“So, you’re like, almost four hundred years old?”
Colin and Anna nodded in acknowledgment.
Dylan thought for a few moments then added, “Doesn’t life ever get boring?”
Anna laughed. “Not when you’re traveling all over the world fighting creatures of Hell.”
The corners of Max’s eyes wrinkled as he looked between Anna and Colin. “Don’t you ever get tired of each other?”
“No,” they replied at the same time. And it was true. Colin was certain he could spend eternity on this planet with Anna. He was counting on spending eternity with her elsewhere.
“What happens at the end of your deal? When you’ve served five hundred years?” Dylan asked.
Colin shrugged a shoulder, although truthfully, he’d started looking forward to it about a hundred years ago. “We finally get to die. Together.”
“That’s it?” Dylan asked incredulously. “Fight scary-ass minions of Hell for us for five hundred years, then just die? You don’t even get to grow old together?”
Anna smiled at him. “We’ve lived so many lifetimes together. We still have a few to go. Just because our bodies haven’t changed doesn’t mean we haven’t. And I was about to die and leave my husband a widower at twenty-six. We were given the chance to be together in this life far longer than anyone else. We’re not the only immortals, but we’re the only couple, and that makes us far more blessed than any other living human. Can you imagine being a servant of Heaven but being alone through this?”
Dylan sighed and shook his head. “I can’t imagine living to ninety, let alone five hundred. Just seems they could give you the rest of your lives the way they should have been, that’s all.”
“The way it should have been would have meant my wife died of tuberculosis in 1647. And that’s why we’re here now,” Colin reminded him.
Dylan was about to argue with him, but Jeremy stopped him. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and studied Colin closely.
“Why do you think you’re here then? Why Baton Rouge?”
Colin shook his head. “Don’t know. In the past, demons congregated where humans were already causing a lot of suffering. It was easy work for them. But nothing unusual is going on here. It’s just one more reason all of this doesn’t make any sense. We shouldn’t have lost our telepathy in the woods, we shouldn’t have lost our ability to feel these demons’ presence, they shouldn’t be getting stronger and faster than us, and they sure as hell shouldn’t have been able to abduct Anna. Nothing human can kill us, but these demons…”
“In other words, we’re screwed,” Max sighed, interrupting him.
“We can’t let them believe that,” Anna told Colin. “You know what happens when people abandon hope.”
“There are rules,” Colin explained, “and these rules have governed this game between Heaven and Hell for thousands of years. They can’t be broken, but they can be bent, and Hell has figured out how to bend them. So we have to figure out how they’re doing it and stop them.”
“What rules?” Jeremy asked, his forehead creased in confusion and concern, because this was not the reassurance the hunters had been looking for.
“You already know some, like how Hell can’t take a soul without the owner’s permission. Angels can’t kill, which is why they aren’t involved in this directly, so there was a compromise. A small number of humans would have the ability to see demons when they stepped on the Earth, and they would be able to destroy them. Taking away a human’s ability to sense a demon is bending the rules, because it’s not permanent. We can still do it, but they’re interfering with our senses somehow.”
“Wait,” Dylan interjected, “does this mean angels who come to Earth can be killed then, too?”
Colin and Anna glanced at each other. These poor creatures were defenseless.
“Yes,” Anna finally said. “Same rules apply. The same humans who can see demons can see angels, and could theoretically kill one. But demons can kill angels, too.”
“Shit,” Dylan sighed again, sinking back into the sofa. Colin understood his reaction. Anyone who had ever met an angel would want to protect it.
The hunters had so many questions, and Colin and Anna tried to answer them all, but they were mostly concerned about what was happening in Baton Rouge, and they felt just as lost as the others. As the afternoon wore on, Colin became aware of Anna’s increasing pleasure and satisfaction that he was gradually acting more like himself and not the man he’d become without her. And Anna had missed him so much. He held onto her hand and would occasionally remind her, in that silent way of theirs, how completely he loved her.
Jeremy’s phone eventually interrupted their conversation and he stepped out of the living room to answer it. Without Jeremy in the room, the hunters lapsed into far less consequential topics, like LSU’s upcoming football season. Dylan was mid-argument as to why he thought LSU had a decent shot of making the playoffs this year, which everyone else thought was absurd considering that would put them in the top four teams of the country, when Jeremy returned, looking agitated and nervous.
“You think you’re ok to go hunting, Anna?” he asked.
Anna stood up. “Of course. What’s wrong?”
Jeremy looked at each of the hunters in the room and shook his head sadly. “They haven’t stopped. There was a huge pile up on the new bridge with a chemical leak, and the whole interstate is shut down. No word on death toll yet, but they expect at least half a dozen people were killed. But the accident happened at the exact hour and minute the explosions at the plants occurred except this was in the afternoon rather than the morning. These bastards are still trying to pay us back.”
Colin and Anna darted into her bedroom to grab their weapons.
“Stay where I can see you,” Colin told her then quickly added, “Please.”
Anna slipped her dagger into the sheath in her boot and smiled up at him. “You too, O’Conner. Don’t forget I’ve had to save you a few times before.”
