Banshee Hunt

by Curtis, Greg

  On the other hand, he thought as he got in the grey BMW, maybe it was his little brother who had destroyed his faith in the magical. After all, he had been one of them. And what Francis had done to his entire family was beyond understanding. He might have been named for a saint but his soul was pure demon.

  Before his little brother had struck, James like everyone else had had no idea that there was magic in the world. It was just the stuff of tv shows and movies. But afterwards, when he'd finally realised just what Francis could do – and what he had done – he'd known that it was real. Just as he'd known he didn't like it.

  Had Francis gone bad because he had magic? Or had he always been rotten? That was the question that kept haunting James. Was magic some sort of mind bending curse that corrupted people? Because how else could you truly explain the appalling things he'd done to his own family? And if so what would become of his daughter when she finally grew into her gift? James couldn't have stood it if one day Matilda's name had crossed his desk. If one day he had to hunt Matti down.

  Still, before any of that happened he had a report to write. And then no doubt in the morning he'd have to meet with Will and go through the hunt and his report in detail. And then there would be questions asked and concerns raised. The usual ones. Why hadn't he called for backup? Why hadn't he kept them informed of his progress over the previous four days? And why had he let a young gifted girl go straight to the hospital instead of arranging for the Illuminati to speak with her first?

  One thing was certain he knew as he drove off. It would be bad. Everything about magic was bad.

  And the witch had called his car an old bomb. She truly was evil!

  Chapter Three

  Two days later James was sitting in the lounge of his apartment reading the newspaper – he still preferred paper to pixels – when the doorbell rang. Immediately he heard it he had to suppress a groan. It could be anyone, but he knew it wasn't. It never was. He didn't have many visitors and these days they were all from the Illuminati. He barely knew his neighbours. His family didn't visit. And he had no friends. So almost always the ring of the doorbell heralded work. Even on a weekend. Usually they were there with some sort of message for him that he didn't want to hear. Today he suspected would be no different. Some days he would have just loved it if it was a vacuum cleaner salesman at his door. But it wouldn't be.

  With a sigh James put his paper down and stood up to answer the door.

  Besides he told himself, it surely couldn't be bad news. Not this time. Could it? The witch – Magda – was in custody, her case being dealt with by the elders. That was what they'd wanted even if Yasmin had made her rather cutting remark that he should have simply shot her. And the girl – Angie Newcombe, aged thirteen according to the newspaper article – was expected to leave hospital in the morning and go home. She could have left before but had been kept in an extra day for observation. No doubt the others from the Illuminati had got to her and explained what she could and couldn't tell anyone already. For his part he had spent the entire previous day in the office filling out reports on the capture. Surely the elders couldn't have too many problems with that?

  All in all he thought the hunt had gone well and the only black marks on it were actually a few red ones. The blood from the witch's nose as she'd sat on his car seat and cursed him. It had gone everywhere and it didn't come out easily. He knew that after having spent half the morning cleaning it. Maybe he should have chucked the damned witch in the boot after all.

  The walk to the front door wasn't a long one as his apartment wasn't big. Then again in New York very few people could afford big apartments. Not in the city. But he had two bedrooms in one of the cheaper parts of the city. It wasn’t fancy but it was what he'd needed after the divorce. It even had an entrance area. It wasn't very big, and really only had enough room to open the door inwards to let someone step inside and hang up a coat on the wall hook – but he hadn't seen many entrances in other apartments in his price range when he'd started looking. And his budget hadn't exactly been huge after the divorce.

  It was depressing. To be thirty eight and effectively starting from nothing at this stage in his life again. He had made reasonable money as a cop and had saved hard all his life. He'd owned most of a house. But after the divorce he owned nothing except an old car and a few clothes. Sheryl had got everything. He suspected that was because while Francis had been there in court with her, laughing at him and bending her thoughts, he'd also been twisting the judge's thoughts. Anything he could do to ruin his older brother's life.

  God! If only he'd known, he could have done something. But at the time while he'd hated Francis for taking his wife from him he'd had no thought that there was such a thing as magic. It was the stuff of fairy tales. Now he knew it for the nightmare it truly was.

  Now he had a rented apartment and an old car that was getting older every year. Most of his salary was garnered for alimony before he saw it. More went on his daughter's education. It left him almost as broke as he had been as a student so long ago. And worse he had a daughter he hardly ever got to see.

  It was Will at the door. William Harris, his sort of boss and the point man for the state. James could tell that before he opened the door. He could see his distorted outline through the patterned glass window that ran down beside the door. And there was only one man he knew that would wear a cowboy hat in the middle of New York city. Or for that matter cowboy boots and the rest of the wild west get up. In fact Will wore almost everything except a six shooter. But even if it hadn't been so obvious he still would have guessed it was him. Will was the one who called most often. Even on a Saturday.

