Read Online Ghostland by Jory Strong - Free Book Online Page B

clubs are membership only.
    “Some of them are open to anyone with the money to get in. Well, anyone human. No shapeshifters, vampires or other supernaturals.
    “There are bouncers to make sure only the fully human are allowed inside. Most of the clubs don’t look too closely when it comes to whether the humans have special abilities or practice magic. That’s part of what makes the clubs fun.”
    She licked her lips. “What happens in any of the clubs during the night stays there. What happens outside the clubs isn’t questioned either.”
    Aisling studied Elena’s expensive jewelry and clothing. She looked beyond it, to the privilege and security it represented. Emotion roiled in her chest, anger and sadness, a railing against the injustice that someone who took survival for granted would seek her thrills in a place like the red zone, while others, like Geneva McConaughey, scraped and toiled to keep a roof over their head and food on the table as they raised children they hadn’t given birth to.
    The silence grew heavy around them. Aisling realized her own hands were clenched into fists. She forced her fingers open. She looked at the heavy coin purse on the coffee table and remembered Elena saying she’d been at a club before waking to find herself in the church.
    Aisling made herself meet Elena’s gaze and ask, “Is Ghost the place you were taken from?”
    “No.”
    Elena edged her chair forward, crowding the coffee table so it moved to press against Aisling’s legs. She opened her hand to reveal an etched container. It looked like a miniature snuffbox or a pillbox, something seen only in private collections and the history books Geneva collected when she could acquire them for almost nothing.
    “Ghost is a . . . substance. An incredible, powerful substance.” Elena rubbed her thumb over the top of the container. Her eyes sought Aisling’s. Without saying anything else, she opened the box.
    Fear rushed into Aisling with a force that left her heart pounding violently in her chest. Ghostland winds filled her thoughts with shrieks and wails and tortured summonses. She scrambled to her feet, intent on getting away from the sickly gray paste at the bottom of the container, but the table held her trapped.
    Zurael hissed. His coils tightened on her arm as his head lifted from the back of her hand, his mouth open to expose deadly fangs.
    Aisling twisted away, trying to escape the trap of furniture and spirit winds. Elena dug her fingers into the container then grabbed Aisling’s bare arm.
    There was no time for preparation, no time for Aisling to evoke the names of her guardians or set the necessary protections. Her spirit was ripped from her body and propelled into the ghostlands.

    ZURAEL hissed for a second time when ice-cold wind buffeted him as if the spiritlands recognized what he was and tried to deny him entrance. The coils of his snake form tightened on Aisling’s arm. Her whimpered protest sounded in his mind along with the racing beat of her heart. Her fear washed over his tongue to blend with his own.
    His father’s kingdom might be deep in the ghostlands, but it was a place apart from it. There were few exits, and those that did exist opened onto metaphysical pathways carved directly to the physical world now claimed by the alien god. Not even those who belonged to the House of the Raven entered this human-born land of cursed spirits.
    Aisling’s fingers pushed on one of his coils as if it was a bracelet she wanted to reposition. Confusion slid over Zurael in a hazy overlay that made no sense until images from other trips into the spiritlands slipped through his thoughts like the gray fog swirling around them. A spike of shock went straight to his core with the realization that he was a shadow in Aisling’s mind and she was a shadow in his.
    She pushed on his coils again, and he noticed she was completely naked, her golden hair unbound, and even in a snake’s form he reacted to the sight of her.