“Amber, please place your ring on Irix’s finger and repeat after me—”
I heard the shattering of glass from the front of the church. The doors shuddered.
“Hurry the fuck up,” I snapped at the minister.
He blinked at me in shock. The church door flung open.
“Now. Say it now,” I shouted.
Someone screamed.
“I now pronounce you man and wife,” the minister said just before he dived behind the organ.
Irix bent down to kiss Amber, and I ran down the aisle, ditching my ratty bouquet and summoning my sword just as the zombies poured into the church. Halfway down the aisle I found myself pushed backward and nearly trampled as the wedding guests fled the zombies and rushed toward the altar.
Jumping to the side and hopping from pew to pew, I forced my way through the crowd. The Lows seated toward the back were smacking the zombies with bibles and psalm books. I lopped off as many heads as I could, trying to reach the door before every dead person and animal in town shambled their way in.
I caught a glimpse of Gimlet, and suddenly he was no longer the Low. Samael reached across a pew and grabbed me by the waist, throwing me through the air toward the doors. I fell a little short and dropped to the ground on top of several ripe corpses.
As I struggled to get to my feet amid the slimy gore, I felt someone grab the back of my dress and haul me upward. Samael punched several of the zombies back outside. I heard the stained glass windows begin to break, and glancing around I saw angels and demons fighting to keep the undead away from the humans crowded together in the front of the church.
“What the fuck is going on?” Samael shouted as he pushed the door closed. “Did you try to resurrect Elvis and it backfired? Why is there an army of undead trying to storm the church?”
“It’s the damned ring,” I yelled back, putting my whole weight into keeping the door closed. “Lux found it. It’s cursed. I tried to take it back but the owner has been dead forever. I’ve buried it. I’ve thrown it away. Nothing works. It curses whoever possesses it.”
The door hinges groaned. A crack appeared in the wood and splintered.
“I hate cursed shit. Hate.” Samael frowned and stepped away from the door. “So it curses whoever possesses it?”
“Hold the door, dickhead!”
I’d barely gotten the words out of my mouth when the door burst open. I fell backward, scrambling to avoid the dead, rotted corpses that were once more pouring into the church. I heard Karrae and Lux shriek, and saw Andor shove them behind him. The dwarf picked up a zombie and tossed it into the pews, protecting the little angels.
“Destroy the brains!” Gregory shouted, still convinced that Wyatt’s technique would work here. I hated to tell him, but headless zombies were just as much of a pain in the ass as ones with their brains intact.
I turned my attention back to the undead coming through the main door when Samael appeared before me. He had one of the zombies in a head-lock and was dragging him down to the floor. “I’ve got him. I’ll hold him. You get the ring.”
Okaaay. I wasn’t sure what the fuck he was trying to do, but I was too curious to just ignore him. Dismissing my sword, I knelt down and helped Samael straddle and restrain the zombie.
“Put the ring on his finger,” Samael ordered.
Could an undead “possess” the ring? Hell, it was worth a try.
I pulled the band from my bra where I’d stuffed it since this ugly bridesmaid dress didn’t have any fucking pockets. Grabbing the zombie’s hand I shoved the ring over a swollen, putrefied finger. The flesh tore free, oozing a yellowish liquid and bunching up around the dude’s knuckle. Pushing the ring down over the flesh, I was pleased to see it helped hold the ring on.
“Got it!”
We both jumped free and watched. Nothing happened. Well, nothing except the humans screaming and the zombies still trying to kill everyone in the church.
“Wait. Let me try something.” Samael grabbed the zombie and vanished, appearing a second later without the corpse. “Did that work? They should follow the ring or something.”
I looked around. Rafi was trying to rip heads off and stomp on the undead. Gregory was slashing with his sword. Uriel had grabbed one of the kneeling benches and was bludgeoning the zombies with it. Gabe had formed a barricade with pews to protect the humans and was stabbing the undead with a broken chair leg.
“Didn’t work!”
