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

“How?”


“Luca,” she says. “He still sees you in his dreams. He sent us to you, Kat and me.”

“Luca...” I say, picturing the boy, which is easy, since he looks like me. But then the face in my mind’s eye changes. Luca looks angry. Then furious. His eyes go black, red seeps from his skull and stains his hair. He shrieks at me.

Except he’s not the one shrieking, it’s me.

I hear shouting. And a pain-filled scream.

Something hard strikes my forehead and everything disappears.





18



I’m vaguely aware that I’m moving. I see a kind of red haze, but I’m not sure I’m actually seeing it. I sense that some part of me is able to see, and act, but the real me—the Solomon me—feels small and trapped.

Distant voices reach me. The words are hard to make out and the voices impossible to identify. I feel like I know them, but can’t think of names or faces to go with them.

“Look out!”

A shout of pain.

“Here, here! Now!”

I sense a stab of pain, but its more like a memory.

“Down!”

Grunting follows. Then a shout, loud and angry.

More pain. A surge of energy.

“Kainda!”

Kainda? Is that a name?

“Hold on!”

“I’m coming!”

“Hurry!”

“Ready!”

A wave of dizziness spins my fragile consciousness.

Then weightlessness.

“Oh no,” someone says.

“I didn’t think he could do that.”

There’s a whump, and a surge of energy.

“Solomon!”

A second surge of energy follows.

“Solomon!” The voice is screaming. Desperate. “Solomon, please st—”

Whump!

SOLOMON!

Everything stops.

This voice is stronger than the others. It’s unfiltered by the haze.

“Who are you?” I say aloud.

Stop, says the voice. See!

“I can’t.”

Then we are lost.

“We?”

You are connected to Antarktos, and it to you.

I know this. I think.

The earth is your flesh. The atmosphere, your lungs. The water, your blood. You can shape them. Bend them. Control them.

“Who are you?”

Listen! Hear me. As the continent is, so is your body. They are joined. Control your body as you control the wind. Push this evil out. Burn it from your blood. Push it from your pores. Expel it!

“How?” I ask.

Open your eyes.

“They are open,” I say. “I can’t see.”

Then choose to see! Will it!

“Can you help me?”

I...must save myself. For another time. But...I will try.

The real world around me flickers into view for just a second, but it’s enough for me to get a glimpse of my surroundings, and in the brief moment, I understand everything I’m seeing.

Kainda, Kat and Mira are all lying on the ground, unconscious and bleeding from various wounds. A portion of the surrounding jungle has been bent or broken, all of it leaning away from me. I did this. I hurt my friends. I—

The red haze returns.

I sense my memory of what I’ve just seen grow distant.

No! I shout inwardly.

The voice said to burn it out. Earlier, Em said I was hot. I remember that now. I had a fever. But Kat gave me some painkillers and the fever was reduced, which allowed the berserker infection to run rampant through my body.

But I can stop it.

The voice believed it. I can control it like I do the elements.

Burn, I think, and for the first time in a long time, I start to feel heat. But it’s not on the outside, it’s inside. I feel the sting working its way through my body. Itchy pinpricks cover my skin as I start to sweat. Chills wrack my body, and I fall to my knees, feeling the impact keenly. I can feel my body again, though I haven’t quite taken control of it.

A surge of anger pushes back as though the infection has a will of its own. And it very well might. Created by the Nephilim, this virus might have a supernatural element I don’t understand. My perfect memory replays a scene from The Exorcist, a movie I watched during a sleepover at Justin’s house. It’s one of the things in my life I most wish I could forget, especially now that I fear I’ve got some kind of demon living in me.

But I’ve already faced that and won, I tell myself. I expelled the spirit of Nephil. I can push this thing from my body.

I double my efforts, cringing into a ball on the ground, clenching my eyes shut and focusing my attention inward, to my core. I don’t need my white blood cells to attack the virus, or whatever this is. I can do it myself. It takes intense focus to identify the plague, but once I identify it, I’m able to locate it in my blood, in my organs, in my bones.

With a shout of exertion, I expel the madness from my body. The effort nearly sinks me back into unconsciousness, but I sense the plague returning. I didn’t find it all! It’s spreading again!

I scream from the effort this time, but it clings to me. It’s hooked into me and will come back no matter how hard I push. All the burning and purging in the world can’t make it go away.

I’ve lost, I think.

We’re lost.