Demon Bound (32 page)

“Oh.” But somehow, she'd produced that intense
fear
in him? Uncertainty slipped into her, stiffened the muscles along her spine. She pulled her hand back. “When I returned to Earth after finishing my training, I thought my Gift would drive me mad. I was overwhelmed with senses that were not my own—and I had no idea where they originated.” And when she did realize, she didn't use her Gift again for a year—until Irena had shamed her for her cowardice. “Then I learned to control it; yours will become easier, as well.”

“Gee, thanks.” Jake took a step back, then another.

With a sigh, Alice followed him. How patronizing she'd sounded—and dismissive. Whatever her troubles, her Gift had never landed someone in Hell.

Yet he hadn't teleported at the worst of moments, when his wings had been severed—and he had done very well teleporting them around within the realm.

Frowning, she lightly touched her opposite wrist. “Why did you bite me?”

“Because of Drifter and Charlie. She says his Gift feels different when she bites him. Like it's pure psychic energy through the blood. That's how they get through the shielding spell. So I thought it wouldn't hurt.”

“Do you think it helped?”

“Dunno.” His half smile softened the hard cast of his features. “Maybe it's just a mental thing. You know, giving me something more tangible than a psychic image. It didn't taste any different.”

She contained her grimace. “Did you swallow it?”

“Well, yeah. Spitters are quitters,” he said, and held out a five-dollar bill. When Alice realized what he meant, she snatched it. His smile broadened into a grin, and her heart rolled over. “Nah, I'm kidding. I didn't drink it—I put it into my hammerspace. I can use blood as a strong anchor to you. That is, I could if those symbols weren't there. Do they still hurt?”

“They ache,” she admitted.

“Want me to take a look?”

“What would be the point? Nothing can be done.”

“I could kiss it better,” he said, and she smiled.

“Another mental thing?” Like nerve-settling.

“Or practice for being a great-granddad.”

“I—” Her gaze locked onto his face. He was looking to his left, his expression distracted again. Alice saw nothing but rocks and sand. “Forgive me, Jake. Did you say you were a grandfather?”

“
Great
.”

How incredible. Alice recalled him saying he'd written to his girl before he'd gone out to meet the nosferatu. It apparently hadn't been the girl she'd assumed. “And your . . . daughter? Have you spoken with her?”

“Not yet. I intend to when we get back.” He met her eyes briefly, and she saw the hope and hesitation there. “I'm not sure how it'll go. But the four-year-old girl is a whippersnapper. Cute as hell. You saw her.”

“The one who called me a witch?” At his nod, she said wonderingly, “And you will meet them? You are a lucky man, Jake. A very, very lucky man.”

“Yeah. You wanted kids?” He'd been looking to his left again, but at that, his gaze snapped back to hers. “Ah, shit. What a stupid—”

“No, it's all right. And, yes, I did. But now I'd have to Fall before I could, and I'm in no hurry to be human again. I enjoy this life—and I would rather not add children to the list of things I'll never have if I don't escape my bargain.”

“This is the place for lists,” Jake said, then stopped walking. “Do you want to run or to fly?”

“What?”

“Both get us there faster than walking.” He pointed to his left. “Take a look. The rock all the way out.”

Alice studied it, trying to make out the distant shape. With no idea of how far it was, she couldn't determine its height. But it was solid, with a rounded—

She flattened her hand against her chest, felt her heart leaping. “It's the missing statue—from the temple in Tunisia?”

“Looks like.”

“Oh, dear God.” She formed her wings, ran to lift him up. “We'll fly.”

 

Alice's wings moved like a bellows, each beat puffing her full of excitement and trepidation. The statue sat amid a large collection of jagged, monolithic black marble stones, as if someone had tipped out sharp pebbles from a shoe, and not noticed the granite statue among them.

