by Ann Charles
“Here goes.” I closed my eyes again.
Focus …
Ignore the scratchiness of Cooper’s palm.
Focus … I took a deep breath through my nose.
Ignore that sour smell underlying the disinfectant.
Focus … I conjured up a black candle in my mind, the one used for protection, not cleansing. Although depending on what I ran into in the dark, my underwear might need some cleansing when this was all done.
Ignore the fact that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing and could run into an orange-eyed, pustule-covered demon with a hard-on for revenge after I blew up a stick of dynamite in his face last time we played hide-and-seek together in the dark.
Damn it, focus!
I lit the black candle, centering on the flame, watching it sway like a belly dancer in the slight breeze. The teardrop bottom undulated in opposition to the pointy tip while the flame swelled and shrank several times.
I took another deep breath, reaching out with my mind but not my hands, as Cornelius had warned in the past. Reaching, reaching, reaching into the dark. Searching for a way that felt right.
Up ahead, I saw something. A gray form emerged from the dark. I brightened the flame to see it better. It looked like … a silver-haired woman. She was dressed in a long gray cloak and looking off to the side.
I edged nearer. I was wary after that damned Hungarian devil had played tricks on me in the past involving a cloaked woman, trying to use my great-grandmother to lure me within reach.
As I slinked closer, I could see her profile. This woman looked different than my grandmother. Younger. Taller. Striking. Not to mention she had no rune stones clacking in her hands.
I tiptoed forward, wondering if she was another Clockmaker. She kind of reminded me of the one Cornelius and I had met previously. They had the same build and both were young.
“Who are you?” I whispered.
She turned to face me. Her features were a swirling blur. The only thing I could see clearly were two bright red eyes staring at me. A dark circle appeared where her mouth should be, and then a high-pitched wail rang out. The blaring screech blasted me onto my ass.
I cried out and opened my eyes.
Son of a mother-humper! I was still in the frickin’ jail, only now the room was draped in thick shadows. Outside the windows, the world was dark. And it was quiet. A thick, cottony quiet that made me want to tip my head to the side and see if water dribbled out my ear.
I fumbled with my flashlight, aiming the beam toward the big cell. Please, please, please let Doc be here.
The cell was empty.
“Shit!” I hunched over in defeat.
Then I realized Cooper’s hand was no longer in mine. “Cooper?” I whispered.
“Who’s that in the corner?” He spoke in a normal volume.
Oh, thank God. He was still with me.
In fact, he was standing behind me. “Which corner?”
He pointed his light toward the cell with the shower. The beam spotlighted a huddled figure.
It looked like the same woman I’d seen in the dark, only she was crouching now. Her long silver hair pooled on the ground around her feet. A gauzy veil shrouded her features under the hood of her cloak. “I think it might be the banshee. I ran into her in the dark. I must have brought her along for the ride this time.”
“That’s just great, Parker.” He grabbed me by my coat sleeve and hauled me to my feet. “Now we’re still not back to where we should be and we have a banshee for company.”
“I’m trying to get back to our regularly scheduled program, Cooper. I swear.” I whirled on him, shaking my finger in his face. “Maybe you could try to motivate me with some positivity for once. I know I’m a general fuckup most days, so I certainly don’t need your help kicking my self-esteem.”
We squared off nose to nose for a few breaths before he sighed and shook his head. “You’re not a fuckup, Violet. Trust me, I understand more now than I used to about the shitty hand you’ve been dealt when it comes to this supernatural crap. I’m just …” He paused, his face crinkling.
“Just what? Pissed off? Frustrated? Mad as a hatter?”
“That last one means crazy.”
“I know that. It rolls off my tongue nicely, though.”
“I’m not crazy.”
“Then what are you right now?”
“I’m worried. What if we can’t get back?”
“Doc will find us.” I wish I felt as confident about that as I sounded. Truthfully, though, my understanding was that the dark was a vast playground full of bullies and monsters. Extra vast. Doc probably had a better chance of finding a black cat in a coal cellar.
“What if Nyce can’t find us?”
“Welcome to my world, Cooper. Every time I help with a séance and step into that dark hell, I don’t know for sure that I’ll be able to come back out. I have to blindly trust that the Oracle will find me.” I shook free of his grip on my coat.
“What are you doing?” he said as I turned my back on him.
“I’m going to see what she wants.” I pointed my light toward the banshee. There had to be a reason for her to be hanging out in that cell.
Cooper grabbed my arm before I’d taken two steps, stopping me. “Parker, this is a bad idea.”
Sheesh, he was grabby tonight. Must be the whiskey making him act more human. “What do you know about banshees?”
He shrugged. “They’re from Irish or Scottish mythology, I think. Or is it Celtic? I don’t know.”
“I mean, what do you know about what a banshee wants from the living?”
“Aren’t they supposed to predict an upcoming death? Like a harbinger of doom.”
“Yeah, I think so.” I nodded toward the stooped figure. “I want to find out why she was in that jail room with Doc and Cornelius. I want to know if the pied piper picked her up with his ghost magnet somewhere along the way. Or if she’d been there from the start and had something to do with the five ghosts in there with her.”
