Ghostland

CHAPTER 16

RAGE coursed through Zurael over the violation of Aisling’s home and the pain radiating from her with the loss of her pet. He felt savage, barely in control-with no outlet for his fury other than passion.

He took her in his arms and crushed his mouth to hers, promised her with the force of his kiss that he’d see her pet returned and her suffering avenged. She softened immediately. Clung to him for strength and comfort, and in doing so, gentled him.

As they’d traveled through The Barrens, they’d decided on a plan of action, reasoned that the best place to hunt the ones responsible for Ghost was Sinners, where there would be no repercussions from either the humans present or the law.

“If the man in charge of the guardsmen and his wife know anything about this, we’ll learn it tonight,” Zurael said, parting from the kiss just long enough to say the words before recapturing her lips.

He rubbed his tongue against hers. Didn’t know how he’d ever resisted the lure of her mouth, the soul-shattering intimacy of sharing a kiss.

A desperation settled over him. If they were successful tonight in destroying those responsible for Ghost, then he would have to turn his attention to his own task and she would become bait in a trap for Javier.

He could see no other way. But the thought of her being in danger-

It couldn’t be helped. Until he’d returned to his father’s kingdom with the tablet in his possession, their future together was uncertain and her life would be at risk from the Djinn.

With a groan he picked Aisling up and carried her to the bathroom. He set her on her feet next to the shower stall.

“We need to hurry if we’re going to get to Sinners,” he said, stripping before reaching in to turn on the water.

Her clothes fell away quickly and he shivered in ecstasy at the feel of her skin against his. They stepped underneath the water, already lost in the steamy cocoon of passion.

Zurael lifted her, impaled her. His tongue thrust against hers with the same urgency as his cock plunged into her slit.

He promised himself that one day he would lay her on a bed covered with silken pillows and sheets. He would spend hours pleasuring her with his mouth and hands-and being pleasured in return. But here, now, with the night swiftly approaching, he coupled with her furiously. He swallowed her cry of release and came in a shuddering, hot eruption when her channel tightened like an erotic fist around his penis.

They hurried through the remainder of their shower, then dressed and ate. A knock sounded as they were ready to leave.

Aisling went to the window and peeked out, felt her breath freeze in her lungs at the sight of a priest’s black robes.

“It’s Father Ursu,” she said, keeping her voice low enough so it wouldn’t be heard through the door.

A warm swirl of air greeted her announcement. She turned to find the room empty.

She didn’t think it was a coincidence that Father Ursu had arrived so soon after she’d used the bus pass, though unlike before, she’d slipped it through the magnetic card reader only once, then used folding money to pay Anya and Zurael’s fare-hoping the Church wouldn’t take the time to question the bus driver and discover she hadn’t been traveling alone. She opened the door but blocked it with her body so Father Ursu couldn’t enter and delay them from getting to Sinners.

Worry creased his forehead. His eyes were kindly until he glanced behind her, to the devastation of the living room.

Surprise registered in his face. And though she would never trust him, she didn’t think it feigned.

“What happened here?” he asked. “Who did this?”

“I don’t know who’s responsible. It was like this when I returned home.”

His attention shifted to the right. “At least your pet wasn’t harmed.”

For an instant the sight of the black ferret left Aisling giddy with happiness. But when he didn’t chirp a greeting or move from his position next to the workroom doorway, she knew it was Zurael and not Aziel.

She fought the worry that threatened to crush her with thoughts of Aziel, realized Zurael’s appearance was meant to get a reaction from Father Ursu, to gauge whether or not he might know where Aziel was.

Aisling considered what she’d seen in Father Ursu’s face and heard in his words. Once again she thought they were unfeigned.

She realized he must have questioned the driver who took them to the edge of Oakland the day before. Otherwise he wouldn’t have known Aziel wasn’t with them.

Uneasiness knotted her stomach when she looked at Father Ursu and caught him with his eyes closed, his eyebrows drawn together, his attention still on Zurael.

