Demon Bound

by Meljean Brook

  Irena’s mouth drew back in a snarl, but dropped open when Jake said, “Alice is with Teqon. And you’re coming with me, Michael.”

  Michael’s eyes turned black. “Very well.”

  Jake pulled Alice’s black hair ribbon out of his hammerspace, tied it around his wrist. His arrowhead went into his pocket. Of all the stuff he had collected over the years, those were the only two things he cared about keeping. He gripped his swords and dumped the rest of his shit in a huge pile on the ground.

  “No,” Drifter said, his voice hollow. It filled out as it rose in volume. “Hell, no. You son of a bitch. What the ever-fucking hell do you think—”

  “I think I’m taking Michael with me this time instead of waiting for him. I think that Alice had a damn good plan, a way to get out of her bargain and to keep Anaria imprisoned. I think that if you and Irena had asked her about that plan instead of trying to do what you thought best, we could have taken this slowly, so there wouldn’t have been any fuckups. I think maybe the nephilim wouldn’t have found us.”

  He sent them images of the temple, of the cracking dome, of the sunken bedrock.

  “And now I think Alice doesn’t have any choices left. But I do. And I think that if I go at him fast, Teqon won’t notice the difference in me until it’s too late for him. His sword will be though my heart, and then he won’t have a choice—except letting Alice go. But that’ll be up to Michael, because Alice won’t be in a place to bargain with him.”

  “Yes,” Michael agreed.

  Jake was shaking, with relief and a whole load of other emotions he wasn’t taking the time to name. “And if I make it through, Alice is going to kick my ass after. Anything she does to me, it’s of my free will. She won’t be breaking the Rules.”

  “Christ Jesus, Jake,” Drifter said.

  “Well, yeah. We do whatever it takes, right? And if I do live through this, you have to kiss my hot ass.”

  “I’ll kill you, more like.” Drifter strode forward.

  Jake hadn’t known hugging could be manly, but he felt more like a man after. Then even more so when he survived Irena’s crushing embrace.

  She drew back, said fiercely, “Do not let her make your sacrifice worth nothing.”

  “I won’t.” He gathered his breath, looked at Michael. “Okay, then. Let’s get this rocking.”

  Though she’d only taken her widows out of the courtyard that morning, three new spiders had already moved in. Alice sat on the bench near the date tree, sliding her Gift around them and doing her best to ignore the demon who stood on the other side of the fountain. Jasmine scented the air, the sun was warm, the fountain pleasant. If she could disregard everything else, this was actually a lovely day.

  Until Jake and Michael teleported in—so close to Teqon—and everything became a nightmare.

  Jake strode forward, his gait looking oddly heavy, and he held his swords out to his sides like a cocky, stupid novice. A black ribbon—

  Alice shrieked a denial and leapt forward, calling in her naginata. Michael appeared in front of her, and she crashed into him. She fell, screaming, and he held her down.

  “You want a heart, demon?” she heard Jake challenge. “Come and fucking get it.”

  Teqon’s sword appeared in his hand as he thrust it forward.

  “No!” Too late, too late, too late—

  The point of the blade speared through Jake’s back. Made a short slice upward.

  No, no, no. She tried to scrabble forward, her nails ripping on the flagstones. Her shrieks weren’t even words anymore. She heard Jake’s strange “Gotcha.” Saw Teqon’s eyes widen, and she was going to kill him, blast her soul and her bargain and the frozen field.

  Jake staggered backward off the sword; Michael let her go and she caught him. Oh, sweet heavens. He was . . .

  Jake was human.

  Michael spoke, but she barely heard him.

  Only the thin breath that bubbled in Jake’s lungs. Saw only his face. Felt only the weight of his shoulders on her lap, and his hand weakly clasping hers.

  “You have Fallen? Why have you done this? You foolish, stubb—” Her voice cracked like an old woman’s.

  Hold on, goddess, he said, and it was so slow. You won’t have to fulfill your bargain.

  “I don’t care. Do you know what you have done to me?” she whispered, and kissed his cheek, his brow, leaving streaks of tears. She could feel herself slipping away with him—back to that place without hope. A future without him was a slow descent to Hell. “I love you. Please. Please, you cannot do this to me now.”

