Always Be My Banshee

by Molly White

  What had she felt from that casket that had taken her so? For as long as he lived, he would never forget the expression on her lovely face as she looked at it, a terrible mix of dread and desire. She’d wanted to touch it, and he could only thank the small, instinctual shred of self-preservation that had kept her from making contact. Just being in the same room was enough to knock her out for hours.

  He reached out, touching his fingers to her wrist to assure himself that the machines weren’t lying, that her heart was still beating. Her skin was so warm and soft, and it felt so good that he immediately felt guilty and withdrew his hand—only for her fingers to tangle with his. She drew a sharp breath through her nose and opened her eyes. For a split second, she looked terrified, jerking away from him, her eyes wide and panicked.

  “It’s all right! I’m right here. It’s all right, love.”

  “Where am I?” she whispered, glancing down at their joined hands. He slipped his fingers away from hers, reluctantly. He didn’t want to compound her discomfort with physical contact.

  “The community clinic,” he murmured back. “You’ve been checked over by the doctor and he says you’re fine. No lasting damage, but you’re under strict orders not to go back to the rift site for at least a week, if not more.”

  She cleared her raspy throat. “That’s going to make it difficult for us to do our jobs.”

  “Well, considering it was your direct supervisor that gave those strict orders, I think you’re safe. You scared the hell out of her,” Brendan said.

  “What am I going to do with all my time?” Cordelia asked.

  Brendan’s jaw dropped. “You’re in hospital and that’s your biggest worry?”

  “Work keeps me from going crazy. I haven’t been left to my own devices in years.”

  “I’m sure Jillian will be able to find something for you,” he assured her. “From the comfort of your sofa. She’ll probably start with a nice long report on what you felt from the casket to make you faint.”

  She groaned. “This is so embarrassing.”

  “Well, better embarrassed than dead, as me dear sainted mother always said.”

  Cordelia laughed. “No, she didn’t.”

  “You don’t know that,” he scoffed. “My mam spent a good deal of time discussing death and all death-related matters. It was the family’s favorite topic.”

  “Well, I guess that makes sense, given your situation. You were holding my hand when I woke up,” Cordelia noted.

  He cringed. “I’m sorry about that. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “I still don’t feel anything from you,” she mused. “It’s just sort of white noise, like a fan you turn on when you can’t sleep.”

  “I’m trying to figure out a way that’s not insulting,” Brendan said.

  “It’s not an insult, it’s a relief,” she sighed. “Having this gift, it keeps me away from people. I’m tired of being kept away.”

  He replied. “I know the feeling.”

  “So what’s it like growing up in Ireland? I’ve been trying to picture it and I keep going back to Darby O’Gill and the Little People,” Cordelia said.

  “Gah, that movie did so much more harm than good.” He snorted. “I’ve met very few actual leprechauns. I have lots of loud redheaded uncles, many of them only loud whilst drunk, but it still counts. And for the love of all that’s holy, never mention football around my Uncle Stephen. He will bore you with the full details of every bad Cork City call in the last ten years. And every time there’s a holiday, there’s lots of food, lots of prodigal daughters returning home. Which is a little sad sometimes. I see how much the gift wears on my cousins. They know too much. That’s why I decided to work for the League, handling artifacts that are too dangerous for others to touch; it keeps me from that.”

  She seemed to consider him for a long moment. “So you’re dead?”

  He waggled his hands back and forth. “As Jillian said, technically speaking.”

  “How does that work?” she asked. “Also, I thought banshees were supposed to be female ghosts.”

