Banshee Blues (Bones and Bounties Book 1)

by Bilinda Sheehan

  “What are you doing here?” MacNa’s voice was rough and hoarse, and I strained against his grip in an attempt to see his face. “Don’t move or I will kill you, history or no history…” His threat was punctuated by the blade piercing my skin.

  “I was sent to look for you, to bring you in,” I said, relaxing into his hold. I wasn’t able to go anywhere, so holding my body in a state of perpetual tense panic seemed like an utter waste of my resources.

  “Who sent you?”

  “Who the heck do you think, MacNa? It sure as hell wasn’t the tooth fairy…” My anger washed over me in a soothing wave, and I instantly felt better.

  “You always did have a smart mouth,” he said, and relaxed his grip. The second the press of the blade disappeared, I shifted beneath him, using my momentum to drive him off my body.

  Rolling up onto my feet, I had just enough time to catch the blade he flung at me. This one was silver, not iron, but just because it couldn’t kill me didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt like hell to heal.

  “Seriously? When are you going to stop throwing your knives? You’ve never once been able to hit me, so what makes you think you’ll start now?”

  There was no sign of him in the gloom, but I could still sense him shrugging in the darkness.

  “Just because I can’t hit you, doesn’t mean I can’t try…”

  “Why are you hiding, MacNa?” I asked. It didn’t make any sense—he wasn’t the type to hide. He was brash and arrogant, and hiding didn’t exactly fit with the image he was trying to cultivate. It was an image he would never manage to achieve, just one look at MacNa and everyone knew him for the lily-livered fool he was. Since the Fae weren’t exactly the forgiving types and had a particular hatred for the weak and in the grand scheme of things, MacNa was weak, all of his attempts to appear otherwise were in vain.

  “Why do you care? You’ll still bring me in.”

  “Well, yeah, it’s my job…”

  “Do you do everything the Court tells you?” By now, I had the distinct impression he was stalling.

  “That’s what slavery means,” I called out, moving carefully around the space.

  The more time I spent here, the more I concluded that the gloom wasn’t due to lack of windows. Glancing upwards, I could see the faint hints of windows that should have cast the room in the glow of daylight. Clearly, the darkness was just another one of the witch’s little spells.

  If this was the best she could do, then she wasn’t particularly powerful… And certainly not like the Shadow Sorceress I’d run into in King City.

  “Come on, MacNa, you know the drill. I take you in, you use your charm to worm your way back out of trouble, and before you know it you’re back to running your sleazy bar and I can go back to working a paying job.”

  Silence greeted me, and I swore quietly. There was no way he’d given me the slip. I was good at my job, good at tracking people…

  Anger slammed through me, and I clenched my fingers into fists. I could feel my power flooding through my veins as I threw back my head and screamed, the sound reverberating around the warehouse. The windows above me shattered, causing glass to cascade to the floor in a glittering spray of sharp shards that reflected the light and momentarily cut through the gloom.

  She was sitting in the corner, her back to me as her hands moved through the air, the colour of her magic sparking along her fingers.

  I screamed again, this time directing it at her and the magic she was weaving. Her hands froze mid-air, and I saw the moment the harrowing sound of my cry had pierced the veil of her power.

  She scrabbled to her knees, her hands clawing at her ears and eyes. The darkness threatened to sweep inward, so I crossed the space quickly, grabbing her arms as I dragged her roughly to her feet.

  Blood dripped from her nose and dark, almond-shaped eyes, and I knew instinctively that it would also be dripping from her ears. The harbinger’s cry was only for those whose death was near. For everyone else, it was a painful reminder of life’s fragility, a reminder that it could be snuffed out without so much as a moment’s notice.

  “Cut the crap,” I said, shaking her until her teeth chattered in her head. A fine sheen of sweat had broken out across her olive skin.

  “He hired me to keep him hidden. I don’t even know how you found him…” Her voice was high-pitched, just another nasty side effect of my power. The ringing in her ears would take days to dissipate, and as for her eardrums? Well, six weeks should see them both healed.

