When Spell Freezes Over (All My Exes Die From Hexes Book 4)

by Killian McRae

  “Once the HHA falls, and the battle is subdued, we can make new accords. I know the ritual for that—I read about it in Lucifer’s library,” Jerry said. “First, we have to quash Persephone’s forces while assuring her safety. If she dies, Hades is next in line for the throne, and that would be a very bad thing for us.”

  “You’ll also need to keep me alive then,” Marc said. “Or, as much alive as I am as a demon. I’m not sure what happens if I die after the accords are broke. I would guess the job becomes whoever garners the loyalty of the Damnationals. If we don’t kill the Grigori outright, that means getting them to bow down to me.”

  “The only way they’ll bow to you and pledge fealty is if you defeat them in battle,” Jerry informed Marc. “And the only way to do that is with magic.”

  Marc acknowledged that with a tip of his head. “I can use hellfire to defeat them individually, but I can’t handle them all on my own at the same time. I need help.”

  “That settles it.” Standing, resolve solidified Riona’s expression into a mask of determination. “I’m coming.”

  “What?” Ramiel’s voice was higher in pitch than any of them had ever heard. “No, you’re not. Remember we decided that you had to stay here? Your dad wants you in Hell; it’s all part of his plan.”

  “I’m the Keystone, you can’t expect me to just hang back here and send my pillars into a battle alone. I’m going; it’s non-negotiable. Only, it’s too late to catch a flight to get there by tonight. What do we do?”

  Jerry kissed his wife on the cheek. “Silly, you’re a portalcaster. You can open a wormhole for use to get there in the blink of an eye.”

  Ramiel pulled back the curtain of the nearby window, examining the street. “But that magic won’t work inside the house.”

  “I know wicca doesn’t work in here, but I haven’t been having any problems with angel magic,” Riona said.

  Ramiel turned back around. “Portalcasting is different. Think about it, how much use would a hellbeast repulsion charm be if someone could just port in. Sure, you could use your own porting ability to move yourself in and out, just like I do, but you can’t drag other souls over those boundaries. We have to get outside the house.”

  Riona looked to the ceiling. “Where exactly do the boundaries of the protection charm stop?”

  “Beyond the physical structure of the house itself?” Ramiel asked, rubbing his chin. He held up his hands in display. “About ten inches.”

  The witch’s face broke into a mischievous grin. “Good thing I got wings then.”

  “And that’s a measurement she’s already very familiar with, too,” Jerry piped in.

  Chapter 20

  The idea in theory was a lot less scary than its practical application. Riona stood at the edge of the roof of their Boston brownstone. Like most houses built in its style, it was three stories tall, plus an attic. Although Riona knew she was capable of flight, suddenly three stories plus an attic seemed like Everest.

  Ramiel approached from behind and put an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t overthink it, Dade. It’s just air. It can’t hurt you.”

  “It’s Romani, and I’m not worried about the air. I’m worried about all the ground at the bottom of it.” Her eyes tracked down to the street, where a gaggle of various demons disguised as garbage men observed her with growing suspicion and evil intentions. “Those don’t help either. But I’d survive the fall, right? I mean, I’m the daughter of an archangel. I must be damn near indestructible.”

  Ramiel laughed. “Oh, hell no. When it comes to matters of mortality, you’re, you know, mortal. I’m sure a fall from here would end you.”

  If she’d had an actual dagger, she would have used that on him rather than the ones she was figuratively shooting from her eyes. “Thanks.”

  Jerry pushed the angel out of the way. “Don’t listen to him. Listen to me. You remember that hour we spent on the ceiling at Zeus’ place?”

  Oh, yeah. She did. Even the mention of it had her cheeks flushed and her breath speeding up. Instinctively, Riona licked her lips.

  “No time for that now.” Her husband ran his fingertips over her cheek playfully. “You didn’t even think about it. We just flew. So do the same thing now.”

  When her eyes teased him, he laughed.

  “Whoa, kitten. No, not that thing,” he quipped. “Don’t think about flying. Just fly.”

