Ghostland

CHAPTER 2

ZURAEL shimmered into existence in the exact spot he’d abruptly and involuntarily left moments earlier. The wings and talons were gone, as was the blood, but the rage remained, deadly and focused.

Desert winds streamed through windows hung with a thin, gauzy fabric. Rather than soothe and calm him, the breeze made him think of the woman who’d whispered his name on the spirit winds, who’d dared to summon a Djinn prince and command him.

She would pay with her life. Such magic could not be allowed to rise again.

A knock sounded at the door. It was his father’s advisor. Zurael could feel the signature energy. He’d known it wouldn’t take long for the knowledge of what had happened to reach The Prince.

Zurael went to the door and opened it. Miizan en Rumjal stepped back, the tilt of his head indicating Zurael was to follow him. His features gave no hint of his thoughts, and Zurael had no intention of asking for them. Though Miizan was bound to the House of the Scorpion and not the House of the Serpent, his loyalty to The Prince was forged in a time thousands of years earlier, when there were no ghostlands, no Kingdom of the Djinn to serve as both paradise and prison, when there was only the place that had been defiled by the humans and stolen from the Djinn by bloody conquest and foul, enslaving magic.

Zurael stepped into the velvety darkness of the night and followed his father’s advisor in silence as they moved through courtyards and beneath elegant arches. Pastel window coverings made him think of night-blooming flowers, their color revealed by the soft glow of candlelight. Though they could have taken any number of forms and traveled faster, they walked until Miizan stopped in front of a door few entered. “He waits below.”

Zurael’s lips curved in a grim smile as he opened the door and began descending the long staircase to the Hall of History. He didn’t need to wonder what his father’s mood was. It was always at its darkest when The Prince thought of the past.

It was pitch-black, but Zurael navigated the steps with the ease of someone who’d done so for centuries. As was fitting for a people created from fire at the very beginning-when the Earth seethed and boiled, molten rock and unconscious desire to bring forth life-the air around Zurael grew hotter the deeper he went and the closer he came to where his father waited.

At the bottom of the stairs, muted colors began their fight against the blackness in a sardonic metaphor for the history of the Djinn-fire and memory and angel blood. Zurael ducked through an archway and into the Hall itself.

His father stood in front of a mural depicting the first summoning and binding. But unlike the Djinn in the mural, who appeared much as Zurael did-bare-chested and barefooted, a long black braid trailing between his shoulder blades and ending at his hips-The Prince had taken the form of a nightmare, the demon he’d been named when the god cursed him and twisted his shape into something hideous as a lesson to all Djinn.

His fingers were curled talons. Leathery, batlike wings emerged from his back, their edges draped elegantly over his forearms. A snake-like tail coiled around his leg.

The humans believed they were formed in the image of their god. In truth they were formed in the image of the Djinn-not because the Djinn willed it, but because the god who amused himself with an experiment had settled on a form already proven efficient.

“You were summoned,” The Prince said. His voice was barely more than a hiss, but it echoed in the hall. It resonated through Zurael’s mind like a curse hurtled at the past.

“Yes. I will kill her if you’ll grant permission for me to pass through the gates.”

The Prince’s tongue flicked out, forked in keeping with the image he’d chosen to project, though he’d long since broken the curse that had once trapped him into an abomination of Djinn and beast.

Slowly, demon-red eyes turned to fathomless black. The tail uncoiled, and like the wings and talons, it faded as his father turned to study the mural once again.

Zurael looked at the mural and the depiction of the first Djinn not only summoned but bound to a vessel in order to serve one of the creatures created from mud. Though he would never admit to fear, an icy finger traced down his spine as he viewed Jetrel’s fate and flashed to those moments when he himself had been summoned. If the two of them were standing side by side, few would be able to tell the difference between his father’s firstborn son and his father’s eldest living son, so close was the resemblance.

