, is the only creature here that really poses any threat to me. She’s built like a T-Rex, but more agile. She has razor sharp talons, teeth the size of butcher knives and the disposition of a—well, of a meat eating dinosaur, I suppose. She is constantly nipping the others and once eviscerated one of the males who mated with a lesser female. I suspect she is unloved by the others, but she is respected.

I named her Alice after the Allosaurus from Land of the Lost, one of my favorite TV shows before coming to Antarctica. I can’t remember how long ago that was now. My brain tells me it was two years ago, but my body, weary from life a mile below ground, says it’s been longer. But time works differently here. What feels like two years to me could have been five on the surface. Maybe more. But I’m fairly confident my two year estimation is close to the mark.

The hunt has ended. The herd of oversized subterranean, hairless, albino goats has stopped bleating and returned to their non-stop grazing, confident that the cresties have been satiated for the moment. I can’t see them from my cliffside perch where not even Alice could reach me, but I can hear the sound of tearing flesh and breaking bones. Inside of twenty minutes there will be nothing left but a blood stain. The cresties eat everything, including bones and horns.

I roll over on my bed of palm fronds. The dry leaves crunch beneath me and I long for my bed back home. I turn my perfect memory to that place. The home in Maine. My second floor bedroom. The window next to my bed looked out into the backyard. I used to lie there during springtime rainstorms, feeling the water as it splashed through the screen window. It smelled of new grass and wet metal. A childhood scent. The memory breaks my heart and a tear drops from my eye.

I had promised myself I wouldn’t cry while living in this new world, but I wasn’t myself then. I was Ull the hunter, vessel of Nephil, Lord of the Nephilim. But before that, for most of my life, I was Solomon Ull Vincent, son of Mark and Beth, friend to Justin McCarthy and all around bookworm with a perfect memory. But I was born here on Antarctica. The first and only Antarctican. And that made me special. More special than anyone realized, even Ninnis, the man who stole me and brought me here.

I think of my parents. Of the night I was taken from them and dragged beneath the snow. I still feel the pain of losing them, my perfect memory repeating the events again and again, searching for a way things could have been different. But how could I have known that a race of half-human, half-demon monstrosities—the Nephilim—lived beneath the surface of Antarctica. How could I have known that these heroes of old, these men of renown, who used to pose as the polygamist gods of the ancient world, would know about my birth? How could I know about how their spirit entered me upon my birth or about how they wanted my body to house the soul of their leader Nephil, the first Nephilim, who is currently trapped in Tartarus in the depths of the earth?

I couldn’t.

It’s insane.

But it’s my life.

I have to live with it, and the awful things I did as Ull. I know it’s not all my fault. I was broken, beaten, starved and forced to do awful things to survive. In the end, my mind was not my own and the memories of my former life were masked by a haze of hatred and violence. I hunted. I killed. And I kidnapped Aimee Clark, the woman who welcomed me into the world at the moment of my birth. She is the wife of Merrill Clark, the man who named me, and the mother of Mirabelle Clark, their daughter—whose photo I carry with me at all times. Mira is my hope. I think of her every day and cling to her memory. Not only do I long to see her again—she brought out the best in me—but I wish to reunite her with her mother. I know the pain of losing a parent and my chest aches from the knowledge that I did that to her. I took Aimee. I brought her to the Nephilim. And I left her behind when I escaped.

After consuming the physical essence of Nephil—a partially congealed dollop of his blood—meant to strengthen my body so that it might contain the giant’s soul, I ran. Being born on Antarctica filled me with the “spirit” or magic of the Nephilim, but it also bonded me to the continent, to the earth, air and water. They are mine to control, though I do not understand how, and the effort often drains my body. But I was able to use this ability to conceal my flight, filling the underground with a snowstorm. I escaped from the Nephilim citadel of Asgard, named for the city of the Norse gods, in dramatic form, killing the real Ull, son of Thor, son of Odin, and the giant who I called ‘Master.’ I ran far and deep and eventually came across this subterranean oasis.

I once was just a boy. I became a hunter. And now I…am the hunted.

Although none of the hunters have discovered me yet, I can sense them out there. Searching. I am far too important to their cause—the destruction of the human race that cast them out so long ago. And the hunters will find me. Eventually. Until then, I’ll build my strength, test my abilities and come up with a plan.

And the plan so far? I have no idea. But I’m central to their plot and without me, they’re stuck. I know that’s not enough. I’ll eventually have to do more, not because I want to do more, but because I can. The honest truth is that I’m terrified. I’m afraid that I’ll be caught, that Ninnis will break me again, that I’ll become Ull once more. The idea of facing another Nephilim makes me sick to my stomach. While I have physically adapted to this harsh world, I am not cut out for it. I would like nothing more than to leave this place, find McMurdo Base and fly back to Maine and my parents. I could be home in a month. But no one else can fight the Nephilim. And then there’s Aimee, held prisoner somewhere. I can’t leave without her. And she won’t leave until the Nephilim are defeated. And that’s what scares me the most; knowing I’ll one day have to face my fears, most likely before I’m ready, and against my will. Someday I’ll have to face the darkness inside me, the ancient malevolence called Nephil that seeks to consume me. I’m almost certain I will lose.

My train of thought disturbs me, so I sit up and stretch. The cavern is bright, but not with morning light. It’s always bright, lit from the small glowing crystals that cover the walls and ceiling. In other caves, like the pit in which I was broken, the crystals are spread out and twinkle like stars in the darkness. Here they’re so tightly packed that the cave is lit like dusk on the surface.

The sounds of the feast have faded. The albino goat is no doubt consumed. The cresties will take another before the day is through. It’s a good thing the goats reproduce like rabbits and grow fast. Otherwise the cresties would have burned through the cavern’s main food source long ago. I don’t eat the goats. I tried once, but the cresties took exception and nearly killed me. If not for a sudden rainstorm—something these subterranean dinosaurs had never seen—Alice would have gotten me for sure.

I’m hungry and I search the perimeter for movement. The lake is one hundred yards to the left of my perch. It supplies me with fresh water and an abundance of fish, which has become my staple diet along with an assortment of mushrooms, leafy plants and the occasional oversized albino centipede. “All the nutrition a growing boy needs,” I say.

I focus my eyes in the distance, searching the canopy of lush trees that somehow manage to grow green in this underground tropical Shangri-La, far away from the sun—a subterranean rainforest, sans the rain. Despite my genius intelligence and photographic memory, I have yet to figure out how this is possible and have chalked it up to being one more magical mystery that is the underworld. Trying to understand how grass, trees and flowers can grow green without photosynthesis from a scientific perspective is maddening. I gave up the task long ago.

Movement catches my eye. That’s when I see her. Alice. Her head, shaped similarly to the large palm fronds, stands fifty feet away, her yellow eyes staring at me. Despite my being here for some time, she still sees me as an intruder. Perhaps it’s because I escaped her wrath before, or maybe it’s the scent of my hair. Originally a stark white blond, my shoulder length hair turned dark red, like the Nephilim’s, as I was corrupted by them. A blond streak had emerged—some of my innocence recaptured—but for the most part, my hair is still blood red. And the scent of it, of the Nephilim in me, offends the cresties.

And there is Nephilim in me. The spirit of Antarctica. The physical body of Nephil. And I became one of their best hunters, serving under the Norse house. They transformed me into Ull, and while I was him, I reveled in their violent, mankind-hating culture. And a part of Ull still lives in me, calling for blood and for dominance. But far more frightening than that dark side of myself, is Nephil. His voice, buried deep, surfaces in my weakness and in my dreams. He is hunting for me, too.

Everyone is. “Including you,” I say to Alice, letting her know I’ve seen her.

With a snort, Alice ducks back. I hear her feet pounding away. She prefers to ambush prey. And I’m pretty sure she realizes that’s the only way she’d be able to kill me.

“Someday, Alice,” I say, “you and I are going to have it out.”

A distant roar responds. I don’t know if she heard me or not, but I find humor in the moment, and allow myself an uncommon smile. Then I jump from my cliff-side hideaway and drop thirty feet to the ground.

2

A sudden wind kicks up just before I land, slowing my fall. Then I’m on the ground and running. Staying still in this cavern, other than on my perch, invites trouble. My scent is strong and easily tracked by the cresties, who have come to know it well. But they’ve just eaten and are no doubt lounging with full bellies.

Except for Alice. She never seems to rest.

But even she can’t follow where I’m going.

Low hanging tree branches slap me as I pass. Brush clings to the leather clothing I wear. The best phrase I can think of to describe it is a loin cloth, but I find the term embarrassing, even in my own subconscious. If the kids at the high school I attended—several years ahead of time—saw me now, their teasing would never end. Not that it ever did, but it would be magnified to a scale I can’t even comprehend.

Would it? I wonder?

My body is strong now. Athletic. I can kill (and have killed) dinosaurs. What would a few stupid jocks be to me?

Nothing! The voice of Ull shouts from inside me. They would bow before me.

Images of football players strung up and filleted fill my mind’s eye. But these thoughts are not from Ull. He would simply run them through. I fought with the dark thoughts conjured by my imagination long before coming to Antarctica, but since taking in the body of Nephil, they’ve reached a new level of depravity.

The graphic images cause me to stumble for a moment. I pause, sucking in a deep breath. I’m growing accustomed to the images, and I’m sometimes able to push them away with thoughts of Mira, Aimee or my parents. When all else fails, I look at the photo.

I pull the Polaroid photo out of the watertight pouch I made for it and look at the two smiling faces. The first blond haired kid is me, sporting an uncommonly genuine smile. The second blond, with pouffy hair and dark skin is Mira. She’s the first girl that took an interest in me, and we came close to kissing once, though it was accidental. Still, the sight of her squeezes my chest even after all this time.

The darkness fades and my thoughts clear. I’m me, I remind myself. Solomon. Not Ull. Not Nephil. I am in control.

I secure the photo back in its pouch and set out again, but I don’t have to run for long. The lake is just ahead. I normally come here to fish these waters, but not today. Since arriving in this underground sanctuary, I have searched for a way out. The walls here are as solid as they are vast, and I have been unable to locate a single tunnel leading out. The only obvious exit is the one I came in through—the waterfall pouring into the lake from two hundred feet above. But even with the wind at my beck and call, I haven’t been able to leap high enough nor scale the cavern’s polished walls. I believed myself stuck in this place forever, until this morning.

The waterfall pours a continuous stream of water into the lake—thousands upon thousands of gallons every hour. But the water level never rises. And the air in the cave is far from humid. There is an exit beneath the water. I’m sure of it.

I just need to find it.

Which is easier said than done because the lake is nearly a mile long, half as wide and deeper than fifty feet (which is the deepest I’ve swum).

I plunge into the water and relax. Other than my perch, this is the safest place in the cavern. There are no large predators in the water—only fish. A mix of albino species I’ve never seen before and some ocean dwelling species, like Cod, that seem to have adapted to living in fresh water far below the Earth’s surface. I kick out into the lake, hoping to feel the tug of a current. I never have before, but I wasn’t paying attention until now. In the middle of the lake, I lay on my back and float, staring up at the crystal covered ceiling.

And…nothing.

Other than the small waves created by the waterfall, my body is the only thing stirring the waters. It must be deep, I think. Maybe too deep.

I tread water again, laying out a mental search grid. I’ll dive as deep as I can again and again until I find it. I wonder if I can use my abilities to aid the search—maybe create an air bubble around my head or propel myself through the water like I do through the air.

Twenty feet away, the surface of the lake ripples. The movement catches my full attention. The waterfall is far away. And I am the only thing in this lake that should be disturbing the surface. None of the fish grow over ten pounds, nor do they school. Which means something else—something large—is in the water with me. And I suddenly feel vulnerable.

I am confident on land, against cresties, Nephilim warriors and unknown dangers. I can hold my own with the best of them one on one. But I’ve never had to fight in the water; my movements will be slowed and my coordination will be thrown off by the need to stay afloat.

Don’t back down, Ull says to me. Fight! And for once we agree. Fleeing is rarely the right choice in this underground realm. Turning your back on an enemy means certain death.

My weapon of choice is called Whipsnap. It’s a shaft of highly flexible wood with a spear tip on one end and a spiked mace ball on the other. The original had a bone blade and a stone mace, but it was upgraded when Ull—when I—was accepted into the Nephilim ranks. I usually have it wrapped around my waist and clipped to my belt, ready to spring into action. However, the blade tip and mace make staying afloat a chore, so I’ve left it back at the perch.

That leaves me with my climbing claws. I made them myself, as well. Inspired by Justin’s ninja magazines, the claws have three triangular, shark-like, “egg-monster” teeth on the palm-side that are great for climbing. On the knuckle-side are three spiked teeth that make convenient slashing and puncture weapons. Whatever side of my hand you get while I’m wearing them is going to hurt. I pull them from my hip-pack, slide them onto my hands and cinch the leather tight.

The water ripples again, this time just ten feet away. Whatever this thing is, it’s showing no fear, which is typically a very bad sign. It means it’s never had a reason to be afraid before; never known a reason to be wary.

Until now, Ull says.

Not now, I think back. Let me focus.

And he does, because in the heat of battle, he often surfaces as the dominant personality. Usually just for a few moments, but he is part of me. The part that hunts and kills—and takes pleasure in it.

Weapons in place, I let out a breath and slide beneath the surface.

The creature is large and only feet away. For a moment, I’m filled with dread. How can I fight something so big with just climbing claws? Then I see its black eyes and recognition slaps me in the face. We surface together, eyes locked.

He lets out a steamy breath that smells of fish. His way of saying “hello,” I suppose.

“How did you get here?” I ask, not really expecting an answer. He is a Weddell seal after all. The creature’s brown skin pocked with gray spots makes him nearly invisible under the water’s surface. His ten foot length is imposing, but his upturned mouth makes him appear as though he’s constantly smiling. But that’s not why I let my guard down. I suspect this is the same Weddell seal that saved my life so long ago after I plunged over a different waterfall into an even bigger subterranean lake, bordering the ancient ruins of a city the Nephilim call New Jericho. My perfect memory scans every nuance of the seal’s face and confirms my suspicion. This is the same seal!

The creature just stares, his whiskers twitching.

I sense he recognizes the claws as weapons, so I take them off and put them away. He moves closer and some part of me tenses. But I know this creature. He is the first and only thing I’ve met in this underground world that I trust.

“You need a name,” I tell him, running through a list of options. He’s a male. I can tell from the broad head and muzzle, which with seals, like with dogs, helps in identifying the males without getting personal. Dr. Clark would have named him something ancient, but given the number of ancient names already littering the underworld, from gods to cities, I scratch those options off the list. I decide to stick with my 1980s pop-culture references. This time I choose the Herculoids. “I’ll call you Gloop.”

The seal sniffs me and my hair, his whiskers tickling my skin and getting a laugh out of me. Then he moves back with three gentle twitches of his flippers, sliding away from me.

“Gloop, wait,” I say. “Don’t go.”

And he doesn’t. Instead, he turns to the side as the water all around us comes to life. A second Weddell seal surfaces. Then another and another. They keep on coming until fifteen seals, two of them pups, hover on the surface.

They dance around me, swirling through the water, spinning their large bodies in an act of play that is innocent and makes me smile. After a moment of watching, I join in, slipping through the water, twisting around the seals’ bodies as they slide by mine. It is an elaborate dance with no leader, but when it ends I realize it had meaning. We are bonded. Like family. For some reason, these benign creatures, perhaps the only benign creatures in the underworld, have chosen to accept me.

Which is strange.

After seeing or smelling my red hair, most denizens of the underground flee or attack. But these creatures seem to see right past it, to my core, and they know I’m no threat to them. Ull would have been, but he’s not in control right now. He’s buried in my subconscious, pouting about not being able to kill anything.

With the dance done, all eyes are on me.

My mother sometimes referred to strange moments or coincidences as being “cosmic.” I think she got that from the sixties. But for the first time in my life I feel the word makes sense. Because this is cosmic. I can feel these seals. Not just the pressure their bodies exert on the water around them—the water I’m bonded to—but I can feel them in my mind. In my soul. They’re not speaking to me. Not like the Nephilim gatherers, who can communicate directly mind-to-mind. But I sense them. Their feelings. Their desires. And I understand, somehow, that they came here for me.

Why? I wonder. Then ask aloud, “Why?”

A distant shriek replies and I understand. The cresties are hunting, but they’ve only just recently eaten which means—

A shout echoes in the chamber, feminine and angry.

I am not alone.

The others have found me.

The hunters are here.

3

I start for shore, but I’m blocked by several large bodies. The seals sense the danger and they want to keep me from it. But I can’t leave Whipsnap behind. While I’m dangerous without it, I’m not at my best. If I don’t retrieve my weapon I will regret it.

Gloop rises in front of me, pleading with his black eyes. I reach out and put my hand on his wet forehead, which is softer than I was expecting, and say, “I will be quick.”

I can see he’s not happy about it, despite the perpetual smile, but he slides beneath the surface and disappears. The others follow his lead and within seconds it’s like they were never there.

I dig into the water, swimming for shore as fast as I can. I know I’m heading toward danger, but based on the human shouts—belonging to just one human female—and the multiple dinosaur shrieks, I think my enemies are preoccupied with each other for the moment. It’s possible the hunters don’t even know I’m here.

They will eventually. I can’t mask my scent or the evidence of my campfires after being here for so long. But if they don’t know I’m here, or how to get out, I should be able to disappear long before they realize how close they came to finding me.

I move silently through the cave’s jungle and reach the base of my perch moments later. Climbing the perch might expose me. It’s thirty feet high. But I need to risk it. Leaving Whipsnap behind would be like severing a limb. I scale the wall quickly and then lay flat on top. I gather my few belongings, including the telescope Ninnis gave me for my last birthday, and take hold of Whipsnap. My plan is to roll off the perch and fall to the ground, but I can’t help sneaking a peek at the action as the sounds of battle get louder. I turn toward the noise and find the combatants on a treeless grassy hill.

I see only one hunter. A scout. But there are fourteen cresties. Not even Ninnis, who is a master hunter and killer, could face those odds and survive. I might be able to escape such a fight—I have escaped such a fight—but I could never win. Strangely, this hunter doesn’t back down.

The telescope extends between my hands. I put it to my eye and feel my gut tense. The hunter is a woman. She’s dressed as I am, in minimal leathers to allow free movement through the sometimes tight confines of the underground; her white skin glistens with a sheen of sweat. I blink, taken aback by my response to her…femininity. I’d never been interested in girls before. Mira was the first to stir anything in me. But just the sight of this one has me feeling nervous.

I’m older, I think. Then I groan. Puberty. Great. At least the Weddell seals won’t comment if my voice cracks.

I put the telescope to my eye again. The woman is fierce, fighting a younger, ten foot cresty, and winning. She leaps in the air and strikes the dinosaur on the head with a large stone hammer.

I’ve seen the weapon before. Many of the hunters, who are fully human and subservient to the half-human, half-demon Nephilim warriors, mimic their masters by dressing the same (as I once did) and by carrying a smaller version of their master’s preferred weapon. In this case, the stone hammer favored by my former master’s father, Thor. The woman’s name is Kainda. She’s Ninnis’s daughter. And she has a serious reputation. Worse, I offended her by turning her down as my bride—not to mention a few more insults I heaped on top of that. She is a woman scorned and she’s no doubt out for my blood more than any other hunter. It’s not surprising she tracked me down first.

The young cresty falls beneath the hammer strike, its thick skull crushed. Five other cresties move in for the kill, but they’re stopped by Alice’s roar. Kainda has killed one of the pack and Alice wants revenge.

The pack parts and Alice pounds forward, pausing for a moment to sniff the air, maybe testing the scent of Kainda’s red hair. Maybe searching for my presence.

Kainda, to her credit, stands her ground in the face of certain failure. Even the Nephilim think twice before taking on a fully grown cresty.

She wants to die fighting, I think. It is the Nephilim way. The hunter’s way, too.

Kainda raises the hammer and charges.

Alice steps away, like she’s surprised, but it’s a feint. And Kainda falls for it.

The thick dinosaur tail whips through the air and strikes Kainda in the side, long before the woman has a chance to strike. She will not survive.

Alice, who has been my enemy for so long now, is about to help me without even knowing it.

I watch as Kainda pulls herself away, leaving a trail of grass matted down in her wake. Alice steps toward her, confident, but still wary. It will all be over in a minute.

Now’s my chance. I slide the telescope into its pouch on my belt and leap from the ledge. The wind slows my fall, as always, and I run.

Away from the lake.

At first I don’t even notice it, but when I do, I can’t stop.

I’m headed toward the battle.

Toward thirteen meat-eating dinosaurs.

And I’m going to save her. Kainda. The woman who would love nothing more than to set my head upon the tip of a pike and roast me over an open flame.

I struggle with my sense of urgency. Could I really have feelings for a woman like this? What about Mira? My feelings for her have only magnified during my time down here. How is it possible that I’ve forgotten all of that? It’s not.

That’s when I realize these feelings don’t belong to me. Well, not to all of me. They belong to Ull. In his eyes, Kainda is no doubt the perfect woman. The beautiful killer. Or do I just see something there I haven’t yet realized? How much do Ull and I really share in common? It’s all so confusing, so I decide to ignore the why and focus on the how.

I can’t fight and kill all thirteen cresties, and a rainstorm might not frighten them off again.

Alice, I think. She’s the key. Without her leadership the pack won’t know what to do or whose lead to follow. I need to kill Alice.

The jungle clears, and I run up a knoll that leads to the battle. The high pitched shrieking that punctuates the climax of every hunt fills the air.

I reach the top of the knoll and leap. I imagine the cavern’s air swooping up behind me and a moment later, it does. I’m carried high into the air, covering the distance between the knoll and Alice—nearly one hundred feet—in the blink of an eye. As I arc through the air, I see Alice opening her mouth to consume Kainda and I let out a war cry.

This time when Alice stumbles back, it’s not a ruse. She was not expecting my approach, especially not from above. I grip Whipsnap, which is wrapped around my waist and attached to the belt, and I give it a yank. The weapon springs free, ready to stab, slice or bludgeon. A gust of wind bursts beneath me as I land in the grass between Kainda and Alice. A ten foot circle of grass bends away from my feet like an impact crater.

“Ull?” I hear Kainda’s confused voice ask from behind me. When she realizes it’s me, she shouts with a voice like some wrathful god, “Ull!”

She’d no doubt try to strangle me to death while Alice chewed us both to pieces, so I don’t step any closer. But I shoot her a glance and say, “Kainda.”

“What are you doing?” Her voice is filled with so much vitriol I think she’s actually trying to kill me with it.

Alice’s anger matches Kainda’s. She roars at my sudden appearance. The sound shakes the air from my lungs and makes my head spin. If Alice knew this, she would have struck already. Luckily, the beast isn’t that smart. She simply stands her ground, instinct guiding her as she sizes me up.

“What’s it look like?” I ask. “I’m saving you.”

“Why?” This question is the first that’s not tinged with hatred.

I answer by looking back at her again. When our eyes meet, my stomach twists, and she must see this, or feel it too, because she looks shocked.

Before she can ask “why” again, a question to which I have no answer, Alice roars. I turn to face her, happy for the thirty foot long, several ton dinosaur that could devour the elephant in the room had it been a real elephant and a room instead of a giant cave.

Ull surfaces in that moment with a roar. Alice matches it. We charge to meet each other in combat, both knowing that one of us will soon lie dead.

4

Teeth snap above my head as I slide through the grass beneath Alice. She can’t bend over fully to the ground without toppling forward, and I’m not about to actually collide with a creature whose left arm weighs the same as me. As the massive cresty matriarch stomps past, I thrust Whipsnap up, intending to eviscerate the beast. I’d be covered in blood and entrails, but it would end the fight.

Unfortunately, Alice’s underbelly is shielded by thick, dense skin that Whipsnap’s blade can’t pierce. I leave a long scratch across her lower abdomen, but nothing more.

Alice wastes no time and follows her charge with a tail strike. The giant dinosaur manages to do this so quickly that I barely have time to jump up and over it. If not for the wind carrying me higher, I would have certainly been struck.

Of course, being hit by her tail is preferable to being eaten. Before I’ve landed, Alice lunges. Her jaws open wide to receive my small body. I land a moment before she arrives and throw Whipsnap at her, accelerating the weapon with a gust of wind.

As Whipsnap enters her mouth, the jaws snap shut. For a moment I think the blade might have pierced the back of Alice’s throat, perhaps even reached her brain. But then the beast yanks her head to the side and tosses Whipsnap away.

I slide on my climbing claws knowing that the blades are not long enough to do any real damage, but they’re the only weapons I have left. Granted, I could rain hail down on the beast, but the effort would exhaust me. I’d be open to attack from the twelve other cresties, not to mention Kainda, who, while wounded, is no doubt still dangerous. I catch a glimpse of her sliding through the grass toward her hammer.

Alice charges. I match her again. But this time I leap. Her head drops down to meet me, and when her jaws open, I know her view is obstructed. She’ll wait until she feels my body in her mouth before she clamps down. That’s not going to happen this time, though. The wind carries me up and over her head, which passes just inches below me. I reach out with my clawed hands, find her neck and latch on.

The razor sharp teeth on my climbing claws bite into the skin of her neck. My body slams down as Alice rears up, but I wrap my legs around her and squeeze, locking my feet on the other side. I am stuck to her like a parasite.

Alice roars with a fury I have not yet heard from her, or any cresty before her. My presence, so close, disturbs her. For a moment, I wonder if she’s as bad as I’ve made her out to be. Would she respond so violently to me were my scent and red hair not so tainted by the Nephilim corruption? There’s no way to know.

What I do know is that if I don’t kill her, she will kill me. And then the Nephilim will win for sure. Not that I’ve done anything to stop them. My incessant fear of facing them again has kept me prisoner here for so long already. Why? I wonder. I can face down a thirty foot dinosaur, but not the Nephilim. What am I so afraid of?

My pondering nearly gets me killed. Alice bucks like a rodeo bull and for a moment, my hands slip free. Snapping back to the problem at hand, I reach higher and stab my climbing claws into Alice’s neck. I then loosen my legs and pull myself up. For fifteen seconds, while Alice flails about in an attempt to shake me off, I pull myself higher, toward her head and snapping jaws…and sensitive eyes.

Sensing my impending attack, Alice slams her head and neck into a tree. The tree falls, but not before knocking me senseless. I feel myself slip a little, but I tighten my grip before falling. Having felt my loosened grip, Alice repeats the technique, but misses the mark, slamming the tree over with her snout instead of my head.

As she lines up the next strike, I can see it will be more accurate. A voice shouts to me before I can brace for the impact.

“Ull!”

It’s Kainda.

I look toward her and see her hammer flying through the air at me. For a moment I suspect she is trying to kill me, too, but the trajectory of the hammer’s flight reveals otherwise. She is arming me. We are working together.

For the moment.

Alice begins her strike.

I let go with my feet, place them on the back of her neck, and leap.

Alice hammers the tree over and then looks about, no doubt wondering if she’s knocked me free.

Above her, I catch the hammer. It weighs far more than I was expecting—how on Earth can Kainda wield such a weapon—but I put everything I have into controlling it. I line up my strike as I descend and put all of my strength into the blow.

The connection is solid. Stone and bone collide. The impact shakes my arms and the hammer falls free. But the damage is done. Alice falls limp, her skull crushed beneath the weight of Kainda’s miniature replica of Thor’s hammer, Mjöllnir.

I land in the grass next to the giant cresty, breathing heavily. Alice, however, doesn’t breathe at all.

My enemy is dead.

I know I should cheer or shout some kind of victory whoop, but with the fight over, Ull’s personality has gone missing. All that’s left is Solomon. I place my hand on the giant’s side and tears form in my eyes. She wanted nothing more than to kill me, but she was a force of nature. Killing her seems wrong somehow.

“You weep for your prey?” Kainda says, scoffing.

“I respected her,” I say.

“She was a beast.”

“And yet she was your better.”

I look at Kainda, still lying in the grass. She glowers at me, but does not argue. She knows it is true. The cresty defeated her. If not for my intervention, Kainda would be dead.

“Her ilk may yet kill us both,” Kainda says.

When the first of the remaining twelve cresties, a twenty foot male, steps around Alice’s motionless form, I realize she might be right. The male is followed by the others, which form a partial ring around us. I could run. They’ve given me the opportunity. But it would mean leaving Kainda behind.

I’m tempted once again to leave and let the cresties solve that problem, but I can’t have killed Alice for nothing. I am here to save Kainda’s life, like it or not, and that’s what I intend to do—

The male steps toward me.

—if I can.

I look for Whipsnap and find it twenty feet away. With a focused blast of air, I can bring the weapon back to me or send it flying into the neck of the male cresty. But I pause. Something about this cresty is different. Cresties shriek while hunting. They bare their teeth like wolves. They snip at each other in anticipation of the kill.

None of that is on display here.

The male steps slowly forward again, lowering its head. For a moment, I fear it will pounce, but then I see its eyes, turned down to the ground.

Subservient.

I hear Kainda gasp behind me. She sees it too.

I step toward the beast and its head lowers even further, hovering below my chest. We’re only five feet apart now.

Do they fear me now? I wonder. Have I become the pack leader by killing Alice? It makes sense in a strange underworld kind of way, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on. I think…I think I’m being thanked.

During my time here I’ve watched Alice rule over this place like a ruthless despot. Everything, both prey and family alike, feared her. And now she’s gone. The queen overthrown.

I step forward again and reach out a hand, placing it on the dinosaur’s snout. It looks me in the eyes and I realize I have made several more friends today. “I’ll call you…Grumpy,” I say, naming the dinosaur for the Tyrannosaurus Rex in Land of the Lost that constantly fought with Alice the Allosaurus. “Go, enjoy your giant goats.”

When I smile, Grumpy stands tall, lets out a roar and turns away. The pack charges into the jungle without looking back. When they’re gone, I turn to Kainda and find her wide eyed and stunned. The expression makes her look human—kind even—and for a moment I get a glimpse of what Ull sees in her. But the spell is broken by her words.

“You have made a pact with our sworn enemies.”

I laugh. It’s a silly thing to say really, though I suppose not to someone who has never known anything outside of the harsh subterranean hunter culture. Realizing that Kainda has never known anything else, I picture her being broken as a child and steeped in a culture of hatred and combat. Had she grown up in the outside world, she might have been an artist or a songwriter. She might have worn pretty dresses and smelled flowers, and laughed. Really laughed.

But she didn’t. She doesn’t even know those things exist.

I pity her.

A single cautious step toward Kainda is all I’m allowed before she takes up a defensive posture. “I’m not going to hurt you,” I say.

She doesn’t trust me.

“I just saved your life.”

Her face remains rigid, her hands bent into claws ready to strike.

“Fine,” I say. “But I’m leaving you here.” I point to the bluff that was my home for the past few months. “There is a ledge over there. Thirty feet up. You’ll be safe there if you can reach it. You left a scent trail, yes? For the others to follow?”

She doesn’t answer, but I know she did. “They’ll find you sooner or later. Though it might take some time for you all to find the way out.”

I pick up her hammer. Alice’s blood drips from its surface. “But I don’t think they’ll attack you while you carry this.” I toss the hammer to her and she catches it. She’s confused by my kindness, most likely because she’s never experienced anything like it before.

“Why are you doing this?” she asks.

I stare at her for a moment, asking myself the same question. Is it because she’s beautiful and some part of me wants to be with her? Is it because she’s Ninnis’s daughter and I feel a lingering obligation to serve him? I determine it’s neither of those things. The realization that these people have been corrupted by an evil beyond their comprehension breaks my heart. They are slaves who believe they are free. They’re blind and they don’t know what they’re doing. Not really.

So like Ninnis before her, I have decided to forgive her. And I tell her as much. “Because I forgive you.”

“Forgive?”

She’s never heard the word before. I quote the dictionary in response. “To grant pardon for or remission of an offense. To cease to feel resentment against an enemy.” I add a personal touch, saying, “I choose to love someone despite all of the awful things they have done.”

She whispers the word “love” to herself and looks down at the grass. I can see she’s lost in thought, but part of me can’t help wonder if she’s trying to delay me so that the others might arrive before my escape.

I snatch up Whipsnap, enter the jungle and sprint for the lake before she even realizes I’m gone.

5

The waterfall that constantly flows into the cavern creates a steady breeze and carries scents down from the tunnel high above. I sometimes catch whiffs of creatures lurking high above, some known, some unknown. As I approach the lake and feel the waterfall’s mist on my face, I smell something foreign.

I pause at the edge of the trees, testing the air like a dog, sniffing quickly. The scents are new, but without a doubt, human. The hunters are approaching. Judging by the number of different scents, there are six of them.

I look up and see nothing. They haven’t reached the waterfall’s edge yet. But they will soon. The hunters are most likely following Kainda’s scent trail. Thanks to the flow of water and wind it generates, they won’t get my scent until they’ve entered the cavern. When that happens, they’ll smell me, Kainda and cresty blood. For a moment I fear they will assault the dinosaur pack, but no, with me so close, they won’t waste the time. They’ll give chase.

With Whipsnap attached to my belt, I run for the water. Gloop is there and barks at my approach, urging me faster. The seal can smell the hunters, too. I dive in, doing my best not to create a splash, and I swim out toward the rest of the pod. Apparently, I’m not fast enough for Gloop’s liking. He gets under me and when I hold on to his neck, he puts his flippers to work and my speed through the water doubles.

As we get closer to the pod, they turn and head for the waterfall. The waterfall’s roar fills my ears as we near it and I can now taste the hunters in my mouth. They must be standing in the water above us. I look up and see something I hadn’t noticed before. A rope, dark and wet, dangles next to the falling water. This is how Kainda entered the chamber, and how the other hunters will soon follow. The pod reaches the waterfall before Gloop and me, and one by one they start slipping beneath the water. I sense we’re going to follow and take three quick breaths. Then we’re underwater. Not deep, maybe twenty feet. I look up and see the waterfall roiling the water. And then we’re beyond it, sliding into darkness. We speed forward as strong flippers and a fast current accelerate our passage.

I’m blind now, which is a strange feeling, because I’ve grown accustomed to life underground. Then I remember that I’ve been living in a well lit cave for a long time. My eyes will have to adjust to the darkness again.

Spots emerge in the black and at first I think there must be glowing crystals or bioluminescent algae in this submerged tunnel, but when my chest begins to ache I realize that I’m close to losing consciousness. I tighten my grip on Gloop’s neck and he seems to sense my panic. The water pulses past me as we push forward. The seal’s back arches beneath me and our speed increases again.

Then we’re free of the water. I gasp several times, sucking in fresh air.

I loosen my grip on Gloop’s neck and give him a few gentle pats on his head. “Thank you, my friend.”

The cavern is dark, lacking any sort of light. Happily, I haven’t totally lost my night vision and I can make out the vague shape of the place. I’m still nearly blind, but at least I’m not immobilized.

I climb out of the shallows and onto a smooth, stone shore. The underground river flows past, curving through the small chamber and exiting through another tunnel. For a moment, I wonder if this is merely a pit stop for air, but the pod is already moving on, following the flow. Gloop slides away from me, staring into my eyes.

Then he glances beyond me. I turn and find a small tunnel, just big enough for me to crawl through. When I look back, my mammalian protector is gone.

“What’s the rush?” I say aloud, but a scent carried on the water entering the chamber answers my question.

The hunters are still near. And if their scent has made it here, they have reached the lake. A dreadful thought occurs to me. I was stuck in that cavern for so long because the elusive exit was unknown to me. But the men and women hunting me have lived in the underworld for some time. They know these tunnels even better than the Nephilim, who are too large to fit. They won’t have to look for the exit, they’ll already know where it is! Not only that, they’ll know where it leads, and if they are physically unable to follow through the water, they might very well know where this route will take me. They’ll have no trouble escaping the chamber using the rope.

I dive for the small tunnel, slipping inside the tight crag and pulling myself through the Earth like a worm. I’m only one hundred feet in when I hear a disturbance in the water behind me. They’re here! They’ve found me.

I move as quickly and quietly as I can. At this range, my scent is impossible to mask. They know I’m close. But I don’t want them to know how close.

A scraping sound fills the tunnel behind me and I wonder why they’re not trying to mask their presence better. I test the air and smell only one distinct scent. Only one of the hunters is giving chase. The others must be searching the cavern while this one moved ahead, just in case. I glance back and see something sliding through the tunnel, moving like a snake. It’s an amazing technique for moving through the underworld, and if I don’t keep moving, I will be caught by this snake man long before I reach a larger tunnel where I can put my feet to good use.

After ten more minutes of scurrying through the small tunnel, I can hear my pursuer’s breath behind me, each one a hiss as though he’s determined to play the role of a snake. Just when I think he’s close enough to reach out and snare my ankle, the tunnel opens up. I stand and sprint, confident that my stride can outmatch his slither.

When I hear the pads of his feet slapping the stone behind me, it’s clear that he’s also a faster runner than I am. He’s going to catch me.

I focus on the air behind me and imagine it surging back. My hair billows around my head as a gust of wind surges past me, but does not affect me. The man behind me, however, is struck full force. I hear a grunt, and the sound of a body hitting stone. My defensive strike worked, but only momentarily. The sound of feet slipping on stone returns a moment later.

Hunters only give up when they’re dead. Ninnis told me that once. But I don’t kill people. Animals? Yes, though only for food or in self-defense. Nephilim? Absolutely. People? I can’t do it. Not even in self-defense. It just feels…wrong. So I’ll have to immobilize this hunter somehow.

The tunnel floor disappears beneath my feet and I fall forward. My instincts generate a gust of wind beneath me, and it saves my life. I twist my body around a large rib bone that would have skewered me if not for the wind, and I land on my feet.

Glowing crystals pock the cave wall, helping me see. I’m surrounded by bones, some larger than my entire body. There are cresty skulls, albino goat horns, and an assortment of limbs, and bodies, many of which I do not recognize. And most of them are large. I run around a pile of bones, looking for a way out and I’m faced with a cavern, the enormity of which I cannot fathom. It’s like seeing the Grand Canyon in reverse. The floor stretches out past the horizon where I see what looks like white mountains. I take out my telescope as I run and take a peek.

The mountains are bones. They’re everywhere, even beneath my feet, where I suspect the powdery white dust coating the floor is pulverized bone.

Before I can ponder this mystery I hear a rattle and grunt behind me, and I know that the hunter has lunged. I dive to the side, roll and yank Whipsnap from its place on my belt. My weapon twangs into place, clutched in both of my hands.

The hunter stands ten feet away, no weapon in sight. He’s tall, at least seven feet. That’s big for a hunter. But he’s also incredibly lean. I look at his skin. He is pale, like me, like all hunters, but there is a strange sheen to his skin, almost reflective. His face is hidden behind a black veil that looks like it’s actually been pinned to his forehead.

Hoping to get some hint of who I’m dealing with, I ask, “Who is your master?”

“I have no master.”

No master? How can a hunter not have a master?

We circle each other. I feel Ull at the fringe of my consciousness, ready to take over when the attack is pressed. And I’m grateful for his presence.

“Why do you hide your face?” I ask.

“I am shunned.”

He feints an attack and my blade keeps him at bay.

“You are a hunter?” I ask.

“No, but I will be when I bring you back.”

“What are you now?”

“A tracker.”

This creature being a tracker makes no sense. Hunters are expert trackers. We can sense things in the underground that no one else can. Our sense of sight isn’t hampered by the dark. And we can hear and smell things few others can.

A bit of Ull emerges, scoffing at his claim. “How can you track better than a hunter?”

Because I can follow your thoughts.

The voice is in my head!

My foe reveals himself, pulling the veil up over his head. His face is white and noseless. In some ways he reminds me of a gatherer, egg shaped head, almond-shaped oversized eyes and a small slit for a mouth. But his eyes are not solid black, they’re bright yellow with a black, cat-like slit for a pupil. That’s when I see his skin for what it is—scales. White scales, which combined with the yellow eyes is similar to the seekers, a class of Nephilim closely related to gatherers.

Your escape route is admirable, Ull. Bold. The others will not follow you here. But you did not count on me.  I am Xin and I will be your undoing.

A pressure builds in my head as he stares at me. It keeps me from pondering why the others won’t follow me here. I push back, but find the effort far more painful. He’s in my head, searching my thoughts.

His small lips turn up. I can hear him laughing in my head. You are not Ull at all!

He digs deeper.

Solomon? That is your name. Solomon Ull Vincent.

I see what he sees. My past replayed for his amusement. My youth. My parents. My kidnapping. Ninnis breaking me. Me saving Ninnis’s life. Then Kainda’s. But he has failed to see the only memory I fought to block: Aimee. If he learned about her, they would no doubt threaten her life to bring me in. And it would work.

So full of compassion. Your forgiveness is your weakness.

The pain bursts inside my head and I fall to one knee.

Xin charges.

I do the only thing I can. I let Ull loose.

6

With a scream, I charge forward bringing Whipsnap up to strike. I see my next five moves in advance. The first strike will open Xin’s chest and put him on the defensive. The next three will cause him to stumble back, but won’t connect, and then with a spin to conceal my action, I’ll bend Whipsnap tight and release it so the mace connects solidly with his head. Seven seconds.

The first strike comes close to slicing open Xin’s chest, but the wiry tracker is fast and flexible. Still, he is on the defensive, so I press forward. He avoids the next three blows, as expected, so I spin, bend Whipsnap and unleash the kinetic energy of the weapon, flinging the mace end toward Xin’s head.

The blow misses.

Ull is stunned. He has never missed before.

What is it? I think.

A laugh sounds inside my mind. I am half-human and half-seeker. An experiment of the thinkers and breeders—one of the few survivors. I possess the best of both species, but I am accepted by neither. But that will soon change.

I thrust. Xin parries.

Whipsnap extends my reach much further than Xin’s long arms, but I can’t seem to strike the creature. I aim low, but he leaps. That’s when I see it. He leapt before I swung. He leapt when I thought about aiming low. He’s still in my head! He knows what I’ll do as soon as I do it.

But why isn’t he attacking?

Humiliation.

It was a rhetorical question! I shout in my head.

Stop thinking, Ull, I tell my other personality. Stop thinking!

My blows come fast and furious. There is no rhyme or reason to them. No technique. I’m like the kids fighting on the school yard, eyes clenched shut, fists swinging, hoping to connect. For a moment, it works, but I feel Xin’s mental tendrils dig deeper and suddenly he’s predicting what I’ll do even before I know what I’ll do. He’s in my subconscious!

Get out, get out, get out!

Letting Ull loose was a good idea, but neither of you lack the mental will to keep me out. Xin’s voice echoes in my thoughts. Stop fighting and return to Asgard with me.

I shout again, lunging, but he dodges every attack, bending his body, slipping out of my grasp. “Stand and fight!” I shout.

Very well, Xin says. His body bends to the side as I strike with Whipsnap. The blade is just inches from his ribs. Before I can withdraw my weapon and strike again, he sweeps his leg around and knocks me on my back. The hard stone floor knocks the wind out of me, but I’ve suffered worse. I leap back to my feet.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that this is a losing battle, so I decide to use my other skills. Wind howls through the giant chamber.

Xin steps back, looking around us. He’s confused. Unsure.

I focus on a nearby bone. A blunt femur from an unknown species. I will the wind to wrap around it. Carry it up. Strike Xin in the back of the head. The bone flies.

Xin tilts his head to the side. The motion is subtle, but causes the bone to miss. I turn my focus to the other bones lying around. He won’t be able to dodge them all. But before I can lift the bones from the ground, I am struck in the face, which is confusing because Xin is still out of reach.

I glance down and see the femur resting at my feet.

I don’t understand. The bone should have fallen when I turned my attention away from it. Whack! I’m struck again. A second bone clatters to the floor.

Such wasted potential, Xin thinks.

Not only does he know about my abilities, he’s using them against me!

A cyclone builds around me, lifting me off the ground. Whipsnap flies from my grasp. The air is sucked from my lungs. I am trapped. A prisoner of my own abilities. Despite the whipping wind roaring in my ears, I can still hear Xin’s voice as though he were speaking directly into my ear.

Your mind is different than others I’ve tasted. More complex. Layered. Ull is so like the other hunters. Primal. Arrogant. Strong willed. But then there is Solomon. You are weak and lack courage, but are so…full of information. Mathematical equations. Every sight and smell for each of your years. You have read and retained the words of Einstein, Shakespeare and…who’s this? Dr. Merrill Clark.

He’s close, I think.

And he hears my fear.

Close to what?

I fill my thoughts with images of Polaroid camera manuals. Page after page fills my thoughts. But then a conversation emerges. I’m in the car with my parents. With Mira. They’re talking about Polaroid cameras and suddenly Mira is ribbing me with her elbow, asking me what I think. I focus on something else, but Xin has latched onto the memory. He plays it forward. Mira’s head is on my shoulder. My heart pounds in my chest. She raises her camera and snaps a picture.

The picture.

He steps forward and reaches out a long, white scaly arm. He undoes the pouch where I hold the photo.

“Stop!” I shout. For a moment, the wind ebbs and my body lowered.

Ahh, he thinks. Here is your strength.

He reasserts his dominance over my mind and I’m lifted higher.

He laughs again. How can this young thing mean so much to you? A hunter. The vessel of Nephil. And yet your connection to this girl, to this image, is far more intense.

He’s truly confused by my feelings for Mira. I can feel him sorting it out. Reliving my time with her. The intensity of my emotions overwhelms him. He steps back, shakes his head and contorts his face like he’s just tasted something foul. The photo falls from his hand and he turns his full attention back to peeling back the layers of my mind.

He digs deeper than before, violating my most sacred thoughts. But none of them hold his interest like the two mental doors I have put in place. He knows these are my two deepest darkest secrets. They are the things that will unhinge me. Perhaps even break me. He knows this as surely as I do, but he can’t see beyond my barricades.

He tests the first and senses my panic. No, no, no, I think.

But he doesn’t fight. He moves to the second door and gives it a shove.

“NO!” I scream, panic sweeping through my body like a physical force.

This time he laughs aloud. I feel him pull his influence out of the rest of my mind and focus on that single mental barricade.

The wind falls away and I drop to the ground, clutching my head. “Don’t,” I say. “Please!”

The barricade weakens.

“Don’t let him out!”

Xin has no intention of stopping. The idea of breaking me is too enticing. If he accomplished something the infamous Ninnis failed to do, he would be accepted. He would be exalted. Praised!

Time seems to slow as I realize that Xin has entered my mind so deeply that he has given me access to his as well.

I relive his youth. A blue liquid world I mistake for the ocean at first. But there are distorted figures around me, walking past, staring in at me with big black eyes. I’m in a tube. A glass chamber. And I’ve been grown. A table is cold beneath me. Lights shine in my face. Sharp pain traces over my body as incisions are made. The process is repeated again and again until everything they needed to know has been acquired. Then I’m cast aside to die. But I don’t. I survive and they’re impressed enough to let me live, feeding me scraps. But I listen and watch. I learn and plot. And I desire to be accepted. To be…

Loved.

The deep sense of longing brings tears to my eyes and removes the last bit of strength I have.

The barricade breaks.

Xin is the first to scream, first in my head and then in his body as his mind is forced from mine by someone more powerful than us both. The blunt pain in my head turns into an all consuming fire. My scream joins with Xin’s. Our voices roll through the giant cavern, bouncing off the walls for miles. I fight for control of my mind and body, but I’m weakened by Xin’s invasion and I find myself incapable of regaining control.

Nephil is free.

7

I laugh hysterically, though the voice is not mine. It’s as though puberty has come and gone and my voice has been replaced by a booming baritone. More than that, the words that follow my laughter are cruel and mocking. The kind I heard all my life.

“You wish to be a hunter?” I shout as though it’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. “I don’t even know what you are!” I laugh again, when Xin reels back from the words like he’s been hit.

Whipsnap is somehow in my hand again. I don’t remember picking it up. I watch as a spectator, while my body strikes. The blade strikes Xin’s side. His scales provide a momentary resistance to the blade, but the razor edge cuts through when the weapon is drawn back and fresh blood spills.

Red blood, I notice.

Not purple, like the Nephilim.

The sight of it only sends me—Nephil—deeper into a rage.

“You see!” I shout. “You’re an albino seeker with human blood! An abomination! Your body should have been dashed on the rocks and used as food for the feeders.”

Feeders are egg shaped Nephilim with stubby arms and legs, massive jaws, rows of shark-like teeth, and pounds of fatty flesh, which is the staple food of many Nephilim. It’s a cannibalistic society, but the breeders hatch the feeders—what I call egg-monsters—on a regular schedule and if they are not destroyed, they become giants, consuming everything they come across. Ninnis once told me there were three of them living in the underworld. I have yet to meet them and hope I never do.

My sight goes black for a moment. The blindness scares me. But I can still feel myself moving. Fighting. Killing. But the sight of it has been hidden from me.

Because it would revolt me, I think. And in my revolt, I would gain strength. Nephil must be contained, but I lack the strength after Xin’s assault. As I feel my true self fading, I reach out with my thoughts.

Xin.

Xin!

Who? I can’t—Solomon. How? Xin’s thoughts are broken. Distracted. He’s under attack. Help!

To help you, you must help me, I think.

I feel the mace end of Whipsnap swing wide and connect with something solid, but soft. Xin screams within my mind.

Back to the door, Xin shouts. Close it!

I see myself at the door, which I hadn’t visualized before. It’s old, and wooden, but held together by metal beams. I think I should have imagined a bank vault, but the ancient door somehow seems more appropriate. Nephil deserves a dungeon so that’s what I’ve conjured up. Xin appears next to me, uninjured and ready for battle. While the condition of his physical body is a mystery to me, I suspect his injuries are severe.

What do we do? I ask.

Force him back.

I look to the door. It’s open, but Nephil is not here. How?

This is still your mind, Solomon. You are in control if you choose to be. Bring him to us.

I turn all of my attention on Nephil. He appears immediately—by choice, I realize. He wouldn’t back down from a fight. But he looks nothing like I thought he would—thirty feet tall, blood red hair, multiple rows of sharp teeth. I thought he would look like the other Nephilim. Instead he appears as a black, shapeless mass. A living shadow.

Little Solomon believes he is a man, Nephil says with a laugh.

Ull appears by his side, staring at me defiantly. I forgot that despite his independent streak, Ull is a hunter at heart and wants to see Nephil rise. While Ull is handy on the battlefield—he cannot resist a fight and does not wish to be harmed—he is ultimately my enemy. I am my enemy.

Focus, Solomon! Xin says.

I no longer feel my body moving. The fight has moved to the realm of the mind and the fact that Xin is still here means he is alive on the outside.

A wind kicks up inside my thoughts. I direct it at Nephil and try to force him through the open door. But it flows through him like he’s not there. Ull charges at me, arms outstretched, fingers hooked. He means to distract me while Nephil finishes taking control.

Xin meets him half way.

The combat between hunter and tracker is intense and brutal, but this is in my mind and no blood spills. The pain is all in the mind, and as Xin lands a solid kick to Ull’s gut, I feel the pain as well.

How am I supposed to force Nephil back, when the person helping me is also hurting me? Then I remember, this is my mind. The physics of this world are mine to control, like the environment on the outside.

Xin, I think, come back to me!

After quickly striking Ull, which dazes me, too, Xin dives back, rolls and regains his feet by my side.

What do you intend to—

I don’t give Xin time to finish his query because by the time he does, Nephil and Ull will have figured it out, too. I don’t need to force Nephil back into the old door. I just need to make a new one. Raising my hands out to either side, the walls of my mind stretch out, wrapping around Nephil and Ull.

The blackness of Nephil swoops through the air, heading straight for me with a roar. Ull charges beside him, teeth gritted with anger, but eyes filled with fear. He realizes what’s about to happen and it actually frightens him.

An open door, four feet wide and eight tall, is the only space left open.

Nephil is nearly upon me, but just moments before he passes the threshold, a door appears and slams shut. Unlike the old dungeon door I had conjured up before, this is a bank vault. The locks clank in place.

Nephil is contained.

Thanks to Xin. I look toward my mental projection of him and find him lying down. His face is twisted in pain. Flowing red blood from several wounds catches my attention. It’s only then that I realize we are no longer in my mind and what I’m seeing is real.

Xin is dying at my feet.

“Go,” he says with his mouth, not his mind. “Before it—”

He fades before finishing. I kneel down beside him and place my fingers to his throat. He is alive.

A new mental battle begins. I am faced once more with an enemy in need. But this time, Ull is not attracted to the enemy. In fact, the voice of Ull has been completely silenced, locked away with Nephil, behind a door that will not open again until I want it to. Of course, the spirit of Nephil I now contain is but a tiny fraction, carried over to me when I consumed his physical body. I have no doubt that the full spirit of Nephil, locked away in Tartarus, would have no trouble overwhelming me. But that is a challenge I hope to avoid indefinitely.

Xin, on the other hand, nearly killed me. If not for his mental prying I would have surely been captured. If he regains consciousness, who’s to say he won’t take control of me again? I feel more prepared for a mental attack now, but it’s a risk. I also don’t know much about his physiology. The Nephilim heal from wounds in seconds and Xin is half-Nephilim.

But perhaps that’s just on the outside? I wonder. His blood is red.

I think about what I saw while reliving his past. The mocking and taunting. A lack of purpose. A craving for affection. For acceptance. He is an outcast, a pariah among his own kind. We are more alike than either of us would have ever admitted. But maybe now, after we’ve shared our minds, and experienced each other’s pasts, desires and fears, he will see that we have much in common.

And if not? Will I kill him?

I wait for Ull to chime in with a resounding, yes! But his voice does not rise. And the matter is put to rest in record time. Xin is only half-human, but that’s human enough for me. I cannot kill him. Of course, if he gives me trouble I won’t have any problem knocking him unconscious and leaving him to fend for himself. A part of me knows that’s what I should do now, but Xin believes my greatest weakness is my compassion.

I intend to prove him wrong.

I just hope it doesn’t get me killed.

8

Carrying Xin’s limp, seven foot tall body saps my energy. His wiry build holds more muscle than I would have guessed. By the time I get him to a tall mound of oversized bones, my legs burn. I slide him gently off my back and feel a slick ooze of blood left behind. I’ll have to scrub hard to get his scent off of me. Of course, it might also come in handy in concealing my own scent.

The concept of covering my scent with another living thing’s blood should repulse me, but it doesn’t. For a moment, I wonder if Ull is back, but then I realize that it’s just me. And I’m changing. How could I not?

I turn my full attention to the bones and see a large intact ribcage at the base of the pile. It’s concealed within the pile, but also holding the mass of bones at bay, creating a boneless nook. By the looks of it, it belonged to a massive cresty, perhaps even larger than Alice. I shift a few bones out of the way, clearing a passage to the open space.

With the path clear, I hoist Xin up over my back again and pull him inside. No one will be able to see our white bodies hidden inside the bone mountain, but anything with half a nose will sniff us out. Xin’s bloody trail across the enormous chamber guarantees it. Of course, that’s also part of the plan, because the first scavengers to follow a trail of blood are always the oversized albino centipedes. The creatures are numerous in the underground and are the staple food for many of the denizens here, but their cottage cheese flesh is also good for sealing wounds and fighting infection.

I lay Xin down on the stone floor, propping his head up on a loose bone. A sigh escapes his mouth as he settles down. I expect his eyes’ll pop open and he’ll slice into my mind, but he doesn’t move. I can see his pulse thumping behind the flesh of his neck. Still alive.

After covering the passage into our hideaway with bones, I sit down and think about how much I miss things like couches. It’s been so long since I was comfortable. Though I have to admit, the beds in Asgard, made from layers of egg-monster skins, can hold their own against the best memory foam. But out here, in the wilderness, on the run, the best I can hope for is to not have my throat slit while I sleep.

Thinking of sleep pulls on my eyelids. I don’t think I’ve been awake for a full day, but since I last slept, I’ve battled Alice, nearly drowned, was chased through the underground and slugged it out with Xin, Ull and Nephil in my mind. My body is fairly well conditioned so I think it must be the mental battle that wore me out. Then I remember that Xin took control of my body and used my abilities, which taxes both body and mind. Add to that several adrenaline highs and crashes and it’s no wonder I’m tired.

I sit up cross-legged, determined to not fall asleep. The risk is too great. Aside from Xin, there are countless dangers in the underworld that could be drawn by his blood. But my head is spinning now. I close my eyes to fight the rising nausea.

“Hey Schwartz,” my father shouts.

A memory.

One of my favorites.

We’re at the beach, scouring the rocky shore in search of tide pools. The sun is shining, warming my shirtless torso. Clouds roll past in the distance. The air smells of sea water but is tinged with the odor of grilling burgers.

Justin’s head pops up from behind a large rock. He’s wearing his tinted sports glasses, as usual. “I see your Schwartz is as big as mine.”

I laugh.

“Justin, I swear,” says my father, standing from his position nearer the breaking waves, “Can I call my son by his nickname just once without you saying that? Just once?”

“Not likely,” Justin says.

My father looks at me.

“What?” I say with a shrug. “I’m not his mother.”

My father grins and motions with his head for me to join him. “Found a good tide pool. Lots of crabs. A few shrimp, too. Water is nice and clear, so I’ll get some good close-ups out of it.”

I climb through the rocks carefully. It’s not uncommon for me to go home from the beach with a fresh wound, if not several. My parents call me clumsy, but it’s an understatement because I seem to walk into doorframes and slip down stairs just as often as I trip on rocks at the beach. But I make it to my father okay, and I grin at the size of the tide pool. It’s the perfect contained ecosystem, at least for a few more hours, and it’s mine to explore.

While my father takes photos, Justin and I explore every nook and cranny of the tidepool. No rock is left unturned, no shell left submerged.

“What are we up to?” Justin asks me, knowing that I’ll have perfectly retained the number and name of each creature we’ve discovered.

I could give him the Latin names for the animals in this tide pool, but he hates that, so I keep it simple. “Five crabs, three shrimp, eleven hermit crabs, thirty two snails and too many barnacles to count.” That last part is a lie. There are three hundred and seventy-two barnacles, but sooner or later, I think Justin will decide I’m too weird to be around.

“There you are,” my mother says as she climbs over the rocks toward us. She’s far more agile than me or my father, even with the four boxed lunches she’s carrying. The scent of burgers and fries arrives a moment before she does. We eat in silence, enjoying the view and the sunshine. I eat the tinfoil-wrapped dill pickle first, then the fries before they get cold, and then turn my attention to the burger. This is a perfect moment. The food. The view. The smells. The company. With a smile on my face, I bite into the burger and wince.

It tastes wrong.

I spit out the food in my mouth and bring the burger up for inspection. I peel open the bun, expecting to see a large flat cheeseburger patty covered in ketchup and pickles. Instead, I find a crab. One of its claws is missing, a casualty of my first bite.

I drop the burger and step back. The crab crawls from the burger, but then it’s not a crab at all. It just keeps on coming. Shell and legs emerge from the burger bun in a never ending chain, just like a big…centipede.

I’m dreaming.

I’m dreaming!

Wake up! I shout at myself.

Wake—

“…up!” I flail as I awaken, flinging the centipede on my chest against the rib ceiling, where its shell cracks. It falls to the stone floor, cracking some more, oozing white now.  I turn to Xin and find three more centipedes gathered around an open wound on his leg. I can hear the munching of their mandibles as they fight to chew past his tough scales.

Whipsnap sails through the air bludgeoning one of the centipedes. As the dying creature twists in on itself, writhing as death takes it, the remaining two scurry away and disappear into the mountain of bones. When I hear the tick, tick, tick of the centipedes’ sharp feet fade to nothing, I stab the two dying creatures to put them out of their misery. In the past, when I was fully Ull, I amused myself by watching a mortally injured centipede writhe around for fifteen minutes. The sight now makes my stomach twist. I hate seeing things suffer.

Have since I was a kid. One of my mother’s favorite stories about me is about how after my father did a poor job of stepping on a carpenter ant, I crouched down and watched it squirm around on the floor. The thing was broken, and oozing and appeared to be trying to straighten itself back out. I looked up at my mother, tears in my eyes (not uncommon for me at the time…or any time before Ull took control) and asked, “Do ants suffer?”

My father heard the question and joked, “Yes, now let him crawl back to his colony and tell them to stay out of my kitchen.”

This didn’t help any, but my mom understood. She knelt down next to me, shook her head sadly and then stepped on the ant again.

“Better?” she asked.

I nodded, and wiped my eyes. I’ve always had a hard time accepting the suffering of others, whether it is a person, an ant or Xin—a half-human, half-Nephilim, who nearly killed me.

After retrieving a small stone bowl from my pack, I crack open one of the centipedes and scoop a dollop of its white flesh into the bowl. Using the knobby end of a bone, I mix the stuff, crushing away the lumps. When it’s the consistency of yogurt, I bring the fresh ointment to Xin. He has three wounds that need tending. I move from one wound to the next, prying them open with my fingers and filling the gap with the creamed centipede meat. While the meat on the inside will ward off infection, the outside will harden into a protective, flexible shell that will slowly dissolve as the wound stitches back together. I’ve never actually used the technique on myself, but I saw Ninnis do it once.

With all three wounds sealed, I sit back and wait. I’ve done what I can. Whether Xin lives or dies is now up to him. But I’ll watch over him. Make sure the centipedes don’t come back. When he comes to, he might try to kill me again. It’s a very real possibility. But until then, I’m his protector.

The ground shakes.

An earthquake, I think. Antarctica sits atop one big tectonic plate, but that doesn’t mean the earth never shifts. With so much ice bearing down on the continent, the plate can actually shift up and down during times of rapid melting or freezing.

The earthquake repeats.

An aftershock?

Maybe, but the vibration felt stronger the second time.

When the ground shakes a third time I know this is not an earthquake. Something approaches. Something large.

Keeping Xin alive might be harder than I thought.

9

“Run.”

The voice of Xin startles me and I flinch away from it. His eyes remain closed and I wonder for a moment if I’m hearing things. Then I see his tiny lips twitch.

“Run,” he repeats.

The ground shakes. Xin’s eyebrows turn up. The tremors have him worried. Which isn’t good—it’s hard to picture him being afraid of much—but it changes nothing. I’m committed to the task of protecting him. “I won’t leave you.”

His eyes blink open, yellow and serpentine, and he looks at me. “I tried to kill you,” he says. “I took control of your body. Violated your mind.”

“You’re like me,” I say.

He sighs and shakes his head. “I am nothing like you.”

“You saw my thoughts,” I say. “My past. You felt what I felt.”

The ground shakes again. I keep thinking the thing is nearly upon us, but each tremor is more violent than the last and I’m starting to think this giant might still be a ways off.

Xin stays silent.

“I experienced your past, too,” I say.

His eyes widen. He did not know our thoughts were shared simultaneously.

“We’re both…broken,” I say.

He stares at me with those yellow eyes, but I see no malice in them now. He turns away, staring at the ceiling of our bony hideaway. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “It’s going to kill us both.”

I can see he’s resigned to his fate. Whatever is coming, he has no doubt it will be the end of us. But that can’t be true. I’ve killed cresties and even a Nephilim warrior—who are supposed to be unkillable. I control the very air, water and land of the continent. And Xin…not only is he a formidable tracker and fighter, but he can manipulate the mind as easily as I can the weather. What could we not face together?

The ground shakes so hard that the bones above us rattle and shift. If the ribs give way we’ll be buried beneath a mountain of the dead.

“You know me, Xin. Perhaps better than anyone else. You’ve seen who I am and know I wouldn’t lie.”

He nods.

“You are a better hunter than any I’ve met,” I tell him. “Far better than even Ninnis and Kainda, both of whom I have beaten in combat. And you beat me. Beat Ull. I have never faced a foe as dangerous as you. The Nephilim are fools for not realizing it.”

“And yet it is a boy, Solomon, that has defeated me.”

My face scrunches. I have no idea what he’s talking about. I didn’t beat him in combat. That was Nephil. And without Xin, I wouldn’t have been able to contain that evil spirit, either. “It wasn’t me who beat you.”

“But it is,” he says. “Because I cannot kill you now. I can’t even bring you back alive.”

Despite the question being absurd, I ask, “Why not?”

“Because you have shown me a different path.”

Small bones drop through the giant ribcage as a thunderous boom sounds from just outside our shelter. Xin grunts and sits up.

“You shouldn’t move,” I say.

He grunts a wet laugh. “If we are to survive the next few minutes, we will both need to move. And quickly.” He looks me in the eyes, deadly serious now. “Behemoth is here.”

Behemoth? “What is it?”

“I saw in your mind that you call them egg-monsters. Ninnis once told you about what happens to them in the wild. The size to which they grow? Their insatiable appetites? Behemoth is one of the three. It guards the gates to Tartarus. And though its hearing is all but useless, it will soon sniff us out.”

“Tartarus! We’re near the gates?”

“Yes,” he says. “They lie at the other end of this cavern, ten miles from here. That is the second reason the other hunters will not follow. They fear the gates will open and consume them.”

“But you don’t fear the gate?”

“It is hard to feel fear when losing your life means little,” he says sadly.

“Then why do you look so afraid now?” I ask.

I think I see a small grin on his face. “Because you have given me a reason to fear losing my life,” he says. “Hope.”

The sound of loud sniffing surrounds us. I can actually feel a breeze float past me as the air is siphoned past us. There is no doubt Behemoth will soon discover us.

“How do we beat it?” I ask.

“The Nephilim have been building an army for the specific task of killing Behemoth, so they might one day access the gates of Tartarus—the day you are to be bonded with the spirit of Nephil. In fact, if word of you being here reaches them, they might bring that army to bear immediately with the hopes of performing the bonding ritual now.”

A new sense of urgency fills my body. “Then we’ll run.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you,” he says. “You might be able to hold it at bay with your considerable abilities, and I might be able to attack its mind. But not today. We are both weak. And achieving the task alone might kill us both, if we’re not eaten. Running is our only choice.”

He climbs to his feet, stooping under the six foot high ceiling. He’s moving fast for someone I thought nearly dead.

He notes my attention and says, “My blood is red, like a human’s, but I still heal quickly. A gift from the genetic tinkering of my creators.”

The concept of being created rather than born makes me feel even more empathy for Xin. He has never known the love of a parent, the comfort of family or even the concept of having come from somewhere. He has no ancestors. No lineage. He’s truly alone.

Bones rattle as something large digs into our hiding space. The creature is testing our fortifications. A vibration pulses through the air, shaking my body and making me feel nauseous.

“Time is short,” Xin says. “We must go now.”

“What’s it doing?”

“Purring,” he says. “Behemoth is known for playing with its food. We will suffer horribly before being devoured.”

Lovely.

“Are you able to trust me?” he asks.

“Do I have a choice?”

He shakes his head, no. “Our only chance of escape is distraction. As soon as we move, it will lock on to us and give chase. We need to give it something else to chase first.”

“A distraction.”

“Yes.” He points at the bones around us and I understand what he wants me to do. The effort will leave me taxed and my escape, and my survival, will be completely dependent on Xin, who nearly succeeded in killing me only hours ago.

The bones around us shake violently. The creature is coming. I close my eyes, focus on the air in the giant cavern and put my life in Xin’s hands. There is a howl outside, but it is not from Behemoth. It is my wind, swirling around. I can feel the giant form of Behemoth standing in the way of my wind, slowing it down, and I have to push harder to build speed. With a shout, I pull the wind in, and then up.

My hair flies up as the strongest gust of wind I’ve ever generated slides beneath the bone mountain and lifts it high into the air.

A confused roar deafens me and shakes the walls of the cavern. I open my eyes. The bone shelter is gone and Xin is running toward me. He scoops me up with little effort and throws me over his shoulder. The wind is knocked from my lungs repeatedly as Xin runs, and I am too weak to stiffen my stomach muscles or even adjust myself. But I do manage to look up.

The bone mountain has shot a hundred feet in the air and has bloomed out like a mushroom cloud. But it’s not nearly high enough to block Behemoth’s vision. The monster stands one hundred and fifty feet tall. Its black bulbous eyes are the size of swimming pools. Its body is similar to the smaller egg-monsters—essentially egg shaped, mostly jaw and teeth, but the red clumps of hair growing from random spots on the creature’s body are long—and moving. Like tentacles, they whip out and snatch bones from the air, snapping them in two.

The giant head is tilted to the side, like a dog thinking, as it watches the flying bones finish their arc through the air and begin falling back down. That’s when it sees us. Something within the black eye nearest us shifts and I know we’ve been spotted.

Behemoth lets out a roar that shatters the cloud of bones before it and sends the shards flying away. One of them catches Xin in the shoulder and I hear him grunt, but he does not slow. Which is good, because Behemoth takes a step in our direction and cuts the distance between us in half. Rope-like strands of red hair shoot out in pursuit.

I try to shout a warning, but I don’t have enough air in my lungs to even whisper. In fact, my vision is starting to fade.

The jolts of Xin’s footfalls slow and I feel we’re moving downward, or perhaps he’s crouching. I can’t tell. But the deceleration allows the living hairs to gain and one of them launches toward my face. A surge of panic rips through me and a gust of wind strikes the hair to the side.

My life is saved for the moment. But the effort has taxed me beyond my limits. A fuzzy haze fills my vision and consciousness fades as a faint scent tickles my nose. The other hunters are near. Xin has betrayed me.

10

When I wake, I find myself tightly bound, unable to move. But I don’t panic. I remember Ninnis’s lesson. Reach out with your senses before revealing you are awake. Some predators in the underworld will wait for prey to open its eyes before attacking. They’re either just mean or waiting for confirmation that their meal’s heart still beats. Either way, it’s often possible to smell and hear enemies before revealing you are awake.

I test the air, drawing in a slow breath through my nose. The most notable smell is Xin’s blood. It covers my body, and his, but the scent smells fresh. Like he’s bleeding now. Lingering behind the strong smell of Xin’s blood is the distinct odor of three hunters. Two men and one woman. I sniff again. It’s not Kainda. She’s either still stuck on my perch or on her way back to Asgard for a Nephilim blood bath, which will quickly heal her wounds.

Loud laughter cuts through the air. The woman. “I told you not to go after him by yourself,” she says, her tone mocking. “A thing like you is no match for Ull.”

“And you followed him into Behemoth’s den?” This is a man speaking. He sounds young. “I have always said you have half a brain, Xin. A hunter must think before he acts.”

“I know,” Xin says, his voice quiet and lacking confidence.

A loud slap of flesh on flesh makes me wince, but there is no reaction to my movement.

“Do not speak to me until I ask!” the man shouts. “You’re lucky I don’t throw you back to Behemoth for letting Ull escape.”

“Next time, track him, and leave a trail,” says the woman.

“Next time,” a second man groans. “Will we never be free of him?”

“When we advance in rank,” the woman says, “and for some of us that will be sooner than later.”

One of the men laughs. The other does not. And without opening my eyes I get a sense of what is going on. The hunters are youths. Perhaps older than me. Maybe younger. But they are not yet full-fledged hunters and they have been partnered with Xin. It’s likely he knows the subterranean realm better than they do, and is a far better tracker, hence their reliance on him leaving a trail.

But what stands out most is that they believe I have escaped! I open my eyes and find myself tucked into a curved alcove that hides my body from the hunters in the tunnel outside. I can see that I am covered in blood—Xin’s, and far more of it than before. He’s masked my scent with his.

He must have reopened his wounds before putting me in here.

“Which way did he go?” the woman asks.

“Toward the gate,” Xin answers. “He had no trouble eluding Behemoth. In fact, the pair seemed to be working together. I suspect the spirit of Nephil in him gives him power over the beast.”

I hear a gasp, and I smile. He’s building a mythology around me that these youth are buying like it’s a 50% off sale. Word will spread and as my infamy grows, so will my enemy’s fear of me. I could probably leap out and send them all running. But I resist the urge. I’m awake, but my body is exhausted.

“What should we do?” the second young man asks. “Go after him?”

“Riodon, you’re as stupid as Xin,” the woman says, giving me a name for one of the voices. “If Behemoth is with him, we cannot hope to take him without the masters.”

“Even without Behemoth, you would not be able to best him,” Xin says.

“What did you just say?” Riodan is angry. I can hear him stepping closer to Xin, no doubt raising his hand to strike.

“He finished his training in record time,” Xin says quickly, “and knocked the crown from the master Ull’s head during his second trial. He defeated Ninnis in his first. Ninnis! And you saw what he did to Kainda.”

“She said her injuries came from the beast slain by her hammer,” the woman says.

“She would say that, Preeg,” Xin says. I have two names, now. The woman is Preeg. “How could she reach the creature’s head to strike it down while her leg was broken?”

There’s a silence in the tunnel so profound that I hold my breath for fear of being heard.

“None of us is a match for Ull the hunter,” Xin says. “All of us together could not subdue him.”

Xin and I both know this is a lie. He could have taken me by himself. But I appreciate the pep talk.

“He is the best of us,” Xin finishes. “We must go for help.”

No one argues.

“Then why does he run?” one of the men asks.

“He’s gone mad,” says the woman. “Too weak for the blood of Nephil.”

“I could handle it,” Riodan says.

This gets a laugh from the other two.

Between laughs, Preeg says, “Pyke is twice the hunter you are, Riodan, and not even he would think of taking the blood of Nephil.”

“Hey,” says the man known as Pyke.

“It’s true!” Preeg says.

“Whatever,” Pyke says. “If we’re going to get help, we need to do it now. If Ull is heading for the gate, the masters will want to know. Delivering that news might be enough to advance. At least for some of us.”

“Shut up,” Riodan says.

“Xin,” Pyke says. “What’s the fastest way to Asgard?”

“I’ll take you myself, just as soon as my wounds heal.”

“You’ll take us now,” Pyke commands.

I know Xin could fight back. He could probably wipe their minds clean and leave them a heap of human vegetables. But he somehow restrains himself, most likely reverting to a role he has played throughout his entire life. But he does not give me up. Some part of him is rebelling, learning to be more than his masters believe him to be.

I have found my first ally in this dark place. An outcast, like myself. Thanks to him, these hunters are miles off my trail despite being just feet away.

“Up,” Preeg orders. I hear a slap and I think she’s struck Xin again. “Lead the way.”

I see four shadows pass by the entrance to my hiding spot. The last of the four pauses a moment, sniffing the air. Then he’s gone. A more experienced hunter might have detected my lingering odor mixed with the strong scent of Xin’s blood, but the focus of these three is more on themselves than on the world around them. If any of them pass just one of the tests, I’ll be surprised.

Solomon.

It’s Xin. He’s in my head, but just at the surface. He knows I can hear him—it would be impossible not to, even if I was deaf—so he continues.

I’m sure you have pieced together what happened. I was lucky to hide you before they came upon me. The frightened pups were waiting at the fringe of Behemoth’s lair, afraid to come in range of its tendrils. It wasn’t until they sensed my return to the tunnels that they came out of hiding. I have bought you some time. Pyke will take credit for the false information I have delivered, and even when it proves to be incorrect he will never admit that he had taken advice from one as low as me. Though…you have shown me that I am not as low as I once believed. As they still believe.

Will I see you again? I ask.

It would be better if you did not, Xin replies. I nearly turned you over to them. You have changed me—shown me that there is more to life than I knew. I cannot deny this. But your world could never accept me as I am. This is my world. Where I was created to thrive. And my ambition remains. We part as allies now, but I cannot make promises for the future. I am part Nephilim. The blood of Nephil courses through my veins.

My chest hurts. My enemy turned ally remains my enemy.

Thank you for accepting me, young hunter. You are the first. I will try not to forget it.

I know what he’s telling me. When I was broken, I forgot everything about my former life. He’s warning me that the same could happen to him, even without being broken. He is part Nephilim, after all, and whatever he’s feeling now might quickly wear off.

I sense his presence fading as the distance between us increases.

What should I do next? I ask.

I cannot tell you that, Xin says. It is better if I do not know your intentions.
But whatever you decide, do not think like a hunter. That is what they are expecting. That is what will lead you to them. You are yourself now, Solomon. Think like you. Seek allies. The Nephilim have many enemies, even within their own ranks. One day you will face an army of warriors. Even you are not strong enough to stand against them alone. Now go. Run!

With his last words, an image of the underworld and tunnels I didn’t know existed fills my mind. It’s a map—a path—leading up and away from this place.

Thank you, Xin, I think. But there is no reply. He’s gone.

A sweeping sense of loneliness settles in on me, but I fight it. There is no time to waste. When news of my location reaches Asgard, an army will descend toward me. Ull would stay here. Set traps. And look forward to the killing. If they see Ull as a threat, they’ll expect as much. But I’m not Ull. So the question is, what would I do?

I step from my hiding place and check over my gear. Everything is here. I thank Xin one more time in my head, hoping he can somehow still hear me, and then I head up. Toward the surface. Toward the sun.

And my past.

11

Following Xin’s advice to run is easier said than done. My body is worn down and my mind cries for sleep. But I push forward, and upward, hoping to reach the surface before the hunters can organize a thorough search. Luckily for me, creating a fire line search party through the underground is impossible. This is a three dimensional world of crisscrossing tunnels and there aren’t enough hunters to search them all. Granted, each hunter can sense what is in the tunnels around them without ever entering, but there should be several large gaps through which I can sneak.

But the beginning of my journey is several vertical miles from the surface. And if you count the many winding tunnels I have to walk through, some of which have no grade to speak of, it might be a thirty mile hike before I reach the surface. Perhaps more.

The fastest route is along the underground rivers. They flow at a steady downward grade and carry my scent away from the surface. Any hunters ahead won’t smell me coming. But I still need to watch every step and keep an eye out for any hint of company. Not only are hunters searching for me, countless predators would love to make a meal of me.

Despite not being able to feel hot or cold, the thought of being eaten sends a chill through my body. I stop and steady myself on a stalactite. I hold my hand up. It’s shaking. I’m terrified. This is not what a boy my age should be doing—evading heartless killers in the wild Antarctic subterranean. I should be at home, watching TV, playing videogames and thinking about parties. Well, I hate parties. Social gatherings have always vexed me. But that’s what I’m supposed to be doing. Not this.

I crouch down, squeezing my hands, and notice my legs shaking as well. Fear creeps up on me, burrowing into my muscles, adding to their weakness. I just want to go home, I think.

Ull says nothing to fight back the fear and for a moment, I miss that part of me. I think about unlocking the vault door and letting him out. Ull could fight the fear. But I cannot let him free without Nephil following. I must do this alone.

Seek allies. I remember Xin’s words. But how am I supposed to find allies when this world operates on a kill first, ask questions later policy?

During my brief stint on a soccer team, my coach tried to help me overcome fear. Every time someone kicked the ball in my direction, friend or foe, I clenched my eyes shut, raised my arms to my head and turned away. I was never hit with the ball, but I was terrified of it. The coach, who was a real Grizzly Adams type, got down on one knee, took me by the shoulders and said, “Solomon, sometimes you just need to take a few licks. Then you’ll realize the pain isn’t so bad.”

I’d played dodge ball, the sport in which I was essentially a human target. I had felt the pain and it was the very reason I flinched away from soccer balls, which I might add, are much harder than dodge balls. That was my last day on the team. I quit, told my parents why and then we all went to Friendly’s for sundaes.

I wish I could quit now. I wish someone would say, “I understand, Schwartz. Some people are better suited for slaying dinosaurs and fighting man-gods. How about a banana split?”

But all I hear is the running water trickling past my bare feet. I look down at my feet, glowing white beneath the surface of the water. I stand that way for a moment, breathing, collecting myself, trying my best to bury the fear.

But the fear has an ally. My foot turns pink. For a moment, it confuses me, but then the metallic scent of blood hits my nose. The river is full of it. Something has been killed upstream.

A cresty, I think. The cresties have very few enemies in this part of the under-world. In fact, there is only one predator that could kill the dinosaur here.

Hunters.

My heart thumps against my ribcage and pushes a roar of blood past my ears. The only side benefit to this adrenaline rush is that I no longer feel tired. But that does nothing to quell my fear. Ull would have charged ahead, defeated the hunter—perhaps hunters—and continued on his merry way. All I can think of is escape.

I run through the miles of cave systems that I’ve memorized. There is a small crevice twenty feet back. It leads to a good-sized side tunnel, which eventually merges with another river, following in the opposite direction for two miles before emptying into the giant lake at the border of New Jericho—the abandoned Nephilim city where I first encountered my former master, the Nephilim, Ull. I don’t relish the idea of returning to that place, but I remember that Gloop and his pod have swum those waters in the past.

The thought of the seal pod brings a small measure of peace to my mind. I do have friends in the underworld. They’re just not human…or very much good in a fight. I decide on my course of action and stand upright, intending to head back to the crevice.

A mistake.

Not the crevice, the standing upright. I was so blinded by my fear that I ignored my senses. Had I stopped to listen, or really smell, I would have realized the kill, and the hunter, were only thirty feet away. It’s not until I hear a gasp that I realize I’ve been detected.

My head snaps back and meets the eyes of the hunter. He’s young, perhaps around my age. His body is slender and strong, perfectly built for moving through the tunnel system. His hair is blood red, but cut short. He carries two daggers, both dripping with the blood of the ten foot, adolescent cresty at his feet.

His smell reaches me and I recognize it. “Riodan?”

“Who are you?” he asks. I remember that this is the one prone to rash decisions. He won’t back down from a fight, even with the grand stories he’s heard about me.

“Where is Preeg? Pyke?”

“They left me behind.” He spits. “Traitors. Now who are you?”

Several options flash through my mind. I can turn and run. I’ve got a thirty foot lead and I know every single footfall I need to take between here and New Jericho. Riodan is most likely lost. I can tell him who I am and try to scare him into retreating, but he’s unlikely to back down and even if he did, all of Xin’s misinformation would be for nothing. The hunters would know I was not only moving away from the gates of Tartarus, but also headed toward the surface.

Seek allies.

He’s young. Impressionable. And dislikes his comrades. Maybe…

“I am Sol—Ull. The hunter.”

He stands motionless, staring at me, probably weighing his options the same way I am.

“You don’t sound so tough.”

He’s right. I sound like myself. When Ull speaks it’s at least an octave lower.

“Is it true?” he asks. “Has the blood of Nephil driven you mad?”

I can see him flexing his fists. He’s definitely sizing me up.

“I’m not crazy,” I say. “I want you to…join me.”

“Join you?” The request has him off balance. He wasn’t expecting an invitation. “To what end?”

Convincing someone that everything they have learned, that all of the fear they have been instilled with since birth, is a lie, can’t be easy. I decide to keep him off balance with the bold truth. “My master, Ull, is dead.”

The look of shock on his face tells me the news was covered up. “Dead—by my hand.”

I’ve just verbally slapped him for a second time. “What?”

“The Nephilim are not our masters. You can be free. All hunters can be free. You just need to—”

His war cry saves my life. I see the knife coming at the last moment and duck its spinning blade. The thrown dagger sails into the river beyond, but I’m not yet out of danger. Riodan charges.

I see ten different ways to counter his attack. He’s inexperienced and his dagger is no match for Whipsnap. But I’m gripped by fear and I resort to the same tactic I developed in high school. I run.

I reach the crevice and slide in. At first the rough stone grips my body, tugging my flesh as I slide through. But then it opens up and I’m running.

“Blasphemer!” Riodan shouts from behind as he squeezes into the crevice. He’s thinner than me and makes better time. I really don’t want to fight him, and it has nothing to do with my promise not to take human life, it’s because I’m pretty sure he’ll take mine.

12

I remember watching the Boston marathon on TV. Every year, my father, who runs every morning, would watch the event that takes twenty thousand runners through the suburbs of Boston, via twenty-six miles of hilly, curvy streets. The fastest runners finish in just over two hours. I would often think to myself, “Why would anyone need to run twenty-six miles at twelve miles-per-hour outside of being a foot messenger for the Roman army?”

I now have my answer—survival of the fittest in the Antarctic underworld. And while I don’t need to run twenty-six miles (I hope), I am sprinting at something closer to twenty miles-per-hour. And my worn down body is feeling the strain.

Riodan, however, seems no worse for wear. He’s still just thirty feet back, cursing at me in Sumerian and ready to slice my back open with that dagger of his.

I’ve twice resisted the urge to turn and stand my ground. It would be a major breakthrough for me, but I’m so unsure of myself without Ull’s personality that I keep running. After several miles, my goal is only three hundred feet ahead—the length of a football field, which some of the kids from my former high school could cover in just ten seconds. I think I can do it in less now.

Three seconds later, I can hear the roar of the waterfall ahead. It is one of two that empties out into the New Jericho lake. I once fell from the other waterfall and was rescued by Gloop. It was the first time we met. But this time I won’t be falling, I’ll be jumping, and I won’t need a seal to carry me to the shore. Not only can I survive the three hundred foot fall, but I’m a good swimmer now, too.

After two more seconds, I hear Riodan shout, “Coward!”

“Don’t try to follow me,” I shout back. “You won’t survive the fall!”

Nine seconds. My feet leave the river’s stone floor and I leap out over the waterfall. I turn as I fall and see Riodan stop at the top, shaking his blade at me. I turn myself around and dive face first toward the water below.

Using my perfected technique, I use the wind to slow my fall and plunge into the lake as though I’d only dropped twenty feet. I arch my back and curve through the water like a torpedo. I surface thirty feet from where I splashed down. I lie on my back and start kicking toward the shore, which is nearly a mile away. I see the waterfall above but not Riodan.

Where did he go? Any good hunter would have made a note of my direction and—

Splash!

Water plumes into the air. Something large has fallen. I want to believe Riodan rolled a boulder over the edge with the hopes of it landing on me, but I know better. The fool jumped. While I can look over the edge of a waterfall, estimate the distance to within ten feet and calculate the speed I’ll reach before impact—in this case, eighty miles per hour—Riodan has no such skill. Hunters rely on instinct, and Riodan’s are so immature that he believed he could survive the jump.

It occurs to me that seeing me make the jump might have fueled his decision. When he doesn’t surface, I reverse direction and swim toward him. There’s no sign of him at the impact site, so I duck beneath the water and search the murk for his form. I find it thirty feet down, slipping deeper.

I cut through the water, reach out and take hold of his forearm. The broken bones of his arm bend in my hand and I nearly let go. I manage to pull his body to the surface and tilt his head back. I’ve taken two CPR classes and remember the instructions perfectly. But after just one chest compression, I know my efforts will be useless.

Nearly all of his ribs are already broken. As are his limbs, and most likely his neck and back. Even if I were able to revive him, he would likely suffer a prolonged and agonizing death from infection.

I tread water for five minutes, holding him in my arms like he’s my child. In death, with his features relaxed, I realize that’s what he is. True, he’s not much younger than I am, but I’m still a child, too. Neither of us should be here.

“I’m sorry,” I say to the dead boy. “You deserved better.”

With tears in my eyes, I slide my arms out from under his body and watch him slip back beneath the surface of the lake. While I didn’t physically kill Riodan, it still feels like his death could have been averted. If I had faced him, and immobilized him, he would have never chased me. If I had subdued him I might have actually been able to talk some sense into him.

But I chose to run. Someone has died because of my cowardice.

I want to promise myself it will never happen again. That I’ll stand and fight. But I don’t. I’m not Ull. Not a shred of him remains.

I lie back and kick for shore, unable to wipe the image of Riodan’s dead face from my mind. It is an image that will haunt me for the rest of my life, however long, or short, that might be.

At least I’m not completely useless. Free from the chase and back in familiar territory, I regain my senses and apply some underworld wit to my situation. My face is barely above the water as I swim on my back. I’m able to breathe through my nose and leave a negligible wake behind me. I kick with my feet underwater, moving silently across the lake. A hunter would have to be looking directly at me through a spyglass to see me. And even then, I wouldn’t look like anything more than one of the Weddell seals.

When I reach the shore without incident, I’m flooded with relief. I’ve been here before. I know the way to the surface. But I’m unsettled again when I look up and see the ruins of New Jericho.

From where I stand, nothing has changed. Twenty foot ruins of massive walls surround the city. One of several sixty foot gates remains standing. Beyond is a grotto of temples, bastilles and obelisks that dwarf the grandest human structures of the ancient world. A ziggurat stands at the center of it all, stretching up toward the ceiling. Half way up, you could stare Behemoth in the eye.

Maybe Behemoth destroyed the city? I wonder. Imagining the event brings a smile to my face. I miss watching Godzilla.

I cut through the city heading for the still standing gate where I first encountered the Nephilim, Ull, whose name I share. I’d never seen a Nephilim before and took him for a statue. He was larger than life and terrified me—terrified “little” Ull, whose personality was dominant at the time. I fled and his laughter chased me through the underworld. That same passage down which I fled will carry me from this city once more.

As I wander through the city, sniffing for the scent of hunters but smelling only dust, I look at its grand balustrades and wonder how much of human history was influenced by the Nephilim. I see bits of Egyptian and Mayan in the stone work. Despite the ruined state of them, the statues almost look Roman. I pass a black obelisk that looks like it belongs in St. Peter’s Square and I stop in my tracks.

A thirty foot statue stands in an open courtyard.

But this statue isn’t like the others. It’s new.

My heart twitches for a beat. Maybe it’s not a statue at all! But the hair is gray, not red. The whole thing is stone gray. As I approach the back side of the statue, I recognize its form and check it for life one more time. I stand still and silent for a full minute. When I’m finally satisfied that it will not spring to life and devour me, I wander around to the front of the statue and look up into the frozen face of my former master. He stands tall, looking out over the city, his trademark bow in his hand, a quiver of arrows on his back and a cresty skull over his head—the head through which I stabbed one of those giant arrows.

An inscription at the base reads: Here lies Ull, son of Thor, son of Odin. Beloved by Asgard, but devoted to New Jericho, his home, his charge, his resting place.

The genuine sentiment of the inscription makes no impression on me. Instead, I focus on the first two words: Here lies…

I look down at the fresh, brown, stone cobbles beneath my feet and realize I am standing on Ull’s grave. The thought of being close to that monster, even in death, is more than I can bear. I run from the city, hearing his laughter in my mind, feeling it as keenly as I did when I first encountered him.

When I reach the cavern wall outside the city and locate the crack through which I previously escaped, I dive inside. I wail with fear as I scramble to safety like a mouse burrowing away from a cat. Thirty feet inside the tight squeezing earth, I pause and weep.

Crybaby.

The word comes to me like a distant voice.

“Shut-up,” I say.

Crybaby.

“Shut-up!”

With a gasp, my crying stops. The voice is gone now, but I suddenly recognize its source.

Ull. He’s trying to escape.

13

Ull remains silent and I think he must have found strength in my weakness. Nephil is an intruder in my mind, but Ull is a part of me. Always has been. Given the right circumstances it’s possible he could re-emerge on his own. Strength, I think. I need to get stronger, and not just physically.

I stop and lean against the smooth wall of a tunnel carved out by a stream that has long since dried up. A dull light shines down on me from a lone crystal buried in the ceiling. The waterproof pouch at my side opens with a tug. I find the photo inside and remove it. The sight of Mira’s face renews my strength, but even her image can’t really make me stronger, or less afraid. That needs to come from inside.

With my mood slightly improved, I put the Polaroid photo back in its pouch and continue on my journey. But I don’t get far before realizing I need a break. I’ve already covered more miles than the Boston Marathon and all of it was uphill, never mind the swim and the two mile sprint. I suspect I’ve made it beyond the reach of the hunters who are most likely descending toward the gates of Tartarus.

Even still, I’ll need someplace defensible. Someplace no one would think to look for me.

When I think of the perfect place, I say, “No…”

I can’t go there, I think. It’s too—

My thought process freezes. I expect Ull’s voice to rise up again. Maybe call me another name. But the anger I feel toward my fear is my own. If I can’t face something as simple as bad memories, I will never survive, let alone resist the Nephilim. I have to do this.

Doing my best to ignore my rising apprehension, I slide out of the side tunnel and follow the waters of the High River. I don’t stop until I reach the alcove where Ninnis trained me, like I was a dog, to obey and trust him. I did what he said, believed everything he told me, and came to think of him as something close to a father. He gave me the chance to kill him. Put the knife in my hand. But I couldn’t do it. Ninnis had become my world. The idea of taking a life still goes against everything I believe, but if I had to repeat that day, I might plunge the knife into his chest. Everything after that day, including Aimee’s capture at my hands, could have been avoided.

But the Nephilim would still be here, I think, plotting the demise of the human race. I would have only been postponing the horrors to come. Now I have a chance to stop them. If I can overcome the all-consuming fear that has gripped me.

The alcove is just as I remember it—a semicircle of gray stone, perhaps twenty feet in diameter where it meets the river. The only evidence of our having been here is the black ash ground into a divot in the floor. Ninnis cooked his food there. For a long time he made me watch him eat, giving me whatever scraps remained—sometimes just the marrow from bones. Later we ate together, him teaching me the ways of the hunter and me eagerly absorbing his every word.

Solomon was gone by then. I had become Ull. An impressionable Ull.

I wonder if Ull could have been different. If that buried personality had been taught something different, could it have been a force for good? Could it still?

I remember the awful things Ull has done and said. It’s impossible, I think. Ull is just as much a monster as anything else living in this world.

The memories here are strong, and they’ve shaken loose some things I would prefer to forget, but I have not yet reached my destination. That lies through the tunnel at the far end of the alcove. It’s not much more than a large crack in the stone wall, but it was Ull’s birth canal, so to speak. When I entered the cavern on the other side, I was Solomon. When I came out, I was Ull.

Will the same thing happen if I go in again?

Be brave, I tell myself. Face your fears.

I crouch down by the tunnel. The space is small, but I’ve navigated smaller. I steel myself with a deep breath, and enter. I slide through the tunnel, using the handholds I remember from my exit, and make good time. I pause halfway through, looking at the tight squeeze that broke two ribs before I yanked myself through. I shake my head at my stupidity and go around. I can see the best way through tight squeezes with little effort now, but I was blind to them back then.

I’m a creature of the underworld, I think. So much so that I wonder if I could ever adjust to a normal life above ground again. Depression sweeps through me, but my thoughts of living in the outside world are not its source. I’ve reached the birthing ground of the feeders—what I call egg-monsters.

This is where Ninnis broke me. I was left, alone and terrified, with no food, water or weapons. And every three days, a man-eating egg-monster full of shark teeth would dangle down from the ceiling in a gelatinous womb before hatching, and trying to eat me. I found out later that the feeders were actually being birthed by Gaia, a breeder, whose enormously fat body was perched above a hole in the ceiling, far from view.

The place is just as I left it. And judging by the smell of dry blood and long since decomposed feeder bodies, the place hasn’t been used for another breaking since.

Because I’m the last hunter, I remember. Ninnis told me that. After me, there won’t be a need for human hunters anymore, because the Nephilim will no longer hide in the tight confines of the underworld. They will rule the overworld.

I step up to the ledge and look over the edge of the fifteen foot deep pit. Yellow crystals glow all around, like stars. I had such a hard time seeing in here during my breaking, but it seems bright to me now. I can see my bed of feeder skins against the far wall. The sight of it reminds me I’m exhausted. I leap the fifteen feet down and land with little effort. I had such a hard time climbing out of this pit. I could now make it out with three quick lunges, or just command the wind to lift me up.

But not now. Now it’s time to sleep. I sit down on the bed of feeder skins and remember how to position myself on it for optimum comfort. After unclipping Whipsnap and placing the weapon between my body and the wall, I lie down. With my head on my hands, I open my eyes one last time and take in the sideways view of my former prison. There is no egg-monster here. There never will be again. Gaia is gone. Ninnis is not waiting outside the door. And after I sleep, I will finish my journey to the surface. I allow myself a brief smile, and then fall asleep.

When I awake, everything is different. I’m still looking at a sideways view of the feeder pit, but it smells different. The odors are…fresh.

“I knew you’d come here, Solomon.”

My insides twist. It’s Ninnis. I’m too frightened to reply.

“You always did make my job easy,” he says. “Well, except for when you remembered who you were, but now that we’re here, we can correct all that.”

“I can leave whenever I want,” I say, the words far more bold than I feel. But I have Whipsnap in my hands and am ready to defend myself. “You can’t stop me.”

“I won’t need to,” he says.

I hear a flicking sound. My memory says it’s a lighter.

“You’ll stay as long as it takes. Gaia will let me know when you’re ready. Standard feeders won’t break you this time, so she’s prepared something special for you.”

A hissing sound fills the chamber, but it’s not organic. I quickly climb the fifteen foot wall and look across the pit to the exit. Ninnis is gone. In his place is a bright flame shooting bits of orange like a Fourth of July sparkler. A wick.

He’s going to collapse the tunnel!

I take two steps toward the feeder den’s only exit when the dynamite explodes. The force of the blast slaps me backwards. I slam into the wall and then fall fifteen feet back into the pit. I’m unconscious before I hit the floor and don’t feel the pain until I wake up again.

But the pain wracking every inch of my body holds my attention for only a moment. A wet slurping sound draws my eyes to the ceiling where a large wet sack slides out of the gloom and into view. Gaia is giving birth.

14

My heart rate hits hummingbird speeds as I watch the oozing, fleshy sack descend to the floor. I reach for Whipsnap, searching around with my hands, afraid to look away for even a moment. When I can’t find my weapon, my panic skyrockets. I have no choice but to turn around. I see it lying five feet away among a pile of discarded feeder bones. A pile I accumulated during my stay here.

I dive for the weapon, snatch it up and spin around. Despite my belief that the feeder is already upon me, the thing has not yet hatched. The teardrop womb rests on the floor, still connected to Gaia far above by a pulsing umbilical.

This is the best time to strike. When the feeder is still trapped in the womb, defenseless and unaware of the danger. But I can’t bring myself to attack. Not yet. I’ve faced feeders and killed them as myself—as Solomon—when I was first brought here, but it was in self-defense at first. And then for food. This would be neither, because I still have rations and can easily hide from the feeder at the top of the fifteen foot wall. My rations will eventually run out, but I don’t want to kill something if I don’t have to. Even if it is a Nephilim.

The birth sack stretches as the thing inside tries to break free. But the shape is all wrong. This is no feeder. It’s something else. Something taller.

Fingers poke through the womb’s skin. Human fingers. A second set of fingers pokes through and pulls. The two hands pull apart, sheering the womb away. Thick fluid oozes out onto the floor. The crouched creature stands up, cloaked in shadow, silhouetted by the wall of glowing crystals behind it. I can’t yet make out the details, but the shape is decidedly human. A woman, I think. But her movements are stiff and awkward.

A thousand questions rush through my mind, but before I can attempt to answer even one of them, she catches my scent. So she has something in common with the feeders. They’re ravenously hungry when born. Her head snaps in my direction. Though I can’t yet see her eyes, I can feel them on me, sizing me up. She’s more intelligent than the other feeders, who spent little time thinking before pouncing.

Perhaps I can reason with her? I think.

She hisses.

Probably not.

I raise Whipsnap in my hands, letting her see the spiked mace and sharp blade, hoping it will make her think twice. I have no intention of using the weapon—if she attacks I’ll scale the wall and see if she follows—but she doesn’t know that.

I’m startled when she leaps through the air, cutting the distance between us in half. She’s fast, strong and will have no trouble following me out of the pit. Ninnis has thought of everything it seems. I’ll have no choice but to fight, and kill, this person.

But it’s not a person, I remind myself. As much as this thing looks human, it is Nephilim. And I still have no problem killing them. This isn’t enough to break me, I think. I can do this.

She’s only twenty feet from me now. Her body is covered in goopy red birth fluid, which is different from normal feeders. Her face is hidden behind a curtain of shoulder length black hair. It’s been so long since I’ve seen anyone without a full head of blood red hair that my eyes linger on the hair. Something about it is familiar. The way it parts and descends in wet waves that will curl as they dry.

Oh God. Please, no.

My fear is confirmed when it speaks. “Solomon.”

“No!” I scream. “Not her!”

“Solomon, come here.”

I’ve heard her say that before. The voice is perfect. How is that possible?

It’s not, I think. The only way she could be here, is if she was really here.

“Solomon,” she says, bending to one knee and stretching her arms out toward me. “It’s so good to see you, son.”

Tears blur my eyes. “Mom?”

“Yes, Solomon. Come hug me.”

I’m stuck in place, rooted like some ancient tree. Part of me wants to rush forward and wrap my arms around her. But I also remember how she moved a moment ago. My mother wasn’t—isn’t—that athletic. And the hiss. But her voice. It’s her. It has to be.

I take a step forward, but stop again.

She called me “son.” My mother never called me, “son.” I have imagined reuniting with my parents several times. If my mother—my real mother—were to see me, she would rush up and hug me whether I was holding Whipsnap or not. She would trust me. She would weep loudly. I look up at the woman, arms still outstretched, waiting calmly for me to approach.

This is not my mother.

I flash back to a memory. I’m four. My mother is reading Are You My Mother? to me despite me being fully capable of reading it to her. Even before I could read, I had the story memorized and could recite it. But I liked the scary snort and the sound of my mother’s voice when she read, “I know who you are. You are a bird, and you are my mother.”

“You,” I say, “Are not my mother.”

She stands and brushes the hair from her face, tucking it behind her ears.

I step back with a gasp.

It is my mother. Her face. Her eyes. Her hair.

My mind reels for a moment, but I still know, without a doubt, that this thing birthed from the belly of Gaia is not who she claims to be. “You are not my mother!” I scream.

My faux-mother grins, revealing several rows of shark-like teeth.

Like I said, not my mother.

She leaps forward, hands reaching out for me, mouth stretched open. If it reaches me, this thing will tear me to shreds and eat every bit of flesh off my bones.

But it won’t get close.

Its bold attack poses little threat.

And because it’s a Nephilim, I feel no guilt turning Whipsnap’s blade tip toward its chest.

She sees the blade coming and shouts, “No!” Her eyebrows turn up in fear.

And for a moment, I’m unsure.

But then the blade has struck, piercing ribcage and lung all at once. The perfect kill shot. Ull would be proud.

She staggers back, pulling the blade from her chest. Blood flows in chugs as her heart pumps it from her body. “Solomon,” she says, “How could you?”

I want to tell her to shut up, that she’s not my mother, but I can’t speak. Because her face and voice are my mother’s.

I step closer.

She backs away.

Her fear wounds me.

She falls to her knees. “I love you, Sol.”

The words strangle me. I weep openly, watching her life ebb.

“My baby,” she says. “At least I got to see you one…more…time.”

She dies at my feet.

Now that she’s no longer trying to kill me, she looks exactly like my mother. My dead mother. That I killed.

I drop to my knees beside her and lean my head against hers. “I’m sorry, mom. I’m so sorry.”

My face is wet with tears and snot and I remember the last time I felt guilt like this. It was when Ninnis first began stalking me. It was at night. And snowing. And when Aimee snuck up behind me, I thought she was him. One punch. I threw one punch and knocked her out cold. I was consumed by guilt afterwards. But it wasn’t my fault.

It was Ninnis.

This was Ninnis.

Anger begins to replace my sadness as I realize Ninnis’s plan. One by one, I’ll be forced to kill my mother, my father, and who knows who else from my past until I no longer care.

I will kill them.

I will eventually eat them to survive.

And I…

Will…

Break.

I pull back from the body of this mother-shaped feeder. With my face turned to the ceiling, I fill my lungs and scream, “NINNIS!”

As my thunderous voice echoes in the pit, something else happens.

The solid stone floor beneath my feet—it shakes.

15

My fall is broken by my mother’s—the feeder’s—body. The earthquake knocked me off my feet. Several of the glowing yellow crystals in the walls popped free. Bones rattled. And high above, in the dark recess of the ceiling that is beyond my view, Gaia shrieks. It is the first time she has revealed her presence in this place.

The tremor was not part of Ninnis’s plan.

But what was it?

My first inclination is to write it off as a normal earthquake. But nothing here is normal. It felt like the pounding foot falls of Behemoth, but I know there are no caverns large enough to hold that monster anywhere near here. Maybe it was caused by the explosion Ninnis set off? I shake my head. The earthquake didn’t originate from that side of the cavern.

It originated…from me. The timing is the giveaway. At the height of my emotions, when I released my anger, the solid stone shook with my rage.

I never realized how complete my connection with Antarctica had become. I’d manipulated the air, mostly. Sometimes water. And snow. But I had never turned my attention fully to controlling stone. And here I am, believing myself entombed by the very earth to which I am bound, the earth that might well move when I command it.

I push myself away from my faux-mother, intent on escape. The three dimensional mental map I’ve created of the surrounding tunnels plays through my mind. Ninnis no doubt waits outside the destroyed entrance. Gaia lurks above. I turn my focus in the direction opposite of Ninnis, mentally working my way through the underground in search of a tunnel that will take me up, and away from this horrible place.

I find a tunnel leading slowly upward, where it connects to another tunnel, one I know very well. It is the tunnel Ninnis took me through when I was kidnapped. The very same tunnel where I once hid the Polaroid picture I now carry with me at all times. It will not only take me to the surface, it will take me to Clark Station Two, and my past.

The thought of facing that place again frightens me almost as much as facing whatever creature Gaia births next, but I can’t stay here. I can’t face even one more of those things.

The stone at the side of the pit is rough against my hand. I place my other hand against it, not knowing if physical touch is required, but it seems to make sense. I guess. I don’t really know. But it feels right, so I close my eyes, push on the stone and will it to—

—what?

Open?

Disintegrate?

Compress?

Nothing happens, and I think it’s because I really need to decide how this is going to work. It’s not like moving air or water.

Or is it?

Everything is composed of atoms. Some are more loosely packed, like water or air, and others are tightly packed, like stone. Perhaps when I shift the wind, I’m really moving the atoms? But maybe the connection is even deeper than that? When people have strong emotions, it’s reflected in their bodies. Extreme stress can destroy an immune system. Happy people are healthier and live longer. So do people with dogs. And unhappy people, well, they die faster and often on Monday mornings.

And when I have extreme emotions, the environment here reacts. The winds often react to my fear, occasionally saving me from a fall or projectile. Storms brew when I panic. And now, the earth itself shakes at my rage. It’s as though this continent—a land as vast as the United States—is now part of my physical body. Perhaps that’s why I don’t feel temperature changes? I am the temperature. I can’t feel it any more than I can the individual organs in my own body.

I don’t control the environment. I don’t manipulate this external thing. I am it. It is me.

But it is also beyond me. I’m used to controlling my small human body, not an entire continent. I don’t think my brain, or any brain could handle that much sensory input. Thankfully, the continent seems to be on autopilot, much like the human heart or lungs—involuntary muscles that require no actual thinking.

Carving a hole through the earth is voluntary. Something I need to focus on to achieve.

So I take a deep breath, clear my mind and imagine the earth opening. I see myself stretching out into the stone, comingling atoms. The ground starts to shake. My heart races as I exert a kind of force I never have before. I slide my hands apart. A loud crack echoes in the chamber. The shaking grows more intense.

I scream as muscles in my arms burn. My head pounds with every heartbeat. And then, when I can’t take any more, I fall to the ground gasping like I’ve just nearly drowned. My vision goes black for a moment, but three deep breaths clear my eyes and I see it. A tunnel, barely big enough to squeeze through has been opened in the stone wall.

But is it deep enough? Does it reach through two hundred feet of stone?

Too exhausted to stand, I drag myself toward the mouth of the tunnel and smell the air. It is dank and old. Like the pit. I have failed and lack the energy to try again. I’ll have to face another feeder, and—

My hair twitches, tickling the side of my face. A breeze blows across my face, carrying the scents of snow and a hint of salt water. The smells of the surface!

Invigorated by the odor of freedom, I pull myself to my feet, but find my legs wobbly beneath my weight. Using Whipsnap as a cane, I hobble into the tunnel, and lean against the wall, scraping my shoulder with each step.

When I get ten feet into the tunnel, Gaia must sense I’m no longer in the pit because she starts shrieking. Ninnis will know I’ve escaped somehow, but it will take him time to clear the debris from the entrance. Then again, maybe he’ll drop down from the ceiling where Gaia is hiding. I do my best to ignore the pain and exhaustion wracking my body, and focus on the remaining one hundred and ninety feet.

Each step feels like a knife in my stomach, and I’m fighting the urge to vomit, not because I need what little food is in there or because it would be gross, but because the scent would be easy to track. And I don’t want Ninnis to know where I’ve gone.

I stumble out of my escape route and into the larger tunnel that leads to the surface. I’ve nearly reached my goal, but now must cover my tracks. If Ninnis finds and follows my new tunnel here, he’ll know where I’ve gone. If he found me now, I would be in real danger. If he finds me after I close this tunnel, I would be defenseless.

I place my hands on the sides of the tunnel, close my eyes and grit my teeth. With the last of my energy, I bring my hands together and feel the stone closing. But not all of it. More than half the tunnel remains open, and Ninnis will follow it. But he will not find me. It will be as though I disappeared.

I slide to my knees. Sweat pours from my forehead. My body shivers. It will soon shut down.

After wrapping Whipsnap around my waist, I crawl on my hands and knees, following the tunnel up. The pain and physical trauma take me back to my past. I was eight. It was winter. I had dug a fort in the snow pile across the street from our house. My mother called me in for lunch and on my way back, I decided to pole vault a puddle with my shovel. Little did I know the sidewalk was sheer ice. When I landed, my feet shot out from under me and I fell flat on my back. The air exploded from my lungs and my whole back tensed with pain. Eight years old and I thought I was dying. I pulled myself, using just my arms, past two houses, and then up the stairs to my house, where I remained in bed for three days.

I’m repeating that memory now, crawling to safety while my body reels from a sudden and horrible punishment. While I know I’m not dying this time, I know I might if I linger. I reach the top of the tunnel fifteen minutes later and slide out onto the snow covered mountainside. Clark Station Two is just a mile away; most of the trip is downhill.

I can make it, I tell myself. Just push harder.

So I push.

I emerge from the tunnel and onto the snow like a new born seal. Gravity does the rest. The snow is packed tight and I slip over it, gaining speed with each passing second. I lie on my back, watching the clouds pass through the dark blue sky.

I see a bunny, I think, blinking my eyes at a rabbit shaped cloud. It’s been so long since I’ve seen a bunny.

I blink again. My head lolls to the side. Cruising down the mountainside like a bobsled freed from the track, I blink one last time, seeing stones whizzing past.

And then I fall asleep.

16

I wake to a world of glowing white light. It wraps around me, holding me tight. I can’t move my head. Or my limbs. But I can feel my eyes shifting, so I know I’m actually seeing the white light. It’s not in my head. I flex my arms with a grunt, but am still stuck. The sound of my voice is muffled. Contained.

I’m trapped, I think, and I fight my bonds with all my strength. A crack forms in the white. It’s close to my eyes, so I have to strain to focus on it. When I do, the reality of my current predicament slams home.

I’m not only trapped, I’m frozen—in ice!

My heart races. Each breath comes faster than the last.

I can breathe, I realize.

Maybe some parts of me are still free of the ice. If only I could feel cold, I would know! Of course, if I could feel cold, I would be dead.

With the realization that I won’t die any time soon, I begin to calm and think about my situation in a more rational way. I fell asleep while sliding down the mountainside. And I somehow ended up buried by snow—an avalanche maybe—which melted around my warm body and then refroze while I slept.

But more comforting than that is the knowledge that this ice, no matter how much of it is surrounding me, is part of the Antarctican environment, and as such, part of me. I focus on the ice and try a new trick. I can’t feel temperature variations, but I still might be able to warm things up a few degrees. I picture the water molecules, bound tightly together. Move, I will them, vibrate! When a drop of water strikes my eye, causing me to blink, I know it’s working.

The white light grows brighter. Then becomes tinged with blue. And then—daylight.

“Argh!” I scream, as I look directly into the sun.

The remaining ice and snow surrounding my body explodes away from me as I sit up and cup my hands over my eyes. Two bright green and purple circles dance in my vision. When the pain subsides, I fumble blindly through my belongings and dig out the sunglasses Ninnis gave me—gave Ull—to use on the surface. I haven’t had to use them in ages, but they are essential for visiting the outside during the daytime. I’m like a vampire now, unable to bear the daylight. And it’s not just my eyes. My skin is so fair now that I’ll burn quickly without clothing.

Even with the sunglasses on, I have to squint so hard that my vision is almost nothing. So I almost miss the structure behind me when I look around. But the ribbed surface of the steel catches my attention. The top of a rounded structure is poking out of the snow.

Most of the surface is covered in snow, but I can see bits of gray. I climb atop it, crawling over its bumpy surface, feeling the metal with my hands. It’s a roof. The roof of Clark Station Two! My excitement mixed with my near blindness hides a ridge in the hard surface and when I shift forward again, the metal beneath my hands falls away.

I plummet forward and am swallowed whole by the buried structure. My landing is pitiful, like I’m a nerdy little kid tripping over his shoelaces again. But I’m not upset. I’m laughing, because when I open my eyes, I recognize where I am.

“Clark Station Two,” I say to myself. “I’m back.”

The place does not return my greeting. Some of the place has been rearranged; the couch is in a different spot. And some of the equipment is missing—like the computer. But the space remains the same. I sit up and find that I’m lying in the very spot where Aimee lay unconscious after I slugged her. That was just moments before I ventured out into the night on a mission to restart the generator. A mission that ended with my abduction.

Back on my feet, I dust the snow and debris from my body and head for what was—for a day—my room. The hallway running straight down the center of the hanger-like building has doors on either side. Mine is the third on the left.

When I open it, a bell rings further down the hallway. The sound strikes me like a baseball bat to the gut. The bell. It rang the night I left this room, alerting Dr. Clark and Aimee that I was awake. It’s what sent her after me. I shake my head, wishing for a moment that I did not have a photographic memory. The past sometimes replays itself when I least expect it.

Of course, sometimes the past doesn’t even need to be replayed to have an effect on me. I open the door and find my suitcase on the floor between the small desk and unmade cot. They left it here. They left everything I brought with me. They really thought they would find me, I think. I fall to my knees, unzip the luggage and stare down at my clothes. I sit there, hands shaking, and pick up a black turtleneck. I bring it to my face, and breathe in.

I’ve read that scent is the biggest trigger for memories. As the smell of my mother’s favorite fabric softener tickles my nose, I know it’s true. My body tenses as I squeeze the fabric against my face and let out a desperate wail. This was the smell of my childhood. Of my innocence. I wore it, like a cologne, every day of my life before being taken from this place.

When I start to hyperventilate I realize that revisiting the past like this might be just as bad for me as facing down replicas of my parents in the pit. It’s breaking me.

No, I think, it’s remaking me. This is a good pain. I can find strength here.

For the moment. If Ninnis knew I would return to the pit, he’ll eventually come looking here. Apparently my sentimentality is predictable, and a weakness. But what about Clark Station One? Does Ninnis know about that location? Has he ever visited the place of my birth? It was buried by snow fairly fast. It’s worth the risk, I think. From the moment I first set foot on Antarctica, I have felt drawn to Clark Station One. Perhaps I will find the strength I need to face the Nephilim there?

I wipe away my tears and try to pull the dark turtleneck over my head. It doesn’t fit. Not even close. I hold the shirt up in front of me and wonder if it somehow shrunk. But then I remember what I looked like in it. Skinny and frail. I look at my arm next to the sleeve. Muscles twitch beneath my pale skin. I’ve gotten bigger.

A lot bigger.

None of these clothes will fit me, which is probably a good thing because aside from the turtleneck, the bright 1980’s wardrobe will stand out like a beacon on the snow. I tear a chunk of fabric from the shirt and stuff it in the pouch with the photo.

“What I need,” I say, longing to hear a voice in this place, “is something white.”

I check the room next to mine. It’s empty, but I can tell it belonged to my parents. Their scent lingers. I close the door quickly, not wanting to repeat my emotional episode. The next two rooms I check are empty. The fourth smells like Old Spice. Dr. Clark’s room.

Which would make the room next door… I pause, hand on the knob. If this room is anything but empty, I’m going to have a hard time, and even without Ull present, I’m kind of getting sick of crying. But I can’t not go in. So I pretend I’m facing down a feeder and simply act. I twist the doorknob and step in.

Nothing on the cot. The freestanding closet is open, and empty. The floor is clear. And the desk…the desk holds an envelope.

With my name on it.

I wonder for a moment if I’ve been trapped. Did Ninnis know I would come here? Did he leave this for me? Is he outside right now? I step back from the envelope, but the idea of leaving it feels unbearable. I step forward and look at my name written on it. It’s just three letters—SOL—but the writing is familiar. I take out the Polaroid photo and look at the handwriting: Mira and Sol…

The handwriting is the same. Mira wrote this.

For me.

I take the envelope in a shaking hand and find the old glue easy to pull away. Inside is a single lined piece of paper, dated the day before Ninnis took me. I read the note:

Solomon,

I am new to this and I’m not good at writing so I’m going to get right to the point. I like you. A lot. I’m not big on romance. Or flowers. Or girly things in general. So if that is okay with you, I’ll overlook the fact that you are clumsy. And smart. And kind. We will always be good friends. I knew it from the moment I picked you up off of my driveway. But maybe, if you’re lucky, we can be something more? I’m debating about whether or not to give this to you, because the idea of you turning me down makes me sick to my stomach. Actually, I’m pretty sure that this will make you sick to your stomach, too. So to make this simple I’m going to do something I swore I would never do.

Do you like me? ¡ Yes. ¡ No.

Or maybe just sit next to me and put your foot against mine. Grin.

Mira.

I read the letter twice more before returning it to the envelope and placing it back on the desk. I cannot describe how it makes me feel, because I’m feeling too many emotions at the same time. Mira, who was the first and only girl to give me the time of day, never mind her heart, had planned to give this to me the day I disappeared.

I back out of the room and close the door. It’s a memento of my past too painful to take with me, because it doesn’t just remind me of my past—of what I once had—it represents the life I could have had. The happiness. The love. It’s more than I can bear.

The door behind me swings open when I bump into it. I turn and find a room full of gear and clothing. For a moment I worry that someone’s been living here, but then I smell oil and see the toolbox. This was Collette’s room. She was a loud, rude, joke-telling mechanic. She must have jumped ship and left everything behind.

Piles of clothes fall out of the closet when I tug on the handle. But a lone, white winter snowsuit remains hung.

“Thank you, Collette,” I say.

Collette was a big woman—at least she seemed that way back then—so the suit is a little loose on me, but just barely. My mom would say I’ll grow into it. I find a pair of white winter boots, wrap a white t-shirt around my lower face and pull the hood up over my red hair. Standing on the white surface of Antarctica, only my sunglasses will show, and if I need to be invisible, I can take them off.

The new gear lifts my spirits. I will be hard to find now as the surface winds carry away my scent and the snowsuit keeps me invisible. I turn to leave, but spot a pen on the desk. I pick it up, click it a few times, and smile.

I return to Mira’s room and open the note.

I check off, ‘¡ Yes.’

17

After collecting a few more items, a Zippo lighter, some white gloves, a whetstone and—ahem—a comb, I stand beneath the hole in the ceiling and look up. The blue sky greets me. Its brightness makes me feel alive, despite the pain it causes my sunglasses covered eyes. I’m wearing the white snowsuit and boots. A tiny sliver of my forehead is my only exposed skin. Otherwise I look like some kind of modern abominable snowman. Well, except for the fact that I’m wearing my belt, and Whipsnap, on top of the suit. If I need additional stealth, I can fit them inside the suit.

The exit is twenty feet above me. I didn’t get a good look at it before, but I can see now that the hole was punched in from above. I’m not the first person here. Which means I really need to go.

I leap up, hands outstretched and create a burst of wind that carries me up, but isn’t nearly enough to exhaust me. I grasp the edge of the hole with my gloved hands and slip a little. But I dig down tight and hoist myself up. Eighth grade gym class enters my mind. I had already skipped a few grades, but my ten-year-old age didn’t deter Mrs. Edelstein. I was in eighth grade so they would test my physical prowess against the other eighth grade boys. Joey Dimarco did thirty chin ups. I couldn’t manage one. Even Mrs. Edelstein couldn’t hold back a laugh. How things have changed.

I yank myself up with little effort, bounding from the hole and landing on the metal roof. “Eat your heart out, Joey Dimarco.”

I stare out at the view before me. A sliver of ocean cuts across the horizon. I consider heading to the water. Food would be plentiful. Lots of places to hide, especially since I could swim in the ocean and not freeze. But I think about the killer whales and leopard seals. I don’t think either species are traditionally man-eaters, but you never know when one will decide to try something new. Then again, maybe—

The wind shifts.

I smell someone behind me.

Someone new.

I spin around while silently cursing myself for not scanning the area before coming out of the hole. Just because I’m not underground doesn’t mean I shouldn’t live by the same rules!

The mountains behind me come into view. The man standing in front of them is so well camouflaged in white that I almost looked right past him. When I do see him, there isn’t even a single moment I consider whether this is friend or foe, because he’s got an arrow nocked in a bow, pointed directly at my head. Even still, I might normally try to talk someone out of this situation, but he’s already released his grip and sent the arrow flying toward my head.

Before I can even think it, a strong burst of wind shoots up and knocks the arrow off course. I’ve faced this challenge before when I fought Ull and his giant arrows. My body—including the whole of Antarctica—is reacting on instinct.

Snow bursts up between me and the hunter, concealing my actions for a moment. But I don’t move. Ull would have pressed the attack, taken advantage of the snowy distraction. He’s a predator. I prefer to think before I act, and sometimes that includes speaking. I know his arrows can’t reach me, so I take Xin’s advice and try to make friends.

“You don’t have to fight,” I say.

A second arrow shoots my way and passes over my head.

I never was good at making friends.

The man, like me, is covered in white fabric from head to toe. But he’s not wearing sunglasses. His eyes blaze blue between the hood and mask covering his lower face. The sun doesn’t bother him at all. How long has he been topside?

A third arrow is quickly nocked and fired, but I notice he’s no longer aiming at my face. He’s aiming at my knees! In a flash I realize he’s compensating for the vertical wind pushing his arrows above me. The second shot was much closer than the first, and this one might actually strike me!

The bow twangs loudly as he lets the arrow fly.

I shift to my right and throw my hands to the left, physically directing which way the wind should blow. The arrow is just inches from my face when the horizontal wind strikes it. I feel a tug on my hood as it passes.

Now the hunter is confused, circling me slowly.

I stand my ground and say, “What is your name?”

“You know my name,” he replies, his voice tinged with a German accent.

“Actually,” I say, raising an index finger like some college professor postulating a point.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Someone is running through the snow behind me. The hunter has not come alone!

I grasp Whipsnap and pull. The weapon snaps open in my hand and I turn to face my attacker.

“Em, wait!” the man shouts.

Normally I’d tune out anything someone shouted while I’m about to be pounced upon, but the shortened name—Em—fills my mind as I catch site of the second hunter. It’s a girl. Like the man, she’s clothed in all white, but she’s a good foot shorter than me and has wide hips. Well, not wide for a girl, but wide for a boy. A glint of sunlight on metal brings my eyes to her hands, where she holds two daggers, one of which is now swiping toward my midsection.

Like Kainda, it would be a mistake for me to underestimate this hunter simply because she’s a girl. In fact, as someone who spent most of his life being out-muscled by the opposite sex, this should be second nature to me by now. I leap back, bending my stomach out of the way. The blade flashes past my stomach, scratching the fabric of my snowsuit.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

The man is approaching now, too. He sounded worried about the girl and probably gave up on the arrows because his erratic shooting might strike her.

The girl strikes again. I block the blow with Whipsnap, bend the weapon back and let it spring out as I spin to face the man. The girl shouts in surprise as Whipsnap sweeps out her legs and knocks her onto her back.

“Em!” the man shouts again, uncommonly worried for a hunter.

For a moment I wonder if this man is a hunter at all, but then I see the blades attached to the top and bottom of his bow, which he now holds like a staff, and I know without a doubt that this weapon was dreamed up in the nightmare of the underworld.

Whipsnap collides with the bladed bow again and again as the man attacks and I parry. Each of his strikes is aimed to kill, and several come close. If this does not end soon, I will surely die.

The man thrusts. The blade passes by my face, missing by inches.

I have him now. His stomach is open. Whipsnap’s blade is pointed at his gut. All I need to do is thrust.

But I don’t.

I can’t.

Instead, I apply hundreds of pages of ninja magazine fighting technique tutorials stored in my perfect memory. I take hold of his jacket with my left hand and leap. I place my feet against his stomach and let his momentum and my weight pull us to the ground. When we strike, I thrust with my legs and send the man flying. For good measure, I add a gust of wind to take him five feet further. The impact should give him something to think about.

But as the man sails through the air, he shouts, “Epsilon! Like we practiced!”

Epsilon?

I hear the girl shifting as she stands. Her face is masked, but I can sense a grin there.

The man lands like a cat, rolling back to his feet, an arrow already being nocked.

The girl opens her jacket, revealing a belt and two crisscrossing straps over her chest, which are absolutely laden with throwing blades. She lets the first one fly just as the man fires an arrow. As the wind kicks up around me I realize that Epsilon is code for some kind of practiced attack. The arrows and knives will come like hail from a storm and I’m not sure I can deflect them all without also compromising my body. Either way, these two have the upper hand.

I need Ull, but there is no time to free him. The first knife flips past my head, causing me to duck directly into the path of an incoming arrow.

18

If not for the wind acting as my instinctive guardian, I would be dead. The arrow coming for my head bends as the wind carries it up and just over my nose. But there is no time to think about how lucky I am, because two more knives and another arrow are coming my way.

A combination of quick movements and wind gusts keep the blades from striking their target, but each shot comes closer than the last. I will the wind to carry snow and obscure my attacker’s view, but I’m moving fast, and the gusts must continually change directions; only a few flakes shift on the ground.

“Aim wide!” the man shouts. “I’ll force him to you.”

At first I think they’ve made a mistake, announcing their intentions, but I quickly realize it doesn’t matter. She’s now throwing where I’m not, while he’s aiming where I am. No matter where I go, a blade awaits me.

I twist and spin Whipsnap in front of me. A knife blade is deflected, and an arrow dodged, but the hunters are running around me now, throwing and shooting from so many different directions that they’re impossible to keep track of.

Epsilon is a genius attack, I think, before the first blade—a knife—strikes my left arm. The sharp dagger slices through my coat and the top few layers of my skin. It’s a superficial wound, but I’m sure it’s the first of many.

“Stop!” I shout. “You don’t need to kill me!”

“Don’t listen to him, Em!” the man shouts.

“It’s us or him!”

“I don’t want to kill you,” I say with a grunt as an arrow forces me to twist around. A knife handle strikes my leg. For a moment I think I’ve been stabbed and take my eyes off of the hunters to look at the wound. I realize the distraction will probably cost me my life, but it doesn’t. Instead, the subtle downward shift of my head saves my life.

The arrow headed for my right eye grazes my forehead and pierces my hood instead, yanking it off my head.

But the sudden shift of my hood has removed my sunglasses as well. The bright sky and sun glaring off the snow blinds me. My eyes clench shut. I’m blind.

The girl shouts, “Father wait!” A knife flies toward me. I can hear it whipping through the air.

Father? Since when do father and daughter hunters work together?

I hear the twang of an arrow being shot.

The weapons will reach me simultaneously.

There is a loud crack in front of my face. I flinch away from it, wondering if I’ve been hit, but I haven’t yet felt the pain.

“Em, why?” the father says. I can hear him nocking another arrow, but he does not fire. “You cannot hesitate with their kind.”

“But that’s the problem,” she says, her voice devoid of the man’s German accent. I can hear her walking toward me. “He’s not their kind.” She stops next to me and whispers, “If you move I will bury my blade in your throat.” She takes hold of my hair and lifts it up. “He’s our kind.”

The man hustles toward me. “Don’t move. I’m too close to miss.”

“I’m not moving,” I say.

He stops above me. I can feel him looking at me. At my hair, but why?

“Show me your face,” he says.

I look up and try to open my eyes, but the brightness is unbearable.

“I do not recognize him, father,” Em says.

“What is your name?” the man asks.

“Solomon. Solomon Vincent.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I was taken from here.” I point to the buried roof of Clark Station Two. “I stayed there. With my parents.”

“What kind of parents would bring a child here?” the man asks rhetorically. “When did this happen?”

“Time is different in the underground,” I say.

“The year,” he says.

“Nineteen eighty-eight.” Having answered, I can’t help but wonder, “How long has it been?”

“I’m asking the questions,” he says. “And if I do not like your answers, I will kill you.”

“Father…” Em says.

“Quiet, Em,” he replies. “We did not survive this long by entertaining guests.”

His attention shifts back to me. “Who took you? Who broke you?”

“Ninnis,” I say.

I hear the girl give a faint gasp.

“And your breeder? In the pit?”

“Gaia.”

Another gasp.

I feel the tip of the man’s arrow tickling my hair.

“And your master?”

I feel like the answer will be my death sentence, but giving another name might be just as bad. “Ull.”

“No…” The girl whispers.

“You speak lies,” the man says. “Ull would not lose another hunter. Certainly not one broken by Ninnis. It’s not possible.”

A single word repeats in my mind. Another. A puzzle begins to unravel in my mind. The man’s voice sounds old, but not quite as old as Ninnis. His daughter is young, but here that means little, especially because of the way the underworld modifies time. And he’s German. My mind flashes through pages of history books. Not a lot of people have come to Antarctica, and the majority of them have come in the past twenty years. In 1939, before World War Two, the Nazi’s sent a large expedition to Antarctica. Some speculate that they were looking for evidence of an ancient civilization. Atlantis even. Some think they built a secret base where many Nazis escaped after the war. No one really knows what they did, but several men were reported missing. I flash through their names and ages and pick the most likely candidate.

“Anything is possible, Tobias.”

He takes a step back, surprise disarming him for a moment.

“No one here knows my name,” he says.

“You came to Antarctica in nineteen thirty-nine with the Nazis. You were a pilot. Your plane crashed while mapping the interior. The two men serving with you were later discovered, dead. But your body was never found. Because you had been taken. And broken. And you became a hunter.” Images of Tobias handling the bow shift through my mind like a slideshow.

Another.

“Ull was your master, too. But you remembered yourself. You escaped with your daughter. And now you live on the surface, hiding from the hunters.”

I can hear nothing but the wind for a moment. Then a sound like a growl rises up, and he kicks me in the gut. “Breeder abomination!”

I roll to the side. The hood falls back over my head, bringing my sunglasses forward again. As I struggle to my hands and knees, I pull the sunglasses back over my eyes. I turn toward the man and see the unbridled rage in his eyes. He’s about to let that arrow blast through my head.

“Look at me,” I say. “I’m human. I’m not like Xin.”

Xin’s name makes the man sneer. I’m digging my own grave here. Luckily, Em comes to my rescue.

“But father, his hair.”

My hair…. My hair! The blond streak!

I sit upright. The arrow follows my head, but I’m not seeing it anymore. “Do you have it too?” I ask. “Is the red fading?”

My excitement disarms the man slightly. He lowers the arrow to my chest and looks back at Em as she removes her hood.

She’s pretty, but skinny. Her blue eyes blaze like her father’s. But it’s her hair that holds my attention. Much of it is deep red, like mine, but at least a quarter of it is light brown.

Innocence regained. Like me.

I turn to the man. “And you?”

“Less than her,” he says, and then raises his aim back to my head. “But more than you. How did you know those things about me?”

“I have a photographic memory,” I say.

“This does not explain how you knew my name.”

“It does,” I assure him. “I…I read a lot before coming here. Science. Literature. History. In the outside world, your mission to Antarctica is now part of the history of Germany leading up to World War Two.”

His eyes widen. “A second world war? The Führer?”

“Invaded Poland. Then just about everywhere else in Europe.”

“How many this time?”

“Dead?”

He nods.

“The highest number I read was seventy-eight—”

“Thousand?” he says.

“Million.”

The arrow lowers as the number saps his desire to kill me.

“What are you talking about father?” Em asks.

“Do not tell her,” he says to me. “It will taint her innocence.”

His concern is noble, so I agree with a nod and get back to answering his original question. “I read about your expedition. There was mention of the plane crash. The names of the men on board. And the one that went missing.”

“Several other men went missing on that expedition,” he says.

“All here?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Just one other. The rest were claimed by the land.”

“I guessed at your name,” I say. “You look like a Tobias.”

He looks down at himself, hidden beneath layers of fabric. “You cannot see me.”

“Okay,” I say with a grin, “You sound like a Tobias.”

Em lets out a snort.

“And Ull? How did you know that he was my master?”

I point to the bow.

“Ahh,” he says.

“Plus you kind of smell like him.”

Em laughs loudly now and despite clearly fighting it, Tobias smiles. The sight of his grin relaxes me and I allow myself a chuckle.

“It still doesn’t make sense,” he says. “That someone broken by Ninnis and subservient to Ull could manage to not only fight the mental bondage, but then also escape to the surface… You’re fast, I’ll grant you that. I’ve never seen someone dodge arrows like that. But escape, on your own, should have been impossible.”

“You did it.”

“We had help.”

A surge of hope fills me. Not only have I met two free hunters, but they also escaped with help! There might be others.

“So how did you do it?” he asks again, his smile gone. “How did you escape from Ull?”

My grin fades, too, as the memory returns.

“It was easy,” I say. “I killed him.” I look Tobias in the eyes and add, “I took his own arrow and buried it in his forehead.”

“Ull…is dead?”

“And buried,” I say. “At New Jericho.”

That last bit of information seems to confirm my story. Tobias suddenly roars with laughter. He falls to the snow, jubilant. Em and I watch him, half grinning, half concerned. Has the man gone mad? “I’m free,” he says as his hood falls from his head and frees his shoulder length, red hair.

He shouts again, this time raising a victorious fist into the air, “I’m free!” And as his daughter embraces him, joining in his laughter, I see something amazing. A shock of the man’s blood red hair turns brown.

Innocence reclaimed. I laugh with them.

19

I barely notice the five mile walk as I’m led to Tobias’s and Em’s hideout. We move in silence, vigilant against hunters—who might be looking for me, or for them. Despite the silence, my mind is alive with excitement. I have made friends. Allies. Skilled allies.

Of course, they don’t yet know who I am. Who I really am. And the evil that lives inside me. But I will tell them soon. They need to know that I’m not just an average escapee. Not telling them would put them in more danger than I care to consider. If I’m to shed any more of this blood red hair—like Tobias—I must embrace everything the Nephilim abhor. I’ve done a good job with forgiveness, mercy and love, but need to add honesty to the mix.

I’m so lost in my thoughts that I fail to notice the shifting view of the mountains to my left. I just keep my eyes on the ground, following Tobias. We’re walking along an old path, worn down by the occasional passage of modern man. The firm ice and treaded gouges left by numerous Sno-Cats ensure that we won’t leave any footprints behind. My eyes linger on the tread marks. There have been fifteen thousand, five hundred and twenty-one grooves. I didn’t mean to count them. I barely noticed I had. But when the number pops into my conscious thoughts, it snaps me from my reverie.

A sudden weakness sweeps through my body. I let out a grunt and fall to my knees.

Tobias is by my side in a flash. “Are you all right?”

I feel winded. Emotional. Desperately close to something. Something I have craved since I left Antarctica as a baby.

I’ve felt this intense draw once before. I look up and see the Sno-Cat tracks stretching toward the horizon.

“Is he okay?” Em asks.

I feel Tobias’s hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know,” he says.

“We’re there,” I say.

His hand pulls away.

“How…did you know?”

“This is home,” I say, looking to my left. Except for a shift in the white, snow-coated areas of the massive stone mountains, the view matches my memory perfectly.

“Solomon,” Em says. “This is our home, but how did you know?”

“I’ve been here before.”

Em turns to Tobias. “Is he the boy?”

“You dug in the ice,” Tobias says. “Until you bled. We watched from a distance. I had to recover the small portion of ceiling you uncovered.”

I nod briefly and take several deep breaths to steady myself. The emotional surge that caught me off guard is fading. I need to get harder, I think. If something like this happened at a crucial moment, I’d be dead. But how can I repel all things Nephilim while simultaneously becoming some kind of hard-hearted warrior? Isn’t that exactly what they are?

“Solomon.” Tobias’s voice sounds serious. He senses I’m holding something back and it has him on edge. “When you dug in the ice. That wasn’t your first time here, was it?”

With a shake of my head, I say, “No.”

“Father,” Em says. “I don’t understand. This place has been buried for—” She gasps as something occurs to her.

She does that a lot, I think. Gasping. It’s kind of a funny habit for a hunter—an ex-hunter.

“You don’t think…” She crouches down in front of me, looking at my face, which is hidden behind a hood and sunglasses. “Are you him? Are you the baby?”

A thousand memories of this place, seen through the eyes of a baby, flash through my mind. Many of the memories involve the rusty ceiling as I lay on my back, but there are also smiling faces and cooing voices. My mother and father. Dr. Clark. Aimee. The emotions surge again, but I fight against them this time. If they start to see me as a blubbering, over-emotional nutcase, they might not trust me. And if they don’t trust me, they will never help me. I need allies, I remind myself. Pull it together.

At least they can’t see my face, so the effort I put into calming my voice and regaining my feet is hidden from them. “Yes,” I say. “I was born here. This…was my home.”

“It’s him,” Em says to her father, her voice a whisper. She digs into her coat, opening a pouch hidden within. She pulls out a small, white square. “It’s you.”

I take the paper from her hand and turn it over. It’s a photo of a baby. A boy, I think. The photo is a Polaroid, like the one I carry around. The baby has bright blue eyes, a one inch ring of fuzz around its head and a goofy smile. The rainbow-striped, afghan blanket the baby lays on catches my attention. I’ve had it since the day I was born. My mother made it. “This photo is of me.”

Tobias and Em look at each other. “Father, it’s him!”

He turns to me and says, “It’s a good thing we didn’t kill you.”

“Why, exactly, is that good thing?” I ask. I can think of several good reasons, but I’m a stranger to these people. Sure, they’ve been living in Clark Station One, and happened to find a photo of me, which is surprising, but I sense there is more going on here.

“You are the first and only son of Antarctica,” Em says.

“Stories of your birth have been told in the underworld for years,” Tobias says. “The Nephilim have been awaiting your return. We have been awaiting your return as well. I should have realized it was you that day, digging through the ice. How else could you have known about this place? I could have taken you then. Spared you the—”

I take a step back, my defenses coming up. “Taken me? You would have taken me, too? Are you no better than them?” I stab my finger downward.

“Solomon,” he says, a little bit of sadness creeping into his voice. “Had I found you first, you would have been spared the breaking. The three tests. I could have trained you myself. The corruption would have never turned your hair red.”

“But why take me at all?” I ask. “Why not protect me. Send me home? Warn the others?”

“Because,” Em says. “We need you here. It is a fate that could not be avoided.”

“I’ve known that since the day of your birth,” Tobias says.

“How?” I ask.

Tobias pulls his mask down so I can see his face. “Because I witnessed it. I saw the light. The power of your birth shattered the ice and buried this place beneath thirty feet of snow.” He steps closer. “Solomon, please trust that we mean you no harm. You are here now, and that is what is important.”

While I do not like the fact that this man would have kidnapped me if given the chance, I do believe his motivation isn’t necessarily evil. And life with Tobias would have been better than my life underground, with Ninnis. I would still retain my innocence. Nephil would not reside within me. And Aimee would not have been taken captive.

Tobias reaches out a welcoming hand toward me. “Come. See your home again. There is someone who would very much like to meet you.”

“Who?” I ask.

“Luca. My son.” He flashes a grin. “You two have a lot in common. Come, follow me.”

He leads me to the entrance to Clark Station One, a tunnel some two hundred feet away from the building. The entrance is cleverly disguised by a snow covered hatch. The first fifty feet of the downward sloping tunnel is so small that we have to slide down on our bellies. After that, it levels out and is tall enough to stand in.

“A defensive bottleneck?” I ask. Any enemy foolish enough to enter the tunnel could be easily dispatched before their whole body exited the small hole.

“Yes, yes,” Tobias says with a dismissive wave of his hand. Then he’s walking quickly toward the gray outer door of Clark Station One, which I can see ahead.

“I can’t believe we didn’t recognize you right away,” Em says.

“From the baby photo?” I ask. “I’ve changed a lot since then.”

“Mm,” she says.

I absolutely hate it when someone rubs in the fact that they know something I don’t, especially when it relates to me. Always have. It makes me feel stupid. And angry. So I change the subject. “Is Em short for something?”

“Emilie,” she says. “With an I and an E at the end. Not a Y.”

“The German spelling,” I say.

She nods, and doesn’t seem all that interested in my questions. Her eyes, like her father’s, are glued to the door ahead of us.

“You don’t have his accent,” I say.

“An American teacher taught me how to speak English. I didn’t see my father much when I was young. I didn’t see him much at all, actually. Not until we escaped.”

“How did you escape?” I ask.

“Not now,” she says. “We’re here.”

We stop in front of the door. Tobias knocks two times, pauses and then knocks three times. The door opens from the inside and Tobias rushes inside. He bends over and scoops up a small body. “Solomon,” he says, turning toward me. “I’d like you to meet my son, Luca.”

I see the boy’s eyes and my heart skips a beat. They look so familiar. When I look at the rest of his face, I immediately know why I know his eyes.

It’s because they’re mine.

Luca is me.

As a child.

“Luca,” Tobias says. “This is Solomon—”

“—your brother.”

20

The next hour is surreal as I give myself a tour of the place where I was born. But he’s not me. Not really. Even though he is identical to me at six years old.

Identical.

Even his pure blond, unbroken hair. But he does not share my memories, and only some of my personality. I bring none of this up, because he is beyond excited to meet me and is leading me around by the hand, pointing out Tobias’s room (my parents’ room), Em’s room (the Clarks’ room) and his bedroom (my bedroom). He even sleeps in the makeshift crib—a cot with slabs of wood nailed around the sides to keep me from rolling out—that my father and Dr. Clark made for me. I look at its metal and wooden frame, now sporting a mattress of feeder skins, and look up. There is more rust on the ceiling than I remember, but it is still the same place.

I feel instantly at home and the smile on my face is genuine.

But I cannot stop thinking about the little me holding my hand. How is he possible? Why is he here? Is he really my brother?

I feel sick to my stomach with the thought. I had a twin who was taken at birth and maybe he’s only six because he lived underground all this time?

The questions don’t stop coming, so when the tour finishes in the living room I think I might get a chance to speak to Tobias in private. But Luca has other plans. He props himself up on my—his—bed. His little legs dangle over the side.

“Will I look like you when I’m older?” he asks.

The answer to that question is simple. Yes. You’ll look exactly like me when you’re older, but I don’t think he knows the truth. He can see that we look alike, but he doesn’t recognize his older face the way I do my younger. So I stick to the story. “Brothers often do. Some even look like twins.”

“I wish we were twins,” he says with a grin.

The kid has just met me, but I can see in his eyes that he’s already idolizing me. It makes me uncomfortable and I can’t help but wonder how much he’s been told about me. And how much of it is true. “Why?” I ask.

“Because you’re so big.”

That’s the first time in my life someone has called me big, and I almost argue, but let it go because most teenagers are big in comparison to a six year old boy. “That’s it?”

He thinks for a moment and then his eyes go wide. He jumps down from the bed and fishes out a cardboard box from underneath it. Inside are several drawings on water damaged sheets of paper and five very worn crayons. I wonder what will happen when he runs out of crayons? Or paper. It will be a sad day for him.

He shoves a piece of paper in my face. On it is a small boy. And a very tall man. Both look angry. It’s hard to tell what they’re doing, but Luca translates it for me.

“It’s you,” he says. “You’re fighting the bad men.”

“Bad men?”

“I’m not allowed to say their names.”

“How did you know I would fight the bad men?”

“Father told me.” Luca flips to the next drawing.

The giant is on the ground. I think he’s dead. And the boy stands above him. On top of him. That’s when I see the large arrow sticking out of the giant’s head. I take the picture and sit down in an old metal folding chair next to the room’s desk.

“I saw you,” Luca whispers. He pulls the drawing down so we’re looking eye to eye. “I saw you do it.”

It seems impossible—only Ninnis saw what really happened the day I killed Ull. No one else knows. Is Luca some kind of a prophet? “What else do you see?”

“Just the big things. When they happen. Like dreams.”

“You can’t see what’s going to happen?”

He shakes his head, no.

“Can you see anyone else?”

No again. “Just you.”

Footsteps approach. “Don’t tell father,” he says, snatching away the drawing and putting it back in the box. “He doesn’t know.”

Em arrives in the doorway, but Luca is still nervous. He puts his hands behind his back and tries to hide his smile by pushing out his lower lip with his tongue. I used to do the same thing. It’s a dead giveaway that mischief is afoot.

Em squints at him. She’s got thin eyes already and they essentially disappear. Her face is wide, but pretty, and her cheeks are covered in freckles. At least half of her straight hair is brown. She’s also not nearly as pale as me. They’ve been on the surface for some time, I think.

“What are you two up to?” she asks.

Luca’s smile can’t be contained. He’s guilty of something, but says nothing.

“Brother stuff,” I say.

“Yeah,” says Luca. “Brother stuff.”

“Not sister stuff?” Em says.

Luca sticks out his tongue.

Em tugs on my shirt. After meeting Luca, Tobias gave me a pair of old jeans and a flannel shirt that I think belonged to Dr. Clark. I never saw him in it, but I’ve seen him in many others like it. The clothes are too big for me, but I look almost normal for the first time in years.

Years…

“Father wants to speak to you now,” she says, motioning with her head for me to follow.

Luca starts to follow us, but Em stops him. “Just Sol.”

“Aww,” Luca says with a stomp of his foot, but he turns around and goes back into his room.

Em looks back at me and sees my funny grin. “What?”

“Nothing.”

She stops. “What?”

“You called me Sol. Reminds me of home. Of my family. It’s…it’s nice.”

“Oh,” she says. “Good.”

She leads me to my parents’ old room, now Tobias’s and stops by the door. “You can think of us like that now if you want. Like family. Did you have a sister before?”

“I was an only child,” I tell her.

“Sad.”

“I had a friend. Justin. He was like family. Like a brother.”

“Well,” she says. “Now you have a sister. And a little brother.”

I smile wide. “Thanks.”

She opens the door for me and stands aside. Tobias stands with his back to me.

“Come in, Solomon,” he says. “Close the door behind you.”

I do.

“I want to tell you everything, Solomon. About me. About Emilie. And about Luca.”

I see his muscles grow tense. Something is bothering him.

“But I’ve been thinking and came to a realization. I need you to tell me everything.”

“I—”

“You are holding back,” he says, turning around to face me. He’s got Whipsnap in his hands. I left it in the living area, which I knew was stupid, but I couldn’t bring myself to carry a weapon while Luca showed me around the home. “No ordinary hunter could kill Ull. I’m one of the best, and I failed to come close. Not even Ninnis could do it. I know what they planned to do with you. I know about Nephil. And Tartarus. And the blood. The only way I can see you killing Ull is by using a strength greater than your own, which means you are already bonded with the body of Nephil.”

He lowers the blade tip of Whipsnap, of my own weapon, toward my stomach. “Which means you brought that monster into my home, to my children, and if you cannot explain yourself in the next few moments, I will gut you where you stand.”

21

I’m surprised at myself when I nearly lunge for Whipsnap. I’m not sure if the desire to claim the weapon is self-defense or merely because I’ve become so attached to it. I manage to control myself, but Tobias sees the intent hidden in my eyes. His muscles tense in preparation for a fight.

But I’m not Ull, and fighting this man is out of the question. He deserves the truth. I only hope he won’t kill me when he hears it.

I raise my hands and step back, trying to think of a way to explain things. But there is no way to dull this news. “It’s true,” I say. “I am bonded to the flesh of Nephil.”

Whipsnap’s blade moves closer.

“But,” I say quickly. “That was a long time ago. At least a year. I think. It’s hard to tell down there.”

“I should kill you,” he says. “You’re dangerous.”

“Not anymore,” I say. “There was a time when that small part of Nephil fought for control. Along with my own dark side. You must know what that’s like.”

“And I know it cannot be defeated,” he says. “The hunter is always there, urging me to kill.”

“Like now,” I note.

He glances down at Whipsnap, then back to me. “Do not try to trick me.”

I slowly lower my hands, palms open, and assume a relaxed, non-threatening posture. “If there was any hunter left in control of me, never mind Nephil, do you think I could stand here, with a weapon aimed at my stomach, and speak to you?”

“How?” He asks. “How is it possible? The hunter is part of you. It is closer to the surface with the broken, but it is a part of every human being on Earth. You cannot bury it.”

“You can,” I say.

“How?” His voice is urgent and I sense he is close to acting if I don’t give him a convincing answer.

“With help,” I say.

He steps closer. “Who?”

“Xin.”

His eyes go wide, but he does not strike. “Xin? Why would that monster help you?”

“It wasn’t his intention when he found me,” I say. “He meant to kill me.”

“And become a hunter in reward.”

I nod. “He nearly succeeded, but then… Nephil. He took control. Nearly killed Xin. But together, in my mind, we locked Nephil away, along with my hunter personality.”

“You left him to die, I hope,” he says.

“No,” I say. “That is what a hunter would do. Not me. I saved him. And when Behemoth came, he saved me, and hid me from the other hunters.”

Whipsnap slowly lowers to the floor. “You faced Behemoth, and survived?”

“Thanks to Xin, yes.”

“And you spared his life?”

“That’s what I said.”

He sits on the edge of a cot, slowly shaking his head. “This is unheard of, you realize. The hunters do not know mercy.”

I grin. “Well, at least three of them do now.”

“Three of them?”

“I have spared Ninnis. And Kainda as well.”

He laughs at this. “Do not expect the same kindness in return from those two. You may yet find that letting them live was a horrible mistake.”

His words ring true. I turn my gaze to the floor.

“But,” he says, “I find your story of mercy inspiring. It is a new kind of strength. Perhaps it will be enough to undo the evil already set in motion.”

