“And the elves?” I asked.
Gregory shrugged. “At this moment, the elves are the very least of our worries.”
Normally I’d agree, but after meeting with them in Iceland, I was worried the sneaky motherfuckers were going to be more of a problem than anyone thought.
I hoped I was wrong, because we already had enough to do without adding another war into the mix.
* * *
Instead of going straight home after the Ruling Council meeting, I went to Florida. I’d tried being an angel, negotiating and smoothing shit over between everyone. It wasn’t working—at least it wasn’t working fast enough. I wasn’t like the other angels. I wasn’t even like Dar, who could play a long strategic game to get what he wanted. I needed change, and I needed it right now. So I was going to fall back on those old demon standards of threat and intimidation.
The white edifice of Blue Fire sparkled in the sunlight. I walked right on in the door and up to the receptionist’s desk. Knowing what was coming, I did a quick pivot and duck, summoning my sword as the guards shot me.
The bullets flew over my head. Thankfully my sword appeared as a tall shield because the guards adjusted aim and fired once more. I had little faith that my sword would be of any use at all against these weapons. I was wrong. The bullets bounced off the shield as if I were a demon Captain America. I felt their magic coat my shield and experienced a second of panic before the weapon absorbed everything without any damage whatsoever.
Ha. Score one for the imp.
Another round of bullets hit the shield. Unsure how many more my weapon could take, I got to my feet and rushed the guards, smacking them with the flat of the giant shield as the receptionist screamed in the background.
I’d never fought with a shield before. Figuring one quick blow wouldn’t do much, I pushed the two guards backward, pinning them against the building wall. Peeking over the edge of the shield, I reached around and punched them in turn. Then I added a little demon energy into the mix. The pair went down, and stayed down.
The receptionist had fled the building at this point, so I pocked the two guns as well as the guards’ key cards, and took the elevator upstairs. When the doors opened I saw people racing toward the stairs clutching laptops and files in their arms.
“Hurry,” a man shouted as he ran by. “There’s a demon in the building. We’ve got thirty seconds until lockdown.”
The demon was me. And lockdown? What the fuck good was that going to do? Were they locking me out or me in? Plus thirty seconds meant these people were probably all going to be stuck in the stairwells between the eighth and first floor.
I fought against the tide of panicked employees to Gareth’s office. It might be ten more seconds until the overall lockdown, but I knew the moment I saw the door that the sorcerer’s security had kicked in the moment I’d walked into the building. As curious as I was to see what would happen if I hacked at the magically secured door with my Iblis sword, manners prevailed so I knocked.
Gareth got up from his desk to look out the side window. I smiled and waved, then waited for him to unlock the door and let me in, figuring I’d resort to bashing at it with the sword as a back-up plan.
The sorcerer unlocked his door, then clutched an amulet around his neck. The alarms stopped, and so did the people racing toward the exit. Ushering me in, Gareth said a few choice words to me in Elvish.
“Hey, your people shot at me first. If they’d kept their fucking guns in their holsters, none of this would have happened.” I shook a finger in the sorcerer’s face. “You can’t just shoot at any demon or angel that walks through the front door, especially me. It isn’t polite. Actually it’s damned insulting. You make a habit of that, and you’re going to find your building and all its occupants reduced to subatomic particles.”
“You aren’t able to do that sort of thing,” he fumed.
“No, but I could devour the whole fucking thing. Same end result. And I know an archangel that can incinerate a moderately sized solar system. I’m pretty sure wiping out an eight-story building won’t take much effort.”
“That would start a war,” he snapped.
I shrugged. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about starting a war. Luckily for you my beloved doesn’t want war. He wants to allow humans autonomy. He wants angels to live in peace beside them. But if humans are going to start taking pot shots at anything with wings, and some things without, then he might just change his mind.”
Gareth sat back down at his desk. “Are you threatening me?”
“Nope. Just telling it like it is.” I sat down across from him. “And here’s what’s going to happen. You’ll deliver only the non-lethal weapons. The ones that kill angels are no longer available through Blue Fire or anyone else. If I hear of them being sold and trace either the sale or the spell back to you or this company, you’re going to be spending the rest of your life in Dis.”
He sputtered, and I held up my hand.
“Oh, there’s more. Weapons are only to be sold to law enforcement communities. No private sales whatsoever. You can build the fucking wall. You can continue with the elf amulets that protect against iron. You can create and sell security devices that allow people to keep angels and demons out of their homes. Any other product you want to make needs to be cleared through me first. Is this clear?”
Honestly, I had no illusion that any of these rules would stick. The weapons would get stolen or sold or smuggled, and there were going to be private owners who managed to get their hands on them. And restricting Blue Fire wouldn’t do shit if that other company was distributing to every dude with a PayPal account. I could fly around every fucking day trying to shut down small operations and private mage-labs.
I was an Angel of Chaos. I was going to let the chips fall where they may. All I wanted to do was slow this shit down and buy us all a little time to get control of a potentially explosive situation between humans and angels. Getting Gareth to limit his distribution, knocking the crap out of the other company—it might give us a week, it might give us a year. But even a week was better than what we had now.