His father had lost dozens of sons and daughters before he, along with the most powerful of the ancients, had created the Kingdom of the Djinn deep within the ghostlands. Afterward there had been few born to any of their race, even The Prince.

Silence reigned, heavy and full of dark memories in the Hall where The Prince was said to have painted the history of the Djinn using angel blood and the colors of the world that had once been theirs to rule.

His father tilted his head as if listening to voices only he could hear, or perhaps he was glimpsing a sliver of the future, as it was said he could do. “There are few old enough to remember, but this is the moment when even those who belonged to the House of the Dove realized there would be no compromise with the god who came here from a place beyond our understanding and claimed our lands as his own playground. We, who were created of Earth’s fire, were ordered to kneel down to the creatures of mud and submit to their will. When we refused, preferring to fight to the death rather than yield, they were given an incantation allowing them to summon and bind us to a vessel so we could be used as unwilling familiars.”

The Prince’s hand lifted to hover over the image of Jetrel. “This is the moment when we learned what would happen to us if we killed a human who held us enslaved. This is when we learned what it meant to become ifrit, soul-tainted, one whose name can no longer be spoken out loud, one whose spirit can’t be guided back and reborn into a new life.”

His father lowered his hand. Zurael fought the urge to repeat his question, to point out what his father already knew, that he hadn’t yet been bound and so he could kill the one who’d summoned him without becoming ifrit.

“Though few remember it and those who do won’t speak of it,” his father said, “before this moment when we knew we must create a separate kingdom for ourselves, there were Djinn who found the humans alluring. The son whose loss is a deep scar on my heart was one of those. Our women were plentiful then and our children easily conceived. Yet he became obsessed with a human woman, refused to give her up when I demanded it. She became his weakness, the bait used to trap him. Her blood was used in the first spell cast to summon and bind a Djinn.”

Zurael’s spine stiffened at what his father implied. “I have no interest in the human female other than killing her.”

“Walk with me,” his father said. “Tell me of the summoning.”

Zurael’s earlier rage returned in a heartbeat. The pictures in the Hall faded from his awareness. “There was no warning,” he said, “nothing to hint I was about to be taken. I heard my name and with it a command to end a ceremony before a sacrifice could be made. As we have all been trained to do since childhood, I took the form the humans call demon. There were black-robed figures gathered in a candlelit room and chanting around an altar. Their dark priest had an athame raised and was about to drive it into the heart of a woman. I killed them and would have killed the one who summoned me, but she was protected. When I drew near, a circle flared to life around her and I couldn’t cross it. I left before she could command me further or bind me.”

“This woman who summoned you, was she naked or clothed?”

Zurael’s body tightened as his mind’s eye once again traveled over the woman’s figure. He turned away in order to hide the sudden erection pressing against the loose flowing trousers. “She was naked,” he said, hating that his cock had stiffened in her presence as well.

“Then it was not her physical form that summoned you but her spiritual one. There were sigils in the circle surrounding her?”

“No.” Uneasiness slithered down Zurael’s spine as he realized he had not seen his full name written in ash or flame as it should have been, nor had she summoned him with the recitation of a spell as she should have done.

His father stopped walking and turned to face him. On either side of them the mural ended.

They were on the cusp of the present. Beyond where they stood the Hall continued in endless darkness, the future not yet captured on its walls.

“A final question and then I will answer the one you asked me. Were you compelled to kill the humans, or did you do so because they deserved it and you desired to do it?”

Zurael closed his eyes and flashed back to the instant when he’d taken form in a world he’d rarely visited, though like most, he monitored it and dreamed of the day when the Djinn would reclaim it. His father’s question was a whisper in his thoughts as he relived those moments of ruthless justice when the stench of evil was replaced by the smell of blood. Horror filled him as he realized there was no distinction between his summoner’s command and his own free will, but he didn’t turn away from the specter of it as he answered his father’s question honestly. “I wanted to stop the sacrifice. I killed the humans because I could.”

