Fused with the power of Nephil, Ninnis had set out on a quest for vengeance against the hunters, including his daughter Kainda, who betrayed their kind to follow the memory of the boy named Solomon Ull Vincent, the Last Hunter. As the first and only human child born on Antarctica, Solomon was imbued with a supernatural bond to the continent that not only protected him from the harsh elements, but also gave him dominion over them. The earth, water, air and fire of Antarctica were his to command, though not without a physical toll.
The boy had proven resourceful in the past, but when he stepped through the gates of Tartarus, Ninnis believed his former protégé to be trapped in that land of torture for all eternity. Three months later, he discovered his mistake. Solomon had escaped from that awful place, and during their last conflict, the boy had harnessed Antarctica’s katabatic winds and flung Ninnis miles through the air. When he landed on the rocky Antarctic coastline, Ninnis was broken: body, mind and soul.
The Nephilim blood coursing through his veins, fueled by the spirit of Nephil, stitched his body back together. But the repairs had a side effect. So ruined was Ninnis’s mind that when it was reformed, it was made anew, free of the damage caused by his time as a hunter.
Many hunters, with the exception of those born hunters, like Kainda, were comprised of men and women who had been kidnapped, either from the outside world or from the surface of Antarctica. Their future mentors dragged the kidnapped victims underground and violently broke them. All memory of their lives before were blocked out and forgotten, hidden behind a mental wall forged by torture and starvation. Once broken, the victims could be remade into hunters, loyal to their Nephilim masters.
Ninnis kidnapped and broke Solomon. The boy became Ull the hunter, serving the Nephilim also known as Ull, son of Thor, son of Odin, leader of the Asgard warrior clan. But the boy’s memory later returned, and though damaged, Solomon became himself again—something that had never happened to a hunter before.
But it happened once since.
When the blood and spirit of Nephil healed and took control of Ninnis’s body, there was an unforeseen side effect. Memories of a life before Antarctica returned as flashes.
A smiling face.
A gentle kiss.
And a name.
Caroline.
His...wife.
His real wife.
Ninnis had been given a wife—a fellow hunter—in the underworld, but he did not love her. He did not love anything. She bore him a child, Kainda, but that was all. However, the woman he now remembered—Caroline—he loved her. Nephil claimed Ninnis, body and soul, but Caroline had done likewise long before.
The memories flickered through his mind as images, words and feelings that he couldn’t hold on to for more than a moment. He remembered Caroline. Her aquiline face. Her soft touch. Her existence. But he could not remember everything. Where they met. When they married. If they had children. And why he left such a woman to join the ill-fated expedition to the South Pole that brought him to Antarctica in the first place.
The incomplete memory of something so...beautiful caused him intense pain, far greater than anything he’d ever experienced. Because he detested it. Despite his reforming memories, he was still Ninnis, the hunter.
Ninnis had been the greatest hunter, feared and renowned by all others. For a time, he contained the very spirit of Nephil. He had attempted to exert his will over the spirit again, but it was no use. His weakness had been exposed.
Caroline.
The name came to him as a whisper, but not in his ear. It was the voice of Nephil, in his mind. Taunting him.
Caroline.
The emotional weight her name carried struck his heart like a sword. It filled him with regret. Made him weak. Controllable. But it also infused him with a deeper hatred than he had ever experienced before.
For Solomon.
The only time Ninnis found himself freed from the influence of Nephil was in his dreams, and his subconscious envisioned detestable violence against a sole victim. The boy.
There would come a time, he knew, when Nephil and the Nephilim warriors and hunters he once again commanded would find the boy. When they did, the dark spirit would leave Ninnis’s body to claim young Solomon, whose unique abilities had earned him the high honor of being deemed the true vessel of Nephil.
In that moment, when the spirit of Nephil fought to control Solomon again, the boy would be defenseless. That was when Ninnis would strike, and Solomon would die. Nephil might die along with him, but it was a sacrifice Ninnis would gladly make to have his revenge. Nothing else mattered.
So he stopped fighting for control.
He ceased replying to Nephil’s voice in his head.
And the beast forgot about him.
The Last Hunter: Collected Edition (Antarktos Saga #1-5)
Jeremy Robinson's books
- Herculean (Cerberus Group #1)
- Island 731 (Kaiju 0)
- Project 731 (Kaiju #3)
- Project Hyperion (Kaiju #4)
- Project Maigo (Kaiju #2)
- Callsign: Queen (Zelda Baker) (Chess Team, #2)
- Callsign: Knight (Shin Dae-jung) (Chess Team, #6)
- Callsign: Deep Blue (Tom Duncan) (Chess Team, #7)
- Callsign: Rook (Stan Tremblay) (Chess Team, #3)
- Prime (Chess Team Adventure, #0.5)
- Callsign: King (Jack Sigler) (Chesspocalypse #1)
- Callsign: Bishop (Erik Somers) (Chesspocalypse #5)