Demon Bound (18 page)

“Gee, it's too bad you think so. Because I'm putting myself to use wherever you are. It'll be a good experience for me.”

“So you said before,” she reminded him tightly, then held up her hand when he opened his mouth. “No. For one, you are training with Ethan—”

“Nope. I popped over to Seattle before heading here. And I told him I'd be working under you for a while.”

Oh, dear heaven. Had Jake told him of the bargain? “He agreed?”

“I would've come even if he hadn't. As it was, he just asked, ‘This about that demon?' And I said, ‘Maybe,' and he said, ‘All right, then.' ”

“The traitor,” Alice muttered.

“Not from where I'm standing.” Jake's gaze was steady. “Look, Alice. I'm the only one available to you. Before the Ascension, you had more options. Maybe Irena or Drifter could've taken more time away from their assignments. But now there's just me. And I'm going where I feel I'm most needed, and where I can offer the most help.”

“But there is nothing—”

“
Help
, as in finding out more about the prophecy. And if that means we take that list of Belial's demons and threaten to cut out their hearts one by one unless they spill everything they know about it, that's what we'll do. And we'll find something that Teqon will want.”

Alice slowly closed her mouth. The idea held promise, and was something she'd considered before and discarded—she couldn't have attempted it alone.

Not that it mattered. “Teqon said he wouldn't accept any alternative.”

“And he's a demon, which makes him a liar. But if that fails, we'll try something else.”

Ever the optimist. And she was tempted to accept.

As if sensing that she wavered, he pressed, “I don't have enough experience to head out on my own yet, but I'll get more doing this with you than I will with Drifter. So you'll be helping me, too. And if you don't agree . . . well, I'll just find you by teleporting wherever you are. I might anyway, if it means I keep landing in places like this. Are we underground? In a hypogeum?”

“Yes.” She sighed. “You're incredibly stubborn.”

“I know.” He hooked his thumbs into his pockets and seemed to try very hard to appear chagrined. “It's a fault.”

“Yes, well—I hope you don't intend to immediately set off hunting demons.” She pulled in a measuring tape from her cache and tossed it to him. “We need to find the dimensions of the chamber, then create a visual record. Do you want to sketch or to photograph?”

He caught the tape. “You're a goddess, Alice.”

“I know.” His smile did silly things to her insides, so she turned away, seeking another distraction. “I am Zorya Polunochnaya. Patient and wise.”

Or she would try to be.

“Isn't that the crone?”

She speared a glance over her shoulder, felt her stomach tumble a little more, and pointed at the wall. “Measure. Now. Or I will smite thee.”

CHAPTER 8

The next two hours passed more smoothly than Alice had anticipated. As she finished the details on her last sketch, she mused that it boded well for when they moved against any of Belial's demons.

She glanced at Jake, who was crouching in front of the dais. Muffled rock music came from the tiny speakers in his ears. He'd been efficient and, once they'd split up their tasks, hadn't needed to ask for direction. And though she couldn't ignore his presence, she'd been able to focus on the work, and let her emotions settle.

And become aware that the uncertainty she was feeling now hadn't just been over Teqon, and Jake's sudden appearance. It was this chamber.

All of the sites had been mysteries, had offered more questions than answers. Yet this one simply didn't
fit
.

But why? Was it just the difference of being a burial chamber? Her gaze skimmed past the entrance, open to the long, narrow shaft that led aboveground, to an olive grove in the Italian country-side. The Etruscan frescoes on the walls were of the same scenes she'd seen before—and the technique of plastering stucco over stone before painting them had been used once in India. The dais was nothing more than a limestone slab, but she'd seen many of those before, too. Not in any of the temples—but many sarcophagi rested on similar stones in other, human-made chambers. The red ochre staining the walls and ceiling was common to many burial sites, as well.

Jake stood, yanked the wires to his headphones, let them dangle from his fist. “This place is a mess. Like a couple of guys from different eras came in and slapped it together as fast as they could.”

There was her answer—and he managed to surprise her, yet again. “Yes,” she agreed. A muddle of styles and influences. “There's no coherence.”

“Yeah. They're just pulling sh—
stuff
in from everywhere. But not the materials, because look at this.” He used the toe of his boot to tap the side of the dais, then pointed at the long, low niche in the wall. “The grain in the stone matches. So they just cut out the block, and plopped it right here in the middle.”

“Then didn't cover the hole it left, though it disturbs the symmetry of the room.”

Jake nodded, then turned toward her. “But here's the weird thing: they're the same size. Exactly. If we slid that baby back in, we wouldn't see more than a hairline crack.”

Alice blinked. “Are you certain?”

“Yep.”

Impossible. That left no room for a tool to cut the block from the face of the stone. And even a Guardian couldn't vanish a portion of something into his cache; an object had to be vanished in its entirety. Unless . . .

“It could be a Gift,” she said. And thinking of it, she pulsed her own. “I've seen Irena do something similar with a piece of metal she was sculpting. And before the Ascension, there were a few who had an affinity with stone, but I never saw how they . . . Oh, dear. Five people have just come into the entrance shaft and are walking this way.”

“Humans?”

She pressed again, sensed the heat of their bodies. Not hot enough to be demons, not cold enough to be nosferatu or vampires. “Yes.”

Frowning, he walked to the chamber entrance. There was no door to close it. Alice sighed, then began vanishing her things. She could hear voices now, indistinct.

Jake backed up a step. When his sword appeared in his hand, Alice called in her naginata.

They aren't speaking Italian,
he signed.

Alice leapt over the dais, was beside him instantly. The voices were distorted down the long, zigzagging corridor—and the five had already moved past the first bend. She had no spiders waiting there.

