It was dripping water everywhere—especially from its disheveled mop of long, jet-black hair that fell about its face.
The Troll’s eyes locked on to Trent as the beast raised a metal club similar in size and shape to the wooden club that had been wielded by its son. Beneath the pronounced ridge of the Troll’s brow, Trent saw only anger and hatred.
The creature walked forward, never breaking eye contract with Trent, until it was only ten feet away. It bent its knees slightly as if about to jump, but before it could finish its motion, Trent leapt with all of his might from the top of the platform. With the femur bone gripped tightly in his right hand, cocked high above his head, he sailed through the air toward the Troll’s head.
Before the Troll could react, Trent slammed into it and struck the creature’s shoulder soundly with the femur bone.
Even as Trent tried to grab hold of the Troll’s head, the creature spun itself around faster than it seemed possible, flinging Trent to the floor with a thud onto the hard concrete floor.
In less than a second, Trent was on his feet again, already swinging the femur bone at the Troll’s legs, but missing as the large creature deftly stepped away from his attack.
When Trent swung again, the Troll caught the femur bone in his hand and tossed it away, barely missing Zana with his projectile as she stood and watched from above in horror.
Raising its huge metal club over its head, the Troll swung down hard where Trent was standing. But Trent dove out of the way an instant before the club smashed into the concrete floor, shattering the cement and sending up sparks and chunks of debris.
Trent scanned the floor nearby, searching for any kind of a weapon he could use, but he didn’t find one.
Nor did he have anything up his proverbial sleeve.
He was alone and empty-handed against the Troll.
Although Trent had been almost consumed by exhaustion just a handful of minutes ago, once again his body flowed with adrenaline and rather than being paralyzed by fear, a different kind of battle was going on inside his head. A battle for control.
Trent’s logical, civilized mind was being pushed to the back as he went into survival mode, just as he had been forced to do so many times of late in his life. That change in his mentality was welcome. What Trent feared, however, was that his more primal, animal self would take over completely and not be satisfied with just surviving the encounter with the Troll. He struggled to let his internal animal self take control only partially. But just as with anything wild, there was no happy medium. And with the threat of certain death looming overhead, his human side relinquished control for the moment, in the name of self-preservation.
As the Troll lunged for him, Trent dove to his left, and tumbled across the floor. In an instant, he was back on his feet again but with his back to his attacker. Trent turned around just in time to see the thick, blunt end of the Troll’s club land in the middle of his chest. The impact slammed the air out of his lungs and sent him flying backwards across the room and into the wall as he slid to the floor in a slumped heap.
Trent fought to fill his lungs with air and to fight back the intense pain even as the Troll started barreling toward him, once again faster than something of its size and proportions should have been able to move.
Trent’s instincts screamed at him to get up and out of the way, but his body would not respond.
Instead, all it allowed him to do was to reach helplessly for the knife he had been carrying when he had fought the Troll’s son, even though he knew it would not be there.
Out of options, Trent roared loudly, and curled into a defensive ball, bracing himself against the wall for the impact of the giant.
Chapter 42
IN LESS THAN a second, the Troll rammed into Trent with its full power, knocking the wind out of his lungs again and cracking the cement wall behind him as its metal club fell to the floor with the force of the impact.
Barely able to move and in desperation, Trent wrapped his arms around the creature’s torso and hung on with all his strength. Even as Trent was inundated with the intense smell of rotting fish and decay, he hoped that being so close to the creature would hamper its ability to strike him with all its power while he regrouped and tried to take a breath.
Trent held tightly as the Troll tried to pull away from him.
Even with his increased strength, Trent was not faring well against the creature.
The logical side of Trent shoved his savage self aside one last time as he struggled to out-think the creature.
As Trent’s mind raced through all of his options, the Troll shook back and forth violently, slamming its fists into Trent’s back and shoulders in an attempt to break Trent’s grip. He could withstand being shaken so fiercely, but the blows to his back were starting to take their toll and his grip was weakening.
His mind frantically recalled research he had done into pressure points, and elegant moves that took a lifetime to perfect that could easily take down a creature even as large as the Troll. He knew, however, that he did not have a lifetime to perfect anything, and whatever he was going to do, he had to do it quickly. Any action he took had to be effective and decisive.
He concluded that the only approach with any possibility of working would be to go for the soft parts of the creature—his genitals, his esophagus, his eyes, and his ears.
At last, the savage side and the civilized part of Trent’s brain were in agreement.
As soon as the Troll lifted its arm to strike Trent’s back again, Trent let go of the giant’s torso, dropped to his knees and delivered the hardest uppercut he could muster directly into the Troll’s crotch. Trent’s fist felt the creature’s expected fleshy parts, but quickly rammed straight into the Troll’s pubic bone.
The creature doubled over, clutching his crotch and howling so loudly that it hurt Trent’s ears. The sound the creature emitted was so interwoven with pain and anger that the civilized side of Trent almost felt sorry for the Troll.
