With This Ring: Imp Series, Book 11

by Dunbar, Debra

  “Much worse.” I took a deep breath because I hadn’t wanted to tell him this. But he needed to know. Lux was just as much Gregory’s child as he was mine, and the archangel needed to know. “The necromancer said I’m not the one with the curse, Lux is.” I watched the smile vanish from Gregory’s face. “I don’t want to worry the little guy so I didn’t say anything to him. Nyalla knows. The wedding is tomorrow, but the very next day I’m devoting every moment of my time to getting this curse broken. I’m just letting you know that I won’t be attending Ruling Council meetings, or meetings with world leaders, or meetings with Asta about Elven labor relations laws, or taking that last ring back. I don’t care if I have to go through the genealogy if every fucking dwarf in Hel, I’m going to find someone who can break this damned curse.”

  “Understood.” He touched my cheek. “I’m not worried. We’ll protect Lux, and while you’re interviewing dwarves, I’ll see what I can do to help.”

  Actually, there was a lot he could do to help. Zombies weren’t a problem in the asteroid belt or on most of the planets in the galaxy. He and Lux could explore the universe and not worry about zombie anything off-planet.

  There wouldn’t be undead in Aaru either, but I wasn’t willing to send Lux up there with a bunch of Ancients. That would be an absolutely last resort—as in last, last resort.

  “So how was your day? Bet it doesn’t top mine in terms of suckage.” I forced a smile, trying to think of something besides the fact that my little angel had managed to get himself cursed.

  “I think it might come close.” He looked around my house. “Can we take a brief trip? There’s something I want to show you.”

  “Lux is upstairs with Nyalla getting ready for the rehearsal dinner,” I told him. “I’ve got time as long as we’re back in ten or fifteen minutes.”

  He gathered me close, and in a blink we were no longer in my living room.

  “Is this Ireland again?” I looked around at the rocky ground, the farms, the cluster of houses a quarter mile down the road from us.

  “Scotland.”

  He walked down the side of the road and I followed. A few cars passed, the drivers eyeing us curiously.

  “And why are we in Scotland?” He’d said his day was shitty—well, the Angel of Order equivalent of shitty. For all I knew that could mean this road wasn’t exactly straight, but Gregory tended to be a bit more particular in what he found shitty and not shitty.

  “Three dead angels.” He stopped and with a flick of a finger, three bodies appeared.

  I immediately looked around, searching for a wild gate and didn’t see one. “How the fuck did the monster-things get here from Ireland?”

  He shrugged. “Swam? Flew? Teleported? None of the humans have seen anything odd, but as far as I can tell these angels died the same way as the other ten.”

  I shook my head, baffled. “So, we’ve got toothy killers roaming the world and taking down groups of angels?”

  Gregory walked over to one of the dead. “It appears that way.”

  I looked around once more. “I don’t see a wild gate like I did last time.” Following Gregory, I knelt down and examined the dead angel. “But yeah, I agree that the cause of death appears the same.”

  “Perhaps the wild gate at the last location had nothing to do with the deaths.” Gregory began to pace. “Perhaps that was just a coincidence, and something else is preying on angels.”

  “But what killed them? It wasn’t hellhounds. This doesn’t seem like the sort of damage a demon would do.” I looked up at him. “Humans? I’ve gone through the Blue Fire catalogue and haven’t seen any weapons that would do this, but they’re not the only game in town. Another company sold those weapons to the Phoenix PD. Maybe they’ve got a weapon that does this. Or maybe some other company does.”

  I’d assumed from how far apart the other dead angels were that they’d been killed by multiple attacking creatures, but what if the chewed-up physical bodies and spirit-selves weren’t actually chewed, but torn apart by some sort of projectile weapon?

  “It’s a possibility,” Gregory agreed. “If a human weapon did this, then they’re distributing to at least two countries.”

  I stood and watched him pace. He’d been unconcerned when I’d told him about the Blue Fire weapons, but seeing something like this firsthand had clearly shaken him. Ten angels dead in Ireland, and now these three here in Scotland. What the fuck was happening? Humans might be uneasy about angels in their midst, but I didn’t get the impression from anyone I’d spoken to that they would just start exterminating them.

