The Last Hunter - Descent - Jeremy Robinson [82]
I take Ninnis by the hand and drag him back to the tunnel entrance. This will be the second time I’ve spared his life. I doubt he will honor my mercy by returning the favor, but to save myself, I need to save him too.
I leave him sitting by the entrance and scrawl three words into the stone wall across from him. It will be the first thing he sees when he wakes up. I’m not sure the power of the words will affect him as they did me, but I can hope.
Further down the tunnel, I stop by a crack in the wall. It takes me thirty seconds to work the Polaroid photo out of the wall with Whipsnap’s blade tip. I risked everything for this photo, heading to familiar territory when I should have been headed deep. But when I look at the image and see my face, so young and so happy, and next to me is Mira—the sight of her breaks my heart—I feel the voices in me fall silent. This photo is my anchor to myself and to everything I’m fighting for.
But right now, I can’t fight. I’m not even sure how to fight what is coming. Despite all I can do, I am just one person alone against a supernatural army. So I run. As fast and as deep as I dare, I run.
38
Forty days later, I stop. Though I’m not sure it was really forty days, by underground standards or topside standards. I haven’t slept much. But I’ve traveled far and deep and have found a place I think the Nephilim, and the hunters will at least think twice about before following me.
It’s one of the largest caverns I’ve seen. The ceiling is hundreds of feet up but not concealed in darkness. Instead, it’s covered in the luminescent crystals that lined the pit. So many, in fact, that I need a few minutes to adjust to the light.
I stand at the edge of a waterfall, looking down. Below me is a lake, not as vast as the one at New Jericho, but big enough. And the light shines on the water just right, so I can see the animals living in the water. There are fish, lots of them, but none are large enough to eat me. There are no seals here, either. If there were, I imagine the cavern’s primary denizen and topper of the food chain—a pack of cresties led by a thirty-foot matriarch—would have eaten them long ago.
Living among cresties is a risk, but there are several other animals living here, and more than a few of them are prey for the cresties. As long as they don’t detect my scent, which seemed to have set off the first mother cresty I encountered, I should be fine.
And the risk is worth it. Not only are there fish and other prey animals to eat—birds, both in the air and flightless, what appear to be herds of hairless mammals, and if necessary, the cresties—but there are also plants. Trees, shrubs and vines surround the lake. Plains of tall green grasses roll into the distance. I have no idea how this is possible, without sunlight. Maybe the stones actually produce ultraviolet light? Maybe the spirit of Antarctica makes it possible.
I don’t know.
I honestly don’t care.
All I know is that I can live here. Maybe long enough to repair my soul. Or come up with a plan.
What I don’t know, is how to get down.
I am perched three hundred feet above the lake. The rocks to either side of the river are slick and impossible to climb down. I’ve already backtracked and searched side tunnels with no luck. Short of spending months exploring miles upon miles of cave systems, this is the only entrance to sanctuary.
Then I remember who I have become.
“I am Solomon,” I say. “Solomon Vincent, the first and only child born on Antarctica. I am home.”
I walk into the river. Like so many other things in this land that seem to crave my death, the water fights to pull me over the edge. But I’ve learned to stand against such things. I can stand in the river and walk against its power. I can focus my will upon it and redirect its flow. Maybe even move mountains when I’m strong enough. Or, if I choose, I can go with the flow—
—and jump.
39
When Ninnis woke, he didn’t open his eyes. He allowed his other senses to reach out first, showing no signs of consciousness. There