Leif cursed himself again for having never learned Hebrew. Everything would have been so much easier if he'd simply understood the language. His hand trailed along the stone railing guarding the front steps of the apartment building. Finding the right apartment should be easy. A middle-aged woman with a small dog walked out the main door, and he bounded up the steps before the door closed. He held it open for her and nodded politely as she passed.

He glanced at the list of names next to the buttons of the call box and nodded in satisfaction. Esther's name was on the list. He glided up the stairs quickly, taking two at a time. He stopped on her floor and glanced at the numbers on the doors, searching for the right one. He heard someone moving softly around in the apartment and gently rapped on the door.

A young woman with golden skin and dark flowing hair cascading down her back peered out at him. Leif dipped his head to the side as his eyes took her in. She looked enough like Esther that the two could easily be mistaken from a distance.

Her eyes widened faintly as she gazed up at Leif. He smiled at her with genuine warmth and confident ease.

"I'm looking for Esther Shemer," he said in English.

She blinked for a second then bubbled girlishly. "That's me."

* * *

Worn stone steps climbed and twisted in front of me. We had been climbing for twenty minutes, with no end in sight. Ezra had been driving for nearly two hours, refusing to give any sort of hint as to where he was taking me. I climbed uneven steps, worn both smooth and rough over the centuries. How many centuries I couldn't guess. Each step had been carved and assembled haphazardly; a few were a mixture of gravel while others were cut out of huge stone blocks. Some were only a few inches high, and others were elevated a foot high. Gnarled branches curled and hung over the path, spreading into the darkness around us. It was past two o'clock in the morning, and the deep shadows combined with the uneven terrain meant I had to pay strict attention to where I was going. The last thing I wanted to do was twist an ankle, or break my neck. No telling how long that would take to heal.

If Ezra brought me out to see an ancient staircase, I wasn't impressed. I'd seen stairs before. I'd even seen ancient stairs before.

We climbed for fifteen, maybe twenty minutes more when I noticed the trees begin to clear and the curved crest of the hill rounding above me. The leaves and branches parted, slinking into the black, revealing an astonishing canopy of stars. I could count on one hand the number of places I had seen the night sky like this. It was as if the stars were pushing against each other for a small piece of the night. Living in a city it is easy to forget how many stars there really are, that is if you were ever lucky enough to discover it in the first place. It was moments like this, I realized how far from nature the world had come. This was the real sky, in all its magnificence. This was the sky Ezra had known most of his life. Today, the places we could go to see the stars, naked and natural, were shrinking day by day.

Ezra stepped behind me and wrapped his arm around my waist. I looked back to the ground, and I gasped. I stepped forward, unable to believe what was happening around me. Fire. The mountain was burning. Not the trees or grass but the mountain itself. All around dozens of gold, yellow, crimson, and blue flames were burning through the stone. Some of the fires were small, wavering and licking no higher than my ankles while others came past my thighs.

I walked up to a fire and placed my hand on the stone next to it. Even inches from the flames, the stones were still cool under my hand. I turned in a slow circle, mesmerized.

"These are the fires of the Chimaera. A monster with the head of a lion, the body of a goat and the tail of a serpent," Ezra said close to my ear. "This is where the gods display their vengeance." I raised an eyebrow at him. "There used to be a temple over there," he gestured to an open space to the right. "These fires have been burning for thousands of years. If you try to put one out, it will just flame up again."

"It's so..." I wanted to say beautiful, but it wasn't merely beautiful. It was extraordinary. A light breeze touched my hair, tickling my neck. The flames hissed, the trees rustled in the distance and crickets chirping to each other, oblivious to everything. The rest of the world was still and silent.

I don't know how long I stood there before I finally walked over to a large stone about the size of a small bench and sat down. We stayed on that mountain for more than an hour. I laid down on my back, staring at the fires in the sky while listening to the fires of the mountain hiss and whisper. Ezra sat next to my head, his hand stroking along my hair occasionally. It was a gesture of familiarity and possession that I enjoyed.

