walked in.
Through the glass windows in the front she could see that the shopkeeper was on the sidewalk out front, looking at the fallen man. She knew her by the Daisy’s emblem on her jacket. An ambulance was arriving now, and the scruffy homeless man who’d been with Demetrius was talking to a well-dressed man who’d emerged from the car and was wobbling on his feet.
Drunk driver?
No time to mull on that.
She took a few items from the racks and racks of clothes in the store, moving fast, feeling guilty. Quick as a wink she grabbed a pair of skinny jeans with a peacock embroidered all the way up one leg, a handful of undergarments, a vibrantly colored blouse, a faux suede jacket, a pair of leatherette boots and some socks. She grabbed a business card from the register so she could pay later for what she’d taken, then ducked out the back door and into the alley to put the garments on.
Demetrius would need some time to heal. A few days, she thought. She couldn’t be sure. But she knew he would live, and that he would heal more rapidly than anyone would likely believe possible.
She walked back out through the alley and onto the sidewalk, moving to the back of the crowd to keep out of the shopkeeper’s line of sight, so she wouldn’t notice her own merchandise on a stranger and realize she’d been robbed.
From a safe vantage point Lilia looked at her beloved Demetrius as several medics strapped him to a wheeled bed and lifted him into the back of the ambulance. His eyes were closed. She wanted them to open. She wanted them to meet her own eyes and fill with recognition, with desire. With love.
Goddess, she’d gone through so much to save him, waited so long to be with him again.
In time, she thought. In time.
When the ambulance attendant moved toward the driver’s door, she went to him, grateful that the vehicle blocked her from the crowd. “Where will they take him?” she asked the man.
He looked at her, and his eyes softened. “Are you family?” he asked.
“I need a ride to the hospital,” she said.
“That’s against regulations, Ma’am, but if you—” He stopped speaking as she began to hum softly, thinking the words that went with her tune but not saying them aloud. It would work either way.
“Sure you can ride along,” he said. “It’s no problem at all.”
She smiled. “Thank you.” She glanced back at the filthy homeless man. Gus, she thought Demetrius had called him just before he’d brought her through. Gus.
Gus was with the driver, whose car bore a very large dent in its nose due to its impact with Demetrius. The police were there, too, but Gus was stepping between them.
She frowned, sensing something momentous was about to happen, and moved closer to listen. “I was the one driving,” Gus said. “It was me.”
The nurses at the desk let Lilia use their phone, and she quickly got the number she needed and dialed it.
When Indira answered, Lilia felt tears brimming in her eyes. “By Goddess, I am so glad to hear your voice, my sister,” she said softly.
There was a moment of silence, and then Indira said, “Who the fuck is this?”
“It’s me. It’s Lilia. I’m here. It’s time.”
“Oh. My. Goddess.” Then, in a muffled shout, “Tomas, you’re not gonna believe this!”
Hours later, a battered old Volvo pulled into the hospital’s parking area. Lilia was outside, sitting on a stone wall, waiting. She’d had to leave the hospital before the staff started asking her questions she could not answer about Demetrius. Who he was, where he was from, a last name, even. In their time, last names had not been used. Demetrius was the son of Horum, who was the son of Ferigard, and so on back into history.
Indira got out of the car first, ran toward her, then stuttered to a stop two feet shy. “I … Is it you? Is it you, baby sister?” She squinted a bit, as if trying to see what was unseeable.
“You don’t look the same, either, Indy. I didn’t know there were that many shades of blonde.”
“Yeah, you should talk. You look like you took a shower in peroxide.”
Then Magdalena, who had been the eldest, came up beside Indy, with hair that was a mass of coppery red ringlets and the flawless skin of a porcelain doll. “Lilia?” she whispered. Her lower lip was quivering.
“Lena.”
The hesitation broke, and the three women were suddenly in each other’s arms and sobbing so hard they almost couldn’t remain standing. They held on for a long, long time.
“How?” Indy asked. “We thought we’d have to reopen the Portal, perform a ritual, to get you here.”
“Demetrius.”
They both went stiff, their eyes widening.
“He’s not what you thought he was, not in this lifetime, my sisters,” Lilia said, wishing for their understanding but refusing to use magic to get it.
Lena lowered her head, taking a step back. “He tried to take my baby, Lil,” she said.
“Your baby …” Lilia tore herself from the arms of her older sisters and gazed toward the car and the two handsome men who stood there, waiting patiently while the sisters had their reunion. The dark Spaniard, Tomas, former priest of Marduk, lifetimes ago. The other, Ryan, who had once been a prince of Babylon and was the father of Lilia’s precious niece, Eleanora. He was holding the baby in his arms.
Lilia wanted to rush to them, to hold the child, but she held herself back. “When the time comes,” she said softly, for her sisters’ ears alone, “you’ll want them far from us.”
“When will that be?” Indy asked.
“I don’t know yet, but it will be soon.”
“What happens when the time comes, whenever it is?” Lena was looking from her husband and daughter to her newly arrived sister over and over. “What happens, Lilia?”
“I don’t know. I only know the cycle is coming to an end, and that there will be a great battle.”
Indira rolled her eyes. “With who? Your pain-in-the-ass former demon lover?”
“He was never a demon,” Lilia snapped.
“He sure as hell acted like one.”
Lowering her head, Lilia sighed. “As soon as we know when it’s all coming to a head, you’ll need to arrange to have your loved ones far from you. That’s all I’m saying.” Her eyes were drawn to the baby again. “Now, may I please meet my beautiful niece?”
Lena sighed, but nodded. The moment she did, Lilia hurried closer, reaching out, and Ryan placed the wriggling infant into her arms.
Standing close to her side, looking on, Lena said, “Where is
