For my mother, whose faith in me has never wavered.
Published by S. M. Schmitz
Copyright © 2015, by S. M. Schmitz. All Rights Reserved.
This e-book is licensed for your enjoyment only. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Chapter 1
Black heat flew past Anna’s head, and she jerked away from it before it could touch her. She turned to watch it; the black mist had dispersed but it was regrouping, pulling itself together, tumbling in on itself and she knew it wouldn’t be long before it was ready to come for her again. She swallowed the bile that had risen in her throat and tried to search for him. He was nearby. What was taking him so long? The black mass suddenly shot forward, moving so quickly most people wouldn’t have been able to see it. It didn’t matter how many times she found herself in a situation like this: demons scared the hell out of her.
Anna felt him getting closer and as the black light neared her, so close she could feel the heat from its body again, Colin stepped into its path, his dagger drawn, and sliced through the black, pulsing form. It let out a wailing, screeching scream, the kind of noise that always made the hair on Anna’s arms stand up. But she scrambled across the forest floor to find the dagger it had knocked out of her hand. It was hurt, but demons were too stubborn to die easily, and they always had to be such a pain in the ass about it. Like they all couldn’t just die the same way, which meant people like Anna and Colin had to carry all sorts of weapons around with them. Hell probably thought it was funny.
Anna found her dagger by the roots of a tree and hurried back to Colin. The demon had retreated a safe distance, licking its wounds – it may have literally tried if it’d had a tongue. “Where are the others?” Anna asked Colin.
“Coming. Don’t move yet. It’ll try to run,” he answered.
Except anyone around them wouldn’t have heard anything. Anna and Colin could talk to each other telepathically just as they could feel each other’s presence wherever they were. Anna didn’t want to let this demon go though. It had come so close to hurting her earlier – it had made her drop her weapon. She wasn’t letting this one get away. “It’s hurt. If it runs, we’ll chase it down. You don’t know how close it got to me.”
Colin was quiet for a few seconds. “Then I guess it needs to die.”
Anna and Colin knew what the other would do and they each took off, trying to flank the pulsing black beast back toward the group of other hunters. But Anna was able to reach it and thrust her dagger forward with as much strength as she could. It may not look like it was particularly solid, but she knew better. Some of these bastards were like trying to spear a tortoise. The edge of her dagger found a weak spot and it made that same grating, squealing howling sound.
Colin’s dagger pushed into its other side and the hot black haze settled lower to the ground, hissing, snake-like, writhing in its death throes. Anna and Colin stabbed at it again and again. It was on the ground now, but demons really don’t like to die. Anna could feel the heat evaporating off of its body though – it wouldn’t be long. “One more,” she told Colin. He gripped his dagger and plunged it into the motionless mass.
Anna sat back from it, panting, resting her head between her knees. She’d been chasing after this demon for over an hour and she was sore and exhausted and really needed a drink. They could hear the others now, trying to walk as noiselessly through the dense forest as possible. They weren’t far. Colin and Anna started speaking out loud. “You alright?” he asked her, just the faintest hint of an Irish accent still lingering in his speech, no matter how hard he tried to get rid of it altogether. Anna actually missed the way he used to speak.
She nodded but kept her head down. He knew she was ok. Talking aloud was just out of habit or because they were around others. A faint rustling in the dead leaves on the ground snapped Anna’s head up. It was human: she knew that because she could feel that too, but after today, her nerves were shot. One of their fellow hunters stepped out from the shadows.
“Holy crap, what the hell happened here?” Jeremy asked. Colin shot him a why-do-people-always-ask-such-stupid-questions glare. Anna thought Jeremy looked a bit like a young Bradley Cooper with auburn hair and a persistent five o’clock shadow that she suspected he actually kept carefully groomed. She also suspected he was one of those guys who used a lot of gel and styling products in his hair and bought special body wash whose ads promised him he’d smell more appealing to women. He probably even had a loofah in his shower.
She glanced over at Colin who was still scowling at Jeremy. Even now, tired and angry and still unable to get over that lingering fear that this thing had come so close to her, Anna thought he was beautiful. His light brown hair bore the signs of having chased a sort-of immortal creature through an overgrown forest, with pieces of leaves still sticking stubbornly to those soft, silky strands. His emerald green eyes – those eyes that had once captivated her when she was a girl, so impossibly green and luminescent – were unlike anything she had ever seen. His long body was folded much like hers in that breathless, exhausted kind of way. And he knew she was watching him now.
Anna looked away and finally answered Jeremy. “This beast just came out of nowhere. We were at the rear with the rest of the group going after that smaller demon when it separated us from the rest of you. What the hell happened with the other one?”
Jeremy knelt down and examined what was left of the throbbing black blob that was so terrifyingly fast and hot, menacing and – well, evil – only moments ago. “We got the other one, but this … I’ve never seen anything like this. What is it?”
