Demon Bound (27 page)

Surely that was the only explanation for the insanity that was his plan to get them past Belial's army. But for the moment, she would not think of it. She would lie perfectly still . . . and hope that this dizzying arousal subsided quickly.

She ought to have found another way to communicate with him. But she hadn't, and now she thought that it was fortunate that they'd decided to wait before their attack.

She fisted her hands to keep them at her sides, and listened to the pounding of her heart—and to Jake's. Something
had
happened, she was certain of it. At this moment, he was likely no more comfortable than she was. Dear heavens, it was almost like Enthrallment: her senses hyperaware, so that even the quiet and the dark rushed in upon her like the ocean. The ache in her shoulder was all-encompassing, as was the heaviness in her breasts, the tight heat below her womb.

She'd known frustration before. Yet that had had a different flavor, a yearning for something she didn't possess but knew existed, like spying a desperately wanted novel on a shelf too high to reach.

But this was worse. This was as if she'd been given leave to thumb through a few pages and had discovered it was everything that she'd hoped for—but was unable to finish the story.

And this was what her aunties had spoken of when Alice had been a young woman. It was what her mother had hinted passion should be—it was what had helped form Alice's fevered and romantic imaginings when she'd met Henry. But those dreams had been hotter than the marriage bed. There had been the warmth of love, but it hadn't been enough to thaw solicitous restraint and propriety. And there had been little help from Henry's family; he might have called her his delicate, exotic flower, but on English soil, she'd been a weed.

And Teqon's lies had been the manure that had let it all grow wildly out of control.

Oh, my. Those rarely visited memories were a cold bath—but only to her body. And Alice hadn't
needed
more anger and resentment to fuel her, but now that she'd sparked it, she would put it to good use against the sentinels.

With a vial of hellhound venom in her hand, she crawled toward the doors, where the six sentinels guarded the symbols. There were two spears to poison, but she would delay coating the spear-heads until the last moment. Trace amounts of venom would slow the demons if it entered their bloodstream—or, in great enough quantities, paralyze them—but it had a distinctive scent, like a ripened peach.

Jake's heartbeat had returned to a normal pace. The wait before a battle was often the most harrowing part of it, but she couldn't sense any fear in him. She hoped he was reviewing the route he had to take through the sarcophagi—she'd made him repeat it until amusement had curved his lips and exasperation had hardened his fingers. He'd subjected her to a deep, toe-curling kiss that had ended only after she'd agreed to stop plaguing him, and to trust that he'd memorized it.

She did. But she still feared for him.

If he was moving at speed, one of the razor threads she'd stretched across the room could shear off a limb, or his head. The other webs she'd woven were sticky with adhesive as powerful as instant glue. Though they were not as dangerous as the razor threads, anyone running—or flying—headlong into them would become tangled in silk that was stronger than steel.

Jake sighed, signaling that there were two minutes left. Alice shifted into a demon form, mimicking one of the sentinels as closely as she could. The demons had been in the dark as long as Alice and Jake had—even a half second of confusion might make a difference.

And Jake's insane plan depended upon her using this form.

The more she considered it, however, the more she found that she could not argue with his reasoning. They could defeat twelve demons in combat. But against an army of unknown size and in unknown terrain, they only stood a chance by creating disorientation or fear—and with a head start.

Alice smiled into the dark. He'd said that with his hands, yet she could easily imagine the words in his deep voice, the laughter beneath. It was a sound she'd missed over the past few days.

And it wasn't through prayer that she'd hear it again.

She stood, familiarizing herself with the light armor she'd created, her movement and reach. The sickness was weighing her down, but he'd made her agree that they'd fight in tandem—that she'd avoid, if she could, a one-on-one confrontation.

Hopefully, Belial had ordered the sentinels not to kill them—only to subdue. If so, Jake and she would have a slight advantage: they'd slay without hesitation.

