Devil's Thumb

by S. M. Schmitz

  Dylan kept walking in slow circles around the group, his dark eyes penetrating the horizon, looking for any hint of something not belonging. He was on his third trip around them when he stopped suddenly, kicking reddish brown dust into the air. Colin’s grip around Anna tightened. “He’s here,” Dylan sighed.

  At first, Colin didn’t understand. What he would be showing up unexpectedly in the middle of nowhere between Boulder and Denver to join a bunch of hunters practicing a gift they couldn’t figure out how to control? He followed Dylan’s hard gaze, half-expecting to see Luca’s angel again, but instead, saw the hulking gray form lumbering in the distance, the setting Colorado sun casting shimmering waves of amber around the beast. If it were closer, Colin would be able to see the bony nodules around its face and the goldenrod eyes that still reminded the hunters this demon used to be human. That it used to be their friend.

  Colin felt Anna’s fingers dig into his back when she recognized what Dylan was staring at, what this group of hunters would be confronted with again. Even though they’d agreed to give it two months to try to turn up something on how they might be able to undo Jeremy’s transformation, that promise had been contingent on this demon not attacking any of the hunters or putting anyone at risk. And now it was here. Colin and Anna also knew this particular demon never traveled alone; it possessed far too much knowledge and was far too useful to the archdemon it now worked for, and as the gray monster took its time sauntering toward the group of hunters, they all seemed to understand why. It was being protected by the same archdemon that had cut off Colin and Anna.

  Andrew took a few small steps back until his fingers brushed against Anna’s arm. “It won’t take you again, Anna. Colin, if you need to, use your power anyway. Those of you who are mortal, drop as low to the ground as possible. When you get thrown, it won’t throw you as far. Simple physics.”

  Anna would have protested about Andrew’s advice seeming a bit chauvinistic, considering she had the same power and was a badass hunter herself, but she was too scared. She couldn’t get the nightmares from the camp out of her mind, the sounds of Colin’s tortured screams that filled the room for what she had been so sure were days. She would endure anything except having to listen to her husband suffer like that again, even if it hadn’t been real. So she remained quiet, and held onto Colin like a life preserver as Jeremy crept closer to them, in no hurry to announce the arrival of his far more powerful boss.

  “I should have killed him,” Colin exhaled, and the iciness in his voice made Anna clutch him even closer. He couldn’t survive losing her again.

  Dylan looked away from the demon’s deliberate approach just long enough to offer Colin a sympathetic glance. He had obviously chosen to forgive the O’Conners. “Yeah, but how could you have known? Anna’s always trying to save everyone. That’s why we all liked her so much.”

  Anna sobbed out a sardonic laugh. “Jeremy liked me because he wanted to sleep with me.”

  Dylan snickered. “Well, yeah, but he genuinely liked you, too. Now Adriàn’s a different story. That guy’s just an asshole.”

  Colin cursed Adriàn in Gaelic, but without their telepathy, Anna didn’t know what he was saying anymore. It would seem that after almost four centuries together, she would have learned more of his second language, but he’d never spoken Gaelic in London, and once The Angel had gifted them their connection, she’d never had any reason to learn it. She had heard those particular words often enough though that she knew whatever he’d just said wasn’t something he’d repeat in front of children.

  Luca was getting impatient. “Why is it taking so long?” His fingers tapped against his leg as he tried to beat out some of his nervous energy.

  Anna looked up from the turquoise blue of Colin’s t-shirt. “It’s hoping to separate us. If it takes too long, we might get impatient or distracted. It doesn’t want us all bunched up like this.”

  Luca’s laugh was low and guttural, a laugh of disgust at the demons he’d spent more time fighting and killing than any other human on Earth. “I’d be scared if I were them, too.”

  “It can’t know Andrew’s an Immortal, but the archdemon and Jeremy might have figured you out from the parking lot,” Colin told Luca. “So they know there’s at least three of us here, plus four other hunters. They’ll try to eliminate whomever they think is weakest first.”

  “So us,” Lacey finished for him.