  Listen, Alice. Listen to Michael.

  She did not care what Michael was doing, what Teqon was doing. Her breath coming in sobs, she gathered Jake close—but she did as he asked.

  And listened.

  “When Jacob dies, the nephilim will come for you, Teqon. And they will show you no mercy.” Michael’s words raced—a human couldn’t have understood anything spoken at that speed. “You have not much time to decide.”

  Time ... to decide what?

  “Heal him,” Teqon said, and she heard the panic beneath his voice. “He is human. You can heal his injuries. You can prevent his death.”

  Oh, sweet heavens. Hope surged through her. Teqon was right. Jake could be healed.

  “I can,” Michael said. “But you must release Alice first—”

  “No,” Alice interrupted, her voice hoarse, her words quick. “Now. Heal him now.”

  She would Fall, and live with him. And she would cherish every moment she had before death, before she went into that frozen field.

  Michael’s reply was cold, hard. “Will you make his pain worth nothing, Alice?”

  Teqon didn’t give her time to respond. “If the nephilim kill me, Mrs. Grey will never fulfill her bargain. She will be damned.”

  “She will also be damned if you do not release her. There will be no difference in her fate if the nephilim come; the only difference is that you will be dead.” Michael paused, and she felt the searching touch of his healing Gift. “He has but seconds to live, Teqon. Release her, or die by a nephil’s hand.”

  “You won’t let him die.”

  Michael’s tone chilled Alice to her bones. “You forget who I am, demon. And what I am capable of.”

  Alice held her breath, tucked her face against Jake’s cheek. Please, God. Please—

  “A new bargain, then,” Teqon suddenly babbled. “If I release her, you will heal him. You will not let him die. And you will not kill me, you will never lift a hand against me.”

  Michael’s silence and the pounding of Alice’s heart filled an endless second.

  “Accept it, grigori! Accept!”

  “It is done,” Michael agreed.

  Teqon’s psychic scent swelled with palpable relief. “Then I release Alice Grey from her bargain. Now heal him!”

  She lifted her head, kissed Jake’s mouth. “Thank you, you wretch.” She turned to Michael. “Heal him. Heal him now.”

  “Not yet, Alice,” Michael said, crouching and placing his hands on Jake’s shoulders. “You sacrificed your life for the soul of another, Jacob Hawkins. Do you willingly accept the transformation?”

  Alice gasped her shock; Jake’s eyes opened wide. His breath was gone, but his lips moved in an unmistakable “Yep.”

  She laughed, bent to kiss him again, but Michael signed against Jake’s chest, Alice. There is a demon who almost killed a human, but I cannot slay him. You know what you must do.

  Yes. She reached out with her Gift, and didn’t have to look away from Jake as she called in her whip, lashed it behind her. Teqon’s body and head thumped to the ground at the same moment she was blinded by the whitest, most incredible light.

  She kissed him and kissed him and kissed him again. He grinned, blast him.

  A shadow fell over his face when Michael stood, and Alice looked up.

  An odd expression crossed Michael’s features as he vanished Teqon’s body and head. “I am fortunate, I think,
that you did not want to kill me, Alice.” His gaze fell to Jake. “This is your second transformation, and so there will be changes. You will be stronger and faster. You will develop another Gift.”

  Jake sat up and disappeared. He was back beside her a moment later.

  “Another Gift,” Michael said. “Not a different one.”

  His jaw slackened. “Hot damn.” Then he frowned, twisted, and rose to his feet. Alice put her hand in his, and he pulled her up. “How many Gifts do you have?”

  Michael smiled, and it was slightly wicked, Alice thought. “Several.”

  Alice slid her fingers against Jake’s. “You have Fallen?”

  “And sacrificed my life again, and been transformed. Several times. In all my life, do you think I have never broken the Rules or taken time for myself?”

  Apparently, he had. Her brows drew together. “Who transformed you back? Who was the Doyen, if you were not?”

  “You have met her.” Michael formed his black wings, exchanged his tunic and pants for a toga. “And I believe it is time to bring her home.”

