Garden of the Gods (The Immortals Series Book 3) (2 page)

Anna put her coffee mug down. She knew she shouldn’t say it, considering she had been kind of mean earlier, but it came out anyway. “Did he show up to reprimand you for your philandering ways?”

Luca actually laughed. “Anna, if he had a problem with my philandering ways, I’d have been reprimanded centuries ago. He just had a message. A directive, really. About where he thinks these fallen angels might be hiding.”

All of the Immortals tensed. They had gathered this morning for more practice with their gifts – Colin and Anna with their telekinesis, and Dylan with his speed and strength – but if Luca’s angel had discovered some demonic hiding place, nothing in this world was more important.

“Well?” Colin asked. Even thinking about the possibility of chasing these fallen angels, of getting
any
sort of lead on them, made that now familiar tingling sensation ripple through his fingers and arms, spreading through him with the warmth that only this tremendous power could convey. And that meant it had awakened in Anna, too.

“He thinks they may be hiding in Colorado Springs,” Luca told them. “Forget target practice today, my friends. We’re going to the Garden of the Gods.”

Chapter 2

Anna kept yawning on the drive south to Colorado Springs. Colin was driving and trying to keep her awake, mostly because he was tired, too, and needed her to keep him alert. So he reminded her that Luca’s angel visiting him in a dream to direct them to go to Garden of the Gods counted as a visit, and Luca still didn’t have this telekinetic power. That meant he won their bet by default. And Anna hated losing, so arguing about the nuances and details of their bet kept her awake.

“If he never gets the power, though, then technically, we both lose,” Anna countered. “The bet was
when
he got it. There was no alternative for if he didn’t. That’s an automatic loss for us both.”

Colin shook his head. “We’ll die eventually. We can’t wait forever to find out
when
he gets it, and you said he’d talk his angel into getting it the next time he saw him. Therefore, I win.”

“Aha!” Anna exclaimed. She was convinced she’d gotten her husband on another technicality. “But Luca was asleep. He didn’t actually have the chance to talk his angel into anything.”

Colin smiled. She wasn’t getting out of this. He wanted his Porsche. “How easily do you have conversations, and I mean
real
conversations, with Jas in your dreams?”

Anna sulked for a few minutes while she tried to think of another way not to lose just yet.

Colin laughed at her. “Come on, Anna, you won the bet about Ireland. We’ll go. That’s way worse than me getting a new car.”

It actually had nothing to do with the Porsche Cayman Colin had already picked out in his mind. She just didn’t like admitting defeat. But he was right again. Luca should have had the chance to talk to his angel, even in his dream, and he still didn’t have this telekinetic power.

“Fine,” she muttered, “but I’m confirming with Luca first that his angel stuck around long enough for him to talk to him,
and
that he isn’t holding out on us and secretly has a new gift.”

Colin was still smiling. Luca would have bragged about it as soon as he had the chance, and they both knew it. Colin pulled into the parking lot at the Visitor Center of the Garden of the Gods and turned off the ignition. Colin and Anna would have to wait for the other hunters to arrive as they’d been delayed when they discovered the gas station they’d stopped at had a Dunkin Donuts right next to it.

Anna dug in the ashtray for quarters and Colin watched her curiously. She smiled up at him. “There’s one of those tower viewer things over there. I want to look through it.”

Colin followed her to the tower viewer but as he looked around, he was less impressed by the natural topography of the place than the sheer
size
of it. How the hell were they ever supposed to find three fallen angels that they couldn’t even sense when they were right next to them? Anna was undaunted. She was too busy watching someone scale the side of one of the red cliffs in the distance.

“Ever wanted to try rock climbing?” she asked Colin.

Colin didn’t need to look at the climber. “Nope. Not even a little.”

Anna backed away from the tower viewer and put one of her delicate hands on her hip, but her dark brown eyes were alight with the pleasure she took in teasing her husband, and Colin adored her for it. “Where’s your sense of adventure? Even if we fell, it wouldn’t kill us.”

Colin peeked through the viewer. “May not kill us, but falling from that distance would still hurt like hell.”

“Baby,” Anna teased. She looked through the viewer again and exclaimed, “Look, rams! Real ones, not the demonic ones we usually see.”

