Demon Bound bl-2

by Caitlin Kittredge

  “Aithinne,” Jack rasped. The second hex he’d learned. The strategy in any mage’s duel was the same: block a spell and then fling one back hard as you could.

  Except when the bastard across from you bounced the hex off his protection magic and sent a jet of wild magic-fueled fire bouncing around the shed.

  “Shit!” Jack exclaimed, as the clothing of the nearest corpse caught on fire. “Pete, move your arse!” He bolted for the door, and Hornby turned tail as well, the three of them spilling out into the abandoned village square.

  Hornby panted, swatting at the soot on his clothes as the fire consumed the hut and the bodies inside. “Fuck, man. You’re strong.”

  “And you’re clever,” Jack told him. “The demon was right.” As Hornby gasped, Jack closed the distance between them and put a fist into the younger man’s nose. “But you’re not that clever.”

  Hornby yelped and went down, mud splashing up around him. Jack pulled his magic back under his control, and aimed a paralysis hex at Hornby. “Sioctha.”

  The mage jerked, veins throbbing at his temples, but his body was rigid as a board. Jack crouched next to him. “Let’s try this once more: I’m Jack Winter, I’m the worst thing your skinny arse has ever clapped eyes on, and you’re going to tell me how you cheated the demon before I do something more than make your legs not work.”

  “This village,” Hornby gasped. “This village is in the shadow of the wat. They massacred the villagers during Vietnam. Thought I was safe here. Ghosts and feedback from the massacre . . . like a radio jammer . . .”

  Jack clapped his hands above Hornby’s face. “Oi. Not wanting your life story, mate. Just tell me how you did it.”

  Hornby let out a misery-laden sigh, and then his eyes rolled back into his head. “Fuck it,” Jack muttered. Pete came and crouched beside him.

  “He dead?”

  Jack jammed his fingers against Hornby’s neck. “No. Just a coward for pain.” He stood, leaving Pete with Hornby. “Watch him. If he wakes up, give him another tap on the gob.”

  Jack prowled through the small houses around the square. Most were covered in layers of dust and mold that spread like fans along the walls, flies and maggots thick on spoiled food left sitting when the vargr took over the residents. Only one house showed any signs of recent occupation. The bed was rumpled, the sheet stained with sweat. Water dripped from a rusty pump in the kitchen in time with Jack’s heartbeat.

  He walked back to Hornby and grabbed him by the shirt. “Help me,” he said to Pete. She took Hornby’s other side and they dragged his dead weight into the house, where Jack dumped him unceremoniously on the bed, found a length of cord, and tied Hornby up like a kidnapped teenager in a sex dungeon. For good measure, he stuffed the muddy kerchief from his pocket into Hornby’s mouth.

  “Now what?” Pete said, fanning herself with an ancient, wrinkled copy of Rolling Stone printed in Thai.

  Jack sat on the single chair in the tiny room, across from Hornby, and stared intently at the other man. Sleeping, he looked like any hapless washed-up musician, in want of a shave, a shower, and a recording contract. Jack thought it was a good thing he knew better.

  “We wait,” he said. “And when Sleeping Beauty here sees fit to stir, we make him talk.”

  Chapter Forty-two

  Night came to the world again before Hornby did anything but twitch and snore on the mattress. Jack had exhausted his supply of both fags and patience.

  “Welcome back,” Jack said when Hornby stirred. “You have a pleasant nap, Princess?”

  Hornby bucked, struggling like a trussed pig. “Let me go.”

  Jack grinned at him. “Tell me how you cheated the demon.”

  “Fuck you!” Hornby shouted, loud enough to echo through the village square.

  “All right then,” Jack said, standing. “We’ll be off to catch the last train. Pete, remind me how long a body can stand being without water?”

  “Thirty-six hours,” she said promptly, from where she leaned against the sill of the open window.

  “Thirty-six hours,” Jack murmured. “Less, in this heat. Lose water like a sieve in this country, me. It’s a trial for skinny blokes like us.”

  Hornby snorted. “Go ahead and leave me. I’ll just be-spell the knots.”