Colin exhaled and Anna couldn’t help herself. She examined his soft pink lips against his smooth, pale, Irish complexion. Why did he have to be so beautiful? “They manifest in all sorts of ways, Jeremy, this one’s just harder to kill. Less tangible,” he said. He was tired and his head was starting to hurt. The accent he hated so much was always harder to hide then. But everyone knew better than to mention it.
Jeremy found a stick lying nearby and poked it. Anna flinched, half expecting it to come back to life, to swarm around her head again, to feel that sickening suffocating heat and stench of decay and death. Colin stood up. “Come on, Anna, you need some rest.”
“Hey, wait a minute, what am I supposed to do with this thing?” Jeremy protested.
Colin stepped over it and helped Anna stand. When he touched her hand, she could still feel the tingling tickling sensation as it shot through her skin. “You’re the boss here,” Colin shot back, “I’m sure you’ll figure something out.” And he led Anna out of the forest and back to civilization.
Colin was quiet for so long in the car, Anna almost fell asleep. It was night now, and passing the streetlights and electric signs from the buildings as they drove toward her apartment was hypnotic. She closed her eyes.
“What were you doing back there?” Colin asked, his voice so sweet, so melodic, so normal around her.
Anna forced herself to open her eyes. “When?” she asked, but she knew exactly what he was talking about.
“Anna…” Her name was a breath.
“Just take me home.” She didn’t want to have this argument again. She wanted a bath and a pizza and a beer and her bed. Except her bed would be empty. Ok, maybe not her bed.
“Don’t be mad at me. We have to be careful …”
“I know, Colin.” Anna hoped the tone in her voice would make it clear she didn�
�t want to talk about this anymore, and if he didn’t get that by her tone, he sure as hell got it by sensing she wasn’t discussing this tonight.
Colin found a parking spot in front of her building and offered to walk her up to her apartment but Anna shook her head. He looked hurt and that just made her even angrier because it had been his idea to come here and she had hated every minute of it. And he had regretted every minute of it. This had been the longest three months of her life.
Anna told Colin to go home then stomped up the stairs – and probably pissed off quite a few neighbors – then slammed her door behind her and when she couldn’t possibly think of anything else to stomp on or slam, she finally just let herself cry.
Chapter 2
Colin drove home alone, still fully aware of the emotions roiling through Anna, the pain and longing and loneliness. He hated himself for that. His apartment was only six blocks away, and he didn’t bother stomping up the stairs or slamming his door. He despised this apartment and everything in it and couldn’t wait to leave this city, this job. It had been the longest three months of his life, too.
He was eager to leave Baton Rouge, and as soon as he got home, he grabbed his tablet and dropped onto his couch to update his notes. The demon from the woods today had been a little unusual, just like everything else about this city. There had been nothing odd about it while it had been trying to kill Anna and him; it was what was left of the demon on the forest floor that troubled him. Often, demons dissipated or crumbled into a fine powdery dust. They rarely left something so tangible behind.
After describing their hunt, the death of the monster, its bulbous body that should have evaporated, Colin tried to look up information on it, but found nothing. That always seemed to happen here. Whatever was going on in Baton Rouge, Louisiana had apparently never occurred anywhere else, and that scared the hell out of Colin.
The next morning, he drove downtown to a nondescript, boring brown brick building that housed the headquarters for the hunters. There were eleven of them here and until so many demons stopped appearing in the area, he and Anna couldn’t leave. And not just any demons: these bastards were throwing all sorts of curve balls at them and that made the prospect of quickly getting out of Baton Rouge more and more unlikely.
The interior of the building was just as unassuming as the exterior. Jeremy, as the leader of the group, had his own office, but everyone else had to share a common room that had an oblong table on one side and two vending machines for snacks and sodas on the other. An old grass green sofa lined the wall opposite the vending machines, and a few equally old armchairs completed the this-is-really-an-ancient-dentist’s-office-waiting-room look.
The thing is, very few people could hunt nearly immortal creatures of Hell. Some humans had the ability to see them, and if they could see them, they could kill them. But convincing a person to get involved in tracking down and killing demons for the sake of humans everywhere is another thing altogether. And it’s not like this job pays well. Heaven’s not exactly dropping gold coins to thank anyone.
So most hunters had day jobs as well. Colin did not, mostly because he was anxious to get out of Baton Rouge and the sooner he figured out why so many demons were congregating here all of a sudden, the sooner he and Anna could leave. He knocked on Jeremy’s door even though Jeremy was usually the last person he ever wanted to talk to. The guy wasn’t a bad guy but he was irritating and arrogant … oh, hell, Colin hated him because he was always hitting on Anna.
“You got anything new?” Colin asked, as Jeremy glanced up from the computer on his desk.
“Unfortunately.” Jeremy turned his laptop around to face Colin, and Colin sat down to read the screen. It was the front page of The Advocate and the headline was describing a body that had been found recently. The woman bore the signature marks of being murdered by a demon.
“By the description, it’s one of Alastor’s. They leave those scratch marks near the ribs,” Colin observed. Colin had been doing this a long time. He was quick to catch those little things that others like Jeremy often missed.