She listened, then met his eyes. Though she didn't know the language, she recognized the rhythm, the sound.

Demon tongue,
she told him. The Old Language.

Had she mistaken the temperature? She stared down the darkened corridor. Oh, bother. If it was a demon, she'd already revealed herself by using her Gift.

She shot a psychic probe out, swift and pointed as a bolt from a crossbow. And quickly raised her shields again, her skin crawling.

The voices fell silent.

Demon?
Jake asked, studying her.

I don't know,
she signed.
Dark. Strong. I haven't felt it before.

His face hardened. Though he aimed it away from her, she felt the blast of his own probe.

I've felt it,
he signed.
Nephilim. Which means we get the hell out of here.

She hesitated, and Jake shook his head, a slight smile on his lips.
Don't even think about it, oh goddess of mine. We've got vampire blood, so we could take one on, maybe two. Five, and we're toast.

He was right. And this time, he had the experience and knowledge. He'd faced the nephilim alongside Ethan and Alejandro on two separate occasions, whereas she'd never seen one.

But she despised the thought of them coming into this chamber—these sites were
hers
, blast them!—and wanted desperately to know how they'd found it, what they planned to do here.

“Alice,” he said.

“Of course.” Her nod was stilted, and she held out her hand. “Of course. Let us go.”

Immediately, his Gift kicked through her. The walls remained solid around them. His fingers tightened on hers, and he tried again. And again.

A red glow appeared at the end of the corridor.

“Shit.” Jake pulled her back, to the opposite side of the chamber. His Gift slammed again, with enough force to push her off balance. He caught her around the waist and dragged her up against him, pressing her cheek into his neck. “Hold on. I'll get us out. I probably just need to see what's coming at me.”

Alice vanished her weapon. He would succeed, she thought. But if it was at the last second, an uncontrolled jump and landing, she didn't want to accidentally take his head off with it.

Jake's arm tightened around her. The nephilim's footsteps were approaching—fast, even to her quickened perception. Careful to keep her skin against his, she turned her head, tried to watch from the corner of her eye.

The nephilim were almost at the entrance. Red skin, black feathered wings. The males wore only plated skirts; the two females had similar armor, topped by a filigreed breastplate. Their swords were stained with rust—or dried blood.

Alice's fingers clenched as she prepared to call in her weapon again.

Jake lifted her, and the world spun.

Her shoulder hit rock, and Jake swore. Then his body was hard beneath her. She scented blood, heard the scrape of a knife. She raised her head—tried to. Only three or four inches, and then she rapped it against stone.

Disbelieving, she looked down into his face. He'd rolled them into the niche carved into the wall. And she could no longer hear the nephilim's footsteps. Just her heartbeat, and Jake's.

He'd activated the shielding spell, she realized. He'd scraped the symbols into the stone, then used his blood to seal the opening of the niche.

“
Goddamn
.” His embarrassment seared her psychic blocks.

“We are alive, novice,” she said, and turned her head to watch the nephilim race across the chamber.

She couldn't stop her flinch when one stabbed his sword toward the niche's opening, but the blade skidded across the invisible shield as if he'd tried to impale steel. Slowly, she loosened her hold on Jake, shifting her body to the rear of the niche. She only managed to lever herself onto her side, her thigh over his and still half-lying on him, but it wouldn't be as distracting as straddling his hips.

“I wouldn't have thought of this,” she added as an arrow splintered against the shield. “I've never used the spell. I'd have been dead now if I was alone.”

A female nephil hacked at the stone with an axe. Chips flew, but the shield would hold its shape around their small space even if the nephilim managed to chisel an opening in the rock above them.

“Next time,” he said, “I'll set the shield at the chamber entrance.”

“That would have been ideal,” she agreed.

“I avoided the situation.” His wry grin seemed to dare her to say
I told you so
.

“Yes, well. Typically, I steer clear of being trapped in stone niches the size of a sarcophagus, with nephilim waiting to let their axes take bites of my skull. But we all eventually find ourselves in those situations we avoid, and must make the best of them—which you did. Can you teleport from inside the shield?”

“Yes. Want me to try, or wait?”

“And see what they do?” At his nod, she said, “That would also be ideal.”

To her surprise, what the nephilim did was hold a short consultation—then vanish their clothing.

Demons in their original form had no gender; they adopted genitalia after shape-shifting into human forms. But perhaps because these nephilim possessed human bodies and could only shape-shift between their human and current forms, they'd had to adopt the sex of their physical host, as well.

“Nephilim orgy?”

Alice would never admit that she'd been wondering the same thing. “If so, the males need encouragement. I have seen slugs with more vigor.”

She felt his gaze on her, but continued watching the nephilim. They abandoned their assault on the niche, and arranged themselves in a circle around the dais. Their black wings were spread, their wing tips touching.

Those black feathers sent unease rolling through her. Of the Guardians, only Michael had similar wings. The rest of them could mimic a demon's leathery wings, the nosferatu's more membranous ones, and create their own of white feathers. But no one could copy Michael's, or the way in which his amber eyes could become wholly obsidian.

The crimson glow had left the nephilim's eyes, leaving only black.

Their appearance had also apparently turned Jake's thoughts to the Doyen, but in a different direction. “Does Michael know of your bargain?”

“Yes,” she said flatly, but of course her tone did not dissuade him.

“And?”

“And I am to do as I must, with the understanding that if I choose to fulfill it, Michael will do as
he
must.”

“Kill you.”

“Defend himself.”

“Kill you.”

She shrugged as best she could in the cramped space, and felt the ice-tipped spear of his anger.

“Would you try? Assuming you
could
beat him.”

Little chance of that. Challenging Michael would be more difficult, she imagined, than taking on five nephilim. “I like to think I wouldn't.”