With This Ring: Imp Series, Book 11

by Dunbar, Debra

  “And don’t be takin’ any food or drink from them,” one man said with a wag of his finger.

  “The elves seem to think that Ireland is with them, that you’re going to join their Elven Union,” I said.

  The burly guy chuckled. “You learn ta respect the fae. Leave them offerings and flatter them, but never ever follow them anywhere. You gotta be clever, stay one step ahead. You gotta let them think you’re worshiping the ground they walk on, when the whole time you’re making sure there’s a way you can escape when they try to tighten the noose.”

  I left with a much greater appreciation for the Irish than I’d ever had before. And I left fairly drunk, which made my next few visits somewhat hazy. I remember some dude in England telling me they weren’t going to belong to no EU whether it was with big letters or little letters. I couldn’t understand a damned thing the Scottish people said, and by the time I got there, I was too drunk to even remember what the Welsh people said.

  Giving my phone a bleary-eyed glance, I wondered if I had time to swing by Australia before the Ruling Council meeting. I was supposed to meet with their Prime Minister some other day, but I’d discovered there was just as much value in chatting up the drunken locals as there was these official meetings.

  I’d be cutting it close, but I figured I had time for a pint or two, so I headed down under, roaming the streets of Melbourne before I found a bar that looked promising.

  It was just after midnight there and everyone in the bar was far more plastered than I was. I tried to level the playing field by slamming down a few shots, then grabbed a beer and sauntered on up to a group of loud, rowdy guys.

  I immediately won them over by buying them a round.

  “You’re American,” one of them roared at me.

  “Sort of.” I’d lived there for the last forty some years, and although Samantha Martin had been a citizen, the Iblis technically wasn’t. Although according to the president, that would soon be remedied.

  “Can’t believe those sodding mucks took your entire West Coast.” A guy with a blond man-bun toasted me with his beer. “Surprised you didn’t nuke ’em.”

  “Glad they didn’t nuke ’em,” a college-aged guy muttered. “Stupid Yanks would have totally hosed half the planet.”

  “Still, ain’t fair a bunch of supernatural wonks swoop in from nowhere and start snatching up the real estate.”

  “Ain’t fair,” a bald guy muttered into his beer.

  “So I take it you’re not a fan of the demons?” I tried for a casual tone, reassuring myself that they couldn’t know who, or what, I was, and even if they did, Gareth hadn’t started shipping his serious weaponry yet.

  Or had he? He wasn’t supposed to be building the wall yet either, and the damned thing was more than halfway done according to Gregory.

  Man-bun waved his hand, sloshing beer onto the already sticky floor. “Demons. Angels. They’re all the same. Take stuff. Order us around.”

  “I hate beets,” the bald guy added.

  There was a general consensus of murmurs as all the men agreed that beets were not good food.

  “How about elves?” I asked.

  That question was greeted by a shout so loud I nearly dropped my beer.

  “Elves are the worst,” Man-bun insisted. “They try to fix your hair.”

  “Fix your houses,” bald guy added.

  “Fix your beach.” Beard guy glared. “They showed up and ruined the best surfing spot in Byron Bay. Said they were making it better for coral and phytoplankton.”

  “I’m all for coral and phytoplankton, but not in our surf spot,” College guy clarified.

  Okay. Aussies were all for a healthy environment, just not in their surf spots. Got it.

  “One tried to fix my broken arm.” Bald guy held up an arm that didn’t appear to be broken. “Maybe I want a broken arm. Maybe it gives me something to talk about with the guys. Maybe it gets me respect because I tried to jump my truck over the hill, and no one else has got the guts to try that.”

  “Yeah. Don’t fix our broken arms,” Man-bun yelled. “We don’t want your help, you pointy-eared, non-surfing, cool-hair-hating elves.”

  I blinked. “So what are you doing about the elves? And the demons? And the angels?”

  College guy leaned in with a conspiratorial grin. “Drop bears.”

  I shivered. “Fuck. No.”

