Ghostland (ghostland)

by Jory Strong

  “It was a code of silence, wasn’t it?”

  “And loyalty. You’d do well to remember that vampires are extremely fond of the concept of omerta.” Sea-green eyes grew serious. “Whatever happens here tonight, Aisling, don’t speak of it.”

  Worry and sadness knotted her stomach as she looked up into Ryker’s handsome face and imagined it drained of color, still and lifeless in death. “Why do you want this?”

  “My reasons are my own.”

  “But the risk-”

  “Is acceptable to me.”

  The smile returned to his eyes. “The thought of me being a vampire doesn’t terrify you at all. It’s the thought of my human death that has your heart racing and your eyes clouding with concern. Am I right?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “I want this, Aisling. I don’t have any doubt Draven’s blood is strong enough to kick-start my heart, but if it were as simple as that then there’d be a lot more vampires.” Ryker’s knuckles brushed her cheek. “Even on such short notice and having only just met you, my gut tells me I’m lucky Thaddeus wanted something from Draven.”

  Ryker’s hand fell away. He stepped back as Draven entered the room. The vampire’s gaze flicked to Aisling then back to Ryker. A dark eyebrow lifted. “Ready to start?”

  “Ready,” Ryker said. His eyes found Aisling’s and filled with mischief. “I’ve always imagined I’d end up dying in bed, though not necessarily my own. Can you do whatever you need to do there?”

  Heat rushed to her face. She laughed despite the cold, heavy fear that rushed to settle in her chest.

  “Yes,” Aisling said, following him to a bed large enough to hold three or four people, then coloring further when Draven removed his shirt and joined them on the mattress.

  With a casualness that spoke volumes, Draven opened a night-stand drawer and removed a knife. “Insurance,” he said, slicing his wrist deeply enough to draw blood.

  “You do care.” Ryker mocked her, leaning down to press his lips to Draven’s wrist.

  The men didn’t touch otherwise, and Draven’s expression gave no clue to his thoughts. But Aisling found the sight of them together arousing. She found the act itself erotic, deeply intimate.

  Courtesy demanded she turn her head, but she couldn’t look away, couldn’t keep her gaze from dropping to the fronts of their pants as the men sat next to each other, cross-legged, one knee nearly touching. She closed her eyes then, tried to close her ears to the soft sound of Ryker drawing Draven’s blood into his body. She concentrated instead on what would come next. On what would be required of her next.

  Her hand crept up to the pouch containing her fetishes. She quieted her mind and let memory guide her.

  There’d been a child once, when she was a child herself. He’d fallen into a canal before he knew how to swim. His uncle pulled him out and forced the water from his lungs. He pressed on the boy’s chest until his heart beat on its own, but the boy didn’t regain consciousness.

  They came to Geneva because a doctor was too expensive and they feared the worst. Geneva took Aisling with her.

  Aziel wore the body of a cat in those days. He’d guided her through the gray mists of the spiritlands to a hill overlooking a playground. The boy was there, giggling wildly as his father pushed him on the swing while his mother pulled food from a wicker picnic basket and placed it on a blanket spread out on the grass.

  You can call the boy to you, there’s still time, Aziel told her, words in her mind rather than a voice. They can’t keep him from answering if you do. But Aisling shook her head. She’d been young enough then to fantasize about being reunited with her mother and father, as if she’d somehow been lost instead of abandoned.

  He’s happy to be with his parents.

  Is that what you want to tell his uncle and aunt?

  Yes.

  And that’s what she’d done, only realizing later-after the happy images from the ghostland were replaced by the stricken, haunted expressions of the boy’s aunt and uncle-that by her choice she’d left them to finish what the water had been kept from doing.

  The mattress shifted beneath Aisling. She opened her eyes to find Ryker lying down. Draven knelt beside him, the knife still in his hand. Both of them were looking at her, waiting for her.

  There’d be no circle, not with a death required. She crawled to Ryker’s opposite side and took his hand in hers, wove her fingers through his.