He tosses Whipsnap to me and I catch it, feeling more confident with it in my grasp.

“Xin’s help alone wouldn’t be enough to chain the will of Nephil,” he says.

“It was just his body,” I say. “Not his spirit.”

“A spirit they believe you are strong enough to contain. Which means you are a person of uncommon strength. Xin might have aided, but I believe the true strength came from you. From the power instilled in you at birth.”

I remember that he witnessed the moment of my birth. He saw the light and the cracking of the ice.

“When we fought,” he says. “I haven’t missed my target in a very long time. Em is even more of a marksman than I. How were you doing it?”

He’s no longer threatening me, but still deserves answers. “Put out your hand.”

He furrows his brow in confusion, but complies. I focus on the small amount of moisture in the air, mostly from our breath, and bring it together. It’s still imperceptible until I use the cold to bind the water together as ice crystals, forming a perfect snowflake. He catches sight of the flake as it falls and is guided down by small gusts of wind. The snowflake drifts back and forth, and it gently settles down in the palm of his hand.

“You did this?” he asks, watching the flake melt into a small bead of water.

“I don’t understand it fully,” I say. “But at the moment of my birth, I was bound to the continent, and the continent to me. We are one and the same. I can control the air, earth and water, though the effort leaves me severely weakened.”

“Then my arrows—”

“Deflected by the wind. Which is how I killed Ull. Fueled by the recent bonding with Nephil, I turned Ull’s own arrow against him. The same effort now would leave me exhausted.”

As this last bit of truth exits my mouth, I suddenly remember that I have just as many questions for Tobias, as he does for me, and I am entitled to some answers. “Luca,” I say, snapping his attention back up to me. “He’s…me?”

A slow nod.

“How is that possible?”

“For thousands of years, the Nephilim have perfected the dark art of manipulating life. The thinkers conjure ideas for new creations. The gatherers collect the raw materials. And the breeders are used to give life to new monsters by altering the feeders before they are born.”

I remember the copy of my mother and a sudden fear clutches my throat. “Raw materials?”

“Samples of living things. Flesh. Blood. Hair.”

“Do they…kill the…”

“You have encountered a creation you recognized?” he asks.

“Ninnis trapped me in a feeder pit. I escaped it not long before you found me. But the first feeder that hatched. It was—” Tears brew in my eyes. “—my mother.”

Tobias approaches and kneels before me. He’s looking at my eyes, but not into them. His attention is drawn to my tears. “You were telling the truth,” he says. “Hunters cannot shed tears. The creature you met was not your mother.”

“I know,” I say. “But to create it they had to—”

“Ahh,” he says, understanding my concern. “The Nephilim are paranoid about being discovered. They prefer to strike like the tiger—with overwhelming force and only when the target is unaware. They leave as little evidence of their presence as possible. If a person is taken, they are returned with little memory of the event. It’s only on rare occasion that someone is killed or taken, and that only happens when there is a logical explanation for how it could have happened.”

“Like me wandering off into a storm at night.”

“Exactly,” he says.

“Do they visit the outside world often?”

Tobias frowns. “Gatherers do all the time. They are sometimes seen as flashes of light, or remembered as owls, but in general, their passing goes unseen, or at most misunderstood. But the gathered materials are brought here to be used in Nephilim experiments.”

“Like Luca?”

“When news of your strange birth reached the warriors, I was ordered to take you. But by that time, the station had been abandoned and you had been taken away.” He opens a desk drawer and takes out a small wooden box. “I searched the station, discovered your room and found this.” He opens the box and reveals a comb. A few strands of short white hair are caught between the teeth.

My hair.

My baby hair.

“I took several strands back to them. Years later, they presented Luca to me. I was to raise him as my son in preparation for bonding with Nephil. It was an honor beyond comparison, one for which Ninnis believed himself deserving. But as Luca grew older, their tests revealed that whatever made your birth special had not been duplicated in Luca. They ordered him destroyed. By my hand. I took him to Behemoth, intending him to be a sacrifice to the guardian of Tartarus.”

He pauses. I cannot take the silence. “And?”

“And I intended to kill him. I was a loyal servant.” He meets my gaze. “Em stopped me.”

“How?”

“I had not noticed she and Luca spending time together. Hunters don’t pay attention to such things. She wasn’t just playing the part of a sister. In her mind, she was his sister. And since hunters are only allowed one child, the way it changed her could not be predicted, nor could her passionate defense of his life. She nearly killed me.”

“Why didn’t she?”

“Luca. The boy was not corrupted, like us. And to him, even with all my flaws, I was still his father. Like you, Luca understands mercy. It was the first of many chinks in the armor of this hunter.”

He sees me watching him and stiffens his posture, embarrassed by his openness. “We fled, hiding in the underworld at first, and then headed toward the surface. Only I knew of this place, so we came here. Have been here since. The day you returned and dug through the ice, Luca was here, right beneath you.”

The glut of information is overwhelming me, but there is one more question I need answered. “Are there others? Like Luca? Like me?”

“They tried several times,” he says with a sad nod. “They used many different mothers, both human and breeder. They combined you with animals. And Nephilim. Abominable creations.”

“Are any of them—”

He winces, knowing the question I’m about to ask, and in that action, I know the answer before he speaks it.

“—still alive?”

“Some,” he says. “Those with promise were spared.”

I’m about to ask who and what they are, but Tobias cuts me off. “Thinking of such things is of no use to you or anyone else.”

“But—”

“Such dark thoughts will only set you back. If the future is to be brighter, you must not focus on the darkness.”

“Okay, Yoda,” I say

His confused look makes me smile. “It’s from a movie.”

“A movie?”

I remember how old he is, not to mention where he’s been most of his life. “Forget it. I understand what you’re saying, but it’s going to be hard to ignore while living with Luca.”

He stands. “That’s why we’re going to give you something else to think about.”

I raise an eyebrow and think about making a Spock joke, but keep it to myself.

“This power you have—your connection to this continent. With it, you could stand against an army.”

“I’m not sure I can do that.”

He places a hand on my shoulder like my father used to. “You will not stand alone.” He opens the door. “Get some rest today. Tomorrow, we start your training.”

22

Three weeks later, I wake to the sound of laughter. It is a noise that has become familiar again—so much so that I can identify the source and cause. The high pitched laugh belongs to Luca. But it’s mixed with the occasional playful growl from Em.

A tickle fight.

Em will eventually allow Luca to get the upper hand. Being scrawny and highly ticklish, the boy doesn’t stand a chance. I should know. But Em is a good sister. The kind I always wanted. I suppose, the kind I have now.

Though she’s not really an older sister. Neither of us really knows our exact age anymore. The underworld can do that. Physically, I’d place both of us around fifteen. Maybe sixteen. But because she lived underground for so much of her youth, she’s probably closer to twenty surface years old. Time is a screwy thing.

A high pitched squeal reveals the battle has grown more intense. Realizing a return to sleep will be impossible, I sit up on my bed with a groan. My body aches. Every inch of it. Tobias has been training me, physically, mentally and emotionally every day since my arrival. At first it reminded me of soccer practice. Mindless exercises. Running. Lots of running. But then he combined the physical activity with mental. While I ran I had to will a snow flake to follow me. That simple task made the running nearly impossible. After a week I could complete the run while moving a trail of snowflakes behind me.

At first, I thought he was insane, but as the days passed I understood that he was conditioning my body and mind so that I could use my abilities without getting physically exhausted. Creating a chain of snowflakes doesn’t sound like much, but the effort over time takes a brutal toll. When I had mastered the snowflake-chain run, Tobias ran with me. He would talk about my family, my past. He brought up a number of sensitive topics that tore emotional wounds like rusty nails—dirty and jagged.

Here was my weakness. My emotions. I cling to the past, to my parents and my childhood. Instead of facing what is in front of me, I’m always looking back. Always unprepared. Always hurt. Wounded. Sensitive.

I argued that these were the things that separated me from the hunters, but Tobias explained that it was my mercy and love that made me different. The rest just made me afraid. “It’s possible to be brave, even fierce, and still be good,” he told me. After deciding he was right, I embraced the exercise and fought to purge the demons that filled me with a fear strong enough to control me and give my enemies an advantage. So we pushed harder, exploring the current limits of my abilities.

And it was through this week-long push that we made a discovery. There are many things I can do on a grand scale that do not severely drain me. I can conjure a snow storm, the katabatic winds or roll in a fog from the ocean. These are all natural phenomena and can be accomplished with little effort. But moving a trail of snowflakes behind me, for miles, is not natural. Nor is opening a path through the earth, creating a snow storm underground or using the wind to jump higher, to stick a landing or deflect weapons. The unnatural uses of my abilities are created by my will alone and are not aided by the landscape; they are in defiance of it. As a result, the unnatural uses of my connection with the continent are where Tobias is now focusing his attention.

The strain is worse than ever.

And today will be the worst day yet.

The door bursts open. I reach for Whipsnap, but my aching body is slow and the intruder is upon me in a flash.

“Solomon!” Luca shouts. “Save me!”

The boy is all smiles. His blond hair—my blond hair—floats around his head, held aloft by static electricity. No doubt from hiding beneath a blanket. But that did him little good and now he’s seeking an ally. He normally runs for Tobias, who turns the tickling on Em. But today, he has come to me.

He’s gripping the back of my shirt. I can feel his quick breaths on the back of my neck. His breath smells like fish, which is our staple breakfast, lunch and dinner. Tobias once brought home a seal and I refused to eat it out of respect for Gloop and his pod. After I explained this, Tobias hasn’t brought home another seal.

Em steps into the doorway, her fingers clenched and ready to tickle. She’s wearing a long yellow T-shirt with a Nike swoop that belonged to Aimee once upon a time. It hangs down to her knees. She looks pretty in it, but I feel no attraction to her. Not like I do when I think of Mira…or Kainda. Maybe it’s because of her relationship with Luca, the little me, but the bond between us is more like family than anything else.

Though it is a bond that is still being formed, hence her pausing at the threshold to my room.

Luca giggles behind me, shifting his weight back and forth in anticipation of the impending attack. But I’m not sure it will come. Em and I look at each other. We’re both hunters, or were, and this kind of face off usually ends in battle, perhaps with one or the other being killed. Our eyes meet and for a moment, we’re sizing each other up.

But then she smiles.

And attacks.

And I’m sandwiched between a brother and sister who are laughing and trying to tickle each other. For a moment, I’m lost. I’ve never been in this situation. I was an only child. I had no friends that played like this. Then someone’s fingers find my armpit and I burst out laughing. The attack comes from both sides as the former enemies unite against me. I fall back on my bed, doing my best to fend off the tickling attack, but failing miserably. If hunters used this technique in battle I would be defenseless.

I’m saved by a knock at the door. Tobias clears his throat and Em, Luca and I separate and sit up, doing our best to look serious and attentive (something that Tobias often requires), but he’s hiding a smile too.

“Get dressed and eat your breakfast. Both of you,” he says to Em and me. “We’re going to step things up today.”

“Can I go today?” Luca asks.

“Not today,” Tobias replies.

“But—”

Tobias tilts his head with a frown. “It’s too dangerous. You know that.”

“Then train me,” the little boy says, showing his fists. “I want to fight the monsters, too. Like Solomon!”

Tobias sighs. “When you’re older. For now, you must stay here. No more arguing.” He leaves the room before the little boy can complain.

Luca crosses his arms with a huff.

“I’ll train you,” I say.

His eyes brighten. “You will?”

A quick glance at Em reveals she thinks this is a bad idea. I smile at her and turn back to Luca. “I will. Lesson number one, tickle defense.”

I grab the boy and start tickling. His laughter breaks the tension. When I let up for a moment, he leaps out of the bed and runs from the room. I hear his feet padding down the hallway. “You can’t catch me!”

I look at Em and she’s smiling at me. “What?” I ask.

“You’re a good brother,” she says.

I shrug. “It’s easy to be a brother to yourself.”

“I wasn’t talking about Luca,” she says, and then punches my shoulder. “I was talking about me.”

“Thanks,” I say, and then punch her back.

Before she can hit me again, I leap from the bed and head for the door.

“I’ll get you later,” she says. “Father had me collecting rocks and I think he means for me to throw them at you today.”

I pause in the hallway and lean my head back into the room. “For real?”

She nods with a fiendish grin.

“Be merciful,” I say.

“Nah,” she says, her smile widening. “That’s your thing. Besides, I haven’t practiced on a moving target in a while.” Her laughter chases me down the hallway, but an hour later I learn that she wasn’t joking.

23

The first rock that hits my leg feels like a hard punch. Justin would call it a Charley Horse. I’m not sure why. Never did look that up. But it hurts and slows me down. I’m just glad Em is throwing rocks instead of knives. Still, she could hold back a little.

One hundred five.

But I guess that would defy the point. I’m not training for the circus, I’m training for battle, in a makeshift ice arena hidden from view by what appear to be naturally formed walls of ice. You’d have to be standing on the edge to see us inside. A month ago, the fight we’re now simulating was real, and I lost. If not for Em seeing my shock of blond hair and deflecting Tobias’s arrow, I’d be dead.

One hundred ten.

Might be now, too, if Tobias hadn’t replaced the razor sharp metal barbs at the tips of his arrows with cloth-wrapped stones. When the first of those strikes my shoulder, I shout in pain, wondering if something is broken or dislocated. But I can still move the limb.

One hundred fifteen.

Tobias has forbidden me from using my powers for the first two minutes of the fight. Sometimes I’ll need to face enemies even when I’m tired and beaten, he said. Makes sense, I suppose, but I was tired and beaten when I got out of bed this morning.

As a hunter I should be able to dodge some of their attacks, but both have remarkable aim and seem to sense where I’m going to move next. I wonder if this is Tobias’s way of also teaching me what I am without my powers—not much. An average hunter. A useless—

One hundred twenty!

The arrow headed for my gut shoots wide as a gust of wind pulses in front of me.

A storm forms above us. It’s an easy thing to do and doesn’t tax my body or mind. All the elements were already there, ready to form on their own. I just gave them a nudge, and asked them to be harsh.

The temperature drops. I can’t feel it myself, but I see Tobias and Em react to it for a moment. The chill will sap their energy just as using my unnatural abilities steals mine. This is just the first phase of my counter attack.

But my opponents don’t let up. The stones and blunt arrows keep coming. And with each deflected shot, I feel my energy wane. So I try something new. Rather than focus on countering each individual attack, I pull the wind down, and around me. The effort is tiring, but not nearly as much as my previous efforts. A cyclone forms around my body, obscuring me from view and deflecting every single stone and arrow they throw at it. For the moment, I’m safe.

I hear Em shout a battle cry.

But that’s all. I just hear her. My defense has blinded me as well.

Her face bursts through the wall of spinning snow, her hands reaching out for me. But then she’s gone, yanked away and thrown by the wind. I hear her shout out in pain.

The cyclone bursts.

The wind stops.

And I turn around, looking for Em, terrified that I’ve hurt her. “Em, are you okay?”

A fist answers my question.

I stagger back, blood dripping from my nose.

I see a stone flying toward me, and I manage to deflect it with a gust of wind.

“You can’t be distracted by worries or concerns while in battle,” Tobias says.

I channel a long gust of wind behind me, knowing that Tobias is going to shoot me, but not knowing when or where. The arrow zips past my shoulder and buries itself in the snow. But the effort has worn me out. I’ve lost my advantage.

Or have I?

I’m surrounded by stone and arrows.

They’re larger and heavier than snowflakes, but the principle is the same. I’ve trained for this. I can do it.

I leap away, using the wind to put some distance between Em and me. She’s a brutal close-combat fighter, which is why she prefers the knives. And why I prefer to be far away.

I glance to Tobias. He’s reaching back for another arrow. Em’s taking aim with her stones.

Let them come, I think. I’ve been thinking defensively so far. It’s time to turn things around, literally. The effort might exhaust me, but I want to win this fight.

Em and Tobias time their next strikes so that rock and arrow will arrive simultaneously, forcing me to dodge one, but not the other.

I dodge neither.

Instead, I stand my ground, thrust my hands out toward the projectiles and with matching bursts of wind, force them back the way they came.

Tobias reacts quickly, rolling to the side as his own arrow passes over him.

Em is not as fast and takes the rock hard on her chest. It knocks the air from her lungs and knocks her over. This leaves Tobias for the moment. He’s back on his feet, nocking another arrow, but I don’t give him the chance to use it.

There are seven arrows lying on the ground. And thirteen stones. But all at once, they return to the air, hovering around me. And I direct them, one by one, toward Tobias. A grin spreads on my face as I watch him duck, dodge and weave to no avail. Not every shot finds its target but enough do. How does it feel? I think.

Tobias stumbles when a stone strikes the side of his leg, but he does not fall. The rules of the fight were simple. The first side to be knocked down wins. Em fell, but to end this fight, I need to also make Tobias fall. Unfortunately, he’s fast and tough. But I don’t stop. I reach out to the stones and arrows I’d already thrown and keep the barrage going. Sooner or later he’ll—

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Em is back up! I had assumed she would stay down, but I have to knock both of them down to win. As long as one of them is still in the fight, they’re both in the fight. I pull Whipsnap free from my belt for the first time in this fight, but Em is already inside my strike zone. She catches my weapon with both hands, leaps into the air and places her feet against my chest. She’s using my own ninja move against me! I think, as I’m pulled down and kicked up into the air.

A gust of wind slows my descent and allows me to land on my feet, but Em has stripped me of my weapon, and the fight is beginning to wear on me. I’ve come a long way with Tobias’s guidance, but the two of them are still more than a match for me. As was Xin. But why? I beat Ninnis in the past. Kainda, too. Countless creatures and cresties. And I killed the giant Ull. What’s different?

Ull, I think. My Ull. I’ve lost that savage energy. But he is dangerous. He would kill Tobias and Em. He would—

A stone strikes my shoulder.

Distraction is your enemy.

A second stone finds my knees, stabbing pain up into my gut and knocking me onto my knees.

Forget everything.

Focus on the fight.

Not on yourself.

Not on who you’re fighting.

An arrow grazes my forehead, knocking me back.

My back arches toward the snow. My head hovers just inches from the ground. The only thing keeping me up is the fact that my legs, which are positioned beneath me, don’t bend that far.

In that moment, with defeat just inches away, I realize something. Tobias was wrong about one thing. I think about the photo in my pouch. I picture Mira’s face. My smile next to hers. I relive the moment. My parents talking in the front seat. The music playing on the radio. The smell of our car and aftertaste of Aimee’s chocolate chip cookies in my mouth. The memory gives me hope, and in hope, I find strength.

With a shout, I pull myself back up and thrust my hands out. The katabatic winds rush past me, pulsing at one hundred fifty miles per hour. It lasts just a moment, but that’s all it takes to knock Em and Tobias to the ice and sending them rolling to the other side of the make shift arena.

My head sags. I can barely move. But I’ve won. And I didn’t pass out, which is a bonus.

Clap, clap, clap.

Applause?

It’s not coming from Em or Tobias. They’re still on the ground, and looking for the source of the noise, too.

“Well, well, well,” says a voice that fills me with dread. “That certainly explains a lot.”

It takes a massive effort, but I manage to turn my head up. I see him at the lip of the pit, looking down at me with a rotted smile. Ninnis.

He found me.

Oh no…

He found us.

24

Under normal circumstances this situation wouldn’t be that bad. Tobias and Em are both highly skilled hunters. Their skills combined with my abilities would be more than enough firepower to take care of Ninnis. But I’ve just used the last of my energy to defeat Tobias and Em, and through that effort have pummeled their bodies as well. They’ll no doubt recover faster than I will, but Tobias’s arrows are dulled and Em’s knives are rocks. Still, if we can recover, maybe there is hope.

“Nothing to say little Ull?” a new voice says, removing any shred of hope.

Kainda steps up next to Ninnis, gripping her hammer. She appears healthy and strong, no doubt healed of her wounds by Nephilim blood.

As expected, Tobias and Em regain their feet and shake off my last attack. Were it a real fight, they would still have won. I’m all but defenseless right now.

Without a word, Tobias nocks an arrow, takes aim and lets it fly.

Neither Kainda nor Ninnis flinch. The arrow strikes Ninnis’s shoulder. He twitches from the impact, but the arrow bounces to the ground. It will leave a bruise. Nothing more.

Ninnis looks at his shoulder with a smile. “You’re going too easy on the boy. He excels when the danger is real.” He looks at me. “Isn’t that right, Solomon?” He speaks my name with venom.

Em and Tobias stand their ground, waiting for the inevitable fight. At close range, Em could probably do some damage with the few remaining stones she has. And Tobias’s bow still has the blades at either end. But as Tobias takes a step toward me, he limps.

I’ve injured him.

Maybe Em, too.

What was I thinking? I could have killed them!

I look up at Kainda, hoping to see a glimmer of change. I saved her and then spared her life. Even expressed feelings for her! She meets my eyes with a cold blooded stare. A killer to the core.

Tobias was right. I shouldn’t have let her live. What good is mercy if it leads to evil?

Maybe if I delay things, the father and daughter team will stand a chance. They have trained to fight as a pair. If they can regroup… “How did you find me?”

“Tracking you took some time, I’ll admit,” Ninnis said. “You covered your tracks well. But finding you here, in your little arena. Well, that was easy.” He smiles in a way that says his next words will cause us pain.

I see Kainda’s muscles flex. She knows what he’s about to say and that it will spur a response. I realize what he’s going to say a moment before he speaks and I nearly throw up.

“It didn’t take much,” Ninnis says. “With a little…coaxing, the boy was happy to tell me where you were. But don’t worry, I left him with Pyke and Preeg.” The glint in his eyes says that this is, in fact, something to be very worried about.

“Monster!” Tobias shouts, charging forward despite his wounds.

Em follows his lead, heading for Kainda. She’s half her size, but faster and can attack from a distance. Still, in her current condition and without her knives, I do not expect her to survive the encounter.

And there is nothing I can do!

I try to stand, but my legs are numb.

I reach out to the continent, willing the wind to help, but the effort brings blackness to my vision. At the brink of unconsciousness, I give up.

I am helpless.

All I can do is watch.

Tobias lets his last two arrows fly. Ninnis dodges one, but the other strikes his leg. Had they been actual arrows, Ninnis would have been incapacitated. Instead, he’s just angry. With a roar, Ninnis leaps into the arena.

Kainda follows, raising her hammer above her head and leaping for Em.

The raw ferocity on display by Ninnis and Kainda increases my sense of hopelessness. They are in top form, hunters about to make a kill. Em and Tobias aren’t just wounded, they’re emotionally compromised. Like me. Distracted by the potential fate of poor little Luca.

Em lets a barrage of rocks fly at Kainda, but the Amazonian-like woman simply raises her large stone mallet in front of her face, blocking any strikes that might knock her unconscious, and takes the body blows without flinching. Em dives under her, as Kainda lands, striking the snow where Em stood a moment before. I actually feel the ground shake beneath me from the impact.

Em rolls to her feet, and stands, now weaponless. “Why are you doing this? We were friends once!”

“Hunters do not have friends,” Kainda says, before beginning a series of attacks that puts Em on the defensive.

Tobias and Ninnis meet at the center of the arena, but Tobias gets the upper hand right away. His razor edged bow gives him a reach that Ninnis cannot penetrate. But it quickly becomes apparent that Ninnis is simply playing with the man, dodging each strike easily while his opponent wears himself out. My father called the fighting style the rope-a-dope, a boxing technique used by Muhammad Ali when he would assume a defensive position against the rope and let his opponent pummel him until exhausted and making mistakes. That’s when Ali would strike and bring a quick closure to the match.

That’s what I see happening here, but there is no way to warn Tobias.

With a deep breath, I put my hands beneath me and push. My arms shake, but I manage to reach a kneeling position. The effort has set my head spinning, but it’s progress. I take another breath and prepare to stand.

And that’s when it happens.

Kainda’s long leg penetrates Em’s defenses and catches her in the stomach. Em crumples in pain with a shout.

The sound of his daughter’s pained voice pulls Tobias’s attention away from Ninnis for just a moment. But it’s all the old man needs.

Ninnis steps inside Tobias’s swing and catches his arm. Two quick elbows later, Tobias stumbles back, his face covered in blood from his nose and forehead.

“Father!” Em yells, leaping back to her feet. She tries to run to his aid, but Kainda catches her jacket and throws her against the hard, icy wall of the arena. The wind is knocked out of her again.

I want to shout at Em and Tobias, and tell them to stop thinking about the other. This is what you warned me about! Stop it! Stop caring! Start fighting! But my efforts to stand keep me silent. With a grunt, I find my feet.

But my efforts are far too little and much too late.

Tobias swings at Ninnis despite being blinded by a curtain of red oozing from his forehead. Ninnis snatches the bladed bow, and pulls Tobias in, kicking him hard in the chest. Tobias loses his grip on his weapon and falls back.

There is no banter. No last words. Ninnis is a hunter and he strikes like one.

Without hesitation.

Without mercy.

And with perfect aim.

He leaps into the air, raising the bow above his head, and with a battle cry that turns my stomach sour, plunges the bow into Tobias’s chest. Tobias’s body twitches under the impact. Ninnis twists the blade, and the body lies still.

Tobias is dead.

Revulsion helps me find my voice. “No!” I scream.

But there isn’t time to mourn Tobias’s death. Kainda stalks toward Em where she lies, motionless on the ground. She raises the hammer—a weapon strong enough to crack cresty skulls and shake the very ground. Issuing her own war cry, she brings the weapon down. A loud crunch brings a sob from my mouth.

Kainda picks up Em’s limp body and tosses her hard. Her body skids across the area floor and stops fifty feet away. Motionless.

My surrogate family is dead.

And kidnapped.

And I can’t even avenge their deaths.

But I have to try.

I bend down, head swirling, and pick up Whipsnap.

As Ninnis walks toward me, I hold the weapon between us. But my shaking hands make the defensive posture just look pitiful.

Kainda remains still, watching with crossed arms and downturned lips.

“I saved you,” I say to her. Her frown deepens, but I’m not sure if it’s from guilt or shame at needing to be saved.

I face Ninnis. He’s just ten feet away. “I saved both of you.”

He stops just out of Whipsnap’s reach. “Your life is a series of mistakes, Solomon.”

When he says my name again, I realize I have an opening to put a wedge between these two. “You’ve told her then? That you failed to break me? And that your failure resulted in Ull’s death?”

I see surprise register on Kainda’s face. I turn to her. “I killed Ull. Your father covered it up.”

Ninnis bares his teeth and a growl enters his voice. “Kainda and I have both failed when it comes to you,” Ninnis says. “It is a shame we bear together. And it is a shame we will correct together.”

“You cannot break me again,” I say. I’m not sure if it’s true, but I need him to believe it.

To my surprise, he nods, but then says, “I do not need to break you again. I simply need you to give yourself—willingly—to the spirit of Nephil.”

“Never,” I say.

“Then the boy will be killed.”

My stomach tightens. Luca is alive.

“I will give you seven days to reach the gates of Tartarus. You will come, as Ull.”

“I’m not Ull,” I say.

“Then you must be convincing,” he says. “You will give yourself to Nephil. He will break you himself. And the boy will be spared.” He grins wide, showing his rotting teeth. “You see? I am not without mercy!”

Filled with rage, I lunge, stabbing Whipsnap toward his chest. But my former trainer is fast. He dodges to the side, and in the time it takes me to blink, there is a sword in his hand. Before I have time to contemplate where it came from, he strikes Whipsnap with the flat side of the blade. The tip of the sword wraps around Whipsnap. With a tug, he pulls my weapon from my hands and flings it away.

He holds the sword out toward me. Its blade is once again straight and razor sharp. “Meet Strike,” he says. “A gift from Enki. And if you do not reach the gates of Tartarus within seven days, Strike will be the source of little Luca’s prolonged and agonizing death.”

Ninnis becomes a blur. I see a flash as Strike coils itself down to the hilt, which then strikes my head. I fall to the ice, staring up at the blue sky above. Ninnis stands over me and says. “Seven days.”

Then he’s gone. I can hear his feet on the snow, walking away. Kainda’s too. Neither of them speaks. They’re just leaving me here, with my dead friends, and a demand I have no choice but to grant. I don’t believe Ninnis will spare Luca, but I can’t leave the boy. I can’t let him be killed. My head lolls to the side and I see Kainda at the top of the arena wall.

She glances back at me, meets my eyes, and shakes her head.

Then she’s gone, along with Ninnis, and Luca.

I picture the boy in the darkness of the underworld, surrounded by killers and monsters and remember what I was like as a six year old. The experience might very well break him.

I shout and try to rise. If I could only regain my strength I might be able to stop them before they disappear into the depths. But my body doesn’t respond. I can’t move. I can’t fight.

I can’t win, I think, so I do the only thing I can do.

I weep.

25

I don’t know if I can move. I haven’t tried. The will to act has abandoned me. I’ve lain in the snow at the bottom of the arena for nearly an hour, watching the sun cut across the sky, feeling its rays burning the exposed skin of my tear-streaked face. I’ve replayed the events surrounding Tobias’s and Em’s deaths, and Luca’s capture a hundred times, looking for a way things could have been different.

The problem is, I find a solution every time. Had I been stronger. Had Ull still been a part of me. If I’d trained harder. If I’d never come here. If, if, if. There are probably a million “what ifs” that could have avoided this situation.

But none of that matters, because it happened. Tobias is dead, killed by his own weapon after I—the memory of that last blast of wind that sent him and Em flying replays in my mind’s eye, over and over. It’s the single “what if” scenario that pains me the most. I shouldn’t have struck them so hard. I shouldn’t have been so focused on winning that I put their lives in jeopardy.

But I did.

And they’re dead.

The sound of snow shifting in the distance tears me away from my self-deprecation.

The wind?

Footsteps slowly approach. The wind doesn’t walk.

I listen to the footfalls coming closer, but don’t move. Maybe it’s a polar bear come to put me out of my misery.

Polar bears live in the Arctic, stupid, I tell myself. This is the Antarctic!

“Solomon?” the voice is weak. Frail. But I recognize it.

I turn toward the shuffling sound, eyes wide. “Emilie?”

She stands five feet away, clutching an arm and covered in blood.

But alive.

“You’re alive,” she says, sounding relieved.

“You’re alive,” I respond. “I thought for sure—”

“Me too,” she says. “What happened?”

The answer to her question stuns me, so much so that I can’t bring myself to say it right away. I force myself into a sitting position. My head pounds for several moments, but then clears.

“Kainda,” she says. “She beat me. Kicked me.” She’s struggling with the memory. “She threw me?”

“She—” Saying the words is hard, not because they’re hurtful, but because they’re hopeful. And I had given up hope. “She spared you.”

As I say it, I know it’s true. Kainda doesn’t let someone live without intending it.

Em looks confused. “She doesn’t do that.”

She’s right. Kainda is a brutal warrior known to hold a grudge and react with swift violence. She is not the forgiving type. But still, here Em stands, injured, but alive.

“You did it,” she says.

I tense, believing that she is accusing me for being the cause of Tobias’s death. A quick glance in his body’s direction confirms his death. The snow around his body is as red as his hair. But Em’s words aren’t accusatory.

“You got through to her,” she says. “Your mercy. It’s the only explanation.”

“You were friends, you said. Couldn’t that be—”

“We trained together. Hunted together. Killed together. She’s older than me. Old enough to be my—”

Em falls silent for a moment, but shakes her head.

“Perhaps it was both of us, then?” I propose.

Em reaches down for me and helps pull me to my feet. Her strength surprises me. Not just her physical strength, but the resolve she is showing in the face of her father’s death. Perhaps it is the hunter in her that won’t allow her to cry by his side, or the need to be strong for Luca. Whatever it is, it is an ability I don’t have. And she sees the evidence all over my face.

She scoops some snow into her hands, cups them together and melts it between her palms. She uses the water to wipe away the salty streaks. Her touch stings my burned flesh, but brings focus to my mind. A realization strikes.

“It’s not just Kainda,” I say.

She pauses. “What do you mean?”

“Ninnis, he…he showed mercy.”

Her hands drop away from my face and some of her buried emotions rise up. Without turning to face her father’s body, she thrusts a finger toward it, acutely aware of where he lies, and shouts, “You call that mercy? My father is dead!”

“He couldn’t let him live,” I say. “Kainda would know.”

“Know what?” Her voice brews with anger and I realize that I better explain quickly or the bond of brother and sister formed between us might be broken. And I’m going to need that bond in the coming days. We both will.

“That he’s different. It’s subtle, but it’s there.”

“Where is it, Solomon?” She’s still shouting. Tears bead at the corners of her eyes. “Where?”

“He gave me seven days to return to Tartarus. I’m to give myself up to Nephil in exchange for Luca’s life.”

She gasps. “You can’t.”

“I must.”

“Nephil will kill everyone, including Luca.”

“I can’t leave him. The point is, Ninnis gave me seven days.”

She stares at me, confused.

“The journey from here to Tartarus, in my condition, and knowing the way, will take four days at most. He’s given me three extra days.”

“For what?”

I look at Tobias’s body and she understands.

“To mourn,” I say. “To bury the dead. To say goodbye.”

It is an act of mercy so subtle that it could easily be missed or explained away, and while I do not expect him to repeat it, or go back on his promise to kill Luca if I do not show, it is a shred of hope I will cling to.

I walk on stiff legs to where Whipsnap was flung and pick up my weapon. “We’re going to bury your father. We’re going to bury him today. Right now. Tonight we’ll rest. Tomorrow we’ll begin the journey to Tartarus.”

I don’t question whether or not Em is coming. As much as I’d like her to remain behind, and safe, nothing short of breaking her legs could keep her here.

“Why not rest longer?” she asks. “Regain your strength.”

“That’s exactly what I intend to do.”

“How?” she asks.

“We’re going to make a stop along the way,” I tell her. “To see a friend in Asgard. And in the meantime, I need you to tell me about the ones who helped Tobias escape with Luca. We are going to need all the help we can get.”

She nods, shakes with a chill, and heads for her father’s body.

I follow close behind, feeling bad for my lie of omission. While it’s true that I’m going to see a friend, it is not for strength. It is for a clear conscience. I need to see Aimee again, to apologize and…to say goodbye.

26

It takes us three hours to bury Tobias. Most of that time is spent carrying his body back to Clark Station One. Digging a grave proved impossible—the ice is thick and dense—so I used my abilities to carve out a six foot deep hole. We wrapped him in a blanket along with his bow and arrows. I used the wind to carry him down into the grave, where he now lies.

We stand there, side by side, Emilie and I, staring down at the body. I’ve been to four funerals in my life, for each of my grandparents. I remember the words spoken at each one—comforting words, often about being reunited in the afterlife. None of it seems appropriate now, so I stay silent. Em has never been to a topside funeral before, so the ritual will probably just confuse her. There is one part I always appreciated, though. The prayer. Speaking to God. Asking Him to accept the spirit of the deceased into Heaven. A better place. Certainly better than here. Tobias deserves as much.

I bow my head, close my eyes and whisper a prayer to God. “I don’t know much about you, but I know a lot about Tobias. He was a good man. He gave his life in defense of innocence. And he was an enemy of the Nephilim, who, if demons are real, and you are real, are your enemies, too. Give him a new home, please. A better home.”

Em’s fingers find mine and we grip each other’s hands.

“Protect Luca, wherever he is. Keep him safe and never let him doubt that we are coming for him. Protect Em, and me, as we attempt to get him back.”

With my thoughts on the task before us, I say, “If possible, turn Kainda to our side, and…” My next words feel wrong for a moment, but then I remember that there is plenty of smiting in the Bible. God will understand. “Destroy our enemies. Kill them all. Please. Amen.”

I open my eyes and find Em looking at me, her face wet with tears already wiped away.

“What were you doing?” She asks.

“Praying,” I say. “It’s something people do at funerals. When we bury the dead.”

“But who were you talking to?”

“God,” I say.

Her eyes scrunch tight. “You can talk to God?”

I shrug. I’m really not sure. “I thought it was worth a try.”

“The Nephilim don’t like God,” she says. “We weren’t allowed to talk about it.”

“Well,” I say, “You are now.” I reach my hands out over the ice grave. “Goodbye Tobias.”

“Goodbye, father,” Emilie adds.

I close my hands together and the grave fills with ice.

Em lets out a long sigh. “I’ll get my knives.”

I dip my head in agreement. Neither of us ever intended on resting. Our bodies are trained to recuperate while on the move. We’ll stop along the way, but the journey itself will rejuvenate us. We take nothing but the essentials and our weapons. We will hunt for food. I will try to expand my powers further in the way that Tobias wanted me to learn. And we will learn to work together.

Twenty minutes later, we take a last look back at Clark Station One, the place of my birth and Em’s home for the past few years. On the outside it’s nothing more than a small rise in the ice. But inside, there are countless good memories for both of us.

“Will we ever see it again?” She asks.

I suspect that I never will, but I manage to say, “We’ll get Luca back. You can return together.” The words are hollow. At least four hunters know about this place. We can never return. Not for long, at least. Unless, that is, those four hunters are killed.

As we enter the cave system in the mountain above Clark Station One, I look at the array of knives covering Em’s belt and the crisscrossing harness strapped over her chest. She certainly brought enough knives to finish the job. And if all we were facing were the four hunters, maybe we’d have a chance. But when we reach the gates of Tartarus, there will be an army waiting for us. We won’t just have hunters to deal with. Nephilim of every shape and size will gather in expectation of Ull’s bonding with Nephil. Not to mention Behemoth.

We’re both dressed for the underworld, wearing a minimum of clothing so that we might squeeze through the tight cracks. Em’s body is more muscular than I expected. And she moves through the tunnels like fluid. She sets an impressive pace, like her father would have, and drives us deep, toward Asgard.

After a full day’s travel, we pause, just an hour’s hike from our goal. We decide to rest for a bit, just in case we meet resistance in Asgard.

“We will be noticed right away,” she says, leaning back against the stone wall of the small alcove in which we have hidden.

She’s right, of course. Even if our faces weren’t recognizable, our streaks of normal colored hair will brand us as innocents right away.

“They still believe I am Ull,” I say. “Bonded with the body of Nephil. They won’t dare attack me.”

“And me?”

“I’ll—I’ll say you’re my wife.”

Em laughs at this. Her smile is refreshing. “Your wife?”

“I was offered Kainda already. I turned her down.”

“And she let you live?”

“You, too,” I remind her.

“Fine.”

I can tell she’s not thrilled about the idea, but it will work. At least long enough for us to get in and out, assuming we don’t run into the Nephilim hierarchy. I suspect they are already en route to the gates of Tartarus.

“But we still need to do something about our hair,” she says. She draws a knife from her belt and moves closer to me.

“What are you doing?”

“Just sit still.” She looks over my hair. “Huh.”

“Huh, what?”

“You have more blond hair than you did the day we met.”

“You mean the day you almost killed me.”

She grins. “Hey, I saved you, remember?” And before I can stop her, she puts the knife up to her opposite palm and draws the blade across. Blood flows.

I take her arms. “What are you doing?”

She rubs her hands together, smearing the blood. “Trust me,” she says.

When I let go, she takes her bloody hands and runs them through my hair. The metallic smell of her blood, so close to me, makes me uncomfortable, but I understand what she’s doing. She repeats the process several times until my hair is once again stained fully red, the way Ull’s should be.

After finishing, she lets me wrap her hand. I’m no doctor, but I’ve read a few first aid manuals before. Apparently I do a good job, because when I finish tying the last knot, she flexes her fingers and says, “Perfect.”

“You have a two inch slice in your hand,” I say. “I don’t see how that can be perfect.”

“I can still throw and you look like ‘Ull, the vessel of Nephil.’” She says the last part with a scary voice that makes me smile.

“What about you?” I ask.

She flips the knife around and places its handle in my hand. I take the knife and place it against my palm. I know she could have done her own hair, too, but this feels right. Like we’re blood brothers, or blood siblings at least. But she yanks my hand away and says, “No, stupid, you need to cut my hair off. It’s a sign of subjugation to a new husband.”

“Oh,” I say.

“You didn’t know that when you suggested I pose as your wife?”

I shake my head, no. “But now that I do, I like the idea even better.”

She punches me hard in the shoulder, much harder than Justin ever could have, but I shrug it off with a laugh. She turns around and says, “Make it quick.”

Fifteen minutes later, Emilie is bald. She rubs her hand over her head. She turns around, facing me. “How do I look?”

But I don’t really notice how she looks. The missing hair has revealed an image just above her hairline.

She notes my attention. “What?” She quickly becomes insistent. “What is it!”

“A tattoo,” I think.

Her face twitches with confusion. “Of what?”

“It’s a shape. A pattern really.”

“Describe it,” she says.

“I doubt it’s anything—”

“Describe it.” She’s getting angry.

“It’s two circles, one within the other.”

“Which ring is thicker?” she asks.

“The outside ring.”

She stares at me, stunned. I have no idea why, but this news has shaken her. “What does it mean?”

She blinks, meeting my eyes. “It means…it means that Tobias was not my father.”

“What?” I say. The notion strikes me as ridiculous. “Why?”

She speaks through gritted teeth. “The tattoo is given to people who are taken from the outside world and brought here.”

“But I was taken—”

“From Antarctica,” she says. “These are people taken from far away. From the other continents. Often from their homes. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, they’re marked with a tattoo. The one you described. It means…” She pauses to take a deep breath. “It means I wasn’t born here.”

The ramifications of this news are like a slap in the face. I take her hand. “Em, it means you have a family. A mother and father. Maybe even brothers and sisters.”

She pulls her hand away. “I already had those things.”

She’s right, of course. I’m now included in that family, but she hasn’t thought this through. “A family in the outside world means you have somewhere to go. Somewhere to take Luca. When you get him back, take him to McMurdo. Someone will help you. People are looking for you somewhere. People are—”

She takes her knife from me, slips it back in her belt and stands. “We need to keep moving.” She strikes out into the adjoining tunnel that will take us to Asgard, where we will be Ull and wife. If we are recognized there is the potential for trouble, and I must hide the fact that I’m there to see Aimee from anyone that we might come across. So I push Em’s harsh reaction from my mind and focus on the task at hand.

Be Ull, I tell myself.

Be ruthless.

Arrogant.

Strong.

Everything I’m not.

We’re dead, I think, and I follow Em toward Asgard, like a lemming over a cliff.

27

By the time we reach the outer fringes of Asgard, Emilie hasn’t said two words. The only way to know you’ve entered Asgard is the mark of Odin carved into the tunnel wall. Asgard isn’t like New Jericho—a city with buildings inside a giant cavern. It is a series of tunnels and chambers carved out of stone beneath a mountain. Ninnis once told me that if the snow ever melted, much of the city would be exposed. Daylight would pour in through windows. Fresh air would seep through the cracks. At the time, I found the notion disagreeable. Now, in the depths of the Earth, I wouldn’t mind a little fresh air. It might sweep away the stench of blood and rot that plagues this place.

Em stops and traces her fingers over the mark of Odin—three interlocking triangles—carved into the tunnel wall. She stares at it, remembering.

“I grew up here,” she says. “Trained here. With my fath—with Tobias. And Kainda. And Ninnis. Ull, too. I can’t say it was a happy place. We had no concept for that word. But when I lived within these walls, the halls of Asgard…” She looks at me. “I felt safe.”

I’m not sure what to say to her. Safety is an illusion in the underworld, especially in the presence of the Nephilim, who might randomly decide that you look delicious and eat you. I’ve never heard of that happening, but they eat their own young, so it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility.

“It was all a lie,” she says. “Everything they told me. About my mother. About my father. I never belonged here.”

“It wasn’t all a lie,” I say, surprising myself.

She whips an angry eye toward me, suspicious of why I’d say such a thing.

“Tobias loved you,” I say.

“He wasn’t my father.”

“This kind of thing happens a lot where I’m from. It’s called adoption. Children are adopted by a father and mother that aren’t biologically related. But they’re raised as though they were. And they’re loved just the same.”

“No one tells the child?”

“It’s up to the parents. Some do. Some don’t. But the ones that don’t usually have a reason. Maybe Tobias was protecting you from something?”

She pulls her hand away from the wall. “My father told me—told everyone—that I wasn’t born here, in Asgard. Or any of the cities. My mother, a hunter named Dalia, delivered me deep in the tunnels and died of childbirth complications. Tobias emerged from the tunnels with a baby girl and the story of Dalia’s death; no one questioned it. He raised me on his own. I suspect that’s why they gave Luca to him, too.”

“So he lied about your birth, to you, and everyone else.”

She nods slowly. “Outlanders that are deemed unfit are given to Behemoth.”

“Is it possible,” I say, “that your father and mother were meant to give you to the monster?”

She sniffs and wipes her nose. “I’ve never heard of a baby bearing the mark being kept.”

“Then his lie saved you,” I say.

She rubs the tattoo with her hand. “And now?”

“Now,” I say, puffing out my chest, “You are married to Ull, scourge of the underworld.”

A smile creeps onto her face. “C’mon, scourge, let’s get this over with so we can go be eaten like I should have been all those years ago.” She turns and steps past the mark of Odin, officially entering the halls of Asgard. “Sorry,” she says.

I follow her beyond the mark. “For what?”

“You are my adopted brother,” she explains. “As is Luca. I didn’t mean to imply that our bond is less than that of blood. I’m proud to call you brother.”

I laugh as the tunnel opens up into a grand hall. Pillars carved with the faces of Norse gods stretch down either side. They serve little function other than decoration and intimidation. When I see Ull’s face, my stomach turns. The intimidation factor works. But I’m Ull now. So I wipe the growing fear from my face and try to project confidence.

The hall is devoid of life, so I still speak freely. “Em, are there any…customs, any rules about marriage that I should know about?”

Her telltale gasp springs from her mouth. She immediately stops and takes a step back so that she’s behind me. “Wives are subservient to husbands,” she says. “Not in battle. Then we’re all equal. Hunters do not see sexes. But here, in Asgard, and in the other cities, wives must follow close behind their husbands, eyes to the ground.”

“What about wedding rings?” I ask.

“Wedding rings?”

“Forget it,” I say. Nothing here could be so romantic. Marriage in the under-world is about territory, alliances, spawn and other human needs. But not love. There is no place for love here.

As the pat of bare feet slapping the floor approaches from the branching hallway ahead of us, I realize my last minute lesson in Nephilim marital culture was just in time. He enters the grand hall dressed for the hunt, in skins. His red hair is long, but trimmed, and poufy in a way that reminds me of Kevin Bacon. A chain wrapped around his waist holds two spiked metal balls. I recognize the weapon as a meteor hammer from Justin’s ninja books. They were a rare, but deadly weapon used in feudal Japan. Apparently they found a home in the Antarctic underworld as well.

He’s still some distance away but walks straight toward us.

“Do you know him?” I whisper.

If Em knows this man and he sees her tattoo, it could cause problems if he realizes the details surrounding her birth are a lie. Actually, she’s a fugitive, so there’s that, too.

“No,” she says. “He must be from one of the other kingdoms. His hair looks Olympian.”

At first I think it’s strange that she doesn’t know him, but Antarctica is as vast as the United States and has several cities spread out across, and beneath it. I never estimated the total population of the underworld. There could be millions.

The thought fills me with dread and I have to work hard not to show it on my face as we approach the stranger.

I meet his eyes, knowing that to do otherwise would be a sign of weakness, something Ull would never do. The man squints at me as we pass, and then he sees Em, head bowed, tattoo exposed.

The man laughs under his breath.

I stop in my tracks and while thinking a panicked, what are you doing?! I say, “You find something funny?”

Ull would have never let the laugh pass. I can’t, either.

The man turns toward me. He’s nearly twice my size and appears to be forty years old, which could mean he’s been here for twice that time. A grin forms on his clean shaven face. “When I first saw you I thought it strange that a pup like you could have claimed a wife,” the man says. “Then I saw the mark on her forehead.” He shakes his head in disgust. “You lower yourself too far, pup.”

What would Ull do? “If you call me, “pup,” one more time—”

“Pup,” the man says.

The attack comes immediately, but it’s not from me, or the stranger. Em leaps out from behind me, knives in hand. She lets two fly. The first finds the man’s thigh, burying two inches deep into his flesh. He grunts, and dodges the second knife, moving quickly.

In a flash, he’s got the meteor hammer spinning like a helicopter blade. It deflects Em’s next two knives.

She won’t be able to penetrate his defense.

Ull, however, would have no trouble.

I yank Whipsnap from my belt. The weapon springs to life in my hand. I approach the man with a spin that makes it look like I’m going to strike from the side, but instead I thrust the mace end of Whipsnap into the spinning chain. The meteor hammer’s chain wraps around Whipsnap’s shaft and with a yank, I disarm the man and toss his weapon across the hall.

The action has stumbled the man and his back slaps against one of the hall’s columns. Before he can pull himself from it and consider a counter attack, Whipsnap’s blade is against his neck. I knick his skin, letting the blood run down the blade so he can see it.

“Do you know who I am, pup?” I say with a growl.

He looks me up and down. He has no idea. And he still doesn’t care. I see nothing but hatred in his eyes.

Ull might have killed the man by now, but there is only so far I am willing to take this act. “Why are you here, Olympian?”

When he answers, I know Em pegged him right. “I am traveling to the gates of Tartarus, to represent my master, Poseidon, who must continue work on the fleet.”

I can tell he thinks Poseidon’s name will generate some fear or respect in me, but I am Ull, who will one day bear the essence of Nephil and rule over all Nephilim, including Poseidon. I fear no Nephilim.

At least, that’s what I’m telling myself. In truth, I’m terrified of the Nephilim. Of this hunter. But I need to keep up the act, for Luca. “And who is it you wait for in Tartarus?”

He scoffs. “You truly are a pitiful one, pup.” Even in the face of death, he taunts me. Are all the hunters like this? Like Ull?

I push the blade a little deeper, careful not to accidentally open his jugular. I stop when he winces. “Had you half a brain you might realize who it is you are speaking to.”

With a sneer, he says, “Tell me, please, so that I might pass on your name to—”

“I am—Ull!” I shout, drawing the blade back and kicking the man in the gut. When he pitches forward I give him a hard chop to the back of his head and send him to the floor at my feet. “Vessel of Nephil, Lord of the Nephilim. And it is me whom you go to see at the gates of Tartarus!”

While he recovers, Em takes my hand and squeezes it.

I’m shaking.

I take a deep breath and speak slowly. “Do you know who I am now?”

He nods without looking up, which is a good thing because my hand is still shaking.

“Tell me,” I say. “Why shouldn’t I kill you?”

As I ask the question, I hope his answer is good, and that he doesn’t just go ahead and ask for death.

“I am shamed and forever your servant,” he says.

Ull might still run him through, but his answer is enough for me, and useful.

“What is your name?” I ask.

“Doug,” he says.

I nearly laugh. Doug? Really? It’s the most mundane and normal name I’ve heard in the underworld. Like Norman. Or Chuck. Or Bob. The name also reminds me that he wasn’t born here. He wasn’t always a hunter. He had a family once. Maybe children. And the menace he feels toward me and everything else was instilled in him by the Nephilim. “Do something for me, Doug” I say.

“Anything.”

“The hunters, Preeg and Pyke, do you know them?”

He shakes his head, no. “Then you will learn who they are.”

“I will find them,” he says.

“They will have a boy with them. A boy who has yet to be broken. Find him and take him, but do not harm him. I would break him myself. Make him my first protégé.”

“And if they do not release the boy?” he asks.

I hadn’t considered that possibility in my hasty plan, or considered the fact that Luca might now be with Ninnis and Kainda. I give the only answer that Ull could give, “You will give them no choice.”

“Understood.”

“Now go,” I say. “Speak of this to no one. Succeed and I will elevate your status. Fail and I will finish what we began here today.” I turn to Emilie. “Fetch his weapon.”

She picks up the meteor hammer and hands it to me. I hold the weapon in my hand, feeling the strength of the chain and the weight of the spiked balls. A single blow from this weapon would have been enough to kill me.

We got lucky, I think, and I decide that this visit to Asgard should be brief.

I drop the weapon at my feet and show no fear at the fact that I’ve just armed the man who moments ago would have killed me. He collects it and stands, his head still downturned. He gives a slight bow, “My Lord,” and then heads on his way.

I stand there, watching him leave. When I can no longer see him, I listen. When the sound of his feet fade away, and his scent fades along with it, my legs begin to shake.

“I can’t do this,” I say, returning to myself.

Em catches me and holds me up. “Where are we going?”

“To my room. You know where the hunter’s quarters are?”

She gives me a look that says, duh, and adds, “I grew up here, remember?”

She leans me against a column, against the face of Ull of all places, and quickly collects her knives. “For the record, a wife is allowed to defend her husband’s honor. Had his wife been present, we would have fought to the death.”

My face pales at the thought.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I would have won.”

With her knives returned to their sheaths, she steps up to me. “Can you walk? Because I can’t help you.”

I nod and take a shaky step. I push through the weakness and by the time we reach the end of the hall, and enter the next, I have regained the confident strut of Ull. The walls here stretch forty feet high to accommodate the Nephilim warriors. The hallway stretches far to the left and leads to several other hall-ways, rooms and the grand chamber where I consumed the blood of Nephil. To the right is the curving staircase that leads to the human-sized living quarters, where I hope to find Aimee, and give her something that is more hers than mine—something that will soon do me very little good and might yet save her life. Or at least her soul.

28

I find myself more nervous standing in front of Aimee’s door than when I crossed the threshold into Asgard. Seeing her again is going to hurt. Not like it did when I last saw her, when the very sight of her face ripped my surprised Solomon personality back to the surface and buried Ull. This will be different. She’s been here for some time now and I’m afraid I’ll see horror in her eyes. My first memory after being born is Aimee’s smiling face. And I’m terrified the love she normally exudes will have been tainted.

Because of me. I took her. I brought her here. And I’m coming to tell her there will be no escape.

Em looks both ways. She’s nervous for a different reason. We’re standing in a hallway filled with human sized doors, behind which any number of hunters could lurk. One of the rooms behind us belonged to her and if anyone was going to recognize her, it would be here.

But we haven’t seen another soul since Doug.

“What are you waiting for?” She whispers.

“I’m nervous,” I reply, and for a moment I feel happy that I have someone I can be honest with about how I’m feeling. It’s a rare thing in the underworld. In fact, it’s probably unheard of. Of course, the only other person I can be open with lives on the other side of this door.

I knock on the wooden door.

Em shoots me a confused glance. “What are you doing?”

“I’m knocking,” I say, but then remember that no one down here knocks. “It’s like asking permission to enter.”

She shakes her head, twists the doorknob and enters. I follow her in, hoping the rude entry will not make a bad impression. But there is no one inside to impress. The walls are covered in graffiti—symbols and images drawn by hunters and teachers past. But Aimee has been living here. I can tell by the collection of topside trinkets she’s managed to collect somehow and the red knit blanket on her bed. How did she get yarn? I wonder. I run my hand over the red blanket and recognize the texture. It’s feeder hair.

There are many other items in the room that I’d like to look through, but time is short. We need to begin the journey to Tartarus soon. But I need to see Aimee! I can’t leave her here not knowing what I’m about to do, not knowing that the next time she sees me I might not be myself. I might be Nephil.

My disappointment shows on my face like a lighthouse beacon in the night.

Em takes my hand. “Sorry.”

I see a roll of parchment and sticks of charcoal. “I’ll leave a note.”

“Wait,” Em says, her face smiling with revelation. “She’s a teacher, right?”

I nod.

“Teachers spend most of their time in the library. Studying and teaching. It’s likely we’ll find her there.”

I head for the door.

She stops me. “The library is on the other side of Asgard. It’s likely we’ll run into someone along the way. We didn’t have far to travel here, but we’ll have to cut through the core of the city to reach her.”

“It’s a risk we’ll have to—” An idea strikes as I glance into the hall and see the door to my quarters. I pull Em behind me, rushing for the door. “I have an idea.”

There’s no hesitation as I enter my room. Memories try to come back and haunt me, but I fight them away. My focus is the clothing laid out on my bed—primarily the cloak made of cresty skin and its cresty-head hood. It’s a miniature version of the garb the Nephilim Ull wore and will be instantly recognizable to anyone who sees it. My identity will be revealed, but since no one but Kainda and Ninnis knows I’ve changed, no one should dare to challenge me, outlander wife or not.

Em sees the cloak and offers three slow nods. “Good idea.”

I throw the cloak on, button it over my chest and pull the hood up over my head. The hood still has the cresty’s upper jaw and skull, so it’s heavy on my head and the teeth bite into my skin. But it has the desired effect. When I turn to Em, she looks uncomfortable. “How do I look?”

“Awful,” she says.

“What about you?” I ask. “Do you think your clothes are still here?”

“It’s been too long,” she says. “They would have been destroyed.”

“Then let’s go,” I say. I lead the way out of the room and toward the human quarters’ exit. Halfway there, I freeze.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“This is where it happened.” I say.

Em looks at me, trying to figure out what I’m talking about.

“This is where I killed him. Ull. His head lay here, where I’m standing, with his own arrow buried in his forehead.”

Em looks at the stone floor. “It’s a good memory.”

It’s hard to think of an act so violent as a good memory, but I find myself feeling better as I remember how I fought the giant, using my skills as a hunter and my connection with the continent to defeat a monster thousands of years old. It was one of my finer moments, and it allowed Tobias to die a free man.

“C’mon,” I say, tugging Em along. “Which way to the library?”

Whispering directions from behind me, Em leads us through the center of Asgard, revealing many of its great halls, which are ornately decorated with sculptures, balustrades and obelisks. The place is like an amalgam of several ancient cultures, with gods from around the world being represented. As I look at a statue of Odin, master of Asgard and father of the Norse god lineage, I realize this whole place is a Nephilim temple built to worship themselves. For the hunters living here, they’re constantly reminded that they’re living among gods. And for the other Nephilim classes—breeders, gatherers, thinkers and the others—the fact that they are ruled by the warriors can never be forgotten.

We pass two lone hunters and a group of four gatherers in heated discussion on our way to the library. The hunters meet my eyes, see the cresty skull on my head and then look away, no doubt recognizing me for who I am…or rather, who I’m not. The gatherers either don’t notice us at all or don’t think twice about our presence.

We reach the entrance to the library and I pause. The doorway is forty feet tall to accommodate the warriors and its stone frame has been covered with an ancient language that I don’t recognize. But it’s not the doorway that gives me pause.

Em stops next to me and shakes her head. “You know,” she says, “for the future Lord of the Nephilim, you’re a huge wimp.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. If anyone saw or heard me, there would be trouble, but her words cut through my nervous tension like Whipsnap through a feeder’s belly. “Story of my life,” I say, and then we step into the library.

The place, like every other room in this city, is massive. Eighty foot ceilings and untold square footage cause our footsteps to echo. If there is anyone in here, they know we’ve entered. There are rows of shelves, like any other library, and some of them actually contain books—human books from the outside world! I look at them like a kid in an ice cream store. It’s been so long since my mind fed on a book. I pull one from the shelf as we pass. It’s an old illustrated paperback of Pilgrim’s Progress, a story that I’ve actually not yet read. I open one of the pouches attached to my belt and place it inside. I see Em watching me. “What?”

“The gates of Tartarus and the spirit of Nephilim await us in the depths and you’re stealing a book.”

With a shrug, I say, “I like to read.”

We pass through the shelves of books, and enter a world of scrolls, many of which appear to be leather…or more accurately, skin, and I wonder if any of them are human. The monotony of the endless rows discourages me. Finding someone here will be hard, and we don’t even really know that Aimee is here.

A light up ahead catches my attention. Most of Asgard flickers from the light of torches. But the light ahead of us is steady. And bright. I squint as we draw closer. Even the brightest crystals underground don’t glow so vividly. The source comes into view a moment later. It looks like an oversized light bulb complete with a glass tube and a twisted metal filament inside. It looks very familiar and I search my memory for a reference. I find the answer in a book on Egypt I read when I was eight. The image in my mind comes from the temple of Hathor at Dendera, where a detailed inscription depicts what looks like an over-sized light bulb that looks oddly similar to an early modern light bulb called a Crookes tube. And here it is. The real thing. A giant light bulb attached to a column that rises eighty feet to the ceiling.

The light bulb has engaged my mind so fully that I fail to notice the person sitting beneath it. It’s not until she speaks my name, “Solomon?” that I look down and see Aimee, wrapped in a red blanket, with a book in her lap. The scene is so normal that it’s abnormal, and I stare at her in silence for a moment. When my thoughts clear, I see her face clearly for the first time in more than a year and realize that I’m not the one who is frightened anymore. Aimee stares up at me, terrified, and with a nervous voice, asks, “Is that…you, Solomon?”

29

I’m confused by Aimee’s fear for a moment, but then I remember what I look like. I’m wearing the garb of Ull, my hair is fully blood red and I’m in the presence of a lethal looking hunter with more knives than a shark has teeth. Knowing she must think I’ve reverted back to Ull, I pull off my cresty hood, and put on a smile.

“It’s me,” I say. “It’s Sol.”

She stands quickly. The book and blanket fall to the floor. Before I can blink, her arms are around me, crushing me with a love so strong that I had begun to believe the memory of it was a dream. When she separates, we both have tears in our eyes.

“It’s been so long,” she says. “I wasn’t sure I would ever see you again. And then I heard about the ceremony…” Her hands squeeze my shoulders. “Look at you. You’ve grown so big! Like your uncles.”

My first thought is, she knows my uncles? But then I realize the comment about my size was meant to change the subject. She knows about the ceremony. About the gates of Tartarus. We’ll get to that in a moment, I decide. “Have you been treated well?”

“Well for a prisoner,” she says. “And better than most. I’ve learned all about the society here. The rules. The things you endured. I have it easy by comparison. If I do as they ask. I study. I teach. And fill my free time how I might have before—reading and knitting, though I do miss baking.”

“I remember your cookies.”

She smiles. Her kind eyes, broad grin and dark skin reminds me of Mira. “You remember everything.”

I look around. There is no trace of another living thing in this library. I see nothing, hear nothing and smell nothing other than old books and dust. “You aren’t guarded?”

“They took me to Olympus once. The journey took two weeks, each way, and I got a look at the creatures that live outside. I wouldn’t last a day. So there is no concern about me escaping. And there is nothing I can do to them here. I’ve decided to learn everything I can, and maybe, someday, my knowledge will serve some good.”

“You could come with us,” I say.

She shakes her head. “I am dreadful in the underground. Claustrophobic it turns out.” She looks around. “These giant halls are fine, but in the tight squeezes you hunters use to move about, I’m cryolophosaurus food.”

This name isn’t familiar. “Cryolophosaurus?”

“The dinosaurs. With the crests on their heads. It’s the technical name for them.”

“Oh,” I say. “I call them cresties. I named one of them Alice. A thirty foot female.”

Aimee cringes. “Sounds dreadful.”

“She’s dead,” I say.

“You?”

I nod. “She was going to eat Kainda.”

Kainda’s name removes every trace of happiness from Aimee’s face. It’s easy to see that not everything here has been pleasant.

“Might have been a good idea to let the dinosaur eat that one.”

“You’re not the first person to tell me that.”

“Making friends, are you?” She looks around me, to Em.

I stand to the side. Aimee looks her up and down and then looks back to me. “You’ve taken a wife?”

Em tries to stifle a laugh, but fails.

“We’re in disguise,” I explain. “Aimee, this is Emilie. Em, this is Aimee.”

Aimee’s eyes widen. “Ahh, Emilie. Daughter of Tobias. Bonded to the Nephilim, Tyr.”

Em shifts uncomfortably in the gaze of Aimee, who knows a surprising amount about her.

Aimee notices our confused looks and says, “I’m sorry. They’ve had me creating a chronological history of the house of Odin. You are to be admired, Em. Few have ever broken the bonds and freed themselves from this place. Even fewer have survived as long. Is Tobias with you?”

“Slain,” Em says. “By Ninnis.”

“Keep away from him,” she says. “The man thinks of nothing but—” Her hand goes to her mouth. “You’re going, aren’t you? The ceremony. I had hoped you didn’t know. That it was a trick of some sort. But it’s real. You’re to be bonded with Nephil?”

“I have no choice,” I say.

“There is always a choice!” She sits down, shaking her head. “Why would you do such a thing? Without you, there’s no—”

I crouch in front of her. “Mrs. Clark,” I say. The use of her last name brings her eyes to mine. “Ninnis has her brother, Luca. He is unspoiled by this place, with hair as white as the snow.”

The news softens her resolve, but she is not yet convinced.

“Tobias took me in, and died as a result. Em is a sister to me now. And Luca, Aimee, he’s…he’s like a brother to me, but…” I can’t think of a way to say this and have it make sense, so I just spill it. “He’s me. A little me. Created from hair stolen from Clark Station One.”

Aimee’s head lowers toward the floor. “I know,” she says.

“You know?”

“One of many awful secrets I have uncovered in this place. I had hoped you would never find out.”

This information stings. That Aimee would keep anything from me feels like a betrayal. I stand and take a step back. “But why?”

“Because of what you are about to do,” she says. “Your bond to family has always been strong. I believed they might influence you.”

“Influence me?”

“Not all of them are unspoiled,” she says, looking me in the eyes. “You would do well to avoid the others.”

“If any part of me resides in them, then there might be a chance—”

“No,” she says. “Don’t even think it.”

I decide to drop the subject. The fate that awaits me at the gates makes it a moot point. Unless… “Do you know their names?”

“I will not tell you,” she says.

“Is one of them Xin?” I ask.

“Xin?” Em says, her voice full of shock and revulsion.

Aimee avoids my eyes.

“Tell me, please!” I knew there was something about Xin worth saving and if it’s true, if I’m right, then there might be a shred of hope for me yet. I take Aimee’s shoulders in my hands. “Xin saved me, Aimee. And he hid me from the other hunters. Without his help, I would be dead or broken again. Please.”

She gives the slightest nod, “He doesn’t know. None of them do.” She begins crying. “Please don’t go. Flee from this place. Go to McMurdo. Go home to your parents. Take Em with you and never think of Antarctica again.”

“You know I can’t,” I say. “My family is growing. There are more allies in the underworld than I ever thought possible. And I will not abandon them here. I will not abandon you.”

She takes my hand in hers, brings it to her face and kisses it. She closes her eyes and I feel her tears drip onto my skin. When she opens her eyes again, I’m holding out the gift I needed to deliver, in case I don’t come back as myself, or if I never come back.

When she sees it, she lets out a sob so sad that even Em cries a little bit. Aimee takes the Polaroid photo of Mira, her daughter, and me, in a shaky hand. After a moment, she clutches the image to her chest. “Where—where did you get this?”

“I’ve always had it with me,” I say. “It gave me strength when I was alone.”

She starts to hand it back, but I push it towards her.

“I’m not alone, anymore,” I say with a look back at Em. “You need it more than me.”

Having done what I came here to do, I step back and pull the skull hood back over my head and wipe away the tears on my cheeks. “We need to go.”

“So soon?” Aimee asks.

“We have four days to reach the gates of Tartarus,” I say. “If we’re not there in time, Ninnis will kill Luca.”

She stands and hugs me. “You have given me a gift more bright than the sun itself. You are still a precious boy.”

The familiar words, spoken to me by Aimee at my birth and when I was freed from the personality of Ull, bring peace to my heart. Aimee frees me from her grasp and to my surprise, and Em’s, wraps her arms around Em and says, “You are a precious girl.”

I see Em’s face quivering. While Tobias loved her as a daughter, he was never affectionate with her. This is the first physical expression of love, beyond our occasional hand clutch, that Em has ever received, and coming from a motherly person like Aimee, it’s almost more than she can bear. I smile when I see the muscles in Em’s arms flex as she returns the embrace.

After renewing my promise to one day free Aimee, we leave the library feeling renewed and emboldened, with a higher sense of purpose beyond simply freeing Luca.

We are the light at war with darkness.

We represent love in a land of hate.

And if we die in its defense, the Nephilim will have lost, and there will be hope for humanity.

30

Our hope disappears when the stench hits. Half a day’s journey from the gates of Tartarus, the odor of countless Nephilim and hunters fills the tunnels like an invisible fog. There is no escaping it. The scent of smoke and roasting flesh is mixed with the rancid tang of body odor and refuse. Every step takes us deeper into the stink, and it’s not long before I can taste it in my mouth. I’m not sure what’s worse anymore, breathing through my nose or through my mouth.

I choose to breathe through my nose because even though the smell is stronger than the taste, the flavor of Nephilim in my mouth repels me. I’ve tasted it before, when I consumed the flesh of Nephil.

Em stops, resting against the wall of the small tunnel we’ve been following. We haven’t come across another living thing on our journey thus far, nor have we detected anyone following us, but we’re sticking to the road less traveled just to be careful. I know Ninnis wants me to arrive as Ull, and show everyone that I’m willingly giving myself to Nephil, but that doesn’t mean he won’t have an ambush ready for me. I doubt it, but better safe than sorry.

“You okay?” I ask her. I know she’s not tired. We could both continue on at this pace for days.

“I’m just—are you sure about this?” She avoids my eyes. “You launched right into this plan, which might leave you dead or under the control of Nephil, without much thought. I mean, I want to save Luca, too. But I’m starting to wonder if the cost of getting Luca back is too high.”

“He’s your brother,” I say. “He’s my brother. He’s more than my brother.”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“You know…what he is?”

She nods. “Tobias told you?”

“Tobias didn’t know everything.”

Em steps away from the wall, confusion stitching across her forehead. “Which means I didn’t know everything.”

“We’re connected,” I say. “Since I arrived on Antarctica… Luca sees—he can see what I see. Not all the time, but big events. Big emotions. They’re like dreams for him, and they don’t affect him the way they do me. But he knows. I have no doubt he knows we’re coming for him.”

Em looks worried. “Do you think he heard? What I said?”

She’s afraid to say it again; that maybe rescuing Luca is a bad idea. I don’t know how the connection really works, but since I’m not feeling any kind of strong emotion, other than revolt over the smell, I doubt it. “I don’t think so,” I say, and hope it’s true.

Em doesn’t say anything, but I know the matter is settled. What kind of people would we be if we didn’t risk everything to save our six year old brother? He’d be tortured and killed, or worse, broken and trained to hunt and kill us.

I think leaving a child to that kind of fate would turn my blond hair red again and leave a tarnish on my soul that would remain for the rest of my life.

“Aren’t you afraid?” Em asks.

I hold out my hand in response, letting her see it shake. Every step we take closer to the source of the rancid odor, makes it worse. Without the smell, my fear might be manageable. I might be able to put my fate out of my mind for a moment. But the stink is a constant reminder that I’m about to face an army.

On my own.

While Em attempts to rescue Luca.

She takes my hand in hers and squeezes. The shaking abates some and I find my voice. “I’m terrified. I have hidden from this confrontation for a long time and I’m now headed straight toward it. I lost myself once before, and I’m afraid that’s going to happen again. Death would be preferable.”

Her face becomes that of a hunter’s. “If it comes to that…”

She’d kill me. She’d prevent me from becoming Nephil. I have no doubt she would do it, and it gives me comfort. “Thanks.”

“Let’s go,” she says, stepping away.

“If it happens,” I say. “If Nephil takes me, fully takes me, don’t wait. If you do, he’ll be impossible to stop.”

She looks over her shoulder, staring into my eyes. We have an understanding. She won’t wait.

We walk in silence for thirty minutes before coming to the end of our side tunnel. It exits into a larger tunnel where a river flows down, all the way to the massive chamber Behemoth calls home, where the gates of Tartarus await.

As Em starts for the tunnel, I’m suddenly glad I decided to breathe through my nose. A new odor has entered the mix, and it’s hard to separate from the others at first, but once I do, I lunge for Em and snatch her arm, stopping her just a few feet from the small tunnel’s exit. When she looks back at me, I put my index finger to my lip and shush her.

She mouths, “What is it?”

I put my hand atop my head, bending in a way that is instantly recognizable to any hunter as a cresty. Her eyes go wide. She closes her mouth and takes a few quick sniffs through her nose. She winces at the smell, but fights through it until she detects them too.

Somehow knowing it’s been detected, a large cresty lowers its head into the tunnel. It was waiting just outside, ready to snatch up whoever walked out of the tunnel next!

Or was it?

This cresty is acting strangely, just staring at us. The scent of a hunter is enough to trigger a strong fight or flight response in cresties. They either turn tail and run, or hiss and prepare for a fight. This one does neither. It simply looks at us.

Not us, I realize. At me.

I take a step forward.

It takes a step back.

I repeat the action, and the cresty does as well.

It’s giving me a wide berth.

Does it recognize me? Is it— “Grumpy?”

I walk toward the creature, reaching out an open palm. The cresty lowers its head.

“Solomon!” Emilie hisses. “Get back here!”

I ignore her and continue out into the large tunnel, entering the river until I’m knee deep and my hand is just a foot from the dinosaur’s snout. “It is you,” I say, “isn’t it?”

The twenty foot cresty male takes a single step forward, placing its forehead gently under my hand. Emilie’s telltale gasp issues from the tunnel behind me and Grumpy lifts his head and looks at Em.

I turn my back to Grumpy, which once again makes Em gasp, but I trust this creature. I don’t know if it’s because the cresties are so old, predating the Nephilim occupation of Antarctica, that I am in some ways bonded to them as I am to the land, or if it’s merely the fact that I killed Alice and the intelligent dinosaurs feel some kind of obligation, but the connection is real.

Em holds two knives at the ready. They seem like tiny weapons to use against a large carnivore, but she’d have no trouble blinding the creature and then moving in closer for the kill, which is something I really don’t want her to do.

“Em, put the knives away,” I say.

She hesitates.

“Em, he’s a friend.”

She looks at me, then to Grumpy, then back to me. Finally, she sheaths the knives.

“Come here,” I say.

Her hands stay near the knives, but she comes forward slowly. “He’s not alone,” she whispers, watching the tunnel around us.

“I know,” I reply. “There are eleven others.”

“You can smell each one?”

“No,” I say with a grin. “We’re old friends.”

She stops a few feet away.

I stand aside. “Em this is Grumpy. Grumpy, Em.”

The two size each other up. When Grumpy takes a step forward, Em flinches and reaches for a knife. I stop her with a stern, “Em.”

She holds her ground, but can’t erase the fear from her face. If Grumpy sneezes she’s liable to slit his throat.

“Hold out your hand,” I say.

She does, and Grumpy sniffs her hand. When her hand comes in contact with the cresty’s snout, Em smiles. “I’ve never touched a live one before.” Grumpy slides his head beneath her hand and she rubs him. The big dinosaur lets out a deep rumble, like a giant cat purring. “How is this possible?” Em asks.

“I set them free,” I say. “When I saved Kainda from Alice. She dominated the pack at the time.” I rub Grumpy’s neck. “How did you get free? Was there an exit I didn’t find?” I ask, but the dinosaur can’t speak. “And why are you here?”

When Grumpy turns toward me, I get a sense of why he’s here. To repay the favor. To help me fight. To be my army. How that’s possible, I have no idea. But I think that’s what’s going on.

“Do you have anything of Luca’s?” I ask Em.

She nods and digs into one of her pouches. She takes out a crayon and small wad of folded pages. “I thought they would help him feel safe.”

I take the crayon and paper and hold them out to Grumpy’s nose. He smells them. “Leave him unharmed,” I say, and then hand the drawing supplies back to Em. “He knows our scents now. Hopefully he understands.”

“Hopefully?”

“I think he does.”

Grumpy lifts his head and lets out a high pitched bark. Eleven more cresties, ranging in size from ten to eighteen feet, step out from the shadows. The whole deadly gang is here. Grumpy turns to face me again. I give his nose a pat. And then the lot of them is off and running, disappearing into the darkness. I wish there were a way to communicate with the beasts, to forge some kind of official plan, but I get the sense that Grumpy understands their role in the events to come.

At least, I think he does.

31

As we approach the end of our journey, we stop to share a last meal. We sit by the river, lit by a large number of glowing crystals embedded in the wall, and eat the fruits of our recent hunt. The centipede is hardly appetizing, but its cheesy flesh is high in protein and will help combat fatigue from our journey. I’m going to need all the strength I can muster soon enough. We scoop the uncooked flesh out with our hands and scrape it onto our lower teeth before swallowing. I notice Emilie having a hard time swallowing.

She sees me watching and says, “It’s been a long time since I ate centipede.”

I take a big bite and force myself to casually swallow without showing the disgust I feel. “It’s an acquired taste.”

We both laugh through mouthfuls of centipaste.

“What’s it like?” Em asks me. “The outside world? Do things taste better there?”

My mind flashes through a thousand different flavors. Chocolate ice cream. Maria’s Pizza. Roast beef. Devil Dogs. Corn on the cob. Despite the disgusting flavor in my mouth, and worse smell in the air, my mouth starts to water. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Do you think…”

“I don’t know,” I say, anticipating her question. I want to tell her she can trust me to succeed. That I can face the devil, return and take her to the outside world, live with my parents and eat candy until we puke. But I’m not even sure I believe that’s possible.

“What about everything else? Is it…safe?”

“Most of the time,” I say, but then remember scores of news reports about wars and famines. “Where I’m from. But not everywhere. Some places aren’t much different than here. And there have been wars—” I shake my head. The images of war retained in my head aren’t doing my nerves any good.

She nods like she knows what I’m talking about. “It’s what they’ve been working toward. People killing people. Only things haven’t worked out the way they want. Which is why they need you. To speed things up. Set mankind against each other.”

At first I have no idea what she’s talking about, but then I slowly put the pieces together. There are Nephilim in the world. I don’t know where or how, or what they look like, but they’re out there. And if what she’s saying is true, then they’ve been influencing the outside world for a long time. Causing wars. Building tension. Hoping humans will pull the trigger on themselves. And while wars have raged and millions died, humanity is still here and more populous and powerful than ever.

But how can I change that? Even instilled with the spirit of Nephil, I’m still just one person. I might be able to control the earth, air and water here on Antarctica, but that won’t help with the rest of the world, and those powers might fade when I leave. Could Nephil be that strong of a leader that the giant Nephilim are afraid to proceed without him? Perhaps his presence will erase tension between the different classes and unite them against the surface world? All of this is possible, but none of it feels right. There’s something else at work. Unfortunately, the only way to figure out what that is, is to take on the mantel of Ull and offer myself—willingly—to Nephil. And by then, it might be too late to change anything.

I’ve lost my appetite and fling a fist full of centipaste on the cave floor. “We should go,” I say. “Before I change my mind.”

Em swallows her last bite with an, “Ugh,” and begins to pack up.

I squat by the river, washing my hands. I see my face, lit by the glow of the crystals, reflected in the smoothly flowing water. I inspect my hair. It’s still red with Em’s blood. But then I see my face, and for the first time I notice how different I look. My jaw is square and when I bite down the sides of my face bulge with muscle. But even stranger than that is my skin. It looks fuzzy. I put my hand to my face and rub. I’m covered in coarse red fuzz. I realize what it is at the same time Emilie speaks about it.

“Leave your beard alone,” she says, and then notices my stunned face. She draws two knives. “What is it?”

“I have a beard?”

She puts the knives away and squats next to me. “You’re of age.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Why would I? You’ve always had it.”

That I’ve now had a beard for months, maybe longer, without realizing it stuns me. “Why didn’t Aimee say anything about it?”

She shrugs. “She had other things to say.” She spins a knife between two fingers. “Do you want me to cut it off?”

I look at myself again. The hair makes me look older. Stronger. Like a man. “No,” I say. “Leave it. Ull would like it.”

I stand and take the cresty hood and cloak out of a large satchel. I shake out the cloak and wrap it around my shoulders.

“What would Grumpy think of that?” Em asks.

“Depends,” I say.

“On what?”

“If they were friends.”

Em gets out a final laugh. And then we’re down to business. We pack out what’s left of our gear, I position the skull hood atop my head and we set out for the great cavern.

We reach our destination quickly and stop where the river divides and criss-crosses into the distance. Maybe a half mile to our right is a line of fire rising ten feet tall. Through its flickering flames I see hunters and smaller Nephilim. Standing high above the flames are Nephilim warriors facing our direction. They’re not looking at us, though, they’re looking beyond us. I follow their gaze and find the subject of their attention.

Behemoth.

The giant is squatting, but still looks like a living skyscraper. Its body heaves with each breath and I realize that the wind in this cavern might be partly generated by the thing’s breathing. Tendrils of its rope-like hair twitch like the tails of angry cats. Behemoth is ready to pounce, but maintains his distance.

Em sees the confusion on my face and says, “The flames keep him at bay. Not because of the heat, but the light.”

“Ahh,” I say. Behemoth lives in total and perpetual darkness. There are no crystals here. No natural sources of light. This doesn’t stop the giant from seeing—it’s adjusted to pitch black just like the rest of us—but it does make the creature sensitive to light. The thing is probably tortured by the bright glow of the flames even at this distance. The question is, can it be agitated enough that it will ignore the flames? After all, Ull should make a grand entrance.

I turn to Emilie. “So, this is it.”

Sadness creeps into her face. “Will I see you again?”

When I don’t reply, she adds, “You can lie to me.”

I grin. “Then yes. But don’t focus on me. Look for Doug first. See if he recovered Luca. If he did, take him and don’t look back. If he failed and they still have him, wait for a distraction, and then strike.”

“What distraction?”

“I’ll think of something,” I say. “But when the time comes. Don’t hesitate. Strike. Luca won’t be a priority once I’m there, so you shouldn’t have to deal with Ninnis or Kainda.”

Her eyes darken at the mention of Ninnis.

“We’re not here for vengeance,” I say. “Just Luca.”

“And if we recover him and escape,” she asks. “What then?”

It blows my mind that we haven’t talked about this before. We’ve been so focused on getting Luca back that we never came up with what to do after we had him. “We’ll get you both to McMurdo. You can take Luca and live on the outside, eat delicious food, and maybe find your family.”

“How?” She asks. “Will you be coming?”

I shake my head, no, but I suspect she knew that. “I need to stay here. When they find you, tell them you belong to Merrill Clark in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, United States of America. When they bring you to him, tell him the truth. Tell him about me. He will help you.”

Loud chanting from Behemoth’s cavern snaps our heads toward the wall of fire. Time is short. “It’s time,” I say.

Em lunges forward and wraps her arms around me. Her embrace is crushing, but fuels my resolve and reminds me of why I’m facing my fears today instead of running away. Without another word, we part and walk in opposite directions, Em disappearing into the dark tunnel and me walking into the brightly lit cavern in full view of the Nephilim—and Behemoth.

32

My heart beats in time with my footsteps, each booming with the intensity of thunder. At least, that’s how it feels to me. Because the moment I’m out in the open, two things happen. First, the Nephilim chanting stops as though someone has taken the needle off a record. I feel thousands of eyes upon me, though I cannot see them. The Nephilim and hunters are concealed behind a wall of flame and radiating heat that I cannot feel, but can see shimmering up toward the ceiling hundreds of feet above.

Second, Behemoth holds its breath. I don’t see it happen, but the breeze has died down and the pressure of the place has changed. It’s amazing that a single creature could have that much influence on its environment. It’s also terrifying.

Everything about this is terrifying. I’m no longer Ull. I’m not facing my enemies with the confidence of a warrior who would fight to the death. I’m the nerdy bookworm and despite having gained some skills, abilities, and admittedly, some toughening up, my idea of a good fight is still a rousing game of Risk or Electronic Battleship.

But I’m pretending to be Ull, so I keep my chin up, my eyes set forward and my stride confident. I hide my fear and press onward, for Luca.

When I reach the center of the chamber, still a few hundred feet from the fire, the ground shakes. My presence on this side of the flame has spurred Behemoth into action, as I feared, and hoped, it would.

I don’t look back.

I don’t quicken my pace.

For those looking at my face, it will appear as though I am as unconcerned by Behemoth’s approach as I would be by an ant’s.

A second quake rattles the cavern, this one more intense, but still not on top of me. My body flickers from the orange flames. If I could feel heat, I suspect I would be quite warm now.

Boom.

Behemoth takes another giant step. It’s right behind me now. Close enough.

Without moving my hands or changing my facial expression, I focus on the air at the top of the cavern. I turn my focus smaller and smaller, separating one gas from another until I’ve found what I’m looking for: oxygen.

I can hear Behemoth’s hairy tendrils snaking toward me. It won’t be long before they strike out, lash around me and drag me back to the giant jaws sporting teeth the size of sailboat sails. If that were to happen, I’m not sure I could set myself free, even with all of my abilities.

When I’m sure my fear is about to reveal itself on my face, I bring the cloud of oxygen down to the fire. The reaction is instantaneous. The flames burst white hot, filling the cavern with a sudden burst of light akin to a giant sized camera flash bulb. I close my eyes at the same moment, sparing myself from the majority of the light’s power.

Behemoth roars behind me. The sound is so loud that it takes all my strength to not put my hands to my ears.

As the flames shrink back to normal size, I realize that I could do the chicken dance all the way up to the flame wall and no one would notice. The bright light and intense sound have had an effect on the Nephilim too. Several rub their eyes. Some rub their ears. But not one of them is watching me now.

I don’t waver. Just because everyone I can see isn’t paying attention, doesn’t mean others aren’t still watching. I continue toward the fire, my pace as even as it was when I first entered the chamber.

The first hunters and Nephilim to regain their sight see me as I approach the flames. A murmur rises up. They no doubt expected me to arrive on their side of the fire wall and avoid Behemoth altogether. I can’t hear what’s being said, but they’re probably wondering if I’ve gone mad.

So I prepare to continue the show. But before I use my ability to split the wall of fire in two and walk through, I have a revelation. Not only can I not feel cold, but it has no effect on my body. I don’t get frostbite or hypothermia. No matter how cold things get, or how strong the wind blows, I am immune to the cold. And I think the same holds true for heat. So instead of parting the fire before me, I step right in.

A grin spreads onto my face as the orange flames lick painlessly around me. But I notice my clothing and belongings catch fire and I quickly create a protective vortex of wind around my body. Ull might not mind stepping out of the fire buck naked, but I don’t think I could hide my embarrassment.

Once free of the flames, I realize I’m still grinning. But Ull would do the same, so I keep the smile and meet the eyes of every hunter and Nephilim waiting for me. I see many I recognize from experience and by their garb and headdresses. Thor, son of Odin, Norse god of thunder and Kainda’s master, wielding his hammer and wearing a great horned helmet. The Egyptian Horus, god of vengeance, wearing a helmet shaped like a falcon and carrying a two pronged spear. Next comes Hades, brother of Zeus, whom I identify by the pet he holds by a chain: Cerberus, a three headed creature with the body of a giant red-furred wolf, its three heads resembling feeders—black orb eyes and triangle teeth. It’s a horrid thing and I fight not to show my revulsion.

When the first Nephilim drops to one knee and bows, this becomes easier, in part because they can’t see me, but also because my show has worked and it’s quite possible that they fear me. They weren’t entirely sure what would happen when I bonded with the body of Nephil, and they most likely assume I’ve taken on some supernatural abilities.

The sea of Nephilim and hunters separates, offering me a path that stretches like a freeway through their ranks for four hundred feet. I see more familiar Nephilim including the obese Gaia, whose beaked face and rolls of feather covered fat make my stomach twist with disgust, not only from her grotesque appearance, but also at the knowledge that the feeders I ate in the pit emerged from her girth. As did the duplicate of my mother.

It occurs to me that Gaia knows the truth about me. That I needed to be broken once again. How many others know? Kainda for sure. Ninnis trusted her with the knowledge, which means there is a bond of father and daughter between them that neither would ever admit. I look at Gaia and see a glimmer of fear in her eyes. But she’s not afraid of Ull, I realize. She’s afraid of the truth being revealed. Of me not pulling off this monumental bluff. If I’m not Ull, it means not only Ninnis failed, but so did Gaia, as the breeder overseeing my rebreaking. The punishment for failure would no doubt be severe. The punishment for this deception? Well, that might very well mean a trip through the giant gates I now see before me.

The gates stand fifty feet tall and half as wide. They’re black, and metal, I think. I expected ornate decorations, perhaps an inscription or some kind of gilding, but the two doors are simply as black as night. In fact, the bright firelight doesn’t show on the doors. It’s like they’re actually absorbing the light.

But the strange doors don’t hold my attention for long. Enki stands before me, dressed in his black leathers. And Ninnis stands by his side, though his near six foot height takes him only up to a level slightly below the giant’s knee. He stares at me with an intensity that matches the wall of fire, probably wondering if I will play his game.

When I see Luca off to the side, and Kainda next to him, there is no doubt that I will play my part to the very end. Behind them stands a pair of young hunters, one male, one female, who I assume are Preeg and Pyke. I glance around them, finding no sign of Doug.

As I approach, Enki drops to one knee and bows. Ninnis, Kainda and the others follow suit. When their eyes are downcast, I turn my eyes to Luca. He looks frightened, but manages to show a slight grin when I wink at him. The wink tells him that not only am I here, but I’m also me. Not Ull. But if he’s seen any of my recent experiences, he might already know that.

The sound of standing bodies brings my eyes forward again, and then up. Enki looks down at me with a toothy grin that looks more savage than happy.

“I was not sure you would come after so long,” the giant says, his voice like the roar of an eighteen wheeler.

“The effect of bonding with the body of Nephil was…profound,” I say, fighting the quiver in my voice. “It took some time to adjust.”

“I should say so,” Enki says. “But your return has fortuitous timing. Human technology is progressing faster than ever and the time to strike, and undo their advantage, is upon us.”

Something about the things he is saying confuses me, so I offer a cocky laugh and ask, “How far could they have advanced in two years that we would have anything to fear from them?”

Enki’s grin spreads as he lets out a deep chuckle. Even Ninnis is smiling. My anger rises. I hate being out of the loop, especially when people—even Nephilim—laugh at me.

“How long has it been?” I ask.

The laughing continues and starts to spread beyond our small group. I put my hand on Whipsnap, add a snarl to my voice and ask again. “How. Long.”

Laughter fades. Smiles falter. Ull is angry.

“In surface years?” Enki asks.

“Yes,” I say.

“Twenty years.”

33

I nearly throw up on Enki’s oversized feet. The news hits me hard and deep. I feel like I’m facing the feeder duplicate of my mother all over again—a perversion of reality. How could twenty surface years have passed? It’s just not possible. Sure, I’ve got some facial hair growing, but I have a hairy father and a fifteen year old needing to shave is actually quite common. But what felt like two years to me was actually twenty?

The ramifications of this news slam into my thoughts like tidal waves.

My parents are in their sixties. Maybe dead. They’ve long since given up any hope of finding me alive and might have other kids. They’ve moved on. Forgotten me.

Justin isn’t a kid any more. He might be married. He might have kids of his own. A family.

Dr. Clark will have given up on me as well. He’s an old man by now. In his sixties if he’s still alive. Maybe remarried. Twenty years without a wife is a long time.

My heart aches when I think of Mira. The girl that I held so close to my heart for so long is no longer a girl. She’s a woman. And like Justin, she might have a family. A husband. The thought fills me with jealousy and anger.

“You seem surprised,” Ninnis says, returning my thoughts to the awful here and now.

“I’m thirty-three years old?” I say.

“According to the outside world, yes. Give or take a few years,” Ninnis says. “It’s not an exact science.” He looks me over. “You must have been deep. Time slows the deeper you go. You don’t look much older than you did when we last saw you.”

I feel my legs growing weak. My head spins. Everything has changed. Everything I hoped to get back has been taken from me. While I didn’t have my family, friends or life before, the knowledge that geography was the only thing that separated us comforted me. Crossing the ocean, or catching a plane flight from McMurdo, wasn’t an impossibility. But the distance between me and everything I knew before is now separated by an insurmountable divide—time.

I glance at Luca and see concern in his eyes. My resolve is wavering and it shows on my face. Looking into his eyes reminds me that I’m not here for me. I’m here for him. I erase the surprise from my face and straighten my back. “Well then, we shouldn’t waste any more time.”

Ninnis squints at me, never taking his eyes away from mine. “Agreed.”

Enki steps to the side, revealing a thirty foot circle carved into the stone floor in front of the giant gates. Within the circle are an array of symbols, some of them familiar, some of them new, but all fill me with a sense of dread. I’m facing an ancient evil. Something still so far beyond my understanding. But I sense these symbols hold power, and when I see the smaller circle dead center in the middle of the larger, I know that is where I am meant to stand.

“The ceremony requires a sacrifice of human blood,” Ninnis says.

I worry that he will choose to use Luca, but his next words erase that fear.

“To expedite things, we took care of that before you arrived.” Ninnis reaches behind his back, pulls something from a satchel and tosses it towards me.

As the object spins through the air, I catch glimpses of red hair and a face. It’s a head. He’s just thrown a human head at me. As the head lands and rolls to a stop at my feet, I think, don’t react, don’t react, don’t react! And that proves incredibly hard to do when I see the blank eyes of Doug staring up at me from my feet. I swallow hard and ask, “He was a hunter?”

“A volunteer,” Ninnis says.

When I look up at him, I see anger in his eyes. Ninnis knew I sent Doug to take Luca. And Doug clearly failed in the attempt.

“He willingly died for you,” Ninnis adds, turning the knife.

“As you all would,” I say to Ninnis.

I’m as surprised by the statement as Ninnis is, but he has no choice but to nod and agree.

“Little Ull,” Enki says with a chuckle. “You have not changed.”

I look up at the giant, at the gold band around his forehead that hides the Nephilim’s weak spot. I could knock the crown from his head and impale him with Whipsnap before he even knew what was happening. I blink the thought from my mind. Either my proximity to the gates, or maybe all these Nephilim, are triggering my dark imagination, a problem that has not plagued me since the personalities of Ull and Nephil were locked away inside my mind. “I am stronger,” I say.

“Of that, I have no doubt,” Enki said. “There is a resolve in your eyes that was not there before.”

I nod. “I am ready.”

Enki sweeps his huge hand out toward the circle. “Take your place at the center. The ceremony will be a rebirth for you, violent and painful. But it will also be brief.”

I head into the circle, feeling sick to my stomach as I step past the outer ring of symbols. I stop in the center and turn around.

“When we next speak, you will be Nephil, Lord of the Nephilim and commander of all that you see!” Enki opens his arms out to either side. I think that if I curled up in a ball my whole body could fit inside his bicep. “The army of Nephil will rise again.”

I scan the thousands of hunters and Nephilim standing around me. The heroes of old. The men of renown. I can’t imagine a modern army that could stand against such a force. How the ancient humans forced the Nephilim underground, I have no idea. But there is no time for such pondering. I search the sea of hunters to my right, looking for a familiar face. Finding none, I turn to the left, putting on a phony smile as I do. I see Luca there. Kainda is by his side. Preeg and Pyke maintain their vigil behind them. But I don’t see what I’m—

There! In the shadows of the far wall behind Preeg and Pyke. A subtle shift in the darkness. Emilie is there. Waiting to strike. One girl against an army.

But there is another I’m searching for. My only real hope of escaping this situation with my life and my soul intact. I don’t see him with my eyes so I reach out to him with my mind.

Xin, I think. Can you hear me?

Are you near, brother?

I need you, Xin.

Xin!

My silence has stretched on too long. It has become awkward. They are waiting for a response from me.

So I give them one.

I turn my head to the ceiling and let out a howl. It’s only a moment before the others join in. Thousands of human and Nephilim heads turn toward the ceiling and roar. The ground shakes beneath my feet. When Behemoth—who is also a Nephilim—joins in, bits and pieces of the ceiling shake loose and fall.

When the mass howl completes, I feel more afraid than ever. When Ull was a part of me, the howl filled me with energy and confidence. Now, I feel drained by it. But I stand my ground in the circle, and wait for what comes next.

Six Nephilim step forward. I recognize each one of them from history books and carvings all around the underworld. Enki. His brother, Enlil. The sons of Nephil. Odin. Osiris. Zeus. The last is a new face to me, but I think he’s Marduk, king of the early Mesopotamian gods. These are the ancient kings of this world, who once ruled over humanity. They radiate power and sinister intentions. They stand around the circle, chanting in Sumerian.

Enki stretches out his arms. The others follow suit. Their finger tips touch, forming a circle of Nephilim flesh around me. He speaks in Sumerian and Thor steps out of the crowd wielding his hammer and carrying a large satchel. He stops behind Enki and removes a nail so large that it looks more like a thick sword. He places the nail against the back of Enki’s six fingered hand. And with a single solid whack from Mjöllnir, sends the nail through.

Enki twitches from the impact, but shows no pain. Instead, his face reflects delight. His smile grows wider still when Thor puts a giant nail through his other hand and then moves on to Enlil. One by one, Thor slams the nails through the hands of the ancient kings. With the nails still in their flesh, the wounds cannot heal and their dark purple blood drains onto the floor. The carved out ring fills with the blood of the six warriors. It rolls from the outer circle and into the array of symbols.

My eyes widen as I see the rivers of blood snake across the floor. I follow the path forward and realize that it will soon fill the circle around me and drain into the slightly depressed area in which I stand. I will soon be standing in a pool of their blood, which when diluted can heal a human, but at full strength can kill. I’m either meant to die in their blood and be reborn with the spirit of Nephil, or it’s meant to heal me from the severe injury caused by the bonding. Neither option is appealing.

As I watch the blood slither toward me, I nearly miss the whisper in my ear.

Solomon.

Not in my ear. In my head.

Solomon.

Xin?

Yes.

Can you help me?

You reached out to me, he says. How?

I don’t know.

Then answer this, why did you call me ‘brother’?

34

Do you know about the experiments?
I think to Xin. The duplicates of me?

Abominations, he replies. Destroyed as they should have been.

Not all of them.

How do you know? Xin asks.

A teacher, I think, but I keep Aimee’s identity hidden. She told me some were left alive. Six of them.

The blood of six Nephilim races around the carved out tracks that end in six straight lines. The lines lead to the circle surrounding me. It won’t be long.

Impossible, Xin says.

I’m not sure where Xin is. It’s possible he’s not even in the chamber, but I ask, Can you see the boy with Kainda?

I can.

Search his face. His eyes. They are mine.

Xin says nothing for a moment.

During his silence, the six trails of blood reach the inner circle simultaneously and begin to surround me.

Search his mind if you have to!

More silence. The blood is close to spilling over into the shallow bowl in which I stand.

It’s true, Xin says. He is you.

Not me, I think. My brother.

Xin is intelligent. Like me. So I know he’s understood what I’m telling him. But I say it clearly for him so there is no chance of a misunderstanding. You are my brother, Xin. As is Luca, the boy. You were both created…from me. We are family. We are brothers.

Xin doesn’t reply and I fear the silence will be permanent this time. Xin, in many ways, is a monster. He is half Nephilim, after all, born from a breeder, unlike Luca, whose mother was human. But Xin is also good. He showed that to me when he saved my life. I believe he sensed the bond between us even then. But I fear the revelation of his true origin might be more than he can process.

I reach out to him one more time, Xin!
Speak to me! But he does not return and even if he did, I would not hear him. The blood circle overflows. Trickling paths of blood slip over the side and roll toward my feet. As it does, Enki shouts a command.

Chains snap taut and fifty Nephilim giants grunt as they put all their strength into pulling open the gates of Tartarus. Enki turns his face toward me. “Ull, chosen of the Nephilim, do you willingly give yourself to the spirit of Nephil?”

My breath quickens as my heart pumps adrenaline through my veins. I glance to Luca. He looks as terrified as me. My eyes shift to Kainda. She’s watching me with an expression that catches me off guard.

There is pity in her eyes.

She knows I am not Ull. She knows what I am sacrificing for the boy.

Her eyes glisten and a single tear falls.

I look back up at Enki. “I do.”

The blood reaches my feet.

A searing heat reaches up through my body, burning like the sun. I scream, but remain rooted in place. My body convulses. I feel my mind and thoughts fading, but I fight for lucidity.

There is chanting all around me now, loud and insistent.

A strong wind billows past me, but it has nothing to do with my abilities. Until Luca is safe, I cannot reveal myself. A loud groan like a fog horn rolls out of the opening doors. Through blurry vision, I see only blackness beyond the doors. But somewhere in the dark, something moves.

I hear the name of Nephil repeated again and again as the chanting grows more fervent. And then I see it. A black shape, like a cloud, reaching out for me, stretching its limbs out like a striking squid.

The black tendrils reach me and stab into my chest, clutching my chest in a frigid grip. I feel my heart stop, but the heat burning up from my feet restarts it. I die again and again, but am quickly brought back each time.

Pain explodes in my stomach and then surges through my body as though it’s flowing through my veins. I’m not sure if I’ve stopped screaming yet, but I’m suddenly aware of my shrieking voice again. The pain moves up through my chest. My jugular feels like it will burst as the pain moves higher. And then it’s in my head. There is a flash of white hot pain and then the world ceases to exist.

The circle of blood is gone.

The army of Nephilim is no more.

The cavern. Behemoth. Luca. Kainda. All gone.

I am alone in a world of painless white.

A voice booms around me. “Who are you?”

“Solomon Ull Vincent,” I say.

“The chosen?”

“I am,” I say.

“Why have you locked me away?”

This is Nephil, I realize. And he knows I’ve locked away the small bit of his personality that was transferred to me when I consumed his flesh.

“Because,” I say, flexing my hands and gritting my teeth. “This is my body. My mind. And it will never belong to you!”

“You think you can resist me?” The voice shouts and suddenly I’m standing in front of the mental vault door Xin helped put in place. The black form is there too, flowing with black tendrils. It reaches for the door, snakes its way into the cracks and pulls.

The door shatters into pieces.

In that instant I lose myself. Nephil is supercharged as the darkness within the vault merges with his spirit. I feel myself reaching out, beyond my physical body, out into the continent. Antarctica becomes an extension of me like never before. I can feel its mass as though it were my own body. Its rivers are my blood. The snow, my skin.

But my reach doesn’t end there.

I feel the ocean beyond.

And more land. South America first. Australia. North America. Europe. Asia. I feel the tectonic plates, shifting and grinding above the molten layer beneath. For one explosive moment I feel bound to the entire planet. But I’m out of control, or rather, under control. I grip the entire planet, holding it, holding myself…and spin. I feel my skin come loose and wrap around my body, tearing and grinding, exploding and burning.

I scream, falling to my knees and clutching my head. The connection is broken. The darkness swirls before me. Nephil is reborn and whole again, inside my body. Inside my mind. And I stand against him, alone.

“Not alone, Solomon” a voice replies to my thoughts. It’s my voice, but deeper and more confident. Ull emerges from the broken vault.

“You’re stronger than the last time we met,” he says.

“And you’re not trying to kill me. Don’t you want to be bonded with Nephil?” I ask.

“I spent enough time with the beast to know he has no intention of sharing our body with me. He seeks to destroy us. To make our body his own. This cannot happen.” He suddenly has Whipsnap in his hand. “We must fight him together. As one.”

Laughter shakes the world apart. We are surrounded by the dark, standing in a pillar of light. I find a duplicate of Whipsnap in my hands and I stand back to back with Ull.

The darkness sweeps around us. I see eyes. Yellow eyes. And claws. Razor sharp. We stand in the eye of an evil hurricane, but the wind is laughter—mocking, hateful laughter.

“Stand your ground, Solomon,” Ull says. “This is our mind. You bound him once, you can do it again.”

The laughter reaches a high pitch as a streak of black separates and swoops toward me. Blazing yellow eyes burn at me. Claws reach out. I swing Whipsnap down, bringing the blade into and through the thing’s torso. I strike nothing. The blade has passed through the body as though it is immaterial. The thing’s claws, however, are solid.

Four red streaks appear on my side. A blazing pain follows. I smell my blood and feel its warmth on my side. I look down. The gash is deep. Fearing my organs will slip out, I drop Whipsnap and press my hands against the wound.

Ull shouts a battle cry and swings. He screams in pain, but swings again, and again.

We fall to our knees together. Defeated.

As the dark swirling hatred moves in to consume us, I say, “I forgive you, Ull.”

He looks over his shoulder and meets my eyes. His face is covered in blood. “Too late.”

I nod. My separate sides, unable to reconcile, are weaker on their own. I cannot stand up to the monster. I don’t even stand a chance. I lower my head in defeat.

“Get up,” a raspy voice says.

“You aren’t alone,” says a second, younger voice.

I look up to find Xin and Luca standing above Ull and me.

Xin reaches his hand down to me. “It’s time to fight, brother.”

35

Xin pulls me up and I see little Luca yank Ull to his feet. The boy is stronger than anyone would believe.

Xin’s yellow eyes are just inches from mine. “Remember,” he says. “This is your mind. Your rules. To win, you will need to believe that. We can support you, but the fight is yours.”

I look at Ull. “What about him?”

“Ull is your heart,” Xin says. He gives you strength, but this fight is taking place in your mind. And that is your domain.”

I’m not sure what surprises me more, that Xin is here with Luca or that Ull has been identified as my heart. But I suppose it makes sense. He is all passion and fire, while I am logical and thoughtful. It doesn’t mean I’m without heart. It just means that Ull is the part of me that feels the deepest, and since the breaking, that part of me has been angry. Full of rage. Destructive.

The blackness known as Nephil has shifted away from the four of us, perhaps contemplating this new development.

“Heal your wounds,” Xin says.

I look down and tell myself that this isn’t real. That it’s all in my mind. And that my wounds are imaginary. The gashes seal and the blood flow stops. The pain, however, doesn’t fade.

Ull seems to fare better. Not only are his wounds gone, but he looks like he could take on a polar bear in a wrestling match and come out unscathed. I suppose it’s easy to let go of reality when you’re all heart. My mind has a hard time accepting that this reality, isn’t real. But I do my best, because I suspect all the physical strength in the world will matter little in this place.

The darkness howls and spins closer. The four of us form a circle. Ull is to my back, Xin to my right and Luca to my left. Each one of us now holds a Whipsnap of our own. “Stand your ground!” I shout.

The specters swarm again, their yellow eyes burning. They attack, one at a time, swooping, striking. I feel their claws pass through me, but remind myself that they cannot hurt my body, because it doesn’t exist here.

But the effort is tiring. I sense the others losing strength, too. And as we tire, Nephil grows stronger.

Ull shouts, swinging Whipsnap at everything that comes close, but to no effect.

“Ull,” I shout over the howling wind. “Do you feel it?”

“What are you talking about?” He shouts back.

“This wind. In your hair. Between your fingers. It belongs to us.”

He turns to me and I see the blackness assault his back. He grits his teeth and gives it no attention. I face him and put out my hands.

“We will settle things between us,” he says. “When this is over.”

I nod, and he puts his hands in mine. A blast of emotion fills my mind. All of Ull’s anger is passed on. All of his power. And something surprising: love. But there is no time to dwell on this. I siphon his energy, my energy, and build a cyclone of my own. It radiates out from us, enveloping Luca and Xin and shielding all of us from further attack.

Xin turns to me, shouting over the rushing wind. “You cannot contain him this time! He is too strong!”

“Then what?” I ask.

“You must expel him!” Xin shouts. “Cast him out! Without a body, he will be undone.”

So I push.

And my cyclone expands against the darkness. I feel myself growing weary, the drain of using the elements seems to affect me even in my mind. But still, I push harder. Ull screams, his rage fueling me.

“You’re doing it, Sol!” Luca shouts. The boy’s voice and the innocence I hear in it strengthens my resolve.

My scream merges with Ull’s, our combined voice exploding the whirlwind outward. The blackness bursts. The white world returns.

Ull and I both fall to our knees, heaving with each breath.

“Did…it work?” I ask.

“Almost,” Xin says. “He is wounded, but still here.”

I look up and see the darkness retreating into the form of a Nephilim warrior. The black giant staggers back as though struck, clutching his stomach. When the thing lifts up its head, yellow eyes glow at us.

“Get up, brothers,” Xin says, his voice filled with urgency. “We cannot let him regroup!”

Before I can get up, Xin charges with a battle cry. To my surprise, Luca follows him, Whipsnap raised to strike.

Ull looks over at me. I can see his blazing eyes and savage grin behind the curtain of red hair that hangs over his face. “Come, Sol,” he says. “Let’s finish this.”

We rise together, running side by side. The wind at our backs lifts us into the air, our twin Whipsnaps poised to strike.

Xin reaches Nephil first and slices a deep cut into the thing’s leg. But it does no damage and he’s kicked aside. Luca fares no better as he strikes and passes right through the leg. He stumbles and falls behind the giant. Ull and I share a glance as we descend toward Nephil. We’re thinking the same thing.

Of course we are, I think. We are me.

Ull arrives first, stabbing Whipsnap at the giant’s chest. But the action is a ruse. He spins the weapon around, bringing the mace side up toward Nephil’s head. At the same moment, I put my mind to work, imagining the golden ring that protects the Nephilim soft spot.

There is a clang of metal on metal and the ring is knocked free. And where the ring once was, there is now flesh. Not blackness. Not some supernatural cloud. The forehead revealed beneath the ring undulates with a pulse.

With a battle cry that would make Ull proud, I draw Whipsnap back, take aim and thrust it forward. The tip strikes flesh and tears through.

A scream more horrible than anything I’ve heard—the scream of a being that has waited thousands of years to be set free from a prison or torment—tears through my mind.

And then I’m back. In the real world.

There is no longer blood at my feet. Instead it covers the bodies and faces of the six Nephilim kings still standing around me. The cyclone I created in my mind must have been formed here as well. When exhaustion pulls me to my knees, I have no doubt.

I realize that the massive chamber has fallen silent. I scan the faces around me. They’re not looking at me, they’re looking above me. I turn my head up and find the blackness of Nephil spinning above my head.

That’s when a terrible pain clutches my body. I curl in upon myself as something burrows through me. My stomach sours and feels heavy. After three hard contractions, I pitch forward and heave. I feel a thickness rising in my throat. I heave again and feel it stick. I cannot breathe! With the last of my strength and breath, I heave one last time. When the thing comes loose and spills from my mouth, I scream and then suck in a loud breath.

I feel the room’s attention turn back to me. And then to the object lying in front of me.

It’s a thick, dark, purple blob, like a large, bloody loogie.

The body of Nephil.

36

I stare at the viscous blob that sat undigested in my stomach for so many years. It’s a horrible, sinister thing. And though it is immobile, the body of Nephil is alive with hatred. I can feel it, even now, reaching out for me.

That’s when I realize what has happened here. The spirit of Nephil hovers above me. But it has not tried to possess me again. Because it can’t! Not without a part of its body in the host. I am free! The elation that Tobias felt upon hearing the news of Ull’s demise must have felt something like this.

But that’s not all. The potential to strike a devastating blow against the Nephilim sits before me, wiggling like Jell-O. If I destroy the body of Nephil, his spirit will not be able to join with a body—mine or anyone else’s—and if he does not do that soon, he will cease to exist.

Fighting exhaustion, I yank Whipsnap from my belt, spin the weapon above my head, and prepare to crush the glob of ancient blood beneath the mace. I begin my downward swing. Whipsnap’s shaft bends from the motion and when it springs forward will add its own energy to the blow.

I vaguely register a screaming voice. “No!”

An arm appears between Whipsnap’s mace and the glob of blood. The weapon strikes hard and a loud crack sounds out as the bones within the arm snap. A scream of pain follows and I reel away from it.

Ninnis stands before me, his left forearm bent at a sick angle. The body of Nephil remains on the floor, unharmed. The black swirling cloud above roils with frantic energy. It needs a host. It needs me. But that’s not going to happen. Not again.

I step toward Ninnis, ready to fight him with the last strength that I have.

Strike unfurls in his right hand, glinting in the fire light.

But when he shouts his battle cry and swings the sword, he is not aiming at me.

A second hunter has attacked! Is this a friend? One of the hunters that helped Tobias escape with Em and Luca?

The man meets a quick end at the tip of Strike. The sword pierces the attacker’s heart and emerges from his back. Before I can fully grasp the turn of events, Ninnis yanks the sword from the first hunter’s chest, ducks a thrown spear and swings Strike in a wide arc. Two more hunters, a man and a woman, lose their legs. The scene is horrid. Unlike anything I’ve seen before. People killing people without a second thought. Without hesitation.

And for what?

I no longer believe the attackers are on my side. Their lack of strategy and cunning is closer to frenzy than sacrifice. They’re not thinking. They’re—

A wet slurp interrupts my thoughts. Another hunter has fallen.

Shouting voices thunder around me as the army breaks into chaos. The warriors sound angry. The hunters, desperate. The others are drowned out by the sounds of battle. I look around. Hunters charge toward the circle, but they’re hacking at each other as they run. It’s every man for himself. And not one of them is looking at me.

Then I remember the envy in the other hunters’ eyes on the day I consumed the flesh of Nephil. Each one of them craved it for themselves. And now, seeing it again coupled with the presence of Nephil himself, the hunters are slaughtering each other for the chance to be the new vessel.

Through the crowd of running, falling, and dying hunters I see Luca gripped in the arms of Kainda. His limbs hang limp. Dead or unconscious, there is no way to know. But she has not left the boy to claim the body of Nephil, which I believe she could do. If anyone could defeat Ninnis, it would be her. Is it her sense of duty that has rooted her in place? Or something else? After all, Preeg and Pyke have not left their posts either, but they stare as the scene like hungry lions. It’s likely that the only thing keeping them in place is the knowledge that they wouldn’t make it past Kainda and even if they did, they could never stand against Ninnis, who is now surrounded by the bodies of his fellow hunters.

Preeg suddenly grasps her throat and falls. The sudden motion turns Pyke around, but he’s too slow. Em is there! She throws a knife that catches him in the chest. He falls to the ground.

Kainda spins around, facing Em, who has two blades at the ready.

The situation is precarious. Em could throw the knives accurately, but Kainda is fast and might position Luca’s body in the way. Kainda could also use Luca as bait, drawing Em in close enough to strike her down with the giant hammer.

But neither move.

A man falls away from Ninnis, his throat slit. He tumbles back toward me. I roll to the side, avoiding his falling body. But I freeze again, turning my attention back to Luca and Em.

Neither woman has struck. In fact, they appear to be talking. Then I see surprise register on Em’s face. I know my expression must look similar, because Kainda then hands the boy over to Em, who slings him over her shoulder. The pair duck into the shadows and flee together.

Luca is saved.

Em has escaped.

And Kainda…she has been redeemed.

A clang of metal on metal draws my attention back to the fight. A body falls. Ninnis stands in the middle of a ring of death. The hunters still alive are too busy fighting each other to stop what happens next. When I try to run at him and stumble back down to my knees, I know that I am too weak.

Ninnis grins at me. With a twitch of his hand, Strike rolls up. He attaches the weapon to his belt and then crouches. When he stands again, he clutches the body of Nephil in his hand. Without a word or second thought, he puts the gelatinous purple mass into his mouth and swallows.

A high pitched squeal explodes from Ninnis’s mouth as a violent shaking rises up from his feet and quickly claims the rest of his body. He falls, clutched by the seizure, and disappears within the circle of bodies.

I push myself to my feet, bracing myself with Whipsnap. I see Ninnis shaking, his mouth covered in white foam. I should kill him, I think. And end this. But I can’t do it. I swore to never take a human life, even one as corrupt as Ninnis. But even if I had tried, it would be too late. The swirling black spirit of Nephil descends like a tornado. It touches down on Ninnis and enters him. The shaking stops, but he does not move.

Has the merger killed him?

No, I think, as I see his chest rising and falling from each breath. He is simply unconscious.

Kill him! Ull is free and shouting to be heard. But he has not yet realized what I have. Nephil’s body has been consumed. The spirit has entered Ninnis. He is the Lord of the Nephilim, at least for now, and I am the enemy.

The fighting around me has stopped. The surviving hunters stare at me. As do the thousands of Nephilim watching the scene play out with rapt attention.

“Take him,” Enki says, pointing at me.

They still need me, I realize. Ninnis will not be able to contain the spirit of Nephil forever. I am uniquely suited to the task—if only they could break me again. They cannot break us! Ull shouts at me.

When a buzzing sound fills my mind, I realize there is another option that I hadn’t yet considered. If they can’t break me, they can erase my mind, or at least control it. I feel the probing minds of a hundred gatherers trying to penetrate my thoughts.

I stagger back as more hunters emerge from the wall of Nephilim giants. Fifty. One hundred.

Even at full strength, I could not hold out long against this many hunters.

A sharp bark echoes in the tunnel.

And then chaos returns with a flash of green and red. Twelve cresties pour out of a nearby side tunnel and tear into the distracted hunters. But the attack also spurs the army into action. Some of the hunters counterattack. The rest, come for me.

Ninnis groans behind me, coming to.

I hobble around him, running away from the hunters, but there is nowhere to go. The army is behind me. The gates to Tartarus—a land of eternal suffering—stand open before me. I am trapped.

I turn to face my attackers.

Three hunters lead the charge, weapons raised. They will reach me within seconds.

I glance to the left. There is no sign of Luca, Em or Kainda. They’ve made it out.

The cresties continue fighting, but the tide is turning against them. They are severely outnumbered and when the Nephilim join the fight, the dinosaurs are outsized. I see a number of them quickly fall, heads crushed, bodies impaled. A slaughter. Realizing the battle is lost, Grumpy lets out a bark, and the five remaining pack members retreat, heading in the same direction as Em, Luca and Kainda, perhaps following the familiar scent.

I’ve been abandoned, but I am glad for it. If the cresties follow Em, they will all be safer.

I, on the other hand, am doomed.

The three hunters shout as they lunge.

I thrust my arms out, sending a gust of wind against them and fling them into some of the other charging hunters. The pack slows, keeping a safe distance. They no doubt thought my extraordinary abilities would fade when the body of Nephil left me.

With the gates of Tartarus just thirty feet behind me, the semicircle of hunters tightens. There is nowhere to run. And if they knew how weak I felt, they would have attacked already.

Enki, Enlil, Thor and Osiris join the ring.

“You are stronger than we ever imagined, Ull,” Enki says.

“I am not Ull!” I shout back.

Enki chuckles. “This is the role you were born for. You are the vessel of Nephil, and you will accept him.”

The buzzing in my head grows intense. I can feel my will being shattered from within. I grit my teeth and fight against it, but I am not alone.

You must run, Xin says. He sounds weak. Beaten. And I realize that the only reason the gatherers have yet to claim my mind is because he is shielding me, and feeling the majority of their attack.

A crazed scream rips through the chamber.

Heads turn and the wall of hunters parts. Ninnis steps forward. His body looks stronger. Younger. His arm is healed.

Nephil has found a host in Ninnis, if only temporarily.

Run! Xin insists.

Where? I think.

Ninnis walks toward me, confident and radiating power. He says nothing, but his unblinking eyes never waver from mine.

Pain throbs in my head.

I need an escape route. I need a distraction.

I need Behemoth.

Focusing beyond Ninnis, beyond the wall of hunters and the army of Nephilim, I feel the air surrounding the wall of fire. I return my thoughts to the molecules of oxygen, the same way I did when I made the wall flare. But this time, instead of pulling the oxygen into the flame, I draw it away.

When the light in the chamber drops by seventy percent, I know I’ve succeeded. As does everyone else. There is a shift of attention in the chamber as nearly everyone cranes their heads toward the extinguished wall.

Behemoth bellows with a hungry rage. The meal set out before him is unlike anything he’s seen before. His thundering footsteps shake the chamber and something I never thought I’d see takes place. The Nephilim—this horde of half demon monsters conspiring to exterminate and enslave the human race—panics.

The buzzing in my head fades. The gatherers, and Xin, are gone.

The majority of hunters surrounding me break ranks and run.

But not everyone runs. Enki remains. As do the other ancient kings. They stand among Lord Nephil now and flight is not possible.

And Ninnis. He doesn’t show any reaction to Behemoth’s approach. He continues his calm walk toward me. I look into his eyes and sense the power there. Even with Behemoth’s distraction, I will not be able to escape. Ninnis on his own would be a challenge, but he’s now powered by the body and spirit of Nephil.

With the last of my strength, I direct the wind at him, hoping to knock him back and give me a moment to run—if my legs can still manage it. But he walks through the gust as though it’s a gentle breeze.

“You cannot run,” Ninnis says, his voice more sinister than ever before.

I step away, matching his pace in reverse so that there is a constant ten feet between us.

“And you cannot live.” Ninnis unfurls Strike at his side.

Cannot live?

But they need me alive.

Nephil wouldn’t—

This isn’t Nephil!

Ninnis contains all of the power and strength of Nephil, as well as the allegiance of the Nephilim, but he has retained control of his body and mind. And to keep it that way, he needs me dead.

He sees the realization in my eyes and smiles. “Little Solomon, you never were strong enough to claim this power as your own.”

He feints a thrust and I jump back.

I look behind me. The depressing darkness of Tartarus is just five feet away.

If Ninnis kills me, he wins. The Nephilim win. I cannot let that happen.

I take a step back and ready my weapon.

Ninnis laughs. “You are weak, boy. You pose no threat to me now.”

“I know,” I say, “But I will not let you kill me.”

“You have no choice.”

“There is always a choice,” I say. It’s a lesson I wish every hunter in the under-world would learn. To punctuate my statement, I take another step back.

Surprise registers on Ninnis’s face. “You wouldn’t.”

I take another step. I can feel the darkness tingling around me.

“Why?” he asks.

For some reason, I think him not knowing will eat him up inside, so I simply say, “I hope you figure it out someday. Goodbye, Ninnis.”

I see his face contort with confusion, as I take one more step back.

Then I see nothing.

The darkness has swallowed me.

And in an instant I realize I’ve made a mistake.

I’ve never felt such sadness. Such loneliness. Even the voice of Ull is gone once again.

I step forward, hoping to stand before Ninnis again. I would prefer a thousand deaths to the sorrow that consumes me. I try to gather my thoughts. I’m still me. My mind is still intact. But when a shiver wracks my body, I realize just how helpless I have become.

I can no longer feel the land, water and air. This realm is physical, but somehow separate from Antarctica. And for the first time since setting foot on the continent of my birth, I feel…

Cold.

Epilogue

Lieutenant Ninnis felt proud once more. After a lifetime of servitude and submission he had finally proved his worth. As a man. As a hunter. And now, as Lord of the Nephilim. While Nephil had not fully bonded to him, mind and spirit, he contained all of the power and desires of the ancient demon.

Except for one. Nephil still wanted the boy. Solomon. Only then could Nephil be fully in control. And while Ninnis served the Nephilim with all of his being, he did not want to give up this power.

He could feel it burning inside him, rotting him from the inside even as he grew stronger. But he believed it would be better to burn bright, like a star, for a moment than to remain in the shadows. He would lead the Nephilim to the surface. He would wage war on humanity. And he would instill a new era of Nephilim rule on this planet.

Having completed all of that, his death, and Nephil’s, would be acceptable to him. Though he knew the ancient being, whose spirit wouldn’t carry on in death, disagreed. That said, there was also no choice. The boy was gone. Far from their reach in the realm of Tartarus.

Ninnis frowned as he remembered Solomon’s final act. His willingness to not just die, but endure eternal torture rather than give himself over to his enemies, revealed a strength Ninnis did not believe possible. He’d been wrong about the boy. He wasn’t just strong enough to contain the spirit of Nephil, he’d been strong enough to repel it.

Pain gripped Ninnis’s chest. He rubbed his hand over the spot, thinking of Solomon’s face disappearing in the dark grip of Tartarus. It was a sacrifice he could not comprehend. His thoughts drifted to the message Solomon had once carved in a wall. ‘I forgive you.’ He’d thought the words hollow. Left to taunt him. To make him feel weak.

But now? The boy’s convictions proved real.

And were he not confined in Tartarus, Solomon might actually be a threat. His power wasn’t simply physical, it was also transformative.

In the aftermath of Solomon’s departure, Ninnis had ordered a census. Behemoth had devoured hundreds. The dinosaurs killed another thirty. Ninnis himself had slain twenty-five before claiming the flesh of Nephil. He wanted to know the state of their forces before the battle was waged. What he discovered was surprising, not because of how many were dead, but because of how many had deserted. Thirty-six hunters were missing, including his daughter, Kainda. He couldn’t be sure they’d all turned against the Nephilim, but it was possible some, inspired by the boy’s sacrifice, found some part of themselves that had been buried since their breaking.

If that spread, if all the hunters were won over, a war would need to be fought here on Antarctica before they could move to the outside world.

But that would never happen. With the boy gone, his influence would never spread.

A hot wind surged past Ninnis. He turned his eyes up, looking at the bright sun which now hung in the sky for so long.

When he bonded with Nephil, he became aware of everything the demon had experienced, including his battle for control of the boy—a battle that identified at least one traitor—Xin, who had thus far eluded capture. But he also recalled the very first moments of the bonding, when Nephil’s spirit nearly took full control of Solomon. As he realized the host was not willing, he reached out and grasped the land, the whole Earth, and wrenched it free from its moorings. It was the opening salvo of their assault on the surface—a first strike that had already claimed countless lives.

Ninnis smiled as he looked at the scene around him. He stood atop a mountain that just a month ago was covered in snow, but which now held the first signs of green growth. The Earth’s crust had shifted. Antarctica had been relocated to the equator. From his perch, he watched rivers of melt water flow into the ocean. Far in the distance, he could see giant ice shelves floating away. They had reshaped the world and made the Nephilim’s home a paradise once again. And the land became fertile, spurred on by the healing properties of Nephilim blood spilled into the earth. But that wasn’t all. The continent was expanding. Growing. With trillions upon trillions of tons of ice flowing away, the massive weight pushing the continent deeper below sea level had lifted.

Ninnis let out a laugh that rolled down the mountainside and over the exposed citadel of Olympus.

Antarktos was rising.

Prologue

Lieutenant Ninnis looked at the blade in his hand. The bright sun overhead reflected off its surface, the intensity of its gleam burning his eyes. But the pain didn’t bother him. Not because it was insignificant—even after spending nearly three months above ground, the sunlight still hurt his eyes—but because the pain delighted him.

Delighted Nephil.

The body and spirit of Nephil that resided in his body had been meant for another. Solomon Ull Vincent. A boy. The first and only child naturally born of a human being on the continent of Antarctica. The child bonded with the land on a supernatural level. Beyond understanding.

And now, beyond reach.

Ninnis turned his eyes away from the blade, and looked at the soft earth beneath his bare feet. His soles had become so thick with calluses from living underground that he couldn’t feel the softness of the fresh leaf litter. But it smelled raw. Alive. He’d always believed that subterranean life was ideal. He’d never understood why the Nephilim—the half human, half demon ancients he once called masters—obsessed about taking the surface back from the human race. But after spending the last week feeling the burn of the sun, moving through the young forest and hunting in a way that’s impossible underground, Ninnis understood.

The surface is wide open. Limitless.

And beautiful.

He didn’t admire sunsets, flowers or the glimmering ocean that now filled the previously frozen bay to the north. He didn’t watch the butterflies or birds that now filled the warm Antarctic air. He didn’t marvel at the herds of underworld creatures adapting to life under the sun. None of this interested him.

A twitch brought his attention back to the man at his feet.

Blood flowed through the man’s fingers and mixed with the soil. Hungry worms rose to the surface, feasting on the blood. Drowning in it. This is what Ninnis liked about the surface. The color.

Life underground was muted by darkness. Even when lit by torches, glowing crystals or the large electric bulbs in the Nephilim libraries, the world underground looked dull. But here, in the light, vivid colors danced with every shift of the breeze. And the blood—the blood—it glistened with the most delicious hue of dark red. The sight of it delighted him almost as much as the smell.

A tattoo of swirling spikes covered the large, bald man’s head. Ninnis wasn’t sure if they represented anything, but he was positive they were meant to intimidate. Covered with a splash of the man’s own blood, they looked silly. He wore black clothing from the neck down and much of his face had been painted black. At night, or underground, the man would be hard to see. But in the light, reeking of sweat, the man stood out like a beacon. He carried two knives, a handgun and a long black rifle Ninnis had never seen, but recognized as a sharpshooter’s rifle.

A soldier.

A hunter.

Ninnis chuckled at the thought.

Defeating this man had been no more difficult than defeating a newborn feeder. The man bore sharp blades, moved quickly and struck hard, but he lacked knowledge about the true world around him. Seeing Ninnis dressed in nothing more than tattered leathers had actually made the soldier laugh. The man mocked him in Russian before realizing Ninnis didn’t speak the language, and then switched to English. Ninnis showed no reaction to the man’s taunts. Instead, he circled the man, gauging this newcomer to his land.

They race to claim my continent, Ninnis had thought, only to find it already taken.

Fools.

When Strike appeared in Ninnis’s hands, the shocked expression on the man’s face was comical. And as the soldier fumbled to draw his pistol, Ninnis closed the distance, and eviscerated the man.

He now lay on the ground, clutching his belly to keep his insides from sliding out. Two seconds and one strike. The man had faced a god, and lost. As did anyone, or anything, that stood up to Ninnis. As the vessel of Nephil, he commanded the subterranean armies. More than that, he had the devotion of creatures that have lived for thousands of years before he was born, before he was taken captive in 1911 and turned into Ninnis the hunter, subject to Enki, son of Nephil. And now Enki, who along with his brother Enlil, previously ruled over the Nephilim, served him. They didn’t realize this, of course. He contained the physical body and spirit of Nephil, who’d been imprisoned in Tartarus and recently freed. The ancient spirit possessed unimaginable power, but it couldn’t control Ninnis. Instead, he decided to take the power for himself and use it to lead the Nephilim to victory over the surface world. While his goals aligned with those of the Nephilim, he would age more quickly on the surface. Death would claim him eventually. To obtain immortality, he would wipe out humanity quickly, and become legend, remembered for eternity as the savior of the Nephilim.

He could feel the power eating at him from the inside out. Eventually, the spirit of Nephil would be released, most likely upon Ninnis’s deathbed. Without the boy, Solomon, willingly offering himself to Nephil, the spirit would die. And there is nothing Nephilim feared more than death. Within the realm of Tartarus, the spirit of Nephil had existed in a state of eternal torture beyond comprehension. It was a place designed to contain and punish the Nephilim, who had so long ago corrupted mankind before being chased underground and buried beneath Antarctica’s ice cap. Outside of Tartarus, if a Nephilim died, they simply ceased to exist. Their spirits were different from human souls. They lacked something, some kind of substance, and would simply fade away.

Ull, the Nephilim who had shared Solomon’s middle name and become his master, had suffered such a fate after the boy killed him. No hunters other than Ninnis and Kainda knew about his fate, but…

Kainda.

Remembering his daughter brought a glimmer of discomfort to his chest. It was a kind of pain in which he did not delight. Because he didn’t understand it. She betrayed him. Left with the boy, Luca, and his sister, Emilie—traitors all three. They were why he now stalked the freshly grown wilderness. Preparations to invade the outside world would continue in his absence. He didn’t foresee humanity putting up much of a struggle. They had been devastated by the massive shift in the Earth’s crust that had repositioned Antarctica at the equator and returned the land to the lush paradise it had been so long ago.

But paradise would be stained with blood. First, the man at his feet. Then any other outsiders foolish enough to try to claim Antarctica. And finally, Kainda and the thirty-six other hunters who deserted the underground and their masters. Only after he’d seen the life drain from their bodies would he give the signal to attack the rest of the world.

A sudden scratch of shifting leaves snapped Ninnis out of his thoughts. The soldier showed resolve. The man drew a blade from a sheath on his chest and sent it flying toward Ninnis, who did nothing to avoid it.

Four inches of steel pierced Ninnis’s chest and slipped between his ribs, puncturing a lung. The intense pain would have knocked any other man to his knees.

Ninnis smiled.

Holding his gut with one hand, the man pushed himself away from Ninnis.

Ninnis twitched his wrist and Strike’s blade rolled up. He attached the weapon to his belt, and looked down at the hilt of the knife sticking out of his chest. An expert shot. The man might have made a good hunter after all. But Ninnis no longer had any interest in breaking and making hunters. Solomon had been the last hunter, destined to contain the spirit of Nephil, and that hadn’t turned out as planned. Once the Nephilim reclaimed the surface, there would be no need for hunters, whose small bodies made them important assets in the underworld.

Ninnis clutched the knife in his chest and drew it out slowly. An explosion of pain radiated through his body. The blade came free with a slurp. Blood followed.

Purple blood.

Ninnis watched the violet plasma drip down his chest, fascinated by its color. Human blood—his blood—ran red. He’d been carrying a feeder skin of Nephilim blood, consuming it regularly so that its healing properties could help his human body endure the rigors of containing Nephil. It would also have no trouble healing this wound. But would it have to? Ninnis watched as the flow of blood slowed, and then stopped.

An intense itch surrounded the wound and then pulsed with pain. It felt like being stabbed all over again, but in reverse. And then, the wound was healed.

Ninnis knew he was changing. He felt hungrier. More ruthless. More powerful. More hard-hearted. But he hadn’t realized the changes were also physical.

“I am becoming Nephilim,” he said.

The soldier at his feet continued to struggle, a pitiful whimper escaping his mouth. Ninnis looked the man in the eyes. “I’m changing,” he said. “And hungry.”

Ninnis brought the soldier’s razor sharp knife up to his eyes and looked at his reflection through the smear of his own purple blood. He licked the blade clean, and smiled at the man. “My appetite seems to have changed.” He cocked his head to the side. “I hope you don’t find it rude if I make you watch while I eat.”

The man filled his lungs to scream as Ninnis lunged toward him.

And ate.

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.

3

I read each word slowly and with deliberation, as though I’ve just learned the language. The old English text is rich in a way that modern books aren’t. I reread most sentences two or three times, just enjoying the cadence of the words. The plight of the main character, Christian, whose story is an allegory to the modern believer’s life, fascinates me as many elements reflect my own journey over the past years. He’s plagued by doubt, fear and the heavy burden that comes from the recognition of your own sins.

My sins weigh on me every day, impossible to forget thanks to my perfect memory.

I kidnapped Aimee and delivered her to the Nephilim, robbing Mira of a mother and Merrill of a wife.

I fled the Nephilim for what I thought was two years, but it turned out to be twenty. I hid in fear and turned my back on the world I was uniquely suited to defend.

Because of my weakness, Tobias, father of Emilie and Luca, was slain at the hands of Ninnis, while I watched, helpless.

And most recently, when I contained the body and spirit of Nephil, I fear he was able to affect the world somehow. Any devastation caused by my inability to fight his influence is mine to own.

My burden, like Christian’s, is often unbearable. Even more so, in this awful place. If not for this book, and the distraction provided by it, I might have already gone mad. I’ve read the book now, cover to cover, several times. I’m not sure how long I’ve been sitting in the gorge, slowly turning pages, absorbing the words, but if I can just stay here, reading this book, I might be able to bear this place.

“Sorry, Christian,” I say to myself, “but you’re going to have to share my burden, too.”

Then it happens. I reach the chapter that has tickled the back of my mind on every read.

The Slough of Despond.

Thus far, I’ve read through it quickly, ignoring the potent message and similarities to my current situation. But something clicks as I read through the text this time:

This miry slough is such a place as cannot be mended: it is the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for sin doth continually run, and therefore it is called the Slough of Despond; for still, as the sinner is awakened about his lost condition, there arise in his soul many fears and doubts, and discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, and settle in this place: and this is the reason of the badness of this ground.

“I’m in the slough,” I say. My voice sounds deeper then I recall, but I think it’s from thirst and the echo of my voice on the crevasse walls.

The Slough of Despond, which essentially means, the Swamp of Despair, in Bunyan’s story seems to identify the burdens of the traveler stuck in the mire. In my case, the swamp is a dry wasteland, cut off from the rest of the world. But the effects of the place, like the Slough, focuses on the fears, weaknesses and burden of those unfortunate enough to be here. And the effect seems to increase with time, even if time makes no sense. If not for the book and its story of redemption…

My eyes are drawn back to the page. I don’t want to read this section again. Despite the similarities to my stay in Tartarus, it is actually ruining my hope. Not because it ends badly, but because Christian is eventually pulled from the Slough by the aptly named, Help.

Despite being stuck in the Slough of Despond, Christian still inhabits the real world, and while one friend abandons him in the mire, another comes along to pull him out. But here, cut off from everyone and everything, there will be no travelers coming along to lend me aid. I’m alone. Forever. And even if I do eventually move from my spot in the gorge, the only living thing I have any hope of finding in this place is a Nephilim. I’m not sure how many are here, if any, but I don’t think Nephil was alone in this place. And finding a Nephilim, in Tartarus, is not high on my eternal “to do” list.

I close the book, its words now adding to my burden. Maybe it’s Tartarus? I think. At first, the book provided a distraction from the power of this place, but even the words of this book couldn’t hold off Tartarus forever.

I look up and stare at the blank wall in front of me.

Whispered taunts flow past my ears.

You killed me.

The voice belongs to Tobias.

Emilie hates you.

I clench my eyes shut, trying to ignore a voice I know I can’t be hearing. Tobias is dead, I remind myself. He can’t speak to me.

Where do you think you are, Solomon? Alive?

“Stop,” I say. “You’re not him.”

Luca is dead.

“Stop.”

It’s a lie.

Murdered.

“Please.”

Luca escaped.

Because of you.

If there were fluid in my body to spare, tears would cover my cheeks. Tobias’s voice brings back a torrent of memories. The day we met, he and Em nearly killed me. But we became friends. We became family. I lived with them for a time, becoming a brother to Em and to Luca, whose six year old body was a perfect copy of mine, created by the Nephilim. We ate together. We hunted together. And Tobias trained me. I learned to use my powers more effectively. More efficiently. And he taught me to get back up. To fight. To win.

And right now, I’m losing.

This isn’t the voice of Tobias, but if it were, he would be ashamed of how I’m handling myself.

I replay a memory, tuning out the false-Tobias.

I’m running. The crunch of snow beneath my feet makes counting my footfalls easy: nine thousand, five hundred, and fifty-seven steps. Nearly five miles. I can run further. A lot further. And at a faster pace. But not while controlling the elements around me. Tobias has me running, cloaked by a swirling cyclone of snow.

We started with a single flake. It trailed me as I ran. Over time, we worked up to a trail of snowflakes. And when I’d mastered that, we moved to this. I think it’s a big leap ahead. My body certainly agrees. Not only do I need to create thousands of snowflakes, I also need to sustain a steady, and tightly controlled wind around my body. I managed okay for the first mile. But it’s been getting harder with each step.

To make matters worse, I can’t see where I’m going. Every hundred steps, I open a slice in the cyclone and peek out. The added effort hurts every time, but the terrain has been unceasingly flat and free of debris since we began. So when I hit nine thousand six hundred, I don’t look.

Ten seconds later, my foot kicks a spire of ice that I would have seen if I’d looked. I collapse forward in an embarrassing heap. I don’t even bother to raise my hands. I just slump to the ice like a freed marionette and slide to a stop.

Tobias is a gentle man for the most part, but not when training. And he’s pushing me hard, with an urgency that in hindsight makes me wonder if he knew his life would be cut short. He stands over me, shouting with a German accent that makes his words sound even angrier. “Get up! Get up, now, Solomon! Your life depends on it.”

Concern for my own well-being isn’t usually what garners a response from me. And Tobias knows this. So he quickly switches tactics. “They’re coming, Solomon. They’ve found us!”

I’m listening, but I’m still far from moving. “They’ve found them. Em and Luca. If you don’t get up—” He doesn’t need to finish. I’m up and running, concealed by the cyclone, but this time I sustain the opening and double my pace. I’m not doing this for me. I’m doing this for them. For Em. For Luca. For Aimee.

And for Tobias.

Get up!

I chose to be here.

Get up, Solomon!

For them.

“I’m up,” I say.

I look to my right, and then to the left. Left, I think. That’s where I was headed. As the biting chill, held at bay by the book’s distraction, settles in around me, I put my book away, turn left, and run.

4

I grow tired almost immediately. But I focus on the true voice of Tobias, urging me onward, and I push forward. My effort must be considered a crime in this place, because the weight on my shoulders becomes palpable. I can feel something—a force—pushing down on me. Holding me back. Like I’m in a dream.

Maybe that’s it, I think. Maybe this is all a dream?

In a strange sort of way, it would make sense. After passing through the gate, into the darkness, the traveler falls asleep. Then maybe someone, some kind of caretaker, drags your sleeping body deeper underground where aging is slowed so much it’s actually stopped. And then, in the pliable world of the sleeping mind, the prisoner is forced to grapple with his own self-doubt, fears and weakness. This place is barren. All stone and orange sky. My mind could have easily conjured the image.

And if this is all in my mind, I can control it. I once read about something called “lucid dreaming.” Essentially, the dreamer recognizes they’re dreaming and then controls the dream, bending it to his will. People routinely realize they’re in a dream, but typically wake very quickly when they do. Lucid dreamers use various techniques to stay in the dream. Dream spinning (spinning in circles) or physical contact—rubbing your hands together or touching the ground—supposedly works well.

But I’ve also learned to control the reality my mind creates thanks to Xin. So, I should be able to manage it here.

I pause my running. Each labored breath accentuates the cramp twisting in my side.

It certainly feels physical.

But dreams can, too. So I focus on the world around me and try to change it.

Nothing happens.

Wait, I think. I’m warmer. Then I realize that I only feel slightly warmer from running. Everything else is the same. Can’t say I’m surprised. This might all be in my mind, but inside Tartarus, whatever it is, I can’t control things. And I can’t wake up.

The angry weight settles heavier. It strikes so suddenly that I pitch forward. I catch myself against the wall of the gorge. My foot lands hard, but not on solid stone.

There is a squishing sound as something lukewarm oozes up between my bare toes. The mush gives way to something hard and splintery. I feel, more than hear, the tiny things snap under my weight. All of this happens in a fraction of a second. Before I’ve put all of my weight down, I flinch back, and fall over.

The gravity inside Tartarus seems to increase suddenly. I fall hard, harder than I should from a standing position. And my body lacks the strength to slow me down. I hit the stone floor hard, knocking the air from my lungs. I wheeze and for a moment, I fear I won’t be able to catch my breath.

I can’t die, I tell myself. Relax. Breathe. Focus.

My chest expands a little more with each breath and my thoughts clear. My foot is wet. I stepped in something. After looking at my elbows for wounds and finding none, I push myself up and draw my foot in close. There is a smear of thick red fluid on the sole.

Blood.

But it’s not mine. There’s too much and I don’t see a wound.

Well, that’s not entirely true. There seems to be a large splinter of something jabbed between my first and second toes. It’s a small, curved spear of white. I take hold of it and tug gently. The inch long splinter slides cleanly out. A bead of blood emerges from the wound, but that’s it. I can’t even feel the sting. I’m far too cold for that.

I look at the spine up close. Is it a quill? No, I think, it’s not barbed. Images of high school science books and dissection diagrams come to mind. It looks like a rib. Like a mouse rib.

Curiosity pulls me up onto my hands and knees. I lean forward searching for the spot where my foot fell.

It’s not hard to find.

The small body is surrounded by a syrupy pool of blood and other, oddly colored bodily fluids. As for the creature, I can’t say what it is. Or was. It’s been brutalized. Torn to pieces. And it looks like the whole thing is here. Four legs. Two small arms. It must have walked like an insect, but also had functional arms. The skin is green, and slick with slime, like a frog.

The torso looks like it was torn open, not cut, and the skin has been peeled back. The organs are gone. I find them splattered against the wall nearby, glued to the surface by the drying fluids. The exposed ribcage has been snapped open on either side, the small spiked ends pointing skyward. One rib is missing.

I look at the small rib clutched between my fingers, then toss it down on the ground and turn my attention back to the mutilated corpse. The lungs, like the other organs, have been torn out. They rest on the cavern floor nearby. When I see the heart, I have no doubt that whatever did this was evil. The grape-sized heart rests in the center of the exposed ribs, still attached to the body by several arteries. But the organ has been crushed, and burst open.

This creature did not die peacefully.

I have killed small creatures in the past. If I had come across it living, I would have killed it now. But for food. And swiftly. Not like this. This was…

Torture.

But why? This small thing couldn’t be a Nephilim.

A realization strikes. This is real. This creature, the likes of which I have never seen before, once lived. And was killed by something else living. Something other than me.

This is not a dream, I think as I stand up. I wring my hands together and begin to shiver, as much from fear as from the cold.

I’m not alone.

And whatever else lurks in this gorge with me, likes to torture things.

But I’m not defenseless. I place a hand on Whipsnap. Its presence reassures me. But my withered body betrays me. Could I even lift Whipsnap? I don’t think so. Be prepared, I think, quoting the Boy Scouts jingle I grew up with. The tune plays in my thoughts.

Are you ready to get involved?

Be prepared! Are you ready to take the lead?

“No, and no,” I say.

But what choice do I have? I’m here. I’m stuck here. Forever. So what’s the point in going the other way? I might be physically weaker, but I’m not a coward. Not any more. I’ve faced my fears before. I can do it now.

I reach into my hip pack and take out my climbing claws. I created them myself, fashioning them from feeder leather and teeth. The big triangular teeth are serrated, like sharks’ teeth, and they can cut through most any flesh with ease. They’re based on the ninja climbing claws in Justin’s old ninja magazines, but these are more functional as weapons. When I slide them on my hands and cinch them tight, I’ve got three triangular blades on the palm side, but I also have three more spiky blades over my knuckles. My hands are now lethal. And they don’t weigh much, so even in my weakened state I should be able to use them.

When I step out into the gorge and look down the winding tunnel, I’m not so sure.

Ten feet further is a second body. Like the first, it has been mutilated beyond recognition.

Beyond that is another.

And another.

The trail of blood and guts covers nearly a hundred feet before disappearing around a bend. I step forward, careful to avoid the blood and organs littering the floor. It’s slow going, but at least the sight of carnage and the smells of new decay distract me from the chill. A surge of guilt strikes me. What an awful thing to think. I look down at the small body. Still… “At least you found a way out,” I say to the creature.

I round the bend and find another passage littered with death. Growing accustomed to the sight, I quicken my pace. The wind has picked up, and I think I must be nearing the end of the chasm. Bright light stretches into the natural hall around a bend fifty feet ahead. I hurry forward, now eager to escape this place.

A wet cracking and slurping sound whips my head up. Not watching where I’m going, I step on a small set of lungs that turn to paste beneath my weight. I slip back and fall again.

The pain is intense, but I don’t cry out.

A wet splat, followed by an agonized howl, rolls down the gorge.

I’ve found him.

The torturer.

He’s just ahead.

I pick myself up without making a sound and slip toward the bend. All I need is a peek. If it’s a thirty-foot monster, I’ll head in the opposite direction. I’m downwind. If I’m careful not to be seen or heard, I can escape without being discovered. I’m pleased to find that I haven’t lost all of my skills. I might be weak and burdened, but my skills as a hunter haven’t abandoned me yet. I creep up to the bend in silence.

Two sharp cracks tell me the thing has just opened yet another small ribcage. The lungs will be removed. And then the heart crushed. For a moment, I wonder if the small creature might actually have survived up to this point.

Would I?

The horrible image nearly turns me around, but I’m too close to turn back. I slowly poke my head out around the bend—

—and instantly wish I hadn’t.

5

The thing has its back to me, so I can’t see its face, but the full head of red hair tells me this is a Nephilim. I expected as much—this place was designed to hold Nephilim—but the sight makes my insides twist with fear. It’s crouched at the flat stone shore of a large lake. Or an ocean. I can’t really tell because the orange liquid stretches to the horizon.

I duck away, breathing hard. There is nothing I fear more than the Nephilim. I have fought them. Killed them. But they broke me. Made me serve them. Respect them. Maybe even love them. And the remote possibility that I could be bent in that direction again horrifies me.

But could it happen here? In Tartarus?

I’m not sure, but if it did, I would regret it for all eternity.

In a flash, my course of action is reversed. I need to get away from this Nephilim. Bearing my burden on my own is hard enough. I take a step away from the lake and am stopped in my tracks by a high-pitched squeal. The dismantled creature is still alive, and shrieking in pain with its last breath.

A wet pop silences the creature.

Its heart has been crushed. I close my eyes. The poor thing.

A wail rips through the air. It’s tortured, like the small creature’s final scream, but louder and full of something else.

Anger.

Rage.

Confusion.

The tone and pitch of the voice fills me with a strange kind of understanding. The thing around the bend doesn’t want to kill. It’s compelled to. And it’s tortured by that compulsion. This realization makes me reevaluate the situation. I gasp as a detail flies in the face of my assumptions.

The red hair coupled with the fact that this is Tartarus made me assume the killer is a Nephilim. But the height is all wrong. It—he—didn’t look much bigger than me.

He’s human, I think. A hunter. But why would another hunter be here in Tartarus?

Before I think too much about it, I slide back to the bend and take a peek. He’s still there, crouched by the water, but he’s not moving and his head is turned to the side slightly. Listening. To me.

He heard my gasp.

I’m sure of it.

There is no turning back now. No running. My only hope to avoid conflict is to make the first move a peaceful one.

I step out from hiding, doing my best to stand up straight and look tough. But my words are soft spoken and kind. “Are you all right?”

The question sounds ridiculous as it floats through the air. He sniffs with a single sharp intake of air. Is he smelling me? Or just surprised by my voice? Or my words?

“Do you need help?” I say.

The man’s head spins toward me in a blur. Long tendrils of red hair whip around his face, concealing it from me. “Help!” he screams, sounding both offended and desperate. “Help!”

Then his hair falls away and I see his face.

My face.

“Ull?” The word flies from my mouth. Revulsion spreads through my body like thick, rotting syrup.

He’s just as surprised as I am. “Solomon!” He falls backward and crab-crawls away from me until his hand slashes into the liquid lake. He screams in pain, lifting his now smoldering hand from the liquid. Not water.

Confusion sweeps across Ull’s face, as I’m sure it does mine. This is a physical world. Ull has only ever existed in my mind. He’s an aspect of my personality, not a living, breathing person. This makes no sense.

But he’s still me. A part of me. And what he’s doing is vile. “Why are you killing these creatures?” I ask.