Samael vanished again, returning with the ring-wearing zombie. Twisting the guy around, he snapped the corpse’s hand off at the wrist and shoved it at me. I managed to get the ring off and back into my bra before the zombie came toward me. Calling my sword, I kicked the guy to the ground, and started chopping.
“Any other ideas?” I shouted as bits of rotted flesh flew from my blade.
“Nope. Guess this is your life now. Iblis and magnet for the undead.” He laughed and tossed an arm at my feet.
This was so not funny. “It’s not me that’s cursed, you asswipe, it’s Lux.”
He stopped laughing at that. “Lux is cursed?”
“Yes, he’s cursed.” I slashed a zombie in two. “Fuck these things. Fuck this ring. Fuck that Loki bastard. And fuck that dwarf Andvari who should have at least had the courtesy to put an expiration date on this fucking cursed ring.”
Samael stared at me. “Andvari? Fish-shifter Andvari? This ring is Andvari’s ring?”
Suddenly everything clicked into place. That motherfucker. How the hell was he Loki? I guess the same way he was Gimlet. Maybe the humans got the story mixed up and blamed a Norse god instead of Satan. Maybe Samael blamed it all on Loki rather than take responsibility for this fuckup. Maybe Samael had been calling himself Loki at the time. Either way, this was his fault, and this ring was his to deal with.
“You! This is all your fault you motherfucking cock-sucking son of a bitch!”
Samael backed up, hands raised. “Hey, it was a long time ago.”
We could discuss that later, right now I had a church full of zombies to deal with. “How did you get it to stop? Undead haven’t been attacking you for the last two million years. How the fuck did you stop it?”
Samael shrugged. “I gave the ring to a human, and made it their problem.”
And that’s exactly what I would have done if I didn’t have a judgmental archangel for a fiancé and an Angel of Order for a kid.
“I guess the ring got passed around among humans until the last one died without unloading it,” Samael went on. “Probably got buried with him and that’s where Lux found it.”
I thought furiously as I continued to slice and dice zombies. I just needed to find a person near death and give them the ring. I looked over at Gregory, knowing that wasn’t going to fly. Plus there was always a chance the funeral home people would remove it and keep it, or that some relative would take it. Or a hospital worker, or someone at the morgue. Or grave robbers would snatch it. No, this ring needed to be gone forever, but how could I ensure that when Andvari was the only one who could break the spell?
The hoard of undead was slowly but steadily pushing us back to where the humans were huddled together. No matter how fast I cut them down, they just kept coming. Glancing to either side, I saw the angels were having the same problem. Soon we’d be backed to the altar, forming a barrier around the humans and hoping the curse ran out of undead before one got through to the humans.
Damn it, this needed to stop, and it needed to stop for good.
“What about Aaru?” I shouted to Samael. “Take possession of the ring. Go to Aaru. Give it to one of the Ancients there. Give it to Remiel and tell him to put it on.”
Except Remiel wouldn’t put the ring on just because Samael, or anyone told him to. Even if he did, the moment he left Aaru, the undead would be all over him. Ah well it would serve him right for being such an ass.
“I’m not going to Aaru.” Samael scowled. “I’m never returning to Aaru. Ever. Never, ever, ever. Get someone el
se to do it.”
I swung my sword in a wide arc and beheaded three zombies in one blow. “None of us can get in. I can’t. None of your siblings can. Leethu, Terrelle, Irix, and the Lows can’t teleport.”
“Then find someone who can. Zip back to Hel and find an Ancient to do this for you, because I am not going to Aaru.”
“You are such a fucking dick. I don’t have time to go to Hel and convince an Ancient to put the ring on and go stay in Aaru forever. By the time I manage that, there will be tons of humans dead.” Plus, knowing demons, there was a good chance the Ancient I convinced to do this would either decide to leave Aaru and I’d end up dealing with the same fucking problem in Hel, or they’d realize it was cursed and gift it to a random human as Samael had done.
