Ghostland

by Jory Strong

  “Aziel,” she called, knowing it was useless but unable to stop herself from doing it.

  Goose bumps rose on her arms as she left the stoop. She was determined not to give in to the fear and uneasiness that being completely by herself engendered.

  Resolutely she forced herself to go around the corner of the house, as Aziel had done when he’d escaped earlier in the day. But there was no sign of him in the tangled weeds and rubble.

  She frowned as she imagined the work it would require to reclaim the yard. Perhaps Henri’s size had kept him from tackling the physical work necessary to garden, or perhaps, as the gloom of his house indicated and both Raisa and Father Ursu had alluded to, he suffered from depression and had no energy for managing a yard.

  “Aziel,” she called again before returning to the stoop and glancing to the spot where Zurael had disappeared into the shadows. Need for him coiled in her belly and snaked up her spine to her breasts. Each time she resolved to keep her distance emotionally, to deny the desire for him, her resistance melted against the lust that flared between them.

  Aisling shivered. Her nipples tightened and her clit stiffened against panties wet with arousal as she remembered the light scrape of his talons against her neck after they’d left Tamara, the heated promise in his eyes and hard intent of his body after they’d left the occult shop.

  Another shiver passed through her, this time with thoughts of the script and symbols he’d drawn in the dirt. So many of them were vaguely familiar—perhaps ancestral memories as he’d claimed. But if they were . . .

  A cold knot formed in Aisling’s stomach and banked the fires of need. If they were the memories of her ancestors, did that make her part-demon? What other symbols and script would Zurael know so readily and use to test her with?

  She wiped suddenly damp palms against her pants. Her heart beat so loudly it drowned out the call of insects in the deepening menace of dusk.

  Shall we appease your curiosity about the being who would claim you as his own?

  You asked who I served on your first visit. Would you like to see the place he calls home?

  I’ll let you in on a secret. He’d like for you to join him here. Your mother got away from him, or so they say. But that’s a story for another day.

  I’d hoped we could spend some time together. Not that I’d risk eternal torment and damnation by actually fucking you. But even a dead man can fantasize.

  The taunts Elena’s brother had spoken in the spiritlands whispered through her mind, haunted her with a different meaning than the one she’d attributed to them before. She’d thought John spoke of lust, but what if he spoke of her father?

  Aisling curled her hand around the hidden pouch containing her fetishes, pictured again the mix of script and sigils Zurael had drawn in the dirt, the one among them she knew by heart. It was a name Aziel had given her long ago, her most powerful protector though he’d refused to answer her questions or speak of the being the sigil represented.

  He’d cautioned her against using the name unless she feared for her soul. He’d warned the cost of summoning her ally and drawing him to her was beyond any she could imagine paying.

  Aisling shook off her thoughts and went inside. She moved from window to window, noting as she secured them that the bars she’d set ensuring they couldn’t be raised higher from the outside remained in place.

  The shaman’s workroom drew her. The sight of the stones and unfinished forms waiting on the workbench, the fetishes guarding the room, didn’t offer her respite from the unanswered questions and haunting fears circling inside her, not only about her unknown parents and her own identity, but about Zurael and Aziel. If they were both demon, then were they her father’s enemies or his allies?

  She glanced at the bed of dirt in the center of the room but knew she didn’t have the courage to seek John out in the ghostlands and ask him to show her the place his master called home. And beyond that, she feared what the knowledge would cost her, what it would mean to her.

  With a sigh Aisling forced the swirling chaos of her thoughts to still. She picked up the box of matches on Henri’s workbench and lit several lamps rather than use electricity. Then she turned her attention to examining the large fetishes Henri had positioned around the room to guard him when he journeyed in astral form.

  She lifted an owl carved from a heavy greenish-brown stone she didn’t recognize. Henri’s work was less detailed than her own, lacking the tiny lines that made some of her larger pieces seem real, as though they could actually house the spirits of the animals they represented.

  For an instant she flashed back to the primitive figurine at the occult shop. She hoped the library would have history books covering ancient times so she’d get a chance to learn more about the statuette, but she didn’t count on it. During the years of plague and lawlessness so many books had been destroyed—burned to provide heat and light, and in some cases because those who came across them found the ideas and thoughts they contained offensive. Any truly valuable books surviving had long since disappeared into private collections

  In Stockton there was only a small library because the city government saw no reason to spend money on books when the rich and powerful had their own and the poor who struggled in the city or on the land had little time to read or even to learn how. And even if they had, most were wary, worried their choice of reading material would be noted and judged by the Church and those they supported to power. Aisling wondered if it would be different in Oakland, or if word of her visit to the library with Zurael would find its way to Father Ursu as it seemed the trip to Sinners had.

  A presence in the doorway made her glance up. Adrenaline poured into her bloodstream at the sight of the stranger standing there, blocking her escape. Her hand instinctively tightened on the owl fetish.

  He was only slightly bigger than she, small against other men, which had perhaps led to the violence he’d been found guilty of. The tattoos of a lawbreaker marked his face, one on each cheek, both proclaiming the nature of his crimes—a serious assault against a lover and another against a family member. A third conviction and he might well be executed, but Aisling doubted he’d ever be found if he escaped from her house.

