Banshee Hunt by Greg Curtis

until it was too late. I would never have known if Francis hadn't given in to his need for revenge and started bragging about what he'd done. I don't call that a gift. I call that blindness and stupidity.”
     
    But really he called it shame. Shame and evidence of his crushing failure. Because for years while his ex-wife had been pining away for his little brother and roasting him in the divorce court, he hadn't had a clue that she was under any sort of spell. He'd assumed that that was just how she felt no matter how crazy it seemed. When she'd character assassinated him in court and his little brother had sat there beside her laughing at him, he'd had no clue. Not even when the judge had started calling him names and accusing him of crimes. Throwing him into the cells night after night for contempt. It had been bitter and brutal and he'd truly learned to hate his little brother, but he'd assumed it was normal. Even during the years before that when his parents had continued to empty out their bank accounts and sell everything they owned simply so they could give it to Francis, he'd had no clue.
     
    It had only been when he'd found out that Matti was missing and started to panic that his eyes had been opened to how terrible things were. And when Francis had laughed at him and bragged of what he'd done that he'd understood what was happening. Because no one, no mother could surely sell her beloved daughter to slavers. But by then it had been too late to undo his mistakes. All he could do was try to fix what had gone wrong.
     
    But there was no fixing what had happened. Not truly. His fixing had resulted in eight men being shot – not that he cared about them – and his daughter being hurt in a fall during the gun battle. It had left his ex-wife on the point of institutionalisation. His parents had been left destitute and too ashamed to speak to him. At the end of his fixing everything, all that he had seen ahead of him was a long stint in jail. It had ended up with the Illuminati stepping in to fix his mistakes.
     
    Now he was trapped in a job he didn't want, with a daughter he could only communicate with through weekly emails and see once a month. A daughter who he was terrified would grow up into a monster. He had an ex-wife who hated his guts in between her nervous breakdowns, parents living in the sticks in Florida who couldn't work up the courage to talk to him, and he was surrounded daily by people he didn't understand or want to know. His life was no gift. It was one step short of hell on Earth. Was it any wonder he was cold?
     
    “Amazing! Self pity and a martyr complex both. It's a wonder you can even get out of bed in the morning!” The German smiled sadly at James.
     
    “I can get out of bed and do my job fine.” And he could, though that was mostly because he had to. Someone had to pay for Matti's schooling and Sheryl clearly wasn't going to do it. She was simply going to pocket the child support and alimony he paid her and spend it on herself. Or on the mortgage for the house he'd once owned while he lived in a crappy apartment and ate packet noodles out of a microwave. It would be nice if magic paid the rent, assuming he even had any, but it just didn't.
     
    Thank God his daughter was in boarding school. It was expensive, but James considered it vital to keep her away from her mother. Even if she had been under Francis' spell, she had still sold their daughter into slavery. And she wasn't stable either. The school seemed to be working out well for Matti.
     
    “But are you living? Are you even surviving? That's the question.” The German shook his head at him. “I've got reports here of a difficult attitude. They say you give dismissive answers to questions asked about cases. That you refuse to follow procedures. Ignore safety protocols. Don’t ask for back up when you need it. Fail to keep your bosses informed of your progress. You even refuse to engage in collegial activities or have casual