My thoughts were instantly cut off by something I had never felt before. It was like a splitting headache in the back of my skul . Everything went fuzzy. I closed my eyes and tried to focus and for the second time today, I felt like throwing up. This time it was not as strong, though. I control ed my lunch, breathed in deep three times, then opened my eyes.

The people in front of us, al the way down to the front row, were al a blur-al but two, who sat in the second row. It was a tal man with short blond hair and a shorter man with a bal cap on. They were talking and from where I was sitting, I could tel they were not happy.

The tal blond man leaned over and whispered something to the bal cap man and he stiffened. I had a bad feeling that something was going to happen, but I wasn't sure. What are they talking about?

Then I saw it. The glint of a blade, catching the light from the movie screen, appearing from the blond man's coat. I saw his arm wrap around the bal cap man's shoulder, reaching around to cover his mouth.

I tried to yel , but nothing came out. I just opened and closed my mouth like a fish. There was no way this was real. Everyone else seemed not to notice the two men, but I could feel what happened.

The tal man jerked his arm, making the bal cap man's body twitch crookedly. A second time he thrust the knife in and after a few more seconds the bal cap man went limp in his seat. I was speechless. I had just witnessed a cold-blooded murder. I couldn't breathe, let alone talk. It looked like the bal cap man was napping in the darkness. There was no way anyone would see he was dead until the end of the movie.

Now, just as if I had shouted at him, the tal man with the knife turned and looked dead at me. His piercing dark eyes shot a hole right through me. I jerked my gaze away and tried to act like I was lost in the movie. He stared at me and refused to let me out of his sight. I managed to grunt something like, "I have to go to the restroom." I stood and slipped by Michael and James.

I hiked down the stairs and past the kil er's row, was and I could feel him watching me hateful y. He sat stil as I pa.s.sed. I didn't look his way. I could feel his gaze fol ow me as I turned to go out into the lobby. I was scared and in a panic, not sure what to do. My mind felt like sludge and would not work like I needed it to.

I hit the lobby quickly and ran ful blast to the bathroom where I promptly threw up in the sink. I looked into the mirror. My reflection was the image of a stranger-I wondered at al of this for a split second. Questions came tumbling in, al jumbled up and twisted together with answers that didn't fit. I fumbled with my phone and dialed 911. Come on, pick up!

"Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?"

I was just about to answer when I heard the door open. I turned and rushed to an empty stal . I shut the door as quietly as I could and crouched down on top of the toilet. I quickly turned off my phone but it played that irritating jingle that's always way too loud, giving me away. There was silence then for what felt like eternity. Then I heard heavy footfal s. Someone was walking slowly through the room...toward me.

Like a crazy person, he was whistling some random tune, very low, like a whisper. At first it was unintel igible, total nonsense. But then he came even closer to the stal where I hid, and as he did, I swear I could recognize the tune. It was beyond me to put a name to it, but it fil ed me with horror.

I shivered as he came closer, the footfal s like heavy machinery, dropping like lead weights on the tile floor. I saw under the door the shine of a pair of men's dress shoes.

Oh G.o.d, oh G.o.d...! Don't let him find me... I was crouched like a jungle cat on the toilet and if I could have pinned my ears back, I would have.

I could see him hunch down on the bal s of his feet, his coat touching the floor around him like a tent. He started looking under the stal doors, crouching lower. His hand dropped down and a b.l.o.o.d.y eight-inch long knife was in his hand. I just about screamed but I clamped my hand down over my mouth, only al owing a frightened gasp to escape.

I watched him through the crack of the door, his body tensed like a vicious predator. He sniffed at the air. Then his hands slowly came down and rested on the floor, bal ed up on his knuckles with silky elegance. It was more frightening than the anger and violence I was expecting. He seemed to be completely calm and col ected.

Down he sank, and as he did, he slid his feet back away from his hands. Lower and lower to the floor as if doing a push-up, he descended, the knife in the hand nearest to me.

I could not bear it, but I knew I would see his face... it was inevitable. I dreaded the seconds as they ticked along with me riding inside them, but I also dreaded those that were coming for me.

Then it happened. His face appeared in the smal s.p.a.ce under the door. He was looking directly at me. I could not bear his gaze. My body twitched and I turned away and trembled in panic.

Then, just as fast as he came in, he was gone.

I started to sob and shake uncontrol ably. I stopped myself when I heard the door open again. "Airel, you in here?"

Kim! "Oh G.o.d, Kim! " I burst from the stal crying. As she stood there stunned, I clung to her.

"Whoa, hold on, girl-what's going on? Are you okay?" Kim held me up as I cried. "Airel, it's okay. I'm here. Everything's gonna be alright."