  “Ghosts, no. We’re a sort of hybrid, dating back to when humans first made contact with the fae,” he said. “There are a lot of different stories. One of our kind lost her child, lost her husband, lost her mother, lost her lover—someone was lost, we know that much. And she was so shattered by grief, she honed her cries like a weapon to warn others. Over time, her will to see danger coming, to open her eyes to the future, worked its way into our very blood, and here we are. The first time you see someone’s death, your heart stops and you scream their death song. You go from being a normal, living person to the walking dead. You can breathe, though it’s more about getting the air to work your vocal cords than a need for oxygen. You still eat and drink if you like, but your body stops aging. And you’re stuck in that state forever. My poor cousin Eloise bloomed early and has been an awkward fifteen-year-old for two decades now. It seems cruel, but only the dead can sing for the dead. There’s a lot of nonsense about us appearing in different disguises, a beautiful maiden, the loving mother, the crone. Sometimes, people say that we appear as a dear departed member of the family. But really, it’s just us. People see what they want to see.”

  She smiled, but there was a bitter twist to it. “That is a principle I’m well familiar with. So, you’re immortal?”

  “Not exactly,” he said. “We’re around longer than most. My great-gran ‘lived’ until she was one hundred and fifty. And when your time comes and you feel like you’ve sung your last death song, you pass over with that person.”

  “And you can’t change anything about the deaths you foresee?”

  “No,” he said, immediately. “It’s not our place to change fate. It’s against our code.”

  “This is going to sound like a stupid question, but why…?” she asked. “This seems like such a cruel gift—to see someone die and not be able to do anything about it.”

  “We consider it a sort of public service, warning people what’s to come, to hold their loved ones close and make the most of their lives,” he insisted. “Not to waste time. And in rare cases—very rare, mind you—a properly superstitious Irishman will heed our screams and change their course. We can’t save them, but they can save themselves.”

  “Well, I would certainly change travel plans if I heard one. If it makes you feel any better, seeing the past isn’t a more comfortable gift than seeing the future.”

  “It does help, thank you,” he told her.

  She laughed, and her fingers were still twined with his. “But they didn’t make you leave or anything, right? Because you’re a boy banshee?”

  “I’m a man banshee, thank you very much. And no, it’s not like they were ashamed of me. Not to brag, but I’m a bit of a miracle, really, there are only two other male banshees in our known history, and they passed hundreds of years ago. The bansidhe stick to themselves, generally. There are three, maybe four banshee families in Ireland. A family usually lives together, clustered in houses like our own little villages. Once a banshee knows she has the voice, she leaves the settlement for some remote countryside town in need of a little mysticism. My family operates from a compound outside Cork, all of the non-banshees bunched together in a group of cottages on a farm, because who else would understand? Who else would welcome us home?

  “Most of my relatives spend their lives alone, outside of a village, waiting for the call to sing,” he said. “A lucky few find mates and end up moving back to the farm, because again, who else would understand? We never know who’s going to be born a banshee. It skips around, I suppose. My mother’s as human as they come, but my sister Colleen and I both have the voice.”

  “Was your mother angry that she isn’t a banshee?” Cordelia asked.

  His brows furrowed, as if she’d asked an odd question. “No, it was a bit of a relief for her. She wanted a normal human lifespan with my da. She didn’t want to go on living without him.”

  “That’s sweet. Are yo
u the only banshee working for the League?” Cordelia asked.

  “I have no way of knowing,” he said. “It says something, though, that they sought me out for this job. Means there can’t be that many creatures like me on the roster.”

  Cordelia tilted her head. “And why did you take a job like this?”

  “My sister, Colleen, she only just screamed her first death earlier this year. Normally, the family would help her find some spit of land for herself, but things have been a little tight lately. Just a lot of little things that have added up—taxes, my Uncle Fergus wrecked my mam’s van, Da’s been sick and hasn’t been able to work.” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “This sounds so pathetic coming out of my mouth.”

  The corner of Cordelia’s mouth lifted into a sympathetic expression, even as she teased. “All that’s missing is your dog getting sick and your life would be a country-western song. No, wait, your woman would have to cheat on you, too.”

  “First, I would have to have a woman,” Brendan said.

  Cordelia pursed her lips. “This is a very sad country song.”