He opened his eyes and saw his father studying him closely, perhaps willing him to say more, to admit it was the female and not the violence that had shaped his cock into a rigid line against the front of his trousers. Zurael said nothing and the silence was like a held breath.

Along the walls, the scenes painted there shimmered with captured emotion. Unwillingly his gaze traveled the distance his feet had covered and stopped on the image of the first son and the first summoning.

Icy dread found its way into Zurael’s heart. It was not dispelled when his father said, “Unless summoned, you may leave the Kingdom of the Djinn only once.”

AISLING shuddered as she looked at the carnage in front of her. Fear held her trapped in the protective circle. The demon’s promise of retribution froze her limbs and withered her courage, even though she knew she needed to find out where she was, so she could return to her physical body with the knowledge.

She closed her eyes and turned her face to bury it in the comfort of Aziel’s warm fur. Her heartbeat slowed, though the stench of blood and bowels and scented candles made her queasy.

The desire to be back in her own body swelled up with sudden fierceness, along with an aching need to return to the only family she’d ever known. “Let’s get this over with,” she whispered to Aziel before she opened her eyes and stepped from the phantom ring.

Elena’s chest rose and fell in a regular rhythm. The bloodred sigils painted on her eyelids and mouth, on her palms and the soles of her feet, stirred a memory in Aisling, but she knew it was a shaman’s memory and not a personal one.

She climbed the stairs and, moving through the house, stepped out into the darkness in order to look for an address. The night was still, but the presence of the predators who roamed it wasn’t hidden from her as it would have been if her spirit and physical body were joined.

Aisling could sense the ice-cold signature of a vampire looking for prey. Farther away a lone Were prowled, its hot energy a beacon though it wasn’t close enough for her to determine its animal form.

Inside the other houses on the street she could hear muffled conversation. She could feel the terror the night held for the occupants who sheltered behind barred windows and locked doors.

At the end of the block a bent pole still carried a street sign. Aisling read it and let her awareness of her surroundings fade. The gray of the ghostlands passed with a swiftness that left her dizzy.

When she opened her eyes she found Father Ursu hovering just inches away from the protective circle. “3574 Rhine Street,” she said.

Father Ursu took a phone from his pocket and relayed the address, though Aisling knew it was for show. Just as before, she felt another presence, someone else monitoring the room. This time she glanced around and noticed the small mirror on the wall above the table where Elena’s picture had been and where Aziel was now curled in apparent sleep.

“You encountered a powerful demon,” Father Ursu said, drawing Aisling’s attention back to him and making her heart thunder with renewed fear.

“How did you know?” Her voice came out little more than a whisper.

Father Ursu gestured at the blackened ring of salt around her. “What happened?”

Aisling’s breath grew short as she stared at the protective circle. She shivered as the demon’s beautiful face and deadly words filled her mind.

For a moment terror held her completely in its grip. Impending death covered her with a shroud of certainty. As soon as she broke the protective circle, the demon would come for her.

“What happened, child?” the priest said in a soft voice as he crouched down in front of her.

She tried to find the words and failed. A soft thump sounded as Aziel jumped from the table. He scampered across the room as if sensing her distress and her need of his comfort. Before the priest could grab him, he crossed the circle, brushing the blackened salt away with his feet and tail.

He climbed to his favored position on Aisling’s shoulder. He chattered as if he was scolding her, reminding her that he was the one who had given her the name Zurael to whisper on the spirit winds.

Aisling shuddered as the terrible fear left her in a sudden rush. She closed her eyes and concentrated on answering the priest’s question. “There was a dark mass. They were chanting, but a demon came before they finished the ceremony.” She took a harsh, involuntary breath as the events played out in her mind. Guilt tangled with the relief of having saved Elena. She’d wanted the sacrifice stopped, but now the deaths lay on her conscience. She’d commanded Zurael to stop the ceremony and he’d obeyed. She looked at the priest and said, “They’re all dead, all except for Elena.”

