Anna gave stealing the golf cart some serious thought. It probably would be a hell of a lot more fun than walking around the perimeter of the course hoping to pick up some invisible aura or waiting to get attacked by something they could neither see nor feel.
But Dylan interrupted them before Anna could decide if it would be worth trying to escape the cops once they did it. “Hey, O’Conners, snap out of it. I think our dog is out there in those trees.” Dylan pointed to a patch of trees ahead of them.
None of them could feel it, but Dylan had seen something moving and he was certain it was the “dog” they were looking for.
Luca looked away from the golf course marshal he’d been arguing with and studied the patch of trees. “We’ll be out of here in a few minutes. This dog is a biter. You don’t want him around your club members anyway.”
He didn’t wait for the employee to answer. He and Andrew walked away from him and they headed toward the trees in the distance where Dylan had seen the hulking gray beast they had come to hunt. Apparently, the employee didn’t want to risk getting bitten by their imaginary dog. He watched them as they disappeared into the line of trees but didn’t stop them.
Colin and Anna stayed between Dylan and Luca as they stepped over branches and dodged pocked white balls that had been hit way out of bounds. Anna was about to stop to pick one up simply because someone had stenciled his or her initials onto the side with a black marker and she thought it would make a good memento of their time in Boulder when a sudden rushing wind behind them made them all stop. They spun around just as Andrew was thrown into a tree in a vortex of leaves and twigs and his body crumbled to the ground.
Anna heard herself screaming his name, at least she thought it was her voice, but the fear and panic and concern that had overwhelmed her made it impossible for actual sounds in the woods around her to register in her brain. She felt something creeping around her, surrounding her, enveloping her, but she didn’t fight it: this presence was not demonic. She slowly realized it was Colin.
She had no idea how he was doing it, but he was pulling the energy around her like a shield. But it left him defenseless. Anna had just recognized Colin was powerless now when he was thrown into the thick growth of trees as well. Anna twisted on her heels to watch his body as it flew through the air. He didn’t collide with the trunk of a tree but hit one of the lower branches and fell.
She ran to his side but she knew he was still conscious; she could still feel his thoughts and, somehow, he’d kept this force around her. She was dimly aware that she had left Luca and Dylan alone now, but Colin was on the ground. He was hurting even though he was immortal. Neither a tree nor a fall could kill him. But this demon could. She had almost reached him when it attacked him again and his body skidded across the ground into the base of a tree. Behind her, she heard Luca shouting. Andrew had been attacked again as well. This time, these archdemons hadn’t come alone.
Colin groaned as he tried to sit up but the demon wouldn’t let him; it was suffocating him again, just as it had in the parking lot outside of the restaurant. Anna didn’t have a chance to warn Luca or Dylan to get down. Her fear and anger welled up within her and burst forward, and like the gusts of a hurricane, the thinner trees snapped under the force of the winds that burst from her.
She could see the edge of the fairway from where she was standing and it was littered with the debris of the woods. Anna reached Colin’s side and helped him sit up. She had the same impulsive habit he did: even though she knew every thought in his mind, she knelt by him anyway and ran her fingers over his arms and behind his neck, and when she’d satisfied herself that he wasn’t mortally wounded there, she tried lifting his shirt but he stopped her.
“Anna, we’re not alone, and I’m ok.”
“You’re not ok, you’re in pain. Let me see your back.”
Colin smiled at her but shook his head. “When we get home. How’s Andrew?”
Anna only then realized he hadn’t dropped this shield he’d been holding around her. “How are you doing that?”
Colin shrugged one shoulder and Anna resisted the urge to pull his shirt off to see what was wrong with the other one. “Desperate times and all that.”
Anna stood up and helped him to his feet then they found Luca and Dylan still kneeling by Andrew’s body.
“Oh, God,” Anna breathed.
Luca looked back at her. “Don’t worry, my sweet girl, he’s not dead. He’s too tough to let these bastards kill him that easily. Just hurt. He’ll be fine by tomorrow.” Luca looked Colin over quickly. “You fared better.”
