Bone fetishes gleamed against clay-red soil. The ferret scampered to her side. He dropped the hawk he carried in his mouth a short distance away from the collection of figures on the packed dirt.
Zurael drew closer. Uneasiness settled in his chest as he realized the ferret had been with her when she’d summoned him in her astral state.
He hadn’t remembered before. In his mind’s eye he hadn’t seen the creature, and yet as it picked up the carving of a serpent and placed it in Aisling’s hand, Zurael’s earlier memories were overlaid with fresh ones, images with Aziel draped over her shoulders as he’d been in the kitchen. He could sense nothing otherworldly about the animal, but now its presence worried him. It raised questions he couldn’t answer.
A raven fetish followed the serpent, a spider came next. Zurael’s thoughts flashed to his visit with Malahel, where a spider, a raven and a serpent had gathered around a crystalline altar as the stones were cast.
Aziel hesitated. He cocked his head as if he were listening to a voice only he could hear. When his attention returned to the scattered fetishes, he picked up a bear. Once it was placed in Aisling’s hand, he scratched the ground until the remaining carvings were in a pile.
Aisling set the four she held in her hand aside and collected the others. She returned them to the leather pouch and dropped it under her shirt.
Another step took Zurael to a wooden strip, one of four trapping the dirt into a square. Aisling’s gaze flicked nervously to his face then back to what she was doing.
He crouched but didn’t interfere as she selected the raven and stood it on the dirt. The spider followed, to the right and down, east to the raven’s north. South was marked by the serpent, west by the bear. She picked up the hawk resting in the center of the other four and set it aside.
Zurael tensed when she drew a small athame from a sheath hidden at her lower back. He cursed himself for not thinking she could be armed, even if it would be nearly impossible for her to kill him.
She connected the four fetishes with arced lines so they were bound in a circle. When she turned her palm up and he saw she intended to drag the knife’s blade over it, Zurael reacted without thought.
Fear and rage flooded him. He knocked the athame from her hand and took her to the ground with the swiftness of a pouncing cougar.
“You will not bind me,” he said.
The confusion in her face calmed him as quickly as the sight of her getting ready to make a blood offering had spurred him to strike. In place of the rage and fear came awareness, of the softness of her body beneath his, of her scent, of the hardness of his cock where it pressed against the juncture of her thighs.
She licked her lips in a nervous gesture and he wanted to cover her mouth with his own. He wanted to plunge his tongue into her heated depths and taste her essence.
Shock made him scramble off her. For the Djinn, the sharing of breath was the sharing of spirit, and he had no wish to give a piece of his soul to another—especially one of the alien god’s creations.
Aisling sat. His words reverberated through her mind. The heat of his body and a fierce awareness of his arousal lingered.
She hesitated only a second before saying, “I have no desire to bind you, and even if I wanted to, I don’t know how. I’m not a witch or a sorceress.”
Anger flashed in the demon’s eyes. She knew he was remembering her summons.
“I wouldn’t have called for you if the need wasn’t urgent. If there was another name I could have used instead, I would have.”
Her admission surprised him. His gaze traveled to the fetishes that had been scattered when he pinned her to the ground. She could see the question forming, but before he could ask it, someone knocked on the front door. The knock was followed by the sound of the door opening and a female voice calling, “Hello. Is anyone home?”
Aisling rose from the dirt and brushed herself off. Aziel darted into the living room ahead of her. Surprise held Aisling in the doorway for a second when she recognized the woman the dark priest and his followers had intended to sacrifice.
“I hope you don’t mind me coming here,” Elena said.
“I don’t mind.”
“May I have a seat? Can we talk? Or do you have a client with you?”
“Please, sit down. I can give you water or make hot tea.”
“No. I’m fine.” Elena took a chair.
Aisling sat on the couch while Aziel curled up on the second chair.
“Luther says you saved my life last night,” Elena said.
Aisling didn’t think Elena meant Father Ursu or Bishop Routledge. “Luther?”
