Demon Bound

glance at the statue behind her. If that was Zakril, this was the feminine mold. The resemblance was unmistakable.
    The woman returned Alice’s stare, then looked beyond her, as if searching for someone. Confusion flitted over her features. “I am early,” she said in English, and her voice was like Michael’s, like Belial’s—a harmony from a single throat. “Or Michael is late. I saw him with you, but you are here, and he is not.” She tilted her head. The obsidian receded from her eyes, leaving irises of dark brown that focused on Jake. “You, then, are early—though it has taken you so very long to come.”
    “So long that you couldn’t put on a nicer welcome? Yeah, right.”
    Ebony brows pushed together in a puzzled frown. Her Gift rolled out like a wave, crashing against them. Alice widened her stance and loosened her grip on her weapon; she could strike faster if her wrists were relaxed.
    “Both of you are so weak,” she said, as if surprised. “And that one—Alice—is corrupted by Belial’s hand. But I see now that it was not of her choosing.” She vanished her black wings, landed lightly beside the hellhound. Eagerness hardened the curve of her lips, sent a shiver down Alice’s spine. “And I see that fire will cleanse it.”
    So she knew of the symbols carved into Alice’s shoulder. Either she’d heard Jake and Alice speaking while following them, or she’d sensed it another way.
    “And what, exactly, do you mean by that?” Jake asked as he vanished one of his swords. His hand caught Alice’s. His fingers squeezed in a rapid code. She considers Belial a corruption? Is that good or bad?
    The enemy of our enemy has never been our friend. Nosferatu, nephilim, demons.
    Vampires go both ways. Humans, too. What about maybe-Guardians?
    Alice had no answer—but she didn’t think Jake expected one.
    Their exchange had taken less than a second, between one breath to the next, and the woman was only now responding, “I only mean what I said: fire will cleanse the symbols.” Her gaze dropped to their linked hands. The force of her Gift gentled into a continuous ebb. “You will not leave here that way. Nor will Michael come for you.”
    Jake shifted his weight. Was that a threat?
    Alice was also uncertain. The tone had been more informative than anticipatory, and had been delivered in the same manner as the strange, nonsensical greeting. Early, late—and she’d expected Michael to be here, but now she said he would not be?
    No, Alice realized. She’d said she’d seen Michael with them.
    Could her Gift be foresight, or an ability to predict? she suggested, and opened her mouth.
    “Yes,” the woman spoke, frowning again in confusion. “I am a seer. Did I not introduce myself? I was certain I did. Perhaps I only saw it.”
    “You didn’t,” Jake said—and simultaneously against Alice’s fingers, Nut job .
    She feared he might be correct. Not that Alice doubted her foresight—only her stability. That does not make her any less dangerous, she said.
    No shit. He followed it with a soft squeeze, as if to assure her he hadn’t taken her warning any way she hadn’t intended. “So, care to fill us in?”
    The lines of bewilderment between her brows deepened. “ ‘Fill us in’?” Her Gift washed over them in a heavy wave, and Alice felt it draw something back with it, psychic sand dragged by the tide. The woman’s eyes closed, pain tightening her features. “I see that so much has changed. And that I should not rely upon only one of you for the language, when it, too, comes from the past. No, I do not tell you here. We are inside, for the nychiptera come.”
    I am completely lost, Alice admitted.
    You’re in good company, then. Jake paused. But I think she just said you talk like an old lady.
    How he’d managed to interpret that, she couldn’t say. Alice grabbed on to the one statement she had understood . . . partially. “What—”
    The woman was already pointing into the southeastern sky. “ Those are the nychiptera. Has Michael taught you nothing?” She lowered her hand, her expression taking on a faraway look. “Or did the threads pull them in after he left? I saw them come before he did, but I suppose they came after, for we only used the threads when we hid from him. Unless they were not drawn in by the threads, but brought here.”
    Alice didn’t respond. She could see the bats that made up the dark cloud now, their fangs and sharp talons. The hellhound