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

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.