immortals - complete series

by S. M. Schmitz

  “If you touch me again,” she told Adriel, her voice low and grave, “I will kill you and if that means you take her with you, then so be it. If you’re not going to abide by the agreement we made to save her, then I may as well fight you now.”

  Adriel glanced toward the bedroom and the crib disappeared and the cold emanating from his body vanished as well. He appeared to be just a man again even though Anna knew he wasn’t really a man.

  “You can be so stubborn, Anna,” Adriel sighed.

  Anna snickered. “So can you.”

  He held the front door of the house open for her and motioned for her to pass through. “I suppose we should find Gadreel and Lilith then.”

  The sun had risen and it was early morning. Colin would be waking up soon if he hadn’t already and would find his wife missing – again. Anna swallowed the burning pain in her throat, refusing to cry in front of Adriel. She wouldn’t look weak in front of him again.

  “I can’t travel by angel teleportation, Adriel. How do you expect me to follow you?”

  “We’re not driving anywhere. Armand is staying down the street, and there’s a good chance Gadreel is there with him.”

  “And Lilith?” Anna heard her voice crack, but she hadn’t planned on having to fight all four of them at once.

  Adriel was unconcerned. “Maybe. If we’re lucky.”

  He was already walking down the street and Anna had to catch up to him. “Ok, maybe Armand can be taken out easily, but Andrew is dangerous. He has this energy gift. So at best, it’s three against two. I don’t like our odds, Adriel.”

  Adriel laughed at her and shook his head. “Anna, you and I can take on an entire army from Hell.”

  Anna thought the only thing Adriel needed to tackle was the size of his ego. He slowed his pace as they approached another small Acadian style house with canary yellow vinyl siding and a single swing on its front porch. All of the lights were off inside and the house seemed abandoned. Then again, it was still fairly early. Maybe Armand was just sleeping.

  Anna glanced at Adriel and almost smiled at him. “Want me to knock?”

  “Just knock the door down,” Adriel smirked.

  Anna thought he was just being lazy now. He could knock the damn door down himself. But she didn’t want to anger the fallen angel who was holding The Angel prisoner, so she did as he asked. Her hope that they’d find this house as empty as it had appeared quickly evaporated when she heard movement inside.

  Adriel grabbed her arm and pulled her inside the house with him. Anna was too scared to try to pull her arm free from his grip; he was the only one in this house who didn’t want her dead.

  Adriel’s pale blue eyes darkened and he yelled, “Damn it!”

  “What?” Anna asked. She was still looking around the living room of the house, waiting for Lilith or one of Gadreel’s minions to attack her.

  “He’s not here. It’s only Armand. I’m going to grab him; we’ll see if we can find Gadreel that way.”

  Adriel disappeared down the dark hallway and Anna listened as he burst into one of the bedrooms. She could make out Armand’s voice, pleading in his Parisian French for Adriel to have mercy on him, and Anna thought it was a little late to expect mercy from an angel now. He’d already turned his back on the angels capable of offering mercy and forgiveness. He sure as hell wasn’t going to get it from an angel of death and destruction.

  Anna didn’t want to listen to whatever Adriel was planning on doing so she stepped onto the porch and sat on the swing to wait for him. Adriel’s neighborhood was too far away from Colin; she hadn’t been able to hear his thoughts all morning. She wished she could have let him know what she was doing but he would have stopped her or insisted on coming with her, and she didn’t want to drag him into Adriel’s mess where he might get hurt. She just hoped it wouldn’t take them long to find Lilith and Gadreel so she could hurry home to him because she was sure he was panicked and grief-stricken once again. Anna sighed and closed her eyes as she listened to something crashing from within the house.

  “Anna?”

  Anna’s eyes shot open again. It hadn’t been The Angel’s voice, but Colin’s. How had he found her? Anna looked around the dewy lawns and empty streets, but he was nowhere around her.

  “Colin? Where are you?”

  “This house. You dreamed about this house when you were inside that camp. It was Adriel’s…”

  Anna jumped off the swing and was torn between running inside to make sure Adriel stayed away from her husband and running back to the house where Adriel had first brought her and showed her the baby that could be hers.

