Banshee Hunt (3 page)

He had to ignore Matti too. He looked for her, but in the poor lighting and confusion he couldn't see her. And while every instinct in him was telling him to go and find her, he couldn't. Not while there was a gunman on the loose waiting to shoot him.

The first truck when he reached it was empty. He even checked underneath just in case. He did find out how the children were climbing up though. For some reason on the back of each truck there was a ladder. Why, he couldn't begin to guess. But he used it just to make sure the slaver hadn't had the same idea.

And then he spotted the next man. Maybe the last gun man as he dared to hope. Half a dozen pillars away, taking shelter, and with another assault rifle in his hands. This gang was well armed. But there was probably a lot of money in selling children. Sheryl had talked about twenty thousand. And if that was what she had got for selling Matti to them, they had to be selling them for twice as much.

It was nearly over. James clambered down the ladder and then jogged silently for the gunman, knowing he had to end this before any children got hurt. Once he'd reached the pillar the gunman was hiding behind he took up a position on the other side, waiting his moment, while he worked out how to take him. In the end it was simple. The concrete pillar was just wide enough for a man to hide behind, but not if he held a rifle flat in his hands as he was. James could see the weapon's barrel poking out. And that was his point of attack. James slung his shotgun over his shoulder, knowing he'd have to do this by hand and then readied himself.

He struck fast, grabbing the barrel with both hands, yanking it upward so it pointed at the ceiling, catching the man by surprise. But the man had his finger on the trigger and as James ripped the assault rifle up, it started firing. Bullets started ricocheting in all directions, filling the dimness with sparks. Children who had grown quiet started screaming again, and the man started struggling to pull the weapon back. But he was too slow and unprepared.

James didn't try to pull the rifle from his grip. Instead he stepped toward the man and smashed the barrel the rest of the way into his face causing him to let go and scream. He should never have let go of the weapon. Because suddenly finding himself holding it by the barrel James swung the weapon like a baseball bat, smashing the stock into his face. It was a vicious blow, breaking some bones and knocking him backward onto the floor. Then James drew his own shotgun once more, pressed it into the man's flesh and blew the man's groin apart.

After that he took shelter behind the pillar once more, and waited. He waited for the children to stop screaming. And for anyone else who was out there to start hunting him. But as the long seconds and minutes began to drag, he began to think that maybe there was no one else. Still he stayed where he was, waiting until finally he was sure.

The silence was like a victory bell, and as James stood there, he eventually realised he'd done it. He’d rescued the children. And he'd survived.

It was over. Eight men were down. He just had to pray that there were no more. But really, he thought as he stood over the fallen slaver, anyone else would have started firing when they heard the last shotgun blast. Which meant it was time to call the police and find Matti.

Then his plans unexpectedly changed as he spotted a group of children on the ground beside another of the trucks and realised they were down. They looked hurt. Could they have been hit? He ran for them, fearing the worst and then discovered it was worse than even that. There were three children on the concrete and it looked as though they'd fallen off the top of the truck when the gun had gone off. Two were alive and crying, nursing injuries. But the third was lying motionless. And he recognised her long light brown curls.

“Matti!” James screamed in panic as he saw her. He screamed some more when he rolled her over and saw her face covered with blood. Blood that was coming from a head wound. James’ training took over. He ripped off his gloves and immediately felt at her throat for a pulse. When he found it he almost died of relief.

She was alive! But she needed medical care urgently. So did some of the other children. And they all needed to go home. Which was why he pulled off his mask, heedless of the gas and reached for his phone. They needed an ambulance.

It vanished. Literally one minute the phone was in his hands as he started pushing buttons and the next it wasn't. His hand was empty. He must have dropped it he realised, and he quickly started searching for it. This was no time for dropping phones.

“Looking for this?” A dry voice came from just behind him, causing James to jump as he realised there was one more gunman left. But then to remember he was armed. Except that he wasn't. James reached for his gun to find that that had gone too. Both the shotgun that should have been on his back and the Sig on his belt. How?

“Or these?”

James turned to see a cowboy standing there with his shotgun and pistol in his hands, and for the longest time he didn't know what to think. His eyes were already tearing up but there was no doubt that there was a cowboy standing just behind him. And a woman too.

“Corinth, these children need care. If you could bring some please.” The cowboy spoke to the woman and immediately she turned, took a step and vanished. She literally just stepped into thin air! Even through his tears James was certain of that. But not what it meant. People couldn't just vanish like that.

And yet suddenly everything Francis had said about his magic came flooding back to him. Up until then James had done his best to put the whole magic thing to one side, concentrating only on what mattered. And what mattered was that he believed his wife had sold his daughter to slavers because of Francis. The how hadn't been important. But if people could somehow vanish in mid air then maybe they could also magically compel others to do their bidding. But did that even matter then? And the fact was that it didn't when his daughter was hurt.

“Now Mr. Henderson, we need to talk.” The cowboy tossed the weapons to one side and they too vanished into thin air. “About what you know.”

“Know?” James didn't understand. All he knew was that his daughter was seriously hurt. He turned back to her to cradle her in his arms. Tears streaked his cheeks. He had come for her and feared he was too late. She couldn't die! Nothing else mattered.