I was sobbing and shaking uncontrol ably. The total panic of what had happened was made complete by the sound of screaming people in the lobby outside.

Chapter IX.

1250 B.C. Arabia A tal , cold marble G.o.d stood in the snow-driven wind, wrapped in fur and leather. He did not shiver or move as he gazed out from the precipice of a stone cliff that dropped dizzyingly below him. The frozen landscape moaned in protest as the wind pushed stiff tree branches and pul ed on strands of long dead gra.s.s. It was as if he was not present in that moment-or perhaps he was dead on his feet-frozen in the standing position, only a statue; a carving of someone once strong and brave.

He inhaled the icy air and let out a cloud of vapor that was quickly carried away. His eyes were dark and sparkling under his thick eyebrows. His face was pale, smooth, almost white. Even in the frigid morning light he seemed to be quite comfortable.

A feather of smoke hurried from the top of the smal hut behind him. Across the wooded hil s, through the trees, a thousand more huts sent up their own smudges of smoke, signifying that life was stil smoldering in the little vil age. Even with the long winter only halfway gone, the people took heart in the simple fact that they were not alone in the dead world. They would not suffer through it in miserable solitude. The human heart could endure much in the company of others who shared the same plight.

The powerful man c.o.c.ked his head when he heard a woman's pathetic cry escape from the hut behind him. He turned, walking toward the rough door, his easy strides giving him an air of self-a.s.surance. He ducked inside and lashed the door shut with a leather strap.

The one-room hut was drafty, even with the door shut. Cold air pushed its way through cracks into the room. A makeshift bed sat in the corner and a fire crackled in the center of the room where it jumped and leaped, fighting to displace the cold with its warmth.

An uncommonly beautiful woman lay in the bed, in labor with child. She was covered with a blanket made of skins. Her face was twisted in pain, but even in her anguish she was stunning. The fire fil ed the room with an orange light that danced off the wal s.

The man pushed the hood from his head and leaned down, placing a gentle kiss on the beautiful woman's cheek. His wife forced a smile, then arched her back and bit her lower lip as another contraction wracked her body. The contractions were getting stronger and closer together. The baby would soon arrive. Al the pain of labor would be forgotten, if only for a little while.

Taking a black pot from the fire, he placed it next to where she lay and let his coat fal to the floor. He wore rough hand-st.i.tched leather pants with a white woven shirt that tied at the chest. His skin was hard and stony.

Even in the dim light, faintly visible markings could be seen on his forearms and on the side of his neck, winding their way in and out of his skin. They appeared to be tattoos, but were more like a birthmark. They appeared in the firelight and disappeared with the shadows.

The man took a cool piece of cloth, placed it on his wife's forehead and smiled with concern hidden behind dark eyes.

He hummed a soft melody and worked with skil ed hands, tearing strips of warm cloth with which to wrap the baby when she came. She...he had a feeling the baby would be a girl. Something deep inside told him that she would be special, too. He longed for a daughter, longed for the child to be a girl.

His wife cried out again and looked directly into his eyes. He knew: it was time.

Pul ing the blankets back, he waited as she pushed with a shattering scream. The wind answered her with a burst, shaking the room. She was in her second day of labor and the effort and strain on her body was beginning to show as her strength faded. He wondered how much longer she could endure, but he said nothing, praying for it to final y end for her sake.

She hunched, pushing so hard that she could not breathe for a moment. Then...cries... sweet, soft cries. The baby's voice fil ed the smal hut as mother and father looked into each other's eyes, smiling. The baby looked impossibly smal in his huge arms. He gently wrapped her in warm cloths, giving her to his exhausted wife.

It was a girl! She was beautiful, with her mother's dark wispy hair and the same dark eyes as her father. She ate for the very first time, then the little family gathered together under the warm blankets by the fire to sleep, glowing with the spark and joy of new life.

For that one night in their little world, everything was perfect.

Chapter X.

He stood out against the morning sunrise. The tears that fel from his eyes took hold of the sunlight and sparkled like crystal. Looking down at the bundle in his arms, he pul ed the smooth woolskin blanket back and looked into his daughter's eyes. She was perfect. Her skin reminded him of his beloved bride. It was smooth and olive-colored. His grief came in a fresh and powerful wave again. Now she had her place amongst the stars.

He knew that even in his own vil age, he was an outsider. He stil remembered how his kind used to be part of a civilization, a culture, a society. But they had been required to disperse, separate and scatter-because of the Brotherhood.

They harbored the deepest hatred for anyone or anything different from them. They would hunt down and destroy anyone who resisted them. Everything about him and his kind was always exactly opposite to the Brotherhood.

