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Angus MacGyver hated his life.Well, that was a little dramatic, but it was four in the morning and he was running on nine cups of coffee and pure spite, so he thought maybe he was entitled to some exaggeration. It wasn’t that he hated his whole life, more like there were certain aspects that weren’t very appealing but he also couldn’t see a way to change them.Case in point: he was attempting to summon a demon on his bedroom floor.Dabbling in black magic wasn’t nearly as difficult as he’d expected it to be, but then again Mac hadn’t given magic of any sort much thought until recently. One of the parts of Mac life that he didn’t like but couldn’t find a way to correct was the disappearance of his father, James MacGyver, when Mac was ten years old. On a totally normal Friday morning, James had left for work at his job at a government think-tank outside Los Angeles and just didn’t come back. No signs of foul play and few clues as to where he could’ve gone meant the cops lost interest quickly… but Mac never did.He graduated from the MIT four years ago at twenty with a heinously overpriced Bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and zero job prospects—there wasn’t much call for young scientists who were so obsessed with their father’s disappearance they had a cliché pushpin-and-string detective board on the wall above their desk. He’d spent the past fourteen years living a half-life, pretending to fit in during the day while he combed over every detail relating to James MacGyver’s disappearance at night. But a week ago he’d run out of avenues to explore, and that… that wasn’t right.There had to be something he was missing, some other way of getting information. Enter the demon-summoning. He was desperate, and desperate people had a tendency to do stupid things, even if they were smart enough to graduate high school and college a year early. With all other options exhausted, Mac had turned to something he didn’t quite believe in, scouring online forums and buying books and supplies online. He’d even brushed up on his Latin, because if this did work, the last thing he wanted to do was accidentally unleash a plague on the world or something.Pentagram? Drawn in chalk and reinforced with salt. Candles? Placed and lit. Summoning spell? All set, but according to what he’d read without knowing a specific demon’s name he was taking his chances on what he’d get. Could be something docile and friendly, or something that tried to eat his face. But that was why the pentagram was there, to keep the demon contained until Mac got what he wanted out of them.Mac took a final glance around his shitty apartment—a sad one-room affair in Boston’s Allston neighborhood—to make sure everything was ready, and then he sat down on the floor about a foot away from the boundary of the pentagram. Opening the musty book he’d purchased from a second-hand shop in Salem (he thought it might be bound in human skin), he turned to the page he’d marked and cleared his throat before he started to read.The first odd thing Mac noticed during the spell was a change in the air, like it was growing heavier around him, the flames on the candles wavering but not going out. The light by his bed started to flicker and buzz, and when his laptop turned on by itself and started blasting Metallica it was enough to make Mac startle and turn toward it. The music snapped off as quickly as it started, and when he looked back at the pentagram, there was a man—or at least something that looked like a man—standing in the center of it.He was around Mac’s height but broader, more solid with muscle. He was older than Mac by at least fifteen years or so, visible in the lines near his brown eyes and the touches of gray in his hair. A beard covered his jaw, and he wore a leather jacket over a plain white t-shirt and a pair of dark-wash jeans. Steel-toed combat boots overlapped the lines of the pentagram, hands shoved in his front pockets and the edge of some kind of cuff visible on his wrist.Mac’s first, slightly panicked thought when he came out of his shock was oh no, he’s hot. He wanted to smack himself for that but decided against it, because the demon already looked far too amused.“Now this is a surprise,” the demon said, a slight Texas drawl to the words, charming except for the way the sclera of his eyes flashed black and empty when he spoke. “What’s a pretty little thing like you doing calling up a fella like me?”“You practice that line in the mirror?” was out of Mac’s mouth before he could stop it, a knee-jerk reaction to the bad attempts at flirting he endured from all sexes on the rare occasion Bozer could convince him to go out for drinks. He refused to cower, straightening his spine and getting to his feet so they were eye-to-eye.To his surprise, the demon laughed. “If there were mirrors in Hell I probably would.” He looked around Mac’s apartment curiously, probably noting the mouse holes in the baseboards and the general lack of furniture. “Sorry, it’s just that usually I get summoned by old geezers who want me to steal them a new heart or something, not guys that look like you. Nice glasses.”Mac touched the black frames on his face without thinking, pushing them further up his nose. He hated the damn things, but contact lenses were an expense he couldn’t afford. “So… you’re real.” He took a short walk around the perimeter of the pentagram, careful not to get anywhere near the edges. “And you really can’t step out of there?”The demon glanced at the lines and symbols on the floor that had taken Mac a painstaking hour to draw. “I could try, but it kinda feels like getting lit on fire and I ain’t that kinky.” He looked Mac up and down in a way that made his cheeks warm. “What’s your name?”Mac felt his mouth quirk up. “You first.”The demon’s eyebrows rose. “You summoned me without knowing my name?” He sniffed the air in a way that reminded Mac of a big dog, but he hadn’t yet decided if it was rabid. “You don’t stink like a warlock. Only way an amateur could do something this big and not screw it up is if you’ve got magic in your bloodline somewhere.”Mac was shocked but tried not to let it show; had there been more to his mom’s herb garden and medicinal poultices than he’d realized? “That’s great and all, but you still didn’t tell me your name.”“Dalton,” the demon said absently, studying Mac with renewed interest. “Jack Dalton. Guess it doesn’t matter since you’ve already got me where you want me.” He grinned suddenly, all perfect white teeth that were blessedly blunt and human-looking instead of something grotesque like Mac had expected. “You’ve got a weird first name, don’t you? Most amateurs do.”“Angus,” Mac replied, rolling his eyes when Jack snickered at him. “Laugh it up, but I’m pretty sure I’ve heard every burger joke in the book by now—and call me Mac.”“Okay, Mac,” Jack said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “Since we have the introductions out of the way, you wanna tell me what I’m doing here? Assassination? Bank robbery? You don't look like the type for traceless arson, but I’ve been wrong before.”Mac snorted. “Dial it back about ten notches, Rambo.” Now that he had confirmation that demons were real and he’d successfully summoned one, Mac felt anxious. He knew what he wanted, but saying it out loud was like bracing for a blow; usually when he told people about his dad, they either doused him in fake sympathy or checked him off as crazy. But this was a demon he summoned, one who had to do his bidding—for a price, of course. “I want you to help me find my father.”“Uh-huh.” Jack crossed his arms, nodding to the board crisscrossed with string on the wall behind Mac. “And here I thought you were looking for Jimmy Hoffa.”“I’m not that crazy,” Mac said, glancing back at the board himself and tilting his head in consideration. “Although some people might tell you otherwise.” He sighed out his nose and ran a hand through his hair; when he looked back at Jack, he was startled to find the demon watching him intently. “Look, I’ve tried everything—literally everything—else I could think of to find him, and it’s been so long…” He paused, swallowing around the sudden lump in his throat. “Even if he’s dead, I… I need to know why he left, and what happened to him.”Jack pursed his lips, arms falling back to his sides. “Fine. Lucky for you, when I was kicking around up here I worked for the CIA—we’re good at finding people, alive or otherwise.” At the hopeful look on Mac’s face, Jack held up a hand to caution him. “It’s not a magic button, man. You’ll have to let me out of here, and I’ll need the whole story.” There was that grin again, although this time it was dim at the edges. “Sure you don’t wanna hire a private detective?”It was Mac’s turn to study Jack, taking in everything from the gun callouses on his hands to the way he held himself—definitely ex-military, which meant the secret agent thing probably checked out too. “I did. Three times. None of them panned out.” He licked his lips and pretended he didn’t notice Jack’s eyes tracking the movement. “What do you want in exchange?”Jack’s answer was almost alarming in its speed: “A kiss.”Surely Mac hadn’t heard him correctly. “I’m asking you to complete what could be an impossible task and you want to kiss me?” First time for everything, a snide voice in the back of his head remarked, but he squashed it down. “Aren’t you supposed to demand my immortal soul or something?”Jack brushed off the idea with a wave of his hand. “Nah, that’s something the Bible-thumpers made up to scare people. I mean, I guess I could’ve asked for that, but what the hell am I gonna do with your soul? Pretty sure it’s better off with you than it is with me.” He widened his stance and squared his shoulders. “We got a deal or what?”“Fine,” Mac agreed. He approached the pentagram but stopped short, looking from it to Jack with an arched eyebrow. “You can’t step out, but what happens if I step in? Is this a trick?”Jack spread his arms as much as he could within the bounds of the pentagram. “A trick for what reason, exactly? Say you come in here and I kill you—that means I’m stuck in this damn thing until somebody notices the stench from your rotting corpse.” He made a face. “And judging by the way this place smells, it could be a while.”“Hey, man, it’s not my fault that rat died in the wall,” Mac griped, and carefully stepped into the pentagram.Nothing changed except for the faint dustiness of chalk under his bare feet and being closer to Jack, who despite the earlier warning signs didn’t feel dangerous. A little intimidating, maybe, but he’d done nothing aggressive or manipulative in his time here, which was more than Mac could say for most humans. The limited space meant they were standing practically nose-to-nose already, and up close Mac was annoyed to discover that not only was Jack good looking, but he smelled good too, like a mixture of wood smoke and burnished metal.Trying to distract himself from the nerves twisting in his stomach—whenever he’d thought about his first kiss it had definitely not gone like this—Mac said, “Fair warning, I haven’t brushed my teeth in… actually, you don’t want to know how long.”“They don’t have toothbrushes in Hell,” Jack replied, half-whispered like he was sharing a secret. He grinned again, and this time it was positively devilish, something almost like a challenge in his eyes. “Your move, hoss.”Not one to back down from a dare, particularly if it was insane and had unknown consequences, Mac closed the gap between them and pressed his lips to Jack’s. ~***~ Unlike Mac, Jack Dalton had kissed his fair share of people before his untimely (but not unexpected) demise and subsequent resurrection as a demon. A simple touch of closed lips against his own was no reason to make lightning zip up his spine or cause the old wound to his chest to ache. And yet it did, the instant attraction that hit him the moment he’d gotten yanked out of Hell and laid eyes on the kid boiling into something more.Jack felt the frames of Mac’s glasses digging into the tops of his cheeks, the clumsy yet endearing way he dug his fingers into the front of Jack’s jacket until the leather creaked, and tilted his head just enough to get Mac to move his lips against his own. In the back of his mind, Jack knew he probably would’ve volunteered to find Mac’s father even if Mac had refused his bargain. There was something compelling about him—beyond his looks and his smarts—that had drawn Jack in like a moth to flame.That was ironic, considering he spent most of his days surrounded by hellfire.But right now he was surrounded by a different kind of heat, and brought a tentative hand up to frame Mac’s jaw, which felt soft despite its sharp appearance. Jack expected the touch might spook him, but it had the opposite effect; Mac made a noise in the back of his throat and pressed closer, grip shifting from Jack’s jacket to his waist, unconsciously seeking out the hem of Jack’s t-shirt and causing the demon to shudder. Without thought Jack’s free hand pressed into the small of Mac’s back, and he knew if his eyes weren’t closed they would be pitch black.When Mac’s curious fingertips actually found Jack’s skin he jolted like he’d been shocked, ripping his mouth away from Jack’s with a ragged gasp. His glasses were steamed up with condensation and he pulled them off, giving Jack an up-close look at what were easily the most beautiful blue eyes he’d ever seen. Right now those eyes were troubled, and Jack desperately tried to think of something to say to make that look go away, but all he came up with was, “For what it’s worth, I didn’t notice your breath.”The kid stared at him for a second before huffing a laugh, one of those wandering hands coming up to push his hair out of his face. He put the glasses back on, head ducking a little in an attempt to hide the pinkness of his cheeks (it didn’t work). “What, uh, what happens now? Everything I read was really specific about the summoning, but not so much about after.” “You gave me what I asked for, so I’m all yours until we find your old man or you release me from our contract,” Jack said, wincing when he realized the phrasing sounded less like a deal with a demon and more like a BDSM agreement. “But if you want me to find him, I kinda need to be able to walk more than two feet in any direction.”Mac nodded, taking a step back before scuffing his toes through the chalk and salt, the boundary of the pentagram breaking like a cheap lock under bolt cutters. Jack released a breath he hadn’t known he was holding and stepped over the blurred lines, disappointed but not surprised when Mac moved away from him, chiding himself a second later for feeling anything at all. Gorgeous or not, Mac was human and Jack was a demon; no matter what happened during their time together, it wasn’t like it could be anything more than lust on Jack’s end. After all, you didn’t wind up as a demon once you kicked the bucket because you were a good person.Mac watched Jack for a moment before nodding to himself and turning his back, heading for a cheap dresser in the corner. “Take a look at the board and tell me what you think. Everything except the classified stuff is there.”Jack crossed the apartment in five strides and leaned forward to get a better look at the precisely organized collection of glossy pictures, notes made in Mac’s neat handwriting, and photocopies of police reports. By following the pushpins and strings, Jack had a rough idea of James MacGyver’s story in under a minute—which was a good thing, because the sound of clothes dropping to the floor made him stumble into the desk chair. He tried to be a gentleman and didn’t look over his shoulder, but Jesus Christ it was tempting. “Didn’t realize I was getting a strip show this early in our relationship.”“Fuck off,” Mac said, placidly enough to make Jack laugh. “I’m getting dressed so I can go out for breakfast—there’s no food here and I’m starving.” He came to stand at Jack’s shoulder, having exchanged an old MIT shirt and sweatpants for an off-white henley and an old pair of Levi’s; his boots, Jack noted, came from an Army-Navy store, solid and practical. “So do you think you can do it? Find him, I mean.”“Probably.” Jack studied Mac’s profile from the corner of his eye, his pretty face suddenly too serious and somber for his age. “I’d like to hear the story from you, though. Don’t get me wrong, the board is great and all, but I usually find talking to people more effective than shuffling paperwork.”Mac glanced at him, and Jack was struck with the feeling that each of their interactions thus far was like an informal test, and somehow he kept passing. “Okay, then come with me to the diner.” He leaned over and grabbed a brown leather coat off a pile of laundry and put it on before kicking over the clothes to get to an old briefcase with a coded lock. He hefted it up and clearly intended to take it with him. “You have to behave, though—no black eyes.”“Scout’s honor,” Jack said, only watching Mac’s ass a little bit as he followed him out the door. What Mac didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, so there was no need to tell him Jack had never been a Boy Scout. ~***~ But as it turned out, something Mac didn’t know would hurt him… and that something came in the form of the psychopath watching Mac and Jack leave the apartment building from a car across the street. When they headed for the diner Mac liked about a block away, Murdoc started up his rental and followed them, silent and deadly as a shark moving through still water. ~***~
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Sam’s Diner occupied a graffiti-laden brick storefront a few traffic lights down from Mac’s apartment, across a busy intersection from an auto body shop whose clientele accounted for half the diner’s business. Even at five in the morning the place was a quarter full, sticky chrome tables occupied by everyone from the local homeless guy to half-awake Harvard students. The place had a one-page menu and was open 24 hours a day, and Mac spent more time at the booth in the back right corner than was probably healthy for his arteries.That booth was where he led Jack, noting that the demon automatically took the side of the table that faced the windows and put his back to the wall. Mac sat opposite him and set the briefcase down on the bench seat, glancing over at the counter and hoping against logic and other factors that anybody but Bozer’s girlfriend was working this morning—A cheerful female voice, edged with curiosity as its owner emerged from the swinging door to the kitchen: “Mac! Who’s your friend?”Fuck.Mac smiled at Leanna as she made her way over, checking on tables briefly as she went. When she reached their table she set down two menus and returned the smile, sticking her order pad in her apron so she could extend a hand to Jack that was peppered with rings. “Leanna Martin. I’m a friend of Mac’s, and he’s my best customer.”“And she’s also dating my best friend,” Mac added, turning over his mug and doing the same to Jack’s, needing something to occupy his hands. “Bozer still busy with that movie over in Woburn?”Leanna nodded, brown hair falling over one shoulder. “You know him, if he’s not making stuff to go in front of a camera he wants to be behind one.”Jack shook Leanna’s offered hand and smiled, but there was a tightness around his eyes that didn’t look right to Mac. “Pleasure to meet you, Leanna. I’m Jack.” When he took his hand back he dropped it below the level of the table, a gesture that would seem natural if you didn’t know how Jack usually moved… and Mac was startled to realize he knew that already. “So what’s your favorite thing on the menu? You look like a lady with good taste.”Leanna bought Jack’s Southern charm—which he apparently laid on thickest when he was in an uncomfortable situation—and soon Mac was ordering his usual breakfast without thinking about the words coming out of his mouth. He waited until Leanna walked away before he leaned forward and asked quietly, “What’s wrong with your hand?”Jack glanced at the counter to make sure Leanna was occupied before he put his hand on the table for Mac to examine. Pink burn marks striped the backs of his fingers. “Your friend likes silver jewelry. Nice for her, painful for me.”Silver = not good for demons got filed away in Mac’s brain, but before he could say anything to Jack he saw Leanna moving back toward their table with a coffee pot. Without thinking, Mac covered Jack’s hand with his own on the table so Leanna wouldn’t wonder why Jack suddenly had burns on the hand she just shook. He ignored Jack’s confused expression in favor of throwing his head back and laughing like he’d been told the funniest joke in the world.“Aw, you guys are so cute,” Leanna remarked, pouring coffee into both their mugs. “Bozer and I were always holding hands when we first met.”Mac… had not think this through. “No, Leanna, we’re not—”Jack was shaking his head in a futile attempt to back Mac up, especially given that they were in fact holding hands. “We, uh, we just met—”But Leanna only laughed, waving off their concern. “Hey, you don’t need to tell me the meet-cute story yet!” She patted Mac’s shoulder and winked. “And don’t worry, I won’t tell Bozer.”She sauntered away to another table, and Mac reluctantly (no, not reluctantly, that would be weird) pulled his hand back, clearing his throat as he reached for the briefcase. “Let me show you what else I have, and then we can decide what to do next?”To Mac’s relief and surprise, Jack looked as flustered as he felt. “Uh, sure, sounds good.”Mac entered the combination for the lock—his mother’s birthday—and popped it open, pulling out a thin manila envelope that contained some classified files he’d stolen from his Uncle Jonah’s place before he left California for MIT. He slid it across the table to Jack and noticed the demon’s gaze was stuck on the other item in the briefcase. “It’s a Beretta M9.” Since the M9 had been the service pistol of the US military since the 1980s and Jack’s general demeanor suggested he wasn’t a Vietnam vet, he added, “But I’m sure you knew that.”“It’s a nice gun,” Jack said, low enough not to attract attention, big hands busy thumbing open the folder. “You shoot anyone with it?”Mac shut the case with a wry smile. “No, much to my uncle’s disappointment. I don’t really like guns.” He thought about it for a second, then said, “You can have it while we’re working together, if you want.”Jack chuckled, shifting the papers in his hands. “Probably better than blasting people with hellfire. Tell me about your old man.”Mac did, haltingly at first but gaining confidence when Jack nodded along or pulled a face in certain spots, but never interrupted to tell him he was nuts or to shut up. He talked about how James MacGyver had left home as if it were any other day and never made it to work, vanishing somewhere between his house in the suburbs and his think-tank job downtown. About how the cops found no signs of foul play, and how even when they located his abandoned car on the side of the road there were no signs of struggle or injury. Mac also briefly mentioned going to live with his uncle because he had no other relatives, but didn’t offer details; as much as he and Jack seemed to have some kind of strange chemistry, Mac was nowhere near ready to talk about growing up with Jonah Walsh. Not even Bozer knew most of that story, and they’d known each other forever.“After they found my dad’s car, the police lost interest,” Mac finished, taking a big slug of his coffee, its warmth seeping into his stomach like an old friend—one who caused heartburn. “The way they looked at it, he was a grown man who was perfectly healthy, and he walked away from his car and caught a bus or something. I think they were making excuses because they couldn’t figure out where the hell he went.”Jack grunted an acknowledgement and asked, “What about the think-tank? Don’t places like that take out insurance on their employees?”Mac froze. “I… didn’t think of that,” he said, amazement coloring his voice. In fourteen years of chasing his own tail, it had never occurred to him that the think-tank might’ve had a motive to take their own employee off the board. He looked at Jack in a new light and saw traces of what he used to be before the fire and brimstone. “What if they were struggling finically? That might be motive.”“I’m wondering if they were a think-tank at all,” Jack said, glancing pointedly at the papers in his hand and sliding them back inside the envelope, waiting until Leanna set their food down in front of them before continuing. “A lot of the shit in there’s redacted, but from the words that aren’t it sounds like your dad was doing some dangerous research. If the think-tank was a cover for some shady government organization—and believe me, there’s a lot of those—and he made a breakthrough they didn’t like, that could explain a lot.”Mac picked up his fork but didn’t touch it to his French toast, lost in thought. “But what was he researching?”Jack looked at the plate of eggs benedict in front of him like it was made from solid gold and dug in with relish, although thankfully he waited to swallow before saying, “You found that redacted file in your uncle’s house, right? What if your old man stashed some unreacted files somewhere else? Your old house could be worth taking a look at.”Mac frowned. “I mean… maybe? I own the house now—my uncle never sold it, and when I turned eighteen everything that was my dad’s got transferred to me. I just… never went back.” He chewed a bite of maple sweetness and washed it down with more coffee. “I guess if we went out to LA to search the house we could also check out the think-tank, or whatever it actually is.”