Demon Bound

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 itself.
    As Pete murmured in his ear, her breath warm and her hands cool, her presence bringing him equilibrium like he was the wheel and she was the spoke, Jack’s own eyes in the mirror told him that Pete could never know the truth.

Chapter Five
    Pounding on the front door of the flat broke the spell. Pete heaved a sigh. “Bollocks, if it’s that neighbor brat from 402 again, I’m going to feed him his Transformer toys.” She grabbed a rag, ran water over it, and placed it on the back of Jack’s neck. “Stay put. Back in two ticks.”
    That was Pete, quick and commanding and certain. Never wavered, never doubted that she’d solve everything and set it right side up again.
    Jack pressed his forehead against the rim of the toilet bowl. He’d been low when he was shooting junk, but never as low as this. His lies had been small lies, of survival, cowardice, or necessity. The black dog treading in his footprints had never mattered, because no one else had ever been in range of its jaws. And now, just when the dog was close enough that Jack could feel breath on his neck, it mattered. Pete was an innocent, someone who hadn’t come to the Black willingly and borne the terrible price it exacted from anyone human. All the scars she bore were dream-scars, a set of nightmares about him and their timetogether, when she’d been barely sixteen. About the visitation of Algernon Treadwell and the hunger of Talshebeth, but the Black had left her relatively untouched. She was its child, a speaker