The scene that greeted her differed from what she’d expected, but was equally horrifying. Black candles lit a room laid out in preparation for an unholy ceremony. Nicholas lay gagged, struggling and fighting against tethers, cuts marring the perfection of his body-small knife wounds made to draw blood for the now-familiar sigils painted on his skin.
Two robed figures were in the room. As they approached the altar, one of them parted his robe to reveal a stiffened cock. He slid his hand up and down his shaft. “We’ve got time. Plenty of ceremonies start this way. Besides, aren’t you curious about why your mother is so hot for him?”
“I’d rather piss on him than fuck him.”
“Suit yourself. But not until after I’m finished with my fun.”
Reflexively Aisling touched the entwined couple of Nicholette’s necklace. A matching one seemed to writhe where it lay on Nicholas’s heaving, fear-slick chest.
Aisling curled her fingers around the fetish pouch, pressed the jasper pendant to soft leather. Aziel?
He shifted on her shoulder, studied the scene intently. This isn’t the trap I expected, the one I wanted you to see and understand. There’s no spell here to capture anyone you might summon. I will give you a name. But you will have no control over the one you call.
The black-robed figure climbed onto the altar and knelt between Nicholas’s legs. His hands reached underneath splayed thighs, wrenched Nicholas upward and Aisling shuddered in revulsion of the rape about to take place.
There was a fleeting thought to ask what it would cost her, but she didn’t give it voice. What is the name?
Irial, Raven prince, son of Iyar en Batrael.
Not even a heartbeat passed between the end of Aziel’s silent communication and Aisling’s spoken summons. This time she felt no shock of terror when the demon arrived, black-winged and black-taloned, furious death given physical form.
The robed figures died in a spray of blood, their heads nearly severed from their bodies. When the demon’s attention turned to Nicholas, his fury like waves of lava-uncaring who was destroyed in the flow of molten hate and deadly retribution-fear engulfed Aisling.
It tried to freeze her in place like a rabbit in the shadow of a hawk, but she managed to say, “No! Please don’t!” and the sound of her voice turned Irial away from the altar.
Everything she’d seen in Zurael’s face the night she summoned him, she saw again in Irial’s. The demon rushed toward her, as if only just then understanding she was the one who’d called his name on the spirit winds.
The protective circle flared to life when he got to her, flashed in his green eyes like small flames burning with the absolute promise of death. But then his head turned slightly, and he stilled completely at the sight of Aziel.
Furious rage and unrelenting hatred gave way to subtle surprise and a glimpse of understanding. The threat of violence disappeared like a doused fire.
Aisling became aware of Irial’s masculine perfection, how similar he was to Zurael. And as if thinking it forged a link between them, Irial met her eyes again. Only this time a stylized raven graced his cheek the same way a serpent coiled around Zurael’s forearm.
“Do you trust that one with your life, little shamaness?” Irial asked, tilting his head toward Nicholas, who lay shivering on the altar, streaked with gore, his ankles and wrists raw and bleeding from his struggles.
The ease with which Irial identified her, the casualness of his address, made Aisling’s heart race. But she didn’t hesitate in saying, “Yes. His sister asked for my help. I trust him.” She glanced at the bodies on the floor then back at Irial. “Will you free him?”
“I will free him.”
“Thank you.”
Irial’s eyes darkened, and for the first time they swept downward, over her nakedness. “I understand better your allure,” he said before turning his back and walking to the altar.
Unbidden, the spirit winds swept in, but rather than restore her to her physical body, they carried her back to the ghostlands, to another room and another circle, to a place that once made her think of ancient Greek temples but now made her think of desert lands and a time before humans existed.
Arched doorways formed the walls on all four sides. Gauzy, pastel-colored curtains held the gray of the ghostlands out. Sigils created with priceless gems sparkled in the stone floor. Some glowed so brightly they would imprint on her retinas if she looked at them too long.
Aisling sighed in relief. In the spiritlands all things came at a cost. There’d been no time to contemplate the price of saving Nicholas, no time even to ask what would be required of her. Now she knew she was to pay Aziel for Irial’s name.
It was a heavy price, but one she had always paid willingly. The other spirits who guided her took her blood or a promise of service. Aziel took a part of her soul, what the ancient Egyptians had once labeled ka, the life force.
Aziel slid from her shoulder and settled on one of the jeweled symbols as he’d done any number of times before, as he’d done in each of the forms he’d taken as her companion.
He recognized you, she said, thinking of the instant when Irial saw Aziel, wanting answers, as she always had, but wanting them more desperately now.
Perhaps.
You’re demon. She made it a statement. Hesitated slightly then added, As is my father.
Aziel’s amusement reached her, a sharing of emotion rather than thought, the bond between them stronger in this place. What’s in a name, when it’s given by another and not claimed by the one it’s given to?
The question made Aisling blush and look away. Memories of a similar question crowded in, where she stood naked in front of the bathroom mirror with Zurael.
Do you remember what I looked like beneath the moon and regret letting me cover you, pierce you? Does my form change the nature of who I am? Does it define me?
No.
Then look at me, watch while I take you.
Without conscious thought, Aisling’s fingers curled around the entwined lovers of Nicholette’s necklace, and in the cool of the spiritlands the jasper was warm against her palm. A fleeting, hazy image appeared, an impression of Nicholette writhing on silken cushions in this circle, the curtains in the archways billowing as a man lay on top of her, thrusting into her-and Aisling knew Aziel’s interest hadn’t been feigned.
She let go of the necklace, didn’t want him to feel the childish, selfish insecurity that attacked her and held the larger fear of losing him at bay. But in this place, it was impossible, the bond between them too strong, too deeply ingrained. He’d been with her from her earliest memory. He was father and brother, spirit guide and best friend.
It’s not time for me to leave you yet, he said, and his love surrounded her like a blanket, warmed her so deeply that there was no room for fear or worry about the future.
She let her mind drift, only barely noticing the sigils, flaring and subsiding in random order, as if an unseen hand played notes she couldn’t hear. Tiredness came first, with the faint outline of her clothing as her life, her ka, drained away. Exhaustion came next and she wrapped her arms around bent knees, could almost feel the fabric of the pants she wore in the living world. Lethargy followed and she rolled to her side in a fetal ball, closed her eyes because she didn’t want to see how close to physical death Aziel would take her.