I swung the sword one-handed and dug the ring back out of my bra. “Take it. You got us into this mess, you get us out.”
Samael glared at me. “I’m not taking that ring.”
“Ma! Ma!”
“Stay back, Lux,” I shouted, once more extending the ring toward Samael. “Take it. You stole it from Andvari. You’re the one he cursed. You fucking deal with it. I’m not letting my kid spend his life fighting zombies because you fucked up two million years ago and stole from a dwarf.”
A deep voice from behind me called out. “Andvari? That’s Andvari’s ring?”
“You put it on and take the curse.” Samael stepped away from me. “I dealt with it for hundreds of years. I’m not going through that again.”
“You’d let Lux be deprived of his mother? Or have him hounded by zombies his whole life? For something you did?” I was so angry at Samael right now, not so much because he’d been the idiot who’d stolen the ring originally, but because he wouldn’t step up to protect Lux when he needed to. Spoiled, selfish, overindulged youngest archangel. If he didn’t make this right, then there would be no ugly Maid of Honor dress for him, and no wrist corsage.
Samael snarled, shoved one of the zombies, turned and punched me. My head snapped to the side, pain blooming all along my jaw.
“Stubborn, selfish, cowardly, dickhead,” I yelled at him.
Samael punched me again, but this blow lacked the force of the first one. Then he took the ring from my hand and swore.
“You really do make a good Satan. Almost as good as I was.” He jammed the ring on his own finger. “All right fuckers. This ring is mine! Mine, mine, mine. Come and get me.”
He pushed his way through the crowd of undead and out the front door, but nothing changed. Instead of following Samael, the zombies kept coming toward us—coming toward Lux. I started to panic, chopping away with my sword. For every zombie I cut down, three more came at me. It made me wonder exactly how many corpses there were buried in this town.
“Get back in here and help us fight,” I shouted, reaching across that link I shared with every infernal being and tugging the Fallen angel toward me. “It’s not working. They’re not following you.”
Did he have to truly want the ring? Maybe he had to be unaware of the curse to actually transfer the magic away from Lux and toward himself. Either way, I was out of ideas, and out of options.
Samael appeared beside me once again, pulling the ring from his finger before he started ripping the heads off zombies.
A short powerful form pushed between the pair of us. A muscular arm extended upward and grabbed the ring from Samael’s hand. I looked down and saw Andor, his mouth a tight line in a light golden-brown beard.
“It is Andvari’s ring.” He scowled at the band. “Idiots. You’re both a pair of idiots. I’d leave the two of you to deal with this yourselves, but I won’t allow that little angel be an innocent victim of a greedy dwarf’s misguided temper.”
Andor closed his fist around the ring. My sword vanished right out of my hand. The gravity in the room felt as if it had tripled, and I struggled to stay on my feet. Without my sword, I tried to launch a bolt of lightning at the zombies, but nothing happened. There was a sudden squeeze of pressure that made me drop to my knees. Everything went white and my head pounded like it was in a vice.
And then, just like that, the pressure was gone, even though the headache remained.
I staggered to my feet and opened my eyes. One by one, the zombies collapsed, becoming nothing more than decaying bodies and skeletons littering the church floor. With my mouth hanging open, I turned to look at Andor.
He opened his hand. The ring was now a lump of gold.
“You’re…” I gaped at him. “Are you some long lost descendant of Andvari or something?”
“No.” He turned his hand over and the lump of gold dropped to the floor. “I like your son. He’s Karrae’s best friend, and a very good influence on her, I might add. He does not deserve such a thing to happen to him. And this”—he pointed what was once a cursed ring—“is an abomination.”
“I owe you a favor. Anything. I’m completely in your debt,” I told the dwarf.
He laughed. “I have no need for a demon’s favor, even one who is the Iblis.”
I nodded, looking past him to where Karrae and Lux stood, holding hands. “Well, just in case you need something from me in the future, you’ve got it.”