“I have a pretty badass wife.”
Luca nodded, looking far too serious about it. Anna sat on the ground by Andrew’s head and his pale blue-gray eyes watched her.
“It never touched you. After yesterday, I expected these demons to target you first.”
Anna glanced up at her husband who still wouldn’t let down this shield he’d erected around her. “I don’t know how he’s doing it. Neither does he actually. He’s using this… telekinesis thing to move the energy around me so they can’t touch me.”
Andrew’s eyes widened and he winced as he tried to sit up. Luca and Dylan helped him.
“I should definitely go steal that golf cart now so we can get Andrew out of here,” Anna thought.
Colin just nodded sagely, but if anyone else had heard their conversation, they wouldn’t have been able to take Colin so seriously. “I still get to drive it.”
Andrew was sitting now and he fixed those pale blue–gray eyes on Colin. “I’ve never even heard of that. What made you think to try something like it?”
Colin raised an eyebrow at him. “My wife was in danger.”
Andrew moaned as he tried to get up and all of the hunters, even Colin, gathered around him to help him up. But Anna noticed Colin was only using his right arm. “Colin, if you can do that every time these demons show up, then Anna and I might be able to figure out how to fight them. Or hell, look at what Anna can do on her own. She may not need me.”
Anna snickered. “I need you, Andrew. Don’t even think of jumping on a plane back to Caracas.”
Andrew tried to laugh but grimaced at the pain in his ribcage. “Nope. I’m with you guys until these assholes are gone.”
In the distance, Anna heard the whirring motor of a golf cart. “Hold on. I’m going to go get us a ride.” And she ran off toward the cart path near the edge of the course.
Dylan watched her retreating back in surprise. “Is she serious?”
Colin nodded again. “In the grand scheme of all things sinful, stealing a golf cart’s probably not that damnable.”
Luca laughed and shook his head and mumbled something in his Italian dialect, but Colin knew his old friend well enough to guess he was just sorry he hadn’t thought of it himself, because there was no way he was going to get to drive the golf cart now.
They helped Andrew to the edge of the trees where Anna was waiting in a cart; when she saw them, she slid over on the seat so Colin could drive. Luca and Dylan helped Andrew into the back.
Dylan shook his head in mock disgust. “This thing can’t go more than 15 miles per hour. We could have carried him out of here faster than this.”
“But this is easier. And look. The guy never opened his beer.” Colin handed the full can back to Dylan who actually opened it so he could drink it.
“It’s a country club. Why the hell do they even serve Coors Light at a country club?” Dylan complained.
“It’s Colorado. That shit probably comes out of the taps here,” Luca answered.
Andrew tried to turn to look behind him and winced in pain, but their golf cart theft hadn’t gone unnoticed. “Looks like those marshal’s carts go faster. Bet they top out at least 25 miles per hour.”
Anna nodded as she watched it getting closer. “True, but it’s awfully windy today. Notice how many trees keep falling in its path?”
When Andrew stared blankly back at her, Anna roll
ed her eyes and told him more directly, “Knock the trees down in its path, Andrew. If I do it, I may hurt someone.”
Andrew grinned at her, embarrassed about not catching on to her suggestion sooner, and claimed he probably had a concussion. Anna didn’t think it was possible for them to get concussions. Or she hoped not anyway. But Andrew did as she had asked, and Anna watched with slightly envious astonishment as he carefully selected a handful of trees to fall a safe distance in front of the marshal’s cart.
The staff member who was driving had time to stop, but instead of driving around the tree, he parked and stared at the fallen pine in front of him. Anna thought she probably would have done the same thing. After all, how often do trees just fall over right in front of you, especially on a perfectly clear, calm day?
“I think we can get back to the street if we cut through here,” Luca pointed. “The street makes a huge curve, so we can follow it back around to where we parked.”
