Ghostland

by Jory Strong

  The jeeps arrived moments later, four of them racing down parallel streets. Spotlights struck the sides of long-deserted buildings and patches of vegetation. Any movement caused a barrage of bullets, followed by whoops and hollers.

  A feral dog lost its nerve and darted from underneath a burned-out car. Its body danced over cracked sidewalk long after it was dead.

  “One confirmed kill! You got that?” a man yelled and radios crackled to life, each of them repeating, “One confirmed kill. Got it.”

  Hatred and fury roared through Zurael. He only barely suppressed the impulse to become a thing of human nightmare, a demon swooping from the sky to deliver terror-filled death to the guardsmen in the jeeps.

  AISLING knelt in the shaman’s workroom, laughing at Aziel’s antics, enjoying the moment even as the time to enter the ghostlands approached. The ferret sat on top of a mound of salt, gleefully digging into the white granules and tossing them onto the floor underneath the table.

  She’d assumed the heavy sack contained cheap stones used for making inexpensive amulets or fetishes. But when she entered the workroom, Aziel’s chatter insisted she open the bag.

  Have I been doing it wrong all along? she wondered, thinking on how Father Ursu had given her the bowl of salt the night she searched for Elena, and how Aziel had tossed those grains to the floor, too, subtly telling her she was to form a protective circle using them.

  Aisling rose long enough to find a container, a can that had once contained peaches. She dumped the collection of polished stones it held on to the workbench, couldn’t stop herself from remembering how she’d returned from her unwilling Ghost trip into the spiritlands to find herself in this room, and how Zurael helped her to the kitchen, fed her peaches by hand. It was the beginning of her downfall, her seduction.

  Aziel chattered urgently. He tossed more salt onto the floor, his movements shifting from playfulness to the beginnings of agitation, hinting that his uncharacteristic show of affection toward Nicholette was more than a means of communicating to Aisling that she should agree to search for Nicholas.

  She knelt and filled the can full of salt then took her place on the dirt in the middle of the room. The ferret scrambled onto her lap. But when she would have traced protective sigils in the dirt as she cast a circle in salt, Aziel went completely still—his signal for her to stop and think, to consider past lessons—and she understood she needed to duplicate what she’d done the night she searched for Elena.

  Do not summon me.

  Zurael’s earlier warning, the promise of death she’d read in his eyes, made her heart race just as surely as did the knowledge that she’d encounter another dark priest tonight. Only a lifetime of trusting Aziel gave her the courage to allow the spirit winds to rush through her, to pull her into the world of the dead.

  When the ghost winds settled, Aisling welcomed the gray nothingness around her, the calm stillness requiring no action, no decision, no payment. It could last seconds, minutes, hours if she let it, and a part of her wanted to let it go on, but instead she lifted her hand and touched the necklace she’d gotten from Nicholette, let her fingers caress the entwined lovers carved from jasper.

  Gray swirled and parted, allowing a familiar figure to step through, though it wasn’t the one Aisling expected. Sinead’s husky laugh filled the space around them, became the purr of a predator. “You’d prefer John?” she asked, touching the scarf tied around her neck, stroking the instrument of her death as she lightly tapped the crop she carried against her leg. “Oh, he’s dabbled in the sex trade, if you can call taking money so guardsmen can have a little sport on their days off being part of the pleasure business.”

  Sinead glided forward, leather and perfume, crackling dominance. “Umm, a natural submissive,” she said, circling Aisling, crowding her, making Aisling self-conscious of her nakedness in the ghostlands. “You’d be a fun one to train, but I don’t think that’s why you’re here. Am I right?”

  Aisling took the necklace off and held it between them. “I’m searching for a missing sex witch,” she said, and the spirit winds rose, shimmered over the jasper and made it appear as though the man and woman writhed, their bodies glistening with sweat as they fucked.

  Sinead licked her lips. “What a temptation. Who is she?”

  “The witch I’m looking for is named Nicholas. This is his sister’s necklace.”

