“One, please don’t ever compare me and that bastard. Even if Romani is my brother, he and I are nothing alike. And two, I don’t see what that has to do with your aura being all sparkly a few minutes ago.”
“Why does Hell need a ruler, Marc?” the devil asked. “It’s not because dead souls particularly need a government apparatus to be kept in check. Sure, demons require a heavy hand from time to time, but that doesn’t necessitate an appointed overlord. Evil is powerful, but it’s what lets all the truly good things in the world exist. Hell is a compost heap; it draws down the energies of the wicked, lets tit boil, and turn it all into something beneficial. And the devil—Hades before me and Kronos before him, that’s what our role is. We are the conduits by which that salvaged energy flows back to Heaven, and why all that is good, can be. The role of the devil is to return to heaven that which it is due, while assuring that the harvest bears fruit. That’s why I send demons into the world. I don’t set out to corrupt mortals’ souls, no matter what all your sacred tomes say. My modus operandi is to sort out those who’ve already corrupted themselves, and make sure some good comes of it. Thus, when I pray, Big Boss listens. The integrity of His creation depends on it.”
Marc cocked his head to the side. “So why have me pray, then? I ain’t nothing worth nothing to him.”
The corner of Lucy’s mouth cocked into a knowing grin. “One of your last unspoken prayers as a human was to be given the ability to save Riona, wasn’t it?”
The demon shrugged. “And you say I’m the stupid one.”
“Not stupid, ignorant,” the devil amended. “But that’s okay. You’ll have a long time to learn. Don’t forget the lecture on your faith you gave me not too long ago. You’ll need to remind yourself every so often, or you’ll forget why you’re doing it.”
Marc felt his innards recoil. “Doing what?”
But no sooner had he asked the question, then a cracking noise filled the air. They spun, watching as the door which held them in their prison swung, giving them a route of escape.
Lucy didn’t hesitate to walk out, but had to stop and turn to see what was taking Marc so long. The demon stood, slack jawed, staring in amazement at the miracle that had happened.
The devil extended her right hand. “Don’t be so relieved. We’ll have to handle the rest of this mission by ourselves.”
“What mission?” Marc asked as he gently placed his hand in hers.
“To make sure Michael and your father don’t get away with their plan, of course,” she said, as though it was obvious. “Keep that blade at the ready, Marc. You’re going to use it pretty soon.”
Chapter 11
“It always creeps me out when you do that.”
Caught in the act.
Dee’s body tensed. He’d woken up an hour before, still hung over from their amorous activities earlier in the night. They’d barely made it into his room in the Boston brownstone before they were all over each other. Dee relished the gift he thought impossible, the gift his father had died to give. Anwen might have the balance of Carol’s soul and all of her memories, but the body was completely uncharted territory. The fact that he had his beloved wife back, even if it was with some bonus material, still seemed unreal. He took an extreme amount of pleasure in figuring out what methods and movements brought this incarnation of his wife the greatest enjoyment. He didn’t plan on letting a single opportunity to devote himself to that study pass unused.
Dee rolled over and faked innocence. “I wasn’t doing anything.”
“Yes, you were,” Anwen insisted. Goddess, that new accent. He had himself a little Welsh minx. So sexy. So unbelievably sexy. “You were doing that whole creeper, watching-me-sleep thing. I don’t understand how you’re even awake. As long as we went last night, I’d thought you’d be drunk enough to sleep twelve hours straight.”
Come to think of it, it was a little odd. “I am a little groggy, but... I don’t know. Things are wacky right now, maybe the way our natures are reacting to each other is different.”
“Maybe.” Anwen sighed as she scooted across the bed and fitted herself, chest to back, against Dee’s massive form. It was like laying a feather on a slab of sculptured marble. “No matter what you thought of him towards the end of your life, your dad always looked out for you. For us. You were always his favorite, you know. At least, of the last hundred years or so.”
His heart ached thinking of the years he’d wasted on anger, when all the time his father had been pulling favors and making deals to do right by him. He wished he could have some of those wasted years back. At least he had Carol.
Anwen.
Honestly, he was thankful to have both.