Trent’s animal side did not share the sentiment.
As Trent stood up and backed away from the Troll, he looked up to see Zana watching them from above.
“Trent, stop fighting it,” she shouted. “Just let it take over, and finish the Troll now, here, tonight!”
Trent looked back down at the creature still hugging himself in pain, then back at Zana before shaking his head.
“That dark spirit that’s attached to your neck,” Zana said, “it’s trying to cover your whole body, but you have to let go of your control and let it do what it was born to do. Please, now it’s your turn to trust me.”
Trent didn’t want to kill anymore. There had to be a way to survive without taking another life. But his instincts told him to finish the Troll as well, while it was vulnerable—to press the attack however he could.
While Trent stood, frozen, the Troll suddenly rose to its full height, scooped Trent up length-wise and pressed him above its head before Trent knew what was happening.
Trent had lost his advantage, and within seconds, he was now the one about to perish.
Trent squirmed and struggled, trying to break the giant’s grip, but even as strong as he had become, his efforts were useless.
The Troll arched its back and threw Trent across the room, toward the wall of the raised platform upon which Zana stood. As Trent flew through the air, he twisted his body so that he was just able to grab the top edge of the platform with his hands as his body slammed into the concrete wall.
Behind him, he could hear the Troll rushing at him, growling in frustration.
Zana reached down and grabbed Trent’s wrists, trying to pull him up. It wasn’t much help, but with the addition of her efforts, he was able to scramble to the top of the platform just as the Troll slammed into the wall below.
Even as he and Zana backed away from the edge and into the straw that covered the floor, the creature’s face came into view as it easily scaled the platform wall.
With one long arm, the cre
ature reached across the floor and grabbed Zana’s ankle. Without taking its eyes off of Trent, the Troll tossed Zana from the platform and down to the floor below.
Trent’s felt his stomach turn sick. If Zana didn’t survive the fall, then all of this would have been for nothing.
“Zana!” he called out. “If you can hear me, get out of here now!”
Zana didn’t reply.
Trent’s anger swelled inside him. If Zana was dead, this monster would pay more than any fiend ever had.
He backed to the center of the platform even as the Troll crouched in front of him, ready to strike.
The creature knew that its prey finally had nowhere left to run, but it had learned that Trent, although small, still had a big bite, and so it was cautious as it assessed the situation.
Trent stared at the creature, then suddenly felt a sharp pain from the bite wound on his shoulder. Despite the immediate danger directly in front of him, his mind flashed back to Alaska and to that terror-filled night only a month ago.
Trent looked down at his hands, illuminated in subtle washes of light from the chimney overhead, and then at the polished silver pendant around his neck that glowed and shimmered as it reflected the moonlight.
He craned his head back and stared upward, through the small concrete shaft that went all the way to the world above.
His eyes stared wide at the familiar sight centered in the small window of sky that was high above him.
It was the full moon, and it was red—a hunter’s moon.
As fast as the speed of thought, Trent’s logical, civilized self stepped back into the recesses of his mind and locked itself behind an iron door, while the savage thing that had been trying to take control of him was finally given full and complete reign.
If Christina were here, she would tell him that he was being possessed by an animal spirit bent on delivering vengeance to those who deserved it.
Oddly enough, he believed that Zana would say the same thing.
The faded part of Trent’s logical mind whispered to himself that he was losing his mind—that he had finally been faced with more than his normal brain could handle—that he had at last fractured his personality so that he could partition off the part of him that was about to do terrible things that had to be done.
Regardless of how it was happening, as he stared at the full moon, Trent was no longer Trent.
He was stronger and more determined. And he had things to accomplish.
First on his list was disposing of the creature in front of him called the Troll.
After that, it would be time to show the man called the Hunter what it was like to become the hunted.
Chapter 43
WHILE TRENT was distracted by the full moon, the Troll saw its opportunity to strike.
But in the instant that it took the Troll to close the distance between them, Trent turned away from the moon and set himself to meet the creature’s charge head-on with animal-like dexterity.
The Troll’s considerable bulk slammed into Trent, but this time, all nine feet of the creature was barely able to move him. Still on the attack, the Troll swung its reacquired metal club at Trent’s head, but Trent ducked and dove for the Troll’s knees.
Instead of wrapping his arms around the Troll’s legs, he threw the full strength of his shoulder directly into the Troll’s right patella, causing the creature’s knee to snap backwards—a direction in which it was never designed to move.
The Troll dropped to the ground on his destroyed knee and caught Trent on his shoulder with a backswing of its club even as the creature screeched in agony. Trent, unaffected by the glancing blow, jumped on top of the Troll and jabbed his thumbs into its eye sockets.
The Troll struggled to throw Trent off, but was unable to tear him loose. Trent moved his way around behind the Troll’s head and wrapped his legs around its neck while he hunched over and pushed even deeper into the giant’s ocular cavities.
