Ghostland

by Jory Strong

  The damage done to him by nighttime predators was severe enough to make cause of death unclear, but then that wasn’t of interest and the reporter made no apologies. It was the brands that fascinated, that provided shock value and titillation for the reader.

  Aisling shivered as she looked at the insert of the hands and overlaid them with the symbols Elena had traced on the coffee table in tea, the ones she’d drawn for Aubrey the previous night at the occult shop. They were the same. And the punishment brands burned into his flesh were for a crime she was equally guilty of, for summoning a demon, for lying with one.

  Zurael’s lips against her ear distracted her from the downward spiral of her thoughts. “I will kill anyone who threatens you,” he said, the heat of his breath no match against the deep chill inside her, his promise feeding her fear of punishment, not reducing it.

  Aziel made his presence known. He slid from her shoulder far enough for his front feet to find the pouch hidden underneath her shirt. His weight pressed the fetishes against her chest in a reminder she had powerful allies.

  Aisling closed her eyes. She forced the fear away. If she was going to save her family, she couldn’t worry about her own fate.

  “What’s been done can’t be undone,” she murmured, stroking Aziel’s soft fur then repositioning him on her shoulder before resuming her search through the newspapers.

  It was Zurael who found the next item of interest. Aisling immediately recognized the man pictured, just as she remembered his words at Sinners. You’ll find it far more entertaining to vote her out with the others. She’s a shamaness.

  Her stomach knotted when she learned Peter Germaine was a man of power—a deputy police chief, the brother of the mayor—and no friend to any human who’d been graced with otherworldly abilities.

  “Interesting,” Zurael said. “Did he want you dead because he knew you located his brother’s lover? Or did he influence the others because he hates and fears those with gifts he doesn’t have? Perhaps my curiosity will get the better of me and I’ll hesitate long enough to ask him before I mete out the punishment he deserves.”

  There was no heat in Zurael’s voice, no passion. He might have been talking about plans to weed a garden or clean livestock stalls.

  Aisling opened her mouth to protest his casualness, to argue against what he planned, but the words remained trapped in her throat. The images Elena’s brother had conjured in the spiritlands drifted into her thoughts on icy winds—the hollow-eyed Ghosters standing in front of Sinners, their attention focused on her, their faces undamaged though their bodies were ripped, torn so organs hung and wet bones gleamed.

  Your work? I’m sure they had it coming to them, but what a way to go, John had mocked. And she couldn’t bring herself to tell Zurael she didn’t want him to kill the man who’d so casually suggested she be put out into the predator-filled night.

  She shivered. The icy winds settled around her heart like heavy weights as she worried about the corruption of her soul, the ease in which she accepted the slaughter of a human unable to protect himself against a being like Zurael.

  Did it prove she was half demon? Her father’s daughter? Or did it only mean that in summoning Zurael, in coupling with him, in coming to—care for him—that the humanity to be measured and judged when she entered the spiritlands the final time was leaching away?

  Aisling ducked her head and resumed looking through the paper on her lap. She filled her mind with information as she scanned articles about her new city.

  Geneva and the farm seemed a lifetime away. A world away. And by the time she came across a picture of the man and woman in red, Aisling wondered if she could truly return to a place where her gift had to be hidden.

  Like Peter Germaine, Felipe Glass, the man in red, was involved in law enforcement. He was in charge of the guardsmen, powerful in his own right but also wealthy. Aisling wouldn’t have been surprised to learn the woman in red was a mistress, but found she was Felipe’s wife, Ilka, the daughter of a founding family.

  It helped having names for those faces at Sinners. Aisling doubted they had anything to do with Ghost or the black masses, but she felt better knowing who they were, even if it only confirmed a belief she’d held all her life: The police and the guardsmen couldn’t be trusted.

  She passed the newspaper to Zurael without comment and continued through those remaining. There was no mention of Ghost, no mention of the Fellowship of the Sign in any of them.