He shakes his head quickly, eyes darting back and forth. He looks at everything but me. His breathing speeds up. He grinds his teeth.

“Ull!” I shout.

“Can’t…stop!” he screams. The shaking grows worse, like he’s about to explode. “Don’t…want…this!”

“Ull,” I say, feeling compassion for the violent me.

“Don’t…want…to kill…” His eyes lock on me. “You.” He’s quick to his feet and I notice that unlike me, Ull is strong. Very strong. All sinewy with muscle and taut skin. His face is covered in stubble. While I retained all of my mental abilities, he retained our physical prowess. While we’re both clearly dealing with emotions, Ull was never good at controlling his and the weight of this place must be crushing him—pushing him deeper into madness, to the point where he wants to kill me.

“You can’t kill me,” I say. “We’re in Tartarus.”

His eyes dart around again. He’s trying to understand, but I suspect he’s too far gone.

When he turns his head toward the sky and lets out a Nephilim howl, I know I’m right. He opens his hands, hooks his fingers into talons and charges. He’s weaponless, dressed only in ragged leathers, but he’s far quicker than I am. The best I can do as he closes the distance is raise my hands up.

Our hands collide first. Fingers entwine. A moment of resistance is followed by the tearing of flesh as his hands push down hard on the three blades of the climbing claws. He screams as the blades slip through flesh and bone before poking out from the back of his hands.

Then our bodies collide and I’m slammed into the stone wall behind me. My head collides with the wall and I hear a crack. I’m dazed, but conscious, and still pushing against Ull’s arms with everything I’ve got. His strength has been sapped by the pain of the teeth piercing his hands, but he’s still more than a match for me.

He roars at me, coating my face with spittle and blood. His mouth is bleeding. He must have bitten his tongue when we collided, I think. I feel pain in my mouth for a moment. Why am I worried about him? He’s trying to kill me! “Get off me!” I scream.

“Die!” he shouts back. “Must die! Kill!”

I twist my hands, shifting the blades buried in his flesh.

He screams and then spews a few indiscernible lines.

My lips begin to quiver. Tears drip from my eyes. I’ve seen what he did to the small creatures. The pain he is about to inflict on me will be beyond comprehension. My arms weaken. “Please,” I say. The word sounds more like a whimper. “Why are you doing this?”

“No!” he shouts. “No, no, no! Choice!”

No choice?

He doesn’t want to kill me.

He didn’t want to kill those creatures.

My arms lose the battle and slap back against the stone over my head. He’s in my face now, his teeth chattering. He’s going to bite me. I can see it in the way his head is turning. He’s going to bite my nose off! But he’s fighting it. Resisting.

“You can stop!” I shout back.

“C—can’t!” His desperation matches my own. I’m shocked to see tears in his eyes, too. He doesn’t want to hurt me. I am him. We are each other. And he’s anything but self-destructive. “Need!”

His mouth opens, baring his teeth just inches from my nose. “Need!” he screams again.

I’m too terrified to speak now. The true pain of Tartarus is about to begin.

“Need…help!”

Help.

The word flashes into my mind.

Help.

I beheld in my dream, that a man came to him, whose name was Help.

I’m not the burdened traveler, I realize. I…am Help. Ull is in the Slough. But how can I help him?

Christian sank in the Slough of Despond because it amplified the burden he carried. The weight of the darkness of his heart overpowered him. I think about the awful things I’ve done. Most…were Ull. The weight on his shoulders must dwarf mine.

Escape from the Slough only came with Help’s aid. Give me thine hand: so he gave him his hand, and he drew him out.

I look at our hands, bound by bone and blood.

The same blood.

The same burdens.

They do not belong to Ull alone. They are ours to bear.

I clench my fingers around Ull’s hands, pulling him closer.

His head snaps back like he’s been slapped in the face. “What are you doing?”

We look at our hands, no longer bound by fingers and bone, but by actual flesh. Our bodies are merging. The sight of it sends him into a panic. He draws away and manages to yank a hand free. But I hold on tightly and catch him around the base of his neck. He grinds his teeth, fighting to pull away, but I can feel his strength fueling my grip.

“What are you doing?” he screams.

“Helping,” I say, pulling his head toward mine.

“Helping!?” His eyes dart up to our merged hands. There is only one hand now. Our hand. I understand his fear. I’m absorbing him. In a sense, I’m killing him the way he was just trying to kill me.

“Ull! Listen to me!” When his eyes meet mine, I instill my voice with the kind of affection my mother once used when I was hurt. “We can’t fight each other anymore. Ninnis divided us. But we are not separate. We aren’t Solomon and Ull. We are Solomon Ull Vincent.”

The use of our last name takes the fight out of him some. “We need each other. We’re weaker without each other.”

He stiffens and is about to argue.

“We are incomplete,” I say. “Intellect without emotion lacks power. Emotion without intellect lacks direction. We need to accept each other. We…need to be I.”

His resistance fades, but I don’t think this should be forced. We have been separated for a long time now and like submitting to the will of Nephil, I think this merger has to be a willing one. This needs to last.

“There are people depending on us,” I say. “Em and Luca.” There’s a reaction, but it’s not strong. Those relationships were formed when his personality was suppressed. “Mom and Dad,” I say. He trembles with emotion. “And Aimee.”

The memory of my birth fills my mind. Aimee holds me in her arms. Her smiling face is all I can see. I hear her voice, “You are a precious boy.” They are some of the most powerful words ever spoken to me. I repeat them, speaking to Ull. “You are a precious boy.”

We cry together, sharing our burdens, and in each other, we find uncommon strength. I feel Ull’s forehead touch mine. His free hand wraps around my neck.

As one, we pull.

6

When I open my eyes, Ull is gone. It’s just me, the gorge and the lake of burning fluid. I’m alone. No, I think, Ull is here.

I am Ull.

Solomon Ull Vincent.

I’m complete. Whole.

I look down and find my strong body returned. The stubble on my face tickles my hand as I rub it. The burden of my past failures still weighs upon me. But the burden is shared now. And bearable, despite being locked in Tartarus. In fact, in some ways I feel better than I have in a long time. There is no conflict in my thoughts. Only unity.

And apparently, that is against the rules.

The horn blast is deep and resonates through the land so powerfully that pebbles dance along the ground. The rumbling, monotone horn drones on for five seconds, shaking my body, and then stops. I can’t be certain, but I suspect the horn is an alarm. That it sounds just moments after I’ve found a way to resist the power of this place is a little too coincidental for my taste.

The tower, I think. Whatever controls Tartarus must be there. This is a jail, after all. Someone must be in charge. Without any kind of debate or internal argument, the decision is made, and I set out at a run in the direction I last saw the tower. The ease with which I make up my mind brings a smile to my face. Split personalities are no fun.

The journey goes swiftly. The landscape is barren and inhospitable, but also easy to navigate. The footing is firm and free of any real obstacles. The only hindrances are the valleys, which twist and turn in unpredictable directions. After having to backtrack several miles, I’ve begun avoiding them altogether. At first, I stayed in the low lands as much as possible. After all, an alarm only sounds when there is a force that will respond to it. But I haven’t seen another living thing in hours. Or days. Who knows? I no longer let the timelessness of Tartarus bother me.

I stop at the bottom of a stone hill. Its surface is covered with loose slabs of stone. I would normally skirt the edge of this rise, but it’s tall and will provide me with an excellent view. The flat rocks slip under my feet and clatter loudly down the grade. Halfway up, I start to question the wisdom of my ascent. I’m being far too noisy. But at this point, going down will make as much noise as finishing my climb. So I push onward.

Near the top, I crouch down low (as though I haven’t already alerted anything nearby to my presence) and peer at the surrounding landscape. The endless stony expanse greets me anew. The orange sky is unchanged. I watch the turbulent clouds for a moment, wondering if it ever rains here, and if that rain is actually the acid-water held in the lake. That…would be horrible.

I see the tower clearly without the use of my telescope. I’m more than half way there. I trace the landscape back toward me, mapping the route I’ll take, when my eyes land on a strange aberration. It’s a cart. A wooden cart, like something a horse might pull, but oversized. It’s empty except for what looks like patches of green mold and dark purple stains.

Dried blood.

Nephilim blood.

Before I can ponder my new discovery, I hear the gentle tink, tink, tink, of a stone bouncing down the hill behind me. Without a single thought, I leap over the top of the hill, dropping fifteen feet over the grade. I no longer have the ability to slow my descent with a gust of wind, but I have all of the knowledge and instincts of a hunter, and the skills to match. I land with a roll on the loose stone, which explodes away from my body and rattles down the hillside. As I come upright, I tug Whipsnap from my belt and stand my ground.

I watch the top of the hill, waiting. But nothing happens.

Perhaps the falling stone was a fluke caused by my presence on the hill. It’s possible, but I definitely felt something behind me. And the cart stained with Nephilim blood… Someone brought it here.

“Show yourself!” I shout, and then smile. I can’t help myself. My boldness and confidence feels right, but it’s also new.

The ground shakes. Loose stones rattle and slide away. A plume of stone dust and debris billows from the top of the hill as a second impact resounds.

Why am I always picking fights with giants? And how did it sneak up behind me without making a sound?

The third impact brings a three-fingered hand over the top of the hill. The digits are at least three feet long, coated in mottled, gray skin and tipped with sharp, hooked fingernails.

Not a Nephilim. They have six fingers.

As the second hand comes over and I watch it pulverize the stone beneath its weight, I take a step back. Then the thing rises up over the crest, and I work hard to stifle my revulsion. The two gray hands are attached to long muscular arms. But each cluster of sinews is contained within skin. When the arm flexes, the separate strands of skinned muscles slap together. When relaxed they slide apart, and I can see through the spaces between them. The torso is built similarly, with each bunch of muscle wrapped in its own skin. Even more revolting is the thing’s gut. What I assume are internal organs, hang from the stomach area, dangling by stretched out strands of skin. The pulsing, moving masses sway beneath it as the creature rises up over the hill.

But the absolute worst aspect of this thing is its head, or rather, heads. It has two of them. And like the rest of its body, the muscles controlling its face are separated and contained. It opens and closes its mouth, snapping its teeth together like it’s tapping out Morse code. The enclosed cheek muscles hiss, as air slides through them. Its eyes are solid black, like a shark’s—like a feeder’s, but they lack the same malevolence, which surprises me. The thing is more indifferent. Like it doesn’t care how things turn out. Or, perhaps more likely, like it already knows how things are going to turn out.

When it dips a head down to look at me, I see its skull and realize there is a third option. It’s indifferent because it can’t think for itself. Where there should be a rounded skull, there is a concave crater, like the back of its head was scooped away. The other head is the same. If there is any brain left in there, I’m not sure where it would be. But the creature is still functional. Still moving. And right now, I am the sole focus of its unflinching attention.

It has only revealed half of its mass and it’s already over thirty feet tall. It’s not quite Behemoth, but it dwarfs any Nephilim. I look down at Whipsnap’s metal blade and spiked mace before turning my gaze back to the monster looming above me.

And then I do the only thing I can.

I run.

Loose shale slides down the hill, matching my speed. As I descend, I see that the wooden cart is far larger than I first thought. Easily big enough to pull a fully grown Nephilim warrior. Perhaps two. It occurs to me that the cart likely belongs to the creature behind me. And if that creature is moving bloodied Nephilim around, I don’t stand a chance.

I pick up the pace and reach the bottom of the hill moments later. I veer left and head for what looks like another gorge. If I can reach a tight spot, I might slip away.

The sound of my quick breathing fills my ears. I focus beyond it and hear my bare feet slapping on the flat stone ground. Beyond that, I hear nothing.

No pounding footsteps.

No crush of stone.

No howl.

Nothing.

I risk a glance back. The thing is gone. The cart is still there, but the hilltop is barren. What the—?

A loud boom and a pressure wave strike me simultaneously. My forward momentum ceases and I’m thrown back. Dust rolls over me as I sit up. Holding my breath so I don’t start coughing, I look up to find the monster standing before me. It’s at least forty feet tall, but it’s squatting on powerful hind legs, whose individually wrapped muscles ripple with energy. The sky above me is blotted out for a moment, like night has finally fallen, but the shades pull in and fold against the thing’s back.

Wings! That’s how it gets around so quietly.

Four large black eyes turn down toward me as the creature leans forward onto its hands. As it descends, its wrapped organs dangle close to the ground. One of them must be vital. If I can sever something important, maybe I can escape. I charge forward, beneath the giant. With all of my strength, I leap and instinctually will the wind to carry me forward. But the wind does not obey and I fall short, swinging out and striking the base of my target rather than the thin strand of flesh binding it to the creature’s insides. I see the thin trace of a line where the blade met flesh, but there’s no blood. I merely grazed the surface.

I’m struck in the side and sent sprawling. Whipsnap falls from my grasp. I’m still conscious, but when I sit up, a sharp pain and a near audible grinding in my side tell me several ribs are broken. What hit me?

For some reason, I am more disturbed by the thing’s almost casual attack. It’s not angry. Not growling or shrieking like the predators I’m used to. It’s business as usual. So when it reaches down and plucks me from the ground, I lose my temper. I hurl insults and foul language that have been unused by my vocabulary, even when I was Ull the hunter.

My flung expletives are as useless as my weapons and skills.

The grip tightens, constricting my lungs.

I can’t die, I tell myself. This is Tartarus. The afterlife. I can’t die. I can’t die.

The two massive heads watch me and then speak, each one saying a single word, forming complete sentences by speaking one at a time. “You can die in Tartarus,” they say. “Again. Again. And again.”

It’s the first time I sense any kind of emotion from the thing.

Pleasure.

It’s going to enjoy what it’s about to do.

The fist holding me turns to the ground and then stabs forward. With me in its grasp, the giant punches the stone ground. I shriek in pain. The impact breaks several of my bones and causes who knows how many internal injuries. Shock washes over me and the pain subsides some, but my mind begins to slip away.

I feel a breeze over my face as the fist draws up. My stomach lurches as it punches down again. The impact knocks the air from my lungs and my ribcage implodes. Consciousness fades quickly, but before I slip away, I feel my body rise and fall several more times. The monster is punching the ground, with me in its grasp.

Again.

Again.

And again.

7

I wake to the smell of blood. My keen nose, sharpened by my time as a hunter, recognizes the scent. It’s my blood. But it’s no longer fresh. Without opening my eyes, I reach out with my other senses. The first thing I notice is that I feel no pain. My body is healed. I can’t smell anything beyond the strong scent of my blood. But I can tell that the blood is old. Dried.

How long have I been here?

I listen and at first hear nothing. But then there’s something. Wind? I can hear the air moving, but cannot feel it on my skin. For a moment, I wonder if my immunity to the elements has returned, but then I feel the biting cold anew.

“You can open your eyes, little one.”

The voice is deep and the words are spoken slowly. It’s not the two-headed giant. The voice is different and comes from a single mouth. But I can tell the speaker is large, because despite being restrained, nearly a whisper, the voice still booms and echoes. I realize I’m in a large enclosed space, and then I open my eyes.

The ceiling above me is red and at least a hundred feet up. It reminds me of a cathedral, all arches, pillars and angles. But it lacks the decorum and opulence. This is simple, red stone. In fact, I think the space might have been carved from a single stone because there are no seams.

“You are impressed with Nyx?” The voice says.

You can hear my thoughts, I think at the thing.

“I prefer to speak.”

“In English?” I say.

The Nephilim learned English from human teachers they kidnapped over the years. People like Aimee, who I kidnapped for them. But I seriously doubt there are human teachers here in Tartarus. Certainly not any that speak English, which in the grand scheme of humanity, is a relatively new language.

“I know all languages,” says the voice. “You will have to face me eventually.”

Mind readers can really be annoying sometimes. The conversation was bearable while staring at the ceiling. When I get a look at this thing, I suspect things might take a turn for the worse. But he’s right. I’ll have to face him eventually.

So I do. And what I see confuses me. He’s a Nephilim. Maybe thirty feet tall, but he’s seated on a slab of red stone jutting from the wall, so his height is hard to gauge. He has six fingers on each hand. I can’t see his mouth, but I’d be willing to bet he has double rows of teeth, too. The problem I’m having is his hair. It’s black. Not red.

The Nephilim, and the hunters, myself included, have blood red hair. It’s an outward sign of their corruption. When a hunter leaves the Nephilim behind and seeks a life of goodness and peace, the color fades, to be replaced by the original hair color. And there is not a trace of red in this Nephilim’s hair, not on his head, nor in his long beard.

He’s dressed simply, in a white robe, and his six-toed feet are bare. Even more uncharacteristic, there is no metal band over his pulsing forehead. The Nephilim have many abilities granted to them by their unnatural parentage, including the ability to heal almost instantly. But their one weak spot is in the center of their forehead. It is an area usually protected by a golden band. But perhaps that weakness means nothing here in Tartarus, where things can die again, again, and again, as was so delicately proven to me by my two headed friend.

“You are confused?” the Nephilim says.

I get my feet under me. I’m typically afraid of Nephilim, but the fact that this one has black hair puts me at ease. I’m dressed in my normal clothes and Whipsnap lies on the floor beside me. I bend and pick up my weapon. The giant just watches as I wrap it around my waist and clip it to my belt.

The fact that this Nephilim hasn’t shouted at me for not answering is also surprising. They are not known for their patience. I decide not to push it and say, “You’re Nephilim?”

“You know I am,” he replies.

“But, your hair?”

He gives a slow nod, acknowledging my confusion. “I am not corrupted.”

“But your father…”

“A demon,” he says. “Yes. I was one of the first born. An accident. Overlooked by my father. Despite my…deformities, my mother kept me. And loved me. And raised me…as one of you.”

A mother. A loving human mother with a Nephilim child. It sounds unbelievable, but if everything I’ve been taught about the twisted early days of mankind is the truth, then such a thing must have happened. And more than once.

“But my size soon made me stand out. As word spread, we learned that there were others like me. We were the first of our kind. Twelve of us. Titans among men. And soon, our fathers took notice.”

Titans…

“Our fathers sought to corrupt us, to turn us against mankind, whom they detested. But we resisted them. Our human mothers, who had all passed away by that time, had taught us to care for, and protect mankind. But there was one… The eldest of us, the first born, who desired power more than anything else. He was seduced by our fathers, and quickly corrupted.”

“Nephil,” I say. The story is beginning to make sense.

“Nephil. Lord of the Nephilim, his followers. That is the name you know him by,” the giant says. “I know him as Ophion.”

I know the name. All of this is in my mind somewhere. I reach for the knowledge, seeking out the familiar words. Nyx. Ophion. Titans. Tartarus!

The information arrives in a flash. “You’re a Titan,” I say. “You were the Greek gods before being overthrown by Zeus and the Olympians, who are also Nephilim. When the Titans were defeated, they—you—were imprisoned in Tartarus!”

Before he can confirm or deny this information, I continue, “Ophion. He was an evil Titan. The serpent. He ruled over the Earth long before the Olympians. But he was overthrown by Cronus, whose time on Earth is referred to as the Golden Age.”

“Some of what you say is true. There was a war between the Titans and the younger generations of Ophion’s followers now known as the Nephilim, but the Titans were not confined here. It is the Nephilim who escaped. Tartarus is a prison only for those whose hearts are dark. For the uncorrupted, it is an oasis. When the Titans realized that our time among men was causing more harm than good, we requested sanctuary. We were given Tartarus.”

“Given by whom?” I ask.

“By the only one able to give such a thing.” It is a horribly vague answer, but the story continues without elaboration. “When the Nephilim felt the weight of what they had become, and refused to change, Tartarus became unbearable. They fled. Fearing for mankind, the Titans fought to imprison the Nephilim, but most of them escaped.”

“But not Ophion,” I say.

“Ophion escaped Tartarus. But I gave chase and slew my brother before he could begin dominion over humanity.”

“You defeated Ophion,” I say. “You—you’re Cronus!”

The giant actually grins and dips his head in a bow.

“It pleases me that my name is still known among men.”

I don’t tell him that very few people would actually recognize the name, let alone remember the history of it. He’s generally not given more than a few sentences in history books or encyclopedias, often as a footnote to the more popular Greek gods.

“And what about the giant with two heads?” I ask

“Eurymedon, king of the Gigantes,” he says. “My friend. The Gigantes, like the Titans and the Nephilim, have unnatural parentage. But they are not conceived; they are created—designed—from our blood. You would call them experiments.”

“Like science?” I ask, a little surprised.

“Science is the word humanity uses for the supernatural once it understands the processes involved. Some would call the creation of the Gigantes science. Others would call it magic. It’s just a matter of perspective.”

“That’s why he looks different?”

The nod is nearly imperceptible.

“How many Gigantes are here?”

“An army,” he says. I want to ask more, but Cronus continues his story. “With Ophion’s spirit freed from his body, he returned to Tartarus, occasionally causing unrest among the other Nephilim still confined to Tartarus.”

“Do they ever try to leave?” I ask.

“From the inside, the gates no longer open to the unworthy,” he says.

“But from the outside,” I add, “anyone can open the gates.”

He nods. “The Nephilim outside Tartarus fear this place. To return would mean staying for eternity. But someone did open the gates.” The emphasis he puts on the word “someone” is angry, and directed toward me. “And Ophion left.” The giant shakes his head, confused by the notion. “Ophion returned to the world as a spirit, which cannot last for our kind. I did not wish this fate on my brother, but it was the fate he chose.”

My limbs suddenly feel heavy and I nearly vomit.

He doesn’t know.

“What don’t I know?” His voice is loud now. Barely contained anger. He might not be Nephilim, but that doesn’t mean he won’t get angry, and as the two-headed giant proved, violence isn’t exactly forbidden here.

Before I can answer, I feel him enter my mind. Before he was simply listening to my conscious thoughts. Now he’s digging through my memories. And he doesn’t have to dig far. The events that led me here are still fresh in my mind. I feel myself transported back. I’m standing before the gates of Tartarus, facing the black spirit of Nephil as he enters my body.

I fall to my knees, screaming, reliving the most horrible experience of my life. And as I feel Nephil’s darkness take control of my body and reach out for the world, the weight of Tartarus constricts me with pain beyond description. But the experience is different this time. I’m not just seeing things from my perspective. I’m in Nephil’s head, too. And in that moment, I feel exactly what he did when his power merged with my own. The Earth’s crust rotated, quickly, causing tidal waves, volcanoes, flash freezing. Catastrophe on a global scale. Billions. Billions dead. And it was just the beginning of Ophion’s vengeance. The memory concludes with my rejection of Nephil and his subsequent bonding with Ninnis.

I fall back on the floor as though flung by a powerful force. My body convulses several times and I dry-heave. I wish I could erase the memory, now complete with Nephil’s perspective, from my mind. I clutch my eyes shut, willing it away, but it’s not until I hear, and feel, Cronus’s heavy feet pounding toward me that I can think of anything else. When I open my eyes to see Cronus above me, what I see is nearly as bad. A long segmented tail, like a scorpion’s, slides out from behind the giant. It is tipped with a curved, blade-like stinger that looks like a sickle.

Cronus’s sickle.

The tail rises above me, poised to strike.

8

The strike comes so fast and sudden that my eyes don’t even register the movement. One second the tail is wavering above me with menacing intent. The next, it’s stopped, just inches from my face. A bead of liquid forms at the tip of Cronus’s sickle-like tail. It’s a stinger, I realize. And I have no doubt the effects of being stung will make me wish I could die.

“Wait!” I shout. “We’re on the same side!”

Cronus stomps his foot. The impact shakes the floor beneath me. “You gave yourself to him!”

“And I rejected him!” Cronus saw this in the memory, but he might have been so distracted by the rest that he failed to register why Nephil left my body.

“You set him free!”

This, unfortunately, is the truth. Without me present, Nephil would have remained bound to Tartarus forever. “I had no choice!”

The tail pulls back a few feet so Cronus can look at me. His yellow eyes burn into me, searching for deception. “There is always a choice.”

“You understand what it means to surrender something important to save the ones you love,” I say. “You did the same thing for humanity. You left and came to Tartarus, but the Nephilim escaped. You tried to do the right thing, but there was a negative consequence.”

Cronus says nothing. He’s listening.

“I did the same thing,” I say. “Nephil needed me to leave Tartarus. It’s true. And I willingly offered myself to him. That is also true.”

Cronus tenses, so I speak fast. “But I never intended to let him survive. I thought he would cease to exist once I forced him out. I didn’t know he would find another vessel. I didn’t realize how strong Ninnis was. You have to believe me. Search my memories again. Go back further.”

And he does.

Since I’m a willing participant this time, the experience is far less disturbing. We watch my life in reverse: my recent merging with Ull, the battle with Nephil outside the gates of Tartarus, Luca—the reason for me being there. Cronus pauses.

“You were there for the boy?”

“Yes.”

“He is innocent.”

“He is.”

“He is…you.”

I don’t answer. Cronus finds it in my memories of Luca. He understands. But then he goes back further. To my time as a hunter. The awful things I did. My training under Ninnis. My breaking. My kidnapping.

Further now. The trip to Antarctica. Mira. Aimee. Merrill. My parents, my birthday and Justin. My childhood. He slows the rewind around age six. My hair is cut in a ridiculous bowl cut, but I’m otherwise identical to Luca. The rest of my life in reverse plays back in a flash, ending with Aimee’s smiling face. He lingers here, sensing the significance of this moment. But it’s not Aimee’s smile or the love radiating from her that has caught his attention.

It’s something else.

Something I never noticed before.

The memory starts over at the beginning. The very beginning.

I am warm. And then…cold. The darkness breaks and blurry light stabs my eyes. I’ve never seen light before. The pain makes me squirm. But I can’t cry out. My lungs are filled with fluid. But I’m not in danger. I can feel the life giving pulse at my stomach. I didn’t know what it was back then, only that it gave me life, but now I realize it was my umbilical cord. The pulse slows, and then, it’s gone, separated from my body. I try to scream now, but the liquid in my lungs prevents it. Everything feels wrong.

My tiny mouth is pushed open and something enters my throat. The pressure in my chest disappears. Instinctually, I take a breath.

And that’s when it happens. A wave of energy ripples through my newborn body.

The cold disappears.

My senses clear.

As does my vision.

I can feel the world outside. As though it’s a part of me.

Somewhere, far away, an ice shelf the size of Los Angeles breaks free from the continent. The snap is powerful and violent. I start screaming, unable to comprehend first being separated from my mother, and then being connected to something so much larger. The memory ends as Aimee draws me up to her face and smiles.

I snap out of the past and back into the present. Cronus stumbles back and plops back onto his chair. He’s lost. And to be honest, so am I. I’d never gone that far back. My memories begin with Aimee’s face. But in the few seconds before that, when I drew my first breath, I bonded with the continent, and I could feel it. It strengthened me. Made me immune to the cold. And it frightened me. The shock of it must have blocked that memory.

“I…do not understand,” Cronus says. The way he has his head in his hands is so very human that it shocks me. “You have been given a most unusual gift, the likes of which have not been bestowed on a human being in thousands of years. After the great flood, in which many Nephilim perished, the Nephilim were still above ground and active among humans. I stayed in contact with humanity, teaching leaders how to resist the Nephilim corruption, how to defend against attack and even how a boy with a stone could slay the mighty Nephilim. On occasion, heroes would rise up, blessed with abilities and weapons beyond understanding. And over time, the Nephilim were pushed back to the land where all things began. As the land froze, they fled underground, nearer to the gate than they preferred and bound by ice and snow. It is then that my contact with humanity came to a close and I believed the days of heroes had come to an end.”

He opens his arms toward me. “Yet here you are. A human. In Tartarus. Whose life was touched by light at birth, destined to rise up, a hero, against not just the Nephilim, but my old nemesis, Ophion, as well.”

I’m confused and more than a little intimidated by the things he’s suggesting, which includes me being chosen, at the moment of my birth, to do battle with the Nephilim. Did I ever have a chance at a normal life? Or did some higher power move me like a chess piece?

“You are not a pawn,” Cronus says, reading my thoughts.

“Get out of my head!” I shout.

“Your thoughts are strong,” he says. “I can no more shut out your shouted thoughts than I can erase the moon by closing my eyes.”

“You can see the moon? Here?” I ask, suddenly confused.

He shakes his head, no. “I do miss it sometimes.”

“We went there,” I say. “To the moon. People did.”

He grins, confirming my belief that he had two rows of teeth. “I have always marveled at the ingenuity of humanity. Your individual lives are short. Just a blink. But collectively, from time’s start to its completion, humanity is capable of amazing things.”

“Like defeating Nephilim.”

“On occasion.”

“You said I was touched by light at birth,” I say, but never get to form my question, as he seems to know it already.

“You believe, as do the Nephilim, that the strength and abilities granted you at your birth came from the corruption of the Nephilim spirit possessing the continent you call Antarctica.”

“Antarktos,” I whisper, remembering the word Dr. Merrill Clark preferred to use for the continent. Cronus looks at me oddly. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve interrupted him or because of the word I spoke.

“Antarktos,” he says. “I prefer it as well. The Nephilim have many rituals; some are effective and give them access to the supernatural world, and our fathers. Others, like the spilling of their blood into the bowels of Antarktos, are futile efforts to claim the land as their own. There is no spirit of the Nephilim possessing the land. And it certainly did not fill you at the moment of your birth. If it had, you would embrace them, not resist them.”

“But what about the dark thoughts?” I ask. When I was younger, my imagination would sometimes veer in horrible directions. If I stood near a knife, I would imagine picking it up and stabbing it into the chest of whoever stood nearby. The thoughts came fast and always left me disturbed. “You saw them, didn’t you?”

Cronus cracks his knuckles. It sounds like his big bones are actually snapping, but he shows no discomfort. “Humanity contains the potential for both good and evil. As do Titans and Nephilim, though we are more inclined toward the negative thanks to our fathers’ influence. It is the choice you make that defines you, not the conjuring of your imagination. You abhor the dark thoughts, as you do Nephil. The darkness has always sought you out, perhaps more than others, but you have repelled it. That it exists doesn’t make it part of you.”

“Then I’m not the only one?” I ask.

“Listening to the darkness or not is a decision every human being must make every day of their lives. Most, like you, resist. But some accept the darkness. Some become slaves to it. To the Nephilim. And while you might see acts of violence in your mind’s eye, even the darkest heart sometimes sees beauty, or imagines an embrace or love.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask. “It doesn’t make any sense. You say that I was given a gift that makes me uniquely suited to defeat the Nephilim, yet I’m here, in Tartarus, forever. What good am I? You saw what happened. Nephil took control. He used that power—my power—and nearly wiped out the planet. Billions died. Billions!”

Cronus’s head turns to the floor.

“This war with the Nephilim has brought humanity to the brink once before.”

I’m about to argue when I remember something he said earlier. “The flood.” I don’t question that it happened. A global flood is recorded in nearly all of the planet’s myths, histories and religious texts. What doesn’t make sense is what good a flood would be against the Nephilim. Unless… “Nephilim can drown?”

He nods.

“That’s great,” I say. “But it doesn’t change the fact that I caused the deaths of billions.”

“Nephil did that,” he says, growing impatient. “Not you. You will never defeat him if you are already beaten in your mind.”

“Don’t you understand?” I shout. “I can’t beat him. I’m stuck here. With you. Forever.”

“Have you considered that, to defeat Nephil, you first had to enter Tartarus?”

I meet his eyes. What’s he getting at? “I’m stuck here.”

“Maybe you needed to speak to me first?”

He’s ignoring me. Great.

“Maybe you needed to come here, to a place where your two halves could be reconciled?”

That’s a pretty good point actually, but it still doesn’t change the fact that I’m stuck. In Tartarus. With no way out.

“Or maybe you needed to learn about a weapon that can shake the very foundations of any Nephilim citadel?”

This catches me off guard. “A weapon?”

“And maybe, if you stopped to think about something other than your own personal struggles for just a moment, you would realize that you are, in fact, no more a prisoner here, than I.”

I just stare at him.

Cronus grins. Despite his sharp rows of teeth, it lacks none of the malevolence seen in Nephilim smiles. “For the worthy, all that separates this world from the other is a door. And you, Solomon, were deemed worthy at birth. All you need do, is push.”

9

The gates of Tartarus are a half mile off, but stand high above me. Cronus carried me here on his shoulders, saying nothing as he walked. He didn’t say anything more about Tartarus, the Gigantes or this supposed weapon. He simply walked. I’m not sure if it’s the aberration of time, or Cronus’s long legs, but we seem to cover the distance quickly.

Cronus stops at the top of a rise. He looks around, takes a deep breath and lets it out, the way I used to after rain on a warm spring day. Despite Cronus ignoring all of my questions since the journey began, I ask, “What are you smelling? The air is dry and cold.”

He turns his head toward me. His mouth, which could bite me in two, is just a few feet away. “You still carry your burden.”

“What?”

“I can sense its weight. It blinds you.”

I remember what he said earlier. Tartarus is only a place of torture for those unwilling to change. Unwilling to give up their burden. Like the Slough of Despond. It’s the weight that pulls you under, not the swamp. “But I did those things. I’m responsible. Even more so, now that I’m fully Ull and fully Solomon. I can’t attribute the awful things I did to another personality.”

“Claiming responsibility is not the same as accepting forgiveness. Or redemption. Everyone makes mistakes, Solomon. Everyone must be forgiven at one time or another. Some lie. Some murder.”

I slip in, “Some destroy the planet.”

“That was not you.” He picks me up off his shoulder and places me on the ground. “I have seen your ability to forgive, little one. I saw what you did for Ninnis. And for Kainda. But your ability to forgive is worthless if you cannot turn it upon yourself. If you do not, the darkness you seek to defeat will eat you from the inside.”

“Someone has to offer me forgiveness for those things,” I argue. “How am I supposed to ask the billions—” He raises an eyebrow. “Right. That wasn’t me. Still, how can I earn something like forgiveness?”

Cronus crouches down, but his eyes are still far above me. “Forgiveness cannot be earned. It can only be granted and received. I sense you need to hear the words.” He puts an arm-sized finger under my chin and lifts my head to face him. “Solomon, for your crimes against your fellow men, for the darkness of your heart and for the evil thoughts of your mind, you are forgiven.”

My lips squeeze tight. It can’t be that simple!

“It is that simple,” he says. “You need only accept.”

A strange emotion wells up inside me. I fight it, but cling to it at the same time. The weight lifts. I fall to my knees as pinpricks of pain ripple over my skin. Apparently, in Tartarus you can literally feel the burden being yanked away. And then, it’s gone. I gasp a breath and find the air sweeter. Refreshing.

Full of thanks and relief, I step forward and wrap my arms around Cronus’s leg. If Em could see me now. Solomon, the great Nephilim slayer, hugging a Titan.

Cronus rubs my head with the tip of his finger. “Solomon,” he whispers. “Look again.”

I loosen my grip and step back. After wiping the wetness from my eyes, I look. The hills are no longer barren. Thick green grass, full of flowers, covers the land. The sky has turned blue. The distant lake is shimmering and peaceful, and I have no doubt I could swim its water without fear of melting. But the most startling aspect of the transformed scenery is the tower. It’s no longer made of hard stone. It’s a tree. A massive tree stretching high into the sky. Above the tree is a light source, as bright as the sun, but indistinct.

“What…”

“The secrets of Tartarus are too many to tell,” he says before I can ask. “You have been here long enough.”

“How long?” I ask.

“Three months,” he says.

Three months. It sounds like a long time, but it could have been a hundred years and not felt any different to me. I’m about to ask him if three months Tartarus time is the same as three months surface time, but don’t. I think he knows exactly what I meant when I asked. “You mentioned a weapon.”

“The Jericho Shofar.”

My face screws up involuntarily. He can’t be serious. “A shofar? A ram’s…horn?”

“Like you,” he says, “The Jericho Shofar is…unique. Touched by the light. And in the right hands, a powerful weapon. One you will need.”

“What does it do?” I ask.

To my surprise, Cronus shrugs.

I can’t help but laugh. This is ridiculous. “You don’t even know what it does!”

“It was used by a man named Joshua to—”

“Destroy the walls of Jericho,” I say. “It’s a story from the Old Testament. Joshua destroyed the city and killed everyone inside.”

“Everything inside,” he says. “Jericho, as you know from your time under-ground, was a Nephilim city. The horn was used to defeat them.”

“New Jericho,” I say. He’s right.

“Where can I find the horn?” I ask.

Again, he shrugs. “I only know who to ask about it.”

“Who?”

He grins, this time I sense mischief. “Hades.”

I throw up my hands. “Hades! C’mon. Not only is he Nephilim, but he’s also the god of the underworld. Of hell!”

Cronus shakes his head. “That humanity has survived so long is a miracle. Has your mythology skewed everything? You have lived in the underworld for years, at times quite comfortably. Would you call it hell?”

“Antarktos is the underworld?” I ask. He doesn’t need to answer the question. It’s clearly what he meant. It’s just surprising.

“Hades is one of my oldest friends. The underworld—the land beneath Antarktos—was his domain long before the Nephilim sought refuge there. He was here, in Tartarus, for a time, and he felt his burden lifted. But when the Nephilim left, he went with them.”

“You couldn’t stop him?” I ask.

“I…sent him.”

“You what?”

“I needed someone to watch them, to observe, and to report back on occasion.”

“A spy?”

He waggles a finger in the air. “But…be careful when you approach him. I have not heard from him in some time and fear he may have finally been corrupted.”

“How long is a long time?” I ask.

He says nothing.

It feels strange, bullying an answer out of a Titan, but I need to know. “How…long?”

“Nearly one thousand years.”

Great. “So I find Hades, tell him Cronus says hello, see if he eats me and then say, ‘By the way, do you know where I can find the Jericho Horn?’”

The giant chews on his lips for a moment and then nods. “Precisely.”

“That’s got to be one of the worst plans I’ve ever heard,” I say.

“But…”

Jerk. The mind-reading giant already knows the punch line. He just wants to hear me say it. Fine. “It’s better than most of mine.”

“I thought you would like it.” He raises his hand up toward the massively tall black doors built into a cliff side that rises up into the clouds. “It’s time for you to go.”

“What do I do with the horn once I have it?” I ask. “Am I supposed to kill the Nephilim? Bring them here?”

“I do not know,” he says. “I wish I did. Your destiny might be known only to others, but it has always been in your hands.” He shoos me away, nudging me with his big hand and then waving me forward. “Go.”

I move toward the gates, but walk backward so I can see him. There’s a lot I want to ask, and say. I have never been friends with a creature like Cronus. There’s so much I could learn from him. And this place, this paradise…how could anyone want to leave here? How could Hades stay away?

As this thought absorbs my attention, I trip and spill backwards. I manage to turn the fall into a graceful roll, but it’s still embarrassing. I’m supposed to defeat Nephil, aka Ophion, and an army of Nephilim and hunters, and I can’t even walk backwards. When I look up, Cronus is smiling and shaking his head.

I grin back at him, wave, turn to the gates and run. The grass is soft beneath my feet. The speed and the warm breeze washing over my face invigorate me. I cover the distance in a flash and find myself standing before a wall of black.

The gates of Tartarus.

All you need do, is push.

I place my hand against the cold black metal. It doesn’t seem possible that anything could open this massive door, human, Nephilim or Gigantes.

It opens for the worthy, and you were deemed worthy at birth.

I’m not sure I agree, but I decide to believe the Titan.

So, I push.

10

The massive door slips open silently, as though oiled by whatever WD-40 equivalent is available in Tartarus. The blackness of the door is replaced by a veil of more blackness. Even open, one cannot see the real world from Tartarus, or vice versa. But, according to Cronus, I can step through.

I take a look back, hoping for an encouraging nod, but Cronus is gone. I’m tempted to stay for a moment, as I look out at the paradise that revealed itself after my burden was lifted. How could the Nephilim not want to be here? I wonder. Then again, they’re all about hate, killing and pain. Of course, it’s far more baffling that even the Nephilim could find forgiveness here, if they wanted to. It doesn’t seem right, that such a deep-rooted evil could ever have the opportunity for redemption.

Then I remember Ninnis, whose heart is as dark as any Nephilim. Worse, if you consider that he is fully human. The Nephilim are half demon. They were born at a moral disadvantage. But then there is Cronus and the other Titans.

Evil is a choice, I decide. Human or demon, there is a choice.

There is always a choice. Cronus’s words.

But what about the hunters? Broken so that their former self is gone. They’re turned into killers. Like I was.

But there is still a choice. Tobias, Em, Xin and maybe even Kainda chose to fight the will of their masters. There is always a choice.

There is always hope.

Step through, I tell myself. Stop delaying.

I raise my hand and place it through the veil. It tingles, but I feel nothing else. There could be an army waiting for me. Or Behemoth. Or Ninnis.

No, I think. No one is waiting. As far as they know, Tartarus is a one-way trip. Not to mention it’s been three months since I left. At most, there will be a hunter on watch. And that, I can handle.

I step through, eyes open.

The world turns black and then resolves again, like walking through a shadow. My eyes quickly adjust to the low light of the massive cavern on the other side, and I flinch back, nearly falling back into Tartarus.

Behemoth is waiting for me.

But there’s something wrong with the creature.

The massive body is shorter. Is it squatting? It’s leaned against the cavern wall, just to the right of the gates. Its mouth hangs open, revealing rows of giant triangular teeth. The body is limp. The long, red, tentacle-like hair hangs in loose bundles.

Is it sleeping? I wonder.

Then my senses pick up more details. The body lacks mass, as though deflated. The skin hangs loose in places. The normally black eyes are milky white and shriveled. And then there is the stench of decay.

Behemoth is dead.

I don’t even think Nephil could kill the giant beast on his own.

With my eyes turned toward the towering corpse, I step forward and I’m once again given cause to jump back. I’ve stepped in a puddle of water.

Cold water.

My powers have not yet returned.

As the chill of the underworld wraps itself around me, I realize how easy I’ve had it all this time. The other hunters live in the underworld, never complaining about the constant fifty-five degree temperature, while I’ve been living in temperature-free bliss. If my powers don’t return soon, I’m going to have to adapt to the cold.

But there is something else confusing about this puddle—the fact that it exists at all. When I last stood in this spot, moments before stepping back into Tartarus, no water flowed through this portion of Behemoth’s cavern. I look up and find the cavern floor littered with puddles. Even the air is moist.

My eyes return to Behemoth’s dead body, the mouth upturned and agape, as though gasping for air.

He drowned, I think. Behemoth drowned. The whole cavern must have flooded. But how is that possible?

A gentle scratching sound pulls my attention down to the massive, shriveled stub of flesh that used to be Behemoth’s leg. I step closer, watching as a small spot of flesh the size of my fist pulses in and out, as though being poked from within. When I’m ten feet away, the skin tears and one of the underworld’s most common denizens—the giant albino centipede—slips out. This one is bigger than most. In fact, it might be the biggest specimen I’ve ever seen. The portion emerging is three feet long and nearly as thick as a football. If the proportions of this centipede match the ones I’m used to, it’s at least another six feet long!

Big enough to put up a fight.

Big enough to eat me.

When it senses my presence, it stops and turns its head toward me. Its two antennae dance in the air. This is the point where the creatures usually identify me as a hunter and attempt to flee.

This one stands its ground.

Oookay.

I feel like I’ve stepped into a world as foreign as Tartarus. Nothing here matches what I remember or what I expect.

A sharp clatter vibrates from the centipede as its mandibles twitch. This is new to me, too. What is it doing?

My answer comes from Behemoth’s body. At first, it’s just a few spots of raised flesh, then a hundred. Then a thousand. One by one, centipedes emerge from Behemoth’s mass. So many tear out of the stomach area that the flesh falls away in a giant sheet, revealing a squirming mass of living insides.

Centipedes. Some reaching twenty feet in length. They’ve been eating Behemoth from the inside out, and from the looks of it, have finished off pretty much everything worth eating. Not only are they big. Not only do they number in the thousands.

But they’re also hungry.

The staple food of the underground has become an apex predator. And based on the chatter emerging from the swarm, they’re also communicating. Coordinating.

I’m so dead.

For a moment, I think about retreating, back into Tartarus. But then I’d really be trapped there. No, I can’t go back. I need to push forward.

I need to get the hell out of here.

So I run.

And after my first few steps, I realize I might not be a fast enough runner. The mass of centipedes falls toward me like a living avalanche. If they catch me, they’ll tear me to pieces and devour me in a matter of seconds. My legs begin to cramp, as I will them to move faster. If my abilities had returned, I could fling myself out of reach with a gust of wind, but every time I reach out for that connection to the continent, I slow. So I ignore what I could have done in the past and focus on what is possible now.

The sound of thousands of sharp legs taps on the stone floor to my right. I glance over and see the outer edge of the living wave about to collide into my side. I dive forward, just out of reach and roll back to my feet. A smaller centipede specimen is flung from the mass and collides with my back. I nearly fall over, but manage to stay on my feet. I keep moving, even as the three-foot long creature stabs its mandibles into my forearm. I try to shake it off, but its segmented body coils around my arm and constricts. It’s not trying to kill me, I realize. It’s trying to slow me down.

“Fine,” I say to the centipede, “you’re coming with me.”

As I veer off to the left, heading for one of the side tunnels, I realize it’s a mistake. The tunnels surrounding the cavern are either tight squeezes or riddled with obstacles that will slow me down. Every single one of them leads uphill. And most connect with a maze of other tunnels through which the centipedes could speed ahead and lay in wait. The point is, I can’t outrun them in the side tunnels. So I push forward, hoping they’ll tire, but I doubt that’s going to happen.

I glance back.

A mistake.

The writhing wave of centipedes is just ten feet back. The one attached to my arm senses the end approaching and squeezes harder. I shout in pain, but then hear a roar over my own voice. It’s deep and constant—not from a living thing.

As the moisture in the air grows so thick that it starts collecting on my skin, I know what lies ahead.

A river.

And the centipedes can’t swim.

As I round a bend in the giant cavern, the river comes into view. It emerges from one side of the cave, races across the nearly two-mile distance and exits out the other end. It’s thirty feet across and filled with raging white rapids. I don’t stop to think when I reach the water’s edge. I simply jump.

As my feet leave the ground and the wet wind above the river strikes my side, I will it to carry me across to safety. I feel the wind kick up around me…

And then I drop like a stone into the wash of white.

The water is freezing cold. The centipede on my arm reacts immediately, trying to unwrap itself from my arm. But I hold on tight. I’m going to need it if I escape the river.

As I’m swept away, I look back and see that a few of the centipedes have fallen into the water. They writhe and then slip beneath the waves. Drowned and dead. The rest pile up along the shore, heads tracking me as I’m carried away. Behemoth might be dead, but Tartarus has a new guardian.

I lose sight of them as I’m pulled into the cavern’s sidewall and plunged into darkness.

11

After being pummeled by miles of racing rapids that twist through the underworld, I manage to scramble out of the widening waters and pull myself up onto a slab of gray stone. The centipede on my arm has long since drowned, but it’s still attached in a death grip. As my energy wanes, I unravel the creature from my arm and tug each mandible out of my flesh. I barely feel it thanks to the numbing cold of the river, but my blood flows freely. As I sense unconsciousness looming, I unhitch Whipsnap from my belt and use the mace end to bludgeon the centipede’s head. There’s no way to know if the centipede’s physiology was affected by consuming Behemoth and I don’t want to risk it reviving while I sleep.

I glance down at the twin wounds in my forearm. The blood is dripping onto the stone and running into the river. I should really take care of it. The scent of blood will draw predators to me. But my exhausted body gives me no choice. I lie down as my vision fades and place my head on stone ground.

“Have a cookie,” Aimee says to me. She’s standing in her room at Asgard, but there is a modern oven. She pulls out a tray of steaming cookies and holds it out to me. The cookies are centipede heads. “They’re just as sweet as brown sugar. Just don’t tell anyone I gave one to you or they’ll slit my throat.” The words are spoken with a broad white grin, as though everything is just dandy.

“Can I have one?” asks a small voice that I recognize.

I look at myself sitting in the corner. I’m six years old. And hungry. So hungry. I watch myself pick up a centipede head cookie and eat it with gusto. The cookie disappears in three bites and then the boy-me licks his fingers. “Thank you, Mrs. Clark.” Then, strangely, he notices me. How can I notice myself in a dream?

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 was 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.

The fact that it finds me funny, aggravates me. I point the blade end of Whipsnap toward its head. Doesn’t this Nephilim know who I am? What I’m capable of? Granted, I rejected Nephil, so I’m no longer his vessel, or the Lord of the Nephilim. But I am the guy strong enough to reject Nephil, who entered Tartarus and walked back out. I’m far from cocky, but I’m pretty sure that after my last display of power, even a warrior might be a little more cautious than this little thinker.

Which means it knows something that I don’t.

Something that it finds funny.

Which I hate. And it seems to know that, because it giggles again.

Clack, clack, clack.

“Who are you?” I demand.

Clack, clack, clack.

When I get no answer, I sweep Whipsnap out in a wide arc, shattering more glass containers and knocking a tray of large-toothed saws to the floor.

The thing shrieks at me, all humor gone.

I ask again, “Who are you?”

It giggles again, this time more subdued. As I target another tabletop, the small Nephilim reaches up and takes hold of its cloak. The bladed fingertips slice into the thick fabric like it’s not even there. The hood peels back and the thing’s face is fully revealed. With the horrible punch line to the thing’s inside joke revealed, it starts laughing again.

Then it attacks.

13

I have no powers.

My arm is injured.

I’m exhausted.

But none of these things are as dangerous to me right now as my distraction. It’s the eyes. They’re not big and oval and inhuman. They’re mine.

This creature, like everything else in this lab, is part me.

Aimee tried to warn me about the other four living duplicates. She was surprised by Xin’s actions, but held out no hope that the other four could be redeemed. And now, as I look into the light blue eyes that match mine, I see nothing but hatred. The tufts of stiff red hair growing from the prodigious head like patches of long grass confirm its corruption. The sharp sting I feel as one of six razorblade fingertips traces a red line across my chest confirms its lethality.

The pain pulls me from my shocked state as the creature swipes at my gut, aiming to disgorge my innards. I block the strike with Whipsnap, spin into a crouch and after bending Whipsnap back, I let the mace end snap out. The strike is fluid, fast and as good as any hunter could achieve. And the results are better than the separate personalities of Ull and Solomon could hope for. Ull would have been all power and no direction. Solomon would have been on target, but lacking commitment. Whereas now, being whole, the blow is the best of both worlds.

The mace caves in the side of the thing’s head. It slumps over, falling into the large-toothed saw blades, some of which dig into its flesh. A killing blow.

If it were human.

As the creature stirs, I remember the color of its blood. Purple. Nephilim. Unlike Xin, whose blood is red, and very human, this half-me is Nephilim through and through. Which not only means I have no problem killing it, despite it having my eyes, but also means completing the task will be quite difficult.

Before it’s even fully healed, the thing lunges. Both bladed hands are outstretched and reaching for my legs. I have no doubt the razor fingers can sever flesh and bone, so I act quickly and defensively, leaping away. Before I land, I remember the broken glass on the floor. Using Whipsnap like a miniature pole-vaulting pole, I push the mace into the floor and shove myself atop a human-sized operating table.

As I roll over and push myself up, I hear skittering glass. The creature is giving chase. And fast. I get my feet under me and jump away just as the thing lands on the table, gouging its claws across the stone surface.

I land on my feet this time and turn to strike the creature as it leaps toward me. But the thing is frozen atop the first table, looking down at the twelve lines scraped into the otherwise perfectly smooth surface. Its body quakes. And then it screams. Its small chest heaves as its blue eyes lock onto mine.

The continued destruction of this perfect lab enrages the thinker creation. It must have been trained as a thinker, or at least to value order like a thinker. But it was left behind as a caretaker. Or guardian. And right now, it is failing.

With a shriek, the creature dives at me, but falls short and smashes into the side of the table I’m standing on. Its anger makes it clumsy, I realize.

I jump to another, slightly larger, stone operating table where a row of hammers—each designed for a specific task—is lined up along the edge. As the thing leaps back up to a table top, I snatch up a hammer, take aim and whip it toward the ceiling. A sharp crash resounds as the hammer finds its mark on the side of one of the large light bulbs. Thick glass rains down from above and the light winks out. Though the effect on the overall luminosity of the room is negligible, the mess is horrendous.

When the small me-thing cries out, I think that one of the glass shards has landed in its eye or something, but when I look, the creature is unharmed. Just really, really angry. A purple tinged foam oozes from its mouth. Then it speaks, shouting Sumerian obscenities that spray the purple like one of those automatic lawn sprinklers that move from one side to the other tick, tick, tick, tick, pfffft, tick, tick tick.

While it wails on, I look at its forehead, looking for the telltale pulse that reveals the Nephilim weak spot. When I don’t see it, I have a kind of revelation. Only the warriors wear the metal bands that protect their foreheads. Which means the other races either don’t have weak spots, or they’re not nearly as invulnerable—perhaps they’re far easier to kill. Which might also explain why the warriors are the ruling class.

Before the creature finishes fuming, I decide to press the attack. I leap forward and strike out with the blade end of Whipsnap. To say the little Nephilim is surprised, is an understatement. It bounds straight up into the air like it’s got coiled springs for legs. But the leap is uncontrolled and off balance. The thing’s body twists as it rises. When Whipsnap’s blade slips through the air beneath the creature’s body, it bites into the flesh of its arm and severs one of its six fingered hands.

An arc of purple blood sprays from the wrist as the thing spins and lands on the floor.

Moment of truth, I think, watching the thing spin, growl and gnash at everything around it like it’s the Tasmanian Devil. When it finally stops and gets back to its feet, I see the hand. Or, rather, where the hand used to be. Instead of growing a new hand, like a warrior might, the wound has simply sealed over. My next thought is a little dark, but accurate: dismemberment is the key.

Once again, the small Nephilim isn’t prepared for my attack. I suspect that while it was trained to obsess over details, cleanliness and organization, it wasn’t taught how to fight. So far, it’s been reacting from anger and instinct. Armed with the knowledge of how to kill this Nephilim, I now have the upper hand.

I almost feel bad for the thing as I leap to the floor next to it, careful to place my feet where there’s no broken glass. It leaps at me, swiping desperately with its one remaining clawed hand. I lean back, easily dodging the strike. The creature spins in the air, pulled around by the momentum of its failed attack. As the thing rotates in the air, I consider sparing its life. It is, after all, partly me.

My logic is answered by emotion. With a shout, I bring Whipsnap’s blade down and sever head from body. The two halves, which are nearly the same size, fall next to each other. The head rolls and spins, coming to rest against the base of a stone table. Purple blood pools around the separated parts, but nothing else happens. The creature is dead. And as a Nephilim, whose spirit cannot exist eternally outside of Tartarus, it ceases to exist. Which is for the best, I decide. They might have given it my eyes, but there was nothing else human about it.

With the thing dead at my feet, my interest in this Nephilim laboratory hits an all time low. It’s not a safe or smart place to be, especially now that I’ve wrecked the place and left my scent all over it. It seems unlikely that anyone or anything will be returning to the lab, which was unaffected by the flood, but if a hunter comes to this place, they’ll know I’ve been here. That I’m alive. And that I’m free from Tartarus.

And if that happens, I need to be as far away from this horrible place as I can be. I head for the large staircase and glance to the left, looking at one of the largest of the liquid filled tubes. It’s nearly fifteen feet tall, and it’s occupied. The shape inside makes me pause.

It’s not human. For a moment, I mistake it for one of the oversized centipedes, but it’s not even a body.

It’s a body part, the likes of which I have only ever seen once.

In Tartarus.

Cronus’s tail.

The long, scorpion-like tail and stinger are impossible to mistake. For a moment, I’m filled with dread. Did Cronus trick me? Was he captured and experimented on? Both of these concerns are quickly discounted. Cronus couldn’t have been taken here, dismantled and pickled before I got here. The timing is all off and the scent of his blood would still hang in the air. This place hasn’t been used in some time.

The tail belongs to someone else.

Or, like all of my dead duplicates, it was grown here. But for what purpose?

A question for another day, I decide. But I can’t let this appendage be used for anything sinister, so I climb up on top of one of the Nephilim-sized operating tables and whack the glass with Whipsnap’s mace. The cylinder shatters, spilling gouts of purple fluid, and the tail, onto the floor.

As the liquid spreads toward the staircase, I leap from tabletop to tabletop. I beat the purple fluid to the staircase by a few feet, and as I start down the stairs, the trickling sound of flowing liquid follows. I quickly reach the crack through which I entered the smooth tunnel and slip back into the craggy, rough underworld. As I backtrack through the tunnel, I feel calmer, more in control, but the disturbing discoveries I made in the lab haunt me like specters.

14

I head up through the underground as quickly as I can. Not just because I want to reach the surface, but because I know time moves more slowly the deeper you are. If I linger in the depths too long, the conflict on the surface will flash past before my arrival. There is no rhyme or reason to my path; I’m just heading up. But after miles of walking, it happens. I recognize a tunnel. I’m not far from New Jericho. And from there, it’s an easy trek to the surface and then…Clark Station 1? Clark Station 2?

Part of me says this is a very bad idea. My nostalgia has made me predictable before. It’s how Ninnis found me. It’s also what led to Tobias’s death. I might walk into a trap. That said, no one knows I’m here. Ninnis and the Nephilim, if they’re even still on Antarctica, won’t be looking for me. And both Em and Kainda are smart enough to not return to those places. Not for long anyway. But maybe long enough to leave a clue. It’s the only starting place I have that might help me find my friends, and help. As much as I’d like to finish my journey, and fight, without endangering anyone else I care about, it’s just not possible. I need help.

To find the Jericho Shofar, I first need to locate Hades. But I have no idea where to find him. I assume he resides at the Olympus citadel, like the other faux-Olympian-god Nephilim, but I’ve never been there. I need a guide. And without my powers, I’ll need back-up. Significant back-up. I was able to kill Ull using my powers, but I’m fairly certain such a thing won’t be possible without them. Even with Em and Kainda fighting with me, I doubt we could manage to slay even one of the warriors.

But this is my fate, so I strike out for New Jericho, and for the surface. My thoughts drift to Pilgrim’s Progress. Christian faced trials along his path, and accepted aid from others to overcome those trials. But the pearly gates that were his ultimate destination are a far cry from the bloodshed that likely waits at the end of my path. Still, I see no alternative and continue on the path laid out before me, which for now, leads ever upward.

Several hours later, I’m standing at the top of what was once a three hundred foot waterfall. I jumped from its ledge to escape the hunter, Preeg. Using my control over the wind, I slowed my fall and survived. Preeg leapt after me and died on impact. If I were to make the same leap now, without my powers, I would share his fate. That is, if the massive chamber containing the ruins of New Jericho weren’t flooded. The three hundred foot drop to the water’s surface has been reduced to twenty. Not even the tallest temple of New Jericho is visible. While I’m happy to not have to walk through the ruins and past the statue and gravesite of my former master, the Nephilim known as Ull, this also puts a damper in my plans. The tunnel I had planned to take to the surface is now under hundreds of feet of water.

A distant roar reminds me that there is a waterfall on the other side of the chamber. By the sound of it, it’s pumping more water than ever before. The cliff edge I’m standing on was also a waterfall at one time, but it’s now dry, its water source either gone or redirected. The flooding must be coming primarily from the other waterfall, which is fed by meltwater from the surface.

That’s a lot of melted water.

Steeling myself for the cold water, I dive into the lake. I arch my body and return quickly to the surface, taking fast, shallow breaths. There was a time when it took me twenty minutes to jump into a pool in the middle of the summer. And when I did, I would holler about how cold the water felt. Swim, my father would tell me, kick your legs and you’ll warm up. I never listened. I would dog paddle to the ladder, yank myself out, wrap up in a towel and help myself to potato chips and a Coke like they were a reward earned in battle. But I take his advice now. I point myself in the right direction, and swim for all I’m worth.

When I reach the other side, I’m exhausted. Few things wear the body down like a long swim. And I can’t stay in the water. Treading water will only make me more tired, and if I lose consciousness, I could slip beneath the surface and drown. But the only escape is the waterfall. And it rages.

Undeterred, I swim around the water pouring out of the gap in the solid stone wall. The surface is smooth and slick with moisture. Even the strongest hunter couldn’t climb this surface—that is, unless, they have climbing claws capable of clinging to the minutest blemishes in the stone. I put the climbing claws on my hands, reach up and drag the first one down against the stone until it catches on something. I yank myself up, all of my weight pulling on that one arm and the feeder teeth. Luckily, the Nephilim have strong bones, and my conditioned arms, while tired, are up to the task.

The rest of my body, however, is straining. The shallow incision across my chest, given to me by the now dead thinker abomination, stings sharply with every twitch of muscle. The wound scabbed over quickly, so I never gave it much attention. The intense pain makes me think I should have. The sealed wound has been soaking in the lake water. It might have reopened when I was swimming. Could be deeper than I first thought, too.

Later, I tell myself. Right now, I have to climb.

I pull myself up the wall slowly, dragging the claws, finding a hold and pulling myself up again and again until I’ve covered fifty feet. The pain in my chest is intense, but I can’t let it distract me now. I’m focused. Determined. And possibly, at a dead end.

The waterfall roars to my left. There is no ledge to step on and entering the water here is impossible. The strong current would yank me back into the lake and I lack the strength to repeat the climb. I scuttle across the wall, clinging to it with the climbing claws, and maneuver myself so I’m above the waterline. As I round the bend into the tunnel, I find footholds big enough for my toes and moving becomes easier. A few minutes later, I’m free of the wall, standing on the shore of a river that is at least ten feet deeper than I remember.

I turn my head up river and smell, searching the air for signs of life, human or otherwise. At first, I detect nothing. No blood. No rot. Nothing.

But then, there’s something faint. Something out of place. It’s earthy, but not stone. It’s more like dirt. Like soil. Damp and fragrant.

Like spring.

I close my eyes and breathe deeply. A blanket of air rushes past, pushed by the river. It carries the scent of vegetation, flowers and water. It smells like…life. And then I feel it.

The air.

It’s warm.

15

To say I’m confused is an understatement. The air flowing through this tunnel should be icy cold. Granted, I couldn’t feel the temperature during my previous time here, but the science—

My eyes pop open as I remember the cause. When I bonded with Nephil, he reached out and became bonded with the Earth. The bond lasted just a moment, but it was long enough for him to reposition Antarctica at the equator. Billions died. I sensed it. But I hoped it wasn’t true. But now there can be no doubt. The world has been remade. Antarktos has thawed under an equatorial sun. It explains the flooding. The air. The smell. And the disappearance of most subterranean species.

They’ve headed to the surface.

Back to the surface.

Most of the creatures eking out a living in the underground were originally surface dwellers. Like the Nephilim, when the continent froze, they moved beneath the surface. If not for the strange properties of this continent, they would have most likely died out long ago. But they are once again enjoying their time in the sun.

The sun.

I haven’t seen it in years. And as I head for the surface, following tunnels I know well, I’m filled with a sense of dread. The feeling is similar to what I felt when I was first dragged underground by Ninnis. The surface is an unfamiliar world now, even more so now that the snow is melting.

When I reach the final tunnel leading outside, I pause. There’s the crack where I hid the Polaroid photo of Mira and me. Not far away is the section of wall upon which I carved the words, “I forgive you,” for Ninnis. The words are illegible now, scratched away, most likely by Ninnis himself. Up ahead is the tunnel exit through which I would normally see a deep blue sky. Now the sky is full of thick, dark clouds. Thunderheads. The kind you see in New England in late spring.

The scent of ozone lingers in the air. Lightning, I think, just before the sky flickers with a brilliance that makes me shout in pain. The dark clouds had made the light of day bearable, but the sudden flash is as bright as the sun. I clench my eyes shut, holding my hands over them, and I see the bright green image of a lightning streak as though it’s etched into my eyelids.

Everything about my return to the surface feels awful. That is, until the booming thunder rolls past, vibrating the ground beneath me. It’s like Behemoth has just fallen down next to me. The power in that rumble brings a smile to my face. I used to lie on my bed and watch thunderstorms, as they swept past and out to sea. I’ve missed them.

After donning my sunglasses, I inch toward the surface. I’m sure I look like a fool—a long haired, Tarzan-like, bearded teenager wearing sunglasses. But unlike during my years in school, there will be no one around to point out my ridiculous state. As I near the end of the tunnel, light fills the sky again. I squint against the light, but the dark sunglasses take the edge off.

Even with the cloud cover, when I step out of the tunnel, the daylight hurts. I close my eyes as I step out into the world. The first thing I notice is the land beneath my feet. It’s soft and squishy, like the remains of some dead creature. Through squinted eyes, I look down and see a dark goop pushing up between my toes.

Mud.

I crouch and scoop some of the soft earth into my hand. The grainy wetness feels similar to the insides of a centipede. I bring it to my nose and inhale slowly and deeply. The scent triggers memories. Playing in the back yard with Justin. Gardening with my mom. Exploring a swamp with my father.

I wasn’t dreading the surface. I was dreading the memories a thawed Antarctica would bring. Just the smell of mud is potent enough to send me back in time. It’s not that I don’t want to remember, or that the memories are bad, it’s that they hurt. I’ve been here for more than twenty years, even though from my perspective it’s been closer to three. I can’t return to the life I knew. It’s gone for good and now, thanks to Nephil’s repositioning of the world, potentially destroyed. My parents could be dead. And if I give these things any attention, I will enter my own personal Slough of Despond.

I flick the mud off my hand and stand up. My eyes slowly acclimate to the sunglass-darkened, cloud-dimmed daylight. I look up and find the world remade.

Where a glacier once slid slowly into the ocean, there is now a lush, green valley. A variety of tall trees, few of which I recognize, cover the land. The barren, frozen desert of Antarctica is now a thick, green jungle.

How is this possible? I think. Cronus said I’d been away for just three months. And my time in the deep underworld was brief. It couldn’t have added more than a few more weeks. These trees couldn’t have sprung up so quickly. This looks more like twenty years worth of growth!

Have I been gone for another twenty years? My stomach twists at the idea. Not only would my parents certainly be dead, but the outside world would have been dominated by the Nephilim long ago. Em, Kainda and Luca will all be adults, if they’re even still alive.

Don’t get distracted, I tell myself. You don’t have the answers. Stay out of the Slough.

I step into the jungle, heading downhill to where Clark Station 2 once stood. The thick canopy of large leaves far above is a relief. It blocks out so much of the light that I’m able to take off my sunglasses. It’s almost like the under-ground, but above the ground. As my eyes continue to adjust, my senses that are unaffected by light, take in my surroundings. The smell of earthy decay reaches me first, and then the scent of animals, some familiar, some new. But there is no doubt that the denizens of the subterranean world now inhabit the surface. If the smell alone didn’t convince me, the sounds permeating the jungle would have. Though I have yet to see a living creature, I can hear them loud and clear. A cresty barks in the distance. Other creatures call out warnings as the hunt plays out. All around, I hear birds.

There were no birds in the underworld, so where did they come from? I’ve read that birds can sense things like volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, just before they strike. The birds take to the sky. If the same thing happened when the Earth’s crust shifted, it’s possible that the world slipped by beneath the airborne birds and they found themselves transported to a new continent. I know my theory is sound when the distinct red, blue and yellow plumage of a macaw flaps past overhead. The bird is a native of Brazil. It must feel right at home in this new rainforest.

Advancing carefully and quietly, I move down the grade, deeper into the forest, where the trees grow to impossible heights that could easily conceal an army of Nephilim. When I’ve covered the precise distance between the cave exit and Clark Station 2, I stop. There’s a tree where the metal hangar-like station should be.

I creep forward. Maybe the land has changed? Maybe it was pulled away by ice as it flowed out to sea. It seems unlikely, because ice melted by the sun would melt from the top down and the buried structure would have been freed from it slowly and gently.

Whump-bump.

The ground beneath my feet bubbles down under my weight and springs back up when I step off. I’ve stepped on something. Falling to my knees, I quickly brush away a layer of detritus and several inches of soil. When I’m done, I stare at my discovery. It’s a metal panel, ridged like the surface of Clark Station 2. Was it buried again? I wonder. But I quickly find the outer edges and lift the rusted metal from the ground.

A quick search of the surrounding area reveals more of the same. Clark Station 2 has been destroyed. There’s nothing left.

Sadness grips me. I’m not sure what I expected to find here. Maybe comfort in the familiar, or…the note. I’d forgotten about Mira’s note, but some part of me must have hoped to find it. But it’s long gone now, like Mira herself.

My thoughts turn to Clark Station 1. It’s just five miles from here. Not only is it the place of my birth, but it was also home to Luca, Em and Tobias for a time. If there are any clues to their location to be found, they’ll be there.

Moving fast, I begin a reckless charge through the jungle that will get me to Clark Station 1 in thirty minutes. I’m noisy and leaving a path that is easy to follow. Like I said, reckless. I already knew there are cresties hunting nearby. What I didn’t know was that a different sort of hunter now stalked the jungle—one equally as deadly as the ancient dinosaurs.

16

The man is as surprised by me, as I am by him. He spins around with wide eyes, like a child caught stealing cookies. His complexion and facial features look Arab, and his clothing is modern military—fatigues, boots and weapons. He’s got some kind of automatic weapon slung over his back and a handgun on his hip.

I didn’t see the man crouched by a tree and nearly bowled right into him. But my reflexes are fast and I lunge to the side, avoiding a collision that would have been painful. I roll back to my feet and spin toward the man with open hands—what I hope is still universal for “I mean you no harm.”

Unfortunately, he’s not of the same mind. When his hand comes up, it’s holding a handgun. He aims it at my chest, but doesn’t pull the trigger. He’s no doubt confused by the half-naked teenager standing before him. In all my time below ground, I never felt self-conscious about my scant clothing. Everyone underground dressed like this. Survival depended on it. But under this man’s bewildered gaze, I’m feeling wholly underdressed.

His eyes linger on the sharp blade and spiked mace attached to either side of my waist where Whipsnap is clipped.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I say.

Something about my words enrages the man. I can only understand one word of his reply. “American.” And it sounds more like an accusation than a question. What has happened in the world that the first person I come across wants to kill me because I’m an American?

Rather than tempting fate, I shake my head, no, and say, “Antarctican.”

He seems to understand what I’m saying. Antarctica is Antarctica in any language. But as expected, the claim makes no sense to the man. With no way to elaborate verbally, I motion to my lack of clothing and repeat, “Antarctican.” I point to the earth beneath my feet. “Underground.”

Again, I think he understands because his face screws up like he’s just stepped in cresty dung.

He shouts a long string of words I can’t understand. I don’t know if he’s telling me to do something, telling me I’m an idiot or performing last rites before shooting me in the head. When I don’t react, he takes a step closer and waggles the gun angrily in my face. “Knees!” he says.

That, I understand. He wants me on my knees. And as fast as I am, I can’t outrun a bullet. With no powers to assist me, I have no choice but to comply. I drop to my knees, hands still raised.

He puts a hand to the back of his head, pantomiming what he wants me to do and shouts, “Hands!”

I place my hands behind my head and lock my fingers together. I’m not sure if I’m being taken prisoner, or if I’m about to be executed. I’m not even sure what this man is doing here. His presence is an enigma. If twenty more years had passed, and the outside world had been dominated, then there would be no way this man could be here. And he can’t be part of any kind of resistance, not with those weapons. Given his surprise by my appearance, I’d guess that he, and the world at large, has yet to encounter the Nephilim or even a single hunter.

There’s still time, I think. The sudden growth of this rainforest is a mystery, but no more strange than the half-human, half-demon monsters aiming to wipe humanity from the globe. If only I had a way to explain all this to the man. We’re on the same side. He just doesn’t know it yet!

With the gun aimed at my face, he steps closer. I feel uncomfortable staring into the barrel of the weapon. I cast my eyes downward. That’s when I see what the man was doing by the tree. There’s a grenade tied to the tree. The pin keeping it from detonating is attached to a taut wire stretched across the ground, and it’s tied to a second tree. The wire is only partially covered with leaf litter. The man must have been covering it when I showed up.

He shouts something at me, drawing my eyes back up. He’s leaning down, reaching out for Whipsnap. The gun is just inches from my face. He takes hold of the weapon—and tugs. He’s totally unprepared when Whipsnap detaches from my belt and springs to life in his hand. He stumbles backward and squeezes off a shot. The round zips over my head, but I don’t give it a second thought. Once the man recovers from his surprise, I have no doubt he’s going to shoot me.

I charge forward as the man brings the gun back down. When the barrel comes level with my face, I take hold of his hand and push up while ducking my head to the side. The second shot misses, but the violent report in my ear stuns me for a moment. The man takes advantage of my disorientation and whacks me in the side with Whipsnap.

Thankfully, the man has no idea how to wield the weapon of my creation properly and the blow is nothing more than a gentle thump. I keep the gun at bay with my left hand and take hold of Whipsnap’s shaft with my right. This might normally become a contest of strength, but I know my weapon, and despite the man’s tight grasp, I’m able to use it against him. With a quick twist and pull, the top end of Whipsnap bends. Careful not to use crushing force, I bring the mace down on the man’s head.

His grip on Whipsnap falls away. The gun falls to the ground, followed by the man. He’s not unconscious, but he’s stunned. He shakes his head and blinks his eyes. When blood trickles over his forehead, he reaches up and feels the wound, wincing as he touches it. His confusion melts to rage as he screams at me.

“Please!” I shout back, raising a single open hand to the man. “I don’t want to hurt you!”

But the man is beyond reason, even if he could understand what I’m saying. He reaches over his shoulder and starts to pull around his automatic weapon. If I allow him to do that, I’m a dead man. But what can I do? I don’t want to kill a human being. I don’t know if I could live with myself. A harder strike with either end of Whipsnap would kill the man. Then I remember my other weapons, ones I rarely have a need for when I’ve got Whipsnap.

I jump forward and punch the man hard in his face. Pain radiates up my arm, but the effect on him is much worse. He slumps to the ground, unmoving. I stand over him breathing heavily.

Why? I think. Why would this man want to kill me? He didn’t know who I am. Didn’t recognize me personally, or as anything that could be explained by his worldview. But here he is, armed for war, laying traps and ready to murder a perfect stranger. It’s just as twisted as anything I encountered during my time underground, but it makes less sense.

This is not the homecoming I had hoped for.

I take the man’s weapons and look them over. I don’t recognize the handgun, but the rifle is an AK-47. I consider keeping the weapons, but they don’t feel right. They’re designed for killing people, not Nephilim, and could only be useful in the hands of a skilled marksman, which I am not. Not with modern weapons anyway. Tobias trained me on his bow a few times, and I was pretty good, but that was when I had the wind to assist my aim. I toss the weapons into the jungle in different directions. Removing the man’s weapons might be a death sentence, but I won’t be the one killing him. And I won’t have to wonder if he’s killed anyone else. I carefully cut the grenade free from the tree and wind up to toss it, but pause, wondering if I should keep it. While a gun won’t be effective against a Nephilim, a grenade could certainly do some damage. At least temporarily. But I’ve never used a grenade, and I have no idea how long it would take to explode. It’s being used with a tripwire, so maybe this variety detonates once the pin is pulled? With no way to find out, I decide to err on the side of safety and toss the grenade away.

I search the man’s body and find a knife, which is duller than mine, so I toss it. I’m surprised that he’s not carrying any other grenades. Then it occurs to me that he probably was carrying more grenades. There might be tripwires set up all through the jungle.

Going to have to be more careful, I think, and I look around me for anything that looks like a concealed wire. Finding nothing, I search the man’s pockets. He’s got a canteen of water and some dehydrated food supplies. Enough for just a few days, which makes me think he’s not alone out here, or he’s stashed the rest of his gear someplace else. In his breast pocket, I find a folded piece of paper.

I unfold the paper. It expands to the size of a poster. In fact, it looks a lot like the poster of Antarctica that hung on my bedroom wall before Justin and I coated it in volcanic red dye. I can’t read the words. They’re all in Arabic, but the South Pole has been flagged.

Is this man traveling to the South Pole? He doesn’t seem like any explorer I’ve ever heard of. He’s more military than anything. After folding up the map, I place it in a belt pouch, return Whipsnap to my waist and without a second glance back at the unconscious man, resume my trek toward Clark Station 1, only much more slowly, and much more carefully.

I arrive fifteen minutes later and despite finding the place of my birth still standing, I also find it inhabited. And the squatters are decidedly not happy to see me.

17

Eight heads crane around in my direction. Fifteen black eyes stare at me, waiting for me to move. The one with a missing eye steps to the front of the pack, his head poking forward with each step. Brave for a turkuin, I think. The name ‘turkuin’ is my own. I’ve eaten three of them over the past years, and they’re pretty tasty, but they’re also rare in the underground. They’re skittish and scatter at the slightest hint of odor or shift in the breeze. That the one-eyed male, the largest of the bunch, is staring me down is strange.

Turkuins are, as my oh-so-creative name insinuates, something like a cross between a turkey and a penguin—on steroids. Their bodies are covered in tightly bunched, small feathers—white in the front and black in the back. They also have long, bright orange feathers over their eyes that wrap around the sides of their heads like some kind of sci-fi movie mascara. They’re usually about three feet tall, but they have powerful legs that make them fast, and sharp claws that make them dangerous. Their hooked beaks are also quite sharp. But turkuins are not at all aggressive.

Until now.

The male bobs his head and takes another step toward me. He’s acting like a male ostrich protecting his harem. The orange feathers over his eyes and on the side of his head flare out. He’s trying to intimidate me.

Me. A hunter.

Turkuins are normally fearful, but if they get a whiff of—or see—a hunter, they squawk in panic, bolting in whatever direction they’re facing. It’s the easiest way to catch them. Just jump out and watch as one inevitably careens into a wall and knocks itself silly.

So why is this turkuin not panicking? More than that, why does old one-eye here look like he’s about to attack me?

“I’d like to leave you alone,” I say to one-eye, “but I need to have a look inside.” The birds have built a nesting area inside Clark Station 1, gaining entrance through a large rusted out hole where the front door used to be.

I take hold of Whipsnap and pull. It springs open in my hand. The sudden appearance of a weapon should have been enough to sap the bird’s bravery, but it just stops for a moment, rotates its head back and forth and blinks its lone eye at me. Then it steps forward again and lets out a squawk that is nearly a growl. The feathers on its head shake and rattle. The seven other birds fan out and join the hunt.

I nearly laugh. The outside world equivalent might be a pack of snarling Chihuahuas. Then again, a pack of Chihuahuas could probably get in a few good bites. And these birds’ beaks are sharp enough to take off a finger or take a scoop out of an arm, never mind their claws, or the fact that I’ve never actually seen them fight. I’m not sure what to expect.

The predatory pack lowers their heads like stalking cats.

I shout, “Heeya! Heeya!” and shake Whipsnap at them.

Eight sets of orange feathers flare out and shake. It’s a rather spectacular display, the purpose of which still eludes me, that is, until they attack. The vibrant feathers held my gaze for just a moment, but it was long enough for me not to see the muscles in their legs coil. All eight birds rush me as one unit. One-eye leads the charge, followed by four on the ground. The other three leap into the air, flapping their feeble wings hard enough to carry them the distance to me.

The sudden and coordinated attack surprises me. I flinch and stumble back, nearly tripping over the ground. Clumsy!

In the moment before the birds reach me, I decide that for some reason I can’t fathom, these creatures either aren’t recognizing me as a hunter, or they have somehow forgotten why they feared hunters in the first place. Perhaps they’re inspired by the jungle setting. Or the very different magnetic field at the equator. The reason why they’re no longer afraid of a hunter isn’t important. What is important is that I give them a reason to fear one now.

As one-eye reaches me, he stabs out with his beak, but thanks to the one eye, his depth perception is all screwed up and he pecks the air a foot in front of me. I sidestep and bring Whipsnap’s blade down like a guillotine. One-eye’s head falls to the ground, stopping the other turkuins in their tracks. The three in the air spasm and fall ungracefully to the ground.

One-eye’s headless body keeps right on running until it smacks into a tree and flops over. The legs continue moving, spinning the body in rapid circles and spraying blood like a spin art toy. As the body slows to a twitchy stop, I calmly turn my head back to the flock. Their flared feathers fold slowly down. The birds lean their heads away from me, and take a few careful backward steps.

“Heeya!” I shout and the birds explode into a panicked retreat, squawking as they smash through the underbrush and disappear into the jungle.

“Well, one-eye,” I say, looking down at the severed head. “You kind of brought that on yourself. But don’t worry; I won’t let you go to waste.” I pick up the now motionless turkuin body and carry it to the entryway of Clark Station 1. The bird isn’t that heavy, maybe forty pounds, but when I place it on the ground next to the rusted out hole, I feel exhausted.

I lean against the metal wall and catch my breath. I’m soaked with sweat, too. A cold drip strikes my shoulder. It’s followed by another. And another. That’s when I notice a loud hiss from above. The hiss grows louder by the moment. I turn toward the source of the sound and see the canopy shaking. The hiss grows louder still, but is then drowned out by a massive boom.

The storm has arrived.

And suddenly, it’s on top of me.

The rainwater strikes the canopy first, filtering down to the forest floor as waterfalls pour from large leaves. The already dim forest floor grows darker. It’s as though night has fallen in the middle of the day.

I put my head under a nearby trickle of water falling from above and catch some of it in my mouth. After drinking several mouthfuls, I retrieve one-eye’s corpse and enter the dry interior of Clark Station 1. I’ll need to skin and gut one-eye before I can cook and dry his flesh, all of which I can do fairly rapidly, but that can wait. Right now, I need to search for clues.

Clark Station 1 is in shambles. The first few rooms are missing walls. The contents of the rooms are wet and rotting, or rusted. Brightly colored splotches of mold cover nearly everything. Tobias’s room is non-existent, any trace of him is destroyed. There are bits of cloth here and there—the remnants of what the turkuins didn’t use to create their nests. Em’s room is the same. The room I lived in during my stay with my adopted family has a large hole in the ceiling through which gouts of rain now pour, and have done so several times in the past. A layer of foul smelling sludge coats the floor.

I’m about to give up when I notice a closed door. Luca’s room. If the door has remained closed all this time, the rot might be far less. I rush to the door, take hold of the handle and yank. Not only does the door open, but it also breaks free. My momentum pulls me back and I fall, taking the door with me. As I lay on the floor, bracing the door above my head, I realize I’ve made a few clumsy errors recently.

With my connection to the continent gone, am I becoming my old clumsy self again?

Pushing the door away takes some effort and I realize what’s happening. I’m tired. Really tired. Strangely tired.

I’ll sleep, I decide, when I’m done with my search.

My legs shake as I stand, and I frown. What’s happening to me?

Pushing past my growing exhaustion, I stumble into the room, bracing myself against the wall. There’s no hole in the ceiling, no water on the floor and no mold anywhere. Luca’s room has been spared. Not for much longer now that I’ve pulled the door off, but long enough for me to find a clue about where the others are, if there is even a clue to be found.

Despite the lack of rot, the room is in shambles, like there was a fight. The small desk is broken and tipped over. Luca’s rock collection is strewn on the floor. And the blankets from his bed dangle from where they snagged a screw in the wall.

This is where they found him, I think. While Ninnis and Kainda were busy killing Tobias and maiming Em and me, two other hunters, Preeg and Pyke, kidnapped Luca. They must have found him here. And he put up a fight. He might be my duplicate physically, but he’s far tougher than I was at his age. I would have likely wilted in the face of danger and passed out like one of those fainting goats.

A chill starts in my legs and works its way up, spreading goose bumps over my skin. When it hits my stomach, it swirls with nausea. Then the chill moves up, spreads out to my arms and is gone.

What the…

My physical condition distracts me for just a moment. That’s when I look at Luca’s small bed. It was built from the homemade metal crib I slept in as a newborn baby. The mattress is old and flattened, but I know it hides something important. I lift the mattress up and find Luca’s drawings and a single crayon hidden inside an old, large Ziploc bag. Tobias never saw these pictures. Each one is a sketch of some event that Luca witnessed through my eyes. The image on top is easily recognizable. Despite it being a child’s drawing, the Nephilim with an arrow in his forehead is obviously Ull. One of my better moments.

A second chill rips up through my body. This time it is followed by a sharp pain in my chest. I pitch forward with a moan and grit my teeth against the ache.

What is happening to me?

It’s a question I can no longer ignore, and I’m pretty sure there is nothing to find here. I stuff the sealed drawings into a pouch, and then look down to where the pain still burns on my chest.

What I see sucks the air from my lungs. The skin around the single razor thin wound across my chest is bright pink. But it’s the yellow puss oozing from the wound that makes me cringe.

Had I still been underground I would kill a centipede, pry open the wound, stuff the goopy flesh inside the wound and wait for it to do its thing. But out here, in a jungle filled with unrecognizable plants, I’d be as likely to do more harm than good.

I could be back underground and possibly hunt down a centipede in the next two hours, but the chills are almost constant now, and I now know the sweat is from a fever. I won’t be going anywhere. My body is going to have to handle this infection on its own. After removing Whipsnap from my waist, I climb up into the small bed, yank the blanket down from the wall and curl up into a fetal position. I look up at the ceiling and remember the last time I saw this view. It was the day we left Antarctica. My parents woke me up with soft cooing voices.

“Solomon,” my mother said, though it was more like she was singing my name, “It’s time to go home.”

“I am home,” I reply to the memory, somehow giving voice to the emotions I felt at the time. “Antarktos is my home. Don’t make me leave.”

When my father picks me up, I start crying. I don’t want to leave.

“Are you ever going to let me hold you without crying?” my father asks with a chuckle.

“Give him to Aimee,” my mother says. “He adores her.”

I cried louder, somehow knowing it would be the last time I saw this room. And while my baby-self was mistaken, I remember my sorrow keenly. The memory becomes a dream as I slip into a deep, defenseless sleep.

18

I used to have dreams about falling. From the sides of buildings. From airplanes. From cliffs. I would fall, screaming, but I would never actually land. Instead, I would wake at the last possible moment. But the strangeness always continued because I would jolt in the bed like I’d actually just fallen—not from a cliff mind you, but at least a couple inches off the mattress. I often wondered if I’d actually somehow levitated. Had I known about my abilities then, I might have believed it was possible.

But this dream is nothing like that. I’m not sure where my fall began. I’m high. Really high. So I must have fallen out of an airplane or a space shuttle, because I can see Antarctica. The whole continent—green, but recognizable by its shape. As it occurs to me that I must actually be in space, I’m suddenly falling through the atmosphere. Clouds obscure my view. They’re heavy with rain and they shimmer with light.

I pass through the storm as streaks of hot lightning flash past. Thunder booms instantaneously, shaking my body and drowning out my screams. Cold water pelts my body. Hail follows, so thick that it feels like I’m being punched all over. Something about the storm feels familiar.

You found me, I think, but I’m not sure who I’m talking to.

Then I’m through the clouds and the land below is revealed. It looks like an aerial view of the Brazilian rainforest, stretching as far as I can see. I streak down to meet the ground. This is where I’d normally wake up. But my fall becomes suspended, as though the wind is buffeting me.

Am I flying? I wonder, as the land passes by below.

A gray streak catches my eye and soon I’m passing over it.

It’s a wall. The ruins of a very tall, stone wall. A Nephilim sized wall.

Before I can ruminate on the appearance of the wall, I’m beyond it. A river twists through the jungle beneath me, flowing in the opposite direction, toward the coast. The river ends at a massive lake, beyond which I see mountains, but I don’t get a good look because I’m falling again.

A voice cuts through the wind rushing by my ears. The single word is distant, but shouted. “Soooolomoooon.”

My descent is angled toward the far shore. I’m going to miss the water entirely.

“Soooooolomoooon!”

Who is that?

“Over here!”

The voice is closer now. Familiar.

There’s a small beach on the shoreline. I see a small body standing on it, arms waving madly. “Sol! I’m here! I’m right he—”

I gasp, flail and fall out of the small bed.

Pain stabs my eyes. It’s bright! I turn myself over, covering my head and fish for my sunglasses. Once I get them on, I sit up and take in my surroundings. I’m still in Luca’s bedroom, which was mine when I was an infant. But a lot has changed. For starters, the roof is missing. I can tell the storm is gone because the leaves overhead glow bright green under the sun’s gaze. I turn away from the view above, because it stings my eyes, even through the dark lenses.

The room is a disaster. It looked rummaged through before. Now it looks like a hurricane tore through. Everything is wet. I’m lying in a few inches of water. And there are little white golf balls everywhere.

Hail.

The storm.

“You found me,” I say, remembering the dream.

I look up through the torn open roof. Was the storm really here because of me? The answer is strangely obvious.

Yes.

The storm came when I was born.

It came again upon my return to the continent.

And now, it greets me again as I rise from Tartarus.

But what does it mean?

I push myself up and wince. The pain in my chest is sharp. I glance down and see that the yellow puss is now gone, perhaps washed away by the rain I apparently slept through. But my skin is still red, and sore, and though I’m rested, I still feel quite weak.

Despite my far-from-perfect condition, the subject doesn’t hold my attention for long. I feel my mind pulled between the strangeness of the storm and the meaning of my dream. But I don’t get to ponder either line of thought, because I’m not alone. A man screams, his voice a mixture of vitriol and fear. And happily, the sound is not directed at me.

When a squawk answers the shout, I know who the man is screaming at. I find Whipsnap on the floor next to me, pick it up and lean out the door. Looking down the ruined hallway toward the main living area where the rusted out door was previously—the whole side of the building is now missing—I see the Arab man. He wields a broken branch like a club, swinging it in wide circles to keep the seven turkuins away. They no doubt returned to find their nesting grounds in ruins and another person—not a hunter this time—taking shelter from the storm next to the corpse of their former pack leader.

Both sides of this fight have tried to kill me. I’m almost resigned to let it play out. I’d already determined that the man would have to survive on his own. But letting the man be eaten right in front of me... It’s not right.

With a sigh, I step out of the room and head for the ruined living area. Neither the man, nor the predatory birds hear me coming, so when I clear my throat and all eight of them shriek in surprise, I can’t help but smile. The turkuins react as they should, by squawking in fright, turning a quick one-eighty and bolting in a straight line. Five of them escape unharmed. One slams head first into a metal wall and snaps its neck. Another impales itself on the sharp end of a broken chair leg. It squawks in pain, trying to free itself.

Seeing the creature is dying and suffering, I walk toward it. Despite its perilous situation, the bird attempts to peck me with its sharp beak when I get close. As it strikes out at me, I catch its neck and give it a hard yank. Its life ends in a quick, painless crack. When I let go, the head flops to the side.

I turn to the man. His eyes are wide. He looks at the crude club in his hands, and then to Whipsnap. He backs away, no doubt remembering how I defeated him when he was armed with modern weapons.

I feel pity for the terrified man as he shuffles out of the ruined structure. I decide to give him a knife. Maybe he’ll have a fighting chance. It’s the least I can do for a man who tried to put a bullet in my head. “Wait,” I say. “Hold on.”

The man screams in response and takes off into the jungle. I’m about to pursue when a much more familiar call rips through the jungle. It’s a cresty. A big one by the sound of it. More sounds follow. Snapping branches. Heavy foot falls.

When the Arab screams again, it’s a pitch I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a man reach before.

The cresty roars again. The hunt is on.

And I know it will end quickly.

I also know that there’s nothing I can do to help the man. Without my abilities, I wouldn’t fare much better against a full-grown cresty than Kainda did. And cresties hunt in packs. The only thing I can do is wait for the feeding to begin and then head in the opposite direction.

But the hunt ends long before the cresties catch the man. An explosion tears through the jungle. The man must have triggered his own tripwire. I’m sorry the man died, but being blown to bits is a merciful death compared to being eaten alive. Unfortunately, it creates a problem for me. The man’s shredded body might dissuade the cresties from eating it. They prefer to kill their prey—not have it blown to bits. The explosion most likely turned them away as well.

The hunt will continue.

I duck out of Clark Station 1, turn right and sprint. There are turkuins, tripwires, armed men, cresties and who knows what else lurking in the jungle, but if I don’t put some distance between me and the cresties that I know for sure are behind me, they’ll catch my scent and hunt me down. My best bet is to get as far away as I can and hope the dinosaurs pick up on the strong turkuin scent trail. Because if they come for me, I’m in for a world of pain.

A shriek cries out behind me.

The hunt is resumed.

World of pain it is.

19

The pain begins long before any of the cresties have even seen me. The impact of every hurried step I take sends a jolt of pain from my chest wound. Chills begin to spread over my skin and my stomach clenches tight. The infection is still fighting for supremacy and the last thing I should be doing right now is sprinting through the jungle.

Actually, that’s not quite true. The last thing I should be doing is letting myself be eaten by a dinosaur. That pretty well trumps the infection. So I fight the growing weight in my legs and push forward, to who knows where.

If the cresties had actually seen me, I’d be done. I won’t be able to put up much of a fight in my condition. But they’re still tracking me by scent, no doubt following the subtle odor of my infected wound. Like any predator, their preference is always the sick, wounded, young or old. The less fight, the less chance of injury.

As they track my scent, they’ll stop every few steps to test the air. They know I’m sick, and that I’ll eventually tire and stop. So there’s no need for them to rush. They’ll expend less energy and still get a meal.

But the fact that they’re not hot on my heels doesn’t let me slow down. If I can reach a river, or find a crack in the ground or some other kind of shelter, I might be able to escape. So I keep running, and continue growing weaker.

My foot is just inches from the ground when I suck in a quick breath and freeze. There’s an odd, unnatural rise on the forest floor. I pull my foot back, carefully place it on the ground and crouch to inspect the aberration. I brush aside a few leaves and find a tripwire, but this one is made from frayed twine, not the hard line the Arab man carried.

Someone else laid this trap.

I follow the line to its end and find it tied off to a stake in the ground. I move to the other end and find the line attached to a thick vine holding back a large branch. It’s a crude trap, meant to knock someone silly, or perhaps dissuade a cresty from passing. I leave the trap be and continue past, hoping that it will be discovered by one of the dinosaurs pursuing me.

When I reach the edge of the jungle ten minutes later, I’m moving slowly, using Whipsnap like a walking stick to keep myself from falling over. But when the trees clear, I find myself distracted from my condition, and from the dinosaurs tracking me down.

A giant stone wall covered with patches of purple moss cuts through the jungle. It’s at least twenty-five feet tall and stretches into the jungle as far as I can see in either direction. It’s clearly ancient, exposed when the ice melted. Its construction is phenomenal. The stones it’s built from are gigantic; each must weigh several tons. But even more impressive is the way they’re all fit perfectly together, as though the pieces were carved by lasers. It’s a work of art, really, beautiful to look at, but also a reminder that Nephilim once roamed the Earth in broad daylight.

As they do once more.

Despite the wall’s presence being an ominous reminder of the size of my enemies, it also presents a possible escape route. The seams are tight, and the purple moss is no doubt slippery, but I’ve scaled worse, and I still have my climbing claws. The only real problem is my faltering health.

Better get started, I think, and wade into the clearing of tall grass that stands between the jungle and the wall. As I leave the jungle canopy, the sun strikes me full on for the first time. I flinch in pain, placing a hand over my eyes to help block out the light. But I don’t give in to the pain. I keep my squinted eyes turned up at the wall, looking for the best place to climb.

That’s when I stub my toe. As I pitch forward, I put my weight on Whipsnap, hoping to keep myself upright. But the flexible staff bends under my weight and I plummet to the ground. I’m expecting a soft thump in the grass, but I strike several hard, knobby surfaces when I hit.

I lie on the hard, unwelcoming ground for a few moments and let my eyes close. Sleep nearly claims me, but a distant cresty cry snaps my eyes back open. I push myself up and a horrible surprise greets me. The fleshless face of a Nephilim stares back at me. Startled, I scramble away from the bones, but I stop once the rest of the grisly scene comes into view.

It’s a Nephilim skeleton, short by warrior standards, but far taller than the tallest human being. But what’s most interesting about the skeleton is that it is entwined with a cresty skeleton. They died here together, locked in battle. The cresty’s jaws are wrapped around the Nephilim’s head, its long canine sticks through a clean hole in the Nephilim’s skull. The weak spot. Whether the long dead dinosaur knew to bite the giant there or just got lucky is impossible to tell. But the effect was clear. The cresty killed this Nephilim, and by the positioning of the giant’s hand, it looks like he managed to strike a killing blow as well, though the weapon, whatever it was, is now missing.

Taken, I realize when I see that the warrior’s hand has been pried open. Someone has been here. Most likely the same someone who set that trap. But who? I look at the excavated bodies again. They’ve been exhumed with care. This is a dig site! Some archeologist has been here. I’m sure of it.

My excitement is short-lived. A loud shifting sound slides out of the jungle. I recognize it immediately. The cresties who hunted in the cavern that I called home for several years used this technique. They would rub their bodies against the subterranean trees, coating them with fresh scent. They would then position themselves so that their prey fled into the trees, and when the prey smelled the fresh scent, they’d panic, stop and be caught from behind. It was a clever tactic, but it didn’t work on hunters. It seems that these cresties, like the turkuins, have yet to figure out that I am a hunter. Which is fine by me. Let them rub up against the trees and set a trap. I’ll be gone by the time they’re done.

I’m about to get out my climbing claws, when I see a snake at my feet and jump back. My heart pounds hard in my chest and chills sweep over my skin. But my fear is misplaced. It’s not a snake at all.

It’s a rope.

I pick up the line and bundle it quickly. It’s about forty feet long and one end is frayed, like it was hacked apart from some missing end. I don’t put in much thought as to why the rope is there, or who left it. I just quickly tie one end off to Whipsnap, and with a heave, throw the weapon up and over the top of the wall. I pull the line down slowly until Whipsnap snags on something.

The shuffling sound gets louder. The cresties are closing in. With no time to test my weight on the line, I grab hold and start pulling myself up. I’ve only gone five feet when my arms start shaking. After another five feet, I’m sure I’m going to fall. I loop the rope around my foot and let it take my weight. I catch my breath for a moment, but then my time runs out.

With a shriek, the first of the cresties catches sight of me, and charges. The dinosaur is like a cross between a raptor and a T-rex. They’ve got large, sharp talons and powerful jaws, and a distinctive crest over their heads—hence the cresty name. The thing is a blur of green and red as it charges toward the wall. It’s not a large specimen, just twelve feet from snout to tail. But it’s big enough, and strong enough, to leap up and yank me down. As the beast prepares to do just that, I reach up with my hands, grab tight and yank myself up. I move fast and manage to pull my feet up, too.

The cresty jumps and misses my toes by inches. Fueled by a surge of adrenaline, I complete my climb in seconds. The cresty roars in frustration. I quickly pull the rope up, and then retrieve Whipsnap from the other side of the wall where it caught on a nearby tree branch. More cresties arrive, screeching up at me. I lean over the side to look at them and I’m overcome with nausea. I nearly fall into their waiting jaws, but I collapse on top of the wall instead.

I breathe hard, pulling air in through my nose. Several new scents strike me at once. The pungent smell of the dinosaurs comes first, but there’s something else. Something familiar. Metallic. Gun powder? I’m not sure if that’s the actual scent, but I smelled the same thing when the Arab man fired his gun. Whoever was here fired a weapon.

From the top of the wall.

I look at the rope piled next to me and find two frayed ends instead of just the one. I take hold of one end and pull it free. It’s the same rope, but only ten feet long. I have just used the same escape route of the person who was here before. Except that they shot the rope to sever it. Had the cresties tried to climb the rope? It doesn’t seem possible, but they are fairly smart. If I hadn’t pulled the rope up so quickly, they might have tried the same with me.

As the adrenaline wears off, exhaustion returns in spades. I can feel myself crashing. I’m safe from the cresties up here, but I’m fully exposed to the sun. My fair complexion earned me a couple of nasty sunburns as a child, but I’ve been underground so long that I think things will be far worse now. My skin is pasty-white and might burn to a crisp inside of a half hour.

At least the sun doesn’t feel warm. The storm must have brought in cool air, because unlike before, the air is now a nice seventy-something degrees. Of course, that doesn’t affect how quickly your skin reacts to the ultraviolet wavelength. It could be freezing out and I’d still burn.

Sunburn or not, I’m done. As I slide down and lay on my stomach, I turn my head to the side. There, on the wall next to me, is something strange. It’s blue. And square. I reach out for it and feel soft fabric. Manmade fabric of the 100% cotton variety. I grasp the cloth and pull it to my face. Up close, I can see it’s a bandana.

My hand trembles as I place the fabric against my nose and take a deep breath. A mix of scents triggers memories.

The strongest scent is a dog. Not any dog I know, but canines have a distinct odor. Whoever this bandana belongs to is a dog owner.

I smell dirt, sweat and an amalgam of other odors, but only one more jumps out at me. When I separate the smell from the rest, I’m overcome with something close to desperation mixed with elation. If I weren’t just moments from delirium I would shout out, hoping the owner of this bandana was still nearby.

I know who owns this bandana.

The dig site, its location on the continent and the scent of Old Spice permanently bonded to the fabric leaves no doubt in my mind.

Dr. Clark has been here.

Merrill.

My friend, Aimee’s husband, Mira’s father, has returned to Antarktos.

I try to push myself up. Look for other clues. But the world is spinning now. The fever has returned in force.

“Merrill,” I mumble.

The words of my dream return to me. “I’m here,” I say. “I’m right here.”

20

Memories mix with dreams. I vaguely remember standing up on the wall. The ocean lay in one direction and the endless stretch of gray wall, about eight feet across, led inland—the direction I picked. I stumbled along the top of the wall, nearly falling over the edge on more than one occasion. I kept my gaze turned down from the sun, but even with the sunglasses on, the reflected light on the stones stung my eyes.

I have vague memories of strange sounds, distant and close. Popping like fireworks. Snapping tree limbs. The wind shifting through leaves. Screams. The sounds, perhaps distorted by my fever, sounded like ghosts haunting the endless jungle that hugged the wall on either side. Eventually, perhaps hours after beginning my delirious hike, the jungle began to encroach on the wall.

It has now entirely overtaken the structure. Tree limbs stretch over the wall from either side. Up ahead I can see where the jungle canopy envelops the wall like it’s a subway car moving underground. While it will be nice to be back in the shade, the limbs make moving more difficult as I have to climb over them. This might not normally pose a challenge, but in my current state, I find walking on even ground to be difficult, never mind an obstacle course.

I stumble and catch myself on a branch. I close my eyes for a moment, and when I open them again, the jungle is moving around me, spinning in slow circles. But within that spin, I see something wonderful.

A centipede. The foot long creature clings to a branch just a few feet ahead. Its head is twisted in my direction, its antennae twitching, and like all the other creatures from the underworld, it doesn’t flee from me, as it should. It looks identical to the underground variety of centipede, though there is a little bit of red in its shell now. Still, it must be the same species. I can use its flesh to ward off this infection. And since it’s not the giant-sized Behemoth-eating variety, I shouldn’t have any trouble catching it, that is, if I can focus on it for more than a moment.

I reach for Whipsnap, but find the weapon already in my hand. I vaguely remember using it as a walking stick. I would normally skewer the centipede through the head, ending its life quickly, but I can’t trust my aim. So I opt for a different tactic.

Moving slowly, with my eyes closed, I turn Whipsnap so the mace end is on top. I open my eyes and the world shifts from left to right. I close them again. And every time I open them, the shift begins anew. Assuming I’m seeing things right during that first fraction of a second, I open and close my eyes over and over, until I have a good sense of where the creature really is. Then I close my eyes, steady myself and strike.

The swing is fast and solid, connecting with a branch on the way down. There is a snap and then a clang as Whipsnap’s metal mace strikes the stone wall. I open my eyes to look, but I’m off balance from the strike, and I spill to the side. I drop my weapon on the wall as I careen over the side of it, but my descent is arrested by two thick branches that catch me under my armpits.

As my head clears, I push myself back onto the wall and look back at the tree whose branches saved my life. “Thank you, Ent,” I say with a delirious grin. If only I had an army of trees to help. Right now, all I have is a very dead, very squished, centipede. I kneel next to the shattered body, scooping its small amount of flesh out of its carapace and off the stone wall. When I have a handful, I rub it onto my chest wound. I can feel the rough scabbing break away as I rub the goop in, but that’s good. The centi-flesh needs to get into the wound.

The pain of the freshly opened wound is intense, but I finish the job, confident that the healing properties of the centipede’s meat will do its work. Exhausted and doubting my ability to navigate the congested path in my current state, I find a spot shaded by some large, palm-like leaves, and lay down with a branch under my head.

Hours later, more fireworks start. They’re far away, just echoes really. The finale comes with an unbelievable crescendo of pops. Am I really hearing this? I wonder. The sound is so out of place. I listen for more, lying with my face turned toward the shaded jungle, but hear nothing. Movement in my periphery—the sky—catches my attention. Without thinking, I look up. The bright blue sky makes me shout in pain and close my eyes. But in that brief look, I saw something.

A man.

Flying?

Not possible.

I replay the second-long image.

The man was dressed in beige, his arms and legs flailing.

Was he falling?

Couldn’t be. Not straight down anyway. There’s nothing to fall from. The motion was from right to left, but also downward. He was falling, but in an arc, like he was launched from a cannon.

Or thrown by something very large.

Then it hits me. The fireworks are gunshots. And if the man sailing by overhead was thrown… Modern man is meeting the Nephilim for the first time, and the results are exactly as I expected—disastrous.

I sit up, and I’m happy to find the world no longer spinning. I’m still feeling tired, and my chest is burning, but I recognize the healing pain as different from that of the infection. Thanks to the centipede’s sacrifice, I’ll be back to full health within a day. For now, I’m tired and slow, and I won’t be much good in a fight, but I need to find out who that man was. Based on his speed and direction, I’m pretty sure I can figure out where he landed.

Instead of scaling down the wall, I find a tree full of twisting branches and easily make my way down. Using the wall as a guideline, I turn in the direction the man flew, and begin my search.

The job is easier than I thought it would be. My health is returning, the ground beneath my feet is even for the most part and nothing tries to eat me. A hole in the canopy reveals where the man’s body re-entered the jungle. His body lies in a twisted heap, thirty feet beyond. His limbs are all broken, as are, I suspect, his spine and nearly every other bone in his body. But somehow, his face escaped without much more than a few scrapes.

Crouching next to him, I look at his closed eyes. He has Asian features, but I’m not sure what country he’s from until I see the red flag. Chinese. The man’s uniform looks like any average soldier’s, designed for trekking through the jungle, but the single star on his shoulder identify him as a low ranking general.

What is a Chinese general doing on Antarktos?

Avoiding the blood soaked into his uniform, I search his pockets for clues. The first thing I find is his identification. It looks official, but most of it is in Chinese. The only English lettering I see is his name. I read it aloud. “Zhou Kuan-Yin. What are you doing here, General?”

His other pockets reveal nothing, but I find a package of dried meat, a lighter and a pack of cigarettes. I toss the smokes, but keep the lighter and the food. The only pocket I haven’t checked is over his chest, and it’s covered in blood. But the boxy lump beneath the fabric hints at something worth finding.

Using a stick, I pry the pocket open and try to see what’s inside. All I can see is something shiny. Like plastic. I try to fish it out with the stick, but it’s not happening. Using the stick to hold the pocket open, I reach my other hand toward the pocket. I feel like I’m playing a game of Operation, trying to remove the funny bone without hitting the metal sides and setting off an unsettling buzzer. But the buzzer here is my nerves. I have dealt with a lot of dead creatures over the past few years, and even held Riodan’s dead body, but human blood is something I’m still not used to. My own, sure—there’s been an abundance of it spilled—but not someone else’s. No thanks. The smell alone is bad enough, but the sick angles of this man’s broken limbs and the knowledge that he was killed by a Nephilim, have me unsettled enough. Getting his blood on me would just be the last straw.

I find the hard plastic object with my thumb and index finger. I pull it out slowly until my finger scrapes across something sticky wet. “Gah!” I shout. I flinch and yank my hand out, flinging the thing onto the jungle floor.

After wiping my hand off on a leaf, I find the object freed from Zhou’s pocket. It’s hard white plastic with a rubber-sealed seam around the middle. Waterproof, I think. I flip the thing over, looking for blood, and finding none, I pick it up. It fits nicely in the palm of my hand. There are four small snap locks on each side of the rectangular case. I pop the locks and slowly open it.

There’s a device inside. It’s rectangular and has a shiny surface. I take it out of the case and flip it over. The back is smooth and black, but there are a few buttons on the thing’s shiny metal edges. I have no idea what it is, but I recognize the power symbol on one of the buttons.

I push it.

The device nearly falls from my hand as I jump in surprise when a swirling, blue logo appears on what I now know is a small screen. The color is more vivid than any TV I’ve ever seen and the image is far clearer.

It’s been more than twenty years, I remind myself. This is the future.

I smile at my caveman response to technology for a moment, and put my encyclopedic knowledge of computers to the task of figuring this thing out. Granted, my computer was an Apple II C and took up an entire desktop, but I knew how to use it better than my parents. Unfortunately for me, the menu that pops up is labeled in Chinese, so even if there was a keyboard on this thing, I don’t think typing in LIST or RUN is going to do any good. I try to look through the menu with the buttons on the side, but nothing happens. I’m about to give up on the thing when I decide to access a different knowledge-base: science fiction. This is the future after all. I’ve seen more than a few TV episodes and movies where computers are nothing more than hand held tablets…with touchable screens.

Could we really be that far? I wonder, and touch the screen with my finger. The icon blinks beneath my touch and a new menu opens. This one makes even less sense than the first. I click on a left facing arrow at the top of the screen, and I’m delighted by the device’s intuitive design. I look at the small icons and go through the list, hoping to find something that makes sense. I strike jackpot with the fourth icon.

It’s a map, or at least I think it is. It’s hard to tell, and there’s a blinking green dot at the center. “What is this?” I say to Zhou’s still, bent form.

Touching the screen, I’m able to slide the map back and forth, and up and down, but the green dot stays rooted in place. As I’m trying to figure out exactly what this is a map of, my thumb taps the screen. In the moment that both fingers touch the screen, the map image shrinks, revealing more terrain.

“Whoa!” I smile, glance up at Zhou and stop. It doesn’t feel right to smile next to the dead man’s body. So I collect the case and the food, and head back toward the wall, fiddling with the device as I walk. Repeating the motion with my thumb and index finger, I shrink the map repeatedly until I recognize it for what it is—Antarctica. And just like the Arab’s paper map, this one has a red dot blinking right at the South Pole.

Why is everyone trying to get to the South Pole? It’s not even the South Pole anymore.

If the red dot signifies the goal, what is the green dot? I wonder. By pinching my fingers together, I’m able to zoom back in on the green dot. As I’m walking and wondering, something happens. The green dot bounces ahead.

Why is the green dot moving?

My smile returns as I realize what it is and say, “No…” in disbelief.

I walk forward. Nothing happens.

So I run.

Fifty feet into my run, the green dot shifts again.

The green dot is me! Or, at least, this device. Not only is this a map, but it’s some kind of tracking device so you can see where you are and where you need to go. Ingenious! I continue forward, watching the green dot shift with me. I slow as inspiration strikes. I zoom out again, and shift the map to the left, and then to the right. And I see what I’m looking for.

A winding river that leads to a lake.

Like the one from my dream.

“I’m here,” the person said. “I’m right here.”

I begin my sprint anew, now knowing that it will eventually lead me to a river, and then the lake. “I’m coming,” I say.

21

The smell of blood hits me so strongly that I realize I’ve been so enraptured with watching my progress on the map that I missed the first hints of it on the breeze. Or perhaps I was just upwind of it? Doesn’t matter. Because I’m surrounded by the stench now.

I stop in my tracks and slowly pocket the maptrack—that’s what I’ve decided to call it. Not exactly creative, but it has a ring. With the device put away, I focus on my surroundings. The scent of blood is everywhere, which is probably because there are bodies everywhere. Hundreds of men lay scattered over the jungle floor, some crushed, some skewered on tree limbs and some in pieces. The savagery of the attacks reveals the enemy they faced to be Nephilim. The number of weapons I see laying about, along with thousands of scattered shell casings, means that these men were the source of what I mistook for fireworks. The amount of bullets zinging through the air must have been copious. Not even the cresties could stand against such power. But the Nephilim…they wouldn’t have any trouble. In fact, they would likely take pleasure in the pain.

The uniforms on the dead men match Zhou’s, so I know they’re Chinese. This must be where he was thrown from. I stand in silence for several minutes, just listening. I don’t hear anything except a faint rustling in the leaves. The Nephilim that did this have left. And every other living thing in the jungle is avoiding the area. Normally, the smell of death would attract scavengers like turkuins, but there’s another scent in the air keeping them at bay.

Nephilim blood.

A lot of it.

With Whipsnap in my hand, I walk into the field of dead. I try to keep my eyes off the slain men. Most of them are young, not much older than me. And their deaths were gruesome, to say the least. Dark spots of earth, damp with blood, act as a maze. I wind my way through the field of dead until I see it.

A Nephilim body.

I work my way toward the body and discover a purple pool of blood where the thing’s head should be. I search the area and find bits of Nephilim flesh clinging to tree trunks. My eyes widen with the realization that some kind of explosive took the monster’s head clean off. Yet another way to kill them: if you can’t reach the weak spot or drown them, blow their head to bits, weak spot and all.

That it took nearly two hundred men to kill one Nephilim isn’t very encouraging, though. And it was probably a lucky shot. But maybe, if men can be taught how to kill the Nephilim, they—we—might have a chance. Now if only I can find someone that isn’t dead or trying to kill me. That would be a good start.

I try to identify the Nephilim, but it’s hard without a head, and the armor made from feeder leather reveals nothing. What I do know is that it wasn’t alone. Large Nephilim footprints are everywhere. If I had to guess, I’d say there were four of them.

If the Nephilim know people are on Antarktos, and are out looking for them, I’m going to have to be more careful. No more watching myself on the maptrack. The thing must run on batteries anyway. Probably best to shut it off until I need to course correct. But I also need to do a better job of concealing myself. My pale white skin wasn’t a problem underground because there was rarely a long line of sight in the tunnels. But out here, where I can see for hundreds of feet, my white skin is a beacon. Well, it’s not quite anymore. I look down at my body. I wouldn’t say I’m tan, but I’m no longer quasi-translucent, either. Nor am I sunburned, which is odd, but not something I’m going to complain about.

It takes ten minutes, but I find a dead soldier who is in one piece and remove his backpack. Most of the items inside are crushed and ruined, but there is more dried food—fruit this time—and an olive green poncho. Perfect. I take the poncho and throw it over my head. The plastic texture feels funny on my skin, and the shifting sound it makes is annoying—especially with the hood up—but the green hue now covering my body will make for nice camouflage.

As the sun finally begins to set, I make my way out of the killing field and back into the jungle. I travel for several miles, stopping only when the sun has ducked fully below the horizon. I help myself to the dried meat. It’s surprisingly bland—I’ve had better underground—but at least it’s nourishing. I follow the meat with some of the dried fruit—apples, bananas, dates and raisins. The flavor feels so intense that I start laughing. I had forgotten how delightful sugar tastes! I eat half the package and force myself to stop. This isn’t the time to forget the discipline that kept me alive while living underground. That I learned how to ration my food from Ninnis is never a fond memory, but the lesson has served me well.

Some long dormant instinct tells me to sleep now that night has fallen. But I’m not really tired, and night is no longer a hindrance. The light of the moon and stars, even when filtered through the canopy, is more than enough for me to see by. And with my newly acquired poncho, I’ll be able to move swiftly without fear of being detected, at least not by men with guns. Nephilim and other underworld denizens will still be hunting. All the more reason to stay awake.

I set off at a run, occasionally checking my position on the maptrack. I angle my trajectory so that I’m closing in on the winding river, while moving up toward the lake, which, right now, is my destination.

I’m right here…

And I continue on this course for days. I occasionally come across cresty tracks and other signs of life and death, but no more people, and no Nephilim. I sleep only occasionally, during the brightest hours of the day. My eyes adjust to the sun and I can look at the sky, with my sunglasses on, without feeling pain. I suspect that in a few weeks I won’t need the sunglasses at all. The infection is gone, and my wound has healed sufficiently, though the frequent opening and closing of the wound has left a scar. Justin would say it makes me look tough. And he’d be right. It does look tough.

When I finally reach the river, just miles from the lake, I shed my poncho and wade into the water. I expect it to be cold, but it feels as warm and comfortable as the jungle air. But it’s no less refreshing. I drink greedily, wash days of grime and strong scent from my body and enjoy a few minutes in the direct sunlight. The sun is still uncomfortable on my eyes, but I want to condition myself. Not being able to fight in broad daylight would be a serious liability, especially now that Antarktos lies at the equator and the days are quite long.

But a few minutes is all I can take. I gather my poncho and return to the shade of the jungle. I follow the river inland and soon make it to the lake. It’s a massive expanse of water, reflecting the blue sky. Beyond the river, I see the beginnings of a mountain range. It’s a picturesque place, and it would be peaceful, if not for the knowledge that killers lurk nearby. In my dream, the figure I saw stood on a small beach on the right side of the lake. I can’t see that far from here, but I know where I need to go.

I slip up to the edge of the jungle and watch the river and lake. When I’m certain no one is around, I dive into the water and swim quickly across. Back in the jungle, I follow the curve of the lake, moving quickly but a little more cautiously. The lake, like the river, would be a gathering place for predator and prey in search of water. So I move slowly and do my best to spot signs of habitation. After crossing two game trails covered in tracks that I recognize as belonging to the oversized albino goats I shared a cavern with underground, I come across a muddy beach where the trees and brush along the shoreline thin.

After pulling the poncho’s hood up over my head, I inch closer to the muddy clearing. There are footprints—boot prints actually. And a few different sizes. Some are clearly men, larger and deeper from weight, but one set is smaller, either a woman’s or a small man’s. What were they doing here? Getting a drink? Following the lake like I am? Will I run into them?

I step closer, careful not to leave any prints of my own. That’s when I see an entirely different kind of indentation. A dog! A large dog, but still, a dog!

I take out the blue bandana and smell it. After getting the dog’s scent in my nose, I take it away and smell the air.

Nothing. It’s been a little while since they were here. No scents linger. But still, what are the odds that someone else brought a dog to Antarktos? As I crouch atop a rock, looking at the boot prints, I notice a tiny detail. A hair. It’s just one, partly squished into the mud by a boot, but it’s blond and sticks out. I pull the strand free and fight my rising emotions. The hair is blond, coarse and tightly bent at odd angles.

I have seen this hair before.

I have felt it against my face and neck.

This is Mira’s hair!

I’m sure of it.

I stand up, fully prepared to shout her name like an idiot. But I never get the chance. I’m struck from behind. Not by a weapon, fist or anything physical, but by a smell. The wind has shifted direction. And it carries the scent of a human being masked by mud, dung and blood.

There is a hunter behind me.

22

The attack comes fast as the hunter notices the shift in the wind. A faint shift is all I hear, but I know my enemy is airborne. I leap in the only direction available to me, spinning with Whipsnap at the ready. I land in knee-deep water, which I strike with Whipsnap, sending a distracting splash toward the hunter.

As I charge out of the water, I get my first look at my adversary. It’s a man. Perhaps twice my age, with far bigger muscles than me. He’s also completely bald, which is something I have yet to see in a hunter, but why not? Baldness is caused by an excess of testosterone, and from what I can see, this man has testosterone to spare. His clothing does nothing to reveal which Nephilim he serves, but his weapon, a razor sharp scimitar, hints at one of the ancient Persian gods.

My sudden reversal seems to startle the hunter. He didn’t know who I was, I realize. The hooded poncho not only conceals my identity, but he likely also mistook me for a modern soldier. I use his confusion to my advantage, striking his sword to the side. With the man off balance, I spin and let Whipsnap spring out, sweeping the man’s legs out from under him. He lands in the mud with a wet slap that knocks the air out of his lungs.

The hunter is now at my mercy, but what should I do? I will not kill him. It’s not even a consideration. But I can’t just let him go. I’ll have to knock him unconscious and make my escape. He doesn’t know who I am, so the Nephilim won’t be alerted to my presence.

To my surprise, the hunter drops his weapon and asks, “Who are you?”

It’s a question I won’t answer. I don’t even want him to hear my voice. The less he knows, the better. I step closer and raise a fist to knock the man silly.

“Wait,” he says, and I nearly do. But exposure is something I can’t risk. As my fist comes down, my arm is yanked back by a sudden weight. I stumble away from the man and find my arm wrapped in strong cords attached to three heavy metal balls. The weapons are called bolas and while their intended use was to trip up fleeing livestock, they work just as well on people.

The second hunter explodes from the forest and lands next to the fallen man. He is short, but has taut, sinewy muscles. Where the first man is strong, this man is quick. His dark skin and flat nose have the distinct look of an Australian aborigine. His dark red dreadlocks are pulled back in a thick ponytail. With his eyes locked on me, he extends a hand to the bald man and pulls him up.

What the…? Hunters do not help each other. Are these men friends? Have they been ordered to keep each other from harm?

“Careful of this one,” the big hunter says while retrieving his sword. “He’s one of us.”

“Show us your face,” the aborigine hunter says.

In response, I begin twirling Whipsnap in my hands, letting my actions speak louder than words. If they think they’re going to get anything out of me, they’re going to have to beat it out of me.

A few things about my actions strike me. I’m being bold in the face of severe danger, like Ull, but it feels natural now—a part of me. Not only that, I’m fully confident in my abilities. These hunters are no doubt skilled, but I am Solomon Ull Vincent, the Last Hunter, who was not only trained by Ninnis—the most skilled hunter—but also defeated Ninnis in combat. I can handle these two.

The realization makes me smile.

And when the two hunters see my grin, they look a little less sure of themselves.

The aborigine tilts his head up and lets out a loud, bird-like call.

What is he doing?

Voices rise up in the distance. A lot of them.

He called for help.

This is also decidedly non-hunter behavior, but before I can think things through, the two men press the attack. Intimidated by my behavior or not, they’re still hunters, and they won’t back down—especially with help on the way.

The bald man approaches and swings his sword wildly. It’s a messy attack, but the random strikes are hard to block. I step back, waiting for an opening and just as I’m about to strike, my legs are suddenly bound, wrapped tightly with more bolas. The moment I’m immobilized, the bald hunter’s attack becomes focused and skilled.

I hop back with my feet bound and block three strikes, the third coming very close to my face. With another big leap, I place Whipsnap’s sharp blade between my bound ankles and slice through the lines. My legs are free by the time I land. The bald man barely has time to register that my feet are free, when I kick up hard and catch him under the jaw. His head snaps back and he falls over, unconscious.

I hear the whoosh of another set of bolas whipping toward me, and I duck. But as my body moves down, I thrust Whipsnap up, catch the bolas and use their spinning momentum to redirect their course. I fling the bolas back as the hunter lunges toward me. One of the stones strikes his head, and he falls to the ground beside his bald partner.

As I believed, the pair is no match for me. But, they are not alone. Hunters emerge from the jungle like angry fire ants on the prowl. They see their fallen comrades, and me standing above them, and the attacks come hard and fast.

I have no time to look carefully at who I’m fighting. There is only time to react. I dive into the jungle as an arrow twangs into a tree trunk beside my head. The thick brush surrounding the lake clears, as I move away from the water. When a knife thunks into a tree I just passed, it becomes clear that I will not be able to outrun this group of hunters. So I need to stand and fight, and hopefully do enough damage to make them think twice about continuing their pursuit. It’s unlikely, but it’s my only option, because if I keep running, one of these arrows or knives is going to bury itself into my back.

I enter a ten-foot clearing surrounded by tall tree trunks. It will give me room to maneuver, but not so much that they can attack me all at once. I skid to a stop, spin around and am greeted by an airborne hunter with an axe raised above his head.

I dive and roll to the side as the man sails past. When he lands, I kick him square in the back. The kick, added to his momentum, sends him sprawling forward and he slams into a tree.

An arrow passes through my poncho between my arm and my rib cage.

Too close!

Two more hunters enter the clearing. I can see at least ten more coming, including the recovered aborigine and the bald hunter.

This is a fight I cannot win.

But I have no choice.

I block a sword strike to my right, and kick out a knee to the left. With a spin, I disarm the swordsman, but I’m sucker-punched by a female hunter who snuck up behind me. A blind kick catches her in the stomach, and I hear her drop. I turn the mace end of Whipsnap on the disarmed swordsman and shove. He shouts in pain as the spikes pierce his skin. It won’t be a mortal wound, but it hurts. The blow staggers the man back.

A knife strikes my left arm, but it’s a superficial wound. The baggy poncho is hiding my body and making it hard to target my limbs. But why are they targeting my limbs and not my core? And why did the woman behind me punch instead of stab or bludgeon me? Here we are, a bunch of hunters, and no one is trying to kill anyone?

Something is definitely screwy with this situation.

Five hunters leap into the clearing. I spin Whipsnap’s bladed edge around in a wide circle, forcing the group to leap back. But their appearance was a distraction. I’m struck from behind again, this time with something much larger than a fist. The broad, stone weapon feels like the top of a very large hammer. The impact sends me flying and knocks the air from my lungs. But I’ve been trained to ignore pain and fight without breathing, so I turn my fall into a roll and turn to face my attacker.

There are not one, but two women. One holds a hammer, the other—who I assume is the one I kicked—holds two throwing knives. They’re backlit by a beam of sunlight that stings my eyes, but there’s something familiar about them.

“Look at his weapon,” the hammer-wielding woman says.

The shorter of the two women—the one with the knives—stiffens and with an angry voice, shouts, “Where did you get that?”

Shoot. I hadn’t even considered that Whipsnap’s unique design would be recognizable to hunters.

A knife flies through the air, just missing my arm as I spin. A second one follows, cutting through my poncho’s arm on the other side. I’m forced back by the barrage of knives, which are thrown with a skill I have only seen once before.

I know who this is.

I know who the woman with the hammer is!

But I’m unable to speak their names as the air has yet to return to my lungs.

The knife-wielding woman is in a rage. She’s going to kill me without realizing who I am!

I stagger back against a tree. The woman steps out from the light and I see her face for the first time in months. It’s so wonderful that I nearly miss her eyes locking on my forehead. Her hand pulls back and snaps forward, releasing a knife.

In one fluid motion, I toss Whipsnap up, and duck my head down. The knife passes between the top of my head and the hood. With the poncho pinned to the tree by the knife, I duck down out of it, shedding it like a skin, and emerge in time to catch Whipsnap. But I’m too late.

There’s a hammer raised to strike. Two knives raised to throw. An assortment of other weapons, too, held by at least fifteen more hunters.

But they’re all frozen in place as though my eyes belonged to the gorgon, Medusa.

I try to catch my breath and speak, but all I manage is a wheeze.

It doesn’t matter, though. I hear a telltale gasp and the two knives drop to the ground.

“Solomon?” Em says. “Is it really you?”

I smile and nod, dropping Whipsnap to the ground. Em rushes to me. She’s got all of her blades, around her waist and chest, looking as dangerous as ever, except for the pixie-like hairdo that’s a result of her shaving her head when she pretended to be my wife. She leaps into my arms. I squeeze her tight, enjoying the sensation of feeling loved for the first time in a long time. Hunters never cry. I’m usually the only exception. But I’m not alone today. Em squeezes me hard and lets out a joyful sob.

I hear whispers all around me as the strange turn of events is explained. I hear only bits and pieces. “Solomon.” “The Last Hunter.” “Tartarus.” “His hair.”

Weapons lower.

Tension melts.

And then the strangest thing I think I’ve seen since arriving on this continent takes place. This squad of deadly hunters drops to one knee and bows their heads.

To me.

23

“We thought you were dead. Gone forever,” Em says, still clinging to me and oblivious to the bowing hunters around us.

“I came back,” I say, stating the obvious.

“How did you escape Tartarus?” The voice is unbelieving, yet surprised.

I look up and see Kainda’s strong body step out of the light. Unlike the others, she’s not bowing. Her skin is deeply tanned, and she’s dressed in black leathers. There isn’t even a hint of a smile on her face, but she’s a vision. Em has always been a sister to me. Kainda is…something else. I’m not sure. As Ninnis’s daughter, she was offered to me as a wife, which I—being the impetuous Ull at the time—rudely turned down. Insulted, Kainda became a bitter rival out for blood. But when we met next, I saved her life, and when Ull’s personality emerged, I felt something for her. And now, that personality is part of the whole person I have become. My first impression of Kainda was that she was much older than me, but time is funny in the underworld and she now looks about my age. But I also think it has something to do with her current lack of makeup. I hadn’t realized she’d been decorating her face before, but her natural beauty is now clear to see. As is her confusion, from my lingering stare.

“I left,” I say.

“You just left?” Kainda sounds annoyed by my answer. “You were in Tartarus.”

I understand her confusion. Tartarus is a place regarded as a tomb of eternal torture that the Nephilim fear more than anything else. When I stepped through that door, I had no idea how easy it would be to return. Not that letting go of my burden was easy. People seem to be wired to cling to the things that make them feel bad about themselves.

“It’s a long story,” I say, “but yes. I opened the door and walked out.”

Kainda looks enraged by my casual reply. She takes her hammer and slams it into a tree. With a crack, the tree topples and nearly crushes some of the bowed hunters, but the branches tangle in the canopy and the tree’s fall is arrested. “Then what the hell took you so long!?”

With that, Kainda stomps off into the jungle.

I look down at Em and ask, “Did I do something wrong?”

Em smiles up at me. “You did something right. She just wasn’t expecting it.”

The hunters around us stand up as Em explains.

“I knew you would come back.” She motions to the others. “And they believed it too.”

“We all saw what happened at the gates,” the aborigine says. “Behemoth. The fire. Nephil.”

The big bald man steps forward. “When you rejected Nephil and gave up his body, some of us were…inspired by your strength. We fled to the surface, and over time have managed to find each other and band together.”

A group of rogue hunters. The thought brings a smile to my face. “How many?”

“Thirty-one,” Em says.

“Your army,” the aborigine says.

“My army?”

“We have been waiting for you to return,” Em says. “Preparing for it.”

“How could you have known?” I ask. While I’m thankful for their faith in my abilities, I didn’t even think it was possible, so how could Em, not to mention these hunters I’ve never met, be so sure that I would escape Tartarus?

“Luca,” Em says. “When you left, he fell into a deep sleep. He would eat, and drink on occasion, but mostly he just slept. And spoke. About you. Little of what he said made sense, but the things he described are like nothing in the underworld. When he mentioned your name, I felt sure he was seeing you, as he did before.”

“You knew about the drawings?” I ask.

“I heard him tell you about them,” she says. “Thin walls.” Em starts collecting her knives from the trees and the ground around us. “About a week ago, Luca woke up.”

“When I left Tartarus,” I say.

“Said he saw you in his dreams,” Em says. “Said you were flying over the lake. Tried to call you.”

“I’m here,” I say. “I’m right here.”

“What?” she says.

“I saw him on the shore, yelling to me. It’s what led me here.”

She stops, looks at me and smiles. “Tobias would be proud of you.”

I look around at the group of hunters. “Of both of us.”

She shrugs and sheathes the last of her collected knives. Then she walks right up to me and stops. She’s looking me over like an art student observing a classic painting. In that quiet moment, I return her look, remembering the face of the one I call sister. Her deep blue eyes shift back and forth, from my face to my hair. Her skin is darker, but so are the freckles on her cheeks. Her hair is still a mix of brown—her natural color—and blood red, revealing the taint of Nephilim corruption.

“How did you do it?” she asks, her voice a whisper.

“I told you,” I say. “I walked out.” Thinking she wants a longer explanation I add, “We all carry burdens—the weight of the bad things we’ve done—and in Tartarus, those—”

“What?” she says. “No. Not that. Your hair.”

My hair? I haven’t given my hair a second thought. A streak of blond hair emerged when I remembered who I was and fled from the Nephilim, years ago. I’d hoped more of it turned blond since, but never thought to check, not to mention I didn’t have a mirror handy. The shock of hair that occasionally hangs in my face has been blond for a long time, so I haven’t noticed any change. But it sounds like the red might have retreated a little more. “Has more of the red gone away?”

Em laughs and shakes her head. “Solomon…” She reaches a hand out to the bald hunter. “Krane. Your sword.”

The bald man, whose name is Krane, steps forward and hands his scimitar to Em. The curved blade is wide toward the end, and very shiny. I imagine that Krane uses its reflective surface to blind opponents before striking, but it also makes for a handy mirror. She holds the flat surface of the sword up in front of me.

The face of a stranger stares back.

No…not a stranger. Someone long forgotten, mixed with an aged exterior. While I still look young, the stubble on my face has become a full-fledged beard. When I look at my bright blue eyes, I see Luca’s, too, and the small razor-clawed thinker double, but mostly I see the eyes that looked back at me in my parents’ bathroom mirror.

But there is something else. Something that is both new and old. And as I realize that what I’m seeing is not an illusion, my knees start to grow weak. I take the sword in my hands and fall to my knees. Turning my head in either direction, I inspect the change for any trace of corruption.

I find nothing.

My hair—every single strand—is blond.

My widening smile turns into a laugh. Now I understand, in part, why the hunters here are bowing to me. They know who I am, who I was and what I did. They know I entered Tartarus, where I stayed for three months, and I’ve not only returned, but I’ve returned purified. Free of the Nephilim corruption.

I look at each and every one of the hunters around me and see blood red hair on all except for the bald Krane. While all of them also have streaks of their original hair color to varying degrees, the red is a constant reminder of who they served, what was done to them and what they have done to others.

“You didn’t know?” Em asks.

I shake my head. “There’s a mirror shortage in Tartarus.”

Em laughs and takes Krane’s sword from me. After handing it back to the big man, she pulls me up. “We need to move.”

The serious tone of her voice cuts through my relief. “What’s been happening?” I ask.

“The jungle is a dangerous place. Outsiders have come. Their weapons are…”

“We lost a few hunters,” Krane says.

I nearly scoff at the idea, but remember the Arab man’s reaction to seeing me. And the Chinese soldiers were armed for war. But if they’re shooting at people and are clearly not prepared to fight Nephilim, then who are they looking to fight?

Each other, I realize. They’re here to kill each other.

Feeling discouraged by this revelation, I look up and find the eyes of twenty hunters on me. Are they looking for guidance? Leadership? I meet the aborigine’s eyes. He seems to understand my plight and gives me a slight nod of encouragement. They’re looking for hope.

I’m not ready for this, I think. I can’t lead these people. They’re all older, and… I nearly say they’re smarter than me, but my intellect revolts. They’re not smarter than me. Few people are. And they’re not stronger than me, either. Even without my powers, the group had trouble fighting me, not to mention the fact that I’ve killed a Nephilim warrior and survived Tartarus. Maybe I am the best person for the job, but I still don’t feel ready. I’d rather be home, lying in bed and staring at a map of Antarctica, the place where I was born but never meant to go.

But I’m here. And they’re watching me. So I do my best to look strong and fearless and say, “Take me to…”

I falter. Take me where? To your leader? Home? Your base? Where the heck do they live anyway?

Then I realize what I really want to say. “Take me to Luca.”

24

We make our way around the lake like a military platoon, quietly stalking, wary of enemies. Kainda takes the point position, scouting ahead and then giving the all clear. A small group brings up the rear, erasing our trail. I’m essentially in the middle of the group, protected like I’m the President of the United States and the hunters are my secret service. The attention makes me uncomfortable, and I don’t need protecting, but there was no stopping them.

Em is near the front, too, though I can tell she doesn’t want to be by the way she keeps looking back at me. We have a lot of catching up to do, not to mention strategizing, but I get the impression that she, and Kainda, despite being two of the younger hunters in this group, are in charge. Em gives orders with the calm of someone who has done so for a while, and her words are followed without question.

Her new authority feels strange to watch. When we last saw each other, we were both outcasts. Alone. And now, here she is surrounded by an army of hunters.

My army of hunters, they say.

But since no one is asking me what to do, they are still, quite clearly, Em’s army. And I think I like it that way. I’ve caused a lot of damage and ruined a lot of lives on my own. I don’t want to consider the cost if all these hunters tag along with me. I’m not saying I won’t need their help. I’ll need it, there’s no doubt. But I will not put them in danger until I’m sure it will matter, until the benefits outweigh the risks.

“Are you okay?”

I turn to the voice and find the aborigine walking next to me. He is a skilled hunter. I didn’t hear him coming, probably because I was lost in thought. “Yeah. Fine,” I say.

“You seem…distracted,” he says. When I don’t reply, he continues. “I don’t blame you. You’ve been through a lot.”

I almost say, “You have no idea,” but stop, first because it’s rude, and second because I don’t know who this man is, or what he’s been through. Thankful for the distraction, I offer him my hand. “I’m Solomon.”

He shakes it and with a grin, says, “I know.”

The man’s smile creases deep crow’s feet on the sides of his eyes, and I wonder how he could have ever been a hunter. He’s kind, soft-spoken and his eyes lack any trace of the ferocity that hunters, rehabilitated or not, cannot hide. I stop in my tracks. “You’re not a hunter.”

His smile is wide and full of gleaming white teeth. He reaches up and pulls the wig of red dreadlocks from his head. The hair underneath is short and black—not corrupted. “You’re smart and a skilled fighter.”

“And you’re a teacher,” I say.

“Have you met many other teachers?” the man asks eagerly. I suspect he hasn’t met any, but would like to, perhaps to share, and work through, their tribulations.

“Just one,” I say. “Aimee. She serves under the Norse.” It strikes me that Aimee would have a place among these hunters. “She was my friend.”

“A hunter and teacher…friends? Before this, before we escaped, most of these hunters might have beaten me for looking at them the wrong way.”

He’s telling the truth. Though he lives among the hunters now, and is quite skilled himself, he still fears them.

“We were friends before I was taken,” I say.

“Strange that she would end up here, too,” he says.

“She’s here because of me.” I start walking again, eyes to the ground. “She was my final test. I took her.”

“Oh,” he says, tagging along.

And I’m going to get her back, I determine. Even if I have to put my quest for the Jericho Shofar on hold for a day. I can’t let Aimee stay with the Nephilim any longer. Not when there is someplace else for her to be.

“If she’s with the Norse, she might not be too far away,” he says.

I stop again. “What? Why?”

“The strongest of the warrior tribes are gathering at Olympus.”

“Olympus?”

“You saw the mountain range beyond the lake?” he asks.

In my dreams and in reality, I think, but I answer only, “Yes.”

“The tallest mountain, straight out from the lake, is Mount Olympus.”

Not only am I close to my goal of finding Hades, who must be at Olympus, but Aimee could also be nearby. Perhaps I can visit with Hades and escape with Aimee all at once?

“I am Adoni,” he says. “I have been a teacher to the aboriginal gods of Australia for nearly fifty surface years, though it felt more like ten to me. My children are now adults. My wife might be dead.”

When I don’t reply, he sees the sadness creeping into my face. “You have experienced the same.”

“My three years have been more than twenty on the surface. I was just a boy when they took me.”

“You are still just a boy,” Adoni says. “The muscles and beard and status might fool most, but I can see through it.”

I smile at him. Why do the Nephilim take such kind people to be their teachers? Is it because they think they’re less likely to cause problems? Or try to escape? Adoni seems like he would have been capable of making a run for it. “You fight well for a teacher,” I say.

“My father taught me how to hunt—animals—in the bush,” Adoni says. “I suspect the Nephilim didn’t know this about me when they brought me here.”

“Did you ever try to escape?”

He gives a shrug. “No.”

“But—”

My question is an obvious one and he answers before I can finish. “I did more good by staying. When you’ve been among the Nephilim as long as I have, you are afforded a bit of freedom.”

I remember finding Aimee alone in the Norse library, and nod.

“Thanks to that freedom, I was able to facilitate the escape of—”

“You helped Tobias escape with Em and Luca!”

He smiles and bows his head humbly. “Among others, some of whom are with us now. And when I heard about what you had done, I knew it was finally time for me to leave. Emilie found me not too long after that. I was sad to hear of Tobias’s passing, but he managed to pass on some of his skill to Emilie, and to you.”

“So you and Tobias were…friends?” I ask.

“Not at first. Like all hunters, he terrified me. And when he came to me for help, I turned him down. Twice. I thought it a ruse. A trap. It wasn’t until I met young Luca that I decided to help them escape. The boy’s innocence won me over. As yours does now. In fact…” He takes my arm and turns me toward him. He looks at my face, and then in my eyes. With a gasp he says, “It’s true. Luca is a clone.”

“A clone?” I ask.

“A duplicate,” Adoni says. “A clone is what modern humans call an organism that is a genetic copy of the original. Luca is your clone, and unlike the others, like Xin, he is a perfect clone.”

“People can do this?” I ask, feeling unsettled that the human race is working on something that feels decidedly Nephilim.

“According to my studies, it is possible. The first cloned animal was a sheep. They’ve done other animals now. Pets even. Cloning people is illegal, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.” He sees that this bothers me. “People are still people,” he says. “The world hasn’t changed that much in twenty years.”

He might be right. People have always pushed science to questionable limits. But I don’t think many people would like the idea of cloning after nearly being gutted by a half-thinker version of themselves with razor blades for fingers. Not that all of my clones are bad. “You mentioned Xin. Is he alive? Is he here?”

“Alive, yes,” Adoni says. “Here, no. Despite Luca’s insistence that Xin be trusted, the hunters, Kainda included, couldn’t be convinced. Only Emilie and I believed the young man. That may change now that you are here.”

“I’m not sure how much will change,” I say.

“Now that you’re here,” Adoni says. “Everything will change.”

Before I can reply, a voice calls out. “Solomon!”

For the first time since my conversation with Adoni began, I take a long look at my surroundings. We’ve entered a clearing in the trees that is still somehow covered by the thick canopy. I can see the blue glint of the lake off to my left. And to my right is the entrance to a cave. A water source, cover, quick access to the underground. Motion above pulls my eyes up, and I get my first real look at where the hunters are living—tree houses. They’re crude structures built from branches and large leaves, but they’re hard to see. Ropes connect the trees and can be drawn up or thrown down for access to the ground.

“Solomon!” A small body swings around a tree, leaps to the ground and rolls before running straight toward me. I recognize the nearly white hair and bright blue eyes immediately.

“Luca!” I shout.

As Luca passes Em, she crosses her arms with a smile on her face and watches her adopted brothers reunite. Krane stands just beyond her, watching the scene with curiosity. Luca leaps up with surprising skill and I catch him in the air. We squeeze each other hard and fast.

When Luca pulls back, he says, “You heard me?”

“I did,” I say. “Thank you.”

Luca looks around like he’s making sure no one is listening, then he whispers in my ear. “Xin says hello, and don’t trust anyone.”

25

Don’t trust anyone? Don’t trust anyone! I would love to ask for a little clarification about what Luca has just told me, but some of the others are closing in to greet me now. Luca hops out of my arms like everything is peachy. He’s still all smiles and thrilled to see me, but he gives me a quick, serious glance that says he’s not joking.

Don’t trust anyone…

Certainly, that doesn’t include Luca.

Or Em.

But why doesn’t Em know? If she did, she would have pulled me aside and told me. Instead, she let me chat it up with Adoni. I glance back at the man I’d begun to think of as a friend and find him watching me. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. Everyone is watching me.

Thank you, Xin, for the paranoia.

I almost expect him to answer, but his voice never enters my mind.

“So this is where we live,” Em says. She stops behind Luca, wraps her arms around him and kisses his head.

There is very little Xin could say that would make me not trust Em. I’ll tell her about the warning when I get a chance. See if she thinks any of these hunters could still be loyal to the Nephilim.

“It’s, ahh, nice,” I say, but I’m looking at the ground, lost in thought.

“Sol,” Em says, drawing my eyes up to her. She points to the canopy. “Up there.”

I glance up. “Right. I know. I saw. Kind of like an Ewok village.”

Her scrunched nose confirms that I’ve made no sense. No one here has ever watched TV, let alone seen Return of the Jedi. “Forget it,” I say.

She’s trying to figure me out, but can’t, so she moves on. “We sleep up there because there are a lot of predators in the jungle, and while we’re not defenseless, it’s nice to sleep without worrying about being eaten.”

In the underground, sounds are contained and amplified. Predators, like the cresties, had a hard time sneaking up on a hunter without being detected. Out here, with the constant rustle of leaves in the wind, their movements could go unnoticed. Taking to the trees was a good idea. But it seems wholly inadequate. “Is it defensible?”

“Against hunters, yeah,” Em says. “It is now. We have sentries roaming the jungle all around us. They’d be hard to get past without making any noise.”

I point to the cave entrance. “And that’s your escape route?”

Em nods. “Splits into a lot of branches that we’ve all memorized. None are big enough for a Nephilim.”

“But it’s not the Neph’s we fear, is it?” Krane says. The man is so muscular and tough looking, I can’t picture him fearing anyone other than a Nephilim.

“There are hunters looking for us,” Em says. “Before the sentries, a few came close.”

“They found us,” Krane says, “But didn’t live long enough to spread the word.”

“You killed them?” I asked, a little surprised.

Em doesn’t meet my eyes. She knows how I feel about killing human beings.

“There was little choice,” Adoni says. “We tried to subdue the first with the hopes of freeing her. We lost two men for the effort. Some hunters just can’t let go of their bonds.”

I’m not sure I agree, but I understand their point of view. If they let her escape, they would all be in danger. If they captured her alive, how many more would have died? It’s a moral dilemma I hope I never have to face.

“She found her freedom in death,” Krane says.

It’s cold and brutal, but I can’t argue with the big man’s logic.

A tug on my arm reminds me that Luca is still with us, listening to this conversation of killing and death. I feel like he shouldn’t be hearing such things, but he has seen, and survived, far worse. These dark subjects are probably as familiar to him as Go-Bots and Snickers bars were to me.

“Come to the beach,” Luca says. “I want to show you something.”

I would like nothing more than to spend a few quiet minutes with Luca, but I can feel the eyes of these hunters watching me. They’re clearly shocked by my presence and the fact that I’m alive, not to mention my hair, which honestly has me a little shaken.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I tell Luca.

He frowns and looks at his feet. I crouch in front of him and take his shoulders. His eyes look up so we’re face to face. It’s like staring into a mirror that sees the past. “Have I ever lied to you?”

“No.”

“When you were taken,” I say, “I swore that I would get you back. And I did, right?”

He nods.

“And now I swear I will meet you at the beach.” It’s meant to be lighthearted, but the boy doesn’t smile.

“Daddy died,” he says, and throws himself into my arms. I hold the small child, thinking about how I would have handled the death of my father when I was six. Granted, Luca is a tougher child than I was, but we’re still wired the same way. His tears trickle down my shoulder. His little body shakes in my arms. I can feel my eyes growing wet, too, but like I said, the hunters are watching. I can’t show weakness. Not yet. Not until they know me and understand that, this…love, is where my strength comes from.

“I know,” I say, squeezing the boy. “I’m sorry.”

He pulls away and wipes his eyes, glancing around, and conscious that he too, is being watched, and judged. “You won’t die, will you?”

“I have already been to Tartarus and back,” I say. “I will not die.”

Luca smiles.

“And I will meet you at the beach. I won’t be long.”

He nods. “Okay.” And then he’s off, running toward the beach. A child again. I envy him for a moment and then stand to face the hunters.

They’ve gathered in a circle. Some in the tree above me. Some on the ground, arms crossed. A few continue with what they were doing before I arrived—preparing food, sharpening weapons, stretching leather—but their eyes are on me more than on their tasks.

“You’re right not to trust me,” I say, taking several of them off guard, including Em, who nearly falls over when she whips around toward me. “I am the chosen vessel of Nephil, broken, corrupted and trained by Ninnis. I contained the body of Nephil for years, and his darkness sometimes consumed me. The spirit of Nephil entered me as well, and I spent the last three months in Tartarus, a land of torture for the corrupt. You have reason to not trust me.”

Some hunters lower their hands, trying to look casual, but I know they’re really just putting their hands closer to their weapons. Kainda, on the other hand, is a rock. Her arms are crossed over her chest. She stares at me with serious eyes, waiting for me to finish. Her gaze unnerves me far more than the hunters reaching for their weapons do, mostly because, for some reason, I care about what she thinks.

“You are hunters,” I say. “You are cautious and slow to trust. As you should be. These traits kept you alive in the underworld when you fought for your life every day. But, you no longer fight for your life. You fight for each other’s lives, and for a world beyond, which some of you have never seen…and the rest have forgotten. It’s time to start trusting, or you all will die.”

Em looks uncomfortable, but doesn’t stop me. She’s probably wondering where I’m going with this just like the rest of them.

“And you will have to trust me. Most of you know me as Ull, the chosen vessel of Nephil, meant to rule over Nephilim and hunter alike. But that’s just part of my name, part of who I am. My real name is Solomon Ull Vincent. I was taken from my parents and tortured by the hunter named Ninnis. For a time, I forgot myself. My home. My parents. My friends. I did things that crushed me with guilt.

“I can see your hair,” I say. “The streaks of brown, black and yellow. I know you feel the weight, too. But you can be free of it. I once held the body of Nephil, it is true, but I cast it out. As I did with the spirit of Nephil. As I did with the guilt that consumed me before I opened the gates of Tartarus and stepped out. I was told that I would be the last hunter. That I would usher in the time when hunters were no longer needed. The Nephilim believed they would no longer need hunters after reclaiming the surface. But they were wrong.”

I spin slowly, meeting the eyes of each and every hunter watching me. I have their attention. Even those that had been pretending to work have now stopped. “They won’t need hunters,” I say with a grin. “Because they’ll all be dead.”

Despite having given a rousing speech worthy of a Hollywood football locker room scene, there’s no cheering, no whoops, or clapping. Only silence. These are, after all, hunters. But then, one of them steps forward. He has wild spiky red hair with a blond streak front and center. His eyes are cold and focused. He moves like a snake, smooth but ready to strike. He’s about my height, but stronger and older. This is a seasoned hunter, not accustomed to listening to the words of anyone save his master.

