Bound by Legend: A Bound Novel (2 page)

The lower-level demon separated itself from the incapacitated man, its shadowy figure sliding across the snow. Morgan drew on her power and raised a circle around it. Religious symbols flashed on the ground under the demon until it settled on the Khanda of Sikh. The demon screamed as she spoke the words to banish it back to the Underworld where it belonged.

She left the man lying there bleeding, grabbed the coat, shook it off again, and put it on, thankful it was large enough to go over her other one. Then she shook the snow from her stocking hats and pulled them back over her messy, dark brown hair. Having a hood to cover the hats and protect the back of her neck was lovely. After grabbing the backpack she’d dropped before the attack and pulling the straps over one shoulder, Morgan knelt and rubbed the dog’s face, kissing her on the nose. “You’re a good girl, sweet Lucy. Yes, you are.”

Lucy wagged her stubby tail and whined, licking Morgan’s face. Giving her a final pat, Morgan straightened, glanced one more time at the man groaning in the snow, then walked away.

Blood pooled in her mouth, she spit it out and gingerly touched each of her teeth with her tongue. Yep, a couple of them were a little loose. The cold air stung the injuries on her face and made her eyes water. She would sport some fantastic bruises. It didn’t matter, there was no one who would care and she would heal within a week anyway.

Digging a long cigarette butt from her jean pocket, she lit it and took a quick drag. Morgan glanced down at Lucy padding beside her, glad she’d bought an insulated dog-blanket with the last of her money when she’d found Lucy shortly after hitting the streets. She was beyond thankful for the dog’s presence. It made this life a lot less lonely. “We should find something to eat.”

The dog wagged her tail in response as they left the park. There was a fast food restaurant a few blocks away; they were always throwing away perfectly good food. Hopefully, she could get to it before anyone else did.

She knew the cleaning schedule of all the local eating establishments and knew when it was safe to dumpster dive and when it wasn’t, which ones padlocked their dumpsters and which didn’t. Morgan slipped unnoticed in the heavy snowfall around the cement block wall that surrounded the garbage cans. Lucy, knowing the routine, went and sat in the corner furthest from the opening in the wall.

Vaulting over the edge of the first garbage can, Morgan landed lightly in the snow-covered mess. She wasn’t the first one to get there.

Jake jerked and looked up. His tense stance showed he hadn’t yet decided whether to attack. Morgan waited. After a long moment, he relaxed. “Hey, Morgs.”

“Heya, Jake,” she said, smiling in relief.

Jake was a good guy. In his mid-thirties and a vet of the Afghanistan war who suffered from severe PTSD, he’d been on the street for almost seven years. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one. Many guys like Jake had been abandoned after they came back, especially if they didn’t have any family. A foster home lifer, Jake had signed up for the Army at eighteen, two years before the twin towers in the hopes of something better. It hadn’t come.

“Got you a new coat I see, and some new battle scars,” Jake said.

Morgan started sifting through the garbage. “Found it on a bench. Some guy thought he could take it from me. I proved him wrong.”

She couldn’t tell him about the demon who had possessed the man.

Jake chuckled and went back to his own search. “Pickings are pretty good, the bad weather made the lunch hour slow. A lot of stuff sat under the warmer too long and was tossed.”

“Good, maybe I can find enough for Lucy and me both this time. Couldn’t this morning, so I’m starving.”

“Here,” he tossed a squished looking chicken sandwich at her, “this is for Lucy. I would say it’s for you except I know you always give her the best of your finds.”

“Of course.” She glanced at Jake’s dark, scraggly, shoulder-length hair and the fresh bruises on his face. “You have a new coat, too. Where’s your hat? And why are you even here? Didn’t your disability check come in yesterday?”

“A group of rat bastards took everything I had, even my coat. I managed to get another coat from the church.”

Morgan nodded. The church five blocks away was known as a place where the freezing could find something to help keep them warm. She’d made use of their soup kitchen a few times. “I’m surprised you lost anything.”

“It was five against one, they jumped me from behind. I sent them running, but not before a sixth one had rifled through my duffle and found my money.”

“Damn.” What was wrong with people? Morgan shook her head and ripped open another plastic garbage bag.

Only half-empty cups, soda soaked fries, and wrappers in that one. She tore open another and looked through the mess, pleased to find several cheeseburgers more or less intact. That would get her through a few days. “What are you going to do? A month is a long time to go with no money at all, trust me.”

“This won’t be the first time, Morgs. Don’t worry about me.”

After stuffing the burgers in the big pockets of her new coat, she started to reach for more then paused and pulled her hood back. She removed one of her two stocking caps and tossed it at Jake. “There, cover your ugly head before you freeze to death.”

“I’m not taking your hat, Morgan.”

“Well, you better, otherwise it will lay in here until the next person comes to take it. Besides, I still have one and I have a hood now. I’ll survive.” Morgan sent him a glare to let him know she meant it then went back to her task. After adding a half-eaten sandwich to the pocket of her inside coat, she stood. “I have enough for a couple of days here.”