“We have contracts,” Gareth argued. “And I don’t care how powerful these angels are, they’re not going to win in a war against humans. My weapons mean there might be a world left for us to live on after the dust settles. Stop my sales, the fulfillment of my contracts, and humans will start bringing out things that will not only destroy angels, but decimate this planet.”
I leaned forward and put my elbows on his desk. “Picture this. Some dickhead of a leader decides he doesn’t want angels in his country, so he starts killing them. Four, five die before the rest of the angels find out what’s going on. Then they start wiping out the humans one city at a time. Humans try to nuke them, but angels teleport so all they’re doing is blasting away at their planet. Two months later all the humans are dead, and the angels are chilling out on an empty world with the cockroaches and whatever else is okay with radiation.”
I paused and watched as Gareth steadied his breathing.
“Or we angels have time to align with human governments and sign treaties about what countries we’re welcome in and which ones we’re not. That way when the police start shooting angels and stuffing them in jails, there will be powerful archangels standing there supporting them. That way when lethal weapons eventually find their way out in the open, both human governments and these powerful angels will denounce their use and work together to bring those who take the law into their own hands to justice.”
Gareth shook his head. “It’ll never work. The humans aren’t going to work with angels. They’re afraid of them. They want to defend themselves, and they feel powerless against celestial beings.”
“Humans have always partnered with those more powerful than them. They’ve served rulers, generals, CEOs. They’ve aligned themselves with demons, even sold their souls to us. You think nations aren’t going to line up for an alignment with the Archangel Michael? The Iblis? Please. The Presid
ent is already serving me hamburgers in the Oval Office. He’s golfing with the demon mayor of Chicago.”
I stood and started toward the door. “I’m done asking, Gareth. I’m telling. Do as I say.”
“Or what?” he snapped.
I turned and smiled. “I’ve been in Ahriman’s dungeon before. It’s not pleasant for a demon, and I’m sure it will be worse for a human. None of your magic will work there. It’s cold and damp, and there’s shit prowling around that’s been there long before I took over.”
Chapter 19
I came home to find Lux barricaded in the house with an entire menagerie of dead animals prowling around the perimeter. As I went to pull out my sword I realized a few of them weren’t animals, but human corpses. Great. I really was living through the zombie apocalypse. Once I got all this angel and human shit taken care of, I really needed to deal with the necromancer who was cursing me with animated dead. The elves were sliding down farther onto my list, because I couldn’t continue to live like this.
It took me about an hour to dispatch them all. I’d given up dumping them in the woods and instead just piled them up beside the driveway so the mail and delivery guys could get through.
Lux watched me through the window, greeting me with a hug when I came through the door.
“We should move,” he told me.
“I like this house. I’m not moving because some asshole is recreating a Walking Dead episode in my front yard. We’ll figure it out.” I ruffled his curls, thinking about what we could get into tonight. Maybe ice cream then a free fall off the cliffs at Maryland Heights? I could call Candy and see if she and some of the pack wanted to do a four-legged run along the towpath, just for old times sake. I wasn’t sure Lux was capable of changing into a canine form at this point, but he could always fly above us as we ran.
“Rings.”
I sighed, realizing that my Angel of Order child was not going to delay his duties further.
“We’ve only got three left.” I dug them out of my pocket and set them on the table. “Sure you don’t want to wait until later this week? I was thinking we could get ice cream instead.”
He pursed his lips, tapping them in thought. “One ring, then ice cream.”
It was a good compromise.
“This one’s pretty,” I commented, picking one of the rings up and turning it over in my hand. It was a solid band with some weird inscriptions on it. Even though I felt mildly compelled to put it on, I wasn’t going to. I’d sat through that twelve-hour trilogy and the other movie, and I knew exactly how things went when people started shoving other people’s rings on their fingers. “How about we take this one back?”
“Very scary,” Lux intoned.
“The ring?” I wasn’t getting any scary vibes from it, but what did I know?
“The place,” Lux said. “It’s scary.”
“I’ll be right by your side. Nothing is going to happen to you when I’m there.”
His eyebrows shot up.
“Or I can go myself. Just write down the address and show me on Google Maps, and I’ll do it.”
Lux shook his head. “No satellite maps. No address.”
Great. I thought about the weird place where that hag tried to steal my engagement ring and kill us. If that was the sort of place we were going, then I really didn’t want to take Lux there. But I had no idea how I’d figure out where it was without an address or Google Maps. Lux was pretty good at communicating abstract ideas, but if I’d never been there before, I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea how to teleport there on my own.
I knelt down in front of him. “Then you’ll need to be brave and take me there. If it’s too scary, you go straight home. I can get home myself. I’ll carry the ring and come back just as soon as I replace it. Okay?”
His blue eyes met mine. “Exact place? Da says the rings should be in same spot.”
We’d already fudged that quite a bit. If this place was as Lux feared, then I was going to pitch the thing and get the fuck out of there.
“Of course. I’ll return it to the exact same spot,” I lied.
“It’s very scary,” he warned me.