  “And why were they here?” I mused.

  He stopped and frowned over at me. “What?”

  I gestured toward the dead. “These three angels. Why were they here, together in the middle of fucking nowhere Scotland? Same with the ones in Ireland. Ten angels? Out on a country road next to a cow field?”

  Was this a pastural appreciation club where they all met once a week or something? I had no idea what angels liked to do for fun. For all I knew they were out here admiring the dirt or the grass.

  “I don’t know.” Gregory scowled. “None of the dead angels were part of the rebellion. They were from different choirs. I’ll need to ask and see if they knew each other. Living here in the human world has been difficult for many angels. Perhaps they were coming together to commiserate, or share tips on life in a corporeal form?”

  “In the middle of fucking nowhere?” I repeated. “That’s the sort of thing you do in a coffee shop, or a pub, or over dinner at someone’s house, not by the side of a barely-traveled road in the country. I know you angels aren’t all that savvy about this sort of thing, so let me clue you in here: Either these guys were getting ready to set up and do some plein air painting, or they were purposely meeting out here in a place where no one would see them and tell. They didn’t want other angels—as in the Ruling Council—to know they were meeting each other. And they definitely didn’t want you all to know what they were talking about.”

  Gregory slowly shook his head. “It seems an unnecessary precaution, Cockroach. There are less than twenty thousand angels and our ability to sense each other is not the same here as it was in Aaru. I can’t imagine why angels would feel they would need to journey to a remote location to meet in order to avoid detection.”

  I shrugged. “Well, you’d know better than me.”

  He sighed. “You are right, though. My concerns are not just with how the angels died and why, but what brought them together in these areas. Did their killer lure them here? But that is something I will need to investigate on my own, and not now. Now, we have a wedding rehearsal to attend, and a little angel to protect from an army of the undead.”

  He took my arm and we were back in my house.

  “I wish I could have been more help,” I told him.

  “Me too. I’m not sure whether it would been better for you to have found a wild gate in that spot or not. At least then we’d have some idea what happened to those angels.”

  “I’ll put Terrelle on the human weapon research, while you’re figuring out why these angels are meeting up. But right now, we need to get ready.”

  Gregory waved a hand across his chest and instead of his usual jeans and polo shirt, he was suddenly in a dark gray silk suit. I only wished I could get dressed that fast—and look so good in formal attire.

  The rehearsal at the church was thankfully brief. I was distracted the entire time, eyeing entrances and hoping this wasn’t one of those churches with dead priests in some crypt beneath the nave or a little graveyard beside the chapel.

  We practiced walking up the aisle, then as the minister went over the ceremony, I broke ranks with the other bridesmaids and walked over to peek out the tall stained glass window.

  Fuck. Just as I’d feared there was an acre of white headstones just outside where I stood.

  We finished up and I practically snatched Lux from the alter steps and teleported him to the restaurant.

&
nbsp; “Ma?” Lux reached out and touched my arm, a puzzled frown on his face.

  “I’m just in a hurry to get a drink and some appetizers,” I lied. “Aren’t you hungry? I’m starving. Here, have a mushroom stuffed with crab meat. And a glass of wine.”

  I shoved a plate and glass into Lux’s hands, then went to check the building.

  “Are there any cemeteries nearby?” I asked the hostess. “A farm? Lots of roadkill? A wooded area? A dumpster with rats and mice?”

  The woman took a step away from me. “No! Why would you ask that?”

  Relieved, I looked out the front door, just to check, then wandered around past diners and waitstaff, to peer out windows and doors. Satisfied that any undead would need to shamble several miles to get here, I returned to Lux and grabbed a glass of wine for myself.

  The dinner was lovely, but I barely remembered what we ate. I didn’t want Amber’s wedding ruined by zombies. If it had been me that was cursed, I might have found a way to back out of my bridesmaid duties, but I couldn’t ask that of little Lux. And I didn’t want him to know. I didn’t want anything to change in his life because of this.

  Just one day. I just needed to get through one more day, then I could turn Hel upside down to find someone that could break this curse.

