The rest of my birthday was quite memorable. Jason took me to the zoo…in San Diego. I had heard so much about the zoo and always wanted to go. I once told that to Jason. He clearly remembered.  It was like going to a theme park, and the animals were so cool to watch. I didn’t necessarily agree with keeping animals locked up when they were meant to roam free, but sometimes this was a better alternative than the animal dying out from poachers and the like. Okay, I will get off of my soapbox now.

We had lunch in the Gas Lamp district and walked around the area some. He also took me shopping. Despite being gay, I didn’t really like to go shopping, but I saw so many things I wanted in the boutique windows. We stopped at like 5 stores. Jason bought me so much stuff. I told him I could do it, but he insisted it was my birthday so he wouldn’t hear of it. After my shopping spree, we drove back to LA. We made it just in time for my rehearsal. Jason sat in the back of the room while the rehearsal went on. I introduced him during the break. They all loved him. The feeling was mutual.

After the rehearsal let out, Jason drove me to the restaurant he picked out for me. In order to honor our first date he took me to an Italian restaurant. I didn’t say anything, but the day marked our 6 month anniversary. So as not to spoil his plans, I just kept my mouth shut. The dinner was amazing. I asked to see the dessert menu and when the waiter came back, he was singing Happy Birthday with his fellow wait staff. They brought out this really succulent looking cake. I got a closer look at the cake and it said “Happy Birthday and Anniversary James”. He remembered. I really did love my man. I was going to have to find a way to completely forgive him. It would be hard.

It looked like the surprises weren’t over. The server had brought glasses of wine when he brought out the cake. Inside my glass was something shiny. I fished it out with my fork. It was a silver necklace with amethyst crystals of my initials. I had to choke back tears. He had really gone all out. I had to say, besides getting my powers back, that part of the day was definitely my favorite.

After we left the restaurant, Jason took me back to my place where we had the best sex I had ever had. Jason was quite impressed too. I sort of manipulated his orgasms a little bit. Post coitus, we fell asleep in each other’s arms. When I woke up the next morning, I turned to see Jason gazing at me with such intensity. “What?  Do I have something on my face? Did I drool again? I’m sorry babe.”

He laughed. “No, nothing like that. I just love to watch you sleep. You look so peaceful.”

“That’s what stalkers say before you find their victims in a swamp somewhere.”

“Very funny. I’m being serious. I love you so much that it hurts sometimes. I wish we could have this forever, but you’re immortal and I’m human. Where can this go?”

Ah, the crux of the matter. I didn’t think he would ask so soon, but we did just have our sixth month anniversary so I knew it had to come up sooner or later.

Over the next week I had my hands full persuading Jason to become an immortal being. He was very hesitant.

“Why won’t you do it? You were the one who said he wanted to be with me forever. This is your chance.”

“It’s not that I won’t it’s just that…..well, do you love me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s a simple question. Do you love me?   You have yet to say it to me. I’ve told you on numerous occasions. Don’t you remember? I’ve been in love with you since we first met. I just don’t know if I could be with someone who didn’t feel the same. I even told you when you first woke up after being ‘reborn’ as the gods said.”

“You did?! I honestly don’t remember that day.” That was a bold faced lie. I haven’t been able to get that day out of my mind. It was pain beyond all reckoning, but it was also the most beautiful day I’d had until my birthday revisited. And the crazy thing was, I did love Jason. I loved him with all of my heart. I said as much a few paragraphs ago. Why couldn’t I tell him how I felt? I knew the exact reason why. Since I got my powers back, I’d been having lots of visions of the future. I saw the future of our relationship. It was a long way off, and I do mean a long way, but we broke up. He tried to kill me. I knew I shouldn’t worry about it. Janus told me that everything you see isn’t set in stone. I had to pick which one was most likely to happen. Unfortunately, it was that future every time. That shouldn’t matter. He was going to love me more than anyone else I would ever be with. There would definitely be others, but I would still end up with my husband Jason.

“Well James, do you love me? I can’t be with you for all time if you don’t love me.”

I walked over and pulled him close to me. I wrapped my hands into his big and strong hands and said, “Jason Branton, I love you with every fiber of my being. I am yours now and hopefully forever.” Then, he kissed me with such fiery passion that I nearly wept with joy.

“In that case…,” He got down on one knee and continued with, “Will you marry me?”

“Wait, what did you say?”

“Will you marry me?”

I could see the future and I didn’t see that coming at all. Maybe it would all work out in the end. I had only seen one possible future. Perhaps he would never hurt me, so I said, “Yes I will marry you!!”