Javier’s words rang in her mind. I spent a great deal of my childhood in the tender care of the Church, much of it with Father Ursu, who saw the dark nature of my soul-read my aura and the strength of my inherent gifts.

Father Ursu opened his eyes and caught her looking at him. “Aisling,” he said, and the weight he gave her name invited confession-as if he’d read Zurael’s aura and knew she consorted with a demon. “May I come in?”

“I’m just on my way out.”

“This close to dusk? Do you think that’s wise?”

She thought it better to deflect him if she could. “I’m not going far. Just to a friend’s house.”

A disappointed expression settled on his features. “I suspect the friend you intend to visit is the very one I’d hoped to speak with you about. As you know, Henri’s death weighs heavily on me. I was his priest, and more often than not, the only friend he felt he could talk openly to. I feel a great deal of responsibility toward you as well. You’re a beautiful young woman out on your own for the first time and alone in a strange place. Just because I wear the robes of the Church doesn’t mean I don’t understand loneliness or the temptations of the flesh.”

Aisling couldn’t prevent the heat from rising in her cheeks. She glanced beyond him at the growing dusk, wanted to bolt from his presence and his false attempts to befriend her.

Father Ursu’s face softened, invited confidence. “Last night it was brought to my attention that you’d gotten off the bus near The Mission and hadn’t caught it for a return trip. I suspected, given your history, you might have decided to help Davida with the orphans. But I was still concerned enough to contact her. She told me you’d been there in the company of a man previously, and she’d seen you entering The Barrens with that same man earlier in the day.”

Aisling’s heart raced along with her thoughts. Questions formed but she didn’t speak, because asking them would also reveal what she knew, what she guessed.

When she didn’t say anything, Father Ursu’s sigh filled the space between them. He made a point of looking at the devastation behind her in the living room. “Aisling, have you considered that what happened here is a result of your involvement with your friend? No decent man would take a young woman into The Barrens.”

She kept her silence, and his expression became grave. She willed him to say more, to answer the questions she didn’t dare ask.

He said, “A couple of guardsmen lost their lives in The Barrens last night because after speaking to Davida, I grew very concerned for your welfare and initiated a search.”

Aisling sagged with a lessening of the guilt over leaving Aziel behind. She’d been right in thinking the Church was behind the search, had probably offered the linens she’d used as scent articles.

Her reaction seemed to satisfy Father Ursu. She wondered if he’d suspected her of having something to do with the deaths. She thought maybe the purpose of his visit had been accomplished, but then he said, “I’m afraid the Church incurred quite a bit of expense on your behalf, Aisling.”

An icy finger traced her spine. This was the very thing she’d worried about from the first and sought to avoid-being entrapped by debt.

She met his gaze boldly, refusing to become a victim. “It was your choice to initiate a search.”

A part of her expected him to point to Zurael, to hint she could find herself accused of consorting with a demon. Instead he nodded his head in agreement. “You’re correct. The Church can’t expect you to reimburse it for the expense of the search. However, quite some time ago Henri tithed this house to the Church. While he lived in it, there was no reason to expect rent from the property. But with his death, and the cost incurred because of the search, those in charge of the Church’s finances have successfully argued this property should be offered to someone able to pay rent. At Bishop Routledge’s insistence, they’re willing to give you a week before vacating or signing a rental agreement.”

Aisling could guess at their plan. If they believed Ghost was made during the full moon, then that would be the time to use her as their weapon against its maker.

She didn’t ask what the rent would be. She knew it would be set impossibly high-so that with the threat of eviction looming over her, she’d think it a godsend when they offered to let her perform a task in exchange for being able to remain in the house.

It would explain why Father Ursu didn’t hint about her alliance with a demon, about the taint he might well see on her. To accuse her might make her flee, or it could bring suspicion on the Church if during a trial they were found to have used her services while suspecting she might summon a demon in the course of doing the task they asked of her.