"How amazing is it that places like this exist?" I finally said. "And that there aren't guard rails along all the fires to protect people from burning their fingers and lights around every rock to protect people from stubbing their toes. The steps of the path are old and crumbling in places, and they are allowed to. They haven't been smothered with cement. And there aren't any electric lights wired along every step."

Ezra nodded in agreement. "They ruin the wonders of the world by trying to protect us from them."

He leaned over and kissed me slowly, with purpose— another gesture of possession that I enjoyed.
The smell of burning ozone made me lift my head. Ezra stiffened as electric fingers crawled across my stomach. He pulled away then stopped, hovering a few inches above me.

We heard the soft sound of stone scraping against stone in the distance and turned. Ezra stiffened on alert. I sat up as he positioned me behind him. A man appeared at the top of the steps. He stopped for a moment, assessing us and then walked in our direction. He had a ring of hair peppered with grey cropped close to his scalp. Light reflected off his bald top. Deep lines around his mouth and eyes as he studied us with a casual self-assurance. The air around him pulsed and vibrated in waves. I could see it swirling and undulating in the air, like heat waves.

As Ezra crouched deeper into a protective stance, the man pulled his hands from his jacket pockets and held them up. He looked at Ezra for a moment with an amused critical expression and then turned his attention to me. Whatever he was thinking about me, his face wasn't showing it. A binding leaped across my hips and down my legs.

"I hear you've been looking for me," he said with a thick Welch accent. "You need to stop that." Ezra stood up a fraction in surprise.

"Ezra," the man said, nodding. "And this is the little one everyone is talking about." He smelled like a hot, dry day... mustard seeds and dusty dirt.

Ezra shifted his weight uneasily. "What do you mean everyone is talking about?"

The man frowned slightly and stuck his hands back into his jacket pockets. "Well, maybe not everyone yet but more than I would like. Many more than I would like. A child only a few months old marries the Angel of Death and then kills an Immortal thousands of years older than her. It's the sort of thing people tend to notice. There's been a lot of chatter."

Then he grinned at me with a strange expression I couldn't quite understand. "I never would have imagined. We thought we'd have more time.

"We?" Ezra echoed at the same time, I asked, "Who are you?"

"My name is Gregor, and we've been waiting for you for a long time."

The air started closing in around me. "Who is 'We'?" Ezra repeated more forcefully. Gregor looked at Ezra again slowly, making some kind of judgment and then nodded.

"He's strong... powerful," he said, ignoring Ezra. "I guess I can see why you tethered to him." The man wasn't making any sense, and I could see Ezra's anxiety building.

"Although he's the last person I would have expected. Naturally, I hadn't expected anyone... not this early anyway. How soon did you meet him?"

"Ezra was there when I died," I answered. Gregor's eyes widened in surprise. "de."

"Am I?" he said, tilting his head to the side. "We..." he began, turning first to Ezra then to me again, "are like you. I'm like you. And there are so very few of us."

"Are you... Asclepius?"

He nodded and chuckled. "That was a long time ago."

"How did you find me?" I asked.

"I have a friend who is very good at finding people." What did that mean?

"How many of you are there?" Ezra asked.

"Kaja makes five." He walked past us toward one of the larger fires and sat next to it. "We are what you might call... rare. As I'm sure, you've already guessed. We would have been six, but Mairéad was killed many years ago." Ezra growled deeply, but soft enough, I could barely hear it. Gregor certainly did and raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"What am I?" I asked, interrupting some sort of silent conversation between them.

"You're a girl."

I bit back a rude retort. I didn't like the way he said, 'girl.' He clearly was not referring to my sex, but rather my age. Considering the age of every other Avati on the planet, I understood his perspective, but that didn't mean I liked it. "A very special girl."

"What can she do?" he asked Ezra. Ezra just glowered at him. I smiled shyly to myself. Ezra wasn't going to give up anything about me without knowing more about our strange visitor.

"Can you heal people?" I asked.

