With This Ring: Imp Series, Book 11

by Dunbar, Debra

  And then there was the paint ball gun, which obviously wasn’t a paint ball gun. Was this the sort of weapon Kirby and Gareth were selling? I wasn’t sure what I’d been envisioning, but it hadn’t been spelled paint balls that kept me from using any of my demon abilities. This was horrible. It was as if I’d suddenly been turned into a human. How long was this supposed to last? Shit, I hoped the effect was temporary and not permanent.

  The idea chilled me. No, it couldn’t be permanent. Kirby wouldn’t make something like that. Actually, I’m not sure either Kirby or Gareth could make something like that. I felt around my spirit-self, trying to gauge what had actually been done to me. It felt just like when I’d worn that elven collar, although this time there was no collar around my neck.

  What the fuck had they done to me? And how long would it be until it wore off? Once again I pushed down a wave of panic, refusing to consider that it might not ever wear off. Would I still be the Iblis if I had no demon, or angel, abilities? Was I even a being of spirit anymore? What would my life be like as a human. In jail.

  I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. I was still the same imp even if I couldn’t teleport, or fix my bruises, or run any faster than an incredibly out-of-shape couch potato. I could still beat the shit out of any inmate who tried to steal my pudding at lunch. I could still stir up chaos. Fate still had my back. I’d come out on top, even if I had to tunnel through a mountain of shit first.

  But I didn’t want to tunnel through shit. I didn’t want to wear an orange jumpsuit for ten to twenty, fighting other women for pudding at lunch and sleeping on a hard, stainless steel bench. I wanted to be home with Lux and Gregory and Nyalla. I wanted to attend Amber’s bachelorette party, to wear that hideous dress in her wedding. I wanted to marry my angel in Vegas with his prodigal brother by my side in a turquoise gown with a wrist corsage, with Elvis officiating the ceremony. I wanted to ride Diablo, visit with Little Red, kill the not-yet-dead rodents on my front porch. I wanted to eat hot wings and drink iced vodka—the good kind, not that cheap shit.

  Did they serve hot wings in prison? If they didn’t, that surely would be the definition of cruel and unusual punishment.

  I waited in that nasty-ass cell, but no one came. Shouldn’t someone have been telling me what I was charged with, even though I knew they’d arrested me for breaking and entering as well as theft. Fuck, I’d had those other rings with me too. No doubt they were checking burglary reports for the locations Lux had helpfully written down for me, matching the rings in my pocket to those descriptions, and preparing to charge me for those thefts as well. Great, my ten to twenty was probably looking like fifty to seventy. And I doubted an imp would be getting out early for good behavior either.

  I tried to shake off my funk by standing and trying to see what was outside the bars of my cell. This was clearly a jail at a local station or county courthouse, because it was far too quiet to be an actual prison. I could see a short hallway, and what looked like another four to five cells to my left. Either the people in them were passed out drunk or comatose, or they were empty because I couldn’t even hear footsteps or the sounds of someone peeing.

  There was no way to tell the passage of time in here. No clock. No watch. No cell phone. The florescent lights were painfully bright, and buzzing with a constant noise that made me want to rip my ears off. Bored, frustrated, and feeling completely off-kilter, I curled up on the stainless steel bench and closed my eyes. I was pretty sure hours had passed before I’d finally fallen asleep.

  * * *

  I woke up to someone unlocking my cell door. It must have been morning because I was absolutely starving as well as dehydrated as fuck. I still had bruises and my back didn’t want to bend properly, no doubt because I’d lain for hours on a cold metal bench.

  The bailiff, or whoever the hell he was, hooked another set of cuffs on my ankles with a chain that led to the ones on my wrists they’d never removed from last night. I followed him out, taking fast tiny steps to try to keep up. As I passed the other cells, I glanced to see if I’d had any neighbors last night.

