Garden of the Gods (The Immortals Series Book 3) (11 page)

“Isn’t this what you always wanted?” Colin asked. “You never asked to be a hunter. You did it because
I
made the bargain. So we disappear, try to live as normal a life as possible. I’d think that would make you happy.”

Anna slowly unclenched her fists and took a deep breath, reminding herself this was still her husband. This was still Colin. This was still the man she had loved for nearly four centuries.

“Go home, Colin. I don’t want to talk to you right now. Dylan and I have work to do.”

Colin studied her for a while, but even if Anna wouldn’t speak to him telepathically anymore, their minds were still inextricably linked. He knew she wasn’t bluffing. So Colin opened the door and left Dylan’s apartment, but he didn’t return home. And Anna had no idea where he was going.

Chapter 13

Dylan parked his car at the Visitor Center at the Garden of the Gods and turned off the ignition. He looked over at Anna and asked her again if she was sure she wanted to be out here with only him. The past two times they’d come out here hadn’t exactly gone well.

Anna’s eyes were fixed on the cliff where she’d spotted Jeremy before. She couldn’t see what was on top from this far away.

“We’re not going out there. We’ll stay here. I’m hoping Adriel won’t decide to kill two hunters right in front of a busy Visitor’s Center.”

Dylan still didn’t think this was a good plan. “He could get in your head again though and people will think you’re just losing it. Without Colin here…”

He bit his lip as he stopped himself from finishing his sentence, but it’s not like Anna didn’t realize her husband wasn’t with her.

Anna blinked back the tears that were forming and opened her car door. She was
certain
Adriel had done something to her husband and friends, and she wanted answers. Not that she expected a fallen angel to play fair. But she was desperate.

She and Colin had always known there was no life for them without the other. Adriel had tried to separate their bond and when he failed, he’d somehow figured out how to threaten to tear them apart anyway.

Anna dug her fists into her jacket pockets and sat on one of the benches near the railing overlooking the Garden of the Gods. Dylan sat beside her.

“I was thinking on the way down here,” he said, “these bastards aren’t stupid. ‘Cause you know what else this is doing? None of us have been able to focus on Jeremy with everyone turning on Heaven like this.”

Anna kept her eyes on the rocks jutting from the earth in front of her but nodded. These bastards definitely weren’t stupid.

“I hate to say this, but right now, I don’t even care about Jeremy. And maybe that’s part of their plan, too.”

Dylan sighed and studied his hands. They sat in silence for a long time before he asked her, “You still can’t feel him? How is that even possible?”

“He’s too far away.”

Anna didn’t want to talk about Colin. Not right now. Not unless Adriel decided to show up. Of course, she’d settle for The Angel showing up, too, but that hadn’t happened yet, either. Apparently, both Heaven
and
Hell were ignoring her.

“Colin wouldn’t leave you,” Dylan insisted.

He knew their car was gone, and Colin must have driven somewhere, but Dylan had been with Colin from the moment Anna was abducted to when he found her. He couldn’t believe Colin would
leave
.

“I don’t know where he’s going,” Anna replied.

She’d already told him this, too. She knew he’d planned on going somewhere when he left, but he hadn’t been thinking of anyplace in particular. Anna had just assumed he was going to drive around and calm down. When he still hadn’t come home hours later, she’d tried calling his phone, but he didn’t answer. She found his phone in their bedroom, the volume still turned off from the night before.

Luca and Andrew had offered to come with them to the Garden of the Gods, but Anna and Dylan could tell it was a half-hearted gesture. Neither of them wanted to go, and neither of them wasted much effort in trying to talk Anna and Dylan out of doing something so dangerous. Anna had never felt more alone in her life. Even those first three months in Baton Rouge couldn’t compare to this.

They waited at the Visitor’s Center until sunset and the park closed then drove back to Boulder in silence. As they pulled into the parking lot at their apartment complex in Devil’s Thumb, Anna searched for their white Toyota Camry, even though she already knew he wasn’t here. She would have felt him.