“That’s the spirit,” Jack said. His gaze drifted from Mac’s face to the window over his shoulder, forehead creasing. “Hey, Mac? Don’t turn around, but there’s a car parked a little ways down from here that was also parked across the street from your place when we left.”The back of Mac’s neck prickled, a memory trying to make itself known. “What’s the car look like?”Jack squinted, shoveling in another forkful of eggs. “Late model sedan, silver, probably a rental from the airport. One guy inside, kinda looks like he could be a serial killer.”“Okay, so bad news,” Mac said, putting the manila envelope back into the briefcase and sliding out the gun, offering it to Jack under the table; he allowed himself an amused mouth quirk when Jack took the Beretta and stowed it in the back of his waistband like a reflex. “I’ve seen that car before, and I think that guy is following me.” He shoveled some cash out of his wallet, leaving a generous tip for Leanna. “And since I only go out to three places, I don’t think I’ve picked up a bar stalker. This has to be my uncle.”“Your uncle?” Jack repeated, sliding out of the booth without further prompting. He walked on Mac’s left side, acting as a buffer between him and the strange car. “Pal, if that’s what your uncle looks like, you must be adopted.”Mac let out a startled laugh, shaking his head as they left the diner and started down the sidewalk back to his apartment. The city was already waking up, windows brightening in time with the rising sun peeking between the buildings. “Well, my uncle’s not actually related to me—he was my dad’s best friend.” He risked a glance back and saw that the silver sedan was in the process of making a U-turn in order to follow them. “That’s not him. Must be somebody he hired.”“Right, because that’s not creepy at all,” Jack said dryly. His hand hovered over Mac’s lower back as he considered their options; Mac tried not to read too much into the gesture. “Alrighty, follow my lead.”They continued on their way, keeping just far enough ahead of the sedan in the early morning traffic that the driver would have a tough time seeing them. Between one stoplight and the next they ducked into the alleyway next to Mac’s apartment building, which put them in the perfect position to approach the guy when he went to parallel park… except he didn’t. Much to Jack and Mac’s surprise, the sedan kept driving past Mac’s building, coasting through the next green light and turning the corner.“That was… unexpected,” Mac said. He took out his phone and started looking at flights from Logan Airport to LAX, this encounter with some weirdo his uncle had hired the push he needed to step out of his comfort zone. “Can you get on a plane? The TSA doesn’t usually like it when dead people try to fly.”“Yeah, but I’ve gotta make a call first.” Jack took a final look around to make sure their friend in the sedan was really gone before he waved Mac forward toward his own doorstep. “Let’s get your stuff packed and then we’ll worry about getting me a new identity.” ~***~ Several blocks away, Murdoc hit the first (and only) speed dial button on his prepaid cell phone and brought it to his ear with a leather-gloved hand. He only had to listen to the annoying trilling ring twice before his employer answered.“Well?” Jonah Walsh was not one for pleasantries. “Did you find him? Has he completed the summoning like I thought?”“Yes, I located your nephew,” Murdoc replied, doing his best to keep the disgust he felt out of his tone. Things had to be bad for him to reduce himself to working for a demon, but raising a child as a single parent was surprisingly expensive. “There is a complication, however.”Walsh grunted, like he was moving something heavy. “Oh yeah? And what’s that?”“The demon he summoned.” Murdoc braced himself, expecting a tirade. “It’s Jack Dalton.”A long silence on Walsh’s end. “How the fuck do you know Jack Dalton?”Murdoc snorted. “You honestly thought I agreed to work for you without doing any research? Dalton’s file was attached to yours thanks to your former partner’s botched mission in South Sudan.”Another silence. “You’re sure it’s him?”“One hundred percent,” Murdoc confirmed. “Believe me, I was as surprised as you are. Dalton’s file said he was KIA during James MacGyver’s operation, but I suppose that’s not true.”“Son of a bitch,” Walsh murmured, half resentful, half awestruck. “James did it—a manufactured victim of the demon curse. If he knew…”If he knew, he’d pay a small fortune to get his hands on Dalton, Murdoc thought, and the beginnings of a plan formed in his mind. Out loud, he said, “The fact that Angus was able to summon Dalton on his first crack at magic is… impressive.”“It’s almost impossible,” Walsh agreed. “Which is why the objective hasn’t changed: bring me my nephew alive. Eliminate Dalton if you have to.”A notification pinged on Murdoc’s other phone, and he picked it up out of the cup holder to examine it. A slick smile spread on his face when the tap he’d placed on MacGyver’s phone revealed the boy genius was looking up flights from Boston to Los Angeles. “That may be easier than previously thought. I’ll get back to you soon.” ~***~ An hour later or so later, Mac leaned against a wall Logan Airport next to a row of pay phones, watching skeptically as Jack fed quarters into the one that looked the oldest and grimiest. His carry-on suitcase sat by his feet—packed with extra clothes, since he and Jack were around the same size—and he had his phone ready to buy plane tickets as soon as they had a new identity for Jack. “Okay, but seriously, a pay phone gives you a direct line to Hell?”Jack waved a hand at him, shoving one last coin into the slot. “Shush, I need to concentrate.”Mac found himself watching a little too closely as Jack shut his eyes and took a deep breath, rolling his shoulders. When he opened his eyes again, they were pitch black, and Mac took a deep breath of his own and pretended the sight didn’t give him goosebumps. Jack raised a hand and placed it over the buttons on the pay phone, fingers splayed out; a soft orange glow emanated from the palm of his hand, and burned itself into the metal and plastic in the shape of a pentagram that faded just as quickly as it appeared.To Mac’s astonishment, the phone rang.Jack picked up the receiver. “Riley? Hey, honey, it’s Jack.”Mac was standing close enough that he heard it when a woman’s voice replied, “Of course it’s you, Jack—you’re the one who always calls me when you’re in trouble.”“Now I’d take offense to that…” Jack drawled, an easy affection in his smile that reminded Mac of how his mother used to smile at him. “Except we both know it’s true.” Amusement fading, Jack leaned an arm on top of the pay phone. “Look, Riles, it’s a long story, but I need one of your world-famous aliases so I can hop on a plane.”Riley’s response was so dry Mac found himself liking her immediately. “Wait, instead of pulling your ass out of the fire I’m helping you put it in? That’s a change of pace.” There were some tapping sounds, like she was using a computer—did they have computers in Hell? “So, who summoned you this time? Another wrinkly old geezer?”Jack glanced at Mac and winked. “Not exactly. He’s actually pretty cute.”Mac rolled his eyes, crossing his arms and ignoring the way his cheeks flushed at the compliment (which sounded genuine… but that couldn’t be right).“Damn, you lucked out.” A few keyboard clicks later, Riley said, “Okay, Jack, you’re officially Duke Jacoby. Again. Try not to burn down a whole village this time, yeah?”“I’ll do my best,” Jack promised. He pulled a wallet that hadn’t been there a moment ago out of his back pocket and handed it to Mac. Sure enough, the Georgia driver’s license inside belonged to one Duke Jacoby, who looked like Jack but slightly more douchey. “You take care now, and give me a holler if you need me to kick that Billy kid’s ass.”“I can do my own ass kicking, thank you very much,” Riley said, but her tone was fond. “Good luck. Come back in one piece.”Jack hung up the receiver and was quiet while Mac tapped away at his phone, buying them both one-way tickets to LAX. He had no idea how long this little adventure was going to take and didn’t want to deal with cancellations. He handed Jack the wallet and did his best not to react when their fingers brushed. To distract himself, he asked the first question that came to mind: “Is she your daughter?”Jack smiled a little, but it wasn’t a happy expression. “Not exactly. I, uh, went out with her mom for a while, but she kicked me to the curb after I beat up her asshole ex. Riley… didn’t take it well, and turned into a computer whiz—a real angry one.” He stared out a nearby window at the tarmac. “In the meantime I died, of course, and Riles left her mom’s and was living in a dump with a bunch of other nerds. Some of them had a real grudge against the government and decided hacking into the Pentagon was a good idea. She got shot to death during a Homeland Security raid. Crossfire.”Mac hesitated for a second before putting a hand on Jack’s shoulder and squeezing. “I’m sorry, man. That’s awful.”“Yeah, yeah it is,” Jack agreed, swiping quickly at his eyes before turning to look at Mac, who pretended not to see the remnants of tears in his eyes. “So, any idea how we’re gonna get through the TSA with a handgun in your carry-on?”Mac watched as other passengers went through the checkpoint. “I mean, I could put together an electromagnet powerful enough to disrupt the x-ray machine, but that’ll cause so much chaos they’ll probably close the terminal.” He weighed his choices, didn’t like what he came up with, and watched Jack from the corner of his eye when he said, “What you told me before, about how I had to have magic in order to have summoned you—could I use it here somehow?”Jack titled his head from side to side in thought. “Maybe?” He studied Mac for a moment before pointing at his glasses. “Take those off.”Mac wasn’t sure where this was going, but he did as he was told. He squinted almost immediately, everything that wasn’t within arm’s reach going blurry at the edges. “What are you staring at?”A slow grin spread on Jack’s face, sweet as honey and just a little wicked. “Our way through airport security.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Even after a six-hour flight and the hassle of picking out a car at LAX, Mac was reeling from tricking two TSA agents into letting him on to a plane with a loaded handgun. The only thing he’d done was look at them and say there’s nothing suspicious in my carry-on, and they’d waved him through without a glance at the x-ray machine. “I know I sound like a broken record by now, but how the hell does this stuff work?”Jack laughed from behind the wheel of their rented Dodge Challenger, not bothered by Mac’s ability to marvel at the same thing for hours on end. “I told you before, dude—it’s magic. The whole point is that you don’t understand how it works.”“Yeah, but magic is alchemy, right? And alchemy and science are… well, maybe not siblings, but cousins at least,” Mac said, but went closed-lipped a second later, slumping down a bit in the passenger’s seat. “Sorry for rambling. I went from being a STEM kid to working in a bakery six days a week. Doesn’t take much to get me excited.”Jack shot him a lecherous glance as they merged on to the highway. “I’ll have to remember that.” He tempered the flirting with a sincere smile, one that Mac couldn’t help but return. “Seriously, though, if you want to talk nerdy to me be my guest. Can’t guarantee I’ll understand any of it, but I’ll listen.”“Maybe later,” Mac replied, more touched by the gesture than he wanted to admit. Just because he had summoned Jack and they had an agreement didn’t mean Jack had to be this… nice, and it was refreshing to have someone to talk to besides Bozer. He reached for the radio dial, an idea coming to mind. “Right now let’s find some music—it’s a long drive, and I think I heard somewhere that you like Metallica.” ~***~ Mac childhood home in Laurel Canyon looked more or less like he remembered it, save for some sagging around the edges and a few broken windows. It was set back far enough from the road that if you didn’t know it was there you’d miss it, trees providing shade that had caused moss to grow unfettered on a third of the roof, the lawn overgrown into a tangle of weeds and wildflowers. If not for California’s temperate-to-dry climate, Mac had a feeling he would’ve been looking at a pile of moldy boards instead of a house his grandfather built.Jack whistled as he shut his car door. “Sweet place.” He slipped the Beretta from the back of his waistband with practiced ease, spinning on his index finger before taking it in a two-handed grip. “Let me go first, yeah? Don’t wanna find out the hard way that your uncle left us a surprise.”Mac obliged, fishing the key to the house out of his pocket. He unlocked the front door and pushed it open, allowing Jack to clear the rooms one at a time while Mac wandered into the kitchen and thought about the last time he’d stood in that room. It’d been the afternoon of his father’s “funeral”, which wasn’t much more than an empty casket and a few people who stopped by from the think-tank. Mac remembered being there with Jonah, who had somehow managed to pull off solemn and stone-faced while also being liquored up on Old Grand-Dad. While people Mac didn’t know in pressed shirts and chinos milled around the living room and gossiped, Mac had retreated to his mother’s favorite space and reorganized the spice cabinet for the millionth (and last) time.Standing in front of that same cabinet, Mac rubbed unconsciously at the back of his head, where Jonah had smacked him so hard he saw stars and muttered about getting stuck with James’s fucking freaky kid. That was the beginning of a long, painful journey to adulthood that ended with Mac leaving California and never looking back, not even to try and salvage the house his mom had loved so dearly.“We’re all good.” Jack’s voice cut through the quiet as he entered the kitchen, startling Mac enough that he jumped a little. The demon raised an eyebrow, holstering his weapon and leaning against the counter. “You okay?”“Fine,” Mac lied, relieved when Jack looked skeptical but didn’t push. He took a fortifying breath before brushing past Jack to get to the hallway, the sting of memory still bright. “Let’s start in my dad’s office.”If the house was in disrepair, James MacGyver’s office was in shambles. Mac wasn’t allowed inside as a kid, so he was in no way prepared for the mountains of books and old cardboard boxes full of paperwork, all labeled in his father’s precise handwriting. The couch, chairs, and desk were cluttered with various items, some of it beakers and petri dishes, while other things looked less scientific and more… occult. Turning on a lamp and opening the curtains for light made the space look more haphazard, animal skulls and a wall-mounted Ouija board casting odd shadows against the cobwebs.Mac picked his way through the aisles of crap, Jack’s warmth a steady presence at his back. “God, this place is a mess. I don’t even know what half of this stuff is.”A bird skeleton hung from the rafters rattled as Jack tried and failed to duck underneath it. “Looks like your old man liked a side order of magic with his science.” He touched Mac’s arm before they reached the desk, pointing upward. “Mind getting rid of that for me? I’d rather not be trapped in here.”Mac followed Jack’s line of sight to the giant pentagram drawn in black paint on the ceiling above his father’s desk. “Yeah, I don’t blame you—hang on.” He clambered up on the desk, pushing aside a stack of old newspapers with his foot. He pulled out his Swiss Army Knife—his last birthday gift from his dad—and used the blade to scratch a break in the outer line of the pentagram before jumping back down. He landed solidly but lost his balance, and made an embarrassed, nervous sound when he fell against Jack’s chest, the demon’s hands automatically gripping his sides to steady him. “Sorry.”“Don’t be,” Jack murmured, and Mac could feel the vibration of his voice. They stared at each other for a drawn-out moment before the bird skeleton unceremoniously dropped to the floor, the string holding it to the rafter snapping; the resulting crash caused them both to swear and step back. “Son of a bitch, I hate it when people hang shit from the ceiling. It’s like a poster falling off your wall in the middle of the night—you know it’s gonna give you a heart attack someday and you put it up there anyway.”Mac turned toward the desk, trying to smother the bolt of attraction that shot through him when Jack was that close, stronger than it’d been back at his apartment now that he knew Jack wasn’t just some demon… he was kind of amazing. Smart and funny and kind, and there was no way in hell he’d have any legitimate interest in someone as geeky and awkward as Mac. Better to do what he usually did with feelings: stuff them in a lockbox and throw away the key, because it was less painful when things didn’t turn out the way he wanted them to.“Posters are evil,” he agreed, choosing a filing box at random and pulling off the lid. “If you find anything else that could hurt you, let me know.”Jack tossed him a salute and took the hint, picking up a stack of books and starting to leaf through them. That was how they worked for the better part of two hours, making piles of things of potential interest and tossing junk in the same corner as the bird skeleton. Everything was dusty, and eventually Mac pushed his glasses up into his hair, the eye strain from looking at cramped handwriting or tiny dot-matrix printing enough to make his temples throb.“Hey, hey, come look at this,” Jack said, the excitement in his tone more than enough to get Mac moving, crawling across the dirty carpet until he was at the demon’s side. In his hands was a folded piece of paper that turned out to be a map, the expensive kind covered in glossy flexible laminate. “This was in a box with a bunch of tax returns—tossed on top like he was trying to get it out of sight quick.”Mac pressed himself into Jack’s side so they could both study the map once it was spread out flat on the floor. He took his glasses off his head, setting them on the newly-cleared couch so they wouldn’t fall when he bent forward to look closer. “Is this New Hampshire?”“I think so,” Jack said, tapping a blue spot north and off-center from the middle of the state. “That’s Lake Winnipesaukee. My uncle used to have a place near there, whole family would come up from Texas for a visit every summer.” His finger traced outward to a large green splotch filled with elevation markers. “This is the White Mountains… but what’s that?”There was a red circle surrounding a small town called Lincoln, along with Franconia Notch – enough deaths/isolated??? printed in the same marker. “That’s my dad’s handwriting,” Mac said, brows furrowing. “It’s certainly isolated, but enough deaths? Enough deaths for what?”He looked up, the words to ask Jack what he thought on the tip of his tongue, and found their faces were much closer together than he’d anticipated. His gaze subconsciously flicked down to Jack’s mouth, and the next thing he knew they were kissing again, only this time it had nothing to do with a summoning or a deal. He wasn’t sure which one of them had leaned in first, but it didn’t really matter; one of Jack’s hands was resting on his thigh, hot like a brand through the material of Mac’s jeans, and the other cupped his face, thumb sweeping over his cheekbone. That little gesture was enough to make Mac melt, wrapping his arms around Jack’s neck and shivering when the demon sucked on his tongue.The hand on Mac’s face slid back into his hair, calloused fingertips running across his scalp in a way that made his stomach bottom out pleasantly, the recollection of Jonah striking him in virtually the same spot gone from his mind. Without thinking, he shifted enough to throw one of his legs over Jack’s, clambering into his lap and using the new angle to deepen the kiss, huffing out a pleased laugh when the action made Jack groan.Jack’s hand settled at Mac’s waist for a moment before his palms smoothed down his back—over his shirt, thank goodness—and he broke the kiss in favor of mouthing at Mac’s jaw. He found the birthmark on his neck and nipped at it, and Mac made a sound he’d never heard from himself before. His hips twitched involuntarily, fingers gripping at the muscles surrounding Jack’s shoulder blades, eyes going wide and glazed as he stared at the ceiling.Perhaps if Mac hadn’t been so distracted he would’ve seen Murdoc, dressed in all black and slinking silently into the office, an automatic blow dart gun in one gloved hand. And if Jack hadn’t been busy sucking bruises into Mac’s skin, he would’ve reacted with superhuman speed and avoid the dart—longer and sharper than normal and full of colloidal silver instead of tranquilizer—that hit him square in the middle of his spine.Jack had time to shove Mac behind him and turn around to snarl at Murdoc, eyes blackening, but the effect of the colloidal silver was almost instantaneous. He fell face down and motionless, and Mac scrambled backward, shock and fear rocketing through him like a livewire. Before Mac had a chance to think gee, maybe I should use my newfound magic powers, Murdoc fired a second dart—this one loaded with ketamine—into the side of his neck, and Mac clasped at the dart’s feathered end absently as he slumped to the floor and into unconsciousness. ~***~ When Jack woke, it was to nauseating back-and-forth motion and the faint smell of gasoline. His back was killing him in a way that could only mean silver, burning pain that radiated outward into his limbs. Having his arms behind his back didn’t help, and more fiery pain encircling his wrists told him the creep from the sedan had slapped him with a pair of silver cuffs.His face was mashed into carpet, but when he lifted his head Jack saw the faint green glow of an emergency release tab and realized where he was: the trunk of a car. A car that was moving… probably not a highway, didn’t feel fast enough for that, but the stretched-out ache he had in his chest indicated Mac wasn’t in it with him. Their deal meant they had to stay within a certain proximity of each other until it was completed, and the further apart they were the weaker they’d both get. The rest of this—the pain, the poisoning from the silver—was shit Jack could deal with, but Mac being gone? That was a problem, and for more than just magical reasons.Jack swore under his breath as he rolled to his back, drawing his knees up to his chest and pulling his joined wrists up around his boots, so his hands were now in front of him instead of behind. Liquid agony throbbed through his body but he gritted his teeth and ignored it in favor of blinking hard, sclera going dark in the shadows of the trunk. Exposing his true eyes allowed him to see things more clearly, including spell work—and he smirked when he saw no etchings on the cuffs, only plain silver. Weird sedan guy was an amateur at capturing things like Jack.“Well, this is gonna suck,” Jack muttered. He took in a fortifying breath and flexed hard, the silver of the cuffs biting their displeasure into his skin before snapping apart. It hurt, but once he managed to pry the individual manacles off he felt less lightheaded, some of his considerable strength returning to him. “And this is gonna suck worse.”Before he could overthink it, Jack yanked on the emergency release, the trunk lid flying up to reveal noontime sun and an isolated stretch of two-lane road. He bailed out of the car feet-first, but instead of rolling to safety like a normal person, Jack pivoted at the waist to grab on to the still-moving car’s bumper. Boot heels leaving black drag marks against the pavement, Jack let out a shout of rage as he pulled against the car’s momentum, flipping it up and over his head like a toy. It crashed behind him on its roof, wheels spinning fruitlessly as it skidded fifty yards or so before coming to a stop.By the time Jack reached the car plumes of black smoke were wafting toward the sky and a man who’d followed them in Boston was struggling to crawl through what was left of the driver’s side window. He was a little worse for wear with a broken nose and a bloody waterfall cascading down from his forehead, marring the pristine black fabric of his coat.Jack grabbed him by the collar of that coat and hauled him upright with one hand, using the other one to bat away the silver-bladed knife that Murdoc tried to shove in his gut. “Where is he?”Murdoc grinned but there was nothing going on behind his eyes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Then as an afterthought, “And no idea why’d you care. Aren’t your kind supposed to be emotionless husks of what they once were?”“No, but we are damned impatient,” Jack said, a growl escaping his throat. His eyes went black again, and he felt a sick satisfaction when the gesture made even this cretin flinch. “What did you do with MacGyver?”