Colin took a deep breath because he wasn’t sure what to say to Dylan either. “We have to face him sooner or later.”
“I know,” Anna agreed, “but I was hoping it would be at a time when we had some warning. Not unexpected like this. I don’t know what to say to him.”
Colin shrugged. “We tell him the truth. He already knows Jeremy isn’t dead. We may as well tell him why.”
Anna really liked Dylan, and she didn’t want to lose his friendship, but she was afraid telling him the truth would end whatever personal relationship she and Colin had with him. Maybe even their professional one. What if he wouldn’t trust them anymore and refused to work with them?
“Anna,” Colin said gently, “let’s just go in and find out.”
Anna followed him inside the building, which hadn’t changed since Jeremy’s transformation into a demon. His office was still the same: filled with boxes of files from the past six years he’d led the hunters here, his computer still sat on his desk, a notepad and pencil beside it with his scrawling handwriting across the top and a few doodles down the side.
Nobody was willing to clean it out, and no one in Jeremy’s family had known about his job here as a hunter. That was the kind of information most hunters kept secret, if only because most people tended to think they were crazy when they claimed they could see and kill demons.
Dylan was in the break room, sitting at the oblong table with one of the boxes of artifacts in front of him. He was cataloging them, taking pictures and writing careful descriptions of each one, where it had been found and what kind of demon had left it behind. All of that information had been scribbled onto notecards at the time the relics were collected, but Dylan was creating a database for a network the hunters shared. Luca had already sat down at the table across from him and was studying a few of the pieces Dylan had finished cataloging.
Colin and Anna sat by Luca and Dylan hardly glanced at them. He kept working.
Luca held up a long curved claw and studied it under the fluorescent lighting of the break room. “Resembles a beast of Valac’s. Kind of looks like a dragon’s claw.”
Dylan stopped typing to look at Luca and the claw he was holding up to the light. “Dragon?”
Colin nodded, wanting a chance to speak to see if Dylan would even acknowledge him. “Valac is believed to ride a two headed dragon. So his minions sometimes manifest as dragons.”
Dylan’s eyes flickered to Colin briefly then back to the claw and Luca. “So do you think it’s one of Valac’s? Should I put that in here?”
Luca turned to Colin and Anna. “You two look at it. Something’s not quite right, but I can’t place what.”
Anna and Colin both studied the claw closer, and they agreed with Luca: it was almost like the dragons they’d fought in the past, but something was off. Just a little bit different.
“Same size,” Colin noted.
And Anna couldn’t help herself. “Just like a man to notice size first.”
Colin snickered and Luca and Dylan both looked at him with that annoyed expression most people got when Anna and Colin spent too much time talking in their minds. Colin ignored them.
“Alright, Mrs. O’Conner, what do you think it is?”
Anna tilted her head and kept staring at the strange claw in front of her. “Hm, remember that time we were in Vegas and we met a couple there who dragged us to that Elvis impersonator show?”
Colin broke out of his telepathic conversation to look at Anna and ask her, “What?”
Anna raised an eyebrow at him. “The Elvis show. In Vegas. He was an impersonator, because Elvis is dead. Supposedly. But that guy in Vegas looked so much like him, I swear it was like seeing the real Elvis again. That’s what this claw makes me think of. Like a demon was trying to impersonate a different demon. They can get it almost right, but not perfect because they can’t be exactly the same.”
Everybody watched Anna, trying to figure out if there could be any truth in the look-a-like theory, and if so, why?
Luca finally grabbed the claw again and held it closer to his face. “I think you’re onto something, my sweet girl. But why impersonate another demon? And why are they leaving these body parts behind?”
Luca’s pet names for Anna never bothered Colin the way Jeremy’s had because Luca’s were innocent and harmless. As far as Luca was concerned, the few Immortals in this world were his family.
“Hey,” Anna responded, “I got the impersonator part. You men start pulling your weight around here.”
