#screadqueens

[chasseurdeloup]

Four's a Party || Kaden, Eithne, Angelina, and Jade

TIMING: April 27th; After Jade and Van's Banshee run in and Jade's slaying sprees, and before the Trial LOCATION: Regan's Jade's Cabin PARTIES: @screadqueens, @highoctanegem, and @chasseurdeloup SUMMARY: Kaden goes to the cabin to return Regan's shirt, convinced that she might be hiding out there somewhere, and runs into a lot of women, none of them Regan. CONTENT WARNINGS: Head trauma (knocking someone unconscious), taser use

Something strange was happening with Kavanagh, Kaden knew that much. Sure, she had said she was leaving the country, and yes, Nora claimed she was in Ireland with her, and yeah, she wasn’t responding to messages with anything other than something about bog lemmings and peaches, but that didn’t mean anything for certain. Not really. Nora was prone to pranks and that status on its own was too strange to be one indicating that she crossed the Atlantic ocean. Not to mention she didn’t say goodbye. That deer leg was just an early birthday gift or some shit. Couldn’t be some kind of weird parting gift. 

Right, the odds weren’t on his side but Kaden couldn’t leave it alone all the same. For all he knew, she was stuck in a bog hunting for lemmings. Likely dead ones, now that he thought about it. Or dealing with some kind of illness from eating a really bad peach. Not to mention he had a feeling that most people who knew her didn’t know about her strange cabin in the woods, secluded and secret. If anyone was prone to hiding out there and pretending they were in another country to keep people away, Kavanagh seemed like the type. For all he knew, she was there right that second. Plus, he owed her a shirt. She wouldn’t have left without that or the bones, right? Not that he thought he was important, he just figured she was too stubborn to leave the country before getting them.

Which is why he was trekking out through the goddamn woods to find that same strange little cabin again. It was harder to find now that he was looking for it, oddly enough, but it was nestled right where he remembered it. It looked as abandoned as ever but that didn’t mean much with Regan. Sure didn’t look different from the first time he encountered it. 

Kaden walked up to the door and rapped his knuckles against the wood before leaning in to listen for any signs of life. He knew too damn well that even if she was in there, she would try and pretend she wasn’t. With his ear to the door, he heard shuffling, objects moving and clattering, footsteps. “Kavanagh, I know you’re in there,” he said, knocking again. “I have your damn shirt. I even brought my own blindfold this time.” 

—

Eithne was glad to be working with Angelina on this. Even if it was thankless work, which was exactly what it was today. Scourging through the contents of an abandoned cabin was dull and disappointing. How could it be that Regan had left nothing of note behind? There were the weapons, of course there were the weapons, but she could think of no reality where a banshee would debase herself to use such crude things. They were a point of interest and confusion. (She had, however, pocketed a knife. It might come in useful.)

But there was nothing of note. A few receipts, stacked on the kitchen counter. Most of them contained boring food items, none of them bearing the proof of Bone-ios being purchasable in the area. This too, was disappointing. She kept rifling, though. Dutiful. Not every day in this town could be spent following Fate’s will and ensuring the secrecy of their home, after all. There was investigation to be done too, to wipe out these traces. It seemed Regan Kavernagh and Siobhan Dolan alike were like muddy mutts, leaving earthy tracks around everywhere. At least they didn’t need a mop to clean it. Banshees had different instruments.

And then there was a knock. Eithne rose to her full height, eyes inky black as they had been for much of the attempt at investigation. She looked at Angelina, moved towards the door but did not open it yet. Her wings were glamored away. The voice followed the knock, gruff and grating and masculine. Kavanagh. She had a man-friend who had her shirt, who knew where she lived. She swung open the door and took him in. “Come in,” she said. “We can get the shirt where you need it to be.” She’d sooner burn it than bring one of the child’s belongings home with her. The space in her bags could be better used. She stepped aside to let the stranger in, as if it was completely normal that she and Angelina were here. It was, of course. There was tidying to be done. Perhaps this was just another track of mud.

—

Angelina didn’t quite like the new world as much as she thought she would, the town was charming in its own way - plenty of death and decay around that she could appreciate - but it seemed rather odd. Still, she knew that the younger banshees needed a steady hand, and so she had gone with them to make sure that this experience was a good learning experience. After all, it was likely something like this might happen again. 

So she had gone with Eithne to check on the child’s cabin carefully considering the place. It was rather banshee like even while empty of banshee things, but it wasn’t especially helpful on their mission. Still, she watched the other banshee examine it nodding along approvingly. 

It was important to encourage good behaviors after all, and Eithne was shaping up to be a wonderful reliable banshee. While Angelina could help more, she figured it was a good lesson in duty and Eithne was at the age she should be getting a little more responsibility. 

She was about to suggest that they head out of the cabin when they heard a man speaking. Her eyes flashed to the door standing quietly to the side considering when Eithne decided to speak. Nodding to the younger she said, “Oh dearie - It does seem to be something she would want. Come in, - whoever you are. I think we have some things to talk about.”  

It wasn’t a suggestion on Angelina’s part as she tilted her head slightly her smile vaguely off putting. “Do you like bone cookies? I have some. It does look like you have bones on you.” 

—

When the door swung open, Kaden was surprised, but ready to poke fun at Regan for being so eager to welcome guests for once, especially while she was pretending to be across the ocean. Only it wasn’t Kavanagh there on the other side of the door – the door that was now wide open, displaying the interior of the cabin for the world to see, as if it wasn’t the hotbed of secrets (and likely sex toys) that Kavanagh had made it out to be. 

Instinctively, he took a step back, his foot now resting on the lower stair. “Oh, uh, sorry. I must have the wrong place.” His brows furrowed at the eager invitation from the two women waiting inside the sparse cabin. He couldn’t say if any of it even belonged to Kavanagh in the first place, he’d never seen the inside of it, but it didn’t alleviate the disappointment sinking into his stomach. She really had left. After all that talk and what he thought was bullshit postering and pranks from that kid, she’d left. And he didn’t even say–

Right, whatever. They weren’t friends, she’d made that clear. He was just some guy who she occasionally patched up. “Sorry, did you just move in or something? I’m looking for Reg– Dr. Kavanagh. I just wanted to drop these off,” he said, holding out the shirt and the bones it was wrapped around. The further invitation from the second woman made him hesitate once more, frozen in place and debating if he should take a step forward or back. 

It was stupid of him to go out into the woods without any real weapons but, for once, he wasn’t out there to hunt. At least he had a few knives on him, never left home without them, and he caught a glimpse of what looked like an ax or two leaning against the back wall. Kaden wasn’t sure if it was comforting to know he’d have access to a weapon once he was inside or if it made the whole thing more concerning.

Both. It was both. Either way, he carefully stepped over the threshold and into the cabin. “Bone cookies?” he asked. “Uh, can’t say, never had any.” The lines of confusion only deepened on his face as she continued. “How do you– I mean, I do, yeah. I promised Kavanagh I’d give them to her if she went on the stupid moose tour with me.” It felt foolish to say aloud and he was glad he’d left the antlers tucked in his back pocket instead of holding them in the bundle he’d brought with him. 

—

Angelina had a lot going for her, but she was not being particularly productive when it came to digging around Kavanagh’s cabin. It mattered little though, now that one of the young banshee’s associates had shown up. Eithne eyed the man curiously, though also with a hint of judgment. Her head shook. “How can it be the wrong place? We know Kavanagh — though we call her Regan.” Well, usually they called her a leanbh, a disgrace, an embarrassment, dirty spot. But it was probably better to sound like they had some fondness for the other, rather than pure disdain.

How strange, that a human man would bring bones to the house of a banshee who’d abandoned her post. She should not get to enjoy the fruits of fate’s labor like that! She should not get to enjoy anything. If she wanted to be surrounded by decay and death she should have remained where she was supposed to, rather than swap their home for this horrid place.

(Right, admittedly — there were some good parts about this town. Like the pit of death that was her temporary home. It reminded her of Ireland. It reminded her of their own death pit.)

“Well,” she said, “If you promised her, you must come through. Promises are very serious.” Eithne doubted that Regan Kavanagh was clever enough to trap human men into binds that had them delivering bones to her. It was quite a good ploy, though. Perhaps she would use it in the future. “I would take the cookies, they are delicious. What is it you did on this moose tour? We are always interested in …” A pause. “Recreational exploits.” She held out her hands expectantly for the shirt, assuming that she’d simply be handed it as well as the answers to her questions. She was a servant of fate, this was a human man. It was to be expected.

—

Angelina was proud of the younger banshee although perhaps she was being a little forward with the human. Still, she quietly observed eyes flickering between them. She wasn’t one to interfere with others, unless needing correction. She could see the scowl on Eithne’s face on the idea of Regan getting bones, perhaps she was right to have it. Regan after all had caused quite a mess in town, and they were here mostly to fix her mistakes. Angelina had less anger towards the young banshee than many of the others, partially perhaps because she was a ‘mothering’ figure - but it didn’t change the fact that they were here to right terrible wrongs. At least however, Eithne had gotten to stay in a death pit. It had seemed rather novel, but alas there weren't very good options for baking cookies in a death pit. Alas some dreams weren’t meant to be. 

“They are good, here - have a scapula you’ll like it I’m sure,” Angelina said slightly brightly, putting the plate of cookies closer to the man trying to tempt him to drop the real bones and shirts. After all, they might be clues to what Regan had been doing. Also there was a bit of pity that he never had such a cultured treat - but only a little. Doing so she moved subtly to the side of him. “You didn’t tell us your name.” She was trying to play good cop to Eithne, moving him in to get into grabbing distance if necessary. 

—

“You do?” Kaden felt foolish for saying it as soon as the words left his lips. They said her name, they were in her cabin, it wasn’t unreasonable to think they knew her. “Right. Promises.” Something about the way the first woman said the word was concerning. It tickled the back of his mind, begged for him to pull on some threads of memories from his hunter training, but Kaden shrugged it off. It didn’t matter, he was sure of it. And even if there was some supernatural bullshit happening here, he had no intention of killing anyone. Didn’t. Matter. 

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather give these to her myself. If– when she comes back.” He held tightly to the shirt and the bones wrapped within. There was no damn reason to assume Regan would come back, not with the current scenario right in front of him. Kaden wasn’t about to give these strangers her shirt, though. Even if they did know her name, that just meant they could read a deed. It didn’t mean they knew her. If they did, they wouldn’t have let him walk right through the front door. 

The second woman offering cookies didn’t make the whole thing any less strange, that was for sure. “Uh, sure. I guess.” He reached out and took a cookie, hesitating to bring it to his lips. Kaden took a small nibble to be safe. It wasn’t bad but there was something a little off about it. The same way Kavanagh was always just a little off kilter. And the way these women were much farther off than that. He couldn’t put a finger on what it was but there was a familiarity to them that he couldn’t place. Accents that he couldn’t quite place, either. They sounded like they were from somewhere in the UK but damned if he could identify the subtleties of different accents when speaking English. It was all from that area-ish. 

Then again, Regan was apparently in Ireland, right? So why had Ireland seemingly come to her instead? 

Better yet, why wasn’t she in her own damn cabin while these Irish freaks were digging around in it? After he swallowed back the last bite of the cookie, Kaden clenched his jaw and started to angle himself towards the back wall where the weapons were so casually leaning. That ax looked pretty nice. A few more steps and he could reach out and grab it but he had to be subtle. “Kaden,” he said, eyes locked with the cookie-woman as he shifted to the left. “That’s my name.” They probably figured that out.

“The moose tour was just–” Putain, Kaden didn’t know how to explain the moose tour to anyone else. Well, at least it might give him time to keep shifting his position in the room. “She seemed really fixated on these screaming moose and shit like that so I suggested the tour because I knew she’d hate it and it would be funny. Which it was. For the record. And strange.”  Which was par for the course in this town. He figured he’d leave out the mention of bies and the actual honest to god screaming moose for the moment. Especially while the ax was just a stone’s throw away. 

—

If or when she came back, the stranger said. Humans often spoke in ifs and whens, didn’t they? Eithne found it rather amusing, especially when they said if you die, as if there was anything uncertain about their fate. She found it amusing, but she also found it offensive. Just like it was in regards to Regan Kavanagh. There was no if, nor when she returned. She would not return. She would remain at home and get her senses together and otherwise, perhaps something else awaited her.

“She won’t be coming back,” she said decisively. It was the truth. It was so very simple. “If you want to give it to her, you must give it to us. You wouldn’t want to break your promise.” She wouldn’t stop him, though. Maybe he’d start convulsing. She’d be interested to witness it, even if she kept her hand outstretched expectantly. Just as she was certain that Regan would not return, she was certain that the shirt and bones (mostly the bones) would be hers.

Eithne watched the man chew on the bone biscuit, wondering if he could appreciate the wondrous cooking of Angelina. She wasn’t much of a cook herself, but she appreciated the elder’s baking. The bones looked very anatomically correct, which not every bone-biscuit maker was capable of doing. “Enjoy it.” She didn’t add as it might be your last, but the sentiment was hanging in the air. “I am Eithne.” 

She was puzzled by his answers, but the fact that the mooses were said to be screaming was some kind of pointer. “Did you learn anything of the screaming creatures?” Her arm was starting to hurt from leaving it stretched out for so long, but she had endured worse and longer pains. “Did she find it funny?” Her fingers danced, expectant. “Are you her friend?���

__

Angelina nodded at Eithne’s words. Regan, no matter what her fate was now, would not be returning here. “You should hand them over,” she said simply, an almost smile on her face. She had heard that humans liked it when you smiled when asking for something although she couldn’t quite remember the last time she had met a human that wasn’t about to die. Well, she supposed she still hadn’t. If Kaden was making promises to Regan - he might very well be fated to die too. 