  “Ahead of you on that score,” Jack said. “I already be-spelled them. To stay tied.” He’d done no such thing—a spell like that would have taken supplies and time—but Hornby didn’t know. Jack crouched, taking Hornby by the chin. “Face it, Miles—you may be a hard lad, but I’m older and I’ve had more time to learn how to be a dirty low-down bastard.”

  “Just go,” Hornby groaned. “Every minute you’re here, he’s closer to finding me.”

  “Should have thought of that before you made the deal,” Jack said, picking up his kit and starting for the door. He fully intended to follow through on his threat if Hornby didn’t cooperate. Jack would be fucked, then, and Hornby might loose the knots in time to survive. Or he might not. Jack would be in Hell either way.

  “My sister had lukemia,” Hornby muttered when Jack and Pete reached the door. “My baby sister. I promised to keep her safe and they tell me she has two months to live.”

  “So you bargained with the demon,” Jack said. “Not the first sob story I’ve heard, mate.”

  “I never did a black magic spell in my life, I never even dabbled in scrying or cursing, until I made the deal.” Hornby sighed. “I used to be a decent guy.”

  Jack sighed, grabbed up a kitchen knife, and went back to the bed. “Miles, mate. Take it from me, we all used to be decent sorts.” He sliced Hornby’s ropes and sat him up. “No adorable little curses, now. Just tell me how you got out, and we’ll be on our way.”

  “Tell me what you did it for, first,” Hornby insisted. “Because somehow I don’t see you sacrificing your soul for a poor dying kid. Was it for fame? Sex?”

  “Mine was for being a fuckwit,” Jack said shortly. “Which is exactly the same as you. Dress it up how you like, but we’re both here because we made a shit choice.”

  Hornby shut his eyes, slumping back into the mattress like a puppet. “Suppose I did.”

  Jack wasn’t sure whether Hornby moved or whether he merely lashed out with magic and sent Jack sprawling, but he came up with an oblong black shape from under the mattress. “The difference between you and me is,” Hornby said, “I can fix my choice.”

  Jack called a shield hex, not fast enough. Hornby swung the gun to bear on Jack, causing Jack to scrabble backward. Hornby didn’t shoot, though. He snapped the pistol up, tucking the barrel under his chin.

  “I told you I’m not going back.”

  “Miles,” Pete said at the same time. “Don’t do that . . .”

  “Don’t be a wanker,” Jack supplied, their voices blending and tripping over one another like tangled strings.

  “I will never be free,” Hornby murmured. “I ran but it will find me. I know why I went to it in the first place and you’re right—shitty choice, shitty result.” Hornby met his eyes. “The difference between you and me is that I’m done running.” Hornby sighed, and Jack saw his shoulders relax, all of the tension and fear trickle from his body.

  “Miles,” he started. “You stupid fuck . . .”

  “And I take back what I said before, Winter,” Hornby told him. “You’re still pretty good. But I’m done now.”

  Jack made it a single step before Miles squeezed the trigger, and the gunshot echoed and rolled back from the buildings around the square. In the jungle, birds and creatures took flight with a cacophony of screeching and warbling.

  Hornby’s body hit the floor, landing faceup. The gun thumped on the sisal matting next to him. Pete let out a small scream that blended with the jungle birds.

  In Jack’s moment of paralysis, a shadow bent over Hornby. Not the same shadow that had come to him thirteen years ago, not the crow woman. Not the demon, either. This shadow had a lion’s mane, teeth, and a twisted bo
dy that bled and flowed indistinctly when Jack tried to look at it.

  “Don’t . . . ,” Jack croaked, but there was nothing he could do aside from protest. The demon of Bangkok had a new soul. The demon who owned Jack’s had lost it.

  And then the sound faded and the world sped up again and Jack realized he was shouting, wordlessly, and that the floor was pitching beneath him as dizziness and nausea and the realization that he, too, had lost came.

  Jack followed Hornby down, down to his knees. “You stupid bastard,” he whispered. “You ruddy, stupid bastard. What the fuck am I supposed to do now?”

  Chapter Forty-two

  The hospital ceiling had gone yellow, acoustic tiles stained with the familiar tinge of nicotine. Taped above his bed, a curled-up poster sporting a monkey would, were it in English, have encouraged him to Hang in there!

  Jack groaned and pulled the hard foam pillow over his face. It smelled of bleach and the rough casing tickled his nose.

