Ghostland

CHAPTER 15

THE smell of meat cooking on an open fire made Aisling’s stomach clench painfully. It came on a pine-scented breeze along with the sound of music intermixed with human voices.

She touched the knife strapped to her thigh with strips of burlap. The food she’d packed for their trip into The Barrens had been eaten hours, and miles upon miles, earlier, before the first rays of light streaked across the sky.

They’d made up much of the distance they’d lost, by risking the darkness. The sun was rising when they left the ruin of civilization and slipped into thick forest.

At random intervals they continued to find the ancient believer’s symbol carved into a tree or scratched on a cluster of rocks. Narrow deer trails led them deeper into a place where only a little bit of sunlight filtered in, where Nature had reclaimed what had once been ravaged by man. Twice they’d startled foxes from hiding, once they’d found the prints of a large cat-a cougar maybe, or jaguar. Aisling couldn’t tell whether they were pure animals or Were animals.

Zurael stopped her with a hand to her elbow, urged her from the trail and behind a tree so wide she couldn’t have gotten her arms around it if she’d tried. “Stay here,” he whispered, becoming part of the breeze before she could speak.

Aisling slipped the long-bladed kitchen knife from its crude sheath of burlap and waited. Her stomach growled. Her mouth watered as the smell of baking bread joined the cooking meat. Calls of “Amen!” accompanied stomping and clapping, a tambourine and cymbals-the sounds of worship arriving with the tantalizing smell of food.

The hard knot of hunger in Aisling’s stomach became an icy dread. Hot acid rose in her throat.

The promise she’d made in the ghostlands weighed heavily on her: to find whoever was creating Ghost and kill them-or see them dead.

What if it wasn’t a single person but an entire congregation? What if every member of the Fellowship of the Sign could be judged guilty, save the children?

She shuddered. Understood as she hadn’t before, that when Aziel offered Zurael’s name, he’d given her the weapon to use for this task.

The soft swirl of leaves at her feet warned her of Zurael’s return. She didn’t flinch when he solidified next to her, his fingers locked around her wrist to keep her from accidentally using the knife on him. “They worship without having guards posted,” he said. “It’s safe to get closer.”

Aisling sheathed the knife. The voices and music got louder as they moved forward. Her curiosity and trepidation mounted with each step, until once again Zurael pulled her from the path, this time guiding her deeper into the forest until they reached a high spot where the undergrowth provided cover and yet allowed them to look down and witness the gathered church members.

The service was being held in a small clearing. Aisling scanned the gathering for Anya, her tension mounting until she realized she didn’t see any children younger than six or seven.

She looked at the men’s faces and felt relief when she didn’t find the face of the Ghost seller who’d been at Sinners the night she and Zurael went there.

Wooden picnic tables were set up in rows on the opposite side of the clearing. In front of them were several fire circles, each with a spit being turned by a teenage girl dressed in dark, somber clothing, her attention split between the meat she was tending and the preacher who stood behind a wide stone altar.

Two small boys managed fires on either side of the altar, prodding them, raking coal or wood into piles to keep them burning red. And on the altar itself, Aisling counted fifteen rectangular boxes, set haphazardly, as if they’d been placed there in offering.

She wondered what they held, until the rattling began. It came fast and furious. Soft, like the rustle of leaves. The bursts of sound long and short, each different, all distinctive. Especially to one who’d grown up on a farm in the country. Rattlesnakes.

The preacher walked around to stand in front of the altar. His voice carried, deep and rich and persuasive. “Brothers and sisters. You’re here because God led you here. You’re here, part of this community or getting ready to join it, at his will. You already know his words, the words Mark tells us about in chapter sixteen, starting with verse fifteen, but I’m going to tell you again!”

A chorus of “Amen!” met his words

He lifted his arms and pointed toward Oakland. “And He said, ‘Go into the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. Those who believe and are baptized will be saved. Those that don’t believe will be damned. And these signs will follow them that believe.

“ ‘In My name they will cast out devils.

“ ‘They will speak with new tongues.

“ ‘They will take up serpents-’ ”

The preacher opened the closest box and reached in without looking. He pulled out a heavy-bodied rattlesnake.

