Wales.

Ling was reborn in Wales.

Khalid was lost. 

It was too much. 

All of this was too much. 

They had been so close. 

So very close this time to having everything. 

His eyes had been turquoise. His smile had been exquisite. He had been kind, and thoughtful, and such an incredible human being that it was so hard to move on. 

He was incredible in every life, of course. Even the lives where he cruelly ended Khalid’s life. 

It was getting so close now to the point of no return. 

Khalid hadn’t fought back when Ling had fallen. He knew what that would have looked like on the cameras, and the last thing he wanted was the Chinese government watching his every move. Finding out what he was. Grabbing him. Experimenting on him as Lord Bailey had.

He took the time to take what was left of Ling’s body, a horrifying experience in itself, and have it cremated. He placed most of the ash around a particularly beautiful Ginko tree at the Peking University that Ling had loved having picnics under. The remainder of the ash, he commissioned a jeweler to fold into a beautiful necklace. A turquoise heart pendant, to wear around his neck to keep Ling close to him. 

Khalid wandered, again. Traversing the planet. A deep depression setting in as he checked on his investments throughout the world. Bankers treated him like royalty. The people tending to his lands, paid by a trust he had set up to care for it, were in awe of meeting him in person. The strange recluse who was reportedly worth a fortune. Of course, they all assumed he was the grandson of the man who had bought all the land and gold in the first place. 

Khalid went on to try to find himself, killing time as he waited for Asim to grow up. He visited spiritual healers in India, but quickly discovered that many of them were just assholes who loved to scam westerners and poor locals out of their money. He searched around for various religions, feeling spited by his own Goddess, but again found deception and cruelty at the top, and a thirst for riches. If someone turned out to be particularly awful, he often enjoyed making them expose and then kill themselves in creative ways. 

He began to look at other ways of investing, finding it cumbersome to carry most of his bonds and wealth with him. Peaking into the minds of geniuses at a convention in Germany, Khalid decided to make a gamble, and made a good deal of his wealth liquid so that he could invest it in the stock market. He picked some basic technology stocks, including Apple, Microsoft, and later Amazon, as he had been around long enough to see the trend of something groundbreaking.  Plus, the geniuses seemed to think it was the next big thing. He also invested in real estate. His many centuries on the planet had made it abundantly clear that owning property was the way to go for getting a strong return on investment. 

The payoff became so great, that he soon hid his stocks behind a company he came up with. Asim LLC. It was simple, and the name meant the world to him. 

After two decades, he finally made his way to Wales, ready to find Asim again. He soon discovered that there was no record of him, anywhere. No one remembered his birth. No records seemed to exist of him at all. Khalid was at a loss. It had usually been so easy to find him, but now, with the world exploding so in population, it seemed almost impossible. 

He traveled around Wales, searching for Asim, and finding him nowhere. Then he spread out his search, heading to England, Scotland, even Ireland, a sore spot on his journey. Nothing. He went into the rest of Europe, but that was also a fruitless search. 

Eventually, he made his way to the United States. It looked so incredibly different from when he had last visited. Horses, carriages, and cobbled roads were replaced by myriad paved streets. The big cities had buildings that stretched beyond anything he could have fathomed as a young man in Egypt. Of course, the rest of the world had caught up to this as well, but the change seemed somehow more obvious, more rapid in the states. 

Khalid explored the United States, immediately becoming aware of how people didn’t trust him based on his name and ethnicity. He had seen glimpses of how 9/11 affected folks throughout the world. He had even watched it on TV the day it had happened. It wasn’t until coming to the states that he had truly understood the disdain that folks had for him simply for being from what they assumed was The Middle East. Across the world, there had always been racism, ethnocentrism, and xenophobia, but in the United States, the divide was palpable. Us and them. Red and blue. Black and white. 

He decided to shorten his name to Khal. It was a nickname that Asim had called him occasionally when they lived together on the farm, and it had always been very precious to him. Now, he wore it proudly as his identity. He kept the last name, Anwar, because he didn’t often have to share that. 

