Demon Bound

blood dripped from her fingers as she signed, I will include one hundred twenty years of interest, and I’ll collect it from all of your associates. There will be no one left to return to Glory. Reconsider, demon.
    He shook his head. “Never.”
    “Are you done?” Jake’s voice was cold and flat in her ear.
    Yes. She gripped the hand at her waist. His Gift punched through her, and sent her spinning again.

    She was bound.
    Around them, sunlight filtered through a jungle canopy. The air was thick as sweat. Jake didn’t know where the fuck they were. Didn’t care.
    He didn’t wait until Alice steadied, could barely contain his anger. She didn’t flinch when he leaned over, his face an inch from hers.
    “You went in there, knowing that if he killed you, you’d be trapped in Hell for eternity .” Trapped, because she’d made a bargain, and obviously hadn’t fulfilled her side of it. But hadn’t said a thing, though Jake had been outside, ready to charge in if things got too fucking hot. “Knowing that if I had killed him, I’d be the one sealing your goddamn fate. That as soon as you died, you’d be down Below with your fucking head frozen into the ground. Because you didn’t say a fucking word to warn me.”
    Her blank expression didn’t change. And she couldn’t talk, because the demon bastard had crushed her goddamn throat.
    I told you he wouldn’t kill me, she signed with bloody fingers. And you heard; I still serve a purpose.
    “What fucking purpose?”
    His shout echoed through the trees. Birds startled, took wing. A monkey screeched in the distance.
    Alice’s lips pinched together. A Guardian who loses his temper risks losing all.
    He about lost it then. Jake spun away from her, his jaw aching with the force of his clenching teeth. Yelling at her didn’t help. And, Jesus—he could smell the blood that had poured down her side. The wound was sealed and healing, but it must still hurt.
    He’d been thinking of getting to a Healer. Instead he’d teleported here, ended up in bumfuck—
    He registered the trees, the river. Recognized them.
    Oh, shit. Of all the goddamn bad luck. He’d gone for a healer, all right. A dead one.
    Bobby Wolk. The medic had carried a picture of his girl in his jacket over his heart—wrapped in plastic so it wouldn’t get wet. Out here in the boonies, everything had gotten wet, started to rot.
    And not two yards from where Jake was standing, a land mine had once been hidden beneath rotting leaves. Shrapnel had ripped off half of the medic’s chest, his face, shredded the picture of his girl.
    It had been quicker than what the rest of them had faced.
    Jesus. Jake rubbed his eyes, said quietly, “Whose heart are you bound to deliver?”
    It had to be a heart. That much had been clear when she’d thrown the demon’s at Teqon’s feet.
    She didn’t answer. Couldn’t, since he wasn’t looking at her. It didn’t matter, though. Despite Teqon’s threat to Jake, there was only one heart that any demon would care about having.
    “Michael’s?”
    He turned as he said the name, and caught the way her eyes closed, as if she was trying to block out the truth. Even expecting it, the confirmation stunned him.
    “Jesus,” he whispered. “‘Loyalty is the utmost virtue’? How the hell could you make such a bargain?”
    She looked at him. Just stared at him, her eyes huge. Her mouth, her fingers didn’t move. Bruises mottled her throat.
    Jake shook his head. Wanted to be sick. Or to kill something. He faced the river instead, and began walking. He wouldn’t look back.
    “There’s a Gate twenty-eight miles south,” he said. “Try to make it there without betraying the rest of us.”

CHAPTER 7
    Two hours into the weekly poker game at the Special Investigations warehouse, Jake was out three thousand dollars—and having a difficult time giving a shit.
    Just as he’d hardly noticed when, thirty minutes after leaving the Black Widow behind in Vietnam, Alejandro had stabbed a sword through his thigh. Throw in Drifter’s fist and a cracked cheekbone, and a sick tension in his gut that wouldn’t go away—and Jake had one creepy Guardian as the reason behind his clusterfuck of a day.
    He just couldn’t get her face out of his head, the vision of her haunted eyes.
    And her goddamn bargain.
    “Jake, sweetie.” He glanced up; Pim was smiling at him across the table. If her legs had been long enough, she’d probably have kicked his shin beneath it. “Get your