The Binding

Chapter Six

My hands were clasped around a large mug of tea. Ezra sat on the sofa next to me in the library. Orange light and dark shadows from the fireplace danced across the surface of his skin.

   I had pulled my legs up in front of me as I listened to him.

   "I'm not sure how we do it," Ezra answered my question. "But we all can."

   "That doesn't make any sense. How can we suddenly have a supernatural power if we are basically the same as before?"

   Ezra shrugged, "I don't think it is supernatural, not really. I think everyone has the ability." He relaxed and leaned against the back of the sofa further. "If we really are human, like everyone else... Mind you no one really knows one way or the other, then I believe fading is an ability we all have, even mortals."

I scowled back at him, skeptical.

   Ezra half smiled and continued. "They just don't control it consciously the way we do. You know how some people can persuade and control other people so easily. We all hear of people who can sway hundreds and thousands of followers into mass hysteria, murder, suicide... they can influence the throngs of people and convince them to behave in ways and do things they would never do otherwise. It's all the same thing. When we fade, we are just projecting what we want people to believe. We are simply convincing them that we aren't really there. But with our boost of electric energy and adrenaline, it's simply easier for us. Some mortals are better at tapping into that part of themselves than others."

   I thought about that while I sipped my tea. "Do you think we are human?"

   "Yes."

   "Why?"

   "Because we are born to normal human parents. Mortals. And we can have children with mortals." He turned to the fire for a moment before looking back at me. "Only humans can breed with other humans."

   "Avati can have children?" I caught myself as soon as the words left my mouth. I wasn't sure why that was so shocking to me. I hadn't thought about it one way or the other before. I took a moment to examine my surprise, and I realized I must have assumed Avati couldn't. It would be a cruel fate to have children spread across thousands of years only to watch them each die one by one.  I couldn't quite bring myself to sit down and really think about how everyone I knew would one day be dead.  Some people hadn't even been born yet that I would watch go to their graves. It was a cold and lonely thought.

   Ezra nodded. "We can until we cross over. Once you change the electricity in your body is too much. It makes our bodies inhospitable."

   I nodded again slightly relieved and very grateful I never had any children, and never really considered the idea enough to miss it. The idea was simply too chilling. I pulled my legs up closer and gestured to Ezra, "You were going to tell me how you learned to fade."  

   He nodded and dipped his head toward me. "For hundreds of years, maybe more than a thousand, I had no idea what I was." He turned and sat with his legs stretched out in front of him, his left arm draped across the back of the sofa. "Most of my memories from the first few thousand years are distorted and confusing. I know I was a slave in a large house the first time I met another immortal like me."

   "A man had traveled up from the south and had stopped at my master's home on his way north." He looked calm as he spoke, but the muscles in his neck were pulled tense.

"Where was this?" I asked.

   He looked at me and shook his head. "I don't know. Southern Turkey, maybe, or Syria. I'd been traveling south for some time when I could. The man brought a few of his concubines with him. Her name was Hattu, and she explained to me what I was. She said there were others like us where she lived." His voice trailed off then.