“You mean like you pulled your weight when you killed Jeremy like you promised us you would?” Dylan asked. There was no more averting his eyes now; he was glaring at Colin.
Even though Anna was sure it was only her imagination, the room seemed so much quieter and colder. She told Colin not to answer him. It had been her idea and she needed to be the one to confront Dylan with the truth.
“Colin wanted to. Jeremy was injured and it would have been easy, but I begged him not to, because Luca said it may be possible to undo this possession, if we can just figure out how.”
Dylan’s eyes, so fierce like fire, turned on her. “So you let it escape. You let what used to be Jeremy go back out there to hurt and kill people so you wouldn’t have to deal with a guilty conscience?”
“No,” Anna countered, “because if there’s a chance I can save him, I want to try.”
Dylan slammed a fist onto the table and Anna jumped, which made Colin jump. Even Luca was watching the exchange suspiciously, but Colin had no idea what he was thinking.
“You can’t save him, Anna! He’s a goddamned demon! And because you blew it, I’ve been out there looking for him for the past month and I can’t find him,” Dylan yelled.
“You’ve been going out on your own?” Colin asked. That was just stupid, no matter how upset Dylan was.
But Dylan narrowed his eyes at Colin and kept seething. “No, with Ben and Max. Some of us care enough about Jeremy to want to do the right thing.”
For the first time since meeting Dylan over four months ago, Colin wanted to hit him. If it were just him that he was throwing these accusations at, he could deal with it, but he was hurting Anna, and Colin had never been able to handle Anna’s pain.
Colin stood up and reached for Anna’s hand. “Let’s go. I think we’re done in Baton Rouge.”
Anna looked up at him in surprise – so did Luca, actually – but she took his hand and followed him outside. Luca trailed behind them.
“Um,” Luca stumbled, “can you do this? Your angel sent you here. Can you just leave?”
Colin stopped walking to face his old friend. “She sent us here because of these hunters. One of them is now a demon, and the others consider us traitors. Our job here is through.”
And Colin and Anna climbed into their car, already trying to decide where they should go next.
Chapter 2
Colin and Anna dropped Luca off at Colin’s old apartment then went back to their new apartment to start packing. Luca didn’t want to leave them yet with so much uncertainty still hovering over them about the disruption of their senses, Anna’s abduction, even the difficulty in killing the demons here, so he’d offered to go with them wherever they decided to go. Colin and Anna still weren’t sure.
They had left Baton Rouge for a few weeks after the explosion at Anna’s apartment that had almost killed the demon that used to be Jeremy, and they still didn’t even know what had happened to the archdemon. They doubted it was dead though.
They’d returned to Baton Rouge when Luca finished his job in St. Paul so he could help them investigate, but they had feared their time here would be limited. Colin had been so antisocial, he hadn’t exactly endeared himself to many of the hunters to begin with, and Anna knew it was her fault Jeremy, or the demon that used to be Jeremy, was still alive.
Luca didn’t have much to pack and called them about half an hour later to let them know he was ready whenever they were. Anna was still trying to throw he
r clothes back into the suitcase she’d only recently unpacked without crying.
“Anna,” Colin put his arms around her and she leaned her head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat in its steady soothing rhythm.
“We’ve never failed before, Colin,” she sobbed.
“We haven’t failed. We’ve got Luca with us now, and he’s worth a dozen other hunters any day.” Colin kissed the top of her head and Anna wanted to feel comforted by the truth in Colin’s words, but The Angel had sent them here. There had to be a reason.
“If so,” Colin countered, “she needs to learn to be more specific. We can’t read her mind.”
Anna sighed and wrapped her arms around her husband’s waist. “I liked Boulder. It’s beautiful there. And after the past four months, we deserve some place low key, at least for a little while.”
Colin smiled. “You know pot’s legal there now. Everybody’s far too happy for there to be any work for us in Boulder.”