  How very odd.

  Khavi and Michael faced each other for the longest time, simply staring without speaking. Then Khavi laughed and spoke in the demon language. Michael sighed and bent his head, and let Khavi rub her hands over his shorn hair.

  “It’s the Twilight Zone,” Jake said.

  Friends, do you think? Alice signed with an arch look.

  I can’t tell. Holy hot hell. Is the hellhound coming to Caelum?

  Alice felt a little faint at the thought—but she supposed everyone else felt the same at the thought of Nefertari. I wonder if Khavi will teach—

  “Yes,” Khavi said. “You will learn from me. The symbols, the magic. The demon language.” She frowned, and looked to Michael. “I can already see that she will be a challenge.”

  “Oh, dear. How lovely my future seems.”

  “Yes.” Khavi’s gaze didn’t move from Michael’s. “But not yours. The nephilim will find Anaria. I believe they already have.”

  Michael nodded, touched her forehead, then a glyph on her cheek. “We will not falter.” He turned to Jake. “Will you please ask Alejandro to come?”

  “He does,” Khavi said. “Very quickly.”

  Alice gave Khavi the same strip of leather that Irena had given her; long before Michael called a halt to the cleansing, Khavi had bitten through it.

  And they had not removed even a significant percentage of the symbols from her skin—only those that prevented her from teleporting and altering her human appearance. Now Khavi could shift and conceal the symbols remaining on her skin until she was ready to cleanse them.

  So it was enough, Alice thought later as she sat with Jake on the steps to Michael’s temple, watching Lyta sniff uncertainly at a marble column—watching the other Guardians uncertainly watching Lyta.

  Then Selah arrived, and it was not much longer before the delayed celebration for Jake was in full swing. Alice hadn’t attended the last few celebrations before the Ascension, but she suspected this one was quite different from any that had been thrown before.

  With a slice of pizza in his hand, Ethan dropped down beside her, stretched out his long legs. He pulled a second slice out of his cache for Jake, and passed it to him over Alice’s lap. She lifted a piece of pepperoni as it went by, but waved away the offer of a whole slice.

  “I’ll eat yours, then,” Ethan said. “You figure anyone’s ever played . . . What do you call this, Jake?”

  “Nine Inch Nails,” he supplied, and Alice laughed as his T-shirt changed.

  “Nine Inch Nails in Caelum before?”

  “No.” Alice glanced over at the large battery-powered stereo one of the novices had brought. There were many things in the past one hundred and twenty years that she needed to catch up on. Music, she decided, would be at the forefront.

  “I’ve played it here,” Jake said. “Just not at this volume.”

  Alice’s gaze landed on Khavi and Michael, who were speaking with Alejandro across the courtyard. “Perhaps the volume is a blessing—she might not hear everything that is being said of her.”

  Jake shook his head, his jaw tight. “What they should be saying is, ‘Thank flippin’ God that we’ve got two grigori on our side now that Anaria’s loose and with the nephilim.’ ”

  “Well, according to the prophecy, the nephilim will be defeated—one way or another.” Ethan met Alice’s eyes. “Is it right that everything she told you would happen, did happen?”

  “Yes. I didn’t fulfill my bargain; Teqon put a sword through Jake’s heart.” Her voice was steady, but she slid her hand over Jake’s, and reassured herself with a touch.

  “Except my shirt,” Jake said, squeezing her fingers. “Alice changed that.”

  “But Khavi didn’t tell you the rest—that Jake had Fallen first, and that he’d live through it, be transformed again. Or that you wouldn’t need to be fulfilling your bargain after you were released from it. Didn’t she know?”

  Alice couldn’t claim to be surprised when Khavi appeared in front of them. Michael joined her a second later.

  “Of course I knew,” Khavi said, frowning. “But they might have acted differently if I had told them the outcome. This way, he Fell on his own, rather than at my suggestion.”

  “Yet you still influenced their actions when you told Alice what you saw,” Michael pointed out. “Nothing is inevitable—but you cannot deny that everything you decide to reveal, you choose because you believe it will improve the probability of the outcome you desire.”