  “You’re awake.” Pete herself looked barely that. She was curled in the plastic chair next to his bed, the black circles under her eyes speaking to days, if not weeks, of nights spent in the same place.

  “After a fashion.” Jack cast the pillow aside. Sound came back, the chatter of busy people outside the door of his room, the whoop of sirens from outside the walls, the hum and rattle of an overworked air conditioner blocking most of his window. Jack tilted his face toward it and let it dry his sweat. “Fuck me standing up, that’s nice.”

  “Brought you in after Hornby killed himself,” Pete said. “You were a bit shocky. That cut of yours was infected with god knows what. Doctor said it’s a miracle you didn’t lose your arm.”

  Jack felt himself over. He wasn’t tied down, so he hadn’t been raving crazy when he came in. There was an IV, and the pleasant cotton-wool feeling of sedatives. Jack laughed. “You didn’t tell ’em I’m a smack addict?”

  “In this country?” Pete rolled her eyes. “The very last thing I need at this moment is to spring you from some Thai prison, Jack.”

  Jack tried to sit up and the wallowing dizziness from the painkillers put him back down. Pete came to his side, laying the back of her hand against his forehead.

  “You all right?”

  “No,” Jack muttered. “I’m about seven shades of not right at the moment, luv.”

  Pete got him a cup of water and a straw and stuck it between his lips. “You’re dehydrated, too. Drink.”

  Jack obeyed, because even dubious city water seemed sweet at the moment, and when he’d emptied the pink plastic cup he sank back against the pillow, which gave not a whit. “Hornby’s dead, Pete.”

  “I was there, Jack.” Pete settled herself back in her chair. “Precious little to be done. We’ve got a flight home as soon as the infection is out of your system. I didn’t think you wanted to be around when police started asking questions about the dead farang.”

  “Hornby did the right thing,” Jack said. “He knew what he was in for and he topped himself. He made sure his soul stayed here. That’s the proper thing to do.”

  “Christ, you do say stupid things when you’re on drugs,” Pete said archly. Jack waved his hand. The IV needle scraped against the underside of his skin.

  In Jack’s mind, Hornby put his finger in the trigger of the gun and squeezed.

  Why had a mage had a gun, anyway? Didn’t he know they were for amateurs?

  Stupid sod.

  Jack pushed back the itchy coverlet and swung his bare feet to the floor. They stuck to it, and he fished under the bed. “Where are me boots?”

  “Jack, don’t be stupid. You need to stay in that bed,” Pete said. She rose, but Jack yanked out his IV needle before she could summon a nurse.

  “I need to go home,” he said. “My time’s almost up, Pete. It’ll go badly if the demon thinks I’m trying to do a runner like Miles.”

  “Jack . . .” Pete caught him as he swayed. Standing up too fast on downers was like pouring all of the blood out of your head.

  “I don’t want to think about what I’m doing and I don’t want a lecture, because I know it’s low and I know it’s fucking weak,” Jack said. “But I haven’t got a better idea, so I’m getting out of this fucking hospital and doing what I must.”

  He found his boots, yanked them on with difficulty. He couldn’t begin to manage the laces, so he let the tongues flop free. He was halfway down the corridor when Pete caught up with him.

  “Jack, wait!”

  “Not changing my mind, Pete,” he said. “You can argue if you like.”

  Pete shoved a plastic shopping back into his hands. “You forgot your jacket and your kit, idiot. I think you might need them if you’re intending to challenge this demon of yours.”

  “Cheers.” Jack slowed, subdued. “Pete, you don’t have to come with me, you know.”

  She sighed, brushing past him to the nurse’s station. “Him. The stupid bloody farang. He needs to sign out.”

  After their business with the hospital was complete, Pete walked with him to the street outside, where she hailed a motor taxi. “Let’s get one thing straight, Jack: I’m here until the end. One way or the other, I’ll be with you. So the next time you suggest I might want to preserve my delicate sensibilities, I’m going to punch you right in the gob. Clear?”

  “Crystal,” Jack said as he opened the taxi door. The demon waited for him in England. Hornby’s soul was planted here, sure as the stones that paved the bones of Bangkok. His innocent’s soul, which had made his shit deal for the right reasons and not out of paralyzing fear.