“I did my job,” was Murdoc’s reply, spitting blood at Jack’s feet. “Delivered him to Walsh, all wrapped up like a present.” He was reaching behind his back, slow and careful like a glacier. “And if you’re planning on mounting some chivalrous rescue, you should hurry. I have the impression Uncle Jonah likes to get awfully handsy—”Jack’s free hand flew up with blurred precision and snapped Murdoc’s neck.He dropped the body near the ruined car before rolling it over to dig in its pockets, coming up with two different cell phones. Walking in the direction the car had been travelling away from, Jack checked out the prepaid phone first and was relieved to find a text message thread between Murdoc and Walsh. Even better, it contained an address outside Los Angeles that had to be where Walsh was staying. As an afterthought, he raised one hand and snapped his fingers. Behind him, the car and Murdoc exploded into a giant fireball. ~***~ The first thing Mac became aware of when he woke up was a sharp pain in his neck. It felt almost like a bee sting, and it took him a moment to remember why: his old house, searching his father’s office with Jack… getting distracted, and the guy who’d followed him back in Boston shooting darts into both of them. But that guy had to be working for Jonah, which meant—Oh no.Mac’s eyes opened fully, adjusting to the dimness, and took in the cinderblock walls, the concrete floor with the drain in the middle (allegedly for water, but he knew better), the absence of windows or any light besides a few bare bulbs hanging from the floor joists overhead. A thin dirty mattress slumped in one corner, a bucket in the corner opposite; there were no stairs, only a large gap where they should’ve been and a steel door, which he knew from memory was just elevated enough to be out of his reach, even standing on the upturned bucket. The familiar stench of old blood and industrial cleaner was thick enough in his nose to make him gag.Stomach twisting with fear and the creeping beginning of panic, Mac realized he was naked save for his boxer-briefs. No shirt, pants, or shoes to protect against the cool dampness of the basement, which had already started to numb his toes. Obviously he was without his Swiss Army Knife, but more troubling was the lack of glasses on his face—that meant he couldn’t see much until it was right in front of him. He was strapped to a wooden chair at the wrists and ankles with lengths of chain one could buy at a home improvement store, each knotted together so tightly he couldn’t make them budge an inch.His vision was blurrier than usual from whatever had been in the dart, but he didn’t need to see to know who was rattling open the multiple locks on the other side of the door to the basement. He refused to show his mounting nerves on the outside—refused to give his uncle the satisfaction of seeing him scared (again)—so instead he dug his nails into the armrests of the chair and took in measured breaths through his nose. A strange tightness collecting his chest was getting worse, but he attributed it to anxiety.The door opened, and Jonah Walsh jumped down into the basement. He was an intimidating figure without a weapon, so the folded-over leather belt he clutched in one hand—the buckle still crusted with old blood—only ratcheted up Mac’s fight-or-flight response. He already carried scars from that exact belt on his back and wasn’t interested in getting any more. His gaze strayed to it of their own volition, and Walsh sneered.“Well, look what the cat dragged in! It’s been a long time, Angus—too long if you ask me.” Walsh stepped into the circle of light cast by the bulb over Mac’s head, and he was floored to see his uncle’s eyes were pitch black pools of emptiness. “Why, I wouldn’t have even known where you were if I hadn’t spelled that paperwork you stole to tell me exactly when you used your magic for the first time. Now I have you all to myself, and I can take my sweet time siphoning that power out of you, drop by fucking drop. You don’t deserve it anyway.”There were many things Mac could’ve said to him in that moment, choice among them being you’re a demon?, but what stumbled out of his mouth was, “Where’s Jack?”Walsh snorted derisively. “Your demon pal? No idea. All you need to know is he’s not here, and he’s not coming to save you.” In one swift move he was behind Mac, the belt looped around his neck like a noose, cutting off his air and forcing his head back to look at Walsh’s manic rictus grin. “Let’s have some fun.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
To say Bozer was going crazy was an understatement. He’d passed crazy a while back and was in full-on insanity mode trying to locate his best friend Mac, who had a habit of getting himself in trouble when he was left alone for too long. Sort of like a puppy—an adorable golden retriever puppy that someone had kicked a few times, so he was shy but still pretty damn cute.According to Leanna, Mac had shown up at Sam’s Diner at five that morning with some older guy in a leather jacket and then they left twenty minutes later like their asses were on fire. And Leanna also said Mac and this guy had held hands in front of her? What was that about? Most of the time getting a bro-hug out of Mac was like pulling teeth! He’d asked Sam—also known as Samantha Cage, Aussie babe and owner/namesake of the diner—about it, but she said she was in the kitchen the whole time and didn’t see anything.Bozer had been texting Mac nonstop since he’d gotten off set and came into the diner for breakfast (night shoots that ran into the morning were the worst). Since Mac hadn’t responded to any of his messages, Bozer waited for Leanna to get off her shift before they went over to Mac’s apartment building together. He dug up the spare key he had for emergencies and let himself inside, Leanna wordlessly allowing him to go in first in case Mac was, like, indecent with that guy from earlier or something.The waxy scent of burned candles made Bozer wrinkle his nose, but the sight of an elaborate pentagram drawn in the middle of Mac’s floor made him freeze up. His eyes flickered around the space, taking in the huge flesh-toned book filled with pages of Latin, the big board Mac had dedicated to the search for his dad, and the space where Mac’s suitcase should’ve been under his bed. All of that put together added up to something Bozer couldn’t comprehend unless he was about to be killed on an episode of Supernatural.“Babe?” Leanna’s voice came from the hall, and she pushed her way through the door. “What did you—?” She stopped in her tracks like Bozer had, but the look on her face… it was an expression he’d never seen from her before, hollow and dangerous. “Son of a bitch.”Bozer regained the ability to speak, toeing at one of the candles with the end of his sneaker. “What is all this stuff? What the hell was Mac doing?”“I knew something was off about that guy,” Leanna said, seemingly to herself. She ignored Bozer’s questions in favor of crouching down to inspect the pentagram, looking from the book to the board on the wall and scowling. “Mac summoned a demon to help him find his dad. He must’ve run out of other options.”Bozer stared at her. “Wait—this isn’t weird? We just went from ‘oh, Mac might have a boyfriend’ to ‘oh, Mac summoned a fucking demon’ and that’s just… cool with you?”“Of course it isn’t cool with me,” Leanna snapped, before closing her eyes and taking in a calming breath. “Sorry, Bozer. I should’ve been honest with you from the start, but I didn’t know how. My family… I come from a family of hunters.” She nodded at the pentagram. “Demon hunters, specifically. Sam’s one, too.”“Have I been doing keg stands again without knowing it?” Bozer wondered, because there was only so much of this shit he could take in at once. It was all kind of unbelievable, but the fact remained that Mac was AWOL regardless of whatever crazy stuff he’d gotten into. “So what, did this this demon guy kidnapped Mac or something?”“I don’t know, but it’s a possibility,” Leanna said. “Clearly they made a deal, but Mac just disappearing without telling anyone where he was going is strange.” She stepped over to Mac’s desk where his laptop sat. “Can you get into his computer?”Bozer snorted. “Are you kidding? Mac’s had the same password since MIT.” He cracked his knuckles, opening the laptop and typing in the password. Once he was in, Bozer went straight for Mac’s emails, only feeling a little guilty while he did it. The top one was a confirmation from Delta for a flight from Logan Airport to LAX that had left only an hour after Leanna saw Mac and the stranger in the diner. “Bingo! He booked two one-way seats.”Leanna was already on her phone. “Looks like we’re taking a vacation.” She paused, fingers tightening around the device as she looked at Bozer. “Unless you don’t want to go together.”Bozer smiled and shook his head, leaning over to kiss her cheek. “It’s gonna take me a while to adjust, but I think I can get behind you being a demon-hunting badass. Let’s go get our boy.” ~***~ Mac was sure most people had cut themselves on something sharp at least once in their life. Some while shaving, others while slicing up food in the kitchen, no doubt to varying degrees of injury. If you accidentally sliced your finger open on a knife the stinging pain was surprising and the blood maybe more so, but unless it was deep enough to require stitches you washed it out, put a bandage on it, and probably forgot about it by dinnertime.Getting cut deliberately was a whole different ball game.The initial bite of the knife tearing the top layers of skin burned as the nerve endings sent pain signals to the brain; once the edge of the blade pushed deep enough to split muscle, it shifted from burning to a deep-seated ache, an itch that there was no way to scratch. And as long as no major veins or arteries were damaged, a cut like that could bleed on and off for days depending on how much you squirmed, and some areas hurt more than others. For example, the stripes Walsh had slashed across Mac’s arms felt almost like paper cuts, but the crude imitation of a Y-incision across his chest and stomach was deeper—not deep enough to do more than make him bleed, but high enough on the pain scale to make him scream when it happened.More cuts of varying lengths and depths littered random parts of his body, but each injury meant he was losing blood. That blood went directly into the crazy symbol Walsh had carved into the concrete floor while Mac watched. Tied up like he was, he was helpless to do more than swallow against his sore throat, which bore the purpling stripe of Walsh’s belt from where he’d been choked.“Halfway there,” Walsh proclaimed, an almost gleeful tone to his voice. Each bead of blood that dripped off Mac’s fingers or torso or legs took over another centimeter in the symbol, each one representative of life and magic slipping away. “Just a little more, and your mother’s power will belong to me.”Mac blinked slowly, sleepiness buzzing at the edges of his vision.Not good, his brain told him, five liters of blood in the body, you’ve lost at least one. You’re gonna die if you don’t find a way out of this.“What… what are you going to do with it?” Mac asked. He purposefully flexed his arms, testing the chains again and finding them just as strong as before. “When I tried to use it on you earlier you laughed at me. How can a demon use magic?”Walsh debated something with himself before shrugging. “I suppose there’s no harm in telling you since you’re going to be dead by the end of this.” Perching on the upturned bucket, Walsh stretched the belt in his hands contemplatively. “You see, Angus, what I told you when you batted those baby blues at me and begged me not to slice you up was the truth—your kind of magic can’t effect demons. But that doesn’t mean I can’t use it for a spell, which is exactly what I’m going to do.”Mac’s brow creased in confusion. “What kind of spell?”“A locator spell, one that’s powerful enough to find your father despite the many measures he’s taken—magical and otherwise—to remain hidden for all these years,” Walsh replied. He gave him a condescending look. “You never did figure out what James’s research was really about, did you?” Before Mac could respond, there was a noise from over their heads. It was so quiet he wasn’t sure if he imagined it, except Walsh sat up straight, eyes flashing black. “What the fuck was that?”He stood up, kicking the bucket aside and heading for the door, using the loop in the belt to open the knob from the lower level of the basement. Walsh hauled himself back up to the first floor with surprising grace—and of course he took the belt with him, clicking indicating he’d shut all the locks too. Mac was alone again, the drip-drip-drip of his own blood against concrete loud in his ears. If he didn’t do something soon, he was going to die here.“Fuck this,” Mac muttered, quiet in volume but loud in feeling.He planted his feet flat on the floor and used all the strength in his legs and abs to throw himself backwards, the wooden chair splintering under his weight when it broke his fall. The arms and legs of it were still strapped to him by the chains, but that was the least of his problems—the sounds of fighting reached his ears, something big like a table breaking almost directly over his head. Whether Walsh won or loss was of little consequence; either way Mac had to be ready to knock someone out when they came down to the basement.Glancing around, he realized he had a choice between two practical weapons: a sharp piece of the chair, or the bucket. Mac went with the bucket, mostly because he doubted he’d be quick enough while weighed down by the chains to stab a demon. Plus the bucket was made of steel, and it was just as heavy as he remembered from his days down in the pit when he’d been forced to use it as a toilet. He half-walked, half-crawled to the corner of the basement almost directly below the door and folded himself into a crouch with the bottom of the bucket facing outward, ready to strike when someone made the jump to the floor.Up in the house the noise reached a fever pitch, with the crescendo taking the form of a long, animalistic scream that Mac was almost sure came from Walsh. He’d never heard his uncle in pain, but he was familiar enough with his voice when it yelled, usually insults and expletives on alcohol-soaked breath. Not anymore apparently, and while that should’ve been a relief, Mac was more concerned about facing whoever was strong enough to kill him.Booted footsteps approached the door, and Mac swayed from the blood loss. He tensed when the locks snapped and the door opened, adrenaline buzzing in his ears like flies. The second the person leapt down to his level, Mac was up and swinging the bucket with a shout that was less a battle cry and more a half-choked sob because holy shit, moving that fast with all those cuts hurt. Double-vision made him miss his target, hitting the man in the shoulder instead of the side of the head; the bucket glanced off of him and Mac went with it, collapsing to the floor with an undignified yelp.“Mac?” a voice said, and the sound of it made Mac want to cry. “Mac, Jesus Christ, are you okay?” He squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to keep that from happening, bringing one hand—with clunky chair arm and chains still attached—up to run through his hair. Jack found him, and from the deafening silence upstairs he’d killed Walsh to do it.The demon crouched down next to Mac, light fingers touching his shoulder. He was drenched in blood and ichor, dark smudges like the prints of someone trying to fight back on his cheek. “Hey, buddy, you still with me?”Mac huffed a laugh, blinking rapidly as he looked into Jack’s face. “Barely. What about you?”“Oh, this?” Jack made a vague gesture toward the mess on his clothes. “Nothing for you to worry about. Here, let me do something about these.” He wrapped his hands around the chains surrounding Mac’s left wrist and squeezed, the links splitting easily under his grip. He noticed Mac’s head starting to loll to one side and tapped him under the chin with a knuckle. “Hey now, don’t fall asleep on me.”As much as Mac liked Jack—and he did, a genuine affection welling in his chest that he didn’t feel often—it was hard to resist the temptation of a nap, no matter how dangerous it was thanks to the blood loss. “Trying not to.” He bit the inside of his cheek hard to wake himself up, but pain was sort of irrelevant at this point. “What… what happened with my uncle?” He knew the answer to the question already, but he wanted—needed—to hear it said aloud.Jack paused, hands hovering over the final segment of chains before he broke those too. “I killed him.” With all the boards and chains removed, Jack slid one arm under the bend of Mac’s knees, the other curling around his shoulders as he lifted him off the concrete. “I could smell your blood as soon as I got close, and everything he had upstairs pointed to a syphoning spell.” In a lower, darker tone, he added, “There was no way he wasn’t dying for that.”Mac finally allowed himself to relax, tension ebbing from his muscles as the adrenaline left his system. With the last bit of his strength, he slung his arms around Jack’s neck and buried his face in his shoulder. “Thank you,” he mumbled, words slurred with exhaustion. “M’glad he’s dead. And I’m glad you’re here.”The last thing Mac heard before he faded away was Jack saying, “I’m glad I’m here too.” ~***~ When Mac woke again, it was to the smell of all-purpose cleaner and the low murmur of a baseball game on a cheap television. He was tucked securely in a bed under several blankets of varying itchiness, and the ugly wallpaper and a doorway to a shadowy bathroom screamed motel. His suitcase sat open on a chair, which explained the sweatpants he felt against his legs. A prickly sensation in Mac’s hand caused him to trail his gaze from some tubing running out under the covers to the dual bags of intravenous saline and blood hanging from the over-the-bed light fixture.He was tired but in much better shape than he had been back in the basement, and when he turned his head to look for Jack the room didn’t spin. He was sitting on the bed next to Mac, close but not touching, propped up against the headboard and watching the game on TV with an unfocused gaze. “Jack?”The demon jumped a little, evidently so lost in thought he hadn’t heard Mac’s breathing change. “Hey, you’re up. How you feeling?”“Not bad for a guy who almost got turned into flank steak,” Mac joked, already using the hand without the IV in it to lift up the covers to peek at himself. Every single cut was meticulously bandaged, and when he breathed he could feel the pull of sutures in a couple of the deeper ones. “You didn’t tell me you were a doctor along with being a spy and a demon.”Jack smiled at him, worry lingering in the lines near his eyes. “Just decent at field medicine.” He nodded toward the jury-rigged IV setup. “Stole those from a clinic, and Duke Jacoby’s paying for our fleabag motel room. Cleaned most of this place myself, figured you didn’t need an infection on top of everything else.”Mac pushed himself up on his elbows, ignoring the protests of his sore muscles and Jack’s hand-flapping concern. The air in the room felt cool against his bare chest, and he scooted toward Jack until they were pressed together from hip to ankle; the knot forming in his stomach unwound when Jack didn’t pull away. Mac knew what he was about do was somewhat pointless since Jack had already seen him naked, but he had a feeling if he didn’t address this now he never would.“My uncle, he… he used to lock me in that basement.” Admitting that out loud felt like letting out a breath Mac didn’t know he was holding for all these years. He tried to fiddle with his glasses before realizing they weren’t on his face and dropping his hands to his lap. “Not all the time, usually when I did something he didn’t like—or that reminded him of my dad.” Swallowing hard, he offered Jack a closer look at his shoulders; the tops were covered with small round blemishes from Walsh stubbing out cigarettes on his skin, meshing into the horizontal scars across his back from Walsh’s belt. “He never did it where anybody could see, because I had to go to school. And I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go and foster care seemed like it would be worse—”“Hey,” Jack interjected, quiet but firm. Telegraphing the movement, he put a hand on Mac’s shoulder, a thumb skimming absently over a particularly nasty burn scar near his collarbone. “You don’t need to explain yourself, or justify anything to me, okay?”“But I do,” Mac protested. His posture slumped, not daring to look Jack in the eye when he added quietly, “Because I really like you—like an unhealthy amount, probably—and you’re everything I’m not. And I know I probably don’t look how you expected, and there’s the whole ‘I summoned you to find my dad’ thing—”Jack cut him off again, but this time it was by grabbing his face in both hands and reeling him in for a kiss. This felt different from the last two, though, almost delicate, and Mac just… melted into it, eyes slipping shut. Even exhausted and achy and seven kinds of fucked up he leaned into Jack’s touch, his own hands coming up to encircle Jack’s wrists like he needed to hold him in place. It was soft little presses of lips against his own with the barest suggestion of more if he wanted it, and oh God did Mac want it, desire a living thing curled up in his gut that shook itself awake whenever Jack was near.“Not going anywhere,” Jack whispered, seeming to read Mac’s mind as he pressed a parting kiss to the corner of his mouth. He smiled when the reassurance was enough to make Mac release his grip on Jack’s wrists, and the demon leaned back far enough to grasp the hem of his own t-shirt. Pulling it up and over his head, Jack revealed a well-toned torso… and a giant, pulsing gunshot wound in his chest. It wasn’t bleeding or falling apart, just an open, gaping catastrophe of muscle and bone. Seeing the naked shock on Mac’s face, Jack’s mouth quirked self-deprecatingly. “See? You’re not the only one with a story to tell, darlin’.”“It’s the wound that killed you, right?” Mac asked, tossing the covers back and crawling into Jack’s lap to get a better look. He was running curious fingertips across it—he’d expected to feel some kind of indent, but it was smooth like someone laminated over it—before he realized what he was doing (how weird he was being) and paused to look at Jack, wide-eyed. “Uh. Sorry.”But Jack only smiled, this time with an affection to it that warmed Mac to his core. “Nothing to be sorry for if you’re right.” He snaked an arm around Mac’s waist, his other hand sliding up over the scars on Mac’s back and into his hair. “I was working protection detail for an ambassador about fifteen years ago, and things went south in a hurry. Got intel the ambassador was a traitor and had to put him down, but then I caught a high-powered round right in the heart—broke through my vest and everything.” He shrugged, fingers absently running over Mac’s scalp. “Thought that was it, but evidently something I did topside was ugly enough that the demon curse kicked in. Problem is, I did so much bad shit I never could figure out what it was.”Recalling something Walsh mentioned back in the basement, Mac said, “I might know. Or at least I might know part of it.” Craning his neck, he double-checked that the blood and IV bags were empty before he slid the catheter out of the back of his hand. “You said you were CIA when you were alive, right?”Jack made an annoyed sound, taking his hand out of Mac’s hair to put it over Mac’s to staunch the trickle of blood from the IV site. “It’s more complicated than that. I was with a part of the intelligence community that doesn’t exist on paper—the stuff we did was so secret I never even knew my boss’s name. They had all kinds of covers for our ops, and they usually disguised outposts as—” His eyes went wide, gaze snapping up from their joined hands to Mac’s face. “Think-tanks.”“I bet if we go out to that think-tank my dad worked at we’ll find a lot more than a map,” Mac said. He hesitated for a split second—physical affection wasn’t his strongest suit—before bringing his other hand up to touch Jack’s cheek. “If my dad had something to do with your death, we’re going to find out.”“If that’s the case, you should be trying to keep me as far away from your dad as possible,” Jack pointed out, blinking up at Mac in confusion. “Why aren’t you locking me in a pentagram right now?”“Because I trust you,” Mac replied. As soon as the words came out he knew they were the truth. He figured it might take more to convince Jack of that, so he asked, “Would you still have gotten me out of the basement if I’d broken our deal while I was down there?”“Of course I would’ve,” Jack said. He realized how Mac had set him up and shook his head, pressing a kiss to Mac’s jaw. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”Mac didn’t even bother trying not to sound pleased with himself. “You absolutely did.” He laughed when Jack started trailing kisses down his bruised neck, the sound trailing into something more heated as a hickey got sucked into the join between his neck and shoulder. Mac shifted his hips, and couldn’t help but whimper a little when he felt Jack’s cock twitch underneath him in response, the demon’s grip on his waist tightening—A heavy series of knocks at their motel room door shattered the mood like glass. Jack moved so quickly Mac almost didn’t see it; one minute he had Mac in his lap, and the next they were both standing behind the hinge side of the door. It was disorienting, but Mac was happy he was able to stand upright, and even happier when he grabbed a horrendous-looking vase from next to TV that was heavy enough to make a good bludgeon.Jack had the Beretta in his hand, held down along his leg, and when the knocking came again he flipped the deadbolt and opened the door in one motion. He was immediately pinned against it, a serrated blade with the telltale gleam of a silver coating held to his throat. The fingers curled around the handle of the blade were dotted with rings that had the same sort of shine.“Hi again,” Leanna said, her tone a mockery of her sickly-sweet waitress voice. “I think it’s time you and I have a chat.”
