Ghostland

by Jory Strong

  John scrambled to his feet and began walking a circle. The thick strand of cable he’d hung from at his death trailed behind him. And as he paced out the design, the ghost fog thinned to reveal men, women and children by the dozens—all of them staring at Felipe and Ilka with feverish intensity—prevented from moving closer by the boundaries of the circle.

  Aisling recognized four of the dead immediately. Their faces were undamaged though their bodies were ripped open. Organs hung by strands of muscle and sinew. Intestines looped to the ground through bloody, tattered clothing. They were the Ghosting men who’d died the night she and Zurael first went to Sinners.

  Beside and beyond them were others who’d shared the same fate, men and women sent to their deaths when Felipe and Ilka led the vote. And intermixed with those were victims who’d been executed with shots to the head, who wore ropes or twisted wire around their necks. But they weren’t the most horrible of the dead.

  Hollow-eyed children and young women stood with gaping chest cavities, their hearts extracted. And seeing them, Aisling knew this was what Ilka had meant when she said, Some of the ingredients need to be brought in alive.

  She’d wondered how the spiritlands could be held open so the winds would flow over an earthly substance and create a doorway into the ghostlands. She’d known such a feat couldn’t be accomplished unless powerful forces in the spirit world were involved.

  Those beings would demand death. They would devour innocence and enjoy the screams of terror that came with it. They would find it amusing to use the hearts of the sacrificed as bait for souls yet claimed.

  “Do you judge your prisoners responsible for the creation of Ghost?” a deep, masculine voice asked, and Aisling turned to face the entity whose name she’d called upon for protection.

  She didn’t know whether it was his true form or the one he offered because her mind could accept it. But he was as she’d expected to find him—appearing like a shaman of old, a human form draped in the pelt of a bear.

  His face was hidden from her though his eyes shone through the snarling headdress. His human arms disappeared into folds of fur, his hands and fingers becoming bear claws.

  “They aren’t solely responsible,” Aisling said, “but they are guilty.”

  “Then you must kill them or see them dead.”

  A shudder went through Aisling. She’d been witness to so many deaths. The Ghosting men. Those Zurael and Irial struck down. The assailant she’d killed in her home. What were two more? Especially these? And yet she knew these two would leave her changed forever. That by killing them here, in the spiritlands—on a circular stage created by a soul she’d come to believe was in her father’s possession—she was being drawn deeper into a world belonging to Zurael’s enemy.

  She looked past the circle at the silent, waiting dead. They would kill for her. She had only to break the circle John created with the cable linking him to his master, and they would rush in.

  But the risk was great. She might be killed. If not by them, then by what would follow.

  She felt the phantom weight of the athame she wore in a sheath at the middle of her back, but when she glanced down, the naked view of her skin was unbroken except for the fetish pouch around her neck.

  The old shaman’s arm lifted, drawing her attention back to the savage headdress, the yellowed bear teeth and impenetrable eyes, the wrists disappearing into fur and claws.

  Without warning he struck. Raked the sharp claws down her face.

  Pain drove her to her knees, an agony that left her gasping, sobbing, unable even to scream as a thousand shards of ice sliced through her eyes, leaving her terrified that when she opened them she would be blind.

  Small tremors continued to ripple through her after the last of the freezing pain faded. She was left weak and frightened.

  It took raw courage to force her hands away from her eyes. To open her lids.

  Terror gripped her then. There was only gray nothingness everywhere she looked.

  She was blind to the hands only inches away from her face. To her kneeling form.

  Her heart thundered in her ears, as if to reassure her it still beat. Panic threatened to engulf her.

  She fought it off and was rewarded with an awareness of movement. The mist pulsed to the rapid beat of her heart as she looked at the place she knew her wrists were.

  Strands of gray emerged in a fine weave that captured and defined the shape of her fingers, her hands, her arms, the rest of her—as if she were encased in a spider’s web.

