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

Nothing happens.

I understand the workings of a shofar. It’s a horned instrument, but unlike the trumpet or tuba, it has no reed. So the user must vibrate the lips while blowing to produce a sound. And I’m doing that. Vibration isn’t the problem. It’s my lungs. I can’t push enough air with my one remaining lung to generate any kind of sound.

I watch as Nephil’s look of shock and fright morphs into elation. “Pitiful. Even with the shofar in hand, you are incapable of harnessing its power. When our bloods merge, that wound sapping your strength will be a welcome delight. Give yourself to me, Solomon, and eternity will be yours.”

“No,” I say. It’s a feeble whisper, but carries my determination just the same. “I’m not done yet.”

The horn weighs little, and I have no problem lifting it over my head.

The beast squints at me.

“Can’t you feel it?” I ask him. “The air. All around you. Shifting. Pulsing.” I take a breath, filling my single functioning lung. As the air seeps down my throat, the wind picks up, blowing toward my body, whipping Ninnis’s hair. “This whole cavern is my lung. The air is mine to command. And right now, I command it—”

Nephil’s eyes burst open with realization.

“—to blow.”

He charges.

A tiny whirlwind of quickly vibrating air flows through the shofar. The sound it produces rips through the cavern. The noise diffuses over the distance, but Nephil is caught in the direct path of whatever kind of supernatural sound waves are shooting out from the horn. To me it’s just a high-pitched grating noise, but Nephil reacts like he’s just been set on fire.

The black limbs flail madly, shooting in and out of Ninnis’s body, which is arched back in a contorted spasm. His scream almost drowns out the sound of the shofar, but it peters out to nothing as the black limbs retreat inside Ninnis, silencing the beast’s voice.

With the black tendrils gone, Ninnis begins to fall. I reach out with the wind and catch him. Despite functioning with just one lung, it takes no effort to control the winds around me. I use this control of the elements to keep a steady flow of air flowing into my ruined lung. The slurp of blood and air escaping my chest grows louder, but at least the organ is temporally inflated.

As the full amount of oxygen returns to my brain, my vision settles and thoughts clear. I am far from not dying, but I’ve delayed the effect of being stabbed in the chest for a little while—long enough for me to deliver the shofar to Em, Kainda and Kat, and leave before defiling Eden.

“Solomon?”

The voice startles me to the point where I nearly drop Ninnis. When I redouble my effort to hold Ninnis up, I notice that his eyes are open.

And they’re Ninnis’s eyes. Not Nephil’s. All trace of the monster has been erased.

“Ninnis,” I say. It’s as non-threatening a greeting as I can come up with.

“Belgrave,” he says.

“What?”

“My name is Belgrave. Belgrave Edward Sutton Ninnis. Lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers and husband to Caroline Rose Ninnis.”

To say I’m stunned is an understatement. Hunters don’t remember their pasts. Every memory, every happy moment, every loved one, is erased by the breaking process. Hunters are molded from clean slates, honed into killers without conscience because there is no memory of right and wrong. “You remember?”

“I remember...everything.” The wounded tone of his voice makes my eyes water. The flicker of a smile forming on his lips forces the wetness out over my cheeks. He reaches a hand toward me; it’s extended like he wants to shake. “Thankyoeeeeaaaarrrgghh!”

The voice of Nephil returns like a crashing wave. The tendrils shoot out, clinging to the ceiling. And the eyes of Belgrave Ninnis disappear. The effect of the horn is temporary on Nephilim, apparently very temporary on one as strong as Nephil. But even though the beast has regained control over his host body, he is still reeling from the attack.

He hisses at me, contorting his face into a thousand different expressions, and then flees like a spider across the ceiling. He won’t come back. Not by himself. Not now that I have the shofar and know how to use it. Granted, I’m still not sure how I’m going to stop an army with it, but whatever the horn did to him, he didn’t like it.

With the shofar and sword in my hands, I slip down from the ceiling, slowly descending to the green meadow. Em and Kainda smile as I return to them victorious. They don’t know about my fatal wound. When I land on the ground, the wind cuts out around me and my lung deflates once again. Blood and air spatter from the wound, causing Em to gasp.

“Solomon!” Kainda shouts, catching me as I fall to one knee.

Kat quickly inspects the wound. “Even with a field med kit, I wouldn’t—”

I look up at the angel and cut Kat off. “What is your name?”

His brilliant head turns down toward me, “I am Adoel.”