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me, but all I saw was the darkened woods.
    But something was doing this. I was being attacked, and if I didn’t stop the awful screeching, my head might explode. When my mouth filled with the taste of copper and blood flowed from my nose, I realized I didn’t have much time before whatever was attacking me killed me. I had to act.
    Whatever was responsible had to be close by, but I didn’t know the exact location so a straightforward counterattack was impossible. But I wasn’t helpless. I’d been playing with the limits of my powers lately, trying to use them in ways beyond a frontal assault that encased my enemies in ice.
    If this worked, I might just have a shot.
    Instead of focusing my ability through my hands as I usually did, I imagined it radiating out of me in rippling waves of chill. Whatever it touched, it would freeze.
    It froze the ground and trees within a three-foot diameter of me, but that wasn’t enough. The screaming persisted, and blood poured out of my nose. I forced my power out even farther. Six feet. Still nothing but an ever-growing ice patch around me.
    At nine feet, my vision blurred. In a few moments, this would all be over. I had the reserves for one last push, and if it didn’t work, I hoped when my family found my corpse, I would be more than just liquefied ooze.
    I dug my fingers into the frozen ground and let out a silent scream as I radiated my power as far as I could.
    The wailing stopped, and the world returned to normal.
    My breath wheezed from my lungs in a normal decibel, and when I scratched the ice, it cracked.
    I tore my gaze from the ground to the woods. Approximately fifteen feet away stood a figure encased in ice. It was a woman with long white hair that hung past her waist. Her flesh reminded me of ash, and her eyes glowed an eerie yellow. Her mouth hung open an inhuman ten inches in a wide silent scream.
    I’d seen this creature before. Not in real life, but in my family’s Grimoire. It was a banshee. Its presence meant death was near.
    I slowly rose to my feet and drew closer. “What are you doing here?” I asked.
    Since she was frozen, she obviously couldn’t reply, but her yellow eyes tracked my movement. She was pissed. Banshees, like most of the fae, didn’t take kindly to being caught. Fairies didn’t live in our world, but they had important functions to perform in order to make ours run smoothly.
    Had she stumbled from her realm into ours by accident? It wasn’t uncommon for a random fairy to cross over on Samhain, when the veil between our worlds grew thin.
    If she’d been an elf or a brownie, I’d just ask her. The light fae were mischievous, but they were usually gentle and kind-hearted. A banshee, however, was a dark fae. Their ways were often sinister and wicked. She couldn’t be trusted not to attack me again.
    A low hum filled my ears. I placed my hand on the ice surrounding her, and it vibrated. She was trying to get free.
    “Don’t do it,” I told her.
    Her yellow eyes turned to slits. If she could have screamed, she’d most likely shatter my bones.
    The humming grew louder, and the ice surrounding her started to crack.
    “Stop it,” I warned.
    She didn’t listen. The sound increased in decibel until tiny fissures worked their way through the ice.
    “Damn it.” I hated cursing. To me, it was a sign of limited intelligence, but right now, it was the only way I could think to get her attention. “If you don’t fucking stop, I’ll have to kill you.”
    The hum turned into a steady drone. Ice chipped and fell off her prison. She was less than a minute from freeing herself. I had no choice.
    With a gesture of my hand, the ice prison collapsed in on itself, crushing the banshee within.
    Chunks of ice fell away from her broken body, and as I stared down at her corpse, a dense fog sprang up around her. When it dissipated, she was gone.
    Great. Now I’d never find out what she’d been doing here.
    A low moan behind me drew my attention. I spun