“Ah, the guests of honor,” Zillah said sweetly. It was unnerving. Lamech stood behind the altar and cleaned the blood off of his bright silver knife. I was a spectator with no power to do anything as Zillah took hold of Elara and Adah put me on the altar. I should have fought. I should have kicked and screamed. I should have made them pay dearly, but I simply laid down as calmly as a lamb to the slaughter. Lamech began speaking, but none of the words registered. I was going to die.

Behind me I heard Elara’s voice and it took me a moment before I could focus on her words. “Namir, Namir, you have to get up. You have to trust me.” She was struggling. She was trying to break free. Why wasn’t I? As the silver knife was raised for the fatal blow I finally willed myself to move. I rolled and felt a vibration in the stone as the knife struck next to me. I twisted out of Adah’s grip, which didn’t seem as firm as it had been. Maybe it was the very blood of those who had died before me that allowed me to slip away, but I was able to wriggle free and spring toward where Zillah held Elara.

I could see a deep scratch running down Zillah’s cheek as the woman struggled to keep Ealra in her control. Elara reached for me and we caught each other's hands right as I was grabbed from behind. I expected to be forced apart and dragged away. I expected to feel a cold silver blade slide across my throat. I expected Elara to scream in horror as I died in front of her, but none of those things happened.

Everything stopped, frozen in time, for the barest instant then it was dark and I was crouched by a closed door with Elara by my side.

“What have you done Lamech?” my father said.

“I am greater than our father Cain ever was,” Lamech replied.

What was going on?

“If Cain will be avenged sevenfold, I will be…”

Elara yanked on my hand and I stumbled into the dark corridor. By feel she hauled me around a corner just as light spilled into the dark hallway. We both knew that Adah had opened the door so we sat silent and motionless with our backs to the cold stone wall, hardly daring to breathe. Adah’s shadow moved in the light, then the door closed and we could hear Adah’s muffled voice say, “It was nothing, my love.”

Amid all the confusion of what had just happened to me, at that moment the thing that struck me the most was that Adah had used the word “love” at a time like this! As a term of endearment for a man who was murdering people! And what in the seven stars had just happened? Did I just go back in time? Was I hallucinating?

“We’re too late,” Elara muttered.

“Too late?” I asked. “What just happened? What did you…”

“We need to get out of here,” Elara insisted. “There’s nothing we can do.”

“There is no chance in the void that I’m leaving my family here,” I proclaimed with adamance. Then my mind seemed to catch hold of exactly what had happened. “Can you do that again? Take us back further?”

“No,” Elara stammered. “Well, yes, but it doesn’t work that way.”

“Why not?” I demanded.

“Trust me, I can’t take us more than a few minutes or bad things happen.”

“Please,” I pleaded. “There are people dying in there.”

She rolled her eyes and groaned. I don’t know what convinced her, but she said, “I can’t do this over and over. If anything happens I won’t be able to get us out. You understand that, right?”

I nodded. She took my hands in hers and a moment later I was sitting in the room with the window where we had first entered the building. We didn’t bother with silence nor subtlety as Elara ignited her light device and we ran into the depths of the hollow earth.

“What’s your plan?” Elara asked as we ran.

“Can you break the bonds on my family and Naomi and Juryal?” I asked. She nodded and flourished the device that had cut through the bars on the window.

“You work on that while I distract them,” I said.

“Don’t get yourself killed playing hero,” she growled. “I have questions for you when all this is done.”

I nodded, wishing nothing more than to get a few answers of my own, so long as we weren’t being hunted by murderous fanatics. We slowed before we reached the door and crept closer with our ears open. Elara extinguished her light and I hesitated as a thought struck me. What if I was frozen again? What if I was captured? Elara had said she couldn’t save us again. Then I felt her reassuring hand on my back.

“Don’t listen to them. Don’t fall under their spell”

I took a deep breath and threw open the door. The muffled voices erupted in gasps of alarm. Hannah was on the altar and Naomi was still chained beside her daughter. I don’t know how Elara did it, but we had made it before blood had been shed, though not a moment too soon. Lamech had his silver knife in his hand and was ready for the fatal blow. Except now I was there and I had a job to do. Their chanting died as I interrupted their ritual.

“Lamech, you coward!” What was I thinking? Taunting him was the most foolish thing I could think of, so it was therefore the exact thing I did. “You can’t kill those you really hate, so you kill the innocent and defenseless.”

“Namir, son,” my father pleaded from where he was chained. “Go. Get out of here. He’s mad.”