I’d been smacked around by a troll, burned to a crisp by a dragon, shot by the Phoenix police, and cursed by a hag. Better me than Lux. Hopefully this time whatever he was scared of would be something like a circus clown, or a Picasso painting, or a creepy looking house.
Well, maybe not a clown. I think I’d rather be burned by a dragon than face down a clown.
“I know, but I’m very scary too.” I tried for a ferocious, toothy expression and he giggled. “We’ve only got three rings left to return. Let’s do this one, then we’ll get ice cream.”
“Okay.” He put his hand in mine and I’ll admit my insides felt a little gooshy when he did it.
“Good, my brave little angel. Take me there, and show me where, or who, I’m supposed to take the ring to, and I’ll do it. You can go right back home if it’s too scary.”
He smiled, rendering my insides even more liquid, then we were off, teleporting to wherever the heck he’d stolen this ring from. I got that weird nauseous feeling I did when I was tagging along on another angel’s teleportation, then suddenly it was as if I’d hit a brick wall. I felt Lux’s hand ripped from my grip, then I felt myself fall.
I hit the ground in the middle of a busy street. Cars slid and shrieked as they tried to avoid driving over top of me. The smart thing to do would have been to immediately teleport out of there, but instead I rolled to the curb and stood, dusting off my clothing.
“Are you okay?” A young man pulled over and eyed me with concern.
“I’m fine, thanks.” Actually I was stunned. What the fuck had just happened? And where was Lux? I tried to reach out and locate him but came up blank. Did my Lux-locater have a distance limit? Was he on Neptune or something? Although I’d been to Neptune before and never had any problem getting there and back.
A sick feeling wormed its way through my guts. There was only one place I’d experienced such an abrupt refusal when I’d tried to enter.
Aaru.
Lux must have gotten in. And he’d gotten in before if he’d managed to steal a ring from there. I’d suspected he could, but hadn’t wanted to test that theory while he was so young and defenseless compared to the Ancients who were currently occupying the home of the angels.
Shit. I pulled the ring from my pocket wondering who he’d stolen it from. What Ancient in Aaru was missing a ring? And no doubt really angry about it?
Worse, Lux was there without me, probably facing a pissed off Ancient without the ring he was supposed to return. My pulse went into overdrive. I had to get in. I had to get in and get him out. But I’d tried before and no amount of force, pleading, or stabbing the barrier with my sword was going to gain me entrance to Aaru.
I tried to teleport there a few more times. I stood outside the barrier and screamed for Lux. I even put the fucking ring on every single one of my fingers and my toes to see if that got me in.
Nothing worked. Terrified, I went home and paced the floor, thinking of which Ancient I could bribe to go in there and bring Lux back safely. I certainly couldn’t trust Remiel. Fuck. Remiel. If he discovered that Lux was in Aaru, he might snatch him up and never give him back. Was Doriel in Hel or New Hell? Would she go for me? Could I somehow manage to find Samael? I reached out with my Iblis skills, couldn’t manage to pinpoint the location of either one of them.
I pulled my cell phone out and dialed Samael’s number, but it went straight to voice mail. Doriel’s as well. They were either in Hel with no cell service, or somewhere here with no cell service, or just not answering their fucking phones.
Eyeing my contact list, my finger hovered over the number for Gregory. I couldn’t call him and send him into a panic as well. There was nothing he could do to get Lux back. I needed an Ancient, and I needed one right fucking now.
I teleported over to the guest house, nearly knocking Snip down the bas
ement stairs. Shooting my hand out, I steadied him.
“I need you to get every Low you can to find an Ancient. Any Ancient. In fact, tell every Ancient that you can find that I need them to go to Aaru. Immediately. It’s urgent. Huge reward. Fucking huge.”
Snip frowned. “Mistress are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay,” I snapped. “Lux is up in Aaru and I can’t get in. I don’t know if he’s okay or not. I need an Ancient to go in there and find him and bring him back. I’ll pay a reward for whoever returns him to my home safely.”
Before Snip could reply I had him in Hel, at my house in Dis where it looked like two dozen Lows were setting farts on fire. I didn’t wait, I just dropped Snip off and got back to my house even before he started to throw up from the vertigo.
I’d hoped to find Lux there when I returned. I yelled. I screamed. I searched the place from attic to cellar. I put Boomer and Diablo on the alert. Then I ran out the front door to go tell Wyatt. That’s when I ran into a small army of undead.
Okay, maybe not an army. A platoon? A cohort. Whatever. It was more than twelve, and they stank like two-day-old roadkill on an August afternoon. I so did not have time for this shit, so I summoned my sword and started cutting through them, screaming in frustration as their headless bodies continued to grab at my legs.
Remembering that I’d needed to pulverize the brains last time, I dragged a bunch of headless zombies across the driveway and chopped the fuck out of their heads with my sword. The whole time, my eyes burned with tears.
Breathe. I needed to breathe. None of the Ancients up in Aaru would be stupid enough to hurt Lux. Remiel might try to keep him, but I knew even he wouldn’t harm an angel I’d claimed as my own. Lux would be fine in Aaru. He was a being of spirit. Nothing would harm him there.
With This Ring: Imp Series, Book 11 Page 20
