Colin sat up, which pulled the blankets off of Anna again. She sighed and yanked on them, but they didn’t budge.
“Anna, I had to tell Dylan how I knew you’d disappeared. And they all witnessed what happened in the camp when that demon was on top of me and Dylan couldn’t touch it.”
Anna thought about how much they would have to admit then. “Dylan’s blessed now, too. So we tell them we have a few gifts. They don’t have to know everything.”
Colin was still watching her though, and Anna could sense his reservations about continuing to hide their past. “There’s something going on here that we’ve never faced before. Even The Angel doesn’t know what it is. In the past, it was always something humans started that gave them so much power, but this isn’t the case here. At least, not that we can tell.”
Anna gave up. She tossed the blankets off of her and sat up, too. “So you want to tell them, and freak them out for no other reason than we are in the unusual position of being just as clueless as they are.”
“I want to tell them because I’m freaked out, and I can’t go through something like yesterday ever again.”
Anna reached across the bed and took his hand, caressing the smooth skin that was permanently frozen as this twenty-six year old man no matter how many years actually passed. She brought it to her lips and kissed his fingers, and he brushed his hand along her jaw, behind her neck, and kissed her. They had been separated for three months. Whatever they decided to tell the other hunters could wait.
It was past noon before either of them responded to the numerous text messages that had filled their phones. Colin only invited Jeremy, Dylan and Max over to her apartment. He wasn’t sure yet how much he trusted the others, and the only other person Anna would have wanted here was Jas. All three of them arrived within half an hour. They’d apparently been waiting anxiously for Colin or Anna to answer their many questions, maybe even hoping their secrets would provide more answers than they actually had.
Jeremy arrived first and had a difficult time meeting Colin’s eyes. Anna suspected he was embarrassed about all the times he’d hit on her now. She almost felt sorry for him. After all, it’s not like he’d known she was married. And he certainly couldn’t have guessed she was married to Colin. But Jeremy had to address it before the others arrived, so as soon as he sat down on Anna’s sofa, he finally looked at Colin and took a deep breath.
“O’Conner, obviously, if I’d known…” Jeremy didn’t seem to know how to apologize for continually hitting on someone’s wife.
Colin shrugged it off, even though Anna knew how much Colin had hated Jeremy for it.
“We couldn’t tell anyone. We were told to keep our marriage a secret because, apparently, these demons are looking for a married couple working together. Heaven can’t physically separate us, so trying to disguise who we are was the best they could do. But now that you know, I do expect you’ll never talk to my wife that way again.”
Anna watched Jeremy’s face, and she was pretty sure he was actually blushing.
“Why couldn’t they separate you?” he asked.
Anna guessed the not hitting on her anymore part was just implied.
A knock on the door prevented Colin from answering. Anna let Dylan and Max into her apartment, both of whom watched her carefully like she must be part-divine or something. As soon as Dylan sat down, he folded his hands across his knees and studied Anna.
“So you’re really ok after being abducted by some presumably wickedly powerful archdemon who kept you hostage and kept messing with your head?”
Anna snorted, not because there was anything funny about her ordeal, but Dylan just had a way of wording things that cut through all the useless subtleties most people would throw in. She kind of liked that about him.
“I am, because it never hurt me physically. It was trying to wear me down and get me to surrender my soul to it.”
Dylan’s face registered his surprise. “Holy shit, Anna, you and Colin must have the strongest faith of any two people I’ve ever met.”
Anna raised a shoulder as if to say she wasn’t sure about that. “It’s a different kind of faith. We have so much more knowledge than most about God and angels, but there are still many aspects of our lives and what comes next we do take on faith still. But we know a lot of what is considered sinful was created by man, and much of what is considered sinful by Heaven is mostly ignored by him.”
“Oh God,” Jeremy groaned, “don’t tell me hitting on somebody’s wife is on Heaven’s list.”
Even Colin laughed, and Anna was filled with the hope he’d forgive Jeremy now. Because he really wasn’t such a bad guy, and Anna thought he was a damn good hunter when he wasn’t trying to flirt with her.
“No, Jeremy, you’ll be fine. Your heart is usually in the right place. People make everything too complicated. It’s simple really. Love each other. Take care of each other. Help those who need it. All the other things religions get hung up on are the issues of humanity, not God.”
Dylan took a deep breath and glanced at Colin before looking at Anna again. She was a lot more forthcoming than Colin had ever been, and the hunters had picked up on this.
“So why is it we all knew about Colin and not you? Colin got all evasive and weird last night when I asked him. Course he’s usually weird and evasive, but damn, Anna, you’re just as good as he is. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Colin was in such a good mood that he didn’t mind Dylan’s jab about him being weird and evasive. Anna’s Colin wouldn’t have minded anyway, and that made her heart flutter with excitement. God, she had missed him so terribly.
“Because I’m a woman, and for most of our lives, it was safer for us to hide my involvement in what we were doing. I traveled with him and just pretended to be his wife, not a fellow hunter, because even when women could see demons, they often weren’t allowed to hunt them. I could have stepped out of the shadows in recent years, but sometimes, I like the anonymity, so I convinced him to keep my involvement in hunting a secret.”
