The Immortals

by S. M. Schmitz

  Colin looked back at Anna and the old woman, whose basket was almost full of green leaves, bitter green leaves that Colin hated, and the woman kept wanting to kiss Anna’s cheeks, telling her a girl as beautiful as she must be an angel. Colin smiled. He’d thought the exact same thing the first time he met her. Sometimes, he still wondered if she weren’t at least part angel.

  Anna walked the woman back to her house then ran back to Colin who was still watching her from the shadows of an abandoned church. The priest had been killed in a mortar attack closer to the French lines where he’d gone to try to help administer Last Rites. Half the village had evacuated in the past months, but Colin didn’t think the front would move much closer to them. These lines rarely seemed to move.

  “If we find anything edible, we should bring it to her,” Anna said as she reached him.

  Colin handed her the canteen with the last of their clean drinking water. They would have to boil more when they returned, if they could find any. The well in the village had dried up weeks ago, and they’d been collecting rainwater instead.

  “What goes well with dandelion? Squirrel?”

  Anna playfully pushed him. “Colin O’Conner, we’d be lucky to find enough squirrels to feed us all. So you’d better get used to eating dandelion leaves for a while.”

  Colin wrinkled his nose. “I’d rather eat bark.”

  They headed out into the woods where the demons that preyed on desperate souls liked to hide, especially during the day. People were braver during the day. Nighttime made demons’ work easier, and they could be so damn lazy. Occasionally on these hunting trips, they would be stopped by French soldiers, but Anna spoke perfect French by now, and she’d claim they were villagers looking for food. As long as they stayed far enough away from the rear trenches and artillery, they were always allowed to keep going.

  Another mortar shell landed on the French side, and even though it was miles away, Anna was certain she could feel the vibrations in the ground. Maybe it was only their imaginations, but after listening to this salient exchange heavy bombardments for the past three months, she couldn’t remember what it was like to hear leaves rustling in the breeze or rain dripping on the roof. When the heavy guns quieted, the rat-a-tat firing of the soldiers’ rifles punctuated the brief moments of silence. And it was in that small village outside of Verdun Colin and Anna first saw the effects of chemical warfare. They were definitely both convinced the future of humanity was irretrievably screwed.

  They stepped quietly through the forest just in case any errant soldiers – from either side – were around, and kept searching for the demons they’d come to hunt. Evil feasted on misery, and there was a banquet at Verdun. Colin and Anna had been hunting for these two demons for almost a week now, but they’d been unable to find them. They couldn’t wait for them at night, as they were visiting the men at the front, and Colin and Anna couldn’t get near there. Not that they’d want to anyway.

  But even semi-immortal creatures of Hell needed time to rejuvenate. Besides, Colin and Anna both sensed these demons had been in these woods – they just couldn’t find them. So far, this trip was turning out to be much like the others had. A wasted effort. To pass the time, Anna played one of her favorite games with Colin where they took turns thinking of a city they’d been to anywhere in the world that began with each letter of the alphabet. Colin had finally gotten tired of losing every time he got the letter X and had taken Anna on a trip to Xi’an, China for no other reason than to have a city for that letter.

  Anna had just gotten the letter K and was trying to decide between Karlsruhe and Kiev when they felt them. “Kiev,” she decided quickly, and pulled her dagger from its sheath. Colin glanced at her with an amused smile because Anna really hated losing.

  “Louisville,” Colin added just as quickly because he didn’t like to lose either.

  “This isn’t over,” Anna warned as she turned around to try to get a better idea of where those bastards were hiding. With two of them, they’d split up, so Colin and Anna were getting signals from all over the place. Finally, Anna spotted one of them. “There, in the trees.”

  Colin looked above them and saw the orange-red haze as it dove toward them. The other demon leaped from the bushes, a deep plum mist that took the form of a jaguar mid-leap. Demons had a thing for mimicking animals. They apparently thought it made them look really fierce or something. Anna threw herself out of the path of the dark purple cat that was trying to pounce on her. Her dagger swiped at its neck but the gash healed almost immediately.

  “Shit! I need my knife!” she screamed.