  “You and Max, yes. Jeremy knew Dylan had been blessed so he may be mortal, but he’s faster and stronger than regular hunters.”

  Dylan looked away from Jeremy’s hulking gray form, which seemed to be moving even slower now, for the second time to glance at Lacey. “Don’t worry. We won’t let it get to you.”

  Lacey sighed and shook her head. “There’s an awful lot of chivalry going around,” she muttered.

  Anna noticed Dylan’s expression changing just slightly, the way he tried to hide his embarrassment as he kept his focus on the virtually immobile beast still on the horizon. Max must have noticed as well because he broke the ensuing silence by adding, “Well, thanks, actually, I’d appreciate it if y’all make sure these demons don’t kill me.”

  Dylan tried to offer a smirk, but the damage had already been done. Lacey kept scowling at the demon, completely unaware of the effect she’d had on Dylan. And Colin was far too distracted by the fact that the demon had apparently stopped moving.

  “How far out does your energy reach?” Colin asked Andrew.

  Andrew gauged the distance to the gray beast lurking on the horizon and shook his head. “Don’t think it would kill it from here.”

  “What if we just all move together?” Lacey suggested.

  Anna felt powerless and ineffectual, clinging to Colin and cowering like this, but the sounds of his tortured screams had filled her head again, and this time, she was sure it wasn’t a memory. The demon was messing with her mind again, had wormed its way inside her head somehow and was replaying those haunting sounds, forcing them into the forefront of her existence so that all around her was the screaming, the pleading, his begging for mercy and calling her name. She dug her fingers into his back and she must have been crying; she could faintly hear Colin speaking her name and trying to get her attention, but her worlds had collided. Whether she was there in that cold, steel gray room or here in the warm early autumn Colorado field, she didn’t even know anymore.

  Colin could tell something had happened to his wife, and he looked desperately at Luca, begging him to do something but Luca stared helplessly at Anna. His anger had nowhere to manifest. He turned on Andrew. “Goddamn it, do something!” he yelled.

  Anna’s legs collapsed beneath her and only Colin’s arms kept her from falling to the hard caked ground. She let go of Colin’s shirt to press her hands to her ears as she began to scream, unable to listen to Colin being brutally tortured again. Images began filtering through her brain to accompany the sounds she heard and she screamed even louder. Luca closed the space between him and Andrew and grabbed the young man’s shirt and pulled him closer to his face. “Why the hell are you just standing there?” he yelled again.

  Colin had kneeled on the ground with Anna and he glared up at Andrew and warned him, “Get rid of this thing or I swear to God, I will kill everyone out here to protect her.”

  Andrew grimaced and looked around feebly. Whatever enemy he was supposed to be fighting remained hidden to him, but he must have recognized Colin’s desperation because he targeted the gray beast on the horizon first to see if it would at least distract the more powerful archdemon from tormenting Anna. Jeremy floundered on his feet and stumbled but he’d been too far away for Andrew to hurt it. And Anna was still screaming.

  Andrew had enough time to glance back at Colin to know what he was going to do. “Get down!” he called to the other hunters, and they dropped just as Colin released a massive burst of energy that shook the ground; pebbles rattled around his boots and orange dust clouds filled the air. He had no idea where any of
his fellow hunters were, but his mind was only on one person anyway, and she had stopped screaming.

  As the dirt settled slowly back to the ground, Anna lowered her hands from her ears and collapsed onto Colin’s chest again. His tormented cries were gone. There was nothing around her but the gentle ticking of dirt and debris falling back to the Earth. She wept until his shirt was soaked with her tears, and he repeated her name aloud over and over until, like a trickling of raindrops down a window, her thoughts began to swirl around in his mind again. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply and called out to her, “Anna, my love, it’s gone now.”

  She shook her head and her fears and panic and pain tumbled through his mind, too. “They’re all gone, Colin. They’re all gone now.”