  Gray gave way to color, blended so all that remained visible from those initial strands was a thin line leading downward—like John’s cable leash. Only, she understood intuitively that the thread she saw led back to her physical body—because she was alive, her soul her own.

  Aisling glanced up at Felipe and Ilka. She saw the web overlay until she blinked and it was colored in, leaving only the threads leading to their physical bodies visible. She knew she had only to touch them, to sever those links—

  And, as if following her thoughts, the deep voice of the old shaman said, “It’s your birthright. Use it to do what must be done.”

  Aisling rose to her feet. She dared to look at him. He appeared exactly as he had before.

  Elena’s brother and those who stood outside the circle were pure spirit, transparent and nearly formless until she willed herself to see them in the same way she’d always seen them. And they appeared—torn and riddled with bullets, most of them bound to unseen entities by silken threads, souls bartered for protection, or sold while living and claimed in death.

  She couldn’t ask Zurael to do what she herself was unwilling to do—though she knew he was willing to kill Felipe and Ilka, had even promised as much in the library when they’d stumbled upon the picture in the newspaper and had names to go with the faces of the man and woman in red. But she refused to ask it of him. This was her task. Her burden.

  “Is Peter Germaine your only partner?” she asked, her voice shaky as she grasped the cords tethering their spirits to their physical bodies.

  Their eyebrows drew together in puzzlement over her odd behavior. She saw a flicker of uneasiness appear in Felipe’s eyes, only to disappear under oily slyness. “We’ve told you quite a bit about what we can offer you. But you’ve yet to tell us exactly what you have to offer us.”

  A hard buffeting by the spirit winds warned Aisling she was running out of time. She didn’t respond to Felipe’s comment. Instead she looked down at the thin gray strands of silken thread she held.

  She intended to break them. It was in her mind to do it. But before she could act, they blackened between her fingers, dissolved into nothingness with a sensation that had her mind flashing back to the instant when she’d touched her downed assailant in the workroom, when he opened his eyes and stared in horror at something unseen as his spirit left his body and entered the ghostlands. She’d wanted him dead, willed it as she fought him—and now she suspected it was her touch that killed him, and not striking his head against the edge of the workbench as she’d believed.

  Movement in front of her tore Aisling from her thoughts. Freed from the tether of their physical bodies, Felipe and Ilka were no longer held immobile, trapped in the ghost fog.

  They didn’t yet understand what had happened to them. Their expressions told Aisling as much, the way their eyes held the same predatory intensity as when they’d glided toward the bay window where she and Zurael stood.

  She stepped back involuntarily, and their smiles widened. “It’s a shame you didn’t strike a better bargain while you could,” Ilka purred, stepping forward, their audience still unseen.

  Aisling retreated farther, to the edge of the circle. Ilka and Felipe moved apart, thinking to trap her between them, heedless of the boundaries defining their safety.

  Their ignorance was short-lived.

  John’s eyes flashed with glittering triumph when Felipe’s foot broke the plane of the circle and the truth was revealed. For the
first time, Aisling saw true terror on Felipe’s and Ilka’s faces.

  Those gathered surged forward, their glee and satisfaction like a living, breathing thing. They reached in hungry vengeance, using hands and teeth to rip into flesh and muscle and organ tissue. They meted out a punishment that could last for eternity, filled the air with screams that were carried on the spirit winds as Aisling was swept from the ghostlands.

  Seventeen

  ZURAEL caught Aisling before she crumpled to the ground. He swung her into his arms, took the few steps necessary to reach the bed. The coldness of her skin alarmed him, and he hurried to undo his shirt so he could cuddle her against him, warm her with Djinn fire.

  She smiled, and it touched every part of him, reached his heart and completely encased it. “It’s done?” he asked, though the corpses on the floor seemed to answer the question.

  “There’s one more. Peter Germaine. He was here that night.”

  “I remember him.”

  Zurael pressed his lips to hers, shared the breath that was Djinn spirit.

  The raw feelings of helplessness he’d experienced while she was in the spiritlands with Felipe and Ilka faded with Aisling in his arms.