I glance at Em. She looks unsure and whispers, “He is Tunis. One of our best.”

The man stops in front of me. I can’t read his face. He could be seconds away from slitting my throat and I wouldn’t know.

“What I want to know, last hunter,” he says. “Is will you trust us?”

Xin said to trust no one, but I don’t think that’s a choice. Not really. If I don’t show trust in them, how can I expect it in return?

We stare at each other for a moment. A simple “yes” will not convince him, or the others. I reach down to my belt and the man tenses. I move slowly, drawing my knife and hoping that Xin is wrong, or at least that this is one of the people I can trust. His eyes follow my hand, his muscles tense and ready to defend himself. But then I turn the knife toward myself and place the blade against my neck. He’s so shocked by my actions that he doesn’t resist when I take his hand and bring it up to the knife. When I let go, Tunis is holding the knife to my throat.

“You could kill me,” I say. “There is nothing I, nor anyone else, could do to stop you. My life belongs to you.”

Tunis’s forehead scrunches up. What I am doing right now makes no sense to the man. “You are wrong,” he finally says, and I see something change in his eyes—understanding. He pulls the blade away from my neck and drops it to the ground. It lands between our feet, piercing the earth. “It is my life that belongs to you.”

“As does mine,” says another.

And then another.

The hunters each speak the words and bow their heads to me. This is different than what happened in the jungle. That was awe. Wonderment. At me being alive. And at my hair. This…is allegiance. The phrase is repeated around the circle, finishing with Em who speaks the words as seriously as the rest, despite not needing to.

Only one person remains silent. Kainda. As the others move in to greet me, she slips away.

26

I spend an hour with the hunters, learning their names, who their masters were, where they lived, what weapons they prefer—the kinds of things hunters talk about. As the group disperses slowly and the hunters go back to their work, Em clears her throat signaling that she would like a word with me. I nod a goodbye to the last few hunters and turn to Em.

“Well done,” she says.

I shrug. “I’m not sure how much of this is me and how much is a show.”

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I know you, remember? That was all you.”

I’m not so sure, and certainly not as confident as I appeared. But I don’t argue, mostly because there are other things I want to do.

And as usual, Em can read my mind nearly as well as Xin. She points to the right. “The beach is that way. Go. Spend some time together. We’ll talk tonight.”

Her words, “We’ll talk tonight,” carry weight. The reprieve with Luca will be short-lived.

“Krane. Adoni,” Em says. “Keep an eye on them.”

As I move to the lake, Krane and Adoni fall in line behind me, hands near their weapons. I should probably be wary, too, but as we reach the beach, Luca sees me and beams with excitement. He quickly shows me the sand castle he built, which is really more of a mud castle. I crouch next to him and start to feel like a kid again. I used to build castles just like this when my parents brought me to the beach.

“This is my house,” Luca says. He begins decorating it with leaves, flower petals and blades of grass. “You can build a house next door.”

Slightly embarrassed by the request, I look for Krane and Adoni. They’ve taken up positions twenty feet to either side of us, backs turned to us as they watch for trouble. I have a hundred questions for Luca, but decide the child has the right idea, and I dig into the mud. The earth is wet, but warm, no different from the air really.

Twenty minutes later, I’ve got a foot-tall tower built and glowing in the light of the now setting sun. It has finger indents for windows and a flag-like branch and leaf stabbed into the top. As I smooth out the sides of the tower, I say, “This means something,” quoting Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Luca laughs like he understands the joke and says, “What could a mud house mean?”

“I have no idea,” I say.

“Are you done?” he asks.

As I take my mind off the task of building my tower, I realize that Luca has been done for several minutes. We built in silence, just enjoying being with each other, the ways kids do. It felt foreign and unnatural at first, but some part of me now feels rejuvenated. “Yeah, I think I’m done.”

“Okay,” he says, and starts to tear down his creation.

I stop him with a hand on his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“Em says I can’t leave any evidence,” Luca says. “So we have to take them down and flatten out the ground.”

“Huh,” I say, “Makes sense. But…let’s do it like this.”

I do my best impression of a Godzilla roar, and stomp toward my castle.

“What are you doing?” Luca asks.

“Being Godzilla,” I say. “Justin and I used to do this in the winter, in the snow when the plows made piles on the side of the road.”

Again, Luca couldn’t possibly understand what I’ve just said. He has no context for it. Godzilla, snow plows and roads are all foreign to him. But the wanton destruction of a freshly built mud castle seems to be a universal language to boys everywhere. Luca roars and joins in, crushing his castle beneath his feet.

“Is Godzilla like Behemoth?”

“Yeah,” I say. “But not as scary. He’s even a good guy sometimes.”

Luca gives his castle one last stomp, flattening it out. “Good.”

Then, in a flash, the boy’s mind moves on to something else. “Oh, hey, come see this!” He dashes to the water’s edge and stops when his toes get wet. He bends over and starts slapping the lake’s surface with his hand.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Calling my friends.”

“Your friends?”

“Well, they’re sort of my friends. Em says I should stay away from them. That they could be dangerous. I don’t think so, but—”

“If Em says they’re dangerous, you should probably listen to her,” I say.

“I know, I know,” Luca says with faux exasperation. “But they started coming here just after I woke up. And they come when I call them. Like this.” He slaps the water with a little more effort. “Just watch.”

He slaps the water for another minute. I can see he’s about to give up, but then something swirls just beneath the water, twenty feet out. I place a hand on Whipsnap.

“Luca,” Adoni says, his tone serious and very adult sounding. He has one hand on his bolas and a knife already in the other.

“I know, I know,” Luca says, waving away the man’s concern.

I look to Krane. He’s watching, too, but his arms are crossed and he looks only half-interested.

A puff of air brings my focus back to the swirling water. Something took a breath.

The swirling shape rises again, five feet closer. I can see a vague, large shape beneath the surface of the water. Had this been midday instead of sunset, I might have been able to see the true size of the creature, but the orange sun fails to pierce the water.

Again, five feet closer, the swirl emerges. As the creature surfaces, a cloud of expelled steam blocks its face for a moment. Then the air clears and a doglike face with big black eyes is revealed.

“Gloop!” I shout, charging into the water.

“Solomon?” Luca says, now sounding afraid.

“What’s he doing?” I hear Adoni shout. I can hear his feet, too, running toward the beach.

I wrap my arms around the Weddell seal that has saved my life twice. The seal nuzzles against my side and then swims circles around me.

Adoni arrives, bolas spinning above his head.

“It’s okay,” I say, raising a hand up. “He’s a friend.”

“You’re friends with this creature?” Adoni asks.

“Among others,” I say.

He lowers the bolas. “Right. The dinosaurs.”

“Grumpy is here, too?” I ask.

“Grumpy?”

“The male cresty.”

Adoni starts to sound annoyed when he says, “Cresty?”

“The dinosaurs.” I remember what Aimee called them. “The crylophosaurs.”

“Ahh,” Adoni says, finally understanding. “We have heard stories.”

“Have you seen them?” I ask.

Adoni attaches the bolas to his belt with a shake of his head. “I’ve seen a lot of strange things, but you… I saw them just once. They left. With Xin.”

Before I can ask for more details, a woman clears her throat behind Adoni. He falls silent and steps aside.

It’s Kainda.

Gloop slides beneath the water and disappears.

“Go get something to eat,” she says, then glances at Adoni and Krane. They nod and start away from the lake. “Take the kid, too.”

Adoni takes Luca’s hand and leads him away.

I take a step to follow them, but Kainda stops me with a stare and says, “You stay.”

Luca glances back at me apologetically before fading into the jungle.

Standing in waist deep water, I’m not sure what to say to Kainda. Our interactions have been brief and intense. Em clearly trusts her, but last I knew, Kainda would have liked nothing better than to cave in my skull.

She glances over her shoulder, listening, and then turns back to me. As she walks toward the water’s edge, her hand slides subtly down to the large stone hammer attached to her belt and unclips it.

Crap.

27

Not reaching for Whipsnap is a struggle. Kainda could crush my skull with a single hammer strike if I don’t defend myself. But she helped Em and Luca escape from the Nephilim. And Em clearly trusts her. They’ve been fighting together, leading this ragtag group of hunters for months.

Xin’s message repeats in my mind. Don’t trust anyone.

But how can I do that? Even if it’s a risk, I’m going to have to trust someone.

Em and Luca without a doubt.

But Kainda? Her ferocious reputation and past disdain for me make her the most likely candidate for betrayal. But it’s too obvious. The moment she started acting funny, someone would notice. Especially me.

She grips the hammer and pulls it from her belt.

And this intimidation is exactly what I’d expect from Kainda. She’s clearly made an effort to change, though. So I decide to risk trusting her. I hold my ground, but make no move to defend myself. She won’t hurt me, I tell myself. She’s glad I’m alive, just like the rest of them.

When she places the end of the hammer against my chest, I’m not so sure. Still, she has yet to bludgeon me. “You…” Her voice burns with contempt. “You changed everything.” She shoves the hammer forward, knocking me back a little deeper in the water.

Kainda steps closer, moving out of the shade and into the orange glow of the setting sun. The light transforms her. Her skin looks soft. Her deep red hair tied back in a braid looks pretty. Her eyes, though they burn with intensity, make my insides twist. I’m no longer seeing a fellow hunter. I’m seeing a beautiful girl.

“Everything used to make sense to me,” she says, nearly shouting. “The world made sense. Hunting. Killing. The Nephilim. Everything. Even hating you. You had everything I wanted, and then you took it all away. You destroyed it.”

She shoves me again. It hurts, but it’s bearable. And I’m still distracted by the new way I’m seeing her.

“You could have killed me,” she says. “Could have let that crylophosaur kill me. That would have made sense. But now, I’m just confused. What felt right then, feels wrong now. I don’t like it.”

She’s in my face now, like this is a WWF pre-match verbal smackdown. And she could probably intimidate any wrestler on TV. But I just stare into her eyes, listening, and trying to make sense of what I’m feeling. As much as she says I confused her world, she is doing the same to me now. Her strength, her passion and her beauty are making me forget that she is a killer and the daughter of Ninnis.

It’s not her fault, I remind myself. She wasn’t born hard. She was made that way, and she’s proven her true strength by turning against it.

“Why?” she shouts. “Why didn’t you kill me?”

When I don’t answer, she takes a deep breath, lets out a sigh, and tilts her head to the water between us. When she does, I see a streak of silky jet-black hair in the center of her head. It’s pulled back tight and mixed in with the braid, visible only from above.

Innocence reclaimed.

The sight of Kainda’s black hair is the last straw. My intellect takes a back seat for a moment and my emotions guide my hand to Kainda’s chin. I tilt her head up and two things surprise me. First, Kainda hasn’t broken my hand. Second, I lean in quickly and plant my lips against hers. It’s awkward at first. I’ve never done this before. In fact, I doubt Kainda has either. Hunters aren’t interested in romance.

But then something changes. Our bodies relax. I wrap my arms around her, pulling her close. Her hammer drops from her hand with a plunk as it sinks beneath the water.

I’m not sure how long the kiss actually lasts. My mind normally keeps track of such minor details without any effort, but all sense of time is gone. When we finally do separate, she still has that dangerous edge about her—something I think I like—but all of her hostility toward me is gone.

Her shouted questions register, now that my intellect is free to think again. Why? Why didn’t you kill me? “That’s why,” I say, realizing the truth for the first time. When I saved Kainda from the matriarch cresty named Alice, I was being driven by Ull, who, as it turns out, represents the majority of my emotional side. And Ull is now a part of me. Ull is me, and I him. No longer separate. Which means all of the feelings he had for Kainda, despite her aggression—or perhaps because of it—are my feelings now. I am undeniably attracted to her.

And apparently, the feeling is mutual.

A slight shift of brush by the shore sends both of us into action. We separate quickly. Whipsnap springs out as I pull the weapon from my belt. Kainda quickly recovers her hammer from beneath the water. We stand side by side and face…

Em. She’s smiling and looks a little uncomfortable.

Busted.

“Umm,” she says. “I just wanted to tell you. There’s some food. If you want it.”

Kainda and I just stand there. Looking at her. No one knows what to say. Hunters don’t kiss. They don’t have feelings for each other. But that’s changing. Em loves me like a brother. Tobias loved her like a father. Those things aren’t supposed to happen, either.

“I’ll just…” Em takes a step back into the jungle. “We’ll talk later.”

Em disappears into the jungle and we’re alone again. I slowly turn to Kainda. She’s dripping wet from recovering her hammer, and she’s standing there, ready for a fight that isn’t going to come. She meets my gaze and I know I look equally silly because a glimmer of a smile creeps onto her face. That small smile is like a punch in the gut, but instead of wincing, I laugh.

Kainda’s smile widens. It’s not much, and it seems to confuse her, or at least the emotions accompanying it does, but it’s something I never thought I’d see. I trudge back to shore and take a seat on a fallen tree. Kainda follows and I force my eyes to the ground so I don’t get caught gawking. I have seen a number of hunters in my time underground and have never once noticed how little clothing we actually wear. And now I’m having trouble not noticing.

Being a teenager is so confusing.

Kainda takes a seat next to me. For several minutes, we watch the sun set. The light still stings my eyes some—midday is nearly unbearable without sunglasses—but the diffused light of the falling sun hits Kainda’s high cheekbones in such a way that a little discomfort is worthwhile.

“So…” she eventually says, “you’re friends with seals and dinosaurs?”

I’m about to ask how she knows about the cresties, when I remember she was there when the male cresty I named Grumpy allowed me to place my hand on his head. The small pack of predators later aided in her escape with Em.

“I don’t understand it, either.”

“What about the other things you can do?” she asks. “The wind. The storms.”

“I can’t do those things anymore,” I say.

“I noticed,” she says. “You wouldn’t have had any trouble defeating the others.”

That she excludes herself from those who would have been easy to defeat, by saying “the others,” makes me smile. Her confidence, I’m realizing, is one of the things I like best about her.

I begin explaining about how my abilities faded when I entered Tartarus. This brings up all sorts of questions about that strange land, how I got out and how I managed to find the lake. From there, we work our way back. My birth. My life before. When Ninnis took me. How he broke me. And how my memory came back to me. We laugh a little when I recall the things I said to her as Ull, and she seems pleased that some of my insults were made by me pretending to be Ull.

Sometime during the conversation, our hands find each other. The contact is like a static spark. We both draw back quickly and share an awkward smile. Sure, we kissed, and holding hands is kind of a step backward, but the kiss was…passionate. Holding hands is somehow more intimate. Less guarded. It implies a stronger bond that cannot be forged so quickly, or so it would seem, through a kiss.

After an awkward moment of silence, I ask her about her life. The story is short and details scarce. But that’s okay. I can fill in the blanks. She would have been broken at a young age. Molded really. She didn’t need to forget her previous life. The underground realm was all she ever knew. Pain. Blood. Violence. She was steeped in it from birth. That she can sit here now, holding my hand, is nothing short of a miracle.

Her story shifts quickly to current events. The freed hunters, what they are calling the freemen, have been slowly organizing. Word is spreading, but recruitment is dangerous. If the invitee is not receptive, violence is guaranteed. They had been planning to reach out to the outside world, but every encounter with mankind has ended in violence, too. The men and women who have come to Antarktos, have come to fight.

“Not all of them,” I say.

She looks at me, unbelieving. The sun is now down, but the light from the half moon and my now natural night vision make Kainda easy to see.

“I have friends,” I say. “From my life before. They’re here now. And I can’t picture either of them wanting to hurt anyone.”

“You saw them?” she asks.

“No.” The answer discourages me. But I know they’re here. I dig into my pack and pull out the bandanna. “This has Merrill’s scent,” I say.

Kainda takes the bandanna and smells it. Anyone from the outside world would think she was crazy, but it’s normal behavior for a hunter. In the darkness of the underworld, many things are identified by scent long before sight.

I take out a single strand of blond hair. “This is Mira’s.”

Kainda takes the hair and sniffs it. “No scent.” She looks it over. “It’s the same color as your hair…but the texture is different. Rougher.”

Kainda hands the hair and bandanna back to me. “This…Mira. She is the girl from the image you carried.”

How does she know about that? She sees the question on my lips and answers. “My father spoke of it. Said she was your weakness. That you…loved her.”

While things like love are foreign to hunters, jealously is not. And Kainda isn’t very good at concealing it. But I’m no better at lying, so I tell the truth. “I did love her. I still do, I suppose. She means a lot to me. But twenty years have passed for her. She’s a grown woman. Maybe with a husband. Children. Who knows? But I feel strongly about her father, Merrill, too. And Aimee, her mother.”

“Aimee? Not the teacher?”

I’d left that detail out of my story, but if I’m trusting Kainda, I’m trusting Kainda. “Yes. She is Mira’s mother. She helped deliver me when I was born.”

“But…you took her. Gave her to the masters.” Kainda looks confused, until she sees my downturned eyes. “She does not like me.”

I recognize that Kainda is trying to lighten the mood, but she’s not very good at it. She manages to change the subject.

“Mira. Did you ever…” Kainda places her fingers against my lips.

I smile. “No. Never. We bumped feet once.”

Her forehead scrunches up. “You bumped feet?”

“Hey, it’s kind of a big deal to a fourteen year old boy.”

Kainda’s jealously fades as she laughs at me. And I actually don’t mind that she’s laughing at me.

“They had a dog with them,” I say. I hold up the bandanna. “That’s the strong smell on this.”

“What is a dog?”

Right. There are no dogs on Antarctica. “They’re hairy. Four legs. A tail that wags when they’re happy.”

“Woof.” Kainda does an impression of a dog barking. It’s so spot-on that I know she’s seen it. Seen them.

“That’s it!” I say.

She points out at the water. “They crossed the lake toward Olympus. Three days ago. The dog was with them. It made that noise when your—” She shakes her hand at the water, looking for the right word. “—other friends greeted them.”

“The seals,” I say. “Gloop.”

“The seals. Yes.”

I nearly ask if anyone spoke to them, but it’s clear they didn’t. “We have to find them.”

“Because of her?” Kainda says.

“Because of all of them. Adoni thinks Aimee will be at Olympus, too. And they’re our best chance at getting help.”

She squeezes my hand. “We will find them together.”

Knowing that Kainda, this infinitely dangerous woman who has somehow won my heart, will be by my side when I enter the Nephilim stronghold in search of Hades, and the Clark family, fills me with confidence.

A chill runs up my spine. At first, I think I’m cold, but the nighttime air is still a perfectly comfortable temperature. Then my mind catches up with my body. There’s a scent in the air. It’s subtle, but unmistakable.

Blood.

Nephilim blood.

28

A general rule of thumb for anyone trying to hide from Nephilim is: if you detect their presence, run away. Apparently, neither Kainda nor I, abide by this rule. Instead, we quickly determine the direction of the wind, and thus the direction from which the smell emanates, and run toward it. It’s not because we have a death wish, it’s because people we care about are nearby and in danger. At least, that’s my motivation.

When Kainda says, “You should go back and warn the others,” I know her motivation is the same.

It’s the same reason why I won’t abandon her now. Only one hunter has managed to kill a Nephilim before. Me. And that was with my abilities. If there is any hope of defeating whatever waits for us in the jungle, it is together. Kainda must realize the same thing, because she doesn’t urge me to leave again.

We run, side by side, through the jungle. Fast and quiet. Concealed in the shadow of the canopy that, in the darkness of night, feels almost like the under-ground. As the scent of Nephilim blood grows stronger, we arm ourselves and slow our approach. Even hunters don’t leap into battle without first knowing what they’re facing.

A beam of moonlight streaks through a hole in the canopy, lighting a small clearing. At the center of the clearing is a shape I recognize. Krane. He’s kneeling on the ground, head downturned like he’s injured. Did Krane already face the Nephilim and lose? I step forward, intending to ask, but Kainda’s firm grip on my shoulder stops me.

“Look at the ground,” she whispers.

A ten foot circle of leaf litter has been cleared away to reveal smooth earth below. Strange symbols, like crop circles, have been etched into the soil around him.

“Is it a trap?” I ask.

“Worse,” she says, tightening her grip on her hammer.

Krane begins to mumble, speaking Sumerian. I catch just a few words. “Fathers.” “Hear me.” “Come.”

“What’s he doing?” I ask.

Kainda looks about ready to explode. “Speaking to the Fathers.”

“The Fathers?”

“The Nephilim Fathers.”

My mind figures things out. Krane is speaking to demons!

“But why would—”

“I didn’t think they were real,” Kainda says, and I think she’s talking to herself, but then she looks at me. “He is a shifter. A Nephilim who can look human.”

The ramifications of this are vast. I’ve heard in the past that there are Nephilim living out in the world among the human race. I wondered how such a thing could be possible. Here is my answer. Krane the hunter, friend to Em and Kainda, is a Nephilim. I can’t imagine what would have happened if he had been the one who held the knife when I placed it against my throat, instead of Tunis. But things could still get very bad. If he’s trying to speak with the demon fathers, he is no doubt communicating my presence.

A purple glow radiates from the ground in front of Krane and I see a deep pool of purple blood.

“They’re coming,” Kainda says. “We must stop him. Now!”

Kainda charges from the jungle. I follow close behind. And despite our ferocious intent, we both remain silent. No battle cries. No hint of approach. Kainda raises her weapon, preparing to strike Krane’s head. I shift the blade end of Whipsnap back, ready to strike with deadly force. If Krane is a Nephilim, there’s no need for me to hold back.

Five feet from Krane, the wind shifts. He sucks in a surprised breath.

Kainda swings hard.

And misses.

Krane ducks beneath the blow and Kainda’s momentum carries her beyond her target. Krane leaps up and spins around to face me, but he isn’t prepared for where he finds me. I leapt from a rock and am now airborne. On a collision course. Krane jumps back, but Whipsnap’s reach covers the distance. The bladed end arcs through the air, tracing a purple line down Krane’s chest.

We both land and square off. The purple blood at the end of Whipsnap’s blade reveals the cut down Krane’s torso to be an inch deep. Not a mortal wound for a Nephilim, but it’s something. Kainda takes a fighting stance behind Krane. She catches my eye and somehow I understand what she’s thinking. Our next attack will be as one. He cannot defend both sides.

We circle him slowly.

Tension builds as we prepare to attack.

Then I notice something strange. Krane’s wound is not healing. Nephilim warriors heal from physical wounds very quickly. Shifters must be different. Which means that I don’t need to hit this thing in the forehead to kill it. The wound catches my attention again. Not only is it not healing, it seems to be…growing.

“Something’s not right,” I say to Kainda.

“We’re wasting time,” she replies. Her voice is almost a growl.

I glance at the purple blood. The glow is fading. Whatever Krane was doing, we interrupted it. He needs to kill us to continue. So why isn’t he attacking? Nephilim don’t fear hunters. “He’s tricking us,” I say. “Wants us to get closer.”

Krane laughs. His voice morphs from something human to something else. Something horrible. He slaps his hands against his chest, digs his fingers into the wound and takes hold of his flesh.

What the—

With a roar, Krane tears his chest open. Purple blood showers to the ground, forcing Kainda and me to leap back. The blood has healing properties, but in its pure form is so powerful, it can kill. Had we been closer, as I suspect he desired, we would have been coated in the stuff. I cringe, expecting to see an exposed ribcage and slippery organs, but what I see is far worse.

Krane’s skin seems to explode away from him, falling like sheets of wet toilet paper. And his body…it grows. From within. His new skin is dark red and covered with scales. He grows taller. His already large muscles expand. It’s as though a much larger creature had been compressed and was barely contained within a human shaped shell. He’s now ten feet tall—just like the Nephilim skeleton Merrill uncovered by the wall. His face splits down the middle. The flesh slides away, teeth and all. An angular Nephilim face is revealed—yellow eyes, double rows of teeth and horn-like knobs on its forehead. In fact, he looks very devil-like.

“Lucifer?” I guess.

His eyes snap toward me. “Eshu,” he says. “But you were close.”

Eshu. I read about him once, which means I remember every one of the scant details provided about him. He’s a trickster god—meaning he likes to fool people into harm’s way, causing injury, personal loss, loss of faith and even wars. Eshu is the trickster god of the Yorùbá tribe in Nigeria. But he’s not alone. There are many other trickster gods throughout history: Anansi, Lilith, Loki, Maui and like my initial guess, the most famous of them all, Lucifer. Satan. The Devil. While the warriors hold power among the Nephilim, it is the shifters who have had the most profound effect on the human race.

Eshu’s next statement corrects that last assumption. He spits purple blood as he speaks. “Lucifer is my father.”

My mind reels with this revelation. The demon, Lucifer, is not only real, but is this shifter’s father. Granted, I knew the Nephilim were the children of a coupling between human mothers and demon fathers, but I never put a name to the fathers, and for some reason, never that name.

While I try to make sense of this surreal revelation, my guard falls, and Eshu takes advantage. The big Nephilim is quick and agile. He leaps across the ground on all fours and tackles me around the waist before I can react. It’s like getting struck by a charging polar bear. Stars dance in my vision when I strike the ground hard, but I still see Eshu’s open maw as it approaches my neck. The double rows of sharp teeth will have no trouble tearing out my throat. I have just seconds to live.

Then I see Kainda, in the air above Eshu, hammer raised and ready to deliver a crushing blow.

But Eshu must have seen my eyes widen. He twists around with surprising speed and backhands Kainda in the side. Her body crashes into the jungle, stopping against the trunk of a tree.

“Kainda!” I shout.

My concern causes Eshu to laugh. “Hunters concerned for hunters. It’s heart-warming. Really.” He laughs again, turning his head to the sky with a howl that warriors use just before killing an enemy—me, in this case. Kainda won’t recover in time to help me.

29

For all of Eshu’s strength, speed and confidence, he has forgotten that the person he now faces is a hunter, trained by Ninnis and chosen of Nephil. I am not as weak as he seems to think. I put the time he spends mocking me to good use. Whipsnap never fell from my grasp. I slowly pull the weapon up. I turn the blade toward Eshu just as he throws himself down on top of me to finish the job. The blade pierces his chest, sinking ten inches deep.

For a moment, I think I’ve struck the killing blow. But he reels back and up onto his feet with a shout of pain. I cling to Whipsnap, and I’m pulled off the ground. I’ve impaled his breastplate and the blade can’t slice through. Rather than give up my weapon, I hold on tight, dangling two feet off the ground.

But I don’t want to be within Eshu’s grasp when his senses return. I pull myself up, plant my feet against his waist, and use my leverage to bend the mace end of Whipsnap around. The spiked ball strikes Eshu in the face, crushing his red nose with a crunch.

Eshu flails back, but manages to take hold of my arm. His face is twisted with rage. I kick and pull, but I can’t break free. I shove Whipsnap’s blade in deeper, but the pain doesn’t stop him. He opens his mouth, clearly intending to bite my arm off. The pressure on my wrist increases and I shout in pain. “Nephil was wrong, you are not strong at all.”

At the moment, I agree with him. He’s not even a full sized warrior, and though I’ve managed to injure him, I suspect the injuries will heal. The Krane skin he wore might not have, but I suspect that was intentional.

His breath tickles the skin of my arm. I close my eyes.

There’s a sound like a whistle. Two whistles. And each is followed by a wet smack. My eyes snap open as Eshu roars in pain and drops me to the ground.

The shifter devil stumbles back. Two knives are buried in his eyes. The skill with which they were thrown identifies the attacker.

Em.

But she is not alone.

Bolas wrap around Eshu’s feet, binding him in place. As he tears the knives out of his eyes, there’s a battle cry that comes close to matching any Nephilim’s. Kainda, now recovered, leaps at Eshu and brings her stone hammer down on his head with all of her strength. The crack of Eshu’s skull breaking is loud. The monster falls to the ground, immobilized, but still alive. In fact, I can see the fresh wounds healing.

I stand above the fallen Nephilim and yank Whipsnap out of his chest. He coughs purple blood, smiles and looks at me through one of his now healed eyes. “You are nothing,” he says.

“You,” I say, interrupting the shifter. “Are about to die.” I raise Whipsnap above my head. “You will cease to exist. So you see, Eshu, it is you, the Nephilim, who are nothing.”

A look of fear stitches across his face a moment before I bring Whipsnap’s razor sharp blade down, decapitating the monster.

I step away from the growing pool of purple blood, catching my breath. Kainda steps up next to me. “Now you’ve killed two of them.”

“I had help,” I admit.

“Yes,” she says, looking at me with a look of satisfaction, “You did.”

Em rushes up to us. Adoni inspects the scene.

“Are you all right?” Em asks.

Kainda huffs like it’s a ridiculous question. I answer for both of us, “We’re fine.”

Adoni whispers something in another language, but I can tell by the sound that it’s a curse. He’s looking at half of Krane’s shed face. His voice shakes with horror as he asks, “This was Krane?”

“A shifter,” I say. “He was trying to speak to the fathers.”

“A shifter?” Em says. “I didn’t think—”

“Nor did I,” Kainda says, her back to us as she stares into the jungle. “But they are real. And among us.”

Trust no one. Xin’s words now make sense. If a shifter can take human form, they can probably take any human form, even those of people I trust. But Kainda, Em and Adoni have proven themselves to me tonight through their actions.

“We need to leave,” Adoni says. “If he made contact—”

“He didn’t,” Kainda says. “He had just begun the ritual.”

Adoni stands, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter. The Fathers will know he tried to initiate contact. They will know that his ritual was interrupted. And they will know the mission with which he was tasked. They will come for him. His blood will be easy to track.”

“We’ll head underground,” Em says. “We’ve planned for this.”

Em is right. The hunters need to flee. It is not yet time to strike. Our numbers are too few, and we need help from the outside world. But I cannot join them. Not while the Clarks are here, and in danger. And not until I find Hades and the Jericho Shofar.

“Go,” I say. “But I cannot go with you.”

“What? Why not?” Em says quickly, a hint of anger rising in her voice.

“I need to go to Olympus.”

“His friend is there,” Adoni says, but he’s not defending me. “The teacher.”

“Aimee?” Em says. She met Aimee once, in the Norse library. She knows how much Aimee means to me.

“Solomon, you can’t—”

“Mira is here, too. And Merrill.”

Like with Aimee, Em knows all about Mira and Merrill. She knows about the photograph. About the note that Mira left behind for me. She knows.

“Sol…”

“I also need to find Hades,” I say.

Adoni staggers back, eyes wide with fear. “Hades! Why?”

“He is not like the others,” I say.

“No,” Adoni says. “He is far worse.”

His fear begins to infect me. I can’t let it. “It doesn’t matter. Cronus said he would help us.”

Adoni is confused. “Cronus?”

“The Titan,” I say.

“You met…a Titan?”

“In Tartarus.” My patience wears thin. “It’s a long story and we don’t have the time. But I need to find Hades.” I look at Em. “And I need to save my friends. Both are at Olympus.”

“I’m going with him,” Kainda says, attaching her hammer to her belt and crouching by the purple pool of blood. She takes a leather wineskin and carefully scoops up some of the blood.

Collecting Nephilim blood strikes me as revolting. My nose crinkles in disgust and I ask, “What are you doing?”

Kainda caps the skin and wipes away the blood on the outside with a leaf. “It saves lives,” Kainda says. “It could save yours.”

I can tell she finds it as revolting as me by the way she pinches the skin between two fingers and quickly ties it to her belt. She’d rather not be taking it, but she’s right. The blood could save a life. At least the Nephilim are good for something.

“Then I’m coming, too,” Em says.

“Em,” I say, shaking my head.

“You can’t,” says Adoni.

“What about Luca?” I ask.

She turns to Adoni. “Take Luca and the others underground. Six groups. Six different paths. When you reach the gathering place, wait for us.”

I raise my voice. “No, Em, you need to stay—”

“She needs to come,” Kainda says. She bends down to Eshu’s severed head and yanks out the knife still buried in his eye. “We need her help.”

I know how impossibly hard that admission is for Kainda to make. So hard, in fact, that it quickly convinces me she’s right. I sigh. “Adoni, do as she says. We will find you.”

Adoni looks like he might argue, but he’s outnumbered three to one. And, I suspect, he’s outranked by Em, Kainda and now by me. He bows in defeat and backs toward the jungle.

“Adoni wait,” I say. “When we meet you next, do not trust us until…” Until what? I know what I want to say. We need some kind of password system that only the four of us know, just in case one of us is replaced by a shifter. My solution is ridiculous, but without context, they’ll never know. I raise my hand and do my best Vulcan greeting, opening my fingers, two to each side, and say, “Live long and prosper.”

He looks at me like I’ve gone crazy. Maybe he has seen Star Trek? “It’s what I’ll say the next time we meet. So you’ll know I’m not—” I nod to Eshu’s dead body. “—one of them.”

He nods his head in understanding. “Ahh.”

“And you,” I say. “Will do this.” I reverse my two center fingers so that they come together, leaving just the index and pinky fingers extended. “Nanu nanu.”

Adoni raises his hand, performs the gesture perfectly and says, “Nanu nanu.”

I nearly laugh, hearing someone here say Robin Williams’s greeting from Mork & Mindy, but I contain my humor. “Perfect,” I say. “Now go.”

As Adoni leaves, Em calls after him, “Tell Luca I love him.”

Adoni waves in response, then fades into the dark jungle.

I turn to Kainda and Em. “Thank you. For coming.”

Kainda rolls her eyes and stomps off in the direction of Olympus. “I hope you’re not going to talk the whole way there.”

Em smiles at me and pats my shoulder. “You have strange taste, brother.” Then she follows after Kainda.

I take one last look at Eshu’s body. It took four hunters to kill the ten foot tall Nephilim. And now the three of us are heading into the core of the Nephilim world, where thirty foot giants reside. But my friends are there, too, and they have no idea what waits for them.

I’m coming, Mira, I think. I know there can never be anything between us, but she stole a part of my heart a long time ago, and never gave it back. She will always be important to me. If she and Merrill are here to find Aimee, they’re here because of me. If something happens to any of them… I’m pretty sure I would drown under the weight of that burden.

With renewed urgency, I run into the jungle. As I pass Em and Kainda, they give chase. The Clarks have a three-day head start, but I doubt they can travel as quickly as three conditioned hunters. We’ll gain ground quickly. And if we can catch them before they reach Olympus, we might be able to save them. If not…

I’m coming.

30

We run for the rest of that night and half of the following day. We hear occasional bouts of distant gunfire. Twice, we cross strong cresty scent trails and steer clear. We don’t fear the dinosaurs, but they could delay us. That said, while we might be hunters and conditioned for long distance runs, we can’t run forever.

I slow my pace when I see a group of boulders that will conceal us as we rest. I test the area with my nose. There are a thousand subtle smells, including blood, smoke, fresh-cut wood and gunpowder, but most of them are carried by the wind. We have been moving steadily upward for several hours now and the wind rolls down-slope, carrying the scents of Olympus with it.

Satisfied that there’s no danger lurking nearby, I settle down next to a rock and lean my head back. Em slides over the rock and sits next to me. She’s out of breath, like me, but she’s also covered in sweat.

She looks at me and frowns. “You’re not even sweating.”

I look down at myself. She’s right. I’m definitely feeling the effects of running so far, though. I’m exhausted. And hungry. My lack of perspiration can wait. Em seems to be thinking the same thing. She takes out a wrapped cloth, opens it and hands me a stick of dried meat. I don’t even ask what it is. I just eat it, chase it down with a drink from my water skin and rest my head.

Then I open my eyes. “Where’s Kainda?”

Kainda replies from above. “Up here.”

I turn my eyes up and see Kainda further up the incline.

“You two rest. I’m going to scout ahead.” She doesn’t wait for an acknowledgement or for approval. She just turns and goes.

“She’s a machine,” I say.

“What’s a machine?” Em asks.

“Something man-made. Out of metal usually. They can move for a long time, and are stronger than men.”

“Then yes, she is a machine.”

We share a smile and Em gets serious. “Why her?”

I know she’s talking about Kainda. She saw us kiss. For a moment, I’m terrified that I’ve read our relationship all wrong, that Em sees me as something different than a brother. She did pretend to be my wife, after all. “What do you mean?” I ask, suddenly nervous. “You don’t—you aren’t…interested in—”

“Oh! No!” She looks like she’s just tasted something foul or licked a frog. “Ugh. Gross.”

“Okay! Okay!” I say, laughing.

She shakes her head at me and takes a bite of dried meat. “Gross.”

I lean my head back on the stone, returning my thoughts to her question. “I don’t know,” I admit.

“Aside from the obvious,” Em says, then makes an hourglass motion with her hands.

I laugh again. It’s nice to have an open conversation. I can speak more freely with Em than I have with anyone in the past. “When I…you know…”

Em places her fingers against her lips.

“Right,” I say. “It was instinct. It felt right.”

Em nods. If there is anything a hunter understands, it’s instinct.

“I just saw her hair, and—” That was it. Kainda is beautiful, and has other qualities that attract me to her—confidence and strength, but what makes her irresistible is that black streak in her hair. While there are many other hunters who have shrugged off the Nephilim, Kainda’s bonds were tighter than most. “I had Aimee,” I say. “You had Tobias. And he had Luca. Our connections helped us escape. We didn’t have to do it alone. Kainda was born here. She was raised by Ninnis. Can you imagine?”

I can see by the look in Em’s eyes that she can’t.

“She not only defied her master, Thor, one of the most powerful Nephilim warriors, but she also defied Ninnis, the most skilled hunter in the underworld. She knew nothing but the life of a hunter, and never once experienced what it meant to be loved. And yet, here she is, freed from captivity because of her own courage.”

I look at Em. She nods.

“She deserves love.”

“You’re right,” Em says. “Just try not to make her upset.”

I’m about to offer some kind of witty reply, but instead say, “What I can’t figure out is, why me? I mean, aside from the obvious.” I give my muscles a flex and raise my eyebrows a few times.

Em sticks out her tongue like she’s throwing up and we share a laugh. Then she gets serious. “I think her reasons are probably similar to yours.” She leans forward, takes my hair and pulls it around to where I can see it. “You’re free. Totally free. No hunter has ever done that before. I don’t think anyone has even considered the possibility. I know I hadn’t.”

“The burden was lifted in Tartarus,” I say. “I didn’t do it by myself.”

“Doesn’t really matter how it happened,” she says. “Only that it did.”

I look at the ground, wondering if that’s all there is to it. Is Kainda attracted to my freedom or to me?

Em seems to sense my thoughts and adds, “Plus she probably likes your, you know—” She flexes, and her muscles, while a little smaller than mine, are quite impressive. She laughs, but then grows serious. “Also, she was…offered to you. As a wife. By her father. Hunters take that seriously. It’s kind of an unsaid thing, but marriage is the only real relationship hunters are allowed. The coupling is supposed to be about producing stronger children.”

“Selective breeding,” I say. When she looks at me oddly, I know she doesn’t understand. “It’s what the outside world calls it. They do it with livestock. To create stronger animals.”

“Exactly. They want stronger hunters. But some pairs bond—” she pauses, searching for the word. “Emotionally. Though it is hidden, and no one would ever admit it. But it’s there. Kainda was offered to you by her father. You have been bonded.”

The idea that I’m part of some ancient hunter arranged-marriage situation makes me a little sick to my stomach. But it still doesn’t make sense. “Kainda doesn’t seem like the kind of person to let customs dictate what she does.”

“She is a hunter in every way, Sol. She would take the arrangement seriously.”

I frown, a little disappointed by the idea that Kainda’s interest is merely the product of custom.

Em lets out a gentle laugh. “But that doesn’t explain her affection. It is most certainly not part of the arrangement.”

I’m about to ask more when Kainda skids to a stop above us. My face flushes as I think we’ve been caught talking about her, but Kainda quickly says, “I found something. I think we’re close.”

She heads off, back up the rise. We chase after and don’t stop until we near the crest of the hill. The smells hit me first. Blood—human and Nephilim. Modern weapons. Old Spice.

“They were here,” I say.

“Not long ago,” Kainda says. “The body is not yet rotting.”

Body!?

I rush to Kainda as she squats next to a body. The man’s limbs are mangled and it looks like he might have been folded at the waist—in the wrong direction. He’s got a shaved head and wears military fatigues. The patch on his arm identifies him as a British soldier. His weapon, a modern looking rifle, lies a few feet away, bent and broken. A large knife is sheathed on his belt.

“Do you know him?” Kainda asks.

“No,” I say. “But he must have been with them.”

Em surprises me by taking the man’s knife. She sees my confused look and says, “I’ll avenge him with it.” She attaches the knife to her belt, adding it to her collection. She keeps the knives around her waist and attached to two criss-crossing bands that form an X over her chest. The man’s knife is larger than all the rest, but it fits her ensemble nicely.

“There are tracks,” Kainda says.

We quickly split up, following the group of tracks as they lead down the other side of the hill. Bullet casings litter the area. More dried Nephilim blood. They were putting up a good fight by the looks of it. Some of the paths lead further downhill, but two of them end. Three if you count the Nephilim that attacked them.

Em and Kainda join me at the scene. There is dry human blood on a stone. Not much of it, which is good. There’s a lot more dried Nephilim blood. And something else, so subtle I nearly miss it. It looks like purple dust. I reach a hand out.

“Don’t touch that,” Kainda warns.

“Why? What is it?”

“The powder will knock you unconscious if you inhale it,” Em says. “On your skin, it will sap your strength.”

“They were taken,” Kainda says. “Alive.”

I look at the evidence. The scuff marks. The positioning of human and Nephilim footprints. The boot sizes. The blood. Merrill’s scent still lingers. He was one of the two, which leaves no doubt in my mind that Mira left the smaller boot prints. I recreate the scene. Mira fell and hit her head. She was confronted by a Nephilim. Merrill came to her aid. And if Em is right, they were both knocked unconscious and taken. “But…”

Em and Kainda look at me. “If they were taken, where are the tracks?”

The three of us scour the area. The big Nephilim’s footprints are easy to spot, and where he came from is clear. But how he left…

“It’s like he flew away,” Em says.

Kainda scoffs. “The masters cannot fly.”

No one argues, though I’m not so sure. The Gigantes in Tartarus had no trouble flying. And the scorpion-like tail in the thinker lab hinted that experiments had been done using attributes of the old Nephilim.

Before I have time to consider the possibilities, gunshots echo in the distance. The staccato picks up and I can hear Nephilim shouting war cries. A battle is being fought nearby. I intend to join it.

I break into a sprint, heading downhill toward the sound of a river. The trees thin and I catch a glimpse of a tall mountain just a few miles away. But it’s more than a mountain. It’s a city, built right into the stone, or carved out of it. I slow, looking at the amazing structure. It’s stunning and horrifying.

“Olympus,” I say.

Kainda and Em slow and look. “I’ve never seen it like this,” Kainda says, her voice sharing a little bit of the awe I feel.

Em brings us back to reality, saying, “It’s a horrible place.”

With that, I turn my head downward and start to run. The sound of the river is louder and I can smell the moisture in the air. Once we reach the river, we can—

The ground shakes. A boom louder than anything I’ve ever heard rolls past. We stumble, fall and slide to a stop just as the shaking fades. The river is just twenty feet bellow.

“What was that!?” Em shouts.

Kainda is quick to her feet, hand on hammer, looking for danger.

I, on the other hand, sit still and listen. That was an explosion. A very large one. And explosions that big can have aftereffects. A distant roar confirms my fear. As it grows louder, I stand and motion for Kainda and Em to run away. “Run! Get higher!”

“What?” Kainda is offended that I would retreat. “Why?”

“The river!” I shout. The roar nearly drowns out my voice. “It’s flooding! Run!”

As I run, I look to the side and see a wall of water tearing through the jungle, heading straight for us.

31

There’s no time to run up the hillside, so we take to the trees instead, climbing the tall trunks like chimps. We reach the canopy just before the water hits. The roar beneath us sounds like Behemoth—powerful and hungry. I move across the canopy, trying to reach the river’s edge and maybe get a glimpse of what’s happening.

The trees shake when the water strikes. I lose my grip and fall a few feet, but catch myself. The fall didn’t feel dangerous, but when I look down, I realize I nearly lost my life. I’m dangling over the river with no other branches beneath me. It’s a fifty-foot fall into a raging torrent. The river has grown and expanded into the jungle on either side, and if I fell, it’s possible that I’d be swept into a tree and knocked unconscious—if not snapped in half. Either way, I’d likely drown. I pull myself back up as the water deepens and speeds up.

Looking upriver, I see a frothing crest of water perhaps twenty feet tall, rushing through the trees. This is going to get worse before it gets better. “Hold on!” I shout, but I don’t think anyone can hear me above the water’s roar.

I swing myself up onto a branch and wrap my arms and legs around it like I’m a sloth. The water approaches as though in slow motion. I can’t take my eyes off it. It’s A force of nature. Seeing the water reminds me of the flooded underworld. Had the rushing waters looked like this? I decide against it. With so many underworld species now flourishing on the surface, they had time to get out. But Behemoth, trapped underground, found its chamber slowly flooded and eventually drowned.

A speck on the crest of the approaching wave catches my attention. There are trees and other debris pushed by the raging waters, but this object has the distinctive shape of a boat. A wooden boat. And it rides the wave like a surfer. How is it not being smashed into the jungle, I wonder, and then I see a man—a human—at the back, guiding the thing with a large rudder. The craft looks like an unfinished yacht without a mast. It stretches at least twenty-five feet. But it’s also clearly not designed for people. Instead, I suspect it’s something closer to a Nephilim rowboat, designed to carry just two of the giants. But to what?

My question fades as I look at the other passengers. There is a thin man with tan skin whose uniform I recognize as Chinese. A survivor of the Nephilim attack? Another looks to be Arab, but I’m not sure and then there is a black woman. But she’s not dressed in military clothing like the rest, she’s—Aimee!

The boat is swept beneath me and I see her face. And next to her—Merrill! A blond mop of hair whips my head toward the center of the boat so fast that I nearly fall out of the tree.

Mira.

Seeing her face brings tears to my eyes. My old friend… I thought I’d never see her again. Or Merrill. And yet, they’re all here and reunited. How they managed to find each other and escape Olympus is beyond me. But they did it.

I hear voices rise up from below.

“Whitney!” It’s the man at the rudder. His face looks Hispanic. His clothing is black. Military. U.S. I’d guess. “How are we doing, chica?”

I’m surprised when it’s Mira who replies. “Keep to the left, Cruz.”

Their voices fade as the craft moves past.

I shout to them, desperate. “Mira! Merrill! Aimee! Up here!”

My voice is lost in the roar of the river.

For a moment, I think they’re looking at me, but they’re not. They’re looking beyond me. At the sky.

What are they watching for?

The boat is carried quickly away, and if the man, Cruz, can keep them in the middle of the river, they won’t slow until reaching the lake.

With my friends out of reach, my thoughts return to the question of why Mira responded to the name, Whitney. Did she change her name? Was it some kind of military code name? Her middle name? None of these possibilities rings true. Then what?

She called the man Cruz, which is a common Hispanic last name. So he was probably using her last name, too. Whitney. Mirabelle Whitney, not Mirabelle Clark. She’s married. The answer fills me with jealously and anger.

Granted, I knew she would be older than me, and that there was a possibility of her being married, or even being a mother. But the reality of it hurts. It’s not like she was ever my girlfriend. I didn’t even know her that long. But her photo carried me for so long that I guess I became attached. And her being married, for some strange psychological reason, feels like a betrayal. She lived her life without me.

And that means everyone else did, too.

Merrill.

Justin.

My parents.

They all lived on without me. They all went to parties. Saw movies. Vacationed. Laughed. Loved.

Without me.

The realization stings.

I know it’s selfish, but I can’t stop it.

I can’t, but something else can. A shadow. It moves across the river so quickly that I’m not sure I actually saw something. How could a shadow fall on the river, anyway?

If it were flying, I realize, turning my head up.

It’s just a speck when I see it, circling like some kind of predatory bird. But it looks far too high, which means it’s also quite large. Hanging onto my perch with one hand, I take out my telescope and extend it using my teeth. With the spectacle to my eye, I try to find the airborne figure. It takes some time to zero in on the moving target, but when I do, I gasp.

Enki.

With the wings of a Gigantes.

And the tail of Cronus the Titan.

The thinkers somehow managed to imbue the Nephilim warriors with attributes previously held only by the eldest of their kind. That’s how they’re going to reach the world, I realize. Antarctica might now reside at the equator, but an ocean still separates the continent from the rest of the world.

They’re going to fly to the mainland. I remember the small boat. The river is now deep enough to carry much larger vessels. Maybe they’ll even sail to the mainland?

Enki is brother to Enlil. Together, they are the sons of Nephil and kings of the Sumerian Nephilim, the most ancient and powerful warrior clan. Next to Nephil, who now resides in Ninnis’s body, they are the rulers of the underworld, commanders of a supernatural force beyond the comprehension of mankind.

So the question is, why is Enki here?

As he swoops downriver, the answer is clear. He’s after the Clarks. Why he’s after them is beyond me, and frankly, unimportant. What is important is that the Clarks escape. That doesn’t seem likely if Enki is tracking them though.

I glance to the right, looking up river. Olympus rises high into the sky. Hades is there and the secret resting place of the Jericho Shofar with him. My answers and perhaps the only hope of defeating the Nephilim wait to the right.

To the left are the Clarks. My friends. And they’re about to face Enki on their own.

The decision is easy.

I’m nothing if not loyal.

I slide to the side of the branch, hanging by one arm. If I can keep myself afloat in the middle of the raging river, I should arrive at the lake just minutes after the Clarks. I might not be able to reach them in the water, but if Enki sees me, I have no doubt he’ll forget all about the Clarks.

I let go.

My fall snaps to a stop after just a few inches. A vice grip of pressure sends a wave of pain down my arm. I’m pulled up until I come face to face with a very angry hunter.

“What are you doing?” Kainda says. She’s standing on the branch and holding onto one above her with her free hand. That she’s strong enough to lift me up with one arm is impressive. Unlike Em, Kainda has muscles that match mine.

Em slides through the canopy and joins us. The look of concern means she didn’t see Kainda catch me. She only knows that Kainda is holding me out over the river. But her trust in Kainda is evident. She doesn’t draw a knife. She simply says, “What happened?”

Kainda either doesn’t hear the question or ignores it. She has some of her own. “Why were you leaving?”

Before I can think of a good reply, she comes up with an answer herself. “Just one look at her and you were going to leave! I—we mean so little to you?”

Em inches closer. “What are you talking about?”

“Mira.” Kainda says the name with disdain. “And the teacher, Aimee. They just passed in a ship.”

Em’s eyes widen. “Is this true?”

“Yes,” I say, and try to explain, but Em interrupts.

“And you were leaving?” I can hear the sting of betrayal in her voice too.

I sense that Kainda is about to speak again so I shout, “Shut up! Both of you!”

Kainda allows me to stand on the branch. My wrist is sore from where she gripped it, but I can’t rub it with my other hand without falling from the branch. So I ignore the pain and say, “Yes, the Clarks just went by in a boat. Merrill was with them. And three other men. Soldiers, I think.”

Em interrupts with, “But why—”

“Enki!” I shout, freezing both of them in place. “Enki was following them! And they don’t stand a chance unless I go help! I know Hades is near, but they are my friends and I never—” I look into Kainda’s eyes, “—never abandon my friends.”

I look to Em. She nods, understanding.

I don’t wait for Kainda to say whether she understands. We can work it out later. Right now, the Clarks need my help. I swing down on the branch, take a look at the river below, and let go. The cold water envelops me and yanks me forward. As I surface, I hear two splashes behind me. I spin and find Kainda and Em swimming toward me, closing the distance. I catch Kainda’s eyes and mouth, “Thank you.”

In response Kainda swims past me and says, “She better be worth it.”

32

The river is a battle. We’re making ground fast. Probably too fast. Every tree and boulder carries a potential death sentence. The key is to stay in the middle, where the water was already deepest, but even here there are dangers, exhaustion being the first. Swimming in placid water can be tiring, even just treading water. I went to a summer camp once. They had a pool with a deep end. To swim in the deep end you had to pass a test—tread water with just your feet for one minute, while holding a brick.

I tried three times. I never passed.

This…is harder.

The brick has been replaced by the weight of Whipsnap around my waist. Kainda carries the weight of her stone hammer. And Em, who is the smallest of us, carries countless knives around her waist and across her chest. I’m not sure how long we’ve been swimming. It’s hard to keep track of time while trying not to be impaled, bludgeoned or drowned. But my arms are burning from the effort and I’m pretty sure my legs will turn to jelly if I try to walk. If we manage to catch up to the Clark family, I’m not sure how much use any of us are going to be.

I look at Kainda. Her brow is furrowed with determination, but her lips are shivering.

I’m about ten feet ahead of her, so when I ask, “Are you okay?” I have to shout.

She just glares back at me, not because she’s angry about what we’re doing, but because I asked the question. I’m no mind reader, but Kainda is easy to understand.

Behind Kainda, Em has the same look on her face. The look of a hunter. These two women are dangerous. If only my parents could see me now, floating down a raging river with two of the most dangerous women on Antarctica, if not the planet, racing toward an encounter with a half-human, half-demon worshiped as a god in the ancient world. I’m not sure they would call me ‘Schwartz’ anymore. Doesn’t quite fit like it used to.

A spear of brown moving behind Em catches my attention. It’s a large tree trunk and it actually looks like it was logged—no roots, no branches—rather than pulled over by the flooded river. Why the Nephilim would be cutting down trees, I have no idea. Nor do I care. I’m more focused on the respite the twenty-foot hunk of wood promises.

I point toward the approaching tree trunk. “Grab hold of it!”

Both women look at me like I better not be thinking they need a rest, which I’m sure they do, so I come up with another reason. “It’s streamlined. Moving faster than us. We’ll make better time.”

This seems to make sense to Kainda and Em, or at least provides an acceptable excuse, and when the log catches up, they both grab hold. The log pulls them closer to me and I grab hold too, careful not to pull too hard and roll it. Kainda is on the other side of the log. Em is to my right. No one says a word. Hunters or not, they’re exhausted. We hold on and let the river take us.

But it’s not long before the river slows and widens. “We’re nearing the lake,” I say.

“Do you see them?” Em asks.

I can’t see anything with my head just above water. “We need to get to shore.” I push off the log and my body groans as I begin to swim. Em and Kainda follow without complaint, but none of us are moving too quickly. The river merges with the jungle. Where once there was a shoreline, there is now an endless pool of foot-deep water.

Reaching the shallows of the jungle, I get my feet beneath me and stand.

And then fall.

My legs are all but useless.

Thinking of Mira, I pull myself up again, using a tree for support.

“I don’t think we’re far from the lake,” Em says. She’s leaning against a tree, too. “I recognize the trees here.”

Kainda stands behind her, relying on just her legs to hold her up. I suspect the strength that holds her up has more to do with internal fortitude than the power of her muscles. “It’s not far,” she confirms, pointing down river. The canopy stretches for perhaps two hundred feet, casting the flooded jungle in shade. Beyond that, I see slivers of blue light where the tree line ends and the lake begins.

I take a furtive step and my leg wobbles. But I stay up. I yank Whipsnap from my belt and place the heavy mace end in the water, using it to support my weight as I’ve done before.

“Lead the way, old man,” Kainda says.

I’m too tired and focused on the Clarks to offer some kind of retort, so I just set out for the lake, moving as quickly as I can without collapsing. Our approach is clumsy and loud as we splash through the floodwaters. But I suspect time is short. Fifty feet from the lake’s edge, I’m moving at a fast hobble. I hear voices in the distance. Shouts.

A shadow flickers over the canopy. No! I’m too late!

I try to run, but fall, landing in the shallow water.

Kainda grabs my arm and yanks me up. We keep moving.

There’s an explosion, muffled by water. I move faster. The blinding shimmer of sunlight on water is just ahead.

In the distance, Enki’s deep voice is speaking.

I slash at some branches blocking our path and then lunge through, reaching the lake’s edge. I see the boat, far out in the lake, but no movement on board. But the boat holds my attention for just a moment. Between the shore and the boat, fifty feet above the water, is Enki. His bat-like wings beat at the air, keeping him aloft. And his long, scorpion tail twitches back and forth like an angry cat’s. His head hair, which isn’t covered by any kind of helmet, billows in the wind. He looks huge, and frightening, and he’s dressed for war in ornate metal armor. What human military force could face down a monster like Enki, let alone an army of them, and not simply run in fear?

An army of hunters, I think. But then I see Mira, clutched in his hands. She’s speaking to him. Her words are lost over the distance, but the tone is angry and defiant. She has grown into a strong woman. Like Em. Like Kainda. But in the hands of a Nephilim like Enki, her defiance will soon be crushed out of her.

I fill my lungs to scream, hoping to pull Enki’s attention away from Mira.

But then the giant flinches.

Mira falls from Enki’s grasp as he paws at his breastplate.

What’s happening?

“Mira!” I shout, but my voice is drowned out by a thunderous explosion.

Enki’s body bursts from the inside out. Purple blood and guts shoot out of his exposed back. One of his wings tears free and the other dangles from the one remaining shoulder. His torso bursts and his head sails away in chunks. The breastplate that had been covering his chest shoots away so fast that I think I understand what happened. While Enki held her, she must have placed an explosive between his chest and breastplate. The force of the explosion, confined between the hard metal and his softer body, took the path of least resistance and tore him to pieces.

Mira killed Enki!

My surprise and pride are short-lived because it seems she also killed herself. The fifty-foot drop alone would hurt, but the force of the explosion adds some kick to her fall and she’s propelled into the water. The remains of Enki’s massive body crashes into the lake beside her with an explosion of white foam that hides Mira’s landing site.

I yell her name again and wade deeper into the lake.

A tight grip on my arm stops me. It’s Kainda. “Let me go!” I shout.

“You can’t make it,” Em says, backing up Kainda’s silent, but forceful protest. “You’re too weak and she’s too far.”

“She was…admirable,” Kainda says. “But her fate is sealed.”

“No!” I shout, yanking away. I push deeper into the water, but my legs falter and I fall to my knees. They’re right. I can’t save her. After all this time, Mira returned to Antarktos, and I couldn’t get to her in time. I couldn’t save her. “NO!”

I pound my fists on the water, taking my anger out. As I bring my fists up again, a ripple in the lake catches my attention. A gray dog-like face surfaces. Gloop! I slide in deeper and the seal swims up to me. I look into his big black eyes. “Go get her. Do you understand? Go! Save her!” I motion my hands to where Mira fell. “Go!”

And he does. The seal spins around, moving through the water like a missile. He cruises out into the deep water, leaping occasionally, and then he disappears beneath the surface. I stand waist deep in the water, dripping wet, breathing hard, waiting and watching.

“Solomon,” Em says, sounding defeated.

“He can do it,” I say, clinging to hope.

Nearly a minute passes.

Kainda places a hand on my arm, gently this time.

“He knows what he’s doing,” I say. “He saved me. He—”

The water far out on the lake, where Mira fell, ripples. A body rises, identifiable by the dark skin and hair as blond as mine. Mira. Gloop’s body rises beneath hers like a living floatation device. The pod of seals rises with him, like escorts.

“They did it,” Kainda whispers.

I look at her and say, “Never give up hope.”

In response, she takes my hand, lacing our fingers together, and squeezes.

“Where are they taking her?” Em asks as the seals head further into the lake.

At first, I’m confused. I had assumed Gloop would bring her to me. But they’re definitely heading away. Then I see the boat far in the distance. The seals are following the boat. “They’re taking her home,” I say. “To her family.”

As I watch Mira fade into the distance with the seals, Kainda says, “Do you want to go with them? To your home? Your family?”

She’s right, I know. If I caught up with the boat, I could be reunited with the Clarks. And they could probably get me back to the United States. But my home in Maine is now the North Pole and it’s likely frozen over. And my parents could be dead. But even if none of that were true, my answer would remain the same.

“No,” I say, looking at Kainda. “I am home.” I look at Em. “I am with family.”

I see flashes of uncommon emotion on both hunters’ faces, but the expressions are erased by the sound of running feet splashing through water. We turn to face the threat. The hunter known as Tunis, who first put his trust in me, who Em claimed was one of their best, emerges from the jungle. He is weaponless and covered with long, bleeding slices—the kind made by a sword. Kainda catches the man by his shoulders.

“Tunis!”

He shouts in surprise, but then sees the three of us and looks relieved.

“Tunis,” Em says. “What happened? Where is Luca?”

“Luca is safe. Underground with Adoni. And the others,” Tunis says, his voice shaking. “I stayed behind with Marko, Selize and Annon to make sure they weren’t followed.”

“Where are the others?” Kainda asked.

“He found us,” Tunis said.

“Who found you?” I ask, fearing the answer.

Tunis turns his nose to the air and sniffs. “He’s here. He’s here now!”

Tightening my grip on Whipsnap, I say, “Who is here?”

His eyes are wide. His arms shake. “Ninnis,” he says. “Ninnis is here!”

33

A flock of birds shoots from the trees behind us, rising into the sky like a fast moving cloud. Pain grips my eyes as I look up into the bright blue sky. I squint as something moves across the sun. A splash spins me around toward the lake. I see nothing but a few ripples of water. Did he throw something? Is he trying to distract us?

The four of us stand back to back. I quickly hand Tunis the knife he’d previously held to my throat. It isn’t much, but it’s something. Em hands him a second, the big knife she took from the dead British soldier’s body.

“The others that stayed behind with me are dead,” Tunis says quickly. “He killed them all. In seconds.”

Ninnis is a skilled hunter, perhaps the most skilled hunter. But killing three hunters in just a few seconds doesn’t seem possible, even for him. At least, I hope it’s not.

Em, Kainda and I stay quiet, weapons ready. This would be a difficult fight on our best day, but right now, we’re exhausted and in no shape to do battle. But we do our best to look strong and not appear weak.

“He’s not human,” Tunis says. “He’s—”

“Quiet,” Kainda hisses.

Tunis falls silent, but I can still hear his shaky breathing, and I’d almost prefer he kept talking. It takes a lot to rattle a hunter like Tunis, and he seems petrified.

The seconds wear on.

I jump back as something rises from the water. It’s the shape of a man. Scraggly deep red hair. The thin, sinewy body of a strong old man. He shakes his head like a dog, clearing the water from his face.

Then he stops with a quick intake of air. His eyes locked on me.

Ninnis.

His eyes widen for just a moment, but I can see that he had no idea I was here.

“Ull,” he says, his voice lacking the menace I expected. “You… How?”

“You know how, Nephil,” I say, addressing the spirit I believe is controlling him.

Ninnis grins his nearly toothless grin. “As with you, Solomon, our Lord Nephil, found my will too strong to control. It is I who controls him.”

The idea is so ridiculous that I can’t imagine any reason why Nephil would make such a claim. “Then set him free,” I say. “You can end all of this. Right now.”

“I might not give Nephil my body, but I still serve the will of the Nephilim,” he says. His body shakes for a moment, like there is something inside, trying to escape, but he grits his teeth and contains it. “Lord Nephil wants you back. But that is no longer possible. It is I who now leads the Nephilim out into the world. And it is I who will be remembered for ending the days of men. But you will be a distraction for Nephil. I will, of course, have to kill you, as I should have before you… How did you escape Tartarus?” His eyes drift to my hair. I think he’s just now noticed it. For a moment he seems stunned, which is understandable. To a hunter, my purified hair is an impossibility. “How did you…?”

“My burden was lifted,” I say. “Cronus showed me how.”

Mentioning Cronus’s name brings a physical reaction to Ninnis’s face. He shouts in pain and something writhes beneath his skin. He shouts angrily and regains control.

Kainda nearly moves in to strike, but Em stops her.

Ninnis sneers at Kainda. “Come, traitorous daughter! I will gladly strike you down first!” But he doesn’t move and Kainda remains still with Em’s help.

“Go now,” I say to Ninnis. “Take Nephil back to Tartarus and be free of him forever. Be free of everything. All of the darkness and—”

Ninnis laughs. “More of your forgiveness? Your mercy? It is your weakness.”

“It is my strength,” I say.

“You are to be pitied.”

“I am stronger than you.” He understands that I am not speaking about physical strength. He knows me well enough to comprehend what I’m saying.

“You know nothing of true strength,” he says, standing up straight. His eyes take on a manic sheen and a thin smile spreads on his lips. It’s almost like he’s gone into some kind of drug induced state. “You rejected the spirit of Lord Nephil. I, on the other hand, direct it!”

Four streaks of black shoot from Ninnis’s chest. When one of them strikes my chest, it’s with a force comparable to Kainda’s hammer. I’m thrown back into the jungle. At least my landing in the foot-deep water is cushioned. But I’m having trouble catching my breath and I’ve dropped Whipsnap. When I push myself up, I see that Kainda, Em and Tunis are in a similar state. In fact, Tunis seems to be unconscious, his head underwater.

I scramble to my feet and dash to Tunis, lifting his head and propping him up against a tree. It only takes a few seconds, but by the time I’m done, Kainda and Em have launched a counter attack. Em throws a volley of knifes at Ninnis, but he doesn’t even move. The blackness reaches out and swats the blades from the air.

Hoping I’m not being watched, I strap on my climbing claws and take to the trees, moving quickly up into the canopy, watching the scene below as I move in.

Ninnis begins to laugh. “You are no better than that fool, Tobias.”

Em screams in anger, throwing more blades as Kainda charges in. The combined attack is impressive and so refined that I think the two women have been practicing together, working on coordinated attacks the way Em and Tobias once did. Em’s blades pass just over Kainda’s shoulders as she runs and keeps all four black limbs busy. The attack is so well coordinated that when Kainda strikes, Ninnis has to leap back.

Kainda’s hammer smashes into the lake, exploding water into the air. As she draws back to strike again, all four black limbs strike her chest and send her flying. Her hammer is knocked from her hands when she crashes into a tree and falls to the jungle floor.

Em presses her attack, but not even one of the blades gets past Ninnis’s defenses. Still, they do provide a nice distraction.

When I reach the end of the canopy, I leap.

If not for the sun, my airborne attack would have been more successful, but it’s not a total failure. Ninnis sees me coming at the last moment. The blackness reaches up for me, but I twist my body around and land on Ninnis’s back like he’s going to give me a piggy back ride. I punctuate the attack by wrapping my arms over his chest and squeezing. The serrated, triangular feeder-tooth blades slip into his flesh.

Ninnis shouts in pain and we both fall back beneath the surface of the lake. He thrashes and kicks. I can feel the blades cutting through his skin, burrowing deeper. Is he trying to kill himself? I can’t imagine him panicking.

And then, he’s still. Motionless.

My hands begin to sting. It grows intense, like there is acid in the water. I’m about to let go when Ninnis’s body rises out of the water and takes me with it. What’s strange about this is that Ninnis did not move. It’s as though he levitated out of the water. When I look down and see the lake’s surface beneath his feet, I know that’s exactly what happened.

The sting on my hands becomes a burn and I let go.

But I don’t fall. I’m caught, as though I’m in the grip of a Nephilim warrior. As I’m drawn around in front of Ninnis, I can see the blackness around my waist. The appendage undulates from Ninnis’s chest, intangible, yet physical at the same time. I’ve seen it before. In my mind. The spirit of Nephil, but under Ninnis’s direction.

The six wounds left by my climbing claws at the top of Ninnis’s chest, above the darkness, ooze blood.

Purple blood.

How corrupt has he become? Could he really be so evil that he has become more Nephilim than human? Is that even possible?

The wounds stitch back together.

“No,” I say.

“Yes,” Ninnis says, taking delight in the word. “You’re beginning to understand.”

He’s been toying with us. Tunis is right. He’s not human. There is nothing that Em, Kainda or I can do to stop him. Not now. He’s just been toying with us.

Em shouts and throws a knife.

Ninnis allows it to strike him, right in the eye. The wet splotch of the blade burying itself in Ninnis’s face is revolting, but not nearly as bad as the slurp it makes when he pulls it out. The eyeball quickly reforms and the wound disappears. He flicks the blade aside, into the lake, as though he might a twig on a boring summer day. Then a spear of black launches out, wraps around Em, slams her to the ground twice and tosses her to the side. She’s motionless when she lands, and I hope the shallow water covering the ground softened the blow and that she’s merely unconscious. But I know that if Ninnis isn’t stopped, she will be dead along with the rest of us.

But I’m helpless at the moment.

Ninnis turns to me and I can see by his expression that he means to gloat. He never gets the chance. Kainda’s heavy stone hammer collides with his face and throws him backwards. The blackness around my waist slips away and I’m dropped into the water.

I scramble back on shore and see Kainda hunched over, clutching her side. “Run,” she says to me. “You have to live.”

I ignore her, looking for Whipsnap, searching the water-filled jungle. But there is no sign of it. Not that it would help.

Ninnis roars as he floats up out of the water, held aloft by a pillar of darkness. I turn to face him, but he pays me little attention. The darkness shoots out and slams me against a tree so hard that I black out.

I come to just seconds later, but a lot has changed in those seconds. The darkness has hold of Kainda and is pinning her against a tree. My vision flickers. I hear Ninnis shouting something about betrayal and weakness.

My vision returns.

Ninnis is holding his sword, Strike, poised over Kainda’s chest.

“No,” I say, but my voice is weak. “Stop. Take me.”

Ninnis’s head slowly turns around toward me, his neck spinning further than a man’s should. “Don’t worry, little Solomon. You’re next.”

Without looking back, he plunges the sword forward, burying it in Kainda’s chest.

34

I scream. I just scream. There are no words. I’m beyond words. I claw at a tree, pulling myself to my feet as adrenaline surges through my body like liquid fire. Back on my feet, I see the beige staff of Whipsnap shimmering under the water just a few feet away. I step over to the weapon, bend down and pick it up. I’m moving slowly, or at least feel like I am. This could be a dream.

But I know it’s not.

Water drips from the weapon as I bring it up into both hands and face Ninnis. The loud drips are all I can hear. He’s watching me, his head tilted in curiosity, a sick grin on his face.

A bead of water slips to the end of the wet hair hanging in front of my eyes. When the water falls, it too, moves slowly. Impossibly slow.

What…?

A loud hiss fills the jungle. A storm has moved in.

Fast.

Faster than is natural.

Something tickles the back of my mind.

The storm… Water pours through the canopy above me, striking my skin. I feel the impact, but not the coolness of the water. Just like the river. While Kainda shivered from cold, I felt nothing but room temperature warmth. During all those hours on the wall, in the baking sun, I did not burn.

The storm!

It struck shortly after my return to the surface, tearing Clark Station 1 apart. A theory comes together like puzzle pieces. I was born at Clark Station 1 and the storm came, eventually burying the station. Years later, I returned to Clark Station 1, digging through the ice with my bare hands to find its roof. And the storm returned on the night I was kidnapped, nearly burying Clark Station 2. And when I returned to Clark Station 1 after my time in Tartarus…

The storm is a catalyst, or a sign, or something, of my connection to Antarktos! My abilities returned while the fever gripped my body and I never realized it. All this time, I could have done things differently. I could have saved Mira myself.

I could have saved Kainda.

Ninnis sees the change in me as my confidence and menace rise together. His smile fades and is replaced, for just a flash, by confusion. His body roils from inside and the smile returns. “Come, little Solomon. Die like a hunter, if that’s what you believe yourself to be.” He retracts the sword from Kainda’s chest and her body slides down against the tree trunk, leaving a smear of red blood.

“Ninnis!” I shout, and slam the mace end of Whipsnap into the water that fills the jungle. A sound like an explosion rips into the air from everywhere at once. The water all around us, for as far as I can see, bursts upwards and beads, cloaking my approach.

I splash through the wall of water and leap. The wind carries me up, covering the distance between us with ease. I swing the bladed end of Whipsnap down-wards as I descend. The razor sharp blade slices even the tiniest water droplet in half as I pull it through the air.

The wall of water bursts open and I finish the strike.

Ninnis shouts in surprise, flinching back as a tendril of blackness streaks up and blocks the strike. I land on the now waterless jungle floor, willing the airborne water to strike. A powerful stream of water the size of a rhinoceros slams into Ninnis, stumbling him back. A second strike pushes him farther. The lake is behind him now.

He’s rattled, but still dangerous. The blackness strikes out at me.

I leap, carried far beyond his reach, by the wind. “The land itself opposes you, Ninnis. You cannot win.”

“You are nothing without it!” he shouts back, filled with anger. He hasn’t had a real fight in a long time, and probably thought he never would again.

I leap to the ground, softening the fall with a burst of wind. “Then I will stop.” The hovering water falls to the jungle floor once more. “Come, Ninnis,” I say. “Die like a hunter.”

And I mean it. I swore never to kill a human being, even Ninnis, but he has pushed me to the edge of reason this time.

The blackness retreats inside Ninnis and he takes a fighting stance with his sword, Strike. We charge at the same time, meeting with a flurry of strikes, all blocked by the other. There is no exchange of words. No taunting. This is a fight to the death and any lapse in concentration will mean a quick end to it.

After I nearly take his head off with the mace end of Whipsnap, Ninnis shouts and begins a flurry of chopping strikes that I block with Whipsnap’s staff. Chips of wood fly, but the staff remains whole and I realize that when the Nephilim improved my homemade weapon, they also gave its staff a metal core.

On the fifth blocked strike, Ninnis twists his sword so that the flat end hits the staff. The tip of the flexible blade wraps around the staff and he yanks it from my hand. I’m momentarily disarmed, but he’s left himself open to attack.

I kick out, hammering Ninnis’s gut with a kick that would have sent any other man to the ground. Ninnis lets out an “oof!” and pitches forward, allowing me to reclaim Whipsnap, but he recovers quickly, flicking Strike to its full length and swinging it at my face.

The blade cuts a path across my vision, slicing several strands of my hair, as I tilt my head back. As I lean my body back, Ninnis fails to notice that I’ve also flexed Whipsnap back and before I’ve even righted myself, I let go of the bladed end. The weapon springs out faster than I could strike by hand and catches Ninnis across his stomach. I can tell by the tug on the blade as it passes through his flesh that is it a deep cut. A mortal wound.

Ninnis clutches his hand over the gash.

Purple blood oozes.

If only Ninnis were mortal.

Still, the wound enrages him. Had he not been able to heal, it would have been a killing blow and he knows it. I am the better hunter.

He screams and the blackness returns, shooting out toward my face.

A surge of wind carries me back and I begin to feel the exhausting effect of using my abilities in unnatural ways. Things like floating water tax me more than bending the wind toward my will. Not to mention that I’m out of practice. I won’t be able to keep this up forever, and short of taking off Ninnis’s head, I won’t be able to kill him.

I smell blood behind me and look back. Kainda’s body has paled. The sight of her fills me with renewed rage, but I don’t lose control. Instead, I remember what Tobias taught me. Don’t distort nature, exaggerate it. I reach out, feeling the world around me, searching for a powerful force. I find it far away and high above.

The katabatic winds, created when the colder, heavier air above the mountains, rolls down the slopes to the coast. But the winds have been tamed by the jungle. Not for long, I think, as I draw the cold air down faster. I can feel the air moving, but the trees resist, so I weaken the earth around them and they part like peasants before a king. The effort drops me to one knee.

Ninnis approaches, taking my undefended posture as weakness.

The darkness swirls about, agitated and eager.

He draws in a breath through gritted teeth, and raises his sword.

A crack like thunder fills the air, rising in volume. At first, he ignores it, but when the sound grows deafeningly loud, he looks up.

The jungle behind me splits open as Antarctica’s most primal force—pushed faster than ever before and condensed into an area the size of a bus—surges over my head and strikes Ninnis head on. He’s lifted into the air as easily as a leaf. I bend the wind upward, watching as Ninnis is carried over the lake. I push harder. Faster. Until he’s just a speck. Then I let him go and momentum carries him high, and farther, hundreds of feet high and miles and miles away.

When he returns to earth, the impact will crush every bone in his body. If he falls through the jungle, it will tear him to pieces. I cannot imagine he will survive, but I will not make the mistake he did and assume he is gone forever. Something tells me I will see Ninnis again.

The effort has drained my body. I lean forward on my shaking arms, holding my head just above the waterline. I can feel consciousness slipping. But a voice brings me back.

“Sol!”

It’s Em.

I turn to the voice and find Em and Tunis supporting Kainda’s blood covered body. What are they doing?

“She’s not dead yet,” Em says, her voice desperate.

Not dead! Pain wracks my body as I fight against my exhaustion and stand up. I slosh through the water to meet them. They lower Kainda down, kneeling in the water. I fall to my knees in front of Kainda’s limp body. Her tan has faded to a ghostly white. The wound is just two inches wide. It doesn’t look like much, but it’s just to the right of her heart. And now the organ is pumping most of her blood to places in her body where it does not belong. Even with the world’s best team of surgeons, I doubt there is anything that could be done. That she has yet to die is a testament to the woman’s strength, but her wounds are far beyond my ability to heal.

“She’s not going to make it,” I say.

Em sniffs back her tears. “Solomon, don’t—”

“He’s right,” Tunis says. “Her wounds are too grave. Without blood of the masters, there is nothing—”

A thousand exclamations blast through my mind, but I don’t take the time to utter one of them. I plunge my hands into the water, searching Kainda’s waist. When I find what I’m looking for, I untie the leather thong holding it tight, with shaking hands.

“Lay her down,” I say. “Under the water.”

There is a moment of hesitation and I scream. “Now!”

I get the waterskin free and stand. “Get away. Move back!”

They obey, laying her back beneath the water and propping her head up on a stone. I pluck the stopper from the skin. The smell that rises from the vessel is vile, but confirms its contents. Nephilim blood collected from the shifter, Eshu, formally known as Krane. Kainda’s foresight might just save her own life. Hopping out of the water and clinging to a tree, I pour the purple liquid into the water over Kainda’s chest. Applying it directly to the wound would kill her even more quickly, but diluted in water, the blood will merely burn as it heals.

The purple blood clouds out around her body. But nothing happens. We wait in silence. Ten seconds. Thirty. “Should I add some more?” I ask.

“That was plenty,” Tunis says. “Any more and—”

Kainda screams and sits up. She claws at the wound on her chest, feeling the pain afresh, but when the blood is wiped away, the puncture is gone, healed completely.

“Kainda,” I say, leaping down from the tree.

She flinches back from me, confused. I crouch in front of her, a wide smile on my face. “Kainda, it’s okay. You’re okay!”

She finds my eyes and sees my smile. She glances down at the purple haze in the water, then feels her skin where the wound should be and understands.

“It’s okay,” I say again, and then, overcome with relief, I pull her to me and squeeze her. With her sitting and me crouching, it’s an awkward embrace, but I don’t care. And apparently, neither does she. She squeezes me tight, wrapping her arms around my neck and burying her face into my shoulder. The excitement of seeing Kainda alive has pushed away my exhaustion and I lift her up out of the water, giving her a proper hug. Em joins us and Kainda embraces her, too.

“Thank you,” she says. “I was dead without you.”

“It was you who thought to bring the blood,” I say.

“I’m not talking about that,” she says. “Before you. Before you…changed me. I was as dead then as I was a moment ago.”

“Oh,” I say. The words are kind and honest in a way I never thought I would hear Kainda say, and hearing them reassures me that no matter how powerful the Nephilim and Ninnis become, what we have here—this transforming power—will always be stronger.

35

I stop and stretch. My legs are tight from endless hours of hiking over rough terrain. Kainda stops next to me and leans against a tree. She would never admit it, but she’s feeling worn down too. How could she not? We ran from the lake nearly all the way to Mount Olympus, then swam through rapids all the way back, fought Ninnis, nearly died and then spent the last two days moving back up river. But we aren’t following the river this time. Nephilim have been swarming above the water, probably searching for Enki and Ninnis. Two of their three leaders are missing.

So we’ve taken a roundabout route, away from the river and over the craggy foothills leading up to Olympus. We’ve hacked through vine-laden jungle and waded through swamps. Two flocks of turkuins harassed us, but provided meals, and if not for a one hundred foot stone wall that we had to scale, we would have had to face off against a thirty-foot male cresty and its pack of nearly thirty. This wouldn’t have been impossible with my abilities, but I’m still feeling the effects of my fight with Ninnis, not to mention my recent physical exertion.

But it feels good to be making progress. To be acting, rather than simply reacting. Kainda knows where Hades’s quarters are inside Olympus, so that’s where we’re headed. From there, we’ll find the Jericho Shofar. I’m hoping Hades can explain what it does. Once we have the Shofar, we’ll rendezvous with the others underground and move Luca someplace safer. After healing Tunis’s wounds with Eshu’s blood, we sent him after the others to explain what we were doing. They’ll be expecting us. And after that? I’m not sure. But at least it’s a start.

Em stomps up the hill past Kainda and me. She has a crafty look in her eyes. “Look at you two, lazing around like a couple of seals.”

Kainda and I look at each other as Em passes between us. Kainda gives me a smile that I’ve come to adore. She motions with her head to follow Em. She won’t back down from the taunt, even if it was made in jest. Rest time is over.

I take a deep breath and let out a grunt. I have no trouble with being made fun of. Reminds me of my childhood. When Kainda offers me her hand, I take it and set off up the hill. I make it only two steps when a flash of pain rips through my head. I shout in agony, and fall to the ground.

Solomon.

The voice in my mind is faint, as though distant.

Solomon!

“It hurts!” I shout.

Kainda and Em are by my side in an instant.

“What’s happening?” Kainda shouts.

“It’s…it’s…” I can’t get the words out. My mind is filled with images, like I’m running through the jungle at high speed. I see Kainda and Em kneeling over my prone form. I zip past, moving a mile in a second, and see oddly shaped tree trunks ahead.

Moving tree trunks.

Legs!

Lots of them.

The Nephilim are coming!

My vision moves around, covering a lot of ground. They’re everywhere. And moving among them—hunters. But are they looking for us? Or are they searching for Ninnis? It doesn’t matter, either way, they’re going to find us. Then, suddenly I’m moving up through the canopy. I slip through the leaves as though they don’t exist and stare up into the bright blue sky that strangely doesn’t hurt my eyes. But it’s not a beautiful sight. It’s horrible. The sky is filled with large, moving bodies. The Nephilim army has taken flight. There are more of them than I ever imagined, and they’re headed out, into the world.

I’m pulled back through the canopy, past the hunters, past the Nephilim and then past myself. I move deeper into the jungle, over a fallen tree and then into a sliver into the ground. A cave.

Run!

Run, Solomon!

RUN!

The pain disappears and my mind returns to my body. I sit up fast with a deep gasp.

“Sol, what happened?” Em asks.

“Xin,” I say between deep breaths. “It was Xin.”

“Xin,” Kainda says, her voice oozing distrust.

“No,” I say, taking her arm. “He was warning me.”

“Warning you?” Em says. “Of what.”

I turn in the direction I saw the Nephilim approaching. “They’re coming.” I jump to my feet. “We have to go. Now!”

Before either can argue or question me further, I do exactly what Xin said. I run. My perfect memory guides me on the same path I took while in the dreamlike state. I see the fallen tree ahead. “This way!”

I leap over the tree and find the small opening in the ground.

“How did you know this was here?” Em asks.

“Xin showed me.”

“You shouldn’t trust him,” Kainda says.

“He would say the same about you,” I say, and then wriggle through the opening. After a momentary tight squeeze, the tunnel opens up into a cave. Em and Kainda slip in behind me and Kainda manages to yank the fallen tree over on top of the hole.

The world grows dark, but our hunter eyes quickly adjust and our other senses pick up the slack. When they do, all three of us know we are not alone in this cave. There are hushed voices further in the cave. A man and a woman. Wood smoke lingers in the air. And meat. They’ve cooked something recently.

These are not hunters.

I motion for the others to follow me and lead them deeper into the cave. We don’t make a sound as we approach. I see the dim glowing rings of a flashlight ahead. I stop at a bend in the cave and listen.

“We need to go back,” the man says. “Regroup with the others.”

They’re speaking English. Their accents are American.

“We’ll never make it,” the woman replies. “You’ve seen what they can do. How many of them there are. We need to find a way to stop them, here. Now.”

“It’s not possible,” the man says. “We’d need an army.”

In that moment, I know we’re on the same side and decide to take a chance. I step out from behind my hiding place, hands raised and weapon-free. “I might be able to help.”

The flashlight whips toward me, illuminating my body in its dull yellow glow. Despite the light in my eyes, I see the man and woman, who are dressed in black military fatigues, jump to their feet, knives at the ready. They’re quick and probably skilled fighters, but I don’t fear them.

That doesn’t stop Kainda and Em from stepping into the light, knives and hammer out and ready for combat. I look at my two friends and say, “Put those away.” They begrudgingly grant my request, most likely because they can now see that these two don’t pose an immediate threat.

“What the hell?” the woman says.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” I say.

The man lowers his guard a little.

“Wright!” the woman shouts. “What are you doing?”

“They look like they could have killed us already if they wanted to,” the man named Wright says.

“They’re just kids!” she says.

“Watch it,” Kainda growls.

The woman’s eyes lock with Kainda’s. It’s like seeing two lions sizing each other up. The woman must realize her partner is correct. She lowers her knife, though she’s not happy about it. “Fine.”

I motion to Em and Kainda, introducing them one at a time. “This is Em. And Kainda. My name is Solomon.” I reach my hand out to shake Wright’s. “Solomon Vincent.”

“Awfully polite for a boy in a loin cloth,” the woman says.

I ignore her, as does Wright. He takes my hand with a strong shake. He motions to the woman with his head. “This is my wife, Katherine Ferrell. I’m Captain Stephen Wright, U.S. Special Forces.”

“Stephen Wright?” I ask, my mind racing backwards through time and then I ask, “Junior?”

The man squints at me. “Yes. How did you—”

“I met your father once,” I say, remembering Stephen Wright senior. He was a member of the expedition at Clark Station 2. He mentioned he had a son, who wanted to join the expedition, but his father kept him home. Said he thought his son would end up being killed on Antarctica. Looks like his father could be right.

“That’s impossible,” Wright says, letting go of my hand. “He died when I was eighteen.”

I nod. “I met him twenty-three years ago.” I raise my hand in a three finger salute, knowing he’ll recognize it. “Scout’s honor.”

Wright and Ferrell look a little bit stunned.

“He mentioned you were in the boy scouts,” I say.

The man leans against the stone wall and slides to a sitting position. He’s clearly exhausted, possibly injured and struggling to comprehend what I’m saying.

“I met him here, on Antarctica, during the expedition to Clark Sta—”

The man’s eyes light up. “What did you say your name was?”

“Solomon,” I say. “Solomon Vincent.”

“You’re the boy!” He sits up straighter. “The boy who disappeared!”

I nod. “I was kidnapped.”

“They never found you…”

“I’ve been here. Underground. With the Nephilim.”

Wright and Ferrell both tense at the word, so I know they’ve encountered them.

“You know who they are?” I ask.

The man nods. “Clark explained it.”

“You were with Merrill?” I say, feeling excited that I’ve actually met part of Dr. Clark’s group.

“Do you know what happened to them?” he asks.

His question gives me my answer. “They made it, I think. Mira killed Enki. Last I saw, they were headed down river toward the sea.”

Wright relaxes a little. “Enki… He’s the one that nearly killed us.”

“How did you get away?” I ask.

Wright nods at his wife. “Kat shot off his—I guess ‘crown’ is the best word for it—and he dropped us. If we hadn’t fallen in the river…”

I see he’s replaying the scene in his mind and I pull him back. “Captain Wright,” I say. He looks me in the eyes. “Do you understand what’s happening—the war that’s about to be fought?”

“I think I do,” he says.

“Then you know that we’ll need an army?”

“I do.”

“Can you get me one?”

“Get you one?” Ferrell says. “I’ve said it before, but no one seems to be paying attention. You’re just a kid.”

I ignore her and keep my eyes on Wright.

“I just need a way to call home,” he says.

“Steve,” Ferrell says.

He holds his hand up to her as if to say don’t worry, I can handle this. He turns back to me and says “But, even if I could make that call, I’m not going to until you give me a damn good reason.”

I point to the canteen attached to his belt. “How are you for water?”

He unclips the canteen and shakes it. Bone dry. I can tell he thinks I’m going to refill his canteen from my waterskin as some kind of peace offering, but that’s not my intention at all. Not only would it do nothing to convince him, or his wife, whose attitude matches her name, but I tend to not do things small.

I take the canteen and step up to the wall. I place my hand against the stone and reach out. I can feel the earth, hard and heavy. There are pockets of air, tiny and cavernous. And there are veins of water, flowing like blood. I focus on one of these veins and open up a small fissure. Pressure helps me draw the water up, though opening the stone takes more effort. But I keep the hole small, splitting stone until it reaches the cave.

The pair remains silent when the spring opens and fresh water pours out. I could fill the canteen right there at the wall, but decide to leave no doubt that I am uniquely qualified to handle the Nephilim. I still have doubts about my ability to lead a war against these creatures that terrify me, but I seem to have a knack for vexing the monsters and foiling their plans. I don’t like it and I don’t feel prepared, but there is no one else.

The water transforms into steam as it exits the wall, as I coax it out. The fog fills the tunnel. I can feel it, moistening my lungs with every breath. Then I bring it in closer with a swirling breeze, condensing it over the open lid of the canteen. As though being wrung from the very air itself, water trickles from the cloud as it cyclones back into a liquid. As the canteen fills, I seal the hole in the wall with a thought. The swirling cloud disappears as the last of it converts back into water and tops off the canteen.

I screw the cap back on the canteen, give it a shake so they can hear it’s full and hand the canteen back to the stunned man. Ferrell actually has her hand over her mouth.

They’ve been to Olympus.

They’ve fought the Nephilim.

But they have never seen anything like me.

I smile at them and say, “I am Solomon Ull Vincent, the first and only child born on Antarctica.” I stand up feeling a sense of purpose like never before. I’m framed on either side by Em and Kainda. “I am the last hunter.”

I look the man in the eyes. “Will you help me?”

Epilogue

Lieutenant Ninnis stared up at the sky. The vibrant blue looked brighter than he’d ever seen it. Birds swooped into his field of view, calling loudly, hovering on the breeze. He recognized them as seagulls, the rats of the sea. An image flashed through his mind. A boat. A voyage.

He shook his head and it was gone. A vision.

Pain filled his chest as he took a deep breath. But through the pain, he smelled salt. The ocean.

Flash.

A wedding. A beach.

Ninnis tried to scream, but only managed a hiss of air. His body, which had sailed miles through the air, had been ruined when he fell from the sky and collided with the solid, rocky coast. A little further and he would have landed at sea, where he would have likely drowned. A little more inland and he would have been hacked to pieces by the jungle trees.

But he was fortunate. His body had landed on the stony shore. Everything inside him had been obliterated. His bones. His organs. Even his mind. He’d become nothing more than a loose sack of flesh. But even now, it stitched itself back together. The pain was nearly unbearable, but he was accustomed to it.

What he could not bear were the snapshots of someone else’s life replaying in his thoughts as his brain physically reformed.

Flash.

A woman. Her smile.

“Ahhh!” Ninnis found his voice as his neck came together. “What did you do to me, Solomon?”

Speaking the boy’s name made it even worse. The pup had beaten him. Again. Even with the power granted him by the body and spirit of Nephil. Solomon, and his gift, had somehow been stronger.

The admission sent a wave of sickness through Ninnis’s body. If he could have moved, he would have curled into a fetal position. But he was stuck in place, staring up at the sky. His hearing returned and brought the crashing of waves.

Flash!

The woman’s face again. Her lips. A kiss.

Something broken inside Ninnis stitched back together, but it had nothing to do with physical repair. It was something broken long before the injuries he received today, and with the repair, came a name.

“Caroline!”

Ninnis shuddered and convulsed.

The name made him weak.

It stole his will.

His skin roiled and pulsed.

Ninnis screamed again, this time in horror.

Darkness emerged from his body, lifting him off the ground. It spun around him, forcing his body back together far quicker than the Nephilim blood could. And when he was hale again, the darkness returned, filling his body.

Consuming his mind.

Taking control.

Lieutenant Ninnis was no more.

Now, there was only Nephil.

Lord of the Nephilim.

“Solomon,” the demon spoke. “You’re alive.”

Motion above drew his eyes back up. His brethren filled the sky like locusts, flying out to destroy the world of men. But it was not yet time.

Nephil raised Ninnis’s hand to the sky and shouted, “My brothers!” His voice boomed out over the ocean. Powerful. Unnatural. But even those too far away to hear his voice, heard him in their thoughts. “Return,” he told them. “Our fight here is not yet over. The boy still lives.”

Nephil turned his eyes to the jungle behind him and the continent beyond it.

“Go! Find him! Bring him to me!”

Prologue

Lieutenant Ninnis watched his life from the inside out. He could sense the world around him, but he could no more interact with it than if he were trapped in Tartarus. His body and its actions, no longer belonged to him.

They belonged to Nephil, lord of the Nephilim. In his arrogance, Ninnis thought he could control the dark spirit that now possessed him, and for a time, he did. His strength and will proved powerful enough not only to contain the darkness, but also to direct it. And for the first time in thousands of years, since the Sons of God lay with human women and bore them immortal—but soulless—half-human, half-demon children, the hordes of Nephil were led by a human being.

Fused with the power of Nephil, Ninnis had set out on a quest for vengeance against the hunters, including his daughter Kainda, who betrayed their kind to follow the memory of the boy named Solomon Ull Vincent, the Last Hunter. As the first and only human child born on Antarctica, Solomon was imbued with a supernatural bond to the continent that not only protected him from the harsh elements, but also gave him dominion over them. The earth, water, air and fire of Antarctica were his to command, though not without a physical toll.

The boy had proven resourceful in the past, but when he stepped through the gates of Tartarus, Ninnis believed his former protégé to be trapped in that land of torture for all eternity. Three months later, he discovered his mistake. Solomon had escaped from that awful place, and during their last conflict, the boy had harnessed Antarctica’s katabatic winds and flung Ninnis miles through the air. When he landed on the rocky Antarctic coastline, Ninnis was broken: body, mind and soul.

The Nephilim blood coursing through his veins, fueled by the spirit of Nephil, stitched his body back together. But the repairs had a side effect. So ruined was Ninnis’s mind that when it was reformed, it was made anew, free of the damage caused by his time as a hunter.

Many hunters, with the exception of those born hunters, like Kainda, were comprised of men and women who had been kidnapped, either from the outside world or from the surface of Antarctica. Their future mentors dragged the kidnapped victims underground and violently broke them. All memory of their lives before were blocked out and forgotten, hidden behind a mental wall forged by torture and starvation. Once broken, the victims could be remade into hunters, loyal to their Nephilim masters.

Ninnis kidnapped and broke Solomon. The boy became Ull the hunter, serving the Nephilim also known as Ull, son of Thor, son of Odin, leader of the Asgard warrior clan. But the boy’s memory later returned, and though damaged, Solomon became himself again—something that had never happened to a hunter before.

But it happened once since.

When the blood and spirit of Nephil healed and took control of Ninnis’s body, there was an unforeseen side effect. Memories of a life before Antarctica returned as flashes.

A smiling face.

A gentle kiss.

And a name.

Caroline.

His...wife.

His real wife.

Ninnis had been given a wife—a fellow hunter—in the underworld, but he did not love her. He did not love anything. She bore him a child, Kainda, but that was all. However, the woman he now remembered—Caroline—he loved her. Nephil claimed Ninnis, body and soul, but Caroline had done likewise long before.

The memories flickered through his mind as images, words and feelings that he couldn’t hold on to for more than a moment. He remembered Caroline. Her aquiline face. Her soft touch. Her existence. But he could not remember everything. Where they met. When they married. If they had children. And why he left such a woman to join the ill-fated expedition to the South Pole that brought him to Antarctica in the first place.

The incomplete memory of something so...beautiful caused him intense pain, far greater than anything he’d ever experienced. Because he detested it. Despite his reforming memories, he was still Ninnis, the hunter.

Ninnis had been the greatest hunter, feared and renowned by all others. For a time, he contained the very spirit of Nephil. He had attempted to exert his will over the spirit again, but it was no use. His weakness had been exposed.

Caroline.

The name came to him as a whisper, but not in his ear. It was the voice of Nephil, in his mind. Taunting him.

Caroline.

The emotional weight her name carried struck his heart like a sword. It filled him with regret. Made him weak. Controllable. But it also infused him with a deeper hatred than he had ever experienced before.

For Solomon.

The only time Ninnis found himself freed from the influence of Nephil was in his dreams, and his subconscious envisioned detestable violence against a sole victim. The boy.

There would come a time, he knew, when Nephil and the Nephilim warriors and hunters he once again commanded would find the boy. When they did, the dark spirit would leave Ninnis’s body to claim young Solomon, whose unique abilities had earned him the high honor of being deemed the true vessel of Nephil.

In that moment, when the spirit of Nephil fought to control Solomon again, the boy would be defenseless. That was when Ninnis would strike, and Solomon would die. Nephil might die along with him, but it was a sacrifice Ninnis would gladly make to have his revenge. Nothing else mattered.

So he stopped fighting for control.

He ceased replying to Nephil’s voice in his head.

And the beast forgot about him.

Ninnis watched Nephil’s progress through the underground, as he led a troop of hunters through the subterranean realm, searching for some sign of the boy’s passing. He listened to the plans being made, the reports being delivered and the battle plans that would bring destruction, first to the humans who had dared set foot on the Nephilim continent, and then to the rest of the world.

I could have found him already, Ninnis thought to himself, careful not to let the boast reach Nephil’s consciousness. He had seen several clues already. A scuffmark on a cavern floor. The faint scent of the boy’s passing several days previous. He knew Solomon better than any other hunter. Most of the skills the boy employed had been taught to him by Ninnis. But Ninnis could not help Nephil. Offering advice would reveal he wasn’t as defeated as he seemed. So he waited.

And he watched.

Nephil, in the body of Ninnis, stood in a wide cavern, deep underground. Five hunters stood by his side. One of the men crouched by a shallow river that ran through the center of the cave. He sniffed the air. “They’ve been through here,” he said.

Nephil smelled the air. Ninnis detected Solomon’s scent, but Nephil knew nothing of tracking. “When?”

Days ago, Ninnis thought.

Perhaps distracted by the god in their midst, the man said, “They’re just hours ahead of us.”

“Very good,” Nephil said.

The hunter brimmed with pride.

A lie, Ninnis realized. The hunter sought only to elevate himself in the eyes of Nephil. So he exaggerated his claim, not realizing that he was merely sealing his own fate. The hunters who had failed to track down Solomon earlier had all been slain. This group is not long for the world, either, Ninnis thought, unless...

“Which way?” Nephil asked.

All five hunters scoured the cavern, searching for tracks—there wouldn’t be any—and smelling the air for a scent, which they found.

“Downstream,” one of them pronounced. The others quickly agreed.

Dead men all, Ninnis thought.

Solomon had simply sent some article of clothing downstream, scoured himself clean in the river and then headed the opposite direction from the easily followed scent trail. It was a simple tactic. Had Nephil sent these hunters in pursuit of Solomon on their own, they would have seen through the ruse. But with lord Nephil in their midst, they were all but useless.

As Nephil looked around the cavern, Ninnis noted the glitter of glowing crystals, their light blue coloration and the rounded stalactites hanging from the ceiling. He knew this place. The river ran for hundreds of miles, casually snaking its way through the subterranean realm and ending at the great feeder graveyard where the bones of countless meals were discarded. As Solomon’s scent trail neared the graveyard, the overpowering stench of death would conceal it. The trail would end there, far away from the boy.

As Nephil followed the hunters downstream, Ninnis turned his thoughts in the other direction. If Solomon wasn’t heading downstream, he was heading upstream. Ninnis followed the path in his mind.

Olympus, he thought. Solomon is headed to Olympus. He couldn’t conceive of a reason why, but if the boy could be caught within those ancient halls, surrounded by the likes of Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo and the worst of them, Ares, there would be no escape.

But Ninnis would not reveal himself or what he knew. He was a patient man. He believed he could wait for his vengeance. But he was wrong. Every step away from the boy fueled his outrage. When he could no longer contain his vehement disapproval for these hunters, Ninnis settled on a course of action, or rather, inaction.

It’s a false trail, he thought calmly. The phrase was simple and lacked any trace of his true emotion. He thought it again and again, repeating it like a mantra until it filled the small portion of his mind to which he had retreated. He let it seep out slowly with the hope Nephil would notice the phrase and treat it as an original thought, rather than as Ninnis’s inner voice. If Nephil could just speak the words, these hunters would see the truth.

It’s a false trail.

It’s a false trail.

It’s a false trail.

“It’s a false trail,” Nephil said, seven days and nearly two hundred miles later. In the minutes that followed his realization, Nephil tore all five hunters apart and turned around.

1

“Get down!” I shout, but the warning comes too late. A ten-foot long albino centipede lunges from a hole in the cave wall, its mandibles flexed open and ready to snap shut on Kat’s face.

But Kat, aka Katherine Ferrell, is far from easy prey. In the short time I’ve known her, I learned that in the world before the cataclysm that rotated the Earth’s crust, repositioned Antarctica to the equator and killed several billion people, Kat was an assassin. She is a skilled fighter, but is most dangerous from a distance, with a sniper rifle. In the modern world, she is a killer without match, but underground without a rifle and being tackled by an oversized monster unknown to her, she is out of her element.

Nevertheless, she reacts with skill and without fear. Falling backward under the long creature’s squirming girth, Kat takes hold of its mandibles, forcing the centipede away from her head, and keeping the deadly pincers from snapping shut.

Em, aka Emilee, the closest thing I’ve ever had to a sister, draws one of her many knives to throw at the creature, but she’s stopped by the actions of Steven Wright, who insists we refer to him by his last name.

Wright tackles the centipede and grapples with its body, but he’s unable to move the creature and ends up just hanging on while the thing bucks him around.

I raise my hand toward the melee, intent on separating the group by controlling the wind and smashing the centipede into the wall. But Kainda places her hammer—a human sized version of Thor’s mighty Mjölnir—on my arm and pushes it down.

I turn to her. “Why?”

“They need to learn,” she says plainly.

Through grinding teeth, Kat growls, “A little help!”

Kainda moves the hammer out in front of my chest, but it’s not needed. I don’t move. She’s correct. If Wright and Ferrell are to join us in the underground, they need to learn how to survive it, and overcoming this obstacle, which Kainda, Em and I could handle without breaking a sweat, is their violent initiation.

A knife appears in Wright’s hand. He jabs the body, punching the blade through the pale carapace. Thick, white innards seep through the puncture holes, but the creature is undaunted. Wright sweeps the blade along its body, severing fifteen of its limbs, but all he accomplishes is making the body slick with gore and removing his handholds. The centipede flings him to the floor, leaving Kat to face the beast alone.

With a grunt, she shoves the centipede back, draws her own knife and slices the thing’s throat. Only, it’s not the creature’s throat. It’s a sack of fluid the thing uses to predigest its food. Like saliva but far fouler smelling. On the bright side, nothing will pick up her personal scent for weeks.

“Ugh!” Kat says, as the fluid spills onto the black military fatigues that she wears. But she doesn’t slow. As Wright regains his feet and starts hacking at the creature again, Kat withdraws her blade, redirects it and plunges it up through the bottom of the centipede’s head, finding its small brain.

The centipede curls back, taking the knife with it, and flinging Wright to the cave floor once again. It twists and coils, writhing around in death throes before falling still.

Wright gets to his feet quickly and jumps to Kat’s side. “You all right?” he asks, his voice full of concern for his wife. They had kept their relationship secret from the outside world. Wright was an Army Captain and Kat was a contract killer. Granted, she killed for the same team, but their love was forbidden. Of course, down here, marriage between killers is common. I look at Kainda, who is grinning at Kat’s messy misfortune, and I think that our relationship isn’t all that different from these two, except for the marriage part.

Kat shrugs away from her husband and stands up with a scowl on her face. I know that look. Things are about to get ugly...er. Kat pulls the knife from the centipede’s head and points it at me. Kainda and Em tense.

“Why didn’t you help!” Kat shouts.

“Keep your voice down,” Kainda says.

“Keep my— Girl, someone needs to beat a little sense into you.”

Never one to back down from a challenge, Kainda steps forward. It’s my turn to stop her. I place my hand on her arm. “She has every right to be angry,” I say.

“You’re damn right, I do,” Kat says.

Em steps forward, hands away from her knives, and says, “You needed to learn.”

Kat rolls her eyes. “Learn what? How to kill a ten foot insect?”

“Chilopoda,” I say.

Kat’s burning glare locks on me. “What?”

“Chilopoda,” I repeat. “Insects are...”

Kat’s anger grows.

I raise my hands. “Sorry, sorry.” One drawback of having a perfect memory is the ability to spout facts like that. Of course, if I could keep my mouth shut, it wouldn’t be a problem. I decide to make up for it by explaining the situation. “The underground is full of these creatures. They used to grow to a few feet in length. They were the bottom of the food chain, and they posed little danger to anyone. But since the rest of the subterranean species fled to the underworld and they found a reliable food source—” I don’t bother mentioning the giant body of Behemoth, which the centipedes gorged on, “—they’ve become massive.”

“This is the first we’ve seen of them,” Wright says.

He’s right. The centipedes don’t normally hunt this close to the surface. Food must be scarce. “I once faced several thousand of them, some reaching thirty feet long.”

Kat’s not buying the story, but Wright, with whom I have a good rapport, blanches a little.

“Right,” Kat says. “How’d you handle that?”

I grin. “The only way possible. I ran like hell.”

My honest admission takes some of the fire out of Kat’s eyes. But she’s still not pleased. “Look, I get why you did it, but you’re kids. You’re not our parents. Or our mentors. If I ask for help, and you are able to give it, you will. Am I understood?”

Never one for tact, Kainda says, “No.”

Kat turns to Wright, “Please let me put her over my knee.”

I’m not sure if Kainda understands the parental spanking reference, but she knows a threat when she hears one. She takes another step forward, muscles tensing.

Wright stands between the women. “Kat, stand down.”

“That an order, Captain?” Kat says, oozing sarcasm.

“Actually,” Wright says, “I really don’t want you to get your head bashed in.”

Kat’s anger turns toward her husband. She doesn’t say anything, but I know what she’s thinking. To her, we’re kids. Amateurs. I might have impressed her with the demonstration of my abilities, but she has yet to see us in battle. It doesn’t matter that in surface years, I am actually her senior. I still have the body of an eighteen year old. But she’s going to have to get past that mental hurdle sooner or later.

So I let the second centipede, which is creeping up behind Kat and Wright, get a little closer. She needs to understand or she will never follow our lead. And down here, in our element, that will get her killed.

“Okay, Captain Know-It-All,” Kat says to me, “How would you handle a giant centipede?”

I look to Em. “Go ahead.”

In the blink of an eye, Em reaches to her waist like a gunslinger, draws a large knife and flings it with a snap of her wrist. The blade slices through the air, just missing Kat, whose eyes have just squinted with refined focus. I see her throwing her own blade toward Em, but I use the wind to knock it from the air, just as it leaves her hand.

Kat is about to rush in and press the attack when she hears the thump of a body hitting the ground behind her. She spins and finds a second massive centipede lying dead at her feet. Em’s blade is buried in the center of its head.

Wright steps back and whispers a curse. He had no idea the creature was behind them.

Kat just looks down at the dead creature. She bends, plucks the knife out of its head and wipes the gore off on her pant leg. Just then, a third, smaller centipede that I hadn’t sensed, launches from a burrow in the tunnel wall. Kat sidesteps the airborne centipede and brings the knife down, impaling its head and driving it down to the stone floor. She holds it there until it stops writhing.

The whole attack and killing takes just seconds.

She looks up at us and grins. “I’m a fast learner.”

Kainda returns the smile. The two women who were ready to beat each other senseless just moments ago have found some common ground—the quick and efficient killing of their enemies. She nudges me. “I like her.”

Wright recovers his dropped knife and sheaths it. “So, what’s next?”

We’ve been slowly and carefully working our way toward the bowels of Mount Olympus. Our goal is to find the Nephilim known as Hades, lord of the Underworld, and friend—possibly former friend—of the Titan known as Cronus. Hades, according to Cronus, knows the location of the Jericho Shofar, which is supposedly one of the horns that brought down the walls of the Biblical city of Jericho. I’m not sure I buy that story, but when a several thousand-year-old Titan trapped in Tartarus tells you about a weapon that can turn the tide of battle against the Nephilim, you at least look into it. And honestly, I don’t have a better plan.

But Olympus has to wait a little while longer. We’ve been so busy dodging waves of hunters scouring the underworld that we haven’t eaten in a long time. We might have to fight our way into and out of the Nephilim citadel, nevermind the possibility that Hades will not be pleased to see us or to hear that Cronus sent us to him. We’re going to need our strength.

I point at the dead Chilopoda. “Now, we eat.”

2

A gentle breeze generated by my connection to the continent swirls around our group, keeping our scent, and the odor of our three kills, contained to this small portion of cave. A hunter could still stumble upon us, but they won’t track us by scent.

Kainda separates five segments of the largest centipede and carves open the tops so that each resembles a bowl full of lumpy plain yogurt. She demonstrates how to scoop out the gelatinous flesh with her fingers and scrapes it off into her mouth before swallowing the dollop whole.

“How does it taste?” Wright asks. He’s trying to sound curious, but the skin around his nose is pinched up in disgust.

“Like dung,” Kainda replies.

“It’s not that bad,” Em says, trying to put our guests at ease.

Her efforts are undone when I laugh and say, “Yes it is.” But I follow my statement with a demonstration of my own. I scoop out some of the gooey flesh. “It’s fatty, full of protein and provides an energy boost. Oh, it’s also great for wounds. Just shove some of this in an open wound and bandage over it. It accelerates healing and fights infection.”

“That’s...disgusting,” Wright says.

“The trick is to hold your breath.” I scrape the flesh into my mouth and swallow without chewing. “Mmm, Mikey likes it.”

Wright and Kat both laugh lightly. Like me, they’re children of the 80s and recognize the catchphrase from the Life cereal ads.

“Where’s the beef?” Wright asks, mimicking the old woman from the equally popular Wendy’s advertising campaign. When I got chicken pox, my mom bought me a “Where’s the beef?” T-shirt. I loved that shirt.

As Kat and I laugh a little bit louder, Em and Kainda look at the three of us like we’re crazy.

“They’re television commercials,” Wright tries to explain. “From when we were kids.”

I notice that he’s including me in the, ‘when we were kids’ statement, which says he’s starting to believe that my surface age is close to his. But his explanation is lost on my fellow hunters.

“They’ve never seen a TV,” I say.

Wright’s forehead wrinkles. “Never?”

“How long have you been here?” Kat asks, then scoops a wad of cream cheese meat into her mouth and swallows it down. She winces, but doesn’t complain.

“I was brought here as a child,” Em says, rubbing her head. Her brown hair, which is still two-thirds blood red, is just a few inches long now, but it’s enough to cover the tattoo that was exposed when she shaved her head to pose as my wife. That double-ring tattoo revealed that she had been kidnapped as a baby and brought to Antarctica. It meant that Tobias, who raised her, was not actually her father. More than that, it meant that she might have family in the world outside Antarctica. Like me.

Wright and Kat look surprised by this, but Kainda’s admission stuns them. “I was born here.”

“Born here?” Kat says.

“The Nephilim have lived beneath the surface of Antarctica for thousands of years,” I say. “During that time, they have routinely taken humans from the outside world. They use torture and violence to break the will and blind the past, if you’re old enough to remember it, and turn us into hunters, servants that are small enough to reach portions of the underworld that are too tight for their large bodies.”

“What about Aimee?” Wright asks. “Merrill’s wife. She wasn’t at all like you three.”

The question twists my gut. “Aimee was a teacher. They don’t break teachers. They use them to learn about the outside world. Our languages. Our customs. Our weaknesses.” They haven’t asked, but I feel that full disclosure is important with my new allies. If they discover the truth later on, they might have cause to doubt my sincerity. “She was here because of me.”

“She was here with Merrill,” Wright says, scooping his first glob of centi-flesh onto his hand. He winces at the feel of it. “He told us the story. About the dig site. About how she was taken by the Nephilim.” He scoops the flesh into his mouth.

“She wasn’t taken by the Nephilim,” I say. “She was taken by me.”

The admission makes Wright take a breath while the fatty meat is still in his mouth. He tastes it instantly and nearly spits it out. He clamps his mouth shut, swallows the bite and chases it with a mouthful of water from his canteen. “Ugh.”

“Care to explain that?” Kat says. The edge has returned to her voice.

“I wasn’t myself at the time. I had been broken and remade into Ull, the hunter. She was my final test. So I took her.” My eyes drift to the floor. “But she saved me. Freed me. I was born on Antarctica. My parents were part of Merrill’s original expedition. Aimee helped deliver me. I have a perfect memory and hers was the first face I ever saw. When I saw her face again, I remembered everything. I became Solomon again.”

Telling the story in such a compressed way reveals the nearly fate-like quality of those events. If I hadn’t taken Aimee, I wouldn’t have been set free from my bondage. I would still be Ull, and I would have willingly given myself to the spirit of Nephil. There would be no resistance of hunters. Nephil would be stronger than ever. And the human race might very well be wiped out. But none of those things happened, all because I kidnapped Aimee. The realization helps remove some of my lingering guilt over the act.

“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 covered with gilded accents, 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 seems 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?”

“Three,” I say, holding up a brown leather satchel.

She takes the satchel, looks inside at the three fully loaded magazines, and grins. “Perfect.”

“I fail to see what this...weapon will be good for,” Kainda says.

It’s at that moment that the door opens and a Nephilim gatherer steps into the room. Gatherers are what most people know as “grays.” They’re widely considered to be alien in nature, which isn’t too far from the truth. They gather humans from the outside world, for hunters (like Em) or for genetic experimentation—the sort that led to me having six clones. The first is Xin, a half-human, half-seeker, who is now my ally. The second was a horrible little half-human, half-thinker creature that I killed in a subterranean laboratory. And then there is Luca, a six year old, fully human duplicate of me currently hiding underground with the other rebel hunters. There are three other clones I have yet to meet, but from what I’ve been told, by Aimee and Xin, I’d be better off not meeting them. Of course, Aimee said the same thing about Xin, and I would be dead without him.

The gatherer, whose hands hold a wooden box full of dog tags, stops in its tracks. Its oval, jet black eyes go wide with surprise. But it quickly recovers, and before anyone can act, a painful pressure fills my mind. Gatherers and seekers are telepathic. This is a well-known fact in UFO/alien folklore, but the skill isn’t just for communication. Gatherers can literally kill you with a thought.

It recognizes the three hunters in the room as the predominant threat and targets Kainda, Em and me first, dropping us to our knees. But this gatherer has made a mistake. I hear a sound, like a cough, repeat three times in rapid succession. A fraction of a second later, three neat holes form a triangle on the creature’s forehead.

The wooden box drops from the creature’s hands, landing at its feet with a loud thunk. The gatherer’s limp body starts to fall backward, out into the hallway, where the purple blood from its forehead is sure to leave a stain and a scent trail that will alert any hunters nearby.

But Wright moves quickly, snagging the gatherer’s wrist and pulling it inside the room. He drags the body to the back corner, while Kat silently closes the door. When Wright stands up from his body disposal duty, it’s as if nothing happened. There isn’t even a drop of blood on the floor.

Kainda grins. “I stand corrected.”

4

“What the hell is that?” Kat asks, standing over the body of the gatherer she’s just killed. Its large, black, almond shaped eyes are now lifeless. “Looks like something out of Close Encounters.”

“It’s a gatherer,” Em says.

“Close Encounters was based on them,” I say. I remember the movie more for its depiction of late seventies family life, but the aliens conjured by Steven Spielberg were actually Nephilim. As I look over the three, clean holes in its forehead, I can’t help but wonder aloud, “Is it dead?”

Everyone stiffens, even Kainda and Em. They don’t know either.

“I’ve never seen one killed,” Em admits.

“Nor I,” says Kainda.

“There’s no exit wounds,” Kat says. “So the bullets either bounced around inside the skull, turning the brain to pudding, or they fragmented on impact and, well, turned the brain to pudding. Plus, I aimed for the same spot where the big ones are vulnerable.”

But the gatherers are different from the warriors in every way except for their unnatural parentage. Who’s to say what they are capable of, if they have a weak spot or if they can heal. Certainly not any of us. It has purple blood like the warriors, but a warrior would have healed by now. I’ve suspected that only the warriors could heal rapidly, which enables them to rule the various tribes, but these lesser Nephilim could still heal, perhaps just more slowly.

“There is one way to end the debate,” Kainda says, lifting her hammer over the gatherer’s plump head.

“Wait!” I shout.

She holds her strike. I turn to Wright and Kat. “Do you have everything you need?”

Wright holds up a silenced pistol, and then turns around so I can see the silenced assault rifle slung over his back. Kat throws her beloved FAL over her shoulder and reveals that she has also found two sound suppressed handguns as well. She holds one out to me. “Sure you don’t want one?”

I hold up a hand. “Not a fan of guns.”

“And yet, you’re okay with your girlfriend bashing in a dead man’s head?”

“They’re not men,” I say with a touch of venom.

“What is girlfriend?” Kainda asks.

“Later,” I say. The classification of our relationship in modern terms might freak her out. It’s freaking me out. I would prefer to be just...us. Hunters. Together. It feels more natural just to be, without adding the social pressures of what is expected of girlfriends and boyfriends. Of course, Kainda is oblivious to those things, but I’m not.

“Suit yourself,” Kat says, before wrapping a dual holstered belt around her waist. She slips both weapons home. “I’m good.”

Kainda lifts her hammer again. She looks back at the group. “This could be...messy.”

We all step back. The hammer rises. Kainda’s muscles ripple as she tenses. Then she strikes.

In the fraction of a second that it takes the hammer to descend, I see a flicker of movement in the thing’s black eyes. Not dead. But then the hammer strikes and it is, without doubt, very, very dead.

The head implodes under the weight of Kainda’s strike. But there is no splatter of purple blood. The head, which is roughly the size of a watermelon, is also somewhat similar to the fruit on the inside. Where there should have been a brain, there is only a thick, purple gelatinous substance, like jelly donut filling.

“It has no brain,” Wright notes.

“Or blood,” Kat adds. “Not really.”

I turn to them. “Like I said. Not a man.”

“Doesn’t smell like a man, either,” Wright says.

While the gatherer might not be oozing gallons of blood, its jellied insides have a strong odor. Wright gathers some shotgun shells, pries them open and dowses the ruined cranium with gunpowder. The strong chemical smell quickly masks the scent of gatherer gore.

Kainda covers her nose, finding the modern odor more offensive than the insides of a dead Nephilim. “What is that smell?”

“Cordite,” I say.

“Not quite,” Wright says. “Cordite isn’t used in modern weapons. This is basically wood chips soaked in nitroglycerin and coated with graphite. Bigger bang for less buck and a much stronger odor.”

“Huh,” I say, feeling awkward. It’s not often that someone knows something I don’t. But I was never very interested in modern weapons before coming to Antarctica. My knowledge of the subject is limited to what’s in textbooks.

Armed and satisfied that the gatherer is now fully dead, we sneak back into the hallway. After closing the door to the armory behind us, I pause and sniff the air. There’s just a hint of the gatherer’s scent. But someone would have to walk right by the door to pick it up. And since the hall is still devoid of life, I don’t see that happening any time soon.

We quickly backtrack to the steps and then turn down the hallway leading to the cellblock. The scent of humanity is thick in the air, but the prisoners’ voices have faded to nothing. Are they all dead? I wonder. Have they been taken away? It doesn’t seem possible. We were in the armory for just ten minutes.

As we reach the end of the hall and peek around the corner into the cellblock, I have my answer. The prisoners are terrified. A single Nephilim warrior wanders down the massive hallway, bending down before each cell, looking at the men contained within.

The twenty-five foot giant wears a chrome helmet that resembles a goat’s head, with twin curling horns. His cape is coated with white fur and...there’s something different about his legs. While the other warriors I’ve seen thus far were human like in appearance—if you ignore their height, dual rows of sharp teeth, six fingers and toes and demonic eyes—this one has hoofed feet and hairy, goat-like legs. Tucked into his belt is something that looks like a flute. The weapon in his hands resembles a shepherd’s crook, but the hooked end is flattened and sharpened like a scythe, and the other end of the weapon’s staff holds a barbed tip.

From his appearance and our location, I have no trouble guessing the identity of this monster. “Pan,” I whisper. He’s nearly three hundred feet off, but Nephilim have exceptional hearing.

“You’ve met him?” Em quietly asks.

I shake my head, no. “But I recognize him. From the outside world’s mythology. What I don’t understand, is why a warrior is guarding prisoners? Where are the hunters?”

“Looking for us,” Kainda whispers. “And Pan does not guard prisoners, he watches over his flock. These men are food. He is selecting them for a meal.”

Voice’s rise in panic, bringing my gaze back to Pan. The long hallway is lined by barred, twenty-foot square cells, each jam packed with soldiers from the outside world. I see a variety of different uniforms and hear a number of languages, most of which are not English. But they’re all afraid. As well they should be.

Pan opens one of the barred cell doors and reaches inside. The men swarm away from the oversized, six fingered hand like shoaling fish fleeing a pod of whales. One of the men is caught and pulled from the cage. He kicks and punches bravely, shouting at the giant in what I think is Russian.

The Nephilim shepherd just laughs at the man, his voice a booming chuckle that smacks of Jabba the Hut’s, “Huu huu huuu.” When the sharpened end of the crook comes up, I realize what’s about to happen. He’s going to decapitate the man!

I stand and step into view, shouting, “Stop!”

“Solomon,” someone hisses, but I’m not sure who because my heart races as Pan’s cold gaze turns on me. Then he laughs again, “Huu huu huuu,” and licks his lips. Apparently, I look delicious.

5

“Who are you, little one, to speak to me so boldly?” the giant asks.

He doesn’t recognize me, I realize. Which makes sense since we’ve never met and it’s not like there are wanted posters with my face hanging around the underworld. He might recognize Whipsnap, based on its description, but it’s still wrapped around my waist. But perhaps the most convincing misdirection is my all blond hair.

Hunters have blood red hair like their Nephilim masters. I don’t fully understand how it happens, but it’s an outward representation of the Nephilim corruption. As that corruption fades, so does the coloration. Em has a patch of brown hair that covers her bangs and a portion of the side of her head. Kainda has a black streak on the top of her head, but she combs it in with the red, masking it in a tight braid.

But my hair is nearly white blond. There is no trace of Nephilim corruption. Such a thing is unheard of for a hunter, even a freed one. If anything, he’ll take me for a teacher.

The giant licks his lips.

Or maybe just a snack.

Movement to my side brings my attention back to the others. All four look ready to charge out. “No,” I say to them. “I need to do this on my own. I need to know I still can.”

The first and only time I killed a Nephilim warrior was when I used the wind to fling a giant arrow into his unprotected forehead. I haven’t repeated the task since. In fact, I pretty much dread this. While I can face down Ninnis, vessel of Nephil and the man who broke me, I find fighting something so big, so inherently evil, unnerving.

It’s a fear I need to conquer.

Whispers reach me as I stride down the hall toward the giant. The voices grow louder with each cell I pass. I can’t understand them, but I hear the tone. Some are disbelieving. Some think I’m crazy. And others are simply lost.

A few words of English reach me. “Now the monster will kill them both.”

I look for the speaker, but only find a sea of grimy, frightened faces. These men are soldiers, but their spirits have been broken. They don’t believe their new enemy can be killed.

I determine to give them hope. Which means I can’t use my powers. I need to do this as a man, so that they know it is possible.

I stop fifty feet from the giant, who is just watching me with a sick toothy grin. “Let him go,” I say, speaking with authority.

Pan cocks his head to the side, no doubt pondering my bravado. Then he says, “I will free him.”

The prisoners’ voices rise up in wonder about the boy who commands giants. And for a moment, I share their astonishment.

Then the warrior squints. A smirk slips onto his face.

“No!” I shout. But it’s too late. Pan yanks his staff to the side, drawing the hooked blade through the man’s neck, and severing his head. I turn away from the sight. While I have no trouble watching Kainda bash in the head of a gatherer, the sight of a dying human being revolts me to the core.

Panic returns to the prison population as they realize that this monster thinks nothing of me or my commands. In the battle of wills, I’m losing. It’s time for a different kind of battle.

I sprint toward the warrior. The slap of my bare feet on the hard stone floor silences the men. They must think I’m insane. The sound catches Pan’s attention, too, and he turns to greet me. His face reflects surprise, but it’s more like delight than fear. He’s underestimating me.

Good.

But he’s no fool. Rather than let me reach him, he swings low with his staff, no doubt intending to separate my torso from my limbs. But it’s exactly what I was hoping he would do.

I leap up over the blade as it whooshes beneath me. The momentum of his swing spins the giant around, but not before I plant my feet on the giant’s arm and leap again, aiming for his head. As I rise through the air, I tug Whipsnap from my belt. It springs open in my hand and I quickly drive the razor sharp spear tip into Pan’s chest and pull myself higher still. With this final surge upwards, I bend Whipsnap back and prepare to knock away Pan’s goat helmet and the golden ring beneath, both of which protect his weak spot.

I never get the chance.

I mistook the giant’s spin as off balance motion fueled by his missed strike, but it was actually an attack.

From its wings.

The black, bat like wing strikes me hard, pounding me into the stone wall, twenty feet off the floor. My head spins from the impact, but then I’m falling. The ground rushes up to greet me. It’s a fall that could kill me. But it doesn’t.

The wind catches me, and rights me, depositing me gently on the floor.

The prisoners have seen this. Their voices rise in surprise. Somewhere, someone says, “Did you see that?”

So much for not using my powers. Perhaps showing these men that someone more powerful than a Nephilim is on their side would be just as helpful?

Before I can decide, Pan turns on me.

“Ull,” he says, recognizing me for who I am. His wings flare wide, blocking out a thirty-foot swath of the hallway. A twitching scorpion tail lowers into view. It’s ten feet long and tipped with a sickle-like stinger. When I first came to this place, the warriors had no tails or wings. But they’ve been modified genetically since, given the wings of a Gigantes and the stinger of a Titan, both of whom I met during my time in Tartarus. The modifications not only make them more formidable, but also grant them easy access to the outside world. The giants would normally have to cross the seas in ships, something they are likely not fond of doing since one of the few ways they can be killed is by drowning.

The tail snaps out, catching me off guard. I am still the vessel of Nephil. The underworld is full of hunters seeking me out. Nephil needs me. Alive.

A gust of wind, generated by instinct, carries me up and away. When I land, a few cheers and whoops emerge from the prison cells. Pan glares at the prisoners, silencing them.

“You can’t kill me,” I say. It’s not meant as a boast, but as a reminder.

“Ahh, little one,” he says. “You forget that I have the power to take your life and give it back.”

He’s right. If he’s quick enough, he could shove that giant stinger through my heart and bring me back with just a drop of his blood. I need to be careful.

No, I think, I need to put on a show. If I’m going to use my abilities to bolster these men, I’m really going to use my abilities.

“And you forget who you are speaking to,” I say.

“I have yet to be impressed. The stories about you are—”

I flick my hand up like I’ve just given him an imaginary slap in the face. A gust of wind, compressed into a tight area smashes the horned helmet from his head. His mouth clamps shut. He has no idea how much he has underestimated me.

His tail strikes out, but falls short of my position.

“That doesn’t belong to you,” I say. I raise my hand like I’m scooping up a handful of sand. The stone floor rumbles in response. A spire rises from the stone floor, splitting and wrapping around the scorpion tail. I make a tight fist and the stone crushes down, severing the tail from his body like a very dull guillotine.

Pan roars, not in pain—Nephilim delight in pain—but in anger. I am humiliating him. The sound of his voice might attract unwanted attention, so I use the wind to push air into his lungs, rather than out, and silence his voice.

More stone rises, this time wrapping around his hoofed feet. He can’t move. But he is still dangerous.

The giant uses his long reach, and sends his hooked staff sweeping in my direction. I leap the strike with ease, but this time I spin in the air and swing down with the bladed end of Whipsnap. The strike severs tendons in the warrior’s arm. Even as the blade emerges from the giant’s flesh, the wound is already healing, but that momentary cut of tendon is enough to loosen his grip. The crook falls to the floor. I kick it out of reach.

Silenced and disarmed, all Pan can do is glare at me.

I look around at the prisoners watching this. They’re shocked. Some are afraid. I’ve impressed them enough. Now they need something else. “Who here can speak English?” I ask.

A smattering of hands rise from various cells.

“Translate this for the others,” I say, then add, “You came to my continent to fight and kill each other.”

I hear several people speaking in foreign languages. When they’re done, I continue.

“But now you have a common enemy. These giants are the Nephilim, heroes of old, men of renown, the ancient false gods who ruled over our ancestors. Stories of their dominion are told in the cuneiform tablets of Sumer, the Book of Enoch and the Bible’s Old Testament. Evidence of their dominion can be found in every part of the world. But they were defeated. By humanity.” With a little help, I think, but I keep that tidbit to myself since I don’t yet fully understand it.

Eyes widen around me at the translation continues.

“And we will defeat them again.”

After another quick translation, someone asks, “How?”

“Together,” I say, then turn back to find my four friends standing in the hallway. “Wright. Em.” I wave them to me.

Wright is the consummate soldier. They’ll recognize him as one of their own. Em is a freckled, five foot four girl. They’ll see her as less than a soldier, despite the fact that not one of them could stand against her.

As they join me, I feel a wave of nausea sweep through my body. Using my powers in unnatural ways, like creating manacles of stone or keeping a constant wind to silence a giant, tire me quickly. We need to do this quickly.

“Killing them is easy,” I say. “If you know how.”

I turn to Wright. “Take off the ring.”

Wright aims and squeezes off two three-round bursts. The first three bullets loosen the ring around the forehead. The second three send it flying. The baseball-sized pulsing flesh of the Nephilim’s weak spot is revealed.

Pan’s eyes widen.

With fear.

Nephilim aren’t afraid of much. Pain is an aphrodisiac. Suffering is a way of life. But death? For their soulless kind, it is the end. They simply cease to exist. While they would never admit it, there is nothing a Nephilim fears more than death, and as Em raises a single knife up in the air, that’s exactly what Pan is now facing.

Em understands the point I’m trying to make. She turns around, holding the knife up for all to see. It’s a simple five inch blade. There were boxes of knives just like it in the armory. When she’s sure that everyone has had a good look, she turns to Pan.

The giant struggles against his bonds. My will contains him, but not for long.

Em snaps her arm forward, releasing the blade. It spins, end over end, and in a flash, covers the distance between her hand and Pan’s forehead. The blade buries itself up to the hilt in the soft spot.

Like a marionette with its strings cut, the giant collapses to the floor.

Dead.

I quickly release my control of the wind and allow the stone floor to revert to its previous state. All trace of my involvement has been erased. Anyone who finds the scene later on might assume the prisoners got loose and got the better of Pan.

As cheers erupt around me, I fall to one knee, exhausted from the effort. Not wanting the soldiers watching me to see my moment of weakness, I close my eyes and bow my head, as though in prayer.

And then I am. “Thank you,” I whisper. It’s only the second time I’ve ever prayed. The first was at Tobias’s funeral. This time is short and sweet, and though I’m not entirely sure who I’m speaking to, I’m pretty sure the message is received. My energy returns and I stand again to more uproarious cheering. For my coup de grâce, I raise a hand, silencing the prisoners. I reach out with my mind, feeling the air, the stone and the metal of the locks. I focus on the molecules binding the iron together, and slowly push them apart.

“My name is Solomon Ull Vincent. I am the leader of...” What am I the leader of? A small band of hunters? No, it’s more than that. The world may not yet know it, I’m the leader of, “...the human resistance. And you,” I say, looking at the men around me, “are free.”

I clench my hand shut and the locks all up and down the hallway snap free and fall to the floor.

6

The soldiers emerge from the cages slowly. There’s a palpable sense of bewilderment as they try to comprehend the things they’ve seen here. Not just Pan and my unnatural abilities, but the ease with which Wright and Em killed the giant that had made their lives a living hell. How many of them had he taken, I wonder. But before I can ponder the question, a wave of dizziness spins my vision.

Setting the men free with one bold act, while impressive, has further drained my strength. Struggling to stay on my feet, I take Wright’s arm. Sensing my weakness, he helps prop me up. “You okay, kid?”

“We’re the same age,” I remind him with a weak voice.

“Right,” he says.

“I’ll be fine in a minute,” I add, and then change the subject. “Your people are on the coast, right? At the end of the river?”

“There’s an aircraft carrier group just off the coast. I’m sure they’ve got an FOB set up by now.”

“FOB?” I ask.

“Forward operating base,” he explains.

I make a mental note to find a book about the armed services and read it cover to cover. Would make speaking to Wright a lot easier. Then I dig into a satchel hanging from my hip and take out the modern mapping device I christened maptrack. I found it on a Chinese general who’d been killed by the Nephilim. It helped me find Em, Kainda, Luca and the others, but I have no need for it now. I show it to him. “Can you program the coordinates so these men can find their way to the FOB?”

He takes maptrack and looks it over. The touch screen display is in Chinese, but he seems to have little trouble navigating through the options.

“Can you read Chinese?” I ask.

“No,” he says, pushing buttons. “But the interface is fairly common, and the icons are universal.” Then he’s done. “All set. They can follow the river most of the way.”

I take the device and look at the map. “There aren’t any dots.”

“It’s a GPS device.”

I’m about to ask what GPS means, but I think he’s catching on to the fact that I’ve missed out on the last twenty years of technological advances. “Global Positioning System. It uses satellites in orbit. The signal can’t go through a mountain, so the positioning dots will appear once it’s outside.”

When I look up from the device, a sea of faces is staring at me. The freed prisoners have gathered around us, filling the hallway. Kainda and Em have taken up defensive positions on either side of me, their hands hovering just over their weapons.

“They’re waiting on you, boss,” Kat says to me.

My dizzy tiredness is replaced quickly by a horde of frantic butterflies in my stomach. They’re waiting on me.

“Kainda, Em,” I say, “Can you keep watch?”

Both nod and walk through the crowd, heading for either end of the hall. While the citadel is fairly quiet, this is still a Nephilim stronghold. There isn’t a lot of time. Now if I can just figure out what to say.

Maybe it’s the lack of a threat, or the laser-like focus of my captivated audience, but I’m suddenly very uncomfortable. “Umm, hi.” Stupid. Next, I’ll thank them for coming. Not that they’d understand me. Ahh, that’s where I’ll start, the language barrier. “Can those of you who speak English come closer?”

“I believe we already have, mate,” says an Australian man in green fatigues.

I look at the inner circle of men and see a kaleidoscope of nationalities surrounding me. “Where are you all from?”

“I’m a Kiwi,” says the man I thought was Australian. Kiwi is a nickname given to people from New Zealand. “One of the few remaining, I’m sad to say.”

I look to the next man.

“Turkey,” he says with a nod.

I look from one man to the next, and they rattle off their respective countries. India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, China, North and South Korea and Germany. When they’re done, Wright and Ferrell are tense. “What’s wrong?” I ask Wright.

“Not all of them are exactly friendly to the U.S. or each other,” he whispers.

Some of the nations represented here were enemies twenty years ago. It’s disheartening to hear that things haven’t changed. They will now, I think. “Your individual countries no longer matter,” I say.

Several of the men tense. I’m offending their national pride. But I don’t back down. “You’re all here because of a global catastrophe. Billions died. Entire countries were wiped out. Many of you probably lost families. Maybe your home towns.” I have their attention now. “This event was not natural. It was the opening attack in a war on all of humanity.” I leave out the fact that the repositioning of the Earth’s crust was caused when Nephil’s spirit momentarily took control of my body and supercharged my abilities. I don’t think that would go over too well.

“You are no longer men from opposing forces. You are united.” I realize I’m not asking if they agree with this. The truth is they don’t have much of a choice. Then I add the real kicker, “You are my army. My soldiers. And if you want to stop our enemy, you will do as I say.”

I fully expect some of them, if not all of them to object.

But they’re silent.

I look at the men around me. They’re unsure. Their training and loyalty to their individual countries is no doubt at war with the things they have experienced on Antarctica.

It’s the Kiwi who responds first, perhaps because, like he said, there isn’t much left of his homeland to be loyal to. He snaps a salute and says, “Lieutenant Elias Baker, at your service.”

One by one, the other men around me offer salutes. The gesture is different from country to country, but the intent is the same; I have their allegiance.

I motion to Wright. “This is Captain Steven Wright of the United States Special Forces. He’s going to tell you how to reach the U.S. forward operating base.”

“And then what?” Elias asks.

“You wait for us to join you,” I say.

“But they will shoot us,” says the man from Iran.

I hadn’t thought of that.

But Wright has it covered. “If just one unarmed man approaches the gate, hands up, you can deliver a message from me. It will go straight to the president. They’ve seen what we’re up against. They’ll take care of you.”

“Until then, Lieutenant Baker is in charge,” I say. “The rest of you can translate his orders.” I don’t think they’ll like it, but if memory serves, no one has a beef with New Zealand. The fact that no one argues proves it.

“Captain Wright is going to take you to an armory,” I say to Elias. “Take everything.”

He nods and grins, clearly happy at the idea of being armed again.

I turn to Wright. “Have Kainda explain the quickest route to the jungle.”

Back to Elias. “Stay under the canopy. Move quickly. If you’re confronted by Nephilim—”

“Remove the ring,” Elias says. “Shoot the forehead.”

I smile and nod. These men are experts. A real army.

“Go,” I say.

Wright and Kat make their way through the crowd. Baker and the other English speaking men follow them and soon the entire mass of men moves quickly and quietly around the corner, headed for the armory that will give them a fighting chance.

Despite the number of soldiers, they move in near silence, fully aware that they are deep in enemy territory. I stand my ground, nodding at the men who make eye contact as they walk past. Some whisper their thanks in a variety of tongues, and I do my best to repeat the words back to them. I’m as thankful for them as they are for me.

Then they’re gone. As the last man rounds the corner toward the armory, I turn around and look at Pan’s corpse. I feel nothing for the eater of men. He’s now just an empty vessel, his spirit, or whatever Nephilim have, has become nothing. I’m struck at that moment by the realization that I now believe men have souls that continue living after death. After everything I have seen and learned, how can I not? The belief that men are like this dead Nephilim is so sad, so horrible, that I cannot comprehend how atheists live, believing they will simply cease to exist at the moment of their death.

My eyes linger on the giant for just a moment before turning and seeing a second corpse—the man that Pan killed. I stumble toward the body, still feeling drained. When I see the pleading look frozen on his upturned face, the last of my strength fails me and I fall to my knees. His dead eyes stare at me.

“I’m sorry,” I say to the man as tightness clutches my throat. “I should have saved you.”

A gentle hand touches my shoulder. I can tell it’s Em without turning around. “You can’t save everyone,” she says.

She’s right, I know. The Nephilim are likely killing human beings all over Antarctica as we speak. But this man was right in front of me. I saw him die. One moment, he was living and looking at me with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. The next, he was dead, killed violently to spite me. My logical side can get past it. The man would have died if I hadn’t been here. His decapitation might have even been merciful compared to what Pan had planned. But my emotional side, the part of me that used to be Ull, feels a burning hatred for the killing of this man, and a deep sadness for those who will miss him.

I’m about to tell Em how I feel about the sanctity of human life, when an angry voice says, “In the name of Zeus, what happened?”

I look up into the eyes of a hunter I do not know. In the second it takes me to see the man’s Olympian garb and the twin whips strapped to his hips, Em has flung a knife at the man’s heart.

7

The knife is knocked to the ground by an unseen force. It lands at the hunter’s feet. The man’s eyes go wide with understanding. “It’s you.”

Em draws two more knives, but it’s not necessary. The hunter backs out the way he came—and runs.

“What did you do that for?” Em says, wheeling around on me. I can’t remember her ever being so angry with me before. I see the look of a hunter in her eyes. But then she reels it in. “He’s going to get help. All those people you just freed are going to die.”

“I don’t think so,” I say, still on my knees.

She helps me up. “Solomon, even if those men get their weapons, if they get caught in Olympus, surrounded by hunters, warriors and who knows what else, they are going to die. And don’t tell me you will protect them. You can barely stand.” She sighs, shakes her head and says, “If only Tobias had a few more weeks with you.”

I note that she no longer calls Tobias her father. It seems she’s come to accept that her actual father might still be alive somewhere. But I don’t bring it up. “He’s not going to get help.”

“Are you part gatherer now?” she says, oozing sarcasm. “Did you read his mind?”

“I don’t have to read his mind, Em.” I step away from her, standing without help. “He’s a hunter. Think about it.”

She understands after just a moment of thought. “Fine.”

Hunters do not run from a fight. They don’t back down against insurmountable odds. And they would never, even in the face of death, run for help. Death would be preferable. They wouldn’t even call for help. That this hunter saw me, recognized me and then bolted can mean only one thing, and before I can explain it, the man returns, saying, “There he is.”

There are five of them, three men, one woman and a girl around my age, which is to say she looks eighteen, but could be forty for all I know. All are strangers to me, but Em says, “Zuh?”

The younger girl steps forward. “Emilee,” she says. “What are you doing here, you—” She sees the cages and her eyes go wide. Her mouth clamps shut for a moment and then she says. “Where are they?”

“Wait,” I say. “Don’t answer that.” They might not be attacking us, but that doesn’t mean I’m a fool. “Let me see your hair.”

It’s a vague request, but they all understand what I’m getting at. Zuh, whose dark black skin would make her nearly impossible to see in the darkest recesses of the underground, steps forward. Her blood red hair is like a pom-pom around her head. It’s the first bona fide afro I’ve seen on a hunter, but it fits her. She’s scantily clad, wearing brown leathers, but also has a menagerie of chains crisscrossing her waist and chest. It’s her weapon, I think, but I can’t identify it.

“Like what you see?” she says with a smirk.

My cheeks instantly flush.

She chuckles. “It’s a kusarigama.” She turns so I can see the sickle blade attached to the end of the chain. “He’s as innocent as they say,” she says to Em. Then she takes some of my hair and rubs it between her fingers.

I recover from her teasing and do my best to sound nonplussed. “Now yours.”

She gives me a wicked grin that’s full of mischief, but then tilts her head down and parts her pom-pom of hair. At the core is a dark bundle of black hair that she has curled up tight and tied down so that it cannot be seen. I nod and step past her. One by one, I inspect the others and see their carefully hidden shocks of untainted hair.

When I step back, I ask a question none of them are expecting. “How is this possible? None of you have met me. None of you have been with Kainda or Em.”

“Word is spreading,” says the man who first discovered us. “At first, we doubted. Then we heard that you had returned from Tartarus.”

“But the underworld is full of hunters seeking me out,” I say.

He smiles, but seems confused by the genuine nature of it. “Not all of them are your enemies. There are those still loyal to the masters. The oldest generations. But many of those seeking you out simply wish to follow you. And others are guiding the masters on false trails.”

“They are no longer your masters,” I point out.

He concedes the point with a nod.

“We would like to join you,” Zuh says.

It’s a tempting offer. Having five more hunters along would make us a formidable force. But I really don’t know these people and the mission we are on, and currently being distracted from, is too important to risk telling them about. I remember Xin’s warning, to trust no one. One of these hunters could be a shifter, a shape-changing child of trickster demons like Lucifer, the most famous of them all. I don’t think so, given the nature of our chance encounter, but I cannot risk the mission.

“Actually,” I say, “I could use your help with something else.”

Zuh nods, speaking for all of them, and I lead them down the hall. When we round the corner, we’re faced with a fully armed human army. Kainda, Wright and Kat stand at the front of the two hundred strong group. Elias is with them, discussing the best route out of Olympus.

Kainda tenses when she sees the hunters following me, but she draws her hammer when she sees Zuh. Great.

I hear a rattle of chains and turn to find the sickle end of Zuh’s kusarigama in her hand.

“Seriously?” I say. “Are you two for real? Look, whatever issues you two have had in the past, suck it up and get over it. You’re not those people anymore.”

Kainda opens her mouth to object, but I speak over her. “The men behind you are from countries that have been warring since before any of us were born. Their feuds go back hundreds of years, if not more. Yet they stand here, united against a common enemy. I expect the same from you.” Kainda backs down, though she’s clearly not happy about it. I turn to Zuh. “Both of you.” She puts her weapon away.

I wave Elias over and introduce him to Zuh and the four other hunters, whose names are Jozz, Felix, Pietr and Kaleb. “These five, are hunters, like Kainda, Em and I.” Elias nods in understanding. “They know the land, and the enemy as well as I do.”

To the hunters I say, “These men are capable soldiers. They know how to kill the Nephilim. But they can also reach the outside world and get a much larger army. I want you five to lead them out of Olympus and to the coast. Elias will point the way and lead the men. You five do what you can to protect them and mask their progress.”

Zuh doesn’t look pleased with the assignment, but then asks. “Can I train them?”

“You can start with me,” Elias says, flashing a winning smile.

Zuh returns the smile, but her mischief is impossible to hide.

“Gently,” I tell her. “We need them to survive the trip.”

She chuckles. “I will not lose a single man, my king.”

King? What the? I’m about to object, but Zuh claps Elias on the shoulder and starts giving orders, which he relays to the other English speakers and they translate for the rest of the group. Soon they are all moving, swarming into a tunnel leading down.

Elias pauses at the rear and says, “We will wait for you.” He grins and adds, “my king.” Then he’s gone with the rest and our number is back to five.

I know Elias was teasing, but I’m really uncomfortable with this king thing. Honestly, I don’t really want this leadership position and think that if some kind of higher power selected me for the job, like Cronus believes, then it made a poor choice in me. I can put on a good show now. Flex my muscles. Bend the wind. But I’d still rather be in my parent’s living room eating Captain Crunch and doodling with Justin.

Before I can join Kainda, Wright and Kat, Em takes my wrist and squeezes hard enough to get my attention.

“Ouch,” I say. “What’s wrong?”

“Zuh,” she says in a tone that makes me wonder if I shouldn’t have sent the woman after all. “You should know about her past.”

I wait for more.

“When the Nephilim became aware of your return to the continent, they held a match between the top hunters, and their daughters. The winning father would break and train the last hunter, vessel of Nephil. It was the greatest honor a hunter could have. The winning daughter...”

I see where this is going. “Could marry me.”

She nods. “Zuh and Kainda were those daughters.”

“And Kainda won,” I finish.

“No,” she says. “They nearly killed each other, but their fight was a draw when neither could stand. It was the fathers who decided the fight.”

Ninnis was the man who broke and trained me, so I already know who won that fight, but the details are a revelation.

“Ninnis killed Zuh’s father,” she says, “but he didn’t stop there. He drank the man’s blood. It is the gravest of insults.”

I shake my head. Ninnis. I called the man a friend once. If not for Aimee, I could have become just like him.

“So Zuh wants revenge for her father?” I ask.

“Not at all,” Em says. “He lost the fight. Ninnis was the better hunter. She would respect that. The problem is she and Kainda never finished their fight. Kainda’s claim to you, while no longer relevant to you or me, is still disputable to Zuh and Kainda. And I can tell by the way Zuh looked at you, she wouldn’t mind a rematch.”

I look up and see Kainda keeping an eye out for trouble, though I can see she’s flexing her arms, crushing the handle of her hammer.

“Thanks for telling me,” I say to Em and then make my way to Kainda. She hears me coming and glances in my direction. Tension radiates off her like heat from a stove.

I put a hand on her shoulder and feel the muscles beneath tense. Then I lean in, kiss her cheek and whisper, “I am yours,” before moving on. She says nothing in reply, but a moment later, she snaps at the others and says, “Get moving. Hades awaits.”

8

Em takes the lead again and we head deeper into the citadel. Every step feels like a walk down a plank over shark infested waters. We killed a gatherer and a warrior, and we saw a man killed, but those horrors feel like gentle distractions compared to facing a Nephilim renowned for his loathing of mankind and a reputation for collecting souls. According to Cronus, Hades is the best of them. To Em, he’s the worst.

And Kainda agrees. “Nothing good can come from this.”

“We can’t beat the warriors in outright battle,” I say.

“But we—”

“Em,” I say, cutting her off. “Killing a single warrior bound in place is not the same as facing them in battle. In the open. Right now, our army consists of several hundred men—trained men, sure—but they’re malnourished, frightened and by the time they reach the coast, they’ll be exhausted. The Nephilim warriors number in the thousands. The high thousands. And when they are free to act, and move, and attack, they will not be so easy to kill. We need help.”

Em stops. She’s led us to the lowest finished level of Olympus. The true underworld begins just below. We stand before a tall black door that looks similar to the gates of Tartarus, only much smaller—just fifty feet. “I don’t question the need for help. Only that this—” She motions to the door, “—is the last place you should go for it.”

I ignore her fears, not because I don’t value her counsel, but because if I acknowledge the foolishness of what I’m about to do, I might not do it. Especially with Kainda agreeing with Em. While Em is often the voice of caution, Kainda pretty much never backs down from danger. She’d normally take out that hammer and knock on the door while we stood here debating. But she seems nearly as concerned as Em.

Wright sighs and puts a hand on my shoulder. When he speaks, I can tell by the tone of his voice and the distant look in his eyes that he’s quoting someone. “The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That’s the time to listen to every fear you can imagine. When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go ahead.”

“General Patton,” I say, recalling the quote from one of many history books.

Wright nods. “No one fought or won battles like Patton. He captured more land and killed more enemies faster than anyone in the history of mankind. The point is, you made this decision already. It’s time to turn off your fear.”

“In other words,” Kat says. “Man up.”

I haven’t heard the phrase ‘man up’ before, but I understand the intent. I’m not sure if they’re speaking from true bravery—it’s hard to imagine someone being braver than Kainda—or simply from ignorance. They can’t yet fully understand the depravity of the Nephilim. But their advice is sound.