"No. I can't heal anyone. I can just see the source of the problem and know what they need to get better. There are very few illnesses that can't be healed with the right combination of roots and herbs. It's nature's way of balancing everything, I guess."

"And Hilimaz can see when people are lying?" Ezra asked.

"And hiding something, and telling half-truths, or planning to lie. But her name isn't really Hilimaz."

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's not my place to tell. She will when she's ready. Frankly, I'm not really ready myself. Still, with your friends rattling all the doors and asking questions, I decided it was best to introduce myself now. I don't like to draw attention."

Ezra nodded. "I understand."

"We call ourselves Taman. Never really liked the name myself, but what can you do?" I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing. Ezra followed suit.
Gregor either didn't notice or didn't care. "It took me more than a thousand years to start binding. You started binding on your first day. That is unfortunate. We didn't expect to have this conversation for hundreds of years."

Wait... what? "You knew about me before we started searching for you?"

"We have known about you since the day you were born.... the first time. When energy like ours is born into the world, we all feel it."

"I don't understand. What energy? I don't know what you're talking about."

"I think you do."

This man was irritating to the nth degree.

"Do you enjoy being an ass?"

"Yes, sometimes, I think I do."

"Fantastic," I mumbled.

I looked at the waves surrounding him. They almost glowed and felt green to me... if a color could be felt. "That energy?" I asked, staring at the heat waves.

He nodded. "Good girl." I peered at them closer.
"What energy?" Ezra asked. "What do you see?" I described the aura around Gregor. Ezra shook his head. "I can't see anything."

"No, Azrael, you wouldn't." He punched the name on purpose. "Taman doesn't just feel each other's bindings. We see them as well."

"Have they explained to you about the electricity?"
I nodded.

"It's the source of life. But for us, it's so much more."

"How do you know this?"

"I search, I watch, I wait," he replied. "I study. I've been studying the human body looking for answers as long as I can remember. I'm particularly well suited for it. Some unknown person born many thousands of years ago had far more electricity surging through her body than necessary, and the result of that simple genetic mutation was us."

He flicked his fingers through the fire burning next to him. "I've always loved this place. I think the flames are smaller than they were last time I was here. It's been too many years." He allowed the heat from the flames to whip at his hand as he quickly darted his fingers through the fire again. "Too many tourists these days. As soon as the sun sets, they flock here by the carload."

He turned back to Ezra then looked at me. "You, Little One, are the result of an abundance of abundance."

"What does that mean? How?"

"I haven't found the answer to that yet. My best guess is both your parents carried the Avati gene, but it never exhibited in them." He rocked back on the stone where he was sitting and rested on the palms of his hands. "More people carry the gene than you would imagine, but it seldom manifests. Despite what they think, it's anything but junk DNA."

"How many carry the gene?" Ezra asked.

"Millions, I would guess." Ezra reeled back, stunned. "And yet there are only a couple thousand Avati in the world... maybe more, I suppose. We can never be certain exactly." Gregor pressed his lips into a thin line. "Does that number surprise you, Ezra?"

I thought of the map. I didn't think there were even a thousand names on it. Here Gregor was doubling that number.

"I never imagined," Ezra wondered aloud.

Gregor blew out a puff of air and slapped his hand on the rock next to him. "That's because you're.... you." Ezra and I both glared at him. "Well, think about it. You're old. Older than me, right? I know you are. I heard the stories of Azrael when I was still very young. How many Avati have you met in your life?"

"I don't know."

"Let's guess... what... forty? Fifty?"

Ezra nodded curtly.

"And that doesn't seem strange to you?"

Ezra shook his head and shrugged. "In all these thousands of years, you've only met maybe fifty Avati. I think we can safely say you are not known for being social. I'm practically a hermit, and I've met hundreds of Avati. You are a legend. Everyone has heard of Azrael, his power, and the destruction he caused. Hardly anyone knows anything about Ezra." Ezra was quiet next to me as he thought about Gregor said.

"Your tethering this early, and tethering to him no less, changes things. That's our problem."

Ezra moved slightly. He was on the alert again. No, I thought... there was never a time when he was not on full alert. He just had the astonishing ability to appear at ease or unconcerned when he wanted to.