  “Adriel has The Angel, Colin. I had to try to save her. I don’t want you getting hurt, which is why I didn’t tell you. I’m so sorry, my love.”

  He didn’t need to tell her what he was doing now. He was leaving Adriel’s house and coming to meet her.

  “We do nothing alone, Anna. Remember?”

  “Colin, he won’t kill me, but he won’t hesitate to hurt you if he gets the chance. Please, don’t come here!”

  “Can’t help it. I’m pretty sure I’m biologically required to. Look it up. It’s encoded on the Y chromosome somewhere that we men get really pissed off when another man tries to steal his wife.”

  Anna rolled her eyes because of course her husband would want to be a smartass when their lives and The Angel’s life were all in such precarious positions. The house had become deathly silent and Anna held her breath as she listened for Adriel’s footsteps. But he didn’t bother walking through the house again. He appeared by her side, his face dark and stormy, and nodded toward the street they’d just walked down.

  “Now you can drive,” Adriel told her.

  “Colin, I’m begging you, please…”

  But it was too late. Colin had arrived.

  Chapter 23

  Anna turned to Adriel and warned him, “If you even touch him, I will kill you.” Adriel’s pale blue eyes watched Colin as he opened his car door then slammed it closed. She could feel the hatred in him, and it worried her. Colin wasn’t impulsive or reckless; he was smart and cautious, and those attributes had always helped to make him the legendary hunter he’d become. But right now, Anna had no faith he wouldn’t do something rash, and if she killed Adriel, she would kill The Angel.

  Colin’s eyes flickered to Anna as her thoughts filled his mind, and while he wanted The Angel back, too, he knew what Adriel had done in his house. Everything that had happened to Anna in the past couple of months – her abduction, her imprisonment, the invasion of her dreams, even trying to drive them apart by making Colin believe Anna wanted him to leave her – had been because of Adriel, and he wasn’t escaping him now.

  “Your wife made a deal, Colin,” Adriel told him. “She’ll help me destroy Gadreel and Lilith, then I will set your angel free. Surely you want your angel back, too?”

  “I want to kill you,” Colin answered.

  Adriel lifted a shoulder at him. “You’re not the first. Actually, I think you’re third in line now.”

  “No part of Anna’s deal involved you taking her to your house and harassing her with an illusion of a child she could never have, and it sure as hell didn’t involve you kissing her,” Colin seethed.

  “Technically,” Adriel corrected, “she could have this child. Just not with you.”

  “Colin, don’t!” Anna yelled. But it was too late. Colin hit Adriel with the same force he’d often used to protect Anna; it was the first time he’d used it as a weapon. Adriel flew back through the open doorway into the dark, quiet house and Colin followed him. Anna grabbed his arm before he could step into the living room and pulled him away from the open door.

  “The Angel, Colin,” she reminded him.

  But Colin had no intention of letting Adriel live. “He’ll have another excuse, another reason. It will always be something, Anna. He’ll never stop.”

  Anna heard Adriel moving inside the house; he was kicking the broken furniture and glass ou
t of his path as he moved back toward the door. Anna’s fingers slid down Colin’s arm and found his hand and she held it tightly. Her husband needed to do this, and there was nothing she wouldn’t do for him.

  “Alright, Colin. We’ll destroy him. We do nothing alone.”

  Adriel appeared in the doorway, his pale blue eyes full of a fierce loathing fixed on Colin, but something pulled his attention toward the street and he growled, “Are you kidding me?”

  Anna risked looking away from the angry fallen angel in front of her to see what he was glaring at now, but the street was still empty. In the distance, she saw a car approaching, but surely that’s not what caught Adriel’s attention? Colin didn’t care. He was about to hit him again when a voice stopped him.

  “Adriel,” she hissed. Anna looked toward the lawn again, and this time, Lilith was there, as tall and beautiful and completely and utterly terrifying as ever.

  Colin sighed. “I know you want him dead, too. Get in line. I thought we agreed on this already.”

