When Spell Freezes Over (All My Exes Die From Hexes Book 4)

by Killian McRae

  “A what?” Dee asked for all of them.

  “An advendavi. It’s a word in the angel tongue that means...”

  “Prophet,” Riona supplied. “Jerry? How did I know that? I don’t speak angelic.”

  Jerry drew his wife’s lips to his own and kissed them reverently. “Yes you do, babe. You’re an archangel. Now that your powers have awakened, you speak every human or angel language. How else were you able to understand everything that the Nephilim said just now at Olympus?”

  “But a prophet?” Riona shook her head. “I’ve seen The Ten Commandments and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. I don’t fit the bill.”

  He considered her rebuke, then dismissed it with a smile. “Yup, you’re the first female prophet. Congratulations on breaking the glass ceiling and all. But as for what a prophet is... They are the child of a human mother and an archangel father, and they inherit their father’s particular angelic gift. I’m not one; my dad is a Fallen, but I still got his ability to manipulate memories. And you... You got the very rare gift of portalcraft. You can create bridges between any realm, any location, whenever you want. The question is, why did your dad create you, and not just do the deed himself.”

  “And how is Hades involved?” Dee added. “Is it all just to leave the nephilim realm? He’s been trapped there for three thousand years, his punishment for originally giving sanctum to the Fallen.”

  “I heard rumors he was also cursed with demon flesh, but I’m not sure if that’s true or not,” Jerry said.

  “Demon flesh would be kind of... green or blue or something, wouldn’t it?” Anwen asked.

  “You make demons sound like they have all the diversity of an Easter egg basket. Not all demons look, well, demonic. Some look mortal as they ever were. But the thing about demon flesh is that it’s numb to anything but pain, yet amazingly robust. Hades could fill in for Atlas if he took a vacation, balancing the globe on his manhood, but he wouldn’t feel anything more than a dull pinch.”

  Dee smiled. “So there is some justice in the world.”

  “Maybe he thinks an advendavi could get him off Olympus?” Anwen pondered.

  Jerry concurred. “The only other hope he has is for the accords to be broken. Now with Riona’s help with that, all he needs to do is get Steph to say she annuls the divorce decree, and he’s free. Hell has its own power struggle going on with whatever Michael and Azazel are up to. What’s the old saying, never waste a crisis? Anyways, we got some time. For now, I suggest we get some sleep. I know it’s morning where we just came from, but I think all of us were up last night doing anything but sleeping.”

  Anwen blushed, but Riona only took that truth at its face value, nodding in agreement. She played caboose as they entered the home, locking the door behind her with the deadbolt. Dee guided Anwen up the stairs, the wide-eyed Welshie taking a survey of the house as they did so. Jerry positioned himself at the balustrade of the banister, exchanging looks with the staircase leading up, to where Riona’s room was, and down, where the laundry closet of a bedroom he’d used sat, culturing mildew.

  Riona held out her hand, letting a tinge of a smile cross her face. “You think I’m going to make you go back there?”

  “Maybe you’re one of those modern wives who still wants to have her own room.”

  Instead of words, Riona answered with action. She pulled Jerry close and relieved his doubts of her intentions with an earth-shattering kiss. Even he, well-seasoned Lothario that he was, stumbled at its intensity. She withdrew her mouth after a few moments, but kept their proximity fixed.

  “Now, where do you think I want you?”

  “Right now,” his hand slid between them, until he cradled the junction of her pleasure through her pants, “I’m thinking you want me right here. To start with, anyway.” Riona bit her bottom lip in a most delicious way.

  “For an ex-gnosis demon, you’re still pretty smart,” she purred, leaning in for a kiss.

  Jerry answered her lips before he literally swept her off her feet. She squealed, throwing her arms around his neck to keep herself from falling. He smiled down at his bride as he took to the stairs.

  “Of all the things I’ve learned through the eons, the thing I know best is your body.”

  “Oh, stop with the pickup lines, Romani. You already have me.”