The man had a name, but none could p.r.o.nounce it in human tongue. The people of his vil age knew him simply as Kreios.

The cold wind was whipping but dead, along with his wife. He felt al of it was forced on him with equal y outrageous swiftness by the cruelest winter he could remember. He wished only to honor her, not to compare such empty things to one so ful of life, warmth, and beauty.

He dug a shal ow grave in the rock hard frozen earth under the very oak tree where they had proclaimed their love for one another only five years earlier.

He could stil feel her heart in his memory, fluttering with antic.i.p.ation. He had gotten down on his knees, poured out his soul, and vowed to love only her forever and into eternity.

Now he poured out his soul once again, drowning it in her grave-and he felt the unjust spitefulness of a life lived in subjection to reality. He placed her cold body into the colder ground. Now, the snow made everything look clean and fresh, providing a bitter irony in contrast to what would be the last thing he would do for her.

The baby cried and wriggled in his arms. Kreios turned and went back inside his mud hut, and shut the cold out with a thud. He wrapped his daughter tighter in the warm skins, put her in his own bed and lay down with her. When she fel asleep he rose again, restless. She would need milk soon. He knew where he had to go to get it. Two days walk from his smal vil age was a town cal ed Gratzipt. His brother lived there with his wife and she was with child.

She would have the precious mother's milk his daughter would need.

Crouching down, poking at the fire in the center of the smal hut, he tried to think. No matter how he looked at it, he would have to take her there. Milk was the only life source for a newborn child-nothing else would do. But there was not one mother in this vil age who would give suck to his little girl. Not in the winter and not for someone like Kreios. This vil age had written him off years ago. They were scared of him and his odd skin color. His strange ways.

Even under the scorching summer sun his skin always kept its pale tone; never burning or darkening. Local myths cast him as a wizard or worse.

Brother will take me in or I shall die myself. I will not let my sweet girl starve to death. With the sure and steady hands of a warrior, he pul ed on his thick heavy coat. He gathered al the sc.r.a.ps of dried meat, putting them, along with his few worldly possessions, in a leather pack. He took a sling and placed the baby into it, then hung it around his neck, careful y tucking her close to his chest under his heavy coat.

He tightened the thick leather belt around his waist in preparation for his journey, and walked out the door into the crisp winter air. The howling wind had subsided now, and he reflected on the change now undeniable in his life and that of his little girl, and felt an overriding peace-if even for a moment. It is you and me now.

He thought about the long walk that lay ahead and the chance that the Brotherhood might be watching the roads. She had no chance of making it for two days. She needed to eat within the next few hours. He knew she would be dead by the time he reached his brother's vil age if he delayed any longer.

It will draw out the Brotherhood and would violate the pact. "I must," he said simply, into the thinning winds. In this statement, the future, with al its potential for good or evil, seemed to be encapsulated.

Kreios shook his head heavily and padded silently through the snow toward the road with the vil age to his back. In about one hundred paces he would be in the woods, under cover. They will know-they have eyes everywhere. He did not bother to argue with himself further. There was no use fighting nature. For his beautiful child he would risk his life, as wel as that of his brother, if that was what was required.

Kreios reached the edge of the wood. The forest had been named for the smal and remote vil age it hemmed in, the place he had cal ed home for ten years now: The Whispering Wood. The Storytel ers had said that G.o.d would whisper truth to travelers there if they had a pure heart. But no one had ever claimed to hear the voice of this G.o.d. In this world, no one had a pure heart.

Looking around him, Kreios turned from the crude dirt road and trudged off into deeper snow, through the dormant undergrowth, into the forest. He could feel his baby girl breathing softly as she slept next to his skin. He knew she would be warm. The cold would not reach her there.

DO NOT DO IT! His inner voice screamed at him, warning him not to provoke the Brotherhood.

He stepped into a smal clearing. Kreios shut his eyes, calmed his nerves, forced himself to be at peace. He listened careful y and looked around once more for any watchers, scanning the bleakness of the wood for a lone traveler, perhaps a merchant caravan traveling on the road far behind. After a moment, he satisfied himself and was certain that he was alone.

He looked down at his hands. They began to radiate; an internal glow cast itself against the bright snow behind. Turning his eyes upward, he bent into a crouch.

Kreios shot straight up into the sky and turned west, speeding as fast as a shooting star. Al around his body the air waves formed the appearance of wings. Light trailed him as he shot across the sky.

Chapter XI.