  James' instinctive reaction on seeing him there was to tell him to go away. It was Saturday after all. But he couldn't do that. Briefly he considered pretending that he wasn't at home though he knew the man had seen him. But he quickly discarded his foolish thoughts and opened the door for the point man. He even managed to be polite.

  Though it was hard to do that when he was greeted by the sight of a cowboy. Will looked as though he'd just stepped out of a wild west movie. There was the hat and the leather high heeled cowboy boots of course. The distinctive shirt with its fancy stitching. He even had the polished belt buckle in the shape of a star. But most damning of all in James' opinion was the handle bar moustache. Every time he saw it he was torn between the need to simply stare and the impulse to burst into laughter.

  The whole thing just struck him as wrong. The magical and most especially the Illuminati as their most powerful group, were all about hiding from the world. Keeping their abilities secret. Everywhere he went however, William Harris could not help but be noticed.

  “Will.” James didn't manage a smile for him. There were limits to what he could do. “New case?” He could use a case he thought. Even though it had only been a day off so far. Too much down time was not a good thing for him. It gave him time to dwell on the past.

  “No. Just some concerns. May I …?”

  “Of course.”

  James stood aside and let the cowboy enter his apartment. He didn't want to. But it wasn't a choice. Will was as close a man as he had to a boss. He brought him his cases and word from the elders when he'd screwed up – which was too often. And by “concerns” James guessed that he meant he'd screwed up again. At least in the eyes of the elders. No doubt they weren't happy about how he'd let the girl be taken to the public hospital under the watchful eyes of the police.

  The Illuminati had many roles, only a few of which they shared with the hired help like him. After all, though he took their money and wore their mark, he wasn't one of them, let alone one of the higher ups. But one of the things they did do was hide the existence of magic from normal people. So they were happy when fake wizards showed up and made fools of themselves in public. In fact they encouraged them. And the new age “witches” too. The more the merrier. They also supported various societies like the skeptics. They even encouraged magical performers. The more fake acts the
y could get out there to amaze and astound with their tricks, they figured the easier it would be for others to dismiss the real stuff when it showed up. Still, when real ones started showing the world what they could do, that was an entirely different matter, and the Illuminati would stomp on it hard. The thirteen year old girl – Angie – had a gift and she had no doubt seen some things during her time with the witch. She would want to tell someone what she'd seen. That could be a problem for them.

  “The girl was close to death. She wouldn't have lived long enough to make it to the rendezvous.”

  James closed the door behind him and followed Will into the main room while repeating his defence. The apartment was too small to have a separate kitchen, living and dining room, so it had one room that combined them all. Still, it was neat and tidy.

  “Oh, so you're a doctor now?” Will found himself a seat at the dining table and dropped his hat on the table.

  “She'd lost a hell of a lot of blood, was pale and nearly unconscious. I didn't think she had a lot of time left.”

  “I read your report. The elders have too. And I don't think they're happy.” Will laid it out plainly. He was, despite appearances, a straight forward sort of guy. No doubt he would have called himself a straight shooter.

  That was probably why he'd been made point man for the state. The elders didn't want to get involved in the day to day affairs of running the Illuminati. They didn't want to be concerned with hearing all the complaints of the various witches and wizards that called it home. They dealt with the more big picture stuff. Will as point man dealt with the minutiae. So he oversaw the bureaucratic affairs of several departments, including the enforcement arm of the Illuminati. James as the hunter was the lead investigator and he sort of ran the enforcement side of things. Team leader was what he would probably be called, though without the actual title and people didn't need to ask him for permission to do anything. They all knew their jobs.

  “But that's not why I'm here.”

  “Then why? Is there another problem?”

  James walked past him into the apartment's small kitchen area and switched on the kettle. He had to be civil and he knew Will would expect coffee. He even scooped the good grounds into the plunge pot as he waited for the water to boil instead of giving him instant.

  “Not with your capture. The witch – Magda – is screaming loudly about your treatment of her, and she looks a bit like a panda at the moment. But that's normal and no one cares.”

  She looked like a panda? James knew that that could only mean that he really had broken her nose. He thought he'd felt something crunch under his fist. And when you broke someone's nose they usually seemed to develop at least one black eye. He was happy enough about that. In fact, after what she'd been doing it seemed like the least she deserved.

  Besides, the elders couldn't really be that upset with how he'd handled the matter. They'd given him a few reports of missing teenagers in upstate New York and a “feeling” from one of their sensitives and within four days he'd tracked down the witch and apprehended her. That was pretty good he thought. Better than anyone else could do.

  “Then what's wrong?”

  “It's your attitude.”