Dylan paused by Anna’s door and touched her arm gently. “You gonna be ok? I can sleep on your couch, if you want.”

Anna was torn between wanting to be alone, and being terrified of the silence inside her apartment and especially inside her own head. But she offered Dylan the bravest smile she could manage and promised to call him if she needed him. He made her promise twice that she would call – no matter what time it was – before he walked to his own apartment.

Part of the reason Anna had declined Dylan’s offer was because she couldn’t bring herself to sleeping in the bed without Colin. She needed the sofa herself. She grabbed her pillow from her side of the bed and threw it on the couch and tried not to dissolve into complete hysterics, but she was pretty sure she failed.

They’d finished off all of the beer the night before so she found a bottle of wine she and Colin had bought to go with the Saltimbocca he had been planning on making for Anna. She may have an affinity for mastering languages, but he had a talent for picking up local cuisines wherever they went.

Anna didn’t bother with a wine glass. She grabbed the first cup she saw – a plastic cup from a Colorado Avalanche game. She didn’t even know where the cup had come from. On her list of supernatural mysteries, the appearance of team paraphernalia was ranking pretty low right now.

She turned the television on to try to distract her from the complete emptiness she felt in her mind, but only the wine seemed to be helping with that, so she drank more. About halfway through the bottle, she must have fallen asleep. At least, she was pretty sure she was asleep because she was definitely sure she wasn’t supposed to be in Stalingrad.

Anna tried to remember why she was here. There was no war… the second catastrophic war to burden this country had already ended. Why had she come to this Russian city? She was standing inside a building, but it was empty. She looked around for Colin and didn’t see him and when she tried to reach out for him, she couldn’t
sense
him either.

Anna’s heart accelerated as she realized she was completely alone. She rushed to the glass doors in front of her and pulled on them, but they didn’t open. She looked for another exit, but her only other choice was a black spiral staircase and she didn’t want to go upstairs. She picked up a chair and tried to break the glass in the door, but it didn’t shatter.

“Colin!” she shouted.

Where
was
he? How had they gotten separated? He didn’t answer her. She called his name again, louder this time so that it hurt her throat when she screamed his name, but she was panicked now. She couldn’t find him. This wasn’t possible. They had been promised.

Anna swung the chair at the glass door again, but it only stung her hands. The glass didn’t even crack. She decided to try a window instead and swung the chair with as much force as she could. The reverberation knocked her over.

“Colin!” she cried.

She looked down at her hands. They were bleeding. There was no glass on the ground; she must have cut her hands on the chair somehow. She put her head between her knees and closed her eyes. She tried finding him again. He was gone.

A hand wrapped around her arm and tugged softly and Anna jumped. Her head snapped up and she had to stare at this young woman for a few seconds before she was able to place her and remember who she was.

“Jas?”

When Anna didn’t stand, Jas knelt beside her. “My God, Anna, what happened to you?”

Anna looked down at her hands again, but Jas wasn’t talking about her hands. “I don’t know. I can’t remember why I’m here, and I’m trapped in this building and Colin’s not here. Where is he?”

“I don’t know. But you’ll find each other, Anna. Don’t worry.”

But Anna shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. I can’t sense him and he’s
gone
.”

Jas’s eyes never left her. She sat on the floor next to her friend and reached inside a pocket, producing a white handkerchief, which she wrapped around Anna’s bleeding hand. Anna had the strange thought that Jas probably hadn’t had the handkerchief in her pocket for long, but she couldn’t remember
why
she would think such a thing.

“I was still there in the Garden of the Gods yesterday,” Jas said, as she reached into another pocket to produce another handkerchief for Anna’s right hand. “After Max and I chased off those demons and Adriel showed up. I heard everything he said.”

Most of those words didn’t make any sense to Anna. Where was Garden of the Gods? And who were Max and Adriel?

Jas sighed and smirked at her friend. “Girl, you’ve gotta lay off the wine. You’re incredibly difficult to talk to when you’re drunk.”