I’m doing this.

It’s time to let go of my fear.

Man up, I tell myself, and walk to the door. When I’m within arm’s reach of the black metal, I pause. What do I do? Knock?

Cronus’s words about passing through the gates of Tartarus return to my mind, “For the worthy, all that separates this world from the other is a door. And you, Solomon, were deemed worthy at birth. All you need do, is push.” Maybe the similarity between this door and the gates of Tartarus isn’t a coincidence? Maybe only someone who has been inside that strange realm and exited again would understand the significance?

I don’t have any better ideas, so I push.

The door opens as easily and as quietly as those massive gates of Tartarus did. But the sight on the other side is far more horrific than the barren landscape of Tartarus.

The room, if it can be called that—lair seems like a better word—is fifty feet tall, a hundred feet wide and perhaps two hundred feet long. By Nephilim standards, its average sized. By human, it’s an auditorium. But it’s not the size of the room that’s shocking, the fact that it’s lit by hundreds of glowing red crystals embedded in the ceiling or that it smells like a fresh corpse. What holds my eyes and fills me with dread is that skulls coat the walls, from top to bottom.

Human skulls.

Crap.

But that’s not the worst of it. A thick viscous liquid oozes out of the wall where it meets the ceiling. It rolls over the skulls, sliding through eye sockets and out of jaws spread in a perpetual scream. The odor, deep maroon color and thickness of the fluid reveals what it is: blood.

A lot of blood.

It pools at the bottom of the wall, filling a shallow moat before flowing away through some unseen drainage system. Hades has surrounded himself with the sight and smell of human death.

“Still think this is a good idea?” Kainda whispers to Wright.

“I never said it was a good idea,” Wright replies. “Only that he needed to overcome his fear and push forward.”

“Quiet,” Em says, still the voice of caution.

But even I’m not sure silence is necessary. The room contains a large stone bed, covered by a feeder skin blanket. My first thought upon seeing the blanket is that it must have taken a lot of feeders to form a cloth so large. But when I see no seams, I realize this skin was taken from a massive feeder, one that would have grown to the size of Behemoth had it been allowed to grow further.

A stone table and large boulder that must serve as a stool are the only other objects in the room. If you ignore the gore-fest covering the walls, the room is rather plain. What does he do in here?

That’s when I notice an aberration on the back wall. Some of the skulls look strange. Smaller. Distant.

There is a doorway. The smaller skulls are on a wall that’s further away. I start across the room without a word, but notice the footfalls of the others keeping pace. I pause and say, “You don’t need to come.”

No one replies. Their strident stares say enough.

They’re coming.

The cautious walk across the room takes nearly a minute. In that time, I become aware of a subtle sound. There is a hum, like a motor, somewhere behind the walls. The blood is not flowing as supernaturally as it appears to be. It is being pumped, like a fountain in a koi pond. As I near the open doorway, I move closer to the wall and wave the others to me.

Putting my lips close to Wright’s ear, I whisper, “Flashlight.”

He takes the flashlight from his pocket and hands it to me. The small device casts a bright beam thanks to its LED bulbs, which require very little power. I kneel down close to the trough of fluid by the base of the wall and shine the white light on it. The liquid is brown.

Not blood. The red glow from the ceiling gives it that appearance. It’s an illusion. I stand and place my hand against one of the skulls. “Stone,” I whisper.

It’s all an illusion. The room is designed to look like hell. It’s horrible enough to intimidate even hunters. Perhaps even fellow Nephilim. But it gives me hope. Hades might not be as bad as everyone believes.

I turn around to tell the others and find them lying prone on the ground.

Not one of them is moving.

I was so wrapped up in my discovery that I didn’t even hear them fall.

I rush to Kainda’s side, whispering her name. I check for a pulse and find it in her neck. The beat of her heart is steady, but not as powerful as it should be. I check Em next, then Wright and Kat. All the same. Without wound, but unconscious, as though sleeping. Then I see the residue of purple powder on the floor around them. It’s a potent sedative, but not life threatening.

Knowing the others aren’t in immediate danger, I tune my senses into the world around me. I am not alone. I know that now. But who is here with me, and how did they subdue the others without being detected?

A scent, previously masked by the stench of death, tickles my nose.

A Nephilim.

Hades is here.

The sound of splashing echoes from the next room. He’s no longer concealing himself. “Come Solomon.”

The voice is ragged, like a smoker’s, but deep and powerful. That doesn’t intimidate me nearly as much as the giant knowing my name. And it’s not lost on me that he could have subdued me with the others, but chose not to.

I free Whipsnap from my belt and walk to the next room, ready for an attack. But my bravery seeps from my body as I round the corner and see the horrors on display. Bodies, very real bodies—human and Nephilim—litter the floor. At the center of the carnage, lounging in a pool of purple blood, is Hades.

He’s worse than I could have possibly imagined.

9

The giant uses his two six-fingered hands like a ladle, scooping the thick, purple fluid over his head. It oozes over his face. Rivulets of supernatural plasma flow down his forehead, over his closed eyes and around his mouth, which is turned up in a grin. But the blood bath doesn’t hold my attention nearly as much as his bald head. I’ve never seen a bald warrior before. In fact, he’s more than bald, he’s hairless. No beard. No chest hair. No arm hair. The warriors are generally covered in blood red hair. But Hades has the smooth skin of an Olympic swimmer.

More surprising than the lack of hair on his head is the missing golden ring that should be covering his weak spot. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Nephilim warrior without one unless it was forcibly removed. That he’s not wearing one means he’s either supremely confident, ready to die or insane. Given the setting, I’m thinking door number three.

He picks up a blade. To me, it’s a sword. To the giant, it’s a razor. He draws the blade over his blood-soaked, bald head, filling the chamber with a scraping sound. After completing a pass, he shakes the razor in the pool of blood and begins a second pass.

A distant memory comes to mind and slams into my thoughts. I’m six. Same age as Luca. I’m sitting on the closed toilet in the upstairs bathroom with three dinosaur books clutched in my hands. The hot water heater next to me pops and hisses, fighting against the winter air flowing through the drafty window above.

“Why do you put whipped cream on your face?” I ask.

My father laughs, dips his finger in the white foam and holds it out to me. “Smell it,” he says. “Don’t taste it.”

I take a whiff and scrunch my nose. “Ugh. Yuck. What is it?”

He motions to the compressed air can, which looks an awful lot like a whipped cream bottle to me. I pick it up and speak the words aloud as I read them, “Shaving cream. For skin so smooth—” I stop reading and watch my father drag a razor across his cheek. He shakes the foam off in the full sink. “Aren’t men supposed to have rough skin?”

He smiles again. “Not according to your mother.”

“So you do this for her?” I ask.

He gives me a look that says, You know I do.

“Would mommy still love you if you had a beard?”

“I had a beard when she fell in love with me,” he says. “I shaved it off when I fell in love with her.”

I’m only six, but I get it. I know my dad would like to have a beard. He says so occasionally, but he shaves his skin smooth because he knows my mother prefers it that way. She doesn’t say so. Not with words. But she rubs his face a lot. And kisses his cheeks almost as much as she kisses mine. I wonder if I’ll shave for her, too, someday.

And then I’m back, out of the apple-shampoo scented bathroom of my youth and into Hades’s hellish den. But a question nags at me. Who does Hades shave for?

I consider backing out. He hasn’t shown any signs of noticing my arrival. Then I remember the others, passed out in the next room. He knows I’m here.

As the thick curtain of blood flows down his body and back into the pool, I notice a series of tattoos decorating his skin. They are ornate, expertly drawn symbols resembling others I’ve seen in the underworld. I recognize them as being similar to crop circles found around the world.

Ignoring the bodies strewn about the room, I do my best to sound casual and ask, “What do they mean? The symbols, I mean. The—the tattoos.”

So much for sounding relaxed.

I suppose it’s a good thing that I can’t feign indifference to the things around me. If I could, I imagine I’d be more like Hades than I’d prefer.

He draws the blade over his head again, and rinses it off.

Did he not hear me? Is he ignoring me?

“They are signs,” he finally says, his voice vibrating through my chest. “Of things that have come to pass and of things to come.”

Okay. Vague. But he hasn’t torn off my head and drunk my blood so we’re off to an acceptable start.

“More generally, it is the language of our fathers, passed down from the time before man.”

Less vague. Almost helpful. Perhaps there is hope for—

A curtain of purple blood rises from the pool, propelled by Hades’s right arm, sweeping across the surface. It careens toward me, threatening to saturate my body. Were it water, I would think little of it, but so much Nephilim blood would kill me, quite painfully.

A bubble of wind forms around me, deflecting the wave. The purple spray coats the floor around me, leaving a ten-foot diameter patch of clean stone around me. My reflexes saved me from the deadly blood, but I’ve also just confined myself to this ten-foot patch of floor. The circle of blood spreads out for thirty feet in every direction. I won’t be walking away. A single step with my bare feet would drop me to the floor.

That doesn’t mean I can’t cover the distance. A good leap, propelled by the wind would get me clear. But Hades isn’t about to give me the chance.

He rises from the blood pool, bringing up a sickle and swinging it at me with enough force to cleave me in two. I leap to avoid the strike, carrying myself high with a gust of wind.

More of the floor is covered with blood as the sickle and the arm carrying it spray the purple stuff in a wide arc. In fact, when I look down, I see very little floor that would be safe to land on. The wind carries me to the wall and I grasp onto one of the faux stone skulls that’s free of blood, Nephilim or the fake stuff.

“Hades!” I shout at him. “I need to speak to you!”

“Then speak,” he says, swinging again.

I leap to the opposite wall, carried by the wind.

His strike misses, but it wasn’t because I moved. He didn’t even come close to landing the blow. He wasn’t trying to hit me, I realize. I look back at the far wall and see that much of it is now coated in purple blood. At this rate, the entire chamber will be coated in the stuff and I will have nowhere to go.

“I was sent here by Cronus!” I shout.

The next swing comes close. I leap up, moving to the highest reach of the fifty-foot wall, just above the newest coat of purple blood.

“Cronus,” he grumbles. A sneer reveals his sharp teeth. “Cronus!”

His shout precedes a fresh attack. I barely escape the sickle blade this time, but I’m out of places to run. Most of the clean walls are close enough to Hades that he could reach out and pluck me from the wall. All that’s left—I look up—is the ceiling. A gust of wind carries me up and I jam my hand into a crack, flexing it tight so that my fingers hold me in place like a rock climber’s cam.

“Stop!” I shout. “Please! I don’t want to fight you!”

“Fight me?” he says with a laugh. “You have yet to even draw your weapon. I’m afraid that the whispers about you are exaggerated. You are a coward!”

My temper flares, but I don’t make a move. Instead, I attack with my words, “It would be easier to kill you than talk to you.”

“Then come, little one, show me.” He places the sickle on the floor next to the pool. “Kill me. Free me from this wretched world.”

I hang there, tempted to grant his wish. I have no qualms about killing Nephilim. But I need to know where the Jericho shofar is hidden. And I’ll never find out if he’s dead. My indecision lasts just a moment, but it is too long for the impatient giant.

“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 says.

“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 circum-stances 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?”

“I know where it was,” he says. “If it is still there?” He shrugs. “But not even I could retrieve it now. It is beyond my reach.”

“Tell me,” I say. “Where is it?”

“To the deepest realms you must go,” he says. “Beyond the dark gates.”

He’s speaking of the gates to Tartarus, but I thought that was the lowest point of the underworld.

“In the roost Edinnu, you will find the great horn.”

I clear my throat. “Sorry. That sounds poetic. It’s nice. Really. But do you think you could be a little clearer?”

“If you can resist a direct encounter with a seeker,” he says.

I can’t. We both know it.

“Then the less you know the better,” he says. “You will not forget the things I’ve told you. They will remain with you until the end of your days, whether that is today or a hundred years. You know where to start. Do not think about your path until you’ve arrived at the beginning. In this way you will protect the path from those that would seek out the shofar to destroy it.”

“They know about the shofar?” I ask.

He nods. “But not who protects it.”

“If I’m caught,” I start, worried that my knowledge of Hades could compromise his covert activities.

He rises from the blood bath, standing to his full height. Like me, he wears minimal leathers, though his are the size of ship sails. “I,” he says, “will not be here, or anywhere my brothers will follow.”

For a moment, I’m lost, but then I figure it out. “You’re going back to Tartarus?”

He nods slowly. “I have lived with the stench of blood and filth, death and torture for as long as this old heart can bear. If I do not leave for the release of Tartarus, I would rather return this body to the dust from which it came and be no more.”

I have never once seen sadness in the eyes of a Nephilim, but there is no disguising the emotion as it grips Hades. He shakes the blood from his arms and steps out of the pool.

The wind carries me back, giving him room to move. It’s a subtle movement, but it drains my energy more quickly. I glance back at the large doorway one hundred feet away. Will I have enough energy to cover the distance in the air?

“How is my old friend?” he asks.

The question is so casual that it catches me off guard.

“Cronus,” he says. “Is he well?”

“He was concerned for you,” I say. “Said it had been a thousand years.”

Hades confirms the time with a nod. “A necessary break as more of my kind, and yours, populated the underworld. And Eurymedon?”

My muscles tense at the memory of the winged, two-faced Gigantes that pummeled me in Tartarus. Cronus explained that the Gigantes, like Nephilim and Titans, are born from half-demon blood, but they are not conceived and born to human mothers. They are created. Like Xin. Like Luca. But while Luca and Xin were created to mimic me, the Gigantes were created for one purpose. Destruction. Eurymedon dwarfs even the tallest of Nephilim. “I can’t say I’m fond of the Gigantes.”

He laughs and it sounds genuine this time. “Perhaps you will change your mind if given another chance?”

“I’ll pass,” I say. I sense the conversation drawing to a close, but there is one last question nagging at me. And next to the shofar’s location, it is the second most important question I have. “Hades, what does it do? The shofar.”

“You know the story?” he asks.

“Joshua, an Israelite general and forty thousand men marched on Jericho...a Nephilim city. They marched around the city once a day for six days while seven priests blew into these shofars. On the seventh day, they marched around the city seven times, all the while blowing their horns. Then when the people shouted, the walls of Jericho fell.”

“The walls of Jericho,” Hades says thoughtfully. He closes his eyes, drifting. “The walls...”

“You were there,” I say. “Weren’t you?”

“The walls that fell at Jericho were more than mere physical walls. The shofar’s blast shook the city walls, but they decimated the walls protecting the blackened hearts of the Nephilim. Some power in the sound strips the darkness away and exposes us to the truth of what we are, how we live and who we fight against. The pain is unbearable to a Nephilim. Four thousand Nephilim warriors were slaughtered that day. More than enough to kill forty thousand men.”

He’s right about that. A ten to one ratio isn’t a challenge for a Nephilim warrior especially when the Israelites were armed with Bronze Age swords.

“But when Joshua’s army stormed the walls and entered the city, they found four thousand warriors bowed down and weeping. Weeping! Not one of them fought back when the swords pierced their heads. They craved death. All were slain.”

“Except for you,” I note.

“On the sixth day, I defiantly stood atop the wall when the horns sounded. I was the first to feel the shofar’s effect. When night came, I fled, and in the morning, I watched the stronghold’s destruction from a distance. But it was the shofar’s lasting effect that prepared my heart for Tartarus and the mercy granted there. If not for the shofar, I would have returned to the world with a dark heart, like the others. And if not for the shofar, I would not have returned at all.

“There were seven in the beginning. But they were sought out and destroyed one by one. I volunteered to lead the seventh and final raid. When the shofar was found, I slew my brothers, hid the weapon in the depths and claimed failure. Ambush. Then, as now, I bathed in the blood of my brothers and my intentions were never questioned. And here I have remained. Until now.”

He steps past me, heading for the door to the front room. I follow him, floating over the spilled blood, but my energy quickly wanes and my altitude drops.

“Hades,” I say, fearing I will fall into the blood and die.

He looks back at me from the doorway where he stands over clean floor. “You have a strength within you that has been granted to fewer men than I have fingers. You can make it on your own.”

Just two feet from the floor, I grit my teeth and push. I’m carried faster, but my vision fades in response. I’m not going to make it! A wellspring of fear pumps adrenaline into my body. My vision fades and for a moment, a jolt of energy carries me up and away. I’m crossing the distance now, but not in a protective bubble of air. I’ve simply managed to shoot myself as though from a cannon and now I’m sailing, limp, across the chamber.

My eyes close. I feel myself falling again. I think I should brace for impact, but have no strength to do so.

Just when I think I’m going to strike the floor, I’m caught.

Hades.

A grin slips onto my face as he places me on the ground.

“What makes you smile, boy?” the giant asks.

“You passed my test, too.”

“What test?”

“You didn’t let me die.”

“Nor will I,” he says. “Watch for Cerberus in the days to come. He will protect you if need be.”

Cerberus? I think, but don’t ask. I feel the hard stone floor beneath me now. “You’re leaving?” I ask, drifting off to sleep.

“I will prepare the way for you,” he says. “Ave atque vale, Solomon.”

I hear the large door open, and then close. Hades has left. The last of my energy wanes and I drift off to sleep, surrounded by blood, bodies, skulls and hope.

12

I dream of home. Of the house I grew up in. I’m in the front yard. Small details leap out at me. The tall tree that arcs over the street is heavy with the red buds of early spring. Its thick bark peels off in great chunks, perfect for building action figure forts. A slab of sidewalk is lifted up by the tree’s roots, perfect for jumping bikes. The puddles in the driveway are the same familiar oblong shapes, filled by a recent rainstorm and full of wriggling worms drawn out by the moisture. After the puddle evaporates, they’ll die and dry out—food for the ants.

I breathe deeply and catch several distinct scents: salty ocean air, the residue of the red berries growing on the evergreen shrubs, melted crayons and cut grass. I’m sitting on the stairs to the front door. There are eight of them. Chipping black paint curls up from the cast iron railings. I peel off a flake and snap it between my fingers until all that remains is dust.

Everything about this place feels familiar.

Safe.

I’m suddenly gripped by sadness, as deep and profound as any I have felt.

My old friend is dead. The thought pulls tears from my eyes and as the saline slides down my cheeks, a snowflake drifts down and settles on my knee. It’s joined by a second. And a third. And now the sky is full of white. A blizzard.

My first blizzard was in nineteen seventy-eight. I was four, but I remember watching the storm in amazement, my breath fogging the windows as the snow slowly grew taller than me and then taller than my father. This storm is worse. In minutes, I’m buried up to my waist. The neighborhood around me is reduced to a solid sheet of white, as though erased from the page.

My old friend is dead, I think again.

The cold shakes my body, just a shiver at first, but then violently.

I don’t want to leave!

I want to be home!

I want this life!

“Solomon,” Kainda says, shaking me awake.

I blink my eyes, focusing on her face, and for a moment, I’m not happy to see her. The faint memory of ocean air is destroyed by the strong scent of Nephilim blood. I remember my childhood home perfectly. But at times, it is a curse. My dreams can recreate the past so realistically that I feel like I’ve just been there. The memory of that place clutches my heart. Tears, real this time, drip down my cheeks.

“Solomon,” Kainda says with uncommon softness. “What’s wrong? Who died?”

“W—what?” I ask. Did the others somehow experience my dream?

“You spoke of someone dying. An old friend.”

I don’t feel like explaining. “Just a dream,” I say, wiping away the tears with my bare arm. “Wasn’t even a person.”

With the last pangs of regret fading along with the dream, I sit up. Em and Kat aren’t far away. They’re helping Wright get to his feet. Kainda offers me her hand. I take it and stand.

“What happened?” Wright says, rubbing his head. “Feels like I got hit with a hammer.”

“Me, too,” Kat says.

I can tell by Em’s squinted eyes that she feels the same, though she’d never admit it, at least not in front of other hunters. Kainda probably has a headache, too, but she’s so stubborn and tough that she’s managed to erase any sign of pain.

“How about you?” Kainda asks me. “Is your head—”

I smile at her continued concern.

“What?” she says defensively.

My smile widens.

She grunts and says, “Shut-up.”

“My head is fine, by the way,” I say before stretching. “Slept like a baby.”

Kainda eyes me and with all humor gone from her voice, and asks, “What happened?”

The others hear the question and come closer. They’d all like to know.

“Hades,” I say. All of them tense at the name.

“He was here?” Em asks.

I nod. “Put the four of you to sleep with that purple powder.”

“The four of us,” Wright says. “What about you? You were sleeping, too.”

“Oh, I was just tired,” I say. Four sets of glaring eyes tell me I need to elaborate on that statement, and fast. I point to the next room, which is now full of drying Nephilim blood. “I was in there.”

Kainda is the first to realize the implications of the plasma-coated ceiling, floor and walls. “In there? How?”

“Like this,” I say. Their faces, when they turn around and see me hovering a few feet above the floor, are priceless. What I wouldn’t give for Mira’s Polaroid camera right now.

“You...can fly,” Kat says, sounding dubious.

“I didn’t know, either,” I confess. “But I didn’t have much of a choice. It just kind of happened.”

Kainda stays on task, nonplussed by my new ability. “But you spoke to Hades.”

“Yes,” I say. “And he’s not as bad as everyone thinks, or rather, as he wanted everyone to think.” I tell them about my encounter with the giant, summarizing as best I can.

When I skim past his instructions about the shofar’s location, Em asks for more details. I explain Hades’s warning about mind readers and she and Kainda agree. We’ll figure out each step as we go along. Knowing the location ahead of time could be dangerous, especially if one of us is captured on the way.

I reach the end of my story, explaining how my energy waned, how Hades caught me and laid me on the floor with the others. When I mention Cerberus, neither Em nor Kainda show any recognition. Wright and Kat, however, go wide-eyed for what must be the thousandth time since they arrived on the new world of Antarktos.

“Seriously?” Kat says. “A giant three-headed hound?”

I shrug. “It wouldn’t be the strangest thing I’ve seen. But it’s something or someone none of us has seen before. So, if you happen to come across a three headed...something, maybe be sure it’s trying to kill you before shooting at it.” Then I finish my story with, “Ave atque vale. That’s what he said when he left. It’s Latin, but I’m not sure what it means.”

“Hail and farewell,” Wright says.

“You speak Latin?” Kat asks, sounding surprised.

“It’s from the Army,” he explains. “When a new commander takes over, there is a dinner where the previous commander speaks those words. It’s a sign of honor to the new leader and a goodbye. Historically, the words have been spoken to generals, sometimes kings.”

There’s that word again. King. I ignore it with a casual shrug and say, “Weird.”

All four of them turn to me like I’ve just farted.

Em shakes her head. “Hades, the most feared of all Nephilim, honors you as a new leader, perhaps a king—his king—and all you can say is, ‘weird?’”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” I say. “There isn’t time.”

No one argues the point, but I suspect this conversation will be continued at some other time.

“The shofar is deep,” I say. “Very deep. We’re going to have to move fast.”

“We’ve been moving fast,” Wright notes.

“Faster,” I say. “Time is...different in the underworld. What feels like a day could be a week. I spent two years down there and later found out that twenty years had passed on the surface.”

“Won’t we be discovered?” Kat asks. “Aren’t there hunters, and other...things looking for us?”

“If we’re fast enough, they won’t catch us by the time we reach the gates. After that, I don’t think anyone will follow us.”

“The gates?” Kainda says. “We’re not going to Tartarus?”

The fear in her voice seems out of place. Having seen the truth of Tartarus, I no longer view it as a land of eternal torture, but a place of freedom. Granted, to those unwilling to be separated from the burden of their personal darkness, it is a land of torture. But for those like Cronus, Hades and me, it is a paradise—a land of mercy, even for those born with the unfortunate circumstance of having a demon for a father.

“We’re not going through the gates,” I tell her. “We’re going past them. Deeper. I don’t know how, but we’ll figure that out when we get there. But we can’t stop. Time will not be on our side. If we linger, we might return to find the battle already lost.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Kainda says.

I turn to Kat and Wright. “Can you keep up?”

Kat just looks insulted.

Wright nods. “I survived hell week. This can’t be much worse.”

“I hope you’re right,” I say, and then head for the exit. I pause by the closed door. “Stay quiet until we’re out of Olympus.”

Wright pats me on the shoulder. “Then we’ll run like hell. Got it.”

Despite looking twenty years apart, Wright and I are the same age. I feel a kinship with him. In some ways, he reminds me of Justin. “Right,” I say, and then push the door open.

I take one step and stop. The open door has revealed two figures. One is fifteen feet tall—not quite a full-grown warrior, but close enough. He’s got long red hair bunched in messy dreadlocks. He holds a large double bladed ax in each hand, and he looks like he can use them.

The other is thin and wiry, like Xin, but green skinned and sporting tufts of wildly growing red hair. He’s dressed in rags, and seems to be covered in some kind of caked on muck. Given the odor rising off him, it could be something worse. His chosen weapon is...Whipsnap! I’m confused for a moment, but then recognize the stone mace and bone tip. He has the original Whipsnap that I created. This offends me deeply, like he’s taken an old friend of mine hostage, but I don’t linger on the weapon.

Something else has caught my eye. While I have never seen anything like these two before, they share a matching feature I know well.

Their blue eyes.

My eyes.

Like the thinker clone, these two share my eyes.

These are two of my three remaining duplicates. My stomach twists with revulsion. I felt the same thing upon discovering Xin was my duplicate, but he turned out to be a brother, more human than Nephilim despite his appearance.

But these two, the hatred in their eyes is easy to read. They are the hard-hearted sons of Nephil through and through.

The pair snaps into action. I’m not sure what they’re going to do, but I respond with overwhelming force, thrusting my hands out. A gust of wind flows past me. My whipping hair stings my forehead.

Then they’re airborne. Part of me wants to stay and take care of these two, but I hear shouting voices echoing from distant hallways. We are found.

“Change of plans,” I say to the others. “Run. Now!”

13

The slapping of feet on stone pursues us downward through the network of subterranean tunnels. The hunters giving chase have abandoned stealth. Their numbers have bolstered their confidence, and since we’ve given up stealth in our flight, tracking us is a simple thing. This has become a race.

Wright and Kat, who had been saving their flashlight batteries earlier, click their lights on, illuminating our path. Kainda, Em and I don’t need the flashlights, having long since grown accustomed to the pitch black, but the light brings out details that would normally remain hidden and allows us to pour on the speed.

Our path is winding, but downhill. There are more direct routes to the gates of Tartarus, but they would be tight fits for a group of five and might require squeezes that Wright and Kat are not accustomed to navigating. So I stick to the under-ground’s version of a freeway, following a shallow stream that was once a raging river. The stream leads toward Asgard and more familiar territory. It eventually merges with a larger river—what I call the High River. In the past, it flowed to a waterfall that emptied out in the massive chamber containing the ruins of New Jericho. But the last time I saw that cavern, after leaving Tartarus, it was nearly flooded. If we can make it to the water, we’ll be okay. Hunters are good at many things, but swimming, since there is little call for it, is not one of them.

Several miles into our downward run, I slow to a walk and sniff the air.

“What are you doing?” Kainda says, sounding urgent and confused.

“Trying to get a sense of the—”

“Is your nose not working?” she says, taking a deep breath through her nose. “They are nearly upon us!”

“If it makes you feel better,” Wright says, his hands on his knees, his head lowered. “I can’t smell a thing.”

“Don’t worry,” I say. “We’re safe for now. You can only smell them because I am pulling the air toward us more quickly. They’re miles behind us now.”

“I thought you hunters were supposed to be real hotshots,” Kat says. She looks winded, but ready to keep going if need be. “How come they can’t keep up?”

Em smells the air. “Because they’re not trying to catch us anymore.”

I nod. “At least half of them have separated from the main group, though the two...creatures are still with them.”

“It’s a trap,” Wright says, doing a half way decent impression of Admiral Ackbar from Return of the Jedi.

The quote and memories of seeing the movie with my father and Justin makes me laugh. Wright and I are definitely part of the same generation.

“Seriously?” Kat says. “You’re quoting movies?”

“The point is,” I say, “Sooner or later, we’re going to be cut off. Those that make it ahead of us will try to stall us long enough for the rest to catch up.”

“Hunters working together, against us,” Em says. “This isn’t normal.”

She’s right. Hunters typically think only of themselves, at least while they’re still loyal to the Nephilim. They must have a very good reason to cooperate. “It’s Ophion.”

“Who?” Em and Kainda ask together.

“Nephil. Ophion was his original name. He’s a Titan, like Cronus, one of the first twelve born of human mothers and demon fathers. He must have promised rewards, or more likely threats. They’re being compelled.”

“Which gives us an advantage in combat,” Wright says, standing back up. “They might be moving together, but they’re not going to fight together. Not like us.”

“Right,” I say, starting downward again, though at a slower pace. If the group behind us starts closing the distance, we’ll speed up, but I don’t want us to be exhausted when the hunters, who are likely already ahead of us, spring their trap. “Just steer clear of the two clones, if—”

“Clones?” Wright says, sounding surprised.

I’ve tried to fill Wright and Kat in on as much as I could since I met them. I left nothing out, including my explanation of Luca, Xin, the thinker clone and the three mystery clones, all created in a failed attempt to duplicate my abilities. So he understands the implications of what I’ve said. He just hadn’t seen it.

“Are you sure?” Em asks.

Apparently, neither did she.

Kainda shakes her head, looking angry and confused. None of them noticed.

“The eyes,” Kat says. “They had your eyes.”

“That’s all they have,” I say. “I should have killed them before we ran.”

Silence falls over the group as we jog downhill for what feels like several hours, merging with the High River’s vast tunnel, full of stalactites and stalagmites, and continuing down. I can still smell the group following us. When we slow, they slow. They’re keeping what they believe is a safe distance, so they won’t be detected. They’re following our scent trail, left every time we step on the stone floor, determining our distance by the odor’s strength.

Wright jogs up next to me. The glow of his flashlight bounces over the terrain ahead with each step. “So I think I have this time paradox licked.”

It’s the last thing I’m expecting him to say, and I stumble when I glance at him.

He looks at his watch. “We’ve been running for twelve hours. I’ve never run for twelve hours straight before, have you?”

“Occasionally,” I say, recalling the times I have fled for my life in the underworld.

“Down here, right?”

I nod. Good point.

“I’m tired, but I’m not about to collapse,” he says. “I should have passed out from exhaustion long before now. And I sure as hell shouldn’t be able to have a conversation right now. So my mind perceives the passage of time the same way it would on the surface, just like my wrist watch. But my body perceives time differently. I feel like I’ve been running for an hour. Not twelve.”

His observations are sound. I’ve experienced these things in the past.

“But, here’s the kicker. Assume we’re the world’s best marathon runner, able to complete a twenty-six mile race in just over two hours. Hell, lets round it to two hours. I’m no good with math.”

I smile and don’t bother telling him that I am, in fact, good with math. I sense he’s getting somewhere and don’t want to ruin his train of thought.

“If a marathon runner could keep up the pace for twelve hours he would travel...”

When his pause lingers, I say, “One hundred fifty-six miles.”

He shakes his head at the absurdity of it all. The idea that we’ve run so far is—I gasp.

Wright smiles. “You’re figuring it out? Using that memory of yours?”

When I run, I subconsciously count my steps. I always have. Since leaving Hades’s chambers, I have taken one million, two hundred twenty six thousand, nine hundred and sixty steps. With an average three-foot stride, that’s three million, six hundred eighty thousand, eight hundred and eighty feet. Divide by five thousand two hundred eighty feet in a mile and you get, “Six hundred ninety-seven miles.”

Wright smiles. “Which is—”

“How far we could travel in two and a half days on the surface if we maintained the pace twenty-fours a day and never took a break.”

“A little more precise than my guess, but yeah. So now we know that two and half surface days have passed in the last twelve hours.”

“But the effect grows more significant the deeper we go.”

“Then it’s been growing more significant this whole time. As long as you keep moving, and counting your steps, we can figure out how much time has passed.”

He’s right. It won’t work if we’re standing still, but we can guesstimate how much surface time has passed based on the number of steps we’ve taken. Our minds and bodies don’t perceive actual time down here, but miles are miles and it takes the same number of steps to cover them.

A distant sound tickles my ears. The rushing water of the High River sounds muffled ahead. Quieted. I pull the air from below toward us and smell it. Water and stone. That’s all there is. There are no hunters cutting off our passage.

I test the air from behind, counting the seconds it takes the hunting party’s scent to reach me. My eyes go wide. “They’re closing in.”

“Are the others near by?” Kainda asks, testing the air. “I smell nothing.”

“No,” I say, “they’re gone.”

“Gone?” Em sounds flabbergasted. It doesn’t make sense to any of us.

Then we reach the strange silence of the river and everything is clear. The downward sloping tunnel ends at a flat pool of water that rises several feet by the minute as the river adds to it.

The New Jericho chamber has fully flooded and the waters are rising up toward the surface. There’s at least a half mile of water between us and the chamber and then several more to cross to the other side.

“This is the trap,” I say.

“What about the—”

I cut off Em’s idea, saying, “The side tunnels leading to New Jericho will be flooded, too. To get to the gates, we need to backtrack—”

The sound of slapping feet on stone rises in the distance.

“—through them.”

Wright and Kat are quick to take up positions behind a pair of boulders, aiming their modern weapons up the tunnel. Wright looks at me. “You don’t kill people, right?”

“I don’t,” I say, though I’m not sure how we will escape this if I don’t. I think he’s about to tell me as much, but then he says, “Then you focus on the two clones and we’ll take care of the hunters. I have no qualms about taking them out.”

“Nor do I,” Kainda says, unclipping her hammer.

Em draws two knives. “Nor I.”

Kat looks down the site of her rifle. “I think you all know where I stand.”

I’m glad for their willingness to take that burden from me, but I would still like not to kill these hunters. They aren’t our enemies. They just haven’t figured that out, yet. But if I hinder the others’ ability to defend themselves, it’s likely that some or all of them will die. The worst part is that we’re in such tight quarters I’m not sure if I can use my powers without also affecting my friends.

I remove Whipsnap from my belt and prepare to fight the first real battle of the war for Antarktos.

And the world.

14

They charge as a mob, each hunter vying for the front spot and the first shot at glory. They might be cooperating in a general sense—to herd and trap us—but when it comes down to the fight, these hunters are battling as individuals, not a team.

I shout at the oncoming horde, “Stop!” But the big half-me, half-warrior gives a battle cry that drowns out my voice. Does he think I could talk these hunters out of the fight? Is their loyalty in question?

When Wright says, “Steady,” to Kat, I know I’ll never get a chance.

The hunters aren’t thinking. They rush through the bottleneck, open targets for Em’s throwing knives and our special ops friends’ rifles. When they close to within a hundred feet, Wright says, “Fire.”

I hear a series of coughing sounds. Three hunters at the front of the group drop clumsily. One of them face plants into a stalagmite rising from the chamber floor and I hear a crunch as his neck, or something in his face, cracks.

I glance at Kat and watch her calmly pick a target and pull the trigger. She repeats the action again and again, firing off a shot about once a second. And the hunters fall just as fast, each one dead. I can tell, by the way they don’t reach out when they fall. They’re like toys that have been switched off. In contrast, Wright fires bursts of gunfire. It’s not exactly wild, but he lacks Kat’s perfect aim. His targets fall wildly, reaching out, spinning and stumbling. They’re not all dying, but they’re stumbling up the hunters behind them.

Em crouches next to Kat and I hear her say, “See if you can get the big one.” She taps her forehead.

Kat nods, adjusts her aim and pulls the trigger. The giant’s head twitches, but he keeps on coming. She fires four more rounds, but the effect is negligible and the reason is obvious. The warrior-me can heal like a Nephilim, but lacks the weak spot on his forehead.

As nearly half the hunters drop under the skillful barrages, the big warrior howls. The undisciplined charge morphs into something else entirely. The smaller clone falls in line behind the warrior and all of the hunters follow suit. They close the distance like a snake, winding their way through the stalagmites and river water in two lines, each protected by the regenerative girth of the big clone.

Wright opens up on the warrior, unleashing a full clip. Purple spots of blood appear on the giant’s body, but they disappear just as quickly. A grin appears on the monster’s face. Like our former masters, this creature enjoys the pain.

“It’s no good,” Wright says, falling back toward the water. Kat ceases fire and pulls back. They are clearly a formidable pair with modern projectile weapons, but all they’ve got for hand-to-hand combat is a pair of knives. The incoming force is armed with an array of weapons that can out-power and outreach the knives.

Em, Kainda and I step forward. It’s our turn.

Kainda turns to me. “Can you slow them? Stumble them? Something to give us the advantage?”

“To affect all of them, I would have to hit us as well,” I say.

“But we’ll be ready for it,” Em says.

Kainda nods. “Do it!”

I turn back to Wright and Kat, who are crouched and aiming, waiting for targets to appear. “Get down!”

I drop to my stomach and assume that my team has done likewise. Then I focus on the air. The breeze is rolling down from above, pulled by gravity. I could send a blast of air up at the group, but that would require a more concerted effort, and I want to be at full energy when they arrive. So I pull the air down, forcing it faster. The howl of the approaching pressure wave fills the cavern.

Wind whips my hair.

And then it hits.

My ears pop and grit scours my exposed skin. The pulse of air is gone as quickly as it came. Hunters shout in surprise and anger. It worked, I think, looking up. Hunters are scattered, just twenty feet away, but they’re already picking themselves up. I catch a glimpse of the wiry me with the tufts of red hair. He’s already back on his feet and staring at me, a sick smile on his face like he knows something I don’t.

“Solomon!” Wright shouts. “Above you!”

I look up in time to see the head of an ax descending toward my skull. Without thought, I roll to the side. Sparks fly as the giant metal blade strikes the stone floor where my head had been. The ground beneath me vibrates as the giant lands. He used the wind, I realize, to cover the distance with a jump. He swings again, sweeping the blade horizontally. I push off the ground, and I’m carried up by a gust of wind. The ax passes by beneath my face, severing a shock of my blond hair.

Before the last strike is complete, he swings with the second ax, bringing it down with the strength to cleave my body in two. I leap back, out of the way. Is he really trying to kill me? I wonder. I thought Nephil would want me alive. Then I remember his blood. In theory, he could kill me and bring me back with his blood if he was fast enough, a fact that does little to comfort me. Better to be dead than a vessel for Nephil.

The attack persists without pause, and I know this giant won’t grow tired. I’m forced back as blow after blow narrowly misses me. When my foot strikes water, I know I’ve run out of room. Something has to change, I think, no matter the cost.

I focus. Hard. The giant’s progress is arrested. A manacle of stone rising from the floor binds one of his legs in place. It’s the same technique I used to trap Pan, but only one leg to conserve energy and time.

He swings at me, not knowing what has happened and misses without me needing to dodge. I am out of range. Despite having altered the world in an unnatural way, I’m not exhausted by the effort, but I think that’s thanks to adrenaline. I’m going to feel this later. But for now, it’s my turn to press the attack.

He swings again, grunting with confusion. I leap up, bending Whipsnap back as far as it will go. As the ax blade passes beneath me, I let go of the mace end. The shaft springs straight, adding its force to my strike. The spiked mace strikes the monster’s wrist, shattering it. The result is both disturbing and advantageous. The ax falls away, propelled by the force of the missed strike. But it hurtles straight for Wright. He sees it coming and leaps away, but not before the heavy handle strikes his leg across the shin. I don’t hear the bone break over the warrior-me’s howl of pain and ecstasy, but I can tell it did by the look on Wright’s face.

Wright lands in knee deep water, clutching his leg.

Stupid, I think at myself. Stupid! My powers are as dangerous to my friends as they are to my enemies.

But there is no more time to berate myself. The warrior swings at me again, and I block the strike with Whipsnap’s staff, which flexes. The force of the strike combined with the flexing staff propels me through the air. I land twenty feet away, splashing into the water. A gust of wind picks up around me, bracing me for landing as it usually does, but instead of cushioning my fall, it carves a hole right into the water, and I continue falling through it like it’s not even there. By the time I realize what has happened, I’m thirty feet down.

I cut the wind and water envelopes me.

How did I do that? I wonder. The air around my body repulsed the water and I fell through it. But can I direct myself through it? I turn toward the surface, focusing on the water around me, pulling trapped air out of crevices and down from the surface. A bubble forms around me and I can breathe.

I push the air up, and it takes me with it. Faster. Faster!

I break the surface, rising from the water like a missile fired from a submarine. As I cross the tunnel, I see Kainda to the left, swinging her hammer wildly. She’s surrounded. In danger of being overwhelmed.

Em fights on the other side of the tunnel, keeping her enemies at bay with an array of flung knives, but several of the perfectly aimed projectiles are struck from the air before reaching their targets. The spindly clone has drawn the original Whipsnap and blocks the knives with perfect accuracy. Then he turns my weapon on Em, using its reach and his long arms to open a straight gash across her lower back. She grunts in pain, but presses her attack. She will fight until the end, which I think might come sooner than later.

I see Kat last, now by Wright’s side. He’s propped up against the wall. Both are firing their weapons at the warrior, who is about to throw his second ax at the pair. Kat might be able to dodge the strike, but Wright is lost.

A gust of wind directs me toward the giant and I announce my presence with a battle cry, drawing his attention and convincing him to keep the ax. He turns to me, but he’s too slow. I plunge the bladed end of Whipsnap into the giant’s eye, shoving it through to his brain.

I draw my blade back out and aim to strike again. With the blade tip just inches from the monster’s other eye, my attack is stopped. I glance back in time to see the end of a whip wrapped around the staff, and then my weapon is yanked from my hands.

One of the hunters has stopped me, and taken my weapon. I leap away, out of the giant’s reach. His eye is already healing, but he acts disoriented by being blind in one eye. “Aim for his eyes,” I say to Kat. “It will slow him down.”

I land and face off against the hunter. For a moment, I’m concerned it’s the dual whip-wielding Olympian I let go and sent to help the escaped prisoners. But I quickly see that it cannot be him. This whip-wielder is a woman. And now she has Whipsnap.

“I don’t want to kill you,” I tell her.

“Nor I you,” she says, pointing the blade end of Whipsnap at my chest. “Yield. Now.”

“You can join us,” I say. “Fight for your brothers and sisters again.”

“I am fighting with them,” she says.

“Not with them. For them.”

She scoffs at the idea, and I can see I’m not going to get anywhere. I move in close, preparing to fight her, hand-to-hand, when suddenly her eyes go blank. She drops Whipsnap at my feet and collapses. There’s a knife in her back.

Em. I turn to thank her, but she’s fully engaged with four hunters and the clone. Not engaged, I realized. Retreating. She’s out of knives. She used the last one to help me. The wiry clone moves in fast, striking Em’s shoulder with the mace end of the original Whipsnap. The blow is hard and sends Em reeling back toward Wright. She clutches her shoulder.

I pick up the new and improved Whipsnap and rush to their aid. I leap over the giant’s back and feel a rush of air as he swings and misses. When I land, Kainda is at my side, hammer at the ready. She’s covered in cuts and bruises, but the hunters that had surrounded her now lie in a heap.

Had this just been hunters, we would have won this fight, but the Nephilim clones are too much in this small space. A mass of shouting voices turns my eyes further up the tunnel. More hunters.

The fight is lost.

Wright echoes my thought, shouting, “Retreat! Get the hell out of here!”

I’m not sure how that’s possible. I look over my shoulder at the water.

The water...

The Nephilim, who can drown, will not follow us there.

“In the water!” I shout. Em and Kainda take defensive stances as they walk backward into the slowly rising waters. Kat wrestles with Wright, trying to get him up. They hobble toward us, but every step is agony for Wright.

“Leave me,” he says, shrugging away from his wife.

Kat growls out her words. “I’m not going to—” A stone flung by a slingshot-wielding hunter strikes her. A direct hit could have killed her, but the glancing blow only knocks her unconscious.

Standing on one leg, Wright thrusts his wife toward me. “Take her! I saw what you can do with the water. Take them all. Now!”

I don’t argue, but I stand and stare dumbly. “Solomon,” he says, looking me in the eyes. “This is war. People die. Find the shofar and get back to the FOB. That’s your mission. Now go!”

He turns away from us, slapping in a new magazine, and opens fire on the hunters advancing into the water. “Go!” He shouts one more time, spurring me into action.

I wade back. When I’m waist deep, the warrior shouts, “No!” He raises his ax, and for a moment, I think he’s going to throw it at us, but then he screams, swings down and severs his own leg. Purple blood sprays from the severed limb, but it quickly starts to grow back. Free of the stone binding him in place, he charges forward, into the water, limping on his half formed leg bones.

I wrap my arms and Whipsnap around Em, Kainda and Kat. “Hold on,” I tell them, “And to her.”

Em and Kainda hold on to my weapon with one hand each, and grip Kat with their other hands. We push back into deeper water, sinking below the surface. The warrior clone’s angry shout chases us beneath the water. His face plunges into the water, staring at us as we sink out of sight.

As we descend, my thoughts turn to Wright’s fate above. He’s dead, I know, perhaps dying right this moment—the recipient of the giant’s rage. It’s my fault, I think. It’s all my fault.

15

I’m so lost in my despair for Wright that I forget where I am, who I’m with and the fact that all of us need to breathe. Like a Nephilim, we’ll drown in the water. A sharp elbow in the side reminds me.

I close my eyes and focus. The first and only time I tried this I only had to transport myself thirty feet. This time, there are four of us and the opposite side, which could also be completely flooded, is miles away. I address the most immediate concern first, drawing air from the stone walls of the flooded High River tunnel. A bubble forms around our upper bodies, providing air to breath. Pulling the air toward us is tiring, but keeping it in place is far easier.

Em and Kainda are momentarily stunned by what’s happening. Neither knew I could do such a thing. That makes three of us, I think.

“What should we do?” Em asks after catching her breath. I can tell that she’s uncomfortable about leaving Wright behind. As am I. And it takes all of my will power not to race back up to save him. What keeps me in place is that, one, he’s likely already dead, and two, his dying wish was that I complete the mission. He understood better than all of us that this fight, this war, isn’t about any one person, but about all people. If one of us dies, so be it. If all of us have to die to save the world, then that’s the cost.

Wright was a good man. I could have learned a lot from him. So I’m not going to ignore his last lesson. “We need to finish the mission.” It’s what Wright wanted, but I can’t help feel like I’m the one condemning him.

“But how?” Em asks. “We can’t just stay here. And we can’t go back up.”

“We move forward,” Kainda says.

Blood drips from a wound on her lip. I want to wipe it away, but my hands are locked in place, holding Whipsnap so the others can cling to it like a rollercoaster-ride safety bar.

Kainda looks at me, oblivious to the blood on her face. “You can do it.”

Her confidence in the wake of our defeat is kind, but I’m not feeling it. She must sense this because she quickly changes tactics. “Push forward, Sol. You owe it to Wright. To Em. To me.” She nods to Kat. “To her.”

Guilt is a strong motivator for some people, but it kind of just sucks my strength. The sphere of air closes in around us as I lose focus.

“Solomon,” Kainda says, her voice growing harsh. “Look at me.”

I look all around her before finally settling on her eyes, burning with something I can’t quite place. The strangeness of the look keeps my attention on her. “You have become someone I thought you would never be, and you have made me someone I believed was impossible, but I cannot love a man who refuses to finish a fight. Win or lose this war, you will take this to the end, or you will lose me.”

She’s just spoken forty-nine words, but all I heard was something like, “blah blah love blah blah.” The rest of it slowly sinks in, leaving me confused. Is she talking about the possibility of loving me? Is she saying she loves me now? This is not only a huge step for me—a girl, or woman as the case may be, has never professed love for me before. That it’s Kainda, who I figured would never use the word, makes it even more powerful.

It centers me.

Gives me strength.

“Hold on,” I say. “Tight.”

When I’m sure that everyone is secure, I expand the bubble a bit, rotate us so we’re facing downhill, and push deeper into the flooded river. I move slowly at first, using most of my energy to weave through the stalagmites and stalactites turning the tunnel into an obstacle course. Twenty minutes later, we leave the tunnel behind, entering the massive chamber containing the ruins of New Jericho.

The city is below us, but out of sight, concealed by the liquid gloom. My first time here, I was just a boy, and I was chased away by the Nephilim, Ull, who would later become my master. My first return was after Ull’s death at my hands, and I discovered a statue of the beast, erected in his honor. On my third visit, the chamber was flooded, and though I did not see the city again, I felt its dark presence below. But this visit is different. I’m not fleeing the underworld. I’m heading deeper. On a mission. And the ghosts of the past, including this dark place and the memories it holds, can’t distract me from it.

I accelerate slowly, cutting through the water like a hot needle through wax. The bubble is hard to maintain while moving, but the air around us reduces the friction of the water on our bodies, creating the perfect environment for cavitation, which allows us to move very fast—best guess, we’re at fifty-two knots, or roughly sixty miles per hour.

We travel in silence, each lost in our own personal train of thought. Em is thinking of Luca. I can’t read minds, but I’ve seen that worried look on her face before, and every time I’ve asked, her mind was on my younger clone. Kainda, on the other hand, is likely replaying our last battle in her head, over and over, imagining ways it could have turned out differently. Her clenched jaw says as much. Me? I’m not thinking about anything.

I’m focused.

And not on the mission. Or on avenging Wright. Or finding the shofar. My thoughts are narrow: keep the bubble open and keep moving. With each passing minute and mile, I push harder and harder, because the effort is taking a toll. I can’t do this forever. And if I stop, we’re all going to drown.

What a way to go that would be. Solomon Ull Vincent, the last hunter, the first and only natural human child born on Antarctica, bonded to the continent and gifted with extraordinary powers, capable of killing Nephilim and dinosaurs, and the only human to set foot in Tartarus and return...killed by drowning. Something about the idea feels like the taunting of past schoolmates, and it fuels my effort for another minute.

But exhaustion is catching up to me.

How far have we come? Five miles? More? It’s impossible to tell without knowing our true speed. The other side of the chamber could be several miles away or a hundred feet. I start to consider our options, when I feel one of my passengers shift.

Without looking, I know it’s Kat. She’s between Em and Kainda, but pulled up against my body. She shifts again with a moan. She’s waking up.

“This might not be good,” Em says as quietly as she can over the rush of water flowing around the air bubble.

I’m not sure what she’s talking about until Kat wakes up and says, “Where’s Wright?”

I feel her head turn back and forth. She can’t see a thing, I’m sure. Even by my standards, the abyss is dark.

“Where’s my husband?” she asks, growing angry.

“We—had to leave him,” I answer.

Honesty is supposed to be the best answer. Even liars say so. But in this case, trapped in a bubble, surrounded by endless water, I think a temporary lie might have been the best option.

“Go back!” she shouts.

“We can’t,” Kainda says, then with a more scolding tone adds, “Calm down.”

Kat reacts to the demand about as well as I’d expect Kainda to, which is to say, not well. She leans forward and then drives her head back into my gut, knocking the air out of my lungs. She has no idea what kind of danger she’s in, only that her husband has been left behind to die.

“Stop,” I say, but the words get lost as I gasp for air.

Kat twists, taking Em and Kainda’s grasp as restraint rather than support. “Let go of me!”

Rather than breathing, I focus on slowing down. I can’t maintain this speed without any air in my lungs, and the bubble around us is rapidly shrinking. I take a deep breath, hoping to explain when Kat manages to wrench herself free, plant a foot against my chest and shove. She slips out of the bubble and is sucked away into the water.

My surprise at this is so severe, that my concentration breaks. The bubble supplying our air bursts. Water envelops us. The pressure is intense. I can feel the weight of all this water pushing on my chest, urging my lungs to let go of that last breath, while my lungs are still urging me to gasp after being struck in the gut.

I reach out for the fleeing air bubbles, trying to draw them back. If I can just reform the bubble, I might be able to get moving again. I might be able to get back to Kat.

But it’s not going to happen. The bubbles bounce through the water, rising toward the surface somewhere above. My energy is gone. I have pushed my abilities to their limit several times over the past few days—stone manacles, flying, and now cavitating through water with three passengers—and while I can do more with each attempt, the end result is still the same. Mind numbing exhaustion.

I need more time, I think, as my vision fades. I need to practice, to build skill and endurance. I’m not ready to fight a war yet. These despairing thoughts and a thousand others flash through my mind as the dark, wet world around me turns black and my consciousness slips away.

16

I awake from my dreamless slumber with a gasp. Last I knew, I was about to drown. But since I’m breathing, I’m pretty sure I’m not dead. Which is good, but confusing. The first question that needs answering is how I survived—a question that is directly tied to answering my second question, where am I?

The space is lit by a single glowing crystal embedded above me. It reveals the brown stone just inches from my face. I’m floating face up, on my back. My ears are partly in the water, so the echo of my breathing sounds funny. I remember floating like this when I was a kid. Not in pools. I had issues going to pools. The water was always too cold and my scrawny body embarrassed me. But I loved to float in my parents’ tub. It was the big kind. A Jacuzzi tub with heated jets. I would float there, daydreaming, until my fingers and toes looked like raisins, or until my parents feared I’d drowned and came to my rescue.

I rub my fingers together. Raisins.

The memory brings a smile to my face. Then a frown. Will that world ever exist again? My frown deepens with the knowledge that my childhood, despite the teasing and bullies, was a paradise compared to kids in other parts of the world. Compared to what Em and Kainda endured, it would have been something closer to Heaven.

Something bumps my foot and I flinch away. My hand goes instinctively to my waist and I find Whipsnap locked in place on my belt.

“Solomon?” It’s Em. “You’re awake?”

I lift my foot out of the water and push off the ceiling, bringing my body upright. Em is just a few feet away. Her head is tilted up so that her chin is just above the water line. She has a hand jammed into a crack in the ceiling so she doesn’t have to tread water, like I’m doing now.

I try to speak, but water flows into my mouth. I spit it out, kicking to rise out of the water, and I bump my head on the ceiling. First things first, I think, looking for a handhold. I find a knob of stone above me and grip it. I stop kicking and pull myself up, an easy task while my body is ninety-five percent submerged. With my body stabilized, I tilt my head out of the water, looking over my nose at Em. “I’m awake.”

I turn slowly, taking in our surroundings. We’re in an oblong divot in the ceiling. “We’re still in the New Jericho chamber?”

“Yeah,” Em says. “Right above where we stopped. We followed the bubbles up.”

I don’t reply. My eyes have landed on Kat. Her glare looks as angry and savage as any I’ve seen before, and I’ve seen the worst this world has to offer. She blames me for Wright’s death.

So do I.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “About everything.”

She just stares.

“Are you—”

Em puts her hand on my submerged arm and squeezes. The gesture silences me and says, Now, is not the time.

“I’m just sorry,” I finish.

I twist, looking for Kainda and when I don’t see her, I panic.

Em senses my next question and says, “She’s okay. There are bubbles of trapped air all across the ceiling. She went to find the way out in case we had to move you while you were unconscious.”

“How long was I out this time?” I ask.

“Not long,” she says. Hunters don’t usually keep time. It’s pointless in the underworld. But Em knows I prefer modern human time and has made attempts to learn minutes and hours. “Best guess, thirty minutes.”

That’s actually much faster than usual. The few times Tobias, Em’s father, pushed me to my limit, I would sometimes crash for six hours. I once slept for eight and couldn’t be woken. A half hour is a dramatic improvement. Of course, it would be even better if I didn’t topple over like a fainting goat every time I pushed myself. It’s a weakness. I need to overcome it, before it gets someone killed, which was almost the case this time.

“I’m going to look for her,” I say, slipping under water.

Em grabs me and pulls me back up. “You can’t leave. What if you go two separate directions?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I tell her, then slip beneath the surface again. I float down a few feet and close my eyes. I won’t be able to see her anyway. Nor will I hear her, or detect her using any other traditional sense.

I reach out with my thoughts, trying to connect with the water around me. While I don’t feel temperature changes physically, I am connected to the land. I should be able to know whether it is hot or cold.

And then, I do.

It’s not like a voice, a weather report or any other kind of tangible transfer of data. I just know.

It’s cold.

The others must be freezing. I expand my reach, merging my sense of touch with the molecules of water surrounding me. I have been bonded to this continent since the day of my birth. In many ways, it’s an extension of my own body, or perhaps more accurately, I am the focus of its power. Either way, not only can I direct the natural world of the continent, I can also sense things through it. I can feel earthquakes like a muscle spasm or a bird landing on a branch two thousand miles away like an itch on the sole of my foot. I have to clear my mind and focus on exactly what and where I want to feel. The challenge is not to let it all in at once. Letting in an entire continent’s worth of sensory information would likely destroy my mind. I’ve never tried it, but I suspect the result would not be beneficial to my health.

I start my search twenty-five feet out and expand it. I feel the water’s currents, fueled by the High River’s flow. The sharp shapes of New Jericho’s ruins emerge in my mind’s eye. My reach expands quickly now, moving out through the featureless water with ease. I’m sensing nearly two miles out now, looking for anything moving. There are scores of small fish, but nothing the size of a human being.

How far could she have gone in thirty minutes?

I stop when I reach the far wall and our exit. She’s not there. Did she leave? Maybe she drowned and sank to the bottom? I was searching for something moving. If she’s dead, I might never find her.

Distracted by thoughts of losing Kainda, my reach pulls back quickly, sifting through the water already explored. Two miles. One mile. Three hundred feet. Two. One. Twenty five. My eyes twitch, about to open.

That’s when I see her, just two feet away. Her face is carved into my mind by the strange sense, glowing luminous blue in the water. She must have been inside my twenty-five foot radius when I began my search. Was she watching me?

I imagine Kainda, the mighty warrior, watching me like a love-sick schoolgirl. The thought brings a smile to my face and I “see” her do the same without opening my eyes.

She slips through the water, and gently places her lips against my own.

My connection with Antarctica is severed like an amputated limb, though the sensation is far more pleasant.

When I open my eyes, she’s right there, lips pressed against mine. Her brown eyes look almost black in the gloom. I’m transfixed, frozen by the touch of her lips. She pulls away slowly, letting no other part of her body touch mine. Then she turns her head up, and swims.

I stay there, hovering in the void, still feeling her lips on mine. My stomach is in knots. My chest feels ready to burst. Is this what love feels like? I wonder, but then I realize that it’s actually what asphyxiation feels like. I need to breathe.

I kick to the surface, careful not to rush and smash my face on the ceiling. I slip out of the water’s grasp, find my handhold and turn to the others. “What did you find?” I ask Kainda—all business—knowing that any hint of a romantic gaze would be unwelcome, both by Kainda because she’s, well, Kainda, and by Kat, who just lost her husband.

“We can’t swim out,” she says. “I nearly didn’t make it back.”

“We don’t need to swim out,” I say. “The exit is just a few miles away. I can get us there.”

“You’re sure?” Em asks.

“I’ll be tired after,” I admit. “But you can help me if I need it. Even if I do pass out again, we don’t have much of a choice. We need to push forward. We’re deep underground now. We’re losing surface time.”

To my surprise, it’s Kat who replies. “He’s right. Let’s go.”

There is no emotion in her words, just cold calculation. She swims in front of me, glaring at me. I feel like a mouse staring into the eyes of a lion. Then she turns around and waits. I remove Whipsnap from my belt and bend the staff around her. She holds on with both hands. Em and Kainda duck beneath the water and rise inside the loop of my arms and Whipsnap. They hold on with both hands.

I focus on the air trapped against the ceiling, pulling it toward us from all the neighboring bubbles, which makes the effort easier. The swirling air whips our hair and quickly dries our bodies, pushing the water away. When I’ve gathered enough air around us, I push us down into the water. As the red glow fades above us, I turn toward the exit, accelerate and race through the depths.

17

Reaching the tunnel that exits the New Jericho chamber proves simple enough. Of course, most things are when you’re not being pursued by half-demon monsters and trained killers, or being head-butted in the stomach by someone you’re trying to rescue. I’m exhausted when we finally reach a side tunnel that’s not flooded, but I don’t pass out.

When I take my first furtive step out of the water and discover my legs have been transformed into Jell-O, I wonder if we’d be better off letting me sleep. But I decide against it. I need to build up a tolerance.

Kainda braces me. “Do you need—”

“I’m fine,” I say.

“That’s great, kid,” Kat says. She places a hand against the plain stone wall and stands motionless. “But in case you three haven’t noticed, I’m blind down here.”

“Did you lose the flashlight?” Em asks.

“I might have put it down when I was trying to save my husband,” she says.

Though I cannot feel the cold, I shiver. Her anger is palpable. But is it dangerous? Will she turn on us? Her relationship with Wright reminded me of my Solomon/Ull split—gentleness and intellect matched with passion and energy. But now that balance has been disrupted by the removal of Wright, Kat’s counterbalance. If I’d remained all Ull and no Solomon, I would have become a monster. I was a monster. Will the same thing happen to Kat?

“Hold on,” I say, placing my hand on the wall. I reach out, feeling layers of stone and pockets of trapped gas. Then I find what I’m looking for. It taxes my already weary body, but I manage to extract two crystals from the stone, one blue and one yellow. They’re brighter than any of the crystals I’ve seen, perhaps because they’ve never been exposed before.

I fight a wave of dizziness as the crystals fall into my hand like a snake’s disgorged meal. I brace myself, closing my eyes. I’m fading. After a deep breath and a shake of my head, I fight back the exhaustion and turn my attention back to the crystals. It takes just a moment of thought to bind them together, forming a glowing chunk of crystal the size of a large walnut. I hold the newly formed light source up and find it does a better job lighting the tunnel than the flashlight did. The gray stone walls glow blue and yellow with a strip of green where the colors meet.

I hold the light out to Kat. She stares at me, gauging me in some way I can’t quite understand. “Was it hard for you?”

“I’ll be okay,” I say, thinking she’s talking about retrieving the crystals from the stone.

“Was leaving him hard?” she asks, this time sounding like she might tear my head off. “Or is abandoning your friends something you hunters do?”

That stings, because not leaving my friends behind has always been a priority for me.

Em knows this more than most and she responds before I can. “Solomon sacrificed his life to save my brother. He didn’t have to. He knew it was a trap. He knew he would likely die. But he gave himself up and risked everything to save him. He spent three months in Tartarus, what you would call hell, as a result.”

“There was a time when I wanted nothing more than to kill Solomon,” Kainda says.

Her admission, while well known to Em and me, is a surprise to Kat. Her eyes go wide a little as she turns to Kainda.

“Given the chance,” Kainda continues, “I would have crushed his skull and taken pleasure in the scent of his blood.”

Can’t say I’m enjoying the details, but they’re driving the point home. Kainda and I were once mortal enemies.

Kainda crosses her arms. The story still makes her uncomfortable. “But I was wounded—mortally—by one of the cresties, what you call, crylos. He could have left me to die. It would have been a simple thing. The cresty matriarch was powerful. Hunters were closing in. Solomon was not as strong back then. They would have killed him. But he stayed. He fought for me. He saved me. And...he forgave me.”

Kainda’s final words nearly bring a smile to my face. Kainda, one of the most feared hunters, daughter of Ninnis, just delivered a fairly convincing morality lesson about forgiveness. My mind is officially blown.

When Kainda is finished, Kat turns her eyes back to me. She wants to hear my answer.

“I will regret leaving your husband behind every day of my life,” I say. “But I will also learn from it. He said, ‘This is war. People die.’ He wanted me to finish the mission. To win this fight. To do what it takes even if that means losing a life.”

Her head sags. Her shoulders drop. With a shake of her head, she says, “You got it wrong.” When she looks up again, there are tears in her eyes. “War is the act of taking lives. A lot of lives. On both sides. Leaving Wright behind was just the first of many to come.”

“Not if I can help it,” I say.

Faster than I can react, she’s in my face. “You can’t help it, kid. That’s the point. People are dying right now.” She stabs a finger upward. “On the surface. Some of them in your name. And now, we’re dying down here, too!”

My patience evaporates and some of that Ull passion comes out. “What would you have me do?” I shout. “Give up? Stop fighting? I didn’t bring you to Antarctica. That was you! You and the rest of the screwed up human race, in the wake of a worldwide catastrophe, decided the solution was to kill each other over a new chunk of land. That’s why you’re here. To kill people. I’m just trying to save people.” I turn away from her. “I’m trying to save everyone.”

I shake my head and start to walk away. “We’re wasting time.”

“You’re right,” Kat says, stopping me in my tracks, but is she talking about wasting time or my tirade?

“You’re right,” she says again, this time with a hint of sadness. “I just wanted to be sure Wright didn’t die to save a fraud.” She steps past me, leading the way into the tunnel with her glowing crystal.

“Kat,” I say.

She pauses.

“Despite what he said, I’m pretty sure Wright died to save you. We just happened to be there.”

She considers this, gives a nod and continues on without another word.

I try to follow quickly when I realize that Kat has no idea where she’s going, but my weak legs fail me and I fall to my knees. Kainda picks me up and helps support my weight.

“Go with her,” I say to Em, motioning to Kat as she descends deeper into the underworld.

With Em and Kat in the lead, we fall into a slow, but steady pace, traveling for what I calculate is three surface hours. We merge with one of the larger tunnels that lead directly to the massive chamber containing the gates of Tartarus and the decomposing remains of Behemoth. From there we will have to find our way deeper, but it will not be easy, not if the giant albino centipedes still hunt these grounds. My fears are put to rest just a minute later when we come upon the corpse of a thirty-foot centipede. Its head has been crushed.

Just beyond the centi-corpse, we find a second, and a third.

“What happened to them?” Em asks.

“Hades,” I say, realizing the truth when I count the tenth dead centipede. “When he left, he said he would, ‘prepare the way.’ I think this is what he was talking about.”

Ten more minutes and twenty-three more dead centipedes later, the cavern opens up. We’re there. Em approaches the tunnel exit slowly. There is no sign of trouble, but we’ve been trained to never enter an exposed space without first searching for danger.

Em’s search lasts about half a second. She ducks down and back. Her eyes are wide. Her skin goes so pale that even her freckles fade.

Kat pushes past her and takes a look. When she turns back, she’s equal parts confused and afraid.

Kainda puts me down and moves to take a look, which frustrates me because I’m supposed to be the leader of our little ragtag rebellion, and I’m going to be the last to see whatever it is that has them all so spooked. Kainda looks for just a moment, then turns back to me. Unlike the others, she seems unfazed by what she’s seen, but her clenched jaw reveals she’s hiding her fear. She waves for me to join them. I stand, testing my legs without her help, and find myself mostly recovered. My muscles twitch as I walk, but I can walk. The question is can I run? Because I suspect that might be necessary soon.

I squat down and crouch-walk to the edge of the tunnel exit. Directly ahead is nothing but endless space. The chamber is massive, miles in every direction. If not for the enormous piles of bones—human, Nephilim and other—scattered around the space, its scale would be lost.

After a deep breath and a silent promise that I will control my fear, I peer around the corner and look toward the gates of Tartarus. The black doors are at least a mile off, and the flaccid corpse of Behemoth, now mostly a skeleton, lies nearby. But the source of everyone’s fear is much closer.

A towering stone spire stretches from the floor to the ceiling hundreds of feet above. Several natural columns like this one help support the naturally formed chamber’s ceiling. But only this one has Hades bound to it by massive chains. He’s covered in drying purple blood, though there are no wounds evident on his fast-healing body. He’s being tortured.

His torturer hovers in the air, held aloft by black tendrils.

Ninnis.

He’s alive.

His head tilts to the side slightly. He laughs. The sound is sickening. Inhuman. Like a hundred different voices trapped in a single body.

This is not Ninnis.

“Welcome, Solomon,” Ninnis says, his voice deep and booming, like a Nephilim’s.

I step out of hiding. He knows I’m here.

“Nephil,” I say in greeting. “Or do you prefer Ophion?”

He waves his hand dismissively, turning to face me. “Whichever you prefer.” Ninnis’s eyes are solid black. The black tendrils extend out of his body, but don’t physically alter it. There are no wounds. This is the spirit of Nephil in its raw form, contained within Ninnis’s body, but able to extend its reach outside of it.

Despite my rising fear, I analyze the situation. Nephil is here, alone. That hasn’t worked out so well for Ninnis in the past, which he must know. So why is he here? To talk? That doesn’t fit.

Unless he’s not alone.

I turn back to the others, looking into the darkness of the tunnel behind them. I pull the air toward me and sniff as it flows past me. One hundred feet. Two hundred. Three hundred. There! Just a football field away, hidden behind a bend is the gang of hunters and the two clones that pinned us in the High River tunnel and killed Steven Wright.

We’re trapped.

Again.

18

“Stay close,” I whisper to the others. “We’re not alone.”

Kainda, Em and Kat leave the shelter of the tunnel and join me in the wide open space. We head for the center of the chamber, keeping a steady distance from Nephil, while getting as far from the tunnel as possible. We’re severely outnumbered, but there is plenty of room to run if need be. Plus, out here in the open, I can use my abilities in a much bigger way. Trouble is, I’m still feeling a little tired, a fact that Nephil quickly picks up on.

“You look weak, hunter.” Nephil lowers himself toward the ground. He raises a hand toward Hades. “Though, you are certainly faring much better than our mutual friend.”

I glance at the giant and notice something I’d missed before. He’s not breathing. My eyes dart to his forehead. The dark purple blood drying on his bald head nearly conceals the wound, but I see it—a two inch slit. I look back to Ninnis and find his sword, Strike, hanging from his waist. The first twelve inches of the blade are coated in Hades’s blood.

“No,” I whisper, then louder, “You killed him?”

“He betrayed me,” Nephil says. “Betrayed all of his brothers. His life alone could not repay what was taken.” He grins. “Fortunately, he has so much more to give.”

“He knows,” I whisper to Kainda.

“Yes,” Nephil says, as though he could hear my words as easily as though I’d shouted them. “I know...everything. Not even the mighty Hades can resist the touch of my spirit.”

Despite the fact that Hades was a Nephilim warrior with a reputation for bloodlust, his death causes me great sadness. He had tasted the freedom of Tartarus, yet returned to the underworld with the Nephilim. He gave up a life of peace, living among the enemy, his true intentions concealed by the blood and gore that repulsed him. And now he has paid the cost for that sacrifice, with his life. He has been erased. As though he never was.

But my memory of the giant, and the lesson to be learned by his sacrifice, will live on.

My eyes, wet with tears, look beyond Nephil, to the gates of Tartarus. He was so close. Just a mile away. He could have covered the distance in a minute. Anger replaces my lament.

“I’m going to throw you through those doors,” I say, stalking toward Nephil.

A howling wind fills the chamber, summoned by my unconscious.

“I am the storm,” I tell him.

Thunder rumbles through the cavern.

“Solomon,” Kainda says.

I ignore her. “I am the wind.”

Ninnis’s hair whips wildly as a gust of wind strikes him, but the tendrils hold him still.

“Sol,” Em says, and I detect the warning in her voice.

“I am the—”

“Hey kid!” It’s Kat. “Cut the melodramatic bull crap and turn around!”

I turn.

And face an army.

It’s not just the hunters. Or my two clones. There are at least fifty warriors as well. Some step out from behind stone pillars, others from behind bone mounds, and still more step out of side tunnels all around.

Nephil chuckles. “Like I said, I know everything. I missed you at Hades’s chambers by hours, but was able to track his descent. We found him here, just short of his salvation. Once possessed, the mind gives up its secrets rather quickly. I know about the Jericho shofar, Solomon. I know what it does. How it works.” He grins with a burning hatred that not even Ninnis could achieve. “And I know where it is.”

No... This can’t be. Not even I know where it is. Hades gave me vague hints that I’m supposed to figure out along the way to prevent this very thing from happening.

To my surprise, Nephil moves away from me. We’re surrounded. Out-numbered and out-muscled. Escape might be possible, but not without exacting a toll on my already weary body. He knows that, too, I think. He’s not here to waste time trying to kill me. He’s here to slow me down. Or rather, that’s why this small army is here. Nephil intends to find the shofar first!

“Take them,” he says, before his tendrils, moving like squid legs over the stone floor, carry him away.

“Ninnis!” I shout. “Resist him! Fight!”

“Ninnis is no more,” Nephil says as he drifts away. “His voice has been silent for some time now.”

I’m not sure why I’m reaching out to Ninnis. He’s as black-hearted as the rest of the Nephilim and hunters now closing in around us. But I know he never intended to give himself fully to Nephil. If the man could fight back, return to himself, it could disrupt their plans. But it seems even Ninnis has been lost.

Wright. Hades. Ninnis. Even the stranger slain by Pan. I can feel their deaths adding weight to a newly forming burden. This war needs to end—I turn to face the force encircling us—but not, it seems, without fighting another battle.

“We can’t defeat them,” Kainda says.

“We don’t need to,” I reply. “We need to follow Nephil. Down.”

“Where?” Em asks.

This, I don’t know. Nephil is now out of sight. “We’ll break through the circle and figure it out from the—duck!”

An arrow zips past our heads, carried high by a gust of wind. The shot was intended for Em. It serves as a trigger. The hunters rush in. Five make it close before I can act, but the rest are knocked to the floor when I bring the air above rushing down.

Kainda meets the five attackers first, kicking one in the gut and backhanding another.

“Kain,” Em shouts, lifting her single remaining knife.

Kainda draws her hammer, while kneeing a man’s chin, breaking his jaw. With a glance, she sees the hunter approaching Em. She twists the hammer in her hand and Em throws the knife—at Kainda.

The action not only confuses me, but the attacking hunter as well. Before either of us understands what’s happening, the knife deflects off the hammer’s stone head and punctures the hunter’s heart. He drops to the floor with a look of surprise frozen on his face.

“Geez,” Kat says, equally impressed. “Take this,” she says to Em, tossing her a knife. “You’ll do better with it than I will.”

Kat, who’s rifle is missing, draws her silenced pistol and starts dropping the hunters I’ve knocked to the floor. I hadn’t intended to kill the men and women, just immobilize them, but I don’t say anything, despite my growing discomfort.

This is war.

People die.

But they don’t have to.

A woman screams, not in pain, but in fright. A female hunter lies on the stone floor. Kainda stands above her, hammer raised.

“Stop!” I shout.

To my surprise, everyone listens.

My instinct is to give some kind of speech, expose the error of their ways, turn them to our side, but there isn’t time for that. The hunters are closing in.

I back away from the two hunters still standing, and the woman cringing on the ground next to two dead bodies. Em, Kainda and Kat know enough to stay close to me. I focus on the air, moving it slowly. I’ve done this trick before, to fuel and starve a fire in this very chamber, but this time, I’m starving the hunters.

As one, they fall to the ground choking and gasping. Their faces turn red. Desperation fills their eyes. I have removed the oxygen from the air surrounding them, and just when their bodies are about to give in to death, I return it. Some fall unconscious, some wheeze, but all are incapacitated. Their lives are spared.

The warriors break into a jog. They’ll close the distance in seconds.

I try the same trick. It doesn’t work. They’re either holding their breath or know that killing me, or at least knocking me out, will undo the effect.

“What do we do?” Em asks.

Axes, swords, maces and spears rise up as the gods of old close in. They’re dressed for battle, wearing the fine armor of their various tribes: Egyptian, Sumerian, Norse, Olympian, Aztec and more. Wings open wide, making their presence even more massive and blocking any and all escape routes. From beneath the wings come long scorpion tails, twitching and eager to sting.

I try to push them back with a wind, but only manage to slow them down and drain my energy. Their united front is too large, and there are no natural katabatic winds to call to my aid in the underground.

We back away until we’re standing at the feet of Hades. He seemed so confident. But here he is. Dead. Maybe he was wrong? Maybe everything in this screwed up world is just wrong? And all of this—all of it—is just humanity and inhumanity, acting out in some base instinctual way, like Japanese fighting fish who fight to the death for no other reason than the instincts that drive them.

A shadow falls over us.

I look up.

A gargantuan body descends.

I move to defend, but notice the thing’s trajectory and pause. It lands between us and the warriors. The thing is twenty feet tall and concealed beneath a cloak, perfectly camouflaged to look like the plain gray stone that composes much of the underworld. When the cloak billows upon landing, I see that the inside is also camouflaged, but brown. We could walk right by it and never know it was there. The cloak is unfastened and falls to the floor behind the massive bare feet, revealing the pale-skinned legs and torso. Like Hades, its head, what little of it can be seen as it hunches forward, has been shaved bald. Its arms stretch out, all four of them, each wielding a tremendous curved sword.

For a moment, I think this must be some Indian god Nephilim. Shiva or something. But then it turns its face toward me, and then another, and another. Each of them looks just like me.

My sixth clone is Cerberus, a combination of me and a Gigantes.

Speaking one word at a time in three slightly different voices, Cerberus says, “Go. Solomon. Now!”

19

I don’t move. I can’t. The realization that my sixth clone is a three-faced, four-armed giant is staggering enough, but the faces and voices, are recognizable versions of myself. The tone. The emotion. The concern. This creature might be different from me in almost every physical way, but I sense its core personality is very similar to mine. With the exception of Luca, this monster might be the clone most similar to me.

When it turns to me and says, “Remember. The. Baseball. Card. Bully,” I under-stand why. Somehow, beyond my understanding, my sixth clone ended up with my childhood memories.

It was 1988, just months before I came to Antarctica. I was thirteen. My cousin, Shawn, who was twice my size and an avid baseball card collector, had come to visit. Shawn, Justin and I walked to Fred’s Baseball Card Shop. Shawn bought six packs of cards, chewing the cardboard flavored bubble-gum sticks all at once. Justin picked up an equal amount of Garbage Pail Kids cards. And I thumbed through the box of comic books at the back of the store.

The place was frequented by a lot of kids, so I didn’t think much of it when some other boys my age started looking around at the back of the store. When I caught one of them looking at me, I smiled, said, “hi,” and went about my business.

Upon leaving the store, the boy who’d been staring at me, confronted me. Using expletives, some of which I had never heard before, the boy claimed that I had been his second grade nemesis at Beatle School. I denied this, of course, claiming to have attended Cove School on the other side of town, which was true, but that was third grade. In second grade, I did indeed go to Beatle School. I imagined the boy younger and recognized him as Rick Carson, the boy who had tortured me in second grade. Funny that he remembered me as the antagonist.

But my lie, backed up by Justin, who knew to lie as well, was convincing. Rather than just beating me on the spot, Rick offered me a five-second head start. It was generous, but I wasn’t a very physical person. I knew I couldn’t escape. And while Justin was much more athletic than me, I knew he wasn’t a fighter. But we had a trump card that day. Shawn. He casually stood between me and Rick, looked back at me and said, “Go ahead. I’ll see you at home.”

And I ran. Justin rode his bike next to me. We fled the scene, out of breath, but unharmed. Half way home, we stopped and looked back. Rick was nowhere to be found. So we waited and ten minutes later, Shawn walked into view like nothing had happened. He simply held up a Mark McGwire baseball card and said, “Got a McGwire.”

The memory comes and goes in a flash. Cerberus is filling the role of Shawn. I trusted that my cousin would be okay handling the bully. He’s asking me to do the same with him. This isn’t quite the same situation, but there is little choice. Every second I wait, Nephil gets closer to retrieving the Jericho shofar first, and I have no doubt he’ll destroy it if he does.

“Thank you,” I say and leave my new ally behind. I round the pillar to which Hades is bound and find three Nephilim warriors blocking my path. It’s not good, but it’s better odds than what Cerberus is facing. A battle cry pulls my head around and I see Cerberus charge. His arms move like blurs, the blades flashing in the dull light provided by the crystals embedded in the ceiling high above. With uncommon grace and power he launches himself into the Nephilim, combating several of them at once and holding his own.

Inspired by my clone’s bravery in the face of certain death, I mimic his battle cry and charge the warriors blocking my path.

But the warriors don’t back down or even flinch. They shout right back at me and charge.

“Em,” I say as she runs by my side. “Aim for the center warrior.”

She nods and aims the large knife retrieved from the hunter’s body. I ignore the red blood staining the blade and focus on my enemy. I harness the wind, bringing it down from above, over my head and straight for the head of the central warrior. Then I bend it up and pour on the speed.

The giant’s hair whips up as the blast of condensed air strikes. His head snaps back as though punched. But my intended target—the gold crown protecting its weak spot—remains unaffected.

What the—

“Solomon,” Em says, sounding worried as the distance closes between us and the warriors.

“It’s not coming off,” I say, and then I see why. Twin streaks of purple blood trickle down the sides of the Nephilim’s forehead and cheeks before getting lost in the deep red beard. The golden crown has two circular indentations, just above the beast’s eyes.

They nailed the rings to their heads! Removing them won’t be so easy anymore. If the Nephilim topside have made the same change, then the human forces, including our band of escaped prisoners, are in a lot of trouble. I’m a little surprised they didn’t think of it sooner. The pain must be excruciating—just the way they like it.

Wind, bullets and physical strength can no longer remove the rings, but I have other options. Unnatural options.

“All of you,” I say to Kainda, Em and Kat, who come to a stop with me. “Be ready!”

I close my eyes and reach out toward the Nephilim. I feel the air and the building pressure in it as the three massive warriors push through. I feel their leathers, tailored from the skin of their feeder young. And I feel the metal bands, forged from iron and gold—metals pulled out of Antarktos—my continent.

The ground shakes beneath me as the giants close in.

I ignore their approach and focus on the atoms of gold and iron, pushing them apart. The metal resists my unnatural urge. With a shout, I shove them apart, changing the density of the metal to something more closely resembling chocolate syrup.

Confused grunts open my eyes and I see the rings oozing down over the Nephilims’ faces. Their charge comes to an abrupt halt as they paw at the sticky metal now covering their eyes.

“Now!” I say.

Kainda throws her hammer. Em lets her knife fly. And Kat squeezes off three silenced rounds.

All three women find their targets.

All three Nephilim drop, their existences from this world and any other, extinguished forever.

While Em and Kainda rush to retrieve their weapons, a shout of pain catches my attention, mostly because it’s my voice. Cerberus is surrounded. I count six Nephilim warriors lying dead, and there are still forty more closing in around him. But the source of his pain isn’t from one of the warriors, it is from the other two clones.

The bigger of the two has severed one of Cerberus’s arms with an ax. Blood—red blood—flows from the wound. Cerberus falls to one knee, clutching the wound with one hand, still brandishing swords with the other two.

But he is done. He can see it as well as I can.

One of his faces looks up at me. For a moment, I’m lost in his gaze. It’s like looking in a mirror. Then he smiles, gives a faint nod and stands, swinging around in a wide arc. The speed of the attack catches the larger, ax-wielding clone by surprise. His arms are raised high, ready to strike, when the long sword strikes his waist and cleaves him in two.

The bold attack is effective, but flawed. And Cerberus knew this. By turning to face the ax-wielder, he left his back open to attack. And the wiry clone, the one using the original Whipsnap, leaps into the air and drives the spear tip deep into Cerberus’s core. The blade emerges from his chest, right where his heart should be. It’s a killing blow.

Without a sound, Cerberus closes all six eyes and falls to the ground. Once again, I feel an intense sense of loss for something that should terrify me. Cerberus was an abomination—a combination of my stolen genetic material merged with that of ancient Gigantes, which were lab created to begin with, thousands of years before modern labs existed. But his heart was good. His blood, human. And he gave his life, willingly, to save me and all of mankind. Once I got past the strangeness of his appearance and the fact that we share thirteen years of memories, I think we would have been friends. More than friends. Like Luca and Xin, we would have been brothers.

I shake my head, anger welling up again. The body count on my side of this conflict is rising far too quickly. People die in war. I understand that. But I can’t accept the idea that people I’ve never met will die for me.

The wiry clone yanks Whipsnap from Cerberus’s back, unfazed by the fact that it is now coated in red blood, and charges toward me. He’s followed by the warriors, who take to the air.

“To the far wall,” I tell the others, pointing the way. “Go!”

“I won’t leave you,” Kainda says.

“I don’t intend to stay long.”

After just a moment’s hesitation, Kainda acquiesces and runs with the others—straight toward a solid wall of stone.

20

I stand and wait.

The creature’s bare feet slap over the stone floor.

Its oval head bobs with each step. The frizzy red hair growing in splotches all over its body, like on a young feeder, bounces. Muscles beneath its dirty, green skin tense, as it raises the original Whipsnap, ready to strike.

The creature is fast and outpaces the flying Nephilim, giving me about thirty seconds to exact revenge on Cerberus’s behalf.

It strikes, swinging the blade end down toward my head. But it has failed to utilize the power of the flexible staff, and I easily block the blow. Though the clone isn’t a skilled fighter, it stands a good three feet taller than me.

“You are unworthy,” the thing hisses. “I am the best of us.”

I quickly realize that the “us” in “best of us” refers to the six clones and me. His boast serves only to increase my anger.

“You are the least,” I say, and I release the flexed mace the moronic clone hadn’t yet noticed. The metal, spiked ball snaps forward, striking and destroying the thing’s knees. It shrieks in pain, hopping back.

But then it grins, taking pleasure in the pain, like the warriors, and it begins laughing when the wound quickly heals.

“As I said,” the clone taunts, “I am—”

Krack! The clone is crushed to oblivion beneath the immense weight of the stone pillar to which Hades was bound. While the beast was distracted, I severed the pillar and tilted it toward us. After a quick calculation of the column’s size, I met him precisely at the spot where he would be crushed and I would be spared. The end of the severed column is just two feet away. Purple blood gushes out from under its girth. I step back to avoid getting any on my feet and catch sight of the first Whipsnap.

I won’t leave you behind, old friend. I quickly pick up the weapon, forgetting that it’s covered in Cerberus’s blood. I look down at the red for a moment, then catch a shadow shifting overhead in the cloud of dust kicked up by the crashing pillar. With a gust of wind, I toss the dust higher, obscuring the flying warriors’ view.

After attaching the bone and stone Whipsnap to my belt, I make for the far wall, sprinting through the obscuring layer of dust. When I clear the cloud, I see that I’ve miscalculated the speed and intention of the warriors. Several of them are nearly upon Kainda, Em and Kat.

I will my legs to move faster, but my muscles have limits. So I leap and the wind carries me up. I’m not flying. Not this time. I simply shoot myself across the chamber and allow the laws of physics to keep me in motion and arc me toward the floor and my friends. I might be able to move faster with a constant wind propelling me, but I don’t want to risk running out of energy before I attempt my ridiculous plan.

Gravity takes hold and pulls me down. I use the wind to adjust my trajectory twice and then fall, like a cannonball toward the far wall where it meets the floor.

“Keep running!” I shout as loud as I can.

Em glances back, and then up. Her eyes widen when she sees me descending.

I’m sure all three women are questioning my plan. I have them running toward a solid wall of stone. But there is a fissure in the rock running vertically from the floor for ten feet. It’s far too small to pass through. You’d only see it from a few feet away. But it’s a weakness I can exploit.

However, I’m not the only one dropping toward them. One of the Nephilim has sprung its attack.

I surge forward with another gust of wind, directing myself at the warrior like a demon-seeking missile. As I streak beneath its extended wing, I stab up with Whipsnap’s sharp metal blade and shred the wing. It will heal quickly, but the momentary lack of control throws the monster off course and slows its descent.

With just seconds before I pancake on the stone floor, and before my three friends run into a solid wall, I turn my attention to the natural fissure. I raise my hands like I’m parting window curtains and the stone wall opens up just as easily.

Without missing a beat, Kainda, Em and Kat dash through the fresh opening. The effort tires me some, but I made sure only to open the space twenty feet in. Any more and I might risk passing out before I hit the ground.

I’m moving so fast that it takes a strong burst of wind in the opposite direction to slow me down. The torrent twists me, and I stumble when I hit the ground. But I turn the fall into a roll and get back to my feet long enough to dive into the cave, just before the pursuing giant with the now healed wing, pounds the stone floor behind me. His bones crack loudly from the missed blow, but his attack continues. Even as the six broken fingers reform, the giant reaches in.

“Kid, look out!” Kat shouts.

I jump back, just out of reach and bring my hands together. The stone walls close together, returning to their original state, fusing the Nephilim’s arm with the wall. I have no doubt the giant will simply sever his arm and grow a new one, but we are out of its reach.

“They cannot follow us here,” I say, out of breath.

The wall shakes. The warriors are pounding on the stone.

“Someone should tell that to them,” Kat says.

The small stone tunnel glows yellow, green and blue as Kat takes out her glowing crystal. “Just call me Rainbow Bright.”

Kat’s change in attitude confuses me, but then I remember who she is. An assassin. A trained killer. Unlike Kainda, Em and me, she chose a life of daring escapes, close calls and, let’s be honest, killing. “You enjoyed that,” I say to her.

Kat looks at me, a half smile still on her face. “Yeah, I did.”

“Why?” I ask.

She stops, thinks and says, “Because it showed we could win. You’ve got more tricks up your sleeve than David Copperfield.”

It’s a good answer and not the one I expected.

“Plus it was kind of fun.”

There it is. Her honesty brings a smile to my face.

“Sorry about the big guy,” she adds, her face going serious. “I saw his face. I know what he was. That couldn’t have been easy.”

“He gave his life to save ours,” Kainda says. “It was a good death.”

“Yes,” Kat says, nodding. “It was.”

I’m pretty sure that Kat is thinking of Wright now, not Cerberus, but I don’t mention it. What matters is that their sacrifices aren’t for nothing. And that means pushing forward, or in this case, downward.

I place a hand on the stone, tune out the shaking and pounding from the warriors trying to reach us and feel the subterranean realm around me, searching for some sign of Nephil. After nearly a minute, I open my eyes.

“I can’t find him,” I say.

“Who?” Kat asks.

“Ophion,” I say. “Nephil.”

“You feel vibrations,” Em says, “right?”

“Yeah,” I reply and see what she’s getting at. “He must be moving on those tendrils.”

“So he could be anywhere,” Kainda says, growing frustrated.

“No,” I say. “I know where he’s going. Down. And there is only one way.”

I focus on the rock and it parts with a crack. I keep the tunnel small, three feet wide, six feet tall, just big enough for us to fit down single file. I push it as far as I can, stopping just twenty feet from our destination. The Low River. It passes through the giant cavern and then drops down again. The laboratory is there, where I killed the thinker clone, but we’re going far beyond that, to another cavern, more massive than the one we’ve just left behind, where ceaseless vibrations tell of abundant life.

With the tunnel complete, I drop to a knee, catching my breath.

“Should you rest?” Em asks. More than anyone, she knows my limits and that I’m well beyond them now.

She also knows my determination to expand those limits, so she doesn’t argue when I pull myself back up and say, “No.”

I take the lead in the tunnel, walking with Whipsnap for a crutch. We’re not moving fast, but the fastest route between two spots is a straight line and Nephil is following the winding path of a river.

A river...

I pause and place my hand on the stone again. There is water all around us, flowing through the underworld like blood through veins. I pull it to us. Water leaks from the floor at my feet.

“What are you doing?” Kainda asks.

I don’t have time to answer. The water is coming. I bend down and touch the floor of my tunnel, stretching my thoughts out along its surface, curving and polishing it with my mind. The effort is harder than I thought it would be, but it will speed our progress and provide some respite.

Kat sits on the floor and answers Kainda’s question. “What? Never been to Water Country?”

Kainda just looks confused. “Should...I sit?”

I sit down in the lead spot and say, “Probably a good idea.”

Kainda and Em quickly sit and wait. Water flows from the walls around us, leaking through cracks and holes. Soon there is a stream of water all around us, running downward faster than we could ever move. The pressure builds on my back and I keep myself in place by bracing my feet on the wall.

“Just go with the flow,” I say, and let go.

My homemade waterslide launches me downward. Memories of The Goonies and at least twenty different 80’s action-adventure movies featuring a surprise water slide fill my mind. I can’t help but smile. I glance back. Kainda and Em look serious. To them, this is an express ride to a battle with Nephil, and that’s it.

But Kat sees me and grins. “You know how cliché this is, right?” she shouts over the roar of the water.

I smile back at her, but can’t reply. The grade steepens and the speed picks up to the point where my stomach lurches. The discomfort wipes the smile off my face and the nostalgia from my thoughts, which is probably a good thing. Even the smallest distraction could get one of us killed.

Twenty minutes later, or at least what feels like twenty minutes—we might have been sliding for an entire topside day for all I know—we splash into the large Low River, ending our long slide.  After drifting in the current for a few more minutes, and seeing no sign of Nephil’s passing, I find myself distracted once again, perhaps more distracted than I’ve ever been in my life.

21

We stand at the precipice of a waterfall where the Low River drains into a massive chamber, and by massive, I mean I can’t see the end of it. I can’t even see the ceiling because it’s obscured by a layer of fog—more commonly known as clouds. A bright yellow light filters down through the white mist. It almost looks like sunlight, but I think it’s more likely a dense deposit of yellow crystals.

The waterfall pools fifty feet below us before carving across the chamber as a wide, lazy river, disappearing over the horizon many miles away. The land is lush, similar to the cavern in which I spent two years hiding. But this is different somehow. More…pure.

I breathe the air, feeling energized by it. It’s wet, and clean, and smells of life.

But not death.

That is the difference. A pack of cresties stalked my cavern, slaying the giant albino goats on a regular basis. The place, like much of the underworld, reeked of blood and decay. But there is nothing like that in the air here. Not even rot.

The others seem equally stunned.

“What is this place?” Kainda asks. She actually looks a little uncomfortable.

Em crouches at the edge of the falls, clinging to an outcrop of rock. She leans her head out a little further and breathes deep. “There is no corruption here.”

Kat is more practical. “How do we get down?”

“We jump,” I say, holding out Whipsnap. “Just like moving through the water.”

“You have enough juice for that?” Kat asks.

I take a deep breath of the electrifying air. “Actually, I’m feeling pretty good.”

Kat, Kainda and Em step close and I wrap Whipsnap around them. When everyone is holding on, I say, “Jump together. Ready?”

Nods all around.

“Jump!”

As one, we leap over the edge, falling beside the waterfall. A gust of wind slows us and then swirls around our bodies, depositing us on the soft grassy floor next to the shimmering pool at the bottom.

When we separate, I notice that Kat is sweating. “Is it hot?”

“Gotta be around ninety degrees in here,” she replies. “You can’t feel it?”

“I don’t feel any temperature changes,” I say. “I can walk through fire or swim in ice water. It’s all the same to me.” I motion to her black military garb. “You don’t need to wear all that. The dress code in the underworld is a little less strict.”

She looks me up and down, and then Kainda and Em. We’re all dressed for a day at the beach, if you ignore the weapons.

“No thanks, kid,” she says, and I’m surprised by her modesty. “Most of the underground is a lot colder than this. I can handle a little heat.”

“Um, Sol,” Em says.

She and Kainda are standing a few feet away. Both have their weapons drawn. I didn’t see them recover the knife and hammer from the Nephilim they killed, but then again, I was pretty preoccupied. I step to the side and see what has them on guard.

A lion.

A big lion. It has clean tan fur that shimmers when it moves. Its dark mane flows with streaks of yellow. The cat just stares at us, twitching its tail.

“It must be at least twenty feet long,” Kat says, slowly drawing her pistol.

When the lion takes a step forward, everyone tenses. Kainda raises her hammer. Em brings the knife back, ready to flick it forward. Kat takes aim.

But something is wrong. I’ve seen enough nature specials to know what a hunting lion looks like—low to the ground, ears back, claws splayed—and this is not it. If anything, the cat is mildly curious about our presence.

Kainda’s muscle’s tense. She’s about to strike.

“Wait!” I say, placing my hand on Kainda’s hammer.

“If we don’t strike first—”

“Watch,” I say, moving forward, toward the cat.

“Sol...” Em says, using the tone reserved for when Luca or I decide to try something stupid.

I’m just feet from the lion when the brush at the edge of the clearing rustles. The lion turns its head toward the sound and lets out a roar, but it’s more of a friendly sound than a threatening one. A deer prances out of the jungle and skips up to the lion.

I tense. I have my suspicions, but a deer in front of a lion seems like too tasty a treat for the big cat to resist. But the lion doesn’t budge. In fact, the deer comes right up next to the lion, leans its head into the big mane and nuzzles. The lion leans its head down, rubbing the deer’s back. The big cat purrs, the sound so deep and powerful that I can feel it in my chest.

Then the deer trots on its way, stepping into the pool for a drink.

“I find this so much more strange than giants with six fingers and two rows of teeth,” Kat says.

I think I agree with her. This would be odd behavior in the outside world, never mind in the underground where absolutely everything is either killing or being killed.

The lion steps toward me, lowering its head.

I recognize the gesture. It’s similar to what the big male cresty did when I killed the dominant female, Alice, to save Kainda. I stab the blade end of Whipsnap into the grass and step away from the weapon, reaching a hand out. The lion’s fur is softer than I would have guessed. I rub the giant’s forehead, right between its eyes.

The lion purrs again, stepping forward, rubbing its head against my chest. I nearly stumble back, but the big cat lifts its head over my shoulder and pulls me closer. My face is buried in the thick mane as the cat nuzzles me. When it squeezes me tight, I realize that it’s not just nuzzling me, it’s embracing me. With a laugh, I wrap my arms around the beast’s large neck and squeeze. The lion lifts its head and steps back.

“You’re a friendly boy,” I say, and it licks my cheek.

I look back at the others. Em has a hand over her mouth. Kat wears a subtle smile. Kainda has a single eyebrow raised. “Disgusting.”

I turn back to the cat. He’s staring at me with his big brown eyes. There’s intelligence in those eyes. “I’ll call you...” When the name comes to me, I smile. “Ookla.”

Thundarr the Barbarian was one of my favorite cartoons growing up. It featured a barbarian, Thundarr, who I actually now resemble—blond, muscular and primitive. His friends were Ariel the sorceress, and Ookla the Mok, a lion-man like beast who roared a lot and bashed wizards’ heads. I always liked Ookla, not because of his ferocity, but because of his loving, loyal allegiance to Thundarr. The name is a compliment.

The lion lets out a gentle roar. His breath smells clean. Almost fragrant. Then he turns and enters the jungle. Before disappearing from sight, the lion turns back and roars again.

“This is going to sound ridiculous,” I say, “but—”

“He wants us to follow him,” Kat finishes.

My surprise is evident.

Kat shrugs. “I’ve seen enough episodes of Lassie to know when an animal wants to be followed.” She heads after the lion and he steps deeper into the jungle.

I motion for Kainda and Em to follow before starting after the cat.

“I am tiring of these outsider references,” Kainda complains to Em. They’re ten feet back, but I can hear them fine.

“Agreed,” Em says. “And why must he name every creature we come across?”

I can’t see her, but I’m sure Kainda is shrugging. “He is a mystery to me.”

“A mystery worth solving,” Em teases.

I turn around in time to see Em ribbing Kainda with her elbow. At first, I just smile, making eye contact with both of them, sharing a laugh, but then I’m struck by the strangeness of what is happening. Kainda is not only allowing herself to be teased, but seems to be enjoying it. There is no embarrassment and no angry response to it.

It’s this place, I think, looking around. The jungle is thick and alive with life. Creatures move all around, just out of sight, but I have no fear of them. The lion leads us through, pushing past giant ferns and rubbing against the thick bark of trees as it walks. The yellow glow from above becomes a diffuse, green shimmer as the thick leaves of the canopy shift in a breeze that carries the scent of flowers. I don’t know if there is something in the air, but this place is having an effect on us, melting away our tension and putting us at ease.

We clear the jungle a moment later, entering a field of tall green grass that rises up to my knees. The grass bends and sways in the breeze, rising up a gentle hill. At the pinnacle of the hill stands a towering tree, full of lush green leaves and twisting branches heavy with fruit.

The lion turns in a circle, smelling the grass, then satisfied, lies down. It flops onto its side and closes its eyes. The lion’s chest rises and falls slowly, but otherwise it’s motionless. Sound asleep.

“Maybe it didn’t want us to follow it?” Em says. “Maybe it’s not like your Lassie lion?”

Kat grins. “Lassie was a dog.”

I’m about to join the banter when I notice the grass near the top of the hill is bending, as though blown by a hard wind. But there is something odd about the grass. As it bends, it’s forming a path, as though something were moving quickly, just above it, leaving a trail of flattened grass in its wake. But there is nothing there. I focus on the air above the grass and see it just before it arrives—a shimmer, like heat rising from summertime pavement.

I take a defensive position and realize that I’ve left Whipsnap back at the waterfall pool, stabbed into the ground. I can’t believe I did that!
Has my guard been lowered that much by this place? Remembering I have the original Whipsnap attached to my belt, I pull the weapon free and take a defensive stance.

With a gust of wind, the shimmer arrives. A voice says, “You have come close enough.” The voice is commanding and baritone, but somehow soft and gentle at the same time. Then it reveals itself and I’m undone.

My legs go weak.

I fall to my knees.

My face turns to the grass.

I’m...terrified.

22

“Do not be afraid,” the voice says, but I am afraid. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so afraid in all my life. Sure, I’ve been horrified and disgusted by the tortures of the Nephilim. They’ve taken me from my home, broken me, made me do evil things, posed as my mother and made me the vessel for the physical essence of Nephil, which I swallowed, whole. I have been afraid for most of my time in the underground, but never like this. I have never been reduced to inaction.

“Solomon,” it says.

That it knows my name causes my arms to tremble, and I nearly fall flat on the ground.

Quieter now, it says, “You have nothing to fear from me, son of man. Look.”

My eyes turn up just a little and I see two feet standing before me in the grass. They glow brightly, as though composed of light, but the recognizable form reduces some of my fear. I look up slowly. Its legs are solid, but the energy contained within roils with power. Brilliant light obscures the thing’s waist and lower torso, but I catch a glimpse of a white robe. Its chest is broad and powerful. Its arms like solid, living ivory. Its face, if it has one, is lost in a flickering white flare that crackles with electricity.

As I feel my arms begin to weaken again, I wonder if this creature really thought its form would put me at ease. If so, it was gravely mistaken.

“What is it?” Kainda asks, her voice full of unusual fear.

“I am one of the Kerubim,” it replies, “guardian of Edinnu. Daughter of man, I mean you no harm.”

I don’t miss the fact that this is the third time it has assured us we are safe. The glow emanating from its body fades. The bolts of electricity snapping around its face pull back and disappear. Human features emerge. Muscles beneath skin. Fingernails. Silver hair. Eyebrows. It’s all little things, but they help put me at ease. The light pulls inward, contained by a human form complete with almost luminescent blue eyes, a full silver beard and a pure white smile. “It has been a long time since I stood in the presence of your kind,” the being says and then bows his head. “I am honored.”

“H—how did you know my name?” I ask.

“All things have been written,” he says. “I have been waiting for you.” He looks at the others. “All of you.” He turns to Kat. “Katherine Wright.” Then to Kainda, “Kainda Ninnis.” The use of Kainda’s last name throws me. To me, Ninnis has always just been Ninnis, but it was his last name, not his first, so it is Kainda’s name as well. She frowns at its usage, but stays quiet.

The being turns to Em, dips his head and says, “Rachel Graham.”

What? Who is—my mouth drops open and I blurt out, “That’s your real name.”

Kat seems surprised. “Graham is her last name?”

Em looks stricken. “What?”

“The name you were given by your parents. Your real parents. In the outside world! If we know your name, we can—”

“Stop,” she says, eyes damp with tears. “Just stop. I don’t want to hear any more.”

My mouth clamps shut.

“Where you are and how things are possible are not important,” the being says. “The mysteries of creation are often best enjoyed without the knowledge of all things.”

Is he trying to tell us something?

“Solomon,” he says, turning his blue eyes on me. “You have been chosen.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Cronus was not mistaken.”

That this being knows about Cronus, and what he told me, is baffling. I don’t think he gets out much, if ever. But he has knowledge about me. About Cronus. About things no one on this Earth should know about.

“Your commitment to stopping the dark one—”

“Ophion,” I say, just to make sure we’re on the same page.

He nods and continues, “…is without question. Yet your quest is in peril. The shofar is nearly lost to you.”

“Nephil is here?” Kainda asks, fire returning to her voice.

The being points a glowing fingertip toward the ceiling. “He is above. Crossing the perch.”

“Can’t you stop him?” I ask.

“I could,” the being replies and looks back at the tree atop the hill. “But it is not my task. It is yours.”

I take a step away, intending to find a way to chase Nephil down.

“Wait,” he says. “There is more and still time to tell it.”

“What is it?” I say, growing impatient. “Tell me.”

“You are incomplete,” the being says, taking me by surprise. Sensing my brewing argument, the creature adds, “You have mended your soul. You have found your passion, your focus and your faith. But you lack the hope that binds these things together. You will not be strong enough to defeat Ophion until you find it.”

“I don’t suppose you could be less vague about this?” I ask.

“Revealing such things would reduce the impact of discovering them for yourself,” he says. “But be warned, there will come a time, when hope seems lost. Do not turn your back on it, or you will be lost.”

I sense the conversation is about to shift back to the task at hand, but Em surprises everyone by asking, “Are they alive? My parents?”

The being turns to her and just stares.

“You know,” she says. “You must. Tell me.”

He regards Em, looking her over.

“Tell me now!”

“Yes,” he says. “Your parents yet live. As do your three siblings. Two older brothers and a younger sister.”

That last part was a gift. Em smiles. “A sister.”

A question strikes me like a lightning bolt. This being might know about my parents, too. I open my mouth to ask, but the glowing man holds his hand out in the universal motion for, stop.

“Knowing the answer to your question, one way or the other, will only serve to distract you,” he says.

I close my mouth. It’s a horrible answer. A painful answer. But I can’t argue the logic. If I knew my parents were alive, I might try to reach out to them, or at least spend time thinking of our reunion, or what their lives were like and if they had any more kids. But if I find out they’re dead... Depression would grip me. I would eventually overcome it, but right now, at this moment, a lapse in strength or focus on my part could be disastrous. Of course, that doesn’t mean I won’t push for more information on Em’s family.

“Where?” I ask, desperate for the knowledge that could reunite Em with her family. “Where is Em’s family?”

The being turns his head to Kat. His eyes glow brightly. “Tell them.”

I nearly fall over when I yank my head toward Kat. What could she possibly know? Has she met this creature before? Is she not who she claims to be?

Kat stares at the grass, lost. She looks up slowly, first at me and then at Em. “They’re in New Mexico.”

“How can you possibly know that?” I ask.

“It’s where I grew up,” she says.

Em is stunned. “You know them?”

“I work in a dangerous business,” Kat says. “The people I know, the people I love, they’re always in danger. I do what I can to protect them. Including changing my name.” A tear trickles down her cheek. “My last name—maiden name—isn’t Ferrell, it’s Graham. My name is Katherine Graham.” Tears flow freely. “I’m...” She looks at the being and he nods. “I’m your sister.”

Em gasps. Both hands go to her mouth. “No,” she says. “You’re lying.”

“I was a baby when you were taken,” Kat says. “You were only two. But I’ve seen your picture a thousand times. I didn’t see it at first, but I do now. Your eyes. You have our mother’s eyes.”

“She speaks the truth,” the glowing man says.

Em lowers her guard and approaches Kat. She regards her slowly, inspecting her face, the hint of freckles around her eyes, the shape of her lips.

They do look similar, I think.

Em smiles, crying now as well. She puts her hand on the back of Kat’s neck and lowers her head. Kat does the same, lowering her head until their foreheads touch.

“Sister,” Em says. It’s just a whisper, but it carries the weight of familial recognition.

Kat confirms the new bond, repeating the word. “Sister.”

Even Kainda is getting a little misty eyed. I started crying around the same time Kat did, but it doesn’t take much to turn on my tear duct faucet. For Kainda, this is a powerful moment. She’s not used to seeing a true family bond at work. I take her hand, and she squeezes me tight.

“Family bonds the four of you with a strength that cannot be broken.” He motions to Em and Kat. “Sisters.” He motions to Em and me. “Brother and sister.” Then he motions to me and Kainda. “And betrothed.”

My face reddens and I nearly crack a joke to change the subject, but Kainda’s grip on my hand tightens. She was offered to me by her father, Ninnis. I turned down the offer then, but from what I know about hunter custom, the offer still stands. I look at Kainda, and nod.

She doesn’t gush. Doesn’t break down in tears. She just sniffs, straightens herself up, and with just a hint of a smile, says, “Good.”

I realize I’ve just made a huge life decision, but honestly, who else could stand by my side for the rest of my life? She’s beautiful, and strong, passionate and trustworthy, and we share the pain of being broken by the man she called father. We share an understanding that no one else could. There is no one else like her.

The being’s tone becomes deadly serious. “It is time.”

He reaches to a belt I had not yet noticed and takes the hilt of a sword. When he draws the blade out, it glows with an intensity that makes me squint. As I grow accustomed to the light, I see the blade more clearly. It’s a long, ornate sword, unlike any I’ve ever seen before. The sword itself is normal, almost common looking, but the light blooming from it comes from a fire that even I can feel.

“I have never released this sword,” the being says. “Nor do I want to, but the choice has been made.”

“All things are written,” I say.

He nods and turns the handle toward me. “Nothing can stand against the power of this blade. Not even the dark one’s spirit. Take it and turn Ophion away.”

“I can kill him?” I ask, eyes going wide. “I can stop him, right now?”

“No,” he says. “Death cannot come to this place. Not Ophion’s. Not yours. Do not kill him. Do you understand?”

I nod, feeling a mixture of confidence and disappointment.

He places the handle in my hand. The sword, despite its size, feels light. I can feel the heat from the fiery blade, but it does not burn me.

“Go,” the being says. “Retrieve the shofar and return the blade to me. Quickly.”

I look up toward a ceiling I cannot see. “But how? He’s up there.”

“Solomon,” the being says, a smile appearing on his face. “Sorrow. Weariness. The hardships of mankind. They cannot be felt here.”

“What about pain?” I ask.

“Pain and death are a condition of man that cannot be avoided in this life, though death is forbidden here.” The being looks at me more intently. “Listen to my words. Hear me. You will not grow tired in this place.”

My eyes slowly widen. “Are you sure?” I ask, but don’t give him time to respond. I form a wind around me, lifting my body off the ground. Before I get too high, I focus on the clouds above. They quickly swirl, forming a hurricane overhead. Lighting flashes. Rain pours down. It’s big and bold, and effortless. I smile wide.

“Try not to destroy my valley,” the being says.

I turn my head upward and fly. Five seconds into my flight, I break the sound barrier and a boom rips through the cavern. I am a living missile tipped with a flaming sword. Despite all of the energy I am exerting, I will not grow weary. But none of this power can leave this place with me. Only the shofar. I pour on the speed, punch through the swirling clouds and see my enemy high above, moving quickly across the ceiling.

“Ophion!” I shout, and pour on the speed.

23

Tactically, shouting out your enemy’s name just before attacking is a bad idea. Even people who have never been in a schoolyard fight know this. Maybe honorable medieval knights would give warning, perhaps even give the enemy time to prepare, but I suspect that’s more of a fiction created by storytellers, or if not, a good number of knights died because of their noble ways. I’m far from noble and have no qualms about attacking a Nephilim from behind, but Nephil’s tendrils were just feet away from an alcove in the ceiling that I suspect might be the shofar’s hiding place.

Shouting stopped him.

But it also prepared him.

And I pay the price. My ascent is too fast, my flying abilities far from perfected, and my plan of attack—well, I hadn’t got beyond flying fast and shouting. So when two black tendrils shoot at my chest, there’s little I can do, but try to dodge.

I jerk to the right, narrowly avoiding the first tendril, but I’ve maneuvered directly into the path of the second. The blackness strikes my chest hard. The blunt force of the blow knocks the air from my lungs and breaks my concentration. I sprawl upwards and crash into the ceiling.

The impact knocks me silly, but it also spooks one of the valley’s smaller residents. A flock of tiny birds, hiding in holes in the ceiling, bursts out, clogging the air like living smoke. This is the roost Hades told me about.

I fall, first through the swarm of birds and then through the open air. The swirling clouds below slow to a stop. It’s only been seconds since I shouted Ophion’s name, but he’s managed to staunch all of my bravado.

My head is spinning.

My body aches.

But...I’m not tired. Not even close.

My fall comes to an abrupt halt. The wind gathers round me again.

Nephil’s voice echoes through the chamber, frustration billowing down as though spewed from a volcano.

The birds, I think, he can’t see the alcove because of the birds.

On one hand, this is a good thing. If he can’t see the alcove, he can’t find and destroy the shofar. On the other hand, he is likely to kill the birds. The Kerubim’s words are still fresh in my mind. Death cannot come to this place. He was talking about Nephil when he spoke those words, but I suspect it applies to the animals living here, too.

I don’t think the birds have ever been frightened before. And I don’t think they would have been frightened by me. It’s Nephil’s dark presence that’s scaring them. Instead of flying away, or flocking for safety, they’re just circling erratically. Sooner or later, two of them are going to collide and break their necks without any help from Nephil.

Hovering thirty feet below the tumult, I generate a wind at the core, right around Nephil, and gently push it out. The birds move with the air, further and further away from Nephil, who is watching me through Ninnis’s eyes.

“You fear for these creatures,” he says.

It’s not a question. I’ve exposed a weakness. But he’s too late to do anything about it. The birds are now a hundred yards away. I cut the wind and the birds quickly settle into new ceiling perches. Safe, for now.

I point the sword at Nephil and slowly rise toward him. That I didn’t drop it when he struck me or when I hit the ceiling is something of a miracle, but life in the underworld has taught me to never, not ever, lose my weapon during a fight. It’s a lesson that has saved me several times in the past.

“Leave this place,” I say. “Now.”

“Leave?” Nephil says, sounding honestly confused. “You want to kill me. You want to kill this body. I can feel your radiating hatred for us both.”

“I don’t hate Ninnis,” I say, and it’s true. I have forgiven the man, despite his despicable actions, on more than one occasion. “He is not the man you made him.”

“All men are evil,” Nephil says. “We just remove the shackles that bind it. Like we did with you. Like Ninnis did with you. It’s still there, you know. I can taste it. How many people have you killed?”

I’m nearly within striking distance now, slowly closing the distance. “I have not killed a human being,” I say. “And I will not.”

He chuckles. “You have killed billions.”

“That was you.”

“You allowed it, Solomon. You could have repelled me at any time. You had the strength before I changed the world, just as you did afterward, but you waited. Why? Because you wanted it. You wanted all those people to die.”

He’s trying to make me upset. And it’s not working. I have been freed of my guilt. His tactic can’t work. He must see it, so why is he—

He’s keeping me talking.

The shofar’s hiding place is behind him!

I glance around him quickly and see a tendril snaking out toward the alcove. It’s almost there!

I propel myself forward, swinging the flaming sword in an arc, not so much to strike Nephil, but to force him into action. He lunges to the side, pulling himself just out of reach. I circle the monster, keeping track of its ten black tentacles. Three cling to the ceiling, the rest flail about like agitated snakes. But one still reaches for the alcove. That’s where I focus my attack.

I feign a charge at Nephil. He drops back and leaves the single limb exposed. A gust of wind carries me sideways, and I swing without looking. I feel nothing as the blade slices through the air, but Nephil suddenly lets loose a scream that is unlike anything I’ve ever heard before—one part human shriek, one part...something else. The scream of a demon.

It’s so charged with energy that I think Nephil has never truly experienced pain before. He once had a Nephilim body, a warrior like the others, but pain is a delight to them. And it wasn’t Ninnis’s body that I cut, so the pain he’s feeling isn’t human pain.

I look to the side and see the severed two-foot length of tendril turn to dust, scattered by the wind holding me aloft.

I didn’t just remove a limb. I cut away part of his spirit.

I could kill him. It would be easy.

Though it would likely mean killing Ninnis, too. As the temptation grows, I realize that Nephil is right. There is still darkness in me. I might have been freed from the Nephilim corruption, but I am still human, capable of making mistakes and doing evil. But I can also turn away from it. Killing Ninnis, and Nephil, in this pure place goes against everything I’m fighting for.

But I have no problem causing the beast pain.

When I set my angry eyes back on Nephil, I see fear in his eyes. It lasts just a moment. But it was enough to swell my confidence.

With the sword held high, I charge, hacking at the air, aiming for his limbs. Each swing comes closer than the previous, but he is on the defensive now, acutely aware that this weapon poses a very real threat.

Our dance shifts across the ceiling, but never moves far from the shofar. He’s not giving up. Is the shofar really that powerful?

I swing hard at a tendril, but it pulls away just in time. The missed blow twists me in the air. Before I can right myself, a second tendril lances out like a spear. The black needle-sharp tip pierces my chest, punching through muscle and striking the bone of my ribs. A gust of wind carries me back before it can go any farther.

I wince in pain, but don’t shout. I won’t give Nephil the satisfaction. I glance at the wound. A killing shot, directly over my heart. If I’d been just a little closer...

This sword might be capable of destroying Nephil’s spirit, but he is, and always has been, capable of killing my body. We are both at risk. Nephil shifts away from me. The tendril he used to strike my chest coils back. He extends Ninnis’s tongue and swipes the tendril across it. A streak of red is left behind. My blood. He closes his mouth and revels in the taste. A smile emerges. “I will miss the taste of human blood when you are all gone. Perhaps I will keep some of your friends alive that I might drink of them.”

He charges, fueled with bloodlust. Burning with anger, I surge forward to meet him.

24

We meet like two middle school kids having a fight on the playground, flailing and striking without much thought. I’d never taken part in such a fight, but I’d witnessed a few. The outstretched striking fists, the heads leaned back in fear, the utter chaos and senselessness. The fights were violent, but rarely ended with severe injuries given the relative inexperience of the combatants.

This is not the case with Nephil and me.

Black dust sprays away as I sever the tips of his limbs.

Rivulets of blood trickle down my body as I’m cut, punctured and bludgeoned.

One of my thoughtless strikes comes close to reaching Ninnis’s head, and the monster flails back, just out of reach, but in doing so loses its grip on the ceiling. Nephil falls momentarily before a single tendril shoots up and finds purchase. I take stock of the monster. Several of the black arms are shorter than they had been. I’ve whittled down his reach. He looks tired, perhaps limited by Ninnis’s old body, though Ninnis handled it just fine.

His moment of weakness fills me with a kind of sinister anger. I could hack off the one limb and let him fall. How well could he fight while Ninnis’s body was broken? I could rush him, right now, and plunge my sword into his chest, killing them both. There are a hundred different ways I could end this fight, and maybe even the war, right here and now.

No one else needs to get hurt.

Or killed.

No other families need to be broken.

Children can stay with their parents.

The human race can recover.

And what would be the cost? The corruption of some subterranean oasis that managed to stay untouched by the Nephilim? It’s a small price to pay for the salvation of mankind.

I know this for a fact.

But I don’t believe it.

Why! I shout internally, watching Nephil recover. I’m frozen. Unable to deliver the final blow. What is it about this place that I can’t—

My subconscious does the work my conscious is unwilling to do, slipping the puzzle pieces gently together, revealing the image that I hadn’t yet considered. When the answer is revealed, I whisper, “It can’t be.”

But then I look around and realize it is.

The unspoiled landscape.

The kindly lion and the fearless deer.

The strange being. He referred to me as a “son of man,” the same language used by angels to describe men in the Bible. He called himself a Kerubim, pronouncing it Keh-roo-bim, but modern man has changed the sound and spelling to Cherubim, and picture them as naked little babies with wings. But that’s not factual. I search my encyclopedic mind for answers and find them quickly in the Hebrew Torah, collectively known as the Pentateuch—what has become the first five books of the Bible’s Old Testament. Cherubim, or Kerubim, were one of the highest orders of angels. They appeared as multi-winged, glowing beings that emanated power. Ezekiel saw them in a vision. The Ark of the Covenant held two Cherubim on its cover, laden in gold, symbols of the very power of God. The last mention of a Cherubim in the Pentateuch is the one that sucker punches me.

After sending them out, the Lord God stationed mighty cherubim to the east of the Garden of Eden. And he placed a flaming sword that flashed back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

The tree.

The being...the angel...stopped us short of the tree. He was protecting it.

The full force of this revelation stuns me. My guard falters. The sword lowers.

I look at the fiery blade in my hand. And he placed a flaming sword that flashed back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. An angel’s weapon.

Edinnu is Eden!

I look down at the jungle, staring through the mist that has grown still. Could this really be the Garden of Eden? Is this the birthplace of mankind? Is such a thing even possible? I realize, of course, that it is. I’d believe just about anything now. I used to be totally science minded, applying scientific theory to every new discovery, but I have seen, touched and battled things that make it impossible for me to not believe in a spiritual realm beyond my understanding.

That is why the animals here are kind. They aren’t just uncorrupted by the Nephilim, they aren’t corrupted at all. And that is why I can’t kill Nephil. The story tells of the first man and woman corrupting themselves and the outside world, and as a result, all of mankind, but it doesn’t mention the garden itself being corrupted. If I killed Nephil in this place, I would bring human and Nephilim corruption to a garden in which, the story says, God himself would walk. The knowledge disarms me.

And as a result, death nearly comes to the garden anyway.

Nephil lunges at me.

I hadn’t even noticed his slow recovery.

Three tentacles flail out to my right, and I’m forced to keep them at bay. The fiery blade slices through each one of them, but the move was a sacrifice. A distraction. The real attack came in close, the weapon clutched in Ninnis’s hand. Strike. The blade slips through my chest, between two ribs and puncture’s my lung. I feel the organ deflate inside me. It’s a pain unlike anything I have felt before, not so much because it hurts—I have endured unspeakable pain—but because some instinctual part of my mind knows I am dead.

My heart still beats. My blood still carries oxygen to my brain. But the punctured lung will fill with blood, and I will die. Slowly. Like a fish out of water, I will gasp for air and never receive quite enough, until my lung fills with blood and it seeps into its healthy neighbor.

I realize all of this in an instant, but then I see the fire in Ninnis’s possessed eyes and know that I will not live long enough to drown in my own blood. With a quick, sideways yank of Strike, the beast could end me, right here and now.

But he doesn’t get the chance. The wind that holds me aloft reacts to my instincts as much as it does my thoughts. I’m carried away from the blade. I feel the thin metal slip from my chest, and the heavy blood begins to gather in my deflated lung. Feeling light headed, I take a deep breath. While one lung fills, the other makes a sick farting sound as the air slips right out of my chest.

There’s no pain now. Shock has taken over, numbing body and mind.

Nephil laughs at me. “Do not worry, Solomon. I will not let you die.”

Forgot about that. My fate won’t be death. It will be eternal enslavement to the spirit of Nephil. I’ll get to watch as the beast controls me and wipes out the rest of the human race.

As my energy falters, I glide slowly away from Nephil. He keeps pace, never letting me out of striking distance. Or catching distance, I think, realizing he doesn’t want me to fall.

“The shofar and my vessel,” he taunts. “I will soon have you both.”

“No,” I say, but it’s more of a pathetic groan.

I breathe deep. It does little. My vision spins. When I let the breath from my good lung out, it tastes of blood.

I look at the garden below and think that at least they will be spared by Nephil not letting me die. This place will always be an untouched oasis, even as the Nephilim conquer the rest of the planet. The mists part, and I see the tree and the green carpet of tall grass surrounding it. I see specks near the jungle. Kainda, Em, the Kerubim and Ookla.

I’m sorry, I think to them. I failed.

Nephil snickers, slowly closing the distance between us. As weakness overcomes me, I close my eyes and wait for his embrace.

25

A voice reaches me before Nephil can. It’s muffled. Distorted. Distant.

Em?

Kainda?

Kat?

The Kerubim? If anyone is capable of carrying their voice that far, it would be him.

It comes again. Louder, but still indistinct.

“What?” I say aloud. I’m sure the statement confuses Nephil, but the monster probably thinks I’m succumbing to delirium.

Delirium. That’s what this is. I’m hearing things. There is no voice. It’s in my head.

In your head, the voice says.

Your head. Not my head. The voice is my own, but not. It’s as though my thoughts are being projected into my mind from the outside.

Xin, is that you? I think, trying to communicate. He has reached out to me before, helping me at just the right moment. But there is no reply to the name.

Luca? Are you there? The boy can see through my eyes during times of intense stress. Is he watching now? Has he figured out a way to reverse the connection and communicate? If he has, he doesn’t have much longer to say goodbye.

I don’t hear a reply, in my ears or in my mind, but I feel it. No, the voice comes from within, but it’s not my voice. This is some kind of presence. Something other than me. In me. As the feeling radiates out through my core and down my limbs, I’m reminded of when Nephil possessed my body, but the experience is different. Where Nephil exuded anger and control, this is more peace and freedom, with a hint of suggestion.

The feeling subsides.

The voice fades.

But I experience a strange kind of, “eureka!” moment where I suddenly know what to do. There is a weapon with greater range and power than even this fiery sword, and it’s within reach, not of my hands, but of my will.

While my body weakens, my invigorated mind reaches out for the alcove. I can’t feel the horn in a traditional sense, but I can sense the tug of something resisting the breeze. I wrap my thoughts around it, lift it and pull the weapon free of its hiding place for the first time in thousands of years. Best of all, this happens behind me, out of sight.

Nephil closes in slowly, reaching for me now. “Come, Solomon. It is time to end this fight and take your place as—”

The monster’s voice catches in his throat as the shofar suddenly appears in my hands and I open my eyes. The curled ram’s horn is large, perhaps two and a half feet long, and it ends with an opening the size of a teacup’s saucer. The brown and blood red flecked exterior of the horn is scored with lines that might be natural or perhaps carved by the original owner—some ancient priest stalking around the walls of a long gone Nephilim stronghold. Despite its size, color and threatening shape, it looks wholly inadequate for defeating an enemy, human or otherwise, but I have little choice left, and that quiet whisper inside me persists.

“With the last of my breath, I will undo you.” I place the ancient weapon to my lips and blow.

Nothing happens.

I understand the workings of a shofar. It’s a horned instrument, but unlike the trumpet or tuba, it has no reed. So the user must vibrate the lips while blowing to produce a sound. And I’m doing that. Vibration isn’t the problem. It’s my lungs. I can’t push enough air with my one remaining lung to generate any kind of sound.

I watch as Nephil’s look of shock and fright morphs into elation. “Pitiful. Even with the shofar in hand, you are incapable of harnessing its power. When our bloods merge, that wound sapping your strength will be a welcome delight. Give yourself to me, Solomon, and eternity will be yours.”

“No,” I say. It’s a feeble whisper, but carries my determination just the same. “I’m not done yet.”

The horn weighs little, and I have no problem lifting it over my head.

The beast squints at me.

“Can’t you feel it?” I ask him. “The air. All around you. Shifting. Pulsing.” I take a breath, filling my single functioning lung. As the air seeps down my throat, the wind picks up, blowing toward my body, whipping Ninnis’s hair. “This whole cavern is my lung. The air is mine to command. And right now, I command it—”

Nephil’s eyes burst open with realization.

“—to blow.”

He charges.

A tiny whirlwind of quickly vibrating air flows through the shofar. The sound it produces rips through the cavern. The noise diffuses over the distance, but Nephil is caught in the direct path of whatever kind of supernatural sound waves are shooting out from the horn. To me it’s just a high-pitched grating noise, but Nephil reacts like he’s just been set on fire.

The black limbs flail madly, shooting in and out of Ninnis’s body, which is arched back in a contorted spasm. His scream almost drowns out the sound of the shofar, but it peters out to nothing as the black limbs retreat inside Ninnis, silencing the beast’s voice.

With the black tendrils gone, Ninnis begins to fall. I reach out with the wind and catch him. Despite functioning with just one lung, it takes no effort to control the winds around me. I use this control of the elements to keep a steady flow of air flowing into my ruined lung. The slurp of blood and air escaping my chest grows louder, but at least the organ is temporally inflated.

As the full amount of oxygen returns to my brain, my vision settles and thoughts clear. I am far from not dying, but I’ve delayed the effect of being stabbed in the chest for a little while—long enough for me to deliver the shofar to Em, Kainda and Kat, and leave before defiling Eden.

“Solomon?”

The voice startles me to the point where I nearly drop Ninnis. When I redouble my effort to hold Ninnis up, I notice that his eyes are open.

And they’re Ninnis’s eyes. Not Nephil’s. All trace of the monster has been erased.

“Ninnis,” I say. It’s as non-threatening a greeting as I can come up with.

“Belgrave,” he says.

“What?”

“My name is Belgrave. Belgrave Edward Sutton Ninnis. Lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers and husband to Caroline Rose Ninnis.”

To say I’m stunned is an understatement. Hunters don’t remember their pasts. Every memory, every happy moment, every loved one, is erased by the breaking process. Hunters are molded from clean slates, honed into killers without conscience because there is no memory of right and wrong. “You remember?”

“I remember...everything.” The wounded tone of his voice makes my eyes water. The flicker of a smile forming on his lips forces the wetness out over my cheeks. He reaches a hand toward me; it’s extended like he wants to shake. “Thankyoeeeeaaaarrrgghh!”

The voice of Nephil returns like a crashing wave. The tendrils shoot out, clinging to the ceiling. And the eyes of Belgrave Ninnis disappear. The effect of the horn is temporary on Nephilim, apparently very temporary on one as strong as Nephil. But even though the beast has regained control over his host body, he is still reeling from the attack.

He hisses at me, contorting his face into a thousand different expressions, and then flees like a spider across the ceiling. He won’t come back. Not by himself. Not now that I have the shofar and know how to use it. Granted, I’m still not sure how I’m going to stop an army with it, but whatever the horn did to him, he didn’t like it.

With the shofar and sword in my hands, I slip down from the ceiling, slowly descending to the green meadow. Em and Kainda smile as I return to them victorious. They don’t know about my fatal wound. When I land on the ground, the wind cuts out around me and my lung deflates once again. Blood and air spatter from the wound, causing Em to gasp.

“Solomon!” Kainda shouts, catching me as I fall to one knee.

Kat quickly inspects the wound. “Even with a field med kit, I wouldn’t—”

I look up at the angel and cut Kat off. “What is your name?”

His brilliant head turns down toward me, “I am Adoel.”

I hand him his sword and then give the horn to Em. “Teach them how to use it.”

“What are you saying?” Kainda asks.

That she’s upset is an understatement. But the big angel stops her brewing tirade with a hand on her shoulder. The hand is immense on her and she must sense his power because she stops and looks at him.

The angel stops for a moment, whispering to himself as he sheaths the sword, extinguishing the flame. He turns his attention back to Kainda. “Daughter of man—” He brings his hand back around, revealing a small wooden bowl. “Go to the river. Fill this.”

When she hesitates, he adds a booming, “Now,” and Kainda is off and running. Without her support, I slump to the ground. Em kneels by my side, holding my hand.

“Stay with him,” the Kerubim says, heading toward the tree.

“You’ll be okay,” Em says, trying to sound confident, but she’s seen enough wounds in her life to know that this one is fatal for a human being. Of course, knowing where we are, that might not be the case.

“This is Eden,” I tell her.

She looks at me like I’ve just spoken another language. And in a sense, I have. Hunters don’t speak of, or learn about, things like Eden. Kat, on the other hand, knows exactly what I’m talking about.

“You can’t be serious?” she says. “We’re in a cave.”

“I’m not saying I can explain it,” I say, and I quickly tell them everything I deduced about Adoel and this garden of literal Eden.

“What is Eden?” Em asks, growing impatient with the conversation, though I can’t tell if it’s because she doesn’t understand or because I’m basically dying in front of her.

“The story says that this is where the first man and woman lived,” I tell her between gasps. “Where God once walked.”

Kat turns toward me when I say this. I can see it’s sinking in, and it has her spooked, as it rightly should. It means we’re in the presence of something...beyond understanding.

“The one you—” She searches for the word. “—prayed to when we buried Tobias?”

I nod.

“You believe in this now?” Em asks.

The question catches me off guard because I’ve been kind of feeling this stuff. I haven’t questioned believing or not believing. It just is. When my logic kicks in, I say, “I’m—I’m not sure. But look at this place.” We take in the scenery, which ends with Ookla sitting up and looking at me. He gives a gentle roar and lays back into the grass, ignorant to my plight.

Kainda returns from the jungle, walking quickly, but careful not to spill the water.

“Give it to me,” the angel says.  Both Em and I flinch. We hadn’t heard him return.

I look up at the otherworldly being as he holds the bowl up. He holds a small fruit in his hand. He squeezes it gently until a single drop of juice gathers on the underside and drips into the bowl. He pockets the fruit and then stirs the water with his finger.

“Am I supposed to drink that?” I ask.

His reply is loud and stern. “No. To do so would...it is unthinkable.” He drops to one knee beside me. “Lie back.”

I obey, lying flat on my back, which makes it harder to breathe. I quickly get lightheaded.

“If this doesn’t work,” I say, “you have to get me out of here before it’s too late.”

“Quiet, son of man,” Adoel says. He stirs the water twice more, then removes his finger from the liquid. He allows most of the moisture to drip away. “Do not be afraid,” he says, and then traces his finger over the puncture wound.

Nothing happens.

“What did you do?” I ask. “I didn’t feel anything.” When I see the relief on Kainda’s, Em’s and Kat’s faces, I don’t really need to look, but I do. The wound is healed. No trace of it remains.

“Breathe,” the angel commands, and I do. My lungs expand, healthy again.

“Thank you,” I say.

Adoel stands and walks to Ookla. He places the bowl at its face. The big cat leans up and clears the bowl with three laps of his big tongue. When he turns back to us again, he’s whispering.

“Who are you speaking to?” I ask.

“The breath of life,” Adoel says. “You are saved because of it.”

“No, I mean—”

“The surface awaits, young king, and your enemy rises to consume the world. You must not let this happen.”

I want to argue. I’m not a king, despite what everyone in the underworld seems to think. I’m still not even sure how I can stop an army of Nephilim, and hunters, and whatever else they have planned. “But before you leave I must give you this warning. Should you—” He looks to Kainda and Em. “—any of you, return to Edinnu, I will cut you down. There will be no warning. No ground covered. No awareness of my presence.”

Message received. Loud and horribly clear. But a question remains. “I thought no death can come to this place?”

“The sword works differently in my hands,” Adoel replies. “Being slain is not the same as being unmade.” He points his finger in the direction we originally came from. “Go now. Ookla will take you.”

The lion stands, stretches, and heads for the jungle. I start after him and then stop and turn back to the ancient Kerubim guarding this eternal garden. “Wait, what? Ookla?”

A faint grin emerges on the angels lips. “It is a good name.”

I nod, offer a smile of thanks, and then head off after Ookla with Kainda, Em and Kat. As we cross into the jungle, I give one last look back. Adoel is there, but he’s shimmering now. Six glowing wings extend out around him. Each wing is covered...in eyes. And he’s not alone, four others are with him. They stand there, still and silent, watching me leave.

I rub a hand over my healed chest, and say, “Thanks.”

It might be an illusion created by the brilliant light and heat like waves rolling from the beings, but I think Adoel nods. I turn away from four angels and the tree they guard. I’m pretty sure that Nephil didn’t know what this cavern was when he entered. If he had, that tree might have been his first stop, though I’m sure he wouldn’t have made it that far. Of course, maybe that’s why he didn’t try for the tree. Being unmade is basically what Nephilim fear already. Pondering these things and many more, I let the jungle close behind me and run to catch up with the others. We still have a long, very upward road ahead of us.

26

As we near the edge of the jungle, I’m struck by a nearly overwhelming sense of loss. It feels like the last day of summer camp, saying goodbye to new friends, who you promise to keep in touch with, but subconsciously know you’ll never see again. It’s like a weird kind of death. Those intense relationships, forged during daytime capture the flag matches, trailblazing, canoe races, nighttime stories and pranks are suddenly torn away as you’re thrust back into the real world.

The real world. It’s full of death and misery, suffering and blood. But here, in this Eden, there is life, peace and something else I can’t quite peg. I feel...loved, like the very air is embracing me.

If the first humans really did come from this place, I can’t imagine how horrible they felt when they left. I’ve been here for just a short time and the temptation to never leave grows with every step I take toward the waterfall entrance.

But the knowledge that Nephil is headed back to the surface, never mind the fact that if I tried to stay I would be unmade, keeps me moving. I stretch my hands out, letting the foliage brush against them, coating my skin with clinging dew. I breathe deeply, trying to saturate my lungs with the air. I want to absorb as much of this place as I can.

All too soon, we leave the jungle behind and step into the clearing by the river. Em, Kainda and Kat are standing still, like a wall, blocking my path. Why have they stopped? A surge of panic grips my chest. “What is it?”

Em turns back. She’s smiling, which instantly puts me at ease. She steps aside. “I think they came to see us off.”

There in the grass by the river are some fifty animals, all different. Some I recognize: rabbit, tiger, fox and such. Others I don’t recognize from the modern world or the fossil record. And still others are extinct, like the ten foot tall flightless bird deemed Phorusrhacidae by paleontologists, but more commonly referred to as “terror-bird”.

“Do not even think about naming them all,” Kainda says. Her voice is stern, but I see a small smile on her lips. Even the hardened warrior can be softened here. As I step out next to my friends, the docile menagerie parts down the middle, providing a path to the water’s edge. Ookla accompanies, or maybe escorts, us past.

The animals just watch us. Some call out gently, but none of them move.

“What are they doing?” Kat asks.

“I don’t think they’ve ever seen people before,” Em says.

“Actually,” I say, stopping half way through the crowd. I kneel down and lower my open hand to a red squirrel. It hops onto my hand and scurries up my arm. The little claws tickle as it climbs. When it reaches my shoulder, it dips its head down and nuzzles into my cheek in the same way the deer did with Ookla. Goodbye my new friend, I think and then say, “It’s just been a long time since they saw a person. They miss us...if that’s even possible here.”

Ookla gives a gentle roar, prodding us to follow. The squirrel scampers back down my arm and we continue toward the water. A small finch suddenly appears and lands on Kainda’s shoulder. She’s surprised by its arrival and nearly swats it away—she might be happier here, but her instincts haven’t been dulled. The bird chirps at her, hops twice toward her head and gives her neck a quick nuzzle before flying off again.

She slows, watching the bird fly away. When I walk up next to her, she whispers, “Do we have to leave?”

To see her like this—at peace and happy—it’s almost worth trying to fight off the Kerubim. But there is more to life than personal happiness.

“You know we do,” I tell her. I want to tell her there are places like this in the outside world, but that’s a lie, and I think she’d know it. Then I think of something that might dull the pain of leaving the garden. “I saw your father.”

Her face darkens slightly. “I saw. He nearly killed you.”

“That was Nephil.” I nearly correct her by saying that he didn’t want to kill, but to possess me, but I don’t want to argue semantics right now.

“Ninnis would kill you, too.”

“Belgrave,” I say.

“What?”

“Your father’s name is Belgrave Edward Sutton Ninnis.”

She looks me in the eyes and without saying a word, asks how I could know such a thing.

“He told me,” I say, teasing out the moment.

“His name is Ninnis. Only Ninnis. That’s all he has ever known.”

I nod. She’s right about that. “Until I blew the shofar.”

She stares at me, not quite following.

“It returned him,” I explain. “All of him. He remembered his past. His life before Antarktos. His wife. Everything. It was just a moment, but when I looked into his eyes, I didn’t see a hunter. He was just a man. And...he thanked me.”

We stop by the shore. “Then there is hope,” she says, “that I will not always...be like this?” She motions at her body, strong and battle-hardened.

The question catches me off guard. Kainda is so tough, so confident in herself and her abilities that it never occurred to me that she might not like the hunter in her. Somewhere in there is the woman she could have been if she wasn’t born into a world of murder, hate and bloodlust.

She pulls her red braided hair around where she can see it. “I am so tired of this color.”

Kainda’s not vain so I immediately understand that she’s talking about the corruption the hue represents. It’s a constant reminder of the tortures she endured and the killer she was raised to be.

Em has overheard the conversation. She’s looking at us with wet eyes. This is hard for them both. Edinnu has provided them with a taste of what it feels like to not be corrupted, to be freed from the Nephilim. As hard as it is for me to leave the garden, it must be far more difficult for them.

Only Kat seems indifferent, but I suspect it’s because she has never been broken and reformed. She’s a killer, sure, but she is who she is, not who someone else made her to be. She waits by the river with Ookla, holding the shofar in both hands like it’s a rifle.

Seeing the shofar brings an idea to the forefront of my mind so fast and powerful that I let out a gasp similar to one of Em’s.

“What’s wrong?” Kainda asks.

I ignore her, waving frantically to Kat. “Give it to me.”

“Slow down, kid,” she says, bringing the shofar to me. “You’re going to break your wrist.”

I ignore the taunt and rather rudely snatch the horn from her hands.

“Careful,” she says in a stern voice. “You almost died to get that thing. Don’t break it.”

Remembering what I’m holding in my hands, I slow down. “Right. Sorry.” I step back a few feet, merging with the line of animals still watching us. Ookla stands in the river, head cocked back. He’s watching, but not urging us forward.

“Stand together,” I say to Kainda and Em. Then I motion for Kat to move back, and she does. I can see that she understands what I’m about to do. As do Em and Kainda. They look a little bit excited, but mostly afraid.

I raise the horn to my lips, aim it at Kainda and Em, and blow.

The sound isn’t nearly as loud as when I used the wind to create a sound, and it’s kind of horrible, but the effect on the two women is immediate. Kainda’s body tenses and her head tips skyward, mouth open in a silent scream. Em drops to her knees, fingers clutching the grass. Neither makes a sound, though I can see they are in agony.

Despite their physical discomfort, I have to fight my growing smile so I can keep blowing. The red retreats from their hair from the follicles out, like it’s being erased. When it’s finally gone, and I’m nearly out of breath, I stop blowing the shofar and lower it.

The tension gripping Kainda’s body melts away. She staggers and I rush to catch her. “I have you,” I say, but I nearly don’t. Her legs are rubbery. She slowly starts to recover, like she’s coming out of a stupor. As she clings to my neck, she reaches back for her braid, brings it around and lets out a gentle sob.

Her hair is black. All black. Not a trace of red remains.

“It worked,” she whispers.

We both look to Em. She pushes herself up so she’s sitting on her knees. Kat is there, helping steady her older sister, whose hair is now brown. Em looks up and sees Kainda’s hair. Her eyes widen. She pulls her hair, trying to get a look at it, but it’s still too short. She grips some hair between her fingers and gives a tug, pulling a few strands free from where it had previously been red. She holds the strands out in front of her face and grins. She looks to Kainda again. “We’re free!”

I laugh and hug them both. Before today, I was the only hunter to ever be freed totally from the Nephilim corruption. Now there are three of us.

Soon, I think, there will be an army.

27

“You look like our mother,” Kat says to Em.

We’ve just returned to the top of the waterfall leading to Edinnu, carried up the distance by the wind. As with everything in the garden, getting us all up was an effortless task, but as soon as I stepped into the tunnel, I felt weary. Not exhausted, but sort of like if you play too hard one day and wake up all stiff the next.

Em smiles, though she looks a little weary herself. “I think I remember you.”

“You were only two,” Kat says. “I can barely remember you, and I think the memories I do have are just from photos. You couldn’t—”

I clear my throat in a way that says, hello, guy who can remember his own birth, standing right here.

Kat rolls her eyes. “Not everyone has a perfect memory.”

“It’s just an image,” Em says. “I’m lying on my back. There are bars around me—was I kept in a cell?”

“A crib,” I guess. “It’s not a bad thing.”

“And I see you leaning over me. And a man. With a beard.” She rubs her head. “And no hair.”

“Well I’ll be damned. That’s our father.” Kat removes her black top revealing a black tank top beneath, which she also removes. This wouldn’t be strange if Kat were a hunter, but she’s insisted on staying fully clothed up to this point.

“Going native?” I ask her.

Kat, who is now wearing black cargo pants and a tight black sports bra, reaches out for the shofar and motions for me to give it to her, which I do. She takes the tank top and stuffs it inside. Then she wraps the shofar in her shirt and uses the sleeve to tie it tight. “We can’t risk it breaking.”

“Right,” I say, feeling a little stupid for not thinking of it myself. That’s what I like about Kat, she’s focused. Always on task. Even while talking to her long lost sister.

“He looks about the same now,” she says to Em. “Except the little hair left on his head, and the beard, are gray.”

“Is he...kind?” Em asks.

“We learned not to push the limits he set,” Kat says. “But he was kind enough and is pretty much a pushover now.”

“Does he know what you do?” I ask. “Or what you did?”

“That I kill people?” Kat says. “He thinks I’m a dancer for a cruise line. Correction, he thinks I’m a clumsy dancer for a cruise line. Explains the long times I’m out of touch and the occasional injury. No one in the family knows the truth.” She looks at Em. “Well, except for you, I suppose.”

“If you’re worried about what they’ll think of you,” Em starts, “I can always tell them about the things I’ve done, and you’ll look like one of those little animals.” She motions toward Edinnu with her head.

We all take a look back at the garden. The lush, glowing paradise stretches out as far as I can see. I feel its pull on me even now. “We should go,” I say, the words just a whisper forced through my lips.

Without a word, we turn and walk away from the garden, new friends and the birthplace of the human race. As the darkness surrounds us once more, and Kat takes out her blue, green and yellow crystal, my thoughts turn to the story of Adam and Eve. Whether they were the first man and woman created by God himself, or the leaders of the first human tribe that evolved in the garden, I don’t know, or care, but if they really did get the human race kicked out of Edinnu so long ago, I think they’re a couple of jerks.

The journey upwards is long and tiring. There are no downhill slopes or waterslides to help us along. My knees feel it first, then the rest of me. I’m in good shape, conditioned for this more than most, but I think leaving Edinnu made me more keenly aware of my physical discomfort. Kat seems a little more tired than usual as well, but Kainda and Em are struggling even more. Not only are they feeling the effect of leaving the garden, but the anger and pride of hunters that kept them from expressing their tiredness, even as a facial expression, are now gone.

When we finally reach the massive cavern containing the doors to Tartarus and I suggest a rest, Kainda and Em both sit without saying a word. I’m tempted to point it out, but I don’t want them to feel any regrets about their freedom. There are other kinds of strengths that can replace the darkness that was removed, they just need to discover them.

We gather near one of the cavern’s entrances, but don’t enter. I can see the bone mounds clearly, and though I neither see nor smell any danger, that doesn’t mean it’s not there. Part of me wants to return to the location of our last battle with the warriors and see what happened with the bodies of Hades and Cerberus, but we’re actually miles away from that scene and the distraction would waste time, energy and quite possibly lead us into a trap.

The more I think about it, the more I’m certain a trap is unlikely. Now that I have the Jericho shofar, the Nephilim and their hunters will be at a severe disadvantage in the underworld, where sound carries and numbers are limited by the size of the tunnel you’re in. No, I suspect we’ll find our path to the surface all but empty. It’s on the surface that the real danger lies. With all that empty space, the shofar, for all its supernatural power, won’t be able to turn away thousands of Nephilim warriors.

“I’ll be right back,” I say, stepping into the giant chasm.

“Where are you going?” Kainda asks. She might be tired, but she’s still vigilant.

I sigh. She won’t believe any answer but the truth. “I have to pee.”

She couldn’t care less. Hunters are accustomed to pretty much dropping their pants and doing their thing wherever and whenever the urge strikes, unless they’re trying to conceal their scent or in one of the citadels. “Don’t go far.”

“I won’t,” I mutter. It’s a lie. I might be a fellow ex-hunter, but I’m still me. Even when I had access to a bathroom with an actual door, I couldn’t go if someone was standing outside the door. My solution was to turn on the fan, if one was available, run the water and sit on the seat, rather than standing. When I confessed all this to Justin, he laughed and teased, but when I pointed out that he had to run home every time he had to go number two, he dropped the subject.

I walk maybe fifty feet away and stand behind an outcrop of rocks. They won’t see me, but all three women have good ears. I’m going to have to angle this against the wall just right, I think, and then I spread my feet apart so the ensuing puddle doesn’t reach me.

After one last look around, I start to pee. I close my eyes in relief. I’d been holding it for a while.

“Solomon!” The voice is so loud, so close, that I shout out and stumble back, stepping in the little river of urine. I look back, but no one is there.

“Are you okay?” Kainda shouts. I can hear her running toward me. Actually, I hear three sets of feet coming quickly. I rush to put myself back together, momentarily forgetting about the voice.

“I’m fine!” I shout back. “No worries. No big deal.”

I finish cinching my leathers around my waist just before Kainda arrives. She’s got her hammer out and ready, looking for an enemy to smash. All she finds is me, glowing red from embarrassment.

“What happened.” It’s not a question. It’s a demand.

That’s when I remember the voice. I replay the sound in my head, remembering it perfectly, and recognizing it instantly. “Xin.”

“Where?” Em asks, coming into view, knife in hand.

I look around, but I already know the answer. “In my head.” I turn my thoughts outward. Where are you?

Coming, Xin replies. He sounds casual. Almost friendly. Not that we’re not friends. We are brothers. I trust him more than most. But he’s serious. He knows what’s at stake and he’s been actively pursuing our mutual cause on his own despite not being accepted or trusted by the other hunters who have pledged themselves to me.

Why did you frighten me?

Apologies, Solomon, he says. I found it...humorous.

I can’t help but smile. That Xin finds anything funny is in itself, funny.

“What...are you doing?” Kat asks.

“Huh?” I say.

“You’re just standing there,” she says. “And you’re making faces like you’re talking to someone or hearing voices.”

“I am,” I say.

“Which one?”

“Both. Xin,” I say aloud and think at the same time, “say hello to Katherine Ferrell.”

Hello Katherine. I hear the voice, and I know that the others do too because they all jump and look around. Greetings Kainda, daughter of Ninnis. Greetings Emilee, daughter of Tobias.

“Where is he?” Kainda asks, sounding irritated.

Look to the north.

Despite being in a sunless cave, Kainda, Em and I all turn to the right, instinctually knowing the direction.

Kat turns with us. Though she lacks our subterranean sense of direction, she can see much further in the well-lit cavern. “I see something, just beyond the large pile of bones.”

