by Barbara E. Hill

It was a few days later that I returned late-afternoon to my office with a bounce to my step that had been missing for months. My deal with the Metropolitan had just closed and I was intent on allowing nothing to countermand my mood. Dale noticed it the minute the elevator opened to the executive floor and the front of his desk.

"Mr. Chalden, you’re looking well this afternoon," he murmured as I bounded through the awning and nodded to the guard standing next to the call button.

"Tell me, was she blond or brunette?" Dale grinned, taking care his words didn’t carry past my ears as he handed me a sheaf of faxes marked urgent/confidential.

"Granite," I quipped, licking my lips with a slurping sound, "and older than the world. Is she here yet?"

"I personally saw to her accommodations this morning."

"Dale," I clapped my hand on his shoulder and squeezed the young muscles beneath as I passed, "I thank you."

"My pleasure, sir," he smiled, opening the antique mahogany doors that led to my office beyond his desk.

"I’m not to be bothered," I said as he pulled the heavy timbers closed behind me. Any reply he might have given was lost to me as my senses were again filled with the significance of the display mounted against the wall directly across from me.

It was the Hopie Cachina cave wall fragment.

Bathed in the soft lamplight that radiated through stained tiffany panes from the lamp on my desk, it remained eloquent and stoic as ever. For a moment I was lost again, shrouded in the damp and musty darkness as the entire cave presented itself to my mind once more. But the image passed, whether it was the sultry glow of the desk light or my mind’s over-saturation with its presence I couldn’t be sure. Dale had closed all the shutters on the western windows - perhaps he felt the appropriateness the dark ambiance brought to the artifact, or perhaps the museum had warned him of the dangers of ultraviolet light. It didn’t really matter. The room was deliciously cool and suffused with shadows. I touched the cool surface of the fragment, let my fingers linger on the edge of the wrought iron clasps that secured her to the paneled wall, and nodded. This, at least, felt right.

But there was work to do and if I had any hope of getting laid tonight I had to get things wrapped up by six and to Angelino’s with a pearl choker and massage oil by seven. I flipped through the papers in my hand as I picked up the freshly mixed bloody mary that sat on the wet bar that ran along the eastern wall of my office. I was more interested in the ice than the drug within, but I took a swallow before slipping the cube under my tongue. Perfect.

The cave fragment was a veritable presence unto itself and as the vodka seared my empty stomach I wondered again what was so familiar about the damned thing. Dale had mounted it between two life-sized oil paintings of medieval battle chargers poised and lathered beneath armored riders. What had possessed him to place a Native American artifact so out of context was beyond me, but the sense of "appropriateness" about it was undeniable. I went back to the double mahogany doors and thrust my head out.

"Dale," I said, ignoring the Turkish ambassador that was waiting in the Windsor chair nearby.

Dale looked up, startled by my sudden presence, and pulled the cyberlink out of the jack near his ear. Pain flashed across his face as the sudden disconnect from his computer system singed his neurons.

"Yes, sir?" he said, and I could practically taste his concern over what had brought me out of my sanctuary prematurely.

"Dale, you know the dangers of disconning like that," I growled.

"Sorry."

I shook my head. I uttered that warning almost every time I emerged from my office. Had to get another plan or lose an assistant to neural erosion.

"There are two tickets to Maui in the Antilles’ file," I said. "Please make sure you are on that flight. And Dale?"

He couldn’t get a response through the grin contorting his lips so he arched a brow at me.

"Take the keys to my bungalow and don’t let me see your face for a week. Just make sure Tanner is here to cover while you are debauching yourself."

"Thanks," he said, trying to look appropriately grateful.

"Yeah," I grunted. "Hey, is he here for me?" I hissed and glanced over at the eavesdropping ambassador. That was the last thing I needed capping my day. Hell - that went for the entire week.

"Not today," Dale blinked though his Perry Ellis lenses, "though he doesn’t know it yet. I’ll send the limo and an escort for him tomorrow, it’ll be fine."