  In his time with her he’d gained a new appreciation for those pledged to the House of the Raven, and the ones who loved them. If the human ghostlands were a dangerous place, then the spirit birthplace of the Djinn would be no less harrowing. He didn’t envy those whose task it was to guide the Djinn back for rebirth.

  He deepened the kiss and moaned when her tongue greeted his with a warm slide of heat against heat. Fierce emotion swelled in his chest and he pulled her more tightly against him. He felt so close to her—spirit entwined with spirit—as if they were one being forced to live in separate bodies and unable to find completion unless they were together.

  “Aisling,” he whispered when he lifted his mouth, allowed her to take a breath that wasn’t his.

  He lost himself in eyes that were an endless blue sky, a deep ocean pool. When her lips parted and she glanced down shyly, suddenly appearing more vulnerable, his heart raced in anticipation of hearing her name what was between them.

  “I—” she started, only to stiffen and turn in his arms, her skin chilling against his.

  Protectiveness surged through Zurael. He put Aisling in the center of the bed before rising to his feet. With barely a flicker of thought, clear fingernails became black demon talons.

  The corpses stood. Felipe’s blank, dead eyes slowly filled, revealing amusement along with a hint of cruelty and madness. Ilka’s held the nothingness of a zombie.

  What had been Felipe laughed with John’s voice and touched his neck. His gaze flicked over Zurael, dismissed him in favor of Aisling. “Another deadly pet, beautiful? And I was hoping . . . Well I’m sure I can amuse myself elsewhere before I’m forced to leave.” He tilted his head toward Ilka. In a stage whisper he said, “Now she’s dead weight, which is a shame, but I’ll make sure she’s taken care of.”

  John grabbed Ilka’s arm, then noticed the studded baton at his feet. He bent down and scooped it up.

  “A toy. How fun! Using it on Ilka won’t be the same since she’s not really with us, but it’s the thought that counts, and I will enjoy the thought.”

  At the doorway he patted the clothing until he found the key to the room and slipped it into the dead bolt. “I’d suggest you stay here, enjoy your pet. You’ll know when we’re gone for good.”

  Demon talons became clear fingernails with John’s departure. Zurael locked the door and returned to the bed. The driving energy to protect gave way to the pulsing desire to possess when Aisling’s firm breasts and hardened nipples pressed against his chest. Except for the soft leather pouch containing her fetishes, she was still naked from the waist up.

  The image of her turning, allowing others to see her—the memory of Felipe and Ilka touching her, even briefly, even though it had been necessary—drove all rational thought from Zurael’s mind. She belonged to him.

  Zurael stripped her with possessive hands, knowing that the only way to eradicate all vestiges of another’s touch, of another’s glance, was to give in to the hunger riding him with primitive intensity. He shed his own clothing without ever lifting his mouth from her mouth, her neck, her breasts.

  Aisling trembled in eagerness beneath him. Opened for him so that when he settled his weight on her, his cock found wet heat and swollen, parted folds.

  Her willing submission buffered the rawness of his lust, kept him from rutting like a feral creature. His thighs bunched with the effort to remain still, to savor the ecstasy of being inside her as his tongue mated with hers.

  He shuddered when she freed his hair from its braid and it draped over them in a sensual curtain. He did the same to hers and was enthralled by the sight of Aisling’s honey-gold locks entwined with the raven-black of his.

  Zurael rolled to his back, taking her with him. He luxuriated in the silky feel of her skin and hair against his flesh. Grew more aroused when her mouth claimed his in a sultry kiss as she bathed his cock in hot, throbbing arousal.

  His hands roved over her body, palmed her breasts and buttocks. He swallowed her moans of pleasure and arched off the mattress when she began rocking, rubbing her clit against his abdomen, fucking herself on his cock with excruciating slowness.

  It was too much, the raw pleasure more than he could bear. He put Aisling underneath him again, and this time he didn’t fight the savage urge, the frenzied need to couple with her, to take her body and soul, and reinforce his claim to her heart.