His brow lined. “Or if she came to warn one of us that death is coming soon?”
“God, I hope not.” But, yes, that was another reason I needed to try to make contact with the banshee. “You stay right here while I go see if she’s feeling friendly.” I tried to pull free of him, but he held tight.
“That makes no sense, Parker. We should go together. That’s how partners work during a bust.”
“No, we shouldn’t. Remember when we were in the Galena House with Mr. Black and Ms. Wolff that last time? Doc said he struggled to find you when you were too close to me. Maybe if I step away from you, he’ll be able to pick you up on his radar.”
That was assuming Doc was somewhere out there searching for us in the darkness. I didn’t want to think about how things might go if he wasn’t. Who knew where we’d end up the next time I sat down and started thinking about that dang candle flame.
“Okay.” He let go of me. “But don’t go in the cage with her. Who knows what she’s capable of besides screaming her head off?”
I tiptoed toward the banshee, keeping the light on her. Her wailing started when I drew closer, growing louder with every step. The gauzy veil seemed to breathe along with her cries.
I stopped in front of the cell bars, not sure I wanted to go any farther.
“That’s far enough, Parker,” Cooper said.
“Yep.” We were surfing the same wavelength.
I cleared my throat. “Why are you here?” I asked in a gentle voice, using honey instead of vinegar with the fairy woman.
Her keening stopped.
The hairs on my arms and legs quivered, along with my knees. I gripped the cell bars to steady myself. “Are you here because someone died or because someone is going to die?”
Her head moved slightly, the veil shifting, masking her face. I wasn’t sure if she was nodding or shaking her head or just dancing to her own beat.
“Ask her who she’s here for,” Cooper ordered.
Something soft tickled my knuckles.
When I turned back to the cell, the banshee stood just on the other side of the bars. Her veil brushed against my fingers.
I let out a shout of surprise and stumbled backward a couple of steps, bumping into the cell door behind me.
The banshee pressed her face against the bars. The white veil pulled tight, outlining her chin, mouth, and nose. “You arrrr …” Her high-pitched, screechy voice trailed off.
I was what? I was the reason she’d come tonight? I was the one who was going to die? But wasn’t I supposed to be Irish or Scottish for a banshee to get involved with the process? According to everything I’d learned from Aunt Zoe, I’d come from a long line of German Executioners, so I didn’t fit the bill.
“I am what?” I whispered in the sudden quiet.
“I think you need to get your ass back over here,” Cooper said, his voice tense.
He sounded closer, but I didn’t look back to see. I was too mesmerized by the way her veil billowed in and out over her mouth.
“Maybe she’s the key to returning to Doc and the others,” I told him.
“Or maybe she’s the reason we can’t get back. Step away from the bars, Parker.”
I held up my index finger for him to give me a minute. There must be a reason she was at the jail tonight, and if it were something to do with my death, Cooper needed to hold his damned horses.
Ever since I was a kid, I’d had an irrational fear of rune casting and other types of serious divination, such as palmistry, cartomancy, and scrying, to name a few. Astrology and feng shui and other lighter-weight fortune telling I could handle in small doses, but thanks to my great-grandmother’s obsession with rune stones and her hair-raising comments about me smelling like death and carrying hidden dangers, I decided early on to take each day as it came and let the future be a surprise.
But now, standing face-to-face with a harbinger of doom, I wanted to know if this was all going to end for me.
“Am I going to die soon?” I asked her. And would it be due to one of those damned Nachzehrer? Or did this have to do with the new bounty hunter in town that started the Hellhound clock ticking?
“You arrrrrrr,” she wailed. The veil trembled until her voice died out again.
My chest tightened, making it hard to breathe. I tried to relax, shaking my shoulders looser. A deep breath in. A deep breath out. Now face death head-on.
“I get it,” I told her. “I’m going to be taking a dirt nap soon. But if you could give me a hint about how it’s all going to go down, I’d really appreciate it. I have two children that I’ll be leaving behind.” Two wonderful, smart, loving kids. I had to pause to swallow a lump in my throat. “And a kind, generous man who has taught me what it means to be loved, so if I could have an inkling of how much time I have left, that would be—”
“You arrrrrrr,” she interrupted me, wailing louder this time. Her mouth was stuck in an O shape long after the words died out. She sucked in her white veil, then blew it out. Then did it again. And again.
I stood watching, hypnotized. What was that about?
“What is she doing?” Cooper asked, his voice coming from far away.
She did it again.
“Parker!” His harsh commanding tone made me jump to attention.
I looked around to find him standing next to the door with the little square window. “She’s breathing, I think.”
“Isn’t she dead already? Some sort of fairy ghost?”
“Well, I would think so, but maybe banshees are somewhere between the living and the dead.”
“You arrrrrrr!” the banshee wailed even louder.
I covered my ears through the middle of it, catching what sounded like a tongue trill at the very end.
“I think you need to step back farther,” Cooper said when her keening died down.
I glanced his way. He was looking out through the window in the door. “You think she can get through the bars?”