Father Ursu nodded. “Black magic is dangerous.” He stood and offered his hand. “Come, child. I’ll take you back to your room. You’ve had a long, difficult day.”

Aisling allowed him to help her to her feet and guide her from the room. She was emotionally exhausted, no longer able to worry about whether he was an ally or an enemy.

ZURAEL pushed through the door and out into the night. The gentle breeze and rich scents greeting him did nothing to soothe the turmoil of his thoughts, the conflict of his desires, the unspoken questions raised by his father and left unanswered.

For an instant he was tempted to gather the sand around him in a swirling, seething mass and roar through the desert until his emotions settled. He was tempted to take the form of a falcon and fly until he was too exhausted to think or question. But those were the responses of a child and he hadn’t been one in centuries.

Above him the starless, moonless sky was pitch-black. If he were to hunt for the one who summoned him, he would need to do it during the day. The human he was looking for wouldn’t go out among the predators of the night.

Zurael retraced the route he’d walked with his father’s advisor. He moved with casual grace, barely aware of his surroundings. With each step the urgency to find the one who’d summoned him grew and spread outward like a spider’s poisonous bite.

He faltered with the thought, slowed, stopped. He was in a court-yard he rarely delayed in. To his left was an archway he’d seldom found a need to pass through.

For long moments he contemplated what it might cost him. But in the end he turned and took the path leading to the House of the Spider.

A young male Djinn, wearing the simple white trousers of a student, opened the door. He stepped back to usher Zurael in with a sweeping bow. “Welcome, Prince Zurael en Caym of the House of the Serpent. You honor us with your presence. Do you wish to call upon the one who leads our house? Or will another serve you?”

“I will see Malahel en Raum,” Zurael said. The payment required of him would be steep, but he didn’t want to share the details of his shame, his summoning, with anyone other than the strongest in the House of the Spider.

“As you wish, Prince Zurael.” The student bowed again. “If you will follow me, I will take you to the room she favors.”

Like the walls of the Hall of History, the walls in the House of the Spider were covered in pictures. The images were captured in the silken weave of tapestries rather than painted in blood. Some of the scenes were reminiscent of the ones his father had created. But where The Prince’s history was filled with war, with small victories and larger defeats, with the theft of the Djinn land, the history found on the walls in the House of the Spider was interwoven with carnal depictions of intertwined humans, angels and Djinn.

Zurael’s lips moved in a silent curse as the image of the female who’d summoned him filled his thoughts and his cock hardened in response. He turned his attention away from the twisted silken threads covering the walls and forced himself to think instead of the terror he’d felt in that instant when his name had been whispered on the spirit winds and his body had dematerialized against his will.

Rage returned to fill the place carved out by terror. He thought of the humans and their black mass, their foolish desire to call for those trapped in the hell of the ghostlands. In a blink their deaths passed through his mind, and before he could stop himself he was once again standing in front of the female.

Zurael’s penis throbbed. His lips pulled back, a silent snarl in defiance to the heat that rose upward, spiraling through his chest and neck and face. There was no hiding the erection pressed against the front of his trousers.

He nodded stiffly when the student stopped at a doorway and bowed him into a small room. “I will tell the one you seek that you wait here.”

The room was bare of influences. The walls were painted the gray of the ghostlands. Three large gray pillows served as seating around a wooden table only inches above the floor. Three teacups waited in a cluster at the table’s edge. Nearby, a ceramic teapot sat on a brazier, the glow of hot charcoal a symbol of the Djinn, whose prison kingdom was surrounded by the cold spiritlands.

In four strides Zurael was next to one of the cushions. The smell of jasmine tea teased his nostrils. He contemplated the teacups and felt the stirrings of uneasiness in his chest. He had never been one to frequent this house.

He turned at the sound of the door opening. Malahel en Raum stood in the doorway. She wore the concealing robes of a desert dweller, though like the room, they were gray. In deference to her position Zurael bowed slightly and said, “I thank you for attending me.”

