Devil's Thumb

by S. M. Schmitz

  “We were also in Washington in 1963 and got to be a part of one of the most remarkable moments in our long lives. Don’t forget there is always hope for humanity.”

  “Yeah,” Dylan scoffed, “and that hope was extinguished five years later.”

  Anna tried to think of another example with a better outcome, but even Gandhi had been assassinated. “Ok,” she admitted, “so it’s an uphill battle. But I won’t give up my hope that more people in this world will turn to peace and compassion than violence and hatred.”

  Max rolled his fingers across the table and exhaled a slow, tired breath. “If only they would. Demons would be out of business, and we could all retire.”

  Colin knew Max had just been thinking out loud, commenting on the conversation and hadn’t meant to be taken seriously but the thought erupted in Colin’s mind and he couldn’t let it go. “Holy shit,” he mumbled, “what if that’s the only way to end this battle? What if nothing we ever do makes a damn bit of difference because people keep this whole thing going? And until we either destroy the whole planet or actually change human nature, this war will never end?”

  Dylan and Max stared back at Colin, wide eyed and shaken, and Dylan finally closed his eyes and sank back into the booth at the busy, crowded diner in Boulder, Colorado. “If that’s true,” Dylan murmured, “we’re all completely screwed.”

  Chapter 13

  Anna knew the constant tapping at her new apartment door was Luca’s. She had heard it often enough and, besides, he was the only man she knew who was too impatient to only knock once. She peeked through the peephole anyway to confirm she was right then opened the door and his aggravated scowl immediately turned into a playful grin. “My sweet Anna, what took you so long?”

  He wrapped her in a quick embrace and kissed her cheek and walked into her apartment and Colin just rolled his eyes and told him he was far too annoying to be a servant of Heaven. A young man with ash blonde hair and blue-gray eyes followed Luca inside, although he looked sheepish about entering without an invitation. Now that he was here, Anna could remember meeting Andrew before though, and she held out her hand to welcome him and asked him if he remembered meeting Colin and her in Barcelona. Andrew smiled at her and nodded.

  “Of course, I don’t think anyone ever forgets meeting the O’Conners,” he told her, his thick Polish accent reminding Anna his name wasn’t really Andrew and she felt embarrassed for having just called him that but he didn’t seem to mind. Anna and Colin were known at least through reputation by all of the Immortals, though, because they were the only married couple – the only couple – among them. Meeting them always provoked the same series of questions and exclamations of fascination with their story, mixed perhaps, with a little envy.

  Now that Anna remembered Andrew, she knew he’d been an Immortal almost as long as Colin and her, but she didn’t know anything about his gifts, especially the one that had brought him to Boulder.

  “Ah,” Andrew told her, “I got that one about eighty years ago. I was in Warsaw and when they liquidated the ghetto, we were overrun with demons. I couldn’t get out. I was given this gift but didn’t know how to use it yet, but no one noticed the destruction I caused with all the destruction in the city already.”

  “We got trapped in Srebrenica like that, but our angel helped us escape by shielding us. Why give you this power instead of just protecting you?” Anna asked.

  “Because of what was in Warsaw. I’ve never seen anything like it. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear the Devil itself had come to that city.”

  Anna felt Colin’s astonishment just as she felt her own. A horde of greater demons had shown up in Warsaw, which is why Andrew had to be given this gift to survive. They had never heard of greater demons amassing like that before. Colin forced his eyes away from Andrew to study his oldest friend. “Weren’t you in Poland for a while then?”

  Luca nodded. “The country was packed with demons of all sorts. Never seen anything like it either. As far as I know, no hunters, no Immortals for sure, ever got near the camps so I don’t know what it was like there, but the rest of the country was so full of demons, it was like Hell had materialized on Earth.”

  “Did you leave Poland after Warsaw?” Anna asked Andrew.

  Andrew’s pale blue-gray eyes filled with a sadness Anna recognized. “Yeah, I had to. I got badly hurt trying to escape the city, and it wasn’t an injury I could recover from quickly like normal. I went to Switzerland for several weeks, and by the time I was better, my angel didn’t want me returning to Poland. He told me there were some causes so hopeless, we couldn’t possibly even make a difference. He was referring to the demons there, of course, not what we could have done as people. But there were too many powerful demons in Poland and not enough Immortals to hunt them, so we had to abandon the country.”

