Demon Bound

by Meljean Brook

  Charlie sighed. “I can’t even remember what I was saying.”

  Neither could Jake. Drifter must have stopped by the theater first, because Alice and Irena came in with him. And Jake couldn’t miss the pair of human women who sniggered into their hands as Alice passed them.

  “Jake.” Charlie gripped his arm before he could stand.

  He glanced at her, his jaw tight.

  I’d be over there, too, if she cared what anyone thought of her, Charlie gestured slowly. He and Drifter had been teaching her the sign language since she’d been transformed, but two months focusing on the theater had put her out of practice. But Alice doesn’t care. At all.

  “How do you know?”

  She told me. It happened before—a vampire who didn’t realize she wasn’t human and could hear. I almost went over the bar for it, but Alice stopped me. Charlie paused. Of course, if I could shape-shift, I’d be turning into Mr. Sexy, strutting past them, and laying one on her.

  That sounds great, Charlie—except for the “laying one on her” part.

  She covered her mouth again, laughing. “Ethan told me that you, uh—”

  “Yeah.”

  In the mirror, Drifter was pulling out Alice’s chair. Already seated, Irena turned and gave the still-sniggering ladies a look. They fell silent.

  “Or a Death Stare works, too,” Charlie said.

  He watched the reflection a second longer. Alice didn’t appear bothered. How much of that was real?

  Maybe you should give her advice, Charlie. On what to wear, at least. Something modern.

  She gave him a funny look. You’re kidding, right? Yes, they’re old-fashioned—but gorgeous. The cut, the detailing. I’d kill for any one of them.

  Jake frowned. There was more than one dress? They all looked the same to him.

  “Men,” Charlie muttered.

  Considering she then smiled up at another man, Jake assumed she actually just meant him. But at least he wasn’t paying out money this time.

  “Miss Charlie, your city is safe for one more day.” Drifter settled onto the stool next to Jake.

  So Jake hadn’t missed anything by showing up late. If it had been the nephilim, he and Drifter—along with the other Guardians here—would have already been headed back out to search for them.

  Jake nodded his response, but missed Charlie’s reply; he was distracted by Alice’s voice behind him—telling the others at the table that she’d been mistaken for the Wicked Witch.

  He looked into the mirror, surprised. She wasn’t laughing with Marsden and Selah, but her psychic scent rippled with it, warm and dark as velvet.

  “Alice mentioned that you took a trip to Oz,” Drifter said quietly. “Is it going to hang on you?”

  Drifter knew that Jake had grown up in Kansas, and it probably wasn’t a stretch to guess he’d landed somewhere familiar. But as long as Jake wouldn’t let it affect him out in the field, he knew Drifter wouldn’t pry any deeper.

  “Nope.”

  “All right, then.” Drifter stood as Old Matthew returned, and Charlie began to clean up.

  Jake headed back to the table, took the seat facing Alice. His eyes narrowed.

  The dresses were different. Earlier, she’d been wearing a long black thing with tiny buttons up the front. On her current long black thing, the buttons went from her right shoulder up the side of her neck. The sleeves hugged her arms to just below her knuckles, and more buttons ran from her wrists to her pointy elbows. The top might have fit like a second skin, but all of those vertical seams made it look as rigid as body armor.

  So it was still like something from a Victorian funeral parlor. And Jake was sure that her spider was hiding somewhere in those loose skirts.

  Charlie leaned over the table in front of him. “Irena—your water. Food is coming up. Alice.” Charlie set a glass of wine in front of her. “This is on Jake.”

  “On Jake—?” A startled look passed over her features before she met his gaze. “Oh. Thank you.”

  He shrugged.

  Irena pointed at him. “I need someone to please explain this wicked witch. They will not.”

  A man didn’t argue with a woman who smelled like blood. Or one who wore a poncho made out of fur that she probably wrestled off a polar bear.

  Most Guardians created their clothes just by thinking of them—but Jake wouldn’t have bet against Irena’s being real. “If you open up a little, I’ll project it to you.”

  She hesitated before nodding. Jake focused on a few remembered images from the movie. After a second, Irena looked to Alice. “Flying monkeys?”

