30
Our hope disappears when the stench hits. Half a day’s journey from the gates of Tartarus, the odor of countless Nephilim and hunters fills the tunnels like an invisible fog. There is no escaping it. The scent of smoke and roasting flesh is mixed with the rancid tang of body odor and refuse. Every step takes us deeper into the stink, and it’s not long before I can taste it in my mouth. I’m not sure what’s worse anymore, breathing through my nose or through my mouth.
I choose to breathe through my nose because even though the smell is stronger than the taste, the flavor of Nephilim in my mouth repels me. I’ve tasted it before, when I consumed the flesh of Nephil.
Em stops, resting against the wall of the small tunnel we’ve been following. We haven’t come across another living thing on our journey thus far, nor have we detected anyone following us, but we’re sticking to the road less traveled just to be careful. I know Ninnis wants me to arrive as Ull, and show everyone that I’m willingly giving myself to Nephil, but that doesn’t mean he won’t have an ambush ready for me. I doubt it, but better safe than sorry.
“You okay?” I ask her. I know she’s not tired. We could both continue on at this pace for days.
“I’m just—are you sure about this?” She avoids my eyes. “You launched right into this plan, which might leave you dead or under the control of Nephil, without much thought. I mean, I want to save Luca, too. But I’m starting to wonder if the cost of getting Luca back is too high.”
“He’s your brother,” I say. “He’s my brother. He’s
more
than my brother.”
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“You know…what he is?”
She nods. “Tobias told you?”
“Tobias didn’t know everything.”
Em steps away from the wall, confusion stitching across her forehead. “Which means I didn’t know everything.”
“We’re connected,” I say. “Since I arrived on Antarctica… Luca sees—he can see what I see. Not all the time, but big events. Big emotions. They’re like dreams for him, and they don’t affect him the way they do me. But he knows. I have no doubt he knows we’re coming for him.”
Em looks worried. “Do you think he heard? What I said?”
She’s afraid to say it again; that maybe rescuing Luca is a bad idea. I don’t know how the connection really works, but since I’m not feeling any kind of strong emotion, other than revolt over the smell, I doubt it. “I don’t think so,” I say, and hope it’s true.
Em doesn’t say anything, but I know the matter is settled. What kind of people would we be if we didn’t risk everything to save our six year old brother? He’d be tortured and killed, or worse, broken and trained to hunt and kill us.
I think leaving a child to that kind of fate would turn my blond hair red again and leave a tarnish on my soul that would remain for the rest of my life.
“Aren’t you afraid?” Em asks.
I hold out my hand in response, letting her see it shake. Every step we take closer to the source of the rancid odor, makes it worse. Without the smell, my fear might be manageable. I might be able to put my fate out of my mind for a moment. But the stink is a constant reminder that I’m about to face an army.
On my own.
While Em attempts to rescue Luca.
She takes my hand in hers and squeezes. The shaking abates some and I find my voice. “I’m terrified. I have hidden from this confrontation for a long time and I’m now headed straight toward it. I lost myself once before, and I’m afraid that’s going to happen again. Death would be preferable.”
Her face becomes that of a hunter’s. “If it comes to that…”
She’d kill me. She’d prevent me from becoming Nephil. I have no doubt she would do it, and it gives me comfort. “Thanks.”
“Let’s go,” she says, stepping away.
“If it happens,” I say. “If Nephil takes me, fully takes me, don’t wait. If you do, he’ll be impossible to stop.”
She looks over her shoulder, staring into my eyes. We have an understanding. She won’t wait.
We walk in silence for thirty minutes before coming to the end of our side tunnel. It exits into a larger tunnel where a river flows down, all the way to the massive chamber Behemoth calls home, where the gates of Tartarus await.
As Em starts for the tunnel, I’m suddenly glad I decided to breathe through my nose. A new odor has entered the mix, and it’s hard to separate from the others at first, but once I do, I lunge for Em and snatch her arm, stopping her just a few feet from the small tunnel’s exit. When she looks back at me, I put my index finger to my lip and shush her.
She mouths, “What is it?”
I put my hand atop my head, bending in a way that is instantly recognizable to any hunter as a cresty. Her eyes go wide. She closes her mouth and takes a few quick sniffs through her nose. She winces at the smell, but fights through it until she detects them too.
Somehow knowing it’s been detected, a large cresty lowers its head into the tunnel. It was waiting just outside, ready to snatch up whoever walked out of the tunnel next!
Or was it?
This cresty is acting strangely, just staring at us. The scent of a hunter is enough to trigger a strong fight or flight response in cresties. They either turn tail and run, or hiss and prepare for a fight. This one does neither. It simply looks at us.
Not us
, I realize.
At me
.
I take a step forward.
It takes a step back.
I repeat the action, and the cresty does as well.
It’s giving me a wide berth.
Does it recognize me? Is it— “Grumpy?”
I walk toward the creature, reaching out an open palm. The cresty lowers its head.
“Solomon!” Emilie hisses. “Get back here!”
I ignore her and continue out into the large tunnel, entering the river until I’m knee deep and my hand is just a foot from the dinosaur’s snout. “It is you,” I say, “isn’t it?”
The twenty foot cresty male takes a single step forward, placing its forehead gently under my hand. Emilie’s telltale gasp issues from the tunnel behind me and Grumpy lifts his head and looks at Em.
I turn my back to Grumpy, which once again makes Em gasp, but I trust this creature. I don’t know if it’s because the cresties are so old, predating the Nephilim occupation of Antarctica, that I am in some ways bonded to them as I am to the land, or if it’s merely the fact that I killed Alice and the intelligent dinosaurs feel some kind of obligation, but the connection is real.
Em holds two knives at the ready. They seem like tiny weapons to use against a large carnivore, but she’d have no trouble blinding the creature and then moving in closer for the kill, which is something I really don’t want her to do.
“Em, put the knives away,” I say.
She hesitates.
“Em, he’s a friend.”
She looks at me, then to Grumpy, then back to me. Finally, she sheaths the knives.
“Come here,” I say.
Her hands stay near the knives, but she comes forward slowly. “He’s not alone,” she whispers, watching the tunnel around us.
“I know,” I reply. “There are eleven others.”
“You can smell each one?”
“No,” I say with a grin. “We’re old friends.”
She stops a few feet away.
I stand aside. “Em this is Grumpy. Grumpy, Em.”
The two size each other up. When Grumpy takes a step forward, Em flinches and reaches for a knife. I stop her with a stern, “Em.”
She holds her ground, but can’t erase the fear from her face. If Grumpy sneezes she’s liable to slit his throat.
“Hold out your hand,” I say.
She does, and Grumpy sniffs her hand. When her hand comes in contact with the cresty’s snout, Em smiles. “I’ve never touched a live one before.” Grumpy slides his head beneath her hand and she rubs him. The big dinosaur lets out a deep rumble, like a giant cat purring. “How is this possible?” Em asks.
“I set them free,” I say. “When I saved Kainda from Alice. She dominated the pack at the time.” I rub Grumpy’s neck. “How did you get free? Was there an exit I didn’t find?” I ask, but the dinosaur can’t speak. “And why are you here?”
When Grumpy turns toward me, I get a sense of why he’s here. To repay the favor. To help me fight. To be my army. How that’s possible, I have no idea. But I think that’s what’s going on.
“Do you have anything of Luca’s?” I ask Em.
She nods and digs into one of her pouches. She takes out a crayon and small wad of folded pages. “I thought they would help him feel safe.”
I take the crayon and paper and hold them out to Grumpy’s nose. He smells them. “Leave him unharmed,” I say, and then hand the drawing supplies back to Em. “He knows our scents now. Hopefully he understands.”
“Hopefully?”
“I think he does.”
Grumpy lifts his head and lets out a high pitched bark. Eleven more cresties, ranging in size from ten to eighteen feet, step out from the shadows. The whole deadly gang is here. Grumpy turns to face me again. I give his nose a pat. And then the lot of them is off and running, disappearing into the darkness. I wish there were a way to communicate with the beasts, to forge some kind of official plan, but I get the sense that Grumpy understands their role in the events to come.
At least, I think he does.
31
As we approach the end of our journey, we stop to share a last meal. We sit by the river, lit by a large number of glowing crystals embedded in the wall, and eat the fruits of our recent hunt. The centipede is hardly appetizing, but its cheesy flesh is high in protein and will help combat fatigue from our journey. I’m going to need all the strength I can muster soon enough. We scoop the uncooked flesh out with our hands and scrape it onto our lower teeth before swallowing. I notice Emilie having a hard time swallowing.
She sees me watching and says, “It’s been a long time since I ate centipede.”
I take a big bite and force myself to casually swallow without showing the disgust I feel. “It’s an acquired taste.”
We both laugh through mouthfuls of centipaste.
“What’s it like?” Em asks me. “The outside world? Do things taste better there?”
My mind flashes through a thousand different flavors. Chocolate ice cream. Maria’s Pizza. Roast beef. Devil Dogs. Corn on the cob. Despite the disgusting flavor in my mouth, and worse smell in the air, my mouth starts to water. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Do you think…”
“I don’t know,” I say, anticipating her question. I want to tell her she can trust me to succeed. That I can face the devil, return and take her to the outside world, live with my parents and eat candy until we puke. But I’m not even sure I believe that’s possible.
“What about everything else? Is it…safe?”
“Most of the time,” I say, but then remember scores of news reports about wars and famines. “Where I’m from. But not everywhere. Some places aren’t much different than here. And there have been wars—” I shake my head. The images of war retained in my head aren’t doing my nerves any good.
She nods like she knows what I’m talking about. “It’s what they’ve been working toward. People killing people. Only things haven’t worked out the way they want. Which is why they need you. To speed things up. Set mankind against each other.”
At first I have no idea what she’s talking about, but then I slowly put the pieces together. There are Nephilim in the world. I don’t know where or how, or what they look like, but they’re out there. And if what she’s saying is true, then they’ve been influencing the outside world for a long time. Causing wars. Building tension. Hoping humans will pull the trigger on themselves. And while wars have raged and millions died, humanity is still here and more populous and powerful than ever.
