Alexandria circa 22 AD, when the dreams came.

Whether the story was all true or not Daniel did not know. But he was sure Paris in some way represented Chris. When he imagined Paris walking through the streets of Rome or Alexandria, or making love to Star or Ariella, or holding the baby, Athen, it was always Chris he saw. And certain clues, like the large, gold ankh Chris now wore hanging at his chest, made Daniel think that he wanted Daniel to believe this.

"He started having these dreams," Chris said, and it sounded as if he had actually had these dreams, and they had disturbed him. Yes, a life with dreams. He hadn't said hope, but he had said dreams.

They had been abstract dreams; they always left Paris with the feeling that he and his wife were not alone in the room. In his dreams people flew. He saw a pale woman with long gold hair, as Ariella was, though it was not her, and the woman held some kind of glass vial, and in the other hand a sort of vial ending in a hollow needle: test-tube and syringe, up above a table where a small, dark, woman almost half-animal lay. The fair woman pushed the syringe up into the small woman's womb, and then she looked up and smiled.

In the dreams there is a jungle and a hidden cave that leads to a dark place under the world. And in the underworld people become pale and light of eye, sometimes blind, groping at walls and working with shovels and axes digging, always digging, trying to get out. They look like dead souls, these underdwellers.

Some of the smart ones find their way to the jungle and sleep there. A strange man comes, like the woman before him he is pale and fair-skinned. And he is so tall compared to the people. He leans against a tree smiling, looks at the people, laughs and tells them secrets. And the woman comes, the one with gold hair, in a red robe, she sticks a needle into the arms of these two people.

Pain and blood, always the most abstract part of the dreams, and if Paris woke during this part he would be gasping for air and very hot.

Someone else comes, another of the strange tall people. This one takes the people out of the jungle, away from the strange cave. And then they are in a city. But it doesn't look like any city Paris had ever seen. Sometimes he tried explaining the dreams to Ariella. He didn't know how he could ever imagine a city like that. One house on top of each other all rectangular, getting smaller and smaller as you went up. And some were very high, you couldn't tell if the building stopped or if the top was so far up in the sky that you couldn't see it any more.

The man and woman, the people of the dreams, have children, two sons. One son murders the other. He looks down at the blood on the ground then looks up into the sky and opens his arms wide. He smiles. He is making an offering of his brother.

A pair of black eyes.

And the murderer is exiled, travels east, marrying with the people kept there. And always east their tribe travels, until going eastward will bring the murderer home.

And to the people another son is born, sons to the son, on and on, and some move away to find the people that live in the other places, go and marry with the other people. And the lands where they live change them, as the cave changed the people. They're all different, white and yellow and red and black, and the ones who are in between. And always the tall ones watch.

And one of the tall people rapes a woman of the people, one of the in-between women. And the woman gives birth to a baby girl. And the tall people always come talk to these women. And they listen to the women. The old people of their town keep the child, because they know she is special. They see the tall ones come to her cell and they fear her, fear that the next child will be even more different. And so they choose one among themselves to take her into his home. And the tall one's daughter is alone in the home of her warder. One of the tall ones comes to her, but this one is that female one, the one with gold hair. And she has that hollow needle again. The girl is shaking her head, she says, "No." But the tall one does it anyway.

And then the girl gives birth, but this time, it is not a daughter, it's a son.

And the old women and the magicians sight The Cross.

And in another city a black woman screams as she gives birth to her own son. And there is a tall one there, only the tall ones don't seem as tall toward the end of the dreams. And the black woman places something gold in her son's hand. It looks like a cross at first, but it is not, it's an ankh.

Ariella didn't know what the dreams could mean. She always asked, "These creatures who you call the tall ones, are they gods?"

Paris would answer, "I don't think they are gods, because I don't believe in gods. If they are supposed to be the gods, then the gods are people, they are different than us, but still some kind of people."

"But the one that was female, she stayed young a long time."

"Maybe it wasn't the same woman, maybe they were similar women all in the same office. I don't know, I really don't know what it all means." Paris would sleep during the day because sleeping at night was causing him to wake more tired than he had been the night before.

Lily had come to Alexandria bringing Metro and two brown-haired girls about the age of fifteen. Paris remembered these were the daughters of Star, Phaeto and Merope. Lily said nothing but looked at Paris in certain ways first she saw him on any day, the looks were enough to tell him she knew he was troubled. The girls, no comfort. Metro offered only laudanum, which Paris waved away violently. He thought it just might make the dreams worse.