Dylan’s confusion was clear, but it was Max who spoke first. “Jesus, Anna, you make it sound like you’re from the Dark Ages.”
“Well, they’re not that far off,” Anna thought.
“That’s a misnomer, you know. There’s no such thing as the Dark Ages. It was just a bunch of pretentious…”
“Oh, Colin, rant about the Humanists later. Just tell them our own history.”
Anna sat next to Colin and held his hand. “Well, my darling, you might as well tell them how I almost died and what you did to save me.”
Colin looked down at her, and Anna felt it even then – all these years later. He’d make the same decision today, because he had no future without her. There was no life for him without Anna. Colin took a deep breath, and told his fellow hunters their story.
Chapter 16
London, 1647. Anna’s fever hadn’t broken in three days. Colin had brought the doctor to her bedside so many times over the past week, but he was insisting now there was nothing more he could do for her. A quarter of the city was sick with tuberculosis and Anna’s frailty, her weakened heart and body that had been so damaged by scarlet fever twenty-six years before, could not fight off consumption.
Her mother came often, and helped Colin keep cool damp cloths around her face and body to try to control her fever, but Anna had been delirious for days. She often didn’t know who was in the room with her or why. Her coughing would seize her entire body, shaking her violently, and Colin could do nothing but stand by her side, wipe her mouth and face, and clean her as best as he could.
Colin knew his wife was dying. He had lived with the fear of losing her for ten years, ever since he’d met the beautiful ivory-skinned, dark haired girl in the market who told him she’d defied the odds to live as long as she had. Her doctor didn’t think she’d live past six. He had lived these ten years feeling like he was on borrowed time, that any day God would call her home, and his angel would leave him, alone
in a world that was frightening and desolate without her in it.
That day had finally come. Colin kept water boiling on the stove then set the wet rags out on the railing so the cold December air could chill them. He brought the damp rags to Anna’s bedside and replaced the hot cloths. He tried to do it gently because she was sleeping now, and he didn’t want to wake her. She was so hot. Her breathing was shallow and phlegmatic. The doctor didn’t think she’d make it through the night.
Colin hadn’t slept much in days, but how could he? His wife was dying. He was certain he must be dying with her. He brought the hot, dry rags back to the kitchen and tossed them in the boiling water. From the bedroom, Anna started coughing again. Painful, throaty, heaving coughs that tore apart whatever heart Colin had left. He couldn’t listen to his wife’s prolonged and agonizing death anymore. He needed to escape. He needed a miracle.
He thought about running out of his home then, running away from London, maybe returning to Ireland, going anywhere that he wouldn’t have to hear the haunting sounds of his love slowly suffocating, strangled by a disease he couldn’t fight against. But he stepped outside and grabbed a cold rag from the railing on the steps and brought it to her, wiping her face, and as the tears fell from his own eyes, he told her the story about the day he met the girl he knew he’d marry.
He’d gone to the market as a favor for the woman he was renting a room from. She’d written down exactly what she wanted from the butcher there because she apparently still didn’t believe a poor Irish boy could be literate. But Colin had simply taken the note from her and promised her he’d give it to the butcher. He’d read it as she was writing it out, of course, and he didn’t think there was anything terribly difficult about remembering three lamb shanks and two links of pork sausage. He also thought he was getting kind of hungry.
As soon as he entered the butcher’s shop, he handed him the note and the money from his landlady, and stepped back from the counter to wait. He’d discovered a lot of Englishmen tended to think the Irish were thieves. The butcher wrapped the meats and handed them to Colin and he turned to leave, relieved to be away from the distrusting stare of the grumpy butcher. It was never much fun to be scrutinized by a large man holding a meat cleaver.
It was then he met Anna who was about to enter the same shop he was leaving. Colin had just stepped onto the sidewalk when Anna approached the door and she almost walked into him. She backed away politely and apologized, but Colin’s mind had gone blank. He was convinced he’d just run into an angel on a dirty, smelly street in London while holding a stack of bloody meats.
He wanted to talk to her, introduce himself, tell her it was his fault and he should have been paying more attention when he walked out of the shop, anything. But if he spoke, she would know the truth about him. Perhaps, he thought, it would be better for her to think he was rude or just stupid than to know the truth. So he didn’t say anything. He smiled and nodded at her and was going to keep walking, but Anna stopped him.
“Did you just move into this neighborhood?” she asked. London was a big city, a crowded city, and there were always new people moving into it. Colin wasn’t sure why she would ask him a question like that, if he had said or done something incredibly inappropriate or offensive, and he felt his cheeks flushing. He bit his lip and looked down at the sidewalk.
“Yes, a couple of months ago.” And he heard it, that damn accent that had done nothing but caused everyone here to treat him like he was a thief, an idiot, a beggar.
He expected her to turn away from him and walk into the butcher’s shop now, but she stayed on the sidewalk with him.
“Oh, are you from Ireland?” She didn’t make it sound pejorative; it was just a question.
Colin nodded, still too ashamed to speak in front of her.
“I’m Anna.”
