“Which... will destroy the terrestrial realms,” Kochab said, doubt staining her words.
Michael’s response was as swift as it was severe. One moment Kochab was looking up to him with sappy eyes, and the next the backside of Michael’s hand had knocked her from her seat and forced her to the ground.
“Fool of the Fallen! Our goal is Heaven. Let the terrestrial realms merge; we don’t care what happens to them. It will be a mercy – all of them destroyed in the space of a few minutes rather than running for their lives from the archangels when Big Boss finally decides to order them to slaughter. The power of so many mortal souls burning when they touch hellfire will keep Heaven stocked with power for eons.”
“When you’re immortal, an eon is not such a long time.” Nursing her swollen, red cheek, Kochab whimpered. “But will not the Council cut us down when we reenter Heaven?”
“So desperate for my touch, that you’d invite my strike again, Kochab?” Michael side eyed her, but stopped short of additional affronts. “My daughter will rush down here, trying to stop us, of course. Her and her useless Pure Souls warriors. In order to kill us, she’ll need to use my heavenly blade. Once she’s done her part and opened the portal to the heavenly realm, I will kill her and take back my weapon.”
The weapon. The blade. Riona’s offer to give it to him. Riona’s giving herself to him...
The memories assaulted Marc before he could help it, and though he tried to dash away the images playing on the 4K TV of his mind, angels saw truth in ways human—or even demon—eyes couldn’t.
“Azazel,” Michael said, smacking his lips after another swig. “What makes a demon’s aura burst with so much light energy?”
“Can’t say as I know,” Az muttered, unconcerned. “His aura has been difficult for me to get a grip on. It fluctuates. So much more than Jerry’s ever did.”
Marc’s demon flesh pulled taut as he grimaced. What in the hell did he have to do with the bastard traitor demon who’d won his woman away?
Michael clung to his suspicions. “No, there’s something very odd about this one. Something familiar about the pattern of the coloration and flux. Almost as if...” Michael cut himself off as his face boiled into rage. “When? How?”
This time, Marc didn’t have to fake confusion. It had him by the shorthairs. “When and how what?”
Azazel straightened, examining Marc more closely through squinted eyes. “And who? Shtupping any demon wouldn’t have caused such a contamination.”
Kochab laid one perfectly manicured finger—polish color, bright orange—on her ebony chin. “Well, that makes him a little more interesting now, doesn’t it? Of course it wasn’t a demon. There’s no impetus for it down here, is there? Demons can take no pleasure from sex. Not unless their partner is a...”
“An angel!” With a mighty tumult, Michael took to his feet and shot his hands down on the table, open palm, splitting the marble in two. “You fool. Do you have any idea what you’ve done? We’ve been planning this for years, and now you’ve quite literally fucked the whole thing to Hell.”
Their host still hadn’t picked up on the revelation. “I don’t understand,” Azazel said. “Who did he sleep with? Lucifer again? But Luc is in the sixth level. Marc couldn’t have possibly gotten in there without my informants telling me.”
“And I’d rather burn in the fire than sleep with that deceptive bitch again,” Marc added.
Michael turned to the compelling body of muscle next to him. “He’s your progeny, Az. Compel him to admit that he fucked my daughter.”
But the words made a professor of Marc. He felt himself bristle with fury and gave into it, not allowing any restraint. “I did not fuck Riona. I made love to her.”
“Love?” Kochab repeated the word. “Don’t be silly, boy. Demons don’t love. Why, the very idea...”
“Of course I can love!” Marc rebelled. Then a realization hit him. “Oh, my god. You’re jealous. Fallen can’t love, so why should one of us have that right? Well, tough. I love her. Yes, I had her. And FY-fucking-I, she came to me. Know why? Because she loves me too.”
Michael’s rage exploded. “To the fires! Let him roast until he curses her name. Let him fry until he even calls out against Father himself!”
A bomb of flame engulfed Michael’s hand. Marc had seen Azazel use the charm against one of the house demons who hadn’t scurried with enough haste when ordered to act. The flame burned the demon form to ash, sending the soul back into the churning furnaces once more.