For a moment, I see nothing, but then a shaky line of green emerges. The line grows bigger, stretching across a large portion of the cavern.

“What the hell is that?” Kat asks.

“No idea,” I say. Xin, should I be worried?

Only if you are against us.

The line collapses, bunching up, and then slips behind the bone mound.

A vibration reaches my feet. The floor is shaking.

A mass of green bodies round the bones and the truth is revealed.

Cresties. A herd of them. No, not a herd, an army. There’s a few hundred of the subterranean apex predators. A large male leads the pack and as the others slow to a stop, the big one pounds forward. The green and red cresty is a giant. The crest on its head, just behind its eyes, is nearly a foot tall on its own. It’s at least thirty feet long from snout to tail, easily as big as Alice, if not bigger.

Kainda shifts uncomfortably. Alice nearly killed her, after all.

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “I recognize him.”

Kat looks surprised. “You do? Just so you know, a pack of these guys nearly killed us.” She’s got her hand on her holstered pistol.

I nod. “They like to eat people. But this one won’t.”

She points to the rest of them, lining up next to each other like soldiers in formation. “And them?”

I shrug.

The big cresty stops with a final stomp of his foot, sending a vibration through my body. I reach a hand up. “Hello, Grumpy.”

The big dinosaur lowers his head until my hand rests on his snout, just between his eyes.

“It’s him?” Kainda asks. She was present the first time I petted Grumpy like this. Alice nearly killed Kainda, but she terrorized her own hunting pack. After I killed her, Grumpy became the pack leader.

I just look at her and smile. She steps up next to me and places her hand on the dinosaur’s snout. He sniffs her. She says, “hello.” It’s not exactly a Kodak moment, but hunters and cresties are bitter enemies. This is big.

A clicking sound comes from behind the dinosaur. I glance to the side and notice that it actually has reigns around its neck. The dinosaur rears up and turns to the side. Sitting on the dinosaur’s back like some kind of alien cowboy, is Xin. But he’s not alone. Clinging to his back is a second rider.

Luca.

28

“Luca!” Em says, surprised and happy, but then quickly repeats his name, this time with fear and anger, “Luca, what are you doing here?” She turns to Xin, “Why is he here? Why is he with you?”

“You don’t trust me?” Xin asks, squinting his serpentine eyes. It’s a challenge as much as a question. He taps Grumpy’s sides with his heels and the big predator crouches down.

“No,” Em says. “I don’t.”

“It’s okay, Em,” Luca says. He’s smiling and fidgeting, clearly eager to get down. He waves at me. “Hi, Sol!”

“Nor do I,” Kainda says.

Kat just looks mystified, probably by the large number of dinosaurs and Xin’s alien appearance. His white scaly skin, yellow eyes and slender, but strong frame look inhuman. But his blood runs red, the same as mine. Exactly the same as mine.

Xin takes Luca’s hands and helps the boy down. Once his toes reach the chamber’s stone floor, he’s running at Em. She bends down to greet him, sweeping him up for a tight hug. She might not be pleased by Luca being in this dangerous place, but she’s still happy to see him.

As am I. Luca dives at me next, and I lift him from the ground in a great bear hug before planting him back on the floor. He looks at Kainda and says, “Hey Kain,” and then at Kat, “Hi Kat.”

Kat scrunches her nose. “How does he know my name?”

“This is Luca,” I say. “He is one of my...twins.”

“Yeah, I can actually see that, but—”

“I can see through his eyes,” Luca explains. “I saw the sword. And Ookla. And the garden. And Nephil. But you took care of him. And—”

“We both saw,” Xin says. “He through you and I through him.”

Kat turns toward Xin. “And you’re Xin? The other...twin?”

He nods. “We saw what happened to the others. We also witnessed your success. That is why we came to greet you.”

“You could have waited on the surface,” Em says.

“I make the outsiders uncomfortable,” Xin says.

“And the hunters,” Luca adds with a smile.

Xin actually smiles a little bit. “And the hunters.” He stretches his arms out, motioning to the massive, empty cavern. “Nephil has retreated to the surface to prepare his forces. The underworld is empty, and safe. And we were very well protected.”

“I left Luca in Adoni’s care,” Em says, still angry.

“Adoni is busy,” Xin says to Em, but then turns to me. “Your forces gather at the coast. Hunters and outsiders alike.”

“The prisoners we set free?” I ask, assuming he’ll know what I’m talking about if they made it.

“They were received a week ago, weakened and down fifty men, but perhaps the most eager and willing to fight. They have been telling of how you slew the mighty Pan. But stories can only bolster their strength so much. They need you. Soon.”

I look back at the dinosaurs. “That’s why you’re really here, isn’t it? Transportation.”

Xin smiles.

“You’re smiling,” I note.

“A side effect of spending time with our brother,” Xin says. “He softens the heart.” He nods to me. “Much like you.”

“Hey,” Luca says, sounding excited. “Em! You’re hair!” He looks at Kainda. “Yours too!”

“Guess you didn’t see that part,” I say.

“Uh-uh.”

Xin inches closer to Em. He reaches out a hand to touch her hair, but she flinches away. He seems to not notice and whispers, “It works...”

I take the shofar from Kat and carefully unwrap it. Xin marvels over it, but doesn’t touch it. What would the horn do to Xin? I wonder. He’s part Nephilim, but he’s also part human. He has no hair to speak of, but the Nephilim corruption is no doubt rooted in him as well.

“You can be free,” I say, raising the horn toward Xin and placing it to my lips. I close my eyes and fill my lungs.

“Wait—” Xin starts, but I’ve already begun to blow. The sound echoes through the chamber. The cresties respond to it with roars, but they don’t move.

When I open my eyes and lower the horn, Xin is gone. For a second, I think I’ve somehow obliterated him, but then I hear a shifting sound to my left. Xin steps out from behind a tall, stone outcrop.

Can you hear me? he asks in my mind.

Yes, I reply.

He seems relieved by the answer.

“Why did you move?” I ask.

“We don’t know what effect the Jericho shofar will have on me. If it removes the Nephilim corruption fully, I could die. I could lose my mental abilities. When the battle is won, we can see what happens. Until then, I must remain as I am.”

“He clings to his corruption,” Kainda remarks.

“No,” I say. “He loathes it as much as you both did.” I look her and Em in the eyes. “He is making a sacrifice. For me. For both of you. For all of us. I trust him with my life. With Luca’s life. He is my brother, and I expect both of you to trust him as such. We cannot be divided by the hatred of the world we knew. We are better than that, and you both have been freed from it.”

Neither of them reply. They have no argument against what I’ve said, but it’s a bitter pill to swallow and the change will take time, so I let that be the end of it for now.

I give the shofar back to Kat and let her wrap it back up. She’s become its protector. I didn’t ask her to take on the job, but she carries the horn at all times and even rests with it in her arms. It never leaves her side except for when I ask for it. Maybe she simply recognizes its worth, but I suspect she sees the shofar as the object for which Wright gave his life, and now she’s protecting it with hers. Whatever the reason, I appreciate it. “Thanks,” I tell her.

“We should go,” Xin says. “The path to the surface is long. Nephilim forces are gathering at Asgard and I suspect Nephil will strike within the week. It will be our last stand. If we cannot stop him, the war will be lost.”

“We’ll stop him,” I say. “He’s felt the horn’s power.”

“Which is why he will strike with everything he has. Warriors. Thinkers. Gatherers. Even feeders. Every Nephilim tribe and the horrors they possess will be brought against mankind, first for possession of you, and then the world.” He turns his head to the dinosaurs. He says nothing, but four of the larger specimens break formation and stomp toward us. Each is fitted with a seat and a harness.

I let out a laugh. Justin would have loved this.

The dinosaurs split up and stop in front of each of us. When Xin mounts the one in front of me, I give him a quizzical look.

“Grumpy is yours,” he says. “Always has been.”

Kainda grumbles as she mounts the dinosaur provided her, but she looks absolutely amazing once she’s sitting atop its back, like some kind of Edgar Rice Burroughs jungle queen. The dinosaur tilts its head up and roars. Perhaps understanding the power she now wields, Kainda grins wickedly. She looks at me and says, “Name it.”

My smile is impossible to hide, but I manage not to tease her about wanting to name animals now. The dinosaur she rides is a female, perhaps twenty-seven feet long. Second in size only to Grumpy. Sticking with my childhood cartoon theme, I say, “Zok.”

“Zok,” Kainda says, testing the word. Then she leans toward the cresty’s head and says, “Come, Zok. To the surface!”

To my amazement, the creature obeys, turning round and heading across the cavern. The rest of us follow, close behind. As we pass through the army of dinosaurs, they split to make room for us, but they don’t let us pass all the way through. Instead, they surround us, a moving protective barrier.

Luca laughs as he clings to Em’s back. This is as fun for him as it would be for any six year old boy—or is he seven now? I’m not even sure when his birthday is. Em looks a little worried, but she’s managing. Kat, riding next to them, looks like her normally focused self, neither enjoying nor fearing the ride on the back of a dinosaur.

I turn to Xin, riding next to me. Thank you, brother.

Anything in service to my king.

Though he hasn’t spoken the words aloud, I still hear the humor in them. He must have heard talk of this on the surface, perhaps from the hunters I sent along with the escaped prisoners. And he knows, without a doubt, how uncomfortable it would make me feel.

I shake my head. King Solomon. Ridiculous.

29

The journey back to the surface is uneventful. The cresties carrying us move at a steady quick pace, far faster than we could have traveled on foot. The path we take—a long since dried up riverbed—rises at a steady incline toward the coast. The cavern is tall and wide, easily accommodating our oversized transport, which is probably why Xin chose this route.

“How long were we gone?” I ask. Wright’s timekeeping trick, while handy, won’t work because we weren’t always walking, and we were far deeper than any of us have been before. Xin mentioned that the prisoners reached Wright’s FOB. Traveling from Olympus, the journey would have likely taken weeks, so I’m prepared for his reply.

“A little more than a month in surface time.”

Good, I think. There is nothing worse than going deep and returning only to find far more time than expected had passed. I lost twenty years surface time that way. Even better, this time my enemy went deep with me. Nephil lost the month, too. Though I’m sure his army continued with their preparations.

“How long before they attack?” I ask him. “Best guess.”

He shrugs. “Could be today. Could be tomorrow. But I suspect we have several days still. The Nephilim warriors can travel great distances quickly, but they will strike from the land as well. Traveling the distance will take time and we have sentries keeping watch through the jungle at fifty-mile intervals. We’ll see them coming.”

“Were these defenses your ideas?” I ask.

“No,” he says. “They still fear me.”

“Then how do you—” I was going to ask him how he knew all this, but then I remember Xin’s special gift. He can be a fly on the wall from miles away. I tap my head.

He nods and says, “Your friend, Merrill Clark, seems to have sway with the leader of your nation.”

“The President?” I ask.

“Yes. Though Clark has never met the man, your President was fond of his daughter, Mira. Also, a soldier that served with Clark during their time here, a Marine named Cruz has supported Clark’s claim to be an expert on the Nephilim, how they will attack and what they want. To a large extent, he is right, but he knows nothing of you or Nephil’s desire to capture you.”

Knows nothing of me? I wonder, and decide he’s talking about my larger role in all of this. How could he know? Then I remember Aimee. She knows everything. Wouldn’t she have told him?

“A man called Brigadier General Kent Holloway is in charge of the base and its defenses, but he also trusts Clark’s opinions on the Nephilim, because they share the same beliefs. You will have to gain their trust to—”

“Don’t worry about that,” Kat says. I hadn’t realized she’d been listening. “Clark, Cruz and the President will all listen to me.”

I’m about to add that Merrill will trust me, and that Aimee will back me up, but Xin pulls back on the reins, slowing his cresty, which seems to put the brakes on the whole pack, even those ahead of us. “The exit is just ahead.”

I lean around the side of Grumpy’s head and peer up the tunnel. A speck of light in the distance reveals the exit. I breathe a sigh of relief. Almost there. When we started our descent into the depths of Antarktos, I wasn’t sure we’d see the sun again. But we’re close now and despite the darkness to come, the thought of walking in the light of day again brings a smile to my face.

The dinosaurs part, making a path for us.

“What are they doing?” I ask.

“The soldiers and hunters are aware of me, my allegiance and my control over the dinosaurs, but they do not trust us. If the dinosaurs were to exit first, the sentries posted at the exit might take action.”

“They would attack the cresties?” I ask in surprise.

“I believe they would call for help,” he says. “I do not have a firm grasp on what these things are, but I have heard terms like ‘surgical strike,’ and, ‘lase the target.’”

“That,” Kat says. “Would not be good.”

A laugh from behind turns me around. Kainda, Em and Luca are catching up, moving through the open path in the middle of the pack.

“What’s so funny?” I ask Luca, the source of the laughter.

“I like it when Xin makes them do things like this,” Luca says, motioning to the dinosaurs.

For some reason it hadn’t occurred to me that Xin was controlling all these cresties. The concept of controlling so many minds at once seems positively daunting, even to someone who can control the entire continent’s elements. “You’re doing this?” I ask.

“They have simple minds,” he says. “And they are willing participants. I simply send out the command and they obey. But that is rarely required. They follow Grumpy’s lead and he often obeys without the use of my—” he taps his head, mimicking my previous gesture. “They are good soldiers.”

“Good dancers, too,” Luca says with a laugh.

“You didn’t?” I say, smiling wide.

“The boy missed his family,” Xin says with a shrug. “I did what I could.”

Shaking my head at the mental image of Grumpy doing a jig, I thump his sides with my heels and move forward, if only to spare my prehistoric steed from further embarrassment. “Let’s go.”

“I think I would like to see the dancing dinosaur,” Kainda says with a trace of humor.

“I’d like to see you dance,” Luca says to her, which gets a laugh out of Em.

“That might be even stranger than a dancing cresty,” Em says.

The good humor lasts all the way up the tunnel as the group discusses who would make the worst dancer. In the end, the winner is me, on account of my lack of rhythm and clumsiness when embarrassed. I try to defend myself, but Luca knows these things better than the others do, because he’s the same exact way. “But I’m a kid,” he says, “So it’s okay if I look silly.”

We slow at the exit and our humorous exchange fades.

“Are the men outside hunters or outsider military?” I ask.

“Most of the sentries are what outsiders call Army Rangers,” Xin says, “but the entrances to the underworld are watched by hunters, who are more familiar with what lurks below. They have been trained to use modern communication devices, though, and could call in an attack if they feel we are a threat.”

“They wouldn’t attack us themselves?” I ask.

“The old ways are changing,” Xin says. “Freedom makes men less willing to throw their lives away.”

I take the lead and motion for the others to hang back a bit. I squint in the bright light of a noonday sun, shading my eyes with my arm. Grumpy steps into the light cautiously, perhaps because he senses danger, but more likely, because his eyes are adjusting to the light, too, and his stubby forearms are incapable of shading his eyes.

I don’t see anyone, but there are a thousand hiding places in the thick jungle surrounding the small clearing at the cave’s exit. I’m no doubt being watched, if not targeted. “Do not be afraid,” I say, finding it strange that I’m using the same words of greeting as the Edinnu Kerubim.

No response. Not a greeting or a thrown weapon. Of course, it would take a minute for a missile to get here. I decide to put them at ease as quickly as possible to avoid any confusion. “I am Solomon Ull Vincent,” I announce. “Your...leader.” Still feels funny saying that, but that’s the way it is for all of us, like it or not. “Show yours—”

I turn around and find one man and one woman standing above the cave entrance. They are dressed in brown leathers and coated in mud, impossible to see in the shadows, but easy to spot in the glaring bright sun. Both of them bow.

“You don’t have to do that,” I say, feeling instantly uncomfortable. “Really. You can stand up.”

When they stand, I realize they’re just obeying, not relaxing. Ugh. “What are your names?”

“Mellitt,” says the man. He’s tall, bearded and carries a long spear. His blood red hair is mostly covered by mud, but I can see it clearly enough. What I can’t see, is any streak of reclaimed innocence. It could be there, but the mud obscures it as well, which might be the point. Not all hunters are with us. Which also means that this could be a trap.

“Turner,” says the woman. She is lanky and slender like a snake. The perfect body for the underworld. Her skin is pale, which hints that she’s only recently come to live in the sun. The sunglasses covering her eyes confirm it.

Do you know them? I think to Xin.

They are with us, he replies.

“There are five more with me,” I tell them. “Xin, Kainda, Em, Luca and Kat, one of the outsiders.” I pat Grumpy’s head, which makes the woman fidget uncomfortably. “And about three hundred more of these guys. They are friends. All of them. You’ll let them pass.”

Both nod, bow again, and slip back into the jungle shadows above the cave.

The others exit the cave and Xin takes the lead.

“You handled that well, kid,” Kat says. “Authority suits you.”

I laugh at this, but my humor is short lived when Xin says, “Follow me closely. Do not stray far from my path. The jungle is full of traps.”

“Traps?” I say.

“For the Nephilim,” Xin explains. “They were Clark’s idea.”

“Traps won’t kill the Nephilim,” Kainda points out.

“No,” Xin says, “But they might slow their progress long enough for our forces to get in place.”

With no more disagreement from Kainda, Xin leads the way. We follow him single file through the jungle, though we really don’t have to try. The dinosaurs maintain the formation on their own, forming a living train of green and red striped carnivores just over a mile long.

We journey in silence for nearly thirty minutes before starting up an incline that takes us high above the jungle below. Looking back, through the gaps in the canopy, I catch glimpses of distant jungle. There’s a river and beyond that, a streak of gray.

The wall, I think. It’s the wall upon which I first discovered that Merrill had returned to Antarktos, and the wall that took me inland to where I found Em, Kainda and Luca. The river running in the same direction must be the one that leads to the lake, the same river on which Merrill, Aimee and eventually Mira, on the back of Gloop the Weddell seal, made their escape to the coast. We’re not far from Clark Station 2. That little bit of knowledge brings me some peace. In many ways, this is my home—where I was born, where I last saw my parents, where I lived with Em and Luca, and trained with Tobias. It looks far different now, of course, but it’s still familiar.

The trees thin and then clear as we reach the hill’s crest, though it might actually be a small mountain rather than a hill. Xin leads me toward a cliff’s edge.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “The others will stay back.”

“But why?”

“I want you to see,” he says.

“See what?” I ask, but then the trees part and the view is exposed. I can see all the way down the mountain, as the jungle stretches toward the coast. It all looks normal until about a mile inland where the tree line abruptly ends at a field of stumps. The jungle has been cut away.

Half the distance to the coast is the forward operating base. It is far more massive than I was expecting. Sandbag walls, razor wire and armed guards fringe the whole compound. Hundreds of guards, both modern military and hunter alike. There are artillery cannons, large jeeps, helicopters and even a handful of giant looking tanks.

So much for the Antarctic Treaty, I think. Part of the treaty’s mandate was that no country would deploy military on Antarctic soil. Not that I’m complaining. The military hardware is a welcome sight, for now at least.

There are several buildings, a sea of tents and a level of activity that reminds me of ants at work, which is probably how the Nephilim will see it too. We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them. The memory of the Old Testament verse comes and goes quickly, not because it’s a poignant reminder of what we will face, but because I see what lies beyond the FOB, in the ocean.

An aircraft carrier and many more dangerous-looking naval ships fill the ocean. Jets. Missiles. Heavy guns. And an army of men and dinosaurs. It’s a gathering of forces unlike any ever seen before...except maybe for the Nephilim army that will eventually descend on this place like a plague of impervious, oversized locusts.

All of this is yours to command, Xin thinks to me, but only if you take it.

Take it?

Men do not give up control of such power willingly. Kat’s opinion of you alone will not be enough. Trust between men forms like fossils found in the earth—very slowly. Time is short, so trust in you must be...forced. He looks at me, his yellow eyes serious. “I do not mean for you to attack them,” he says aloud. “But you will need to impress upon them your right to lead. There can be no doubt. If you fail to do this, all else is lost.”

30

Approaching the FOB gates feels similar to when I stood before the gates of Tartarus for the first time. The sight of soldiers and hunters, all training their untrusting eyes—and weapons—on our prehistoric caravan is unnerving. I am powerful. I know this. But could I stop every single bullet if these men decided I was an enemy? Could I protect the people with me? The shofar wouldn’t help in that situation. So I decide to do everything in my power to avoid it.

I pull back on the reins, bringing Grumpy to a stop, two hundred feet from the still closed gates. The rest of the dinosaurs follow suit. Xin looks a little surprised, but then nods at me.

The beasts, at least, will follow you, he thinks to me.

I climb down and motion for the others to follow.

I should wait here, Xin thinks.

I will probably need your help, I reply.

They fear me.

They need to learn not to, I think. You are my brother and they will learn to accept you, just as they will learn to follow me.

Very well, Xin thinks in reply. But you may find yourself safeguarding me rather than the other way around.

It would be a nice change, I think. Let’s go.

The dinosaurs part for us and we continue along the path to the gate on foot. When the dinosaurs start to fan out behind us, turning toward the jungle and forming a living, sharp-toothed wall, I ask, “The clearing isn’t mined, is it?”

“Mines?” Xin asks.

“Explosive traps triggered by weight,” Kat explains.

“No,” Xin says, “though I suspect such devices were used in the jungles surrounding us.”

The gates are chain link, topped with razor wire—a feeble stumbling block against just about anything that might come out of the jungle, including us, with the exception of Turquins, the big predatory birds that look like a cross between a turkey and a penguin. Two soldiers in a ten-foot tall guard tower stare at us. One points a large machine gun in our direction. As dorky as it feels, I force myself to smile and wave.

Both men look like they’ve smelled something foul. They have no idea who I am, and though they might recognize Xin, they don’t trust him. The machine gun is proof enough of that.

“Stop right there,” says one of the men, his voice cut with the threat of violence should we not obey.

I stop, just ten feet from the gate. Fifteen feet from the men. I look at their guard post and frown. Even up there, they’ll still be looking up at the warriors. Of course, they can also jump out and survive the fall if need be.

“See something you don’t like?” the second man says. He’s noticed my frown.

“We’d like to come inside,” I say. “I’m a friend of Merrill Clark.”

“Far as I know, he’s never said anything about you.”

I meet the man’s eyes. He’s young, maybe my age if you ignore the fact that despite my late teen appearance, I’m in my mid-thirties by surface years. “My name is Solomon Ull Vincent. I am the last hunter and leader of the men and women you now know as hunters.”

This catches their attention. They start eyeing me up and down, whispering to each other, but loud enough for me to hear.

“This is the guy?”

“He doesn’t look like much.”

“What if he’s lying? Could be lying.”

“He is with that freakjob...”

I glance at Xin. He’s unfazed by the insult, or perhaps doesn’t realize it’s an insult.

“The kid, too.”

They would let us in if I told them to, Xin says to my mind, but when he looks at me, his eyes say something else.

I know, I know, I think back, make an impression.

Without lifting my arms, or making a movement that might make me a target, or reveal I am the source of the phenomenon, I direct a sphere of wind to form around one of the men. His whispered sentence is cut off by a “Whoa!” He rises into the air.

“Charlie!” the man shouts, reaching out for his partner. “Dude! Help me!”

But Charlie doesn’t move. He’s stuck in place, part of him in shock, the other part bound to the wooden floor, which has twisted around his feet. The wood, hewn from the trees that once filled this clearing, bends to my will.

The airborne soldier flails like a bird with broken wings until I bring him down, outside the gate. I spin him upright and hold him just a foot above the ground so that we’re face to face. It’s then that I’m struck by the man’s stature. “You’re short,” I say.

“W—what?” he replies. He looks me up and down. “You—you’re tall.”

I am? I look down, confused by this. Over the past years, I have grown taller and muscular. I grew a beard. All without noticing. “How tall?”

“Like six-five,” he says.

“Huh,” I say. It’s not really surprising. One of my uncles is six-seven.

Xin clears his throat.

Right. Make an impression.

“What’s your name?”

“Duane. Corporal Duane Cairns.”

“Well, Corporal,” I say. “You know who I am, yes?”

He nods. There’s no doubting it now. He’s probably heard stories about me, from the other hunters and from the freed prisoners, but I doubt he, or many of the other people here, believed them. He does now, of course.

“Could you open the gate so I don’t have to melt it?” I ask. “I’m trying to be polite.”

His eyes go wide. I’m not certain I could do such a thing. I think I could, but I’ve never tried. Still, since he’s floating in the air at the moment, he’ll believe I can do just about anything.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Charlie, open the gate!”

I motion to Charlie with my hand so that he knows it is, without a doubt, me who sets him free from the wood binding his legs. An electric motor buzzes a moment later and the gate grinds open.

Cairns looks relieved when I put him on the ground.

“Could you go tell the people in charge that I am here?” I ask.

And... Xin’s voice fills my head.

“And,” I say, cringing inwardly as I speak the words, “that I am ready to take command.”

He looks at me like I’m insane, but then nods quickly and hurries into the base.

I glance up at Charlie and the man snaps a salute.

Kat chuckles and says, “At ease soldier. We’re on the same side.”

I step through the gate, followed by the others, and am surprised when Zuh steps out from behind the guard tower. She’s now wearing a pair of black cargo pants, though her top is still...scant. I can see her pockets are filled with supplies.  Is she hoarding? It wouldn’t surprise me. She might expect to be on the run again at any time.

Her dark red pom-pom of hair makes me smile. She takes this as an invitation to wrap her arms around me in an embrace. I flinch away, but am ensnared.

“Zuh!” Kainda shouts.

I’m released as Zuh’s kusarigama appears in her hands. “Would you like to finish, daughter of Ninnis?”

Kainda unclips her hammer.

I shoot her an angry look. “Seriously?”

She doesn’t draw the weapon, but she remains tense. She’ll defend herself if she has to.

I step closer to Zuh, which brings a smile to her face. It disappears when I put my hand on the chain attached to the kusarigama’s blade. I lean in to her ear. “I admire your strength. And your courage.”

A flicker of a smile returns.

“But,” I say, my voice a whisper now. “The old ways are dead. The laws that bound hunters are gone. You are free. As am I. And only I can choose...”

I look back over my shoulder. I can see by the strained looks on everyone’s faces that they’re trying to hear me, but can’t. Well, maybe Xin can, but there isn’t much I can do about that. I lower my voice and continue. “...who I will love. Who I will marry.”

I lean back and look at Zuh’s face. She looks quite unhappy, but I don’t think she’s going to attack anyone. I search for hurt in her eyes and find none. She doesn’t know me. Doesn’t love me. For her, as it once was for Kainda, marriage to me was about status and power. She’ll get over it.

“You called me King, before,” I say.

Her eyes grow and lock onto mine. “I still do.”

“Then you will listen. And obey.”

She nods.

“You. Are. Free.” I enunciate each word. “To live and love and fight anyway you choose with anyone you choose. Do you understand?”

Her eyes squint. Despite not moving her lips, I recognize the expression as a smile. Perhaps the first genuine smile of her life, which might be why it looks so awkward.

She offers a slight bow and steps back, avoiding Kainda’s gaze. I clear my throat, offer a smile at my entourage and head into the base.

A gathering throng greets us as we walk into the central quad of the large base. Men and women dressed in military uniforms eye us. The few hunters present whisper to each other. Some bow, which incites ridiculing glances from the soldiers. We’re being judged right now, I know, so I keep my head up, bury my fear and ignore my lack of confidence. As a kid, I was terrified of authority. Once, when I was still in school—seventh grade, I think—my teacher, Mrs. Baker, who was a fairly pleasant and non-threatening woman, lost her patience with my inattentive boredom. (I was years ahead of the subject matter.) She took me aside while the students filed to the next classroom for English. Three sentences into her gentle rebuke, I broke into tears. She felt awful. I know she did because she apologized several times despite having done nothing wrong. But my thin-skinned wall had been chipped, and all the fear and anxiety I had over school came gushing out.

If I can keep from crying, I think, I should do okay.

That’s when I see Aimee walk out of one of the metal buildings. She’s followed by Merrill and a man I don’t know, but who is clearly General Holloway. He is followed by Cairns, then Adoni, then the Latino soldier known as Cruz and finally, by Mirabelle Whitney.

The sight of the Clark family altogether is more than I can bear, and the tears I would so like to hide trace a line of wetness on my lower eyelid. I take a deep breath, control myself and pretend to have something in my eyes as I wipe away the wetness. So much for not crying.

As the group approaches, I can no longer just stand and wait. I break formation and move to greet my friends. Merrill is in the lead, I suspect because he’s the unofficial guide to all of the strangeness on Antarctica. He looks older than I remember, which makes sense because it’s been twenty-one years. His hair is gray, as is his full beard, and he looks a little thicker around the waist, though still fit enough to handle an expedition.

“Dr. Clark!” I say as a smile too impossibly wide to hide, spreads across my face.

Merrill glances back to Adoni, who waves to me and offers a bow.

The following words spoken by Merrill don’t sink in.

“Is this him?” he asks Adoni. “Your leader?”

“Yes, it is him.”

By the time Merrill turns back to face me, I’ve reached him.

My mind races back to the first time I met him, how I stumbled out of the car and hit my head like a clumsy oaf. He saw the whole thing, but didn’t say a word. Not until later at least, by which time we had become fast friends. Merrill knew everything about me, gave me my middle name and suspected before anyone, even me, that I might have some kind of power upon my return to Antarctica.

I reach out to shake his hand, which he returns, but my excitement gets the better of me. I reach my hands around him, hugging him tight. He coughs, surprised, and doesn’t return the embrace. But I don’t notice because I’m already moving on to Aimee, who is watching us with a grin. But when I open my arms to her, she just looks confused. And then a little afraid.

A tight hand on my biceps stops me and turns me back to Merrill. My smile disappears when I see his angry face.

“Son, I don’t care who you are to these people, you need to explain yourself before you put your hands on my wife.”

“What? Merrill, I—” It occurs to me that I might look so different now that he can’t recognize me. “It’s me. Solomon. Solomon Vincent.”

He stares at me dumbly.

“I’m Mark and Beth’s son.”

“I know who they are, but I’m not sure how you know them,” he says, looking a little defensive now.

“We came here, to Antarctica, twenty-one years ago. You, and me, my parents, and Aimee,” I point to Mira, who I am dying to greet, but she just looks angry, “and Mira. We went to Clark Station Two. I was kidnapped. Taken—”

“Hold on,” Merrill says. “I did come here with the Vincents, and with Mira, but you were not with us. I do not know you. And you are not the Vincents’ son.”

“I was born here,” I argue, then point to Amiee. “You caught me. Made me stop crying.” I turn back to Merrill. “You gave me my middle name, Ull.”

His face twitches at this, though I don’t think it’s in remembrance, but in recognition that it’s the kind of name he would give.

“All of this is impossible,” he says, growing angrier.

“It’s all true!” I shout at him, losing my patience. I turn to Aimee again. “Tell him! You’ve been here this whole time. You’ve seen me. You freed me. Tell him!”

“Son,” Merrill says quietly. “I can see that you’re upset, and in a minute, you’re going to tell me everything you know about my wife’s abduction and what you know about her time here, but you are either delusional or a liar.”

“You know I’m neither,” I say through grinding teeth.

Then he delivers the verbal knockout blow.

“It’s impossible, because the Vincents never had a son.”

31

“I am their son!” I shout, growing angry. Soldiers start to inch closer, hands by their weapons. I ignore them, focusing on Merrill. I decide to recall something from my parents’ shared past with the Clarks, something that only the four of them, or someone close enough to have heard the story, would know. The details, told to me by my father, come to me as though my father were speaking them into my ear.

“You introduced them. On a boat. A sailboat. The Argos. You all went searching for humpbacks in the Gulf of Maine. But you found nothing and the sea was flat.” I stab a finger at him. “You fell asleep.” I turn to Aimee. “You read a romance novel. And my parents talked. ‘By the end of the day, I was madly in love. Best day of my life.’ That’s what my father told me. They were married six months, fourteen days later, and you gave the toast. Quoted Virgil. ‘Ómnia vincit amor; et nos cedamus amori.’ ‘Love conquers all things; let us too surrender to love.’”

All of the anger drains from Merrill’s face. Aimee’s too. But they’re still confused. Mira still looks angry, like she loathes me.

“How do you know all that?” Merrill asks.

“My father, your friend, told me.”

Merrill looks to Aimee, but she’s shaking her head. I’m still a stranger to her, too. I consider telling Aimee about her years as a captive, at least to see what lines up with reality, and what she remembers. She knows she lived among the Nephilim. She recalls being rescued. But all trace of me in those years of memories has been forgotten. How could they just forget me?

I feel the rest of my crew approach from behind and see the eyes of the group in front of me dart to each of them, looking a bit uncomfortable when they land on Xin. Kat steps to the front of the group. “You can trust him, Merrill.”

Merrill’s eyes go wide. “Katherine!” A genuine smile appears on his face for the first time. He gives her a quick hug and then looks around. “We thought you were dead. Where is Wright?”

“He is dead,” Kat says. “But he didn’t die at the river. He died later on, to save us.” She motions to our group, and then to me. “He died to save him. Because he is who he says he is. Did you know that my husband’s father was on that expedition? Steven Wright.”

Merrill eyes widen. “It never occurred to me.”

“Well he knew,” she says, pointing to me. “He remembered everything about Wright’s father, including that he didn’t bring his son to Clark Station 2 because he was convinced the boy would die on Antarctica. And now he has. For him.”

Merrill chews on his lower lip. “I would like to believe you. But I have no memory of the boy. It’s too much to believe.”

“If she’s with him,” Mira says. “She might be compromised.”

“Whitney,” Kat grumbles, using Mira’s last name, her voice revealing the sting she feels at Mira’s accusation. “The hell?”

If Kat’s support isn’t enough to convince them, then I’m not sure what will. I decide to focus on events that might not make sense with me removed from them. “When you came back to Antarctica, with my parents, and with Mira, do you remember the Sno-Cat ride?”

Merrill nods.

I look to Mira. “Do you remember riding with Collette?”

Mira says nothing. She just glares.

“How could he know this?” Aimee whispers.

“Do you remember stopping?”

Both shake their heads, no.

“Do you remember the storm that arrived later that night?”

This gets a nod from Merrill. “We had to leave because of it.”

“Aimee was injured that night.”

“Yes,” Merrill says, searching his memory.

“How?” I ask.

Both of them think hard on this, but can’t come up with an answer.

“She was unconscious,” I say. “Bleeding. And you can’t remember how it happened?”

They’re both more confused than before.

“You need to leave them alone,” Mira says, stepping between Aimee and me. Her fists are clenched, and I note she has a gun holstered to her hip, along with a machete. The holster strap holding the gun in place has been unclipped. This is not the girl I remember. Could she have changed so much?

I ignore her demand. I know this is hard for her parents, but they need to remember, and not just to keep my heart from breaking.

“And you know how it happened?” Merrill asks.

“The storm woke me up. I wandered outside. You had attached a bell to my door—”

Aimee’s eyes blink. “I remember the bell... It woke me up.” She looks at Merrill. “Why did we—”

“The bell was for me. To let you know that I was awake.” I sense Merrill is about to ask a slew of questions, but continues on, getting to the point of the story. “It was snowing. The wind was picking up. But I wasn’t alone. A man—a hunter—was watching me from the dark. He spoke to me. Threatened me. And when I felt a presence behind me, I struck out. But it wasn’t the man. It was Aimee.”

I sense Merrill’s growing anger. I’ve just confessed to knocking out his wife.

“It was an accident,” I say. “I was just thirteen. One year older than Mira at the time.” This additional information doesn’t calm him at all, so I push on. “While Aimee lay on the floor, the power went out.”

“I remember that, too,” Aimee says. “I had just woken up.”

“Who went out to turn it back on?” I ask.

They both search for an answer but find nothing in their memory.

“Someone you never saw again? Someone lost in the storm?”

Merrill starts to nod slowly.

“How can you not remember that person?” I ask, growing a little bit angry myself. That they cannot remember me going missing is offensive. “How can you not remember the name of the thirteen year old boy who went out into an Antarctic storm and never came back? I was kidnapped that night. Taken underground and tortured. I was turned into a monster. And, like you, I forgot—”

The last words out of my mouth hit me hard. They haven’t forgotten, they’ve been made to forget. They’re compromised somehow. In the grip of the Nephilim.

I step back away from them, a bit of fear creeping into my eyes.

Kainda and Em react to my body language. Kainda reaches for her hammer, Em for her knife. The soldiers around us subtly switch off the safeties on their rifles.

“Everyone calm down,” General Holloway says. “I’ve given you all long enough to work this out, but it’s clear there’s some confusion. If you are intent on settling this through violence, you will not survive.”

The general doesn’t quite understand what he’s up against. He doesn’t know what I can do, what Kainda, Em and Xin are capable of, or that the hundreds of hunters spread out among his men might not respond well if I’m attacked. A lot of people will die.

So I relax my posture, despite feeling like we’re in real danger, and ask Em and Kainda to do likewise. Neither of them likes it, but they listen.

The general steps forward, “Glad to see you’ve got some self-control, now let’s—”

I tune out the general. I recognize the beginning of a lecture designed to disarm and placate, and I’m hardly interested.

Xin, I think.

I know, he replies. I am searching their minds. Adoni is confused, but himself. The same is true for the General. He does not trust you, or me, though.

I feel Xin’s tension rise. What is it?

Merrill is himself, but his memories of you have been blocked. The change was put in place long ago, after Aimee was taken. He has not remembered you for some time.

How? I ask.

Gatherers sometimes initiate blocks on the people close to those they have abducted, especially if those people are in a position to uncover the truth about their loved one’s disappearance. Before the rise of Antarktos, secrecy was of the utmost importance to the Nephilim plot. Merrill must have been searching for you. You were removed from his mind.

Sorrow mixes with rage and leaves me feeling confused, but Xin’s grim prognosis isn’t completed yet.

It is likely they did the same to Mira...and your parents.

Sorrow takes a quick backseat to rage, and I have a very hard time keeping my reaction to this revelation from appearing on my face. I’m not sure what the general is saying, but I’m willing to bet an angry look on my face wouldn’t be the appropriate reaction.

But Aimee knew me this whole time, I think. How could she forget me so quickly?

Xin is quiet for a moment, and I know he is searching her mind now, too.

Her memories are similarly locked, Xin determines. But much more recently. The mental scarring is fresh.

Can you undo it? I ask.

With your help, yes. I will check the daughter’s memories as—

Something the general has just said pulls me out of my conversation with Xin. I use my perfect memory to replay his words.

“Now if you’ll kindly follow these men to the brig, we can all stay safe until we sort this out.”

I blink, back in the present conversation.

“Son, did you hear me?” he asks. “Did you hear a word I just said?”

“No,” I confess without thinking. My eyes wander to Merrill and then to Aimee. They look the same, confused and concerned, as they should be. My eyes go to Mira. She’s blinking oddly, twisting with discomfort.

Xin’s voice smashes into my mind along with a flood of emotions. It’s her! He shouts. The daughter!

The surge of emotion squeezes my eyes shut. It’s just for a moment, but when I open them again, Mira has freed her handgun and leveled it at my chest. And when she pulls the trigger, I am too stunned to even react.

32

The striking mechanism inside Mira’s handgun springs forward, connecting with a bullet. The gunpowder ignites, propelling the round out of the gun faster than the speed of the shot’s explosive report. Despite the differences in speed, it all seems to happen in the same fraction of a second, though the moment is dragged out as though moving through tree sap.

Pain stabs my ears as the gunshot reaches them. Then again and again.

Three rounds fired in quick succession.

An impact, like being punched hard, strikes my chest.

The world spins. I see blue sky. The wet, muddy earth of the trampled quad slaps against my back as I topple over.

Air rushes out of my lungs as something heavy pushes down on me.

For a moment, I’m dazed, but then my mind clears, the pain fades and I know without looking that I am not severely injured.

What happened? I think, looking down.

The weight on top of me. It’s Xin!

“Xin!” I shout, “Are you—”

He lifts his head slowly and looks into my eyes.

She is a shifter, he thinks. Not your Mira.

I look around him and see Mira with her hands raised. Several guards are taking the weapon from her hands. Several more think they are keeping Kainda and Em in place. Kat is the only thing holding them back. Merrill and Aimee look horrified, and honestly, so does the general.

I am sorry, Solomon, Xin thinks. Though he’s not speaking audibly, he sounds different. Distant. Mira is dead. Shifters—

I know, I think. Shifters kill the people they duplicate. They are an elusive tribe of Nephilim that I only recently encountered after returning from Tartarus. From what I understand, they have only recently returned to Antarctica as they spent most of their time among humanity, in disguise, causing strife, instigating fear and causing wars. They were, and perhaps still are, the trickster gods—Loki, Hermes, Asmodeus, Puck and the like—sons of the most notorious demon, Lucifer. The Devil himself. It is they, not the warriors, who are regarded as the most dangerous of Nephilim. They simply lack the numbers or desire to lead. They’re all about deception, and they excel at it.

You must kill her, Xin thinks. Avenge me.

Avenge you?

I am lost, he thinks, pushing himself up a little.

I look down and see a golf ball sized hole in his chest. The bullet must have struck his back and exited through his chest, missing me entirely. Red blood drips from his chest to mine.

I will last a little while longer, but I will not survive. You must kill her before she realizes her assassination attempt has failed.

Xin... Brother...

Act now, Solomon! My death has always been inevitable. Show them why only you can lead!

His words and urgency fuel my brewing rage. I roll Xin onto his back as gently as I can. As I stand and face the doppelganger, Xin transmits a name into my thoughts. Amaguq. Countless encyclopedias worth of knowledge flits through my head. Amaguq. The Inuit trickster god. A massive wolf that killed hunters at night.

Not this hunter, I think, then call out the name. “Amaguq!”

Mira’s eyes lock on mine, confirming that she is not, in fact, Mirabelle Whitney.

Whipsnap cracks to life in my hand, making those around me jump back. Some of the soldiers point their weapons at me. “Put them down,” I growl.

“Don’t kill her,” Merrill says, stepping in front of me. “She’s my only daughter.”

“Mirabella...” Sadness threatens to dull my anger, but I remind myself that the creature responsible for all of this is pretending to be Mira. “Your daughter is dead.”

Merrill just looks confused. Mira appears to be alive and well.

“Amaguq,” I say, repeating the name, confident that he’ll understand.

“The Inuit trickster god, but what—” Merrill has seen the Nephilim. He knows that strange and otherworldly things have happened here. He might not remember me, but he remembers his encounters with the Nephilim—the giants who posed as gods to the ancients. “No...”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “But this is not your daughter. You might not remember me. Or trust me. But you know your daughter. She tried to kill me, and instead killed my brother.” Merrill glances down at Xin, who now has a crying Luca kneeling by his side. Neither are speaking, but I’m sure they are saying goodbye in a more private way. Luca is Xin’s brother as much as I am. “Look at her, Merrill. That is not your girl.”

Merrill glances back at Mira, sees the hate seething in her eyes. When he turns back to me, tears have begun filling his eyes. Without another word, he steps aside. The message is clear to everyone.

“Merrill!” Aimee says. He holds her back, whispering urgently into her ear.

When I step toward Mira, who is being held by two soldiers, General Holloway blocks my path. “Son, I will not let you—”

When the air suddenly leaves his lungs, Holloway loses his voice and stumbles back. I didn’t make a move, but the soldiers surrounding us somehow know that I am to blame. Weapons turn in my direction. The only two soldiers not pointing weapons at me are the men holding Mira. Right now, they’re in the most danger. Again, without making a move other than to step closer to Mira, I command the wind. It drops down fast from above, directly over Mira’s head, sending the two soldiers sprawling away.

Half the men with guns turn their weapons on Mira now, believing her to be the source of the strange power that sent their comrades flying. It’s not accurate, but it’s a welcome shift in attention.

Mira hisses at them, and then at me.

The inhuman sound elicits a sad wail from Aimee. Merrill has no doubt told her the truth. The hiss confirmed it, but I know they’re about to get a much less subtle confirmation that this is not their daughter. I’ve seen the transformation from human form to Nephilim once before, when I killed the shifter known as Eshu. It is something I would like to forget, but it is also something I need to instigate now. If I kill it now, while it looks like Mira, I will appear to be the monster, but if it changes...if these men who have not yet seen the enemy, get a taste of what they are facing, and see how I handle it, they might very well recognize the need for my leadership.

“I killed your brother,” I taunt. “Eshu.”

Another hiss, a bit angrier than the last.

“He was weak,” I say. “Frail. He died pitifully. Begged for mercy.”

It doesn’t sound like much of an insult, but to a Nephilim, it is blasphemous.

Mira’s fingers stiffen into hooks. The beast inside wants to tear me apart. But first it must expose itself.

I point Whipsnap’s blade at its face. “You will beg, too.”

Mira turns her head skyward and screams, “Father! I will not bear these insults any longer!” She hooks her fingers into her open mouth.

And pulls.

A wet tearing sound makes me cringe. I know this is not Mira, but seeing her form tearing itself apart makes me feel ill.

The roar grows louder as Mira’s light brown skin tears in two. Two horns, each nearly a foot long, emerge from the forehead. Her body expands, as though pumped full of air from within, then the weak spots burst. Purple blood sprays in every direction, forming a circle around her body.

The mass of spectators who had not yet backed away, do so quickly now. As the monster grows, shedding its human skin and clothes, Em, Kainda and Adoni arrive at my side. All of them have their weapons ready.

“Same as last time,” Adoni says with his thick Australian accent. When I faced Eshu, I was not alone. It took the four of us to defeat him. But this fight is mine to face on my own.

“No,” I say. “I need to do this.”

“Sol,” Em says, “Eshu nearly—”

“I remember. But I need to do this for me.” I nod to the Clarks and then to all the soldiers watching. “For them. As their leader.”

“Be careful,” Em says.

“No,” Kainda grumbles. She looks me in the eyes and speaks with conviction. “Be merciless.”

An explosion of flesh pulls me back to the shifter. His ten-foot form is now fully exposed. Red skin and shiny scales cover his devil-like body. Double rows of sharp teeth gnash. The six fingers on each hand are hooked like talons, each sporting a sharp, one-inch long fingernail.

The soldiers, rightly terrified, open fire. Ten of them empty their magazines into the beast. Purple blood pours over the red body. Amaguq reels back, roaring in pain. But this is a Nephilim. The bullets piercing his skin and spilling his blood, delight him. Still, he is wounded and off balance.

I could end it. Right here. Right now. He wouldn’t be able to stop me.

But I don’t.

I wait.

They need to see. They need to understand. Hearing stories is one thing, seeing is believing.

“What the hell?” a man says behind me.

Wounds cover Amaguq’s body. The small dark holes oozing purple blood are easy to spot. But one by one, the wounds disappear.

“Get back!” I shout. “Everyone back!”

They listen. Even the general. And just like that, I’m in charge. At least for the moment.

Now all I need to do is survive this fight.

Amaguq rights himself, twists his neck from side to side, and roars at me.

I roar back. And charge.

33

Rage fuels my attack, and for a moment, I feel like Ull again. All of my cunning, intellect and yes, mercy, take a back seat. The problem with this is that Amaguq fights in the exact same way, but with one enormous advantage. He heals, fast. So it doesn’t really matter that I draw first blood, stabbing the bladed tip of Whipsnap into his shoulder and yanking it out, cutting muscle and flesh. The arm hangs limp for just a second, and as a result, I’ve left myself open for a counterattack.

The wind aids my leap away, responding to my instincts rather than any mental command. If it hadn’t, the fight would have been lost. Amaguq’s long fingernails would have eviscerated me, spilling my guts. Instead, the bone-like nails leave six horizontal scratches across my belly.

The sting should have sobered me up, but I’m still drunk with fury. This monster, this abomination, killed Mira—the girl who filled me with hope all those years in the underworld. For the longest time, the Polaroid photo I carried of her was all that kept me sane. And then she was here, returned to her mother. She even managed to kill Enki before falling unconscious into the lake where she was saved by Gloop.

Gloop.

If Mira was captured by Amaguq, it would have happened while Gloop and the seal pod were transporting her out to sea. I come to the conclusion that Gloop is also dead. How many friends and allies is that now? Six?

A roar builds from deep inside me and I lunge at Amaguq. I strike out several times with the blade tip, thrusting, swinging and spinning. The ceaseless flurry forces the shifter back, but he is in no danger. He stands ten feet tall. To kill him I must remove his head, which means I either need to get airborne or bring him to his knees. I’d prefer the latter—I don’t just want to kill him, I want to humiliate him—so I press the attack.

Purple blood flies as I hack away. Bones break as the mace, powered by the flexible staff, crushes Amaguq’s forearms again and again. But the beast never slows. Never tires. And has even begun to laugh.

“Pitiful thing,” he taunts. “If you mean to impress your flock, I believe you are failing.”

I glance to the side and see a terrified line of faces. They’re not just afraid of Amaguq’s horrible visage, they’re afraid I can’t win because no matter how much I hack away, he keeps on fighting. Worse, he’s making a show of how much he enjoys the pain.

Pointing this out was Amaguq’s first real mistake, because it returns some sanity to my mind. I’m not just fighting to avenge Mira, and Xin, I’m fighting to show these people that the Nephilim can be defeated. I had hoped to do it without using my powers, to reveal a man can kill the beast, but that’s not what they need.

They need inspiration.

I twist Whipsnap around, pointing the tip at Amaguq’s chest. We square off, circling each other.

“Any last words?” I ask.

He squints at me, perhaps confused by the confidence leaking into my voice.

“I will kill you,” he says.

“I am the vessel of Nephil,” I reply.

He sneers, understanding the message. He cannot kill me. The Nephilim need me alive.

“I am a son of Lucifer,” he growls back. “I do not answer to Ophion, or to any warrior.”

“You will answer to me,” I say, and make sure it’s loud enough for everyone to hear. I let a grin show.

A gust of wind strikes his back like a charging bull. He falls forward. The impact arches his back and flings his arms out to the sides. I don’t even have to move. The blade tip of Whipsnap stabs through his chest, tearing through breastplate, flesh and heart, if he has one. With a crunchy slurp, the blade emerges from his back, covered in purple gore.

I will need to clean Whipsnap’s staff where the blood runs over it before I can touch it again, but it doesn’t matter now. The fight is over, though Amaguq doesn’t quite realize it yet.

He laughs loudly, straightening himself. I see his fingers hook and the shimmer of his red, scaly skin as his biceps flex. He’s going to try grabbing me. If he succeeds, I’ll die quickly. But I don’t intend on giving him the chance. Without moving a muscle, I send a gust of wind in the opposite direction, slamming him away from me.

There’s a hard tug on my arms as the blade pulls free from his already healing body. But the wound is grave and he’s not so quick to recover. He sits up, clutching his chest. Purple blood flows from the wound, and from his mouth. For anyone else, it would have been a mortal wound. For Amaguq, it’s a speed bump, which is all I wanted.

He laughs again and I hear a moan of fright from some of the spectators.

Purple blood covers his double rows of sharpened teeth. It’s a sick grin. And I take pleasure in wiping it from his face.

“You should have got the wings,” I say.

The look on his face says, huh? but then understanding fills his eyes.

Amaguq is scooped from the earth by an invisible force. It happens so quickly, so violently, that many of his bones break. He’s launched skyward like a rocket, his scream fading into the distance. Inside of ten seconds, he’s just a speck.

That’s when I let him go.

The scream returns, growing louder as the ten foot, devil-like giant reaches terminal velocity.

As I watch him fall, I hear gasps, excited talking and even a few claps. But this won’t be the end of it, and I don’t intend it to be. Not quite yet.

The impact is horrible, disgusting in every way imaginable. The sound is a wet, dull thump combined with a crack loud enough to be a fireworks explosion. The impact shakes the ground. One of his arms flies free, separated at the shoulder joint. Fluids, purple and white, flow from the body. The head cracks open and for the first time, I get a glimpse of a Nephilim brain—it’s as black as I imagine their hearts to be.

The slowly rising cheer around me cuts off quickly when Amaguq moves.

He’s broken, but not yet dead.

“It’s alive!” someone shouts. It’s the voice of a young man, perhaps someone who has never seen battle before and is now faced with this. Amaguq’s body begins to reform, though very slowly. There isn’t a part of him that doesn’t need to heal. I’m not even sure he can think right now.

I could kill him. Take off his head right now and be done with it. But I have one more demonstration, and for Amaguq, it will be far worse than having his body reduced to sludge.

“He is alive,” I shout to the men and women surrounding us. “You have probably heard that your enemy, these Nephilim, are monstrous and impossible to kill. But now you have seen it for yourself. You have seen what your bullets can do against them.”

It’s not the most inspirational speech, I know, but it’s the truth and it is the only thing that will prepare these soldiers for what is coming.

“They delight in pain. They revel in death. After they have killed you, they will consume your flesh. And when they are done with you here, they will move out into the world like a plague, bringing terror and death to all of humanity.”

I turn slowly, looking as many of the soldiers in the eyes as I can. I find Em in the crowd. She looks unsure. I give her a wink that says, “I know what I’m doing,” and she’s put at ease, though just a little bit.

Are you still with me, brother?

I am here, Solomon, but time is short, Xin responds. Your method is intriguing.

Can you connect me with Kat? I ask.

It is done.

“All of this will come to pass,” I say aloud. “Unless you follow me.”

A wet gurgle of a laugh fills the air. Amaguq is recovering. I glance over my shoulder. He’s on one knee, struggling to stay upright, but healing faster now.

Kat walks toward me, responding to my request. Amaguq cannot see her, but our audience can. She slowly unwraps the bundle in her arms, which garners confused comments from the crowd.

“Turn,” Amaguq demands. “Face me at your end!”

Kat stops in front of me. I drop Whipsnap to the ground and take her delivery in my hands.

“Bold move, kid,” she whispers. “I like it.” She glances over my shoulder. “By the way, I think he’s going to kill you now.”

I feel the rumble of Amaguq’s footstep behind me. He’s just ten feet away. Two more steps and he’ll be close enough to kill me.

I let him take one more step before turning around.

The look in his eyes when he looks down at what I’m holding is priceless. The abject fear and horror that cuts into his face is so pure that every man and woman watching will recognize the expression.

The unkillable monster is terrified.

I put the Jericho shofar to my lips, and I blow. Hard.

The sound that comes out is both deep and high pitched—not exactly pleasant on the ears, but Amaguq reacts to it like he’s just been doused with acid. He falls to the ground flailing, thrashing and spitting. He screams in agony—real agony. All of the pleasure is gone from his voice, replaced by unadulterated pain. And torture.

The soldiers watching don’t know what’s happening, but I do. Amaguq’s heart is softening, perhaps breaking, as he is made to understand the darkness of his kind. The weight of all the evil, corruption and death that he has spawned over the past few thousand years is landing square on his shoulders. An impossible weight to bear.

When I end the horn blast, the words that come from his mouth bring a smile to my face.

“Please stop!” the monster wails. “Please! I’m sorry!” His words descend into a blubbering mess of desperate pleading and sorrow. I hand the shofar back to Kat, who carefully wraps it again. Turning back to Amaguq, I crouch and pick up Whipsnap.

Amaguq sees the weapon in my hand, and then begs me, “Kill me, please! I don’t want to live anymore.”

I step closer. “You will cease to exist.”

“Please, kill me!”

Even I am surprised by the shofar’s effect. I expected something less, maybe a painful distraction. But not in my wildest dreams did I think the Nephilim would drop to the ground, bow their heads and beg for death. The effect will wear off, I know, but the result is far more powerful than I expected, which is also a testament to Nephil’s power. The horn hurt him, but it did not do this.

I grip Whipsnap well below the poisonous purple blood coating the bladed end. I step closer, intending to grant the beast’s request.

Wait.

It’s Xin.

Why? I ask.

Place your hand upon his head. In his weakened state, we will have full access to his mind.

Quickly understanding the benefit of this, I stand above the bowed form of Amaguq and place my hand on his forehead. I feel the force of Xin’s will move through my body and into Amaguq’s mind, then I’m tugged along for the ride, entering the consciousness of a Nephilim.

34

At first, there is nothing but darkness and chaos, a tumultuous descent full of raw feelings. A heavy sense of agonizing regret blankets me and then fades as the darkness resolves. Flashes of reality, experienced through Amaguq’s body, appear, moving backwards through time.

I see myself, consumed by anger, slashing with Whipsnap, and for a moment, I feel the delight that pain brings. Then we’re back, smaller now, inside the form of Mira. Images of Merrill and Aimee flit past. The general. Soldiers. Cruz. All expressing concerns and fears. The sounds of their words amuse Amaguq. Back further, on a ship, looking up at the sky. Nephilim warriors fly above, an army heading out to sea. Merrill looks up at them and speaks, “Your will be done,” praying to the God who has clearly abandoned mankind. It’s all Amaguq can do not to laugh.

Back again.

Amaguq feigns weakness while Merrill holds Mira in his arms, reunited with the daughter he believed dead.

Back again. Riding on the back of a seal. I recognize it right away as Gloop. The rest of the pod follows. He controls them with pain, twisting his fingers beneath Gloop’s flesh. But the seal lives. I know that now. After being delivered to the ship, he couldn’t then kill the seals, and why bother? They’re just animals after all.

The next flash fills my body with an uncommon chill. Darkness envelopes our view, and then resolves. I sense the scene is about to pass and think, wait!

Our reverse trip through time via Amaguq’s memories stops and plays forward.

What is it? Xin asks.

I saw her.

Who?

Mira.

We are still in her form, Solomon. You do not want to see her like—

There!

The image of Mira comes clear. Amaguq walks to her and crouches down. Her clothing has been shredded. Dirt and filth coat her body, darkening her blond hair, which is tied back. Her eyes are closed and fresh blood covers one side of her face.

Amaguq traces his finger through the blood on her face and brings it to his mouth, licking it with his tongue. I can taste Mira’s blood in his mouth, experiencing all of his senses. He chuckles, stands and turns to leave.

Were we not inside a Nephilim’s mind I would have smiled. Did you see it?

I saw nothing I would like to see again before my own life fades, Xin replies.

His eyes saw, but his mind wasn’t paying attention, I think. Watch.

The scene replays. I taste her blood. Amaguq stands, turns and...

Her eyes, Xin thinks. They opened.

It’s hard to see. Just a quick flutter. But the motion is combined with a rising in her chest.

She’s alive, I think.

With a flash of light, I am back in the real world.

He has repelled us! Xin shouts in my mind. The effect is wearing off. Quickly!

I blink twice, focusing my eyes, and see the guilt plaguing Amaguq fade. Without a shout of warning or final words, I bring Whipsnap up and swing the blade down as hard as I can. There’s a sound, like shucking corn on the cob, and Amaguq’s head falls free. His body collapses. A pool of violet forms around his torso.

I step back from the beast, breathing hard, and doing my best not to show the toll this battle and the trip through a Nephilim mind has taken on me. When it is clear that Amaguq will not be returning to this world, the soldiers clap and cheer, their relief flooding over me.

As I step away from the body, General Holloway approaches me. He looks like he’s about to give me some kind of speech, but the words seem to come and go several times before he simply extends his hand.

I take Holloway’s hand and shake.

“Welcome aboard, son,” he says. “We’ll follow your lead, but the orders to my men go through me.”

“Understood,” I say, glad to finally have an army, small as it is, to direct.

As others come to congratulate my victory, Xin’s voice reaches me, though barely. Brother...

He’s dying.

“Xin!” I shout, turning to where I last saw him and breaking into a sprint. I reach him quickly and drop down to my knees beside Luca, who never left his side. When I say his name again, tears are pouring down my face, damn what these men and women think of me now.

Brothers, Xin thinks, speaking to Luca and me simultaneously. Before I knew you, my heart was as dark as Amaguq’s. Together, you granted me forgiveness and a taste of innocence. I carry the burden of what I have done to the next life, if such a thing waits for me, but you have given me the strength to find peace.

I can sense Luca’s overwhelming sadness. It’s a pretty fair match to my own.

Xin’s body quakes. The motion elicits a sob from Luca. Em arrives behind the boy, putting her hand on his shoulder.

Xin reaches up, placing his hand on the back of Luca’s neck, pulling him closer. Before my life ends, he thinks, a gift. For each of you.

Luca’s forehead touches against Xin’s and I’m suddenly separated from the two. Luca’s eyes flutter for just a moment. Then he gasps and sits up.

Xin turns to me. Now you.

I lean down and place my head to Xin’s. His words fill my mind.

This is the last time I will speak to you in life, brother. You have become the man I wish I could have been and I believe, with all that remains of me, that you will destroy the monster Nephil and all who follow him.

Though I am in my mind with Xin, I can feel the warmth of my tears on my face, the shake of my trembling muscles as I hold myself over him, and the tightness in my throat that would keep me from speaking if we were using our mouths to talk.

You taught me how to love, brother. And that is a gift I can’t possibly pay back, but I will try. Next time you speak to the Clarks remember something they have told you. Goodbye, Solomon.

Goodbye, Xi—

A wave of energy fills my head. I clench my eyes shut, afraid they will burst. The pressure builds. It moves deeper into my mind, spreading, seeping into every fold. And then, it stops.

And Xin, my brother, is gone.

I open my eyes and look at his body. His chest rises and falls, but more slowly with each breath. Just seconds remain. As I look at him, I remember his words about his burden. About the world to come, if such a thing waits for me. I feel the fear in those words. He is part Nephilim. Does he have a soul? Or will he simply cease to exist?

I don’t know the answer, but there might be a way to be sure.

I stand quickly and shout, “Kat!”

She appears by my side still clutching the rewrapped shofar, as I knew she would. “Give it to me!”

Xin’s chest falls and for a moment, I fear it will not rise again.

I feel the shofar in my hands and turn it to face Xin.

His chest rises. It’s a shallow breath, but it is enough.

The horn sounds loudly, its blast pouring over Xin’s body. He doesn’t writhe, shriek or react in a way that a Nephilim might. Instead, he changes. The scales covering his body rise up, like flower petals and blow away in the breeze. A soft skin is revealed, human skin. The shape of his body changes, shortening and bulking. His head grows smaller, taking on a more human shape, though he remains as bald as ever. His serpentine, yellow eyes, which are staring up at the empty sky, shrink. The pupils turn circular. The color becomes blue. The transformation completes just as I run out of breath.

The horn blast fades.

A gentle smile forms on his human lips.

His chest falls as his last breath escapes his now fully human body.

Xin is dead.

In the distance, three hundred cresties roar sorrowfully, lamenting the passing of the man who led them, a mantle that now passes to me.

I hand the shofar back to Kat, who carefully wraps it. Kainda appears by my side. “I’m sorry,” she says and then glances down at Xin’s body and gasps. “He’s...”

“Me,” I say. The transformation removed all about Xin that was Nephilim and changed him to all that remained. He is a hairless, but otherwise perfect copy of me. “This is who he always was.”

Someone, I’m not sure who, hands me a blanket and I use it to cover his body. When I’m done, I feel a gentle touch on my shoulder. It’s Luca. I turn to him and hold the little version of myself tightly. I know how big I felt things as a kid. I’m kind of a mess now, and I’m supposedly hardened. I can’t imagine how hard this is for him. But then he surprises me.

What did he give you?

The little boy’s voice is in my head.

A laugh escapes my mouth and I pull away, looking Luca in the eyes. He’s smiling through his tears.

I don’t know, I reply. In fact, all I do know is that my head feels very full, almost like a sinus infection, and I’ve got a constant dull pain just behind my eyes. It might just be from the intense emotions and crying, but if Xin did something to my mind, I have no idea what it is. I certainly can’t read people’s thoughts.

Xin is given a burial within the hour, complete with a chaplain, a prayer and a three-volley salute. It’s especially moving given the fact that most of these men and women, including Em and Kainda, either feared or did not trust Xin. In the end, he proved to be the best of us, willing to give his life for mine, and ultimately, for theirs.

When it is done, I’m approached by Merrill, Aimee, General Holloway, Kainda, Em and Kat.

The general takes the lead, stopping in front of me. “I’m sorry for your loss, son, and for our...behavior toward him. Toward you. But from what I understand, we might see some action within the next few weeks and I would like to prepare for it.”

I nod, but say nothing.

“What would you have us do?” he asks.

I look at the familiar faces around me and stop at Merrill. He’s watching me. On my side, but he doesn’t know me. Xin’s strange request regarding the Clarks returns to my mind. Remember something they have told you.

“Merrill,” I say. He steps forward, and I extend my hand, recalling all the conversations I had with Merrill before being kidnapped by Ninnis.

He looks unsure, but he takes it and says, “I’m sorry for your confusion and I hope we can move past—”

“We weren’t put on this Earth to be stagnant,” I say.

For a moment, he just looks confused, but then a surge of energy flows from my head, across my arm and into his. He gasps as though rising from deep water. His eyes settle back on me a moment later, and widen. He looks me up and down.

“Solomon!” A smile appears on his face, but I only see it for a moment because then he’s got me in his arms, crushing me with love. I can feel the sobs wracking his chest. His memories have been restored.

“Merrill?” It’s Aimee. She sounds confused. He lets me go and turns to her. “It’s Solomon! He’s alive!” He seems to realize what has happened and turns to me. “She doesn’t remember yet.”

“Merrill, what are you—”

I step up to Aimee. This one is easy. “You are a precious boy.” I kiss her forehead. The same surge of energy courses through my lips to her head, and I don’t even get a chance to step back and see the change in her eyes before her arms are around me. She hugs and weeps and rubs my back like only a mother can. When she finally separates and looks in my eyes, she says, “You are a precious boy.”

With a gasp, I remember the news I have for the Clarks, which is also the answer to Holloway’s question.

“She’s alive,” I say to Aimee, and then turn to Merrill. “Mira is alive.”

“But, the shifter,” Em says.

“Didn’t kill her,” I say. “Xin and I saw it. In his memories. She’s alive.”

Holloway speaks up. “If you’re right, we can send a squad to—”

“No,” I say. “I’ll go.”

“Son,” Holloway says, growing angry. “You have just proven your worth to my men, and me. You have also instilled in us the firm belief that we cannot win this war without you. If you leave now—”

“General, please,” Aimee says. She might understand the logic of Holloway’s words, as do I, but as a mother, Mira comes first. As she does for me, as well.

“I will not leave her,” I say. “How many people have died because of me? Xin. Hades. Cerberus. Wright. How may more whose names I don’t even know? I will not lose someone else—”

“Solomon,” Kat says, stepping up next to me. She looks angry. “My husband died so that we could live to finish this fight, and I will not let you invoke his name in defense of running off to save a single girl. Your place is here now. You need to focus.”

On the surface, I agree with Kat. There is a lot at stake, so why am I so intent on rescuing Mira? Is it for the Clarks? My promise that they would be reunited? Is it selfish? Or nostalgia. Some kind of need to see the girl in the photo again? I find the answer in Kat’s words.

Focus.

You have found your passion, your focus and your faith. The Kerubim’s words replay perfectly in my mind. But you lack the hope that binds these things together. You will not be strong enough to defeat Ophion until you find it.

I look at Kat.

Focus.

Then at Kainda.

Passion.

And finally, Em.

Faith.

“Hope is a person,” I say. “You remember what Adoel said.” I point at each of them, identifying them one at a time. “Focus. Passion. Faith. Mira...is hope. The Kerubim said I would not be strong enough without her.”

I’m shocked by who replies first and what she says. Kainda steps forward. “I’m coming with you.”

I can see that Em is also about to volunteer, but I stop her. “You and Kat stay here. Prepare them. Protect the shofar. Use it if you have to. Kainda and I will travel fast.”

We back away toward the exit.

“Thank you,” Aimee says.

Merrill holds her shoulders and says, “Godspeed, Solomon.”

“We will return as fast as we can, General,” I say. “I know it’s hard to understand, but if I’ve learned anything over the past years, it’s that one person can change the outcome of a battle, or the course of history.”

Kainda and I hurry for the gate, where Grumpy and Zok wait for us, as though summoned. I don’t understand why or how, but I’ve learned not to question everything.

Before leaving, I turn back to the group and say, “Don’t be afraid. Hope still lives. I’m going to bring her back.”

Epilogue

Lieutenant Belgrave Edward Sutton Ninnis remembered.

Everything.

His long life as a hunter, every detail of it, still resided in his mind. All of the skills learned and knowledge attained, were still a part of him. But the burning hatred that consumed his being, especially for the boy, Solomon, had been dulled.

More than dulled, it had been beaten down. Crushed. By a new anger, one shared by the boy himself. Their lives—what they could have been—had been stolen.

Ninnis remembered taking Solomon. Remembered breaking him. Training him. Even feeling some sense of pride in all of it. But now he knew how the boy viewed those events. Exactly how the boy felt, because Ninnis now recalled his own breaking.

It took nearly a year. Endless days spent in the dark. Fighting off feeders. Eating their flesh. Tending his wounds. Slowly losing himself and the memories of the woman he adored. Solomon was just a boy. Ninnis had been a man. A soldier. And when he broke, it was a violent thing that filled his heart to overflowing with rabid hatred.

He killed the hunter who broke him first. Many more followed.

He remembered them all, too. Their faces. Their own hatred. The smell of their blood in his nose and the look in their eyes as life faded away. All that time, Ninnis never fully realized why he enjoyed killing so much, or why he always stayed to watch their lives slip away.

But he knew now.

He envied them. Their freedom. And he hated them all the more for it.

He also knew, as Solomon did, that these things were not him. Not really. Lieutenant Ninnis, the soldier, had never killed a person. He put his training to use by exploring the world. He kept a sketchbook with him wherever he went, drawing landscapes and technical drawings of animals and plants he’d never seen before. He scribbled notes about what he saw and penned letters to his wife. His Caroline. That was the real Ninnis.

The man who had returned, though far too late.

He hid within his own mind, a fragment of consciousness surrounded by a turbid blackness that now sought him out.

When Solomon blew the shofar, Ninnis, who’d watched the events as though from afar, was thrust back into his mind and body, fully and completely. It was a gift, and he thanked the boy for it, but Nephil now knew Ninnis was not gone. And if he could not hide, the monster would destroy him.

Were he still a hunter, Ninnis would have charged toward his fate, never knowing that he secretly longed for the release of death, or in this case, banishment from his own body. But now that he remembered himself, and the good person he once was, Ninnis wanted to fight.

Ninnis, the voice echoed in his thoughts, filling his mind, seeking him out. I am close, Ninnis.

And for once, the dark lord Nephil, the ancient Ophion, was not lying. Ninnis could feel the cold closing in around his consciousness.

Belgrave.

A whisper this time. And his first name. Not Ophion.

Despite having no body, he saw a bloom of light, distant at first, but then growing closer. He felt warmth.

Belgrave, the voice beckoned.

He moved toward the light, drawn by its warmth and repelled by the cold blackness at his back.

But was this a trick? Who are you?

A shape began to form in the light. A figure.

A woman.

Belgrave, the voice said again, and this time he recognized it.

Caroline!

As she came fully into view, revealing the face of the woman he loved, married and lost, she spoke again. Your time has not yet come, husband.

I can feel you, Ninnis! Nephil shouted.

As his emotions swelled, he sensed the darkness closing in, tracking him down.

Ninnis fled the darkness and into the arms of his wife. He clung to her and she to him, their embrace impossible to sever. Ninnis felt a flood of love, forgiveness and mercy, qualities that, since the time of his own breaking, he’d experienced from only one source: Solomon.

With the boy’s image locked in his thoughts, pressure consumed Ninnis’s formless mind, pressing him into the arms of his wife, merging them together until nothing, but light, remained.

Prologue

“Belgrave Ninnis, come inside this instant, before Death himself decides you are too easy a target to pass by.”

Lieutenant Ninnis leaned back in his chair, “Just a moment more.” He took a slow drag from his pipe, allowing the warm smoke to thaw his lungs a touch. Momentarily relieved of the cold air’s sting, he set his charcoal to the page once more and lost himself in the image.

He didn’t notice that the gray cloud coming from his lungs with each breath wasn’t pipe smoke. He didn’t notice the brightness of the stars overhead or the thin crust of ice forming atop his water glass. The cold suited him. Always had. It was part of the reason he’d been selected to join Douglas Mawson’s Antarctic expedition—that and his father of the same name was the Inspector Surgeon General of the Royal Navy and a member of the Vice-Admiral’s Arctic expedition that explored the coasts of Greenland and Ellesmere Island. His father’s legacy was more inspiration than pressure, but Ninnis couldn’t deny a desire to outdo his father. Antarctica was further, colder, more dangerous and far less explored.

The charcoal, reduced to a nub, crumbled between his fingers. He lifted it from the page and looked down at his hands.

“Lord,” came a sweet, but concerned voice. “You’re shaking.”

Ninnis watched his hand twitching back and forth, stricken by the cold. “So I am.”

“I don’t understand why you’re out here, tonight of all nights,” she said.

Ninnis turned back to his wife of four hours and smiled. She was wrapped in blankets. Her brown hair hung in ringlets, recently freed from a braid. Her deep brown eyes mesmerized him. “To prepare myself,” he said.

“A full year will pass before you leave my side,” she said. “Prepare yourself when winter returns.”

“I was not speaking of my future adventures at the bottom of the world, or of the frigid lands that await me there,” Ninnis said. “Rather, I was speaking of the warmth this night yet promises.”

A grin formed on her lips, followed by a shiver that ran up through her body. “Devil.”

“The devil could not love one as fair as you,” Ninnis said, and then leaned to the side, revealing his drawing. “For you, dear, sweet Caroline. My wife.”

When her hands went to her mouth, the blankets fell, revealing that the braid was not the only wedding decoration she had shed. She now wore delicate undergarments that both hid her body and accentuated it. Stunned by the sudden revelation, he was still in a stupor when she took the page from his hands and stepped inside, off of the balcony and away from the chilled London air.

He watched her walk away with the sigh of a man who knew, without a shred of doubt, that he had somehow won a lottery in Heaven and had been given one of God’s finest creations. He lifted his water glass to his lips and tipped it back. When no fluid reached his mouth, he looked down, saw the layer of ice and laughed.

Shaking his head, he stood and looked out from the Cavendish Hotel’s penthouse balcony. The lamp-lit streets, homes and businesses of London surrounded him, a sea of orange lights beneath a sky of white stars. Normally, he might gaze at the view, searching for interesting details or listening to the late night revelers defeating the cold with liquor, but the woman waiting for him inside was far more interesting. He spun on his heels and entered the suite, closing the doors to the balcony behind him.

The heat greeted him first, prickling his skin. The room felt like an inferno, though he knew it was just because he was so chilled. The fire had dwindled to a small flicker, and a new log would be needed to accommodate a late night. Half way to the fire, he paused when the heat became unbearable. Scratching his itching skin, he turned to his new wife and watched. Noting his attention, Caroline met his gaze.

“How did you do it?” she asked, holding up the portrait. “It looks so much like me, but I wasn’t posing.”

Ninnis tapped his head. “There isn’t a detail of your face I do not have committed to memory. That is my true preparation for the expedition. When I miss you, and I will, I can recreate your face on the page. In pretending you are gazing back at me, as you are now, I will find peace…” He shivered and grinned. “And maybe a little warmth in that barren world.”

His grin widened when Caroline all but swooned at his words. She placed the page on the nightstand and lay back on the thick blanket. He moved to the fireplace, adding two more logs to the fire, and prodding the embers with a wrought-iron poker until the fresh wood caught. Satisfied that the fire would burn through the night, he turned to the bed.

Caroline smiled at him. “It’s nearly time.”

He smiled widely. “I know.”

“You have to go,” she said.

Ninnis paused, his shirt half lifted. “Go? Where?”

“Back,” she said.

“Did you leave something in the hall?” he asked. “At the church?”

“Belgrave,” she said. “You know. You remember.”

Tears pushed at his eyes. An invisible hand clutched his throat. He sat down on the side of the bed. “I hoped it had been a nightmare. A very long, detailed nightmare.”

She sat up next to him, hand on his back, tracing the contours of his shoulder blade. “I wish it were so.”

Ninnis looked at her, his tears running freely. “And you? Are you real?” He looked up at the sketch, a perfect memory of his Caroline. “Or are you just a memory?”

“Look at me,” she said. “Do you think you can remember me this well?”

His eyes traveled up and down her form. Every part of her was perfectly realized. “You’re right,” he said, “I’m not Solomon.”

Ninnis gasped. Saying the boy’s name solidified that this was a fantasy and the very bleak reality, where Caroline was long since deceased and his body had been kidnapped by an evil spirit, awaited him. His head sagged toward the floor.

“Chin up, Belgrave,” Caroline said in a tone that was far more chipper than seemed appropriate.

Ninnis stood and stepped away from her, offended. “My own fantasy taunts me?”

Caroline frowned while still maintaining some form of smile on her face. The expression was new to Ninnis. She slipped from the bed and stood before him, reaching out a hand.

Before her fingers reached his chest, Ninnis stepped back. “This isn’t real. The boy is real. The masters are real. It’s all darkness. And death! And evil! And—”

Her hand reached his chest, flattening over his heart. He collapsed to his knees, wracked by sobs. She fell with him, clutching his body to hers, steadying him. “I am real, Belgrave. I am not a conjuring of your imagination. We are not even within the confines of your mind.”

Ninnis snapped to attention at this, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Where are we then?”

“Where you needed to be.”

Ninnis looked around his honeymoon suite. He had never felt as loved and safe as he had on the first night he spent in this room. He thought he understood, but a question nagged. “If I must leave, will I see you again?”

“I...do not know,” she replied. “All I know is that it is possible.”

“But...how?” he asked. “I am...my life is...” He shook his head. “I do not deserve any of this.”

“You’re right,” she said, “you didn’t deserve to be taken from me, or to be broken and made into a monster, or to be the architect of Solomon’s trans-formation.” When it was clear that Ninnis was far from convinced, she added, “Do you think the boy is the only one capable of forgiving you?”

Ninnis raised his eyebrows and looked her in the eyes.

“You have lived a long life, Belgrave Ninnis, but you still have so much to learn.”

Tears, now of hope, fled from his eyes. “Then teach me.”

She reached out and took his hand. “There is no time for that. I can only show you.”

He resisted her pull toward the balcony door. The cold now reminded him of his frigid prison. But she didn’t relent, and soon, he found himself standing before the door.

“Open it,” she said. “And look.”

He found himself reaching for the door handle. When his skin touched the metal handle, it did not sting of cold. Instead, it felt warm to the touch. He twisted the handle and pulled.

Warm air washed over him.

The night was gone, replaced by a brilliant, deep blue.

He stepped onto the balcony.

London was gone. In its place was—

“An army,” Ninnis said.

And at the army’s core stood a man—barely a man now—who was at once intimately familiar and wholly alien. Ninnis pointed to him. “There I am.”

Caroline stepped up next to him, resting her hands on the railing. “Not you. Him. Ophion.”

“Nephil,” Ninnis said.

Caroline nodded.

He looked at her. “Tell me what to do.”

1

“Gone? How could she be gone?” It’s a stupid question with a thousand different answers.

Kainda picks the most obvious reply. “She has legs.”

She’s right, of course. Mirabelle Whitney, daughter of Merrill and Aimee Clark, has legs. She could have walked out on her own, but when I saw her here, through the eyes of Amaguq the shifter, who had impersonated Mira and who would have killed me if not for the sacrifice of Xin, she didn’t seem hale enough to get far. The shifter had beaten her, near to death, before taking her form. That she survived is a testament to her strength, but escaping this cave in her condition doesn’t seem possible. Still, it did take us three days to reach the cave. A lot could have changed in that time.

Part of me is angry at myself for not arriving sooner, but we really couldn’t have traveled any faster. Grumpy and Zok, a pair of large cresties—my personal term for the green with maroon striped Crylophosaurs that populate the continent—moved at a sprint for a full day before nearly collapsing. Kainda and I considered continuing on foot, but the ground covered by the cresties was far further than we could go on foot, even without resting. So we stayed with our dinosaur companions, traveling faster and conserving our strength.

The cave is a quarter mile below ground—a shallow hole by hunter standards, but it’s slick with moisture and moss, and it’s coated in jagged stones. If she managed to climb out, she will have left a trail.

I sniff the air first. The scent of vegetation decomposing is the strongest, followed by a faint trace of human blood—Mira’s—and then something else. A lingering odor that is unfamiliar to my nose. I sniff again. “What is that?”

Kainda breathes in, long and deep, through her nose. She lets the air out, looking confused. “I have no idea.”

This is disconcerting. Kainda has been a hunter far longer than me and has experience with everything this continent has to offer, both natural and unnatural.

“Something from the outside world?” she asks, smelling the air again.

I shake my head. The scent is decidedly non-human. “It’s not Amaguq, either.” I got a big whiff of him before I removed his head. I can detect traces of the shifter, but they’re not strong. “I don’t think it’s just one scent.” I try to separate the commingling tang. It’s a bouquet of stink unlike anything I’ve smelled before—part Nephilim, part animal—like rotten milk and musk. It’s far too well mixed for me to sift through.

“There were at least eight of them,” Kainda says.

Surprised that she could get this out of the scents, I turn and find her crouching over a patch of moss.

“They weren’t too careful, either.”

I squat next to her and look at the moss. It’s been trampled. But the marks are confusing and unfamiliar. “What are they?”

Kainda just looks bewildered.

Looking more closely, I spot something familiar, but out of place. “That looks like a hoof.”

She nods. “Like Pan’s feet.”

We nod in unison. Pan, the Greek god of shepherds, flocks and music had goat-like legs and hooves. In that way, he was unique from other warriors I have seen. He kept a flock of human prisoners, eating them one by one until we freed them, gave them guns and sent them to the U.S. forward operating base. But Pan didn’t leave these footprints. The first indicator is that these prints are far too small. The second is that Pan is very dead. After Wright removed the protective metal band from Pan’s forehead, Em buried one of her blades in it—the Nephilim’s only weak spot. The only other way to kill them is to drown them...or cut off their heads entirely.

Thinking of Wright and Em twists my gut for a moment. Wright was a U.S. Army Captain who joined my small strike force along with his wife, Katherine Ferrell, a freelance assassin who worked, off the record, for the same government Wright served openly. Wright gave his life for our quest to locate the Jericho shofar, staying behind to fight an army of hunters and Nephilim while the rest of us fled. Katherine, who prefers to be called Kat, managed to forgive me for leaving him and was eventually identified as my Focus, by the Kerubim, Adoel, guardian of Edinnu, the mythological Garden of Eden.

Then there is Em—my Faith, whose full name is Emilee, or so we thought. Adoel also told us her real name—Rachel Graham, which led to the startling revelation that Kat’s true maiden name was also Graham and that the pair were long lost sisters. And since Em is kind of my adopted sister, I suppose Kat is, in a way, my sister and Wright my brother-in-law. The bond between us all is too uncanny to ignore. There is a design in it.

As there is with Mira, my Hope. She and I were short-lived, but very close friends—kindred spirits, I suppose. A photo of the two of us kept me sane during several of my years underground. She doesn’t know it, but I owe her my life. I will do everything I can to save her, not just because of our friendship, but because the angel, who gave names to my hope, focus, faith and passion, made it clear that I would need all four to overcome the war about to be waged. Mira, my Hope, is all that remains to be found.

And it is with Kainda, my Passion, that I will find her.

Kainda’s muscles flex as she leans out over the moss. “Three claws,” she says, inspecting a second footprint. “These aren’t the same creatures.”

She is one of the strongest hunters. As the daughter of Ninnis, the most renowned hunter of all, she had the best and harshest teacher for much of her life. She also had the most pressure to excel, which in hunter culture translates to brutality. But she, like many hunters, has shed some of her Nephilim corruption and even managed to fall in love.

With me.

And I with her.

We’re an unlikely couple—me a former nerd, klutz and bookworm, her a lifelong killer born out of darkness and hate—but we’ve both been broken and reformed. We are new together and we’re better for it. I was not sure how she would feel about risking everything to find Mira, who I admit, I loved in my younger years, but she was the first to volunteer. This revealed not just her deep trust in me, but also a keen understanding of what needs to be done to not just survive the coming war, but also to win it.

“There are no human prints here,” she says, then inspects another patch of moss that would be impossible to avoid while exiting. “None.”

When my head starts to hurt, I realize I’m clenching my teeth, and I try to relax. This is bad news. No human footprints, or boot prints, means that Mira didn’t walk out of this cave.

She was carried out.

And neither of us know who, or what, took her.

“More,” she says, pointing at another, larger print.

“It looks like a horse hoof,” I say.

“What is a horse?” she asks.

I shake my head in confusion. “A domesticated animal. People ride on them.”

“Maybe she rode it out?”

“Maybe,” I say, but neither of us believe it. All signs point to Mira being taken. She might have been on the horse’s back, but I doubt she went willingly. For a moment I think she’s been kidnapped by a herd of random farm animals, but then I recognize another print that’s not been trampled by the others. Four wide toes, each tipped with a long claw, and a thick pad, twice the width of my hand. “This one is a lion.”

She nods. Apparently lions are known to the underworld, probably because they’re renowned killers. Horses, not so much.

We follow the trail up through the cave. I’m kicking myself for not seeing it on the way in, but I wasn’t looking at the floor. I was too busy rushing to the last spot where I saw Mira. Seeing the trail earlier wouldn’t have really changed anything, but it might have saved a minute or two.

When we reach the cave exit and step out into the light of day, we’re greeted by our dinosaur companions. They look up from the river where they’re drinking and then they look back at us. They’re massive creatures, stretching thirty feet from snout to tail tip. Grumpy’s green skin shimmers, like new growth leaves in the sunlight. The maroon stripes over his neck, back and tail seem to absorb the light, creating a pattern of contrasting color and brightness that helps him blend into the jungle. But it’s the tall crest over his eyes that distinguishes him from other dinosaur species—well, that and the fact that most other dinosaurs are now extinct. I say most, because this continent is full of surprises, the most recent of which is whatever took Mira.

The cresties go back to their refreshment when we walk past without speaking to them. The trail is easy to follow. It’s a mash of footprints, a mix of species, following what appears to be a game trail through the jungle. Whoever has Mira is either so confident that they don’t fear being tracked, or they’re completely naïve to what is going on. I realize there is a third option a moment before Kainda speaks it aloud.

“This feels like a trap.”

She’s right. The trail is too easy to follow. But that’s also the problem. “It’s a really bad trap.”

She frowns. “Obvious.”

“Right.” I look at her. “Not that it changes anything.”

“Trap or not,” she says. “We push forward.”

I stop and take her hand. “Thank you.”

She looks back, meeting my eyes with hers. Her dark brown eyes look almost black, perfectly matching her tied-back hair. “You would do far more for me.” She scrunches her nose and then corrects herself. “You have done far more for me.”

I want to kiss her. The moment is perfect. Her face looks soft. And her tan body, clad in the scant coverings of a hunter, has a sheen of sweat mixed with humidity that makes her glow. Focus, says the voice of Kat in my head.

Focus, I tell myself. Mira is in danger.

I pull my eyes away from Kainda and search the jungle around us. The trees—a species unknown to me—rise hundreds of feet into the air, their branches twisting and splitting into a thousand different directions. They remind me of when I used to drop ink onto a page and blow it with a straw. But the diamond-shaped leaves are sparse, and large patches of sunlight beam to the ground, allowing thick vegetation to grow. Moving through this jungle on anything but this path would be very time consuming...unless...

I look up. “Let’s take the high road.”

Scaling the tree’s craggy bark is a simple thing. Soon we’re moving through the jungle faster, more silently and without any fear of being set upon by an ambush. Not that we see one. It appears that whoever left the tracks is just sloppy.

Twenty minutes and a little more than a mile later, the trail splits ninety degrees in either direction, skirting the base of a cliff. We climb down to the jungle floor and inspect the tracks.

“They head in either direction,” Kainda says. “And they’re all equally fresh.”

“She could have been taken in either direction,” I say.

“We need to split up.”

I don’t like this idea, at all. Not because I don’t believe Kainda is capable of rescuing Mira on her own, or that I don’t trust she really wants to. But there are some things in the jungle that she can’t handle alone, and if I manage to find Mira, but lose Kainda, I won’t be any better off than I am now. Before I can say any of this, I spot something that keeps me from having to.

I quickly inspect the tracks on one path, and then move to the second.

“What is it?” she asks.

I ignore her, and move back to the path leading up to the T junction. “There they are,” I say.

“What?”

“The lion tracks.” I point to the large paw print.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” she says, while I move to the path leading to the right. “Do you think this could be the lion from Edinnu? What did you call him?”

“Ookla,” I say, before pointing to the path. “No lion prints.”

I move to the path leading to the left.

“Do you think this could be Ookla?” she asks. “And other creatures from Edinnu?”

“No,” I say. I point to the path. “No lion prints.”

“How do you know?” she asks, sounding frustrated at being dismissed so quickly.

“Because,” I say, stepping closer to the rock wall and looking up. The cliff rises higher than I can see, stretching up into a bank of clouds. “I don’t remember Ookla being able to fly.”

2

“Fly?” Kainda says. She’s about to ask what I’m talking about, but then seems to understand. She glances at all three trails. “The lion tracks stop here.”

“And since there are no tracks through the jungle, no tracks heading back or into the trees, there is only one direction left to go.” I look up.

“I don’t see how this helps,” she says. “Now we have three choices instead of two.”

“We need to go up,” I say.

“Is that what your instincts tell you?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I say, hoping she doesn’t hear the lie. The truth is, lions have sharp claws and big teeth. If Mira is with the farm animal gang, I’m a little less afraid for her, but if she’s with the flying lions, well, that’s a bigger problem.

Kainda steps up to the wall and lifts herself up.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“The climb will take most of the day,” she says. “I don’t want the sun to go down while I’m a thousand feet above the ground, do you?”

“Who said anything about climbing?” I say. She flinches when I pluck her from the wall and put her back on the ground. If I’d been anyone else, I’d be dead right now. The look on her face says I still might be.

I put my hands on her hips.

“You’re testing my patience,” she says.

“You love it,” I say.

She tries to squelch a smile, but fails.

“Hold on,” I say.

She puts her hands on my shoulders. When a sudden wind kicks up around us, she’s pressed up against me. My hands slide around to her back and her arms wrap around the back of my neck. The embrace distracts us both and by the time I open my eyes, we’re a hundred feet off the ground and climbing.

I hear a gasp in my ear. Kainda’s arms squeeze a little tighter. That this hardened woman can feel fear pleases me. She’d once been numb to anything but hate, and now, she is so much more. It’s one of the things I like best about her. The softening of one’s heart is not an easy thing to do. I’m not sure I could have done it myself without Aimee’s help.

Aimee, Mira’s mother, held me in her arms just moments after I was born. It was her face that greeted me into the world and her face that returned me to it. And now, Merrill, her husband and my friend, has returned to save her, only now they’ve lost their daughter. And the majority of that is my fault. All the more reason to hurry.

The wind becomes an upward moving cyclone. My long blond hair whips around, stinging my skin. The air tugs at my clothing, which is not much more than Tarzan’s loin cloth, a belt full of pouches, and Whipsnap—my weapon—wrapped around my waist, but a quick adjustment dulls the effect of the wind on our bodies.

My control over Antarctica’s elements is more honed than ever. I can control the air, water, land and other natural elements of the continent as though they are part of my own body. Performing an unnatural feat, like flying, still wears me out, but summoning a storm or shifting the wind is almost second nature. I don’t understand how I’m able to do these things. All I know is that my connection to the continent is a supernatural ability given to me at my birth, which was not too far from our current location. I was the first and only child born on Antarctica to non-Nephilim corrupted humans. That somehow bonded me to the land. Cronus, the Titan who resides in Tartarus, would probably say it was a gift, bestowed on me by a higher power. Actually, Adoel the angel would probably agree. And it’s hard to argue with powerful beings that are not only ancient, but also genuine.

I’ve thought a lot about this during my time here. Certain events and the connections between people, and beings, times and places stretching back through time are hard to ignore. On one hand are the Nephilim, soulless half-demon, half-human monsters who want to eradicate the human race. On the other hand is a ragtag group of redeemed hunters, teachers, Titans, clones and even a traitor Nephilim willing to sacrifice himself to protect humanity. This war has been waged for thousands of years and is coming to a head...because of me.

A kid.

Sure, in surface years, I might be thirty-something years old, and yeah, I have a full beard, but I’m really just an eighteen year old who wouldn’t be allowed to drink a beer.

And now, Nephil, aka Ophion, the first Nephilim whose spirit now resides in Ninnis, wants to claim my body for himself, something he came very close to doing. Now, the human race is looking to me for leadership against a supernatural army. And now, I’m doubting. Not in my purpose here. Or in my abilities. Or even in my ability to lead, or fight, and maybe even win.

But in the rightness of it all.

I’ve come to believe in God. I’ve even prayed. Twice. I’ve seen things, and spoken to creatures, and experienced other worlds that leaves no doubt that some kind of architect or mastermind is sitting behind the curtain, pulling our strings, directing us all to some sort of destiny. But there had to have been another way.

Billions died when Nephil used my body, and my connection to the land, to rotate the Earth’s crust around its molten core, bringing Antarctica to the equator and destroying entire countries in the process. And then there are the more personal losses: Elias, Xin, Hades, Cerberus, Wright—even Ninnis, whose memories of his true self were returned for just a moment before Nephil took over once again. And what about the hunters—Kainda, Em, Elias, Zuh, and thousands more who have been tortured, corrupted and turned into monsters? How can all of this darkness, and hate, and death be allowed?

And why do I have to be at the center of it all?

“Solomon!” The voice is faint, barely reaching my consciousness. Then it repeats, louder, “Solomon!” I recognize the voice. Kainda. I open my eyes, not realizing they’d been closed, and I see the cliff face, streaking past, just a few feet away. We’re traveling as fast as a missile and I’ve nearly crashed us into a rock wall.

I slow until we’re hovering. My breath is ragged. The first pangs of exhaustion clutch my muscles. Lost in my anger and confusion, my powers took on a life of their own, reflecting my mood.

“Are you alright?” Kainda asks.

I nod. It’s my second lie and I feel a pang of guilt. I don’t want to lie to Kainda, about anything. “Actually, I’m not sure.”

Before she can reply, I see the top of the cliff and forget all about my doubts and waning energy. “Look.”

I spin us around so we can both look at the cliff. We’re just thirty feet from the top, but the most remarkable aspect of the wall isn’t the rock, but what’s been built upon it.

“Those are nests,” Kainda says.

“Really big nests,” I add. I count twenty of them. Each is made from a combination of branches, leaves and random pliable objects. I see tents, ropes, blankets and large feathers in the mix. The oval shaped nests are at least fifteen feet long, half as wide and deep. They cling to the cliff face, resting on ledges and glued in place by something white and goopy. At the top of each nest, the cliff is carved away, forming paths to the top as though formed naturally by some ancient waterfall or glacier.

I bring us close to the wall and land just above one of the nests. Once Kainda is out of my arms, she scrambles up the stone path, headed for the precipice. I linger behind for a moment, looking into the nest. I’m expecting to see more feathers. Eggs perhaps. What I find instead surprises me. Really, nothing should surprise me anymore. I’ve seen a two headed, flying gigantes. But when I see golden lion hair coating the bottom of the nest, I’m taken aback. True, I’d already surmised that the lions could somehow fly, but roosting like birds? Why? It doesn’t make any sense. Then again, I just flew up the side of a thousand foot cliff and I don’t have an S on my chest.

A chirp from above catches my attention. It sounds like one of the many species now populating the jungles of Antarctica, but the subtle urgent tone is all Kainda. I turn up and see her up above me on the slope, lying flat on her stomach. Without looking back she waves her hand, motioning me to join her.

I climb the stone in silence, still preferring bare feet to boots. Half way to the top, I see that Kainda is holding her battle hammer, which is a human-sized version of Mjölnir, the Nephilim Thor’s hammer. He’d once been Kainda’s master, just as Thor’s father, Odin, was Ninnis’s, and Thor’s son, Ull, was mine. The Norse clan of Nephilim warrior, while not the most powerful, had produced three of the most feared and capable hunters, two of which might be their undoing.

Knowing that the hammer is out because Kainda is preparing for battle, I reach down for Whipsnap, but stop short of freeing the weapon. There were two Whipsnaps. The one I built from bone, wood and stone, and the second, forged by the Nephilim with an amalgam of solid, but light metals. I took both with me from Edinnu, and although I felt nostalgic about the weapon I constructed, I had to admit it was the inferior of the two. Of course, the second Whipsnap has been my constant companion for years, in the underground, on the surface and in Tartarus. I’m pretty attached to it. So I’ve kept the Nephilim variant, which has a more rigid staff that springs open more quickly. The crack it makes when loosed from my belt would give us away. I crouch down as I near the top, peeking through the tall grass at the edge.

My eyes widen and I whisper. “You have got to be kidding me.”

3

“Have you seen them before?” Kainda whispers.

“You haven’t?”

She shakes her head, no. “But...I think I know what they are.”

“Me too,” I say, looking at the figures. I can’t make out details from this distance—they’re at least a quarter mile from the cliff’s edge—but their bolder features make them easily identifiable to me. I point to a creature with the body of a lion, and the head and wings of an eagle. “That’s a griffin.”

She points to one of the myths made real, this one with the body of a horse and a humanoid torso. “That’s a centaur, right?”

“Yup,” I say, pointing out several more. “And there’s a manticore, a gorgon, a minotaur.” My finger lands on a strange chicken-like thing with the upper body of a woman. She pokes her head forward with each step, eyes to the ground. “And that must be a harpie.” Several more scurry up behind the largest of the bunch. “Harpies.”

It’s a Greek mythological Who’s Who, though it’s clear none of the would-be gods are present. These are the lesser creatures of the Greek myths. The pawns. The castaways.

“We call them the Forsaken,” Kainda says. “But I thought they were just a story told to scare us before we were broken.”

Despite my inner Ray Harryhausen fan being thrilled by what we’re seeing, the fact that these creatures are the living embodiment of what hunters consider scary children’s stories is not very comforting. I don’t really want to ask, but I need to know what we’re dealing with. “Tell me about them.”

“They’re Nephilim,” she says.

Of course they are, I think.

“But they didn’t fit into any of the more powerful classes. They might have the features of a warrior, a gatherer or one of the others, but they’re mixed, usually in disfiguring ways with lesser animals.”

“How is that possible?” I ask. “The Nephilim are half-human, half-demon. How could they have the body of a—” Kainda’s raised eyebrow stops me in my tracks. The mix of sarcasm and humor on her face seems to say something to the effect of, “My sweet, little, naïve, Solomon.”

That’s when the reality of these creatures hits me. “Ugh.” Demons are not human. Not even close. So a demon having a Nephilim child with a human isn’t any more unnatural than a demon impregnating a horse. They’re equally outlandish. Gross, sure, but plausible—at least where the Nephilim are concerned. As for the creatures with more than one species... I don’t want to speculate—lest I throw up and give us away—but I’d guess it has something to do with the thinker Nephilim class’s penchant for genetic tinkering.

Kainda spares me from the horrors of my own imagination, saying, “Because they didn’t fit into any of the true Nephilim classes and served no purpose in the eyes of the warriors, they were cast out.”

“But not all of them,” I say.

She looks at me, confused.

“Pan,” I say. “He must have somehow proven himself.”

She nods. “His thirst for human blood was unrivaled. But other than that, I’m not sure what could have set him apart. As for the rest of his ilk, they have lurked in the shadows and on the fringes of the underworld ever since, watching young hunters for signs of weakness and snatching them into the dark.”

“What happened then?” I ask.

“What do you think?”

I shrug and guess. “Sacrificed and eaten?”

“How would you put it...” she says. “Yup.”

I don’t miss the fact that Kainda’s mood has become strangely lighthearted. Then I realize why. We’re about to do battle. The down, dirty and bloody kind. There are about fifty of the things out there, some look to be twenty feet tall. We are severely outsized and outnumbered. But Kainda wouldn’t have it any other way and it has her charged up.

But now is not the time to leap out with a battle cry. We haven’t even found Mira yet. “We need to get closer.”

Kainda frowns, but agrees. Her thirst for battle isn’t strong enough that she’ll make poor tactical choices. We slide up over the crest, moving slowly through the tall grass, and work our way toward the jungle that wraps around the clearing where the mythological creatures have set up camp. Concealed by the dense foliage that frames the clearing, we’re able to stand, but our movement is slowed by twisting branches, thorny shrubs and the need for stealth.

It’s fifteen minutes before we close the distance to just over a hundred feet. As we close to within fifty feet, right at the edge of the jungle, I hear what seems to be an argument. There aren’t any words to speak of, in English, Greek, Sumerian or any other dialect. They’re just kind of grunting, but the tone sounds disagreeable. I can’t see them yet, but the variety of noises insinuates that the quarrel involves more than one species.

I reach a hand forward and slowly lift a large green leaf. Water pours from the cup-shaped vegetation and trickles to the ground. I freeze. The sound would have been enough to alert a hunter to my presence. But I hear no alarm or even a shift in the conversation. These creatures aren’t hunters. In fact, given the easy-to-follow trail they left behind, it’s kind of a miracle they’re alive at all.

I peer into the clearing as the now waterless leaf rises without any more sound. At first, it’s hard to make out individual bodies, but when I do, it’s hard not to gasp, or flinch in disgust.

These are not the noble creatures of Greek lore. There are no smooth coats, shiny horns or seductive female forms. These...things…are hideous. Those with hair resemble a cat after a few rounds in a washing machine spin cycle—matted, clumpy or with hair missing. Scars ravage most of the bodies, ranging from long slices to gnarled skin, swollen burns and bites of all shapes and sizes. Eyes are missing. Feathers are plucked. Horns shattered or removed. Hooves with seeping, pus-oozing wounds. Not one of them resembles the regal images I have in my mind. They’re a ragged band of monsters. True monsters who seem to lack as much intelligence as they do hygiene.

But I see bits and pieces of the other Nephilim races in this lot. The harpies, feathered up to their armpits with the arms, upper torso and heads of women, have the black almond eyes of gatherers. The three horse-bodied centaurs I can see resemble warriors from the waist up, as do the seven minotaurs from the neck down to their waists—the rest resembling massive, muscle-bound bulls. The griffins, fifteen of them, are the only creatures who lack any kind of resemblance to a Nephilim species. That’s not to say they’re an improvement. Their eagle eyes glow with hatred and of all the species present, they are in the best condition. They also seem to be above the argument, circling the group, at the core of which is a gorgon, whose head snakes are either dead, sleeping or cut away, and a pair of worked-up harpies who are squawking angrily.

I lower the leaf and look to Kainda, who has just backed away from her own lookout position. She traces her finger across her arm and mouths the word, “Scars.”

Scars? I’m not sure what the significance is. They have a lot of scars, but I’m not sure what that—I nearly jump up and shout “eureka,” when I figure it out. Nephilim warriors don’t have scars because they heal so quickly. The other species of Nephilim heal as well, though much slower, but their purple blood still gets the job done well enough that I’ve never seen a scar on a Nephilim.

That’s what sets these Nephilim apart from the others. They can’t heal. They might be just as old, but they can be killed. Easily. And that’s reason enough to cast them out. While hunters are also susceptible to quick deaths, we’re also small enough to be useful in the underground. These things, even the chicken-lady harpies, are too large to do much more than use up resources.

This is good news. Fifty to two becomes a lot more manageable when the dead stay dead. Of course, the same applies to Kainda and me. I shift forward, lift the leaf and take another look at this band of misfit Nephilim.

They’re armed, but the weapons are crude. The most basic are sharpened tree branches. The most advanced are maces fashioned from large stones...tied to tree branches. But the weapons are wielded by strong arms, and I have no way to know how skilled they are at fighting. Most are equipped with weapons bestowed at birth—horns, talons, sharp teeth and hammer-like fists. We can’t underestimate them and we can’t act rash—

One of the harpies involved in the scuffle clucks its way to the side, pecking its human-like mouth at the gorgon’s tail. The movement gives me a clear line of sight to the center of the gathering, but just for a moment.

Still, it’s long enough to see what’s got them all riled up.

Mira.

She’s prone and motionless. Her head is turned to the side, her eyes closed. I look to see if her torso is rising and falling, but my glimpse is cut short by a circling griffin. Alive or not, I don’t know, but it’s clear that this argument will end with Mira being claimed by one side or the other, and I cannot wait for that to happen.

I start to rise.

“Sol,” Kainda whispers.

My boiling blood blocks out her voice.

“Sol!” she says a little more loudly. “Wait!”

But her plea for patience fades behind me as I surge up and out of the jungle, yanking Whipsnap from my belt and alerting the mythological mob to my presence. As my wind-propelled leap crests at thirty feet and I drop toward a surprised looking harpie, I see what must have kept Kainda from leaping out of the jungle alongside me.

A thirty-foot tall centaur with an upper torso that has the bulk of a warrior and the pale gray skin of a gatherer, focuses its massive, black eyes on me—

—and enters my thoughts.

4

It doesn’t speak, but I can feel its consciousness humming inside my head. Despite the mental intrusion, I’m committed to my attack. I draw Whipsnap back, aiming to thrust the bladed end through the breast-bone of the harpie now letting out a panic-stricken squawk. But as my arm shoves the blade forward, the huge gatherer-centaur does something to my mind, severing the connection between my thoughts and my body.

My leap becomes a ragdoll tumble. I crash to the ground landing hard in the trampled grass.

Then, something in my mind pushes back.

Hard.

The centaur is repelled, and I regain control of my body as the giant rears back in pain.

What was that? I wonder, as I climb to my feet. I was so taken aback by the appearance and sudden mental intrusion of the Nephilim centaur that I didn’t have a chance to put up some kind of cerebral fight. The force that pushed the centaur back wasn’t me, and Ull, my former split personality with a bad temper, is now fully a part of me. So what repelled the creature?

A question for another time, I decide as a griffin lunges.

The griffin ripples with lion muscles. Its large paws are tipped with eagle talons, black and needle sharp. Its head is all oversized eagle. Its hooked beak is open wide, blasting a high-pitched shriek as its ten-foot wings pull it up into the air above me and then propel it straight down like a two-ton mortar round.

While pulling one hand back, readying a strike, I raise the other toward the griffin, willing the wind to catch its wings. The giant creature should have been catapulted away.

But it continues to dive toward me.

There isn’t even a breeze.

And I am out of time.

I fall back, flat on the grass. A second later, the griffin lands over me, its lion paws framing me on either side. Its eagle eyes lock onto mine, looking down at me. Its beak hangs open, as though in surprise. A bead of purple blood slips down the lower beak, gathering at the end and dangling above my forehead.

Nephilim blood can heal a human being, if its severely watered down. Fresh from the body, even a small amount is enough to kill. Most Nephilim heal before they can lose too much of it, but this is not a normal demon-child. The lower beak is filling with the purple fluid.

The dangling drop stretches out slowly and then breaks loose. My eyes cross as I follow the bead of blood’s descent, but I lose sight of it a moment before it smacks my forehead.

And that’s when I feel it.

Nothing.

The fact that these creatures are unable to heal has removed the deadly side-effects of their inhuman blood. Of course, that also means the griffin standing above me, with the bladed end of Whipsnap punching all the way through its neck, is about to collapse.

Pushing hard with my feet, I slide out from under the griffin just in time. The ground shakes as the heavy beast lolls to the side and topples over. Purple blood oozes into the grass around its head.

When the ground shakes again, I spin around and find a stone-tipped club coming toward my face. I lean back, dodging the weapon with just inches to spare. It’s a minotaur, all mottled hair and musky stench. The club looks small in its massive arms, but the swing overextends the creature, leaving it open to attack...if I had a weapon. I glance back to Whipsnap, still buried in the bird-lion’s throat, and I find two more griffins charging in from behind.

For a moment, I think, where is Kainda, but then I’m forced to act. Before the minotaur can recover from its missed blow, I leap toward it. While in motion, I reach into a pouch on my right hip, pull out my homemade climbing claws and slip them onto my hands. The claws, fashioned from feeder leather and feeder teeth, line my palms for climbing and my knuckles for punching. They aren’t great for killing Nephilim, but they don’t feel good, either.

I leap up to the minotaur’s left shoulder, grip handfuls of its course, clumpy hair and swing myself around to its back. The creature huffs in aggravation, but doesn’t react like I pose much of a threat. But hunters do not need weapons to kill, nor control over the elements. And since these monsters are Nephilim, I have no reason to hold back. It’s like fighting robots. Or zombies. There is no moral roadblock stopping me from inflicting maximum damage.

I wrap my legs around the creature’s waist, locking myself in place, and punch the two-inch long, pointed teeth of my climbing claws into its back. The minotaur howls in pain and pitches forward. I twist my hands, carving trenches into its flesh. The giant drops forward, lowering its head like a true bull, just in time to collide with one of the two charging griffins.

Several things happen at once. The minotaur’s horn—it only has one—pierces the griffin’s chest and snaps free. The griffin’s wail is cut short when the horn slips through its lung. Meanwhile, the minotaur’s scream of pain is silenced when I wrap my hands around its neck and leap away, drawing six blades across its throat. The second griffin collides with the first and the minotaur, and tumbles wildly through the grass, crushing a pair of harpies before coming to a stop.

I land beside the minotaur. Without missing a beat, I snatch his crude club from the ground and rush the second griffin. One of its eagle eyes snaps open just in time to see me bring the heavy stone down on its head. As I turn to face the others, I’m thinking about Whipsnap. If I can get my weapon back, this will be a whole lot easier. But when I face down my enemies again, the chaos of battle I’m expecting is nowhere to be found.

The mythological creatures have gathered in a sort of formation. Two lines of harpies, feathers puffed up and bristling, followed by gorgons and basilisks and then finally a row of minotaurs. The griffins have all taken to the skies and are circling like buzzards.

The giant centaur, its gray-bald head gleaming in the sunlight, stands at the front of the rough-looking formation. It lowers its head toward me, not in reverence, but in emphasis for its mentally spoken word.

Ours.

He motions to his hooved feet. Mira lays, still motionless, in the grass. Her face is coated in dirt and dried blood. Her clothing, an olive-drab green, camouflage, combat uniform, is tattered and torn. Her jacket—if she had one—is missing, revealing a black tank top that’s equally torn, showing her brown skin. The tightness of the shirt also lets me get a good look at her back, which rises and falls with each shallow breath.

Still alive.

Thank God.

I am simultaneously filled with relief and fierce determination. I didn’t come this far to find Mira, only to let her be killed and consumed by this freakish lot. I grip the club tighter and step toward the centaur.

Its mind hums inside my head, pushing for a weakness.

I take another step forward, working on a battle plan. Centaur first. Take out the knees. Then put this club in its forehead. I’m not certain, but I think that if I can drop the big guy, the rest of the myth-squad will head for the hills.

The centaur rears up for a moment and then stomps its hooves on the ground. The display is very horse-like, but it’s coupled with a mental shout.

Mine!

No, I think back, stepping forward.

The mythological creatures stomp and shout, shaking weapons, feathers and limp snakes. They’re angry and agitated, but I think there is some fear in there.

The buzzing in my head grows stronger and it happens again. My mind and body disconnect. I fall to my knees, but then a surge of power from somewhere within me repels the giant. The centaur-gatherer rears up, clutching its head and letting out a shrill scream.

I have no idea what is happening to him when he digs down into my mind, but I can’t complain. I’d be a mythical-creature readymade meal without it. Whatever it is. And while the centaur has managed to keep me from using my powers, my body is still under my control.

I step forward again, looking up at the centaur. It’s absolutely massive. Its knee caps—my intended targets—are twice the size of a basketball. I’m going to have to hack at it like a manic lumberjack to do any real damage. I glance back to the jungle. Where are you Kainda?

Mine! Mine! “Mine!”

The last “mine,” is shouted. The voice is high-pitched, almost fragile sounding, but the anger in it is powerful, like a child throwing a tantrum when a toy is about to be taken away. But the shout is coupled by a sudden and jarring psychic attack that drops me back to the ground and makes me shout out in pain.

I can feel the strange force inside me, fighting back, pushing hard, but the centaur retains its grip on my mind. My body twitches and I fall onto my back, looking up at the sky. The earth shakes beneath me as the centaur clomps toward me. Then it looms above me, looking down with those black, almond-shaped eyes. Its thin lips are pulled back in a sneer that reveals two lines of rotting, cracked, horse-like teeth. Its eyebrows are deeply furrowed, punctuating the hate radiating from its body—and its thoughts.

It lifts a single hooved foot above my head. All it has to do is stomp, and I’ll be dead. The great Solomon Ull Vincent, the last hunter, vessel of Nephil, slayer of Nephilim, destroyer of a good portion of the planet and promised leader of the human race is about to be killed by a centaur-gatherer with the disposition of a five year old.

Honestly, it’s embarrassing. But I’m currently unable to do anything about it.

The force inside me rallies, delaying the centaur’s attack, keeping its hoof locked in place. What is going on? I think. Is there a mind outside mine that’s fighting the creature?

Luca, is that you? I think, but I get no reply. Before he died, Xin, one of several clones of me, bestowed the gift of telepathic communication on Luca, also a clone, and a perfect replication of me at age six. But while Xin was part gatherer, Luca is all human, and I doubt the child, as strong as he is, could put up much of a mental fight against a creature with thousands of years of practice.

There is no reply to my silent question. Instead, the battle is brought to a very sudden and violent conclusion.

There is a grunt off to my side. I recognize the voice.

Kainda.

But before this can fully register, her hammer flies into view above me, striking the centaur in the side of his hairless, plump head. The weight of the weapon crushes bone and implodes the cranium.

At the very moment the skull is ruined, my body and powers return to me. I roll back onto my feet and the wind carries me away from the now falling centaur. There is a deep, resonating boom as the giant body topples over, its legs jutting straight out, almost comically, frozen by its surprise death.

I turn and face the remaining mythological creatures, who appear enraged and confused.

Kainda wanders onto the battlefield almost casually. She looks at me. “Sometimes timing is more powerful than body count.”

I must have a big, fat, “Huh?” written all over my face, because she smiles and explains. “Kat taught me that. Thought it made sense.”

She stops by the centaur’s head, reaches down and tugs at the hammer. It comes free with a slurp, dripping purple blood. She turns and faces the horde of creatures. They stare at her for just a moment.

I suddenly feel like I’m watching a herd of wildebeest staring down a lion, each creature growing more tense with each passing second until one of them cracks, lets out a yelp and then bolts. Suddenly, it’s chaos. The creatures shout and shriek, tearing away in random directions, making themselves even more pitiful and shaming their names.

While the creatures flee, I run to Mira and kneel down beside her limp form. She’s still breathing. I feel for a pulse. It’s strong. “Mira,” I say. “Wake up.” I tap her face with my hand. “Mira.”

“Harder,” Kainda says and then grins. “If you’re not up to it, let me wake her.”

There’s a high-pitched wail from inside the jungle. A moment later, three harpies charge back into view. I lift Mira into my arms while Kainda readies for a fight. But the harpies steer clear of us. They’re terrified. So terrified, in fact, that they bolt straight past us and run right off the cliff, plummeting to their deaths.

“I’m starting to see why they were cast out,” Kainda says.

A loud laugh wipes the smile from her face.

We both recognize the booming mockery carried by the laugh of a Nephilim warrior. It’s joined by several more.

A second shriek rips from the jungle, and the top half of a minotaur sails into the clearing.

More laughter follows. Trees crack. Footsteps rumble. A Nephilim war party steps into the clearing and looks straight at us.

5

The three warriors are short by Nephilim standards. Twenty feet tall, tops. But they’re decked out for battle. One carries an oversized scimitar, one an axe and the last a double-sided spear. Each is dressed in similar black leathers, the stylization of which reveals that they are from the Egyptian clan. Blood red hair, matted like a dirty dog’s, hangs to their shoulders. Unlike many of the larger Nephilim I’ve seen recently, none of them have gigantes wings or Titan tails.

“Lesser Egyptians,” Kainda whispers, locked in place like me.

We should probably be running, but the moment we move, I have no doubt these warriors will spring into action. I’d like to learn everything I can about them before that moment arrives.

“Scouts,” Kainda says. “Too short to be anything else.”

“Do you know them?” I ask.

“They would have been below even my station,” she says.

Kainda’s master had been Thor, son of Odin, leader of the Norse warrior clan. In terms of Nephilim hierarchy, her word once carried a lot of weight, even more than these three. And as a hunter in the service to Nephilim royalty, she wouldn’t have had many opportunities to fraternize with lesser warriors. That this is my first time seeing them means they were probably shunned, possibly living outside the major citadels—Asgard, Olympus, or in the case of Egyptians, Tuat.

“Will they recognize you?” I ask.

“If I got close enough for them to see my hammer, maybe,” she says, “but their eyes are not on me.”

She’s right. They’re looking at me. And my blond hair makes me easy to recognize.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “They won’t be a problem for us.”

As though in agreement, the three warriors take a step back.

Then another.

And as quickly as they arrived, they leave, slipping back into the thick jungle.

Kainda and I look at each other, sharing our bewilderment.

“That,” Kainda says, “was unexpected.”

“If they’re scouts, we’re going to have company, soon.” I bend down to Mira, give her face another pat. “Mira!” Still nothing. I take her beneath her arms and lift. She’s tall, but not heavy. Of course, even if she was, the part of me that is still a hunter would never complain about it. I put her over my shoulder. “We should—”

The ground shifts beneath my feet.

The vibration grows in intensity and is quickly joined by a rumble. A horn blast, deep and powerful, rolls from the jungle. The cracking of tree limbs and trunks that follows sounds like the manic popping of a burning fireplace log amplified through a loudspeaker.

We back away from the jungle, our pace quickening with each step.

“That’s a lot more than three,” I say.

The jungle explodes. Leaves and branches burst into the air. At least thirty heavily armed warriors charge—all Egyptian, and all larger than the three scouts. None of them have wings or stingers, but really, thirty warriors in a berserker rage don’t really need either.

With Mira over my shoulder, this is more than we can overcome.

I turn to run and start to shout for Kainda to do the same, but she’s beat me to the punch and she’s at least five steps ahead of me. The ground shakes so violently that I fear I will trip. And a delay of a few seconds is all the giants will need to close the distance.

But I forget all about my balance issues when I remember where we’re headed. Going left or right is no good—Nephilim could lurk in either direction along with who knows what else. So we’re headed back the way we came, which is about a hundred more feet of grassy clearing and then about one thousand feet of vertical space.

As we approach the cliff’s edge, a slight grin works its way onto my face. Kainda has not slowed, looked back or shouted her desire for a plan. She knows the plan without asking, and she has complete faith in my abilities to execute it. That kind of trust is rare in the world beyond Antarktos and it’s unheard of among hunters. It’s a compliment of the highest order.

I wish I had more time to enjoy it, but Kainda suddenly drops from view. For a moment I think she’s gone over the cliff, and I prepare myself for the jump, but when I reach the edge of the clearing, I find the stone slope carved by water and peppered with griffin nests. When my bare foot hits the hard, unexpected grade, I stumble and am carried forward by Mira’s weight on my shoulder. Before my foot leaves the ground and my stumble becomes an all out fall, I push off. Something in my foot twangs with pain, but then we’re off the ground and descending hard. That is, until a gust of wind pushes us up and out, away from the incline.

I soar out and over Kainda, reaching the cliff’s true edge a moment before she makes her literal leap of faith. The wind cuts out and I plummet, shifting Mira so that she’s in front of me, my arms wrapped tightly around her back. Air rushes past my body, tugging my hair, drawing moisture from my eyes. I turn toward Kainda. Her eyes are on the rapidly approaching ground, still fearless and certain in her belief that we will survive this fall.

Then, a shadow.

I see it for just a moment, shifting over Kainda’s back. Then its source comes into view, and passes us. Then again, and again.

Warriors.

Thirty-foot giants with double rows of teeth, six fingers and toes, and a penchant for pain—a display of which we’re about to witness. The five giants, who weigh far more than Kainda and me, reach a faster terminal velocity, and reach it faster. They rocket past us, not one of them reaching out to attack or capture. They’ve streamlined their bodies with the intent of reaching the ground first. But unlike Kainda and me, they won’t slow before impact.

Then it happens. The first of the warriors strikes the ground below us in a startling display of gore. Purple blood sprays, bones crack in half, pop from joints and stab out through the tattooed skin. All the while, the monster howls in ecstasy.

It happens again. And then three more times. By the time the fifth and final Nephilim strikes the ground beneath us, the first is standing, his body nearly fully knit back together. Purple blood coats every blade of grass, tree branch and pebble in a fifty foot radius. The very ground beneath our feet will kill us if we land.

When we land.

Hunters should really start wearing shoes, I think, but then I’m on task, looking for a solution in the few seconds before we reach the ground and die on impact, or from overexposure to Nephilim blood, or if that can be avoided, at the hands of the five warriors now drawing their weapons.

We’re falling too fast to change our trajectory fully, not without being picked off by the warriors armed with bows and arrows. But maybe we can fly past without changing trajectories.

“Kainda!” I shout, reaching a hand out to her. She takes hold of my wrist and I pull her close. “Hold on!”

She wraps her arms around Mira from the other side. We’re face-to-face now, looking over Mira’s shoulder. Kainda’s eyes burrow into me, searching for a hint of my plan. But there’s no time to explain. Instead, I tip forward and we fall the remaining distance head first.

The confused expressions on the warrior’s faces is priceless. But there is no way for them to know what is about to happen, and when it does, they just stumble back in bewilderment.

Twenty feet and a fraction of a second before impact, the ground opens up. The hole is just eight feet across, but it stretches down for several hundred feet and is still deepening even as we fall inside, passing the Nephilim as a blur. Darkness consumes us as the land above comes back together again, sealing us off from pursuit.

We fall in silence for another ten seconds when a strong wind from below slows our descent before depositing us gently on the stone floor of a wide cavern lit by an array of glowing blue crystals. Once we’re settled and Mira is in my arms, Kainda steps away, hammer at the ready, scouring our surroundings for any hint of danger.

While Kainda slides away into the dark, I lay Mira on the floor and sit beside her. Slowing a fall from 1000 feet is one thing; doing it for three people after opening a several-hundred-foot deep passage through solid stone is something else. Even a few months ago, an effort like that would have knocked me out. I’m stronger now, but I feel like I’ve just run a marathon.

I lean back on my hands, regaining my strength, and look at Mira. With her eyes closed and her nappy white-blond hair puffed out around her head, she looks so much like the little girl I knew so long ago. The girl that made my stomach twist with nervousness. The girl who made me feel like a normal kid. The girl who gave me hope.

The girl who is Hope.

While I’d like to wait patiently by her side and let her heal naturally, that could take time. Days maybe. But what can I—the answer is found on the side of a pouch on my belt. A dark spot. A purple spot. At some point during our battle with the Forsaken, a drop of blood must have found its way to my belt. I’m lucky it didn’t strike my skin. I draw my blade and scrape it against the purple spot. As suspected, the blood is dried and flakes off into my waiting palm. In this form, it has no effect, but rehydrated... I put my hand beneath Mira’s neck and lift. Her mouth slips open and I shake the dehydrated Nephilim blood into her mouth. Most of it misses or sticks to my hand, but a few flakes make it inside. It’s not much, but it should be enough. I hope it’s enough.

Nothing happens. The reaction to Nephilim blood is usually quite sudden and violent. But Mira hasn’t flinched. Maybe it wasn’t enough? Maybe it loses its healing properties when it dries?

I reach out and place my hand on her cheek. “Mira,” I whisper, but I still get no reply. Her skin feels cold. The cavern’s ambient blue light is dim, but my eyes have long since adjusted to low and no-light scenarios. I watch her chest for signs of life, and find nothing.

Panicked, I lean forward and place my ear against her chest. I don’t hear any breathing, but her heart beat is loud and strong.

That’s when I feel a sharp sting on my throat, followed by the words, “Try anything funny and I won’t hesitate.”

Mirabelle Clark...or Whitney rather, is awake. And I’m pretty sure she wants to kill me.

6

I move back slowly, lifting my hands out to the sides in a posture that reveals I am unarmed and am not a threat. “I wasn’t going hurt you.”

She sits up, while keeping the knife at my throat. A trickle of warm liquid reveals that she has already cut me, though not very deeply. Her dark brown eyes lock on to mine with fierce determination. I’ve seen the look in the eyes of many hunters before. She means business. And after the things she’s been through—her mother’s kidnapping and rescue, the global cataclysm, battling with the Nephilim—she has a right to be paranoid.

“Enki is dead,” I tell her, hoping the news will reduce her anxiety. It does, but only a fraction.

“How do you know about that?” she asks.

“I saw it happen,” I say. “You blew him into little bits.”

Her eyes flit back and forth as she remembers. “He dropped me.”

I start to nod, but don’t get very far as the blade cuts a little deeper. She sees me wince and pulls the knife back a little. I could disarm her. It would be simple for me. But that’s not how I want this reunion to go. Of course, nothing about this meeting has gone like I envisioned. She clearly doesn’t recognize me, which is understandable given the beard and one hundred and thirty pounds I’ve put on since we last met. But I suspect her memory has been tampered with. Like with Merrill, it might have been a long time since she had any memory of me.

“You landed in the lake,” I say. “I saved you.”

Her eyes flit again. “It wasn’t you,” she says, sounding accusatory, “It was...”

“Weddell seals.” I step back so that the knife is no longer in striking distance. She keeps the blade pointed at me, but some of the fury has left her eyes. “They’re friends of mine.”

“Man, I hate this place,” she mumbles to herself.

“Your father believes me,” I say.

This catches her attention. Her body goes rigid, like a snake’s before it strikes.

“Your mother, too,” I say. “They’re both safe. At a U.S. forward operating base on the coast. They’re with Kat.”

“Kat?” She’s shaking a little bit now, caught between relief and distrust. “But she and Wright...”

“Survived,” I say. “With me and my friends. Wright...didn’t make it. He saved us. But Kat is alive, as are the other people from your group.”

She flinches and her face becomes angry. “You’re lying. You’re not who you say you are.”

“I haven’t said I’m anyone yet.”

“I saw you change.”

She’s talking about the shifter who captured her, stole her identity and left her for dead.

“That was a shifter,” I tell her. “A Nephilim capable of changing appearances, not to mention stealing and erasing memories. That’s why you can’t remember me.”

“I don’t know you,” she says.

“Your parents said the same thing,” I say. “But they remember now. I was part of the Clark Station 2 mission. You were there too, and my parents, Mark and Beth Vincent.”

“They never had a son,” she says. “And you’re too young to have been—”

“My name is Solomon,” I blurt out. “You liked my name.”

She shakes her head, still confused, but then gently says, “King Solomon.”

“Yes!” I say.

“Solomon—”

“—Islands.” I finish the thought for her. We’ve had this conversation before, and she’s taking it in the same direction.

“Solomon Grundy,” we say at the same time.

“The nursery rhyme,” she says.

“And the evil comic-book zombie super villain,” I say, quoting twelve year old Mira verbatim.

“Are you in my head?” she asks.

“Of the creatures on Antarktos capable of doing such a thing, I am not one of them.”

“Antarktos,” she says, and I’m pretty sure it’s the only word in my reply that she’s heard.

“The Greek for Antarctica,” I say, and then I remember the word’s true significance. “It’s what Merrill—your father—calls this place.”

She looks me in the eyes. “You could still be in my head. You could be lying.”

“I’m not,” I say. Thanks to my perfect memory, I could recite every conversation we had during our time together. I could perfectly describe her house or the way her mother’s chocolate chip cookies taste, or I could rattle off a number of 1980s pop culture references, but it could all come from her mind. There is nothing I can say that will make her believe me, at least not without physical contact. “I promise.”

It’s a simple claim, the kind made between children, and it carries all the innocence and earnest emotion I can muster, which is actually quite a lot.

She smiles, her teeth gleaming white against her light brown skin. “You promise? Are you serious?”

I hold out my left hand and extend my pinkie. “Pinky promise.”

The absurdity of my request and the goofy smile on my face seems to put her at ease. She lowers the knife some. “You’re really one of the good guys?”

She steps forward, raising her pinky.

“Actually,” I say. “I’m leading them.”

When she’s stunned by my wild claim, I close the distance between us, wrap my finger around hers and recite the song lyrics she once sang to me. “Any hemisphere. No man’s land. Ain’t no asylum here. King Solomon he never lived round here.”

I’m dizzied by a pulse of energy that jolts my body before flowing from my hand to Mira’s. She jumps back, as though a lightning bolt has passed between us. With a gasp, she stumbles back, hands on her head. She stumbles for a moment, weak and disoriented.

“Mira,” I say.

Her eyes lock on to me. She squints, looking me up and down once, but then focuses on my eyes. Her hand slowly rises to her mouth. Tears well up and tumble down her cheeks. “King Solomon,” she whispers.

I nod slowly, a smile forming on my lips. “It’s me, Mira.”

She notices the knife in her hand. It falls from her grasp and clatters to the stone floor.

“Sol!” she shouts, and smiles so big and bright that it breaks my heart. I have waited a long time for this moment. When she charges toward me, arms out-stretched, I find myself weak with emotion.

She leaps at me, wrapping her arms around my neck and colliding full force with my chest. Overcome as I am, the impact knocks me back. My Jell-O legs fail me. We fall.

But before slamming into the stone floor, a gust of wind creates a buffer, cushioning our landing. Mira sits up, face radiant. She grips my cheeks in her hands. “It’s really you!”

I laugh and nod, feeling almost like myself again. Like little Sol.

She embraces me again, crushing herself against me. Her tears mingle with my own as they drip down the sides of my neck. Then she kisses me. On the cheek. Long and hard. If she’d done something like that when we first met, I probably would have passed out, but the expression of love is very welcome now. She kisses me again, on the forehead. Then the other cheek and I’m suddenly enveloped in a wave of kisses that make me laugh. There is nothing sexual about the kisses. Nothing intimate. We’re more like two puppies reunited after a long time apart.

But when Kainda clears her throat, there is no doubt that she sees things differently.

7

I cringe at the way Mira jumps away from my reclined body. It makes us look all the more guilty. But then I see the knife reappear in Mira’s hand and she’s got it pointed at Kainda. “Get behind me, Sol.”

She sees Kainda as a threat, like she did me before her memory was restored. Thankfully, her offer to protect me is probably the best thing she could have done.

I look up at Kainda, and she at me. We maintain our straight faces for just a moment, but then break out laughing. Our voices roll through the cavern, echoing back to us. It’s ten seconds before either of us can control ourselves, but when we finally do, and I look at Mira again, she just looks annoyed.

I sit up and hold up my hands, much like I did when Mira had the knife to my throat. “It’s okay, Mira, she’s with me.”

“I’m with you?” Kainda says, her tone revealing that she has not forgotten about the shower of kisses.

I get to my feet, clear my throat and motion to Kainda. “Mira, this is Kainda.” I shift my arms toward Mira. “Kainda, meet Mira.” I turn back to Kainda. “You know who she is and what she is to me.” Back to Mira. “Mira, Kainda and I are, you know...together.”

She looks at me, not understanding, but then her eyes go wide and she smiles. “Ohh, she’s your girlfriend.”

I start to nod, but then Kainda says, “I still do not know the meaning of this word. Girlfriend. I do not like it. It sounds weak.” She steps closer, into the light cast by a collection of blue stones. Her beautiful face, strong body and scant hunter’s garb are revealed. “I am his passion.”

Kainda speaks earnestly, naïve to the meaning the word might convey to an outsider.

Mira doesn’t miss it. She gives a lopsided grin and says, “I bet you are.” She lowers the knife and ribs me with her elbow, “Not bad, Schwartz.”

“Schwartz?” Kainda says the name slowly. She’s never heard the nickname before. And I have no intention of explaining it now, not just because it embarrasses me, but because I’d have to explain the Spaceballs movie to someone who has never even seen a television. Winning the war against the Nephilim might be a simpler task.

“Never mind that,” I say. “What we need—”

“Wait,” Mira says. “I want a few answers, the first of which is, what—exactly—am I to you?”

“Huh?”

“You might have a perfect memory,” Mira says, “But mine is pretty good, too. You said, ‘you know who she is and what she is to me.’ So I would like to know who I am and what I am to you.” She crosses her arms. “If you don’t mind.”

This could take a while, but we’re safe here and I get the feeling that I’m going to have to spill the beans to fully gain Mira’s trust. I might be Sol to her, but she is no doubt rattled by her recent experiences. I rub my hand through my hair, trying to think of the best way to start. Do I begin with my kidnapping and do the chronological thing? Do I jump to recent events? I slap the side of my face a few times, lost in thought.

Kainda makes up my mind for me. She answers in her blunt way, delivering the truth like a missile. “You’re Hope.”

Mira scrunches up her face. “Actually, I’m Mira.”

I sigh. “That’s not what she meant.”

“Then what did she mean?”

“You’re...” I wander away, crossing my arms as I remember those years spent underground, in hiding, with nothing but a Polaroid photo of Mira and me for company. “You’re my hope.”

She looks even more flabbergasted when I turn around. “You might want to sit down, this is going to take a while.”

I start at the beginning. My birth. I tell her about her mother and the words she spoke to me at my birth, “You are a precious boy.” I do my best to summarize our trip, my kidnapping, breaking and transformation into Ull. I’m not sure she’s buying it all, but there are tears in her eyes. Even Kainda looks sullen and I realize she hasn’t heard me tell the whole story, starting from my birth and moving forward.

When I get to the final test I faced as Ull and reveal that I was the person who took her mother all those years ago, the tears disappear. But when I quickly relate what happened next, how her mother saved me and how we’ve been allied since, the tears return.

“You were just a kid,” she says, after I tell how I swallowed the physical body of Nephil, escaped from Asgard and killed the Nephilim, Ull, son of Thor—my master. “That you survived at all is a miracle.”

I’ve always been too busy feeling guilty about my failures to consider that most people would have died. I was strong without ever knowing it. But part of that strength came from the memory of the woman now sitting across from me.

I relate the rest of the story, trying to focus on major events, but I find myself talking for almost an hour. By the time I’m done, she’s heard it all. The photo. Tartarus. The Titans. Cronus. Hades. Kainda, Em, Luca and Xin. Everything. Including the angel’s proclamation about faith, passion, focus and hope, and my subsequent revelation that those qualities were, in fact, people—Em, Kainda, Kat and now, Mira.

To finish things off, I retell the story of her rescue and how we ended up in a cavern several hundred feet below ground.

After hearing all of this, most of which I fully admit is ridiculous to say the least, her response is to lean back on her hands and says, “Huh,” like I just told her the Red Sox traded Wade Boggs.

I assume she’s just trying to digest everything I’ve told her, or maybe trying to figure out if I’m nuts and whether or not she should make a run for it. After several minutes of silence she says, “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You were kidnapped, turned into a hunter—” she points at Kainda, “by her father, Ninnis, took my mother, caused the crustal displacement event that killed billions, all because the Nephilim want you to be the vessel for the spirit of Nephil, aka Ophion, their leader. And now you’re leading a group of rebel hunters, the U.S. military and a pack of Crylos against them in an attempt to save humanity as we know it. Oh, and you have powers because you’re supernaturally bonded to the continent. That about sum it up?”

I look at Kainda, then back to Mira. “Yeah, actually, I think you’ve got a handle on the situation. But...you’re okay with it? You believe it? All of it?”

“I’ve seen the Nephilim with my own eyes. And the dinosaurs, though I have a hard time believing they’ve turned nice, and I even kind of remember your seal buddies saving me. But...” She shakes her head. “My father sees patterns. He’s grown blunter about it since you knew him. Calls it the fingerprint of God. I normally think he’s nuts, but everything you’re saying... I don’t see any other way around it, especially given the fact that I’m here at all.”

“Why’s that?” I ask.

“When the crust shifted, I was at home.”

“In Portsmouth,” I say.

She nods. “I watched as the water slipped out of the bay.

I cringe inwardly, knowing what will happen next.

“And I watched it return. The wall of water slid through the city. It killed everyone, including my friends. And then, it rolled up the hill.”

“Prospect Hill,” I say. “Two hundred feet tall.”

“The water rose to the foundation of my house. It took my neighbors, and nearly took me. I was knocked unconscious, but I survived. And when I woke up, the world was frozen. The house was no longer at the top of the hill, it was the only building still standing on a plain of ice that stretched to the horizon. I survived in the basement for months before heading south, where Wright, Kat and Cruz found me in a church. The point is, I was the only survivor in New Hampshire. The only survivor. And somehow I ended up here, with you, and am now told that I’m one of four women you need to save the world. What are the odds of that happening by chance?”

“Probably zero,” I say. It’s something I’ve had to come to terms with, too.

“It’s crazy. Borderline stupid. Hell, I spent the last few weeks arguing against the idea with my father. But now, after everything I’ve seen, and what you’ve told me, I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be here. Just like you are.” She looks at Kainda. “And you are.” She shrugs. “I don’t know about you two, but that is what gives me hope.”

Kainda chuckles and says, “Adoel was right about this one.”

I smile so wide it hurts.

Hope has arrived.

8

Now that the three of us are a little better acquainted, Kainda lets her guard down a bit. She had been pacing during the retelling of my story, arms crossed and brow furrowed, but she looks more at ease now, as relaxed as she allows herself to get while in hostile territory, at least. She sits on the cavern floor next to me, unclipping her battle hammer and laying it beside her.

I’m sure she still feels threatened by Mira, so I put my hand atop hers and lace our fingers together. Mira sees the gesture and frowns.

The part of me that is an average young man wonders if Mira is actually interested in me still, after all these years. Things like that happen, I think. The idea makes me nervous and uncomfortable, and I’m a little surprised that I hope that is not the case. Without meaning to, Mira became a central figure in my life, but the part of me that bumped feet with her, clung to that photo and checked off a box in the note she left behind has grown up.

“I was married,” she says, and all of my worry melts away.

“Mirabelle Whitney,” I say.

“Did my father tell you?” she asks.

“Remember when you took the boat down the river?” I ask. “From the citadel? Before you killed Enki?”

She nods.

“We were in the trees. On our way to help. You passed just beneath us and I overhead someone call you Whitney. Just put two and two together. Is he...”

“Alive?” she finishes for me. “No. But don’t worry, he wasn’t, you know...it wasn’t the crustal displacement. He was shot, by a robber who wanted my watch. Just over a year ago, actually. Tried to defend me. It was a stupid thing to do.”

“What was his name?” Kainda asks.

“Sam.” Mira’s head dips toward the floor. “His name was Sam. Well, Samuel, but I never called him that.”

I’m more than a little surprised when Kainda lets go of my hand and puts two of her fingers under Mira’s chin. The touch is gentle and caring in a way that was never modeled for Kainda, so this is all her. She lifts Mira’s face so they’re looking eye-to-eye. “If he died defending you, and you believe you were meant to be here, then it was not a stupid thing to do. It was brave. That’s how you should remember him.”

Mira sniffs back some tears and gives a nod. “Maybe, except that he was more like Sol when we first met. Kind of a nerd. Clumsy. Never really stood a chance.” She looks at me. “But that’s not exactly true either, because look at you now. You’re like Tarzan or Ka-Zar, or something.”

We smile together.

“Seriously, do you swing from vines?” she asks with a sniff, signifying the conversation about her past has come to a close.

I chuckle and say, “I can sort of fly, remember? Don’t really need the vines. But I probably could.”

Kainda is once again lost by the pop culture references and looks resigned to wait for the shifting conversation to end. But then Mira pulls her back in. “Can I see that?” Mira points to the hammer lying beside Kainda.

“My hammer?” Kainda asks. I’m not sure she’s ever let anyone hold her hammer. Not even me. Not that I’ve asked, but I think I’ve always assumed it would be a bad idea. They seem kind of attached.

“Yeah,” Mira says. “Looks intense.”

“Intense,” Kainda says slowly, thinking on the word. “It has tasted the blood of human, Nephilim, crylophosaurs and countless other denizens of the under-world. ‘Intense’ is a good word.” She lifts the hammer as though it weighs little more than a dead branch, and holds it out to Mira.

As soon as Mira has the handle, Kainda lets go and the hammer yanks Mira’s arm down. The stone head clunks against the cave floor. Mira laughs and takes the handle with two hands, grunting as she lifts it up. “Holy damn, woman. You’re strong.”

Kainda beams with pride. Maybe its that the legendary “girl in the photo” is giving her such high praise, or that she could clearly take Mira in a fight, I don’t know, but she’s enjoying the moment.

But then Mira goes and steers the conversation into a telephone pole. “This looks like Mjölnir, but smaller.”

Kainda and I both stare at her, unmoving.

“Mjölnir,” she says again. “You know, Thor’s hammer. You’d think you two would know this since...”

I can see her mind working. She’s figuring it out.

“Since what?” Kainda asks, her face grim.

“You knew him?” Mira asks. “The real Thor, I mean?”

“Yes,” Kainda says, taking the hammer back. She stands, clips the weapon in place and starts walking away.

Mira looks to me for an explanation.

“Hunters are trained to use the preferred weapon of their masters,” I say.

It takes a second to sink in, but then Mira’s eyes go wide with understanding. “She was Thor’s...but...” She stands quickly, shouting, “Kainda, wait!”

I know for a fact that chasing Kainda down when she’s just stormed away to be on her own is a bad idea. I jump up and head off after Mira, but she’s running now and has a good lead.

Also, Kainda has stopped walking. She turns and faces Mira with a look that could make a Nephilim warrior squeal in fright. She’s about to say something, but Mira beats her to the punch—luckily, not an actual punch.

“You must have just missed it,” Mira says, oblivious to Kainda’s dark mood. “Back on the river, when we escaped in the boat, Thor was one of the Nephilim chasing us.”

“Then you are truly lucky to be alive,” Kainda says and starts to turn away.

Mira puts her hand on Kainda’s arm, stopping her.

“Mira,” I whisper, but before I can finish my warning, Mira finishes her story.

“Kainda,” she says. “We ran Thor over in the boat. The water washed right over him. He drowned.”

Kainda whips around toward Mira. “Drowned?”

Mira nods. “Thor is dead.”

I have seen the transformation a hunter goes through upon learning his or her master has died. It’s like an invisible bond is severed and all the tension and hatred created by the connection is released. I saw it with Tobias, Em’s foster father, when he learned that I killed Ull, his former master. But his reaction is mild in comparison to what Kainda experiences.

Her hammer slips from her hand and lands with a thud. She falls to her knees beside it, arms shaking. She looks up at her quaking hands for a moment, clenching them tightly, probably frightened by the intensity of her own emotions. Then a sob escapes her lips, and I’m by her side, on my knees, wrapping my arms around her.

Kainda’s powerful body wilts under my touch. Her muscles go slack. Her back shakes with each sob and tears, bona fide tears—from Kainda—drip onto the cave floor.

I have no idea what to say. Or even if I should say anything. Kainda is more of an actions-speak-louder-than-words type, so I decide to stay quiet. My presence and physical contact are enough.

When I open my eyes and lift my head, I’m surprised to find Mira kneeling down on Kainda’s other side, one hand around her lower back, the other holding their heads together like they’ve known each other their whole lives. I can hear Mira whispering. She speaks about pain and loss, strength and courage, and about love. I only catch bits and pieces, but I hear my name in there a few times.

When Mira pulls away, all of the tension is gone from Kainda’s body. She’s no longer shaking and her strength has returned. She sits up, takes a breath and looks at me. Nothing physical has changed, but she looks different somehow. Not exactly a softness, but something...wonderful. While the Jericho shofar freed her from the Nephilim corruption, some part of her must have still been bound to her former master, maybe not physically or supernaturally, but mentally. Perhaps she feared facing him someday. Who knows what tortures he performed on her. Or maybe she feared realigning with him if he commanded it. Whatever the case, that part of her is gone. She is really and truly free.

She takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. Then she’s on her feet, clipping her hammer to her belt and acting as if nothing at all happened.

Message received, I think, don’t talk about it.

I’m pretty sure Mira picked up on the cue, too, because she moves on to a new topic without missing a beat. “So what’s next? We need to get to the FOB, right?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Your parents will be happy to see you.”

Mira gets a concerned look on her face. “Have...you heard about your parents?”

Fear grips my chest. Adoel didn’t want me to know, one way or the other, about my parents, but that was right before I was to face Ophion in battle. Maybe it would be alright to know now? But I already know, don’t I? If what Mira described about the crustal displacement event is accurate, and I believe it is, then the coast of Maine where my parents lived wouldn’t have fared any better than New Hampshire. “They’re dead, right? They must be.”

“Actually,” Mira says. “I have no idea. But...they moved to New Mexico a few years back. From what I understand, the climate is pretty nice there now.”

“Oh,” I say. “That’s...good to know.” Once again, Hope delivers. And that’s where I’m going to leave it. No more wondering, speculation or worry. If I dwell on the fate of my parents, I’ll never be able to focus on what needs to be done next. “We should get going. The FOB is three days from here and we have no idea how long it will be before—

The floor shakes beneath my feet.

I stop and listen.

The shaking returns, this time with an audible rumble.

“Maybe this is a dumb question,” Mira says, “But what is that?”

I look at Kainda and see my fears reflected in her eyes.

I sigh.

“Footsteps.”

9

“You said we were hundreds of feet underground.” Mira glances around the dull blue cavern. I can see a good distance in far less light than this, but she probably can’t see more than fifty feet, which is probably disconcerting. “Is something down here with us?”

“Actually,” I say, “it’s above us, and I’m pretty sure it’s still a ways off. Hold on.”

I close my eyes and focus on the stone around me. A shiver runs through my body as I allow myself to feel the Earth itself. Strata of stone, veins of water and shifting air. Then a footstep. I feel the compression. Massive. Water is squeezed down through the ground. The air in the cavern shifts. The weight is immense.

As I expand my senses, I hear Mira speaking to Kainda.

“What is he doing?” Mira asks.

“I’m not really sure. He can...feel the land.”

“Can he see through it?”

“If the land had eyes, maybe,” Kainda says. “It’s like the Earth becomes an extension of his body. He experiences the changes on Antarktos the way we might on our skin or in our bodies.”

Listening to Kainda’s surprisingly accurate description of what I’m doing, I start to lose focus and drift back to the cavern, but not before feeling the thunderous impact of a hundred thousand more feet.

“So that’s how he’s able to control the elements?” Mira asks. “Because he’s part of them?”

“Something like that,” Kainda says.

I return to my body with a gasp, shifting the women’s attention immediately to me.

“What is it?” Kainda asks.

“I’m not sure,” I say. “But I think it’s an army. I couldn’t tell how many, but some...” I shake my head, trying to comprehend the weight I felt compressing the layers of Earth. “They’re so big.”

As though punctuating what I’ve said, the ground shakes. A rumble rolls past, and I suspect the distant sound is reaching us thanks to the cool underground air—which I can’t feel, but I know the ambient temperature is somewhere around fifty-five degrees—and the acoustics of the solid stone surroundings.

When the rumble fades, Mira asks, “How far away are they?”

“Ten miles to the East,” I reply. “Give or take a mile. Feeling through the continent isn’t exactly a science.”

“Ten miles, and we’re feeling their footsteps?” Mira looks mortified, but then she wipes the fear away and replaces it with determination. “Do I need to guess where they’re headed?”

I shake my head, no. “The FOB. We might have a week, tops.”

“We need to take a look,” Mira says.

This catches me off guard. “What?”

“Recon,” Mira says. “You know, ‘know your enemy.’ It’s what Wright would do. If we know what’s coming, we’ll be better prepared for it.”

She’s right, it is what Wright would say, but I would still argue. “Yeah, but if we take the time to look, we won’t reach the base with much time to prepare anything.”

“I agree,” Kainda says.

I nod. “Thanks.”

Kainda raises an eyebrow at me. “Not with you. Reaching the others a few days sooner will not change anything.”

“It will give them hope,” I counter, though I’m not just talking about Mira. Strangely, I’m referring to the effect my presence will have.

“It does not matter when hope arrives,” Kainda argues. “Only that it does in time. Emilie and Kat will have our forces as prepared as they can be.”

When I still look unsure, Kainda says, “Perhaps that is why Emilie is called Faith.”

It is really hard to argue my point when Kainda is invoking the wisdom of an angel, but even harder when she is acting so differently. Mira’s news about Thor’s demise has truly given Kainda hope. She’s been transformed by it.

I relent with a nod. “Fine. But we’re going to have to move fast.” I turn to Mira. “Can you keep up?”

Mira crosses her arms. “In case you missed it, I ran a race to the geographic pole of Antarctica.”

It’s true. She did. Which is impressive, and she’s obviously in good shape. Despite everything she’s been through—the race, the battles with Nephilim, killing Enki and being taken by the shifter, and then the gnarly band of mythological creatures. She’s holding up better than I would have guessed. She was always tough, but it’s never easy to tell who can stare down a Nephilim warrior and who can’t. Despite all that, she’s not a hunter, and I need to be honest.

“This will be harder,” I say.

Perhaps thinking I’m just bragging, Mira looks to Kainda, who confirms my statement with a nod and the words, “Hunters are weapons, forged in darkness and agony, and are trained to endure pain beyond imagining. Running for days is a simple thing compared to the tortures endured by most of us.” She glances at me. “Some more than others.”

Mira has blanched a bit.

“But don’t worry,” Kainda says, “We understand the softness of outsiders and have learned what it means to be merciful.”

This doesn’t exactly put Mira at ease, so I translate. “Which is to say, we won’t leave you behind. But, you’re going to have to push yourself.”

The weight of everything Mira has learned in the last hour, including Kainda’s intimidating speech about hunters is no doubt weighing on her, along with the fact that this enemy force is bearing down on the FOB, where her parents are currently located. I’m impressed when I see her set her jaw, straighten her back and declare, “Then I’ll push.”

“I have no doubt,” I say, and reach a hand up toward the ceiling. Five of the blue crystals dislodge and fall before being caught by the air. They swirl around in a circle, joining together one at a time until they’ve been forged into a baseball-sized crystal that’s putting off enough light to see by. When the glowing orb lowers in front of Mira’s stunned face, she smiles.

