Demon Bound

met her eyes. “I found them all, brought them out. Just in case.”
    “I see.” She let go of his hand, walked to the nearest tree, and took a long time settling the hatchling at the base of the trunk. Behind her, Ethan and Selah told Jake about their group’s search, and when Alice’s heart was not pounding so hard, she returned and relayed the same about Michael’s group.
    “We struck out, too,” Jake said when she finished. “Not even a demon or vampire, let alone a nephil.”
    “Well, we ain’t going to be sensing them once they get into human form and start blocking.” Ethan’s hat cast a shadow over his face, deepening his frown. “My feeling is, if there’s no vampires around—not in all the area any of us searched, including the cities—that it’s a sign the nephilim are staying in this region. Or have been visiting often, knowing where this site was going to be, and waiting for it to show.”
    A line of worry etched between Selah’s brows—and little wonder, Alice thought. They’d known large communities of vampires had been killed by the nephilim, but there’d been no indication that the smaller, more rural communities were in danger. But if the nephilim were quietly slaying those vampires as well, Lucas and the vampires in Ashland would be under the same threat as Seattle.
    “The first vampire massacre was in Rome,” Alice said. This grove was a few hundred kilometers southeast. “And the next in Berlin.”
    “Have you found any sites in Germany?” Selah asked.
    Alice shook her head. “Nor in the western United States. But I find most by luck—traveling to the right region at the right time.”
    “You won’t be limited by the Gates or travel time now,” Jake pointed out. “We can pop around as many places you need to, hit them once a week. Or once a day.”
    “That will be more convenient.” Noticing the subtle shift in Ethan’s expression, in Selah’s psychic scent, she added, “It must be nearing sundown now in Ashland and Seattle. If you wish to go, I will ask Jake to return with me to San Francisco. I’d like to finish with Zakril tonight. Michael has requested that we give the remains to him after we’ve gathered what we need for the tests, and I see no reason to delay.”
    Ethan looked to Jake. “That work for you?”
    “Yep. We might take a detour, but we’ll get there.”
    Ethan shook his head. “I’m meaning, does it work for you to give back the skeleton? You figure Michael’s hiding anything—and if that skeleton disappears, maybe something important goes along with it?”
    “Hiding something? Yes. Something we need to know, and that isn’t any different than the secrets we all keep? Dunno.” Jake rubbed at the back of his neck. Uncertain, Alice thought. And uncomfortable at being reminded how he’d questioned Michael before.
    Yet it had been right to do so. He’d raised doubt, but in doing so had forced Michael to clear it.
    His hand dropped to his side. “Yeah, it works for me.” He met Alice’s eyes. “And you?”
    “Yes.”
    “We will go then,” Selah said, and stepped closer to Jake, her blond hair fluttering around her shoulders. She rose up, kissed his cheek. “And congratulations. It came sooner than we expected, but we all knew it would come—and you are the first since the Ascension.”
    Jake’s brow furrowed. If it hadn’t amused Alice so much, she would have pretended it was the pink light in the sky that put the color on his face. “Uh, yeah. Thanks. But I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
    “That’s because you were gallivanting around when Michael first showed up at SI, and missed him correcting Alice when she referred to you as ‘novice,’ ” Ethan said. “Seems you did something that makes him consider you a full-fledged Guardian now.”
    “I did?” Jake ran his hand over his short hair, his eyebrows drawing together. Then his gaze settled on Alice, his irises like rings of polished blue stone. “Hot damn. So that was the ‘Well done, Jacob Hawkins’ thing.”
    Jacob. Behind her back, Alice tried it out over her fingers, liked the feel of it.
    “That sounds about right.” Ethan nodded. “I ain’t kissing you, though. We’ll probably have a little shindig for you at the gathering—”
    “Drifter!”
    “—so pretend you’re real surprised.” He grinned and held out his hand to Selah, who was scowling at him. “You going to drop me in a volcano now?”
    Alice didn’t hear her reply.