  Khavi narrowed her eyes at him, then turned to Jake. “He has never approved of my Gift. And there are times when I am too confused by what I see to enjoy it, as well. Such as now. I am told that this celebration is due to you having recently been made a full-fledged Guardian—which means that you were recently a novice?”

  “Yep.” Jake nodded. “That’s the way it seems to work.”

  “But how can that be? I have seen many battles in which your strategic command—Oh.” She shook her head. “No, I will not reveal this. I suppose every general was once a soldier.”

  Alice smiled, and Jake’s dog tags jingled softly when he laughed and slid his hand over his head. “Yeah, well—most generals have that rank by the time they’re sixty years old.”

  “Yes,” Michael said, “but most do not spend thirty of those years in an orgy.”

  Alice barely held back her laughter. “I suppose a man must have his priorities,” she said.

  “Well now, that reminds me,” Ethan said. A rolled sheaf of paper appeared in his hand, and Ethan didn’t make a sound when Alice poked her elbow into his ribs. He passed the sheaf over to Jake. “I have this for you; I suppose you might call it a gift from your mentor in honor of your promotion. It’s the one thing I ain’t willing to teach you.” Ethan waited until Jake glanced at the first page before adding, “Alice was the one who transcribed it, and she sketched all them pictures.”

  “Yeah?” He grinned and looked up at her with glowing eyes. “Hot damn.”

  Alice fought the urge to drag him off to the Archives building. “It needs to be improved,” she said with pursed lips and her primmest tone. “Everything within is based upon human physiology. Guardians have many capabilities that aren’t used to their full potential, and that aren’t addressed in the manual.”

  Khavi sighed. “I have nothing for you, Jake.”

  “Maybe you can tell me what my new Gift will be.”

  “No.”

  “Ah, damn,” he said easily. “Well, I had to try. But, I don’t really need you to tell me anyway. I can guess what my future is: Alice and I are going to spend a couple of thousand years fighting demons, then we’ll Fall and make a ton of babies, then grow old together and reminisce about the good old days, when kids didn’t talk back to their parents.”

  That, Alice thought, would be absolutely perfect.

  Khavi’s mouth curved. “I do not know how many years it will b
e, but that is not too far off. And I suppose I can tell you that together, the two of you will be feared by demonkind. You will be known as ‘the Weapon and his Witch.’ ”

  “The Witch and her Weapon,” Alice said.

  Khavi’s Gift rolled out in a soft wave. “Yes,” she said. “Now it will be the Witch and her Weapon.” She glanced over at Michael. “You see how easily they catch on?”

  Michael rubbed the bridge of his nose before dropping his hand to his side. His eyes were obsidian now, Alice noted with sudden unease. “I have something for you, Jacob—but I do not know that I would call it a gift.”

  The amusement faded from Jake’s expression. He rose to his feet, and Alice stood with him.

  “When you could not locate me earlier,” Michael said, “I was retrieving these. They cannot balance what was taken from you, but I demanded them as recompense.”

  The music in the courtyard was still loud, but Alice heard the silence that fell over the Guardians when the two white-feathered wings appeared on the steps at Jake’s feet.

  Not Jake’s wings. These glowed subtly, as if they’d once shone brilliantly and the light within hadn’t completely faded.

  “Belial’s wings?” Alice whispered.

  “Two of them,” Michael said. He lifted his gaze to Jake’s. “And now they are yours.”

  Jake shook his head. “One goes to Alice, for what he did to her.”

  Khavi nodded. “Yes.” She met Alice’s eyes. “They have power within them . . . witch.”

  How strange. How utterly and wonderfully strange it was to vanish a glowing wing into her cache. And she felt it against her psyche, like a gentle, soothing hum.

  She looked to Jake, saw by his expression that he’d experienced the same sensation when he’d vanished his. Then quietly, she sat again. He joined her, and they waited until Michael and Khavi had moved off, until Ethan had left to speak with Selah.

  Jake took her hand, held her gaze as he brought her fingers to his lips. “So,” he said, “it looks like I’m going to be as badass as you are when I grow up. Wanna take a victory dance?”