She huffed, bringing him out of his reverie. “Now, if only Hades had made that kind of deal as well. But, nae, he has to go and be all lover boy over a wife that’s detested him the better part of eternity.”
As much as Dee despised his uncle-slash-half-brother-in-law (Greek god family trees had more curves than a gallery of Marilyn Monroe paintings), he had never doubted his sister’s true feelings. “Steph has always loved Hades, she just hated being married to him. And him? Shit, he’s been obsessed with her for eons. I mean, I love my sister, but I never understood what it was about her that made him so desperate. If it was just to wreck the accords, I’d get it, but this angle of his couldn’t go that far back. You only died twenty-nine years...”
A dagger plunged into Dee’s thoughts. Quickly, he reworked the math. Twenty-nine usually wasn’t one of the suspicious numbers that poked its ritualistic head into demonology, facts of the accords, or wiccan mumbo jumbo. Twenty-eight, however, was. Twenty-eight was the exact number of years a fallen or archangel, stabbed in the mortal realm with a heavenly blade, was banned from it. Twenty-nine years ago, Carol hadn’t been the only woman in his life who was pregnant. Back then, a slightly younger but probably still bitter as bits Molly Dade would have been carrying a child. Once, Molly had been the girlfriend of one of the other Pure Souls. Dee hadn’t known the truth of Riona’s parentage until last Thanksgiving, when it had all come tumbling out. Before that, he just assumed she was either his former teammate’s love child, or the product of some random hookup Molly might have had.
Not so random, though, was it?
“Jerry was right. Hades was working with the Grigori.”
The sudden change threw Anwen for a loop. “Sorry?”
Dee rolled over and put his arms around his wife, pulling her meek frame to his. “Twenty-nine years ago, Hades volunteered to give up Persephone to save your life. Twenty-nine years ago, Michael impregnated Molly Dade. The link between them is Azazel. Steph and Riona are both pawns in this. They’re both being used.”
“She seemed to be in control and doing her own thing up there on the mountain. Hades was doing nothing more than backing her up.”
“Hades is a maestro of my sister’s emotions. Always has been. He makes subtle manipulation an art form. Thus, my hate.”
“Well, if that’s true, what do you suppose we should do about it?”
“Beats me, but one thing I know for sure: I’m not letting him trick my sister into doing something that will get her killed, the way he did with my dad.”
WHEN RIONA DADE HAD found out she was actually a witch, and that with a few mumbled phrases of bastardized Latin, Sanskrit, or Aramaic she could do everything from vanquish demons to clear up toe fungus (hey, it’s a common ailment—that charm was very useful), she’d felt like the jagged corners of her life had finally smoothed out. Later, when also she learned that her father had been an archangel, and therefore she had top shelf magic compared even to the very few of her kind, she’d felt like she was being punked. Nonetheless, she convinced herself to come to terms with it. After all, this crazy fiasco of reality had also done something impossible: brought the man she loved back to life. Now, in the quiet of the evening, as that very man sat sleeping off the round of ball they’d played after sneaking up to her room, she found herself staring
in the mirror, trying to get a grip on everything that happened.
Six hours before, she’d managed to one, sprout wings in flagrante; two, save her husband and friends from certain doom; and three, rip a whole in the universe that let them all jump safely from Mt. Olympus to their safe house in Boston. Despite Dr. Who-like implications with that last bit, it was that first thing that had her mind racing at the moment. Wings. Motherfucking wings? How did that happen? How did one just spontaneously have projectile, feathered limbs shoot out of their back without warning, which then mysteriously disappeared for no better reason than they’d shown up. She’d already discovered as she stared at her naked form in the mirror that no evidence remained on her back to suggest any scarring or kangaroo pouches that served as entry points. So what was the trigger? What made them appear? And where did they go?
“There must be better uses of your time.”
