“What kind of Four did you get?” Dad asked them.
They puffed out their chests and spoke in unison. “Banshee.”
“No way!” Envy pricked me. Banshees didn’t show up much, maybe one or two a year. I’d read up on them, but I knew I’d never be assigned one because they were not a one-person job. It took at least two people to capture a banshee.
Adrian looked at Maurice with something akin to hero worship. “Any advice?”
“If it’s your first banshee, partner up with another team,” Maurice said.
Bruce nodded. “Don’t let your guard down for a second. They’re slippery even when they’re in shackles.”
“And don’t look her straight in the eyes when she’s wailing,” Dad added. “She’ll be able to control you, and you do not want a banshee in your head.”
A shiver went through me at his words, and Aaron and Adrian shuddered as they exchanged a look. They did their weird twin communication thing before they turned to me with identical earnest expressions.
“Jesse, you want to help us catch a banshee tonight?” Aaron asked.
“Are you kidding?” A grin split my face until I remembered what Maurice had told them. “But I don’t have a partner.”
Trey quietly cleared his throat. Aaron and Adrian ignored him, but I made the mistake of meeting his hopeful eyes. Ah, hell. I didn’t want to work another job with him, but I’d feel like a total jerk for leaving him out.
“If Bruce doesn’t need Trey, I guess he could be my partner for this one,” I said without much enthusiasm.
“Sure,” Trey blurted.
Bruce shot me a grateful smile. “He’s all yours.”
The twins looked less happy about it, so I added, “Trey and Bruce did bring in a banshee last year.”
I didn’t mention they had worked with Phil Griffin on that one, and that Trey had been more of a bystander. He had witnessed a banshee capture in person, which was more than the rest of us could say.
The twins did their silent look again and nodded at the same time. Was I the only one who found it a little creepy when they did that?
“Okay,” they said together.
“Great.” My excitement built up again. “Where and when?”
Aaron took out his phone. “I’ll send you the details.”
I texted him my number since I already had theirs. Trey and I agreed to meet up at my place and drive together since it made no sense to go separately when we lived a few streets apart. He and Bruce headed out, leaving me with Dad and Maurice.
Amusement sparkled in Dad’s eyes. “Didn’t you tell me working with Trey would drive you insane?”
“I said I’d go insane after a week of working with him. I think I can survive a few hours.”
Maurice chuckled. “The question is, will Trey survive?”
I let out a puff of air. “I make no promises.”
* * *
Three hours later, Aaron, Adrian, Trey, and I stood across the street from a twenty-five-story high-rise in the Upper East Side as Aaron explained the situation to us.
“Here’s what we know. A woman committed suicide here in January. She jumped from her apartment on the top floor. Last week, contractors started renovations up there, and a few days ago a banshee appeared. She’s been sticking to the top level, and so far, she hasn’t hurt anyone, but she has been keeping everyone off the floor.”
“Was the woman’s name Claire…something?” I asked because the story sounded familiar.
Aaron glanced down at his phone. “Claire Parker. How did you know that?”
“I remember seeing it on the news.” I’d watched a lot of TV when I visited my parents during their first two weeks in the hospital. The story about Claire Parker had been all over the local news the first week of January. She had been an up-and-coming model, who had recently signed a contract with one of the big cosmetic companies.
“Good memory,” Adrian said.
I craned my neck to look up at the top floors of the building. “Maybe the police were wrong about it being a suicide.”
Trey nudged me. “What makes you say that?”
“A banshee only haunts a place this long after a death if it’s a violent death like a murder.” I lowered my gaze to meet his. “And that means –”
“This banshee is going to be angry,” he finished for me.
I nodded grimly. “She is not going without a fight.”
Banshees appeared for two reasons. The most common one was when someone, usually a female, was dying. No one knew why they were attracted to some deaths and not others, but they would wail mournfully every night until the person was dead.
The second reason was to lament the violent death of a female. Faeries said the banshee was drawn to the angry, restless spirit of the deceased, and her keening forced the spirit to sever its final ties to the mortal world. The banshee could feel all of the spirit’s grief and rage, which made her angry as well. And an angry banshee was a dangerous one.
“Great,” Trey muttered.
I looked at Aaron and Adrian. “Let’s do this.”
We crossed the street and entered the building. As we rode the elevator up, we talked strategy. There weren’t many options when dealing with a banshee, so it didn’t take long to plan our attack. It was the execution of the plan that would be the hard part.
On the twenty-fifth floor, the doors slid open to a dark cavernous space. Most of the interior walls were gone, leaving support beams, hanging electrical wires, and sheets of thick plastic that fluttered like wraiths in the cold breeze whistling eerily through the empty floor.
I opened the small backpack I’d brought with me and pulled out my headlamp as the others went for theirs. The second I flicked mine on, a high-pitched wail came from somewhere on the floor, making the four of us jump. I’d seen videos of banshees before, but none of them had prepared me for this. The sound was so mournful and angry it raised gooseflesh on every inch of my body. Shouldn’t I be immune to this now that I was Fae?
I waved my hand to get their attention and pointed in the direction of the sound. They all nodded, and we started toward it with me in the lead. I wasn’t sure how I had somehow become the unspoken leader of our mission, but I didn’t mention it. I was more comfortable leading than following.
We maneuvered around piles of debris and building supplies, following the growing volume of the banshee’s cry. The closer we got, the colder the air became until our breaths were clouding the air around us.
The wail ended abruptly. I froze mid step, and Trey collided with me. He grabbed my shoulders to stop my fall, and I mouthed a silent thank you.
Covering my headlamp so it didn’t blind them, I pointed two fingers at my eyes and at the space around us. They nodded, and we started moving again but at a slower pace.
A sheet of plastic to our left suddenly billowed like a sail in the wind before it was split down the center. I spun toward it as two gnarled hands with pointed fingernails shoved the pieces of plastic aside, and the stuff of nightmares came through it.
It resembled the corpse of an old woman with dead, milky eyes and gray skin hanging off her sunken cheeks. I averted my gaze from hers, but it was her mouth that made a scream rise in my throat. It gaped open impossibly wide until it took up half her face, and the shriek that poured out of it was so horrible I was sure it had pierced my soul.