  Jack wasn’t sure which he regretted more.

  Chapter Forty-three

  England rose up to meet the jetliner gray and lacy with mist, the kind of silver-green day that poets scribbled about and tourists lost their wits over.

  Jack could have gone down and kissed the oily tarmac of Heathrow when the plane touched down, but the chill in his chest wouldn’t allow him that much happiness.

  He’d tried to cheat the demon. And he’d lost. He’d doomed Miles Hornby to his time in Hell and himself to go toe-to-toe with the demon.

  Pete sat beside him, but silent on the Heathrow express into Paddington. She’d stopped looking at him by the time they boarded the Hammersmith & City Line back to his flat.

  Pete thought he was going to die.

  Jack didn’t know that she was wrong.

  The tube rattled on its way and Jack mounted the steps, past the street market selling hijab and knockoff purses and kebab, past the White Hart pub, the closed-down shop fronts and shady money-changing kiosks, through the ebb and flow of the dark energy of the only place he’d ever really called home.

  The demon was waiting for them when they stepped through Jack’s front door.

  “Look at you,” it purred. “Home safe and sound, tanned and rested.” It rubbed the fingers and thumb of its left hand together. “I trust you brought me what I need, Jackie boy.”

  Pete fetched up against his shoulder, propelling Jack into the flat. His protection hexes hung in useless tatters from the demon’s passage.

  “This is him?” Pete said. Her fists curled into small knots of knuckle and bone.

  “It,” Jack said. “Not him, no matter what it chose to make itself look like.”

  The demon ticked its tongue against its teeth. “I’ll ask again, Jack—where’s my soul?”

  Jack ignored the feeling that the floorboards had dropped away from him, ignored that his heart was thudding so loudly it nearly drowned out his own voice. “Did you check the last place you had it? Or—hold up—behind the sofa?”

  The demon cocked its head, and Jack was on his knees. Blink, crash, pain. Jack’s air rushed out of him, but he didn’t make any sound. Didn’t let the demon know that it hurt. That was the first thing you learned—never show them that it hurt.

  “Where. Is. My. Soul?” The demon knelt and put a finger under Jack’s chin. He felt the nail sink in, and a trickle of blood work its way
into the hollow of his throat.

  Pete’s shadow fell over them both. “Let him go.”

  The demon’s black pits of eyes flicked away from Jack, looked to Pete, and came back to rest. Tiny flames danced in their recesses. “Got a better offer for me, my dear?” He licked his lips. “You offered yourself to Treadwell. You nearly died. Won’t be a near miss with me, I promise you.”

  “Pete,” Jack managed. “This isn’t your problem, luv. Get out of here.”

  “No,” she said. “It can’t have you.”

  The demon’s lip curled back. “If she keeps sassing me, Winter, she’s going to be joining your arse in the Pit. Am I quite clear?”

  Pete grabbed Jack’s arm, clung to him, and for once her power didn’t stir him up. The demon’s cold, inhuman, lizard-brained magic curled back from the onslaught of the Weir, and Jack’s sight quieted.

  “You can’t have her,” he echoed Pete. The demon laughed.

  “I don’t need her, Winter. I’ve got you.”

  “No.” Jack raised himself up from the floor with Pete’s help. The demon’s nail scraped across his jaw as he yanked away. “You don’t have me, either.”

  The demon stopped smiling. “What are you saying to me, boy?”

  Jack shook off the pain of the demon’s magic, made himself stand straight. “Your fucking soul is in Hell, one of Rahu’s charges. He had the right idea—shot himself in the face. You wanted Hornby, that’s where Hornby’s gone to. He didn’t cheat death in the end but he cheated you, right enough.”

  The demon’s eyes flamed to twin points. “This is not what we agreed on, Winter.”

  “It’s not,” Jack said wearily. “But it’s what you’re getting. You want him, you go and tangle with Rahu. I find myself curiously unmotivated to do anything else you ask.”

  He crossed his arms and waited for the demon to absorb the fact that his prize soul had slipped away.

  The demon lifted a shoulder. “Ah, well.”

  Pete shot Jack a glance. He bored his gaze into the demon. “Well? What?”