Demon Bound Read Online Free PDF

before it.
    “If you feel like talking about it, I’ll listen,” she said at length, her cigarette growing a long crown of ash as she failed to draw on it.
    Jack heard the need to keep pulling, keep interrogating in her voice, but Pete merely reached across the table and slid her hand over his, small and warm. “You know I would, about anything. The truth, heavens forfend. You haven’t scared me off yet, Jack.”
    Jack shut his eyes, pulled his hand from under Pete’s, and pushed back from the table. “I’m going to catch some kip,” he told her. “Been a long day already.”
    Pete whipped her hand back to her side as if she’d only intended to brush away crumbs. “I’ll leave you the washing up, then, since I got the tea.”
    “As long as you don’t mind it taking place at some future date,” Jack said, as he retreated to the flat’s only bedroom. His and Pete’s sleep was cyclical enough that one bed was all they needed, even if she hadn’t agreed to share with him yet. Her last words were lost to the door slamming.
    Jack leaned against the backside, an ancient Poor Dead Bastards poster crinkling against his head. He felt sick, the sandwich having its revenge on him, sight chipping in with a throb at the center of his forehead. His heart acceleratedas he remembered the pop of the Black, the way the demon was just
there
with nary a warning whisper in his mind.
    That could have meant he was dead. That was a serious problem for the longevity of Jack Winter, cock-up mage.
    Sweat broke out along Jack’s spine, his shoulders, all of the lines of his bones, and he grabbed for a fag, lit it with his finger with a savage snap, and inhaled so deeply that he started to choke.
    He sat on the bed and lay back, setting the smoke in the ashtray, where a thin trail of blue curled toward the stained ceiling, yellow flakes of plaster hanging on like scales.
    Pain in his head redoubled. His magic curled and howled inside his head, clawing for release, and perhaps it was a memory or perhaps it was a whisper, but again Jack heard and felt the wings of the crows, the inexorable wings and eyes of Death.
    The memory of being cold, bloodless, immobile, with stone digging into his back and pain through every inch of him, hit Jack like a boot in the mouth. He pressed his hands over his face, breathing shallowly. It didn’t help. Not one bit.
    Jack banged open the bedroom door and made a beeline for the loo, dropping his head over the toilet and vomiting until his throat burned and his abdomen ached like he’d just taken a fist to the belly.
    “Jack?” Pete’s feet rumbled up beside him, her hands went to his neck, his shoulder, fingers grazing through the bleached and ragged edges of his hair. “Luv, are you all right?”
    Gasping, Jack swiped his hand across his mouth. He should push Pete away, tell her there was nothing wrong with him past a bad sandwich. Should, and didn’t. Story of his bloody life.
    “I . . .” He looked up and caught sight of them in the mirror. Pete pressed her forehead against his temple, strokingthe back of his neck. Jack’s own eyes stared accusingly back at him even as he turned into her touch.
    The demon had come back to him. Jack’s thirteen years were nearly up.
    Bent over the bog, he considered facts. It was as good a spot as any to do so. He owed the demon a demon’s bargain, and when Pete found out the particulars she’d try to work him out of it. She was stubborn, and clever, and still thought that counted for more than it did in a place like the Black. She’d convince Jack he could find his way out of his entanglement, that Hell could be tricked, wheedled, or softened.
    And because it was a creature of Hell, and cruel, the demon would end her without a second thought when Jack tried. Or take her as his very own curiosity, the
soft, supple, willing
Petunia Caldecott, with her talent that let her talk to the Black and to the worlds beyond, to the Land of the Dead and even Hell