“ ‘And if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them.

“ ‘They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.’ ”

The preacher reached into a second box, pulled out another rattlesnake, this one green and gray, long and thin.

He raised his arms, holding both of the snakes so the rattles ended up next to his face like beaded hair. “And they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the Word with signs following. Amen!”

“Amen!” the congregation shouted, and a woman started playing a drum, its beat commanding, pulsing through air and earth alike, demanding movement.

Men and women danced, some in place, some toward the altar and the fires the two small boys were tending next to it. An older man reached the preacher and was handed a snake. He draped it around his neck, then opened a box and pulled out another one, holding it to his chest before offering it to a girl who looked sixteen.

The smell of burning flesh reached Aisling. She looked in horror at a teen standing next to a fire, his face a mask of spiritual ecstasy as he held a branding iron against his chest. When he lifted it, he wore the sign of the cross.

Others, some with brands, some without, joined him. And as Aisling’s attention shifted between the two fires, the small boys reheated the irons then offered them to any who came. And lost in faith, or held by it, no one screamed as their flesh burned.

When she finally turned away from the sight, Aisling saw all the boxes open. Men and women both, old and young alike, passed snakes around, handled them. And the rattle of the snakes blended in perfect harmony with the throb of the drum.

A woman in the congregation stood and began prophesying. An older man fell to the ground, writhed, then began speaking in tongues.

Aisling shivered, unable to turn away from the scene. It was equally fascinating and repelling, horrifying and amazing. And for the first time she fully understood how mighty civilizations and the world as it once was had come to be destroyed because of religion.

Slowly the energy and ecstasy of the worship service faded, controlled by the slowing, softening beat of the drum. The snakes were returned to their boxes, and the peopled gathered close, surrounded the preacher for a final prayer, one said in low, murmured tones that didn’t reach beyond the circle of church members.

When it ended, the women and girls went directly to the picnic tables-all except for the drummer. She moved to the preacher’s side.

Wicker picnic baskets were pulled from underneath the tables. Plates and silverware, tablecloths and finally dishes of food were laid out.

Movement at the end of the clearing drew Aisling’s eye. Zurael murmured, “There’s the child.”

The little girl was subdued where the children not being carried by young teens were already tumbling toward the adults and the food like eager puppies. And as if the children’s appearance was the sign to begin the meal, the men still at the altar picked up the snake boxes and went to the picnic tables.

The boxes were set on the ground, on benches, on the tables, as if they were hymn books set aside after the worship service. The rattle of the snakes slowly faded, giving way to the sound of conversation and laughter as people took their seats and began to eat.

Aisling’s stomach clenched painfully. Her mouth watered.

She turned to look at Zurael, her eyes catching on the serpent tattoo coiling around his forearm before lifting to meet his eyes. Hunger or insightful observation, the words came from nowhere. “If I go alone, with you in a snake’s form, they might welcome us with less suspicion and talk more freely in front of us.”

Denial flashed in Zurael’s eyes. His features tightened.

Aisling touched her fingertips to his lips with a confidence that once would have been foreign to her. “Don’t say no. This is the best way. Let them think I’m one of them, someone whose faith is marked by a sign they believe in.”

His hand lifted to become a fiery shackle around her wrist. A violent storm raged in his eyes, only yielding to the calm of deadly promise. He pulled her fingers from where they touched his mouth. “We’ll approach the gathering as you suggest. My ability to protect you is limited by the serpent’s form. Be warned, Aisling. Anyone who threatens you will be dead before they strike the ground. I won’t risk your being harmed.”

The fingers around her wrist tightened, then disappeared as he pulled away and became the serpent he’d been the day Elena visited, the day he and Aisling were taken unwilling into the spiritlands by a Ghost touch. She picked him up and draped him over her neck as she’d seen the worshippers do, as she’d once done with Aziel when he wore the body of a king snake.

Worry for Aziel distracted her. She stumbled, sending a covey of quail flying from cover with the noise she made.

Aisling forced herself to concentrate on the moment, on the task at hand. It was easy enough to rejoin the trail. Far harder to leave the shelter and protection of the forest.