  “You’re tired and hungry,” Zurael said when they’d reached the end of the stack. His voice was as caressing as the knuckles he stroked across her cheek. “Let’s get something to eat.”

  There were restaurants and food stalls across the street. Aisling touched her pocket and felt the folded money there. The craving for fresh fruit, for bread and cheese, rose and made her mouth water. She fought it, told herself not to waste the money, but an internal voice overrode her long-ingrained frugality. It reminded her that some of the bills in her pocket had probably been paid to her assailant to bring about death, whispered that she should use it to sustain life.

  They were nearing the door when one of the patrons left his spot in front of a computer. Aisling slowed. She looked longingly at the machines capable of housing huge libraries of information, and which had once been so commonplace even children owned and used them.

  “Do you know how to use one?” she asked Zurael.

  “No. There is no power to run technology such as this in the place I call home.”

  Aisling rubbed her palms against her pants and approached the available machine. In the days before The Last War there’d been satellites and land networks allowing for instant communication using computers. Children no longer used books in school, and rarely used pencil and paper, just as the majority of people paid for everything through accounts accessed by magnetic cards like the one she’d used on the bus, instead of using cash.

  Relying on technology to such an extent was a foreign notion, intimidating. Yet the possibility of having so much knowledge readily available was exhilarating.

  The young librarian who’d been stationed behind the counter stopped next to them. “Do you need some help? Please say you do. I’ve got hours left on my shift and am going a little crazy just sitting around reading magazines.”

  “I’ve never used a computer before,” Aisling admitted.

  “It’s easy. You’ll be a pro in minutes. Take a seat. I’m Cassandra, by the way.”

  “I’m Aisling.”

  She sat and felt even more intimidated in such close proximity to the screen and keyboard.

  “Don’t panic!” Cassandra said with a laugh. “Don’t freeze up. Believe me, this is simple. Child’s play. They say before The Last War toddlers used to learn their alphabet and numbers by playing computer games. Believe me, you’ll wonder why you haven’t been a regular library visitor. This is your first time here, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so. It won’t be your last. You probably noticed how often there’s a waiting line for the computers. Hopefully we’ll be getting more of them soon.”

  Cassandra leaned over and touched the sole icon on the screen. “Okay. Here’s the big picture. We’re on a limited local area network. What that means is enough cable has been salvaged so computers like these, and the ones owned privately, are connected to huge computers where information is stored. What’s stored in the mega computers is stuff like news, books that have been input, you name it. Content depends on who owns the huge computers, so take what you read with a grain of salt. Are you new to town, or just to the library?”

  “I’ve only been here a few days,” Aisling said.

  “Do you like it?”

  Aisling’s earlier thoughts returned, along with the unsettling realization that she could no longer see herself content with the life she’d lived in the San Joaquin. True, there was violence and prejudice here, the powerful preying on the weak, but there was also freedom and the opportunity to openly use
her gift to help others.

  “Life here is different from anything I’ve ever know. But yes, I think I could come to like it very much.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  Aisling hesitated only a second. “In the area reserved for those with special talents.”

  “Cool! Let me guess . . .” Cassandra tilted her head. “Witch, warlock and ferret familiar?”

  Aisling laughed, though a blush rose in her face. “Shamaness. Friend. And pet.”

  “Even cooler.” Cassandra turned to the computer in front of them. “Okay, back to work. The easiest way to find what you’re looking for is to type in a word or a couple of words and do a search. Now, hand on the mouse, and I’ll walk you through it.”

  Aisling put her hand on the “mouse” and was absolutely amazed at the world that opened up by her doing so. True to Cassandra’s words, within minutes she wondered why she’d ever felt overwhelmed by such simple technology.

  “I think you’re good to go now,” Cassandra said, stepping back and beaming with satisfaction. “I’ll leave you to it. Shout out if you hit a snag.”

  “I will,” Aisling said, waiting just long enough for Cassandra to move away before typing in Fellowship of the Sign.

