Garden of the Gods (The Immortals Series Book 3)

by S. M. Schmitz

  “Come on,” Anna commanded. “Let’s go save my husband.”

  After finding their bags, Anna hailed a cab and gave the driver the address to the hotel Max had insisted Colin had gone into with another woman. And had never left. Anna passed the cab driver more money and asked him to wait for her. She turned to Amanda and asked her to wait, too. Amanda just nodded, but as Anna opened the door to climb out, she grabbed her hand and stopped her.

  “Anna,” she said softly. “Max said he’s sorry he didn’t stay. He knows what he promised about your dreams, but he just… couldn’t.”

  It was almost two o’clock in the morning. There was a good chance Colin was asleep by now, and he had no one to protect him. Anna was filled with so much rage and resentment and she didn’t know if she was being fair to Max or not, but she heard herself saying it anyway.

  “Well, I guess it’s only fair considering my husband killed you and all.” Then she opened the car door and climbed out of the cab.

  The hotel lobby was empty except for the desk clerk who was half-asleep when Anna approached. She knew the answer already, but she had to ask anyway. “I’m looking for Colin O’Conner. Is he checked in here? Can you ring his room? It’s an emergency.”

  The desk clerk sat up a little straighter but didn’t bother sitting up too straight. He tapped at his keyboard then shook his head. “Not here.”

  Anna thanked him then walked away, turning once to make sure he wasn’t watching her. She could walk the halls and find him that way. Even if he were asleep, assuming one of those demons hadn’t captured his mind, she’d be able to sense him. Anna walked through every hallway on every floor but never felt him. Max must have gotten the wrong hotel. Or maybe she had been too late. Jas had warned her in her dream that he was in trouble. Anna began to panic.

  She ran down the stairs and back to the cab still idling in front of the hotel and got Amanda’s attention. “He’s not here. Max must have gotten the wrong hotel,” she said through the open door. Anna had no intention of getting in the cab with her. “There are a bunch of hotels near here. Go to one and text me where you’re staying. I’ll meet you there once I find him.”

  Amanda wouldn’t let her close the door. “Max said he’s not wrong. He knows this is the hotel. Anna, we’re hours behind him though. He may have left. He may have decided to go back to Glasgow for all we know. Why don’t you come with me to the hotel and maybe Max can reconnect to him? We can find him that way.”

  Anna moved Amanda’s hand off the door. “Tell Max to find my husband. Then call me when he does. I’m going to look for him.”

  Then she closed the door and walked away from the cab. She heard it drive away but she was walking in the opposite direction, searching around her trying to find him, but their telepathy wasn’t boundless. He could be drunk or too far away or in some sort of Hell in his mind erected by these demons, and she’d never be able to find him.

  Anna passed in front of a pub that was still noisy and crowded and ignored the catcalls as she hurried past the open doorway. She hadn’t gone far when she heard footsteps behind her. Anna was in no mood to be harassed tonight. She spun around and faced the man who had followed her from the bar. His speech slurred in a Scottish accent as he asked what a beautiful woman like her was doing out this late at night by herself. Anna clenched her fists. She wished she had her daggers and knife with her, because she had so much aggression within her, she needed to hunt. She reminded herself this man hadn’t posed a threat to her yet; she shouldn’t hit him.

  “I’m looking for my husband.” Anna let the London accent of her youth free again.

  “What kinda man runs around widda wife like you at home?” he asked.

  Anna nodded back to the bar. “Go back to your friends. I’m in a hurry.”

  She turned to leave but the man grabbed her arm. Anna spun around again and punched him, his nose breaking under her fist, and she backed away from the blood pooling on the sidewalk. He was cursing her, but she didn’t stay to listen. She ran away from the pub, still searching for Colin and still finding nothing but silence.

  She stopped at a water fountain and rinsed the man’s blood off her hand. There was a small scratch on her knuckle but it was already healing. She watched it, still amazed even after centuries of watching these injuries heal before her eyes. She turned her hand over and washed the dried blood off her palm and had a flashback to the bizarre dream with Jas, her bleeding hands, Jas wrapping them. Why had she wrapped them? Scrapes should have healed on their own. It’s not like she would have bled for long.