  “Not yet, but give me a few minutes to get this sheet off.”

  Half way up the stairs, they paused, trying to deduce what was causing a pounding on the wall. Jerry grinned when the answer dawned on him.

  “I guess that whole gods shaking the earth thing isn’t really a metaphor, huh?”

  Chapter 9

  Hermes had seen his superhuman talents regulated to a sideshow oddity through the decades. News traveled slow in the ancient world, but had been advancing in entropy since the Greeks had devised the art of distance running to ferry messages. Feet gave way to hooves, hooves to waves, and the ships to wires. Now, any mundane human could speak to someone on the other side of the world with a few clicks and rings.

  But now, at last, he had a duty again.

  “Do you understand?” Queen Persephone asked after giving him the rundown of her first royal decree.

  He nodded. “But, majesty, what if they don’t come?”

  Hades stepped from the shadows, twisting, snarling. “Then remind them that while my powers are useless above ground, I can still command the soil beneath their feet to swallow them whole.”

  Hermes bowed, crossing his arm over his chest. “Yes, Lord Hades. I will away.”

  The wing-shoed god turned on heel, and took his leave, leaving the other two alone.

  “I wish you hadn’t done that,” Persephone said.

  Hades joined her on a nearby couch. “What?”

  “Intercede. Present me as some toothless ruler who needs back up. I am queen, but you are not king. They need to heed my decree without being bullied by my thug of an ex-husband.”

  “It wasn’t my intention to make you appear... insufficient. Besides—”

  His arm snaked behind her, pulling her into his embrace. She didn’t shrink back, but nor did she melt into him.

  “You let me stand at your side before our people when you were addressing them, the way a sovereign spouse would, love? Perhaps you did not consider those optics.”

  “Don’t call me love, and don’t try to twist my politics. We need to present a united front on this, but your role here is as the revenge-thirsty brother, not doting husband.” She let out a long sigh. “It’s going to be hard enough convincing the nephilim not of Olympus to join our cause as it is. For years, I’ve been saying we should just be happy with what we’re left with and adapt to the human world. You, though... You’ve always said the angels were murderers and betrayers, that our realm wasn’t meant to be a sanctuary, but a warehouse. I wish I had listened to you sooner. I convinced myself you were just bitter over getting shafted in the accords. Ramiel always swore to me no angel would end Zeus, that it would cause too many complications. What a liar.”

  She felt Hades tense, but he managed to keep his words schooled. “Like all his kind, he merely seized circumstance and made of it an excuse to carry out the desires of their own remorseless hearts. The angels have hungered for Zeus’ death since the rapture, but the accords stated without his own leave, they could never take him for any cause. I think your modern men call it ‘diplomatic immunity.’ So they found another way to torment him. Sometimes wars are fought with weapons, and sometimes they are fought with hearts. Ramiel used you.”

  “I used him just as much.” Her expression flat lined. “I have to admit, one of the things that drew me to Ramiel, was knowing how much it would hurt you. I should have known there was something else on his side when he fell so quickly for my seduction attempts.”

  “You’d have done better to bed another human.”

  Giving into her guilt and lingering feelings, she finally relaxed against his side. “A human. There were already quite a
few of those through the years. Does that upset you?”

  He shook his head. “The only thing that upset me was when I thought you were actually falling for an angel.” Hades withdrew his arm and pressed his palms to his knees. “So?”

  She echoed his words, and his curiosity. “So what?”

  When Hades realized that was all the queen was going to say about that, he shot up and offered her his hand. “Enough with the past. We’ve jumped over the precipice now, and husband or no, I will fight with you until the end, even if the odds discourage. The few will defeat the many.”

  Steph gave her eyes permission to roll. “You’re never going to get over that whole Spartans versus Persians thing, are you?”

  He continued undeterred. “They will come, sweet. The other nephilim will hear tale from Hermes, and they will rise to avenge not just your father, but every death since the rapture.”

