“Or I can kill them. Or lead him to them. For all we know, this is just another game. Maybe he’s just torturing us all.”
Anna opened her eyes and raised her head. “Who?”
Jeremy swallowed and his eyes widened but he didn’t answer her.
“You can’t say his name?” Anna asked.
Jeremy shook his head. “I want to, but I don’t know his name. I can’t…” Jeremy took a deep breath. “I can’t seem to remember anything about him right now.”
His eyebrows knitted together as he concentrated, but no new memories surfaced and he sighed in frustration.
Jas moved closer to him and put her arms around him. She had known Jeremy far longer than Anna. Jeremy hugged her back and smiled weakly at her.
“Oh, Jas. Why did you and Dylan have to be so goddamned stubborn? You were the only one in the group who didn’t know he was in love with you, you know.”
Jas sobbed out a laugh and nodded. “Guess I learned that a little too late. If he still wants me by the time he gets here though, then I’ll be waiting for him.”
Jeremy and Jas both jumped and stared at the wall behind him. Anna hadn’t heard anything this time. She looked between Jas and Jeremy and their expressions told her she’d be waking up soon. She gripped Jeremy’s hand tighter and forced him to look at her again. His eyes were wide and terrified.
“Jeremy, listen to me,” Anna demanded. “I’m coming for you. You hear me? And you can tell your boss that, too. I’m going to find him and I will destroy him. And one way or another, Jeremy, I’ll set you free.”
Jas and Jeremy jumped at the mystery sound again then Jas grabbed Anna’s arm and told her, “Time to wake up.”
It was past noon when Anna opened her eyes. Her back was to Colin but she knew he was awake. She rolled over and found him watching her.
“You’ve been awake for a while,” she said.
He didn’t need to confirm that.
“Anna…” he started, but he didn’t know what to say. His mind was so confused.
Anna reached over to him and brushed those strands of golden brown hair off his forehead.
“Don’t worry about this, Colin. Dylan and I will handle it.” She wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled herself closer to him. “When we get back, you should see if you and the guys can get tickets to the next home game. I don’t think they sell out. I’ve heard Folsom Field is beautiful.”
Anna was trying to distract him, but of course he knew what she was doing.
He pushed back from her, just enough to see her face, and the indecision and uncertainty hadn’t left his eyes, but he took a deep breath and ran his fingers through her dark, messy hair.
“No. If you’re going to do this, then I’m coming with you. Luca and Andrew can do whatever they want, but we do nothing alone.”
“Colin, this demon is controlling your thoughts somehow. What if we get out there and you…”
Colin kissed her to keep her from saying what he already knew she was going to say.
As he pulled away from her lips, he promised her, “There isn’t a force in Heaven or Hell that could ever turn me against you.”
Anna smiled and kissed him again, because she believed him. There were some forces Hell should never mess with. And love was one of them.
Amanda knocked on their door about an hour later, and told them she’d gotten them on a redeye out of Glasgow that night but they needed to get on a train soon.
She looked Colin over curiously. “Weird. Guess you have your own stalker now.”
Anna flinched, but Colin seemed unperturbed.
“We should get busy killing these bastards then,” he said.
Anna wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of smiling at that. She crossed her arms and glared at him and tried to look pissed off.
“Sorry we’ve been screwing around while some people were sightseeing.”
Colin shrugged. “Never thought there was much to see here.”
He was just messing with her. Scotland was a beautiful country, and they’d gotten to stay at a castle here all those years ago when they’d led mortal lives. Amanda was still watching him with that same puzzled air, and it was making Anna anxious. Colin told her she worried too much. Anna ignored him.
“What’s up, Amanda?” Anna asked.
“It’s a different… aura or signature or whatever… than this demon stalking you. But you said there were only three of these fallen angels after you and your friends. So if there’s one stalking you, one stalking Colin, how is it that two of your other immortal friends are affected like Colin is?”