It didn’t really matter if someone targeted him for being different, or appearing Muslim, though he hadn’t followed that religion in a long long time. He could, of course, get them off his back with just a thought. He just wanted to avoid the hassle in general. He had now dropped pebbles in the minds of a few hundred people across the world, and it was occasionally exhausting. He even found himself falling asleep once in a blue moon to keep up his energy. He wondered how many he could truly control before it became too much. He enjoyed trying to find out. 

It had been over three decades of searching, when Khal wandered into the New York Public Library on a whim. He had caught a view of the exquisite layout in the mind of an excited child, and decided to check it out for himself. Khal enjoyed looking at art all over the world, and libraries were no exception. It was an indulgence he allowed himself, especially when he was feeling down. He often thought about buying a large property and accumulating some of the greatest works of arts in modern times, either through money or persuasion, but he was too set on his journey to find Asim again to worry about that now. 

It felt like time was ticking away. Less than thirty years left to find Asim again and convince him to become immortal, or he would lose him forever. 

When he entered the New York Public Library, he found it just as lovely as what the young boy had experienced. With a smile, Khal walked around, enjoying the architecture, the millions of books, the art. He was looking up at the painted ceiling when he stumbled into a table, and felt something fall onto the floor. He looked down to see a journal had dropped down by his foot. In an automatic motion, he bent down and scooped it up. 

Khal was about to set it down, when something on the cover caught his eye. 

It was a picture of a man, a shy looking individual wearing a nervous grin. The man was in a cream colored sweater, and was leaning against a wall with his arms crossed. Khal stared at the picture, not daring to believe it. Those eyes. He knew those eyes in every iteration. Beautiful, and kind. Those were Asim’s eyes. He had never realized he could see them in a picture. He wasn’t even 100% certain he could, but he felt, beyond a doubt, that he was looking at his lover. 

Khal quickly scanned the pages until he found the short layout on the man. 

Rene Bloom. Thirty-four. Librarian of the year. A few pictures with some blurbs about how he had been a hero. How he was to be honored at an awards ceremony in a month. 

A month. 

So little time to prepare. 

Khal shoved the journal into his bag and pulled out his phone. He went on Facebook and looked up Rene. 

There he was! It had to be him! The same smile. The same sweet look. He was doting on a little girl in a picture. A niece perhaps?

Khal looked closer, and was shocked the discover that Rene had a daughter. 

And not only that. 

He was married. 

Something seemed to snap inside him, flooding out like a dark bile.

In all their lives, Asim had never found anyone else. Never even tried to start a family. Khal felt that Asim had always been waiting for him, but clearly he wasn’t anymore. 

Clearly he had moved on. 

Unless it wasn’t really Asim?

One way or another, Khal was going to find out. 

*****

Everything was put in place. Khal had used his influence to move the award ceremony to Rene’s hometown. He had worked his way in to be the one to interview Rene, to see firsthand if this was truly his Asim. The journal had somehow neglected to interview Rene for the publication and gala. Khal assured them that he would be the one to do so. Whatever influence he couldn’t persuade with his mind, as the transaction was done over the phone, he persuaded with his pocketbook. Money, it seemed, was every bit as influential as mind control. 

Today was the day. 

Khal picked out a particularly stunning turquoise peacoat. In every life where they had had any time together, Asim’s favorite color had always been turquoise. Khal knew why, even if all of Asim’s variations weren’t conscious of the reason. Perhaps his Goddess had blessed him again. Perhaps this time would be it. 

His heart beat rapidly as he walked toward the library. It was cold out. A freezing February day, but he was warm, so warm just thinking about his beautiful Asim.

A car drove by slowly, and when it had almost passed, Khal happened to glance over. There he was. Rene Bloom. Khal could just see the side of his head, but he knew it was him. He had studied every single picture he could find of Rene a thousand times over. He knew him from almost every angle. 

