All My Exes Die of Hexes: Complete Series

Nobody ever died of a broken heart, but that's only because curses weren't involved.

Riona isn't looking for love. Been there, done that, vanquished an ex to Hell... All she wants now is to slay demons, keep the world safe from evil, and maybe, just maybe, find a decent IPA somewhere in Boston.

But, you know, the heart wants what it wants... even if who it wants is the wrong guy all over again. But you can't blame her for being attracted to Mark Angeletti. He is, after all, a great guy. Not only a fellow demon hunter, but also handsome, witty, intelligent... a priest who took a vow of celibacy. But, hey! Every couple has issues to work through. But when Riona's sexy ex, Jerry Romani, escapes the underworld and starts competing with the Good Father for not only her heart but her eternal soul, Boston's badass witch will have some hard choices to make. On one side, the man (men?) she loves. On the other, the fate of the magical realms.

Riona led Jerry through the corridor, past the nurse’s station and cafeteria, toward the backside of the home. He opened the white-washed door when they reached the end of the hall. From the back porch, the garden looked like Mother Nature was experiencing a terrible hangover. Brown, wilted plants dotted the edges of grass bleached of color and the will to live. A tree woven of naked, twisted branches filtered a stiff wind coming in off the ocean. Across the yard, in the far corner where a fountain should have allowed a quaint, twinkling noise if not for a collection of leaves, a single, writhing column of cigarette smoke spiraled into the air. A smallish woman with painfully artificial red hair sat, using a shaky hand to maneuver a cancer stick.
“I see your guilt has finally reached irrepressible levels.” Molly Dade chewed on insults and spat them out the way old southern men did with snuff. “Or did you come to take me someplace more befitting my status?”
“No, the city zoo says they’re fully stocked on the New England Crazy Loon.”
Molly went on unfazed. “Must be here to ask about the money, then.”
“No need, Ma,” Riona returned as she walked in the harpy’s direction. “The IRS already found all that and carted it away. Good news, too; there was enough left over to pay the state.”
Molly smashed the butt of her cigarette against the side of her oxygen tank. “Fine. Who’s the guy, then? Latest boyfriend?”
Jerry beamed. “Hopefully the last one.”
In a more appealing reality, Jerry would have doubled over dead from the daggers she shot him with her eyes.
Molly’s face brightened as she clapped her hands. “Ah, it’s finally happened. You’re knocked up. Well, he’s a handsome devil, I guess you could have put out for worse.”
“I am not knocked up!” Riona leaped in before turning to Jerry to give him a smack in the shoulder. “Don’t encourage her.”
“I have not even begun to encourage.” Jerry rushed forward and took a knee, grabbing her mother’s hand and pressing it to his lips. “Enchantè, Ms. Dade. I’m Jerry Romani. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Your daughter has told me so much about you.”
“Why, did she hire you to kill me?”
“Ma!”
“What! What!” Molly leaned in and spoke softly to Jerry. “No sense of humor, not since she was little. Always thinks I’m serious.”
Jerry smiled. “When really you just have a sarcastic wit she has long failed to appreciate. Probably only the start of her shortcomings as a child.”
Molly stroked her hand over Jerry’s cheek. “You’re a quick one, aren’t you? And so sexy. No wonder it didn’t work out between you.”
“Alas, your daughter left me. I would have kept her forever if she had let me.”
“Yeah?” Molly looked up at Riona as Jerry pivoted and sat on the bench next to the elderly woman. “Is it too late, or she already get herself mixed up in another one of her Liberian affairs?”
“It’s lesbian. And no, I’m not seeing anybody right now, not that it’s any of your business.” Breathing in deep, Riona let the crisp air cleanse her thoughts and revive her good nature. She squared her eyes on her mother, trying to ignore Jerry’s smile. “How have you been?”
“My legs hurt, I can’t breathe outside anymore without this damned…” With the craftiness of an Irish sheepherder wielding a shillelagh stick, Molly pounded the side of the oxygen tank with her cane. “…thing. And, oh, my only child, my own flesh and blood, my reason for living, hasn’t been to see me since the last time Dick Clark was hot, but, meh… Could be worse.”
“But Dick Clark is—”