Colin kissed the top of her head and pulled his shirt over the hilt of his knife. “Believe me, I’ll never forget. And God, don’t start calling me O’Conner. It’s bad enough Jeremy does it.”
Anna laughed despite the tragedy weighing on her mind, because Colin was back. Her Colin had returned, and she hadn’t even realized just how badly she’d missed him until now. They joined the other hunters waiting in the living room, and Jeremy looked at Colin expectantly.
“I don’t think anyone would argue if I temporarily hand things over to you both. We’re out of our league here. And between you, you’ve got over seven hundred years of experience. I can’t compete with that. So what do you want us to do, boss?”
“I was wrong,” Colin thought. “I preferred O’Conner.”
Anna suppressed a smile. “It’s only right, Colin. Even if you don’t like the title. Nobody will be able to lead these hunters like you can.”
Colin actually looked down at her even though no one else knew what they were discussing. “You could,” he insisted.
“No, for most of our lives we had to hide how involved I was in any of this. I may be an excellent fighter, but as a woman, I was limited in what I could do off the battlefield.”
Colin sighed because she was right. He’d organized and led hunters before, so he wasn’t reluctant to lead them now, but he didn’t want to do it without Anna this time. “Alright, Mrs. O’Conner, what now?”
The other hunters were eyeing them, shuffling their weight between feet, waiting for this conversation to turn verbal so they could at least hear it.
“No more splitting up,” Anna said. “If we can’t predict when they’re going to interfere with our senses, then we need to stay together. And we need to work only with those whose judgment we absolutely trust. We shouldn’t call Eddie or Tara or Adrián.”
Dylan snickered. “If we’re only working with people whose judgment I trust, we’re limited to those who are already in this room.”
Dylan had been joking – at least Colin thought he’d been joking – but Anna looked at him seriously. “Maybe that’s not such a bad idea.”
Max startled. “There are only five of us. We worked with more than that in a group when we were just dealing with regular demons.”
“But mistakes can be deadlier now more than ever,” Colin rebutted, and Anna noticed he was making less effort to hide his accent. That made her happy, too. Colin would never understand why she loved it so much, why she’d loved it even as a girl even though the rest of England treated him like he was inconsequential, a nuisance on the already crowded filthy London streets.
Colin had watched with a detached amazement at the relatively new sense of pride in being Irish that had emerged in recent decades. He still struggled with his own heritage. He also didn’t get the “Kiss me I’m Irish” t-shirt Anna had gotten him, but when he wore it to bed, at least it worked.
“We won’t be able to get near the bridge and the interstate is shut down. The surface streets will all be a mess. Where are we even supposed to look for these demons?” Jeremy persisted.
“We don’t,” Anna answered. “We let them come looking for us.”
Colin drove back out toward White Oak subdivision where they’d killed the archdemon and where Jas had been murdered. He had a hard time focusing on the road or what may eventually come looking for them this afternoon, and instead, his hand kept reaching over to find Anna’s; three months may as well have been three hundred years. Anna laced her fingers through his and watched him, allowing herself now to admire him, because there was no danger in temptation anymore. They were beginning to feel invincible again.
As he parked behind Jeremy’s car in a vacant field with a “for sale or lease” sign stuck in the ground near the dirt driveway, Anna finally let go of his hand. Colin and Anna had always known they were different, unique, because of all the people in the world – even in the early seventeenth century – two people who could see the supernatural fell in love. When The Angel healed her, Anna didn’t have time for shock or uncertainty. The Angel needed to leave, and Anna had so many questions. She had been given the knowledge of the entire conversation with Colin, but Anna wanted to know if God had brought them together in the first place.
The Angel just smiled down at her and laid a delicate hand on her head. “No, Anna. People love on their own, just as they hate on their own. But where you find love, you will find us. Where you find hatred, you will find them. You will spend your lives now surrounded by violence and suffering, but when you need to be reminded how much you’re loved, you will know where to find me.” Then The Angel had disappeared.
Colin remembered this memory with her. They had both been so confused and uncertain as to how they would find her again, and what she’d meant by “where you find love.” Finding tragedy and instances of inhumanity was easy enough. Decades passed before they needed reassurance humans were worth saving after all.
“So now we wait?” Jeremy asked.
Colin broke away from his shared memory with Anna and nodded. “We suspect there are three archdemons, and any number of subalterns they want to conjure.”
Max’s eyes narrowed in frustrated concentration. “Are you telling me these archdemons can create lesser demons from nothing? That all this time we’ve been killing these bastards, they’re just immediately replacing them?”
“No,” Colin assured him, “they can’t be created from nothing, but they can be created. Sometimes, it’s the souls of humans who are convinced to work for a particular superior.”
“And these superiors,” Max asked, “who are they?”
“Haven’t they ever studied any theology or mythology at all?” Anna sighed.
“Nobody ever seems to study anything anymore. Much easier to just Google something.”
Aloud, Colin told him, “Fallen angels. It’s why they’re so powerful.”
Anna shook her head, exasperated. “You fight these demons. Why have you never looked any of this up?”
Max shrugged. “I was raised Baptist. I’ve heard all the stories in the Bible, I just never thought they were true.”
