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

“Who would?”


No one, I think. And that’s the point. No one would choose to be broken and remade in the way that I have been. No one with half a brain anyway. So whoever was chosen, or fated, or whatever to defeat the Nephilim would be remade unwillingly.

“Your kind never come willingly,” he says, “but once you do...”

“You mean humans?” I ask.

“Moses,” he says. “Jonah. Noah. Thomas. Paul. All resisted at first. All of them eventually broke.”

He sees my skepticism. “Would you prefer examples from other sources of literature? Or perhaps modern history? Your United States didn’t enter World War II until it was broken at Pearl Harbor.”

My deeper confusion prompts a smile on the beast.

“I’ve had many teachers over the years,” he says.

“Your examples were all old men. And a country. I was thirteen years old when—”

“King David slew my brother when he was just a boy.” He shifts in the pool, getting comfortable.

“He also did horrible things,” I counter.

“As have you.”

I tense. My anger builds. But I reign it in, remembering Cronus’s gift. “I have been forgiven.”

Hades concedes with a nod. “As was David.”

Arguing with Nephilim who have been alive for thousands of years is really annoying. I’m not accustomed to being on the receiving end of a verbal checkmate, but there it is. So I change the subject. “I’m here for the Jericho shofar.”

“I have been waiting for you since you entered the gates of Tartarus,” he replies. “I knew who you would find there. And I felt confident you would return, and eventually find me. But...despite having seen you do great things, worthy of the chosen ancients, I am not convinced you will return with the shofar, and your life. One must be sacrificed for the other.”





11



Out of all the confusing things Hades has said thus far, “One must be sacrificed for the other,” takes the cake. If I am sacrificed, how can I retrieve the shofar? If the Jericho shofar is sacrificed, how can I retrieve the shofar! I decide that this riddle can wait because, obviously, both the shofar and I need to make it through in one piece. If we don’t, then all of this is for nothing. “Do you know where it is?”

“I know where it was,” he says. “If it is still there?” He shrugs. “But not even I could retrieve it now. It is beyond my reach.”

“Tell me,” I say. “Where is it?”

“To the deepest realms you must go,” he says. “Beyond the dark gates.”

He’s speaking of the gates to Tartarus, but I thought that was the lowest point of the underworld.

“In the roost Edinnu, you will find the great horn.”

I clear my throat. “Sorry. That sounds poetic. It’s nice. Really. But do you think you could be a little clearer?”

“If you can resist a direct encounter with a seeker,” he says.

I can’t. We both know it.

“Then the less you know the better,” he says. “You will not forget the things I’ve told you. They will remain with you until the end of your days, whether that is today or a hundred years. You know where to start. Do not think about your path until you’ve arrived at the beginning. In this way you will protect the path from those that would seek out the shofar to destroy it.”

“They know about the shofar?” I ask.

He nods. “But not who protects it.”

“If I’m caught,” I start, worried that my knowledge of Hades could compromise his covert activities.

He rises from the blood bath, standing to his full height. Like me, he wears minimal leathers, though his are the size of ship sails. “I,” he says, “will not be here, or anywhere my brothers will follow.”

For a moment, I’m lost, but then I figure it out. “You’re going back to Tartarus?”

He nods slowly. “I have lived with the stench of blood and filth, death and torture for as long as this old heart can bear. If I do not leave for the release of Tartarus, I would rather return this body to the dust from which it came and be no more.”

I have never once seen sadness in the eyes of a Nephilim, but there is no disguising the emotion as it grips Hades. He shakes the blood from his arms and steps out of the pool.

The wind carries me back, giving him room to move. It’s a subtle movement, but it drains my energy more quickly. I glance back at the large doorway one hundred feet away. Will I have enough energy to cover the distance in the air?

“How is my old friend?” he asks.

The question is so casual that it catches me off guard.

“Cronus,” he says. “Is he well?”

“He was concerned for you,” I say. “Said it had been a thousand years.”