Demon Bound (45 page)

She'd begun to walk over, craning her neck to get a better look at the woman's dress, when they all vanished.

“Alice. They aren't—” Jake closed his eyes, pushed out a breath between his teeth. A dull flush stained his cheeks. “They're just
here
. I don't even notice them anymore.”

“I see.” She frowned, studying him. “When we were in Seattle, you took the shape of an actor. Why do you not do that more often?”

“I didn't know you wanted me to,” he said stiffly.

“Oh, no.
I
do not. But during your free hours, it would have been very easy for you to meet women who looked like these women. And they would be willing.”

He frowned. “Yeah, and that'd make me the biggest asshole on the planet. Speaking of, I'm not giving you back your box.”

“Very well. I do not believe I have a use for it.” She sat on the cot, her back straight. “I have not for some time.”

“Gee, that's good to know
now
.”

“Yes, I thought it would be. You should also know, however, that you were wrong. It was not my ‘I give up' box. It is my ‘I am scared senseless' box.”

Warmth melted into his voice, and dulled the edge of his sarcasm. “Then maybe you should make it your ‘I need to scream somewhere I won't risk Jake's balls' box.”

She glanced at him from the side of her lashes, then quickly tore her gaze from his bare chest. For at least five more minutes, she should not let herself be distracted by lustful thoughts. “With her Gift, Irena could still come through the metal.”

“The
shielded
‘I need to scream' box.”

Alice smiled, and to avoid his nude torso, she looked at his computer. Another map filled the screen, but in this one, she recognized several of the pinpointed locations. “What is this?”

Jake hesitated.

She glanced back at him. “What?”

“I, uh—Okay. I was thinking about the temples, and those cylinders with the spells, and how that one cylinder hooked to the last temple that Zakril built—the one we're looking for now. But there were all those other cylinders around them, and we know which temples at least three of them coordinated with. And I was thinking about how, despite everything else being symmetrical in Khavi's place, those cylinders were randomly positioned. But they weren't random.”

Alice frowned at the computer display. Each pinpoint, she saw, was overlaid by another. She shook her head. “Are you saying that the locations of the cylinders in the room correspond with the temple locations?”

“Yep. It didn't work at first. The three reference points were a little off, and the farther away from the reference points, the bigger the difference. But then I realized I wasn't accounting for the Earth's curvature. So I adjusted, and they lined right up.”

Her heart pounded. There were several points that had no temple marked. The Indonesian islands, Siberia, South America. She either hadn't felt the disturbance, or the spell hadn't needed to be repaired—and so she'd never found them.

And one pinpoint lay directly over the Dardanelles.

Over the
water
, she realized, and her excitement faded. They hadn't had time to sketch or measure Khavi's chamber, so the placement couldn't have been exact. “This is still an estimate—the approximate location of Anaria's temple.”

Which they'd already had, thanks to the nephilim.

“Ye-e-e-ah,” Jake said, and rubbed awkwardly at the back of his neck. “About that.”

Alice's blood froze. “You went to Hell without me?”

“What, you wanted to go again?” He held his hands up when she rose to her feet in a swift movement. “Look, it was just popping in and out of the chamber. A few minutes to measure. Khavi wasn't even there.”

“You went
alone
?” She shrieked the word.

“No.” His brows snapped together. “Hell, no. You think I'm stupid? Maybe there'll be times I have to go alone. But if I've got a choice, you bet your ass I'm bringing backup. So I took Drifter.”

“Took—Oh.” She stared at him, her body still vibrating with anger, fear.

He crossed his arms over his chest. A toothpick appeared in his mouth, and slowly, a smirk formed around it. “So. I guess I don't feel like such a dick for going off on you earlier.”

Shocked by her response, Alice averted her face, smoothed her hair. “Perhaps. But you are to blame for my screaming.”

“It's music to me, goddess.”

“I don't know why you make me want to—” She stopped, met his eyes. “That was a lovely thing to say. And I . . . Do you know, I have something for you. Two things, actually.”

“I am trying
so
hard not to ruin my one-hit lovely streak by letting something out of my filter.”

Her laugh felt full instead of thin and nervous, and when she pulled his swords from her cache, her hands did not shake. “Irena had these ready for you.”

He made a sound of pure male pleasure when his hands closed over the grips. “Oh, damn. Feel that. A guy doesn't even need a dick if he's got these.” The air whistled around the blades as he gave them a spin. “Want to practice before we head to Turkey?”

“We will soon.” She called in her gift, closed her fingers over it. “I also have this, but I must first explain it. And you must realize how very brave I was to get them for you. Irena had just frightened me a little, yet I remained, and asked her to make them.”

His brow creased, as if he could see that she wasn't completely joking. “What did she—?”

“Nothing. It is nothing; I am just delaying.”

He vanished his swords, glanced down at her closed hand. “Then go on.”

Oh, dear.
Now
she was not quite steady. “I find,” she said, “that I have been very foolish. It has been some time now that I have been looking at many things upside-down. The box, for one. And when I thought of the novices who Ascended, I blamed myself for not inspiring them—for not being able to make them understand why Guardians are so very important. I have thought that perhaps they sensed my cowardice and my fear, and that with me as a model and mentor, they could find nothing honorable in being a Guardian.”

Jake touched her cheek. “Alice. That is such bullshit.”

“Yes.” She smiled weakly. “But you have done the same. You wonder if we are nothing but pawns, unimportant and replaceable, manipulated by the demons, the grigori—perhaps even the angels. You wonder if their only purpose is to grab power or to rule, that we have been lied to about our reasons for fighting, that it taints our purpose. And you feel it here.” She rested the back of her hand against his stomach. “I know you do.”