  “A pity.” Sinead tapped the crop against the leather of her pants. “A pity it’s the brother and not the sister. But better for you.” She closed her hand around the lovers trapped in jasper. Her eyes lost focus until a sly smile formed. “Oh my, this is a delicious turn of events. Karmic fate for those who have the luxury of believing in such things. I can take you to him. If we hurry you might even arrive before he’s welcomed to this world.” Sinead released the necklace and again licked her lips, made a show of caressing Aisling with her eyes. “It will, of course, cost you, and even here my time is valuable.”

  Aisling steeled herself against reacting to the blatant display. It was part of the bargaining process, something she’d learned early on. And because she knew that only those who lived fully in this realm could conceal themselves in clothing, she didn’t wish to look down and find herself wearing it.

  Sinead circled. Tapped the crop lightly on her leg. “I could do so much with you if you put yourself in my hands for training. Men and women alike would line up, all vying for the privilege of hearing you call them Master.” She stopped at Aisling’s side, her breath a cold whisper across bare flesh. “Or have you already been claimed? Shown the pleasures of being submissive?”

  Zurael’s image came to mind before Aisling could prevent it. Her body responded instantly, tightening her nipples and sending heat coiling through her belly.

  Sinead moved around to stand in front of Aisling. She shifted her attention to Aziel, for the first time acknowledging she could see him. “Too bad you’re already claimed, but not by this one I don’t think.”

  Aisling slipped Nicholette’s necklace over her head. She wondered if Sinead recognized what Aziel would be if he took his true form.

  Sinead’s eyes lingered on the jasper amulet before moving to the pouch containing the fetishes, then abruptly lifting to Aisling’s face. She tapped the crop lightly against the palm of her hand, the sound rhythmic, like a clock ticking away the final moments of Nicholas’s life.

  “Very well, my price. I will lead you to the sex witch Nicholas. In exchange you will bring Elena to me after she meets her death.”

  Aziel’s sharp claws dug into Aisling’s bare shoulder, urging her to hurry while also warning her to be cautious. She shivered, recognizing both trap and the high cost of the favor.

  “You will take me to Nicholas as quickly as possible, before he can be killed?”

  Sinead closed her hand around the end of the crop, slid it back and forth through the fist of her fingers, mimicking the sex act. “Yes, I’ll concede that point.”

  Her smile was sharp, her eyes hard. “I won’t yield on the other demand, so don’t waste your time—or what little of the witch’s that remains—in trying to put limitations and restrictions on the task I want you to perform. In my own fashion I love Elena, as one does a well-trained and obedient pet. Bring her to me in death and I will take you to the witch in time for you to call on another to save his life.”

  Promise me you’ll be careful.

  I will be.

  But the thundering race of Aisling’s heart made a lie of her words. What Sinead asked was outwardly simple, but could ultimately cost Aisling more than she could afford to pay. There was no way of knowing, in this moment, who might claim Elena’s soul at death, where Elena’s spirit might go when she entered the ghostlands.

  Aisling shivered. In her mind’s eye she saw Nicholette’s fear for her brother, and she ached for her. But to risk so much for a stranger . . . She wavered, torn, also seeing the images of her family’s future captured on a slate of blood. Only slowly did she become aware
of the tension vibrating through Aziel as he waited for her to decide.

  You’re trusting him with your life.

  I always have.

  “I’ll pay your price,” Aisling said.

  “Come then.”

  They walked through gray nothingness and swirling ghost winds until Sinead stopped. No blood seeped into the spiritlands the way it had the night Elena lay on the altar to serve a dark mass.

  “Here we are. With time to spare. As promised.”

  Aisling nodded, accepting the incurred debt before closing her eyes and willing herself to sink through the barrier separating spirit world from living one.

  The scene that greeted her differed from what she’d expected, but was equally horrifying. Black candles lit a room laid out in preparation for an unholy ceremony. Nicholas lay gagged, struggling and fighting against tethers, cuts marring the perfection of his body—small knife wounds made to draw blood for the now-familiar sigils painted on his skin.

