We were on the beach patching the boat on a nice breezy day. The sand was warm under my feet and the gulls were laughing as they wheeled astound in the October sun. I was nearly finished mending the bottom of the hull while Lamya was keeping watch.

“They’re the same, you know,” Lamya said.

“Sound and electricity are not the same,” I rebuffed.

“They are,” Lamya persisted, “but that’s not what I’m talking about. I mean matter and energy.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “A ray of light isn’t going to plug this hole.” I wedged a plank into place, smeared it with pitch, and hammered a dowel to hold it.

“Why not?” Lamya asked.

I could hear the smile in her voice. She baited me with questions all the time and I always took it. “It just can’t. Light could affect the hole like to help you see it or warm it up, but it’s just energy. It’s not a thing. It gets spent and it's gone.”

“What if I told you that matter is a wave of energy, just like sound, just like electricity, just like light?”

“Prove it,” I said. I set aside my work to watch the miracle she proposed.

“That’s easy,” she said and swaggered up to me. The curve of her hip as she walked drew way too much of my attention. She folded her arms in front of her.

“How did God create the world?” she asked.

“He spoke,” I answered flatly. “But that is just a story. It doesn’t prove anything.”

“Oh really,” she challenged. “How did you make those waves in the water the first time we met?”

“I found the sound that resonated with it,” I said.

“And tell me, Namir the omniscient, what is resonance?”

I opened my mouth to answer but couldn’t find the words. “A vibration,” I stammered. “A harmonic tone.”

“You should study your music then,” Lamya laughed. “It takes two notes to harmonize.” She said the last two words uncomfortably close to me. My face was hot as I looked away. She was toying with me and I knew it which made the fact that it worked all the more infuriating. A shadow passed over us and I immediately grabbed Lamya.

“Get down,” I hissed, and dragged her to the ground with me then rolled us under the hull of the ship and out of sight.

“What’s out there?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” I whispered back.

“Well, you’d better have a good reason for this,” she said.

I noticed that I was on top of her and our faces were actually touching. I almost scrambled away except that I really had seen something out there. As dangerous a position as I was in, revealing us could be even more hazardous so I stayed put.Her body felt soft beneath me. Her eyes and lips invited me closer. The moment lingered and I knew that, danger or not, I had to get away before I did something stupid. I leaned to roll off of her when she grabbed me and held me in place.

“What are you…”

“Shhh,” she interrupted.

A moment later something heavy landed on the ship above us. Enough that the entire hull shifted in the sand beside us. The timbers groaned under the weight and I could smell something dead and rotting. The reek fell around us like a curtain and harsh breathing as if across wind chimes sounded above us. I tried to be silent, tried not to breathe, but how could anything not hear the pounding of my pulse? I could feel Lamya’s heartbeat, see it in her neck. We were going to be found. Lamya’s eyes were wide with fear like the first time we’d met except this was genuine. Scratches and creaks sounded above us as the creature shifted on the timbers. I was beginning to gag on the putrid air and forced myself to breathe slowly.

A whoosh of great wings beat above us and a single feather, longer than my arm, fell near us. The danger had passed. We were safe. Lamya and I stayed clasped together for a long moment then looked into each other’s eyes and both laughed. My face sank into her neck and hair and I laughed. She smelled great.

There are times when you are so frightened, so terrified and paralyzed that being released from it is a joy too big to contain. We laughed until we cried then she kissed me full on the mouth. It was similar to the electric shock. I didn’t know what to do so I returned the gesture.

A minute later we were climbing out of the sand and shaking out our hair and clothes. “What was that?” I asked.

“Harpy,” Lamya said. “A creature created by Lilith to do her bidding.”

“I didn’t mean that. I meant what we just did.”

“I was just happy to be alive,” she said, then looked at me with more scrutiny. “Don’t tell me that was your first.”

I looked away and shivered. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was still afraid of the harpy which was now much more real than the threat of Lilith, or that I wanted to kiss her again.

I was exhausted that evening when we returned to the city but I could find no rest. As Lamya and I ate our dinner I watched her and had to remind myself repeatedly to look away. I didn’t know how to process what had happened between us. I was thrilled and ashamed, but mostly I was scared. The kiss had been impulsive. We had just been through something traumatic. It didn’t really mean anything. Did it?

Did I want it to? Lamya and I each had our own room, but when I went to bed that night her proximity was too much for me. The separation was too much. But what could I do? What could I say without looking like the desperate, uncertain, hormonal teenager that I was? I paced in my room until I thought Lamya was asleep then went outside to pace the dark city streets hoping the clear night air would have an effect on my jumbled mind. The moon was just past full and the stars were piercingly bright.

What would it be like now between us? Would we return to Eden and get married and start a family? That thought didn’t fit right but I pursued it anyway, always unhappy with where it led. I found my way to a roof and looked out over the bay. The water gleamed in the starlight, the trees swayed in the breeze, and a bird screeched in the night. It was all so serene. Why couldn’t my heart be like that? It was nice to see that peace existed even if I couldn’t have it. My eyes itched but I knew I couldn’t sleep. Maybe I could go back and pretend none of it had happened and trick myself into sleeping. I was about to go down when I heard footsteps on the street below.

Someone was walking toward the edge of the city. I couldn’t see who it was but I was certain it was Lamya. What was she doing? I crept along behind her as silently as I could, and at first thought that she was looking for me. Maybe she had woken up, found that I was gone, and was worried about me. But why would she walk straight out of the city and into the jungle to look for me?