Paris told just certain parts of his dreams to Nika, because he'd always suspected the old woman knew a bit of witchcraft; in any case she was very wise. Nika told him it had a hint of stories told by Hebrews in it, just a hint. She suggested he go to one of the Hebrew teachers that lived in Alexandria, but he would not.

"They aren't any more gifted than any other people if you ask me," Nika said and then pointed a bony finger at Paris, "but their books are old, and they haven't forgotten how to read them."

"Nika, I have read the Septuagint and so many of the stories quoted by scholars in Greek and even Latin, histories of Egypt and Israel of Greece and Babylon...If I were able I'd read the ancient glyphs as if modern script." Paris lifted the gold ankh from his clothing, "I know what this means well enough. It means life. It scares me sometimes that my mother felt such a young child needed a charm to protect his life...to name me as she did." Paris closed his eyes and took a breath before speaking again, "the dreams are like every story told and yet unlike them all. The scholars can not help me."

And Nika would shrug then point to her temple, "It's in there, the answers to your dreams, everything, but it's locked." She would say no more.

"And I wish I had a key...Nika, when I was born the women saw The Cross and made strange signs over their faces, and then backward, and they looked afraid, and they said bad things would come. My mother gave me this charm. I see it also in my dreams, and such strange creatures...like daemons at a woman's heel waiting for her child to be born..."

She would say no more.

b b b

The dreams had gone on for seven nights. On this seventh night Paris woke, again, sure he was not alone with Ariella. This time he got up out of his bed to look around. He was a little afraid, anyone would be, but he was desperate to find out the meaning to it all.

He heard someone call his name. Paris walked out of his bedroom and down through the house and outside to the small garden. The constellation of stars marking the dying god the old Pharaohs had called Asar and the delta pattern of light that marked Set crouching at his side both loomed overhead. Paris turned, meaning to go back inside and put on clothes. He was just about to go when he saw something move in the darkness. He turned again quickly to try to see what it was. He caught another glimpse, it was definitely a figure, moving fast.

Its arms were around him, dragging Paris to the ground. Paris struggled to get away but it was too strong. He felt its skin against his, and quite suddenly, it hit him, the creature was a woman, because he could feel her, breasts bare against his back. He turned around to prove himself true; there she was, still holding him, a naked woman stronger than he was, beige skin and features that went along with black skin. Her long black hair was in many thin braids of all directions, some pinned up to lend her hair the appearance of snakes. And the eyes, black.

"Come with us," she said. But she hadn't spoken. Come...

Paris shook his head in protest, but she lifted him to his feet and with a firm hold on his wrist took off running through the night so that Paris had no choice about it, he had to run. It was the Serapium she took him too, the local temple dedicated to Serapis, whom the Egyptians had called Asar-Apis, both dying god-king and taurine avatar. This official annex now housed the best-preserved texts of the renowned Library of Alexandria, which had suffered loss to fires in the civil wars of Rome. Paris knew the building well enough, had studied here as in the library since childhood, but he had never known of any secret chambers within it. This strange woman led him to the lowest point of its floor, looked quickly to one side and then the other, took measured steps to her left, then snapped the ankh from Paris' neck. She shoved at a case of shelves that held scrolls, and this revealed a small hollow in the wall. This she pushed the ankh into holding its round part, and twisted it. There was a clicking sound. Part of the wall swung open. It had been a key all along.

Paris watched as she pulled the shelf after them, and then closed the door, latched it. She returned his ankh then. The chain was broken, so Paris held it nervously in his hand, stared at it as if it should speak an answer to him.

We have been planning you a long time. Your mother was our servant. It is not the only door it's meant to open. Follow us, child, follow.

Paris followed, moving though torch lit passages with old ink drawings on the bits of plaster that hadn't fallen off long ago. The glyphs were not understood but the pictures seemed to tell as story of the characters of his dreams. These were not the usual Egyptian deities though the same formulas of foreshortening and illusion of depth were used in the illustrating. Pulled along as he was all Paris could gather was that a god-like winged figure controlled many dynasties one after the other and also that as the Pharaohs had their enemies and supplicants this god had his own. He even fought with other deities, likewise winged and coloured with a pigment unknown in the particular palette Egyptians used to depict male, female, Upper Egyptian, Lower Egyptian God or foreigner.

They, Paris and the strange female still leading him, came to a room even lower than the previous passages, light by oil lamps, a simple bed and some mats on the floor, crumbling scrolls tossed about carelessly. It didn't look like a place to live in. But, it wasn't an old tomb either, that might have been worse.

She smiled and there was something vaguely disturbing about it.

And then she moved close to him, kissed him, and he didn't fight it. Her weight pulled them both to the floor, Paris fell over her. She took his penis in her fist and pushed it into herself. And the way she looked at him kept Paris from fighting, though inside he wanted to cry. It made it worse that the strange woman writhed where she lay. It made it worse that she screamed.

