Devil's Thumb

by S. M. Schmitz

  She lifted her head, still adorned with the long flaxen hair she’d always had, then sat in the pew in front of them, twisting her body around to look at Colin and Anna. “You want to know if you’re right about these dreams, and I just don’t know,” she told them.

  They’d suspected that, of course. It seemed like Heaven didn’t know anything about what was going on anymore. “What will happen if they’re successful? What if they separate us?” Anna asked.

  The Angel’s eyes wavered between Colin and Anna as she considered her answer. “I’ll try to restore it. Immediately.”

  “Try?” Colin asked.

  The Angel only shook her head, and Anna noticed her hair stayed neatly in place when she did. Unlike Luca’s angel who apparently preferred a casual, hipster appearance, their Angel always looked just like they would have envisioned an angel – except her choice of clothes over the years had changed. She was wearing a lavender sundress now, beautiful and elegant and even if Anna hadn’t known what she was, she would have thought this was a woman who gave the word “angelic” meaning.

  The Angel finally sighed. “I can’t make you promises anymore. I want to. But everything we’ve ever believed to be true has been challenged lately.”

  Anna suddenly felt defiant, angry, and she wasn’t even sure if it was because of Hell’s cheating and manipulating the rules of their ridiculous game or if she was actually angry at The Angel for something she hadn’t figured out yet, but she was here. She was an easy enough target. “The least you can do then is make regular visits from now on. We could use a little more help here, even if it is just a pep talk from your boss.”

  “Our boss,” she corrected with a small smile, and Colin snickered because it was the first time she’d ever gotten sassy with them. He was surprised to learn angels had a sense of humor.

  And then she looked at him, puzzled, because she knew his thoughts, too. “Of course we do. But every time we meet, it’s hardly an occasion when anyone feels like laughing.”

  The Angel thought about what she’d said for a few seconds then added, “It’s demons who don’t have a sense of humor. They don’t possess a sense of anything that makes life worth living.”

  Anna raised an eyebrow at her because she had never responded to her demand for more frequent appearances, and The Angel reached over to her and tucked a wayward strand of Anna’s dark brown hair back behind her ear. “I will see what I can do, Anna. It isn’t always up to us. It’s dangerous for us here, so our time is often limited on Earth.”

  “We’ll protect you,” Colin said, and he immediately wondered if that had been an utterly ridiculous thing to tell an angel, but both Colin and Anna would have died for her, even if The Angel didn’t want them to.

  But she just smiled at him. “I know you would.”

  “If there’s some loophole Hell is using, then why don’t we have one? Why can’t we figure out some work around and, I don’t know, let angels use their powers to actually fight demons?” Anna asked, and she wondered if that was a ridiculous thing to say, too.

  The Angel tilted her head, thinking. “They must be breaking the rules somehow, but we don’t know how it’s even possible. They are supposed to be automatically summoned back to Hell if they do. Whatever they are doing, they’re circumventing what was agreed upon eons ago, but they hide from us just as they hide from you. We don’t know anything more than you do right now.”

  “Is there a written rule book somewhere you can finally let me study?” Anna mumbled.

  The Angel’s pale gray eyes sparkled. “I wish there were. It would make my job a lot easier, too.”

  “Luca’s angel mentioned a war if this keeps up. What exactly does he mean by war?” Anna asked.

  “A declaration of war against Hell could be catastrophic. All of the rules we’ve abided by for millennia would be wiped out, and they’d do whatever they wanted. But they are already starting to do that, which is why we may not have a choice.”

  “But you’re angels. You can’t fight back. How would a war between Heaven and Hell even work?”

  The Angel made a sound that almost sounded like a weary sigh. “We can’t. We arm every hunter with every gift we can, but ultimately, we can only stand by you.”

  “And what about these dreams? There’s no way you can keep them out of our heads? Stop these dreams from even occurring?” Colin already knew the answer, but he had to hear it from her anyway.

