Banshee Blues (Bones and Bounties Book 1)

by Bilinda Sheehan

  “I did not kill Martina Ricer. This is all far too gratuitous. Whoever did kill her took their time, enjoyed it, and showed no mercy.” I allowed the small details I had gleaned from the photographs to soak into my mind.

  I didn’t need to have those sick images in my head, but Martina deserved to have her killer brought to justice. Her real killer, that is, and there was no way I would take the fall for it, no matter how convenient that might be.

  “And you would have shown her mercy?” His voice was quiet, soft even, and I knew he was looking for any chance to trip me up and use my words against me. But I couldn’t lie to him. Mercy was kind of my thing. I didn’t enjoy death. Just because I was a banshee, a harbinger, didn’t mean that I took pleasure in the cruel indignity of death itself.

  “If by mercy you mean I wouldn’t have killed her, then you would be correct,” I said.

  “So it was an accident?”

  Anger zipped through my veins and I experienced the sudden urge to rip the handcuffs from my wrists and toss the table through the two-way mirror. Mirrors had no effect on the Fae; I could see the two cops gathered on the other side of the glass, watching everything with an intensity borne of desperation. It was almost overwhelming.

  “I didn’t kill her,” I repeated flatly. “I believe I asked for a lawyer on the way over here, and I don’t need to answer any more of your questions.”

  Martinez had the good grace to look surprised. Clearly, the cops who had brought me in hadn’t passed on that little piece of pertinent information. Did that mean there was dissension in the ranks? To allow the detective to question me while ignoring my rights was a pretty major misstep. Someone was going to find himself in hot water.

  The door banged open and Lunn strode in. Except he didn’t look the way he usually did. He’d toned down his otherworldly appearance, and now more closely resembled a runway model than an enforcer of Fae law. The suit he wore moulded to his body, the blue bringing out the gold and green colour in his eyes. He entered the room as though he owned the joint, and I did my best to stifle the smile that crossed my lips when Martinez rammed his chair back from the table with enough force to send it crashing into the wall.

  “You can’t come in here, this is a private interview,” Martinez said, hiding his nervousness behind his authority.

  That same authority crumbled the moment Lunn spoke.

  “I’m here to represent Ms Thorne,” Lunn said, his voice carrying just enough power to lend authority to his words. Martinez visibly wilted.

  “We were in the middle of the interview,” Martinez said, but he sounded more like a frightened child than a detective.

  “An interview that is now over. If you’ll excuse us, I need to speak to my client alone.” Lunn’s voice was clipped, and when he directed his attention on me it was my turn to wilt beneath his furious, green-eyed gaze.

  I was in the doghouse.

  Although it was beyond me what he expected me to do when humans were falsely accusing me of murder. So far, telling them I was innocent hadn’t worked.

  Martinez picked up the file and stalked out of the room, gathering his shredded dignity around him like a cloak. For an uptight and overworked detective, he definitely wasn’t the worst I had encountered. Perhaps, under different circumstances, I could have warmed to the man. He certainly believed in the work he did, and he genuinely wanted to make a difference. Or there had been a time when he’d wanted to make a difference. I had a feeling that his wife’s death had changed a lot more than just the state of his wardrobe.

  The second the door slammed shut after Martinez left, Lunn turned on me with all the ferocity of which only he was capable.

  “What are you doing here? If the Court finds out you murdered a human, they will kill you for certain.” His voice was whipcord-sharp as it lashed at me.

  “You really think I murdered that woman? After everything, Lunn, you think I’ve gone mad and I’m killing humans willy-nilly?”

  The accusation hurt. It hurt far more than I actually wanted to admit. I expected the Court to believe I was guilty, but for Lunn to believe it too? That cut me to the bone. Not that I could admit that to him, of course.

  He hesitated, and his eyes were conflicted as they locked onto mine. “You wouldn’t tell me what was going on, Darcey, so what do you expect me to believe? I’m not the one keeping secrets.”

  With a shake of my head, I dropped back against the seat. I didn’t need him here if he was only going to tell me that he didn’t believe me. That he didn’t believe in me.

  “Why are you here?” I asked, rolling my shoulders back and straining against the cuffs.

  “To get the truth. I’ve got to bring you in, and you know it.”

  “I thought the Court didn’t know.” I snapped upright as panic hollowed out the centre of my gut.

  “They don’t. Not yet, anyway, but we both know it’s only a matter of time before they do. If you come willingly and give your side of the events, they’re more likely to look on you favourably.”

  “You must be out of your mind, Lunn, if you think I’m going anywhere with you.”

  “You don’t have a choice, Darcey,” he said, reaching into his fitted suit jacket and pulling free a set of iron cuffs.

  I remembered them from the first time I’d been forced to wear them, and I’d made a promise to myself then that it would never happen again. If he thought I was going to come quietly, willingly even, then he was in for a rude awakening.

  “You’re not putting those cuffs on me, Lunn.” I lowered my voice in warning.

  “Don’t make this harder,” he said, reaching toward me. There was something in his eyes, an emotion, telling me he didn’t really want to do. Perhaps he believed in me after all, and he just had to do his job. It wasn’t impossible idea, but it was still pretty unlikely.