"That’s my man," I nodded and pulled my head back inside my office. I let the heavy iron bolt slide home, a message to both the ambassador and my nerves, then pressed my forehead against the smooth grain of the door. The soothing wonder that decades of lemon oil and polish worked on mahogany filled my nostrils and I closed my eyes to its warmth. But as I stood there another scent presented itself, raw and familiar, and a disturbing sense of hunger and regard pressed against my brain. I opened my eyes and realized that I was shrouded in shadow.

A human shadow.

"What the... ?" I whirled around, but it was too late. The moment I came full about he pinned me against the unyielding planks of my own office door. He’d only the palms of his hands against my shoulders, but somehow I found movement to be impossible. Tall, fierce, and thoroughly Scandinavian, my assailant leaned forward and brushed his lips against my ear.

"My, you chose well this time," he said, though whether with his voice or his mind, I still couldn’t say. But the moment demanded action and since I had damned few physical options instinct took over.

I got mad.

"Fuck you," I hissed.

I mean, shit. Everything felt familiar or twisted these days and the bare facts were that I’d no working knowledge of this man. This intruder. He was either going to do me or he wasn’t. If he was, he could have accomplished it a dozen times over already, so I assumed he didn’t want me dead. At least not yet. Christ knew how long he’d been there or how I, my security, and alarms had missed him. And if he wanted something else - well, then it was damned well going to be on my terms.

I turned my face into his and stared into cold blue eyes.

Killer eyes.

"Get the hell off me," I whispered, wondering why I hadn’t pissed myself yet.

"Nice to see you, too," he smiled, a sensuous expansion of full lips that, had it not been for the prominent pair of canine teeth the gesture revealed, might have captured even my attention.

Shit. Fangs. And I thought I’d seen it all.

Now I found I could move. Still pressed beneath his hands, I drove my knee up into his sternum with as much force as I could generate from a stand-still. This surprised him more than hurt him, I think, but I barely noticed as years of jujitsu training claimed my blood. I caught his wrist and pushed it back and with a deft step smashed his face against the door as I secured him in an arm lock. With my elbow against his spine I used my other hand to snatch the bulldog special I always carried from its pancake holster and leveled the barrel against the base of his skull.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn’t pull this trigger right now," I growled, pressing the metal bore as hard as I could against the bone just under the blond stem of his ponytail.

"You’d ruin this door, for one," he muttered against the wood. "And since it’s been in and out of your keeping for about eight hundred years now, I feel compelled to stop you."

Eight hundred years... an iron dragon emblazoned across its center and my own mailed fist slamming the door on the flames of the village beyond...

"No!" Stop listening to this madness, I barked at myself, pushing the image from my mind. I forced my voice to remain steady. "It occurs to me that I’d ruin your face as well."

"Temporarily," he agreed.

"Which, at the moment, is of more interest to me than your psychotic rantings," I finished. Who was this nut and why in hell did he look so familiar?

"But then you’d have to wait while I restored my jaw to give you my report." He made no move to resist, but fixed his icy stare at me from the corner of his eyes. "Really, Kade, this all seems counter-productive. We’re behind enough as it is and in truth I don’t relish your wrath as much as you believe I do."

"You are a certifiable lunatic," I stated flatly, ignoring the flash of hunger that took me again, this time full in the sternum. How the hell was he doing that, anyway?

"Ah, Christ," he sighed and the feeling of despair that washed over me was undeniable. And unmistakable. I knew this man. There was no question.

But I had never met him before in my life, of that I was equally sure.

"So it’s true, then." This he said almost to himself.

Before I could stop myself, the question fell from my lips. "What’s true?"

"You’re not self-aware." He closed his eyes and I could feel him weighing his words carefully. He feared me, and it had nothing to do with the gun I held. "You know, my Lord," he said, looking me as fully in the face as his position permitted, "you may have chosen well in Kade Chalden, but you fucked yourself on the timing."

"The only one who’s fucked is you. Now," I seized on his verbiage, "I’m perfectly aware; of myself and of the death I’m going to deal you if you don’t explain to my satisfaction in ten seconds what it is you want and how it is that I know you."