  He burst out laughing. “Colleen’s desperate to leave. It’s not that she doesn’t love the family, but she’s always been a bit more of a loner, and living in such cramped quarters is downright miserable for her. She needs solitude like other people need oxygen. Well, with Colleen needing to strike out on her own, and money running low, this seemed like the right chance at the right time to step in and help her. Colleen and I have always been thick as thieves. It was hard on her when I left, and I’ve never felt right about it.”

  “And now, you’re deeply, deeply regretting your decision?” Cordelia asked.

  He nodded. “Precisely.”

  There was a soft knock at the door and Dr. Carmody poked his head through the opening. “Hi there, just wanted to check on the patient. Hi, Cordelia. I’m Dr. Carmody, Sonja’s man-friend.” At Brendan’s raised eyebrows, he added, “Sonja says we’re too old for the word ‘boyfriend.’”

  Dr. Carmody was just as big as all the men in this town seemed to be, with reddish hair and a strange polished gray stone bracelet that clashed with his sharply tailored dress pants and shirt.

  “Nice to meet you. When can I get out of here?” Cordelia asked.

  “Right to business, I see,” Will muttered. “I respect that. I don’t see why you can’t leave, as long as your vitals are normal.”

  Will paused to slide on a pair of exam gloves. Brendan watched as Will checked Cordelia over with detached professionalism…and he still wanted to slap his hands away from her. He slipped his fingers away from Cordelia’s and sat back in his chair. It couldn’t be healthy for him to feel that way for a woman he’d known for maybe twenty-four hours. And if she was anything like his mam or his aunts, it definitely wouldn’t be healthy telling her he felt all possessive of her, because she’d kick his arse.

  “Well, Ms. Canton, you are hereby released on your own recognizance. Get a good meal into you, get a good night’s sleep tonight, and you should be fine tomorrow. If this happens again, I release you into Sonja’s supervision. She will feed you nothing but vegetables and make you watch reality TV in a punitive fashion. And as funny as I would find that, I don’t think that’s what you want. Also, you should know I have told Jillian, Sonja, and your partner that you are not to return to work for at least a week. You need to let your brain and your vascular system recover before you try again. Trust me, I’ve been close to the rift and to that cursed casket. You need to give your body a break.”

  Cordelia threw aside the thin, gray hospital blanket. “Has everybody in town been out to the rift site? I thought the place was supposed to be a secret.”

  “No, you’ve just spent a lot of time in the company of the biggest idiots in town,” Will told her as she stood up.

  The back of her hospital gown was open, revealing a tiny pair of lacy panties as red as sin. Brendan’s mouth dropped open at the sight of her little heart-shaped bum. He should look away. He knew that, but he just couldn’t seem to force his eyes from the curve of her back and the way her waist tapered down at her hips. And saints help him, she had tiny dimples just above her ass. He adored tiny dimples just above a woman’s ass.

  Cordelia, on the other hand, seemed to feel the draft and squeaked, her hands going for the flaps of her gown to close it.

  “Uh, sorry about that,” Will muttered.

  Brendan clapped his hand over his eyes.

  He was going straight to hell.

  Cordelia was shuffling down Main Street with a determined air, passing a gray and navy building labeled The Ice Cream Depot. She was wearing pants again, which Brendan mourned privately, though he would never tell her so.

  “Are you sure you’re up for this?” he asked her, hovering at her elbow because he couldn’t shake the feeling she was going to collapse again.

  “Yes, Will said to get a good meal,” she insisted. “I don’t think I have it in me to even warm up the food in my fridge. And I didn’t get to finish my pie earlier, so right now, I’m going to make a meal out of some pie.”

  Brendan’s eyes narrowed. “And then you’ll go get some sleep?”

  “I just took a nap!” Cordelia exclaimed

  “A small coma does not constitute a nap, woman.”

  “What part of ‘released on my own recognizance’ don’t you understand?” Cordelia demanded.

  “I think I miss you being unconscious,” Brendan mused.

