With This Ring: Imp Series, Book 11

by Dunbar, Debra

  Gregory rolled his eyes. “Why don’t we wait and see what the elves intend to do with their newfound power before we consider assassination. If they pose a problem, then we’ll discuss what we should do. Did you have any further bad news to convey?”

  Shit. I’d almost forgot. “Yeah, someone is sending dead animals to attack me.”

  “Is that what the headless deer carcasses are out front? I thought perhaps it was that gory human holiday you were observing.”

  “That’s Halloween, and sadly humans don’t decorate with deer corpses and body parts. No, someone has cursed me, or is trying to annoy me, or this is someone’s idea of a sick joke.”

  “Dar?” Gregory suggested.

  My brother would find this sort of thing absolutely hilarious, but I could only see him sticking with it for a day. Two max. “No, I don’t think it’s Dar.”

  “It can’t be someone who really hates you, or they’d come up with a better scheme then pelting your house with headless deer,” Gregory commented.

  “They weren’t headless when they got here. I made them headless. Because they’re zombie animals, and Wyatt said I needed to destroy the brains.”

  Gregory nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. Wyatt is the expert when it comes to killing zombies. I still don’t believe this is a serious threat, though. Zombie rats and deer wouldn’t do much to harm an Angel of Chaos.”

  He had a point. “Okay, so it’s someone trying to annoy me then.”

  “Someone who knows necromancy,” Gregory added.

  I turned to face him. “Holy fuck! If I find out who it is, maybe they can resurrect Elvis for our wedding! It would be the event of the millennia. Satan and the Archangel Michael married by the King.”

  “Judging from those deer out front, the King would be a skeleton at best, a semi-preserved rotting corpse at worst.”

  “I’m thinking the rotting corpse would be the best.” I pursed my lips in thought. “How the hell do I find this necromancer, though? And how much do I need to pay him to resurrect Elvis?”

  Gregory chuckled, pulling me against him. “I doubt this necromancer can raise dead humans, or they’d be the ones banging on your front door instead of deer and rats. Also, I doubt a necromancer who is motivated enough to send the undead to annoy you would be convinced to do you a favor and bring Elvis back to life, no matter what you offered him.”

  I sniffed. “Says you. Anyone can be bought. You just have to figure out the price.”

  “Well, you would know that better than I.” He chuckled. “Please tell me that’s the end of your bad news, or do you have something horrible you need to share about Amber’s wedding or this bachelorette party.”

  “I’ve got to find at least one stripper. Neither of the delivery guys today were interested.” I looked up at Gregory.

  “No, Cockroach. I will not be manifesting reproductive organs just to shake them at a bunch of human women.”

  “Spoilsport.” I settled back against him once more. “Oh, and did I tell you about the troll yet? The one Lux accidently teleported into my living room?”

  “Yes, you told me about the troll.”

  I frowned. “Wait, how come I get the troll, the nasty elf bitch, the hag, Sparky, and all the psychotic nutjobs and you’re returning rings to sweet nice people who probably say ‘thank you’ and invite you in for dinner?”

  “Just lucky, I guess.”

  I sent him a narrow-eyed glance. Lucky, my ass. “You were cherry picking the rings, weren’t you?”

  “I do not believe any of the rings have stones in the shape of cherries on them.”

  “You were taking the easy ones and leaving me the shit. That’s totally what you were doing. Same with the meetings with the humans. I’ve got to deal with psycho elves and wheel-and-deal dude with his hamburgers, and you guys are being wined and dined with prime rib.”

  “You like hamburgers,” Gregory pointed out. “The elves won’t meet with us. You’re best suited to speak with the US President since he has issues concerning New Hell. And I’ve heard the Canadian Prime Minister is very pleasant.”

  “He’s hot as fuck, but that’s not the point.” I jabbed a finger against his chest. “I know the rest of you have more meetings than I do, but I got the crap at the bottom of the barrel, just like I did with the rings.”

