Demon Bound

Posturing with citizens of Hell never ended well, but actingthe hard man was natural camouflage when he was backed against a wall. “Your business is with me, not with Pete. Stop threatening her, and stop sending your fucking Fae emissaries to chase me all over creation. I’m not some bare-breasted twit in a B-grade horror movie, so don’t think you can frighten me with a few loose ghosties in a train station and some chatty cunt of a
cu sith
on the moor.”
    The demon frowned. The expression was unnatural on its face, like watching a dead body try to frown once its muscles had seized in rigor mortis. “I have no idea what you’re babbling about.” It tossed the denim at him. “Put your pants on, mage. You and I have matters to discuss.”
    The demon stared out the window, breath making wing-shaped patterns on the glass, while Jack dressed and splashed water on his face. Post-coital warm fuzzies lasted exactly as long as it took him to either realize his girl of the night was three pints south of shaggable or for a boyfriend to burst in.
    Or demon, as the case might be.
    “This place,” the demon murmured. “It’s a dead place. How do you stand it?”
    “Not planning on being here much longer,” Jack said. “Doing what needs doing and going home to London.”
    “Enjoying what time you have,” the demon murmured. “Most people would call you a bright lad.”
    “Why are you here?” Jack leaned against the sink but he didn’t relax. “You appear to me in the loo to have an idle chat, or, let me guess—you’re lonely.”
    “I wanted to speak with you, Jack,” the demon said. “Not as an adversary but as a mage. Can you do that? Put our dealing aside for the moment and listen?”
    “You prepared to rescind your claim on me?” Jack asked. “Because I’m
not
putting anything aside, and if you’re not prepared to offer something, you can fuck right off back to the Pit.”
    “Jack.” The demon sighed. It folded its arms, and back-lit against the glass it looked almost angelic, if angels had existed. “I could have left you to die that day when you called for me, and instead I reached out my hand. So I think maybe, just maybe, you should leave off your complaints and show me a bit of fucking respect.”
    The air around the demon’s form flared with power, and Jack grabbed his forehead. The demon stretched and grew, a black shadow robed in smoke, the same black stone eyes boring into him like drill bits.
    Jack shut his eyes. He let the old mantra pound through his skull.
Not there. Not real. Not real. Not real.
    The demon gave a soft chuckle. “Just remember who you’re dealing with, boy. Do you want to hear my proposition or not?”
    Jack massaged at the throb in his temples, ineffectually. “All right, then,” he said. “Talk. Thrill me.”
    “When we met,” the demon said, “I chose to bind a bargain with you because I sensed something of the demon in your nasty, soot-stained little soul.”
    “I think your crystal ball needs adjusting, mate,” Jack said. “I’m just plain old flesh and blood.”
    “Mostly blood, as I recall.” The demon chuckled. “Jack, in spite of your mouth and that sullen mien, I do like you, boy.”
    Jack braced himself on the sink. “So you came to me for a lift, is that it?” The door was only two feet from him—if he needed, he could be through it and to his bag of tricks before the demon had time to worm its way past his shield hex.
    “I know that even though you’ve got a weakness for flesh and a bigger one for drugs, you’re one of mine, boy.” The demon regurgitated the phrase with a sneer. “You’re a liar and a cheat and you think you’re far cleverer than you actually are—”
    “And I am, really,” Jack interjected. “Quite clever. Cause of and solution to all me problems, cleverness.”
    The demon gave him the blade edge of a smile. “If you were
that
clever, Jack, we wouldn’t be talking.”
    “If you didn’t have the pressing need to hear your own voice, we wouldn’t be talking either,” Jack muttered.
    “Don’t think I don’t know you would wriggle out of my bargain in a moment if you
were
clever enough,” the demon purred. “Or that I don’t know your little mind is whirring away even now, wondering,
How can I flip and flop and squirm out of yet another tight spot
?” It reached out and patted Jack on the cheek. “You can’t. And the fact that you haven’t openly tried any foolishness is the only reason