  “Yes. Drop bears. We’ve been training them. Elves are terrified of them.”

  I was terrified of them. Cute koala things with sharp teeth and a vicious attitude. They usually hunted by waiting for prey to walk under the tree where they were hiding, then they dropped down on them and tore them to shreds. Merciless carnivores, they’d been coming through wild gates faster than we could shove them back. Most humans hunted them. Figures that Australians would embrace them and decide to put them to good use.

  “You’re sending drop bears after angels and demons as well?” I could see how most demons would run screaming from the things—most angels as well—but I didn’t see how it would drive them from the country.

  “If the drop bears don’t convince them to leave, then these will.” Baldy pulled a pistol from his pocket. I caught my breath, for a second thinking that Gareth was already shipping these out. That’s when I realized this gun didn’t have a white muzzle.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Baldy reassured me. “It’s not a gun-gun. Those aren’t legal unless they’re licensed and it isn’t easy to get approval for one of those. This is a no-wings gun. Won’t hurt humans one bit—it’s the same as getting hit with a paint ball bullet. But hit a demon or an angel, and bam.”

  “Bam?” I asked weakly. I knew about bam. I’d personally experienced bam.

  “Bam! No more supernatural powers.”

  “Then we beat the crap out of them,” Man-bun said, smacking his fist into his palm. More beer sloshed out of the glass he held in the fist, spilling onto the floor.

  I was a little nervous with one of those things being waved around in my face. The drunk guys might not worry about getting shot with it, but I did. This was not the time to find myself powerless and texting Gregory. Who knew if Oma would wipe out the magic a second time, and I definitely didn’t want to go through the pain of having Gregory trying to burn his way through the spell again.

  I bought another round, excused myself to go to the bathroom, and got the fuck out of Australia. Returning home, I found both Dar and Terrelle standing by the French doors overlooking my pool patio. They were drinking the beer I’d just restocked and watching zombie animals shambling around the pool.

  “Five bucks says the rat goes in first,” Terrelle said.

  “Rats are smarter than that. My money’s on the skunk,” Dar replied.

  I went to get my own beer, dismayed at the dent that they’d made in my supply. Then I joined them at the door. The zombie animals were dangerously close to the pool that had just been emptied and cleaned out. Thankfully the company hadn’t returned yet to fill it up since there appeared to be several undead squirrels twitching at the bottom. Fuckers. I’d have to call the pool people to clean it out once more. Maybe I should go ahead and put the cover over it and fill it once I’d taken care of the zombie situation—if I could take care of the zombie situation, that was.

  The thought depressed me. A huge part of my summer was usually spent by or in this pool. And now some undead shit was about to ruin that for me.

  The rat plunged over the edge to the bottom of the empty pool and Terrelle held out her hand. “Live rats are smarter. Dead ones? Not so much.”

  Dar grumbled something and handed her a five. “Lost at golf, and now this. Hope this losing streak ends before the next election.”

  “I thought the plan was for you to lose golf,” I said. “That way you’d win in the long run politically.”

  “True.” Dar moved away from the door. “I still don’t like losing, though. And that guy is horrible at golf. I had to actually work to lose. And you know how much
I hate to work.”

  We went over to sit on the couch as Terrelle continued watching various animal corpses fall into my pool.

  “So, what did you learn?” I asked Dar.

  “A lot, most of it having to do with his food preferences and vast conspiracies by the media, certain racial groups, and various nations. Luckily paranoia works to my advantage.”

  “Yes, but does it work to my advantage?”

  “That depends on how much you like the angels. I mean, we’ve both got certain angels we like, and I’ve been promised those particular angels will be exempted from any laws.”

  That’s pretty much what I’d been told in my meeting. “So he’s going forward with the immigration policies thing? No angels except those with special permits?”

  Dar nodded. “And it’s coming sooner than you think. Law enforcement is going to be tasked with disabling and turning any angels they apprehend over to immigration for deportation. It’s a version of stop-and-frisk, and since angels aren’t human, no one is concerned about the constitutionality of the policy.”

