To that declaration, Persephone’s jaw dropped. “Hello, queen of the Nephilim right here.”
“Yes, but as I recall, you tried to kill us not too long ago,” Riona said. “It’s going to take me a little time to process that. Dee, you cool?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
With a jerk of her head, Riona turned to her dad. “Jerry will represent the mortal realm, and Marc will represent Hell. I guess I should throw in for Heaven. Okay, Michael, we have reps. Now what?”
“You need to agree to terms.”
Riona looked first to Dee, then to Marc, then to Jerry. Dee was the first to speak.
“I propose we basically just reestablish what we used to have, with one exception,” Dee said. He fixed his sister in his tender gaze. “The formal separation between the archangels and the other creatures of the realms should be abolished. I don’t think Ramiel should be subject to punishment just because he’s in love with my sister. It was no fairer than her being punished because my uncle gave shelter to the Fallen. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” the other two men echoed, and then Marc added, “I want a route for the souls sent to Hell to work off their time and have a chance to be considered for Heaven. I’ve seen too many sent here because of some fucking technicality or out of date edict. Don’t get me wrong; the truly wicked should stay locked up in this realm and suffer. I will personally see to it that that happens.”
Riona paused on that one. “I don’t know that I’m in a position to grant that, Marc. Frankly, I kinda always expected I’d end up here one way or the other anyhow.”
Ramiel chuckled. “Well, you’re young yet.”
The Keystone sighed. “Damn it, keeping up with my clients is going to be a son of a bitch now.”
“Not to mention spending time with your husband,” Jerry grumbled.
Michael had been sitting so quietly and content, it surprised them all when he added to the conversation. “You know, you don’t have to be the princess.”
His daughter did a double take. “What do you mean?”
“You’re negotiating a new HHA, everything is on the table. You can’t change the nature of what you are—you’re going to be a human-angel hybrid no matter what—Oh, you thought I didn’t notice that, huh?” Michael grinned at his own perceptiveness. “But beyond that, you don’t have to keep the title if you don’t want it. Just give it to someone you think will do a good job.”
Immediately, she turned to Ramiel. “Interested?”
Ramiel, however, looked at her like she’d just recited the Gettysburg address. “You don’t honestly think I’m qualified for that. Come on, I totally lack sympathy for assholes and I’m even more sarcastic than you.”
“You could have walled up in Heaven just like your coward brothers, but you didn’t. You risked your own life and your good standing to fight with us. Plus, Marc’s going to need help. You already know how to deal with his sulky, cynical ass.”
Marc crossed his arms and huffed. “Wow, such a vote of confidence, Riona. Remind me never to invite you to introduce me at a conference or anything.”
“Oh, get real, Marc,” she responded. “You know how awesome you are. Jerry had two thousand years to vie to be the devil, but he couldn’t do it. You? You totally owned it. Plus, you were also one of the bravest men I ever knew, with a capacity for love and compassion that I don’t think even you understood the depths of. I mean, a Catholic priest who accepted me—an openly bisexual apostate witch— as I am?”
“Love does crazy things to people.” He smiled.
“It does,” she agreed, turning out and reaching for her husband’s hand.
Then, the happiness fled his face, and Marc became serious. “The devil still has a duty, you know. Demons have their place in the world. If I take on this role, and you stay the Keystone, we’ll be enemies. You comfortable with that, fighting against me to battle for the fate of men’s souls for the next umpteen years?”
She placed a hand on his shoulder, her gaze softening. “I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather banter with across enemy lines for the rest of my life.”
“Fine, then,” Marc huffed. “Now ask your husband if he’s comfortable with the fact that I’ll be trying to tempt you to evil and bed you for the rest of your life.”
“Surely you wouldn’t keep at that when she’s expecting, would you?” Michael asked.
Riona’s body turned quicker than a Midwest sunny day to rain. “What do you mean, expecting?”
Michael beamed like he was high. “You’re pregnant. Twins, actually. You mean you didn’t know? Angels can sense it, though.” He laughed. “Whoever your angel parent is must be a real dullard. He didn’t give you any talent at all, did he?”