Colin left the golf course and Anna still felt that force around her. But she wasn’t going to ask Colin to drop it. He wouldn’t have anyway, and he knew how grateful she was that the archdemon couldn’t get near her mind again as long as it was up. She looked back at Andrew whose eyes were closing then springing back open every time the cart hit a bump in the road. It was terribly difficult to stay awake when their bodies were trying to heal. Anna had been through it often enough. She marveled at Colin’s strength and will power to stay as alert as he was. She knew he’d crash as soon as they got back to their apartment, and she planned on watching him the entire time he slept to make sure no demon came near him in his dreams.
She helped Luca and Dylan get Andrew into the back of Luca’s car then Anna took Colin home. He fell asleep on the ride to Devil’s Thumb and she finally felt the energy he’d wrapped around her drop and his mind quieted to the peaceful humming of those early stages of sleep. She hated having to park the car in their apartment complex lot, knowing it would wake him, and as soon as they were inside, she pulled the covers down on their bed and took off his shoes and he protested through his yawns that he wasn’t that hurt. Anna just smiled at him and told him to go back to sleep. Their bodies healed so quickly and it was such an exhausting process that it would take a Herculean effort for him not to fall back asleep.
She lay beside him and watched him for a long time. Sometimes, she tuned into his meaningless dreams that would occasionally trickle into her mind as well, but she was thankful they were the sort of dream that made little sense. Those dreams were harmless. They were the sort of dreams people were supposed to have. It was the memories that concerned her, these retellings of their pasts that shouldn’t have come to them with such clarity and precision. But their history didn’t bother Colin that evening, only an odd assortment of unusually large cockroaches that were unbelievably hard to kill and were apparently hiding in every cupboard in their apartment. Colin hated bugs.
Anna finally fell asleep around midnight, unable to outwait the rest his body needed to finish healing. But first, she thought of the effort it must have taken Luca and Andrew to stay awake while searching for their friends after Colin had saved her. They hadn’t been as badly injured as today, but it all took a toll on them nonetheless. That’s just the kind of people Immortals were: they wouldn’t complain of their own pain or fatigue when someone else needed them.
Anna was in her own strange dream about driving a golf cart through a lake when Jas showed up in the seat beside her. Anna’s first reaction was the same as the previous times Jas had shown up in her dreams – she knew her friend was dead and shouldn’t be with her, and she was scared to acknowledge this fact in case Jas disappeared. But then she remembered why Jas was here. Anna searched for the brake on the golf cart but it didn’t seem to have one.
“This doesn’t make any sense. This isn’t a memory. Why are you here? And how the hell do I stop this thing?”
Jas laughed and reclined in the seat. Anna didn’t think their potential drowning was funny. Granted, Jas was already dead and Anna was immortal, but still. It was a dream. Maybe she could die in dreams.
“Girl, don’t panic. I’m only here to check on you. I don’t know what you did today, but I haven’t been able to pick up on those demons since this afternoon.”
Anna had still been searching for the brake on the golf cart then realized if she stopped it, she’d sink into the water anyway. She was driving on top of a lake. “I’m fine. Colin’s the one who got hurt. But it was nothing major. Andrew got the worst of it.”
Jas nodded and peered over the side of the cart. “Cool. There’s some kind of shark down here. I think it’s a sand shark.”
“Sand sharks don’t live in lakes.”
“It’s not my dream.”
Anna braved a peek into the water at the edge of the cart, and Jas was right. Long brown sharks were circling underneath them. Great.
Jas laughed again and assured her sand sharks didn’t attack people. At least, she was pretty sure they didn’t attack people.
“So,” Jas straightened up again and was watching Anna, who kept her eyes on the water like she could possibly veer off course. There was nothing but a rippling blue surface for miles. “I’m almost positive Jeremy’s still alive.”
Anna tore her eyes off the surface of the velvety blue lake and stared at Jas. “How do you know?”
“Well, he’s not here. That’s my first clue.”
