The Immortals (8 page)

Colin felt the tears rolling down his cheeks, but he didn’t bother wiping them away. Dylan was still at the back of the church, perhaps waiting for some vengeful god to smite them all for his blasphemy. If such a god had ever existed, Colin was pretty damn sure he would have been smote long ago.

The Angel moved closer to him, just as she had once so many years before, and put an arm around his shoulders and Colin sensed her peace, her love, her faith in him. “She is strong, Colin. I have faith in her, too. She will not lose herself.”

Colin inhaled a weak, shaky breath. “But I can’t get her back if she does.”

“No. No one can.” Her arm tightened around his shoulders and Colin wilted into her embrace, just as he’d done long ago when she had comforted him this way. He rested his head against her and she held him like a mother comforting her child and Colin felt all of the hope The Angel maintained for him and for Anna. Her faith in them was so complete that Colin couldn’t help but borrow some of that hope and faith and The Angel placed a soft kiss on his head and lifted his chin so he would look at her.

  “She has survived impossible odds before, Colin. Don’t forget. And this young man here with you is trustworthy and good. I will bless him before I leave so he can help you find her. He will have the same speed and strength as you and Anna, and the same ability to sense them.”

Colin nodded. Dylan was probably the only other hunter here he
did
trust to help right now, and he was secretly glad The Angel agreed with him. Actually, it probably wasn’t much of a secret at all. She knew these things somehow. But she had given him confidence, a kind of peace that in the end, everything would work out. She couldn’t guarantee Anna’s safety or that he’d find her alive, but she had promised him they would be together forever, and no matter the outcome now, Colin knew she would abide by her agreement.

The Angel offered him one more smile, a symbol of her affection and love, then reached over and touched his hand and a familiar sensation tickled his skin but passed quickly. “If you find her alive, she will have it, too,” The Angel added. “They
are
becoming more powerful. You’ll both need this.”

And then she was gone.

Chapter 9

Anna stirred again, sure now that the room was growing colder, and she shivered against the hard plastic of the small cot. Her mind was still so muddled, so drunken and confused. She tried to open her eyes but they felt so incredibly heavy. The same sterile walls, the same steely door. Nothing else in this room except the chilling air and this vinyl cot that she lay on. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered again.

Her mind slipped into another dream or memory or both. In this room, in this world she was in now, what difference did it make? Anna was sewing. She hated sewing, but it had to be done. A seam on one of her favorite dresses had started to unravel and that had finally forced her to sit down and tackle the pile of clothes she’d been trying to ignore. Colin watched her, an amused smile on his lips because he knew she’d rather charm snakes than wrestle with needles and thread. He was useless though. He’d never learned to sew.

Anna caught him watching her and offered him a coy smile. “The least you could do is entertain me. Read something to me.”

Colin lifted a pamphlet laying on the table beside him. “Hm. Would you like to hear the letter King Charles wrote to Parliament agreeing to end hostilities?”

Anna lifted her eyes to look at him. The war had ended a month ago, but she was bored. So Colin read it to her and Anna listened to each word, but remained doubtful, and when he was finished she looked up from her dress again. “Do you think it will last?”

Colin shook his head. “No, there’s far too much animosity here. As far as these Puritans are concerned, our King may as well be Catholic, and that alone should have resulted in his dethronement.”

Anna snickered. “Well, you’re Irish, Colin. How torn you must be. Your country’s fighting against English and Scottish rule, but at least King Charles isn’t trying to eliminate Catholicism.”

“I’m not Catholic anymore,” Colin reminded her. Anna smiled again and turned her attention back to her sewing. She knew he’d only converted to please her parents.

“And we’ll fail,” Colin sighed.

Anna put her dress down and moved closer to him. Being an Irishman in London had become even more difficult in the past five years, and Anna knew what a toll it was taking on him. She ran a hand through his silky bronze hair and kissed him. “Are you done with your sewing then?” he asked her, and Anna recognized that tone, that smile.

“For now,” she assured him.

Just like last time, as Colin kissed her, he vanished, dissipated and the room became dark. But she wasn’t thrown into an eternally black abyss. She was alone in her apartment in Baton Rouge, except all of the windows were bricked, and the door was cemented closed. She pulled on the door handle, twisting and yanking, and when it didn’t give, she tried kicking the door and screaming, but no one came to rescue her. She was trapped.

She checked each window for any brick that may have weaknesses and tried knocking them loose, but they were as tightly bonded as whatever was keeping her door closed. She dug around her apartment until she found her cell phone and kept trying to dial Colin’s number, but she couldn’t
remember
his number. Her contact list was empty.

