immortals - complete series

by S. M. Schmitz

  “Target the one on the right, Anna. I’ll hit the one on the left. Luca, you’ll need to help me. I’m too weak now.”

  Luca nodded and knelt beside Colin.

  “Colin, you can’t do this! Look at you!” She realized that was a ridiculous thing to tell him, considering his injuries were on his back, and besides, he couldn’t fight against the sleep his body demanded forever.

  “Anna, they’re destroying the whole damn neighborhood! Look around!”

  Anna looked away from her husband long enough to survey the damage to the neighborhood, and Colin was right. Homes had caved in and were disintegrating all around them and the asphalt of the street had buckled like waves washing on shore. Colin took a deep breath and forced his eyes open again.

  “On the count of three,” Colin breathed.

  Anna turned to Tahel and yelled, “Cover him!”

  “…two… one.”

  All three of the Immortals released the gifts their angels had blessed them with. The ground shook violently again, this time from the power the Immortals had commanded and directed toward the angels. What felt like an explosion reverberating from the fallen angels knocked Anna and Colin over again.

  The air stilled around her and the ground finally stopped trembling. Anna groaned and sat up and tried to pull Colin with her, but he didn’t sit up. Anna ran her hand over his face then his chest, but it wasn’t moving.

  “No,” she moaned, “no, no, Luca!”

  Luca was already by her side though. He put his ear down to his chest then looked helplessly at Anna.

  “Do something!” Anna yelled.

  Dylan limped over to Colin’s body and fell by his side. “But… he’s immortal…” Dylan stammered.

  Anna beat on her husband’s still chest. “Goddamn it, Colin, you are not leaving me!”

  Luca tried to grab her hands but she pushed him away.

  “Colin, please, please, wake up,” Anna cried.

  But she already knew he wouldn’t be waking up. Her thoughts were only her own. Her mind was terrifyingly quiet.

  Luca sat back on the ground and put his head between his knees.

  “Anna,” Dylan tried again, but she shook her head.

  “Go away,” she told him. “All of you, just go.”

  Anna put her head down on Colin’s lifeless body and held onto him, as tightly as she had ever held him before. She heard the grass shuffling beneath the feet of the other hunters but she didn’t care how far they went or if she ever saw them again. After everything Adriel had put her through, he had a found a way to destroy her after all.

  “God,” she prayed aloud, “please. Don’t take him away from me. Not now. Not after everything we’ve done for you. Please.”

  Anna could feel her tears soaking her husband’s shirt, but his chest didn’t move. His heart did not beat. “Then take me, too. Colin and I do nothing alone. Please, God. Take me, too.”

  Footsteps in the grass told her someone was coming closer, and she wanted to lash out at whoever was coming back, knowing they would try to make her leave him. But she was too weak and too broken. She only wanted death now.

  A soft, delicate hand stroked the back of her head, and somewhere in Anna’s overwhelming grief, she recognized that touch, but she couldn’t place it. Such a soothing touch. So calm and peaceful and compassionate, and Anna was glad she hadn’t hit whoever had come to comfort her now.

  “Anna,” she said.

  Anna’s brain told her she should know that voice, too, but it only knew Colin. And Colin was dead.

  “Anna, my love, look at me,” she said.

  Anna didn’t want to let go of Colin, but she had to see who that voice belonged to. She lifted her head and stared at the young woman with long flaxen hair and pale gray eyes, her delicate porcelain skin so flawless. Anna gasped.

  “Angel,” she whispered.

  She looked at the yards behind her where Adriel had fought his enemy only moments before then back at The Angel. “How…?”

  The Angel wiped Anna’s tears from her cheeks. “I suppose Adriel lied when he told you that if you killed him, it would also destroy me.”

  Anna looked back down at her husband’s body then collapsed into The Angel’s arms. “Please tell me you’ve come to take me too then,” Anna begged.

  Anna felt The Angel smoothing her hair again as she comforted her.

  “If that’s what you want, Anna. But what you have done for us is far greater than anything we’ve ever asked of any Immortal. You and Colin refused to back out of our deal when I gave you the chance, and you’ve saved people against impossible odds.”

  Anna shook her head against The Angel’s shoulder to tell her none of it had been worth it if in the end, she would only lose her husband.

  “I’ve told you before, Anna. I can’t bring people back from the dead.”

  Anna nodded but didn’t move out of The Angel’s embrace.

  “But Colin’s not yet dead. You have a choice.”

  Anna felt like her own heart stopped beating as she pulled back from The Angel and studied those pale gray eyes.

  “Another five hundred years?” Anna’s voice choked on the words. A millennium. A thousand years of their servitude fighting Hell and the evil of mankind.