  Jerking my arms upwards, I snapped the metal cuffs already around my wrists, ripping the metal rod from the centre of the table with a resounding crack. Without hesitating, I threw myself backwards, rolling out over the top of my chair. I came to a crouched halt on the opposite side of the room.

  “Darcey, please,” he said in a pained voice. “Don’t make me do this. Don’t make me hurt you.”

  “Please, Lunn,” I said, my voice harsh with anger. “Don’t make this my fault. You’re the one who doesn’t need to do this. You’ve got a choice, and you know I don’t. If I don’t walk out of here a free woman, we both know I’ll never get the chance again. This time, the Court will kill me.”

  He didn’t deny my words, but he also didn’t make a move toward me. I took that as a sign of agreement.

  “If we fight, you will lose,” he said.

  “Then don’t fight me.”

  I straightened up and took a step forward, Lunn’s eyes locked onto mine as I advanced another step. I made it to the door before he opened his mouth to speak.

  “How are you going to get past the cops without them knowing who you are?”

  “By going unnoticed, which is easier than glamour for someone like me.” I tugged open the door that led to the rest of the police station.

  My heart hammered in my chest as I stepped out into the corridor. I half expected one of the police officers to yell after me, sending the full wrath of the Falcon PD down on my head, but when nothing happened I picked up my pace.

  It was one of my gifts as a banshee. There had been a time when I could have made myself entirely invisible, but that time was gone, my magic used up. But I still had this gift, and it was enough to make the humans look the other way as I hurried toward the exit.

  It would only take one superstitious cop to see me for the magic to unravel.

  After reaching the door, I stepped out into the sunshine and sucked in a deep breath. I could still feel Lunn’s eyes on me, but he was nowhere to be seen. He must have decided to give me the benefit of the doubt, but that would only last as long as the Court was unaware of my alleged actions.

  Would he be punished? />
  Although the question caught me by surprise, it was the answer that really stole my breath. I didn’t want him to get hurt. I didn’t want him to suffer, and especially not because of me. Lunn might have been the type to place his unwavering faith in the Court of Faerie, but that didn’t make him bad, just a little blind to the damage that could be caused by so much power.

  If he actually believed in me, that showed him to have a willingness of spirit I hadn’t thought possible.

  Not that there was anything I could do to save Lunn. I couldn’t even fix my own mess. And that mess wasn’t going to get any smaller if I kept hanging around on the steps in front of the police station, just waiting for one observant human to notice I wasn’t where I was supposed to be.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I ducked down a side alley across the street, picking up my pace as soon as I was out of the main thoroughfare. All of my belongings were back in the police station, and I had no way of contacting Clary… Even worse, Clary had no way of contacting me if anything went wrong.

  Racing out of the alley, I weaved through the mid-morning traffic, finally making it to Noree’s restaurant on the opposite side of the street.

  The bell over the door jangled as I pushed inside and grabbed a booth nearest the counter without waiting for an invitation. Catching the eye of the dark-haired waitress, I waited for her to finish serving the customers at the desk before I waved her over.

  “Shall I read you today’s specials?” she asked, her piercing blue eyes roaming over my face.

  “Just bring me whatever today’s special is,” I said, “and tell Noree that Darcey needs to speak to her.”

  The waitress paused, and I could practically see the cogs in her mind mulling over my request. Finally, she nodded and grabbed the menus from the middle of the table before hurrying toward the back kitchen.

  The rich smell of food wafted back to me, and my stomach grumbled as I twisted the edge of the cream tablecloth around my fingers.

  The waitress reappeared a few moments later and set down a large bowl in front of me. The blue eyes floating in the clear soup stared back at me. They were covered in grey film, and the light they’d once sparkled with had grown dim.

  The waitress stood next to me, and I knew she expected me to protest, to push the bowl away in disgust, or vomit, or maybe do both at the same time. Clearly, she was new here and hadn’t yet learned all of Noree’s ways.

  I fished out the nearest eyeball with a spoon and stared down at it.

  “Katia, are you going to stand there all day or are you going to serve our other guests?” Noree’s voice rang out through the restaurant, jerking the waitress out of her fascination.

  She scurried off as Noree dropped into the booth across from me. Her black glasses did nothing to hide the scarring on her face, and I knew the horror that lurked beneath the tinted shades.

  “You have a lot of nerve turning up here, banshee,” Noree said, leaning across the table toward me.

  “You already knew I was coming.” I gestured to the bowl of floating eyeballs.

  It was Noree’s way of punishing me. The first time I’d ever seen her work—and the first time I’d ever seen her without her glasses—I’d been rude, staring at the gaping and still-bloodied sockets where her eyeballs should have been. I’d come close to getting sick when I’d realised the muscles and nerve endings in the sockets were moving as though her eyes were still attached.

  “You wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t that good,” she said smartly, reaching into the bowl and drawing out one of the eyeballs.

  “I need a new ward for my door,” I said. I’d brought the broken one with me today, but it was still back in the police station with the rest of my personal belongings.

  “What happened to the one I gave you?” she asked, tilting her head to the side as she rolled the eyeball around in her fingers.