She could make out the statue's wings now, folded against its back, the long tips sweeping out behind it. Its head was bowed; the figure had gone down on one knee. His sword lay on the ground in front of him, his right hand gripping the handle, his left wrapped around the blade. There was submission in the pose, but it wasn't complete. Alice could see the tension carved in his arms, his hands—as if he was deciding whether to place the sword at her feet, or to stand up and use it on her.

“The puppies are chasing us.”

Alice spared them a glance. “We can remain in the air for now.” It would be easier to study the figure anyway. Given its size, it was best taken in from a slight distance. Alice swooped toward the downturned face, her heart tight. She hovered just below the eyes, staring up at its features. Hair curled over the figure's forehead. His eyes were closed, and a slight frown pulled his brows together. His mouth was a firm line, yet it still gave the impression that it might tremble at any moment.

Indecision, pain—and love, impossibly expressed in a stone.

They stared at it in silence, until Jake said quietly, “I thought it'd be Michael.”

Alice had, too. She tore her gaze from the statue's face, looked down. “Jake,” she said. “His sword.”

“Zakril's?”

“Or its mirror image.” Movement on the ground near the knee drew her attention. The hellhound was in its demon form, scales showing through the spiked fur. Though a puppy, it was four feet tall at its shoulder. One of its heads fixed on them, the other two looking to its left. Alice glanced in that direction, and saw nothing. “Where's the other hellhound?”

“Dunno. My question is, why'd the other one leave
foot
prints?” Jake strengthened his psychic blocks until his mind was impenetrable. She did the same. The trail of footprints ended a hundred yards from the statue. No one but Alice and Jake were in the air. “Pull up, Alice. Let's circle around.”

Unease wound its way into her stomach as she rose higher. They'd both had their psychic shields down, just slightly, so that Michael could anchor to them. But there was no mistaking the shape of the prints—it hadn't been a second hellhound following them.

“Did you sense anyone pushing into your mind?”

“Nope.” His crossbow was in his hands now. She called in her naginata, holding him with one arm around his chest. “But it wouldn't have taken much of a push, would it?”

“No.” They'd both been expecting hellhounds. There hadn't been a reason to mentally probe those trailing behind them. And they might have mistaken any foreign touch for the psychic stain that pervaded Hell. “Only skill.”

Alice turned them, made sure no one approached from behind. Jake made a sound of frustration.

“Put me up on the head, Alice.”

Where he'd have a better vantage point, and his movements wouldn't be handicapped by their position—freeing her, as well. She set him down, performed another sweep around the statue. The hellhound lay like a Sphinx next to the left foot, heads lifted to watch her. Keeping a wary eye on it, she hovered ten yards over the sand, glanced beneath the stomach of the statue. No one.

What aren't we seeing?
she signed, knowing that Jake covered her position with his weapon.

“Or hearing,” he said quietly.

She'd been listening for a heartbeat. Her gaze ran over the sand, then to the trail of footprints, their abrupt end. Yet no one was in the air.

The memory of the symbols written over Zakril's skeleton struck her now, ripped a shiver over her skin.
She waits below.

The sand was heavy, dense—dense enough to muffle a heartbeat, if someone was buried under it.

She felt a spear of realization from Jake the same moment she stretched her wings, prepared to shoot upward.

A geyser of red sand erupted beneath her.

Black feathers, obsidian eyes. Alice barely had a moment to see them before she rolled. Her naginata sliced flesh. Blood spurted. Hands gripped her neck.

The thrust of an unfamiliar Gift ripped through her.

Jake slammed into them from above, tearing Alice from that powerful grasp. Powerful—but not painful. Alice hit the sand with Jake; they immediately rolled to their feet. The hellhound growled in front of them, jaws dripping foam, eyes flickering with hellfire.

Alice didn't let go of her weapon to sign. “She has a Gift.”

She didn't need to say the rest—that only Guardians possessed one.

“I felt it.”

Jake held his swords in both hands, his gaze on the hellhound. Her naginata at the ready, Alice narrowed her eyes up at the woman hovering over the hellhound's head. Multiple narrow braids failed to tame the riot of her ebony hair. Tiny vermillion symbols were tattooed from forehead to toe, forming an intricate pattern that tinted her bronze skin a deep orange red. A sleeveless black tunic fell to mid-thigh.