“Call a fucking ambulance!” He screamed it at the cowboy, uncaring of anything else.

“Help’s coming. But we need to talk about magic.”

James didn't answer the cowboy. He was beyond answering just then. He was almost beyond thinking. All he knew was that Matti needed a hospital. The rest of this was just insanity.

“Call an ambulance!” He screamed it at the cowboy again, desperate to get him to do what mattered.

But he was saved from screaming it a third time as the woman returned, stepping out of thin air once more and bringing a man with her. A paramedic with a big red bag in his hands, a white cross painted on its side. After that the only thing he cared about was that the man saved his daughter.

The paramedic took her from James' arms, laid her flat and played a torch into her face as he began assessing her head wound. Despite everything else being crazy, James let him. Nothing else mattered. His daughter could not die.

“She has a probable skull fracture. She needs a hospital now.” With that the man stood up, Matti in his arms and vanished together with the woman.

It left James kneeling there, wondering what had just happened. Where was his daughter? How could she just vanish? And what was he supposed to do? For the first time he simply didn't know. He didn't even know what questions to ask. He just knelt there wondering if he'd had some sort of stroke. The cowboy seemed to understand something of that.

“Alright, long story short Mr. Henderson. Your little brother is a fascinator. He can make people do anything he wants with just a few words. All except you. He's being treated for his injuries now and in time he'll be locked away. Your wife's having some sort of nervous breakdown and people are with her too. Your parents are now with our people. They'll also be needing a lot of help. Your brother nearly broke their minds as well as destroying their lives. But your parents were the ones who managed to call us once Francis had been apart from them for long enough and the effects of his gift had had time to wear off.”

“Once they told us there was a rogue on the loose we tracked him down. When we found him in your apartment we had to track you. We had your name, your face and some blood. That was enough to locate you on a map. When we got here we found the men upstairs and heard the weapons fire, so we knew something was wrong. We brought reinforcements.” He gestured at the others.

“We could have ended this much more peacefully, but you were too quick for us. I don't suppose you want to tell me what this is all about?”

“My ex-wife sold my daughter to these child slavers. Francis made her do it,” James answered him woodenly. He really didn't know what to think, except that he wanted to be with his daughter.

“A rogue fascinator.” The cowboy shook his head slowly. “Always a nightmare. And no one knew.”

“Oh and one more thing you should know. There's magic in the world. And you can't tell anyone.”

James would have said something. But he simply didn't know what to say. Or what to think. Especially when the woman returned and brought more people with her. People who started rounding up the other children. And another paramedic to check the injured out. None of whom he noticed seemed to be having problems with the remaining tear gas.

“You need help Mr. Henderson. Help to keep yourself out of jail. Your family needs care. They’ll need a lot of counselling for a long time to come. Your brother needs to be locked up somewhere that he can never escape from. And after the doctors have treated her, your daughter will need a stable environment and an education suited for someone with a gift. She's a special child.”

“We can do all of that. But our services don't come free.”

“I'll pay.” Finally James had something he could say. Something that he wasn't confused about at all. He would pay anything. He wasn't rich by any means – not since the divorce – but he would pay anything.

“I know. But we don't want your money. We want your services.”

“Services?” James didn't understand. But he did understand that he would give them whatever they asked for.

“I'm here to offer you a job. You're a fully trained and experienced detective. You seem to have some sort of immunity to at least mind affecting magic. And you know our secret. You'll make a great hunter.”

“Hunter?” James had no idea what a hunter was. A bounty hunter maybe. But then he realised he didn't care. “I'll do it. Anything. Just save Matti!”

“I thought you might.” The cowboy smiled and stepped towards him. Then he thrust out a hand for James to take.

“Welcome to the Illuminati.”

◄►

“You want to make him a hunter?” Corinth stared at her boss with something akin to disbelief. “After this?” She indicated the bodies lying all around, most of them with gunshot wounds to their groins. As for the man himself, he was gone. Taken to the hospital to watch over his daughter.

“Especially after this.” The cowboy nodded at her.

“He's a thug! He'll be hunting rogues down and killing them! We aren't in the business of murder. And when the rest of the gifted find out we've hired someone like that we'll have a riot.”

“And who's dead?” The cowboy indicated the now largely empty basement. The children had been removed. They were currently upstairs and being cared for. Emergency services were on their way. All that were left were a few unconscious men. All of them badly injured but alive. “He could have killed them, but he didn't. Not even when they had his daughter.”

“He's been shooting their nuts off!”

“Considering that they're child slavers?” He let a pregnant silence hang for a bit. “This is a man who will walk into hell for his family. We need that.”

“Besides –,” he smiled, “– the others could use a little kicking now and then. We've been lax. Letting them get away with too much. There've been too many accidents. Too many rogues thinking they can do whatever the hell they want. Too many gifted refusing to register. In fact this entire mess started because a couple of our people didn't register their gifts. If they had – if we'd known about the children – none of this would have happened. We are the closest thing to law our people have and the gifted don't respect us as they should.”