Anna closed her eyes, and for the briefest of moments, allowed herself to fantasize of a life where they didn’t roam the Earth looking for the most dangerous areas in the world.
“Good,” Anna teased, “maybe I’ll even try it.”
Colin pulled back from her and pretended to scowl at her. “Anna Elizabeth O’Conner, you will not. We have to keep Luca out of trouble, after all.”
Anna just smiled back at her husband. She didn’t think that was a task either of them were capable of.
Colin called Luca as she finished packing to let him know where they’d decided to go for now, and as expected, Luca was excited by the prospect of hanging out in Boulder for a couple of months. Anna was pretty sure the only thing that would have excited him more was if they’d decided to go to Las Vegas. And she was not going to Vegas with Luca.
Colin and Anna broke up the eighteen-hour drive by taking turns at the wheel, and Luca just kept buying more coffee and insisting he didn’t need to sleep. By the time they reached the Kansas border, Anna put her hands on her hips and eyed Luca seriously. “A car accident may not kill you, but you can still kill someone else, you know.”
And Luca just smiled at her and told her he was going inside the gas station for more coffee. Colin raised a shoulder at her as if to say, “It’s Luca. What do you expect?”
It was four in the morning when they pulled into Boulder and found a hotel, and Luca opened his car door and stretched lazily, smiling smugly at Anna. “Told you I’d be fine, my sweet girl.”
And Anna thought about slapping him.
The early afternoon sun creeping sneakily beneath the curtains of the hotel room woke Anna and she rolled onto her side to find Colin still sleeping. His golden brown hair fell loosely over his forehead and Anna tried to talk herself out of waking him up, but he was so beautiful. Sometimes, touching him was the only way to remind herself she was really still alive. Often, it was the only thing that ever made her feel alive still. She reached over to him and brushed the hair away from his forehead and his eyes opened drowsily.
“I’d tell you good morning, but it’s probably far too late for that,” he smiled.
“It’s almost three,” Anna moved closer to him and kissed him, and Colin’s hand slipped under her t-shirt, sending that same ripple of excitement and desire it did when they were eighteen year old newlyweds all those years ago.
After the past four months, Anna thought about begging Colin to just stay in Boulder for a while where they had no reason to suspect they’d be fighting that many demons, and they could stay in bed and make love as often as they wanted, and football season was only days away. Anna liked the Broncos. Maybe they could even get tickets. And since she was thinking these things, Colin heard them, too.
He stopped kissing her just long enough to look into Anna’s dark brown eyes and he smiled mischievously at her. “There’s a reason you’re bringing this up now, and not after we’ve had sex, isn’t there?”
Anna tried to look innocent about it, even though it hadn’t been intentional. She couldn’t control random thoughts, but Colin was only teasing her. He wanted to stay in Boulder and spend his days just making love to his wife and going to football games, too.
That evening, they met Luca at an Italian restaurant near their hotel, and before Anna sat down, she leaned over to smell their friend. He didn’t smell like he’d been smoking, but Luca knew what she was doing and just laughed at her. “No time for leisure. I found a local group here.”
Colin and Anna both registered surprise. Neither of them had thought Boulder would be busy enough to need its own group of hunters.
“Well, they work the Denver area, too,” Luca pointed out.
“Ah, now that makes more sense. Though it’s a fifty-minute drive. Why would they bother with this city?” Colin asked.
“A couple just live here. Most live in Denver or the suburbs.”
“How big is this group?” Anna asked.
“Seventeen,” Luca answered, and he used such a grandiose tone of voice because he knew that would impress the hell out of them. And it did.
“Holy shit,” Colin mumbled. “Is there some civil war or apocalypse or something in Denver we don’t know about?”
Luca shook his head and waited to respond until the waiter who’d just dropped off their drinks left again. “They’ve got a good recruiter. They don’t need that many hunters, but hey, it gives people a break from fighting Hell all the time. That can get kind of old after a while.”
Colin snorted. “A good recruiter? What, are they offering sign-on bonuses?”
