20
I find Whipsnap thirty feet away, partially concealed by leaf litter. I don’t really need the weapon now, but it’s kind of like a security blanket...with a razor-sharp spear head on one side and a heavy spiked mace on the other. I reach a hand toward the weapon. A gust of wind lifts it and flings it toward me.
Luke Skywalker, eat your heart out
.
“It’s him,” one of the warriors says. Given their black battle gear and square, knotted beards, I believe they are members of the Sumerian clan. I quickly look over their helmets and other distinguishing features.
“I’m not sure who you two are,” I say, pointing the spear tip at the two Nephilim closest to me. I redirect the spear toward the warrior behind them. He stands a few feet shorter and is likely the lowest in status. “But he’s definitely Ninhursag.”
The giants attempt to contain their laughter, but fail. I’ve just called the small one by the name of the Sumerian version of Mother Earth, which I’m pretty sure is actually a bulbous breeder like Gaia, who played a disgusting roll in my breaking. The small Nephilim tries to charge me, but the other two stop him.
“You must go,” says one of the larger warriors, “Ophion must be told.”
The smaller warrior doesn’t look pleased at all, but I’m pretty sure he’s going to consent. Nephil has likely given explicit orders that he be told if my where-abouts were discovered. Sadly for them, I have other plans.
“No one is going anywhere,” I say.
The smaller warrior unfurls his wings and leaps for the sky. With two quick slashes, from a distance of fifty feet, I clip his wings. The giant shouts more with surprise than pain as he plummets to the ground and lands in an unbecoming heap behind the two other warriors. The toothy smiles, remaining from my joke at their comrade’s expense, transform into sneers. They spin toward me, drawing weapons.
The first wields an axe large enough to chop through any of the giant trees surrounding us with a single blow. It would make short work of me. The second nocks an arrow the size of Whipsnap and draws it back in a massive bow. As the first Nephilim closes the distance and brings his axe down toward me, the second looses his arrow.
They’re making this easy.
A quick wind redirects the arrow into the back of the axe-wielder’s neck, slipping between the massive vertebrae. I’m not sure if it will kill him, but it drops him to the ground. The giant lands to my left and slides for a few feet.
As the smaller warrior struggles to his feet, his wings slowly regenerating, the bowman fires again and again, sending three arrows at me before the first is close to its target. But not one of them reaches me. They’re dust in the air.
The bow dissolves in his hands, leaving him dumbfounded.
While making the Nephilim army’s weapons all turn to dust would be fantastic, I doubt I will be able to perform this feat on a grand scale. Reducing a weapon to its various elements takes some serious concentration. But it definitely leaves an impression. Despite being far from defenseless, the warrior staggers back, perhaps realizing that this is a fight he cannot win. I turn my eyes to the metal band covering his head. I hit it with a wind, confirming that it’s held in place by spikes driven into the monster’s head. I focus on it, trying to melt or disintegrate it, but the metal resists. It’s either not made from Antarctic elements or it has some kind of supernatural protection.
It doesn’t really change my current strategy. I just wanted to know, because it will affect those fighting alongside me.
Before the giant can recover, I swipe Whipsnap from left to right, using it to direct the course of my wind-blade. A line of purple blood oozes from his neck. The giant staggers and falls to his knees. But he doesn’t die. His head, which was completely severed, didn’t fall away and has begun to heal. I swipe Whipsnap from right to left, this time striking with more force and a wider blade. The head comes free and falls away. Dead. For sure.
I turn to the smallest of the three. His wings are nearly regrown and when he notices my attention, he tries to fly away again. But the wings are insufficient to carry him up and away.
Seeing the giant beast struggle actually makes me pity him.
For a moment.
Then I remember what they are, what they did to me, and Kainda, and Em, and Luca, and the billions of people now dead because of their evil, twisted machinations. Without any further flair or desire to show off, I remove his head and his presence from this world forever.
A wet slurp turns me around. The warrior with the axe is kneeling and pulling the arrow out of his throat. Once it’s out, the wound heals quickly and he’s back on his feet. With just one Nephilim left, I decide to implement the last part of my attack plan, which is the part that might get me killed. But a little R&D is sometimes necessary, especially before the beginning of a battle that might determine the fate of the human race.
The plan is this: no elemental powers. No wind blades. No chucking rocks, or dropping trees, or tossing the giant around like a ragdoll. This fight will be man to man-demon. That’s not entirely true. I
am
going to use my abilities, but in a very different way. If I can really control my body, the way I control the elements of Antarktos, I should be able to pull this off. If not, well, I’m not above cheating.
