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

“What just happened?” Holloway asks me, and I can hear him perfectly. He didn’t even have to shout.

“I turned down the volume,” I say. He looks at me like I’m crazy. “I created a dome of compressed air over the base and the trenches. The sound waves are either being slowed to the infrasonic range or they’re being redirected.”

A bright flash turns our attention forward. The continuous volley reaches the behemoth. I can see it roaring in pain, and can even hear it some, but my ears are spared.

I quickly communicate the reason for the strange silence to the troops, so that they’re not disturbed by it. When I’m done, Holloway says, “Now it makes sense.”

More missiles pass by. These are larger, the kind that no fighter jet could carry. I’m not sure what they are, but they’re big, and powerful. And there are twenty of them racing from the Destroyers at sea toward their impossible-to-miss target.

Explosions rock the valley. Despite the sound being muffled, I can still feel the force of each blast. These last twenty dwarf even the footfall of a behemoth. Rock slides race down the sides of the distant cliffs. The human race is dishing out some serious might.

And yet, the behemoth staggers forward. But it’s not immune to the attack. Volcanoes of purple blood erupt from each wound. Chunks of boulder-sized white flesh, the same stuff I subsisted on during my first months underground, fall to the ground.

Another step.

The wounds are healing. This isn’t going to work. It’s going to stumble forward until we’re out of ammunition and then just roll its fat body over us.

Behemoth-Beta! I think.

The jets arc away, while the rest of the big guns hold their fire. If this next trick doesn’t work, we’ll be in real trouble.

But then I add a second order, Backfield-Alpha. The jets moving away from the fight turn in a wide arc that brings them around toward the back of the valley. Missiles launch and lines of tracer fire glow orange as they shoot at targets on the ground behind the choke point. The planes will continue to strike the backlines of the Nephilim forces, returning to the aircraft carriers to rearm, refuel, and then head back to the fight.

The artillery opens fire again, having taken time to adjust their aim. A fresh volley of rounds arcs up and over the battlefield, dropping down behind the cliffs and striking even more enemies that are out of sight.

While all this is happening, a single jet, which I actually recognize as a Russian MiG fighter thanks to Top Gun, cruises through the battlefield from the south. It cuts beneath the soaring artillery shells, yet above the behemoth. The pilot has guts.

As it passes over the behemoth it drops a single bomb. The silver cylinder glows blue for a moment because of friction, and then strikes the behemoth’s head and detonates. At the moment of impact, white phosphorous inside the bomb ignites a gel composed of benzene, gasoline and polystyrene. This highly flammable mix sprays out in all directions, coating the behemoth in a fiery slurry that will burn, white hot, for ten minutes.

The monster’s shrill cry pierces my dome of dense air and makes me cringe. Were this any creature but a Nephilim, I would feel immense pity. The creature stumbles forward and then topples over. It crashes to the ground, sending a wave of pressure through the earth that rattles the base and knocks over some of the structures and piled supplies.

I kick up a strong wind from the ocean to keep the dust cloud at bay, forcing it back and down to the earth from where it came. As the behemoth twitches and burns, I watch its flesh fight to repair itself. It’s a slow battle between fire and flesh, but after nearly a minute, the rocket-fuel’s fire wins. With a groan, the behemoth lets out its last breath and seems to deflate.

As the body shrinks in on itself, several of the long red stands of its living, hair stretch outward. At first I think it’s simply twitching as the body dies, but then I realize it’s a last act of defiance. The long, python-like hair sweeps in a wide arc, striking the rows of razor wire. The sharp coils of metal tangle with the hair like Velcro and are torn away. In a single attack, the monster removes all but one row of razor wire, effectively destroying our first line of defense.

Then it stops moving completely.

“It’s dead,” I say, honestly a little surprised.

“Napalm tends to do that to things,” Holloway says.

Before we have a chance to celebrate, the behemoth moves. Its belly twitches and jerks as though something inside is fighting to get out. No, not as if... It’s exactly like something is trying to get out.

And then, it does.





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