Anna narrowed her eyes at him and Colin tried to look innocent about it.
“Well,” Luca answered, “it’s a demon now. It’s going to be out there doing all the things demons do unless you stop it.”
Anna thought it was a good thing he was in Minnesota, because she kind of wanted to kick him in the shin right now.
“I’ve only heard of this before, never actually seen it,” Luca continued, “but Hell broke the rules in transforming him, which means, theoretically, it should be reversible.”
“How?” Anna asked excitedly.
“Sorry, Anna,” Luca sighed, “I don’t know if it’s actually ever been done. I wouldn’t even know how to attempt it. Your friend is a demon now, and it’s a threat to humans. It will have to be hunted.”
Colin could feel Anna’s anger radiating from her. He didn’t need telepathy for that. “Then why even tell us it may be reversible? Why put the idea in our heads we may be able to save Jeremy if you’re just going to insist he’s hunted down anyway?”
“Because you asked me what I knew, and I don’t want to lie to the only friends I have that don’t grow old and die on me.”
“Easy, Anna. He has a point. We have very few friends who will be with us until the end.”
Anna crossed her arms defiantly, still seething, but didn’t reprimand Luca anymore.
“How long until you’re done in St. Paul?” Colin asked.
“Few weeks, I think,” Luca replied, sounding relieved Anna was no longer grilling him.
He and Colin talked for a few minutes about sports and Anna got bored. She got out of the car and walked back to her apartment. It didn’t take long for Colin to catch up to her.
“Don’t be mad at him,” he reminded her.
“I’m not,” but Anna wasn’t really sure about that. Hunting the beast that was now Jeremy would have been a hell of a lot easier if he’d never told her it may be possible to save him somehow.
“Anna, if you’d found out the truth years later, imagine how angry and betrayed you would have felt if he hadn’t told you. You’re putting Luca in an impossible situation.”
Anna paused by the foot of the stairs leading up to her apartment because she knew Colin was right, but it pissed her off anyway. Or maybe the whole situation just pissed her off and no matter what happened, she was going to be irritable and sullen about it, because even though Jeremy’s flirting had annoyed her, there were plenty of moments she had genuinely liked him. And the attractive young man with auburn hair and persistent five o’clock shadow had been murdered, morphed into a hideous creature that would terrorize the same city he’d once worked to protect. Yes, Anna was definitely pissed off.
“He wasn’t that attractive,” Colin grumbled.
Anna shot him a don’t-be-an-asshole look and clomped up the stairs.
“Bradley Cooper is a sex symbol, you know,” Anna retorted, not because she was sexually attracted to Bradley Cooper or Jeremy, but just because she wanted to mess with Colin.
“Now how would I know something like that?”
Anna could hear the sigh in his voice even though he wasn’t speaking aloud. “I hardly think Jeremy was wasting his days celibate while he was pining for me. He had as much trouble getting laid as Luca.”
“God, Luca’s going to want to talk to me about it, too, when he gets to town. Why does he think I want to hear about his sexual exploits?”
“Because he has no one else to talk to about them.”
Anna unlocked her door and Colin begrudgingly acknowledged she was right, even though it still made him uncomfortable to listen to him talking about his sex life.
As Anna stepped inside her apartment, she was thrown across the living room by a force she couldn’t see, by something she couldn’t sense. Whatever had blocked them before was doing it again, only this time, it had found them. It was in her apartment.
Colin hurried to Anna’s side as she struggled to get back on her feet. The tingling electric feeling of this new gift from The Angel was charging within them again, but they didn’t know where the damn thing was. Movement from the kitchen made them both draw their daggers, and a gray beast with bony growths protruding from its face lunged at them. The invisible force hadn’t come alone. It had found Colin and Anna by bringing Jeremy with it.
The gray demon knocked Colin to the ground and Anna cut one of its forelimbs to push it off of him. The creature screamed and rolled its goldenrod eyes toward her, but Colin was on his feet again, ready to stab it, when the invisible demon knocked them both against the wall. Colin’s dagger fell from his hand and Anna’s heart leaped into her throat.
“Blow the goddamn apartment down!” she yelled, and that power surged from them, exploding windows and light fixtures, overturning furniture and throwing debris in the air as if silent bombs had been detonated inside the apartment.
As fluttering papers and stuffing from the furniture settled to the floor, Colin and Anna moved away from the wall. He bent down and picked up his dagger, keeping it in his hand just in case. The walkway was filling with nervous tenants who had left their own apartments to check on the cause of the explosion, the second one at an apartment complex in the city that day. The door had been blown off its hinges and the glass had been shattered in all of the windows. There was no point in trying to get any privacy from the curious onlookers now.
They picked up a few items they didn’t want to leave behind as they walked through the living room, making their way to Anna’s bedroom. She wanted to grab a small case she kept a few relics of their past in that had personal significance to her, then they were getting the hell out of here before the cops showed up. Anna stepped over a pile of clothes that had been knocked from a drawer in the dresser and froze. Lying by the door to the bathroom was a large gray form, and it was still alive.