Anna didn’t know anything about demon auras. “When we get back to Boulder, you’ll have to meet them. See if they have distinct… markings.”
Colin didn’t like her word choice. Anna sighed and folded her arms defensively across her chest again.
“Well, they’re kind of marking us, aren’t they? It may not be physical, but it’s the same principle.”
Colin thought about it and decided he liked it even less. Anna narrowed her eyes at him.
“You can be such a baby when you’re being stalked by a fallen angel.”
Colin smiled at his wife. “I’m always like this. You’re usually just much more tolerant of my bullshit.”
The corners of Amanda’s lips twitched as she suppressed a smile. “You’re sure there’s only three of these demons or fallen angels or whatever? What if there’s a whole army of them?”
Anna and Colin turned serious. Colin’s mind still wouldn’t let him maneuver around this question like it should, and his first impulse was to shrug it off and ask her “So what? Let an army of angels deal with them.” But he bit his lip and kept his mouth shut, and Anna looked up at him in surprise. He recognized these weren’t his thoughts and was trying to regain control. And he was doing it for her.
Anna was too overwhelmed by her love and admiration for her husband and forgot to answer Amanda, so the poor woman sighed and had to ask again.
Anna looked away from Colin and offered Amanda an apologetic smile. “The original email we received in Baton Rouge only mentioned three demons who wanted all of us to meet them in these woods outside of Prairieville. But yeah, it’s possible they’ve called up reserves when that plan failed.”
Amanda groaned. “Nice, so we are dealing with an entire army of fallen angel demons.”
“If so, it’s a small army. There were a limited number of angels created to begin with, and many of them are still in Heaven. Most of them, actually. But there are enough fallen angels to make a potential war devastating for everyone. And not just us Immortals. If they’re trying to kill us or convert us, they’re planning something much bigger than just ridding themselves of a handful of pests.”
Amanda wanted to ask more questions, but Colin interrupted her. His mind was so conflicted, and he wouldn’t allow himself to argue with Anna again. He picked up her suitcase and nodded toward the door.
“Don’t we need to catch the train? I don’t want to miss this flight. We need to get back to Boulder. Anna will have to tell you about her dream last night on the train. Maybe you can help.”
Amanda’s pale blue eyes flickered between them as she chewed nervously on the inside of her cheek. Anna sensed she was already quite tired of helping these Immortals with their supernatural problems. She didn’t blame her at all.
“Ok,” she said, “let me go grab my bags.”
On the train back to Glasgow, Anna replayed the entire dream for Amanda, starting with finding herself alone again on the first floor of that strange building in Stalingrad, then climbing those stairs and being joined by Jas and opening each of those doors. She faltered when she got to the part about finding Jeremy in the middle of that utterly brown room, the heartbreaking expression in his eyes that would have begged her to kill him even if he’d never spoken.
Amanda listened to the entire dream without interrupting Anna or asking any questions or even looking away from her. She watched h
er the whole time and listened to every word, and when Anna got to the end when Jas had woken her up because Jeremy’s boss had found them, Amanda finally took a deep breath and let her gaze shift to the window behind Anna’s head. She watched the Scottish landscape for a few minutes as she thought about this dream.
“Jas is haunted by this dream. But she’s also convinced you can save him somehow and shouldn’t kill him,” Amanda said.
Colin was sitting across the aisle from them and looked up from his magazine but still didn’t speak. Anna heard the thoughts he was fighting back against: he was trying to bury the idea that Jeremy wasn’t their problem and they shouldn’t be wasting their time on this anyway.
Anna shook her head sadly. “I don’t know, Jas. And if I go to Garden of the Gods and see him, I did promise him. I have to free him somehow. You saw how miserable he is.”
Amanda pressed her lips together and glanced back at Colin. He was watching them.
Amanda leaned closer to Anna and whispered, “I know he can hear everything through you anyway, but Jas doesn’t trust him right now. She doesn’t know what to do.”