  This time, it was Alice who shrugged. “That seems accurate.”

  “We need to have a movie night,” Charlie said as she took the seat next to Drifter. “We’ll set it up at my place.” She glanced at Jake. “Maybe Pim and Becca would like to come up from San Francisco.”

  “Yeah. They probably would.” The movie wouldn’t be a novelty for the other novices, but going anywhere but Caelum or the Special Investigations warehouse would be.

  He looked up, spotted the bronzed-skinned Guardian walking into the lounge wearing a pair of loose pants and a button-down shirt, his black hair shorn almost as short as Jake’s. The Doyen. Jake nodded a greeting, got a nod in return.

  Charlie went over to Michael with a wide smile before going up on her toes to kiss his cheek. The Guardian had to bend down—though not as much as when Charlie kissed Drifter. “Michael.”

  Alice paused for an infinitesimal second with her wineglass at her lips. No wonder. The Doyen was even less sociable than the Black Widow was; but considering that Michael and Charlie had had some connection when they’d jumped to Hell the last spring, Jake wasn’t completely surprised.

  He was surprised by the way Michael seemed to avoid looking at Alice. Not ignoring her, exactly—but when he said his greetings, he moved a little faster past her than he did everyone else.

  Finally, he looked at Charlie again. “Your sister is well?”

  It wasn’t, Jake knew, just a polite question. Charlie’s sister, Jane, was engaged to the demon Sammael. No one at the table had slain him yet—and thanks to a bargain, Drifter couldn’t slay him—primarily because the demon was also bound to leave any Guardians that Charlie cared about alone.

  But since Sammael also headed Legion Laboratories, and the organization protected and employed many of Belial’s demons, Michael kept tabs on Jane.

  Charlie gave a half smile, and shrugged. “She’s all right. You know.”

  Yeah. Way to bring a girl down at her party. At least he wasn’t the only dick, then.

  Michael smiled slightly. “I do. I’ve brought this for you.”

  At first Jake thought it was a Scroll—one of the texts from the Caelum archives. But it was a rolled-up sheet of music, instead. An original composition of some kind—and by a guy Jake hadn’t heard of but who was apparently good enough that Charlie was half in tears.

  Okay, so he was still the only dick.

  Alice was smiling, too, until she looked from Charlie to the Doyen. “Michael,” she said, and her lips firmed, her spine stiffened. “I fear the Marrakech Gate might have been found out.”

  He inclined his head. “I will warn the others.”

  “And,” she said in a lower tone, “I have been contacted by one of Belial’s demons. It would be useful to me if I could learn more about the prophecy.”

  “I see.” He looked to Drifter. “If you have anything more to share with Alice, you may feel free to do so.”

  “All right,” Drifter said, frowning a little at her.

  “Thank you. I must go; I wish you all well. Charlie, congratulations.” Michael turned and left, and a moment later Jake felt the light touch of the Doyen’s teleporting Gift.

  Jake resisted the urge to shake his head. The Doyen made jumping look easy, but he was God-knew-how-old.

  “Count me in on that movie night—and I’ll bring the novices up from San Francisco,” Selah said, risin
g from her chair. “Lucas and I have to go as well, Charlie. Does anyone need a ride?”

  Irena shook her head. Alice looked to Jake.

  “May I impose on you after I speak with Ethan?”

  “Bumpy,” he reminded her.

  Selah’s cupid’s-bow mouth curved. “It might help if you teleported with your eyes open.”

  “I do—so that I can see what’s coming at me. They’re just closed when I land.”

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t be so quick to leap,” Alice said in the prim tone that made the back of his neck tighten, “if you are not prepared to face the consequences of it.”

  For some reason, Drifter and Selah both grinned. Jake did, too, but his showed more teeth. “Golly gee, Alice, I’ve never thought of it that way before. That’ll change everything for me.”

  “How fortunate that I am here, then.”

  “Oh, yes. With words of wisdom like that, you’d have made one hell of a—” He bit it off. Not mentor. He wouldn’t go there.