"As you wish," he said and promptly turned to vapor.

"Shit!" I fell forward into the space he’d been occupying - the air was still warm where he’d been - and I spun hard on my heel to avoid blowing a hole through my office - my eight hundred year old - door. As it was, I jammed my shoulder hard against the iron-worked frame and barely turned around in time to see him coalesce near the far end of the room. He stood next to the portrait of the white charger, his black trench coat striking against the paint as he regarded the Hopie Cachina fragment mounted next to him.

"You always were fond of that damned Indian cave," he observed, "although I’ll never understand why."

Moisture here, lichens there... the figure of someone, a man, just off to the side...

William.

I don’t know if I said it or he did, or if it just came to me, but I knew it for his name. And suddenly it was all that I knew for certain anymore. The dreams, the messages, the obsession with things arcane or astral, it all crashed against my sanity. I slid down the door to sit with my back against its familiar carvings and stared into eyes that regarded me with more fear, love and hate than any creature could possibly feel in a single lifetime.

"It takes time," he said softly, "it always does. But that is the one thing we don’t have any more of. The Harvest has begun and you’re still wrapped in the fugue. And if you are this far under, it may already be too late."

Fugue. It held worlds of meaning, defined me some how and yet - I had no explanation for it. Even the word refused to come to my lips.

"Harvest?" I managed, grasping at concepts that burned with a familiarity that compared to nothing I knew, yet rendered people or places I’d known all my life strangers in comparison.

He nodded, blue ice eyes ever stoic within an expression of ineffable sadness and defeat. "The Harvest of Wheat."

I gaped, barely noticing the heavy thud of my pistol as it fell from my nerveless fingers. For all my irreverent ways, I knew my scripture well enough.

The Harvest of Wheat.

The Second Coming.

This is madness, I thought, my mind racing. And yet, what had he said so far that didn’t feel right to me on some visceral level?

Nothing.

The intruder - William - touched the Hopie Cachina fragment and shook his head under the mass of blond hair that had escaped its elastic band. "He has risen before you and now, His plan is in full realization. Forgive me, my Lord, when you recall yourself. I have failed you in coming so late. I can only hope I’ve found you first."

"What are you?" I asked, despite my unwillingness to know or accept whatever insanity he gave in answer.

"Your servant," he replied.

"Then who am I, to have such a creature serve me?" I barely got my mouth around the words.

"You are Akkadian."

Not what I had expected. It felt right, of course, but then I realized why. Akkadian - Kade, how dense could I be? Suddenly very angry, I stood. Discorporation or no, this guy was unreal.

"Oh, clever," I said, running the back of my hand across my jaw and picking up the gun. "Any psycho can dream up a Sumerian name that resembles the phonetics of my own. You’re going to have to do better than that, fucker. I don’t care what kind of supernatural freak you are - you need more weight than that for me to give you my time. Prove you know me or get the hell out."

He stood staring at me, his tall build achingly familiar and framed so elegantly between the portraits and the ancient wall that for a moment I wondered that I should want to throw him out. But then he smiled, a heavy and sensuous expansion of full lips that once again flashed those deadly canines at me.

Half expecting him to begin describing my ancient and astral interests - topics that nearly anyone could know given the number of tabloid bios that had been run on me and my "eligible bachelor" status - I almost missed his words. They floated across my office, deep and amused.

"How did you know it was Sumerian?" He arched a heavy brow to punctuate his point, and rage boiled beneath my sternum in response.

Somehow I got the feeling that he’d received more than one beating over that expression during his lifetime.

But worse still - I couldn’t answer him. How had I known?

"Look, Kade," he relented and took a step toward me. He rested a hand lightly across the surface of my desk. "This may seem a hoax to you-"

"Damn straight it does!" I snapped. "I’ll be the first to admit I have questions and unexplained events in my life, but they were there long before you showed up. And I have yet to hear anything compelling. So you better start explaining or dissapating, one or the other."

