Demon Bound

frayed, and worn, and now he’d broken. “Tell me, Pete. Tell me what exactly you don’t understand about my wasted, wrecked existence, because from where I’m standing it’s not that fucking complicated.”
    Her eyes filled but her fist came up, thumped against his chest like a second heartbeat, over and over. “How you could do it!” she shouted. “How you could do it when you’re Jack Winter!” She slumped against him, her fist unclenching. They’d traded bruises, now. Stood square and equal. Pete gave one shuddering breath and drew herself upright. “You’re not supposed to be the one with scars, Jack,” she whispered. “Because if you can be broken, that means I have to pick up the pieces, and it terrifies me, knowing what I know now, to think you won’t be there beside me someday soon.”
    Jack conjured a smile. Pete didn’t need to see the dark, twisted, terrified mess inside his chest. She needed to see his armor, the Jack she’d met a dozen years ago. “They haven’t got me yet, luv. And if this goes right, they won’t.”He passed the backs of his knuckles down her cheek. They came away warm, wet, and salty.
    Pete looked down, sniffed like she hadn’t let the tears come at all. “You promise me?”
    “Promise,” Jack said. And he meant it, for fuck-all a promise from him was worth. For Pete, he’d kick and fight and bare his teeth until the demon dragged him into Hell with claws in his hide. “Now, I need to concentrate on scrying, so what say we kiss and make up?”
    Pete choked a laugh. “Because nothing’s romantic as a head in a plastic wrapper. You sweep me of my feet, Jack Winter. Truly.”
    He dipped his head and planted a light brush of lips on her forehead. “I do me best.”
    Jao’s head still stared at him bug-eyed when he unwrapped it, lips swollen and tongue threatening to pop out from the mouth. Jack forced the jaws open with his finger and dug in his bag for herbs. He stuffed in his scrying mediums, a flat black stone, a twist of feather, and a clump of sage. He gathered Jao’s hair in a clump, attaching a length of linen string in a hardy knot.
    Jack cradled the head in his arms and stepped up on the rail, toes hanging into space, black water flowing under his feet like the tide of souls into the Bleak Gates.
    He held the head out in front of him like a rugby ball, wrapping the string around his knuckles. He lowered the thing by degrees, until it dangled a few meters above the water, and the feedback of black magic traveled up his arms and across his skin, burrowing deep.
    “Someone’s going to see us,” Pete warned.
    Jack rocked against the weight of the head, and the heady rush of energy all through his nerves. “’Course they will. However, I wager no one’s going to bother the crazy
farang
and his severed head.”
    Pete made a face, like she’d report him to the coppersherself if she had a choice. “Just be quick. That head is absolutely creepy.”
    The string in his fist gave a twitch, and Jack held up his free hand to Pete. “Hush.”
    Scrying wasn’t like summoning or exorcism. It was a quiet art, precise and delicate, requiring a steady hand and a steadier mind to keep the sharp pinpoint of focus on whatever it was you sought. Mages used ink, mirrors, or plain stone pendulums to find nearly anything. White witches stared at crystals and sorcerers used the writhing, sticky energy of necromancy to scry with human bodies.
    Mages could find ghosts, missing things, lost people, but to find a human being who wanted to stay hidden and cemented their chances with magic—that was the realm of the darker arts.
    The head moved. It swayed back and forth in a parabolic arc above the river water. Water, the great current that bound the spirit world and the light one, channeling the sorcerous energy into Jack’s search.
    Jack said, “Miles Hornby.”
    The head came to a stop at an angle, rigid, white eyes staring north. They rolled back toward Jack.
    He felt the magic squirm from his grasp, winding down the string to take up residence in Jao’s skull. Jack’s skin crawled, like it was trying to separate from his flesh and bone.
    The sorcery spoke, in a voice that was older than bone and more wicked than any demon. It filled Jack up until it spilled over, and as he watched the head’s jaws began to work, the swollen tongue flopping with the effort needed to form a word.
    Jack’s stomach and his balance lurched as the scrying spell gripped him, and he