  “No, the best I can do is help pull you from those dreams, but I can only do that through the one of you that hasn’t been lost. I couldn’t find Anna when she was in that camp, just as you couldn’t. With these dreams now, as soon as you slip away and you stop being able to feel each other, I stop being able to sense you as well. I’ve been helping to wake you up but if they were to figure out how to get into both of your minds at the same time …”

  The Angel stopped and watched them with a kind of worry and apprehension Anna and Colin had never seen from her before. “Wait,” Anna whispered, “it’s not just separating our minds then? The other night when I couldn’t wake up Colin … that was real? If they get to us both, you could lose us, and we may never wake up?”

  The Angel took a deep breath, which must have been a habit of humans she’d picked up somewhere because she probably didn’t need to breathe. “I would never stop looking for you,” she promised. But it was all she could promise them. Knowing where their bodies were would be useless; it wasn’t their bodies these demons were fighting now. They had realized how indestructible Colin and Anna were and had found a place they were still vulnerable. They were trying to steal their minds.

  Colin leaned his head forward, studying Anna’s fingers still intertwined with his. “And our bodies won’t die for more than a hundred years. That’s a long time to be stuck in Hell.”

  The Angel nodded in agreement and took one more deep breath before appearing in the pew next to Colin and Anna. They jumped from her sudden presence next to them, but she took their hands, which were still holding onto each other, and looked at them carefully, that love and compassion she’d always had for them so evident in this new fear she had for the O’Conners’ lives.

  “That’s exactly what could happen, Colin. And the thought of it happening to you and Anna would be killing me if I were mortal. So that’s why I came to let you out of your agreement. Your service is over.”

  Chapter 12

  Luca had left that morning to find Andrew in Caracas, so Colin and Anna couldn’t even call him yet. Dylan and Max sat across from them at the Village Inn, picking through their plates of French fries and burgers but after what Colin and Anna had told them, neither of them felt like eating.

  Dylan shook his head and dropped the French fry he was holding back onto his plate. “I don’t get it. You get a once in a lifetime chance to get out of the rest of your servitude, and you turn her down?”

  Colin didn’t share their reservations about eating. He was still starving, despite what had happened at the church. He swallowed the mouthful of burger and just shrugged. “We’re hunters. Besides, we’re counting on us being able to find them before they can trap us in their brain-prison.”

  Max raised an eyebrow at him and snorted. “Brain-prison? Colin, what those demons are trying to do, that’s worse than any kind of prison.”

  Anna had ordered onion rings with her burger and was eyeing Colin’s French fries, debating whether she’d made a mistake or not. Colin warned her not to even try it. She reached across and grabbed one anyway, and he sighed loudly to let her know he didn’t appreciate her food thievery.

  “Have some of my onion rings,” she offered.

  He squinted at her. “If I’d wanted onion rings, I would have ordered them.” But he took some anyway.

  “How can you two just sit there like some creepy-ass archdemons aren’t trying to suck the life out of you through your dreams?” Dylan was exasperated. And Colin wanted more of Anna’s onion rings.

  “Oh, for crying out loud,
switch plates with me,” Anna told him.

  Colin took Anna’s plate and glanced up at Dylan. “Well, technically, I don’t think they’re trying to suck the life out of us through our dreams. Just … kill us without actually killing us.”

  Dylan rolled his eyes and stabbed his French fry with his fork. Colin thought his years of working as a hunter had perhaps influenced him a little too much, because that fry was mutilated now. “That’s basically the same thing, Colin. And maybe if you’d let your angel end this deal of yours, these archdemons would ease up anyway. Wouldn’t you get to go to Heaven or something? Isn’t that what you said? Once your deal’s over, that’s it – you just … die?”