Such was death.  

Still, she looked expectantly at the man to see if he liked the cookie but didn’t mention it. “I am Angelina.” She said simply following the younger words, her eyes carefully following the man to see the tension in the room. “Yes? Are they still around?” She wondered if that would make a good learning experience for the younger banshees. “Yes, are you Regan’s friend? We heard she has many friends. ” 

There was a tension there that wasn’t quite on Angelina’s face as it was on Eithne’s, as if she was preparing but not quite wanting it to show.

___________

Jade was thankful for the cabin. She totally was! It was nice having a place to finally keep all her weapons without worrying about any of her nosy roomies getting a peek at them. As if they didn’t think she was a weirdo already. (And like, she couldn’t keep excusing it as a sex thing, they might end up calling the police). So trust her, she was thankful for it. Especially now when she was constantly hurt and couldn’t abuse Elias's place like that. 

The cabin was way better than nothing, so she’d make the annoying trek as much as needed. Plus, Snickers. She couldn’t forget Snickers. Jade’s aching body carried a candle in her hands for the pixie this time around (it smelled like toffee). A bribe for another snippet of Regan’s first goodbye letter. The last one she got, which included a paragraph on her eyes and purge fluid, sure made an impression on her, so she was eager for more. (And then she was moving on!) (Last one, she promised!) 

As she neared the cabin, she picked up on what were definitely murmurs coming from inside. Huh… That was so not Snickers. Okay… how did anybody get in when she had the key? She probably left the window open, yup. She wasn’t used to being the only person at a place and like, checking all that stuff before leaving. What went on inside sounded like a normal conversation anyway. Jade fidgeted with the ring on her finger, deciding to just, screw it: she entered like she owned the place cause, well, she did. 

One good look at the small gathering was enough to pick up on the tense vibes. Why were the ladies giving her a familiar feeling? And why was that guy carrying something behind his back? He was like, exuding nerves. “Um, hi! Are you guys throwing me a party? My birthday isn't until October,” she offered a tentative smile, placing the candle on the table. “Unless it’s so not that, then… maybe it’d be nice if you could like, maybe leave my cabin? Wait, you didn’t eat my snacks did you?” She shot a look at the woman carrying cookies. Those weren’t hers…So maybe it was a party. 

—

The question they asked, “are you her friend,” somehow sounded like a threat. Kaden wasn’t sure what the hell was going on here but he was pretty sure Regan wasn’t here and that he probably shouldn’t be here either. His grip tightened around the shirt and the bones it was wrapped around and pulled them closer to his side as he took a step back. “You know, I think I’ll just head out, if that’s okay. I’ll mail her the–”

He was practically hit with the door as it swung open to reveal another woman. Putain de merde, if she was also Irish he was going to start to believe that Ireland really did come to Kavanagh. Was there a fucking portal between the places or some shit?

Once she spoke (no accent to be found), Kaden couldn’t say he was relieved. Not yet. “Your cabin?” His brows furrowed as he looked over at the dark-haired woman. “What the hell is going on here? And where the fuck is Regan and what the hell happened to her?” 

—

Someone else entered the cabin. Eithne whipped around, eyes boring into the stranger. She spoke as if this was her cabin, which it was not. It was Regan Kavanagh’s, just another part of her horribly dull and very annoying legacy in Wicked’s Rest. At least this Kaden-figure also seemed surprise by the other’s declaration, which was one measly point in his favor. (Not enough to save his life.)

“Regan is in Ireland,” Eithne stated simply, “And this is her cabin. We are here to collect her things for her.” Her hand made another grabby motion towards Kaden. She considered the other for a moment. There were a lot of people on their shared to do list, a fair amount of people to get through (both literally and figuratively — sometimes after blowing someone up with a scream Eithne liked to walk through the viscera). She didn’t recognize the person in front of her just yet but she was ringing a distant bell, “And you are? Besides the not-owner of this cabin?”

__

Angelina was fairly sure that this was getting out of control, as her head tilted at the newcomer. It seemed like Kaden didn’t know who she was either. “Yes, why do you know, Regan?” She said curiously looking at the new woman offering the plate of cookies. “And of course this isn’t a party there’s no amusements here. This town is lacking most of the things to make a proper birthday environment.” 

Still, keeping an eye on both of the strangers Angelina tilted her head. To Kaden she said simply, her voice loosing her attempt to be cheery - or at least as cheery as a banshee could get,“No. Give us the things for Regan, we will take them to her. If you leave now I assume that you are hiding something, which would be rather unfortunate.” 

__

“She’s in Ireland,” Jade answered the man, speaking simultaneously with the first woman. (Jinx!). A woman who had to be… she didn’t wanna say it, but she was already doing the math in her head. Ireland. Regan. Yup, she’d heard this story before, and she didn’t like the ending. She thought she’d have a third part with the twins, but she was actually getting her own spin-off. Jade reached for one of the cookies the other woman offered, cause like… she had manners and all, but before she could take a bite, her gaze moved tentatively around the room. Until it landed back on the first lady. “I don’t think I wanna give you my name. Or my phone. I’m not getting you an Uber. Cause you’re gonna… you’re like the murder twins, aren’t you? You’ll…” hazel eyes darted between the women, already fearing for her ears. Her head whipped to the man, who, if Jade had to guess, was the only one who didn’t get the memo about this. “Don’t give them your name,” she warned him, lifting a hand. 

Mind you, Jade wasn’t scared about anything but her ears, but her belly did feel all kinds of sick thinking about Van, and how it could’ve been her opening the door to these strangers. So really, maybe it was for the best that she didn’t wanna talk to Jade anymore. (It kept her safe, and that mattered the most). That didn’t mean it wasn’t rude to have intruders again. Education in Ireland was really lacking. “You should give them what they want though… cause then they’ll leave, right?” she lifted her eyebrows at the women. Could they strike a deal, maybe? “You’ll leave us alone and go find bones or… have you seen the death pit? Must see for banshee tourists…” Oh. Crap. The B word slipped past her lips accidentally. She forgot not everybody was caught up with the plot. Her eyes flickered to the man, gauging his reaction.

—

Kaden rolled his eyes at the fucking mention of Ireland, like that answered all his questions. No one wanted to say where in Ireland or why or who the fuck they were or why they were here. Before he could try to ask again, the woman who just burst in was holding her hand up to stop him. Putain de merde. This was—

“Banshee tourists?” he repeated, brows raising as he looked back at the supposed cabin-owner. His gaze drifted back to the Irish visitors. “Putain de merde,” he grumbled, ironically wanting to scream. Of fucking course. Fae. Screaming. Weird death obsession. It was tempting to curse again but he didn’t have time to unpack all this shit or what it meant about Kavanagh and all their past interactions. 

Putain. Was she the screaming moose the whole fucking time? Or was she a banshee and a were-moose?

Right, not now. He furrowed his brow at the suggestion of this newcomer to hand over the shirt and bones. What the hell made her think they were gonna strike a deal? And even if they did, fuck that. He didn’t want to hand over Regan’s shirt to these fae. He didn’t trust them. For once, he was going to lean into past prejudices. It felt appropriate all things considered. 

Kaden almost tucked the shirt and bones into his back pocket, ready to get the fuck out of there, but he thought better of it. He still was unarmed. And he didn’t know if he could trust a single fucking person in this room. He had to get closer to one of those weapons without getting a literal earful. What a great fucking time to have super sensitive hearing. 

“Fine,” he said as he stepped towards Eithne, holding out the shirt. “You better make sure she gets this, got it?” Kaden’s hand reached out, about to drop the belongings into her hands, but instead he let go right before she could grab it, the shirt and bones falling to the floor. He slammed his heel on her foot and it gave him an opening to jump past her and snatch one of the axes leaning up against the wall. 

Kaden didn’t hesitate to line up the blade with Eithne’s neck. “Might want to take her up on that deal. This isn’t my usual weapon of choice but I’ll make it work.”

—

Eithne glowered at the newcomer. “I did not ask for you to give me your name. I am not so lowly that I take people’s names — I asked you to introduce yourself as a polite human. Did they fail to teach you manners?” Sometimes binds were useful, certainly, but she was an agent of Fate. A servant. She did not entertain herself by taking people’s names for her own amusement. Amusement was not one of her preoccupations. Her preoccupation right now was cleaning up a mess made by a child, who has grown to be friendly with humans who acted as childish as she did.

But the new woman said two things that interested Eithne. First there was, “The death pit, yes. I am familiar. I have made it my temporary home. Your town lacks in proper hotels.” Secondly there was the fact that she’d called them banshees, which got a reaction out of the man called Kaden. So she knew what they were, but he did not — though he seemed familiar with the concept, which made him just as much of an issue as the woman.

At least it seemed to stir something in the man, as he finally reached out with the things. It was probably because he respected her for what she was — an agent and servant of Fate, above him in the food chain and general hierarchy of the world. It was not the first time her general arrogance over her position in the world got in her way. As the shirt (and bones, most importantly) crashed on the floor and his foot connected with her toes she let out a roar. 

Before she could return the favor in some kind of way her neck was met with a blade. An axe, by the looks of it. Eithne breathed against it, not minding that with the expansion of her neck her skin grazed the sharp blade. “I have already seen the pit. I have aligned some of the bodies. I have arranged its bones. I have seen it. You are a fool if you think you can kill me. I’ll scream before you do.”

—

Jade got hit by two giant realizations at the same time. One, had they been together (hypothetically, as together as two people who exchanged meaningful jewelry could be), she should’ve taken Regan on a date to the death pit. How come she never thought of that before? That totally would’ve saved them months and months of will-they-won’t-they! Alas… It didn’t matter, she couldn’t beat herself up for it. That ship had sailed. Er… the plane had flown? Cause Regan was gone and she’d totally find way nicer pits in Ireland, and she was definitely having so much fun in them and Jade had missed a great chance, and yup. Fine. Mhmm. 

Right… Her second realization, far more relevant to the plot, please excuse her, she was gay and depressed: This guy knew how to wield a weapon. His movements were swift and smooth, and like… like someone might have trained him for it. So, like a lumberjack, maybe. Totes. But no matter how impressed she was by him, she really wished he hadn’t put an axe against that lady’s neck. They didn’t have Van with them to melt the floor when the banshees decided to scream the cabin down. Cause they would try. That was all they did. She had already lost Regan’s knife, plus Regan herself, she couldn’t lose the cabin. And Van would probably never wanna bail her out of this type of situation anyway, so like… rubbing salt in the wound. It would’ve been better for everybody involved if they could just… chill out. Count to ten, then maybe discuss a way to make everybody inside the cabin happy.  

And nope, hold on, wait. Jade looked at the women who had literally barged into her place. Why was she exercising caution? Screw that. She was tired of banshees walking into places demanding things, that little trick only worked for one banshee and one banshee only. This was her place. She reached for the loyal crossbow she carried on her back, pointing its nose toward the banshee holding the plate of cookies. And when tension kept everyone from acting, she stepped forward, inching toward the table. There was a holster taped underneath, a taser gun inside. She’d brought that for Van, technically… that first night they stayed here, after it became clear she wasn’t comfortable with a gun or a knife. But now it was looking super useful in Jade’s eyes. How did you stop a banshee from screaming? (A non-lethal way, please) A blade wasn’t gonna do it, a gun could’ve done but she was not gonna put a bullet in a living being. So, taser. If only she could grab it, if she could tell the guy…“I would love it if you guys could leave. Step out of my cabin, pretty please. I want nothing to do with Regan. I’m just… a homeowner.” She could’ve left it at that, but she had to make a point. She fired a bolt toward the woman, aiming just high enough for it to graze her shoulder. “That’s a warning. Next one goes into your throat,” she lied, but the good thing about Jade, those came out more convincing than the truth. 

—

If there was any doubt about who these weapons belonged to before, that was wiped away the second the “homeowner” in question shot her crossbow. Kaden had to assume she was a warden given how quickly she knew the women were banshees and how prepared she was. It would make sense. Not that this fucking town was one for making sense. 

Kaden noticed her gravitating toward the table and tried to see if there was anything there that might be useful. Nothing that he could see at first glance. Best not to let his eyes linger unless he gave away whatever the hell plan the other hunter (presumed) had. 

“Putain de merde. What is with you all and bones?” Before the banshee beneath the blade of his axe could answer, Kaden lifted it and slammed the hilt down on her head. He hoped it would knock her out and spare them the screaming, maybe even give the maybe-warden a chance to grab whatever it was by the table. 

—

The new woman was quick. It was impressive, for a human, to shoot into action so quickly, and Eithne would have given her the credit, had there not been an axe at her neck. It was a bit of an insult, really — axes to necks should be reserved for the undead, should they not? She did not know an awful lot about killing them, but she knew that beheading them was a prime and well-loved method. She refused to go by axe by head. One day, Eithne hoped to die slowly and respectfully, letting herself enjoy the process created by Fate with her full attention. Not like this.

Things went fast, as they were wont to do in situations like these. The fast woman shot a bolt through Angelina’s shoulder, the man lifted the axe and Eithne wielded her own weapon. The superior one, mind you — the one that had been granted to her through her father’s death, the hard work that had followed and her subsequent and continued dedication to Fate. 

She opened her mouth and screamed, not loud enough to kill the man in front of her — just loud enough to make him stop in his tracks and subdue him so she could put more care in his inevitable death. But before the scream could fully leave her lungs and finish, the hilt of the axe hit her against the head. Eithne’s world went black as she fell, her scream continuing to ring in her ears. 