  The buzz of lightning teased her fingertips, bringing with it a tingle up her spine. She’d wished now she had asked her father more about the technicalities of the power allotted him not by birth but by decree. Like the archangels, nephilim had one superhuman gift, something that to mortals seemed magic, though unlike them, that was the extent of their magic with few exceptions. For Hades, it was control over the ground beneath their feet. For Persephone, it had been jurisdiction over all plant life. Zeus’ native power lay in the ability to shapeshift, something that came in quite handy during his legendary seduction ploys. After the rapture, in response to his plea for balance against the archangels’ abilities, Big Boss had bestowed him with the lightning, a gift which would pass to his designated successor should ever he fall. Also lesser known was his right to provide his half-human children a bonus gift, in addition to any godlike abilities they inherited. “Born to two worlds, perhaps belonging to neither, they will need every advantage during their relatively short lives to cope.” The Council of Seven and the Grigori gave leave.

  But the gods of today were weak compared to the arts and talent they’d wielded in the past. Then, before the rapture, Hades had ruled the Underworld, and he and Persephone ruled over the power of hellfire. They shared it with their kind, sent its powers radiating out from the Underworld into the world of the nephilim, infusing their strength with a fortitude that rivaled the archangels themselves. They’d lost that when Hades had been dethroned by the Grigori, and Lucifer assumed the role of the Satan, taking command over hellfire along with the title.

  “I could really use you out in the mortal realm. If only you weren’t trapped here.”

  With a feather light touch, he ran his fingertips down her bare arms slowly, lazily, his eyes growing heavy lidded as he admired the way her breath hitched with the tiniest touch. “If the accords break, the restrictions placed on me by them will be lifted as well.”

  “Great. That’s all it will take, huh? Undoing the rules by which reality is currently constructed. As if.”

  “As if?” His confused expression dampened her heightening arousal.

  “It’s one of the modern bits of lingo. Never mind. Point is, I need to find one of the existing paths into Hell.” She pressed her chin into the crook of her balled fist. “Now that I’ve alienated myself from the Pure Souls, it’s unlikely Jerry Romani would tell me if I asked him. Chipper occasionally hits up that Underworld bar in Mattapan. Maybe he knows someone I could cobble it from. There’s enough demon activity in the Greater Boston area to have the Pure Souls centered there the last few decades. Must be a portal to Hell somewhere near by. That would mean making my way to Boston through Athens, however.”

  “Actually, I know of one.”

  “Really, where?”

  “Just outside Los Angeles, very close to Hell-A’s location in the underworld. Or, there’s one here. Not here in the palace, of course. But here, near Olympus. One... left open from ancient times.”

  Persephone searched through cobwebbed memories. “The one out by the apple orchard? I’m pretty sure Gabriel himself closed that one.”

  “Actually, the one out by the boulders, near Elysian Fields. It’s the one I used the day we first met. The day I emerged from Hell, and discovered my Heaven.”

  Her cheeks flushed. “The tunnel that leads to our old throne room?”

  “Yes, to the place where we first made love.” Hades reclaimed Persephone’s hands and drew the backs to his lips, placing wet kisses to them in turn. “To a place where, if we are victorious, I wish to make love to you again.”

  Unable to pull back, Persephone nonetheless managed to lean in retreat. “I divorced you.”

  “And when you thought I was to die, you declared your love for me anew.” He leaned in, pausing just before his lips met hers. “We don’t need to be married to give each other pleasure, mine heart. In fact, I’ve been told that there’s a unique thrill to be found in the post-marital bed. Of all the ways we’ve made love, we’ve never had the opportunity until now. Or, if you prefer...”

  He ghosted his mouth to hers, barely touching. The lack of sensation drove her crazy, made her desire him more.

  “Renounce our divorce decree.”

  “Absolutely not.” Her determined declaration brought solidity to her voice. “I’m finally free of my six-month embargos and being trapped in your house half the year while you make me forget how much I hate you with your gyrating gymnastics. What on Earth would convince me to go back on that now?”