Her heart raced in her chest. She knew that in the serpent’s form, Zurael would taste her fear.

Whether it was the eruption of the quail or simply a testament to how alert they were to their surroundings, despite the ease in which they were gathered around the picnic tables, all eyes seemed to be on her the moment she stepped into the clearing.

The preacher rose from the table, as did the woman drummer. Both came forward to greet her with smooth confidence, the force of their personalities reaching her before they did.

“Welcome. I’m Brother Edom and this is my wife, Sister Elisheba.”

The preacher’s voice was the warmth of home, the promise of family and safety. His eyes were a father’s, a brother’s, seeing past the sin to the good that lay beneath and offering forgiveness, understanding.

“Come, join us for the meal,” his wife said in lyrical tones, her eyes soft, offering a mother’s love, a sister’s friendship. “What should we call you?”

Their charisma was nearly overwhelming. It pressed against Aisling’s psyche as if seeking hollow places to fill and gain anchorage in.

Her fingers curled unconsciously around the hidden fetish pouch. And with a suddenness that left her swaying slightly, she was free of Edom and Elisheba’s subtle influence.

Aisling looked down at the ground, hoping they saw success in her unsteadiness, instead of failure. “Call me Aisling,” she said in a whisper.

“You look tired and hungry, worn from your trials,” Elisheba said. “Let us wash your feet and welcome you properly.”

“No,” Aisling said, deciding it was best not to let them pull her too deeply into their world. “I can’t stay.”

She dared to lift her face and meet their eyes again. In them she saw pity and regret, gentle understanding and infinite patience. But unlike before, she didn’t feel buffeted by emotions.

“We understand,” Edom said. “For some it takes time to believe and accept that God offers a taste of paradise on Earth for those who do His work. Come share a meal and fellowship with us.”

Aisling followed them to the picnic tables and was introduced. A place to the left of Elisheba was rapidly cleared for her, though when the others retook their seats, they noted Zurael’s presence and didn’t sit within striking distance.

A plate loaded with sliced pork was set near Aisling. Her stomach growled so loudly that heat flashed to her cheeks. But the people around her laughed with good humor and pushed other food in her direction.

She ate, though after the first few bites Zurael’s weight draped over her neck grew heavier and her conscience made the food lose some of its taste. She hated the thought of him being hungry in the midst of such a feast, but consoled herself with the knowledge he could hunt later or find the Fellowship kitchen and slip into it unseen.

When the meal was finished, young girls collected the plates while older ones served dessert. Boys of all ages stood, drifting closer to the table where she sat, apparently drawn by Zurael.

“He looks poisonous,” one of them said, his gaze riveted on Zurael.

“I think he might be,” Aisling said and there were appreciative murmurs from the boys when Zurael opened his mouth to reveal deadly fangs. “He was at the edge of the clearing. I picked him up after witnessing the worship service.”

Several of the boys nodded.

Edom said, “The Spirit came on you, Aisling. It pulled you through a doorway and into fellowship-not just for your sake, but for ours!”

“Amen!” the people within hearing range said.

“It sent you as testament to The Word,” Edom said.

“Tell us more,” came the refrain.

“God is a living god,” Edom said. “He’s a spirit. He doesn’t have a body. Except us. We’re his body.”

“Amen!”

“We’re his hands and his mouth. We’re his way into this world!”

“Amen!”

“Amen!” Edom said, leaving a pulsing, energy-filled silence that Aisling filled by asking, “Is that why you make and sell Ghost? So people will be open to The Spirit?”

She thought they’d be defensive, frightened that she knew about Ghost. But her question was greeted by smiles of understanding and nods of encouragement, by murmurs of “Welcome, Sister.”

Their reaction confused her. It made the knot in her stomach grow heavy and cold. Her conscience shuddered and her soul recoiled at the thought of overseeing the slaughter of people who seemed strangely innocent, unaware of the devastation that would one day be unleashed because of their beliefs.

Edom leaned forward, eyes shining with the fervor of his faith. “Today isn’t the first time The Spirit has come on you, is it? It came knocking when you were in one of those places of sin in the city-places with names advertising their wickedness.

“Lust! Greed! Envy! Those are just a few of the clubs people flock to, trying to fill an emptiness that can only be filled by Him!