She wanted to call the cops, but her fingers kept pressing the wrong numbers and she’d have to delete them and start over, and as she tried to dial those three simple digits for the tenth time, she heard the scratching at her door. Something was out there. And it hadn’t come to rescue her.

Anna set her phone down and reached down to her boot, then realized she wasn’t wearing her boots. She didn’t have her dagger or knife. She was unarmed. The scratching at the door grew louder as the visitor outside her door tried to claw its way inside. Anna ran into her kitchen and pulled open drawers and cabinets, looking for any metal knife that might work, but her kitchen was empty. There was nothing in it at all. And that scratching turned into a splintering sound as whatever was on the other side of her door broke through.

Anna turned to face the door and noticed a hole the size of a football. It couldn’t get through yet, but she could see a furry gray-green paw with long claws pulling at the broken wood. It wouldn’t be long before it was inside her apartment. Anna ran into her bedroom and slammed the door closed and locked it. She grabbed the nightstand by her bed to place it in front of the door, but it wouldn’t move. It was as glued to the floor as the bricks were to her windows. She pulled on her bed, but it wasn’t budging either.

A cracking fracturing sound told Anna the demon had broken through. It was in her apartment and she was defenseless. She couldn’t escape, and she couldn’t fight back. And Anna was terrified. The beast scratched at her bedroom door, and Anna started to pray.

Her bedroom transformed into the cold gray room of her prison, and the door swung open. The same man entered, at least she thought it was the same man. She couldn’t concentrate on his face and his features were still amorphous, just a blur of color and shapes. He crouched in front of her again and spoke her name. She blinked, trying to focus on his eyes, but the world would not focus.

“Anna,” he said again.

“It’s so cold.” Her teeth chattered as she spoke.

“Would you like to be warm?”

A game. He was playing a game. Anna shook her head and closed her eyes.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, his voice so slippery and smooth.

Anna refused to open her eyes or acknowledge him. She would not play his game. These dreams. They were part of his game. She didn’t know how he was doing it, but he
had
to be controlling them somehow.

“What about him? Would you like to save him?”

She stopped breathing. A game, she reminded herself. It’s just a game. “He isn’t here.”

“How do you know?”

“I would know.”

“Like he knew you disappeared?”

Anna’s eyes shot open and she stared at the man in front of her. For the briefest of seconds, his features settled into place, pale blue eyes and jet black hair, a handsome man, but not so obviously crafted after an airbrushed image off the cover of a Harlequin novel. Those features dissolved into their regular haze as quickly as they’d emerged from it. She was thrown back into that swirling vortex, like she was a ship in a storm.

“How did you do that?” she asked. She was certain the room had gotten colder, too.

“You think your side is so much stronger than ours.”

Anna wasn’t sure if it was a question or not. She heard it as a statement, but answered him anyway. “No, I just believe our side is so much
better
than yours.”

He laughed and new, different chills broke out across her flesh. “Well, that’s subjective, Anna.”

Anna shook her head again. “I’ve met plenty of you assholes and I don’t know how you’re hiding your nature from me, but you’re not human. You all make me sick. And I’ve met an angel. She made me feel calm and peaceful and loved. That’s not so subjective. Not to me.”

“So you
are
blessed.” His voice sounded lower, rougher, gravelly.

Anna tried to fix him in her gaze again, but her eyes would not cooperate, not again. “More than you could ever know.”

He thought about this, but didn’t move. Even though he didn’t smell or have the signature markings of a demon, Anna wanted him as far away from her as possible. He unnerved her in a completely different way, and she was nauseated by his presence.

“We’ve cut you off from each other. So tell me, Anna. How do you
know
he isn’t here? And how much are you willing to let him suffer before you stop being so stubborn?” Then he stood up and left the room.

Anna stared at the smooth metal door for a long time, reminding herself this was all part of their game. Colin wasn’t here. He
couldn’t
be. But her stomach roiled with the fear and uncertainty because she
was
completely cut off; somehow, she had been cut off from him right before her abduction. She couldn’t sense their natures. And she still felt so disoriented, so seasick and immobilized.

Suddenly, his cries filled the air around her, and it was the only sound now in her confinement, echoing off the gray-blue walls. He was in pain.

“Colin!” she called back to him. She could hear her name. He was screaming for her.

She tried to sit up and the room spun and she leaned over the edge of the cot to throw up but nothing came out. Her stomach was empty and her body shook with the dry heaves of trying to rid herself of something that wasn’t there. He was still screaming. God, what were they
doing
to him?