—

It was gonna take some quick feet and precise hands to reach under the table, draw the taser gun, shoot either of the intruders and somehow keep their hearing intact. Cause any fumbling would allow the banshees to give them an earful, which, since her encounter with the murder twins, Jade wasn’t too big of a fan. Luckily, she had always received compliments on how skillful her fingers were. And luckily (?), she had nothing but reckless confidence. So of course, she was gonna go for it. What was the worst that could happen? (Rhetorical, thank you). 

At least the foreign lumberjack (where was that accent from?) had stepped in and had the other banshee one under control, for a moment. Cause she screamed and he reacted (or he attacked and she reacted? Not now, conscience!), and it was like one second of distraction, but one second enough for Jade to reach the edge of the table and feel the holster underneath. The banshee’s scream was cut short before they were reduced to a million little pieces (whew!), then the thud of her unconscious body hitting the floor earned her a few more extra seconds. The other banshee grappled with her buddy being knocked out by the lumberjack, but she would soon howl about it, no doubt, so Jade was speedy, hoping to get ahead of her.  

She drew the gun, aimed the little laser dot at her body, and fired the probes that struck the target. Electricity crackled and Jade watched it do its thing. Then came the thud of a second body hitting the ground, incapacitated. But also worth noting, the plate had cracked, cookies spilling on the floor. Yikes. (That did make her a little sad). At least neither of the banshees could scream at them anymore? She left the gun and her crossbow on the table, and let out a breath. (Ouch, her ribs). Her gaze found the tall lumberjack. “I’d like them out of my place,” she repeated. She didn’t care how exactly. But if the guy had been here before her, then he had to be followed right? And actually, why was this guy at her place too? Her eyes dipped to the shirt. “Is that for Regan? She really isn’t here, trust.” And it was so chill. So fine. So not life-altering. “I’m her… associate. I can… could hold it for her if she…um, comes back.” She thought of that one message, Regan made it sound like something had gone wrong. Like they were gonna attempt an escape. So maybe…

—

The same pain that pierced his ears the day that Kaden and Regan had faced off that bies with the screaming moose shot through them now. It was all he could do not to throw his hands up to his ears and scream himself, but he managed to clench his jaw and whacked the hilt of the axe against the fae’s head one more time. Just for good measure.

Before he could check to see if the warden needed help with the other banshee, there was a gun in her hand and electricity surging through the fae in question. “Taser?” he said, nonchalantly now that both of the bodies on the floor were silent. “Weird place to keep it but nice job.” Kaden leaned the axe back against the wall where he’d found it and then, finally, rubbed his ears. Putain, he could still hear her but it sounded like he was listening through cotton swaps that had been shoved into his ears. 

He leaned down to grab the shirt and bones he’d brought with him, carefully wrapping it all up like a small package again. “Okay,” he said, looking up at her with furrowed brows before he could even finish gathering his (well, Regan’s) belongings. Was she asking him to take care of the bodies? Or what? 

Actually, he had a whole lot more questions for this apparent “homeowner,” now that he thought about it. “It’s hers, yeah.” Once again, Kaden found himself holding onto the shirt a little tighter as he stood back up. “I’d rather get it to her myself.” Somehow. He didn’t know how. Not like the bratty bugbear was going to help him out. Wynne, maybe? That wasn’t the point. “If you don’t mind. I know it’s important to her.” 

The weapons, the fact that she knew these were banshees before Kaden had a clue they were even fae, it still led him to believe she might be a warden. And it sure was interesting for a warden to move into Kavanagh’s cabin, confident that she wouldn’t ever return. “How do you know here, anyway? And how’d you end up, uh, here? You said it was your cabin. Did she give it to you?” Maybe he shouldn’t be quite so suspicious of this woman. It was possible (if not likely) that Regan cared a lot more about her than she did about him. If nothing else, it seemed like Kavanagh had informed her that she’d left, which was more than she’d said to him. This was assuming she wasn’t a warden who killed the medical examiner, of course. 

—

“I am a little unconventional,” Jade dismissed with a small hand wave. She didn’t think this guy wanted the tea on Van and the banshee twins anyway, which is why the taser even existed in the first place. And again, it felt like Van was keeping her safe, in a roundabout way. (The sting was harder to ignore now that there was no imminent threat) (But, forget about her).

Jade only noticed the bones as he bent down to grab the shirt and… wow, okay. Something rubbed her the wrong way. This guy really must’ve known Regan well. He knew she liked bones and he knew where her super secret cabin was? And on top of that, he had one of her shirts? Hello? Why was that? Who was he? Her eyes shot daggers at him, a sudden urge to get his kneecap burning through her. “Uh… huh,” plus he was tall, and had nice hair. Nope, stop it. What was the point of getting jealous when Regan wasn’t even here anymore? “Right. Um. I get it, wanting to keep something of hers.” She closed her hand, wishing she could feel the fabric of the shirt. (Did it smell like her, too?) Instead, she felt the ring on her finger press against her palm. 

He seemed to be similarly curious about her, at least. Which, all kinds of fair. Cause she had all these weapons and she knew about banshees and… yup. Her throat felt a little tingly as she tried to find the right words to answer the lumberjack’s question. How did she even begin to describe what she and Regan had been to each other? “She gave the cabin to me, before she left. We… Ulcers, you know? And then… one thing led to another and we found bog lemmings… and oh, the hotel,” she let out an anguished sigh. He was following, right? She couldn’t make it any clearer. It wasn’t easy talking about all of this now that she had that message in her inbox. What if someone had gotten to Regan? She blinked her allergies away, and sniffled softly. “I’d like to get these ladies out of my place, please? They’re not the first banshees to come after me. I think… they might know we… collaborated”. 

—

The creases between Kaden’s nose and brow deepened as he watched the woman, warily. She looked angry. Was she angry at him? Why? And why would she think he wanted to keep something of Reg– oh. “Uh, no it’s not like that,” he added, holding his hand up like a surrender. “I mean, yeah, I took my pants off the first time I met her but that was because of the wound. She had to treat it. I mean she didn’t have to but she insisted because, I mean you met her, you know how that–” Right, he was rambling and definitely making things more awkward and fucking weird. “I have a boyfriend.” Great. Definitely didn’t make things any more awkward by spitting that out. 

Kaden cleared his throat, hoping it would also clear the air a little. “I just know the shirt is important to her. And I told her I’d give it back to her. So I’d feel better if I could make sure I got it to her myself. Things usually go sideways when you get a middle man involved. No offense.” Putain, he really should just hand it over to the maybe-warden in question. There was no reason for him to hold onto it. What did it matter if he was the one to return it to Kavanagh or not? She probably didn’t care one way or another so why the hell did he? Stupid. There was no good reason to think that stitching him up a few times meant they had any kind of bond. If that were the case, there were plenty of people out there he should be checking in on a lot more frequently. 

One of Kaden’s brows rose higher and higher the longer little miss homeowner spoke. Ulcers, lemmings, hotel? Right, no clue what those had to do with each other but it was weird enough in succession that it almost made sense for Kavanagh. Hotel made at least a little sense. They had gone to a hotel and then Regan gave her the cabin. “Right. Sure. I… ” He couldn’t lie, he didn’t understand. “Sure.” He had no idea what the fuck she was talking about but he got the sense that Kavanagh gave a shit about her and vice versa if she knew where this place even was. Hell, he’d just stumbled upon it by accident and she’d been invited there. Not to mention the tears welling up in her eyes. “I take it you were close.” Or at least whatever that meant in Regan’s world given her “no friends” bullshit. There was no way they were dating. Couldn’t be. How the hell could you date if you only had acquaintances? Must have been one hell of a crush this woman had. Kaden almost felt sorry for her.

He should just hand her the fucking shirt. But he couldn’t force his hand to reach out in front of him to hand it over. Instead, he tucked it into his back pocket along with the moose antlers he’d nearly forgotten he had with him, too. Merde. Hopefully he wasn’t going to have to try and explain those again. Once was bad enough. It was only funny when he got to tease Kavanagh about the whole ordeal, not when other people tried to poke fun at his expense. Nora and her friend did more than enough of that. 

“Yeah, alright. I’ve got you.” Kaden gave a quick stretch and then hooked his arms under the armpits of the first banshee, dragging her out of the cabin. Wasn’t like this was his first time moving bodies. “Wait, there are more of them? Putain de merde. I thought banshees were supposed to be incredibly rare. And now they’re fucking coming out of the goddamn woodwork. Going to get reports and stupid calls about more fucking screaming moose, too, I’m sure.” He continued to grumble to himself as he pulled the body down the stairs as gently as he could manage. Kaden paused at the last step, banshee still at an incline. “Uh, where are we putting them?” Probably a good thing to figure out. “I’ve got a truck way back there.” She had to know how long a fucking walk it was. “We could drag them to the middle of the woods or maybe load them up, drive them and dump them somewhere on the other side of town.” Somewhere that was nowhere near either his cabin or the farmhouse, ideally. 

—

“That’s gay,” Jade pointed out with a frown, one she immediately fixed when she finished processing. Cause, the lumberjack was taken. So he couldn’t steal Regan (already all the way in Ireland, mind you) from her. “Okay,” she breathed out a laugh, a twinkle of amusement finally reaching her eyes. Whew! What a relief. “Good on ya, I hope he’s cute,” she offered her hand for a fist bump, but ended up bumping into his shoulder when the gesture wasn’t returned.

She eyed the shirt once more, and this time Jade stayed totally chill despite the fact that it had been near a half-naked man at one point. She agreed with his comment though. Fine. The middle man was definitely tricky. But also? One of the funniest parts of playing the telephone game, actually. Chaotic neutral, in a way. Her eyes prickled again when he pointed out the obvious. She and Regan were close. (Keyword, were). Her bottom lip quivered. It was fine though, she could get through this without making a scene. “Mhm, yup. So close. We were like Jack and Rose. The lemmings, not... They died banging, you know? That’s what Regan told me,” and apparently both of them looked ecstatic.   

Maybe this rugged lumberjack was uncomfortable with big feelings on display, or maybe he realized having a convo with two unconscious bodies was kinda awkward. (Not to her, though. She still remembered kissing Regan while Mark Whatshisname chilled on the ground). But he was finally ready to do something about it, and she was so excited to get her cabin back. Weird. “Yup. I got stabbed by one of them. They were like, Gen-Z twins, so be careful. I’m pretty sure they’re in some kinda Men in Black business in town,” and they were definitely coming from Ireland. But why? When the best of Wicked’s Rest was already gone. She joined the man’s efforts, grabbing the other unconscious banshee. Her poor plate of cookies. Not even the five-second rule would save them. And she was definitely not offering them to Snickers. 

The idea of dumping them somewhere while unconscious filled her belly with dread (for no reason at all, not like… she’d been there, done that a couple days ago). But at least they wouldn’t be tied and… okay, fine.  “I was gonna ask you to help me get them to the road, and I’d get them an Uber to the death pit. But I like yours way better, ” she lied with a tight smile. “Alright,” she also pretended every freaking muscle didn’t scream with the effort. And as she watched both of them do this thing with a little more ease than your average person, Jade concluded the foreign lumberjack might have a little of that special sauce, too. Which kinda filled her with excitement, but she wasn’t in the mood to sell him on the group chat yet. Peace and a warm shower were at the top of her priorities. (Plus a snack) But she’d track him eventually. They were bound to cross paths anyway, this town was freaking small. Maybe then, they could chat not only about his ability with the axe, but what Regan really meant for the other. 

[mortemoppetere]

TIMING: current LOCATION: a graveyard PARTIES: @screadqueens (eithne) & @mortemoppetere SUMMARY: eithne has been dying to meet local celebrity, emilio cortez. emilio is a little less enthused. CONTENT: parental death, sibling death, child death (mentions of past events), suicide ideation

She had not forgone her duty in her attempt to meet the legendary Emilio Cortez, because Eithne did not forgo her duty. As an instrument of fate as well as someone sent to this wretched town to ensure Saol Eile’s secrecy. And so she’d only slain those that fate was itching for and those who’d Regan and Siobhan (even thinking their names made her chest tremble with rage) had gotten too close with. Luckily, the town was filled to the brim of those for whom death waited. Luckily, Cortez was good at his job, despite the reviews.

Eithne was a diligent woman. She was a vicious woman. She had been for over a century. And so she knew how to deliver death. She knew how to leave a trail. It had been the spellcaster who’d helped Regan first, a murder done so prettily that she had taken a blurry picture with her decades-old Nokia. Then there was a woman for whom she had screamed, who she had subsequently killed and whose hand with neatly painted nails she had left boxed up and addressed to the investigator. There was the man bound to her words to enlist the help of Emilio Cortez and his admirable Yelp rating. He’d – if all went well – asked him to help find his missing partner, a man who Eithne had screamed for and subsequently killed too.

She’d left a nice trail of death leading to her. Hints, not too hard to pick up on. This Emilio Cortez did have a very low Yelp rating, after all. And so she awaited him in a cemetery where she was perched on a gravestone. It was new, the grave and the dead body in it fresh. She enjoyed it, which was a strange indulgence. She was not here for pleasure — and though her meeting Cortez was her giving into her intrigues a little, she still remembered her purpose. It was not to dig in a grave to figure out why the body in it had died.

So she waited, her notebook splayed on her knee as she went over her notes. She was something of an investigator too, or rather an exterminator. Siobhan and Regan were lotnaidí and had spread their foolish childishness around. She was the heel that squashed the cockroaches they’d left behind. She hoped Emilio Cortez would not prove himself to be part of the problem, as she didn’t want to step on someone like him just yet. 