Marc stood his ground. He died once for loving Riona; did they really doubt he’d hesitate to do it again? He fixed his gaze on the prince, and invited him to do his worst.
Azazel threw himself at his brethren, catching the flame moments from its release. The charm’s effects on him were regulated to a few singed hairs.
“Brother, don’t be rash. This is an excellent opportunity and we shouldn’t waste it.”
“Opportunity?” Michael spit out. “If he’s gotten Riona to void her good standing by inducing her to a cardinal sin, all this has been for nothing. She will have surrendered her ability to breach Heaven.”
“Riona is a unique creature, and we do not know how the laws of the current accords apply to her. Now, Marc,” Azazel turned calmer words to his minion, “how did Riona get to Hell?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure. I was resting on my bed, and she just sort of appeared.”
“Obviously the charms that melt mortal flesh didn’t affect her,” Kochab deduced. “As far as our magic is concerned, it doesn’t consider Riona human, that much is for sure. She must have ported here and away again. Another indication that she takes after her father and not her mother.”
Her mother. Molly Dade—a woman with a mouth that could strip wax off a candle. Never had the term “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” been more apt.
“Fine.” Michael huffed. The cords of his thick arms flexed as he slapped them over his chest. “But I will not allow this disobedience to go unchecked. Azazel, punish your minion, in the way you see fit, or I will.”
Eagle-eyed, Marc watched the scene unfold: the way Michael made his declaration with swinging hands and a high chin; the way Kochab clung to his every syllable, like a thirteen-year-old girl at a One Direction concert; and most importantly, the way Azazel, out of eyesight of either of the others, rolled his eyes before pulling a mask of obeisance back over his expression.
“Of course, my prince,” he mumbled, rounding the larger angel and placing a hand on Marc’s wrist, effectively cuffing him. “Some time in the cells should suit. Restrictive, but still easily retrievable. Seems your daughter, despite her nuptials, is still quite hung up on this one. Might give us an opportunity to confront her without her pillars, should she come looking for another booty call. I have no doubt my minion left an indelible impression.”
Marc felt his stomach bottom out. “Not likely. I made sure she wouldn’t remember what happened.”
Azazel, who had begun to pull Marc from the room, quickened his pace, but Michael intruded.
“Wait, Az. What does he mean, he made sure she wouldn’t remember?”
“Fine, let’s just get it out in the open, then.” Azazel fixed narrow eyes on the priest. “I compel you to tell us.”
Marc squirmed, working his will against his master’s edict. It was no use. As Azazel’s demon creation, the magic holding him in servitude obliged its boss’s demands.
“I... altered her memory. Bug I don’t think she was all there, you know, emotionally. It almost seemed like she was running on... I don’t know, instinct? Chances are there wasn’t much actual will involved. If there was no will, there’s no sin, right?” Marc shifted his weight. “Figured, even with that, if she remembered, she’d blame herself. I didn’t want her to have to deal with the guilt.”
“Altered her memory, you say?” Michael narrowed his gaze on Azazel. “Speaking of memories, if I think back to our conversation that night in New York, and I
look at Marc here, I guess the math works out, doesn’t it, Az?”
Azazel ground his teeth, snarling his remarks to Marc as he yanked him with such force, Marc was pretty certain he’d have had whiplash if he were still human. “Couldn’t keep your mouth shut ten more seconds, could you?”
Before Marc had time to form a response, the scene before his eyes shifted. One moment he was exiting Azazel’s grandiose dining room, and the next, he was sitting in a dimly lit cave. Only after his eyes adjusted did he realize the mouth of the cavern, while ragged and round, had been laced over with what appeared to be iron bars.
Jail? Seemed like it, though it didn’t resemble anything he’d seen during his time when, as a young priest, he’d ministered to repentant prisoners. Sometimes he believed their denial of guilt, sometimes he knew it was all a mocking display of emotion meant to churn up sympathy, usually in advance of a court date. Get a priest as a character witness when you were up for parole, and you’d be two teats tipped in town by morning.
He wondered which kind his guilt was—sincere or for show.
