Chapter 27: 27. Family Reunion

Marianne and I stayed in the waiting room for about fifteen minutes, before we figured it would be safe to head back to my dad's room.

When we got there we found he still had someone with him, but it wasn't the nurse. This time it was a girl in a volunteer outfit, standing next to dad's bed having a little chat with him.

She looked young to be a hospital volunteer, like nineteen at most. Pretty though, she was a petite girl only a tiny bit taller than myself. She had dusky skin and long straight jet-black hair. Her eyes were a deep dark emerald colour, and she greeted us with a friendly smile.

As we came into the room dad looked to me and my girlfriend and said, "There they are! Lexi, Marianne come on in. I'd like to introduce you to my friend."

The two of us moved up to stand by the foot of dad's bed as he gestured, "That's my daughter Lexi, and her girlfriend Marianne. They're visiting from England."

Dad had a big smile on his face and he sounded proud and happy, which were two emotions I'd never thought my dad would ever have towards or about me. Beyond that it was just nice to see him so lively and animated, compared to the quiet tired-looking man I found when I first arrived.

"Lexi, Marianne this is one of the volunteers here," dad continued as he introduced the raven-haired girl. "Her name is Mira, she's been checking in on me and helping to keep my spirits up. She's really a wonderful girl."

I smiled at the volunteer, "Hi Mira, it's nice to meet you. Thanks for looking after my dad, you've obviously been doing a really good job."

Mira smiled back as her eyes flicked up and down over me, then her smile suddenly faded. She grabbed my left forearm with a lot more strength than I expected, and she held my arm up as she looked down at the gold bracelet on my wrist.

"Where did you get this!?" she demanded in a quiet but intense voice. "You have to tell me!"

Next thing I knew I was having an out-of-body experience, as Eva took control and pushed me out without any warning. I was standing in between her and Marianne, and I gave my head a quick shake to get rid of the left-over dizziness.

Marianne's eyes were wide as she looked at me, she was probably wondering if I was ok or what was going on. She didn't ask though since neither dad or the volunteer would know I was there. And none of us knew what was happening, what the ravenette teen wanted or how she recognized Eva's bracelet.

Eva reached up and put her right hand on the girl's shoulder, but it wasn't any kind of defensive move. She wasn't trying to push the girl away or pull free of her grasp. She wasn't feeding either, not that she needed to take control of my body to do that. If anything it looked like Eva was trying to comfort the girl.

My dad finally spoke up, demanding "Mira what in the world are you doing? That's my daughter, let her go!"

Everyone ignored dad though, our demon and the girl in the volunteer outfit were just staring at each other while me and Marianne watched as well.

Eva looked the girl in the eyes and in a gentle voice she said, "The bracelet was a gift Mara. Your mater gave it to me when you were born."

The girl's eyes widened and her mouth opened in shock, while her face went pale. She looked like she'd just seen a ghost or something. She gulped, "Mehter? But it can't be! You died so long ago..."

Eva nodded as she pulled her daughter into a tight hug. She whispered, "It's really me, my child. I didn't die, I was imprisoned. And I've been searching for you ever since I woke up four years ago. Lexi and Marianne and I have scoured the Aegean trying to find you."

The teen hugged Eva just as tightly while tears started to run down her cheeks.

Eva looked like she was on the verge of tears as well, and as my shock started to wear off it suddenly struck me our search was over. We'd found her child, in the most unlikely place I could imagine.

I glanced back at my dad, and saw he was still staring at Eva and the girl. Dad's eyes were wide and he had a really confused curious look on his face. And I had to wonder what he was thinking about all this.

Like there was just no easy way to explain what was going on, and he wouldn't have any idea that the Lexi he could see was actually Eva temporarily possessing my body. Just like he wouldn't know the teenage volunteer was actually a demon, or that she was more than three and a half thousand years old.

The ravenette demon girl continued holding Eva as she suddenly stated, "We have to go see mater! She needs to know you're ok!"

That sent a shock through me as well as Eva. My demon's eyes went wide as she gasped, "She's alive? Lilith is alive?!"

"Yes!" the girl said happily. "I'll take you to her right now!"

Before any of us had a chance to respond both Eva and the teen vanished in a little flare of magic.

I had a split second to brace myself before the bond that kept me and Eva together was yanked hard. The best way I could describe the sensation was like how a marble must feel when it's launched out of a slingshot.

Being incorporeal meant I could pass through stuff, except normally I couldn't go through walls or doors because I had to be in a line of sight to Eva and my body. With my body suddenly teleported elsewhere it was like I was at the end of a very unhappy over-stretched rubber band, and I was being snapped back to where I was supposed to be.

So I sailed through the air, through buildings, even through people's homes and trees and anything else that happened to be in between a direct line from dad's hospital room to wherever that demon girl had teleported with Eva. It was all way too fast for me to actually see anything apart from a blur, I couldn't even guess what direction I was going or how far it was. I was very aware of the sensation of walls and trees and other solid objects passing through my insubstantial body though, and I hated the feeling.