  Cordelia snorted. As they reached Bathtilda’s, he opened the door and was nearly bowled over by the sheer wall of noise that poured out of the building. The pre-Civil War structure was a bit worn, but sparkling clean from its black and white checkered tile floor to the emerald green pressed tin roof. Mismatched glass cake stands displayed an array of pies on the counter. The crowded booths were close together and lined with cracked green vinyl. A strange mishmash of paintings decorated the walls—a desert landscape, a painting of a gray kitten, an old icon of a Russian Orthodox saint. They had nothing in common aside from each of them involving gold foil.

  Cordelia paused at the door. “That is a lot of people.”

  “Yes, it is. You sure you’re up for this?” Brendan asked.

  Cordelia huffed out a breath, pulling a pair of white cotton gloves from her pocket. “Please stop asking me that.”

  “Cordelia, Brendan, hey there!” a voice boomed from across the dining room. Cordelia’s shoulders jerked as Zed Berend jumped up from his booth full of people. The mayor was fully dressed this time, but Brendan couldn’t help but be a little jealous when Cordelia wrapped her arms around his waist.

  “Not that I mind a good hug, and I’m fortunate enough that Dani isn’t the jealous type,” Zed asked, patting her back. “But I thought you didn’t like touching?”

  “I’m telling you, it’s like hugging a person made of candy floss,” she sighed. Zed glanced up at Brendan.

  “She’s had a rough day,” Brendan told him.

  “Aw, I’m sorry, bebelle.” He patted her back again. “Why don’t you come meet some people and we’ll get you fixed up. You, too, Irish.”

  With his arm still around Cordelia’s waist, Zed led her to his table, which he was sharing with a broad-shouldered woman with gray hair. Zed shooed Brendan and Cordelia into the empty side of the booth and pulled a chair up to the end, straddling it. Seated against the wall, Cordelia kept her hands under the table as she pulled on her gloves. He understood her nervousness. There were so many people in this small room, so many voices and fates. He reached under the table and squeezed her covered hand. She squeezed it back.

  The mayor gestured grandly while introducing them. “This is my beloved maman, Clarissa Berend. Maman, Brendan O’Connor and Cordelia Canton.

  The woman gave them a warm smile. “I’m sure you two have met a legion of people. Don’t worry, the introductions will stop soon. Though, I’m given to understand I should expect a marriage proposal from you at some point.”
r />   “Treachery!” Brendan gasped. “Jillian seemed so trustworthy!”

  “We’re going to need to talk about a dowry,” Zed told him.

  “I will love you from afar,” Brendan promised Clarissa, who preened.

  Zed gagged quietly. “Not OK, Irish. Not OK.”

  A compact little woman with a grumpy, heavily-lined face shuffled over to the table and slid two plates in front of Brendan and Cordelia. “Here, this is what you need.”

  “We didn’t order yet,” Brendan protested as the little woman eyed him suspiciously.

  “It’s better to let Siobhan choose your pie for you,” Clarissa said.

  “What?” Cordelia asked.

  “Trust us, bebelle,” Zed replied.

  “Has it been tampered with?” Brendan asked dryly. It pained him to be so flinty with another creature from his home country, but the brownie had violated his morning coffee. There were limits to what a man would tolerate.

  “I told Jillian that was a bad idea,” Zed muttered.

  “Worth it,” Cordelia said, scooping her pie into her mouth.

  “No, it hasn’t been tampered with, bansidhe. Just keep to yours and I’ll keep to mine,” Siobhan told him.

  His dark eyes narrowed at the brownie. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Don’t interfere with my work and I won’t interfere with yours.” She scowled at him.

  “I think that can be arranged if you don’t dose my dessert with magical truth serum,” Brendan said.

  “Fair enough.” The brownie shrugged her scrawny shoulders and walked off.

  Of all the things he expected to find in front of him in a pie shop in southern Louisiana, banoffee pie was not on the list. He dug into the crust filled with bananas, toffee, and custard and tasted home—but better than home, because Lord love them, not one of his family members could make a decent pie crust. He felt a weight glide off of his shoulders and for just a moment, he didn’t have to feel responsible for the fate of every single person in the room.