—

Paranoia wasn’t the kind of beast you needed to feed to keep alive. It had survived in Emilio’s chest for so long now that he often forgot what life had been like before it made its home there, forgot that it hadn’t been a part of him for as long as he’d been breathing. Sometimes, he thought it should have been starving. Sometimes, there was no reason for it to remain fed, no specific event inciting it, but it remained just as lively and strong as ever, rearing its head and gnashing its teeth.

And sometimes, it was very well-fed.

Someone sent a fucking hand to his office. There was a blurry photo of a bloody corpse. There was a man at his door begging him to find his missing partner, and Emilio had no reason to think that all of these things were connected beyond that fattened paranoia that had been given a feast over the last few weeks, but he was sure they were pieces of the same puzzle anyway. He put them together, he gathered more. He started making a full picture, and he didn’t like what he saw.

It was a trap. He was pretty sure of it, and he didn’t think his paranoia was the cause of that certainty. It was a trap and it was for him and he probably should have avoided it at all costs, but people were dying and maybe there was some way for him to stop that. Maybe there was some way he could save the next one. Wasn’t that enough of a reason to try?

So he followed the clues to a graveyard, to a grave. He found a woman there, sitting on a grave marker and looking far too cheery to be in a damn cemetery. Emilio’s fingers twitched absently, though he didn’t reach for a blade yet. She wasn’t undead; that was surprising. Usually, when someone went through this much trouble to get his attention, they were undead. Still, Emilio could roll with the proverbial punches. He was good at that.

“You know,” he said slowly, “usually when things like this happen, I at least know why. You don’t make any bells ring. Did I kill a friend of yours or something?”

—

Regan Kavanagh had brought very little of note back to Saol Eile, but there had been the printed out reviews of a website called ‘Yelp’. (A bad name — who even yelped these days? It was the weaker version of a scream which meant it was vile in and of itself.) They had all flocked around the papers and laughed, cackling beautifully at this human man who was so bad at what he was doing that even other humans thought him incapable.

Eithne didn’t meet a lot of men. She killed a fair amount of them, of course, foreseeing their death and then making sure it was followed through, but that never left much room for conversation. She had tried when she was younger, to make conversation. To ask them how they felt about their impending death, if they looked forward to it and if this was they had imagined whenever they imagined their deaths. Most of them hadn’t wanted to speak to Eithne, though.

Besides that there was little need to speak to men. But this man? Oh, she wanted to know what he was about. What he’d done to make so many people discontent with him, how much death he saw as a – what did he call it? – private investigator. And also what Regan’s relation to him had been, but that was hardly a priority.

At the sight of him she hopped off the gravestone, inching closer. It was surely him. The Axis investigator. “You usually do? I have seen how people speak of you,” Eithne said. “They call you rude and inefficient.” She put two fingers in the air, quoting a review she’d learned by heart: “Do NOT use this service unless you want to be around a man who smells of whiskey and stale cigarettes who just wants your MONEY and not to help you.” 

She dropped her hands. “I am surprised you found me, considering your reputation. It precedes you.”

—

She dropped down from the gravestone, speaking in an accent that took him back to a factory he never wanted to return to and a situation he hoped to never find himself in again. It was hard not to stiffen immediately, hard not to let the paranoia ebb into his mind and flow through his veins. The fact that she’d been dropping bodies all over town in an apparent attempt at vying for his attention certainly didn’t ease the paranoid idea that this wasn’t going to end well for him, either.

Still, Emilio tried to keep his expression neutral as she inched closer, forcing himself to be as still as he could manage. It wasn’t a total stillness, of course; his fingers twitched as if searching for a trigger to pull, his left thumb brushed absently against the band on his ring finger as it was wont to do when he found himself in a stressful situation. He tried not to show any weakness, even as his leg ached with the stiffness he’d forced into it. Whatever this was, he was certain he wanted no part in it.

“People say all kinds of things,” he said, keeping his tone even. “That doesn’t mean they’re true. I am rude. I am not inefficient. I get the job done. Just not always in the way people want.” He didn’t tend to make attempts at sparing feelings when delivering the results of a case he found stupid, which tended to cause a lot of angry clients. 

People came to him sometimes wanting to be told one thing; when he told them something else, they were unhappy. And that wasn’t even accounting for reviewers who had never used his services to begin with. Plenty of people were caught, by Axis, with their pants down. There was nothing on the stupid star site that stopped them from writing a review as if they had hired Emilio and been disappointed rather than having been found out by him. 

Of course, none of that was really important right now. He had a feeling he had bigger things to worry about. “Did you really lure me out here to come at me over what people say about me online? Not a good move.”

—

She wondered how Regan had gotten to know the private investigator. What did she need privately investigated? Her traitorous ways? Where one could find bone-ios in this town, let alone a good novel? Eithne couldn’t begin to understand why the wayward banshee had turned to this apparently rude man. Not that she understood her in any other way, either. To walk away from Saol Eile as she had — well, it was incomprehensible.

She moved closer to the other, eyes inquisitive as if he was an interesting marking on a tree. She needed to decide what to do with him. To learn how much he knew about Regan. If what he said was true and if he really was good at what he did – despite being rude (which she didn’t think an unforgivable trait, to be fair) – then that could pose a threat. Would he search for the prodigal banshee? Would he privately investigate where she had gone to?

It was disappointing how invested Regan had become in the people around her. Siobhan, too, though Siobhan had done worse things to disappoint her community besides buddying up with humans and undead. It was hardly surprising any more.  

“Ah,” she said, nodding. “A rude yet efficient man, but people are disappointed with your results, is that it? Humans so often are when it comes to the truth.” They had their pitiful five stages of grief, the first one being denial. Eithne had never denied her father’s death, nor had she felt the anger, the need for bargaining or depression. She had accepted it, she had honored it, she had continuously revered it. His bones sat neatly in her home.

She nodded at his question, thought his analysis of the situation was rather boring. What constituted a good move? “I would like your signature,” she said, “And I wanted us to meet through your work.” She dug in her coat pocket and produced one of the print outs. “I brought a pen.” That too, was pulled out. It was a precious item. A fountain pen with a bone grip. “If you please.”

—

She moved closer, and Emilio watched her the way one might watch a snake in the grass or a lion circling. While his paranoia was convinced it knew more than enough about the situation, the actual facts were thinner and harder to hold. He was fairly certain, at this point, that she’d killed people to bring him here. She’d all but admitted to that, and it didn’t take a very good detective to follow the clues she’d left. It was the why that was a mystery, the why that continued to stump him. And the why was the most important part. Emilio could kill her here, could snap her neck or sink a blade into her heart, but what good would that do him if he didn’t know whether or not someone else would come along after her? He’d rather have answers. He’d rather have reassurances. 

Maybe the best way to get them was to play along.

“People think they can handle the truth,” he said carefully, “but they usually can’t.” Humans. She’d said humans. She had the accent. The pen she held was made of bone, unmistakeable. The clues were adding up in a way that made him think it wasn’t just his paranoia insisting upon the answer, made him think his first instinct might be closer to true than he’d like it to be.

(He forced himself to stay in the present as she got closer. His thumb rubbed the ring on his finger, twisting the metal around the appendage that was thinner now than it had been the first time the ring had slid onto it, and he tried to let the action ground him. He was here. He was in a graveyard. It was April. He wasn’t there, in the factory, in December. This woman wasn’t Siobhan, with her sharp knife and sharper tongue. And Rhett was dead, anyway. The last bit nearly sent him spiraling, so he pushed past it, ignored it. He was here. He was fine. He was.) 

She dug into her pocket and pulled out a printed page. One of the reviews from the internet, the ones Regan had commented on. He stared at it for a moment, the letters as good as hieroglyphs for how well he could understand them with his mind in this state of on-edge. The pen was in front of him; he made no move to take it. 

“I’m not going to do that,” he said flatly. “You’re not going to kill people just so I can write my name on a piece of paper for you. You can fuck off.” Regan said she was going to take his reviews to Ireland. Had she actually done it? Emilio’s nostrils flared in quiet fury. “All of you can fuck off.”

—

She had always lacked the sensitivity that humans had when it came to death. Eithne did not think on it much — she preferred to think of death in other contexts and frames, rather than what a pity it might be. It was around her every second, after all, from the bone that surrounded her fountain pen to the place she was calling her temporary home in Wicked’s Rest. 

That lack, though, it could only exist because something had been taken. As the oldest of her sisters, it had been her whose chéad scread had been triggered by their father’s death. And it had been an honor! Her mother had had three daughters (and one son) with said man, and it had been for Eithne that he got to die. Six years old, she’d been, and though she had screamed with a true horror when he’d died, she had felt victorious. Her sisters, they’d be activated through another death – a less significant one. And so, as she’d screamed, her sensitivity had been plucked from her like one would pluck feathers of dead chickens.

When people she had cared about more than her father (more an archetype than a true person in her life) had died, she had felt a reasonable amount of upset by her standards, but it had never upended anything. She, unlike Emilio Cortez’ clients, could handle the truth. “Can you?” Her interest was genuine, as far as genuineness went with her.

She frowned at his level of upset. He had not known any of the people whose deaths she had seen to, had he? Why would he feel this kind of indignation, when he was not affected directly by the corpses? Eithne had expected the detective to understand that sometimes people died. Very often, actually — about two every second, according to statistics. Eithne liked death statistics. They were soothing to her. “Can you handle the truth of death, Emilio Cortez?” 

Around them were the graves of people long – or shortly – gone. Surely he was at an age where he had lost one or two people close to him, if not more. “I did not just kill them. They were going to die — I saw it and then saw to it.” Eithne held out her paper and pen still. He was a rude man, indeed. “They would have died regardless.” It was a muddled version of the truth. Some of the people had been fated to die, and then some had been part of the clean up job. Perhaps he should blame Regan. “Your reviewers are quite right, I think. I’d still like an autograph.”

—

Can you? The question drew a stilted, humorless laugh from between his lips. He wasn’t sure of the answer. He and death were old friends, sometimes; he’d known it since he was a child. He’d grown up with it in his house, wearing his father’s clothes. Death was a part of their family in a way none of them ever spoke about. His father’s name was a spell scarcely whispered, a quiet acknowledgement of something come and gone before Emilio had been old enough to recognize it at all. His uncle spoke of his father fondly, his mother mentioned him occasionally in lessons with a disinterested tone. Edgar said he’d smelled like tobacco, Rosa said he was strong. Victor, with the firmest memories of him, said he was a good hunter, a good man. None of it meant anything to Emilio.

It wasn’t until he was twelve that he and death became better acquainted. Victor died, and he was more than just a story people told sometimes. He was more than descriptions of a half-remembered scent or a child’s belief that the adults in her life were bigger than they were — he was a person. He was someone Emilio had loved, someone he’d thought would always be in his life who, in an instant, wasn’t. 

And there were more after, of course. There were cousins and neighbors and friends from camp. Every other week, it seemed they were getting news of another death. That was what it meant to be a hunter, his mother told him. You held hands with death. It brushed your hair, it slept in your bed. And one day, when you were thirty-two and thought you knew everything, it tore through the streets of your home and ripped up your living room floor and hollowed you out in a way you’d never recover from.

So her question was a stupid one, he thought. It was worthy of that bitter laugh, of the way he rolled his eyes. “Some of us don’t get much of a choice.” He wondered how much of what she was saying was the truth. Fae couldn’t lie without consequence — he knew that. But they could believe things that were false. He’d seen it in Regan, in Ren. They could believe lies so wholeheartedly that they were sure they were telling the truth. If this woman was like Siobhan, like Regan, had she grown up in a community like the one Regan had returned to, the one where Nora was now? Had she had her mind twisted? At what point did you stop feeling for someone who had been forcibly shaped by the outdated beliefs of their elders and start holding them accountable for the things they did in order to uphold those same beliefs? There must have been a line somewhere.

“It doesn’t matter if they were going to die. It wasn’t on you to kill them.” And he found it hard to believe that all the bodies she’d dropped were as close to death as she was implying, even in a town like this one. He glanced down to the pen and paper again, pressing his tongue against the back of his teeth. Reaching out, he grabbed both from her. But instead of putting pen to paper, he reared back his arm and tossed it as far as he could manage before tearing the paper down the middle. A childish response, he knew; the type of thing Teddy would point to when claiming Emilio was a petty, petty man. It didn’t make him feel much better, though he pretended it did. He watched the pen fly, watched it land in a nearby pond with a rush of fleeting satisfaction. “There you go,” he said flatly, turning back to the woman. “There is your autograph.” 

—

Choice. What a dull concept. It was so human to speak of choice in such a manner, as if there was any agency to find in regards to death. People died, lives were lost and the world kept on spinning with new forms of life. The choice was, of course, in the approach. Eithne had spent a good ten years when she was younger attempting to understand the intricacies of grief. She liked the local stories most, those human interpretations of banshees. Wailing women who could only express their sorrow through those keens and screams. Or the women’s laments in Greek antiquity, those women who pulled at their hair as if that would somehow pull their mourning from them, too.

She liked those, but she hated most other forms of grief. It was perhaps not for her to understand. But when sources spoke of five phases – the first of which was so disgustingly human: denial – she found herself rolling her eyes. How very dull to phase out mourning. To give death stages that didn’t have to do with decomposition or something akin to it, but terms that some kind of psychologist had determined were fitting. 