  But it had just been a dream. She had been trapped in Stalingrad, and she was trapped now in Edinburgh, without Colin and with no hope of getting out. She pulled her hand out of the water and turned it over again. The small scrape on her knuckle was gone. It was past three in the morning now, and Anna’s legs didn’t want to run anymore. They begged her to sit for a while. She shook her head as if she were actually arguing with her body and backed away from the water fountain. And that’s when she felt him.

  He was a couple of miles west from her, and Anna ran again, faster this time. As fast as her body would allow her to run. At some point, she became aware that he’d realized she was nearby, too, and she felt his shock, his apprehension and fear, his exhilaration.

  She rounded the block and saw a bus station ahead of her. He must have been waiting for a bus. Anna stopped running when she saw him work his way out of the crowd to find her. She didn’t know if she wanted to finish those last fifty feet and throw her arms around him or hit him. He dropped his backpack and ran to her, not giving her the chance to decide.

  “Anna, my God, Anna, what are you doing here?” he asked, grabbing her hands and pulling at the jacket sleeves just as he always had when they’d finished a hunt, needing to convince himself she was alive and not hurt.

  Anna jerked her hands away from him and he looked into her eyes, surprised by these feelings he knew she had.

  And as he searched her mind his eyes widened and he inhaled sharply. “God, Anna, you think I cheated on you?”

  “Max was with you,” Anna hissed.

  But she had been searching his mind, too, and she had found the truth. He had accepted dinner from Olivia but when she tried to make a pass at him, he left. He’d walked around Edinburgh for a while before deciding to come to the bus station to go back to Glasgow.

  Anna shook her head slowly. “What did you think was going to happen, Colin?”

  Colin looked down at the sidewalk, embarrassed, because of course he knew Olivia had been flirting with him, but she had kept his mind distracted, and he thought maybe there was a chance he could convince her she needed a friend in Scotland more than a lover.

  But Anna was still angry. She put her palms on his shoulders and pushed him.

  “None of this would have happened if you hadn’t left me!” she shouted.

  “I only left because you wanted me to,” Colin protested. “I have nothing without you. You are everything. You’ve always known that.”

  The tears Anna had held back since the plane started its trek over the Atlantic Ocean finally fell. She had never told Colin to leave. She had never wanted him to leave. And he should have known that. Her husband would always know that. Anna put her hands on the sides of his face and peered into his eyes.

  “Oh, my love,” she whispered, “I don’t know what they’ve done to you, but I’ll get you back. I’ll get you out of this Hell, I promise.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Anna kept peering into those beautiful emerald green eyes, those eyes that still held all of the love and passion and devotion he had always had for her. He wasn’t gone. He hadn’t been taken from her, but he was being manipulated somehow, just as Luca and Andrew were. And Anna wasn’t going to lose him again.

  “If you don’t want to hunt anymore, you don’t have to. Just come home with me. How can either of us survive without one another?”

  Colin smiled at his wife and wra
pped his arms around her then leaned down to kiss her. When Anna pulled away from him, she kept a hand behind his neck so he couldn’t look away from her. She gazed into his eyes again and made him promise her, no matter what he thought she wanted or what he believed to be true, he would never leave her again.

  Anna knew she wasn’t being entirely fair to Colin. Somehow, when one of these fallen angels had gotten into her mind, it had made her run away from Colin and her friends. She had led herself into her own trap and had no memories of any of it. Something similar must be happening to Colin and Luca and Andrew now, because while Luca’s denouncement of his faith had been shocking, there was nothing Anna was more certain of in this world or in any other than Colin’s love for her.

  She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder and he wrapped his arms tightly around her.

  “I’m sorry, my love,” Anna told him. “For believing you’d cheat on me.”