“Another would attend you as well,” Malahel said, entering the room.

Zurael’s pulse spiked at the sight of the Djinn who stepped into the doorway. Like Malahel, Iyar en Batrael of the House of the Raven was dressed in the concealing robes of a desert traveler. His skin was as black as the material covering all of his body and much of his face. Only the gold of his eyes was easily seen.

“Enter,” Zurael said, acknowledging Iyar with a bow of equal depth to the one he’d given Malahel.

The three of them seated themselves on the cushions.

“You wish to pour?” Malahel asked, indicating the waiting teacups with a small flick of her fingers and giving Zurael the choice as to whether to lead the conversation or not.

Zurael picked up the teapot and filled the ceramic cups. “I was summoned.”

Both Malahel and Iyar freed the lower half of their faces from the concealing material. Iyar’s dark fingers stroked the handle of a teacup. “The Prince has given you permission to pass through the gates in order to kill the one who summoned you?”

“Yes.”

Iyar nodded and took the teacup to his lips.

Malahel set her teacup down. Her irises were as black as Iyar’s skin.

“Tell us about the summoning,” she said.

Zurael repeated what he’d told his father, hesitating for an instant but finally including the oddity of the summoner’s ability to call him in her astral state with little more than his name. Where his father hadn’t shown interest in the humans who’d been killed, Malahel and Iyar leaned forward as he described the black mass and the woman whose sacrifice he’d prevented.

“Where were the sigils written?” Iyar said.

Zurael conjured up the scene, focusing on an aspect that had been insignificant at the time. He’d barely glanced at the woman on the altar, and yet with Iyar’s prompting he was able to answer, “Her eyes, mouth, the palms of both hands.”

“The soles of her feet?”

“I don’t know.”

Iyar shrugged. “What you saw was enough.”

“Enough for what?” Zurael asked, uneasiness returning with the look that passed between Malahel and Iyar.

Malahel placed her teacup on the low table and settled her hands on her knees. “What is it you wish from the House of the Spider?”

What did he want? What impulse had made him take the path that led here?

Zurael sipped his tea as his thoughts danced from one scene to another, always returning to the female who’d summoned him and the fear that he would be bound in service before he could ensure his freedom by killing her. Divination was one of a Spider’s gifts. “I would know what power the human holds over me that she was able to summon me the way she did.”

Malahel’s head tilted slightly. Zurael’s chest tightened as he imagined himself caught in her web. Dark eyes bored into his, unblinking, the thoughts behind them completely hidden.

There was always a price to pay for coming to the House of the Spider. At the moment, his debt was canceled by the information he’d provided about the summoning.

Zurael forced himself to lift the teacup to his lips with a steady hand and drain it of its contents. When he set it on the table, Malahel said, “I will read the stones on your behalf if you will accept a task.”

“What task?”

Malahel’s eyes flicked to Iyar. Iyar said, “The dark priest you killed was trying to summon an entity from the ghostlands and bind it to a human form. The sigils on the eyes, mouth, the palms and the soles of the feet are meant to give the priest complete control of the being. This is not the first time such a thing has happened in the recent past. There are Djinn lost to us, cursed to wander the human spiritlands because their souls are tainted by the ones they killed, making them ifrit. Their names are unspoken, crossed out in the Book of the Djinn. The House of the Raven would not have them summoned again, bound and used again by the humans.”

“Nor would I,” Zurael said.

“We believe the black mass you interrupted is proof a human is in possession of an ancient stone tablet we thought lost,” Malahel said. “Find whoever is in possession of this knowledge and kill them, then bring the tablet to us without delay.”

Zurael’s eyebrows drew together in consternation and confusion. To accept the task was to remain at risk of being summoned and bound by the human female. “The House of the Scorpion is full of assassins capable of doing what you ask.”