  Anna had to quickly search Colin’s memories for what agreement he was referring to, and she wasn’t sure if cooperating with Lilith was more shocking than anything else that had happened to her recently, but it was definitely up there. The corners of Lilith’s lips twitched, but Anna didn’t think the demoness actually had a sense of humor. But then again, she did seem full of surprises.

  Anna turned her attention away from the beautiful demoness – she refused to call her an angel – and watched the car getting closer. It looked familiar.

  “Not just Lilith,” Adriel scowled. “Gadreel, you bastard, stop hiding.”

  Gadreel showed himself beside Lilith; perhaps he had always been there and only humans couldn’t see him. Anna really didn’t care. She wanted to get far away from this trio who hated each other and were about to fight a war worthy of Hell’s name right here on a lawn in south Baton Rouge. Anna let her eyes drift back to the car that was approaching the house; she knew this car now. It was Jeremy’s car.

  “Oh, God, Colin, you brought them all along?”

  “They were all with me. It was Jeremy and Tahel’s idea to contact Andrew to get Lilith’s help. And they’re hunters, Anna. We all thought you’d been coerced into doing something else for Adriel, so nothing was going to stop them from coming, especially for you.”

  Anna watched with horror as all of her friends climbed out of Jeremy’s car: her mortal friend she had worked so hard to free from imprisonment; Luca, her mentor and adopted brother; Dylan, the man whose life she had saved when she sealed his servitude; even Tahel, who had won Anna’s admiration as this young woman who had never wanted this life but had embraced it because of the strength of her faith and her sense of duty.

  None of the powerful creatures before them gave the newcomers much thought though. They were focused only on each other. But Anna couldn’t tear her eyes away from this group who had come to confront these angels, this demoness, on her behalf.

  “They all have their own reasons for being here, Anna. These fallen angels have taken something away from each of them. This is our final battle; it is a retribution for all of us.”

  Luca met Anna’s eyes and his hard expression softened and he smiled at her before turning to the angels facing off in the early morning hours on a lazy October morning in Baton Rouge.

  “Before you unleash Armageddon in Louisiana, where’s Armand?” Luca demanded. He didn’t address either angel specifically. He obviously didn’t care who answered him.

  Adriel never took his eyes off of Gadreel. “Armand is dead.”

  Gadreel made a low growling sound and Anna backed farther away from Adriel. Colin was just trying to decide how pissed off Gadreel would be if he killed Adriel before the angel had a chance to.

  But Adriel had picked up on the fact that Luca had only asked about one of the traitorous Immortals. He smiled at Lilith and in the most patronizingly compassionate voice said, “He didn’t ask about Andrew. I wonder what that could mean?”

  Lilith tossed her silky black hair over one of her creamy shoulders and kept her gaze on Adriel. She already knew why, and Adriel wasn’t going to get her to act foolishly out of anger. “He’s not here for you to worry about, Adriel. What difference does it make to you?”

  “Word has it you’d finally gotten a lackey of your own, and it would be such a shame to lose him so soon, that’s all,” Adriel told her. He still had the same condescending smile on his face, and even Anna wanted to hit him for it.

  But Lilith wasn’t stupid. She had no intention of letting Adriel or Gadreel know anything about her new follower’s status or where he might be heading. Colin seemed to think Lilith had ordered him out of Baton Rouge as soon as he’d called her with the news from the hunters this morning; she had no intention of losing her earthly assistant so easily. So Lilith just shrugged as if she weren’t concerned and told Adriel he was only a human. There were seven billion more just like him, and she could just replace him. Both of the angels snickered because they knew it wasn’t that simple.

  Dylan touched Luca’s elbow and whispered something in his ear and Luca nodded. Anna wished she had the ability to understand their thoughts right now as well. If they were planning something, she and Colin really needed to know but they were stuck on the porch while their friends were on the lawn near the street. Anna promised herself she wouldn’t watch them. She couldn’t bear to see any harm coming to her friends because they’d come here on her behalf.

  “Before you start destroying each other, just answer one question for me,” Tahel said. Anna’s vow to keep her eyes off her friends had lasted less than two seconds. And she immediately noticed Tahel was holding Jeremy’s hand again. “Why me, Gadreel?”

