The Last Hunter: Collected Edition (Antarktos Saga #1-5)

“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.