Khal froze, watching the car drive up to the library. Watching Rene jump out and head inside, chatting with someone at the door. 

Why was he so nervous?

Because this might be it. 

This might be his last chance to make Asim love him, and he had to do this right. He couldn’t mess this up. 

Khal let out a long slow breath, and continued to the library. The minute the door opened, he found himself making eye contact with Frank, the security man. Frank sure knew a whole lot about Rene. He knew Rene’s husband, Misha, and their adorable daughter Emory. He knew Emory’s mother, Ari. He knew Doris, who had apparently been like a mother to Rene. 

In fact, Frank had a special fondness for Rene that bordered on fatherly, by all accounts, he was a good man, unless you asked his first wife, who he had berated on the regular night after night of excessive drinking. Once she’d left him, taking their two sons with her, Frank had given up drinking and turned his life around. He wanted to be a better person. Hell, in his mind, he already was.

Khal savored the new information about Rene, the myriad memories of the sweet young man as he made his way around the library, taking in the place. It was simple and elegant, with high windows and a staircase. Of course, there was an elevator in the back so the disabled, and anyone who didn’t feel like taking the steps could also go upstairs. 

Khal caught the eye of every worker he could, bathing in new memories of Rene. Julie had a crush on him, but she kept it appropriate. She knew he was gay, and married, and thought that Rene and Misha were so cute together. She even wrote cute little stories about them on her days off, something she would have been mortified for Rene to discover. 

Charlie was jealous of Rene, and a little weirded out by the gay thing, but he loved working with him. He was from a more conservative town, but had always done his best to be inclusive toward others. He had moved from a small town in Central Oregon to go to the University, and it had opened his eyes to a lot that he hadn’t been able to understand before. 

It was like a family there. 

A woman came almost bursting in the front door. Khal didn’t have a chance to catch her eye before she rushed to the elevator, coffee in hand. Moments later, he heard her upstairs, talking to Rene excitedly. 

Rene’s voice was soft, and warm, his tone kind. 

Asim’s voice. 

Khal almost stepped out to approach them, but nervousness overcame him again. He headed back down the aisle, attempting to clear his head. He didn’t want to bombard Rene when he was just settling in. He wanted their first meeting to be perfect. 

Khal watched Rene come downstairs from his vantage point behind the books. He watched him chat with Julie and Charlie, then grab the book return cart, and head upstairs in the elevator. 

Taking another few minutes to psych himself up, Khal finally took in a deep breath, let it out, then made his way up the stairs to the top floor to meet Rene. He saw him there, putting away books, reading the spines like it was the best job in the world. Before he could approach him, the woman with the coffee stepped up to greet Khal. 

Khal looked into Katrina’s eyes and instantly saw everything about her. He saw her exhaustion from taking care of two babies. He saw her love for her husband, a genuinely healthy relationship, at least as far as she was concerned. He also saw her love for Rene, someone she almost considered family, someone who had been there for her when others weren’t. Khal saw her writing out her essay as to why Rene should win the librarian of the year award. Knowing she was the one he had to thank for helping him find Rene had Khal making a mental note to help her out later in some capacity, but for the moment, she was in the way of his very important meeting. 

Khal told her who he was looking for, and she pointed him toward Rene, who finally stopped what he was doing to acknowledge Khal. With a thought, Khal sent Katrina on her way downstairs. As much fun as it was to hear her gushing over Rene, this was a special moment, and he wanted it to be just the two of them. 

Khal crossed the space between them, holding out a hand, so desperate to touch Rene, to look into his eyes. He took Rene’s hand at the same moment they made eye contact, and Khal knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, he knew that this was his Asim.

His Rene. He stared at him for one long moment, just taking him in. His beauty, his shyness, his green eyes. Then Khal introduced himself. 

As they spoke, only one thought crossed Khal’s mind. 

He was going to do anything it took to make Rene his. 

Anything. 

Chapter 39 – Genghis Khan