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

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.