“Hearing about what you can do is one thing, seeing it...” She shakes her head. “It’s still hard to believe.” She reaches through the column of compressed wind holding the sphere aloft and takes hold of it. “What about you two?”

“We can see in the dark,” Kainda says.

Mira rolls her eyes. “Of course you can.”

“Ready?” I ask of Mira, putting as much seriousness into the single word as I can. A ten mile run through the dark won’t be that bad. She’s clearly run further. It’s what I fear will happen after we’ve arrived at our destination, and the sprint back to the FOB that concerns me.

“Which way are we headed?” she asks.

I point to the East.

Mira looks to the East, takes a deep breath and starts running.

Kainda looks over at me. “She’s brave.”

“Yeah,” I say. “But sometimes the brave are the first to die.”

Kainda’s expression sours for a moment, but then she grins, slugs me in the shoulder and says, “Then we’re all in a lot of trouble.” She sets off after Mira, leaving me alone with my thoughts. But I don’t linger, because if I think for too long, I’ll have to admit that I already know what we’re going to see when we reach our destination.

Only one creature—that I know of—could shake the Earth with such violence.

Behemoth.

10

As we run through the darkness, I realize that my assessment of the Nephilim forces might have been...inadequate. The idea of a behemoth joining the fight had never crossed my mind. Not only because the giant I faced on multiple occasions is now a hollowed out corpse, but I was also under the impression that the remaining two could not be controlled.

It’s Nephil, I think. If any Nephilim were powerful enough to control the mammoths of the underworld, it’s him. Thankfully, I know that behemoths fear fire, and humans excel at making things burn or explode. If we get back in time, maybe we can have a few jets loaded up and ready to go with napalm.

I nearly laugh at the absurdity of my thoughts. To me it’s been five years since Justin and I blew up a toy volcano with baking soda and vinegar and now I’m plotting to use napalm, which burns at 1,200 degrees Celsius and can literally melt people.

Would probably melt Nephilim, too, I think, ring or no ring on their heads.

Before my thoughts of war get too dark, I turn my attention forward, reaching out through the Earth as I run. The tunnel through which we have been traveling rises at a slight grade, bringing us roughly fifty feet nearer to the surface with every mile we travel. Having gone eight miles already, we were within thirty feet of the surface. Every giant behemoth footfall shook dust on our heads. But now the land above is growing steep, rising toward a tall rock formation. At first I thought it was a mountain, but now it feels more like a nunatak—a flat sided tower that might have once been a true mountain, or maybe just all that remains of a vast plain after millions of years of erosion and glacier movement. Basically, it looks like Devils Tower in Wyoming, the one from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but wider or longer. One of the two. Of course, Wyoming is pretty close to the North Pole now. Devils Tower might be the only visible landmark for a hundred miles now.

I focus my attention on our path. It’s a fairly straight natural passageway that might have been formed by runoff from the tower, or from a natural spring. I follow the path as it bends up, its grade growing steeper until…

What is that?

I stub my toe, stumble forward and fall on my face, all before my senses fully return to my body. With a groan, I roll over onto my back and find Mira standing above me. She’s wearing a goofy, one-sided grin. She shakes her head slowly. “Some things never change.”

Kainda steps up next to Mira. “What never changes?”

“The first time I met him, he tripped and fell. Smacked his head on the ground. Thought he was going to cry.”

Kainda smiles. “He was...smaller before.”

I roll my eyes and sit up, pointing a finger at Mira. “I seem to recall you being nicer about it back then.”

“Yeah, but you were all small and pathetic,” Mira says, which gets a snicker out of Kainda. “Now you’re all—” She makes her voice deep and hits her chest with a fist. “—macho and strong. Me Solomon. I ride dinosaurs.”

“That’s it,” I say, focusing on the air around Mira’s head. I compress it, and then flare it out, filling every strand of hair with static electricity.

Now Kainda laughs loudly. “She looks like Zuh!”

Mira raises her hands to her head, feeling the pompom of blond hair.

“And this,” I say, “is how I remember you.”

At first I think she isn’t amused, but she smiles, and then laughs. “If only we had a Polaroid. We could take a new photo.”

I get to my feet. “Someday we will.”

Kainda huffs and pushes past us. “Then he might pine for you again for two years.”

Mira looks at me and whispers, “Was that a joke?”

“It’s hard to tell sometimes, but I think so, yeah.”

“And fix her hair,” Kainda calls back. “The enemy will see her coming a mile off.”

I quickly pull moisture out of the air and direct it to Mira’s hair as a thin mist. She pulls the now damp hair down, but doesn’t tie it back.

“I think you broke the elastic,” she says.

I reach into my pack where I’ve got some feeder-leather string that would work, but I feel something soft. When I remember what it is, I take hold of the fabric and pull it out. She kind of flinches when she sees it.

“Is that?”

I hand the blue bandana to her with a grin. “Your father’s. I found it on top of a wall. Where I think the two of you escaped from a pack of cresties.”

“They nearly got us,” she says, confirming the story.

“It’s how I knew he was back,” I say. “Your father. I didn’t know you were here until later.”

She smells the bandana. “Smells like Vesuvius.”

“Vesuvius?” I’m confused for a moment. The bandana smells like a dog. Then I realize who the dog belongs to. “Of course. Your father’s dog!”

“Did you meet him?” she asks. “He’s a big Newfoundland.”

“I didn’t see any dogs at the FOB,” I say. “But I wasn’t there very long, either.”

“Hey!” Kainda shouts from further up the tunnel. She sounds a little annoyed. “You’re the one who wanted to rush. So—rush!”

She’s right of course. I wait for Mira to tie her hair in place with the bandana, and then we set off up the tunnel, double timing our pace until we rejoin Kainda.

After another mile, the grade increases to the point where even I’m feeling the burn in my thighs.

Mira mutters, “Jane Fonda eat your heart out.”

“No kidding, right?” I say.

Kainda doesn’t get the reference and even if she did, I doubt she’d find it funny. In fact, when I look up and see her legs—the muscles accentuated by a sheen of sweat—I wonder if she’s even fazed by the ascent.

I do a quick reach out with my senses, looking for the aberration that caused me to stumble. It’s just a quarter mile ahead. The tunnel, which is fairly straight, suddenly angles and spirals straight up. I start to follow the path upwards, but then Kainda says. “Up ahead. Look.”

I stop and peer through the dark, at first not recognizing what I’m seeing, but then the sharp angles leap out at me. “That’s unexpected.”

“What is it?” Mira asks. “I can’t see a thing.”

Her orb of blue light allows her to see, but the glow doesn’t come close to reaching the end of the tunnel.

“A staircase,” I say, then use the momentary pause to follow it upwards, through the mountain. It’s just over a thousand feet tall, probably fifteen hundred steps, but the top...isn’t the top. “There’s a chamber.”

“What’s in it?” Mira asks.

I shrug. “I can’t sense things at that level of detail. Only broad pictures. There could be anything inside.”

“Anything living?” Kainda asks.

“I—I can’t tell,” I admit. “All the rumbling footsteps outside are making everything kind of hazy. Either way, up is the only way we’re going.” I head for the staircase and reach it a minute later, pausing at the steps. They’re old and worn, hewn right out of the mountain itself. The steps spiral upwards, straight through the core of the nunatak.

It’s Mira who makes the observation both Kainda and I have missed. “These stairs were made by people. For people.”

When the Nephilim build staircases, there are often two sets of stairs, one with four-foot tall steps for the warriors and other large classes, and a smaller set for hunters, gatherers and thinkers. Besides, even without the larger set of stairs, this tunnel was clearly never used by Nephilim. It’s far too small. All this and the fact that Kainda doesn’t know about this place leads me to conclude, “This was built before the Nephilim controlled the continent. Back before it was frozen over!”

My excitement is crushed when a rumble violently shakes the tunnel.

“We should probably get to the top before they bring down the whole place,” Mira says.

With a nod, I lead the way up the staircase, growing dizzy after the first fifty steps, spinning around and around like a human corkscrew. But I don’t really pay the dizziness any heed. Or the growing ache in my legs. Or the rising volume of the thunderous footsteps permeating the stone around us. My thoughts are of what we’ll find at the top, and who built it.

11

“The rumbling is fading,” Mira notes as we near the top of the spiral stairwell. She pauses, placing her hand on the gray stone wall. Its surface is smooth, almost soft to the touch, no doubt as polished as it had been when it was abandoned. “Maybe they’ve passed?”

I lift my leg and take another step up, which at this point in the climb, feels like a small victory. Steps are supposed to make scaling heights easier, but they really just put all the strain on a few muscles and bones. Had we been scaling a wall, all of my muscles would be sharing the burden. “It’s just because we’re above them,” I say. “The shockwaves are moving down and out, away from the impacts. So the effect isn’t as severe if you’re above the source of the vibration.”

“Thanks for the sciencey, Einstein,” Mira says with a touch of sarcasm.

“Thank you,” I retort, “for making me feel like I’m back in school.”

“Please,” Mira says, about to launch into some kind of witty diatribe.

“Shut-up,” Kainda hisses. “Both of you. I swear you’re like a couple of children in need of a few lashes.”

My instinct is to look at Mira and share a knowing smile, but the fact that Kainda is likely speaking about the parenting style modeled for her, and which she might actually believe is appropriate, makes me frown. I’d never thought about the possibility of having children some day. And it’s still a long way off. But if we survive this war, and really do get married, will she want to raise our children as hunters? Or will their childhoods look more like mine?

A conundrum for the future, I tell myself.

I look up to Kainda, who currently leads our upward charge. “What is it?”

She’s just around the bend and no longer climbing. As I follow the curved stairs up, I see the stone just beyond her change from a smooth and steady gray to a column of blocks. One more step reveals an archway.

“We’re there,” she says.

We gather at the top step, looking into the space beyond, but remain unmoving, like there’s an invisible force field preventing us from entering.

The chamber beyond the doorway is vast, with a flat floor and a domed ceiling, all carved right out of the solid stone. Beams of light stream through circular holes punched into the wall every fifteen feet.

“Is that daylight?” Mira asks.

“I think so,” I say and finally take a tentative step inside. The floor is as smooth as the walls in the stairwell. It’s almost soft under my feet. I scrunch my toes expecting to feel the threads of a rug, but it’s all solid stone. As my eyes adjust to the brighter light inside the chamber, I start to see details.

The room is largely empty save for a few pedestals that rise straight out of the floor. I walk to them and count seven. Mira kneels beside one of the protrusions and runs her hand over the top. I look for Kainda and find her walking around the perimeter of the chamber, looking at the walls between the windows.

“It’s indented,” Mira says. She moves to the next pedestal and touches the top. “They all are.” She stands, steps inside the circle and sits atop of the stone towers. “They’re seats.”

I step inside the circle and sit down across from Mira. She’s right. The indentations were worn by human backsides, which means these seats were used for a very long time.

“It’s like this was some kind of meeting place,” she says. “Maybe for leaders of some kind.”

“Or a secretive cult,” I add.

Mira frowns at me.

I shrug. “Just saying.”

A rumble rises through the nunatak, the stone seat and then my spine, reminding me why we’re here. I stand and head for one of the windows. It’s round and four feet in diameter. As I get closer, I see that it has been carved through ten feet of stone, at an upwards 45 degree angle. I put my face inside and look up. There’s a stone ledge blocking my view of the sky, but its bottom glows with a greenish hue—sunlight reflecting off the green jungle far below.

A breeze flows through the opening. As it washes over my face, I close my eyes and take a deep breath, expecting the sweet scent of a thawed Antarctica. Instead I get a perfume of decay, blood, feces and death—the scent of Nephilim. It’s so strong, I feel like I’ve just licked a warrior’s armpit. I reel back from the window, smacking the back of my head against the stone and falling to the floor, stunned.

“You okay?” Mira says, crouching behind me. She sounds more concerned than comical this time around. Probably a result of the disgusted look on my face. She must catch a whiff, too, because she suddenly groans and puts a hand over her nose. “Oh, God. Is that...them?”

I rub my head. “Eau de Nephilim at its finest.”

When I look up, I don’t see the window. Instead, my eyes focus on the wall between this window and the next. What I see is enough to make me forget all about the stink. “Whoa.”

Mira turns to the wall and holds up her glowing crystal, illuminating the scene. The entire wall, ten feet up to where the dome begins and all fifteen feet between the portals, is a collage of images and strange text, similar to those found in Egyptian tombs, but much more simplistic in style. But they’re also more complex than what is typically thought of as “cave paintings,” which is to say, these aren’t the paintings of a lone wandering artist, or even a collection of artists over time—this was a communal effort to create something permanent.

“It’s a record,” I say, looking at the vivid portrayal of a hunt. Ten warriors dressed in brown and carrying spears are battling a large animal. I point to it. “That’s a giant sloth, I think.”

The next picture over depicts a celebration. The dancing figures are lit by a bonfire’s glow and their shadows are cast on the wall. In Mira’s shifting blue light, they almost look real. The effect is really quite spectacular.

“Can you read the text?” Mira asks.

I shift my attention to the lines of text below the art and note that while the art is painted on, the text is carved right into the stone, a far more permanent medium. Whatever the text says was clearly more important to these people, but unfortunately, I can’t read a word of it. “I don’t recognize the language, but I’m guessing it predates anything we know about.”

“Wright once told me about a team of Delta operatives who discovered what they called “the mother tongue,” while on a mission. Said it was the language people spoke before the tower of Babel. He didn’t believe it, but...”

“Maybe that’s what this is,” I say. “Anything is possible, I suppose. But the real question is, what were they trying to tell us? What is this a record of?”

“The beginning.”

Mira and I both turn to Kainda. She’s still on the far side of the room, running her hand over the text and staring up at an image. As we head toward her, I ask, “Can you read the language?”

“I doubt anyone can,” Kainda replies. “Not anymore.”

“Then how do you know?” I ask.

She steps to the side, allowing me a full view of the image she’s been staring at. “Because, you’ve been there.”

I stop in my tracks. “No way.”

“What?” Mira asks.

I can’t answer. Not yet. The accuracy of this painting is blowing my mind. Every detail is exactly how I remember it. I turn to Kainda, “In all this time, nothing has changed?”

“It would appear so,” she says.

I step closer and reach my hand up, placing it on the big tree at the center of the image. I close my eyes and picture myself there again. It was so peaceful. Without pain. Or death. Or any of the horrible things that plague our world. That is, until Nephil found his way there.

“Where is this?” Mira asks, growing impatient.

I pull my hand away, feeling a great sense of longing and loss. “Edinnu.”

“Edinnu?” she says. “That’s...that’s the place you said was Eden, right? Where you met the angel?”

“Adoel,” I say with a nod. I point to the grassy hill surrounding the tree. “We stood right here.” I turn to the right and see several more of the massive murals. “This is a record of the beginning of human kind. Before the Nephilim.”

I walk slowly to the right, following the progression of time from Edinnu, to tribal life, villages, farms and eventually war. It’s right around that time that the images take on a darker tone, painted in blacks and reds. The style is also different. Evolved. I realize that I’ve probably just seen the records of a thousand years of humanity’s beginning. Maybe more. The artists painting at this point in the massive storybook might not have even known the names of those who came before them. They were just carrying on the tradition, maybe gathering as a group of leaders and artists, sitting in those chairs and deciding what image or collection of images best depicted their generation. Or century.

My stomach twists when the dark images resolve into blatant Nephilim images. Giants can be seen alongside men. Monstrous creations of man and beast, like the mythological creatures we discovered, and a mixture of violent and depraved acts performed by Nephilim and men alike.

With only two fifteen foot sections to go, the style disappears almost completely. The illustration is almost like a Jackson Pollock—smears of red, and black, and purple. I don’t miss the significance of the purple, a perfect match to the blood of the Nephilim. Perhaps there was a war, a final rebellion of men against gods. Perhaps it is the time when the Titans and the Nephilim fought for the world. The Titans were driven to Tartarus while the Nephilim claimed the world as their own.

Feeling heavy, I wander toward the final section and leap back when Mira holds her light to it. It’s a face. A black and angry face skillfully rendered. Yellow eyes. Double rows of glaring teeth. The whole thing burns with hatred and loathing. While I have never seen him in the flesh, I know this monster.

“Nephil,” I say.

“This is him?” Mira asks. “This is the big-wig Nephilim that wants to claim your body, wipe out humanity and live forever as a soulless world dictator?”

“Yes,” I say. I’m having a hard time looking at the image. I feel like he can see me through it.

Mira reaches into her cargo pants pocket and steps up to the image. She stands so that I can’t see what she’s doing, but I think she’s drawing. I understand that the image is offensive, but it’s also an archeological treasure. “What are you doing?”

Mira holds up her hand for a moment, revealing a small white brick about the size of a soap bar. “Chalk,” she says, “In case we had to climb. Never did.”

She puts the chalk back in her pants, claps the dust off her hands and leans back to admire her work. “There,” she says, smiling widely. She steps back revealing the marred image.

Mira has given Nephil, aka Ophion, the greatest enemy mankind has ever known...a handlebar mustache.

Despite my feelings about defacing this priceless record of ancient man, I smile. And then I laugh. Even Kainda finds it funny. Our laughter grows with each passing moment as the alteration drains our tension.

But the momentary distraction is interrupted by a thunderous boom and a violent quake in the Earth around us.

“They’re close,” Kainda says. Her hand has instinctually gone to her hammer, despite no one knowing we’re here.

I step toward the nearest portal. “It’s time to take a look.”

The window-tunnel is spacious by underworld standards, so it takes me only a few seconds to reach the top. I squint in the bright daylight as I reach the top of the angled tunnel. Although the sky above is blocked by the ledge five feet over my head, I can now see the more distant sky, and the gleaming, wet jungle below. When my eyes adjust, I quickly see that I’m at least eight hundred feet above the base of a vast, east-to-west valley that’s thick with jungle.

And Nephilim.

I look to the right, just before the nunatak rises from the jungle and follow the sea of monsters all the way to the horizon. The ground shakes again, drawing my eyes to the left. My heart sinks. Tears well. My throat tightens.

“What do you see?” Mira asks from below.

The beginning, I think, of the end.

12

I have to force myself to not count. Not only would it take a while, but the enemy force below stretches so far that their numbers just blur together into a liquid-like smear across the land. The jungle obscures many of them, but I can see enough to know that this army is hundreds of thousands strong. I see hunters toward the front, slipping through the trees like wraiths. Among them are gatherers and thinkers, perhaps for control, perhaps to take part in the fight. Then there are lesser warriors, greater warriors, and high above it all, the winged upper echelon of Nephilim leadership. All this is expected, but there are some elements below that I hadn’t thought possible.

Feeders. A horde of them. The egg shaped monsters with stubby arms and legs, with the teeth of a great white shark, bobble forward, snapping their jaws. Their black, orb eyes seem vacant, but they move with purpose, eager for the fight...or the promised human smorgasbord. I don’t see any breeders, the morbidly obese, bird-like monsters that give birth to feeders, but that’s to be expected. They can’t even walk, let alone fight. That said, given the sheer number of feeders, it’s clear that the breeders have done their part to prepare for the fight.

It’s hard to tell from this distance, but I think there might even be some classes of Nephilim that I’ve never seen before. Some are stout and broad shouldered. Others walk on all fours, like silverback apes. I’ve always understood that there was more to Nephilim society than I sampled in my short time here, but I hadn’t considered the idea of there being more classes of lesser Nephilim. Given all the jobs required of any society, I suppose it makes sense.

But all of this is dwarfed by what follows the main force of the army. Behemoth.

Correction.

Two behemoths.

And they’re even larger than the one I faced. That creature stood one hundred and fifty feet tall, but these must be twice that height. Their black, bulbous eyes are the size of hills, each emerging from the sides of its head. Behemoths are essentially feeders that are allowed to eat and grow exponentially. They don’t die, so their potential for growth is unlimited. Given the size of these two, they might actually be two of the first feeders ever birthed. Their pale gray skin ripples with each step. Their long clumps of red hair reach out, dangling in the air as though held up by strings. Behemoths have feeble arms, much like their smaller feeder counterparts, but the living hair works like tentacles, able to reach out and snag prey. They breathe with mighty gusts—probably where most of the stench is coming from—revealing rows of serrated triangular teeth the size of hang gliders. I have a hard time imagining that these two, who are leaving a flattened forest in their wake, will have any fear of fire. Like their smaller brethren, behemoths can heal, and if these two decided to simply charge the FOB...well, it might be a very short fight.

“What do you see?” Mira repeats a little more fervently.

I turn back to the tunnel. “An army.”

“That’s it?” She sounds annoyed.

“A big army,” I say.

She lets out an exasperated huff, and I hear her climbing the tunnel behind me. She squeezes up next to my right side and joins me. “Holy...”

I watch her dark skin turn a few shades lighter before saying, “I know.”

Kainda sidles up on my left. She’s unfazed by the scene. “What were you expecting?”

“I guess I never really had a clear picture of how many Nephilim there are.”

“It’s a large continent,” Kainda says. “And they’ve had a lot of time.”

She’s right about that. In the same few thousand years, the human population has increased by several billions. That there is only a million or so Nephilim actually shows some restraint on their part—that most of them appear to be headed this way, doesn’t. They’re going for the kill, which again, I should have seen coming. That’s what Nephilim do.

“Okay,” Mira says, “We’ve done our recon. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Not yet,” Kainda says. She looks like she’s counting.

“Are you counting?” I ask.

“The leadership,” she says. “Each commander is in charge of ten thousand. So if we count the commanders—”

“We can guesstimate their total number,” I say. When Kainda looks confused, I explain without being asked. “It’s a made up word. Guess and estimate. Guesstimate.”

She closes her eyes and sighs a deep breath. “We face near certain annihilation and you are making up words.”

“I didn’t make it up, it’s...just...forget it.” I turn my attention back to the army. A strong breeze carries a scent similar to dead fish rotting in the sun and I stifle a gag. My stomach sours further when I notice the organized march of the Nephilim warriors. I’m not sure why, but militaries always seem more frightening when they’re coordinated. “How can we tell the commanders apart from the others.”

“Red leathers,” she says.

I scan the sky above and the land below. When I’ve got the number, I swallow and it feels like I’ve got a stone in my throat. “Done.” The word comes out as a whisper. I can’t manage much more than that.

“How many?” Mira asks. She sounds afraid to hear the answer, as well she should be.

“There might be a few more that I can’t see,” I say, which is true, but saying this is more a delaying tactic than anything else, and Kainda will have none of that.

She elbows me in the rib. “How many?”

“Eighty-six,” I say.

“Eighty six?” Mira says. “There are eight hundred and sixty thousand of those things out there?”

“Probably more,” I say. “We can call it an even million and probably be safe.”

“Including the two Stay Pufts over there?” She motions to the behemoths.

“If you count them as one each,” I say.

“And should I ask how many we have at the FOB?” Mira asks.

“You shouldn’t,” I say.

“I kind of just did,” she says.

“It’s been a few days since we were there,” I say.

“Solomon,” she says, waiting for me to look her in the eyes. “Tell me.”

There’s no way to avoid telling her the truth, as much as I’d like to. Besides, she’s Hope. If anyone can spin the news into something positive, it should be her.

Still, I can’t help but try to avoid it one more time. “I didn’t exactly count.”

“I know the way your brain works,” she counters. “You counted whether you tried to or not. So guesstimate.”

“Fifteen hundred,” I say. My voice is so flat and emotionless I sound like that teacher from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. “Maybe two thousand.”

She looks ready to pass out. The news is clearly worse than she’s expecting. And for a moment, I see hope leave her eyes. This is something I can’t stand for.

“But,” I say. “We have the Jericho shofar, which reduces Nephilim to quivering lumps. We have modern weapons and heavy artillery. There are Navy ships off the coast. And jets. I’m sure more have arrived since we left to find you, probably from every nation within range.”

“There are a million of them,” she says. “Sure, some of them are human, and some of them are just a little bigger than humans, but they can control people’s minds, change shapes, fly and a good number of them are thirty feet tall, again, not counting those two!” She thrusts a finger toward the two approaching behemoths. They’re perhaps two miles off to the left, but they’re immense, filling up most of the western view. The hunters at the front of the army have entered the jungle where the nunatak begins. It won’t be long before they’re below us. If we end up behind this army, it could be a problem. We need to leave.

I’m about to say so when Kainda reaches past my face and flicks Mira in the side of the head.

“Oww!” she says. “What was th—”

“They don’t have him,” Kainda says, nodding to me.

“What?”

“The Nephilim don’t have him,” Kainda repeats, emphasizing each word. “Which means the very land itself is against them.”

I start to smile, but a sudden, jarring impact wipes the smile from my face and sets my head spinning. It comes again, before I can think, striking my forehead. As consciousness fades, my mind registers three things. A hand, dark and caked with mud, my blond hair locked in its grasp, and then a feeling of weightlessness, and wind...everywhere...whipping past my body—

—as I fall.

13

I come to just a second or two later, just in time to see Kainda shove Mira out of the window. As Mira screams, I’m mortified that it was Kainda who knocked me out and threw me, but then she leaps out behind Mira. It’s then that I see my attacker as he throws himself from the cliff’s edge and plummets down behind Kainda.

Kainda leaped, knowing I could keep us from pancaking on the forest floor below, but this...man—I think he is a man—jumped after Kainda without that knowledge. I quickly decide the man is insane, a theory that is supported by the white froth around his mouth, the wild look in his eyes, and the fact that his mud-coated body is clothed by the smallest of leathers. His hair hangs in long, clumpy tendrils and is coated in mud, but I can see the blood-red sign of his Nephilim corruption here and there.

A gust of wind buffers me and slows my fall, allowing Kainda and Mira to catch up. Mira doesn’t stop screaming until I catch her in my arms and say, “You’re okay!”

“She threw me!” Mira shouts.

Kainda reaches us, clasping arms with me. “Almost there!” she shouts, warning me of the impending impact with the ground. I’m facing up and can’t see the ground, but I can see the man above us, dropping like a bomb. His arms are stretched out toward Mira’s back, fingers hooked and tipped with thick yellow nails. His jaws are open wide, revealing teeth filed to sharp points. He’s more monster than human.

Kainda looks back over her shoulder and sees the man falling with us. “Let him fall!”

I can’t. It’s a thought, but Kainda knows I’m thinking it.

“This is war, Solomon!” she shouts.

I...can’t!

Whoosh! A strong gust of wind slows our descent and turns us upright. I still haven’t looked at the ground, but I feel the tickle of vegetation on the soles of my feet. I lower us down and deposit the now bewildered man ten feet away. We’re in a clearing between the jungle and the nunatak’s harsh cliff face.

“Weak fool!” Kainda shouts, and her anger catches me off guard. She shoves past me, unclipping her hammer.

“I don’t kill humans,” I argue, but my voice sounds feeble in comparison, like some part of me knows this is a losing argument. But I don’t kill people. That’s been my one golden rule. It’s why Kainda is still alive, and why her father, Ninnis, who has wronged me in so many ways was able to return fully to himself before Nephil claimed his body. But something about this feels different.

“He is plagued,” Kainda says. She takes up a defensive position between the man, who is looking up at the cliff we just fell from, and me. “Check your forehead. Are you bleeding?”

I pat my hand against the skin of my head where the man punched me. No blood. “Nothing.”

The man suddenly goes rigid, like his confusion has just worn off. His head cranes toward us with a kind of stutter, like there are gears in his neck. His eyes widen. His mouth opens. He charges, reaching out his hands and loosing a shrill cry. There is no skill in his attack. Only ferocity. This man is not, nor likely has ever been, a hunter.

As Kainda moves to intercept the man, I manage to say, “Don’t—” but then it’s too late. She sidesteps the man’s attack. He turns his head toward her and stumbles as he passes. He looks angry more than confused, or frightened. I look for some sign of humanity in his eyes. I find nothing. And then, Kainda’s hammer connects with the back of the man’s skull and a loud crack punctuates the end of his life. As he falls to the ground, I note that his eyes don’t change. When people die, or even when animals die, you can see the life fade from their bodies, as though the soul seeps out from the eyes themselves. But not with this man. His soul was already missing. Still, I am not in the business of killing men.

I turn to Kainda, anger filling my voice, “Hey!”

“We are at war, Solomon,” she says before I can express my distaste. “People on both sides are going to die. I might die.” She points to Mira. “She might die. Billions already have.”

“Not when I can save them,” I say.

“He was infected. He has no mind of his own. Only madness.” Kainda wipes the small amount of blood on the head of her hammer off on the grassy ground. “One bite or scratch from him, and you would be no different. A war ended from a scratch. Is that what you want?”

“I—no...” I’m not sure what to say. Was this man really past saving? Is he really that dangerous? “Who was he?”

“A weapon,” Kainda says. “Nothing more. Human once, but no longer.”

“How?” I ask.

Kainda is scanning the jungle nervously, wary for danger, which she should be, considering we are now in the path of an approaching army. “They are what a man becomes when he is too weak to become a hunter. They are broken...and stay that way. They are kept in the depths and fed filth and refuse. Their madness becomes contagious.”

Before I can ask how she knows all this, she adds, “They are a Norse weapon.”

Then it all clicks. The Norse history. The madness. “They’re berserkers.”

Kainda’s forehead crinkles as she turns to me. “You know of them?”

“From human history,” I say. Berserkers were Viking warriors that some believe took a drug that put them in a fury, and reduced or removed their sensitivity to pain. They’d keep fighting even while they bled out. This man certainly fit the description, but I have no recollection of the madness being transmittable. That increases the threat exponentially...especially if you’re trying to not kill them.

“Then you know they are to be feared,” Kainda says.

I say nothing. I can’t condone killing people. Mind or no mind.

“Solomon,” Mira says. She looks a little wind-whipped and startled, but her eyes are serious. “You remember how my husband died?”

“Of course,” I say.

“If you were there. If you had the chance to kill the man who shot Sam, and spare me that pain, would you have?”

I stumble back, unprepared for the question. How can I say no to that? Mira’s husband. To allow his death, if I had the chance to stop it, even if it meant killing a man...could I do that?

Before I can answer, she takes the question further. She points to the dead berserker. “If that man was about to kill me, would you have taken his life? What about Kainda? Could you let him kill—”

A high-pitched wail rings out, drawing my attention up. A man, as wild and feral as the dead berserker, leaps from a nearby tree branch. He’s a second away from careening into Mira. His fingers are flexed. His mouth stands agape. Mira would survive the attack, but not without wounds...which means...

Whipsnap comes free of my belt and I twist the nearest end up, shoving it at the man’s chest...impaling him with the Nephilim-forged blade. It sinks past his sternum, slips through his heart and catches on his spine. The man’s momentum helps me carry him clear of Mira before I fling him down to the grass, dead, beside his kin.

Question answered.

I look at the man’s dead body, motionless, devoid of life. I did that. I killed a man.

Whipsnap falls from my hands, landing in the grass. I follow it, dropping to my knees, which divot the earth along with the tears already dripping from my eyes. I feel two sets of hands on my back, both women offering comfort for what I’ve done. But I can’t accept it. What I did was wrong. It was evil. Corrupt.

My eyes snap open and I see the blurred ground a foot below my bowed head. There is a litmus test for corruption, I realize. At least, there is for hunters here on Antarktos. Through spit and sobs, I make my request.

“What?” Mira asks.

I spit and clear my throat, struggling to control my emotions. “My...hair. My hair! What color is it?”

There’s a pause as both women lean back from me.

“It’s blond,” Mira says. “What other color would it be?”

“Check it all!” I shout.

Hands dig through my hair, searching. As they search, Kainda explains my fear. She no doubt understands it. “Red hair is an outward sign of a hunter’s corruption, but if Solomon were paying attention, he would have noticed that my hair is also without blemish.” She gives my head a shove. “You’re fine.”

When I stand up and wipe my eyes, I’m a little too embarrassed to look at Kainda. What guy wants to cry in front of his girlfriend? And I was full on sobbing. Probably not the first time, of course. Despite my breaking, and hardening over the years, I’m still kind of a leaky faucet.

Kainda takes my chin in her hand and turns it toward her. “You’re heart is still pure, and I would never ask you to risk darkening it again. We are at war, Solomon. Men will die. On both sides. Some by your hands. It cannot be avoided. And if you run from this responsibility, you will put us all in danger.”

Her point finally starts to sink in and I dip my head to nod my agreement. But this revelation is interrupted by a sharp scream. I turn to the sound, and I find another berserker standing at the edge of the forest.

The man repeats the cry.

“What’s he doing?” I ask, snatching Whipsnap up off the ground.

When a second voice shouts a reply deeper in the forest, and another more distant scream follows, I understand and answer my own question. “He’s calling for help.”

The sound of running legs, ragged breathing and frenzied excitement fills the jungle to the west. The berserkers are leading the way for the Nephilim army, clearing the path of anything living that might stand in their way, and making so much noise doing it that they won’t go unnoticed for long, especially if there are hunters not far behind them.

We can’t fight this.

“Run!” I shout. We break for the jungle, heading east, moving as fast as we can with an army at our heels.

14

Within the first thirty seconds of running, I realize that although Mira can run long distances without any trouble at all, she can’t do it at a sprint. Or rather, she can, but she’s just not very fast. Granted, she’s tired, beat up and overwhelmed, so I should cut her some slack, but the shrieking berserkers not far behind us aren’t going to go easy on her. Still, I can’t make her run any faster. I turn to Kainda, who is ten feet to my left. “We need to slow down.”

“What? Why?” she asks.

I motion back to Mira.

She glances back and sees Mira, twenty feet behind us, which is just about half the distance to the nearest berserker. When I look back, I not only see the closest berserker, but I see the fifteen others behind him, counting their number in a flash. But that’s not all of them. I can hear many more as they hoot and scream in bloodlust. I have little doubt the army behind them can hear the din as well.

“She sets the pace,” I say. “We’ll take care of anyone that gets too close.”

“Can you do it?” she asks.

It’s a vague question, but I know what she’s asking: can I kill?

My reply comes without thought. There is no time for it. “Yes.”

She slows and drops back.

Every muscle in my body screams, “faster!” But I slow my sprint, falling back with Kainda.

Mira sees what we’re doing and grows angry. “Don’t wait for me!”

“Just keep running,” I say back to her. “They won’t get past us.”

I say it with such confidence that it surprises even me. And it’s true. A hundred of these wild men wouldn’t make it past me and Kainda. They lack the skill and cunning to prove a threat to almost any hunter worthy of the title, but I’m also much more than a hunter. I’ve killed Nephilim. I’ve beat Ninnis, the best of the hunters. And I’ve gone head-to-head with Nephil on more than one occasion. These berserkers shouldn’t be a problem.

A sharp pain erupts from my shoulder, spinning me with a shout of pain. I look to my flesh first, worried I’ve been bitten, but the skin is just red. A shout to my side warns of trouble, and I turn to find a frenzied woman charging in from the side. She reaches back and whips a stone at me. This one sails past.

Just a stone, I think with relief, and then I direct a gust of wind to carry the woman away. She’s so stunned by being lifted off the ground that she simply clamps her mouth shut and allows herself to be carried away. I cut the connection and let her fall a moment later. By the time she lands, I can no longer see her...or her fate.

“Uh, guys!” Mira shouts.

I face forward and quickly spot ten more crazed men and woman closing in from the front.

We didn’t come down ahead of the berserkers, we came down among them!

“Kainda!” I shout.

“I see them!”

We close in on either side of Mira.

“Just keep running,” I tell her. “Don’t stop for anything.”

The first of our attackers arrives a moment later, but he’s intercepted by Kainda and clubbed to the side. The man is dead on impact, but I cringe as his body slams hard into a tree trunk and then to the ground.

The man who attacks on my side fares little better. I bend Whipsnap back and let the mace end fly. The solid metal ball is covered in spikes, but even without them, the man’s head wouldn’t have stood up to the blow. I turn away from the man just before his life is ended and see that a third attacker is taking advantage of the opening left by Kainda’s assault on the first.

I have no choice. Leaping a full stride ahead of Mira, I pull the mace end free of the berserker’s head and thrust the spear tip on the other end into the new attacker’s throat. And I see every gory second of it. With a gurgle, the man spins away and slumps into a stand of ferns.

Three more rush at us from the front. Too many to take on without slowing down. I reach out with the wind, scoop them from the ground and launch them skyward. It’s a different kind of attack, but I’ve killed them all the same. They’ll land in twenty or so seconds, as dead as the others.

It doesn’t seem fair that the moment I come to terms with the idea of killing a human being to save the world...or even another life, I’m forced to perform the act over and over, but these aren’t just random men. They’re an army. And they’re going to kill us, and everyone else in the world, if I hesitate, maybe even once.

So I don’t.

We run. And fight. And kill.

Some of the berserkers feel the tip of my blade. Others fall under the crush of my mace. And even more are simply cast away into the trees, or the sky, by the wind. These attacks become so natural that some berserkers are flung away as soon as I see them, the wind acting as a kind of offensive reflex.

While we are making good progress and no doubt distancing ourselves from the marching army, we’re also making a racket and leaving the world’s most easy to follow trail. I have no doubt that hunters will have found the first bodies by now. But will they give chase like I would expect a hunter to do, or will they call for help? Or worse, will they inform their masters?

When there’s no more resistance ahead, I realize we’ve cleared the front line of berserkers and now only have to worry about attacks from behind. In the momentary reprieve, I reach out to the east. A half mile ahead I find our way out.

“There’s a river,” I say, pointing to the left. “Just over there. It ends at a waterfall. They won’t be able to follow.”

No one replies, but we adjust our course toward the river.

A loud hooting draws my attention back for a moment. What I see is totally unexpected despite the fact that I shouldn’t be surprised by anything anymore. There are at least a hundred berserkers. Probably more. They’re charging through the jungle’s thick growth without any concern for their well being, oblivious to the thorns tearing at their skin, the sharp stones cutting their feet or the branches lashing their faces. By the time they reach us, they’ll be covered in infectious blood. Any contact with just one of them could be serious trouble.

I’m not sure we’ll make it to the river in time, so I start brewing a wind above us. The trees hiss loudly, bending from the strength of the power I’m unleashing.

“Careful,” Kainda says, glancing up. She knows it’s me. “If Nephil sees it...”

She doesn’t need to finish the sentence. If I use my powers in a way that’s visible to the Nephilim hovering like giant hawks, they’ll know I’m here. Right now, they might think the berserkers are having their way with some stray humans, or cresties, or even a flock of turquins. The thick canopy hundreds of feet up, does a nice job of hiding us from the sky, but too much wind will act like a flashing neon sign that reads, “Solomon is here!”

As the wind dies down and the hissing fades, I hear a telltale thwack! An arrow has just been loosed! I focus on the air, sensing its passage, and react without looking. I reach to the side and shove Mira. Her head shifts to the side.

The arrow misses her by inches, but its blade still slices skin as it passes.

Mine.

No one questions why I shoved Mira as the arrow stabs into a tree just ahead of us. We just keep running.

I ignore the sting and focus on the hunter behind us. A gust of wind, small enough to go unnoticed, slams the man from behind and launches him from the tree branch a hundred feet from the ground. He might be a skilled hunter, but there’s nothing he can do to arrest his fall. To his credit, he falls in silence, not fearing his death.

As my arm begins to sting, I realize that I’ve just killed a hunter. It was as quick and easy as killing the berserkers, but I know for a fact that the man could have been redeemed. A single blast from the Jericho shofar would have freed him from his breaking and corruption.

But the shofar is not here. And we must live.

“Almost there,” Kainda shouts and I can hear the roar of the river ahead.

“When we get to the edge,” I say, “don’t stop. Just go over.”

We break into the sunlight a moment later and run along the rocky shoreline of a fast moving river. The air is fresh here, cleansed by water welling up from some distant spring. As I step into the water, I can’t feel its temperature, but I instantly detect it. I take a deep breath as I sense the foul pollution flowing downstream. The river carries the filth and stink of the army following its path. This whole landscape will be in ruins before the day is done. And a part of me, whatever supernatural aspect of my being that is connected to this land, revolts. It’s nearly enough to make me turn around and fight right now, but Kainda’s urging keeps me moving forward, though I have to keep my feet out of the water.

Mist rises up ahead of us. A roar loud enough to drown out a shout announces the presence of a powerful waterfall. Kainda goes off the side first. Then Mira, who leaps without hesitation. I follow last, spinning around as I leap. Taking a last look back.

The horde of berserkers, and several hunters with short range weapons, charge along the river banks, through the river and through the trees above. High above them, I note a few of the Nephilim warriors have descended and are circling the scene. To my knowledge, the Nephilim have eyesight similar to people, so I don’t think there is any risk of being identified. That is, until what happens next.

I complete the spin, and call the wind to me. Kainda, Mira and I are carried out and away from the cliff, angling down toward the jungle below as though hang-gliding. Despite our whipping hair, the passage down the two-hundred foot drop to the jungle is smooth, and we are quickly concealed once again.

We pause in the shadows to catch our breath. I look back, craning my head up toward the waterfall, and the unthinkable happens.

The berserkers, lost in frenzy or just uncaring, pour over the side of the cliff. Some are in the water and will land in the river. But others, the majority of them, crash to the ground below, broken by tree limbs or slapping wetly against the large flat stones lining the river. Like lemmings, they keep flowing over the side, dying one on top of the other.

Maybe it’s their last bit of free will? I wonder. They’ve lived in nightmares for so long, maybe now that they have the chance to end their lives, and suffering, they’re eager. Or maybe they really just have no minds left. Whatever the case, it sickens my stomach.

Kainda mutters a curse in Sumerian. I turn to her, but she’s not watching the river of death. Her gaze is turned higher, to the sky. I follow her eyes and see them. Three winged warriors circle toward the ground, no doubt attracted by the scent of blood and the sight of so many berserkers committing mass suicide.

I take hold of Mira’s arm, but before I can speak, she says, “You’re bleeding.”

I look down at the arm and see a one-inch slice. It’s not horrible, but it’s not going to heal without attention either. Still, there’s no time to worry about that now.

“Doesn’t matter,” I say. “Remember when I said things were going to get harder? That hasn’t really happened yet. But it’s going to. We need to run again. Faster this time. Can you do that?”

In response, she runs. Kainda and I follow, glancing at each other to communicate the same unspoken fear: they’re going to find us.

15

Mira is getting tired. She hasn’t slowed down yet, but I can see the signs. She’s not raising her arms as high with each step. Her breathing sounds shaky. And she’s leaning to one side. It’s slight, but I’m willing to bet she’s running through a cramp, which isn’t easy, even for a hunter. Our pace is not sustainable.

On the bright side, the Nephilim pursuing us from the skies above have yet to find us. The jungle canopy has done a good job at hiding us. They’ve also split up, widening the search, a fact I learned by sensing the air above. Nephilim warriors, with their thirty-foot tall bulk and giant flapping wings, displace a lot of air. Once I found them, tracking their movements became as easy as feeling someone blowing on the back of my neck.

On the not so bright side, the lone warrior still behind us is dropping down toward the jungle. I don’t think he’s spotted us, I just think he’s tired of trying to see through the endless curtain of green leaves. Either way, once he punches through the canopy, we’ll be far more exposed. With most of the direct sunlight blocked in this stretch of jungle, the floor is relatively free of growth. We can run faster, but the tree trunks are our only cover. We could head underground again, but I don’t feel any natural tunnel systems heading in the direction we need to go, and using my connection to the continent to create miles of subterranean passages will sap my energy to the point where I might need to be carried.

Unless we can channel our inner ninjas and disappear, this is probably going to end in conflict, which shouldn’t be too bad. I can handle a lone warrior. But the scent of his blood, as well as his disappearance into the jungle, might garner further attention. I might normally open up a pocket of earth to hide in, but I’m still feeling spent, and I really don’t want to exhaust my abilities, just in case they’re needed for something even more urgent later on.

“Behind this tree!” I shout, catching Mira and Kainda off guard. Kainda reacts quickly, diving behind the sixteen foot wide tree. The massive tree, with its rough bark, looks like it’s something out of the forest of Endor. Mira stumbles, but I catch her arm and yank her hard to the side.

She shouts in complaint, but I slap my hand over her mouth a second before the canopy a hundred feet behind us explodes. Leaves shake free. Branches shatter. And then, as the Nephilim lands hard, the ground shakes. He’s a big one.

Loud sniffing fills the air. Then a booming voice. “I can smell you, humans. Reveal yourselves and your suffering will be short. Exquisite, but short.” That last bit is followed by a laugh.

Kainda leans in close, cupping a hand around my ear. “I know his voice,” she says. “Ares.”

Ares! Great. Of all the Nephilim that had to chase us into the jungle it had to be Ares, the Greek god of war. He’s not only known for being ruthless and bloodthirsty, but he’s also a very skilled fighter. I’m going to have to make this as unfair a fight as possible.

More sniffing. A branch cracks. He’s getting closer.

Running isn’t a choice now.

“You smell weak,” Ares says, sniffing deeply. “Untainted.” He laughs again, like he’s just heard a great joke. “You will taste delightful.”

Kainda tenses, and I sense she’s about to charge the giant. I take her hand and squeeze, mouthing the word, “Wait,” to her.

Ares’s own personal brand of Nephilim stink, which I note includes the scent of human blood, reaches us. He’s not far now, maybe twenty feet from the far side of the tree. Does he know we’re here?

No, I decide. I can hear him shuffling around, looking in all directions. He smells us for sure, but can’t pinpoint our location. To make it harder on him, I shift the natural breeze some, pulling our scents upwind. He grunts with the wind shift, no doubt thinking we’ve begun to move. When he does, I slide to the side and slowly peek around the tree.

Ares is massive. Perhaps one of the largest Nephilim I’ve seen, both in height and in muscle tone. He’s dressed simply, wearing only a tunic, but its blood red coloration, which matches his ponytailed hair, reveals he is one of the commanders in charge of ten thousand troops. Killing him will help disrupt the Nephilim ranks, though not drastically.

His body is facing me, but he’s got his head craned to the side and his nose raised. Despite the simple garb, he is intimidating. He carries a thirty foot long spear in his left hand and a shield in his right. I have never seen a Nephilim use a shield before. They generally prefer to absorb blows with their regenerating bodies. The pain suits them. But perhaps war is different, especially when the enemy—modern humans—have things like anti-tank missiles. Then I see the gleaming, razor-sharp edge of the shield, and I realize it’s not just a defensive weapon. But the most dramatic statement is his red crested helmet. At first I think that the hair is either his own, or from a feeder, but then I see it move, as though on its own, and I realize the brazen god of war has decorated his helm with behemoth hair.

I’m so entranced by the thirty foot tall warrior dressed like a Spartan Hoplite, that I forget to pull back when his head swivels forward again. But Kainda is still thinking and pulls me behind the tree.

“Ares is no ordinary warrior,” she whispers in my ear. “He is not to be trifled with.”

A metallic zing rings out from the other side of the tree. A loud clang and a snap follows. I duck instinctively, but nothing happens for a moment. When I look forward, I see Ares’s shield embedded in a tree directly across from us...which means...

I look up at the tree giving us shelter. The line of bark has burst outward.

He threw the shield through—a tree! A fourteen foot wide tree! It hasn’t fallen yet because the branches high above are thickly mingled with those of other trees. It will likely stay almost upright for a long time to come, or until the behemoths make their way through.

The exploded bark is just a few feet above us. Had he aimed a little lower, we’d all be dead. Thing is, I don’t think he wants to kill us. I think he wants to toy with us first.

Which isn’t going to happen. I step out from behind the tree. He sees me, but I don’t give him time to react or even recognize me. A compressed column of wind strikes his side and lifts him off the ground. The giant’s body slams into a large tree trunk, folding around it backwards. Several loud cracks issue from his spine.

The wind lets up.

His body falls.

And then, he heals. Each vertebrae that cracked pops back into place, one by one. And with each pop, the Nephilim warrior moans in ecstasy, relishing the pain. I really hate that these guys enjoy pain so much. Kind of takes away any pleasure I might get out of beating them up. Then again, his attitude will change when he realizes he’s going to die. For the soulless Nephilim, death means nonexistence. A permanent end. It’s the one thing they fear.

Kainda rushes in, fueled by bloodlust. But Ares has mostly recovered and never let go of his spear, even while his spine was shattered. He sees her coming and growls, “Betrayer!”

Ares thrusts the spear at Kainda, but she rolls around the sharp tip like a football running back and continues her charge. Ares’s massive wings give one big flap and he’s carried up onto his feet, bringing his head out of Kainda’s range, but I think that’s what she expected him to do because she’s already diving forward, bringing her hammer hard against his kneecap. I see the bone swivel to the side, making the leg momentarily useless.

Ares shouts in pain, but he’s got a big grin on his face. Pleasure, pain or both, he drops to his knees, while the bone repositions itself.

While he’s down there, I direct a gust of wind toward his head. The helmet is knocked free and cast aside, revealing the golden ring protecting the weak spot at the center of his forehead.

The giant’s laugh becomes sinister. “The prodigal son.” He knows who I am now.

“I’m not sure you fully understand the message of that story,” I say, walking toward the giant. Mira lingers behind, staying by the tree, which is a good choice.

Ares spits purple blood. The wad lands near my feet. I stop. No need to put myself at risk for the sake of bravado. “You should have stayed in Tartarus.”

He frowns at this. I’ve actually managed to strike a nerve. “We all have to live with our choices,” he says, then he glances at my arm. “How are you feeling, Ull?”

I glance down at the arm. The wound looks the same. I ignore the question, and focus on the earth around Ares’s legs, willing it to rise up and lock him down. But he’s quick and leaps back into the air before I can catch him. For a moment, I think he’s going to flee and get help, which would be a serious problem, but this is a Nephilim warrior. He’s proud, like a hunter. He won’t ask for help, he’ll—

“Solomon, watch out!” Kainda shouts.

The tip of Ares’s spear resolves in my vision. I drop down and feel the blade pass over my head. A blond tuft of cut hair tickles my back as it falls. The spear slams into the tree, just feet away from Mira who had already leapt to the side.

But how did I not see the spear coming?

How was I not aware he was going to attack?

He couldn’t have been moving too fast. Both Kainda and Mira reacted before I did. It’s me, I think. My perceptions are slow.

To punctuate the realization, Ares swoops down, lands in front of me and backhands me. I slide across the jungle floor, cushioned by leaf litter and mud. Had I struck a tree, like Ares did, I’d be dead. Of course, I’m now in so much pain that death might have been a mercy.

I fight against the pain and get to my feet, happy to find everything working and no bones broken. As Ares stalks toward me, Kainda throws her hammer at his head, but the weapon just clangs against the metal ring and falls to the ground. The ring should have come free.

Ares laughs, and my anger surges. I leap into the air, carrying myself up with the wind and tug Whipsnap from my belt. I arc up above the warrior and as I drop down, a focused burst of air strikes the metal ring from below. The plan was to remove the ring and plunge the spear tip into Ares’s head, but the ring does not come off. Instead, it simply moves a little. But in that motion, I catch a glimpse of what’s happening.

The metal rings worn by Nephilim warriors typically rest on the head, like a metal headband. It’s goofy looking, like the headbands worn by some basketball players, but it protects them. That is, unless you knock it off, which isn’t too hard to do if you know what you’re doing. But this metal band is held in place by four spikes that have been driven into Ares’s head. It’s not coming off.

A second gust of wind carries me up and over the warrior. As I pass by, his scorpion tail, which was concealed by a long red cape, lashes out and nearly strikes my chest. But I don’t see it until it’s already retracting for another strike. I survived by dumb luck alone.

What is wrong with me?

I land beside Kainda and stumble.

“Are you all right?” she asks.

“The crown is nailed to his head,” I say. “I can’t get it off.”

“Then you’ll have to remove it,” she says.

“I just said—”

“Not the crown,” she says. “His head.”

My eyes widen. How am I going to do that? Whipsnap’s blade isn’t nearly long enough to do the job. Sure, if Ares laid down and patiently waited, I might be able to hack through his neck, but he’s going to heal just as fast as I can swing.

A wave of dizziness swirls through my body. I grunt and stagger.

“Damnit, Solomon,” Kainda growls and then leaves my side. When I look up, I see her charging out to meet Ares, who is headed toward us. She dodges two blows and manages a strike against his shin, but he merely kicks her away. I reach out with the wind, catching her before she strikes a tree. Nausea tears through my body as I lower Kainda to the ground.

When she’s safe, I fall to my knees and vomit. Hard.

“Feeling ill?” Ares says, stomping closer.

I know he doesn’t want to kill me. Nephil will want me alive. I am his vessel, after all. But that’s a fate worse than death.

“Shut. Up!” I scream, my voice more of a roar. I’m filled with a rage so intense that I wonder if my Ull personality has once again taken over.

Ares chuckles. “Feeling...angry?”

I grind my teeth, seething with raw hatred. Just as I’m about to leap up and launch myself at Ares, I see the wound on my arm again. It’s pink around the edges. Hot. Raw. The arrow wasn’t poisoned...it was laced with blood.

Infected blood.

I’m becoming a berserker.

16

No time, I think. Ares is about to knock me silly and I don’t think it matters to Nephil whether or not I’m a berserker. He might actually enjoy the rage added to his own. I have to end this threat, fast, and then worry about what’s happening to my body. Right now, my rage is certainly growing, but I’m still me. Still in control.

The trees behind me whoosh as the wind rushes toward the back of my head. It rushes past, bending the trees all around, and strikes Ares head on. The giant stands his ground. He can’t move forward, but he’s also still standing, which was not part of the plan.

Instead of a tightly compressed surge of air, I summoned a broad, sweeping wind, like a tornado. Knowing the swaying trees might attract attention, I stop the attack.

Ares steps toward me. “Give into the madness. The change will be less painful and a part of your mind will remain, for a time.”

All I can do is look at the ground. Stabs of burning pain move up my arm, spreading out into my chest.

Ares kneels in front of me, places an index finger on my chest and flicks it out. I sprawl backwards, unable to stop even this simple, humiliating assault. I see layers of green shifting high in the canopy, some glowing almost yellow under the direct gaze of the sun.

“In minutes, the rage will consume you,” Ares says. “Then darkness. And when you awake, you will be one of my creations.”

I let out a groan at the realization that Ares is not only the berserker commander, but also the source of the plague that turns men into mindless monsters beyond redemption.

I’ve amused him again. “I expected more from you, Ull. But I see now that the growing legend of the boy hunter is...exaggerated. You are weak. A pitiful thing.” He laughs. “You are without hope.”

As I look up my nose at the giant leaning over me, I see a flash of blond hair covered by blue. Ares rears up, shouting in pain-fueled joy. When he stands, I see a slash across his knee. Then it’s gone. I turn my head, following the blur of motion.

Mira.

No...

She’s not fast enough.

Ares reaches out for her. If he catches her, all he’d need to do is squeeze. She has faced Nephilim in the past. She even killed Enki. But she has no grenades, and I don’t think Ares will bother having a conversation with someone he doesn’t need to keep alive.

No!

His fingers are just inches from her back.

“No!” I scream, thrusting my hands out, generating a burst of wind as though it came from my body itself. There’s an explosion of purple on Ares’s chest, then a circle of light.

I stare up at it for a moment, unsure of what I’m seeing.

Then the image resolves.

Trees.

I’m seeing trees in Ares’s chest?

Not in his chest, through his chest! I punched a hole straight through him, using just the wind.

Fueled by rising anger, fear for Mira’s safety and the fact that I’ve just formed an invisible force into a horrible weapon, I stand to shaky legs.

Ares stumbles back. Despite enjoying pain, he must be experiencing so much of it right now that he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’s like a kid with a cake to himself who knows, at some level, too much of it is bad for him. He puts his fingers on the wound and looks down. It’s already closing, healing the meat and bones that had been torn away, but he’s still afforded a clear view of the forest behind him.

He looks up at me, and then to his spear, still embedded in the tree. He runs for it.

I let him, picking up Whipsnap as he runs. With a tug, Ares removes his spear from the tree, turns around and throws it at me. I can feel the spear moving through the air. I can detect its molecules and its origins. The metal, was dug from the Antarctic earth and the shaft taken from a long dead tree that grew in Antarctic soil. My earth. My tree.

With an anger-fueled thought, the spear disintegrates just before striking my chest. It falls to the ground as dust.

As I step toward the Nephilim, a wind swirls around me, bid by my emotions rather than by my will. My hair flails in the air around my head, like living gorgon snakes. A darkness settles inside me and I grin.

Ares sees my cocky smile and balks at the challenge. Then, with an anger matching my own, he roars and charges. He could crush me underfoot. He could bite my head off, or sever me at the midsection with a swipe of his fingernails. He could sting me with that Titan tail or simply thrash me about.

But he’d have to get close to do any of those things. That’s not going to happen.

I lift him off the ground and then return him to it with enough force to leave a crater. Before he can recover, grunt or enjoy the pain, I fling him against a tree.

Hearing the monster’s bones break fuels my own dark rage, and I let out a battle cry of my own. As Ares recovers from his wounds at the base of the tree, I rush in and leap into the air.

He sees me coming and raises an arm in defense. His intent is clear, to take the blow on his forearm and then attack with his uninjured arm. But I have no intention of striking him with Whipsnap. The weapon serves only as a catalyst for my attack. I raise Whipsnap over my head and swing the blade edge down.

I’ve read about windstorms so strong and intense that people had limbs torn away, or skin scoured off, but for some reason, I’ve never thought to use the air as anything but a blunt object. Condensing it to the point where it becomes sharp...I’m not sure I would have come up with that without this berserker blood boiling my insides.

An invisible blade of wind cuts through the air with a sound that reminds me of those 1970s Kung Fu movies and ends with a wet slurp. I have struck Ares’s arm right where he intended me to, but the blow is far more powerful than either of us thought possible. Part of the giant’s arm and his hand fall to the ground.

I land and watch Ares react. The limb rolls twice, stopping between us. He looks at it with a level of confusion that I find funny. The laugh that escapes my lips sounds a lot like Ares’s laugh, only not as deep or resonating. The part of the arm still attached to his body begins to regenerate, but so much is missing, it’s going to take some time.

“My legend,” I say, but the words sound jumbled, like I actually said, “Muaye leoganada.” That I can’t seem to speak right sends a wave of frustration through my body. It’s all the catalyst I need. With a hate-fueled shriek I slash Whipsnap at an angle, left to right and then right to left, carving a deep X in Ares’s chest. It’s unnecessary. Some part of my mind recognizes this. But I don’t care.

I want him to know pain.

To feel fear.

To beg for his life.

I want to delight in his anguish.

A strand of hair blows across my eyes. It’s just for a second, but I see it clearly. It’s hard to miss.

Because it’s red.

Blood red.

I let out a scream so horrible and loud that my throat stings and becomes hoarse before the air in my lungs is extinguished. When Ares proves that we now share the same dark heart by laughing at my pain, I spin around, strike through the air with Whipsnap and send a razor thin streak of air through his neck.

His head comes off his body with a fountain of purple blood and rolls to the ground. The monster is dead. For good.

But I am lost.

I stagger back as the weakness claiming my body resurfaces. I mumble incoherently, only vaguely aware of Mira’s and Kainda’s voices. My foot catches on something and I fall back. But I never feel the landing. I simply slip away into the darkness promised by Ares.

17

I awake as something hard pounds into my gut, pushing the air out of my lungs. I wheeze, trying to catch a breath, but the impacts keep coming. It’s less severe, but it prevents me from catching a real breath.

I hear shouting. The voices are indistinct. The words warped as though shouted through a tin can. But the tone—hurried and desperate—reaches my ears. I try to move in response to the sound, but I’m unable. Am I too weak or am I restrained?

I open my eyes for a look, but my vision is blurry. Everything is distorted and moving, racing past like trees outside a car window.

Another jarring impact rattles my body. When I clench my eyes shut, spots of light explode onto the backs of my eyelids.

Then darkness again.

The car ride is bumpy. Dad tells mom that it’s normal, but I know it’s the suspension. I think mom does too, but she’s just humoring him. I warned him about the problem a few weeks ago, but he didn’t believe me. I’m only eight, after all. I’m not even sure if he remembers dismissing me with a chuckle, but I do.

I don’t mind feeling every bump in the road. I don’t get car sick or anything. But it frustrates me sometimes, when I’m imagining Superman is running beside the car, jumping over signs and trees, or cutting through them with his heat vision. A solid bump can throw me off and my imagination, which is happy to follow its own course, will envision Superman tripping or falling in a heap. It’s embarrassing.

To make matters worse, it’s early Spring. In Maine. This means the roads have not yet been repaired after being scoured by snowplows all winter. Potholes abound, and if steering a car into every single hole in the road were a sport, my father would be the champion.

To prove the point, we strike a pothole so deep that the impact sends a vibration through the car strong enough to yank me completely out of my imagination.

“Dad,” I say, annoyed.

“What?” he says with a shrug. “I didn’t see it.”

“Mark, it must have been the size of Lake Ontario,” my mother says. She sounds annoyed, too, but the way she slaps his shoulder says she’s not. I think she finds his inability to spot giant holes in the ground amusing. Or cute. Which is just...yuck.

A moment later, I say. “Better pull over.”

“Why?” my father asks. “You have to pee? We’re almost there.”

My mother turns back to me. “You can hold it for ten more minutes.”

I sigh. “I don’t have to pee.” I nod my head toward the front left tire. “We’re losing air pressure.”

The slight dip is still subtle, but they’ll feel it in a moment.

“Schwartz,” my father says like he’s about to teach me something. But the whupwhupwhup of the now flattening tire and shimmying front end silences him.

We pull over to the side of the road. My father gets out and inspects the tire. As he does, I slide over and reach for the door.

“Sol,” my mom says in that tone that says, “Don’t.”

My reply is raised eyebrows and a stare leveled at my mother. I’ve always found it fascinating how much information can be communicated through body language and facial expressions. We have a silent argument in the course of three seconds, at the end of which she says, “Ugh, fine. Go.”

I open the door and slide out. I pause for a moment, enjoying the warm air—some of the first I’ve felt in five months. Red buds coat the trees lining the roads. The first strands of green grass are beginning to poke up through the brown. And in a week or so, the lilies in our front yard will push up through the earth and turn skyward. It’s my favorite time of year.

I close the door and find my father crouching down by the side of the olive green sedan, inspecting the tire like he’s an archeologist who’s just discovered the Rosetta Stone.

“You have no idea how to change a tire, do you?” I ask.

He looks over at me slowly. I can tell he’s trying to think of something to say. Maybe an excuse. Or a joke. But he gives up and says, “I’ve never had to before.”

“The spare is in the trunk. The jack is on the left side.”

He looks at me dubiously. “You’ve changed a tire before, have you?”

“I read the car manual,” I say.

He smiles wide, stands, puts his hand on my head and shakes my hair so blond strands are hanging in my eyes. “You’re my hero, Sol.”

“Whatever,” I say, moving for the trunk.

He takes my shoulders and turns me around. Leaning down so we’re face to face, he says, “Seriously, Schwartz, the way your mind works. It’s a gift. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if you saved the world someday.”

I wake again, this time lying on my back. I’m no longer moving, and I can breathe, though I’m quite sore. But my vision feels off, and it’s dark. I try to sit up, but can’t. And it’s not from weakness. I can feel the tightness around my arms and legs. I’ve been restrained.

A surge of fear races through my mind. Have I been captured? Are Mira and Kainda still hurt? Or dead?

A shiver rolls up through my body, leaving a sickening tension in its wake. When it reaches my head, an all consuming rage flares out, burning my thoughts away and turning my emotions into a howl that explodes from my mouth. But I’ve been gagged, and the sound is muffled.

My teeth grind at the fabric in my mouth, but before I can chew through it, a canteen of water is emptied onto my face, making me gag and sputter.

A woman looms over me. “Shut up!”

I clench my fingers, reaching for her, intending to tear her apart.

“Hey!” she says, sounding offended. She leans closer and slaps me across the face. The impact is dizzying. “Look at me.”

Something about the voice calms me, and I try to look at the woman, but all I see is a vague shape. The gag is pulled quickly pulled away from my mouth.

“Dark,” I say, then growl and struggle some more.

A flicker of orange light illuminates the space...which I still can’t see clearly. The woman returns, her body lit, but still blurry. My eyes roll back and she strikes me again, harder. “Solomon! Focus!”

Focus...

The word slowly sinks into my mind like a stone, before reaching the depths where a small part of my sanity still resides.

Focus.

“Kat?” I ask.

“I think he’s back,” Kat says, stepping away.

Another person slides into view, this one close and gentle. She slides a hand across my face, trusting me implicitly to not bite it off.

“That might not be a good idea,” warns someone else. Kainda, I think.

“Solomon,” the woman leaning on me says. “Look at me.”

I try to see her, but it’s like looking through a dirty window.

“He’s burning up,” she says.

I know she’s saying I have a fever, but I can’t feel anything beyond a craving for violence.

Kat returns. She grips my mouth roughly, yanks back the gag and drops three small, solid objects in, then pours in water and shoves my jaw closed. I try to resist, but I feel weak now. When she says, “It’s Ibuprofen,” I swallow.

For ten minutes, the woman beside me bravely strokes my hair. And with each gentle touch, I feel my mania subside just a little. I lose myself for a bit, staring at what I think is a stone ceiling.

“Are we in a cave?” I ask.

“Yes,” the woman replies. “We’re twenty miles from the coast. Just a day’s journey from the base.”

I turn toward her. Her face is still blurred, but I think I recognize the shape...and her voice. “Em?”

I hear a sniff, and I wonder if she’s crying. Her hand reaches for my cheek and rubs it gently, the way my mother used to. “It’s me.”

“How?”

“Luca,” she says. “He still sees you in his dreams. He sent us to you, Kat and me.”

“Luca...” I say, picturing the boy, which is easy, since he looks like me. But then the face in my mind’s eye changes. Luca looks angry. Then furious. His eyes go black, red seeps from his skull and stains his hair. He shrieks at me.

Except he’s not the one shrieking, it’s me.

I hear shouting. And a pain-filled scream.

Something hard strikes my forehead and everything disappears.

18

I’m vaguely aware that I’m moving. I see a kind of red haze, but I’m not sure I’m actually seeing it. I sense that some part of me is able to see, and act, but the real me—the Solomon me—feels small and trapped.

Distant voices reach me. The words are hard to make out and the voices impossible to identify. I feel like I know them, but can’t think of names or faces to go with them.

“Look out!”

A shout of pain.

“Here, here! Now!”

I sense a stab of pain, but its more like a memory.

“Down!”

Grunting follows. Then a shout, loud and angry.

More pain. A surge of energy.

“Kainda!”

Kainda? Is that a name?

“Hold on!”

“I’m coming!”

“Hurry!”

“Ready!”

A wave of dizziness spins my fragile consciousness.

Then weightlessness.

“Oh no,” someone says.

“I didn’t think he could do that.”

There’s a whump, and a surge of energy.

“Solomon!”

A second surge of energy follows.

“Solomon!” The voice is screaming. Desperate. “Solomon, please st—”

Whump!

SOLOMON!

Everything stops.

This voice is stronger than the others. It’s unfiltered by the haze.

“Who are you?” I say aloud.

Stop, says the voice. See!

“I can’t.”

Then we are lost.

“We?”

You are connected to Antarktos, and it to you.

I know this. I think.

The earth is your flesh. The atmosphere, your lungs. The water, your blood. You can shape them. Bend them. Control them.

“Who are you?”

Listen! Hear me. As the continent is, so is your body. They are joined. Control your body as you control the wind. Push this evil out. Burn it from your blood. Push it from your pores. Expel it!

“How?” I ask.

Open your eyes.

“They are open,” I say. “I can’t see.”

Then choose to see! Will it!

“Can you help me?”

I...must save myself. For another time. But...I will try.

The real world around me flickers into view for just a second, but it’s enough for me to get a glimpse of my surroundings, and in the brief moment, I understand everything I’m seeing.

Kainda, Kat and Mira are all lying on the ground, unconscious and bleeding from various wounds. A portion of the surrounding jungle has been bent or broken, all of it leaning away from me. I did this. I hurt my friends. I—

The red haze returns.

I sense my memory of what I’ve just seen grow distant.

No! I shout inwardly.

The voice said to burn it out. Earlier, Em said I was hot. I remember that now. I had a fever. But Kat gave me some painkillers and the fever was reduced, which allowed the berserker infection to run rampant through my body.

But I can stop it.

The voice believed it. I can control it like I do the elements.

Burn, I think, and for the first time in a long time, I start to feel heat. But it’s not on the outside, it’s inside. I feel the sting working its way through my body. Itchy pinpricks cover my skin as I start to sweat. Chills wrack my body, and I fall to my knees, feeling the impact keenly. I can feel my body again, though I haven’t quite taken control of it.

A surge of anger pushes back as though the infection has a will of its own. And it very well might. Created by the Nephilim, this virus might have a supernatural element I don’t understand. My perfect memory replays a scene from The Exorcist, a movie I watched during a sleepover at Justin’s house. It’s one of the things in my life I most wish I could forget, especially now that I fear I’ve got some kind of demon living in me.

But I’ve already faced that and won, I tell myself. I expelled the spirit of Nephil. I can push this thing from my body.

I double my efforts, cringing into a ball on the ground, clenching my eyes shut and focusing my attention inward, to my core. I don’t need my white blood cells to attack the virus, or whatever this is. I can do it myself. It takes intense focus to identify the plague, but once I identify it, I’m able to locate it in my blood, in my organs, in my bones.

With a shout of exertion, I expel the madness from my body. The effort nearly sinks me back into unconsciousness, but I sense the plague returning. I didn’t find it all! It’s spreading again!

I scream from the effort this time, but it clings to me. It’s hooked into me and will come back no matter how hard I push. All the burning and purging in the world can’t make it go away.

I’ve lost, I think.

We’re lost.

“I’m sorry,” someone says.

I turn toward the voice as the madness reclaims my body once more. In the moment before my vision fades I catch a glimpse of Em. She looks...sad, but determined.

Then I see the knife in her hand.

She snaps her wrist forward, throwing the knife.

I feel a jolt.

My head turns down.

The knife is in my chest, buried to the hilt.

19

Pain explodes from my chest like my heart is the catalyst for an atom bomb. I can’t scream. In fact, my senses are so immediately overwhelmed that I just fall, crumpling to my side.

But I haven’t lost consciousness.

And the madness has been turned back.

I suppose it has no power in death.

But I’m not dead.

I manage to turn my eyes down and look at the blade. Yeah, it’s there. An expert shot. The sideways blade slipped between my ribs and punctured my heart. I’m sure of it because I can’t feel it beating.

Any second now, my mind will fade, deprived of oxygen.

But it doesn’t.

Instead, my body convulses. The pain in my chest flares with each electric jolt, before I’m slammed back on the ground.

Through the shaking and pain, and the tears in my eyes, I see Em stand above me. She lifts a foot and places it on my chest, holding me down. “I’m sorry,” she says again, sounding as wounded as I feel.

I want to tell her it’s okay; that I understand. She had to do it or I would have killed them all, been lost to the madness and eventually captured by Nephil who would use me against the whole planet. Killing me and preventing all that makes sense. The human race stands a far better chance of defeating the Nephilim if I am not under their control. The odds are still not good, but last time Nephil controlled my body, just for a few seconds, he managed to kill billions of people.

She reaches down and takes the knife handle in her hand. I try to tell her to leave it, not because I want to die, but because I know it’s going to hurt. A lot. Take it out when I’m dead!

She tugs.

I feel the metal sliding out of my body. The sting is intense, and it’s followed by a wicked itch and a radiating pain unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.

That’s not true.

I have felt this before...

As the blade comes up into view, a slick of red blood slips down the polished blade toward the tip. But there is something wrong with the blood near the hilt. It’s tinged...purple.

My eyes widen with the realization that Em just stabbed me in the heart with a knife laced with Nephilim blood. For a moment, it feels like a vile invasion, but then I remember the blood’s ability to heal the human body when used in low doses. I used Nephilim blood to save Kainda’s life not long ago. Sure, stabbing me in the heart was a bit extreme, but she knew it wouldn’t kill me. She just needed to stop me from killing the others, which it seems I was on a path to do.

I clench my eyes against the pain wracking my body. It will end soon, I tell myself. You’ll be okay. You’ll live.

But will the madness return?

I try to get a sense of my mind. I feel like myself. I can remember everything. Literally, everything. I’m in control. I can’t even feel it at the fringe of my mind. The Nephilim blood destroyed the plague. Odd that the blood of something so vile could be the cure for a madness created by a Nephilim. In fact, I recognize the blade as Mira’s. It’s the knife she used to slash Ares’s knee. Ares was the source of the madness, and the cure for it. Part of me wishes he was still alive to hear this.

“Solomon,” Em says. I can’t see her. My eyes are still shut, but her voice is above me.

I’m about to reply when an intense energy blooms in my chest and spreads through my body.

“Something is happening,” I say quickly. “Move back!”

An intense pressure covers my body. Wind tugs at my hair. Then a sound like thunder explodes all around me.

As quickly as it began, it stops.

I’m not sure what just happened, but a steady wind is circling me, and I can no longer feel the ground. I open my eyes slowly, prepared to find myself airborne, but I’m not remotely ready for what I find.

“Whoa!” I say, panicking and dropping a good fifty feet before catching myself and leveling out. I’m at least two miles above the ground. And I covered the distance in seconds. That boom, I think. I broke the sound barrier!

I look down and see nothing but jungle, but there is a little black hole in the green canopy directly beneath me. That must be where I came from, but it looks like I kind of exploded out of the trees. I feel no pain on my body. At all. In fact, I’ve never felt better.

I’m tempted to enjoy this moment, but then I remember my friends on the ground. Kainda, Mira and Kat were hurt, maybe badly. And Em just stabbed her brother in the chest and had him take off like a missile. That’s probably not easy to deal with. I’m about to head down, but a shift of movement pulls my eyes to the west.

The Nephilim army.

They’re like a black stain. From this height, I can see a trail of destruction behind them winding across the continent. They’re at least fifteen miles off, so the behemoths are the only two of the bunch I can make out individually. They look like two giant egg-shaped Weeble toys I had when I was little, bobbing back and forth with each enormous step.

Knowing where the Nephilim are heading, I turn east. The strip of blue water marks the horizon. This is the Southern Ocean, though it’s no longer in the South, so maybe the Equatorial Ocean is a better name. I spot a large clearing and what looks like a tiny man-made scar. The FOB. It looks miniscule compared to the incoming enemy force. But there are more shapes out in the water. A lot of them.

The base is roughly twenty miles off.

The Nephilim are just thirty-five miles from the base, I think. I look up to the sun and note its position in the sky. Still morning.

The Nephilim don’t grow tired, and the hunters and berserkers they command have been trained to endure long stretches without sleeping. They’ll march through the night.

“They’ll be there tomorrow,” I whisper to myself. We need to move.

I look down, preparing to descend when I spot an aberration sliding over the jungle canopy. Shadows. I trace the angle of the sun up and find the source of the shadows.

Warriors. Three of them.

My exit from the jungle has attracted attention. They haven’t spotted me, but they’re headed for the hole in the trees.

And my friends.

I cut the wind and drop through the sky. I angle my body downwards, urging myself to reach terminal velocity.

The Nephilim slip into the jungle and disappear, cloaked in shadow.

Terminal velocity isn’t going to be fast enough.

I summon the wind. Faster! FASTER!

Pressure builds in front of me and I push against it. A white bloom suddenly forms, and then it ruptures with a thunderous boom. Free from the sound barrier, I plummet downward. My violent acceleration has created a shockwave that tears a fresh hole in the canopy. I surge the final two hundred feet through the trees to the ground in a fraction of a second.

In that brief moment, I think I’m going to smear myself on the jungle floor, but then I remember the lesson learned from the strange voice, which I now think might have been Luca, though it sounded older or wiser. The voice taught me that connection between the continent and my body goes both ways, and in the same way I control the elements of this continent, I can control my body. There are all sorts of possibilities this opens up, the first of them being, I should be able to stick this landing like Mary Lou Retton.

The explosive force of my landing outdoes the sonic boom by at least twice. Which is to say, it’s loud. And it’s created a genuine two-foot deep, ten-foot wide crater around my body, which is uninjured by the dramatic arrival. I think I probably made far too much noise, but the effect on the three Nephilim is almost comical.

They turn around slowly, wings folded down, tails tucked between their legs and mouths slightly agape with expressions that say something like, “What the…?” and I’m pretty sure that’s a phrase never uttered by a Nephilim before, even if just in facial expression form.

Beyond them I see Em and Kainda on their feet. They look weary and wounded, but they have their weapons at the ready. Kat is helping Mira to her feet. But right now, none of them are moving either. They’re locked in place, staring at me.

I find Kainda’s eyes and grin, doing that silent human communication thing my mother and I perfected. I tell her I’m sorry with my eyebrows. She forgives me with a blink. Then I tell her, “Watch this,” with a grin, and I step out of the crater.

20

I find Whipsnap thirty feet away, partially concealed by leaf litter. I don’t really need the weapon now, but it’s kind of like a security blanket...with a razor-sharp spear head on one side and a heavy spiked mace on the other. I reach a hand toward the weapon. A gust of wind lifts it and flings it toward me. Luke Skywalker, eat your heart out.

“It’s him,” one of the warriors says. Given their black battle gear and square, knotted beards, I believe they are members of the Sumerian clan. I quickly look over their helmets and other distinguishing features.

“I’m not sure who you two are,” I say, pointing the spear tip at the two Nephilim closest to me. I redirect the spear toward the warrior behind them. He stands a few feet shorter and is likely the lowest in status. “But he’s definitely Ninhursag.”

The giants attempt to contain their laughter, but fail. I’ve just called the small one by the name of the Sumerian version of Mother Earth, which I’m pretty sure is actually a bulbous breeder like Gaia, who played a disgusting roll in my breaking. The small Nephilim tries to charge me, but the other two stop him.

“You must go,” says one of the larger warriors, “Ophion must be told.”

The smaller warrior doesn’t look pleased at all, but I’m pretty sure he’s going to consent. Nephil has likely given explicit orders that he be told if my where-abouts were discovered. Sadly for them, I have other plans.

“No one is going anywhere,” I say.

The smaller warrior unfurls his wings and leaps for the sky. With two quick slashes, from a distance of fifty feet, I clip his wings. The giant shouts more with surprise than pain as he plummets to the ground and lands in an unbecoming heap behind the two other warriors. The toothy smiles, remaining from my joke at their comrade’s expense, transform into sneers. They spin toward me, drawing weapons.

The first wields an axe large enough to chop through any of the giant trees surrounding us with a single blow. It would make short work of me. The second nocks an arrow the size of Whipsnap and draws it back in a massive bow. As the first Nephilim closes the distance and brings his axe down toward me, the second looses his arrow.

They’re making this easy.

A quick wind redirects the arrow into the back of the axe-wielder’s neck, slipping between the massive vertebrae. I’m not sure if it will kill him, but it drops him to the ground. The giant lands to my left and slides for a few feet.

As the smaller warrior struggles to his feet, his wings slowly regenerating, the bowman fires again and again, sending three arrows at me before the first is close to its target. But not one of them reaches me. They’re dust in the air.

The bow dissolves in his hands, leaving him dumbfounded.

While making the Nephilim army’s weapons all turn to dust would be fantastic, I doubt I will be able to perform this feat on a grand scale. Reducing a weapon to its various elements takes some serious concentration. But it definitely leaves an impression. Despite being far from defenseless, the warrior staggers back, perhaps realizing that this is a fight he cannot win. I turn my eyes to the metal band covering his head. I hit it with a wind, confirming that it’s held in place by spikes driven into the monster’s head. I focus on it, trying to melt or disintegrate it, but the metal resists. It’s either not made from Antarctic elements or it has some kind of supernatural protection.

It doesn’t really change my current strategy. I just wanted to know, because it will affect those fighting alongside me.

Before the giant can recover, I swipe Whipsnap from left to right, using it to direct the course of my wind-blade. A line of purple blood oozes from his neck. The giant staggers and falls to his knees. But he doesn’t die. His head, which was completely severed, didn’t fall away and has begun to heal. I swipe Whipsnap from right to left, this time striking with more force and a wider blade. The head comes free and falls away. Dead. For sure.

I turn to the smallest of the three. His wings are nearly regrown and when he notices my attention, he tries to fly away again. But the wings are insufficient to carry him up and away.

Seeing the giant beast struggle actually makes me pity him.

For a moment.

Then I remember what they are, what they did to me, and Kainda, and Em, and Luca, and the billions of people now dead because of their evil, twisted machinations. Without any further flair or desire to show off, I remove his head and his presence from this world forever.

A wet slurp turns me around. The warrior with the axe is kneeling and pulling the arrow out of his throat. Once it’s out, the wound heals quickly and he’s back on his feet. With just one Nephilim left, I decide to implement the last part of my attack plan, which is the part that might get me killed. But a little R&D is sometimes necessary, especially before the beginning of a battle that might determine the fate of the human race.

The plan is this: no elemental powers. No wind blades. No chucking rocks, or dropping trees, or tossing the giant around like a ragdoll. This fight will be man to man-demon. That’s not entirely true. I am going to use my abilities, but in a very different way. If I can really control my body, the way I control the elements of Antarktos, I should be able to pull this off. If not, well, I’m not above cheating.

I let the warrior pick up his axe. He’s grunting and angry, eyeing me carefully. This one’s not going to be big on the pre-fight banter, which is fine by me. This isn’t a Spider-Man comic book. But, I do perform the classic challenge to fight barehanded by tossing Whipsnap to the ground and raising my clenched fists. Sure, the giant hasn’t ever seen a movie in which such a scenario plays out, but I’m pretty sure he understands.

He glances from me to his fallen brethren. He was too busy choking on the business end of an arrow to see how they died, but it’s enough to convince him that throwing away his axe would be folly. He lets out a battle cry, punctuating it with a spray of spittle, and leaps toward me. His wings beat the air once, lifting him up, but also propelling him forward. For his size, he’s quick. But not quite quick enough.

As his feet touch down and he swings hard with the axe, I sidestep. I don’t have to use any special abilities to dodge the blow. Any hunter worth his while could have. It was an obvious attack meant to bring us in close, because once a human being is within arm’s reach of a Nephilim, the fight is pretty much over. Avoiding the axe is just the first part of my plan. The second part comes next.

Before the giant can heft the oversized blade from the earth, I turn toward it, draw my fist back and punch. As my fist covers the few feet to the axe, I focus on my arm, bunching the molecules more densely, pulling in atoms from the surrounding air and powering my knuckles with the kinetic energy that fills the very earth of Antarktos.

My fist connects with the six-inch thick base of the metal blade where it intersects with the handle.

There’s a loud clang, like when a blacksmith hammers a blade.

A throb of pain moves up my arm like a shockwave.

And the axe...

It launches from the warrior’s grip as though shot from a catapult. It sails away into the jungle, lost in the trees until it strikes something solid with a distant bong.

The warrior is disciplined and wastes no time wondering what just happened. He raises his fists into the air, laces his fingers together and then brings the joined fists down like a mace. The effect of the strike would normally be like a human punching a rotten banana.

I lift my hands up, repeating my focus from the punch and intensifying it, filling my body with all the power I can muster, if only for a moment. The warrior’s boulder-like hands land in mine.

And stop.

I feel the force of the strike vibrate through my body and out into the ground beneath my feet...which is technically part of me. The impact presses my bare feet into the earth, and I feel the connection to this continent, and all its vast power, like never before.

The warrior is far bigger than my human body, but what he doesn’t know, and what I’ve just realized, is he’s fighting a force more ancient than the Nephilim and larger than the United States.

Actually, I think he’s starting to figure it out. He separates his hands and looks down at me. Seems even Nephilim can sometimes have the ability to speak with facial expressions, because this big guy has “how?” written all over his face.

A blur of movement streaks out to my right.

The confused face was a ruse!

No time to move.

Focus!

Whack! The scorpion tail strikes my side. A single sting would have caused me intense pain, and eventually death. Instead, it strikes my ribs, and shatters.

Now the giant is truly stunned. And before he can recover, I leap up, propelled by wind, covering the thirty feet to his head. I grab hold of the metal ring protecting him. Standing on his shoulder, to the side of his face, I pull. He roars in pain and spins his head, trying to bite me with his double rows of sharp teeth, but I’m gone before his jaws close. And I’ve taken the ring with me.

Purple blood flows from four deep wounds on the sides of his head where the spikes held the crown in place. As the skull and skin knit back together, I wander over to Whipsnap, pick it up and take aim. One good throw and this is all over.

But before I can kill the warrior, something huge roars and pounds out of the jungle shadows. I see a flash of green. And teeth. And then, blood.

21

I flinch back, surprised by the violent new entry into the fray, but then I recognize the green-bodied, maroon-striped dinosaur as Grumpy. He’s got his powerful jaws locked over the warrior’s head and is thrashing him back and forth. To make matters worse for the Nephilim, Zok, has just stomped out from behind a tree and taken hold of one of the warrior’s legs.

The giant doesn’t stand a chance against these two, the largest and most powerful of the cresties, now loyal to me. They must have tracked our scents through the jungle since we left them by the river. I’ve heard of dogs crossing countries to find their masters, but I’ve never heard of a dinosaur doing that. Of course, they’ve probably never had the opportunity before.

As the gnawing, tearing and crunching becomes sickening, I turn away. Nephilim blood has no effect on the dinosaurs. They’re natural enemies—opposing giants of the underworld, and the cresties relish the chance to feast on the purple flesh. I suspect they might get some sort of kick from the blood, like an energy boost or euphoria, which would explain their hankering for Nephilim, but if they experience any adverse symptoms from eating the supernatural meat, it can’t be more substantial than gas, which for a dinosaur, is always bad.

With the chewing and slurping behind me, I look down to clip Whipsnap to my belt. A pair of bare feet stop in front of me. They’re feminine, but strong, lacking any decoration beyond scars. Kainda. I smile and finish clipping my weapon in place.

I look at Kainda and see a facial expression I wasn’t expecting. I look beyond her and find Em, Kat and Mira just behind her and to the sides, all wearing the same expression—a one sided smile and a cocked eyebrow that says, “Showoff.”

“I had to know what I could do,” I say defensively. The eyebrows inch higher. “Seriously.”

“You almost killed us,” says Kat. Her words make me see the blood trickling down her face from a gash on her forehead. I look at Em. She’s holding her side. Mira has a hand on her opposite arm. They’re all wounded because of me.

My smile slips away as I remember the darkness that had consumed me. I became a monster, and not for the first time. With a gasp of dread, I reach for my hair and pull it in front of my face, inspecting it like an OCD chimp mother checking her baby for flees.

“You’re fine,” Kat says. “Your golden locks are back.”

When I confirm this for myself, seeing no trace of red remaining, I look up at my four friends and find them smiling. “Was that—? Were you all teasing me?”

Kainda claps a hand on my shoulder, and I haven’t condensed any atoms or anything like that, so it hurts. I wince, but smile when she says, “You fought well.”

From Kainda, that might be the highest praise ever.

Em says, “Nicely done, Sol.”

My smile widens.

“Wright would be proud,” Kat adds, trying to make this sap of a leader tear up.

But Mira rescues me, saying, “I think he’s a freak of nature, but that’s just me.”

We all have a good laugh, letting the tension of the past days seep away. “Are you all okay?” I ask. “Really okay?”

“We’re fine,” Mira says, and if it had been any of the other three, who are more battle-hardened, I would have doubted it, but Mira doesn’t have the same kind of tough pride that can’t admit injury. She’d say something.

I hear a particularly gruesome bite and swallow behind me. Kat and Mira both cringe. Em and Kainda have seen it before.

“We should go,” Kat says.

I nod. “Once they finish eating, we’ll leave. They can carry the five of us without any trouble. We’re just fifteen miles from the coast. We can make it by sunset.”

“And the Nephilim?” Mira asks.

“They’ll arrive tomorrow.” I say. “Probably in the morning. They feel about ten miles to the west.”

“How many?” Kat asks.

I pause, trying to think of a gentle way to break the news. Mira does it for me, not so gently.

“We’re pretty much screwed,” Mira says.

Kat looks to Kainda, who shrugs and nods.

Kat grunts. “Great intel, guys.”

Despite the dire revelation, I smile. “I’ll fill you in on the way.” I tap my head. “I have all the numbers, sizes, weapons and capabilities up here. When we get to the FOB, you can help General Holloway make sense of how to respond to it.”

With a rekindled sense of urgency, I turn around to the eating dinosaurs, intending to disrupt their meal and get us moving. Kainda stops me with a hand on my arm. “Could I speak with you before we leave?” Her eyes flick to the side. She wants a private conversation.

“We’ll, ahh, we’ll be right back,” I say to the others. Kainda leads me away, rounding a large tree. The backside of the tree is lined by thick ferns that come up to our thighs.

“Could be a pack of turquins in here and we’d never know it,” I say.

I meant it as a joke. Something to break the nervous tension I’m suddenly feeling. But Kainda doesn’t laugh.

Instead, she whirls around and lunges at me. She gets a hand behind my head, grips my hair tightly and uses the surprise to sweep out my legs and drop me onto my back. I cough as the air is knocked from my lungs.

I’m beneath the ferns, looking up at a ceiling of luminous green. Kainda crouches down, sliding through the growth. As she descends, I can’t help but notice her more feminine features. Her skin, though mired with mud and her own blood, gleams with sweat in a way that draws my hands. As she slips beneath the thin covering, her eyes lock onto mine. She looks almost predatory.

I smile broadly, but a little sheepishly, too. We haven’t really had much time alone since we first kissed. Our intimate moments consist mostly of gentle touches in passing. And before Kainda...I’m not exactly experienced when it comes to interacting with members of the opposite sex. There was that foot bump once, but I don’t think that qualifies as a genuine encounter.

“Hi,” I say dumbly.

Kainda smiles back, and I swear I feel my insides turn to liquid.

“You fought well,” she says.

“You already said that,” I reply.

“Should I kiss you, or not?” she says.

My gut churns. “Yes, please.”

Her smile looks almost sweet. It’s a different kind of look for her. “So polite,” she whispers, leaning down. “We’re going to have to work on that.”

Then her lips are on mine.

We remain still, our lips interlocked. My chest loosens. My mind relaxes. This is bliss.

She leans back slowly. The skin of our lips sticks for a moment, not yet willing to let go. Then she’s sitting atop me, leaning over me with her hands on the ground, to either side of my head.

“Whoa...” I whisper. “What was that for?”

“To thank you.”

“For what?”

“Everything,” she says. “And...I’m relieved you’re unharmed.” It’s a moment of rare vulnerability. It makes me adore her even more. “I thought...when the madness had you. I thought you were gone. When I looked into your eyes then, I couldn’t see you. I couldn’t—”

I raise my hands to her face, holding her soft cheeks. “What do you see now?”

As she looks into my eyes, a single tear falls free from her face and lands on my cheek. At the moment of impact, I feel its warmth. I can’t normally feel any temperature, hot or cold, and I’m unaffected by the results of their extremes. I can’t be burned, nor can I freeze. But I can feel the warmth of Kainda’s tears. There is power in them.

A coolness covers my back. I can feel the earth beneath me!

“What is it?” Kainda asks.

“I—I can feel temperature,” I say. “I can feel the ground.” I look down and sense the warmth of Kainda’s bare legs over my waist. “I can feel you. More than I could before.”

I hadn’t realized how much I missed feeling temperature. There is pleasure in a cool drink or in the warm touch of a woman. In the Antarctic, and the underground, not feeling was largely a blessing. There were times I should have died from exposure, but I was immune to the effects of below-freezing temperatures.

She smiles at me. “It’s a gift.”

I start to agree, but then wonder if my powers have left me, too. The ferns shake as a breeze of my creation wafts over them. I relax again and lean my head back on the cool, soft earth.

“Shall I thank you now?” Kainda asks.

“I thought you already did?”

She smirks and leans back, reaching for her belt.

The nervousness I felt before explodes through my body. “I know you’re my passion, but I’m not sure this is the best time to—”

She draws a knife, and strangely, it puts me at ease. Like I said, we haven’t had much time to get...familiar with each other. What I thought was going to happen would have been a leap forward.

“Relax, Solomon,” Kainda says. “Even hunters are not without their traditions. Marriage comes before any coupling.”

Coupling.
Of course hunters call it coupling. There’s no romance in the word. Still, that hunters actually get married is strangely heartwarming. I’m sure they don’t have elaborate ceremonies, rice throwing or a reception with dancing, but that the institution even exists shows that some part of them retained a notion of purity, even though they might kill someone for suggesting it.

She lifts the blade to her palm and draws it across. The cut is neither deep nor severe. Just enough to draw blood, which drips over her hand.

She hands the blade to me and it’s clear she wants me to do the same. I sense that this is meaningful to her, so I take the blade and place it against my palm. I simultaneously feel the warmth of her blood and the chill of the metal, then a sting as I cut my hand.

She takes the knife from me and stabs it into the ground beside us. She holds her hand up to me, opening her fingers. When I reach out with my wounded hand, she nods. I’m doing it right. We interlace our fingers, squeezing our hands, and our blood, together.

Kainda makes sure I’m looking in her eyes. “Say what I say.”

I nod.

“Blood to bind.”

“Blood to bind.”

“Flesh to join.”

“Flesh to join.”

“Man to woman.”

“Man to woman.”

“Woman...to man.”

“Woman to man.”

“Forever.”

“Forever.”

She separates our hands, leans down and kisses me again. The sensation is accentuated by the fact that I can now feel the heat of her lips and the warmth of her breath. I’m kind of dazed when she sits up again.

“We have a tradition like this in the outside world,” I say, trying to hide what feels like a swoon. “We call it blood brothers, though that doesn’t really make sense for us.”

She scrunches up her face. “No. It doesn’t.”

“What do you call it?” I ask.

She leans down again, smiling in a way I have never seen before. She whispers her reply in my ear. “Hunters call it ‘the bond’.”

“Oh,” I say. Not sure why she thought blood brothers was so outlandish. The Bond has kind of a similar tough vibe.

She whispers in my ear again, her breath tickling me “You would call it marriage, husband.”

22

I scramble out from under Kainda and stand bolt upright, exploding from the layer of ferns like a breaching whale. I turn to walk in one direction, change my mind and turn around, but find I can’t bring myself to move at all. My heart races as my mind tries to comprehend Kainda’s revelation.

Marriage!

Husband!

The bond!

I don’t know what to think. Or say. Or do. Where is Nephil when you need him?

I spin around hoping to be discovered by a Nephilim. A good fight would distract me. It’s not that I don’t love Kainda. I adore her. But I don’t know what to do with the emotions I’m feeling. I’ve never felt like this before, and honestly, it terrifies me. Everything up to this point has been temporary. I was broken and then healed. I was split in two—Ull and Solomon—and rejoined. I will fight Nephil and one of us will be defeated. They’re obstacles. I can face them, and then move past them. That’s what my life has become—a struggle against finite roadblocks, all of which will one day be a part of my past. Or I’ll be dead. But this...

Blood to bind. Flesh to join. Man to woman. Woman...to man. Forever.

Forever!

I’m not used to dealing with forever.

“Solomon,” Kainda says. I turn back to find her rising from the ferns. Flickers of sunlight, filtering through the canopy, dance across her tan skin. “Are you okay?”

She looks vulnerable. Worried. Beautiful. When I look into her eyes, all of my nervous energy flits away like dust caught in a breeze. I see her with new eyes, feeling the connection between us.

“My wife...”

She nods.

“Forever.”

She nods again. “Forever.”

I wade through the ferns until I’m standing just inches from her. My mind is still reeling, racing through concerns and scenarios, like worrying if such a marriage is legal, but then I remember I’m technically the sole heir to all of Antarctica and to many, a king. I can write the law. Plus, Kainda and I are both hunters and the laws that govern their culture, as brutal as it might be, are no less valid than those of the United States, a country that is still in its infancy compared to the nation of hunters.

I place my hands on her bare arms and feel her warmth again. All of my fears and concerns are forgotten. None of it matters. I pull her to me and hold her tight. “My wife.”

When we separate, I say, “Does this mean you’re going to shave your head and walk behind me? That’s the hunter tradition, right?”

Kainda shoots me a scowl, but can’t hide the humor in her eyes. A year ago, she wouldn’t have understood the joke. Still, she lands a solid punch on my shoulder. “Don’t push it. We might be married, but—”

A loud gasp cuts off Kainda’s words. “What did she just say?”

We turn to find Em standing by the tree that shielded our hasty nuptials, a hand raised to her mouth. Despite how her still-short hair, now something of a bob, makes her look cute, the knives criss-crossing her chest and waist look positively dangerous. But right now, she’s neither cute nor dangerous. She looks ready to burst, like a happy face balloon with too much air in it.

In response, Kainda lifts her hand, revealing the self-inflicted wound. Em’s eyes grow larger and shift to me. I smile and hold up my hand, showing her the identical wound.

The balloon pops with a squeal of joy unlike anything I’ve seen from a hunter. She hops into the ferns, clapping her hands and then dives at us, throwing her arms around our necks. She squeezes tightly and then leans back, looking at me. “Brother,” she says, and then turns to Kainda, “And now, sister.”

Perhaps performing another ritual I am not aware of, the two women lean their foreheads together, hold for a second before separating.

“Sister,” Kainda says.

“Sorry to break up the huggy time,” Kat says, stepping around the tree, “but we really need to go.”

Em whirls around, beaming. “They’re bonded!”

Kat scrunches her face. “Not sure I need to know that.”

“Married,” I say, clarifying for Kat.

“Married?” Mira says, stepping around the other side of the tree. For a moment, I worry about what she’s going to say, but then she smiles and laughs, and says, “Could have picked a nicer location.”

“Or a better time,” Kat says.

“Hush,” Em tells her and then waves her into the ferns. “Come here.”

Kat resists. “We need to go.”

“This is important,” Em says.

Kat looks dubious.

Em fills her voice with conviction, raising her arms at the group. “We are a family. We must complete the bond.”

Kat stares at her for a moment, looks over her shoulder and then enters the ferns. She stops in front of Em.

“The bond is a tradition among hunters,” Em says. “It is one of the few. But it is important. Blood binds so few in the underworld, but the bond is a declaration that replaces it. You are my sister by birth, but there is a different kind of bond that makes Luca and Solomon my brothers, and Tobias my father. And now Kainda my sister.”

Kat doesn’t reply, but she doesn’t leave, either.

Em puts her hand around Kat’s head and pulls her down. Kat seems to understand her intention, probably from having witnessed Em and Kainda doing the same. She puts her hand on the back of Em’s neck and they press their foreheads together.

“Sister,” Em says.

“Sister,” Kat repeats, though a little more quietly.

Em steps back and points to Kainda. “Now you two.”

The two warriors stare at each other. Both women are hardened by lifetimes of battle and death. They no doubt see this in each other and the compulsion to resist vulnerability increases. But then Kainda steps forward and Kat follows her lead. The put their heads together and say, “Sister.”

Kat turns to me. She steps forward, but then stops. “My husband gave his life for you. But...what I’ve learned about you since... I understand it. And I know he would have no problem doing this himself, so...” She steps forward, takes the back of my head and pushes her forehead hard against mine. “Brother.”

I actually have to reign in my emotions when I say, “Sister.” My voice cracks. When I lift my head, I notice Mira standing nearby. Her eyes reflect a sense of pleasant wonder, but also of longing. I lift a hand in invitation.

“What?” she says, confused. “Sol, I’m not—”

“You have been with me from the moment I stepped foot on Antarktos, in person or in my heart. When I was lost, you saved me with a memory, with a photo and with a note.”

She’s surprised by this. “You found that?”

“You have supplied me with hope whenever it was needed and though we were separated by space, and even time, the small gift of confidence you gave a scared fourteen year old boy, might have been what saved my life and led me to this very spot.” I shrug. “So we’re kind of bonded already, whether you like it or not.”

With a laugh, Mira accepts my invitation. She walks right up to me, puts her hand on the back of my neck and grins. “Which box did you check off?”

“Huh?”

“On the note.”

I know exactly what she’s talking about. Every word of it flashes through my mind, perfectly recorded:

Solomon,

I am new to this and I’m not good at writing so I’m going to get right to the point. I like you. A lot. I’m not big on romance. Or flowers. Or girly things in general. So if that is okay with you, I’ll overlook the fact that you are clumsy. And smart. And kind. We will always be good friends. I knew it from the moment I picked you up off of my driveway. But maybe, if you’re lucky, we can be something more? I’m debating about whether or not to give this to you, because the idea of you turning me down makes me sick to my stomach. Actually, I’m pretty sure that this will make you sick to your stomach, too. So to make this simple I’m going to do something I swore I would never do.

Do you like me? ¡ Yes. ¡ No.

Or maybe just sit next to me and put your foot against mine. Grin.

Mira.

I smile, feeling slightly embarrassed, but also safe. This is the history that binds us, and there is no reason to hide from it. “The first.”

“I knew you would.” Mira smiles. “Looks like we get to be something more, after all.”

With a gentle laugh, I pull Mira’s head against mine. “Sister.”

“Brother,” she replied.

Then I feel an arm wrap around me. It’s Em. She puts her head against mine and Mira’s. Kainda and Kat join in next until all of our heads are touching. It feels like the ultimate cheesy moment, like something you’d see at the end of a 1980s movie montage, but it also feels significant. This moment is bonding the five of us, and I suspect that Adoel knew it would happen. Hope, faith, passion and focus, united with me. “Family,” I say.

The word is repeated four times more, working its way around the circle.

A moment later, a deep, rolling rattle separates us. Grumpy stands by the tree, his muzzle stained purple. Zok, whose snout is also covered in Nephilim blood steps up next to him and repeats the gentle call.

“I think they’re ready to go,” I say.

My sisters and wife silently agree, and we head for the dinosaurs, all lost in our own silent reflections. The beasts crouch down allowing us to climb on their backs, Kat and I on Grumpy, the others on Zok. When the dinosaurs stand again, I look across to Kainda. “Ready...wife?”

“After you, husband.”

I grin, give Grumpy a gentle nudge with my legs and say, “Let’s go!”

The dinosaurs take off at a sprint, quickly reaching twenty miles per hour, the speed at which they can run long distance. The jungle passes in a blur, and with every step we take closer to the FOB, my elation over the events of the past few minutes is replaced by a growing dread that we might all be dead by this time tomorrow.

23

The rest of the trip is fairly eventless. With the dinosaurs carrying us, there’s no need to stop to rest, though we pause twice for me to use the bathroom. Apparently, getting unexpectedly married has had an effect on my nerves...and my bladder.

I spend the first four hours of our journey speaking to Kat, filling her in on the enemy forces. We cover everything from their numbers, to their various classes and capabilities, how to kill them, their potential tactics, their long history, their parentage and their ultimate goals. By the time we finish, Kat knows everything about the Nephilim that I do. When we reach the FOB, she and I will meet with General Holloway and any other officers that need to be there. I’ll answer any questions that come up, but it will be Kat’s job to figure out the best military response to each possible situation. I can lead the troops and do some serious damage, but modern military capabilities are something I know very little about.

When we’ve finally exhausted the topic, Kat goes silent, working out every possible Nephilim strategy and what the human response could be. With my riding partner preoccupied, and conversation with Em, Mira and Kainda impossible as the two dinosaurs weave their way east through the jungle, my thoughts turn inward.

I’m married.

How did that happen?

For a moment, I entertain the idea that this is something I’m not okay with. After all, it was kind of sprung on me. Sprung is probably too gentle a word since I didn’t even know I was getting married. To be honest, I have never once envisioned what my wedding day would be like. I don’t think young men really daydream about that kind of thing. Or at least, I don’t. It’s not a subject one thinks about much while fighting giants who want to kidnap, corrupt and ultimately possess you.

I try to envision myself dressed in a tuxedo, standing by the altar with Justin, Wright, Tobias and Merrill standing by my side. It’s impossible, I know. Some of them are dead, but my closest friends are all women and my imagination already has Em, Mira, Kat and Aimee standing beside Kainda, who I have to admit looks radiant in a white wedding dress. But then she turns to me with a look on her face that says, I will kill you for this, and I smile.

A traditional wedding, with a church and rice throwing and the Electric Slide would have never worked anyway. If I’m honest, the whole experience would likely make me nauseous, too.

While I might have been bamboozled into my marriage, it was simple and pure. It might be the one thing hunters got right, if they actually married for love. Who knows, maybe some of them did? When I was split into two personalities, Ull was a hunter to the core. He was cocky, brash, violent and quick to anger. He was passionate. But he wasn’t entirely negative. The first time I had feelings for Kainda, Ull was in control. It’s why we saved her life. If Ull can show compassion to another hunter because he has feelings for her, then it’s possible other hunters experience the same thing, though they would likely never admit it.

Tobias is another good example. He loved Luca and Em enough that they fled and tried to live apart from the Nephilim. And then there is Em. When I look at her, and hear the joy of her laughter and see the cuteness of her full freckled cheeks, I wonder how she could have ever been a killer.

But it’s not just hunters. The human race as a whole has the same kind of potential to overcome darkness. And it’s happening now on Antarctica. The people of the world came here divided, each hoping to claim a part of this new world for themselves. But now they’re united against a common enemy. The old hatreds, many of them created and encouraged by the Nephilim, are falling away.

If the human race loses this fight and is wiped off the planet, at least we’ll have fought as one. A hunter would call it dying well, and I think I would have to agree.

Not that I’m planning on dying, or losing the battle. But if it happens...the human race will still have achieved something impressive—unity. It’s too bad we couldn’t achieve unity without half-demon man-eating genocidal inspiration, but hey, we’re flawed.

I glance to my right and see Kainda atop Zok’s back as they slip through the jungle. She’s dressed in her scant black leathers, hammer clipped to her belt, black hair braided back tight. Her eyes are forward, watching for danger. Her muscles are flexed as she clings to Zok. She’s like a sleek sports car decked out with guns—dangerous curves.

This is my wife, I think. How awesome is that?

The white wedding dress. The church. The reception. All of that stuff. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that woman. She is my perfect match—strong when I’m not, always by my side, and has seen me at my worst and yet still loves me.

The way we were bonded was perfect. I didn’t know it at the time, but there was no better way, or moment, for us to be married. We’re both hunters. This is the life we live. We’re dangerous with our weapons, and with our hearts. Sometimes we have to kill suddenly, but other times we love suddenly.

Kainda senses my attention and meets my eyes.

Since neither of us is actually directing the dinosaurs, we linger. Despite the jolting ride, the vegetation and the tree trunks flashing between us, I manage to lose myself in her nearly black eyes.

I hear a sound. A voice, I think. But it barely registers.

A dopey smile forms and I feel my body morph into a kind of gelatinous mold of a human being. My parents once told me about the stages of love. Lust, romance and then solid commitment, but I suspect things are a little different for Kainda and me. The way we’re wired is a bit different than the outside world, and our notions of commitment, despite also being in what my mom called “the honeymoon stage”, is profound.

The voice returns, this time a little louder. I still don’t hear the word being spoken. I’m not listening. I’m barely present. But a sharp smack to the back of my head pulls me out of my blissful state.

“Snap out of it, Lancelot,” Kat says.

“What? Hey, Lancelot was an adulterer,” I complain at the comparison to one of King Arthur’s most infamous Knights of the Round Table.

“Whatever,” Kat says, “We’re—”

“Guinevere was condemned to burn at the stake. The Knight’s were divided and the—”

“Fine, bad analogy,” Kat says, the urgency of her words reaching my mind. “We’re almost there.”

I look back at her. She’s grim. “That’s a good thing, right?”

“Kid,” she says, once again forgetting that we’re technically the same age, “I called you Lancelot because if you were thinking with your brain, you’d notice that you were about to land yourself in hot water.”

The cobwebs of love disintegrate at her warning and I suddenly feel the world around me in sharp detail. “Smoke.”

“A lot of it,” Kat says.

I lean forward and pat Grumpy on the side of the neck. “Whoa, boy. Slow down. Slow down.”

Grumpy huffs in response and our run quickly becomes a slow and careful walk. Zok follows his lead, slowing and falling in line, just behind her pack leader.

“This is close enough,” Kat says.

Em walks past us, having already leapt down from Zok’s back. She’s in a hurry. “Something is wrong.” Then she sprints ahead, no doubt concerned for Luca’s well-being.

Grumpy lowers himself toward the ground, but Kat and I are off and running before he’s all the way down. Kainda and Mira are right behind us, but Em is nowhere in sight.

“Where’d she go?” Mira asks.

“This way,” I say, following the barely perceptible trail. I shove aside a low-hanging branch, heavy with leaves that are bigger than me. Em stands ten feet ahead at the edge of the jungle. “Em, wait up.”

She turns around at the sound of my voice. Tears are in her eyes. She doesn’t have to say anything to tell us something is seriously wrong. Lacking any kind of caution, we push through the brush and fallen trees that mark the border between the jungle and the swath of ground that had been clear-cut in preparation for the final battle.

The first thing I see upon entering the clearing is a black swirling cloud blocking my view. I direct the wind to carry it away, and the air clears quickly. But as the smoke rises, my heart sinks. The forward operating base which was to be the location of humanity’s last stand, has been destroyed.

24

When Kat tries and fails to contact anyone on her small portable radio, I start to sprint across the clearing, but Kat snags my arm and stops me cold. “No!” she says. “The first hundred feet are covered with land mines.”

A quick look down reveals a mud covered mound that could be a mine...or not. I suppose not knowing one way or the other is the point. “How do we get across?” I ask. I’m about five seconds away from flying myself across the distance when Kat points to a string of tree trunks that cuts across the clearing.

“Seems like a bad idea,” I say, “Having such an obvious path across.”

“You didn’t notice it,” Kat says. “And the sniper with a direct line of sight down the path, with high caliber rounds strong enough to punch through five men, would have made a pretty good deterrent.”

There’s no doubt that Kat would have been that sniper. As I look at the straight line of trees and trace them back to a well protected bunker, it’s clear that the path across might actually be far more dangerous. But not for us. I work my way through the jungle to the first tree trunk and climb on top.

Grumpy lets out a deep, but gentle roar. I turn and find the giant’s head poking out of the jungle. He wants to come with us. “Stay here,” I say, trying to think it at the cresty as well. I’m not entirely certain how the creature seems to understand me, but it does. He grunts in complaint. “Stay. Here.”

With a sigh, the dinosaur slips back into the jungle and disappears, thanks to his camouflaged skin.

I climb atop the first trunk and work my way across. Once I’m certain the logs are securely embedded in the mud and aren’t going to roll, I run the distance. By the time I reach the end, I’m airborne, spurred by my concern for Luca, the hunters we led here, the soldiers we freed from the Nephilim prison, and all the men and women who have come here since, to fight for the human race.

The rest of the distance flashes past in a blur. I touch down in the center of the base where just days ago I stood with Merrill and Aimee, where I said goodbye to Xin, who gave his life for me and where I killed the shifter posing as Mira. But there’s no sign of any of those events or people present.

Including bodies.

For a moment, the lack of dead puts me at ease, but then I remember who our enemy is. Why leave dead when you can eat them? But there are many other clues about what happened, the first of which, Kat points out, when they catch up to me, running through the front gate.

“There’s no sign of a fight,” she says. “No shells, no blood, no remains. Even if they took the bodies there would still be...parts. The base wouldn’t have fallen without a fight. Even if it was a surprise attack.”

“No footprints, either,” Kainda says, looking at the ground. The easiest way to know a Nephilim has visited, if it’s been long enough for the stench to fade, is to look for footprints. The thirty foot goliaths tend to leave deep impressions.

“The heavy equipment is gone, too,” Kat notes. “No tanks. No artillery. This was a coordinated mobilization.”

“A retreat?” Mira asks.

Hearing the word makes me sick. This is one fight we cannot run away from, even if just the five of us have to fight alone. Kat’s silence doesn’t bode well, but I come to my own conclusion.

“General Holloway understood the stakes. As did Merrill and Aimee, and Luca, not to mention the hunters and soldiers we freed. They wouldn’t run away.”

“As much as I believe that about my parents,” Mira says, “they’re not here.”

“We just need to figure out where they went,” I said, scouring the base for any aberration. Many of the temporary buildings—tents and metal structures—are slowly burning, as is the wall built around the core of the base, and the watch towers. But there are no signs of larger, more violent destruction. “Kat, Em, Kainda, spread out and see if you can find some hint of where they went, and why some of the buildings are burning.”

“And what do you want me to do?” Mira asks, clearly not enthused that I’ve left her out of the search.

“Watch the skies,” I say. “We’re exposed and alone.”

She gives a nod, all hints of disappointment gone. I’ve given her the most important job—keeping us alive. “If you find a gun or something larger than this knife—” She pats the blade tucked into her belt.

I nod. “I’ll look for something, but you’ve done pretty well with just the knife.”

She smiles. “Yeah...” But then forces the grin away and says, deadpan, “Find me a gun.”

No matter how grim a situation, Mira has a way of making me laugh. I leave her with a smile, but it quickly fades as I set to work. My first stop is the large metal Quonset hut structure. Smoke billows from its door and windows, but the structure still looks solid. As I approach the door, the smoke parts for me.

Inside is just a cloud of black. I force the soot from the space, and snuff the fires with a thought. Beams of orange late-day sun lance through the wide open space, illuminating the destruction within. Not a thing remains. Every desk, piece of equipment and scrap of paper has been burned. I catch a trace of gasoline in the air.

I step further inside, walking over the embers of whatever was in this building. I’m sure the heat would be burning me if I could feel it, but since that moment with Kainda, I haven’t felt any temperature beyond a comfortable ambient seventy degrees. It’s odd, but it has its benefits. While the others have been sweating in what is obviously sweltering and humid heat, I’ve been just peachy.

My search yields no results. Nothing was left behind. No messages. No markings. And nothing that couldn’t be burned to a crisp.

I hear a crunch behind me. A quick sniff reveals the scent of sweat and guns. Kat. “Find anything?”

“Just scorched earth,” she says.

“What about the radio?” I ask.

She holds the radio to her mouth, pushes the call button and says, in very non-military fashion. “This is Katherine Ferrell looking for General Kent Holloway. If anyone reads, answer now.” She lets go of the button and we listen to thirty seconds of static before she speaks again. “They either have no radios or are out of range. My best guess is that they were up to something and didn’t want to risk a chance of the enemy discovering what that was, so they bugged out and set the place on fire. Also, the smoke will draw the Nephilim here, at least in part, and they’ll still get a good taste of the mine field, which is the one and only thing they did leave behind.”

“But they knew we were coming back,” I say. “And you were just here a few days ago.”

She crouches down, picks up what looks like an artifact covered in soot, but it just crumbles in her fingers. “Things change fast in war. And as for you, there was no guarantee you would come back. No offense, but not even I thought it was a guarantee. And let’s be honest, you almost didn’t make it back.”

Well...she’s right about that. “So they just up and left without a clue?”

“Didn’t say that, but if they left something behind for us to find, it’s going to be subtle. I doubt they want to advertise where they went, but I can tell you one thing for certain.”

I wait for the big reveal in silence.

“They either went north or south.”

Of course. They wouldn’t have headed inland. They would lose the support of the Navy if they did. And there is only ocean in the other direction. “Assuming they didn’t retreat.”

“They didn’t,” she says.

“How can you be sure?”

“Holloway knows I would hunt him down and put him in a hurt locker.”

We leave the husk of a building and split up to search every inch of the camp. On my way to the outer wall, I spot Mira standing still and looking down at a patch of earth. A lump forms in my throat when I realize what she’s looking at—Xin’s grave.

I find myself walking to her, the wall a distant memory. The earth covering Xin’s body no longer looks fresh. It’s as dark and muddy as the rest of the ground inside the base. If not for the stone, still in place, there would be nothing to distinguish it as a grave.

I step up next to her, looking at the stone. A single word is inscribed on it, carved by my hand with a knife: Xin.

“The body buried here looks just like you?” Mira asks. I told her the story just once. She has a good memory. Although it’s not exactly an easy story to forget.

“We were twins,” I say.

“But not at first?”

“At first, he looked like a gatherer. White, scaly skin. Yellow eyes. Moved through the underground like a snake. Nearly killed me.”

“Why didn’t he?”

“I saved him.”

She lets out a laugh. “Seems to be the story of your life.”

“What do you mean?”

“All the people following you—” She motions to the gravestone. “—giving their lives for you. They all wanted to kill you, but in the end, your mercy and forgiveness saved them.” She motions behind us with her head despite there being nothing there. “Including your hoochie mamma wife.”

“What’s a hoochie mamma?” I ask.

“Never mind,” she says. “The point is, well, I don’t know what the point is. I guess I’m just glad to know you.”

I stand in silence for a moment, absorbing the compliment. I’m about to dismiss myself and continue my search when Mira asks, “What’s the arrow for?”

I scrunch my forehead. “What arrow?”

“On the gravestone,” she says. “Did Xin use a bow and arrow?”

I kneel down and inspect the gravestone more carefully. It’s really just a basketball size hunk of granite I pulled out of the ground. It’s smooth, but not polished. I find the arrow etched into its gray surface, near the bottom, almost covered by mud. I didn’t make this. Why would someone else? What does it mean? I look in the direction the arrow is pointing and see nothing but ruins and the ocean beyond.

Mira crouches down next to me. “Maybe you’re supposed to flip it over. You know, like it’s a piece of paper?”

My response is to lunge forward, grasp the stone and flip it over. The other side is devoid of anything interesting, but it’s also covered in mud. With a thought, I condense water from the humid air and force it beneath the mud, souring the stone clean. Two strings of numbers are revealed, each with a single decimal point.

Mira and I look at each other, eyes wide and say the same thing, “Coordinates!”

25

As it turns out, they headed south. But there isn’t a single tank tread, wheel groove or boot scuff to show their passage. Kat thinks they took helicopters and ships. It would have been a massive troop relocation in just a few days, but doable. The question is, why move at all?

Knowing our answer lies roughly an hour to the south, we head out, rejoining with Grumpy and Zok on the far side of the mine field. With the sky dimming to a deep purple hue, we ride fast and in silence, keenly aware that just hours separate us from a desperate battle for which we are not yet prepared.

But there is one more obstacle in our way. A cliff, rising from the coast and stretching far inland creates a natural barrier that not even a behemoth could force his way through. We stop a half mile away, craning our necks up at the towering cliffs. I see no sign of human defenses at its base or at its top.

“I’m just going to put this out there,” Mira says, “just in case any of you tough-as-nails types are thinking it. I’m not climbing up this cliff.”

No one argues.

“Heading inland will take us too close to the Nephilim,” Em says. “Their scouts have no doubt discovered the ruse and have changed the army’s course.”

“I could try flying us over,” I say.

Grumpy lets out an uncomfortable roar and four women, five if you count Zok, turn to me with looks that say, “Don’t even think about it.”

“Word to the wise, kid,” Kat says. “When you’re talking about flying five people and two dinosaurs half a mile up into the air, don’t use the word ‘try’. Besides, none of that will be necessary. The military is running the show. They wouldn’t leave us a way to find them if reaching them was impossible.”

“I could open a tunnel through the cliff,” I say.

“Save your energy,” Kat says. “You’re going to need it. And we don’t know how thick the cliff is. Could be a mile across at the top.”

“Where to, then?” I ask.

She points to the left. “Where the cliff meets the ocean.”

Grumpy turns in the direction Kat is pointing, but doesn’t move until I give him a gentle nudge with my heels. Then we’re off and running, but not for long. The jungle growth here is new and thick. The cresties have a hard time walking through, so we have to dismount and clear a path. Again, I could use my powers, but Kat is right, any unnecessary use of my abilities will drain me some, and we have no idea how long it will be until I need them in a big way.

By the time we reach the base of the cliff, the last light of day is struggling to stay above the horizon. Where the stone wall rises from the sea is cloaked in deep shadow, black as night. Despite the darkness, I have no trouble making out the ledge jutting out over the sea, which is roaring a hundred feet below. It’s just eight feet wide, barely big enough for the cresties to pass single file. It’s wide enough for a band of humans or a line of Nephilim, but they would be easy targets. And since Nephilim are prone to dying when they drown, the wingless variety would likely avoid this route.

“I can’t see a thing,” Mira complains. She takes out her glowing blue crystal, but this isn’t the inside of a cave, where the light can reflect. It lights our party’s faces in dull blue, but that’s about it.

“Let me see,” I say, taking the orb from her. “The crystals glow because the molecules are active. When they collide, they glow. The color is determined by which elements are dominant in the crystal.” Suddenly, the sphere blossoms with light, illuminating the ground, the cliff and the ledge. It’s so bright that it hurts to look directly at it.

“What did you do?” Mira asks.

“Sped up the molecules so they collide harder and more frequently.”

“It’s not going to explode or something?” she asks.

“I don’t think so,” I say.

Kat laughs. “You really need to work on your declarative statements. Even if you’re not sure, sound sure.”

I start to sigh, but she cuts me off.

“I’m not kidding. You’re going to be sending men to their deaths. If you don’t sound confident about the benefit of their sacrifice, or the chance of their survival, they’re going to head for the hills. Armies are only as brave as their leader.”

“No one is braver,” Kainda says, stepping between Kat and me. “Do not insult him again.”

“I have no doubt about his abilities,” Kat says. “But whatever army we have waiting for us doesn’t know him beyond the rumors they’ve heard, or the show he put on at the FOB. Beyond that, he’s just one man. And he hasn’t earned their confidence yet. If he’s not exuding confidence in the way he talks, or even walks, they’re going to see it.”

I put a hand on Kainda’s shoulder. “It’s okay. She’s right.”

“So let me hear it,” Kat says. “Are we going to win this war?”

“Yes,” I say quickly, but it almost sounds like a question.

Kat grunts. “Going to have to work on your lying, too.” She heads for the ledge, stopping at the edge. The cliff is two hundred feet thick and the ledge stretches the entire distance. But I see nothing to indicate a human presence on the other side.

“How far are we from the coordinates?” I ask.

“Almost on top of them,” Kat says, then raises the radio to her lips. “This is Katherine Ferrell looking for General Kent Holloway, does anyone copy?”

There’s just a moment of static before a deep voice with a thick Russian accent answers, “Da, we read you. Please state business.”

Kat switches to speaking Russian and the conversation flows much more quickly. After a brief exchange, Kat lowers the radio. “This is the place.”

“This is where my parents are?” Mira asks.

“Da,” Kat says. “Welcome to Mother Russia.” With that, she steps out onto the ledge and starts toward the far end. Grumpy and Zok take some coaxing, but eventually follow us onto the ledge. I really don’t know if the stone will hold their several ton weight, but if we fall, I have no doubt I can catch us all, despite how insecure my words might sound.

Halfway across, Em says, “This seems too easy. Too undefended.”

“There are bombs under the ledge,” Kat says.

“How do you know?” I ask.

“They told me,” she replies. “Said they would blow us up if we did anything funny.”

“And you’re telling us now because?” Mira says.

Kat smiles. “That aghast look on your face never gets old.”

Before Mira can retort, the same deep Russian voice, no longer distorted by the radio, shouts out. “Is far enough. State your business.”

“I already did,” grumbles Kat, and I can tell she’s about to volley a string of angry Russian in their direction.

“Let me handle this,” I say, stepping forward.

“You sure you—”

I shoot her a look that shows how serious I am, and then reach a hand out to Mira. “Light, please.”

Mira puts the crystal in my hand. I give Kainda a wink, which makes her smile, and step forward.

With every step I take, the light grows brighter. The end of the ledge is lined with thick brush hiding the Russian from view.

“That’s close enough!” the Russian says again, sounding angry now, almost like he’s in pain.

“They’re wearing night vision goggles,” Kat hisses from behind. “The light is hurting their eyes.”

I stand my ground. “Are you in charge of this outpost?”

“Da,” says the Russian.

“Can you see me?” I ask.

“Da,” he says again.

“Do you know who I am?”

Silence.

They’re either obstinate, unsure or unconvinced. “You know the name, Katherine Ferrell?

“Da,” the man says again, “But we also know of the shifters.”

They’ve been educated. This is good. “Then you know that shifters can’t do this.” A wind picks me up off the ground and I float closer to the end of the ledge. I set myself down again, encouraged by the fact that I haven’t been shot at. I’m just ten feet from the brush when I say, “Show yourself.”

To my surprise, the brush stands up. And it’s not just one man, it’s twenty, each sporting a high caliber weapon. The largest of them, a man who looks like a bush, whose face is painted black, steps forward and removes a pair of night vision goggles. His eyes are bright blue, the kind of eyes I picture women swooning for, but they also look deadly.

He raises an assault rifle at my face. “Your name?”

I speak calmly and confidently. “I am Solomon Ull Vincent, the last hunter and your leader. You will let us pass now.”

His bright white teeth flash with a grin. He steps to the side and the other camouflaged men follow his lead. They watch us pass with intense stares, but give the dinosaurs a wider birth. Once we’re past, the men resume their positions, becoming the forest once again.

Kat slides up next to me. “Good job.” I start to say, “Thanks,” but she speaks over me. “Lucky they didn’t shoot you, though. Spetsnaz aren’t known for their patience.”

Spetsnaz? While I don’t know much about the details of military weaponry, I do know about the major military units. Spetsnaz are the Russian special forces whose training regimen isn’t that dissimilar from the breaking of a hunter. It would make Rambo cry like a little girl. In fact, hunters might be the only fighting force on the planet whose training is more grueling.

“Well, I say, if I can impress Spetsnaz, maybe there’s hope for me ye—”

I stop in my tracks. We’re standing at the top of a hill leading down to a massive clearing where a mind-numbing sight awaits us.

Mira says, “Holy—”

“Now this is more like it,” Kat adds.

Kainda says nothing, but she’s smiling, and takes my hand in hers, our still fresh bonding wounds pressed against each other.

It’s Em who notes the one detail that is less impressive, but perhaps the most strange. “I’ve never seen that flag before.”

She’s right. There are several flags billowing in the wind, all lit by a variety of spotlights. They’re not any of the most likely subjects: American, Russian, Chinese or any European nation. The first aberration from standard nation flags is that they’re mostly white, which normally is a sign of surrender. But there is a splotch of green at the center of the flag. The shape is hard to make out, but there is a single yellow star at the core. A stiff breeze directed by my thoughts holds the flag straight out long enough for me to discern the shape: Antarctica. “It’s an Antarctican flag.”

26

While the rest of the base is impressive, the Antarctican flag and the unity it reveals makes me beam with pride for my fellow man. It’s hard to believe that soldiers from different nations could come together under a single banner, but there it is, waving in the breeze, a symbol of our resistance against the monsters that would not just dominate us, but erase our presence from the planet.

But I don’t linger on the flag for long. The base is a beehive of activity and my eyes flash back and forth, taking in every nook and cranny. The strangest thing about the base is that it appears to be a combination of modern fortifications and ancient. It’s surrounded by tall, twenty foot walls. Some are gray stone—granite, I think, now braced with steel beams, and some are massive steel plates welded together. There are men across the top, and more halfway down, aiming their weapons through long windows. Several watchtowers overlook the base, once again a mix of old and new construction. I see snipers, so many snipers, keeping watch from the tall lookouts. Within the massive base are a group of modern buildings similar to what we saw at the FOB, but they’re surrounding what looks like a Mayan pyramid, beneath which runs a tunnel. Just beyond the buildings are two lines of artillery—howitzers, I think, all aimed toward the distance, their crews nearby and ready to fire.

Closer to the ocean, on a flat stretch of grass, is an array of attack helicopters laden with armaments. I recognize a few, but most are more modern than anything I’ve seen, and the variety suggests they belong to numerous nations. I quickly count fifty. They’re not up and running, but I assume the pairs of men waiting by the open cockpits are the pilots.

My eyes travel further to the left, out to sea, where I see the silhouettes of so many Navy vessels they look like one massive ship, covered in flashing lights. Their numbers are impossible to count in the dark, but at least a few of them are aircraft carriers. I can tell because the air roars with the sounds of patrolling jets.

Looking back to the base, I observe the front lines. Beyond the front wall, which will slow a Nephilim, but not stop it, there is something far more formidable. Tanks. Nearly a hundred of them. Lined up side by side, all aimed toward the west. And more are rumbling into place, arriving in a steady stream from transports at the coast, which gently slopes to the water. In front of the tanks are several long trenches filled with men and weapons. Before the trenches, a field of razor wire, and before that, a clearing that is no doubt laden with mines.

Perhaps the strangest thing about this force lies on the opposite side of the base from where I am now. Cresties. Maybe three hundred of the dinosaurs, lying on the ground, just waiting for the fight to begin. As creatures of violence, hunting and killing every day of their lives in an environment far harsher than this and filled with hunters and Nephilim, this is just another day. They might live. They might die. But either way, they’ll fight the Nephilim like they always have. Despite the fact that they can have a taste for human beings, these creatures have done more to reduce the ranks of the Nephilim over the past few thousand years than any man. I’m glad they’re here, and I send Zok and Grumpy off to join them.

It’s an impressive army. Enough to conquer nations. But while this powerful army of perhaps a hundred thousand, bolstered by the strength of modern weapons, can wreak havoc on a scale of Biblical proportions, they face an enemy numbering a million of genuine Biblical proportions, who can heal from any number of wounds and who enjoy the pain. If the two behemoths make it to the base, they’d just have to fall over and much of it would be destroyed beneath their girth.

Still, it’s a far better defense than the previous FOB, and our chances of survival are higher, if just by a little. Deep down, I know that the size of the base and number of tanks isn’t going to affect the outcome of this battle. That will come down to me. And Nephil.

Solomon!

The voice in my head makes me flinch.

Kainda tenses next to me. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” I say, and then smile. “Luca caught me off guard.”

I’m vaguely aware of Mira asking about Luca and Em giving an explanation as I focus on my thoughts and reply. Luca! Are you in the new base?

Under the temple, he thinks. It’s where the leaders are. General Holloway is here. So are Merrill and Aimee.

Why are you there? I ask.
I would prefer that Luca be far away from the action. Someplace safe.

I’m a general, he thinks. Well, not really, but I’m important. I’m coordinating everyone.

With your thoughts, I deduce. Luca is just six, but he has my extraordinary mind and a telepathic ability given to him by Xin. A regular Professor X.

I’m not controlling them, though, just giving orders.

Well, that’s good, I think to myself. But in the heat of battle, Luca might not fare so well. He might have my mind, but he also has my six year old temperament, which was about as tough as runny mashed potatoes. Of course, he was also raised in the underworld for a time and then trained by Tobias, who was loving, but demanding. He’s probably tougher than I was at his age. He might even be tougher than I was at thirteen.

Well, here’s my first orders for you to issue, I think to Luca.

What is it? The thought is so powerful that I can actually feel his excitement.

Open the gates and try not to shoot us.

Open the gates! The thought explodes from the center of the base and reaches the mind of every single soldier, including Em, Kainda, Kat and Mira.

“The hell was that?” Kat says, rubbing her head.

“Luca,” Em says, smiling.

“He’s practically running the place,” I tell her and then start down the slope toward the side of the base where a gate is swinging open.

Our pace quickens and we reach the open gate at the same time as a welcoming committee that has hurried out from beneath the pyramid. Mira reacts first, seeing her parents. She breaks ranks, runs the distance between them and leaps into their outstretched arms.

Em runs next, scooping up Luca, who is dressed in green camouflage. If not for the wild, long blond hair that matches my own, he’d look like any other kid from the outside world. Em wraps her arms around her little brother and spins him in the air.

As I pass through the gates, I glance up at the watchtowers to either side. Both contain a mix of hunters and black clad snipers. The ones I don’t know just watch. Then I see Adoni, the Australian Aboriginal teacher, now wielding an assault rifle. He gives me a smile and a nod.

Next to Adoni stands Zuh, her pom-pom of curly hair now tied back against her head. She once tried to claim me as her own, vowing to beat Kainda in combat for the right of being my wife. I told her that wasn’t going to happen, and she seemed to respect that choice, but just in case it might come up again, I hold my hand up to her, revealing the wound on my hand. She looks momentarily surprised, but then smiles ruefully and nods in greeting.

A man next to Zuh, a big smile on his face, leans over the rail. “Chica!”

Mira waves up to him. “Cruz!”

“Am I glad to see you alive and kicking,” he says.

I recognize him as one of the men from the team that raced toward the South Pole and rescued Aimee along with Wright, Kat and Merrill. He sees Kat next.

“Dios mío!” he says. “Kat!”

She nods up to him, stoic, perhaps knowing what his next question will be. But Cruz doesn’t ask it. His eyes wander around our small band and he frowns. Wright’s absence speaks for itself.

“Relieved to see you in one piece,” he says.

“Likewise,” Kat says, and offers him a casual salute, which he returns.

General Holloway stops before me, looking me up and down before staring into my eyes as though evaluating my worth. He’s got at least a week’s worth of growth on his face and bags under his eyes. The man has been pushing himself.

“You look...rested,” he says. “Been on vacation?”

“If you don’t mind me saying, sir, you’ve looked better.”

This cracks a smile in his grim demeanor. He nods toward Mira.

“Got her back, I see.”

I nod.

“The Clarks are good people. They deserved it. But now it’s time to get the house in order. We don’t have much time.”

“How much time?” I ask.

He looks at his watch. “Eight hours. Give or take. We’ve been tracking them by satellite.”

“Then you know what we’re up against?”

He sighs and looks defeated for just a fraction of a second. “It’s going to get rough, but we couldn’t have asked for a better position. We’ve got cliffs on both sides. If they want us, they’re going to have to come straight down the middle. It’s a natural bottleneck, a half mile across. Call it the shooting gallery. It’s ten to one right now, but we have more men, weapons and vehicles arriving every hour.”

“Which nations are involved?” I ask.

“Hell,” he says. “Son, you got everyone. Well, everyone in range. The Russians found this place and set up shop early. They never intended on leaving without a fight. But once we all knew what we were facing, well, here we are. Chinese, Arab Nations, the EU, the Brits, Japan, Brazil, the Koreas and at least ten more.”

“Whose idea was the flag?” I ask, pointing to the largest of the bunch, flying from the top of the pyramid.

He motions toward Luca, “That would be your brother. Said you would like it. Also said that Antarctica was your land. And that you were the King.”

“He was right,” I say.

“About the flag?”

“About all three.”

We stare at each other for a moment and then he just shrugs. “We can talk about that if we don’t die.”

“Sounds fair,” I say. “Now about Luca.”

“I know what you’re going to say,” Holloway says. “And normally I’d agree. This is no place for a child. But here’s the thing. We’ve got an army made up of folks who speak fifteen, twenty languages. A lot of them can speak English, but at least fifty percent of our force doesn’t understand a word of it beyond Coke and Pepsi. It was a real problem at first, but then he figured out that thought has no language. A Spanish speaker receives the boy’s thoughts just as clearly as an English speaker. With his ability, he can give orders and direct troops with more efficiency and clarity than the confusing mix of radiomen and translators we were going to have to use. I’m sorry, but the boy is essential.”

I look at Luca, still wrapped in Em’s arms, excitedly telling Kainda a story while she rubs his hair. “If he gets hurt...”

“He’ll be by my side the entire time.”

“Beneath the temple?”

“It’s the safest place,” Holloway says, “Which brings me to my first question. Where will you be?”

I point beyond the wall, to the battlefield. “Out there.”

“Solomon!” Aimee shouts, running up and giving me a hug.

Merrill follows her, clapping me on the back. “My boy!” He wraps an arm around me and gives me a squeeze. “We can’t thank you enough for bringing her back.”

I lean back from the both of them and say, “I just have one more promise to keep. You’re all getting off this continent alive and together.”

Aimee smiles and shakes her head. “The man you’ve become. Your parents would be proud.”

Would be proud? Does that mean... I push the concern from my mind. Being distracted by the fate of my parents, good or bad, will only distract me from what needs to be done.

Over the next ten minutes, I reunite with Luca and share a little bit about what we experienced while we were away. The Clarks and Luca, and even the general listen to our tale, but when it’s over, everyone is all business.

We retreat to the temple. A tunnel runs through the center of the structure, stopping at a chamber that has been transformed into a command center. There are thick stone walls all around and above. The tunnel is too small for a Nephilim, the structure too sound to easily destroy. Aside from a behemoth attack, the temple is the most secure location in the base. Despite the ancient surroundings, which were likely built by the same pre-flood human civilization that painted the record found in the nunatak, the space is full of modern computers, weapon racks and cables that snake across the floor before disappearing underground.

A dog barks, spinning us around. A large black Newfoundland charges toward Mira. She drops to a knee and greets the now whining dog.

“This must be Vesuvius,” I say, crouching next to the massive canine. He eyes me cautiously, but I hold my hand to his nose and let him get a good sniff. After a moment, he lowers his head and slides it under my hand: permission to pet, granted. I scratch behind his ears with both hands, saying, “You’re a good boy.” This outside world tradition of greeting friendly dogs with expressions of how good they are feels oddly normal. Feels good.

I spot the Jericho shofar atop a desk that is bolted to the stone floor. It’s wedged in a large chunk of foam and covered by a clear case that’s hinged to the back side of the desk and locked on the front, like it’s some kind of museum exhibit, which it might actually be some day.

Merrill notes my attention. “It’s the best we could do to protect it and still have it available.”

I nod. Makes sense. But what I’m confused about is the next table over. I give Vesuvius one last scratch and stand. I move to the table, which is covered in what looks like stereo equipment. Several thick cables run down to the floor and out through the hallways. “What’s this?”

“The ancient Israelites had several horns and had to sound them over several days for the impact to be significant.” Merrill grins. “We have a speaker system pillaged from an aircraft carrier.” He points out a microphone. “This is my station. My contribution to the war effort, if you will. I’ve been practicing with the shofar. It’s not pretty, but the effect should be impressive.”

“Is the effect the same through the speakers?” I ask.

“I, uh, I don’t know,” he says.

“We haven’t found a red head to try it on,” Holloway adds.

“A red head?” I ask.

“It’s what they call the Nephilim and hunters,” Merrill explains.

“Then I guess we’ll find out tomorrow,” I say.

We spend the following three hours beneath the temple, developing contingency plans to any number of unthinkable situations. As each plan is documented, it is given a name, and then transmitted into the minds of every soldier by Luca. If he gives the command for contingency Red Bravo, every man on the ground, pilot in the air and captain at sea will know what to do.

With everyone as prepared as they possibly could be, Holloway orders us all to get some rest. Apparently, he was joking when he said I looked like I’d been on vacation, and a few hours sleep, according to him, would work wonders. When I argue that he should rest too, he points out that he’d be spending the following day shouting orders, not fighting thirty-foot tall monsters. So I give in and I’m directed to my personal quarters, which is a sturdy looking tent covered in gray camouflage.

When I enter, I find Kainda already there, waiting in one of two cots that have been pushed together. There might be other items of interest inside the tent, but I don’t see them. My eyes don’t stray from Kainda.

“I thought outsiders were pre-occupied with comfort,” Kainda says. “These could use a few feeder skins.”

“Huh?” I say, focusing my thoughts for the first time since laying eyes on her. Despite all I’ve been through, all the enemies I’ve faced and horrors I’ve endured, my nerves churn violently through my gut. This is my wedding night, after all. Kainda smiles up at me and erases all my fears. I remove Whipsnap and my ancient looking Batman-like utility belt, laying them next to the bed where they can be quickly recovered. I climb in bed next to Kainda, pull the blanket over me, place my hand on her cheek, and say, “I love you.”

She rubs her hand through my hair—just once—and I’m asleep before she has a chance to reply.

27

“Solomon!” My name, shouted in a way that exudes desperation and encroaching danger, launches me from the cot. Confused by the dull gray space around me, I stumble and trip over Whipsnap, falling to the floor in a heap. As adrenaline fuels the return of my memory, I look up to find the cot empty. Kainda has gone.

Hearing footsteps rapidly approaching, I climb to my feet, pick up my belt and weapon and strap them on just in time to look put together for whoever it is coming to get me.

The tent flap snaps open. It’s Em, who is one of the few people I wouldn’t mind seeing me sprawled out on the floor. She’s seen me at my worst and never thought less of me. Not that she would have noticed. Her eyes are full of concern.

It’s begun, I think.

Em confirms it, saying, “They’re here.”

“What time is it?” I wonder aloud.

“The sun is just rising now.”

They made good time.

“Take me to Holloway.”

She nods and leads me out. “He’s at the wall.”

Men and women rush in all directions, hauling weapons and ammo, taking up positions all around the camp, watching the distance and the sky. We work our way through the bustle, past the side of the temple and toward the front of the base. As we approach an ancient staircase carved into a massive stone, I spot Luca by its base.

“What are you doing out here?” Em asks him. “Get back inside!”

“I needed to tell Sol something,” the boy says, looking at me.

I kneel down to him and take his arms. “What is it?”

I’m expecting a “good luck,” or a “goodbye” or even just a hug, but he levels a serious gaze at me and says. “This is how it’s going to work. Think your orders to me, and I’ll send them to everyone else. We’ll try to use the plans as much as possible—” Luca and I share the same perfect memory. We’ll be able to change tactics with a thought. “But there might be some things we haven’t thought of. If something comes up, like if you need everyone to focus on a target, just think it. I’ll be listening.”

Talking to Luca is surreal. He not only looks like me, but he’s smart like I was, and for the first time in my life, I can see why people thought I was strange. He seems far too young to be thinking in such detail or with such clarity. It’s a gift, I suppose, if you’re emotionally tough enough to deal with all that knowledge and the understanding that comes with it. I never was, but Luca seems to be handling his responsibilities just fine.

Then comes the hug and a quick, “goodbye.” I watch him run for the temple for just a moment before heading up the stairs with Em. At the top of the wall, I find Holloway, Kainda, Kat and Mira, who now holds a dangerous looking assault rifle. She’s wearing body armor and a scowl to boot. When she sees me coming, I say, “Nice gun.”

“XM29,” she says. “Wright taught me how to use it and trust me, you don’t want to be on the receiving end of its explosive rounds.”

Holloway turns at the sound of my voice. As I step up between him and Kainda, she takes my hand and gives it a quick squeeze before returning to her vigil. Holloway motions toward the battlefield. “Have a look.”

I turn forward, seeing the lines of tanks, which have expanded overnight, the trenches full of men, now aiming their weapons toward the distant jungle, the rows of razor wire and the mine field beyond. After that, I see trees and a distant gap where the two cliffs almost come together. But I don’t see any Nephilim.

“Base of the trees,” Holloway says.

“Looks like a lot of shadow,” I say.

“They are the shadows.” He hands a pair of binoculars to me, but I dig into my pack and take out the spyglass that Ninnis gave to me so long ago. I raise the telescope to my eye and focus on the distant trees. When I see them, I flinch. They’re nearly invisible, covered in mud, but their white eyes almost glow in the morning sun now rising behind us.

“Berserkers,” I whisper.

“Those are the people who are lost, right?” Holloway asks. “Not like the hunters who can be—whatever the word is.”

“Redeemed,” I offer.

“Right,” he says.

“But we can try,” I say. “We have to try.”

“And if it doesn’t work?” he asks. “What then?”

The answer hurts too much to say aloud, so my response is to look down at the line of tanks. I can hear the hum of their engines.

“Right,” Holloway says.

“I don’t see any Nephilim,” I say.

“They’re still an hour out,” he says. “These guys were hard to spot. Didn’t even know they were there until the sun came up.”

“How many of them are there?” I ask.

He shrugs. “No way to know for sure. Several thousand at least, but the canopy blocks our view from above.”

As it blocked my view from the nunatuk. With the number of berserkers unknown, we have to assume the worst. If this is the Nephilim’s opening salvo, then they must believe the berserkers are a real threat, which means there must be a massive number of men waiting in those trees.

Merrill, are you ready? I think, directing the question to Luca.

Almost, comes the reply from Merrill. The voice is in my head, and sounds like Luca, but something about it, like a signature, says the thought originated from Merrill.

A hiss of static fills the air, followed by the booming fumbling of a microphone and a whispered, “Sorry. Sorry.” Then, in my head. Ready.

Stand by, I think.

“How do you do it, General?” I ask Holloway. “How do you condemn men to death?”

“We’re not condemning them to death, son,” he says. “We’re merely providing the means. They’re doing all the condemning themselves.”

I suppose that makes sense, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. I’m the one giving the order. Still, we’re doing everything we can.

Go ahead, Merrill, I think.

The speakers are so loud and the microphone so sensitive, that we can hear Merrill take a breath. And then, he blows. The shofar isn’t exactly a pleasant instrument to listen to, but Merrill manages to get a robust sound out of the thing. It’s so loud that I can feel my insides shaking. Several of the men below, put their hands to their ears. And then the effect kicks in. No one here is directly under Nephilim corruption, but neither is anyone here completely pure. The sound moves through me. Its effect feels something like Christmas morning as a child—magical and peaceful.

The horn sounds for a full thirty seconds before Merrill lets up.

Then we wait.

If the horn has had any effect on the berserkers, we should see them acting strangely. Confused. Perhaps remembering their old selves. Wandering about. But as I watch through my telescope, I see none of these things, just agitation. Then one of the berserkers dashes forward and stops in the sunlight. He’s a hairy man, covered in mud from head to toe, so much so that his blood-red hair is hard to see, but its there, corrupt as ever. The berserkers truly are lost.

The man pumps his fists in the air and screams wildly. When he’s done, a chorus of voices join in, sending a sound wave of hate and madness over the base that quickly erases the lingering effects of the shofar.

And then, they charge.

The man in front makes it just twenty feet before stepping on a land mine. Then, he’s just gone, a mist of a person that the next berserker runs through without pausing, before joining the first in a similar fate.

The flow of berserkers looks like a living black river of mud, flowing from the jungle. They scream in rage, blind to danger, oblivious to anything but a lust for carnage.

But then, among the black horde are specks of white, shorter, wider and bobbing back and forth as they run. I scan the now salt and pepper colored force and focus on one of the white bodies. It’s a feeder. Its large black eyes are emotionless, but its massive, shark-like jaws snap open and closed, like it’s excited or ravenously hungry. Both are probably true. In some ways, feeders are comical in appearance, but I know from experience that they are savage and deadly, and from the looks of it, there are just as many of them as there are berserkers. Together, they’re a dangerous mix.

But we’re prepared for this.

Hold your fire. The order goes from Holloway to Luca and then to our multi-lingual army. For a moment, I wonder if I should have given the order, but then realize I already did, to Holloway himself. He’s just carrying it out.

The half-mile long mine field does its dirty work. Thousands of berserkers and feeders meet with abrupt and explosive ends. The shock wave from each explosion tears through me, cutting deeply as another human being meets his end. Sure, many are feeders, whose deaths I will never mourn, but too many are people, who are only here because they were kidnapped and broken beyond repair. I have to force myself to remain stoic. Kat notices my stiff upper lip and gives me a nod. This is what the men need to see. But is this bravery? Is this confidence?

War is a stranger to me.

Despite the field of carnage and the overwhelming death toll, the berserkers and feeders keep coming.

“How many are there?” I hear someone ask. I don’t know who it was, but I hear anguish in the question. No one here wants to kill people. But then it gets worse. The last of the mines detonates and the field is clear all the way to the razor wire.

Pick your targets, Holloway orders. Blue Alpha.

Blue Alpha is one of the most basic plans. Infantry takes the near ground. Snipers take the middle ground. Artillery and tanks level the jungle.

The tank cannons whir, rising up to fire a ranged attack.

This is it, I think with a sour stomach.

Holloway’s next thought comes through loud and clear. Fire!

The small-arms fire comes first, popping steadily, but then frantically. Men in the trenches fire first, then more from the walls on either side of me. The staccato pop of automatic gunfire is then accentuated with a less rapid, but far louder crack of sniper rifles. Each shot makes me jump, in part because of the volume, but also because half of the sharp retorts result in the killing of another human being.

But all of the gunfire is suddenly drowned out by a wave of thunder that shakes the ancient walls so hard I fear they might collapse. More than a hundred tanks open fire, leveling the distant jungle along with the men and monsters still pouring out from between the trees. The artillery behind the base fires next, further decimating the enemy ranks.

The enemy numbers are so high that despite all of this power and technology, a few of the berserkers and feeders make it as far as the razor wire. But they make it no further as they become hopelessly tangled, like flies in a spider’s web.

The next fifteen minutes is a nauseating blur of uproarious violence that shakes the ground, and my core. And then, the flow of berserkers finally slows. The feeders taper off too, leaving just a few random individuals bumbling clumsily over the dead. The tanks hold their fire. The artillery ceases, too. And then, as there are no enemies within range, those with assault rifles pause to reload and catch their breath. Only the snipers are still firing. But even they soon slow until there is a single sniper tracking the motion of a single berserker. He’s screaming, gnashing his teeth, and charging as though his army still existed and victory was assured.

The sniper pulls the trigger, making me jump, and the last man falls.

Silence sweeps over the base.

There’s no cheering or congratulations or even relief. Instead, there is moaning. Cries of pain. Weeping. All of it from the battlefield full of the dead and dying.

With a quiver in my voice, I turn to Holloway. “Is there anything we can do for them?”

He purses his lips and shakes his head. “You can pray for them.”

When he walks away, head to the ground, I realize the true nature of this attack. The berserkers were never meant to cause us physical harm. Their role was to demoralize us, to make us despair and grieve.

A high pitched wail rises up from the razor wire. A man suddenly lurches forward, pulling himself free and tearing his flesh only to become even more entangled when he tries to force his way through. He shouts madly, rage and confused pain lancing out from his raw throat. A single shot is fired, putting the man out of his misery.

I turn to the shooter. It’s Kat. She lowers her rifle and quickly wipes a tear from her eyes.

Round one goes to the Nephilim.