"Nature never gives without taking. And now that you're binding, you can't hide. So we've had to speed things up. It should have been centuries before we got to this point."

"You were going to let me wander alone, without knowing what I was for centuries?"

"Of course."

"Why?"

"So you can live... grow... become stronger. We don't hide all this power without reason. But you've tethered, which means you're binding with others now, so we are out of time." He stretched his legs out in front of him.

"You used that word before," Ezra said. "What does tether mean?"

"It means you are bonded. Tied. From the moment Kaja was close enough to form a binding, she tethered. But why you?" He scowled slightly. "That was unexpected."

"Explain."

"I am," Gregor shot back.

"Do it better."

Gregor breathed heavily out his nose and gave Ezra a stubborn expression. "Like I said before, nature never gives without taking. Kaja has more electrical impulses pulsing through every cell in her body than nearly everyone on the planet, far more than you. The older we become, the more electricity we generate, but you will never come close to matching what she already has." He paused again for effect, allowing what he said to sink in. "That's why she has her special ability." He mumbled 'what ever that is' softly under his breath.

"But it's still not enough. Not enough for her to fully function. Her ability requires a tremendous about of energy... she can't produce it all on her own. Avati like us, we need help."

"Then how do I...?" He answered before I could finish the question.

"You are like a sponge. You absorb energy from everything and everyone around you. But no one more than Ezra. That's what the tether does."

I was feeding off of Ezra? Sucking on his energy?

I thought back to that evening after I killed Esther.

I felt the trees and animals all pulsing around me. And Ezra... I felt every breath and every step while I was barely conscious.

"It took me more than a thousand years before I tethered and discovered what I was. It gave me time to grow stronger. But after I met Miriam, it all changed. Everything accelerated."

"You mean I just tethered to the first Avati to come near me?"

"No! Gods no... of course not. In more than a thousand years, you think I never crossed paths with another Avati? Of course, I did. I chose Miriam." He looked over to Ezra and studied him from the ground up. "Just as you chose Ezra. Although why you chose the Angel of Death is a mystery. Baffling. You've killed more people than I think I've met in my entire life."

They stood, taking a measure of each other... in some ancient testosterone-driven manner I didn't understand. Finally, Ezra nodded, "That's fair."

"From the moment she tethered to you, you have been bonded. The pull is powerful, isn't it? You will do anything to protect her. You would rip my throat out without straining a muscle. Am I right?"

Ezra smiled. "Without hesitation."

Gregor laughed. "Let's hope it never comes to that. He protects you. It makes you strong. Strong enough to live... not just survive. You could survive without him... soak up energy from the mortals, animals, and the trees, but it wouldn't be much of a life."

"I don't feel any different," Ezra said. "I don't feel as if I have less energy."

"No, and I doubt you ever will. It's slow and constant. Like the pull of the moon... but it's always there. We are so used to it; we never feel it. We can only see it in the tide. But if the pull disappeared, I have no doubt we'd notice."

He stood up and brushed his hands together, dispelling any bits of sand and gravel that clung to his skin. "Now Little One I have to go. Since your friends have been poking around, I have to disappear again. The whispers and nudging will die down again in a few decades... but until then..."

"Why are you hiding?"

"I don't like people much."

"No one?"

"No one."

"Except Miriam," I said.

Gregor turned a hard look at me and didn't answer. Ezra shifted position and placed himself closer to me. Gregor saw the movement and pulled back.

"Miriam was killed many years ago. It has left me..." his voice drifted away. "I prefer to be... alone."

I stood awkwardly, unsure of what to say. It hadn't occurred to me that she could be dead.

"You understand." My reaction must have been written on my face.

He began weaving through the fires toward the path.

"Are you Göncöl, too?"

He stopped suddenly, and his shoulders shook lightly with laughter. He nodded once and pointed to a constellation in the sky. "That's me. And so I hope I won't need to see you again for many years," he called back over his shoulder.

"Although I doubt it."