  Nope. I’d been the only one privileged to be incarcerated here awaiting whatever I was heading toward right now. I assumed this would be my arraignment, as I’d learned from watching countless hours of Law and Order, but who knew what the fuck was going to happen.

  Once I got inside the tiny courtroom, it became evident that no one knew what the fuck was going to happen. The judge and a woman I assumed was the prosecutor were having an interesting argument about whether I should be arraigned here or sent to ICE for deportation, as I was not truly a citizen.

  Every time I’d been arrested before I’d been treated as a human, as a citizen, as Samantha Martin. ICE? Where the fuck were they going to deport me to? New Hell? Hel? I’d almost welcome that if they could give me my demon abilities back before they did.

  Evidently federal immigration did not yet have the policies and procedures set up to deal with non-humans, which left me stuck with this judge who looked as if he really didn’t want to be handling my case.

  The woman read the charges of breaking and entering and theft, saying there were possibly pending charges in other states as well. Then she went on to say that because I was a demon, I was a flight risk and she was recommending bail be remanded.

  I knew exactly what that meant from all those episodes of Law and Order. Frantically looking around, I wondered if anyone had assigned me an attorney or if I was supposed to be representing myself.

  “Can I speak to that?” I asked.

  “Go ahead,” the judge told me.

  “First, I didn’t break anything, although I did enter. I also didn’t steal anything. I was returning the ring that someone else stole. Same with the other two rings.”

  “You’ll have time to put forth that defense during the trial,” the judge said.

  “I’m the Iblis. I’m on the Ruling Council. I’ve got important things I’m supposed to be doing.”

  “We’re determining bail,” the judge snapped. “You need to be telling me why you’re not a flight risk.”

  “Maybe because I can’t even fly right now,” I snapped back. “That cop shot me without saying a word. I can’t go anywhere unless I take a bus. I can’t do anything. They took my clothes, my phone—”

  “We were worried she’d call another demon to magic her out of the jail,” the woman interrupted.

  “They shot me. I didn’t get to make a phone call. I didn’t get questioned or read my rights. I got put in a cell overnight with my cuffs still on. I haven’t had food or water since they arrested me. Where’s my lawyer? I don’t even get a lawyer or an opportunity to call one?” I held my hands up. “At least set bail so I can get a lawyer.”

  “I can’t see denying bail on these charges,” the judge told the woman. “B&E with no property damage. Possession of a ring valued at ten thousand that was reported stolen three days ago. I can’t see anything that shows she’s a danger to anyone. She didn’t even resist arrest.”

  “Because the arresting officer shot her,” the woman argued.

  “And I have a problem with that.” The judge scowled. “Even shot, she still could have hit, or kicked, or bit, or swore. She didn’t do any of that. Is your only basis for requesting remand that she’s a demon and might not show up for trial? Because we take that risk with pretty much everyone we set bail for.”

  “She’s a demon…” the woman said.

  “Who currently has no demon powers whatsoever,” the judge interrupted. “Bail set at five thousand dollars, which is still uncharacteristically high for these charges.”

  The prosecutor woman clamped her mouth shut and glared over at me. I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at her, or flip her the bird. The bailiff took me back to my cell, and an hour later I was dressed in my paint-stained clothes, putting my bail on my credit card, and calling for an Uber.

  On my phone were a bunch of messages from Nyalla. In the first she wanted to know if
I was coming back last night or not. It seemed Samael had dropped Lux off after their ring returning expedition, and she wasn’t sure if we had plans or if she could take Lux to an arcade then to a sleepover with Austin.

  There were another two messages, then one saying she was going ahead with her plans for Lux, and to let her know if I needed Lux back before tomorrow (today) at noon.

  There was a message from Gregory about the wild gate near Dublin, then another annoyed that he’d had to drag Snip there to show him the gate’s exact location, then yet another message where he questioned the efficiency of this communication method when I clearly was refusing to return his calls or message him back.

  Darci had left a message wanting to know if I’d picked the location for the bachelorette party. The dress store had called to let me know my alterations were done and my gown ready for pick up.

  As the Uber driver took me to the airport, I tried to decide what I should do. Being without any demon abilities was frightening and embarrassing. I didn’t want anyone to know, but I was pretty sure it would be obvious once I started driving and taking a plane everywhere instead of teleporting. Looking down at the blue stain on my shirt, I wondered once again when, or if, the effects were going to wear off. Was there a counter spell I’d get after my trial? Could I wait that long before I went crazy or someone killed me?

  I’d purchased a ticket and was making my way through security when Nyalla called again.

  “Oh good! Are you almost home? I’m on my way to pick up Lux from Harper’s. And there’s another dead rat on the front porch. At least I think it’s another dead rat. I might be a small groundhog. I’m not sure.”

  “I’ll take care of it as soon as I’m back,” I told her. “I’ll be home around…” I glanced at the ticket. “Five. I’ve got a few more things to do first. Lux should be fine on his own, but tell him to absolutely not return any more rings unless his father or one of his uncles or Aunt Uriel goes with him.”

  As frightened and powerless as I felt right now, I was more worried that Lux would have the same thing happen to him. I’d like to think that no human would shoot a winged, golden-haired, toddler, but I didn’t want to risk it.

  I chatted for a few moments with Nyalla, pretending like everything was normal as my brain tried to process what the fuck had happened and what I was going to do about it. I’d need to tell Gregory, but if I called him now, he’d swoop in and zip me out of here and back home. It would have saved me a six-hundred-dollar flight, but for some reason I was reluctant to let him know. At least right now. I needed time to think, to process, and to plan before I told him.

  I cleared security just as they were announcing boarding for my flight. Unusually subdued for an imp, I boarded, took my seat and stared out the window at the various workers loading luggage and checking whatever the hell they check before the plane takes off.

  I would contact Kirby or Gareth and find out what the fuck that cop had shot me with and how to reverse it. Hopefully it was something they’d sold, because if it wasn’t I was in a world of trouble. But getting an antidote or a cure wasn’t the only thing on my mind. With these weapons widely available the balance of power would shift. What if humans refused to release the counter spell? What if they decided this sort of thing should be permanent? I needed to know exactly what the fuck this spell was, how it was structured, how it could be defeated without an antidote that might be withheld and used to control us.

  I needed someone who had at least a layman’s knowledge of magic. I needed someone who understood human politics, who understood demons and how magic worked on beings of spirit. Gregory was ancient enough that he probably knew more about elves than anyone, but his knowledge was from millions of years ago, and clearly times had changed. Plus, Gregory had this adorable obliviousness when it came to humans and their world. For a dude who’d been heading up the Grigori for ten thousand years, he really knew jack shit about the people he was supposedly guiding to enlightenment.

  I needed someone with knowledge—knowledge that was untainted by any prejudice they might bring to the table. I needed someone who saw information as something sacred and pure, who I could count on to let me have the cold hard unvarnished truth.

  I needed a Noodle.

  Chapter 8

  I had the Uber driver drop me at the end of the lane, too embarrassed to have him pull up to my house. Wyatt’s and my houses were the only ones on the long narrow road because I’d bought up all the land that was supposed to be developed into six cookie-cutter houses with one acre lots. I’d eagerly awaited the moment when my asshole neighbors, whose field adjoined my pasture, put their place up for sale, but they never had. The only other nearby house was the one Wyatt lived in. I would have bought Wyatt’s house when the elderly people living there left, or died, or something, but he outbid me. There was no way I was going to pay that much for a house in such disrepair, so I’d given up a slice of my privacy to the hot blond dude.

  Honestly, the fact that he was a hot blond dude greatly outweighed my need for privacy.

  I’d flirted shamelessly with him and we’d become friends, then more than friends for a short time. I still had a warm spot for him in my heart, and I suspect he felt the same for me. He’d been a major catalyst in my life. His friendship had sparked a change in me that I still wasn’t all that sure that I liked. But change is what an Angel of Chaos is about, so like it or not, it was here to stay.

