Free Ghostland by Jory Strong Page B

detail so Aisling recognized each one of her family members. They were scattered, as though they’d died where they’d fallen.
    Pain lodged in her chest and throat. Tears fell from her eyes, dropping into the pool and sending waves across its surface until there was nothing but her own reflection.
    “How can I stop this from happening?” she whispered, turning her head so she could look at Elena’s brother.
    As if her question released him from his supplicant’s pose, he stood. “Find the ones responsible for creating Ghost, then kill them.”
    “Ghost is responsible for this?” She didn’t doubt the vision, but she found it hard to understand how it could be possible. No one in her family would be tempted by a substance that cast them into the spiritlands without protection.
    “And more,” John said, waving his hand over the pool of blood.
    Oakland’s skyline came into view and with it additional carnage. Only in this scene the living danced with glee, their heads thrown back in howls of victory.
    They feasted on the dead, but they weren’t shapeshifters scavenging or the creatures that emerged from hiding after The Last War and the plague. They were malevolent entities from the ghostlands who’d found a pathway back to the place they’d once called home.
    Aisling shivered at the sight of their maniacal pleasure. It was her darkest fear that while she was in the ghostlands her physical body would be possessed and whatever tied her spirit to it severed.
    She closed her eyes and sought a place of calmness. On the screen of her thoughts the sequence of events played out like a net she grew more and more entangled in—the guardsmen and Father Ursu arriving to take her from her home, the bishop and Father Ursu giving her no true choice but to enter the spiritlands in order to look for Elena, Elena’s brother appearing, his help offered on the condition she remain in Oakland . . . Zurael.
    She opened her eyes to glance at the serpent coiled around her arm. He burned with the fires of hell.
    “I must personally kill the ones creating Ghost, or I may see them dead?”
    John cocked his head. A heartbeat passed. “Either works, as long as the conduit is closed.”
    Aisling didn’t know how the spiritlands were held open so the winds could flow over an earthly substance and create a doorway into the ghostlands. But she knew such a feat couldn’t be accomplished unless powerful forces in the spirit world were involved.
    “I will be protected?”
    John’s laugh was a sharp, angry bark. “What more do you need? You—” His head snapped back as the cable pulled tight.
    Aisling braced herself for the sound of his screams, but this time they didn’t come. The mist began to gather instead. It swirled around his feet and quickly swallowed his legs and hips, signaling that soon others would come to answer her questions, and their help would not be offered without a cost.
    She looked down. The pool of blood held only her reflection. The raven, spider, serpent, and bear fetishes stood as sentinels. The beings they represented waited only for her decision before they would end the ceremony and accept her offering.
    A heavy weight settled in Aisling’s heart. She didn’t know what stain would be left on her soul, but to save her family there was only one choice. “I will kill whoever is responsible for creating Ghost, or see them dead.”
    As soon as the words were spoken, the gray mist claimed Elena’s brother. Then it rushed over Aisling with a force that drove her out of the ghostlands.
    Zurael was aware of the ferret’s presence immediately. Aziel was draped over Aisling’s shoulder, close enough that he could launch himself and sink sharp deadly teeth into the snake’s form.
    Zurael hissed. He kept his fangs exposed as he slowly uncoiled himself from her arm and dropped to the dirt in the shaman’s ceremony room.
    Rage roared through him as he realized the true extent of the crime Elena committed when she