“I’m drunk?” Anna asked.

She didn’t feel drunk. But maybe that’s why she couldn’t sense Colin. That happened sometimes when she had too much to drink.

Jas nodded and confirmed she had fallen asleep drunk.

“I’m asleep?” Anna asked. Anna was beginning to feel both drunk
and
stupid.

“Ok, Anna, look at me and focus. It’s not 1953, you’re not really in Russia, and you only know me because we met in Baton Rouge and I was killed by an archdemon. I’m a ghost. And yesterday, you and the other Immortals, including Colin were attacked by a huge ass demon army at Garden of the Gods in Colorado. Max, your other ghost friend, and I helped scare them away, then this fallen angel who’s been harassing you and Colin for months now showed up and planted all this shit in their minds about Heaven being their real enemy. Ringing a bell yet?”

Something in all of those words, and there were
so
many words, seemed familiar to Anna, but she was having such a hard time pinning any of it down.

“Colin?” she asked feebly.

Jas sighed again and muttered something about being glad she was dead and couldn’t drink anymore. She’d had no idea drunk people were this annoying.

“I’m not sure what’s going on with Colin. I’m tied to you. Max is tied to Colin, though, so I talked to him before you fell asleep and I came here. Colin left because he was convinced you
wanted
him to leave.”

Anna jerked her hand away from Jas. “Colin would
never
think that. He would know better because he knows all my thoughts, don’t you remember that?”

“Anna, I don’t have time to stay here and argue with you. When you sober up tomorrow,
you
remember two things. One: you’re obnoxious in your dreams when you’re drunk. And two: you have to find Colin. He’s in danger, Anna. I don’t know what that fallen angel did, but we both know this
isn’t
Colin. And your other friends… save Colin first. Leave Dylan in Boulder to try to help the other two.”

A loud rumbling thundering noise outside made Jas look away from her finally. Anna followed her gaze but didn’t see anything.

“Anna, I’ve got to wake you up now.”

Anna shook her head and grabbed onto Jas’s arm. “Jas, please. Where is he? How am I supposed to find him?”

Jas smiled at her, but it was a strained smile, a scared smile. She brushed the loose strands of hair off of Anna’s damp cheeks and hugged her friend. “You’ll find him, Anna. Because not even Hell can keep you apart.”

A sharp pain behind Anna’s eyes made her open them slowly, carefully, as the rising sun invaded her living room. She stared at the television in front of her. It was still on, showing a rerun now of
Mad About You
. Anna remembered watching that show with Colin.

Colin.

Anna sat up, even though the stabbing pain in her temples worsened and the room spun. She looked around the living room helplessly and ran her hands through her tangled hair. She pulled them toward her face and studied her palms. They weren’t bleeding. There were no scratches.

“You’ll find him, Anna. Because not even Hell can keep you apart.”

Anna swallowed and fresh tears spilled from the corners of her eyes.

“How?” she whispered. “Jas, Angel, please. Please, help me.”

Anna closed her eyes and focused on the piercing pain in her head; it was a welcome distraction from the silence.

“
Please,”
she prayed again. “
Why have you abandoned me?”

The ringing of her cellphone interrupted her prayer. Anna opened her eyes and tried to remember where she’d thrown her purse last night. It was on the kitchen counter. She dug the phone out of her purse but didn’t recognize the number. She wasn’t going to answer it because it was a Boulder area code. It couldn’t be Colin. But a voice that sounded suspiciously like Jas’s, and Anna suspected she was still a little drunk, told her to answer it anyway.

“Anna?” the woman’s voice greeted her.

Anna rubbed her aching forehead as she tried to place this voice. She recognized this voice. And then she remembered.

“Amanda?”

“I had a dream last night. Someone who claimed to be an angel told me I needed to call you as soon as I woke up. She said you needed my help.”

Anna’s hand stopped rubbing her forehead and dropped to her side.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I do. Desperately.”

She hadn’t been ignored. The Angel hadn’t abandoned her after all.