  Just one more day.

  Chapter 25

  “Are you sure?” Nyalla frowned at me. “You love getting your nails done. And your hair. There’s mimosas, and brunch.”

  I looked out the front window. There were no zombies in my driveway or by the door. There hadn’t been any by the pool. Clearly George knew his shit. But I was well aware that a fucking hoard of undead were in the woods beside my house, and lining the edge of the pool patio.

  I needed to protect Lux. I needed to keep him safe. That was more important than getting my hair done and drinking mimosas.

  “Cockroach, go have your fun. Be a bridesmaid.” Gregory handed me a cup of coffee. “I’ll take care of Lux. I’ll make sure he’s at the church at the requisite time.”

  “But not before the requisite time.” I was worried that the longer Lux was in any particular area, the more time dead shit would have to rise up and make their way toward him.

  He kissed the top of my head. “Go. I am perfectly capable of taking care of our child.”

  I was such an idiot. Of course the Archangel Michael could keep a bunch of zombies from Lux. Mimosas. Mani, pedi. Brunch. I took a deep breath.

  “Okay.”

  But I worried the entire time we were getting buzzed and being fussed over by salon employees. When we were done, a fleet of limos drove us over to the church, and we went into a side room to get dressed.

  I kept looking out the window at the cemetery. Did the dirt look disturbed? Was that a live animal moving about in the gardens, or a dead one?

  “You look wonderful, Sam.” Nyalla gave me a quick hug. “And the bachelorette party was amazing.”

  I did look amazing. The ugly puce dress wasn’t as horrible as I’d expected. My hair was piled up in a cascade of dark curls. My makeup was Instagram ready. I picked up the bouquet of creamy white flowers I was supposed to carry down the aisle, and forced a smile.

  “I’m going to head out for some fresh air. I’ll be right back.”

  Nyalla frowned. “The guests are arriving. We need to line up in ten minutes.”

  “I’ll be back,” I assured her. Then without waiting for a reply, I snuck out the back door and into the graveyard.

  The dirt was definitely disturbed. I went from headstone to headstone all the way to the back of the church graveyard. Looking over the dense green hedges, I let out a stream of curses. Not fifty yards away was another cemetery—this one huge with several mausoleums along the left side.

  Something grabbed my leg and I yelped, spinning around. A skeleton grinned up at me. Bony fingers raked down the skin of my calf and he leaned forward to bite my shin. Kicking, I managed to get my leg free just as I felt hands clawing at my back.

  I shrieked and jabbed an elbow back into something squishy. A foul smell filled the air. Where the fuck had these things come from? I was surrounded by corpses, all of them coming for me. Lux might be the one cursed, but I was the one who these fuckers were attacking.

  Shit. The curse. Death, ruin, and tragedy to the cursed. The curse wasn’t just about losing wealth or having zombies pounding at your door, it was about losing the things you loved most. And what did Lux love most? Me. Gregory. Nyalla. His friends, his uncles and aunt. No wonder these fuckers were attacking me.

  I summoned my sword, and started slashing. Zombies bit at me, grabbed my dress, clawed my skin. Unwilling to ditch the bouquet I was supposed to carry down the aisle, I wielded my sword one-handed, resorting to smacking the undead with the flowers as I tried to kill as many as possible.

  Faint sounds of organ music issued from the church. Damn it. The wedding was starting, and here I was out in a graveyard. Lopping off a few more heads, I pushed past the zombies and took off. I dismissed my sword as I ran up the church steps, hesitating just a second before I walked over the threshold, still amazed that I could enter a church without bursting into flames. The organ music swelled, and I looked up to see other bridesmaids waiting at the narthex with their paired groomsman.

  “It’s about time you arrived,” Gabriel snapped. His eyes widened at the sight of my dress and he didn’t say another word. I’d rendered him mute. Hopefully it was a permanent condition.

  “Go, go,” Nyalla urged me. Then her eyes widened as well.

  I put my hand on Gabriel’s arm. Luckily the angel’s sense of decorum and appropriate conduct overcame his shock at my appearance because he turned and walked by my side down the aisle.