“Luther Germaine.” Elena’s eyes widened slightly when Aisling didn’t respond. “He’s the mayor of Oakland.”
“Until yesterday I lived outside Stockton.”
Elena smiled. Her gaze traveled around the room. “That explains a lot. Someone with your ability . . .” Her eyes met Aisling’s. There was a fevered intensity in them. “I want to hire you to find out what happened to me last night.”
Aisling’s stomach fluttered nervously. “What do you mean?”
Movement at the corner of Aisling’s eye distracted her. Her heart rate spiked when she turned her head and saw the snake moving toward them in a mesmerizing glide of scales over wood. Its likeness to the serpent tattooed on Zurael’s arm was unmistakable.
Elena gasped and started to rise from her chair.
“It’s all right,” Aisling said automatically, though she had no idea whether it was or not. The snake was venomous, the demon as lethal in this form as in any of his others.
Golden eyes gleamed in the dusky room as Zurael closed the distance between them. With ease he found the edge of the couch and followed it with his upper body until he reached the armrest. He dipped his head to allow gravity to work in his favor as he slid down to the cushion and across to Aisling, the rest of his body following in an exotic pattern of black and gold.
Aisling’s pulse raced. Her breath shortened as Zurael’s upper body rose once again, swaying like a cobra ready to strike.
His face was only inches away from hers but she didn’t cower away from him. She refused to cringe each time he tested her.
His tongue flicked out to touch her cheek, to taste her fear and measure it. For an instant she thought she saw approval in the golden depths of his eyes when she didn’t flinch.
He coiled himself around her arm and rested his head on the back of her hand in perfect imitation of the tattoo he wore in his human form. His scales were smooth and warm against her skin, his tongue a whisper across her knuckles.
Aisling glanced at the ferret curled on the chair and smiled. If Zurael thought to horrify or terrify her, then he’d failed. Aziel had once taken the body of a huge, heavily banded king snake. She’d spent hours with him draped over her neck or coiled around her waist.
Elena dropped back into her seat. Aisling’s attention returned to her guest.
“I want to hire you to find out what happened to me last night,” Elena repeated, reaching into the pocket of her jacket and pulling out a change purse with fancy stitching. She tossed it on the coffee table between them.
The sound of it hitting the table was like a gunshot in the still room. Aisling really looked at Elena then. Instead of images of a naked female painted with sigils and lying helpless on an altar, she saw the cut of Elena’s clothing, the expensive weave, the jewels she wore on her fingers and wrists, her neck and ears.
“Go ahead and count it,” Elena said with a negligible wave of her hand toward the coffee table.
Aisling opened the purse. Her hands shook slightly when she saw the pieces of silver. They were more valuable than the coins and bills created by the Treasury. Even now, long after The Last War and the plague, the distrust of anything other than gems or fine metals as payment lingered.
With enough silver coins she could return home. She could give something back to the woman who’d taken her in as an abandoned infant and raised her with love and acceptance.
Aisling counted the silver pieces. There were ten of them.
“That’s half of what I’m willing to pay you,” Elena said.
Aisling closed the purse and returned it to the table. Her palms were damp as she rubbed them over her knees. “What do you mean when you say you want to find out what happened to you last night?”
“I want to know how I ended up on that altar. The last thing I remember is being at a club. Then I woke up in a room at the church. A nun was washing the bottom of my feet and Father Ursu was praying over me. They wouldn’t let me leave until they were sure I wasn’t possessed.” She shivered, and for an instant the anticipation glittering in her eyes gave way to a fear.
“Won’t the authorities investigate?”
“No. Not now. Luther swallowed his pride when he asked Bishop Routledge for help.” Elena’s lips twisted in distaste. “Luther’s wife is devout and from an extremely influential family. She’s been confessing her sins to the bishop since she was a child. I’m sure he’s heard an earful about Luther’s affair with me. I doubt the good bishop would have helped if Luther wasn’t the mayor and married to one of his important constituents.”
Elena leaned forward with the intensity of a predator. “Father Ursu told me you were there when something went wrong during the ceremony. He said a powerful demon slaughtered them all.”