Anna felt sick. She wondered if it were possible to get seasick in a dream. “And that thing Colin did today to protect you? I think that’s what these archdemons have been doing to Jeremy. They stole a hunter, and one who knew two Immortals. They’re not letting him go. I don’t know if y’all are going to be able kill him now.”
Anna definitely felt seasick. “We should have killed him in Baton Rouge. That’s what you came to tell me?”
Jas shook her head and pointed to something in the water. “Buoy. You might want to swerve.”
Anna looked ahead of her again and a buoy had appeared in her path. It hadn’t been there before. Damn dreams. She pulled on the steering wheel and the golf cart made a hard right turn.
“No,” Jas said, “I don’t think I could have killed him then either. Especially after what Luca told you. But you’ve been so busy with all this other stuff going on in your life, and I sure as hell can’t blame you, that y’all haven’t had time to look into whether or not it’s possible to get Jeremy back. So I’m actually here to remind you it’s probably time to start doing some digging around, see what you can turn up. I don’t know if it’s possible either. I mean, even your angel didn’t know. But if it is, it may be the only way you can get to him. Short of figuring out how to kill three extremely powerful archdemons of Hell.”
Anna sighed and cast a watchful glance around the surface of the lake again. She didn’t want to be surprised by any more buoys or breaching sand sharks, even though she was pretty sure sharks didn’t breach. But it was a dream after all.
“So all three are still alive. And here,” she confirmed.
Jas nodded again. “Yep. Afraid so. Can’t tell who they are though. They’re masking themselves and I can’t get much more off them than you can. I follow you around, and that’s how I know when they’re trying to get in your head again.”
Anna cringed and smirked at the same time. “Wait. You follow me around all the time? That’s kind of pervy.”
Jas snorted and rolled her eyes. “Not like that. My God, Anna, there are some images I don’t want to spend eternity with in my head. Though don’t be mad at me for still thinking your husband’s hot.”
Anna just shrugged. “He is.”
She wanted to add something about Dylan, but he had five hundred years left on this Earth. There were probably going to be a lot of things Jas wouldn’t want to know about his life as well, so she didn’t bring him up at all.
“Oh, Luca’s angel told me to tell you something. In the morning, y’all need to get together and talk about the time you
were in Berlin together. How come you lived in Berlin so often?”
“Because I love that city,” Anna smiled. But she and Colin had only ever lived in Berlin with Luca at the same time for about a month in the early 1920s. She couldn’t imagine what was so significant about this memory.
Jas didn’t know either. “Girl, I don’t know. I barely even remembered from history class there was a republic there after World War I. I couldn’t figure out why y’all were there in the first place. His angel had to tell me.”
Anna exhaled a frustrated breath. “Yeah, and as always, just as things got peaceful and prosperous, we had to leave. We came to New Orleans after that, actually.”
“Hey,” Jas cautioned, “watch out for that sand bank.”
Anna ran into the sand bank and the collision threw her from the cart. Instead of landing in the sand or the water of the lake filled with the shadowy shapes of sharks, she awoke in her bed in Devil’s Thumb, Colorado and saw that Colin was watching her, concentrating on this memory. He had seen enough of Anna’s dream to hear Jas’s message from Luca’s angel, and as the early morning sun peeked through the blinds in their bedroom, Colin pulled the covers off of him and got out of bed.
“I’m going to get Luca. Jas came with two messages: we needed to look into if it’s possible to reverse Jeremy’s possession, and we needed to remember living with Luca during the Weimar years. They’ve got to be related. Maybe Luca has some answers for us after all.”
Chapter 20
Berlin, 1923. Colin and Anna met Luca at a restaurant near their apartment. Like most places now, if anyone wanted to eat, they had better brought something other than money with them because the sign in the window made it clear they weren’t accepting Marks. Colin dug in his pocket and handed the waiter U.S. currency then he took their orders and disappeared into the kitchen.
“My German’s not very good,” Colin admitted. “Did he just say we’d get whatever the cook felt like making?”
Luca nodded. “Pretty much. Everyone’s in a bad mood lately.”
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