  It was Anna’s turn to shrug. She wasn’t terribly concerned about dying, considering she’d been ready to leave this Earth for a while now, but she was concerned about what these demons were doing to them and she didn’t think they’d just go back to Hell once she and Colin were gone. “If we quit, we’re leaving our friends like Luca with even less help than he has now. And knowing what’s going on with us, the angels aren’t going to be making new agreements with anymore humans until they feel like they can protect them from this. If we can’t be replaced, we aren’t walking away. I think these archdemons are hunting Immortals, and with us gone, they’ll just go after our friends.”

  “Do they know about Luca?” Max asked. Demons weren’t supposed to be able to recognize Immortals, but somehow, they’d learned about Colin and Anna.

  “He hasn’t been having any weird dreams, but we’re all different. If they know about him, they may be trying to figure out the best way to get to him,” Colin answered. He had finished half of the onion rings and was eyeing the French fries again. Anna had enough of her husband’s indecision and got the waitress’s attention to bring him his own damn plate of French fries. “What? I’m hungry. You didn’t let me stop for breakfast this morning.”

  That wasn’t entirely true. They stopped at a Starbucks for coffee, but he hadn’t wanted one of the pastries behind the counter.

  Max absentmindedly dragged his fork through the ketchup on his plate, focused more on what this mission in Devil’s Thumb was turning out to be than the food he thought he had wanted. “I would still do it,” Max finally announced, and even Colin stopped eating to look at him, confused by the lack of context but intrigued by Max’s obvious determination.

  Max set his fork down and his round brown eyes darted between Anna and Colin. “If something does happen to you, I would still do it. I would offer my servitude to your angel in order to help find you and to kill these bastards who are doing this to us.”

  “Oh, Max,” Anna breathed, “you don’t know what you’re offering. You have a wife and kids. You would have to watch them grow old and leave you behind.”

  Max’s eyes told her he’d already thought of the sacrifice he’d be making though.

  “I don’t have a wife or kids,” Dylan interjected. “If they need a replacement, I’d go before you. Your family needs you.”

  Colin watched them, feeling like he should say something to get them to stop arguing about who was going to give up his mortality because neither of them should even be considering it. Humans only thought they wanted to live forever. They had no idea what they were wishing for. But Colin found himself in one of those rare moments where he actually felt speechless.

  It was selfless of them and brave and noble … all of the qualities The Angel admired in Colin and Anna. And listening to them argue about who should give up the freedom to grow old and die a normal death, Colin realized Anna had been right all along. Dylan and Max were the reason they’d been sent to Baton Rouge.

  “And they are another good reason for us not to quit,” Anna added. “We have to protect their lives and their mortality. Because I don’t doubt they are both serious, but we have no right to ask The Angel not to accept any deal they may try to make if something happens to us.”

  The waitress dropped off the extra plate of French fries but Colin hardly paid attention to them now. “They are the only people she’d accept that deal from, too. Because she would know why it was so important to them. God, Anna, like we needed something else to worry about.”

  Max and Dylan grew quiet because they had noticed the O’Conners had stopped talking and eating and suspected they were communicating in that silent way of theirs. “If you’re going to talk about us, at least do it out loud.” Dylan pointed his fork at Colin like it was a challenge. It still had an impaled fry stuck to it.

  “We were just saying that we understand why you’d feel the need to make that kind of sacrifice, but we wouldn’t want you to,” Colin explained. The expression on Dylan’s face warned Colin he was about to argue with him now, and he was right.

  “Hey, it’s my life, and I get to make that decision. You made it … hell, how long ago was that? You made that decision centuries ago to save your wife, and none of us questioned it. We all thought we’d probably do the same thing in your shoes. So you don’t get to tell me now my reason is less valid than yours.”

  Colin shook his head. “I’m not. And I don’t think that’s the case at all. Luca agreed to do this simply because he believed that strongly in ending this battle once and for all. There’s no time limit on his servitude. He can quit whenever he wants, but he won’t until demons are no longer able to walk this Earth.”

