Demon Bound

presence, she’d been able to focus on the work, and let her emotions settle.
    And become aware that the uncertainty she was feeling now hadn’t just been over Teqon, and Jake’s sudden appearance. It was this chamber.
    All of the sites had been mysteries, had offered more questions than answers. Yet this one simply didn’t fit .
    But why? Was it just the difference of being a burial chamber? Her gaze skimmed past the entrance, open to the long, narrow shaft that led aboveground, to an olive grove in the Italian country-side. The Etruscan frescoes on the walls were of the same scenes she’d seen before—and the technique of plastering stucco over stone before painting them had been used once in India. The dais was nothing more than a limestone slab, but she’d seen many of those before, too. Not in any of the temples—but many sarcophagi rested on similar stones in other, human-made chambers. The red ochre staining the walls and ceiling was common to many burial sites, as well.
    Jake stood, yanked the wires to his headphones, let them dangle from his fist. “This place is a mess. Like a couple of guys from different eras came in and slapped it together as fast as they could.”
    There was her answer—and he managed to surprise her, yet again. “Yes,” she agreed. A muddle of styles and influences. “There’s no coherence.”
    “Yeah. They’re just pulling sh— stuff in from everywhere. But not the materials, because look at this.” He used the toe of his boot to tap the side of the dais, then pointed at the long, low niche in the wall. “The grain in the stone matches. So they just cut out the block, and plopped it right here in the middle.”
    “Then didn’t cover the hole it left, though it disturbs the symmetry of the room.”
    Jake nodded, then turned toward her. “But here’s the weird thing: they’re the same size. Exactly. If we slid that baby back in, we wouldn’t see more than a hairline crack.”
    Alice blinked. “Are you certain?”
    “Yep.”
    Impossible. That left no room for a tool to cut the block from the face of the stone. And even a Guardian couldn’t vanish a portion of something into his cache; an object had to be vanished in its entirety. Unless . . .
    “It could be a Gift,” she said. And thinking of it, she pulsed her own. “I’ve seen Irena do something similar with a piece of metal she was sculpting. And before the Ascension, there were a few who had an affinity with stone, but I never saw how they . . . Oh, dear. Five people have just come into the entrance shaft and are walking this way.”
    “Humans?”
    She pressed again, sensed the heat of their bodies. Not hot enough to be demons, not cold enough to be nosferatu or vampires. “Yes.”
    Frowning, he walked to the chamber entrance. There was no door to close it. Alice sighed, then began vanishing her things. She could hear voices now, indistinct.
    Jake backed up a step. When his sword appeared in his hand, Alice called in her naginata.
    They aren’t speaking Italian, he signed.
    Alice leapt over the dais, was beside him instantly. The voices were distorted down the long, zigzagging corridor—and the five had already moved past the first bend. She had no spiders waiting there.
    She listened, then met his eyes. Though she didn’t know the language, she recognized the rhythm, the sound.
    Demon tongue, she told him. The Old Language.
    Teqon? Would he have found you again, sent more?
    Had she mistaken the temperature? She stared down the darkened corridor. Oh, bother. If it was a demon, she’d already revealed herself by using her Gift.
    She shot a psychic probe out, swift and pointed as a bolt from a crossbow. And quickly raised her shields again, her skin crawling.
    The voices fell silent.
    Demon? Jake asked, studying her.
    I don’t know, she signed. Dark. Strong. I haven’t felt it before.
    His face hardened. Though he aimed it away from her, she felt the blast of his own probe.
    I’ve felt it, he signed. Nephilim. Which means we get the hell out of here.
    She hesitated, and Jake shook his head, a slight smile on his lips. Don’t even think about it, oh goddess of mine. We’ve got vampire blood, so we could take one on, maybe two. Five, and we’re toast.
    He was right. And this time, he had the experience and knowledge. He’d faced the nephilim alongside Ethan and Alejandro on two separate occasions, whereas she’d never seen one.
    But she despised the thought of them coming into this