Luca’s smile broadened into one Colin and Anna both recognized and they didn’t need him to explain, but they knew he would anyway. “Oh, you’ve got to meet her. I’ve gotta keep my angel away from this woman, or she may tempt him into falling.”
Anna crossed her arms and scowled at him. “That’s a myth, and you know it. Angels don’t fall over sex. They don’t even have bodies like ours. Men wrote the Bible, and men are just obsessed with sex.”
Colin and Luca nodded in agreement.
“Yeah, that’s pretty much true,” Luca said.
“So you think she’s hot, and that’s how she’s getting so many guys to become hunters.” Anna studied Luca, because the smirk hiding behind his eyes told her he was up to something.
“I’m pretty sure that’s what she’s doing, because she’s trying to recruit me.”
Colin groaned. “God, Luca, what did you do?”
“You know better than to ever ask him a question like that,” Anna warned him.
“Not her yet, if that’s what you mean,” Luca responded.
“See?” Anna chided.
Colin pretended to read his menu.
“Coward.” Anna didn’t want to be left alone in this conversation with Luca, but Colin didn’t look up.
“I told her I was traveling with a couple of other hunters, and she wants to meet you both tomorrow,” Luca continued. “She just thinks we’re drifters. She doesn’t know anything about us, obviously. But networking is always a good idea.”
“Colin Aedan O’Conner, you have two seconds to put that menu down and get me out of this, or I swear to God…” Anna didn’t have a chance to finish. Colin dropped his menu and told Luca using them as any part of his plan to try to sleep with this woman wasn’t going to happen.
Luca held his hands up. “Hey, I’m serious. Networking is advantageous. Everyone knows that.”
“Not when you’re immortal, Luca,” Colin grumbled.
For the most part, it was true. Years had a way of flying by without them realizing how many had passed, and so often, it seemed that soon, friends they thought should still be young and healthy were old and dying.
Luca leaned back into his booth and his eyes darted between them. “You should still meet her. If we’re going to stick around here for a while, it would be smart to get to know the local hunters so we don’t step on any toes.”
“Now you’re using your brain,” Anna smiled.
Luca glanced up and raised a hand. “I’m glad you think so, because I actually asked her to meet us here tonight.”
Anna kicked him under the table and he tried to keep the pain from registering on his face as an attractive woman with chestnut hair and hazel eyes approached their table. She was wearing dark slacks and a tight salmon pink top, and Anna tried not to think it, but the thought emerged anyway. “Bet you those aren’t real.”
Colin pressed his lips together. “We can find out from Luca soon enough.”
She reached their table and the hunters stood to greet the leader of the Denver group.
Luca introduced them. “Lacey, this is Colin and Anna.”
They shook her hand and Anna still found herself thinking things she shouldn’t be thinking. She was never this catty. “Lacey? I was expecting something…”
“Trampier?”
“Is that a word?”
“Sure. In ancient Gaelic.”
“Smartass.”
Luca was shooting them stop-being-so-weird looks, because they’d gotten quiet with their private conversation, and Anna realized they were still staring at her.
“Sorry,” she fumbled. “We’re just still exhausted from the long drive.”
Lacey offered a sympathetic smile and Luca extended an arm for her to sit on the booth beside him.
“Wager. How many days before he’s in bed with her,” Colin said.
Anna hated losing, so she was trying to consider her best bet while listening to Lacey describe the organization of the hunters in the Denver metro area.
“Two days,” Anna responded.
Colin watched them now, paying particular attention to the way Luca’s arm kept brushing against hers or the way she answered one of his questions, which he was only asking to try to ingratiate himself to her. He knew a hell of a lot more about demons than she ever would.
“Three. And winner picks the next city.”
Anna took a sip of her water so Lacey wouldn’t notice her smiling. She was going to have to make sure she won this bet. It was the only way she was ever going to get Colin to agree to go back to Dublin, and she loved Ireland.
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