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Shock made Mac drop the vase, but he didn’t have time to worry about it since he was already moving, shoving his way between Jack and Leanna, who had no choice but to lower the knife unless she wanted to slit Mac’s throat. “Leanna? What the hell are you—wait, Bozer?”“Mac!” Bozer expression was one of relief, but his eyes widened when he saw the bandages littering Mac’s body. “Whoa, what happened to you?”Leanna put one hand on her hip, the other holding the knife in a defensive grip. She jutted her chin in Jack’s direction and asked, “Did he hurt you?”“What? No!” Mac could feel the tension in Jack’s body, and reached back blindly to circle fingers around one of his wrists. “He saved my life. If you guys want to come in, I’ll explain everything.” He eyed Leanna sternly and added, “No stabbing.”She looked unimpressed but relented, sheathing the knife inside her boot. “Fine. You get five minutes, but if I don’t like what I hear he’s getting exorcised.”Jack flashed his teeth, eyes blackening. “I wouldn’t try that, sweetheart. Mac and I made a deal—means if you try and send me back to Hell it’s gonna hurt him a fuck of a lot more than it’ll hurt me. And if you hurt him, we’re gonna have a problem. Ask the last guy who tried it—oh wait, you can’t, he’s dead.”Mac turned around and stared into Jack’s face, bottomless pits for eyes be damned. “Not helping,” he scolded, but he had to admit, having someone protecting him was an interesting feeling. “I sort of want my friends to like you, not want to smite you into another dimension. Try to behave?”Jack exhaled harshly, eyes shifting back to normal. “Only if she does.” He slid his hand into Mac’s, squeezing lightly. “And only because you asked so nicely.”Leanna and Bozer were in the room by now, and Mac knew the medical supplies and spotless surfaces wouldn’t escape Leanna’s critical eye—the silver-coated knife meant his best friend’s girlfriend was actually a demon hunter, like the kind Mac had read about briefly in the skin-book. Speaking of Bozer, he was watching Mac and Jack, mouth hanging slightly ajar. He pawed at Leanna’s arm to try and get her attention as Jack shut and relocked the door, but she was busy studying the IV rig.“Wait, hold up,” Bozer said, seemingly realizing that Mac and Jack were both shirtless. “First I find out demons are real, then I find out you can summon them—and now you’re sleeping with one?”Mac gave Bozer the bitchiest look he could muster, which wasn’t very bitchy given the fact that he was touched his friend had come all this way because he was worried. “Nice to see you too, Boze.”“I told you they were screwing,” Leanna said, pushing herself up to sit on top of a dresser, evidently not trusting the questionable stains on the wingback chairs. “I knew that back at the diner. What I didn’t know was that Mac’s new boyfriend was really a condemned soul.” Her hard stare stuck on the wound to Jack’s chest for a moment before moving to Mac. “Your five minutes started a minute ago. I’d talk.”Mac told the story, starting with his father’s disappearance for Leanna’s sake since she wasn’t familiar with it like Bozer, and recounting the events of the past several hours. Jack filled in details where he had to, and when Mac heard the whole thing out loud it sounded a lot crazier than he thought. Leanna listened without interrupting, while Bozer looked torn between being fascinated and wanting to hightail it back to the airport. Mac couldn’t blame him—it was a lot to take in, especially with him and Jack sitting on the bed holding hands.Before Leanna could say anything, Bozer was patting at his shirt pockets, seemingly struck by a random memory. “Glasses. I brought your spare glasses.”“Thanks, man.” Mac slid them on his face, wincing at the thickness of the frames. They were much boxier than his normal pair, but at least he could see clearly again. To his surprise, the expression on Leanna’s face was significantly warmer than it had been when she arrived. “Well?”“I’m not going to say I agree with your methods… but this makes way more sense now I understand exactly how much finding your dad means to you. You weren’t left with any options, and for a first time summoner you did an impressive job.” Leanna looked off to the side for a moment, thinking hard. “This goes against everything I’ve been taught as a demon hunter.”“I think some of what you were taught was wrong,” Mac said. He released Jack’s hand to lean forward, catching Leanna’s gaze. “Look, Jack’s not perfect by any means, but he’s a good man—the fact that he’s a demon right now doesn’t matter. I believe everything he’s told me, and I know there has to be a way to find my dad and help Jack.”“If Walsh wanted to siphon all your magic away for a locator spell, that means it has to be really powerful to find your old man,” Jack added. When Leanna looked at him dubiously, he raised his eyebrows. “Maybe you could help with that?”“Maybe.” Hopping off the dresser, Leanna took out her phone and looked at Mac. “I can call Sam and try to get her on board. Her mom’s a witch, so it’s possible she knows a spell we could use that wouldn’t kill you.”“That would be nice,” Mac said dryly. He stood up too, and gave her a hug. “Thank you. You too, Bozer.”“No problem, Mac,” Bozer replied. “Not gonna say I understand half of this, but you know I’ve got your back. What about that think-tank you mentioned, though?”Leanna returned Mac’s embrace, seemingly unfazed by his partial nudity. She looked at Jack over his shoulder and asked, half-sarcastically, “I don’t suppose any of your demon friends are good with computers? Hacking that place would be a lot easier than going in the front door.”Jack grinned, mirroring the expression Mac had pressed into the top of Leanna’s head. “As a matter of fact…” ~***~ Riley Davis didn’t get summoned often and she liked it that way. Much like when she’d been alive, she preferred working behind the scenes at a keyboard over being where the action was, and generally if some weeb asked for her by name it meant they wanted anything from help clearing their porn cache to hacking into whatever alphabet-soup government agency they felt had done them wrong. Making fake identities for front-line demons and erasing janky security camera footage from her cubicle in Hell was much more her speed.Which was why it came as such a shock to Riley when she felt the disorienting tug-and-pull at the base of her brain, and instantly went from sitting at her desk to standing inside a pentagram drawn in… ketchup?“Ketchup?” she wondered aloud, glancing around the room, which appeared to be some kind of industrial kitchen. “Who the fuck uses ketchup in a summoning?”“Me,” a female voice with a sultry Australian accent said from behind her. “Didn’t have a Sharpie pen, or whatever the kids are using these days.”Riley spun on the heel of her combat boot and hissed when she saw the woman who’d yanked her chain, all lean muscle and long blonde hair, a silver-coated machete held down along her leg. Her eyes flashed black and stayed that way. “Hunter.”The woman’s mouth quirked. “Gold star for you. My name is Samantha Cage, and I’m exactly what you think I am.” She ran her thumbnail along the edge of the machete’s blade, walking a slow circle around the outside of the pentagram. “You know Jack Dalton?”Riley froze, ice chilling her too-hot veins. “Where is he? What happened?”“Relax, he’s fine,” Cage said. “Just wanted to make sure I pulled the right demon out of the Pit—even with the name it can be tricky sometimes.” She set the machete down on a countertop before leaning against it and crossing her arms. “He’s in Los Angeles at the moment, but he’ll be back soon enough—we’re in Boston, by the way. A good friend of mine asked me to summon you to help Jack with his current deal. He says you’re a hacker?”“I am,” Riley replied, unable to keep the suspicion out of her voice. “And what exactly does Jack need me to do?”Cage opened a cabinet and produced a laptop she must’ve stashed there before she did the summoning. It was a professional rig, not as powerful as Riley’s old one, but it could still do nasty work. “Borrowed this from a regular customer. You need to hack into a think-tank in LA that Jack suspects isn’t what it appears to be on the surface and see what you can find out about what they really do.”“Homeland or CIA?” Riley asked.That little mouth-quirk again. “CIA is the suspicion, but not the part that exists on paper—the scientific division.”Riley felt that familiar itch in her fingertips and shoved them in the back pockets of her jeans. “And how am I supposed to believe anything you’re telling me?”Cage left the laptop on the counter with the machete and approached the pentagram, shocking the hell out of Riley when she stepped within its bounds. “With a show of good faith.”She gripped Riley’s chin and pulled her in for a kiss, which per the requirements of a demon deal meant closed-mouth contact for a few seconds. This… was not that, not by a long shot, but instead a battle of lips and tongues and teeth. Riley wasn’t sure how it happened, but the next thing she knew Cage’s hands were tangled in the inky blackness of her hair and Riley’s own fingers were curved around the hunter’s back, dangerously close to the clasp of her bra.Riley blinked rapidly when Cage pulled away to breathe. “Well that was… unexpected.”“But not unwelcome?” Cage asked, hands sliding out of Riley’s hair with sensual grace before she stepped back, breaking the pentagram with a scuff from her foot on the way out. “Because I might be a hunter, but I don’t have half the hang-ups my partner does—and you’re a total stunner.”“You aren’t so bad yourself,” Riley said, amazed both by this turn of events and the fact that she was going to get to see Jack while they were both topside. “Now, why don’t you let me at that computer?” ~***~ “Your think-tank is not a think-tank,” Cage said a while later through a Skype call on Mac’s laptop, which Bozer and Leanna had had the forethought to bring with them. “Riley, tell them what you told me.”The four of them were sitting in the departure terminal at LAX, banking on the idea that Riley could find out just as much or more information digitally than they could in person, and that her hacking would allow them to get a jump-start on travelling back to the other side of the country. Personally, Mac was sick of airports and the uncomfortable chairs didn’t make his wounds hurt any less. He held the laptop while the others crowded around him, Jack pressed into his shoulder on the right and Leanna on the left, with Bozer practically in her lap so he could see the screen too.It appeared that Riley was around Mac’s age when she died, all dark hair and eyes, her attitude written in smudged eyeliner and a moto jacket over a distressed Misfits t-shirt. She somehow looked exactly how he’d pictured her, and when she spoke it was with the authority of someone who was an expert in their field. “I did some digging, and this think-tank place was definitely a cover for a CIA research facility.”Mac frowned. “Wait, was? It shut down?”“Yep, about ten years ago,” Riley answered. “Right around the time your dad disappeared.”“That’s not suspicious at all,” Bozer muttered.“But that’s not the most interesting part,” Cage said, her gaze locking on Jack. “Turns out your old CIA file is connected to this place and to James MacGyver.”Jack nudged Mac with an elbow. “Looks like you were right. I don’t suppose you ladies found a locator spell we could use on Mac’s old man?”Cage nodded, pushing her hair back over her shoulder. “I called my mother, and she sent over something that should work. Given the fact that you’re about to board a six hour flight, I think maybe we should save it for tomorrow.”“Good idea,” Leanna said, and the guys all nodded. “How about we all meet at the diner tomorrow for breakfast? My treat.”“Sounds good to me,” Riley said. She smiled at Jack, and Mac could see the same affection shining in her eyes that he’d heard when Jack was speaking to her on the phone line to Hell. “It’s nice to see you up here, big guy.”“You too, kiddo,” Jack said, a heartfelt grin on his face. “Talk tomorrow, yeah?” She agreed, and after the rest of them said their goodbyes Mac ended the call, just in time for their flight to be announced for boarding. ~***~ The gang parted ways after landing at Logan Airport, with Leanna and Bozer heading back to their place for some quality time. It was dark outside at around eight o’clock in the evening, and Mac could hardly believe that everything—summoning Jack, getting kidnapped by Walsh, finding new clues about his dad—had all happened in the same day. He rubbed absently at the bandages under his t-shirt, shivering a little as he waited outside for their Uber without a coat, since his has been lost in the bloodbath at Walsh’s house.Jack noticed and made a displeased sound, shrugging off his leather jacket and draping it over Mac’s shoulders. He chuckled when Mac opened his mouth to thank him but let out a yawn instead. “You tired?”“Yeah,” Mac admitted, pushing up his glasses to rub at his eyes. He figured it would be pointless to try and get Jack to take his jacket back so he pulled it closer instead, breathing in the embedded smell unique to its owner, all metallic tang and tamped-down campfire. There was a little gun oil mixed in there now thanks to the Beretta, but Mac found he didn’t care. “Mind if we pick up some food on the way back?” He paused. “Did you want to stop at the diner and see Riley?”“Nah, there’ll be plenty of time for us to play catch-up tomorrow,” Jack replied. He put an arm around Mac’s shoulders, and Mac wondered if he’d been swaying in place without realizing it. “Let’s get a meal in you, see if you perk back up.”They Ubered from Logan to one of Mac’s favorite Chinese restaurants and got enough lo mein and pupu platters for four people, because leftovers were never a bad thing, and also acquired a twelve-pack from a package store near Mac’s building. The apartment was more or less exactly as they’d left it that morning, save for the spots Bozer and Leanna had disturbed when they came looking for Mac. He didn’t care how it looked, it was home, and washing the wrecked pentagram off the floor could wait until he wasn’t afraid he was going to fall asleep on his feet.Several boxes of Chinese food and a couple of beers later, Mac was feeling considerably better. And considerably more aware of Jack, sitting next to him on Mac’s cramped second-hand couch, their arms or legs brushing every time one of them reached for a bottle or fork. They’d already taken turns in Mac’s ridiculously small shower and changed into t-shirts and sweatpants; some strange part of Mac’s brain that was trying to ignore how horny he was noted that he if he was going to keep sharing clothes with Jack he’d need to do laundry sooner rather than later.When Jack got up to clear away the trash, Mac glanced at his ass before squeezing his eyes shut. Now that he wasn’t half-dead from blood loss and knew that Jack returned his feelings, he was a lot more nervous. That wasn’t a deal breaker, however, because Mac had the uncanny ability to turn anxiety over a challenge into a dare, and the next thing he knew he was on his feet, following Jack to the kitchenette.“So does that old TV with the rabbit ears work—” Jack turned away from the trash, kicking the cabinet shut with his foot and looking at Mac in puzzlement, unable to parse out the look on his face. “Or is it just an antique?”“It works,” Mac said. “I took it from the dump and rewired it. Gets cable now.” He stepped closer, into Jack’s space, and it was eerily like the prelude to their first kiss (Mac’s first kiss) inside the pentagram. “There might be something else we could do besides watch TV, though.”Before he lost his confidence, Mac leaned in and pressed his mouth to Jack’s. The demon’s response was instantaneous, lips parting to give Mac’s tongue access while calloused hands moved to grip his hips, fingers stroking their way under the hem of Mac’s t-shirt. Mac couldn’t help the little sound he made in response to that touch, the knowledge that Jack had already seen what hid under his clothes and didn’t mind enough to make him press closer, his own hands framing Jack’s face and relishing in the feel of his beard against Mac’s palms.Their lips moved against each other until Mac had to breathe, and when he pulled away he flashed Jack what he hoped was an alluring smile before he dropped to his knees.Jack made a choking sound, surprise and lust warring for dominance on his face. “Mac, you don’t have to—”“I know,” Mac said, and he meant it. He felt safer and more comfortable in his own skin with Jack than he ever had with anybody else. He blinked up at Jack from behind the stupidly thick lenses of his spare glasses. “I want to. Is that okay?”Jack let his head fall back against the kitchenette’s upper cabinet with a decisive thunk. “Yeah, darlin’, whatever you want.” He straightened up again as Mac started to pull down the waistband of his sweatpants. “Shit, I should warn you—”Mac had seen a few dicks in his time—his own, obviously, but also those found in public bathrooms, and Bozer’s because he had a tendency to lose his pants when he was drunk. This… was not a strictly human cock. Same general size and shape, curved up toward Jack’s stomach and flushed with arousal, but that was where any similarities ended. A large row of ridges ran up the underside, almost like the scales on a lizard, and instead of being rounded, the head was almost like a diamond that ended with a tapered point.“Probably not what you were—holy shit!” Jack’s head hit the cabinets a second time when Mac wrapped a hand around the base of Jack’s cock, thumbing at one of the ridges; except for the angle and textural differences it was basically like holding himself, and a lot less awkward than he expected. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jack’s hands clamp down on the edge of the countertop, like he was holding himself back. “This is it, I’m gonna die—again.”Something else in his peripheral vision caught Mac’s attention: burned into the thin skin above Jack’s hipbone was a pentagram, perfectly rounded at the edges like it had been placed by a brand. Emboldened, Mac scooted closer and planted a kiss on the brand, which earned him a full-body shudder, and was followed in short order by him licking his way up the ridges on Jack’s cock to the head, tonguing at the slit and picking up some precome on the way. Like almost anyone who was a fan of masturbation he’d tasted his own come before and disliked it, but Jack’s was like an odd combination of salt and smokiness that was intoxicating. When Mac glanced up he noticed Jack still had his head tilted back, so he tapped him on the thigh with his free hand to get his attention.“What, what now?” When Jack’s gaze locked with Mac’s, Mac swallowed down his cock in one smooth glide like he’d done this countless times. In reality, he’d watched his fair share of porn and he had no gag reflex. “Oh my God, oh fuck, Mac.”Mac shared the sentiment, letting his eyes fall shut as he enjoyed the weight and thickness of Jack’s cock, curling his tongue around those ridges as he swallowed experimentally. The muscles in his throat—still bruised from getting choked by Walsh’s belt but no longer causing him pain—contracted wetly, some drool escaping the corner of his mouth while Jack let out a loud groan above him.A gentle hand touched the crown of his head, and Mac looked up to find that Jack looked wrecked. Eye contact evidently didn’t help the situation, because Jack’s hips twitched involuntarily, his breath leaving him in a shaky gust. “If you wanna do anything else tonight, hoss, you should really get back up here.”Mac raised an eyebrow but pulled off, giving Jack’s cock a parting kitten lick before getting to his feet. He was hard and throbbing in his own sweatpants and with only the smallest hesitation he pulled off his t-shirt. He’d taken off the bandages before his shower and hadn’t bothered applying more, since the widest cuts were sewn closed by Jack and only pulled a little. They might scar, but they wouldn’t hold a candle to his shoulders or his back.Mac tossed the shirt to the side and shook the hair out of his face to find Jack staring at him, expression unreadable. “What?” The single word was scratchy from having a dick in his mouth for the first time, and that thought was enough to send yet another spike of heat through his belly.“You’re beautiful,” Jack said. Before Mac could refute that claim, Jack was ripping off his own shirt and kicking away the sweatpants from where they’d pooled around his ankles. He wrapped both arms around Mac’s waist and kissed him hard, lifting Mac into the air almost effortlessly and walking in the general direction of the bed. “Just… fucking beautiful.”Mac laughed as Jack dumped him on the bed, both at the idea that he was anything other than ordinary and at how it felt to be tossed around by a demon like a sack of flour. Mac shimmied out of his own sweatpants, and his jubilation evolved into a moan when Jack crawled on top of him, slotting between Mac’s legs like that was exactly where he was meant to be—which as far as Mac was concerned, it was.Jack couldn’t seem to get enough of Mac’s mouth, twining their tongues together and leaning his weight on his forearms, one hand combing lazily through Mac’s hair. When he broke the kiss and opened his eyes they were pitch black, reflecting the meager light from Mac’s bedside lamp like twin candle flames. Mac must’ve been staring, because Jack blinked and they shifted back to normal, a mumbled apology leaving him as he leaned in again.Mac brought his hands up, long fingers curving around the harsh planes of Jack’s face. “You don’t have to do that, you know.” He smiled, small and crooked but genuine. “I like them. They don’t scare me.” The you don’t scare me went unspoken, but Mac figured since they were both naked in his bed it was damn well implied.Jack took in a shuddering breath and dropped his forehead to rest against Mac’s collarbone, the moment getting the better of him. Mac used one hand to scratch through the short hair on the back of Jack’s head, the other stroking lightly between his shoulder blades, studying his own ceiling while he waited for Jack to pull himself together. They were both still hard but some of the urgency was gone, replaced with a tenderness that neither of them had ever known.“I don’t deserve you,” Jack said, the words muffled slightly by Mac’s chest but no less heartfelt. “And I don’t know what brought us together, but I’m gonna spend every day I have with you working my ass off to become deserving.”Mac laughed again, but this time it was choked by a whole host of emotions. “So… would this be a bad time to mention I’m a virgin?”A beat passed before Jack slowly lifted his head to look at Mac, eyes human and brown, at least for the moment. “Excuse me? My hearing must be going in my old age—you’re a what?”“Is it really that hard to believe?” Mac asked, gesturing around his shitbox apartment, complete with his weird stalker board for his dad and random piles of spare parts. “High school… was not fun, and in college I was focused on my degree and finding my dad. Bozer drags me out to bars sometimes but nothing ever happens. Up until this morning I’d never even kissed anyone.”Jack was staring at him openly, muscles suddenly tense. “Wait, so your first kiss was with a demon?”“No,” Mac replied, stretching out the single syllable as he shook his head. He used the hand that had slipped down to the back of Jack’s neck to pull him in for a slow, sweet kiss, and when he drew back Mac felt himself smiling again. “My first kiss was with you.”Jack relaxed in Mac’s hold, pressing his lips to Mac’s forehead and lingering there for a moment. “You sure about this? Because if you’re not—”Mac lifted his hips, thrusting lightly against Jack. “Do I feel like I’m not ready?” The question was meant to sound sexy, but instead it came out tight and followed closely by, “Please do something before I explode.”That achieved Mac’s two immediate goals, which were to get Jack to smile and also have him busy himself with kissing his way down Mac’s chest and abdominals, careful to avoid the zigzags of his stitches. While that was happening—and Mac was alternating between giggles and groans depending on what spot Jack decided to lick or bite—Mac managed to find the drawer handle on his bedside table and yanked it open, digging around until he found his bottle of lube. No condoms, because until today Mac’s sex life was limited to his own hand.