  Two robed figures were in the room. As they approached the altar, one of them parted his robe to reveal a stiffened cock. He slid his hand up and down his shaft. “We’ve got time. Plenty of ceremonies start this way. Besides, aren’t you curious about why your mother is so hot for him?”

  “I’d rather piss on him than fuck him.”

  “Suit yourself. But not until after I’m finished with my fun.”

  Reflexively Aisling touched the entwined couple of Nicholette’s necklace. A matching one seemed to writhe where it lay on Nicholas’s heaving, fear-slick chest.

  Aisling curled her fingers around the fetish pouch, pressed the jasper pendant to soft leather. Aziel?

  He shifted on her shoulder, studied the scene intently. This isn’t the trap I expected, the one I wanted you to see and understand. There’s no spell here to capture anyone you might summon. I will give you a name. But you will have no control over the one you call.

  The black-robed figure climbed onto the altar and knelt between Nicholas’s legs. His hands reached underneath splayed thighs, wrenched Nicholas upward and Aisling shuddered in revulsion of the rape about to take place.

  There was a fleeting thought to ask what it would cost her, but she didn’t give it voice. What is the name?

  Irial, Raven prince, son of Iyar en Batrael.

  Not even a heartbeat passed between the end of Aziel’s silent communication and Aisling’s spoken summons. This time she felt no shock of terror when the demon arrived, black-winged and black-taloned, furious death given physical form.

  The robed figures died in a spray of blood, their heads nearly severed from their bodies. When the demon’s attention turned to Nicholas, his fury like waves of lava—uncaring who was destroyed in the flow of molten hate and deadly retribution—fear engulfed Aisling.

  It tried to freeze her in place like a rabbit in the shadow of a hawk, but she managed to say, “No! Please don’t!” and the sound of her voice turned Irial away from the altar.

  Everything she’d seen in Zurael’s face the night she summoned him, she saw again in Irial’s. The demon rushed toward her, as if only just then understanding she was the one who’d called his name on the spirit winds.

  The protective circle flared to life when he got to her, flashed in his green eyes like small flames burning with the absolute promise of death. But then his head turned slightly, and he stilled completely at the sight of Aziel.

  Furious rage and unrelenting hatred gave way to subtle surprise and a glimpse of understanding. The threat of violence disappeared like a doused fire.

  Aisling became aware of Irial’s masculine perfection, how similar he was to Zurael. And as if thinking it forged a link between them, Irial met her eyes again. Only this time a stylized raven graced his cheek the same way a serpent coiled around Zurael’s forearm.

  “Do you trust that one with your life, little shamaness?” Irial asked, tilting his head toward Nicholas, who lay shivering on the altar, streaked with gore, his ankles and wrists raw and bleeding from his struggles.

  The ease with which Irial identified her, the casualness of his address, made Aisling’s heart race. But she didn’t hesitate in saying, “Yes. His sister asked for my help. I trust him.” She glanced at the bodies on the floor then back at Irial. “Will you free him?”

  “I will free him.”

  “Thank you.”

  Irial’s eyes darkened, and for the first time they swept downward, over her nakedness. “I understand better your allure,” he said before turning his back and walking to the altar.

  Unbidden, the spirit winds swept in, but rather than restore her to her physical body, they carried her back to the ghostlands, to another room and another circle, to a place that once made her think of ancient Greek temples but now made her think of desert lands and a time before humans existed.

  Arched doorways formed the walls on all four sides. Gauzy, pastel-colored curtains held the gray of the ghostlands out. Sigils created with priceless gems sparkled in the stone floor. Some glowed so brightly they would imprint on her retinas if she looked at them too long.

  Aisling sighed in relief. In the spiritlands all things came at a cost. There’d been no time to contemplate the price of saving Nicholas, no time even to ask what would be required of her. Now she knew she was to pay Aziel for Irial’s name.

  It was a heavy price, but one she had always paid willingly. The other spirits who guided her took her blood or a promise of service. Aziel took a part of her soul, what the ancient Egyptians had once labeled ka, the life force.

  Aziel slid from her shoulder and settled on one of the jeweled symbols as he’d done any number of times before, as he’d done in each of the forms he’d taken as her companion.