  The orange-red smoky apparition had morphed into an eagle, and Colin wasn’t having much better luck killing it. He ducked as its talons reached for his head again then stabbed the jaguar’s hind leg to try to distract it long enough for Anna to grab her knife.

  She had backed against a tree and Colin let his eyes linger on her as long as he could without risking the damn orange-red bird tearing him apart. And that was when he first noticed the body lying in the woods. The eagle made a sickening shriek as it dove at him again, but he’d pulled his knife out, too, just in case. The carbon steel blade was difficult to keep as sharp as newer stainless steel blades, but demons didn’t seem to care about those kinds of inconveniences to humans. They simply refused to allow stainless steel blades to penetrate them.

  Anna had grabbed her knife just as the jaguar jumped at her throat, its jaws open, baring those monstrously long fangs. She rolled away from the tree and stabbed the purple beast in its back and a vaporous cloud escaped from the hole her knife blade left behind. The jaguar limped now, wounded and weakened and Anna was able to scramble to her feet.

  Colin watched the bird circling above him, its distorted shape and color reminding him more of a Phoenix than an eagle, and as it descended toward him again, its beak unnaturally pointed and serrated, Colin flipped the knife over in his hand so that he gripped the blade tightly then threw it at the flying bird. It landed in its neck and the creature roared, a sound so completely dissonant from what he’d expected given its body. Some of the orange-red smoky mist leaked out around the knife still stuck in its neck. It settled on the ground, no longer able to fly, even its shape shifting at the edges as the demon struggled to hold onto the mirage of the eagle.

  But Colin didn’t have his knife now. Anna had opened several more wounds on the plum mist that had lost its form as a jaguar. Everywhere her knife touched, the mist simply disappeared and the nothingness was spreading like ripples throughout the purple fog. Anna ran to the orange-red bird that was still sort of a bird and thrust her knife into its back, dragging it as far as she could before the plum monster was on her. But she had given Colin enough time to pull his own knife from the bird’s neck.

  She turned just as the demon tried to wrap what was left of its energy around her head to suffocate her, and she cut through the miasma to find the breathable air of the French forest. Colin punctured the orange-red haze until it stopped its gruesome roaring, and the remnants of the beast fell to the forest floor like a coppery dust. Even after more than two centuries of fighting these creatures of Hell together, Colin had the same habit, the same impulsive need, to rush to Anna’s side and examine her, to make sure she wasn’t hurt, even though he would feel it right away if she were.

  It had never stopped him before, though, and it didn’t stop him now. Colin ran his fingers over her arms looking for scrapes and Anna smiled. “Madrid.”

  He sighed and nodded toward the body lying farther out in the forest. He couldn’t see a head, only bare white legs. “You think it’s one of their victims?”

  Anna shuddered. She could kill demons tirelessly, but she’d never get used to seeing dead humans. “We should check for markings,” she whispered, but she wasn’t really sure why she was whispering. Dead bodies just freaked her out.

  Colin took her hand and they approached the body slowly, even though they didn’t sense any other demons around them. Anna kept her
eyes on the dense piles of dead leaves beneath her feet; demons didn’t bleed or have organs or anything even remotely human. This was most certainly human. Colin stopped walking and glanced back at her. “He’s naked. Don’t look, Anna.”

  And of course that made Anna look up. “What is that?” Anna pointed to a strange symbol on the man’s side.

  Colin shook his head and offered her an apologetic smile. “Sorry. For telling you not to look. Sometimes I forget what century we’re living in now.”

  “Oh, Colin, forget that, look at his side.”

  Colin let go of her hand so he could kneel by the man’s side to look at it more closely. This made Anna nervous. Colin rolled him onto his side so they could see his ribcage better, and there, etched across his side was a hazy orange-red crescent tattoo.

  Chapter 20

  “Whoa,” Jeremy interrupted, “I’m not dead though. At least I’d better not be because I’m pretty sure this isn’t Heaven, and after everything I’ve done for those guys, I’m going to be seriously pissed off if I end up somewhere else.”

