Aisling felt his tension against her palms, his resistance. She felt him struggle against the truth of her logic and finally yield to it.

“Promise me you’ll send Aziel into the house to make sure it’s empty before you go inside.”

“I promise.”

His hands tightened on her face. His eyes bored into hers. “Be safe,” Zurael said before releasing her and walking away.

Aisling glanced at the sun’s position in the sky and hurried toward the tearoom. She stopped at the shop’s perimeter when Aziel’s claws dug into her shoulder. There were round tables set outside, enclosed by a short wrought-iron fence that looked as if it might once have encircled a prewar garden. Umbrella poles rose from the table centers and a light breeze made the material flutter softly.

Sigils were carved into the gate and the redbrick pathway leading to the front door. Aisling took them in with a glance, recognized them all as standard wards against the use of magic on the premises. Still, she paused, waited for some sign from Aziel because she knew that despite the sigils she could see and read, there might be others she wasn’t aware of that could offset them and allow for subtle manipulations.

“Aisling?” a man’s voice called.

She turned her head. “Javier?”

He was so average-looking that a blink made it hard to remember what he looked like-or so she thought until Aziel drew blood with his claws. Then she realized Javier wasn’t just the owner of an occult bookstore but a sorcerer in his own right-one strong enough to create a glamour spell to mask his appearance or to dim it so he became forgettable.

Aisling turned her head, just enough to brush her cheek against Aziel’s in acknowledgment of his warning. The ferret turned his attention to the tea shop and chirped softly, lifted and lowered his head as if saying yes, then slipped from her shoulder and scampered away before Javier reached them.

“I hope I didn’t scare your pet,” Javier said, offering his hand to Aisling.

A small tremor of nervousness went through her before she could stop it. The fetishes gave her some measure of protection, but caution had ruled her for so long she still hesitated before touching her hand to his.

Javier’s smile reached his eyes. It was charming, persuasive, memorable, as if some of the concealing glamour had faded, thought Aisling, though more likely it had changed for another purpose.

He carried her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss against the back of it. “My assistant didn’t do you justice when she described you after your visit to the shop. You’re beautiful. Enslaving, even.”

Aisling stiffened at his choice of words and the sly gleam that had entered his eyes. She pulled her hand from his and glanced at the tearoom.

“Shall we?” Javier asked.

Aisling preceded him through the open wrought-iron gate. “I’d like to sit out here,” she said, feeling safer in the open.

“A good choice.” He pulled a chair out for her when they reached a table. She slid into it and scanned the area beyond the fence, but didn’t see Aziel.

Raisa emerged from the shop with menus. Simple pictures accompanied the descriptions of food choices, a selection of sandwiches and fruits and cheeses suitable to accompany tea. The teas were listed also, but Raisa recited them rather than ask if Aisling could read. When she’d finished speaking, Javier said, “My treat, of course.”

Aisling fought the urge to touch the folded dollar bills in her pocket. “No. I’ll pay for my own.”

“An independent woman. I like that,” Javier said. “But then I suspect there’s nothing about you I wouldn’t find delightful.”

His flirting made her uncomfortable. The isolation of the farm outside Stockton hadn’t prepared her for dealing with it, and Zurael’s presence in her life made it more unwelcome than it would have been anyway. She needed only Aziel’s reaction to Javier, and her own leeriness about sorcerers and the spell magic they played with, to leave her uninterested in Javier-other than for what information she could gain from him.

They ordered and Raisa went inside the shop. She returned long enough to bring them their tea service before retreating again. Aisling struggled to find the best way to pose her questions.

Javier leaned forward to ask his own. “Aubrey said you mentioned Ghost. You’ve encountered it?”

“Yes,” Aisling said, knowing she’d have to give up some information if she hoped to gain any.

His lips curved in a conspiratorial smile. “I’ll admit to trying it. Once. I’ll also admit to being extremely grateful I survived the experience. But I’m sure you understand Ghost better than I and have greater reason to fear it.”

Aisling parsed through his words, considered the possible meanings. His tone was conversational but his eyes were intent.

“Do you know where it comes from?” she finally asked.

“No, and I suspect it would be very dangerous to get too close to its source, either in this realm or another. The power necessary to create a substance like Ghost, one that allows untalented humans such easy and ready access to the supernatural realms…” He gave a dramatic shudder. “I can only imagine what kind of entities are behind its creation.”

His words rang with truth, enough of it that Aisling felt some of the tension leave her. Raisa appeared with their food and left again.

Aisling studied Javier while they ate. She couldn’t be sure, but she believed whatever disguising glamour he’d been cloaked in had disappeared as they passed through the wards guarding Raisa’s establishment. She thought she was seeing him as he truly was-physically at least. He was attractive, deeply tanned as Zurael was. But where Zurael was a muscled predator with a long mane of hair, Javier was lean, his scalp shaved and free of stubble.

“I find you very attractive,” Javier murmured, as if reading her thoughts about his appearance. “I think you’d find we have a great deal in common if you’d spend some time with me. And I’m very interested in your work.”

She looked down, not wanting to encourage him.

“You asked about Ghost,” Javier said, filling the silence. “I’m curious, understandable given the wide range of books I’ve acquired over the years. Under the right circumstances, could you summon a lingering spirit and require it to possess the physical shell left empty by someone foolish enough to Ghost?”

Images of both Elena and Nicholas-the sigils painted on them-rose like an icy tidal wave. And this time some of the ancestral memories were freed from Aisling’s subconscious.

Her skin crawled as she realized the nature of what the dark priests, or perhaps more accurately, the dark sorcerers, were trying to accomplish. They weren’t making an offering to a Satan-like god. They weren’t making a human sacrifice to feed a spell or gain power. They’d been trying to trap a demon in human flesh, where its strength might be limited though its knowledge would be vast. No wonder Zurael hunted the one guiding them in their pursuits.

Javier’s hand captured hers, forcing her eyes to his. “I’ve shocked you with my question. And now you’re wondering if I have something to do with the sudden rise in sacrificial victims. A reasonable question, one the police ask me almost every time they find a body these days.”

He grimaced and leaned forward, offering a confidence. “What they seem to forget, though I’m sure they’re aware of it-or at least those in power are-is that I spent a great deal of my childhood in the tender care of the Church. The Church itself helped arrange for me to open my store. What better way to monitor how far the non-gifted humans are straying than to know what sinful reading material interests them?”

Javier brushed his fingers over Aisling’s knuckles. But where Zurael’s touch sent liquid hunger through her, Javier’s deepened the chill spreading with every heartbeat.