Jason jumped up, grabbed me and spun me around all while laughing hysterically. I was grinning like an idiot. He put me down and said, “So, about this spell….”

“What about it?”

“Will it hurt?”

“Only a little. It has to change your body to make it possible to sustain immortality. The process is similar to what happened to me only you will remain human and not experience even half the pain.”

“But the pain you experienced was more than a little. I saw the agony on your face. I heard it in your screams. You reminded me of a banshee, if I had ever heard one that is.”

“It won’t be like that for you. I’m not human anymore, and that pain was because they had to transform me.”

“You still look human.”

“This is just the form I present to the world. This is a human body, but that’s where the similarities end. This isn’t my true form either. You’ll see it one day.”

Jason had an apprehensive expression. “I don’t know. I’m still not sure.”

“Don’t worry Jason; it will be fine.”

“Ok then, when do we do this?”

I started clapping. “Well that was easy. Maybe I should have asked for a new car if I knew you would cave so easily.”

“I’ll give you whatever you want, after we get this done. I can’t wait to spend the rest of eternity with you.”

“Seriously, you won’t be disappointed. How does tomorrow night work for you?”

“Why can’t we do it now?”

I could tell that he was getting really excited about the prospect at having powers. Or maybe it was the whole immortal love thing. It was probably the latter. I told him, “I still need to go to the library in Vatican City to retrieve the spell. I wasn’t quite sure that you would agree so I waited.”

“May I come with you when you go?

“You would only get in the way.” He was taken aback by that comment. “You don’t have any training for this sort of outing. I know in your past acting experiences you played a spy, but real spy work is much harder.”

“I understand.”

I never should have said anything. Humans were so hard to deal with, even when I was one. I would have to approach this delicately. “Don’t pout. I didn’t say you were useless, I’m saying I don’t want you to get hurt. That’s why I’m going alone. The Swiss Guard are some of the most highly trained soldiers in the world. I don’t know what I would do if you got hurt. I couldn’t subject you to that.”

“It’s fine James; I understand.”

After I finally calmed him down, I told Jason it was time for me to go. I teleported him home and then I teleported to the roof. I could have teleported to Rome, but there were magic wards over Vatican City. I put them there myself centuries ago. I doubt many if any people still knew of their existence, but I didn’t want to take any chances. This was for Jason’s future. Well, it was for both of our futures. Flying there was my only option. What an option that was. I hadn’t flown in so long. Even before I got sent down the pipeline as a human, I hadn’t flown since I lived in Heaven.

When I got stuck on Earth after the war, I lost my wings. An angel needed his wings in order to go to and from Heaven. Everyone who was with Lucifer got cast out and lost their wings and were sent to Hell, but when Janus saw I was still among them, he stopped my decent and I landed on Earth, but without wings. I would never going home again.

I could have learned to fly without my wings, but teleportation was faster, so I stuck to that as my mode of travel around the globe. Now that I had them back, well, they were actually a new pair, I would need to get used to them again. I should be leaving at night, mostly so no one could see me take off, but I needed it to be night time over there. It was 1pm in LA so it would be 10pm there. I needed to be there by or after midnight for my plan to work. I would need to play this really close to the cuff. My wings materialized on my back and I unfurled them. I stretched them and moved them back and forth. Satisfied with that, I stretched the wings to their fullest and pushed off and shot straight up in the air. Wow, it really had been awhile since I used them. That was bad. I shot up too far and too fast. I stopped about three miles up. It had only taken me a second to reach that height. I really was powerful; more powerful than I remembered. I would have to watch myself.

I was sure that I had damaged the roof when I took off. There had been too much force. With my new and improved vision, I looked down. There it was. The roof had been demolished. People had gathered outside. The apartment that the roof had collapsed on had been empty; no one was living there. Good thing for small favors. I raised my left hand and it began to glow with a green hue. I wiggled my fingers and the roof was repaired instantly. Unfortunately, I had to do something about all of the witnesses. My eyes began to glow white and then I said, “Forget.”

Everyone down below shook their heads and then went about their business as usual. There was no way I could afford to make a mistake like that again. I needed to get the hang of the new powers with the new body. I would start with the flight to Rome.

I extended my wings and took off towards the west. Because that way was longer, I could adjust my power as needed and hopefully improve. It took me about an hour and forty minutes to get to Rome. I didn’t stop making adjustments until I was over Russia. After that, I had finally gotten used to flying in the new body. I really did miss that feeling. It was so much fun to fly. If it hadn’t been for my brother capturing me, I would still have been able to continue flying. But then again, I would still have been an angel. Oh well; I shouldn’t blame others for my problems. Of course, if none of that had happened, would I even be flying to Rome for my fiancé Jason? My guess was no, I wouldn’t be. At any rate, it should only take me about half an hour to return from Rome.