Riona pushed her chilled fingers to Jerry’s lips and kept him from spilling the beans. “A classic, always hotter than July,” she substituted. “I’m sorry, Ma. I have no excuse for staying away so long.”
“Sure you do, you don’t like me. Oh, don’t try to deny it. I might be older than Christmas, Riona, but I ain’t stupid.”
“You don’t sugar coat things, do you, Molly?” Jerry didn’t say it at all like an accusation. “I admire that. Too much prepackaged touchy-feely in the world, in my opinion.”
A curt nod signaled that Jerry met her approval. “That, there is. Saints be preserved.”
Riona let Jerry live. For now. “Ma, I wanted to ask you something, and I want you to promise to answer me, even if you think that answer might hurt me, okay?”
Molly’s fingers fished another cigarette from her pocket and pulled it to her lips. “Twenty bucks and a pack of Virginia Slims says it makes no difference if I say no.”
Jerry crossed his legs and leaned back, beaming. “I see where Riona gets her wicked spirit.”
“Thirty bucks and a bump on the head says no one would find the body,” Riona growled lowly. “The knife you gave me when I was in high school. The one you said was my father’s… Do you know anything about it?”
A ghost flew up between them. At least, as white as her mother’s painted face had gone, Casper might have been doing the lambada with Moaning Myrtle right there in the courtyard.
“Why?”
Riona searched for a quick, believable excuse that wouldn’t freak out panic-prone Molly. “I was trying to get it appraised, and the collector I was talking with said it might have been stolen.”
“It’s a good thing you never went into politics, daughter. You suck at lying. Tell me what you’re really after, and I might just tell you the truth.”
“Yeah, Riona, why not just tell your mother the truth?”
So now Jerry was on her mother’s side? So much for that amazing ‘how much I love you’ crap he’d been spouting off. Not that she honestly bought that poo-poo platter of lies.
Jerry leaned down to Molly and put his hand over hers, resting on the oxygen tank. “Riona gave the blade to the Devil, who apparently made a really big deal over it, and then one of the archangels used it to kill the Devil and vanquish him to Hell for twenty-nine years. No swiss army knife could have flipped a trick like that. So, if you know anything, Molly, fess up. Curious minds want to know.”
“This is about all your witchy, devilry, mumbo-jumbo, isn’t it?” The petite, wrinkled Irishwoman spat vocal venom toward her daughter before turning to Jerry, adding with an accusing, pointing finger in Riona’s direction, “She barely comes to see me ever, as though I didn’t almost die giving birth to her, and then last spring has the gall to show up claiming she’s been busy training to be on some ultra-secret spook-sacking task force. Really? Most kids just lie and say they’ve been busy with work or have been sick. Not my Riona. She has to blame it all on spooks and specters. Then she keeps up the game, asking me if anyone in our family ever danced naked in the moonlight.”
Jerry grinned. “I’ve been with Riona when she was naked in the moonlight. I assure you, Molly, she wasn’t dancing.”
The bastard would remember that he was completely mortal for the next week when he looked in the mirror. The punch that Riona landed on his shoulder guaranteed black and blue patches. “Seriously, are you here to help me or embarrass me? Ma, I don’t mean to pry, but—”
“Then don’t!” Molly coughed out, wearing a tight lip and furrowed brow. “You know it was your father’s, and you know I hated the bastard. I really don’t see what else you’re going to learn by knowing anymore. It won’t make him any less dead, or change the fact that he walked out on us.”
“Fine, Ma. I didn’t want to do this, but you leave me no choice.” A somber expression came over Riona. Her scowl flattened, her eyes narrowed. With a straight back and shoulders squared, she locked her mother’s gaze into her own, and chanted, “Veritum amoni.”
Technically, using charms that circumnavigated free will was forbidden. She might be new to the craft, but Riona had been told this on day one. Molly’s demeanor took on a certain zombie-like quality as the charm sunk in. As real as sodium pentothal, the magic worked better to numb a person into a state of disconnected consciousness than CSPAN.
The last person she’d thought would turn on her over the extreme measures and using magic for convenience’s sake was Jerry. Yet turn on her he did—literally.
“A truth spell on your own mother? Are you fucking insane?”
Riona shrugged. “What? It’s not like it causes long-term damage or anything. Sadly. Though, honestly, if it did, I might have been tempted to use it earlier.”