At the edge of town she disappeared into the shadows between two buildings. I rushed to follow but as I got close I heard the scrape of claws on stone and hesitated. A jackal padded out and trotted into the trees. I followed rather than searching for Lamya. Something strange was going on. Jackals are wild and if Lamya had come across one in a dark alley then one of them would have come flying out in a panic. I thought of Lamech and his wolves and shuddered at the thought of what Lamya might be hiding. I followed the jackal as fast as I could but I wasn’t far into the jungle before it was lost in the underbrush.

The darkness was too deep to see anything beneath the canopy. I sighed in frustration and looked back toward the alley Lamya had gone into. Where she probably still was. I had been a fool for thinking that jackal was anything but a wild animal. My own memories and hormones had me jumping at shadows. This was most likely just a figment of my overtaxed imagination. I needed to go back home and talk to Lamya before I went crazy.

A bird screeched in the trees. Was that an owl? I didn’t think it was possible and shook my head, but what if it was true? If I followed and it was nothing then I could go back and feel a bit more foolish than I already did, but if it was something and I missed it then I could be putting both Lamya and myself in danger. I pressed on into the jungle following my ears and the calls of the creatures of the night.

I blundered ahead in the dark and made so much noise that if anything was there I was sure it would be gone long before I could reach it. Then a light ignited in the trees ahead. It was dim and distant but it had not been there before. I made my way as carefully as I could and as the light drew nearer I was able to find my way more adeptly. The moon was high in the sky by the time I was close enough to hear voices. I continued until I distinguished a familiar auburn haired figure holding a torch in a small clearing. In front of her were two men, one woman, and a half dozen owls perched in the trees.

“There will be enough prey for Lilith and enough to spare for all of us,” Lamya was saying. “Namir has told me about a score of cities hundreds of thousands strong and virgin land that those in Eden have not begun to explore.”

“It has been a long time since we had enough souls to satisfy us,” one of the men said. He was tall with blonde hair, blue eyes, and familiar pale skin.

“You are sure the boy doesn’t suspect anything?” the woman asked. She looked a lot like Lamya but with a deeper red in her hair.

“I have him right where I want him,” Lamya said. “After we reach Eden he may even decide to join us.”

“Be careful that you don’t deceive yourself as well,” the woman warned.

“He is young,” Lamya said, “and a man at that. He is easy to control.”

“But you say he has a strong power of his own,” the woman chided. “Do not underestimate him.”

“Indeed,” the other man said. This last man had darker hair and eyes. I guessed that the differing hair colors belonged to the archon and sílat groups. “He could be our salvation, but he could just as easily be our undoing. Be careful.”

“I will,” Lamya said, then bowed.

I knew I had to move, had to get away before I was discovered. A part of me wanted to rush out and confront Lamya right there. Another part of me wanted to rush home so she wouldn’t find me gone. So she wouldn’t know. It was too much for me to handle like crowds of people all trying to cram through a doorway. Nothing could get through. I didn’t do anything. I merely watched as the two men walked away, the owls flew into the air, and the woman burst out of her own skin into the monstrous harpy that had almost discovered us earlier that day. She shed her skin like a shellfish and her foul stench washed over me as she took to the sky.

Lamya watched them all go then transformed herself in between that act of thought into a jackal. Her change was instantaneous and I almost missed it. I felt numb and betrayed as she left as well. It was almost dawn before I finally turned around and trudged back to the city. I should have gone back to my ship instead of to the hideout. I should have sailed away. The repairs were nearly done. I could have made the journey. I should have left Lamya and Lilith and all of them to their fate but I didn’t want to believe what I had just seen. I wanted Lamya to tell me it wasn’t true. I wanted to return and find that we really were leaving together just like we had planned. I got to the door right at dawn. I walked in and found Lamya cooking breakfast by the hearth. She took one look at me and her eyes went wide.

“Amempsin was right,” she muttered.

I opened my mouth to speak but couldn’t get the words out. There was too much to say and only one tongue to say it with.

“Namir,” Lamya soothed. “I didn’t lie to you.”

Those words removed what was blocking me and the flood was released. “Did you lie to them? Did you play them for fools just like you played me? How exactly did you plan this out? Thanks for rescuing me. Oh, by the way now I’m selling your world to the demons that destroyed mine!”

“Namir,” Lamya said. “It’s true that I kept some things from you.”

“Kept some things!” I exploded. “How about everything? How about, Namir, my friends are going to love you. They are going to love how your soul tastes?” A pitcher crashed to the floor, or the top half of it did as it was sliced in two. I needed to control myself before I did something stupid. Again.

“You think I want to help them?” Lamya snapped back. “What do you think would happen if I told them I was running away with you and leaving them for dead? What do you think would happen if I went to Uburtu and told him I was leaving with his son?”

That caught my attention and though it didn’t quell my anger it definitely put it in check. “His son? You mean, you know my father?”

“He was there last night.”

“So, he’s alive?” I asked.

“Yes, and if he finds out who you are I don’t want to imagine what would happen,” Lamy answered.

“And who am I?” I asked.

“Ziusudhros,” Lamya said reluctantly. “You are the son of Uburtu and Ahmanya, the last in the line of archon kings. In fact your father was the first to join Lilith in her genocide. He incited infighting, rebellion, and war to weaken the kingdom. Most of the people here died fighting one another but your mother escaped with you.

“I, on the other hand, had to live through the war and the subjugation. I had to live my life knowing that if I didn’t do what I was ordered to do then my flame would be fed to the abominable succubus.” She bit her lip. “I said too much.”

“Too much?” I asked. I wanted so badly to believe her. “No, don’t you see? This is exactly what they were afraid of. We have them right where we want them.”