“Are condoms a thing we need?” Mac asked. “Because between the virgin thing and you literally being made of fire and brimstone, I sort of think the answer’s no.” He spread his legs further apart to accommodate Jack’s breadth since he’d scooted down the bed, and exhaled harshly when Jack grabbed him under both knees and lifted his legs, slinging them over his shoulders and putting Mac’s ass at an angle relative to Jack’s face that Mac had only seen in crappy porn. “What are you—?”The words died in Mac’s throat and so did most of his brain cells, because Jack was parting his asscheeks and licking a hot stripe over his hole. Mac couldn’t help the way his hips jerked into the sensation or how his hands twisted in his own sheets, but he didn’t care either because Jack’s clever tongue was doing all sorts of awfully wonderful things. Circling around his entrance before prodding at his rim and dipping inside once the skin was wet with saliva, the tip of Jack’s tongue pushed inside and Mac made an inhuman sound, a grunt that tapered off into a whine as his thighs squeezed Jack’s head.Mac didn’t know how Jack wound up with the lube—although he thought he might’ve thrown it in the demon’s direction—but as soon as a slicked-up finger joined Jack’s tongue inside his hole, Mac decided he didn’t care. He felt hot all over even as tremors wracked his nerves, and when that exploratory finger grazed his prostate at the same time that Jack’s tongue hooked on his rim Mac nearly screamed, grabbing the base of his own cock to keep from coming on the spot. He nudged Jack in the back with the heel of one foot. “Easy, big guy—unless you’d like me to come all over myself before you get inside me.”Jack dropped Mac’s legs and was on top of him so quickly Mac barely saw him move, the sudden emptiness in his ass enough to make him whine into the dirty kiss Jack initiated. When he nipped at Mac’s swollen lower lip and pulled away his eyes were black again, only this time they stayed that way. “You’ve got no idea what that mouth of your does to me, do you?”Mac grinned, a filthy expression he never thought he was capable of, but that was just one of many effects of Jack. “I’m more interested in what this—” he dragged a hand down Jack’s torso and grabbed his cock, thumbnail grazing over its ridges “—is going to do to me.”His grin was overtaken by a moan when Jack let out an honest-to-God growl and, after quickly coating his fingers in more lube, slid two fingers inside Mac’s already loosened entrance. Jack’s lips were back on Mac’s once more, with Jack’s tongue thrusting alongside Mac’s in an imitation of what he planned on doing sooner rather than later. And Mac wasn’t sure if that idea was supposed to make him feel anxious, but it didn’t—instead he felt excited, alive, like he was awake for the first time in forever.Two fingers became three while Jack’s mouth slipped down to Mac’s neck, the kisses pressed over the bruising left behind by Walsh’s belt painstakingly gentle. And that was the thing: despite being an honest-to-God demon, Jack was gentle and sweet, but he could also be rough and sexual without being crude. It was a duality that was so human in nature it only further convinced Mac he needed to find some way to help Jack lift the demon curse, whatever that might be.Jack’s fingers left him for a second time, only for something bigger and spade-shaped to brush against Mac’s entrance. Meanwhile, Jack kissed his way back up to Mac’s lips, and fuck, everything was perfect—the heat between them, the way the hand that wasn’t lining Jack’s cock up was threading back through Mac’s hair, how Mac could dimly see his own reflection in the obsidian of Jack’s eyes. “You ready, darlin’?”Mac wrapped his arms around Jack’s shoulders and pulled him back down, letting his lips do the talking against Jack’s since the affection that burst in his chest in response to those three words was… intense. And so was the slow push of Jack’s cock inside of him, the ridges on the underside scraping Mac’s inner walls in a way that had him shaking, barely remembering to breathe as he twined his legs around Jack’s waist. Jack, who had gone still above him, tiny tremors wracking the muscles in his arms and shoulders in his effort to keep still.Mac gave himself a moment to adjust to the hot fullness that had invaded his body. Then he tilted his head enough to kiss Jack’s wrist, the demon’s fingers tightening in his hair momentarily before he planted his hand on the mattress near Mac’s head for leverage. “Move—please, Jack.”Jack obliged him, mouthing at Mac’s jaw while he drew his hips back and slid them forward again, finishing with a little twist at the end that had Mac seeing stars. With each thrust they got more in sync, Mac lifting up to meet each stroke of Jack’s cock inside of him, deliciously rough in all the right ways, the occasional direct hit against his prostate enough to make Mac’s eyes roll back in his head. He had no idea how long they moved together like that for and honestly never wanted it to stop, but between the intensity of their foreplay and the fact that this was Mac’s first time it wasn’t long before Mac had a toe-curling, mind-numbing orgasm rip through his body. He shouted an unintelligible obscenity and somehow hung on tighter as Jack’s thrusts picked up insanity and speed before he reached his end a few moments later, teeth digging into the meat of Mac’s shoulder as he pulsed inside Mac’s channel.The next few moments were kind of blurry for Mac. They kissed some more, which was nice—he’d had no idea he would like kissing as much as he did, but he had to wonder if he liked it because of the act itself or because he was kissing Jack. He was vaguely aware of Jack pulling out, which was less than comfortable, and shivering at the change in temperature until Jack returned a moment later with a wet washcloth to clean them both up. Seemingly between one blink and the next Jack was climbing back into the bed and drawing the covers up around their bodies, carefully pulling the glasses off Mac’s face and setting them on the nightstand.Mac rolled on to his side and wriggled until he was curled up around Jack. He made a content sound when he felt Jack’s arms wrap around him, fingers linking together over Mac’s hip. He rested his head on Jack’s chest, less than an inch away from his eternal gunshot wound. “That was… amazing. Thank you.”Jack chuckled, the sound rumbling under Mac’s ear like a car engine. “I should be thanking you, Mac. You’re… well, you’re amazing, sweetheart.” He paused, lips pressing against the crown of Mac’s head, through the mess of his hair. “You know, I’ve heard of demons and humans sleeping together… but I don’t think it’s supposed to feel like this.”Mac grunted an acknowledgement, snuggling closer and feeling himself fading into sleep. Usually it never came to him this easily—not after a childhood of cold water wake up calls or crying alone on a dirty mattress in the basement—but with Jack, everything was different. “Mhmm… don’t care. We’ll figure it out tomorrow.” He shut his eyes, and before he let the blackness take him he added quietly, “Love you.”He thought he heard Jack say it back, but maybe he was already dreaming.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
There were lots of not so fun facts that came along with being a demon, but the Jack disliked the most was not needing to sleep. Granted, because his body didn’t need rest he was never tired, but demonic nature ran human enough that sometimes he wanted to sleep and couldn’t. It was annoying down in Hell and aggravating as shit when he was topside; day-night cycles could slowly drive you insane when you couldn’t pass out for a few hours.At least this time he had something gorgeous to watch as the night slowly faded to sunrise. Mac was sound asleep with his hair covering most of his face, which was pressed into Jack’s chest. He was still completely wrapped around Jack, their legs tangled together and one of his toned arms wrapped around Jack’s waist. Jack had done his best not to move while Mac slept, only shifting enough to stroke the uneven scar tissue on his back when he’d whimpered like he was caught in a nightmare. The touch had soothed evidently soothed him, because he’d started snoring instead of sounding scared.Jack brought the hand he had resting on Mac’s back up to comb through his hair, unable to stop himself from smiling when Mac nuzzled into the touch unconsciously. The fondness Jack felt was like a physical weight around his heart, but it was so comfortable that he hadn’t hesitated to reciprocate when Mac had mumbled about loving him before he dropped off to sleep. This crazy, electric thing between them felt so natural, like for the first time in his life Jack actually belonged somewhere… which meant it was only going to hurt worse when their deal was over and Jack got dragged back to Hell.And speaking of Hell, the pentagram branded into his hip was tingling from the inside out, an itch that was impossible to scratch. It meant Matty wanted to talk to him, but the absolute last thing Jack wanted to do was move from this bed—or part himself from Mac—in order to call his boss. She probably just wanted to ask him why Riley had been summoned, but questions about that would veer awfully close to talking about Mac, and Jack didn’t want to consider the consequences of accidentally revealing that he’d gone and fallen in love with a human.Said human stirred, blinking open those beautiful blue eyes and glancing around muzzily. He yawned, a full-body stretch overtaking him before he tilted his head enough to peer up at Jack. “Did I sell my soul?”That startled a laugh out of Jack. “What?”“Last night,” Mac continued, leaning into Jack’s touch as continued to stroke his scalp. “I don’t have a lot to compare it with, but I’m pretty sure you can’t have sex that good without losing something.”“I’m gonna take that as a compliment,” Jack said. He slid the hand in Mac’s hair down to cup the back of neck, thumb rubbing absently at the base of his skull. “You, uh, don’t happen to remember what you said before you fell asleep last night, do you?”Mac tensed all over, hackles rising like a scalded cat. He stared hard at the edge of the mattress, and when he spoke his voice was tight. “Look, Jack, I get it if that was just… sex, for you. Or if this is just another job… I can back off.”Jack rolled them over until he had Mac pinned underneath him, naked bodies tangled together under the sheets and Jack bracing himself on his forearms. He spoke softly but firmly, unable to stop his eyes from coloring black with the amount of emotion behind the words: “I don’t know where you got that idea, but you need to put it out of your pretty head right now. This is just as real for me as it is for you, and the absolute last thing I want is for you to back off. Everything I said last night—including when I told you I loved you after you fell asleep on me—was all true.” He leaned down to give Mac a kiss before he could get any more choked up.Mac wrapped his arms around Jack’s neck, legs spreading to allow Jack to settle between them. Their lips met and parted and met again like they had all the time in the world, and for a moment Jack almost believed it; the slide of Mac’s tongue against his own and the little encouraging noises Mac made in the back of his throat seemed like they might be enough to stop a clock. Jack’s fingers wandered back into Mac’s hair of their own accord, tugging lightly, enough to make one of those tiny throaty noises turn into something close to a whimper.Jack gave Mac’s lower lip a parting nip before moving to suck on the underside of his jaw, teeth scraping lightly across bone. He arched into it when Mac’s fingernails scraped over his back, hips rolling, seeking friction automatically; Mac let out a shuddering sigh and pushed his own hips upward when Jack thrusted down again, bringing their hardening cocks together in a slow, delicious grind. For the sake of leverage and his own sanity, Jack slid an arm under Mac’s lower back to press them closer, and evidently that was the right move because on the next pass Mac full-on moaned.“Jack,” he panted, and Jack was sure his name had never sounded so good before. “Jack, please, can you—” He cut himself off with another sinful noise as Jack licked experimentally over one of his nipples. “Fuck me again—please, Jack.”How could Jack say no to that? He grabbed the bottle of lube from the night before and slathered some on his fingers, licking a stripe up Mac’s neck and reconnecting their lips. He groped at Mac’s ass with his other hand and parted his cheeks, operating by feel as he sunk two wet fingers into the waiting heat of Mac’s hole. It didn’t take much to get him loose, and soon Jack was relishing the twin sensations of Mac’s fingers digging into his shoulders while Jack’s cock pushed into tight wet velvet, Mac’s inner muscles parting beautifully before squeezing around him like he belonged there.Mac was gasping like Jack had punched him in the stomach, leaning up to reconnect them at the mouth, one hand slipping downward to drag a thumbnail over the pentagram on Jack’s hip. Mac’s lips curved into a smile against Jack’s when the gesture made the demon shudder, hips twitching forward involuntarily, and for that Jack teased him; he pulled back until just the spade-shaped head of his cock was inside, and paused for long enough for Mac to whine before slamming forward hard enough to make them both shout. That was it for Jack’s restraint, and the next dozen thrusts had him burying himself in the addictive plush vise that was Mac, who was practically howling, coming with two brutal strokes from his own hand that splattered come all over his stomach. Jack followed him after a handful of thrusts, with a chant of Mac’s name that sounded too close to prayer considering what Jack was… plus he was pretty sure sodomy was still frowned upon in most of those circles.They were both quiet for a moment as they tried to catch their breath, Jack lying on top of Mac but slightly off-center, his face mashed into the pillow next to Mac’s head, eyes closed. He turned his head far enough to press a kiss to his favorite human’s temple and murmured, “I love you.” Mac’s hand touched Jack’s cheek, and when Jack opened his eyes the details of Mac’s face were thrown into sharp relief—he knew his sclera had gone black, and for once he didn’t have to worry about it. “If I had a soul, it’d be yours.”Mac kissed him soundly. “You’re the first person who’s said that to me in a long time, and I know you mean it. I’m not an expert, but I don’t think you can’t love somebody else if you don’t have a soul.”Jack buried his face in Mac’s hair, arms sliding under his scarred shoulders in a loose embrace. “You’ve got a lot more faith in me than I do, darlin’.”One of Mac’s hands stroked down Jack’s back, gentle and comforting. “That’s okay. I’ll believe in you for you until you can believe in yourself.” He turned his head enough to peer at his alarm clock. “And I also believe that if we don’t get in the shower and get over to the diner, Leanna might kill us both.” He attempted to get up and laughed when Jack refused to move, hanging on to Mac like he was glued down. “Okay, maybe five more minutes in bed wouldn’t hurt.” ~***~ About an hour later (there might’ve been some fooling around in the shower) Mac and Jack finally got to Sam’s Diner, where Bozer’s ancient Chevrolet van was parallel parked near the sidewalk. The sign on the door was flipped to CLOSED—an unusual sight for a weekday morning, but it made sense that Cage and Leanna would want to keep this planning under wraps. It didn’t matter anyway, since as soon as they got close enough to read the sign, Leanna was unlocking the door and ushering them inside.“Congratulations, Mac,” Cage said from behind the counter, where she was doling out plates of eggs and bacon. “Not only are you the cause of my first closure since I opened this place, you’re late to your own clandestine meeting.”Mac winced. “Sorry, Sam.” He spotted Bozer in one of the circular booths near the back, a cup of coffee in front of him, sitting across from a woman Mac belatedly recognized as Riley, who was pushing herself out of the booth. “Hey, Jack? Incoming.”“Jack!” Riley exclaimed, plowing into the older demon with a huge grin on her face. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, laughing when he picked her up by the waist and twirled her around. “It’s so good to see you! You know, without the brimstone and cubicles.”“You too, honey,” Jack said, punctuating the statement by smacking a kiss to her forehead as he set her back on her feet. He reached out and tugged on Mac’s jacket sleeve (which was really Jack’s) to draw him closer. “Riles, I’ve got somebody I want you to meet.”Riley looked Mac up and down, a mischievous smile spreading on her face. “You know, I could tell on Skype you were good looking, but damn—a shitty computer screen really doesn’t do you justice.” She shook the hand Mac offered and laughed again when he squirmed at the compliment. “I like him. He’s cute.”Jack put an arm around Mac’s shoulders and kissed his cheek. “I think so too.”“Oh good, then I won’t have to fend off MacGyver to win your affection,” Cage said, six plates of food balanced on a tray. “I’d rather not get into a fistfight before our first date, but I’ll do what I must.”Both Mac and Jack raised their eyebrows at Riley, who shrugged, a faint blush spreading on her cheeks. She toed at the floor and muttered, “You know how deals work… she’s a good kisser.” She smacked Jack’s shoulder when he started chuckling. “Hey, the same thing literally happened to you—I don’t want to hear it.”They all squished into the circular booth, with Mac getting sandwiched between Bozer and Jack. Cage passed out breakfast and coffee, and for about ten minutes the table was silent as they all stuffed their faces with reckless abandon. Eventually Leanna started a conversation, but it was lighthearted ribbing about Cage’s ability to seduce anybody within a five foot radius and how Mac’s spare glasses resembled the bottoms of the old-fashioned Coca-Cola bottles on display in the diner’s windows.Once everyone was done eating, Cage pushed her empty plate aside and rested her forearms on the table, clasping her hands together as she looked at each of them in turn. “Okay, so here’s the deal: I have the spell from my mom, and most of the ingredients. All I need is a map of the region and some of Mac’s blood.”Bozer raised a hand like he was in a classroom. “Why Mac’s blood?”“Because he’s the one with the magic,” Leanna said. “Demonic magic isn’t the same as what witches and warlocks possess—plus Mac’s biological connection to his dad makes the spell stronger. It’s why Walsh wanted to use him specifically and didn’t just grab a random spell caster off the street.”After some shuffling around, it was decided that Bozer and Riley would go get the map while Cage and Leanna got things ready for the spell, shooing Mac and Jack away while they spread various ingredients out on the table. Some of the components Mac recognized from what he’d been led to believe as a child was his mother’s hobby of drying and pressing flowers; others, like the small white bones in a jar, were sort of self-explanatory as occult objects.He and Jack were sitting on the same bench in a booth on the other side of the diner watching the girls work. Jack slid a hand down Mac’s arm and laced their fingers together, resting their joined hands against Mac’s knee. “You okay?”Mac shook his head. “Not really.” He peered at Jack from under his bangs to find the demon watching him with one of those intense looks that never ceased to take Mac’s breath away. “What if Walsh wasn’t the only one from the CIA—or the only demon—who suspected my dad was still alive? Are we putting him in danger by trying to find him?”“I don’t know,” Jack said, the honesty of the answer ringing in the words. He glanced down at their joined hands. “What I do know is that you need answers, Mac. You’ve been fighting your whole life for them—you deserve them, and he’s the only one who can give them to you.”“What if the locator spell doesn’t turn up anything? What if… what if he’s been dead all along?” Mac wondered, giving voice to one of his deepest fears. He’d never said that aloud, not even to himself. “What if—”Jack shushed him, his free hand coming up to cup Mac’s cheek. “Hey, hey, don’t put the cart before the horse. Let Cage do her spell and we’ll figure out what comes next together, okay?”Mac couldn’t not kiss Jack for that. It was a quick, dry press of lips that made them both smile. “Okay.”“Oh man, I did not need to see that,” Bozer complained, as he and Riley reentered the diner with a large map and bags of snacks for their presumed road trip. “It’s like watching your parents make out or something.”Mac rolled his eyes as he and Jack came back over to the circular booth. “Oh, give me a break—how many times have I had to watch you play tonsil hockey with Leanna?”Leanna frowned. “But I don’t have tonsils.”Riley snorted. “One map of New England,” she declared, handing the object in question to Cage. “And lots of junk food to eat on the way to wherever we wind up going.”They all piled back into the booth, and Cage used some of the objects on the table—including the bones and jars of powders—to hold down the corners of the map. She lit some stubby white candles, and produced an ornate dagger from a sheath, which she proceeded to flip expertly in one hand and offer to Mac, handle-first. “Your blood is the last item on the grocery list, Mac. Just let it drop on to the map, and I’ll do the rest.”Mac shucked off Jack’s jacket (he didn’t want to get blood on it accidentally) and rolled up his left sleeve before taking the dagger from Cage. She bowed her head and began to chant in a low voice, swaying slightly in her seat; when she nodded at him, Mac dragged the blade across the inside of his arm, blood welling from the wound. He held his arm out over the map and watched it drip on to the paper, where it immediately began to shiver like someone was shaking the table.Cage continued to chant, and when she nodded again Mac took his arm back, unable to keep his lips from quirking into a smile when Jack murmured an apology and put a hand over the cut, cauterizing it instantly with his fire magic. Cage finished the spell, candles flaring brightly before dimming as the blood travelled to James’s location, which was the exact spot that had been marked on the map in his office: Lincoln, New Hampshire.“Well, I guess we know where we’re going,” Bozer said. He looked around the table and jangled the keys to his van. “Road trip?” ~***~ Jack drove them out of the city, mostly because he’d stood by the van and glared at Bozer until he reluctantly handed over the keys. Mac rode shotgun and provided occasional directions from his phone, but once they were on Interstate 93 it was a straight shot out of Massachusetts and into New Hampshire. Leanna and Bozer occupied the seats behind them, and Riley and Cage were in the back along with a huge duffel bag of weapons and their snack stash.By the time they crossed the border they all needed a bathroom, so Jack pulled off the highway at a rest stop in Salem. It was a brick and batten building that looked less like a tourist center and more like a house, surrounded by a bumpy parking lot with a surprising number of cars in it for a weekday. They all piled out to use the facilities and to get more drinks from the vending machines.Jack worked it so that he and Cage were standing in front of the vending machines at the same time, and he looked her over from the corner of his eye. Tall, svelte, and clearly a badass; Jack had counted two guns and three knives strapped to her person, all no doubt coated in silver and fully able to kill something like him. “So you summoned Riley, huh?”Cage glanced at him, hands in the back pockets of her jeans, stance casual. “I did. She had nothing but glowing things to say about you. I think she thinks of you like her dad.”That was enough to make Jack smile, some of his natural suspicion easing. He looked over to where Riley and Mac were talking near some trees, Mac saying something that was funny enough to get Riley to tip her head back and squeeze her eyes shut while she laughed. “She’s something else, ain’t she?”“She is,” Cage agreed, a warmth to her tone that was different from her usual coolness. “I like her a lot. Even though we only met yesterday, it feels like—”“Like you’ve known each other for years?” Jack interjected, ribbing her with his elbow in a friendly way. “I know exactly what you mean.” The brand on his hip itched insistently under his jeans, and he resisted the temptation to rub at it. He was starting to wonder if it was because Matty wanted to chat or if it meant something more sinister. “Hey, Cage, do you happen to know anything about—”Before he could finish the thought, Bozer came bounding out of the men’s room with way too much energy for ten in the morning. “You guys all set? We’ve still got like, another hour until we get to Lincoln.”“Just about,” Cage replied, before she smashed the heels of both hands into six of the buttons on the soda machine in a perfect Muay Thai combo that Jack admired. She bent to retrieve the bottles, tossing Jack an orange soda—which she somehow knew was his favorite—and winked at him on her way back to the van. “Let’s roll, boys.” ~***~ Bozer’s estimate of another hour’s drive turned out to be false. Between road construction and heinous traffic in Manchester and Concord—the state’s biggest metro area and the capitol, respectively—it was almost two hours before the van pulled off the highway in Lincoln. They got some great scenic views along the way, the White Mountains seeming to rise out of nowhere sometime after Campton, painting a kind of landscape that Mac had previously only seen on postcards.They wound up on Route 112, which was a four-lane stretch of road populated with every possible amenity or activity one could want while they were on vacation no matter the season. Ski shops and hotels vied for space against chain restaurants and gas stations, and everywhere you looked there were advertisements for trading posts, aerial gondola rides, and something called the Hobo Railroad that sounded equal parts intriguing and dangerous.“Now this is where it gets tricky,” Cage said. She pulled the spelled map out of the backpack at her feet, which had changed while it was stored; instead of the six New England states, it now showed a super zoomed-in version of Lincoln, accurate down to the street names. The blood was moving in fits and starts as the spell adjusted to James’s proximity, and Cage pointed at an upcoming set of traffic lights. “Take a left up here, Jack.”They turned down a residential street that was all 1960s ranches and Cape Cods, basketball hoops on garages and picket-fenced yards. Mac tried to stay calm, but each turn the van made caused the knot of anxiety in his gut to throb, so he clenched his fists in his lap and did his best not to freak the fuck out at the prospect of actually seeing his dad for the first time in fourteen years. He felt Bozer kick the back of his seat and it served as a reminder that despite what his head would like to tell him, he wasn’t alone.Probably about twenty minutes later they were on a more isolated strip of road that ran alongside one of the many giant mountains in the area. It was lined mostly with trees with houses speckled here and there, and it reminded Mac a lot of the neighborhood around his house in Laurel Canyon. When Cage practically leapt forward from the back row to point at a mailbox, Jack swung the van down a dirt driveway that led to a battered-looking saltbox ranch with a metal roof, surrounded by thorn-covered holly bushes. All the curtains were pulled and there was no car in the driveway, but there was a small garage on the property with its door shut.Jack shut off the engine and looked at Mac over the rims of his sunglasses. “You ready for this?”“Honestly? No,” Mac replied, his throat suddenly dry. He was staring at the house so intently he jumped when Jack’s hand covered both of his own, fingers relaxing out of their white-knuckled state at the touch. “I thought I would be, but I’m…”“Nervous? Scared?” Leanna suggested. She leaned forward and patted him on the shoulder. “Mac, we’d be more worried if you weren’t freaking out a little.”“We’re with you, man,” Riley said quietly. In the rearview mirror, Mac saw Sam tangle her fingers with Riley’s. “No matter what happens.”“Okay.” Blowing out a breath, Mac gave Jack’s hand a squeeze before moving to unbuckle his seatbelt and get out of the van. “Let’s go see my dad.”