I let the warrior pick up his axe. He’s grunting and angry, eyeing me carefully. This one’s not going to be big on the pre-fight banter, which is fine by me. This isn’t a
Spider-Man
comic book. But, I do perform the classic challenge to fight barehanded by tossing Whipsnap to the ground and raising my clenched fists. Sure, the giant hasn’t ever seen a movie in which such a scenario plays out, but I’m pretty sure he understands.
He glances from me to his fallen brethren. He was too busy choking on the business end of an arrow to see how they died, but it’s enough to convince him that throwing away his axe would be folly. He lets out a battle cry, punctuating it with a spray of spittle, and leaps toward me. His wings beat the air once, lifting him up, but also propelling him forward. For his size, he’s quick. But not quite quick enough.
As his feet touch down and he swings hard with the axe, I sidestep. I don’t have to use any special abilities to dodge the blow. Any hunter worth his while could have. It was an obvious attack meant to bring us in close, because once a human being is within arm’s reach of a Nephilim, the fight is pretty much over. Avoiding the axe is just the first part of my plan. The second part comes next.
Before the giant can heft the oversized blade from the earth, I turn toward it, draw my fist back and punch. As my fist covers the few feet to the axe, I focus on my arm, bunching the molecules more densely, pulling in atoms from the surrounding air and powering my knuckles with the kinetic energy that fills the very earth of Antarktos.
My fist connects with the six-inch thick base of the metal blade where it intersects with the handle.
There’s a loud
clang
, like when a blacksmith hammers a blade.
A throb of pain moves up my arm like a shockwave.
And the axe...
It launches from the warrior’s grip as though shot from a catapult. It sails away into the jungle, lost in the trees until it strikes something solid with a distant
bong
.
The warrior is disciplined and wastes no time wondering what just happened. He raises his fists into the air, laces his fingers together and then brings the joined fists down like a mace. The effect of the strike would normally be like a human punching a rotten banana.
I lift my hands up, repeating my focus from the punch and intensifying it, filling my body with all the power I can muster, if only for a moment. The warrior’s boulder-like hands land in mine.
And stop.
I feel the force of the strike vibrate through my body and out into the ground beneath my feet...which is technically part of me. The impact presses my bare feet into the earth, and I feel the connection to this continent, and all its vast power, like never before.
The warrior is far bigger than my human body, but what he doesn’t know, and what I’ve just realized, is he’s fighting a force more ancient than the Nephilim and larger than the United States.
Actually, I think he’s starting to figure it out. He separates his hands and looks down at me. Seems even Nephilim can sometimes have the ability to speak with facial expressions, because this big guy has “how?” written all over his face.
A blur of movement streaks out to my right.
The confused face was a ruse!
No time to move.
Focus!
Whack!
The scorpion tail strikes my side. A single sting would have caused me intense pain, and eventually death. Instead, it strikes my ribs, and shatters.
Now the giant is truly stunned. And before he can recover, I leap up, propelled by wind, covering the thirty feet to his head. I grab hold of the metal ring protecting him. Standing on his shoulder, to the side of his face, I pull. He roars in pain and spins his head, trying to bite me with his double rows of sharp teeth, but I’m gone before his jaws close. And I’ve taken the ring with me.
Purple blood flows from four deep wounds on the sides of his head where the spikes held the crown in place. As the skull and skin knit back together, I wander over to Whipsnap, pick it up and take aim. One good throw and this is all over.
But before I can kill the warrior, something huge roars and pounds out of the jungle shadows. I see a flash of green. And teeth. And then, blood.
21
I flinch back, surprised by the violent new entry into the fray, but then I recognize the green-bodied, maroon-striped dinosaur as Grumpy. He’s got his powerful jaws locked over the warrior’s head and is thrashing him back and forth. To make matters worse for the Nephilim, Zok, has just stomped out from behind a tree and taken hold of one of the warrior’s legs.
The giant doesn’t stand a chance against these two, the largest and most powerful of the cresties, now loyal to me. They must have tracked our scents through the jungle since we left them by the river. I’ve heard of dogs crossing countries to find their masters, but I’ve never heard of a dinosaur doing that. Of course, they’ve probably never had the opportunity before.
