Read Demon Bound for Free Online

cuppa? We were just having tea.”
    Naughton nodded his assent and then stuck out his hand to Jack. “Nicholas Naughton, Mr. Winter.”
    Jack watched his eyes follow Pete’s rear end, showcased in black denim as it was, into the kitchen, and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I don’t shake hands,” he explained. “Might get a look at something both you and me don’t want eyes on.”
    It was a better class of rudeness than Jack’s first impulse, which was to pull the smarmy git close and kick him in the balls.
    But Pete’d rip his tackle off if Jack insinuated her honor needed defending, and so he settled for staring at Naughton until the other man backed up a step. And then another. Sweat worked in a fat drop down his neck, into the collar of his cashmere.
    Staring was a vastly underrated talent to Jack’s mind—fix a bloke with a dead man’s stare, put the full force ofyour magic behind it, and watch him piss his pants for reasons even he can’t entirely explain.
    Naughton had practically climbed up into the crown molding of the front hall by the time Pete returned with tea. “Jack,” she scolded, “at least offer him a place to sit down.” She gestured at Naughton. “In the front room, please, sir. We can discuss your problem there.”
    “Call me Nicholas,” he said, the charm crawling back into play like a rodent curling up in a warm place. He shot a glance back at Jack, who’d brought up the rear. Jack dropped him a wink, and put some power behind it. Nothing fancy, just nightmare fodder for the next few weeks. Eyes, fire, secret black places, perhaps a touch of the old Oedipal complex.
    It was petty, but after the day he’d had, Jack felt he’d behaved with remarkable restraint.

Chapter Six
    Naughton sat on the sofa and Pete took the armchair, leaving Jack to perch on the wide windowsill. He nudged it open and lit a cigarette to cover the taste of vomit in the back of his throat.
    “I’ll get to the point,” Naughton said, fidgeting as he cast an eye at the peeling plaster and meager furniture. The only thing Jack spent any hard cash on was books, and they were in evidence, in multitude, where furniture and
objets d’art
should be. “My family home is experiencing some extremely . . . unusual phenomena, and I need it stopped.”
    “ ‘Unusual.’ ’S a bit general—care to expand on that?” Pete said. She reached into the pile of books and papers on the end table and withdrew a pad and pen. Pete, for all her crispness, was as much a pack rat as Jack when it came to books and notes. If Jack were the sort of teacher who put store in memorizing spells and conjury by rote, he and Pete could have had a fine time ensconced in his library. Unfortunately, a book could never prepare one for the first sight of a ghost. Or a demon. Or hell, a ruddy
tanuki
with its bollocks swinging free. Jack knew more than one mage who’dpissed himself at the sight of the Black’s citizens in flesh and blood. Or ichor. Or vapor.
    Words couldn’t prepare you for the embrace of magic. Only magic could do it, and sometimes a mind wasn’t meant to see. Those who couldn’t handle it lost their grip, became the screaming psychotics in state hospitals or gibbering madmen on street corners. The junkies with the needles and the hollowed-out eyes.
    Naughton sighed, in the seat that should be Jack’s, and took an irritable sip of his tea.
    “I have to admit, this isn’t what I expected when I came calling on a couple of ghost hunters.”
    Jack exhaled, flicking ash onto the fire escape. “What were you expecting, then? Foot rub to go along with your tea? Happy ending with the sandwiches and cakes?”
    “
Jack
,” Pete hissed at him, and then gave Naughton another one of the smiles that Jack knew were to be hoarded like treasures, but that Naughton lapped up as if they were his due. “You’ll have to excuse my colleague.”
    “It’s no matter,” said Naughton, moving closer to her. “I’ve heard Jack