Authors: Jeremy Robinson
5 Onslaught
THE
LAST HUNTER
ONSLAUGHT
By
Jeremy Robinson
©
2012 Jeremy Robinson. All rights reserved.
This
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of
the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and should not be construed
as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No
part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Prologue
“Belgrave Ninnis, come inside this
instant, before Death himself decides you are too easy a target to pass by.”
Lieutenant
Ninnis leaned back in his chair, “Just a moment more.” He took a slow drag from
his pipe, allowing the warm smoke to thaw his lungs a touch. Momentarily
relieved of the cold air’s sting, he set his charcoal to the page once more and
lost himself in the image.
He didn’t
notice that the gray cloud coming from his lungs with each breath wasn’t pipe
smoke. He didn’t notice the brightness of the stars overhead or the thin crust
of ice forming atop his water glass. The cold suited him.
Always
had.
It was part of the reason he’d been selected to join Douglas Mawson’s
Antarctic expedition—that and his father of the same name was the Inspector
Surgeon General of the Royal Navy and a member of the Vice-Admiral’s Arctic
expedition that explored the coasts of Greenland and Ellesmere Island. His
father’s legacy was more inspiration than pressure, but Ninnis couldn’t deny a
desire to outdo his father. Antarctica was further, colder, more dangerous and
far less explored.
The
charcoal, reduced to a nub, crumbled between his fingers. He lifted it from the
page and looked down at his hands.
“Lord,”
came
a sweet, but concerned voice. “You’re shaking.”
Ninnis
watched his hand twitching back and forth, stricken by the cold. “So I am.”
“I don’t
understand why you’re out here, tonight of all nights,” she said.
Ninnis
turned back to his wife of four hours and smiled. She was wrapped in blankets.
Her brown hair hung in ringlets, recently freed from a braid. Her deep brown
eyes mesmerized him. “To prepare myself,” he said.
“A full
year will pass before you leave my side,” she said. “Prepare yourself when
winter returns.”
“I was
not speaking of my future adventures at the bottom of the world, or of the
frigid lands that await me there,” Ninnis said. “Rather, I was speaking of the
warmth this night yet promises.”
A grin
formed on her lips, followed by a shiver that ran up through her body.
“Devil.”
“The
devil could not love one as fair as you,” Ninnis said, and then leaned to the
side, revealing his drawing.
“For you, dear, sweet Caroline.
My wife.”
When her
hands went to her mouth, the blankets fell, revealing that the braid was not
the only wedding decoration she had shed. She now wore delicate undergarments
that both hid her body and accentuated it. Stunned by the sudden revelation, he
was still in a stupor when she took the page from his hands and stepped inside,
off of the balcony and away from the chilled London air.
He
watched her walk away with the sigh of a man who knew, without a shred of
doubt, that he had somehow won a lottery in Heaven and had been given one of
God’s finest creations. He lifted his water glass to his lips and tipped it
back. When no fluid reached his mouth, he looked down, saw the layer of ice and
laughed.
Shaking
his head, he stood and looked out from the Cavendish Hotel’s penthouse balcony.
The lamp-lit streets, homes and businesses of London surrounded him, a sea of
orange lights beneath a sky of white stars. Normally, he might gaze at the
view, searching for interesting details or listening to the late night revelers
defeating the cold with liquor, but the woman waiting for him inside was far
more interesting. He spun on his heels and entered the suite, closing the doors
to the balcony behind him.
The heat
greeted him first, prickling his skin. The room felt like an inferno, though he
knew it was just because he was so chilled. The fire had dwindled to a small
flicker, and a new log would be needed to accommodate a late night. Half way to
the fire, he paused when the heat became unbearable. Scratching his
itching
his skin, he turned to his new wife and watched.
Noting his attention, Caroline met his gaze.
“How did
you do it?” she asked, holding up the portrait. “It looks so much like me, but
I wasn’t posing.”
Ninnis
tapped his head. “There isn’t a detail of your face I do not have committed to
memory. That is my true preparation for the expedition. When I miss you, and I
will, I can recreate your face on the page. In pretending you are gazing back
at me, as you are now, I will find peace…” He shivered and grinned.
“And maybe a little warmth in that barren world.”
His grin
widened when Caroline all but swooned at his words. She placed the page on the
nightstand and lay back on the thick blanket. He moved to the fireplace, adding
two more logs to the fire, and prodding the embers with a wrought-iron poker
until the fresh wood caught. Satisfied that the fire would burn through the
night, he turned to the bed.
Caroline
smiled at him. “It’s nearly
time
.”
He smiled
widely. “I know.”
“You have
to go,” she said.
Ninnis
paused, his shirt half lifted. “Go?
Where?”
“Back,” she
said.
“Did you
leave something in the hall?” he asked.
“At the church?”
“Belgrave,”
she said. “You
know
. You remember.”
Tears
pushed at his eyes. An invisible hand clutched his throat. He sat down on the
side of the bed. “I hoped it had been a nightmare.
A very
long, detailed nightmare.”
She sat
up next to
him,
hand on his back, tracing the contours
of his shoulder blade. “I wish it were so.”
Ninnis
looked at her, his tears running freely. “And you? Are you real?” He looked up
at the sketch, a perfect memory of his Caroline. “Or are you just a memory?”
“Look at
me,” she said. “Do you think you can remember me this well?”
His eyes
traveled up and down her form. Every part of her was perfectly realized.
“You’re right,” he said, “I’m not Solomon.”
Ninnis gasped.
Saying the boy’s name solidified that this was a fantasy and the very bleak
reality, where Caroline was long since deceased and his body had been kidnapped
by an evil spirit, awaited him. His head sagged toward the floor.
“Chin up,
Belgrave,” Caroline said in a tone that was far more chipper than seemed
appropriate.
Ninnis
stood and stepped away from her, offended. “My own fantasy taunts me?”
Caroline
frowned while still maintaining some form of smile on her face. The expression
was new to Ninnis. She slipped from the bed and stood before him, reaching out
a hand.
Before
her fingers reached his chest, Ninnis stepped back. “This isn’t real. The boy
is real. The masters are real. It’s all darkness. And death! And evil! And—”
Her hand
reached his chest, flattening over his heart. He collapsed to his knees,
wracked by sobs. She fell with him, clutching his body to hers, steadying him.
“I
am
real, Belgrave. I am not a
conjuring of your imagination. We are not even within the confines of your
mind.”
Ninnis snapped
to attention at this, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Where are we then?”
“Where
you needed to be.”
Ninnis
looked around his honeymoon suite. He had never felt as loved and safe as he
had on the first night he spent in this room. He thought he understood, but a
question nagged. “If I must leave, will I see you again?”
“I...do
not know,” she replied. “All I know is that it is possible.”
“But...how?”
he asked. “I am...my life is...” He shook his head. “I do not deserve any of
this.”
“You’re
right,” she said, “
you
didn’t deserve to be taken from
me, or to be broken and made into a monster, or to be the architect of
Solomon’s transformation.” When it was clear that Ninnis was far from
convinced, she added, “Do you think the boy is the only one capable of forgiving
you?”
Ninnis
raised his eyebrows and looked her in the eyes.
“You have
lived a long life, Belgrave Ninnis, but you still have so much to learn.”
Tears,
now of hope, fled from his eyes. “Then teach me.”
She
reached out and took his hand. “There is no time for that. I can only show
you.”
He
resisted her pull toward the balcony door. The cold now reminded him of his
frigid prison. But she didn’t relent, and soon, he found himself standing
before the door.
“Open
it,” she said. “And look.”
He found
himself reaching for the door handle. When his skin touched the metal handle,
it did not sting of cold. Instead, it felt warm to the touch. He twisted the
handle and pulled.
Warm air
washed over him.
The night
was gone, replaced by a brilliant, deep blue.
He stepped
onto the balcony.
London
was gone. In its place was—
“An
army,” Ninnis said.
And at
the army’s core stood a man—barely a man now—who was at once intimately
familiar and wholly alien. Ninnis pointed to him. “There I am.”
Caroline
stepped up next to him, resting her hands on the railing. “Not you.
Him.
Ophion.”
“
Nephil
,” Ninnis said.
Caroline
nodded.
He looked
at her. “Tell me what to do.”