Demon Bound

not?”
    “You have met her.” Michael formed his black wings, exchanged his tunic and pants for a toga. “And I believe it is time to bring her home.”

    How very odd.
    Khavi and Michael faced each other for the longest time, simply staring without speaking. Then Khavi laughed and spoke in the demon language. Michael sighed and bent his head, and let Khavi rub her hands over his shorn hair.
    “It’s the Twilight Zone,” Jake said.
    Friends, do you think? Alice signed with an arch look.
    I can’t tell. Holy hot hell. Is the hellhound coming to Caelum?
    Alice felt a little faint at the thought—but she supposed everyone else felt the same at the thought of Nefertari. I wonder if Khavi will teach—
    “Yes,” Khavi said. “You will learn from me. The symbols, the magic. The demon language.” She frowned, and looked to Michael. “I can already see that she will be a challenge.”
    “Oh, dear. How lovely my future seems.”
    “Yes.” Khavi’s gaze didn’t move from Michael’s. “But not yours. The nephilim will find Anaria. I believe they already have.”
    Michael nodded, touched her forehead, then a glyph on her cheek. “We will not falter.” He turned to Jake. “Will you please ask Alejandro to come?”
    “He does,” Khavi said. “Very quickly.”

    Alice gave Khavi the same strip of leather that Irena had given her; long before Michael called a halt to the cleansing, Khavi had bitten through it.
    And they had not removed even a significant percentage of the symbols from her skin—only those that prevented her from teleporting and altering her human appearance. Now Khavi could shift and conceal the symbols remaining on her skin until she was ready to cleanse them.
    So it was enough, Alice thought later as she sat with Jake on the steps to Michael’s temple, watching Lyta sniff uncertainly at a marble column—watching the other Guardians uncertainly watching Lyta.
    Then Selah arrived, and it was not much longer before the delayed celebration for Jake was in full swing. Alice hadn’t attended the last few celebrations before the Ascension, but she suspected this one was quite different from any that had been thrown before.
    With a slice of pizza in his hand, Ethan dropped down beside her, stretched out his long legs. He pulled a second slice out of his cache for Jake, and passed it to him over Alice’s lap. She lifted a piece of pepperoni as it went by, but waved away the offer of a whole slice.
    “I’ll eat yours, then,” Ethan said. “You figure anyone’s ever played . . . What do you call this, Jake?”
    “Nine Inch Nails,” he supplied, and Alice laughed as his T-shirt changed.
    “Nine Inch Nails in Caelum before?”
    “No.” Alice glanced over at the large battery-powered stereo one of the novices had brought. There were many things in the past one hundred and twenty years that she needed to catch up on. Music, she decided, would be at the forefront.
    “I’ve played it here,” Jake said. “Just not at this volume.”
    Alice’s gaze landed on Khavi and Michael, who were speaking with Alejandro across the courtyard. “Perhaps the volume is a blessing—she might not hear everything that is being said of her.”
    Jake shook his head, his jaw tight. “What they should be saying is, ‘Thank flippin’ God that we’ve got two grigori on our side now that Anaria’s loose and with the nephilim.’ ”
    “Well, according to the prophecy, the nephilim will be defeated—one way or another.” Ethan met Alice’s eyes. “Is it right that everything she told you would happen, did happen?”
    “Yes. I didn’t fulfill my bargain; Teqon put a sword through Jake’s heart.” Her voice was steady, but she slid her hand over Jake’s, and reassured herself with a touch.
    “Except my shirt,” Jake said, squeezing her fingers. “Alice changed that.”
    “But Khavi didn’t tell you the rest—that Jake had Fallen first, and that he’d live through it, be transformed again. Or that you wouldn’t need to be fulfilling your bargain after you were released from it. Didn’t she know?”
    Alice couldn’t claim to be surprised when Khavi appeared in front of them. Michael joined her a second later.
    “Of course I knew,” Khavi said, frowning. “But they might have acted differently if I had told them the outcome. This way, he Fell on his own, rather than at my suggestion.”
    “Yet you still influenced their actions when you told Alice what you saw,” Michael pointed out.