She called for him again and again until her throat was raw, but he never stopped screaming, he never stopped crying her name, begging for them to stop until Anna found herself praying for death for both of them. But it never came, and on through the night, he called for her, and on through the night, Anna became more and more convinced she’d been dragged into Hell.

Chapter 10

Colin and Dylan finished their coffee at the diner they’d stopped at after leaving the church. Dylan had more questions than Colin wanted to answer right now, mostly about what had happened inside the church, especially to him. Although he hadn’t seen The Angel touch him, he’d
felt
something and knew he’d been changed. Colin’s curt response that he’d be faster and stronger now apparently wasn’t satisfying.

Dylan tried to ask him for the third time if it was permanent or temporary, and if that’s
all
she’d changed, and if it meant he had to act all holy now, and Colin was losing his patience. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Dylan, I don’t even know what that means. Like do you have to become a priest?”

Dylan shrugged.

Colin rolled his eyes and for the first time in a long time, allowed himself to mutter aloud in Gaelic.

“What the hell was that? German?” Dylan asked.

Colin narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth but nothing came out except an exasperated breath. He tried again. “I’m
Irish
, Dylan.”

Dylan shook his head. “Yeah, and Irish people speak English.”

Colin sighed. “Are you just messing with me?” It was 2:00 a.m. and the only thing he cared about was finding Anna.

A smile finally cracked the corners of Dylan’s lips then they spread over his narrow white teeth as he started laughing.

“Asshole,” Colin mumbled.

“Seriously, though, I didn’t know anyone actually spoke Gaelic anymore.”

Colin threw a dollar bill on the table for the waitress and stood up. “A few do. Reclaiming our history and all that.”

Dylan followed him out of the diner. “Are you sure we should go out there now?”

The sharp look Colin cast in his direction cut Dylan off. “I didn’t mean it that way, Colin. We’re all tired though. Just seems like a recipe for making mistakes and getting people hurt or killed.”

“
Anna
is in danger of being hurt or killed, if she’s still alive. If you don’t want to come with me, then you can come back. Bring me to the woods though. My car’s still there.”

Dylan unlocked his car doors and grumbled, “Of course I’m going with you, asshole, just reminding you
I
thought we should get some sleep first.”

Colin almost smiled. He tried calling Jeremy again, but he still wasn’t answering his phone. At least Max answered this time. Colin explained they were going back to the woods to look for Anna again, and Max was understandably reluctant. Dylan must have gotten tired of listening to Colin explain, unsuccessfully, why it was so urgent for them to go now. He stuck his hand out and Colin placed his phone in Dylan’s palm.

“Max, just get your old ass out of bed and meet us down there. And go wake up Jeremy. We need everyone except Eddie and Tara. Oh, and probably not Adrián either.”

“Definitely not Adrián,” Colin mumbled.

Max must have been arguing with Dylan, but Dylan apparently got cranky after midnight. “Just go,” he interrupted. “I got hauled off to a Catholic Church tonight and I saw some weird shit, man… No, weirder than what normally happens there. Just trust me, if Colin wants to go tonight, we should go.” Then he hung up on him before Max could argue anymore.

“You think that’s actually going to work?” Colin asked.

Dylan glanced at him then fixed his eyes on the dark highway in front of him. “Max trusts us. He’ll be there.”

As they pulled up behind Colin’s car that was still in the same spot as the previous morning, Max drove in right behind them. Colin could tell he wasn’t in the car alone, but he couldn’t make out who was with him. Dylan finished spraying himself with mosquito repellant then tossed the canister to Colin, who waited impatiently for everyone to hurry the hell up. It was 3:00 a.m. and everyone was exhausted, but no one seemed to understand how little time Anna had. Or maybe they just assumed she was already dead.

Jeremy yawned as he stretched his legs out of the passenger side of Max’s car. Colin resisted the urge to stab him in at least one of those legs. Max reached for the can of mosquito repellant as Colin finished spraying himself.

“So what’s the plan O’Conner?” Jeremy asked, suppressing another yawn.

If Anna was dead, he decided to beat the shit out of Jeremy before killing himself.

“I’m hoping they want me as badly as they wanted her. So I’m here.”

Jeremy stared at him like he must be joking and was still waiting on the punch line. “You’re leading us all into a trap?” he finally asked.

“Hopefully, I’m leading us to Anna.”

Another car pulled in behind Max’s with three more hunters, so there were seven of them here now, including Colin and Dylan. He didn’t think their odds were so bad. But then again, he would have taken on the Devil himself to get Anna back.

“Well, come on, I can practically feel the snakes crawling over my boots and they’re freaking me out,” Dylan claimed, and he started walking into the woods. Colin followed him. Max felt obligated to correct him.

