“He hasn’t been having any weird dreams, but we’re all different. If they know about him, they may be trying to figure out the best way to get to him,” Colin answered.
He had finished half of the onion rings and was eyeing the French fries again. Anna had enough of her husband’s indecision and got the waitress’s attention to bring him his own damn plate of French fries.
“What? I’m hungry. You didn’t let me stop for breakfast this morning.”
That wasn’t entirely true. They stopped at a Starbucks for coffee, but he hadn’t wanted one of the pastries behind the counter.
Max absentmindedly dragged his fork through the ketchup on his plate, focused more on what this mission in Devil’s Thumb was turning out to be than the food he thought he had wanted.
“I would still do it,” Max finally announced, and even Colin stopped eating to look at him, confused by the lack of context but intrigued by Max’s obvious determination.
Max set his fork down and his round brown eyes darted between Anna and Colin. “If something does happen to you, I would still do it. I would offer my servitude to your angel in order to help find you and to kill these bastards who are doing this to us.”
“Oh, Max,” Anna breathed. “You don’t know what you’re offering. You have a wife and kids. You would have to watch them grow old and leave you behind.”
Max’s eyes told her he’d already thought of the sacrifice he’d be making though.
“I don’t have a wife or kids,” Dylan interjected. “If they need a replacement, I’d go before you. Your family needs you.”
Colin watched them, feeling like he should say something to get them to stop arguing about who was going to give up his mortality because neither of them should even be considering it. Humans only thought they wanted to live forever. They had no idea what they were wishing for. But Colin found himself in one of those rare moments where he actually felt speechless.
It was selfless of them and brave and noble… all of the qualities The Angel admired in Colin and Anna. And listening to them argue about who should give up the freedom to grow old and die a normal death, Colin realized Anna had been right all along. Dylan and Max were the reason they’d been sent to Baton Rouge.
“And they are another good reason for us not to quit,” Anna added. “We have to protect their lives and their mortality. Because I don’t doubt they are both serious, but we have no right to ask The Angel not to accept any deal they may try to make if something happens to us.”
The waitress dropped off the extra plate of French fries but Colin hardly paid attention to them now.
“They are the only people she’d accept that deal from, too. Because she would know why it was so important to them. God, Anna, like we needed something else to worry about.”
Max and Dylan grew quiet because they had noticed the O’Conners had stopped talking and eating and suspected they were communicating in that silent way of theirs.
“If you’re going to talk about us, at least do it out loud.” Dylan pointed his fork at Colin like it was a challenge. It still had an impaled fry stuck to it.
“We were just saying that we understand why you’d feel the need to make that kind of sacrifice, but we wouldn’t want you to,” Colin explained.
The expression on Dylan’s face warned Colin he was about to argue with him now, and he was right.
“Hey, it’s my life, and I get to make that decision. You made it… hell, how long ago was that? You made that decision centuries ago to save your wife, and none of us questioned it. We all thought we’d probably do the same thing in your shoes. So you don’t get to tell me now my reason is less valid than yours.”
Colin shook his head. “I’m not. And I don’t think that’s the case at all. Luca agreed to do this simply because he believed that strongly in ending this battle once and for all. There’s no time limit on his servitude. He can quit whenever he wants, but he won’t until demons are no longer able to walk this Earth.”
“So why do you want to keep me out of it?” Dylan asked.
His dark eyes studied Colin, full of a genuine curiosity and Colin didn’t know how to even begin explaining what living these lifetimes had meant for them; how traveling the world and witnessing the horrors that humans created had been far worse than anything they’d had to face from Hell. Until now.
Colin sighed and felt Anna’s hand slip into his underneath the table. “What have you always wanted, Dylan? More than anything?”
Dylan’s eyes never left Colin as he considered his answer. “Honestly? I don’t know. I somehow got through college despite drinking too much, and I went through my anarchy phase where I was convinced my goal in life was to bring down America’s corrupt and racist institutions, then I grew up a little and realized anarchy is for cowards, and one night, I was walking out of a bar in downtown Baton Rouge and saw this weird little red dog and, man, did it stink. Scared the hell out of me, too. It noticed me and took off, but when it looked at me, I just knew something wasn’t right about that dog. I was twenty-three and a few months later, I found Jeremy and discovered this world I’ve been living in ever since. Becoming a hunter gave me a purpose in life that was a lot more productive than plotting ways to make being black in America less of a crime.”
Colin smiled. “I’m not so sure you should give up on your goals for racial equality. That may be more important right now than killing demons.”
Dylan smirked but his eyes were still serious and betrayed his personal anger and frustration. “This is actually an easier job.”
Colin glanced at Max. “Fine then. If it ever becomes an issue you have to face, let Dylan do it. You go home to your wife and kids.”
Max crossed his arms and glared back at him. “Hey, it’s not your decision.”
Anna had heard enough. She let go of Colin’s hand and leaned across the table to get closer to Max. “You have everything Colin and I ever wanted. Don’t throw that away.”
