like those that had mysteriously appeared just above her left breast shortly after drinking the potion. And now, she instinctively knew what it said.
“Ah-mah-dees,” she sounded out. She looked up at Niko who stood by her side. “What is this place?”
He looked down at her and shrugged. “You said we needed a safe place and something in my mind told me to come here. Or perhaps it was in my heart. I don’t know. I just felt the need to bring you here.”
Cassandra stared at him, not believing him. Then she turned around, taking the place in, trying to figure out why they were here. With her keen eyesight, she peered through the trees. With her heightened sense of hearing, she listened to everything around them. She realized they were surrounded by water. They were on an island. And somehow, she knew they were on her island, the one she had wished to escape to when she thought all was lost.
“Yes, Cassandra, your island,” Father’s voice whispered in her mind. “We’ve made this place for you and yours. To keep you safe, to provide refuge for those in need. Take care of it, for many generations will need it.”
Yes, Father, I will. I will take care of them all.
Cassandra looked up at Niko and grinned. “This is our place. Our new home.”
He took her into his arms and swung her around, celebrating her happiness. She buried her face into his neck and pressed her lips against his cool skin. He tightened his embrace and she’d never felt so right as she did this very moment.
Epilogue
Andrew and Zoe both inhaled sharply when Cassandra plunged the blade into their son’s side. They already knew it would come to this. Andrew had fashioned the dagger for this very reason. But expecting it didn’t make it any less painful to watch. Andrew bowed his head as his daughter sobbed in the physical realm. Zoe turned and stood in front of him. She lifted her fingers to his face and brushed them across his cheek. They came away with a pearly, golden liquid on her fingertips.
“He did what he was meant to do,” she said, her voice soft, trembling. He looked into her eyes and saw they were wet, too. He nodded.
“Yes. He served his purpose—a good purpose—and now he will harm no more.” He gathered her into his arms and they grieved for their son. And for the challenges their daughter would still have to face. For her purpose had not yet been served.
Andrew remained close to the veil, always watching, always helping fight the demons for the souls Cassandra tried to save. He watched as she grew the Amadis, the Angels’ army on Earth, pleased each time she persuaded a Daemoni to change his life around. He delivered the Angels’ messages to her when she needed guidance. He gave her strength and courage when she felt depleted.
As time passed, he also watched Andronika grow into a woman, marry and give birth to twins—a boy and a girl. With a heavy heart, he watched as the boy grew into adolescence and started down the wrong path. Jordan’s path. As every son would do. He knew why, but there was nothing he could do about it. God had His plans.
Andrew witnessed Andronika receive her gifts from the Angels. She aged back to the single point in time when her body, soul and mind were strongest and then he and the others strengthened her even more. She gained terrific powers, different from, but complementary to, her mother’s. She helped Cassandra grow the Amadis.
It became large enough, with the many, complex issues of a growing society, that Andrew directed Cassandra to form a Council to give her guidance. Andronika and Niko sat on her Council, along with Michael and Faiz and even Inga, as well as others she’d come to trust dearly. They provided their diverse perspectives on law, control, freedom and war. Cassandra became a great leader and eventually, Andrew and the Angels only interfered when necessary.
In time, the Amadis outgrew the island the Angels had given Cassandra. Andronika established a second village in what became Italy and it grew, as well. Not all of their members stayed in the villages, though. Some traveled the world, helping the Amadis recruit new converts. Some isolated themselves, feeling that living alone, far away from humanity, was the only way to control their innate urges. Others lived in groups in the world’s cities. Mages often grouped together in covens and some were-animals formed packs, dens and flocks, whatever was instinctual to their animal kind. Vampyres formed a new hierarchy among themselves. If sire and child both converted, that bond always remained strongest. Otherwise, hierarchy was based on what they began calling their third birth—their first as a human, their second as a vampyre and their third as Amadis. Some of the different kinds of unearthly children learned to live together and settled colonies around the world.
Once Andronika’s granddaughter received the Angels’ gifts—what they came to call the Ang’dora—it was time for Andrew to bring Cassandra to the Otherworld.
Cassandra, he whispered in her mind one Earth morning as she lay in bed in Niko’s sleeping arms.
“Yes, Father?” she answered automatically.
It is time.
“Time for what? You have something new for us?”
Just for you. It is time for you to join Mother and me here.
She sat up with a start. “I must leave?”
He could hear the hitch in her mental voice, a hitch of sadness and despair.
It is Andronika’s time to lead. You have served your Earthly purpose. It is time for her to serve hers. Prepare yourself, my daughter. It is time for you to come home.
Andrew and Zoe embraced each other as they watched their daughter say her farewells and prepare her own daughter for her new role. Andrew’s heart grew heavy as Cassandra said good-bye to Niko, who had so faithfully remained by her side.
“When I first chose to stay with you,” she said to Niko with tears streaming down her cheeks, “I feared the day when you would leave me forever because I knew I’d outlive you by decades or longer. I did experience that grief, when I thought you were dead, but here we are. I’m the one leaving you.”
Niko pressed his forehead against hers. “I won’t know how to exist without you.”
“You will focus on Andronika, help her lead. You’ve been with me from the beginning, always there when I needed you. Now our daughter needs you, my love. Take care of her for both of us.”
Andrew turned away, giving them privacy to say their final farewells.
“They will be reunited,” Zoe said quietly. “Just like we were.”
Andrew nodded but said nothing. He knew Cassandra’s pain. He knew Niko’s. He felt it strongly in his own heart and soul. But this was part of the plan. Niko would come to their world soon enough, but not yet.
When Cassandra ascended the Otherworld, Andrew welcomed her with open arms and wings. Then she settled in next to him, always watching the Earthly realm, watching Andronika and Niko and the rest of the Amadis, providing guidance and support when needed. And when it was time, Niko joined her. And later, Andronika.
Generations passed. The Amadis adjusted to the changing world and to the Daemoni, always counter- balancing their actions. At one point, it became apparent that the Amadis daughters—and the few sons—needed to be born and raised in the human world. The sons shared too many Amadis secrets when they were compelled to go to the Daemoni and, having lived their whole lives on the island, the daughters had become too isolated from humanity. It was decided they’d grow up in the human world, completely unaware that the Amadis or Daemoni even existed until they were ready for the Ang’dora.
These daughters married humans, diluting the blood and powers passed on to their own daughters. A few times, Andrew, Cassandra and those who had ascended had to step in, discreetly providing a mage or one of Jordan’s descendants as their soul mate. They only did so when necessary, though.
They watched the Daemoni, too. They watched their many attempts to increase their numbers before they were once again driven back by the Amadis and the Angels. They kept an eye on them as they tried in vain to recreate Jordan’s potion, what Andronika dubbed as Jordan’s Juice. They grieved for the souls of all the failed experiments. Then there was success. With a cup of potion, Lucas, a descendant of Jordan, became their most