  Chapter 15

  It took them over an hour to find Lacey’s body. It had been thrown almost two miles and was lying broken at the base of a tall rock. Anna closed her eyes, both overwhelmed by the grief that they had caused this death and because of the eerie similarity to Jas’s death that had started this war with these archdemons. Or at least they had thought that’s what started it, but if they’d been followed to Baton Rouge in the first place, then Jas’s murder was their fault, too.

  Colin squeezed her hand and told her she had to stop thinking that way. But he was trying to assure himself of the same thing as well. Luca was still limping and took a while to catch up to them. He stared down at Lacey’s body and sighed. “They knew it was dangerous to come out here, Colin. Not just because of what you and Andrew are practicing, but with everything that’s going on, they knew if they continued to help us, it could be …”

  Colin interrupted him. “I know you’re trying to help, Luca, but please just shut up.”

  Luca nodded and took off the backpack he was carrying to remove the tarp. They covered her body and as Anna gently rolled the corners underneath the dead woman’s shoes to keep it from blowing away as the evening breeze picked up, she looked at her companions and asked them, “Pray with me?”

  Luca and Colin each took one of the hands Anna had extended and prayed with her. Luca took a ragged breath and offered another prayer in Latin that Anna didn’t recognize, but she kept her eyes closed and listened through Colin, who knew Latin, too. It wasn’t a prayer but Luca was reciting the 23rd Psalm. Anna was crying again, but Colin didn’t try to get her to stop this time.

  Luca had almost reached the end of the Psalm when his phone rang. He let go of Anna’s hand to answer it. “Oh my God,” he mumbled. “We’re on our way.”

  Luca put his phone back in his pocket and grabbed his backpack. “That was Andrew. He found Max’s body. He’s about a mile west of here.”

  Anna fell back on her heels and sobbed louder. Colin still couldn’t try to comfort his wife, because he was crying now, too. Max had not only been one of the kindest souls they’d met in many years, but he had three kids at home. And Colin had killed him.

  Colin helped Anna stand and they walked mostly in silence, but occasionally, Anna’s cries would break through the rapidly darkening night. Luca flicked on his flashlight. A coyote howled somewhere far away.

  Finally, Andrew’s figure lit up in the beam of Luca’s flashlight. He looked just as tired and emotionally exhausted as Luca and still had the slightest limp from his own quickly healing injuries. Andrew reached out toward Anna and she creased her forehead at him in confusion, wondering if there was something even more horrific he could possibly want to forewarn her about. But she extended her hand anyway. Andrew gently turned it over and placed a small silver medallion in it then motioned to Luca, “This way.”

  Colin turned on his flashlight to shine the beam on the medallion Andrew had just given her. “What is it?” she asked him.

  “St. Casimir. He’s the patron saint of Poland. I’m guessing Andrew’s carried that medallion since his days as a mortal.”

  Anna closed her fingers around the small metal circle in her hand and brought it to her lips. “Pray for us,” she whispered.

  “He is.”

  Colin and Anna jumped at the sound of her voice and spun around to see The Angel standing behind them. She was wearing the same lavender dress from the church but had covered her bare arms with an ivory sweater. The air had gotten chilly but neither Anna nor Colin thought it bothered her. And they must have been right, because she unbuttoned it and took it off, draping it over Anna’s shoulders.

  “We didn’t feel you,” Anna stammered. She’d never snuck up on them before. After the day they’d endured, it was one more unusual supernatural aspect that just unnerved them both.

  The Angel lifted Anna’s hand with the medallion of St. Casimir in it and looked down on it. “I came very quickly. You didn’t have a chance to sense me this time. You should wear this.”

  The Angel unfastened a thin chain necklace from around her own neck and put it in Anna’s hand with the medallion; Anna was certain she hadn’t been wearing a necklace before.

  Colin looked behind him where Luca and Andrew had descended a shallow embankment to retrieve Max’s body. “Why are you here?” he breathed wearily. The heartache in his voice made Anna’s hands tremble as she tried to slide the medallion onto the necklace.

  “To help you,” The Angel answered. Anna wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or cry.

  “Help us? Where were you an hour ago then? Before that demon invaded my head and we killed our friends?”