Malahel’s hands left her knees to float over the table in an all-encompassing gesture. “What you say is true, but none of them were summoned as you were. None of them were brought to the House of the Spider by their destinies.”

A bow of his head, a gracious acknowledgment of the tea and the company, and Zurael would be free to escape with his question unanswered. But he couldn’t deny the strangeness of finding himself in a place he had rarely visited in centuries of existence.

“We believe the tablet is in Oakland,” Iyar said. “The city you were summoned to.”

So he would be near the human female, Zurael thought. “I will accept the task,” he said.

Malahel clapped her hands. Immediately the door slid open. The male Djinn who’d ushered Zurael into the room stepped through the doorway followed by two females who were also wearing the white clothing that marked a student. Without speaking they doused the charcoal and removed the brazier as well as the table before closing the door behind them.

Zurael leaned forward to study the slab of clear phantom quartz that had been hidden by the table. It shimmered with secrets, ghost crystals trapped in the larger one. The surface was etched with spider lines, their design a spiral of interweaving patterns he found impossible to untangle.

Next to the slab was a ceramic bowl with tiny stones, each one polished and perfectly round, their colors mixed. He could fit a hundred of them in his cupped hand. A second bowl contained larger stones, half the size of his smallest fingernail. They were round and polished as well. It was this bowl Malahel picked up.

She held it out to him. “Choose the stone that will go by your name. When you have found it, place it in the bowl with the ones you will cast.”

Zurael dipped his hand into the bowl and let the stones flow through his fingers like water. He recognized many of the stones and knew what they signified in the teachings of his own house, but he didn’t make the mistake of thinking they would hold the same meaning in this house. He closed his eyes so the stones would whisper and guide him to the one that would represent him. At the bottom of the bowl he found what he sought and captured it.

He opened his eyes and looked at the obsidian he’d selected. Then he did as he’d been instructed and dropped it into the bowl containing the tiny polished stones.

“Choose the stone that will serve the one who summoned you,” Malahel said.

Once again Zurael closed his eyes. Immediately the female’s image came to mind and his body tightened, his cock stiffened. His jaw clenched and he shifted position on the cushion in the hopes his physical response wouldn’t be noticed.

The female’s stone rested close to the top. Misgiving at having delayed his own task filled Zurael when he opened his eyes and saw the blue-and-white angelite with its flecks of red. In the House of the Serpent it was a stone signifying an enemy, one who was angel-touched and dangerous. He placed it next to the obsidian.

Malahel set the bowl with the larger stones aside. She picked up the second bowl and handed it to Zurael. “Mix the stones as you will. Speak your question as you cast them.”

Zurael closed his eyes in an effort to center himself. There was no turning away, no escape from the web that held him.

He did as Malahel commanded. When he felt the moment was right he tipped the bowl and said, “I would know what power the human holds over me that she was able to summon me the way she did.”

The tiny stones rolled across the phantom quartz of a spider’s altar. There were a thousand lines to capture and hold them, but most of the colorful ones fled, rolling into narrow gutters at the edges of the slab. Zurael stared at what was left-the gray shades of the ghostlands and the red clay of the humans, the bloodred of angels and the black of powerful forces, all circling, trapping the obsidian and the angelite together.

Malahel studied the stones for long moments before leaning forward. The tip of her finger hovered above the stones. It traced the curve trapping the obsidian next to the angelite. It silently pointed out that the obsidian stood alone, untouched by any but the angelite, while red, gray and black stones all crowded against the token representing the human who’d summoned him.

“The one who possesses the tablet you seek will be drawn to the one who summoned you,” Malahel said. “She is deeply connected to the ghostlands. She was born of them and can call the spirit winds at will. That’s how she was able to bring you to her. It’s good you already intend to kill her. She is dangerous to us and will be made even more so if she learns what’s written on the tablet.”

Malahel placed her hands on her knees and Zurael knew she was finished speaking. She had answered his question just as the stones now revealed that in order to accomplish the task he’d agreed to, he would need to find the human who’d summoned him and watch over her until the ancient tablet was recovered and the one who possessed it destroyed.

