Before he could answer, flashes of colored lights outside drew my gaze to the window. I ran over to look up at the sky and saw the familiar light display. We weren’t having an earthquake. It was a Fae storm. Only, this time, it was over land instead of the Hudson.
I twitched as static electricity moved across my skin. That was new and not at all pleasant. Shaking it off, I said, “Dad, come look at this.”
“Jesse!” Dad’s voice held a note of alarm that had me spinning to face him. Or I tried to. It’s a little hard to turn when you are suddenly weightless and floating a foot off the floor.
“What the hell?” I grabbed for the window ledge, but it was out of reach as I drifted upward like a helium balloon. My head bumped gently against the ceiling, and I put my hands up to brace against it. I fought to keep the panic out of my voice. “Dad?”
He had barely taken three steps toward me when the door opened, and Faolin burst in as if he expected to find us under attack. He came up short, and his serious expression relaxed into one of amusement at the sight of my predicament.
I glared at him. “Don’t just stand there. Get me down from here.”
He made a sound suspiciously like a laugh as he came over to place his hands on my waist. Pale blue magic poured from his fingers, and the uncomfortable tingling sensation disappeared. Seconds later, gravity took over, and I floated back to the floor.
“Thanks,” I said, too happy to be back on solid ground to care about the smirk he wore. “What was that?”
He stepped back and gave me a once-over. “Your body reacted to the storm. Humans can’t feel a storm’s energy. Faeries feel it, but it doesn’t affect us. You, on the other hand, are newly converted, and you have barely developed your magic. That makes you susceptible to it.”
“Great,” I muttered. “I hope I’m not outside the next time there’s a storm, or I’ll be the first faerie in orbit.”
Faolin actually chuckled. “I think we can give you something to carry with you when you go out that will suppress your magic until you can control it.”
“Like a dampening ward?” Dad asked.
Faolin nodded. “We can’t ward Jesse, but she should be able to carry something on her person. It will allow her to feel other magic while not reacting to it.”
Dad folded his arms across his chest. “I thought the storms were supposed to get weaker now that the ke’tain is back in Faerie.”
“It’s taking longer than we expected,” Faolin said. His phone rang, and he walked away to answer it.
“I can’t wait to see how the Agency tries to spin this one with the public.” I glanced out the window and saw that the lights were gone from the sky. The Hudson storm had been passed off as a freak tornado that had happened at the exact same time as the aurora borealis. I still couldn’t believe people had accepted that explanation.
“I don’t think they can.” Dad turned to the hallway. “I’m going to check on Finch and Aisla. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Now that I was alone with Faolin, snatches of his phone conversation reached me. “She’s okay. I was outside when it hit.”
I didn’t need to hear the other person’s voice to guess who it was. Anger and hurt licked at me. If Lukas was concerned about me, why didn’t he call me instead of Faolin? Was the thought of talking to me that abhorrent to him now?
Faolin ended the call and looked at me. “One of us will bring the ward to you later today. It will most likely be a bracelet or something to wear around your neck. Try not to go outside until then.”
“I won’t. Thanks.”
“Thank you for your help,” Dad said, rejoining us.
We said our goodbyes again, and Faolin left for the second time today. Dad and I went downstairs to check on Mrs. Russo and the other residents who were shaken by the storm. As scary as it had been, it was nothing compared to the violent one I’d experienced on the ferry two months ago. I was more rattled by the whole floating thing than the storm itself.
I was unnerved when we checked the news reports an hour later and learned Los Angeles, London, Hong Kong, and Tokyo had all experienced similar storms around the same time. It was no coincidence that these five cities were the most popular in the world for faerie portals. Our storm had set off a citywide panic that had prompted both the mayor and the governor to go on the air to reassure people they were safe.
Two hours after the storm, the White House and the Agency did a joint press conference. Without going into too much detail, they informed the country about an artifact that had been brought here from Faerie, causing some instability in the barrier between the two realms. After telling viewers the object was safely back in Faerie, they assured people the barrier was healing, but there could be more storms until the damage was repaired.
“The worst is over,” said the national head of the Agency during the barrage of questions fired at them by reporters.
I looked over at my father. “Do you believe that?”
“No.”
I rubbed my suddenly cold arms. “Me either.”
“Are you ready for this?” Dad asked as he reached for the door handle.
I smiled at him. “Are you?”
“Guess we’ll find out.” Grinning, he opened the door, and we stepped into the lobby of the Plaza. It felt like it had been a lot longer than three weeks since the last time I’d been here. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for him coming back after a four-month absence.
There were at least a dozen hunters in the lobby, and all heads turned in our direction. It surprised me to realize I knew everyone there. So much had changed since the first time I’d set foot in this building all those months ago.
A cheer went up, and some of the hunters clapped as they called out to Dad. In the next instant, we were surrounded by his old friends clamoring to welcome him back.
Warmth filled me as I watched him talking and laughing and looking more like his old self than he had since he’d come home. I’d been a little worried it was too soon for him to come here with me today, but this was exactly what he needed.
