“Ciao.”

Irene Morrison hung up the phone, a smile lingering on her face for a moment. Cas had a way of helping her forget her problems, but she had her own life to live and couldn’t be Irene’s constant support 24/7. With their vacation cut abruptly short with the disappearance of Irene's wayward husband, she couldn’t bring herself to ruin any more of Cas’s week than absolutely necessary. She called to check in with her sister’s progress, listened to her stories, laughed over shared photos, and…

Irene sighed. Then she had to come back to reality. A reality that felt poised on the edge of madness. She scrolled back up through the flood of texts she’d sent without reply to the last thing Levi had sent.

Levi: I’m fine.

Sorry to worry you.

Some of the places I’m visiting are underground and don’t get reception.

I didn’t mean to worry you.

I love you.

I’ll be safe, I promise. Please don’t worry. I’m fine.

I love you.

Tell Peter I love him too.

Levi: How long until Peter gets back?

Once you pick up Peter, do not come home!!!

It isn’t safe. I’ll meet you at your parents’ place and tell you everything

He’d sent a message without punctuation. Levi never sent a message without punctuation.

And then he’d not answered again since.

The tears that seemed to always be hovering just on the edge of spilling returned, and she swiped over to Gordon to assuage her fears.

Gordon: I found him

Gordon: Looks like we’re going on a bit of a road trip

heading to kentucky apparently

Gordon: I can’t tell you what he’s mixed up in, but it’s some crazy shit

I feel like I’m in a movie or a fever dream. Wild

But we’re safe and I won’t let him out of my sight

She’d sent questions, floods of them, but whatever the boys were up to they weren’t answering her calls.

She swiped back to Levi, and pressed call. One more try, before she got dinner ready, more from habit than hope.

He answered.

"Hey, beautiful. How are you?"

“Levi! Oh, thank god, you’re okay!” Irene gripped the phone, relieved and terrified all at once. “Don’t you dare hang up on me.”

He laughed, short and nervous. “I’m in the middle of something, but…”

“You promised you’d tell me if you ever had a midlife crisis.” She didn’t mean to snap, but her voice carried what felt like years of suppressed anxiety. “And all that stuff about ‘discussing major purchases’ doesn’t just apply to me, you know. You should have called before going off on a spending spree.”

“I love you,” Levi said, instead of answering her accusation, his voice cracking. “I love you so much.”

The tears she’d been holding back for so long spilled out, and it was all she could do not to sob into the phone. Keep it together, you’re a grown woman. For a long moment neither of them spoke, each trying to keep their emotions in check.

Then Levi cleared his throat, obviously trying to sound casual. “So, how are you?”

“How am I? How do you think I am? You disappeared! I’ve had calls from your boss, from your friends, no one knows where you are or what’s going on. Are you in trouble with the mob, or in witness protection or something? Gordon’s cryptic bullshit isn’t helping anything. What is going on?”

“Nothing like that. Honestly, it’s even crazier than that. Where are you?”

“At Mom and Dad’s like you asked. Mom isn’t very happy with you, by the way, so you’d better have a damn good explanation. And when Cas sees you next, she’s likely to tear you a new one.”

“It’s even more insane than you think. I’ll show you, as soon as I get there. But I have a lot to do in the meantime, and I don’t know how much longer I have before my phone dies, so... I just wanted to hear your voice.”

“Don’t think you can get out of this by twisting my words on me. If you need a new phone, just say so, you don’t have to go through all this—“

“It’s not like that, I just… I might be out of contact again for a while, and I don’t want you to worry. It’s perfectly normal and nothing to be worried about.”

“Normal? Nothing about this week has been normal.”

"I know. Trust me, I know. And we'll talk about it soon. But I have to go. I'm in the middle of something very important."

“Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t sound okay.”

Levi choked a laugh. "I haven't been okay in a very, very long time.”

Irene stiffened, grief and anger warring. How long had he been hiding this… whatever it was? They were supposed to be past this! They were supposed to be communicating, not holding back.

But he kept talking, not giving her space to interject. “Knowing you're safe, I'll be fine. I promise. I have a lot of work to do, and some things I need to pick up on the way, but I'll be on my way as soon as I can. Stay with your parents, keep Peter, stay safe. I'll be there in a week, two at most, and we can figure it all out then.”

“Levi, you’re scaring me. Please, just tell me. What’s going on?”

“It’ll sound way worse than it is, and it’s really best for me to show you in person.”

“That’s not helping. You know I’m going to imagine the worst.”

Levi sighed, the short resigned huff that meant he was going to be stubborn.

“Don’t try to put me off with some half-assed dramatic garbage, Levi Jacob Morrison, just tell me what is going on!”

There was silence for a moment, then, “I’m basically learning magic.”

Irene’s thought process skipped, any of her most wild guesses for where this was going derailed in an instant. “You… what?” She tried to re-parse the sentence so it would make sense. “Training monkeys? Leaving America?”

“No. Learning. Magic. For fighting monsters. And… and demons, not just monsters. And I’m, um, catching monsters too.” He was babbling now, rushing and fumbling over his words, as if afraid to let her interrupt. “I have a giant centipede in the back seat at the moment. Not, like, the size of your hand, more… eight to ten feet. Say hi, Centoo? Well, he doesn’t really talk, not really at all. Skarm can squeak, though. Say hi, Skarm, this is my wife, Irene. So basically your new mom. Kinda” Something squeaked, or snarled, she wasn’t quite sure.

“Levi, if you’re trying to bribe me with strays, you know that makes you a damn hypocrite, don’t you?” The talk of magic and monsters was obvious nonsense, but if he had something with him... a cat? Dog?

“Yes, I realize, it’s not… uh… I’ll take a picture. See?”

He sent a photo of a greyish-purplish blur atop a vaguely coiled stone-colored blur that could almost be discerned against a hazy background. It looked like he was trying for a bokeh effect or using macro mode to shoot a landscape.

He cursed softly. “Damn, that doesn’t help, does it? Must be the mana interference with light transfer, or… other non-standard physics of some sort.” She could practically hear him wince over the phone. “I’m sorry. Like I said, I’ll explain everything in person. Don’t worry. I love you. Tell Peter I love him. Keep him safe for me.”

“He’s still at camp, I’ll be picking him up on the 12th. Unless your magic school bullshit means I need to ruin his summer too?”

“No, that’s fine. We have months yet. It’ll be fine.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. “Just don’t go anywhere. I love you.”

Irene took a breath, the tightness in her chest shifting but not relaxing. “Why does it feel like I’ll never see you again?” she asked, her voice low.

"Because the world just changed irrevocably, and neither of us knows how to deal with what's coming."

“Because of your magic monsters?”

“More or less.”

“God, I hope you’re not insane. I swear, if you’ve lost your mind, I’m going to lose mine too.”

“Not lost, just… rewritten. Nothing is ever going to be the same again, ‘Rene. But the one thing that’s never going to change is that I want you by my side through it all.”

“Then why are you off in the middle of god-knows where puttering around in ubers? New York? Kentucky? What are you doing?”

“I have to go,” Levi said hastily. “I love you.”

He ended the call before she could reply. Irene stared down at the phone, at his boring professional stock-photo businessman face in her ‘recent calls’ list, and at her sister’s grinning face just below it.

Cas had always been more into occult fantasies and crystal rubbish. Maybe she could help make sense of this load of tripe.

Irene scrolled down and pressed call.