As the gnawing, tearing and crunching becomes sickening, I turn away. Nephilim blood has no effect on the dinosaurs. They’re natural enemies—opposing giants of the underworld, and the cresties relish the chance to feast on the purple flesh. I suspect they might get some sort of kick from the blood, like an energy boost or euphoria, which would explain their hankering for Nephilim, but if they experience any adverse symptoms from eating the supernatural meat, it can’t be more substantial than gas, which for a dinosaur, is
always
bad.
With the chewing and slurping behind me, I look down to clip Whipsnap to my belt. A pair of bare feet stop in front of me. They’re feminine, but strong, lacking any decoration beyond scars. Kainda. I smile and finish clipping my weapon in place.
I look at Kainda and see a facial expression I wasn’t expecting. I look beyond her and find Em, Kat and Mira just behind her and to the sides, all wearing the same expression—a one sided smile and a cocked eyebrow that says, “Showoff.”
“I had to know what I could do,” I say defensively. The eyebrows inch higher. “Seriously.”
“You almost killed us,” says Kat. Her words make me see the blood trickling down her face from a gash on her forehead. I look at Em. She’s holding her side. Mira has a hand on her opposite arm. They’re all wounded because of me.
My smile slips away as I remember the darkness that had consumed me. I became a monster, and not for the first time. With a gasp of dread, I reach for my hair and pull it in front of my face, inspecting it like an OCD chimp mother checking her baby for flees.
“You’re fine,” Kat says. “Your golden locks are back.”
When I confirm this for myself, seeing no trace of red remaining, I look up at my four friends and find them smiling. “Was that—? Were you all teasing me?”
Kainda claps a hand on my shoulder, and I haven’t condensed any atoms or anything like that, so it hurts. I wince, but smile when she says, “You fought well.”
From Kainda, that might be the highest praise ever.
Em says, “Nicely done, Sol.”
My smile widens.
“Wright would be proud,” Kat adds, trying to make this sap of a leader tear up.
But Mira rescues me, saying, “I think he’s a freak of nature, but that’s just me.”
We all have a good laugh, letting the tension of the past days seep away. “Are you all okay?” I ask. “
Really
okay?”
“We’re fine,” Mira says, and if it had been any of the other three, who are more battle-hardened, I would have doubted it, but Mira doesn’t have the same kind of tough pride that can’t admit injury. She’d say something.
I hear a particularly gruesome bite and swallow behind me. Kat and Mira both cringe. Em and Kainda have seen it before.
“We should go,” Kat says.
I nod. “Once they finish eating, we’ll leave. They can carry the five of us without any trouble. We’re just fifteen miles from the coast. We can make it by sunset.”
“And the Nephilim?” Mira asks.
“They’ll arrive tomorrow.” I say. “Probably in the morning. They feel about ten miles to the west.”
“How many?” Kat asks.
I pause, trying to think of a gentle way to break the news. Mira does it for me, not so gently.
“We’re pretty much screwed,” Mira says.
Kat looks to Kainda, who shrugs and nods.
Kat grunts. “Great intel, guys.”
Despite the dire revelation, I smile. “I’ll fill you in on the way.” I tap my head. “I have all the numbers, sizes, weapons and capabilities up here. When we get to the FOB, you can help General Holloway make sense of how to respond to it.”
With a rekindled sense of urgency, I turn around to the eating dinosaurs, intending to disrupt their meal and get us moving. Kainda stops me with a hand on my arm. “Could I speak with you before we leave?” Her eyes flick to the side. She wants a private conversation.
“We’ll, ahh, we’ll be right back,” I say to the others. Kainda leads me away, rounding a large tree. The backside of the tree is lined by thick ferns that come up to our thighs.
“Could be a pack of turquins in here and we’d never know it,” I say.
I meant it as a joke. Something to break the nervous tension I’m suddenly feeling. But Kainda doesn’t laugh.
Instead, she whirls around and lunges at me. She gets a hand behind my head, grips my hair tightly and uses the surprise to sweep out my legs and drop me onto my back. I cough as the air is knocked from my lungs.
I’m beneath the ferns, looking up at a ceiling of luminous green. Kainda crouches down, sliding through the growth. As she descends, I can’t help but notice her more feminine features. Her skin, though mired with mud and her own blood, gleams with sweat in a way that draws my hands. As she slips beneath the thin covering, her eyes lock onto mine. She looks almost predatory.
I smile broadly, but a little sheepishly, too. We haven’t really had much time alone since we first kissed. Our intimate moments consist mostly of gentle touches in passing. And before Kainda...I’m not exactly experienced when it comes to interacting with members of the opposite sex. There was that foot bump once, but I don’t think that qualifies as a genuine encounter.
