You want to know how much immortality is inside of you and if you’ll pass it along to your child. I have answers. All you have to do is ask.
Snow starts to fall around me, and my heart is racing inside my chest. I want to know. Desperately. The thought of dying while Lucas is forced to watch and then live alone has haunted me since we fell in love. Knowing he might have to watch both his wife and then his daughter age and die hurts.
I haven’t appeared to have physically aged in a few years, as my friends have pointed out. I heal faster than an average human. The only reason Lucas is able to feed off me and only me is because I’m not human. And my father hasn’t completely unlocked all of my angelic powers yet.
If I do end up being immortal in some sense, that will mean I will stand by Lucas and be forced to watch Elena grow old and die. The unnaturalness of that terrifies me, but the unknown scares me even more. If I knew, I could prepare. I could make sure every day counted. And maybe I could—
“Callie!” Julian’s hands land on my shoulders, shaking me and pulling me out of the trance. My eyes open, and I suck in air, realizing that I hadn’t taken a breath since I first heard the whispering. “Callie!”
“He’s in her head,” Lucifer growls, turning toward the door. He sweeps his hands out in front of him, summoning a line of hellfire. It crackles and pops, raining red embers down on the floor. “Get her out of here!”
Julian steps toward the portal, and in the back of my head, I hear Paimon whispering and then get a flash of three humans possessed by demons. They’re standing in the woods, holding knives in one hand and ropes in the other. Harrowing screams resound from the trees, and blood starts to seep out of the bark.
“Wait!” I cry, pulling Julian back. “He’s…he’s trying to piggyback off the portal somehow.”
“He’s not getting in,” Lucifer repeats, eyes glowing with anger.
“No, it’s…it’s…” I close my eyes. “It’s making me take us somewhere else. Somewhere that’s not my home.”
“Concentrate,” Lucifer hisses, and I nod. “We don’t have much time.”
One look at the herbs makes my heart skip a beat. More time must have passed than I realized while Paimon was in my head. The herbs are almost nothing but ash. Once the magic is gone, the actual plants will burn, and we’ll only have seconds to get through the portal.
The doors rattle again, and the pane of glass in the window nearest us shatters. Lucifer spreads his wings at the last second, shielding me. The glass bounces off his white feathers, clattering to the stone floor.
“We have to go,” Julian says, grabbing my hand. “Now.”
I hold out my hand for Lucifer, closing my eyes once he takes it. “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.” Instead of thinking of the house, my mind goes to Lucas.
To his arms around me.
The feel of his cool skin.
His non-beating heart beneath his muscular chest.
How safe I feel with him. How loved.
He is home.
Tightening my grip on Lucifer and Julian’s hands, I step forward, going through the portal. The world swirls around, and it takes everything inside of me to keep my concentration on Lucas and not what could go wrong. The portal is a magical manifestation of my own creation, and my fear can make it take a dark turn we’ll never be able to come back from.
Callie.
My name is spoken aloud again, but it’s not a demon calling for me. It’s Lucas, and he has no idea he’s guiding us back to him. The spinning sensation gets faster and faster, feeling much like the first time Michael flew me out of the bedroom on North Orchard Street.
Slowly, the darkness starts to give way, and I can feel sunshine on my face. The portal spits us out in my front yard, and Julian holds onto me, keeping me from falling.
“You did it, kiddo.” Lucifer dusts off his suit and looks around before beaming at me. “You brought us home. Your mother would be proud.”
It takes me a few seconds to gather my bearings. “Lucas,” I whisper, blinking away the dizziness as I start toward the door. “Lucas,” I call again, voice a little louder. Heels clacking on the stone steps, I’m not even on the porch when Lucas opens the door, dark blue eyes wide as he stares at me, getting burned instantly from the sun.
“Callie.”
My heel catches on the custom doormat with a big letter K in the center, and I stumble into Lucas’s arms.
“Callie,” he repeats, holding me tight against his chest.
“You’re burning,” I say, feeling the heat of his skin burning on my own face.