  “I promise you that you are not getting the worst of the meetings. And as for the rings…I guess I’ve just been lucky.”

  Maybe he was just lucky. I mean, it wasn’t like he knew where the rings needed to go. The only one who did was Lux.

  Lux. That little sneak. He’d been purposely taking me along for the more dangerous confrontations. At first the realization angered me, then I remembered Lux loved me. He wouldn’t do this because he wanted to toss my ass into the fire. No, he was bringing me along on all the most difficult ring returns because he trusted me to handle the situation. He trusted me to protect him.

  His father was the most powerful and the oldest of all the archangels, but when it came to facing dragons and hags and other nasty shit, Lux came to me.

  I smiled against Gregory’s shirt. “Okay. I believe you. And I’ll help Lux return the last three rings. You do whatever you need to do with the angels. Oh, and our wedding.”

  “I booked a floor of suites at the Wynn.”

  Holy shit. I loved this guy. He wouldn’t have any problem getting strippers or hookers or anything at our wedding. I was totally putting the whole thing in his hands. Except, I would ask Rafi to check up on him, because Gregory sometimes screwed things up.

  “Now it’s my time to deliver bad news.” He held me away from him so he could meet my eyes. “The humans have begun to wall off New Hell.”

  I nodded. “Gareth told me they were going to put up some magical wall that restricted demons and humans from leaving without approval. The president had also said something about restricting who could come and go from the area. I totally understand. I mean, if the dude is going to send convicted felons to live there, he’d want to make sure they didn’t backpack their way out.”

  “You don’t have a problem with this?” Gregory asked.

  “Not really. I’ll just teleport wherever I want to go. Or fly over the magical wall when I need to get in and out of New Hell.”

  “Even insects and plant life cannot cross the barrier. It goes deep enough underground that root networks cannot spread past it,” Gregory commented.

  I frowned. “How high does it go?”

  “I believe airplanes can still cross, but they most likely need some clearance to cross the border or risk being attacked.”

  Well shit. So much for flying in. I’d just need to teleport back and forth if I needed to go there—not that I expected I’d be there all that often. As for airplanes, well this could be turned into an opportunity. Planes were going to get permission to fly across New Hell airspace plus pay a fee, or we’d shoot them the fuck down. Travel to Hawaii and Asia would become a very long flight if planes had to divert around New Hell.

  “The wall isn’t going to stop teleporting,” I reminded Gregory.

  “No, it won’t, but this will pose a problem for many demons as well as humans.” Gregory grabbed the remote and turned off the movie neither of us were watching. “I have a second bit of bad news.”

  I sighed. “Lay it on me.”

  “A large number of angels that were on our side have changed allegiance and joined the rebels.”

  “How large?”

  Gregory grimaced. “You don’t want to know.”

  Shit. “Why would they abandon you and the other archangels to join the rebels?” I suspected the answer to that question, but I hoped I was wrong. I wasn’t.

  “Rumors have spread that they can never return to Aaru again, that their leaders—that’s us—made a horrible error during the war and we are all forever banished.”

  “Do you think you can allay their fears? Give a rousing speech about a divine purpose here
among the humans and lie like a demon?”

  “I can, but I fear they will not believe it. Adding to the problem is the fact that the humans have not welcomed them the way these angels feel they should be greeted.”

  I couldn’t blame the humans for being disillusioned. They’d expected demons to wreck things, not angels. Instead of curing cancer, feeding the hungry, and turning water into wine, they were either stumbling around like idiots or trying to shove kale and beets down everyone’s throats.

  No, it was the elves who were curing cancer, feeding the hungry, and turning water into wine. Go figure.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked.

  Gregory turned the television back on. “We’re going to enjoy an evening together, then tomorrow we’ll take Lux to visit the asteroid belt. This can all be addressed at the Ruling Council meeting. There’s no immediate threat. We’ll work together and find a solution.

