catch his breath, to form words. He was shaking right to the very core. And then his attention was caught by what was happening behind her.
As he stared, riveted, the body on the table slowly sat up. Its eyes opened, black as the night itself, staring straight ahead and then scanning the room, taking in everything all at once. It got to its feet and looked down at itself, naked, copper-skinned. Massive. It opened and closed its hands, staring at them as if in wonder, and then it turned its vivid onyx eyes on James, met his stare, held it.
And James couldn’t look away.
Until the creature, the five-thousand-year-old thing that James Poe had somehow raised from ash, tipped back its head, its long ebony hair trailing down its back. And then, its face contorting in some kind of unspeakable anguish, it released a roar that was deafening in both decibel level and in the utter agony it contained.
17
Lucy had never in her entire life been as terrified as she was when she heard that blood-curdling roar and realized that James had done the impossible.
Frozen in fear, she almost couldn’t move. But she had to move. It was right behind her. She forced herself to turn, to face it….
Her eyes fell upon a hairless, powerful, naked chest, then rose as she tipped her head back, her gaze rising over thick neck, shoulders bulging with muscle and a face that was undeniably human. And Middle Eastern. And furious as it stared back at her.
No. Not it. Him. He was a man, and his expression looked like one of pain. Emotional pain, perhaps. Maybe physical, too. Who knew? She dug in her pocket for the paper she’d scribbled on earlier, the lines that spelled out the words for friends and safe in cuneiform. She sent up a silent prayer that she had accurately matched the form of the text to the period during which this man had lived, or at least to one close enough to it that it would be recognizable to him.
Then again, according to legend, his life had spanned so many years that he could be familiar with the styles of several different periods. He had been the first immortal, after all. She used to think the Sumerian myths she’d studied and taught—about the flood survivor, the Epic of Gilgamesh—were just that: myths. But now she knew they were real. All of them, real. Even she couldn’t deny that any longer. Not with Utanapishtim, the Flood Survivor, standing right in front of her.
She unfolded the paper even as he stared at her, and then at James, behind her. James scrambled to his feet then, gripping her shoulders and trying to get between her and the creature, but she shook her head. “No, no. He’s not going to hurt me.” She held up the paper, held it toward the ancient one’s face, and she made her voice as gentle as she could. “We’re friends, Utanapishtim. Friends.” She pointed at the symbols as she said the word.
Scowling, he snatched the sheet from her hands, staring at it, blinking, but more interested in the paper, its thinness, its texture, than the words she’d written.
“You…” He jabbed a finger toward James, ignoring her. “You…” he said, then slapped his own chest. “This?”
“Good God, he speaks English!” Lucy was stunned. “How is that possible?”
Utanapishtim’s eyes narrowed on her. “I…” He tapped his ears with his palms.
“Hear?” she asked.
“Mmm. I hear. Long time.” He cleared his throat, his voice hoarse, no doubt because he hadn’t spoken for thousands of years.
“He wasn’t dead,” James said softly. “My God, he wasn’t dead at all. The tablet says that the punishment from the gods for breaking their edict that he never share his immortality with anyone was that he would die, yet remain immortal.”
Utanapishtim nodded slowly. “Im…prisoned.”
Imprisoned, Lucy thought. All those years he’d been conscious, aware within the prison of that stone statue.
Utanapishtim’s eyes dampened, but they were also wild, frightening. “How…long?”
“Five thousand years, maybe more,” James said softly.
The man only stared blankly at him, then shifted his gaze to Lucy, as if awaiting her explanation, and she realized he had no way of knowing what a year was, much less what their numbering system meant. “A year is…a sun cycle. From planting to growing, then to harvest, to resting and to planting again. That’s one year.” She held up a single finger to show him one.
“Mmm. What is…five tousun?”
She blinked and lowered her eyes. Then she found her