  “I was praying for you.”

  This time, Anna did laugh. And cry. At the same time. “A lot of good that did.”

  “Come on. We don’t have a lot of time.” The Angel started walking toward Luca and Andrew, and Colin and Anna stared at her back, at the long flaxen hair that stayed smooth and neat even in the breeze of the encroaching night.

  Colin took the necklace from Anna and fastened it around her neck. “I guess we should follow her.”

  “Unless she has some kind of Lazarus magic up her angel sleeves, I don’t know why.”

  “She’s not wearing any sleeves.”

  Anna sighed aloud. “It was a metaphor, smartass.”

  Colin almost smiled. Anna grabbed his hand again and they followed The Angel, who had stopped to wait for them before descending the slope. She smiled at Colin when they reached her. “I can’t bring people back from the dead. I told you that the night we met, but if you’d like me to wear some sleeves, I can change.”

  Colin raised an eyebrow at her and pointed to the motionless body of their friend as Luca and Andrew struggled against the wind with the tarp. “If it won’t make any difference, then why bother?”

  The Angel began making her way toward the other Immortals who looked up at her in surprise. “I’m not here for him. I can’t help him, as much as I wish I could. But you have one more friend you haven’t found.”

  Anna had been watching her feet so that she wouldn’t slip down the embankment but she stopped and looked up at The Angel, gasping, “Dylan’s still alive?”

  The Angel turned her soft gray eyes toward her and encouraged her to keep walking. “Barely,” she answered.

  Luca and Andrew dropped the tarp and Andrew muttered something that sounded like an apology. They were trying to keep the animals from preying on their friends’ bodies before they could either bury them or get them out of this wasteland. But Luca and Andrew had heard The Angel, too.

  “Where is he?” Luca asked eagerly. His limp was almost gone now.

  “About a quarter of a mile from us. Near the bank of the lake.”

  The hunters ran. Colin and Anna had no idea if The Angel was running with them or if she’d done some sort of angel trick and disappeared, but they could feel her still. They knew she hadn’t abandoned them yet. In the bobbing beams of their flashlights, they saw the lip of the lake ahead of them and started scanning the ground for a body. As they slowed down near the lake, The Angel appeared beside them again. “Over there,” she pointed, and they directed the beams of their lights where she’d indicated. There, on the ground
, the motionless body of their last friend lay, still and silent and inert.

  Anna dropped the flashlight she’d been carrying and ran the last few hundred feet to his side, dropping onto the sandy bank beside him. She didn’t know if she should touch him or move him, but perhaps it didn’t matter. He wasn’t breathing. Maybe The Angel had been wrong or they had been too late.

  She knelt beside Anna and placed one of her thin, delicate porcelain hands on Dylan’s neck. Anna choked out a sobbing laugh again. She was sitting in sandy mud next to an angel who was feeling a body for a pulse. The absurdity of the situation was the perfect exclamation mark for a perfectly absurd day. But The Angel didn’t even look over at Anna. “Don’t worry, Anna. We’re not too late. But you must make a decision for him.”

  And she knew what The Angel was going to ask her. “No. No, no I can’t do that, I can’t make that kind of choice.”

  “Somebody made it for you,” The Angel reminded her.

  Anna shook her head and dark ringlets of her hair fell around her alabaster face. “That’s different. He’s my husband. My death was killing him. I can’t decide Dylan’s fate!”

  “Neither can I,” The Angel told her.

  Colin sat on the muddy ground by his wife and Dylan’s immobile body and he rested his head in his hands. Anna knew what choice he would make. But The Angel wasn’t asking him.

  Andrew lowered himself next to Anna so she could see his face, and he looked at her seriously, thoughtfully. “A stranger had to make this decision for me, Anna. Another Immortal who’s no longer around. I had just met this hunter and didn’t know anything about Immortals, but offered to help him hunt down a couple of demons who were terrorizing a village not far from where I grew up. And one of them almost killed me. Five hundred years, just like you. And I’ve never regretted what he did.”