Riona turned again, this time to Ramiel. She said nothing, but instead, beseeched him with her eyes.
“I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure we’d all survive this, and it’s probably too late for the facts of life speech. Basically, now that Jerry’s human again, if you two don’t want to conceive every time you have sex, you have got to use protection,” he said. “The whole spark of life thing is a powerful force.”
“But you and Steph have been... I mean, I don’t want to assume, but I assume, and she...”
“Female Nephilim can’t conceive,” Persephone said, sadness tingeing her voice. “Our males can have progeny till kingdom come, but when our mortality was frozen after the rapture, our women no longer had the physical ability to go through the stages of pregnancy. No more pregnant female Nephilim, no more full-blooded Nephilim.”
“Maybe we have one more amendment to the accords then.” With tears in her eyes, Riona reached out to Persephone. “If you could have a child, would you want to?”
“Of course.” The queen blushed over pink. “As long as it’s Ramiel’s.”
Ramiel turned the babbling woman towards him, holding her at arm’s length, and leaned down to meet her gaze. “We’re really going to be together now, aren’t we?”
She reached up and stroked his cheek. “Like you’ll be able to get rid of me this time.”
“Then,” Riona said, “I think we’re done.”
“Not quite yet,” Marc said, pointing at the Morgana Box, the bottom of which now had at least an inch of blood pooled within. What do we do with him? And there’s the whole realm merging thing too.”
“Right, forgot about that.” Riona knelt and put her hands against the magical divider between her father and the rest of the world. “Michael?”
He looked down at the rivulets of blood from the slashes on his arms. “It just keeps bleeding. Was I in a battle? I don’t remember. These wounds, they’re not healing. They should have by now. Unless they were made by an angelic blade. But why would anyone attack me?”
Riona looked at the brothers behind her. “Give him his memory back.”
“What?” Jerry said. “Wouldn’t you rather have him in this nice, helpful docile state? If he remembers what’s just happened, and figures out his plans were defeated, he’s going to be uber pissed.”
Riona shook her head. “I don’t care. If we can’t remember our failures, how do we ever learn from them?”
Marc hesitated. “Are you sure, Riona? There are some lapses in judgment that are a blessing to forget. Their recollection could destroy a person’s soul.”
“Ramiel, we need guidance.”
The angel’s brow furrowed at Riona’s request. “I have to agree with the Brothers Grimm on this one. If he remembers his failure, he’ll want vengeance. You’d create an enemy who’d never stop attacking until he was dead. If you’re not going to kill him, then you need to sideline him somehow.”
“Sideline him?” she asked. “What am I supposed to do, feed him a poison apple? Curse him to have to renew a vehicle registration without an appointment at the DMV for the rest of time? And the bleeding, is there anything that can be done for all the bleeding?”
“A soul doesn’t bleed,” Ramiel said. “Michael, I’m going
to release you from your flesh, okay? You can’t do it anymore since you’re a fallen, but I can trigger the change to your metaphysical incarnation.”
One moment the sanguine fallen sat in a pool of his own blood, and the next, Ramiel snapped his fingers and Michael’s body turned to mist.
“You know,” the angel said. “Normally I wouldn’t be able to do anything from the outside to someone inside a Morgana box. I guess it’s good to be the prince.” Ramiel then proceeded to push on the confines of the magical entrapment, condensing its form into something no bigger than a Rubix Cube.
“I’ll take this somewhere for safekeeping,” he said, looking at the glowing vessel in his hand. “For all his errors over the last few decades, Michael does have knowledge and power, the likes of which is hard to parallel. There may be a time when he’ll be called up to use them and make amends for all that he’s done. What about the other Grigori, though?”
“Kochab fled the moment the real fighting broke out,” Jerry said. “She always was fickle. She’ll keep herself hidden until it’s obvious whose interests serve her best. Samuel and Armaros?”
“Have already pledged their loyalty to me,” Riona said. “And I’ll command them to give it instead to Marc. I guess, then, that’s everything.”
Just at that moment, a horrendous screech rent the sky overhead. Riona and the others looked up just in time to see a long, green-scaled creature fly across the field, on its way to the not too distant mountains.
Riona clicked her tongue. “Seriously, dragons?”
Persephone giggled. “Yup, we still have a few in the Nephilim realm.”
Under their feet, the ground began to shift. Where there had been hard-packed soil and patches of dry grass, chunks of cement began to appear.
“Okay, right, how do I do this?”
Jerry stepped forward, presenting her with the hilt of the hellven blade. “Circumscribe creation. I am an angel in good standing—okay, fine, a half-angel,” he amended when Ramiel cast him a dirty look, “and you pulled the power of hellfire to supplement my heavenlight.”
Marc, getting the idea, turned his borrowed blade back to her. “And I am a Fallen—half-Fallen—and you pulled the power of heavenlight to supplement my hellfire.”
“You balanced us,” Jerry resumed. “And now, you use these. I’m thinking it’s kind of like casting a Morgana Box. Just think the boundaries, project the magic, and let it happen.”
“But I thought we decided the prophecy was about you and Hades,” she said to her husband.
He pecked her mouth. “Prophecies often have more than one interpretation, babe, and the annoying thing is, they can all be true.”
The Keystone turned glistening eyes up to Marc. “I guess, then, this is good-bye for real this time.”
He reached up and stroked her cheek, even as Jerry fumed, then dropped it. “What, you think just because I’m the devil incarnate means I can’t come visit every so often?”
“Oh, no, I know you could. You have unbelievable power now. The thing is, with me, that’s always been true.” Riona looked down at her abdomen, running a hand lovingly over the still-flat plane of muscle. “But I’m asking you not to. I know my heart, Marc. I know that if I think I’ll see you again, I’ll be tempted by it. I’m asking you to vow to me that you won’t come for me anymore. If not for your love of me, then for the sake of our children.”
Marc sucked in a breath at the term our. Riona meant, of course, she and Jerry, but a thread of curiosity in the back of his mind began to knot. He thought about that unlikely horizon, of he and Riona holding hands with a blue-eyed, redheaded child swinging back and forth, silhouetted against the sunset. He thought about the danger the child would find itself in, merely by the fact that his father was who he was.
The twin’s mother was the Keystone, and the daughter of an archangel. Their father was one of the most knowledgeable and legendary demons ever. They didn’t need the devil-makes-three upbringing to complicate that.
Neither did Riona.
He sighed. “I vow it.”
“Oh, bad word to use,” Ramiel hissed.
Marc’s eyebrows arched. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing. I mean, something, but it’s too late, you said it. Now it’s part of the new pact. You intentionally attempt to see Riona again, you’ll break the new accords.”
They all jolted when Jerry clapped his hands together and barked out “Praise Jesus!”
Just to spite him, and also because—hey, he was the devil—Marc grabbed Riona by the waist and pulled her near.
“Make it one to remember then, Dade.”
And then he kissed her—long, hard, and intensely. If Ramiel and Persephone hadn’t held Jerry back, the devil would have gotten his due.
“Wow!” Riona seemed a little dizzy when Marc released her, stumbling to the side. When she regained her equilibrium, she just waived a hand through the air dismissively, and mumbled, “Jerry’s still a better kisser.”
“Suck that, Marc!” an exuberant Jerry burst out.
“I think I just did, Jerry!” Marc taunted back.
Riona had enough. It was time to go. She repositioned the blades in her hands—the angelic in her right hand, the hellven in her left—and let her power flow through them.
A crack of rocks, a flash of light, a sigh, and the worlds divided anew.
EPILOGUE
When he’d been human, Marcello Angeletti despised cable. It was where the networks shipped their old crappy, outdated programming to run in perpetuity, despite the fact that they hadn’t really been that good the first time. But he’d take any episode of Friends, Buffy or even Welcome Back, Kotter, to one more minute of the sin mirror.
