do-you-really-think-that-was-helpful? glare before turning back to Amanda.
“Amanda, we need to get our friends over here to tell them about this. If you don’t want to stay, we understand. Is there anything else from this dream you can remember?” Anna was speaking softly again, trying to calm this woman’s frazzled nerves.
But Amanda kept trembling and told them there was nothing else. She couldn’t even really identify what the city looked like. Just tall buildings and narrow streets, and a knowledge she was somewhere in Europe. And she didn’t want to stay to be interrogated by the other hunters. Reliving this memory-dream once had been traumatic enough. She planned on going home and finishing off her bottle off pinot noir while surrounding herself with as many religious symbols she could find.
Colin bit his lip so he wouldn’t say anything, and he let Anna break the news that only worked in movies. If she got really desperate, she could try a church though. Demons weren’t forbidden from entering them or anything, but lesser demons especially avoided them because of the potential presence of angels.
As soon as Amanda left, Colin called the other hunters. Everyone except Dylan was still asleep. Anna wondered why Dylan always seemed to be awake too early and as soon as he stepped into their apartment, looking far too cheerful again, she accosted him with wanting to know why the hell any normal human being would be awake and happy about it before 8:00 a.m.
Dylan smiled at her and asked her what had ever given her the impression he was normal anyway? He didn’t think any of the hunters would count as normal human beings actually. Andrew followed Dylan a few minutes later, still yawning and trying to smooth his blonde hair down with one hand. He hadn’t bothered changing from the pajama bottoms and t-shirt he’d slept in.
He collapsed into a chair and Anna set a cup of coffee in front of him. He opened one of his pale blue eyes and smiled up at her. “See? You are an angel.”
Not surprisingly, they had to wait another ten minutes before Luca showed up. Anna scowled at him from the sofa and told him to get his own coffee for making them wait. Luca waved a hand in the air as if his tardiness was more inconvenient to him than those waiting on him.
Anna replayed the dream Amanda shared with her and Colin for their friends, and the other hunters waited until they were sure Anna had finished before trying to piece together what this could mean for Jeremy. Andrew looked more alert now, but as usual, he watched the others banter and argue about it before jumping in with his own opinions.
“That woman in Cane Ridge you told Dylan and Max about. If she were really possessed, then we know something else about how possession works. She entered that tent and started behaving strangely. She seemed subdued after the fake exorcism, enough so that she was allowed to get up, but kept her eyes on Anna the whole time. She looked completely human though. So the behavior changes before the appearance does,” Andrew said.
He put his empty coffee cup down, and because he’d been the only one to contribute anything even remotely useful since Anna finished her story, she immediately got up to refill it for him. When she brought it back to him, Andrew smiled up at her again and told her something in Polish.
“What was that?” Colin asked.
He wasn’t at all concerned Andrew was insulting his wife. Not only did Andrew seem to like everyone he met, she had just delivered him more coffee.
“A Polish blessing,” Andrew answered.
“We know the exorcism didn’t work on that woman in Cane Ridge,” Anna said, trying to get everyone to focus on Jeremy again. She knew Colin was about to ask him to translate it for them and right now, she was far more concerned about her demon-stalker and figuring out what the hell was going on with Jeremy. Or, more accurately, what the hell they were supposed to do about it. “What’s so
Rebecca Hamilton, Conner Kressley