But even guessing at their plan, even knowing if she was successful tonight, there would be no need to search for the ones responsible for Ghost, fear threatened to crowd in. She would have to seek shelter elsewhere. She wouldn’t willingly enter into a contract with the Church and give them leverage over her.

Aisling kept her worry for the future hidden and held at bay, reminded herself that whoever had destroyed her furnishings hadn’t found and taken the purse of silver coins.

It would buy her time. The sun pendant at her wrist made her hope the Wainwrights would serve as important allies if the Church threatened her with accusations of practicing black magic.

She glanced again at the darkening sky and said, “I need to leave now.”

Father Ursu frowned, perhaps expecting her to cry in fear over the threat of being put out on the street, to beg him to intercede on her behalf. But the darkness held danger for him, too, and he contented himself with saying, “I’ll check in on you in a few days.”

THE same two bouncers guarded the front door of Sinners. They showed no surprise when Aisling and Zurael approached. But then Aisling suspected they were used to seeing people narrowly escape death, only to return on another night to court it.

She shivered, preferring the dark and the predators that lurked outside to the ones who glided through the hallways of the restored Victorian. She was acutely aware of the casket-shaped Ghost container in her pocket, of the strangers who even now gathered at the windows of the clubs lining the street in anticipation of a night of excess and violence.

The bouncer to the left took the offered money. The one to the right opened the door.

Aisling wiped damp palms against her pants and tried to slow the wild throb of her heart. It would be over soon, she told herself. She-they-could get through what came next. And then her family would be safe.

She willed herself to slide her hand into her jacket pocket and touch the small metal box. It was the only way. The best way. The surest way to get Ilka and Felipe Glass to answer the questions put to them.

Aisling’s stomach knotted as she imagined dipping her fingers into the gray substance and then touching them, using Ghost to cast them into the spiritlands in the same way Elena had done to Zurael and her.

Her skin grew clammy thinking about committing such an act. But by her agreement in the spiritlands, she had to kill them or see them dead if they were guilty of creating Ghost.

The thought of Zurael going to their home in order to force them to come to her scared her. He’d be vulnerable there. The rich and powerful could afford wards and traps, and if they were truly guilty of making Ghost, then they’d have allies in the spiritlands, entities that might be capable of killing Zurael. She couldn’t bear the thought, couldn’t imagine living with the guilt if he died because of her.

This was the only way. The best way. But a chill swept through her. Could she really do it? She’d been so sure, so confident when they were miles and hours away from confronting Ilka and her husband.

In The Barrens she’d revisited those moments in the spiritlands with Ryker. She’d drawn upon the memory of the spirit winds coming to wrap them in an impenetrable cocoon after she’d wished the fog of the ghostlands would block out the sight and sound of his friends calling him. But as they were about to step into Sinners, old doubts assailed her.

She had no formal training. What if she was wrong? Not just about her ability to summon the winds, but about being able to control the Ghost trip as Elena had claimed to overhear Father Ursu saying.

There’d be no circle of protection. Nothing to keep malevolent beings from finding her except her faith in those she would call before entering the spiritlands.

Zurael’s fingers circled her arm possessively as they stepped through Sinners’ doorway. She glanced up at his face and took comfort in the fierceness of his expression.

Ilka and Felipe wore red again, only tonight it was the color of old blood. Aisling could feel the attention of those gathered on the first floor shift away from the street outside and sharpen with predatory interest on her and Zurael.

Titters of anticipation formed an undertone to clinking glass and murmured conversation. A few spared glances at Ilka and Felipe.

As they’d done on their previous visit, Aisling and Zurael moved to the bay window. She settled against him, her back to his chest.

His arms went around her. His lips trailed tender kisses along her neck.

The sight of them captured so intimately in the glass mesmerized Aisling. It blocked out the noise, the presence of others.

Something had changed between them in The Barrens, after the fight with the angel. But she was too much of a coward to speak to him about the future. She was too afraid of learning she’d followed in her mother’s footsteps and, in taking a demon for a lover, had been granted a place in hell.