  “I’ll steady you, Riona.” Even though Anwen wouldn’t be joining their campaign, she had come up to the roof to see them off. She unlaced her hands from Dee’s grasp and approached the edge. “It’s my nephilim gift: levitation. I’m going to use it to help Dee get safely to the portal without falling too.”

  Dee looked to the horizon, to where the sun had already sunk behind the Boston backdrop. “We have to go. The Nephilim always launch attacks with the sun behind their backs. I know L.A. is three hours behind us, but we’ll still need to infiltrate the city and find out where exactly they’re going to stage the front.”

  “I’ll go ahead of you guys,” Ramiel said, beginning to levitate over the roof. “I can cover a lot of ground in a very short time. Land somewhere hidden. Don’t engage with anyone. We don’t know what we’re porting into.”

  “Wait!” Riona shouted. “How will we contact you if we need you? How will you tell us what you find?”

  But it was Jerry who answered. “Ramiel is our liaison. He can always hear us if we call to him. As for the other thing, I guess he’ll just track us down if he needs to.”

  The angel nodded his agreement. “Good luck. Remember, if you meet any demons, Marc should have power over them, unless they were pulled from the fires by someone other than Lucifer. Frankly, we don’t know if there’s others like Marc and Jerry.”

  Jerry threw up his hands. “Not a demon anymore. When is everyone just going to accept that, or is that divine forgiveness thing just PR?”

  Ramiel shrugged. “Whatever you say, Jer. But you said it yourself once: Once you go demon...”

  With that, the angel disappeared.

  Riona, Jerry, and Dee turned back to the edge of the roof. Below, the half dozen demons on duty began to mock them.

  “Oh, don’t think you’re going to jump now and ruin our fun!” one yelled. “We’re supposed to rip your two pillars to shreds, and boss said we can do whatever we want with the redhead.”

  Marc almost leapt of the roof. “You lay one finger on her, and I’ll...”

  “You’ll what?” another jibbed. “Get in line to join us? You’ve been in that house for days. Haven’t you had your fill of her yet?”

  The priest ran to the edge, ready to throw himself down. Anger pushed his demon form outside of the confines of his glamour, but it only differed in the degree of muscle and a slight pointing of his ears. Jerry got a hand on him moments before he went over the edge, both literally and figuratively.

  “Keep your focus on the mission, priest!” Jerry warned. “You let a few demon jabs get under your skin, you’re going to be useless to us.”

  Marc’s brow furrowed, and he pulled himself out of Jerry’s grip. “Fine. But we have to go. I have anger and rage and malice and I need to get them out. Give me a Grigori to wallop.”

  “Will do.” Riona turned to the street, but kept her eyes level. Breathing in deep, she summoned her wings. Before she knew it, she was airborne, over the edge of the roof and hovering over the Boston street below.

  Riona brought her hands in to a ball before her chest, letting her thought form a visual on where she wanted to go. It’s how the magic had worked before, when they escaped Olympus. Only, she suddenly realized, she had no context for Hell. No way of knowing how the city that served as capitol of the Underworld resembled its mortal world counterpart. No context to use as an anchor to draw the portal against.

  “I don’t know what Hell-A looks like!” she said in an exasperated tone.

  “Just visualize whatever you did when you ported there to see Marc,” Dee suggested.


  “I visualized Marc then. Given that he’s standing right here, I don’t think that’s going to help.”

  “Marc, what did we just discuss?”

  Jerry’s voice made her turn her head. To her surprise, Marc was not only on the rooftop, he was leaning forward. She screamed when his body tipped over the edge, but then laughed a moment later when he, too, took his place floating in the air.

  “Hoping Anwen’s gift is strong enough to hold two people at once.” With a swing of his arms, Marc pushed himself forward. At first, it looked like he was falling, but a moment later, they all exhaled their relief as he took up an airy space next to Riona. “I can help.”

  “You can’t open portals,” she argued.

  “No, but like your husband, I’m the child of Azazel. I can manipulate memories. I know exactly where we should port to—I just have to give you the memory of it, and you can take us there.” His hands landed on her hips, pulling their bodies close together.