  Zurael. She cried his name, but she wouldn’t wait for him to rush to her rescue.

  The man stepped into the room. His eyes traveled over her and made her skin crawl.

  A length of cord unwound when he opened a hand. He grabbed its end and pulled the cord tight, snapping it with a violence meant to add to her terror.

  She didn’t dare look away from him, though she frantically sifted through her memories of what was on the workbench behind her. There were mallets and chisels, but none of them would give her the reach or the weight of the fetish in her hand.

  “Who sent you?” Aisling asked, managing to push the words out, sure his presence in her home wasn’t accidental.

  “You’ll know when you’re dead,” he said, snapping the cord again before slowly wrapping it around his hand, covering his knuckles with it and kissing them like a prizefighter might do his bare flesh.

  He grinned and licked his lips when Aisling grasped the owl with both hands. “I like it better when it’s not easy.”

  Every muscle in Aisling’s body tensed as he took a step toward her. Her breath moved in and out of her lungs in fast pants.

  There was no point in screaming. Even if her neighbors heard her, they wouldn’t brave the night to come to her aid.

  Death. Delay. They were the only two options.

  Aisling didn’t let the open doorway tempt her into making a wild dash into another room. But she cursed her ignorance and her ready acceptance of Zurael’s protection for not having paid enough attention to the details that could make a difference between life and death. She had no idea if there were locks on the internal doors, if they were strong enough to last until Zurael’s return.

  At home she knew every hiding place, every defensible space, each room that offered a safe refug
e and a chance for survival from not only supernaturals should they attack, but from bands of outcast, lawless humans. Living in the country—on land with an abundance of food, water and shelter—was dangerous, though other than those times when the landowners came with their militiamen, or the police came on some pretext, she’d never felt threatened.

  She kept her attention on her assailant’s eyes—counted on his intentions arriving there first and giving her enough warning. How many times had the eldest of Geneva’s fostered children drilled and driven that point home to the youngest as they were growing up? How many bruises had blossomed on her skin in the course of learning how to defend herself?

  There was only a second to act and she did it—swung the large fetish like a club without stopping to question or second-guess her instinct.

  Her attacker howled with pain as the carved stone struck his forearm. Fury contorted his face, chased away the sick amusement she’d seen when he taunted and toyed with her.

  Pain screamed through Aisling as he landed a blow to her chest. Agony spread in her stomach when the steel toe of his boot struck her, driving her backward against the workbench.

  Rational thought left her and she fought, swinging the fetish as primal sounds and whimpers blended, escaped along with the sound of her breathing.

  The will to kill, the necessity of it, rode her. It fed on terror-fueled surges of adrenaline and gave her strength without hesitation.

  She managed to drive him back a step, and rather than cower she advanced, swung again, and the sickening crack of a broken bone sent savage satisfaction through her.

  He lunged and she sidestepped, used the fetish like a baseball bat and sent him into the edge of the workbench. He struck headfirst and fell to the floor. Didn’t rise.

  Aisling tightened her grip on the fetish. Her stomach roiled with the choices in front of her: kill him as he lay unmoving or get close enough to tie his wrists and ankles.

  Small tremors warned of larger ones to come. It took her a few seconds to realize the whimpering sounds of an injured animal were hers.

  She dared to glance away from her assailant long enough to scan the workbench. There were some strands of wire within arm’s reach. She picked them up, and the tremors grew stronger at the thought of putting the fetish down so she could secure her attacker.

  Aisling watched him carefully as she slowly knelt. She willed herself to strike first, to club him if he moved at all.

  She couldn’t kill him in cold blood. But she wouldn’t let him subdue her.

  He remained completely still, so still she paused to see if his chest rose and fell. When she couldn’t be sure, she dropped the wire in order to check his pulse.

  A wrenching shudder gripped him just as she placed her fingers on his throat. His eyes opened, revealing shock and horror in the instant before his spirit entered the ghostlands, leaving a hollow body staring at the ceiling.

  Relief came and Aisling sat on the floor. Tears emerged to run freely down her cheeks in a release of fear at first, and then in acknowledgment of the agony radiating from her stomach and chest where her assailant had struck her.

  For long moments she gave in to emotion and pain, buried her face against her knees and hugged them to her, until the need for answers pressed her into action.

  Unlike the men who’d been Ghosting at Sinners, she felt no guilt over this man’s death. He’d meant to kill her.

  The tattoos on his face told of his crimes—assault against a family member and against a lover, both offenses inflicting damage severe enough for him to be charged. She guessed his victims had been women, glanced to the cord still wrapped around his knuckles and doubted he’d been warned of Zurael’s presence.

  Had her attacker slipped into the house when she’d gone around back to call for Aziel? Or had he entered earlier in the day to lie in wait?

  Aisling forced her arms away from her knees and knelt next to him. She braced herself to touch him, to search his pockets for answers. She tried to close her mind, but it was impossible to hide from her gift. The absence of a soul made the body nothing more than an already-decaying husk of flesh.