Something on the other side of his cell stirred, but the shadows gave it no form. Marc found himself wondering if rats still existed in Hell, then wondered what he was afraid of even if they did. What damage could a flea bite or rodent nibble do to him now?
The next moment, when his cellmate spoke, he sent a prayer to God to exchange the dark ass for ten thousand—no, a million rats.
“Well, well. If it isn’t my ex-lover.” Lucifer’s acidic grin burned into Marc’s brain, a hideous, self-proud expression of a psychotic despot demonic overlord. “Hello, Marc. Fancy seeing you here.”
Chapter 3
Fuck Earth. Fuck the nephilim. Hell, fuck being an angel. Ramiel had had enough. Big Boss? More like Big Dick. “I bless you with an eternity of life, never burdened by age or disease, a healthy sampling of all my magical powers, and an unfathomable gift for love and compassion for all creatures. Only, never actually fall in love, because that just ain’t going to fucking happen on my watch.”
Ramiel knew every kind of magic, had eons of experience navigating charms and spells and hexes, using heavenlight to warp the realities of time and space and given himself almost as many incarnations as Madonna and David Bowie combined. He’d weathered famines, earthquakes, and the Red Sox’s losing streak with hope and optimism, and a damn faux-deity dame had reduced him to a pool of donkey piss. Surely there had to be a solution for this. Surely, somehow, Ramiel could isolate that part of his heart he’d given to Persephone, and siphon it away. There wasn’t supposed to be pain in the heavenly realm, yet here he sat, seething.
Heaven operated as some sort of open source psychic landscape—the souls of humans who had been welcomed in to this plane after they’d left the last world usually materialized very similar to what their mortal coil had looked like. Angels were a little more loosey-goosey. He considered taking on his feminine form—lately, that manifested as an ebony Amazonian knock out, a tall, proud African woman with deep eyes and long, lean arms—but that wasn’t the form he’d had when he’d been with Steph. Something about this incarnation had stuck, and he found himself unwilling to project his soul in any other form but the archive of his lover’s sigh.
When Larius came to sit beside him, Ramiel wished instead he’d projected himself as deaf, dumb, and blind—but even he had to take issue with resembling a presidential candidate.
“Have you executed our duty on Sariel’s behalf?”
Some of the tension eased from his limbs. Detachment picked up a trowel and smoothed the emotions from his words. “Yes, Zeus is no more.”
Larius nodded curtly. “Good. One less heathen idolater.” He continued his musing, despite Ramiel’s silence. “I suppose he transferred his lightning to that tart daughter of his. Even in the nephilim, the women are the weaker of the sexes. She’ll buckle under the pressure, and beg us for death. One less pretender god in the world is all right by me. As they say, what do you call ten thousand nephilim deprived of their heads? A good st–allgghgg.”
He couldn’t remember willing his dagger. He couldn’t remember deciding to press the blade into the base of Larius’s throat. He couldn’t remember the pain of being spurned by the very being whose honor he suddenly found himself defending. Ramiel skated the dagger’s edge along the ridge of Larius’s chin, before pulling the tip around and angling the blade upward. One thrust, and he’d implant the magical weapon into his tiny brain.
“Not another word, Larry,” he warned, his voice taking on a timbre of threat he hadn’t heard in it for many a year. “We forgave them the sin of idolatry in the accords. They’re just people, trying their best to do what they can in this world with the hand that they hold.”
Larius’s mouth twisted. His eyes, growing bright, shoved away some of the fear they’d held just moments before. “Why such love for the nephilim, brother? You, who led the charge on them in the rapture. Give me Hades head or let all else fall, you said that day.” He managed to tilt his head slightly, but winced when the maneuver made the tip of the blade pinch. “Still mad that Big Boss only condemned the Lord of the Underworld to banishment, not death? Still bitter that the accords made the nephilim personae non grata, keeping your fascination with his plant tramp from going any further? Or are you upset that even now, Persephone free of her bonds to him, doesn’t run to you?”
Ramiel’s hand, and the blade with it, fell to his side. “What do you mean, free of her bonds? They divorced, but that doesn’t dissolve the bond between them that was written into the accords.”