  “When Ryker returns, he’ll be in the grip of bloodlust,” Draven said, radiating complete confidence, as if there were no doubt about the outcome. “Leave the room immediately. There’s an escort waiting outside the door to take you to your quarters. Remain there until Thaddeus’s servant arrives before dawn to take you home. You’re ready?”

  The tightness in Aisling’s throat made speech impossible. She barely had time to nod before there was a flash of silver and a sharp cry of pain as Draven drove the knife through Ryker’s chest and pierced his heart.

  She was jerked into the spiritlands with the same abruptness as when Elena forced the Ghost trip on her. Only the gray fog immediately parted to reveal a dock, a sailboat swarming with partially dressed men and women.

  “Ryker!” they yelled, in unison and apart. “You’re here! Come on!”

  Ryker’s laugh poured over Aisling, carefree and happy. He seemed unaware of their interlocked hands as he hurried toward the boat, dragging her with him.

  For an instant she wavered, let him draw closer to his friends. He was almost to the dock before a sense of urgency made her dig her heels in and say his name.

  Ryker faltered. She called him again and he started to turn away from his friends.

  A woman on the boat shed her wrap to reveal tanned skin and a model’s body. An equally gorgeous man moved to her side and slid his arm around her bare waist. “Come on, Ryker! Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what it’s like. Sail with us.”

  This time Ryker’s laugh was masculine and appreciative. “How can I say no?”

  He jerked Aisling forward with renewed determination to reach the boat. “What about Draven?” Aisling said, desperate to get his attention as they reached the wood of the dock. “Draven’s waiting for you. He’s expecting you to come back to him.”

  Ryker faltered again. He turned toward her. His eyebrows drew together in puzzlement. The voices from the boat grew more demanding.

  Aisling wished the fog of the ghostlands would block the sailboat and silence the voices-and as if hearing her call, the spirit winds came in a breeze that sent Ryker’s hair and her own dancing until a shroud of gray was wrapped around them.

  The confusion slowly faded from Ryker’s eyes. As it did, Aisling said, “You wanted me to take you back to Draven.”

  Ryker’s hand went to his chest, where the knife’s blade had left only a small deadly wound. He glanced down and took in his nakedness, then hers. The infectious smile returned. “Another first. Draven will be sorry he wasn’t included. He has a decided preference for blondes. Shall we return?”

  “Yes,” Aisling said, and the ghostland cocoon expelled them.

  Aisling scrambled from the bed and ran to the bedroom door. Behind her came the sound of thrashing, curses.

  She opened the door and was immediately grabbed and pulled through it by one of the vampires stationed in the hallway. Even if she’d been tempted, there was no chance to look back.

  The door shut. A second vampire moved to stand guard.

  “This way,” the one who’d pulled her from the room said.

  Aisling followed him to a suite like something out of a magazine depicting the lives of the rich. A large-screen television took up a great part of one wall, in an area with a couch and chairs. In the next room a huge canopied bed was placed in the center, amid plants and flowers of all descriptions.

  Beyond the bedroom was a bathroom with a sunken tub. She touched the sparkling faucets and couldn’t resist the idea of submerging herself in heated, bubble bath-infused waters.r />
  Aisling stripped as the tub filled. When her fingers brushed over the fetish pouch, her thoughts went to the woman who might have given birth to her before becoming a vampire. She opened the pouch and removed a single fetish-the one representing her most powerful protector, the being she was beginning to think was demon-her father.

  Unlike the others, most of which were made of bone, the one she examined was clear crystal, with no shape other than the one she’d found it in on the day Aziel led her to it. The being it represented was the only entity she could call upon who wasn’t bound by the spiritlands-though Aziel had warned her more than once that the cost of saying the name and summoning her guardian was beyond any she could imagine paying.

  Ice slid through Aisling’s veins. Was he so frightening? Was the place he called home so terrifying that becoming vampire was preferable? Or was the woman Draven and Ryker spoke of an unknown sister, a cousin or aunt?

  Aisling returned the crystal to the pouch and got into the tub. She let the heated water and luxurious bubbles turn her mind away from answers she might never have, questions that might cost too much to ask.

