Broken Angel: A Zombie Love Story (3 page)

Grimly, Yiorgos twisted the signet ring
digging into the pinky finger on his right hand.
The restaurant
isn’t the only thing cursed.

If only he hadn’t put the ring on his
finger. He’d forgotten the damned thing even existed after winning
it from Emile Remy nearly two years ago, along with his restaurant
he’d stubbornly refused to sell. Yiorgos had possessed everything
he could possibly want, including the five-star status he and Remy
had battled over for years. When his luxury hotel casino in Kansas
City had won again last year, he’d put the ring on for spite, to
celebrate his ultimate victory.

Which had triggered a curse the likes of
which he’d never known possible.

“We have to shut it down.”

Dmitri’s words made him whirl around, his
face twisted with a snarl. “I’ve never closed a restaurant in my
entire life, let alone this…this…”

Frustrated, Yiorgos waved his hand at the
small kitchen. On the surface,
Remy’s
wasn’t worth his time
and effort. Even at full capacity, the dining room would barely
seat one hundred guests. At the height of its success, the
restaurant had been lucky to pull in a few grand a night. A drop in
the bucket to a man with enough money to buy every restaurant in
this entire one-horse Midwestern town.

Yet for nearly a decade,
Remy’s
had
claimed exclusive five-star status, despite Yiorgos’s efforts to
wrest the prize for his own hotel’s restaurant. Only after he’d put
on this accursed ring had Yiorgos learned the secret to Remy’s
seemingly impossible success.

Yiorgos owned hundreds of hotels and
restaurants across the globe, yet he couldn’t keep one lousy
ma-and-pa diner open. Fury made him grate his teeth. Barely holding
his curses in check, he stalked into the manager’s office.

Dmitri followed him and quietly shut the
door. “How are you holding up?”

In the privacy of the small office, Yiorgos
allowed his shoulders to slump. Weary of hiding and worrying and
plotting to save his life and this pitiful restaurant, he ran a
hand through his hair. “Nothing’s fallen off yet, if that’s what
you mean.”

His friend winced, which made a small twinge
of regret tighten his chest.

“It’s that bad?” Dmitri asked in a choked
voice.

Without turning completely around, Yiorgos
slipped the signet ring off his pinky. He looked back over his
shoulder, allowing Dmitri to see the decay eating away his face. It
might only be an illusion, a spell the late Emile Remy had managed
to throw upon him before the man lost everything, but without the
ring, he would soon look like a walking corpse. “Zombie or
mummy?”

“Zombie,” Dmitri answered automatically,
well used to his word games. “Dear God. What are you going to
do?”

Slipping the ring back on, Yiorgos allowed a
small smile to curve his lips, but neither his face nor his
resolved softened. “The Wizard Council claims only someone of
Remy’s blood can lift the curse. Since he’s dead, the only person
left of use to me is his daughter.”

“Wizard Council.” Dmitri let out an uneasy
laugh. “I never knew such a thing existed. If you hadn’t shown me
what happens when you take the ring off, then I never would have
believed you. Do you think Remy’s daughter can help you?”

“She will.” Yiorgos promised in the silky
menace voice he used for the hardest negotiations. “Regardless of
what I must do to learn the witch’s secrets, she can and will help
me.”

Stirring the simmering lentil soup, Clare
Remy tried to ignore her mother’s constant harping. The familiar
warm tingle in her fingertips promised her magic was working,
despite whatever Selma had to say about her cooking.

“There’s still something missing.” Although
that didn’t keep her from eating the whole bowl Clare had ladled
out for her. “It’s not as good as what your father used to
make.”

No.
She smiled sadly down at the rich
soup that had always been his favorite.
It’s better.

He’d be busting at the seams with pride if
he were still alive. Instead of cooking at home, she’d be sweating
in
Remy’s
bustling kitchen, exhausted but elated by their
customers’ glowing praise. Instead, her only customer was her
mother who couldn’t ever be pleased.

“At this rate you’re never going to pass
your trials next month,” Selma continued, her voice sharpening with
every word. “You won’t be accepted into the Wizard Council’s
teaching program. Whatever will we do then?”

