Demon Bound

owl spread its wingspan wide. A cloud rolled across the sun and the afternoon plunged into iron-gray dark. The owl took flight, alighting at the edge of the garden near the fallen stone wall that bound the estate, kept it from the encroachment of the moor.
    Jack went to the wide front doors, left them open in his wake, and crossed the sodden lawn to the tree by the stone wall where the owl had flown.
    When the sunlight fell through the clouds again, a woman stood under the tree. Though her hair was gray, her face was young, with the round, pale, unlined freshness of a pubescent girl.
    She extended her hand to him, fingers wide, as if tasting the air before his passage.
    Hello, Jack.
A bar of light fell through her, gray and diffused where it scattered through her form.
    A few steps from her, Jack caught a hint of the wild magic that rolled over the moor, the wild magic that had summoned the
cu sith
and distorted his sight. The power wasn’t coming from the moor this time, though. It came from the gray-wrapped figure in front of him.
    She regarded him with her golden creature’s eyes, while the gray mist that clad her pale form writhed and shifted in the Dartmoor’s changeable wind.
    “You,” Jack said. “That was you on the airplane.”
    Yes. You asked for safe passage. I granted it.
She smiled at him, with a coquettish tilt of your head.
You’re not an easy man to deny, Jack. I can see why she stays with you.
    From behind the tree, in the shadows, Jack heard a rumbling snarl and two
cu sith
blossomed from the dark spot on the ground, coming to stand at the girl’s flanks. On the tilt of the moor, a herd of
sluagh
drifted with the wind, howling and grasping at the wild magic of the earth. All around Jack, the world faded as the Black swelled and spilled over the edges of his unconscious, staining his sight like ink.
    “Why?” he said, keeping his eyes on the black dogs. “Why send this lot? What do you want from me?”
    Nothing.
The girl laid a hand on each
cu sith’s
head.
    “I’m confused, then.” Jack shoved his hands into his leather. “You’ve been following me since Paddington, for what? A laugh? Got a crush? Tell me, because I’m out of ideas, luv.”
    The girl stepped toward him, and though her countenance was calm and far less terrifying than either the demon or the Morrigan, Jack took a hasty step back.
    Her magic wasn’t something he wanted touching him, not a feeling he wanted to remember over and over again in nightmares that shot him screaming back into the waking world.
    You feel it,
she whispered.
You’ve felt it for months, since you found her again.
This time she was faster, and she pressed a hand to his cheek, pulling Jack down to her eye level. The gold burned, roiling with liquid witchfire as magic flared in the girl’s gaze.
    “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jack said flippantly. “All I’ve felt is a great and overwhelming desire to stab meself in the forehead to end the visits of things like you.”
    Her nails dug into his cheek.
Watch yourself, mage. You may be able to speak to the hag so, but I’m a different breed.
    Jack flinched, blood dribbling down is jaw. “I know.” He sighed. “I know what you are.”
    The girl’s smile curved up at the ends, became predatory.
Say it.
    Jack shut his eyes, to close off that burning gaze, the triad of youth, magic, and death that marked the girl for what she was. “You’re the Hecate.”
    The girl’s tongue flicked over her pale lips, and she withdrew her hand, running her fingers through Jack’s blood and painting streaks down his cheek, covering his scar.
    I am the guardian of the gateways. And you are the crow-mage, so I have come to give you this courtesy.
She stepped back, cradling the head of the black dog against her.
Don’t tell me you haven’t felt it, Jack. Your magic curdling within you. Your sight is clawing your mind to pieces.
    Jack looked out toward the moor. The sun was falling, slowly but surely, painting the tops of the hills with pale fire.
    “Yeah,” he said. “I noticed it. Same shite, different day, you know?”
    It is not the same, crow-mage.
The Hecate sighed.
The Black is in turmoil
.
The ways between the worlds are choked with corruption. You know what is coming, Jack, and what you must do.
    “I haven’t the faintest, darling,” Jack said. “All you old ones can never just spit it out, can you? Always got to dance in circles until your feet bleed.”
    There is war