  Colin snickered. “There’s only one way to lose your soul, and that’s to give it up willingly. You’re not dead, but that demon was killing you. You’ve been marked by it.”

  “Holy shit,” Dylan mumbled.

  Jeremy sat up, grimacing from the pain, but the worry in his features was so profound even Colin felt sorry for him. “What do you mean I’m marked?”

  Colin and Anna looked at each other because they didn’t really know. They’d never met someone who’d come so close to being killed by a demon but survived. They had to tell him the truth.

  “The guy we saw in France, he was killed. But it was the same marking. What exactly was this demon doing right before you got thrown into the ditch?” Colin asked.

  “I don’t know. Trying to kill me. Isn’t that what they all do?”

  “Go easy on him, Colin. He’s been marked by a demon. You’d be freaking out, too.”

  “But how was it trying to kill you?” Colin pressed, trying to be patient more for Anna’s sake than Jeremy’s.

  Jeremy lowered himself back on his bed and closed his eyes. “I don’t really remember. It all happened so fast between the time it was on me and the time I went flying into the ditch. I just remember feeling this burning pain everywhere, not just here,” he pointed to the crescent mark on his side, “but everywhere. My whole body. And none of my weapons were working on it.”

  “So,” Dylan said slowly, “that … telekinesis thing you guys did. You saved his life.”

  Anna swallowed the nausea bubbling up in her stomach again. “This doesn’t make it ok to keep doing it around others. We learn to control it or don’t use it.”

  Colin knew better than to argue with his wife.

  Jeremy opened his eyes again and nervously touched the strange marking on his side. “I’ve tried scrubbing it off already. It won’t come off. Do you think it’ll fade over time?”

  His voice was pleading for an affirmative answer, but Colin and Anna didn’t think it would ever leave him. “I don’t think it will hurt you, Jeremy. We’ve never really understood why some demons mark their victims. We’ve always assumed it’s a sign of conquest, like a trophy to show off to others, but … I mean, you didn’t make any deals or anything, did you?” Anna knew people could make stupid decisions when they were frightened, but Jeremy was an experienced hunter. Surely, he hadn’t done something reckless?

  He quickly put her mind at ease by rolling his eyes and sighing. “God, Anna, no, I didn’t bargain my soul. They kill hunters for bragging rights, you know that.”

  “Well, at least he’s back to being a jackass,” Colin complained.

  Given the circumstances, Anna thought his attitude was easily forgivable for once. “Get some rest, Jeremy,” she said, “we’ll come back in the morning. Maybe we can find out something tonight about markings.”

  Dylan looked at Colin hopefully. “Any chance that angel would show up again if we went back to the church?”

  “Doubt it. Anna’s abduction threatened our agreement. She had to show up.”

  Jeremy rubbed uneasily at the orange-red crescent on his side again and admitted he was pretty tired, so Colin and Anna left, promising to research markings for him as soon as they got home. But as they thought, they were unable to find anything about living people with demonic markings – not anything credible, anyway.

  Anna turned off her tablet and tossed it on the bed. “We know a couple of other hunters who’ve lived a long time. We should call them and see if they know anything about this.”

  Colin pointed at the clock on his laptop. “It’s almost midnight here, Anna, and we have no idea where they are right now. Maybe I should send them an email instead.”

  Anna shrugged and fell back onto her pillows, yawning.

  “Hey,” Colin teased, “cut that out. You promised.”

  “Hurry up and send the damn email then,” Anna smiled. Colin typed it as quickly as he could. There were some things that never got old, even after several centuries, and making love to his wife was definitely at the top of that list.

  In the morning, Colin read the response from one of the hunters. He didn’t know of anyone who had ever come so close to death by a demon and survived. The other two hunters he’d emailed hadn’t responded yet. “Well, that’s helpful,” Anna muttered. She set a cup of coffee in front of Colin then grabbed her phone to check on Jeremy. It went to his voicemail.

  “He’s probably still sleeping,” Colin said, glancing at the clock. It was only eight in the morning.

