I’d heard tales of banshees who were connected to certain Irish families, but as far as I knew Dolores wasn’t Irish.
I felt the energy in the earth change, becoming threads, each one representing a life nearing the end. One in particular drew my attention. Its thread was short and so much brighter than the rest. My heart constricted.
A child.
The other threads faded away, but this one’s pulse became stronger, more insistent, drawing me to it like a moth to the flame.
Children were always harder. It wasn’t pleasant to watch anyone cross over, but I considered it an honour to mourn their passing. Everyone needed their warning, and every soul deserved comfort in the end. If it were possible, I would give their lives back to them, but a balance existed that I could understand, to a degree. But when it came to children, I could not understand that balance. It wasn’t right, and it certainly wasn’t fair to take someone whose life had hardly begun, to rob them of so many of the things life had to offer.
I had never met Death, only heard talk of him, but feeling the child’s strand pulse made me want to meet him, to rail against him for something so unfair.
My eyes snapped open, and I climbed to my feet. I’d come to the Between to clear my head and realign myself, but all I’d really done was unsettle myself further. Shaking free of the power of the others buried around me, I went back toward Clary’s tree.
What use was there in having power if it only led me back to death, suffering, and grief?
My booted feet hit the sidewalk, and I gave a start and stared around at the alley. I hadn’t crossed through the veil, that I was certain of. I’d been distracted, but not so distracted that I wouldn’t have known I was leaving the Between.
Had I been kicked out?
When I peered down toward the end of the alley I could no longer see the veil, only the chain link fence that led to the back of the building and the piles of rubbish heaped against the wall. But absolutely no veil, and definitely no Between.
Clearly, the Between did not like me questioning it.
This wasn’t the first time I’d been kicked out. The Between had a mind of its own, much like Faerie. I’d also been kicked out right before I’d caged Mannan.
On at least one occasion when Faerie had decided to lock out its own people, thousands had died. Many creatures relied on the power that flowed through Faerie and were unable to survive in the human realm. But the fae had also learned a valuable lesson—they were not Faerie and yet their lives depended on it. And so the Court had been created to pay proper homage to the life that existed in Faerie and to guard against any such reoccurrence. I couldn’t help but think that the Court had become a little bit too big for their boots, though. It wouldn’t take much for Faerie to turn on the fae again, and then we would all be back to square one.
I didn’t wish to see innocents perish, but a small part of me—the part that belonged in the Unseelie Court—relished the thought of seeing the fae who had tortured me, who had taken pleasure in my exile, being forced to suffer the same fate.
Sucking in a deep breath, I closed my eyes. The Between had locked me out, but I could still feel the thread of life belonging to the child I was supposed to mourn. She still had time left, and now that I was back in the human realm I could feel that the decision on her life had not yet been fully made.
If I was lucky, Death would change his mind and I would be spared the sorrow of mourning one whose life had barely begun.
But for now, I had other innocents to save. And as much as I hated it, the best place to start was with a little research. Heading toward the underground parking, I undid the locks and threw my leg over the bike, my mind instantly transporting me back to last night. Closing my eyes, I gave myself a moment to remember the feel of his body beneath my hands, the hardness of his muscles as I slipped my arms around his waist.
Shaking my head, I fought to clear the memory before I kick-started the bike. The last thing I needed right now was to take a spill because I couldn’t get a certain wolf off my mind. I sucked in a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and manoeuvred the bike out of the garage and onto the street. The engine purred beneath me, and I gave myself over to the bike, allowing it to read my intentions without ever having to direct it. Byron’s bike was a beauty, but this was one of the rare good things about being a fae—sometimes our gadgets were just better.
Chapter Thirteen
I pulled the motorcycle up alongside the red brick building and hopped off, securing it with the spelled locks I’d gotten from the Noree. Not that the bike really needed locks to keep it safe—it had a life of its own and the ability to take care of itself better than I could. But at least the locks would deter some humans from taking a chance on it.
The building loomed over me, and I stared up at the uniform rows of windows that overlooked the alleyway. The Elite spent their time trying to appear as normal as possible, utterly human and mundane, and yet many of the officers were as far from human as possible.
It was the ultimate irony.
Of course, that didn’t change the fact that their façade needed to be maintained for the sake of keeping the humans happy. They didn’t believe the monsters could police themselves. And they definitely didn’t believe the preternaturals were capable of being unbiased about their own kind. Anyone found working for them who wasn’t human suffered because of it. Hypocrisy at its best.
The thought of even entering the building left me feeling dirty, but after capturing the hybrid and handing it over to the Elite, Victoria, the changeling from King City, had given me a contact within the organisation who understood my unique position in the human world and wouldn’t judge me. Or at least that was what Victoria had promised. But trusting a changeling not to deceive you was a little like trusting a serpent not to bite, given the opportunity.