  “So why do you want to keep me out of it?” Dylan asked. His dark eyes studied Colin, full of a genuine curiosity and Colin didn’t know how to even begin explaining what living these lifetimes had meant for them; how traveling the world and witnessing the horrors that humans created had been far worse than anything they’d had to face from Hell. Until now.

  Colin sighed and felt Anna’s hand slip into his underneath the table. “What have you always wanted, Dylan? More than anything?”

  Dylan’s eyes never left Colin as he considered his answer. “Honestly? I don’t know. I somehow got through college despite drinking too much, and I went through my anarchy phase where I was convinced my goal in life was to bring down America’s corrupt and racist institutions, then I grew up a little and realized anarchy is for cowards, and one night, I was walking out of a bar in downtown Baton Rouge and saw this weird little red dog and, man, did it stink. Scared the hell out of me, too. It noticed me and took off, but when it looked at me, I just knew something wasn’t right about that dog. I was 23 and a few months later, I found Jeremy and discovered this world I’ve been living in ever since. Becoming a hunter gave me a purpose in life that was a lot more productive than plotting ways to make being black in America less of a crime.”

  Colin smiled. “I’m not so sure you should give up on your goals for racial equality. That may be more important right now than killing demons.”

  Dylan smirked but his eyes were still serious and betrayed his personal anger and frustration. “This is actually an easier job.”

  Colin glanced at Max. “Fine then. If it ever becomes an issue you have to face, let Dylan do it. You go home to your wife and kids.”

  Max crossed his arms and glared back at him. “Hey, it’s not your decision.”

  Anna had heard enough. She let go of Colin’s hand and leaned across the table to get closer to Max. “You have everything Colin and I ever wanted. Don’t throw that away.”

  And nobody would argue with Anna after that. They finished eating and occasionally mentioned getting tickets to an upcoming football game, or making a trip into Denver to catch some bands at Red Rocks. Hunting and mortality and demons were pushed aside and it wasn’t until they had paid their checks and were ready to leave that Dylan even mentioned it again. “All your stories,” he said, “I’ve picked up that you chase after demons by going where there’s lots of suffering. What about here? Were you ever in the south in America before the Civil War?”

  The question surprised Colin because he wasn’t sure if it had any connection to these demons that had followed them to Boulder or if it was a personal interest. “Yeah,�
� Colin finally responded, “quite a few times, actually. Why?”

  Dylan tapped his fingers against his empty water glass and for the first time since he’d known Dylan, he wouldn’t meet his eyes and seemed shy and nervous. “You know they did this project in the 1930s. It was a federal thing, and they went around interviewing former slaves. One of those people interviewed was my great-great-grandmother. She talked about those days being hell, and children being taken away from their parents and sold and people tied to a tree and beaten and people could hear the screaming a mile away.

  She was burned with an iron for something that wasn’t even her fault. Man, reading the rest of it… her beatings, and how no one ever expected anything but that same old Hell in this life and they had nothing but faith. I found out about all that when I was twelve. I just always wondered what it would be like to see what was going on all around you and not care. Why did so many people not do a damn thing about it? And then when I learned about demons and started hunting them, I couldn’t help thinking maybe those people who did that to my great-great-grandmother had sold their souls. Cause I don’t want to believe a normal person could do something like that.”

  Colin knew those scenes too well. And he understood why Dylan wanted to believe that when atrocities happened in this world there was something to blame other than the worst aspects of human nature. But he couldn’t offer Dylan the reassurance he wanted. “We saw some things like that. Helped a few people escape. There weren’t as many demons around as you’d think, though. Not Hell’s demons anyway. Just the ones entirely created by man.”

  Dylan finally lifted his eyes from his empty glass. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  Anna had been recalling memories that she tried to keep buried, painful memories that she carried far too many of, but she had shared Dylan’s reticence about why people were worth risking their lives for in the first place. After everything she and Colin had witnessed, she still struggled to remind herself that there were plenty of souls filled with beauty and compassion among the monsters who walked the Earth.