The dwarf turned and walked away. Gregory came up to me and wrapped me tightly in his arms.
“I thought for a moment there we were rubber tubed.”
“Hosed,” I corrected. “Yeah, me too. Did you know dwarves were nulls? Like, serious nulls?”
“How about you owe me a favor?” Samael interrupted. “After all, I helped fight these corpses. I put that damned ring back on. I wasn’t even invited to this wedding, but here I am, helping.”
I laughed. “Fine. What exactly do you want? You’re already the Maid of Honor for my wedding. I’m even getting you a wrist corsage like you wanted.”
“I get to give the speech at your wedding reception.”
I glanced over at Gregory and bit back a smile at his horrified expression.
“Done. And Samael?” I waited for his eyes to meet mine. “You need to be in this form for my wedding, not Gimlet. And commando. There better not be any underwear on under that satin dress.”
He grinned. “You can count on it.”
Epilogue
I was tanning by the pool, listening to Godsmack, drinking chilled vodka, and trying not to think about human weapons that could kill angels or about possible human plots to lure groups of angels to their deaths when I heard the French doors open.
“Got some of that for me?” Terrelle plopped down in the lounge chair beside me.
I eyed my bottle of vodka, debating whether I was in a sharing sort of mood or not. “I don’t know. Depends on what you’ve got for me.”
Terrelle reached out and snatched up the bottle. “I’ve got her, that’s what I’ve got.”
I pivoted around on my chair and saw a woman standing a few feet behind Terrelle. At first I thought she was an elf, then I realized that she wasn’t. She was tall and willowy, with silvery-blonde hair that hung down past her waist. Ears rose into delicate points through the hair, their skin the same translucent white as her face. Light green eyes met mine. No, this woman was definitely a fae, but not an elf.
“My names is Gwylla,” she said in a light, musical voice. “I’m a Sidhe, and I need to speak to you about the ring you have.”
“Ring?” Fuck. That other ring, the last one, the one I hadn’t returned—well, besides the one from Aaru that was hidden in the back of my underwear drawer, that is. With the wedding, and the zombies, and all the other shit, I’d forgotten about it.
“The ring.” Gwylla moved to stand beside me. “It’s a sidhe artifact, and by bringing it across the gates, it has severed a contract that has been in place for nearly ten thousand years.”
I grabbed the vodka back from Terrelle. “Okay, let me have it. What contract? What’s going to happen?”
The sidhe’s eyes glowed. “I don’t know. All I know is that the queen is coming. She’s coming, and so is
the king. Those who have held themselves from this world are no longer constrained to do so. The fae are coming, and no one is safe.”
I took a swig of the vodka then passed it over to Terrelle. So much for my lazy day by the pool. So much for my summer, or even my year. With a sigh, I picked up my phone and texted Gregory.
Author’s Note*
This isn’t The End! Sam’s adventures will continue in 2021 with Through The Mirror - Imp Series, Book 12.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my copyeditor Kimberly Cannon whose eagle eyes catch all the typos and keep my comma problem in line, and to Damonza for cover design.
About the Author
Debra lives in a little house in the woods of Maryland with her sons and two slobbery bloodhounds. On a good day, she jogs and horseback rides, hopefully managing to keep the horse between herself and the ground. Her only known super power is 'Identify Roadkill'.
For more information:
www.debradunbar.com
Debra Dunbar’s Author page
Also by Debra Dunbar
Accidental Witches Series
Brimstone and Broomsticks
Warmongers and Wands
Death and Divination
Hell and Hexes
Minions and Magic
Fiends and Familiars (2020)
Devils and the Dead (2020)
White Lightning Series
Wooden Nickels
Bum’s Rush
Clip Joint
Jake Walk
Trouble Boys
Packing Heat (2020)
The Templar Series
Dead Rising
Last Breath
Bare Bones
Famine’s Feast
Royal Blood
Dark Crossroads
With This Ring: Imp Series, Book 11 Page 25