THE house with the shaman’s symbol painted on it appeared worn and tired, haunted by failure and sadness. It was small, old, its door and windows barred like the houses around it.

Father Ursu’s hand left the pocket of his robe. “You can do the honors,” he said, pressing a key ring into Aisling’s palm.

She unlocked the barred door and opened it, then unlocked the wooden door behind it and opened it as well. The house smelled musty, closed up, dead.

Sunlight fought against the darkness of the curtains covering the windows. Small rays of it slipped in to capture dust motes and gloom and tattered furniture. The ferret perched on Aisling’s shoulder chattered in excitement over a chance to explore.

“The lodging is yours, and for the moment, in appreciation of your services, you don’t have to worry about paying for the electricity,” Father Ursu said.

His hand disappeared into his pocket. This time when it emerged it contained a bundle of papers. “Shall we move over to the table?”

Aisling nodded. She left the wooden door open then set the bag containing her new clothing on the floor before detouring to the windows to open them slightly for fresh air and to pull back the curtains rather than turn on the lights. She hadn’t failed to notice the priest’s exact wording and the warning they held. At the moment she wasn’t beholden, but that could change at any time. It was an old game, one in existence even before The Last War and the plague-enslave those who had nothing by letting them build up debt for the cost of food, clothing and shelter.

When she joined Father Ursu at the table, he’d already laid out the papers. “This is the most recent map of Oakland,” he said. “Can you read?”

Aisling hesitated, unsure whether to admit to it or not. He took her delay in answering for embarrassment over her ignorance.

“No matter,” he said, pushing the map aside. “No doubt you’ll make friends here and draw clients quickly enough. They’ll help you navigate the city.”

Father Ursu reached for a card with a magnetic strip on its back. “This is a transportation pass. There are buses to most areas of the city and to San Francisco. Almost everything you’ll require is close enough to reach by foot, but if you need to take a bus, be sure to leave yourself enough time to return home. There is no public transportation beyond sunset or before sunrise and many drivers won’t stop to pick up a passenger at dusk. To enter San Francisco requires authorization papers. Come to the church and ask for me if you find yourself needing them. Don’t attempt to go there alone. Even in the daytime it’s controlled by vampires.”

He placed the card on the table and picked up a book of vouchers. He flipped through it quickly for her benefit. There were words on the pages but the pictures served as well. Milk. Meat. Canned fruits. Assorted goods. “When you leave the house, if you go to the right and keep going straight, you’ll come to a grocery store. They’ll accept these vouchers.”

He set the vouchers aside and tapped the final item on the table, a small pile of dollar bills. “Whatever you find in the house is yours to keep or dispose of as you see fit. This is the cash fee promised to you.” He hesitated then added, “You should be safe enough here during the day, but be careful. The residents here don’t pay for the area to be patrolled by the police.”

Aisling studied the assortment of items on the table. Panic threatened to well up inside her. She was alone and there was no one she could trust.

A sharp nip to her earlobe made her smile. The panic subsided as Aziel launched himself off her shoulder and onto the table.

“I need to be going,” Father Ursu said.

Aisling walked him to the door and lingered until he got in the chauffeured car and was taken away. Along the street, other cars were parking to dislodge passengers or pulling away from the curb to whisk clients out of the area set aside for those with controversial abilities.

Despite the bars, she saw that most of the houses on the street had parted curtains and opened windows or doors, as though the residents in this part of the city didn’t fear what might enter in the daytime. Aisling leaned against the doorjamb and closed her eyes. Instantly the image of Zurael’s blood-covered body and burning eyes filled her mind, his whispered threat sent a shiver of fear straight to her heart.

There were wards carved in the wood around the door and windows of the shaman’s house, but she couldn’t be certain they would protect her from the demon she’d summoned. “Let me be safe,” she whispered, lifting her face so the sun could caress it.