“It wouldn’t have changed, except your Keystone-slash-archangel Riona signed the decree. It’s now a sacrosanct amendment.”
His eyes dashed the landscape, as though the logic of this situation could be found among the fluffy white clouds and twenty-four hour masseuse parlors. “Only an archangel in good standing can enter Heaven. The Fallen shall have naught the power.” Words from the accords, the decree which kept the Grigori from their true homes and natures. Two blinks later, he stood. “I have to go.”
This time, it was Ramiel who found himself taken aback as Larius brandished his own blade, pointed straight at the angel’s heart. His eyes meandered down to the enchanted weapon, then traipsed back up, unimpressed.
“What plans, brother?”
Ramiel grated his teeth. He’d come to despise this word, brother. More and more, he felt he was no part of this family that preferred to immerse itself in the delight of Heaven and ignore the duties to the lower incarnations they had once pledged to uphold.
“I have to warn Riona. She has no idea the power she holds, or the danger of it. If she opens up a portal to Heaven, she’s playing right into the Michael’s plans. The realms will collapse on each other. Humanity will be crushed. They can’t be exposed to hellfire; it kills them instantly.”
The corner of Larius’s mouth ticked up. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It is a bad thing,” Ramiel protested, amazed he even had to say what was so clearly true. When Larius didn’t budge, understanding bitch slapped him. “That’s exactly what you’re banking on, isn’t it? You want to go back to the times when there was just us angels and the fires, and fuck the rest of creation.”
Larius shrugged. “I hoped humanity would do itself in. No such luck, even though things were heading that way. Now, it’ll all be gone with one gigantic flush, the Fallen included. I have to admit, I laughed when you came up with the idea of three wiccan warriors to be Heaven’s on-Earth rep against Hell, but I’m loving what it’s come to in the end. Look at your champions: the son of a philandering false god, a perverted ex-demon, and your angelus ex machina: the bastard child of an evil witch and a fallen angel with the power to breach Heaven. Why, if forced to write a book, I don’t think I could craft a worse team of hopeless half-breeds to fail as the saviors of humanity.”
“Not certain about that. I’ve read Revelations,” Ramiel said. “That was your work, wasn’
t it?”
The de facto prince’s lip curled as he sheathed his knife, but kept the sharp razor of his tongue out. “Don’t try to be a hero, Ramiel. This is the solution to all the corruption of humanity and the nephilim combined, and we don’t even need to get our hands dirty. Let Michael’s plan play out. If his daughter opens the gates of Heaven and the Fallen pour forth, we will cut them down, as we are obligated to do. Or, we will let them live. Come to think of it, why shouldn’t they. If there is no other realm but ours, what is the difference between them and us, anyhow?”
“If you let that happen? None, because you’ll be going against the will of Big Boss too.”
“Big Boss.” Larius laughed. “You think He’s still around? Either He’s dead, or He doesn’t care. Been, what, thirty years since we heard a thing from Him? Frankly, if He’s going to leave us running the shop, He shouldn’t get pissed off when we decide to turn off the lights and go home for the night.”
“So that’s your solution to this good and evil war, is it? Just kill all the players and let policy deal with them.”
For the first time, Larius’s face faltered slightly. “You’ve seen how they’ve become down there. We’re doing them a favor. It will seem a global event to them; they’ll never have to know that Big Boss, who promised them the world, had decided to rid it of them.”
“He promised them,” Ramiel reminded him through gritted teeth. “He promised us, never again.”
“He once promised us eternal life, brother.” Again, Larius bore his dagger, but this time, merely as a display. “Then He created these, making that promise as empty as the values we hold.”
Ramiel had had enough. Clearly, Larius was telling him to choose a side. As if it was a choice.
Without another thought, he refocused his energy, and made himself flesh once more. His eyes opened, taking in the exterior façade of the assisted living center in the town of the witches. If he was going to be the only archangel fighting on humanity’s side, he needed to go in with all guns blazing, and that meant he needed to finally have things out with Molly Dade.
When Spell Freezes Over (All My Exes Die From Hexes Book 4) Page 3