The fingers tracing her spine went to her hair, speared through it, making it impossible to escape even if she’d wanted to. His palm burned where it cupped her mound possessively. His fingers slid inside her, and she lifted her hips so he could thrust deeper.
Zurael’s groan fed her desire, her confidence. She wasn’t alone when it came to the shattering intensity of the hunger that flared to life when they touched.
His grip on her hair tightened. His tongue probed, thrust in the same rhythm as his fingers forged in and out of her channel and his palm glided over her hardened clit.
When she would have sought breath, he allowed her to take only his. When she would have let ecstasy consume her, he forced her to wait.
He was relentless, unyielding. He demanded everything from her.
And she yielded.
He became her world. The only reality until sweet oblivion claimed her at his command.
CHAPTER 15
THE smell of meat cooking on an open fire made Aisling’s stomach clench painfully. It came on a pine-scented breeze along with the sound of music intermixed with human voices.
She touched the knife strapped to her thigh with strips of burlap. The food she’d packed for their trip into The Barrens had been eaten hours, and miles upon miles, earlier, before the first rays of light streaked across the sky.
They’d made up much of the distance they’d lost, by risking the darkness. The sun was rising when they left the ruin of civilization and slipped into thick forest.
At random intervals they continued to find the ancient believer’s symbol carved into a tree or scratched on a cluster of rocks. Narrow deer trails led them deeper into a place where only a little bit of sunlight filtered in, where Nature had reclaimed what had once been ravaged by man. Twice they’d startled foxes from hiding, once they’d found the prints of a large cat-a cougar maybe, or jaguar. Aisling couldn’t tell whether they were pure animals or Were animals.
Zurael stopped her with a hand to her elbow, urged her from the trail and behind a tree so wide she couldn’t have gotten her arms around it if she’d tried. “Stay here,” he whispered, becoming part of the breeze before she could speak.
Aisling slipped the long-bladed kitchen knife from its crude sheath of burlap and waited. Her stomach growled. Her mouth watered as the smell of baking bread joined the cooking meat. Calls of “Amen!” accompanied stomping and clapping, a tambourine and cymbals-the sounds of worship arriving with the tantalizing smell of food.
The hard knot of hunger in Aisling’s stomach became an icy dread. Hot acid rose in her throat.
The promise she’d made in the ghostlands weighed heavily on her: to find whoever was creating Ghost and kill them-or see them dead.
What if it wasn’t a single person but an entire congregation? What if every member of the Fellowship of the Sign could be judged guilty, save the children?
She shuddered. Understood as she hadn’t before, that when Aziel offered Zurael’s name, he’d given her the weapon to use for this task.
The soft swirl of leaves at her feet warned her of Zurael’s return. She didn’t flinch when he solidified next to her, his fingers locked around her wrist to keep her from accidentally using the knife on him. “They worship without having guards posted,” he said. “It’s safe to get closer.”
Aisling sheathed the knife. The voices and music got louder as they moved forward. Her curiosity and trepidation mounted with each step, until once again Zurael pulled her from the path, this time guiding her deeper into the forest until they reached a high spot where the undergrowth provided cover and yet allowed them to look down and witness the gathered church members.
The service was being held in a small clearing. Aisling scanned the gathering for Anya, her tension mounting until she realized she didn’t see any children younger than six or seven.
She looked at the men’s faces and felt relief when she didn’t find the face of the Ghost seller who’d been at Sinners the night she and Zurael went there.
Wooden picnic tables were set up in rows on the opposite side of the clearing. In front of them were several fire circles, each with a spit being turned by a teenage girl dressed in dark, somber clothing, her attention split between the meat she was tending and the preacher who stood behind a wide stone altar.
Two small boys managed fires on either side of the altar, prodding them, raking coal or wood into piles to keep them burning red. And on the altar itself, Aisling counted fifteen rectangular boxes, set haphazardly, as if they’d been placed there in offering.
She wondered what they held, until the rattling began. It came fast and furious. Soft, like the rustle of leaves. The bursts of sound long and short, each different, all distinctive. Especially to one who’d grown up on a farm in the country. Rattlesnakes.
The preacher walked around to stand in front of the altar. His voice carried, deep and rich and persuasive. “Brothers and sisters. You’re here because God led you here. You’re here, part of this community or getting ready to join it, at his will. You already know his words, the words Mark tells us about in chapter sixteen, starting with verse fifteen, but I’m going to tell you again!”
A chorus of “Amen!” met his words
He lifted his arms and pointed toward Oakland. “And He said, ‘Go into the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. Those who believe and are baptized will be saved. Those that don’t believe will be damned. And these signs will follow them that believe.
“ ‘In My name they will cast out devils.
“ ‘They will speak with new tongues.
“ ‘They will take up serpents-’ ”
The preacher opened the closest box and reached in without looking. He pulled out a heavy-bodied rattlesnake.
“ ‘And if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them.
“ ‘They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.’ ”
The preacher reached into a second box, pulled out another rattlesnake, this one green and gray, long and thin.
He raised his arms, holding both of the snakes so the rattles ended up next to his face like beaded hair. “And they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the Word with signs following. Amen!”
“Amen!” the congregation shouted, and a woman started playing a drum, its beat commanding, pulsing through air and earth alike, demanding movement.
Men and women danced, some in place, some toward the altar and the fires the two small boys were tending next to it. An older man reached the preacher and was handed a snake. He draped it around his neck, then opened a box and pulled out another one, holding it to his chest before offering it to a girl who looked sixteen.
The smell of burning flesh reached Aisling. She looked in horror at a teen standing next to a fire, his face a mask of spiritual ecstasy as he held a branding iron against his chest. When he lifted it, he wore the sign of the cross.
Others, some with brands, some without, joined him. And as Aisling’s attention shifted between the two fires, the small boys reheated the irons then offered them to any who came. And lost in faith, or held by it, no one screamed as their flesh burned.
When she finally turned away from the sight, Aisling saw all the boxes open. Men and women both, old and young alike, passed snakes around, handled them. And the rattle of the snakes blended in perfect harmony with the throb of the drum.
A woman in the congregation stood and began prophesying. An older man fell to the ground, writhed, then began speaking in tongues.
Aisling shivered, unable to turn away from the scene. It was equally fascinating and repelling, horrifying and amazing. And for the first time she fully understood how mighty civilizations and the world as it once was had come to be destroyed because of religion.