Riona all but jumped three feet in the air. Before she could come to terms with the fact that a man had suddenly appeared, staring condescendingly over her shoulder from behind, she had a vase in hand as her first line of defense. The ceramic piece flew as though piloted by Lindbergh through the air, fragmenting over Ramiel’s perfect brow, but having all the effect of a mouse passing gas in a hurricane on his temple. The angel flinched, letting out a yelp as Riona dove to the floor to snatch up her robe. Jerry, roused by the ruckus, stumbled out of bed, dressed in his best birthday suit, and began swinging confusedly at empty air.
Ramiel threw his hands up over his eyes. “Whoa, okay, didn’t need to see that. What is Jerry doing in your room?”
“What am I doing here?” Jerry’s punch went wide, the force pulling his body to the ground with a harrumph. He had no problem being naked before the dispatch of Heaven, but he wished to Hell he could manage to wail into him successfully. “I’m her husband. I’m supposed to be here. What are you doing here?”
“Really, Jerry? Sharing a bed with your wife? My, my, you are a modern man now.” Ramiel closed his eyes. “I should have knocked. Here, get some clothes on.”
With a swish of a hand across the air, as though moving a paintbrush, both Jerry and Riona found themselves swaddled in robes straight out of a production of Jesus Christ Superstar. They looked like an awkward set of the nativity.
The angel exhaled his relief. “Phew, I thought for a moment there this was going to be a scene out of a cheap adult film or Kanye West video or something.” He settled himself on the corner of the bed, oblivious to the fact that the sheets were still twisted in yogi-envious forms by Riona and Jerry’s après sleep bumping.
“I need the four-one-one. One, how did you get back here so quickly from Athens? And two, what the Hell happened? One minute Dee and Persephone were holding each other and weeping over their dad’s death, and the next I was being given a discreet stick in the side by the cerebi while they told me to get my ass out of their realm.”
“And, what, you just did?” Jerry bit, lifting himself to sit next to where Riona had settled on the edge of the bed. “What kind of liaison are you, that just abandons his Pure Souls in the midst of his own piles of shit and expects them to stay out of it?”
Ramiel’s brow furrowed. “I know you haven’t always had respect for the rules, but the accords say that if the presumed ruler of the Nephilim tells me to get gone, I vamoose. Believe me, I wasn’t all that jazzed to be going. The Nephilim have been under Zeus’ rule for thousands of years. Then in the span of twenty-four hours, his favorite son returns after years, the Greek Lucy and Desi divorce, the king dies, and a demon steals a rogue angelic blade from the palace? Even a dead man could smell all the bullshit in this picture. So dish. What happened?”
Jerry put his arm around his wife. “We consummated our marriage. Repeatedly.”
The embarrassed witch wiggled herself out from under her husband’s hold. “TMI, Jerry.”
“Oh, I’m well aware of that.” Ramiel’s tone suggested a total lack of surprise. Or care. “But I’m a little more concerned with political developments than you two getting your groove on. Did Steph formally declare herself queen?”
“She did,” Riona said. “In a big ceremony in the palace in front of all of Olympus. Also, she declared war on the archangels. So, you know, you might not want to stop in for tea anytime soon.”
She wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Riona watched in amazement as Ramiel’s face bleached white.
“She what?”
Jerry assumed the story from there. “She sentenced all your kind to death. And right after that, Dee challenged her publicly, my wife declared herself a member of the hit list, and Hades encased us in stone. Also, FYI, Steph now has Zeus’ lightning. Put on quite a show with it. Pink Floyd worthy.”
The angel babbled to himself. “No, this can’t be. This isn’t possible. Is she that mad at me that she’d kill everyone? No wonder Larry wanted to seal up the gates.”
“Do we need to be here for this part of the conversation?” Riona asked. “If Heaven is sealed off, doesn’t that mean your kind are all safe?”
Ramiel let out an exasperated sigh, turning around and taking a seat on the bed as well. “Not me, obviously. Not you, either, if you shared your secret with everyone. You should have kept your mouth shut and snuck out quietly.”
“Told you,” Jerry nagged.
Riona’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Well, excuse me if I assumed that the woman who had been a close friend twelve hours before wouldn’t want to lump me in with her attempts at genocide.”
“Way to go, Ramiel,” Jerry said. “You schlep around with a married woman, and now she wants to destroy the universe to get back at you when it all turns sour.”
“Oh, this is so not about me,” Ramiel insisted. “This has Hades written all over it. He’s using her grief and manipulating her emotions. If he wants me dead, he’ll have to catch me first, and that isn’t happening with him all trapped on Olympus. It doesn’t matter that Steph has Zeus’ bolt now and can kill us. Larius has sealed Heaven, and they won’t come out with her running around half-cocked.”
“Only half-cocked?” Jerry said. “You know, Ramiel, they make medications for that problem now. Maybe that’s why she was so pissed off with you. Rumors say Persephone is a very demanding lover.”
“Sometimes I think you were resurrected from Hell, and sometimes I think your presence merely makes us all think we’re still there.”
The redhead tried to get the two back on topic. “Please ignore Jerry’s childish jokes. I don’t get it? Why does Hades hate you so much? From what I understand, the Nephilim aren’t exactly big on physical fidelity. She’s admitted as much as having slept around pretty widely.”
“Because with Steph and me, it’s never just been sex. We tell ourselves that. We swear each other off, sometimes for a century or more. But we always end up coming back to each other.”
The implied history didn’t slip past Jerry. “Wait, so this affair you two were having, it’s not something new?”
“New? No. It started during the rapture.” The angel’s shoulders fell. “I was trying to find her, to make sure she didn’t die during it all. I went to her room in the palace, and I found her there. And we... Well... I took her virginity.”
Ramiel winced as Jerry punched him in the shoulder.
“You sly dog, you.”
“Yeah, well, a lot of good that did. I asked her to wait for me; I was going to try and get permission from Michael and Gabriel to... I don’t know. Save her? Marry her? Take her into Heaven? But I never got a chance, because that’s when the famous chariot ride happened.”
“No way, you mean that was true?” Riona asked. The other two turned loaded glances at her, but for her part, she just shrugged. “Come on, it’s one of the most famous Greek myths. You can’t expect me not to be curious.”
“It really happened,” Ramiel said flatly. “But not exactly the way it’s told. Hades had been courting her for months, and in his defense, she wasn’t exactly telling him to b
ugger off. He came up from the Underworld, found her, and dragged her off against her will. The gathering flowers part? I think that’s a metaphor about how I was... um, deflowering her. But in the panic and turmoil of the rapture, Hades used her fear and confusion and finally got her to succumb to his proposal for her hand. Much to his chagrin, when he found out she wasn’t a virgin anymore, that I had taken her maidenhead, he swore revenge. He couldn’t kill me, of course, but I knew how resourceful he was. It was I who suggested that he be exiled to Olympus.”
“And now he’s gotten Steph to be his weapon,” Riona said. “Ramiel, the angels—can Steph really destroy them all?”
He gave himself over to thought. “She’d have to hack into Heaven to do it, unless something convinces Larius to reopen the gates on purpose. They’re probably safe. There are no more open gates to Heaven accessible from any of the terrestrial realms. Only archangels in good standing and the souls of deceased humans who’ve been deemed worthy can get in.”
Jerry nodded. “Unless you happen to have an advendavi and ways to press her emotional buttons.”
“I had that thought too,” Ramiel said. “Which is why, Riona,” he turned his gaze to her, “you have to stay out of this. That’s what they’ve been planning all along.”
“But wait—wouldn’t killing all the archangels include the Grigori?”
Ramiel shook his head. “Not necessarily. If your dad gets you to open a gate to the heavenly realm, and Steph lights the place up, killing the council, then the Grigori can take control over it, leaving Hades to take back the Underworld for his own. Only one problem with that: The full range to control hellfire granted only to the devil. Unless they’ve been really sweet talking Luc the last few weeks, I very much doubt Michael, Azazel, or even Hades will be able to assume the title.”
Jerry snapped, pulling Riona and Ramiel’s gazes his way. “He has the right to name his replacement, doesn’t he? Son of a bitch! I thought that for eons, but I could never find a single piece of evidence to support it. Didn’t want to ask my dad; thought he might get too excited about the prospect.”
When Spell Freezes Over (All My Exes Die From Hexes Book 4) Page 9