  “It’s my job to find assholes like him,” I said. “But I’m willing to bet that you want to help make my day easier by just telling me where he went?”

  She shook her head and then moaned. I could see the pain clouding her vision, and I fought the desire to smile. I liked pain. I enjoyed inflicting it on those who deserved it, and sometimes I even enjoyed inflicting it on those who didn’t deserve it. The price of being Unseelie.

  But that didn’t mean I wanted to enjoy it. I’d spent more than a lifetime fighting against my own nature, but it never seemed to get any easier.

  “I can’t,” she said. “He’ll kill me.”

  “You’re worried about him killing you? Sweetie, shouldn’t you worry about what I’ll do to you?”

  Her pain-filled eyes cleared a little, and she stared up at me with the fear I deserved. Well, fear I might once have deserved. Now, I was only good enough to drag wayward strays like MacNa back to Faerie and seek out cheating husbands for their spoiled wives.

  “MacNa won’t kill you,” I said. “He doesn’t have the stones. Never did.”

  The witch shook her head, and I slowly released her. “You don’t know him as he is now,” she said. “Fear will make people do things they might not have been capable of doing before.”

  My eyes fell on the bruising that ran down one side of her face and on the faint rope marks around her neck.

  “He didn’t hire you, did he?” I asked, keeping my voice very quiet.

  “He did, I…” She trailed off, and her gaze hit the floor.

  “MacNa’s not here anymore, so you can tell me.”

  “There are places where those of my kind are kept like animals, chained and used for the gifts we possess. We’re outlawed, so even if we wanted to, it’s not as though we could go to the cops and complain. If the humans knew of our existence, they would wipe us out without a second thought.”

  “I’ve seen what the humans can do. I know it’s not pretty, but I didn’t know about the rest of it.” Pity churned in my stomach.

  “We are sold to those who can afford us, and we do their magical bidding,” she said, her gaze still firmly trained on the floor.

  I had a horrible, sinking feeling that they had to do far more than just their “owners’” magical bidding, but I wasn’t going to push it. She’d clearly been through enough, and while I was Unseelie, I wasn’t a monster like many of my kind. I knew what it was like to be a slave, and I didn’t like it any more than the woman standing in front of me did.

  “But he’s gone now,” I said. “You don’t need to be afraid of him.”

  Reaching up with hands that shook, she tugged down the edge of her jacket to reveal the silver collar fastened around her neck. What looked like a suspiciously large diamond was set into the centre.

  “He has the key. If he doesn’t release me, they will come to claim me back and I will be sold again.”

  My stomach churned again, but this time it had nothing to do with pity and everything to do with the urge to rip off the heads of those who would do such a thing. I knew what it meant to be an outcast, but even though the Fae weren’t exactly fond of banshees, they hadn’t resorted to this. Or at least I was pretty certain they hadn’t.

  “No one is claiming anyone back, that I promise you…” I trailed off. I didn’t even know her name, and here I was pledging her my protection.

  “Samira,” she said hesitantly. I couldn’t blame her. I’d barged in here, tried to arrest the man who’d bought
her, and then threatened her life if she didn’t help me. If I were her, I’d have been hesitant to share anything.

  “Right. Samira, how about we get out of here and you can fill me in on what you know about MacNa and the people who sold you.”

  She started to shake her head, and I shot her a stern look. “Look, I can keep you safe, but I’m going to need some information to go on. The ones who sold you cannot get away with this. I won’t let them, but in order to stop them I’m going to need your help.” I tried to keep my voice as friendly as possible, but friendly wasn’t exactly something we banshees were good at.

  “You will not let them take me back?” Her voice was so low that if I didn’t have preternatural hearing I might not have picked up on her words.

  “I promise…”

  Swallowing hard, she nodded once and then flung herself into my arms. I staggered back, shock washing over me as her sudden movement almost knocked me off balance.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she whispered over and over as the front of my T-shirt grew damp with her tears.