  I stared at him a moment. Gregory had never been one to rush things—most angels weren’t. Their timeline ran along millennia, not minutes. He was probably right. The rebels would be taking their time as well, planning and plotting, forming committees and focus groups and all that shit that angels did.

  In the meantime, we had a movie to watch.

  Chapter 16

  As much as I wanted to explore the asteroid belt with my two angels, I decided it was good for Lux to have some private one-on-one time with Gregory. So after a breakfast of avocado toast, I waved them off, changed into my swimsuit, and headed out to the pool.

  But not before grabbing a six pack of beer and a bag of Doritos. I mean, avocado toast? That wasn’t a decent breakfast for demon or angel. I seriously needed to buy Gregory a new cookbook—one with real food cooked with real butter and bacon grease.

  It was still chilly, but the sun felt warm on my skin as I lay back, shut my eyes, and snacked. This was the life. I had a glorious afternoon off—a few hours to do nothing but be absolutely lazy.

  Except I did need to get off my ass and find a stripper for Amber’s bachelorette party, but I could work on that later. I’m sure if I Googled, I could find a dozen places I could hire appropriate entertainment. But I wasn’t going to bother with that now. Nothing was going to interrupt my lazy moment. Nothing.

  Something bit down hard on my foot and I screamed, Doritos and beer spilling everywhere as I jumped up from the lounger.

  It was an undead rat, and he’d brought friends.

  Up until now, the curse seemed contained to the front of my house. What had changed that there were now zombie deer, dogs, and something that looked like it once was a cow shambling across my back patio and coming toward me? I summoned my sword and shouted for Boomer to help me, then began killing—starting with the motherfucker that was trying to gnaw off my toes.

  Boomer’s idea of help was to bay menacingly at the undead while safely remaining on the other side of the fence. I hopped around, feeling particularly vulnerable in bare feet and a bikini as I chopped the animated roadkill. A few of the rats stupidly fell into the pool and sank to the bottom, giving me an idea. I sliced my way through two dead dogs and ran straight for the cow.

  I’d been cow tipping about a dozen times, but I’d never done it to a moving, rotting bovine corpse before. My arms sank into soft maggoty flesh until they hit bone. I pushed, shoving the cow over the edge of the pool and into the water. Unfortunately I couldn’t get my arms free fast enough, and I went in as well.

  The cow sank and I surfaced along with pieces of flesh and sinew. A splashing noise caught my attention, and I turned to see all the zombies leaping into the pool like lemmings off a cliff. I kept treading water, and they kept coming—and sinking. Waiting until I was sure there were no more, I swam to the ladder and climbed out. My pool was a disgusting mess of dead animals. I wasn’t sure how much I’d have to pay my maintenance guys to clean all this out, but I’d need to do it fast before the whole thing started to stink.

  I hosed myself off, made a quick phone call to the pool company, then went inside. Terrelle was standing by my dining room table, eating my leftover chicken wings and drinking a beer.

  “Got info,” she said before I could yell at her.

  “Go on.” Depending on the info, it might be worth her eating what I’d been saving for my lunch.

  “First, as you suspected, Blue Fire isn’t the only operation in town. It seems word of their enterprise was leaked, and another sorcerer put together some weapons on the quick and dirty, and started selling them to individuals and local governments. They’ve undercut Blue Fire’s price. Quality is shit, and there are some other problems, but availability and tight budgets are often the deciding factor.”

  I frowned. “Does Blue Fire know about this other business yet?”

  “Nope.” She licked hot sauce from her fingers. “The Woo-woo contract had already been in the works, so the other company wasn’t in a position to bid on it. I don’t think they would have won anyway. Your brother Dar is all up and cozy with the Prez. Do you know he’s golfing with him at that swanky place down in Florida?” Terrella laughed. “I’d pay good money to see that game. I’ll bet neither of them can golf worth shit. I can. I’m totally good at golf. Excellent, in fact. I’ve got a four handicap, I’ll have you know.”

  “The cop that shot me in Phoenix was using the other company’s weapon,” I mused, ignoring the golf bullshit.