“I was there in an astral state.”
“Can you find their souls? Can you ask them why I was picked as a sacrifice?” Elena slid forward, to the edge of her seat. “The police won’t investigate because the dark priest was Anthony Tiernan. His family is wealthy and powerful. His followers were from similar families. Luther won’t push because all of the families involved want to keep what happened quiet. The Church wants the matter closed, too, because of the demon. Everyone I’ve gone to thinks justice was served, everyone but me.”
Aisling shivered. Even for a purse of silver she wasn’t sure she wanted to seek out the dark priest or his followers in the ghostlands. There were malevolent beings that collected human souls just for the song of their terrified cries and the pleasure of hearing their tortured screams. There were dark places that required a heavy toll to enter and an even heavier one to exit. There was knowledge that could shatter a person’s mind and entities who would separate a travelers’ spirits from their body in order to take possession and clothe themselves in human flesh.
“Could you find them?” Elena asked.
“I don’t know.”
Elena’s hand settled on the purse. She pushed it toward Aisling. “We could call this a third of your fee instead of half.” She blinked away tears. “Please, I’ve got to know why they picked me. I have to know if I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time or if someone put Anthony up to it. He was arrogant and spoiled, but he had no reason to hate me or to strike out at Luther. I didn’t see him or any of his followers at the club.”
Aisling looked down at the brightly patterned purse. Temptation writhed with fear in her belly. The bills Father Ursu had given her represented more money than she’d ever possessed, and yet they weren’t enough to buy fresh fruit or vegetables. The silver Elena was offering . . . it was a down payment on a dream Aisling had never dared to believe was possible for her or her family, a life without the fear of being collected by the authorities at will or evicted from land they didn’t own.
She glanced at Aziel, but his eyes were hidden by the curl of his tail. He slept, or pretended to sleep, leaving the decision up to her.
Aisling pushed the pouch back to the center of the table. She couldn’t agree, not now, when the hunger for security burned in her belly so hotly its presence nearly overrode her caution. “I need to think about what you ask.”
Elena’s lips tightened. Irritation flickered in her eyes, only to be followed by more tears. “I’m begging you. At least try. You saved my life last night. You’re the only one who can help me.”
“I can only promise to consider it.”
Elena wiped the moisture from the corners of her eyes. She shoved one hand into the expensive jacket. She ducked her head as if struggling to regain her control, but Aisling was wary, suspicious of the easy tears after the flash of anger.
“Have you heard of Ghost?” Elena asked, taking her fisted hand from her pocket but not looking up.
“No.”
“There’s a club I go to sometimes, when Luther attends social functions with his wife. It’s in the red zone.” Elena glanced up then. “Do you know what that means?”
“No.”
“The police don’t patrol at all. They don’t respond to calls there.
You go into the area at your own risk, knowing it’s dangerous. The clubs hire protection and serve justice in their own way. They lock their doors at dusk and don’t open them until dawn. Some of the clubs are membership only.
“Some of them are open to anyone with the money to get in. Well, anyone human. No shapeshifters, vampires or other supernaturals.
“There are bouncers to make sure only the fully human are allowed inside. Most of the clubs don’t look too closely when it comes to whether the humans have special abilities or practice magic. That’s part of what makes the clubs fun.”
She licked her lips. “What happens in any of the clubs during the night stays there. What happens outside the clubs isn’t questioned either.”
Aisling studied Elena’s expensive jewelry and clothing. She looked beyond it, to the privilege and security it represented. Emotion roiled in her chest, anger and sadness, a railing against the injustice that someone who took survival for granted would seek her thrills in a place like the red zone, while others, like Geneva McConaughey, scraped and toiled to keep a roof over their head and food on the table as they raised children they hadn’t given birth to.
The silence grew heavy around them. Aisling realized her own hands were clenched into fists. She forced her fingers open. She looked at the heavy coin purse on the coffee table and remembered Elena saying she’d been at a club before waking to find herself in the church.