  “Holy shit,” Colin mumbled. They’d never known of a place being abandoned before, of angels giving up hope.

  “We were in Berlin through most of the war. Where’d you go after Switzerland?” Anna asked.

  “The Philippines for a while. Those of us from Europe tend to stick to the west because we can blend in, but with the war there, too, it was easy enough to pretend I was an American soldier hiding out with some of the others who had managed to escape in Bataan.”

  Luca had started tapping his water glass impatiently. He hadn’t just flown all the way from South America to listen to their personal hunting histories. He was anxious to see how Andrew controlled his energy gift and how he was going to teach Colin and Anna to do the same. “Is Lacey up and about yet?” Luca asked.

  Colin narrowed his eyes at him. “Depends on why you’re asking.”

  Luca grinned devilishly at him. “First, I’m concerned about her well being. Secondly, we need her help to find secluded places to practice. And third …”

  “There’s no third,” Colin interrupted.

  Luca waved him off. “That’s the most important reason.”

  “Luca,” Anna chastised, “she just got out of the hospital four days ago. You had better be joking.”

  The corners of Luca’s eyes wrinkled as he continued to grin at his old friends, but he didn’t answer her. Colin muttered something that wasn’t very polite in Gaelic and Anna only knew what he told Luca because she knew what he was thinking. She snickered and turned her attention back to Andrew.

  “Well, our horny old friend does have at least one good point. Lacey is from Boulder and knows all of the most secluded areas for us to practice in. If she’s feeling up to it, and as soon as you’re feeling up to it, we’re ready to start working.”

  Andrew shrugged. “I’m fine. Jet lag doesn’t bother me as much as it used to. Guess we really can get used to anything.”

  Luca had already pulled his phone out of his pocket to call Lacey before anyone else could, and that led to Colin cursing at him again in Gaelic. Andrew offered his own opinion in Polish, but Anna couldn’t speak Polish and wasn’t privy to his thoughts. Luca just kept smiling at them.

  They listened as Lacey apparently offered to lead them somewhere else to practice that afternoon, then Luca told her he wanted to tell her how much he’d missed her, but he was sitting in a room with a bunch of jerks and they were mocking him for being lonesome. All three of the hunters flipped him off.

  It was Colin’s idea to go by Dylan and Max’s apartment to see if they wanted to come along. They had both been hurt by this energy gift before, so Anna was surprised when both of them said yes. She looked both of her fellow, mortal hunters over and reminded them, “You know this can end badly, right?”

  Dylan brushed her off. “Nah, Andrew will get you two in shape and you’ll both stop trying to kill me.”

  “To be fair,” Colin countered, “I didn’t even know what was going to happen the first time I used it in the camp, and I was being strangled by an archdemon at the time.”

  “Yeah, I only got a little glass in the arm that time. Don’t throw me in a ditch again though.
Damn, that hurt.”

  Max nodded in agreement. “It wasn’t so much the ditch but the distance. If you’re going to throw us across a field again, just make it a shorter distance.”

  “Noted.” Colin opened the car door on their new white Toyota Camry to let Anna slide into the passenger seat. They followed Luca to Lacey’s apartment then she led them out to another open area away from major highways. This one wasn’t quite as sparse and had smatterings of brown-green bunches of grass and underbrush. Just like last time, Luca and Dylan set out plastic buckets for target practice. Colin glanced at Andrew and asked him, “Did you really learn how to use this gift with plastic buckets?”

  Andrew snorted and shook his head. “Empty bottles. But close enough.”

  Anna folded her arms across her chest. “One of Heaven’s greatest powers and we’re like a couple of kids learning how to shoot a BB gun.”

  Andrew just smiled. “Same principle. And it works.”

  Anna glared at him and kept her arms folded. “BB guns won’t kill anyone.”

  “Well, that’s why we’re out in the middle of nowhere. And we won’t kill Luca. The others should probably stay back though.”