But I had to distract him. I had to do my part. “I’m more than a match for a mad man,” I said, then charged at my crazed uncle. I was lucky that what I did was so outrageous that he couldn’t believe his eyes. I reached him in an instant and slapped the knife from his hand. On the altar Hannah blinked as if she was waking from a dream.

Lamech regained his wits quickly, but I was faster. I snatched up the knife and ran to where my family was chained to the wall. Elara had already freed Naomi and Juryal, but I saw Adah heading in her direction. Zillah was restraining Hannah at the altar while Lamech and Noe came for me. I had to hurry. I went to my sister first and tried to cut through her shackles but only managed to put a  painful cut in her wrist. The knife merely blunted against the iron of the shackle. Elara kicked Adah hard then began working to free Fauron as I turned to face Lamech. The big man and his son, who was also bigger than me, hesitated when they saw the bloody knife glittering in my hand.

“It is over Lamech,” my father said as he struggled vainly against his bonds. “You have failed. Witnesses have escaped. My son has stopped you and there is nowhere for you to go. Father will hunt you to the end of your days for what you attempted.”

Bless my father, what he said got Lamech thinking rather than overpowering me, which would not have been difficult.

“What could Irad do to me?” Lamech snarled at father. “And I have not failed yet!”

The chains fell off of Fauron and Elara was moving on to my mother. Fauron stepped around her in an effort to escape but strayed too close to Lamech and the beast snatched him before I could strike with the silver blade I held. Lamech somehow produced a thin dark blade and held it to my brother’s throat and there was nothing I could do.

“Lamech,” my father said. Anger and fear in equal measure filled his voice. “Don’t do this.”

I edged closer.

“If you stop now father will forgive you,” My dad pleaded. Lamech and Noe both had their eyes locked on my father and even though Roulan was in chains it was a standoff. Elara was almost through the chains that held mother, but no one seemed to notice. All I had to do was get close enough to reach Lamech. The tense creeping moments between heartbeats seemed to last forever before I thrust my knife forward and caught Lamech on the jaw, slashing upward through his ear. Lamech cried out in pain and anger, but didn’t slacken his grip on Fauron. Noe jumped on me and wrestled me to the floor. I kicked frantically but his mass on top of me was immovable.

“A man will die for this hurt,” Lamech hissed with a deep sense of solemnity and dread. He spat on my father, who was working with Elara to get free of his chains. “And this young man for my wounding.” With those words Lamech dragged his crude iron blade across Fauron’s throat. The cut was not clean, but he had made sure it was deep enough that my brother’s life pumped out of him in bursts. It took an agonizingly long time for the deed to be done. My mother didn’t flee, but wailed. My father didn’t notice his own chains falling away. I screamed and cursed, to no avail. Elara had already freed my sister and was gone. I never saw her leave.

Eventually Lamech dropped Fauron’s lifeless body to the cold stone next to me. My tears mingled with the pool of my brother’s blood. Distant shouts sounded from the halls above. “Quickly Noe,” Lamech said, “kill the infidel.”

In my hand I still clutched the silver dagger. I struggled, forcing Noe to keep his grip on me rather than going for the blade. Lamech reached for the knife and his hand closed on mine. He yelled in pain and pulled away as if he had been burned. The smell of burning flesh filled my nose and Noe loosened his grip enough that I was able to struggle free, but something was happening. Something that haunts my dreams to this day. Lamech, Noe, Adah, and Zillah all writhed and screamed on the floor in agony as their bones and muscles shifted unnaturally beneath their skin. It was like invisible hands were rearranging their bodies from the inside. I had no idea what was happening but I took the opportunity to run to my father who still sat stunned by his cut shackles. I tucked the silver dagger into my belt and, with considerable effort, pulled my father to his feet.

Lamech and the others glared at us through their pain as fur sprouted from their skin and clawed paws replaced their hands and feet. Fangs grew from their mouths as their faces were stretched and reshaped. My father and I didn’t wait to see what would happen. He picked up the husk that had been Fauron and followed as I pushed mother and Karala through the door and ran. Through the labyrinthine tunnels we sprinted until finally erupting into the open air. Torchlight flickered around a large crowd gathered in the street and I heard the panicked voices of Hannah, Naomi, and Juryal.

I froze. What would happen if others found me? Was I safe? Was my family safe? Would they see carnage and a pale boy and draw the obvious connection? Would my mother or sister pay the price like Fauron had? A mob could easily accomplish what Lamech had failed to do. My father seemed to have the same thought because he hesitated at my side.

“Son,” he said, then stopped at a loss for words.

“Dad,” I answered with a broken voice. “I’m so sorry. I have to go.”

“You always were and will always be my son,” father said, then with a slight push he sent me the other way, into the dark.