“Yes,” he said softly.

“But we don't fight for
them
. We fight for your daughter, and her family. We fight for young wives tormented by demons and young men hunted by nosferatu. That is what I told my novices, and if they could not grasp the importance of that, it is not
my
failing.”

“Damn right it's not.”

“But you
do
know what is important, and you still doubt. Yet no matter what the purpose of those stronger than us is, so long as your reasons for fighting and your actions reflect what you believe, there is nothing that could taint you. We could discover that Michael's only purpose is to enslave every human on Earth, and it would not make our fight less worthy—it would only mean that we would begin to wage our war against him, as well. And that is why I made you these.”

She opened her fingers, and lifted a pair of platinum tags by the chain.

“Dog tags?” His breath seemed shallow as he cupped them in his palm, used his other hand to turn them over.

She hadn't known what to inscribe, so she'd only had Irena write his name, with “Guardian” below it. “Yes. I have heard it is customary for soldiers to have these. I thought you should have a pair now that you're fighting a war you can believe in.”

Jake turned them over again in his palm.

She twisted her fingers together. “If you want something else written—”

“No.” His voice was thick. “No. It's just right.”

Relief shuddered through her, and she held up her hands. “May I?”

He nodded. His gaze never left her face as she placed the chain over his head. She sighed when the tags jingled.

“They make noise. They'll give your location away.”

“Let them find me. They aren't coming off.”

She touched the tags, then let her forefingers separate and follow the curving line of his pectorals. “Perhaps I can wrap them in a transparent web to muffle the sound.”

“Alice. Jesus, Alice. You can do whatever you want. I'm such a dick. I don't have anything to give you. Except this.” Jake caught her right hand, pressed it flat over his heart. “But the truth is, it's already yours.”

Oh, God. Oh, dear God. Her chest tightened unbearably. She pressed her lips to the hand over hers, his throat, his mouth.

He cupped her cheek and lingered over the kiss, slowing it before lifting his head. “You're afraid.”

And in front of that keen gaze, so exposed. Without moving her hand from over his pounding heart, she slid around his arm, held him with her cheek against the back of his shoulder.

It had been so simple before. One look at Henry, and love had fallen neatly into its place—and had eventually been battered and squeezed and bruised by every other emotion crowding around it.

But with Jake . . .

She raised her head, opened her eyes. With Jake, it would not settle, no matter how long she waited. No, her love for him was not a small piece to be put in its place. It shifted and changed, was both made up of her emotions and more than the combination: a complicated web whose pattern and texture altered as threads were weaved in or cut—but always remaining a web.

And even the razor threads were silk.

Turning her head, she kissed his shoulder. His heart beat steadily beneath her hand; Jake stood motionless, but his posture wasn't rigid as he waited for her to speak.

Comfortable with his feelings. Secure in himself. And likely with more confidence in
her
than she had.

She traced the fingers of her right hand down the hollow of his spine, and watched his muscles flex in the wake of her touch. The whole of her body seemed to react in the same way, as if the warmth of his skin seeped into her through her fingertips. “Oh, dear.”

Jake turned his head to look over his shoulder, his brows lifted.

“Since the moment you teleported to Kansas, I have not been able to go more than a few minutes without having a salacious thought. Even when I
ought
to be attending to other thoughts.”

He grinned and faced forward again, and she marveled at how his neck looked just as strong and masculine with the chain against it. Strange, but she supposed that although it was a necklace, it was not jewelry.

“Are you having one now?”

“Not salacious. Admiring.” She skimmed her fingers over his shoulder blade. “I wonder that you do not wear your wings. I would find it very difficult not to wear them even while on Earth.”

“They're a little too stubby for that, goddess.”

Stubby? He could not be serious. “You lost them so that I would not be hurt. Because you knelt when you could have easily jumped—when you had to fight
not
to jump. It was the bravest act I have ever witnessed, and while they heal, your wings are a visible badge of your courage. I would wear them, and wave them, and parade myself through the streets of Caelum.”

Jake made a strangled noise, and his shoulders began shaking.

Alice sighed. “The tags even jingle when you laugh. But you should not laugh at this. You hide your wings, as if you should be ashamed of their appearance. I see them much differently. No,” she said, when she felt his weight shift. “Do not yet turn, or kiss me. There is more I have to say before my next salacious thought.”

He lifted her hand from his chest and kissed her fingertips. “I've already had several.”

“I wonder how you function; I find them quite distracting. Always before, I'd determine when they would come. I would choose erotica to read or allow myself a fantasy. But these are completely unbidden.” She glanced down at her fingertips, which were rubbing themselves along the ridge of muscle above his hip. She would have to delve into his jeans to explore it farther. “Not unwelcome, however.”

“I just had about ten more, Alice.”

She laughed and rested her brow on the hard curve of his shoulder. “Very well.” With an effort, she made herself stop rubbing. Anxiety fluttered high in her throat, and she swallowed it down. “Earlier, you said that there was a bonus attached to you.”

“Yeah, and I was being a dickhead.”

“Perhaps. But you were correct—except that it is not teleporting.” She met his eyes when he looked over his shoulder. “You make me uncertain,” she admitted.

“And that's a bonus?”

“Yes. Not very long ago, I was utterly certain.”

Understanding smoothed the crease from his brow. “About Teqon.”

“Yes. Because of the bargain, I would either be in the frozen field, in a box, or standing with Michael's heart in my hand. I had hope—very small hope—that I might find a way out. But I didn't believe I would.” She searched his eyes. “That is something you have given me. Something I know didn't come out of me by itself. You irritated it out. Now I am uncertain of what the future holds. I believe, truly believe, we can find a real solution—believe it even over predictions and probability.”