She let the container and cloth fall to the floor as she turned. She took advantage of Ilka’s and Felipe’s attention being drawn to her exposed flesh, paused only long enough to ensure that Zurael was free of their touch before stepping in to them and grabbing their wrists.
Understanding flashed in their eyes in the instant the wild rush of the spirit winds jerked their souls from their bodies and hurled them into a swirling, dense fog. Aisling knew her guardians had come to her aid when the gray mist held Ilka and Felipe in unseen restraints.
Fury and murderous rage gave way to cunning speculation and they stopped struggling. “Aren’t you the clever one,” Ilka said. “It’s rare someone bests us, but apparently we’re your prisoners, for the moment. What do you want? Revenge? No I think you’re far too intelligent to waste such a luscious opportunity on something like that. We can offer so much more.”
“I want to know if you’re responsible for creating Ghost.”
Ilka laughed, and her laugh held the supreme confidence of someone who’d always had the security of power and the protection of wealth, who’d believed since birth that the city was her playground and she could do anything she wanted in it.
Felipe chuckled. “I told my dear wife it was a mistake to vote you out of Sinners. Ilka found it hard to believe we’d been so easily manipulated into doing something not in our best interests. It looks like I’ve been proven right.”
“What can I say? I got caught up in the moment, as one does at Sinners. Afterwards I regretted it of course, but there was nothing I could do.”
“True, but I think we can strike a bargain with the shamaness. She’s got a family of sorts, sharecroppers on a farm outside of Stockton I believe my captain said in his report. I suspect she’d like to know they’re not only safe but have the security that comes with owning their own land. Between the guardsmen I control and the real estate your family owns, we can come to a satisfactory arrangement.”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself, Felipe. It’s possible this is her way of getting rid of the competition and taking over the trade in Ghost herself.”
“True. But somehow I don’t think she intends to eliminate us. I have to go with the situation as I see it.” Felipe made a point of examining Aisling’s nakedness then his own and his wife’s. “I believe play is on the agenda for the night, once we can reach an agreement. And I will point out, even before Aisling’s trip to the library, I did tell you it was a mistake to use those snake-handling religious fanatics to distribute Ghost. It was only a matter of time before someone made the connection and found their way to the Fellowship.”
Felipe smiled but there was only calculation in his eyes. “For the record, Aisling, I had nothing to do with the bloodhounds being sent after you last night. It was a routine search, even if Father Ursu initiated it. I wasn’t in the office and it didn’t need my approval.”
Their complete lack of conscience sickened Aisling. Their lack of fear worried her.
She could feel the spirit winds thickening, buffeting against her as if being pushed back by something fighting to get through the gray barrier forming a protective cocoon around them.
“Where’s Aziel?” Aisling asked.
“Aziel?” Felipe’s puzzlement seemed genuine.
“My pet. The ferret I brought with me to Oakland.”
“I don’t know.”
Pain slid through her heart like a knife’s blade. But she believed him. He had little reason to lie and had already demonstrated a complete confidence that he would bargain his way out of a situation that would have left most cringing in terror.
“Are you responsible for creating Ghost?”
Ilka’s smile was sly. “We’ve got a silent partner. But you must have already guessed that. Otherwise you wouldn’t have dared use Ghost on us. If we give you his name, will you kill him?” She laughed. “Not that I blame you. Not that Felipe and I would object. We could sell so much more than our partner produces. And you’ll find it’s easier to gather the necessary ingredients with guardsmen helping-especially when some of the ingredients need to be brought in alive. Even in Oakland, where there are plenty of poor and destitute, it’s not all that easy to make someone disappear.”
Aisling’s stomach lurched and roiled. “Who’s your partner?”
“Can’t you guess?” Ilka said. A silky taunt.
And playing back the things they’d said, what had happened the first time she and Zurael visited Sinners, what they’d learned since then, Aisling could.
It was a mistake to vote you out of Sinners. Ilka found it hard to believe we’d been so easily manipulated into doing something not in our best interests.
You’ll find it far more entertaining to vote her out with the others. She’s a shamaness.
An interesting piece of information, Peter.
“Peter Germaine,” Aisling said, naming the mayor’s brother, the deputy police chief who was no friend to any human with supernatural gifts.
Almost as soon as she’d spoken, Aisling thought she must be wrong because he’d have to be gifted to make Ghost. But before the doubt could settle in, Ilka’s expression offered confirmation, and Felipe echoed it by asking, “Now what?”
The gray wall of fog parted and Elena’s brother stepped through to stand next to Aisling. “Felipe! Ilka! You can’t imagine how glad I am you’re finally here. I should have guessed you had something to do with Ghost.”
John rubbed his fingers over the cable around his neck as if stroking a dog’s collar. He leaned in so his face was inches away from Felipe’s, but the other man didn’t blink, didn’t seem to see Elena’s brother.
“Still under Ilka’s thumb?” John asked. “Still letting her call the shots? I’m curious. Did she order my death? Or did you resent losing business to me? A pathetic reason either way. I hardly made any profit supplying entertainment for your guardsmen, not by the time I shaved my rates to undercut yours. But then dear Ilka never did like me, did she? And if I remember correctly, she absolutely loathed my sister-not that I blame her there. I wish dear Elena could join us, it’s the only thing that would make this show better, but I’m still going to enjoy it immensely.”
He turned to Aisling. “Did you fantasize about me the way I did about you?”
“Why are you here?”
“To set the stage, my beautiful ang-” The steel cord pulled taut, his back arched, and the tattoos of a lawbreaker stood out in stark relief on his face.
John went down to his knees. The metal leash grew slack.
A hint of madness glittered in his eyes. He whispered, “I keep forgetting that where you’re concerned I have to be very, very careful not to offend.”
He reached for Aisling, as if he’d use her to pull himself to his feet. She stepped back, felt the rub of coarse fur against her bare skin and knew the entity represented by the bear fetish stood behind her.
John scrambled to his feet and began walking a circle. The thick strand of cable he’d hung from at his death trailed behind him. And as he paced out the design, the ghost fog thinned to reveal men, women and children by the dozens-all of them staring at Felipe and Ilka with feverish intensity-prevented from moving closer by the boundaries of the circle.
Aisling recognized four of the dead immediately. Their faces were undamaged though their bodies were ripped open. Organs hung by strands of muscle and sinew. Intestines looped to the ground through bloody, tattered clothing. They were the Ghosting men who’d died the night she and Zurael first went to Sinners.
Beside and beyond them were others who’d shared the same fate, men and women sent to their deaths when Felipe and Ilka led the vote. And intermixed with those were victims who’d been executed with shots to the head, who wore ropes or twisted wire around their necks. But they weren’t the most horrible of the dead.