A shudder went through her before she could stop it. Zurael’s arms tightened. “We can abandon this plan and make another,” he whispered, misinterpreting the source of her anxiety.

“No,” she managed, seeing Ilka’s and Felipe’s approaching images in the glass.

“You’re back,” Ilka purred, eyes bright, gleaming, as if the danger of confronting someone she’d led the vote against, someone who’d survived what waited in the darkness, excited her sexually.

She leaned forward, offering a glimpse of cleavage, a hint of a nipple. Her fingernails were long, painted red to match her outfit and lipstick. They hovered in the air then slowly descended toward Zurael’s arm.

Against Aisling’s back he vibrated with suppressed fury, making her think of the steady, unmistakable sound of a rattlesnake before striking. But Zurael allowed Ilka’s hand to settle on him as they’d agreed upon in The Barrens, and Aisling hated the sight of another woman touching him.

“So this time you’re interested in playing,” Felipe said, following his wife’s lead, leaning forward, stripping Aisling with his eyes.

It was all she could do to tolerate his nearness. Every cell screamed in protest when he ran his fingers down the line of buttons on her shirt.

Bile rose in her throat. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t utter the words necessary.

“You might say we couldn’t stay away,” Zurael said, his voice low, dangerous, his hand moving lower on Aisling’s belly, his touch possessive, blatantly sexual. “But we don’t intend to be entertainment tonight.”

Ilka’s laugh was a husky trill of victory. “Everyone’s entertainment here. See and be seen, though I guess you weren’t here long enough last time to understand the fun of Sinners.”

Her hand slid upward. Her fingers curled around Zurael’s biceps as Felipe’s returned to the top buttons of Aisling’s shirt and freed them, exposing the upper slopes of her breasts.

“Not here,” Zurael growled, grabbing Felipe’s wrist with snake-like quickness.

“Somewhere private,” Aisling said, finally managing to break through the paralysis of her revulsion.

“Hmmm,” Ilka said, shifting her attention to Aisling for the first time and leaning forward so their lips nearly touched. “Privacy is possible, for some. Have you ever been with a woman?”

“No.” It was barely a whisper.

“Then I’ll tell you a little secret. It drives men crazy. Turns them into stallions.” She ran her tongue along the seam of Aisling’s mouth as her hand cupped Aisling’s breast. “But you already know what it’s like to be mounted by a stallion, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Aisling said, fighting to accept Ilka’s touch, blanking her mind to it.

“Not here,” Zurael said, seeming to prove Ilka’s claim by knocking her hand away, then possessively capturing Aisling’s nipple with his fingers, tormenting it until a small moan of pleasure escaped despite their audience.

Ilka licked her lips. “Ummm, delicious. We’re going to enjoy playing together.”

“I think privacy is in order,” Felipe said. “At least to begin with. Some treasures aren’t meant to be shared-at first.”

They pushed away from the bay window with perfectly synchronized grace. Felipe offered his arm and Ilka took it. Neither looked back as they walked away, their footsteps unhurried, the crowd parting in front of them as if they were royalty.

Zurael’s lips found Aisling’s ear. “Do it quickly. I can’t tolerate them touching you.”

Speculative, appraising glances followed them as they trailed Felipe and Ilka up the stairs and down a hallway that had no doors, until they turned a corner.

Felipe stopped in front of the only room possessing a door and produced a key. An anticipatory smile formed on Ilka’s dark red lips. Her eyes traveled to the front of Zurael’s pants. “It’s little more than a closet. But I think it’ll be perfect for getting better acquainted.”

The door swung open. Aisling trembled and felt Zurael’s fingernails sharpen and curl in a hint of the deadly talons they could become. He leaned in, brushed a kiss across her cheek and ear, whispered, “Release me from my agreement, Aisling. Let me do what needs to be done.”

“No,” she said, and they entered the room.

It was small, confining. A bed and two chairs took up much of the floor space.