“Trust me, Parker. It’s best to interrogate a dangerous suspect from a safe distance.”
For once, I agreed with him. I took several backward steps toward Cooper and the door. Something about this banshee didn’t feel right, besides the fact that she was supposed to be a mythological fairy but was now standing right in front of me. I wondered what Dominick would have to say about her kind.
“How much time do I have left?” I asked her, trying once more to get some details about my death.
“You arrrrrrt!” she outright shrieked, and then her hands shot through the bars. Her long, curling fingernails clacked together like crab claws as she tried to catch hold of me.
I leaned safely out of her reach, but held steady. “Cooper, did she add a ‘t’ or ‘d’ to the end of it that time?”
He didn’t answer.
I looked toward the door and he was gone.
“Cooper? Where are you?”
Still no answer.
Spinning this way and that with my light, I checked in the corners and under the beds. What the planets! Where did he go? Had he gone out the door? Why didn’t he wait for me?
I rushed over to the door, but it was locked. I pounded on it, calling out his name, going up on my tiptoes to try to see out the window. Shit! I needed something to stand on.
Taking a few steps back, I tried to think of what to do. I could try the candle flame trick again. But what if Cooper were still here and I left him behind and we couldn’t find him again?
“Cooper!” I yelled, fighting back a blood-pounding rush of panic.
The room was silent.
Except for the slight whisper of cloth across a concrete floor right behind me.
Oh, no.
A cold breath of air curled along my neck and tickled its way across my collarbone. It smelled of damp dirt and rotting flowers, and it chilled me from the inside out. I shivered with fear more than cold. With creaking slowness, I turned around.
The banshee was no longer in her cell. Her white, gauzy veil puffed in and out mere inches from me.
I gulped, my heart kicking at my rib cage with both feet, trying to break out and run for its life.
Maybe now was when I checked out of this world. I could see my tombstone:
Here lies Violet Parker.
She died from having the living shit scared out of her too many times.
The banshee reached up and snagged her veil with one long, curling fingernail. The material slowly lifted.
I should run. I should race to the door, yank it open, leap down the stairs two at a time, and crash out through that emergency exit. I should not stop until I made it home to Aunt Zoe’s, and then hide in my closet with my eyes closed until all this was over. I should …
But I couldn’t, because the stupid, cock-sucking door was locked. Not to mention that my aunt’s place was not of this realm.
The gauzy material climbed higher, revealing a rounded chin. Next came a pair of full lips. Then a narrow nose that turned upward at the tip. Long lashes lined her closed eyelids. Delicately arched silver eyebrows framed the top of her face. And finally, a high forehead creased by thick, silver hair that fell in soft waves around her heart-shaped face.
I drew in a sharp breath. Good golly, Miss Molly! She was gorgeous. Angelic even.
And then she opened her red, glowing eyes and screamed, “YOU ARRRRRRT!”
The shrilling screech sent me reeling backward. I slammed into the bars of one of the single cells. My flashlight crashed to the floor, the beam spinning wildly. Hot pain ripped through my head and sent ripples of agony down through my chest and arms and legs. My knees buckled, but I clung to the metal bars and held myself up.
She glided over to me, bending down until her gaping mouth was right in front of my eyes. Her shrieking wail droned on and on. Spikes of pain jabbed my ears, making my head spin.
I kicked out at her, my boot snagging on her cloak but not making
purchase.
I had to get out of here!
With a grunt of effort, I stumbled toward the door. She followed, still screaming her head off. I grabbed the handle, only to have my legs give out. The door handle turned as I collapsed to my knees. When I teetered backward, the door gave way from the weight of my fall.
How did it get unlocked?
Never mind! Just get up and out!
Struggling to my feet, I lurched over the threshold and onto the landing.
I was screaming along with her now. I couldn’t help it. Everything inside of me was burning and stinging and aching all at once. Before the banshee could follow me, I closed the door and leaned back against it, praying she didn’t know how to use a door handle.
Oh God, what if she could float right through the door?
Her shrieking continued, growing louder in spite of the steel separating us.
I needed to move, but I couldn’t. The sound was deafening, bearing down on me, making me dizzy.
“Cooper,” I whispered, wondering what she’d done to him. Where she’d taken him.
My legs gave out again and I slid down the door, crumpling onto the floor. Pulling my knees to my chest, I closed my eyes and covered my ears. I rocked back and forth to ease the pain, but there was no blocking the high-pitched wail. She was inside of my head and I needed to cast her out. I needed to focus. I needed to … just breathe.
Right, right. It all started with the breath. That’s what Cornelius had told me more than once. I inhaled through my nose, holding it inside my chest for a count of five, and then released it. I took another breath. And another. And another.
When my pulse had finally slowed and the pain had eased slightly, I pictured a candle flame in my mind.
What about Cooper?
Tears filled my eyes. I’d have to try to come back for him later. Right now, I had to get away from the banshee.
I fixed my thoughts on the black candle. The sight of the small, flickering fire surrounded by darkness soothed my nerves. As I stared into the dancing flame, my shoulders relaxed, my pulse slowed, my heart …