  Zurael’s image rose in her thoughts. With it came memories of what they’d done together when they shared a bath.

  Aisling closed her eyes and glided bubble-slick hands over her breasts. Her nipples firmed as she imagined that her palms and fingers were Zurael’s, stroking, admiring, bringing pleasure.

  Desire made her cunt clench in reaction. In her mind’s eye she saw the two of them standing in front of the bathroom mirror, saw his wings unfold behind them as he pierced her with his cock.

  Demon. And she was helpless against the need he inspired in her.

  She abandoned a breast, smoothed downward to swollen cunt lips and an erect clit. Hidden by bubbles, her toes curled as sweet sensation spiked through her when she rubbed the tiny bared head, slipped her fingers into her slit.

  A moan escaped as she forged in and out of her channel, slowly at first, savoring the fantasy that it was Zurael’s tongue, Zurael’s penis. Then faster, even though she knew the ecstasy would never rival what his touch did to her.

  IT was nearing dawn when Zurael finally tired of pacing the confines of Aisling’s house. Hours had passed since he got back from The Barrens. It felt like a lifetime.

  He’d thought spending the darkness in the owl’s form, searching as he’d done before, would ease his worries for Aisling and make her absence more palatable. It did neither.

  Once again he picked up the note she’d written, examined it for clues as to who’d come to claim the debt she owed. It didn’t escape him that only her physical safety was guaranteed.

  A shudder passed through him when he considered what might happen to her in the spiritlands. When she got back—

  His cock answered for him with a sharp pulse.

  Zurael shed his clothing and escaped to the shower. He couldn’t afford to lose control when she returned.

  Water cascaded over heated flesh. A moan escaped when he took himself in hand.

  When he’d returned the first time to find the note, he’d known only misery waited for him between the sheets of Aisling’s bed without her there. And so he’d flown. He’d hunted through the night and tried desperately to avoid the truth of his misery.

  Aisling. Her name echoed each time his fisted hand moved up and down on his shaft. Images of her filtered through his mind as fire built in his testicles.

  His thighs bunched. His buttocks flexed.

  He fucked through the tight fist of his hand. Slowly at first, then faster. Until, with a shout of her name, release came in hot jets of semen-but brought only a moment of peace.

  Zurael dressed. He rubbed his chest as he paced, felt the hollow place that widened each time he thought of the future.

  The dawn came. Faded to morning.

  A scratching at Aisling’s front door had him flinging it open. Dismay filled him when he saw Aziel, but it passed when the sound of a car drew Zurael’s attention away from the ferret.

  The two of them remained motionless in the doorway. They watched as a black car rolled to a stop in front of the house.

  Aisling emerged. She stopped to say something to the driver, then turned and hurried up the walkway.

  Her smile pierced Zurael’s heart. The sight of her rushing toward him filled him with emotion he wasn’t brave enough to name.

  He welcomed her into his arms, buried his face in the gold of her hair and held her to him until she laughed and pushed at his chest. “Aziel expects a greeting, too.”

  Reluctantly Zurael released her. A spike of anger stabbed him when she cuddled the ferret in her arms, rained kisses on Aziel’s head.

  “Why didn’t he accompany you?” Zurael’s voice held the bite of his anger.

  Aisling stepped farther into the house. He followed, closing the doors behind him, then listening as she told him about the meeting with Javier.

  It was as Malahel en Raum and Iyar en Batrael had thought it would be. The one behind the sacrifices, the one believed to possess the tablet, wanted Aisling.

  “I will deal with him,” Zurael said, determined to protect her, even as the worry for him that he read on her face nearly undid him.

  “I’ll help you. I’ll be your bait,” Aisling murmured against Zurael’s chest, but before he could reply, a knock sounded at the door.

  He didn’t recognize the woman, though the likeness to the witch Tamara suggested it was her mother. Aisling greeted the woman by the name Annalise and invited her in.