  I held her for a moment and then placed a firm grip on her shoulders, pushing her gently away. “Rule number one: you don’t thank me for doing the right thing. You need to understand that not everyone in this world is bad. And rule number two: I don’t like to be cried on. Brings back a lot of memories I’d rather forget.”

  Samira stared at me with wide eyes that were still bright with fresh tears, and I felt my resolve weaken. Whatever they had done to her had very nearly broken her. I could see it in her face, feel it rolling off her in waves. She’d been on the verge of giving up hope, and it made me wonder just how long she’d been forced to pray that one day help would come.

  Staring down into her face certainly didn’t make me like MacNa more. In fact, it made me loathe him more than I thought possible—enough that if I got my hands on him again, I wasn’t sure I would be able to control myself and bring him in for the slap on the wrist he deserved. The Faerie Court wouldn’t care that he had been holding a witch hostage, or that he had bought her… Most of the Fae viewed the humans as little more than an amusement—fragile, helpless creatures who could help pass a little time before they broke.

  “Come on, I’ll bring you back to my place and you can get cleaned up. I might have something that can help with that collar,” I said, eyeing it carefully.

  Samira nodded and followed me from the warehouse, gasping as she caught sight of the motorcycle.

  “We can get a taxi if you’d be more comfortable,” I said, catching sight of the fear in her wide eyes.

  “Yes, please, I…” She trailed off, and I smiled at her.

  “You don’t need to tell me. Taxi it is.”

  “But what about your motorcycle? Will it not…” Her words died in her throat as the bike disappeared.

  It would already be at home, safely tucked away in the parking garage I paid quite a hefty sum every month to rent. It was my one and only luxury, and for good reason. I could never let my bike fall into the wrong hands. Along with the Bone Blade, it was one powerful artefact, and in the wrong hands it would be more than a little dangerous.

  I hailed the first taxi that approached us, and quickly shepherded Samira inside. My sensitive nose wrinkled in disgust at the smell of stale tobacco and urine. I didn’t hate the humans, but they often had disgusting habits. Urinating in the back of taxis seemed to be one of those uncomfortably common occurrences.

  “Wesson Street, please,” I said, directing the driver toward my apartment.

  He didn’t answer me as the car glided forward, taking us away from MacNa’s hideout.

  Staring out the window, I scanned the empty streets. He was out here somewhere, and I would find him. When I did, I would make him pay. Make him pay for everything.

  Chapter Five

  The sound of the running shower echoed through the apartment and I tried not to pace around anxiously. The second Samira’s eyes had fallen on the shower, her face had lit up like a Christmas tree. I couldn’t turn her down, especially when she turned her big brown eyes on me.

  The running water cut off, and I paused next to the window and stared down into the street below. Ever since I’d taken her from the warehouse, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching me, following us. I couldn’t prove it, but that didn’t prevent me from feeling nervous. I wanted to take the battle to them, not have them follow me home and set up some sort of ambush.

  “The clothes are a little big,” Samira said, her voice drawing me back from my dark thoughts.

  As I turned to face her, I couldn’t stop the laughter that burst from my lips. She was being generous when she said the clothes were a little big. They were a lot big, and my T-shirt and sweatpants swamped her petite frame. She looked like a little girl playing dress-up in her older sister’s clothes.

  “We’ll get you some new clothes, but for now at least they’re clean,” I offered, trying to smother my laughter behind my hand.

  The clothes she’d worn beneath her black coat had consisted of some sort of yellowed and aged dress that must have begun life as some sort of sack. It was torn and soiled, and the sight of it brought my anger crashing to the surface.

  If I could have burned the offending article, then I would have done it—but living in an apartment in the middle of a city didn’t exactly lend itself to ceremonial fires. So I’d had to make do with tossing it down the garbage chute in the hall.

  “You hungry? There’s not much in the fridge, but I might have something worthwhile… Failing that, we can always order take out?” Samira shook her head, and I chewed my lip.