But what choice did I have? I needed information, and that meant paying a visit to the Elite.
Making my way around the front of the building, I quickly braided my pearly hair away from my face. At least the humans were finally beginning to experiment with hair colours beyond the usual red, black, brown, and brassy blonde.
Nowadays, if you could dream the colour, someone was willing to create it—for a fee, of course. Naturally, humans also experimenting with pearl-coloured hair made it easier for me to blend in, but they still hadn’t managed to make it look as natural as mine, and I often found myself on the receiving end of a million style-related questions. Adding the blue streaks helped to make it blend a little more and usually took the heat off.
Drawing a small hair elastic from my pocket, I wrapped it around the end of the braid and released it, allowing it to hang down my back over my leather jacket. I pushed open the door to the Elite offices, keeping my gaze averted as a group of officers pushed past me and out onto the street. One in particular caught my eye, and it took all of my strength not to follow him. He was nearing the end of his time—I’d felt it as his arm brushed mine.
Whatever he was about to do would get him killed, that much was certain.
When I’d been much younger, and far newer at being a banshee, I’d thought I could intervene, that my warnings could save the humans from their fate, but I’d quickly learned that wasn’t true.
One man in particular would haunt me for the rest of my days, and his death had cured me from ever trying to intervene when a life was already lost. Death dogged his every step, and whatever fate awaited him would be much more pleasant than the damage to his soul if I tried to save him.
Shaking free of the memories that haunted me, I headed for the front desk and gave the receptionist my biggest and brightest smile.
“Hi, I’m looking for Magda Smith,” I said. Whoever had thought that was a good fake name must have been high. As far as I was concerned, the woman I was looking for may as well have called herself Jane Doe. And it was beyond me how the Elite hadn’t at least raised an eyebrow over it. Perhaps they didn’t care who—or what—worked for them as lo
ng as they could pretend that everything was still run by humans.
“I’ll page her, but you’ll have to wait here,” the petite brunette said, her sour expression killing the smile I was so obviously wasting on her.
Turning away, I headed for the leather bucket chairs gathered inside the main doors. Dropping onto the nearest one, I angled my body so I had a good view of the main entrance, the elevator bank, and the door leading to the stairs. My back was still partially exposed through the wide expanse of tinted glass windows that ran along the front of the building, but I was betting they were reinforced. If anything tried to attack me, I could at least see it coming, and no doubt the glass would shield me partially, if not completely.
Leaning back in the chair, I watched as the young Elite officers I’d passed in the doorway gathered outside on the pavement, laughing and chatting amongst themselves. It seemed unfair that they didn’t know what awaited them, and the harbinger side of me itched uncomfortably. But I had work to do, and following them around the city to warn them of their impending doom would only get in my way.
“You can go up. She’s on the third floor, room eight,” the sour-faced receptionist said, cutting through my reverie.
Climbing to my feet, I looked once more at the group outside and then headed for the stairs.
“You can take the elevator,” the receptionist said.
“No thanks, I don’t fancy getting shut into a cramped metal box.” I forced a smile. I avoided elevators whenever possible; they reminded me a little too much of my time spent in Faerie and the Unseelie’s favoured torture method.
The receptionist shrugged, but I could practically see the cogs turning in her brain. She thought I was a weirdo. I suppressed the laugh that threatened to spill from my lips; in a place like this, I had to wonder just how many employees preferred using the stairs over the elevators, just how many weirdos like me walked its hallowed halls.
I took the steps four at a time, allowing my body to stretch but not enough to raise the suspicion of anyone watching on the security cameras dotting the landings. Reaching the third floor, I made my way down a corridor with overhead strip lighting that flickered and jumped, distorting the shadows in the hall and making me more than a little uneasy. When I found the office marked with a number eight, I knocked politely on the door.
The voice that called to me from within was higher than I expected, and when I pushed open the door my senses were quickly assaulted by the scent of incense and raw meat.
Magda sat behind the desk, her bright blue eyes watching me with interest. She shook her long, dark hair back from her face as she pushed up onto her feet.
“What can I help you with?” she asked with a slight accent that I couldn’t place. As I walked toward her, something on her desk caught my attention.
It was an open lunch box, and its contents were unmistakable, yet she hadn’t cared to hide them from me. The raw, bloody meat was beginning to sour, but I couldn’t quite figure out if it was human or animal; only a creature with a much better nose than mine could answer that question.
She cocked her head to one side and drew her lips back from her teeth, a second razor-sharp row now visible in the poor office light. From where I stood, I could just make out the torn and bloody piece of meat caught between both sets of teeth.
“Strzyga,” I said, fighting to keep the disdain from my voice as I eyed her.
I knew I’d failed the moment her eyes lit from within; the blue grew brighter, reflecting off her pale skin and making her look much more gaunt than she had just moments before.
“Banshee,” she said, uttering my true name.