Colin snickered, but Anna had already moved away so he could look through the tower viewer. She pointed to the top of one of the orange-red bluffs in the distance and Colin followed her finger. He had just spotted the rams when something moving in the shrubs next to them caught his attention. The lumbering gray form was too familiar by now for him to mistake it for anything else. He didn’t need to see its face. Jeremy was on top of the cliff.

Anna sensed everything Colin was seeing and thinking, and she didn’t want the fear and panic to seize her as it had in that prairie outside of Boulder, but if Jeremy were here, then those fallen angels were here, and the tricks they’d played on her mind before had been so horrifying, she’d prayed for death. She was certain if Colin hadn’t done
something
to get rid of it, she would have gone crazy.

Whether it kept her asleep for the rest of her immortal life or forced her to lose her mind, she couldn’t be a hunter anymore and that’s what these bastards were after. After all, who would know better how Heaven was using Immortals to combat demons on Earth than angels that had fallen fairly recently? Angels who had themselves probably once helped Immortals in their battle against Hell?

“Hey,” Colin backed away from the tower viewer; he was only vaguely aware their friends had just pulled into the parking lot. His focus was on Anna, his wife, his only reason for existing. “It’s not coming near you. Ever again.”

Anna felt the energy from the world around them being condensed around her like a cocoon. This wasn’t the first time Colin used the gift from The Angel to protect her like this. But it left him defenseless, unable to use it to fight, which meant Anna couldn’t be separated from him. She and Andrew were the only ones who could protect Colin now.

As soon as the other hunters got near them, Anna’s terrified expression tipped off their friends that something had already gone unexpectedly wrong in the Garden of the Gods. Or maybe unexpectedly right. After all, they
had
come to look for these demons.

Luca was still faster than Dylan or Andrew and he broke into a sprint as soon as he saw the O’Conners; he reached Anna’s side first.

“Anna, what is it?” he asked.

The concern that was set so deeply in his features made Anna feel even worse about being so spiteful this morning at his apartment. Luca, like all Immortals, had a great capacity for love, and he loved his friends immensely. It was also why he never got involved with one woman for too long. He knew how easily he could fall in love, and how often he would lose her to death. If he were to remain committed to a life of immortality, then he would have to do it alone.

Colin pointed to the massive orange-red sandstone formation in the distance where the rams still stood, unconcerned about the demon’s presence so close to them. “It’s here. Jeremy’s here.”

Dylan moved to the tower viewer but Anna’s time on it had run out. It was completely dark when he tried to look through it. He turned to her and held out his hand. “I need another quarter.”

Anna placed it in his palm and watched him as he tried to spot the gray beast that used to be their friend, their group leader in Baton Rouge. Colin and Anna waited silently as Dylan stared through the viewer, but his facial expressions, his posture, the way his hands had instinctively curled into fists, all told them he had spotted Jeremy as well. He finally backed away and allowed himself to close his eyes and take one deep breath.

“We’ve got nothing on how to undo what they did to him. If it’s even possible. And Luca’s
angel seemed to think it wouldn’t be possible to kill it with these fallen angels protecting it. So what are we supposed to do?”

Andrew was watching the cliff warily. “You think they stay here? These fallen angels that are now… full-fledged demons. Can’t they go back and forth like regular angels?”

Luca was still holding Anna’s arm, unwilling to let her go. At that moment, Colin felt guilty for every moment he’d teased his old friend as well. Luca caught him though, wearing that look of regret in his eyes, and he knew Colin too well. They’d known each other for over three centuries. How could he not?

“Don’t even start with your ‘I’m so grateful you’re willing to protect my wife’ bullshit, Colin. This is my sister. No goddamned fallen angel is torturing her again.”

Colin thought Luca was
a
little
bit telepathic at least.

“I don’t guess,” Colin ventured, “that your angel gave you this energy gift last night?”

That question actually did seem to surprise Luca. “No. I asked, of course, but he said it wasn’t up to him. If he had it to give, he would have given it to me. Figures. Even Heaven has a bureaucracy, and my telekinesis is caught up in the red tape.”

Andrew sighed in exasperation. “What? Because you’re not technically in a life or death situation like we were? How close do we have to get to death before they’re willing to admit we need all the help we can get?”