A half second here, a slight advantage there; they
had
to add up to enough. To consider any other outcome was impossible.

Perhaps that was why she felt utterly calm when she cackled the final time and uncapped the vial of venom. Jake would call in his weapon three seconds after her laughter began, coat his with venom as well. There was no stopping now.

Before one second passed, Alice had liberally doused the spear tips and poisoned the blade of her naginata with the remaining venom. She dropped to the ground. Her cackle hurt her own ears. Was it loud enough to cover the sound of her dagger slicing through the silk anchoring the spears?

It wouldn't matter. The threads she'd stretched like a bowstring and notched behind the spears shot forward. She heard the wet thunks, the shouts.

Crimson light flooded the prison. Her aim had been true. Two down—paralyzed.

Jake's crossbow bolts hit two more by the doors. A shriek sliced through the air above. Half of a leathery wing sailed in a flat spin over Alice's head, spraying blood.

Then Jake was at her back, covering her. His guns fired as she sprinted forward. Another screech tore from the ceiling, followed by the thump of a falling limb. A sentinel raced in from the side and hit a trip wire. A sticky web scooped him up, a fish wiggling in a net.

No,
she thought. Her focus narrowed, the world contracting into sharp flashes of shape and sound.
Flies. Flies in my parlor.

She lashed out with her Gift an instant before reaching the first sentinel. It was useless here, with no spiders, but the demons would feel the thrust of it—and they wouldn't know that nothing would come of it.

The demon hesitated, and one of Jake's bullets exploded through its left eye. Alice struck from that side. Her polished blade was a dance of reflected crimson light in her hands. It countered her weapon once, twice.

Jake darted by. His sword swept from the demon's left side to the opposite underarm—through the heart. Blood pulsed out from beneath his breastplate.

Jake's gaze narrowed over her shoulder. Alice whirled, calling in her whip. The crack of it was as loud as a gunshot. The razor threads at the end wrapped around the sentinel's neck.

Alice yanked. The demon was still running, still raising its sword when its head slid off.

She heard Jake's grunt of pain—saw the demon in the air with a crossbow. Too far away for her whip. She aimed at a silk thread stretched taut across the ceiling instead. It snapped like a cable, cutting anchoring threads, ripping through webs. Freed from its moorings, a razor web settled over the demon's horns like a mantilla. He lost his talons on both hands trying to tear it off, and his screech joined the ring of Jake's swords. Alice ran to assist him as he fought the last sentinel by the door.

She counted as she ran. One demon perched in the far corner of the ceiling, hemmed in by layers of webbing—apparently he hadn't realized he could cut through them yet. Three were caught in bloody bags of silk. There was the one that Jake had killed by slicing through its heart. Another had no head; and yet another, no fingers. Venom-coated bolts and spears had taken down four others. They were paralyzed, but for how long?

It only had to be long
enough
.

Jake turned, and she saw the bloodied crossbow bolt jutting from his sternum. The demon slashed with his sword; Jake stumbled back. Alice dove in, caught the sentinel through the knees. With a single, heavy stroke, Jake sliced through the demon's neck.

The doors,
he signed, and ripped the bolt from his chest, tossing it aside. Her talons found the groove in the black marble, and she pulled. Jake cleared Belial's blood from the symbols, breaking the spell.

Oh, dear God. The pressure—the number of psyches outside—was almost deafening. So many voices. Screams. Bloated rot rolled over her Gift like a putrid corpse.

Jake stood at her back, watching the remaining demons. Alice braced her taloned, scaled foot against the left door, heaved with her full strength, and felt the stone beneath her hands slowly begin to give. Rancid, heated air rushed in.

With the spell gone, they could return to the prison—if they had to. But she would rather try to escape than wait, endlessly. Outside, there was a chance; trapped inside, there was none.

“The sword,” she whispered, and held out her hand.

Jake placed Zakril's sword into her palm, and shifted. His clothes disappeared.