  But The Angel smiled at her and shook her head. “Our original deal was that you would always be together. You can die with him now. Or you can live with him now. As mortals. No more hunting. You’ll be done, and can live one normal life together. And when you’re both old and ready for the next life, I’ll be waiting for you.”

  This wasn’t the deal Anna had expected, but she knew she was running out of time. Colin was running out of time. She inhaled slowly and placed a shaking hand on her husband’s cool face and closed her eyes. “Save him then.”

  Chapter 24

  A surprising knock at the door almost made Anna drop the bread she’d just pulled out of the oven. She put it on the counter to cool then tossed her oven mitts beside the hot loaf of bread. The quick rapping sounded again and Anna couldn’t help but smile. She knew who was knocking at the door now.

  She peeked through the window and when she saw he wasn’t alone, her fingers tripped over the locks in her hurry to get them open. And there, standing in her doorway, were Luca and Dylan.

  Luca swept her into his arms and kissed her cheeks then looked toward the kitchen. “Do I smell fresh bread?”

  Anna laughed and told him he’d have to wait. Dylan’s grin hadn’t faded since she’d opened the door, and he wrapped Anna in his arms as soon as Luca let go, although Anna suspected he was wondering about the bread, too.

  “What are you two doing here?” Anna asked. She hadn’t seen either of them in over three years, but they emailed and called each other often and hadn’t told her they were coming.

  “We were in the neighborhood,” Luca winked at her.

  “Seriously,” Dylan asked, “how did you get Colin to move back to Ireland?”

  Anna smiled at him and shrugged. “I won a bet.”

  “Speaking of, where is your old man?” Luca asked.

  “In the back with Niamh,” Anna told them. “He has a sixth sense for when this bread comes out of the oven. He should be back any minute.”

  Dylan snickered. “Sixth sense? Didn’t Zadkiel let you keep that telepathy thing? Though I still don’t know why y’all wanted it.”

  Anna just smiled at him again. Her connection to Colin was as much a part of their life together as anything else. Neither of them could have imagined a lifetime without it.

  From the window, she could see her husband walking through the wide expanse of the field that made up their backyard. She couldn’t see her yet, but she knew a small head with dark brown curls would be bobbing alongside him. Anna’s smile widened as she waited for Colin and their daughter to reach the house.

  As soon as the little girl came into sight, Luca clapped his hands over his heart. “Anna, my sweet girl, the pictures you’ve sent don’t
do her justice. I didn’t think it could be possible, but she may be more beautiful than her mother.”

  Anna laughed and told Luca it was certainly possible. Niamh was a gift from Heaven.

  Colin opened the backdoor and scooped his daughter into his arms. “Niamh,” he said, not at all surprised to see Luca and Dylan in his home. He had only come back so soon because he had known they’d shown up when Anna opened the door. “These are Mam and Dad’s very best friends.”

  The little girl’s emerald green eyes studied the strange men in her home and she offered them a shy smile but clung to her father.

  “Anna, it’s not often I say this but I agree with Luca,” Dylan said. “You O’Conners sure know how to make a beautiful child.”

  Luca nodded wisely. “You should give her a sibling.”

  Anna kept smiling and handed him a beer. Luca raised an eyebrow at her. “Really?”

  “Due this winter,” Anna told him.

  “Holy… um,” Dylan faltered, glancing at the toddler who was still hiding her face against her father’s shoulder. “Congrats, guys. This definitely calls for a round. Except you, Anna.”

  Anna rolled her eyes and handed him a beer, too. Colin turned a cartoon on for Niamh and set her on the couch. She protested briefly about being put down, but soon, the singing princess had her attention and she forgot there were two strange men talking to her parents behind her.

  “No Porsche in the driveway though,” Luca teased.

  Colin shook his head and kissed the side of Anna’s face. His eyes were on the bread she’d just pulled out of the oven.

  “Too hot, Colin.”

  Colin sighed and opened his own beer. “We were given our lives back. Our health. The chance to have everything we ever wanted, and suddenly, owning fancy cars didn’t seem that appealing anymore. We spent the money on this house instead, and I took courses to become a certified mechanic. Now I just work on all those sports cars.”

  Anna tilted her head at Dylan and eyed him slyly. He gave her a funny look in return.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Just wondering if you’ve had any… interesting dreams the past few years.”

  “Nah, I sleep like a baby,” Dylan quipped.

  Colin scoffed, “Clearly you’ve never been around babies.”

  “Come on,” Anna pleaded, “spill it! I’ve been waiting to see you in person to ask. Do you have any idea how ridiculously hard it’s been not to ask about her before now?”