She was petite. And beautiful, in the classical sense—as refined as the Egyptian queen Nefertiti with her high, wide cheekbones, full lips, and tapered nose—but it wasn't the same face as the statue in the temple. Alice flicked a glance at the statue behind her. If that was Zakril, this was the feminine mold. The resemblance was unmistakable.

The woman returned Alice's stare, then looked beyond her, as if searching for someone. Confusion flitted over her features. “I am early,” she said in English, and her voice was like Michael's, like Belial's—a harmony from a single throat. “Or Michael is late. I saw him with you, but you are here, and he is not.” She tilted her head. The obsidian receded from her eyes, leaving irises of dark brown that focused on Jake. “You, then, are early—though it has taken you so very long to come.”

“So long that you couldn't put on a nicer welcome? Yeah, right.”

Ebony brows pushed together in a puzzled frown. Her Gift rolled out like a wave, crashing against them. Alice widened her stance and loosened her grip on her weapon; she could strike faster if her wrists were relaxed.

“Both of you are so weak,” she said, as if surprised. “And that one—Alice—is corrupted by Belial's hand. But I see now that it was not of her choosing.” She vanished her black wings, landed lightly beside the hellhound. Eagerness hardened the curve of her lips, sent a shiver down Alice's spine. “And I see that fire will cleanse it.”

So she knew of the symbols carved into Alice's shoulder. Either she'd heard Jake and Alice speaking while following them, or she'd sensed it another way.

“And what, exactly, do you mean by that?” Jake asked as he vanished one of his swords. His hand caught Alice's. His fingers squeezed in a rapid code.
She considers Belial a corruption? Is that good or bad?

Alice had no answer—but she didn't think Jake expected one.

Their exchange had taken less than a second, between one breath to the next, and the woman was only now responding, “I only mean what I said: fire will cleanse the symbols.” Her gaze dropped to their linked hands. The force of her Gift gentled into a continuous ebb. “You will not leave here that way. Nor will Michael come for you.”

Jake shifted his weight.
Was that a threat?

Alice was also uncertain. The tone had been more informative than anticipatory, and had been delivered in the same manner as the strange, nonsensical greeting. Early, late—and she'd expected Michael to be here, but now she said he would not be?

No, Alice realized. She'd said she'd
seen
Michael with them.

Could her Gift be foresight, or an ability to predict?
she suggested, and opened her mouth.

“Yes,” the woman spoke, frowning again in confusion. “I am a seer. Did I not introduce myself? I was certain I did. Perhaps I only saw it.”

“You didn't,” Jake said—and simultaneously against Alice's fingers,
Nut job
.

She feared he might be correct. Not that Alice doubted her foresight—only her stability.
That does not make her any less dangerous,
she said.

No shit.
He followed it with a soft squeeze, as if to assure her he hadn't taken her warning any way she hadn't intended. “So, care to fill us in?”

The lines of bewilderment between her brows deepened. “ ‘Fill us in'?” Her Gift washed over them in a heavy wave, and Alice felt it draw something back with it, psychic sand dragged by the tide. The woman's eyes closed, pain tightening her features. “I see that so much has changed. And that I should not rely upon only one of you for the language, when it, too, comes from the past. No, I do not tell you here. We are inside, for the nychiptera come.”

I am completely lost,
Alice admitted.

You're in good company, then.
Jake paused.
But I think she just said you talk like an old lady.

How he'd managed to interpret that, she couldn't say. Alice grabbed on to the one statement she had understood . . . partially. “What—”

The woman was already pointing into the southeastern sky. “
Those
are the nychiptera. Has Michael taught you nothing?” She lowered her hand, her expression taking on a faraway look. “Or did the threads pull them in after he left? I saw them come before he did, but I suppose they came after, for we only used the threads when we hid from him. Unless they were not drawn in by the threads, but brought here.”