One of the walls resembled a tack room. It was lined with ropes and leather straps, riding crops and other things Aisling couldn’t identify. Restraints were bolted to a second wall and on the bed frame as well.

Aisling’s thoughts flashed to when Zurael had tethered her wrists to the bed, to the pleasure she’d found. She met his eyes, saw the hot desire in them, the promise.

Heat gave way to icy chill when Ilka and Felipe stepped into the room and locked the door behind them. Dark red fingernails settled over Zurael’s heart. “You I think we need to chain to the wall.”

“No, please. I want him on the bed with us,” Aisling whispered, letting them hear her fear, using it to her advantage as she endured Felipe unbuttoning the front of her shirt.

Ilka’s attention shifted. Her eyes traveled over the length of Aisling’s bared skin. She licked her lips and reached for a wooden rod studded with metal, pulled it from its place on the wall. “Only if he behaves. Only if you both behave.”

Felipe’s hands went to Aisling’s shoulders. He started to slide the jacket off so the shirt could follow.

Her heart tripled its beat. Her breath grew short.

“I’ll do it,” she said, turning her back to them in a seemingly shy gesture.

“Delicious,” Ilka purred.

Aisling’s hands shook as she slipped the small, coffinlike tin from her pocket and tucked it in to her breast band. She shrugged out of her jacket and shirt, baring her upper body except for the fetish pouch and the wide strip of cloth she used to bind her breasts.

“How quaint and old-fashioned,” Ilka said. “What a lovely blindfold that’ll make. Or maybe we’ll use it as a gag.”

Aisling carefully unwound the breast band, making sure the Ghost container remained pressed to her skin until the last moment, when both ends of the binding cloth touched her knees. Fear knotted her stomach, but it didn’t stop her from opening the tin and dipping the first two fingers of both hands into the gray substance, then silently calling the names of the entities who’d witnessed when this task was set before her in the spiritlands.

She let the container and cloth fall to the floor as she turned. She took advantage of Ilka’s and Felipe’s attention being drawn to her exposed flesh, paused only long enough to ensure that Zurael was free of their touch before stepping in to them and grabbing their wrists.

Understanding flashed in their eyes in the instant the wild rush of the spirit winds jerked their souls from their bodies and hurled them into a swirling, dense fog. Aisling knew her guardians had come to her aid when the gray mist held Ilka and Felipe in unseen restraints.

Fury and murderous rage gave way to cunning speculation and they stopped struggling. “Aren’t you the clever one,” Ilka said. “It’s rare someone bests us, but apparently we’re your prisoners, for the moment. What do you want? Revenge? No I think you’re far too intelligent to waste such a luscious opportunity on something like that. We can offer so much more.”

“I want to know if you’re responsible for creating Ghost.”

Ilka laughed, and her laugh held the supreme confidence of someone who’d always had the security of power and the protection of wealth, who’d believed since birth that the city was her playground and she could do anything she wanted in it.

Felipe chuckled. “I told my dear wife it was a mistake to vote you out of Sinners. Ilka found it hard to believe we’d been so easily manipulated into doing something not in our best interests. It looks like I’ve been proven right.”

“What can I say? I got caught up in the moment, as one does at Sinners. Afterwards I regretted it of course, but there was nothing I could do.”

“True, but I think we can strike a bargain with the shamaness. She’s got a family of sorts, sharecroppers on a farm outside of Stockton I believe my captain said in his report. I suspect she’d like to know they’re not only safe but have the security that comes with owning their own land. Between the guardsmen I control and the real estate your family owns, we can come to a satisfactory arrangement.”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself, Felipe. It’s possible this is her way of getting rid of the competition and taking over the trade in Ghost herself.”

“True. But somehow I don’t think she intends to eliminate us. I have to go with the situation as I see it.” Felipe made a point of examining Aisling’s nakedness then his own and his wife’s. “I believe play is on the agenda for the night, once we can reach an agreement. And I will point out, even before Aisling’s trip to the library, I did tell you it was a mistake to use those snake-handling religious fanatics to distribute Ghost. It was only a matter of time before someone made the connection and found their way to the Fellowship.”