“Hi,” I say dumbly.
Kainda smiles back, and I swear I feel my insides turn to liquid.
“You fought well,” she says.
“You already said that,” I reply.
“Should I kiss you, or not?” she says.
My gut churns. “Yes, please.”
Her smile looks almost sweet. It’s a different kind of look for her. “So polite,” she whispers, leaning down. “We’re going to have to work on that.”
Then her lips are on mine.
We remain still, our lips interlocked. My chest loosens. My mind relaxes. This is bliss.
She leans back slowly. The skin of our lips sticks for a moment, not yet willing to let go. Then she’s sitting atop me, leaning over me with her hands on the ground, to either side of my head.
“Whoa...” I whisper. “What was that for?”
“To thank you.”
“For what?”
“Everything,” she says. “And...I’m relieved you’re unharmed.” It’s a moment of rare vulnerability. It makes me adore her even more. “I thought...when the madness had you. I thought you were gone. When I looked into your eyes then, I couldn’t see you. I couldn’t—”
I raise my hands to her face, holding her soft cheeks. “What do you see now?”
As she looks into my eyes, a single tear falls free from her face and lands on my cheek. At the moment of impact, I feel its warmth. I can’t normally feel
any
temperature, hot or cold, and I’m unaffected by the results of their extremes. I can’t be burned, nor can I freeze. But I can feel the warmth of Kainda’s tears. There is power in them.
A coolness covers my back. I can feel the earth beneath me!
“What is it?” Kainda asks.
“I—I can feel temperature,” I say. “I can feel the ground.” I look down and sense the warmth of Kainda’s bare legs over my waist. “I can feel you. More than I could before.”
I hadn’t realized how much I missed feeling temperature. There is pleasure in a cool drink or in the warm touch of a woman. In the Antarctic, and the underground, not feeling was largely a blessing. There were times I should have died from exposure, but I was immune to the effects of below-freezing temperatures.
She smiles at me. “It’s a gift.”
I start to agree, but then wonder if my powers have left me, too. The ferns shake as a breeze of my creation wafts over them. I relax again and lean my head back on the cool, soft earth.
“Shall I thank you now?” Kainda asks.
“I thought you already did?”
She smirks and leans back, reaching for her belt.
The nervousness I felt before explodes through my body. “I know you’re my passion, but I’m not sure this is the best time to—”
She draws a knife, and strangely, it puts me at ease. Like I said, we haven’t had much time to get...familiar with each other. What I thought was going to happen would have been a leap forward.
“Relax, Solomon,” Kainda says. “Even hunters are not without their traditions. Marriage comes before any coupling.”
Coupling.
Of course
hunters call it
coupling
. There’s no romance in the word. Still, that hunters actually get married is strangely heartwarming. I’m sure they don’t have elaborate ceremonies, rice throwing or a reception with dancing, but that the institution even exists shows that some part of them retained a notion of purity, even though they might kill someone for suggesting it.
She lifts the blade to her palm and draws it across. The cut is neither deep nor severe. Just enough to draw blood, which drips over her hand.
She hands the blade to me and it’s clear she wants me to do the same. I sense that this is meaningful to her, so I take the blade and place it against my palm. I simultaneously feel the warmth of her blood and the chill of the metal, then a sting as I cut my hand.
She takes the knife from me and stabs it into the ground beside us. She holds her hand up to me, opening her fingers. When I reach out with my wounded hand, she nods. I’m doing it right. We interlace our fingers, squeezing our hands, and our blood, together.
Kainda makes sure I’m looking in her eyes. “Say what I say.”
I nod.
“Blood to bind.”
“Blood to bind.”
“Flesh to join.”
“Flesh to join.”
“Man to woman.”
“Man to woman.”
“Woman...to man.”
“Woman to man.”
“Forever.”
“Forever.”
She separates our hands, leans down and kisses me again. The sensation is accentuated by the fact that I can now feel the heat of her lips and the warmth of her breath. I’m kind of dazed when she sits up again.
“We have a tradition like this in the outside world,” I say, trying to hide what feels like a swoon. “We call it blood brothers, though that doesn’t really make sense for us.”
She scrunches up her face. “No. It doesn’t.”
“What do you call it?” I ask.
She leans down again, smiling in a way I have never seen before. She whispers her reply in my ear. “Hunters call it ‘the bond’.”