Demon Bound

halfway around the world. “But you must leave immediately upon our arrival.”
    “My Gift doesn’t always work that way—and I don’t think your little Lucy can make me jump.” He straightened and looked at her, his gaze assessing. “Those demons at the temple were only planning to torture you.”
    “Yes.”
    “So you’re assuming that Teqon won’t try to kill you.”
    She took a step back, crossed her arms. “Yes.”
    “What if you’re wrong? You can’t trust a demon, can you?”
    Blast. He knew he had her there. She shook her head.
    “So I’ll just hang around and watch your back.” His lips didn’t curve, but Alice was certain he was smirking inside. “And this way, you’re looking before you leap, being prepared—all of that smart Guardian stuff.”
    The wretch. She opened her mouth, closed it. Admitting defeat, she urged Lucy out of her pocket.
    Jake grinned and held out his hand. “Have you been to Cairo?”
    Alice scooped up the widow and placed her in Jake’s palm. “I was raised in the city. Why?”
    “I haven’t been. So I’ve got the idea of it in my head, the location—but nothing specific. It’ll help if you focus on it, too, and give me a good anchor.”
    She nodded and looked up into his face, attempted to call up an image from one of her recent visits. Perhaps of a jewelry stall in the marketplace, one that sold figurines and scarabs of lapis lazuli—Jake’s eyes were the same deep blue.
    Strange that she hadn’t noticed before.
    His fingers laced through hers. “And maybe you’ll tell me why you’re jumping into a demon’s parlor.”

    Flippin’ hell. He’d teleported, no sweat—but this wasn’t Egypt. They’d landed in a freezing attic, somewhere.
    Jake let go of Alice’s hand. Not wanting to see her disappointment, he didn’t look at her—just pulled out his GPS.
    The attic was big, but there was nothing unique about it. Wooden rafters. The style of the dust-covered chairs and tables suggested France or England—maybe the United States. Stars shone faintly through a small, high window, told him it was in the northern hemisphere. The sky was lightening with the approaching dawn. Definitely Europe.
    The GPS said Manchester, Great Britain.
    He glanced toward the other end of the attic, then stared. Jesus. Cobwebs filled the corners, hung like dirty veils from the rafters and between the posts of a huge, molding bed. And if that creepshow wasn’t enough, restraints were tied to each post, and leather cuffs rotted against the sagging mattress.
    “Leave,” Alice whispered beside him.
    Jake frowned, turned to look at her—then had to focus over the images of Cairo that suddenly flooded his head.
    Her eyes were closed, and she was shaking. “Leave now!”
    He grabbed her hand, pulled her in tight. And pounded his Gift as hard as he could.

CHAPTER 6
    An uncontrolled jump—and one bitch of a landing in a narrow alleyway. Jake barely had time to register the feel of Alice sprawled beneath him before she elbowed him off and scrambled up onto her knees.
    Lucy sat in her hand, and Alice was whispering to the spider—but Jake thought she was trying to calm herself, too.
    And he felt like shit now, dammit. “Look, Alice, I screwed up on that jump, and—”
    “I put it there.” She stood, her face and back stiff. “I didn’t control my thoughts, and put that location into your head. But we are here now, and it is forgotten.”
    Yeah, right. That’s why her heart was still beating like a jackrabbit’s.
    They’d jumped just after he’d asked her what the deal with Teqon was, and her thoughts had leapt to that location. But why would a woman raised in Egypt and with an American father think of England?
    That creepy attic hadn’t been touched in the past twenty years, since Alice had returned to Earth from Caelum. Whatever took place in that attic had happened when she’d been human.
    So the question was: Had that bed been hers, or had it belonged to someone she’d known?
    He watched her, but hadn’t a clue to her thoughts. Her emotions were blocked, and her expression was carefully neutral as she took in the tenements rising high on both sides of the alley, the rickety carts, the drying clothes strung over their heads.
    “We are obviously in the eastern part of the city,” she said. “How far to the demon’s home?”
    He consulted the GPS. “About half a kilometer southwest.”
    “Shall we walk, then?”
    Jake got to his feet, slapped the