  “But where are they going to deport to? Throw them through the gates to Hel? Toss them into New Hell with the convicts and demons? Load them into a rocket and shoot them to the moon?”

  “Not the moon thing. That’s too expensive. And I’ve been told they’re not going to New Hell without your permission, since the Prez thinks you’re pretty damned cool, and he doesn’t want to get on your bad side. Besides, he thinks you’ll charge him for any angels he deports to New Hell, so he’s planning to toss them through the gates.”

  Which would be instant death for angels neutralized by the magical weapons. A death sentence might be justifiable for an angel who was a real danger to humanity, but just for existing and trying to make a life here? They wanted to go home, they just couldn’t.

  But, of course, there was one problem with the president’s plan.

  “Humans can’t activate the gates. They were designed that way on purpose so people didn’t go accidently falling into Hel.” Much like the zombie animals were falling into my empty pool.

  “They can now.” Dar smirked. “It’s one of Blue Fire’s offerings.”

  “The archangels made the gates to Hel. They can just as easily disable them,” I pointed out. That would be a pain in the ass for demons, though. Seattle was in New Hel. Maybe I could convince Gregory to keep that gate open so demons could come and go as we pleased without having to find an Ancient to teleport them.

  “Then Blue Fire will have to make a one-way set of teleportation stones. Why do you care, Mal? Our angels won’t be deported. And the less angels that are living here, the easier it will be for us to do what we want. And think of the money we’re going to make!”

  Back before I’d been an Angel of Chaos, I would have agreed with him, but things were different now. “I’m the reason they can’t go back to Aaru. It’s my fault. None of them want to be here. And now they’re going to die because of something that’s not their fault.”

  They wouldn’t all die, though. After word got out about what the humans were doing and what sort of weapons they had, the angels would band together and what Gregory feared would come to pass. It would be war, and it wouldn’t just be the rebel angels against the humans, but all of them. They wouldn’t just sit back and wait until a cop caught them, took their wings, then shoved them to their deaths, they’d launch a preemptive strike. And even with Blue Fire weapons in hand, millions of humans would die before they managed to exterminate all the angels. Possibly billions.

  And there was a slim chance that the angels might win. If they started to get the upper hand, the elves would jump in and promise humanity help as long as they let the elves run things. And faced with no good decision, the humans might take that deal.

  I ran through all the possibilities in my head, and didn’t see this ending well at all.

  “Anything else come out of your trip? Either with the president or with Gareth?”

  “I managed to push Gareth along on deliveries. We’ve got some asshole out there undercutting us with shitty merchandise. Besides price, they’re shipping faster than we are. I told Gareth we’ve got to get product out the door within a week of order, and to get going on the Woo-woo deliveries before the government tries to back out and use this other company instead.”

  Fucking hell. I was running out of time.

  Chapter 18

  I was early to the Ruling Council meeting. Gabe had barely called the meeting to order when I snatched the agenda from him and tossed it across the room.

  “I’m going first. We’ve got a problem. We’ve got a serious problem and I don’t want to waste time talking about stupid shit.”

  For once no one argued. In fact, I was a bit flustered by the six pairs of eyes turned attentively toward me.

  “Uh…there’s guns and other shit. Some places have the weapons now, and the rest will in the next week or so. It’s no fun, let me tell you, and it’s not fucking easy to break either. And the Elven Union, and rebel angels, and human governments aren’t going to take any shit from angels.”

  Thankfully Gregory explained it all in a more coherent manner. That’s when the whole room erupted into bedlam.

  So much for Angels of Order.

  Gregory slammed his fist onto the table. “One at a time. Uriel, you first.”

  “What restrictions are there on who gets these weapons? Because, trust me, there are humans in this country who wouldn’t hesitate to shoot anything with wings and claim self-defense.”

  “The shifters faced something similar up in Alaska,” Ahia chimed in. “It helped to get the majority of humans on our side, to portray us as victims.”