But how can I change that? Even instilled with the spirit of Nephil, I’m still just one person. I might be able to control the earth, air and water here on Antarctica, but that won’t help with the rest of the world, and those powers might fade when I leave. Could Nephil be that strong of a leader that the giant Nephilim are afraid to proceed without him? Perhaps his presence will erase tension between the different classes and unite them against the surface world? All of this is possible, but none of it feels right. There’s something else at work. Unfortunately, the only way to figure out what that is, is to take on the mantel of Ull and offer myself—willingly—to Nephil. And by then, it might be too late to change anything.
I’ve lost my appetite and fling a fist full of centipaste on the cave floor. “We should go,” I say. “Before I change my mind.”
Em swallows her last bite with an, “Ugh,” and begins to pack up.
I squat by the river, washing my hands. I see my face, lit by the glow of the crystals, reflected in the smoothly flowing water. I inspect my hair. It’s still red with Em’s blood. But then I see my face, and for the first time I notice how different I look. My jaw is square and when I bite down the sides of my face bulge with muscle. But even stranger than that is my skin. It looks fuzzy. I put my hand to my face and rub. I’m covered in coarse red fuzz. I realize what it is at the same time Emilie speaks about it.
“Leave your beard alone,” she says, and then notices my stunned face. She draws two knives. “What is it?”
“I have a beard?”
She puts the knives away and squats next to me. “You’re of age.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Why would I? You’ve always had it.”
That I’ve now had a beard for months, maybe longer, without realizing it stuns me. “Why didn’t Aimee say anything about it?”
She shrugs. “She had other things to say.” She spins a knife between two fingers. “Do you want me to cut it off?”
I look at myself again. The hair makes me look older. Stronger. Like a man. “No,” I say. “Leave it. Ull would like it.”
I stand and take the cresty hood and cloak out of a large satchel. I shake out the cloak and wrap it around my shoulders.
“What would Grumpy think of that?” Em asks.
“Depends,” I say.
“On what?”
“If they were friends.”
Em gets out a final laugh. And then we’re down to business. We pack out what’s left of our gear, I position the skull hood atop my head and we set out for the great cavern.
We reach our destination quickly and stop where the river divides and criss-crosses into the distance. Maybe a half mile to our right is a line of fire rising ten feet tall. Through its flickering flames I see hunters and smaller Nephilim. Standing high above the flames are Nephilim warriors facing our direction. They’re not looking at us, though, they’re looking beyond us. I follow their gaze and find the subject of their attention.
Behemoth.
The giant is squatting, but still looks like a living skyscraper. Its body heaves with each breath and I realize that the wind in this cavern might be partly generated by the thing’s breathing. Tendrils of its rope-like hair twitch like the tails of angry cats. Behemoth is ready to pounce, but maintains his distance.
Em sees the confusion on my face and says, “The flames keep him at bay. Not because of the heat, but the light.”
“Ahh,” I say. Behemoth lives in total and perpetual darkness. There are no crystals here. No natural sources of light. This doesn’t stop the giant from seeing—it’s adjusted to pitch black just like the rest of us—but it does make the creature sensitive to light. The thing is probably tortured by the bright glow of the flames even at this distance. The question is, can it be agitated enough that it will ignore the flames? After all, Ull
should
make a grand entrance.
I turn to Emilie. “So, this is it.”
Sadness creeps into her face. “Will I see you again?”
When I don’t reply, she adds, “You can lie to me.”
I grin. “Then yes. But don’t focus on me. Look for Doug first. See if he recovered Luca. If he did, take him and don’t look back. If he failed and they still have him, wait for a distraction, and then strike.”
“What distraction?”
“I’ll think of something,” I say. “But when the time comes. Don’t hesitate. Strike. Luca won’t be a priority once I’m there, so you shouldn’t have to deal with Ninnis or Kainda.”
Her eyes darken at the mention of Ninnis.
“We’re not here for vengeance,” I say. “Just Luca.”
“And if we recover him and escape,” she asks. “What then?”
It blows my mind that we haven’t talked about this before. We’ve been so focused on getting Luca back that we never came up with what to do after we had him. “We’ll get you both to McMurdo. You can take Luca and live on the outside, eat delicious food, and maybe find your family.”
“How?” She asks. “Will you be coming?”
I shake my head, no, but I suspect she knew that. “I need to stay here. When they find you, tell them you belong to Merrill Clark in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, United States of America. When they bring you to him, tell him the truth. Tell him about me. He will help you.”
Loud chanting from Behemoth’s cavern snaps our heads toward the wall of fire. Time is short. “It’s time,” I say.
Em lunges forward and wraps her arms around me. Her embrace is crushing, but fuels my resolve and reminds me of why I’m facing my fears today instead of running away. Without another word, we part and walk in opposite directions, Em disappearing into the dark tunnel and me walking into the brightly lit cavern in full view of the Nephilim—and Behemoth.