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

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.