His role as the devil—or rather, his interpretation of the devil’s role, meant that the focus of the position had altered. It was more of a desk job now. In this post-HHA2 world, the Underworld didn’t deal exclusively in sin. Rather, working with the Council of Seven and the new prince of the heavenly realm, demons under his command intercepted those on the fence between sin and benevolence. The term “sin glass” itself had become somewhat of a misnomer; at his direction, the device had been fine tuned to display only those in the path-diverged-in-a-yellow-wood moment.
Ramiel’s new task force, the Guardians (he’d rolled his eyes at such a lame name—but no one ever credited Ramiel with a creative streak), were the heavenly realm’s equivalent to demons. Volunteer mortal souls who wished it, could be sent down to the mortal realm and try and coax the potential sinner back to the side of good. Demons and Guardians usually arrived on scene at the same moment.
“The thought occurred to me while watching an episode of Tom & Jerry,” Ramiel had reported. “There was the funny one where Jerry was holding a huge mallet and Tom was asleep, and he was trying to decide to hit him or not when—poof! Suddenly, there was an angel Tom and a devil Tom on his shoulder, trying to convince him which way was right or wrong. The devil won, but I consider that part a fluke.”
Marc’s eyebrow had arched. “You sure it wasn’t Tom holding the mallet?”
“Isn’t Tom the mouse?”
“No, Tom’s the cat. As in, tomcat. And you must have seen that plot device before. It’s used in basically every cartoon ever made.”
“Hey, what can I say? I don’t watch as much TV as humans. Cut me a little slack.”
Whatever.
Marc ran a hand over his face. True, he didn’t need sleep anymore. The upgrade he’d received due to his father’s last minute act of charity towards his son had left him more angel than demon, but that didn’t mean his spirit didn’t get weary.
From the corner of his eye, a leggy redhead wearing a tight little black dress and a purple cravat leaned against the doorframe. “You’re hopeless, you know that?”
“Go fuck yourself, Molly.” He resisted the urge to pull the hellven blade out of its hiding place and throw it at her.
She licked her bottom lip. “You’d like that, wouldn�
��t you?”
He imagined what that might look like and had to admit, yes, actually, he would like that.
“They always show up right about... and there they are.”
The images in the sin glass shifted. What it held at first sight was anything but a scene of potential soul-crushing sin. Rather, it was a scene of cuteness so thick and saccharine, you could sell it as artificial sweetener on the open market. Two babies—one plump little girl and one devilish little boy—giggled as their father, a man who bore a striking resemblance to the devil himself, took turns tickling their fat torsos and kissing the bottom of their little club feet.
His companion laughed and made her way to the couch. “Which one do you think it is?”
“What do you mean, which one?” Marc said as Molly threw herself on the couch and snuggled up next to him. “I think they’re already plotting on taking over the world together.”
Her red fingernail pointed to the baby on the left side of the screen, to the little girl with brown eyes. “Daniel looks so much like his mother, but Ramiela is the splitting image of her dad.”
“That, she is.” His chest rose and fell as he let out a sigh that bespoke of regret.
The woman sat up, assuming a lecturing pose. “Marc, we talked about this. You can’t let anyone know. EVER. I shouldn’t know, but you told me, and now I’m stuck with it and I hate that. If Riona or Jerry ever found out you might be the father, it would crush them. Not to mention what it might mean if the whole world found out. Can you imagine, all the devil’s enemies knowing that he had mortal children?”
He shook off the possibilities and the horrendous images filling his mind, trying anyway he could to distance himself from doing a single thing that would ever bring harm to those babies. “There’s an equally good chance I’m not the father. Demons can’t procreate, but I’ve never been just any old demon. There’s no way to know, absent a DNA test.”
“Yeah, because doing one of those on two babies that have angel grandparents on both sides and whose dad was a resurrected half-human from two thousand years ago would be sure to be conclusive on a number of fronts.”
When Spell Freezes Over (All My Exes Die From Hexes Book 4) Page 22