  “Let’s bring him breakfast,” Anna suggested. She still felt guilty about what had happened to all of them the day before, but Max had a family at home to take care of him, and Dylan hadn’t been badly hurt. Colin sighed and reluctantly agreed to shower so they could go, then added the whole process could be sped up if she joined him.

  Anna crossed her arms and smirked, “That is the exact opposite of speeding up your shower so we can leave.”

  “Incentive then. To be nice to Jeremy. Or something like that.”

  By the time they left for Jeremy’s apartment, it was far past breakfast time, but he still wasn’t answering his phone. Anna called Dylan instead, who told her he hadn’t been able to reach him either and was about to go over to his apartment as well. Colin and Anna met Dylan in the parking lot of the complex and they listened at Jeremy’s door for any sounds from within. It was quiet and all of the lights were still off. Anna was getting nervous. “He can’t be dead.”

  Colin bit his lip. Jeremy hadn’t seemed that badly injured the night before, but what if they’d missed something? What if there was internal bleeding? Or some major concussion they didn’t know about? Dylan was still knocking, but nothing was stirring inside.

  Dylan’s features transformed from concern to panic. “I don’t have a key. Tell me in all those years you’ve been running around kicking demonic ass, you learned how to pick a lock.”

  Colin stopped biting his lip and looked back at Dylan, puzzled. “I’m a hunter, not a burglar.”

  Anna rolled her eyes. “We could knock the door down, Colin. Maybe if we concentrate, it won’t destroy the whole building.”

  Now it was Anna’s turn to get the surprised and puzzled look from Colin. “That’s awfully risky. We don’t know how to do that.”

  “What if he’s still alive? What if he still has time?”

  Colin knew they had few options. They could call the cops, but between explaining why they were concerned and waiting for them to show up and hoping they actually opened the door, they could waste too much time. Colin slowly inhaled and turned to Dylan. “Stay back.”

  Dylan remembered what happened both times he’d seen this power used. He walked away from Anna and Colin and waited on the stairs.

  Colin’s fingers found Anna’s and she gripped his hand tightly, apprehensive about the collateral damage they were surely about to cause and who might get hurt. “There m
ust be a way to use just a little of this power,” she guessed.

  If so, Colin didn’t know how to limit it either. But thinking about it made that tingling rippling sensation flow again, and they felt it, spreading like that feeling of stepping into warm sunshine from a cold room. “Think about it like whispering instead of yelling,” Anna suggested, and Colin didn’t have a better idea, so he focused on trying to whisper this power instead of yelling it.

  “On the count of three?” Colin asked. Anna was ready, so Colin counted.

  They tried to restrain this gift but the power was too strong; it burst from them once more, blowing out the windows, the door, knocking Jeremy’s pictures off his walls. Some of the neighbors’ windows were destroyed as well, and their doors hung crookedly on their hinges. Dylan ran back up the stairs and into Jeremy’s apartment. “We need to hurry before the cops show up,” he said.

  Colin and Anna followed him inside, stepping over broken glass and knocked over lamps and picture frames. They walked around the upturned chairs and headed toward Jeremy’s bedroom. Dylan stopped suddenly in the doorway and Colin and Anna almost walked into him. A strange snoring snuffling sound made them all hold their breath and listen, straining their eyes in the darkness to see inside Jeremy’s bedroom. They could only see the dark gray shape of his body lying in the bed.

  “Should we turn the light on?” Anna asked.

  Colin reached around Dylan to find the light switch on the wall. His fingers brushed against it, and the light flickered on. The snoring snuffling sound stopped. From the doorway, they could only see the back of Jeremy’s head; his body was covered in thick blankets, which seemed odd to Colin and Anna considering how warm it was in his apartment. But then Jeremy threw the blankets off of him and sat up, facing them, glaring at them.

  Anna screamed and backed away, but Colin and Dylan stood transfixed in the doorway. Jeremy’s face had broken out in grotesque bony nodules running along his jaw and forehead, his lips curled back over pointed teeth that glistened with the odiferous stench they’d encountered so many times lately, and his eyes settled on them, no longer his eyes at all, but two orbs of goldenrod that burned bright with a loathing for them. Jeremy, their former group leader, was possessed.