“Snakes don’t crawl, Dylan. They have no legs.”

“Max, I don’t give a crap
how
they move. They scare the hell out of me. I’d take on a demon any day. As long as it didn’t look a snake.” Dylan paused and turned to face Colin. “You’ve never come across one of
those
have you?”

Despite the Hell he was still convinced he was in, Colin smiled. Anna hated snakes, too. “No. Too clichéd perhaps.”

“Anna hates them, too. But I’m sure you already know that.” Dylan had continued walking deeper into the dark woods. They each turned on their flashlights.

“Yes. She always has.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes before Max asked, “How long have you known her?”

Colin tried reaching out again, even though he knew how futile it would be. They seemed completely alone in these woods. But they’d seemed alone the morning before when something had abducted Anna, so maybe they weren’t alone now after all.

“We were sixteen when we met,” Colin said, stepping over a rotted branch hidden among the pine needles on the forest floor.

Jeremy slowed down. “You
know
each other?” He hadn’t been around for Colin’s explanation to Dylan, and Max had apparently figured that much out on his own.

Colin rolled his eyes but kept walking. “Yes, we’ve worked together for years.”

“Why the hell did you pretend to be strangers then?” Jeremy asked, still irritated by this news as if it were somehow more important than Anna’s disappearance.

“Because we were told to. As far as I know, a demon has never gotten away from us, but they found out about us somehow, and they must have been looking for a man and a woman working together.” There was more to it than that, but Colin had no intention of sharing any of his past with Jeremy.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Jeremy mumbled. “You still came
here
together. And who could have warned you these bastards were on to you, anyway?”

Colin flashed the beam of his light around the thick canopy of trees above him. Why did Jeremy have to be so
goddamn annoying
? “The Angel warned me.”

Jeremy snorted but Dylan told him to shut up. He’d seen this angel himself. And she’d done something to him so he could help Colin find Anna. So Jeremy started assaulting Dylan with questions and Colin was relieved he was at least leaving him alone for now.

Dylan replayed the entire encounter from the church and the other hunters listened quietly, nobody interrupting him to ask questions, not even Jeremy. They had known Dylan longer, and they knew Dylan wouldn’t make up something like this. “I don’t know what she did to Colin, but I think she’s given him all sorts of these gifts over the years. And Anna, too. That’s why they’re both so fast and strong and can sense these demons long before we can. He won’t tell me what this new power she just gave him is though.”

“Why not, O’Conner?” Jeremy asked.

Colin aimed the beam of his flashlight along the roots of the trees, up their gray-brown trunks. Nothing that didn’t belong here. Unless you counted seven humans making entirely too much noise in the middle of the night and disturbing every living creature that
did
belong here. “If Anna’s dead, it won’t matter anyway.”

Dylan stopped walking and flashed the beam of his light in Colin’s face. Colin squinted and looked away. “What the hell is
that
supposed to mean?” Dylan demanded.

He didn’t want to argue about damnation or souls or any of what most people believed to be true. Anna didn’t have time for that kind of a discussion. So he did the easiest thing and just lied. “Our gifts work together.”

“Oh.” Dylan started walking again and Colin blinked a few times to try to get the flashing purple lights to disappear from his vision. Bastard really didn’t have to shine the light
right
in his eyes.

“So how many demons do you think you and Anna have killed?” Jeremy asked, swatting at a bug that flew near him.

Colin shrugged, which was a wasted effort considering it was so dark in these woods. “Thousands, I’d guess.”

Several of the hunters muttered variations of holy shits, but for the most part, he was still trying to tune them out and focus on finding any sign that could lead them to Anna. Another hunter, Ben, who was walking toward the back slapped at a bug and asked, “How is that even possible?”

“We travel a lot,” Colin sighed. Why did they have to ask so many questions? “Now, would you all shut up and pay attention to what you’re doing?” 

Colin concentrated on trying to pick up any signal that an immortal, or mostly-immortal-creature-of-Hell, was nearby, but the woods were so damn quiet. Mostly, he just heard the buzzing of insects and the sounds of their footsteps snapping twigs or rustling the leaves and pine needles on the forest floor. He thought about what The Angel had told him, how even she didn’t know how these demons were hiding from them. It was like they’d found some loophole to the rules of this game. Goddamn cheaters.

A huge insect buzzed close to his ear and Colin swatted it away. It stung his hand and he shined his flashlight at his palm, expecting to see some stinger or trail of blood, but there was nothing. His hand looked perfectly normal despite the pain he still felt. He stopped walking and spun around.

“Everybody stop,” he hissed. The column behind him froze. “Something has found us.”