Sucking in a slow, deep breath, I tried to ignore the scent of the spoiling meat and instead raised my hands in surrender.
“Look, I’m not here to cause trouble. Victoria sent me.”
“The changeling?” Her words sounded odd, almost rasping, through the double set of teeth.
“That’s the one,” I said. “She seems to have quite the sense of humour.”
Banshees and changelings notoriously didn’t see eye to eye, but they tolerated each other a little better than banshees and strzyga did. Some claimed that banshees and strzyga were one and the same, but as I stared at the creature standing on the other side of the desk, I knew that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, despite what the legends said, strzyga were actually closer to vampires than harbingers.
“Why would she send you to me? She must know I would eat your heart.” Magda’s words instantly set my teeth on edge.
“She knew, she just didn’t care,” I said with a shrug. “Or maybe that’s what she was hoping for.”
Magda stared at me for another moment before dropping back down into her seat behind the desk. The vivid blue of her eyes faded back to an almost human level, and I slowly uncurled my fists at the audible click of her second set of teeth ascending back into her mouth.
“I do not care for the changeling,” she said suddenly, indicating the chair opposite the desk.
“Neither do I,” I said. We’d reached an uneasy truce while I was in King City, but that was clearly done with. Why else would she send me to see a strzyga?
I took the offered chair and schooled my features into as blank an expression as I could muster as she reached into the lunch box and drew out a slimy sliver of dark, raw meat. She sucked it into her mouth, the sound of her lips smacking turning my stomach.
“This makes you uncomfortable?” she asked, pausing with a second piece of meat hanging limply from her fingers.
“We’ve all gotta eat,” I said, aiming for diplomacy.
She nodded once and returned to her meal, the wet sounds of her eating filling the silence in the room as she finished quickly and cleared away the box. I finally met her eyes as she washed her fingers with the wet napkins that had appeared on her desk without me noticing. She was fast, I would give her that.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“I need to know if the Elite have gotten any strange cases of shifters going rogue,” I said, keeping my question deliberately vague so I wouldn’t have to share too much information with her.
Magda eyed me carefully, clearly searching for more information, or at the very least a reason for why I was being so vague. She apparently didn’t find what she was looking for, because she sighed before turning to face her computer.
Her fingers moved lightning fast across the keys, and I couldn’t help but notice the sudden furrowing of her brow. When she turned to face me once more, her gaze held more than just mere curiosity.
“What makes you ask me this?” she said.
“I might be working an angle, but I need confirmation before I can delve any deeper into the case.”
“You’re working a case for a shifter?” She steepled her fingers together on the desk as she leaned toward me.
“Look, I’m entitled to keep my sources confidential. You can tell me the information or not, but I’m not going to betray my client’s trust either way.”
She studied me for another moment before nodding. “Fine. There has been an uptick in rogue attacks, but that’s not particularly interesting. What stands out more is the number of shifters who have died.”
I waited for her to continue, but she sat back in her swivel chair and folded her arms across her chest. The silence stretched between us. I broke the stand-off first.
“What did they die from?”
She shrugged. “The reports don’t really have the answer to that; they just note that the shifters were acting strangely before their deaths and that their human bodies were found with multiple wounds, as though they had been viciously attacked.”
“How many were found? And was the species of shifter ever identified?”
“Nineteen have turned up dead so far. Six humans were injured but not bitten, so they won’t turn on the moon. As for the species—wolf.” Her face was an impassive mask.
Nineteen dead. That was far more than Byron had said. In fact, Byro
n had only mentioned the death of one pack member who he had supposedly murdered himself. But there was a difference between wolf shifters and werewolves—one was born, the other created.
Many people believed that werewolves were created, the disease passing through a bite, but that wasn’t true. Werewolves were born, and growing scarcer as each year passed. They could infect a human with a bite, but that human went insane, his or her body disintegrating before a full change could occur. As far as I was aware, no human had ever survived the first full werewolf moon.
Their shifter counterparts, on the other hand, weren’t so restricted. Their ability to infect and transmit the shifter virus was highly common. Many didn’t survive the transition, but the small percentage who did went on to become functioning members of society. Shifters weren’t as strong as their werewolf relatives, and their ability to shift certainly wasn’t as smooth or painless, but, unlike female wolves, they could reproduce without personal risk.
“You’ve thought of something,” she said, leaning toward me once more.
“Not really. I just find it interesting that the dead were all shifters instead of werewolves.”
Did the packs of weres simply protect their own far better than the shifter communities did? As far as I knew, the factions didn’t mix, but my knowledge of werewolves and shifters could fit on the back of a postage stamp.
“The Elite haven’t connected the dots on it yet, at least not until you mentioned it,” Magda said. “I take it you know of some wolves who have been infected by whatever this disease is.” The curiosity in her voice was unmistakable.
Huntress Moon (Bones and Bounties Book 2) Page 9