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Paratroop instructor,” he finished. Fucking stupid.

  “Oh, dear. Leaping from an airplane? How unseemly. My skirt might blow up over my knees.” With that, she dismissed him, turning to Marsden and Selah.

  Jake watched her, tried not to picture her spindly legs sticking out from billowing black fabric. Maybe they weren’t bony, though—when she’d been fighting, a ballerina couldn’t have matched her grace. Instead of thin and knobby, her legs might be slim, strong. And her skin would be the same smooth, dusky gold as her hands, her cheeks.

  Jesus. He must be crazy, imagining the Black Widow naked. She probably bit off the head of anyone brave enough to get into her bed. A guy would need balls of steel . . . or no balls to lose. Like a woman—

  His gaze moved from Alice to Irena, then back to Alice. And that was enough for his dick to take over, making him desperate to see, to know. He’d have crawled under the table if he thought it’d get him a look at her legs.

  Hell, he’d have settled for a glimpse of her flippin’ wrist.

  “Jake? You here?” Charlie waved her hand in front of his eyes.

  He vaguely realized they were looking expectantly at him, that Selah and Marsden were gone. And that he’d been staring at Alice for at least a few minutes.

  Someone must have asked him something, but he didn’t care enough to find out what.

  He met Alice’s eyes. “I’m wondering how you fight in that skirt.”

  “You plan to spend any time in one, Jake? Maybe you ought to consider taking her on as a specialist,” Drifter said over his whiskey.

  “I might.” Jake held her gaze. “Do you have to cut it open to kick? Or do you change clothes when a demon shows up? The time wasted could be dangerous.”

  Irena added her curious stare to Jake’s. “That is true, Alice. And you used to wear that redingote and trousers, so that it freed your legs. You no longer do.”

  “Because it is no longer necessary. This has plenty of give, and I can move freely.” She tugged on her sleeve. The silk stretched, then snapped taut against her arm when she let it go.

  “It’s spandex?”

  Jake would’ve laughed at the horrified note in Charlie’s voice if he hadn’t been so gobsmacked.

  “It’s the spider silk.” Freaky as hell, but badass. If the strength of the woven material was anything like what he’d seen up in Caelum, her dress would be like armor. “Hot damn.”

  Drifter frowned. “The what?”

  “From the spiders. In her quarters.”

  Drifter’s brows shot up, and he turned to Alice. “You got some living up in Caelum?”

  Alice nodded.

  “Well, hell. I figured all the talk of spiders and vampire blood was just the novices saying the same fool things about you that they always do.”

  “No,” she said. “That one is true. I asked Selah to bring the first few widows not long after the Ascension.”

  Drifter seemed to consider that. “All right, then,” he finally said.

  He was going to leave it there, but Jake wouldn’t. No matter how much it cost him.

  “So everything you’re wearing is made of the same stuff?” And in the temple, it had been smooth and warm under his hands. “Even your bloomers?”

  Irena broke out with a loud laugh, startling the humans around them. Charlie groaned, and Jake tossed a five-dollar bill on the table in front of Drifter.

  A human couldn’t have tracked the speed at which Alice reached over, pinched the money, and sat again. Jake’s body tightened, but he forced his mind out of her skirts. Tried to.

  When she moved quickly, everything rigid became supple, her body long and fluid.

  “They aren’t made of spider silk, novice. I weaved them from the legs of those widows who have passed,” Alice said, her back straight now. “For when one is a Guardian, loyalty is the utmost virtue. And so I keep my friends close—even if they itch.”

  “You’ve got itching down below?” Jake leaned in and lowered his voice. “They’ve got powders for that now.”

  Alice smiled. Her teeth, he saw, were sharp again.

  “Oh, Lord.” As if sensing disaster, Charlie spoke up, asking Alice’s opinion on the materials the decorators planned to use at the theater.

  Jake sat back, studying Alice.

  Spider legs and loyalty. She’d used the same tone that’d gotten his back up before, but he’d have bet his left nut that her moralizing platitudes were a joke.

  Half the time, anyway. Or only around people she was tight with—not the fucking new guy.