“Huh, yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Jeremy agreed. Colin knew he was full of shit.
“We can draw it out. We should go tonight.” Demons usually killed after tempting a person into giving them their soul, but to kill a hunter was just a prize for them, one that Colin had long suspected earned them quite a few rounds at the beer hall in one of those circles of Hell. Assuming they had beer in Hell. It was probably hot beer. Or Zima.
“You trying to get my job, O’Conner?” Jeremy was joking, but Colin didn’t think he was funny. He didn’t think Jeremy was ever funny.
“Why not? He’d be good at it.” That voice. It always sent ripples down his spine. She always thought her voice was a little too high pitched but she had always been too critical of herself. Her voice, like everything else about her, was angelic, heavenly, perfection. The first time he saw her, a poor sixteen year old Irish immigrant, he thought she was an angel. He knew it would be a mistake to turn around now, to see her this morning, but he did it anyway.
She was standing in the doorway, leaning against the doorjamb, her long dark brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She had the most beautiful alabaster skin – like china, so flawless and radiant - and even in her Denver Broncos t-shirt and denim shorts, she still looked like an angel to Colin. And she was watching him, knowing he was feeling these things about her.
Colin swallowed, trying to push that desire and remorse somewhere private but when it came to Anna, there was no place he could hide.
And Jeremy looked entirely too happy to see Anna this morning as well. “Hey, Beautiful, we’ve got another one. Out near White Oaks. There’s enough forested area out there that we may be able to get it out of a populated area.”
Colin wanted to punch him in the throat every time he called her Beautiful. But Anna played along, and asked a few questions and never told him that his flirting bothered her. She wouldn’t go out with him; she just kept telling him she’d just gotten out of a relationship and didn’t want to date now so Jeremy kept trying. And Colin really hated him for that.
Jeremy found some other hunters that could go with them to White Oaks that evening, then Anna left for the break room. Colin followed her. He knew she was still angry at him and that he should say something, but there was nothing he could say right now to fix this, no way out of the misery he had created except to get them the hell out of Baton Rouge.
She had flopped onto the ugly green sofa and was rifling through a 225 magazine. Even after all these years, she still gave him that sudden burning sensation in his chest, like something in there was just starting to come alive in her presence.
“Anna, please don’t be mad at me. It drives me crazy, you know that.” Of course she did. How could she not know?
Anna lowered her magazine and glared at him, or at least Colin felt like she was glaring at him. She probably wasn’t actually glaring. “I don’t understand any of this. This agreement was ridiculous, why did you make it?” she hissed. She probably did actually hiss.
Colin had already explained this at least a thousand times, at least it felt like it was close to a thousand, and he didn’t think explaining it again would help. Besides, they weren’t alone. He didn’t want Jeremy to overhear. So he thought something instead, “We can’t talk about this now. The others can’t know about us. Just please stop being so mad at me. This will end soon.”
“How do you know?”
“It has to or …”
But Colin couldn’t even finish his thought because Jeremy walked in and saw them sitting in silence just staring at each other. Which is weird.
“Damn, O’Conner, what the hell’s your problem?”
Colin ignored him. He wasn’t always such an asshole but this whole assignment in Baton Rouge had put him in a semi-permanent bad mood. Everyone he worked with thought he was a bit scary, actually. He had a reputation for being a badass hunter, and he was. At first, the gr
oup in Baton Rouge had been excited and intimidated when he showed up, but then they found out he didn’t like being talked to, hit on, invited to anything, or in any way reminded he was supposed to be human. And the excitement the other hunters had originally felt had turned to apprehension and even fear.
Then a few weeks later, Anna came. He tried to keep the same distance, the same aloofness and coolness with her, but he knew it would be impossible. So everyone thought it was a little strange that Anna was the only person Colin ever seemed to get along with.
Anna tried to ease the tension. “We just had a disagreement. Hey, would you get me a Snickers?” She started reaching into her pocket for change, but Jeremy stopped her.
“No way, Sweetheart, I’ve got you.”
And Colin wanted to punch him in the throat for calling her Sweetheart, too.
Jeremy pulled her candy bar from the vending machine and handed it to her, making sure his fingers brushed against hers as she reached for it. Colin wondered where the most painful place he could punch him would be. Instead of leaving, Jeremy sat next to her on the ugly green sofa. He even put an arm on the back, angling his body so his knee was only inches away from her.
“You’ve been here over two months. When are you going to let me show you around? Maybe take you to New Orleans?” Jeremy asked.
Anna offered the most sincere smile she could manage. “I’ve been to New Orleans. But thanks.”
Colin seethed.
“But you’ve never been with me. I guarantee a better experience.”
Anna kept her fake smile in place. “It would be different, I’m sure.”
“That almost sounds like a yes,” Jeremy was incorrigible. And Colin had already imagined thirty-six different ways he’d like to hit him.
Anna stood up. “Thanks for the Snickers.” As she walked out of the break room, she thought, “I’m partial to hitting him in the groin myself.”
The Immortals Page 1