“Don’t worry, Sister, we’re all sinners. We’ve all got things in our pasts, deeds and thoughts we’re ashamed of.

“You’re not the first person to seek pleasure using the stuff people have taken to calling Ghost. You’re not the only one to end up confronting the ugliness, the evil that’s slipped into your life while you weren’t watching. You’re not the first person to make a pilgrimage from the city looking for redemption, answering the call.

“Well, you’ve found Him and you’ve found us. Amen!”

“Amen!” came the refrain, thundering through Aisling like a death knell.

“So you make Ghost?” she asked again, needing to be sure but dreading hearing them admit it.

Edom’s frown told her the question was unexpected, unwelcome after the passion of his words.

Elisheba covered his hand with hers and gave Aisling a small, knowing smile. “I’ve heard some become addicted to Ghost because it leads to unparalleled physical ecstasy. But once you’ve known true spiritual rapture, Aisling, you won’t crave Ghost anymore.

“None of the Fellowship members use drugs. They’re high on God and the life he’s brought them to. We don’t make drugs here. We take a small amount of money in exchange for distributing Ghost. And we sell it only in the red zone, where those who buy it might find salvation instead of damnation.”

“Do you really see it as only a drug?” Aisling asked, her voice edged with both horror and disbelief.

Faces closed. Friendliness disappeared. Eyes darted back and forth between her and the preacher and his wife.

A toddler wobbled over and stood between him and Elisheba. “Up, Mommy!” the little girl said, and some of the smiles around the table reappeared briefly.

Edom measured his congregation. His expression grew somber and pensive, the charisma folding in on him, making him seem thoughtful, a man not afraid of searching for and confronting the truth.

“What do you mean?” he asked and Aisling wondered if some of the Fellowship members were opposed to selling Ghost, if maybe they weren’t only sheep after all.

She gathered her thoughts. Chose the words and arguments that would ultimately lead them to tell her who they distributed Ghost for.

“You spoke about The Spirit coming on a person, knocking and opening a doorway to redemption and salvation.”

Aisling paused and from somewhere behind her the space was filled by a soft “Amen.”

“Well, Ghost can serve that purpose. I’m taking it on your faith. It can bring the light.”

Brother Edom nodded. “Amen. It can bring the light.”

“But I know for certain it can bring the darkness. It can open the door and let evil in. I’ve seen it myself.”

“Tell us about it!”

Aisling held back a smile. She felt a rhythm settling in, understood the addictive power of the word.

“What Brother Edom said was right. I was in a place of sin. A place that boasted of it in the name it goes by.”

“We’ve been there, Sister.”

“Brother Edom was wrong when he said I was using Ghost. I wasn’t. But there were men who were.

“Men who bought it from one of you. Who rubbed it on themselves and ate it. Who found the pleasure Sister Elisheba spoke of and became an obscene show for others in that place.”

“Tell us more!”

“I was there when an evil presence swept into the room like an icy wind. I witnessed as it called others to join it and they moved on the men, slid into them like a hand goes into a glove.”

“What happened then?” came a chorus of voices.

“Evil recognized evil!” a strident male voice answered, and Aisling turned her head to see the Ghost seller who’d been present that night approaching the tables, his finger pointing accusingly at her.

He was dirty, his clothing torn and his eyes burning with zeal. The shoulder-length brown hair was tangled and matted, wild-and for an instant his image was overlaid onto one she’d seen in an art book-of the Christians’ savior raging as he cast moneylenders from the temple.

“Evil recognized evil,” the man repeated. “They attacked her and were thrown out of the club. The men were torn apart and eaten by wolves and dogs while the shamaness and her lover ran and the sinners inside cheered for the beasts. And now evil has come into our home, like some of us said it would when we argued against taking money for distributing Ghost.

“You were wrong, Edom, to deal with the wicked, to send us out to their places of evil. And now we’ll all pay for it unless He sees that we can abide by his word and are worthy of protecting.”

The man opened two of the boxes and, without looking, reached in and pulled out snakes. They rattled furiously, struggled and writhed in his grasp, mouths open.