  Glancing over to the left, I saw my Lows occupying the pews, sitting right beside human friends and family. Halfway down was Gimlet, picking his nose and wiping the snot on the bibles. I bit back a laugh, wondering why he hadn’t come to the wedding as Samael. I guess he still wasn’t quite ready to rejoin his family. I knew who Gimlet was. Lux knew who Gimlet was. But Samael had his personal energy so tightly locked down that to everyone else in this church, he was a Low.

  Here, but not here. Well, he was going to have to come to terms with all this pretty damned soon, because the youngest archangel was not walking down the aisle as my Maid of Honor in the form of Gimlet.

  Dar and Asta sat on the groom’s side of the aisle, Karrae between her mother and Andor, the dwarven nanny. Leethu sat in the front row with Uriel on one side and Amber’s mother on the other. It was nice of Amber to recognize the demon as a parent. I wondered how her human mother felt about sitting next to a succubus. I wondered how her human mother felt about having a daughter who was half-succubus.

  I took my place beside Darci, ignoring her dismayed gasp at my appearance, and watched the other bridesmaids and groomsmen walk down the aisle. The music changed, everyone stood, and there was the bride.

  Amber was absolutely beautiful in a creamy lace gown that was snug enough to show off her curves, but not so tight that she looked like she was ready to perform a Superbowl halftime show. Wyatt walked by her side, his arm linked with hers. He seemed pleased about the whole thing. That was a relief. I know he had been left with some rather mixed feelings about demons after our relationship, finding out that his sister was a changeling, and discovering that his biological sister had been a slave in Hel for eighteen years. I’d expected to see a for-sale sign out front of his house for the last year. He might not like all the comings and goings at my house, but I knew he’d worked out an odd sort of friendship with Gregory, and he clearly loved Amber as well as Nyalla. I guess that meant he was somewhat accepting of all the shit-show I’d brought into his life.

  Although to be honest, the shit-show had been in his life long before I’d arrived.

  Amber’s eyes widened in shock as she saw me, but she quickly composed herself and smiled at Irix for the rest of her walk down the aisle. At the altar, Wyatt placed his sister
’s hand in her fiancé’s then bent down to kiss Amber’s cheek before taking his seat beside his mother.

  The minister began. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today—”

  “What happened to you?” Amber whispered furiously to me. “Your dress is in shreds. Your hair is a wreck. Your bouquet looks like you were using it to beat someone. And is that blood? That’s blood, isn’t it?”

  “Yep.” I tried to fluff up my bouquet a bit and two more roses toppled from their stems to the floor.

  “Amber?”

  She turned to Irix. “Huh? Oh, I do.

  The minister turned to Irix. “And do you, Irix take Amber Shania Lowry to be your lawful wedded wife, to have and to hold—”

  The church doors shuddered. Shadows darkened the sunlight coming in from the windows. I winced and fidgeted, wishing this minister would hurry the fuck up.

  “I do.” Irix stared adoringly at Amber. Loud thumps came from the door.

  “Should someone let them in?” Darcie whispered at me.

  “No!” I grimaced and lowered my voice. “No. They need to stay outside.”

  The minister spread his arms wide. “Irix and Amber will now exchange rings as a symbol of their love and commitment to each other.”

  Lux stood and approached the altar. Everyone in the church said “Awww,” even though my little angel was buck naked instead of wearing his little tuxedo. His wings were outstretched, his golden curls shiny, his blue eyes sparkled with joy. My chest felt like it would burst with love.

  He shot me a quick grin, then extended the crimson pillow toward Amber and Irix.

  “Thank you, Lux.” Amber beamed as she and Irix untied the rings from the pillow.

  Really? My naked kid got a “thank you,” while I got whispered-scolded for having blood on my torn dress. It was so unfair.

  The banging on the door grew louder. Several guests turned to frown at it.

  “Irix, please place your ring on Amber’s left hand and repeat after me—”

  I eyed the shadows on the windows nervously. With the stained glass I couldn’t quite see how many were out there, but I was willing to bet they were banging on the glass just as the others were banging on the door.