  Colin stroked her hair and kissed the side of her head. “I’m sorry I gave you any reason to be suspicious. I don’t know what’s happening to me. The hunting, quitting. That still makes sense to me, but leaving you. Coming here, agreeing to even have dinner in that girl’s room. Anna, I would never do those things to you. I don’t understand why I’m doing any of this.”

  Anna gripped the back of his jacket in her fists. “They need to bring down the Immortals before they start their war. And they know they can only defeat us if they separate us. They tried in Baton Rouge, and they’re trying again. But not even Hell can tear us apart.”

  “I hope you’ve got a hotel,” Colin sighed. “I’m exhausted.”

  Sunrise was only a couple of hours away by the time Colin and Anna found the hotel Amanda had checked into. When they got to their room, Colin collapsed on the bed and fell asleep quickly, but Anna lay awake watching him sleep until the sun began its ascent in the eastern sky. She kept checking on his dreams to make sure he wasn’t pulled through a memory, or worse, that he’d somehow become disconnected from her again. But his dreams were sporadic and short and meaningless, and Anna eventually succumbed to her body’s need for rest as well.

  Anna had hoped for the same restorative sleep, but as she looked around her, she immediately knew she hadn’t been as lucky. She was back in the room in Stalingrad. Anna turned in a slow circle, reaching out again to search for Colin, and she could feel him nearby yet he seemed so far away. It didn’t make any sense. She called his name, but he didn’t answer.

  Anna tugged and pushed on the doors again, but they were still locked. The same chair as before lay on its back on the floor where she’d left it. She didn’t bother picking it up. She already knew the glass in this building didn’t break. She studied the spiral staircase behind her and thought again of going upstairs to see if there was a way out, but jumping from the second floor of a building sounded painful. Even in a dream.

  But maybe Colin was there. Anna climbed the stairs slowly. For some reason, the second floor of this building unnerved her and she was aware that she didn’t have her daggers or knife. She couldn’t remember why she didn’t have them, but she knew they weren’t on her. She didn’t sense anything demonic on the second story, but it frightened her nonetheless. But since she couldn’t escape this building from the first floor, she kept climbing the stairs.

  The second floor foyer opened up to a long hallway with closed doors running along the walls on both sides. Anna stood near the stairs and counted twelve doors. The building hadn’t seemed that long from the first floor.

  “Colin?” Anna tried again.

  She could feel him, but he was so far away. She was answered by silence.

  Anna approached the door closest to her and put her hand on the doorknob. She wanted to open it, but she was defenseless. She didn’t know what to do if something was lurking in there, waiting to attack her.

  “You’re not defenseless,” Jas corrected.

  Anna startled and twisted around to face her friend. Jas moved closer to her and studied the door. Her eyes rested on Anna’s hand that still gripped the doorknob.

  “You forget so easily that you have the greatest power of any person on this planet. Use it.”

  Anna shook her head, confused. “Compassion? How is that going to help me now? How is that going to help Colin?”

  Jas actually laughed, and even though Anna didn’t think there was anything funny about her current situation or their lives in general right now, she couldn’t help smiling. Jas had such an infectious laugh.

  “Girl, that’s one of the many reasons I love you, but no. I meant this new gift from your angel.”

  Anna let her hand fall from the doorknob. She looked at the door then back at Jas. “Ok, that might work in a dream. You’re already dead. And it doesn’t seem like anyone else is here to get hurt.”

  Anna was about to open the door when she stopped herself again. “Wait a minute. What do you mean I have the greatest power of any person on the planet? Colin and Andrew can do the same thing.”

  “You gonna open this door or what? I might be dead, but I’m kinda creeped out by this place.”

  “Are you going to answer my question?”

  Jas tried to scowl at her but her eyes were still laughing. “Colin and Andrew have the same gift, but it’s not as strong as yours. Now open the damn door. The suspense is killing me.”

  “You’re already dead.”

  “Shut up and open the door.”

  Anna took a quick breath and twisted the doorknob. The door swung open revealing an empty room.