Colin told her his name then she asked him what he was doing in London, if he liked it here, if he missed his home or his brothers, and never once, did she talk down to him or make him feel like there was something wrong with him because of where he’d been born and raised. They both had people waiting on them, though, but before Anna went inside the butcher’s shop, she made Colin promise he’d call on her the next day. And Colin knew it could be disastrous, but he was pretty sure he was already halfway in love with this angel he’d just met on the street outside of a butcher’s shop in London.
Anna’s fever seemed to be getting worse. She didn’t even know he was there. But Colin kept talking to her, and cleaned the sweat from her forehead and neck and described the times he’d visit her at her parent’s house, the way they’d sit across from each other in the parlor, trying to be proper and polite, but after a while, his presence in their home became accepted. They were still careful not to touch each other too much, but they moved closer to one another, talked with more familiarity.
Colin reminded her of the trip to the lavender fields when he first told her he’d been saving so he could ask her to marry him. Four months later, he approached her father and told him about the second job he’d taken to save enough money for a nice flat for Anna and to pay for her doctor, and he asked him if he could marry his daughter. And that middleclass Anglican Englishman smiled at this once poor, Catholic Irish boy and told him if he made his daughter happy, he had his blessing.
Colin replayed all of those memories for her, but Anna never registered recognition of any of them. He was talking to a ghost. When the latest coughing fit passed and her body stilled again, he left her bedside with the filthy rags and threw them away. He meant to walk to the steps outside to retrieve the cold cloths for her, but he never made it. His legs collapsed beneath him and his body trembled with his overwhelming grief as he cried for the woman dying in their bed. He could do nothing now except pray.
Colin had been saying lots of prayers throughout the past week, but he had nothing now except prayer. He didn’t even know what to pray for. He prayed that God would end her suffering. He prayed that God would end his own. He prayed for a miracle. Colin didn’t know how long he stayed on his knees in the parlor in his flat, crying and praying, pleading and begging, offering his life instead of hers. It must have been a long time; another coughing spell hit Anna, but Colin couldn’t move. He couldn’t stand. He knew he should go check on her, but he was unable to leave the place where he’d fallen. He had nothing left to give her. He remained on his knees and kept praying. He just wanted to die with her.
At some point during the night, Anna’s scratchy ragged breaths grew more desperate and Colin, still on his knees in his parlor crying and praying, thought surely, this night would kill them both. He had given up. He hadn’t run away to Ireland or fled London or his home with Anna, but he’d escaped all the same. He couldn’t go to her bedside again. He was too weak. In the end, he’d failed her.
Colin felt a hand on the back of his head, a gentle touch, a comforting presence. He flinched from the unexpected contact and looked up to see her for the first time. He thought he was hallucinating, that the torment of Anna’s suffering, the knowledge of losing her, had driven him to insanity, because standing in front of him was a young woman with long pale yellow hair the color of wheat and soft gray eyes that exuded kindness and love. Colin decided if he was hallucinating, this wasn’t such a bad thing to hallucinate, because he was sure she was an angel, and he immediately felt calmer, more peaceful in her presence. And he hoped she’d come to take them both.
“Colin,” even her voice projected that tenderness and compassion, “she doesn’t have much longer.”
Colin stared up at her with so much faith and hope. “You’ve come to save her?”
The Angel eyed him seriously. “I’ve come to offer you a deal. You and Anna are special. You can sense evil in this world, which means you can fight it and kill it. I can restore her health, but it will change you both. I will give you gifts to help you, but you will have to agree to fight against this evil for five hundred years.”
Colin shook his head. He was most c
ertainly hallucinating. And this hallucination didn’t even make any sense. He wondered if hallucinations ever made any sense though.
“How are we supposed to fight something we can’t see? And five hundred years? We’ll be dead long before then.”
Anna’s coughing forced The Angel to look away from Colin. Her pale gray eyes filled with worry and mercy. “You will see them, Colin. They are demons and they’ll take many forms. I will give you and Anna the ability to know what the other is thinking, as well as the speed and strength you will need to fight these demons. And you and Anna will live, because for the next five hundred years, you will be immortal.”
Colin couldn’t even understand what The Angel, this apparition or delusion of his deranged mind, was trying to tell him. He had been praying for a miracle, but surely this was not it.
“You must hurry, Colin,” The Angel continued. “She doesn’t have much time. You will need to make a decision quickly.”
Anna gagged, choking on whatever she was trying to cough up. Colin forced himself to his feet and stumbled to the bedroom where Anna’s ragged breaths were shallow and irregular.
He watched as she struggled to take those last breaths, and he turned to The Angel and asked her, “We’d be together, for all five hundred years? Do you promise?”
The Angel nodded. “Yes, you will be together. Always.”
Colin looked back at his wife, so close to leaving this world now, and touched her pale thin hand, hot and trembling. “Save her then. We’ll do whatever you want.”
And Colin sealed their servitude for half a millennium in their London bedroom in 1647.
Chapter 17
The hunters stared silently at Colin as he finished his story. He couldn’t blame them for the expressions on their faces that insisted they were sitting in a room with a crazy person. Dylan, though, had seen The Angel and he had been blessed by her, too. He was the first of the hunters to take a deep breath and speak.
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