  “Oh well, nothing new then.” James shrugged somewhat disinterestedly. There was nothing he could do about his attitude. Nothing he wanted to do either. “I do my job, professionally and well. And none of your secrets are ever going to be leaving my mouth. You know that. I can't risk exposing Matti to the world.”

  That was the simple fact of it. He loved his daughter and she was one of the gifted. It had been a bitter blow to discover that. Especially after discovering what Francis had done. He was terrified of what her gift might do to her when it blossomed fully. But regardless of everything else she was his daughter. She was all he had. He had to protect her. And that meant hiding her secret no matter what.

  Witch burnings might be a tale from the past and, who knew, maybe people really had moved on beyond those simpler more barbaric times. But he doubted it. To reveal the existence of magic was to reveal the existence of those who practised it. Not the new age hocus pocus of the fools with their plastic wands and pyramids and whatever else. The real ones. And if they were revealed their lives would be destroyed. They would be feared by many. Some would regard them as near gods and worship them. Others would want to use them when they learned what they could do. Governments and security agencies especially. Most would be regarded as freaks. There would be all the usual prejudice and bigotry on show. Maybe it was simply his natural cynicism but James could not imagine anything good coming from exposing the existence of magic to the world. And he could never allow his daughter to be exposed.

  “You could manage a smile every now and then. A friendly word.” Will continued with his age old theme. “A smile doesn't cost you anything. And who knows, if you try it you might actually find you like it! Besides, I don't think your face would crack.”

  A smile? Friendly words? James was surprised. Not because Will was talking to him about his attitude – he had done so before – but simply because after five years he would have thought the man would have realised he was who he was. He wasn't going to change. “I repeat; I do my job and your secrets are safe.”

  “Ahh!” Will sighed somewhat dramatically. No doubt he was trying to make some point. “There he is. The man of ice. You do know that that's what they call you? The Iceman?”

  “You do know that I don't care?” James was just as good at making a point. And his point was a simple one – he really didn't care. He actually had heard the others use the term from time to time. Daniels especially. It didn't bother him. In fact it was actually quite accurate as names went. He was cold. Not because it was who he was. But simply because it was easier than having friends. Especially not friends who had magic.

  The sad truth was that if he could have he would have simply bought himself a cabin out in the wilds somewhere and retired from the world for the rest of his days. Pretended that this whole nightmare had never happened. There were things he simply never wanted to be a part of again, and while magic was one of them, normal human relations were another. He was cynical and bitter, but with good reason.

  Many men suffered betrayal and divorce. He knew he was no different to them in that. And many men reacted badly to the divorce. Searching out younger girlfriends and buying sports cars. Having their own versions of mid-life crises. But not many men had had their wives come to them out of the blue and tell them they were leaving them for their little brother. Not many had then been completely character assassinated in court by their soon to be ex-wives while their little brother looked on laughing. Not many had the supposedly impartial judge swearing at them in court and even locking them up for contempt when they hadn't actually said anything. And none had then had their ex-wives sell their eight year old daughter to a white slaver ring for twenty thousand dollars, simply so that their little brother could have a little spending money.

  Against that abomination he thought his character flaws could be understood. Even considered minor. His car was expensive but old and not showy. His apartment was modest. And there was no twenty year old bimbo running around half naked making a nuisance of herself. If he was a little distant and suspicious they could deal with it.

  Unfortunately Will didn't seem to agree.

  “Honestly some days I don't know why I bother.” Will sighed. “You're the hunter. You're supposed to lead and inspire your team. Instead you're like a black hole sucking the life out of the office.”

  “That seems harsh.” Though not as harsh as he wanted to pretend it was.

  “Is it? Is it really?” Will fixed him with a stare. “You know you're letting everyone down. You're letting yourself down too.”

  “I have my reasons.” James tried to defend himself though he knew he shouldn't.

  “No. You had reasons. Emphasis on had. Past tense. It's been five years now. You could have learned to lighten up a little. Let a few things go. Instead
…” Will gestured at the apartment. “… look at this place. It's like a vacuum as far as personality goes. No art. No colour. Nothing of interest. Boring furnishings. A complete triumph of sterility.”

  He was right James knew, though coming from a man dressed up as a cowboy it seemed like an unfair criticism. The apartment was boring. James kept it that way deliberately. After the end of his marriage and his brother's betrayal, he'd felt the need to get rid of anything that reminded him of his old life. And then he'd never replaced what he'd thrown away with anything new.

  “I like to think of it as tidy.”

  “Oh it's tidy alright. Mausoleums usually are!”

  “In fact now that I think of it –.” Will waved an arm and suddenly the table had a new centre piece. A peace lily in a clay pot. “That looks better. A little colour can always help. Call it a belated house warming gift.”