  “It broke.” Noree remained silent, and I sighed. “A void broke it,” I admitted, leaning back against the aged red leather seat and crossing my arms over my chest.

  “And you think I just pull these wards out of thin air, do you?”

  “No, but I am willing to pay.”

  Noree nodded and lifted her hand, making what looked like a rude gesture at the waitress standing on the other side of the room. The girl dropped the notebook she’d been using to take the diners’ orders and made a beeline for the back of the restaurant.

  “I sense that’s not all you’re here for?” Noree returned her attention to me.

  “I need to know if…” I trailed off. Years had passed since I’d last asked if the cage still stood, but the current events had raised my suspicions. Asking Noree to check to make sure that everything was as it should be wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world.

  She hissed, dropping the eyeball with a wet plop onto the table as she fell back against her seat, her hands rapidly moving over her face and chest in a blessing. No sound came from her moving lips, but I still knew she was praying. Several heartbeats passed as I waited for her to calm down.

  “You come here and ask that of me? When you yourself are capable of sensing?”

  “Not anymore. It took everything I had just to bind it… I can’t tell one way or the other if it’s still doing what it’s supposed to be doing.” I buried my face in my hands.

  “You got away lucky. I did not!” She tore the glasses from her face to the reveal her gaping wounds.

  I could still remember her screams as he’d gouged her eyeballs from her head and eaten them.

  “He took my sight, the very thing that makes me Rom,” she said, and I could feel the ache in her words.

  “If I knew, I would have stopped him,” I answered.

  Her injuries were my fault. I might not have inflicted them, but I may as well have— and I would have to live with that knowledge for the rest of my life. She had punished me because of my failure.

  “Please, Noree, I’m worried.” I didn’t need to say anything else. I watched as the emotion on her face changed and she straightened up in her seat.

  “You really think?”

  I shrugged, despite knowing that she couldn’t actually see what I was doing.

  “I really don’t know, but I also don’t want to take any chances. There’s some seriously weird shit going on, and I don’t know what’s at the root of it. If it’s him, then we need to know sooner rather than later.”

  Noree grabbed my hand and dragged it across the table toward her. Her magic trickled beneath my skin like water, and I fought the urge to scratch until my nails pierced the skin.

  “It’s secure,” she said, and I let out a sigh.

  Part of me always feared that the day might come when he would find a way past the cage. And with how things were going at the moment, a small, nagging voice in the back of my head kept telling me everything was connected. Hearing that he was still trapped made it a little easier for me to breathe.

  The waitress returned to the table and laid an object wrapped in black velvet in front of Noree.

  “You said you could pay?” Noree stroked her fingers almost absentmindedly across the velvet.

  I couldn’t see what was underneath, but I could feel its power—it was a hell of a lot stronger than the last ward I’d purchased from her.

  “How much?” I asked.

  “I could say something silly like your first born, but we both know that won’t hold water. So how about something simple, like the tears of true heartbreak.”

  I stared at her, unable to stop the laugh that bubbled up from the back of my throat.

  Noree’s head tilted to the side, and I knew I’d offended her.

  “What good will that do you?” I asked. “I’ve got money… not much, but I can pay you in cash.”

  She cut me off with a wave of her hand. “If you’re not going to take this seriously, then I’m not certain we can continue having this conversation.”

  “I am taking it seriously. I fail to see what you will get out of it?�
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  I couldn’t remember anything from the lore mentioning tears from a true heartbreak. From where I stood, I was getting all of the ward’s benefit while Noree was getting nothing in return but some salty drops.

  That, in itself, was enough to make me nervous. Noree was not the type to be messed with, and her actions all had motives. If she wanted my tears, there was a bloody good reason why. And that probably wouldn’t mean good things for everyone else.

  “That is my business. Do we have a deal, or are you going to waste more of my time?”

  It seemed so simple… too simple. I knew for a fact that nothing to do with Noree was ever simple, and yet… I stared down at the ward on the table and sighed before reaching out my hand.

  There didn’t seem to be any logical reason not to give her my tears. Noree took my hand in hers, her grip firm and even, and for a moment nothing happened.

  I jumped when her magic sparked across my skin, and a wide smile slid across Noree’s face.

  “Don’t be so nervous… Perhaps I won’t ever get your tears.” Something in her tone told me she wasn’t being truthful.

  That was the problem with those who weren’t Fae. They could lie and cheat, and yet I was bound by the laws that said all Fae must speak the truth or else face the Wild Hunt.

  I’d seen what the Wild Hunt could do, and the thought of ever going up against it sickened me.

  Noree released my hand and shoved the ward across the table. Scooping it up, I pushed up onto my feet and had just started to turn away from her when the sound of her clearing her throat made me pause.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asked sweetly. Too sweetly. She tilted her head, aiming her non-existent eyes in the direction of the bowl of floating eyeballs.

  “Are you kidding me?” I asked.

  “I don’t kid, Darcey. Only the goats do that.” She grinned up at me, and I grabbed a wad of dollars from my pocket and dropped it beside the bowl.

  “You really need to work on your food,” I said in an acidic tone before stalking to the door.