28

Just thirty seconds later, a vibration rolls through the ground beneath the base. The source is distant, but a potent reminder of what is coming, and what might already be here. I take my telescope and raise it to my eye, focusing on the distant choke point where the cliffs come together. Smoke and still settling dust obscure the view.

“What is it?” Kainda asks.

I watch a swirl of dust, rising as though something had just sped past. “Something’s out there.”

“They’re using the smoke as cover,” she says plainly, then looks at me. “It’s what we would do.”

Hunters. With the mine field destroyed and smoke clouding the air, they’re pouring through the pass and working their way silently toward us. Unlike the berserkers, the hunters will use strategy and skill. It’s possible that some will make it through to the trenches. And if that happens... One hunter with a sword, in a trench—it would be a bloodbath.

Get ready, I think strongly, but hold your fire. Gold Alpha—with a little something extra.

I hear grunts of understanding from the nearby soldiers as the orders reach them via Luca. I wait a full minute, while soldiers reload, take aim at a field of smoke and wait. When the stillness becomes intolerable, I start with the little something extra. A sudden wind sweeps in from the ocean, catching the smoke and pulling it back and up like a blanket.

Hunters emerge from the shroud, still and silent, surprised by the sudden and unwelcome exposure. They no doubt believe they are about to be cut down. Some must have seen what happened to the berserkers. Those at the front, hold their ground, waiting at the razor wire. The rest come in slowly, creeping toward us.

They’re too close for the tanks, and not far from the first trench. If they can get past the razor wire, and I’m sure they could, things would get bad, fast.

I quickly count three thousand men and women. Though the berserkers outnumbered them ten to one, this group is far more dangerous.

As the hunters congest together, somewhere from within the group, a man shouts out. He’s not speaking any words. It’s more of a punchy, three syllable chant that the others take up. And when they are done, to my great surprise, the nearly two thousand hunters inside the base, including Em and Kainda respond with the same, shouted chant.

“What’s happening?” I ask in surprise.

“It’s a challenge,” Em says. “To combat. As Hunters.”

“We cannot turn them down,” Kainda adds.

“The hell you can’t,” I say growing angry, and then do my best mind shout, Gold-Alpha! Luca does a good job translating the passion of my command and I hear it in my own head a second later.

Kainda turns to me. “It is not honorable. Hunters—”

“We are not hunters!” I shout. “Not anymore.”

“Someone must face them!” she shouts back.

I look to the gathering of hunters, who have taken up a formation and look ready to spring into action. “Then it will be me.”

I leap from the wall and am carried up and over the battlefield, soaring past rows of tanks and entrenched infantry. I land on the near side of the razor wire, just fifty feet from the enemy. An army’s eyes settle on me. I do my best to match their gaze, and then say, “There is not one of you who could stand against me.”

A grumble works its way through the ranks of hunters, but no one argues. After my little flight, they all know who I am.

I decide to lay it on thick. “I have slain your masters.” I motion to the base behind me. “I have set your brothers and sisters free. And I can do the same for you. The choice is yours. It has always been yours.”

“I will stand against you,” shouts a man. I cannot see him, but his words seem to bolster the enemy rank.

These are hunters, I remind myself. They respect action over words. A demonstration might help convince them. Sure, I could hit them with the shofar, but I’m not sure if that will be enough. If they don’t choose the light, they might not stay in it. I have to give them the chance to choose freely first. And if that doesn’t work... They might yet see what I can do.

I reach out my hands, directing a surge of wind to snip through the rows of razor wire. Spreading my hands apart, the wire shifts across the ground, forming a clearing through the death trap. I don’t really need to use my hands for these things, but I want to leave no doubt that it’s me doing it. Feeling a little like a mini-Moses, I walk into the clearing.

“Show yourself,” I shout to the hidden man.

There’s a distant shuffle and murmur as the man walks forward, shoving his fellow hunters out of the way. As the man approaches, I look at the other hunters in the group. They’re clutching their weapons, eager to attack.

Then why aren’t they?

Hunters aren’t known for their teamwork or patience. Why would they wait for a single man to face me? It’s a fight they all must realize can’t be won. More than that, why are they not all arguing about who will face me. That every hunter thinks he or she is the best hunter is Underworld 101 stuff. They should all be vying for the chance of killing me, and proving that they are, in fact, stronger than the chosen vessel of Nephil and are the rightful recipient of that honor.

The fact that no one has launched an arrow in my direction shows uncommon restraint.

Why? I wonder again.

As the man reaches the outer fringe, I figure it out, and that split second of realization saves my life.

Merrill! Now!

“Hello, Solomon,” the man says, throwing back a cloak that hid his face from view.

The face of Ninnis glares at me with all the hatred and loathing the spirit of Nephil can project.

Black tendrils launch out at me like spears. The first strikes my shoulder, shooting a lancing pain through my body. In that single instant, I feel the darkness seep into my body, its barbs latching onto my very soul. I try to resist it, but it’s like trying to lift a behemoth.

Before the burden becomes too great, Merrill puts his lips to the mouth of that great horn and unleashes an ancient battle call that strikes fear into the hearts of Nephilim, not of physical pain, but because for a moment, they can feel the disparity of their own existence. As the first sound wave reaches me, the darkness is repulsed. But it tears out of me, yanking a scream of pain from my lungs.

Ninnis hisses and launches into the air. The sound hits him, causing black tendrils to explode in every direction. He shrieks and flails, lashing out and striking several of his own hunters.

But they’re not his hunters. Not anymore. All three thousand men and women fall to the ground, writhing in agony. But it’s not pain they’re feeling, it’s truth. Those who were kidnapped and broken, like me, Ninnis and Tobias, are remembering who they were for the first time. Others, who were born in the underworld are feeling the weight of their crimes like never before. A shift of color works its way back through the throng as blood red hair gives way to shades of black, brown, gray, blond and orange.

This happens to be one of the situations for which we have no plan in place. I would have never thought Nephil would risk himself like this, but that was the brilliance of the plan. Who would see it coming? None of us, that’s who. So as my reeling mind tries to center itself, I look up at the writhing form of Ninnis, a man who was broken, turned into a monster and is now the vessel of an evil force, and think, sorry—and then—fire!

When the first bullet flies, striking Ninnis’s leg, the demon-possessed man flinches and seems to snap out of his agonized state. The wound drips purple and heals quickly. With a hiss, he launches himself up and away, carried by frenzied tendrils. The gunfire chases him for a moment, but it’s clear no one will hit the man. Still, a tank gunner tracks Ninnis’s retreat toward the valley’s choke point and fires off a single shot.

The distant cliff explodes, showering Nephil with debris and knocking him sideways with the shockwave. He lurches to the side, but then disappears. The attack won’t injure him. He heals like a Nephilim now. But the lingering sting to his pride will make him think about exposing himself like this again.

With the danger momentarily waned, I turn my attention to the hunters. Those that remember previous lives will also remember their time as a hunter. They won’t be confused by what has happened, but they will certainly be conflicted by it. Some of these people have been living in darkness, literal and figurative for far longer than they lived in the outside world.

One by one, they stand. I nearly laugh when I see some helping others to their feet. But will they stay this way? Or will they choose to remain in darkness?

Then it happens. A single man runs away, his hair turning redder with each step.

Then another.

And another.

And then, no one else.

Let them go, I think. We have shed enough human blood for one day.

A footstep behind me catches my attention. I turn to find Kainda strutting up confidently. She steps up next to me and addresses the freed hunters. “I am Kainda, daughter of Ninnis, servant to Thor.”

The group reacts with a mixture of fear and tension.

“But I am now free,” she says, quieting the rising talk. “And my master is dead.”

Those still speaking, fall silent. They have been freed from the bondage of their hearts and minds, but the threat of physical bondage to their Nephilim masters still very much exists.

“And I fight the monster Nephil who controls the form of my father. All of this is possible because of this man.” She motions to me.

Inwardly, I’m caught off guard and thinking, Who? Me? But on the outside, I stand confident and bold. I know what I have to do, even if it makes me feel uncomfortable. Despite being freed, these people are still hunters, like Kainda, and Em...and me, despite my previous denial.

“I am the Last Hunter,” I say loudly. “I am Solomon Ull Vincent, the first and only Antarctican, leader of the human resistance against the Nephilim, and...I am your King!”

To my surprise, and I’ll admit it, delight, a cheer rises up. It’s just one person at first—Em, I think—but then it moves through the base behind me and the hunters before me.

As a smile spreads on my face, I think, round two goes to the human race, though it nearly didn’t. I glance down to my shoulder, where the black tendril burrowed into my flesh. There’s no wound, but I can still feel its lingering effects, and the raw power of its attack. Had Merrill waited just an instant, the darkness might have claimed me. And if that happened, all would be lost.

29

Em, Adoni, Zuh, I think, letting Luca know who I want my orders to be transmitted to, split these hunters between you. Get them settled inside the base. Do your best to explain how we’re organized and how we are communicating. Put them in defensive units with hunters already among us.

Luca can send my orders to these new hunters just as easily as everyone else, and they’ll understand, but they need to be prepared for the mental intrusion.

Em speaks up from just behind me. She must have already been on her way out. “Hunters, I am Emilie, daughter of Tobias—”

“The daughter of Tobias,” a woman hunter says in surprise. She’s tall and slender with long curly, light brown hair that hangs wildly to her shoulders. She’s holding a double edged sword that looks like something a Roman centurion would carry in one hand and a long spear in the other. “Was he not slain by Ninnis, father of Kainda?”

Em frowns and nods. “He was.”

“And yet you stand beside her?”

I think I understand the gist of this questioning. In hunter culture, the slaying of one hunter’s kin by another might result in some sort of blood feud, or at least a deeper than average hatred.

Em steps up next to Kainda, who’s at least a foot taller, and looks up at her. “We are as sisters. The sins of our past, and those of our fathers, are forgotten. As they are for you, as well.”

To say the hunters are surprised is an understatement. The news travels quickly toward the back of the throng. It’s clear the conversation is about to expand and while I would love to explain the depth of their new found freedom, the rumbling beneath my feet is a constant reminder that we have no time.

“Hunters!” I shout. “Time is short. You all know what is coming. Explanations will come, but only if we survive the coming battle.”

“And if we don’t survive?” the woman hunter asks, sheathing her sword.

“Then you will die nobly, and free,” I tell her.

This seems to placate the crowd enough for Em and Kainda to get them moving toward the base. I notice many of the soldiers following the hunters with their weapons. Lower your weapons, I think, they are with us now. A moment later, the soldiers comply.

You’re doing well, I think to Luca.

This is harder than I thought it would be, Luca admits. Speaking to you is easy. Speaking to more than a hundred thousand other people is not. I’m getting tired.

Me too, I tell him. The darkness took its toll. I’m far more tired than I should be. But we must persevere. This will all be over by the time the sun sets again.

Okay, he replies.

But, I think, if you ever feel like you can’t handle it, or are worried you can’t reach everyone, you let me know.

I will, he says.

As the woman with the Roman sword passes me, she offers a slight bow and pauses. She glances back toward the valley’s bottleneck. “It won’t be long.” She speaks perfect English with a Southern California accent.

“I know,” I tell her.

“We’re just a small group,” she says. “There are far more—”

“I have seen,” I say.

“Then it was you in the jungle?” she asks. Before I can answer, her face becomes serious, but then relieved. “We found Ares.”

I look at the sword hanging from her waist, and then to the long spear in her hands. Not Roman, I realize. Greek. “He was your master.”

“No longer...thanks to you.” She offers her hand and I take it, shaking it slowly. She motions to the hunters filing past. “They call me Deena, but you can call me Jennifer. I was a roustabout working at McMurdo. Must have been forty years ago. Don’t remember exactly what happened. Had too much to drink one night, woke up in the feeder pit. You know how it goes.”

Feeling a little bit like a politician on the campaign trail, I thank her and start to pull back my hand. She holds tighter, the calm visage of Jennifer replaced suddenly by the hard stare of Deena. “Can we trust you?”

I match her serious gaze and say, “I would die for all of you, or one of you.”

She holds my eyes for a moment, perhaps judging the sincerity of my words. Then she lets go of my hand and steps back. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

When the shaking ground intensifies, I urge her to follow Kainda and Em and she complies.

As the last of the hunters walk past, I bring the razor wire back together. I can’t weld the strands back together, but I bunch and overlap it enough that the jutting razors entangle and hold the two sides together. Standing at the front of my army, I look toward the end of the valley. No one yet fills the gap, but I know they soon will. Nephil will react to being wounded and chased off with blind rage. On one hand, this benefits us because rage is often absent strategy. On the other hand, it means they will likely rush our position en masse, which is the one strategy that is most likely to succeed. If that happens, the only thing that will slow them down will be the bodies of their own dead.

I stand still, listening to the rumbling footsteps. Distant battle horns sound out. I reach out, feeling the earth and the air. There are so many that I cannot distinguish a human footfall from a behemoth. It’s all just one giant force, crushing the land and trampling the jungle.

Five minutes, I think. They’ll reach the bottleneck in five minutes.

The thought was intended for myself, but I hear a soldier in the trench behind me whisper, “Oh God,” his voice filled with terror. Luca must have transmitted the timeframe to the entire camp, which is probably good, but the twinge of fear I felt was also sent to everyone.

Sorry, Luca’s voice says in my mind. He sounds small and apologetic, no doubt realizing that my thought wasn’t intended for public consumption.

Its fine, I think, we’re all afraid, and I need to say something about it. Ready to give a lecture?

I can feel him smiling. Ready.

Making a note to watch the intensity of my personal thoughts, I turn around and face the base. An army stares back at me. Men from the trenches, from the tanks, and the walls. But there are many more inside the base, waiting by the choppers, manning artillery and crewing the distant ships who need to hear what I have to say, too.

After taking a moment to collect my thoughts, I project them through Luca, to an army.

The Nephilim are mankind’s oldest and most vile enemy. They have ruled us, enslaved us and broken us. Our ancestors worshiped them as gods and they became immortalized in our history. You know the eldest of them as Zeus, Odin, Osiris, Enki and so many more names that have been distorted by time and intention. They seek not just dominion over the planet, but the extinction of the human race, of whom they are jealous. For it is we who were given souls that live on after death, it is we who are more powerful and it is we who are protected by a grand design beyond understanding.

They are large. Huge. They inspire fear in all who see them. They attack without hesitation or remorse, and they delight in pain because they can heal from most any wound. Some will fly with outstretched wings, others will sting with scorpion tails, and still others will attack our minds with their own. Our enemies are the heroes of old, men of renown, and they are to be feared.

But the human race has defeated them in the past. Long before we had guns, tanks and warships, an army of men stormed the city of Jericho, a Nephilim stronghold. Using sword, spear and the blast of horns like the one that just freed three thousand men and women from the Nephilim’s corrupt grasp, men conquered that city, vanquished the monsters inside and sent the Nephilim scrambling to the underworld where they have hidden for thousands of years.

In that time, they have grown stronger, and they have plotted against us. Their hatred has grown. And now, freed from the ice, they are once again on the cusp of destroying our world. But once again, an army unlike anything in the history of mankind has been brought together. It is we who stand in their path now, and it is we who will stop them. But this time we will not simply turn them away and send them back to the underworld. We will destroy them. We will scour them from the face of the planet. We will end their soulless existence so that they can never threaten the human race again.

I pull Whipsnap from my belt and hold the now iconic weapon over my head, letting out a battle cry, both mental and physical.

As my army shouts back—including the cresties—charged and ready to fight, a rumble rolls beneath my feet so strong that I know the enemy is just seconds away from filling the bottleneck.

Prepare yourselves, I think, and then give the order that sets everything in motion. Jericho-Alpha.

30

The first thing I need to do is get out of the line of fire. Although a part of me wants to lead the charge, that’s not the strategy we’re playing. This is, in effect, a tower defense. We’re going to sit tight, hammer them with everything we’ve got until we run out and if that’s not enough, then we’ll charge. If I were to storm the enemy, shaking my weapon boldly, it might be inspiring—until I took a tank round in the back.

With a leap, I cover the distance between the trenches and the wall, guiding and slowing my descent with the wind so that I land back in my spot next to Holloway. The general gives me a nod, which I think is about as much of a compliment as I’m going to get at the moment.

The air behind the base fills with the reverberating thunder of rising helicopters, their rotors chopping the air. They lift from the ground and take up hovering formations three hundred feet above and behind the line of artillery. They’re armed with an array of small missiles and chain guns that shoot bullets so fast they’re kind of like laser beams.

Even louder than the choppers is the roar of jets lifting off from several aircraft carriers. Each jet will fly in a holding pattern until they’re called on. They pack a serious punch and can outrun any flying Nephilim, but our real firepower comes from the Navy Destroyers. Not only do they have some really big guns, they can launch missiles designed to flatten buildings. There are also several submarines lurking in the depths. Nuclear submarines. While they won’t play a role in the coming battle, they’re our contingency plan: Cleansing Fire. If we lose the fight, and the fate of the human race is at stake, they will launch their nuclear payloads, essentially erasing the battlefield along with everything in and around it. The plan belongs to Holloway, and while the idea of it makes me cringe—I read the books and saw the pictures of Hiroshima when I was a kid—I couldn’t argue with the logic.

But it’s not going to get to that point, I tell myself. I won’t let it.

A rumble beneath my feet pulls my attention forward. Despite the din of modern war machines, a kind of peace settles over the troops as we wait for our enemy.

Rumble.

C’mon, I think, where are you?

And then, it’s impossible to miss. A behemoth steps into the gap, nearly filling it. Its massive white body gleams in the rising sun. Its long tentacles of red hair writhe around its body. Its solid black, bulging eyes, are blank like a shark’s so that you never really know if it’s looking at you while at the same time, you have no doubt that it’s looking at you. The top of its head tilts back, the mouth opening wide to reveal teeth the size of sailboat sails. Ropes of drool ooze down from the top like waterfalls. And then it lets out a bellow that’s high pitched and a deep rattle all in one.

Yeah, I think, Nephil is angry. But he’s got a decent strategy, too. I have no doubt that this behemoth will be followed by a mad rush of Nephilim. But this is also our chance to slow them down and kill their momentum.

Behemoth-Alpha, I think. Go.

As though in response to my mental command, the behemoth takes a giant step forward. And then another. A third brings it just inside the bottleneck and a fourth, all the way through.

But then, six fighter jets whose make and models are unknown to me, but which look really sleek, streak past overhead.

The behemoth takes a fifth step and I realize that just fifteen more will bring it to our doorstep.

The six jets unload with everything they have, launching missiles and peeling up and away. The missiles twist and swirl through the air, leaving white contrails in their wake, like long tails. And then, one by one, they find their target in the midsection of the giant beast. A ball of fire and billowing black smoke obscures the giant, but its wail reveals the strike caused it pain.

I watch in silence, waiting for some sign of success. I don’t wait long, but what I see is not success. The behemoth takes another step. It slides out of the black curtain of smoke revealing its prodigious belly. If the missiles caused it any harm at all, there’s no evidence of it. The monster has completely healed.

“How the hell are we supposed to take off that thing’s head,” Holloway mutters.

“We might not have to,” I tell him. To my knowledge, only warriors need to be decapitated, or have their weak spots pierced. Other variations of Nephilim can heal, but not as quickly, or as completely.

“How do you mean?” Holloway asks.

“We don’t give it time to heal,” I tell him, and then I send an order to the tank gunners, helicopter crews, artillery crews and fighter jet pilots. Fire!

This time, I have to put my hands to my ears. The volume of this many tank cannons, artillery shells, missiles, jets and helicopters is more than my ears can bear. Unless... Yes, I think I can— Whump!

“What just happened?” Holloway asks me, and I can hear him perfectly. He didn’t even have to shout.

“I turned down the volume,” I say. He looks at me like I’m crazy. “I created a dome of compressed air over the base and the trenches. The sound waves are either being slowed to the infrasonic range or they’re being redirected.”

A bright flash turns our attention forward. The continuous volley reaches the behemoth. I can see it roaring in pain, and can even hear it some, but my ears are spared.

I quickly communicate the reason for the strange silence to the troops, so that they’re not disturbed by it. When I’m done, Holloway says, “Now it makes sense.”

More missiles pass by. These are larger, the kind that no fighter jet could carry. I’m not sure what they are, but they’re big, and powerful. And there are twenty of them racing from the Destroyers at sea toward their impossible-to-miss target.

Explosions rock the valley. Despite the sound being muffled, I can still feel the force of each blast. These last twenty dwarf even the footfall of a behemoth. Rock slides race down the sides of the distant cliffs. The human race is dishing out some serious might.

And yet, the behemoth staggers forward. But it’s not immune to the attack. Volcanoes of purple blood erupt from each wound. Chunks of boulder-sized white flesh, the same stuff I subsisted on during my first months underground, fall to the ground.

Another step.

The wounds are healing. This isn’t going to work. It’s going to stumble forward until we’re out of ammunition and then just roll its fat body over us.

Behemoth-Beta! I think.

The jets arc away, while the rest of the big guns hold their fire. If this next trick doesn’t work, we’ll be in real trouble.

But then I add a second order, Backfield-Alpha. The jets moving away from the fight turn in a wide arc that brings them around toward the back of the valley. Missiles launch and lines of tracer fire glow orange as they shoot at targets on the ground behind the choke point. The planes will continue to strike the backlines of the Nephilim forces, returning to the aircraft carriers to rearm, refuel, and then head back to the fight.

The artillery opens fire again, having taken time to adjust their aim. A fresh volley of rounds arcs up and over the battlefield, dropping down behind the cliffs and striking even more enemies that are out of sight.

While all this is happening, a single jet, which I actually recognize as a Russian MiG fighter thanks to Top Gun, cruises through the battlefield from the south. It cuts beneath the soaring artillery shells, yet above the behemoth. The pilot has guts.

As it passes over the behemoth it drops a single bomb. The silver cylinder glows blue for a moment because of friction, and then strikes the behemoth’s head and detonates. At the moment of impact, white phosphorous inside the bomb ignites a gel composed of benzene, gasoline and polystyrene. This highly flammable mix sprays out in all directions, coating the behemoth in a fiery slurry that will burn, white hot, for ten minutes.

The monster’s shrill cry pierces my dome of dense air and makes me cringe. Were this any creature but a Nephilim, I would feel immense pity. The creature stumbles forward and then topples over. It crashes to the ground, sending a wave of pressure through the earth that rattles the base and knocks over some of the structures and piled supplies.

I kick up a strong wind from the ocean to keep the dust cloud at bay, forcing it back and down to the earth from where it came. As the behemoth twitches and burns, I watch its flesh fight to repair itself. It’s a slow battle between fire and flesh, but after nearly a minute, the rocket-fuel’s fire wins. With a groan, the behemoth lets out its last breath and seems to deflate.

As the body shrinks in on itself, several of the long red stands of its living, hair stretch outward. At first I think it’s simply twitching as the body dies, but then I realize it’s a last act of defiance. The long, python-like hair sweeps in a wide arc, striking the rows of razor wire. The sharp coils of metal tangle with the hair like Velcro and are torn away. In a single attack, the monster removes all but one row of razor wire, effectively destroying our first line of defense.

Then it stops moving completely.

“It’s dead,” I say, honestly a little surprised.

“Napalm tends to do that to things,” Holloway says.

Before we have a chance to celebrate, the behemoth moves. Its belly twitches and jerks as though something inside is fighting to get out. No, not as if... It’s exactly like something is trying to get out.

And then, it does.

31

A wet tear punctuates the emergence of a massive sword from the insides of the behemoth. It slides through the thick flesh horizontally, carving a neat line. A second sword emerges. Then a third, all slicing the monster open like a Tauntaun on Hoth. It happens fast. In seconds. And in that short time, I’m too stunned to react.

The cut flesh separates, but there’s no blood, nor fluid of any kind. Instead, there is a battle cry. A human battle cry. Three sets of Nephilim hands lift the flesh up, supporting its weight on their unfurled wings, while all around them, an army of hunters surges out.

A Trojan horse. Nephil wasn’t overreacting, he’s simply one step ahead. And his tactics, while gruesome, are effective. The hunters leaping from the insides of the behemoth, are within striking distance of the trenches and only a single coil of razor wire stands in their path—an insignificant obstacle.

As the first of the hunters closes in on the razor wire and easily leaps it, I think, Merrill, shofar!

The horn blasts immediately, but is muffled. Remembering my sound dampening effect, I free the compressed dome of air and allow the full power of the shofar to go roaring up through the valley.

The attacking hunters fall to the ground, the red beginning to fade from their hair. The Nephilim inside the behemoth shriek and shrink back, letting the giant folds of behemoth skin fall atop hunters still climbing out.

This will be another victory for us. Our army will grow once again and Nephil will be forced to stop using hunters against us.

When the horn blast stops, the sound of shouting voices, pounding helicopters and roaring jets take its place. But I barely hear them. My attention is on the few thousand hunters still on their knees.

I’m about to call out to them, to welcome them as freed brothers and sisters when the unthinkable happens. A splash of red appears and then washes over the group like a giant invisible painter is brushing their heads with blood. All of them are reverting back to their corrupted selves.

Merrill! Again!

The horn blast sounds, long and powerful.

The hunters resist. There is the occasional flicker of normal hair color, but it doesn’t last long.

I don’t understand! Why is the shofar not working?

“On the cliffs!” someone shouts when the sound of the shofar fades again.

I glance up to the top of the cliffs. Winged warriors line the precipices on either side of the valley, their wings outstretched. Their presence is ominous and hellish, but they’re not what holds my attention. It is the much smaller, much more numerous, force of gatherers that catch my eye. There are thousands of them, each between six and ten feet tall. Their skinny gray bodies are almost invisible with all the rising smoke, but their black, oval eyes cut through the distance.

Gatherers have the ability to communicate telepathically. That’s how Xin, who was part gatherer, gained his ability, which he somehow passed on to Luca, who is fully human. But gatherers can also manipulate minds, implant thoughts, erasing them or controlling their targets completely. And right now, high up on the cliff, they’re out of the shofar’s range, even amplified as it is.

They’re keeping the hunters corrupt, I think.

Along with this realization comes a droning buzz inside my head. They’re trying to control us, too!

Guard your thoughts, I shout mentally to my troops, warning them of the danger. Resist their control! From such a great distance, my unwilling force should be hard to control completely, but the distraction could prove fatal. Snipers, clear the gatherers from the cliffs.

A second later, the first sniper round is fired. I see a single gatherer drop to its knees and tumble over the side. Gatherers can heal, but much more slowly than warriors. If the bullet didn’t kill it, the impact with the ground should. More snipers follow the order and a constant stream of bullets fly toward the cliffs, followed by a constant rain of gray bodies falling down. But there are so many gatherers, that each death counts for little.

Solomon.

It’s Luca.

I can feel them. They’re trying to find me.

He’s talking about the gatherers, I’m sure. They can probably sense his presence. Maybe even feel his thoughts and understand what he’s doing for us. If they were to somehow interfere with Luca, or hurt him, we would lose our ability to communicate quickly and universally to our multilingual force. The result would be chaos. But I’m not sure what more we can do, aside from killing as many gatherers as possible. We could napalm them, I suppose, but my lungs already sting from the first toxic cloud produced by the first bomb. And our supply is limited. We need to save it for the second Behemoth. Missiles are an option, too, but we could create a rockslide, covering the battlefield, or our base, with mounds of stone, a condition that would benefit our much larger adversaries. I hate it, but Luca is going to have to fight, too.

You’re stronger than they are, I tell him.

But there are so many.

Not for long, I think. Fight as hard as you can. I send an order through him to the helicopter pilots, directing them to climb and strafe the cliffs with their chain guns.

Before I can think of another countermeasure for the gatherers, a battle cry tears my attention forward again.

The hunters are charging.

Merrill, keep it coming!

The horn sounds again. A few hunters stumble, but the effect is negligible. The gatherers are keeping the shofar’s effect at bay.

This is the unthinkable moment I have been dreading.

The lead hunter, who is past the single row of razor wire, charges toward the trenches, sword raised.

My mind, for all its brilliance, can only think of one solution. And with just seconds remaining, I give the order.

Fire.

A barrage of bullets fly from the entrenched soldiers.

Scores of hunters fall, their human blood soaking the soil of Antarctica, but more take their place. So many more. The Nephilim inside the behemoth have reopened the wound, allowing more fighters to emerge. The warriors are screaming in pain, writhing against the sound of the horn, but I suspect that they too, are getting outside support.

A shadow draws my eyes up.

As the helicopters rise toward the top of the cliffs and open fire, lines of gatherers fall before their modern might. But the winged warriors with them quickly take action. Several stand in the way of the streaming bullets, using their bodies to shield their brethren, enjoying the pain and quickly healing from the wounds. Others take to the sky, attacking the choppers.

A scream pulls my attention forward again.

I spot a hunter in the trenches, slashing back and forth with a long sword until he’s shot. But the damage was done. Ten of my men are dead along with him, and more hunters are closing in, charging in columns protected at the front by hunters wielding large shields strong enough to deflect bullets. Seeing that there are just seconds before the trenches are overrun, I use my powers, which I’ve been reserving for the even more difficult battles to come.

A gust of wind slams into the front line of hunters, tossing them into the air like feathers in front of a fan. Even before they land, more take their place. I cut the wind, allowing my men to fire again. And then, when the hunters get too close again, I knock them back. We could sustain this tactic until all the hunters were dead, but danger is coming from all directions.

“Look out!” Holloway shouts. He tackles me from the side, taking us both off the wall. We drop, twenty feet toward the ground, but I manage to arrest our fall before we land hard. Our feet never reach the ground. An explosion rips through the wall, sending us flying. I catch a glimpse of a ruined helicopter as it strikes the wall and explodes. People and shrapnel fly in all directions. The wall crumbles beneath the chopper’s weight. I once again manage to catch us with a gust of wind, but the sound and the force of the nearby explosion has sent my head spinning.

Back on my feet, I stagger and release Holloway from my arms. But while I’m unsteady on my feet, Holloway is limp. He falls to the side, landing hard. I dive to his side, putting my hand on his back to steady him. But my hand doesn’t reach his back. A large chunk of metal shrapnel is in the way. I look at the wound. Some random chunk of helicopter protrudes from his back. It’s large and embedded deep, next to his spine.

Holloway grips my arm. That he’s still alive is a miracle. I turn him slightly and look into his eyes. “Fight,” he says, and blood drips from his lips. “You fight.” His voice is filled with fury. “To the last man. To the last woman. With everything you have. Fight!”

Holloway goes slack in my arms. The general is dead. But his words still ring in my ears.

Fight!

I place the general down, pull Whipsnap from my belt and scream, with my mouth and my mind, “Hunters! Attack!”

32

I run toward the front wall, driven by anger over the death of Holloway. I didn’t know him well, but he always struck me as a good man. And the world needs good men, now more than ever. Reaching the wall, I leap into the air, lifting off the ground like one of the helicopters.

As I soar up and over the wall, I remember that we have planned for this moment and mentally issue the order: Duck and Cover.

The battlefield comes into view beneath me. In the time I spent laying Holloway down, the battle has shifted. Hunters are pouring into the trenches. Many fall to gunfire, but others are cutting through my men. Not for long, though.

The rows of tanks lined up in front of the base, unable to fire at such close range targets without injuring our own forces, roll forward. The soldiers duck down as the sixty-seven ton armored vehicles drive over the trenches. One row at a time, the tanks park above the trenches in tight formation, sealing off the men below from the rushing hunters, who swarm over the tanks like army ants over beetles. Some of the hunters whack at the tanks with their weapons, but they have no effect. The men beneath them are now retreating into the base through a tunnel I formed.

With the men beneath them protected, and no friendly forces in front of them, I give the order to fire. Just once. Thunder rises from below as I cross over the tanks. The hunters on top of the vehicles stumble and fall, clutching their ears in pain. Others, unlucky enough to be in the line of fire, simply cease to exist. Most of the tanks aimed for behemoth and the Nephilim still holding the beast open. The giants are quickly reduced to pieces from which they cannot heal. The mammoth body folds in on itself again, trapping thousands of hunters that had yet to vacate the hollowed cavity.

Still airborne, I look up. A Nephilim warrior attacks a helicopter, striking out with its sword. The massive blade cuts through the chopper like it was a flying tomato. The attack sends the rotor blades flying and one of them returns the favor, severing the giant’s wings. Helicopter and Nephilim both fall, toward the base. Inside the base.

But Merrill is still blowing the shofar and the base is full of fighters who have been trained to kill Nephilim. I’ll have to trust that they can handle it. I have to take care of this hunter swarm first. Because I’m sure there will be no delay in what comes next.

To prove me right, a horn sounds in the distance, and I catch a glimpse of Nephilim warriors charging into the bottleneck. Just before landing, I direct the tanks, artillery and Navy vessels to focus their efforts on the bottleneck, while the Air Force jets continue their assault on the forces still out of sight and the helicopters clear the cliffs.

My entire flight, everything I saw and every command given takes just ten seconds. Then I’m approaching the ground on the far side of the tanks, dropping down toward a throng of several thousand hunters all working their way toward the base. And they will have no trouble scaling the walls. Just before landing, I see bullets tear through some of the hunters. Men on the wall are still firing.

Hold your fire, I think, directing my thoughts to anyone firing from the walls. Then I land and put all of my anger and desperation into it. The earth buckles beneath me. A shockwave bursts away from me, moving through air and land. Every hunter for a hundred feet in every direction is knocked down. Those within twenty feet don’t get back up.

With every human death, on either side, my anger rises, tenfold when I am the one responsible for their deaths. But the hunters leave me no time to mourn the deaths of their brothers. They rush me from all sides, and I charge to meet them.

As they close in, I spin, swiping Whipsnap around, focusing a burst of wind from its tip. Men fly away from me, cast hundreds of feet in the air. At least I won’t see them die. An arrow whistles past my head, and I quickly form a protecting swirl of wind around me, deflecting several more projectiles being launched in my direction.

They’ve practiced this, I think. By making me focus on defending against arrows, knives and darts, they’re keeping me from attacking. Any lapse in my defense could mean a quick death.

Unfortunately for them, I’ve been practicing too.

The hunters come at me again with little regard for their own dead, stepping around and on their bodies. As they close the distance, I wait, deflecting the steady stream of projectiles. And then, when the closest attackers are just fifteen feet away, I will the ground around me to rise up. A wall of stone forms around me. It does an even better job of protecting me, but that’s not its purpose.

It’s a weapon.

For a moment, secluded in my dome of earth, I close my eyes and say a prayer for the men and women I’m about to kill. At one time, they weren’t hunters. They were teachers, photographers, scientists and explorers. They had lives, and loved ones. Some, like Ninnis, were married, or had children. They were good people once. And somewhere, deep inside them, they still are.

But not right now.

And I’ve done everything I can to prevent this. Right?

My doubt disappears when Holloway’s words come back to me and my perfect memory remembers the expression on his dying face. Fight!

“To the last man,” I say and then, with a focused burst of air, the stone around me shatters explosively. Fragments of stone shoot in every direction, cutting through the horde of hunters flooding toward me.

Men and women fall, clutching their wounded bodies and dropping their cherished weapons. They have known hatred and violence for as long as they can remember, but now...they’re free. Really free. And unlike a Nephilim, they have souls that will live on. This gives me some consolation. If I can’t free them in life, I can free them in death.

As I survey the battlefield, I find myself growing tired. The combination of strong emotions and exertion are taking their toll. I’m not yet useless, but I still need to watch how frequently I use my abilities, especially in unnatural ways, like turning the earth into a big grenade.

A battle cry spins me around.

A wall of hunters is nearly upon me.

I raise my hands, intending to knock them back with a homemade tornado, but then I see the hunters leading the charge—Em, knives in hand, and Kainda, hammer raised. These are my hunters.

As they reach me, I turn and run with them, raising Whipsnap and shouting. The roar of my hunters that follows fills me with energy, and I throw myself into battle against men and women fighting for themselves, rather than a cause they believe in. Their selfish motivations are weak compared to the convictions of my hunters, and the battle turns in our favor.

I try not to think, or feel over the next few minutes. Both ends of my weapon quickly become stained with human blood. And as more and more hunters fall to my skill, but also to the raw power with which I can now infuse my body, I try not to count.

But not counting is impossible for me.

A sword strikes my back, but I see it coming and tighten the molecules of my body. What would have been a killing blow clangs off my shoulder blades before a hammer drives the man to the ground.

“Watch yourself!” Kainda shouts at me.

Em appears by my other side. She whips a knife, dropping a charging hunter and draws a fresh blade before the body strikes the ground. “You shouldn’t be here!” she shouts at me. “You’re too important.”

“We’re all important,” I argue back, lifting a group of five hunters from the ground and using the wind to send them flying into their comrades. “Especially, you two. I will not leave you.”

“Then fight harder,” Kainda urges.

Fight harder? Hasn’t she been watching? She strikes down two hunters, quickly and efficiently. Probably not watching, I decide.

“Our people are dying!” Kainda says.

That’s when I realize that it’s me who hasn’t been watching.

While our force of hunters is formidable, we’re actually outnumbered, and though our hunters are killing more, they have more lives to spare. But if I use my abilities against humans, how much will I have left for the Nephilim?

It won’t matter if there is no one left to fight, I think.

Em must see my inner conflict reflected in my face. “You can do it, Sol.”

Faith, I think.

Kainda grips my shoulder hard. Her touch is like electricity.

Passion.

I look at my wife, the power of her words and presence filling me. Then I leap away, rising above the battle and landing just beyond our front line. With a pulse of air, I clear the area around me. And then, I focus.

It doesn’t matter if I kill a hundred or a thousand, I tell myself. This is a fight the human race cannot lose, no matter the cost. Like Luca, I must push myself to the limit and beyond to achieve that end, even if it kills me. This is for you, Holloway, I think.

Then I strike.

With a spin, I swing Whipsnap around my head like I’m striking a combatant. But there isn’t anyone within range—of my physical weapon. But I am not striking with Whipsnap, I am striking with the very air of Antarctica itself.

A blade, nearly a half mile long and razor thin, follows Whipsnap’s path as I swing. With my eyes closed, I finish the strike, careful not to extend it into our own ranks. For a moment, I fear that my attack has failed. Every hunter I struck thus far provided resistance—a subtle tug on the blade as it severed their flesh. But there was no resistance this time, no tug, no indication that I struck a single enemy. That is, until I open my eyes.

While I have left the enemies to my back alive—perhaps a few hundred hunters—the thousands between me and the fallen behemoth are now dead.

Thousands.

God, no.

I fall to my knees. The weight of genocide falls on my shoulders like a cartoon anvil.

This is what Nephil wants.

This is why he sent hunters first.

To destroy my soul.

But he has misjudged me. He has already used me to kill billions. And I found forgiveness for that, and the burden lifted. Cronus’s words return to me. “Forgiveness cannot be earned. It can only be granted and received.” The Titan leader living in Tartarus, knowing I needed to hear the words, then said, “Solomon, for your crimes against your fellow men, for the darkness of your heart and for the evil thoughts of your mind, you are forgiven.”

And I was.

As I am now.

Hands grip my arms and pull me up. I recognize the feel of Kainda’s hands and don’t resist. As I stand, I look back and find the enemy hunters defeated. I have lost at least a thousand of my own hunters, but those that remain look strong and steadfast.

“I did it,” I say, mostly to myself, but Kainda responds.

“And you will need to again,” she says.

I look toward the bottleneck, but from this vantage point on the ground, so close to behemoth, the giant’s body keeps me from seeing the enemy. But I can feel them. The Nephilim.

Their true assault is just beginning.

33

Cresty-Alpha! I think, sending out a command that gets a loud roar in response. The cresties, natural fighters and killers have no doubt been impatiently waiting for their chance to join the fray. Well, now they’re going to get it.

With a thunder that matches that of the approaching Nephilim, the dinosaurs race out from around the base, joining the front line of hunters. Grumpy finds me and lets out an annoyed sounding grunt. He’s not happy about being sidelined for so long.

“Quit whining,” I tell him and he crouches down. I climb onto his back and I’m happy to see many other hunters and cresties joining forces as well. Em and Kainda climb onto Zok’s long back, ready to continue the fight. But we can’t see what’s coming from here, even from the back of a thirty foot tall cresty, and that’s not a good thing.

“Fall back to the tanks!” I shout, and I then remember to think the command. As one, the force of dinosaurs and hunters races back toward the tanks, which are still firing over our heads, smiting the distant Nephilim forces. Before the concussive force of each fired tank shell becomes almost too much to bear, and before we put ourselves in the tanks’ sights, I turn Grumpy around and the rest of my army follows suit.

Further away from the behemoth, I can see the bottleneck again. It’s a mess. Nephilim bodies litter the area. Some are clearly dead, the shapes of their bodies barely discernable. Others are moving still, healing from wounds that would have killed a mortal. But the wave of monsters flooding into the valley continues...as does the barrage keeping them at bay.

A never ending stream of missiles and high caliber tank and artillery shells rain down on them, rocking the valley with thunder and cloaking the scene in smoke. But the effort is paying off. Not only are many Nephilim dying under the force of the barrage, but the number getting through and continuing the charge are manageable.

Hold your positions, I tell my front line. Save your strength.

During the momentary reprieve, while trying to regain some of my own strength, I turn my eyes upward to the cliffs. The winged warriors are all airborne, battling with the helicopters in a deadly aerial dance. The warriors outnumber the choppers by a large margin, but the helicopters are fast and can strike from a distance. Despite the modern advantages, it’s still a losing fight. As I watch, a warrior with little regard for his own safety, perhaps empowered by the knowledge that he will heal, or simply looking forward to the pain, tackles a helicopter. He slams into the side of the chopper, flips it upside down and as the rotor blades propel the vehicle toward the ground, he hangs on for the ride, laughing sadistically all the way down. The pair slams into the side of the temple where the helicopter explodes. I can’t see what happens next, but I think I hear a fresh spat of gunfire over the din of the continuing battle.

Are you okay? I ask Luca.

What was that? he asks, which I suppose means he’s fine.

Don’t worry about it, I tell him.

Getting light headed, Merrill thinks, joining the mental conversation. He’s been blowing that horn non-stop from the beginning of this battle. Without a breather, he could pass out. Luckily, he’s not alone under the temple.

Have Aimee take over for a bit, I tell him.

Then, to Kat, I think, what happened with the Nephilim on the temple?

Mira got him, Kat replies. XM-29. Explosive rounds. It was messy. If too many more of these guys bite it inside the base, we’re not going to be able to maneuver.

She’s worried about the Nephilim blood. If it gets on anyone’s skin, it will result in a horrible death. That said, the blood could also be diluted with water and used to quickly heal our wounded. Just don’t walk through it barefoot, I think to her, and then I transmit my thoughts about using the blood for medicinal purposes to the medics set up beneath the temple.

Kid, Kat says. You’re doing a good job. If things go south, I’m proud of you.

I don’t have to think my thanks, she can feel it through Luca.

As for our current predicament, Kat thinks, the cliffs are clear. Have the snipers take out the big guys’ knees. Then you can take them before they get up.

Before she’s even done thinking the idea, I shoot the order off to the snipers gathered from around the world and sense their aim shift as one.

Just in time, too. The first Nephilim warrior—a mammoth specimen wielding a mace that looks more like a spiked wrecking ball—leaps on top of behemoth’s loose body and then off again, shaking the ground with his girth. He bellows at us, trying to put the fear of his demon fathers in our souls. But we stand strong and wait.

Undeterred by our lack of fear, the giant charges. Through the symphony of explosions, both near and distant, the scream of jets and missiles, and the staccato pop of several thousand guns, I hear Aimee take a deep breath through the speaker system. It’s followed by a blast of the shofar that dwarfs Merrill’s practiced efforts. I feel its supernatural cleansing effect sweep through my body.

The wave of sound strikes the big Nephilim head on. He flails wildly, dropping the axe and sprawling to the ground with all the grace of a younger me. A lone cresty without a rider takes advantage, charging ahead and descending on the giant with all its primal fury. The giant, unable to defend himself, is quickly dispatched as the dinosaur snaps its jaws down over the warrior’s head, twists and pulls.

The line of cresties roar in response, as though cheering on their comrade.

But the dinosaur’s victory is short-lived. Five more Nephilim warriors arrive. Then ten. The cresty manages to escape their grasp, but only because Aimee’s shofar blast is still sounding.

Suddenly, the power of the shofar is reduced. The volume drops by twenty-five percent. I glance back and see one of the speakers, a giant arrow piercing its black case. A second arrow cuts through the sky, piercing a second speaker. There are a total of eight speakers lining the walls and towers. At this rate, they’ll all be destroyed within the minute. I look up and find the culprit. A winged warrior hovers high above, ignoring the helicopters, which are almost all destroyed or out of ammo. His aim is uncanny, even for a Nephilim. Given his wings, scorpion tail and blood red attire, he is one of the higher echelon warriors and likely known as a god. The bow and arrow helps identify him. Apollo, Greek god of archery. The giant nocks another arrow and lets it fly. Before it can strike a third speaker, I divert its course with a gust of wind. The arrows strikes one of the armored tanks and shatters.

I turn to Kainda and Em, pointing up at Apollo. “I need to stop him!”

“Go!” Kainda shouts. “We can handle this!” She leaps from Zok to Grumpy, claiming my prehistoric steed as her own. “Go!”

“Be careful,” I tell her.

I can see that my worry aggravates her, but then she softens and says, “You, too.”

I launch skyward, propelling myself past the sound barrier with a boom that drowns out the cacophony of explosions. Apollo lets another arrow fly, ignoring my approach. I snap it in two with a blade of air, protecting the third speaker yet again.

Whipsnap cuts through the air, projecting an invisible blade toward Apollo. My aim is true, but I’m struck in the side and the blade fades to a blunt wind just before reaching the archer-god.

My body plummets while my dazed mind regains its senses. When it does, I look up to find Apollo, but my view is blocked by outstretched wings. A warrior wielding a long spear drops toward me. He’s got one eye, which is odd for a Nephilim, but it reveals his identity: Odin, grandfather of Ull, who was my master until I killed him.

The spear surges toward my face, but I manage to duck to the side. But the attack was a ruse. The true attack comes from the right. I tense up, coiling my atoms to form an impregnable layer of skin, but I’m a moment too late. The tip of the weapon pierces my side and an all consuming fire billows through my body.

I scream in pain, still conscious, still in control, but in absolute agony. I don’t have to see the weapon to know what has happened. I’ve been stung by Odin’s scorpion tail.

Odin circles and comes back for another attack, but he’s not alone. Twenty winged warriors are with him and they are a veritable Who’s Who of the ancient world, identifiable by their weapons, headdresses and garments. The Greek gods: Zeus, Poseidon, Hephaestus and Hermes. The Norse: Tyr, Heimdall and Baldur. The Egyptian: Ra, Anubis, Horus and Osiris. There are several more, but the one that really stands out is the Sumerian god, Enlil, brother of the slain Enki and leader of the Nephilim warrior clan in Nephil’s absence.

This group is basically the Special Ops of the Nephilim. They are the oldest and most skilled of their kind. And each and every one of them has their killer eyes set on me.

I swing Whipsnap toward the group, intending to cut them from the sky, but the movement causes a flare of agony to explode from my stung side. The air-blade is never even formed.

I cannot win this fight. Not yet. So I flee. And as I do, another speaker is destroyed.

Then another.

The sound of the shofar dwindles by half. It will soon disappear. And when it does, our advantage will be lost, and maybe the human race along with it.

34

I fly up, keeping ahead of the monsters at my heels. I can focus on flying as it takes minimal effort to control the small forces affecting me, but I won’t be able to fight until the stinging poison is flushed from my body. Luckily, I am capable of repelling it from my body, I just need time.

I find it in the clouds.

A curtain of white cloaks my body. Out of view, I angle my ascent, pick a random spot and stop, hovering in the upper troposphere. I can hear the frantic wing flaps of the Nephilim searching for me, but visibility is zero. They’ll have to run into me to find me.

With the sound of the raging battle echoing below, I clear my mind and focus my attention on my own body. I can feel my muscles, bones and blood. And I can feel the toxin injected into my body. First, I isolate it, separating the foreign fluid from my own, and then I force it back, through my veins, through the meat of my muscles, and push it back to the wound through which it was injected.

I clench my teeth tightly. The poison fights me, clawing at my body, burning with the fury of Odin himself. With a last push, the toxin seeps from the wound in my side. I glance down and see the clear, water-like liquid drip down my side. Using the wind, I scour the fluid from my body and dissipate it into the atmosphere.

Cleansed of the poison, I feel my strength return, but I’m drained. The hunter in me gets angry. Ignore your pain, I think. You are immune to it.

Then I remember who spoke those words to me. I was still young and recently freed from the feeder pit, begging for scraps of food and obeying his commands like a dog. Immunity to pain was one of the first lessons he taught me. I find it disturbing that his advice could help me now, but I employ the lesson.

The clouds thin as I descend. Then they fade and I am exposed.

The warriors are on me immediately, but they’re expecting a wounded adversary, not capable of defending himself. What they get is something else entirely.

I swipe Whipsnap around, directing a blade of wind at the first two warriors to reach me—the Egyptians, Anubis and Horus. Their ancient style helmets, fashioned to look like the jackal and falcon, fly free, along with their heads. Their bodies topple from the sky, limp and lifeless.

As the others emerge from the clouds and soar toward me from every side, I rush out to face the nearest—Odin. The ancient giant screams something at me, presumably in Norse.

I have no idea what he’s said, but I reply with a shout of my own. “I’m going to send you to meet your son and grandson!”

The insult here is that there is no afterlife for Nephilim and joining his slain offspring is impossible, unless you count oblivion. He roars in response, thrusting with his spear, trying for a repeat of the tactic that worked before. But this time when he goes to sting me, the tail is missing, removed by the very air around him. Directing the wind with my thoughts, I dismantle the angry warrior and let his pieces fall from the sky, but the wind catches his massive spear.

I turn toward the shout of another god, rushing in. Odin’s spear flashes past me, flying toward Tyr, no doubt out to avenge the Norse clan’s fallen leader. Instead, the spear finds its mark at the center of Tyr’s head, striking the protective metal band with such force that it cuts straight through.

Another warrior falls from the sky.

Then two more.

Then four more.

Those that remain realize that I cannot be taken and flee toward the ground and the battle below. As I give chase, I see that the situation on the ground has become dire. The force of cresties and hunters has been reduced by half. The wall of warriors attacking them is thick and growing in number with every passing moment. A flood of warriors are surging into the valley, no longer hindered by missiles or shelling. And those that are on the front lines, fight at full strength. The shofar has been silenced.

As I drop from the sky, Luca’s thoughts reach me again. I hadn’t realized I was out of range. And it’s not just Luca’s thoughts. It’s everyone.

“Out of ammo,” I hear from an artillery gunner.

“Going down!” a pilot thinks in fear.

“Under attack!” a ship captain says, turning my attention to the sea, where several flying warriors are assaulting the ships.

“Fall back!” This one comes from a hunter at the front line, and I shout against it. No!

Fight! I urge.

Ground-Beta!

Thankfully, the men and women below haven’t lost their senses and are still responding to my orders. Gates to either side of the base open and soldiers from a dozen different nations flood out, carrying an array of weapons—assault rifles, machine guns, rocket propelled grenades, anti-tank missiles and flamethrowers. And they come out shooting with whatever ammunition they have left.

The remaining warriors descending ahead of me must sense me closing in. They break hard for the back of the valley and I think they want me to follow. Ignoring the trap, I drop straight down, aiming for my original target.

As I flash past, I doubt Apollo even feels his own death. One moment, he was targeting a cresty, the next he was cleaved in two.

I return to the battlefield, landing in front of Grumpy. I push at the Nephilim with the strongest wind I can muster and launch fifty of them flying back. I turn and look over my shoulder. Kainda is still atop Grumpy. She has a bleeding gash on her forehead, but she’s suffered far worse. Em is still here too, but she’s on foot.

I look for Zok and find the dinosaur twenty feet away, slumped over on her side. The massive chest no longer rising or falling. Another casualty.

Modern soldiers swell our ranks, using their long range weapons to stumble the approaching warriors. Mira and Kat arrive with them, both carrying the XM-29 assault rifles.

“Any bright ideas?” Kat asks.

“Working on one now,” I say, only half present.

“Make it snappy, kid.”

I ignore her, reaching out to the elements around me, setting something in motion that nearly drains me to the core. I fall to my knees and clench my eyes shut. It’s like lifting an elephant. Then it’s done. The thing is set in motion and takes on a life of its own. No longer fully exerting myself, I recover some.

“Just a few minutes,” I say weakly.

“Here they come!” someone shouts. I look up to see an endless horde of warriors charging toward us. Sun glints off their massive weapons and bathes them in a holy glow that feels blasphemous.

“Can you do anything?” Mira says, placing a hand on my back.

I try to stand, but find my legs unwilling. “Not yet,” I say.

“Behind us!” someone else shouts. “They’re coming from both sides!”

How is that possible? I wonder, as I turn around to look. There were a few warriors at sea, but not enough to instill the level of fear I hear in the man’s voice. Then I see them. Twenty-five of the giants, each carrying another, for fifty total. The force pounding down on us from the front is far vaster, but these fifty, attacking our rear, will crumble our defenses.

But there is something off about these Nephilim. They look...too big. Taking my spyglass from its pouch, I look at the approaching force.

I gasp, sounding like Em. Hold your fire, I think to what remains of the human resistance. The force approaching from the east is friendly!

Just as the thought reaches my army, they arrive.

The winged giants release their cargo, dropping twenty-five Nephilim dressed in white. The thirty-foot warriors, wearing golden armbands, belts and protective head gear, are striking, almost glowing. The ground before me rumbles as the largest of the group lands nearby. He turns his head to me, looking me in the eyes.

Cronus!

The Titans have left the refuge of Tartarus, risking oblivion to save the human race. And they’re not alone. There are twenty-five gigantes, the two-headed monsters who stand at least sixty feet tall and delight in killing Nephilim the way Nephilim delight in pain. The gigantes descend into the Nephilim horde, swinging thirty-foot swords in both hands.

A large gigantes settles to the ground gently, just fifty feet away, slowing himself with his massive wings. Gigantes are one of the most repulsive creatures I’ve experienced in the underworld. Their skin wraps around their bundles of muscles and their organs individually, so you can see gaps between sinews and dangling, skin-wrapped guts. Their two heads are concave on top, like their brains were scooped out. Their teeth chatter loudly, manically, and air hisses through the gaps in their cheeks. Their solid black eyes are unnerving and their three-fingered hands and feet have thick black talons. They are hideous, and I’ve never been more glad to see one.

The big one turns its two heads toward me, each speaking one word at a time. “Little one, get up and fight.”

I sense that it recognizes me. This is the gigantes I faced in Tartarus, the one that pulverized me and took pleasure in it. My stomach twists, but then I shout at the thing. “We’ve been fighting. It’s your turn now!”

The gigantes snarls at me, but then lunges forward, casting down a strong wind as it leaps several hundred feet and lands among a mass of startled Nephilim, cutting them down.

Cronus shouts back to me. “Solomon! Where is the shofar?”

“In the temple,” I shout back.

“We must have it!” he says. “It is the key to everything!”

“It won’t work,” I argue. “There are too many of them!”

“It only needs to work on one,” he says, and then stands. He raises his sword high into the air. “Humans!” His voice is thunder itself, the voice of a Titan. “Attack!”

Cronus charges, heading for the Nephilim army, with twenty-four warriors and thousands of humans by his side. Now that, is leadership. In the wake of this furious charge, this final charge, I find myself alone on the ground, weak and unable to move.

I want to join the fight with every fiber of my being, but I’m worn out. I can barely stand.

Shofar, I think to no one in particular. I need the shofar...and a shot of adrenaline.

If there is a reply, I don’t hear it. Maybe Luca is unable? Maybe the strain finally got to us both? I try to stand, but a wave of dizziness keeps me down.

“Don’t move,” a woman says.

“Regain your strength,” says another.

I feel a hand on my back. Mira.

I look up and find Mira and Em kneeling by my sides and Kat and Kainda standing guard.

“I’m coming!” I hear another voice cry out.

I recognize it immediately. I should, I heard it for the first half of my life. “Luca,” I mumble. “No.”

I turn to find the small boy sprinting around the line of tanks, the shofar under his arm. Merrill and Aimee rush out behind him, clearly trying to subdue the boy and return him to safety, but they can’t catch him.

“Go back!” I shout to him. “Go b—”

Something in the air shifts, like a wave of pressure, returning my attention to the battle.

Our force, even strengthened by the gigantes and Titans, have been repelled. They’re retreating toward us, pursued by countless Nephilim still pouring through the bottleneck. Beyond the bottleneck, I see the second behemoth, closing in, to seal the gap or simply trample us. I reach out with my senses. It’s almost here. The timing is right, but I’m too weak to do anything but kill us all.

Luca, I think. Hurry!

35

Luca arrives just ahead of the retreating forces. “Here’s the shofar!” he says, gasping for air. He holds the ancient horn out to me, but it’s not what I’m interested in.

“The adrenaline,” I say. “Did you get the adrenaline?”

“I don’t know what adrenaline is,” he says, and I mentally slap myself in the head. Of course he doesn’t know what adrenaline is. He grew up here. I look up to Merrill and Aimee, but their hands are empty.

“What is it?” Em asks, seeing my despair.

I don’t reply. I can’t bear to tell her. But then I see Cronus among the retreating force. He’s fleeing backwards alongside the remaining eleven Titans, fighting as he backs away from the encroaching Nephilim force. He’s taking wounds and healing quickly, bleeding purple.

The Titans are Nephilim that have had the burdens of their past misdeeds lifted in Tartarus. But they are still Nephilim.

Cronus, I think, hoping Luca will still redirect my thoughts. He does, but I can see the strain on his face. Cronus, I need you!

The giant reacts to my words quickly, leaping over the retreating human force and arriving ahead of them. He kneels down beside me, sees the shofar and looks relieved. But his concern returns when he hears what I have to say.

“Your blood,” I say to the giant. “I need your blood.”

He flinches back. “It will kill you.”

“I can handle a drop,” I tell him.

“There are other ways,” he says. “We will—”

“There is no time!” I shout, and thrust a finger east, toward the ocean.

The Titan’s eyes widen. His face, lit by the sun, is suddenly cast in shadow. As the shadow casts the battlefield into darkness, all eyes turn up. Even the Nephilim stop and gaze.

A hundred-foot tall wave races toward shore, passing harmlessly beneath the Navy ships. But when the shoreline shallows, the wave grows taller still. It’s just moments from washing all of us away.

“Just a drop,” I shout.

Cronus quickly pricks his finger with a clean dagger, which is bigger than a human sword, and collects a single drop on its tip before the wound heals. He lowers the blade to my head. I grasp both sides with my hands, cutting the flesh. I lick the blood from the blade and am launched backwards, onto the ground where I thrash and writhe in agony. I can feel the power rushing through my body, so strong that I nearly burst.

The wounds on my hands suddenly heal.

The persistent ache in my body disappears.

A boundless energy, like rocket fuel, surges from my heart, out to my fingers and toes and back again like one of those old Popeye cartoons. My pain-filled scream stops abruptly. The air gathers around me and lifts me to my feet.

Gather close, I think to the retreating force and then notice the gigantes still locked in battle with the Nephilim. I urge them to move, to flee into the air, but they do not respond.

Cronus seems to hear the mental command and turns to me. “They came here to fight, and to die. They will not flee.”

I don’t like it, but I have no choice but to accept this as reality.

Fueled by the blood of a Titan, I reach out to my wave. It’s traveled several miles to get here, gathering speed and size along the way, but now that it’s here, I need it to not drown us all. I reach my hands out and feel the wave’s power. Its immensity nearly knocks me down, but I push against it with my body and mind, urging the water and air to obey my will.

The tidal wave crests.

The water rises and bends, curling over the base, over the temple, and then directly overhead. The wall of water flowing above us is lit by the sun, glowing in surreal blue, the light shimmering down around us like we’re inside a giant aquarium.

I turn with the wave, directing its course. My arms shake from the weight of it, pulled downward by gravity, but repulsed by my connection to the continent. And then, I allow gravity to do its thing. The water at the front of the wave falls, crashing down on the front line of Nephilim who can drown just like anyone else. The pounding water races forward, propelled by the girth of the wave still rising and descending like a solid blue rainbow.

Using all the strength granted to me by Cronus, I push the wave back through the valley. As the cliffs come together, the water deepens and races faster, exiting the bottleneck with explosive force, slamming into the second behemoth and taking hundreds of thousands of Nephilim warriors with it.

Sun strikes us again as the last of the wave passes overhead, slams to the valley floor and flows into the distant, now-flattened, jungle beyond the bottleneck. Then, the water is gone and the battlefield has been scoured clean. Humans, the Nephilim, the gigantes—even the behemoth corpse—are all gone. It’s like a battle had never been fought here.

Weakened again, I stagger and I’m caught by Kainda. She helps me stand upright and catches my eye. She says nothing, but it’s clear she approves.

As does the rest of my surviving army. Cheers rise up all around.

It’s a perfect moment. My dear ones are all here, and living. The battlefield is cleared. The sun warms us like a blessing from some higher power.

And then all of that goodness, every last ounce of it, is erased.

First by the circling shadows above. Then by the army once again filling the gap of the bottleneck.

The wave delivered a serious blow to the Nephilim numbers, but they are an army of nearly a million.

And now we are an army of a few thousand—wounded, tired and beaten.

The approaching Nephilim are no longer charging. They’re marching, confidently. Despite my improvised weapon of mass destruction, the battle—the war—is theirs. Their numbers are too great.

To my army’s credit, the mix of hunters, soldiers, cresties and Titans stand their ground and wait. I step out ahead of them and walk to the center of the group, followed by Kainda, Em, Mira and Kat, who are in turn followed by Luca, still holding the shofar, Merrill and Aimee. I couldn’t be more proud of all of them. Cronus brings up the rear of our small group, carrying more strength than all of us, and strangely, an unwavering confidence.

“How can you be so confident?” I say to the Titan.

“We are not yet beaten,” he says.

“It’s more than that,” I say. “You know something.”

“Adoel sends his greetings,” the Titan says.

Adoel? The angel? “Is he here?”

“He cannot leave Edinnu,” Cronus says. “You know this...but I visited before coming here.”

“Then what?” I ask. “Is it the Tree of Life? Do you have its fruit?”

He chuckles, actually chuckles, despite our circumstances.

“We...said goodbye,” the Titan says.

“Goodbye?” I ask, growing worried—more worried.

“My end will mark a new beginning,” Cronus says. “Those were the last words spoken to me by Adoel. The words that helped save me in Tartarus. And it is those words that will soon come to fruition.”

I’m about to press him for more. I’m not a fan of vague answers and he knows it. Before I can speak, he says, “It has been an honor serving with you.”

And then, a voice, from the Nephilim.

“Solomon!” The voice is small. Human. And old.

Ninnis.

But not Ninnis. This is Nephil—the dark god Ophion—speaking to me.

The marching horde stops a hundred feet away. I can feel the tension of the small army behind me, just waiting for the order to charge and fight to the death.

Winged warriors land at the front of the Nephilim, lining the front of their massive force with ancient, blood-red clad gods. Enlil is among them, burning with anger at having been turned away by me. Enlil, and Zeus beside him, fold their wings down. From between them, a lone man wanders out.

Ninnis’s body still looks old, but the beard has been shaved, along with his hair, and he stands more upright than I remember. His eyes, once dark, are now yellow and more Nephilim than human. As he walks, tendrils of black snake out from his body, lifting him into the air.

As Luca clings to my side in fright, Cronus kneels and whispers. “He is more powerful than ever.”

Not helping, I think.

The giant continues. “He has bonded himself to the very essence of his brethren, drawing strength from their life force.”

“I don’t see anything,” I say.

“You can’t see it,” he says impatiently. “But I can feel it, tugging at me, trying to claim me as one of his own.”

“Will he?” I ask.

“I have always been stronger than Ophion,” Cronus says with a grin that reveals his sharp teeth. “But his strength is of no consequence. It is the connection that is important. He has made himself the capstone.”

The capstone is the central stone in an arch. With the stone in place, the arch can withstand intense pressure. But if you remove the capstone, the arch and everything supported by it, will crumble to the ground.

“How do we remove the capstone?” I ask.

“Return it to the earth from whence it came,” he says.

“You know I hate the cryptic—” I start to complain, but then I figure it out. Tartarus. Nephil, the first Nephilim, has a spirit, unlike most Nephilim. He can live outside his body. Not forever, but he could easily take the body of one of his warriors, or even another human if Ninnis is killed. It’s what he plans to do to me. So we must return him to Tartarus, which is in some ways a fate worse than non-existence. Unable to turn from his evil ways, Tartarus will be a prison of unending torture, and without Nephilim on the outside to set him free, he will never leave it again.

“But how?” I ask, and then once again find the answer, this time pressed up against me, clutched in the arms of Luca.

The shofar.

Now we just need to get close enough to use it.

“Solomon!” Nephil shouts again. “Come! Let us talk.”

Problem solved.

36

Enlil and Zeus break rank from their giant army, standing to either side of Nephil. Enlil is dressed in red leathers, but the armor over his chest is fringed with black, the preferred color of the Sumerian clan. He has a long red rectangular beard held in place by beaded twine. His red hair is parted down the middle, braided and held back by a ribbon I suspect is made from feeder skin. Long earrings dangle from his ears. All classic Sumerian styles. He carries a large sickle sword in each six-fingered hand. Zeus, also wearing mostly red, reveals his Greco-Roman flair with a golden fringe that is basically bedazzled with glowing crystals from the underworld. While his hair is the same blood-red as Enlil’s, it is flowing and strangely clean looking for a Nephilim. Where Enlil exudes military precision, Zeus carries himself like a nobleman. Even his beard is trimmed. He carries a sword with a jagged blade. A thunderbolt, I realize.

I step toward the trio and find Em, Kainda, Mira and Kat walking with me. While Nephil’s delegation has only three members, I don’t think they’ll consider the four women a threat. Not only are they human, but the Nephilim are thousands of years old and without a doubt, sexist. But all three look unhappy when Cronus follows us. After all, Cronus is responsible for trapping the Nephilim in Tartarus the first time and keeping Nephil contained there for so long. Though they might not like it, the three god-demons are too proud to complain. They would look weak in front of their subjects.

Luca, I think.

What are you going to do? the little me replies.

Put the shofar behind your back, I tell him. Slowly. Hide it from view. But be ready.

For what?

I’m not sure yet.

Done, he thinks.

“You have fought bravely,” Nephil says to me when I stop twenty feet away. “You have inflicted casualties worthy of your hunter heritage, despite your...” He touches his hair, but he’s talking about mine. “...condition. Ninnis would be proud.”

He’s trying to goad me into action. Draw me closer. If he does that, he could take me while his army charged. If they attacked now, I could still escape. He must know this. So he has to trap me, or convince me to surrender. But two can play this game. He needs me alive, which is basically a get out of jail free card.

I turn to Zeus. “Do you call it Thunderbolt? The sword?”

He smiles a toothy grin and says with a powerful voice, “It is a name that—”

Krakoom! A lightning bolt snaps from the sky, striking the ancient god-man. Smoldering, he falls to his knees, and then to his face.

The Nephilim horde erupts with laughter. They approve of this kind of grandstanding.

Nephil, on the other hand, looks at me the way a crocodile does a dangling hunk of meat. He longs for this power of mine. It would make him unstoppable. A true god among men.

Zeus recovers from the lightning blast and pushes himself up with a groan that becomes a roar. He lifts his jagged sword from the ground and prepares to throw himself at me. But before the giant can lunge, a black tendril blocks his path.

“You would not make it ten feet,” Nephil says. It’s not a threat from Nephil, but a warning. He eyes me, and then Cronus. Zeus isn’t a match for either of us.

Zeus sneers, but stands and retakes his place by Nephil’s side.

Nephil moves a little closer, propelled by the dark tendrils. He stops when Cronus tenses, ready to attack. “If we are done with the theater, Ull, I would like to make you an offer.”

I wait in silence.

“Your life,” he says, and then he spreads his arms out toward my army. “For theirs.”

“You would spare them?” I ask, not believing it for a second. “You would spare the human race?”

“The human race? No,” he says. “But what little remains of your army will be spared. Your comrades. Your friends. And I dare say—” He glances at the four women standing to my sides. “—your loved ones.”

“You’ll make them hunters?” I ask.

“Naturally.”

“And use them to hunt and kill humans around the world.”

He shrugs. “A likely scenario. But they will live until the natural end of their days.”

Given the fact that we’ve managed to save or kill the vast majority of Nephil’s hunters, I think his offer is genuine. Until the global human genocide is complete, the Nephilim will need hunters to go where they can’t.

I look to Kainda and Em, finding uncompromising glares. I find the same from Kat and Mira.

The choice is obvious, but not.

You must trust me, I think to them all.

I see Kainda glance toward me, fighting not to show a reaction. But Nephil notices her.

“Ahh, dear daughter,” Nephil says.

“I am not your daughter.” Kainda’s voice is actually more intimidating than Nephil’s.

“He loved you, you know,” Nephil says. “Your father.”

Kainda tenses.

“He hid it well. From everyone. Even you. Sometimes himself.” Nephil lowers himself closer to the ground, making himself an easy target. “Have you ever wondered what your life—”

“Enough!” I say. He knows that eventually, Kainda will attack, and if she does, I will be drawn in with her. But it’s not necessary. I’m going to go willingly.

I step forward. When Kainda walks with me, I turn to her and say, “You must stay. Let me do this.”

“Solomon,” she says, her voice uncommonly fearful. Her fear is understandable. Not only am I her husband, she is also keenly aware of what my sacrifice means. She will live, but as a hunter, broken again in servitude to the Nephilim. She would rather die.

“Trust me,” I say, and then, “I love you.”

“Forever,” she says.

“Forever.” She lets go of my hand and I walk five paces closer to Nephil. “Let them live and you can take me.”

He stares at me, no doubt believing I would fight to the last man.

“You would sacrifice yourself for this lot?” Nephil says, sounding doubtful.

“Are you trying to change my mind?” I ask, “because I could be on the other side of the continent in less than an hour and we can do this all over again in a few months.”

He slides closer to me, within striking distance for sure. He stares into my eyes for a moment, perhaps looking for betrayal. Instead, he finds something unexpected.

Mercy. Forgiveness. Love.

He settles to the ground and the darkness coils inside his body. We’re just two men now, standing face-to-face. He speaks quietly so that only I can hear him. “There was a time when I respected your kind. You’re capable of things my brethren will never understand. And you, Ull, are the best of them. You remind me of a man, Ziusudra. He led a human tribe, like yours, the last of his kind. The world was nearly ours. The human race was no longer human. And then, a flood. Ziusudra’s tribe survived. Your kind was spared.”

Nephil turns his head toward the sky. “But the skies are clear and not even your power is enough to drown us all.”

“But together,” I say.

Nephil smiles, revealing Ninnis’s remaining rotted teeth. “Together, we will remake the world.”

I sigh and say, “Just get it over wi—”

The blackness explodes from Ninnis’s body and pierces mine like a thousand bee stings. My body arches back and is lifted off the ground.

“The body!” Nephil shouts. “Bring it to me.”

My mind reels. My consciousness twists through my brain, experiencing one sense and then another. For a moment, I can hear, but not see. Then I can smell, but not feel. I am losing my body.

I feel something in my mouth, soft and squishy, like old pudding. Then I suddenly taste it and know exactly what it is. Nephil’s body. After consuming this small remnant of Nephil’s physical being, he will be able to bond with me permanently. I thought the body would be lost after I vomited it up the first time, but they have managed to save it all this time.

When both my sense of taste and touch fade, it’s a mercy, but when a surge of energy thunders through my body, I know that I’ve swallowed the flesh of Nephil once more.

Wait, I think to Luca, desperately hoping the message will be received and sent to everyone else.

The darkness snakes through me, filling my body with waves of nausea. My mind is assaulted as Nephil’s consciousness spreads into the deepest recesses of my mind. It’s time, I think. He’s gone far enough. Now! I shout out with my mind, but the thought echoes back. Darkness surrounds me.

I waited too long. Nephil has taken my body!

37

“Goodbye, Ull,” Nephil says, and I feel him pushing on me, forcing me from my own mind and into the oblivion that awaits Nephilim. I won’t die, I’ll simply be trapped in this dark place for the rest of time, or until an asteroid destroys the planet or the sun becomes a red giant and absorbs the Earth.

Before I wink out of existence, I feel a building pressure. It’s not Nephil, it’s opposing Nephil. Resisting him.

And it’s not me.

As the pressure behind me builds, a searing pain ignites in my mind and I feel, more than hear Nephil’s surprise.

Push him back, Solomon!

The voice screams at me, focusing my thoughts as I focus on the name of the one speaking to me. Xin!

This was his gift.

His consciousness has been buried in my head, waiting for this moment, defending my mind against the one who could take it.

Push him back, but do not expel him.

Then what? I ask.

Control him!

Bind him!

And then—I start to ask, but the answer comes to me.

As the wall of darkness is pushed to the fringe of my mind, I feel my body again. I can sense the world around me. I hear my own voice, screaming, but I also hear Nephil, screaming through Ninnis. He’s connected to both of us!

Zeus and Enlil look on. I doubt either knows what to expect from this bonding. They have no idea that Nephil is being repelled. Not repelled, I think, contained.

“Now, Solomon!” Cronus shouts, then I hear him scream to his remaining Titans, “For the King!”

Through foggy vision, I see Cronus charge past, sword drawn. He leaps at Zeus and with one swing, lops the surprised giant’s head from his shoulders. His second swing is parried by Enlil and the Nephilim horde rushes in, held at bay by twelve Titans, hacking and slashing with a bravery that sets my mind to the task.

Luca, I think, the horn!

I turn to find the small boy lifting the horn.

Over your head, I tell him.

He holds it high.

As I reach out to the elements, I feel Nephil grow stronger. He’s pushing Xin and me back. But then, the wind obeys and explodes through the shofar with a force beyond that of the amplified speaker system. The valley vibrates with its power. The Nephilim army shrieks and wails. And then, all at once, the shofar shatters, the last of its sound echoing off the valley walls.

Nephil’s darkness tears out of me, retreating to Ninnis’s body. But he finds no refuge there.

Ninnis...is himself.

His intense eyes lock onto mine and we come to an understanding. Ninnis twitches and screams as Nephil fights for control. He falls to his knees, clutching his chest. Tendrils of darkness squirm out of him, but are pulled back inside.

“I have him, boy!” Ninnis shouts and then screams again. “I can’t hold him for long.”

Ninnis’s strength is beyond comprehension. The combined consciousnesses of Xin and I struggled to repel the monster, but Ninnis is binding him on his own. Knowing what to do, I walk to Ninnis, but before I reach him, I fall to my knees. My stomach revolts, roiling. Then I vomit, a single glob of coagulated purple blood, coated in bile splatters to the ground.

Free of Nephil’s body, my strength returns. As it does, my sense of Xin’s presence fades. I will see you again, brother, he thinks, and then he’s gone. Again. But there’s no time to mourn the brief return and loss of Xin. I quickly focus on the glob of flesh below my face, removing the fluid from it with a thought. With the body of Nephil reduced to dust, I crawl to Ninnis and wrap my arms over his back, lending my strength to his. The darkness cuts through us both now, and together we fight.

But not alone.

I feel a hand on my back. Then another. I look up and find Kat and Mira supporting me. Ninnis raises his head, too, feeling the hands on him as well. “Daughter!” he says, surprised to find Kainda’s head just inches from his own.

“I’m here, father,” she says, her words full of compassion.

Ninnis’s lips tremble. When he looks the other way and finds Em, he sobs. “But—I killed your father!”

“And I forgive you,” Em says. She turns her eyes to me. “Do it.”

Finding strength in the faithful resolve of these four women, my hope, faith, focus and passion, I turn my thoughts to the Earth, to my larger body. I reach out, further than ever before, for hundreds of miles, until I feel the deep dark void that was the first behemoth’s home.

With a scream of exertion from me, the ground beneath us opens up and swallows us whole. We descend on a disk of stone and soil, rocketing downward at an angle like we’re on a rollercoaster fashioned in hell. Strata of Antarktos flash past in a blur as we descend through millennia of time, back toward the very beginning of mankind, of Nephilim and this ancient conflict.

Nephil reaches out, struggling to leave the confines of Ninnis’s body. One by one, we shout in pain, feeling his dark touch. But Nephil finds a united front and a cage of unwilling hosts.

And then, we arrive. We drop through the cavern’s ceiling. It takes a supreme effort to slow us before we strike the ground, but I manage. Nephil realizes where we are before the others do and he explodes with fury, screaming, “No!” through Ninnis.

The darkness swirls out of Ninnis, striking Kainda, Kat, Mira and Em away. They sprawl across the cavern floor.

The tentacles quickly fade again, reeled in by Ninnis. “Quickly, Solomon!” He looks over his shoulder to the gates of Tartarus, which oddly enough, already lie open.

I throw his arm around my shoulder and we hobble together toward the gates. As we walk, Ninnis speaks through grinding teeth. “Solomon. I cannot thank you enough. You have saved me.”

“And now you, us,” I say. “We’re even.”

“Not remotely,” he says, grunting in pain. “My daughter. You will care for her?”

“She is my wife,” I tell him, and he manages a pain-filled laugh. He places his forehead against mine and whispers, “Son.”

Despite all of the horrible things Ninnis has done, all of the people he has killed and the anguish he has caused, I find it in my heart to forgive him again. “Father,” I whisper.

He barks loudly, and I can’t tell if it’s a laugh or a sob, but it transforms into a shout of pain. “Gah!”

I’m thrown away by a curtain of black.

Nephil has taken control again. He turns to face me, just a foot away from the gaping blackness of the open gate.

I catch myself with a cushion of air.

Ninnis’s eyes appear for a moment, filled with concern, not for entering the gate, but that Nephil might yet escape.

I summon a wind, throwing it at Ninnis. Black tendrils shoot out, embedding themselves in the floor. Hurricane force winds slam into Nephil, but he resists, rooted like some ancient tree. He’s shouting at me, but his words are lost in the wind.

Unfortunately, Nephil is fueled by rage, anger and hatred. Exhausted from the battle, and our journey through the center of the Earth that would boggle Jules Verne, I am growing weaker. Fast.

I fall to my knees, urging the wind to grow stronger, but I can feel its force ebbing along with my reserves. On my hands and knees, I can now hear Nephil laughing, fully possessing Ninnis once more. I turn my head up and look at him. I’m sickened by his smile, by the look of victory in his eyes.

So close, I think, we were so close.

Tears roll down my cheeks.

The world is lost. Nephil has w—

A pair of arms slip out of the darkness behind Nephil. They’re human, but strong. Before Nephil can react, the arms wrap around Ninnis’s throat and lock together in a perfect chokehold. The black tendrils flare wildly, but they cannot assail their attacker. To do so would mean passing through the gate!

The darkness grips the cavern floor like an angry squid, but while Nephil is spirit, Ninnis is human, and his beet-red face, now turning purple reveals a desperate need for oxygen. As Ninnis’s eyes flutter, the tendrils lose their power and one by one, they slide free from the rock.

Then, all at once, Ninnis falls back and is yanked through the gates of Tartarus, taking Nephil with him.

I sit up, staring at the gates, unbelieving. That’s it? We’ve won?

I look around, finding Em, Kainda, Mira and Kat, all climbing back to their feet, staring at the gate with the same look of disbelief frozen on their faces.

Em looks at me and laughs.

A smile creeps onto my face despite the pain waging a war on my body.

“We did it...” Mira says, sounding relieved.

When I turn to Kainda, I’m surprised to find tears in her eyes. Then I remember that it was Ninnis, her father, who ultimately saved us. Returned to his true self, he became the man I always knew he was, and probably the man that Kainda always wanted him to be.

It’s Kat’s reaction that really catches me off guard. She walks toward the open gates. Then she runs.

“Kat!” I shout to her. She doesn’t know what lies on the other side. She doesn’t—

She shouts, and I flinch at the word. “Steve!” She shouts again, desperate. “Steve!”

Just as she’s about to dive through the gates, the arms emerge again, and then the body they belong to. Kat shouts her husband’s name again and dives into his arms, nearly tackling them both back through the gates.

“Wright!” I shout, and I’m on my feet and running. When I reach the pair, I wrap my arms around them both. “You’re alive!”

He laughs and pats my shoulder. “I’m not easy to kill.”

“But the hunters,” I say, remembering the dire situation we left him in.

“Were only interested in you,” he says. “They left me to die, but I found my way here, to the gates.”

“But how did you open them?” I ask.

“I didn’t,” he says.

“I did,” says a booming voice from above. Cronus drops through the hole in the ceiling, his wings unfurling to stop his fall.

“You’re alive!” I say, surprised. “But Adoel—”

“—is even more cryptic than I am,” he finishes with a grin. He turns to the gate and finding no sign of Nephil, says, “You have done well, young King. The dark lord Ophion was still connected to the warriors above when he left this world.”

“You mean—”

He nods. “His army is in ruin.” He steps toward the open gates, takes one and closes it. “But your work as King has only begun. The lesser clans are scattered, but living, as are those hiding among men. Battles await you in the future, but mankind is saved.”

He reaches for the second door and begins to close it, stepping toward the darkness. It’s now that I notice there are no other Titans present. “The other Titans?” I ask.

“Fallen,” he says. “I am the last. The keeper of Tartarus. Guardian of Ophion.”

“You will be alone,” I say.

“Adoel would say that one is never alone in paradise,” he says. “But I will have company.”

Ninnis, I think. “Before you go,” I say, reaching into a pouch attached to my belt. I pull out my very used, first edition copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress, and hand it to Cronus. “For Ninnis. It will help.”

He takes the book, offers a nod, and says, “Farewell, young King. Peace be with you.” And then he slides into the darkness of the gate and closes the giant door behind him.

Kainda, Em and Mira gather around Wright, Kat and me.

Mira gives Wright a hug and says, “Glad you’re alive, boy scout.”

“Likewise,” he says, then nods to Kainda and Em. “Thank you for taking care of my wife.” He kisses Kat’s forehead. “I’m not exactly an expert on this, but I think we should get topside before we miss the next year.”

He’s right. If we stay much longer, the day above will end before our return.

I lead them to the circle of earth upon which we descended into the depths. With everyone standing atop the stone, I look at each of them—Em, Kat and Mira, my sisters, Wright, my brother, and Kainda my wife. My family. My dear ones. I want to say something, but I’m at a loss for words.

“Just take us home, kid,” Kat says.

I laugh, turn my head to the ceiling and we rise. Through the air. Through the earth. Through Antarktos, the land that is me and is now, after thousands of years, free.

Epilogue
1

It’s been six months since the human race stood up against impossible odds and survived. In that time, the world has changed a lot. Nations are coming together to form a global alliance in which the new resources of Antarctica are shared responsibly, but also in the tracking down of any surviving Nephilim. The warriors are all but wiped out, but the other classes: gatherers, thinkers, breeders, feeders, shifters and more, are still living and active in numbers, though now in hiding. The most dangerous are the shifters, who hide in plain sight, looking like any other human being.

But we will find them all in time.

In addition to working together, world leaders have also recognized my individual claim to Antarktos. And when the hunters proclaimed me King, the outside world cheered. Videos and images of the final battle, how it was fought and won, have surfaced. I didn’t even know it was being recorded. But the whole world knows what happened and understands the sacrifices that were made. They also know what I can do, and of my connection to the land, which I suspect has a lot to do with their accepting my leadership.

After all, if someone decided to drill for oil on Antarktos without my permission, I would know just as easily as I would feel someone prick my skin with a needle. With every passing day, my connection to the continent deepens, and grows easier to control. The land is fertile. Life is plentiful. And the human population that has chosen to relocate to Antarktos, is happy.

Not that everyone wants to immigrate. Many prefer to stay where they were, comfortable in their own homes and a safe distance from Antarktos, where the supernatural world, dinosaurs and an underground labyrinth is all part of everyday life. And that’s why I’m here. In New Mexico.

As we left Antarktos, roughly thirty miles from the coast I felt my connection to the continent fade. It’s not gone completely, so I have no fear that the connection won’t come back in full upon my return, but my abilities have all but vanished for now. I feel a bit naked. And vulnerable. Not that I’m alone.

Wright and Kat, dressed in black, carry assault rifles. I wasn’t sure we’d be allowed to carry weapons once we got to the U.S., but I’ve been granted diplomatic immunity, pretty much everywhere. One of the perks of saving the world. Em and Kainda, who are dressed as average American civilians in jeans and T-shirts, carry their hammer and knives, unwilling to part with the weapons. They did change their clothes, though, which was surprising. Back on Antarktos, we still dress as we did as hunters. We’re accustomed to it, but given the tropical climate, it’s also more comfortable. For them. I still don’t feel the temperature...though I’m feeling it here. The summer heat, which is far more humid than New Mexico would have been before the global shift, is like a warm blanket, comforting me in this time of great stress.

I have faced many things over the past few years...but I don’t think anything could prepare me for this.

Mira, dressed like Em and Kainda, heads for the ranch’s front door. Like me, she is unarmed. Her weapon of choice these days has been the camera. She’s back at work, taking photos, sharing the wonders of Antarktos with the world through her camera’s lens.

As for me, I feel uncomfortable in cargo shorts and a T-shirt, but I manage. At least I can remember what it feels like to wear normal clothes. Em and Kainda never had the experience. My hair is still long, but it has been trimmed, and washed. The hardest change was actually wearing shoes again. I opted for flip flops. Whipsnap is in the car; I didn’t think carrying the weapon to this meeting would be appropriate.

Mira stops in front of the door and looks back at me. “You ready?”

I nod. I’m too nervous to speak.

She knocks.

“Coming,” a voice shouts in reply. I nearly break down in tears right then. The last time I heard this voice, it was being impersonated by a Nephilim creation, birthed by a breeder, and I was forced to kill it. My own mother.

The door swings open and there she is. Her hair has grayed, but only partially, and it’s just as wavy as I remember it. “Oh,” she says in surprise when she sees the large number of people standing outside her door. Then she notices Mira and her face lights up. “Mira, dear! How are you? We’ve been following your journeys. Mark keeps a box full of your photos. Seems like we have to add to it nearly every day.”

Mira embraces my mother. “Thank you, Beth. May we come in?”

My mom looks at the group again, this time meeting my eyes and showing no recognition. Her memory of me has been blocked, just as Merrill’s and Aimee’s were. The Clarks are living in Antarctica now, in what Merrill has deemed Clark Station Three. They’re studying the ancient human cultures that lived on the continent before it was buried beneath the ice. Merrill nearly passed out when he saw the paintings inside the nunatak.

“Sure,” my mom says. “I’ll get you and your friends something to drink.”

“Did I hear Mira?” my father says, rounding the corner into the hallway. His hair is still black and curly, but it’s receded to the sides and back of his head. He’s healthy and hale. His face lights up when he sees Mira. After giving her a big bear hug, he stands back and looks at the group. Once again, I’m not recognized. Though he is excited to see us. “You must be her friends from Antarktos! Come in, you have to tell me everything.”

Kainda puts a gentle hand on my shoulder. She knows how hard this is for me.

My dad leads the way through the front hallway. This house looks nothing like the one I grew up in. The style is all Southwestern. In fact, I can’t find a single relic of my past life. That is, until we pass the living room.

I stop in the doorway, staring.

The painting looks out of place. The lighthouse, and seascape are in stark contrast to the New Mexico feel of the home.

My father notices my attention on the painting when everyone else enters the kitchen with my mother.

“What is it, son?” he asks.

My heart skips a beat, but then I realize he’s using “son” as a generic term. He stands next to me. “It’s an ugly thing, that painting. But Beth likes it. Reminds her of the old house.”

“Why did you move?” I ask.

“I—I really don’t know.” He shrugs. “One day...it just didn’t feel like home any more.”

I turn to my father and ask, “Do you know who I am?”

He shakes his head, no.

“My name is Solomon.”

After a moment, his eyes widen. “The Solomon? The...the king?”

“Yes,” I say, exasperated by this response. “My full name is Solomon Ull Vincent.”

“Vincent?” he says, confused. “My last name is—”

“Vincent,” I say. “I know. I’m—” I stop. Trying to convince him is pointless. Even if he believed me, it wouldn’t change anything. I take his hand and recite a random sentence, spoken by my father in the past. “Summer in Antarctica begins in about seven weeks.”

He looks at me, dumbfounded. “Isn’t it always summer in Antarctica now?”

It didn’t work.

I had two fears about this trip. The first is that it wouldn’t work here. That I’d have to somehow get my parents to Antarctica to restore their memories. My second fear is that it wouldn’t work at all, no matter where we were. Xin gave me that ability to restore memories erased by the Nephilim, but maybe that gift only extended to the Clark family.

While my father is still impressed enough by my celebrity to not be worried about my strangeness, I say, “Mr. Vincent, can you have your wife join us? I’d like to ask you both something.”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” He heads for the kitchen.

While I’m waiting, I turn around and look at the painting again.

The painting!

I rush over to it, and pull the painting from the wall, revealing a safe. The same safe!

I turn the dial left and right, entering the combination: 7-21-38.

“Hey,” my father says, more confused than angry. “You can’t open that. It needs a combin—”

The safe door swings open silencing my father.

“Mark, what is he doing?” my mom asks.

The others have gathered around them. Nearly losing my mind, I rifle through the safe, spilling its contents on the floor until I find it. The pouch. Immediately, I know that something is different. There had been a photo inside, of my parents and the Clarks. It was inscribed with a note from Merrill, congratulating my parents on my birth. The Nephilim who erased me from history were thorough.

But the small, hard lump remains. I shake the stone out of the pouch. When it hits my hands, I feel a surge of power, not unlike the first time I held this stone, this fragment of Antarctica.

“Are...you okay?” my father asks.

Regaining my composure, I hold the stone up. “This is a part of Antarktos, a part of me.” I walk to my dumbstruck parents. The King of Antarktos has just broken into their safe and retrieved a small chunk of granite. “Just as the both of you are.”

Holding the stone beneath one thumb, I hold my hands out to both of them. “Take my hands.”

They look at each other, confused by the request, but Mira encourages them, saying, “It’s okay.”

They tentatively take my hands. I swallow, take a deep breath and then speak the words my parents said to me exactly seven thousand five hundred and thirty one times during the thirteen years I was with them, “I love you.”

Epilogue 2

Belgrave Ninnis stepped into the chilly darkness. His skin rose with goose bumps, and his bare limbs shivered. It had been a long time since he felt the biting chill of the underground. But it was not yet entirely foreign to him. A hunter never forgets these things. Of course, Ninnis wasn’t just a hunter. He was a husband. A father. And a man of honor.

He was also old, a fact that he was reminded of with every step of his upward journey. He walked without stopping, spurred onward by anticipation. Remembering his own training, he pushed through the pain until at last, he felt warm sunlight on his face. He stepped from the cave and found himself surrounded by lush green in every direction.

Without a location in mind, he set out, eating fruit from the land and drinking greedily from the clear flowing waters that he seemed to find whenever he grew thirsty. He walked for days like this until he found a stone path winding through the jungle. He looked in both directions, unsure of which direction to follow.

A distant thrumming grew louder. He recognized the sound and searched for a place to hide. But it was upon him too quickly. He turned to face the predatory dinosaur, but there was no need to fight. The dinosaur had a rider—a man with thick dark hair. The man gave a nod and removed his dark tinted sunglasses.

“You’re pretty far from anywhere useful,” the man said. “You want a ride?”

“On that?” Ninnis said.

“Are you new to Antarktos?” the man asked. “Are you lost?”

“No, but I’m afraid, yes.”

Accepting the man’s offer, Ninnis climbed onto the dinosaur’s back, finding a vacant second saddle waiting for him. They rode in silence for a long time, and Ninnis admired the jungle, the lushness of it, and the life. It reminded him of the place that had been his home for the past year.

As the sun began to set, the man finally said, “I never asked you where you were going?”

After a pause, Ninnis said, “To see the King.”

“You’re in luck, then,” the man said. “So am I.”

Not ten minutes later, a mountain citadel came into view. It was unlike anything Ninnis had ever seen before, in his time before Antarctica, as a hunter in the underworld or during his time in Tartarus. It occurred to him then, that far more than a year had passed. Nervousness swelled as he feared he was too late. “How many years has it been?” he asked, as they rode through the city gates, and were greeted with friendly waves from an assortment of people. “Since the war?”

The man looked back and said to himself, though Ninnis heard him clearly, “Man, I hope my memory doesn’t go some day.”

“Please,” Ninnis said. “How long?”

“Twenty years,” the man said.

Twenty years. Thank God.

The man tied the dinosaur to a post where several others were drinking from a fountain. “This way,” he said, leading Ninnis past a graveyard. Ninnis glanced at the stones. Some names meant nothing to him: Brigadier General Kent Holloway, Lieutenant Elias Baker, First Lieutenant Victor Cruz, Zok, Vesuvius. But others plucked at his heart, threatening to return a burden he had managed to leave behind in Tartarus. He read their names, one by one: Xin. Tobias. Cerberus. Hades. Zuh. Adoni. Men, women, and Nephilim who fought for what was right, against him, and sacrificed everything.

Ninnis looked up at the tower above. Its smooth surface, lacking any ornate décor, reflected the late day sun, glowing orange. The tower was surrounded by walls lined with trees, staircases and walkways. A flag blowing in the wind caught his attention. White, with an image of Antarctica, a single gold star at its core. He remembered seeing it on the battlefield, a symbol of mankind’s unity. Everywhere he looked, he saw people, living their lives in safety.

The sacrifices of the men, women and creatures lain to rest in this graveyard were not made in vain, Ninnis thought.

He paused by the last two sets of gravestones. He only knew one of them, but he knew who the others were and what they meant to Solomon. Dr. Merrill Clark and Aimee Clark, beloved parents who fought for us all. And then, Mark Vincent and Beth Vincent, beloved parents returned to the King. Wiping tears from his eyes, Ninnis noticed the dates and found all of them to be more recent than not. It wouldn’t make up for the years he’d stolen from the boy, but it was something.

“Can you handle a few stairs?” the man asked.

Ninnis nearly laughed. He’d already climbed out of the depths of the underworld. A few stairs wouldn’t hurt. But there were more than a few. He had to stop twice to rest.

“Need some help?” the man asked, sounding genuinely concerned and less sarcastic.

Ninnis sighed. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

They climbed the rest of the stairs together. “Where are we going?” Ninnis asked when they reached the top flight of stairs. Before them stood a pair of large wooden doors, arched at the top. Over the top of the arch was a capstone engraved with the words, None Shall Remove.

“To see the King,” the man answered.

“You can just walk in and have an audience with the King?” Ninnis asked. It didn’t sound logical or safe.

The man smiled. “No. I just happen to be his constable.”

“But...” Ninnis said, “I’m just an old man you plucked from the side of the road.”

The constable stopped with a hand on one of the doors. “Actually, he sent me to get you.”

“Sent you? Who?”

“The King, of course.”

The man shoved the door open and Ninnis froze. There before him was the last thing he expected to see. It was a banquet. An enormous bounty. But it was the people...hundreds of them, standing, staring at him.

The constable smiled and waved him inside.

Ninnis took an unsure footstep. Then another, lost in the sea of faces, until he stopped on one he knew. Solomon. The boy stood just ten feet away. But he looked so young, as though little time had passed. “S—Solomon?”

“No,” the boy chuckled. “I’m Luca. Sol is up there.”

Ninnis followed the young man’s finger to the center of the room, where a strong man with long blond hair, broad shoulders and a full beard stood smiling. Beside him was a woman whose strength radiated like the sun. Beside them sat several children, a veritable brood of them. As his eyes scanned to the side, he saw other faces he knew, aged, but living. These were Solomon’s friends, the ones who helped him save the human race.

Solomon cleared his voice and nodded to the constable, “Thank you, Justin.”

Solomon turned to Ninnis and smiled. “Welcome home, father,” he motioned to the children beside him. “Grandfather.”

Ninnis stared at the children, his grandchildren.

The emotion of it all weakened his weary legs. He feared he might fall, but a strong grasp held him up. He turned to find the blazing eyes of his daughter, Kainda, the Queen, who had left her spot by the King. She held him up like he weighed nothing at all. “I have you, father, and I will not let you go.”

He smiled at her, tears in his eyes, and said, “Nor I you.”

With a loud voice, Solomon proclaimed, “Tonight we celebrate the return of Belgrave Ninnis, who was dead, and is alive again. Who was lost, and is now found. We welcome him not just as father and grandfather, but as the man who lost his life, who endured torture, the breaking, and enslavement, and in the end, when the world was on the brink, managed to find a strength that is impossible to comprehend. He bound the darkness and removed it from our world.”

Cheers and clapping erupted around the dining hall.

King Solomon raised a glass in a toast. “To Ninnis! The man who saved us all.”

Fin.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Dear Reader,

You have just finished The Last Hunter – Collected Edition, a story that is close to my heart, and hopefully, now close to yours. I wanted to take a moment to thank you for reading. I hope you have enjoyed the journey and that you will come back for more adventures. I have plenty of other novels to entertain you before our hopeful, eventual, return to the realm of Antarktos. If you did enjoy the book, please show your support by posting a review online. Most online stores work on algorithms, meaning the more people review my books, the more those stores will recommend them to other readers. And the more people buy my books, the more I get to write them, which is a good thing for both of us (assuming you enjoyed the book). If you’d like to read more books in the Antarktos universe, be sure to say so in your review. Unlike other authors, I read every single one, and I pay attention to them. So head online and tell the world what you thought of this book.

To thank you for purchasing The Last Hunter – Collected Edition, I have included an exclusive short story, “The Children of Antarktos”, which creates the possibility for future Antarktos novels. I’ve also included an interview featuring questions from fans of the series. Thank you!

—Jeremy Robinson
www.jeremyrobinsononline.com

AN INTERVIEW WITH

JEREMY ROBINSON

What was your inspiration for The Antarktos Saga?

My inspiration for the Saga was actually my previously written novel Antarktos Rising, which parallels Book 3, Ascent. I created the world of Antarktos for that novel, and I decided I hadn’t explored it nearly enough. There was a whole civilization and thousands of years of history still to explore, not to mention the entire Antarctic continent and all the strange creatures that lived there. If we step back in time to when I first wrote Antarktos Rising, my initial inspiration was from the Biblical Nephilim. That these giants, who are recorded in many cultures worldwide, might have existed, is what initially captured my imagination. That they might still exist is what fueled my creative fires for Antarktos Rising, and subsequently for the entire Antarktos Saga and four years of writing. What would half-human, half-demon giants be like? What would they want? And more than that, where would such beings hide for thousands of years? The answers to those questions became Antarktos Rising and The Antarktos Saga.

The character of Solomon Ull Vincent seems so well rounded and real. How did you develop his personality and unique voice?

Solomon is based on two people I know very well. His childhood, growing up in the 70s and 80s, and living in New England, is basically me. The volcano he got for his birthday, drawing while watching Saturday morning cartoons, the root beer and pepperoni pizza party, even the layout of his house, are all straight out of my childhood. But his look and personality are based on the original Solomon, my son, who has the same hair, physique and intensity as Solomon in the story—well, he’s seven right now, so more like Luca. But most importantly, the fictional Solomon’s personality—his compassion, gentleness, curiosity and his capacity for forgiveness—is based on my son, who is the perfect example of those attributes. I started writing The Antarktos Saga when he was four, and I thought those parts of his personality might fade with age, but he’s even more gentle and compassionate now that he’s seven. So when I write Solomon Ull Vincent, it is very easy to get inside his head. In a very real way, he’s inside my head, and I’m probably a better person for it. He’s a good guy. I can only hope I’ll be as good.

The story draws from a lot of different source materials—the Bible, ancient mythology and modern conspiracy theories to name a few. What led to this strange amalgamation?

It’s not as strange as one might think. It was merely a process of connecting the dots. If we assume the Nephilim are real (which many people do) then we have to consider what they are. Not only are they described as giants, but they also sometimes have animal traits. This very quickly brings to mind humanity’s most ancient myths, where demigods—strange creatures and gods who mate with human women—are common. All of mankind’s ancient myths are very easily explained if the Nephilim are real, all the way back to the ancient Sumerians, who have their own Nephilim legends. Taking the description of the Nephilim and looking at cultures around the world, two things became apparent. There are recorded encounters with giants in nearly every culture on Earth. Similarly, those cultures also have global flood myths, which very nearly wiped the Nephilim out. But, as the Bible records, “there were Nephilim on the Earth in those days, and also afterward.”

Now we move to the modern day, and if we ignore Bigfoot sightings, what kind of Nephilim presence could there be? To answer that question, we have to consider what the Nephilim of history were doing. Primarily, they were screwing around with genetics, creating twisted variants of humans and animals through the supernatural manipulation of our genes. Who else does that? Greys. The so called “aliens” that kidnap people in the night and take samples for genetic manipulation. They might not be described as giants, but a species can change a lot over several thousands of years, and as I propose in The Antarktos Saga, it’s possible that there are simply different classes with different specialties—something that we also saw in The Man of Steel, the most recent incarnation of Superman. Story concepts, for me, are all about connecting dots no one even knew existed. If you have an open mind, it’s possible to find connections between what, on the surface, feel like very disparate topics.

Question from Mike Pastore: How difficult was it to seam the adventures together, like mentioning something briefly in Antarktos Rising, then going into great description of the event in The Last Hunter?

I was terrified when I began The Last Hunter – Descent that I would totally space out on the details and screw up the continuity of both books. But I don’t think that happened once, not even in a minor way. Antarktos Rising has always been one of my favorite books (of mine), and the story and characters were still very much alive in my head when writing the Saga. The general rule of thumb was that nothing in the Saga could contradict Antarktos Rising, since AR was already published. But there was also a lot in Antarktos Rising that was unseen, including most of the Nephilim subterranean world. Also, until the end of Book 3, when the stories converge, there wasn’t too much to worry about. But the end of Book 3 and the beginning of Book 4 were the trickiest parts. In some ways, I think the stories were always meant to be together. When I started Descent, I had no idea that the crustal displacement in Antarktos Rising would be caused by Solomon’s powers, but when I started writing that scene, it was like it had always been there. Really, it all just fell into place. Let’s just call it divine inspiration... Man, I really want to put a smiley face after that, but this isn’t Facebook!

Question from Jim Cobb: When you were writing AR, did you already have the longer saga in mind or did that develop later?

I wrote Antarktos Rising in 2005, and I didn’t write the first Antarktos Saga book until 2010, so there was a five year gap between the writing. During that time, I had no idea I would be expanding the Antarktos world. Really, it kind of just came to me one day—this intense feeling that I would really like to explore the subterranean realm of Antarktos. It started with me daydreaming what the underworld would look like, and what would live there. But it was the realization that my son, Solomon, with his kind heart, heroic ways and gnarly long hair would fit right into the Antarktos world that really pushed me to write the Saga. Happily, Antarktos Rising was already set up to be continued, so once I finished the first two books of the Saga, they zippered together nicely.

Question from Connor James: Can we please get more books set in the Antarktos Universe?

While I haven’t completely dismissed this idea, I’m not yet planning on it either. That said, it’s entirely possible that we could either get more books about Solomon, as King of Antarktos, rooting out the remaining Nephilim around the world. Or we could introduce more characters. But if you really need a little more Solomon, check out my novella, I am Cowboy, which is a spinoff of my novel, SecondWorld. There’s a little something extra in the book that is making The Last Hunter fans very happy.

Question from Cherei McCarter: Did the scientific group that drilled through to the deep lake mess with your stories at all?

Because The Antarktos Saga is largely fantasy, there was never really a chance that anything they discovered in Antarctica could hurt the story (though they could confirm parts of it!). They’re just lucky the crustal displacement didn’t happen while they were drilling through the ice. The one story of mine it does mess with a bit, is Beneath, which starts out at Lake Vostok, in Antarctica. The characters are preparing to melt through the ice in search of extremophile microbes. So, really, I predicted the future accurately (Beneath was first written in 1995). I just got the date wrong.

Question from Jenn Turkette: There are a few characters in Antarktos Rising, like Kat Farrell, that also appear in The Last Hunter books, so when you wrote Antarktos Rising, did you already have the plot ideas for the other books already in your mind?

Nope! Other than (spoiler alert for those who have not yet read Antarktos Rising) Kat surviving the end of the book, I had no specific idea about what the future held for her. I wrote her apparent demise vaguely on purpose, because I knew I wanted to someday write a sequel, but I had no idea it would turn out to be a five book epic in which she would become a major character. This is true for Wright, Aimee, Merrill and Mirabelle.

Question from Kyle Mohr: Out of all the Origins Edition stories, what made you choose Antarktos Rising to expand?

For those who don’t know, the Origins Edition stories are what I, and many fans, call my first five novels. They are, in chronological order, The Didymus Contingency, Raising the Past, Beneath, Antarktos Rising and Kronos. All five of them were self-published, and they effectively launched my career. They are my literary origins.

As for the question, I think it’s because the world created for Antarktos Rising was so vast and unexplored by the end of the book, that I never stopped thinking about what else could be there. I was, and still am, tempted to write sequels for the other Origins books, but none of them would become the five-book epic story that is The Antarktos Saga. There just isn’t a big enough world to explore, whereas, with Antarktos, the potential for stories are essentially limitless.

Question from Cherei McCarter: Do you believe Nephilim ever existed? And if so, why haven’t we found REAL proof of their existence?

In fact, I do. Beyond the fact that I trust the Bible as an accurate historical document, there is a lot of historical evidence for giants outside of the Bible—in the Book of Enoch and in the recorded history of most cultures around the world. If you consider the detailed descriptions of the Nephilim in the Bible and the Book of Enoch, and apply it to other myths, they fall into place. Now, I can’t say for certain whether Hercules was an actual living man, and that he was a Nephilim. I’m just saying it fits. And I believe, whatever they looked like (or still look like), the Nephilim are real. Do they look like the creatures I’ve conjured for The Antarktos Saga? Very unlikely. I kind of went nuts, with the exception of Thinkers and Seekers, the Nephilim races I based on two of the most commonly reported creatures associated with the modern “alien” abduction phenomenon. So, yeah, I’m a weirdo.

Question from Mike Pastore: Is a cataclysmic event of the magnitude that started Antarktos Rising an actual possibility or just scientific data manipulated for the storyline?

Absolutely! At some point in Earth’s future—possibly the near future—it’s almost a guarantee that an asteroid will strike. Or that the mega volcano beneath Yellowstone will erupt. Or any number of other horrible events that have happened in the past and are likely to happen again. As for the specific event featured in Antarktos Rising—crustal displacement—it’s one of the more unlikely scenarios, but it’s possible. Crustal displacement, also known as Polar Shift, is when the entire Earth’s crust, which rests upon a thick layer of molten lava, slips free and rotates. It could slip just a few feet (which would still be enough to cause worldwide havoc) or shift North Dakota to the North Pole and Antarctica to the equator. There is evidence that this has happened in the past, though some argue that it happened gradually, over long periods of time, rather than in a single day. So the severity and suddenness of the event in Antarktos Rising is me taking things to the extreme, but some do believe it’s possible.

Question from Steve Webster: Did you have all your ideas for the entire series (including creature design) or did bits fall into place while you were writing mid series?

Well, the Nephilim had been created for Antarktos Rising already, as were the cresties (Crylophosaurus). I can’t take credit for the cresties, though, since their fossils have actually been found on Antarctica. For the most part, I created the creatures living in Antarktos’s subterranean realm as I wrote. That’s generally the way I write my stories too. It all just kind of comes to me, either as I write, or while I’m daydreaming in the shower, or in bed. I don’t go through drafts of creatures, they just kind of spill from my subconscious, which is great fun, but also a little freaky. Where does all this dark stuff come from, anyway?

Question from Jim Williams: What ever happened to the Antarktos Rising movie?

Well, that’s something both of us would like to know! For those that haven’t heard about this, the mass market paperback of Antarktos Rising was published with a “Soon to be a major motion picture” star on the front cover, with basic info about the project at the back of the book. I’ve always felt horrible about including that on the cover, but I was assured on several occasions that the movie had been given the green light and that I should have no fear about announcing it on the book cover. Clearly, that was incorrect. The way I understand it, everything was going great, and the movie was about to start production. Then the banks went nuts, the economy tanked and all of the investors, whose other money was suddenly at risk, pulled out. Antarktos, along with a few other films, were dropped.

Question from Kyle Mohr: How much research did you have to do to ensure the accuracy of the story (from the archaeology, geography and military tactics) stayed in place? And also, how did you manage to make sure the story stayed realistic without muddling it up with monotonous detail?

I did research throughout the book, as I wrote it, but only when it made sense. While the series takes place in the modern world and is based on recorded history, a large part of it is fantasy. So while I researched things like Crylophosaurs, crustal displacement, Sumerian gods, McMurdo Base, and Lieutenant Belgrave Ninnis’s life (yeah, Ninnis was real guy!) I was also free to create most of the subterranean realm straight out of my head. Even the topography. Most of Antarctica is still covered in snow and ice. Who know what could be beneath it! In terms of realism versus boring detail, I think this is something I’ve worked on over the course of my writing career, not just for the Antarktos Saga. But it has never been a case of cutting detail for me, it’s remembering to add detail. I have to remember that the reader can’t see what’s in my head. At the same time, I’m very careful to not go into too much detail. I’m conscious of my own short attention span, but I also want to give the reader some imaginative freedom. I think my job is to lay down the blueprints and give the reader freedom to fill in the details, based on the limited suggestions provided by me. I think most readers prefer this, and it keeps the story moving at the pace I like best: fast.

BONUS SHORT STORY

Introduction

At the end of The Antarktos Saga, we’re treated to a look at the future, where Solomon is King, characters have passed away, Kainda is a mother and Ninnis is received as a hero. This all takes place twenty years after Nephil’s demise and leaves a large window of time in which to tell more stories about Solomon, Kainda, and other characters of Antarktos, as they build a new world, raise and train children hunters, and scour the underworld for Nephilim in hiding. This story takes place fifteen years after the end of Onslaught and introduces some fun new characters as well as visiting an old friend, while creating the possibility for future adventures in the Antarktos realm. I hope you enjoy The Children of Antarktos, a short story, which is only available in this collected edition.

—JR

THE CHILDREN OF

ANTARKTOS

The air is thick and clingy, like a hot summer day in my home state of Maine, if it weren’t now just a frozen wasteland. But it’s not July, August or even September. It’s November. Here on Antarktos, there are no fallen leaves to rake, no turkeys to baste and no pilgrims to remember. We’re tropical, three-hundred-and-sixty-five days a year. Fifteen years ago, Antarctica was still at the South Pole, covered in ice. Fifteen years ago, the world still made sense.

Not that I haven’t become accustomed to this new world, where I have supernatural powers and I’m recognized as the King of Antarktos. It’s not a title I aspired to, or ever wanted, but I was given a gift on the day of my birth, and some—okay, many—believe that I was chosen for this role. And I’ve grown into it, as Kainda, my wife and Queen, has grown into hers. I might have been chosen for this position, but she was made for hers. Strong, opinionated, unflappable. When she speaks, people listen. When she acts, they run for the hills.

Not that there has been any unrest on the continent since the events that set the human race free from the Nephilim. There has been tension, to be sure, between my fellow hunters, who believe the continent is rightfully theirs, and those of the outside world, who have slowly been immigrating to Antarktos. Early on, there was also tension between outside nations as they set up towns and vied for prime locations. I stopped that problem by forbidding outside nations to claim anything on my continent. I might be uncomfortable with my position as King, but I am physically connected to the land. What is done to the continent, is done to me, and I take it personally. And since I can literally control the entire continent, I don’t get much argument.

The only real danger on Antarktos remains the Nephilim. Although most of them died in the final battle, many of the lesser classes, who didn’t participate in the physical combat, have gone into hiding. Many are out in the wider world—shifters mostly, but humans are seeking them out and destroying them. Those that remain on Antarktos reside in the underground, banished once more to the depths of this continent, pursued by the hunters they once enslaved.

Here on the surface, things are—for the most part—safe. And as such, the children are allowed to wander and explore. Today, we’re exploring the Xin Woods, which grew up around my half-clone’s grave. The woods have grown so thick that the remnants of the United States Forward Operating Base that once dominated the area, have been swallowed up. All that remains in Xin’s gravestone. The trees would have taken it, too, but I forbade them. Some sacrifices should not be forgotten.

I kneel before the grave, remembering Xin and his final gift to me. If not for the squealing laughter of our two girls, I would be lost in the memory. As tears threaten to spill out, I feel a presence in the tree behind me.

“Never before in the history of this planet has there been a king who wept as much as you.” Kainda’s voice is powerful, commanding and a delight to my ears.

I laugh. Loudly. Kainda’s wicked sense of humor is a nice balance to my admittedly more emotional personality. I wipe the single fully formed tear away from my cheek and stand up, the haunting memories once again retreating to the recesses of my mind. “You love my softness.”

Kainda leaps down from a branch, thirty feet above me. A strong wind buffets her fall, placing her gently on the ground before me. She knew I would catch her. But instead of falling into my embrace, she takes hold of my bicep and gives it a squeeze. “I believe there is such a thing as too soft.”

I pull my arm away with a grin. “Hey!” But I don’t argue. While I’m still strong and agile, and thanks to my supernatural abilities, downright powerful, I haven’t had to face a rigorous physical challenge in nearly a decade. My beard and now hairy chest help hide the lessening definition, but Kainda sees it.

She places her hand on my bare chest, smiling wickedly. While we wear more, and finer, clothing in public, we dress as hunters when exploring the wilds of Antarktos. I’m wearing my leather loin cloth, a belt and Whipsnap around my waist. I haven’t had need for the weapon in a very long time, but it will always be ready to defend my family, and all of humanity, if need be.

I glance around nervously as she pushes me back against a tree. “Kainda, I’m not sure this is the best place for—”

She tilts her head and makes a pouty face, which is so unnatural on her I nearly start laughing. “Aww, am I making the big strong King nervous?”

“A little bit,” I say, “Yeah. The girls are—”

“The girls will learn that their mother is twice the hunter their father is.”

Oh no.

I’ve totally misread what’s happening here.

This is going to hurt.

Her pout becomes a mischievous smile. By the time I snap out of my confusion, she’s already unclipped the Viking hammer from her belt and cocked it back. I manage to duck the blow, but just barely. I know a second swing is coming, so I go the only direction I can.

Up.

A gust of wind carries me twenty feet up. I cling to the tree’s rough bark, looking down at my smiling wife.

“Really?” Kainda says. “You’re going to use the elements?”

“I wasn’t planning on training today,” I say, staring down at her.

This statement seems to make her genuinely angry. “To think you were once a hunter! Danger does not announce itself, Solomon!” With a grunt, she throws the hammer at me.

Once a hunter!

I leap from the tree. Wood and bark explode behind me. I land in time to see her catch her hammer.

I’m almost surprised when I find Whipsnap, at the ready, in my hands. Almost. I might have been kidnapped from my comfortable, normal life in the outside world, but since then I have been, and still am, a hunter. And now I’m insulted.

Without using my elemental powers, I lunge forward, sweeping the bladed tip out at her. It’s a dangerous strike, a killer blow to most, but this is Kainda. I have faith that she’ll avoid the blow, and if I hold back... Well, I’d rather face an army of Nephilim warriors than be on the receiving end of that verbal barrage.

She slaps the spear tip away and swings her hammer toward the side of my face. I quickly spin Whipsnap up, grip it with both hands and block the blow. But the staff of my weapon is flexible. It bends with the hammer’s impact, slowing the strike, so the hammer’s head gently kisses my cheek.

I glance at the hammer, resting against my cheek, then at Kainda. She frowns. “That was half strength.”

I flex Whipsnap in the opposite direction, letting the energy stored in the bent staff fling the hammer, and Kainda, away. I follow through by kicking her hard in the back. She slams into a tree, striking her face.

I cringe. Fighting my wife goes against all my instincts. In the outside world, I’d probably be arrested and put in jail. Luckily, the laws of the outside world don’t apply to hunters. Or Antarktos.

Kainda wipes some blood from her lip, and I can’t help remembering Bruce Lee doing something similar in his movie The Chinese Connection. I only saw it once, on one of the few Saturday mornings I didn’t watch Creature Double Feature, but I don’t really forget much...or anything.

“Better,” she says and points at me. “But I’m going to knock that cocky grin from your face.”

I didn’t realize I was smiling. Or enjoying this. But I am a hunter. Combat is as much a part of me as it is Kainda. It’s just a part I’ve been ignoring for a very long time.

I spin Whipsnap with a flourish, ending in a pose of readiness. “You can try.”

She charges.

I rush to meet her.

A scream stops us in our tracks, weapons raised.

“The girls,” I say.

“Hurry,” she says.

I summon a powerful wind that sweeps us up into the air and carries us toward the sound of the scream. Trees bend in our wake, creaking and swaying. My fear has summoned a wind so powerful that trees begin cracking. I reign in my powers, so I don’t accidentally summon a tornado.

We clear the forest and reach a river that empties into the ocean with a dramatic waterfall. My two girls are just ten feet from the continent’s end and a hundred-foot drop to the ocean. Normally, this would not frighten me—Kainda has trained them well—but the girls are not alone.

They’re surrounded.

By Nephilim.

At least, I think they’re Nephilim. I’ve actually never seen anything like the bevy of creatures below. But the red hair on their heads reveals their Nephilim corruption.

Several tactics for handling the situation flit through my mind, but I quickly dismiss them. The small creatures, each about three feet tall, wield an array of weapons. A taller pair, standing closer to four feet, hold blades against my daughters’ throats.

I place Kainda and myself down on the warm stones lining the river, just ten feet from the small horde. They eye us warily, their jet black eyes—like a feeder’s—are wide with surprise. We were not expected. The girls must have stumbled upon them.

Before speaking, I scan the group. Aside from height, the creatures are nearly identical to one another. They’re slender, almost malnourished in appearance, but twitching beneath their pale, nearly translucent skin, the sinewy muscles look strong. They wear the ragged skins of underworld animals covered with plates of giant-centipede carapace for armor. Their blood-red hair grows in gnarly patches. Their faces are nearly featureless—nubby noses, holes for ears. But their mouths are wide, stretching from one side of the head to the other, full of sharp triangular teeth. “They’re like feeders, with bodies.”

“Kill them,” Kainda whispers to me. The only thing holding both of us back are the knives at our daughters’ throats.

“I need to focus,” I reply. Finding a way to attack all of these things without injuring our girls is going to be hard, even for me. I decide that a distraction is in order. “I am Solomon, King of Antarktos and you are—”

“Solomon!” the largest of the bunch, holding my eldest, shouts. He narrows his eyes and hisses.

The group tenses.

Kainda takes a step forward, but even she is not fast enough to save the girls.

I put my hand on her arm, holding her back, hoping to buy time while I pull the oxygen out of the air surrounding the group. The girls will fall unconscious, along with these monsters, but they won’t be harmed.

“Solomon!” the largest of them roars. “Destroyer! Thief! King of light! Enemy of the dark! Solomon! Ull!” His eyes go wide. His head turns down, focused on my daughter’s chest, as though only now realizing the significance of the prize he has captured. Whatever these things are, they’re not very bright. You think they would have realized who I was when I dropped out of the sky. The knife comes up in the beast’s hand.

“Norah! Aquila!” Kainda shouts our daughters’ names. “Defend yourselves!”

I’m surprised when I see all of the fear in my daughters’ eyes disappear at the sound of their mother’s commanding voice. I’m even more surprised by the swiftness of what comes next. As the knife plunges down toward Aquila’s chest, she lifts an arm and blocks the blow. While spinning to face her adversary, she flicks out her wrist and suddenly there’s a sword in her hand, glinting in the afternoon sun’s light. I quickly recognize the weapon. Strike. Her grandfather’s sword, dropped in our realm before he entered Tartarus. The blade is unlike any other, amazingly strong, yet so flexible it can wrap itself into a tight coil. Easy to conceal and uniquely deadly. The blade slips into the monster’s chest before the creature can react.

Both of my daughters have qualities of their mother. Aquila is passionate, about nearly everything. Norah, on the other hand, got her mother’s brute strength and ferocity. The seven year old leans forward and slams her head back into her captor’s face. If it had a nose, she would have broken it. But the blow is nothing compared to what comes next. Like her mother, Norah carries a hammer with a stone head the size of a brick. With a roar, she swings the weapon and clocks the shocked creature in the side of its head. The Nephilim drops to the ground. But Norah doesn’t stop there. Two more of the creatures quickly fall to her miniature might, before the girls stops to take stock of the situation.

By then, Kainda and I have joined the fray, kicking and slashing, pounding and pummeling. The enemy is disorganized and caught off guard. They lack skill. They fall quickly, under the combined might of my three girls. As the final monster falls, I feel a welling pride. I had no idea my daughters were such skilled warriors. But the Nephilim intruders have one more surprise for us.

A gurgling shriek emerges from the river. I spin to find what looks like a curtain of undulating pale flesh falling toward Kainda. I’ve never seen anything like it, but the moment I see its face, covered with dried out feathers and a clacking beak, I know what this is. More than that, I know who this is.

Gaia.

The breeder who birthed feeder upon feeder, breaking my spirit, turning me into a monster. The torture she oversaw began my horrible ordeal. I had hoped her dead, along with the rest. All of her bulbous fat, from millennia of gorging herself, has fallen away, leaving only loose flesh.

I send a burst of wind in her direction. Lifting the fifteen-foot-tall body of sail-like skin will be an easy thing, but it turns out to be unnecessary.

Twin hooked blades stab into the Nephilim’s shoulders, arresting her fall. Kainda leaps away as the loose skin sags toward the ground. Frozen in place for a moment, Gaia looks up and meets my gaze. To my surprise, she looks wounded. Almost sad. “My son,” she says, and reaches out for me.

I almost feel sorry for her.

Almost.

But her fate has already been decided by another. The chains attached to the hooked blades go taut. Gaia flails as she’s yanked backwards, into the river. There is a struggle beneath the flowing current, and then nothing. I glance at Kainda, who is knee deep in little Nephilim bodies. She shrugs.

The calm waters roil briefly and then give way to a rising form. A woman with dark skin and very little in the way of clothing—just some brown leathers—rises from the river. She shakes her head, sending spirals of water in every direction, while fluffing the only afro I’ve seen on a hunter. She gives the chains in her hands a tug, pulling the blades of her Kusarigama out of the water, catching both of them in the air. With a few quick and practiced moves, the chains are wrapped around her torso and the weapons stowed on her hips.

“My King,” Zuh says, with a nod in my direction. She has become a fierce hunter of Nephilim, spending more time in the underground than above. She has even earned Kainda’s respect and friendship, something I never thought would happen, because the pair had once been adversaries. I sometimes think Kainda is jealous of Zuh’s subterranean exploits, though she’d never admit it.

Zuh smiles and drops to one knee, reaching out for my girls.

“Aunty Zuh!” Aquila shouts, throwing herself into Zuh’s strong arms.

Norah tries to hide her happiness, fighting against the smile forming on her face, but she leans in for a hug nevertheless. Zuh stands and greets Kainda. They clasp their hands over each other’s wrists.

“That was Gaia,” I say.

Zuh nods. “I apologize for her reaching the surface, my King. Had I known you were—”

I wave her apology off and motion to the small dead Nephilim. “What are they?”

“Nephilim,” Zuh says. “Given time to grow, warriors.”

This news staggers me. “Warriors?”

“Without a warrior’s blood, the surviving breeders are lost to failed attempts,” she says. “But they are trying.”

“How many are left?” I ask.

Zuh shrugs. “Less than fifty.”

“Fifty is not an insignificant number,” Kainda says. Breeders can birth Nephilim fairly frequently, and they have the capability of producing any class, though apparently not without a sample of blood.

“They are starving,” Zuh says. “Hiding deep.”

I point to Gaia’s body, now floating beside a sand bar. “She was not deep.”

“She…” Zuh says, “could run faster than you’d think. Used the rivers to mask her scent.”

That Gaia would risk traveling in a river said a lot. Drowning is one of the few sure ways to kill a Nephilim.

“But,” Zuh says, “If one of these breeders manages to find some warrior blood, or comes up with some kind of new class taller than my waist, they could be dangerous. Not a threat. But dangerous.”

I hear the question in her statement. “You’ve been underground for more than a year.”

“A year?” She looks a little surprised. “I thought...”

“You were deep,” I say. I spent two years in the deep, only to discover that twenty had passed on the surface. “If you spend too much time there, you may find Samuel on the throne.”

She smiles. “How is your eldest prodigy?”

“Wiser than his father,” Kainda answers. “And stronger.”

I don’t argue. It’s true.

Zuh thinks for a moment, but then sets her jaw and turns to Kainda. “Your father taught us that sacrifice is sometimes necessary. This will be mine. I will cleanse the underworld.”

“We can help!” Aquila says. She pounds Strike against her chest twice and raises the blade above her head. Norah follows suit, pounding her chest and raising her hammer.

Thankfully, Kainda defuses this bomb for me. “You are not yet old enough to hunt the underworld by yourselves.”

“Someday,” Zuh says, rubbing her hand through Aquila’s hair. “But I believe my place, for now, is in the underground.” She takes a step back, and I realize she’s prepared to return, right this second. Could the danger posed by these rogue breeders be that great?

“I will send help,” I say.

“If you must,” Zuh says with a grin. “But I would be pleased to kill them all myself.” She continues to back away, slipping into the trees. “Goodbye girls. Kainda.” She bows slightly. “My King.”

I bow in return, thankful for loyal, brave and honorable hunters like Zuh. There was a time when she would have killed Kainda to claim me as her own, but the old ways are done, and she has accepted that. Though, I fear, she has yet to embrace a life in the sun.

“Girls,” I say. “Gather close.” As I’m hugged from all sides by the three women I love most in the world, a cyclone of wind lifts the scattering of small Nephilim bodies up from the river bed before scooping up Gaia as well. The gale moves out to sea and deposits the lot in the ocean, far away from Antarktos. The act gives me a small measure of peace. Knowing, without doubt, that Gaia is dead, lifts a weight from my shoulders I didn’t realize I’d been holding. When the deed is done, I look down to find Aquila and Norah whispering conspiratorially. I can’t hear them, but I don’t need to. I know them. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Think about what?” Aquila says, fighting her mischievous smile.

“The underground is off limits,” I say, and I realize I sound like my father. “And don’t even try to argue.”

The pair kick stones and wander upstream, but not too far. They’d never admit it, but the attack has made them wary. They have yet to sheath their weapons, and they’re keeping a close watch on their surroundings.

“They’re not going to listen,” Kainda says, standing beside me.

“How can you be sure?”

“I wouldn’t have.”

“Then what do you suggest?” I ask.

“There is only one way to prepare a hunter for the underground.”

I sigh, but I know she’s right. “You can train them in the underground, but only in the tunnels beneath the citadel. They can’t go any further until I’m convinced they’re ready. Agreed?”

Kainda kisses my cheek. “Agreed. Now...defend yourself!”

ANTARKTOS RISING (Origins Edition) by JEREMY ROBINSON

Click Here to Purchase

DESCRIPTION:

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.

ORIGINS EDITION: Re-edited and repackaged, this new edition of Antarktos Rising is superior to all that came before. Be sure to look for Robinson’s other Origins Editions, which include re-releases of his first five novels.

SAMPLE:

Chapter 1

Anguta grew 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.

After finishing the second bun, she looked at her reflection in the window glass. She looked like an anime version of Princess Leia…a dark-skinned, nappy-blond-haired version. Whitney smiled. For the first time in a long time, she thought she looked good. Maybe it was the reflection of Portsmouth and the ocean in the background that caused her to cast a fairer gaze at herself. She wasn’t sure. But her brown skin and darker brown eyes hadn’t looked this vibrant in a year.

Whitney knew that while her outward appearances were improving, her heart was still healing. No amount of exercise or sleep could erase the torment she had endured the past year.

Cindy Bekoff, her friend and psychologist, believed Whitney’s upcoming trip to Antarctica was an excuse to flee from the pain. “There aren’t many places on earth more remote,” she had said. “You need to deal with your pain before moving on.”

What Whitney hadn’t, and wouldn’t, tell her, was that it was where he was…it was where he had been hiding all this time. She wasn’t running from pain; she was accelerating straight toward it.

The wind reversed direction, flowing up and over the red Victorian home’s shingled roof and heading for the ocean. As the gust spilled across Whitney’s body, she took note of its sudden warmth. The temperature shift struck her as odd—a cold front and heat wave battling for supremacy. New England was known for its drastic weather changes, but this variation in temperature during a mid-summer day seemed downright freakish.

Chapter 4

Longing for home and family, Anguta failed to notice the first ripples in the water’s surface. Something was rising. Bubbles expressed from the emerging creature churned the surface and snapped Anguta’s attention back to the task at hand. Raising the spear over his head, Anguta waited for the right time to strike.

The water parted to expose the dark gray flesh of the humpback’s hide. Still Anguta waited. An early strike might connect with the beast’s tail, causing the man to be thrashed about with every pulse of its mighty fluke. As the whale’s head breached the surface, Anguta focused, waiting for the moment when the whale would exhale a spray of mist and expose its eyes.

Anguta felt his heart stop when he made eye contact with the whale, but there was no exhalation from its blowhole to trigger his throwing arm. He stood solidly, gripping his spear, muscles taut, but did not throw. He stared into the eye of the creature, which appeared to be blinded by cataracts. With a heavy heart, he realized that he and the whale weren’t so dissimilar. They’d sired families. Traveled the Arctic. Fought the elements. And they’d grown old. Then he remembered their crucial difference. He was a hunter. Years of failed hunts flashed through Anguta’s mind, and all the mercy he felt for the blind whale evaporated quickly as the spear sailed from his hand.

As soon as he released his hold on the spear, he knew his aim was true; it was a killer shot into the humpback’s eye. The tow line unfurled at Anguta’s feet as the spear covered the twenty-foot distance to the whale. The tip of the spear struck home, dead center in the whited eyeball—and glanced off.

The sound and physical reaction of the spear would have been no different if Anguta had flung it at a stone.

He followed the ricocheted spear with his eyes in disbelief at what had happened and annoyance that he’d have to retrieve the spear. But when the weapon struck the ocean, it bounced again. The surface was frozen.

There’s no ice here, Anguta thought. Perhaps an iceberg?

The old man scanned the world around him. It was white and frozen. His eyes turned back to the whale. Its skin sparkled with frost—it was frozen solid. It was only then that he noticed the biting cold nibbling at his skin. He had never felt such a degree of cold through his arctic gear. The sensation was similar to rolling stark naked in the snow.

As his muscles involuntarily twitched, working to warm his body temperature, he tried to get his bearings. He had to find shelter. But as he searched the newly frozen ocean for a glimmer of hope, his goggles fogged and he became as blind as the now-petrified whale.

Frustrated and panicked, Anguta removed his goggles and immediately regretted the decision. His eyeballs froze. A jolt of savage pain threw Anguta off his feet and ripped through his body. Images sailed through his mind: Elizabeth, the kids, their little ones…would this cold front reach them as well?

Anguta’s body hit the kayak with a thud, solid as stone.

Chapter 5

Dmitriy stared, willing his mouth to form words to express his love, but he remained silent. He swallowed audibly and felt a sick feeling in his stomach. He glanced to the side, avoiding her penetrating eyes as his silent embarrassment grew, and noticed she was holding her Geiger counter. He remembered why they were there and wondered if she had found something important. He didn’t really care at the moment, but it gave him something to say. “You wanted to show me something?”

She seemed startled by the question. “I, uh…” She noticed Dmitriy’s eyes on the Geiger counter. “Oh, yes, I… Look at this.”

Viktoriya pulled herself away from Dmitriy’s arms and stepped out toward the waterline where small, frigid waves lapped against the shore. She stopped and held out the Geiger counter. Sweeping left to right, the counter clicked slowly at first, then rapidly, then slowly again. She repeated the sweep two more times.

Dmitriy stood next to her and studied the shoreline beneath her feet. It looked as harmless as the rest of the beach, but he suspected something was buried there. He looked at the Geiger counter’s gauge as she swept it over again. The radiation levels read slightly above normal, but not high enough to kill them. Enough to shorten their lives by a few hours, perhaps, but otherwise safe.

They had been sent to the faraway place to investigate mishandling of environmental pollutants during the Cold War. Siberia, at that time, had been used primarily for dumping toxic waste and exiled criminals. Now, after all these years, it was finally being recognized as a natural wonder. But severe damage had been done, and Dmitriy believed they were about to uncover more evidence of his country’s environmental neglect.

He bent down and scraped several small stones aside. As he set his eyes on a larger stone, he felt sweat gather on his forehead. He was hot. He wrote it off as exertion—he still wasn’t in very good shape— picked up the large stone, and tossed it to the side. Beneath it were more stones. This was going to take a while.

“Dima?”

Dmitriy turned and saw Viktoriya removing her parka.

“Are you hot?” she asked.

“Da, but I think I haven’t worked this hard in…” He noticed she was sweating, too.

Something was wrong. The temperature had risen. Removing his parka, Dmitriy let the heat soak in as he attempted to remember a time in his life when, if ever, he’d felt the air so hot. He couldn’t. The temperature seemed to be rising exponentially.

“Dima…the radiation?”

Dmitriy looked into Vika’s eyes and recognized fear. Had the radiation sprung a leak when he removed the stones? Were they being poisoned? He took the Geiger counter from her hand and swept the area. He shook his head. “No, something else.”

Still the heat rose.

His throat began to sting. He took a swig of water and offered the canteen to Viktoriya. She gulped it greedily.

The trees behind them groaned as they bent under a burst of pummeling wind. The wind was dry and hot, like bending over an open oven. Dmitriy blinked his eyes as the moisture was wicked from them. Something was very wrong.

“We have to leave!” he said. He glanced up the shoreline where they had landed the helicopter, a football field away. “Get to the helicopter!”

He took Vika’s hand and helped her across the loose rocks. The rising heat made his heart beat wildly in his chest, urged him to sprint at full speed. But he couldn’t leave Vika behind. She had saved his life. She was his life. He would not let her die now.

Viktoriya slipped on a stone and fell forward, but Dima was there to catch her. He swept her into his arms and stumbled toward the copter.

The heat continued to rise. Dmitriy struggled to keep his eyes open. The heat was so intense that it felt as though his eyes were peeled grapes. He looked at Viktoriya. Her eyes were clenched shut.

They were halfway to the copter now, and Dmitriy was wheezing. His body was dry. Every bead of sweat that his body produced evaporated. A loud crack drew his eyes back to the forest. He saw a tree falling to the ground, pushed over by the punishing winds, but what shocked him was the state of the trees. The needles, moments ago vibrant green, were now tinged brown, dried out. Dead.

A rising cloak of darkness, like an evil apparition, caught Dmitriy’s attention as it plumed into the sky above the forest. It assaulted his nose first: acrid smoke laced with sulfur. The trees were burning, and while he couldn’t see it, he suspected a volcano had erupted. The blackness poured out from the tree line and rolled over the beach. Dmitriy found it impossible to breathe.

He struck out for the helicopter again, Viktoriya now a dead weight in his arms. He glanced down to check her condition, but found his eyes blinded by the heat and smoke. A jagged boulder caught his shin and he fell forward, dropping Viktoriya and landing on top of her.

The intensity of the heat blistered Dmitriy’s skin. His scream was cut short from lack of breath. Through parched eyes, he looked back at the forest in time to see the trees explode into flame. Their heat washed over his body, blinding, searing, and suffocating. He hoped that Vika might survive the inferno protected by his body, but he sensed that she had already passed. So close, he thought. So close.

With a seismic boom, the gas tank of the helicopter exploded. It was the last thing Dmitriy heard before his parched body burst into flame.

Chapter 6

Mirabelle Whitney glanced past her shoulder and out at the town. Everything looked normal. Traffic was still congested. The red brick buildings still glowed in the sun. But something was off. She leaned out her bedroom window to look further.

Strawberry Banke was a well-maintained park, complete with historic buildings and a flower garden. It was often used for functions during the summer months: clambakes, lobster fests, and chili cook-offs. Whitney searched the sea of people for a sign of today’s event. She found the answer in the gleaming white glow of a veil caught by the seaward wind: a wedding.

Whitney looked away quickly, avoiding her own memories, and moved her eyes out to sea.

What she saw next made her forget the pain from the emotional scab that had just been picked open. The ocean seemed more distant. In its place was a very long beach where there had been no beach before. This was a port town. If you wanted a beach, she thought, you go south to Hampton or north to Ogunquit. Not to Portsmouth.

Whitney noticed the wedding party and park patrons clambering onto the docks along the river. They saw it, too. She followed the waterline up the Piscataqua River and saw that its shores had shrunk inward. The water that remained was quickly rushing out to sea.

When she looked back, all that was left of the coastline was a small river flowing out of the Piscataqua and a sliver of blue, far on the horizon. The ocean was gone. All that remained was a sandy expanse speckled with grounded boats and flickering reflections of light that Mirabelle realized were struggling fish drowning in the open air.

As the hordes of vacationers began running in droves, fleeing Strawberry Banke and flooding into the downtown streets, Whitney realized what must be happening.

Tsunami.

Remembering a lesson learned from the killer waves that had recently struck Indonesia, India, and so many other countries, people headed for high ground. Whitney watched as rooftops began to fill with people in a panic. The top level of the five-story parking garage was full in minutes, and people on the lower levels struggled to get higher, but room was running out.

Whitney tore her eyes away from the impending train wreck to wonder if there was something she should do. She couldn’t get any higher without heading up Route 16 into the mountains, but she should do something.

Whitney turned from her deck and entered the house. She walked into her bedroom, which had once been a decorative masterpiece but was now a laundry disaster area. She took the hallway stairs two at a time, moving swiftly. One by one she swept through the downstairs rooms, closing windows and locking doors. She paused at the front door and looked out at the green grass of the estate that had once belonged to her parents.

She missed them now.

A hiss of leaves drew her attention to the green maple trees bordering the yard. The wind had picked up, but was still headed out to sea.

Whitney slammed the door shut and headed for the basement. Two years ago, she had converted the basement into a base of operations for her photography work. She spent six months of every year on location in one remote part of the world or another, shooting landscapes and animals that most people avoided for fear of life and limb. It was dangerous work, but exciting and rewarding. She worked in the field, but this was her home base for expedition prep, film development, and camera maintenance. For the past year, the room had served as the staging area for her upcoming Antarctic venture. The dim basement was now stacked with food supplies. Gear for surviving the frozen wasteland filled the main room, and electronic gizmos lined the workbenches. Leaning over the GPS satellite phones, she picked up a pair of binoculars and charged back up the stairs.

As she passed through the bedroom, she noted the time: noon. It had taken her five minutes to lock up the window and doors and return to her bedroom. She burst onto the deck and squinted against the sun, which shone down directly above her. She put the binoculars to her eyes and colorful blurs filled her vision. She adjusted the focus and settled on the parking garage. Like penguins huddling from the cold, a mass of humanity crammed itself onto the top floor of the garage, some dangerously close to spilling off the edge. She lowered her view. The next two floors were also full, and everyone was moving in one direction—up.

Whitney removed the binoculars and shook her head. Looking through the field glasses again, she turned her gaze toward the ocean…or what used to be the ocean. It had not returned. In fact, she could no longer see any water, save the trickle of the Piscataqua, all the way out to the horizon.

She wracked her brain for an answer. A sinkhole. Something must have opened up in the ocean and sucked the water down…something huge. It was the only answer.

Keeping her vigil, she scanned all of Portsmouth. Word of the phenomenon must have reached every nook of the seacoast town by now. The only cars she could see were driving away from town. Even the emergency vehicles were clearing out. They weren’t fools—all the sirens, flashing lights, and ladders in the world wouldn’t stop whatever was coming. Downtown was deserted, except for the rooftops. Whitney felt the anticipation of every soul on whom she gazed…all waiting for something to happen.

She paced about the house unsure of what to do or think. She frantically cleaned her counters and shined her sink; ridiculous, given the situation. When she could no longer stand staring at her warped reflection in the perfectly polished sink, she looked at the clock. It had been an hour.

She looked again at the parking garage; it looked less congested. People were lowering their guard, moving down to the lower levels, some even out onto the street. Whitney wanted to shout at them to run, to leave town, but they seemed slow, almost dazed by the surreal events.

Whitney looked up, forehead furrowed. It was past one o’clock, but the sun still appeared to be directly overhead. In the past hour, the sun had not moved.

“What…?”

Everything changed in that instant.

The sun began moving.

The wind shifted directions, billowing southwest from the barren ocean bed.

The temperature dropped and continued to fall with every gust.

Biting her lower lip, Whitney raised the binoculars to her eyes.

She saw an illusion. It had to be. A wall of blue and white churning water surged back into view, spilling from the northeast straight for shore. As the wall grew closer, she knew it was real. A tsunami, more massive than she’d ever imagined the phenomenon to be, was headed straight for her home town.

The people atop the parking structure were the first to see it. They were also the first to realize they weren’t high enough to avoid it. Whitney shuddered as a collective wail of panic and despair rose from the city below. Tears brimmed and spilled over onto her face. They were all going to die. And she could only watch.

She’d seen death before and knew she lacked the stomach to witness what was coming. Turning away from the city of her childhood, from the home she had made, from all the places and people she loved, Whitney ran to her bedroom and closed the deck doors behind her. The distant voices were silenced. She leaned against the wall and slid down to the floor, hoping the water wouldn’t reach her as well.

The next minute was spent in silence as she waited. In her mind’s eye she saw the citizens of Portsmouth clambering over each other, trampling the weak. She knew it was human nature to step on the next guy if it meant saving one’s own life. She felt certain a number of people were already dead, long before the wave struck. A sob escaped her as she remembered Cindy’s office was downtown. The tears flowed freely now.

Then the voices returned. Grew louder.

Closer.

Whitney stood, opened the door, and stepped out onto the porch. Her timing couldn’t have been worse. A seventy-foot wave of water slid through Portsmouth and consumed it all. The people still on rooftops ceased to exist. Those on the streets were swept up and churned in the grinding waters as easily as the brick, concrete, wood, and mortar that held the city together.

The voices returned: “Open the goddamn gates!”

A small group of perhaps fifteen people had flocked to her front gate, probably neighbors who knew her home stood on the tallest peak of the hill. She cursed her father for building the eight-foot stone wall and metal gate that sealed off the estate from the rest of the world, protecting her from unknown predators.

Whitney glanced toward the downtown. The rising waters had consumed the city and were now racing toward her, pounding up the steady incline. Whitney dashed back into the bedroom, calculating how long it would take her to reach and unlock the front door, sprint the hundred feet to the gate, unlock and open it by hand, sprint back to the house with fifteen people, and shut the door behind her.

Too long.

If only she’d fixed the gate’s remote! That kind of thing hadn’t been her concern lately, and she’d let it go for six months.

A slight vibration in the floorboards at the base of the stairs reinforced the idea that she wouldn’t have time. Still, she had to try.

She reached the front door, unlocked the deadbolt, and flung it open. Vaulting down the five front stairs in one leap, Whitney hit the driveway at a sprint. She heard roaring water, breaking glass, and the horrid wrench of metal as the unseen torrent pounded relentlessly forward.

Not waiting for the gate to be opened, the fleeing group began climbing over it. To the left, a little girl struggled with the smooth metal bars. The others were leaving her behind. Whitney leapt at the gate and clung to it like a monkey. She yanked herself to the top, feeling the muscles in her arms tear. At the top, she reached over and thrust her hand out to the girl. “Take my hand!”

The little girl’s fingers intertwined with Whitney’s, and the girl was pulled steadily up. A bearded man next to the girl saw that she’d clear the gate first and took hold of Whitney’s arm to hoist himself.

“Let go!” Whitney shouted as the gate dug into her arm.

“Amber!” another man shouted with shock in his eyes. He lunged at the bearded man pushing the girl back down, and Whitney knew the girl’s rescuer was her father. Amber’s father wrapped one arm around the aggressor’s neck and pushed off the gate with his feet. The action added an unbearable amount of weight to Whitney’s arm, but both men fell to the ground. The father seemed willing to die for his child, and as the two men rolled away from the gate pummeling each other, she realized he would.

The water was upon them.

Whitney pulled with all her might, but her muscles had little strength left. The water hit her like an explosion. Whitney was flung back ten feet, her grip on Amber’s arm lost. She sat up quickly and looked to the gate. The people were gone, replaced by a churning wall of water that roared like a wounded Kodiak bear.

Whitney shouted as she pushed herself up and ran back to the house. Ten feet from the front stairs, her feet began splashing through ocean water. A surge of water hit her knees and threatened to knock her down, but she lunged up the stairs, freeing herself from the water’s grasp.

She entered the house, closed the door, slammed the deadbolt home, and careened for the stairs, hoping another ten feet would be enough to save her life. She reached the top stair in four leaps. As she stepped into the hallway, a force struck the house so hard that she was shaken from her feet. She fell forward and heard a loud crack, but it wasn’t the house; it was her head. A stab of pain shot through her skull. As she fell, she saw the wooden chest she’d struck as she’d fallen.

It was the last thing she saw. Her vision blurred and turned black.

As her consciousness faded, the sound of rushing water and groaning wood surrounded the house.

Whitney awoke with a start and clasped a hand to her throbbing head. She struggled past the pain, attempting to gather her thoughts. As the pulsing headache in her left temple eased in intensity, she remembered: the wave. The people. The death. Despair, rage, and confusion attacked her all at once, an emotional lion pride, circling with hackles raised and talons extended. They wanted to devour her alive. But they were old enemies she’d faced before. Using willpower built over the past year’s suffering, she pushed the emotions away and faced her grim new reality.

She forced herself to calm and became more aware of her surroundings. She was still on the hallway floor of her house, but she was freezing. Wondering if she was wet, she checked herself and found her clothing to be dry. She looked down the stairs. Even the downstairs floor was dry.

From her position on the floor, she could see her alarm clock, but the power was out. She had no way of knowing how long she’d been unconscious, but it couldn’t have been long. It was still daylight, though the previously blue sky was now thick with ashen clouds…and something else.

Standing came only after a concerted effort. Her head pounded with every step, and she found herself walking through the bedroom and toward the deck door with her eyes closed. Hands outstretched, she stopped when she reached the wall. She slid her fingers from the wall to the glass of the sliding door.

When the flesh of her finger made contact with the glass, Whitney yelped and pulled her hand away. The pain was like searing heat, but she knew from experience that it was cold. Freezing cold. Whitney’s eyes flew open and blinked at the brightness. Despite the overcast sky, something outside was abnormally bright.

Through squinted eyes, Whitney took in her new view.

Extending out from ten feet below her home’s foundation all the way to the horizon was a sheet of ice. Thick flakes of snow fell from the sky. She seemed to have been transported to the North Pole. She didn’t dare go outside dressed for summer as she was, but from her view behind the glass she could see that everything, from Maine to Massachusetts, was buried under hundreds of feet of snow and ice.

And now she was alone, completely, and she feared that the most. More than the wave. More than the cold. Being alone with her thoughts, with her demons, was just about the worst way she could imagine to die.

###

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JEREMY ROBINSON is the bestselling author of more than forty novels and novellas, including ISLAND 731, SECONDWORLD, and the Jack Sigler Thriller series, including PRIME, PULSE, INSTINCT, THRESHOLD, RAGNAROK and
OMEGA. Robinson is also known as the #1 Amazon.com horror writer, Jeremy Bishop, author of THE SENTINEL, THE RAVEN and the controversial novel, TORMENT. His novels have been translated into eleven languages. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and three children.

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ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

Standalone Novels

The Didymus Contingency

Raising The Past

Beneath

Antarktos Rising

Kronos

Xom-B (2014)

Kaiju Novels

Island 731

Project Nemesis

Project Maigo

SecondWorld Novels

SecondWorld

I Am Cowboy

The Jack Sigler Novels

Prime

Pulse

Instinct

Threshold

Ragnarok

Omega

Savage (2014)

The Chess Team Novellas

(Chesspocalypse Series)

Callsign: King – Book 1

Callsign: Queen – Book 1

Callsign: Rook – Book 1

Callsign: King – Book 2

Callsign: Bishop – Book 1

Callsign: Knight – Book 1

Callsign: Deep Blue – Book 1

Callsign: King – Book 3

Jack Sigler Continuum Novellas

Guardian (2014)

The Last Hunter

(Antarktos Saga Series)

The Last Hunter – Descent

The Last Hunter – Pursuit

The Last Hunter – Ascent

The Last Hunter – Lament

The Last Hunter – Onslaught

The Last Hunter – Collected Edition

Writing as Jeremy Bishop

Torment

The Sentinel

The Raven

Refuge:

Night of the Blood Sky

Darkness Falls

Lost in the Echo

Ashes and Dust

Bonfires Burning Bright

Refuge Omnibus Edition

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Book 1: Descent

Book 2: Pursuit

Book 3: Ascent

Book 4: Lament

Book 5: Onslaught

Art Gallery 1

Art Gallery 2

A Note from the Author

Interview with the Author

Bonus Short Story

Bonus Sample from Antarktos Rising

About the Author

Also by the Author

© 2013 Jeremy Robinson. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For more information e-mail all inquiries to: info@jeremyrobinsononline.com

Open Up Your Heart (And Let the Sunshine In), Stuart Hamblen

© Copyright 1953, Renewed 1981. Hamblen Music C./ASCAP

(admin. By ClearBox Rights). All Rights Reserved. Used by permission.

Straight to Hell, Words and Music by Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Topper Headon. © Copyright 1982, Nineden Ltd. All Rights in the U.S. and Canada controlled and administered by Universal – Polygram International Publishing Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.

Visit Jeremy Robinson on the World Wide Web at:

www.jeremyrobinsononline.com