“You shall not allow among you anyone who is an enchanter, or a witch, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a necromancer. You shall not allow them to live!” he screamed, hurling the snakes at Aisling and reaching for more of them.

People surged upward from their benches. They scrambled to get away from the snakes that coiled and struck and slid across the wooden table.

A child screamed repeatedly, shrill and terrified.

Zurael lunged. He deflected a snake before it could reach Aisling, then raced forward.

A man yelled as a snake swung around and bit his cheek while he tried to subdue the Ghost seller.

Zurael struck and retreated. Returned to coil at Aisling’s feet, mouth open, his upper body raised and swaying.

The Ghost seller fell, dead before he reached the ground-just as Zurael had promised would happen to anyone who threatened her.

The air vibrated with the rattle of snakes, then was pierced by the screams of a child abruptly silenced.

Men closed in on the freed snakes, recaptured the ones that held their ground, hunted the ones that slipped into the forest.

Only slowly did chaos give way to calm.

Aisling heard the sobs then, the pleading, impassioned prayers. She turned to find Elisheba and Edom kneeling on the ground next to the chubby toddler.

The child was unconscious, shivering. Puncture marks marred her throat and arms where she’d been bitten.

They’d used a knife from the table to slice open her skin. Now they feverishly tried to draw the venom out with their mouths. But the toddler’s condition was testament to how quickly it had already spread.

Aisling took off the necklace with the witch’s healing amulet on it and knelt next to Elisheba. “Will you accept my help?”

Edom looked up and spat blood. His eyes bored into hers, not with the charismatic charm that seemed to offer forgiveness and understanding, but with a diviner’s intensity, as if he was looking for the black stain of evil on her soul.

He glanced at his child. For a horrifying second Aisling thought they’d deny her help.

Elisheba reached across the tiny body and placed her hand on his arm. “Edom, please,” she said and he nodded.

Aisling hoped the amulet was as powerful as Tamara claimed. She pressed it to the wound on the girl’s neck.

The effect was immediate. The little girl stopped shivering. Her eyelashes fluttered, fast at first, then slower, as if she were being drawn back to awareness at the same rate the venom was being absorbed by the amulet.

Underneath Aisling’s fingers, the woven strands of the amulet softened and took on the texture of wet yarn before hardening again, turning from pale gray to black, and finally crumbling from the outer edges inward.

The angry streaks on the child’s arms and neck, left by the spreading venom, receded. Disappeared.

A whimper heralded the little girl’s return to consciousness. Elisheba stroked the damp, silver-blond curls and whispered prayers of thanks. She cried in joyous relief when her daughter’s eyes opened and chubby arms reached upward.

All that remained of the amulet was a large coin-sized circle. It had stopped changing against Aisling’s fingers so she lifted it away from the child’s skin.

Edom said, “Will you give what aid you can to Brother Samuel?”

“Yes,” Aisling said, looking for the man who’d been bitten on the cheek as he tried to subdue the Ghost seller.

Brother Samuel was lying on a picnic table, moaning in pain. His face was already grotesquely distorted by the swelling, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

Aisling wasn’t sure there was enough of the amulet left to save him. But she hurried to him.

Someone had cut across the puncture wounds left by the fangs, but little blood seeped from the opening. “Hold him down,” Aisling said.

Guided by instinct, by her experiences with the fetishes she carried and the entities they represented, she pulled her athame from its sheath at her back and cut across the man’s cheek, deepening the wound already there until it bled freely.

He screamed and thrashed. Lifted from the table.

Out of the corner of her eye, Aisling saw Zurael prepare to strike.

“No!” she said and quickly pressed the amulet to the man’s skin.

He shuddered. Continued to struggle until what remained of the amulet grew soggy, then hardened and finally fell away.

“I’ll be okay now,” the man croaked, rolling to his side and vomiting when the others released him. His skin was clammy, but the swelling was gone from his face.

On another table lay the body of the Ghost seller. Guilt hovered over Aisling for bringing death with her. But she didn’t allow it to settle on her. In her mind’s eye she saw the vision of the future captured in a pool of her own blood in the spiritlands-the gleeful images of a world where malevolent spirits easily found pathways back to the place they once called home.