  Colin stopped Anna before she could make any more smartass comments about how unsafe this whole expedition was most likely going to be. “Show us how you channel it then.”

  Andrew glanced at one of the yellow buckets Luca had just placed on the ground one hundred feet in front of them and blew it over. Luca flipped him off and yelled something at him in his old Italian. “Whoa,” Anna breathed, “you can not only direct it, you can rein it in. Choose how much force to use.”

  Andrew nodded. “You will be able to as well. It just takes practice.”

  “But how? We’ve tried concentrating, we’ve tried not concentrating, we’ve tried waiting and not waiting. It’s always the same result.”

  Colin corrected her and reminded her about the parking lot outside of the restaurant. “Not always. Apparently, when you’re pissed off and worried, it’s a hell of a lot stronger.”

  “Emotions can make it more difficult to control. Just like a person’s temper. But you’ve been going about it the same way I did at first, treating it like it is an emotion. It’s more like having a natural affinity for something, say musical instruments, and you can pick up any instrument and teach yourself to make music on it but not good enough to get hired by the New York Philharmonic. You have to pick one and practice.”

  Anna and Colin both eyed Andrew with the same confusion. Luca had jogged over to them and even he was looking at him with the same puzzled expression. “I flew all the way to Venezuela for this?”

  Andrew rolled his eyes at him. “It was just an analogy, Luca. They’re getting discouraged because it’s not coming easily for them like the other gifts, and I’m just saying this one doesn’t come easy. There are no shortcuts. You use it and use it and tweak what’s not working and repeat what does.”

  Anna sighed and finally let her arms fall by her sides. “This sounds time consuming. You’re going to tell us this took you years to learn, aren’t you?”

  Andrew chewed on his lip and looked between the O’Conners and nodded. “Yeah, but I didn’t have help. You do.”

  Luca snickered. “Some help. So far, all you’ve done is knock over a bucket and tell them they aren’t good enough to join the New York Philharmonic.”

  “Luca,” Colin warned, “no one is going to help you when Andrew starts kicking your ass. You brought it on yourself.”

  Luca’s eyes were laughing though. “No cheating with your energy blasting thing.”

  Andrew shook his head at him. “Then it’s not a fair fight. You’ve taught every Immortal in the world how to fight demons. Who stands a chance going toe to toe with you?”

  Anna exhaled impatiently. “Can you teach us how to use this energy blasting thing? Luca, go away. You’re distracting him.”

  “No way. Next time my angel shows up, I’m getting in on this. After the whole dream thing with you two, he’d better arm me with everything he’s got.”

  “Something tells me Luca gets his way with his angel as often as he does with humans. Another wager. To get out of going to Dublin,” Colin proposed.

  “Nope. We’re going to Ireland. But I’ll make a different wager. I say he gets it next time his angel shows up. And winner gets to pick out our next car.”

  Colin liked this deal. And he really didn’t want to lose this one. “Fine, second visit. And if I’m right, we’re selling the Camry and getting the 911.”

  Anna resisted the urge to sigh and roll her eyes at the same time. “If you insist on another Porsche, have you seen the Cayman?”

  Colin’s emerald eyes sparkled as he smiled at his wife because she was only humoring him. She couldn’t care less about cars, but she had looked it up just for him because she knew he loved them. But Luca and Andrew were waiting impatiently for the O’Conners to finish their private conversation, which wasn’t nearly as interesting as they probably thought it was. By current standards, Anna often felt like she and Colin must be a pretty boring couple.

  “Sorry,” Anna mumbled and turned to face the plastic buckets. Colin’s mind was still focused on the sport’s car his wife had just told him they might be able to get. He didn’t want to knock down plastic buckets anymore. And he had read all about the Porsche Cayman and even knew what color he’d choose.

  “Alright,” Andrew started, “you share all of your gifts, so perhaps you should try learning this one at a time. Don’t do it together. It may make it stronger and more difficult to control. Once you’ve mastered it solo, you can work on using it as a couple.”