Clare could only sigh. She understood the
worry, because the daily stress of carrying the entire family’s
success on her shoulders was getting to her, too. “We’ll get by
like we’ve been doing the past two years.” She fought for an even
tone of voice. “We’ll have jobs like normal people. The house is
paid for. If I can’t cook for some reason, then I’ll…”

“We’re not normal people!” Selma tossed the
bowl into the sink with a clatter. “We’re wizards, descended from
generations of extremely powerful wizards. We can’t be reduced to
menial labor!”

Clare preferred to think of herself as a
witch, a kitchen witch to be exact. Wizardry sounded so…Arthurian.
As though she ought to be slaying dragons and stirring up storm
clouds instead of cooking supper in her modest kitchen.

She ladled out a bowl for herself and began
slicing off a nice thick piece of homemade bread.

“Don’t cut yourself,” Selma said
automatically, for the millionth time if Clare was counting.

She didn’t even try to explain yet again
that it’d be impossible for a kitchen witch to cut herself with her
own knife. It would be like burning a cake or bread dough that
failed to rise. Her magic wouldn’t allow such cooking disasters.
Too bad her magic didn’t cover general clumsiness and awkwardness
too. Or how about fantastic hair and a killer sense of style? Maybe
all those gorgeous runway models were witches too, wielding a type
of magic she hadn’t heard of yet.

One sip of her soup smoothed away all those
silly thoughts. She’d take plumpness, clumsiness, and a supreme
lack of fashion in order to cook like this.

“If only we had your father’s ring. Then we
wouldn’t have to trust you to stay a virgin.”

Clare winced. Oh, boy, had she heard this
lecture a thousand times. Never mind that she was far from a
teenager anymore in need of sex education. Since her cousin had
lost her virginity—and her magic—just last month, her mother’s
lectures had redoubled.

Her mother’s healing talent had disappeared
as soon as she married. Since Selma wasn’t the head of her family,
she had no magic left at all, and now her husband was gone too. The
loss of her special ability had always stung.

Wizards didn’t often marry each other for
that very reason. Someone always had to give up their power, unless
they were both heads of their own families. With families dwindling
day by day… Naturally, she worried that her daughter would suffer
the same magic-less fate.

Although as a twenty-seven-year-old virgin,
Clare already felt like a dried up—extremely lonely—crone.

A tinkling sound announced a magical visitor
requesting entry to the Remy home.

“Come in.” At Clare’s invitation, her
mentor, Helga Kettlewich, popped into the kitchen.

Where Clare thought of herself as
curvaceous, the other witch’s full-figured shape loudly and proudly
proclaimed her love of fine dining. Although Clare often bemoaned
her apparently frumpy taste in clothing, she could only be thankful
that at least she wasn’t completely colorblind like her
teacher.

A blazing orange shirt, green polka
dot—extremely short for her matronly figure—skirt and blood-red
tights completed Helga’s ensemble. With springy gray curls popping
up all over her head, she looked like a kooky Halloween-costumed
witch, not the supreme head of the North American Wizard Council
and quite possibly the most powerful witch in the world both in and
out of the kitchen.

Clare immediately leapt to her feet, but
Helga waved her back to her chair.

“I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to interrupt
your lunch. May I have a taste?”

“But of course,” Selma gushed, running about
the kitchen to fetch a bowl for their guest as though she had
prepared the food herself.

Biting her lip, Clare didn’t say anything
and instead, sat down to continue eating. Her mother had little
interaction with the Wizard Council and would relish having a part,
no matter how small, in the magical world. Even serving another
witch’s brew.

Helga sat beside her and said in a low
voice, “I have an important message for you.”

Slamming open cupboards looking for their
best bowls, Selma didn’t hear or notice the paper Helga slipped to
her.

Clare unfolded the thick parchment and a pit
of hell yawned wide and terrifying beneath her feet.

Yiorgos Michelopoulos
.

The devil himself. The man who’d stolen her
father’s restaurant and their family power in one fell swoop,
leaving him to die of a broken, mundane heart.

Which makes my stupid fantasies about the
man all the more unforgivable.

She dropped the letter onto the table as if
a hot pan had scorched her bare fingers.

“It’s urgent,” Helga whispered. “Or I
wouldn’t have interrupted your practice for the trials.”