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Of all the ways Mac expected his father to answer the door, it wasn’t with a shotgun.James MacGyver looked older than his age, no doubt the result of a stressful life of trying to stay the fuck away from both the United States government and Jonah Walsh. The lines in his face contorted in confusion, but the barrel of the weapon pointed at Mac’s head—a Mossberg, if he remembered his gun specs correctly—never wavered. “Who are you and what the hell are you doing on my property?”“Friendly guy,” Cage muttered under her breath, tone as dry as a desert.The shotgun was definitely a Mossberg—the scrolled engraving and over-under design gave it away—and it was more than capable of obliterating Mac’s head at this distance. Part of him was overjoyed regardless because this was his dad, standing right in front of him! Mac wasn’t crazy and he hadn’t wasted over half his life chasing a ghost, and most importantly his dad was alive. Trying to ignore the prickle of adrenaline at the base of his spine, Mac licked his lips and tried, “Dad, it’s me—Angus. I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”James stared at him for a long, tense moment. “Angus?” He lowered the shotgun a fraction. “How did you find me?” His gaze shifted, taking in the cluster of people surrounding his son, and understanding dawned. “I guess you can get a lot accomplished with a couple of demons—and hunters? That’s unusual.”“This is an unusual circumstance,” Leanna said, her pleasant smile fake to anyone who knew her. “May we come in?”“I guess you don’t have a choice,” James remarked, and that stung. Mac didn’t know what he’d expected—his dad had never been an affectionate person, even when Mac was a little kid—but he’d thought he might be happy to see his kid. “Get in here—oh, wait.” He raised the shotgun in the air and used the end of the barrel to scrape a gap into the pentagram painted on the ceiling above the entryway. “Can never be too careful. I’m presuming if you found me, then you know about Walsh.”Mac nodded, leading the way into the house, Jack and Bozer close behind him with the ladies bringing up the rear. “He managed to keep it hidden until recently, but when we went out to the house looking for clues—”James raised his eyebrows. “We?” He stuck the shotgun in an umbrella stand and headed toward a small sitting area. The first floor was all one room, with the kitchen at one end and some couches at the other. There were no personal touches whatsoever; even the furniture was neutral and nondescript, with the back wall of the house made up of several sliding glass doors that opened up to a cobblestone patio. “You’ll pardon my surprise, but you were never good at making friends, Angus.”Jack spoke up, his voice coated in sarcastic acid: “Well a lot can change in—how long has it been, Mac? Fourteen years?”“It… certainly can,” James admitted, but the hitch in his voice wasn’t from a sudden flood of sentimentality. He was staring at Jack, and recognition stuttered through his expression. He took a step back, raking a hand through his hair in a gesture that was eerily reminiscent of Mac. “Dear God—you’re Jack Dalton. If you’re here—if you’re a demon—that means it worked.” He looked at Jack with the kind of wide-eyed interest that Mac had never garnered from his father. “I was right.”Riley was leaning against the wall, arms crossed and a rebellious boot sole digging into the sheetrock. “Right about what, exactly?”Mac had a feeling he knew the answer to that question, and glanced at Jack. His face was almost frighteningly blank, except for his eyes; those almost seemed to waver at the edges, like he was trying hard not to let them turn black. When James spoke next, no matter what he said, the shit was going to hit the fan.“About everything,” James began, pacing across beige carpeting, his bare feet looking oddly small—but maybe the roaring in Mac’s ears and the involuntary tears filling his eyes were playing tricks on him. “I was Dalton’s boss back in the CIA, he acted on my orders. I was able to do what nobody thought was possible: create a demon through predetermined circumstance!” There was something manic about James as he turned to Jack, who was practically vibrating with barely-leashed rage. “The ambassador wasn’t a traitor, and you killed him anyway—that’s a mortal sin, which is cannon fodder for demon creation. And then Walsh shot you, but the demonic resurrection didn’t work the way I thought it would.” He frowned to himself, apparently unaware of how close Jack was to strangling him. “Your body was buried in Arlington, full military honors… and yet you’re here. Interesting.”Jack breathed out slowly, and Mac could’ve sworn his exhalation was tinged with smoke. “Interesting?” he repeated, sclera blackening between one blink and the next. “You ordered me to kill a man you knew was innocent, and then you had Walsh kill one of his own, and all you have to say is interesting?”“That’s why Walsh became a demon,” Mac realized aloud, amazed that his voice wasn’t trembling since he felt like he was shaking part inside. “You killed him too, didn’t you?”“Not directly,” James replied. He seemed to sense the tension in the room for the first time and took a step back. “Walsh was reckless, he was bound to get himself killed eventually. When he came back as a demon, he refused to tell me how the resurrection worked and he wanted to find a way to reverse the demon curse—can you believe it? I cut all ties with him after that.”“But you left Mac with him!” Bozer protested, indignant on Mac’s behalf. “And he hasn’t told me everything, but I know that guy was a bastard.”James looked Mac in the eye. “I never wanted kids—that was all Camille. I’m not sure why you spent so long searching for me, Angus. I thought I made it fairly clear that I have no interest in you.”Before anyone could react to that statement, several things happened at once.The first was that because of where he was standing, Mac saw movement out of the corner of his eye; he wasn’t sure what it was, but some part of him that dated back to caves and clubs screamed danger and was already lunging for his father. A nanosecond later, his brain clocked the movement as something he’d never seen in person but had read about in his research of the CIA: the reflection of the sun off a sniper’s scope.The next thing that happened was the sniper’s bullet shattering through one of the glass doors at the back of the house, the sound reaching everyone’s ears a moment after.The last thing was the bullet hitting Mac as he tackled his father down to the floor. It entered his chest underneath his arm and travelled laterally through his heart before exiting his body on the other side in a spray of blood and bone. Some of the splatter caught Riley as the bullet came to rest in the wall inches from her shoulder, but the majority of the mess painted the light green walls a sickening maroon and white.But Mac didn’t know any of that, because he was already dead. ~***~ Jack Dalton had watched a lot of people die in his time, first as a solider and then as a CIA operative. He’d lost plenty of people he was close to, and once had watched in horror as one of his buddy’s heads right next to him, brain matter getting in his mouth and eyes. The gummy feel of it had stayed with him until the day he died. But watching someone as beautiful and smart and bright as Angus MacGyver get snuffed out while saving someone who didn’t give a damn about him? That broke Jack, tearing up something inside him that he hadn’t realized could be destroyed.He was next to Mac’s body when it hit the ground, and there was no doubt about it: he was gone. Fogged blue eyes stared sightlessly ahead, nerdy glasses thrown halfway across the room, limbs heavy with an unnatural limpness. Numbly, Jack reached out with shaking fingers, closing those eyes that only hours ago had gone wide with arousal while they made love, and later shone with happiness while Mac laughed at one of Bozer’s stupid jokes. They would never do any of those things again.Activity continued around Jack, but he was aware of it in a distant way. Bozer fell to his knees beside him, the expression on his face nothing short of devastated. Tears ran silently down his face, his mouth working to form words that wouldn’t come. There was a commotion nearby, and it took Jack a moment to realize James—that fucking cowardly self-centered bastard—had made a break for the front door, with Cage and Riley taking off after him. He was right to run away, Jack decided, because as soon as he could push through the grief dragging him down like concrete he was going to rip James MacGyver’s head off and use it as a basketball.But you won’t be here to do that, a snide voice in his mind pointed out. Now that Mac was dead, the connection created by their deal was severed. Any second now, Jack would feel that disorienting tug in his gut and be dragged back to Hell. He gathered Mac’s body to his chest and squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself for the inevitable.Nothing happened, except for Leanna putting her hand on his shoulder. “Jack, I hate to do this, but we have a problem.” Her other hand pointed toward the shattered windowpane, and Jack followed the trajectory of her finger. Countless men in Kevlar and camouflage gear were crawling out of the woods like ants, if ants carried automatic weapons and didn’t bother covering their faces because they didn’t plan on leaving witnesses. “They’ve got to be a CIA kill squad, probably here for James. They must’ve followed us—maybe they tracked Mac’s magic? It doesn’t matter now.” She paused. “Wait, you’re not disappearing. Why?”“I don’t know,” Jack said, the words rough in his throat like sandpaper. He gazed down at Mac’s lifeless body and wondered if it was as lifeless as he thought. “But if we don’t do something about those guys with the guns we’ll never find out.” He set Mac back on the floor gently, then took out the Beretta and handed it to Bozer. “Watch over him, okay? I’ll be back.”Jack’s eyes went black and he exited the house with preternatural speed, Leanna hot on his heels with her own gun drawn. The men from the woods started screaming a moment later. ~***~ Mac opened his eyes and knew immediately something was horribly wrong.He was standing in front of his childhood home, but it looked nothing like it had when he and Jack had visited it yesterday; instead, it was a picture-perfect recreation of his memories, bathed in a glowing white light that looked pretty but gave off no warmth. A woman waited with her back to him near the front door, blonde hair curled around freckled shoulders, a periwinkle-blue sundress hanging to her knees. It took Mac several seconds to recognize her, and when he did his legs nearly gave out.“Mom?” he whispered.Camille MacGyver turned to face him, and she was as beautiful here as she was before the cancer ravaged her body. When she saw Mac, though, her expression clouded, blue eyes that matched her son’s going wide with shock. “Angus? What are you doing here?”“I’m not sure,” Mac said, voice shaking. Was he dead? He had to be if he was seeing his mother… right? “Where are we?”“Limbo,” Camille replied. She walked forward until they were standing only a foot or so apart, and reached out tentatively, pushing Mac’s bangs back. “The place between the mortal world and the other sides—Heaven and Hell. I’ve been here for… a very long time, judging by how much you’ve grown.” She tilted her head, studying him. “You aren’t dead, Angus. There’s something keeping your soul alive, even if your body isn’t working.”Mac stared at her for a second before he practically leapt at her, hugging her tight before he could think twice about it. He sobbed when he felt his mother’s arms around him for the first time since he was a child, burying his face in her hair. “Why… why are you here?” His brain was always working overtime, no matter what. “I read that limbo is where people go when they have unfinished business.”Camille ran a hand down his back, just like she had when he was young and had a nightmare. “My unfinished business was you, honey. I couldn’t move on until you discovered your magic and found out what you could do.” She pulled back far enough to cup his face in her hands. “You have the potential to end the demon curse, Angus. You’re powerful on your own, but the bond you have with Jack—”“You know about Jack?” Mac asked, blinking at her in astonishment. He wondered exactly how much she knew about him and Jack, blushed a little, and only turned redder when she laughed. “Probably not who you pictured me with, huh?”“As long as you’re happy and he treats you well, you have my blessing,” Camille said, wiping a stray tear of happiness from her cheek. “You can help him, Angus—there’s a way, but it’s going to require you and your friends to work together.” She frowned a little. “And we’ll need to get you back in your body. That’s going to be…unpleasant.”“Whatever it is, I’ll do it.” Mac knew he needed to get back to the others—he could only imagine how Jack and Bozer were taking his “death”—but he still felt reluctant to leave his mother. “Mom, I… I love you, and I miss you so much.” He licked his lips, unsure if he should say more but knowing this would be his only chance. “Dad left after you died. I thought he might be dead too, until recently… but when I finally found him, he…”He looked down at the grass between his feet, but felt Camille’s hand under his chin, tilting his face up again. Whatever she saw in his eyes made something crumple in her expression. “I am so sorry, Angus. Your father and I… we were happy once, but we wanted different things out of life.” She smoothed his hair back again. “You are so much more than your father’s opinion. I love you, and I am so proud of you.”Mac hugged her again so tightly he was afraid he might hurt her. If he did, Camille said nothing, only returned the embrace. He pulled away first this time, taking in a shaking breath before steeling himself for whatever was going to come next. “Let’s do this. Send me back.”“Okay.” Camille took a deep breath of her own, squeezing her eyes shut; when she opened them again, they were consumed by a brilliant blue glow. “When you wake up, you’ll know what you have to do to reverse the curse—and I’m sorry, but this is going to sting. Goodbye, Angus.”She touched her fingers to his forehead, and everything flashed white. ~***~ Samantha Cage’s parents had seen her potential for running early in her childhood. She’d been a mess of gangly limbs and long hair but possessed an unusual amount of coordination for someone so young; she’d started track and field a year before the other girls in her grade. That combined with hunting training on weekends had molded her into someone who could not only cover distance in a reasonable amount of time but not tire easily while doing it.Running through a neighborhood without using the road presented several logistical problems, not the least of which were fences. James MacGyver was trying to get away from what he saw as the major threat (the men coming out of the woods with M4s and bad attitudes) while not considering that Sam and Riley were chasing him… or that his neighbor three doors down had a twelve-foot high cedar fence that he was too out of shape to climb.By the time he figured that out, they had him cornered. Sam was blocking the way to the woods, her machete held at an angle to her body, and Riley stood between James and the street, eyes black and teeth bared. Sam was willing to give him a chance to surrender peacefully—he’d gotten his son killed, so she thought he might feel some kind of guilt—but James was too far gone with panic, and when people panic they tend to make poor choices.There was a flash of silver as James pulled a knife from somewhere on his body and began turning toward Riley. While Sam knew Riley was faster than James and could probably save herself with no trouble, it didn’t stop the hunter from kicking him in the back of the knee to disable before chopping his head off with her machete with one brutal swing. A spray of blood hit the fence, and the head made a wet thunking sound when it hit the dirt and rolled toward the woods.“Damn,” Riley said after a beat, a note of admiration in her voice. She looked at Sam with those dark shiny eyes and grinned. “That was pretty fucking hot.”Sam felt her cheeks flush. “I aim to please.” She kicked the corpse once before wiping her blade on its shirt and stowing it away. When she straightened up again, it was to the sound of multiple voices screaming from the direction of James’s house. “Oh boy. Sounds like someone started the party without us.”“Then we should definitely go crash it,” Riley said, and they took off back the way they’d come. ~***~ Mac got slammed back into his body with enough force to make him jolt into a sitting position, a strangled scream bursting from his mouth after he took his first gasping breath. His hands flew immediately to his chest, where he felt the shredded remnants of his shirt and the wet stickiness of too much blood… but no bullet wound, no splinters of bone or exposed muscle. His fingers checked his face next, and although his glasses were gone and his cheek was bruised—presumably from hitting the floor when he was shot—he was otherwise unharmed and whole.Bozer was flat on his ass nearby, the Beretta clutched in shaking hands. He’d fallen backwards when Mac sat up and his skin was ashy with shock. On the couch sat Leanna, her own gun in her lap, blood splattered on her face and clothes. She looked just as surprised as Bozer was to see Mac upright and breathing. Cage and Riley were nowhere to be seen, and neither was… no, Mac wasn’t going to think of him as his father anymore—James wasn’t there.But one absence in particular was glaring, and it prompted Mac to ask: “Where’s Jack?”Leanna pointed toward the row of doors at the rear of the house, which had all had their glass pulverized by gunfire.Corpses littered the backyard, guns with their barrels bent and crushed Kevlar scattered around them. And at the center of all the destruction, much like the eye at the center of a hurricane, was Jack. Mac was up and moving before he knew what he was doing, boots crunching through a carpet of broken glass before stepping around puddles of blood to get to him. The demon sat in the middle of the carnage, his head in his hands, the rest of him curled up to be as small as possible. The ground around him was charred, like he’d used his fire magic to blast away a large group of enemies. Mac knew instinctively Jack had done most of the killing, though he was sure Leanna was responsible for a dozen or so of the bodies. Still, there were things that had Jack written all over them, like the sniper who’d had his own rifle bent into a noose to hang him from a tree.“Jack!” Mac jogged through the yard, hopping over the last body in his way before skidding to a stop in the blackened patch of ground. “Jack, hey, are you okay?”Slowly, Jack raised his head. He stared at Mac with brown eyes that were startlingly empty and didn’t respond.Mac dropped into a crouch, and reached out a slow, telegraphing hand, not wanting to startle him. “Jack, please, it’s me,” he said around a lump in his throat, the broken look on Jack’s face enough to make him want to cry. “I know it sounds crazy, but I saw my mom, and she—she brought me back. Don’t ask me how because I barely understand it, but she also told me how to break the demon curse. We can give you your life back—Riley too, and who knows how many others.” Long fingers hung in empty space, pleadingly. “I love you. Please say something.”The next thing Mac knew he was flat on his back in the burned grass with Jack on top of him, hugging him tightly, his face pressed into the crook of Mac’s neck. Mac returned the embrace, felt lips pressing frantic kisses up the side of his neck and his jaw before Jack pulled back far enough to look at him, tears welling in his eyes. “You’re here. Son of a bitch, you’re here—I thought something weird was going on when I didn’t get dragged back to Hell, but I couldn’t be sure. Then I saw you, and I thought I was hallucinating… or I was back in Hell, and this was how they were gonna torture me.” He brought a hand up to touch Mac’s bruised cheek almost reverently, voice shaking as he added, “I love you so much, darlin’. Losing you would’ve destroyed me.”Mac slid his hands from Jack’s back to either side of his face to pull him down for a kiss, heedless of the coppery scent of blood in his nostrils or the vultures circling in the sky. He shut his eyes and focused on the feeling of Jack’s tongue slipping past his lips, his weight on top of Mac’s body, and the bond he felt pulsing between them like an electrified cable. Whatever connection the deal had forged between them was even stronger now, and they would have to use its power to break the demon curse. He doubted it was going to be easy or fun, but with Jack next to him Mac thought anything was possible.From the house, he heard Cage’s voice: “Guess we didn’t miss much of a party after all, Riley. We should ditch this place before the police show up, though, because I’m sure somebody called in those shots.” She and the others had all clustered together near the back doors, waiting for Mac and Jack to finish up their reunion.Jack pressed one, two, three more kisses to Mac’s lips before breaking away for good. He used the arm he had under Mac’s back to pull him to his feet with little effort; the hand that had been on Mac’s face trailed down his arm to link their fingers together. “Sam’s right—we need to find a place to lie low for a while, let you get some rest.”Mac wanted to say that he felt fine, but the look on Jack’s face combined with the way Bozer came over and clung on to him like he was afraid he would disappear changed his mind. “Okay. As long as we get the hell out of here, I’m all for it.