Nobody would argue with Anna after that. They finished eating and occasionally mentioned getting tickets to an upcoming football game, or making a trip into Denver to catch some bands at Red Rocks. Hunting and mortality and demons were pushed aside and it wasn’t until they had paid their checks and were ready to leave that Dylan even mentioned it again.
“All your stories,” he said. “I’ve picked up that you chase after demons by going where there’s lots of suffering. What about here? Were you ever in the south in America before the Civil War?”
The question surprised Colin because he wasn’t sure if it had any connection to these demons that had followed them to Boulder or if it was a personal interest.
“Yeah,” Colin finally responded, “quite a few times, actually. Why?”
Dylan tapped his fingers against his empty water glass and for the first time since he’d known Dylan, he wouldn’t meet his eyes and seemed shy and nervous.
“You know they did this project in the 1930s. It was a federal thing, and they went around interviewing former slaves. One of those people interviewed was my great-great-grandmother. She talked about those days being hell, and children being taken away from their parents and sold and people tied to a tree and beaten and people could hear the screaming a mile away.
She was burned with an iron for something that wasn’t even her fault. Man, reading the rest of it… her beatings, and how no one ever expected anything but that same old Hell in this life and they had nothing but faith. I found out about all that when I was twelve. I just always wondered what it would be like to see what was going on all around you and not care. Why did so many people not do a damn thing about it? And then when I learned about demons and started hunting them, I couldn’t help thinking maybe those people who did that to my great-great-grandmother had sold their souls. Cause I don’t want to believe a normal person could do something like that.”
Colin knew those scenes too well. And he understood why Dylan wanted to believe that when atrocities happened in this world there was
something to blame other than the worst aspects of human nature. But he couldn’t offer Dylan the reassurance he wanted.
“We saw some things like that. Helped a few people escape. There weren’t as many demons around as you’d think, though. Not Hell’s demons anyway. Just the ones entirely created by man.”
Dylan finally lifted his eyes from his empty glass. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
Anna had been recalling memories that she tried to keep buried, painful memories that she carried far too many of, but she had shared Dylan’s reticence about why people were worth risking their lives for in the first place. After everything she and Colin had witnessed, she still struggled to remind herself that there were plenty of souls filled with beauty and compassion among the monsters who walked the Earth.
“We were also in Washington in 1963 and got to be a part of one of the most remarkable moments in our long lives. Don’t forget there is always hope for humanity.”
“Yeah,” Dylan scoffed, “and that hope was extinguished five years later.”
Anna tried to think of another example with a better outcome, but even Gandhi had been assassinated.
“Ok,” she admitted, “so it’s an uphill battle. But I won’t give up my hope that more people in this world will turn to peace and compassion than violence and hatred.”
Max rolled his fingers across the table and exhaled a slow, tired breath. “If only they would. Demons would be out of business, and we could all retire.”
Colin knew Max had just been thinking out loud, commenting on the conversation and hadn’t meant to be taken seriously but the thought erupted in Colin’s mind and he couldn’t let it go.
“Holy shit,” he mumbled. “What if that’s the only way to end this battle? What if nothing we ever do makes a damn bit of difference because people keep this whole thing going? And until we either destroy the whole planet or actually change human nature, this war will never end?”
Dylan and Max stared back at Colin, wide eyed and shaken, and Dylan finally closed his eyes and sank back into the booth at the busy, crowded diner in Boulder, Colorado.
“If that’s true,” Dylan murmured. “We’re all completely screwed.”
Chapter 13
Anna knew the constant tapping at her new apartment door was Luca’s. She had heard it often enough and, besides, he was the only man she knew who was too impatient to only knock once. She peeked through the peephole anyway to confirm she was right then opened the door and his aggravated scowl immediately turned into a playful grin.
“My sweet Anna, what took you so long?”
He wrapped her in a quick embrace and kissed her cheek and walked into her apartment and Colin just rolled his eyes and told him he was far too annoying to be a servant of Heaven. A young man with ash blonde hair and blue-gray eyes followed Luca inside, although he looked sheepish about entering without an invitation. Now that he was here, Anna could remember meeting Andrew before though, and she held out her hand to welcome him and asked him if he remembered meeting Colin and her in Barcelona. Andrew smiled at her and nodded.
“Of course. I don’t think anyone ever forgets meeting the O’Conners,” he told her, his thick Polish accent reminding Anna his name wasn’t really Andrew and she felt embarrassed for having just called him that but he didn’t seem to mind.
Anna and Colin were known at least through reputation by all of the Immortals, though, because they were the only married couple – the only couple – among them. Meeting them always provoked the same series of questions and exclamations of fascination with their story, mixed perhaps, with a little envy.
Now that Anna remembered Andrew, she knew he’d been an Immortal almost as long as Colin and her, but she didn’t know anything about his gifts, especially the one that had brought him to Boulder.
“Ah,” Andrew told her, “I got that one about eighty years ago. I was in Warsaw and when they liquidated the ghetto, we were overrun with demons. I couldn’t get out. I was given this gift but didn’t know how to use it yet, but no one noticed the destruction I caused with all the destruction in the city already.”
“We got trapped in Srebrenica like that, but our angel helped us escape by shielding us. Why give you this power instead of just protecting you?” Anna asked.
“Because of what was in Warsaw. I’ve never seen anything like it. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear the Devil itself had come to that city.”
Anna felt Colin’s astonishment just as she felt her own. A horde of greater demons had shown up in Warsaw, which is why Andrew had to be given this gift to survive. They had never heard of greater demons amassing like that before. Colin forced his eyes away from Andrew to study his oldest friend.
“Weren’t you in Poland for a while then?”
Luca nodded. “The country was packed with demons of all sorts. Never seen anything like it either. As far as I know, no hunters, no Immortals for sure, ever got near the camps so I don’t know what it was like there, but the rest of the country was so full of demons, it was like Hell had materialized on Earth.”
“Did you leave Poland after Warsaw?” Anna asked Andrew.
Andrew’s pale blue-gray eyes filled with a sadness Anna recognized. “Yeah, I had to. I got badly hurt trying to escape the city, and it wasn’t an injury I could recover from quickly like normal. I went to Switzerland for several weeks, and by the time I was better, my angel didn’t want me returning to Poland. He told me there were some causes so hopeless, we couldn’t possibly even make a difference. He was referring to the demons there, of course, not what we could have done as people. But there were too many powerful demons in Poland and not enough Immortals to hunt them, so we had to abandon the country.”
“Holy shit,” Colin mumbled. They’d never known of a place being abandoned before, of angels giving up hope.
“We were in Berlin through most of the war. Where’d you go after Switzerland?” Anna asked.
“The Philippines for a while. Those of us from Europe tend to stick to the west because we can blend in, but with the war there, too, it was easy enough to pretend I was an American soldier hiding out with some of the others who had managed to escape in Bataan.”
Luca had started tapping his water glass impatiently. He hadn’t just flown all the way from South America to listen to their personal hunting histories. He was anxious to see how Andrew controlled his energy gift and how he was going to teach Colin and Anna to do the same.
“Is Lacey up and about yet?” Luca asked.
Colin narrowed his eyes at him. “Depends on why you’re asking.”
Luca grinned devilishly at him. “First, I’m concerned about her well being. Secondly, we need her help to find secluded places to practice. And third…”
“There’s no third,” Colin interrupted.
Luca waved him off. “That’s the most important reason.”
“Luca,” Anna chastised, “she just got out of the hospital four days ago. You had better be joking.”
The corners of Luca’s eyes wrinkled as he continued to grin at his old friends, but he didn’t answer her.
Colin muttered something that wasn’t very polite in Gaelic and Anna only knew what he told Luca because she knew what he was thinking. She snickered and turned her attention back to Andrew.
“Well, our horny old friend does have at least one good point. Lacey is from Boulder and knows all of the most secluded areas for us to practice in. If she’s feeling up to it, and as soon as you’re feeling up to it, we’re ready to start working.”
Andrew shrugged. “I’m fine. Jet lag doesn’t bother me as much as it used to. Guess we really can get used to anything.”
Luca had already pulled his phone out of his pocket to call Lacey before anyone else could, and that led to Colin cursing at him again in Gaelic. Andrew offered his own opinion in Polish, but Anna couldn’t speak Polish and wasn’t privy to his thoughts. Luca just kept smiling at them.
They listened as Lacey apparently offered to lead
them somewhere else to practice that afternoon, then Luca told her he wanted to tell her how much he’d missed her, but he was sitting in a room with a bunch of jerks and they were mocking him for being lonesome. All three of the hunters flipped him off.
It was Colin’s idea to go by Dylan and Max’s apartment to see if they wanted to come along. They had both been hurt by this energy gift before, so Anna was surprised when both of them said yes.
She looked both of her fellow, mortal hunters over and reminded them, “You know this can end badly, right?”
Dylan brushed her off. “Nah, Andrew will get you two in shape and you’ll both stop trying to kill me.”
“To be fair,” Colin countered, “I didn’t even know what was going to happen the first time I used it in the camp, and I was being strangled by an archdemon at the time.”
“Yeah, I only got a little glass in the arm that time. Don’t throw me in a ditch again though. Damn, that hurt.”
Max nodded in agreement. “It wasn’t so much the ditch but the distance. If you’re going to throw us across a field again, just make it a shorter distance.”
“Noted.”
Colin opened the car door on their new white Toyota Camry to let Anna slide into the passenger seat. They followed Luca to Lacey’s apartment then she led them out to another open area away from major highways. This one wasn’t quite as sparse and had smatterings of brown-green bunches of grass and underbrush. Just like last time, Luca and Dylan set out plastic buckets for target practice.
Colin glanced at Andrew and asked him, “Did you really learn how to use this gift with plastic buckets?”
Andrew snorted and shook his head. “Empty bottles. But close enough.”
Anna folded her arms across her chest. “One of Heaven’s greatest powers and we’re like a couple of kids learning how to shoot a BB gun.”
Andrew just smiled. “Same principle. And it works.”
Anna glared at him and kept her arms folded. “BB guns won’t kill anyone.”
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