  Dylan looked like he still wanted to mess with her, but he cracked and his grin reemerged. “Soon after you two moved away, she visited me a few times. We talked about all the things we were too stupid to say when she was alive. And good Lord, Anna, did you tell her to show up in that red dress?”

  Anna laughed and admitted she was completely guilty of that. And she wasn’t in the least bit ashamed of it.

  “Four hundred and ninety-seven more years with that image in my head. And I only thought no woman could ever compare to Jas before,” Dylan said.

  “So what happened? You said she showed up a few times right after we moved, but then what?” Anna asked.

  “You know, my love,” Colin warned, “this may be the kind of personal stuff we shouldn’t pry into…”

  “Sh, I’m trying to listen.”

  “We agreed it would be easier for me to deal with my long life here if we weren’t constantly seeing each other, even if it was only in my dreams. I date from time to time, and Jas told me she wanted me to, but she knows I’ll never love anyone else. And I won’t.”

  “And how’s Jeremy?” Anna had the same sly expression because of course she and Colin kept in touch with Jeremy, too. But she wanted to know what Dylan thought about him still seeing Tahel, and Dylan just sighed and humored her.

  “Yeah, but that whole thing’s just weird. I mean, he’s almost 32 now and Tahel never ages. She claims she loves his soul anyway and it won’t matter that he’s going to grow old. I think she’s nuts.”

  Colin shrugged. “I always thought she was a little crazy.” He glanced at the bread again and Anna threatened to kick him out of the kitchen.

  Dylan snorted and pulled at his beer then added, “But I think she’s been good for him, whether she’s crazy or not. She’s helped him cope with what he did when Samael transformed him and I was never really good at that. Maybe I didn’t know the right things to say, or maybe it’s just being in love, but I’m not questioning it. Jeremy’s doing better because of it, so I’ll take their weird, quirky relationship as long as it helps him.”

  Luca nodded in agreement. “It’ll be harder on her in the end, anyway. If it lasts, that is. She’ll have to watch him die at some point but she’ll go on living. Relationships are tricky for people like us.”

  Dylan smiled and said that’s why he was in love with a ghost. It solved all of his immortal relationship problems.

  “Oh,” Luca grinned, “get this. You’re going to love it. That street Adriel and Gadreel messed up? You know how they had to completely tear up the asphalt and repave the whole thing?”

  Anna and Colin nodded. The whole neighborhood had been evacuated for a long time after the inexplicable earthquakes that had decimated several city blocks. Much of the neighborhood had to be rebuilt.

  “They reopened it last year. Renamed the street, too.”

  Colin looked up at him from his beer bottle, assuming there was more of a point to Luca’s story than boring them with details about a neighborhood in south Baton Rouge.

  “You fought two of Hell’s most powerful creatures on Angel’s Alley, my friends,” Luca grinned.

  Colin coughed on the beer he’d just swallowed and Anna reminded him to be careful. He was mortal now, and she was pretty sure The Angel wasn’t coming back to offer them any more deals.

  “Oh my God, Luca, did you suggest that name yourself?” Colin asked.

  Luca was still grinning. “Nope, not me. Maybe the inspiration came from Lilith. None of us have any clue what happened to her after Gadreel and Adriel were killed. She’s just roaming the streets of Baton Rouge now, planting ironic place names in civil engineers’ minds.”

  Colin shook his head. “No way. She was up to something with Andrew, but whatever it is, it must not involve souls or demons because she insisted it wouldn’t get Immortals involved. But I have no doubts she returned to Hell as soon as she saw Adriel killed.”

  “Where are you both staying?” Anna asked. “In Dublin? We’ve got space here. Surely you can stay a few days at least.”

  Dylan and Luca glanced at each other and Luca shrugged. “Sure. We can afford a few days layover.”

  Anna clapped her hands excitedly and told them she’d make them a big dinner to celebrate their arrival in Ireland.

  Dylan narrowed his eyes. “I’m not eating haggis.”

  “That’s Scottish, Dylan,” Colin sighed, but Dylan was already laughing. Colin couldn’t help laughing, too, and told him at least it was better than asking if his Gaelic was German.

  Niamh poked her head over the edge of the sofa and called to her mother. “Mam, have you tol’em ‘bout da baby?”

  Anna walked over to the sofa and scooped her daughter into her arms and kissed her head full of those soft brown curls, so much like her own when she was a little girl. “Yes, my love. We’ve told them. And one day, these dear friends of ours will help us tell you all about what a miracle you are.”

  Thank you for taking the time to read The Immortals Series. If you enjoyed it, please consider telling your friends or posting a short review. Word of mouth is an author’s best friend and is very much appreciated.

  Thank you,

  S.M. Schmitz

  Also by S.M. Schmitz

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