Fear rushed into Aisling with a force that left her heart pounding violently in her chest. Ghostland winds filled her thoughts with shrieks and wails and tortured summonses. She scrambled to her feet, intent on getting away from the sickly gray paste at the bottom of the container, but the table held her trapped.

Zurael hissed. His coils tightened on her arm as his head lifted from the back of her hand, his mouth open to expose deadly fangs.

Aisling twisted away, trying to escape the trap of furniture and spirit winds. Elena dug her fingers into the container then grabbed Aisling’s bare arm.

There was no time for preparation, no time for Aisling to evoke the names of her guardians or set the necessary protections. Her spirit was ripped from her body and propelled into the ghostlands.

ZURAEL hissed for a second time when ice-cold wind buffeted him as if the spiritlands recognized what he was and tried to deny him entrance. The coils of his snake form tightened on Aisling’s arm. Her whimpered protest sounded in his mind along with the racing beat of her heart. Her fear washed over his tongue to blend with his own.

His father’s kingdom might be deep in the ghostlands, but it was a place apart from it. There were few exits, and those that did exist opened onto metaphysical pathways carved directly to the physical world now claimed by the alien god. Not even those who belonged to the House of the Raven entered this human-born land of cursed spirits.

Aisling’s fingers pushed on one of his coils as if it was a bracelet she wanted to reposition. Confusion slid over Zurael in a hazy overlay that made no sense until images from other trips into the spiritlands slipped through his thoughts like the gray fog swirling around them. A spike of shock went straight to his core with the realization that he was a shadow in Aisling’s mind and she was a shadow in his.

She pushed on his coils again, and he noticed she was completely naked, her golden hair unbound, and even in a snake’s form he reacted to the sight of her. Heat swamped him, burned him almost to the point of pain.

She whimpered and shifted his coils again. Distress was written on her face.

With sudden clarity he realized he was hurting her. He was a creature of fire, and in this place the separation between form and essence was thin. If she stripped him from her arm and cast him into the mist, he would become ifrit as surely as those Djinn who’d killed the ones who bound them.

His coils tightened involuntarily. She whispered, “Stop. I can’t think. I can’t stay safe.”

Zurael watched her face as he slowly loosened the coils. He felt her relief as the swirling gray mist caressed and cooled her skin.

The landscape cleared as her heart rate slowed and her distress faded. He looked around and was surprised by the barrenness, by the endless sea of empty gray.

He’d expected horrific sights and terrified beings. He’d imagined a bloody landscape filled with tortured screams.

As he thought it, the scene around them changed. A wall of gray parted to reveal the skeletal remains of burned-out buildings.

Men and women wearing tattered clothing sat in hollowed doorways, moaning, rocking, oblivious to anything around them. Machine guns rattled in the distance. Rats made no pretense of hiding as they feasted on human carcasses.

Elena stood in the middle of the street shrieking. She stopped when Aisling stepped through the opening and into the scene.

“This isn’t what I want!” Elena screamed. Her terror became anger as she focused her attention on Aisling.

A man stepped out of an alley. His face was marked with a criminal’s tattoos. His hands were bound behind his back. A metal cable twisted around his neck then trailed down his back. It slithered behind him as he walked toward Elena, though Zurael couldn’t see its end.

“It’s not what you want,” the man said. “But perhaps it’s what you deserve, sister dear. I see you are unfortunately… still alive.”

Elena threw her hand up as if she could repel him with the gesture. She scuttled backward and sideways until she reached Aisling.

“No,” Elena said, grabbing Aisling’s arm just as she’d done in the living room with Ghost on her fingers. “Make this go away. This isn’t what I want.”

“What do you want?” Aisling asked.

Zurael saw the image form in Aisling’s mind. He felt the spirit winds swirl and eddy as they gathered in order to do Aisling’s bidding even before Elena said, “Sinead.”

Time slowed. Aisling’s heart lingered between beats.

The scene around them didn’t fade, but a woman stepped through the grayness. Black leather molded to her body. Bloodred lips curled upward. Her laugh was a throaty invitation.

She slapped the riding crop she carried against her thigh. “So you found me at last.”

Her attention shifted to Elena’s brother. Her eyes widened momentarily. She laughed again as she reached up and fondled the tightly wound scarf around her neck. “It appears dear John and I met similar ends, though of course I went out thrashing in orgasm. I imagine he can’t say the same.”

Her hand left her neck. She offered it to Elena. “Come, my pet. Let’s make your visit a good one.”

Elena released Aisling’s wrist and went to Sinead. The gray fog rose as soon as their hands touched. When they turned to leave, it engulfed them completely then spread to block out the gutted buildings and lost souls.

“Well, that’s an interesting turn of events and a titillating secret I’m sure my sister prays won’t get out,” John said. “You’ll come to regret saving her life. But who am I to complain?”

He shrugged and his hands were suddenly free. He stretched his arms and rotated his wrists and shoulders. “Your mistake is my gain.”

He waved his hands in front of them and the mist at their feet thinned. Zurael felt Aisling shiver as gray faded to red clay, and the scattered bone-carved fetishes along with her discarded athame were revealed.

With a casual toss, Elena’s brother threw the hawk figurine onto the ground. A hint of cruelty settled in his eyes. “Time to pay up.”

AISLING knelt on the ground. Zurael could feel the wild beating of her heart, but her hand was steady as she picked up the raven and stood it on the dirt. The spider came next, to the right and down, just as she’d positioned it earlier, east to the raven’s north. South was marked by the serpent, west by the bear.

He rode the wave of her thoughts and knew whatever debt she owed would now be paid at a higher cost. And though he couldn’t touch the names of the ones she offered her blood in payment to, he could sense she didn’t fear the spirits represented by the fetishes.

Her heart thundered because she was afraid of what they might reveal to her. She feared what they might ask of her, what they might demand.

A tendril of guilt uncurled deep in Zurael’s chest. He regretted his part in this. He’d acted without thought when he’d pinned her to the ground and kept her from making this offering of blood in the shaman’s ceremony room.

Aisling leaned forward to pick up the hawk fetish. Unlike before, this time it didn’t yield its position in the center of the other four.

Elena’s brother clicked his tongue. Zurael’s coils tightened involuntarily when she picked up the athame. He felt the streak of fiery pain shoot through her arm and forced himself to loosen his grip on her.

Aisling placed the tip of the blade to the right of the raven and drew an arc to the spider. She placed the tip of the blade to the right of the spider and drew an arc to the serpent, and then an arc from the serpent to the bear and back to the raven so they were all connected in a circle.

“Take my blood as you will,” she whispered in a soft, melodic voice. “It is freely offered in payment for the aid you have given me.”