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Rather than stay any longer in Lincoln and risk the CIA sniffing them out, the group decided the best thing to do would be to get the hell out of dodge. It worked out anyway, because once Mac filled the others in on his encounter with his mom they were all game to try and remove the demon curse from a willing volunteer. That volunteer was Jack, because there was no way he was going to stand by while Riley played guinea pig.This was good, in a sense, because they knew where Jack was buried thanks to James—Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Since one of elements required for Camille’s spell was the mortal body of the demon that the caster was trying to turn human, it was helpful to know where Jack’s body was. A military cemetery across the Potomac from the nation’s capital would make it difficult to cast the spell without detection, but they’d cross that bridge when they got to it.Since the easiest way to get from the Northeast to Washington D.C. was Interstate 95, they got on Route 112 and started a long trek southeast, cutting through the White Mountains with Leanna behind the wheel and Bozer in the passenger’s seat. Jack had refused to let go of Mac since they left James’s house, so the two of them sat together in the back row of the van with Cage and Riley in the seats ahead of them. Jack still had a firm grip on Mac’s right hand, their skin stained with enough blood that Mac thought they might wind up glued together permanently.In a quiet, apologetic tone, Cage told Mac what went down after he got shot—including her killing James after he made a run for it and tried to stab Riley.Cage was clearly worried about upsetting Mac with the news, so he put her mind at ease by using the hand that wasn’t enveloped in Jack’s to touch her shoulder. “Sam, it’s okay. After what he did…” He trailed off, glancing at Jack, who watching every gesture Mac made like a starving man watching an eating contest. “I should probably feel bad about it, but I don’t. You did what you had to do.”That was the last thing anyone said for a while. 112 became 16, which went from a two-lane road to a six-lane highway, then to a four-lane highway, and then they hit a giant traffic circle in a city called Portsmouth, which sounded like Ports-mouth but according to Google was pronounced Portsmith by the locals. By that time they’d already eaten McDonald’s for dinner in a parking lot and it was nearly dark, and all the humans in the van were suppressing yawns. Riley suggested stopping at a motel, and nobody argued; Leanna got off the highway and barreled into the parking lot of a Holiday Inn.She and Bozer got out and rented three rooms that had a view of the traffic circle and a state-run liquor store. They hauled the bags out of the van and trudged to the elevators, Jack no longer holding Mac’s hand but resting it against the small of his back. He stood close enough that Mac could smell him, even if that scent he’d grown to love was overlaid with the stench of death. He rested his head on Jack’s shoulder in the elevator, closing his eyes for just a moment, until it dinged and let them out on their floor. The three couples went their separate ways with mumbled promises to meet up downstairs for free breakfast in the morning.When Mac got into their room, he dropped his bag on the floor and sat on the edge of the bed, tiredness rolling off of him in waves. His day peaked when he saw his mother even if he’d died to do it, and while the food helped perk him up physically, mentally he was struggling a bit. One thing he was sure of was that he wanted to be close to Jack, in any way possible—and just the demon stopping to slide home the deadbolt on the door was too much time apart.“Think maybe we should shower?” Jack asked, and Mac could tell he wasn’t being suggestive. In fact, he sounded… pained?Belatedly, Mac remembered how he was still covered in his own blood from earlier, and that probably wasn’t doing anything good for Jack’s psyche (or his own). He looked down at himself and frowned, noticing the bullet holes on either side of Jack’s leather jacket, which he’d worn this morning at Jack’s insistence. “Sorry about your jacket. I’ll buy you another one.”“I don’t care about the jacket.” Jack crossed the room and pulled Mac to his feet, slipping his hands under the garment in question and letting it fall to the floor. What was left of Mac’s shirt went with it in crusty ribbons, and Jack’s fingers touched his chest gently, no doubt feeling for a wound that wasn’t there—it would’ve been eerily similar to the wound that made Jack a demon. “I care about you.”Mac shivered under Jack’s touch, releasing a shaky breath. He repaid the favor, peeling Jack’s bloody t-shirt off for him before they both bent down to wrestle with their own boots. They straightened up again almost in sync, and Mac took a little step forward to kiss Jack on the lips, feather-light and chaste. Jack’s response was more passionate than Mac expected, but then again, he had watched Mac die today—and Mac found he didn’t mind that passion in the slightest. He made a little sound and pressed closer, inviting Jack to wrap his arms around him and hold him tight. The kiss felt like home, somewhere in the slide of their tongues and Jack’s teeth tugging at Mac’s lower lip.As much as Mac wanted to stand there and kiss Jack forever, he was awfully itchy. He pulled back and the look in Jack’s eyes was enough to make Mac’s stomach swoop pleasantly. “Shower first, okay?”Jack nodded, and they took the rest of their clothes off. He lingered at Mac’s side much like he had in the van and the elevator, and Mac realized that having somebody that close after all the awful shit that had happened, somebody who loved Mac for who he was… it was such a comfort. Instead, he gabbed Jack’s big hand and led him to the bathroom, where they took a nice, warm shower. There was a little kissing and touching, but nothing below the waist—mostly it was a struggle to get the dried blood out of their hair.After Mac shut off the water, he turned around to get out of the shower and was faced with Jack, who was once again watching him closely. Mac was drawn to the permanent wound in Jack’s chest, running a light hand over it; he knew full well he should have something similar, and that if it weren’t for their bond his mother never would’ve been able to send him back to his body… and to Jack. A hand on his cheek made Mac look up, and the amount of love radiating from Jack’s expression was enough to take Mac’s breath away. What else was he supposed to do besides take the hand on his face in his own and pull Jack back to bed?When they reached the mattress Mac put a hand on Jack’s chest again, this time to get him to lie down on his back so he could crawl on top of him. He bent his head for a kiss and Jack’s arms encircled him again. He licked at the seam of Jack’s lips while his hands moved up to cup Jack’s face, and was rewarded with a groan, one of Jack’s hands going flat against his back and running over the scars there.Mac felt like his heart might burst in his chest. “I love you so much,” he whispered, hips giving a little involuntary twitch when Jack’s rough palm caught against a sensitive area. His mouth curved into a smile when Jack’s other hand moved down to cup one of Mac’s ass cheeks, and Mac bit Jack’s lip playfully in retaliation.“I love you too,” Jack muttered, fingers slipping into Mac’s ass crack almost unconsciously. “I never thought it was possible to love someone this much.”His kisses seemed to hesitate after that, and it was like… not like Mac could see inside Jack’s mind, but like the bond between them was so strong that it was even easier for them to read each other. He drew back to look at Jack with his brows furrowed, absently blowing a stray piece of damp hair out of his eyes. “You okay?”Jack snorted. “I’m not the one who got shot, died, came back to life, and then found out my dad was a giant tool,” he pointed out, and Mac huffed a laugh at how ridiculous it sounded when he said it out loud. “Are you sure this is what you want? Because the way I’m feeling, once I get going I don’t think I’ll be able to stop.”Mac smiled and leaned down to kiss Jack again; when they broke apart this time, Jack’s eyes were pitch black. “I’m all yours.”Jack growled and flipped them over, much faster than a human could. Once he was on top of Mac he kissed him again, hard and dirty, and Mac’s arms and legs wrapped Jack up without prompting, returning the kiss with zero reservations. He would’ve let Jack fuck him dry if he could’ve, but that would be far from pleasant; as much as Mac longed to be as close as possible to Jack, he also wanted it to feel good. They seemed to be on the same page there, because Jack was rolling his hips down rhythmically, breaking the kiss to trail his lips down Mac’s jaw before biting his neck.Mac gasped raggedly, toes curling from the friction. A little more and he could’ve come just from the ridges on Jack’s cock rubbing against his own, but that wasn’t what he needed. He tapped Jack on the back, a hot flash of arousal burning through him when Jack drew back to look at him with completely onyx eyes. “Jack, lube. In my bag. Now.”Jack zipped over to their bags and back in seconds, his fingers already wet when they made contact with Mac’s ass again, causing an indecent sound to fall from the human’s lips. One finger slipped in a second later, gentle but insistent as Jack bit a necklace of bruises into Mac’s chest and collarbones. Mac dug his fingers into the meat of Jack’s shoulders and moaned, the combined sensations of Jack’s finger moving in and out of his hole and teeth against his skin was intense.It wasn’t long before Jack added a second finger, and Mac wrapped an arm around his neck, the other one scratching down his chest, right over his mortal wound before heading to his ribs, fingers digging in. He trembled and moaned again when Jack scissored his fingers apart, Mac’s thighs squeezing at his waist; the hand on Jack’s ribs sliding down to his hip, thumbing over the pentagram branded there before pressing his hand flat against it. It was Jack’s turn to let out a deep moan, his whole body shaking.Mac didn’t have any marks from the gunshot, but he felt a fiery pull in his chest that mirrored the one he could feel burning under his palm in Jack’s hip. He used the hand on the back of Jack’s neck to pull him down for a sloppy kiss, chanting “now, now, now” under his breath like it was the only word he knew. Jack obliged him, pulling his fingers out and swallowing the whine that came out Mac’s mouth at the loss, even though he was busy scratching at the pentagram one last time before moving that hand around to grip at Jack’s back.Jack lined himself up, the spade-shaped head of his cock pressing against Mac’s entrance while he loomed above Mac, gazing at him with mesmerizingly dark eyes. He started to push in, not breaking their eye contact, which meant he was able to see the moment when Mac’s pupils dilated and his jaw dropped open, his breaths coming faster. He could feel every single inch of Jack as he moved relentlessly deeper inside, and it was almost too much, especially when Jack stopped moving once he was fully sheathed.He tilted his head to one side, those black eyes studying Mac’s absolutely wrecked expression. And then the bastard smirked. Mac would’ve rolled his eyes if he’d had enough functioning brain cells to do so. Instead, he took in a shaky breath, legs tightening around Jack’s waist. Jack took that as a sign to draw his hips almost all the way back until just the head of his cock was inside, before slamming back in hard enough that Mac jolted up the bed, his own cock twitching against his stomach.Before Mac could catch his breath, Jack pulled back and slammed home again just as hard, not holding back—and Mac loved it. The demon got his arms underneath Mac’s shoulders to hold him as close as possible while he picked up a brutal pace, the thrusts coming faster, Mac wrapping his arms around Jack’s back and hanging on while an almost continuous series of moans fell from his abused lips. He scratched down Jack’s back with his fingernails, those moans morphing into gasping sounds that matched the timing of Jack’s hips bashing into him.The one word Mac managed to say during the whole experience was choked: “Faster.”He was so fucking close he could taste it, and immediately Jack’s grip on his shoulders shifted so he was practically being crushed, and his mind there was no better feeling. And improbably, Jack actually did go faster, tapping into that incredible demonic speed of his to give Mac what he wanted, an almost constant growl emanating from Jack’s chest as he got closer to the edge. It only took about two dozen or so of those seismic thrusts before Mac was coming untouched, eyes rolling back in his head as a scream of Jack’s name was forced from his throat. And the way he clenched around Jack had him coming too, spilling hot and wet inside Mac… who actually blacked out for a second, hands sliding limply from Jack’s sweat-slicked back.He woke up just as fast as he passed out, gasping and tightening reflexively around Jack, who had collapsed on top of him, the feeling making them both groan. “Holy… shit.”Jack pushed himself up enough to stare at him, eyes black until he blinked them back to human brown. “Did you just black out for a minute?”Mac felt himself flush. “Maybe?”A slow grin spread on Jack’s face, and he bent down to kiss Mac’s cheek before moving his lips to Mac’s ear, nipping lightly. “Well, that makes me feel very good about myself.” His voice was a low rumble, the smile on his face reflected in his voice.Mac could only laugh in response, hugging Jack tightly and loving the ache he felt from his shoulders to his ass—it reminded him he was alive. “You should feel good about yourself—I’m pretty sure I’ll never come that hard in my life again.”Jack raised his head to look at him, an eyebrow arched. “Is that a challenge, darlin’?”Mac kissed him soundly, and that shut him up. ~***~ The next morning the gang met up in the dining area of the hotel as planned, with everyone sporting various severities of sex hair and fatigue. They took a round table for six in the far corner of the room and took turns going up to the buffet to get eggs and pancakes and (in Bozer’s case) French toast stuffed with Canadian bacon. Health food it wasn’t, but it would hopefully keep their collective energy up until they got to Arlington.When Jack raised his eyebrows in Riley’s direction, she smoothed her rumpled black curls self-consciously and stuck her tongue out at him. Cage muffled her laughter behind her hand, and Mac grinned, almost forgetting that later in the day he’d literally be holding Jack’s life—and the fate of nearly everyone stuck as a demon—in his eager but highly inexperienced hands. That thought sobered him, and he forced down breakfast even though he wasn’t hungry.They checked out right after they were done eating, throwing their stuff back in the van and heading out to the traffic circle, this time with Cage driving and Riley sitting up front with her. Mac volunteered himself and Jack for the rearmost seat just so he’d have an excuse to be close to Jack for as long as possible. He was so wrapped up in the spell and what his mother told him might happen that his brain felt like it was twisting around on itself; the only thing that seemed to calm him even a little was being pressed against Jack from ankle to shoulder in the van’s cramped backseat.About the time they were driving through New Jersey, Jack slipped an arm around Mac’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to the side of his head. “Penny for your thoughts?”“My thoughts are eating each other,” Mac grumbled, but he felt his mouth twitch into a smile when Jack’s lips also kissed his temple and his cheek before nuzzling his jaw. “I’m… nervous. No, wait, that’s not strong enough—I’m scared shitless.”“Okay,” Jack said, putting his sunglasses up on top of his head. “What’s the worst-case scenario?”Mac looked at him and blinked, caught off-guard. “You dying. Permanently. What else would it be?”“You’re not gonna let that happen.” Jack’s low voice carried a confidence Mac didn’t feel, but it was what he said next that was stunning: “And even if it does, and it’s lights out for me? These past three days have been the best damn days of my life, Mac. I’d take those memories with you over getting another human life in a second.”“But you deserve another shot, Jack,” Mac said, wincing at the unfortunate choice of words but plowing forward nonetheless. “My father fucked you over—”“Yeah, he did.” Jack’s interruption was gentle but firm. “But if he hadn’t done that, I never would’ve met you.”Mac shook his head a little, leaning in to kiss Jack on the lips. A cluster of emotions was trying to crawl up his throat and choke him, but he resisted. “I’m not worth all that.”“On the contrary,” Jack said against the corner of his mouth, “you’re worth everything.”Mac got the sense that he wasn’t going to win this argument, so he consoled himself with making out with his stupid demon boyfriend until Bozer threw the pillow he stole from the hotel at their heads. ~***~ They got to Virginia in the afternoon and went to Home Depot for some supplies. Mac’s spell book bound with human flesh (Cage had confirmed his suspicions) was key in attempting the spell to end the demon curse, but there were other things they needed too. A big warehouse store seemed less memorable than a local hardware shop, and since they were about to vandalize part of a national cemetery, the fewer people remembered seeing them the better.“Kinda weird that I’m picking out a shovel to rob my own grave,” Jack observed, choosing a folding shovel they could fit inside Leanna’s purse. “Then again, considering I had no idea where I was buried before yesterday, is it really that strange?”“Entirely,” Cage said, earning her a punch in the shoulder from Riley. “What? He asked, I answered! I’m a demon hunter for Christ’s sake, and I think this is fucked up.”“We’re not robbing anything,” Mac reminded. He waited for Jack to place the shovel in the cart before they moved on to crowbars. “We have to get to your coffin and get it open—that’s not stealing.”“No, it’s just damn creepy.” Bozer shuddered a little. “Man, what’s that gonna smell like?”Leanna, Jack, and Cage in unison: “Bad.”“Can’t wait for that,” was Bozer’s response. “Maybe we should buy some air fresheners?”Riley threw ten pine-scented air fresheners in the cart to appease him, and they continued through the store. ~***~ About an hour before the cemetery closed, the six of them walked in through the main gate, passing through security with no problem since they’d left their guns and blades back in the van. Leanna slipped the folding shovel into a hidden pocket in her purse and the guard who searched it was none the wiser. The crowbar was in the back of Mac’s waistband, concealed by the ugly rain poncho he was wearing even though it was only cloudy; the spell book was hidden in a similar way by Jack, the candles by Bozer, and the other ingredients were divided between Riley and Cage’s coat pockets.Mac downloaded the ANC Explorer app to his phone and put Jack’s name in the search bar, the others huddling around him to get a look at the screen. According to the app, Jack’s grave was somewhere in the newer portion of the cemetery, though to the naked eye it was hard to tell old from new since it looked like nothing but a vast field of white headstones, lined up like sprawling uneven rows of teeth. There was a heaviness to the air, and Mac swore he felt something tingling just below his feet—he imagined the energy of death was as strong here as it was on a battlefield.Even with the guidance of the app it took twenty minutes or so of wandering around before Bozer looked at a headstone, took a couple steps and doubled back to point excitedly. “Hey guys, I found it!”“Nice work!” Mac jogged over and the rest of the group followed. His eyes traced over Jack’s name carved into pale stone briefly before he looked back toward the gate. “We should probably find someplace to lie low until they close. Once the guards at the gate go home, there won’t be anyone around to see us.”So they crouched in some large bushes until the sun went down and the guards left, and then they crept back down the rows of graves until they made it back to Jack’s. They had a couple of small flashlights, which Cage and Bozer held and covered with their fingers so only the light they absolutely needed was visible.Leanna took the folding shovel out of her bag and looked between it and the grave, frowning. “How are we going to dig up a grave with this tiny shovel? I didn’t understand that back at Home Depot.”“We’re not,” Riley said. She held her hands out in front of her body and flexed them, sparks dancing between her fingers; beside her, Jack did the same thing. “You’re going to get the grass out of the way, and then we’ll burn our way down.”“Too much smoke,” Mac said, to Bozer’s unasked question about why they weren’t just burning the grass too. “Here, give me the shovel—we’ll take turns.”He and Leanna had the sod removed in a rectangle the size of the grave in about fifteen minutes. Once that was done all it took was some fire magic to blast the dirt out of the way, and soon the lid of a plain pine box was visible. Mac took off the poncho, swearing when it got caught on his hair, and pulled out the crowbar. The others began divesting themselves of the supplies for the spell hidden on their persons, and soon the elephant in the room could no longer be ignored: somebody had to go down in the grave and open the coffin.Jack volunteered, of course, but Riley shot him down: “No way—that cannot be good for your psyche.”“I’ll do it,” Bozer said, surprising everyone. He was staring down into the grave with a determined expression, and when Mac held out the crowbar, he took it with a steady hand. “What? I’ve gotta do something besides provide comic relief and two-thirds of our general handsomeness.”Mac and Jack exchanged a glance, wondering which one of them he’d left out of that equation. Meanwhile, Bozer jumped into the grave, yelping about worms and wet stuff. He got the edge of the crowbar under the lid and planted his feet on either side of the coffin, heaving once, twice before the nails holding the lid down shrieked and gave in. Dirt flew out of the hole, and the smell… was pretty much as bad as they’d predicted, and no amount of pine-scented air fresheners were going to help.“Oh, God,” Riley said quietly, putting a hand over her mouth and leaning into Cage, who wrapped an arm around her shoulders.Mac kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, refusing to look down and see the demon—no, the man—he loved reduced to a withered corpse. He knew without checking that Jack was looking, though, and once he and Leanna helped Bozer out of the grave Jack took a walk, pacing a few yards away before coming back when he had his shit together. He stood next to Mac, hands balled into loose fists at his sides.“What now?” he asked, voice rough. “What do you need me to do?”Mac produced a knife from inside his boot (also purchased at Home Depot, they were keeping that place in business) and held it out to Jack, handle first. “You need to bleed on the body, and then I do. Once Leanna finishes setting up the candles, I say the spell… and in theory, you’re human again.”Jack took the knife, slicing open his palm and holding it out so the blood could drip into the grave; Mac did the same thing, and by then Leanna had the candles arranged in the five points of a pentagram around the open grave. She lit them one by one, then handed Mac the spell book before going to stand with Riley, Cage, and Bozer.