Banshee Hunt Read Online Free Page A

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