  “It helped that most of the humans in Alaska were already familiar with shifters and had been working beside them in peace for almost two centuries,” Raphael added. “There are packs in other states and parts of the world that are facing discrimination and even violence. Many shifters feel safer continuing to pose as humans.”

  “I still think a concerted PR campaign might help,” Ahia insisted. “For angels as well as shifters.”

  I snorted. Obviously there would be no PR campaign for demons. Kinda hard to paint theft and violence in a positive light.

  “There’s a bigger problem here than angels being jailed or possibly killed.” Nyalla’s voice shook with emotion. “This world belongs to the humans and the other species native to the area, not elves, not demons, and certainly not angels. I spent eighteen years of my life enslaved to the elves in Hel. I’m not about to sit here discussing PR campaigns when seven billion of my people are facing the same slavery I did either by angels or elves. Or death by angels who want to wipe us out, like we’re pesky ants ruining their picnic.”

  “Darling, the problems are interrelated.” Gabe put his hand over Nyalla’s. “If angels fear they’re going to be sent to human jails, or that they might even be killed by a random human on the street, they’ll be less likely to protect humans in the coming war between us and the rebels.”

  Nyalla yanked her hand away. “Maybe if angels actually abided by human laws, they wouldn’t worry so much about jail or being killed. We shouldn’t have to pander to their egos to save ourselves from genocide.”

  “Nyalla’s right.” I’d never been so proud of my girl. “I’m as worried as you all are about these weapons, but if there are angels out there wanting to rid the world of humans, then humans need to have a means of defending themselves.”

  I couldn’t believe I was saying that. Maybe it was because I’d spent almost a thousand years worried I’d be killed by an angel that I had some sympathy toward the humans in this. I hadn’t been anywhere near the top of the food chain in Hel, and living among the humans I’d always been careful not to draw the attention of any angels. I understood not wanting to get killed.

  It sucked that the angels couldn’t go back to Aaru, but that didn’t give them the right to take over here.

  Everyone turned to Gregory,
who had been unusually silent throughout the discussion.

  “As concerned as I am about the weapons and the potential for misuse, I agree with Nyalla that our priority is to ensure this war of ours does not adversely impact the humans and their world.”

  “An odd statement given that you’ve led the Grigori for the last ten thousand years,” Gabe commented drily.

  Gregory scowled at his brother. “The original Grigori, the tenth choir, were to ensure the positive evolution of the humans. My Grigori were to try to mitigate the wrongs of the first group and allow the humans to evolve naturally with minimal intervention on our part. Those who wish to exterminate humans and take over their world make the sins of the tenth choir seem minor in comparison.”

  “Exactly how do you propose we protect the humans?” Uriel leaned back in her chair and shook her head. “There are seven billion of them and seven of us on the Ruling Council. Even if we divide up the world, none of us can protect a billion people.”

  “We can’t protect humans acting like we’re a bunch of security guards,” Ahia said. “We need to support the humans as they protect themselves, all while we’re taking out the rebels. Angels need to know that this sort of thing won’t be tolerated, either by us or the humans.”

  “Cockroach, what do you think we should do?” Gregory asked.

  I shrugged, feeling exhausted by the whole thing. All this thinking, planning, and multitasking…. I wasn’t an Angel of Order, and I was damned tired of trying to act like one. “Fuck if I know.”

  Gabriel waved my words away. “Ahia, you and Raphael will be in charge of the PR campaign. Make sure humans know there are powerful angels who are on their side, and that we’re willing to partner with them in defending their lands and people. Nyalla, you can help. A human liaison will be particularly important here.”

  “Uriel and her human household can assist us,” Raphael added. “She received a lot of positive press after her actions in taking down that human trafficking ring.”

  Gregory nodded. “Gabriel and I will continue to work on locating and eradicating the rebels and those who support them. The Iblis will gather as much information as possible on these weapons, including possible antidotes, and present at the next Ruling Council meeting.”