“Jack,” Mac said, and was ashamed to hear his voice crack. “If this doesn’t work…”Those warm brown eyes were lit by flames when they looked at Mac, and Jack reached out, taking Mac’s bloodied hand in his own and squeezing hard. “I know. Me too.”Mac shut his eyes for a brief moment to collect himself, and used the hand not in Jack’s to hold the spell book by its spine, the pages fluttering open to the correct spell seemingly of their own volition. He started to read, and the air around them began to crackle and spit, the wind picking up out of nowhere. It only intensified the further down the page Mac got, and Jack’s hand got so hot against his skin it felt like a brand.He read the last line, and for a moment it seemed as though the world stopped turning. There was a pause, and then like a bubble bursting, Mac and the others were all flung backward by some unseen force, Cage and Riley narrowly missing injuring themselves on some headstones in the next row. Mac landed hard on his back and knew without opening his eyes—he’d closed them as he’d said the last word—that Jack wasn’t beside him anymore. The book had flown out of his other hand and evidently smacked Bozer in the face, but Mac only had one concern at the moment.He rushed to the edge of the hole in the ground, which was now surrounded by the branches of a pentagram burned into the grass, the points represented by black splotches where the candles used to be. The headstone had been reduced to ash, and everything smelled of burning and ozone.“Jack?” Mac leaned over to look in the grave and almost collapsed in relief when he saw that the pine box was cinders, and the corpse had been replaced by a very alive, very naked Jack Dalton. The permanent wound to his chest was gone, like a slate wiped clean, but the pentagram branded into his hip remained in place. “Oh, thank God—hey, Jack, can you hear me?”The others clambered over, surrounding Mac on either side. Below them Jack groaned and stirred, eyes blinking open to peer up at their worried faces in the dim light.“Riley?” he said, tone betraying his confusion. “What are you doing here, honey?” He looked at the rest of them one by one, gaze stopping on Mac as he asked a question that shattered Mac’s heart to pieces: “Who are you guys?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The next half-hour was barely more than a blur of colors and noise to Mac. He knew he was in shock, but could do little about it besides let himself be hauled around by Bozer and Leanna. Vaguely, he was aware of Riley and Cage pulling Jack out of the grave and tossing one of their discarded rain ponchos over him so he wouldn’t be naked for the walk back to the van. Mac didn’t remember the trip to the van itself or the subsequent drive to a DoubleTree hotel near Long Bridge Park.Somehow, he found himself sitting in a low armchair in a room significantly nicer than the one they’d had at the Holiday Inn, a paper cup of scalding hot coffee pushed into his hands by Riley. She looked at him worriedly, and while Mac could see her just fine, it felt like he was looking at the world through a fogged-up window. All he wanted to do was shout or scream, but no sound would form in his throat.“He’s still out of it,” Riley declared, turning to the others. Leanna and Bozer sat on one edge of the queen bed, and Cage leaned against the door to the hall; a door to the right, Mac presumed, led to an adjoining room. And Jack… Jack sat on the other side of the bed, arms crossed over his chest. “Mac, can you please say something?”Mac tried—for Riley, because he liked her. The most he could do was blink and hold on to the coffee.“Okay, as much as I feel for Carl’s Junior, can someone tell me what the hell is going here?” Bozer had given Jack a list of everyone’s names in the van, but hearing a joke like that come out of Jack’s mouth felt like a dull knife scraping Mac’s insides. “Because the only one of you that’s remotely familiar is Riley, and the last time I saw her she was a little girl! What happened to me?”Everyone save Jack looked at Mac, but he was staring with unfocused eyes at a generic picture of boats in a river on the wall. He was only half-listening to what they were saying, and not processing any of it… because none of it mattered. Not without Jack. And Mac wasn’t strictly being selfish, since more of Jack was gone than just the parts that had loved Mac. Everything he’d experienced since being turned into a demon had been wiped from his memory—that much had been obvious after some rapid-fire questioning by Cage and Leanna on the ride to the hotel.Haltingly, Riley told him the story. She ripped off the Band-Aid, explaining about the demon curse and what Mac’s father had ordered Jack to do; she could tell Jack was skeptical and demonstrated some of her own powers. He was understandably distraught when he found out she was dead, but there was more to get through and she managed to keep him following the bouncing ball. Leanna, Cage, and Bozer chipped in where they could, especially with more recent events. The only thing none of them mentioned was the exact nature of Jack and Mac’s relationship, beyond the fact that Mac had summoned Jack to help find James.Jack was quiet for several moments once they were done. “That’s all fine and dandy—and about nine different kinds of crazy—but I feel like you’re leaving something out.”Riley wrung her hands, an uncharacteristically nervous gesture. “Jack, I… you and Mac, you guys were—”Mac stood so abruptly that everyone else in the room jumped in surprise, the coffee cup falling from his fingers, brown liquid pooling in the carpet. “I can’t do this.” Those four words didn’t sound like they belonged to his voice, they sounded so rough and wrong to his ears. “I… I just can’t. I’m sorry.”He went for the connecting door since Cage was blocking the door to the hall, and kept walking until he reached the end room. It had one massive king-sized bed, and someone had left on a lamp in one corner, the curtains closed to block a dark view of the Potomac River and the lights of Washington, D.C. As soon as he was alone, Mac slumped against the nearest wall, the will to keep himself upright gone. He pressed a hand flat to his mouth to keep in an agonized sob, the power of it like a convulsion that had him sliding downward until his ass hit the floor.Mac sat there and cried for… well, he had no idea how long. It was the ugly kind of crying that he couldn’t control, jagged sounds tearing themselves free of his throat every few seconds as he pressed his aching forehead into his knees, fingers twisting themselves in his hair and pulling hard enough to hurt. Something in his chest felt like it was ripping itself apart, and he suspected it was most likely the remnants of his broken heart trying to claw their way out of his body.Someone approached from the connecting door, and Mac only had to glance at their feet to recognize Bozer’s beat up sneakers. His best friend didn’t open with a platitude, didn’t offer any words at all; instead, Bozer sat down beside Mac on the hotel room floor and put an arm around his shoulders. Mac turned into the embrace, and Bozer’s other arm came up to hold him too, his chin resting on top of Mac’s head once he released his death grip on his own hair.More time passed, and eventually Mac managed to reduce his sobbing to the occasional whimper, and then to intermittent sniffling. All Bozer did in that time was rub Mac’s back, and shift their positions once or twice so they didn’t lose feeling in their limbs. Mac could hear the others moving around, the quiet murmur of voices, but none of them disturbed them until Jack slipped through the half-closed connecting door.He was dressed in Mac’s clothes, because of course he was—an old MIT t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants—and he was still damp from the shower. The look on his face was… a mixture of emotions, some concern thrown in with uncertainty. “Hey, Mac? Could we… maybe talk? Alone?”Bozer looked from Jack to Mac. “Is that what you want?”Mac swallowed hard and nodded. “I’ll be okay, Bozer.”Bozer’s expression suggested he was skeptical about that. He gave Mac a parting pat on the shoulder before he left, shutting the connecting door behind him to provide some semblance of privacy.Jack sat down in Bozer’s place, close enough to touch if Mac wanted to, but respectful of his boundaries. “Guess it would be kinda pointless to ask how you’re doin’, huh?”Mac huffed a weak laugh. “I think so, yeah.” He glanced at him with red-rimmed eyes, using the side of his hand to wipe any remaining tears from his face. “Shitty. I’m doing shitty.” Tilting his head back, Mac studied the ceiling tiles and asked, “So you really don’t remember anything? About me… or us?”“I didn’t at first, but I don’t think it’s that cut and dry,” Jack replied, rubbing at his jaw. “It’s like when you have one of those real long, vivid dreams? And when you wake up, you remember the gist of it but not the details? It’s hard to explain.”Despite the pain he was in, Mac was intrigued. He made himself sit up straight, letting go of his knees in favor of turning to face Jack. “Try me.”Jack’s brown eyes roamed over his face. “I remember looking at you and being happy—intensely happy, like it was the first time in a long time I’d felt like that.” He hesitated for a moment before wrapping light fingers around one of Mac’s hands. “I remember holding your hand. There’s other bits and pieces, here and there, but they don’t make a lot of sense.” He tilted his head, other hand reaching out in a silent question; when Mac didn’t move away, that hand cupped Mac’s cheek. “Then again, it doesn’t make any sense that I’d ever forget somebody like you.”Mac made a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a sob, and pressed his face into Jack’s touch. He forced his brain to work, to think, because maybe this was a problem they could solve somehow. “Do you think you have amnesia?”“Since I’ve never had amnesia before, that’d be hard to know,” Jack said wryly. “Look, Mac, from what the others have told me about you, once you pick yourself back up the first thing you’re gonna do is look for a way to get my memories back—and I appreciate that, I do, but…”He trailed off, thumb stroking absently at Mac’s cheekbone in a way that was so Jack it made Mac want to start crying all over again. “But what?”“If you can’t do it… I’d be grateful if you gave me another chance,” Jack finished, voice going rough with emotion. “I might not be the same guy you fell in love with, and I’ll understand if it’s too much to—”Mac threw his arms around Jack’s neck, hugging him tightly, practically in his lap from the way they were twisted up on the floor. Again, there was a second’s hesitation before Jack’s arms went around him in turn, but that was okay, because the embrace was warm and safe and familiar, at least on Mac’s end. “Of course, Jack. I’m not just going to… to give up on you, on us. I’ll try to find a way to give you back your memories, and if I can’t… then we’ll figure something out.”“Good.” Jack’s lips were pressed to the side of Mac’s head. “Because I don’t want to let you go.” ~***~ They weren’t going to figure anything out at eleven o’clock at night, and everyone was exhausted; the worst thing would be to try dabbling in black magic while half-awake, so they decided as a group to get some rest and work on their latest problem in the morning. Leanna and Bozer took the first room, Cage and Riley the middle one… which left Mac and Jack alone with a king-sized bed and a touch of awkwardness.Just a touch, because it wasn’t nearly as bad as Mac thought it might be. They crawled in bed and turned out the light, and while Mac was ready to sleep on his back and keep his hands to himself, Jack was having none of that. He slid closer, until their shoulders were touching in wordless invitation, so Mac curled into his side, resting his head on Jack’s chest and suppressing a smile when Jack wrapped a cautious arm around him.In the morning, the group met up on the first floor, this time in an actual sit-down restaurant managed by the hotel. Everyone had showered off the graveyard dirt and looked better than the night before, and the food in the DoubleTree’s restaurant was considerably more elegant than the breakfast buffet at the Holiday Inn ever dreamed of being.Riley was practically vibrating in her seat, and as soon as everyone had their coffee and their food in front of them she said, “Okay, I had an idea last night—it’s a long shot, but what if we ask Matty about Jack’s memories?” When everyone at the table stared at her blankly, she clarified, “Matty is our boss, down in Hell. She knows everything about everyone, and since there’s a record of every demon deal, I figured maybe she’d be able to help us.”“And why would she do that?” Jack asked, shoveling scrambled eggs into his mouth. “I mean, I can’t work for her anymore, right? She’s got no skin in the game.”“Along with being our boss, she’s our friend,” Riley said, but she deflated a little. “I just thought it would be worth a try.”Mac took a slug of his coffee and thought it over. “It might be, but I think if we want to make an impression, we need to go to her.”Leanna stared at him and almost dropped a piece of bacon. “You’re not suggesting…?”“Oh, I am,” Mac said with a grin, and if it was slightly manic, who could blame him? “If we want to get Jack’s memories back, we need to go to Hell.” ~***~ “This is gonna work, right?” Jack asked a while later in the hotel’s parking lot. Once Mac outlined the parameters of his plan they decided unanimously they’d do it outside, to avoid hurting any bystanders if something went wrong. “We’re not going to like, get our atoms split apart or turned to dust or something?”“In theory? No, we should be fine,” Leanna said. “Although I’m still skeptical. If you’re so sure this will work, Mac, why has no one tried it before?”“Because no one alive has ever wanted to enter Hell?” Cage suggested. They were all standing in a rough circle, and she and Riley were holding hands. “So I break my deal with Riley, and then what?”“Then we all join hands, and theoretically as long as we don’t let go of Riley we should be dragged back to Hell with her,” Mac said. He’d done a lot of reading from the skin-book in a short amount of time, and the logic seemed to check out. “Once we’re there it should be easy enough to find Matty and explain what happened.”Riley snorted. “The words Matty and easy don’t exist in the same dictionary, but I like your optimism.” She looked at Cage and nodded. “Go for it.”Cage took a deep breath, and in a firm tone undercut by the affection in her eyes, she said, “I release you from our contract, Riley.”For a second nothing happened, but then Riley’s whole body twisted to one side, an invisible wire jerking her as if she were a fish on a hook. Eyes flashing black, she made a wordless agonized sound but stuck out her free hand for Jack to take. The six of them held each other’s hands, and Mac could feel how the tether binding Riley to this plane just… snapped, like a bone breaking. In the instant it happened there was no pain, but once the instant passed one thing stood out, as Riley was pulled to the abyss and they all went with her: it felt like they were burning alive.Mac’s vision rippled and went dark, his other senses following soon after. There was the sensation of falling from a great height, and the next thing he knew they were standing in the lobby of what appeared to be a drab upper-middle-class office building, like one that belonged to a decent real estate company. There was a large wooden reception desk almost directly in front of them, where a tattooed Asian woman sat with her feet on the desktop. She was tossing knives casually up at the ceiling; when a knife didn’t stick and fell back down she caught it effortlessly between two fingers and threw it back up again.When the six of them popped into the lobby she barely glanced in their direction. “Hey, Davis. Have fun topside?” She sniffed the air and turned in her chair, the latest rejected knife clattering to the floor. “Are those humans?” Her eyes went wide. “Is Dalton a human? What the fuck?”“We need to see Matty,” Riley gritted out from where she was bent at the waist, hands on her knees. “Now, Desi—please.”The tattooed demon—Desi, evidently—reached under the desk and hit some kind of buzzer. A hidden door in the wall to her left slid open, revealing a hallway that appeared to lead to a maze of cubicles, just like Jack had described to Mac what felt like a lifetime ago. “She’s in her office. Good luck.” ~***~ Matilda Webber had heard a lot of stories, both in her life topside and as a demon. Some were fantastical, some flat-out lies, others were just plain crazy—but the one that a human, two hunters, a half-witch, a demon, and a former demon told her when they all crowded into her office took the fucking cake and stomped on it. She actually had to sit behind her desk for a moment, unblinking, trying to work out exactly what she’d just heard.Finally she looked at Jack and asked, tone incredulous, “How in the hell did you manage to fuck up taking this kid’s soul so badly?”The kid—a lanky blond thing practically crackling with magic—looked shocked. He turned to Jack and stared at him with wide eyes. “You were supposed to take my soul?”“Of course he was!” Matty exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. “That’s his job! Not the whole thing—the last thing we need is more soulless cretins roaming the earth—but enough to help keep the balance between good and evil.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath. “What did you ask for instead, Dalton?”“I… don’t remember?” Jack ventured, but from the way Blondie’s face went beet red, both he and Matty got the idea.“Matty, I know this is fucked up—” Riley began.“That’s the biggest understatement since God called Lucifer a brat,” Matty interrupted. “But please, go on.”“Is there any way you can help Jack?” Riley continued, her voice going pleading. “I know every demon deal is recorded, so I thought maybe if we put those memories in his head he could get back something.”“We can get his memories back using the recordings. That’s not a problem, although I’ll warn you, Dalton, it’s going to hurt,” Matty said. “What concerns me is what Mac’s planning to do with this cure of his. The demon curse is the only thing that keeps Hell running smoothly—if there are no demons, the souls that actually belong in Hell will escape eventually.”“I don’t want to cure every demon,” Mac said. “For one thing, the spell only works if the demon’s human body is still intact. That eliminates people who were cremated, and bodies that have decayed beyond recognition. And I’m pretty sure it only works if the person doesn’t deserve to be a demon—it’s a loophole that circumvents the whole mortal sin thing, but only if they committed the sin unknowingly.”“So could it work for you?” Matty asked, looking at Riley.Riley was caught off-guard by the question. “I… don’t know? I mean, I helped hack the Pentagon, and then my friends were killed during the raid—I died last. Maybe the curse took that as me being responsible for their deaths?”“Only one way to find out,” Cage said, taking Riley’s hand and squeezing. She looked at Matty with a no-bullshit expression. “What do you want in return?”Matty worked hard to suppress a smile. “What makes you think I want anything?”“You’re a demon,” Leanna said, not unkindly, simply stating a fact. “It’s in your nature to make us a deal.”“Think of it less like a deal, and more of a condition.” Matty hopped out of her chair and came around the desk, looking at each of them individually before addressing them as a group. “I have a… pet project I run topside, to try and keep people from winding up as demons in the first place—so pretty much the opposite of what your father was doing, Mac. We also do covert operations, rescue missions, that sort of thing. If you all agree to join my organization and work for me, I’ll help Jack and any others you remove the curse from regain their memories.”They all exchanged a look, seeming to come to some sort of silent agreement.“When do we start?” Mac asked.This time, Matty let herself smile. “Right now. Welcome to the Phoenix Foundation.” ~***~
Six months later…
Angus MacGyver loved his life.That was absolutely not dramatic, but maybe weird to say while he was hanging halfway out the passenger’s window of a pickup truck with nothing but his own sense of balance and Jack’s hand clutching his belt between him and the pavement at eighty miles an hour. He chucked his last improvised Molotov cocktail at the remaining vehicle chasing them and let out a victorious whoop when it landed on the hood of the car and burst into flames, forcing the driver off the road.“Get back in here, you crazy bastard!” Jack exclaimed, yanking on Mac’s belt hard enough the buckle bit into his stomach, but he didn’t care. “Next time you think you can work out a way to do that without almost turning your pretty face into hamburger?”“Nope,” Mac said cheerfully, and leaned in to kiss Jack’s cheek. “Riley, how we doing on time?”“Not great,” she replied through the comms in their ears, back in the war room with Bozer and Cage. Leanna and a newly un-demoned Desi were out on assignment in Japan—something about geishas and black tar heroin, Mac had only heard part of the briefing. “You’ve got about ten minutes before exfil has to leave without you—I’d step on it, Jack.”“It’s times like this I miss demonic speed,” Jack muttered, boot almost flat to the floor on top of the gas pedal. “How about you, Riles? Anything you miss about being an undead monster?”Mac smacked his shoulder. “You were never a monster.”“Maybe shooting fire from my fingertips,” Riley said, ignoring Mac’s token protest and her girlfriend’s growl at Jack over the comms. “That was pretty cool.”“You still shoot fire from your fingertips, just with a computer,” Bozer said. “All I do is make creepy masks and talking robots.”“And you’re handsome,” Jack added, winking at Mac from behind his sunglasses. “Two-thirds of our little group’s handsomeness, as I recall.”Mac smiled at Jack and looped an arm through his, since driving with one hand at that speed would be… inadvisable. He half-listened to Bozer’s rationale about why he made up the bigger part of the handsomeness equation and shut his eyes, resting his head on Jack’s shoulder. There was only one more thing that could make Mac’s life better than it already was… and he’d know soon enough if he’d get it, once he drummed up the courage to pull out the ring burning a hole in his pocket and ask Jack an important question.With any luck, the answer would be yes… well, luck and maybe a little magic. THE END