  I eyed his little house as I walked past, irritated that with all the money Wyatt was now making, the place still looked like it should have condemned property tape stretched across the front door. The roof was covered in moss and sagging on the right side. It had to be leaking. Did he even notice the water dripping from his ceiling when it rained? Damn it, the fucking thing was going to come down around his head before he realized it was rotted. Even then he’d probably throw a tarp on the roof and just sweep the debris in a corner.

  Fucking hell. I stopped in the middle of the lane and made a call to Michelle, my right-hand woman in my property rentals business.

  “Hey, can you get a roofer out here sometime this week?” I said when she picked up the phone.

  “Didn’t you just have your roof replaced? After the dragon sat on it and nearly came through into your bedroom.”

  Little Red had gotten the hose for that one, me screaming the whole time for him to get off my fucking roof. That dragon hates the hose. All I have to do is wave it at him, and he takes off. Unfortunately, him taking off meant he took a chunk of my roof with him. I didn’t bother explaining to the contractors exactly what had caused the damage. It was one of those don’t ask, don’t tell situations.

  “Not my house, Wyatt’s place. Tell them I want new underlayment as well. And check the roofing joists for any rot. Who knows how long it’s been leaking.”

  To Michelle’s credit, she didn’t even question why I was having my neighbor’s roof replaced. The woman got me. She always had, even before she’d known I was a demon.

  “Should I call Wyatt and clue him in that he’s about to have some construction?” she asked.

  I snorted. “Don’t bother. He won’t notice. The Russians could drop a nuke on his house and he wouldn’t even notice.”

  Actually no one would notice that sort of thing, because death happened pretty quick with nukes. An archangel would survive if he acted quickly, but pretty much everything else would be gone before an “oh shit” could even cross their mind.

  I disconnected the call, knowing Michelle would have a new roof on Wyatt’s house by the end of the week, and continued toward my home. I’d left the wooded properties along the lane untouched and they were overgrown with briars and poison ivy. My privacy may be long gone with all the Lows, demons, angels, and werewolves in and out of my house day and night, but I still loved the illusion the woods gave. Dark. Secret. The world would never know that something not human lived back here. Except now everyone knew.

  Ah well. At least having Satan for a neighbo
r might make those assholes decide to finally move.

  Nyalla’s car was parked out front of my house. I picked up the pace, eager to see her and Lux, and almost stepped on a dead rat.

  Holy fuck, they were everywhere. It was like a biblical plague of dead rats, except quite a few of them were twitching and crawling around on the ground. The place stank of dirt and rot and maggots. I gagged and tip-toed my way around the rat carcasses to my front door where the shovel was propped up against the trim. A few rats nipped at my feet along the way, and let me tell you it fucking hurt clear through my sneakers. With two of the rodents hanging off my pant legs and blood staining my shoes, I grabbed the shovel and started whacking.

  The effort required a good bit of aerobic activity, and since the only thing I’d had to eat in nearly twenty-four hours was a packet of dry roasted peanuts on the plane, I was shaky and weak by the time I’d smashed all the rats. Deciding clean up would have to wait until after I got some food in me, I went inside.

  “Ma!” Lux ran to hug my legs, wrinkling his nose once he got within sniffing distance. “You stink.”

  “I haven’t had a shower, and I just sweated a gallon of vodka and old beer killing the rats out front.” I scooped him up into my arms. “How are you? Did you have a good time with Austin?”

  He grinned. “Austin is funny. He and Karrae are my best friends. Besides you, Ma.”

  Awww. “You didn’t take back any more rings, did you?”

  He shook his head. “No. Did you return the three you took?”

  “Absolutely,” I lied. It wasn’t really a lie. The police would get the rings back to their rightful owners. I’d just need to deal with the legal repercussions. My sticky-fingered kid was causing me serious legal nightmares here.