  It’s only because he fears falling, Riona told herself. Just like riding a motorcycle, he’s just holding on for safety.

  “Give me permission to make you remember.”

  “Your lips get one millimeter closer to my wife, Marc, and I’m going to hurt you in ways you’ll never forget!” Jerry bellowed.

  Riona reached a hand out, signaling her husband to stay back. “It’s okay, I trust him.” Then lowering her voice, she turned her head to meet Marc’s eyes. “I trust you.”

  “Good.” He pulled the hair away from her neck, pressing his lips directly to her ear lobe. A chill racked her, though a moment later, the freeze turned to fire when Marc uttered the word, “Remember.”

  The visions exploded inside her mind’s eye.

  Her body. Marc’s body. The feel of him inside her. The sensation of his lips on her bare flesh. The ecstasy. The pleasure.

  The bed.

  Riona felt the anger boiling, the grief and shame and heartache overcoming. She opened her mouth to scream.

  Marc’s next words cleared out the pain, the doubt, the want... the memory.

  “That’s my girl. Now bury the memory deep. It’s the little bit of you I’m keeping for myself.”

  The next thing she knew, she, Marc, and Jerry found themselves in a room that she remembered being in once before, though what had gone on there, she couldn’t recall. Jerry, who was hunched over on the floor, rose.

  “Well, that was excessively violent.” He looked around the room. “You fed her memories of Azazel’s house?”

  “Where’s Dee?” Riona’s eyes dashed around the bedroom, looking for the demigod. “Oh my God, where did he go?”

  A nearby door opened, and they all crouched in to a defensive position. When a mass of muscle emerged from under the cover of some high-quality silk linen, however, they relaxed.

  Dee must have been able to hear them from inside the closet, because he immediately asked, “How do you know this is Azazel’s house, Jerry?”

  “One, because I lived in Hell for two thousand years. Two, because in that two thousand years, I was a minion of Azazel, and served his house. And three,” he pointed at the nearby bed, “because that’s my old bed, and this is my old room. Goddess in grief, Marc, what memory did you feed her to get her to port us here?”

  Marc shook his head. “This is where I sleep. It’s where I’m most familiar with, in all the places of Hell. It’s where...” He sighed, still surprised how easily he took to lies. “It’s where I sat and cried, knowing I’d lost her for good. I tried to seduce her when she arrived here, Jerry. She refused. Her love for you was too strong.”

  Jerry’s eyebrow arched. “You don’t know how relieved I am to hear that.”

  Chapter 21

  It was the taste of sulfur in the air that kept Ramiel from planning his annual vacation in Hell. In the underworld realm, the waters were lousy with the stuff, and here in Hell-A, as the Los Angeles doppelganger that served as the realm’s capitol city had come to be known, a fog of toxic fumes clung to edges of the sky twenty-four/seven.

  He stood atop the tallest building in town, taking survey of the land. Persephone had never been any sort of military strategist. Like all Nephilim of her time, she was raised knowing how to fight, but with things like swords, spears and her elemental magic. Organizing troops and planning out battles? That was Hades’s area of expertise. Ramiel felt in his guts the restrictions of the accords still demanding that he follow certain protocols. They still held, but that seemed to be a technicality. All it would take would be one Nephilim under Persephone’s command killing one Grigori in this realm, and that document wouldn’t be worth more than the parchment it was written on.

  Just outside the city, where the coastal plains bubbled into foothills, he saw it: a grove of trees that he would bet his best tutu hadn’t been there the day before. Summoning his magic, he let his body port to the nascent grove, but stayed hidden in the canopy. Sure enough, he caught site of a few hundred ancient warriors, with a few of their half-human children in the mix. At the far edge of their gathering, a low-rise structure of vines and leaves formed something approaching a yurt.

  Ramiel leapt from tree to tree before landing atop the structure. Nearby, Hermes grumbled to another of the Nephilim warriors.

  “Can you believe it?” he whined. “Just up and said no. Damn dogs. Aren’t they supposed to be loyal? Is this loyalty? Refusing to serve when we need them the most. How are we supposed to defeat demons and fallen angels without them? The Cerberi can destroy them, you know. In the Underworld, anyways. One of the balances the One gave Hades when he ruled here.”

  “No worries. Persephone has the lightning. As for the Cerberi? Like dogs, they’ll come crawling back when they get hungry enough,” the other Nephilim answered. “Soon enough, Hades will rule down here again, and everything will be like it was in ancient times.”

  “Except that it’s Persephone leading us, not Hades,” Hermes retorted.

  The other one shook his head and laughed. “You know he controls her. Will be that way till one of them goes into the sunset. She gets uppity and tries to assert herself, but he always brings her back under control. In ancient times, we used to say that Hades points Persephone where he wants her to go using his cock. She never resists for too long; he’s too good to her in the bedroom.”

  The walls had been beckoned by Persephone’s magic to be tightly bound, giving her privacy from ground level observers. The roof, however, consisted of looser weaving, and by this he could see the Queen of the Nephilim inside, alone, sleeping on a kit made of animal skins.

  He ported, throwing up a Morgana Box once inside. They needed a few minutes alone. Looking at her lithe form, her chest rising and falling in a cycle of slumber, it was hard to believe they’d come to this point so quickly. Two weeks ago, they’d been sneaking into corners and meeting in fancy hotel suites every chance they got. Now she had sworn to kill him.

  Dr. Phil would have salivated over it.

  They needed to speak, but at the same time, being in her presence again, Ramiel couldn’t concentrate. His eyes focused on the curve of her neck where it met her body. How many times his mouth had been just at that spot. Or the area just below her left ear, the one that made her hiss every time his tongue lapped it. His eyes fell to those rose-hued lips for which he hungered.

  He couldn’t; she’d kill him.

  But it would be a good way to go.

  The angel lowered himself to all fours beside her kit, his palms flattening on either side of her head as he loomed over her. She flinched in her sleep, and the sudden movement almost sent him porting. Serenity overtook her again, and he leaned down, tenderly moving his lips to hers, and pressed them with the delicateness of a drop of water running over a rose petal.

  Persephone’s eyes opened. The next thing he knew, he was on his back and she was straddling him, an ordinary silver blade to his throat.

  He angled his eyes to examine the weapon. “That won’t kill me, you know that.”

>   The blade licked the skin across his Adam’s apple. The corners of Persephone’s mouth rose when a drop of blood slid over the shiny metal. “No, but it will hurt like a son of a bitch.” For good measure, she sliced a little deeper, causing a small but steady rivulet to flow to the pillow below. “Tell me why you’re here.”

  “Trying to keep you from being a puppet for Hades, or don’t you realize he’s using you?”

  His voice didn’t waiver, a fact which seemed to piss her off, given the way she was gnashing her teeth.

  “I use him, he uses me. That’s the nature of our relationship.”

  “This is what you call love? Or was that a lie when you thought he was going to die and declared yourself to him?” Nonplussed by the fact that she was bleeding him, Ramiel laced his fingers behind his head. “Why do you love someone who’s kept you a prisoner, suffering for his sins, for centuries? Why do you think he suddenly decided to grant you the divorce you’ve been seeking since Byzantine times now, when all this other stuff is going on?”

  “Why do you continue to annoy me? Don’t you know I could kill you right now if I wanted to?”

  “You also know I could port out of here the second I thought you were going to go all Flash Gorgon on me too.”

  “Why don’t you then?”

  “I don’t exactly mind being underneath you. Still... since we do have business to attend to.” In a blink, Persephone collapsed forward, the space beneath her a sudden void. Ramiel rematerialized a few feet away, leaning against the wall of branches and vines. “The Pure Souls are coming. They intend to stop both you and the Grigori by any means necessary, up to and including death, if it comes down to it. Walk away from this, Steph. Order your Nephilim to retreat and go home.”

  “So you’re here to save me for my brother’s sake?” She rose to her feet, threw back her head, and cackled. “And here I thought you were going to make a foolish attempt to win me back.”