Demon Bound

looked different to him? “It could have been worse.”
    Hugh nodded. “Alice was with you?”
    “She’s up in Caelum now.”
    “And you want to return soon.” He stepped back, gestured for them to come in. “I’ll get Lilith.”
    “Okay—No, wait. Hugh.” He frowned, dragged through his memory. Khavi, standing in front of them. His arms wrapped around Alice. The painful dread that had flashed through her psychic scent. “Before I forget . . . what does this mean?”
    Hoping he didn’t screw it up, he parroted the first line Khavi had spoken to Alice, the one that had sent despair crashing through her.
    Hugh’s brow furrowed, and he echoed the words a few times, changing inflections until Jake nodded.
    “Yeah. That sounds right. Is it Greek?”
    “Yes, an old dialect. Someone said this to Alice?”
    Jake nodded.
    Hugh frowned. “Is she bound by a bargain?”
    Ice slipped through him. Had Khavi told Alice something about the outcome of it? “Yeah. What was it?”
    Hugh looked at Jake and sighed heavily. “They told her that because she does not fulfill her bargain, you will die.”
    “Huh.” Jake called in a toothpick, began chewing. He worked the exchange through, considered alternate meanings. And every way he looked at it added up to the same thing. “That sucks ass.”
    But Alice’s reaction to the news had been pretty sweet. He clung to that thought, and followed Hugh inside.

    For decades, Jake had only seen Hugh wear a monk’s robe, so the bare feet weren’t so unexpected. But seeing Lilith in cargo pants and a Hell’s Angels T-shirt, sitting cross-legged on an ottoman and twirling spaghetti onto her fork, was like stepping into the Twilight Zone.
    And it didn’t help that as Jake stood through his debriefing, Sir Pup was sniffing at his jeans and rubbing his huge heads up and down his legs. But at least the hellhound didn’t go for his crotch, and the wicked amusement in Lilith’s eyes whenever she glanced at the puppy was familiar enough that Jake didn’t feel compelled to teleport around, searching for a way back to his own dimension.
    There was a long silence after he finished. Drifter stood in front of a large painting of Caelum, his thumbs hooked into his suspenders. Hugh sat on the edge of his blue sofa, his elbows braced on his knees, his empty plate in his hands. Lilith swirled the red wine in her glass, her expression thoughtful.
    Finally, she glanced over at Drifter. “I’m waiting to hear the rest.”
    “Well, there ain’t much to add.”
    “Did Michael even tell you half of that?” Hugh looked doubtful.
    “All of it,” Drifter said. When Lilith’s eyes widened, Drifter admitted, “I’m still working through my own surprise that he volunteered so much. And I’ll tell you, not everyone was happy to hear that Michael is Belial’s son.”
    “I imagine not,” Hugh said dryly.
    “And everything else Michael told us matches up to what Khavi told Jake. Michael didn’t leave anything out.”
    “Did he tell you anything more ?” Lilith asked.
    “Not much. I figure the only bit Michael filled in was why Anaria thought she’d wipe out an army.”
    “Does it matter? She killed humans, and it wasn’t in self-defense. We wouldn’t give vampires any leniency if they did the same. We shouldn’t the grigori.”
    Funny to hear a former demon saying exactly what Jake thought—but since she did, he didn’t have to. He shifted his weight, trying to ignore the nuzzling behind his knee. If Sir Pup started breathing heavily, nothing was going to stop Jake from jumping.
    Jake hadn’t even detected any scent coming from Lyta, but the next time he came back from Hell smelling anything like a female hellhound, his flippin’ clothes were heading straight into an incinerator.
    Drifter shook his head. “No, Michael wasn’t explaining his decision—her killing them was reason enough for her execution. This was what came up regarding the question of why it was such a bad idea to have her take Hell’s throne.”
    Lilith’s brows arched. “Because she’s a psychopath?”
    “That would hardly make a difference,” Hugh said dryly. “Hell has a long tradition of being ruled by one.”
    Yeah. Being psycho was probably either a requirement for the position or an inevitability. “She wanted to make humans better,” Jake said. “I’m guessing she thought stopping a war would do that. And I bet she didn’t intend to stop just one.”
    “Was she a complete