The Last Hunter - Ascent (Book 3 of the Antarktos Saga) by Jeremy Robinson Read Free Book Online

ground and then stabs forward. With me in its grasp, the giant punches the stone ground. I shriek in pain. The impact breaks several of my bones and causes who knows how many internal injuries. Shock washes over me and the pain subsides some, but my mind begins to slip away.
    I feel a breeze over my face as the fist draws up. My stomach lurches as it punches down again. The impact knocks the air from my lungs and my ribcage implodes. Consciousness fades quickly, but before I slip away, I feel my body rise and fall several more times. The monster is punching the ground, with me in its grasp.
    Again.
    Again.
    And again.
     
     
     
     
    7
     
    I wake to the smell of blood. My keen nose, sharpened by my time as a hunter, recognizes the scent. It’s my blood. But it’s no longer fresh. Without opening my eyes, I reach out with my other senses. The first thing I notice is that I feel no pain. My body is healed. I can’t smell anything beyond the strong scent of my blood. But I can tell that the blood is old. Dried.
    How long have I been here?
    I listen and at first hear nothing. But then there’s something. Wind? I can hear the air moving, but cannot feel it on my skin. For a moment, I wonder if my immunity to the elements has returned, but then I feel the biting cold anew.
    “You can open your eyes, little one.”
    The voice is deep and the words are spoken slowly. It’s not the two-headed giant. The voice is different and comes from a single mouth. But I can tell the speaker is large, because despite being restrained, nearly a whisper, the voice still booms and echoes. I realize I’m in a large enclosed space, and then I open my eyes.
    The ceiling above me is red and at least a hundred feet up. It reminds me of a cathedral, all arches, pillars and angles. But it lacks the decorum and opulence. This is simple, red stone. In fact, I think the space might have been carved from a single stone because there are no seams.
    “You are impressed with Nyx?” The voice says.
    You can hear my thoughts, I think at the thing.
    “I prefer to speak.”
    “In English?” I say.
    The Nephilim learned English from human teachers they kidnapped over the years. People like Aimee, who I kidnapped for them. But I seriously doubt there are human teachers here in Tartarus. Certainly not any that speak English, which in the grand scheme of humanity, is a relatively new language.
    “I know all languages,” says the voice. “You will have to face me eventually.”
    Mind readers can really be annoying sometimes. The conversation was bearable while staring at the ceiling. When I get a look at this thing, I suspect things might take a turn for the worse. But he’s right. I’ll have to face him eventually.
    So I do. And what I see confuses me. He’s a Nephilim. Maybe thirty feet tall, but he’s seated on a slab of red stone jutting from the wall, so his height is hard to gauge. He has six fingers on each hand. I can’t see his mouth, but I’d be willing to bet he has double rows of teeth, too. The problem I’m having is his hair. It’s black. Not red.
    The Nephilim, and the hunters, myself included, have blood red hair. It’s an outward sign of their corruption. When a hunter leaves the Nephilim behind and seeks a life of goodness and peace, the color fades, to be replaced by the original hair color. And there is not a trace of red in this Nephilim’s hair, not on his head, nor in his long beard.
    He’s dressed simply, in a white robe, and his six-toed feet are bare. Even more uncharacteristic, there is no metal band over his pulsing forehead. The Nephilim have many abilities granted to them by their unnatural parentage, including the ability to heal almost instantly. But their one weak spot is in the center of their forehead. It is an area usually protected by a golden band. But perhaps that weakness means nothing here in Tartarus, where things can die again, again, and again, as was so delicately proven to me by my two headed