  But when she unbent a little, the Black Widow wasn’t half-bad.

  And where had he gotten the impression that she was dried up, spinsterish? As angular as her features were, they weren’t pinched or heavy. Her dark brows, her straight nose, and her direct gaze gave her a no-nonsense look, sure—but there was also something dainty about her mouth, her pointed chin.

  When he looked past the severe braid and rigid posture, she appeared about the same age Jake did. Early twenties, maybe. Not more than twenty-five.

  It was the dress, he thought. And he didn’t usually notice the thickness of a woman’s lashes when the disapproval in her eyes was driving icy spikes into his brain.

  Those lashes flickered in response to Irena’s voice. Alerted by that unease, Jake realized Irena was addressing him, caught the tail end of her question.

  “—have begun your specializations?”

  “I’m on swords. With Alejandro.” He checked his watch. “I’m meeting him at midnight.”

  Every day the same: four hours with Alejandro, six hours in San Francisco, ten with Drifter, and the rest in personal study. Now that he’d come across Alice’s collection, most of those personal hours would probably be spent in the Archives.

  “Alejandro? That is good.” Irena nodded abruptly, and Jake wasn’t about to ask why her tone suggested otherwise. “He was born to wield a blade.”

  Charlie looked at Drifter. “You’re good with a sword, though. I’ve seen you.”

  “Damn good,” Drifter said. “But I’m more of a fists-and-pistols man.”

  “Hugh taught both of us the basics of the discipline, Charlie,” Alice said. “But when we specialized with Alejandro, I daresay we learned more in one year than the previous sixty.”

  “That we did.”

  “Jake will, as well.” Alice’s gaze rested on him. “I have already seen Alejandro’s influence in the way he holds his blade.”

  Charlie flashed a grin at Drifter. “Alejandro used to freak me out, you know—the first couple of times he came in here to visit you. There’s that devil goatee thing he’s got going on, and then he’s all dark and quiet and staring. Like it hurts him to smile.”

  “He’s a good man,” Irena said softly.

  “Yeah.” Jake glanced at Alice, and got his money ready. “It’s other people who creep me out.”

  And if he told himself that enough, maybe he wo
uldn’t think about stroking her mouth open with his tongue. He must be desperately horny to be thinking of it now. But he sat anticipating her reply, completely focused on her lips as they softened and parted.

  Her forked tongue flicked. A cobra swiftly uncoiled from her mouth onto the table, and struck at Jake’s face.

  A second later, Jake opened his eyes and looked up at the stars.

  Yeah. He’d probably deserved that.

  CHAPTER 5

  Oh, dear, Alice thought as the empty chair across the table began to tip backward.

  Without glancing that way, Ethan reached around Charlie’s shoulders and steadied it. “He needs to be controlling that.”

  Irena’s knife had appeared in her hand, but she vanished it just as quickly. “Was that a cobra?”

  When Alice nodded, Irena threw her head back, howling with laughter.

  Charlie blinked. “What just happened?”

  Alice had used enough force that the other two Guardians had seen it, but a vampire couldn’t receive images.

  “Alice puked a snake all over the table,” Ethan said.

  “For heaven’s sake, Ethan.” Alice grimaced. “You make it sound so revolting.”

  “I ain’t ever come across anyone who could make it look pretty.”

  Alice waited as a waiter set a basket of fried onion rings in front of Ethan, then Irena’s plate, heaped with seafood and potatoes. After the waiter’s brief hesitation, Charlie pointed at Alice, and he put Jake’s hamburger next to her wine.

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t have done it,” Alice said once he’d moved on. Irena’s laughter had faded to a low chuckle, but Alice hadn’t missed the curious glances it had brought their way. “Someone might have seen him disappear.”

  Irena liberally salted her potatoes. “No one did, Alice. If they had, we would have sensed it.”

  “Even if they did see it, they’d talk themselves out of it. No sane person would believe it for long.” Ethan didn’t reach for his food, but studied her face with a slight frown. “And I’ve never seen either you or Jake grate on another body so much, or him run his mouth on purpose like he was. You two have an altercation I should know about?”