Aisling glanced around her and was met by somber expressions. She turned to find Edom and Elisheba standing, the little girl in her mother’s arms.

Tension mounted in the silence. And into that silence came the slightest rustle of leaves as a breeze rose from her feet, swirled around her, lifting her hair and making her think Zurael had shed the snake’s skin and now waited to take on a far more deadly form than the serpent’s.

“If you were guilty of creating Ghost, more of you would be dead, perhaps most of you,” she said, deciding to tell them the truth. “I came here looking for the person responsible for it.”

Edom met her eyes for a long moment. A slight tremor went through him before he seemed to gather his natural charisma. He glanced around, pausing on some of the older members of his church, and said, “God is a living god. He’s a spirit. He doesn’t have a body, except us.”

“Amen.”

“Usually when He comes on us we’re in a prayerful state. He tells us to take up the serpent, to put His mark on our flesh. But not always.”

“Amen.”

“There was a time He moved on me and I saw an angel.”

“Tell us more.”

“You want to hear it was a beautiful sight.”

“Yes, Brother.”

“You want to hear I was filled with His glorious love.”

“Yes, Brother.”

“Well, I’m not going to tell you either of those things. I’m going to tell you it was a terrible sight. It filled me with fear, the same fear I have now, standing in the presence of this stranger-this stranger who appeared with signs following!

“But I’m thankful for the fear! I’m thankful for the chance to make things right before it’s too late.”

Edom pointed at the corpse laid out on the picnic table. “Brothers and sisters, we’ve been fooling ourselves about Ghost. It cost us a good man.”

“He was a good man,” came the reply.

“Brother Scott saw the message He delivered in that place of sin but didn’t know how to interpret it correctly. We’ve been telling ourselves it was all right because we weren’t breaking any laws, because what little money we took for it went to do His work. But no more!”

“Amen.”

“We won’t be part of the devil’s plan.”

“You got that right, Brother.”

“Amen,” Edom said, releasing the hold he had on his congregation and turning to Aisling, motioning her forward. “Only a few of us know where the drug comes from. It’s best if we keep it that way.”

The gathered church members dispersed, respecting the need for privacy. Women and girls started clearing the picnic tables. Men and boys clustered around the corpse, discussing burial details.

“She doesn’t think we know who she is,” Elisheba said when Aisling stood next to the preacher and his wife. “Edom and I are the only two people who’ve seen her face. If she guesses that we recognized her, the guardsmen will be given an excuse to kill us and none will question it or be the wiser.”

“Who is she?” Aisling asked.

“Ilka Glass,” Edom said, naming the predatory woman in red who’d so easily swayed the crowd at Sinners so they voted the Ghosting men out to their deaths. “She’s the wife of the man who’s in charge of the guardsmen.”

“And powerful in her own right,” Elisheba added. “She’s the daughter of one of the First Families to reclaim Oakland. Her husband has never come with her, but he must know or be a part of what she’s doing. There are more guardsmen hunting The Barrens on the days she gives us Ghost and collects what we took from those who bought the previous batch.”

A man’s voice interrupted. “Brother Edom, what should we do about this? It’s still full.”

Aisling shivered at the sight of the small, coffinlike container the Ghost seller offered her at Sinners in the seconds before a coldness swept into the room along with a malevolent presence.

Last one.

“Bring it here,” Edom said, and as if picking up on Aisling’s thoughts, he added, “We don’t have any more Ghost. Brother Scott took all that was left of what we got last month to the city. We won’t accept any more of it if it’s offered to us after the next full moon.”

“That’s when you get it?” Aisling asked, knowing the full moon was a week away and not surprised a substance like Ghost would most likely be created at a time when power for many supernatural beings peaked and the barrier between this world and the spirit one thinned.

“We get it the day after the full moon,” Elisheba said.

The man who’d discovered the container walked as if he was carrying a bomb that might detonate in his hand, or an item that might cause the heavens to open and a bolt of lightning to strike him. When he reached them, Edom took it from him and shoved it into Aisling’s hands. She fought the impulse to hurl it aside and wipe damp palms on her pants.