  “I only have a few minutes,” Annalise said, sparing him a glance before focusing on Aisling. “Levanna dreamed last night. In her dream you passed The Mission and followed the early Church’s symbol of a fish into The Barrens. It led you to the child. She’s beyond our reach, but not yours. Will you go for her?”

  Aisling didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  Annalise pulled a braided band of leather from her pocket. Aisling tensed at the sight of the sun hanging from it. “Levanna sends this for protection. Do you accept it?”

  This time there was a tiny hesitation before Aisling answered, “Yes.”

  Instead of handing Aisling the charm, the witch tied the leather around her wrist. The sun amulet swung from a thinner strap connected to the larger one, so it lay against Aisling’s palm.

  “You’ve got powerful, dangerous enemies who can travel between worlds freely,” Annalise said when she’d finished the task. “Touch this to their skin and will them away from you; it will force them from this world and back to their own.”

  Zurael gripped Aisling’s wrist as soon as Annalise left. He studied the charm.

  A memory stirred, an image from one of the books in the library of his father’s house, but it remained elusive. Finally he lifted his eyes and met Aisling’s. He saw her determination-not only to go for the child, but to find the Ghost source.

  “Gather food and we’ll leave now,” he said, willing to put off his hunt for Javier in order to keep her safe.

  CHAPTER 14

  ZURAEL worried it was a trap. Twice police cars had pulled alongside the bus. Once a guardsman’s jeep had slowed at an intersection and waved the bus onward when it would have yielded the right of way.

  Aisling’s fear washed over him each time the authorities were present, fear so deeply ingrained in her she couldn’t prevent her rapid breathing or the tiny tremors that shook her. And yet she didn’t turn back from the task.

  He took her hand as they walked, felt the tension in her slide away. Her courage amazed him. Her trust destroyed him. He couldn’t allow anything to happen to her.

  They passed the houses huddled together in worn-down poverty and gritty survival, the vine-controlled wastelands, the burned out, rusted shells of other structures, until eventually they came to the place where ragged orphan children fished on the banks. The Mission followed-a last vestige of civilization before The Barrens.

  Zurael thought he caught a glimpse of Davida in an upstairs
window. His suspicion that it was a trap set for Aisling grew.

  Hidden eyes followed them. He felt the gazes-curious, apathetic, hostile, suspicious. Predatory.

  His hand fell away from Aisling’s. He studied their surroundings, looking for danger. Prepared to kill anyone or anything that dared attack.

  Having explored The Barrens on wings, Zurael chafed at the pace they were forced into because of the necessity of having to look for the fish symbol. He hated that Aisling was so vulnerable, so very human in a place filled with danger.

  She slowed at the first blackened shell beyond The Mission. It stood at an intersection, though nothing remained on three of the corners and the road had long ago cracked and become pocked with holes.

  A school of crudely drawn fish was ankle-high on the strongest of the walls still standing. Each swam in the same direction, face pointing forward, through the intersection.

  “We’re going to find them,” Aisling said, excitement and anticipation making the blue of her eyes rival the sky.

  Without conscious thought, Zurael leaned forward. He was a short breath away before he realized the danger, how close he was to touching his lips to her.

  He stood abruptly and turned away. But not before his heart wrenched at the sight of Aisling’s uncertainty.

  They continued on in silence, their progress slow. The continued sensation of being watched, considered prey, kept him at her side instead of scouting ahead.

  They stopped long enough to eat lunch. Then later, dinner.

  The daylight grew into evening light, but neither suggested they turn back toward Oakland. It became harder to locate the symbols of early faith.

  Several times they hid as jeeps driven by guardsmen patrolled. A helicopter in the distance, its arrival too sudden and unexpected, caught them out in the open, though it didn’t veer toward them.

  Crickets and cicadas came to life. The rumble of car engines purred in the dusk all around them, alternating between growing louder and fading.

  Zurael considered shifting to the demon’s form and flying with Aisling to safety but thought of the game he’d witnessed the guardsmen playing each time he’d been in The Barrens. The risk was too great. He couldn’t protect her from bullets, or a fatal fall, if he became formless.