But better things than lost faith she gave him to cry over...

She pulled him down close and bit into his throat with her fangs.

Paris was completely taken by panic then, but it was not soon enough to halt him. He felt the shattering climax as he saw his own blood flowing down between them, pooling between her breasts. He licked it up. What possessed him to do such a thing, even he couldn't say. But he did it. Perhaps there was truth to what the old women said. He knew inside himself what must be done.

It was not lightly taken, nor done, because the next action he took was to tear open her throat with his flat teeth and suck the blood from the wound.

When that blood of hers touched his tongue, he knew. He knew, however sad it was, that somehow it had to be. Paris felt that he did belong to them. He surrendered. And he understood in the most hazy way, what she was, that she, at least part of what she was, had once been as Human as he was, but now, there were two souls in her body.

"Romanians," Chris said, "sometimes say this of vampires, that, or they have two hearts. And even if one fails the other keeps them alive. Sometimes they say it is that one soul is devoted to evil, and this is why they prey on others after death. But I do not want you to think this is a story about vampires, it isn't. At least this creature who drank blood and had fangs never called herself vampire, in fact she existed before any incarnation of the word vampire. I only mean to point out that there are creatures, completely real and explainable ones that live on earth and are not Human, but that most Humans do not accept this fact, despite the worship and veneration they give them under kinder names."

"I thought you wrote mostly fiction..." said Daniel.

Chris' only answer was a shrug of one shoulder.

Paris lay on the floor then. He didn't know a name for the sensation he was feeling. It was like being drunk, no, the opposite of being drunk, and yet just as disorienting. "Something's wrong," he said to her, to the blood drinker kneeling at his side.

She smiled, and it wasn't any sort of comfort. You will call us mother from now on. You belong to us.

"What have I done? What is happening to me?" And as the new blood reached his heart Paris saw that the dreams had weakened him, weakened him so that he would not question. And now he had accepted the blood, and could not deny any debts that came with it.

Rest now, child. Rest. We have given you back what was lost to you, Son of Earth, your memory, the true vision, your immortality. In time you will understand. You will accept. She smoothed a hand over Paris' back. You would not understand this transformation even if I explained it; you have no understanding of the words in your language. How can I say it, an entity has been introduced to your body that knows only that it will change the codes that make you as you are. Symptoms of this are already showing in you. By tomorrow night most the changes will have taken place, others will take some time before they become permanent.

Paris had begun to feel pain. He was curled like an embryo on one of the mats, rocking. "The dreams," he said, and then repeated himself a few times.

Yes, they came from us, listen now, child. I will make the rest known to you.

b b b

Long ago. Perhaps thousands of years ago by the Roman calendar. She is gathering food. A man appears in front of her where she bends to pick from the bushes. He is no man from her village. She knows he is one of the strangers that lives up on the mountain, the tall ones. She is afraid. She tries to run but is overcome with her panic and falls back, dropping her gathered food.

He is strangely tall. His skin is so pale it is luminous like the moon in the sky. His eyes are large and bright. They burn like stars. His robes are of something like fire or feathers, shimmering like the surface of a pool. She asks him what he is. He calls himself one of the Eyrim. She knows him as one of Those Who Watch.

She crawls back in the bushes. He comes after her. He holds her down and makes her lie beneath him. She does not want it to happen. She screams. She cries that he is not a man, that he is too big for her and he hurts her.

He leaves and she cries. She is afraid to move. He comes back. He is angry. He speaks with a strange tongue. Then he asks her why he can't have a body like hers. He is something different. He wants to have a body like hers. He wants to be real, different. He wants to feel. He wants to get inside a body, a body like hers.

She tells him to leave her. It's becoming dark and she must get to her village. He won't let her go. He carries her. They fly in the air like birds. He takes her to the garden between the mountains. There are others like him. These other Eyrim, they all look just like each other. There are also other strangers who are not called Eyrim. They look like the Eyrim in body, but like her people they don't all share the same face. They are the Elohim. The Eyrim avoid them. Also she sees other people like herself.

The Eyrim talk among themselves. One comes forward who is not like the rest. He is not a man either. He is a monstrous creature with fangs. He tells them the way to the flesh is through the blood.

The Stranger takes her away into the garden. He makes her lie under him again. He explains that she is something beloved to him. He will become another form. He will not hurt her this time. She lets him lie over her. She does not fell pain. She feels much pleasure. It is dark but she sees him still, his skin glows. She cries out in delight. He kisses her on her neck and chest. His kisses are sharp. She realises that she is being bitten. Blood covers her chest but she is intoxicated with her unnatural pleasure and screams for more.

