Demon Bound

“I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Jack had admitted the same truth to Seth close to twenty years ago, when Seth had found him turning conjure tricks on the streets of Dublin, sat him down, gave him a fag, and asked him where he’d come from. The crow spread her wings over Jack that night, folded him into her purview, but he felt no such darkling comfort now.

Seth grumbled out a string of curses, but he moved to the side, jerking his head at Jack. “Fuck it. Come in, then.”

Jack shouldered his bag and stepped cautiously over the threshold. Half expecting to feel the teeth of Seth’s warding hex lock into his skin and his sight, he only relaxed when McBride snorted at his tension. “I wanted you face down, Jackie, you’d be swallowing your teeth now and you know it.”

Jack itched at the back of his neck as his talent prickled at another’s encroachment. “Suppose that’s true.”

“Fucking right, it’s true. I am sorry about that belt, though,” Seth said. He stubbed out his fag into an over-flowing ashtray that lived in the belly of the ubiquitous Buddhas that gri

“No you’re not,” Jack said. He went in Seth’s minuscule freezer and found a packet of frozen mixed veg that was dated three years past. Sticking it against his face helped with the dull ache, but not the sting. “You haven’t been sorry for a thing since the doctor slapped you on the arse and made you cry.”

“All right, probably not so very much,” Seth admitted. He settled himself in a cracked vinyl armchair in front of a telly crowned in rabbit ears, lines of color wavering up and down the pocket-sized screen over a Thai cricket match.

Jack looked out the back window, down into an alley. Gri

“Now,” Seth said, leaning his bulk forward and turning down the volume of the telly. “What the fuck are you babbling about, you owe a demon a bargain?”

Jack talked, keeping the packet against his face. The telly burbled underneath his voice, discordant counterpoint to the story of the demon, the cu sith, the fetch, and Miles Hornby. Seth stayed quiet for a time after Jack finished the whole sordid mess. He changed among four equally distorted cha

“I just need your help finding the bloke,” Jack said. He wanted to keep his tone even, truly, but he felt restless and itchy inside the cramped little flat that had to be over a hundred degrees even with the arthritic fan in Seth’s window bringing in cooking smells and the low-pitched roar of the city outside.

“Always a just with you, boy.” Seth sighed. “Just needed a little training. Just needed to translate the sorcery grimoire. Just needed to make deals with fucking cocksucking Hellspawn demons . . . ”

“Oi!” Jack dropped the frozen packet on the counter and slammed his hand down with it. “You’re no paragon of virtue, Seth. I saw you do things in the bad old days that would have curled the hair of any respectable sorcerer, so cut out this Catholic schoolboy act and either throw me out on my arse, or get off of yours and sodding help me.”

Seth heaved himself out of his easy chair. “You don’t want help, Jack. You want a fuckin’ miracle.”

“Is that so wrong? Your people pioneered that sort of thing, least that’s what you were always bending my ear on.” Jack touched his cheek again and winced. “You know, for an old man, you’re quite violent. Better watch that. Might break a hip.”

Seth pointed a stubby finger in Jack’s face. “Don’t tempt me to make your other cheek match, you Limey arse-jockey.”

“Like you could land a hit on me again, you cabbage-swilling altar boy–fancier.” Jack sighed. “Does this mean we’re all right?”

“You will never, ever be ‘all right,’ Jack Winter,” Seth growled. “But you and me—that’s for another day.” He grabbed a bottle of cheap scotch with a Thai label from his cabinet and two cloudy glasses. “You take water?”

“’S like asking if I take piss,” Jack said. “Has it really been that long?”

Seth poured Jack two fingers and himself four. Some things never changed. “I heard you’ve bypassed the bottle entirely of late,” he said, tossing back most of the whiskey and wiping a hand across his lips. “Moved on to a more direct method of getting yourself pissed.”

“No,” Jack said, cold crawling over his skin in spite of the damp, close heat. His sweat turned to ice at the thought of the pinch of a syringe, the cool presence of the needle and the hot, sweet rush into his blood when he pushed down the plunger. Can’t ignore me forever, the whisper came. You’ll come home, one day.

“No,” Jack repeated. “I’m clean.” Even true, it sounded like a lie.

“Good.” Seth dropped his glass into the sink, causing a scattering of something alive and gifted with an excess of legs. “You were never that stupid when I knew you, Jackie.”

“That’s because I could still tell what was real and what was a phantom,” Jack muttered. “Those were the fucking golden years, for sure.”

“I don’t know this Miles Hornby, but I’ll make some calls,” Seth said. “Meantime, I suggest you take what time you have and enjoy our fair city.”

Jack took a seat in the only other chair in the room, a suspicious wicker contraption that creaked under his weight. “No offense, mate, but I think the nightlife here might be a bit carnivorous, even for me.”

Seth cocked his eyebrow. “Got someone back home? That’s a new one.”

“No one special.” Jack finished off his whiskey. It burned like drain cleaner going down and no doubt tasted like it coming back up.

Pete would be awake, would have weathered an entire day and night with him gone. Or started a torch brigade to find and burn him. Pete wasn’t sentimental, but she was vindictive. She wouldn’t simply slap him across the face and be done with it.

“If you’re not going to find something to fuck or get pissed, you should sleep,” Seth’s voice broke in. “You look like seven kinds of shite dragged across Dublin, boy.”

Jack looked around the single room and dinette that made up Seth’s mildewed, sweaty flat and felt his skin crawl up the back of his neck. Magic had nothing to do with it—the years of sleeping rough voluntarily were behind him in his twenties and the place reminded him of nothing so much as a squat. Add in a dozen or so junkies and a bucket in the corner and the experience would be authentic.

“On second thought,” he said quietly, “I could use some company.”

“That’s my Jack,” Seth hooted. “An eye for the ladies and a taste for the underbelly.” He slapped Jack on the shoulder. “Enjoy yourself, mate. I’ll send someone for you when I find something out about this Hornby.”