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

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.