  Only a few references, links Cassandra had called them, came up. When Aisling followed them, they didn’t provide any more information than what she’d already learned from Davida at The Mission.

  She typed in Ghost and was immediately overwhelmed with possibilities, all of them connected to sightings of spirits or old-fashioned horror stories. And even after she’d added and subtracted words as Cassandra had demonstrated, there were no references to the substance called Ghost.

  Aisling closed the browser and stood. Despite not finding anything about Ghost or the Fellowship of the Sign, she felt exhilarated, empowered in a way she couldn’t completely put into words.

  Zurael’s chuckle and the warmth she saw his eyes only increased her sense of accomplishment. “I’m impressed,” he said, and the liquid heat in his voice found its way to her breasts and cunt.

  She glanced away quickly. “Ready to eat?”

  “Yes.”

  They went across the street, to a food stall serving soup and salad. Aisling’s euphoria over mastering the computer lasted until she saw Cassandra leave the library and enter the building next to it. Fear and worry edged in, with the memory of Raisa saying the library was next door to the building housing the police and guardsmen.

  A deep sadness invaded Aisling’s soul at being presented with evidence of how dangerous it was to trust, at having been so foolish as to set aside a lifetime of caution. She’d been as easy to question as a child, had casually revealed enough information to lead the authorities to her, and had never wondered whether the computer would save the contents of her search after she’d closed the browser.

  “Your world is far more treacherous than mine,” Zurael said, pulling her back against his front, surrounding her with his heat, his strength. He gave her the security she craved but made her consider again the ease with which her humanity was leaching away—as time and time again she found what she needed in a demon’s arms.

  Eleven

  AISLING studied the witches’ home from the safety of the cracked and broken sidewalk. Elaborate sigils were carved into the door and the window frames as well as the posts marking the front corners of the yard.

  A short wrought-iron fence stood guard against the fey in a not so subtle warning. And though Aisling wasn’t magic sensitive, as some of the gifted were, she could feel the ley line humming through the souls of her feet, rising from the depths like a great whale close to breaching the surface of the ocean.

  Tamara might have claimed her family didn’t practice black magic, but Aisling knew the Wainwrights were more than witches whose craft was tied to the elements and their goddess. At least some of them would be sorceresses, able to pull on the rich power pulsing through the ley line their house sat on.

  Instinctively her fingers curled around the fetish pouch beneath her shirt. She glanced at Zurael and thought about returning from her trip into the spiritlands to find Tamara’s face tight with fear and her arms wrapped protectively around her swollen belly. At the time she’d attributed Tamara’s reaction to Zurael’s unexpected arrival and the menace radiating from him; now she wondered if Tamara had guessed what he was.

  “I don’t think it’s safe for you to come with me,” Aisling said. “I haven’t got an affinity for spell magic, but I can feel a ley line close to the surface here. It’s strong enough to power any number of entrapment or revelation spells.”

  Aziel nuzzled the side of her face in approval, then surprised her by jumping from her shoulder to Zurael’s, the unusual behavior making her wonder again about Aziel’s true purpose in giving her Zurael’s name.

  “I can feel the line as well,” Zurael said, accepting the ferret’s presence without comment. “You won’t linger?”

  “As soon as I tell them about the child at The Mission and either get their promise to retrieve Anya or the name of someone else to talk to about her, I’ll leave.”

  “Your pet and I will wait out here then.”

  Aisling pushed through the wrought-iron gate and walked to the front door. The decision to come here for help was an easy one to make. The only other gifted person she’d met since moving into the shaman’s house was Raisa. And given Father Ursu’s arrival minutes after Raisa’s departure and then the attacker who’d been waiting later, Aisling wasn’t prepared to trust the tearoom owner.

  A thick brass gargoyle with a ring held in its mouth served as a door knocker. An older version of Tamara responded to Aisling’s use of it. She studied Aisling for only a second before looking past her and smiling slightly. “You must be Aisling. I’m Annalise, Tamara’s mother. She’s unavailable at the moment. Can I help you?”