  With a humph, all the breath left her lungs as he pushed her to the wall and claimed her mouth. Persephone barely had time to think before her legs were hitched around Hades’s hips and he was working down the draping of her toga from her shoulders.

  “If not for the fact that we’re still in love? Then this. Gyrating gymnastics, you say? Let’s see if I can provide you with a ten-star routine.”

  Chapter 10

  With the caution of a child stealing from the confession plate, Marc’s eyelids slivered, allowing for the most minute examination of Lucy’s current state. Time proved an even more liquid concept in Hell than it’d been in the mortal realm; knowing if minutes or hours or days had passed proved impossible. It felt like a long time, that much he knew. The fallen angel to his left, however, maintained with apparent ease a prostrated form that would have made the most skillful yogi weep with envy.

  He turned both unshielded orbs on her then, this legendary figure pinned as the root of all Evil, as the reason mankind had been expelled from paradise and forced to be aware of his own lack of perfection, and found something utterly... beautiful. Not her body; a fallen angel could morph their physical form into whatever shape it pleased, and the lust or revolt it inspired was no more than a genetic throwback. (He’d have to admit “Lucy’s” current form had his libido time traveling to the age of the mastodon.) More than that, however, he beheld something in her, perhaps her aura, which despite eons of playing the villain, made him gasp and wonder at all the miracles of creation.

  “I know your true father never taught you anything growing up...”

  The sound of her musical voice against the barren soundscape of Hell’s prison jolted him. Marc let go of all pretense that he, too, was still locked in prayer, and fell back from his kneeling position, to a rocky butt scoot across the jail cell floor.

  Lucy’s smile was almost benevolent. “...but didn’t your mother at least tell you it’s rude to stare,” she concluded, looking teasingly down at him with violet eyes.

  “I’m sorry... I didn’t mean to...” A few taps of his tongue against his palate relieved the dryness of his mouth. “I’ve never seen one of the Fallen look like that. I just didn’t... What was that?”

  She rolled her eyes and pulled herself to her feet, recapturing her usual nonplussed attitude that annoyed him so much. “Let me guess, you saw some sort of glowing magnificence that, in your mind, shouldn’t be possible for the ruler of Hell?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  Lucy pulled out her hand, balled it, ro
lled it in the air, and then placed it, palm up, before her. A moment later, a pack of cigarettes appeared. Marc, a smoker all his adult life, hadn’t even thought of his former addiction since he’d been reincarnated in Hell. At that moment, however, he’d have slaughtered a baby lamb and wore its intestines as laurels if it meant he could get a smoke. He snatched the pack like Golem seizing his Precious and pulled one stick from the crinkly plastic wrap. A moment later, without any more need than to wish the cigarette were lit, it was. He expelled Hell and sucked in his own poisonous form of Heaven.

  “Funny how it’s the small things, huh?” Lucy said as Marc gave himself completely over to his bad habit. “You don’t notice as much when they disappear, but you get fixated when you realize they’re missing. Despite what your church and your species thinks, Marc, I’m not evil. It’s the reason I, and not one of my brothers, am the devil. Because unlike them, I accepted my punishment as just. And because of that, I was allowed to still touch heavenlight.”

  “Touch heavenlight? What in the hell does that mean?”

  “Oh, my goat. You and Jerry might be half-brothers, but he got all the brains.” Lucy folded her arms over her chest. “Big Boss loves duality, that whole yin-and-yang and individual-versus-society thing. So, when He made—you know, everything—He separated the magic of the world into dark and light. You probably know the dark one: hellfire. All demonic, black magic is powered by it. It’s strong. Deadly strong. Almost as strong is its Pollyanna cousin, heavenlight. All the wicca you did as a Pure Soul, all the magic Riona does as the half-breed daughter of Michael? Heavenlight. The big secret, though, is that that’s the way reality works. Heavenlight needs hellfire to exist, but needs it to keep its diminutive place in the grand order of things. It’s like a toadstool; sure the top gets all the attention, but it’s the stem that actually holds it up and lets it draw nutrients from the ground.”