The Banshee's Walk
Page 30
“There’s a water park at the end of the strip called Wet ‘N Wild. I take my cousins’ kids when they visit. Malls are everywhere. The White House is across the country.”
“I was testing you.” Tali could never remember how far things were in humanspace. The land the fairies inhabited in the Realm didn’t correspond to the continent here. “What about a humble teley-scope to see the stars? I read about it in HumanWa…”—oops!—“a science magazine.” Tali waited to see if Jake would catch her slip.
He didn’t. “There’s a planetarium at a community college nearby. Their telescope is nice, though. I wouldn’t call it humble.”
“Baseball and surfing?”
“No baseball, but we have an arena football team called the Gladiators. As for the Internet, you can check it out with any computer. That’s not very exciting when you have a whole city to explore.”
What else did she want, besides to kiss Jake again and run her fingers through that silky hair? “Oh, I want to see Chip and Dale.”
“The cartoon?” The traffic around them moved. Jake edged the car forward, and the bag around the mirror swayed. The music from the dancing waters faded into a babble of pedestrians and car horns. Humans young and old milled on the sidewalks.
What was a cartoon? She’d overheard the ballet praised by two female researchers. “They’re dancers. The Chip and Dale ballet.”
Jake pinched his lips together. “I see. Those Chip and Dales.”
The Banshee’s Walk
Frank Tuttle
No secret stays buried forever.
A Markhat Novel
When patron of the arts Lady Erlorne Werewilk hires Markhat to identify the parties who are stealthily mapping out the Lady’s estate by moonlight, Markhat anticipates the usual—greedy relatives or rapacious neighbors plotting a land grab. After all, muses Rannit’s most feckless Finder, the Lady runs a colony filled with young artists. Aside from snits over color and perspective, how dangerous could a squabble over a backwoods house possibly be?
With new partner Gertriss in tow, Markhat takes the Lady’s case. Before the first night is done, the house is visited by murder, mayhem, and the haunting wail of what may be a genuine banshee, come to herald not just one death, but the deaths of all within. Trapped in a house under siege, Markhat must make a desperate gamble with an old enemy to win the race to unlock the secret that lies beneath the Lady’s lands. And find a way to turn that secret against the powerful forces converging on House Werewilk.
Warning: This Markhat adventure involves suggestions of impending matrimony, full-scale gluttony, and misuse of fermented beverages. Persons with weak constitutions or persons currently at the halfway mark of a thousand-meter tightrope walk above a crocodile-infested river should refrain from reading this work of fiction in dimly-lit drawing rooms, which should never be constructed above crocodile-infested rivers in the first place.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520
Macon GA 31201
The Banshee’s Walk
Copyright © 2010 by Frank Tuttle
ISBN: 978-1-60928-060-4
Edited by Bethany Morgan
Cover by Natalie Winters
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: June 2010
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