Alice looked at the shape he'd taken—a chubby, blond toddler with tiny feathered wings and a bleeding hole in his little chest—and decided that maybe praying
would
help. Heaven knew, they were going to need something like a miracle.

They might have had more of a chance shape-shifting to resemble Thor and Superman.

But there was no time to doubt. She fisted her talons in his thick golden curls, and lifted. Jake closed his eyes; his small body swayed. Forming a pair of demon's wings, Alice surged outside.

 

Alice had known it would be horrible. It was, after all, Hell.

But even prepared for the stink and the heat, the first images almost overwhelmed her with dismay.

They were not outside, with the possibility of escape by air, but in a cave. The roof of the cavern seemed to be moving, and the pale light glittered as if dark crystals were trapped within the black stone. The floor sloped downward away from the prison, and the shadows told Alice that the source of light originated from across its enormous length. Between the prison and the cavern entrance, thousands of demons milled about—
Dear God, were there so many of them?
—with barely room between their shoulders.

She took it all in on her first step. The ground was soft, slimy. Her feet sank into it. She didn't glance down. Three demons approached, surprise in their psychic scents—and, she thought, horror as they stared at Jake's small body. Horror . . . not out of fear, but
concern
.

As if they were appalled to see a winged child injured.

Until she raised Zakril's sword. As one, they cried out and froze. Jake opened his small eyes. They glowed crimson, and his mouth drew back in a grimace full of fangs and blood. The shriek from his tiny body was an unholy sound of rage and terror.

The demons fell over themselves stumbling back.

Holding back her own scream, Alice wrapped her arm around his chest and launched into the air. From inside the prison, one of the sentinels called out.

Oh, dear God, dear God.
She or Jake should have reset the spell with their own blood, preventing the sentinels from warning the others. Far too late now. She rose toward the ceiling, then shot toward the cavern entrance.

Shouts of awe and disbelief rolled across the floor on a crescendoing wave. Thousands of red eyes turned upward. Her heart and wings pounded furiously. They hadn't realized yet. The demons near the prison knew they were Guardians, but the rest had not yet heard.

A few more seconds, she prayed. Just a few.

But beneath the voices she heard the flap of leathery wings, like a colony of startled bats. Saw demons rising into the air, mobilizing.

“I need a ninety-degree, Alice, or you're going to get fried,” Jake said, and it was a small voice that she could barely hear over the rush of wings. She glanced down, saw the missile launcher that he held horizontally in his chubby hands. The long tube was supposed to go over his shoulder, and the exhaust would blow out of the back. Impossible when she was behind him.

She rolled to the side, holding Jake out in front of her and facing the wall of the cave. When the launcher aimed down, Jake pulled the trigger. The backblast of fiery gas shot up toward the roof, illuminating it for a brief, horrifying moment.

So many legs. So many eyes.

Terror dug icy spikes into Alice's heart.
This wasn't a cave.
And there was a reason why none of the demons had been in the air before they'd come out of the prison.

She straightened out just as the explosion rocked the ground ahead of them. Demons scattered away from the plume of smoke and fire. She glanced behind them. Hundreds more were coming. Jake vanished the launcher, pulled in another.

She reached out with her Gift, and felt the response. The spiders were corrupted and fetid—but they were
hers
.

Swallowing the bile that rose in her throat, she razed them with her Gift like a scythe. They began to drop.

“Alice!” Jake's voice was deeper, his weight heavier. “Give me a ninety, now!”

“No.” Her voice was thick with sickness, but she pushed her Gift harder. “Aim for the ceiling.”

“What!”

“It's not a cave.” She rolled, let him see.

It was worse, now that the spiders were moving. They had too many legs, their round bodies were misshapen, bulging, as if they'd gorged themselves beyond capacity. Each one could have filled her quarters with its size, and the roof of the cavern was covered in them.

Jake sucked in a breath. “Oh, Jesus Christ, please strike me blind!”