She feels faint from loss of blood. She feels as if the ground is spinning beneath her. And then the orgasm and she feels like she's floating suddenly, as if she's been thrown up into the air. She feels burning between her legs, but the feeling is only half there. The burning moves till it is all through out her body. His spirit must be fighting with hers, she thinks, and wills herself to hold on to her body. And then suddenly she's anchored again, anchored but not alone. He has become one with her body. The wounds on their chest heal, fast.

And she looks down the body of the Eyrim is lying on the ground, eyes dull, a soulless husk. She hears the other's voice for the first time, don't look at it.

She wanders down to the village. She is distracted by the night. She no longer fears the darkness. The villagers are closed in their houses around their fires. She is drawn to them. She enters a house. She recoils from the fire. The fire hurts our eyes, says her other. She grabs a skin and smothers the fire. In the dark her own hands are perfectly visible, though they are lighter now. She is drawn to the sleeping figures under the furs. We must have blood, says her other. She takes hold of the man. She tears at his neck and sucks for the blood...she has the fangs now! Yes, yes, yes, says her other.

The man struggles and though he is bigger than her she holds him still. The woman awakes. She hits the woman, knocking her out. When she is done with the man she moves over to the woman and takes her as well.

Other villagers come with lit torches. She hides her eyes. They see how she is changed and they call her a dead thing. Those who knew her curse her name and tell her to be gone. She runs back to the mountain. There she sees the others are like her and like the first one, whose name is Salamiel. "What is it that we are?" She asks.

She is told that she is one of the Nephillim. The sun is coming up. She feels fevered. They all turn to Salamiel. "The sun! He will see what we have done! We must hide ourselves. Go down into Mother Earth she will protect us," Salamiel says.

And so she digs down deep into the earth and buries herself. She does not suffocate. She is safe. She falls into a deep sleep and dreams of the world outside.

Every night she wakes to feed on blood, to worship the Earth and Night, to scream at the Moon. She wakes to join the others of her kind, Eyrim and Human joined within once-Human bodies, and she is one of few who have a female body. They are the Nephillim. Stronger and longer-lived than Humans and able to create legions of Spawn out of Human bodies, these Nephillim Spawn were once Human, but now anchored forever to one body they escape death and reincarnation, and rise from injury and near death, their mortal wounds healed.

With their Spawn and an ever-increasing number of new Nephillim they easily dominate whole villages and even cities. This upsets the Elohim, who fight with them when they do not simply avoid them.

And then the flood comes. The Nephillim soon learn fear of water, awash in an endless sea they go on living, living even as fish eat at their flesh, living even as they weaken from lack of warm blood, bloat as their bodies slowly take on water.

But she, the Nephillim they call Azyur Ka, she is saved from her torture. She looks up through the sea and rain and sees him, the Prince, the one who stood snaked about a tree whispering to the first people in Paris' dreams, the one toying with Pharaohs in the nearby ink drawings. He's reaching to her from a flying platform. "Take my hand, come with me," says the Prince. And Azyur goes.

Very few others were saved, Salamiel remains of the black-headed people, Asbeel who had been yellow, with herself who was of the black land and foot and the others who were Spawn of those who had perished.

Being in the air, unattached from Mother Earth, makes the Nephillim sick, they are the mother's agents, not the father's. For a month they tolerate the sickness, the pain. When they set down once again it is on water and later the mud. The cities they ruled, the people the dominated, all gone. Honour lost, the Nephillim live indebted to their Prince and no longer as rulers but as low creatures, as predators that sneak and steal.

So long since the time they ruled that Humans who see them do not remember the name Nephillim, but rename them as they please. And it pleases the Prince that the host of imaginary beings birthed out of Human fear are inspired by his Nephillim.

b b b

Paris woke on the cot within the underground chamber hidden beneath the Serapium. He looked up into the black eyes of Azyur Ka and understood that he would call her Mother from now on. She spoke to him with silent words: Remember our warnings, Son. Beware the fire. Beware Ra the sun, Isis will keep you from him and lead you out of death. You may call us Azyur Ka. Call us and we will come to you. It is not our true name but we will answer if you are calling. Keep your true name a secret from now on. Tell no one or they may use it to curse you. Choose a name.

Paris chose. "If I must live by night preying on men like a dead thing then that is what they may call me. I choose Shade, because that is what the Greeks call the spirits of the dead."

A ghost of himself, that was what he felt like, honour lost to him and life. And Azyur Ka disappeared leaving Shade alone.