The creature’s howls of rage turned to those of pain and terror once again, and the concrete walls seemed to vibrate as the horrific sound waves bounced off of them.
Trent thought for a moment that he heard the creature unsuccessfully try to weep.
Although Trent might have normally paused in his attack, the animal that Trent had become remained unaffected by the pathetic sounds of his opponent.
Instead, he calmly extracted his bloody thumbs and wrapped his supernaturally strong arms around the creature’s neck, ready to finish the fight permanently.
With all of his savagery, Trent clamped down on the Troll’s throat and held firm.
The Troll seemed to sense its eminent death and began to struggle and kick as hard as it could…but there was nowhere for the creature to go—and no hope for it to escape.
After a minute, the Troll had settled down to the calmness of the nearly dead, but still Trent did not let up.
The next movement Trent felt was the creature slumping forward, at last devoid of life.
The small piece of Trent’s civilized mind that could bear to watch the events as they unfolded was sickened by what he had just done. He had killed again, and even if it was the life of a twisted creature such as the Troll, it was still a life.
Despite his inner turmoil, Trent showed no signs of emotion—no regret, sadness, or even joy—just the simple acknowledgement that a battle had been won—a danger averted—a wrong at last righted.
Trent stood over his fallen enemy, sniffing the air. He looked up at the full moon again one last time, and his lips curled back into an inhuman snarl.
There was still more work to be done.
There was still another who threatened his life and who deserved to die. Trent could smell the remnants of that man on the dead thing at his feet that used to be known as the Troll.
He breathed in the scent of his new prey, then hopped down off the platform.
When he landed, he saw a young female with black hair walking toward him.
He growled at her in a menacing tone, and she stood very still.
Trent could sense the woman’s fear. He could also smell the scent of almonds and the smell of her sex. Both were familiar to some part of him, and Trent knew that he did not need to fear her.
Turning from the female, Trent moved toward the room’s entranceway, ripping off his restrictive suit jacket and his shirt as he went. They were too constraining, and he needed to have his full range of motion for the task ahead.
The female made a loud noise behind him, but her sounds did not fully register with Trent. The noises she made were familiar to him—they were words that he knew, including his name, but he could not force his mind to piece them together or to understand their meaning.
Confused, he continued on his way. Ancient instincts told him that the female would be safe here while he pursued his true enemy. A fire was being stoked deep down in his belly, and a voice from the back of his mind whispered the words, The Hunter.
Trent left the Troll’s tunnel behind and sped down the hallway where the water became increasingly deeper. He leapt over the mangled and bloated body of a female floating in the water and only vaguely registered her white T-shirt as being somehow familiar.
When Trent got to the end of the short tunnel, he jumped into the large, flooded chamber without hesitation. He let the current carry him toward the entrance to the four-foot high tunnel he had traversed only a short while ago. The water level had begun to drop slightly, and there were only two inches from the water line to the top of the tunnel entrance.
It would be enough.
Without a thought, Trent dove under the water, letting the swift current suck him head-first into the segment of tunnel that would lead him back toward the start of the hunt and ultimately to his prey.
Chapter 44
THE HUNTER TURNED away from the bank of high definition video monitors where he and his clients had watched the hunt unfold. From the mentalist’s actions, it was obvious that he was on his way back to The Lodge and, most
likely, to the Hunter.
The Hunter should have activated the gas when he had the chance, but his clients would have claimed foul play—that he had interfered with the hunt.
And they would have been right.
But even though the Troll was dead, the contest was far from over as the Hunter prepared to enter the contest personally.
He had expected a great chase and even a few surprises from the mentalist, but he had not expected this—for the Hunter himself to now become the hunted.
The feeling was unnerving and at the same time, exhilarating.
Secretly, he had always been jealous of the Troll and the fact that the creature was the one allowed to make all the kills. Many times, he had dreamed of hunting the homeless scum himself, but in the end, he had always chosen to stay focused on his true goal—running his business, courting his clients, and making enough money to fund his travels and his other…passions.
Since leaving his home of Alaska, he had hunted the great black rhino, lions in Africa, and even polar bears in the Arctic.
Each had proven itself to be a wonderful and unique prey.
He was sure that the mentalist would prove himself equally as worthy.
The Hunter leaned forward against the short glass wall that made up the perimeter of The Lodge.
From his vantage point, twenty feet above the concrete floor below, he would have a clear shot at Mr. Walker if he tried to directly approach the Hunter’s stronghold. Some might consider this strategy to be unsportsmanlike, but the Hunter saw it as being no different from sitting in a blind and waiting safely for a wild animal to come into view.
Even if Mr. Walker were to somehow make it across the expanse of the room alive, the elevator was locked, and the only other way to the top of The Lodge was the winding concrete staircase built into its external wall.
Since that was the case, after negotiating a special price with his guests, the Hunter had provided each of them with a rifle so that they could participate in this unique experience.
The Whittier Trilogy Page 28