Her heart raced. She braced herself, almost expecting the spirit winds to claim her despite the onyx pentacle hidden in her fetish pouch and the thin slice of metal keeping the powerful substance contained.

Nothing happened.

Her heart rate slowed. The breath she was holding eased out.

Aisling slipped the container into her jacket pocket. Women and young teens were picking up baskets and gathering the smaller children, intending to return to the Fellowship compound hidden from view.

“Ghost wasn’t the only reason I came here,” Aisling said, finally locating Anya standing apart, her features wearing the shell-shocked expression Aisling had seen often enough on the faces of those left on Geneva’s doorstep. “I came for one of the children brought here from The Mission.”

“Recently?” Elisheba asked.

“Yesterday. She has a home elsewhere.”

“Ah, those children haven’t been taken in by families yet,” Elisheba said, relief in her voice. “Edom?”

He nodded. “Take the child with you. If you’ve been to The Mission, then you know there are many others we could raise in our community.”

Aisling glanced at the sky. The return trip would be faster since they wouldn’t need to search for the symbols leading to the Fellowship. If they hurried, they should make it back to the outskirts of Oakland in time to catch the bus and get Anya to the Wainwright house before dark.

“We’ll leave now,” she said, surreptitiously looking for Zurael but not seeing the serpent.

“May The Spirit stay on you,” Edom said.

“Amen,” Elisheba murmured.

Aisling went to Anya. The little girl took her offered hand, and surprised her by saying, “I dreamed you came for me.”

A wave of homesickness assailed Aisling as she thought about her sisters and brothers, especially the young, gifted ones. “I’m taking you to a family where you’ll belong.”

Anya nodded solemnly.

A church member gave Aisling a basket packed with food as they passed. “For your journey. May The Spirit stay on you while you’re in the land of sin.”

“Thank you.”

At the edge of the forest Aisling felt the hot breath of a swirling breeze pass by her. From the dark shelter of pine and oak, Zurael emerged to block the path.

Anya’s hand tightened slightly on Aisling’s. In the same solemn voice with which she’d greeted Aisling, she said, “You’re magic. Like the ferret.”

Zurael chuckled and the gentle expression on his face as he looked at the child sent warmth cascading down to Aisling’s toes. She handed him the food.

He leaned in, whispered a kiss across her lips. “Thank you. We’ll have to hurry if we hope to make it.”

They traded off, each of them carrying Anya, alternating between walking and running. They raced the sun, dodging the guardsmen and lawless humans patrolling The Barrens in the daylight.

It was a relief to get to The Mission. To hurry past it and climb onto an empty bus.

Tamara and her mother were both on the Wainwright porch when Aisling, carrying an exhausted and sleeping Anya, turned the corner with Zurael. The child didn’t wake when she was transferred to Annalise’s waiting arms.

Aisling’s fingers went to the sun-shaped pendant at her wrist. Annalise shook her head and whispered, “Levanna wants you to keep it.”

The dusk approached too rapidly for them to linger. But Aisling wanted to. Her heart felt strangely heavy, her arms empty now that Annalise had Anya.

“Visit the child when you can,” Annalise said with an understanding smile.

“I will.”

Aisling left the porch and joined Zurael where he waited beyond the warded boundaries of the witches’ property. Her thoughts shifted from Anya to Aziel and her pace quickened.

Destruction and devastation greeted her when she opened the door. The old, tattered furniture was turned over, tossed against the wall and left broken. Cabinet doors hung open in the kitchen. But it was the silence, the emptiness, the fear of finding Aziel dead that numbed her to the core.

She didn’t protest when Zurael urged her forward and to the side, closing the door behind them so a guardsman driving by wouldn’t know they were back. “Let me check the other rooms,” he said, voice soft, his knuckles brushing her cheek, his eyes burning with fierce tenderness.

Aisling nodded and leaned against the wall for support. Guilt swamped her.

How easily she’d convinced herself it was Father Ursu who had sent the guardsmen after her, using bedclothes or a discarded towel from her night in the church as a scent article. How easily she’d pushed aside her worry for Aziel, told herself he was safe in the house. If only…

“Aziel’s not here,” Zurael said, and she sagged, torn between relief and dread.