Demon Bound

pressed down.
    For a moment there was nothing, just the slightly foreign sensation of a sharp under his skin. Then the warm tide ran up his arm, across his chest, over to his heart.
    It was good shit, pure and strong, and it hit Jack’s brain like plunging into a river of fire, kissed his skin so that he was surprised it didn’t begin to steam under the rain.
    Jack felt his head go back and scrape brick, and felt the sharp tumble out of his fingers. He wiggled the belt loose so the dose could work its magic unfettered.
    Welcome home,
the fix whispered as it wrapped a million fingers of oblivion across his sight and his mind.
I’ve missed you.
    Jack let the numbness steal over him and didn’t fight. The storm cooled his skin, but inside was warmth and forgetfulness. He slipped beneath the waters of the fix, and let himself drown.
    When he opened his eyes, lids heavy with the desire for a nod into the opium dreamland he knew too well, the demon was in front of him.
    It wasn’t the demon, not really. His sight didn’t flare and his blood didn’t chill, but seeing the wavering outline in the white suit, black coal eyes boring into him, sent Jack reeling. Acid boiled up in his stomach and he doubled over.
Not yet, not yet. Need to sleep, need not to dream.
He couldn’t vomit, couldn’t come down so soon.
    “Poor little Jack,” the demon purred. “Figured out that you’ve lost, at last.”
    “Go . . .” Jack choked down bile, his throat blazing. “Go away. I haven’t yet.”
    “No Hornby, no name.” The demon’s tongue caressed its lips like it could already taste Jack. “No name, no saving yourself. Demons lie, but I wouldn’t lie to you. You’re a special soul, Jack. I wouldn’t insult you that way.”
    “You’re not real,” Jack groaned. “You can’t be here.”
    “I will be.” The demon leaned close. Rain fell through him, hissing as it hit the pavement. The heroin was playing hell with Jack’s sight, his neurons exploding against his eyes, allowing the Black to twist and distort into something it wasn’t. The fix was his only shield against his sight for over a decade, and now it was showing him this. If Jack hadn’t felt like he was close to passing out facedown in the garbage-choked puddles at his feet, he might have laughed.
    “Go,” he gritted again. “I don’t see you. You’re not . . . you’re not real.”
    “Has that ever worked?” The demon chuckled. “I
will
be real, Jack. I’ll wrap a hand around your heart and the Weir will watch. She’ll weep. And she’ll die along with you, every time she remembers how you tried to change fate and didn’t.”
    Slow heavy swells of the fix rolled over Jack, made his speech slow and thick. “Fuck . . . off.”
    The door banged, metal on brick, and the demon was gone. In his place, small strong hands propped Jack up and a face dipped into view.
    “Jack!” Pete shook him, slapped his face. She peeled back his eyelid and he batted at her. Her touch spread warm tendrils through him, down to the core and the place that got him into more trouble than it got him out of. If he’d been able to stand with any reliability, he would have grabbed Pete in return, put her against the rough brick, and let the rain slick their bare skin.
    “’M fine,” he muttered.
    “You’re so bloody far from fine I can’t even say.” Pete’s voice shook, her fingers echoing the tremor. She jerked his chin to look, and she was holding the needle. “You went and did it, after everything? Everything I did to get you clean?”
    “Pete . . .” He exhaled. His lungs were slow and hot. The air was wet, too thick to move on its own. “You don’t understand.”
    Pete tossed the needle away and crouched in front of Jack, gripping his arms. “Make me understand. I want to have followed you here for something worthwhile, Jack.”
    Pete’s tears mixed with the raindrops on her skin, cutting furrows in her face. Jack tried to reach for them, wipe them away and make her smile, but he missed her cheek, letting his hand land on her shoulder again, tilting her slight frame under his weight.
    “Go home,” Jack said. “You don’t have to see me like this, Petunia. No need.”
    Pete brushed him off and Jack’s stomach opened like a pit. He fell sideways, retching, his gut rebelling against the onslaught of skag.
    “Fair warning,” Pete said. “Don’t order me about. I’m two seconds from kicking seven colors of shit from you, you bloody