  “I hope so. I’m here about a child who needs a home.”

  Dark eyebrows rose, the smile widened. Ice slid down Aisling’s spine with the impression that she’d been expected.

  Annalise stepped out of the doorway and confirmed Aisling’s suspicion by saying, “Come in. Levanna is waiting in the parlor.”

  The inside of the house reminded Aisling of the luxury she’d found at the church, though the prewar artwork gracing the walls or residing on polished wooden furniture would have been viewed as sinful and destroyed if it had come into the hands of the religious. Naked men and woman danced and worshipped. They coupled in rites of fertility, their faces and bodies full of emotion and life.

  “Ah, the shamaness is here,” Levanna said from the couch, her voice strong despite the frailty of a body shrunken and bent by age.

  She wore a long black dress and was kept warm by a fringed shawl draped over boney shoulders. Her hair was silver, her eyes made sightless by cataracts, though Aisling imagined the Wainwright matriarch hadn’t needed them to see for a long time.

  Annalise sat on the couch next to Levanna while Aisling claimed a chair across from them. “Tell us about the child,” Annalise said, and Aisling did, tracing on the coffee table the symbols she’d seen Anya draw in the sand and feeling relief when Annalise nodded, recognizing their importance.

  “It’s good you came to us about her,” Levanna said. Her hand went to the spot where the ends of the black shawl overlapped, her fingers caressing the amulets and charms she wore. “It’s too late to retrieve Anya today, but first thing tomorrow we’ll send someone in good standing with the authorities to get her. We can ensure she has a good home, if not with us then with others who will attend to her training and care.”

  Cataract-blinded eyes met Aisling’s as Levanna’s hand fell away from her shawl to reveal a pendant. The gold sun caught and held Aisling’s attention. Tendrils of awe and dread slid through her like whispers too faint to hear, knowledge just out of reach.

  Annalise freed her from the amulet’s fascination by saying, “Tamara told us about her visit with you and why the Church
brought you to Oakland. She confessed what she asked of you. I’m not surprised the father of her child met the end he did. He was like a lot of the rich younger sons who’ve taken to dabbling in magic and lost their lives because of it. You’ve heard a male sex witch has disappeared?”

  “No. Raisa came by my house yesterday and introduced herself. She didn’t tell me about the sex witch, but she told me a governess went missing.”

  “We heard about that as well. The governess wasn’t one of us, though we’re making inquiries,” Annalise said. “We don’t know the details of the witch’s disappearance yet. His family hasn’t come to us or asked for aid, but others have told us he went missing, along with the son of his wealthy patroness.”

  Levanna leaned forward abruptly and the golden sun swung toward Aisling, making her breath catch involuntarily though there was no logical reason for her to react to the pendant.

  “In my dreams I saw a dark priest and his followers slaughtered by a powerful demon,” Levanna said. “If you’re not careful, you’ll meet the same end as Henri and the vampire’s shaman. There are beings of absolute evil trying to break into this world and reclaim it. But despite our efforts and allies we haven’t been able to find the human servants who call those beings master.”

  Aisling’s breath froze in her lungs. After trusting Cassandra so readily at the library, she didn’t dare risk making the same mistake by acknowledging what happened the night she’d gone into the ghostlands to find Elena. “Do you know what happened to the vampire’s shaman?” she asked instead.

  “He was not a powerful shaman, yet his screams lingered and echoed in a nightmare shared by many of us with talents that brush against the spiritlands,” Levanna said, subtly acknowledging she was more than a witch who practiced nature-based magic. She settled against the back of the couch once again and tilted her head slightly toward Annalise. “Only my granddaughter saw anything of his passing.”

  “He was strapped to a bed in a cold basement room of the church,” Annalise said. “Bishop Routledge was there, as was Father Ursu. There was only a sliver of awareness between his waking and finding himself there, and when they anointed him with Ghost and told him to seek its source. That’s all I saw before the screaming began.”