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

Shofar, I think to no one in particular. I need the shofar...and a shot of adrenaline.

If there is a reply, I don’t hear it. Maybe Luca is unable? Maybe the strain finally got to us both? I try to stand, but a wave of dizziness keeps me down.

“Don’t move,” a woman says.

“Regain your strength,” says another.

I feel a hand on my back. Mira.

I look up and find Mira and Em kneeling by my sides and Kat and Kainda standing guard.

“I’m coming!” I hear another voice cry out.

I recognize it immediately. I should, I heard it for the first half of my life. “Luca,” I mumble. “No.”

I turn to find the small boy sprinting around the line of tanks, the shofar under his arm. Merrill and Aimee rush out behind him, clearly trying to subdue the boy and return him to safety, but they can’t catch him.

“Go back!” I shout to him. “Go b—”

Something in the air shifts, like a wave of pressure, returning my attention to the battle.

Our force, even strengthened by the gigantes and Titans, have been repelled. They’re retreating toward us, pursued by countless Nephilim still pouring through the bottleneck. Beyond the bottleneck, I see the second behemoth, closing in, to seal the gap or simply trample us. I reach out with my senses. It’s almost here. The timing is right, but I’m too weak to do anything but kill us all.

Luca, I think. Hurry!





35



Luca arrives just ahead of the retreating forces. “Here’s the shofar!” he says, gasping for air. He holds the ancient horn out to me, but it’s not what I’m interested in.

“The adrenaline,” I say. “Did you get the adrenaline?”

“I don’t know what adrenaline is,” he says, and I mentally slap myself in the head. Of course he doesn’t know what adrenaline is. He grew up here. I look up to Merrill and Aimee, but their hands are empty.

“What is it?” Em asks, seeing my despair.

I don’t reply. I can’t bear to tell her. But then I see Cronus among the retreating force. He’s fleeing backwards alongside the remaining eleven Titans, fighting as he backs away from the encroaching Nephilim force. He’s taking wounds and healing quickly, bleeding purple.

The Titans are Nephilim that have had the burdens of their past misdeeds lifted in Tartarus. But they are still Nephilim.

Cronus, I think, hoping Luca will still redirect my thoughts. He does, but I can see the strain on his face. Cronus, I need you!

The giant reacts to my words quickly, leaping over the retreating human force and arriving ahead of them. He kneels down beside me, sees the shofar and looks relieved. But his concern returns when he hears what I have to say.

“Your blood,” I say to the giant. “I need your blood.”

He flinches back. “It will kill you.”

“I can handle a drop,” I tell him.

“There are other ways,” he says. “We will—”

“There is no time!” I shout, and thrust a finger east, toward the ocean.

The Titan’s eyes widen. His face, lit by the sun, is suddenly cast in shadow. As the shadow casts the battlefield into darkness, all eyes turn up. Even the Nephilim stop and gaze.

A hundred-foot tall wave races toward shore, passing harmlessly beneath the Navy ships. But when the shoreline shallows, the wave grows taller still. It’s just moments from washing all of us away.

“Just a drop,” I shout.

Cronus quickly pricks his finger with a clean dagger, which is bigger than a human sword, and collects a single drop on its tip before the wound heals. He lowers the blade to my head. I grasp both sides with my hands, cutting the flesh. I lick the blood from the blade and am launched backwards, onto the ground where I thrash and writhe in agony. I can feel the power rushing through my body, so strong that I nearly burst.

The wounds on my hands suddenly heal.

The persistent ache in my body disappears.

A boundless energy, like rocket fuel, surges from my heart, out to my fingers and toes and back again like one of those old Popeye cartoons. My pain-filled scream stops abruptly. The air gathers around me and lifts me to my feet.

Gather close, I think to the retreating force and then notice the gigantes still locked in battle with the Nephilim. I urge them to move, to flee into the air, but they do not respond.

Cronus seems to hear the mental command and turns to me. “They came here to fight, and to die. They will not flee.”

I don’t like it, but I have no choice but to accept this as reality.

Fueled by the blood of a Titan, I reach out to my wave. It’s traveled several miles to get here, gathering speed and size along the way, but now that it’s here, I need it to not drown us all. I reach my hands out and feel the wave’s power. Its immensity nearly knocks me down, but I push against it with my body and mind, urging the water and air to obey my will.

The tidal wave crests.