Colin turned to watch a few cars passing on the road behind them. So far, those cars were the only sign they weren’t alone out here.
“Some of the stories are true. Most aren’t. At least from what I can tell. If you ever get a chance to talk to an angel, you’ll find they aren’t exactly forthcoming with information, especially about Heaven or God. I tried asking her once which religion had gotten it right, and she told me all of them that taught love and forgiveness above all else.”
Max wanted to ask something else, but Anna felt the creeping, not-belonging sensation at the same time Colin did. Something was out of place here. Something had entered this space that didn’t belong in their world. Anna and Colin reached for their daggers, which alerted the other hunters a demonic presence was approaching. Only Dylan could feel it now. Max and Jeremy didn’t have their heightened awareness, but grabbed their daggers anyway.
Colin and Anna felt the tingling in their fingers, spreading upward through their hands and arms and outward from their chests. Anna thought it felt like she’d downed a hot toddy, with that same pleasant warmth emanating throughout her body. But this wasn’t the effect of brandy; the gift The Angel had given them had awakened in the presence of this demon.
Anna couldn’t suppress this smile. “They only thought we were badasses before. Wait until they find out what happens when they piss off Heaven.”
Colin’s fingers twitched with anticipation. “Forget Heaven. Wait until they find out what happens when they piss off this husband.”
Two shapes appeared near the line of trees at the edge of the empty lot, one orange-red and smoky, the other a cadet blue opaque silhouette. The blue gray shape surged toward them and Anna swiped at the shape with her dagger. It sliced into the side of the demon, which made a low growling moaning sound, but turned on her, its amorphous shape twisting into a long gray wolverine, its lips pulled back into a snarl over pointed teeth. The gash on its side still leaked the same putrid odor the demon from the apartment had been filled with, but just like that demon, this one wasn’t slowed down by its injury. It swiped at Anna with its hideously thick curved claws, but Colin dug his dagger into the beast’s other side. A flashing popping sound escaped and it snaked its head around to bite his arm.
Anna pushed her dagger through the thick hide of its neck and although more of that noxious gas escaped, it turned on her, hissing and snapping those beige brown teeth, its jaws dripping slimy trails of yellow stench. Anna’s stomach turned. “Back up, Colin!”
Colin stabbed it again to distract the demon then backed away from it, but he knew why Anna had asked him to get away from the monster, and he was ready to help her. This new power within them burst forward, and they felt the energy moving all around them. They watched as the hideous impersonation of a wolverine dissipated before them, even the odors blowing away into the atmosphere of the south Louisiana sky.
But Colin and Anna both had the horrifying realization that this power wasn’t contained; it wasn’t directed just at the demon. Their fellow hunters had been behind them. They spun around but they were alone in the field.
Chapter 18
Anna’s heart started beating rapidly and the world started spinning around her. “No,” she breathed, “no, Colin, they wouldn’t do this to us. No.” She didn’t need to explain what she meant. He understood a gift that could so easily kill people was not a gift at all.
“Dylan was in the room with me at the camp. He was ok. Maybe they’re…” But people don’t just disappear.
Anna felt the panic rising within her.
“Dylan!” she screamed. “Max! Jeremy!” She called their names over and over while turning in circles, scanning the grassy field around them.
The ditch by the side of the road caught her attention. “Colin, oh God, Colin.”
“I’ll go look,” he told her.
Anna watched him as he approached the deep ditch and peered inside. She felt what he found before he could tell her, and she ran over to him, climbing down into the ditch, checking Dylan’s body even though he was conscious.
“Careful, Anna, you’re a married woman.” Dylan’s voice betrayed his pain, but he was still teasing her.
Anna sobbed in relief. “I thought you were dead!”
Dylan groaned as he sat up. “Next time, just go ahead and kill me.”
Colin had moved farther down the field where Jeremy’s body was curled inside the ditch. “He’s conscious. He may have a broken rib though.”
Max had been thrown farther down the field and had landed in a muddy section of the ditch. He was scraped and battered, but got to his feet and sauntered to Colin’s side to help him get Jeremy back to one of the cars. None of them wanted to go to a hospital.
“How the hell would we explain any of this?” Dylan asked. He winced as Anna lifted his arm and tried to clean some of the dirt and grass away from the laceration on his elbow.
“If you need medical attention, what difference does it make?” Colin retorted. But the hunters refused, and Dylan insisted he wasn’t even that badly hurt and could still drive.
As the injured hunters leaned against the cars, Jeremy looked at Colin and exhaled, “Tell me that was at least worth it. Did it kill them?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Good,” Jeremy winced as he tried to stand up straighter, “because that orangey bastard was kicking my ass.”
Anna chastised him for trying to stand on his own and made him get in the backseat of the car with Max then she and Colin took them home and badgered them the entire time about reconsidering a doctor.
Anna waited until they were alone in her apartment again to ask Colin about this new gift. “Do you think we can learn to control it?”
“I hope so,” but he didn’t sound certain.
“If we can’t, what good will it do us? We can’t ever use it again when others are around.”
Colin nodded in agreement. They were lucky this time. Neither of them wanted to risk killing anyone. “It worked though. Maybe we should start hunting on our own.”
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