A split second later I slammed into my body hard enough to knock Eva out of it, and both of us ended up on our knees on a hardwood floor somewhere. My head was spinning and I felt queasy, like I had a bad case of motion-sickness.

"Mira what's going on?" a voice to my right asked. "Who is this?"

I looked up to see the dusky-skinned ravenette demon girl lounging on a big sectional sofa. She was wearing a black night-shirt and nothing else. And she had a pair of ten-centimetre-tall curved horns sticking out of the top of her head, while a long demonic tail was wrapped around her waist and coiled across her legs. The dark red spade-shaped tip hung off the edge of the sofa and lazily swayed back and forth.

You are reading story Missed Connections at novel35.com

My head was still spinning and for a moment I thought I was seeing double as the other demon girl, the one in the hospital volunteer uniform and who didn't have horns and a tail, exclaimed "Mara it's mehter! She's alive! Get mater!"

I groaned as I slowly got to my feet, "You teleported us in front of my dad and my girlfriend!"

Eva stood up as well, she looked confused as she kept turning back and forth to stare at the two nearly-identical raven-haired teens.

Then the girl with the horns and tail got to her feet as well, and my eyes nearly bulged out of my head as her body rippled and grew. A moment later I was staring up at a huge blue-skinned demon. She had to be two and a half meters tall, with enormous black bat-like wings on her back and a long thick tail that looped around one of her cat-like legs. Her long black hair was wild and unkempt, her skin was an iridescent royal blue colour, and her eyes were like bottomless black pools.

"Lilith!" Eva shouted happily as she practically leaped into the demoness' arms.

And despite being an insubstantial ghost, the demon caught her and held her tightly as she cried out, "Efranir?! But how...?"

I found myself staring as a mix of emotions washed over me while my mind raced to catch up to what was happening. The thought that I finally settled on was the happiest one though. After four years, Eva was finally getting hugged. And after four years, we'd not only found her child, but her lover too.

For the next minute or two nobody said anything. The large blue demoness just stood there with her eyes closed and a happy blissful smile on her face as she held Eva in her arms. And my demon had a similar look of joy on her face as she kept her arms wrapped around her lover's large body.

Mira was standing next to me with a similar smile and some happy tears in her eyes as she watched her parents' reunion. I was happy too, and I kept quiet for now so as not to disturb any of them. I had a growing number of questions though, not to mention I worried what was going on with Marianne and my dad.

The moment was finally broken when my phone started to ring. My purse had been over my shoulder when Mira grabbed me, and fortunately it came along when she teleported us. It was on the floor where I'd collapsed after snapping back into my body, but I grabbed it then fished out my phone.

"Hi Marianne," I answered it quietly. "It's Lexi, I'm ok."

"Where are you?!" she half-demanded. "What happened?"

I explained, "We've just found Eva's family. Mara and Lilith are both here, and I have a feeling it's going to be a while before we're ready to leave. We're in a house somewhere, I don't think it's that far away. Um, how's dad doing?"

My girlfriend sighed, "He's ok now. He was startled and upset at first, but I managed to calm him down. He's going to want to know what happened though, and I don't know what to tell him. He heard what Eva said to that girl, and he saw the two of you teleport away."

"Yeah," I sighed. "I guess I'll have to deal with that later."

She asked, "What's the address there? I'll come and join you."

"As soon as I find out I'll text you," I promised.

"Ok Lexi. I'll wait for your text, and I suppose until then I'll stay here with your father."

"Thanks Marianne. I love you," I said with a happy smile.

"Love you too Lexi," she replied before we disconnected.

Eva and Lilith were still holding each other like they weren't ever going to let go, so I looked to the ravenette teen who was standing nearby.

"You're Mara right?" I asked her. "Or is it Mira now?"

She looked to me and smiled, "I'm Mira. And I'm really sorry for interrupting your visit with your dad. We all thought Efranir was dead, we thought she died three thousand years ago!"

I nodded, "Yeah I get that? Like she said, we've spent the past four years looking for you and Lilith. We've been searching Europe though. Can you tell me the address here? I'd like to let my girlfriend know where I am, so she can come over as well."

"Sorry," she apologized again then gave me the address before adding, "My mater's probably going to lecture me about teleporting in front of humans later."

I thanked her and texted the information to Marianne. Then I looked back at Mira and replied, "My girlfriend knows about demons and magic, but my dad sure doesn't. We're probably going to have to explain it to him though. He's going to want to know what happened."

Mira cringed slightly and commented, "I didn't know Mr. Harris had a daughter. I don't think he ever mentioned you before."

I sighed, "Yeah... He used to think he had a son, who died four years ago. Right about the time I met Eva and she brought me back like this."

"Seriously?" Mira asked as she gave me a funny look. Then with a grin she commented, "Sounds like you have some things in common with me and Mara."

"I thought you were Mara?" I asked. "You're Eva's daughter, right?"

The teen grimaced, "That's actually harder to explain..."