I spotted Maurice, Bruce, and Trey standing on one side of the room, and I walked over to join them. Maurice dropped by our apartment every day, but I hadn’t seen Bruce or Trey since before the day I’d nearly died from a bullet to the chest. As far as they and the other bounty hunters were concerned, I had been shot in the arm and had taken time off to heal. Outside of my family, the only humans who knew the real story were Maurice, Violet, and the Agency.
“Jesse, good to have you back,” Bruce said as Maurice gave me a one-armed hug.
“It’s good to be back,” I replied lightly. I had been practically floating since I got a call from the Agency this morning letting me know my license had been reinstated. I’d immediately called Levi, who told me to drop by this afternoon.
Trey pushed away from the wall he was leaning against. “How’s the arm?”
“Like it was never shot.”
He gave a slow shake of his head. “I can’t believe you were shot by Davian Woods, of all people.”
My jaw went slack. “How do you know about Davian?” I was under the impression the Agency hadn’t released any details of that day.
Trey smirked. “You should know by now that word travels around here. We heard you found the ke’tain, and Woods tried to take it from you.”
The rumor was close enough to the truth, so I nodded. “Good thing he’s a lousy shot.”
Trey’s eyes widened. “It’s true? You were the one who found the ke’tain?” He whistled. “A hundred thousand dollars. What are you going to do with all that money?”
A hand came to rest on my shoulder, and Dad said, “She’s going to college.”
He moved to stand beside me, and we shared a smile. In the week since his life-changing revelation that Caleb was alive, Dad and I had spent a lot of time talking about the future and making plans. He’d insisted I use the ke’tain bounty for school, which meant I had enough to start college in the fall. Come September, I would be a fulltime student at Harvard University.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about leaving my family after all that had happened. Every time I brought it up, Dad said college was months away and everything would be back to normal by then. I wanted to believe that more than anything.
Trey made a face. “College? I thought you were going to hunt from now on.”
“Harvard,” Dad corrected him proudly. “She’ll keep hunting until the fall.”
Maurice beamed at me. “Harvard? That’s wonderful!”
“You don’t mind her hunting alone?” Trey asked.
“I wouldn’t say that.” Dad smiled at me. “But Jesse’s proven more than capable of taking care of herself. And things seem to have calmed down here now that the ke’tain is back in Faerie.”
“If by normal you mean except for the storms.” Bruce’s voice was laced with resentment. “How could they have kept that from us?”
His anger was justified. Maurice had told Dad and me the bounty hunters were furious they had been left in the dark. They understood why the Agency wanted to keep it from the general public, but this vital information should have been shared with the hunters. The Agency’s actions had created a layer of tension between them and the hunters, who now viewed them with distrust.
Guilt gnawed at me. I’d learned the truth about the storms from Lukas, but I hadn’t told anyone. Thinking back, I wasn’t sure why I’d kept it to myself. And now the Agency and I were keeping another secret from my fellow bounty hunters. How would they react when the news of my conversion came out?
The elevator dinged, and I looked over to see the Mercer twins walk out. When Adrian saw us, he poked his brother, and the two of them headed our way.
“Are those Joe and Leah Mercer’s boys?” Maurice asked. “I think the last time I saw them, they were in middle school.”
Dad nodded. “They’ve been hunting for two years.”
“Lord, I feel old.” Maurice rubbed the back of his neck. Dad and Bruce laughed.
Aaron and Adrian exchanged hellos with us, and then Adrian grinned. “We just landed our first Four from Silas.”
“That’s awesome!” I fist-bumped him.
“We did a few Fours with Mom and Dad, but this is our first since we went on our own,” Aaron said.
“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.
The creature flew straight at me, her ghastly maw stretching as if to swallow me whole. I tripped backward over a piece of lumber and got tangled in some dangling electrical wires. I struggled to free myself, but I was a fly trapped in a spider’s web.
“Get her,” I shouted above her screeching.
The banshee veered away from me toward Aaron and Adrian. One of them howled in fear, and then came the sound of running feet. The banshee gave chase, her angry wails mixing with their screams.
Something grabbed me from behind, and I let out a small scream, whirling to strike out at it. My fist hit flesh, and it staggered back a step.
“Ow! Damn it, it’s me.” Trey rubbed his cheek. “You nearly took my head off. Where did you learn to punch that hard?”
“Sorry.” Apparently, my Fae strength was starting to kick in. I freed myself from the wiring. “Let’s go.”
We ran after Aaron, Adrian, and the banshee. It wasn’t hard to track them with all the noise they were making, and we found the twins cowering in a corner with the banshee shrieking her rage at them.
I tugged on Trey’s sleeve and held up my shackles. He nodded, and we rushed in at the same time. I grabbed onto one of the banshee’s arms, and he went for the other one. The intent was to shackle and hold her long enough for the twins to gag her. Shackles could slow down a banshee, but the only way to subdue one was to silence her. This was why it took multiple people to bring one in.
