Demon Bound

grimoire and shoved it down into his leather where it rested snugly against his ribs.
    Rahu inclined his head. “May I ask you a question, mage?”
    “After I ask you one.” Jack backed away, so that he could touch the doors of the temple with his palm. “Where’s Hornby?”
    “The Christian cemetery north of the city,” Rahu said. “We burn our dead, but Hornby’s bandmates paid for him to be interred. What was left after the taxi finished with him, at any rate.”
    Jack shoved the door akimbo, letting in the sounds and scents of Khlong Toei. “All right. Ask yours.”
    “Why did you promise yourself to the demon?” Rahu folded his arms. “I’m curious, because your fate must have been beyond imagination to risk challenging Hell so.”
    Jack thought of Pete, of the demon’s covetous smile when he said her name. “I had someone needed looking out for,” he told Rahu.
    Rahu chuckled. “Lucky them.”
    “Take care,” Jack said. “And good luck with the whole memory-eating bit.” He stepped through the door, and back into the light.
    “I’ll see you again, mage,” Rahu called. “And next time, Kartimukha will feed.”
    “Yeah,” Jack called back. “Shaking in me boots and all that. Virtually pissing in fear. Cheers, Rahu.”
    The door shut, and he stood on the street. The Lexus had vanished, along with Rahu’s boys, so Jack began to walk back to the train line, to catch a car to Patpong. He would get his kit, take the grimoire, and go dig up Miles Hornby.
    He would make Hornby tell him how he tricked the demon and he’d take the poor sod home so that Jack could get close enough to do the same.
    But first, he was going to have a few choice words with Seth McBride.

Chapter Thirty
    After the train dropped him at Silom Road, Jack found his way down Patpong 2 and up the stairs by Club Hot Miami. He leaned his head against Seth’s door, and listened for three beats of his heart. Sounds of the telly emanated from within, along with Seth’s voluble cursing against the parentage of the goaltender on the screen.
    Jack braced on the railing. He put his boot against the lock and after two kicks the flimsy, rotted door flew inward to dent the damp plaster of the flat wall.
    Seth leaped from his armchair, lager can tumbling to the floor and spilling a sticky amber puddle across the boards. “Jack?” he exclaimed. “Crow and cross, boy.”
    Jack closed the space between them and hit Seth in the jaw, sitting him down hard in the puddle of lager. “Thought you got rid of me, Seth?”
    Seth’s eyes bled to white, and a shield hex rippled at the edges of Jack’s vision. He leaned forward and pulled Seth up by the front of his T-shirt, so that any hex the other mage threw would disintegrate Jack, but put Seth on his arse as well. “
You sent them to kill me
.”
    “Rahu wouldn’t kill you,” Seth scoffed. “He’s the master of Bangkok, not some thug fresh from the Pit. He was supposed to teach you a lesson and send you on your way.”
    “You have no idea what he did to me,” Jack snarled. He wanted to smother Seth with magic, break his bones, call a demon to feast on his entrails. But that was the old days talking, the old hates.
    Seth had found him, in the end. He’d kept Jack from passing through the Bleak Gates. For that, Jack dropped Seth back into his chair and paced to the window. The sun was setting across Bangkok, lighting the clouds on fire, orange tongues of airy flame scraping the iron sky.
    “He did it to me as well, you know,” Seth said after a time. “When I arrived. He judged me worthy to live in this city under his protection.”
    Jack leaned his forehead against the sticky glass. “What did he show you?”
    “’S not important,” Seth muttered. “A girl, some bad magic, a mistake. It was all a very long time ago.”
    “Well, mine wasn’t,” Jack said. His scars were itching, like they hadn’t in a decade. The thin lines were dessicated and covered over by track scars, but they burned now, like a hot razor was parting his flesh all over again.
    “Jack.” Seth sighed. “Here’s the truth—you burn things down. After you tried topping yourself and finished disgracing the brothers, I had to leave Ireland. I lost my life because of you, Jack. But I’m content here, and if you come in throwing your weight about, everything will go to ashes because Jack Winter doesn’t leave anything but death in his wake.” Seth stood and held out his hand. “Give me the