“No one gets a choice when it pertains to death,” Eithne stated. “We do get a choice in whether we accept it for what it is.” Maybe that stage of denial was true. Maybe that was the only stage humans knew. Silly, pitiful denial. Hoping that death could be evaded, avoided, postponed. Pulling at their hair and whining and crying. Writing angry reviews when things didn’t go their way. Ah, they were so frail. She’d pity them if she didn’t find it so disrespectful.

It was Fate, who shone upon the death. Who extended her arms and invited them to a different stage of life. It was her decision. To deny it was to spit on her wisdom. 

“It was,” she said simply. “It was an honor for them, to have me help fulfill their fates. It is my purpose. You are too small minded to understand, for which I forgive you.” Finally Cortez moved to take her things, to give her the thing she had come from. Eithne did not intend to scream for him yet — that might come at another time, if he proved to be part of the problematic mess Regan and Siobhan had left behind. But the investigator did not sign his autograph. He threw her darling pen as far as he could (which was far — he had to be in good shape) and ruined her paper. She heard her pen fall into the water and her body seemed to expand with rage. “You —” Her lungs were filled with air inhaled sharply through her nose and she squinted at the man. Eithne opened her mouth and screamed. Not aiming to kill, just to maim.

—

In the end, death came for everyone. Emilio knew that. It came for little girls in their living rooms with their mothers by their sides just as brutally as it came for middle aged men who locked kids in vans and killed the mothers of their children. It carved into the people it left behind and hollowed them out, turned them into shells of what they’d been before. It didn’t ask for permission, didn’t care for consent. It ripped you up into the tiniest of pieces and, when you thought you couldn’t get any smaller, it ripped you up again. It would come for him sooner than it would for most, but still later than he deserved. It would come for Wynne and for Nora, though he prayed it wasn’t across the sea in Ireland. It would come for Teddy and for Xó, for Jade. It would come for Zane again, like it hadn’t come once already. 

And someday, it would come for this banshee in front of him now, too.

There was something almost comforting about that, something nice. Death would rip into her, into Siobhan, into Inge, into everyone he’d ever seen in his nightmares. He wondered if this was why banshees were so fond of death, if the idea of their enemies rotting and decaying under the ground made something slide into place like a comforting hand on the shoulder. He doubted it. This kind of bitter thirst for vengeance was probably the sort of thing they thought of as being beneath them, wasn’t it? If he voiced it, the woman before him now would likely take offense, would claim he’d defiled the sanctity of death, somehow. It might have been funny if not for the knot in his stomach.

“You say that,” he said lowly, “but you made a choice. Didn’t you? To kill those people the way you wanted them to die instead of the way they were supposed to. You don’t think that fucks with fate? Maybe their deaths, the way they were supposed to happen before, had a purpose, too. Maybe you took that from them.” It wasn’t something he believed. Emilio had never seen death as a thing with a purpose. It was a brutal end to a sad story. It was never anything more than that. “I don’t want your forgiveness. I want you to stop killing people.” 

There was a moment, after he threw the pen, where time seemed to stand still. He eyed the banshee, and he wondered what she’d do. He wondered if she’d kill him here, the way he’d been so sure Siobhan would in that factory. He’d be lying if he said some part of him didn’t want her to. After all, if Emilio died in this graveyard, whatever happened to Wynne and Nora in Ireland wouldn’t tear him into smaller pieces than he was already in. He wouldn’t have to think about Rhett and the blood on his hands, wouldn’t have to remember Ophelia’s wails in the living room, wouldn’t have to see his daughter’s corpse each time his eyes slipped closed. He didn’t know if he believed in any kind of afterlife anymore, didn’t think he’d end up in the same place as Flora even if there was a place to end up, but it was a nice thing to hope for in that quiet moment when the world stood still, when he held his breath and waited to see if he’d finally managed to find a good way to kill himself.

The banshee opened her mouth, and Emilio took a breath. His hands shot up to his ears, too slow to block anything out. They probably wouldn’t have been very effective, even if he had gotten them up in time. The scream was loud. Far louder than the small one Regan let out in the sewers when they fought those ‘rats’ to get her stupid necklace back. He wondered if it was what Siobhan would have sounded like if she’d killed him in that factory instead of just forcing him into a promise.

But Emilio didn’t die. His body wasn’t torn apart by the sound, his bones didn’t shatter. His ears rang and buzzed, but his lungs didn’t explode. It was a little surprising. 

(He couldn’t tell if he was disappointed or relieved.)

— 

He was speaking to her with a sense of righteousness that would never tug at her heartstrings. People were so disgusted by the concept of murder, thought it an uglier death than all the others. Eithne found it rather disrespectful to think of someone’s death as ugly or cruel — and besides, wasn’t it better to die at the hand of a banshee? To by handpicked by an agent of fate, rather than succumb to illness or be hit by a car or have your heart stop in the middle of the street? She had chosen to kill those people in the way she saw fit and it was a gift.

She let out a laugh at the idea that Emilio Cortez, a human detective with bad reviews, could make her stop killing people. “I would not ask you to stop being an investigator only because people think you are bad at it, so please don’t be so presumptuous to ask me to drop my own role.” Humans made themselves feel important with their jobs and their hobbies, but it would never match up to being what she was — a follower and agent of Fate. They could never understand.

But Cortez seemed to know something, because he covered his ears with his hands when Eithne screamed. How well had Regan known him? How well did he know Regan and what she was? It was a mess best cleaned up, even if she would not scream for him properly today. She would not waste her breath. He was not yet destined to die, that much was clear.

She cleared her throat when the scream had left her body, though it was purely performative. “The reviews are right. You are rude and you smell.” She lifted her nose in the air and gave him one more look before turning on her heel and moving to the pond where her pen had landed and subsequently sunk. At the end of the day, she cared more for that than she did Emilio Cortez. Fate would come for him eventually, that she was certain of. 

—

Fate wasn’t a thing Emilio thought he wanted to put too much stock in. It was a terrible concept, the idea that things only ever happened how they were meant to. It was worse than God, somehow, worse than thinking there was some being with a guiding hand calling the shots. There was no comfort in it, no solace in the idea of looking at the things that had happened in his life and allowing himself to believe that they were meant to be exactly as they were. Who could look back at their daughter’s face and believe it had always been destined to rot and crumble with baby fat still filling its cheeks and a bright curiosity still shining in her eyes? Who could remember standing in a basement with the blood of someone they loved on their hands and chaos around them and accept that it was always meant to happen that way? The factory, the living room with Ophelia and that note with its familiar handwriting, Wynne and Nora in Ireland, in trouble a world away…

If this was fate, Emilio wanted no part in it. If this was God, he’d claw the heavens to pieces in protest. 

The banshee was screaming and his ears were ringing, and there was something both funny and horrifying about the fact that it was happening at all. He’d been so worried about Nora and Wynne that he hadn’t thought to spare any concern for himself. And wasn’t that how it always went? Didn’t Emilio make a promise to the last banshee he’d crossed to save his brother while forgoing any attempt to include himself in the safety net? But the horror was stark, was tangible. If this was happening here, what must be happening in Ireland? What must those kids be experiencing now? His — 

The screaming stopped, and he thought the banshee might have been speaking. Her mouth was moving, but his ears were still ringing. Sound was a fuzzy, far away thing, muffled and distant. He wondered if the banshee was going to kill him, still. He wondered if it would be easier if she did. Was it cowardly, the way there might be some relief in the concept of never knowing how it ended in Ireland? Was it forgivable to yearn for that?

But no second scream came. No knife found his throat, no hands snapped his neck. The banshee screamed, she spoke words he couldn’t make out, and she left. And Emilio, left alone in that graveyard, wondered about fate once more. 

(He wondered why, if it was real, his never seemed to be what he deserved.)

[realmackross]

What...exactly is a boneios?

Boneios near me

[corpse-a-diem]

The Fun in Funeral Homes | Max & Erin

TIMING: Before the banshees returned to Ireland PARTIES: Max ( @screadqueens ) & Erin (ft. Jack Nichols) LOCATION: Nichols' Funeral Home SUMMARY: Max visits the funeral home to decide if any loose ends need tying up. CONTENT WARNINGS: parental death tw (ghost dad)

Celebrations of the dead were among the few things Max respected about human society. There was something uncharacteristically admirable in the way humans honored their dead, something Max enjoyed even if humanity as a whole made her feel a little nauseous. The cemeteries she and Tina had explored were the only places in town that didn’t find the young banshee rolling her eyes at every turn. So the idea of visiting a funeral home was one that struck her as appealing. So much so, in fact, that she’d cut her sister out of the job entirely. This would be for Max, and Max alone. She wanted it that way.

Of all the people Regan and Siobhan had become entangled with, Max thought that this one was the only one that made sense. Sealgairí who targeted the undead were fine for upholding Fate, but still not humans Max would have fallen in with as deeply as the two older banshees seemed to have done in Wicked’s Rest. But this? This Erin Nichols, with her home dedicated so wholly to death? At least she was intriguing. 

Max walked into the funeral home, pleased to find it open. Businesses did that, didn’t they? Open door policies, as if nothing and no one could touch them. It was a funny thing. She spotted a woman behind a desk, and she fitted herself with her most convincing grin. It was an unnerving thing, too wide and showing off too many teeth. “Hi,” she said, knocking on the wood as she approached. “Are you Erin?” 

—

The morning had gone quickly, as mornings usually did around funeral homes. Erin had just returned home from a service at the cemetery, readying up for front desk duties while her mother took a break. She didn’t take enough of them, even though she chastised Erin for the exact same thing. It was quiet though, which was more than fine for the older woman. After a morning of supporting a grieving family, some silence was more than welcome. Up until she heard the door open, a young woman entering the funeral home. That wasn’t totally strange in itself–though younger clients calling on behalf of deceased loved ones typically communicated through email or phone. Very rarely in person. There was something unnerving about their chipperness to boot. This was a funeral home. No one smiled that way–unless they had a beefy inheritance waiting for them after this. 

Erin stood from the desk chair, pulling her usual welcoming smile. “Hi–yes. I am,” she nodded, taking note of the specificity of their question, bathed in an Irish accent. She briefly thought of Regan as she tilted her head. Weird coincidence. “Is there something I can help you with?”

—

As she surveyed the lobby of the funeral home, Max found herself hoping, in a way she usually didn’t, that Siobhan and Regan hadn’t told this woman anything about Saol Eile. It wasn’t often that she found herself hoping for the chance not to kill someone. For Max, it was usually the opposite. She reveled in things like that far more than she ought to, longed for her blades to taste flesh in a way some banshees might find a little distasteful. She never did it without reason, of course, never did anything other than upholding Fate the way a banshee should, but she still longed for it. Except… not right now. Instead, she found herself longing to know more about what was done here. Did Erin Nichols have a room full of bones? She could feel corpses nearby. Would she be allowed to see them if she asked nicely? If she threatened? 

The woman confirmed her identity, and Max’s smile widened. It was almost uncomfortable, but she leaned over the desk anyway, glancing down at the contents. No bones on her desk, which was a little disappointing. “Maybe there is. I think you know an old acquaintance of mine. Dr. Regan Kavanagh? I heard about your business because of her.” Not a lie, though it had to be carefully avoided to ensure such. Max detested lying, but she knew how to stretch the truth when she needed to. “I was hoping for a tour of your facility. I have a lot of interest in what you do here.”

—

There was a sharp curiosity in the eyes of the young woman in Erin’s lobby right now. Curiosity wasn’t unusual. Society had drawn a dark, mysterious veil over what they did here and many first-time guests were usually expecting something more macabre or closer to what they’ve seen in movies when they visit. But this curiosity was something different. Something Erin couldn’t discern just yet. Still, she smiled politely and appropriately, despite the unnerving way the other woman held herself. When she mentioned Regan, her face lit up and softened considerably. “Regan? Really?” The accent–duh. Of course. “Do you guys know each other from Ireland? Have you–have you spoken to her?”  She realized how excited she was and tried to stifle it a bit. Regan was in Ireland. She wasn’t coming back. 

“A tour?” She paused, well aware of the fact that for at least the next hour or so she was free but better judgment was starting to creep in. “Um–yeah. Sure. We could do a little tour. Though, unfortunately, the cooler parts of what I do are off limits, which I’m sure you understand. Are you looking into careers in the industry?” She stepped out from behind the desk, that polite smile still intact despite the bit of struggle that was growing, but she was always going to highly and enthusiastically endorse more females who wanted to enter the death industry. “What did you say your name was?”

—

Max didn’t miss the way the woman’s expression changed at the mention of Regan. Humans were so bad at this, weren’t they? They couldn’t school their expressions, couldn’t express anything resembling restraint. They were clumsy and reckless, they let everything show right there on the surface. How did they live this way? What was it like to exist and be read as easily as words on a page? It sounded exhausting. “Yes, we knew each other in Ireland. I’ve known her grandmother all my life. She’s a very respected individual in my hometown.” Which made Regan’s betrayal all the more disgusting. To bring such shame on your community was one thing, but on your family? Max felt for Regan’s grandmother… as much as she was capable of feeling for anyone. 

She couldn’t deny the burst of excitement in her chest as Erin agreed to the tour, though she would have denied it as best she could if asked. Max was still young, still learning. Stifling everything she felt was more difficult for her than it would have been for an older banshee. She longed to get there someday, dreamed of being a hundred years old and numb, but for now, in the privacy of her own mind, she held that excitement. “I suppose you could say I have a vested interest in the work. I think what you do here is magnificent. And you have a lovely home, of course.” If she could get a thank you out of Erin, she could force her to show her the ‘cooler parts’ that were ‘off-limits.’ It shouldn’t be too terribly difficult; humans were bad about that, too. “Max. My name is Max.” It was no bother, offering only her nickname. After all, if Erin knew more than she ought to, she’d die here, anyway. And if she didn’t, there was little she could do with an abbreviated version of Max’s first name. Honesty was a good policy… especially because Max really did want that tour.

