Demon Bound

cornfield often, but had forgotten how that particular adventure had ended: his granddad had snuck up behind and scared the piss out of him.
    He’d screamed and taken off running.
    Jake shook his head, grinning. No wonder he’d tried to forget that part. His ten-year-old pride had been shredded.
    His sixty-year-old pride withstood being scared all the time—but stumbling around here wouldn’t get him very far.
    He searched through his hammerspace, his mind skipping over each item. There’d be something he could use. He’d never bothered to store a flashlight; he’d never needed one.
    Still didn’t. The dim backlight from his cell phone lit the chamber like a carbide lamp.
    It took a moment to register what he was seeing. The enormous chamber was terraced. A deep, rectangular pit had been carved into the floor of each level, with steps leading to the bottom. A colonnade surrounded the room; behind the rows of columns, giant arched entryways led east, west, north.
    A bath, he realized. A Roman bath. Sculpted out of solid granite.
    Inside a mountain.
    Two or three thousand years ago, someone in Tunisia had been flippin’ insane.
    Jake lowered the crossbow to his side, tossed a coin out of his hammerspace. Heads, so he went east.
    An antechamber lay past the bath. Jake stopped, blinking up at the arch leading out—a line of symbols had been carved above it. Aside from the columns and the design of the temple, it was the first indication of a specific culture he’d seen.
    But the symbols weren’t Latin or Greek. He’d have recognized those. No, this reminded him of a script he’d only seen engraved in living flesh and used to cast spells.
    A shiver ran up his spine. He turned and backed beneath the arch into the next chamber.
    It didn’t have to be the demonic script. There were many ancient languages he didn’t know. He’d take a picture on his way out—another Guardian would recognize it, or he’d find a reference in the Archives.
    Where he’d probably have to ask the Black Widow.
    The shiver worked its way back down. The woman was straight-up creepy: always draped in black, playing with her spiders, and moving like a mechanical bird that’d been wound too tight. Talking to her made him feel eight again, his buddies daring him to trick-or-treat at Old Man Marley’s house.
    Finding the courage had been easy enough, but he’d still walked away with runny Jell-O for knees.
    They almost gave out again when he turned and his phone illuminated the chamber. Whoa, boy.
    The bath had been enormous; this was a cavern. His light didn’t penetrate to the ceiling. The black granite floor had been polished to a mirror sheen—and at the opposite side of the chamber, a winged statue overlooked the room.
    Her braids were a crown, her wings folded behind her, her arms bare. Despite the sword she brandished in her left hand, her expression was serene.
    Jake estimated that, even at an inch over six feet, he stood no taller than her ankle.
    There’d been crazy bastards living here, for sure. But they were talented crazies. The statue all but breathed with life.
    But damn if he would be intimidated by it.
    Awe was acceptable, though, he decided, forming his wings and crossing the chamber by air. He did awe very well: wide eyes, slack jaw. Hell, the first couple of decades in Caelum, surrounded by amazing architecture and beautiful, often-naked women, he’d done nothing but awe.
    He missed those years.
    Unfortunately, the statue wasn’t naked. Even in granite, her draped gown appeared fluid, as if caught by a wind.
    Jake landed, casting measuring glances to the sides of the chamber. His gaze narrowed on the walls behind the colonnade. There were the friezes he’d expected throughout the temple, ringing the room with their life-sized scenes. From this distance, shadows obscured their details.
    And, he realized, the primary statue was just off-center. Judging by the large rough patch on the floor, there’d once been another figure in front and to the left of her.
    Kneeling, he thought. Her face was downturned, and her right hand extended before her thigh, like a benevolent queen bestowing grace upon her subject.
    Had it been a willing supplicant, he wondered . . . or a conquered one?
    The tips of her fingers were broken off. She’d probably been touching the other figure, had been sculpted from the same stone. So removing it had destroyed part of her, as well.
    Jake eyed the fingertips. They were too lifelike, and