She willed herself to find the strength to face whatever was to come, to have the courage to meet her fate. Aziel had given her the name Zurael as he’d given her many other names.

She hadn’t lied when she told the priest the ferret appeared shortly after a trader’s caravan visited the farm. What she hadn’t told him was that before the ferret there’d been a crow, and before the crow there’d been a snake, and before the snake, a cat-and they were all Aziel.

Aisling opened her eyes and left the doorway in favor of exploring.

The house was longer than it was wide. The living room and kitchen were a single space separated by a counter. To the right of the front door was another room. Foreboding filled Aisling when she stepped into it and saw the fetishes. They were perched in places where their strengths could be drawn upon. They were positioned to guard and watch.

On a workbench against the wall, stone and crystal lay with shapes unfinished, their creation interrupted. The tools needed to turn rock into something more lay scattered next to them.

A bed of dirt was in the center of the room. It was a poor man’s doorway into the ghostlands, so reminiscent of the barn floor where she had started so many journeys that a wave of homesickness assailed her.

Aisling wiped tears from her eyes and turned away, retreating to the living room and kitchen. There were dirty dishes in the sink, their surfaces dusty. The refrigerator held a carton of spoiled milk and a drawer of rotted vegetables. The cabinets were empty except for a small collection of bowls and plates. Rings marked the places where cans of food had been stored.

The bathroom was across from the kitchen. A man’s razor rested on the sink. A sliver of soap lay in the bottom of a huge, claw-foot tub that belonged in a past well before The Last War. There was a shower stall as well.

A solid metal door at the end of the hallway opened into the backyard. Aisling peeked outside then locked the door again.

In the bedroom a sparse, threadbare assortment of clothing hung in the closet. The shirts and pants were all made for a man whose bulk explained the size of the tub and shower. Tentatively Aisling reached into the closet and touched a pair of trousers. She knew the man who’d once owned them was dead, not because she felt his ghost or knew his spirit was in the ghostlands, but because the evidence of his passing filled the house.

Unbidden, the image of Elena’s brother came to mind. His words held no more comfort now than they’d held when he spoke them in the spiritlands. I see they’ve sent a sacrificial lamb. Or maybe that’s Elena’s role. Then again, maybe third time’s the charm.

Aisling changed the bedding. She returned to the kitchen and disposed of the spoiled milk and rotten vegetables.

A kitchen drawer held burlap shopping bags. She draped those over her arm before picking up the book of food vouchers from the living room table.

Aziel emerged from the shaman’s work and ceremony room. He scampered over to meet her at the front door. She let him out and waited for him to take care of his business. But when he would have lingered to explore, Aisling laughed and said, “We’ll have a long, hungry night if I don’t find the grocery store.”

The ferret returned to her side. He rose on his hind legs in readiness for climbing on her shoulder and riding to a new adventure. Aisling shook her head. “Stay here where I know you’ll be safe.”

His scolding made her smile but she didn’t give in to his pleas. Instead she picked him up and brushed a kiss across his forehead. She rubbed her cheek against his soft fur and put him in the house. “I’ll be back.”

The store was miles away. Normally the distance of the trip and the weight of the groceries wouldn’t have made Aisling tired. But the events of the last twenty-four hours, and the sleepless night she’d spent as she worried about the demon Zurael, finally caught up to her. Her footsteps dragged by the time she returned to the shaman’s house. Her hands shook with a nervousness brought on by lack of sleep and vestiges of fear.

Aisling fumbled for the key and slipped it into the lock. Her spine tingled with the hyperawareness of someone who knew she was being watched and that she was no match for a predator.

With a click the first lock gave. She opened the barred metal door and found the key for the wooden one. A few seconds later it opened as well.

The musty smell was gone, replaced by an unfamiliar exotic spice. It was her only warning before a hand wrapped around her throat and sharp talons scraped lightly over her jugular.

“Greetings, child of mud.”