  Afterward he held her, buried his face in the gold of her hair as she clung to him in exhausted sleep. He traced the delicate line of her spine, contemplated the future and what he might say to The Prince, to Malahel of the House of the Spider, and Iyar of the House of the Raven.

  He would die for Aisling. The realization should have filled him with terror. Instead it brought only determination to finish what needed to be done so he could fight for a future with her.

  Zurael’s thoughts strayed to the Hall of History, to Jetrel, the first of The Prince’s sons, the one who had turned his back on the House of the Serpent and chosen to live among the alien god’s creations instead of the Djinn. Idly he picked up a lock of Aisling’s hair, finally understanding what had driven Jetrel to make such a choice.

  The sun-shaped amulet glowed at her wrist. His attention was drawn for a moment to the amulet pouch. In his mind’s eye, Zurael saw the tapestries in the House of the Spider, the erotic images of intertwined humans, angels and Djinn. And for the first time, he wondered if the Djinn might reclaim the land that was once theirs through alliance instead of bloodshed.

  Noise beyond the door drew Zurael from his contemplations. Shouts of “Vote! Vote! Vote!” pulsed through Sinners like an electric current.

  Zurael eased away from Aisling. She didn’t stir as he dressed, didn’t wake when he dressed her in case they needed to leave quickly.

  He slipped from the room and locked the door behind him. The halls were empty, but the buzz of conversation told him those on the second floor were gathered at the front, where bay windows provided a view every bit as good as the one on the ground floor.

  Anticipation clung to the air, rose and fell like a beast inhaling and exhaling. Zurael braided his hair as he walked.

  There was a ripple of excitement as he reached the front rooms. Dressed and semi-dressed men and women crowded forward, murmured and whispered, their voices running together.

  He stepped closer, not bothering to listen to their words. He didn’t take pleasure in what he saw on the street beneath him. But there was a savage satisfaction in watching as werewolves and feral dogs tore apart the abandoned corpses of Felipe and Ilka Glass.

  THEY emerged from the locked room shortly after dawn. In the gray light Aisling saw the thin tracery of lines that defined the boundaries of the physical self and contained the spirit in every person she looked at—save for Zurael.

&n
bsp; She refused to believe he was soulless, settled instead on the explanation that because he could become formless, his spirit wasn’t contained the way a human’s was.

  But even letting the weblike lines fade from sight and leaving Sinners didn’t obliterate the terrible certainty that all it would take was a touch, coupled with a thought, and the gossamer strands she could see when she willed it would blacken and dissolve into nothingness, separating soul from body.

  She wanted a shower and breakfast, a chance to come to terms with the events in the spiritlands, with the horrible gift of her birthright. But when they rounded the corner onto her street, Elena was waiting for them, pacing next to her chauffeured car.

  “She might be able to help us get to Peter Germaine,” Aisling said, balling her hands into fists, willing herself forward.

  Elena was tapping her foot impatiently by the time they got to her. Her gaze shifted back and forth between Aisling and Zurael, until finally settling on Aisling. “I need to speak with you, privately.”

  A step took her to the car. She opened the door. When Aisling hesitated, Elena said, “If you no longer want my business, then you can give me back the silver pieces.”

  Sweat broke out on Aisling’s skin despite the chill of the early morning air. Her stomach tensed with worry as the conversation with Father Ursu played out in her mind. She would need those coins to find a safe place to stay.

  Instinct rebelled against getting in the car with Elena, but reason dictated. The engine was off and Zurael was close.

  Aisling slid onto the backseat. Elena followed, closing the door behind her.

  Automatic locks engaged. The driver started the car and pulled away from the curb.

  “Where are we going?” Aisling asked, fighting the panic welling up inside her by telling herself Zurael could easily follow them by taking another form.

  Elena shifted restlessly in the seat, fidgeted. She played with the rings on her fingers and the bracelets on her wrists, reminding Aisling of the junkies she sometimes encountered in the spiritlands.