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

Nevertheless, she reacts with skill and without fear. Falling backward under the long creature’s squirming girth, Kat takes hold of its mandibles, forcing the centipede away from her head, and keeping the deadly pincers from snapping shut.

Em, aka Emilee, the closest thing I’ve ever had to a sister, draws one of her many knives to throw at the creature, but she’s stopped by the actions of Steven Wright, who insists we refer to him by his last name.

Wright tackles the centipede and grapples with its body, but he’s unable to move the creature and ends up just hanging on while the thing bucks him around.

I raise my hand toward the melee, intent on separating the group by controlling the wind and smashing the centipede into the wall. But Kainda places her hammer—a human sized version of Thor’s mighty Mj?lnir—on my arm and pushes it down.

I turn to her. “Why?”

“They need to learn,” she says plainly.

Through grinding teeth, Kat growls, “A little help!”

Kainda moves the hammer out in front of my chest, but it’s not needed. I don’t move. She’s correct. If Wright and Ferrell are to join us in the underground, they need to learn how to survive it, and overcoming this obstacle, which Kainda, Em and I could handle without breaking a sweat, is their violent initiation.

A knife appears in Wright’s hand. He jabs the body, punching the blade through the pale carapace. Thick, white innards seep through the puncture holes, but the creature is undaunted. Wright sweeps the blade along its body, severing fifteen of its limbs, but all he accomplishes is making the body slick with gore and removing his handholds. The centipede flings him to the floor, leaving Kat to face the beast alone.

With a grunt, she shoves the centipede back, draws her own knife and slices the thing’s throat. Only, it’s not the creature’s throat. It’s a sack of fluid the thing uses to predigest its food. Like saliva but far fouler smelling. On the bright side, nothing will pick up her personal scent for weeks.

“Ugh!” Kat says, as the fluid spills onto the black military fatigues that she wears. But she doesn’t slow. As Wright regains his feet and starts hacking at the creature again, Kat withdraws her blade, redirects it and plunges it up through the bottom of the centipede’s head, finding its small brain.

The centipede curls back, taking the knife with it, and flinging Wright to the cave floor once again. It twists and coils, writhing around in death throes before falling still.

Wright gets to his feet quickly and jumps to Kat’s side. “You all right?” he asks, his voice full of concern for his wife. They had kept their relationship secret from the outside world. Wright was an Army Captain and Kat was a contract killer. Granted, she killed for the same team, but their love was forbidden. Of course, down here, marriage between killers is common. I look at Kainda, who is grinning at Kat’s messy misfortune, and I think that our relationship isn’t all that different from these two, except for the marriage part.

Kat shrugs away from her husband and stands up with a scowl on her face. I know that look. Things are about to get ugly...er. Kat pulls the knife from the centipede’s head and points it at me. Kainda and Em tense.

“Why didn’t you help!” Kat shouts.

“Keep your voice down,” Kainda says.

“Keep my— Girl, someone needs to beat a little sense into you.”

Never one to back down from a challenge, Kainda steps forward. It’s my turn to stop her. I place my hand on her arm. “She has every right to be angry,” I say.

“You’re damn right, I do,” Kat says.

Em steps forward, hands away from her knives, and says, “You needed to learn.”

Kat rolls her eyes. “Learn what? How to kill a ten foot insect?”

“Chilopoda,” I say.

Kat’s burning glare locks on me. “What?”

“Chilopoda,” I repeat. “Insects are...”

Kat’s anger grows.

I raise my hands. “Sorry, sorry.” One drawback of having a perfect memory is the ability to spout facts like that. Of course, if I could keep my mouth shut, it wouldn’t be a problem. I decide to make up for it by explaining the situation. “The underground is full of these creatures. They used to grow to a few feet in length. They were the bottom of the food chain, and they posed little danger to anyone. But since the rest of the subterranean species fled to the underworld and they found a reliable food source—” I don’t bother mentioning the giant body of Behemoth, which the centipedes gorged on, “—they’ve become massive.”

“This is the first we’ve seen of them,” Wright says.

He’s right. The centipedes don’t normally hunt this close to the surface. Food must be scarce. “I once faced several thousand of them, some reaching thirty feet long.”

Kat’s not buying the story, but Wright, with whom I have a good rapport, blanches a little.

“Right,” Kat says. “How’d you handle that?”