  “Yep. You were really unlucky that day. Those crappy guns jam sixty-percent of the time. And they put the spell inside a paint ball. Sometimes it doesn’t splat so the spell doesn’t go off.” Terrelle shook her head. “Yet another case of government using the lowest bidder and getting hosed.”

  This Noodle was worth her weight in gold. Or chicken wings and beer.

  “And Gareth’s weapons?”

  “The guns are just like the ones in the catalogue. They’ve got a white barrel, and right now they can only shoot the magical bullets, although they’re working on guns that can shoot either. It’s going to be totally cool if they can pull that one off. Imagine just dropping the magazine, slapping another one in, and you can take out humans as well as demons or angels.”

  “Yeah, totally cool.” I rolled my eyes. Totally fucking horrible, that’s what that was. The only positive side of such a weapon is that the time it took a human to change magazines and pull the slide might be enough time for a demon or angel to either get away, or knock the fool’s head off.

  “Reliability is way better on the Blue Fire guns. They use a bullet, but it’s not the round paint balls that are enchanted like the other company. These are actual bullets, so they cause physical damage in addition to blocking all demon or angel abilities.”

  “And reversing the effects?” I asked.

  “On the long-lasting ones, you’d need an antidote. Blue Fire uses a potion to reverse the spell. Knowledge of the formula is tightly controlled in an attempt to avoid black market sales.”

  “And the other company?”

  She shrugged. “They sell a counter spell paintball bullet.”

  “So I’d need to get shot again?” It hadn’t been particularly painful the first time, but the idea that a demon or an angel proven innocent in a human court of law needed to be shot a second time pissed me off.

  “Unless something else works.” She waved a chicken wing at me. “And I’m still working on that. What I need is to get into the testing records, assuming these companies did any testing. I’m trying to get my hands on the actual spell itself, but both companies are pretty freaked about keeping that top secret. They didn’t even apply for patents because they don’t want to list even the bare minimum shit needed for the applications. I’m trying to go in the back door—and not the sex back door either, although I’m totally cool with that. I’m always up for anal. Or I can strap one on and pitch. I like—”

  “Back to finding the antidote, Terrelle.” Not that I minded hearing about her sexual proclivities, but I knew if both of us went down that rabbit hole, we’d quickly fo
rget what the heck we were originally talking about.

  “Yep! Gotcha! My best bet for finding out exactly how these weapons work would be to look at the notes for testing the spells and reversals. Fingers crossed, because if they didn’t test, or I can’t get those, then I’m looking at trying to break into some high security shit, and I’ll need help.”

  “What kind of help? This isn’t the sort of thing I can get caught doing. Or any member of the Ruling Council.”

  She nodded. “Oh, I get it. Politics and all that crap. Gotta be impartial and support human independence and sovereignty and all that. No, what I’d need for this kind of job would be a dwarf.”

  “A dwarf?” They were amazing when it came to enchanting weapons, and they made awesome nannies for demon children, but I couldn’t imagine how one would help Terrelle break into some high security shit.

  She tilted her head, wing halfway to her mouth. “Duh. They’re nulls. They’re the most null motherfuckers that ever nulled.”

  “Nulls.”

  “Nulls.” Terrelle stuffed the wing in her mouth, bone and all.

  I knew dwarves were good at nipping young demon naughtiness in the bud, but nulls? I thought back on my childhood, remembering that I’d created lightning, altered my form, set a building on fire with a dwarf nearby. Yeah, they’d put the fire out and fizzled the lightning before it destroyed that big oak, but that wasn’t because any of them were nulls. They just had a way of quickly reacting to and neutralizing juvenile demon, and angel, mischief.

  “So they turn it off and turn it on?” I asked. “How did I not know this?”

  She crunched up the wing and swallowed. “Oh, the things you don’t know. Many, many things, Iblis. Many, many things. Dwarves have a natural null ability, some more than others. They can expand the field of influence. They can increase the intensity too.”