  Gadreel wouldn’t take his eyes off of his enemy. Tahel had made her choice, and he no longer had any interest in her. “Same reason Adriel targeted Anna. You have more power than you realize, Tahel. Shame you humans insist on clinging to your beliefs that some god created you and you owe something to it.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Colin shot back, “I don’t even care anymore. We still have two choices, and you represent everything that makes humans such miserable creatures sometimes. Now would you shut up so I can kill this asshole?”

  Anna didn’t give Adriel a chance to react. She hit him herself before he could lash out at Colin, and Adriel’s body flew through the porch railings and into the side of the neighboring house.

  Lilith put her fists on her hips and glared at the O’Conners. “Hey, there’s no reason we can’t all kill him,” she insisted.

  Adriel picked himself up from the ground and brushed the pieces of brick and grass and dirt from his clothes. He must have been a far more powerful angel than Samael, because he didn’t look badly hurt, and he wasn’t dropping his appearance as a man. And he could apparently still fight back.

  Instead of targeting Colin, though, perhaps because he was holding onto Anna, he hit Lilith who was thrown across the street, her body crumbling into the base of an oak tree. She stumbled to her feet, but she was clearly hurt, and Anna was surprised when she actually kind of felt sorry for her. Colin and Anna watched the fight unfolding, knowing they should stop it, but they didn’t know who to target now.

  The ground quaked beneath their feet and they grabbed the banister on the porch to keep from falling. The hunters standing on the lawn had nothing to hold onto and fell into the damp grass. But the angels weren’t targeting the hunters. Gadreel and Adriel were focused only on each other.

  “Oh, God,” Anna whispered, “we have to stop this, Colin. They’re going to destroy half the city.”

  The ground shook again and the banister snapped into fragments of painted canary yellow wood. Colin and Anna tumbled off the porch into the hedges and Colin threw his body over his wife as chunks of the roof rolled over them. Anna peeked underneath his arm and saw Luca crawling toward them; every time the ground shook, he fell to his stomach again and more debris from the house fell on top of them.
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  Colin was hurt. Anna could sense it. Something had fallen on his back, and he was bleeding, but it was more than that. Whatever these angels were doing to each other had reached him, and these bastards had hurt him. She reached underneath his shirt and dragged her fingers up his back until she felt the warm, sticky blood.

  “I’m fine, Anna.”

  But she knew he was lying.

  She crawled out from underneath him and motioned to Luca to hurry over to her. Dylan wasn’t far behind him. The ground shook again, and this time, Anna threw her own body over Colin’s, wishing she knew how to protect him with this gift the way he’d protected her so many times before, but nothing happened. She felt heavy wooden planks raining down on her as the house broke apart but there was no barrier to protect them. She didn’t understand why she’d been able to protect herself in the field, but couldn’t get it to stretch around Colin like he’d done for her so many times.

  “Get him out of here!” she shouted at Luca.

  Colin protested but another violent earthquake toppled them all again. This time, Luca covered his injured friend with his own body. As soon as the ground’s movement quieted to a tremble, she helped Luca and Dylan pull Colin out of the hedges.

  The back of his shirt was soaked with his blood and Anna cried out, in fear and anger and helplessness. Colin’s eyes kept trying to close, but he wouldn’t let them. Anna kissed his face again and again and begged him to sleep – his body needed to heal – but Colin sat up and watched the angels battling each other.

  Neither of them held onto their shapes as men anymore, and all they could see was the blinding white light or the darkness, all of the colors or none of them; it was the complete confusion they all felt when looking upon an angel.

  “Which one is Adriel?” Colin breathed. He was in so much pain.

  Anna shook her head and brushed his hair away from his forehead and another rupturing quake struck the ground.

  Colin’s breaths were ragged and Anna threw her arms around him and begged him again to let Luca and Dylan get him out of this place. Colin ignored her. His eyes darted across the street where Lilith sat injured under the oak tree, watching the fight unfold between the angels, perhaps just waiting to see if she’d need to finish the job.