The wind was bitter cold. It sliced, knife-like, at the thick coat that covered the baby girl Kreios was holding tight to his chest. He touched down, soundless in a heavily wooded forest. He was just outside of Gratzipt, his brother's vil age.

Stealing a glance at his daughter, he couldn't help but smile and breathe her scent in deep. He was relieved and his heart calmed some when he saw that she was sleeping soundly.

It had felt so good to get back into the air! Flying was like a drugwith every draw the feeling grew stronger and more intense. With each flight, he could feel his need and hunger for the experience grow and, unlike any drug-it fil ed him with power.

He could feel a thousand chil ing stares arrayed around him like weapons. His flight to Gratzipt was like a torch in the night to the Brotherhood, and he knew that he would be fol owed. What choice have I been given? Am I to watch my daughter perish? Am I to bury her in the cold ground as well? He did not know how they knew when his kind took flight. He did not know what mystic connection his kind had with the Brotherhood, but it was deep and unbreakable. He could feel blackness coming for him.

The Brotherhood had one goal-the destruction of the Sons of G.o.d.

Kreios remembered having lived in peace, walking the streets, dodging happy children's games, listening to the sounds of their laughter. It had been safe. He and others like him were able to live unhindered, free. It had been so long ago...the memory was a vapor in his imagination. He sighed heavily.

He walked through the trees with smooth steps. His eyes closed partial y as he looked around using his senses, aware of every creature that moved about the forest, every breeze. His ears heard the icy, subtle movements of the air and the m.u.f.fled hard-packed crunch that his moccasins made in the snow as he walked.

Quaking aspens and ancient redwoods loomed above him as he came to the natural boundary of the woods. Beyond, the sky opened up into a long val ey. In the summer it would have been fil ed with lush gra.s.ses, teeming with life. But winter held it firm within its clutches and nothing stirred; it was deadly quiet.

He scanned the smal vil age of Gratzipt. It was not much different than his own. Quaint mud huts with thatched roofs dotted the val ey randomly. Smoke rose from every one of them; the only hint of life or movement. At the center of the vil age, there was a much larger structure with a spire piercing the sky. It was the temple.

The temple, the marketplace square, and some other town buildings were built from hewn trees that were stripped, cut to length, and shaped. They fit perfectly together. This construction method had been proven in the most adverse conditions. The town would come together whenever it was time to erect a new building, laboring together. The smal huts that surrounded these meticulous buildings were far less glamorous.

Kreios was a family-oriented man and to him, that was al that mattered. His brothers and sisters, grandparents, uncles and aunts had settled in places far from here. He never saw any of them, though, because the danger was too great. That was the difficult part.

He made his way out from the forest to the main road that ran through the center of the vil age. Stones had been spread on it by the vil agers to keep mud to a minimum in the rainy season. Since it was so cold, not many townsfolk wandered outside. The few that were outside cast a glance at him and hurried on through the cold, looking away. This answered his unasked question: no one here was wil ing to help a stranger.

"We are almost there, baby," Kreios whispered. "You wil love your uncle. He is not as strong and handsome as I am, but he is a good man." Straight ahead, the temple spire rose into the sky. It had large wooden doors set with heavy bronze handles that put a strange face on it. Gla.s.s windows were built into the wal s, which were a radical innovation to the humans at that time.

The people of Gratzipt had discovered a large deposit of iron in one of the val ey wal s some distance from their vil age. Lightning strikes were a regular occurrence in that spot during summer storms and with that regularity they tested al kinds of materials against it. Soon after they discovered what the intense heat did to sand and they began heating it in their brick ovens to make gla.s.s without the aid or limitations of lightning, shaping it at wil .

Gla.s.smaking became a viable trade, and Gratzipt the merchant hub for the various products that could be made from it.

Kreios knew his brother had been involved in the discovery of this process. He was the chief gla.s.smaker artisan in the vil age. Kreios, in his own turn, was the master of wisdom in his vil age. The people would come to him in much the same way the people from the old tales had come to Solomon.

Because of his enormous past, he, like his brother, knew things no human could know. They had to be very careful as to how much of their gifts they would reveal. If the people saw too much, they would become frightened. Soon after, rumors of witches or seers always spreadlike wildfire.

The baby wriggled against his body and cooed, cutting him right to his heart. He loved her more than he could have imagined possible. She was only a few days old, but the love he already felt for her seemed to be as old as the earth. He hurried his steps. She needed to eat, and soon.

Kreios saw the medium-sized hut to the east of the temple and walked directly to the door. Before he could knock, it opened and a dark haired man with the same features as Kreios stood in the doorway. There was a smile on his face and a hint of concern in his eyes.

"Welcome, my brother, and come inside. I have been waiting for you."