Anna clenched her jaw and reminded herself not to take out her anger on Amanda. She was only delivering messages from a dead person.
“I trust him, Jas. If you have an idea, just tell me.”
They were getting close to Glasgow now, and Colin had heard their conversation through Anna anyway. He pretended to read his magazine again, but he didn’t think Anna should be mad at Jas for not trusting him. After all, he’d quit hunting and left his wife because he’d been convinced those decisions were the right thing to do. How could anyone trust his judgment right now?
As the train slowed to enter the station, Amanda leaned toward Anna one last time. “Here’s what Jas thinks. Find out what Dylan knows about this fallen angel that most likely possessed Jeremy. If you can find it and kill it without killing Jeremy, then she thinks it will free him.”
Colin’s head jerked up from the magazine he wasn’t even pretending to read anymore, and the train lurched to a stop in the station.
“How?” Anna gasped. “How am I supposed to kill a fallen angel?”
Amanda raised an eyebrow at her and offered her the same kind of half-smile Jas would have if she’d been telling Anna this herself.
“She already told you in Stalingrad. You have the greatest power of any human on this Earth. Use it. Destroy this bastard, and you might want to be careful about it. Target it or you’ll kill Jeremy in the process. But either way, it’s time we start fighting back.”
Chapter 19
Dylan had pages of notes spread out on the table in his apartment in Devil’s Thumb. Colin and Anna sat next to him as he offered what he’d learned from the theology professor at CU.
“I needed an excuse to meet with him and talk about this shit, so I told him I was a blogger for a Seventh Day Adventist website,” Dylan smiled, “and I was trying to form theories as to who this fifth angel might be, because we suspected it wasn’t really Abaddon.”
Anna shuffled some of the sheets of paper in front of her, but she couldn’t read most of Dylan’s scrawling handwriting.
“And?” she asked excitedly.
Dylan’s smile broadened. “Y’all aren’t going to believe this. The dude’s currently in my fridge.”
Colin arched an eyebrow at him. “How did you trap a fallen angel in your refrigerator?” But he was just messing with him.
Dylan snickered and shook his head. “The professor agreed with me, and he’s pretty sure he’s right about this based on Talmudic folklore. He thinks that angel is Samael.”
“Holy shit,” Anna exclaimed.
Colin’s mind raced with doubt and uncertainty, which told Anna they were getting far too close to the truth, and that was making some asshole demon really uncomfortable. She told Dylan that, and Colin bit his lip. Anna grabbed his hand and brought it to her lips, kissing his strong hands and silently telling him how amazed she was by his strength and willpower. Colin kissed her hand too and told her the Devil himself couldn’t make him question her love for him again.
Dylan coughed and asked if they were finished yet, but he was smiling. He knew what they’d both endured recently.
“Alright, so we might know who we’re dealing with now, but how do we draw him out?” Dylan asked.
Colin’s hand gripped Anna’s tighter, but this time, it wasn’t because of his doubts. He didn’t want her trying to fight this powerful angel on her own, and that’s exactly what she was planning on doing.
“We go back to Garden of the Gods and instead of waiting for Samael to show up, I go looking for him,” Anna announced.
Colin wanted to argue with her, but it had nothing to do with the mind games his own demon stalker was playing; he didn’t want Anna hunting one of the most powerful angels ever created.
“I’ll be with her, of course,” Colin clarified. “I don’t know how well this shield thing will work against an angel like Samael, but it’s all I can do to try to protect her.”
Dylan sighed and threw his pencil on the table. “This would be a lot easier if Andrew weren’t being such an asshole and would go along with y’all to at least try to keep you alive while Anna tries to kill Samael.”
“True,” Colin acknowledged. “But you can’t be too hard on them. You have no idea how strong this force is in my head. It convinced me Anna wanted me to leave her. I never would have thought that was possible. But there are some forces stronger than anything Hell can conjure, and it won’t make me question her love for me again. Luca and Andrew don’t have that to help keep them grounded. So Anna and I will have to go alone.”
Dylan crossed his arms and glared at him. “Alone? What the hell? I’m still sane, remember?”
“Dylan, if you come with us, then I have to try to keep you and Colin alive. And I don’t even know how I’m supposed to target this power yet.”
Dylan shook his head stubbornly. “I’m Immortal. Mostly. Besides, if it kills me, I know who’s waiting on the other side for me. Not exactly a huge loss.”
Anna squinted at him, not because she didn’t agree with him – she knew he’d be happy with Jas – but they needed him here now. And she selfishly wasn’t ready to say goodbye to him yet. But Dylan just smiled at her again.
“Hey, Jas has figured out how to stalk your dreams. Maybe we could both visit you and then you wouldn’t have to really say goodbye.”
“You sound like you’re counting on this,” Anna said.
Dylan raised a shoulder at her and scooped the papers up from his table. “Not yet. I want to help you end this war with these bastards. But if it happens, I just don’t want you to feel guilty about it. I’ll be fine either way.”
A knock on Dylan’s door stopped them from arguing about it anymore. Amanda had just left Luca’s apartment where she’d been talking to him and she had news about his stalker.
“Definitely a different marking than Anna’s or Colin’s. Or whatever you’ve decided to call them. Andrew was at the store, so I’ll check him out when he gets back. But you must be dealing with more than three of these demons now.”
Dylan sighed loudly and muttered a few epithets at demons and fallen angels and Hell all rolled into one.
“And has Jas figured out how I’m supposed to control this superpower she’s so convinced I’m wielding?” Anna asked.
Dylan stopped muttering and moved closer to her, seeming to remember Jas was always with Anna and Amanda could actually hear her.
“No,” Amanda answered after a brief pause. “And she says to stop being so damn lazy and figure it out yourself.”
Dylan snorted and Anna shot him a don’t-be-an-asshole glare. Amanda seemed to be listening again, so everyone waited silently.
“She also said to remember everything Andrew was trying to teach you out in those prairies. It will work, but she thinks part of your problem is that you were expecting to fail. Your self-doubt may be making this far more difficult th
an it needs to be.”
Anna was about to counter that there was no way it could be that simple, but Colin stopped her.
“I don’t know, Anna. Jas may be onto something. We’ve been concentrating on trying to make this thing work, but the only time I’ve ever been able to get it to do what I wanted was when I wasn’t even thinking about it. You were in danger and I just acted, and it worked. There was no planning or forethought involved.”
“But Andrew said it was like learning to play an instrument and would take practice!” Anna protested.
Colin nodded but still thought Jas was right about this. “You have no idea what you’re capable of. Andrew doesn’t even know how I’m able to put that barrier around you. I think the possibilities with this kind of gift are so vast, it does take a lot of practice to figure them all out. And that’s why Luca’s angel wanted him here to help us. But you can do this, Anna. I have faith in you.”
Anna’s throat burned with that familiar warning sensation that her body wanted to cry, but she refused to look so weak in front of Dylan and Amanda. Of everyone she was terrified of letting down, the thought of disappointing her husband was the worst.
Colin lifted her hand and brought it to his lips again and promised her, “You could never disappoint me. You could never fail me. Even if you hadn’t shown up that July day to say yes and become my wife, I could have only blamed myself. Not you. Never you, Anna.”
Anna swallowed again, that burning pain in her throat worsening, and she leaned her forehead against his chest to hide her face from the others.
“Oh, God, Colin, Max was so sure… and I believed him because I knew you weren’t in control of yourself anymore. And I wondered how I could ever survive in this world let alone an eternity. I didn’t want to exist anymore. How could I?”
Colin closed his eyes and buried his face in her dark hair and heard the sound of the door closing. They were in Dylan’s apartment, but that’s just the kind of friend he was. He gave the O’Conners this private moment alone.
Anna felt Colin’s ragged breaths; even without the telepathy, she would have known he was crying now, too.
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