I landed just outside of the city to avoid any detection. I diverted some energy to my legs and used super speed to get through the city to the Vatican. When I was just outside the walls, I stopped. I arrived just after midnight so it would be easier to get in and out without raising too much suspicion.

The guards were about to change shifts so I would need to get in through the barrier before that happened. I wasn’t going to have the time to take down the whole magical barrier, but I could create a small breach. I put out my hand to touch the wall and I encountered resistance before I could reach it. This was the barrier I created oh so many centuries ago. It was designed to keep out any powerful entities that dared to defy God. When I made it, I had not made my monumental mistake. I was able to come and go as I pleased. That no longer was the case.

I would have to be fast for this to work. If the barrier stayed open too long, the guards would be alerted. I laid both of my hands on the shield and it began to send out energy to repel me. I resisted the repulsion and kept pushing towards the wall. As soon as the barrier touched the wall, it evaporated. The area that evaporated wasn’t very big, but I didn’t need much room. I hovered above the ground and flew towards that hole. I teleported through the wall and rematerialized on the other side. I could sense the hole closing. I wasn’t going back that way again. It was now too unstable and would take a day to completely heal. Well, that was back when I cared about such things. It was time to get back to the matter at hand.

There was no one around, so I snapped my fingers and a cardinal’s robe appeared on me. I headed in the direction of the library. Anyone who noticed me only nodded in my direction. No one had approached me. This might just work out. I hit my first snag when I got to the entrance of the library. There were two guards. I approached them and they moved in front of the door. The one on the left asked, “Excuse me cardinal, but what are you doing here so late?”

“I have to look up an old reference and it couldn’t wait until morning. I have a lecture that I am giving in a seminary class and this information is crucial. Plus, I couldn’t sleep,” I said smiling.

The other guard chimed in at that point. “You can’t get inside without papal permission your eminence.”

I pulled out a paper from a pocket in my robes. It had the papal seal. “Are you referring to this?” I handed the paper to the guard. He perused it for a few minutes and then he nodded his head in approval. The other guard moved aside to open the door and I went inside.

I walked down the stairs for a few flights and reached the bottom. I opened the door to get inside one of the oldest libraries in human existence.  Well, the oldest the humans knew about, but more on that later.   

I didn’t know where the spell was located, so I would have to look through everything. I walked through the door and made my way to the center of the room. I extended both of my arms and I began to levitate (Now, I did say that I couldn’t fly without my wings, but levitation and short movements didn’t require wings so don’t fault me for being in the air without them). I didn’t have the time to read every book, so I would absorb all of the material through magical osmosis. I closed my eyes and then started to absorb all of the information in the room.

There were recipes for lamp oil. There were instructions on cart building and ways to keep the horse docile. There were ways to keep a monarch in power and loyal to the church, lots of spells and incantations, but nothing I was looking for. I had been at it for about ten minutes and had read almost everything. I was just about to give up when the last thing I read caught my attention. I returned to the ground and went looking for the actual book. It was on the far side of the room that I found it under a pile of scrolls that had to be at least 1000 years old. I looked closely at them and found out that they were actually like 6000 years old. I was there when they were written. I was really old, but I looked great for my age!

So, I found the book and opened it carefully to page 53. There it was; how to make an immortal. There didn’t seem to be a lot to the spell. The only stipulations were where it had to take place. It had to be in a natural setting, like a forest. I also needed to give him a potion and say some words. It was a fairly standard spell. It wasn’t even that old. They used it around Merlin’s time, and yes, Merlin did exist. In one life I helped him and in another I was him, but that’s a story for another day.

The spell would need to be tweaked a little in order to give Jason powers, but that wouldn’t be a problem. I touched the book and absorbed all of the spells in it.

After I put the book back where it came from, I left the library and walked back up the stairs. I got to the top of the stairs and knocked on the door. The guards opened it and then I left. I waved goodbye to the guards and walked the opposite direction I had originally came. I couldn’t leave from the same entrance because people would be alerted to my presence. I looked for a way to reach the lower levels. I found a guard entrance and turned invisible to walk right past them.

I went as far down as I could, making it to the sewers. The barrier came down this far, but it was much weaker so I just walked right through it. It felt like walking through thick mud, but I made it through unscathed. After I got through the barrier, I teleported outside and changed back into my own clothes. I ran outside of the city and when I reached the outskirts, I unfurled my wings and took to the skies.

Next Chapter: Immortal Love