He nodded and kept looking. “See you ‘round, Morgan.”

“See ya, Jake.”

“You planning on spending the night at the tower?”

Morgan shrugged and braced her hands on the edge of the container. “Maybe.”

She hated sleeping around other people, especially broken people. They were easy targets for demons. It wasn’t that they were bad. In fact, most would be surprised at the number of good people among the homeless that were just down on their luck and doing their best to survive as they struggled to bring the threads of their lives back together again while living among the forgotten and invisible.

The tower was a different place, though. The outcasts of the outcasts gathered there. Again, not bad people, just more broken than the rest. Like old Patsy, who was as much a friend to Morgan as she could be.

And then there was Jake. He was like an older brother and her best friend, well as much as someone could be a friend when she kept the biggest part of herself hidden from them. Jake would think she was crazy if she told him she had magical powers and not only could see demons, but could banish them back to the Underworld.

That wasn’t what made her uneasy about sleeping near him. She’d tried that once before. His PTSD could be violent and unpredictable and often assaulted him in his sleep, especially if he hadn’t had enough whiskey to smother the dreams. He’d gotten into trouble more than once because of it.

“Maybe I’ll see you then,” he said without looking at her. She knew he felt bad about the last time.

She flashed him a smile, her swollen lips pulling painfully.

“If nothing else, I will meet you at the park when the weather clears,” she said then vaulted over the side and landed in the deep snow.

There were a lot of options for the homeless in Denver. And there were those, like her, who preferred to stay away from them as much as possible. Everyone had their own reasons, ranging from not wanting to be found to schizophrenic paranoia. Morgan didn’t want to be found.

AFTER LEAVING THE
trashcans behind, Morgan walked several blocks with Lucy beside her until they came to a house that had been standing empty for a couple of months. A sign advertising a foreclosure auction perched in the front yard. There were several like that in this mixed neighborhood that moved abruptly from houses to businesses and back again. Glancing around at the silent day, Morgan didn’t see anyone. In all likelihood, no one would see her through the heavy snowfall.

Moving cautiously around to the back of the house, she peered into the windows. It was empty, as she’d expected. Glancing around, she couldn’t even see the neighboring houses through the snow.

Pulling a screwdriver from the inside pocket of her undercoat, she undid the screws holding the hinges on the padlocked grate over the basement window. She slid into the hole then called Lucy closer. Grabbing the dog, she pulled her over the edge and lowered her into the window well. Using the screwdriver, she busted the window and kicked the shards of glass sticking up from the frame out of her way. “Come on girl; let’s get out of the weather for a bit.”

Lucy jumped from the window well into the room and together they prowled the house to make sure they were alone, in case someone else had broken in from another direction. Only run down, empty rooms greeted them. Although the air was icy, there was no breeze in the house and no snow falling all over them.

Morgan dropped the backpack and sat in the middle of the empty living room. She unwrapped the half-frozen chicken sandwich and gave it to Lucy before pulling a cheeseburger in similar shape from one of her pockets. Maybe they could ride out the bad weather here. She’d spent more nights at the tower during the coldest part of winter than she cared to and really didn’t want to do so again.

She winced as she chewed, her teeth aching from the earlier hits. If she wasn’t so hungry, she would’ve put off eating for at least a day. Morgan pulled the water bottle from where it rested inside her inner coat. Only half full. She would have to fill it again soon. Lucy seemed content to drink from puddles or eat snow, though Morgan hated that the dog had to. Lucy should have a nice dish and soft bed to lie on. Even so, Morgan couldn’t bring herself to make the hike to the humane society and leave Lucy in their hands.

She’d found the dog sitting alone and collarless in the park shortly after going back to the streets. Morgan had hung around the park for three days sharing her food with the dog and waiting for someone to come looking for the Rottweiler. Surely a dog that looked like a purebred had a person that missed her. No one ever came and when Morgan moved on from the park, Lucy had come with her.

She watched the dog eat, thankful once again for her friend. Her one true friend since Arabrim. Morgan tried to push the memories of the dark angel from her mind. He’d been the first one to know about her abilities. Now he was dead and she was on her own against the demons. Although it helped when she kept moving, she could still sense them, and if she stayed in one place too long, they sensed her. A sensor, that was what Arabrim had called her. In other words, a demon radar.

The Higher Powers would no doubt assign a free agent soon, though Morgan had no intention of getting another dark angel killed. Whoever they sent could just get over themselves, she was doing fine on her own.

Flickers of memories from her past two lives made their way through her mind. In her first life, she’d died very young. In her second life, she’d lived to be an old woman, her powers new and weak. The memories from that life were dim and sketchy. The memories from the first were few and blurred. Even so, there was no doubt in her mind they were all centered around this same place.

Why three lives in the same area, she had no idea. Most channels were born and lived in different places. Perhaps it took a few lives to break free of the first location. Either way, she could remember when Denver was nothing more than a few shacks in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains.