Demon Bound

pictures. Alice shook her head. She knew what Khavi was referring to, yet didn’t understand it. But she imagined that even if they had more time for explanations, it would still not make sense. “If they are in-between, how is it that they appear on Earth?”
    “The threads that power the symbols fade. I am sometimes very quick to repair them.” She shrugged. “Other times, I am not.”
    Jake crouched next to a cylinder. “How’d you prevent just Michael from seeing it?”
    “We used his blood.” Khavi frowned. “I suppose I could remove that part of the spell now. The threads might not fade as quickly.”
    “That’d help. Especially if the nephilim plan to do their rituals again; maybe he could go in and kick some ass.” Jake looked over his shoulder. “Why hide from Michael in the first place?”
    Khavi moved toward the rear wall of the chamber. “We have not much time.” A dagger appeared in her hand, and she sliced her opposite forefinger, began writing symbols on the bone surface.
    The disappointment in Jake’s eyes sharpened into calculation. “Alice has hot water.”
    How very clever. Khavi’s hand stilled, and Alice sweetened his offer. “Enough to fill your upper and lower baths.”
    No blood dripped to the floor when Khavi turned; her finger had already healed. “You are bribing me.”
    “Yep.”
    “And so it seems that Michael has taught you something after all.” Pleasure and anticipation danced in her brown eyes. She gestured to the ceiling. “We will make the exchange there—and quickly, so that Belial will not detect the moisture.”
    It was almost instantaneous; Alice dropped the water out of her cache into the air, and Khavi vanished it.
    “Now, do not interrupt. There is much to tell you, for I cannot explain why we hid without explaining what it meant to know someone like Anaria.” She cut her finger again, and spoke while drawing more symbols. “She was the light. Zakril was, too, and so were others—but none were quite like Anaria. She looked at the world without cynicism, and you wished you could see it as she did. She would speak, and you wanted to believe her. Unlike many humans we knew, she did not wear her goodness as a false face—that would have been impossible to hide from us. It went through to her heart; her thoughts were all kindness, even to those who did not deserve it. Her humor and her manner were as sweet as Michael’s were wicked.”
    Alice opened her mouth at the same time Jake did. They caught each other’s gaze. Instead of speaking, he grinned and signed, Michael, wicked?
    She pursed her lips. No, she could not imagine it, either.
    But she could also not imagine a woman like Khavi was describing.
    Khavi pierced her finger again, watched the crimson drop form on her decorated skin. “Anaria balanced him. We all measured our kindness against hers, used her example as a guide when we felt called to walk the darker paths. Michael was always our head, and the strongest of us in spirit—but she was the heart. We loved her unreservedly. Zakril, more so than all of us, and Anaria him in return. Their bond formed when they were children; in the spring before Lucifer brought the dragon up from Chaos, they were married.” Her gaze unfocused. “I have not thought of spring in years. What season is it now?”
    The wistful query made Alice’s throat thicken. “In the north, it is late autumn.”
    “I would go south, then.” She licked the blood from her fingertip. “I do not know when Anaria began to visit Lucifer. A hundred years after we went to Caelum, or a thousand—it had become difficult for me to measure time. But the reason for her visits was clear, and when we eventually learned of them, I do not know why we were surprised.”
    “Let me take a wild guess,” Jake said, his voice flat. “She wanted kids and she thought Lucifer would know how to make some. What’d they get instead—the nephilim?”
    “I . . .” Khavi blinked, her eyes hardening to obsidian. “Yes. But they were not Lucifer’s .”
    “Zakril’s?” Alice wasn’t certain if it was sadness or horror weighing so heavily in her belly. “How?”
    “Lucifer had—still has—the body of the dragon Michael had slain. I do not know the method or spells Anaria and he used, only that her body rejected their attempts. So the women in the Pit carried the children to term.”
    It was horror. Silently, Alice moved closer to Jake, until she could feel the warmth of his arm