  There was folded paper money in his front pocket. She set it aside, wondered if it was what he’d been paid to kill her.

  Her pulse leapt when she found keys in a second pocket. She wouldn’t be sure until she tested them, but they looked like duplicates of the ones she’d given Zurael so he could get back into the house when he returned with dinner.

  Physical pain screamed through Aisling when she rolled her assailant over. It continued to pass in waves that made her want to curl into a ball.

  There were no answers to be found in the back pockets, and she knew she didn’t have the strength necessary to undress him in case there were hidden pockets sewn into his clothing or identifying marks on him. She wondered if they’d find a cross branded into his flesh but knew looking for it would have to wait until Zurael returned.

  Aisling rose to her feet, swayed and nearly collapsed. Her hand curled around the healing amulet she’d gotten in payment from Tamara. If it was as powerful as the witch claimed . . . If she could just make it to the kitchen and boil some water . . .

  But what if there’s a next time? She’d only just started looking for whoever was creating Ghost.

  The tears she’d fought successfully returned with indecision. She had no way of knowing how much of the amulet’s healing properties would be leached away if she steeped it in tea, even for only a few minutes, and used it now.

  Aisling closed her eyes. She forced herself to combat the waves of pain and nausea with steady breathing and sheer determination. If she wasn’t better in a little while, she promised herself, she’d use the amulet. And the promise helped.

  Breath by breath her strength returned. She took a step, then another. Found the second easier than the first.

  Her destination was the couch, where she could curl up and wait for Zurael. But as she passed the bed of dirt in the center of the room, she remembered asking, Who sent you? and heard her assailant reply, You’ll know when you’re dead.

  Aisling shivered as, unbidden and unwanted, an idea came to her. If she followed him into the ghostlands, she might gain the answer to her question. If she got to him before his soul was claimed, he might gladly exchange the name he held for what protection she could offer—even if it was only temporary.

  Nervousness made the nausea intensify. She worried that she might have internal injuries making her bleed into her stomach. Shortness of breath and the rapid beating of her heart made the pain in her chest seem sharper, more piercing. But the idea of following her attacker was unshakable.

  Slowly she sat on the red dirt. As she enclosed herself in a protective circle, she thought of the names she could call upon for help, and discarded them in favor of a more powerful spirit guide. The price she paid would be higher, but she’d never traveled to the spiritlands when she was in pain or weak. She didn’t know whether her astral form would be more vulnerable because of her physical injuries. When the circle was closed, she pulled the pouch containing the fetishes from underneath her shirt and spilled them across her palm just long enough to select a falcon, its wings and legs outstretched.

  Aisling placed the falcon upright on the dirt and retrieved the small ceremonial athame from its hidden sheath sewn into the back of her pants. With a quick slicing motion she made a shallow cut across her lifeline.

  Her blood welled, beaded. When there was enough of it pooled in her palm, she cleared her mind of everything but a single word, a single name. She held her hand over the falcon so her blood fed it, and called the one she needed as the spirit winds swept in, cold and fierce, to claim her.

  Nine

  ZURAEL wasn’t surprised to look through the window of the occult shop and see a bare spot on the shelf where the figurine had been. “It’s gone,” he said, wondering if the shop assistant removed it or if the unknown Javier returned and did so after learning the crystal had flared to life.<
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  Next to him Irial shrugged and said, “Which only increases my interest in it. Given the protections around the shop, I suspect it’s still inside, hidden away. Perhaps you can convince the shamaness to steal into the shop and retrieve it for you.”

  “No. She’s too important to risk.”

  “For the moment.”

  Zurael stiffened but held his words. He sensed Irial was baiting him, poking at him with a verbal stick as the truly foolish might do to a snake with a wooden one. But he didn’t make the mistake of labeling the eldest Raven prince a fool.

  In the darkness between them, Irial’s teeth flashed white. “I’ll return to my father’s house and leave you to return to the child of mud. The shamaness is beautiful, Zurael, but she’s dangerous. I only had to look once to know she affects you physically. Don’t let her be your downfall. Stop coupling with her before you’re lost to the Kingdom of the Djinn.”

  Irial’s form gave way to a swirling breeze. An instant later Zurael’s did the same, and he gained some relief from a cock hardened by the mention of coupling.

  He felt the urgent need to return to Aisling, but he pressed forward in the opposite direction, toward the wealthiest area of town so he could provide the promised meal. With no flesh to slow him down, he moved quickly, though not as quickly as if he had simply moved through time and space between two places, leaving and arriving within a fraction of a second, regardless of the distance between the two points.

  All Djinn had the ability to travel in such a manner. But doing so anywhere other than their kingdom prison resulted in the equivalent of a sonic boom on the metaphysical plane and left a trail for angels to follow.

  He took form again a safe distance beyond where streetlights blazed defiantly against the darkness in an expensive, wasteful use of resources. The rich and powerful flirted with danger here. They walked the street, moved from bars to restaurants to chauffeured limousines, flaunting their wealth and their ability to pay armed bodyguards to insulate them from attack, to die in their place if necessary.