"We don’t have time for this!" he snapped back, stalking across the room to challenge me again. He did not, I noticed, attempt to restrain me. Still, he matched my own height and perhaps out-massed me.

"The hell we don’t! You started this, and now I want some answers. And if you want to substantiate your lies, servant, you had better start talking."

"As you wish." He let his trench coat drop from his shoulders and draped himself across the leather chair that faced the cave fragment. With the golden back of his head toward me, he spoke to the wall and his words came as daggers of light and darkness into my soul.

"Research is a pale comparison to first-hand knowledge, but what I haven’t learned of Kade Chalden personally, I can guess. You are globally powerful, through both your wealth and politics, and can control major players through direct means. I’ve studied SYNtek closely, so I know your soft and bioware are sufficient for that. You must have a mark upon the majority of the world - a recognizable sign. The Tek20 Cash Chip fits prophesy perfectly and is accepted by virtually every business world wide. Intelligence, charm, and the art of oration are obviously yours - that I can plainly see - and they are also among the list you gave to me of the essential qualities for the incarnation you would take to lead the Final Battle." He looked over his shoulder at me. "Does anything not fit so far?" he asked mildly.

I chose to ignore him and focused rather on the host of images his words had sent rampaging into new order in my mind. The Harvest of Wheat... who am I? Surely he didn’t think I was...

"Christ," I whispered. It couldn’t be. Nothing about that fit.

William laughed. "Hardly," he said, and stood.

"But if the Harvest has begun," I said, putting the pieces together, "then that means..."

"The Second Coming is upon us," he agreed.

"Unbelievable," I muttered. But if I was his master - and there was little denying his supernatural condition, then - "You can’t be serious."

"Oh, but I am," he sighed and for the first time I saw emotion in those cold eyes of his. I saw dread and love. "All the more so because you have to stop it."

"You’re insane."

"Perhaps I am. Damn, Kade!" he slammed his fist into the arm of the chair and before my eyes he came to stand before me without so much as taking a step, so quickly did he move. "You really out-did yourself this time!" he hissed, his breath hot on my face as he circled me. "You have surrounded yourself with so many signs that you won’t even believe them because they are so obvious. What the fuck were you thinking? You’re the persuasive one, not me. How did you expect me to reclaim you from a fugue with this sort of cliche arsenal? Let’s see," he began, holding his fist out and jerking his thumb to the side. "Akkadian. Ancient Babalonia or Sumeria - named after you when you first arrived on Earth. An empire that existed in 5000 B.C. and has the earliest recorded human writing because you brought it." He pointed his index finger at the cave fragment. "Preoccupied with that? You lived in the damned thing while you taught those fools about science and how to worship you. How did you have your license plate personalized?" he demanded.

A roadster, midnight green, screaming down a deserted interstate with a golden plate that read...

"Lawless," I stated flatly.

His middle finger joined the rest. "The Lawless One, II Thes. 2:8. Try this one on - Kade Chalden." He lifted his ring finger. "The Chalden - book of Habakkuk. Shit, Kade, I wouldn’t even believe me." He closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the leather back of the chair.

"Even if what you say..." I couldn’t finish the thought. I swallowed, and crossed my arms. A chill took me and reflexively I pulled the air around me into warmth. At this point, it didn’t seem such a disturbing ability. "I care very little for religion, or for your motives, or for causes. But even if I am - that - which you imply I am, it’s no use. I don’t know anything except who I am now and no matter how familiar you or any of your explanations may seem, it can’t make me be someone or something I no longer am."

"Oh, don’t think you aren’t because you can’t remember."

"Then dammit tell me what I need to know."

"I cannot," he shook his head. He was so distraught that I felt compelled to strike him and comfort him in a single stroke.

"Why?"

"There isn’t time, and anyway, I haven’t the words for a thousand lifetimes. But there is a way."

I swallowed.

"You must learn the way you taught me."

"How?"

He smiled, and ran the tip of his tongue over the points of his teeth. "You must drink my blood."