It turned its head and glared at Anna and Colin with those almost human yellow eyes. The demon was badly injured or it would have attacked them already. Colin’s grip tightened on his dagger.
“Wait,” Anna begged, “don’t kill it.”
“What? Anna, it’s a demon.”
“It’s Jeremy.”
“Not anymore. Look at it.”
“I am.” Anna started slowly backing out of the room. “Come on, Colin. Please.”
Colin stared at the hulking gray beast whose features betrayed how willing it would be to murder them if it could. “Anna, it’s hurt, it’ll be easy to kill now. Jeremy would want us to end this.”
Anna just shook her head. “What if we can save him? What if Luca can help us figure out how? And if not, we’ll find him again. It’s what we do.”
The monster made an odd moaning sound and Colin breathed slowly, relaxing his grip on his dagger, then backed out of the room with Anna. In the distance, they could hear the sirens of the approaching police cars. A large crowd had gathered at her doorway now, but The Immortals stepped around them and vanished.
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Volume Two
Devil’s Thumb
For my brothers, who, like Anna with Luca, have tested my patience but never my love. I am proud to call myself your sister.
Published by S. M. Schmitz
Copyright © 2015, by S. M. Schmitz. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
This e-book is licensed for your enjoyment only. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Chapter 1
Colin ducked into the shadows of a nearby building, tightening his grip on his dagger as the low rumbling growl of the demon dr
ew near. Without his ability to feel its presence, he had to rely on his normal senses and listened as the sound of the demon’s own hunting got closer. The stench of the beast surrounded him and Colin held his breath. He could tell by the overpowering smell that it was close to him now.
The setting sun cast a long slithery silhouette in front of the approaching demon as it crept closer to the building where Colin hid. His fingers twitched with the anticipation of thrusting his dagger into this monster’s bristly crimson neck. He saw one of its long curved tusks first as it had disguised itself as a massive warthog, and the low rumbling growling it had been making stopped. It knew Colin was nearby. Colin lunged at the demon and drove his dagger into the back of its neck, trying to pull the blade toward its back but this demon’s hide was thick and fibrous. It was like trying to cut through a block of wood.
“We need to get it away from these buildings. We can kill it if we can get it in the open,” Anna told him.
She stepped out of the shadows of a building on the opposite side of the street and Luca followed her. Colin pulled his dagger from the demon’s neck and ran.
“Follow me then,” he told her.
The demon immediately chased Colin but Anna and Luca were right behind it, and if it got too close to him, they would reach out to swipe at its hind legs. They usually missed, but when they made contact, it would distract the demon long enough for Colin to get a better lead on the crimson colored warthog chasing him through a small business area of midtown Baton Rouge.
“There’s an empty lot ahead. I’ll lead it there,” Colin told Anna.
She saw the lot Colin had mentioned and pointed it out to Luca. As they entered the grassy lot, Colin stopped running and turned on the demon, pushing his dagger into the side of its thick hide. He knew it wouldn’t kill the demon, but he needed to slow it down now. Luca and Anna each plunged their daggers into its back and it let out a shrill and gruesome scream.
“You ready?” Anna asked.
“Yeah.” Colin felt like even his internal voice was panting. This demon had exhausted them all.
The now familiar tingling warmth spread throughout his body as he prepared to help Anna obliterate this bastard. With only Luca here and no buildings around, they didn’t have to worry about hurting anyone. They released the power within them and the warthog disintegrated, leaving nothing behind of its sinister existence. Colin sat down on the ground and rested his head between his legs. He was so damn tired.
Anna looked over her shoulder where Luca had been thrown across the lot. He was sitting up, shaking his head at her. His shoulder length black hair, sleek and smooth, was pulled back and tied in a low ponytail, and his dark southern Italian complexion and deep brown eyes gave him the appearance of a man filled with mystery and intrigue, but Anna knew better. The most mysterious thing about Luca was his immortality and ability to fight demons. He wasn’t nearly as enigmatic as he thought he was.
Anna crossed the lot to help him up, even though he didn’t need help. But he seemed to be waiting for it anyway. Anna stared down at him. “Don’t pretend like you’re hurt.”
Luca smiled back up at her. “I am. I’m actually quite hurt that I’ve been doing this far longer than you two, but I don’t have this superpower.”
Colin could hear their conversation through Anna. “Tell him he’s a whiney asshole.”
“You tell him that. I’m a lady. I don’t speak that way.”
She heard Colin laughing from across the small field. Anna held out her hand to help Luca stand up, and he studied the space where the warthog impersonator used to be.
“These demons here don’t make any sense. This whole city doesn’t make any sense. For the past two weeks, nothing has been working the way it’s supposed to,” he said.
Anna sighed with exasperation. “That’s what we’ve been telling you, Luca.”
Colin groaned as he struggled to his feet and Anna winced for him. She hated seeing him in pain, but she knew it would pass quickly. They just needed to get home so he could rest. He joined Anna and Luca and tucked his dagger into the sheath in his jeans.
“After six hundred years, haven’t you figured out how to get your angel to show up when you want him yet?” Colin asked Luca.