  “Well, that was anti-climactic,” Jas muttered.

  Anna glanced back at her friend and shrugged. She preferred an empty room over one filled with demons.

  “Is Max back with Colin?” Anna asked.

  She wasn’t going to explore any more rooms until she knew her husband was ok.

  Jas nodded and looked down the hallway.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t have doubted him, but he’s not himself right now. We know the real Colin wouldn’t have…” Jas trailed off and she grabbed Anna’s hand. “Come on, let’s keep playing Dora. There’s got to be a reason we keep ending up here.”

  Anna followed her back into the hallway and opened the second door. That room was empty, too. They checked the rest of the rooms on the right side of the hallway, but each room was exactly the same. Barren wood floors, white paneled walls. No windows.

  “This is like where they’d keep Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” Jas whispered.

  Anna was about to open the first door on the left side of the hallway, but she paused to whisper back to her friend, “Why are you whispering?”

  And then she realized she’d whispered, too, and both of them giggled nervously.

  “Because,” Jas whispered back, “this place seriously freaks me out.”

  Anna nodded in agreement. “Maybe it’s just because it’s Stalingrad. The Soviet Union usually freaked me out.”

  Jas shook her head. “I think this place only looks like Stalingrad. I’m not convinced we’re there. Open the door. Let’s get this over with.”

  Anna opened the door, but she had mixed feelings about getting this over with. Jas had never been able to stay with her as long as she had in this dream, and as they explored these empty rooms, it was just like hunting with her again. Like she was alive and with her again.

  The only difference in the first two rooms they’d searched on the other side of the hallway was the color of the walls. The bare brown wood floors were matched with a brown wood paneling.

  “Ugh,” Jas muttered, “and I thought it couldn’t get any worse.”

  Anna smiled and closed the door to the third room they’d entered.

  “Two more, then what?” she asked Jas.

  Jas shrugged. “Eventually you’ll wake up. And I can go back to trying to figure out what all this shit about fallen angels might mean for you guys. We need to hear what Dylan’s learned.”

  Anna agreed with her and opened the fourth d
oor. She walked in but froze near the doorway. Jas walked into her back. But there, in the middle of the room, sat Jeremy.

  Chapter 18

  Jas stepped around Anna and gaped at Jeremy. Because it wasn’t a gray demon with goldenrod eyes and bony nodules around his face, but Jeremy. Their friend. Their former leader. And he looked so incredibly sad.

  Anna stepped closer to him and dropped to her knees, and he watched her with that same sorrowful expression in his hazel eyes. Jas followed her and lowered herself to the ground in front of Jeremy, where he was still sitting cross-legged just watching them.

  Anna reached out toward him carefully, slowly, and touched his hand. He didn’t disappear or transform into a hideous beast or jerk away from her. He flipped his hand over and let Anna hold it. Anna glanced back at Jas, who had been so quiet, which was so unlike her, but when she saw her face, she understood why. Jas was crying, but it was more than that. Jas seemed to understand something Anna couldn’t. Maybe it was part of being tied to the supernatural, but Anna could tell by the anguish in Jas’s eyes that she knew how much pain Jeremy was in.

  Anna turned back to him and wiped at her own eyes as tears leaked from the corners.

  “Oh, Jeremy,” she breathed.

  But Jeremy shook his head. “Anna, I’m so sorry. I’ve never wanted to hurt you or Colin.” He sighed and closed his eyes. “Why didn’t you kill me when you had the chance?”

  “Because I wanted to save you.”

  Jeremy opened his eyes, but that unbearable grief was still there. He didn’t believe he could be saved.

  “Anna, if you see me again, just kill me. Please.” He clasped his other hand over hers and begged her, “Please.”

  The desperation in his voice hurt Anna, a physical pain that she felt in her chest and throat and rose into her head and she couldn’t tell him no. She closed her eyes and nodded.

  “Jeremy,” Jas said, “what if it is possible? We have to be getting close. We’re here. We found you… sort of. If your friends can save you…”