Gingerly, Clare picked up the paper and
scanned the words he’d slashed on the page in a bold, heavy hand.
Each word ramped up the furious heat boiling inside her until she
nearly screeched as shrilly as a boiling kettle. The audacity of
the man! He actually expected, no,
ordered
, her to come to
her own family restaurant that he’d stolen from her poor father.
And work for
him?

Forcing herself to remain calm, she folded
the paper and slipped it into her apron pocket without replying.
She picked up her spoon and tried to eat, but the lentil soup
tasted like ashes.

“It’s an opportunity to regain the Remy
ring.” Helga reminded her in a soft whisper. “I saw it on his hand
when he came to my office.”

“The ring!” Selma dropped the delicate china
bowl in front of Helga. Only the kitchen witch’s deft hand kept the
bowl from dumping its contents in her lap. “What? You must tell
me!”

“It’s nothing.” Clare pushed her soup away,
her stomach in knots. Her head thundered, her blood pressure likely
through the roof. Why would he contact her now? What could he
possibly want with her?

He’s already taken everything from me that I
care about.

“Mr. Michelopoulos requests Clare’s
assistance at
Remy’s
.” Helga managed to make his summons
sound much more polite than his actual note. “Evidently he’s
worried that the restaurant won’t be able to retain its five-star
competition when the inspector arrives.”

“Yes, yes, but the ring,” Selma insisted.
“Does he still have it? Will he give it back?”

“He doesn’t promise anything in his note,
I’m afraid, but I did see it.”

Selma sat down heavily in the chair opposite
them, as though she had no strength remaining in her legs. “I never
thought we’d have a chance to get it back. You have to go,
Clare.”

“Mom, I can’t!” Clare hated the tears
burning in her eyes as badly as she hated Michelopoulos. “He killed
Daddy.”

“Don’t be absurd. Your father died from
cancer that had been developing for years. We just didn’t know
it.”

“Daddy never got sick until he lost the
restaurant and his power. What if the cancer spread so rapidly
because his power couldn’t keep it in check any longer once he lost
the ring? Daddy would still be alive if it wasn’t for that stupid
bet.”

She’d never understood why he would even
consider such a risky, foolhardy bet. If he refused to sell
Remy’s
, why on earth would he consent to the possibility of
losing it to his greatest enemy? It just didn’t make sense.

“If it helps,” Helga said in her gentle
voice that she reserved for her sickest patients, “I saw your
father myself at least a year before he lost the restaurant.”

Helga was a powerful kitchen witch, but she
was an even more impressive healer. Few wizards could claim more
than one talent, which is why she was one of the most powerful
wizards in the world.

“You did?” Clare swiped the tears from her
cheeks. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It was his wish to not burden his family
with his illness. In fact, he made me promise not to tell you that
he was dying so he could choose to tell you in his own way. If I’d
known that you blamed Mr. Michelopoulos, I would have told you
immediately. I can heal many things, dear, but I couldn’t help your
father. The cancer was virulent and barely responded to my magic. I
delayed the inevitable as long as possible. The restaurant bet was
his last gamble to try to protect you.”

“Too bad he lost.” Selma’s voice cracked
with bitterness and anger. “The fool should never have risked his
family ring. Clare, you have to get it back.” She softened the edge
in her voice, leaning across the table to take her daughter’s hand.
“Don’t you want to have a family someday? Fall in love, get
married? You can’t as long as we don’t have the Remy ring. You’re
the last. If you don’t have children, the Remy talent will die with
you anyway.”

Clare pulled free of her mother’s grasp and
stood, moving away from the table. Emotion tore at her chest until
she couldn’t breathe. Of course she wanted a family. She didn’t
want to be the last Remy, no matter how powerful she might be in
the kitchen. But everything she knew about Yiorgos Michelopoulos
warned her to stay far, far away from the man.

Because of the rivalry between their
restaurants—so she’d told herself—she’d done her research long
before her father’s death, hoping to find the man’s weakness. A
billionaire playboy, Michelopoulos’s picture had been splashed on
every newspaper and celebrity rag at one time or another. Gorgeous,
rich, and charismatic, of course the man was irresistible.