Luca shrugged. “He claims to be awfully busy. Can’t imagine how. We’re the ones who seem to be doing most of the work down here.”
Colin snickered. “Well, somebody has to babysit guys like us in Heaven.”
Luca nodded sagely. “Ah, good point, my old friend. One day, we may even tempt some of them into falling just to get out of that job.”
Anna crossed her arms indignantly and glared at them. She never thought joking about angels was funny. Colin shot her a sheepish, apologetic glance, but, admittedly, he really liked having Luca in town with them. They’d known him since he and Anna became hunters themselves, which made Luca their oldest friend.
“When are you planning on quitting, Luca?” Anna asked.
Unlike Colin and Anna, he wasn’t bound by a contract. He could quit whenever he wanted.
“When we’ve won,” Luca smiled. And Anna believed him, because his faith in their side of this oldest of battles was that strong.
Colin stretched and exhaled a drowsy breath. “Well, this one’s dead. Let’s head home.”
They had to walk almost a mile to get back to their car, and Luca clicked his tongue as he strolled along the sidewalk, deep in thought. “You still have that box of artifacts in your apartment or is it back at the hunters’ headquarters?”
Colin wanted to lie, because he really wanted to go home, but he couldn’t lie to Luca. “We brought it back. You’ve already looked through it though.” He was hoping that last part would get him out of having to take Luca downtown.
“I feel like we’re missing something. And I’m at least 642 years old. I’ve learned to trust my instincts over the years.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Anna agreed.
“I can actually. This is the same guy who dragged me to a bullfight in Spain. I’ve questioned his judgment ever since.”
Anna snickered and Luca shook his head at them. “You two stop that. It’s bad manners.”
Anna smirked at Luca and told him, “Colin just questions these powerful instincts of yours when you still find something as macabre as bullfighting entertaining.”
Luca stopped walking and pointed a finger at Colin, but he was just messing around with him. “Hey, that was almost a hundred years ago, and what the hell else were we going to do in Spain? And how was I supposed to know you were so girly about seeing blood?”
“It just seems cruel to have picadors wound an animal and piss it off just so a matador can kill it. I thought we’d progressed beyond the gladiatorial days,” Colin retorted.
Luca rolled his eyes and muttered something in an old dialect of Italian but neither Anna nor Colin spoke Luca’s Italian. Based on what they knew of modern Italian, though, whatever Luca said wasn’t complimentary. So Colin uttered some equally uncomplimentary things about Luca in Gaelic and they continued bantering in languages neither understood for the next three blocks.
Anna tried to ignore them, but it was difficult when she couldn’t get Colin out of her head.
Colin sensed her frustration with them and finally gave up on harassing his friend in a language very few people even spoke anymore. Of course, the Italian Luca spoke wasn’t used anymore by anyone else. Anna enjoyed the quiet for a couple of minutes before Luca thought of something else to badger them about.
“How can you stand it down here? This humidity is killing me.”
Anna sighed. Luca bored easily and apparently thought the best form of entertainment for his boredom was finding something to complain about. Then again, after six hundred years, she’d probably get bored easily, too.
“It can’t kill you, Luca. You’re immortal.”
“Metaphorical, my sweet, Anna.” He waved a hand in the air as if to literally brush off her comment.
<
br /> “You should become a matador then,” she replied, even though she knew it would probably lead to more arguing in languages she couldn’t speak. Luca thought about it.
“Do you think women still find matadors sexy?” he asked.
Colin groaned, and was relieved that their car was at least in sight now. The last conversation he wanted to have now was about Luca’s sex life. Anna rescued him.
“No,” she said, “I think they’d avoid you on grounds of animal cruelty.”
Luca’s dark eyes got a speculative look then he decided, “No torero for me, then. Maybe I’ll go to Africa next and save some lions and elephants.”
“Weren’t you just in Nigeria?” Colin asked.
Luca nodded and opened his car door. “Yeah, but I didn’t know hunting lion hunters could make me such a rock star. I should go back.”
Anna and Colin both climbed in the car and decided to ignore Luca’s plotting to turn himself into an animal savior simply to attract more women. Like he needed help attracting more women. He was a good looking, southern Italian man in his late twenties with six hundred years of experience in flirting and convincing women to sleep with him. His Africa escapade was simply out of the same sense of boredom that kept him complaining about inconsequential things such as humidity.
Colin drove them to the hunters’ headquarters and Anna’s heart sped up as she recognized the car in the parking lot. Dylan was here. They hadn’t seen him that often since Jeremy’s transformation. Between Jas’s death and losing Jeremy, Dylan had needed some time off, and they’d left him alone, but as far as Colin or Anna knew, this was the first time Dylan had actually come to the hunters’ headquarters. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to jump out of the car, run inside and hug him, or stay in the car and hide from him because they hadn’t done what they’d promised they would. They’d had a chance to kill Jeremy and they’d let him live.
Luca wasn’t even aware of Anna’s internal deliberations, so as soon as Colin parked, he opened his door and walked inside the building.
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