—

Erin recalled Regan mentioning at some point how rural her hometown was with implications that it was so far removed from everything that they didn’t even have some of the same phone applications as the rest of the world, apparently. But why was Max here while Regan was across the ocean? Max’s response was polite and slightly informative but… off. Just like the rest of her. Maybe they weren’t terribly close. But then why or how would she know about Erin? Questions only continue to pile up the more Max spoke. “I take it she made it to Ireland alright?” She pressed once more, curious about Regan of course, but more curious about Max’s response now. “I just haven’t heard from her since she left,” she added, shrugging casually and preemptively glossing over any weirdness with a small smile. “I mean, you guys at least have the internet all the way out there, right? I still haven’t been able to figure out how to download Scapchat.”

A vested interest didn’t tell Erin much. But she trusted Regan and knew if anything, she could trust Regan’s respect for the field and what she did here. She wouldn’t send just anyone Erin’s way. She was probably just misinterpreting Max’s mannerisms. It wasn’t like Regan was a beacon of social aptitude either. Maybe they were all homeschooled where they came from. “Oh, why thank you,” Erin answered, relaxing a little as she started to lead Max away from the front desk and to the showroom. The casket Regan had eyed still sat in the middle of the room surrounded by a few other models made from different materials and colors. Urns sat neatly along display shelves along the walls with Erin’s favorites sitting front and center. 

“I don’t trust this one.”

Erin’s attention darted to the figure suddenly behind Max. Her father wasn’t looking at Erin, though. His gaze was stuck on the young woman for a long moment before he glanced up at his daughter. No explanation followed, just a look that screamed Be careful, though her quick look told him she agreed. “You picked a good time to pop in - we’re pretty quiet this afternoon.” She glanced back at Max, keeping an eye on her. “Was there something in particular you wanted to know? I love questions. Especially from a fellow death enthusiast.”

—

There was a tickle on the back of her neck. It was like hair standing up straight, like the feeling of someone watching you from behind. Max tilted her head to the side ever so slightly, though she didn’t turn around. There was a whisper of a voice behind her, but no one beyond herself and Erin in the room. But Max was smart. She had enough experience with ghosts to know when one was near, and wasn’t that interesting, too? A house of the dead, haunted by ghosts. Was this one a soul belonging to one of the corpses that Erin had not yet let her see? Or was it a more personal thing? And, perhaps more importantly, was Erin aware? 

Max let her eyes go to the woman, studying her for a moment. Was her attention truly split between Max and this invisible force, or was Max’s knowledge on what else lurked in the room with them clouding her judgment? It was important, she thought, not to make any such assumptions. She couldn’t assume that Erin knew of the ghost. She couldn’t assume that Regan had told Erin anything that would require her eradication. Banshees ought to operate on proof. Otherwise, the risk of altering Fate was too prevalent. 

“Oh, I’m sure she made it just fine.” She hadn’t seen Regan back home, but she’d heard whispers throughout the community of her return. It had made her feel a little stormier than she’d admit, made a bitterness she’d never cop to rise up in her throat. Why should the return of someone who’d left willingly be so celebrated? Why should everyone rejoice at someone who’d betrayed them changing her mind? As far as Max was concerned, Regan Kavanagh could rot. It was the only way Max could ever imagine thinking of her fondly.

Erin’s statement brought her back to the conversation, and she quirked a brow. “She told you about Scapchat, did she?” That wasn’t a good sign. She’d clearly been talking about their community to outsiders; the only question was, to what extent? “What else did she tell you?” She made no effort to answer Erin’s questions. Unlike Regan, Max had no intention of selling her people out.

Luckily, Regan hadn’t told Erin everything. She thanked Max, and Max’s smile was a predatory thing. “You’re welcome,” she replied, clearly pleased with herself. “Now, how about we repay that thanks, hm? You’re going to show me the cooler parts of what you do, the bits you were talking about earlier. It shouldn’t be a problem, since you’re quiet now.”

—

Erin simply nodded her head at Max, who was becoming more curt and unforthcoming the longer they spoke. So she… hadn’t spoken to Regan? But she knew about this funeral home specifically, and the fact that Erin knew Regan. This didn’t feel right anymore. The conversation she’d had with Regan in this very room crept back into her mind–her reasons for leaving, the reluctance, and the secrecy that shrouded the whole thing regarding her hometown. And now one of her “acquaintances” was here? Just because? It was starting to feel a little too cult-y and a lot more uncomfortable than she’d like. “Yeah. It sounded pretty cool,” Erin answered, though the enthusiasm she held before had vanished. The worried look on her father’s face caught her eyes again. Max had to go. Now. 

Absolutely not. 

…Was what Erin should have answered, angry and with a shuffle towards the front door. Her mind screamed the words until they rattled along her skull but all she got for it was silence. Painful, choking silence. Her legs were moving now and she reached into her suit pocket to grab her keys. “Seriously? You’re just going to let her down there?” Her father appeared at the door, like his spectral state could somehow stop what was going to happen. Confusion spilled into concern at the wide, terrified eyes staring back at him. They were practically begging him for help. “What’s wrong with you? Erin–Erin, answer me.” He practically shouted when she ignored him and then did shout for her attention until her hand reached through him to the doorknob.

The metal of the key clicked into place and the old, hardwood door that separated the basement mortuary from the rest of the home creaked quietly open. This wasn’t real. Right? This couldn’t be real. This was a dream, or a hallucination, or something that she could snap herself out of if she tried hard enough. Her body continued to betray her and she moved aside, gesturing to the stairs. Max was free to roam to her heart’s content.

—

No one had ever really taught Max the best ways to navigate conversation. Why would they need to? Banshees were agents of Fate, and not necessarily meant for anything else. She knew how to talk to people back home — Tina most of all — but humans? She’d never even tried. Humans in Saol Eile were good for exactly one thing, and Max hadn’t needed a sacrifice in years now. She had no idea that she was saying anything at all that might make the funeral home director suspicious or uneasy.

“Maybe you ought to come visit sometime.” The words were innocent enough; someone who didn’t know Saol Eile or what they did to humans there might not know how predatory the suggestion was. It was also insincere. There was no place for Erin Nichols back home, though Max wouldn’t mind parading her through the streets just to make Regan uncomfortable. For now, though, she would settled for this. For seeing the funeral home in all its glory, for learning more about death as was her birthright. She followed Erin to the door, hyperaware of the sensation of the ghost in the room. She wouldn’t look for it now, though maybe later. Only if she determined Erin needed to be killed, of course; otherwise, she risked exposing too much. 

The basement door opened, and Max let out a pleased exhale as she stepped inside. She could feel the death all around her, the rot. “Tell me about it,” she said, looking back to Erin. “Tell me all the things you do here.”

—

Erin led her downstairs, despite her brain fighting uselessly against each step. She wanted to show Max. Better yet, she needed to show her exactly what she wanted. Down another corridor, the temperature dropped before they stood in front of a wall of metal, square doors that lined the refrigeration units like a checkerboard. They’d just received a new intake that morning, untouched and ready. Perfect for Max. “This is where I fix them,” she spoke mindlessly, her hands already reaching for the unit door. 

“Erin,” her father warned, following close behind her. Something was wrong in the way that Wicked’s Rest was wrong. Wrong in all the ways he’d tried to hide from her for most of her life. But it didn’t work. It had never really worked. The wrongness still managed to touch her. 

Erin pulled the slab out from its confines, delicately pulling the zipper that encased the fresh corpse. The smell wasn’t so bad yet. Her eyes jumped to Max, a sudden urge to please her overwhelming her senses. “Would it be better if I showed you?” 

—

Max followed along behind Erin eagerly, the feeling of death calling to her the closer they got to the door. “Fix them?” She repeated the word, sounding half offended. What was there to fix? It was more fun to watch them decay, to take in the beauty of it. It shouldn’t have surprised her that even Regan Kavanagh’s human friends would have made terrible banshees; Regan herself was a bad one, never doing enough to earn her birthright. 

She could still feel the ghost trailing along, and she wondered if there were more. Did they stay with their bodies? Did they follow Erin around as she did her work, did they haunt her? Maybe if Max did end up needing to kill the woman, she could allow herself to see. Maybe it would be fun.

“Yes,” she said, trying not to let her voice show just how much she wanted to see the corpse within the bag. “I’d love to see it. You’ll show me.”

—

Usually Erin wouldn’t dream of touching a decedent without the proper gear on–head to toe, full body PPE was required. It simply wasn’t safe. But this was for Max, and she needed to impress her. Needed to show her exactly what she’d asked for. Erin would do it gladly. “Fixed, yes,” Erin repeated with a nod. Max was from Ireland, and knowing what she did about Regan, she wondered how different the customs were there–or how their small town of people viewed death. It was obviously different than most. She’d have to ask Regan one day, if she ever spoke to her again. “When a person dies, they’re sent to me to be fixed, if I can. Their families want to see them as they were. A final memory.” Erin paused, turning to Max with a firm but gentle look. “It’s important. It’s how we grieve,” she assured her, remembering briefly only moving to grab a table of medical tools. The metal pieces rattled against the sterilized tray as it moved, squeaky wheels echoing against painted cement walls. 

Jack was beyond recognizing that his words were falling on deaf ears. He needed to do something. This needed to stop. Max needed to be stopped. He didn’t know what she was or what she was doing to control his daughter but a protective fury built in him. He’d never done this before–didn’t even know if he could do it–but what else was he going to do? Stand there and watch while his daughter was mind controlled by some Irish brat? “Stop!” He yelled, charging towards the table. The items clattered to the floor and still, he flew past it. Erin tumbled to the floor but it was Jack who felt the shock of her back hitting the cement. 

“Shit, that hurt–” Erin’s voice came out of his mouth. Or, her mouth. He looked down to find his daughter’s physical form and not the corporeal one he’d been roaming around in for the last few months. This wasn’t exactly what he’d had planned. The idea was to knock over the table and her if he could muster the strength but–shit. This would do, he supposed. Glancing up at Max, he reached for the closest tool near him and stood up. The medical buzz saw sprung to life as he jutted it in her direction. “Take one step anywhere but to the door right now or so help me–” he started, Erin’s voice shaky but firm. And pissed. 

—

Grief wasn’t something Max fully understood. It was a feeling she’d cut herself off from with her first scream, when her mother’s blade tore through a boy she’d loved and her lungs had ripped and shattered with a feeling she refused to hold onto. Death was a beautiful thing. It wasn’t a problem to be fixed or a memory to be held. It was something to be revered, something to be admired. Where did some human get off on claiming otherwise? For a moment, something hot flashed in her chest, but Max discarded it. Humans were stupid, silly things. That was something she’d known all her life. One could hardly blame a dog for not learning to write, and the same reasons made it pointless to feel angry at a human for not understanding death. It just wasn’t something they were capable of. 

Deciding to ignore Erin’s words — a kindness Max was sure made her something of a saint — she turned to the body on the table. Better to give this her full attention, to marvel at the silly human customs surrounding death. Why didn’t they allow the bodies to decay naturally? Why didn’t they sit and watch bone fall from flesh piece by piece? What was the purpose of preserving the memory of something long gone?

Max wanted to ask. But, before she could, Erin spoke in a way that was strange. Her voice, still, but the wrong tone. The wrong emotion behind it. Erin was bound; she ought to be malleable, the way she was before. But she wasn’t. Instead, she was picking up a saw? “This isn’t what we agreed upon,” Max said, tilting her head to the side. “You know there are consequences to going against an agreement, don’t you? Do yourself a favor and put it away.” How had she been able to lift it to begin with? How could she threaten Max? It didn’t compute.

—

Max seemed confused. Good. It meant that this was working against whatever magic was compelling Erin before. For now. Jack took another step forward, giving the air a small slash as if to beckon the younger woman backwards even more. He hadn’t decided if he was actually going to use it or not yet. Getting Erin arrested for attacking a young woman and then peacing out of her body seemed like something he’d get exorcised over. Probably rightfully so. Allowing this charade to play out until the little psychopath was content didn’t feel right either. He liked his odds a little better this way. “And there are consequences to disobeying the person holding the bonesaw.” 

Another step forward echoed another screee from the saw in his hand. It felt odd in his grasp–Erin’s grasp. Different from his own, of course, but the strength behind it didn’t feel like it should. It felt like borrowed time. Like driving someone else’s car for the first time. The mechanics were familiar and he could get around fine but it just wasn’t right. Max wasn’t moving fast enough for his liking. He raised a brow, feigning interest in his next question. “Sorry, did you misunderstand? Do you still want me to show you what I do with this?”

—

The barely evolved ape had the audacity to slash at Max with her blade, and the banshee felt a frustrated scream building in her chest. She’d been so close to seeing something beautiful, something that might have made this whole wretched trip to America a little bit less irritating. It wasn’t fair that she’d lose it when it was right there within her grasp. Didn’t she deserve it? After everything, hadn’t she earned it? Wasn’t death hers to hold and to mold and to store behind her teeth and deep within her lungs? If she were less rigid in her training, if she were someone more like Regan Kavanagh (she shuddered at the thought), she might have let out a scream. She might have brought the whole building down on both their heads, a glorious repeat of the house where Regan’s friends had tried to hide out falling down brick by brick. But Max was better than that. Max was built for this, had spent her entire life honing her power in a way failures like Regan Kavanagh could only dream of.