  I wasn’t used to having guests, and I was even less used to having people to protect. The whole protection gig wasn’t really part of a banshee’s repertoire, so even attempting it was pushing me way outside my normal comfort zone.

  Samira crossed the floor and flopped down onto my well-worn grey couch. I hadn’t found it in a dumpster—unlike most of everything else I owned—but it hadn’t come from a store and I hadn’t paid a dime for it. Even though its springs were sagging and it tried to eat me every time I sat on it, I didn’t care. It was mine and it was grey… Call it a banshee thing, but I adored the colour grey.

  “The man who bought me, he is not a good man…” Samira said quietly as she tucked her legs beneath herself. She was someone able to perch on the edge of the couch without sinking into it.

  Watching her perform such an amazing feat almost made me want to ask her if she was doing a balance spell, but I bit my tongue.

  “No, he’s not,” I said, shame washing through my cheeks in a blaze of heat.

  I’d been young when MacNa had befriended me—young and impressionable, and I’d let him convince me that embracing my Unseelie nature could be a good thing. No, young and impressionable was a cop out, and I knew it. I’d been an idiot, and certainly old enough to know better. But he was charming and tough, and I’d been sucked in by his desire to thwart authority at every turn. By the time I realised the path MacNa was leading me down, it had already been too late and the monster had sunk his claws into me…

  MacNa had betrayed me, but that was nothing in comparison to the scars I still bore after he delivered me to the monster.

  “He’s afraid,” Samira said, her words snapping me out of my own head and back to the moment at hand.

  “Afraid?” I asked in confusion. What MacNa had to be afraid of was beyond me. The one he’d been in service to was gone, and he’d gotten away with his side of it scot-free.

  “Something is after him—something he fears—and that was why he bought me,” Samira said.

  Someone being after him wasn’t impossible, he generally seemed to rub everyone he met the wrong way and he had ducked out of a challenge. What if he was supposed to face the same one who was after him? But that still didn’t make any sense… He’d been involved in plenty of challenges in the past and had always managed to worm his way out unhurt. Why would this time have
been any different?

  None of it was making any sense, and thinking about it was beginning to give me a headache.

  “So how did he find out about you? You know, so he could buy you,” I asked. There was no way to sensitively address the subject, and the more waffling I did the more I was going to hurt Samira. My policy had always been to rip off the Band-Aid and face the resulting pain head on. This was no different.

  “You are not like him,” she said suddenly, and I felt my spine stiffen.

  I definitely wasn’t, but to hear it pointed out to me as though there might have been even the slightest hint of a tint that I might be like MacNa bugged me.

  “You mean I’m not a rat-bastard?” I volunteered, and Samira grinned.

  “I like that. He is both of those things, but I never considered putting them together.”

  “Yeah, well, when you spend your days hanging around people like him, you learn to get creative with the insult-slinging.”

  She sighed and dropped her head once more to her knees, a slight shudder running through her frame.

  “It is much colder here,” she said.

  “Where’s home?” I asked.

  “Home used to be Izmir, but it has been a very long time since I was there… I don’t even truly remember it anymore.”

  “That’s in Turkey, right?” I asked, trying to get a better picture of how she’d come to be in captivity.

  “Yes. Much like here, they do not approve of my kind. My mother hoped that by sending me to America, I would lead a better life… She did not know who she was entrusting my care to.”

  I’d heard of it happening. In the human news, it was an all too common occurrence to hear of young women taken from their families and sold into sexual slavery. It was probably naive of me to believe that it wouldn’t also be happening in the magical world. It certainly made perfect sense.

  “How long ago was that?” I asked.

  “Thirty years.”

  I stared at her. She looked to be no more than late teens, twenty tops. Not that it wasn’t possible to both look young and be immortal. That’s what I was, after all, but the kind of power it took to achieve that, well that was something you could feel deep in your bones. Samira felt like any young woman, and her magic hadn’t felt all that powerful in the warehouse. So how was it possible?