  He recognized you, she said, thinking of the instant when Irial saw Aziel, wanting answers, as she always had, but wanting them more desperately now.

  Perhaps.

  You’re demon. She made it a statement. Hesitated slightly then added, As is my father.

  Aziel’s amusement reached her, a sharing of emotion rather than thought, the bond between them stronger in this place. What’s in a name, when it’s given by another and not claimed by the one it’s given to?

  The question made Aisling blush and look away. Memories of a similar question crowded in, where she stood naked in front of the bathroom mirror with Zurael.

  Do you remember what I looked like beneath the moon and regret letting me cover you, pierce you? Does my form change the nature of who I am? Does it define me?

  No.

  Then look at me, watch while I take you.

  Without conscious thought, Aisling’s fingers curled around the entwined lovers of Nicholette’s necklace, and in the cool of the spiritlands the jasper was warm against her palm. A fleeting, hazy image appeared, an impression of Nicholette writhing on silken cushions in this circle, the curtains in the archways billowing as a man lay on top of her, thrusting into her—and Aisling knew Aziel’s interest hadn’t been feigned.

  She let go of the necklace, didn’t want him to feel the childish, selfish insecurity that attacked her and held the larger fear of losing him at bay. But in this place, it was impossible, the bond between them too strong, too deeply ingrained. He’d been with her from her earliest memory. He was father and brother, spirit guide and best friend.

  It’s not time for me to leave you yet, he said, and his love surrounded her like a blanket, warmed her so deeply that there was no room for fear or worry about the future.

  She let her mind drift, only barely noticing the sigils, flaring and subsiding in random order, as if an unseen hand played notes she couldn’t hear. Tiredness came first, with the faint outline of her clothing as her life, her ka, drained away. Exhaustion came next and she wrapped her arms around bent knees, could almost feel the fabric of the pants she wore in the living world. Lethargy followed and she rolled to her side in a fetal ball, closed her eyes because she didn’t want to see how close to physical death Aziel would take her.

  Twel
ve

  ZURAEL rose onto an elbow and gently brushed the hair away from Aisling’s face. She slept deeply, with the insensibility of the dead. And though her bare skin was warm against his, he shivered as he remembered returning close to dawn to find her curled in a ball on the red dirt in the shaman’s workroom, unresponsive to his touch and voice, her skin chilled and pale.

  “Aisling,” he whispered, leaning down to trail kisses over her soft skin, to touch his lips to hers and tempt fate by doing it. How had she come to matter so much to him? When had the thought of her death become unbearable?

  He curled his arm around her waist and pulled her more tightly against him, pinned her unresisting thighs to the sheet. He was hard, as he always seemed to be when he was with her. But it wasn’t the ache in his cock that guided his actions or urged him to cover her completely. It was the desire to possess her, to protect her.

  She stirred as if responding to his closeness, his need to know she was whole, undamaged, safely returned from the spiritlands. Some of the worry loosened in his chest, burst in a wave of heat that had him touching his mouth to hers again, almost daring her to wake, to defy the future by taking his breath and spirit as easily as she’d summoned him from his father’s kingdom.

  Movement ended the moment. Zurael turned his head and saw the ferret.

  Aziel was in the doorway, bold now where he hadn’t been willing to show himself earlier in the face of Zurael’s anger at finding Aisling still as death on the floor.

  A knock on the door came and Aziel turned, retreated to the living room. Reluctantly Zurael left the soft heat of Aisling’s flesh, slid from the bed and pulled on a pair of pants. More of his tension left when her eyebrows drew together and her mouth formed a frown over his absence.

  He forced himself from the room to answer the front door. It was Nicholette.

  Her gaze went behind him, searching for Aisling, then down to the ferret, who wound himself around her ankles like a cat before disappearing back into the house. When Zurael didn’t call for Aisling, she said, “I brought fresh bread and vegetables from our garden. It’s not enough, not nearly enough for what Aisling did. But it’s all we can spare. We’re leaving Oakland.”