In any case, she thought, Erin would have consequences for breaking her word here. Wasn’t that how it worked? Max had bound her and Erin had broken it, but it wouldn’t come without cost. It never did. Fate would have its way with her, Max suspected. And for a banshee, that had to be enough. She reminded herself of this, even as she yearned to take matters into her own hands. She was not Regan Kavanagh, and she wasn’t Siobhan Dolan, either. She was better than the both of him, an instrument of Fate through and through. She flashed Erin a smile sharper than the blade she was swinging around, tilted her head to the side. “I suspect you’ll regret this later,” she said, taking a step back towards the door. “I only wish I could stick around to see it.” 

She made her way back, eyes on Erin all the while. She turned to walk back up the stairs. 

(And if she let out the smallest ear-splitting screech on the way? Well… no one was perfect.)

[nightmaretist]

TIMING: Current PARTIES: Max @screadqueens & Inge @nightmaretist LOCATION: Inge's office SUMMARY: Max pays one of Siobhan's hottest colleagues a visit. CONTENT WARNINGS: Child death (past), torture (threatened)

It was hard for Max to decide which of the rogue banshees who’d left their mark in this wretched Maine town was the more disappointing of the two. Regan’s mistakes were humiliating, to be sure — cleaning up her mess would certainly take some time — but that was to be expected. Regan had been a failure since the beginning, since the first day she’d shown up to train with Max and Tina despite her age. Siobhan was a failure in her own right, of course, but she’d at least been raised properly. The fact that she had managed to fail so spectacularly was just… sad. 

Especially when Max found the corpse in her contact list.

It wasn’t the fun kind of corpse, wasn’t the proper kind that you could sit and watch beautifully decay. No, this corpse was a disgusting thing. The kind that walked around, the kind that defied Fate. The mere concept of the undead was sickening, and yet Siobhan had been out and about befriending one. It was horrifying, really. Regan had something of an excuse in her sad human upbringing, but Siobhan? Siobhan should have known better.

It was no matter, though. Max was more than willing to correct the mistake.

It was luck, perhaps, that the corpse found employment at the local college. It made Max the perfect banshee for the job, what with her youthful looks and her sharp wit. Blending in with the human children was an easy thing to do, a simple one. She looked like she belonged, and so the idiotic humans assumed she did. She listened to them talk about stupid things, she waited for an opportunity. And when the corpse was spotted, Max wasted no time on goodbyes before getting up to follow it.

“Excuse me,” her Irish lilt lifted the words, carrying them to the corpse’s ears. There was something dully fascinating about the unnaturalness of it, she thought; she found interest in it the same way one might find interest in an unidentified puddle with a heavy stench. The mind was drawn to disgusting things, sometimes. Max wondered if that was how things had started between Siobhan and Inge. Maybe. Maybe not. It wasn’t important either way. The corpse was a mistake Max would correct. She was sure of that. “I missed your office hours, but I’d like to discuss a few things with you. Mind extending them?”

—

She had been healing. In the slow pace of any mortal human, Inge’s injuries had started aching less, her muscles regenerating somehow. She didn’t care about the biology of it, really. Didn’t much care about most of it, as long as there was process. And so she’d been returning to her classes, opting to sit on her desk in a position that seemed casual but just hurt less than standing and walking around. 

It was good to be back. There was something about teaching that wasn’t entirely despicable to her, something about it that she did like. Maybe it was just that she wanted to be the smartest person in every room and being a professor of art did tend to ensure that. It helped that she was an undead one, as she’d certainly outlive all her students if things went her way. Perhaps it was a pitiful thing to gain confidence from, but wasn’t that the point of being a teacher? To know better? 

She’d take all she could, these days.

And so she walked the hallways again, with less trouble than she had a few months back, but still with some trouble. Sometimes she was afraid there would be permanent damage to the muscles that kept her upright, those in her lower back. Inge refused that kind of reality, though, and so she bit through the pain. 

When someone addressed her, she looked at the voice the words belonged to. She didn’t recognize the student, which made her crease her brows. In all fairness, she’d been absent-minded, if not physically absent, these past months. “Hi …” There was an empty space there where the other’s name would go if she’d known it, an open invitation for an introduction. “What is it you’d like to talk about? I have some time until my next lecture, but…” She smiled and there was a hint of sourness to it. There was an implication there, something along the lines of it better be worth my while. The other was lucky, as they were near her office. Inge looked at it down the hall. “Well, don’t be too long.”

—

She moved like she was in pain, and there was some idle fascination to that. A corpse that ached was a funny thing, Max thought. There were banshees back home, she knew, who felt some pity towards the undead. It was hardly their fault that they’d outlasted their fate, after all, and they were surely suffering because of it. But Max had no room in her heart for things like this. When she saw this body, this dead thing that Siobhan had adopted as some sort of hideous pet, all that stirred in her chest was disgust. It was humiliating, in a way; Siobhan had brought embarrassment on their entire community, hanging round with trash like this. Shouldn’t she have known better?

“Max,” she introduced herself, though not without considering it first. It didn’t matter much if the thing before her knew her name. It would be dead the way it was meant to be dead before long now, would be ‘laid to rest’ the moment it let Max into its office. A scream would be the best way to do it, she thought, though it would bring unwanted attention. Was there a window in the office? It would be simple enough to slip out after. In a town like this, surely something else would take the blame. No one would ever think to point a finger at Max, and she’d be long gone before anyone even considered doing so. Unlike Regan or Siobhan, Max had no intention of sullying herself by remaining in this town a moment longer than she had to.

“Don’t worry,” she assured the corpse. “What I have for you is very important. And something you need, I think!” It wasn’t a lie. Upholding Fate was the most important thing a banshee could be tasked with, and the corpse was in need of finding its end. Perhaps there would be peace for it, in the moment. Perhaps it would even be grateful. With a sharp smile, Max followed the corpse into its office, shutting the door behind them both.

—

Maybe this was one of the students who’d taken on the class in the time she’d been absent. Inge had offered some forged doctor’s notes to those that stood above her on the academic hierarchical ladder and spent most of her days away from lecture halls. She wasn’t very good at remembering her students on top of that, with some exceptions here and there. Some of them made art or wrote essays that stood out – negatively or positively – and those names she remembered. But Max was a stranger to her.

She moved towards her office, not bothering with the usual slew of small talk she was good at. Professor Endeman was a professor who liked to talk, after all — usually, that was. She had little to say now, though, was more focused on moving as fluently as possible. She shouldn’t have worn trousers that closed around her waist where her scar was still developing.

“Ah?,” she asked at the other’s very confident words. Whatever could it be? A project, a piece of art she’d seen at a museum, something she had read? Inge offered a smile, moved towards her desk and sat down in the chair, stretching one of her legs to put less pressure on her injury. She despised that painkillers didn’t work. She hoped the sun would go down soon, so she could return to her dear astral. “Well, don’t keep me waiting Max. Take a seat, tell me whatever it is you have for me.” Despite her fatigue (funny, considering she hadn’t slept in over forty years) she offered a look of enthusiastic intrigue. It better be worth her while.

—

Max studied the corpse, the fascination something she found herself unable to shake. She hadn’t seen many undead in her life. She hadn’t seen many people who weren’t banshees in her life, really, given the isolated nature of their community in Ireland. She’d heard tale of the abominations that defied Fate, of course, seen the disgust in the expressions of those sharing the stories, but she never imagined she’d see one up close. She didn’t think she’d have time to dissect this one the way she yearned to, but there were others in town. According to their findings, the place was crawling with them. Maybe she could find another when she was done here, now that she knew what it felt like to be in the presence of one. Maybe she could take it apart piece by piece.

“You’re friends with Professor Dolan, aren’t you? I’ve heard the two of you are close.” Max made no move to sit in the chair she’d been offered; instead, she continued to stare at the corpse, allowing her head to tilt ever-so-slightly to one side as if she was working out a particularly difficult puzzle. “What is it you think she sees in you? Does she actually enjoy being around you, or is there just something interesting about a corpse that walks and talks?”

She took a step closer, reaching out a hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll make it quick. It’s not your fault you’re an abomination, is it?”

—

If she had any functions in her body that could make her respond instinctively, the hairs in her neck would have stood upright now. The mention of Siobhan was concerning — it was hardly like they interacted a whole lot professionally but there was of course the case of the chopped off leg and her being left stuck to a wall. Inge tightened her jaw, screwing it even tighter when Max asked her about their relationship, called her a corpse.

Something was amiss. It wasn’t paranoia crawling over her skin this time — there was something wrong with the girl who remained stranding and inched too close. “I don’t think she sees an awful lot in me,” she said, fingers inching towards the drawer in her desk. She’d placed self defense measures there – of course she had. The weapons could cost her her job, but she’d rather risk that than her head. “It’s more that she envies me.” The drawer opened during that  sentence. “Because I am capable of more than she has ever been.” Love, wasn’t that what it had been? She didn’t get the banshee. 

Inge got up to her feet, staring at the younger creature, fingers wrapped around a switchblade. “You’ll not do a thing,” she said, “Besides get the hell out of my office and leave this campus.” 

—

The corpse’s hand went to the desk drawer, and Max watched it inch its way there with a faint spark of amusement behind her eyes. There was something funny about it, in a disgusting sort of way. Here was this thing that had cheated Fate once already, existed in a world that had moved on without it long after it should have been gone, and all it could think of was ways to cheat further. Wasn’t it exhausting? Shouldn’t it be tired? Max didn’t understand why it was fighting so hard. If anything, it should be honored. Such lucky few were allowed to be delivered to Fate by a banshee’s scream. 

But the corpse didn’t want the honor, it seemed. It pulled a blade from the drawer, and Max’s lips quirked upwards in a smile that turned into a bubbling giggle, unable now to hide the amusement dancing across her features. Was the blade even made of iron? She doubted it. “You should be careful with that,” she crowed, shaking her head. “You’ll hurt yourself. Not that it matters much. You’re dead already, right? A few more cuts won’t change that.”

As if the words had reminded her of it, Max allowed her hand to dance down into her pocket and retrieve a blade of her own. It was thin and sharp, gleaming silver. “You don’t have to do it yourself, though. I’ll help you with it. I’m not used to things like you, so maybe you can help me here. If I stab you in the throat, does it end you? No, right? The throat is only a vulnerable place because of breath and blood flow, and you’ve neither. What of your arteries? If I cut them, what does it do to you?” She paused, humming. “I’m sorry. I think I’ve changed my mind. We won’t be doing this quickly after all. I’d like to know more about you.”

—

Her mind was racing and she hated that it was light out, that she was once again in a situation where she was confined and bound to the earthly plane that was filled with horrid things. Inge stared at the other, wondering what she was, why she came here asking after Siobhan and accusing her of being dead. She didn’t seem a slayer — a slayer wouldn’t pull out a glinting knife and ask how best to kill her. But wouldn’t it be presumptuous to think the other something as rare as a banshee?

She stood there, putting most of her weight on one foot to keep her body from straining too much. If her job here was compromised too, what was left? What was to keep a slayer from bursting in next? Inge felt the tug again, that instinctive urge to run. “I don’t intend on using it against myself,” she said. “What would a few cuts do to you?” She flicked the blade open, small and pointy yet plenty effective when she needed it to be.

If the other wanted to talk, Inge could do that. She preferred to cut with weapons. She preferred to stall, to figure out a way to avoid being murdered and turned into dust in her office. “You are inexperienced,” she concluded, which was a relief. She had evaded wintered hunters before. A girl with a knife who didn’t know how to kill her could be bested too. “Why should I tell you the best way to kill me? Do you think me such a fool?” She offered a smile, saccharine and unemotional. She eyed the door, considered her chances of running around the other and returning to the hallway – but she knew the knife would find her body before she would be able to. Especially with her limited agility. And even if this Max didn’t know how to kill her, a knife was still a knife. It still hurt. “But fine, ask away. Feel free to sit.” She sat down herself, gesturing at the chair. “Office hour, right?” 

—

Did this rotting corpse really presume itself so capable? How had Siobhan been around this thing for as long as she had without putting it in its place? How had she been around it without sending it back to Fate, the way it was meant to be? It was embarrassing. Humiliating, really. Max wondered if those back home had any idea just how far Siobhan had fallen. Surely this proved that they had been justified in their decision to cast her out of the aos si in those years before Max had been born at all. Surely Max herself was better for having lived in a community that Siobhan Dolan had not been a part of. This was disgusting. This was a shameful thing.

“You’ll never know what a few cuts would do to me,” Max replied, tilting her head to the side. “You’ll never get close enough to find out. Do you think I should be frightened of you? You, who have been dead so long you’ve started to stink? I’m an agent of Fate, and you’re a fugitive of It. I want nothing more than to send you where you belong. You should be grateful. You should be asking for this.” If it had any pride at all, Max thought, it would have been. Nothing should want to exist as this thing did, and yet here it was, fighting for a life that had left it years ago. 