I almost had the shackle on her wrist when she screamed so loud it was like needles pricking my eardrums. I lost my grip and fell to my hands and knees, and she disappeared into the darkness.
It took a minute for my ears to stop ringing enough to hear Adrian calling his brother’s name. I lifted my head and saw Aaron lying on the floor while Adrian bent over him. A few feet to my right, Trey sat on the floor, shaking his head and looking a little dazed.
I crawled over to Aaron, who had a bloody gash on his forehead. “What happened?” I asked too loudly.
“I think he ran into a two-by-four.” Adrian shook his brother gently. “Come on, bro. You’re scaring the shit out of me.”
I checked Aaron’s pulse and breathing and opened his eyes to look at his pupils. They reacted to the light, which was a good sign. I was debating what to do next when he blinked and let out a low moan. My breath left me in a relieved whoosh, and I sat back on my heels.
A few seconds later, he put a hand up to feel the goose egg on his head. “Did anyone get the license plate of that truck?”
From the far end of the floor, the banshee keened. Aaron sat up and nearly fell over, clutching his head.
“Take it slowly,” Adrian told him.
Aaron looked at his brother with haunted eyes. “Did you see her? It was Emmy but not.”
Adrian nodded sadly. “I saw her.”
I didn’t say anything. Emmy was their sister, who had been two years behind me in school. She’d died from leukemia a year and a half ago.
“Do you guys want to keep going or come back tomorrow?” Trey asked from behind me.
“Keep going,” Aaron, Adrian, and I said together.
Aaron stood, pressed his mouth into a hard line, and tossed away his busted headlamp. “That bitch is going down.”
We headed back toward the other end of the building where we’d heard the banshee the first time. Halfway there, she started up her keening again, and a shudder went through me. I reminded myself it was all in my head, and she couldn’t hurt me if I didn’t let her. A glance at the other three told me they were dealing with their own fears. I didn’t know what Trey had seen, but our visions couldn’t have been anywhere near as bad as seeing a dead sister.
As with before, the banshee went silent when we drew near. This time, though, we were expecting her attack. We stood together with our hands over our ears as she flew screaming at us out of the darkness. She circled us a few times and took off when she saw she wasn’t going to scare us away.
We resumed walking. She kept returning to the same spot, and I suspected it might be where Claire Parker’s apartment had been. If so, that was the best place to corner her. She was drawn to it, and she would make her stand there.
I could hear the howl of the wind the closer we got to our destination, and the sheets of hanging plastic danced like ghostly figures. For a moment, I imagined one of them was the ghost of Claire Parker, and I quickly shook off the thought. The banshee was terrifying enough without me scaring myself more.
Trey touched my arm and pointed at something up ahead. I squinted through the gloom and spotted a figure standing in front of a window, or the place where a window used to be. Her gray cloak and long gray hair fluttered wildly, and she had her head bent forward, her hands clasped as if in prayer.
“Same plan as before?” I asked as we approached her.
Aaron didn’t take his eyes off the banshee. “Yes.”
I swallowed dryly and moved ahead of them. The plan we’d come up with was for me to distract the banshee. While I took the brunt of her anger, the three of them would subdue her. It had sounded like a great plan before I’d experienced her wrath firsthand.
She started a low keening when I was ten feet from her, but she didn’t lift her head to look at me. My heartbeats pounded in my ears as I slowly closed the distance between us. She didn’t move.
I glanced over my shoulder at the others, and Adrian shrugged. They couldn’t sneak up on her if she stayed where she was, but she didn’t seem inclined to leave the spot.
Then it hit me. If this had been Claire’s apartment, the banshee was probably standing exactly where the woman had fallen from. I shivered at the realization.
None of the books I’d read had mentioned what to do when a banshee just stood there like this. Dad had said she would go after whomever got close to her, which was me in this case.
“Hey,” I said to her, feeling stupid talking to a banshee. Could she even understand me? Too bad becoming faerie didn’t give me command of their language. That probably would have come in handy.
She didn’t move, so I spoke again. “Hey?”
Still no response. I took a breath and tried a different tactic. “Claire?”
Her head shot up, and she fixed her dead eyes on me. I backed up as her face twisted in rage, and her keening grew louder. In the blink of an eye, she was so close I could feel the cold emanating from her. She began to circle me, and I moved with her until I was now the one with my back to the windows. Her mouth gaped, and I clapped my hands over my ears before the shriek came.
I couldn’t hear the others moving, but suddenly, the banshee whirled away from me. The twins grabbed her arms, and I caught the glint of metal in Trey’s hands. I didn’t breathe as they wrestled her to the floor.
The banshee exploded from the tangle of bodies with an earsplitting screech. I flinched at the thud of two bodies hitting the wall as she rounded on me. She flew at me so fast there was no time to evade her attack. I pitched backward, but there was nothing to grab onto. Terror slammed into me as I fell through the opening and into the night.