She lifted her hands. “Shhh. No harm. None. No hurt.”
Her voice was downright hypnotic and I fought the urge to lay my head down and let her croon to me. I lifted my knife. “What are you? Fomorii?”
She let out a trilling laugh that set the birds off in the trees around us. “No.” She put her hand to her chest, “Bean sidhe.”
I blinked and shook my head. “I don’t know what that is.”
Smiling, her teeth glinting in the light, she crouched down. It didn’t make me feel any safer so I scooted back.
“Bean sidhe, Banshee. But there is a name too. Would you like to know it?”
Banshee. Like the Queen who’d helped down our helicopter. But she was young. I cleared my throat. “Okay, what’s your name?”
She curtsied, her knee-length skirt brushing the moss. “Aednat is happy to meet you.” She pronounced it slowly for me but even so, I had her repeat it for me until I got it.
“A-nit.” I frowned, drawing out the sounds. “Is that right?”
There was a crackling of bushes and the girl lifted her head; she sniffed the air. “Tuatha boy is coming; hurry Tuatha don’t like bean sidhe.” She held her hand out to me.
“I’m Tuatha,” I said, and again she trilled, her laughter dancing along the edge of my skin.
“Only very little. Mostly not.” She beckoned to me. “Come, hurry, Tuatha won’t help. You will help.”
“Help what?” I was beyond confused, yet again.
Luke burst through a small bush, his sword levelled at the girl’s chest. “Step away from her Banshee!” He roared. Cora streaked into the small glen, her mouth open wide, fangs bared.
I jumped up; put myself between them. “Luke, Cora, stop! She’s just a little girl.”
“She’s a bloody banshee! Now we know why people are going missing: they must be colonizing this area or something, turning it into a new Enchanted forest.” He growled, his sword not wavering an inch.
“Stop it!” I yelled. “She just saved me. I think.”
Luke slowly lowered his sword. “I’m not sure she didn’t call the beast just to make it look like she was saving you. They are master manipulators, Quinn. And now, with evidence that there are banshees here, it all makes sense.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, not following his line of reasoning.
“Well, with the way you describe the area, and what they were saying on the radio, Cathedral Grove sounds a lot like the Enchanted Forest, and with her,” he pointed at Aednat. “She pretty much clinches it,” he said, his shoulders sagging. I lifted my eyebrows and Luke quickly explained.
“The Enchanted Forest is a part of Ireland where the Banshees ruled. They would draw their strength from it. It’s old, very, very old, just like Cathedral Grove.” he waved his arm as if to encompass everything around us. “Travelling in the forest in Ireland was supposed to bring you great powers, but only if you made it out again.”
“And what about the missing people?” Cora asked. “What do you think is happening to them?” She asked it like she already knew the answer. His fingers tightened on mine.
Luke opened his mouth to reply, but Aednat interrupted him. “Please, too much time here in one place.”
Her small hand slipped into mine. “Hurry, we must go, the Queen will know that we are here; it isn’t safe.”
The frown on Luke’s face slipped, leaving only a pasty white visage. “The Queen?” I wanted to smirk at him.
Aednat nodded. “She try to kill Aednat. Now she try to kill you. We must go. Aednat helps you, you help Aednat. We friends.”
She tightened her grip on my fingers and past the strange eyes and hypnotic voice I could see something all too familiar.
Fear.
The decision I made was an easy one. “She’s coming with us,” I said.
“What?” Luke croaked out, his sword tip dropping to the green moss.
“We can’t leave her here. You know how powerful the Queen is,” I told him, not letting go of Aednat’s hand.
“Quinn, be reasonable; maybe she’s young, but she’s still on the wrong side. She is our enemy, all Banshees are,” he said, as if that was the end of the conversation.
“Tuatha not like Banshees,” Aednat whispered, tucking her head into my side. I stroked her hair. “I’m not leaving her, Luke. And you agreed that I would lead.”
That did it. “Ah crap, why the hell not?” he muttered.
“Aednat will lead us out. Aednat knows the way.” She tugged on my hand. I glanced back to see that Luke had scooped up Cora and they too were following. A howl filled the air, not like a wolf or a dog, but like a rabbit’s death scream. High pitched and chilling.