Free Ghostland by Jory Strong

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