“Guys,” Dylan interrupted, “argue about Heaven’s reluctance to dole out superpowers later. The demon is moving and we need to decide if we’re going to follow it or not.”

Luca took a deep breath, and his grip tightened on Anna’s arm so slightly, just enough for Anna to notice that their mentor, this living legend, was nervous as well. “We follow it. We’re hunters. It’s what we do.”

Anna knew Colin wouldn’t let this shield down and it
had
worked before, but he’d also been attacked by one of these demons they couldn’t see or sense. If Colin was focused on protecting Anna, then she and Andrew had the only power that even affected these demons. And all three of these demons, these former angels, may be hiding in the shadows of Pike’s Peak. She didn’t like their odds.

Luca stayed close to her as they walked toward the base of the mountain. He’d occasionally even reach out and hold her hand or her arm again; Anna wasn’t sure if he was trying to reassure her or himself that they weren’t all about to get killed. By now, one of the demons must have become aware of their presence and knew the group of hunters was here, but as they got closer to the brick red formation where they’d spotted Jeremy, nothing seemed out of place here. Everything in the Garden of the Gods belonged in this space.

Dylan slowed his pace and stared up toward the top of the massive rock formation. “Hold up. Let them come to us. What if we’re walking right into a trap?”

Everyone stopped walking. It had occurred to Colin and Anna that they were doing just that, but what else could they do? They were never meant to fight fallen angels, because fallen angels shouldn’t be on Earth; this was never part of their deal. But they were here to exterminate every Immortal, and somehow, they’d known about Colin and Anna first. So they had targeted the only immortal couple alive, and were intent on killing them before moving on, and if they were successful, that meant Luca and Andrew and Dylan were next.

Andrew glanced around nervously, but he tried to keep his aloof and intimidating composure. He was a hunter. He was an Immortal. “Think it’ll work? If we stay out here, they’ll just get tired of waiting and come after us?”

Even Luca was out of answers. Over six centuries of experience hadn’t prepared him to deal with creatures that never should have walked this Earth. “We’re in a better position here. If we get to the base of that mountain and you and Anna have to defend us, you could trigger a rock slide. We have no way of knowing if there are rock climbers on the other side or hikers nearby who could get killed. Dylan’s right. We’ve gone far enough. Let them do the rest.”

Anna bit her lip as she listened to him, taking in his features that never changed. She heard herself saying it before she could stop herself, realizing what a stupid question it was to ask him when they were all scared and anxious and quite possibly just standing in the middle of the Garden of the Gods waiting to die.

“Do you ever wear your hair down?” she asked him. As long as she had known Luca, he had kept his shoulder length black hair tied back. She’d never seen it change. He never grew it longer or cut it shorter either.

All of the hunters, even Colin, stared at her, and Anna was pretty sure she was blushing. But Luca finally just laughed and held her hand again.

“Of course. Every time I go to bed. Women like it.”

“
God, Anna, you just had to ask, didn’t you?”
Colin teased.

“
Sorry. Just struck me how he’s always the same. I mean, we all are, but he keeps everything about himself the same. Only his clothes change over the years. But we always know exactly what to expect from him. We don’t have a lot of normalcy in our lives, and that’s kind of comforting. I couldn’t help wondering if part of the reason he never changes is for us. All of us, I mean.”

Colin was examining him now, too, and Luca exhaled impatiently. He knew they were talking about him.

“You two make it hard to love you sometimes.”

Colin just smiled. He knew Luca wasn’t serious, and he suspected Anna was right. Luca had lived his long life helping others like him acclimate to a world that was more terrifying than they could have imagined, that was far lonelier than they could have anticipated. He was their anchor in a turbulent world, their mooring in a sea of violence and chaos. And if the O’Conners failed, he was defenseless against these demons now.

Colin wanted to offer some sort of gratitude that wouldn’t have embarrassed his friend in front of Andrew and Dylan, but he didn’t have time to think of a way to thank him. Someone was walking toward them. It was human, but his features were impossible to make out from this distance. As the hunters bunched together, waiting for the figure on the horizon to get closer, Colin and Anna realized it wasn’t just anyone. Jeremy was coming to meet them.