Felipe smiled but there was only calculation in his eyes. “For the record, Aisling, I had nothing to do with the bloodhounds being sent after you last night. It was a routine search, even if Father Ursu initiated it. I wasn’t in the office and it didn’t need my approval.”

Their complete lack of conscience sickened Aisling. Their lack of fear worried her.

She could feel the spirit winds thickening, buffeting against her as if being pushed back by something fighting to get through the gray barrier forming a protective cocoon around them.

“Where’s Aziel?” Aisling asked.

“Aziel?” Felipe’s puzzlement seemed genuine.

“My pet. The ferret I brought with me to Oakland.”

“I don’t know.”

Pain slid through her heart like a knife’s blade. But she believed him. He had little reason to lie and had already demonstrated a complete confidence that he would bargain his way out of a situation that would have left most cringing in terror.

“Are you responsible for creating Ghost?”

Ilka’s smile was sly. “We’ve got a silent partner. But you must have already guessed that. Otherwise you wouldn’t have dared use Ghost on us. If we give you his name, will you kill him?” She laughed. “Not that I blame you. Not that Felipe and I would object. We could sell so much more than our partner produces. And you’ll find it’s easier to gather the necessary ingredients with guardsmen helping-especially when some of the ingredients need to be brought in alive. Even in Oakland, where there are plenty of poor and destitute, it’s not all that easy to make someone disappear.”

Aisling’s stomach lurched and roiled. “Who’s your partner?”

“Can’t you guess?” Ilka said. A silky taunt.

And playing back the things they’d said, what had happened the first time she and Zurael visited Sinners, what they’d learned since then, Aisling could.

It was a mistake to vote you out of Sinners. Ilka found it hard to believe we’d been so easily manipulated into doing something not in our best interests.

You’ll find it far more entertaining to vote her out with the others. She’s a shamaness.

An interesting piece of information, Peter.

“Peter Germaine,” Aisling said, naming the mayor’s brother, the deputy police chief who was no friend to any human with supernatural gifts.

Almost as soon as she’d spoken, Aisling thought she must be wrong because he’d have to be gifted to make Ghost. But before the doubt could settle in, Ilka’s expression offered confirmation, and Felipe echoed it by asking, “Now what?”

The gray wall of fog parted and Elena’s brother stepped through to stand next to Aisling. “Felipe! Ilka! You can’t imagine how glad I am you’re finally here. I should have guessed you had something to do with Ghost.”

John rubbed his fingers over the cable around his neck as if stroking a dog’s collar. He leaned in so his face was inches away from Felipe’s, but the other man didn’t blink, didn’t seem to see Elena’s brother.

“Still under Ilka’s thumb?” John asked. “Still letting her call the shots? I’m curious. Did she order my death? Or did you resent losing business to me? A pathetic reason either way. I hardly made any profit supplying entertainment for your guardsmen, not by the time I shaved my rates to undercut yours. But then dear Ilka never did like me, did she? And if I remember correctly, she absolutely loathed my sister-not that I blame her there. I wish dear Elena could join us, it’s the only thing that would make this show better, but I’m still going to enjoy it immensely.”

He turned to Aisling. “Did you fantasize about me the way I did about you?”

“Why are you here?”

“To set the stage, my beautiful ang-” The steel cord pulled taut, his back arched, and the tattoos of a lawbreaker stood out in stark relief on his face.

John went down to his knees. The metal leash grew slack.

A hint of madness glittered in his eyes. He whispered, “I keep forgetting that where you’re concerned I have to be very, very careful not to offend.”

He reached for Aisling, as if he’d use her to pull himself to his feet. She stepped back, felt the rub of coarse fur against her bare skin and knew the entity represented by the bear fetish stood behind her.

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.