Inexperienced? The muscle in Max’s jaw twitched, nostrils flaring briefly in a quiet display of fury. It was something she’d heard before, of course. Even back home, even leading up to this particular excursion. We should be sending more experienced banshees, someone had said. Not children. Max’s mother had insisted that this was the best way to turn children into banshees, had put a foot down. Max would not prove her wrong. “I think you nothing at all,” she countered. “I think you a stain on the very fabric of this world. I think you a thing that ought not exist, a thing worse off for its state of being. I think you an embarrassment, a mistake. I don’t think you a fool, because in order to be a fool, one must be a person first. And you’re not that. You’re not anything at all. You’ll be less than that soon. Or more, perhaps. The only way for you to get better is for you to finish what you started doing when you were made into this — for you to finish dying. I was going to help you do it quickly. I really was. But I want to see what your blood looks like now. I want to find out if you ache, if you hurt. I won’t sit when I ask you my questions. I want to see them proven first. So…” She trailed off with a sharp smile and, with little warning, thrust her blade forward. “What does your blood look like? You don’t need to answer. I’m going to find out.”

—

Would Anita come to her aid? Or better yet: would Inge get over her pride to ask her to help her? She’d aided her, that day in the woods, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to reach out for her now that she was still unharmed and some young thing was threatening her. It was pathetic, wasn’t it? And so she didn’t reach for her phone, just eyed the intruder with narrowed eyes and thought of escape routes. She’d be damned if she went down in this stuffy office, in a school, of all places.

“I think I have a better idea than you have about me,” she said coolly. As the other went on, she sounded like a zealot. A banshee zealot. She thought of her conversations about death with Siobhan, always held easiest online where the other wouldn’t have to see her face as she bared herself. Fate sounded awfully similar to ‘God’s plan’ and because of that just as boring. She defied it, by roaming this earth, and she thought it a good thing. “Do you not get bored, being so limited by your worldview? I don’t think you should be frightened. I think you should reassess your life, perhaps, and sound less like a mouthpiece to whatever person told you these things. And you should get your nose checked.” She wore expensive perfume and was incapable of sweating. She smelled delightful.

While the insult to her scent didn’t insult her, the tirade this Max went on made Inge halt a little. It wasn’t like she hadn’t heard these things before as she was no stranger to people who thought she ought to be dead in a more definitive way. Still, it wasn’t like music in her ears to hear these things. To be called a thing, a stain, something unfinished. As if she hadn’t transformed into something more powerful and beautiful after she’d awoken post-death! As if this wasn’t the best thing for her to be! She opened her mouth to retort as the other trailed off, but in stead of a cutting reply, she let out a furious yelp as the knife made contact with her lower arm, cutting through skin and making glittering energy pour out. “You —” She bristled, used her other arm to reach for her paperweight (a one of a kind one, mind you) and aimed it towards Max’ head. She was quick to press her now-free fingers against the laceration after she’d thrown the thing. There were too many scars that had originated in this town, now, and there’d be another added. “You’re boring, you’re narrow and you’re going to get out of my office now.”

—

Limited? It was so clear that the corpse had no idea what it was speaking of, what it was speaking to. To call a banshee, of all things, limited? It was as preposterous as it was insulting. How had Siobhan managed it all this time? How had she been in the presence of a thing that not only disrespected Fate with its very existence, but disrespected banshees with its words? More than ever, a fire burned in Max’s chest. She had half a mind to hop a plane, to fly back to Ireland and confront Siobhan herself, to take her by the shoulders and shake her and demand to know why, why, why. She didn’t understand it, didn’t understand any of it. She couldn’t comprehend why Siobhan had come to care for this town, why Regan did. She wanted to. There was a part of her that wanted, desperately to understand the appeal. Was there something she was missing? Some unseen piece, some hidden part of this puzzle? Max intended to find out, sooner or later.

But first, she was going to dispatch the corpse.

Her blade found the corpse’s arm, slicing the skin and revealing the hidden secrets beneath it. Max marveled at the shine, tilting her head to the side as it shimmered on its journey to stain the floor of the office. “Oooh,” she gasped, looking as close to delighted as she’d ever allowed herself to be. “Do you have a jar? I’d like to take some of this with me when you’re dead. I think my sister would get a real kick out of it. Do your pieces turn to dust when I take them off? I know vampires’ do. Found that one out the hard way. It would have been a lovely finger to watch decay.” How would the corpse’s limbs decay? Would they do so slowly, or would they make up for lost time and crumble all at once? Max wanted to know. 

She looked back up at the corpse just in time to see a paperweight flying at her head. She ducked quickly enough to avoid a concussive contact, but not soon enough to keep it from hitting the side of her forehead hard enough to send stars flying into her vision and rage burning through her. What did this corpse presume itself to be? What right did it think it had? Max glared, teeth grinding together as she took a step towards it. “Just for that,” she said lowly, “I’m going to cut off your fingers one at a time. I think we’ll start with the thumbs. Harder to throw things without those.”

—

Her blood – or whatever one was supposed to call it – was a thing of beauty, Inge agreed. She vaguely remembered the first time she had seen it after having nicked her finger while peeling an apple for Vera (she had hated apple peels and she had been indulgent, especially after they’d moved to Amsterdam) and staring at the glitter on the cutting board. Sometimes on sunny days she’d look at herself in the mirror, admiring the way the energy beneath her skin glimmered. But the reasons she found it beautiful were different from why this Max found it beautiful, that was for sure — hers was an obsessive intrigue and Inge was sure that she wouldn’t be able to swindle her for five thousand dollars like she had another.

No, she would be lucky to get away with her life, which was a rotten way to be lucky. 

Inge wasn’t sure what would happen with her blood should she die. Perhaps those little jars of blood on Parker’s and Rhett’s shelves would turn to dust along with the rest of her and that thought was strangely comforting — even if she had no intention to die. The thud of the glass paperweight was satisfying, as was the look that washed over the maybe-banshee’s face. She was no good at fighting, lacked the finesse and technique, but she was very good at fighting like hell. Tight corners were hers to escape, “You are so confident for someone so ignorant,” she bit to the other, clutching her arm. “And you will remain just that.”

There were tighter corners she’d been in before. She had full control of her body now, was not restrained by rope or salt or stuck to a wall, which was apparently an option as well these days. She would not be reduced to dust by a child who didn’t even know what a mare was. Inge bristled, the threat of her fingers being cut off eerily familiar to the way Siobhan had undone all of Rhett’s toes. “Who do you think you are?” She didn’t move, kept her shedding blood from view. It was not the other’s to see. “Here to teach me a lesson? For some higher purpose that, like all purpose, is a farce?” At least her purpose was selfish and not dedicated to some God or entity. She was trying to gauge how fast the other was, how her chances would be. There was nothing heavy left on her desk to throw, and she would lose a knife fight — but she had more than her knife. She had her nature, which the other despised but she revered. “If you wanted to cut off my fingers, you should have restrained me,” she said, provoking, “Siobhan, the woman you mentioned, she knew to do that before cutting off a man’s toes. What is it you’re going to do? Hold me down with your tiny body, struggle and squirm? You should have planned this, Max. You should have at least brought some fucking rope.” Maybe this was an office hour, after all.

—

The dead had no right to arrogance. They had more rights than some might believe, of course — the rights of the dead were important to uphold — but arrogance was not among them. Things like that, Max wouldn’t even afford to the living unless they had a scream like hers. Banshees were the only ones with any claim to such things, were the only ones who could boast being above anyone else. An argument could be made for other fae being above humanity, but even that felt like a stretch Max wasn’t quite ready to make. In her mind’s eye, you were either banshee or inferior. And this body in front of her now, this pile of bones and skin that spoke despite its heart that did not beat, was certainly no banshee.

So why did it believe it had some right towards arrogance? Why did it think it had earned any ability to speak to Max this way? She was its better. How had Regan or Siobhan stomached this for so long? How had they managed in a world where no one knew how low on the totem pole they really were? If she didn’t hate them as much as she did, Max might have found room to be impressed. Instead, it was disgust that curled up in her chest, tendrils of it spreading down to her stomach and up to her throat. They should have corrected this way of thinking, she thought. They should have shown this thing just how disgusting it truly was, should have never allowed it to escape Fate for as long as it had. It was cruel, almost. Like letting a sick animal suffer instead of ending its misery. 

Max would not be so cruel.

She would experiment with it, sure. She would peel back its skin, take out its eyes, see what happened when pieces of it were removed. But she would only do these things so that she might understand, so that she might know better for the next time. The way this thing existed was no way to continue, and Max wouldn’t force it to do so. She would use it for learning, yes, but she would be kind in a way SIobhan hadn’t. She wouldn’t suffer an abomination like this to continue its existence. No one should.

“This is a school,” Max said, “and I want to learn. You’re a professor, so you’ll teach me. I’ve never seen a thing like you before. It would be a disservice not to allow me to learn from you. It would be a disservice to others like you, too. The next time I run into one of you, I want to be able to take care of it quickly. Don’t you want that? Don’t you feel loyalty to your kind? You’re already dead. This way, it can mean something.” 

It was a silly notion, the idea of restraining a corpse. It shouldn’t have been necessary. Max didn’t particularly want to tie up the body, didn’t want to rely on such things. Her mother wouldn’t have, if she were here. She doubted Clare was using rope on the one she’d gone after, either. The mention of Siobhan — and the implication that she knew better than Max did — filled her chest with a that disgusting hint of fiery anger again. “Siobhan is a disgrace,” she replied flatly, repeating something she’d heard a thousand times before. “If she weren’t, I wouldn’t have to do this. She should have taken care of you herself, you know. If she were any good, she would have.” Perhaps she was wasting time here. Maybe she should find another of this kind, one more cooperative. Maybe the best thing she could do for this one was to simply end it. Would her scream be too telling? Would it get her into trouble? She’d heard tell of a screaming moose roaming this town — perhaps the sound could be blamed on that. 

Clicking her tongue as she debated, Max relented with a shrug. “Okay. If you don’t want to teach me, I suppose I can’t make you be good at your job. We’ll do this quickly, then.” Stepping forward, she grabbed the body’s cold wrist and put another hand on its shoulder. One scream, with this physical contact, and it would explode in a beautiful shower of blood and viscera. Max wondered if it would sparkle all the while.

With a cruel smile, the banshee let her eyes go black and opened her mouth to scream.

—

She had thought herself to be wrong at two points in her unlife. First, when she had initially been transformed. When she had died in her sleep and come back like something else, something capable of moving between planes of existence, something that lived through cruel consumption. She had hated what she was then. Something that died and had come back, that should not exist by the rules she had been taught in youth and church. Death was followed by heaven, should you be forgiven, and that was that. And yet she had continued to exist, without judgment or afterlife — and it was wrong, was it not? Godless.

But she had learned to find the rightness in it. She had claimed it, this unlife and made it a life – had loved it and reveled in it, had indulged and created. She had gained a freedom her mortal life had never offered. And then came the second time she felt her existence was wrong. When her daughter looked older than her and was withering away in a hospital bed it had seemed like a cosmic fuck-you. The not aging was no longer something to be glad for, but rather something perverse. The inability to get sick was a boon, but one that only she had received. 

Inge had gotten over that. Not the death, nor the grief — those were pains you didn’t grow out of as a parent of a deceased child. But the self-hatred. It was in part because of that, that she found the views of people like Max so grating. Who were they, to tell her that her existence was a mistake? If she could appreciate it, despite the pains and discomforts, then why should she give their closed mindedness any consideration?

And so she didn’t, “This is a school. But you are no student of mine. You are rude and petulant.” The idea of Max going after others like her if she didn’t give her more insight didn’t really stir her. She would go after undead regardless of what she offered her in information or demonstration. (Though Ariadne would most likely volunteer to show her more of her blood and tell her more of her nature — she should warn her, once this was over and done with.) “My death and subsequent life mean plenty already — maybe that can be your lesson.”

It was interesting how the other spoke of Siobhan. Inge wasn’t sure how she felt about the banshee any more these days – there had been a few moments of raw honesty with the other, or at least more raw than she was with most others these days. She’d shared her grief over her daughter with her, had shone a light on her life before this new one. But she’d also hung on a wall, left behind as Siobhan had refused to kill two people that should have – by her calculations – died. What would this Max think of that? “Siobhan is much more fun than you,” she said, in a strange moment of defensiveness. 

Before she could consider any more ways to jump to Siobhan’s defense, the other moved in with haste. Inge was in her grasp, bare skin meeting bare skin, and she was not sure what the other was capable of doing in a moment like this. Did it matter? She knew what she was capable of. She focused on the area where Max’ fingers closed around her skin and pushed forth a sense of fatigue, making the banshee grow drowsy. “Here’s your lesson,” she bit, before letting the young fae fall asleep properly.

She caught her before she fell on the ground, pushed her into one of the seats she’d refused to take. Inge watched, for a moment, how peacefully the banshee slumbered. It would be so easy now, to kill her. To take that knife and slit her throat or stab her heart — but she knew what the cycle of violence looked like, now. A bloodied factory floor, a sword in her gut. She sat at her desk, got a bit of stationery and wrote in cursive, Mare 101. After underlining those words, she skipped a few lines and added: Class dismissed. She placed the note on the other’s lap, took her knife from where it had clattered on the ground and spent a few diligent minutes locking her drawers and other things. Soon enough she got up, plucked her coat of its hanger and took her leave. It was her best survival tactic, after all. To run from the corner she’d been backed into and hope nothing would nip at her heels.

[recoveringdreamer]

[user assumes this is a typo from an elderly person trying to buy cheerios, spaghettios, or some other kind of os.] They probably sell them at Costco!

Boneios near me

[deathsplaything]

What leg?

Are you on the leg?

[deathsplaything]

Right...

I'm going to go out on a limb and say no. neònach

It doesn't mother. Are they near me? It's a yes or no question

[deathsplaything]

Right. And what are boneios? A bone-shaped cereal like Cheerios?

Boneios need me. [User is using text to speech. It's set to US English. User is Irish.]

[deathsplaything]

Excuse me?

Boneios near me