  Anna nodded and offered to go first, knowing Colin’s mind was racing down the Autobahn in his new GT Silver Metallic Porsche Cayman. “With a garnet red interior,” he quickly added.

  This time, Anna did sigh and roll her eyes. “You’re throwing me off. I’m trying to fine tune my instrument here.”

  Colin choked on the laugh he’d tried to hold back because he’d thought of at least half a dozen sexual innuendos to that. From the far distance where the mortals were watching, she heard Dylan yell, “Are y’all going to do anything or what? We’re getting bored back here!”

  “Ok,” she muttered. But truthfully, she was nervous, because she wasn’t used to failing and every time she used this gift, she failed miserably. She felt the tingling energy as it coursed through her fingers and that warmth spread through her body, and she tried not to overthink its release this time but focused just on knocking over the same bucket Andrew had tossed so easily across the empty field. She felt the power burst forward and the yellow bucket splintered into tiny fragments of plastic debris.

  “Damn it,” she grumbled. She even stamped her foot, and Colin tried to make her feel better by assuring her she was absolutely breathtaking when she got all mad like that, but Anna wasn’t appeased. Andrew touched her arm gently and promised her it was going to take time; getting frustrated and angry would only make it more difficult.

  Colin’s attempt ended almost exactly like Anna’s, only he didn’t stamp his foot when his bucket exploded. Luca grabbed a couple more plastic buckets from the pile they’d brought with them and replaced the now shattered targets. In the distance, Anna heard Dylan yelling again. “At least you’re giving us something to watch now!”

  “You should buy him more of that Mephistopheles’ beer,” Anna grumbled.

  Andrew reminded her she couldn’t master the violin in a day, and Anna thought about flipping him off. He tried coaching them with each effort to channel this energy into a single burst, a controlled weapon, but after an hour, Anna was frustrated and sat on the ground in petulant defiance.

  Colin grinned sheepishly at Andrew and Luca and shrugged. Behind him, he could hear footsteps as one of the other hunters ran toward them. He turned to see Dylan sprinting in their direction. When he reached them, he panted, “Dude, why are y’all doing this separately? Every other thing you
do is together. Maybe that’s why it’s not working.”

  Andrew protested that his power worked just fine without a teammate and Dylan argued with him about the unique nature of the O’Conners, but Colin tuned them out. He was focusing on Anna. Because even though she was sitting right in front of him, he could no longer feel her, and as she stared wide-eyed and frightened at him, he knew she had lost him as well.

  Chapter 14

  “It’s here,” Anna breathed. “It followed us or found us, I don’t know but it’s here.” The panic in her voice made Colin’s stomach turn. He reached down and grabbed her wrist, holding onto her, because this son of a bitch wasn’t taking her again. Luca and Andrew drew closer to them and scanned the empty field.

  “I don’t sense anything,” Andrew protested.

  But Luca had instinctively stepped even closer to Anna and cast only the briefest glance in Andrew’s direction. “You can’t feel these archdemons. They interfere with everything, our senses, our gifts. It cut off Anna and Colin right before it abducted her.”

  Dylan had already run back to the mortal hunters to warn them, and they were all racing to the small circle of Immortals waiting to see what this invisible archdemon would do. Colin was still holding onto Anna’s wrist but he couldn’t hear her or feel her, and she finally had to tell him to loosen his grip. He looked down at his hand and realized he had been holding onto her like a vise. He was absolutely terrified of losing her again.

  Anna knew her dagger and knife would be useless now so she used her other hand to grab a fistful of Colin’s shirt and pressed herself closer to his body. She was just as terrified of being lost.

  Dylan, Max and Lacey reached the Immortals and scanned the wilderness around them, feeling just as helpless and useless because nothing seemed out of place here. Everything around them belonged in this space: the orange rocks and dirt, the tufts of dry yellow-green grass, even the remnants of plastic buckets that had been shattered by Anna and Colin had a purpose here and belonged in this world. Anna leaned her forehead against Colin’s shoulder and he wrapped his arms around his wife. He wanted to leave. He wanted these hunters to escort them back to their car so they could get the hell out of here and away from this emptiness in their heads. It was so silent it was making him dizzy.